“Is there a Frenchwoman alive whose blood would not stir at such a scene?” she said. “They shot him through his armor, his breastplate was riddled, he clung to his horse, always looking up at the riflemen, and I heard the bullets drumming on his helmet and his cuirass like hailstones on a tin roof, and I could not look away. And all the while he was saying, quietly: ‘It is quite useless, friends; France lives! You waste your powder!’ and I could not look away or close my eyes—”
She bent her head, shivering, and her interlocked fingers whitened. 105
“I only know this,” she said: “I will give all I have — I will give my poor self to help the advent of that world-wide brotherhood which must efface national frontiers and end all war in this sad world. But if you ask me, in the presence of war, to look on with impartiality, to watch my own country battling for breath, to stop my ears when a wounded mother-land is calling, to answer the supreme cry of France with a passionless cry, ‘Repent!’ I cannot do it — I will not! I was not born to!”
Deeply moved, she had risen, confronting Buckhurst, whose stone-cold eyes were fixed on her.
“You say I hold you unworthy,” she said. “Others may hold me, too, unworthy because I have not reached that impartial equipoise whence, impassive, I can balance my native land against its sins and watch blind justice deal with it all unconcerned.
“In theory I have done it — oh, it is simple to teach one’s soul in theory! But when my eyes saw my own land blacken and shrivel like a green leaf in the fire, and when with my own eyes I saw the best, the noblest, the crown of my country’s chivalry fall rolling in the mud of Morsbronn under the feet of Prussia, every drop of blood in my body was French — hot and red and French! And it is now; and it will always be — as it has always been, though I did not understand.”
After a silence Buckhurst said: “All that may be, madame, yet not impair your creed.”
“What!” she said, “does not hatred of the stranger impair my creed?”
“It will die out and give place to reason.”
“When? When I attain the lofty, dispassionate level I have never attained? That will not be while this war endures.”
“Who knows?” said Buckhurst, gently. 106
“I know!” replied the Countess, the pale flames in her cheeks deepening again.
“And yet,” observed Buckhurst, patiently, “you are going to Paradise to work for the Internationale.”
“I shall try to do my work and love France,” she said, steadily. “I cannot believe that one renders the other impossible.”
“Yet,” said I, “if you teach the nation non-resistance, what would become of the armies of France?”
“I shall not teach non-resistance until we are at peace,” she said— “until there is not a German soldier left in France. After that I shall teach acquiescence and personal liberty.”
I looked at her very seriously; logic had no dwelling-place within her tender and unhappy heart.
And what a hunting-ground was that heart for men like Buckhurst! I could begin to read that mouse-colored gentleman now, to follow, after a fashion, the intricate policy which his insolent mind was shaping — shaping in stealthy contempt for me and for this young girl. Thus far I could divine the thoughts of Mr. Buckhurst, but there were other matters to account for. Why did he choose to spare my life when a word would have sent me before the peloton of execution? Why had he brought to me the fortune in diamonds which he had stolen? Why did he eat humble-pie before a young girl from whom he and his companions had wrung the last penny? Why did he desire to go to Morbihan and be received among the elect in the Breton village of Paradise?
I said, abruptly: “So you are not going to denounce me to the Prussian provost?”
He lifted his well-shaped head and gazed at the Countess with an admirable pathos which seemed a mute appeal for protection from brutality.
“That question is a needless one,” said the Countess, quietly. “It was a cruel one, also, Monsieur Scarlett.”
“I did not mean it as an offensive question,” said I. “I was merely reciting a fact, most creditable to Mr. Buckhurst. Mon Dieu, madame, I am an officer of Imperial Police, and I have lived to hear blunt questions and blunter answers. And if it be true that Monsieur Buckhurst desires to atone for — for what has happened, then it is perfectly proper for me, even as a prisoner myself, to speak plainly.”
I meant this time to thoroughly convince Buckhurst of my ability to gabble platitude. My desire that he should view me as a typical gendarme was intense.
So I coughed solemnly behind my hand, knit my eyebrows, and laid one finger alongside of my nose.
“Is it not my duty, as a guardian of national interests, to point out to Mr. Buckhurst his honest errors? Certainly it is, madame, and this is the proper time.”
Turning pompously to Buckhurst, I fancied I could almost detect a sneer on that inexpressive mask he wore — at least I hoped I could, and I said, heavily:
“Monsieur, for a number of years there has passed under our eyes here in France certain strange phenomena. Thousands of Frenchmen have, so to speak, separated themselves from the rest of the nation.
“All the sentiments that the nation honors itself by professing these other Frenchmen rebuke — the love of country, public spirit, accord between citizens, social repose, and respect for communal law and order — these other Frenchmen regard as the hallucinations of a nation of dupes.
“Separated by such unfortunate ideas from the nation within whose boundaries they live, they continue to abuse, even to threaten, the society and the country which gives them shelter.
“France is only a name to them; they were born there, they live there, they derive their nourishment from her without gratitude. But France is nothing to them; their mother-land is the Internationale!”
I was certain now that the shadow of a sneer had settled in the corners of Buckhurst’s thin lips.
“I do not speak of anarchists or of terrorists,” I continued, nodding as though profoundly impressed by my own sagacity. “I speak of socialists — that dangerous society to which the cry of Karl Marx was addressed with the warning, ‘Socialists! Unite!’
“The government has reason to fear socialism, not anarchy, for it will never happen in France, where the passion for individual property is so general, that a doctrine of brutal destruction could have the slightest chance of success.
“But wait, here is the point, Monsieur Buckhurst. Formerly the name of ‘terrorist’ was a shock to the entire civilized world; it evoked the spectres of a year that the world can never forget. And so our modern reformers, modestly desiring to evade the inconveniences of such memories among the people, call themselves the ‘Internationale.’ Listen to them; they are adroit, they blame and rebuke violence, they condemn anarchy, they would not lay their hands on public or individual property — no, indeed!
“Ah, madame, but you should hear them in their own clubs, where the ladies and gentlemen of the gutters, the barriers, and the abattoirs discuss ‘individual property,’ ‘the tyranny of capital,’ and similar subjects which no doubt they are peculiarly fitted to discuss.
“Believe me, madame, the little coterie which you represent is already the dupe and victim of this terrible Internationale. Their leaders work their will through you; a vast conspiracy against all social peace is spread through your honest works of mercy. The time is coming when the whole world will rise to combat this Internationale; and when the mask is dragged from its benignant visage, there, grinning behind, will appear the same old ‘Spectre Rouge,’ torch in one hand, gun in the other, squatting behind a barricade of paving-blocks.”
I wagged my head dolefully.
“I could not have rested had I not warned Mr. Buckhurst of this,” I said, sentimentally.
Which was fairly well done, considering that I was figuratively lamenting over the innocence of the most accomplished scoundrel that ever sat in the supreme council of the Internationale.
Buc
khurst looked thoughtfully at the floor.
“If I thought,” he murmured— “if I believed for one instant—”
“Believe me, my dear sir,” I said, “that you are playing into the hands of the wickedest villains on earth!”
“Your earnestness almost converts me,” he said, lifting his stealthy eyes.
The Countess appeared weary and perplexed.
“At all events,” she said, “we must do nothing to embarrass France now; we must do nothing until this frightful war is ended.”
After a silence Buckhurst said, “But you will go to Paradise, madame?”
“Yes,” replied the Countess, listlessly.
Now, what in Heaven’s name attracted that rogue to Paradise?
VII
A STRUGGLE FORESHADOWED
I took my breakfast by the window, watching the German soldiery cleaning up Morsbronn. For that wonderful Teutonic administrative mania was already manifesting itself while ruined houses still smoked; method replaced chaos, order marched on the heels of the Prussian rear-guard, which enveloped Morsbronn in a whirlwind of Uhlans, and left it a silent, blackened landmark in the August sunshine.
Soldiers in canvas fatigue-dress, wearing soft, round, visorless caps, were removing the débris of the fatal barricade; soldiers with shovel and hoe filled in the trenches and raked the long, winding street clean of all litter; soldiers with trowel and mortar were perched on shot-torn houses, mending chimneys and slated roofs so that their officers might enjoy immunity from rain and wind and defective flues.
In the court-yards and stables I could see cavalrymen in stable-jackets, whitewashing walls and out-buildings and ill-smelling stalls, while others dug shovelfuls of slaked lime from wheelbarrows and spread it through stable-yards and dirty alleys. Everywhere quiet, method, order, prompt precision reigned; I even noticed a big, red-fisted artilleryman tying up tall, blue larkspurs, dahlias, and phlox in a trampled garden, and he touched the ragged masses of bloom with a tenderness peculiar to a flower-loving and sentimental people, whose ultimate ambition is a quart of beer, a radish, and a green leaf overhead.
At the corners of the walls and blind alleys, placards in French and German were posted, embodying regulations governing the village under Prussian military rule. The few inhabitants of Morsbronn who had remained in cellars during the bombardment shuffled up to read these notices, or to loiter stupidly, gaping at the Prussian eagles surmounting the posters.
A soldier came in and started the fire in my fireplace. When he went out I drew my code-book from my breeches-pocket and tossed it into the fire. After it followed my commission, my memoranda, and every scrap of writing. The diamonds I placed in the bosom of my flannel shirt.
Toward one o’clock I heard the shrill piping of a goat-herd, and I saw him, a pallid boy, clumping along in his wooden shoes behind his two nanny-goats, while the German soldiers, peasants themselves, looked after him with curious sympathy.
A little later a small herd of cattle passed, driven to pasture by a stolid Alsatian, who replied to the soldiers’ questions in German patois and shrugged his heavy shoulders like a Frenchman.
A cock crowed occasionally from some near dunghill; once I saw a cat serenely following the course of a stucco wall, calm, perfectly self-composed, ignoring the blandishments of the German soldiers, who called, “Komm mitz! mitz!” and held out bits of sausage and black bread.
A German ambulance surgeon arrived to see me in the afternoon. The Countess was busy somewhere with Buckhurst, who had come with news for her, and the German surgeon’s sharp double rap at the door did not bring her, so I called out, “Entrez donc!” and he stalked in, removing his fatigue-cap, which action distinguished him from his brother officers.
He was a tall, well-built man, perfectly uniformed in his double-breasted frocked tunic, blue-eyed, blond-bearded, and immaculate of hand and face, a fine type of man and a credit to any army.
After a brief examination he sat down and resumed a very bad cigar, which had been smouldering between his carefully kept fingers.
“Do you know,” he said, admiringly, “that I have never before seen just such a wound. The spinal column is not even grazed, and if, as I understand from you, you suffered temporarily from complete paralysis of the body below your waist, the case is not only interesting but even remarkable.”
“Is the superficial lesion at all serious?” I asked.
“Not at all. As far as I can see the blow from the bullet temporarily paralyzed the spinal cord. There is no fracture, no depression. I do not see why you should not walk if you desire to.”
“When? Now?”
“Try it,” he said, briefly.
I tried. Apart from a certain muscular weakness and a great fatigue, I found it quite possible to stand, even to move a few steps. Then I sat down again, and was glad to do so.
The doctor was looking at my legs rather grimly, and it suddenly flashed on me that I had dropped my blanket and he had noticed my hussar’s trousers.
“So,” he said, “you are a military prisoner? I understood from the provost marshal that you were a civilian.”
As he spoke Buckhurst appeared at the door, and then sauntered in, quietly greeting the surgeon, who looked around at the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor. There was no longer a vestige of doubt in my mind that Buckhurst was a German agent, or at least that the Germans believed him to be in their pay. And doubtless he was in their pay, but to whom he was faithful nobody could know with any certainty.
“How is our patient, doctor?” he asked.
“Convalescent,” replied the doctor, shortly, as though not exactly relishing the easy familiarity of this pale-eyed gentleman in gray.
“Can he travel to-day?” inquired Buckhurst, without apparent interest.
“Before he travels,” said the officer, “it might be well to find out why he wears part of a hussar uniform.”
“I’ve explained that to the provost,” observed Buckhurst, examining his well-kept finger-nails. “And I have a pass for him also — if he is in a fit condition to travel.”
The officer gave him a glance full of frank dislike, adjusted his sabre, pulled on his white gloves, and, bowing very slightly to me, marched straight out of the room and down the stairs without taking any notice of Buckhurst. The latter looked after the officer, then his indifferent eyes returned to me. Presently he sat down and produced a small slip of paper, which he very carefully twisted into a cocked hat.
“I suppose you doubt my loyalty to France,” he said, intent on his bit of paper.
Then, logically continuing my rôle of the morning, I began to upbraid him for a traitor and swear that I would not owe my salvation to him, and all the while he was calmly transforming his paper from one toy into another between deft, flat fingers.
“You are unjust and a trifle stupid,” he said. “I am paid by Prussia for information which I never give. But I have the entre of their lines. I do it for the sake of the Internationale. The Internationale has a few people in its service ... And it pays them well.” 114
He looked squarely at me as he said this. I almost trembled with delight: the man undervalued me, he had taken me at my own figure, and now, holding me in absolute contempt, he was going to begin on me.
“Scarlett,” he said, “what does the government pay you?”
I began to protest in a torrent of patriotism and sentimentality. He watched me impassively while I called Heaven to witness and proclaimed my loyalty to France, ending through sheer breathlessness in a maundering, tearful apotheosis where mixed metaphors jostled each other — the government, the Emperor, and the French flag, consecrated in blood — and finally, calling his attention to the fact that twenty centuries had once looked down on this same banner, I collapsed in my chair and gave him his chance.
He took it. With subtle flattery he recognized in me a powerful arm of a corrupt Empire, which Empire he likened to the old man who rode Sindbad the Sailor. He admitted my noble loyalty to Fran
ce, pointing out, however, that devotion to the Empire was not devotion to France, but the contrary. Skilfully he pictured the unprepared armies of the Empire, huddled along the frontier, seized and rent to fragments, one by one; adroitly he painted the inevitable ending, the armies that remained cut off and beaten in detail.
And as I listened I freely admitted to myself that I had undervalued him; that he was no crude Belleville orator, no sentimental bathos-peddling reformer, no sansculotte with brains ablaze, squalling for indiscriminate slaughter and pillage; he was a cool student in crime, taking no chances that he was not forced to take, a calm, adroit, methodical observer, who had established a theory and was carefully engaged in proving it.
“Scarlett,” he said, in English, “let us come to the point. I am a mercenary American; you are an American mercenary, paid by the French government. You care nothing for that government or for the country; you would drop both to-day if your pay ceased. You and I are outsiders; we are in the world to watch our chances. And our chance is here.”
He unfolded the creased bit of paper and spread it out on his knees, smoothing it thoughtfully.
“What do I care for the Internationale?” he asked, blandly. “I am high in its councils; Karl Marx knows less about the Internationale than do I. As for Prussia and France — bah! — it’s a dog-fight to me, and I lack even the interest to bet on the German bull-dog.
“You will know me better some day, and when you do you will know that I am a man who has determined to get rich if I have to set half of France against the other half and sack every bank in the Empire.
“And now the time is coming when the richest city in Europe will be put to the sack. You don’t believe it? Yet you shall live to see Paris besieged, and you shall live to see Paris surrender, and you shall live to see the Internationale rise up from nowhere, seize the government by the throat, and choke it to death under the red flag of universal — ahem!... license” — the faintest sneer came into his pallid face— “and every city of France shall be a commune, and we shall pass from city to city, leisurely, under the law — our laws, which we will make — and I pity the man among us who cannot place his millions in the banks of England and America!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 176
