The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  The baron inclined his head, and smiled his wry and whimsical smile. But his look was still compassionate, as he said softly: ‘And Ferdinand continues to his dear friend, Egmont: “Thou canst be calm, thou canst renounce, led on by necessity, thou canst advance to the direful struggle, with the courage of a hero. What can I do? What ought I to do? Thou dost conquer thyself and us; thou art the victor; I survive both myself and thee. I have lost my light at the banquet, my banner on the field. The future lies before me, dark, desolate, perplexed.”’

  He was silent a moment, then smiled tenderly. He leaned towards his friend, and repeated with soft insistence: ‘“Thou canst advance to the direful struggle, with the courage of a hero.”’

  The young man suddenly turned his face away so that his friend might not see what there was to be seen in his eyes.

  ‘Goethe,’ continued the baron, reflectively, ‘was a great man. Until he forgot the world for himself. When he saw all men, he had a tremendous stature. When he remembered only himself, he was a pigmy. When he lamented over the torments of every man, his voice was as wide as the wind. When he began to lament for himself, bewail his impotence in a fretful voice, cry out in a woman’s shrilling at his own sufferings, then his voice was crushed against his own teeth. It was not the later Goethe who said, in Egmont again: “It was my blood, and the blood of many brave hearts. No! It shall not be shed in vain! Forward! Brave people!—And as the sea breaks through and destroys the barriers that would oppose its fury, so do ye overwhelm the bulwark of tyranny, and with your impetuous flood sweep it away from the land which it usurps. I die for freedom, for whose cause I have lived and fought, and for whom I now offer myself up a sorrowing sacrifice.”’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, Goethe was a great man, when he believed in the power of a single soul. He was a lost and little man, when he no longer believed that.’

  The younger man opened his pale lips as if to speak, then closed them again. Lines of chronic suffering were cleft deep beside them.

  ‘You must go on. You must speak. You must warn, dear Peter. Nothing must close your mouth, so long as you live. The ruin is here. But it is not incurable. It will not utterly destroy the world, so long as there lives a single man with a great soul. You have a great soul. If only a few men listen to you, they are enough to save mankind. Do you remember the story of Sodom? It was necessary only to produce a few righteous men to save the city from God’s just wrath.’ He smiled. ‘Surely you are not alone? Surely there are ten righteous men in the world like you to save the city!’ He laughed gently. ‘Perhaps God will compromise. Perhaps He will agree to spare the city if only ten, if only five, if only one, righteous soul can be found.’

  Peter Bouchard lifted his clasped hands from his lap, and breathed with difficulty. There was a rasping sound in his breath, which came from his spirit as well as his lungs.

  ‘It is strange,’ continued the baron. ‘I, like everyone else, never believed in God during the years of peace and security. But now I believe.’ He turned his head towards the windows, and Peter saw his Hebraic profile, serene, meditative, sorrowful, full of sadness, but very calm. ‘I believe,’ he repeated.

  ‘Because you can do nothing else. You, like all of us, are impotent,’ said Peter, with a bitterness from the bottom of his heart.

  The baron turned his head back to him, quickly! His eyes were alive, sparkling. ‘No! I am not impotent! I believe in God.’

  Peter pressed his hands over his face, over his eyes. His thoughts were full of deathlike despair. For it seemed to him that the world of men was a world of hatred, in which it was impossible to live, to draw a single free and happy breath. He felt the doom hanging over the world like a sword. Its shadow had already fallen on every city, on every hamlet, on every sea and river and stream. The thread by which it was held trembled in a wind of rising fury. The doom was just. Let the sword fall! The world deserved it. Courage, tenderness, honour, peace, compassion and justice and mercy: these were lies. There was no love—never, never was there love. Honour? Oh, above all things there was no honour! There was only hatred. Always, the word came back to him with an iron clangour, the doomful echo of man’s perfidy and enormity.

  He thought: I can’t live in such a world, in the world which is coming.

  The baron’s words: ‘I believe,’ seemed to him the very essence of sad absurdity. He could only come back to the things which the baron had told him.

  He said: ‘You are certain, Israel? Hitler will attack Poland? There will be war? I have always said there would be war, but I hardly believed it. You have made me believe it.’

  The baron nodded. ‘Yes, my dear Peter, there will be war. When Hitler will strike at Poland I am not certain. Next month? August, September, October? I do not know. But it will be soon. We must accept it.’

  ‘And France? England?’

  ‘England will enter. This time she dare not ignore the challenge. I have faith in England. Under the corruption, the treachery, the pusillanimity of her leaders, under the hatred of her leaders, there is the English people. Always, under the greed of the powerful, there remains the people. Everywhere. Not only in England. Everywhere.’ He looked through the windows again. ‘Even in France.’

  ‘You can say that, after all we have seen, and known?’

  ‘Yes, my dear Peter. Even after all that. When the captains and the kings depart with the banners and trappings of their infamy, the people are left on the battlefield. It is they, at the last, who win, who understand, who build again, and bury the dead.’ He added, very softly: ‘And it is they who listen to the voice of the ten, the five, righteous men of Sodom.’

  Peter was silent. The baron regarded him with profound compassion. There was death in this younger man. It was there, in the grey shadows of his gaunt face. It was there, like a spectral light, on his forehead. But the voice still lived. The voice could still speak, and in the rising madness and tumult some would hear, and remember.

  ‘When you return to America, speak, write, never rest. Tell your country what you know. You will be hated and derided by those who are plotting against the people. You will be called many foul names. What is all that to you? Somewhere, a few men will hear you. They will not forget. They will remember when the storm is at its most terrible.’

  He continued: ‘I went not only to Paris, where the decadent and the vicious live, and plot. I went over the whole countryside. I talked to the people. They are bewildered, and terrified. They are lost. They will be betrayed. One cannot escape acknowledging that. They know it, in their patient hearts. That is why they are so bewildered. But there will come a day when they will not be bewildered or frightened any longer. When they will understand who they are who have betrayed them. That will be a terrible day. But it will also be the day of strength and courage and valour. For the people are the children of those who destroyed the rights of kings, the power of the oppressors, the grasp of a murderous and corrupted clergy. They will remember. They will beat again with the pulses of their fathers.’

  Peter did not speak. But he looked at the other with a sudden awakening in his exhausted eyes. His hand lifted, and remained in the air in a gesture of intense listening.

  ‘And America,’ said the baron. ‘The people, too, will remember. You must help them to remember. The coming war will not be between leaders, generals, kings, monsters and oppressors. It will be a war between philosophies. The philosophy of courage and life and freedom, and the philosophy of cowardice, death and slavery.’

  There was a light footfall, and Celeste entered the room. The baron rose and bowed quickly. She smiled at him, and the delicate sternness of her lips and expression softened. She bent over Peter and felt his forehead. He turned his lips to her soft palm and kissed it. She patted his cheek and looked down at him with infinite tenderness and anxiety.

  ‘You are tiring yourself, dear.’ she said. ‘Do you feel up to going down to luncheon?’ She paused. ‘Count von Bernstrom and Lord Ramsdall are already here.’

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nbsp; Peter looked at the baron, who returned his glance swiftly. ‘Yes, darling,’ said Peter. ‘I am feeling quite well.’ He paused. He looked at the baron again. ‘I am feeling quite well,’ he repeated. ‘In fact, I have never felt better.’

  CHAPTER III

  It was a delightful if simple luncheon, there on the shaded terrace within sight and sound of the sea. The count was again incensed that he was to lose those paragons, Pierre and Elise, those miracle-makers who had transformed a dull bird into a pheasant cooked by angels in heaven. The prawns, the salad, the crusty sweet bread, the coffee, the tiny petis-fours, only added to his rage as they lingered in rapturous memory on his tongue. He felt much abused. In consequence, his ire rose against the Bouchards, whom he obstinately credited with his deprivation.

  He lusted after Celeste Bouchard, but now with sadism. He sneered inwardly at her husband. An example of pure decadence, most certainly. What could one expect from such inbreeding? The count was very familiar with the ramifications of the Bouchard family, that mighty munitions company which dominated all other armaments concerns in the world, and whose thin winding fingers grasped so many allied industries. This Peter Bouchard: the count ruminated. He was third cousin to his wife, born Celeste Bouchard. The count admitted that inbreeding frequently emphasized fine traits, eliminated grossnesses. One had only to consider horse-breeding. But it inevitably led to decadence, also, a refinement so extended that it became tenuous and implicit with decay. The father of Celeste had been Jules Bouchard, that brilliant and unscrupulous rascal who had become legendary. His cousin had been Honoré Bouchard, a man of intelligence and integrity. It was evident he had bequeathed these qualities to his youngest son, Peter. The count sneered again. Intelligence and integrity! The attributes of fools. Pure decadence.

  The count glanced fleetingly at the older Mrs Bouchard, the widow of Jules. Not a true Bouchard, but like so many aristocrats she, too, had that faint aura of physical and spiritual deterioration, he commented to himself. He, too, he reflected, was an aristocrat. But German aristocracy, because of its comparative youth, still retained the virility and ruthlessness of the barbarian. The French and the English were old; done. He smiled to himself.

  Adelaide, mother of Celeste, mysteriously felt the thoughts of the German. She turned her weary brown eyes to him, reluctantly. He saw her look, inclined his head courteously and with a question. She turned away in silence.

  Lord Ramsdall had been making himself very agreeable to his hostess and her husband. He repeated, bluffly, that Cannes was not going to be the same after their departure.

  ‘I can’t believe that,’ said Peter, who had only listlessly sampled the luncheon. He looked up, and his light blue eyes, square of corner and exhausted, were direct. ‘It’s very kind of you, of course, Ramsdall, to say so, but Celeste and I haven’t exactly been the life of the Coast.’ He glanced at his wife, and for a moment his expression became sad and regretful. ‘We’ve kept pretty much to ourselves, I’m afraid. So, no one will miss us.’

  As if she felt his sadness, his apology, his regret, Celeste reached under the lace edge of the cloth and pressed his hand warmly and tenderly. She looked at Ramsdall. ‘Candidly, we haven’t had much in common with the tourists or the permanent residents. We haven’t cared for the things which attracted them. We came here for a rest, for quiet, for the climate.’

  Baron Opperheim had been very silent during the luncheon. But his expressive old face, so wise and brown, the glance of his keen and sunken eye, so compassionate, so rueful and gently embittered, had seemed to add much to the desultory conversation around the table. Now he slowly glanced at each face, and his silent comments seemed actual and audible remarks. He came at last to the elder Mrs Bouchard, and smiled at her. His bearded lips made that smile sweet and intimate.

  ‘Will you regret leaving us, Madame?’ he asked.

  Her worn abstraction lightened as she turned to him. Apparently there was something in him which aroused some deep emotion in her. ‘There are a few,’ she said, in her tired and gentle voice. ‘You, most especially, Baron.’

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment of her kindness. ‘I wish I were going with you, dear friend,’ he said.

  Peter turned to him with weary alertness. ‘Yes. I wanted to ask you again, Israel. Why can’t you go? It will be an easy matter to get you a passport. I—I was able to do that for your daughter and her husband, and their children.’

  ‘Good, good of you! Do you think I forget? But for me—no.’ He paused, touched his beard. Von Bernstrom listened attentively, and with an expression of affection on his parchment features.

  ‘Israel is no alarmist,’ he said. ‘He does not believe, like you, Mr Bouchard, that there will be war.’

  The baron turned to him with bland but penetrating simplicity. His eyes regarded his friend with fixed concentration. ‘On the contrary, Wolfgang, I do believe there will be war. Are you doing to deny that you know this, also?’

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ cried Ramsdall, sturdily, holding his glass of wine in his pudgy hand. ‘Why should there be war? Granting all that we know of Hitler—that he is a paranoiac madman, that he has delusions of grandeur, that he is a monster—we must also grant that he is no fool. He knows that he cannot win. He will try for bloodless victories, such as—’

  ‘Munich,’ said Peter, and a pale convulsion passed over his face.

  Ramsdall coughed. He said, gravely: ‘You know I never agreed with you, Peter, about Munich. “Peace in our time.” What a noble phrase! And I don’t doubt its validity.’ He leaned back in his chair and smiled at the younger man. ‘I admit that I never understood that about you, Peter. I should have thought you, above all others, would have been delighted over Munich. You’ve always hated war with commendable and civilized passion. Yet, you weren’t delighted. No matter. You’ve explained that—’

  ‘I’ve said, over and over, that Munich brought war closer to the world than any other one act during the past five years,’ Peter remarked, with feverish impatience. ‘Had we admitted Russia to the discussions, had Chamberlain and Daladier refused to go to Berchtesgaden without a representative of Stalin, had such a representative been there, there would not have been a “Munich” in the present meaning of the word. When we repudiated Russia, we signed our agreement to war. Now, the blood of the world will be on our heads.’

  Ramsdall smiled indulgently. ‘I must disagree with you, Peter. Had a Russian representative been there, there would have been war indeed. The Bolsheviks are lusting for war.

  They’d like to see us all destroy ourselves, so that they can take over. Any student of modern history knows that. Stalin would have egged us on to fight Hitler, and then would have sat back, grinning, watching us cut our own throats. But, we were too clever for him.’

  ‘Much too clever,’ remarked Peter, with sombre emphasis. ‘We’ll fight Hitler alone, now.’

  ‘Drang nach Osten,’ murmured the baron.

  ‘Perfectly true, dear Israel!’ exclaimed the count. ‘Drang nach Osten! If Hitler fights, which most certainly he will not, he will attack Russia. Not England; not France; not America.’

  The baron smiled wryly. He crumbled a bit of bread in his brown fingers and slowly glanced about the table again.

  Peter sighed, as if the conversation wearied him. He looked at the baron. ‘But we were talking about you, Israel. Why can’t you go with us? We’ll be in Paris for a while. You can secure a passport; we’ll even wait for you’

  The baron shook his head. ‘For me—no. It is very simple, but no one understands. What has happened in Europe—it is the fault of all of us. Its doom will be upon all of us. Am I a coward?’ He shrugged. ‘It appears to me that for me to leave will be the most exquisite cowardice. Could I have helped prevent this most horrible imminent débâcle? Could any of us have done so? I am not making myself clear,’ he added apologetically. ‘We are all guilty, Englishman, Frenchman, German.’ He tapped his brown forehead, and then his chest, significantly. �
�It is in here, and here, that the guilt lies, that the disease first had its blossoming. Not in Hitller; not in Franco; not in Mussolini Only in here, and here. In the soul. In the heart. In the mind. In every man. To run, and leave the doom to fall upon one’s fellow sinners is cowardice.’ ‘What could you have done?’ cried Peter, impatiently. ‘You, a Jew? You, the first victim?’

  But the baron looked at Ramsdall, at his friend von Bernstrom, with that bland and fatal directness of his. He replied to Peter, but looked only at those two.

  ‘What could I have done? I could have thought with my soul. I could have turned to God. I could have believed. I—we—did not. There is strange power in God,’ he added, in a soft and almost inaudible tone, and his face became old and profound with pain.

  Ramsdall’s full red lips pursed themselves with amusement. But there was a baleful gleam in his eye, full of inimical contempt. ‘Jews always return to God when the power of their money fails,’ he said.

  Peter, his wife, his mother-in-law, looked at him with shock and outrage. The count grimaced.

  But the baron inclined his head almost with humility. ‘You are correct,’ he murmured, gently. ‘So we differ from you. You never return. To the last, you believe in money, in power. Even at the gallows, you believe in it. You never comprehend.’

  Ramsdall coughed. ‘I hope I didn’t offend you, Opperheim. I didn’t intend that, I assure you. In a way, I was complimenting your people. You return much sooner than we do. But, frankly, don’t you consider that real cowardice?’

  The baron smiled, and did not answer. His hands continued their crumbling of the bread, and now the movements of his fingers seemed fateful as they slowly dropped crumb after crumb so that they lay in a little mound like ashes upon the table.

  There was a silence about the table. The brilliant wind lifted the edges of the lace cloth, glittered on the silver. There was the perfume of roses strong in the air. The sea rushed in with a deep breath, and despite the light and the sun there was an ominous quality in its cosmic breathing.