The Eagles Gather

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  She was unaccountably, to him, agitated. ‘Count von Bernstrom, I must ask you not to mention that book to my husband today! It upsets him. His whole meaning was distorted. No one understood. It was not only the armaments industry which he intended to expose. That was a minor matter to him. He wished only to draw attention to the sickness of the world, the hatred, the cruelty, the viciousness, of every man in every country. He wished to show that wars are not caused by a single group of men; but by the disease in every man—everywhere. The armaments industry merely pandered to that insane disease. Catered to it. Without the disease, Peter thinks, there would be no armaments industry. Wars are caused by the hatreds and corruptions in the minds of all men. They are the breakdown of the moral responsibility every man owes to his neighbour. Peter wished to show,’ she continued, her agitation making her incoherent, ‘that wars are the expression of the violence already in existence in men’s hearts. He quoted someone to the effect that war is merely an extension of politics, their most primitive and direct extension, and conclusion. If he hated, and still hates, the armaments industry, it is because that industry is in itself an expression of greed on the part of those men who would profit by the wickedness of all the world.’

  The count affected to be bewildered by her rushing words, and uncomprehending. He lifted his hands artlessly, and smiled at her with deprecation. ‘I am afraid I do not follow, dear Madame. It is very confusing. Has not someone said that war is the most natural expression of man? Doubtless, he was wrong, and was attempting to simplify a most complex situation. Nevertheless, there is some reason his remark.’ She was not deceived by his artlessness. ‘Peter says that the intention of Christianity is to sublimate man’s primitive instincts to an awareness of his moral responsibilities. Now, he believes, Christianity has failed. Not because it was wrong, but because it is ignored and perverted. In its most concentrated perversion—clerical fascism in Spain, Italy and France—it has become a horror, a death and a menace to the existence of civilization and democracy.’

  Ramsdall listened to her acutely, with a hidden and ominous smile.

  ‘I am sure,’ he said, soothingly, ‘that those intelligent enough will appreciate Mr Bouchard’s intention. I know I had no difficulty. No difficulty at all. Does Mr Bouchard intend to carry on his work further, upon his return to America?’

  She was abruptly still. Then, after a moment, she said, clearly: ‘Yes.’ And she looked at them with the blue shining of her eyes. ‘He will try to tell America what he has learned here, what he has seen, what he knows. Before it is too late.’

  The count and Ramsdall exchanged a swift look.

  ‘But Mr Bouchard has hardly ever stepped from the villa,’ said Ramsdall, tentatively, leaning forward a little so that his chest extended itself over his paunch.

  ‘He has listened,’ she answered, firmly.

  Ramsdall’s mind ran rapidly over the few years during which he had known the Bouchards. He tried to remember every man and woman who had visited them. He felt something sinister in the pattern of those who had been invited. He recalled that at the times he had been present there had been strange people here, also, whom he had detested, of whom he had had reason to be suspicious. He was alarmed. He smiled tolerantly, but said nothing.

  An elderly lady, slight and bent, soft of movement, and gentle of expression, stepped onto the terrace. She had a worn and wrinkled face, kind and sad, and large brown eyes full of wisdom. Her hair was smooth and white. She wore black, also, but a hanging and spiritless black. The men rose and bowed. Mrs Bouchard kissed the lady’s cheek with deep affection. ‘How are you, Mama?’ she said, in a sweet tone. ‘Not too tired, I hope, after all that packing?’

  She smiled tenderly at her daughter. ‘No, dear. I am quite well.’ She turned and regarded the gentlemen with an expression suddenly very tired and remote, and full of shrinking. She sat down in a chair the count pulled forward for her.

  ‘We are going to miss you very much, Mrs Bouchard,’ said Ramsdall, gallantly.

  ‘That is very kind of you, indeed,’ she murmured. She looked at him steadfastly, with those full brown eyes of hers, so simple, so intelligent, so ingenuous. For some reason he felt a heat rising about his thick throat.

  She turned to her daughter. ‘It is almost twelve, dear. I haven’t seen Peter this morning. He is well?’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ replied young Mrs Bouchard. ‘He has been up since eight. Baron Opperheim is with him now. They have been together since ten.’

  The count moved slightly. ‘I beg your pardon, Madame. You said: “Opperheim”?’

  ‘Yes, Count. They are great friends, you know, and have been, for five years. The baron comes here very often.’

  The count’s parched countenance remained smooth and only politely interested. ‘Of course. It was stupid of me to forget.’ He smiled with pleasure. ‘The baron and I have much to say to each other. I have not seen him for a month. When I called for him this morning, I was told he had already left his hotel.’

  ‘He has been in Paris,’ said young Mrs Bouchard, indifferently.

  Old Mrs Bouchard said nothing. She looked slowly from the count to Lord Ramsdall. Only she saw the swiftness of their exchanged glances. She shivered.

  She could not bear to look at these two any longer. Her gaze wandered over the terrace, barred and dappled with sunlight. She looked beyond, to the blue brilliance of the sea. She heard its soft and whispering sound, saw the light of the wings of the doves that circled the gulf. Far out, a white sail divided the water from the pure incandescence of the noonday sky. There was a faint rustling of leaves in the air, the warm scent of grass and salt and flowers. How peaceful it was, how gentle and serene. Her body felt very cold, and ancient.

  She turned her mournful brown gaze to her daughter. She saw the worn fixity about the beautiful blue eyes and the deep corners of the lips of Celeste Bouchard. And her heart was torn with a grief too deep for words, for thought, or even for tears.

  CHAPTER II

  The wind came in on waves of radiant light through the open windows. Here, one could see the immense and glittering azure of the ocean, the wet brown rocks on which the villa perched, the scythe-like sweep of the gulls against the pure and passionate sky of France. The peace and shimmering brilliance of the noonday pervaded the serene air like a benediction. From these windows, there was no sign of the feverish and decadent life of Cannes, nothing but the wash of waves, the cries of the gulls, the soft rustling of the wind.

  There was silence in the room. The pale and lofty walls and ceiling sparkled with shadowy brightness. There was a dancing reflection upon the cool dim floors, the edges of simple but perfect dark furniture, the bowls and vases of flowers scattered about on the tables and on the fireplace. In a far corner was a canopied bed, turned down, as if waiting. But near the windows, looking out upon the summer radiance and serenity, sat two men, in utter quietness.

  But it was not the quietness of peace, tranquillity or calm meditation. Things had been said, in a hushed voice, and behind them they had left an aura of bitter violence, of despair, of hopelessness and impotent sorrow. The younger man lay on a chaise-longue, a light shawl over his emaciated knees. His head rested on a plump pillow, and his face was turned to the windows. And that face was white and still, as quiet as the death which never seemed far from him. He was a man in his early forties, his colouring fair and pale, his light hair smooth and faded. His face, so ominously gaunt, appeared formed of the most frail but strangely strong angles, jutting or sunken, the bones sharply visible under the thin flesh. It was a gentle face, severe, sad, reflective, and full of intense intellect and mournfulness. His attitude revealed profound exhaustion, but also a spirit which would not allow his dying flesh to rest, so imbued was it with passion and indomitable courage and endless grief. His hands, emaciated, but fine and narrow, lay on the shawl, and though he had said nothing for a long time, the fingers flexed, trembled, convulsively clenched under the impetus of his tumultuous thought
s. The eyes that looked out upon the sea were strongly blue and pellucid, full of valour and fearlessness, and, now, burning with frantic misery.

  The man who sat near him was much older. He was a very little man, brown, dry, shrivelled, with a tiny grey goatee and a bald head. His expression, whimsical and bitter, but kind and resigned, reflected itself in his large brown eyes as they fixed themselves upon the younger man. There was a quietness about him, a thoughtfulness, a sense of great wise age, which contrasted themselves remarkably with the agonized prostration implicit in the attitude of the other. He thought: They never accept, these Gentiles. They clamour, grow tempestuous, and out of their despair they abandon everything. That is because they live in the circle of the today, the bubble of Now. Beyond them, they cannot see the past or the future. Who can endure without a sense of yesterday and tomorrow? Despair is the prerogative of the child, but the stupidity of the man. I am desolate, yes. Ruined, true. I see no hope for myself. But I do not despair. Of what importance am I? The tomorrow is not for me. And life outwits tomorrows, inevitably, world without end. Why cannot my dear friend understand that? He is engrossed with today. He sees in it the shape of all the tomorrows. But today, though it is exceedingly dreadful, and throws its bloody shadow on the future, carries in it a hope also for the future. Man dies, but mankind persists. But these Gentiles believe that each individual man’s agonies are the world’s agonies; his death, the world’s death. They are bounded by their narrow flesh. We, at least, have the larger vision of humanity, its diversity, its bounding recovery from anguish, the distant light from other suns shining upon its face. I perish, but my brother shall live.

  The young man stirred slightly on his pillows. He said, in a faint voice, in German: ‘It is not to be endured, Israel. Not to be endured!’ And now his voice rose in a thin cry. He lifted his worn hands and clasped them together with a suppressed convulsion. ‘What can I do? What can anyone do?’

  Baron Opperheim regarded his friend with deep compassion. He rubbed the side of his Phoenician nose, and coughed gently. He murmured something. The young man turned his face towards him. The baron spoke louder. ‘I was quoting a passage from Goethe’s Egmont. You remember the cry of Ferdinand?: “Must I stand by, and look passively on; unable to save thee, or to give thee aid! What voice avails for lamentation! What heart but must break under the pressure of such anguish?”’

  The young man was silent. But his eyes fixed themselves with deathly and weary intensity upon the other. His hands clasped themselves together.

  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.