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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:35 -0700 |
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diff --git a/14060-h/14060-h.htm b/14060-h/14060-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27158a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/14060-h/14060-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14484 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mr. Britling Sees It Through, +by H. G. Wells.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom:1em; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14060 ***</div> + +<a name="Page_i"></a> +<h1>MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>H. G. WELLS</h2> +<h3>New York</h3> +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</h4> +<h4>1916</h4> +<a name="Page_iii"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CONTENTS"></a> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<ul> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I"><b>BOOK I — MATCHING'S EASY AT +EASE</b></a> +<ul> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"><b>MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. +BRITLING</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"><b>MR. BRITLING CONTINUES +HIS EXPOSITION</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_THIRD"><b>THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. +DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FOURTH"><b>MR. BRITLING IN +SOLILOQUY</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FIFTH"><b>THE COMING OF THE +DAY</b></a></li> +</ul> +<br></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_II"><b>BOOK II — MATCHING'S EASY AT +WAR</b></a> +<ul> +<li><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"><b>ONLOOKERS</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"><b>TAKING +PART</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_THIRD"><b>MALIGNITY</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_FOURTH"><b>IN THE WEB OF THE +INEFFECTIVE</b></a></li> +</ul> +<br></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_III"><b>BOOK III — THE TESTAMENT OF +MATCHING'S EASY</b></a> +<ul> +<li><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"><b>MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A +WALK</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"><b>MR. BRITLING WRITES +UNTIL SUNRISE</b></a></li> +</ul> +</li> +</ul> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> +<a name="Page_1"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I"></a> +<h2>BOOK I</h2> +<h2>MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE</h2> +<a name="Page_3"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> +<h2>MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>It was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and +he was at his acutest perception of differences. He found England +in every way gratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast +with things American than he had ever dared to hope.</p> +<p>He had promised himself this visit for many years, but being of +a sunny rather than energetic temperament—though he firmly +believed himself to be a reservoir of clear-sighted American +energy—he had allowed all sorts of things, and more +particularly the uncertainties of Miss Mamie Nelson, to keep him +back. But now there were no more uncertainties about Miss Mamie +Nelson, and Mr. Direck had come over to England just to convince +himself and everybody else that there were other interests in life +for him than Mamie....</p> +<p>And also, he wanted to see the old country from which his +maternal grandmother had sprung. Wasn't there even now in his +bedroom in New York a water-colour of Market Saffron church, where +the dear old lady had been confirmed? And generally he wanted to +see Europe. As an interesting side show to the excursion he hoped, +in his<a name="Page_4"></a> capacity of the rather underworked and +rather over-salaried secretary of the Massachusetts Society for the +Study of Contemporary Thought, to discuss certain agreeable +possibilities with Mr. Britling, who lived at Matching's Easy.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck was a type of man not uncommon in America. He was +very much after the fashion of that clean and pleasant-looking +person one sees in the advertisements in American magazines, that +agreeable person who smiles and says, "Good, it's the Fizgig +Brand," or "Yes, it's a Wilkins, and that's the Best," or "My +shirt-front never rucks; it's a Chesson." But now he was saying, +still with the same firm smile, "Good. It's English." He was +pleased by every unlikeness to things American, by every item he +could hail as characteristic; in the train to London he had laughed +aloud with pleasure at the chequer-board of little fields upon the +hills of Cheshire, he had chuckled to find himself in a compartment +without a corridor; he had tipped the polite yet kindly guard +magnificently, after doubting for a moment whether he ought to tip +him at all, and he had gone about his hotel in London saying +"Lordy! Lordy! My <i>word!</i>" in a kind of ecstasy, verifying the +delightful absence of telephone, of steam-heat, of any dependent +bathroom. At breakfast the waiter (out of Dickens it seemed) had +refused to know what "cereals" were, and had given him his egg in a +china egg-cup such as you see in the pictures in <i>Punch</i>. The +Thames, when he sallied out to see it, had been too good to be +true, the smallest thing in rivers he had ever seen, and he had had +to restrain himself from affecting a marked accent and accosting +some passer-by with the question, "Say! But is this little wet +ditch here the Historical River Thames?"</p> +<p>In America, it must be explained, Mr. Direck spoke a very good +and careful English indeed, but he now found the utmost difficulty +in controlling his impulse to use a high-pitched nasal drone and +indulge in dry "Americanisms"<a name="Page_5"></a> and poker +metaphors upon all occasions. When people asked him questions he +wanted to say "Yep" or "Sure," words he would no more have used in +America than he could have used a bowie knife. But he had a sense +of rôle. He wanted to be visibly and audibly America +eye-witnessing. He wanted to be just exactly what he supposed an +Englishman would expect him to be. At any rate, his clothes had +been made by a strongly American New York tailor, and upon the +strength of them a taxi-man had assumed politely but firmly that +the shillings on his taximeter were dollars, an incident that +helped greatly to sustain the effect of Mr. Direck, in Mr. Direck's +mind, as something standing out with an almost representative +clearness against the English scene.... So much so that the +taxi-man got the dollars....</p> +<p>Because all the time he had been coming over he had dreaded that +it wasn't true, that England was a legend, that London would turn +out to be just another thundering great New York, and the English +exactly like New Englanders....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>And now here he was on the branch line of the little old Great +Eastern Railway, on his way to Matching's Easy in Essex, and he was +suddenly in the heart of Washington Irving's England.</p> +<p>Washington Irving's England! Indeed it was. He couldn't sit +still and just peep at it, he had to stand up in the little +compartment and stick his large, firm-featured, kindly countenance +out of the window as if he greeted it. The country under the June +sunshine was neat and bright as an old-world garden, with little +fields of corn surrounded by dog-rose hedges, and woods and small +rushy pastures of an infinite tidiness. He had seen a real deer +park, it had rather tumbledown iron gates between its +shield-surmounted pillars, and in the distance, beyond all +question, was Bracebridge Hall nestling among<a name="Page_6"></a> +great trees. He had seen thatched and timbered cottages, and +half-a-dozen inns with creaking signs. He had seen a fat vicar +driving himself along a grassy lane in a governess cart drawn by a +fat grey pony. It wasn't like any reality he had ever known. It was +like travelling in literature.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling's address was the Dower House, and it was, Mr. +Britling's note had explained, on the farther edge of the park at +Claverings. Claverings! The very name for some stately home of +England....</p> +<p>And yet this was only forty-two miles from London. Surely it +brought things within the suburban range. If Matching's Easy were +in America, commuters would live there. But in supposing that, Mr. +Direck displayed his ignorance of a fact of the greatest importance +to all who would understand England. There is a gap in the suburbs +of London. The suburbs of London stretch west and south and even +west by north, but to the north-eastward there are no suburbs; +instead there is Essex. Essex is not a suburban county; it is a +characteristic and individualised county which wins the heart. +Between dear Essex and the centre of things lie two great barriers, +the East End of London and Epping Forest. Before a train could get +to any villadom with a cargo of season-ticket holders it would have +to circle about this rescued woodland and travel for twenty +unprofitable miles, and so once you are away from the main Great +Eastern lines Essex still lives in the peace of the eighteenth +century, and London, the modern Babylon, is, like the stars, just a +light in the nocturnal sky. In Matching's Easy, as Mr. Britling +presently explained to Mr. Direck, there are half-a-dozen old +people who have never set eyes on London in their lives—and +do not want to.</p> +<p>"Aye-ya!"</p> +<p>"Fussin' about thea."</p> +<p>"Mr. Robinson, 'e went to Lon', 'e did. That's 'ow 'e 'urt 'is +fut."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck had learnt at the main-line junction that<a name= +"Page_7"></a> he had to tell the guard to stop the train for +Matching's Easy; it only stopped "by request"; the thing was +getting better and better; and when Mr. Direck seized his grip and +got out of the train there was just one little old Essex +station-master and porter and signalman and everything, holding a +red flag in his hand and talking to Mr. Britling about the +cultivation of the sweet peas which glorified the station. And +there was the Mr. Britling who was the only item of business and +the greatest expectation in Mr. Direck's European journey, and he +was quite unlike the portraits Mr. Direck had seen and quite +unmistakably Mr. Britling all the same, since there was nobody else +upon the platform, and he was advancing with a gesture of +welcome.</p> +<p>"Did you ever see such peas, Mr. Dick?" said Mr. Britling by way +of introduction.</p> +<p>"My <i>word</i>," said Mr. Direck in a good old Farmer Hayseed +kind of voice.</p> +<p>"Aye-ya!" said the station-master in singularly strident tones. +"It be a rare year for sweet peas," and then he slammed the door of +the carriage in a leisurely manner and did dismissive things with +his flag, while the two gentlemen took stock, as people say, of one +another.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>Except in the doubtful instance of Miss Mamie Nelson, Mr. +Direck's habit was good fortune. Pleasant things came to him. Such +was his position as the salaried secretary of this society of +thoughtful Massachusetts business men to which allusion has been +made. Its purpose was to bring itself expeditiously into touch with +the best thought of the age.</p> +<p>Too busily occupied with practical realities to follow the +thought of the age through all its divagations and into all its +recesses, these Massachusetts business men had had to consider +methods of access more quintessential and<a name="Page_8"></a> +nuclear. And they had decided not to hunt out the best thought in +its merely germinating stages, but to wait until it had emerged and +flowered to some trustworthy recognition, and then, rather than +toil through recondite and possibly already reconsidered books and +writings generally, to offer an impressive fee to the emerged new +thinker, and to invite him to come to them and to lecture to them +and to have a conference with them, and to tell them simply, +competently and completely at first hand just all that he was +about. To come, in fact, and be himself—in a highly +concentrated form. In this way a number of interesting Europeans +had been given very pleasant excursions to America, and the society +had been able to form very definite opinions upon their teaching. +And Mr. Britling was one of the representative thinkers upon which +this society had decided to inform itself. It was to broach this +invitation and to offer him the impressive honorarium by which the +society honoured not only its guests but itself, that Mr. Direck +had now come to Matching's Easy. He had already sent Mr. Britling a +letter of introduction, not indeed intimating his precise purpose, +but mentioning merely a desire to know him, and the letter had been +so happily phrased and its writer had left such a memory of +pleasant hospitality on Mr. Britling's mind during Mr. Britling's +former visit to New York, that it had immediately produced for Mr. +Direck an invitation not merely to come and see him but to come and +stay over the week-end.</p> +<p>And here they were shaking hands.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling did not look at all as Mr. Direck had expected him +to look. He had expected an Englishman in a country costume of +golfing tweeds, like the Englishman in country costume one sees in +American illustrated stories. Drooping out of the country costume +of golfing tweeds he had expected to see the mildly unhappy face, +pensive even to its drooping moustache, with which Mr. Britling's +publisher had for some faulty and unfortunate reason<a name= +"Page_9"></a> familiarised the American public. Instead of this, +Mr. Britling was in a miscellaneous costume, and mildness was the +last quality one could attribute to him. His moustache, his hair, +his eyebrows bristled; his flaming freckled face seemed about to +bristle too. His little hazel eyes came out with a "ping" and +looked at Mr. Direck. Mr. Britling was one of a large but still +remarkable class of people who seem at the mere approach of +photography to change their hair, their clothes, their moral +natures. No photographer had ever caught a hint of his essential +Britlingness and bristlingness. Only the camera could ever induce +Mr. Britling to brush his hair, and for the camera alone did he +reserve that expression of submissive martyrdom Mr. Direck knew. +And Mr. Direck was altogether unprepared for a certain casualness +of costume that sometimes overtook Mr. Britling. He was wearing now +a very old blue flannel blazer, no hat, and a pair of +knickerbockers, not tweed breeches but tweed knickerbockers of a +remarkable bagginess, and made of one of those virtuous socialistic +homespun tweeds that drag out into woolly knots and strings +wherever there is attrition. His stockings were worsted and +wrinkled, and on his feet were those extraordinary slippers of +bright-coloured bast-like interwoven material one buys in the north +of France. These were purple with a touch of green. He had, in +fact, thought of the necessity of meeting Mr. Direck at the station +at the very last moment, and had come away from his study in the +clothes that had happened to him when he got up. His face wore the +amiable expression of a wire-haired terrier disposed to be +friendly, and it struck Mr. Direck that for a man of his real +intellectual distinction Mr. Britling was unusually short.</p> +<p>For there can be no denying that Mr. Britling was, in a sense, +distinguished. The hero and subject of this novel was at its very +beginning a distinguished man. He was in the <i>Who's Who</i> of +two continents. In the last few years he had grown with some +rapidity into a writer<a name="Page_10"></a> recognised and +welcomed by the more cultivated sections of the American public, +and even known to a select circle of British readers. To his +American discoverers he had first appeared as an essayist, a +serious essayist who wrote about aesthetics and Oriental thought +and national character and poets and painting. He had come through +America some years ago as one of those Kahn scholars, those +promising writers and intelligent men endowed by Auguste Kahn of +Paris, who go about the world nowadays in comfort and consideration +as the travelling guests of that original philanthropist—to +acquire the international spirit. Previously he had been a critic +of art and literature and a writer of thoughtful third leaders in +the London <i>Times</i>. He had begun with a Pembroke fellowship +and a prize poem. He had returned from his world tour to his +reflective yet original corner of <i>The Times</i> and to the +production of books about national relationships and social +psychology, that had brought him rapidly into prominence.</p> +<p>His was a naturally irritable mind, which gave him point and +passion; and moreover he had a certain obstinate originality and a +generous disposition. So that he was always lively, sometimes +spacious, and never vile. He loved to write and talk. He talked +about everything, he had ideas about everything; he could no more +help having ideas about everything than a dog can resist smelling +at your heels. He sniffed at the heels of reality. Lots of people +found him interesting and stimulating, a few found him seriously +exasperating. He had ideas in the utmost profusion about races and +empires and social order and political institutions and gardens and +automobiles and the future of India and China and aesthetics and +America and the education of mankind in general.... And all that +sort of thing....</p> +<p>Mr. Direck had read a very great deal of all this expressed +opiniativeness of Mr. Britling: he found it entertaining and +stimulating stuff, and it was with genuine enthusiasm that he had +come over to encounter the man<a name="Page_11"></a> himself. On +his way across the Atlantic and during the intervening days, he had +rehearsed this meeting in varying keys, but always on the +supposition that Mr. Britling was a large, quiet, thoughtful sort +of man, a man who would, as it were, sit in attentive rows like a +public meeting and listen. So Mr. Direck had prepared quite a +number of pleasant and attractive openings, and now he felt was the +moment for some one of these various simple, memorable utterances. +But in none of these forecasts had he reckoned with either the +spontaneous activities of Mr. Britling or with the station-master +of Matching's Easy. Oblivious of any conversational necessities +between Mr. Direck and Mr. Britling, this official now took charge +of Mr. Direck's grip-sack, and, falling into line with the two +gentlemen as they walked towards the exit gate, resumed what was +evidently an interrupted discourse upon sweet peas, originally +addressed to Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>He was a small, elderly man with a determined-looking face and a +sea voice, and it was clear he overestimated the distance of his +hearers.</p> +<p>"Mr. Darling what's head gardener up at Claverings, <i>'e</i> +can't get sweet peas like that, try <i>'ow</i> 'e will. Tried +everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E +came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e +says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a +professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but you do. And +in your orf time, too, so's to speak,' 'e says. 'I've tried sile,' +'e says——"</p> +<p>"Your first visit to England?" asked Mr. Britling of his +guest.</p> +<p>"Absolutely," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"I says to 'im, 'there's one thing you 'aven't tried,' I says," +the station-master continued, raising his voice by a Herculean feat +still higher.</p> +<p>"I've got a little car outside here," said Mr. Britling. "I'm a +couple of miles from the station."</p> +<p>"I says to 'im, I says, ''ave you tried the vibritation +of<a name="Page_12"></a> the trains?' I says. 'That's what you +'aven't tried, Mr. Darling. That's what you <i>can't</i> try,' I +says. 'But you rest assured that that's the secret of my sweet +peas,' I says, 'nothing less and nothing more than the vibritation +of the trains.'"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck's mind was a little confused by the double nature of +the conversation and by the fact that Mr. Britling spoke of a car +when he meant an automobile. He handed his ticket mechanically to +the station-master, who continued to repeat and endorse his +anecdote at the top of his voice as Mr. Britling disposed himself +and his guest in the automobile.</p> +<p>"You know you 'aven't 'urt that mud-guard, sir, not the +slightest bit that matters," shouted the station-master. "I've been +a looking at it—er. It's my fence that's suffered most. And +that's only strained the post a lil' bit. Shall I put your bag in +behind, sir?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck assented, and then, after a momentary hesitation, +rewarded the station-master's services.</p> +<p>"Ready?" asked Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"That's all right sir," the station-master reverberated.</p> +<p>With a rather wide curve Mr. Britling steered his way out of the +station into the highroad.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>And now it seemed was the time for Mr. Direck to make his +meditated speeches. But an unexpected complication was to defeat +this intention. Mr. Direck perceived almost at once that Mr. +Britling was probably driving an automobile for the first or second +or at the extremest the third time in his life.</p> +<p>The thing became evident when he struggled to get into the high +gear—an attempt that stopped the engine, and it was even more +startlingly so when Mr. Britling narrowly missed a collision with a +baker's cart at a corner. "I pressed the accelerator," he explained +afterwards,<a name="Page_13"></a> "instead of the brake. One does +at first. I missed him by less than a foot." The estimate was a +generous one. And after that Mr. Direck became too anxious not to +distract his host's thoughts to persist with his conversational +openings. An attentive silence came upon both gentlemen that was +broken presently by a sudden outcry from Mr. Britling and a great +noise of tormented gears. "Damn!" cried Mr. Britling, and "How the +<i>devil</i>?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck perceived that his host was trying to turn the car +into a very beautiful gateway, with gate-houses on either side. +Then it was manifest that Mr. Britling had abandoned this idea, and +then they came to a stop a dozen yards or so along the main road. +"Missed it," said Mr. Britling, and took his hands off the steering +wheel and blew stormily, and then whistled some bars of a fretful +air, and became still.</p> +<p>"Do we go through these ancient gates?" asked Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling looked over his right shoulder and considered +problems of curvature and distance. "I think," he said, "I will go +round outside the park. It will take us a little longer, but it +will be simpler than backing and manoeuvring here now.... These +electric starters are remarkably convenient things. Otherwise now I +should have to get down and wind up the engine."</p> +<p>After that came a corner, the rounding of which seemed to +present few difficulties until suddenly Mr. Britling cried out, +"Eh! <i>eh</i>! EH! Oh, <i>damn</i>!"</p> +<p>Then the two gentlemen were sitting side by side in a rather +sloping car that had ascended the bank and buried its nose in a +hedge of dog-rose and honeysuckle, from which two missel thrushes, +a blackbird and a number of sparrows had made a hurried +escape....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>"Perhaps," said Mr. Britling without assurance, and after a +little peaceful pause, "I can reverse out of this."</p> +<a name="Page_14"></a> +<p>He seemed to feel some explanation was due to Mr. Direck. "You +see, at first—it's perfectly simple—one steers +<i>round</i> a corner and then one doesn't put the wheels straight +again, and so one keeps on going round—more than one meant +to. It's the bicycle habit; the bicycle rights itself. One expects +a car to do the same thing. It was my fault. The book explains all +this question clearly, but just at the moment I forgot."</p> +<p>He reflected and experimented in a way that made the engine +scold and fuss....</p> +<p>"You see, she won't budge for the reverse.... +She's—embedded.... Do you mind getting out and turning the +wheel back? Then if I reverse, perhaps we'll get a move on...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck descended, and there were considerable efforts.</p> +<p>"If you'd just grip the spokes. Yes, so.... One, Two, Three!... +No! Well, let's just sit here until somebody comes along to help +us. Oh! Somebody will come all right. Won't you get up again?"</p> +<p>And after a reflective moment Mr. Direck resumed his seat beside +Mr. Britling....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>The two gentlemen smiled at each other to dispel any suspicion +of discontent.</p> +<p>"My driving leaves something to be desired," said Mr. Britling +with an air of frank impartiality. "But I have only just got this +car for myself—after some years of hired cars—the sort +of lazy arrangement where people supply car, driver, petrol, tyres, +insurance and everything at so much a month. It bored me +abominably. I can't imagine now how I stood it for so long. They +sent me down a succession of compact, scornful boys who used to go +fast when I wanted to go slow, and slow when I wanted to go fast, +and who used to take every corner on the wrong<a name= +"Page_15"></a> side at top speed, and charge dogs and hens for the +sport of it, and all sorts of things like that. They would not even +let me choose my roads. I should have got myself a car long ago, +and driven it, if it wasn't for that infernal business with a +handle one had to do when the engine stopped. But here, you see, is +a reasonably cheap car with an electric starter—American, I +need scarcely say. And here I am—going at my own pace."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck glanced for a moment at the pretty disorder of the +hedge in which they were embedded, and smiled and admitted that it +was certainly much more agreeable.</p> +<p>Before he had finished saying as much Mr. Britling was talking +again.</p> +<p>He had a quick and rather jerky way of speaking; he seemed to +fire out a thought directly it came into his mind, and he seemed to +have a loaded magazine of thoughts in his head. He spoke almost +exactly twice as fast as Mr. Direck, clipping his words much more, +using much compacter sentences, and generally cutting his corners, +and this put Mr. Direck off his game.</p> +<p>That rapid attack while the transatlantic interlocutor is +deploying is indeed a not infrequent defect of conversations +between Englishmen and Americans. It is a source of many +misunderstandings. The two conceptions of conversation differ +fundamentally. The English are much less disposed to listen than +the American; they have not quite the same sense of conversational +give and take, and at first they are apt to reduce their visitors +to the rôle of auditors wondering when their turn will begin. +Their turn never does begin. Mr. Direck sat deeply in his slanting +seat with a half face to his celebrated host and said "Yep" and +"Sure" and "That <i>is</i> so," in the dry grave tones that he +believed an Englishman would naturally expect him to use, realising +this only very gradually.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling, from his praise of the enterprise that had at last +brought a car he could drive within his reach, went on to that +favourite topic of all intelligent Englishmen,<a name= +"Page_16"></a> the adverse criticism of things British. He pointed +out that the central position of the brake and gear levers in his +automobile made it extremely easy for the American manufacturer to +turn it out either as a left-handed or a right-handed car, and so +adapt it either to the Continental or to the British rule of the +road. No English cars were so adaptable. We British suffered much +from our insular rule of the road, just as we suffered much from +our insular weights and measures. But we took a perverse pride in +such disadvantages. The irruption of American cars into England was +a recent phenomenon, it was another triumph for the tremendous +organising ability of the American mind. They were doing with the +automobile what they had done with clocks and watches and rifles, +they had standardised and machined wholesale, while the British +were still making the things one by one. It was an extraordinary +thing that England, which was the originator of the industrial +system and the original developer of the division of labour, should +have so fallen away from systematic manufacturing. He believed this +was largely due to the influence of Oxford and the Established +Church....</p> +<p>At this point Mr. Direck was moved by an anecdote. "It will help +to illustrate what you are saying, Mr. Britling, about systematic +organisation if I tell you a little incident that happened to a +friend of mine in Toledo, where they are setting up a big plant +with a view to capturing the entire American and European market in +the class of the thousand-dollar car——"</p> +<p>"There's no end of such little incidents," said Mr. Britling, +cutting in without apparent effort. "You see, we get it on both +sides. Our manufacturer class was, of course, originally an +insurgent class. It was a class of distended craftsmen. It had the +craftsman's natural enterprise and natural radicalism. As soon as +it prospered and sent its boys to Oxford it was lost. Our +manufacturing class was assimilated in no time to the +conservative<a name="Page_17"></a> classes, whose education has +always had a mandarin quality—very, very little of it, and +very cold and choice. In America you have so far had no real +conservative class at all. Fortunate continent! You cast out your +Tories, and you were left with nothing but Whigs and Radicals. But +our peculiar bad luck has been to get a sort of revolutionary who +is a Tory mandarin too. Ruskin and Morris, for example, were as +reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukes and the bishops. +Machine haters. Science haters. Rule of Thumbites to the bone. So +are our current Socialists. They've filled this country with the +idea that the ideal automobile ought to be made entirely by the +hand labour of traditional craftsmen, quite individually, out of +beaten copper, wrought iron and seasoned oak. All this +electric-starter business and this electric lighting outfit I have +here, is perfectly hateful to the English mind.... It isn't that we +are simply backward in these things, we are antagonistic. The +British mind has never really tolerated electricity; at least, not +that sort of electricity that runs through wires. Too slippery and +glib for it. Associates it with Italians and fluency generally, +with Volta, Galvani, Marconi and so on. The proper British +electricity is that high-grade useless long-sparking stuff you get +by turning round a glass machine; stuff we used to call frictional +electricity. Keep it in Leyden jars.... At Claverings here they +still refuse to have electric bells. There was a row when the +Solomonsons, who were tenants here for a time, tried to put them +in...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck had followed this cascade of remarks with a patient +smile and a slowly nodding head. "What you say," he said, "forms a +very marked contrast indeed with the sort of thing that goes on in +America. This friend of mine I was speaking of, the one who is +connected with an automobile factory in Toledo——"</p> +<p>"Of course," Mr. Britling burst out again, "even conservatism +isn't an ultimate thing. After all, we and your<a name= +"Page_18"></a> enterprising friend at Toledo, are very much the +same blood. The conservatism, I mean, isn't racial. And our earlier +energy shows it isn't in the air or in the soil. England has become +unenterprising and sluggish because England has been so prosperous +and comfortable...."</p> +<p>"Exactly," said Mr. Direck. "My friend of whom I was telling +you, was a man named Robinson, which indicates pretty clearly that +he was of genuine English stock, and, if I may say so, quite of +your build and complexion; racially, I should say, he was, +well—very much what you are...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>This rally of Mr. Direck's mind was suddenly interrupted.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling stood up, and putting both hands to the sides of +his mouth, shouted "Yi-ah! Aye-ya! Thea!" at unseen hearers.</p> +<p>After shouting again, several times, it became manifest that he +had attracted the attention of two willing but deliberate labouring +men. They emerged slowly, first as attentive heads, from the +landscape. With their assistance the car was restored to the road +again. Mr. Direck assisted manfully, and noted the respect that was +given to Mr. Britling and the shillings that fell to the men, with +an intelligent detachment. They touched their hats, they called Mr. +Britling "Sir." They examined the car distantly but kindly. "Ain't +'urt 'e, not a bit 'e ain't, not really," said one encouragingly. +And indeed except for a slight crumpling of the mud-guard and the +detachment of the wire of one of the headlights the automobile was +uninjured. Mr. Britling resumed his seat; Mr. Direck gravely and in +silence got up beside him. They started with the usual convulsion, +as though something had pricked the vehicle unexpectedly and +shamefully behind. And from this point Mr. Britling, driving with +meticulous care, got home without further mishap, excepting only +that<a name="Page_19"></a> he scraped off some of the metal edge of +his footboard against the gate-post of his very agreeable +garden.</p> +<p>His family welcomed his safe return, visitor and all, with +undisguised relief and admiration. A small boy appeared at the +corner of the house, and then disappeared hastily again. "Daddy's +got back all right at last," they heard him shouting to unseen +hearers.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck, though he was a little incommoded by the suppression +of his story about Robinson—for when he had begun a thing he +liked to finish it—found Mr. Britling's household at once +thoroughly British, quite un-American and a little difficult to +follow. It had a quality that at first he could not define at all. +Compared with anything he had ever seen in his life before it +struck him as being—he found the word at last—sketchy. +For instance, he was introduced to nobody except his hostess, and +she was indicated to him by a mere wave of Mr. Britling's hand. +"That's Edith," he said, and returned at once to his car to put it +away. Mrs. Britling was a tall, freckled woman with pretty bright +brown hair and preoccupied brown eyes. She welcomed him with a +handshake, and then a wonderful English parlourmaid—she at +least was according to expectations—took his grip-sack and +guided him to his room. "Lunch, sir," she said, "is outside," and +closed the door and left him to that and a towel-covered can of hot +water.</p> +<p>It was a square-looking old red-brick house he had come to, very +handsome in a simple Georgian fashion, with a broad lawn before it +and great blue cedar trees, and a drive that came frankly up to the +front door and then went off with Mr. Britling and the car round to +unknown regions at the back. The centre of the house was a big airy +hall, oak-panelled, warmed in winter only by one large fireplace +and abounding in doors which he knew opened into the square +separate rooms that England favours. Bookshelves<a name= +"Page_20"></a> and stuffed birds comforted the landing outside his +bedroom. He descended to find the hall occupied by a small bright +bristling boy in white flannel shirt and knickerbockers and bare +legs and feet. He stood before the vacant open fireplace in an +attitude that Mr. Direck knew instantly was also Mr. Britling's. +"Lunch is in the garden," the Britling scion proclaimed, "and I've +got to fetch you. And, I say! is it true? Are you American?"</p> +<p>"Why surely," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"Well, I know some American," said the boy. "I learnt it."</p> +<p>"Tell me some," said Mr. Direck, smiling still more amiably.</p> +<p>"Oh! Well—God darn you! Ouch, Gee-whizz! Soak him, Maud! +It's up to you, Duke...."</p> +<p>"Now where did you learn all that?" asked Mr. Direck +recovering.</p> +<p>"Out of the Sunday Supplement," said the youthful Britling.</p> +<p>"Why! Then you know all about Buster Brown," said Mr. Direck. +"He's Fine—eh?"</p> +<p>The Britling child hated Buster Brown. He regarded Buster Brown +as a totally unnecessary infant. He detested the way he wore his +hair and the peculiar cut of his knickerbockers and—him. He +thought Buster Brown the one drop of paraffin in the otherwise +delicious feast of the Sunday Supplement. But he was a diplomatic +child.</p> +<p>"I think I like Happy Hooligan better," he said. "And dat ole +Maud."</p> +<p>He reflected with joyful eyes, Buster clean forgotten. "Every +week," he said, "she kicks some one."</p> +<p>It came to Mr. Direck as a very pleasant discovery that a +British infant could find a common ground with the small people at +home in these characteristically American jests. He had never +dreamt that the fine wine of Maud and Buster could travel.</p> +<a name="Page_21"></a> +<p>"Maud's a treat," said the youthful Britling, relapsing into his +native tongue.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling appeared coming to meet them. He was now in a grey +flannel suit—he must have jumped into it—and altogether +very much tidier....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>The long narrow table under the big sycamores between the house +and the adapted barn that Mr. Direck learnt was used for "dancing +and all that sort of thing," was covered with a blue linen diaper +cloth, and that too surprised him. This was his first meal in a +private household in England, and for obscure reasons he had +expected something very stiff and formal with "spotless napery." He +had also expected a very stiff and capable service by implacable +parlourmaids, and the whole thing indeed highly genteel. But two +cheerful women servants appeared from what was presumably the +kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection, which his +small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter—manifestly +deservedly—and which bore on its shelves the substance of the +meal. And while the maids at this migratory sideboard carved and +opened bottles and so forth, the small boy and a slightly larger +brother, assisted a little by two young men of no very defined +position and relationship, served the company. Mrs. Britling sat at +the head of the table, and conversed with Mr. Direck by means of +hostess questions and imperfectly accepted answers while she kept a +watchful eye on the proceedings.</p> +<p>The composition of the company was a matter for some perplexity +to Mr. Direck. Mr. and Mrs. Britling were at either end of the +table, that was plain enough. It was also fairly plain that the two +barefooted boys were little Britlings. But beyond this was a cloud +of uncertainty. There was a youth of perhaps seventeen, much darker +than Britling but with nose and freckles rather like his, who might +be an early son or a stepson; he was shock-headed<a name= +"Page_22"></a> and with that look about his arms and legs that +suggests overnight growth; and there was an unmistakable young +German, very pink, with close-cropped fair hair, glasses and a +panama hat, who was probably the tutor of the younger boys. (Mr. +Direck also was wearing his hat, his mind had been filled with an +exaggerated idea of the treacheries of the English climate before +he left New York. Every one else was hatless.) Finally, before one +reached the limits of the explicable there was a pleasant young man +with a lot of dark hair and very fine dark blue eyes, whom +everybody called "Teddy." For him, Mr. Direck hazarded +"secretary."</p> +<p>But in addition to these normal and understandable presences, +there was an entirely mysterious pretty young woman in blue linen +who sat and smiled next to Mr. Britling, and there was a rather +kindred-looking girl with darker hair on the right of Mr. Direck +who impressed him at the very outset as being still prettier, +and—he didn't quite place her at first—somehow familiar +to him; there was a large irrelevant middle-aged lady in black with +a gold chain and a large nose, between Teddy and the tutor; there +was a tall middle-aged man with an intelligent face, who might be a +casual guest; there was an Indian young gentleman faultlessly +dressed up to his brown soft linen collar and cuffs, and thereafter +an uncontrolled outbreak of fine bronze modelling and abundant +fuzzy hair; and there was a very erect and attentive baby of a year +or less, sitting up in a perambulator and gesticulating cheerfully +to everybody. This baby it was that most troubled the orderly mind +of Mr. Direck. The research for its paternity made his conversation +with Mrs. Britling almost as disconnected and absent-minded as her +conversation with him. It almost certainly wasn't Mrs. Britling's. +The girl next to him or the girl next to Mr. Britling or the lady +in black might any of them be married, but if so where was the +spouse? It seemed improbable that they would wheel out a foundling +to lunch....</p> +<a name="Page_23"></a> +<p>Realising at last that the problem of relationship must be left +to solve itself if he did not want to dissipate and consume his +mind entirely, Mr. Direck turned to his hostess, who was enjoying a +brief lull in her administrative duties, and told her what a +memorable thing the meeting of Mr. Britling in his own home would +be in his life, and how very highly America was coming to esteem +Mr. Britling and his essays. He found that with a slight change of +person, one of his premeditated openings was entirely serviceable +here. And he went on to observe that it was novel and entertaining +to find Mr. Britling driving his own automobile and to note that it +was an automobile of American manufacture. In America they had +standardised and systematised the making of such things as +automobiles to an extent that would, he thought, be almost +startling to Europeans. It was certainly startling to the European +manufacturers. In illustration of that he might tell a little story +of a friend of his called Robinson—a man who curiously enough +in general build and appearance was very reminiscent indeed of Mr. +Britling. He had been telling Mr. Britling as much on his way here +from the station. His friend was concerned with several others in +one of the biggest attacks that had ever been made upon what one +might describe in general terms as the thousand-dollar light +automobile market. What they said practically was this: This market +is a jig-saw puzzle waiting to be put together and made one. We are +going to do it. But that was easier to figure out than to do. At +the very outset of this attack he and his associates found +themselves up against an unexpected and very difficult +proposition....</p> +<p>At first Mrs. Britling had listened to Mr. Direck with an almost +undivided attention, but as he had developed his opening the feast +upon the blue linen table had passed on to a fresh phase that +demanded more and more of her directive intelligence. The two +little boys appeared suddenly at her elbows. "Shall we take the +plates and get<a name="Page_24"></a> the strawberries, Mummy?" they +asked simultaneously. Then one of the neat maids in the background +had to be called up and instructed in undertones, and Mr. Direck +saw that for the present Robinson's illuminating experience was not +for her ears. A little baffled, but quite understanding how things +were, he turned to his neighbour on his left....</p> +<p>The girl really had an extraordinarily pretty smile, and there +was something in her soft bright brown eye—like the movement +of some quick little bird. And—she was like somebody he knew! +Indeed she was. She was quite ready to be spoken to.</p> +<p>"I was telling Mrs. Britling," said Mr. Direck, "what a very +great privilege I esteem it to meet Mr. Britling in this highly +familiar way."</p> +<p>"You've not met him before?"</p> +<p>"I missed him by twenty-four hours when he came through Boston +on the last occasion. Just twenty-four hours. It was a matter of +very great regret to me."</p> +<p>"I wish I'd been paid to travel round the world."</p> +<p>"You must write things like Mr. Britling and then Mr. Kahn will +send you."</p> +<p>"Don't you think if I promised well?"</p> +<p>"You'd have to write some promissory notes, I think—just +to convince him it was all right."</p> +<p>The young lady reflected on Mr. Britling's good fortune.</p> +<p>"He saw India. He saw Japan. He had weeks in Egypt. And he went +right across America."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck had already begun on the liner to adapt himself to +the hopping inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now +what he felt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a +confidential undertone. (It was probably Adam in his first +conversation with Eve, who discovered the pleasantness of dropping +into a confidential undertone beside a pretty ear with a pretty +wave of hair above it.)</p> +<a name="Page_25"></a> +<p>"It was in India, I presume," murmured Mr. Direck, "that Mr. +Britling made the acquaintance of the coloured gentleman?"</p> +<p>"Coloured gentleman!" She gave a swift glance down the table as +though she expected to see something purple with yellow spots. "Oh, +that is one of Mr. Lawrence Carmine's young men!" she explained +even more confidentially and with an air of discussing the silver +bowl of roses before him. "He's a great authority on Indian +literature, he belongs to a society for making things pleasant for +Indian students in London, and he has them down."</p> +<p>"And Mr. Lawrence Carmine?" he pursued.</p> +<p>Even more intimately and confidentially she indicated Mr. +Carmine, as it seemed by a motion of her eyelash.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck prepared to be even more <i>sotto-voce</i> and to +plumb a much profounder mystery. His eye rested on the +perambulator; he leant a little nearer to the ear.... But the +strawberries interrupted him.</p> +<p>"Strawberries!" said the young lady, and directed his regard to +his left shoulder by a little movement of her head.</p> +<p>He found one of the boys with a high-piled plate ready to serve +him.</p> +<p>And then Mrs. Britling resumed her conversation with him. She +was so ignorant, she said, of things American, that she did not +even know if they had strawberries there. At any rate, here they +were at the crest of the season, and in a very good year. And in +the rose season too. It was one of the dearest vanities of English +people to think their apples and their roses and their strawberries +the best in the world.</p> +<p>"And their complexions," said Mr. Direck, over the pyramid of +fruit, quite manifestly intending a compliment. So that was all +right.... But the girl on the left of him was speaking across the +table to the German tutor,<a name="Page_26"></a> and did not hear +what he had said. So that even if it wasn't very neat it didn't +matter....</p> +<p>Then he remembered that she was like that old daguerreotype of a +cousin of his grandmother's that he had fallen in love with when he +was a boy. It was her smile. Of course! Of course!... And he'd sort +of adored that portrait.... He felt a curious disposition to tell +her as much....</p> +<p>"What makes this visit even more interesting if possible to me," +he said to Mrs. Britling, "than it would otherwise be, is that this +Essex country is the country in which my maternal grandmother was +raised, and also long way back my mother's father's people. My +mother's father's people were very early New England people +indeed.... Well, no. If I said <i>Mayflower</i> it wouldn't be +true. But it would approximate. They were Essex Hinkinsons. That's +what they were. I must be a good third of me at least Essex. My +grandmother was an Essex Corner, I must confess I've had some +thought—"</p> +<p>"Corner?" said the young lady at his elbow sharply.</p> +<p>"I was telling Mrs. Britling I had some thought—"</p> +<p>"But about those Essex relatives of yours?"</p> +<p>"Well, of finding if they were still about in these parts.... +Say! I haven't dropped a brick, have I?"</p> +<p>He looked from one face to another.</p> +<p>"<i>She's</i> a Corner," said Mrs. Britling.</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Direck, and hesitated for a moment. It was so +delightful that one couldn't go on being just discreet. The +atmosphere was free and friendly. His intonation disarmed offence. +And he gave the young lady the full benefit of a quite expressive +eye. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Cousin Corner. How are the old +folks at home?"</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>The bright interest of this consulship helped Mr. Direck more +than anything to get the better of his Robinson-anecdote<a name= +"Page_27"></a> crave, and when presently he found his dialogue with +Mr. Britling resumed, he turned at once to this remarkable +discovery of his long lost and indeed hitherto unsuspected +relative. "It's an American sort of thing to do, I suppose," he +said apologetically, "but I almost thought of going on, on Monday, +to Market Saffron, which was the locality of the Hinkinsons, and +just looking about at the tombstones in the churchyard for a day or +so."</p> +<p>"Very probably," said Mr. Britling, "you'd find something about +them in the parish registers. Lots of our registers go back three +hundred years or more. I'll drive you over in my lil' old car."</p> +<p>"Oh! I wouldn't put you to that trouble," said Mr. Direck +hastily.</p> +<p>"It's no trouble. I like the driving. What I have had of it. And +while we're at it, we'll come back by Harborough High Oak and look +up the Corner pedigree. They're all over that district still. And +the road's not really difficult; it's only a bit up and down and +roundabout."</p> +<p>"I couldn't think, Mr. Britling, of putting you to that much +trouble."</p> +<p>"It's no trouble. I want a day off, and I'm dying to take +Gladys——"</p> +<p>"Gladys?" said Mr. Direck with sudden hope.</p> +<p>"That's my name for the lil' car. I'm dying to take her for +something like a decent run. I've only had her out four times +altogether, and I've not got her up yet to forty miles. Which I'm +told she ought to do easily. We'll consider that settled."</p> +<p>For the moment Mr. Direck couldn't think of any further excuse. +But it was very clear in his mind that something must happen; he +wished he knew of somebody who could send a recall telegram from +London, to prevent him committing himself to the casual destinies +of Mr. Britling's car again. And then another interest became +uppermost in his mind.</p> +<a name="Page_28"></a> +<p>"You'd hardly believe me," he said, "if I told you that that +Miss Corner of yours has a quite extraordinary resemblance to a +miniature I've got away there in America of a cousin of my maternal +grandmother's. She seems a very pleasant young lady."</p> +<p>But Mr. Britling supplied no further information about Miss +Corner.</p> +<p>"It must be very interesting," he said, "to come over here and +pick up these American families of yours on the monuments and +tombstones. You know, of course, that district south of Evesham +where every other church monument bears the stars and stripes, the +arms of departed Washingtons. I doubt though if you'll still find +the name about there. Nor will you find many Hinkinsons in Market +Saffron. But lots of this country here has five or six +hundred-year-old families still flourishing. That's why Essex is so +much more genuinely Old England than Surrey, say, or Kent. Round +here you'll find Corners and Fairlies, and then you get Capels, and +then away down towards Dunmow and Braintree Maynards and Byngs. And +there are oaks and hornbeams in the park about Claverings that have +echoed to the howling of wolves and the clank of men in armour. All +the old farms here are moated—because of the wolves. +Claverings itself is Tudor, and rather fine too. And the cottages +still wear thatch...."</p> +<p>He reflected. "Now if you went south of London instead of +northward it's all different. You're in a different period, a +different society. You're in London suburbs right down to the sea. +You'll find no genuine estates left, not of our deep-rooted +familiar sort. You'll find millionaires and that sort of people, +sitting in the old places. Surrey is full of rich stockbrokers, +company-promoters, bookies, judges, newspaper proprietors. Sort of +people who fence the paths across their parks. They do something to +the old places—I don't know what they do—but instantly +the countryside becomes a villadom.<a name="Page_29"></a> And +little sub-estates and red-brick villas and art cottages spring up. +And a kind of new, hard neatness. And pneumatic tyre and automobile +spirit advertisements, great glaring boards by the roadside. And +all the poor people are inspected and rushed about until they +forget who their grandfathers were. They become villa parasites and +odd-job men, and grow basely rich and buy gramophones. This Essex +and yonder Surrey are as different as Russia and Germany. But for +one American who comes to look at Essex, twenty go to Godalming and +Guildford and Dorking and Lewes and Canterbury. Those Surrey people +are not properly English at all. They are strenuous. You have to +get on or get out. They drill their gardeners, lecture very fast on +agricultural efficiency, and have miniature rifle ranges in every +village. It's a county of new notice-boards and barbed-wire fences; +there's always a policeman round the corner. They dress for dinner. +They dress for everything. If a man gets up in the night to look +for a burglar he puts on the correct costume—or doesn't go. +They've got a special scientific system for urging on their tramps. +And they lock up their churches on a week-day. Half their soil is +hard chalk or a rationalistic sand, only suitable for bunkers and +villa foundations. And they play golf in a large, expensive, +thorough way because it's the thing to do.... Now here in Essex +we're as lax as the eighteenth century. We hunt in any old clothes. +Our soil is a rich succulent clay; it becomes semi-fluid in +winter—when we go about in waders shooting duck. All our +fingerposts have been twisted round by facetious men years ago. And +we pool our breeds of hens and pigs. Our roses and oaks are +wonderful; that alone shows that this is the real England. If I +wanted to play golf—which I don't, being a decent Essex +man—I should have to motor ten miles into Hertfordshire. And +for rheumatics and longevity Surrey can't touch us. I want you to +be clear on these points, because they really will affect +your<a name="Page_30"></a> impressions of this place.... This +country is a part of the real England—England outside London +and outside manufactures. It's one with Wessex and Mercia or old +Yorkshire—or for the matter of that with Meath or Lothian. +And it's the essential England still...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>It detracted a little from Mr. Direck's appreciation of this +flow of information that it was taking them away from the rest of +the company. He wanted to see more of his new-found cousin, and +what the baby and the Bengali gentleman—whom manifestly one +mustn't call "coloured"—and the large-nosed lady and all the +other inexplicables would get up to. Instead of which Mr. Britling +was leading him off alone with an air of showing him round the +premises, and talking too rapidly and variously for a question to +be got in edgeways, much less any broaching of the matter that Mr. +Direck had come over to settle.</p> +<p>There was quite a lot of rose garden, it made the air delicious, +and it was full of great tumbling bushes of roses and of neglected +standards, and it had a long pergola of creepers and trailers and a +great arbour, and underneath over the beds everywhere, contrary to +all the rules, the blossom of a multitude of pansies and stock and +little trailing plants swarmed and crowded and scrimmaged and +drilled and fought great massed attacks. And then Mr. Britling +talked their way round a red-walled vegetable garden with an +abundance of fruit trees, and through a door into a terraced square +that had once been a farmyard, outside the converted barn. The barn +doors had been replaced by a door-pierced window of glass, and in +the middle of the square space a deep tank had been made, full of +rainwater, in which Mr. Britling remarked casually that "everybody" +bathed when the weather was hot. Thyme and rosemary and suchlike +sweet-scented things<a name="Page_31"></a> grew on the terrace +about the tank, and ten trimmed little trees of <i>Arbor vitae</i> +stood sentinel. Mr. Direck was tantalisingly aware that beyond some +lilac bushes were his new-found cousin and the kindred young woman +in blue playing tennis with the Indian and another young man, while +whenever it was necessary the large-nosed lady crossed the stage +and brooded soothingly over the perambulator. And Mr. Britling, +choosing a seat from which Mr. Direck just couldn't look +comfortably through the green branches at the flying glimpses of +pink and blue and white and brown, continued to talk about England +and America in relation to each other and everything else under the +sun.</p> +<p>Presently through a distant gate the two small boys were +momentarily visible wheeling small but serviceable bicycles, +followed after a little interval by the German tutor. Then an +enormous grey cat came slowly across the garden court, and sat down +to listen respectfully to Mr. Britling. The afternoon sky was an +intense blue, with little puff-balls of cloud lined out across +it.</p> +<p>Occasionally, from chance remarks of Mr. Britling's, Mr. Direck +was led to infer that his first impressions as an American visitor +were being related to his host, but as a matter of fact he was +permitted to relate nothing; Mr. Britling did all the talking. He +sat beside his guest and spirted and played ideas and reflections +like a happy fountain in the sunshine.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck sat comfortably, and smoked with quiet appreciation +the one after-lunch cigar he allowed himself. At any rate, if he +himself felt rather word-bound, the fountain was nimble and +entertaining. He listened in a general sort of way to the talk, it +was quite impossible to follow it thoughtfully throughout all its +chinks and turnings, while his eyes wandered about the garden and +went ever and again to the flitting tennis-players beyond the +green. It was all very gay and comfortable and complete; it was +various and delightful without being in the least <i>opulent</i>; +that was one of the little secrets America<a name="Page_32"></a> +had to learn. It didn't look as though it had been made or bought +or cost anything, it looked as though it had happened rather +luckily....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling's talk became like a wide stream flowing through +Mr. Direck's mind, bearing along momentary impressions and +observations, drifting memories of all the crowded English sights +and sounds of the last five days, filmy imaginations about +ancestral names and pretty cousins, scraps of those prepared +conversational openings on Mr. Britling's standing in America, the +explanation about the lecture club, the still incompletely +forgotten purport of the Robinson anecdote....</p> +<p>"Nobody planned the British estate system, nobody planned the +British aristocratic system, nobody planned the confounded +constitution, it came about, it was like layer after layer wrapping +round an agate, but you see it came about so happily in a way, it +so suited the climate and the temperament of our people and our +island, it was on the whole so cosy, that our people settled down +into it, you can't help settling down into it, they had already +settled down by the days of Queen Anne, and Heaven knows if we +shall ever really get away again. We're like that little shell the +<i>Lingula</i>, that is found in the oldest rocks and lives to-day: +it fitted its easy conditions, and it has never modified since. Why +should it? It excretes all its disturbing forces. Our younger sons +go away and found colonial empires. Our surplus cottage children +emigrate to Australia and Canada or migrate into the towns. It +doesn't alter <i>this</i>...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck's eye had come to rest upon the barn, and its +expression changed slowly from lazy appreciation to a brightening +intelligence. Suddenly he resolved to say something. He resolved to +say it so firmly that he determined to say it even if Mr. Britling +went on talking all the time.</p> +<a name="Page_33"></a> +<p>"I suppose, Mr. Britling," he said, "this barn here dates from +the days of Queen Anne."</p> +<p>"The walls of the yard here are probably earlier: probably +monastic. That grey patch in the corner, for example. The barn +itself is Georgian."</p> +<p>"And here it is still. And this farmyard, here it is still."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was for flying off again, but Mr. Direck would not +listen; he held on like a man who keeps his grip on a lasso.</p> +<p>"There's one thing I would like to remark about your barn, Mr. +Britling, and I might, while I am at it, say the same thing about +your farmyard."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was held. "What's that?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Direck, "the point that strikes me most about +all this is that that barn isn't a barn any longer, and that this +farmyard isn't a farmyard. There isn't any wheat or chaff or +anything of that sort in the barn, and there never will be again: +there's just a pianola and a dancing floor, and if a cow came into +this farmyard everybody in the place would be shooing it out again. +They'd regard it as a most unnatural object."</p> +<p>He had a pleasant sense of talking at last. He kept right on. He +was moved to a sweeping generalisation.</p> +<p>"You were so good as to ask me, Mr. Britling, a little while +ago, what my first impression of England was. Well, Mr. Britling, +my first impression of England that seems to me to matter in the +least is this: that it looks and feels more like the traditional +Old England than any one could possibly have believed, and that in +reality it is less like the traditional Old England than any one +would ever possibly have imagined."</p> +<p>He was carried on even further. He made a tremendous literary +epigram. "I thought," he said, "when I looked out of the train this +morning that I had come to the England of Washington Irving. I find +it is not even the England of Mrs. Humphry Ward."</p> +<a name="Page_34"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> +<h2>MR. BRITLING CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITION</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck found little reason to revise his dictum in the +subsequent experiences of the afternoon. Indeed the afternoon and +the next day were steadily consistent in confirming what a very +good dictum it had been. The scenery was the traditional scenery of +England, and all the people seemed quicker, more irresponsible, +more chaotic, than any one could have anticipated, and entirely +inexplicable by any recognised code of English +relationships....</p> +<p>"You think that John Bull is dead and a strange generation is +wearing his clothes," said Mr. Britling. "I think you'll find very +soon it's the old John Bull. Perhaps not Mrs. Humphry Ward's John +Bull, or Mrs. Henry Wood's John Bull but true essentially to +Shakespeare, Fielding, Dickens, Meredith...."</p> +<p>"I suppose," he added, "there are changes. There's a new +generation grown up...."</p> +<p>He looked at his barn and the swimming pool. "It's a good point +of yours about the barn," he said. "What you say reminds me of that +very jolly thing of Kipling's about the old mill-wheel that began +by grinding corn and ended by driving dynamos....</p> +<p>"Only I admit that barn doesn't exactly drive a dynamo....</p> +<p>"To be frank, it's just a pleasure barn....</p> +<p>"The country can afford it...."</p> +<a name="Page_35"></a><br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>He left it at that for the time, but throughout the afternoon +Mr. Direck had the gratification of seeing his thought floating +round and round in the back-waters of Mr. Britling's mental +current. If it didn't itself get into the stream again its +reflection at any rate appeared and reappeared. He was taken about +with great assiduity throughout the afternoon, and he got no more +than occasional glimpses of the rest of the Dower House circle +until six o'clock in the evening.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the fountains of Mr. Britling's active and +encyclopædic mind played steadily.</p> +<p>He was inordinately proud of England, and he abused her +incessantly. He wanted to state England to Mr. Direck as the +amiable summation of a grotesque assembly of faults. That was the +view into which the comforts and prosperities of his middle age had +brought him from a radicalism that had in its earlier stages been +angry and bitter. And for Mr. Britling England was "here." Essex +was the county he knew. He took Mr. Direck out from his walled +garden by a little door into a trim paddock with two white goals. +"We play hockey here on Sundays," he said in a way that gave Mr. +Direck no hint of the practically compulsory participation of every +visitor to Matching's Easy in this violent and dangerous exercise, +and thence they passed by a rich deep lane and into a high road +that ran along the edge of the deer park of Claverings. "We will +call in on Claverings later," said Mr. Britling. "Lady Homartyn has +some people there for the week-end, and you ought to see the sort +of thing it is and the sort of people they are. She wanted us to +lunch there to-morrow, but I didn't accept that because of our +afternoon hockey."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck received this reason uncritically.</p> +<p>The village reminded Mr. Direck of Abbey's pictures. There was +an inn with a sign standing out in the road, a<a name= +"Page_36"></a> painted sign of the Clavering Arms; it had a water +trough (such as Mr. Weller senior ducked the dissenter in) and a +green painted table outside its inviting door. There were also a +general shop and a number of very pleasant cottages, each marked +with the Mainstay crest. All this was grouped about a green with +real geese drilling thereon. Mr. Britling conducted his visitor +(through a lych gate) into the church-yard, and there they found +mossy, tumble-down tombstones, one with a skull and cross-bones +upon it, that went back to the later seventeenth century. In the +aisle of the church were three huge hatchments, and there was a +side chapel devoted to the Mainstay family and the Barons Homartyn, +with a series of monuments that began with painted Tudor effigies +and came down to a vast stained glass window of the vilest +commercial Victorian. There were also mediæval brasses of +parish priests, and a marble crusader and his lady of some +extinguished family which had ruled Matching's Easy before the +Mainstays came. And as the two gentlemen emerged from the church +they ran against the perfect vicar, Mr. Dimple, ample and genial, +with an embracing laugh and an enveloping voice. "Come to see the +old country," he said to Mr. Direck. "So Good of you Americans to +do that! So Good of you...."</p> +<p>There was some amiable sparring between the worthy man and Mr. +Britling about bringing Mr. Direck to church on Sunday morning. +"He's terribly Lax," said Mr. Dimple to Mr. Direck, smiling +radiantly. "Terribly Lax. But then nowadays Everybody <i>is</i> so +Lax. And he's very Good to my Coal Club; I don't know what we +should do without him. So I just admonish him. And if he doesn't go +to church, well, anyhow he doesn't go anywhere else. He may be a +poor churchman, but anyhow he's not a dissenter...."</p> +<p>"In England, you see," Mr. Britling remarked, after they had +parted from the reverend gentleman, "we have<a name="Page_37"></a> +domesticated everything. We have even domesticated God."</p> +<p>For awhile Mr. Britling showed Mr. Direck English lanes, and +then came back along narrow white paths across small fields of +rising wheat, to the village and a little gate that led into the +park.</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Direck, "what you say about domestication does +seem to me to be very true indeed. Why! even those clouds up there +look as though they had a shepherd and were grazing."</p> +<p>"Ready for shearing almost," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Indeed," said Mr. Direck, raising his voice a little, "I've +seen scarcely anything in England that wasn't domesticated, unless +it was some of your back streets in London."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling seemed to reflect for a moment. "They're an +excrescence," he said....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>The park had a trim wildness like nature in an old Italian +picture; dappled fallow deer grouped close at hand and looked at +the two men fearlessly; the path dropped through oak trees and some +stunted bracken to a little loitering stream, that paused ever and +again to play at ponds and waterfalls and bear a fleet of +water-lily leaves; and then their way curved round in an indolent +sweep towards the cedars and shrubberies of the great house. The +house looked low and extensive to an American eye, and its +red-brick chimneys rose like infantry in open order along its +extended line. There was a glimpse of flower-bright garden and +terraces to the right as they came round the corner to the front of +the house through a path cut in the laurel bushes.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had a moment of exposition as they approached the +entrance.</p> +<p>"I expect we shall find Philbert from the Home Office—or +is it the Local Government Board?—and Sir<a name= +"Page_38"></a> Thomas Loot, the Treasury man. There may be some +other people of that sort, the people we call the Governing Class. +Wives also. And I rather fancy the Countess of Frensham is coming, +she's strong on the Irish Question, and Lady Venetia Trumpington, +who they say is a beauty—I've never seen her. It's Lady +Homartyn's way to expect me to come in—not that I'm an +important item at these week-end social feasts—but she likes +to see me on the table—to be nibbled at if any one wants to +do so—like the olives and the salted almonds. And she always +asks me to lunch on Sunday and I always refuse—because of the +hockey. So you see I put in an appearance on the Saturday +afternoon...."</p> +<p>They had reached the big doorway.</p> +<p>It opened into a large cool hall adorned with the heads of +hippopotami and rhinoceroses and a stuffed lion, and furnished +chiefly with a vast table on which hats and sticks and newspapers +were littered. A manservant with a subdued, semi-confidential +manner, conveyed to Mr. Britling that her ladyship was on the +terrace, and took the hats and sticks that were handed to him and +led the way through the house. They emerged upon a broad terrace +looking out under great cedar trees upon flower beds and stone urns +and tennis lawns and yew hedges that dipped to give a view of +distant hills. On the terrace were grouped perhaps a dozen people +for the most part holding teacups, they sat in deck chairs and +folding seats about a little table that bore the tea-things. Lady +Homartyn came forward to welcome the newcomers.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck was introduced as a travelling American gratified to +see a typical English country house, and Lady Homartyn in an +habituated way ran over the points of her Tudor specimen. Mr. +Direck was not accustomed to titled people, and was suddenly in +doubt whether you called a baroness "My Lady" or "Your Ladyship," +so he wisely avoided any form of address until he had a lead from +Mr. Britling. Mr. Britling presently called her "Lady<a name= +"Page_39"></a> Homartyn." She took Mr. Direck and sat him down +beside a lady whose name he didn't catch, but who had had a lot to +do with the British Embassy at Washington, and then she handed Mr. +Britling over to the Rt. Honble. George Philbert, who was anxious +to discuss certain points in the latest book of essays. The +conversation of the lady from Washington was intelligent but not +exacting, and Mr. Direck was able to give a certain amount of +attention to the general effect of the scene.</p> +<p>He was a little disappointed to find that the servants didn't +wear livery. In American magazine pictures and in American +cinematograph films of English stories and in the houses of very +rich Americans living in England, they do so. And the Mansion House +is misleading; he had met a compatriot who had recently dined at +the Mansion House, and who had described "flunkeys" in hair-powder +and cloth of gold—like Thackeray's Jeames Yellowplush. But +here the only servants were two slim, discreet and attentive young +gentlemen in black coats with a gentle piety in their manner +instead of pride. And he was a little disappointed too by a certain +lack of splendour in the company. The ladies affected him as being +ill-dressed; there was none of the hard snap, the "<i>There!</i> +and what do you say to it?" about them of the well-dressed American +woman, and the men too were not so much tailored as unobtrusively +and yet grammatically clothed.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>He was still only in the fragmentary stage of conversation when +everything was thrown into commotion by the important arrival of +Lady Frensham, and there was a general reshuffling of places. Lady +Frensham had arrived from London by automobile; she appeared in +veils and swathings and a tremendous dust cloak, with a sort of +nephew in her train who had driven the car. She was manifestly a +constitutionally triumphant woman. A<a name="Page_40"></a> certain +afternoon lassitude vanished in the swirl of her arrival. Mr. +Philbert removed wrappings and handed them to the manservant.</p> +<p>"I lunched with Sir Edward Carson to-day, my dear," she told +Lady Homartyn, and rolled a belligerent eye at Philbert.</p> +<p>"And is he as obdurate as ever?" asked Sir Thomas.</p> +<p>"Obdurate! It's Redmond who's obdurate," cried Lady Frensham. +"What do you say, Mr. Britling?"</p> +<p>"A plague on both your parties," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"You can't keep out of things like that," said Lady Frensham +with the utmost gusto, "when the country's on the very verge of +civil war.... You people who try to pretend there isn't a grave +crisis when there is one, will be more accountable than any +one—when the civil war does come. It won't spare you. Mark my +words!"</p> +<p>The party became a circle.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck found himself the interested auditor of a real +English country-house week-end political conversation. This at any +rate was like the England of which Mrs. Humphry Ward's novels had +informed him, but yet not exactly like it. Perhaps that was due to +the fact that for the most part these novels dealt with the England +of the 'nineties, and things had lost a little in dignity since +those days. But at any rate here were political figures and titled +people, and they were talking about the "country."...</p> +<p>Was it possible that people of this sort did "run" the country, +after all?... When he had read Mrs. Humphry Ward in America he had +always accepted this theory of the story quite easily, but now that +he saw and heard them—!</p> +<p>But all governments and rulers and ruling classes when you look +at them closely are incredible....</p> +<p>"I don't believe the country is on the verge of civil war," said +Mr. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_41"></a> +<p>"Facts!" cried Lady Frensham, and seemed to wipe away delusions +with a rapid gesture of her hands.</p> +<p>"You're interested in Ireland, Mr. Dirks?" asked Lady +Homartyn.</p> +<p>"We see it first when we come over," said Mr. Direck rather +neatly, and after that he was free to attend to the general +discussion.</p> +<p>Lady Frensham, it was manifest, was one of that energetic body +of aristocratic ladies who were taking up an irreconcilable +attitude against Home Rule "in any shape or form" at that time. +They were rapidly turning British politics into a system of bitter +personal feuds in which all sense of imperial welfare was lost. A +wild ambition to emulate the extremest suffragettes seems to have +seized upon them. They insulted, they denounced, they refused every +invitation lest they should meet that "traitor" the Prime Minister, +they imitated the party hatreds of a fiercer age, and even now the +moderate and politic Philbert found himself treated as an invisible +object. They were supported by the extremer section of the Tory +press, and the most extraordinary writers were set up to froth like +lunatics against the government as "traitors," as men who "insulted +the King"; the <i>Morning Post</i> and the lighter-witted side of +the Unionist press generally poured out a torrent of partisan +nonsense it is now almost incredible to recall. Lady Frensham, +bridling over Lady Homartyn's party, and for a time leaving Mr. +Britling, hurried on to tell of the newest developments of the +great feud. She had a wonderful description of Lady Londonderry +sitting opposite "that old rascal, the Prime Minister," at a +performance of Mozart's <i>Zauberflöte</i>.</p> +<p>"If looks could kill!" cried Lady Frensham with tremendous +gusto.</p> +<p>"Sir Edward is quite firm that Ulster means to fight. They have +machine-guns—ammunition. And I am sure the army is with +us...."</p> +<a name="Page_42"></a> +<p>"Where did they get those machine-guns and ammunition?" asked +Mr. Britling suddenly.</p> +<p>"Ah! that's a secret," cried Lady Frensham.</p> +<p>"Um," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"You see," said Lady Frensham; "it <i>will</i> be civil war! And +yet you writing people who have influence do nothing to prevent +it!"</p> +<p>"What are we to do, Lady Frensham?"</p> +<p>"Tell people how serious it is."</p> +<p>"You mean, tell the Irish Nationalists to lie down and be walked +over. They won't be...."</p> +<p>"We'll see about that," cried Lady Frensham, "we'll see about +that!"</p> +<p>She was a large and dignified person with a kind of figure-head +nobility of carriage, but Mr. Direck was suddenly reminded of a +girl cousin of his who had been expelled from college for some +particularly elaborate and aimless rioting....</p> +<p>"May I say something to you, Lady Frensham," said Mr. Britling, +"that you have just said to me? Do you realise that this Carsonite +campaign is dragging these islands within a measurable distance of +civil war?"</p> +<p>"It's the fault of your Lloyd George and his government. It's +the fault of your Socialists and sentimentalists. You've made the +mischief and you have to deal with it."</p> +<p>"Yes. But do you really figure to yourself what a civil war may +mean for the empire? Surely there are other things in the world +besides this quarrel between the 'loyalists' of Ulster and the +Liberal government; there are other interests in this big empire +than party advantages? Yon think you are going to frighten this +Home Rule government into some ridiculous sort of collapse that +will bring in the Tories at the next election. Well, suppose you +don't manage that. Suppose instead that you really do contrive to +bring about a civil war. Very few people here or in Ireland want +it—I was over there not<a name="Page_43"></a> a month +ago—but when men have loaded guns in their hands they +sometimes go off. And then people see red. Few people realise what +an incurable sore opens when fighting begins. Suppose part of the +army revolts and we get some extraordinary and demoralising +fighting over there. India watches these things. Bengal may imitate +Ireland. At that distance rebellion and treason are rebellion and +treason whether they are coloured orange or green. And then suppose +the Germans see fit to attack us!"</p> +<p>Lady Frensham had a woman's elusiveness. "Your Redmondites would +welcome them with open arms."</p> +<p>"It isn't the Redmondites who invite them now, anyhow," said Mr. +Britling, springing his mine. "The other day one of your +'loyalists,' Andrews, was talking in the <i>Morning Post</i> of +preferring conquest by Germany to Home Rule; Craig has been at the +same game; Major Crawford, the man who ran the German Mausers last +April, boasted that he would transfer his allegiance to the German +Emperor rather than see Redmond in power."</p> +<p>"Rhetoric!" said Lady Frensham. "Rhetoric!"</p> +<p>"But one of your Ulster papers has openly boasted that +arrangements have been made for a 'powerful Continental monarch' to +help an Ulster rebellion."</p> +<p>"Which paper?" snatched Lady Frensham.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling hesitated.</p> +<p>Mr. Philbert supplied the name. "I saw it. It was the <i>Irish +Churchman</i>."</p> +<p>"You two have got your case up very well," said Lady Frensham. +"I didn't know Mr. Britling was a party man."</p> +<p>"The Nationalists have been circulating copies," said Philbert. +"Naturally."</p> +<p>"They make it look worse than mere newspaper talk and speeches," +Mr. Britling pressed. "Carson, it seems, was lunching with the +German Emperor last autumn. A fine fuss you'd make if Redmond did +that. All this gun-running, too, is German gun-running."</p> +<a name="Page_44"></a> +<p>"What does it matter if it is?" said Lady Frensham, allowing a +belligerent eye to rest for the first time on Philbert. "You drove +us to it. One thing we are resolved upon at any cost. Johnny +Redmond may rule England if he likes; he shan't rule +Ireland...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling shrugged his shoulders, and his face betrayed +despair.</p> +<p>"My one consolation," he said, "in this storm is a talk I had +last month with a young Irishwoman in Meath. She was a young person +of twelve, and she took a fancy to me—I think because I went +with her in an alleged dangerous canoe she was forbidden to +navigate alone. All day the eternal Irish Question had banged about +over her observant head. When we were out on the water she suddenly +decided to set me right upon a disregarded essential. 'You +English,' she said, 'are just a bit disposed to take all this +trouble seriously. Don't you fret yourself about it... Half the +time we're just laffing at you. You'd best leave us all +alone....'"</p> +<p>And then he went off at a tangent from his own anecdote.</p> +<p>"But look at this miserable spectacle!" he cried. "Here is a +chance of getting something like a reconciliation of the old feud +of English and Irish, and something like a settlement of these +ancient distresses, and there seems no power, no conscience, no +sanity in any of us, sufficient to save it from this cantankerous +bitterness, this sheer wicked mischief of mutual exasperation.... +Just when Ireland is getting a gleam of prosperity.... A murrain on +both your parties!"</p> +<p>"I see, Mr. Britling, you'd hand us all over to Jim Larkin!"</p> +<p>"I'd hand you all over to Sir Horace Plunkett—"</p> +<p>"That doctrinaire dairyman!" cried Lady Frensham, with an air of +quite conclusive repartee. "You're hopeless, Mr. Britling. You're +hopeless."</p> +<p>And Lady Homartyn, seeing that the phase of mere personal +verdicts drew near, created a diversion by giving<a name= +"Page_45"></a> Lady Frensham a second cup of tea, and fluttering +like a cooling fan about the heated brows of the disputants. She +suggested tennis....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling was still flushed and ruffled as he and his guest +returned towards the Dower House. He criticised England himself +unmercifully, but he hated to think that in any respect she fell +short of perfection; even her defects he liked to imagine were just +a subtler kind of power and wisdom. And Lady Frensham had stuck her +voice and her gestures through all these amiable illusions. He was +like a lover who calls his lady a foolish rogue, and is startled to +find that facts and strangers do literally agree with him.</p> +<p>But it was so difficult to resolve Lady Frensham and the Irish +squabble generally into anything better than idiotic mischief, that +for a time he was unusually silent—wrestling with the +problem, and Mr. Direck got the conversational initiative.</p> +<p>"To an American mind it's a little—startling," said Mr. +Direck, "to hear ladies expressing such vigorous political +opinions."</p> +<p>"I don't mind that," said Mr. Britling. "Women over here go into +politics and into public-houses—I don't see why they +shouldn't. If such things are good enough for men they are good +enough for women; we haven't your sort of chivalry. But it's the +peculiar malignant silliness of this sort of Toryism that's so +discreditable. It's discreditable. There's no good in denying it. +Those people you have heard and seen are a not unfair sample of our +governing class—of a certain section of our governing +class—as it is to-day. Not at all unfair. And you see how +amazingly they haven't got hold of anything. There was a time when +they could be politic.... Hidden away they have politic instincts +even now.... But it makes me sick to think of this Irish business. +Because, you know, it's true—we <i>are</i> drifting towards +civil war there."</p> +<a name="Page_46"></a> +<p>"You are of that opinion?" said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"Well, isn't it so? Here's all this Ulster gun-running—you +heard how she talked of it? Isn't it enough to drive the south into +open revolt?..."</p> +<p>"Is there very much, do you think, in the suggestion that some +of this Ulster trouble is a German intrigue? You and Mr. Philbert +were saying things—"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Mr. Britling shortly.</p> +<p>"I don't know," he repeated. "But it isn't because I don't think +our Unionists and their opponents aren't foolish enough for +anything of the sort. It's only because I don't believe that the +Germans are so stupid as to do such things.... Why should +they?...</p> +<p>"It makes me—expressionless with anger," said Mr. Britling +after a pause, reverting to his main annoyance. "They won't +consider any compromise. It's sheer love of quarrelling.... Those +people there think that nothing can possibly happen. They are like +children in a nursery playing at rebellion. Unscathed and heedless. +Until there is death at their feet they will never realise they are +playing with loaded guns...."</p> +<p>For a time he said no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. +Direck tried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the +Irish Question and the many difficult propositions an American +politician has to face in that respect. And when Mr. Britling took +up the thread of speech again it had little or no relation to Mr. +Direck's observations.</p> +<p>"The psychology of all this recent insubordination and violence +is—curious. Exasperating too.... I don't quite grasp it.... +It's the same thing whether you look at the suffrage business or +the labour people or at this Irish muddle. People may be too safe. +You see we live at the end of a series of secure generations in +which none of the great things of life have changed materially. +We've grown up with no sense of danger—that is to say, with +no sense of responsibility. None of us, none of us—for though +I<a name="Page_47"></a> talk my actions belie me—really +believe that life can change very fundamentally any more forever. +All this",—Mr. Britling waved his arm +comprehensively—"looks as though it was bound to go on +steadily forever. It seems incredible that the system could be +smashed. It seems incredible that anything we can do will ever +smash the system. Lady Homartyn, for example, is incapable of +believing that she won't always be able to have week-end parties at +Claverings, and that the letters and the tea won't come to her +bedside in the morning. Or if her imagination goes to the point of +supposing that some day <i>she</i> won't be there to receive the +tea, it means merely that she supposes somebody else will be. Her +pleasant butler may fear to lose his 'situation,' but nothing on +earth could make him imagine a time when there will not be a +'situation' for him to lose. Old Asquith thinks that we always have +got along, and that we always shall get along by being quietly +artful and saying, 'Wait and see.' And it's just because we are all +convinced that we are so safe against a general breakdown that we +are able to be so recklessly violent in our special cases. Why +shouldn't women have the vote? they argue. What does it matter? And +bang goes a bomb in Westminster Abbey. Why shouldn't Ulster create +an impossible position? And off trots some demented Carsonite to +Germany to play at treason on some half word of the German +Emperor's and buy half a million rifles....</p> +<p>"Exactly like children being very, very naughty....</p> +<p>"And," said Mr. Britling with a gesture to round off his +discourse, "we do go on. We shall go on—until there is a +spark right into the magazine. We have lost any belief we ever had +that fundamental things happen. We are everlasting children in an +everlasting nursery...."</p> +<p>And immediately he broke out again.</p> +<p>"The truth of the matter is that hardly any one has ever yet +mastered the fact that the world is round. The world is +round—like an orange. The thing is told us—like<a name= +"Page_48"></a> any old scandal—at school. For all practical +purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world as flat +as a pancake. Where time never ends and nothing changes. Who really +believes in any world outside the circle of the horizon? Here we +are and visibly nothing is changing. And so we go on +to—nothing will ever change. It just goes on—in space, +in time. If we could realise that round world beyond, then indeed +we should go circumspectly.... If the world were like a whispering +gallery, what whispers might we not hear now—from India, from +Africa, from Germany, warnings from the past, intimations of the +future....</p> +<p>"We shouldn't heed them...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>And indeed at the very moment when Mr. Britling was saying these +words, in Sarajevo in Bosnia, where the hour was somewhat later, +men whispered together, and one held nervously to a black parcel +that had been given him and nodded as they repeated his +instructions, a black parcel with certain unstable chemicals and a +curious arrangement of detonators therein, a black parcel destined +ultimately to shatter nearly every landmark of Mr. Britling's and +Lady Frensham's cosmogony....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>When Mr. Direck and Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House the +guest was handed over to Mrs. Britling and Mr. Britling vanished, +to reappear at supper time, for the Britlings had a supper in the +evening instead of dinner. When Mr. Britling did reappear every +trace of his vexation with the levities of British politics and the +British ruling class had vanished altogether, and he was no longer +thinking of all that might be happening in Germany or India....</p> +<a name="Page_49"></a> +<p>While he was out of the way Mr. Direck extended his acquaintance +with the Britling household. He was taken round the garden and +shown the roses by Mrs. Britling, and beyond the rose garden in a +little arbour they came upon Miss Corner reading a book. She looked +very grave and pretty reading a book. Mr. Direck came to a pause in +front of her, and Mrs. Britling stopped beside him. The young lady +looked up and smiled.</p> +<p>"The last new novel?" asked Mr. Direck pleasantly.</p> +<p>"Campanella's 'City of the Sun.'"</p> +<p>"My word! but isn't that stiff reading?"</p> +<p>"You haven't read it," said Miss Corner.</p> +<p>"It's a dry old book anyhow."</p> +<p>"It's no good pretending you have," she said, and there Mr. +Direck felt the conversation had to end.</p> +<p>"That's a very pleasant young lady to have about," he said to +Mrs. Britling as they went on towards the barn court.</p> +<p>"She's all at loose ends," said Mrs. Britling. "And she reads +like a—Whatever does read? One drinks like a fish. One eats +like a wolf."</p> +<p>They found the German tutor in a little court playing Badminton +with the two younger boys. He was a plump young man with glasses +and compact gestures; the game progressed chiefly by misses and the +score was counted in German. He won thoughtfully and chiefly +through the ardour of the younger brother, whose enthusiastic +returns invariably went out. Instantly the boys attacked Mrs. +Britling with a concerted enthusiasm. "Mummy! Is it to be +dressing-up supper?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling considered, and it was manifest that Mr. Direck +was material to her answer.</p> +<p>"We wrap ourselves up in curtains and bright things instead of +dressing," she explained. "We have a sort of wardrobe of fancy +dresses. Do you mind?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck was delighted.</p> +<p>And this being settled, the two small boys went off with<a name= +"Page_50"></a> their mother upon some special decorative project +they had conceived and Mr. Direck was left for a time to Herr +Heinrich.</p> +<p>Herr Heinrich suggested a stroll in the rose garden, and as Mr. +Direck had not hitherto been shown the rose garden by Herr +Heinrich, he agreed. Sooner or later everybody, it was evident, had +got to show him that rose garden.</p> +<p>"And how do you like living in an English household?" said Mr. +Direck, getting to business at once. "It's interesting to an +American to see this English establishment, and it must be still +more interesting to a German."</p> +<p>"I find it very different from Pomerania," said Herr Heinrich. +"In some respects it is more agreeable, in others less so. It is a +pleasant life but it is not a serious life.</p> +<p>"At any time," continued Herr Heinrich, "some one may say, 'Let +us do this thing,' or 'Let us do that thing,' and then everything +is disarranged.</p> +<p>"People walk into the house without ceremony. There is much +kindness but no politeness. Mr. Britling will go away for three or +four days, and when he returns and I come forward to greet him and +bow, he will walk right past me, or he will say just like this, +'How do, Heinrich?'"</p> +<p>"Are you interested in Mr. Britling's writings?" Mr. Direck +asked.</p> +<p>"There again I am puzzled. His work is known even in Germany. +His articles are reprinted in German and Austrian reviews. You +would expect him to have a certain authority of manner. You would +expect there to be discussion at the table upon questions of +philosophy and aesthetics.... It is not so. When I ask him +questions it is often that they are not seriously answered. +Sometimes it is as if he did not like the questions I askt of him. +Yesterday I askt of him did he agree or did he not agree with Mr. +Bernard Shaw. He just said—I wrote it down in my +memoranda—he said: 'Oh! Mixt Pickles.' What can one +understand of that?—Mixt Pickles!"...</p> +<a name="Page_51"></a> +<p>The young man's sedulous blue eyes looked out of his pink face +through his glasses at Mr. Direck, anxious for any light he could +offer upon the atmospheric vagueness of this England.</p> +<p>He was, he explained, a student of philology preparing for his +doctorate. He had not yet done his year of military service. He was +studying the dialects of East Anglia—</p> +<p>"You go about among the people?" Mr. Direck inquired.</p> +<p>"No, I do not do that. But I ask Mr. Carmine and Mrs. Britling +and the boys many questions. And sometimes I talk to the +gardener."</p> +<p>He explained how he would prepare his thesis and how it would be +accepted, and the nature of his army service and the various stages +by which he would subsequently ascend in the orderly professorial +life to which he was destined. He confessed a certain lack of +interest in philology, but, he said, "it is what I have to do." And +so he was going to do it all his life through. For his own part he +was interested in ideas of universal citizenship, in Esperanto and +Ido and universal languages and such-like attacks upon the barriers +between man and man. But the authorities at home did not favour +cosmopolitan ideas, and so he was relinquishing them. "Here, it is +as if there were no authorities," he said with a touch of envy.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck induced him to expand that idea.</p> +<p>Herr Heinrich made Mr. Britling his instance. If Mr. Britling +were a German he would certainly have some sort of title, a +definite position, responsibility. Here he was not even called Herr +Doktor. He said what he liked. Nobody rewarded him; nobody +reprimanded him. When Herr Heinrich asked him of his position, +whether he was above or below Mr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. Arnold White +or Mr. Garvin or any other publicist, he made jokes. Nobody here +seemed to have a title and nobody seemed to have a definite place. +There was Mr. Lawrence Carmine; he<a name="Page_52"></a> was a +student of Oriental questions; he had to do with some public +institution in London that welcomed Indian students; he was a +Geheimrath—</p> +<p>"Eh?" said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"It is—what do they call it? the Essex County Council." +But nobody took any notice of that. And when Mr. Philbert, who was +a minister in the government, came to lunch he was just like any +one else. It was only after he had gone that Herr Heinrich had +learnt by chance that he was a minister and "Right +Honourable...."</p> +<p>"In Germany everything is definite. Every man knows his place, +has his papers, is instructed what to do...."</p> +<p>"Yet," said Mr. Direck, with his eyes on the glowing roses, the +neat arbour, the long line of the red wall of the vegetable garden +and a distant gleam of cornfield, "it all looks orderly +enough."</p> +<p>"It is as if it had been put in order ages ago," said Herr +Heinrich.</p> +<p>"And was just going on by habit," said Mr. Direck, taking up the +idea.</p> +<p>Their comparisons were interrupted by the appearance of "Teddy," +the secretary, and the Indian young gentleman, damp and genial, as +they explained, "from the boats." It seemed that "down below" +somewhere was a pond with a punt and an island and a toy dinghy. +And while they discussed swimming and boating, Mr. Carmine appeared +from the direction of the park conversing gravely with the elder +son. They had been for a walk and a talk together. There were +proposals for a Badminton foursome. Mr. Direck emerged from the +general interchange with Mr. Lawrence Carmine, and then strolled +through the rose garden to see the sunset from the end. Mr. Direck +took the opportunity to verify his impression that the elder son +was the present Mrs. Britling's stepson, and he also contrived by a +sudden admiration for a distant row of evening primroses to deflect +their path past the<a name="Page_53"></a> arbour in which the +evening light must now be getting a little too soft for Miss +Corner's book.</p> +<p>Miss Corner was drawn into the sunset party. She talked to Mr. +Carmine and displayed, Mr. Direck thought, great originality of +mind. She said "The City of the Sun" was like the cities the boys +sometimes made on the playroom floor. She said it was the dearest +little city, and gave some amusing particulars. She described the +painted walls that made the tour of the Civitas Solis a liberal +education. She asked Mr. Carmine, who was an authority on Oriental +literature, why there were no Indian nor Chinese Utopias.</p> +<p>Now it had never occurred to Mr. Direck to ask why there were no +Indian nor Chinese Utopias, and even Mr. Carmine seemed surprised +to discover this deficiency.</p> +<p>"The primitive patriarchal village <i>is</i> Utopia to India and +China," said Mr. Carmine, when they had a little digested the +inquiry. "Or at any rate it is their social ideal. They want no +Utopias."</p> +<p>"Utopias came with cities," he said, considering the question. +"And the first cities, as distinguished from courts and autocratic +capitals, came with ships. India and China belong to an earlier +age. Ships, trade, disorder, strange relationships, unofficial +literature, criticism—and then this idea of some novel +remaking of society...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>Then Mr. Direck fell into the hands of Hugh, the eldest son, and +anticipating the inevitable, said that he liked to walk in the rose +garden. So they walked in the rose garden.</p> +<p>"Do you read Utopias?" said Mr. Direck, cutting any preface, in +the English manner.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>rather</i>!" said Hugh, and became at once friendly and +confidential.</p> +<p>"We all do," he explained. "In England everybody talks of change +and nothing ever changes."</p> +<a name="Page_54"></a> +<p>"I found Miss Corner reading—what was it? the Sun +People?—some old classical Italian work."</p> +<p>"Campanella," said Hugh, without betraying the slightest +interest in Miss Corner. "Nothing changes in England, because the +people who want to change things change their minds before they +change anything else. I've been in London talking for the last +half-year. Studying art they call it. Before that I was a science +student, and I want to be one again. Don't you think, Sir, there's +something about science—it's steadier than anything else in +the world?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck thought that the moral truths of human nature were +steadier than science, and they had one of those little discussions +of real life that begin about a difference inadequately +apprehended, and do not so much end as are abandoned. Hugh struck +him as being more speculative and detached than any American +college youth of his age that he knew—but that might not be a +national difference but only the Britling strain. He seemed to have +read more and more independently, and to be doing less. And he was +rather more restrained and self-possessed.</p> +<p>Before Mr. Direck could begin a proper inquiry into the young +man's work and outlook, he had got the conversation upon America. +He wanted tremendously to see America. "The dad says in one of his +books that over here we are being and that over there you are +beginning. It must be tremendously stimulating to think that your +country is still being made...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck thought that an interesting point of view. "Unless +something tumbles down here, we never think of altering it," the +young man remarked. "And even then we just shore it up."</p> +<p>His remarks had the effect of floating off from some busy mill +of thought within him. Hitherto Mr. Direck had been inclined to +think this silent observant youth, with his hands in his pockets +and his shoulders a little humped,<a name="Page_55"></a> as +probably shy and adolescently ineffective. But the head was +manifestly quite busy....</p> +<p>"Miss Corner," he began, taking the first thing that came into +his head, and then he remembered that he had already made the +remark he was going to make not five minutes ago.</p> +<p>"What form of art," he asked, "are you contemplating in your +studies at the present time in London?"....</p> +<p>Before this question could be dealt with at all adequately, the +two small boys became active in the garden beating in everybody to +"dress-up" before supper. The secretary, Teddy, came in a fatherly +way to look after Mr. Direck and see to his draperies.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck gave his very best attention to this business of +draping himself, for he had not the slightest intention of +appearing ridiculous in the eyes of Miss Corner. Teddy came with an +armful of stuff that he thought "might do."</p> +<p>"What'll I come as?" asked Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"We don't wear costumes," said Teddy. "We just put on all the +brightest things we fancy. If it's any costume at all, it's +Futurist."</p> +<p>"And surely why shouldn't one?" asked Mr. Direck, greatly struck +by this idea. "Why should we always be tied by the fashions and +periods of the past?"</p> +<p>He rejected a rather Mephistopheles-like costume of crimson and +a scheme for a brigand-like ensemble based upon what was evidently +an old bolero of Mrs. Britling's, and after some reflection he +accepted some black silk tights. His legs were not legs to be +ashamed of. Over this he tried various brilliant wrappings from the +Dower House <i>armoire</i>, and chose at last, after some +hesitation in the direction of a piece of gold and purple brocade, +a big square of green silk curtain stuff adorned with +golden<a name="Page_56"></a> pheasants and other large and +dignified ornaments; this he wore toga fashion over his light +silken under-vest—Teddy had insisted on the abandonment of +his shirt "if you want to dance at all"—and fastened with a +large green glass-jewelled brooch. From this his head and neck +projected, he felt, with a tolerable dignity. Teddy suggested a +fillet of green ribbon, and this Mr. Direck tried, but after +prolonged reflection before the glass rejected. He was still +weighing the effect of this fillet upon the mind of Miss Corner +when Teddy left him to make his own modest preparations. Teddy's +departure gave him a chance for profile studies by means of an +arrangement of the long mirror and the table looking-glass that he +had been too shy to attempt in the presence of the secretary. The +general effect was quite satisfactory.</p> +<p>"Wa-a-a-l," he said with a quaver of laughter, "now who'd have +thought it?" and smiled a consciously American smile at himself +before going down.</p> +<p>The company was assembling in the panelled hall, and made a +brilliant show in the light of the acetylene candles against the +dark background. Mr. Britling in a black velvet cloak and black +silk tights was a deeper shade among the shadows; the high lights +were Miss Corner and her sister, in glittering garments of peacock +green and silver that gave a snake-like quality to their lithe +bodies. They were talking to the German tutor, who had become a +sort of cotton Cossack, a spectacled Cossack in buff and bright +green. Mrs. Britling was dignified and beautiful in a purple +djibbah, and her stepson had become a handsome still figure of +black and crimson. Teddy had contrived something elaborate and +effective in the Egyptian style, with a fish-basket and a cuirass +of that thin matting one finds behind washstands; the small boys +were brigands, with immensely baggy breeches and cummerbunds in +which they had stuck a selection of paper-knives and toy pistols +and similar weapons. Mr. Carmine and his young man had come +provided with real Indian costumes;<a name="Page_57"></a> the +feeling of the company was that Mr. Carmine was a mullah. The +aunt-like lady with the noble nose stood out amidst these levities +in a black silk costume with a gold chain. She refused, it seemed, +to make herself absurd, though she encouraged the others to +extravagance by nods and enigmatical smiles. Nevertheless she had +put pink ribbons in her cap. A family of father, golden-haired +mother, and two young daughters, sympathetically attired, had just +arrived, and were discarding their outer wrappings with the +assistance of host and hostess.</p> +<p>It was all just exactly what Mr. Direck had never expected in +England, and equally unexpected was the supper on a long candle-lit +table without a cloth. No servants were present, but on a sideboard +stood a cold salmon and cold joints and kalter aufschnitt and +kartoffel salat, and a variety of other comestibles, and many +bottles of beer and wine and whisky. One helped oneself and anybody +else one could, and Mr. Direck did his best to be very attentive to +Mrs. Britling and Miss Corner, and was greatly assisted by the +latter.</p> +<p>Everybody seemed unusually gay and bright-eyed. Mr. Direck found +something exhilarating and oddly exciting in all this unusual +bright costume and in this easy mutual service; it made everybody +seem franker and simpler. Even Mr. Britling had revealed a sturdy +handsomeness that had not been apparent to Mr. Direck before, and +young Britling left no doubts now about his good looks. Mr. Direck +forgot his mission and his position, and indeed things generally, +in an irrational satisfaction that his golden pheasants harmonised +with the glitter of the warm and smiling girl beside him. And he +sat down beside her—"You sit anywhere," said Mrs. +Britling—with far less compunction than in his ordinary +costume he would have felt for so direct a confession of +preference. And there was something in her eyes, it was quite +indefinable and yet very satisfying, that told him that now he +escaped from the stern square imperatives of his<a name= +"Page_58"></a> patriotic tailor in New York she had made a +discovery of him.</p> +<p>Everybody chattered gaily, though Mr. Direck would have found it +difficult to recall afterwards what it was they chattered about, +except that somehow he acquired the valuable knowledge that Miss +Corner was called Cecily, and her sister Letty, and then—so +far old Essex custom held—the masculine section was left for +a few minutes for some imaginary drinking, and a lighting of cigars +and cigarettes, after which everybody went through interwoven +moonlight and afterglow to the barn. Mr. Britling sat down to a +pianola in the corner and began the familiar cadences of "Whistling +Rufus."</p> +<p>"You dance?" said Miss Cecily Corner.</p> +<p>"I've never been much of a dancing man," said Mr. Direck. "What +sort of dance is this?"</p> +<p>"Just anything. A two-step."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck hesitated and regretted a well-spent youth, and then +Hugh came prancing forward with outstretched hands and swept her +away.</p> +<p>Just for an instant Mr. Direck felt that this young man was a +trifle superfluous....</p> +<p>But it was very amusing dancing.</p> +<p>It wasn't any sort of taught formal dancing. It was a +spontaneous retort to the leaping American music that Mr. Britling +footed out. You kept time, and for the rest you did as your nature +prompted. If you had a partner you joined hands, you fluttered to +and from one another, you paced down the long floor together, you +involved yourselves in romantic pursuits and repulsions with other +couples. There was no objection to your dancing alone. Teddy, for +example, danced alone in order to develop certain Egyptian gestures +that were germinating in his brain. There was no objection to your +joining hands in a cheerful serpent....</p> +<p>Mr. Direck hung on to Cissie and her partner. They danced very +well together; they seemed to like and<a name="Page_59"></a> +understand each other. It was natural of course for two young +people like that, thrown very much together, to develop an +affection for one another.... Still, she was older by three or four +years.</p> +<p>It seemed unreasonable that the boy anyhow shouldn't be in love +with her....</p> +<p>It seemed unreasonable that any one shouldn't be in love with +her....</p> +<p>Then Mr. Direck remarked that Cissie was watching Teddy's +manoeuvres over her partner's shoulder with real affection and +admiration....</p> +<p>But then most refreshingly she picked up Mr. Direck's gaze and +gave him the slightest of smiles. She hadn't forgotten him.</p> +<p>The music stopped with an effect of shock, and all the bobbing, +whirling figures became walking glories.</p> +<p>"Now that's not difficult, is it?" said Miss Corner, glowing +happily.</p> +<p>"Not when you do it," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"I can't imagine an American not dancing a two-step. You must do +the next with me. Listen! It's 'Away Down Indiana' ... ah! I knew +you could."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck, too, understood now that he could, and they went off +holding hands rather after the fashion of two skaters.</p> +<p>"My word!" said Mr. Direck. "To think I'd be dancing."</p> +<p>But he said no more because he needed his breath.</p> +<p>He liked it, and he had another attempt with one of the visitor +daughters, who danced rather more formally, and then Teddy took the +pianola and Mr. Direck was astonished by the spectacle of an +eminent British thinker in a whirl of black velvet and extremely +active black legs engaged in a kind of Apache dance in pursuit of +the visitor wife. In which Mr. Lawrence Carmine suddenly +mingled.</p> +<p>"In Germany," said Herr Heinrich, "we do not dance<a name= +"Page_60"></a> like this. It could not be considered seemly. But it +is very pleasant."</p> +<p>And then there was a waltz, and Herr Heinrich bowed to and took +the visitor wife round three times, and returned her very +punctually and exactly to the point whence he had taken her, and +the Indian young gentleman (who must not be called "coloured") +waltzed very well with Cecily. Mr. Direck tried to take a tolerant +European view of this brown and white combination. But he secured +her as soon as possible from this Asiatic entanglement, and danced +with her again, and then he danced with her again.</p> +<p>"Come and look at the moonlight," cried Mrs. Britling.</p> +<p>And presently Mr. Direck found himself strolling through the +rose garden with Cecily. She had the sweetest moonlight face, her +white shining robe made her a thing of moonlight altogether. If Mr. +Direck had not been in love with her before he was now altogether +in love. Mamie Nelson, whose freakish unkindness had been rankling +like a poisoned thorn in his heart all the way from Massachusetts, +suddenly became Ancient History.</p> +<p>A tremendous desire for eloquence arose in Mr. Direck's soul, a +desire so tremendous that no conceivable phrase he could imagine +satisfied it. So he remained tongue-tied. And Cecily was +tongue-tied, too. The scent of the roses just tinted the clear +sweetness of the air they breathed.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck's mood was an immense solemnity, like a dark ocean +beneath the vast dome of the sky, and something quivered in every +fibre of his being, like moonlit ripples on the sea. He felt at the +same time a portentous stillness and an immense enterprise....</p> +<p>Then suddenly the pianola, pounding a cake walk, burst out into +ribald invitation....</p> +<p>"Come back to dance!" cried Cecily, like one from whom a spell +has just been broken. And Mr. Direck, snatching at a vanishing +scrap of everything he had not said, remarked, "I shall never +forget this evening."</p> +<p>She did not seem to hear that.</p> +<a name="Page_61"></a> +<p>They danced together again. And then Mr. Direck danced with the +visitor lady, whose name he had never heard. And then he danced +with Mrs. Britling, and then he danced with Letty. And then it +seemed time for him to look for Miss Cecily again.</p> +<p>And so the cheerful evening passed until they were within a +quarter of an hour of Sunday morning. Mrs. Britling went to exert a +restraining influence upon the pianola.</p> +<p>"Oh! one dance more!" cried Cissie Corner.</p> +<p>"Oh! one dance more!" cried Letty.</p> +<p>"One dance more," Mr. Direck supported, and then things really +<i>had</i> to end.</p> +<p>There was a rapid putting out of candles and a stowing away of +things by Teddy and the sons, two chauffeurs appeared from the +region of the kitchen and brought Mr. Lawrence Carmine's car and +the visitor family's car to the front door, and everybody drifted +gaily through the moonlight and the big trees to the front of the +house. And Mr. Direck saw the perambulator waiting—the +mysterious perambulator—a little in the dark beyond the front +door.</p> +<p>The visitor family and Mr. Carmine and his young Indian +departed. "Come to hockey!" shouted Mr. Britling to each departing +car-load, and Mr. Carmine receding answered: "I'll bring +three!"</p> +<p>Then Mr. Direck, in accordance with a habit that had been +growing on him throughout the evening, looked around for Miss +Cissie Corner and failed to find her. And then behold she was +descending the staircase with the mysterious baby in her arms. She +held up a warning finger, and then glanced at her sleeping burthen. +She looked like a silvery Madonna. And Mr. Direck remembered that +he was still in doubt about that baby....</p> +<p>Teddy, who was back in his flannels, seized upon the +perambulator. There was much careful baby stowing on the part of +Cecily; she displayed an infinitely maternal<a name="Page_62"></a> +solicitude. Letty was away changing; she reappeared jauntily taking +leave, disregarding the baby absolutely, and Teddy departed +bigamously, wheeling the perambulator between the two sisters into +the hazes of the moonlight. There was much crying of good nights. +Mr. Direck's curiosities narrowed down to a point of great +intensity....</p> +<p>Of course, Mr. Britling's circle must be a very "Advanced" +circle...</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck found he had taken leave of the rest of the company, +and drifted into a little parlour with Mr. Britling and certain +glasses and siphons and a whisky decanter on a tray....</p> +<p>"It is a very curious thing," said Mr. Direck, "that in England +I find myself more disposed to take stimulants and that I no longer +have the need for iced water that one feels at home. I ascribe it +to a greater humidity in the air. One is less dried and one is less +braced. One is no longer pursued by a thirst, but one needs +something to buck one up a little. Thank you. That is enough."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck took his glass of whisky and soda from Mr. Britling's +hand.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling seated himself in an armchair by the fireplace and +threw one leg carelessly over the arm. In his black velvet cloak +and cap, and his black silk tights, he was very like a minor +character, a court chamberlain for example, in some cloak and +rapier drama. "I find this week-end dancing and kicking about +wonderfully wholesome," he said. "That and our Sunday hockey. One +starts the new week clear and bright about the mind. Friday is +always my worst working day."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck leant against the table, wrapped in his golden +pheasants, and appreciated the point.</p> +<p>"Your young people dance very cheerfully," he said.</p> +<a name="Page_63"></a> +<p>"We all dance very cheerfully," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Then this Miss Corner," said Mr. Direck, "she is the sister, I +presume, is she? of that pleasant young lady who is +married—she is married, isn't she?—to the young man you +call Teddy."</p> +<p>"I should have explained these young people. They're the sort of +young people we are producing over here now in quite enormous +quantity. They are the sort of equivalent of the Russian +Intelligentsia, an irresponsible middle class with ideas. Teddy, +you know, is my secretary. He's the son, I believe, of a Kilburn +solicitor. He was recommended to me by Datcher of <i>The Times</i>. +He came down here and lived in lodgings for a time. Then suddenly +appeared the young lady."</p> +<p>"Miss Corner's sister?"</p> +<p>"Exactly. The village was a little startled. The cottager who +had let the rooms came to me privately. Teddy is rather touchy on +the point of his personal independence, he considers any demand for +explanations as an insult, and probably all he had said to the old +lady was, 'This is Letty—come to share my rooms.' I put the +matter to him very gently. 'Oh, yes,' he said, rather in the manner +of some one who has overlooked a trifle. 'I got married to her in +the Christmas holidays. May I bring her along to see Mrs. +Britling?' We induced him to go into a little cottage I rent. The +wife was the daughter of a Colchester journalist and printer. I +don't know if you talked to her."</p> +<p>"I've talked to the sister rather."</p> +<p>"Well, they're both idea'd. They're highly educated in the sense +that they do really think for themselves. Almost fiercely. So does +Teddy. If he thinks he hasn't thought anything he thinks for +himself, he goes off and thinks it different. The sister is a +teacher who wants to take the B.A. degree in London University. +Meanwhile she pays the penalty of her sex."</p> +<p>"Meaning—?" asked Mr. Direck, startled.</p> +<a name="Page_64"></a> +<p>"Oh! that she puts in a great deal too much of her time upon +housework and minding her sister's baby."</p> +<p>"She's a very interesting and charming young lady indeed," said +Mr. Direck. "With a sort of Western college freedom of +mind—and something about her that isn't American at all."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was following the train of his own thoughts.</p> +<p>"My household has some amusing contrasts," he said. "I don't +know if you have talked to that German.</p> +<p>"He's always asking questions. And you tell him any old thing +and he goes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards +asks you another like it in order to perplex himself by the variety +of your answers. He regards the whole world with a methodical +distrust. He wants to document it and pin it down. He suspects it +only too justly of disorderly impulses, and a capacity for +self-contradiction. He is the most extraordinary contrast to Teddy, +whose confidence in the universe amounts almost to effrontery. +Teddy carries our national laxness to a foolhardy extent. He is +capable of leaving his watch in the middle of Claverings Park and +expecting to find it a month later—being carefully taken care +of by a squirrel, I suppose—when he happens to want it. He's +rather like a squirrel himself—without the habit of hoarding. +He is incapable of asking a question about anything; he would be +quite sure it was all right anyhow. He would feel that asking +questions betrayed a want of confidence—was a sort of +incivility. But my German, if you notice,—his normal +expression is one of grave solicitude. He is like a conscientious +ticket-collector among his impressions. And did you notice how +beautifully my pianola rolls are all numbered and catalogued? He +did that. He set to work and did it as soon as he got here, just as +a good cat when you bring it into the house sets to work and +catches mice. Previously the pianola music was chaos. You took what +God sent you.</p> +<p>"And he <i>looks</i> like a German," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_65"></a> +<p>"He certainly does that," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"He has the fair type of complexion, the rather full habit of +body, the temperamental disposition, but in addition that +close-cropped head, it is almost as if it were shaved, the +plumpness, the glasses—those are things that are made. And +the way he carries himself. And the way he thinks. His +meticulousness. When he arrived he was delightful, he was wearing a +student's corps cap and a rucksack, he carried a violin; he seemed +to have come out of a book. No one would ever dare to invent so +German a German for a book. Now, a young Frenchman or a young +Italian or a young Russian coming here might look like a foreigner, +but he wouldn't have the distinctive national stamp a German has. +He wouldn't be plainly French or Italian or Russian. Other peoples +are not made; they are neither made nor created but +proceeding—out of a thousand indefinable causes. The Germans +are a triumph of directive will. I had to remark the other day that +when my boys talked German they shouted. 'But when one talks German +one <i>must</i> shout,' said Herr Heinrich. 'It is taught so in the +schools.' And it is. They teach them to shout and to throw out +their chests. Just as they teach them to read notice-boards and not +think about politics. Their very ribs are not their own. My Herr +Heinrich is comparatively a liberal thinker. He asked me the other +day, 'But why should I give myself up to philology? But then,' he +reflected, 'it is what I have to do.'"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling seemed to have finished, and then just as Mr. +Direck was planning a way of getting the talk back by way of Teddy +to Miss Corner, he snuggled more deeply into his chair, reflected +and broke out again.</p> +<p>"This contrast between Heinrich's carefulness and Teddy's +easy-goingness, come to look at it, is I suppose one of the most +fundamental in the world. It reaches to everything. It mixes up +with education, statecraft, morals. Will you make or will you take? +Those are the two<a name="Page_66"></a> extreme courses in all such +things. I suppose the answer of wisdom to that is, like all wise +answers, a compromise. I suppose one must accept and then make all +one can of it.... Have you talked at all to my eldest son?"</p> +<p>"He's a very interesting young man indeed," said Mr. Direck. "I +should venture to say there's a very great deal in him. I was most +impressed by the few words I had with him."</p> +<p>"There, for example, is one of my perplexities," said Mr. +Britling.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck waited for some further light on this sudden +transition.</p> +<p>"Ah! your troubles in life haven't begun yet. Wait till you're a +father. That cuts to the bone. You have the most delicate thing in +the world in hand, a young kindred mind. You feel responsible for +it, you know you are responsible for it; and you lose touch with +it. You can't get at it. Nowadays we've lost the old tradition of +fatherhood by divine right—and we haven't got a new one. I've +tried not to be a cramping ruler, a director, a domestic tyrant to +that lad—and in effect it's meant his going his own way.... I +don't dominate. I hoped to advise. But you see he loves my respect +and good opinion. Too much. When things go well I know of them. +When the world goes dark for him, then he keeps his trouble from +me. Just when I would so eagerly go into it with him.... There's +something the matter now, something—it may be grave. I feel +he wants to tell me. And there it is!—it seems I am the last +person to whom he can humiliate himself by a confession of +blundering, or weakness.... Something I should just laugh at and +say, 'That's in the blood of all of us, dear Spit of myself. Let's +see what's to be done.'..."</p> +<p>He paused and then went on, finding in the unfamiliarity and +transitoriness of his visitor a freedom he might have failed to +find in a close friend.</p> +<p>"I am frightened at times at all I don't know about in<a name= +"Page_67"></a> that boy's mind. I know nothing of his +religiosities. He's my son and he must have religiosities. I know +nothing of his ideas or of his knowledge about sex and all that +side of life. I do not know of the things he finds beautiful. I can +guess at times; that's all; when he betrays himself.... You see, +you don't know really what love is until you have children. One +doesn't love women. Indeed you don't! One gives and gets; it's a +trade. One may have tremendous excitements and expectations and +overwhelming desires. That's all very well in its way. But the love +of children is an exquisite tenderness: it rends the heart. It's a +thing of God. And I lie awake at nights and stretch out my hands in +the darkness to this lad—who will never know—until his +sons come in their time...."</p> +<p>He made one of his quick turns again.</p> +<p>"And that's where our English way makes for distresses. Mr. +Prussian respects and fears his father; respects authorities, +attends, obeys and—<i>his father has a hold upon him</i>. But +I said to myself at the outset, 'No, whatever happens, I will not +usurp the place of God. I will not be the Priest-Patriarch of my +children. They shall grow and I will grow beside them, helping but +not cramping or overshadowing.' They grow more. But they blunder +more. Life ceases to be a discipline and becomes an +experiment...."</p> +<p>"That's very true," said Mr. Direck, to whom it seemed the time +was ripe to say something. "This is the problem of America perhaps +even more than of England. Though I have not had the parental +experience you have undergone.... I can see very clearly that a son +is a very serious proposition."</p> +<p>"The old system of life was organisation. That is where Germany +is still the most ancient of European states. It's a reversion to a +tribal cult. It's atavistic.... To organise or discipline, or mould +characters or press authority, is to assume that you have reached +finality in<a name="Page_68"></a> your general philosophy. It +implies an assured end. Heinrich has his assured end, his +philological professorship or thereabouts as a part of the Germanic +machine. And that too has its assured end in German national +assertion. Here, we have none of those convictions. We know we +haven't finality, and so we are open and apologetic and receptive, +rather than wilful.... You see all organisation, with its +implication of finality, is death. We feel that. The Germans don't. +What you organise you kill. Organised morals or organised religion +or organised thought are dead morals and dead religion and dead +thought. Yet some organisation you must have. Organisation is like +killing cattle. If you do not kill some the herd is just waste. But +you musn't kill all or you kill the herd. The unkilled cattle are +the herd, the continuation; the unorganised side of life is the +real life. The reality of life is adventure, not performance. What +isn't adventure isn't life. What can be ruled about can be +machined. But priests and schoolmasters and bureaucrats get hold of +life and try to make it <i>all</i> rules, <i>all</i> etiquette and +regulation and correctitude.... And parents and the love of parents +make for the same thing. It is all very well to experiment for +oneself, but when one sees these dear things of one's own, so young +and inexperienced and so capable of every sort of gallant +foolishness, walking along the narrow plank, going down into dark +jungles, ah! then it makes one want to wrap them in laws and +foresight and fence them about with 'Verboten' boards in all the +conceivable aspects...."</p> +<p>"In America of course we do set a certain store upon youthful +self-reliance," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"As we do here. It's in your blood and our blood. It's the +instinct of the English and the Irish anyhow to suspect government +and take the risks of the chancy way.... And manifestly the +Russians, if you read their novelists, have the same twist in +them.... When we get this young Prussian here, he's a marvel to us. +He really<a name="Page_69"></a> believes in Law. He <i>likes</i> to +obey. That seems a sort of joke to us. It's curious how foreign +these Germans are—to all the rest of the world. Because of +their docility. Scratch the Russian and you get the Tartar. Educate +the Russian or the American or the Englishman or the Irishman or +Frenchman or any real northern European except the German, and you +get the Anarchist, that is to say the man who dreams of order +without organisation—of something beyond organisation....</p> +<p>"It's one o'clock," said Mr. Britling abruptly, perceiving a +shade of fatigue upon the face of his hearer and realising that his +thoughts had taken him too far, "and Sunday. Let's go to bed."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>For a time Mr. Direck could not sleep. His mind had been too +excited by this incessant day with all its novelties and all its +provocations to comparison. The whole complicated spectacle grouped +itself, with a naturalness and a complete want of logic that all +who have been young will understand, about Cecily Corner.</p> +<p>She had to be in the picture, and so she came in as though she +were the central figure, as though she were the quintessential +England. There she was, the type, the blood, the likeness, of no +end of Massachusetts families, the very same stuff indeed, and yet +she was different....</p> +<p>For a time his thoughts hovered ineffectively about certain +details of her ear and cheek, and one may doubt if his interest in +these things was entirely international....</p> +<p>Then he found himself under way with an exposition of certain +points to Mr. Britling. In the security of his bed he could imagine +that he was talking very slowly and carefully while Mr. Britling +listened; already he was more than half way to dreamland or he +could not have supposed anything so incredible.</p> +<p>"There's a curious sort of difference," he was saying.<a name= +"Page_70"></a> "It is difficult to define, but on the whole I might +express it by saying that such a gathering as this if it was in +America would be drawn with harder lines, would show its bones more +and have everything more emphatic. And just to take one +illustrative point: in America in such a gathering as this there +would be bound to be several jokes going on as it were, running +jokes and running criticisms, from day to day and from week to +week.... There would be jokes about your writing and your influence +and jokes about Miss Corner's advanced reading.... You see, in +America we pay much more attention to personal character. Here +people, I notice, are not talked to about their personal characters +at all, and many of them do not seem to be aware and do not seem to +mind what personal characters they have....</p> +<p>"And another thing I find noteworthy is the way in which what I +might call mature people seem to go on having a good time instead +of standing by and applauding the young people having a good +time.... And the young people do not seem to have set out to have a +good time at all.... Now in America, a charming girl like Miss +Corner would be distinctly more aware of herself and her vitality +than she is here, distinctly more. Her peculiarly charming sidelong +look, if I might make so free with her—would have been called +attention to. It's a perfectly beautiful look, the sort of look +some great artist would have loved to make immortal. It's a look I +shall find it hard to forget.... But she doesn't seem to be aware +in the least of it. In America she would be aware of it. She would +be distinctly aware of it. She would have been <i>made</i> aware of +it. She would have been advised of it. It would be looked for and +she would know it was looked for. She would <i>give</i> it as a +singer gives her most popular song. Mamie Nelson, for example, used +to give a peculiar little throw back of the chin and a laugh.... It +was talked about. People came to see it....</p> +<a name="Page_71"></a> +<p>"Of course Mamie Nelson was a very brilliant girl indeed. I +suppose in England you would say we spoilt her. I suppose we did +spoil her...."</p> +<p>It came into Mr. Direck's head that for a whole day he had +scarcely given a thought to Mamie Nelson. And now he was thinking +of her—calmly. Why shouldn't one think of Mamie Nelson +calmly?</p> +<p>She was a proud imperious thing. There was something Southern in +her. Very dark blue eyes she had, much darker than Miss +Corner's....</p> +<p>But how tortuous she had been behind that outward pride of hers! +For four years she had let him think he was the only man who really +mattered in the world, and all the time quite clearly and +definitely she had deceived him. She had made a fool of him and she +had made a fool of the others perhaps—just to have her +retinue and play the queen in her world. And at last humiliation, +bitter humiliation, and Mamie with her chin in the air and her +bright triumphant smile looking down on him.</p> +<p>Hadn't he, she asked, had the privilege of loving her?</p> +<p>She took herself at the value they had set upon her.</p> +<p>Well—somehow—that wasn't right....</p> +<p>All the way across the Atlantic Mr. Direck had been trying to +forget her downward glance with the chin up, during that last +encounter—and other aspects of the same humiliation. The +years he had spent upon her! The time! Always relying upon her +assurance of a special preference for him. He tried to think he was +suffering from the pangs of unrequited love, and to conceal from +himself just how bitterly his pride and vanity had been rent by her +ultimate rejection. There had been a time when she had given him +reason to laugh in his sleeve at Booth Wilmington.</p> +<p>Perhaps Booth Wilmington had also had reason for laughing in his +sleeve....</p> +<a name="Page_72"></a> +<p>Had she even loved Booth Wilmington? Or had she just snatched at +him?...</p> +<p>Wasn't he, Direck, as good a man as Booth Wilmington +anyhow?...</p> +<p>For some moments the old sting of jealousy rankled again. He +recalled the flaring rivalry that had ended in his defeat, the +competition of gifts and treats.... A thing so open that all +Carrierville knew of it, discussed it, took sides.... And over it +all Mamie with her flashing smile had sailed like a processional +goddess....</p> +<p>Why, they had made jokes about him in the newspapers!</p> +<p>One couldn't imagine such a contest in Matching's Easy. Yet +surely even in Matching's Easy there are lovers.</p> +<p>Is it something in the air, something in the climate that makes +things harder and clearer in America?...</p> +<p>Cissie—why shouldn't one call her Cissie in one's private +thoughts anyhow?—would never be as hard and clear as Mamie. +She had English eyes—merciful eyes....</p> +<p>That was the word—<i>merciful</i>!</p> +<p>The English light, the English air, are merciful....</p> +<p>Merciful....</p> +<p>They tolerate old things and slow things and imperfect +apprehensions. They aren't always getting at you....</p> +<p>They don't laugh at you.... At least—they laugh +differently....</p> +<p>Was England the tolerant country? With its kind eyes and its +wary sidelong look. Toleration. In which everything mellowed and +nothing was destroyed. A soft country. A country with a passion for +imperfection. A padded country....</p> +<p>England—all stuffed with soft feathers ... under one's +ear. A pillow—with soft, kind Corners ... Beautiful rounded +Corners.... Dear, dear Corners. Cissie Corners. Corners. Could +there be a better family?</p> +<p>Massachusetts—but in heaven....</p> +<a name="Page_73"></a> +<p>Harps playing two-steps, and kind angels wrapped in +moonlight.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Very softly I and you,</p> +<p>One turn, two turn, three turn, too.</p> +<p>Off we go!....</p> +</div> +</div> +<a name="Page_74"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_THIRD"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD</h2> +<h2>THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>Breakfast was in the open air, and a sunny, easy-going feast. +Then the small boys laid hands on Mr. Direck and showed him the +pond and the boats, while Mr. Britling strolled about the lawn with +Hugh, talking rather intently. And when Mr. Direck returned from +the boats in a state of greatly enhanced popularity he found Mr. +Britling conversing over his garden railings to what was altogether +a new type of Britisher in Mr. Direck's experience. It was a tall, +lean, sun-bitten youngish man of forty perhaps, in brown tweeds, +looking more like the Englishman of the American illustrations than +anything Mr. Direck had met hitherto. Indeed he came very near to a +complete realisation of that ideal except that there was a sort of +intensity about him, and that his clipped moustache had the +restrained stiffness of a wiry-haired terrier. This gentleman Mr. +Direck learnt was Colonel Rendezvous. He spoke in clear short +sentences, they had an effect of being punched out, and he was +refusing to come into the garden and talk.</p> +<p>"Have to do my fourteen miles before lunch," he said. "You +haven't seen Manning about, have you?"</p> +<p>"He isn't here," said Mr. Britling, and it seemed to Mr. Direck +that there was the faintest ambiguity in this reply.</p> +<p>"Have to go alone, then," said Colonel Rendezvous. "They told me +that he had started to come here."</p> +<p>"I shall motor over to Bramley High Oak for your Boy Scout +festival," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_75"></a> +<p>"Going to have three thousand of 'em," said the Colonel. "Good +show."</p> +<p>His steely eyes seemed to search the cover of Mr. Britling's +garden for the missing Manning, and then he decided to give him up. +"I must be going," he said. "So long. Come up!"</p> +<p>A well-disciplined dog came to heel, and the lean figure had +given Mr. Direck a semi-military salutation and gone upon its way. +It marched with a long elastic stride; it never looked back.</p> +<p>"Manning," said Mr. Britling, "is probably hiding up in my rose +garden."</p> +<p>"Curiously enough, I guessed from your manner that that might be +the case," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"Yes. Manning is a London journalist. He has a little cottage +about a mile over there"—Mr. Britling pointed +vaguely—"and he comes down for the week-ends. And Rendezvous +has found out he isn't fit. And everybody ought to be fit. That is +the beginning and end of life for Rendezvous. Fitness. An almost +mineral quality, an insatiable activity of body, great mental +simplicity. So he takes possession of poor old Manning and trots +him for that fourteen miles—at four miles an hour. Manning +goes through all the agonies of death and damnation, he half +dissolves, he pants and drags for the first eight or ten miles, and +then I must admit he rather justifies Rendezvous' theory. He is to +be found in the afternoon in a hammock suffering from blistered +feet, but otherwise unusually well. But if he can escape it, he +does. He hides."</p> +<p>"But if he doesn't want to go with Rendezvous, why does he?" +said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"Well, Rendezvous is accustomed to the command of men. And +Manning's only way of refusing things is on printed forms. Which he +doesn't bring down to Matching's Easy. Ah! behold!"</p> +<p>Far away across the lawn between two blue cedars there<a name= +"Page_76"></a> appeared a leisurely form in grey flannels and a +loose tie, advancing with manifest circumspection.</p> +<p>"He's gone," cried Britling.</p> +<p>The leisurely form, obviously amiable, obviously a little out of +condition, became more confident, drew nearer.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry to have missed him," he said cheerfully. "I thought +he might come this way. It's going to be a very warm day indeed. +Let us sit about somewhere and talk.</p> +<p>"Of course," he said, turning to Direck, "Rendezvous is the life +and soul of the country."</p> +<p>They strolled towards a place of seats and hammocks between the +big trees and the rose garden, and the talk turned for a time upon +Rendezvous. "They have the tidiest garden in Essex," said Manning. +"It's not Mrs. Rendezvous' fault that it is so. Mrs. Rendezvous, as +a matter of fact, has a taste for the picturesque. She just puts +the things about in groups in the beds. She wants them, she says, +to grow anyhow. She desires a romantic disorder. But she never gets +it. When he walks down the path all the plants dress +instinctively.... And there's a tree near their gate; it used to be +a willow. You can ask any old man in the village. But ever since +Rendezvous took the place it's been trying to present arms. With +the most extraordinary results. I was passing the other day with +old Windershin. 'You see that there old poplar,' he said. 'It's a +willow,' said I. 'No,' he said, 'it did used to be a willow before +Colonel Rendezvous he came. But now it's a poplar.'... And, by +Jove, it is a poplar!"...</p> +<p>The conversation thus opened by Manning centred for a time upon +Colonel Rendezvous. He was presented as a monster of energy and +self-discipline; as the determined foe of every form of looseness, +slackness, and easy-goingness.</p> +<p>"He's done wonderful work for the local Boy Scout movement," +said Manning.</p> +<p>"It's Kitchenerism," said Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_77"></a> +<p>"It's the army side of the efficiency stunt," said Manning.</p> +<p>There followed a digression upon the Boy Scout movement, and Mr. +Direck made comparisons with the propaganda of Seton Thompson in +America. "Colonel Teddyism," said Manning. "It's a sort of reaction +against everything being too easy and too safe."</p> +<p>"It's got its anti-decadent side," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"If there is such a thing as decadence," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"If there wasn't such a thing as decadence," said Manning, "we +journalists would have had to invent it."...</p> +<p>"There is something tragical in all this—what shall I call +it?—Kitchenerism," Mr. Britling reflected "Here you have it +rushing about and keeping itself—screwed up, and trying +desperately to keep the country screwed up. And all because there +may be a war some day somehow with Germany. Provided Germany +<i>is</i> insane. It's that war, like some sort of bee in +Rendezvous' brains, that is driving him along the road now to +Market Saffron—he always keeps to the roads because they are +severer—through all the dust and sunshine. When he might be +here gossiping....</p> +<p>"And you know, I don't see that war coming," said Mr. Britling. +"I believe Rendezvous sweats in vain. I can't believe in that war. +It has held off for forty years. It may hold off forever."</p> +<p>He nodded his head towards the German tutor, who had come into +view across the lawn, talking profoundly with Mr. Britling's eldest +son.</p> +<p>"Look at that pleasant person. There he is—<i>Echt +Deutsch</i>—if anything ever was. Look at my son there! Do +you see the two of them engaged in mortal combat? The thing's too +ridiculous. The world grows sane. They may fight in the Balkans +still; in many ways the Balkan States are in the very rear of +civilisation; but to imagine decent countries like this or Germany +going back to bloodshed!<a name="Page_78"></a> No.... When I see +Rendezvous keeping it up and keeping it up, I begin to see just how +poor Germany must be keeping it up. I begin to realise how sick +Germany must be getting of the high road and the dust and heat and +the everlasting drill and restraint.... My heart goes out to the +South Germans. Old Manning here always reminds me of Austria. Think +of Germany coming like Rendezvous on a Sunday morning, and looking +stiffly over Austria's fence. 'Come for a good hard walk, man. Keep +Fit....'"</p> +<p>"But suppose this Balkan trouble becomes acute," said +Manning.</p> +<p>"It hasn't; it won't. Even if it did we should keep out of +it."</p> +<p>"But suppose Russia grappled Austria and Germany flung herself +suddenly upon France—perhaps taking Belgium on the way."</p> +<p>"Oh!—we should fight. Of course we should fight. Could any +one but a congenital idiot suppose we shouldn't fight? They know we +should fight. They aren't altogether idiots in Germany. But the +thing's absurd. Why <i>should</i> Germany attack France? It's as if +Manning here took a hatchet suddenly and assailed Edith.... It's +just the dream of their military journalists. It's such schoolboy +nonsense. Isn't that a beautiful pillar rose? Edith only put it in +last year.... I hate all this talk of wars and rumours of wars.... +It's worried all my life. And it gets worse and it gets emptier +every year...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>Now just at that moment there was a loud report....</p> +<p>But neither Mr. Britling nor Mr. Manning nor Mr. Direck was +interrupted or incommoded in the slightest degree by that report. +Because it was too far off over the curve of this round world to be +either heard or seen at Matching's Easy. Nevertheless it was a very +loud report.<a name="Page_79"></a> It occurred at an open space by +a river that ran through a cramped Oriental city, a city spiked +with white minarets and girt about by bare hills under a blazing +afternoon sky. It came from a black parcel that the Archduke +Francis Ferdinand of Austria, with great presence of mind, had just +flung out from the open hood of his automobile, where, tossed from +the side of the quay, it had descended a few seconds before. It +exploded as it touched the cobbled road just under the front of the +second vehicle in the procession, and it blew to pieces the front +of the automobile and injured the aide-de-camp who was in it and +several of the spectators. Its thrower was immediately gripped by +the bystanders. The procession stopped. There was a tremendous +commotion amongst that brightly-costumed crowd, a hot excitement in +vivid contrast to the Sabbath calm of Matching's Easy....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling, to whom the explosion was altogether inaudible, +continued his dissertation upon the common-sense of the world and +the practical security of our Western peace.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>Lunch was an open-air feast again. Three visitors had dropped +in; they had motored down from London piled up on a motor-cycle and +a side-car; a brother and two sisters they seemed to be, and they +had apparently reduced hilariousness to a principle. The rumours of +coming hockey that had been floating on the outskirts of Mr. +Direck's consciousness ever since his arrival, thickened and +multiplied.... It crept into his mind that he was expected to +play....</p> +<p>He decided he would not play. He took various people into his +confidence. He told Mr. Britling, and Mr. Britling said, "We'll +make you full back, where you'll get a hit now and then and not +have very much to do. All you have to remember is to hit with the +flat side of your stick and not raise it above your shoulders." He +told<a name="Page_80"></a> Teddy, and Teddy said, "I strongly +advise you to dress as thinly as you can consistently with decency, +and put your collar and tie in your pocket before the game begins. +Hockey is properly a winter game." He told the maiden aunt-like +lady with the prominent nose, and she said almost enviously, "Every +one here is asked to play except me. I assuage the perambulator. I +suppose one mustn't be envious. I don't see why I shouldn't play. +I'm not so old as all that." He told Hugh, and Hugh warned him to +be careful not to get hold of one of the sprung sticks. He +considered whether it wouldn't be wiser to go to his own room and +lock himself in, or stroll off for a walk through Claverings Park. +But then he would miss Miss Corner, who was certain, it seemed, to +come up for hockey. On the other hand, if he did not miss her he +might make himself ridiculous in her eyes, and efface the effect of +the green silk stuff with the golden pheasants.</p> +<p>He determined to stay behind until she arrived, and explain to +her that he was not going to play. He didn't somehow want her to +think he wasn't perfectly fit to play.</p> +<p>Mr. Carmine arrived in an automobile with two Indians and a +gentleman who had been a prospector in Alaska, the family who had +danced overnight at the Dower House reappeared, and then Mrs. +Teddy, very detached with a special hockey stick, and Miss Corner +wheeling the perambulator. Then came further arrivals. At the +earliest opportunity Mr. Direck secured the attention of Miss +Corner, and lost his interest in any one else.</p> +<p>"I can't play this hockey," said Mr. Direck. "I feel strange +about it. It isn't an American game. Now if it were +baseball—!"</p> +<p>He left her to suppose him uncommonly hot stuff at baseball.</p> +<p>"If you're on my side," said Cecily, "mind you pass to me."</p> +<p>It became evident to Mr. Direck that he was going to play this +hockey after all.</p> +<a name="Page_81"></a> +<p>"Well," he said, "if I've got to play hockey, I guess I've got +to play hockey. But can't I just get a bit of practice somewhere +before the game begins?"</p> +<p>So Miss Corner went off to get two sticks and a ball and came +back to instruct Mr. Direck. She said he had a good eye. The two +small boys scenting play in the air got sticks and joined them. The +overnight visitor's wife appeared from the house in abbreviated +skirts, and wearing formidable shin-guards. With her abundant fair +hair, which was already breaking loose, so to speak, to join the +fray, she looked like a short stout dismounted Valkyr. Her gaze was +clear and firm.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>Hockey as it was played at the Dower House at Matching's Easy +before the war, was a game combining danger, physical exercise and +kindliness in a very high degree. Except for the infant in the +perambulator and the outwardly calm but inwardly resentful aunt, +who wheeled the child up and down in a position of maximum danger +just behind the unnetted goal, every one was involved. Quite +able-bodied people acquainted with the game played forward, the +less well-informed played a defensive game behind the forward line, +elderly, infirm, and bulky persons were used chiefly as obstacles +in goal. Several players wore padded leg-guards, and all players +were assumed to have them and expected to behave accordingly.</p> +<p>Proceedings began with an invidious ceremony called picking up. +This was heralded by Mr. Britling, clad in the diaphanous flannels +and bearing a hockey stick, advancing with loud shouts to the +centre of the hockey field. "Pick up! Pick up!" echoed the young +Britlings.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck became aware of a tall, drooping man with long hair +and long digressive legs in still longer white flannel trousers, +and a face that was somehow familiar. He was talking with +affectionate intimacy to Manning, and suddenly Mr. Direck +remembered that it was in<a name="Page_82"></a> Manning's weekly +paper, <i>The Sectarian</i>, in which a bitter caricaturist +enlivened a biting text, that he had become familiar with the +features of Manning's companion. It was Raeburn, Raeburn the +insidious, Raeburn the completest product of the party system.... +Well, that was the English way. "Come for the pick up!" cried the +youngest Britling, seizing upon Mr. Direck's elbow. It appeared +that Mr. Britling and the overnight dinner guest—Mr. Direck +never learnt his name—were picking up.</p> +<p>Names were shouted. "I'll take Cecily!" Mr. Direck heard Mr. +Britling say quite early. The opposing sides as they were picked +fell into two groups. There seemed to be difficulties about some of +the names. Mr. Britling, pointing to the more powerful looking of +the Indian gentlemen, said, "<i>You</i>, Sir."</p> +<p>"I'm going to speculate on Mr. Dinks," said Mr. Britling's +opponent.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck gathered that Mr. Dinks was to be his hockey +name.</p> +<p>"You're on <i>our</i> side," said Mrs. Teddy. "I think you'll +have to play forward, outer right, and keep a sharp eye on +Cissie."</p> +<p>"I'll do what I can," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>His captain presently confirmed this appointment.</p> +<p>His stick was really a sort of club and the ball was a firm hard +cricket ball.... He resolved to be very gentle with Cecily, and see +that she didn't get hurt.</p> +<p>The sides took their places for the game, and a kind of order +became apparent to Mr. Direck. In the centre stood Mr. Britling and +the opposing captain, and the ball lay between them. They were +preparing to "bully off" and start the game. In a line with each of +them were four other forwards. They all looked spirited and intent +young people, and Mr. Direck wished he had had more exercise to +justify his own alert appearance. Behind each centre forward +hovered one of the Britling boys. Then on each side came a vaguer +row of three backs, persons of gentler<a name="Page_83"></a> +disposition or maturer years. They included Mr. Raeburn, who was +considered to have great natural abilities for hockey but little +experience. Mr. Raeburn was behind Mr. Direck. Mrs. Britling was +the centre back. Then in a corner of Mr. Direck's side was a small +girl of six or seven, and in the half-circle about the goal a lady +in a motoring dust coat and a very short little man whom Mr. Direck +had not previously remarked. Mr. Lawrence Carmine, stripped to the +braces, which were richly ornamented with Oriental embroidery, kept +goal for our team.</p> +<p>The centre forwards went through a rapid little ceremony. They +smote their sticks on the ground, and then hit the sticks together. +"One," said Mr. Britling. The operation was repeated. "Two," ... +"Three."</p> +<p>Smack, Mr. Britling had got it and the ball had gone to the +shorter and sturdier of the younger Britlings, who had been +standing behind Mr. Direck's captain. Crack, and it was away to +Teddy; smack, and it was coming right at Direck.</p> +<p>"Lordy!" he said, and prepared to smite it.</p> +<p>Then something swift and blue had flashed before him, +intercepted the ball and shot it past him. This was Cecily Corner, +and she and Teddy were running abreast like the wind towards Mr. +Raeburn.</p> +<p>"Hey!" cried Mr. Raeburn, "stop!" and advanced, as it seemed to +Mr. Direck, with unseemly and threatening gestures towards +Cissie.</p> +<p>But before Mr. Direck could adjust his mind to this new phase of +affairs, Cecily had passed the right honourable gentleman with the +same mysterious ease with which she had flashed by Mr. Direck, and +was bearing down upon the miscellaneous Landwehr which formed the +"backs" of Mr. Direck's side.</p> +<p>"<i>You</i> rabbit!" cried Mr. Raeburn, and became +extraordinarily active in pursuit, administering great lengths of +arm and leg with a centralised efficiency he had not hitherto +displayed.</p> +<a name="Page_84"></a> +<p>Running hard to the help of Mr. Raeburn was the youngest +Britling boy, a beautiful contrast. It was like a puff ball +supporting and assisting a conger eel. In front of Mr. Direck the +little stout man was being alert. Teddy was supporting the attack +near the middle of the field, crying "Centre!" while Mr. Britling, +very round and resolute, was bouncing straight towards the +threatened goal. But Mrs. Teddy, running as swiftly as her sister, +was between Teddy and the ball. Whack! the little short man's stick +had clashed with Cecily's. Confused things happened with sticks and +feet, and the little short man appeared to be trying to cut down +Cecily as one cuts down a tree, she tried to pass the ball to her +centre forward—too late, and then Mrs. Teddy had intercepted +it, and was flickering back towards Mr. Britling's goal in a rush +in which Mr. Direck perceived it was his duty to join.</p> +<p>Yes, he had to follow up Mrs. Teddy and pick up the ball if he +had a chance and send it in to her or the captain or across to the +left forwards, as circumstances might decide. It was perfectly +clear.</p> +<p>Then came his moment. The little formidably padded lady who had +dined at the Dower House overnight, made a gallant attack upon Mrs. +Teddy. Out of the confusion of this clash the ball spun into Mr. +Direck's radius. Where should he smite and how? A moment of +reflection was natural.</p> +<p>But now the easy-fitting discipline of the Dower House style of +hockey became apparent. Mr. Direck had last observed the tall young +Indian gentleman, full of vitality and anxious for destruction, far +away in the distance on the opposing right wing. But now, +regardless of the more formal methods of the game, this young man +had resolved, without further delay and at any cost, to hit the +ball hard, and he was travelling like some Asiatic typhoon with an +extreme velocity across the remonstrances of Mr. Britling and the +general order of his side. Mr. Direck became<a name="Page_85"></a> +aware of him just before his impact. There was a sort of collision +from which Mr. Direck emerged with a feeling that one side of his +face was permanently flattened, but still gallantly resolved to hit +the comparatively lethargic ball. He and the staggered but resolute +Indian clashed sticks again. And Mr. Direck had the best of it. +Years of experience couldn't have produced a better pass to the +captain....</p> +<p>"Good pass!"</p> +<p>Apparently from one of the London visitors.</p> +<p>But this was <i>some</i> game!</p> +<p>The ball executed some rapid movements to and fro across the +field. Our side was pressing hard. There was a violent convergence +of miscellaneous backs and suchlike irregulars upon the threatened +goal. Mr. Britling's dozen was rapidly losing its disciplined +order. One of the sidecar ladies and the gallant Indian had shifted +their activities to the defensive back, and with them was a +spectacled gentleman waving his stick, high above all recognised +rules. Mr. Direck's captain and both Britling boys hurried to join +the fray. Mr. Britling, who seemed to Mr. Direck to be for a +captain rather too demagogic, also ran back to rally his forces by +loud cries. "Pass outwardly!" was the burthen of his +contribution.</p> +<p>The struggle about the Britling goal ceased to be a game and +became something between a fight and a social gathering. Mr. +Britling's goal-keeper could be heard shouting, "I can't see the +ball! <i>Lift your feet!</i>" The crowded conflict lurched towards +the goal posts. "My shin!" cried Mr. Manning. "No, you +<i>don't!</i>"</p> +<p>Whack, but again whack!</p> +<p>Whack! "Ah! <i>would</i> you?" Whack.</p> +<p>"Goal!" cried the side-car gentleman.</p> +<p>"Goal!" cried the Britling boys....</p> +<p>Mr. Manning, as goal-keeper, went to recover the ball, but one +of the Britling boys politely anticipated him.</p> +<a name="Page_86"></a> +<p>The crowd became inactive, and then began to drift back to +loosely conceived positions.</p> +<p>"It's no good swarming into goal like that," Mr. Britling, with +a faint asperity in his voice, explained to his followers. "We've +got to keep open and not <i>crowd</i> each other."</p> +<p>Then he went confidentially to the energetic young Indian to +make some restrictive explanation of his activities.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck strolled back towards Cecily. He was very warm and a +little blown, but not, he felt, disgraced. He was winning.</p> +<p>"You'll have to take your coat off," she said.</p> +<p>It was a good idea.</p> +<p>It had occurred to several people and the boundary line was +already dotted with hastily discarded jackets and wraps and so +forth. But the lady in the motoring dust coat was buttoning it to +the chin.</p> +<p>"One goal love," said the minor Britling boy.</p> +<p>"We haven't begun yet, Sunny," said Cecily.</p> +<p>"Sonny! That's American," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"No. We call him Sunny Jim," said Cecily. "They're bullying off +again."</p> +<p>"Sunny Jim's American too," said Mr. Direck, returning to his +place....</p> +<p>The struggle was resumed. And soon it became clear that the +first goal was no earnest of the quality of the struggle. Teddy and +Cecily formed a terribly efficient combination. Against their +brilliant rushes, supported in a vehement but effective manner by +the Indian to their right and guided by loud shoutings from Mr. +Britling (centre), Mr. Direck and the side-car lady and Mr. Raeburn +struggled in vain. One swift advance was only checked by the dust +cloak, its folds held the ball until help arrived; another was +countered by a tremendous swipe of Mr. Raeburn's that sent the ball +within an inch of the<a name="Page_87"></a> youngest Britling's +head and right across the field; the third resulted in a swift pass +from Cecily to the elder Britling son away on her right, and he +shot the goal neatly and swiftly through the lattice of Mr. +Lawrence Carmine's defensive movements. And after that very rapidly +came another goal for Mr. Britling's side and then another.</p> +<p>Then Mr. Britling cried out that it was "Half Time," and +explained to Mr. Direck that whenever one side got to three goals +they considered it was half time and had five minutes' rest and +changed sides. Everybody was very hot and happy, except the lady in +the dust cloak who was perfectly cool. In everybody's eyes shone +the light of battle, and not a shadow disturbed the brightness of +the afternoon for Mr. Direck except a certain unspoken anxiety +about Mr. Raeburn's trousers.</p> +<p>You see Mr. Direck had never seen Mr. Raeburn before, and knew +nothing about his trousers.</p> +<p>They appeared to be coming down.</p> +<p>To begin with they had been rather loose over the feet and +turned up, and as the game progressed, fold after fold of +concertina-ed flannel gathered about his ankles. Every now and then +Mr. Raeburn would seize the opportunity of some respite from the +game to turn up a fresh six inches or so of this accumulation. +Naturally Mr. Direck expected this policy to end unhappily. He did +not know that the flannel trousers of Mr. Raeburn were like a +river, that they could come down forever and still remain +inexhaustible....</p> +<p>He had visions of this scene of happy innocence being suddenly +blasted by a monstrous disaster....</p> +<p>Apart from this worry Mr. Direck was as happy as any one +there!</p> +<p>Perhaps these apprehensions affected his game. At any rate he +did nothing that pleased him in the second half, Cecily danced all +over him and round and about him, and<a name="Page_88"></a> in the +course of ten minutes her side had won the two remaining goals with +a score of Five-One; and five goals is "game" by the standards of +Matching's Easy.</p> +<p>And then with the very slightest of delays these insatiable +people picked up again. Mr. Direck slipped away and returned in a +white silk shirt, tennis trousers and a belt. This time he and +Cecily were on the same side, the Cecily-Teddy combination was +broken, and he it seemed was to take the place of the redoubtable +Teddy on the left wing with her.</p> +<p>This time the sides were better chosen and played a long, +obstinate, even game. One-One. One-Two. One-Three. (Half Time.) +Two-Three. Three all. Four-Three. Four all....</p> +<p>By this time Mr. Direck was beginning to master the simple +strategy of the sport. He was also beginning to master the fact +that Cecily was the quickest, nimblest, most indefatigable player +on the field. He scouted for her and passed to her. He developed +tacit understandings with her. Ideas of protecting her had gone to +the four winds of Heaven. Against them Teddy and a sidecar girl +with Raeburn in support made a memorable struggle. Teddy was as +quick as a cat. "Four-Three" looked like winning, but then Teddy +and the tall Indian and Mrs. Teddy pulled square. They almost +repeated this feat and won, but Mr. Manning saved the situation +with an immense oblique hit that sent the ball to Mr. Direck. He +ran with the ball up to Raeburn and then dodged and passed to +Cecily. There was a lively struggle to the left; the ball was hit +out by Mr. Raeburn and thrown in by a young Britling; lost by the +forwards and rescued by the padded lady. Forward again! This time +will do it!</p> +<p>Cecily away to the left had worked round Mr. Raeburn once more. +Teddy, realising that things were serious, was tearing back to +attack her.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck supported with silent intentness. "Centre!" cried Mr. +Britling. "Cen-tre!"</p> +<a name="Page_89"></a> +<p>"Mr. Direck!" came her voice, full of confidence. (Of such +moments is the heroic life.) The ball shot behind the hurtling +Teddy. Mr. Direck stopped it with his foot, a trick he had just +learnt from the eldest Britling son. He was neither slow nor hasty. +He was in the half-circle, and the way to the goal was barred only +by the dust-cloak lady and Mr. Lawrence Carmine. He made as if to +shoot to Mr. Carmine's left and then smacked the ball, with the +swiftness of a serpent's stroke, to his right.</p> +<p>He'd done it! Mr. Carmine's stick and feet were a yard away.</p> +<p>Then hard on this wild triumph came a flash of horror. One can't +see everything. His eye following the ball's trajectory....</p> +<p>Directly in its line of flight was the perambulator.</p> +<p>The ball missed the legs of the lady with the noble nose by a +kind of miracle, hit and glanced off the wheel of the perambulator, +and went spinning into a border of antirrhinums.</p> +<p>"Good!" cried Cecily. "Splendid shot!"</p> +<p>He'd shot a goal. He'd done it well. The perambulator it seemed +didn't matter. Though apparently the impact had awakened the baby. +In the margin of his consciousness was the figure of Mr. Britling +remarking: "Aunty. You really mustn't wheel the +perambulator—<i>just</i> there."</p> +<p>"I thought," said the aunt, indicating the goal posts by a +facial movement, "that those two sticks would be a sort of +protection.... Aah! <i>Did</i> they then?"</p> +<p>Never mind that.</p> +<p>"That's <i>game!</i>" said one of the junior Britlings to Mr. +Direck with a note of high appreciation, and the whole party, +relaxing and crumpling like a lowered flag, moved towards the house +and tea.</p> +<a name="Page_90"></a><br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>"We'll play some more after tea," said Cecily. "It will be +cooler then."</p> +<p>"My word, I'm beginning to like it," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"You're going to play very well," she said.</p> +<p>And such is the magic of a game that Mr. Direck was humbly proud +and grateful for her praise, and trotted along by the side of this +creature who had revealed herself so swift and resolute and +decisive, full to overflowing of the mere pleasure of just trotting +along by her side. And after tea, which was a large confused +affair, enlivened by wonderful and entirely untruthful +reminiscences of the afternoon by Mr. Raeburn, they played again, +with fewer inefficients and greater skill and swiftness, and Mr. +Direck did such quick and intelligent things that everybody +declared that he was a hockey player straight from heaven. The +dusk, which at last made the position of the ball too speculative +for play, came all too soon for him. He had played in six games, +and he knew he would be as stiff as a Dutch doll in the morning. +But he was very, very happy.</p> +<p>The rest of the Sunday evening was essentially a sequel to the +hockey.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck changed again, and after using some embrocation that +Mrs. Britling recommended very strongly, came down in a black +jacket and a cheerfully ample black tie. He had a sense of physical +well-being such as he had not experienced since he came aboard the +liner at New York. The curious thing was that it was not quite the +same sense of physical well-being that one had in America. That is +bright and clear and a little dry, this was—humid. His mind +quivered contentedly, like sunset midges over a lake—it had +no hard bright flashes—and his body wanted to sit about. His +sense of intimacy with Cecily increased each time he looked at her. +When she met his eyes she smiled. He'd caught her style now, he +felt; he<a name="Page_91"></a> attempted no more compliments and +was frankly her pupil at hockey and Badminton. After supper Mr. +Britling renewed his suggestion of an automobile excursion on the +Monday.</p> +<p>"There's nothing to take you back to London," said Mr. Britling, +"and we could just hunt about the district with the little old car +and see everything you want to see...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck did not hesitate three seconds. He thought of Gladys; +he thought of Miss Cecily Corner.</p> +<p>"Well, indeed," he said, "if it isn't burthening you, if I'm not +being any sort of inconvenience here for another night, I'd be +really very glad indeed of the opportunity of going around and +seeing all these ancient places...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>The newspapers came next morning at nine, and were full of the +Sarajevo Murders. Mr. Direck got the <i>Daily Chronicle</i> and +found quite animated headlines for a British paper.</p> +<p>"Who's this Archduke," he asked, "anyhow? And where is this +Bosnia? I thought it was a part of Turkey."</p> +<p>"It's in Austria," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"It's in the middle ages," said Mr. Britling. "What an odd, +pertinaceous business it seems to have been. First one bomb, then +another; then finally the man with the pistol. While we were +strolling about the rose garden. It's like something out of 'The +Prisoner of Zenda.'"</p> +<p>"Please," said Herr Heinrich.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling assumed an attentive expression.</p> +<p>"Will not this generally affect European politics?"</p> +<p>"I don't know. Perhaps it will."</p> +<p>"It says in the paper that Serbia has sent those bombs to +Sarajevo."</p> +<p>"It's like another world," said Mr. Britling, over his paper. +"Assassination as a political method. Can you imagine anything of +the sort happening nowadays west<a name="Page_92"></a> of the +Adriatic? Imagine some one assassinating the American +Vice-President, and the bombs being at once ascribed to the arsenal +at Toronto!... We take our politics more sadly in the West.... +Won't you have another egg, Direck?"</p> +<p>"Please! Might this not lead to a war?"</p> +<p>"I don't think so. Austria may threaten Serbia, but she doesn't +want to provoke a conflict with Russia. It would be going too near +the powder magazine. But it's all an extraordinary business."</p> +<p>"But if she did?" Herr Heinrich persisted.</p> +<p>"She won't.... Some years ago I used to believe in the +inevitable European war," Mr. Britling explained to Mr. Direck, +"but it's been threatened so long that at last I've lost all belief +in it. The Powers wrangle and threaten. They're far too cautious +and civilised to let the guns go off. If there was going to be a +war it would have happened two years ago when the Balkan League +fell upon Turkey. Or when Bulgaria attacked Serbia...."</p> +<p>Herr Heinrich reflected, and received these conclusions with an +expression of respectful edification.</p> +<p>"I am naturally anxious," he said, "because I am taking tickets +for my holidays at an Esperanto Conference at Boulogne."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>"There is only one way to master such a thing as driving an +automobile," said Mr. Britling outside his front door, as he took +his place in the driver's seat, "and that is to resolve that from +the first you will take no risks. Be slow if you like. Stop and +think when you are in doubt. But do nothing rashly, permit no +mistakes."</p> +<p>It seemed to Mr. Direck as he took his seat beside his host that +this was admirable doctrine.</p> +<p>They started out of the gates with an extreme deliberation. +Indeed twice they stopped dead in the act of turning into the road, +and the engine had to be restarted.</p> +<a name="Page_93"></a> +<p>"You will laugh at me," said Mr. Britling; "but I'm resolved to +have no blunders this time."</p> +<p>"I don't laugh at you. It's excellent," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"It's the right way," said Mr. Britling. "Care—oh damn! +I've stopped the engine again. +Ugh!—ah!—<i>so!</i>—Care, I was saying—and +calm."</p> +<p>"Don't think I want to hurry you," said Mr. Direck. "I +don't...."</p> +<p>They passed through the tillage at a slow, agreeable pace, +tooting loudly at every corner, and whenever a pedestrian was +approached. Mr. Direck was reminded that he had still to broach the +lecture project to Mr. Britling. So much had happened—</p> +<p>The car halted abruptly and the engine stopped.</p> +<p>"I thought that confounded hen was thinking of crossing the +road," said Mr. Britling. "Instead of which she's gone through the +hedge. She certainly looked this way.... Perhaps I'm a little fussy +this morning.... I'll warm up to the work presently."</p> +<p>"I'm convinced you can't be too careful," said Mr. Direck. "And +this sort of thing enables one to see the country better...."</p> +<p>Beyond the village Mr. Britling seemed to gather confidence. The +pace quickened. But whenever other traffic or any indication of a +side way appeared discretion returned. Mr. Britling stalked his +sign posts, crawling towards them on the belly of the lowest gear; +he drove all the morning like a man who is flushing ambuscades. And +yet accident overtook him. For God demands more from us than mere +righteousness.</p> +<p>He cut through the hills to Market Saffron along a lane-road +with which he was unfamiliar. It began to go up hill. He explained +to Mr. Direck how admirably his engine would climb hills on the top +gear.</p> +<p>They took a curve and the hill grew steeper, and Mr. Direck +opened the throttle.</p> +<a name="Page_94"></a> +<p>They rounded another corner, and still more steeply the hill +rose before them.</p> +<p>The engine began to make a chinking sound, and the car lost +pace. And then Mr. Britling saw a pleading little white board with +the inscription "Concealed Turning." For the moment he thought a +turning might be concealed anywhere. He threw out his clutch and +clapped on his brake. Then he repented of what he had done. But the +engine, after three Herculean throbs, ceased to work. Mr. Britling +with a convulsive clutch at his steering wheel set the electric +hooter snarling, while one foot released the clutch again and the +other, on the accelerator, sought in vain for help. Mr. Direck felt +they were going back, back, in spite of all this vocalisation. He +clutched at the emergency brake. But he was too late to avoid +misfortune. With a feeling like sitting gently in butter, the car +sank down sideways and stopped with two wheels in the ditch.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling said they were in the ditch—said it with +quite unnecessary violence....</p> +<p>This time two cart horses and a retinue of five men were +necessary to restore Gladys to her self-respect....</p> +<p>After that they drove on to Market Saffron, and got there in +time for lunch, and after lunch Mr. Direck explored the church and +the churchyard and the parish register....</p> +<p>After lunch Mr. Britling became more cheerful about his driving. +The road from Market Saffron to Blandish, whence one turns off to +Matching's Easy, is the London and Norwich high road; it is an old +Roman Stane Street and very straightforward and honest in its +stretches. You can see the cross roads half a mile away, and the +low hedges give you no chance of a surprise. Everybody is cheered +by such a road, and everybody drives more confidently and quickly, +and Mr. Britling particularly was heartened by it and gradually let +out Gladys from the almost excessive restriction that had hitherto +marked the day. "On a<a name="Page_95"></a> road like this nothing +can happen," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Unless you broke an axle or burst a tyre," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"My man at Matching's Easy is most careful in his inspection," +said Mr. Britling, putting the accelerator well down and watching +the speed indicator creep from forty to forty-five. "He went over +the car not a week ago. And it's not one month old—in use +that is."</p> +<p>Yet something did happen.</p> +<p>It was as they swept by the picturesque walls under the big old +trees that encircle Brandismead Park. It was nothing but a slight +miscalculation of distances. Ahead of them and well to the left, +rode a postman on a bicycle; towards them, with that curious effect +of implacable fury peculiar to motor cycles, came a motor cyclist. +First Mr. Britling thought that he would not pass between these +two, then he decided that he would hurry up and do so, then he +reverted to his former decision, and then it seemed to him that he +was going so fast that he must inevitably run down the postman. His +instinct not to do that pulled the car sharply across the path of +the motor cyclist. "Oh, my God!" cried Mr. Britling. "My God!" +twisted his wheel over and distributed his feet among his levers +dementedly.</p> +<p>He had an imperfectly formed idea of getting across right in +front of the motor cyclist, and then they were going down the brief +grassy slope between the road and the wall, straight at the wall, +and still at a good speed. The motor cyclist smacked against +something and vanished from the problem. The wall seemed to rush up +at them and then—collapse. There was a tremendous concussion. +Mr. Direck gripped at his friend the emergency brake, but had only +time to touch it before his head hit against the frame of the glass +wind-screen, and a curtain fell upon everything....</p> +<p>He opened his eyes upon a broken wall, a crumpled motor car, and +an undamaged motor cyclist in the aviator's<a name="Page_96"></a> +cap and thin oilskin overalls dear to motor cyclists. Mr. Direck +stared and then, still stunned and puzzled, tried to raise himself. +He became aware of acute pain.</p> +<p>"Don't move for a bit," said the motor cyclist. "Your arm and +side are rather hurt, I think...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>In the course of the next twelve hours Mr. Direck was to make a +discovery that was less common in the days before the war than it +has been since. He discovered that even pain and injury may be +vividly interesting and gratifying.</p> +<p>If any one had told him he was going to be stunned for five or +six minutes, cut about the brow and face and have a bone in his +wrist put out, and that as a consequence he would find himself +pleased and exhilarated, he would have treated the prophecy with +ridicule; but here he was lying stiffly on his back with his wrist +bandaged to his side and smiling into the darkness even more +brightly than he had smiled at the Essex landscape two days before. +The fact is pain hurts or irritates, but in itself it does not make +a healthily constituted man miserable. The expectation of pain, the +certainty of injury may make one hopeless enough, the reality +rouses our resistance. Nobody wants a broken bone or a delicate +wrist, but very few people are very much depressed by getting one. +People can be much more depressed by smoking a hundred cigarettes +in three days or losing one per cent. of their capital.</p> +<p>And everybody had been most delightful to Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>He had had the monopoly of damage. Mr. Britling, holding on to +the steering wheel, had not even been thrown out. "Unless I'm +internally injured," he said, "I'm not hurt at all. My liver +perhaps—bruised a little...."</p> +<p>Gladys had been abandoned in the ditch, and they had been very +kindly brought home by a passing automobile.<a name="Page_97"></a> +Cecily had been at the Dower House at the moment of the rueful +arrival. She had seen how an American can carry injuries. She had +made sympathy and helpfulness more delightful by expressed +admiration.</p> +<p>"She's a natural born nurse," said Mr. Direck, and then rather +in the tone of one who addressed a public meeting: "But this sort +of thing brings out all the good there is in a woman."</p> +<p>He had been quite explicit to them and more particularly to her, +when they told him he must stay at the Dower House until his arm +was cured. He had looked the application straight into her pretty +eyes.</p> +<p>"If I'm to stay right here just as a consequence of that little +shake up, may be for a couple of weeks, may be three, and if you're +coming to do a bit of a talk to me ever and again, then I tell you +I don't call this a misfortune. It isn't a misfortune. It's right +down sheer good luck...."</p> +<p>And now he lay as straight as a mummy, with his soul filled with +radiance of complete mental peace. After months of distress and +confusion, he'd got straight again. He was in the middle of a real +good story, bright and clean. He knew just exactly what he +wanted.</p> +<p>"After all," he said, "it's true. There's ideals. <i>She's</i> +an ideal. Why, I loved her before ever I set eyes on Mamie. I loved +her before I was put into pants. That old portrait, there it was +pointing my destiny.... It's affinity.... It's natural +selection....</p> +<p>"Well, I don't know what she thinks of me yet, but I do know +very well what she's <i>got</i> to think of me. She's got to think +all the world of me—if I break every limb of my body making +her do it.</p> +<p>"I'd a sort of feeling it was right to go in that old +automobile.</p> +<p>"Say what you like, there's a Guidance...."</p> +<p>He smiled confidentially at the darkness as if they shared a +secret.</p> +<a name="Page_98"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FOURTH"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FOURTH</h2> +<h2>MR. BRITLING IN SOLILOQUY</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>Very different from the painful contentment of the bruised and +broken Mr. Direck was the state of mind of his unwounded host. He +too was sleepless, but sleepless without exaltation. The day had +been too much for him altogether; his head, to borrow an admirable +American expression, was "busy."</p> +<p>How busy it was, a whole chapter will be needed to +describe....</p> +<p>The impression Mr. Britling had made upon Mr. Direck was one of +indefatigable happiness. But there were times when Mr. Britling was +called upon to pay for his general cheerful activity in lump sums +of bitter sorrow. There were nights—and especially after +seasons of exceptional excitement and nervous activity—when +the reckoning would be presented and Mr. Britling would welter +prostrate and groaning under a stormy sky of +unhappiness—active insatiable unhappiness—a beating +with rods.</p> +<p>The sorrows of the sanguine temperament are brief but furious; +the world knows little of them. The world has no need to reckon +with them. They cause no suicides and few crimes. They hurry past, +smiting at their victim as they go. None the less they are misery. +Mr. Britling in these moods did not perhaps experience the grey and +hopeless desolations of the melancholic nor the red damnation of +the choleric, but he saw a world that bristled with misfortune and +error, with poisonous thorns and traps and swampy places and +incurable blunderings. An almost<a name="Page_99"></a> +insupportable remorse for being Mr. Britling would pursue +him—justifying itself upon a hundred counts....</p> +<p>And for being such a Britling!...</p> +<p>Why—he revived again that bitter question of a thousand +and one unhappy nights—why was he such a fool? Such a hasty +fool? Why couldn't he look before he leapt? Why did he take risks? +Why was he always so ready to act upon the supposition that all was +bound to go well? (He might as well have asked why he had quick +brown eyes.)</p> +<p>Why, for instance, hadn't he adhered to the resolution of the +early morning? He had begun with an extremity of caution....</p> +<p>It was a characteristic of these moods of Mr. Britling that they +produced a physical restlessness. He kept on turning over and then +turning over again, and sitting up and lying back, like a martyr on +a gridiron....</p> +<p>This was just the latest instance of a life-long trouble. Will +there ever be a sort of man whose thoughts are quick and his acts +slow? Then indeed we shall have a formidable being. Mr. Britling's +thoughts were quick and sanguine and his actions even more eager +than his thoughts. Already while he was a young man Mr. Britling +had found his acts elbow their way through the hurry of his ideas +and precipitate humiliations. Long before his reasons were +marshalled, his resolutions were formed. He had attempted a +thousand remonstrances with himself; he had sought to remedy the +defects in his own character by written inscriptions in his bedroom +and memoranda inside his watch case. "Keep steady!" was one of +them. "Keep the End in View." And, "Go steadfastly, coherently, +continuously; only so can you go where you will." In distrusting +all impulse, scrutinising all imagination, he was persuaded lay his +one prospect of escape from the surprise of countless miseries. +Otherwise he danced among glass bombs and barbed wire.</p> +<p>There had been a time when he could exhort himself<a name= +"Page_100"></a> to such fundamental charge and go through phases of +the severest discipline. Always at last to be taken by surprise +from some unexpected quarter. At last he had ceased to hope for any +triumph so radical. He had been content to believe that in recent +years age and a gathering habit of wisdom had somewhat slowed his +leaping purpose. That if he hadn't overcome he had at least to a +certain extent minimised it. But this last folly was surely the +worst. To charge through this patient world with—how much did +the car weigh? A ton certainly and perhaps more—reckless of +every risk. Not only to himself but others. At this thought, he +clutched the steering wheel again. Once more he saw the bent back +of the endangered cyclist, once more he felt rather than saw the +seething approach of the motor bicycle, and then through a long +instant he drove helplessly at the wall....</p> +<p>Hell perhaps is only one such incident, indefinitely +prolonged....</p> +<p>Anything might have been there in front of him. And indeed now, +out of the dreamland to which he could not escape something had +come, something that screamed sharply....</p> +<p>"Good God!" he cried, "if I had hit a child! I might have hit a +child!" The hypothesis flashed into being with the thought, tried +to escape and was caught. It was characteristic of Mr. Britling's +nocturnal imagination that he should individualise this child quite +sharply as rather plain and slender, with reddish hair, staring +eyes, and its ribs crushed in a vivid and dreadful manner, pinned +against the wall, mixed up with some bricks, only to be extracted, +oh! <i>horribly</i>.</p> +<p>But this was not fair! He had hurt no child! He had merely +pitched out Mr. Direck and broken his arm....</p> +<p>It wasn't his merit that the child hadn't been there!</p> +<p>The child might have been there!</p> +<p>Mere luck.</p> +<a name="Page_101"></a> +<p>He lay staring in despair—as an involuntary God might +stare at many a thing in this amazing universe—staring at the +little victim his imagination had called into being only to +destroy....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>If he had not crushed a child other people had. Such things +happened. Vicariously at any rate he had crushed many +children....</p> +<p>Why are children ever crushed?</p> +<p>And suddenly all the pain and destruction and remorse of all the +accidents in the world descended upon Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>No longer did he ask why am I such a fool, but why are we all +such fools? He became Man on the automobile of civilisation, +crushing his thousands daily in his headlong and yet aimless +career....</p> +<p>That was a trick of Mr. Britling's mind. It had this tendency to +spread outward from himself to generalised issues. Many minds are +like that nowadays. He was not so completely individualised as +people are supposed to be individualised—in our law, in our +stories, in our moral judgments. He had a vicarious factor. He +could slip from concentrated reproaches to the liveliest remorse +for himself as The Automobilist in General, or for himself as +England, or for himself as Man. From remorse for smashing his guest +and his automobile he could pass by what was for him the most +imperceptible of transitions to remorse for every accident that has +ever happened through the error of an automobilist since +automobiles began. All that long succession of blunderers became +Mr. Britling. Or rather Mr. Britling became all that vast +succession of blunderers.</p> +<p>These fluctuating lapses from individuation made Mr. Britling a +perplexity to many who judged only by the old personal standards. +At times he seemed a monster of cantankerous self-righteousness, +whom nobody could please<a name="Page_102"></a> or satisfy, but +indeed when he was most pitiless about the faults of his race or +nation he was really reproaching himself, and when he seemed more +egotistical and introspective and self-centred he was really +ransacking himself for a clue to that same confusion of purposes +that waste the hope and strength of humanity. And now through the +busy distresses of the night it would have perplexed a watching +angel to have drawn the line and shown when Mr. Britling, was +grieving for his own loss and humiliation and when he was grieving +for these common human weaknesses of which he had so large a +share.</p> +<p>And this double refraction of his mind by which a concentrated +and individualised Britling did but present a larger impersonal +Britling beneath, carried with it a duplication of his conscience +and sense of responsibility. To his personal conscience he was +answerable for his private honour and his debts and the Dower House +he had made and so on, but to his impersonal conscience he was +answerable for the whole world. The world from the latter point of +view was his egg. He had a subconscious delusion that he had laid +it. He had a subconscious suspicion that he had let it cool and +that it was addled. He had an urgency to incubate it. The variety +and interest of his talk was largely due to that persuasion, it was +a perpetual attempt to spread his mental feathers over the task +before him....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>After this much of explanation it is possible to go on to the +task which originally brought Mr. Direck to Matching's Easy, the +task that Massachusetts society had sent him upon, the task of +organising the mental unveiling of Mr. Britling. Mr. Direck saw Mr. +Britling only in the daylight, and with an increasing distraction +of the attention towards Miss Cecily Corner. We may see him rather +<i>more</i> clearly in the darkness, without any distraction except +his own.</p> +<a name="Page_103"></a> +<p>Now the smashing of Gladys was not only the source of a series +of reproaches and remorses directly arising out of the smash; it +had also a wide system of collateral consequences, which were also +banging and blundering their way through the Britling mind. It was +extraordinarily inconvenient in quite another direction that the +automobile should be destroyed. It upset certain plans of Mr. +Britling's in a direction growing right out from all the Dower +House world in which Mr. Direck supposed him to be completely set +and rooted. There were certain matters from which Mr. Britling had +been averting his mind most strenuously throughout the week-end. +Now, there was no averting his mind any more.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was entangled in a love affair. It was, to be +exact, and disregarding minor affinities, his eighth love affair. +And the new automobile, so soon as he could drive it efficiently, +was to have played quite a solvent and conclusive part in certain +entangled complications of this relationship.</p> +<p>A man of lively imagination and quick impulses naturally has +love affairs as he drives himself through life, just as he +naturally has accidents if he drives an automobile.</p> +<p>And the peculiar relations that existed between Mr. Britling and +Mrs. Britling tended inevitably to make these love affairs +troublesome, undignified and futile. Especially when they were +viewed from the point of view of insomnia.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling's first marriage had been a passionately happy one. +His second was by comparison a marriage in neutral tint. There is +much to be said for that extreme Catholic theory which would make +marriage not merely lifelong but eternal. Certainly Mr. Britling +would have been a finer if not a happier creature if his +sentimental existence could have died with his first wife or +continued only in his love for their son. He had married in the +glow of youth, he had had two years of clean and simple loving, +helping, quarrelling and the happy ending of<a name="Page_104"></a> +quarrels. Something went out of him into all that, which could not +be renewed again. In his first extremity of grief he knew that +perfectly well—and then afterwards he forgot it. While there +is life there is imagination, which makes and forgets and goes +on.</p> +<p>He met Edith under circumstances that did not in any way recall +his lost Mary. He met her, as people say, "socially"; Mary, on the +other hand, had been a girl at Newnham while he was a fellow of +Pembroke, and there had been something of accident and something of +furtiveness in their lucky discovery of each other. There had been +a flush in it; there was dash in it. But Edith he saw and chose and +had to woo. There was no rushing together; there was solicitation +and assent. Edith was a Bachelor of Science of London University +and several things like that, and she looked upon the universe +under her broad forehead and broad-waving brown hair with quiet +watchful eyes that had nothing whatever to hide, a thing so +incredible to Mr. Britling that he had loved and married her very +largely for the serenity of her mystery. And for a time after their +marriage he sailed over those brown depths plumbing furiously.</p> +<p>Of course he did not make his former passion for Mary at all +clear to her. Indeed, while he was winning Edith it was by no means +clear to himself. He was making a new emotional drama, and +consciously and subconsciously he dismissed a hundred reminiscences +that sought to invade the new experience, and which would have been +out of key with it. And without any deliberate intention to that +effect he created an atmosphere between himself and Edith in which +any discussion of Mary was reduced to a minimum, and in which Hugh +was accepted rather than explained. He contrived to believe that +she understood all sorts of unsayable things; he invented miracles +of quite uncongenial mute mutuality....</p> +<p>It was over the chess-board that they first began to discover +their extensive difficulties of sympathy. Mr. Britling's<a name= +"Page_105"></a> play was characterised by a superficial brilliance, +much generosity and extreme unsoundness; he always moved directly +his opponent had done so—and then reflected on the situation. +His reflection was commonly much wiser than his moves. Mrs. +Britling was, as it were, a natural antagonist to her husband; she +was as calm as he was irritable. She was never in a hurry to move, +and never disposed to make a concession. Quietly, steadfastly, by +caution and deliberation, without splendour, without error, she had +beaten him at chess until it led to such dreadful fits of anger +that he had to renounce the game altogether. After every such +occasion he would be at great pains to explain that he had merely +been angry with himself. Nevertheless he felt, and would not let +himself think (while she concluded from incidental heated phrases), +that that was not the complete truth about the outbreak.</p> +<p>Slowly they got through the concealments of that specious +explanation. Temperamentally they were incompatible.</p> +<p>They were profoundly incompatible. In all things she was +defensive. She never came out; never once had she surprised him +halfway upon the road to her. He had to go all the way to her and +knock and ring, and then she answered faithfully. She never +surprised him even by unkindness. If he had a cut finger she would +bind it up very skilfully and healingly, but unless he told her she +never discovered he had a cut finger. He was amazed she did not +know of it before it happened. He piped and she did not dance. That +became the formula of his grievance. For several unhappy years she +thwarted him and disappointed him, while he filled her with dumb +inexplicable distresses. He had been at first so gay an activity, +and then he was shattered; fragments of him were still as gay and +attractive as ever, but between were outbreaks of anger, of +hostility, of something very like malignity. Only very slowly did +they realise the truth of their<a name="Page_106"></a> relationship +and admit to themselves that the fine bud of love between them had +failed to flower, and only after long years were they able to +delimit boundaries where they had imagined union, and to +become—allies. If it had been reasonably possible for them to +part without mutual injury and recrimination they would have done +so, but two children presently held them, and gradually they had to +work out the broad mutual toleration of their later relations. If +there was no love and delight between them there was a real +habitual affection and much mutual help. She was proud of his +steady progress to distinction, proud of each intimation of respect +he won; she admired and respected his work; she recognised that he +had some magic, of liveliness and unexpectedness that was precious +and enviable. So far as she could help him she did. And even when +he knew that there was nothing behind it, that it was indeed little +more than an imaginative inertness, he could still admire and +respect her steady dignity and her consistent honourableness. Her +practical capacity was for him a matter for continual +self-congratulation. He marked the bright order of her household, +her flowering borders, the prosperous high-born roses of her garden +with a wondering appreciation. He had never been able to keep +anything in order. He relied more and more upon her. He showed his +respect for her by a scrupulous attention to her dignity, and his +confidence by a franker and franker emotional neglect. Because she +expressed so little he succeeded in supposing she felt little, and +since nothing had come out of the brown depths of her eyes he saw +fit at last to suppose no plumb-line would ever find anything +there. He pursued his interests; he reached out to this and that; +he travelled; she made it a matter of conscience to let him go +unhampered; she felt, she thought—unrecorded; he did, and he +expressed and re-expressed and over-expressed, and started this and +that with quick irrepressible activity, and so there had +accumulated about them the various items of the life to whose more +ostensible<a name="Page_107"></a> accidents Mr. Direck was now for +an indefinite period joined.</p> +<p>It was in the nature of Mr. Britling to incur things; it was in +the nature of Mrs. Britling to establish them. Mr. Britling had +taken the Dower House on impulse, and she had made it a delightful +home. He had discovered the disorderly delights of mixed Sunday +hockey one weekend at Pontings that had promised to be dull, and +she had made it an institution.... He had come to her with his +orphan boy and a memory of a passionate first loss that sometimes, +and more particularly at first, he seemed to have forgotten +altogether, and at other times was only too evidently lamenting +with every fibre of his being. She had taken the utmost care of the +relics of her duskily pretty predecessor that she found in +unexpected abundance in Mr. Britling's possession, and she had done +her duty by her sometimes rather incomprehensible stepson. She +never allowed herself to examine the state of her heart towards +this youngster; it is possible that she did not perceive the +necessity for any such examination....</p> +<p>So she went through life, outwardly serene and dignified, one of +a great company of rather fastidious, rather unenterprising women +who have turned for their happiness to secondary things, to those +fair inanimate things of household and garden which do not turn +again and rend one, to aestheticisms and delicacies, to order and +seemliness. Moreover she found great satisfaction in the health and +welfare, the growth and animation of her own two little boys. And +no one knew, and perhaps even she had contrived to forget, the +phases of astonishment and disillusionment, of doubt and bitterness +and secret tears, that spread out through the years in which she +had slowly realised that this strange, fitful, animated man who had +come to her, vowing himself hers, asking for her so urgently and +persuasively, was ceasing, had ceased, to love her, that his heart +had escaped her, that she had missed it; she never dreamt that she +had hurt it, and that after its<a name="Page_108"></a> first +urgent, tumultuous, incomprehensible search for her it had hidden +itself bitterly away....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>The mysterious processes of nature that had produced Mr. +Britling had implanted in him an obstinate persuasion that +somewhere in the world, from some human being, it was still +possible to find the utmost satisfaction for every need and +craving. He could imagine as existing, as waiting for him, he knew +not where, a completeness of understanding, a perfection of +response, that would reach all the gamut of his feelings and +sensations from the most poetical to the most entirely physical, a +beauty of relationship so transfiguring that not only would +she—it went without saying that this completion was a +woman—be perfectly beautiful in its light but, what was +manifestly more incredible, that he too would be perfectly +beautiful and quite at his ease.... In her presence there could be +no self-reproaches, no lapses, no limitations, nothing but +happiness and the happiest activities.... To such a persuasion half +the imaginative people in the world succumb as readily and +naturally as ducklings take to water. They do not doubt its truth +any more than a thirsty camel doubts that presently it will come to +a spring.</p> +<p>This persuasion is as foolish as though a camel hoped that some +day it would drink from such a spring that it would never thirst +again. For the most part Mr. Britling ignored its presence in his +mind, and resisted the impulses it started. But at odd times, and +more particularly in the afternoon and while travelling and in +between books, Mr. Britling so far succumbed to this strange +expectation of a wonder round the corner that he slipped the +anchors of his humour and self-contempt and joined the great +cruising brotherhood of the Pilgrims of Love....</p> +<p>In fact—though he himself had never made a +reckoning<a name="Page_109"></a> of it—he had been upon eight +separate cruises. He was now upon the eighth....</p> +<p>Between these various excursions—they took him round and +about the world, so to speak, they cast him away on tropical +beaches, they left him dismasted on desolate seas, they involved +the most startling interventions and the most inconvenient +consequences—there were interludes of penetrating philosophy. +For some years the suspicion had been growing up in Mr. Britling's +mind that in planting this persuasion in his being, the mysterious +processes of Nature had been, perhaps for some purely biological +purpose, pulling, as people say, his leg, that there were not these +perfect responses, that loving a woman is a thing one does +thoroughly once for all—or so—and afterwards recalls +regrettably in a series of vain repetitions, and that the career of +the Pilgrim of Love, so soon as you strip off its credulous +glamour, is either the most pitiful or the most vulgar and vile of +perversions from the proper conduct of life. But this suspicion had +not as yet grown to prohibitive dimensions with him, it was not +sufficient to resist the seasons of high tide, the sudden promise +of the salt-edged breeze, the invitation of the hovering sea-bird; +and he was now concealing beneath the lively surface of activities +with which Mr. Direck was now familiar, a very extensive system of +distresses arising out of the latest, the eighth of these +digressional adventures....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had got into it very much as he had got into the +ditch on the morning before his smash. He hadn't thought the affair +out and he hadn't looked carefully enough. And it kept on +developing in just the ways he would rather that it didn't.</p> +<p>The seventh affair had been very disconcerting. He had made a +fool of himself with quite a young girl; he blushed to think how +young; it hadn't gone very far, but it had made his nocturnal +reflections so disagreeable that he had—by no means for the +first time—definitely and<a name="Page_110"></a> forever +given up these foolish dreams of love. And when Mrs. Harrowdean +swam into his circle, she seemed just exactly what was wanted to +keep his imagination out of mischief. She came bearing flattery to +the pitch of adoration. She was the brightest and cleverest of +young widows. She wrote quite admirably criticism in the +<i>Scrutator</i> and the <i>Sectarian</i>, and occasionally poetry +in the <i>Right Review</i>—when she felt disposed to do so. +She had an intermittent vein of high spirits that was almost better +than humour and made her quickly popular with most of the people +she met, and she was only twenty miles away in her pretty house and +her absurd little jolly park.</p> +<p>There was something, she said, in his thought and work that was +like walking in mountains. She came to him because she wanted to +clamber about the peaks and glens of his mind.</p> +<p>It was natural to reply that he wasn't by any means the serene +mountain elevation she thought him, except perhaps for a kind of +loneliness....</p> +<p>She was a great reader of eighteenth century memoirs, and some +she conveyed to him. Her mental quality was all in the vein of the +friendships of Rousseau and Voltaire, and pleasantly and trippingly +she led him along the primrose path of an intellectual liaison. She +came first to Matching's Easy, where she was sweet and bright and +vividly interested and a great contrast to Mrs. Britling, and then +he and she met in London, and went off together with a fine sense +of adventure for a day at Richmond, and then he took some work with +him to her house and stayed there....</p> +<p>Then she went away into Scotland for a time and he wanted her +again tremendously and clamoured for her eloquently, and then it +was apparent and admitted between them that they were admirably in +love, oh! immensely in love.</p> +<p>The transitions from emotional mountaineering to ardent +intimacies were so rapid and impulsive that each<a name= +"Page_111"></a> phase obliterated its predecessor, and it was only +with a vague perplexity that Mr. Britling found himself transferred +from the rôle of a mountainous objective for pretty little +pilgrims to that of a sedulous lover in pursuit of the happiness of +one of the most uncertain, intricate, and entrancing of feminine +personalities. This was not at all his idea of the proper relations +between men and women, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a way of challenging +his gallantry. She made him run about for her; she did not demand +but she commanded presents and treats and surprises; she even +developed a certain jealousy in him. His work began to suffer from +interruptions. Yet they had glowing and entertaining moments +together that could temper his rebellious thoughts with the threat +of irreparable loss. "One must love, and all things in life are +imperfect," was how Mr. Britling expressed his reasons for +submission. And she had a hold upon him too in a certain facile +pitifulness. She was little; she could be stung sometimes by the +slightest touch and then her blue eyes would be bright with +tears.</p> +<p>Those possible tears could weigh at times even more than those +possible lost embraces.</p> +<p>And there was Oliver.</p> +<p>Oliver was a person Mr. Britling had never seen. He grew into +the scheme of things by insensible gradations. He was a government +official in London; he was, she said, extraordinarily dull, he was +lacking altogether in Mr. Britling's charm and interest, but he was +faithful and tender and true. And considerably younger than Mr. +Britling. He asked nothing but to love. He offered honourable +marriage. And when one's heart was swelling unendurably one could +weep in safety on his patient shoulder. This patient shoulder of +Oliver's ultimately became Mr. Britling's most exasperating +rival.</p> +<p>She liked to vex him with Oliver. She liked to vex him +generally. Indeed in this by no means abnormal love affair, there +was a very strong antagonism. She seemed<a name="Page_112"></a> to +resent the attraction Mr. Britling had for her and the emotions and +pleasure she had with him. She seemed under the sway of an +instinctive desire to make him play heavily for her, in time, in +emotion, in self-respect. It was intolerable to her that he could +take her easily and happily. That would be taking her cheaply. She +valued his gifts by the bother they cost him, and was determined +that the path of true love should not, if she could help it, run +smooth. Mr. Britling on the other hand was of the school of polite +and happy lovers. He thought it outrageous to dispute and +contradict, and he thought that making love was a cheerful, +comfortable thing to be done in a state of high good humour and +intense mutual appreciation. This levity offended the lady's pride. +She drew unfavourable contrasts with Oliver. If Oliver lacked charm +he certainly did not lack emotion. He desired sacrifice, it seemed, +almost more than satisfactions. Oliver was a person of the most +exemplary miserableness; he would weep copiously and frequently. +She could always make him weep when she wanted to do so. By holding +out hopes and then dashing them if by no other expedient. Why did +Mr. Britling never weep? She wept.</p> +<p>Some base streak of competitiveness in Mr. Britling's nature +made it seem impossible that he should relinquish the lady to +Oliver. Besides, then, what would he do with his dull days, his +afternoons, his need for a properly demonstrated affection?</p> +<p>So Mr. Britling trod the path of his eighth digression, rather +overworked in the matter of flowers and the selection of small +jewellery, stalked by the invisible and indefatigable Oliver, +haunted into an unwilling industry of attentions—attentions +on the model of the professional lover of the French +novels—by the memory and expectation of tearful scenes. "Then +you don't love me! And it's all spoilt. I've risked talk and my +reputation.... I was a fool ever to dream of making love +beautifully...."</p> +<a name="Page_113"></a> +<p>Exactly like running your car into a soft wet ditch when you +cannot get out and you cannot get on. And your work and your +interests waiting and waiting for you!...</p> +<p>The car itself was an outcome of the affair. It was Mrs. +Harrowdean's idea, she thought chiefly of pleasant expeditions to +friendly inns in remote parts of the country, inns with a flavour +of tacit complicity, but it fell in very pleasantly with Mr. +Britling's private resentment at the extraordinary inconvenience of +the railway communications between Matching's Easy and her station +at Pyecrafts, which involved a journey to Liverpool Street and a +long wait at a junction. And now the car was smashed up—just +when he had acquired skill enough to take it over to Pyecrafts +without shame, and on Tuesday or Wednesday at latest he would have +to depart in the old way by the London train....</p> +<p>Only the most superficial mind would assert nowadays that man is +a reasonable creature. Man is an unreasonable creature, and it was +entirely unreasonable and human for Mr. Britling during his +nocturnal self-reproaches to mix up his secret resentment at his +infatuation for Mrs. Harrowdean with his ill-advised attack upon +the wall of Brandismead Park. He ought never to have bought that +car; he ought never to have been so ready to meet Mrs. Harrowdean +more than half-way.</p> +<p>What exacerbated his feeling about Mrs. Harrowdean was a new +line she had recently taken with regard to Mrs. Britling. From her +first rash assumption that Mr. Britling was indifferent to his +wife, she had come to realise that on the contrary he was in some +ways extremely tender about his wife. This struck her as an +outrageous disloyalty. Instead of appreciating a paradox she +resented an infidelity. She smouldered with perplexed resentment +for some days, and then astonished her lover by a series of +dissertations of a hostile and devastating nature upon the lady of +the Dower House.</p> +<a name="Page_114"></a> +<p>He tried to imagine he hadn't heard all that he had heard, but +Mrs. Harrowdean had a nimble pen and nimbler afterthoughts, and +once her mind had got to work upon the topic she developed her +offensive in half-a-dozen brilliant letters.... On the other hand +she professed a steadily increasing passion for Mr. Britling. And +to profess passion for Mr. Britling was to put him under a sense of +profound obligation—because indeed he was a modest man. He +found himself in an emotional quandary.</p> +<p>You see, if Mrs. Harrowdean had left Mrs. Britling alone +everything would have been quite tolerable. He considered Mrs. +Harrowdean a charming human being, and altogether better than he +deserved. Ever so much better. She was all initiative and response +and that sort of thing. And she was so discreet. She had her own +reputation to think about, and one or two of her +predecessors—God rest the ashes of those fires!—had not +been so discreet. Yet one could not have this sort of thing going +on behind Edith's back. All sorts of things one might have going on +behind Edith's back, but not this writing and saying of perfectly +beastly things about Edith. Nothing could alter the fact that Edith +was his honour....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Throughout the week-end Mr. Britling had kept this trouble well +battened down. He had written to Mrs. Harrowdean a brief ambiguous +note saying, "I am thinking over all that you have said," and after +that he had scarcely thought about her at all. Or at least he had +always contrived to be much more vividly thinking about something +else. But now in these night silences the suppressed trouble burst +hatches and rose about him.</p> +<p>What a mess he had made of the whole scheme of his emotional +life! There had been a time when he had started out as gaily with +his passions and his honour as he had started out with Gladys to go +to Market Saffron.<a name="Page_115"></a> He had as little taste +for complications as he had for ditches. And now his passions and +his honour were in a worse case even than poor muddy smashed up +Gladys as the cart-horses towed her off, for she at any rate might +be repaired. But he—he was a terribly patched fabric of +explanations now. Not indeed that he had ever stooped to +explanations. But there he was! Far away, like a star seen down the +length of a tunnel, was that first sad story of a love as clean as +starlight. It had been all over by eight-and-twenty and he could +find it in his heart to grieve that he had ever given a thought to +love again. He should have lived a decent widower.... Then Edith +had come into his life, Edith that honest and unconscious +defaulter. And there again he should have stuck to his +disappointment. He had stuck to it—nine days out of every +ten. It's the tenth day, it's the odd seductive moment, it's the +instant of confident pride—and there is your sanguine +temperament in the ditch.</p> +<p>He began to recapitulate items in the catalogue of his +escapades, and the details of his automobile misadventures mixed +themselves up with the story of his heart steering. For example +there was that tremendous Siddons affair. He had been taking the +corner of a girlish friendship and he had taken it altogether too +far. What a frightful mess that had been! When once one is off the +road anything may happen, from a crumpled mud-guard to the car on +the top of you. And there was his forty miles an hour spurt with +the great and gifted Delphine Marquise—for whom he was to +have written a play and been a perfect Annunzio. Until Willersley +appeared—very like the motor-cyclist—buzzing in the +opposite direction. And then had ensued angers, +humiliations....</p> +<p>Had every man this sort of crowded catalogue? Was every +forty-five-year-old memory a dark tunnel receding from the star of +youth? It is surely a pity that life cannot end at thirty. It comes +to one clean and in perfect order....</p> +<a name="Page_116"></a> +<p>Is experience worth having?</p> +<p>What a clean, straight thing the spirit of youth is. It is like +a bright new spear. It is like a finely tempered sword. The figure +of his boy took possession of his mind, his boy who looked out on +the world with his mother's dark eyes, the slender son of that +whole-hearted first love. He was a being at once fine and simple, +an intimate mystery. Must he in his turn get dented and wrinkled +and tarnished?</p> +<p>The boy was in trouble. What was the trouble?</p> +<p>Was it some form of the same trouble that had so tangled and +tainted and scarred the private pride of his father? And how was it +possible for Mr. Britling, disfigured by heedless misadventures, +embarrassed by complications and concealments, to help this honest +youngster out of his perplexities? He imagined possible forms of +these perplexities. Graceless forms. Ugly forms. Such forms as only +the nocturnal imagination would have dared present....</p> +<p>Oh, why had he been such a Britling? Why was he still such a +Britling?</p> +<p>Mr. Britling sat up in his bed and beat at the bedclothes with +his fists. He uttered uncompleted vows, "From this hour forth ... +from this hour forth...."</p> +<p>He must do something, he felt. At any rate he had his +experiences. He could warn. He could explain away. Perhaps he might +help to extricate, if things had got to that pitch.</p> +<p>Should he write to his son? For a time he revolved a long, +tactful letter in his mind. But that was impossible. Suppose the +trouble was something quite different? It would have to be a letter +in the most general terms....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>It was in the doubly refracting nature of Mr. Britling's mind +that while he was deploring his inefficiency in<a name= +"Page_117"></a> regard to his son, he was also deploring the +ineffectiveness of all his generation of parents. Quite insensibly +his mind passed over to the generalised point of view.</p> +<p>In his talks with Mr. Direck, Mr. Britling could present England +as a great and amiable spectacle of carelessness and relaxation, +but was it indeed an amiable spectacle? The point that Mr. Direck +had made about the barn rankled in his thoughts. His barn was a +barn no longer, his farmyard held no cattle; he was just living +laxly in the buildings that ancient needs had made, he was living +on the accumulated prosperity of former times, the spendthrift heir +of toiling generations. Not only was he a pampered, undisciplined +sort of human being; he was living in a pampered, undisciplined +sort of community. The two things went together.... This confounded +Irish business, one could laugh at it in the daylight, but was it +indeed a thing to laugh at? We were drifting lazily towards a real +disaster. We had a government that seemed guided by the principles +of Mr. Micawber, and adopted for its watchword "Wait and see." For +months now this trouble had grown more threatening. Suppose +presently that civil war broke out in Ireland! Suppose presently +that these irritated, mishandled suffragettes did some desperate +irreconcilable thing, assassinated for example! The bomb in +Westminster Abbey the other day might have killed a dozen +people.... Suppose the smouldering criticism of British rule in +India and Egypt were fanned by administrative indiscretions into a +flame....</p> +<p>And then suppose Germany had made trouble....</p> +<p>Usually Mr. Britling kept his mind off Germany. In the daytime +he pretended Germany meant nothing to England. He hated alarmists. +He hated disagreeable possibilities. He declared the idea of a +whole vast nation waiting to strike at us incredible. Why should +they? You cannot have seventy million lunatics.... But in the +darkness of the night one cannot dismiss things in this<a name= +"Page_118"></a> way. Suppose, after all, their army was more than a +parade, their navy more than a protest?</p> +<p>We might be caught—It was only in the vast melancholia of +such occasions that Mr. Britling would admit such possibilities, +but we might be caught by some sudden declaration of war.... And +how should we face it?</p> +<p>He recalled the afternoon's talk at Claverings and such samples +of our governmental machinery as he chanced to number among his +personal acquaintance. Suppose suddenly the enemy struck! With +Raeburn and his friends to defend us! Or if the shock tumbled them +out of power, then with these vituperative Tories, these spiteful +advocates of weak tyrannies and privileged pretences in the place +of them. There was no leadership in England. In the lucid darkness +he knew that with a terrible certitude. He had a horrible vision of +things disastrously muffled; of Lady Frensham and her <i>Morning +Post</i> friends first garrulously and maliciously "patriotic," +screaming her way with incalculable mischiefs through the storm, +and finally discovering that the Germans were the real aristocrats +and organising our national capitulation on that understanding. He +knew from talk he had heard that the navy was weak in mines and +torpedoes, unprovided with the great monitors needed for a war with +Germany; torn by doctrinaire feuds; nevertheless the sea power was +our only defence. In the whole country we might muster a military +miscellany of perhaps three hundred thousand men. And he had no +faith in their equipment, in their direction. General French, the +one man who had his entire confidence, had been forced to resign +through some lawyer's misunderstanding about the Irish difficulty. +He did not believe any plans existed for such a war as Germany +might force upon us, any calculation, any foresight of the thing at +all.</p> +<p>Why had we no foresight? Why had we this wilful blindness to +disagreeable possibilities? Why did we lie<a name="Page_119"></a> +so open to the unexpected crisis? Just what he said of himself he +said also of his country. It was curious to remember that. To +realise how closely Dower House could play the microcosm to the +whole Empire....</p> +<p>It became relevant to the trend of his thoughts that his son had +through his mother a strong strain of the dark Irish in his +composition.</p> +<p>How we had wasted Ireland! The rich values that lay in Ireland, +the gallantry and gifts, the possible friendliness, all these +things were being left to the Ulster politicians and the Tory women +to poison and spoil, just as we left India to the traditions of the +chattering army women and the repressive instincts of our +mandarins. We were too lazy, we were too negligent. We passed our +indolent days leaving everything to somebody else. Was this the +incurable British, just as it was the incurable Britling, +quality?</p> +<p>Was the whole prosperity of the British, the far-flung empire, +the securities, the busy order, just their good luck? It was a +question he had asked a hundred times of his national as of his +personal self. No doubt luck had favoured him. He was prosperous, +and he was still only at the livelier end of middle age. But was +there not also a personal factor, a meritorious factor? Luck had +favoured the British with a well-placed island, a hardening +climate, accessible minerals, but then too was there not also a +national virtue? Once he had believed in that, in a certain +gallantry, a noble levity, an underlying sound sense. The last ten +years of politics had made him doubt that profoundly. He clung to +it still, but without confidence. In the night that dear persuasion +left him altogether.... As for himself he had a certain brightness +and liveliness of mind, but the year of his fellowship had been a +soft year, he had got on to <i>The Times</i> through something very +like a misapprehension, and it was the chances of a dinner and a +duchess that had given him the opportunity of the Kahn show. He'd +dropped into good<a name="Page_120"></a> things that suited him. +That at any rate was the essence of it. And these lucky chances had +been no incentive to further effort. Because things had gone easily +and rapidly with him he had developed indolence into a philosophy. +Here he was just over forty, and explaining to the world, +explaining all through the week-end to this American—until +even God could endure it no longer and the smash stopped +him—how excellent was the backwardness of Essex and English +go-as-you-please, and how through good temper it made in some +mysterious way for all that was desirable. A fat English doctrine. +<i>Punch</i> has preached it for forty years.</p> +<p>But this wasn't what he had always been. He thought of the +strenuous intentions of his youth, before he had got into this +turmoil of amorous experiences, while he was still out there with +the clean star of youth. As Hugh was....</p> +<p>In those days he had had no amiable doctrine of compromise. He +had truckled to no "domesticated God," but talked of the "pitiless +truth"; he had tolerated no easygoing pseudo-aristocratic social +system, but dreamt of such a democracy "mewing its mighty youth" as +the world had never seen. He had thought that his brains were to do +their share in building up this great national <i>imago</i>, +winged, divine, out of the clumsy, crawling, snobbish, +comfort-loving caterpillar of Victorian England. With such dreams +his life had started, and the light of them, perhaps, had helped +him to his rapid success. And then his wife had died, and he had +married again and become somehow more interested in his income, and +then the rather expensive first of the eight experiences had +drained off so much of his imaginative energy, and the second had +drained off so much, and there had been quarrels and feuds, and the +way had been lost, and the days had passed. He hadn't failed. +Indeed he counted as a success among his generation. He alone, in +the night watches, could gauge the quality of that success. He was +widely known,<a name="Page_121"></a> reputably known; he prospered. +Much had come, oh! by a mysterious luck, but everything was doomed +by his invincible defects. Beneath that hollow, enviable show there +ached waste. Waste, waste, waste—his heart, his imagination, +his wife, his son, his country—his automobile....</p> +<p>Then there flashed into his mind a last straw of disagreeable +realisation.</p> +<p>He hadn't as yet insured his automobile! He had meant to do so. +The papers were on his writing-desk.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>On these black nights, when the personal Mr. Britling would lie +awake thinking how unsatisfactorily Mr. Britling was going on, and +when the impersonal Mr. Britling would be thinking how +unsatisfactorily his universe was going on, the whole mental +process had a likeness to some complex piece of orchestral music +wherein the organ deplored the melancholy destinies of the race +while the piccolo lamented the secret trouble of Mrs. Harrowdean; +the big drum thundered at the Irish politicians, and all the +violins bewailed the intellectual laxity of the university system. +Meanwhile the trumpets prophesied wars and disasters, the cymbals +ever and again inserted a clashing jar about the fatal delay in the +automobile insurance, while the triangle broke into a plangent solo +on the topic of a certain rotten gate-post he always forgot in the +daytime, and how in consequence the cows from the glebe farm got +into the garden and ate Mrs. Britling's carnations.</p> +<p>Time after time he had promised to see to that gatepost....</p> +<p>The organ <i>motif</i> battled its way to complete predominance. +The lesser themes were drowned or absorbed. Mr. Britling returned +from the rôle of an incompetent automobilist to the +rôle of a soul naked in space and time wrestling with giant +questions. These cosmic solicitudes,<a name="Page_122"></a> it may +be, are the last penalty of irreligion. Was Huxley right, and was +all humanity, even as Mr. Britling, a careless, fitful thing, +playing a tragically hopeless game, thinking too slightly, moving +too quickly, against a relentless antagonist?</p> +<p>Or is the whole thing just witless, accidentally cruel perhaps, +but not malignant? Or is it wise, and merely refusing to pamper us? +Is there somewhere in the immensities some responsive kindliness, +some faint hope of toleration and assistance, something sensibly on +our side against death and mechanical cruelty? If so, it certainly +refuses to pamper us.... But if the whole thing is cruel, perhaps +also it is witless and will-less? One cannot imagine the ruler of +everything a devil—that would be silly. So if at the worst it +is inanimate then anyhow we have our poor wills and our poor wits +to pit against it. And manifestly then, the good of life, the +significance of any life that is not mere receptivity, lies in the +disciplined and clarified will and the sharpened and tempered mind. +And what for the last twenty years—for all his lectures and +writings—had he been doing to marshal the will and harden the +mind which were his weapons against the Dark? He was ready enough +to blame others—dons, politicians, public apathy, but what +was he himself doing?</p> +<p>What was he doing now?</p> +<p>Lying in bed!</p> +<p>His son was drifting to ruin, his country was going to the +devil, the house was a hospital of people wounded by his +carelessness, the country roads choked with his smashed (and +uninsured) automobiles, the cows were probably lined up along the +borders and munching Edith's carnations at this very moment, his +pocketbook and bureau were stuffed with venomous insults about +her—and he was just lying in bed!</p> +<p>Suddenly Mr. Britling threw back his bedclothes and felt for the +matches on his bedside table.</p> +<p>Indeed this was by no means the first time that his +brain<a name="Page_123"></a> had become a whirring torment in his +skull. Previous experiences had led to the most careful provision +for exactly such states. Over the end of the bed hung a light, warm +pyjama suit of llama-wool, and at the feet of it were two tall +boots of the same material that buckled to the middle of his calf. +So protected, Mr. Britling proceeded to make himself tea. A Primus +stove stood ready inside the fender of his fireplace, and on it was +a brightly polished brass kettle filled with water; a little table +carried a tea-caddy, a tea-pot, a lemon and a glass. Mr. Britling +lit the stove and then strolled to his desk. He was going to write +certain "Plain Words about Ireland." He lit his study lamp and +meditated beside it until a sound of water boiling called him to +his tea-making.</p> +<p>He returned to his desk stirring the lemon in his glass of tea. +He would write the plain common sense of this Irish situation. He +would put things so plainly that this squabbling folly would +<i>have</i> to cease. It should be done austerely, with a sort of +ironical directness. There should be no abuse, no bitterness, only +a deep passion of sanity.</p> +<p>What is the good of grieving over a smashed automobile?</p> +<p>He sipped his tea and made a few notes on his writing pad. His +face in the light of his shaded reading lamp had lost its +distraught expression, his hand fingered his familiar fountain +pen....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>The next morning Mr. Britling came into Mr. Direck's room. He +was pink from his morning bath, he was wearing a cheerful +green-and-blue silk dressing gown, he had shaved already, he showed +no trace of his nocturnal vigil. In the bathroom he had whistled +like a bird. "Had a good night?" he said. "That's famous. So did I. +And the wrist and arm didn't even ache enough to keep you +awake?"</p> +<p>"I thought I heard you talking and walking about," said Mr. +Direck.</p> +<a name="Page_124"></a> +<p>"I got up for a little bit and worked. I often do that. I hope I +didn't disturb you. Just for an hour or so. It's so delightfully +quiet in the night...."</p> +<p>He went to the window and blinked at the garden outside. His two +younger sons appeared on their bicycles returning from some early +expedition. He waved a hand of greeting. It was one of those summer +mornings when attenuated mist seems to fill the very air with +sunshine dust.</p> +<p>"This is the sunniest morning bedroom in the house," he said. +"It's south-east."</p> +<p>The sunlight slashed into the masses of the blue cedar outside +with a score of golden spears.</p> +<p>"The Dayspring from on High," he said.... "I thought of rather a +useful pamphlet in the night.</p> +<p>"I've been thinking about your luggage at that hotel," he went +on, turning to his guest again. "You'll have to write and get it +packed up and sent down here—</p> +<p>"No," he said, "we won't let you go until you can hit out with +that arm and fell a man. Listen!"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck could not distinguish any definite sound.</p> +<p>"The smell of frying rashers, I mean," said Mr. Britling. "It's +the clarion of the morn in every proper English home....</p> +<p>"You'd like a rasher, coffee?</p> +<p>"It's good to work in the night, and it's good to wake in the +morning," said Mr. Britling, rubbing his hands together. "I suppose +I wrote nearly two thousand words. So quiet one is, so +concentrated. And as soon as I have had my breakfast I shall go on +with it again."</p> +<a name="Page_125"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_THE_FIFTH"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIFTH</h2> +<h2>THE COMING OF THE DAY</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>It was quite characteristic of the state of mind of England in +the summer of 1914 that Mr. Britling should be mightily concerned +about the conflict in Ireland, and almost deliberately negligent of +the possibility of a war with Germany.</p> +<p>The armament of Germany, the hostility of Germany, the +consistent assertion of Germany, the world-wide clash of British +and German interests, had been facts in the consciousness of +Englishmen for more than a quarter of a century. A whole generation +had been born and brought up in the threat of this German war. A +threat that goes on for too long ceases to have the effect of a +threat, and this overhanging possibility had become a fixed and +scarcely disturbing feature of the British situation. It kept the +navy sedulous and Colonel Rendezvous uneasy; it stimulated a small +and not very influential section of the press to a series of +reminders that bored Mr. Britling acutely, it was the excuse for an +agitation that made national service ridiculous, and quite +subconsciously it affected his attitude to a hundred things. For +example, it was a factor in his very keen indignation at the Tory +levity in Ireland, in his disgust with many things that irritated +or estranged Indian feeling. It bored him; there it was, a danger, +and there was no denying it, and yet he believed firmly that it was +a mine that would never be fired, an avalanche that would never +fall. It was a nuisance, a stupidity, that kept Europe drilling and +wasted enormous sums on unavoidable preparations; it hung up +everything like a noisy argument in a drawing-room, but that +human<a name="Page_126"></a> weakness and folly would ever let the +mine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in +1911, he had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and +the fact that they had not come to a conflict had enormously +strengthened his natural disposition to believe that at bottom +Germany was sane and her militarism a bluff.</p> +<p>But the Irish difficulty was a different thing. There, he felt, +was need for the liveliest exertions. A few obstinate people in +influential positions were manifestly pushing things to an +outrageous point....</p> +<p>He wrote through the morning—and as the morning progressed +the judicial calm of his opening intentions warmed to a certain +regrettable vigour of phrasing about our politicians, about our +political ladies, and our hand-to-mouth press....</p> +<p>He came down to lunch in a frayed, exhausted condition, and was +much afflicted by a series of questions from Herr Heinrich. For it +was an incurable characteristic of Herr Heinrich that he asked +questions; the greater part of his conversation took the form of +question and answer, and his thirst for information was as marked +as his belief that German should not simply be spoken but spoken +"out loud." He invariably prefaced his inquiries with the word +"Please," and he insisted upon ascribing an omniscience to his +employer that it was extremely irksome to justify after a strenuous +morning of enthusiastic literary effort. He now took the +opportunity of a lull in the solicitudes and congratulations that +had followed Mr. Direck's appearance—and Mr. Direck was so +little shattered by his misadventure that with the assistance of +the kindly Teddy he had got up and dressed and come down to +lunch—to put the matter that had been occupying his mind all +the morning, even to the detriment of the lessons of the Masters +Britling.</p> +<p>"Please!" he said, going a deeper shade of pink and partly +turning to Mr. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_127"></a> +<p>A look of resignation came into Mr. Britling's eyes. "Yes?" he +said.</p> +<p>"I do not think it will be wise to take my ticket for the +Esperanto Conference at Boulogne. Because I think it is probable to +be war between Austria and Servia, and that Russia may make war on +Austria."</p> +<p>"That may happen. But I think it improbable."</p> +<p>"If Russia makes war on Austria, Germany will make war on +Russia, will she not?"</p> +<p>"Not if she is wise," said Mr. Britling, "because that would +bring in France."</p> +<p>"That is why I ask. If Germany goes to war with France I should +have to go to Germany to do my service. It will be a great +inconvenience to me."</p> +<p>"I don't imagine Germany will do anything so frantic as to +attack Russia. That would not only bring in France but +ourselves."</p> +<p>"England?"</p> +<p>"Of course. We can't afford to see France go under. The thing is +as plain as daylight. So plain that it cannot possibly happen.... +Cannot.... Unless Germany wants a universal war."</p> +<p>"Thank you," said Herr Heinrich, looking obedient rather than +reassured.</p> +<p>"I suppose now," said Mr. Direck after a pause, "that there +isn't any strong party in Germany that wants a war. That young +Crown Prince, for example."</p> +<p>"They keep him in order," said Mr. Britling a little irritably. +"They keep him in order....</p> +<p>"I used to be an alarmist about Germany," said Mr. Britling, +"but I have come to feel more and more confidence in the sound +common sense of the mass of the German population, and in the +Emperor too if it comes to that. He is—if Herr Heinrich will +permit me to agree with his own German comic papers—sometimes +a little theatrical, sometimes a little egotistical, but in his +operatic, boldly<a name="Page_128"></a> coloured way he means +peace. I am convinced he means peace...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>After lunch Mr. Britling had a brilliant idea for the ease and +comfort of Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>It seemed as though Mr. Direck would be unable to write any +letters until his wrist had mended. Teddy tried him with a +typewriter, but Mr. Direck was very awkward with his left hand, and +then Mr. Britling suddenly remembered a little peculiarity he had +which it was possible that Mr. Direck might share unconsciously, +and that was his gift of looking-glass writing with his left hand. +Mr. Britling had found out quite by chance in his schoolboy days +that while his right hand had been laboriously learning to write, +his left hand, all unsuspected, had been picking up the same +lesson, and that by taking a pencil in his left hand and writing +from right to left, without watching what he was writing, and then +examining the scrawl in a mirror, he could reproduce his own +handwriting in exact reverse. About three people out of five have +this often quite unsuspected ability. He demonstrated his gift, and +then Miss Cecily Corner, who had dropped in in a casual sort of way +to ask about Mr. Direck, tried it, and then Mr. Direck tried it. +And they could all do it. And then Teddy brought a sheet of copying +carbon, and so Mr. Direck, by using the carbon reversed under his +paper, was restored to the world of correspondence again.</p> +<p>They sat round a little table under the cedar trees amusing +themselves with these experiments, and after that Cecily and Mr. +Britling and the two small boys entertained themselves by drawing +pigs with their eyes shut, and then Mr. Britling and Teddy played +hard at Badminton until it was time for tea. And Cecily sat by Mr. +Direck and took an interest in his accident, and he told her about +summer holidays in the Adirondacks and how he loved to travel. She +said she would love to travel. He said that<a name="Page_129"></a> +so soon as he was better he would go on to Paris and then into +Germany. He was extraordinarily curious about this Germany and its +tremendous militarism. He'd far rather see it than Italy, which +was, he thought, just all art and ancient history. His turn was for +modern problems. Though of course he didn't intend to leave out +Italy while he was at it. And then their talk was scattered, and +there was great excitement because Herr Heinrich had lost his +squirrel.</p> +<p>He appeared coming out of the house into the sunshine, and so +distraught that he had forgotten the protection of his hat. He was +very pink and deeply moved.</p> +<p>"But what shall I do without him?" he cried. "He has gone!"</p> +<p>The squirrel, Mr. Direck gathered, had been bought by Mrs. +Britling for the boys some month or so ago; it had been christened +"Bill" and adored and then neglected, until Herr Heinrich took it +over. It had filled a place in his ample heart that the none too +demonstrative affection of the Britling household had left empty. +He abandoned his pursuit of philology almost entirely for the +cherishing and adoration of this busy, nimble little creature. He +carried it off to his own room, where it ran loose and took the +greatest liberties with him and his apartment. It was an +extraordinarily bold and savage little beast even for a squirrel, +but Herr Heinrich had set his heart and his very large and patient +will upon the establishment of sentimental relations. He believed +that ultimately Bill would let himself be stroked, that he would +make Bill love him and understand him, and that his would be the +only hand that Bill would ever suffer to touch him. In the +meanwhile even the untamed Bill was wonderful to watch. One could +watch him forever. His front paws were like hands, like a +musician's hands, very long and narrow. "He would be a musician if +he could only make his fingers go apart, because when I play my +violin he listens. He is attentive."</p> +<a name="Page_130"></a> +<p>The entire household became interested in Herr Heinrich's +attacks upon Bill's affection. They watched his fingers with +particular interest because it was upon those that Bill vented his +failures to respond to the stroking advances.</p> +<p>"To-day I have stroked him once and he has bitten me three +times," Herr Heinrich reported. "Soon I will stroke him three times +and he shall not bite me at all.... Also yesterday he climbed up me +and sat on my shoulder, and suddenly bit my ear. It was not hard he +bit, but sudden.</p> +<p>"He does not mean to bite," said Herr Heinrich. "Because when he +has bit me he is sorry. He is ashamed.</p> +<p>"You can see he is ashamed."</p> +<p>Assisted by the two small boys, Herr Heinrich presently got a +huge bough of oak and brought it into his room, converting the +entire apartment into the likeness of an aviary. "For this," said +Herr Heinrich, looking grave and diplomatic through his glasses, +"Billy will be very grateful. And it will give him confidence with +me. It will make him feel we are in the forest together."</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling came to console her husband in the matter.</p> +<p>"It is not right that the bedroom should be filled with trees. +All sorts of dust and litter came in with it."</p> +<p>"If it amuses him," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"But it makes work for the servants."</p> +<p>"Do they complain?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Things will adjust themselves. And it is amusing that he should +do such a thing...."</p> +<p>And now Billy had disappeared, and Herr Heinrich was on the +verge of tears. It was so ungrateful of Billy. Without a word.</p> +<p>"They leave my window open," he complained to Mr. Direck. "Often +I have askit them not to. And of course he did not understand. He +has out climbit by the ivy.<a name="Page_131"></a> Anything may +have happened to him. Anything. He is not used to going out alone. +He is too young.</p> +<p>"Perhaps if I call—"</p> +<p>And suddenly he had gone off round the house crying: "Beelee! +Beelee! Here is an almond for you! An almond, Beelee!"</p> +<p>"Makes me want to get up and help," said Mr. Direck. "It's a +tragedy."</p> +<p>Everybody else was helping. Even the gardener and his boy +knocked off work and explored the upper recesses of various +possible trees.</p> +<p>"He is too young," said Herr Heinrich, drifting back.... And +then presently: "If he heard my voice I am sure he would show +himself. But he does not show himself."</p> +<p>It was clear he feared the worst....</p> +<p>At supper Billy was the sole topic of conversation, and +condolence was in the air. The impression that on the whole he had +displayed rather a brutal character was combated by Herr Heinrich, +who held that a certain brusqueness was Billy's only fault, and +told anecdotes, almost sacred anecdotes, of the little creature's +tenderer, nobler side. "When I feed him always he says, 'Thank +you,'" said Herr Heinrich. "He never fails." He betrayed darker +thoughts. "When I went round by the barn there was a cat that sat +and looked at me out of a laurel bush," he said. "I do not like +cats."</p> +<p>Mr. Lawrence Carmine, who had dropped in, was suddenly reminded +of that lugubrious old ballad, "The Mistletoe Bough," and recited +large worn fragments of it impressively. It tells of how a +beautiful girl hid away in a chest during a Christmas game of +hide-and-seek, and how she was found, a dried vestige, years +afterwards. It took a very powerful hold upon Herr Heinrich's +imagination. "Let us now," he said, "make an examination of every +box and cupboard and drawer. Marking each as we go...."</p> +<a name="Page_132"></a> +<p>When Mr. Britling went to bed that night, after a long gossip +with Carmine about the Bramo Samaj and modern developments of +Indian thought generally, the squirrel was still undiscovered.</p> +<p>The worthy modern thinker undressed slowly, blew out his candle +and got into bed. Still meditating deeply upon the God of the +Tagores, he thrust his right hand under his pillow according to his +usual practice, and encountered something soft and warm and active. +He shot out of bed convulsively, lit his candle, and lifted his +pillow discreetly.</p> +<p>He discovered the missing Billy looking crumpled and +annoyed.</p> +<p>For some moments there was a lively struggle before Billy was +gripped. He chattered furiously and bit Mr. Britling twice. Then +Mr. Britling was out in the passage with the wriggling lump of warm +fur in his hand, and paddling along in the darkness to the door of +Herr Heinrich. He opened it softly.</p> +<p>A startled white figure sat up in bed sharply.</p> +<p>"Billy," said Mr. Britling by way of explanation, dropped his +capture on the carpet, and shut the door on the touching +reunion.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>A day was to come when Mr. Britling was to go over the history +of that sunny July with incredulous minuteness, trying to trace the +real succession of events that led from the startling crime at +Sarajevo to Europe's last swift rush into war. In a sense it was +untraceable; in a sense it was so obvious that he was amazed the +whole world had not watched the coming of disaster. The plain fact +of the case was that there was no direct connection; the Sarajevo +murders were dropped for two whole weeks out of the general +consciousness, they went out of the papers, they ceased to be +discussed; then they were picked up again and used as an excuse for +war. Germany, armed so as to be a threat to all the world, weary at +last of her<a name="Page_133"></a> mighty vigil, watching the +course of events, decided that her moment had come, and snatched +the dead archduke out of his grave again to serve her tremendous +ambition.</p> +<p>It may well have seemed to the belligerent German patriot that +all her possible foes were confused, divided within themselves, at +an extremity of distraction and impotence. The British Isles seemed +slipping steadily into civil war. Threat was met by counter-threat, +violent fool competed with violent fool for the admiration of the +world, the National Volunteers armed against the Ulster men; +everything moved on with a kind of mechanical precision from parade +and meeting towards the fatal gun-running of Howth and the first +bloodshed in Dublin streets. That wretched affray, far more than +any other single thing, must have stiffened Germany in the course +she had chosen. There can be no doubt of it; the mischief makers of +Ireland set the final confirmation upon the European war. In +England itself there was a summer fever of strikes; Liverpool was +choked by a dockers' strike, the East Anglian agricultural +labourers were in revolt, and the building trade throughout the +country was on the verge of a lockout. Russia seemed to be in the +crisis of a social revolution. From Baku to St. Petersburg there +were insurrectionary movements in the towns, and on the +23rd—the very day of the Austrian ultimatum—Cossacks +were storming barbed wire entanglements in the streets of the +capital. The London Stock Exchange was in a state of panic +disorganisation because of a vast mysterious selling of securities +from abroad. And France, France it seemed was lost to all other +consideration in the enthralling confrontations and denunciations +of the Caillaux murder trial, the trial of the wife of her ex-prime +Minister for the murder of a blackmailing journalist. It was a case +full of the vulgarest sexual violence. Before so piquant a +spectacle France it seemed could have no time nor attention for the +revelation of M. Humbert, the Reporter of the Army Committee, +proclaiming that the artillery was short of<a name="Page_134"></a> +ammunition, that her infantry had boots "thirty years old" and not +enough of those....</p> +<p>Such were the appearances of things. Can it be wondered if it +seemed to the German mind that the moment for the triumphant +assertion of the German predominance in the world had come? A day +or so before the Dublin shooting, the murder of Sarajevo had been +dragged again into the foreground of the world's affairs by an +ultimatum from Austria to Serbia of the extremest violence. From +the hour when the ultimatum was discharged the way to Armageddon +lay wide and unavoidable before the feet of Europe. After the +Dublin conflict there was no turning back. For a week Europe was +occupied by proceedings that were little more than the recital of a +formula. Austria could not withdraw her unqualified threats without +admitting error and defeat, Russia could not desert Serbia without +disgrace, Germany stood behind Austria, France was bound to Russia +by a long confederacy of mutual support, and it was impossible for +England to witness the destruction of France or the further +strengthening of a loud and threatening rival. It may be that +Germany counted on Russia giving way to her, it may be she counted +on the indecisions and feeble perplexities of England, both these +possibilities were in the reckoning, but chiefly she counted on +war. She counted on war, and since no nation in all the world had +ever been so fully prepared in every way for war as she was, she +also counted on victory.</p> +<p>One writes "Germany." That is how one writes of nations, as +though they had single brains and single purposes. But indeed while +Mr. Britling lay awake and thought of his son and Lady Frensham and +his smashed automobile and Mrs. Harrowdean's trick of abusive +letter-writing and of God and evil and a thousand perplexities, a +multitude of other brains must also have been busy, lying also in +beds or sitting in studies or watching in guard-rooms or chatting +belatedly in cafés or smoking-rooms or pacing the bridges of +battleships or walking<a name="Page_135"></a> along in city or +country, upon this huge possibility the crime of Sarajevo had just +opened, and of the state of the world in relation to such +possibilities. Few women, one guesses, heeded what was happening, +and of the men, the men whose decision to launch that implacable +threat turned the destinies of the world to war, there is no reason +to believe that a single one of them had anything approaching the +imaginative power needed to understand fully what it was they were +doing. We have looked for an hour or so into the seething pot of +Mr. Britling's brain and marked its multiple strands, its +inconsistencies, its irrational transitions. It was but a specimen. +Nearly every brain of the select few that counted in this cardinal +determination of the world's destinies, had its streak of personal +motive, its absurd and petty impulses and deflections. One man +decided to say <i>this</i> because if he said <i>that</i> he would +contradict something he had said and printed four or five days ago; +another took a certain line because so he saw his best opportunity +of putting a rival into a perplexity. It would be strange if one +could reach out now and recover the states of mind of two such +beings as the German Kaiser and his eldest son as Europe stumbled +towards her fate through the long days and warm, close nights of +that July. Here was the occasion for which so much of their lives +had been but the large pretentious preparation, coming right into +their hands to use or forgo, here was the opportunity that would +put them into the very forefront of history forever; this +journalist emperor with the paralysed arm, this common-fibred, sly, +lascivious son. It is impossible that they did not dream of glory +over all the world, of triumphant processions, of a world-throne +that would outshine Caesar's, of a godlike elevation, of acting +Divus Caesar while yet alive. And being what they were they must +have imagined spectators, and the young man, who was after all a +young man of particularly poor quality, imagined no doubt certain +women onlookers, certain humiliated and astonished friends, +and<a name="Page_136"></a> thought of the clothes he would wear and +the gestures he would make. The nickname his English cousins had +given this heir to all the glories was the "White Rabbit." He was +the backbone of the war party at court. And presently he stole +bric-à-brac. That will help posterity to the proper values +of things in 1914. And the Teutonic generals and admirals and +strategists with their patient and perfect plans, who were so +confident of victory, each within a busy skull must have enacted +anticipatory dreams of his personal success and marshalled his +willing and unwilling admirers. Readers of histories and memoirs as +most of this class of men are, they must have composed little +eulogistic descriptions of the part themselves were to play in the +opening drama, imagined pleasing vindications and interesting +documents. Some of them perhaps saw difficulties, but few foresaw +failure. For all this set of brains the thing came as a choice to +take or reject; they could make war or prevent it. And they chose +war.</p> +<p>It is doubtful if any one outside the directing intelligence of +Germany and Austria saw anything so plain. The initiative was with +Germany. The Russian brains and the French brains and the British +brains, the few that were really coming round to look at this +problem squarely, had a far less simple set of problems and +profounder uncertainties. To Mr. Britling's mind the Round Table +Conference at Buckingham Palace was typical of the disunion and +indecision that lasted up to the very outbreak of hostilities. The +solemn violence of Sir Edward Carson was intensely antipathetic to +Mr. Britling, and in his retrospective inquiries he pictured to +himself that dark figure with its dropping under-lip, seated, heavy +and obstinate, at that discussion, still implacable though the King +had but just departed after a little speech that was packed with +veiled intimations of imminent danger...</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had no mercy in his mind for the treason of +obstinate egotism and for persistence in a mistaken<a name= +"Page_137"></a> course. His own temperamental weaknesses lay in +such different directions. He was always ready to leave one trail +for another; he was always open to conviction, trusting to the +essentials of his character for an ultimate consistency. He hated +Carson in those days as a Scotch terrier might hate a bloodhound, +as something at once more effective and impressive, and +exasperatingly, infinitely less intelligent.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>Thus—a vivid fact as yet only in a few hundred skulls or +so—the vast catastrophe of the Great War gathered behind the +idle, dispersed and confused spectacle of an indifferent world, +very much as the storms and rains of late September gathered behind +the glow and lassitudes of August, and with scarcely more of set +human intention. For the greater part of mankind the European +international situation was at most something in the papers, no +more important than the political disturbances in South Africa, +where the Herzogites were curiously uneasy, or the possible trouble +between Turkey and Greece. The things that really interested people +in England during the last months of peace were boxing and the +summer sales. A brilliant young Frenchman, Carpentier, who had +knocked out Bombardier Wells, came over again to defeat Gunboat +Smith, and did so to the infinite delight of France and the whole +Latin world, amidst the generous applause of Anglo-Saxondom. And +there was also a British triumph over the Americans at polo, and a +lively and cultured newspaper discussion about a proper motto for +the arms of the London County Council. The trial of Madame Caillaux +filled the papers with animated reports and vivid pictures; Gregori +Rasputin was stabbed and became the subject of much lively gossip +about the Russian Court; and Ulivi, the Italian impostor who +claimed he could explode mines by means of an "ultra-red" ray, was +exposed and fled with a lady, very<a name="Page_138"></a> +amusingly. For a few days all the work at Woolwich Arsenal was held +up because a certain Mr. Entwhistle, having refused to erect a +machine on a concrete bed laid down by non-unionists, was rather +uncivilly dismissed, and the Irish trouble pounded along its +tiresome mischievous way. People gave a divided attention to these +various topics, and went about their individual businesses.</p> +<p>And at Dower House they went about their businesses. Mr. +Direck's arm healed rapidly; Cecily Corner and he talked of their +objects in life and Utopias and the books of Mr. Britling, and he +got down from a London bookseller Baedeker's guides for Holland and +Belgium, South Germany and Italy; Herr Heinrich after some doubt +sent in his application form and his preliminary deposit for the +Esperanto Conference at Boulogne, and Billy consented to be stroked +three times but continued to bite with great vigour and +promptitude. And the trouble about Hugh, Mr. Britling's eldest son, +resolved itself into nothing of any vital importance, and settled +itself very easily.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>After Hugh had cleared things up and gone back to London Mr. +Britling was inclined to think that such a thing as apprehension +was a sin against the general fairness and integrity of life.</p> +<p>Of all things in the world Hugh was the one that could most +easily rouse Mr. Britling's unhappy aptitude for distressing +imaginations. Hugh was nearer by far to his heart and nerves than +any other creature. In the last few years Mr. Britling, by the +light of a variety of emotional excursions in other directions, had +been discovering this. Whatever Mr. Britling discovered he talked +about; he had evolved from his realisation of this tenderness, +which was without an effort so much tenderer than all the subtle +and tremendous feelings he had attempted in his—excursions, +the theory that he had expounded to Mr. Direck that it is only +through our children that we are able to<a name="Page_139"></a> +achieve disinterested love, real love. But that left unexplained +that far more intimate emotional hold of Hugh than of his very +jolly little step-brothers. That was a fact into which Mr. Britling +rather sedulously wouldn't look....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was probably much franker and more open-eyed with +himself and the universe than a great number of intelligent people, +and yet there were quite a number of aspects of his relations with +his wife, with people about him, with his country and God and the +nature of things, upon which he turned his back with an attentive +persistence. But a back too resolutely turned may be as indicative +as a pointing finger, and in this retrogressive way, and tacitly +even so far as his formal thoughts, his unspoken comments, went, +Mr. Britling knew that he loved his son because he had lavished the +most hope and the most imagination upon him, because he was the one +living continuation of that dear life with Mary, so lovingly stormy +at the time, so fine now in memory, that had really possessed the +whole heart of Mr. Britling. The boy had been the joy and marvel of +the young parents; it was incredible to them that there had ever +been a creature so delicate and sweet, and they brought +considerable imagination and humour to the detailed study of his +minute personality and to the forecasting of his future. Mr. +Britling's mind blossomed with wonderful schemes for his education. +All that mental growth no doubt contributed greatly to Mr. +Britling's peculiar affection, and with it there interwove still +tenderer and subtler elements, for the boy had a score of Mary's +traits. But there were other things still more conspicuously +ignored. One silent factor in the slow widening of the breach +between Edith and Mr. Britling was her cool estimate of her +stepson. She was steadfastly kind to this shock-headed, untidy +little dreamer, he was extremely well cared for in her hands, she +liked him and she was amused by him—it is difficult to +imagine what more Mr. Britling could have +expected—but<a name="Page_140"></a> it was as plain as +daylight that she felt that this was not the child she would have +cared to have borne. It was quite preposterous and perfectly +natural that this should seem to Mr. Britling to be unfair to +Hugh.</p> +<p>Edith's home was more prosperous than Mary's; she brought her +own money to it; the bringing up of her children was a far more +efficient business than Mary's instinctive proceedings. Hugh had +very nearly died in his first year of life; some summer infection +had snatched at him; that had tied him to his father's heart by a +knot of fear; but no infection had ever come near Edith's own +nursery. And it was Hugh that Mr. Britling had seen, small and +green-faced and pitiful under an anaesthetic for some necessary +small operation to his adenoids. His younger children had never +stabbed to Mr. Britling's heart with any such pitifulness; they +were not so thin-skinned as their elder brother, not so assailable +by the little animosities of dust and germ. And out of such things +as this evolved a shapeless cloud of championship for Hugh. +Jealousies and suspicions are latent in every human relationship. +We go about the affairs of life pretending magnificently that they +are not so, pretending to the generosities we desire. And in all +step-relationships jealousy and suspicion are not merely latent, +they stir.</p> +<p>It was Mr. Britling's case for Hugh that he was something +exceptional, something exceptionally good, and that the peculiar +need there was to take care of him was due to a delicacy of nerve +and fibre that was ultimately a virtue. The boy was quick, quick to +hear, quick to move, very accurate in his swift way, he talked +unusually soon, he began to sketch at an early age with an +incurable roughness and a remarkable expressiveness. That he was +sometimes ungainly, often untidy, that he would become so mentally +preoccupied as to be uncivil to people about him, that he caught +any malaise that was going, was all a part of that. The sense of +Mrs. Britling's unexpressed criticisms, the implied contrasts with +the very jolly, very<a name="Page_141"></a> uninspired younger +family, kept up a nervous desire in Mr. Britling for evidences and +manifestations of Hugh's quality. Not always with happy results; it +caused much mutual irritation, but not enough to prevent the growth +of a real response on Hugh's part to his father's solicitude. The +youngster knew and felt that his father was his father just as +certainly as he felt that Mrs. Britling was not his mother. To his +father he brought his successes and to his father he appealed.</p> +<p>But he brought his successes more readily than he brought his +troubles. So far as he himself was concerned he was disposed to +take a humorous view of the things that went wrong and didn't come +off with him, but as a "Tremendous Set-Down for the Proud Parent" +they resisted humorous treatment....</p> +<p>Now the trouble that he had been hesitating to bring before his +father was concerned with that very grave interest of the young, +his Object in Life. It had nothing to do with those erotic +disturbances that had distressed his father's imagination. Whatever +was going on below the surface of Hugh's smiling or thoughtful +presence in that respect had still to come to the surface and find +expression. But he was bothered very much by divergent strands in +his own intellectual composition. Two sets of interests pulled at +him, one—it will seem a dry interest to many readers, but for +Hugh it glittered and fascinated—was crystallography and +molecular physics; the other was caricature. Both aptitudes sprang +no doubt from the same exceptional sensitiveness to form. As a +schoolboy he exercised both very happily, but now he was getting to +the age of specialisation, and he was fluctuating very much between +science and art. After a spell of scientific study he would come +upon a fatigue period and find nothing in life but absurdities and +a lark that one could represent very amusingly; after a bout of +funny drawings his mind went back to his light and crystals and +films like a Magdalen repenting in a church. After his +public<a name="Page_142"></a> school he had refused Cambridge and +gone to University College, London, to work under the great and +inspiring Professor Cardinal; simultaneously Cardinal had been +arranging to go to Cambridge, and Hugh had scarcely embarked upon +his London work when Cardinal was succeeded by the dull, +conscientious and depressing Pelkingham, at whose touch crystals +became as puddings, bubble films like cotton sheets, transparency +vanished from the world, and X rays dwarfed and died. And Hugh +degenerated immediately into a scoffing trifler who wished to give +up science for art.</p> +<p>He gave up science for art after grave consultation with his +father, and the real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, +was that now he repented and wanted to follow Cardinal to +Cambridge, and—a year lost—go on with science again. He +felt it was a discreditable fluctuation; he knew it would be a +considerable expense; and so he took two weeks before he could +screw himself up to broaching the matter.</p> +<p>"So <i>that</i> is all," said Mr. Britling, immensely +relieved.</p> +<p>"My dear Parent, you didn't think I had backed a bill or forged +a cheque?"</p> +<p>"I thought you might have married a chorus girl or something of +that sort," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Or bought a large cream-coloured motor-car for her on the +instalment system, which she'd smashed up. No, that sort of thing +comes later.... I'll just put myself down on the waiting list of +one of those bits of delight in the Cambridge tobacco +shops—and go on with my studies for a year or two...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>Though Mr. Britling's anxiety about his son was dispelled, his +mind remained curiously apprehensive throughout July. He had a +feeling that things were not going well with the world, a feeling +he tried in vain to dispel<a name="Page_143"></a> by various +distractions. Perhaps some subtler subconscious analysis of the +situation was working out probabilities that his conscious self +would not face. And when presently he bicycled off to Mrs. +Harrowdean for flattery, amusement, and comfort generally, he found +her by no means the exalting confirmation of everything he wished +to believe about himself and the universe, that had been her +delightful rôle in the early stages of their romantic +friendship. She maintained her hostility to Edith; she seemed bent +on making things impossible. And yet there were one or two phases +of the old sustaining intimacies.</p> +<p>They walked across her absurd little park to the summer-house +with the view on the afternoon of his arrival, and they discussed +the Irish pamphlet which was now nearly finished.</p> +<p>"Of course," she said, "it will be a wonderful pamphlet."</p> +<p>There was a reservation in her voice that made him wait.</p> +<p>"But I suppose all sorts of people could write an Irish +pamphlet. Nobody but you could write 'The Silent Places.' Oh, +<i>why</i> don't you finish that great beautiful thing, and leave +all this world of reality and newspapers, all these Crude, Vulgar, +Quarrelsome, Jarring things to other people? You have the magic +gift, you might be a poet, you can take us out of all these horrid +things that are, away to Beautyland, and you are just content to be +a critic and a disputer. It's your surroundings. It's your sordid +realities. It's that Practicality at your elbow. You ought never to +see a newspaper. You ought never to have an American come within +ten miles of you. You ought to live on bowls of milk drunk in +valleys of asphodel."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling, who liked this sort of thing in a way, and yet at +the same time felt ridiculously distended and altogether +preposterous while it was going on, answered feebly and +self-consciously.</p> +<a name="Page_144"></a> +<p>"There was your letter in the <i>Nation</i> the other day," she +said. "Why <i>do</i> you get drawn into arguments? I wanted to rush +into the <i>Nation</i> and pick you up and wipe the anger off you, +and carry you out of it all—into some quiet beautiful +place."</p> +<p>"But one <i>has</i> to answer these people," said Mr. Britling, +rolling along by the side of her like a full moon beside Venus, and +quite artlessly falling in with the tone of her.</p> +<p>She repeated lines from "The Silent Places" from memory. She +threw quite wonderful emotion into her voice. She made the words +glow. And he had only shown her the thing once....</p> +<p>Was he indeed burying a marvellous gift under the dust of +current affairs? When at last in the warm evening light they +strolled back from the summer-house to dinner he had definitely +promised her that he would take up and finish "The Silent +Places."... And think over the Irish pamphlet again before he +published it....</p> +<p>Pyecrafts was like a crystal casket of finer soil withdrawn from +the tarred highways of the earth....</p> +<p>And yet the very next day this angel enemy of controversies +broke out in the most abominable way about Edith, and he had to +tell her more plainly than he had done hitherto, that he could not +tolerate that sort of thing. He wouldn't have Edith guyed. He +wouldn't have Edith made to seem base. And at that there was much +trouble between them, and tears and talk of Oliver....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling found himself unable to get on either with "The +Silent Places" or the pamphlet, and he was very unhappy....</p> +<p>Afterwards she repented very touchingly, and said that if only +he would love her she would swallow a thousand Ediths. He waived a +certain disrespect in the idea of her swallowing Edith, and they +had a beautiful reconciliation and talked of exalted things, and in +the evening he worked quite well upon "The Silent Places" and +thought<a name="Page_145"></a> of half-a-dozen quite wonderful +lines, and in the course of the next day he returned to Dower House +and Mr. Direck and considerable piles of correspondence and the +completion of the Irish pamphlet.</p> +<p>But he was restless. He was more restless in his house than he +had ever been. He could not understand it. Everything about him was +just as it had always been, and yet it was unsatisfactory, and it +seemed more unstable than anything had ever seemed before. He was +bored by the solemn development of the Irish dispute; he was +irritated by the smouldering threat of the Balkans; he was +irritated by the suffragettes and by a string of irrational little +strikes; by the general absence of any main plot as it were to hold +all these wranglings and trivialities together.... At the Dower +House the most unpleasant thoughts would come to him. He even had +doubts whether in "The Silent Places," he had been plagiarising, +more or less unconsciously, from Henry James's "Great Good +Place."...</p> +<p>On the twenty-first of July Gladys came back repaired and +looking none the worse for her misadventure. Next day he drove her +very carefully over to Pyecrafts, hoping to drug his uneasiness +with the pretence of a grand passion and the praises of "The Silent +Places," that beautiful work of art that was so free from any taint +of application, and alas! he found Mrs. Harrowdean in an evil mood. +He had been away from her for ten days—ten whole days. No +doubt Edith had manoeuvred to keep him. She hadn't! <i>Hadn't</i> +she? How was he, poor simple soul! to tell that she hadn't? That +was the prelude to a stormy afternoon.</p> +<p>The burthen of Mrs. Harrowdean was that she was wasting her +life, that she was wasting the poor, good, patient Oliver's life, +that for the sake of friendship she was braving the worst +imputations and that he treated her cavalierly, came when he wished +to do so, stayed away heartlessly, never thought she needed +<i>little</i> treats, <i>little</i><a name="Page_146"></a> +attentions, <i>little</i> presents. Did he think she could settle +down to her poor work, such as it was, in neglect and loneliness? +He forgot women were dear little tender things, and had to be made +happy and <i>kept</i> happy. Oliver might not be clever and +attractive but he did at least in his clumsy way understand and try +and do his duty....</p> +<p>Towards the end of the second hour of such complaints the spirit +of Mr. Britling rose in revolt. He lifted up his voice against her, +he charged his voice with indignant sorrow and declared that he had +come over to Pyecrafts with no thought in his mind but sweet and +loving thoughts, that he had but waited for Gladys to be ready +before he came, that he had brought over the manuscript of "The +Silent Places" with him to polish and finish up, that "for days and +days" he had been longing to do this in the atmosphere of the dear +old summer-house with its distant view of the dear old sea, and +that now all that was impossible, that Mrs. Harrowdean had made it +impossible and that indeed she was rapidly making everything +impossible....</p> +<p>And having delivered himself of this judgment Mr. Britling, a +little surprised at the rapid vigour of his anger, once he had let +it loose, came suddenly to an end of his words, made a renunciatory +gesture with his arms, and as if struck with the idea, rushed out +of her room and out of the house to where Gladys stood waiting. He +got into her and started her up, and after some trouble with the +gear due to the violence of his emotion, he turned her round and +departed with her—crushing the corner of a small bed of +snapdragon as he turned—and dove her with a sulky +sedulousness back to the Dower House and newspapers and +correspondence and irritations, and that gnawing and irrational +sense of a hollow and aimless quality in the world that he had +hoped Mrs. Harrowdean would assuage. And the further he went from +Mrs. Harrowdean the harsher and unjuster it seemed to him that he +had been to her.</p> +<a name="Page_147"></a> +<p>But he went on because he did not see how he could very well go +back.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck's broken wrist healed sooner than he desired. From +the first he had protested that it was the sort of thing that one +can carry about in a sling, that he was quite capable of travelling +about and taking care of himself in hotels, that he was only +staying on at Matching's Easy because he just loved to stay on and +wallow in Mrs. Britling's kindness and Mr. Britling's company. +While as a matter of fact he wallowed as much as he could in the +freshness and friendliness of Miss Cecily Corner, and for more than +a third of this period Mr. Britling was away from home +altogether.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck, it should be clear by this time, was a man of more +than European simplicity and directness, and his intentions towards +the young lady were as simple and direct and altogether honest as +such intentions can be. It is the American conception of gallantry +more than any other people's, to let the lady call the tune in +these affairs; the man's place is to be protective, propitiatory, +accommodating and clever, and the lady's to be difficult but +delightful until he catches her and houses her splendidly and gives +her a surprising lot of pocket-money, and goes about his business; +and upon these assumptions Mr. Direck went to work. But quite early +it was manifest to him that Cecily did not recognise his +assumptions. She was embarrassed when he got down one or two little +presents of chocolates and flowers for her from London—-the +Britling boys were much more appreciative—she wouldn't let +him contrive costly little expeditions for her, and she protested +against compliments and declared she would stay away when he paid +them. And she was not contented by his general sentiments about +life, but asked the most direct questions about his occupation and +his activities. His chief occupation was being the well<a name= +"Page_148"></a> provided heir of a capable lawyer, and his +activities in the light of her inquiries struck him as being light +and a trifle amateurish, qualities he had never felt as any +drawback about them before. So that he had to rely rather upon +aspirations and the possibility, under proper inspiration, of a +more actively serviceable life in future.</p> +<p>"There's a feeling in the States," he said, "that we've had +rather a tendency to overdo work, and that there is scope for a +leisure class to develop the refinement and the wider meanings of +life."</p> +<p>"But a leisure class doesn't mean a class that does nothing," +said Cecily. "It only means a class that isn't busy in +business."</p> +<p>"You're too hard on me," said Mr. Direck with that quiet smile +of his.</p> +<p>And then by way of putting her on the defensive he asked her +what she thought a man in his position ought to do.</p> +<p>"<i>Something</i>," she said, and in the expansion of this vague +demand they touched on a number of things. She said that she was a +Socialist, and there was still in Mr. Direck's composition a streak +of the old-fashioned American prejudice against the word. He +associated Socialists with Anarchists and deported aliens. It was +manifest too that she was deeply read in the essays and +dissertations of Mr. Britling. She thought everybody, man or woman, +ought to be chiefly engaged in doing something definite for the +world at large. ("There's my secretaryship of the Massachusetts +Modern Thought Society, anyhow," said Mr. Direck.) And she herself +wanted to be doing something—it was just because she did not +know what it was she ought to be doing that she was reading so +extensively and voraciously. She wanted to lose herself in +something. Deep in the being of Mr. Direck was the conviction that +what she ought to be doing was making love in a rapturously +egotistical manner, and enjoying every scrap of her own delightful +self and her own<a name="Page_149"></a> delightful +vitality—while she had it, but for the purposes of their +conversation he did not care to put it any more definitely than to +say that he thought we owed it to ourselves to develop our +personalities. Upon which she joined issue with great vigour.</p> +<p>"That is just what Mr. Britling says about you in his 'American +Impressions,'" she said. "He says that America overdoes the +development of personalities altogether, that whatever else is +wrong about America that is where America is most clearly wrong. I +read that this morning, and directly I read it I thought, 'Yes, +that's exactly it! Mr. Direck is overdoing the development of +personalities.'"</p> +<p>"Me!"</p> +<p>"Yes. I like talking to you and I don't like talking to you. And +I see now it is because you keep on talking of my Personality and +your Personality. That makes me uncomfortable. It's like having +some one following me about with a limelight. And in a sort of way +I do like it. I like it and I'm flattered by it, and then I go off +and dislike it, dislike the effect of it. I find myself trying to +be what you have told me I am—sort of acting myself. I want +to glance at looking-glasses to see if I am keeping it up. It's +just exactly what Mr. Britling says in his book about American +women. They act themselves, he says; they get a kind of story and +explanation about themselves and they are always trying to make it +perfectly plain and clear to every one. Well, when you do that you +can't think nicely of other things."</p> +<p>"We like a clear light on people," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"We don't. I suppose we're shadier," said Cecily.</p> +<p>"You're certainly much more in half-tones," said Mr. Direck. +"And I confess it's the half-tones get hold of me. But still you +haven't told me, Miss Cissie, what you think I ought to do with +myself. Here I am, you see, very much at your disposal. What sort +of business do you think it's my duty to go in for?"</p> +<a name="Page_150"></a> +<p>"That's for some one with more experience than I have, to tell +you. You should ask Mr. Britling."</p> +<p>"I'd rather have it from you."</p> +<p>"I don't even know for myself," she said.</p> +<p>"So why shouldn't we start to find out together?" he asked.</p> +<p>It was her tantalising habit to ignore all such tentatives.</p> +<p>"One can't help the feeling that one is in the world for +something more than oneself," she said....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>Soon Mr. Direck could measure the time that was left to him at +the Dower House no longer by days but by hours. His luggage was +mostly packed, his tickets to Rotterdam, Cologne, Munich, Dresden, +Vienna, were all in order. And things were still very indefinite +between him and Cecily. But God has not made Americans clean-shaven +and firm-featured for nothing, and he determined that matters must +be brought to some sort of definition before he embarked upon +travels that were rapidly losing their attractiveness in this +concentration of his attention....</p> +<p>A considerable nervousness betrayed itself in his voice and +manner when at last he carried out his determination.</p> +<p>"There's just a lil' thing," he said to her, taking advantage of +a moment when they were together after lunch, "that I'd value now +more than anything else in the world."</p> +<p>She answered by a lifted eyebrow and a glance that had not so +much inquiry in it as she intended.</p> +<p>"If we could just take a lil' walk together for a bit. Round by +Claverings Park and all that. See the deer again and the old trees. +Sort of scenery I'd like to remember when I'm away from it."</p> +<p>He was a little short of breath, and there was a quite<a name= +"Page_151"></a> disproportionate gravity about her moment for +consideration.</p> +<p>"Yes," she said with a cheerful acquiescence that came a couple +of bars too late. "Let's. It will be jolly."</p> +<p>"These fine English afternoons are wonderful afternoons," he +remarked after a moment or so of silence. "Not quite the splendid +blaze we get in our summer, but—sort of glowing."</p> +<p>"It's been very fine all the time you've been here," she +said....</p> +<p>After which exchanges they went along the lane, into the road by +the park fencing, and so to the little gate that lets one into the +park, without another word.</p> +<p>The idea took hold of Mr. Direck's mind that until they got +through the park gate it would be quite out of order to say +anything. The lane and the road and the stile and the gate were all +so much preliminary stuff to be got through before one could get to +business. But after the little white gate the way was clear, the +park opened out and one could get ahead without bothering about the +steering. And Mr. Direck had, he felt, been diplomatically involved +in lanes and by-ways long enough.</p> +<p>"Well," he said as he rejoined her after very carefully closing +the gate. "What I really wanted was an opportunity of just +mentioning something that happens to be of interest to you—if +it does happen to interest you.... I suppose I'd better put the +thing as simply as possible.... Practically.... I'm just right over +the head and all in love with you.... I thought I'd like to tell +you...."</p> +<p>Immense silences.</p> +<p>"Of course I won't pretend there haven't been others," Mr. +Direck suddenly resumed. "There have. One particularly. But I can +assure you I've never felt the depth and height or anything like +the sort of Quiet Clear Conviction.... And now I'm just telling you +these things, Miss Corner, I don't know whether it will interest +you if I tell you that you're really and truly the very first +love<a name="Page_152"></a> I ever had as well as my last. I've had +sent over—I got it only yesterday—this lil' photograph +of a miniature portrait of one of my ancestor's relations—a +Corner just as you are. It's here...."</p> +<p>He had considerable difficulties with his pockets and papers. +Cecily, mute and flushed and inconvenienced by a preposterous and +unaccountable impulse to weep, took the picture he handed her.</p> +<p>"When I was a lil' fellow of fifteen," said Mr. Direck in the +tone of one producing a melancholy but conclusive piece of +evidence, "I <i>worshipped</i> that miniature. It seemed to +me—the loveliest person.... And—it's just you...."</p> +<p>He too was preposterously moved.</p> +<p>It seemed a long time before Cecily had anything to say, and +then what she had to say she said in a softened, indistinct voice. +"You're very kind," she said, and kept hold of the little +photograph.</p> +<p>They had halted for the photograph. Now they walked on +again.</p> +<p>"I thought I'd like to tell you," said Mr. Direck and became +tremendously silent.</p> +<p>Cecily found him incredibly difficult to answer. She tried to +make herself light and offhand, and to be very frank with him.</p> +<p>"Of course," she said, "I knew—I felt somehow—you +meant to say something of this sort to me—when you asked me +to come with you——"</p> +<p>"Well?" he said.</p> +<p>"And I've been trying to make my poor brain think of something +to say to you."</p> +<p>She paused and contemplated her difficulties....</p> +<p>"Couldn't you perhaps say something of the same kind—such +as I've been trying to say?" said Mr. Direck presently, with a note +of earnest helpfulness. "I'd be very glad if you could."</p> +<p>"Not exactly," said Cecily, more careful than ever.</p> +<a name="Page_153"></a> +<p>"Meaning?"</p> +<p>"I think you know that you are the best of friends. I think you +are, oh—a Perfect Dear."</p> +<p>"Well—that's all right—so far."</p> +<p>"That <i>is</i> as far."</p> +<p>"You don't know whether you love me? That's what you mean to +say."</p> +<p>"No.... I feel somehow it isn't that.... Yet...."</p> +<p>"There's nobody else by any chance?"</p> +<p>"No." Cecily weighed things. "You needn't trouble about +that."</p> +<p>"Only ... only you don't know."</p> +<p>Cecily made a movement of assent.</p> +<p>"It's no good pretending I haven't thought about you," she +said.</p> +<p>"Well, anyhow I've done my best to give you the idea," said Mr. +Direck. "I seem now to have been doing that pretty nearly all the +time."</p> +<p>"Only what should we do?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck felt this question was singularly artless. +"Why!—we'd marry," he said. "And all that sort of thing."</p> +<p>"Letty has married—and all that sort of thing," said +Cecily, fixing her eye on him very firmly because she was colouring +brightly. "And it doesn't leave Letty very +much—forrader."</p> +<p>"Well now, they have a good time, don't they? I'd have thought +they have a lovely time!"</p> +<p>"They've had a lovely time. And Teddy is the dearest husband. +And they have a sweet little house and a most amusing baby. And +they play hockey every Sunday. And Teddy does his work. And every +week is like every other week. It is just heavenly. Just always the +same heavenly. Every Sunday there is a fresh week of heavenly +beginning. And this, you see, isn't heaven; it is earth. And they +don't know it but they are getting<a name="Page_154"></a> bored. I +have been watching them, and they are getting dreadfully bored. +It's heart-breaking to watch, because they are almost my dearest +people. Teddy used to be making perpetual jokes about the house and +the baby and his work and Letty, and now—he's made all the +possible jokes. It's only now and then he gets a fresh one. It's +like spring flowers and then—summer. And Letty sits about and +doesn't sing. They want something new to happen.... And there's Mr. +and Mrs. Britling. They love each other. Much more than Mrs. +Britling dreams, or Mr. Britling for the matter of that. Once upon +a time things were heavenly for them too, I suppose. Until suddenly +it began to happen to them that nothing new ever happened...."</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Direck, "people can travel."</p> +<p>"But that isn't <i>real</i> happening," said Cecily.</p> +<p>"It keeps one interested."</p> +<p>"But real happening is doing something."</p> +<p>"You come back to that," said Mr. Direck. "I never met any one +before who'd quite got that spirit as you have it. I wouldn't alter +it. It's part of you. It's part of this place. It's what Mr. +Britling always seems to be saying and never quite knowing he's +said it. It's just as though all the things that are going on +weren't the things that ought to be going on—but something +else quite different. Somehow one falls into it. It's as if your +daily life didn't matter, as if politics didn't matter, as if the +King and the social round and business and all those things weren't +anything really, and as though you felt there was something +else—out of sight—round the corner—that you ought +to be getting at. Well, I admit, that's got hold of me too. And +it's all mixed up with my idea of you. I don't see that there's +really a contradiction in it at all. I'm in love with you, all my +heart's in love with you, what's the good of being shy about it? +I'd just die for your littlest wish right here now, it's just as +though I'd got love in my veins instead<a name="Page_155"></a> of +blood, but that's not taking me away from that other thing. It's +bringing me round to that other thing. I feel as if without you I +wasn't up to anything at all, but <i>with</i> you—We'd not go +settling down in a cottage or just touring about with a Baedeker +Guide or anything of that kind. Not for long anyhow. We'd naturally +settle down side by side and <i>do</i> ..."</p> +<p>"But what should we do?" asked Cecily.</p> +<p>There came a hiatus in their talk.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck took a deep breath.</p> +<p>"You see that old felled tree there. I was sitting on it the day +before yesterday and thinking of you. Will you come there and sit +with me on it? When you sit on it you get a view, oh! a perfectly +lovely English view, just a bit of the house and those clumps of +trees and the valley away there with the lily pond. I'd love to +have you in my memory of it...."</p> +<p>They sat down, and Mr. Direck opened his case. He was shy and +clumsy about opening it, because he had been thinking dreadfully +hard about it, and he hated to seem heavy or profound or anything +but artless and spontaneous to Cecily. And he felt even when he did +open his case that the effect of it was platitudinous and +disappointing. Yet when he had thought it out it had seemed very +profound and altogether living.</p> +<p>"You see one doesn't want to use terms that have been used in a +thousand different senses in any way that isn't a perfectly +unambiguous sense, and at the same time one doesn't want to seem to +be canting about things or pitching anything a note or two higher +than it ought legitimately to go, but it seems to me that this sort +of something that Mr. Britling is always asking for in his essays +and writings and things, and what you are looking for just as much +and which seems so important to you that even love itself is a +secondary kind of thing until you can square the two together, is +nothing more nor less than Religion—I don't mean this +Religion or that Religion but<a name="Page_156"></a> just Religion +itself, a Big, Solemn, Comprehensive Idea that holds you and me and +all the world together in one great, grand universal scheme. And +though it isn't quite the sort of idea of love-making that's been +popular—well, in places like Carrierville—for some +time, it's the right idea; it's got to be followed out if we don't +want love-making to be a sort of idle, troublesome game of treats +and flatteries that is sure as anything to lead right away to +disappointments and foolishness and unfaithfulness and—just +Hell. What you are driving at, according to my interpretation, is +that marriage has got to be a religious marriage or else you are +splitting up life, that religion and love are most of life and all +the power there is in it, and that they can't afford to be +harnessed in two different directions.... I never had these ideas +until I came here and met you, but they come up now in my mind as +though they had always been there.... And that's why you don't want +to marry in a hurry. And that's why I'm glad almost that you don't +want to marry in a hurry."</p> +<p>He considered. "That's why I'll have to go on to Germany and +just let both of us turn things over in our minds."</p> +<p>"Yes," said Cecily, weighing his speech. "<i>I</i> think that is +it. I think that I do want a religious marriage, and that what is +wrong with Teddy and Letty is that they aren't religious. They +pretend they are religious somewhere out of sight and round the +corner.... Only—"</p> +<p>He considered her gravely.</p> +<p>"What <i>is</i> Religion?" she asked.</p> +<p>Here again there was a considerable pause.</p> +<p>"Very nearly two-thirds of the papers read before our +Massachusetts society since my connection with it, have dealt with +that very question," Mr. Direck began. "And one of our most +influential members was able to secure the services of a very able +and highly trained young woman from Michigan University, to make a +digest of all these representative utterances. We are having it +printed in<a name="Page_157"></a> a thoroughly artistic mariner, as +the club book for our autumn season. The drift of her results is +that religion isn't the same thing as religions. That most +religions are old and that religion is always new.... Well, putting +it simply, religion is the perpetual rediscovery of that Great +Thing Out There.... What the Great Thing is goes by all sorts of +names, but if you know it's there and if you remember it's there, +you've got religion.... That's about how she figured it out.... I +shall send you the book as soon as a copy comes over to me.... I +can't profess to put it as clearly as she puts it. She's got a real +analytical mind. But it's one of the most suggestive lil' books +I've ever seen. It just takes hold of you and <i>makes</i> you +think."</p> +<p>He paused and regarded the ground before +him—thoughtfully.</p> +<p>"Life," said Cecily, "has either got to be religious or else it +goes to pieces.... Perhaps anyhow it goes to pieces...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck endorsed these observations by a slow nodding of the +head.</p> +<p>He allowed a certain interval to elapse. Then a vaguely +apprehended purpose that had been for a time forgotten in these +higher interests came back to him. He took it up with a breathless +sense of temerity.</p> +<p>"Well," he said, "then you don't hate me?"</p> +<p>She smiled.</p> +<p>"You don't dislike me or despise me?"</p> +<p>She was still reassuring.</p> +<p>"You don't think I'm just a slow American sort of portent?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"You think, on the whole, I might +even—someday——?"</p> +<p>She tried to meet his eyes with a pleasant frankness, and +perhaps she was franker than she meant to be.</p> +<p>"Look here," said Mr. Direck, with a little quiver of<a name= +"Page_158"></a> emotion softening his mouth. "I'll ask you +something. We've got to wait. Until you feel clearer. Still.... +Could you bring yourself——? If just once—I could +kiss you....</p> +<p>"I'm going away to Germany," he went on to her silence. "But I +shan't be giving so much attention to Germany as I supposed I +should when I planned it out. But somehow—if I +felt—that I'd kissed you...."</p> +<p>With a delusive effect of calmness the young lady looked first +over her left shoulder and then over her right and surveyed the +park about them. Then she stood up. "We can go that way home," she +said with a movement of her head, "through the little covert."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck stood up too.</p> +<p>"If I was a poet or a bird," said Mr. Direck, "I should sing. +But being just a plain American citizen all I can do is just to +talk about all I'd do if I wasn't...."</p> +<p>And when they had reached the little covert, with its pathway of +soft moss and its sheltering screen of interlacing branches, he +broke the silence by saying, "Well, what's wrong with right here +and now?" and Cecily stood up to him as straight as a spear, with +gifts in her clear eyes. He took her soft cool face between his +trembling hands, and kissed her sweet half-parted lips. When he +kissed her she shivered, and he held her tighter and would have +kissed her again. But she broke away from him, and he did not press +her. And muter than ever, pondering deeply, and secretly trembling +in the queerest way, these two outwardly sedate young people +returned to the Dower House....</p> +<p>And after tea the taxicab from the junction came for him and he +vanished, and was last seen as a waving hat receding along the top +of the dog-rose hedge that ran beyond the hockey field towards the +village.</p> +<p>"He will see Germany long before I shall," said Herr Heinrich +with a gust of nostalgia. "I wish almost I had not agreed to go to +Boulogne."</p> +<a name="Page_159"></a> +<p>And for some days Miss Cecily Corner was a very grave and +dignified young woman indeed. Pondering....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>After the departure of Mr. Direck things international began to +move forward with great rapidity. It was exactly as if his American +deliberation had hitherto kept things waiting. Before his postcard +from Rotterdam reached the Dower House Austria had sent an +ultimatum to Serbia, and before Cecily had got the letter he wrote +her from Cologne, a letter in that curiously unformed handwriting +the stenographer and the typewriter are making an American +characteristic, Russia was mobilising, and the vast prospect of a +European war had opened like the rolling up of a curtain on which +the interests of the former week had been but a trivial embroidery. +So insistent was this reality that revealed itself that even the +shooting of the Dublin people after the gun-running of Howth was +dwarfed to unimportance. The mind of Mr. Britling came round from +its restless wanderings to a more and more intent contemplation of +the hurrying storm-clouds that swept out of nothingness to blacken +all his sky. He watched it, he watched amazed and incredulous, he +watched this contradiction of all his reiterated confessions of +faith in German sanity and pacifism, he watched it with all that +was impersonal in his being, and meanwhile his personal life ran in +a continually deeper and narrower channel as his intelligence was +withdrawn from it.</p> +<p>Never had the double refraction of his mind been more clearly +defined. On the one hand the Britling of the disinterested +intelligence saw the habitual peace of the world vanish as the +daylight vanishes when a shutter falls over the window of a cell; +and on the other the Britling of the private life saw all the +pleasant comfort of his relations with Mrs. Harrowdean disappearing +in a perplexing irrational quarrel. He did not want to lose +Mrs.<a name="Page_160"></a> Harrowdean; he contemplated their +breach with a profound and profoundly selfish dismay. It seemed the +wanton termination of an arrangement of which he was only beginning +to perceive the extreme and irreplaceable satisfactoriness.</p> +<p>It wasn't that he was in love with her. He knew almost as +clearly as though he had told himself as much that he was not. But +then, on the other hand, it was equally manifest in its subdued and +ignored way that as a matter of fact she was hardly more in love +with him. What constituted the satisfactoriness of the whole affair +was its essential unlovingness and friendly want of emotion. It +left their minds free to play with all the terms and methods of +love without distress. She could summon tears and delights as one +summons servants, and he could act his part as lover with no sense +of lost control. They supplied in each other's lives a long-felt +want—if only, that is, she could control her curious aptitude +for jealousy and the sexual impulse to vex. There, he felt, she +broke the convention of their relations and brought in serious +realities, and this little rift it was that had widened to a now +considerable breach. He knew that in every sane moment she dreaded +and wished to heal that breach as much as he did. But the deep +simplicities of the instincts they had tacitly agreed to bridge +over washed the piers of their reconciliation away.</p> +<p>And unless they could restore the bridge things would end, and +Mr. Britling felt that the ending of things would involve for him +the most extraordinary exasperation. She would go to Oliver for +comfort; she would marry Oliver; and he knew her well enough to be +sure that she would thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver +unsparingly upon his attention; while he, on the other hand, being +provided with no corresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of +emotional celibate, with his slack times and his afternoons and his +general need for flattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own +hands. He would be<a name="Page_161"></a> tormented by jealousy. In +which case—and here he came to verities—his work would +suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague demands she +satisfied fermented unassuaged.</p> +<p>And, after the fashion of our still too adolescent world, Mr. +Britling and Mrs. Harrowdean proceeded to negotiate these extremely +unromantic matters in the phrases of that simple, honest and +youthful passionateness which is still the only language available, +and at times Mr. Britling came very near persuading himself that he +had something of the passionate love for her that he had once had +for his Mary, and that the possible loss of her had nothing to do +with the convenience of Pyecrafts or any discretion in the world. +Though indeed the only thing in the whole plexus of emotional +possibility that still kept anything of its youthful freshness in +his mind was the very strong objection indeed he felt to handing +her over to anybody else in the world. And in addition he had just +a touch of fatherly feeling that a younger man would not have had, +and it made him feel very anxious to prevent her making a fool of +herself by marrying a man out of spite. He felt that since an +obstinate lover is apt to be an exacting husband, in the end the +heavy predominance of Oliver might wring much sincerer tears from +her than she had ever shed for himself. But that generosity was but +the bright edge to a mainly possessive jealousy.</p> +<p>It was Mr. Britling who reopened the correspondence by writing a +little apology for the corner of the small snapdragon bed, and this +evoked an admirably touching reply. He replied quite naturally with +assurances and declarations. But before she got his second letter +her mood had changed. She decided that if he had really and truly +been lovingly sorry, instead of just writing a note to her he would +have rushed over to her in a wild, dramatic state of mind, and +begged forgiveness on his knees. She wrote therefore a second +letter to this effect, crossing his second one, and, her literary +gift getting the<a name="Page_162"></a> better of her, she expanded +her thesis into a general denunciation of his habitual +off-handedness with her, to an abandonment of all hope of ever +being happy with him, to a decision to end the matter once for all, +and after a decent interval of dignified regrets to summon Oliver +to the reward of his patience and goodness. The European situation +was now at a pitch to get upon Mr. Britling's nerves, and he +replied with a letter intended to be conciliatory, but which +degenerated into earnest reproaches for her "unreasonableness." +Meanwhile she had received his second and tenderly eloquent letter; +it moved her deeply, and having now cleared her mind of much that +had kept it simmering uncomfortably, she replied with a sweetly +loving epistle. From this point their correspondence had a kind of +double quality, being intermittently angry and loving; her third +letter was tender, and it was tenderly answered in his fourth; but +in the interim she had received his third and answered it with +considerable acerbity, to which his fifth was a retort, just +missing her generous and conclusive fifth. She replied to his fifth +on a Saturday evening—it was that eventful Saturday, Saturday +the First of August, 1914—by a telegram. Oliver was abroad in +Holland, engaged in a much-needed emotional rest, and she wired to +Mr. Britling: "Have wired for Oliver, he will come to me, do not +trouble to answer this."</p> +<p>She was astonished to get no reply for two days. She got no +reply for two days because remarkable things were happening to the +telegraph wires of England just then, and her message, in the hands +of a boy scout on a bicycle, reached Mr. Britling's house only on +Monday afternoon. He was then at Claverings discussing the invasion +of Belgium that made Britain's participation in the war inevitable, +and he did not open the little red-brown envelope until about +half-past six. He failed to mark the date and hours upon it, but he +perceived that it was essentially a challenge. He was expected, he +saw, to go over at once<a name="Page_163"></a> with his renovated +Gladys and end this unfortunate clash forever in one striking and +passionate scene. His mind was now so full of the war that he found +this the most colourless and unattractive of obligations. But he +felt bound by the mysterious code of honour of the illicit love +affair to play his part. He postponed his departure until after +supper—there was no reason why he should be afraid of +motoring by moonlight if he went carefully—because Hugh came +in with Cissie demanding a game of hockey. Hockey offered a nervous +refreshment, a scampering forgetfulness of the tremendous disaster +of this war he had always believed impossible, that nothing else +could do, and he was very glad indeed of the irruption....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>For days the broader side of Mr. Britling's mind, as +distinguished from its egotistical edge, had been reflecting more +and more vividly and coherently the spectacle of civilisation +casting aside the thousand dispersed activities of peace, clutching +its weapons and setting its teeth, for a supreme struggle against +militarist imperialism. From the point of view of Matching's Easy +that colossal crystallising of accumulated antagonisms was for a +time no more than a confusion of headlines and a rearrangement of +columns in the white windows of the newspapers through which those +who lived in the securities of England looked out upon the world. +It was a display in the sphere of thought and print immeasurably +remote from the real green turf on which one walked, from the voice +and the church-bells of Mr. Dimple that sounded their ample +caresses in one's ears, from the clashing of the stags who were +beginning to knock the velvet from their horns in the park, or the +clatter of the butcher's cart and the respectful greeting of the +butcher boy down the lane. It was the spectacle of the world less +real even to most imaginations than the world of novels or +plays.<a name="Page_164"></a> People talked of these things always +with an underlying feeling that they romanced and +intellectualised.</p> +<p>On Thursday, July 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian minister at +Belgrade presented his impossible ultimatum to the Serbian +government, and demanded a reply within forty-eight hours. With the +wisdom of retrospect we know now clearly enough what that meant. +The Sarajevo crime was to be resuscitated and made an excuse for +war. But nine hundred and ninety-nine Europeans out of a thousand +had still no suspicion of what was happening to them. The ultimatum +figured prominently in the morning papers that came to Matching's +Easy on Friday, but it by no means dominated the rest of the news; +Sir Edward Carson's rejection of the government proposals for +Ulster was given the pride of place, and almost equally conspicuous +with the Serbian news were the Caillaux trial and the storming of +the St. Petersburg barricades by Cossacks. Herr Heinrich's +questions at lunch time received reassuring replies.</p> +<p>On Saturday Sir Edward Carson was still in the central +limelight, Russia had intervened and demanded more time for Serbia, +and the <i>Daily Chronicle</i> declared the day a critical one for +Europe. Dublin with bayonet charges and bullets thrust Serbia into +a corner on Monday. No shots had yet been fired in the East, and +the mischief in Ireland that Germany had counted on was well ahead. +Sir Edward Grey was said to be working hard for peace.</p> +<p>"It's the cry of wolf," said Mr. Britling to Herr Heinrich.</p> +<p>"But at last there did come a wolf," said Herr Heinrich. "I wish +I had not sent my first moneys to that Conference upon Esperanto. I +feel sure it will be put off."</p> +<p>"See!" said Teddy very cheerfully to Herr Heinrich on Tuesday, +and held up the paper, in which "The Bloodshed in Dublin" had +squeezed the "War Cloud Lifting" into a quite subordinate +position.</p> +<a name="Page_165"></a> +<p>"What did we tell you?" said Mrs. Britling. "Nobody wants a +European war."</p> +<p>But Wednesday's paper vindicated his fears. Germany had +commanded Russia not to mobilise.</p> +<p>"Of course Russia will mobilise," said Herr Heinrich.</p> +<p>"Or else forever after hold her peace," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"And then Germany will mobilise," said Herr Heinrich, "and all +my holiday will vanish. I shall have to go and mobilise too. I +shall have to fight. I have my papers."</p> +<p>"I never thought of you as a soldier before," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"I have deferred my service until I have done my thesis," said +Herr Heinrich. "Now all that will be—Piff! And my thesis +three-quarters finished."</p> +<p>"That is serious," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"<i>Verdammte Dummheit!</i>" said Herr Heinrich. "Why do they do +such things?"</p> +<p>On Thursday, the 30th of July, Caillaux, Carson, strikes, and +all the common topics of life had been swept out of the front page +of the paper altogether; the stock exchanges were in a state of +wild perturbation, and food prices were leaping fantastically. +Austria was bombarding Belgrade, contrary to the rules of war +hitherto accepted; Russia was mobilising; Mr. Asquith was, he +declared, not relaxing his efforts "to do everything possible to +circumscribe the area of possible conflict," and the Vienna +Conference of Peace Societies was postponed. "I do not see why a +conflict between Russia and Austria should involve Western Europe," +said Mr. Britling. "Our concern is only for Belgium and +France."</p> +<p>But Herr Heinrich knew better. "No," he said. "It is the war. It +has come. I have heard it talked about in Germany many times. But I +have never believed that it was obliged to come. Ach! It considers +no one. So long as Esperanto is disregarded, all these things must +be."</p> +<p>Friday brought photographs of the mobilisation in<a name= +"Page_166"></a> Vienna, and the news that Belgrade was burning. +Young men in straw hats very like English or French or Belgian +young men in straw hats were shown parading the streets of Vienna, +carrying flags and banners portentously, blowing trumpets or waving +hats and shouting. Saturday saw all Europe mobilising, and Herr +Heinrich upon Teddy's bicycle in wild pursuit of evening papers at +the junction. Mobilisation and the emotions of Herr Heinrich now +became the central facts of the Dower House situation. The two +younger Britlings mobilised with great vigour upon the playroom +floor. The elder had one hundred and ninety toy soldiers with a +considerable equipment of guns and wagons; the younger had a force +of a hundred and twenty-three, not counting three railway porters +(with trucks complete), a policeman, five civilians and two ladies. +Also they made a number of British and German flags out of paper. +But as neither would allow his troops to be any existing foreign +army, they agreed to be Redland and Blueland, according to the +colour of their prevailing uniforms. Meanwhile Herr Heinrich +confessed almost promiscuously the complication of his distresses +by a hitherto unexpected emotional interest in the daughter of the +village publican. She was a placid receptive young woman named Maud +Hickson, on whom the young man had, it seemed, imposed the more +poetical name of Marguerite.</p> +<p>"Often we have spoken together, oh yes, often," he assured Mrs. +Britling. "And now it must all end. She loves flowers, she loves +birds. She is most sweet and innocent. I have taught her many words +in German and several times I have tried to draw her in pencil, and +now I must go away and never see her any more."</p> +<p>His implicit appeal to the whole literature of Teutonic +romanticism disarmed Mrs. Britling's objection that he had no +business whatever to know the young woman at all.</p> +<p>"Also," cried Herr Heinrich, facing another aspect of his +distresses, "how am I to pack my things? Since I<a name= +"Page_167"></a> have been here I have bought many things, many +books, and two pairs of white flannel trousers and some shirts and +a tin instrument that I cannot work, for developing privately Kodak +films. All this must go into my little portmanteau. And it will not +go into my little portmanteau!</p> +<p>"And there is Billy! Who will now go on with the education of +Billy?"</p> +<p>The hands of fate paused not for Herr Heinrich's embarrassments +and distresses. He fretted from his room downstairs and back to his +room, he went out upon mysterious and futile errands towards the +village inn, he prowled about the garden. His head and face grew +pinker and pinker; his eyes were flushed and distressed. Everybody +sought to say and do kind and reassuring things to him.</p> +<p>"Ach!" he said to Teddy; "you are a civilian. You live in a free +country. It is not your war. You can be amused at it...."</p> +<p>But then Teddy was amused at everything.</p> +<p>Something but very dimly apprehended at Matching's Easy, +something methodical and compelling away in London, seemed to be +fumbling and feeling after Herr Heinrich, and Herr Heinrich it +appeared was responding. Sunday's post brought the decision.</p> +<p>"I have to go," he said. "I must go right up to London to-day. +To an address in Bloomsbury. Then they will tell me how to go to +Germany. I must pack and I must get the taxi-cab from the junction +and I must go. Why are there no trains on the branch line on +Sundays for me to go by it?"</p> +<p>At lunch he talked politics. "I am entirely opposed to the war," +he said. "I am entirely opposed to any war."</p> +<p>"Then why go?" asked Mr. Britling. "Stay here with us. We all +like you. Stay here and do not answer your mobilisation +summons."</p> +<a name="Page_168"></a> +<p>"But then I shall lose all my country. I shall lose my papers. I +shall be outcast. I must go."</p> +<p>"I suppose a man should go with his own country," Mr. Britling +reflected.</p> +<p>"If there was only one language in all the world, none of such +things would happen," Herr Heinrich declared. "There would be no +English, no Germans, no Russians."</p> +<p>"Just Esperantists," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"Or Idoists," said Herr Heinrich. "I am not convinced of which. +In some ways Ido is much better."</p> +<p>"Perhaps there would have to be a war between Ido and Esperanto +to settle it," said Teddy.</p> +<p>"Who shall we play skat with when you have gone?" asked Mrs. +Britling.</p> +<p>"All this morning," said Herr Heinrich, expanding in the warmth +of sympathy, "I have been trying to pack and I have been unable to +pack. My mind is too greatly disordered. I have been told not to +bring much luggage. Mrs. Britling, please."</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling became attentive.</p> +<p>"If I could leave much of my luggage, my clothes, some of them, +and particularly my violin, it would be much more to my +convenience. I do not care to be mobilised with my violin. There +may be much crowding. Then I would but just take my +rucksack...."</p> +<p>"If you will leave your things packed up."</p> +<p>"And afterwards they could be sent."</p> +<p>But he did not leave them packed up. The taxi-cab, to order +which he had gone to the junction in the morning on Teddy's +complaisant machine, came presently to carry him off, and the whole +family and the first contingent of the usual hockey players +gathered about it to see him off. The elder boy of the two juniors +put a distended rucksack upon the seat. Herr Heinrich then shook +hands with every one.</p> +<p>"Write and tell us how you get on," cried Mrs. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_169"></a> +<p>"But if England also makes war!"</p> +<p>"Write to Reynolds—let me give you his address; he is my +agent in New York," said Mr. Britling, and wrote it down.</p> +<p>"We'll come to the village corner with you, Herr Heinrich," +cried the boys.</p> +<p>"No," said Herr Heinrich, sitting down into the automobile, "I +will part with you altogether. It is too much...."</p> +<p>"<i>Auf Wiedersehen!</i>" cried Mr. Britling. "Remember, +whatever happens there will be peace at last!"</p> +<p>"Then why not at the beginning?" Herr Heinrich demanded with a +reasonable exasperation and repeated his maturer verdict on the +whole European situation; "<i>Verdammte Bummelei!</i>"</p> +<p>"Go," said Mr. Britling to the taxi driver.</p> +<p>"<i>Auf Wiedersehen</i>, Herr Heinrich!"</p> +<p>"<i>Auf Wiedersehen!</i>"</p> +<p>"Good-bye, Herr Heinrich!"</p> +<p>"Good luck, Herr Heinrich!"</p> +<p>The taxi started with a whir, and Herr Heinrich passed out of +the gates and along the same hungry road that had so recently +consumed Mr. Direck. "Give him a last send-off," cried Teddy. "One, +Two, Three! <i>Auf Wiedersehen!</i>"</p> +<p>The voices, gruff and shrill, sounded raggedly together. The +dog-rose hedge cut off the sight of the little face. Then the pink +head bobbed up again. He was standing up and waving the panama hat. +Careless of sunstroke....</p> +<p>Then Herr Heinrich had gone altogether....</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Britling, turning away.</p> +<p>"I do hope they won't hurt him," said a visitor.</p> +<p>"Oh, they won't put a youngster like that in the fighting line," +said Mr. Britling. "He's had no training yet. And he has to wear +glasses. How can he shoot? They'll make a clerk of him."</p> +<a name="Page_170"></a> +<p>"He hasn't packed at all," said Mrs. Britling to her husband. +"Just come up for an instant and peep at his room. +It's—touching."</p> +<p>It was touching.</p> +<p>It was more than touching; in its minute, absurd way it was +symbolical and prophetic, it was the miniature of one small life +uprooted.</p> +<p>The door stood wide open, as he had left it open, careless of +all the little jealousies and privacies of occupation and +ownership. Even the windows were wide open as though he had needed +air; he who had always so sedulously shut his windows since first +he came to England. Across the empty fireplace stretched the great +bough of oak he had brought in for Billy, but now its twigs and +leaves had wilted, and many had broken off and fallen on the floor. +Billy's cage stood empty upon a little table in the corner of the +room. Instead of packing, the young man had evidently paced up and +down in a state of emotional elaboration; the bed was disordered as +though he had several times flung himself upon it, and his books +had been thrown about the room despairfully. He had made some +little commencements of packing in a borrowed cardboard box. The +violin lay as if it lay in state upon the chest of drawers, the +drawers were all partially open, and in the middle of the floor +sprawled a pitiful shirt of blue, dropped there, the most flattened +and broken-hearted of garments. The fireplace contained an +unsuccessful pencil sketch of a girl's face, torn across....</p> +<p>Husband and wife regarded the abandoned room in silence for a +time, and when Mr. Britling spoke he lowered his voice.</p> +<p>"I don't see Billy," he said.</p> +<p>"Perhaps he has gone out of the window," said Mrs. Britling also +in a hushed undertone....</p> +<p>"Well," said Mr. Britling abruptly and loudly, turning away from +this first intimation of coming desolations, "let us go down to our +hockey! He had to go, you<a name="Page_171"></a> know. And Billy +will probably come back again when he begins to feel +hungry...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>Monday was a public holiday, the First Monday in August, and the +day consecrated by long-established custom to the Matching's Easy +Flower Show in Claverings Park. The day was to live in Mr. +Britling's memory with a harsh brightness like the brightness of +that sunshine one sees at times at the edge of a thunderstorm. +There were tents with the exhibits, and a tent for "Popular +Refreshments," there was a gorgeous gold and yellow steam +roundabout with motor-cars and horses, and another in green and +silver with wonderfully undulating ostriches and lions, and each +had an organ that went by steam; there were cocoanut shies and many +ingenious prize-giving shooting and dart-throwing and ring-throwing +stalls, each displaying a marvellous array of crockery, clocks, +metal ornaments, and suchlike rewards. There was a race of gas +balloons, each with a postcard attached to it begging the finder to +say where it descended, and you could get a balloon for a shilling +and have a chance of winning various impressive and embarrassing +prizes if your balloon went far enough—fish carvers, a +silver-handled walking-stick, a bog-oak gramophone-record cabinet, +and things like that. And by a special gate one could go for +sixpence into the Claverings gardens, and the sixpence would be +doubled by Lady Homartyn and devoted next winter to the Matching's +Easy coal club. And Mr. Britling went through all the shows with +his boys, and finally left them with a shilling each and his +blessing and paid his sixpence for the gardens and made his way as +he had promised, to have tea with Lady Homartyn.</p> +<p>The morning papers had arrived late, and he had been reading +them and re-reading them and musing over them intermittently until +his family had insisted upon his coming out to the festivities. +They said that if for no other<a name="Page_172"></a> reason he +must come to witness Aunt Wilshire's extraordinary skill at the +cocoanut shy. She could beat everybody. Well, one must not miss a +thing like that. The headlines proclaimed, "The Great Powers at +War; France Invaded by Germany; Germany invaded by Russia; 100,000 +Germans march into Luxemburg; Can England Abstain? Fifty Million +Loan to be Issued." And Germany had not only violated the Treaty of +London but she had seized a British ship in the Kiel Canal.... The +roundabouts were very busy and windily melodious, and the shooting +gallery kept popping and jingling as people shot and broke bottles, +and the voices of the young men and women inviting the crowd to try +their luck at this and that rang loud and clear. Teddy and Letty +and Cissie and Hugh were developing a quite disconcerting skill at +the dart-throwing, and were bent upon compiling a complete tea-set +for the Teddy cottage out of their winnings. There was a score of +automobiles and a number of traps and gigs about the entrance to +the portion of the park that had been railed off for the festival, +the small Britling boys had met some nursery visitors from +Claverings House and were busy displaying skill and calm upon the +roundabout ostriches, and less than four hundred miles away with a +front that reached from Nancy to Liège more than a million +and a quarter of grey-clad men, the greatest and best-equipped host +the world had ever seen, were pouring westward to take Paris, grip +and paralyse France, seize the Channel ports, invade England, and +make the German Empire the master-state of the earth. Their +equipment was a marvel of foresight and scientific organisation, +from the motor kitchens that rumbled in their wake to the +telescopic sights of the sharp-shooters, the innumerable +machine-guns of the infantry, the supply of entrenching material, +the preparations already made in the invaded country....</p> +<p>"Let's try at the other place for the sugar-basin!" said Teddy, +hurrying past. "Don't get <i>two</i> sugar-basins," said<a name= +"Page_173"></a> Cissie breathless in pursuit. "Hugh is trying for a +sugar-basin at the other place."</p> +<p>Then Mr. Britling heard a bellicose note.</p> +<p>"Let's have a go at the bottles," said a cheerful young farmer. +"Ought to keep up our shooting, these warlike times...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling ran against Hickson from the village inn and learnt +that he was disturbed about his son being called up as a reservist. +"Just when he was settling down here. It seems a pity they couldn't +leave him for a bit."</p> +<p>"'Tis a noosence," said Hickson, "but anyhow, they give first +prize to his radishes. He'll be glad to hear they give first prize +to his radishes. Do you think, Sir, there's very much probability +of this war? It do seem to be beginning like."</p> +<p>"It looks more like beginning than it has ever done," said Mr. +Britling. "It's a foolish business."</p> +<p>"I suppose if they start in on us we got to hit back at them," +said Mr. Hickson. "Postman—he's got his papers too...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling made his way through the drifting throng towards +the little wicket that led into the Gardens....</p> +<p>He was swung round suddenly by a loud bang.</p> +<p>It was the gun proclaiming the start of the balloon race.</p> +<p>He stood for some moments watching the scene. The balloon start +had gathered a little crowd of people, village girls in white +gloves and cheerful hats, young men in bright ties and ready-made +Sunday suits, fathers and mothers, boy scouts, children, clerks in +straw hats, bicyclists and miscellaneous folk. Over their heads +rose Mr. Cheshunt, the factotum of the estate. He was standing on a +table and handing the little balloons up into the air one by one. +They floated up from his hand like many-coloured grapes, some +rising and falling, some soaring steadily upward, some spinning and +eddying, drifting eastward before the gentle breeze, a string of +bubbles against the sky and the big trees that bounded the +park.<a name="Page_174"></a> Farther away to the right were the +striped canvas tents of the flower-show, still farther off the +roundabouts churned out their music, the shooting galleries popped, +and the swing boats creaked through the air. Cut off from these +things by a line of fencing lay the open park in which the deer +grouped themselves under the great trees and regarded the festival +mistrustfully. Teddy and Hugh appeared breaking away from the +balloon race cluster, and hurrying back to their dart-throwing. A +man outside a little tent that stood apart was putting up a +brave-looking notice, "Unstinted Teas One Shilling." The Teddy +perambulator was moored against the cocoanut shy, and Aunt Wilshire +was still displaying her terrible prowess at the cocoanuts. Already +she had won twenty-seven. Strange children had been impressed by +her to carry them, and formed her retinue. A wonderful old lady was +Aunt Wilshire....</p> +<p>Then across all the sunshine of this artless festival there +appeared, as if it were writing showing through a picture, "France +Invaded by Germany; Germany Invaded by Russia."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling turned again towards the wicket, with its +collectors of tribute, that led into the Gardens.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>The Claverings gardens, and particularly the great rockery, the +lily pond, and the herbaceous borders, were unusually populous with +unaccustomed visitors and shy young couples. Mr. Britling had to go +to the house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found +Lady Homartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the +dairy. She had been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and +she was resting in a deck chair while a spinster relation presided +over the tea. Mrs. Britling had fled the outer festival earlier, +and was sitting by the tea-things. Lady Meade and two or three +visitors had<a name="Page_175"></a> motored out from Hartleytree to +assist, and Manning had come in with his tremendous confirmation of +all that the morning papers had foreshadowed.</p> +<p>"Have you any news?" asked Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It's <i>war!</i>" said Mrs. Britling.</p> +<p>"They are in Luxemburg," said Manning. "That can only mean that +they are coming through Belgium."</p> +<p>"Then I was wrong," said Mr. Britling, "and the world is +altogether mad. And so there is nothing else for us to do but +win.... Why could they not leave Belgium alone?"</p> +<p>"It's been in all their plans for the last twenty years," said +Manning.</p> +<p>"But it brings us in for certain."</p> +<p>"I believe they have reckoned on that."</p> +<p>"Well!" Mr. Britling took his tea and sat down, and for a time +he said nothing.</p> +<p>"It is three against three," said one of the visitors, trying to +count the Powers engaged.</p> +<p>"Italy," said Manning, "will almost certainly refuse to fight. +In fact Italy is friendly to us. She is bound to be. This is, to +begin with, an Austrian war. And Japan will fight for us...."</p> +<p>"I think," said old Lady Meade, "that this is the suicide of +Germany. They cannot possibly fight against Russia and France and +ourselves. Why have they ever begun it?"</p> +<p>"It may be a longer and more difficult war than people suppose," +said Manning. "The Germans reckon they are going to win."</p> +<p>"Against us all?"</p> +<p>"Against us all. They are tremendously prepared."</p> +<p>"It is impossible that Germany should win," said Mr. Britling, +breaking his silence. "Against her Germany has something more than +armies; all reason, all instinct—the three greatest peoples +in the world."</p> +<p>"At present very badly supplied with war material."</p> +<a name="Page_176"></a> +<p>"That may delay things; it may make the task harder; but it will +not alter the end. Of course we are going to win. Nothing else is +thinkable. I have never believed they meant it. But I see now they +meant it. This insolent arming and marching, this forty years of +national blustering; sooner or later it had to topple over into +action...."</p> +<p>He paused and found they were listening, and he was carried on +by his own thoughts into further speech.</p> +<p>"This isn't the sort of war," he said, "that is settled by +counting guns and rifles. Something that has oppressed us all has +become intolerable and has to be ended. And it will be ended. I +don't know what soldiers and politicians think of our prospects, +but I do know what ordinary reasonable men think of the business. I +know that all we millions of reasonable civilised onlookers are +prepared to spend our last shillings and give all our lives now, +rather than see Germany unbeaten. I know that the same thing is +felt in America, and that given half a chance, given just one extra +shake of that foolish mailed fist in the face of America, and +America also will be in this war by our side. Italy will come in. +She is bound to come in. France will fight like one man. I'm quite +prepared to believe that the Germans have countless rifles and +guns; have got the most perfect maps, spies, plans you can imagine. +I'm quite prepared to hear that they have got a thousand tremendous +surprises in equipment up their sleeves. I'm quite prepared for +sweeping victories for them and appalling disasters for us. Those +are the first things. What I do know is that the Germans understand +nothing of the spirit of man; that they do not dream for a moment +of the devil of resentment this war will arouse. Didn't we all +trust them not to let off their guns? Wasn't that the essence of +our liberal and pacific faith? And here they are in the heart of +Europe letting off their guns?"</p> +<p>"And such a lot of guns," said Manning.</p> +<a name="Page_177"></a> +<p>"Then you think it will be a long war, Mr. Britling?" said Lady +Meade.</p> +<p>"Long or short, it will end in the downfall of Germany. But I do +not believe it will be long. I do not agree with Manning. Even now +I cannot believe that a whole great people can be possessed by war +madness. I think the war is the work of the German armaments party +and of the Court party. They have forced this war on Germany. +Well—they must win and go on winning. So long as they win, +Germany will hold together, so long as their armies are not clearly +defeated nor their navy destroyed. But once check them and stay +them and beat them, then I believe that suddenly the spirit of +Germany will change even as it changed after Jena...."</p> +<p>"Willie Nixon," said one of the visitors, "who came back from +Hamburg yesterday, says they are convinced they will have taken +Paris and St. Petersburg and one or two other little places and +practically settled everything for us by about Christmas."</p> +<p>"And London?"</p> +<p>"I forgot if he said London. But I suppose a London more or less +hardly matters. They don't think we shall dare come in, but if we +do they will Zeppelin the fleet and walk through our army—if +you can call it an army."</p> +<p>Manning nodded confirmation.</p> +<p>"They do not understand," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Sir George Padish told me the same sort of thing," said Lady +Homartyn. "He was in Berlin in June."</p> +<p>"Of course the efficiency of their preparations is almost +incredible," said another of Lady Meade's party.</p> +<p>"They have thought out and got ready for +everything—literally everything."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 13</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling had been a little surprised by the speech he had +made. He hadn't realised before he began to talk how angry and +scornful he was at this final coming into<a name="Page_178"></a> +action of the Teutonic militarism that had so long menaced his +world. He had always said it would never really fight—and +here it was fighting! He was furious with the indignation of an +apologist betrayed. He had only realised the strength and passion +of his own belligerent opinions as he had heard them, and as he +walked back with his wife through the village to the Dower House, +he was still in the swirl of this self-discovery; he was darkly +silent, devising fiercely denunciatory phrases against Krupp and +Kaiser. "Krupp and Kaiser," he grasped that obvious, convenient +alliteration. "It is all that is bad in mediævalism allied to +all that is bad in modernity," he told himself.</p> +<p>"The world," he said, startling Mrs. Britling with his sudden +speech, "will be intolerable to live in, it will be unendurable for +a decent human being, unless we win this war.</p> +<p>"We must smash or be smashed...."</p> +<p>His brain was so busy with such stuff that for a time he stared +at Mrs. Harrowdean's belated telegram without grasping the meaning +of a word of it. He realised slowly that it was incumbent upon him +to go over to her, but he postponed his departure very readily in +order to play hockey. Besides which it would be a full moon, and he +felt that summer moonlight was far better than sunset and dinner +time for the declarations he was expected to make. And then he went +on phrase-making again about Germany until he had actually bullied +off at hockey.</p> +<p>Suddenly in the midst of the game he had an amazing thought. It +came to him like a physical twinge.</p> +<p>"What the devil are we doing at this hockey?" he asked abruptly +of Teddy, who was coming up to bully after a goal. "We ought to be +drilling or shooting against those infernal Germans."</p> +<p>Teddy looked at him questioningly.</p> +<p>"Oh, come on!" said Mr. Britling with a gust of impatience, and +snapped the sticks together.</p> +<a name="Page_179"></a><br> +<h4>§ 14</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling started for his moonlight ride about half-past nine +that night. He announced that he could neither rest nor work, the +war had thrown him into a fever; the driving of the automobile was +just the distraction he needed; he might not, he added casually, +return for a day or so. When he felt he could work again he would +come back. He filled up his petrol tank by the light of an electric +torch, and sat in his car in the garage and studied his map of the +district. His thoughts wandered from the road to Pyecrafts to the +coast, and to the possible route of a raider. Suppose the enemy +anticipated a declaration of war! Here he might come, and +here....</p> +<p>He roused himself from these speculations to the business in +hand.</p> +<p>The evening seemed as light as day, a cool moonshine filled the +world. The road was silver that flushed to pink at the approach of +Mr. Britling's headlight, the dark turf at the wayside and the +bushes on the bank became for a moment an acid green as the glare +passed. The full moon was climbing up the sky, and so bright that +scarcely a star was visible in the blue grey of the heavens. Houses +gleamed white a mile away, and ever and again a moth would flutter +and hang in the light of the lamps, and then vanish again in the +night.</p> +<p>Gladys was in excellent condition for a run, and so was Mr. +Britling. He went neither fast nor slow, and with a quite +unfamiliar confidence. Life, which had seemed all day a congested +confusion darkened by threats, became cool, mysterious and aloof +and with a quality of dignified reassurance.</p> +<p>He steered along the narrow road by the black dog-rose hedge, +and so into the high road towards the village. The village was +alight at several windows but almost deserted. Out beyond, a +coruscation of lights burnt like a group of topaz and rubies set in +the silver shield of the<a name="Page_180"></a> night. The +festivities of the Flower Show were still in full progress, and the +reduction of the entrance fee after seven had drawn in every +lingering outsider. The roundabouts churned out their relentless +music, and the bottle-shooting galleries popped and crashed. The +well-patronised ostriches and motorcars flickered round in a +pulsing rhythm; black, black, black, before the naphtha flares.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling pulled up at the side of the road, and sat for a +little while watching the silhouettes move hither and thither from +shadow to shadow across the bright spaces.</p> +<p>"On the very brink of war—on the brink of Armageddon," he +whispered at last. "Do they understand? Do any of us +understand?"</p> +<p>He slipped in his gear to starting, and was presently running +quietly with his engine purring almost inaudibly along the level +road to Hartleytree. The sounds behind him grew smaller and +smaller, and died away leaving an immense unruffled quiet under the +moon. There seemed no motion but his own, no sound but the neat, +subdued, mechanical rhythm in front of his feet. Presently he ran +out into the main road, and heedless of the lane that turned away +towards Pyecrafts, drove on smoothly towards the east and the sea. +Never before had he driven by night. He had expected a fumbling and +tedious journey; he found he had come into an undreamt-of silvery +splendour of motion. For it seemed as though even the automobile +was running on moonlight that night.... Pyecrafts could wait. +Indeed the later he got to Pyecrafts the more moving and romantic +the little comedy of reconciliation would be. And he was in no +hurry for that comedy. He felt he wanted to apprehend this vast +summer calm about him, that alone of all the things of the day +seemed to convey anything whatever of the majestic tragedy that was +happening to mankind. As one slipped through this still vigil one +could imagine for the first time the millions<a name= +"Page_181"></a> away there marching, the wide river valleys, +villages, cities, mountain-ranges, ports and seas inaudibly +busy.</p> +<p>"Even now," he said, "the battleships may be fighting."</p> +<p>He listened, but the sound was only the low intermittent +drumming of his cylinders as he ran with his throttle nearly +closed, down a stretch of gentle hill.</p> +<p>He felt that he must see the sea. He would follow the road +beyond the Rodwell villages, and then turn up to the crest of +Eastonbury Hill. And thither he went and saw in the gap of the low +hills beyond a V-shaped level of moonlit water that glittered and +yet lay still. He stopped his car by the roadside, and sat for a +long time looking at this and musing. And once it seemed to him +three little shapes like short black needles passed in line ahead +across the molten silver.</p> +<p>But that may have been just the straining of the eyes....</p> +<p>All sorts of talk had come to Mr. Britling's ears about the +navies of England and France and Germany; there had been public +disputes of experts, much whispering and discussion in private. We +had the heavier vessels, the bigger guns, but it was not certain +that we had the preeminence in science and invention. Were they +relying as we were relying on Dreadnoughts, or had they their +secrets and surprises for us? To-night, perhaps, the great ships +were steaming to conflict....</p> +<p>To-night all over the world ships must be in flight and ships +pursuing; ten thousand towns must be ringing with the immediate +excitement of war....</p> +<p>Only a year ago Mr. Britling had been lunching on a battleship +and looking over its intricate machinery. It had seemed to him then +that there could be no better human stuff in the world than the +quiet, sunburnt, disciplined men and officers he had met.... And +our little army, too, must be gathering to-night, the little army +that had<a name="Page_182"></a> been chastened and reborn in South +Africa, that he was convinced was individually more gallant and +self-reliant and capable than any other army in the world. He would +have sneered or protested if he had heard another Englishman say +that, but in his heart he held the dear belief....</p> +<p>And what other aviators in the world could fly as the Frenchmen +and Englishmen he had met once or twice at Eastchurch and Salisbury +could fly? These are things of race and national quality. Let the +German cling to his gasbags. "We shall beat them in the air," he +whispered. "We shall beat them on the seas. Surely we shall beat +them on the seas. If we have men enough and guns enough we shall +beat them on land.... Yet—For years they have been +preparing...."</p> +<p>There was little room in the heart of Mr. Britling that night +for any love but the love of England. He loved England now as a +nation of men. There could be no easy victory. Good for us with our +too easy natures that there could be no easy victory. But victory +we must have now—or perish....</p> +<p>He roused himself with a sigh, restarted his engine, and went on +to find some turning place. He still had a colourless impression +that the journey's end was Pyecrafts.</p> +<p>"We must all do the thing we can," he thought, and for a time +the course of his automobile along a winding down-hill road held +his attention so that he could not get beyond it. He turned about +and ran up over the hill again and down long slopes inland, running +very softly and smoothly with his lights devouring the road ahead +and sweeping the banks and hedges beside him, and as he came down a +little hill through a village he heard a confused clatter and +jingle of traffic ahead, and saw the danger triangle that warns of +cross-roads. He slowed down and then pulled up abruptly.</p> +<p>Riding across the gap between the cottages was a string of +horsemen, and then a grey cart, and then a team drawing<a name= +"Page_183"></a> a heavy object—a gun, and then more horsemen, +and then a second gun. It was all a dim brown procession in the +moonlight. A mounted officer came up beside him and looked at him +and then went back to the cross-roads, but as yet England was not +troubling about spies. Four more guns passed, and then a string of +carts and more mounted men, sitting stiffly. Nobody was singing or +shouting; scarcely a word was audible, and through all the column +there was an effect of quiet efficient haste. And so they passed, +and rumbled and jingled and clattered out of the scene, leaving Mr. +Britling in his car in the dreaming village. He restarted his +engine once more, and went his way thoughtfully.</p> +<p>He went so thoughtfully that presently he missed the road to +Pyecrafts—if ever he had been on the road to Pyecrafts at +all—altogether. He found himself upon a highway running +across a flattish plain, and presently discovered by the sight of +the Great Bear, faint but traceable in the blue overhead, that he +was going due north. Well, presently he would turn south and west; +that in good time; now he wanted to feel; he wanted to think. How +could he best help England in the vast struggle for which the empty +silence and beauty of this night seemed to be waiting? But indeed +he was not thinking at all, but feeling, feeling wonder, as he had +never felt it since his youth had passed from him. This war might +end nearly everything in the world as he had known the world; that +idea struggled slowly through the moonlight into consciousness, and +won its way to dominance in his mind.</p> +<p>The character of the road changed; the hedges fell away, the +pine trees and pine woods took the place of the black squat shapes +of the hawthorn and oak and apple. The houses grew rarer and the +world emptier and emptier, until he could have believed that he was +the only man awake and out-of-doors in all the slumbering +land....</p> +<p>For a time a little thing caught hold of his dreaming mind. +Continually as he ran on, black, silent birds rose<a name= +"Page_184"></a> startled out of the dust of the road before him, +and fluttered noiselessly beyond his double wedge of light. What +sort of bird could they be? Were they night-jars? Were they +different kinds of birds snatching at the quiet of the night for a +dust bath in the sand? This little independent thread of inquiry +ran through the texture of his mind and died away....</p> +<p>And at one place there was a great bolting of rabbits across the +road, almost under his wheels....</p> +<p>The phrases he had used that afternoon at Claverings came back +presently into his head. They were, he felt assured, the phrases +that had to be said now. This war could be seen as the noblest of +wars, as the crowning struggle of mankind against national +dominance and national aggression; or else it was a mere struggle +of nationalities and pure destruction and catastrophe. Its enormous +significances, he felt, must not be lost in any petty bickering +about the minor issues of the conflict. But were these enormous +significances being stated clearly enough? Were they being +understood by the mass of liberal and pacific thinkers? He drove +more and more slowly as these questions crowded upon his attention +until at last he came to a stop altogether.... "Certain things must +be said clearly," he whispered. "Certain things—The meaning +of England.... The deep and long-unspoken desire for kindliness and +fairness.... Now is the time for speaking. It must be put as +straight now as her gun-fire, as honestly as the steering of her +ships."</p> +<p>Phrases and paragraphs began to shape themselves in his mind as +he sat with one arm on his steering-wheel.</p> +<p>Suddenly he roused himself, turned over the map in the map-case +beside him, and tried to find his position....</p> +<p>So far as he could judge he had strayed right into +Suffolk....</p> +<p>About one o'clock in the morning he found himself in Newmarket. +Newmarket too was a moonlit emptiness, but as he hesitated at the +cross-roads he became aware of<a name="Page_185"></a> a policeman +standing quite stiff and still at the corner by the church.</p> +<p>"Matching's Easy?" he cried.</p> +<p>"That road, Sir, until you come to Market Saffron, and then to +the left...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had a definite purpose now in his mind, and he +drove faster, but still very carefully and surely. He was already +within a mile or so of Market Saffron before he remembered that he +had made a kind of appointment with himself at Pyecrafts. He stared +at two conflicting purposes. He turned over certain +possibilities.</p> +<p>At the Market Saffron cross-roads he slowed down, and for a +moment he hung undecided.</p> +<p>"Oliver," he said, and as he spoke he threw over his +steering-wheel towards the homeward way.... He finished his +sentence when he had negotiated the corner safely. "Oliver must +have her...."</p> +<p>And then, perhaps fifty yards farther along, and this time +almost indignantly: "She ought to have married him long +ago...."</p> +<p>He put his automobile in the garage, and then went round under +the black shadow of his cedars to the front door. He had no key, +and for a long time he failed to rouse his wife by flinging pebbles +and gravel at her half-open window. But at last he heard her +stirring and called out to her.</p> +<p>He explained he had returned because he wanted to write. He +wanted indeed to write quite urgently. He went straight up to his +room, lit his reading-lamp, made himself some tea, and changed into +his nocturnal suit. Daylight found him still writing very earnestly +at his pamphlet. The title he had chosen was: "And Now War +Ends."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 15</h4> +<br> +<p>In this fashion it was that the great war began in Europe and +came to one man in Matching's Easy, as it<a name="Page_186"></a> +came to countless intelligent men in countless pleasant homes that +had scarcely heeded its coming through all the years of its +relentless preparation. The familiar scenery of life was drawn +aside, and War stood unveiled. "I am the Fact," said War, "and I +stand astride the path of life. I am the threat of death and +extinction that has always walked beside life, since life began. +There can be nothing else and nothing more in human life until you +have reckoned with me."</p> +<a name="Page_187"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II"></a> +<h2>BOOK II</h2> +<h2>MATCHING'S EASY AT WAR</h2> +<a name="Page_189"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> +<h2>ONLOOKERS</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>On that eventful night of the first shots and the first deaths +Mr. Britling did not sleep until daylight had come. He sat writing +at this pamphlet of his, which was to hail the last explosion and +the ending of war. For a couple of hours he wrote with energy, and +then his energy flagged. There came intervals when he sat still and +did not write. He yawned and yawned again and rubbed his eyes. The +day had come and the birds were noisy when he undressed slowly, +dropping his clothes anyhow upon the floor, and got into +bed....</p> +<p>He woke to find his morning tea beside him and the housemaid +going out of the room. He knew that something stupendous had +happened to the world, but for a few moments he could not remember +what it was. Then he remembered that France was invaded by Germany +and Germany by Russia, and that almost certainly England was going +to war. It seemed a harsh and terrible fact in the morning light, a +demand for stresses, a certainty of destruction; it appeared now +robbed of all the dark and dignified beauty of the night. He +remembered just the same feeling of unpleasant, anxious expectation +as he now felt when the Boer War had begun fifteen years ago, +before the first news came. The first news of the Boer War had been +the wrecking of a British armoured train near Kimberley. What +similar story might not the overdue paper tell when presently it +came?</p> +<p>Suppose, for instance, that some important division of our Fleet +had been surprised and overwhelmed....</p> +<a name="Page_190"></a> +<p>Suppose the Germans were already crumpling up the French armies +between Verdun and Belfort, very swiftly and dreadfully....</p> +<p>Suppose after all that the Cabinet was hesitating, and that +there would be no war for some weeks, but only a wrangle about +Belgian neutrality. While the Germans smashed France....</p> +<p>Or, on the other hand, there might be some amazing, prompt +success on our part. Our army and navy people were narrow, but in +their narrow way he believed they were extraordinarily good....</p> +<p>What would the Irish do?...</p> +<p>His thoughts were no more than a thorny jungle of unanswerable +questions through which he struggled in un-progressive circles.</p> +<p>He got out of bed and dressed in a slow, distraught manner. When +he reached his braces he discontinued dressing for a time; he +opened the atlas at Northern France, and stood musing over the +Belgian border. Then he turned to Whitaker's Almanack to browse +upon the statistics of the great European armies. He was roused +from this by the breakfast gong.</p> +<p>At breakfast there was no talk of anything but war. Hugh was as +excited as a cat in thundery weather, and the small boys wanted +information about flags. The Russian and the Serbian flag were in +dispute, and the flag page of Webster's Dictionary had to be +consulted. Newspapers and letters were both abnormally late, and +Mr. Britling, tiring of supplying trivial information to his +offspring, smoked cigarettes in the garden. He had an idea of +intercepting the postman. His eyes and ears informed him of the +approach of Mrs. Faber's automobile. It was an old, +resolute-looking machine painted red, and driven by a trusted +gardener; there was no mistaking it.</p> +<p>Mrs. Faber was in it, and she stopped it outside the gate and +made signals. Mrs. Britling, attracted by the<a name= +"Page_191"></a> catastrophic sounds of Mrs. Faber's vehicle, came +out by the front door, and she and her husband both converged upon +the caller.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>"I won't come in," cried Mrs. Faber, "but I thought I'd tell +you. I've been getting food."</p> +<p>"Food?"</p> +<p>"Provisions. There's going to be a run on provisions. Look at my +flitch of bacon!"</p> +<p>"But——"</p> +<p>"Faber says we have to lay in what we can. This war—it's +going to stop everything. We can't tell what will happen. I've got +the children to consider, so here I am. I was at Hickson's before +nine...."</p> +<p>The little lady was very flushed and bright-eyed. Her fair hair +was disordered, her hat a trifle askew. She had an air of enjoying +unwonted excitements. "All the gold's being hoarded too," she said, +with a crow of delight in her voice. "Faber says that probably our +cheques won't be worth <i>that</i> in a few days. He rushed off to +London to get gold at his clubs—while he can. I had to insist +on Hickson taking a cheque. 'Never,' I said, 'will I deal with you +again—never—unless you do....' Even then he looked at +me almost as if he thought he wouldn't.</p> +<p>"It's Famine!" she said, turning to Mr. Britling. "I've laid +hands on all I can. I've got the children to consider."</p> +<p>"But why is it famine?" asked Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Oh! it <i>is</i>!" she said.</p> +<p>"But why?"</p> +<p>"Faber understands," she said. "Of course it's Famine...."</p> +<p>"And would you believe me," she went on, going back to Mrs. +Britling, "that man Hickson stood behind his counter—where +I've dealt with him for <i>years</i>, and<a name="Page_192"></a> +refused absolutely to let me have more than a dozen tins of +sardines. <i>Refused!</i> Point blank!</p> +<p>"I was there before nine, and even then Hickson's shop was +crowded—<i>crowded</i>, my dear!"</p> +<p>"What have you got?" said Mr. Britling with an inquiring +movement towards the automobile.</p> +<p>She had got quite a lot. She had two sides of bacon, a case of +sugar, bags of rice, eggs, a lot of flour.</p> +<p>"What are all these little packets?" said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>Mrs. Faber looked slightly abashed.</p> +<p>"Cerebos salt," she said. "One gets carried away a little. I +just got hold of it and carried it out to the car. I thought we +might have to salt things later."</p> +<p>"And the jars are pickles?" said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Yes. But look at all my flour! That's what will go +first...."</p> +<p>The lady was a little flurried by Mr. Britling's too detailed +examination of her haul. "What good is blacking?" he asked. She +would not hear him. She felt he was trying to spoil her morning. +She declared she must get on back to her home. "Don't say I didn't +warn you," she said. "I've got no end of things to do. There's +peas! I want to show cook how to bottle our peas. For this +year—it's lucky, we've got no end of peas. I came by here +just for the sake of telling you." And with that she presently +departed—obviously ruffled by Mrs. Britling's lethargy and +Mr. Britling's scepticism.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling watched her go off with a slowly rising +indignation.</p> +<p>"And that," he said, "is how England is going to war! Scrambling +for food—at the very beginning."</p> +<p>"I suppose she is anxious for the children," said Mrs. +Britling.</p> +<p>"Blacking!"</p> +<p>"After all," said Mr. Britling, "if other people are doing that +sort of thing—"</p> +<p>"That's the idea of all panics. We've got not to do<a name= +"Page_193"></a> it.... The country hasn't even declared war yet! +Hallo, here we are! Better late than never."</p> +<p>The head of the postman, bearing newspapers and letters, +appeared gliding along the top of the hedge as he cycled down the +road towards the Dower House corner.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>England was not yet at war, but all the stars were marching to +that end. It was as if an event so vast must needs take its time to +happen. No doubt was left upon Mr. Britling's mind, though a +whole-page advertisement in the <i>Daily News</i>, in enormous type +and of mysterious origin, implored Great Britain not to play into +the hands of Russia, Russia the Terrible, that bugbear of the +sentimental Radicals. The news was wide and sweeping, and rather +inaccurate. The Germans were said to be in Belgium and Holland, and +they had seized English ships in the Kiel Canal. A moratorium had +been proclaimed, and the reports of a food panic showed Mrs. Faber +to be merely one example of a large class of excitable people.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling found the food panic disconcerting. It did not +harmonise with his leading <i>motif</i> of the free people of the +world rising against the intolerable burthen of militarism. It +spoilt his picture....</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling shared the paper with Mr. Britling, they stood by +the bed of begonias near the cedar tree and read, and the air was +full of the cheerful activities of the lawn-mower that was being +drawn by a carefully booted horse across the hockey field.</p> +<p>Presently Hugh came flitting out of the house to hear what had +happened. "One can't work somehow, with all these big things going +on," he apologised. He secured the <i>Daily News</i> while his +father and mother read <i>The Times</i>. The voices of the younger +boys came from the shade of the trees; they had brought all their +toy soldiers out of doors, and were making entrenched camps in the +garden.</p> +<p>"The financial situation is an extraordinary one," said<a name= +"Page_194"></a> Mr. Britling, concentrating his attention.... "All +sorts of staggering things may happen. In a social and economic +system that has grown just anyhow.... Never been planned.... In a +world full of Mrs. Fabers...."</p> +<p>"Moratorium?" said Hugh over his <i>Daily News</i>. "In relation +to debts and so on? Modern side you sent me to, Daddy. I live at +hand to mouth in etymology. Mors and crematorium—do we burn +our bills instead of paying them?"</p> +<p>"Moratorium," reflected Mr. Britling; "Moratorium. What nonsense +you talk! It's something that delays, of course. Nothing to do with +death. Just a temporary stoppage of payments.... Of course there's +bound to be a tremendous change in values...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values."</p> +<p>On that text Mr. Britling's mind enlarged very rapidly. It +produced a wonderful crop of possibilities before he got back to +his study. He sat down to his desk, but he did not immediately take +up his work. He had discovered something so revolutionary in his +personal affairs that even the war issue remained for a time in +suspense.</p> +<p>Tucked away in the back of Mr. Britling's consciousness was +something that had not always been there, something warm and +comforting that made life and his general thoughts about life much +easier and pleasanter than they would otherwise have been, the +sense of a neatly arranged investment list, a shrewdly and +geographically distributed system of holdings in national loans, +municipal investments, railway debentures, that had amounted +altogether to rather over five-and-twenty thousand pounds; his and +Mrs. Britling's, a joint accumulation. This was, so to speak, his +economic viscera. It sustained him, and kept him going and +comfortable. When all was well he did not feel its existence; he +had merely a pleasant sense of general well-being. When here or +there a security got a<a name="Page_195"></a> little disarranged he +felt a vague discomfort. Now he became aware of grave disorders. It +was as if he discovered he had been accidentally eating toadstools, +and didn't quite know whether they weren't a highly poisonous sort. +But an analogy may be carried too far....</p> +<p>At any rate, when Mr. Britling got back to his writing-desk he +was much too disturbed to resume "And Now War Ends."</p> +<p>"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values!"</p> +<p>He had never felt quite so sure as most people about the +stability of the modern financial system. He did not, he felt, +understand the working of this moratorium, or the peculiar +advantage of prolonging the bank holidays. It meant, he supposed, a +stoppage of payment all round, and a cutting off of the supply of +ready money. And Hickson the grocer, according to Mrs. Faber, was +already looking askance at cheques.</p> +<p>Even if the bank did reopen Mr. Britling was aware that his +current balance was low; at the utmost it amounted to twenty or +thirty pounds. He had been expecting cheques from his English and +American publishers, and the usual <i>Times</i> cheque. Suppose +these payments were intercepted!</p> +<p>All these people might, so far as he could understand, stop +payment under this moratorium! That hadn't at first occurred to +him. But, of course, quite probably they might refuse to pay his +account when it fell due.</p> +<p>And suppose <i>The Times</i> felt his peculiar vein of +thoughtfulness unnecessary in these stirring days!</p> +<p>And then if the bank really did lock up his deposit account, and +his securities became unsaleable!</p> +<p>Mr. Britling felt like an oyster that is invited to leave its +shell....</p> +<p>He sat back from his desk contemplating these things. His +imagination made a weak attempt to picture a world in which credit +has vanished and money is of doubtful value. He supposed a large +number of people would just<a name="Page_196"></a> go on buying and +selling at or near the old prices by force of habit.</p> +<p>His mind and conscience made a valiant attempt to pick up "And +Now War Ends" and go on with it, but before five minutes were out +he was back at the thoughts of food panic and bankruptcy....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>The conflict of interests at Mr. Britling's desk became +unendurable. He felt he must settle the personal question first. He +wandered out upon the lawn and smoked cigarettes.</p> +<p>His first conception of a great convergent movement of the +nations to make a world peace and an end to militant Germany was +being obscured by this second, entirely incompatible, vision of a +world confused and disorganised. Mrs. Fabers in great multitudes +hoarding provisions, riotous crowds attacking shops, moratorium, +shut banks and waiting queues. Was it possible for the whole system +to break down through a shock to its confidence? Without any sense +of incongruity the dignified pacification of the planet had given +place in his mind to these more intimate possibilities. He heard a +rustle behind him, and turned to face his wife.</p> +<p>"Do you think," she asked, "that there is any chance of a +shortage of food?"</p> +<p>"If all the Mrs. Fabers in the world run and grab—"</p> +<p>"Then every one must grab. I haven't much in the way of stores +in the house."</p> +<p>"H'm," said Mr. Britling, and reflected.... "I don't think we +must buy stores now."</p> +<p>"But if we are short."</p> +<p>"It's the chances of war," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>He reflected. "Those who join a panic make a panic. After all, +there is just as much food in the world as there was last month. +And short of burning it the only way<a name="Page_197"></a> of +getting rid of it is to eat it. And the harvests are good. Why +begin a scramble at a groaning board?"</p> +<p>"But people <i>are</i> scrambling! It would be +awkward—with the children and everything—if we ran +short."</p> +<p>"We shan't. And anyhow, you mustn't begin hoarding, even if it +means hardship."</p> +<p>"Yes. But you won't like it if suddenly there's no sugar for +your tea."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling ignored this personal application.</p> +<p>"What is far more serious than a food shortage is the +possibility of a money panic."</p> +<p>He paced the lawn with her and talked. He said that even now +very few people realised the flimsiness of the credit system by +which the modern world was sustained. It was a huge growth of +confidence, due very largely to the uninquiring indolence +of—everybody. It was sound so long as mankind did, on the +whole, believe in it; give only a sufficient loss of faith and it +might suffer any sort of collapse. It might vanish +altogether—as the credit system vanished at the breaking up +of Italy by the Goths—and leave us nothing but tangible +things, real property, possession nine points of the law, and that +sort of thing. Did she remember that last novel of +Gissing's?—"Veranilda," it was called. It was a picture of +the world when there was no wealth at all except what one could +carry hidden or guarded about with one. That sort of thing came to +the Roman Empire slowly, in the course of lifetimes, but nowadays +we lived in a rapider world—with flimsier institutions. +Nobody knew the strength or the weakness of credit; nobody knew +whether even the present shock might not send it smashing down.... +And then all the little life we had lived so far would roll +away....</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling, he noted, glanced ever and again at her sunlit +house—there were new sunblinds, and she had been happy in her +choice of a colour—and listened with a sceptical expression +to this disquisition.</p> +<a name="Page_198"></a> +<p>"A few days ago," said Mr. Britling, trying to make things +concrete for her, "you and I together were worth five-and-twenty +thousand pounds. Now we don't know what we are worth; whether we +have lost a thousand or ten thousand...."</p> +<p>He examined his sovereign purse and announced he had six pounds. +"What have you?"</p> +<p>She had about eighteen pounds in the house.</p> +<p>"We may have to get along with that for an indefinite time."</p> +<p>"But the bank will open again presently," she said. "And people +about here trust us."</p> +<p>"Suppose they don't?"</p> +<p>She did not trouble about the hypothesis. "And our investments +will recover. They always do recover."</p> +<p>"Everything may recover," he admitted. "But also nothing may +recover. All this life of ours which has seemed so settled and +secure—isn't secure. I have felt that we were fixed here and +rooted—for all our lives. Suppose presently things sweep us +out of it? It's a possibility we may have to face. I feel this +morning as if two enormous gates had opened in our lives, like the +gates that give upon an arena, gates giving on a +darkness—through which anything might come. Even death. +Suppose suddenly we were to see one of those great Zeppelins in the +air, or hear the thunder of guns away towards the coast. And if a +messenger came upon a bicycle telling us to leave everything and go +inland...."</p> +<p>"I see no reason why one should go out to meet things like +that."</p> +<p>"But there is no reason why one should not envisage +them...."</p> +<p>"The curious thing," said Mr. Britling, pursuing his examination +of the matter, "is that, looking at these things as one does now, +as things quite possible, they are not nearly so terrifying and +devastating to the mind as they would have seemed—last week. +I believe I should load<a name="Page_199"></a> you all into Gladys +and start off westward with a kind of exhilaration...."</p> +<p>She looked at him as if she would speak, and said nothing. She +suspected him of hating his home and affecting to care for it out +of politeness to her....</p> +<p>"Perhaps mankind tries too much to settle down. Perhaps these +stirrings up have to occur to save us from our disposition to +stuffy comfort. There's the magic call of the unknown experience, +of dangers and hardships. One wants to go. But unless some push +comes one does not go. There is a spell that keeps one to the lair +and the old familiar ways. Now I am afraid—and at the same +time I feel that the spell is broken. The magic prison is suddenly +all doors. You may call this ruin, bankruptcy, invasion, flight; +they are doors out of habit and routine.... I have been doing +nothing for so long, except idle things and discursive things."</p> +<p>"I thought that you managed to be happy here. You have done a +lot of work."</p> +<p>"Writing is recording, not living. But now I feel suddenly that +we are living intensely. It is as if the whole quality of life was +changing. There are such times. There are times when the spirit of +life changes altogether. The old world knew that better than we do. +It made a distinction between weekdays and Sabbaths, and between +feasts and fasts and days of devotion. That is just what has +happened now. Week-day rules must be put aside. Before—oh! +three days ago, competition was fair, it was fair and tolerable to +get the best food one could and hold on to one's own. But that +isn't right now. War makes a Sabbath, and we shut the shops. The +banks are shut, and the world still feels as though Sunday was +keeping on...."</p> +<p>He saw his own way clear.</p> +<p>"The scale has altered. It does not matter now in the least if +we are ruined. It does not matter in the least if we have to live +upon potatoes and run into debt for our<a name="Page_200"></a> +rent. These now are the most incidental of things. A week ago they +would have been of the first importance. Here we are face to face +with the greatest catastrophe and the greatest opportunity in +history. We have to plunge through catastrophe to opportunity. +There is nothing to be done now in the whole world except to get +the best out of this tremendous fusing up of all the settled things +of life." He had got what he wanted. He left her standing upon the +lawn and hurried back to his desk....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>When Mr. Britling, after a strenuous morning among high ideals, +descended for lunch, he found Mr. Lawrence Carmine had come over to +join him at that meal. Mr. Carmine was standing in the hall with +his legs very wide apart reading <i>The Times</i> for the fourth +time. "I can do no work," he said, turning round. "I can't fix my +mind. I suppose we are going to war. I'd got so used to the war +with Germany that I never imagined it would happen. Gods! what a +bore it will be.... And Maxse and all those scaremongers +cock-a-hoop and 'I told you so.' Damn these Germans!"</p> +<p>He looked despondent and worried. He followed Mr. Britling +towards the dining-room with his hands deep in his pockets.</p> +<p>"It's going to be a tremendous thing," he said, after he had +greeted Mrs. Britling and Hugh and Aunt Wilshire and Teddy, and +seated himself at Mr. Britling's hospitable board. "It's going to +upset everything. We don't begin to imagine all the mischief it is +going to do."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was full of the heady draught of liberal optimism +he had been brewing upstairs. "I am not sorry I have lived to see +this war," he said. "It may be a tremendous catastrophe in one +sense, but in another it is a huge step forward in human life. It +is the end of forty years of evil suspense. It is crisis and +solution."</p> +<p>"I wish I could see it like that," said Mr. Carmine.</p> +<a name="Page_201"></a> +<p>"It is like a thaw—everything has been in a frozen +confusion since that Jew-German Treaty of Berlin. And since +1871."</p> +<p>"Why not since Schleswig-Holstein?" said Mr. Carmine.</p> +<p>"Why not? Or since the Treaty of Vienna?"</p> +<p>"Or since—One might go back."</p> +<p>"To the Roman Empire," said Hugh.</p> +<p>"To the first conquest of all," said Teddy....</p> +<p>"I couldn't work this morning," said Hugh. "I have been reading +in the Encyclopædia about races and religions in the +Balkans.... It's very mixed."</p> +<p>"So long as it could only be dealt with piecemeal," said Mr. +Britling. "And that is just where the tremendous opportunity of +this war comes in. Now everything becomes fluid. We can redraw the +map of the world. A week ago we were all quarrelling bitterly about +things too little for human impatience. Now suddenly we face an +epoch. This is an epoch. The world is plastic for men to do what +they will with it. This is the end and the beginning of an age. +This is something far greater than the French Revolution or the +Reformation.... And we live in it...."</p> +<p>He paused impressively.</p> +<p>"I wonder what will happen to Albania?" said Hugh, but his +comment was disregarded.</p> +<p>"War makes men bitter and narrow," said Mr. Carmine.</p> +<p>"War narrowly conceived," said Mr. Britling. "But this is an +indignant and generous war."</p> +<p>They speculated about the possible intervention of the United +States. Mr. Britling thought that the attack on Belgium demanded +the intervention of every civilised power, that all the best +instincts of America would be for intervention. "The more," he +said, "the quicker."</p> +<p>"It would be strange if the last power left out to mediate were +to be China," said Mr. Carmine. "The one<a name="Page_202"></a> +people in the world who really believe in peace.... I wish I had +your confidence, Britling."</p> +<p>For a time they contemplated a sort of Grand Inquest on Germany +and militarism, presided over by the Wisdom of the East. Militarism +was, as it were, to be buried as a suicide at four cross-roads, +with a stake through its body to prevent any untimely +resuscitation.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling was in a phase of imaginative release. Such a +release was one of the first effects of the war upon many educated +minds. Things that had seemed solid forever were visibly in flux; +things that had seemed stone were alive. Every boundary, every +government, was seen for the provisional thing it was. He talked of +his World Congress meeting year by year, until it ceased to be a +speculation and became a mere intelligent anticipation; he talked +of the "manifest necessity" of a Supreme Court for the world. He +beheld that vision at the Hague, but Mr. Carmine preferred Delhi or +Samarkand or Alexandria or Nankin. "Let us get away from the +delusion of Europe anyhow," said Mr. Carmine....</p> +<p>As Mr. Britling had sat at his desk that morning and surveyed +the stupendous vistas of possibility that war was opening, the +catastrophe had taken on a more and more beneficial quality. "I +suppose that it is only through such crises as these that the world +can reconstruct itself," I said. And, on the whole that afternoon +he was disposed to hope that the great military machine would not +smash itself too easily. "We want the nations to feel the need of +one another," he said. "Too brief a campaign might lead to a +squabble for plunder. The Englishman has to learn his dependence on +the Irishman, the Russian has to be taught the value of education +and the friendship of the Pole.... Europe will now have to look to +Asia, and recognise that Indians and Chinamem are also +'white.'...<a name="Page_203"></a> But these lessons require time +and stresses if they are to be learnt properly...."</p> +<p>They discussed the possible duration of the war.</p> +<p>Mr. Carmine thought it would be a long struggle; Mr. Britling +thought that the Russians would be in Berlin by the next May. He +was afraid they might get there before the end of the year. He +thought that the Germans would beat out their strength upon the +French and Belgian lines, and never be free to turn upon the +Russian at all. He was sure they had underrated the strength and +energy of the French and of ourselves. "The Russians meanwhile," he +said, "will come on, slowly, steadily, inevitably...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>That day of vast anticipations drew out into the afternoon. It +was a day—obsessed. It was the precursor of a relentless +series of doomed and fettered days. There was a sense of enormous +occurrences going on just out of sound and sight—behind the +mask of Essex peacefulness. From this there was no escape. It made +all other interests fitful. Games of Badminton were begun and +abruptly truncated by the arrival of the evening papers; +conversations started upon any topic whatever returned to the war +by the third and fourth remark....</p> +<p>After lunch Mr. Britling and Mr. Carmine went on talking. +Nothing else was possible. They repeated things they had already +said. They went into things more thoroughly. They sat still for a +time, and then suddenly broke out with some new +consideration....</p> +<p>It had been their custom to play skat with Herr Heinrich, who +had shown them the game very explicitly and thoroughly. But there +was no longer any Herr Heinrich—and somehow German games were +already out of fashion. The two philosophers admitted that they had +already considered skat to be complicated without subtlety, and +that its chief delight for them had been the pink<a name= +"Page_204"></a> earnestness of Herr Heinrich, his inability to +grasp their complete but tacit comprehension of its innocent +strategy, and his invariable ill-success to bring off the coups +that flashed before his imagination.</p> +<p>He would survey the destructive counter-stroke with unconcealed +surprise. He would verify his first impression by craning towards +it and adjusting his glasses on his nose. He had a characteristic +way of doing this with one stiff finger on either side of his +sturdy nose.</p> +<p>"It is very fortunate for you that you have played that card," +he would say, growing pinker and pinker with hasty cerebration. "Or +else—yes"—a glance at his own cards—"it would +have been altogether bad for you. I had taken only a very small +risk.... Now I must—"</p> +<p>He would reconsider his hand.</p> +<p>"<i>Zo!</i>" he would say, dashing down a card....</p> +<p>Well, he had gone and skat had gone. A countless multitude of +such links were snapping that day between hundreds of thousands of +English and German homes.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>The imminence of war produced a peculiar exaltation in Aunt +Wilshire. She developed a point of view that was entirely her +own.</p> +<p>It was Mr. Britling's habit, a habit he had set himself to +acquire after much irritating experience, to disregard Aunt +Wilshire. She was not, strictly speaking, his aunt; she was one of +those distant cousins we find already woven into our lives when we +attain to years of responsibility. She had been a presence in his +father's household when Mr. Britling was a boy. Then she had been +called "Jane," or "Cousin Jane," or "Your cousin Wilshire." It had +been a kindly freak of Mr. Britling's to promote her to Aunty +rank.</p> +<p>She eked out a small inheritance by staying with relatives. Mr. +Britling's earlier memories presented her as a<a name= +"Page_205"></a> slender young woman of thirty, with a nose upon +which small boys were forbidden to comment. Yet she commented upon +it herself, and called his attention to its marked resemblance to +that of the great Duke of Wellington. "He was, I am told," said +Cousin Wilshire to the attentive youth, "a great friend of your +great-grandmother's. At any rate, they were contemporaries. Since +then this nose has been in the family. He would have been the last +to draw a veil over it, but other times, other manners. 'Publish,' +he said, 'and be damned.'"</p> +<p>She had a knack of exasperating Mr. Britling's father, a knack +which to a less marked degree she also possessed in relation to the +son. But Mr. Britling senior never acquired the art of disregarding +her. Her method—if one may call the natural expression of a +personality a method—was an invincibly superior knowledge, a +firm and ill-concealed belief that all statements made in her +hearing were wrong and most of them absurd, and a manner calm, +assured, restrained. She may have been born with it; it is on +record that at the age of ten she was pronounced a singularly +trying child. She may have been born with the air of thinking the +doctor a muff and knowing how to manage all this business better. +Mr. Britling had known her only in her ripeness. As a boy, he had +enjoyed her confidences—about other people and the general +neglect of her advice. He grew up rather to like her—most +people rather liked her—and to attach a certain importance to +her unattainable approval. She was sometimes kind, she was +frequently absurd....</p> +<p>With very little children she was quite wise and Jolly....</p> +<p>So she circulated about a number of houses which at any rate +always welcomed her coming. In the opening days of each visit she +performed marvels of tact, and set a watch upon her lips. Then the +demons of controversy and dignity would get the better of her. She +would begin to correct, quietly but firmly, she would begin to +disapprove<a name="Page_206"></a> of the tone and quality of her +treatment. It was quite common for her visit to terminate in +speechless rage both on the side of host and of visitor. The +remarkable thing was that this speechless rage never endured. +Though she could exasperate she could never offend. Always after an +interval during which she was never mentioned, people began to +wonder how Cousin Jane was getting on.... A tentative +correspondence would begin, leading slowly up to a fresh +invitation.</p> +<p>She spent more time in Mr. Britling's house than in any other. +There was a legend that she had "drawn out" his mind, and that she +had "stood up" for him against his father. She had certainly +contradicted quite a number of those unfavourable comments that +fathers are wont to make about their sons. Though certainly she +contradicted everything. And Mr. Britling hated to think of her +knocking about alone in boarding-houses and hydropathic +establishments with only the most casual chances for +contradiction.</p> +<p>Moreover, he liked to see her casting her eye over the morning +paper. She did it with a manner as though she thought the +terrestrial globe a great fool, and quite beyond the reach of +advice. And as though she understood and was rather amused at the +way in which the newspaper people tried to keep back the real facts +of the case from her.</p> +<p>And now she was scornfully entertained at the behaviour of +everybody in the war crisis.</p> +<p>She confided various secrets of state to the elder of the +younger Britlings—preferably when his father was within +earshot.</p> +<p>"None of these things they are saying about the war," she said, +"really matter in the slightest degree. It is all about a spoilt +carpet and nothing else in the world—a madman and a spoilt +carpet. If people had paid the slightest attention to common sense +none of this war would have happened. The thing was perfectly well +known.<a name="Page_207"></a> He was a delicate child, difficult to +rear and given to screaming fits. Consequently he was never +crossed, allowed to do everything. Nobody but his grandmother had +the slightest influence with him. And she prevented him spoiling +this carpet as completely as he wished to do. The story is +perfectly well known. It was at Windsor—at the age of eight. +After that he had but one thought: war with England....</p> +<p>"Everybody seemed surprised," she said suddenly at tea to Mr. +Carmine. "I at least am not surprised. I am only surprised it did +not come sooner. If any one had asked me I could have told them, +three years, five years ago."</p> +<p>The day was one of flying rumours, Germany was said to have +declared war on Italy, and to have invaded Holland as well as +Belgium.</p> +<p>"They'll declare war against the moon next!" said Aunt +Wilshire.</p> +<p>"And send a lot of Zeppelins," said the smallest boy. "Herr +Heinrich told us they can fly thousands of miles."</p> +<p>"He will go on declaring war until there is nothing left to +declare war against. That is exactly what he has always done. Once +started he cannot desist. Often he has had to be removed from the +dinner-table for fear of injury. <i>Now</i>, it is ultimatums."</p> +<p>She was much pleased by a headline in the <i>Daily Express</i> +that streamed right across the page: "The Mad Dog of Europe." +Nothing else, she said, had come so near her feelings about the +war.</p> +<p>"Mark my words," said Aunt Wilshire in her most impressive +tones. "He is insane. It will be proved to be so. He will end his +days in an asylum—as a lunatic. I have felt it myself for +years and said so in private.... Knowing what I did.... To such +friends as I could trust not to misunderstand me.... Now at least I +can speak out.</p> +<p>"With his moustaches turned up!" exclaimed Aunt<a name= +"Page_208"></a> Wilshire after an interval of accumulation.... +"They say he has completely lost the use of the joint in his left +arm, he carries it stiff like a Punch and Judy—and he wants +to conquer Europe.... While his grandmother lived there was some +one to keep him in order. He stood in Awe of her. He hated her, but +he did not dare defy her. Even his uncle had some influence. Now, +nothing restrains him.</p> +<p>"A double-headed mad dog," said Aunt Wilshire. "Him and his +eagles!... A man like that ought never to have been allowed to make +a war.... Not even a little war.... If he had been put under +restraint when I said so, none of these things would have happened. +But, of course I am nobody.... It was not considered worth +attending to."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>One remarkable aspect of the English attitude towards the war +was the disposition to treat it as a monstrous joke. It is a +disposition traceable in a vast proportion of the British +literature of the time. In spite of violence, cruelty, injustice, +and the vast destruction and still vaster dangers of the struggles, +that disposition held. The English mind refused flatly to see +anything magnificent or terrible in the German attack, or to regard +the German Emperor or the Crown Prince as anything more than +figures of fun. From first to last their conception of the enemy +was an overstrenuous, foolish man, red with effort, with protruding +eyes and a forced frightfulness of demeanour. That he might be +tremendously lethal did not in the least obscure the fact that he +was essentially ridiculous. And if as the war went on the joke grew +grimmer, still it remained a joke. The German might make a desert +of the world; that could not alter the British conviction that he +was making a fool of himself.</p> +<p>And this disposition kept coming to the surface throughout the +afternoon, now in a casual allusion, now in some<a name= +"Page_209"></a> deliberate jest. The small boys had discovered the +goose step, and it filled their little souls with amazement and +delight. That human beings should consent to those ridiculous paces +seemed to them almost incredibly funny. They tried it themselves, +and then set out upon a goose-step propaganda. Letty and Cissie had +come up to the Dower House for tea and news, and they were enrolled +with Teddy and Hugh. The six of them, chuckling and swaying, +marched, in vast scissor strides across the lawn. "Left," cried +Hugh. "Left."</p> +<p>"Toes <i>out</i> more," said Mr. Lawrence Carmine.</p> +<p>"Keep stiffer," said the youngest Britling.</p> +<p>"Watch the Zeppelins and look proud," said Hugh. "With the chest +out. <i>Zo!</i>"</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling was so much amused that she went in for her +camera, and took a snapshot of the detachment. It was a very +successful snapshot, and a year later Mr. Britling was to find a +print of it among his papers, and recall the sunshine and the +merriment....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>That night brought the British declaration of war against +Germany. To nearly every Englishman that came as a matter of +course, and it is one of the most wonderful facts in history that +the Germans were surprised by it. When Mr. Britling, as a sample +Englishman, had said that there would never be war between Germany +and England, he had always meant that it was inconceivable to him +that Germany should ever attack Belgium or France. If Germany had +been content to fight a merely defensive war upon her western +frontier and let Belgium alone, there would scarcely have been such +a thing as a war party in Great Britain. But the attack upon +Belgium, the westward thrust, made the whole nation flame +unanimously into war. It settled a question that was in open debate +up to the very outbreak of the conflict. Up to the last the English +had cherished the idea that in Germany,<a name="Page_210"></a> just +as in England, the mass of people were kindly, pacific, and +detached. That had been the English mistake. Germany was really and +truly what Germany had been professing to be for forty years, a War +State. With a sigh—and a long-forgotten thrill—England +roused herself to fight. Even now she still roused herself +sluggishly. It was going to be an immense thing, but just how +immense it was going to be no one in England had yet imagined.</p> +<p>Countless men that day whom Fate had marked for death and wounds +stared open-mouthed at the news, and smiled with the excitement of +the headlines, not dreaming that any of these things would come +within three hundred miles of them. What was war to Matching's +Easy—to all the Matching's Easies great and small that make +up England? The last home that was ever burnt by an enemy within a +hundred miles of Matching's Easy was burnt by the Danes rather more +than a thousand years ago.... And the last trace of those +particular Danes in England were certain horny scraps of indurated +skin under the heads of the nails in the door of St. Clement Danes +in London....</p> +<p>Now again, England was to fight in a war which was to light +fires in England and bring death to English people on English soil. +There were inconceivable ideas in August, 1914. Such things must +happen before they can be comprehended as possible.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>This story is essentially the history of the opening and of the +realisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of +people in Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human +brain. It came at first to all these people in a spectacular +manner, as a thing happening dramatically and internationally, as a +show, as something in the newspapers, something in the character of +an historical epoch rather than a personal experience; only by slow +degrees did it and its consequences invade the common<a name= +"Page_211"></a> texture of English life. If this story could be +represented by sketches or pictures the central figure would be Mr. +Britling, now sitting at his desk by day or by night and writing +first at his tract "And Now War Ends" and then at other things, now +walking about his garden or in Claverings park or going to and fro +in London, in his club reading the ticker or in his hall reading +the newspaper, with ideas and impressions continually clustering, +expanding, developing more and more abundantly in his mind, +arranging themselves, reacting upon one another, building +themselves into generalisations and conclusions....</p> +<p>All Mr. Britling's mental existence was soon threaded on the +war. His more or less weekly <i>Times</i> leader became +dissertations upon the German point of view; his reviews of books +and Literary Supplement articles were all oriented more and more +exactly to that one supreme fact....</p> +<p>It was rare that he really seemed to be seeing the war; few +people saw it; for most of the world it came as an illimitable +multitude of incoherent, loud, and confusing impressions. But all +the time he was at least doing his utmost to see the war, to +simplify it and extract the essence of it until it could be +apprehended as something epic and explicable, as a stateable +issue....</p> +<p>Most typical picture of all would be Mr. Britling writing in a +little circle of orange lamplight, with the blinds of his room open +for the sake of the moonlight, but the window shut to keep out the +moths that beat against it. Outside would be the moon and the high +summer sky and the old church tower dim above the black trees half +a mile away, with its clock—which Mr. Britling heard at night +but never noted by day—beating its way round the slow +semicircle of the nocturnal hours. He had always hated conflict and +destruction, and felt that war between civilised states was the +quintessential expression of human failure, it was a stupidity that +stopped progress and all the free variation of humanity, a thousand +times he had declared<a name="Page_212"></a> it impossible, but +even now with his country fighting he was still far from realising +that this was a thing that could possibly touch him more than +intellectually. He did not really believe with his eyes and +finger-tips and backbone that murder, destruction, and agony on a +scale monstrous beyond precedent was going on in the same world as +that which slumbered outside the black ivy and silver shining +window-sill that framed his peaceful view.</p> +<p>War had not been a reality of the daily life of England for more +than a thousand years. The mental habit of the nation for fifty +generations was against its emotional recognition. The English were +the spoilt children of peace. They had never been wholly at war for +three hundred years, and for over eight hundred years they had not +fought for life against a foreign power. Spain and France had +threatened in turn, but never even crossed the seas. It is true +that England had had her civil dissensions and had made wars and +conquests in every part of the globe and established an immense +empire, but that last, as Mr. Britling had told Mr. Direck, was "an +excursion." She had just sent out younger sons and surplus people, +emigrants and expeditionary forces. Her own soil had never seen any +successful foreign invasion; her homeland, the bulk of her +households, her general life, had gone on untouched by these +things. Nineteen people out of twenty, the middle class and most of +the lower class, knew no more of the empire than they did of the +Argentine Republic or the Italian Renaissance. It did not concern +them. War that calls upon every man and threatens every life in the +land, war of the whole national being, was a thing altogether +outside English experience and the scope of the British +imagination. It was still incredible, it was still outside the +range of Mr. Britling's thoughts all through the tremendous onrush +and check of the German attack in the west that opened the great +war. Through those two months he was, as it were, a more and more +excited spectator at a show, a show like a baseball match,<a name= +"Page_213"></a> a spectator with money on the event, rather than a +really participating citizen of a nation thoroughly at war....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 13</h4> +<br> +<p>After the jolt of the food panic and a brief, financial scare, +the vast inertia of everyday life in England asserted itself. When +the public went to the banks for the new paper money, the banks +tendered gold—apologetically. The supply of the new notes was +very insufficient, and there was plenty of gold. After the first +impression that a universal catastrophe had happened there was an +effect as if nothing had happened.</p> +<p>Shops re-opened after the Bank Holiday, in a tentative spirit +that speedily became assurance; people went about their business +again, and the war, so far as the mass of British folk were +concerned, was for some weeks a fever of the mind and intelligence +rather than a physical and personal actuality. There was a keen +demand for news, and for a time there was very little news. The +press did its best to cope with this immense occasion. Led by the +<i>Daily Express</i>, all the halfpenny newspapers adopted a new +and more resonant sort of headline, the streamer, a band of +emphatic type that ran clean across the page and announced +victories or disconcerting happenings. They did this every day, +whether there was a great battle or the loss of a trawler to +announce, and the public mind speedily adapted itself to the new +pitch.</p> +<p>There was no invitation from the government and no organisation +for any general participation in war. People talked unrestrictedly; +every one seemed to be talking; they waved flags and displayed much +vague willingness to do something. Any opportunity of service was +taken very eagerly. Lord Kitchener was understood to have demanded +five hundred thousand men; the War Office arrangements for +recruiting, arrangements conceived on a scale altogether too small, +were speedily overwhelmed by a rush of willing young men. The flow +had to be checked<a name="Page_214"></a> by raising the physical +standard far above the national average, and recruiting died down +to manageable proportions. There was a quite genuine belief that +the war might easily be too exclusively considered; that for the +great mass of people it was a disturbing and distracting rather +than a vital interest. The phase "Business as Usual" ran about the +world, and the papers abounded in articles in which going on as +though there was no war at all was demonstrated to be the truest +form of patriotism. "Leave things to Kitchener" was another +watchword with a strong appeal to the national quality. "Business +as usual during Alterations to the Map of Europe" was the +advertisement of one cheerful barber, widely quoted....</p> +<p>Hugh was at home all through August. He had thrown up his rooms +in London with his artistic ambitions, and his father was making +all the necessary arrangements for him to follow Cardinal to +Cambridge. Meanwhile Hugh was taking up his scientific work where +he had laid it down. He gave a reluctant couple of hours in the +afternoon to the mysteries of Little-go Greek, and for the rest of +his time he was either working at mathematics and mathematical +physics or experimenting in a little upstairs room that had been +carved out of the general space of the barn. It was only at the +very end of August that it dawned upon him or Mr. Britling that the +war might have more than a spectacular and sympathetic appeal for +him. Hitherto contemporary history had happened without his +personal intervention. He did not see why it should not continue to +happen with the same detachment. The last elections—and a +general election is really the only point at which the life of the +reasonable Englishman becomes in any way public—had happened +four years ago, when he was thirteen.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 14</h4> +<br> +<p>For a time it was believed in Matching's Easy that the German +armies had been defeated and very largely<a name="Page_215"></a> +destroyed at Liège. It was a mistake not confined to +Matching's Easy.</p> +<p>The first raiding attack was certainly repulsed with heavy +losses, and so were the more systematic assaults on August the +sixth and seventh. After that the news from Liège became +uncertain, but it was believed in England that some or all of the +forts were still holding out right up to the German entry into +Brussels. Meanwhile the French were pushing into their lost +provinces, occupying Altkirch, Mulhausen and Saarburg; the Russians +were invading Bukovina and East Prussia; the <i>Goeben</i>, the +<i>Breslau</i> and the <i>Panther</i> had been sunk by the +newspapers in an imaginary battle in the Mediterranean, and +Togoland was captured by the French and British. Neither the force +nor the magnitude of the German attack through Belgium was +appreciated by the general mind, and it was possible for Mr. +Britling to reiterate his fear that the war would be over too soon, +long before the full measure of its possible benefits could be +secured. But these apprehensions were unfounded; the lessons the +war had in store for Mr. Britling were far more drastic than +anything he was yet able to imagine even in his most exalted +moods.</p> +<p>He resisted the intimations of the fall of Brussels and the +appearance of the Germans at Dinant. The first real check to his +excessive anticipations of victory for the Allies came with the +sudden reappearance of Mr. Direck in a state of astonishment and +dismay at Matching's Easy. He wired from the Strand office, "Coming +to tell you about things," and arrived on the heels of his +telegram.</p> +<p>He professed to be calling upon Mr. and Mrs. Britling, and to a +certain extent he was; but he had a quick eye for the door or +windows; his glance roved irrelevantly as he talked. A faint +expectation of Cissie came in with him and hovered about him, as +the scent of violets follows the flower.</p> +<p>He was, however, able to say quite a number of things<a name= +"Page_216"></a> before Mr. Britling's natural tendency to do the +telling asserted itself.</p> +<p>"My word," said Mr. Direck, "but this is <i>some</i> war. It is +going on regardless of every decent consideration. As an American +citizen I naturally expected to be treated with some respect, war +or no war. That expectation has not been realised.... Europe is +dislocated.... You have no idea here yet how completely Europe is +dislocated....</p> +<p>"I came to Europe in a perfectly friendly spirit—and I +must say I am surprised. Practically I have been thrown out, neck +and crop. All my luggage is lost. Away at some one-horse junction +near the Dutch frontier that I can't even learn the name of. +There's joy in some German home, I guess, over my shirts; they were +real good shirts. This tweed suit I have is all the wardrobe I've +got in the world. All my money—good American +notes—well, they laughed at them. And when I produced English +gold they suspected me of being English and put me under arrest.... +I can assure you that the English are most unpopular in Germany at +the present time, thoroughly unpopular.... Considering that they +are getting exactly what they were asking for, these Germans are +really remarkably annoyed.... Well, I had to get the American +consul to advance me money, and I've done more waiting about and +irregular fasting and travelling on an empty stomach and viewing +the world, so far as it was permitted, from railway +sidings—for usually they made us pull the blinds down when +anything important was on the track—than any cow that ever +came to Chicago.... I was handed as freight—low grade +freight.... It doesn't bear recalling."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck assumed as grave and gloomy an expression as the +facial habits of years would permit.</p> +<p>"I tell you I never knew there was such a thing as war until +this happened to me. In America we don't know there is such a +thing. It's like pestilence and famine;<a name="Page_217"></a> +something in the story books. We've forgotten it for anything real. +There's just a few grandfathers go around talking about it. Judge +Holmes and sage old fellows like him. Otherwise it's just a game +the kids play at.... And then suddenly here's everybody running +about in the streets—hating and threatening—and nice +old gentlemen with white moustaches and fathers of families +scheming and planning to burn houses and kill and hurt and terrify. +And nice young women, too, looking for an Englishman to spit at; I +tell you I've been within range and very uncomfortable several +times.... And what one can't believe is that they are really doing +these things. There's a little village called Visé near the +Dutch frontier; some old chap got fooling there with a +fowling-piece; and they've wiped it out. Shot the people by the +dozen, put them out in rows three deep and shot them, and burnt the +place. Short of scalping, Red Indians couldn't have done worse. +Respectable German soldiers....</p> +<p>"No one in England really seems to have any suspicion what is +going on in Belgium. You hear stories—People tell them in +Holland. It takes your breath away. They have set out just to cow +those Belgians. They have started in to be deliberately frightful. +You do not begin to understand.... Well.... Outrages. The sort of +outrages Americans have never heard of. That one doesn't speak +of.... Well.... Rape.... They have been raping women for +disciplinary purposes on tables in the market-place of +Liège. Yes, sir. It's a fact. I was told it by a man who had +just come out of Belgium. Knew the people, knew the place, knew +everything. People over here do not seem to realise that those +women are the same sort of women that you might find in Chester or +Yarmouth, or in Matching's Easy for the matter of that. They still +seem to think that Continental women are a different sort of +women—more amenable to that sort of treatment. They seem to +think there is some special Providential law against such things +happening to English<a name="Page_218"></a> people. And it's within +two hundred miles of you—even now. And as far as I can see +there's precious little to prevent it coming nearer...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling thought there were a few little obstacles.</p> +<p>"I've seen the new British army drilling in London, Mr. +Britling. I don't know if you have. I saw a whole battalion. And +they hadn't got half-a-dozen uniforms, and not a single rifle to +the whole battalion.</p> +<p>"You don't begin to realise in England what you are up against. +You have no idea what it means to be in a country where everybody, +the women, the elderly people, the steady middle-aged men, are +taking war as seriously as business. They haven't the slightest +compunction. I don't know what Germany was like before the war, I +had hardly gotten out of my train before the war began; but Germany +to-day is one big armed camp. It's all crawling with soldiers. And +every soldier has his uniform and his boots and his arms and his +kit.</p> +<p>"And they're as sure of winning as if they had got London now. +They mean to get London. They're cocksure they are going to walk +through Belgium, cocksure they will get to Paris by Sedan day, and +then they are going to destroy your fleet with Zeppelins and +submarines and make a dash across the Channel. They say it's +England they are after, in this invasion of Belgium. They'll just +down France by the way. They say they've got guns to bombard Dover +from Calais. They make a boast of it. They know for certain you +can't arm your troops. They know you can't turn out ten thousand +rifles a week. They come and talk to any one in the trains, and +explain just how your defeat is going to be managed. It's just as +though they were talking of rounding up cattle."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling said they would soon be disillusioned.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck, with the confidence of his authentic observations, +remarked after a perceptible interval, "I wonder how."</p> +<a name="Page_219"></a> +<p>He reverted to the fact that had most struck upon his +imagination.</p> +<p>"Grown-up people, ordinary intelligent experienced people, +taking war seriously, talking of punishing England; it's a +revelation. A sort of solemn enthusiasm. High and low....</p> +<p>"And the trainloads of men and the trainloads of guns...."</p> +<p>"Liège," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Liège was just a scratch on the paint," said Mr. Direck. +"A few thousand dead, a few score thousand dead, doesn't +matter—not a red cent to them. There's a man arrived at the +Cecil who saw them marching into Brussels. He sat at table with me +at lunch yesterday. All day it went on, a vast unending river of +men in grey. Endless waggons, endless guns, the whole manhood of a +nation and all its stuff, marching....</p> +<p>"I thought war," said Mr. Direck, "was a thing when most people +stood about and did the shouting, and a sort of special team did +the fighting. Well, Germany isn't fighting like that.... I confess +it, I'm scared.... It's the very biggest thing on record; it's the +very limit in wars.... I dreamt last night of a grey flood washing +everything in front of it. You and me—and Miss +Corner—curious thing, isn't it? that she came into +it—were scrambling up a hill higher and higher, with that +flood pouring after us. Sort of splashing into a foam of faces and +helmets and bayonets—and clutching hands—and red +stuff.... Well, Mr. Britling, I admit I'm a little bit overwrought +about it, but I can assure you you don't begin to realise in +England what it is you've butted against...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 15</h4> +<br> +<p>Cissie did not come up to the Dower House that afternoon, and so +Mr. Direck, after some vague and transparent excuses, made his way +to the cottage.</p> +<a name="Page_220"></a> +<p>Here his report become even more impressive. Teddy sat on the +writing desk beside the typewriter and swung his legs slowly. Letty +brooded in the armchair. Cissie presided over certain limited +crawling operations of the young heir.</p> +<p>"They could have the equal of the whole British Army killed +three times over and scarcely know it had happened. They're +<i>all</i> in it. It's a whole country in arms."</p> +<p>Teddy nodded thoughtfully.</p> +<p>"There's our fleet," said Letty.</p> +<p>"Well, <i>that</i> won't save Paris, will it?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck didn't, he declared, want to make disagreeable talk, +but this was a thing people in England had to face. He felt like +one of them himself—"naturally." He'd sort of hurried home to +them—it was just like hurrying home—to tell them of the +tremendous thing that was going to hit them. He felt like a man in +front of a flood, a great grey flood. He couldn't hide what he had +been thinking. "Where's our army?" asked Letty suddenly.</p> +<p>"Lost somewhere in France," said Teddy. "Like a needle in a +bottle of hay."</p> +<p>"What I keep on worrying at is this," Mr. Direck resumed. +"Suppose they did come, suppose somehow they scrambled over, sixty +or seventy thousand men perhaps."</p> +<p>"Every man would turn out and take a shot at them," said +Letty.</p> +<p>"But there's no rifles!"</p> +<p>"There's shot guns."</p> +<p>"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," said Mr. Direck. "They'd +massacre....</p> +<p>"You may be the bravest people on earth," said Mr. Direck, "but +if you haven't got arms and the other chaps have—you're just +as if you were sheep."</p> +<p>He became gloomily pensive.</p> +<p>He roused himself to describe his experiences at some length, +and the extraordinary disturbance of his mind.<a name= +"Page_221"></a> He related more particularly his attempts to see +the sights of Cologne during the stir of mobilisation. After a time +his narrative flow lost force, and there was a general feeling that +he ought to be left alone with Cissie. Teddy had a letter that must +be posted; Letty took the infant to crawl on the mossy stones under +the pear tree. Mr. Direck leant against the window-sill and became +silent for some moments after the door had closed on Letty.</p> +<p>"As for you, Cissie," he began at last, "I'm anxious. I'm real +anxious. I wish you'd let me throw the mantle of Old Glory over +you."</p> +<p>He looked at her earnestly.</p> +<p>"Old Glory?" asked Cissie.</p> +<p>"Well—the Stars and Stripes. I want you to be able to +claim American citizenship—in certain eventualities. It +wouldn't be so very difficult. All the world over, Cissie, +Americans are respected.... Nobody dares touch an American citizen. +We are—an inviolate people."</p> +<p>He paused. "But how?" asked Cissie.</p> +<p>"It would be perfectly easy—perfectly."</p> +<p>"How?"</p> +<p>"Just marry an American citizen," said Mr. Direck, with his face +beaming with ingenuous self-approval. "Then you'd be safe, and I'd +not have to worry."</p> +<p>"Because we're in for a stiff war!" cried Cissie, and Direck +perceived he had blundered.</p> +<p>"Because we may be invaded!" she said, and Mr. Direck's sense of +error deepened.</p> +<p>"I vow—" she began.</p> +<p>"No!" cried Mr. Direck, and held out a hand.</p> +<p>There was a moment of crisis.</p> +<p>"Never will I desert my country—while she is at war," said +Cissie, reducing her first fierce intention, and adding as though +she regretted her concession, "Anyhow."</p> +<p>"Then it's up to me to end the war, Cissie," said Mr. Direck, +trying to get her back to a less spirited attitude.</p> +<p>But Cissie wasn't to be got back so easily. The war<a name= +"Page_222"></a> was already beckoning to them in the cottage, and +drawing them down from the auditorium into the arena.</p> +<p>"This is the rightest war in history," she said. "If I was an +American I should be sorry to be one now and to have to stand out +of it. I wish I was a man now so that I could do something for all +the decency and civilisation the Germans have outraged. I can't +understand how any man can be content to keep out of this, and +watch Belgium being destroyed. It is like looking on at a murder. +It is like watching a dog killing a kitten...."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck's expression was that of a man who is suddenly shown +strange lights upon the world.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 16</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling found Mr. Direck's talk very indigestible.</p> +<p>He was parting very reluctantly from his dream of a disastrous +collapse of German imperialism, of a tremendous, decisive +demonstration of the inherent unsoundness of militarist monarchy, +to be followed by a world conference of chastened but hopeful +nations, and—the Millennium. He tried now to think that Mr. +Direck had observed badly and misconceived what he saw. An +American, unused to any sort of military occurrences, might easily +mistake tens of thousands for millions, and the excitement of a few +commercial travellers for the enthusiasm of a united people. But +the newspapers now, with a kindred reluctance, were beginning to +qualify, bit by bit, their first representation of the German +attack through Belgium as a vast and already partly thwarted parade +of incompetence. The Germans, he gathered, were being continually +beaten in Belgium; but just as continually they advanced. Each +fresh newspaper name he looked up on the map marked an oncoming +tide. Alost—Charleroi. Farther east the French were +retreating from the Saales Pass. Surely the British, who had now +been in France for a fortnight, would presently be +manifest,<a name="Page_223"></a> stemming the onrush; somewhere +perhaps in Brabant or East Flanders. It gave Mr. Britling an +unpleasant night to hear at Claverings that the French were very +ill-equipped; had no good modern guns either at Lille or Maubeuge, +were short of boots and equipment generally, and rather depressed +already at the trend of things. Mr. Britling dismissed this as +pessimistic talk, and built his hopes on the still invisible +British army, hovering somewhere—</p> +<p>He would sit over the map of Belgium, choosing where he would +prefer to have the British hover....</p> +<p>Namur fell. The place names continued to shift southward and +westward. The British army or a part of it came to light abruptly +at Mons. It had been fighting for thirty-eight hours and defeating +enormously superior forces of the enemy. That was reassuring until +a day or so later "the Cambray—Le Cateau line" made Mr. +Britling realise that the victorious British had recoiled five and +twenty miles....</p> +<p>And then came the Sunday of <i>The Times</i> telegram, which +spoke of a "retreating and a broken army." Mr. Britling did not see +this, but Mr. Manning brought over the report of it in a state of +profound consternation. Things, he said, seemed to be about as bad +as they could be. The English were retreating towards the coast and +in much disorder. They were "in the air" and already separated from +the Trench. They had narrowly escaped "a Sedan" under the +fortifications of Maubeuge.... Mr. Britling was stunned. He went to +his study and stared helplessly at maps. It was as if David had +flung his pebble—and missed!</p> +<p>But in the afternoon Mr. Manning telephoned to comfort his +friend. A reassuring despatch from General French had been +published and—all was well—practically—and the +British had been splendid. They had been fighting continuously for +several days round and about Mons; they had been attacked at odds +of six to one, and<a name="Page_224"></a> they had repulsed and +inflicted enormous losses on the enemy. They had established an +incontestable personal superiority over the Germans. The Germans +had been mown down in heaps; the British had charged through their +cavalry like charging through paper. So at last and very gloriously +for the British, British and German had met in battle. After the +hard fighting of the 26th about Landrecies, the British had been +comparatively unmolested, reinforcements covering double the losses +had joined them and the German advance was definitely checked ... +Mr. Britling's mind swung back to elation. He took down the entire +despatch from Mr. Manning's dictation, and ran out with it into the +garden where Mrs. Britling, with an unwonted expression of anxiety, +was presiding over the teas of the usual casual Sunday +gathering.... The despatch was read aloud twice over. After that +there was hockey and high spirits, and then Mr. Britling went up to +his study to answer a letter from Mrs. Harrowdean, the first letter +that had come from her since their breach at the outbreak of the +war, and which he was now in a better mood to answer than he had +been hitherto.</p> +<p>She had written ignoring his silence and absence, or rather +treating it as if it were an incident of no particular importance. +Apparently she had not called upon the patient and devoted Oliver +as she had threatened; at any rate, there were no signs of Oliver +in her communication. But she reproached Mr. Britling for deserting +her, and she clamoured for his presence and for kind and +strengthening words. She was, she said, scared by this war. She was +only a little thing, and it was all too dreadful, and there was not +a soul in the world to hold her hand, at least no one who +understood in the slightest degree how she felt. (But why was not +Oliver holding her hand?) She was like a child left alone in the +dark. It was perfectly horrible the way that people were being kept +in the dark. The stories one heard, "<i>often from quite +trustworthy sources</i>," were enough to depress and terrify +any<a name="Page_225"></a> one. Battleship after battleship had +been sunk by German torpedoes, a thing kept secret from us for no +earthly reason, and Prince Louis of Battenberg had been discovered +to be a spy and had been sent to the Tower. Haldane too was a spy. +Our army in France had been "practically <i>sold</i>" by the +French. Almost all the French generals were in German pay. The +censorship and the press were keeping all this back, but what good +was it to keep it back? It was folly not to trust people! But it +was all too dreadful for a poor little soul whose only desire was +to live happily. Why didn't he come along to her and make her feel +she had protecting arms round her? She couldn't think in the +daytime: she couldn't sleep at night....</p> +<p>Then she broke away into the praises of serenity. Never had she +thought so much of his beautiful "Silent Places" as she did now. +How she longed to take refuge in some such dreamland from violence +and treachery and foolish rumours! She was weary of every reality. +She wanted to fly away into some secret hiding-place and cultivate +her simple garden there—as Voltaire had done.... Sometimes at +night she was afraid to undress. She imagined the sound of guns, +she imagined landings and frightful scouts "in masks" rushing +inland on motor bicycles....</p> +<p>It was an ill-timed letter. The nonsense about Prince Louis of +Battenberg and Lord Haldane and the torpedoed battleships annoyed +him extravagantly. He had just sufficient disposition to believe +such tales as to find their importunity exasperating. The idea of +going over to Pyecrafts to spend his days in comforting a timid +little dear obsessed by such fears, attracted him not at all. He +had already heard enough adverse rumours at Claverings to make him +thoroughly uncomfortable. He had been doubting whether after all +his "Examination of War" was really much less of a futility than +"And Now War Ends"; his mind was full of a sense of +incomplete<a name="Page_226"></a> statements and unsubstantial +arguments. He was indeed in a state of extreme intellectual worry. +He was moreover extraordinarily out of love with Mrs. Harrowdean. +Never had any affection in the whole history of Mr. Britling's +heart collapsed so swiftly and completely. He was left incredulous +of ever having cared for her at all. Probably he hadn't. Probably +the whole business had been deliberate illusion from first to last. +The "dear little thing" business, he felt, was all very well as a +game of petting, but times were serious now, and a woman of her +intelligence should do something better than wallow in fears and +elaborate a winsome feebleness. A very unnecessary and tiresome +feebleness. He came almost to the pitch of writing that to her.</p> +<p>The despatch from General French put him into a kindlier frame +of mind. He wrote instead briefly but affectionately. As a +gentleman should. "How could you doubt our fleet or our army?" was +the gist of his letter. He ignored completely every suggestion of a +visit to Pyecrafts that her letter had conveyed. He pretended that +it had contained nothing of the sort.... And with that she passed +out of his mind again under the stress of more commanding +interests....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling's mood of relief did not last through the week. The +defeated Germans continued to advance. Through a week of deepening +disillusionment the main tide of battle rolled back steadily +towards Paris. Lille was lost without a struggle. It was lost with +mysterious ease.... The next name to startle Mr. Britling as he sat +with newspaper and atlas following these great events was +Compiègne. "Here!" Manifestly the British were still in +retreat. Then the Germans were in possession of Laon and Rheims and +still pressing south. Maubeuge surrounded and cut off for some +days, had apparently fallen....</p> +<p>It was on Sunday, September the sixth, that the final +capitulation of Mr. Britling's facile optimism occurred.</p> +<a name="Page_227"></a> +<p>He stood in the sunshine reading the <i>Observer</i> which the +gardener's boy had just brought from the May Tree. He had spread it +open on a garden table under the blue cedar, and father and son +were both reading it, each as much as the other would let him. +There was fresh news from France, a story of further German +advances, fighting at Senlis—"But that is quite close to +Paris!"—and the appearance of German forces at +Nogent-sur-Seine. "Sur Seine!" cried Mr. Britling. "But where can +that be? South of the Marne? Or below Paris perhaps?"</p> +<p>It was not marked upon the <i>Observer's</i> map, and Hugh ran +into the house for the atlas.</p> +<p>When he returned Mr. Manning was with his father, and they both +looked grave.</p> +<p>Hugh opened the map of northern France. "Here it is," he +said.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling considered the position.</p> +<p>"Manning says they are at Rouen," he told Hugh. "Our base is to +be moved round to La Rochelle...."</p> +<p>He paused before the last distasteful conclusion.</p> +<p>"Practically," he admitted, taking his dose, "they have got +Paris. It is almost surrounded now."</p> +<p>He sat down to the map. Mr. Manning and Hugh stood regarding +him. He made a last effort to imagine some tremendous strategic +reversal, some stone from an unexpected sling that should fell this +Goliath in the midst of his triumph.</p> +<p>"Russia," he said, without any genuine hope....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 17</h4> +<br> +<p>And then it was that Mr. Britling accepted the truth.</p> +<p>"One talks," he said, "and then weeks and months later one +learns the meaning of the things one has been saying. I was saying +a month ago that this is the biggest thing that has happened in +history. I said that this<a name="Page_228"></a> was the supreme +call upon the will and resources of England. I said there was not a +life in all our empire that would not be vitally changed by this +war. I said all these things; they came through my mouth; I suppose +there was a sort of thought behind them.... Only at this moment do +I understand what it is that I said. Now—let me say it over +as if I had never said it before; this <i>is</i> the biggest thing +in history, that we <i>are</i> all called upon to do our utmost to +resist this tremendous attack upon the peace and freedom of the +world. Well, doing our utmost does not mean standing about in +pleasant gardens waiting for the newspaper.... It means the +abandonment of ease and security....</p> +<p>"How lazy we English are nowadays! How readily we grasp the +comforting delusion that excuses us from exertion. For the last +three weeks I have been deliberately believing that a little +British army—they say it is scarcely a hundred thousand +men—would somehow break this rush of millions. But it has +been driven back, as any one not in love with easy dreams might +have known it would be driven back—here and then here and +then here. It has been fighting night and day. It has made the most +splendid fight—and the most ineffectual fight.... You see the +vast swing of the German flail through Belgium. And meanwhile we +have been standing about talking of the use we would make of our +victory....</p> +<p>"We have been asleep," he said. "This country has been +asleep....</p> +<p>"At the back of our minds," he went on bitterly, "I suppose we +thought the French would do the heavy work on land—while we +stood by at sea. So far as we thought at all. We're so +temperate-minded; we're so full of qualifications and +discretions.... And so leisurely.... Well, France is down. We've +got to fight for France now over the ruins of Paris. Because you +and I, Manning, didn't grasp the scale of it, because we indulged +in generalisations when we ought to have been drilling and<a name= +"Page_229"></a> working. Because we've been doing 'business as +usual' and all the rest of that sort of thing, while Western +civilisation has been in its death agony. If this is to be another +'71, on a larger scale and against not merely France but all +Europe, if Prussianism is to walk rough-shod over civilisation, if +France is to be crushed and Belgium murdered, then life is not +worth having. Compared with such an issue as that no other issue, +no other interest matters. Yet what are we doing to decide +it—you and I? How can it end in anything but a German triumph +if you and I, by the million, stand by...."</p> +<p>He paused despairfully and stared at the map.</p> +<p>"What ought we to be doing?" asked Mr. Manning.</p> +<p>"Every man ought to be in training," said Mr. Britling. "Every +one ought to be participating.... In some way.... At any rate we +ought not to be taking our ease at Matching's Easy any +more...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 18</h4> +<br> +<p>"It interrupts everything," said Hugh suddenly. "These Prussians +are the biggest nuisance the world has ever seen."</p> +<p>He considered. "It's like every one having to run out because +the house catches fire. But of course we have to beat them. It has +to be done. And every one has to take a share.</p> +<p>"Then we can get on with our work again."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling turned his eyes to his eldest son with a startled +expression. He had been speaking—generally. For the moment he +had forgotten Hugh.</p> +<a name="Page_230"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> +<h2>TAKING PART</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>There were now two chief things in the mind of Mr. Britling. One +was a large and valiant thing, a thing of heroic and processional +quality, the idea of taking up one's share in the great conflict, +of leaving the Dower House and its circle of habits and activities +and going out—. From that point he wasn't quite sure where he +was to go, nor exactly what he meant to do. His imagination +inclined to the figure of a volunteer in an improvised uniform +inflicting great damage upon a raiding invader from behind a hedge. +The uniform, one presumes, would have been something in the vein of +the costume in which he met Mr. Direck. With a "brassard." Or he +thought of himself as working at a telephone or in an office +engaged upon any useful quasi-administrative work that called for +intelligence rather than training. Still, of course, with a +"brassard." A month ago he would have had doubts about the meaning +of "brassard"; now it seemed to be the very keyword for national +organisation. He had started for London by the early train on +Monday morning with the intention of immediate enrolment in any +such service that offered; of getting, in fact, into his brassard +at once. The morning papers he bought at the station dashed his +conviction of the inevitable fall of Paris into hopeful doubts, but +did not shake his resolution. The effect of rout and pursuit and +retreat and retreat and retreat had disappeared from the news. The +German right was being counter-attacked, and seemed in danger of +getting pinched between Paris and Verdun with the<a name= +"Page_231"></a> British on its flank. This relieved his mind, but +it did nothing to modify his new realisation of the tremendous +gravity of the war. Even if the enemy were held and repulsed a +little there was still work for every man in the task of forcing +them back upon their own country. This war was an immense thing, it +would touch everybody.... That meant that every man must give +himself. That he had to give himself. He must let nothing stand +between him and that clear understanding. It was utterly shameful +now to hold back and not to do one's utmost for civilisation, for +England, for all the ease and safety one had been +given—against these drilled, commanded, obsessed +millions.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was a flame of exalted voluntaryism, of patriotic +devotion, that day.</p> +<p>But behind all this bravery was the other thing, the second +thing in the mind of Mr. Britling, a fear. He was prepared now to +spread himself like some valiant turkey-gobbler, every feather at +its utmost, against the aggressor. He was prepared to go out and +flourish bayonets, march and dig to the limit of his power, shoot, +die in a ditch if needful, rather than permit German militarism to +dominate the world. He had no fear for himself. He was prepared to +perish upon the battlefield or cut a valiant figure in the military +hospital. But what he perceived very clearly and did his utmost not +to perceive was this qualifying and discouraging fact, that the war +monster was not nearly so disposed to meet him as he was to meet +the war, and that its eyes were fixed on something beside and +behind him, that it was already only too evidently stretching out a +long and shadowy arm past him towards Teddy—and towards +Hugh....</p> +<p>The young are the food of war....</p> +<p>Teddy wasn't Mr. Britling's business anyhow. Teddy must do as he +thought proper. Mr. Britling would not even advise upon that. And +as for Hugh—</p> +<p>Mr. Britling did his best to brazen it out.</p> +<a name="Page_232"></a> +<p>"My eldest boy is barely seventeen," he said. "He's keen to go, +and I'd be sorry if he wasn't. He'll get into some cadet corps of +course—he's already done something of that kind at school. Or +they'll take him into the Territorials. But before he's nineteen +everything will be over, one way or another. I'm afraid, poor chap, +he'll feel sold...."</p> +<p>And having thrust Hugh safely into the background of his mind +as—juvenile, doing a juvenile share, no sort of man +yet—Mr. Britling could give a free rein to his generous +imaginations of a national uprising. From the idea of a universal +participation in the struggle he passed by an easy transition to an +anticipation of all Britain armed and gravely embattled. Across +gulfs of obstinate reality. He himself was prepared to say, and +accordingly he felt that the great mass of the British must be +prepared to say to the government: "Here we are at your disposal. +This is not a diplomatists' war nor a War Office war; this is a war +of the whole people. We are all willing and ready to lay aside our +usual occupations and offer our property and ourselves. Whim and +individual action are for peace times. Take us and use us as you +think fit. Take all we possess." When he thought of the government +in this way, he forgot the governing class he knew. The +slack-trousered Raeburn, the prim, attentive Philbert, Lady +Frensham at the top of her voice, stern, preposterous Carson, boozy +Bandershoot and artful Taper, wily Asquith, the eloquent yet +unsubstantial George, and the immobile Grey, vanished out of his +mind; all those representative exponents of the way things are done +in Great Britain faded in the glow of his imaginative effort; he +forgot the dreary debates, the floundering newspapers, the +"bluffs," the intrigues, the sly bargains of the week-end party, +the "schoolboy honour" of grown men, the universal weak dishonesty +in thinking; he thought simply of a simplified and ideal government +that governed. He thought vaguely of something behind and<a name= +"Page_233"></a> beyond them, England, the ruling genius of the +land; something with a dignified assurance and a stable will. He +imagined this shadowy ruler miraculously provided with schemes and +statistics against this supreme occasion which had for so many +years been the most conspicuous probability before the country. His +mind leaping forwards to the conception of a great nation +reluctantly turning its vast resources to the prosecution of a +righteous defensive war, filled in the obvious corollaries of plan +and calculation. He thought that somewhere "up there" there must be +people who could count and who had counted everything that we might +need for such a struggle, and organisers who had schemed and +estimated down to practicable and manageable details....</p> +<p>Such lapses from knowledge to faith are perhaps necessary that +human heroism may be possible....</p> +<p>His conception of his own share in the great national uprising +was a very modest one. He was a writer, a footnote to reality; he +had no trick of command over men, his rôle was observation +rather than organisation, and he saw himself only as an +insignificant individual dropping from his individuality into his +place in a great machine, taking a rifle in a trench, guarding a +bridge, filling a cartridge—just with a brassard or something +like that on—until the great task was done. Sunday night was +full of imaginations of order, of the countryside standing up to +its task, of roads cleared and resources marshalled, of the petty +interests of the private life altogether set aside. And mingling +with that it was still possible for Mr. Britling, he was still +young enough, to produce such dreams of personal service, of sudden +emergencies swiftly and bravely met, of conspicuous daring and +exceptional rewards, such dreams as hover in the brains of every +imaginative recruit....</p> +<p>The detailed story of Mr. Britling's two days' search for some +easy and convenient ladder into the service of his threatened +country would be a voluminous one. It<a name="Page_234"></a> would +begin with the figure of a neatly brushed patriot, with an intent +expression upon his intelligent face, seated in the Londonward +train, reading the war news—the first comforting war news for +many days—and trying not to look as though his life was torn +up by the roots and all his being aflame with devotion; and it +would conclude after forty-eight hours of fuss, inquiry, talk, +waiting, telephoning, with the same gentleman, a little fagged and +with a kind of weary apathy in his eyes, returning by the short cut +from the station across Claverings park to resume his connection +with his abandoned roots. The essential process of the interval had +been the correction of Mr. Britling's temporary delusion that the +government of the British Empire is either intelligent, instructed, +or wise.</p> +<p>The great "Business as Usual" phase was already passing away, +and London was in the full tide of recruiting enthusiasm. That tide +was breaking against the most miserable arrangements for enlistment +it is possible to imagine. Overtaxed and not very competent +officers, whose one idea of being very efficient was to refuse +civilian help and be very, very slow and circumspect and very +dignified and overbearing, sat in dirty little rooms and snarled at +this unheard-of England that pressed at door and window for +enrolment. Outside every recruiting office crowds of men and youths +waited, leaning against walls, sitting upon the pavements, waited +for long hours, waiting to the end of the day and returning next +morning, without shelter, without food, many sick with hunger; men +who had hurried up from the country, men who had thrown up jobs of +every kind, clerks, shopmen, anxious only to serve England and +"teach those damned Germans a lesson." Between them and this object +they had discovered a perplexing barrier; an inattention. As Mr. +Britling made his way by St. Martin's Church and across Trafalgar +Square and marked the weary accumulation of this magnificently +patriotic stuff, he had his first inkling of the imaginative +insufficiency of the War Office that had<a name="Page_235"></a> +been so suddenly called upon to organise victory. He was to be more +fully informed when he reached his club.</p> +<p>His impression of the streets through which he passed was an +impression of great unrest. There were noticeably fewer omnibuses +and less road traffic generally, but there was a quite unusual +number of drifting pedestrians. The current on the pavements was +irritatingly sluggish. There were more people standing about, and +fewer going upon their business. This was particularly the case +with the women he saw. Many of them seemed to have drifted in from +the suburbs and outskirts of London in a state of vague +expectation, unable to stay in their homes.</p> +<p>Everywhere there were the flags of the Allies; in shop windows, +over doors, on the bonnets of automobiles, on people's breasts, and +there was a great quantity of recruiting posters on the hoardings +and in windows: "Your King and Country Need You" was the chief +text, and they still called for "A Hundred Thousand Men" although +the demand of Lord Kitchener had risen to half a million. There +were also placards calling for men on nearly all the taxicabs. The +big windows of the offices of the Norddeutscher Lloyd in Cockspur +Street were boarded up, and plastered thickly with recruiting +appeals.</p> +<p>At his club Mr. Britling found much talk and belligerent stir. +In the hall Wilkins the author was displaying a dummy rifle of bent +iron rod to several interested members. It was to be used for +drilling until rifles could be got, and it could be made for +eighteen pence. This was the first intimation Mr. Britling got that +the want of foresight of the War Office only began with its +unpreparedness for recruits. Men were talking very freely in the +club; one of the temporary effects of the war in its earlier stages +was to produce a partial thaw in the constitutional British +shyness; and men who had glowered at Mr. Britling over their +lunches and had been glowered at by Mr. Britling in silence for +years now started conversations with him.</p> +<a name="Page_236"></a> +<p>"What is a man of my sort to do?" asked a clean-shaven +barrister.</p> +<p>"Exactly what I have been asking," said Mr. Britling. "They are +fixing the upward age for recruits at thirty; it's absurdly low. A +man well over forty like myself is quite fit to line a trench or +guard a bridge. I'm not so bad a shot...."</p> +<p>"We've been discussing home defence volunteers," said the +barrister. "Anyhow we ought to be drilling. But the War Office sets +its face as sternly against our doing anything of the sort as +though we were going to join the Germans. It's absurd. Even if we +older men aren't fit to go abroad, we could at least release troops +who could."</p> +<p>"If you had the rifles," said a sharp-featured man in grey to +the right of Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"I suppose they are to be got," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>The sharp-featured man indicated by appropriate facial action +and head-shaking that this was by no means the case.</p> +<p>"Every dead man, many wounded men, most prisoners," he said, +"mean each one a rifle lost. We have lost five-and-twenty thousand +rifles alone since the war began. Quite apart from arming new +troops we have to replace those rifles with the drafts we send out. +Do you know what is the maximum weekly output of rifles at the +present time in this country?"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling did not know.</p> +<p>"Nine thousand."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling suddenly understood the significance of Wilkins and +his dummy gun.</p> +<p>The sharp-featured man added with an air of concluding the +matter: "It's the barrels are the trouble. Complicated machinery. +We haven't got it and we can't make it in a hurry. And there you +are!"</p> +<p>The sharp-featured man had a way of speaking almost as if he was +throwing bombs. He threw one now. "Zinc," he said.</p> +<a name="Page_237"></a> +<p>"We're not short of zinc?" said the lawyer.</p> +<p>The sharp-featured man nodded, and then became explicit.</p> +<p>Zinc was necessary for cartridges; it had to be refined zinc and +very pure, or the shooting went wrong. Well, we had let the +refining business drift away from England to Belgium and Germany. +There were just one or two British firms still left.... Unless we +bucked up tremendously we should get caught short of cartridges.... +At any rate of cartridges so made as to ensure good shooting. "And +there you are!" said the sharp-featured man.</p> +<p>But the sharp-featured man did not at that time represent any +considerable section of public thought. "I suppose after all we can +get rifles from America," said the lawyer. "And as for zinc, if the +shortage is known the shortage will be provided for...."</p> +<p>The prevailing topic in the smoking-room upstairs was the +inability of the War Office to deal with the flood of recruits that +was pouring in, and its hostility to any such volunteering as Mr. +Britling had in mind. Quite a number of members wanted to +volunteer; there was much talk of their fitness; "I'm fifty-four," +said one, "and I could do my twenty-five miles in marching kit far +better than half those boys of nineteen." Another was thirty-eight. +"I must hold the business together," he said; "but why anyhow +shouldn't I learn to shoot and use a bayonet?" The personal pique +of the rejected lent force to their criticisms of the recruiting +and general organisation. "The War Office has one incurable +system," said a big mine-owner. "During peace time it runs all its +home administration with men who will certainly be wanted at the +front directly there is a war. Directly war comes, therefore, there +is a shift all round, and a new untried man—usually a dug-out +in an advanced state of decay—is stuck into the job. Chaos +follows automatically. The War Office always has done this, and so +far as one can see it always will. It seems incapable of realising +that<a name="Page_238"></a> another man will be wanted until the +first is taken away. Its imagination doesn't even run to that."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling found a kindred spirit in Wilkins.</p> +<p>Wilkins was expounding his tremendous scheme for universal +volunteering. Everybody was to be accepted. Everybody was to be +assigned and registered and—<i>badged</i>.</p> +<p>"A brassard," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It doesn't matter whether we really produce a fighting force or +not," said Wilkins. "Everybody now is enthusiastic—and +serious. Everybody is willing to put on some kind of uniform and +submit to some sort of orders. And the thing to do is to catch them +in the willing stage. Now is the time to get the country lined up +and organised, ready to meet the internal stresses that are bound +to come later. But there's no disposition whatever to welcome this +universal offering. It's just as though this war was a treat to +which only the very select friends of the War Office were to be +admitted. And I don't admit that the national volunteers would be +ineffective—even from a military point of view. There are +plenty of fit men of our age, and men of proper age who are better +employed at home—armament workers for example, and there are +all the boys under the age. They may not be under the age before +things are over...."</p> +<p>He was even prepared to plan uniforms.</p> +<p>"A brassard," repeated Mr. Britling, "and perhaps coloured +strips on the revers of a coat."</p> +<p>"Colours for the counties," said Wilkins, "and if there isn't +coloured cloth to be got there's—red flannel. Anything is +better than leaving the mass of people to mob about...."</p> +<p>A momentary vision danced before Mr. Britling's eyes of red +flannel petticoats being torn up in a rapid improvisation of +soldiers to resist a sudden invasion. Passing washerwomen suddenly +requisitioned. But one must not let oneself be laughed out of good +intentions because of<a name="Page_239"></a> ridiculous +accessories. The idea at any rate was the sound one....</p> +<p>The vision of what ought to be done shone brightly while Mr. +Britling and Mr. Wilkins maintained it. But presently under +discouraging reminders that there were no rifles, no instructors, +and, above all, the open hostility of the established authorities, +it faded again....</p> +<p>Afterwards in other conversations Mr. Britling reverted to more +modest ambitions.</p> +<p>"Is there no clerical work, no minor administrative work, a man +might be used for?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Any old dug-out," said the man with the thin face, "any old +doddering Colonel Newcome, is preferred to you in that +matter...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling emerged from his club about half-past three with +his mind rather dishevelled and with his private determination to +do something promptly for his country's needs blunted by a +perplexing "How?" His search for doors and ways where no doors and +ways existed went on with a gathering sense of futility.</p> +<p>He had a ridiculous sense of pique at being left out, like a +child shut out from a room in which a vitally interesting game is +being played.</p> +<p>"After all, it is <i>our</i> war," he said.</p> +<p>He caught the phrase as it dropped from his lips with a feeling +that it said more than he intended. He turned it over and examined +it, and the more he did so the more he was convinced of its truth +and soundness....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>By night there was a new strangeness about London. The +authorities were trying to suppress the more brilliant illumination +of the chief thoroughfares, on account of the possibility of an air +raid. Shopkeepers were being compelled to pull down their blinds, +and many of the big standard lights were unlit. Mr. Britling +thought these precautions were very fussy and unnecessary, and +likely<a name="Page_240"></a> to lead to accidents amidst the +traffic. But it gave a Rembrandtesque quality to the London scene, +turned it into mysterious arrangements of brown shadows and cones +and bars of light. At first many people were recalcitrant, and here +and there a restaurant or a draper's window still blazed out and +broke the gloom. There were also a number of insubordinate +automobiles with big head-lights. But the police were being +unusually firm....</p> +<p>"It will all glitter again in a little time," he told +himself.</p> +<p>He heard an old lady who was projecting from an offending +automobile at Piccadilly Circus in hot dispute with a police +officer. "Zeppelins indeed!" she said. "What nonsense! As if they +would <i>dare</i> to come here! Who would <i>let</i> them, I should +like to know?"</p> +<p>Probably a friend of Lady Frensham's, he thought. +Still—the idea of Zeppelins over London did seem rather +ridiculous to Mr. Britling. He would not have liked to have been +caught talking of it himself.... There never had been Zeppelins +over London. They were gas bags....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>On Wednesday morning Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House, +and he was still a civilian unassigned.</p> +<p>In the hall he found a tall figure in khaki standing and reading +<i>The Times</i> that usually lay upon the hall table. The figure +turned at Mr. Britling's entry, and revealed the aquiline features +of Mr. Lawrence Carmine. It was as if his friend had stolen a march +on him.</p> +<p>But Carmine's face showed nothing of the excitement and +patriotic satisfaction that would have seemed natural to Mr. +Britling. He was white and jaded, as if he had not slept for many +nights. "You see," he explained almost apologetically of the three +stars upon his sleeve, "I used to be a captain of volunteers." He +had been put<a name="Page_241"></a> in charge of a volunteer force +which had been re-embodied and entrusted with the care of the +bridges, gasworks, factories and railway tunnels, and with a number +of other minor but necessary duties round about Easinghampton. +"I've just got to shut up my house," said Captain Carmine, "and go +into lodgings. I confess I hate it.... But anyhow it can't last six +months.... But it's beastly.... Ugh!..."</p> +<p>He seemed disposed to expand that "Ugh," and then thought better +of it. And presently Mr. Britling took control of the +conversation.</p> +<p>His two days in London had filled him with matter, and he was +glad to have something more than Hugh and Teddy and Mrs. Britling +to talk it upon. What was happening now in Great Britain, he +declared, was <i>adjustment</i>. It was an attempt on the part of a +great unorganised nation, an attempt, instinctive at present rather +than intelligent, to readjust its government and particularly its +military organisation to the new scale of warfare that Germany had +imposed upon the world. For two strenuous decades the British navy +had been growing enormously under the pressure of German naval +preparations, but the British military establishment had +experienced no corresponding expansion. It was true there had been +a futile, rather foolishly conducted agitation for universal +military service, but there had been no accumulation of material, +no preparation of armament-making machinery, no planning and no +foundations for any sort of organisation that would have +facilitated the rapid expansion of the fighting forces of a country +in a time of crisis. Such an idea was absolutely antagonistic to +the mental habits of the British military caste. The German method +of incorporating all the strength and resources of the country into +one national fighting machine was quite strange to the British +military mind—still. Even after a month of war. War had +become the comprehensive business of the German nation; to the +British it<a name="Page_242"></a> was an incidental adventure. In +Germany the nation was militarised, in England the army was +specialised. The nation for nearly every practical purpose got +along without it. Just as political life had also become +specialised.... Now suddenly we wanted a government to speak for +every one, and an army of the whole people. How were we to find +it?</p> +<p>Mr. Britling dwelt upon this idea of the specialised character +of the British army and navy and government. It seemed to him to be +the clue to everything that was jarring in the London spectacle. +The army had been a thing aloof, for a special end. It had +developed all the characteristics of a caste. It had very high +standards along the lines of its specialisation, but it was +inadaptable and conservative. Its exclusiveness was not so much a +deliberate culture as a consequence of its detached function. It +touched the ordinary social body chiefly through three other +specialised bodies, the court, the church, and the stage. Apart +from that it saw the great unofficial civilian world as something +vague, something unsympathetic, something possibly antagonistic, +which it comforted itself by snubbing when it dared and tricking +when it could, something that projected members of Parliament +towards it and was stingy about money. Directly one grasped how +apart the army lived from the ordinary life of the community, from +industrialism or from economic necessities, directly one understood +that the great mass of Englishmen were simply "outsiders" to the +War Office mind, just as they were "outsiders" to the political +clique, one began to realise the complete unfitness of either +government or War Office for the conduct of so great a national +effort as was now needed. These people "up there" did not know +anything of the broad mass of English life at all, they did not +know how or where things were made; when they wanted things they +just went to a shop somewhere and got them. This was the necessary +psychology of a small army under a clique government. +Nothing<a name="Page_243"></a> else was to be expected. But +now—somehow—the nation had to take hold of the +government that it had neglected so long....</p> +<p>"You see," said Mr. Britling, repeating a phrase that was +becoming more and more essential to his thoughts, "this is +<i>our</i> war....</p> +<p>"Of course," said Mr. Britling, "these things are not going to +be done without a conflict. We aren't going to take hold of our +country which we have neglected so long without a lot of internal +friction. But in England we can make these readjustments without +revolution. It is our strength....</p> +<p>"At present England is confused—but it's a healthy +confusion. It's astir. We have more things to defeat than just +Germany....</p> +<p>"These hosts of recruits—weary, uncared for, besieging the +recruiting stations. It's symbolical.... Our tremendous reserves of +will and manhood. Our almost incredible insufficiency of +direction....</p> +<p>"Those people up there have no idea of the Will that surges up +in England. They are timid little manoeuvring people, afraid of +property, afraid of newspapers, afraid of trade-unions. They aren't +leading us against the Germans; they are just being shoved against +the Germans by necessity...."</p> +<p>From this Mr. Britling broke away into a fresh addition to his +already large collection of contrasts between England and Germany. +Germany was a nation which has been swallowed up and incorporated +by an army and an administration; the Prussian military system had +assimilated to itself the whole German life. It was a State in a +state of repletion, a State that had swallowed all its people. +Britain was not a State. It was an unincorporated people. The +British army, the British War Office, and the British +administration had assimilated nothing; they were little old +partial things; the British nation lay outside them, beyond their +understanding and<a name="Page_244"></a> tradition; a formless new +thing, but a great thing; and now this British nation, this real +nation, the "outsiders," had to take up arms. Suddenly all the +underlying ideas of that outer, greater English life beyond +politics, beyond the services, were challenged, its tolerant good +humour, its freedom, and its irresponsibility. It was not simply +English life that was threatened; it was all the latitudes of +democracy, it was every liberal idea and every liberty. It was +civilisation in danger. The uncharted liberal system had been taken +by the throat; it had to "make good" or perish....</p> +<p>"I went up to London expecting to be told what to do. There is +no one to tell any one what to do.... Much less is there any one to +compel us what to do....</p> +<p>"There's a War Office like a college during a riot, with its +doors and windows barred; there's a government like a cockle boat +in an Atlantic gale....</p> +<p>"One feels the thing ought to have come upon us like the sound +of a trumpet. Instead, until now, it has been like a great noise, +that we just listened to, in the next house.... And now slowly the +nation awakes. London is just like a dazed sleeper waking up out of +a deep sleep to fire and danger, tumult and cries for help, near at +hand. The streets give you exactly that effect. People are looking +about and listening. One feels that at any moment, in a pause, in a +silence, there may come, from far away, over the houses, faint and +little, the boom of guns or the small outcries of little French or +Belgian villages in agony...."</p> +<p>Such was the gist of Mr. Britling's discourse.</p> +<p>He did most of the table talk, and all that mattered. Teddy was +an assenting voice, Hugh was silent and apparently a little +inattentive, Mrs. Britling was thinking of the courses and the +servants and the boys, and giving her husband only half an ear, +Captain Carmine said little and seemed to be troubled by some +disagreeable preoccupation. Now and then he would endorse or +supplement<a name="Page_245"></a> the things Mr. Britling was +saying. Thrice he remarked: "People still do not begin to +understand."...</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>It was only when they sat together in the barn court out of the +way of Mrs. Britling and the children that Captain Carmine was able +to explain his listless bearing and jaded appearance. He was +suffering from a bad nervous shock. He had hardly taken over his +command before one of his men had been killed—and killed in a +manner that had left a scar upon his mind.</p> +<p>The man had been guarding a tunnel, and he had been knocked down +by one train when crossing the line behind another. So it was that +the bomb of Sarajevo killed its first victim in Essex. Captain +Carmine had found the body. He had found the body in a cloudy +moonlight; he had almost fallen over it; and his sensations and +emotions had been eminently disagreeable. He had had to drag the +body—it was very dreadfully mangled—off the permanent +way, the damaged, almost severed head had twisted about very +horribly in the uncertain light, and afterwards he had found his +sleeves saturated with blood. He had not noted this at the time, +and when he had discovered it he had been sick. He had thought the +whole thing more horrible and hateful than any nightmare, but he +had succeeded in behaving with a sufficient practicality to set an +example to his men. Since this had happened he had not had an hour +of dreamless sleep.</p> +<p>"One doesn't expect to be called upon like that," said Captain +Carmine, "suddenly here in England.... When one is smoking after +supper...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling listened to this experience with distressed brows. +All his talking and thinking became to him like the open page of a +monthly magazine. Across it this bloody smear, this thing of red +and black, was dragged....</p> +<a name="Page_246"></a><br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>The smear was still bright red in Mr. Britling's thoughts when +Teddy came to him.</p> +<p>"I must go," said Teddy, "I can't stop here any longer."</p> +<p>"Go where?"</p> +<p>"Into khaki. I've been thinking of it ever since the war began. +Do you remember what you said when we were bullying off at hockey +on Bank Holiday—the day before war was declared?"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had forgotten completely; he made an effort. "What +did I say?"</p> +<p>"You said, 'What the devil are we doing at this hockey? We ought +to be drilling or shooting against those confounded Germans!' ... +I've never forgotten it.... I ought to have done it before. I've +been a scout-master. In a little while they will want officers. In +London, I'm told, there are a lot of officers' training corps +putting men through the work as quickly as possible.... If I could +go...."</p> +<p>"What does Letty think?" said Mr. Britling after a pause. This +was right, of course—the only right thing—and yet he +was surprised.</p> +<p>"She says if you'd let her try to do my work for a time...."</p> +<p>"She <i>wants</i> you to go?"</p> +<p>"Of course she does," said Teddy. "She wouldn't like me to be a +shirker.... But I can't unless you help."</p> +<p>"I'm quite ready to do that," said Mr. Britling. "But somehow I +didn't think it of you. I hadn't somehow thought of +<i>you</i>—"</p> +<p>"What <i>did</i> you think of me?" asked Teddy.</p> +<p>"It's bringing the war home to us.... Of course you ought to +go—if you want to go."</p> +<a name="Page_247"></a> +<p>He reflected. It was odd to find Teddy in this mood, strung up +and serious and businesslike. He felt that in the past he had done +Teddy injustice; this young man wasn't as trivial as he had thought +him....</p> +<p>They fell to discussing ways and means; there might have to be a +loan for Teddy's outfit, if he did presently secure a commission. +And there were one or two other little matters.... Mr. Britling +dismissed a ridiculous fancy that he was paying to send Teddy away +to something that neither that young man nor Letty understood +properly....</p> +<p>The next day Teddy vanished Londonward on his bicycle. He was +going to lodge in London in order to be near his training. He was +zealous. Never before had Teddy been zealous. Mrs. Teddy came to +the Dower House for the correspondence, trying not to look +self-conscious and important.</p> +<p>Two Mondays later a very bright-eyed, excited little boy came +running to Mr. Britling, who was smoking after lunch in the rose +garden. "Daddy!" squealed the small boy. "Teddy! In khaki!"</p> +<p>The other junior Britling danced in front of the hero, who was +walking beside Mrs. Britling and trying not to be too aggressively +a soldierly figure. He looked a very man in khaki and more of a boy +than ever. Mrs. Teddy came behind, quietly elated.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had a recurrence of that same disagreeable fancy +that these young people didn't know exactly what they were going +into. He wished he was in khaki himself; then he fancied this +compunction wouldn't trouble him quite so much.</p> +<p>The afternoon with them deepened his conviction that they really +didn't in the slightest degree understand. Life had been so good to +them hitherto, that even the idea of Teddy's going off to the war +seemed a sort of fun to them. It was just a thing he was doing, a +serious,<a name="Page_248"></a> seriously amusing, and very +creditable thing. It involved his dressing up in these unusual +clothes, and receiving salutes in the street.... They discussed +every possible aspect of his military outlook with the zest of +children, who recount the merits of a new game. They were putting +Teddy through his stages at a tremendous pace. In quite a little +time he thought he would be given the chance of a commission.</p> +<p>"They want subalterns badly. Already they've taken nearly a +third of our people," he said, and added with the wistfulness of +one who glances at inaccessible delights: "one or two may get out +to the front quite soon."</p> +<p>He spoke as a young actor might speak of a star part. And with a +touch of the quality of one who longs to travel in strange +lands.... One must be patient. Things come at last....</p> +<p>"If I'm killed she gets eighty pounds a year," Teddy explained +among many other particulars.</p> +<p>He smiled—the smile of a confident immortal at this +amusing idea.</p> +<p>"He's my little annuity," said Letty, also smiling, "dead or +alive."</p> +<p>"We'll miss Teddy in all sorts of ways," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It's only for the duration of the war," said Teddy. "And +Letty's very intelligent. I've done my best to chasten the evil in +her."</p> +<p>"If you think you're going to get back your job after the war," +said Letty, "you're very much mistaken. I'm going to raise the +standard."</p> +<p>"<i>You</i>!" said Teddy, regarding her coldly, and proceeded +ostentatiously to talk of other things.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>"Hugh's going to be in khaki too," the elder junior told Teddy. +"He's too young to go out in Kitchener's<a name="Page_249"></a> +army, but he's joined the Territorials. He went off on Thursday.... +I wish Gilbert and me was older...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had known his son's purpose since the evening of +Teddy's announcement.</p> +<p>Hugh had come to his father's study as he was sitting musing at +his writing-desk over the important question whether he should +continue his "Examination of War" uninterruptedly, or whether he +should not put that on one side for a time and set himself to state +as clearly as possible the not too generally recognised misfit +between the will and strength of Britain on the one hand and her +administrative and military organisation on the other. He felt that +an enormous amount of human enthusiasm and energy was being refused +and wasted; that if things went on as they were going there would +continue to be a quite disastrous shortage of gear, and that some +broadening change was needed immediately if the swift exemplary +victory over Germany that his soul demanded was to be ensured. +Suppose he were to write some noisy articles at once, an article, +for instance, to be called "The War of the Mechanics" or "The War +of Gear," and another on "Without Civil Strength there is no +Victory." If he wrote such things would they be noted or would they +just vanish indistinguishably into the general mental tumult? Would +they be audible and helpful shouts, or just waste of shouting?... +That at least was what he supposed himself to be thinking; it was, +at any rate, the main current of his thinking; but all the same, +just outside the circle of his attention a number of other things +were dimly apprehended, bobbing up and down in the flood and ready +at the slightest chance to swirl into the centre of his thoughts. +There was, for instance, Captain Carmine in the moonlight lugging +up a railway embankment something horrible, something loose and wet +and warm that had very recently been a man. There was Teddy, +serious and patriotic—filling a futile penman with +incredulous respect. There was<a name="Page_250"></a> the +thin-faced man at the club, and a curious satisfaction he had +betrayed in the public disarrangement. And there was Hugh. +Particularly there was Hugh, silent but watchful. The boy never +babbled. He had his mother's gift of deep dark silences. Out of +which she was wont to flash, a Black Princess waving a sword. He +wandered for a little while among memories.... But Hugh didn't come +out like that, though it always seemed possible he +might—perhaps he didn't come out because he was a son. +Revelation to his father wasn't his business.... What was he +thinking of it all? What was he going to do? Mr. Britling was +acutely anxious that his son should volunteer; he was almost +certain that he would volunteer, but there was just a little shadow +of doubt whether some extraordinary subtlety of mind mightn't have +carried the boy into a pacifist attitude. No! that was impossible. +In the face of Belgium.... But as greatly—and far more deeply +in the warm flesh of his being—did Mr. Britling desire that +no harm, no evil should happen to Hugh....</p> +<p>The door opened, and Hugh came in....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling glanced over his shoulder with an affectation of +indifference. "Hal-<i>lo!</i>" he said. "What do you want?"</p> +<p>Hugh walked awkwardly to the hearthrug.</p> +<p>"Oh!" he said in an off-hand tone; "I suppose I've got to go +soldiering for a bit. I just thought—I'd rather like to go +off with a man I know to-morrow...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling's manner remained casual.</p> +<p>"It's the only thing to do now, I'm afraid," he said.</p> +<p>He turned in his chair and regarded his son. "What do you mean +to do? O.T.C.?"</p> +<p>"I don't think I should make much of an officer. I hate giving +orders to other people. We thought we'd just go together into the +Essex Regiment as privates...."</p> +<p>There was a little pause. Both father and son had rehearsed this +scene in their minds several times, and<a name="Page_251"></a> now +they found that they had no use for a number of sentences that had +been most effective in these rehearsals. Mr. Britling scratched his +cheek with the end of his pen. "I'm glad you want to go, Hugh," he +said.</p> +<p>"I <i>don't</i> want to go," said Hugh with his hands deep in +his pockets. "I want to go and work with Cardinal. But this job has +to be done by every one. Haven't you been saying as much all +day?... It's like turning out to chase a burglar or suppress a mad +dog. It's like necessary sanitation...."</p> +<p>"You aren't attracted by soldiering?"</p> +<p>"Not a bit. I won't pretend it, Daddy. I think the whole +business is a bore. Germany seems to me now just like some heavy +horrible dirty mass that has fallen across Belgium and France. +We've got to shove the stuff back again. That's all...."</p> +<p>He volunteered some further remarks to his father's silence.</p> +<p>"You know I can't get up a bit of tootle about this business," +he said. "I think killing people or getting killed is a thoroughly +nasty habit.... I expect my share will be just drilling and fatigue +duties and route marches, and loafing here in England...."</p> +<p>"You can't possibly go out for two years," said Mr. Britling, as +if he regretted it.</p> +<p>A slight hesitation appeared in Hugh's eyes. "I suppose not," he +said.</p> +<p>"Things ought to be over by then—anyhow," Mr. Britling +added, betraying his real feelings.</p> +<p>"So it's really just helping at the furthest end of the shove," +Hugh endorsed, but still with that touch of reservation in his +manner....</p> +<p>The pause had the effect of closing the theoretical side of the +question. "Where do you propose to enlist?" said Mr. Britling, +coming down to practical details.</p> +<a name="Page_252"></a><br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>The battle of the Marne passed into the battle of the Aisne, and +then the long lines of the struggle streamed north-westward until +the British were back in Belgium failing to clutch Menin and then +defending Ypres. The elation of September followed the bedazzlement +and dismay of August into the chapter of forgotten moods; and Mr. +Britling's sense of the magnitude, the weight and duration of this +war beyond all wars, increased steadily. The feel of it was less +and less a feeling of crisis and more and more a feeling of new +conditions. It wasn't as it had seemed at first, the end of one +human phase and the beginning of another; it was in itself a phase. +It was a new way of living. And still he could find no real point +of contact for himself with it all except the point of his pen. +Only at his writing-desk, and more particularly at night, were the +great presences of the conflict his. Yet he was always desiring +some more personal and physical participation.</p> +<p>Hugh came along one day in October in an ill-fitting uniform, +looking already coarser in fibre and with a nose scorched red by +the autumnal sun. He said the life was rough, but it made him feel +extraordinarily well; perhaps man was made to toil until he dropped +asleep from exhaustion, to fast for ten or twelve hours and then +eat like a wolf. He was acquiring a taste for Woodbine cigarettes, +and a heady variety of mineral waters called Monsters. He feared +promotion; he felt he could never take the high line with other +human beings demanded of a corporal. He was still trying to read a +little chemistry and crystallography, but it didn't "go with the +life." In the scanty leisure of a recruit in training it was more +agreeable to lie about and write doggerel verses and draw +caricatures of the men in one's platoon. Invited to choose what he +liked by his family, he demanded a large tuckbox such as he used to +have at school, only "<i>much</i><a name="Page_253"></a> larger," +and a big tin of insect powder. It must be able to kill +ticks....</p> +<p>When he had gone, the craving for a personal share in the +nation's physical exertions became overpowering in Mr. Britling. He +wanted, he felt, to "get his skin into it." He had decided that the +volunteer movement was a hopeless one. The War Office, after a +stout resistance to any volunteer movement at all, decided to +recognise it in such a manner as to make it ridiculous. The +volunteers were to have no officers and no uniforms that could be +remotely mistaken for those of the regulars, so that in the event +of an invasion the Germans would be able to tell what they had to +deal with miles away. Wilkins found his conception of a whole +nation, all enrolled, all listed and badged according to capacity, +his dream of every one falling into place in one great voluntary +national effort, treated as the childish dreaming of that most +ignorant of all human types, a "novelist." <i>Punch</i> was +delicately funny about him; he was represented as wearing a +preposterous cocked hat of his own design, designing cocked hats +for every one. Wilkins was told to "shut up" in a multitude of +anonymous letters, and publicly and privately to "leave things to +Kitchener." To bellow in loud clear tones "leave things to +Kitchener," and to depart for the theatre or the river or an +automobile tour, was felt very generally at that time to be the +proper conduct for a patriot. There was a very general persuasion +that to become a volunteer when one ought to be just modestly doing +nothing at all, was in some obscure way a form of +disloyalty....</p> +<p>So Mr. Britling was out of conceit with volunteering, and +instead he went and was duly sworn and entrusted with the badge of +a special constable. The duties of a special constable were chiefly +not to understand what was going on in the military sphere, and to +do what he was told in the way of watching and warding conceivably +vulnerable points. He had also to be available in the event<a name= +"Page_254"></a> of civil disorder. Mr. Britling was provided with a +truncheon and sent out to guard various culverts, bridges, and +fords in the hilly country to the north-westward of Matching's +Easy. It was never very clear to him what he would do if he found a +motor-car full of armed enemies engaged in undermining a culvert, +or treacherously deepening some strategic ford. He supposed he +would either engage them in conversation, or hit them with his +truncheon, or perhaps do both things simultaneously. But as he +really did not believe for a moment that any human being was likely +to tamper with the telegraphs, telephones, ways and appliances +committed to his care, his uncertainty did not trouble him very +much. He prowled the lonely lanes and paths in the darkness, and +became better acquainted with a multitude of intriguing little +cries and noises that came from the hedges and coverts at night. +One night he rescued a young leveret from a stoat, who seemed more +than half inclined to give him battle for its prey until he cowed +and defeated it with the glare of his electric torch....</p> +<p>As he prowled the countryside under the great hemisphere of +Essex sky, or leant against fences or sat drowsily upon gates or +sheltered from wind and rain under ricks or sheds, he had much time +for meditation, and his thoughts went down and down below his first +surface impressions of the war. He thought no longer of the rights +and wrongs of this particular conflict but of the underlying forces +in mankind that made war possible; he planned no more ingenious +treaties and conventions between the nations, and instead he faced +the deeper riddles of essential evil and of conceivable changes in +the heart of man. And the rain assailed him and thorns tore him, +and the soaked soft meadows bogged and betrayed his wandering feet, +and the little underworld of the hedges and ditches hissed and +squealed in the darkness and pursued and fled, and devoured or were +slain.</p> +<p>And one night in April he was perplexed by a<a name= +"Page_255"></a> commotion among the pheasants and a barking of +distant dogs, and then to his great astonishment he heard noises +like a distant firework display and saw something like a phantom +yellowish fountain-pen in the sky far away to the east lit +intermittently by a quivering search-light and going very swiftly. +And after he had rubbed his eyes and looked again, he realised that +he was looking at a Zeppelin—a Zeppelin flying Londonward +over Essex.</p> +<p>And all that night was wonder....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>While Mr. Britling was trying to find his duty in the routine of +a special constable, Mrs. Britling set to work with great energy to +attend various classes and qualify herself for Red Cross work. And +early in October came the great drive of the Germans towards +Antwerp and the sea, the great drive that was apparently designed +to reach Calais, and which swept before it multitudes of Flemish +refugees. There was an exodus of all classes from Antwerp into +Holland and England, and then a huge process of depopulation in +Flanders and the Pas de Calais. This flood came to the eastern and +southern parts of England and particularly to London, and there +hastily improvised organisations distributed it to a number of +local committees, each of which took a share of the refugees, hired +and furnished unoccupied houses for the use of the penniless, and +assisted those who had means into comfortable quarters. The +Matching's Easy committee found itself with accommodation for sixty +people, and with a miscellaneous bag of thirty individuals +entrusted to its care, who had been part of the load of a little +pirate steam-boat from Ostend. There were two Flemish peasant +families, and the rest were more or less middle-class refugees from +Antwerp. They were brought from the station to the Tithe barn at +Claverings, and there distributed, under the personal supervision +of Lady Homartyn and her<a name="Page_256"></a> agent, among those +who were prepared for their entertainment. There was something like +competition among the would-be hosts; everybody was glad of the +chance of "doing something," and anxious to show these Belgians +what England thought of their plucky little country. Mr. Britling +was proud to lead off a Mr. Van der Pant, a neat little bearded man +in a black tail-coat, a black bowler hat, and a knitted muffler, +with a large rucksack and a conspicuously foreign-looking bicycle, +to the hospitalities of Dower House. Mr. Van der Pant had escaped +from Antwerp at the eleventh hour, he had caught a severe cold and, +it would seem, lost his wife and family in the process; he had much +to tell Mr. Britling, and in his zeal to tell it he did not at once +discover that though Mr. Britling knew French quite well he did not +know it very rapidly.</p> +<p>The dinner that night at the Dower House marked a distinct fresh +step in the approach of the Great War to the old habits and +securities of Matching's Easy. The war had indeed filled every +one's mind to the exclusion of all other topics since its very +beginning; it had carried off Herr Heinrich to Germany, Teddy to +London, and Hugh to Colchester, it had put a special brassard round +Mr. Britling's arm and carried him out into the night, given Mrs. +Britling several certificates, and interrupted the frequent visits +and gossip of Mr. Lawrence Carmine; but so far it had not +established a direct contact between the life of Matching's Easy +and the grim business of shot, shell, and bayonet at the front. But +now here was the Dower House accomplishing wonderful idioms in +Anglo-French, and an animated guest telling them—sometimes +one understood clearly and sometimes the meaning was +clouded—of men blown to pieces under his eyes, of fragments +of human beings lying about in the streets; there was trouble over +the expression <i>omoplate d'une femme</i>, until one of the +youngsters got the dictionary and found out it was the +shoulder-blade of a woman; of pools<a name="Page_257"></a> of +blood—everywhere—and of flight in the darkness.</p> +<p>Mr. Van der Pant had been in charge of the dynamos at the +Antwerp Power Station, he had been keeping the electrified wires in +the entanglements "alive," and he had stuck to his post until the +German high explosives had shattered his wires and rendered his +dynamos useless. He gave vivid little pictures of the noises of the +bombardment, of the dead lying casually in the open spaces, of the +failure of the German guns to hit the bridge of boats across which +the bulk of the defenders and refugees escaped. He produced a +little tourist's map of the city of Antwerp, and dotted at it with +a pencil-case. "The—what do you call?—<i>obus</i>, ah, +shells! fell, so and so and so." Across here he had fled on his +<i>bécane</i>, and along here and here. He had carried off +his rifle, and hid it with the rifles of various other Belgians +between floor and ceiling of a house in Zeebrugge. He had found the +pirate steamer in the harbour, its captain resolved to extract the +uttermost fare out of every refugee he took to London. When they +were all aboard and started they found there was no food except the +hard ration biscuits of some Belgian soldiers. They had portioned +this out like shipwrecked people on a raft.... The <i>mer</i> had +been <i>calme</i>; thank Heaven! All night they had been pumping. +He had helped with the pumps. But Mr. Van der Pant hoped still to +get a reckoning with the captain of that ship.</p> +<p>Mr. Van der Pant had had shots at various Zeppelins. When the +Zeppelins came to Antwerp everybody turned out on the roofs and +shot at them. He was contemptuous of Zeppelins. He made derisive +gestures to express his opinion of them. They could do nothing +unless they came low, and if they came low you could hit them. One +which ventured down had been riddled; it had had to drop all its +bombs—luckily they fell in an open field—in order to +make its lame escape. It was all nonsense to say, as the English +papers did, that they took part in<a name="Page_258"></a> the final +bombardment. Not a Zeppelin.... So he talked, and the Britling +family listened and understood as much as they could, and replied +and questioned in Anglo-French. Here was a man who but a few days +ago had been steering his bicycle in the streets of Antwerp to +avoid shell craters, pools of blood, and the torn-off arms and +shoulder-blades of women. He had seen houses flaring, set afire by +incendiary bombs, and once at a corner he had been knocked off his +bicycle by the pouff of a bursting shell.... Not only were these +things in the same world with us, they were sitting at our +table.</p> +<p>He told one grim story of an invalid woman unable to move, lying +in bed in her <i>appartement</i>, and of how her husband went out +on the balcony to look at the Zeppelin. There was a great noise of +shooting. Ever and again he would put his head back into the room +and tell her things, and then after a time he was silent and looked +in no more. She called to him, and called again. Becoming +frightened, she raised herself by a great effort and peered through +the glass. At first she was too puzzled to understand what had +happened. He was hanging over the front of the balcony, with his +head twisted oddly. Twisted and shattered. He had been killed by +shrapnel fired from the outer fortifications....</p> +<p>These are the things that happen in histories and stories. They +do not happen at Matching's Easy....</p> +<p>Mr. Van der Pant did not seem to be angry with the Germans. But +he manifestly regarded them as people to be killed. He denounced +nothing that they had done; he related. They were just an evil +accident that had happened to Belgium and mankind. They had to be +destroyed. He gave Mr. Britling an extraordinary persuasion that +knives were being sharpened in every cellar in Brussels and Antwerp +against the day of inevitable retreat, of a resolution to +exterminate the invader that was far too deep to be vindictive.... +And the man was most amazingly unconquered. Mr. Britling +perceived<a name="Page_259"></a> the label on his habitual dinner +wine with a slight embarrassment. "Do you care," he asked, "to +drink a German wine? This is Berncasteler from the Moselle." Mr. +Van der Pant reflected. "But it is a good wine," he said. "After +the peace it will be Belgian.... Yes, if we are to be safe in the +future from such a war as this, we must have our boundaries right +up to the Rhine."</p> +<p>So he sat and talked, flushed and, as it were, elated by the +vividness of all that he had undergone. He had no trace of tragic +quality, no hint of subjugation. But for his costume and his +trimmed beard and his language he might have been a Dubliner or a +Cockney.</p> +<p>He was astonishingly cut off from all his belongings. His house +in Antwerp was abandoned to the invader; valuables and cherished +objects very skilfully buried in the garden; he had no change of +clothing except what the rucksack held. His only footwear were the +boots he came in. He could not get on any of the slippers in the +house, they were all too small for him, until suddenly Mrs. +Britling bethought herself of Herr Heinrich's pair, still left +unpacked upstairs. She produced them, and they fitted exactly. It +seemed only poetical justice, a foretaste of national +compensations, to annex them to Belgium forthwith....</p> +<p>Also it became manifest that Mr. Van der Pant was cut off from +all his family. And suddenly he became briskly critical of the +English way of doing things. His wife and child had preceded him to +England, crossing by Ostend and Folkestone a fortnight ago; her +parents had come in August; both groups had been seized upon by +improvised British organisations and very thoroughly and completely +lost. He had written to the Belgian Embassy and they had referred +him to a committee in London, and the committee had begun its +services by discovering a Madame Van der Pant hitherto unknown to +him at Camberwell, and displaying a certain suspicion and hostility +when he said she would not do. There had<a name="Page_260"></a> +been some futile telegrams. "What," asked Mr. Van der Pant, "ought +one to do?"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling temporised by saying he would "make inquiries," and +put Mr. Van der Pant off for two days. Then he decided to go up to +London with him and "make inquiries on the spot." Mr. Van der Pant +did not discover his family, but Mr. Britling discovered the +profound truth of a comment of Herr Heinrich's which he had +hitherto considered utterly trivial, but which had nevertheless +stuck in his memory. "The English," Herr Heinrich had said, "do not +understanding indexing. It is the root of all good +organisation."</p> +<p>Finally, Mr. Van der Pant adopted the irregular course of asking +every Belgian he met if they had seen any one from his district in +Antwerp, if they had heard of the name of "Van der Pant," if they +had encountered So-and-so or So-and-so. And by obstinacy and good +fortune he really got on to the track of Madame Van der Pant; she +had been carried off into Kent, and a day later the Dower House was +the scene of a happy reunion. Madame was a slender lady, dressed +well and plainly, with a Belgian common sense and a Catholic +reserve, and André was like a child of wax, delicate and +charming and unsubstantial. It seemed incredible that he could ever +grow into anything so buoyant and incessant as his father. The +Britling boys had to be warned not to damage him. A sitting-room +was handed over to the Belgians for their private use, and for a +time the two families settled into the Dower House side by side. +Anglo-French became the table language of the household. It +hampered Mr. Britling very considerably. And both families set +themselves to much unrecorded observation, much unspoken mutual +criticism, and the exercise of great patience. It was tiresome for +the English to be tied to a language that crippled all spontaneous +talk; these linguistic gymnastics were fun to begin with, but soon +they became very troublesome; and the Belgians<a name= +"Page_261"></a> suspected sensibilities in their hosts and a vast +unwritten code of etiquette that did not exist; at first they were +always waiting, as it were, to be invited or told or included; they +seemed always deferentially backing out from intrusions. Moreover, +they would not at first reveal what food they liked or what they +didn't like, or whether they wanted more or less.... But these +difficulties were soon smoothed away, they Anglicised quickly and +cleverly. André grew bold and cheerful, and lost his first +distrust of his rather older English playmates. Every day at lunch +he produced a new, carefully prepared piece of English, though for +some time he retained a marked preference for "Good morning, +Saire," and "Thank you very mush," over all other locutions, and +fell back upon them on all possible and many impossible occasions. +And he could do some sleight-of-hand tricks with remarkable skill +and humour, and fold paper with quite astonishing results. +Meanwhile Mr. Van der Pant sought temporary employment in England, +went for long rides upon his bicycle, exchanged views with Mr. +Britling upon a variety of subjects, and became a wonderful player +of hockey.</p> +<p>He played hockey with an extraordinary zest and nimbleness. +Always he played in the tail coat, and the knitted muffler was +never relinquished; he treated the game entirely as an occasion for +quick tricks and personal agility; he bounded about the field like +a kitten, he pirouetted suddenly, he leapt into the air and came +down in new directions; his fresh-coloured face was alive with +delight, the coat tails and the muffler trailed and swished about +breathlessly behind his agility. He never passed to other players; +he never realised his appointed place in the game; he sought simply +to make himself a leaping screen about the ball as he drove it +towards the goal. But André he would not permit to play at +all, and Madame played like a lady, like a Madonna, like a saint +carrying the instrument of her martyrdom. The game<a name= +"Page_262"></a> and its enthusiasms flowed round her and receded +from her; she remained quite valiant but tolerant, restrained; +doing her best to do the extraordinary things required of her, but +essentially a being of passive dignities, living chiefly for them; +Letty careering by her, keen and swift, was like a creature of a +different species....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling cerebrated abundantly about these contrasts.</p> +<p>"What has been blown in among us by these German shells," he +said, "is essentially a Catholic family. Blown clean out of its +setting.... We who are really—Neo-Europeans....</p> +<p>"At first you imagine there is nothing separating us but +language. Presently you find that language is the least of our +separations. These people are people living upon fundamentally +different ideas from ours, ideas far more definite and complete +than ours. You imagine that home in Antwerp as something much more +rounded off, much more closed in, a cell, a real social unit, a +different thing altogether from this place of meeting. Our boys +play cheerfully with all comers; little André hasn't learnt +to play with any outside children at all. We must seem incredibly +<i>open</i> to these Van der Pants. A house without sides.... Last +Sunday I could not find out the names of the two girls who came on +bicycles and played so well. They came with Kitty Westropp. And Van +der Pant wanted to know how they were related to us. Or how was it +they came?...</p> +<p>"Look at Madame. She's built on a fundamentally different plan +from any of our womenkind here. Tennis, the bicycle, co-education, +the two-step, the higher education of women.... Say these things +over to yourself, and think of her. It's like talking of a nun in +riding breeches. She's a specialised woman, specialising in +womanhood, her sphere is the home. Soft, trailing, draping skirts, +slow movements, a veiled face; for no Oriental veil could be more +effectual than her beautiful<a name="Page_263"></a> Catholic quiet. +Catholicism invented the invisible purdah. She is far more akin to +that sweet little Indian lady with the wonderful robes whom Carmine +brought over with her tall husband last summer, than she is to +Letty or Cissie. She, too, undertook to play hockey. And played it +very much as Madame Van der Pant played it....</p> +<p>"The more I see of our hockey," said Mr. Britling, "the more +wonderful it seems to me as a touchstone of character and culture +and breeding...."</p> +<p>Mr. Manning, to whom he was delivering this discourse, switched +him on to a new track by asking what he meant by +"Neo-European."</p> +<p>"It's a bad phrase," said Mr. Britling. "I'll withdraw it. Let +me try and state exactly what I have in mind. I mean something that +is coming up in America and here and the Scandinavian countries and +Russia, a new culture, an escape from the Levantine religion and +the Catholic culture that came to us from the Mediterranean. Let me +drop Neo-European; let me say Northern. We are Northerners. The +key, the heart, the nucleus and essence of every culture is its +conception of the relations of men and women; and this new culture +tends to diminish the specialisation of women as women, to let them +out from the cell of the home into common citizenship with men. +It's a new culture, still in process of development, which will +make men more social and co-operative and women bolder, swifter, +more responsible and less cloistered. It minimises instead of +exaggerating the importance of sex....</p> +<p>"And," said Mr. Britling, in very much the tones in which a +preacher might say "Sixthly," "it is just all this Northern +tendency that this world struggle is going to release. This war is +pounding through Europe, smashing up homes, dispersing and mixing +homes, setting Madame Van der Pant playing hockey, and André +climbing trees with my young ruffians; it is killing young +men<a name="Page_264"></a> by the million, altering the proportions +of the sexes for a generation, bringing women into business and +office and industry, destroying the accumulated wealth that kept so +many of them in refined idleness, flooding the world with strange +doubts and novel ideas...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>But the conflict of manners and customs that followed the +invasion of the English villages by French and Belgian refugees did +not always present the immigrants as Catholics and the hosts as +"Neo-European." In the case of Mr. Dimple it was the other way +round. He met Mr. Britling in Claverings park and told him his +troubles....</p> +<p>"Of course," he said, "we have to do our Utmost for Brave Little +Belgium. I would be the last to complain of any little +inconvenience one may experience in doing that. Still, I must +confess I think you and dear Mrs. Britling are fortunate, +exceptionally fortunate, in the Belgians you have got. My +guests—it's unfortunate— the man is some sort of +journalist and quite—oh! much too much—an Atheist. An +open positive one. Not simply Honest Doubt. I'm quite prepared for +honest doubt nowadays. You and I have no quarrel over that. But he +is aggressive. He makes remarks about miracles, quite derogatory +remarks, and not always in French. Sometimes he almost speaks +English. And in front of my sister. And he goes out, he says, +looking for a Café. He never finds a Café, but he +certainly finds every public house within a radius of miles. And he +comes back smelling dreadfully of beer. When I drop a Little Hint, +he blames the beer. He says it is not good beer—our good +Essex beer! He doesn't understand any of our simple ways. He's +sophisticated. The girls about here wear Belgian flags—and +air their little bits of French. And he takes it as an +encouragement. Only yesterday<a name="Page_265"></a> there was a +scene. It seems he tried to kiss the Hickson girl at the +inn—Maudie.... And his wife; a great big slow woman—in +every way she is—Ample; it's dreadful even to seem to +criticise, but I do so <i>wish</i> she would not see fit to sit +down and nourish her baby in my poor old bachelor +drawing-room—often at the most <i>unseasonable</i> times. +And—so lavishly...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling attempted consolations.</p> +<p>"But anyhow," said Mr. Dimple, "I'm better off than poor dear +Mrs. Bynne. She secured two milliners. She insisted upon them. And +their clothes were certainly beautifully made—even my poor +old unworldly eye could tell that. And she thought two milliners +would be so useful with a large family like hers. They certainly +<i>said</i> they were milliners. But it seems—I don't know +what we shall do about them.... My dear Mr. Britling, those young +women are anything but milliners—anything but +milliners...."</p> +<p>A faint gleam of amusement was only too perceptible through the +good man's horror.</p> +<p>"Sirens, my dear Mr. Britling. Sirens. By profession."...</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>October passed into November, and day by day Mr. Britling was +forced to apprehend new aspects of the war, to think and rethink +the war, to have his first conclusions checked and tested, twisted +askew, replaced. His thoughts went far and wide and +deeper—until all his earlier writing seemed painfully shallow +to him, seemed a mere automatic response of obvious comments to the +stimulus of the war's surprise. As his ideas became subtler and +profounder, they became more difficult to express; he talked less; +he became abstracted and irritable at table. To two people in +particular Mr. Britling found his real ideas inexpressible, to Mr. +Direck and to Mr. Van der Pant.</p> +<a name="Page_266"></a> +<p>Each of these gentlemen brought with him the implication or the +intimation of a critical attitude towards England. It was all very +well for Mr. Britling himself to be critical of England; that is an +Englishman's privilege. To hear Mr. Van der Pant questioning +British efficiency or to suspect Mr. Direck of high, thin American +superiorities to war, was almost worse than to hear Mrs. Harrowdean +saying hostile things about Edith. It roused an even acuter +protective emotion.</p> +<p>In the case of Mr. Van der Pant matters were complicated by the +difficulty of the language, which made anything but the crudest +statements subject to incalculable misconception.</p> +<p>Mr. Van der Pant had not the extreme tactfulness of his so +typically Catholic wife; he made it only too plain that he thought +the British postal and telegraph service slow and slack, and the +management of the Great Eastern branch lines wasteful and +inefficient. He said the workmen in the fields and the workmen he +saw upon some cottages near the junction worked slowlier and with +less interest than he had ever seen any workman display in all his +life before. He marvelled that Mr. Britling lit his house with +acetylene and not electric light. He thought fresh eggs were +insanely dear, and his opinion of Matching's Easy pig-keeping was +uncomplimentary. The roads, he said, were not a means of getting +from place to place, they were a <i>dédale</i>; he drew +derisive maps with his finger on the table-cloth of the lane system +about the Dower House. He was astonished that there was no +Café in Matching's Easy; he declared that the "public house" +to which he went with considerable expectation was no public house +at all; it was just a sly place for drinking beer.... All these +were things Mr. Britling might have remarked himself; from a +Belgian refugee he found them intolerable.</p> +<p>He set himself to explain to Mr. Van der Pant firstly that these +things did not matter in the slightest degree, the<a name= +"Page_267"></a> national attention, the national interest ran in +other directions; and secondly that they were, as a matter of fact +and on the whole, merits slightly disguised. He produced a pleasant +theory that England is really not the Englishman's field, it is his +breeding place, his resting place, a place not for efficiency but +good humour. If Mr. Van der Pant were to make inquiries he would +find there was scarcely a home in Matching's Easy that had not sent +some energetic representative out of England to become one of the +English of the world. England was the last place in which English +energy was spent. These hedges, these dilatory roads were full of +associations. There was a road that turned aside near Market +Saffron to avoid Turk's wood; it had been called Turk's wood first +in the fourteenth century after a man of that name. He quoted +Chesterton's happy verses to justify these winding lanes.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"The road turned first towards the left,</p> +<p>Where Perkin's quarry made the cleft;</p> +<p>The path turned next towards the right,</p> +<p>Because the mastiff used to bite...."</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>And again:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"And I should say they wound about</p> +<p>To find the town of Roundabout,</p> +<p>The merry town of Roundabout</p> +<p>That makes the world go round."</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>If our easy-going ways hampered a hard efficiency, they did at +least develop humour and humanity. Our diplomacy at any rate had +not failed us....</p> +<p>He did not believe a word of this stuff. His deep irrational +love for England made him say these things.... For years he had +been getting himself into hot water because he had been writing and +hinting just such criticisms as Mr. Van der Pant expressed so +bluntly.... But he wasn't going to accept foreign help in +dissecting his mother....</p> +<p>And another curious effect that Mr. Van der Pant had upon Mr. +Britling was to produce an obstinate confidence<a name= +"Page_268"></a> about the war and the nearness of the German +collapse. He would promise Mr. Van der Pant that he should be back +in Antwerp before May; that the Germans would be over the Rhine by +July. He knew perfectly well that his ignorance of all the military +conditions was unqualified, but still he could not restrain himself +from this kind of thing so soon as he began to speak Entente +Cordiale—Anglo-French, that is to say. Something in his +relationship to Mr. Van der Pant obliged him to be acutely and +absurdly the protecting British.... At times he felt like a +conscious bankrupt talking off the hour of disclosure. But indeed +all that Mr. Britling was trying to say against the difficulties of +a strange language and an alien temperament, was that the honour of +England would never be cleared until Belgium was restored and +avenged....</p> +<p>While Mr. Britling was patrolling unimportant roads and +entertaining Mr. Van der Pant with discourses upon the nearness of +victory and the subtle estimableness of all that was indolent, +wasteful and evasive in English life, the war was passing from its +first swift phases into a slower, grimmer struggle. The German +retreat ended at the Aisne, and the long outflanking manoeuvres of +both hosts towards the Channel began. The English attempts to +assist Belgium in October came too late for the preservation of +Antwerp, and after a long and complicated struggle in Flanders the +British failed to outflank the German right, lost Ghent, Menin and +the Belgian coast, but held Ypres and beat back every attempt of +the enemy to reach Dunkirk and Calais. Meanwhile the smaller German +colonies and islands were falling to the navy, the Australian +battleship <i>Sydney</i> smashed the <i>Emden</i> at Cocos Island, +and the British naval disaster of Coronel was wiped out by the +battle of the Falklands. The Russians were victorious upon their +left and took Lemberg, and after some vicissitudes of fortune +advanced to Przemysl, occupying the larger part of Galicia; but +the<a name="Page_269"></a> disaster of Tannenberg had broken their +progress in East Prussia, and the Germans were pressing towards +Warsaw. Turkey had joined the war, and suffered enormous losses in +the Caucasus. The Dardanelles had been shelled for the first time, +and the British were at Basra on the Euphrates.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>The Christmas of 1914 found England, whose landscape had +hitherto been almost as peaceful and soldierless as Massachusetts, +already far gone along the path of transformation into a country +full of soldiers and munition makers and military supplies. The +soldiers came first, on the well-known and greatly admired British +principle of "first catch your hare" and then build your kitchen. +Always before, Christmas had been a time of much gaiety and +dressing up and prancing and two-stepping at the Dower House, but +this year everything was too uncertain to allow of any gathering of +guests. Hugh got leave for the day after Christmas, but Teddy was +tied; and Cissie and Letty went off with the small boy to take +lodgings near him. The Van der Pants had hoped to see an English +Christmas at Matching's Easy, but within three weeks of Christmas +Day Mr. Van der Pant found a job that he could do in Nottingham, +and carried off his family. The two small boys cheered their hearts +with paper decorations, but the Christmas Tree was condemned as too +German, and it was discovered that Santa Claus had suddenly become +Old Father Christmas again. The small boys discovered that the +price of lead soldiers had risen, and were unable to buy electric +torches, on which they had set their hearts. There was to have been +a Christmas party at Claverings, but at the last moment Lady +Homartyn had to hurry off to an orphan nephew who had been +seriously wounded near Ypres, and the light of Claverings was +darkened.</p> +<p>Soon after Christmas there were rumours of an<a name= +"Page_270"></a> impending descent of the Headquarters staff of the +South-Eastern army upon Claverings. Then Mr. Britling found Lady +Homartyn back from France, and very indignant because after all the +Headquarters were to go to Lady Wensleydale at Ladyholt. It was, +she felt, a reflection upon Claverings. Lady Homartyn became still +more indignant when presently the new armies, which were gathering +now all over England like floods in a low-lying meadow, came +pouring into the parishes about Claverings to the extent of a +battalion and a Territorial battery. Mr. Britling heard of their +advent only a day or two before they arrived; there came a bright +young officer with an orderly, billeting; he was much exercised to +get, as he expressed it several times, a quart into a pint bottle. +He was greatly pleased with the barn. He asked the size of it and +did calculations. He could "stick twenty-five men into +it—easy." It would go far to solve his problems. He could +manage without coming into the house at all. It was a ripping +place. "No end."</p> +<p>"But beds," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Lord! they don't want <i>beds</i>," said the young +officer....</p> +<p>The whole Britling family, who were lamenting the loss of their +Belgians, welcomed the coming of the twenty-five with great +enthusiasm. It made them feel that they were doing something useful +once more. For three days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new +lodgers—the kitchen motors had as usual gone astray—and +she did so in a style that made their boastings about their billet +almost insufferable to the rest of their battery. The billeting +allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and Mr. Britling, +ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied not only +generous firing and lighting, but unlimited cigarettes, cards and +games, illustrated newspapers, a cocoa supper with such little +surprises as sprats and jam roly-poly, and a number of more +incidental comforts. The men arrived fasting under the command +of<a name="Page_271"></a> two very sage middle-aged corporals, and +responded to Mrs. Britling's hospitalities by a number of good +resolutions, many of which they kept. They never made noises after +half-past ten, or at least only now and then when a singsong broke +out with unusual violence; they got up and went out at five or six +in the morning without a sound; they were almost inconveniently +helpful with washing-up and tidying round.</p> +<p>In quite a little time Mrs. Britling's mind had adapted itself +to the spectacle of half-a-dozen young men in khaki breeches and +shirts performing their toilets in and about her scullery, or +improvising an unsanctioned game of football between the hockey +goals. These men were not the miscellaneous men of the new armies; +they were the earlier Territorial type with no heroics about them; +they came from the midlands; and their two middle-aged corporals +kept them well in hand and ruled them like a band of brothers. But +they had an illegal side, that developed in directions that set Mr. +Britling theorising. They seemed, for example, to poach by nature, +as children play and sing. They possessed a promiscuous white dog. +They began to add rabbits to their supper menu, unaccountable +rabbits. One night there was a mighty smell of frying fish from the +kitchen, and the cook reported trout. "Trout!" said Mr. Britling to +one of the corporals; "now where did you chaps get trout?"</p> +<p>The "fisherman," they said, had got them with a hair noose. They +produced the fisherman, of whom they were manifestly proud. It was, +he explained, a method of fishing he had learnt when in New York +Harbour. He had been a stoker. He displayed a confidence in Mr. +Britling that made that gentleman an accessory after his offence, +his very serious offence against pre-war laws and customs. It was +plain that the trout were the trout that Mr. Pumshock, the +stock-broker and amateur gentleman, had preserved so carefully in +the Easy. Hitherto the countryside had been forced to regard Mr. +Pumshock's trout with<a name="Page_272"></a> an almost +superstitious respect. A year ago young Snooker had done a month +for one of those very trout. But now things were different.</p> +<p>"But I don't really fancy fresh-water fish," said the fisherman. +"It's just the ketchin' of 'em I like...."</p> +<p>And a few weeks later the trumpeter, an angel-faced freckled +child with deep-blue eyes, brought in a dozen partridge eggs which +he wanted Mary to cook for him....</p> +<p>The domesticity of the sacred birds, it was clear, was no longer +safe in England....</p> +<p>Then again the big guns would go swinging down the road and into +Claverings park, and perform various exercises with commendable +smartness and a profound disregard for Lady Homartyn's known +objection to any departure from the public footpath....</p> +<p>And one afternoon as Mr. Britling took his constitutional walk, +a reverie was set going in his mind by the sight of a +neglected-looking pheasant with a white collar. The world of +Matching's Easy was getting full now of such elderly birds. Would +<i>that</i> go on again after the war? He imagined his son Hugh as +a grandfather, telling the little ones about parks and preserves +and game laws, and footmen and butlers and the marvellous game of +golf, and how, suddenly, Mars came tramping through the land in +khaki and all these things faded and vanished, so that presently it +was discovered they were gone....</p> +<a name="Page_273"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_THIRD"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD</h2> +<h2>MALIGNITY</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>And while the countryside of England changed steadily from its +lax pacific amenity to the likeness of a rather slovenly armed +camp, while long-fixed boundaries shifted and dissolved and a great +irreparable wasting of the world's resources gathered way, Mr. +Britling did his duty as a special constable, gave his eldest son +to the Territorials, entertained Belgians, petted his soldiers in +the barn, helped Teddy to his commission, contributed to war +charities, sold out securities at a loss and subscribed to the War +Loan, and thought, thought endlessly about the war.</p> +<p>He could think continuously day by day of nothing else. His mind +was as caught as a galley slave, as unable to escape from tugging +at this oar. All his universe was a magnetic field which oriented +everything, whether he would have it so or not, to this one polar +question.</p> +<p>His thoughts grew firmer and clearer; they went deeper and +wider. His first superficial judgments were endorsed and deepened +or replaced by others. He thought along the lonely lanes at night; +he thought at his desk; he thought in bed; he thought in his bath; +he tried over his thoughts in essays and leading articles and +reviewed them and corrected them. Now and then came relaxation and +lassitude, but never release. The war towered over him like a +vigilant teacher, day after day, week after week, regardless of +fatigue and impatience, holding a rod in its hand.</p> +<a name="Page_274"></a><br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>Certain things had to be forced upon Mr. Britling because they +jarred so greatly with his habits of mind that he would never have +accepted them if he could have avoided doing so.</p> +<p>Notably he would not recognise at first the extreme bitterness +of this war. He would not believe that the attack upon Britain and +Western Europe generally expressed the concentrated emotion of a +whole nation. He thought that the Allies were in conflict with a +system and not with a national will. He fought against the +persuasion that the whole mass of a great civilised nation could be +inspired by a genuine and sustained hatred. Hostility was an +uncongenial thing to him; he would not recognise that the greater +proportion of human beings are more readily hostile than friendly. +He did his best to believe—in his "And Now War Ends" he did +his best to make other people believe—that this war was the +perverse exploit of a small group of people, of limited but +powerful influences, an outrage upon the general geniality of +mankind. The cruelty, mischief, and futility of war were so obvious +to him that he was almost apologetic in asserting them. He believed +that war had but to begin and demonstrate its quality among the +Western nations in order to unify them all against its repetition. +They would exclaim: "But we can't do things like this to one +another!" He saw the aggressive imperialism of Germany called to +account even by its own people; a struggle, a collapse, a +liberal-minded conference of world powers, and a universal +resumption of amiability upon a more assured basis of security. He +believed—and many people in England believed with +him—that a great section of the Germans would welcome +triumphant Allies as their liberators from intolerable political +obsessions.</p> +<p>The English because of their insularity had been political +amateurs for endless generations. It was their<a name= +"Page_275"></a> supreme vice, it was their supreme virtue, to be +easy-going. They had lived in an atmosphere of comedy, and denied +in the whole tenor of their lives that life is tragic. Not even the +Americans had been more isolated. The Americans had had their +Indians, their negroes, their War of Secession. Until the Great War +the Channel was as broad as the Atlantic for holding off every +vital challenge. Even Ireland was away—a four-hour crossing. +And so the English had developed to the fullest extent the virtues +and vices of safety and comfort; they had a hatred of science and +dramatic behaviour; they could see no reason for exactness or +intensity; they disliked proceeding "to extremes." Ultimately +everything would turn out all right. But they knew what it is to be +carried into conflicts by energetic minorities and the trick of +circumstances, and they were ready to understand the case of any +other country which has suffered that fate. All their habits +inclined them to fight good-temperedly and comfortably, to quarrel +with a government and not with a people. It took Mr. Britling at +least a couple of months of warfare to understand that the Germans +were fighting in an altogether different spirit.</p> +<p>The first intimations of this that struck upon his mind were the +news of the behaviour of the Kaiser and the Berlin crowd upon the +declaration of war, and the violent treatment of the British +subjects seeking to return to their homes. Everywhere such people +had been insulted and ill-treated. It was the spontaneous +expression of a long-gathered bitterness. While the British +ambassador was being howled out of Berlin, the German ambassador to +England was taking a farewell stroll, quite unmolested, in St. +James's Park.... One item that struck particularly upon Mr. +Britling's imagination was the story of the chorus of young women +who assembled on the railway platform of the station through which +the British ambassador was passing to sing—to his drawn +blinds—"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles." Mr. +Britling<a name="Page_276"></a> could imagine those young people, +probably dressed more or less uniformly in white, with flushed +faces and shining eyes, letting their voices go, full throated, in +the modern German way....</p> +<p>And then came stories of atrocities, stories of the shooting of +old men and the butchery of children by the wayside, stories of +wounded men bayoneted or burnt alive, of massacres of harmless +citizens, of looting and filthy outrages....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling did his utmost not to believe these things. They +contradicted his habitual world. They produced horrible strains in +his mind. They might, he hoped, be misreported so as to seem more +violent or less justifiable than they were. They might be the acts +of stray criminals, and quite disconnected from the normal +operations of the war. Here and there some weak-minded officer may +have sought to make himself terrible.... And as for the bombardment +of cathedrals and the crime of Louvain, well, Mr. Britling was +prepared to argue that Gothic architecture is not sacrosanct if +military necessity cuts through it.... It was only after the war +had been going on some months that Mr. Britling's fluttering, +unwilling mind was pinned down by official reports and a cloud of +witnesses to a definite belief in the grim reality of systematic +rape and murder, destruction, dirtiness and abominable compulsions +that blackened the first rush of the Prussians into Belgium and +Champagne....</p> +<p>They came hating and threatening the lands they outraged. They +sought occasion to do frightful deeds.... When they could not be +frightful in the houses they occupied, then to the best of their +ability they were destructive and filthy. The facts took Mr. +Britling by the throat....</p> +<p>The first thing that really pierced Mr. Britling with the +conviction that there was something essentially different in the +English and the German attitude towards the war was the sight of a +bale of German comic papers<a name="Page_277"></a> in the study of +a friend in London. They were filled with caricatures of the Allies +and more particularly of the English, and they displayed a force +and quality of passion—an incredible force and quality of +passion. Their amazing hate and their amazing filthiness alike +overwhelmed Mr. Britling. There was no appearance of national pride +or national dignity, but a bellowing patriotism and a limitless +desire to hurt and humiliate. They spat. They were red in the face +and they spat. He sat with these violent sheets in his +hands—<i>ashamed</i>.</p> +<p>"But I say!" he said feebly. "It's the sort of thing that might +come out of a lunatic asylum...."</p> +<p>One incredible craving was manifest in every one of them. The +German caricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except +in extremely tight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to +represent them without thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering +blood, into the more indelicate parts of their persons. This was +the <i>leit-motif</i> of the war as the German humorists presented +it. "But," said Mr. Britling, "these things can't represent +anything like the general state of mind in Germany."</p> +<p>"They do," said his friend.</p> +<p>"But it's blind fury—at the dirt-throwing stage."</p> +<p>"The whole of Germany is in that blind fury," said his friend. +"While we are going about astonished and rather incredulous about +this war, and still rather inclined to laugh, that's the state of +mind of Germany.... There's a sort of deliberation in it. They +think it gives them strength. They <i>want</i> to foam at the +mouth. They do their utmost to foam more. They write themselves up. +Have you heard of the 'Hymn of Hate'?"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had not.</p> +<p>"There was a translation of it in last week's +<i>Spectator</i>.... This is the sort of thing we are trying to +fight in good temper and without extravagance. Listen, +Britling!</p> +<a name="Page_278"></a> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>You</i> will we hate with a lasting hate;</p> +<p>We will never forgo our hate—</p> +<p>Hate by water and hate by land,</p> +<p>Hate of the head and hate of the hand,</p> +<p>Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,</p> +<p>Hate of seventy millions, choking down;</p> +<p>We love as one, we hate as one,</p> +<p>We have <i>one</i> foe, and one alone—</p> +<p>ENGLAND!"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>He read on to the end.</p> +<p>"Well," he said when he had finished reading, "what do you think +of it?"</p> +<p>"I want to feel his bumps," said Mr. Britling after a pause. +"It's incomprehensible."</p> +<p>"They're singing that up and down Germany. Lissauer, I hear, has +been decorated...."</p> +<p>"It's—stark malignity," said Mr. Britling. "What have we +done?"</p> +<p>"It's colossal. What is to happen to the world if these people +prevail?"</p> +<p>"I can't believe it—even with this evidence before me.... +No! I want to feel their bumps...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>"You see," said Mr. Britling, trying to get it into focus, "I +have known quite decent Germans. There must be some sort of +misunderstanding.... I wonder what makes them hate us. There seems +to me no reason in it."</p> +<p>"I think it is just thoroughness," said his friend. "They are at +war. To be at war is to hate."</p> +<p>"That isn't at all my idea."</p> +<p>"We're not a thorough people. When we think of anything, we also +think of its opposite. When we adopt an opinion we also take in a +provisional idea that it is probably nearly as wrong as it is +right. We are—atmospheric. They are concrete.... All this +filthy, vile, unjust and cruel stuff is honest genuine war. We +pretend war does not hurt. They know better.... The<a name= +"Page_279"></a> Germans are a simple honest people. It is their +virtue. Possibly it is their only virtue...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling was only one of a multitude who wanted to feel the +bumps of Germany at that time. The effort to understand a people +who had suddenly become incredible was indeed one of the most +remarkable facts in English intellectual life during the opening +phases of the war. The English state of mind was unlimited +astonishment. There was an enormous sale of any German books that +seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of this amazing +concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke, +Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of +countless articles and interminable discussions. One saw little +clerks on the way to the office and workmen going home after their +work earnestly reading these remarkable writers. They were asking, +just as Mr. Britling was asking, what it was the British Empire had +struck against. They were trying to account for this wild storm of +hostility that was coming at them out of Central Europe.</p> +<p>It was a natural next stage to this, when after all it became +manifest that instead of there being a liberal and reluctant +Germany at the back of imperialism and Junkerdom, there was +apparently one solid and enthusiastic people, to suppose that the +Germans were in some distinctive way evil, that they were racially +more envious, arrogant, and aggressive than the rest of mankind. +Upon that supposition a great number of English people settled. +They concluded that the Germans had a peculiar devil of their +own—and had to be treated accordingly. That was the second +stage in the process of national apprehension, and it was marked by +the first beginnings of a spy hunt, by the first denunciation of +naturalised aliens, and by some anti-German rioting among the mixed +alien population<a name="Page_280"></a> in the East End. Most of +the bakers in the East End of London were Germans, and for some +months after the war began they went on with their trade +unmolested. Now many of these shops were wrecked.... It was only in +October that the British gave these first signs of a sense that +they were fighting not merely political Germany but the +Germans.</p> +<p>But the idea of a peculiar malignity in the German quality as a +key to the broad issue of the war was even less satisfactory and +less permanent in Mr. Britling's mind than his first crude +opposition of militarism and a peaceful humanity as embodied +respectively in the Central Powers and the Russo-Western alliance. +It led logically to the conclusion that the extermination of the +German peoples was the only security for the general amiability of +the world, a conclusion that appealed but weakly to his essential +kindliness. After all, the Germans he had met and seen were neither +cruel nor hate-inspired. He came back to that obstinately. From the +harshness and vileness of the printed word and the unclean picture, +he fell back upon the flesh and blood, the humanity and sterling +worth, of—as a sample—young Heinrich.</p> +<p>Who was moreover a thoroughly German young German—a +thoroughly Prussian young Prussian.</p> +<p>At times young Heinrich alone stood between Mr. Britling and the +belief that Germany and the whole German race was essentially +wicked, essentially a canting robber nation. Young Heinrich became +a sort of advocate for his people before the tribunal of Mr. +Britling's mind. (And on his shoulder sat an absurdly pampered +squirrel.) s fresh, pink, sedulous face, very earnest, adjusting +his glasses, saying "Please," intervened and insisted upon an +arrest of judgment....</p> +<p>Since the young man's departure he had sent two postcards of +greeting directly to the "Familie Britling," and one letter through +the friendly intervention of Mr. Britling's American publisher. +Once also he sent a message<a name="Page_281"></a> through a friend +in Norway. The postcards simply recorded stages in the passage of a +distraught pacifist across Holland to his enrolment. The letter by +way of America came two months later. He had been converted into a +combatant with extreme rapidity. He had been trained for three +weeks, had spent a fortnight in hospital with a severe cold, and +had then gone to Belgium as a transport driver—his father had +been a horse-dealer and he was familiar with horses. "If anything +happens to me," he wrote, "please send my violin at least very +carefully to my mother." It was characteristic that he reported +himself as very comfortably quartered in Courtrai with "very nice +people." The niceness involved restraints. "Only never," he added, +"do we talk about the war. It is better not to do so." He mentioned +the violin also in the later communication through Norway. Therein +he lamented the lost fleshpots of Courtrai. He had been in Posen, +and now he was in the Carpathians, up to his knees in snow and +"very uncomfortable...."</p> +<p>And then abruptly all news from him ceased.</p> +<p>Month followed month, and no further letter came.</p> +<p>"Something has happened to him. Perhaps he is a +prisoner...."</p> +<p>"I hope our little Heinrich hasn't got seriously damaged.... He +may be wounded...."</p> +<p>"Or perhaps they stop his letters.... Very probably they stop +his letters."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling would sit in his armchair and stare at his fire, +and recall conflicting memories of Germany—of a pleasant +land, of friendly people. He had spent many a jolly holiday there. +So recently as 1911 all the Britling family had gone up the Rhine +from Rotterdam, had visited a string of great cities and stayed for +a cheerful month of sunshine at Neunkirchen in the Odenwald.</p> +<p>The little village perches high among the hills and<a name= +"Page_282"></a> woods, and at its very centre is the inn and the +linden tree and—Adam Meyer. Or at least Adam Meyer <i>was</i> +there. Whether he is there now, only the spirit of change can tell; +if he live to be a hundred no friendly English will ever again come +tramping along by the track of the Blaue Breiecke or the Weisse +Streiche to enjoy his hospitality; there are rivers of blood +between, and a thousand memories of hate....</p> +<p>It was a village distended with hospitalities. Not only the inn +but all the houses about the place of the linden tree, the +shoe-maker's, the post-mistress's, the white house beyond, every +house indeed except the pastor's house, were full of Adam Meyer's +summer guests. And about it and over it went and soared Adam Meyer, +seeing they ate well, seeing they rested well, seeing they had +music and did not miss the moonlight—a host who forgot profit +in hospitality, an inn-keeper with the passion of an artist for his +inn.</p> +<p>Music, moonlight, the simple German sentiment, the hearty German +voices, the great picnic in a Stuhl Wagen, the orderly round games +the boys played with the German children, and the tramps and +confidences Hugh had with Kurt and Karl, and at last a crowning +jollification, a dance, with some gipsy musicians whom Mr. Britling +discovered, when the Germans taught the English various +entertaining sports with baskets and potatoes and forfeits and the +English introduced the Germans to the licence of the two-step. And +everybody sang "Britannia, Rule the Waves," and "Deutschland, +Deutschland über Alles," and Adam Meyer got on a chair and +made a tremendous speech more in dialect than ever, and there was +much drinking of beer and sirops in the moonlight under the +linden....</p> +<p>Afterwards there had been a periodic sending of postcards and +greetings, which indeed only the war had ended.</p> +<p>Right pleasant people those Germans had been, sun and green-leaf +lovers, for whom "Frisch Auf" seemed the most natural of national +cries. Mr. Britling thought of the individual Germans who had made +up the assembly,<a name="Page_283"></a> of the men's amusingly +fierce little hats of green and blue with an inevitable feather +thrust perkily into the hatband behind, of the kindly plumpnesses +behind their turned-up moustaches, of the blonde, sedentary women, +very wise about the comforts of life and very kind to the children, +of their earnest pleasure in landscape and Art and Great Writers, +of their general frequent desire to sing, of their plasticity under +the directing hands of Adam Meyer. He thought of the mellow south +German landscape, rolling away broad and fair, of the little clean +red-roofed townships, the old castles, the big prosperous farms, +the neatly marked pedestrian routes, the hospitable inns, and the +artless abundant Aussichtthurms....</p> +<p>He saw all those memories now through a veil of indescribable +sadness—as of a world lost, gone down like the cities of +Lyonesse beneath deep seas....</p> +<p>Right pleasant people in a sunny land! Yet here pressing +relentlessly upon his mind were the murders of Visé, the +massacres of Dinant, the massacres of Louvain, murder red-handed +and horrible upon an inoffensive people, foully invaded, foully +treated; murder done with a sickening cant of righteousness and +racial pretension....</p> +<p>The two pictures would not stay steadily in his mind together. +When he thought of the broken faith that had poured those +slaughtering hosts into the decent peace of Belgium, that had +smashed her cities, burnt her villages and filled the pretty gorges +of the Ardennes with blood and smoke and terror, he was flooded +with self-righteous indignation, a self-righteous indignation that +was indeed entirely Teutonic in its quality, that for a time +drowned out his former friendship and every kindly disposition +towards Germany, that inspired him with destructive impulses, and +obsessed him with a desire to hear of death and more death and yet +death in every German town and home....</p> +<a name="Page_284"></a><br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>It will be an incredible thing to the happier reader of a coming +age—if ever this poor record of experience reaches a reader +in the days to come—to learn how much of the mental life of +Mr. Britling was occupied at this time with the mere horror and +atrocity of warfare. It is idle and hopeless to speculate now how +that future reader will envisage this war; it may take on broad +dramatic outlines, it may seem a thing, just, logical, necessary, +the burning of many barriers, the destruction of many obstacles. +Mr. Britling was too near to the dirt and pain and heat for any +such broad landscape consolations. Every day some new detail of +evil beat into his mind. Now it would be the artless story of some +Belgian refugee. There was a girl from Alost in the village for +example, who had heard the fusillade that meant the shooting of +citizens, the shooting of people she had known, she had seen the +still blood-stained wall against which two murdered cousins had +died, the streaked sand along which their bodies had been dragged; +three German soldiers had been quartered in her house with her and +her invalid mother, and had talked freely of the massacres in which +they had been employed. One of them was in civil life a young +schoolmaster, and he had had, he said, to kill a woman and a baby. +The girl had been incredulous. Yes, he had done so! Of course he +had done so! His officer had made him do it, had stood over him. He +could do nothing but obey. But since then he had been unable to +sleep, unable to forget.</p> +<p>"We had to punish the people," he said. "They had fired on +us."</p> +<p>And besides, his officer had been drunk. It had been impossible +to argue. His officer had an unrelenting character at all +times....</p> +<p>Over and over again Mr. Britling would try to imagine that young +schoolmaster soldier at Alost. He imagined<a name="Page_285"></a> +with a weak staring face and watery blue eyes behind his glasses, +and that memory of murder....</p> +<p>Then again it would be some incident of death and mutilation in +Antwerp, that Van der Pant described to him. The Germans in Belgium +were shooting women frequently, not simply for grave spying but for +trivial offences.... Then came the battleship raid on Whitby and +Scarborough, and the killing among other victims of a number of +children on their way to school. This shocked Mr. Britling +absurdly, much more than the Belgian crimes had done. They were +<i>English</i> children. At home!... The drowning of a great number +of people on a torpedoed ship full of refugees from Flanders filled +his mind with pitiful imaginings for days. The Zeppelin raids, with +their slow crescendo of blood-stained futility, began before the +end of 1914.... It was small consolation for Mr. Britling to +reflect that English homes and women and children were, after all, +undergoing only the same kind of experience that our ships have +inflicted scores of times in the past upon innocent people in the +villages of Africa and Polynesia....</p> +<p>Each month the war grew bitterer and more cruel. Early in 1915 +the Germans began their submarine war, and for a time Mr. +Britling's concern was chiefly for the sailors and passengers of +the ships destroyed. He noted with horror the increasing +indisposition of the German submarines to give any notice to their +victims; he did not understand the grim reasons that were turning +every submarine attack into a desperate challenge of death. For the +Germans under the seas had pitted themselves against a sea power +far more resourceful, more steadfast and skilful, sterner and more +silent, than their own. It was not for many months that Mr. +Britling learnt the realities of the submarine blockade. Submarine +after submarine went out of the German harbours into the North Sea, +never to return. No prisoners were reported, no boasting was +published by the British fishers of men; U boat<a name= +"Page_286"></a> after U boat vanished into a chilling mystery.... +Only later did Mr. Britling begin to hear whispers and form ideas +of the noiseless, suffocating grip that sought through the waters +for its prey.</p> +<p>The <i>Falaba</i> crime, in which the German sailors were +reported to have jeered at the drowning victims in the water, was +followed by the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i>. At that a wave of +real anger swept through the Empire. Hate was begetting hate at +last. There were violent riots in Great Britain and in South +Africa. Wretched little German hairdressers and bakers and so forth +fled for their lives, to pay for the momentary satisfaction of the +Kaiser and Herr Ballin. Scores of German homes in England were +wrecked and looted; hundreds of Germans maltreated. War is war. +Hard upon the <i>Lusitania</i> storm came the publication of the +Bryce Report, with its relentless array of witnesses, its +particulars of countless acts of cruelty and arrogant unreason and +uncleanness in Belgium and the occupied territory of France. Came +also the gasping torture of "gas," the use of flame jets, and a new +exacerbation of the savagery of the actual fighting. For a time it +seemed as though the taking of prisoners along the western front +would cease. Tales of torture and mutilation, tales of the kind +that arise nowhere and out of nothing, and poison men's minds to +the most pitiless retaliations, drifted along the opposing +fronts....</p> +<p>The realities were evil enough without any rumours. Over various +dinner-tables Mr. Britling heard this and that first-hand testimony +of harshness and spite. One story that stuck in his memory was of +British prisoners on the journey into Germany being put apart at a +station from their French companions in misfortune, and forced to +"run the gauntlet" back to their train between the fists and +bayonets of files of German soldiers. And there were convincing +stories of the same prisoners robbed of overcoats in bitter +weather, baited with dogs, separated from their countrymen, and +thrust among Russians and Poles<a name="Page_287"></a> with whom +they could hold no speech. So Lissauer's Hate Song bore its fruit +in a thousand cruelties to wounded and defenceless men. The English +had cheated great Germany of another easy victory like that of '71. +They had to be punished. That was all too plainly the psychological +process. At one German station a woman had got out of a train and +crossed a platform to spit on the face of a wounded Englishman.... +And there was no monopoly of such things on either side. At some +journalistic gathering Mr. Britling met a little white-faced, +resolute lady who had recently been nursing in the north of France. +She told of wounded men lying among the coal of coal-sheds, of a +shortage of nurses and every sort of material, of an absolute +refusal to permit any share in such things to reach the German +"swine." ... "Why have they come here? Let our own boys have it +first. Why couldn't they stay in their own country? Let the filth +die."</p> +<p>Two soldiers impressed to carry a wounded German officer on a +stretcher had given him a "joy ride," pitching him up and down as +one tosses a man in a blanket. "He was lucky to get off with +that."...</p> +<p>"All <i>our</i> men aren't angels," said a cheerful young +captain back from the front. "If you had heard a little group of +our East London boys talking of what they meant to do when they got +into Germany, you'd feel anxious...."</p> +<p>"But that was just talk," said Mr. Britling weakly, after a +pause....</p> +<p>There were times when Mr. Britling's mind was imprisoned beyond +any hope of escape amidst such monstrous realities....</p> +<p>He was ashamed of his one secret consolation. For nearly two +years yet Hugh could not go out to it. There would surely be peace +before that....</p> +<a name="Page_288"></a><br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>Tormenting the thought of Mr. Britling almost more acutely than +this growing tale of stupidly inflicted suffering and waste and +sheer destruction was the collapse of the British mind from its +first fine phase of braced-up effort into a state of bickering +futility.</p> +<p>Too long had British life been corrupted by the fictions of +loyalty to an uninspiring and alien Court, of national piety in an +official Church, of freedom in a politician-rigged State, of +justice in an economic system where the advertiser, the sweater and +usurer had a hundred advantages over the producer and artisan, to +maintain itself now steadily at any high pitch of heroic endeavour. +It had bought its comfort with the demoralisation of its servants. +It had no completely honest organs; its spirit was clogged by its +accumulated insincerities. Brought at last face to face with a +bitter hostility and a powerful and unscrupulous enemy, an enemy +socialistic, scientific and efficient to an unexampled degree, it +seemed indeed to be inspired for a time by an unwonted energy and +unanimity. Youth and the common people shone. The sons of every +class went out to fight and die, full of a splendid dream of this +war. Easy-going vanished from the foreground of the picture. But +only to creep back again as the first inspiration passed. Presently +the older men, the seasoned politicians, the owners and hucksters, +the charming women and the habitual consumers, began to recover +from this blaze of moral exaltation. Old habits of mind and +procedure reasserted themselves. The war which had begun so +dramatically missed its climax; there was neither heroic swift +defeat nor heroic swift victory. There was indecision; the most +trying test of all for an undisciplined people. There were great +spaces of uneventful fatigue. Before the Battle of the Yser had +fully developed the dramatic quality had gone out of the war. It +had ceased to be either a tragedy or a triumph; for both sides +it<a name="Page_289"></a> became a monstrous strain and wasting. It +had become a wearisome thrusting against a pressure of +evils....</p> +<p>Under that strain the dignity of England broke, and revealed a +malignity less focussed and intense than the German, but perhaps +even more distressing. No paternal government had organised the +British spirit for patriotic ends; it became now peevish and +impatient, like some ill-trained man who is sick, it directed +itself no longer against the enemy alone but fitfully against +imagined traitors and shirkers; it wasted its energies in a +deepening and spreading net of internal squabbles and accusations. +Now it was the wily indolence of the Prime Minister, now it was the +German culture of the Lord Chancellor, now the imaginative +enterprise of the First Lord of the Admiralty that focussed a +vindictive campaign. There began a hunt for spies and of suspects +of German origin in every quarter except the highest; a +denunciation now of "traitors," now of people with imaginations, +now of scientific men, now of the personal friend of the +Commander-in-Chief, now of this group and then of that group.... +Every day Mr. Britling read his three or four newspapers with a +deepening disappointment.</p> +<p>When he turned from the newspaper to his post, he would find the +anonymous letter-writer had been busy....</p> +<p>Perhaps Mr. Britling had remarked that Germans were after all +human beings, or that if England had listened to Matthew Arnold in +the 'eighties our officers by this time might have added efficiency +to their courage and good temper. Perhaps he had himself put a +touch of irritant acid into his comment. Back flared the hate. "Who +are <i>you</i>, Sir? What are <i>you</i>, Sir? What right have +<i>you</i>, Sir? What claim have <i>you</i>, Sir?"...</p> +<a name="Page_290"></a><br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>"Life had a wrangling birth. On the head of every one of us +rests the ancestral curse of fifty million murders."</p> +<p>So Mr. Britling's thoughts shaped themselves in words as he +prowled one night in March, chill and melancholy, across a rushy +meadow under an overcast sky. The death squeal of some little beast +caught suddenly in a distant copse had set loose this train of +thought. "Life struggling under a birth curse?" he thought. "How +nearly I come back at times to the Christian theology!... And then, +Redemption by the shedding of blood."</p> +<p>"Life, like a rebellious child, struggling out of the control of +the hate which made it what it is."</p> +<p>But that was Mr. Britling's idea of Gnosticism, not of orthodox +Christianity. He went off for a time into faded reminiscences of +theological reading. What had been the Gnostic idea? That the God +of the Old Testament was the Devil of the New? But that had been +the idea of the Manichæans!...</p> +<p>Mr. Britling, between the black hedges, came back presently from +his attempts to recall his youthful inquiries into man's ancient +speculations, to the enduring riddles that have outlasted a +thousand speculations. Has hate been necessary, and is it still +necessary, and will it always be necessary? Is all life a war +forever? The rabbit is nimble, lives keenly, is prevented from +degenerating into a diseased crawling eater of herbs by the +incessant ferret. Without the ferret of war, what would life +become?... War is murder truly, but is not Peace decay?</p> +<p>It was during these prowling nights in the first winter of the +war that Mr. Britling planned a new writing that was to go whole +abysses beneath the facile superficiality of "And Now War Ends." It +was to be called the "Anatomy of Hate." It was to deal very +faithfully with the function of hate as a corrective to +inefficiency. So<a name="Page_291"></a> long as men were slack, men +must be fierce. This conviction pressed upon him....</p> +<p>In spite of his detestation of war Mr. Britling found it +impossible to maintain that any sort of peace state was better than +a state of war. If wars produced destructions and cruelties, peace +could produce indolence, perversity, greedy accumulation and +selfish indulgences. War is discipline for evil, but peace may be +relaxation from good. The poor man may be as wretched in peace time +as in war time. The gathering forces of an evil peace, the +malignity and waste of war, are but obverse and reverse of the +medal of ill-adjusted human relationships. Was there no Greater +Peace possible; not a mere recuperative pause in killing and +destruction, but a phase of noble and creative living, a phase of +building, of discovery, of beauty and research? He remembered, as +one remembers the dead, dreams he had once dreamt of the great +cities, the splendid freedoms, of a coming age, of marvellous +enlargements of human faculty, of a coming science that would be +light and of art that could be power....</p> +<p>But would that former peace have ever risen to that?...</p> +<p>After all, had such visions ever been more than idle dreams? Had +the war done more than unmask reality?...</p> +<p>He came to a gate and leant over it.</p> +<p>The darkness drizzled about him; he turned up his collar and +watched the dim shapes of trees and hedges gather out of the night +to meet the dismal dawn. He was cold and hungry and weary.</p> +<p>He may have drowsed; at least he had a vision, very real and +plain, a vision very different from any dream of Utopia.</p> +<p>It seemed to him that suddenly a mine burst under a great ship +at sea, that men shouted and women sobbed and cowered, and flares +played upon the rain-pitted black waves; and then the picture +changed and showed a battle<a name="Page_292"></a> upon land, and +searchlights were flickering through the rain and shells flashed +luridly, and men darkly seen in silhouette against red flames ran +with fixed bayonets and slipped and floundered over the mud, and at +last, shouting thinly through the wind, leapt down into the enemy +trenches....</p> +<p>And then he was alone again staring over a wet black field +towards a dim crest of shapeless trees.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>Abruptly and shockingly, this malignity of warfare, which had +been so far only a festering cluster of reports and stories and +rumours and suspicions, stretched out its arm into Essex and struck +a barb of grotesque cruelty into the very heart of Mr. Britling. +Late one afternoon came a telegram from Filmington-on-Sea, where +Aunt Wilshire had been recovering her temper in a boarding-house +after a round of visits in Yorkshire and the moorlands. And she had +been "very seriously injured" by an overnight German air raid. It +was a raid that had not been even mentioned in the morning's +papers. She had asked to see him.</p> +<p>It was, ran the compressed telegraphic phrase, "advisable to +come at once."</p> +<p>Mrs. Britling helped him pack a bag, and came with him to the +station in order to drive the car back to the Dower House; for the +gardener's boy who had hitherto attended to these small duties had +now gone off as an unskilled labourer to some munition works at +Chelmsford. Mr. Britling sat in the slow train that carried him +across country to the junction for Filmington, and failed +altogether to realise what had happened to the old lady. He had an +absurd feeling that it was characteristic of her to intervene in +affairs in this manner. She had always been so tough and unbent an +old lady that until he saw her he could not imagine her as being +really seriously and pitifully hurt....</p> +<a name="Page_293"></a> +<p>But he found her in the hospital very much hurt indeed. She had +been smashed in some complicated manner that left the upper part of +her body intact, and lying slantingly upon pillows. Over the horror +of bandaged broken limbs and tormented flesh below sheets and a +counterpane were drawn. Morphia had been injected, he understood, +to save her from pain, but presently it might be necessary for her +to suffer. She lay up in her bed with an effect of being enthroned, +very white and still, her strong profile with its big nose and her +straggling hair and a certain dignity gave her the appearance of +some very important, very old man, of an aged pope for instance, +rather than of an old woman. She had made no remark after they had +set her and dressed her and put her to bed except "send for Hughie +Britling, The Dower House, Matching's Easy. He is the best of the +bunch." She had repeated the address and this commendation firmly +over and over again, in large print as it were, even after they had +assured her that a telegram had been despatched.</p> +<p>In the night, they said, she had talked of him.</p> +<p>He was not sure at first that she knew of his presence.</p> +<p>"Here I am, Aunt Wilshire," he said.</p> +<p>She gave no sign.</p> +<p>"Your nephew Hugh."</p> +<p>"Mean and preposterous," she said very distinctly.</p> +<p>But she was not thinking of Mr. Britling. She was talking of +something else.</p> +<p>She was saying: "It should not have been known I was here. There +are spies everywhere. Everywhere. There is a spy now—or a +lump very like a spy. They pretend it is a hot-water bottle. +Pretext.... Oh, yes! I admit—absurd. But I have been pursued +by spies. Endless spies. Endless, endless spies. Their devices are +almost incredible.... He has never forgiven me....</p> +<p>"All this on account of a carpet. A palace carpet. Over which I +had no control. I spoke my mind. He<a name="Page_294"></a> knew I +knew of it. I never concealed it. So I was hunted. For years he had +meditated revenge. Now he has it. But at what a cost! And they call +him Emperor. Emperor!</p> +<p>"His arm is withered; his son—imbecile. He will +die—without dignity...."</p> +<p>Her voice weakened, but it was evident she wanted to say +something more.</p> +<p>"I'm here," said Mr. Britling. "Your nephew Hughie."</p> +<p>She listened.</p> +<p>"Can you understand me?" he asked.</p> +<p>She became suddenly an earnest, tender human being. "My dear!" +she said, and seemed to search for something in her mind and failed +to find it.</p> +<p>"You have always understood me," she tried.</p> +<p>"You have always been a good boy to me, Hughie," she said, +rather vacantly, and added after some moments of still reflection, +"<i>au fond</i>."</p> +<p>After that she was silent for some minutes, and took no notice +of his whispers.</p> +<p>Then she recollected what had been in her mind. She put out a +hand that sought for Mr. Britling's sleeve.</p> +<p>"Hughie!"</p> +<p>"I'm here, Auntie," said Mr. Britling. "I'm here."</p> +<p>"Don't let him get at <i>your</i> Hughie.... Too good for it, +dear. Oh! much—much too good.... People let these wars and +excitements run away with them.... They put too much into them.... +They aren't—they aren't worth it. Don't let him get at your +Hughie."</p> +<p>"No!"</p> +<p>"You understand me, Hughie?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly, Auntie."</p> +<p>"Then don't forget it. Ever."</p> +<p>She had said what she wanted to say. She had made her testament. +She closed her eyes. He was amazed to find this grotesque old +creature had suddenly become<a name="Page_295"></a> beautiful, in +that silvery vein of beauty one sometimes finds in very old men. +She was exalted as great artists will sometimes exalt the portraits +of the aged. He was moved to kiss her forehead.</p> +<p>There came a little tug at his sleeve.</p> +<p>"I think that is enough," said the nurse, who had stood +forgotten at his elbow.</p> +<p>"But I can come again?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps."</p> +<p>She indicated departure by a movement of her hand.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>The next day Aunt Wilshire was unconscious of her visitor.</p> +<p>They had altered her position so that she lay now horizontally, +staring inflexibly at the ceiling and muttering queer old +disconnected things.</p> +<p>The Windsor Castle carpet story was still running through her +mind, but mixed up with it now were scraps of the current newspaper +controversies about the conduct of the war. And she was still +thinking of the dynastic aspects of the war. And of spies. She had +something upon her mind about the King's more German aunts.</p> +<p>"As a precaution," she said, "as a precaution. Watch them +all.... The Princess Christian.... Laying foundation stones.... +Cement.... Guns. Or else why should they always be laying +foundation stones?... Always.... Why?... Hushed up....</p> +<p>"None of these things," she said, "in the newspapers. They ought +to be."</p> +<p>And then after an interval, very distinctly, "The Duke of +Wellington. My ancestor—in reality.... Publish and be +damned."</p> +<p>After that she lay still....</p> +<p>The doctors and nurses could hold out only very faint<a name= +"Page_296"></a> hopes to Mr. Britling's inquiries; they said indeed +it was astonishing that she was still alive.</p> +<p>And about seven o'clock that evening she died....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling, after he had looked at his dead cousin for the +last time, wandered for an hour or so about the silent little +watering-place before he returned to his hotel. There was no one to +talk to and nothing else to do but to think of her death.</p> +<p>The night was cold and bleak, but full of stars. He had already +mastered the local topography, and he knew now exactly where all +the bombs that had been showered upon the place had fallen. Here +was the corner of blackened walls and roasted beams where three +wounded horses had been burnt alive in a barn, here the row of +houses, some smashed, some almost intact, where a mutilated child +had screamed for two hours before she could be rescued from the +debris that had pinned her down, and taken to the hospital. +Everywhere by the dim light of the shaded street lamps he could see +the black holes and gaps of broken windows; sometimes abundant, +sometimes rare and exceptional, among otherwise uninjured +dwellings. Many of the victims he had visited in the little cottage +hospital where Aunt Wilshire had just died. She was the eleventh +dead. Altogether fifty-seven people had been killed or injured in +this brilliant German action. They were all civilians, and only +twelve were men.</p> +<p>Two Zeppelins had come in from over the sea, and had been fired +at by an anti-aircraft gun coming on an automobile from Ipswich. +The first intimation the people of the town had had of the raid was +the report of this gun. Many had run out to see what was happening. +It was doubtful if any one had really seen the Zeppelins, though +every one testified to the sound of their engines. Then suddenly +the bombs had come streaming down.<a name="Page_297"></a> Only six +had made hits upon houses or people; the rest had fallen ruinously +and very close together on the local golf links, and at least half +had not exploded at all and did not seem to have been released to +explode.</p> +<p>A third at least of the injured people had been in bed when +destruction came upon them.</p> +<p>The story was like a page from some fantastic romance of Jules +Verne's; the peace of the little old town, the people going to bed, +the quiet streets, the quiet starry sky, and then for ten minutes +an uproar of guns and shells, a clatter of breaking glass, and then +a fire here, a fire there, a child's voice pitched high by pain and +terror, scared people going to and fro with lanterns, and the sky +empty again, the raiders gone....</p> +<p>Five minutes before, Aunt Wilshire had been sitting in the +boarding-house drawing-room playing a great stern "Patience," the +Emperor Patience ("Napoleon, my dear!—not that Potsdam +creature") that took hours to do. Five minutes later she was a +thing of elemental terror and agony, bleeding wounds and shattered +bones, plunging about in the darkness amidst a heap of wreckage. +And already the German airmen were buzzing away to sea again, proud +of themselves, pleased no doubt—like boys who have thrown a +stone through a window, beating their way back to thanks and +rewards, to iron crosses and the proud embraces of delighted Fraus +and Fräuleins....</p> +<p>For the first time it seemed to Mr. Britling he really saw the +immediate horror of war, the dense cruel stupidity of the business, +plain and close. It was as if he had never perceived anything of +the sort before, as if he had been dealing with stories, pictures, +shows and representations that he knew to be shams. But that this +dear, absurd old creature, this thing of home, this being of +familiar humours and familiar irritations, should be torn to +pieces, left in torment like a smashed mouse over which an +automobile has passed, brought the whole business to a raw<a name= +"Page_298"></a> and quivering focus. Not a soul among all those who +had been rent and torn and tortured in this agony of millions, but +was to any one who understood and had been near to it, in some way +lovable, in some way laughable, in some way worthy of respect and +care. Poor Aunt Wilshire was but the sample thrust in his face of +all this mangled multitude, whose green-white lips had sweated in +anguish, whose broken bones had thrust raggedly through red +dripping flesh.... The detested features of the German Crown Prince +jerked into the centre of Mr. Britling's picture. The young man +stood in his dapper uniform and grinned under his long nose, +carrying himself jauntily, proud of his extreme importance to so +many lives....</p> +<p>And for a while Mr. Britling could do nothing but rage.</p> +<p>"Devils they are!" he cried to the stars.</p> +<p>"Devils! Devilish fools rather. Cruel blockheads. Apes with all +science in their hands! My God! but <i>we will teach them a lesson +yet!</i>..."</p> +<p>That was the key of his mood for an hour of aimless wandering, +wandering that was only checked at last by a sentinel who turned +him back towards the town....</p> +<p>He wandered, muttering. He found great comfort in scheming +vindictive destruction for countless Germans. He dreamt of swift +armoured aeroplanes swooping down upon the flying airship, and +sending it reeling earthward, the men screaming. He imagined a +shattered Zeppelin staggering earthward in the fields behind the +Dower House, and how he would himself run out with a spade and +smite the Germans down. "Quarter indeed! Kamerad! Take <i>that</i>, +you foul murderer!"</p> +<p>In the dim light the sentinel saw the retreating figure of Mr. +Britling make an extravagant gesture, and wondered what it might +mean. Signalling? What ought an intelligent sentry to do? Let fly +at him? Arrest him?... Take no notice?...</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was at that moment killing Count Zeppelin and +beating out his brains. Count Zeppelin was<a name="Page_299"></a> +killed that night and the German Emperor was assassinated; a score +of lesser victims were offered up to the <i>manes</i> of Aunt +Wilshire; there were memorable cruelties before the wrath and +bitterness of Mr. Britling was appeased. And then suddenly he had +had enough of these thoughts; they were thrust aside, they vanished +out of his mind.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>All the while that Mr. Britling had been indulging in these +imaginative slaughterings and spending the tears and hate that had +gathered in his heart, his reason had been sitting apart and above +the storm, like the sun waiting above thunder, like a wise nurse +watching and patient above the wild passions of a child. And all +the time his reason had been maintaining silently and firmly, +without shouting, without speech, that the men who had made this +hour were indeed not devils, were no more devils than Mr. Britling +was a devil, but sinful men of like nature with himself, hard, +stupid, caught in the same web of circumstance. "Kill them in your +passion if you will," said reason, "but understand. This thing was +done neither by devils nor fools, but by a conspiracy of foolish +motives, by the weak acquiescences of the clever, by a crime that +was no man's crime but the natural necessary outcome of the +ineffectiveness, the blind motives and muddleheadedness of all +mankind."</p> +<p>So reason maintained her thesis, like a light above the head of +Mr. Britling at which he would not look, while he hewed airmen to +quivering rags with a spade that he had sharpened, and stifled +German princes with their own poison gas, given slowly and as +painfully as possible. "And what of the towns <i>our</i> ships have +bombarded?" asked reason unheeded. "What of those Tasmanians +<i>our</i> people utterly swept away?"</p> +<p>"What of French machine-guns in the Atlas?" reason pressed the +case. "Of Himalayan villages burning?<a name="Page_300"></a> Of the +things we did in China? Especially of the things we did in +China...."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling gave no heed to that.</p> +<p>"The Germans in China were worse than we were," he threw +out....</p> +<p>He was maddened by the thought of the Zeppelin making off, high +and far in the sky, a thing dwindling to nothing among the stars, +and the thought of those murderers escaping him. Time after time he +stood still and shook his fist at Boötes, slowly sweeping up +the sky....</p> +<p>And at last, sick and wretched, he sat down on a seat upon the +deserted parade under the stars, close to the soughing of the +invisible sea below....</p> +<p>His mind drifted back once more to those ancient heresies of the +Gnostics and the Manichæans which saw the God of the World as +altogether evil, which sought only to escape by the utmost +abstinences and evasions and perversions from the black wickedness +of being. For a while his soul sank down into the uncongenial +darknesses of these creeds of despair. "I who have loved life," he +murmured, and could have believed for a time that he wished he had +never had a son....</p> +<p>Is the whole scheme of nature evil? Is life in its essence +cruel? Is man stretched quivering upon the table of the eternal +vivisector for no end—and without pity?</p> +<p>These were thoughts that Mr. Britling had never faced before the +war. They came to him now, and they came only to be rejected by the +inherent quality of his mind. For weeks, consciously and +subconsciously, his mind had been grappling with this riddle. He +had thought of it during his lonely prowlings as a special +constable; it had flung itself in monstrous symbols across the dark +canvas of his dreams. "Is there indeed a devil of pure cruelty? +Does any creature, even the very cruellest of creatures, really +apprehend the pain it causes, or inflict it for the sake of the +infliction?" He summoned a score of memories, a score of +imaginations, to bear their<a name="Page_301"></a> witness before +the tribunal of his mind. He forgot cold and loneliness in this +speculation. He sat, trying all Being, on this score, under the +cold indifferent stars.</p> +<p>He thought of certain instances of boyish cruelty that had +horrified him in his own boyhood, and it was clear to him that +indeed it was not cruelty, it was curiosity, dense textured, thick +skinned, so that it could not feel even the anguish of a blinded +cat. Those boys who had wrung his childish soul to nigh intolerable +misery, had not indeed been tormenting so much as observing +torment, testing life as wantonly as one breaks thin ice in the +early days of winter. In very much cruelty the real motive is +surely no worse than that obtuse curiosity; a mere step of +understanding, a mere quickening of the nerves and mind, makes it +impossible. But that is not true of all or most cruelty. Most +cruelty has something else in it, something more than the clumsy +plunging into experience of the hobbledehoy; it is vindictive or +indignant; it is never tranquil and sensuous; it draws its +incentive, however crippled and monstrous the justification may be, +from something punitive in man's instinct, something therefore that +implies a sense, however misguided, of righteousness and +vindication. That factor is present even in spite; when some vile +or atrocious thing is done out of envy or malice, that envy and +malice has in it always—<i>always?</i> Yes, always—a +genuine condemnation of the hated thing as an unrighteous thing, as +an unjust usurpation, as an inexcusable privilege, as a sinful +overconfidence. Those men in the airship?—he was coming to +that. He found himself asking himself whether it was possible for a +human being to do any cruel act without an excuse—or, at +least, without the feeling of excusability. And in the case of +these Germans and the outrages they had committed and the +retaliations they had provoked, he perceived that always there was +the element of a perceptible if inadequate justification. Just as +there would be if presently he were to maltreat a fallen +German<a name="Page_302"></a> airman. There was anger in their +vileness. These Germans were an unsubtle people, a people in the +worst and best sense of the words, plain and honest; they were +prone to moral indignation; and moral indignation is the mother of +most of the cruelty in the world. They perceived the indolence of +the English and Russians, they perceived their disregard of science +and system, they could not perceive the longer reach of these +greater races, and it seemed to them that the mission of Germany +was to chastise and correct this laxity. Surely, they had argued, +God was not on the side of those who kept an untilled field. So +they had butchered these old ladies and slaughtered these children +just to show us the consequences:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"All along of dirtiness, all along of mess,</p> +<p>All along of doing things rather more or less."</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The very justification our English poet has found for a thousand +overbearing actions in the East! "Forget not order and the real," +that was the underlying message of bomb and gas and submarine. +After all, what right had we English <i>not</i> to have a gun or an +aeroplane fit to bring down that Zeppelin ignominiously and +conclusively? Had we not undertaken Empire? Were we not the leaders +of great nations? Had we indeed much right to complain if our +imperial pose was flouted? "There, at least," said Mr. Britling's +reason, "is one of the lines of thought that brought that unseen +cruelty out of the night high over the houses of Filmington-on-Sea. +That, in a sense, is the cause of this killing. Cruel it is and +abominable, yes, but is it altogether cruel? Hasn't it, after all, +a sort of stupid rightness?—isn't it a stupid reaction to an +indolence at least equally stupid?"</p> +<p>What was this rightness that lurked below cruelty? What was the +inspiration of this pressure of spite, this anger that was aroused +by ineffective gentleness and kindliness? Was it indeed an +altogether evil thing; was it not rather an impulse, blind as yet, +but in its ultimate<a name="Page_303"></a> quality <i>as good as +mercy</i>, greater perhaps in its ultimate values than mercy?</p> +<p>This idea had been gathering in Mr. Britling's mind for many +weeks; it had been growing and taking shape as he wrote, making +experimental beginnings for his essay, "The Anatomy of Hate." Is +there not, he now asked himself plainly, a creative and corrective +impulse behind all hate? Is not this malignity indeed only the +ape-like precursor of the great disciplines of a creative +state?</p> +<p>The invincible hopefulness of his sanguine temperament had now +got Mr. Britling well out of the pessimistic pit again. Already he +had been on the verge of his phrase while wandering across the +rushy fields towards Market Saffron; now it came to him again like +a legitimate monarch returning from exile.</p> +<p>"When hate shall have become creative energy....</p> +<p>"Hate which passes into creative power; gentleness which is +indolence and the herald of euthanasia....</p> +<p>"Pity is but a passing grace; for mankind will not always be +pitiful."</p> +<p>But meanwhile, meanwhile.... How long were men so to mingle +wrong with right, to be energetic without mercy and kindly without +energy?...</p> +<p>For a time Mr. Britling sat on the lonely parade under the stars +and in the sound of the sea, brooding upon these ideas.</p> +<p>His mind could make no further steps. It had worked for its +spell. His rage had ebbed away now altogether. His despair was no +longer infinite. But the world was dark and dreadful still. It +seemed none the less dark because at the end there was a gleam of +light. It was a gleam of light far beyond the limits of his own +life, far beyond the life of his son. It had no balm for these +sufferings. Between it and himself stretched the weary generations +still to come, generations of bickering and accusation, greed and +faintheartedness, and half truth and<a name="Page_304"></a> the +hasty blow. And all those years would be full of pitiful things, +such pitiful things as the blackened ruins in the town behind, the +little grey-faced corpses, the lives torn and wasted, the hopes +extinguished and the gladness gone....</p> +<p>He was no longer thinking of the Germans as diabolical. They +were human; they had a case. It was a stupid case, but our case, +too, was a stupid case. How stupid were all our cases! What was it +we missed? Something, he felt, very close to us, and very elusive. +Something that would resolve a hundred tangled oppositions....</p> +<p>His mind hung at that. Back upon his consciousness came crowding +the horrors and desolations that had been his daily food now for +three quarters of a year. He groaned aloud. He struggled against +that renewed envelopment of his spirit. "Oh, blood-stained fools!" +he cried, "oh, pitiful, tormented fools!</p> +<p>"Even that vile airship was a ship of fools!</p> +<p>"We are all fools still. Striving apes, irritated beyond measure +by our own striving, easily moved to anger."</p> +<p>Some train of subconscious suggestion brought a long-forgotten +speech back into Mr. Britling's mind, a speech that is full of that +light which still seeks so mysteriously and indefatigably to break +through the darkness and thickness of the human mind.</p> +<p>He whispered the words. No unfamiliar words could have had the +same effect of comfort and conviction.</p> +<p>He whispered it of those men whom he still imagined flying far +away there eastward, through the clear freezing air beneath the +stars, those muffled sailors and engineers who had caused so much +pain and agony in this little town.</p> +<p>"<i>Father, forgive them, for they know not what they +do.</i>"</p> +<a name="Page_305"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_THE_FOURTH"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FOURTH</h2> +<h2>IN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>Hugh's letters were becoming a very important influence upon Mr. +Britling's thought. Hugh had always been something of a +letter-writer, and now what was perhaps an inherited desire to set +things down was manifest. He had been accustomed to decorate his +letters from school with absurd little sketches—sometimes his +letters had been all sketches—and now he broke from drawing +to writing and back to drawing in a way that pleased his father +mightily. The father loved this queer trick of caricature; he did +not possess it himself, and so it seemed to him the most wonderful +of all Hugh's little equipment of gifts. Mr. Britling used to carry +these letters about until their edges got grimy; he would show them +to any one he felt capable of appreciating their youthful +freshness; he would quote them as final and conclusive evidence to +establish this or that. He did not dream how many thousands of +mothers and fathers were treasuring such documents. He thought +other sons were dull young men by comparison with Hugh.</p> +<p>The earlier letters told much of the charms of discipline and +the open air. "All the bother about what one has to do with oneself +is over," wrote Hugh. "One has disposed of oneself. That has the +effect of a great relief. Instead of telling oneself that one ought +to get up in the morning, a bugle tells you that.... And there's no +nonsense about it, no chance of lying and arguing about it with +oneself.... I begin to see the sense of men going into monasteries +and putting themselves under rules. One<a name="Page_306"></a> is +carried along in a sort of moral automobile instead of trudging the +road...."</p> +<p>And he was also sounding new physical experiences.</p> +<p>"Never before," he declared, "have I known what fatigue is. It's +a miraculous thing. One drops down in one's clothes on any hard old +thing and sleeps...."</p> +<p>And in his early letters he was greatly exercised by the +elementary science of drill and discipline, and the discussion of +whether these things were necessary. He began by assuming that +their importance was overrated. He went on to discover that they +constituted the very essentials of all good soldiering. "In a +crisis," he concluded, "there is no telling what will get hold of a +man, his higher instincts or his lower. He may show courage of a +very splendid sort—or a hasty discretion. A habit is much +more trustworthy than an instinct. So discipline sets up a habit of +steady and courageous bearing. If you keep your head you are at +liberty to be splendid. If you lose it, the habit will carry you +through."</p> +<p>The young man was also very profound upon the effects of the +suggestion of various exercises upon the mind.</p> +<p>"It is surprising how bloodthirsty one feels in a bayonet +charge. We have to shout; we are encouraged to shout. The effect is +to paralyse one's higher centres. One ceases to +question—anything. One becomes a 'bayoneteer.' As I go +bounding forward I imagine fat men, succulent men ahead, and I am +filled with the desire to do them in neatly. This sort of +thing—"</p> +<p>A sketch of slaughter followed, with a large and valiant Hugh +leaving a train of fallen behind him.</p> +<p>"Not like this. This is how I used to draw it in my innocent +childhood, but it is incorrect. More than one German on the bayonet +at a time is an incumbrance. And it would be swank—a thing we +detest in the army."</p> +<p>The second sketch showed the same brave hero with half a dozen +of the enemy skewered like cat's-meat.</p> +<p>"As for the widows and children, I disregard 'em."</p> +<a name="Page_307"></a><br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>But presently Hugh began to be bored.</p> +<p>"Route marching again," he wrote. "For no earthly reason than +that they can do nothing else with us. We are getting no decent +musketry training because there are no rifles. We are wasting half +our time. If you multiply half a week by the number of men in the +army you will see we waste centuries weekly.... If most of these +men here had just been enrolled and left to go about their business +while we trained officers and instructors and got equipment for +them, and if they had then been put through their paces as rapidly +as possible, it would have been infinitely better for the +country.... In a sort of way we are keeping raw; in a sort of way +we are getting stale.... I get irritated by this. I feel we are not +being properly done by.</p> +<p>"Half our men are educated men, reasonably educated, but we are +always being treated as though we were too stupid for words....</p> +<p>"No good grousing, I suppose, but after Statesminster and a +glimpse of old Cardinal's way of doing things, one gets a kind of +toothache in the mind at the sight of everything being done twice +as slowly and half as well as it need be."</p> +<p>He went off at a tangent to describe the men in his platoon. +"The best man in our lot is an ex-grocer's assistant, but in order +to save us from vain generalisations it happens that the worst +man—a moon-faced creature, almost incapable of lacing up his +boots without help and objurgation—is also an ex-grocer's +assistant. Our most offensive member is a little cad with a snub +nose, who has read Kipling and imagines he is the nearest thing +that ever has been to Private Ortheris. He goes about looking for +the other two of the Soldiers Three; it is rather like an unpopular +politician trying to form a ministry. And he is conscientiously +foul-mouthed. He feels<a name="Page_308"></a> losing a chance of +saying 'bloody' as acutely as a snob feels dropping an H. He goes +back sometimes and says the sentence over again and puts the +'bloody' in. I used to swear a little out of the range of your +parental ear, but Ortheris has cured me. When he is about I am +mincing in my speech. I perceive now that cursing is a way of +chewing one's own dirt. In a platoon there is no elbow-room for +indifference; you must either love or hate. I have a feeling that +my first taste of battle will not be with Germans, but with Private +Ortheris...."</p> +<p>And one letter was just a picture, a parody of the well-known +picture of the bivouac below and the soldier's dream of return to +his beloved above. But Master Hugh in the dream was embracing an +enormous retort, while a convenient galvanometer registered his +emotion and little tripods danced around him.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>Then came a letter which plunged abruptly into criticism.</p> +<p>"My dear Parent, this is a swearing letter. I must let go to +somebody. And somehow none of the other chaps are convenient. I +don't know if I ought to be put against a wall and shot for it, but +I hereby declare that all the officers of this battalion over and +above the rank of captain are a constellation of +incapables—and several of the captains are herewith included. +Some of them are men of a pleasant disposition and carefully +aborted mental powers, and some are men of an unpleasant +disposition and no mental powers at all. And I believe—a +little enlightened by your recent letter to <i>The +Times</i>—that they are a fair sample of the entire 'army' +class which has got to win this war. Usually they are indolent, but +when they are thoroughly roused they are fussy. The time they +should spend in enlarging their minds and increasing their military +efficiency they devote to keeping<a name="Page_309"></a> fit. They +are, roughly speaking, fit—for nothing. They cannot move us +thirty miles without getting half of us left about, without losing +touch with food and shelter, and starving us for thirty-six hours +or so in the process, and they cannot count beyond the fingers of +one hand, not having learnt to use the nose for arithmetical +operations.... I conclude this war is going to be a sort of Battle +of Inkerman on a large scale. We chaps in the ranks will have to do +the job. Leading is 'off.'...</p> +<p>"All of this, my dear Parent, is just a blow off. I have been +needlessly starved, and fagged to death and exasperated. We have +moved five-and-twenty miles across country—in fifty-seven +hours. And without food for about eighteen hours. I have been with +my Captain, who has been billeting us here in Cheasingholt. Oh, he +is a MUFF! Oh God! oh God of Heaven! what a MUFF! He is afraid of +printed matter, but he controls himself heroically. He prides +himself upon having no 'sense of locality, confound it!' Prides +himself! He went about this village, which is a little dispersed, +at a slight trot, and wouldn't avail himself of the one-inch map I +happened to have. He judged the capacity of each room with his eye +and wouldn't let me measure, even with God's own paces. Not with +the legs I inherit. 'We'll put five fellahs hea!' he said. 'What +d'you want to measure the room for? We haven't come to lay down +carpets.' Then, having assigned men by <i>coup d'oeil</i>, so as to +congest half the village miserably, he found the other half +unoccupied and had to begin all over again. 'If you measured the +floor space first, sir,' I said, 'and made a list of the +houses—' 'That isn't the way I'm going to do it,' he said, +fixing me with a pitiless eye....</p> +<p>"That isn't the way they are going to do it, Daddy! The sort of +thing that is done over here in the green army will be done over +there in the dry. They won't be in time; they'll lose their guns +where now they lose our kitchens. I'm a mute soldier; I've got to +do what I'm<a name="Page_310"></a> told; still, I begin to +understand the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.</p> +<p>"They say the relations of men and officers in the new army are +beautiful. Some day I may learn to love my officer—but not +just yet. Not till I've forgotten the operations leading up to the +occupation of Cheasingholt.... He muffs his real job without a +blush, and yet he would rather be shot than do his bootlaces up +criss-cross. What I say about officers applies only and solely to +him really.... How well I understand now the shooting of officers +by their men.... But indeed, fatigue and exasperation apart, this +shift has been done atrociously...."</p> +<p>The young man returned to these criticisms in a later +letter.</p> +<p>"You will think I am always carping, but it does seem to me that +nearly everything is being done here in the most wasteful way +possible. We waste time, we waste labour, we waste material, oh +Lord! how we waste our country's money. These aren't, I can assure +you, the opinions of a conceited young man. It's nothing to be +conceited about.... We're bored to death by standing about this +infernal little village. There is nothing to do—except trail +after a small number of slatternly young women we despise and hate. +I <i>don't</i>, Daddy. And I don't drink. Why have I inherited no +vices? We had a fight here yesterday—sheer boredom. Ortheris +has a swollen lip, and another private has a bad black eye. There +is to be a return match. I perceive the chief horror of warfare is +boredom....</p> +<p>"Our feeding here is typical of the whole system. It is a system +invented not with any idea of getting the best results—that +does not enter into the War Office philosophy—but to have a +rule for everything, and avoid arguments. There is rather too +generous an allowance of bread and stuff per man, and there is a +very fierce but not very efficient system of weighing and checking. +A rather<a name="Page_311"></a> too generous allowance is, of +course, a direct incentive to waste or stealing—as any one +but our silly old duffer of a War Office would know. The checking +is for quantity, which any fool can understand, rather than for +quality. The test for the quality of army meat is the smell. If it +doesn't smell bad, it is good....</p> +<p>"Then the raw material is handed over to a cook. He is a common +soldier who has been made into a cook by a simple ceremony. He is +told, 'You are a cook.' He does his best to be. Usually he roasts +or bakes to begin with, guessing when the joint is done, afterwards +he hacks up what is left of his joints and makes a stew for next +day. A stew is hacked meat boiled up in a big pot. It has much fat +floating on the top. After you have eaten your fill you want to sit +about quiet. The men are fed usually in a large tent or barn. We +have a barn. It is not a clean barn, and just to make it more like +a picnic there are insufficient plates, knives and forks. (I tell +you, no army people can count beyond eight or ten.) The corporals +after their morning's work have to carve. When they have done +carving they tell me they feel they have had enough dinner. They +sit about looking pale, and wander off afterwards to the village +pub. (I shall probably become a corporal soon.) In these islands +before the war began there was a surplus of women over men of about +a million. (See the publications of the Fabian Society, now so +popular among the young.) None of these women have been trusted by +the government with the difficult task of cooking and giving out +food to our soldiers. No man of the ordinary soldier class ever +cooks anything until he is a soldier.... All food left over after +the stew or otherwise rendered uneatable by the cook is thrown +away. We throw away pail-loads. <i>We bury meat</i>....</p> +<p>"Also we get three pairs of socks. We work pretty hard. We don't +know how to darn socks. When the heels wear through, come blisters. +Bad blisters disable a man. Of the million of surplus women (see +above) the government<a name="Page_312"></a> has not had the +intelligence to get any to darn our socks. So a certain percentage +of us go lame. And so on. And so on.</p> +<p>"You will think all this is awful grousing, but the point I want +to make—I hereby to ease my feelings make it now in a fair +round hand—is that all this business could be done far better +and far cheaper if it wasn't left to these absolutely inexperienced +and extremely exclusive military gentlemen. They think they are +leading England and showing us all how; instead of which they are +just keeping us back. Why in thunder are they doing everything? Not +one of them, when he is at home, is allowed to order the dinner or +poke his nose into his own kitchen or check the household books.... +The ordinary British colonel is a helpless old gentleman; he ought +to have a nurse.... This is not merely the trivial grievance of my +insulted stomach, it is a serious matter for the country. Sooner or +later the country may want the food that is being wasted in all +these capers. In the aggregate it must amount to a daily +destruction of tons of stuff of all sorts. Tons.... Suppose the war +lasts longer than we reckon!"</p> +<p>From this point Hugh's letter jumped to a general discussion of +the military mind.</p> +<p>"Our officers are beastly good chaps, nearly all of them. That's +where the perplexity of the whole thing comes in. If only they +weren't such good chaps! If only they were like the Prussian +officers to their men, then we'd just take on a revolution as well +as the war, and make everything tidy at once. But they are decent, +they are charming.... Only they do not think hard, and they do not +understand that doing a job properly means doing it as directly and +thought-outly as you possibly can. They won't worry about things. +If their tempers were worse perhaps their work might be better. +They won't use maps or timetables or books of reference. When we +move to a new place they pick up what they can about it by hearsay; +not<a name="Page_313"></a> one of our lot has the gumption to +possess a contoured map or a Michelin guide. They have hearsay +minds. They are fussy and petty and wasteful—and, in the way +of getting things done, pretentious. By their code they're paragons +of honour. Courage—they're all right about that; no end of +it; honesty, truthfulness, and so on—high. They have a kind +of horsey standard of smartness and pluck, too, that isn't bad, and +they have a fine horror of whiskers and being unbuttoned. But the +mistake they make is to class thinking with whiskers, as a sort of +fussy sidegrowth. Instead of classing it with unbuttonedupness. +They hate economy. And preparation....</p> +<p>"They won't see that inefficiency is a sort of dishonesty. If a +man doesn't steal sixpence, they think it a light matter if he +wastes half a crown. Here follows wisdom! <i>From the point of view +of a nation at war, sixpence is just a fifth part of half a +crown</i>....</p> +<p>"When I began this letter I was boiling with indignation, +complicated, I suspect, by this morning's 'stew'; now I have +written thus far I feel I'm an ungenerous grumbler.... It is +remarkable, my dear Parent, that I let off these things to you. I +like writing to you. I couldn't possibly say the things I can +write. Heinrich had a confidential friend at Breslau to whom he +used to write about his Soul. I never had one of those Teutonic +friendships. And I haven't got a Soul. But I have to write. One +must write to some one—and in this place there is nothing +else to do. And now the old lady downstairs is turning down the +gas; she always does at half-past ten. She didn't ought. She +gets—ninepence each. Excuse the pencil...."</p> +<p>That letter ended abruptly. The next two were brief and +cheerful. Then suddenly came a new note.</p> +<p>"We've got rifles! We're real armed soldiers at last. Every +blessed man has got a rifle. And they come from Japan! They are of +a sort of light wood that is like new<a name="Page_314"></a> oak +and art furniture, and makes one feel that one belongs to the First +Garden Suburb Regiment; but I believe much can be done with linseed +oil. And they are real rifles, they go bang. We are a little +light-headed about them. Only our training and discipline prevent +our letting fly at incautious spectators on the skyline. I saw a +man yesterday about half a mile off. I was possessed by the idea +that I could get him—right in the middle.... Ortheris, the +little beast, has got a motor-bicycle, which he calls his +'b——y oto'—no one knows why—and only death +or dishonourable conduct will save me, I gather, from becoming a +corporal in the course of the next month...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>A subsequent letter threw fresh light on the career of the young +man with the "oto." Before the rifle and the "oto," and in spite of +his fights with some person or persons unknown, Ortheris found +trouble. Hugh told the story with the unblushing +<i>savoir-faire</i> of the very young.</p> +<p>"By the by, Ortheris, following the indications of his creator +and succumbing to the universal boredom before the rifles came, +forgot Lord Kitchener's advice and attempted 'seduktion.' With +painful results which he insists upon confiding to the entire +platoon. He has been severely smacked and scratched by the proposed +victim, and warned off the premises (licensed premises) by her +father and mother—both formidable persons. They did more than +warn him off the premises. They had displayed neither a proper +horror of Don Juan nor a proper respect for the King's uniform. +Mother, we realise, got hold of him and cuffed him severely. 'What +the 'ell's a chap to do?' cried Ortheris. 'You can't go 'itting a +woman back.' Father had set a dog on him. A less ingenuous +character would be silent about such passages—I should be too +egotistical and humiliated altogether—but that is not his +quality. He tells<a name="Page_315"></a> us in tones of naïve +wonder. He talks about it and talks about it. 'I don't care what +the old woman did,' he says, 'not—reely. What 'urts me about +it is that I jest made a sort of mistake 'ow <i>she'd</i> tike it. +You see, I sort of feel I've 'urt and insulted <i>'er</i>. And +reely I didn't mean to. Swap me, I didn't mean to. Gawd 'elp me. I +wouldn't 'ave 'ad it 'appened as it 'as 'appened, not for worlds. +And now I can't get round to 'er, or anyfing, not to explain.... +You chaps may laugh, but you don't know what there is <i>in</i> +it.... I tell you it worries me something frightful. You think I'm +just a little cad who took liberties he didn't ought to. (Note of +anger drowning uncharitable grunts of assent.) 'Ow the 'ell is 'e +to know <i>when</i> 'e didn't ought to? ... I <i>swear</i> she +liked me....'</p> +<p>"This kind of thing goes on for hours—in the darkness.</p> +<p>"'I'd got regular sort of fond of 'er.'</p> +<p>"And the extraordinary thing is it makes me begin to get regular +fond of Ortheris.</p> +<p>"I think it is because the affair has surprised him right out of +acting Ortheris and Tommy Atkins for a bit, into his proper self. +He's frightfully like some sort of mongrel with a lot of +wiry-haired terrier and a touch of Airedale in it. A mongrel you +like in spite of the flavour of all the horrid things he's been +nosing into. And he's as hard as nails and, my dear daddy! he can't +box for nuts."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling, with an understanding much quickened by Hugh's +letters, went about Essex in his automobile, and on one or two +journeys into Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, and marked the steady +conversion of the old pacific countryside into an armed camp. He +was disposed to minimise Hugh's criticisms. He found in them +something of the harshness of youth, which is far too +keen-edged<a name="Page_316"></a> to be tolerant with half +performance and our poor human evasion of perfection's overstrain. +"Our poor human evasion of perfection's overstrain"; this phrase +was Mr. Britling's. To Mr. Britling, looking less closely and more +broadly, the new army was a pride and a marvel.</p> +<p>He liked to come into some quiet village and note the clusters +of sturdy khaki-clad youngsters going about their business, the +tethered horses, the air of subdued bustle, the occasional glimpses +of guns and ammunition trains. Wherever one went now there were +soldiers and still more soldiers. There was a steady flow of men +into Flanders, and presently to Gallipoli, but it seemed to have no +effect upon the multitude in training at home. He was pleasantly +excited by the evident increase in the proportion of military +material upon the railways; he liked the promise and mystery of the +long lines of trucks bearing tarpaulin-covered wagons and carts and +guns that he would pass on his way to Liverpool Street station. He +could apprehend defeat in the silence of the night, but when he saw +the men, when he went about the land, then it was impossible to +believe in any end but victory....</p> +<p>But through the spring and summer there was no victory. The +"great offensive" of May was checked and abandoned after a series +of ineffective and very costly attacks between Ypres and Soissons. +The Germans had developed a highly scientific defensive in which +machine-guns replaced rifles and a maximum of punishment was +inflicted upon an assaulting force with a minimum of human loss. +The War Office had never thought much of machine-guns before, but +now it thought a good deal. Moreover, the energies of Britain were +being turned more and more towards the Dardanelles.</p> +<p>The idea of an attack upon the Dardanelles had a traditional +attractiveness for the British mind. Old men had been brought up +from childhood with "forcing the Dardanelles" as a familiar phrase; +it had none of the<a name="Page_317"></a> flighty novelty and +vulgarity about it that made an "aerial offensive" seem so +unwarrantable a proceeding. Forcing the Dardanelles was +historically British. It made no break with tradition. Soon after +Turkey entered the war British submarines appeared in the Sea of +Marmora, and in February a systematic bombardment of the +Dardanelles began; this was continued intermittently for a month, +the defenders profiting by their experiences and by spells of bad +weather to strengthen their works. This first phase of the attack +culminated in the loss of the <i>Irresistible</i>, <i>Ocean</i>, +and <i>Bouvet</i>, when on the 17th of March the attacking fleet +closed in upon the Narrows. After an interlude of six weeks to +allow of further preparations on the part of the defenders, who +were now thoroughly alive to what was coming, the Allied armies +gathered upon the scene, and a difficult and costly landing was +achieved at two points upon the peninsula of Gallipoli. With that +began a slow and bloody siege of the defences of the Dardanelles, +clambering up to the surprise landing of a fresh British army in +Suvla Bay in August, and its failure in the battle of Anafarta, +through incompetent commanders and a general sloppiness of leading, +to cut off and capture Maidos and the Narrows defences.... +Meanwhile the Russian hosts, which had reached their high-water +mark in the capture of Przemysl, were being forced back first in +the south and then in the north. The Germans recaptured Lemberg, +entered Warsaw, and pressed on to take Brest Litowsk. The Russian +lines rolled back with an impressive effect of defeat, and the +Germans thrust towards Riga and Petrograd, reaching Vilna about the +middle of September....</p> +<p>Day after day Mr. Britling traced the swaying fortunes of the +conflict, with impatience, with perplexity, but with no loss of +confidence in the ultimate success of Britain. The country was +still swarming with troops, and still under summer sunshine. A +second hay harvest redeemed the<a name="Page_318"></a> scantiness +of the first, the wheat crops were wonderful, and the great fig +tree at the corner of the Dower House had never borne so +bountifully nor such excellent juicy figs....</p> +<p>And one day in early June while those figs were still only a +hope, Teddy appeared at the Dower House with Letty, to say good-bye +before going to the front. He was going out in a draft to fill up +various gaps and losses; he did not know where. Essex was doing +well but bloodily over there. Mrs. Britling had tea set out upon +the lawn under the blue cedar, and Mr. Britling found himself at a +loss for appropriate sayings, and talked in his confusion almost as +though Teddy's departure was of no significance at all. He was +still haunted by that odd sense of responsibility for Teddy. Teddy +was not nearly so animated as he had been in his pre-khaki days; +there was a quiet exaltation in his manner rather than a lively +excitement. He knew now what he was in for. He knew now that war +was not a lark, that for him it was to be the gravest experience he +had ever had or was likely to have. There were no more jokes about +Letty's pension, and a general avoidance of the topics of high +explosives and asphyxiating gas....</p> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Britling took the young people to the gate.</p> +<p>"Good luck!" cried Mr. Britling as they receded.</p> +<p>Teddy replied with a wave of the hand.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling stood watching them for some moments as they walked +towards the little cottage which was to be the scene of their +private parting.</p> +<p>"I don't like his going," he said. "I hope it will be all right +with him.... Teddy's so grave nowadays. It's a mean thing, I know, +it has none of the Roman touch, but I am glad that this can't +happen with Hugh——" He computed. "Not for a year and +three months, even if they march him into it upon his very +birthday....</p> +<p>"It may all he over by then...."</p> +<a name="Page_319"></a><br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>In that computation he reckoned without Hugh.</p> +<p>Within a month Hugh was also saying "Good-bye."</p> +<p>"But how's this?" protested Mr. Britling, who had already +guessed the answer. "You're not nineteen."</p> +<p>"I'm nineteen enough for this job," said Hugh. "In fact, I +enlisted as nineteen."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling said nothing for a little while. Then he spoke with +a catch in his breath. "I don't blame you," he said. "It +was—the right spirit."</p> +<p>Drill and responsibilities of non-commissioned rank had imposed +a novel manliness upon the bearing of Corporal Britling. "I always +classified a little above my age at Statesminster," he said as +though that cleared up everything.</p> +<p>He looked at a rosebud as though it interested him. Then he +remarked rather casually:</p> +<p>"I thought," he said, "that if I was to go to war I'd better do +the thing properly. It seemed—sort of half and half—not +to be eligible for the trenches.... I ought to have told +you...."</p> +<p>"Yes," Mr. Britling decided.</p> +<p>"I was shy about it at first.... I thought perhaps the war would +be over before it was necessary to discuss anything.... Didn't want +to go into it."</p> +<p>"Exactly," said Mr. Britling as though that was a complete +explanation.</p> +<p>"It's been a good year for your roses," said Hugh.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>Hugh was to stop the night. He spent what seemed to him and +every one a long, shy, inexpressive evening. Only the small boys +were really natural and animated. They were much impressed and +excited by his departure, and wanted to ask a hundred questions +about the life in<a name="Page_320"></a> the trenches. Many of them +Hugh had to promise to answer when he got there. Then he would see +just exactly how things were. Mrs. Britling was motherly and +intelligent about his outfit. "Will you want winter things?" she +asked....</p> +<p>But when he was alone with his father after every one had gone +to bed they found themselves able to talk.</p> +<p>"This sort of thing seems more to us than it would be to a +French family," Hugh remarked, standing on the hearthrug.</p> +<p>"Yes," agreed Mr. Britling. "Their minds would be better +prepared.... They'd have their appropriate things to say. They have +been educated by the tradition of service—and '71."</p> +<p>Then he spoke—almost resentfully.</p> +<p>"The older men ought to go before you boys. Who is to carry on +if a lot of you get killed?"</p> +<p>Hugh reflected. "In the stiffest battle that ever can be the +odds are against getting killed," he said.</p> +<p>"I suppose they are."</p> +<p>"One in three or four in the very hottest corners."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling expressed no satisfaction.</p> +<p>"Every one is going through something of this sort."</p> +<p>"All the decent people, at any rate," said Mr. Britling....</p> +<p>"It will be an extraordinary experience. Somehow it seems out of +proportion—"</p> +<p>"With what?"</p> +<p>"With life generally. As one has known it."</p> +<p>"It isn't in proportion," Mr. Britling admitted.</p> +<p>"Incommensurables," said Hugh.</p> +<p>He considered his phrasing. "It's not," he said, "as though one +was going into another part of the same world, or turning up +another side of the world one was used to. It is just as if one had +been living in a room and one had been asked to step outside.... It +makes me think of a queer little thing that happened when I was in +London<a name="Page_321"></a> last winter. I got into Queer +Company. I don't think I told you. I went to have supper with some +students in Chelsea. I hadn't been to the place before, but they +seemed all right—just people like me—and everybody. And +after supper they took me on to some people <i>they</i> didn't know +very well; people who had to do with some School of Dramatic Art. +There were two or three young actresses there and a singer and +people of that sort, sitting about smoking cigarettes, and we began +talking plays and books and picture shows and all that stuff; and +suddenly there was a knocking at the door and some one went out and +found a policeman with a warrant on the landing. They took off our +host's son.... It had to do with a murder...."</p> +<p>Hugh paused. "It was the Bedford Mansions mystery. I don't +suppose you remember about it or read about it at the time. He'd +killed a man.... It doesn't matter about the particulars anyhow, +but what I mean is the effect. The effect of a comfortable well-lit +orderly room and the sense of harmless people—and then the +door opening and the policeman and the cold draught flowing in. +<i>Murder!</i> A girl who seemed to know the people well explained +to me in whispers what was happening. It was like the opening of a +trap-door going down into some pit you have always known was there, +but never really believed in."</p> +<p>"I know," said Mr. Britling. "I know."</p> +<p>"That's just how I feel about this war business. There's no real +death over here. It's laid out and boxed up. And accidents are all +padded about. If one got a toss from a horse here, you'd be in bed +and comfortable in no time.... And there; it's like another planet. +It's outside.... I'm going outside.... Instead of there being no +death anywhere, it is death everywhere, outside there. We shall be +using our utmost wits to kill each other. A kind of reverse to this +world."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling nodded.</p> +<a name="Page_322"></a> +<p>"I've never seen a dead body yet. In Dower-House land there +aren't dead bodies."</p> +<p>"We've kept things from you—horrid things of that +sort."</p> +<p>"I'm not complaining," said Hugh.... "But—Master +Hugh—the Master Hugh you kept things from—will never +come back."</p> +<p>He went on quickly as his father raised distressed eyes to him. +"I mean that anyhow <i>this</i> Hugh will never come back. Another +one may. But I shall have been outside, and it will all be +different...."</p> +<p>He paused. Never had Mr. Britling been so little disposed to +take up the discourse.</p> +<p>"Like a man," he said, seeking an image and doing no more than +imitate his son's; "who goes out of a busy lighted room through a +trap-door into a blizzard, to mend the roof...."</p> +<p>For some moments neither father nor son said anything more. They +had a queer sense of insurmountable insufficiency. Neither was +saying what he had wanted to say to the other, but it was not clear +to them now what they had to say to one another....</p> +<p>"It's wonderful," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>Hugh could only manage: "The world has turned right +over...."</p> +<p>"The job has to be done," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"The job has to be done," said Hugh.</p> +<p>The pause lengthened.</p> +<p>"You'll be getting up early to-morrow," said Mr. +Britling....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>When Mr. Britling was alone in his own room all the thoughts and +feelings that had been held up downstairs began to run more and +more rapidly and abundantly through his mind.</p> +<a name="Page_323"></a> +<p>He had a feeling—every now and again in the last few years +he had had the same feeling—as though he was only just +beginning to discover Hugh. This perpetual rediscovery of one's +children is the experience of every observant parent. He had always +considered Hugh as a youth, and now a man stood over him and +talked, as one man to another. And this man, this very new man, +mint new and clean and clear, filled Mr. Britling with surprise and +admiration.</p> +<p>It was as if he perceived the beauty of youth for the first time +in Hugh's slender, well balanced, khaki-clad body. There was +infinite delicacy in his clear complexion, his clear eyes; the +delicately pencilled eyebrow that was so exactly like his mother's. +And this thing of brightness and bravery talked as gravely and as +wisely as any weather-worn, shop-soiled, old fellow....</p> +<p>The boy was wise.</p> +<p>Hugh thought for himself; he thought round and through his +position, not egotistically but with a quality of responsibility. +He wasn't just hero-worshipping and imitating, just spinning some +self-centred romance. If he was a fair sample of his generation +then it was a better generation than Mr. Britling's had +been....</p> +<p>At that Mr. Britling's mind went off at a tangent to the +grievance of the rejected volunteer. It was acutely shameful to him +that all these fine lads should be going off to death and wounds +while the men of forty and over lay snug at home. How stupid it was +to fix things like that! Here were the fathers, who had done their +work, shot their bolts, returned some value for the costs of their +education, unable to get training, unable to be of any service, +shamefully safe, doing April fool work as special constables; while +their young innocents, untried, all their gathering possibilities +of service unbroached, went down into the deadly trenches.... The +war would leave the world a world of cripples and old men and +children....</p> +<p>He felt himself as a cowardly brute, fat, wheezy, out of<a name= +"Page_324"></a> training, sheltering behind this dear one branch of +Mary's life.</p> +<p>He writhed with impotent humiliation....</p> +<p>How stupidly the world is managed.</p> +<p>He began to fret and rage. He could not lie in peace in his bed; +he got up and prowled about his room, blundering against chairs and +tables in the darkness.... We were too stupid to do the most +obvious things; we were sending all these boys into hardship and +pitiless danger; we were sending them ill-equipped, insufficiently +supported, we were sending our children through the fires to +Moloch, because essentially we English were a world of indolent, +pampered, sham good-humoured, old and middle-aged men. (So he +distributed the intolerable load of self-accusation.) Why was he +doing nothing to change things, to get them better? What was the +good of an assumed modesty, an effort at tolerance for and +confidence in these boozy old lawyers, these ranting platform men, +these stiff-witted officers and hide-bound officials? They were +butchering the youth of England. Old men sat out of danger +contriving death for the lads in the trenches. That was the reality +of the thing. "My son!" he cried sharply in the darkness. His sense +of our national deficiencies became tormentingly, fantastically +acute. It was as if all his cherished delusions had fallen from the +scheme of things.... What was the good of making believe that up +there they were planning some great counter-stroke that would end +in victory? It was as plain as daylight that they had neither the +power of imagination nor the collective intelligence even to +conceive of a counter-stroke. Any dull mass may resist, but only +imagination can strike. Imagination! To the end we should not +strike. We might strike through the air. We might strike across the +sea. We might strike hard at Gallipoli instead of dribbling +inadequate armies thither as our fathers dribbled men at the +Redan.... But the old men would sit at their tables, replete and +sleepy, and shake<a name="Page_325"></a> their cunning old heads. +The press would chatter and make odd ambiguous sounds like a +shipload of monkeys in a storm. The political harridans would get +the wrong men appointed, would attack every possible leader with +scandal and abuse and falsehood....</p> +<p>The spirit and honour and drama had gone out of this war.</p> +<p>Our only hope now was exhaustion. Our only strategy was to +barter blood for blood—trusting that our tank would prove the +deeper....</p> +<p>While into this tank stepped Hugh, young and smiling....</p> +<p>The war became a nightmare vision....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>In the morning Mr. Britling's face was white from his overnight +brain storm, and Hugh's was fresh from wholesome sleep. They walked +about the lawn, and Mr. Britling talked hopefully of the general +outlook until it was time for them to start to the station....</p> +<p>The little old station-master grasped the situation at once, and +presided over their last hand-clasp.</p> +<p>"Good luck, Hugh!" cried Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Good luck!" cried the little old station-master.</p> +<p>"It's not easy a-parting," he said to Mr. Britling as the train +slipped down the line. "There's been many a parting hea' since this +here old war began. Many. And some as won't come back again +neether."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>For some days Mr. Britling could think of nothing but Hugh, and +always with a dull pain at his heart. He felt as he had felt long +ago while he had waited downstairs and Hugh upstairs had been under +the knife of a surgeon. But this time the operation went on and +still went on.<a name="Page_326"></a> At the worst his boy had but +one chance in five of death or serious injury, but for a time he +could think of nothing but that one chance. He felt it pressing +upon his mind, pressing him down....</p> +<p>Then instead of breaking under that pressure, he was released by +the trick of the sanguine temperament. His mind turned over, +abruptly, to the four chances out of five. It was like a dislocated +joint slipping back into place. It was as sudden as that. He found +he had adapted himself to the prospect of Hugh in mortal danger. It +had become a fact established, a usual thing. He could bear with it +and go about his affairs.</p> +<p>He went up to London, and met other men at the club in the same +emotional predicament. He realised that it was neither very +wonderful nor exceptionally tragic now to have a son at the +front.</p> +<p>"My boy is in Gallipoli," said one. "It's tough work there."</p> +<p>"My lad's in Flanders," said Mr. Britling. "Nothing would +satisfy him but the front. He's three months short of eighteen. He +misstated his age."</p> +<p>And they went on to talk newspaper just as if the world was +where it had always been.</p> +<p>But until a post card came from Hugh Mr. Britling watched the +postman like a lovesick girl.</p> +<p>Hugh wrote more frequently than his father had dared to hope, +pencilled letters for the most part. It was as if he was beginning +to feel an inherited need for talk, and was a little at a loss for +a sympathetic ear. Park, his schoolmate, who had enlisted with him, +wasn't, it seemed, a theoriser. "Park becomes a martinet," Hugh +wrote. "Also he is a sergeant now, and this makes rather a gulf +between us." Mr. Britling had the greatest difficulty in writing +back. There were many grave deep things he wanted to say, and never +did. Instead he gave elaborate details of the small affairs of the +Dower House. Once or twice, with a half-unconscious imitation of +his boy's<a name="Page_327"></a> style, he took a shot at the +theological and philosophical hares that Hugh had started. But the +exemplary letters that he composed of nights from a Father to a Son +at War were never written down. It was just as well, for there are +many things of that sort that are good to think and bad to +say....</p> +<p>Hugh was not very explicit about his position or daily duties. +What he wrote now had to pass through the hands of a Censor, and +any sort of definite information might cause the suppression of his +letter. Mr. Britling conceived him for the most part as quartered +some way behind the front, but in a flat, desolated country and +within hearing of great guns. He assisted his imagination with the +illustrated papers. Sometimes he put him farther back into pleasant +old towns after the fashion of Beauvais, and imagined loitering +groups in the front of cafés; sometimes he filled in the +obvious suggestions of the phrase that all the Pas de Calais was +now one vast British camp. Then he crowded the picture with +tethered horses and tents and grey-painted wagons, and Hugh in the +foreground—-bare-armed, with a bucket....</p> +<p>Hugh's letters divided themselves pretty fairly between two main +topics; the first was the interest of the art of war, the second +the reaction against warfare. "After one has got over the emotion +of it," he wrote, "and when one's mind has just accepted and +forgotten (as it does) the horrors and waste of it all, then I +begin to perceive that war is absolutely the best game in the +world. That is the real strength of war, I submit. Not as you put +it in that early pamphlet of yours; ambition, cruelty, and all +those things. Those things give an excuse for war, they rush timid +and base people into war, but the essential matter is the hold of +the thing itself upon an active imagination. It's such a big game. +Instead of being fenced into a field and tied down to one set of +tools as you are in almost every other game, you have all the world +to play and you may use whatever you can use. You can<a name= +"Page_328"></a> use every scrap of imagination and invention that +is in you. And it's wonderful.... But real soldiers aren't cruel. +And war isn't cruel in its essence. Only in its consequences. Over +here one gets hold of scraps of talk that light up things. Most of +the barbarities were done—it is quite clear—by an +excited civilian sort of men, men in a kind of inflamed state. The +great part of the German army in the early stage of the war was +really an army of demented civilians. Trained civilians no doubt, +but civilians in soul. They were nice orderly clean law-abiding men +suddenly torn up by the roots and flung into quite shocking +conditions. They felt they were rushing at death, and that decency +was at an end. They thought every Belgian had a gun behind the +hedge and a knife in his trouser leg. They saw villages burning and +dead people, and men smashed to bits. They lived in a kind of +nightmare. They didn't know what they were doing. They did horrible +things just as one does them sometimes in dreams...."</p> +<p>He flung out his conclusion with just his mother's leaping +consecutiveness. "Conscript soldiers are the ruin of war.... Half +the Germans and a lot of the French ought never to have been +brought within ten miles of a battlefield.</p> +<p>"What makes all this so plain are the diaries the French and +English have been finding on the dead. You know at the early state +of the war every German soldier was expected to keep a diary. He +was ordered to do it. The idea was to keep him interested in the +war. Consequently, from the dead and wounded our people have got +thousands.... It helps one to realise that the Germans aren't +really soldiers at all. Not as our men are. They are obedient, +law-abiding, intelligent people, who have been shoved into this. +They have to see the war as something romantic and melodramatic, or +as something moral, or as tragic fate. They have to bellow songs +about 'Deutschland,' or drag in 'Gott.' They<a name="Page_329"></a> +don't take to the game as our men take to the game....</p> +<p>"I confess I'm taking to the game. I wish at times I had gone +into the O.T.C. with Teddy, and got a better hold of it. I was too +high-browed about this war business. I dream now of getting a +commission....</p> +<p>"That diary-hunting strategy is just the sort of thing that +makes this war intellectually fascinating. Everything is being +thought out and then tried over that can possibly make victory. The +Germans go in for psychology much more than we do, just as they go +in for war more than we do, but they don't seem to be really clever +about it. So they set out to make all their men understand the war, +while our chaps are singing 'Tipperary.' But what the men put down +aren't the beautiful things they ought to put down; most of them +shove down lists of their meals, some of the diaries are all just +lists of things eaten, and a lot of them have written the most +damning stuff about outrages and looting. Which the French are +translating and publishing. The Germans would give anything now to +get back these silly diaries. And now they have made an order that +no one shall go into battle with any written papers at all.... Our +people got so keen on documenting and the value of chance writings +that one of the principal things to do after a German attack had +failed had been to hook in the documentary dead, and find out what +they had on them.... It's a curious sport, this body fishing. You +have a sort of triple hook on a rope, and you throw it and drag. +They do the same. The other day one body near Hooghe was hooked by +both sides, and they had a tug-of-war. With a sharpshooter or so +cutting in whenever our men got too excited. Several men were hit. +The Irish—it was an Irish regiment—got him—or at +least they got the better part of him....</p> +<p>"Now that I am a sergeant, Park talks to me again about all +these things, and we have a first lieutenant too keen to resist +such technical details. They are purely<a name="Page_330"></a> +technical details. You must take them as that. One does not think +of the dead body as a man recently deceased, who had perhaps a wife +and business connections and a weakness for oysters or pale brandy. +Or as something that laughed and cried and didn't like getting +hurt. That would spoil everything. One thinks of him merely as a +uniform with marks upon it that will tell us what kind of stuff we +have against us, and possibly with papers that will give us a hint +of how far he and his lot are getting sick of the whole +affair....</p> +<p>"There's a kind of hardening not only of the body but of the +mind through all this life out here. One is living on a different +level. You know—just before I came away—you talked of +Dower-House-land—and outside. This is outside. It's +different. Our men here are kind enough still to little +things—kittens or birds or flowers. Behind the front, for +example, everywhere there are Tommy gardens. Some are quite bright +little patches. But it's just nonsense to suppose we are tender to +the wounded up here—and, putting it plainly, there isn't a +scrap of pity left for the enemy. Not a scrap. Not a trace of such +feeling. They were tender about the wounded in the early +days—men tell me—and reverent about the dead. It's all +gone now. There have been atrocities, gas, unforgettable things. +Everything is harder. Our people are inclined now to laugh at a man +who gets hit, and to be annoyed at a man with a troublesome wound. +The other day, they say, there was a big dead German outside the +Essex trenches. He became a nuisance, and he was dragged in and +taken behind the line and buried. After he was buried, a kindly +soul was putting a board over him with 'Somebody's Fritz' on it, +when a shell burst close by. It blew the man with the board a dozen +yards and wounded him, and it restored Fritz to the open air. He +was lifted clean out. He flew head over heels like a windmill. This +was regarded as a tremendous joke against the men who had been at +the pains of burying<a name="Page_331"></a> him. For a time nobody +else would touch Fritz, who was now some yards behind his original +grave. Then as he got worse and worse he was buried again by some +devoted sanitarians, and this time the inscription was 'Somebody's +Fritz. R.I.P.' And as luck would have it, he was spun up again. In +pieces. The trench howled with laughter and cries of 'Good old +Fritz!' 'This isn't the Resurrection, Fritz.'...</p> +<p>"Another thing that appeals to the sunny humour of the trenches +as a really delicious practical joke is the trick of the fuses. We +have two kinds of fuse, a slow-burning fuse such as is used for +hand-grenades and such-like things, a sort of yard-a-minute fuse, +and a rapid fuse that goes a hundred yards a second—for +firing mines and so on. The latter is carefully distinguished from +the former by a conspicuous red thread. Also, as you know, it is +the habit of the enemy and ourselves when the trenches are near +enough, to enliven each other by the casting of homely but +effective hand-grenades made out of tins. When a grenade drops in a +British trench somebody seizes it instantly and throws it back. To +hoist the German with his own petard is particularly sweet to the +British mind. When a grenade drops into a German trench everybody +runs. (At least that is what I am told happens by the men from our +trenches; though possibly each side has its exceptions.) If the +bomb explodes, it explodes. If it doesn't, Hans and Fritz presently +come creeping back to see what has happened. Sometimes the fuse +hasn't caught properly, it has been thrown by a nervous man; or it +hasn't burnt properly. Then Hans or Fritz puts in a new fuse and +sends it back with loving care. To hoist the Briton with his own +petard is particularly sweet to the German mind.... But here it is +that military genius comes in. Some gifted spirit on our side +procured (probably by larceny) a length of mine fuse, the rapid +sort, and spent a laborious day removing the red thread and making +it into the likeness of its slow brother. Then bits of<a name= +"Page_332"></a> it were attached to tin-bombs and shied—unlit +of course—into the German trenches. A long but happy pause +followed. I can see the chaps holding themselves in. Hans and Fritz +were understood to be creeping back, to be examining the unlit +fuse, to be applying a light thereunto, in order to restore it to +its maker after their custom....</p> +<p>"A loud bang in the German trenches indicated the moment of +lighting, and the exit of Hans and Fritz to worlds less +humorous.</p> +<p>"The genius in the British trenches went on with the preparation +of the next surprise bomb—against the arrival of Kurt and +Karl....</p> +<p>"Hans, Fritz, Kurt, Karl, Michael and Wilhelm; it went for quite +a long time before they grew suspicious....</p> +<p>"You once wrote that all fighting ought to be done nowadays by +metal soldiers. I perceive, my dear Daddy, that all real fighting +is...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>Not all Hugh's letters were concerned with these grim +technicalities. It was not always that news and gossip came along; +it was rare that a young man with a commission would condescend to +talk shop to two young men without one; there were few newspapers +and fewer maps, and even in France and within sound of guns, Hugh +could presently find warfare almost as much a bore as it had been +at times in England. But his criticism of military methods died +away. "Things are done better out here," he remarked, and "We're +nearer reality here. I begin to respect my Captain. Who is +developing a sense of locality. Happily for our prospects." And in +another place he speculated in an oddly characteristic manner +whether he was getting used to the army way, whether he was +beginning to see the sense of the army way, or whether<a name= +"Page_333"></a> it really was that the army way braced up nearer +and nearer to efficiency as it got nearer to the enemy. "And here +one hasn't the haunting feeling that war is after all an +hallucination. It's already common sense and the business of +life....</p> +<p>"In England I always had a sneaking idea that I had 'dressed up' +in my uniform....</p> +<p>"I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of +waiting about and going through duties and exercises that were only +too obviously a means of preventing our discovering just how much +waiting about we were doing. I suppose there is no great harm in +describing the place I am in here; it's a kind of scenery that is +somehow all of a piece with the life we lead day by day. It is a +village that has been only partly smashed up; it has never been +fought through, indeed the Germans were never within two miles of +it, but it was shelled intermittently for months before we made our +advance. Almost all the houses are still standing, but there is not +a window left with a square foot of glass in the place. One or two +houses have been burnt out, and one or two are just as though they +had been kicked to pieces by a lunatic giant. We sleep in batches +of four or five on the floors of the rooms; there are very few +inhabitants about, but the village inn still goes on. It has one +poor weary billiard-table, very small with very big balls, and the +cues are without tops; it is The Amusement of the place. Ortheris +does miracles at it. When he leaves the army he says he's going to +be a marker, 'a b——y marker.' The country about us is +flat—featureless—desolate. How I long for hills, even +for Essex mud hills. Then the road runs on towards the front, a +brick road frightfully worn, lined with poplars. Just at the end of +the village mechanical transport ends and there is a kind of depot +from which all the stuff goes up by mules or men or bicycles to the +trenches. It is the only movement in the place, and I have spent +hours watching men shift grub or ammunition or<a name= +"Page_334"></a> lending them a hand. All day one hears guns, a kind +of thud at the stomach, and now and then one sees an aeroplane, +very high and small. Just beyond this point there is a group of +poplars which have been punished by a German shell. They are broken +off and splintered in the most astonishing way; all split and +ravelled out like the end of a cane that has been broken and +twisted to get the ends apart. The choice of one's leisure is to +watch the A.S.C. or play football, twenty a side, or sit about +indoors, or stand in the doorway, or walk down to the Estaminet and +wait five or six deep for the billiard-table. Ultimately one sits. +And so you get these unconscionable letters."</p> +<p>"Unconscionable," said Mr. Britling. "Of course—he will +grow out of that sort of thing.</p> +<p>"And he'll write some day, sure enough. He'll write."</p> +<p>He went on reading the letter.</p> +<p>"We read, of course. But there never could be a library here big +enough to keep us going. We can do with all sorts of books, but I +don't think the ordinary sensational novel is quite the catch it +was for a lot of them in peace time. Some break towards serious +reading in the oddest fashion. Old Park, for example, says he wants +books you can chew; he is reading a cheap edition of 'The Origin of +Species.' He used to regard Florence Warden and William le Queux as +the supreme delights of print. I wish you could send him +Metchnikoff's 'Nature of Man' or Pearson's 'Ethics of Freethought.' +I feel I am building up his tender mind. Not for me though, Daddy. +Nothing of that sort for me. These things take people differently. +What I want here is literary opium. I want something about fauns +and nymphs in broad low glades. I would like to read Spenser's +'Faerie Queen.' I don't think I have read it, and yet I have a very +distinct impression of knights and dragons and sorcerers and wicked +magic ladies moving through a sort of Pre-Raphaelite tapestry +scenery—only with a light on them. I could do with some +Hewlett of the 'Forest Lovers' kind. Or<a name="Page_335"></a> with +Joseph Conrad in his Kew Palm-house mood. And there is a book, I +once looked into it at a man's room in London; I don't know the +title, but it was by Richard Garnett, and it was all about gods who +were in reduced circumstances but amidst sunny picturesque scenery. +Scenery without steel or poles or wire. A thing after the manner of +Heine's 'Florentine Nights.' Any book about Greek gods would be +welcome, anything about temples of ivory-coloured stone and purple +seas, red caps, chests of jewels, and lizards in the sun. I wish +there was another 'Thais.' The men here are getting a kind of +newspaper sheet of literature scraps called <i>The Times</i> +Broadsheets. Snippets, but mostly from good stuff. They're small +enough to stir the appetite, but not to satisfy it. Rather an +irritant—and one wants no irritant.... I used to imagine +reading was meant to be a stimulant. Out here it has to be an +anodyne....</p> +<p>"Have you heard of a book called 'Tom Cringle's Log'?</p> +<p>"War is an exciting game—that I never wanted to play. It +excites once in a couple of months. And the rest of it is dirt and +muddle and boredom, and smashed houses and spoilt roads and muddy +scenery and boredom, and the lumbering along of supplies and the +lumbering back of the wounded and weary—and boredom, and +continual vague guessing of how it will end and boredom and boredom +and boredom, and thinking of the work you were going to do and the +travel you were going to have, and the waste of life and the waste +of days and boredom, and splintered poplars and stink, everywhere +stink and dirt and boredom.... And all because these accursed +Prussians were too stupid to understand what a boredom they were +getting ready when they pranced and stuck their chests out and +earnt the praises of Mr. Thomas Carlyle.... <i>Gott strafe +Deutschland</i>.... So send me some books, books of dreams, books +about China and the willow-pattern plate and the golden age and +fairyland. And send them soon and address them very +carefully...."</p> +<a name="Page_336"></a><br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>Teddy's misadventure happened while figs were still ripening on +Mr. Britling's big tree. It was Cissie brought the news to Mr. +Britling. She came up to the Dower House with a white, scared +face.</p> +<p>"I've come up for the letters," she said. "There's bad news of +Teddy, and Letty's rather in a state."</p> +<p>"He's not——?" Mr. Britling left the word unsaid.</p> +<p>"He's wounded and missing," said Cissie.</p> +<p>"A prisoner!" said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"And wounded. <i>How</i>, we don't know."</p> +<p>She added: "Letty has gone to telegraph."</p> +<p>"Telegraph to whom?"</p> +<p>"To the War Office, to know what sort of wound he has. They tell +nothing. It's disgraceful."</p> +<p>"It doesn't say <i>severely</i>?"</p> +<p>"It says just nothing. Wounded and missing! Surely they ought to +give us particulars."</p> +<p>Mr. Britling thought. His first thought was that now news might +come at any time that Hugh was wounded and missing. Then he set +himself to persuade Cissie that the absence of "seriously" meant +that Teddy was only quite bearably wounded, and that if he was also +"missing" it might be difficult for the War Office to ascertain at +once just exactly what she wanted to know. But Cissie said merely +that "Letty was in an awful state," and after Mr. Britling had +given her a few instructions for his typing, he went down to the +cottage to repeat these mitigatory considerations to Letty. He +found her much whiter than her sister, and in a state of cold +indignation with the War Office. It was clear she thought that +organisation ought to have taken better care of Teddy. She had a +curious effect of feeling that something was being kept back from +her. It was manifest too that she was disposed to regard Mr. +Britling as biased in favour of the authorities.</p> +<p>"At any rate," she said, "they could have answered<a name= +"Page_337"></a> my telegram promptly. I sent it at eight. Two hours +of scornful silence."</p> +<p>This fierce, strained, unjust Letty was a new aspect to Mr. +Britling. Her treatment of his proffered consolations made him feel +slightly henpecked.</p> +<p>"And just fancy!" she said. "They have no means of knowing if he +has arrived safely on the German side. How can they know he is a +prisoner without knowing that?"</p> +<p>"But the word is 'missing.'"</p> +<p>"That <i>means</i> a prisoner," said Letty uncivilly....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 13</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House perplexed and +profoundly disturbed. He had a distressful sense that things were +far more serious with Teddy than he had tried to persuade Letty +they were; that "wounded and missing" meant indeed a man abandoned +to very sinister probabilities. He was distressed for Teddy, and +still more acutely distressed for Mrs. Teddy, whose every note and +gesture betrayed suppositions even more sinister than his own. And +that preposterous sense of liability, because he had helped Teddy +to get his commission, was more distressful than it had ever been. +He was surprised that Letty had not assailed him with railing +accusations.</p> +<p>And this event had wiped off at one sweep all the protective +scab of habituation that had gathered over the wound of Hugh's +departure. He was back face to face with the one evil chance in +five....</p> +<p>In the hall there was lying a letter from Hugh that had come by +the second post. It was a relief even to see it....</p> +<p>Hugh had had his first spell in the trenches.</p> +<p>Before his departure he had promised his half brothers a long +and circumstantial account of what the trenches were really like. +Here he redeemed his promise. He had<a name="Page_338"></a> +evidently written with the idea that the letter would be handed +over to them.</p> +<p>"Tell the bruddykinses I'm glad they're going to Brinsmead +school. Later on, I suppose, they will go on to Statesminster. I +suppose that you don't care to send them so far in these troubled +times....</p> +<p>"And now about those trenches—as I promised. The great +thing to grasp is that they are narrow. They are a sort of negative +wall. They are more like giant cracks in the ground than anything +else.... But perhaps I had better begin by telling how we got +there. We started about one in the morning ladened up with +everything you can possibly imagine on a soldier, and in addition I +had a kettle—filled with water—most of the chaps had +bundles of firewood, and some had extra bread. We marched out of +our quarters along the road for a mile or more, and then we took +the fields, and presently came to a crest and dropped into a sort +of maze of zigzag trenches going up to the front trench. These +trenches, you know, are much deeper than one's height; you don't +see anything. It's like walking along a mud-walled passage. You +just trudge along them in single file. Every now and then some one +stumbles into a soakaway for rainwater or swears at a soft place, +or somebody blunders into the man in front of him. This seems to go +on for hours and hours. It certainly went on for an hour; so I +suppose we did two or three miles of it. At one place we crossed a +dip in the ground and a ditch, and the trench was built up with +sandbags up to the ditch and there was a plank. Overhead there were +stars, and now and then a sort of blaze thing they send up lit up +the edges of the trench and gave one a glimpse of a treetop or a +factory roof far away. Then for a time it was more difficult to go +on because you were blinded. Suddenly just when you were believing +that this sort of trudge was going on forever, we were in the +support trenches behind the firing line, and found the men we were +relieving ready to come back.</p> +<a name="Page_339"></a> +<p>"And the firing line itself? Just the same sort of ditch with a +parapet of sandbags, but with dug-outs, queer big holes helped out +with sleepers from a nearby railway track, opening into it from +behind. Dug-outs vary a good deal. Many are rather like the +cubby-house we made at the end of the orchard last summer; only the +walls are thick enough to stand a high explosive shell. The best +dug-out in our company's bit of front was quite a dressy affair +with some woodwork and a door got from the ruins of a house twenty +or thirty yards behind us. It had a stove in it too, and a +chimbley, and pans to keep water in. It was the best dug-out for +miles. This house had a well, and there was a special trench ran +back to that, and all day long there was a coming and going for +water. There had once been a pump over the well, but a shell had +smashed that....</p> +<p>"And now you expect me to tell of Germans and the fight and +shelling and all sorts of things. <i>I haven't seen a live +German</i>; I haven't been within two hundred yards of a shell +burst, there has been no attack and I haven't got the V.C. I have +made myself muddy beyond describing; I've been working all the +time, but I've not fired a shot or fought a ha'porth. We were busy +all the time—just at work, repairing the parapet, which had +to be done gingerly because of snipers, bringing our food in from +the rear in big carriers, getting water, pushing our trench out +from an angle slantingways forward. Getting meals, clearing up and +so on takes a lot of time. We make tea in big kettles in the big +dug-out, which two whole companies use for their cooking, and carry +them with a pole through the handles to our platoons. We wash up +and wash and shave. Dinner preparation (and consumption) takes two +or three hours. Tea too uses up time. It's like camping out and +picnicking in the park. This first time (and next too) we have been +mixed with some Sussex men who have been here longer and know the +business.... It works out that we do most of the fatigue. +Afterwards<a name="Page_340"></a> we shall go up alone to a pitch +of our own....</p> +<p>"But all the time you want to know about the Germans. They are a +quarter of a mile away at this part, or nearly a quarter of a mile. +When you snatch a peep at them it is like a low parti-coloured +stone wall—only the stones are sandbags. The Germans have +them black and white, so that you cannot tell which are loopholes +and which are black bags. Our people haven't been so +clever—and the War Office love of uniformity has given us +only white bags. No doubt it looks neater. But it makes our +loopholes plain. For a time black sandbags were refused. The +Germans sniped at us, but not very much. Only one of our lot was +hit, by a chance shot that came through the sandbag at the top of +the parapet. He just had a cut in the neck which didn't prevent his +walking back. They shelled the trenches half a mile to the left of +us though, and it looked pretty hot. The sandbags flew about. But +the men lie low, and it looks worse than it is. The weather was +fine and pleasant, as General French always says. And after three +days and nights of cramped existence and petty chores, one in the +foremost trench and two a little way back, and then two days in +support, we came back—and here we are again waiting for our +second Go.</p> +<p>"The night time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You +get your head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with +its ruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and +its long vague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like +white windmill arms and an occasional flare or star shell. And you +have a nasty feeling of people creeping and creeping all night +between the trenches....</p> +<p>"Some of us went out to strengthen a place in the parapet that +was only one sandbag thick, where a man had been hit during the +day. We made it four bags thick right up to the top. All the while +you were doing it, you dreaded to find yourself in the white glare +of a searchlight,<a name="Page_341"></a> and you had a feeling that +something would hit you suddenly from behind. I had to make up my +mind not to look round, or I should have kept on looking round.... +Also our chaps kept shooting over us, within a foot of one's head. +Just to persuade the Germans that we were not out of the +trench....</p> +<p>"Nothing happened to us. We got back all right. It was silly to +have left that parapet only one bag thick. There's the truth, and +all of my first time in the trenches.</p> +<p>"And the Germans?</p> +<p>"I tell you there was no actual fighting at all. I never saw the +head of one.</p> +<p>"But now see what a good bruddykins I am. I have seen a fight, a +real exciting fight, and I have kept it to the last to tell you +about.... It was a fight in the air. And the British won. It began +with a German machine appearing, very minute and high, sailing +towards our lines a long way to the left. We could tell it was a +German because of the black cross; they decorate every aeroplane +with a black Iron Cross on its wings and tail; that our officer +could see with his glasses. (He let me look.) Suddenly whack, +whack, whack, came a line of little puffs of smoke behind it, and +then one in front of it, which meant that our anti-aircraft guns +were having a go at it. Then, as suddenly, Archibald stopped, and +we could see the British machine buzzing across the path of the +German. It was just like two birds circling in the air. Or wasps. +They buzzed like wasps. There was a little crackling—like +brushing your hair in frosty weather. They were shooting at each +other. Then our lieutenant called out, 'Hit, by Jove!' and handed +the glasses to Park and instantly wanted them back. He says he saw +bits of the machine flying off.</p> +<p>"When he said that you could fancy you saw it too, up there in +the blue.</p> +<p>"Anyhow the little machine cocked itself up on end.<a name= +"Page_342"></a> Rather slowly.... Then down it came like dropping a +knife....</p> +<p>"It made you say 'Ooooo!' to see that dive. It came down, seemed +to get a little bit under control, and then dive down again. You +could hear the engine roar louder and louder as it came down. I +never saw anything fall so fast. We saw it hit the ground among a +lot of smashed-up buildings on the crest behind us. It went right +over and flew to pieces, all to smithereens....</p> +<p>"It hurt your nose to see it hit the ground....</p> +<p>"Somehow—I was sort of overcome by the thought of the men +in that dive. I was trying to imagine how they felt it. From the +moment when they realised they were going.</p> +<p>"What on earth must it have seemed like at last?</p> +<p>"They fell seven thousand feet, the men say; some say nine +thousand feet. A mile and a half!</p> +<p>"But all the chaps were cheering.... And there was our machine +hanging in the sky. You wanted to reach up and pat it on the back. +It went up higher and away towards the German lines, as though it +was looking for another German. It seemed to go now quite slowly. +It was an English machine, though for a time we weren't sure; our +machines are done in tri-colour just as though they were French. +But everybody says it was English. It was one of our crack fighting +machines, and from first to last it has put down seven Germans.... +And that's really all the fighting there was. There has been +fighting here; a month ago. There are perhaps a dozen dead Germans +lying out still in front of the lines. Little twisted figures, like +overthrown scarecrows, about a hundred yards away. But that is +all.</p> +<p>"No, the trenches have disappointed me. They are a scene of +tiresome domesticity. They aren't a patch on our quarters in the +rear. There isn't the traffic. I've not found a single excuse for +firing my rifle. I don't believe I shall ever fire my rifle at an +enemy—ever....</p> +<a name="Page_343"></a> +<p>"You've seen Rendezvous' fresh promotion, I suppose? He's one of +the men the young officers talk about. Everybody believes in him. +Do you remember how Manning used to hide from him?..."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 14</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling read this through, and then his thoughts went back +to Teddy's disappearance and then returned to Hugh. The youngster +was right in the front now, and one had to steel oneself to the +possibilities of the case. Somehow Mr. Britling had not expected to +find Hugh so speedily in the firing line, though he would have been +puzzled to find a reason why this should not have happened. But he +found he had to begin the lesson of stoicism all over again.</p> +<p>He read the letter twice, and then he searched for some +indication of its date. He suspected that letters were sometimes +held back....</p> +<p>Four days later this suspicion was confirmed by the arrival of +another letter from Hugh in which he told of his second spell in +the trenches. This time things had been much more lively. They had +been heavily shelled and there had been a German attack. And this +time he was writing to his father, and wrote more freely. He had +scribbled in pencil.</p> +<p>"Things are much livelier here than they were. Our guns are +getting to work. They are firing in spells of an hour or so, three +or four times a day, and just when they seem to be leaving off they +begin again. The Germans suddenly got the range of our trenches the +day before yesterday, and begun to pound us with high explosive.... +Well, it's trying. You never seem quite to know when the next bang +is coming, and that keeps your nerves hung up; it seems to tighten +your muscles and tire you. We've done nothing but lie low all day, +and I feel as weary as if I had marched twenty miles. Then 'whop,' +one's near<a name="Page_344"></a> you, and there is a flash and +everything flies. It's a mad sort of smash-about. One came much too +close to be pleasant; as near as the old oil jars are from the barn +court door. It bowled me clean over and sent a lot of gravel over +me. When I got up there was twenty yards of trench smashed into a +mere hole, and men lying about, and some of them groaning and one +three-quarters buried. We had to turn to and get them out as well +as we could....</p> +<p>"I felt stunned and insensitive; it was well to have something +to do....</p> +<p>"Our guns behind felt for the German guns. It was the damnest +racket. Like giant lunatics smashing about amidst colossal pots and +pans. They fired different sorts of shells; stink shells as well as +Jack Johnsons, and though we didn't get much of that at our corner +there was a sting of chlorine in the air all through the afternoon. +Most of the stink shells fell short. We hadn't masks, but we rigged +up a sort of protection with our handkerchiefs. And it didn't +amount to very much. It was rather like the chemistry room after +Heinrich and the kids had been mixing things. Most of the time I +was busy helping with the men who had got hurt. Suddenly there came +a lull. Then some one said the Germans were coming, and I had a +glimpse of them.</p> +<p>"You don't look at anything steadily while the guns are going. +When a big gun goes off or a shell bursts anywhere near you, you +seem neither to see nor hear for a moment. You keep on being +intermittently stunned. One sees in a kind of flicker in between +the impacts....</p> +<p>"Well, there they were. This time I saw them. They were coming +out and running a little way and dropping, and our shell was +bursting among them and behind them. A lot of it was going too far. +I watched what our men were doing, and poured out a lot of +cartridges ready to my hand and began to blaze away. Half the +German attack never came out of their trench. If they really +intended business against us, which I doubt, they were<a name= +"Page_345"></a> half-hearted in carrying it out. They didn't show +for five minutes, and they left two or three score men on the +ground. Whenever we saw a man wriggle we were told to fire at him; +it might be an unwounded man trying to crawl back. For a time our +guns gave them beans. Then it was practically over, but about +sunset their guns got back at us again, and the artillery fight +went on until it was moonlight. The chaps in our third company +caught it rather badly, and then our guns seemed to find something +and get the upper hand....</p> +<p>"In the night some of our men went out to repair the wire +entanglements, and one man crawled halfway to the enemy trenches to +listen. But I had done my bit for the day, and I was supposed to +sleep in the dug-out. I was far too excited to sleep. All my nerves +were jumping about, and my mind was like a lot of flying fragments +flying about very fast....</p> +<p>"They shelled us again next day and our tea dixy was hit; so +that we didn't get any tea....</p> +<p>"I slept thirty hours after I got back here. And now I am slowly +digesting these experiences. Most of our fellows are. My mind and +nerves have been rather bumped and bruised by the shelling, but not +so much as you might think. I feel as though I'd presently not +think very much of it. Some of our men have got the stun of it a +lot more than I have. It gets at the older men more. Everybody says +that. The men of over thirty-five don't recover from a shelling for +weeks. They go about—sort of hesitatingly....</p> +<p>"Life is very primitive here—which doesn't mean that one +is getting down to anything fundamental, but only going back to +something immediate and simple. It's fetching and carrying and +getting water and getting food and going up to the firing line and +coming back. One goes on for weeks, and then one day one finds +oneself crying out, 'What is all this for? When is it to end?' I +seemed to have something ahead of me before this war<a name= +"Page_346"></a> began, education, science, work, discoveries; all +sorts of things; but it is hard to feel that there is anything +ahead of us here....</p> +<p>"Somehow the last spell in the fire trench has shaken up my mind +a lot. I was getting used to the war before, but now I've got back +to my original amazement at the whole business. I find myself +wondering what we are really up to, why the war began, why we were +caught into this amazing routine. It looks, it feels orderly, +methodical, purposeful. Our officers give us orders and get their +orders, and the men back there get their orders. Everybody is +getting orders. Back, I suppose, to Lord Kitchener. It goes on for +weeks with the effect of being quite sane and intended and the +right thing, and then, then suddenly it comes whacking into one's +head, 'But this—this is utterly <i>mad</i>!' This going to +and fro and to and fro and to and fro; this monotony which breaks +ever and again into violence—violence that never gets +anywhere—is exactly the life that a lunatic leads. +Melancholia and mania.... It's just a collective obsession—by +war. The world is really quite mad. I happen to be having just one +gleam of sanity, that won't last after I have finished this letter. +I suppose when an individual man goes mad and gets out of the +window because he imagines the door is magically impossible, and +dances about in the street without his trousers jabbing at +passers-by with a toasting-fork, he has just the same sombre sense +of unavoidable necessity that we have, all of us, when we go off +with our packs into the trenches....</p> +<p>"It's only by an effort that I can recall how life felt in the +spring of 1914. Do you remember Heinrich and his attempt to make a +table chart of the roses, so that we could sit outside the barn and +read the names of all the roses in the barn court? Like the +mountain charts they have on tables in Switzerland. What an +inconceivable thing that is now! For all I know I shot Heinrich +the<a name="Page_347"></a> other night. For all I know he is one of +the lumps that we counted after the attack went back.</p> +<p>"It's a queer thing, Daddy, but I have a sort of +<i>seditious</i> feeling in writing things like this. One gets to +feel that it is wrong to think. It's the effect of discipline. Of +being part of a machine. Still, I doubt if I ought to think. If one +really looks into things in this spirit, where is it going to take +us? Ortheris—his real name by the by is Arthur +Jewell—hasn't any of these troubles. 'The b——y +Germans butted into Belgium,' he says. 'We've got to 'oof 'em out +again. That's all abart it. Leastways it's all <i>I</i> know.... I +don't know nothing about Serbia, I don't know nothing about +anything, except that the Germans got to stop this sort of gime for +Everlasting, Amen.'...</p> +<p>"Sometimes I think he's righter than I am. Sometimes I think he +is only madder."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 15</h4> +<br> +<p>These letters weighed heavily upon Mr. Britling's mind. He +perceived that this precociously wise, subtle youngster of his was +now close up to the line of injury and death, going to and fro from +it, in a perpetual, fluctuating danger. At any time now in the day +or night the evil thing might wing its way to him. If Mr. Britling +could have prayed, he would have prayed for Hugh. He began and +never finished some ineffectual prayers.</p> +<p>He tried to persuade himself of a Roman stoicism; that he would +be sternly proud, sternly satisfied, if this last sacrifice for his +country was demanded from him. He perceived he was merely +humbugging himself....</p> +<p>This war had no longer the simple greatness that would make any +such stern happiness possible....</p> +<p>The disaster to Teddy and Mrs. Teddy hit him hard. He winced at +the thought of Mrs. Teddy's white face; the unspoken accusation in +her eyes. He felt he could<a name="Page_348"></a> never bring +himself to say his one excuse to her: "I did not keep Hugh back. If +I had done that, then you might have the right to blame."</p> +<p>If he had overcome every other difficulty in the way to an +heroic pose there was still Hugh's unconquerable lucidity of +outlook. War <i>was</i> a madness....</p> +<p>But what else was to be done? What else could be done? We could +not give in to Germany. If a lunatic struggles, sane men must +struggle too....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling had ceased to write about the war at all. All his +later writings about it had been abandoned unfinished. He could not +imagine them counting, affecting any one, producing any effect. +Indeed he was writing now very intermittently. His contributions to +<i>The Times</i> had fallen away. He was perpetually thinking now +about the war, about life and death, about the religious problems +that had seemed so remote in the days of the peace; but none of his +thinking would become clear and definite enough for writing. All +the clear stars of his mind were hidden by the stormy clouds of +excitement that the daily newspaper perpetually renewed and by the +daily developments of life. And just as his professional income +shrank before his mental confusion and impotence, the private +income that came from his and his wife's investments became +uncertain. She had had two thousand pounds in the Constantinople +loan, seven hundred in debentures of the Ottoman railway; he had +held similar sums in two Hungarian and one Bulgarian loan, in a +linoleum factory at Rouen and in a Swiss Hotel company. All these +stopped payments, and the dividends from their other investments +shrank. There seemed no limit set to the possibilities of shrinkage +of capital and income. Income tax had leapt to colossal dimensions, +the cost of most things had risen, and the tangle of life was now +increased by the need for retrenchments and economies. He decided +that Gladys, the facetiously named automobile, was a luxury, and +sold her for a couple of hundred pounds. He lost his<a name= +"Page_349"></a> gardener, who had gone to higher priced work with a +miller, and he had great trouble to replace him, so that the garden +became disagreeably unkempt and unsatisfactory. He had to give up +his frequent trips to London. He was obliged to defer Statesminster +for the boys. For a time at any rate they must go as day boys to +Brinsmead. At every point he met this uncongenial consideration of +ways and means. For years now he had gone easy, lived with a +certain self-indulgence. It was extraordinarily vexatious to have +one's greater troubles for one's country and one's son and one's +faith crossed and complicated by these little troubles of the extra +sixpence and the untimely bill.</p> +<p>What worried his mind perhaps more than anything else was his +gradual loss of touch with the essential issues of the war. At +first the militarism, the aggression of Germany, had seemed so bad +that he could not see the action of Britain and her allies as +anything but entirely righteous. He had seen the war plainly and +simply in the phrase, "Now this militarism must end." He had seen +Germany as a system, as imperialism and junkerism, as a callous +materialist aggression, as the spirit that makes war, and the +Allies as the protest of humanity against all these evil +things.</p> +<p>Insensibly, in spite of himself, this first version of the war +was giving place to another. The tawdry, rhetorical German Emperor, +who had been the great antagonist at the outset, the last upholder +of Cæsarism, God's anointed with the withered arm and the +mailed fist, had receded from the foreground of the picture; that +truer Germany which is thought and system, which is the will to do +things thoroughly, the Germany of Ostwald and the once rejected +Hindenburg, was coming to the fore. It made no apology for the +errors and crimes that had been imposed upon it by its Hohenzollern +leadership, but it fought now to save itself from the destruction +and division that would be its inevitable lot if it accepted defeat +too easily; fought to hold out, fought for a second chance, with +discipline,<a name="Page_350"></a> with skill and patience, with a +steadfast will. It fought with science, it fought with economy, +with machines and thought against all too human antagonists. It +necessitated an implacable resistance, but also it commanded +respect. Against it fought three great peoples with as fine a will; +but they had neither the unity, the habitual discipline, nor the +science of Germany, and it was the latter defect that became more +and more the distressful matter of Mr. Britling's thoughts. France +after her initial experiences, after her first reeling month, had +risen from the very verge of defeat to a steely splendour of +resolution, but England and Russia, those twin slack giants, still +wasted force, were careless, negligent, uncertain. Everywhere up +and down the scale, from the stupidity of the uniform sandbags and +Hugh's young officer who would not use a map, to the general +conception and direction of the war, Mr. Britling's inflamed and +oversensitised intelligence perceived the same bad qualities for +which he had so often railed upon his countrymen in the days of the +peace, that impatience, that indolence, that wastefulness and +inconclusiveness, that failure to grip issues and do obviously +necessary things. The same lax qualities that had brought England +so close to the supreme imbecility of a civil war in Ireland in +July, 1914, were now muddling and prolonging the war, and +postponing, it might be for ever, the victory that had seemed so +certain only a year ago. The politician still intrigued, the +ineffectives still directed. Against brains used to the utmost +their fight was a stupid thrusting forth of men and men and yet +more men, men badly trained, under-equipped, stupidly led. A press +clamour for invention and scientific initiative was stifled under a +committee of elderly celebrities and eminent dufferdom; from the +outset, the Ministry of Munitions seemed under the influence of the +"business man."...</p> +<p>It is true that righteousness should triumph over the tyrant and +the robber, but have carelessness and incapacity any right to +triumph over capacity and foresight? Men<a name="Page_351"></a> +were coming now to dark questionings between this intricate choice. +And, indeed, was our cause all righteousness?</p> +<p>There surely is the worst doubt of all for a man whose son is +facing death.</p> +<p>Were we indeed standing against tyranny for freedom?</p> +<p>There came drifting to Mr. Britling's ears a confusion of +voices, voices that told of reaction, of the schemes of employers +to best the trade unions, of greedy shippers and greedy house +landlords reaping their harvest, of waste and treason in the very +households of the Ministry, of religious cant and intolerance at +large, of self-advertisement written in letters of blood, of +forestalling and jobbery, of irrational and exasperating +oppressions in India and Egypt.... It came with a shock to him, +too, that Hugh should see so little else than madness in the war, +and have so pitiless a realisation of its essential futility. The +boy forced his father to see—what indeed all along he had +been seeing more and more clearly. The war, even by the standards +of adventure and conquest, had long since become a monstrous +absurdity. Some way there must be out of this bloody entanglement +that was yielding victory to neither side, that was yielding +nothing but waste and death beyond all precedent. The vast majority +of people everywhere must be desiring peace, willing to buy peace +at any reasonable price, and in all the world it seemed there was +insufficient capacity to end the daily butchery and achieve the +peace that was so universally desired, the peace that would be +anything better than a breathing space for further warfare.... +Every day came the papers with the balanced story of battles, +losses, destructions, ships sunk, towns smashed. And never a +decision, never a sign of decision.</p> +<p>One Saturday afternoon Mr. Britling found himself with Mrs. +Britling at Claverings. Lady Homartyn was in mourning for her two +nephews, the Glassington boys, who had both been killed, one in +Flanders, the other in<a name="Page_352"></a> Gallipoli. Raeburn +was there too, despondent and tired-looking. There were three young +men in khaki, one with the red of a staff officer; there were two +or three women whom Mr. Britling had not met before, and Miss +Sharsper the novelist, fresh from nursing experience among the +convalescents in the south of France. But he was disgusted to find +that the gathering was dominated by his old antagonist, Lady +Frensham, unsubdued, unaltered, rampant over them all, arrogant, +impudent, insulting. She was in mourning, she had the most splendid +black furs Mr. Britling had ever seen; her large triumphant profile +came out of them like the head of a vulture out of its ruff; her +elder brother was a wounded prisoner in Germany, her second was +dead; it would seem that hers were the only sacrifices the war had +yet extorted from any one. She spoke as though it gave her the sole +right to criticise the war or claim compensation for the war.</p> +<p>Her incurable propensity to split the country, to make +mischievous accusations against classes and districts and public +servants, was having full play. She did her best to provoke Mr. +Britling into a dispute, and throw some sort of imputation upon his +patriotism as distinguished from her own noisy and intolerant +conceptions of "loyalty."</p> +<p>She tried him first with conscription. She threw out insults at +the shirkers and the "funk classes." All the middle-class people +clung on to their wretched little businesses, made any sort of +excuse....</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was stung to defend them. "A business," he said +acidly, "isn't like land, which waits and grows rich for its owner. +And these people can't leave ferrety little agents behind them when +they go off to serve. Tens of thousands of middle-class men have +ruined themselves and flung away every prospect they had in the +world to go to this war."</p> +<p>"And scores of thousands haven't!" said Lady Frensham. "They are +the men I'm thinking of."...</p> +<a name="Page_353"></a> +<p>Mr. Britling ran through a little list of aristocratic +stay-at-homes that began with a duke.</p> +<p>"And not a soul speaks to them in consequence," she said.</p> +<p>She shifted her attack to the Labour people. They would rather +see the country defeated than submit to a little discipline.</p> +<p>"Because they have no faith in the house of lawyers or the house +of landlords," said Mr. Britling. "Who can blame them?"</p> +<p>She proceeded to tell everybody what she would do with strikers. +She would give them "short shrift." She would give them a taste of +the Prussian way—homoeopathic treatment. "But of course old +vote-catching Asquith daren't—he daren't!" Mr. Britling +opened his mouth and said nothing; he was silenced. The men in +khaki listened respectfully but ambiguously; one of the younger +ladies it seemed was entirely of Lady Frensham's way of thinking, +and anxious to show it. The good lady having now got her hands upon +the Cabinet proceeded to deal faithfully with its two-and-twenty +members. Winston Churchill had overridden Lord Fisher upon the +question of Gallipoli, and incurred terrible responsibilities. Lord +Haldane—she called him "Tubby Haldane"—was a convicted +traitor. "The man's a German out and out. Oh! what if he hasn't a +drop of German blood in his veins? He's a German by +choice—which is worse."</p> +<p>"I thought he had a certain capacity for organisation," said Mr. +Britling.</p> +<p>"We don't want his organisation, and we don't want <i>him</i>," +said Lady Frensham.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling pleaded for particulars of the late Lord +Chancellor's treasons. There were no particulars. It was just an +idea the good lady had got into her head, that had got into a +number of accessible heads. There was only one strong man in all +the country now,<a name="Page_354"></a> Lady Frensham insisted. +That was Sir Edward Carson.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling jumped in his chair.</p> +<p>"But has he ever done anything?" he cried, "except embitter +Ireland?"</p> +<p>Lady Frensham did not hear that question. She pursued her +glorious theme. Lloyd George, who had once been worthy only of the +gallows, was now the sole minister fit to put beside her hero. He +had won her heart by his condemnation of the working man. He was +the one man who was not afraid to speak out, to tell them they +drank, to tell them they shirked and loafed, to tell them plainly +that if defeat came to this country the blame would fall upon +<i>them</i>!</p> +<p>"<i>No!</i>" cried Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"Yes," said Lady Frensham. "Upon them and those who have +flattered and misled them...."</p> +<p>And so on....</p> +<p>It presently became necessary for Lady Homartyn to rescue Mr. +Britling from the great lady's patriotic tramplings. He found +himself drifting into the autumnal garden—the show of dahlias +had never been so wonderful—in the company of Raeburn and the +staff officer and a small woman who was presently discovered to be +remarkably well-informed. They were all despondent. "I think all +this promiscuous blaming of people is quite the worst—and +most ominous—thing about us just now," said Mr. Britling +after the restful pause that followed the departure from the +presence of Lady Frensham.</p> +<p>"It goes on everywhere," said the staff officer.</p> +<p>"Is it really—honest?" said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>Raeburn, after reflection, decided to answer. "As far as it is +stupid, yes. There's a lot of blame coming; there's bound to be a +day of reckoning, and I suppose we've all got an instinctive +disposition to find a scapegoat for our common sins. The Tory press +is pretty rotten, and there's a strong element of mere personal +spite—in the Churchill attacks for example. Personal +jealousy<a name="Page_355"></a> probably. Our 'old families' seem +to have got vulgar-spirited imperceptibly—in a generation or +so. They quarrel and shirk and lay blame exactly as bad servants +do—and things are still far too much in their hands. Things +are getting muffed, there can be no doubt about that—not +fatally, but still rather seriously. And the government—it +was human before the war, and we've added no archangels. There's +muddle. There's mutual suspicion. You never know what newspaper +office Lloyd George won't be in touch with next. He's honest and +patriotic and energetic, but he's mortally afraid of old women and +class intrigues. He doesn't know where to get his backing. He's got +all a labour member's terror of the dagger at his back. There's a +lack of nerve, too, in getting rid of prominent officers—who +have friends."</p> +<p>The staff officer nodded.</p> +<p>"Northcliffe seems to me to have a case," said Mr. Britling. +"Every one abuses him."</p> +<p>"I'd stop his <i>Daily Mail</i>," said Raeburn. "I'd leave +<i>The Times</i>, but I'd stop the <i>Daily Mail</i> on the score +of its placards alone. It overdoes Northcliffe. It translates him +into the shrieks and yells of underlings. The plain fact is that +Northcliffe is scared out of his wits by German +efficiency—and in war time when a man is scared out of his +wits, whether he is honest or not, you put his head in a bag or +hold a pistol to it to calm him.... What is the good of all this +clamouring for a change of government? We haven't a change of +government. It's like telling a tramp to get a change of linen. Our +men, all our public men, are second-rate men, with the habits of +advocates. There is nothing masterful in their minds. How can you +expect the system to produce anything else? But they are doing as +well as they can, and there is no way of putting in any one else +now, and there you are."</p> +<p>"Meanwhile," said Mr. Britling, "our boys—get killed."</p> +<p>"They'd get killed all the more if you had—let us<a name= +"Page_356"></a> say—Carson and Lloyd George and Northcliffe +and Lady Frensham, with, I suppose, Austin Harrison and Horatio +Bottomley thrown in—as a Strong Silent Government.... I'd +rather have Northcliffe as dictator than that.... We can't suddenly +go back on the past and alter our type. We didn't listen to Matthew +Arnold. We've never thoroughly turned out and cleaned up our higher +schools. We've resisted instruction. We've preferred to maintain +our national luxuries of a bench of bishops and party politics. And +compulsory Greek and the university sneer. And Lady Frensham. And +all that sort of thing. And here we are!... Well, damn it, we're in +for it now; we've got to plough through with it—with what we +have—as what we are."</p> +<p>The young staff officer nodded. He thought that was "about +it."</p> +<p>"You've got no sons," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"I'm not even married," said Raeburn, as though he thanked +God.</p> +<p>The little well-informed lady remarked abruptly that she had two +sons; one was just home wounded from Suvla Bay. What her son told +her made her feel very grave. She said that the public was still +quite in the dark about the battle of Anafarta. It had been a +hideous muddle, and we had been badly beaten. The staff work had +been awful. Nothing joined up, nothing was on the spot and in time. +The water supply, for example, had gone wrong; the men had been mad +with thirst. One regiment which she named had not been supported by +another; when at last the first came back the two battalions fought +in the trenches regardless of the enemy. There had been no leading, +no correlation, no plan. Some of the guns, she declared, had been +left behind in Egypt. Some of the train was untraceable to this +day. It was mislaid somewhere in the Levant. At the beginning Sir +Ian Hamilton had not even been present. He had failed to get there +in time. It had been the reckless throwing away of an army.<a name= +"Page_357"></a> And so hopeful an army! Her son declared it meant +the complete failure of the Dardanelles project....</p> +<p>"And when one hears how near we came to victory!" she cried, and +left it at that.</p> +<p>"Three times this year," said Raeburn, "we have missed victories +because of the badness of our staff work. It's no good picking out +scapegoats. It's a question of national habit. It's because the +sort of man we turn out from our public schools has never learnt +how to catch trains, get to an office on the minute, pack a +knapsack properly, or do anything smartly and +quickly—anything whatever that he can possibly get done for +him. You can't expect men who are habitually easy-going to keep +bucked up to a high pitch of efficiency for any length of time. All +their training is against it. All their tradition. They hate being +prigs. An Englishman will be any sort of stupid failure rather than +appear a prig. That's why we've lost three good fights that we +ought to have won—and thousands and thousands of +men—and material and time, precious beyond reckoning. We've +lost a year. We've dashed the spirit of our people."</p> +<p>"My boy in Flanders," said Mr. Britling, "says about the same +thing. He says our officers have never learnt to count beyond ten, +and that they are scared at the sight of a map...."</p> +<p>"And the war goes on," said the little woman.</p> +<p>"How long, oh Lord! how long?" cried Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"I'd give them another year," said the staff officer. "Just +going as we are going. Then something <i>must</i> give way. There +will be no money anywhere. There'll be no more men.... I suppose +they'll feel that shortage first anyhow. Russia alone has over +twenty millions."</p> +<p>"That's about the size of it," said Raeburn....</p> +<p>"Do you think, sir, there'll be civil war?" asked the young +staff officer abruptly after a pause.</p> +<p>There was a little interval before any one answered this +surprising question.</p> +<a name="Page_358"></a> +<p>"After the peace, I mean," said the young officer.</p> +<p>"There'll be just the devil to pay," said Raeburn.</p> +<p>"One thing after another in the country is being pulled up by +its roots," reflected Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"We've never produced a plan for the war, and it isn't likely we +shall have one for the peace," said Raeburn, and added: "and Lady +Frensham's little lot will be doing their level best to sit on the +safety-valve.... They'll rake up Ireland and Ulster from the very +start. But I doubt if Ulster will save 'em."</p> +<p>"We shall squabble. What else do we ever do?"</p> +<p>No one seemed able to see more than that. A silence fell on the +little party.</p> +<p>"Well, thank heaven for these dahlias," said Raeburn, affecting +the philosopher.</p> +<p>The young staff officer regarded the dahlias without +enthusiasm....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 16</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Britling sat one September afternoon with Captain Lawrence +Carmine in the sunshine of the barn court, and smoked with him and +sometimes talked and sometimes sat still.</p> +<p>"When it began I did not believe that this war could be like +other wars," he said. "I did not dream it. I thought that we had +grown wiser at last. It seemed to me like the dawn of a great +clearing up. I thought the common sense of mankind would break out +like a flame, an indignant flame, and consume all this obsolete +foolery of empires and banners and militarism directly it made its +attack upon human happiness. A score of things that I see now were +preposterous, I thought must happen—naturally. I thought +America would declare herself against the Belgian outrage; that she +would not tolerate the smashing of the great sister +republic—if only for the memory of Lafayette. Well—I +gather America is<a name="Page_359"></a> chiefly concerned about +our making cotton contraband. I thought the Balkan States were +capable of a reasonable give and take; of a common care for their +common freedom. I see now three German royalties trading in +peasants, and no men in their lands to gainsay them. I saw this +war, as so many Frenchmen have seen it, as something that might +legitimately command a splendid enthusiasm of indignation.... It +was all a dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had +never come to the cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, +everywhere small feuds and hatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, +timidities, feebleness of purpose, dwarfish imaginations, swarm +over the great and simple issues.... It is a war now like any other +of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that have shattered empires +and devastated the world; it is a war without point, a war that has +lost its soul, it has become mere incoherent fighting and +destruction, a demonstration in vast and tragic forms of the +stupidity and ineffectiveness of our species...."</p> +<p>He stopped, and there was a little interval of silence.</p> +<p>Captain Carmine tossed the fag end of his cigar very neatly into +a tub of hydrangeas. "Three thousand years ago in China," he said, +"there were men as sad as we are, for the same cause."</p> +<p>"Three thousand years ahead perhaps," said Mr. Britling, "there +will still be men with the same sadness.... And yet—and +yet.... No. Just now I have no elasticity. It is not in my nature +to despair, but things are pressing me down. I don't recover as I +used to recover. I tell myself still that though the way is long +and hard the spirit of hope, the spirit of creation, the +generosities and gallantries in the heart of man, must end in +victory. But I say that over as one repeats a worn-out prayer. The +light is out of the sky for me. Sometimes I doubt if it will ever +come back. Let younger men take heart and go on with the world. If +I could die for<a name="Page_360"></a> the right thing +now—instead of just having to live on in this world of +ineffective struggle—I would be glad to die now, +Carmine...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 17</h4> +<br> +<p>In these days also Mr. Direck was very unhappy.</p> +<p>For Cissie, at any rate, had not lost touch with the essential +issues of the war. She was as clear as ever that German militarism +and the German attack on Belgium and France was the primary subject +of the war. And she dismissed all secondary issues. She continued +to demand why America did not fight. "We fight for Belgium. Won't +you fight for the Dutch and Norwegian ships? Won't you even fight +for your own ships that the Germans are sinking?"</p> +<p>Mr. Direck attempted explanations that were ill received.</p> +<p>"You were ready enough to fight the Spaniards when they blew up +the <i>Maine</i>. But the Germans can sink the <i>Lusitania</i>! +That's—as you say—a different proposition."</p> +<p>His mind was shot by an extraordinary suspicion that she thought +the <i>Lusitania</i> an American vessel. But Mr. Direck was +learning his Cissie, and he did not dare to challenge her on this +score.</p> +<p>"You haven't got hold of the American proposition," he said. +"We're thinking beyond wars."</p> +<p>"That's what we have been trying to do," said Cissie. "Do you +think we came into it for the fun of the thing?"</p> +<p>"Haven't I shown in a hundred ways that I sympathise?"</p> +<p>"Oh—sympathy!..."</p> +<p>He fared little better at Mr. Britling's hands. Mr. Britling +talked darkly, but pointed all the time only too plainly at +America. "There's two sorts of liberalism,"<a name="Page_361"></a> +said Mr. Britling, "that pretend to be the same thing; there's the +liberalism of great aims and the liberalism of defective moral +energy...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 18</h4> +<br> +<p>It was not until Teddy had been missing for three weeks that +Hugh wrote about him. The two Essex battalions on the Flanders +front were apparently wide apart, and it was only from home that +Hugh learnt what had happened.</p> +<p>"You can't imagine how things narrow down when one is close up +against them. One does not know what is happening even within a few +miles of us, until we get the newspapers. Then, with a little +reading between the lines and some bold guessing, we fit our little +bit of experience with a general shape. Of course I've wondered at +times about Teddy. But oddly enough I've never thought of him very +much as being out here. It's queer, I know, but I haven't. I can't +imagine why....</p> +<p>"I don't know about 'missing.' We've had nothing going on here +that has led to any missing. All our men have been accounted for. +But every few miles along the front conditions alter. His lot may +have been closer up to the enemy, and there may have been a rush +and a fight for a bit of trench either way. In some parts the +German trenches are not thirty yards away, and there is mining, +bomb throwing, and perpetual creeping up and give and take. Here +we've been getting a bit forward. But I'll tell you about that +presently. And, anyhow, I don't understand about 'missing.' There's +very few prisoners taken now. But don't tell Letty that. I try to +imagine old Teddy in it....</p> +<p>"Missing's a queer thing. It isn't tragic—or pitiful. Or +partly reassuring like 'prisoner.' It just sends one speculating +and speculating. I can't find any one who knows where the 14th +Essex are. Things move about<a name="Page_362"></a> here so +mysteriously that for all I know we may find them in the next +trench next time we go up. But there <i>is</i> a chance for Teddy. +It's worth while bucking Letty all you can. And at the same time +there's odds against him. There plainly and unfeelingly is how +things stand in my mind. I think chiefly of Letty. I'm glad Cissie +is with her, and I'm glad she's got the boy. Keep her busy. She was +frightfully fond of him. I've seen all sorts of things between +them, and I know that.... I'll try and write to her soon, and I'll +find something hopeful to tell her.</p> +<p>"Meanwhile I've got something to tell you. I've been through a +fight, a big fight, and I haven't got a scratch. I've taken two +prisoners with my lily hand. Men were shot close to me. I didn't +mind that a bit. It was as exciting as one of those bitter fights +we used to have round the hockey goal. I didn't mind anything till +afterwards. Then when I was in the trench in the evening I trod on +something slippery—pah! And after it was all over one of my +chums got it—sort of unfairly. And I keep on thinking of +those two things so much that all the early part is just dreamlike. +It's more like something I've read in a book, or seen in the +<i>Illustrated London News</i> than actually been through. One had +been thinking so often, how will it feel? how shall I behave? that +when it came it had an effect of being flat and ordinary.</p> +<p>"They say we hadn't got enough guns in the spring or enough +ammunition. That's all right now—anyhow. They started in +plastering the Germans overnight, and right on until it was just +daylight. I never heard such a row, and their trenches—we +could stand up and look at them without getting a single shot at +us—were flying about like the crater of a volcano. We were +not in our firing trench. We had gone back into some new trenches, +at the rear—I think to get out of the way of the counter +fire. But this morning they weren't doing very much. For once our +guns were on top. There was a feeling of<a name="Page_363"></a> +anticipation—very like waiting for an examination paper to be +given out; then we were at it. Getting out of a trench to attack +gives you an odd feeling of being just hatched. Suddenly the world +is big. I don't remember our gun fire stopping. And then you rush. +'Come on! Come on!' say the officers. Everybody gives a sort of +howl and rushes. When you see men dropping, you rush the faster. +The only thing that checks you at all is the wire twisted about +everywhere. You don't want to trip over that. The frightening thing +is the exposure. After being in the trenches so long you feel +naked. You run like a scared child for the German trench ahead. I +can't understand the iron nerve of a man who can expose his back by +turning to run away. And there's a thirsty feeling with one's +bayonet. But they didn't wait. They dropped rifles and ran. But we +ran so fast after them that we caught one or two in the second +trench. I got down into that, heard a voice behind me, and found my +two prisoners lying artful in a dug-out. They held up their hands +as I turned. If they hadn't I doubt if I should have done anything +to them. I didn't feel like it. I felt <i>friendly</i>.</p> +<p>"Not all the Germans ran. Three or four stuck to their +machine-guns until they got bayoneted. Both the trenches were +frightfully smashed about, and in the first one there were little +knots and groups of dead. We got to work at once shying the +sandbags over from the old front of the trench to the parados. Our +guns had never stopped all the time; they were now plastering the +third line trenches. And almost at once the German shells began +dropping into us. Of course they had the range to an inch. One +didn't have any time to feel and think; one just set oneself with +all one's energy to turn the trench over....</p> +<p>"I don't remember that I helped or cared for a wounded man all +the time, or felt anything about the dead except to step over them +and not on them. I was just<a name="Page_364"></a> possessed by the +idea that we had to get the trench into a sheltering state before +they tried to come back. And then stick there. I just wanted to +win, and there was nothing else in my mind....</p> +<p>"They did try to come back, but not very much....</p> +<p>"Then when I began to feel sure of having got hold of the trench +for good, I began to realise just how tired I was and how high the +sun had got. I began to look about me, and found most of the other +men working just as hard as I had been doing. 'We've done it!' I +said, and that was the first word I'd spoken since I told my two +Germans to come out of it, and stuck a man with a wounded leg to +watch them. 'It's a bit of All Right,' said Ortheris, knocking off +also, and lighting a half-consumed cigarette. He had been wearing +it behind his ear, I believe, ever since the charge. Against this +occasion. He'd kept close up to me all the time, I realised. And +then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weak bayonet jab in +his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was good to see him +practically all right too.</p> +<p>"'I took two prisoners,' I said, and everybody I spoke to I told +that. I was fearfully proud of it.</p> +<p>"I thought that if I could take two prisoners in my first charge +I was going to be some soldier.</p> +<p>"I had stood it all admirably. I didn't feel a bit shaken. I was +as tough as anything. I'd seen death and killing, and it was all +just hockey.</p> +<p>"And then that confounded Ortheris must needs go and get +killed.</p> +<p>"The shell knocked me over, and didn't hurt me a bit. I was a +little stunned, and some dirt was thrown over me, and when I got up +on my knees I saw Jewell lying about six yards off—and his +legs were all smashed about. Ugh! Pulped!</p> +<p>"He looked amazed. 'Bloody,' he said, 'bloody.' He fixed his +eyes on me, and suddenly grinned. You know we'd once had two fights +about his saying 'bloody,'<a name="Page_365"></a> I think I told +you at the time, a fight and a return match, he couldn't box for +nuts, but he stood up like a Briton, and it appealed now to his +sense of humour that I should be standing there too dazed to +protest at the old offence. 'I thought <i>you</i> was done in,' he +said. 'I'm in a mess—a bloody mess, ain't I? Like a stuck +pig. Bloody—right enough. Bloody! I didn't know I 'ad it +<i>in</i> me.'</p> +<p>"He looked at me and grinned with a sort of pale satisfaction in +keeping up to the last—dying good Ortheris to the finish. I +just stood up helpless in front of him, still rather dazed.</p> +<p>"He said something about having a thundering thirst on him.</p> +<p>"I really don't believe he felt any pain. He would have done if +he had lived.</p> +<p>"And then while I was fumbling with my water-bottle, he +collapsed. He forgot all about Ortheris. Suddenly he said something +that cut me all to ribbons. His face puckered up just like the face +of a fretful child which refuses to go to bed. 'I didn't want to be +aut of it,' he said petulantly. 'And I'm done!' And then—then +he just looked discontented and miserable and died—right off. +Turned his head a little way over. As if he was impatient at +everything. Fainted—and fluttered out.</p> +<p>"For a time I kept trying to get him to drink....</p> +<p>"I couldn't believe he was dead....</p> +<p>"And suddenly it was all different. I began to cry. Like a baby. +I kept on with the water-bottle at his teeth long after I was +convinced he was dead. I didn't want him to be aut of it! God knows +how I didn't. I wanted my dear little Cockney cad back. Oh! most +frightfully I wanted him back.</p> +<p>"I shook him. I was like a scared child. I blubbered and howled +things.... It's all different since he died.</p> +<p>"My dear, dear Father, I am grieving and grieving—and it's +altogether nonsense. And it's all mixed up in<a name= +"Page_366"></a> my mind with the mess I trod on. And it gets worse +and worse. So that I don't seem to feel anything really, even for +Teddy.</p> +<p>"It's been just the last straw of all this hellish +foolery....</p> +<p>"If ever there was a bigger lie, my dear Daddy, than any other, +it is that man is a reasonable creature....</p> +<p>"War is just foolery—lunatic foolery—hell's +foolery....</p> +<p>"But, anyhow, your son is sound and well—if sorrowful and +angry. We were relieved that night. And there are rumours that very +soon we are to have a holiday and a refit. We lost rather heavily. +We have been praised. But all along, Essex has done well. I can't +reckon to get back yet, but there are such things as leave for +eight-and-forty hours or so in England....</p> +<p>"I shall be glad of that sort of turning round....</p> +<p>"I'm tired. Oh! I'm tired....</p> +<p>"I wanted to write all about Jewell to his mother or his +sweetheart or some one; I wanted to wallow in his praises, to say +all the things I really find now that I thought about him, but I +haven't even had that satisfaction. He was a Poor Law child; he was +raised in one of those awful places between Sutton and Banstead in +Surrey. I've told you of all the sweethearting he had. 'Soldiers +Three' was his Bible; he was always singing 'Tipperary,' and he +never got the tune right nor learnt more than three lines of it. He +laced all his talk with 'b——y'; it was his jewel, his +ruby. But he had the pluck of a robin or a squirrel; I never knew +him scared or anything but cheerful. Misfortunes, humiliations, +only made him chatty. And he'd starve to have something to give +away.</p> +<p>"Well, well, this is the way of war, Daddy. This is what war is. +Damn the Kaiser! Damn all fools.... Give my love to the Mother and +the bruddykins and every one...."</p> +<a name="Page_367"></a><br> +<h4>§ 19</h4> +<br> +<p>It was just a day or so over three weeks after this last letter +from Hugh that Mr. Direck reappeared at Matching's Easy. He had had +a trip to Holland—a trip that was as much a flight from +Cissie's reproaches as a mission of inquiry. He had intended to go +on into Belgium, where he had already been doing useful relief work +under Mr. Hoover, but the confusion of his own feelings had checked +him and brought him back.</p> +<p>Mr. Direck's mind was in a perplexity only too common during the +stresses of that tragic year. He was entangled in a paradox; like a +large majority of Americans at that time his feelings were quite +definitely pro-Ally, and like so many in that majority he had a +very clear conviction that it would be wrong and impossible for the +United States to take part in the war. His sympathies were +intensely with the Dower House and its dependent cottage; he would +have wept with generous emotion to see the Stars and Stripes +interwoven with the three other great banners of red, white and +blue that led the world against German imperialism and militarism, +but for all that his mind would not march to that tune. Against all +these impulses fought something very fundamental in Mr. Direck's +composition, a preconception of America that had grown almost +insensibly in his mind, the idea of America as a polity aloof from +the Old World system, as a fresh start for humanity, as something +altogether too fine and precious to be dragged into even the +noblest of European conflicts. America was to be the beginning of +the fusion of mankind, neither German nor British nor French nor in +any way national. She was to be the great experiment in peace and +reasonableness. She had to hold civilisation and social order out +of this fray, to be a refuge for all those finer things that die +under stress and turmoil; it was her task to maintain the standards +of life and the claims of humanitarianism in the<a name= +"Page_368"></a> conquered province and the prisoners' compound, she +had to be the healer and arbitrator, the remonstrance and not the +smiting hand. Surely there were enough smiting hands.</p> +<p>But this idea of an America judicial, remonstrating, and aloof, +led him to a conclusion that scandalised him. If America will not, +and should not use force in the ends of justice, he argued, then +America has no right to make and export munitions of war. She must +not trade in what she disavows. He had a quite exaggerated idea of +the amount of munitions that America was sending to the Allies, he +was inclined to believe that they were entirely dependent upon +their transatlantic supplies, and so he found himself persuaded +that the victory of the Allies and the honour of America were +incompatible things. And—in spite of his ethical +aloofness—he loved the Allies. He wanted them to win, and he +wanted America to abandon a course that he believed was vitally +necessary to their victory. It was an intellectual dilemma. He hid +this self-contradiction from Matching's Easy with much the same +feelings that a curate might hide a poisoned dagger at a +tea-party....</p> +<p>It was entirely against his habits of mind to hide +anything—more particularly an entanglement with a difficult +proposition—but he perceived quite clearly that neither +Cecily nor Mr. Britling were really to be trusted to listen calmly +to what, under happier circumstances, might be a profoundly +interesting moral complication. Yet it was not in his nature to +conceal; it was in his nature to state.</p> +<p>And Cecily made things much more difficult. She was pitiless +with him. She kept him aloof. "How can I let you make love to me," +she said, "when our English men are all going to the war, when +Teddy is a prisoner and Hugh is in the trenches. If I were a +man—!"</p> +<p>She couldn't be induced to see any case for America. England was +fighting for freedom, and America ought<a name="Page_369"></a> to +be beside her. "All the world ought to unite against this German +wickedness," she said.</p> +<p>"I'm doing all I can to help in Belgium," he protested. "Aren't +I working? We've fed four million people."</p> +<p>He had backbone, and he would not let her, he was resolved, +bully him into a falsehood about his country. America was aloof. +She was right to be aloof.... At the same time, Cecily's reproaches +were unendurable. And he could feel he was drifting apart from +her....</p> +<p><i>He</i> couldn't make America go to war.</p> +<p>In the quiet of his London hotel he thought it all out. He sat +at a writing-table making notes of a perfectly lucid statement of +the reasonable, balanced liberal American opinion. An instinct of +caution determined him to test it first on Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>But Mr. Britling realised his worst expectations. He was beyond +listening.</p> +<p>"I've not heard from my boy for more than three weeks," said Mr. +Britling in the place of any salutation. "This morning makes +three-and-twenty days without a letter."</p> +<p>It seemed to Mr. Direck that Mr. Britling had suddenly grown ten +years older. His face was more deeply lined; the colour and texture +of his complexion had gone grey. He moved restlessly and badly; his +nerves were manifestly unstrung.</p> +<p>"It's intolerable that one should be subjected to this ghastly +suspense. The boy isn't three hundred miles away."</p> +<p>Mr. Direck made obvious inquiries.</p> +<p>"Always before he's written—generally once a +fortnight."</p> +<p>They talked of Hugh for a time, but Mr. Britling was fitful and +irritable and quite prepared to hold Mr. Direck accountable for the +laxity of the War Office, the treachery of Bulgaria, the ambiguity +of Roumania or any other barb that chanced to be sticking into his +sensibilities. They<a name="Page_370"></a> lunched precariously. +Then they went into the study to smoke.</p> +<p>There Mr. Direck was unfortunate enough to notice a copy of that +innocent American publication <i>The New Republic</i>, lying close +to two or three numbers of <i>The Fatherland</i>, a pro-German +periodical which at that time inflicted itself upon English writers +with the utmost determination. Mr. Direck remarked that <i>The New +Republic</i> was an interesting effort on the part of "<i>la +Jeunesse Américaine</i>." Mr. Britling regarded the +interesting effort with a jaded, unloving eye.</p> +<p>"You Americans," he said, "are the most extraordinary people in +the world."</p> +<p>"Our conditions are exceptional," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"You think they are," said Mr. Britling, and paused, and then +began to deliver his soul about America in a discourse of +accumulating bitterness. At first he reasoned and explained, but as +he went on he lost self-control; he became dogmatic, he became +denunciatory, he became abusive. He identified Mr. Direck more and +more with his subject; he thrust the uncivil "You" more and more +directly at him. He let his cigar go out, and flung it impatiently +into the fire. As though America was responsible for its going +out....</p> +<p>Like many Britons Mr. Britling had that touch of patriotic +feeling towards America which takes the form of impatient +criticism. No one in Britain ever calls an American a foreigner. To +see faults in Germany or Spain is to tap boundless fountains of +charity; but the faults of America rankle in an English mind almost +as much as the faults of England. Mr. Britling could explain away +the faults of England readily enough; our Hanoverian monarchy, our +Established Church and its deadening effect on education, our +imperial obligations and the strain they made upon our supplies of +administrative talent were all very serviceable for that purpose. +But there in America was the old race, without Crown<a name= +"Page_371"></a> or Church or international embarrassment, and it +was still falling short of splendid. His speech to Mr. Direck had +the rancour of a family quarrel. Let me only give a few sentences +that were to stick in Mr. Direck's memory.</p> +<p>"You think you are out of it for good and all. So did we think. +We were as smug as you are when France went down in '71.... Yours +is only one further degree of insularity. You think this vacuous +aloofness of yours is some sort of moral superiority. So did we, so +did we....</p> +<p>"It won't last you ten years if we go down....</p> +<p>"Do you think that our disaster will leave the Atlantic for you? +Do you fancy there is any Freedom of the Seas possible beyond such +freedom as we maintain, except the freedom to attack you? For forty +years the British fleet has guarded all America from European +attack. Your Monroe doctrine skulks behind it now....</p> +<p>"I'm sick of this high thin talk of yours about the war.... You +are a nation of ungenerous onlookers—watching us throttle or +be throttled. You gamble on our winning. And we shall win; we shall +win. And you will profit. And when we have won a victory only one +shade less terrible than defeat, then you think you will come in +and tinker with our peace. Bleed us a little more to please your +hyphenated patriots...."</p> +<p>He came to his last shaft. "You talk of your New Ideals of +Peace. You say that you are too proud to fight. But your business +men in New York give the show away. There's a little printed card +now in half the offices in New York that tells of the real +pacificism of America. They're busy, you know. Trade's real good. +And so as not to interrupt it they stick up this card: 'Nix on the +war!' Think of it!—'Nix on the war!' Here is the whole fate +of mankind at stake, and America's contribution is a little +grumbling when the Germans sank the <i>Lusitania</i>, and no end of +grumbling when we hold up a ship or two and some<a name= +"Page_372"></a> fool of a harbour-master makes an overcharge. +Otherwise—'Nix on the war!'...</p> +<p>"Well, let it be Nix on the war! Don't come here and talk to me! +You who were searching registers a year ago to find your Essex kin. +Let it be Nix! Explanations! What do I want with explanations? +And"—he mocked his guest's accent and his guest's mode of +thought—"dif'cult prap'sitions."</p> +<p>He got up and stood irresolute. He knew he was being +preposterously unfair to America, and outrageously uncivil to a +trusting guest; he knew he had no business now to end the talk in +this violent fashion. But it was an enormous relief. And to mend +matters—<i>No!</i> He was glad he'd said these things....</p> +<p>He swung a shoulder to Mr. Direck, and walked out of the +room....</p> +<p>Mr. Direck heard him cross the hall and slam the door of the +little parlour....</p> +<p>Mr. Direck had been stirred deeply by the tragic indignation of +this explosion, and the ring of torment in Mr. Britling's voice. He +had stood up also, but he did not follow his host.</p> +<p>"It's his boy," said Mr. Direck at last, confidentially to the +writing-desk. "How can one argue with him? It's just hell for +him...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 20</h4> +<br> +<p>Mr. Direck took his leave of Mrs. Britling, and went very slowly +towards the little cottage. But he did not go to the cottage. He +felt he would only find another soul in torment there.</p> +<p>"What's the good of hanging round talking?" said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>He stopped at the stile in the lane, and sat thinking deeply. +"Only one thing will convince her," he said.</p> +<p>He held out his fingers. "First this," he whispered, "and then +that. Yes."</p> +<a name="Page_373"></a> +<p>He went on as far as the bend from which one sees the cottage, +and stood for a little time regarding it.</p> +<p>He returned still more sorrowfully to the junction, and with +every step he took it seemed to him that he would rather see Cecily +angry and insulting than not see her at all.</p> +<p>At the post office he stopped and wrote a letter-card.</p> +<p>"Dear Cissie," he wrote. "I came down to-day to see +you—and thought better of it. I'm going right off to find out +about Teddy. Somehow I'll get that settled. I'll fly around and do +that somehow if I have to go up to the German front to do it. And +when I've got that settled I've got something else in my +mind—well, it will wipe out all this little trouble that's +got so big between us about neutrality. And I love you dearly, +Cissie."</p> +<p>That was all the card would hold.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 21</h4> +<br> +<p>And then as if it were something that every one in the Dower +House had been waiting for, came the message that Hugh had been +killed.</p> +<p>The telegram was brought up by a girl in a pinafore instead of +the boy of the old dispensation, for boys now were doing the work +of youths and youths the work of the men who had gone to the +war.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling was standing at the front door; he had been +surveying the late October foliage, touched by the warm light of +the afternoon, when the messenger appeared. He opened the telegram, +hoping as he had hoped when he opened any telegram since Hugh had +gone to the front that it would not contain the exact words he +read; that it would say wounded, that at the worst it would say +"missing," that perhaps it might even tell of some pleasant +surprise, a brief return to home such as the last letter had +foreshadowed. He read the final, unqualified statement, the terse +regrets. He stood quite still for a moment or so, staring at the +words....</p> +<a name="Page_374"></a> +<p>It was a mile and a quarter from the post office to the Dower +House, and it was always his custom to give telegraph messengers +who came to his house twopence, and he wanted very much to get rid +of the telegraph girl, who stood expectantly before him holding her +red bicycle. He felt now very sick and strained; he had a +conviction that if he did not by an effort maintain his bearing +cool and dry he would howl aloud. He felt in his pocket for money; +there were some coppers and a shilling. He pulled it all out +together and stared at it.</p> +<p>He had an absurd conviction that this ought to be a sixpenny +telegram. The thing worried him. He wanted to give the brat +sixpence, and he had only threepence and a shilling, and he didn't +know what to do and his brain couldn't think. It would be a +shocking thing to give her a shilling, and he couldn't somehow give +just coppers for so important a thing as Hugh's death. Then all +this problem vanished and he handed the child the shilling. She +stared at him, inquiring, incredulous. "Is there a reply, Sir, +please?"</p> +<p>"No," he said, "that's for you. All of it.... This is a peculiar +sort of telegram.... It's news of importance...."</p> +<p>As he said this he met her eyes, and had a sudden persuasion +that she knew exactly what it was the telegram had told him, and +that she was shocked at this gala-like treatment of such terrible +news. He hesitated, feeling that he had to say something else, that +he was socially inadequate, and then he decided that at any cost he +must get his face away from her staring eyes. She made no movement +to turn away. She seemed to be taking him in, recording him, for +repetition, greedily, with every fibre of her being.</p> +<p>He stepped past her into the garden, and instantly forgot about +her existence....</p> +<a name="Page_375"></a><br> +<h4>§ 22</h4> +<br> +<p>He had been thinking of this possibility for the last few weeks +almost continuously, and yet now that it had come to him he felt +that he had never thought about it before, that he must go off +alone by himself to envisage this monstrous and terrible fact, +without distraction or interruption.</p> +<p>He saw his wife coming down the alley between the roses.</p> +<p>He was wrenched by emotions as odd and unaccountable as the +emotions of adolescence. He had exactly the same feeling now that +he had had when in his boyhood some unpleasant admission had to be +made to his parents. He felt he could not go through a scene with +her yet, that he could not endure the task of telling her, of being +observed. He turned abruptly to his left. He walked away as if he +had not seen her, across his lawn towards the little summer-house +upon a knoll that commanded the high road. She called to him, but +he did not answer....</p> +<p>He would not look towards her, but for a time all his senses +were alert to hear whether she followed him. Safe in the +summer-house he could glance back.</p> +<p>It was all right. She was going into the house.</p> +<p>He drew the telegram from his pocket again furtively, almost +guiltily, and re-read it. He turned it over and read it +again....</p> +<p><i>Killed.</i></p> +<p>Then his own voice, hoarse and strange to his ears, spoke his +thought.</p> +<p>"My God! how unutterably silly.... Why did I let him go? Why did +I let him go?"</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 23</h4> +<br> +<p>Mrs. Britling did not learn of the blow that had struck them +until after dinner that night. She was so accustomed to ignore his +incomprehensible moods that she did<a name="Page_376"></a> not +perceive that there was anything tragic about him until they sat at +table together. He seemed heavy and sulky and disposed to avoid +her, but that sort of moodiness was nothing very strange to her. +She knew that things that seemed to her utterly trivial, the +reading of political speeches in <i>The Times</i>, little comments +on life made in the most casual way, mere movements, could so avert +him. She had cultivated a certain disregard of such fitful +darknesses. But at the dinner-table she looked up, and was stabbed +to the heart to see a haggard white face and eyes of deep despair +regarding her ambiguously.</p> +<p>"Hugh!" she said, and then with a chill intimation, "<i>What is +it?</i>"</p> +<p>They looked at each other. His face softened and winced.</p> +<p>"My Hugh," he whispered, and neither spoke for some seconds.</p> +<p>"<i>Killed</i>," he said, and suddenly stood up whimpering, and +fumbled with his pocket.</p> +<p>It seemed he would never find what he sought. It came at last, a +crumpled telegram. He threw it down before her, and then thrust his +chair back clumsily and went hastily out of the room. She heard him +sob. She had not dared to look at his face again.</p> +<p>"Oh!" she cried, realising that an impossible task had been +thrust upon her.</p> +<p>"But what can I <i>say</i> to him?" she said, with the telegram +in her hand.</p> +<p>The parlourmaid came into the room.</p> +<p>"Clear the dinner away!" said Mrs. Britling, standing at her +place. "Master Hugh is killed...." And then wailing: "Oh! what can +I <i>say</i>? What can I <i>say</i>?"</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 24</h4> +<br> +<p>That night Mrs. Britling made the supreme effort of her life to +burst the prison of self-consciousness and inhibition in which she +was confined. Never before in all<a name="Page_377"></a> her life +had she so desired to be spontaneous and unrestrained; never before +had she so felt herself hampered by her timidity, her +self-criticism, her deeply ingrained habit of never letting herself +go. She was rent by reflected distress. It seemed to her that she +would be ready to give her life and the whole world to be able to +comfort her husband now. And she could conceive no gesture of +comfort. She went out of the dining-room into the hall and +listened. She went very softly upstairs until she came to the door +of her husband's room. There she stood still. She could hear no +sound from within. She put out her hand and turned the handle of +the door a little way, and then she was startled by the loudness of +the sound it made and at her own boldness. She withdrew her hand, +and then with a gesture of despair, with a face of white agony, she +flitted along the corridor to her own room.</p> +<p>Her mind was beaten to the ground by this catastrophe, of which +to this moment she had never allowed herself to think. She had +never allowed herself to think of it. The figure of her husband, +like some pitiful beast, wounded and bleeding, filled her mind. She +gave scarcely a thought to Hugh. "Oh, what can I <i>do</i> for +him?" she asked herself, sitting down before her unlit bedroom +fire.... "What can I say or do?"</p> +<p>She brooded until she shivered, and then she lit her +fire....</p> +<p>It was late that night and after an eternity of resolutions and +doubts and indecisions that Mrs. Britling went to her husband. He +was sitting close up to the fire with his chin upon his hands, +waiting for her; he felt that she would come to him, and he was +thinking meanwhile of Hugh with a slow unprogressive movement of +the mind. He showed by a movement that he heard her enter the room, +but he did not turn to look at her. He shrank a little from her +approach.</p> +<p>She came and stood beside him. She ventured to touch<a name= +"Page_378"></a> him very softly, and to stroke his head. "My dear," +she said. "My poor dear!</p> +<p>"It is so dreadful for you," she said, "it is so dreadful for +you. I know how you loved him...."</p> +<p>He spread his hands over his face and became very still.</p> +<p>"My poor dear!" she said, still stroking his hair, "my poor +dear!"</p> +<p>And then she went on saying "poor dear," saying it presently +because there was nothing more had come into her mind. She desired +supremely to be his comfort, and in a little while she was acting +comfort so poorly that she perceived her own failure. And that +increased her failure, and that increased her paralysing sense of +failure....</p> +<p>And suddenly her stroking hand ceased. Suddenly the real woman +cried out from her.</p> +<p>"I can't <i>reach</i> you!" she cried aloud. "I can't reach you. +I would do anything.... You! You with your heart half +broken...."</p> +<p>She turned towards the door. She moved clumsily, she was blinded +by her tears.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling uncovered his face. He stood up astonished, and +then pity and pitiful understanding came storming across his grief. +He made a step and took her in his arms. "My dear," he said, "don't +go from me...."</p> +<p>She turned to him weeping, and put her arms about his neck, and +he too was weeping.</p> +<p>"My poor wife!" he said, "my dear wife. If it were not for +you—I think I could kill myself to-night. Don't cry, my dear. +Don't, don't cry. You do not know how you comfort me. You do not +know how you help me."</p> +<p>He drew her to him; he put her cheek against his own....</p> +<p>His heart was so sore and wounded that he could not endure that +another human being should go wretched. He sat down in his chair +and drew her upon his knees,<a name="Page_379"></a> and said +everything he could think of to console her and reassure her and +make her feel that she was of value to him. He spoke of every +pleasant aspect of their lives, of every aspect, except that he +never named that dear pale youth who waited now.... He could wait a +little longer....</p> +<p>At last she went from him.</p> +<p>"Good night," said Mr. Britling, and took her to the door. "It +was very dear of you to come and comfort me," he said....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 25</h4> +<br> +<p>He closed the door softly behind her.</p> +<p>The door had hardly shut upon her before he forgot her. +Instantly he was alone again, utterly alone. He was alone in an +empty world....</p> +<p>Loneliness struck him like a blow. He had dependents, he had +cares. He had never a soul to whom he might weep....</p> +<p>For a time he stood beside his open window. He looked at the +bed—but no sleep he knew would come that night—until +the sleep of exhaustion came. He looked at the bureau at which he +had so often written. But the writing there was a shrivelled +thing....</p> +<p>This room was unendurable. He must go out. He turned to the +window, and outside was a troublesome noise of night-jars and a +distant roaring of stags, black trees, blacknesses, the sky clear +and remote with a great company of stars.... The stars seemed +attentive. They stirred and yet were still. It was as if they were +the eyes of watchers. He would go out to them....</p> +<p>Very softly he went towards the passage door, and still more +softly felt his way across the landing and down the staircase. Once +or twice he paused to listen.</p> +<p>He let himself out with elaborate precautions....</p> +<p>Across the dark he went, and suddenly his boy was all about him, +playing, climbing the cedars, twisting<a name="Page_380"></a> +miraculously about the lawn on a bicycle, discoursing gravely upon +his future, lying on the grass, breathing very hard and drawing +preposterous caricatures. Once again they walked side by side up +and down—it was athwart this very spot—talking gravely +but rather shyly....</p> +<p>And here they had stood a little awkwardly, before the boy went +in to say good-bye to his stepmother and go off with his father to +the station....</p> +<p>"I will work to-morrow again," whispered Mr. Britling, "but +to-night—to-night.... To-night is yours.... Can you hear me, +can you hear? Your father ... who had counted on you...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 26</h4> +<br> +<p>He went into the far corner of the hockey paddock, and there he +moved about for a while and then stood for a long time holding the +fence with both hands and staring blankly into the darkness. At +last he turned away, and went stumbling and blundering towards the +rose garden. A spray of creeper tore his face and distressed him. +He thrust it aside fretfully, and it scratched his hand. He made +his way to the seat in the arbour, and sat down and whispered a +little to himself, and then became very still with his arm upon the +back of the seat and his head upon his arm.</p> +<a name="Page_381"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_III"></a> +<h2>BOOK III</h2> +<h2>THE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY</h2> +<a name="Page_383"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_THE_FIRST"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> +<h2>MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>All over England now, where the livery of mourning had been a +rare thing to see, women and children went about in the October +sunshine in new black clothes. Everywhere one met these fresh +griefs, mothers who had lost their sons, women who had lost their +men, lives shattered and hopes destroyed. The dyers had a great +time turning coloured garments to black. And there was also a +growing multitude of crippled and disabled men. It was so in +England, much more was it so in France and Russia, in all the +countries of the Allies, and in Germany and Austria; away into Asia +Minor and Egypt, in India and Japan and Italy there was mourning, +the world was filled with loss and mourning and impoverishment and +distress.</p> +<p>And still the mysterious powers that required these things of +mankind were unappeased, and each day added its quota of +heart-stabbing messages and called for new mourning, and sent home +fresh consignments of broken and tormented men.</p> +<p>Some clung to hopes that became at last almost more terrible +than black certainties....</p> +<p>Mrs. Teddy went about the village in a coloured dress bearing +herself confidently. Teddy had been listed now as "missing, since +reported killed," and she had had two letters from his comrades. +They said Teddy had been left behind in the ruins of a farm with +one or two other wounded, and that when the Canadians retook the +place these wounded had all been found butchered. None had<a name= +"Page_384"></a> been found alive. Afterwards the Canadians had had +to fall back. Mr. Direck had been at great pains to hunt up wounded +men from Teddy's company, and also any likely Canadians both at the +base hospital in France and in London, and to get what he could +from them. He had made it a service to Cissie. Only one of his +witnesses was quite clear about Teddy, but he, alas! was dreadfully +clear. There had been only one lieutenant among the men left +behind, he said, and obviously that must have been Teddy. "He had +been prodded in half-a-dozen places. His head was nearly severed +from his body."</p> +<p>Direck came down and told the story to Cissie. "Shall I tell it +to her?" he asked.</p> +<p>Cissie thought. "Not yet," she said....</p> +<p>Letty's face changed in those pitiful weeks when she was denying +death. She lost her pretty colour, she became white; her mouth grew +hard and her eyes had a hard brightness. She never wept, she never +gave a sign of sorrow, and she insisted upon talking about Teddy, +in a dry offhand voice. Constantly she referred to his final +return. "Teddy," she said, "will be surprised at this," or "Teddy +will feel sold when he sees how I have altered that."</p> +<p>"Presently we shall see his name in a list of prisoners," she +said. "He is a wounded prisoner in Germany."</p> +<p>She adopted that story. She had no justification for it, but she +would hear no doubts upon it. She presently began to prepare +parcels to send him. "They want almost everything," she told +people. "They are treated abominably. He has not been able to write +to me yet, but I do not think I ought to wait until he asks +me."</p> +<p>Cissie was afraid to interfere with this.</p> +<p>After a time Letty grew impatient at the delay in getting any +address and took her first parcel to the post office.</p> +<p>"Unless you know what prison he is at," said the +postmistress.</p> +<p>"Pity!" said Letty. "I don't know that. Must it<a name= +"Page_385"></a> wait for that? I thought the Germans were so +systematic that it didn't matter."</p> +<p>The postmistress made tedious explanations that Letty did not +seem to hear. She stared straight in front of her at nothing. Then +in a pause in the conversation she picked up her parcel.</p> +<p>"It's tiresome for him to have to wait," she said. "But it can't +be long before I know."</p> +<p>She took the parcel back to the cottage.</p> +<p>"After all," she said, "it gives us time to get the better sort +of throat lozenges for him—the sort the syndicate shop +doesn't keep."</p> +<p>She put the parcel conspicuously upon the dresser in the kitchen +where it was most in the way, and set herself to make a jersey for +Teddy against the coming of the cold weather.</p> +<p>But one night the white mask fell for a moment from her +face.</p> +<p>Cissie and she had been sitting in silence before the fire. She +had been knitting—she knitted very badly—and Cissie had +been pretending to read, and had been watching her furtively. +Cissie eyed the slow, toilsome growth of the slack woolwork for a +time, and the touch of angry effort in every stroke of the knitting +needles. Then she was stirred to remonstrance.</p> +<p>"Poor Letty!" she said very softly. "Suppose after all, he is +dead?"</p> +<p>Letty met her with a pitiless stare.</p> +<p>"He is a prisoner," she said. "Isn't that enough? Why do you jab +at me by saying that? A wounded prisoner. Isn't that enough +despicable trickery for God even to play on Teddy—our Teddy? +To the very last moment he shall not be dead. Until the war is +over. Until six months after the war....</p> +<p>"I will tell you why, Cissie...."</p> +<p>She leant across the table and pointed her remarks with her +knitting needles, speaking in a tone of reasonable<a name= +"Page_386"></a> remonstrance. "You see," she said, "if people like +Teddy are to be killed, then all our ideas that life is meant for, +honesty and sweetness and happiness, are wrong, and this world is +just a place of devils; just a dirty cruel hell. Getting born would +be getting damned. And so one must not give way to that idea, +however much it may seem likely that he is dead....</p> +<p>"You see, if he <i>is</i> dead, then Cruelty is the Law, and +some one must pay me for his death.... Some one must pay me.... I +shall wait for six months after the war, dear, and then I shall go +off to Germany and learn my way about there. And I will murder some +German. Not just a common German, but a German who belongs to the +guilty kind. A sacrifice. It ought, for instance, to be +comparatively easy to kill some of the children of the Crown Prince +or some of the Bavarian princes. I shall prefer German children. I +shall sacrifice them to Teddy. It ought not to be difficult to find +people who can be made directly responsible, the people who +invented the poison gas, for instance, and kill them, or to kill +people who are dear to them. Or necessary to them.... Women can do +that so much more easily than men....</p> +<p>"That perhaps is the only way in which wars of this kind will +ever be brought to an end. By women insisting on killing the kind +of people who make them. Rooting them out. By a campaign of pursuit +and assassination that will go on for years and years after the war +itself is over.... Murder is such a little gentle punishment for +the crime of war.... It would be hardly more than a reproach for +what has happened. Falling like snow. Death after death. Flake by +flake. This prince. That statesman. The count who writes so +fiercely for war.... That is what I am going to do. If Teddy is +really dead.... We women were ready enough a year or so ago to +starve and die for the Vote, and that was quite a little thing in +comparison with this business.... Don't you see what I mean? It's +so plain and sensible, Cissie.<a name="Page_387"></a> Whenever a +man sits and thinks whether he will make a war or not, then he will +think too of women, women with daggers, bombs; of a vengeance that +will never tire nor rest; of consecrated patient women ready to +start out upon a pilgrimage that will only end with his death.... I +wouldn't hurt these war makers. No. In spite of the poison gas. In +spite of trench feet and the men who have been made blind and the +wounded who have lain for days, dying slowly in the wet. Women +ought not to hurt. But I would kill. Like killing dangerous vermin. +It would go on year by year. Balkan kings, German princes, +chancellors, they would have schemed for so much—and come to +just a rattle in the throat.... And if presently other kings and +emperors began to prance about and review armies, they too would +go....</p> +<p>"Until all the world understood that women would not stand war +any more forever....</p> +<p>"Of course I shall do something of the sort. What else is there +to do now for me?"</p> +<p>Letty's eyes were bright and intense, but her voice was soft and +subdued. She went on after a pause in the same casual voice. "You +see now, Cissie, why I cling to the idea that Teddy is alive. If +Teddy is alive, then even if he is wounded, he will get some +happiness out of it—and all this won't be—just rot. If +he is dead then everything is so desperately silly and cruel from +top to bottom—"</p> +<p>She smiled wanly to finish her sentence.</p> +<p>"But, Letty!" said Cissie, "there is the boy!"</p> +<p>"I shall leave the boy to you. Compared with Teddy I don't care +<i>that</i> for the boy. I never did. What is the good of +pretending? Some women are made like that."</p> +<p>She surveyed her knitting. "Poor stitches," she said....</p> +<p>"I'm hard stuff, Cissie. I take after mother more than father. +Teddy is my darling. All the tenderness of my life is Teddy. If it +goes, it goes.... I won't<a name="Page_388"></a> crawl about the +world like all these other snivelling widows. If they've killed my +man I shall kill. Blood for blood and loss for loss. I shall get +just as close to the particular Germans who made this war as I can, +and I shall kill them and theirs....</p> +<p>"The Women's Association for the Extirpation of the whole breed +of War Lords," she threw out. "If I <i>do</i> happen to +hurt—does it matter?"</p> +<p>She looked at her sister's shocked face and smiled again.</p> +<p>"You think I go about staring at nothing," she remarked.... "Not +a bit of it! I have been planning all sorts of things.... I have +been thinking how I could get to Germany.... Or one might catch +them in Switzerland.... I've had all sorts of plans. They can't go +guarded for ever....</p> +<p>"Oh, it makes me despise humanity to see how many soldiers and +how few assassins there are in the world.... After the things we +have seen. If people did their duty by the dagger there wouldn't be +such a thing as a War Lord in the world. Not one.... The Kaiser and +his sons and his sons' sons would know nothing but fear now for all +their lives. Fear would only cease to pursue as the coffin went +down into the grave. Fear by sea, fear by land, for the vessel he +sailed in, the train he travelled in, fear when he slept for the +death in his dreams, fear when he waked for the death in every +shadow; fear in every crowd, fear whenever he was alone. Fear would +stalk him through the trees, hide in the corner of the staircase; +make all his food taste perplexingly, so that he would want to spit +it out...."</p> +<p>She sat very still brooding on that idea for a time, and then +stood up.</p> +<p>"What nonsense one talks!" she cried, and yawned. "I wonder why +poor Teddy doesn't send me a post card or something to tell me his +address. I tell you what I <i>am</i> afraid of sometimes about him, +Cissie."</p> +<a name="Page_389"></a> +<p>"Yes?" said Cissie.</p> +<p>"Loss of memory. Suppose a beastly lump of shell or something +whacked him on the head.... I had a dream of him looking strange +about the eyes and not knowing me. That, you know, really +<i>may</i> have happened.... It would be beastly, of +course...."</p> +<p>Cissie's eyes were critical, but she had nothing ready to +say.</p> +<p>There were some moments of silence.</p> +<p>"Oh! bed," said Letty. "Though I shall just lie scheming."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>Cissie lay awake that night thinking about her sister as if she +had never thought about her before.</p> +<p>She began to weigh the concentrated impressions of a thousand +memories. She and her sister were near in age; they knew each other +with an extreme intimacy, and yet it seemed to Cissie that night as +though she did not know Letty at all. A year ago she would have +been certain she knew everything about her. But the old familiar +Letty, with the bright complexion, and the wicked eye, with her +rebellious schoolgirl insistence upon the beautifulness of "Boof'l +young men," and her frank and glowing passion for Teddy, with her +delight in humorous mystifications and open-air exercise and all +the sunshine and laughter of life, this sister Letty, who had been +so satisfactory and complete and final, had been thrust aside like +a mask. Cissie no longer knew her sister's eyes. Letty's hand had +become thin and unfamiliar and a little wrinkled; she was +sharp-featured and thin-lipped; her acts, which had once been +predictable, were incomprehensible, and Cissie was thrown back upon +speculations. In their schooldays Letty had had a streak of intense +sensibility; she had been easily moved to tears. But never once had +she wept or given any sign of weeping since Teddy's name had +appeared in the casualty list.... What was the strength of this +tragic tension?<a name="Page_390"></a> How far would it carry her? +Was Letty really capable of becoming a Charlotte Corday? Of +carrying out a scheme of far-seeing vengeance, of making her way +through long months and years nearer and nearer to revenge?</p> +<p>Were such revenges possible?</p> +<p>Would people presently begin to murder the makers of the Great +War? What a strange thing it would be in history if so there came a +punishment and end to the folly of kings!</p> +<p>Only a little while ago Cissie's imagination might have been +captured by so romantic a dream. She was still but a year or so out +of the stage of melodrama. But she was out of it. She was growing +up now to a subtler wisdom. People, she was beginning to realise, +do not do these simple things. They make vows of devotion and they +are not real vows of devotion; they love—quite +honestly—and qualify. There are no great revenges but only +little mean ones; no life-long vindications except the unrelenting +vengeance of the law. There is no real concentration of people's +lives anywhere such as romance demands. There is change, there is +forgetfulness. Everywhere there is dispersal. Even to the tragic +story of Teddy would come the modifications of time. Even to the +wickedness of the German princes would presently be added some +conflicting aspects. Could Letty keep things for years in her mind, +hard and terrible, as they were now? Surely they would soften; +other things would overlay them....</p> +<p>There came a rush of memories of Letty in a dozen schoolgirl +adventures, times when she had ventured, and times when she had +failed; Letty frightened, Letty vexed, Letty launching out to great +enterprises, going high and hard and well for a time, and then +failing. She had seen Letty snivelling and dirty; Letty shamed and +humiliated. She knew her Letty to the soul. Poor Letty! Poor dear +Letty! With a sudden clearness of vision Cissie realised what was +happening in her sister's mind. All this tense<a name= +"Page_391"></a> scheming of revenges was the imaginative play with +which Letty warded off the black alternative to her hope; it was +not strength, it was weakness. It was a form of giving way. She +could not face starkly the simple fact of Teddy's death. That was +too much for her. So she was building up this dream of a mission of +judgment against the day when she could resist the facts no longer. +She was already persuaded, only she would not be persuaded until +her dream was ready. If this state of suspense went on she might +establish her dream so firmly that it would at last take complete +possession of her mind. And by that time also she would have +squared her existence at Matching's Easy with the elaboration of +her reverie.</p> +<p>She would go about the place then, fancying herself preparing +for this tremendous task she would never really do; she would study +German maps; she would read the papers about German statesmen and +rulers; perhaps she would even make weak attempts to obtain a +situation in Switzerland or in Germany. Perhaps she would buy a +knife or a revolver. Perhaps presently she would begin to hover +about Windsor or Sandringham when peace was made, and the German +cousins came visiting again....</p> +<p>Into Cissie's mind came the image of the thing that might be; +Letty, shabby, draggled, with her sharp bright prettiness become +haggard, an assassin dreamer, still dependent on Mr. Britling, +doing his work rather badly, in a distraught unpunctual +fashion.</p> +<p>She must be told, she must be convinced soon, or assuredly she +would become an eccentric, a strange character, a Matching's Easy +Miss Flite....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>Cissie could think more clearly of Letty's mind than of her +own.</p> +<p>She herself was in a tangle. She had grown to be very<a name= +"Page_392"></a> fond of Mr. Direck, and to have a profound trust +and confidence in him, and her fondness seemed able to find no +expression at all except a constant girding at his and America's +avoidance of war. She had fallen in love with him when he was +wearing fancy dress; she was a young woman with a stronger taste +for body and colour than she supposed; what indeed she resented +about him, though she did not know it, was that he seemed never +disposed to carry the spirit of fancy dress into everyday life. To +begin with he had touched both her imagination and senses, and she +wanted him to go on doing that. Instead of which he seemed lapsing +more and more into reiterated assurances of devotion and the flat +competent discharge of humanitarian duties. Always nowadays he was +trying to persuade her that what he was doing was the right and +honourable thing for him to do; what he did not realise, what +indeed she did not realise, was the exasperation his rightness and +reasonableness produced in her. When he saw he exasperated her he +sought very earnestly to be righter and reasonabler and more +plainly and demonstrably right and reasonable than ever.</p> +<p>Withal, as she felt and perceived, he was such a good thing, +such a very good thing; so kind, so trustworthy, with a sort of +slow strength, with a careful honesty, a big good childishness, a +passion for fairness. And so helpless in her hands. She could lash +him and distress him. Yet she could not shake his slowly formed +convictions.</p> +<p>When Cissie had dreamt of the lover that fate had in store for +her in her old romantic days, he was to be <i>perfect</i> always, +he and she were always to be absolutely in the right (and, if the +story needed it, the world in the wrong). She had never expected to +find herself tied by her affections to a man with whom she +disagreed, and who went contrary to her standards, very much as if +she was lashed on the back of a very nice elephant that would wince +to but not obey the goad....</p> +<a name="Page_393"></a> +<p>So she nagged him and taunted him, and would hear no word of his +case. And he wanted dreadfully to discuss his case. He felt that +the point of conscience about the munitions was particularly fine +and difficult. He wished she would listen and enter into it more. +But she thought with that more rapid English flash which is not so +much thinking as feeling. He loved that flash in her in spite of +his persuasion of its injustice.</p> +<p>Her thought that he ought to go to the war made him feel like a +renegade; but her claim that he was somehow still English held him +in spite of his reason. In the midst of such perplexities he was +glad to find one neutral task wherein he could find himself +whole-heartedly with and for Cissie.</p> +<p>He hunted up the evidence of Teddy's fate with a devoted +pertinacity.</p> +<p>And in the meanwhile the other riddle resolved itself. He had +had a certain idea in his mind for some time. He discovered one day +that it was an inspiration. He could keep his conscientious +objection about America, and still take a line that would satisfy +Cissie. He took it.</p> +<p>When he came down to Matching's Easy at her summons to bear his +convincing witness of Teddy's fate, he came in an unwonted costume. +It was a costume so wonderful in his imagination that it seemed to +cry aloud, to sound like a trumpet as he went through London to +Liverpool Street station; it was a costume like an international +event; it was a costume that he felt would blare right away to +Berlin. And yet it was a costume so commonplace, so much the usual +wear now, that Cissie, meeting him at the station and full of the +thought of Letty's trouble, did not remark it, felt indeed rather +than observed that he was looking more strong and handsome than he +had ever done since he struck upon her imagination in the fantastic +wrap that Teddy had found for him in the merry days when there was +no death in the world. And Letty<a name="Page_394"></a> too, +resistant, incalculable, found no wonder in the wonderful suit.</p> +<p>He bore his testimony. It was the queer halting telling of a +patched-together tale....</p> +<p>"I suppose," said Letty, "if I tell you now that I don't believe +that that officer was Teddy you will think I am cracked.... But I +don't."</p> +<p>She sat staring straight before her for a time after saying +this. Then suddenly she got up and began taking down her hat and +coat from the peg behind the kitchen door. The hanging strap of the +coat was twisted and she struggled with it petulantly until she +tore it.</p> +<p>"Where are you going?" cried Cissie.</p> +<p>Letty's voice over her shoulder was the harsh voice of a +scolding woman.</p> +<p>"I'm going out—anywhere." She turned, coat in hand. "Can't +I go out if I like?" she asked. "It's a beautiful day.... Mustn't I +go out?... I suppose you think I ought to take in what you have +told me in a moment. Just smile and say '<i>Indeed!</i>' ... +Abandoned!—while his men retreated! How jolly! And then not +think of it any more.... Besides, I must go out. You two want to be +left together. You want to canoodle. Do it while you can!"</p> +<p>Then she put on coat and hat, jamming her hat down on her head, +and said something that Cissie did not immediately understand.</p> +<p>"<i>He'll</i> have his turn in the trenches soon enough. Now +that he's made up his mind.... He might have done it +sooner...."</p> +<p>She turned her back as though she had forgotten them. She stood +for a moment as though her feet were wooden, not putting her feet +as she usually put her feet. She took slow, wide, unsure steps. She +went out—like something that is mortally injured and still +walks—into the autumnal sunshine. She left the door wide open +behind her.</p> +<a name="Page_395"></a><br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>And Cissie, with eyes full of distress for her sister, had still +to grasp the fact that Direck was wearing a Canadian +uniform....</p> +<p>He stood behind her, ashamed that in such a moment this fact and +its neglect by every one could be so vivid in his mind.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Cissie's estimate of her sister's psychology had been just. The +reverie of revenge had not yet taken a grip upon Letty's mind +sufficiently strong to meet the challenge of this conclusive +evidence of Teddy's death. She walked out into a world of sunshine +now almost completely convinced that Teddy was dead, and she knew +quite well that her dream of some dramatic and terrible vindication +had gone from her. She knew that in truth she could do nothing of +that sort....</p> +<p>She walked out with a set face and eyes that seemed unseeing, +and yet it was as if some heavy weight had been lifted from her +shoulders. It was over; there was no more to hope for and there was +nothing more to fear. She would have been shocked to realise that +her mind was relieved.</p> +<p>She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be away from every eye. +She was like some creature that after a long nightmare incubation +is at last born into a clear, bleak day. She had to feel herself; +she had to stretch her mind in this cheerless sunshine, this new +world, where there was to be no more Teddy and no real revenge nor +compensation for Teddy. Teddy was past....</p> +<p>Hitherto she had had an angry sense of being deprived of +Teddy—almost as though he were keeping away from her. Now, +there was no more Teddy to be deprived of....</p> +<a name="Page_396"></a> +<p>She went through the straggling village, and across the fields +to the hillside that looks away towards Mertonsome and its steeple. +And where the hill begins to fall away she threw herself down under +the hedge by the path, near by the stile into the lane, and lay +still. She did not so much think as remain blank, waiting for the +beginning of impressions....</p> +<p>It was as it were a blank stare at the world....</p> +<p>She did not know if it was five minutes or half an hour later +that she became aware that some one was looking at her. She turned +with a start, and discovered the Reverend Dimple with one foot on +the stile, and an expression of perplexity and consternation upon +his chubby visage.</p> +<p>Instantly she understood. Already on four different occasions +since Teddy's disappearance she had seen the good man coming +towards her, always with a manifest decision, always with the same +faltering doubt as now. Often in their happy days had she and Teddy +discussed him and derided him and rejoiced over him. They had +agreed he was as good as Jane Austen's Mr. Collins. He really was +very like Mr. Collins, except that he was plumper. And now, it was +as if he was transparent to her hard defensive scrutiny. She knew +he was impelled by his tradition, by his sense of fitness, by his +respect for his calling, to offer her his ministrations and +consolations, to say his large flat amiabilities over her and pat +her kindly with his hands. And she knew too that he dreaded her. +She knew that the dear old humbug knew at the bottom of his heart +quite certainly that he was a poor old humbug, and that she was in +his secret. And at the bottom of his heart he found himself too +honest to force his poor platitudes upon any who would not be glad +of them. If she could have been glad of them he would have had no +compunction. He was a man divided against himself; failing to carry +through his rich pretences, dismayed.</p> +<a name="Page_397"></a> +<p>He had been taking his afternoon "constitutional." He had +discovered her beyond the stile just in time to pull up. Then had +come a fatal, a preposterous hesitation. She stared at him now, +with hard, expressionless eyes.</p> +<p>He stared back at her, until his plump pink face was all +consternation. He was extraordinarily distressed. It was as if a +thousand unspoken things had been said between them.</p> +<p>"No wish," he said, "intrude."</p> +<p>If he had had the certain balm, how gladly would he have given +it!</p> +<p>He broke the spell by stepping back into the lane. He made a +gesture with his hands, as if he would have wrung them. And then he +had fled down the lane—almost at a run.</p> +<p>"Po' girl," he shouted. "Po' girl," and left her staring.</p> +<p>Staring—and then she laughed.</p> +<p>This was good. This was the sort of thing one could tell Teddy, +when at last he came back and she could tell him anything. And then +she realised again; there was no more Teddy, there would be no +telling. And suddenly she fell weeping.</p> +<p>"Oh, Teddy, Teddy," she cried through her streaming tears. "How +could you leave me? How can I bear it?"</p> +<p>Never a tear had she shed since the news first came, and now she +could weep, she could weep her grief out. She abandoned herself +unreservedly to this blessed relief....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>There comes an end to weeping at last, and Letty lay still, in +the red light of the sinking sun.</p> +<p>She lay so still that presently a little foraging robin<a name= +"Page_398"></a> came dirting down to the grass not ten yards away +and stopped and looked at her. And then it came a hop or so +nearer.</p> +<p>She had been lying in a state of passive abandonment, her +swollen wet eyes open, regardless of everything. But those quick +movements caught her back to attention. She began to watch the +robin, and to note how it glanced sidelong at her and appeared to +meditate further approaches. She made an almost imperceptible +movement, and straightway the little creature was in a projecting +spray of berried hawthorn overhead.</p> +<p>Her tear-washed mind became vaguely friendly. With an +unconscious comfort it focussed down to the robin. She rolled over, +sat up, and imitated his friendly "cheep."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<br> +<p>Presently she became aware of footsteps rustling through the +grass towards her.</p> +<p>She looked over her shoulder and discovered Mr. Britling +approaching by the field path. He looked white and tired and +listless, even his bristling hair and moustache conveyed his +depression; he was dressed in an old tweed knickerbocker suit and +carrying a big atlas and some papers. He had an effect of +hesitation in his approach. It was as if he wanted to talk to her +and doubted her reception for him.</p> +<p>He spoke without any preface. "Direck has told you?" he said, +standing over her.</p> +<p>She answered with a sob.</p> +<p>"I was afraid it was so, and yet I did not believe it," said Mr. +Britling. "Until now."</p> +<p>He hesitated as if he would go on, and then he knelt down on the +grass a little way from her and seated himself. There was an +interval of silence.</p> +<p>"At first it hurts like the devil," he said at last, looking +away at Mertonsome spire and speaking as if he spoke<a name= +"Page_399"></a> to no one in particular. "And then it hurts. It +goes on hurting.... And one can't say much to any one...."</p> +<p>He said no more for a time. But the two of them comforted one +another, and knew that they comforted each other. They had a common +feeling of fellowship and ease. They had been stricken by the same +thing; they understood how it was with each other. It was not like +the attempted comfort they got from those who had not loved and +dreaded....</p> +<p>She took up a little broken twig and dug small holes in the +ground with it.</p> +<p>"It's strange," she said, "but I'm glad I know for sure."</p> +<p>"I can understand that," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It stops the nightmares.... It isn't hopes I've had so much as +fears.... I wouldn't admit he was dead or hurt. Because—I +couldn't think it without thinking it—horrible. +<i>Now</i>—"</p> +<p>"It's final," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It's definite," she said after a pause. "It's like thinking +he's asleep—for good."</p> +<p>But that did not satisfy her. There was more than this in her +mind. "It does away with the half and half," she said. "He's dead +or he is alive...."</p> +<p>She looked up at Mr. Britling as if she measured his +understanding.</p> +<p>"You don't still doubt?" he said.</p> +<p>"I'm content now in my mind—in a way. He wasn't anyhow +there—unless he was dead. But if I saw Teddy coming over the +hedge there to me—It would be just natural.... No, don't +stare at me. I know really he is dead. And it is a comfort. It is +peace.... All the thoughts of him being crushed dreadfully or being +mutilated or lying and screaming—or things like +that—they've gone. He's out of his spoilt body. He's my +unbroken Teddy again.... Out of sight somewhere.... Unbroken.... +Sleeping."</p> +<a name="Page_400"></a> +<p>She resumed her excavation with the little stick, with the tears +running down her face.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling presently went on with the talk. "For me it came +all at once, without a doubt or a hope. I hoped until the last that +nothing would touch Hugh. And then it was like a black shutter +falling—in an instant...."</p> +<p>He considered. "Hugh, too, seems just round the corner at times. +But at times, it's a blank place....</p> +<p>"At times," said Mr. Britling, "I feel nothing but astonishment. +The whole thing becomes incredible. Just as for weeks after the war +began I couldn't believe that a big modern nation could really go +to war—seriously—with its whole heart.... And they have +killed Teddy and Hugh....</p> +<p>"They have killed millions. Millions—who had fathers and +mothers and wives and sweethearts...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<br> +<p>"Somehow I can't talk about this to Edith. It is ridiculous, I +know. But in some way I can't.... It isn't fair to her. If I could, +I would.... Quite soon after we were married I ceased to talk to +her. I mean talking really and simply—as I do to you. And +it's never come back. I don't know why.... And particularly I can't +talk to her of Hugh.... Little things, little shadows of criticism, +but enough to make it impossible.... And I go about thinking about +Hugh, and what has happened to him sometimes... as though I was +stifling."</p> +<p>Letty compared her case.</p> +<p>"I don't want to talk about Teddy—not a word."</p> +<p>"That's queer.... But perhaps—a son is different. Now I +come to think of it—I've never talked of Mary.... Not to any +one ever. I've never thought of that before. But I haven't. I +couldn't. No. Losing a lover, that's a thing for oneself. I've been +through that, you<a name="Page_401"></a> see. But a son's more +outside you. Altogether. And more your own making. It's not losing +a thing <i>in</i> you; it's losing a hope and a pride.... Once when +I was a little boy I did a drawing very carefully. It took me a +long time.... And a big boy tore it up. For no particular reason. +Just out of cruelty.... That—that was exactly like losing +Hugh...."</p> +<p>Letty reflected.</p> +<p>"No," she confessed, "I'm more selfish than that."</p> +<p>"It isn't selfish," said Mr. Britling. "But it's a different +thing. It's less intimate, and more personally important."</p> +<p>"I have just thought, 'He's gone. He's gone.' Sometimes, do you +know, I have felt quite angry with him. Why need he have +gone—so soon?"</p> +<p>Mr. Britling nodded understandingly.</p> +<p>"I'm not angry. I'm not depressed. I'm just bitterly hurt by the +ending of something I had hoped to watch—always—all my +life," he said. "I don't know how it is between most fathers and +sons, but I admired Hugh. I found exquisite things in him. I doubt +if other people saw them. He was quiet. He seemed clumsy. But he +had an extraordinary fineness. He was a creature of the most +delicate and rapid responses.... These aren't my fond delusions. It +was so.... You know, when he was only a few days old, he would +start suddenly at any strange sound. He was alive like an +Æolian harp from the very beginning.... And his hair when he +was born—he had a lot of hair—was like the down on the +breast of a bird. I remember that now very vividly—and how I +used to like to pass my hand over it. It was silk, spun silk. +Before he was two he could talk—whole sentences. He had the +subtlest ear. He loved long words.... And then," he said with tears +in his voice, "all this beautiful fine structure, this brain, this +fresh life as nimble as water—as elastic as a steel spring, +it is destroyed....</p> +<p>"I don't make out he wasn't human. Often and often<a name= +"Page_402"></a> I have been angry with him, and disappointed in +him. There were all sorts of weaknesses in him. We all knew them. +And we didn't mind them. We loved him the better. And his odd queer +cleverness!.... And his profound wisdom. And then all this +beautiful and delicate fabric, all those clear memories in his dear +brain, all his whims, his sudden inventions....</p> +<p>"You know, I have had a letter from his chum Park. He was shot +through a loophole. The bullet went through his eye and brow.... +Think of it!</p> +<p>"An amazement ... a blow ... a splattering of blood. Rags of +tormented skin and brain stuff.... In a moment. What had taken +eighteen years—love and care...."</p> +<p>He sat thinking for an interval, and then went on, "The reading +and writing alone! I taught him to read myself—because his +first governess, you see, wasn't very clever. She was a very good +methodical sort, but she had no inspiration. So I got up all sorts +of methods for teaching him to read. But it wasn't necessary. He +seemed to leap all sorts of difficulties. He leapt to what one was +trying to teach him. It was as quick as the movement of some wild +animal....</p> +<p>"He came into life as bright and quick as this robin looking for +food....</p> +<p>"And he's broken up and thrown away.... Like a cartridge case by +the side of a covert...."</p> +<p>He choked and stopped speaking. His elbows were on his knees, +and he put his face between his hands and shuddered and became +still. His hair was troubled. The end of his stumpy moustache and a +little roll of flesh stood out at the side of his hand, and made +him somehow twice as pitiful. His big atlas, from which papers +projected, seemed forgotten by his side. So he sat for a long time, +and neither he nor Letty moved or spoke. But they were in the same +shadow. They found great comfort in one<a name="Page_403"></a> +another. They had not been so comforted before since their losses +came upon them.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>It was Mr. Britling who broke silence. And when he drew his +hands down from his face and spoke, he said one of the most amazing +and unexpected things she had ever heard in her life.</p> +<p>"The only possible government in Albania," he said, looking +steadfastly before him down the hill-side, "is a group of +republican cantons after the Swiss pattern. I can see no other +solution that is not offensive to God. It does not matter in the +least what we owe to Serbia or what we owe to Italy. We have got to +set this world on a different footing. We have got to set up the +world at last—on justice and reason."</p> +<p>Then, after a pause, "The Treaty of Bucharest was an evil +treaty. It must be undone. Whatever this German King of Bulgaria +does, that treaty must be undone and the Bulgarians united again +into one people. They must have themselves, whatever punishment +they deserve, they must have nothing more, whatever reward they +win."</p> +<p>She could not believe her ears.</p> +<p>"After this precious blood, after this precious blood, if we +leave one plot of wickedness or cruelty in the world—"</p> +<p>And therewith he began to lecture Letty on the importance of +international politics—to every one. How he and she and every +one must understand, however hard it was to understand.</p> +<p>"No life is safe, no happiness is safe, there is no chance of +bettering life until we have made an end to all that causes +war....</p> +<p>"We have to put an end to the folly and vanity of kings, and to +any people ruling any people but themselves.<a name="Page_404"></a> +There is no convenience, there is no justice in any people ruling +any people but themselves; the ruling of men by others, who have +not their creeds and their languages and their ignorances and +prejudices, that is the fundamental folly that has killed Teddy and +Hugh—and these millions. To end that folly is as much our +duty and business as telling the truth or earning a living...."</p> +<p>"But how can you alter it?"</p> +<p>He held out a finger at her. "Men may alter anything if they +have motive enough and faith enough."</p> +<p>He indicated the atlas beside him.</p> +<p>"Here I am planning the real map of the world," he said. "Every +sort of district that has a character of its own must have its own +rule; and the great republic of the united states of the world must +keep the federal peace between them all. That's the plain sense of +life; the federal world-republic. Why do we bother ourselves with +loyalties to any other government but that? It needs only that +sufficient men should say it, and that republic would be here now. +Why have we loitered so long—until these tragic punishments +come? We have to map the world out into its states, and plan its +government and the way of its tolerations."</p> +<p>"And you think it will come?"</p> +<p>"It will come."</p> +<p>"And you believe that men will listen to such schemes?" said +Letty.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling, with his eyes far away over the hills, seemed to +think. "Yes," he said. "Not perhaps to-day—not steadily. But +kings and empires die; great ideas, once they are born, can never +die again. In the end this world-republic, this sane government of +the world, is as certain as the sunset. Only...."</p> +<p>He sighed, and turned over a page of his atlas blindly.</p> +<p>"Only we want it soon. The world is weary of this bloodshed, +weary of all this weeping, of this wasting of substance and this +killing of sons and lovers. We want<a name="Page_405"></a> it soon, +and to have it soon we must work to bring it about. We must give +our lives. What is left of our lives....</p> +<p>"That is what you and I must do, Letty. What else is there left +for us to do?... I will write of nothing else, I will think of +nothing else now but of safety and order. So that all these dear +dead—not one of them but will have brought the great days of +peace and man's real beginning nearer, and these cruel things that +make men whimper like children, that break down bright lives into +despair and kill youth at the very moment when it puts out its +clean hands to take hold of life—these cruelties, these +abominations of confusion, shall cease from the earth forever."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>Letty regarded him, frowning, and with her chin between her +fists....</p> +<p>"But do you really believe," said Letty, "that things can be +better than they are?"</p> +<p>"But—<i>Yes!</i>" said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"I don't," said Letty. "The world is cruel. It is just cruel. So +it will always be."</p> +<p>"It need not be cruel," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"It is just a place of cruel things. It is all set with knives. +It is full of diseases and accidents. As for God—either there +is no God or he is an idiot. He is a slobbering idiot. He is like +some idiot who pulls off the wings of flies."</p> +<p>"No," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>"There is no progress. Nothing gets better. How can <i>you</i> +believe in God after Hugh? <i>Do</i> you believe in God?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Britling after a long pause; "I do believe in +God."</p> +<p>"Who lets these things happen!" She raised herself on her arm +and thrust her argument at him with her hand. "Who kills my Teddy +and your Hugh—and millions."</p> +<p>"No," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<a name="Page_406"></a> +<p>"But he <i>must</i> let these things happen. Or why do they +happen?"</p> +<p>"No," said Mr. Britling. "It is the theologians who must answer +that. They have been extravagant about God. They have had silly +absolute ideas—that He is all powerful. That He's +omni-everything. But the common sense of men knows better. Every +real religious thought denies it. After all, the real God of the +Christians is Christ, not God Almighty; a poor mocked and wounded +God nailed on a cross of matter.... Some day He will triumph.... +But it is not fair to say that He causes all things now. It is not +fair to make out a case against him. You have been misled. It is a +theologian's folly. God is not absolute; God is finite.... A finite +God who struggles in his great and comprehensive way as we struggle +in our weak and silly way—who is <i>with</i> us—that is +the essence of all real religion.... I agree with you so—Why! +if I thought there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles +and deaths and all the waste and horror of this war—able to +prevent these things—doing them to amuse Himself—I +would spit in his empty face...."</p> +<p>"Any one would...."</p> +<p>"But it's your teachers and catechisms have set you against +God.... They want to make out He owns all Nature. And all sorts of +silly claims. Like the heralds in the Middle Ages who insisted that +Christ was certainly a great gentleman entitled to bear arms. But +God is within Nature and necessity. Necessity is a thing beyond +God—beyond good and ill, beyond space and time, a mystery +everlastingly impenetrable. God is nearer than that. Necessity is +the uttermost thing, but God is the innermost thing. Closer He is +than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. He is the Other +Thing than this world. Greater than Nature or Necessity, for he is +a spirit and they are blind, but not controlling them.... Not +yet...."</p> +<a name="Page_407"></a> +<p>"They always told me He was the maker of Heaven and Earth."</p> +<p>"That's the Jew God the Christians took over. It's a Quack God, +a Panacea. It's not my God."</p> +<p>Letty considered these strange ideas.</p> +<p>"I never thought of Him like that," she said at last. "It makes +it all seem different."</p> +<p>"Nor did I. But I do now.... I have suddenly found it and seen +it plain. I see it so plain that I am amazed that I have not always +seen it.... It is, you see, so easy to understand that there is a +God, and how complex and wonderful and brotherly He is, when one +thinks of those dear boys who by the thousand, by the hundred +thousand, have laid down their lives.... Ay, and there were German +boys too who did the same.... The cruelties, the injustice, the +brute aggression—they saw it differently. They laid down +their lives—they laid down their lives.... Those dear lives, +those lives of hope and sunshine....</p> +<p>"Don't you see that it must be like that, Letty? Don't you see +that it must be like that?"</p> +<p>"No," she said, "I've seen things differently from that."</p> +<p>"But it's so plain to me," said Mr. Britling. "If there was +nothing else in all the world but our kindness for each other, or +the love that made you weep in this kind October sunshine, or the +love I bear Hugh—if there was nothing else at all—if +everything else was cruelty and mockery and filthiness and +bitterness, it would still be certain that there was a God of love +and righteousness. If there were no signs of God in all the world +but the godliness we have seen in those two boys of ours; if we had +no other light but the love we have between us....</p> +<p>"You don't mind if I talk like this?" said Mr. Britling. "It's +all I can think of now—this God, this God who struggles, who +was in Hugh and Teddy, clear<a name="Page_408"></a> and plain, and +how He must become the ruler of the world...."</p> +<p>"This God who struggles," she repeated. "I have never thought of +Him like that."</p> +<p>"Of course He must be like that," said Mr. Britling. "How can +God be a Person; how can He be anything that matters to man, unless +He is limited and defined and—human like ourselves.... With +things outside Him and beyond Him."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>Letty walked back slowly through the fields of stubble to her +cottage.</p> +<p>She had been talking to Mr. Britling for an hour, and her mind +was full of the thought of this changed and simplified man, who +talked of God as he might have done of a bird he had seen or of a +tree he had sheltered under. And all mixed up with this thought of +Mr. Britling was this strange idea of God who was also a limited +person, who could come as close as Teddy, whispering love in the +darkness. She had a ridiculous feeling that God really struggled +like Mr. Britling, and that with only some indefinable inferiority +of outlook Mr. Britling loved like God. She loved him for his maps +and his dreams and the bareness of his talk to her. It was strange +how the straining thought of the dead Teddy had passed now out of +her mind. She was possessed by a sense of ending and beginning, as +though a page had turned over in her life and everything was new. +She had never given religion any thought but contemptuous thought +for some years, since indeed her growing intelligence had dismissed +it as a scheme of inexcusable restraints and empty pretences, a +thing of discords where there were no discords except of its +making. She had been a happy Atheist. She had played in the +sunshine, a natural creature with the completest confidence in the +essential goodness of the world<a name="Page_409"></a> in which she +found herself. She had refused all thought of painful and +disagreeable things. Until the bloody paw of war had wiped out all +her assurance. Teddy, the playmate, was over, the love game was +ended for ever; the fresh happy acceptance of life as life; and in +the place of Teddy was the sorrow of life, the pity of life, and +this coming of God out of utter remoteness into a conceivable +relation to her own existence.</p> +<p>She had left Mr. Britling to his atlas. He lay prone under the +hedge with it spread before him. His occupation would have seemed +to her only a little while ago the absurdest imaginable. He was +drawing boundaries on his maps very carefully in red ink, with a +fountain pen. But now she understood.</p> +<p>She knew that those red ink lines of Mr. Britling's might in the +end prove wiser and stronger than the bargains of the +diplomats....</p> +<p>In the last hour he had come very near to her. She found herself +full of an unwonted affection for him. She had never troubled her +head about her relations with any one except Teddy before. Now +suddenly she seemed to be opening out to all the world for +kindness. This new idea of a friendly God, who had a struggle of +his own, who could be thought of as kindred to Mr. Britling, as +kindred to Teddy—had gripped her imagination. He was behind +the autumnal sunshine; he was in the little bird that had seemed so +confident and friendly. Whatever was kind, whatever was tender; +there was God. And a thousand old phrases she had read and heard +and given little heed to, that had lain like dry bones in her +memory, suddenly were clothed in flesh and became alive. This +God—if this was God—then indeed it was not nonsense to +say that God was love, that he was a friend and companion.... With +him it might be possible to face a world in which Teddy and she +would never walk side by side again nor plan any more happiness for +ever. After all she had been very happy; she had had +wonderful<a name="Page_410"></a> happiness. She had had far more +happiness, far more love, in her short years or so than most people +had in their whole lives. And so in the reaction of her emotions, +Letty, who had gone out with her head full of murder and revenge, +came back through the sunset thinking of pity, of the thousand +kindnesses and tendernesses of Teddy that were, after all, perhaps +only an intimation of the limitless kindnesses and tendernesses of +God.... What right had she to a white and bitter grief, +self-centred and vindictive, while old Britling could still plan an +age of mercy in the earth and a red-gold sunlight that was warm as +a smile from Teddy lay on all the world....</p> +<p>She must go into the cottage and kiss Cissie, and put away that +parcel out of sight until she could find some poor soldier to whom +she could send it. She had been pitiless towards Cissie in her +grief. She had, in the egotism of her sorrow, treated Cissie as she +might have treated a chair or a table, with no thought that Cissie +might be weary, might dream of happiness still to come. Cissie had +still to play the lover, and her man was already in khaki. There +would be no such year as Letty had had in the days before the war +darkened the world. Before Cissie's marrying the peace must come, +and the peace was still far away. And Direck too would have to take +his chances....</p> +<p>Letty came through the little wood and over the stile that +brought her into sight of the cottage. The windows of the cottage +as she saw it under the bough of the big walnut tree, were afire +from the sun. The crimson rambler over the porch that she and Teddy +had planted was still bearing roses. The door was open and people +were moving in the porch.</p> +<p>Some one was coming out of the cottage, a stranger, in an +unfamiliar costume, and behind him was a man in khaki—but +that was Mr. Direck! And behind him again was Cissie.</p> +<p>But the stranger!</p> +<a name="Page_411"></a> +<p>He came out of the frame of the porch towards the garden +gate....</p> +<p>Who—who was this stranger?</p> +<p>It was a man in queer-looking foreign clothes, baggy trousers of +some soft-looking blue stuff and a blouse, and he had a +white-bandaged left arm. He had a hat stuck at the back of his +head, and a beard....</p> +<p>He was entirely a stranger, a foreigner. Was she going insane? +Of course he was a stranger!</p> +<p>And then he moved a step, he made a queer sideways pace, a +caper, on the path, and instantly he ceased to be strange and +foreign. He became amazingly, incredibly, familiar by virtue of +that step....</p> +<p><i>No!</i></p> +<p>Her breath stopped. All Letty's being seemed to stop. And this +stranger who was also incredibly familiar, after he had stared at +her motionless form for a moment, waved his hat with a +gesture—a gesture that crowned and scaled the effect of +familiarity. She gave no sign in reply.</p> +<p>No, that familiarity was just a mad freakishness in things.</p> +<p>This strange man came from Belgium perhaps, to tell something +about Teddy....</p> +<p>And then she surprised herself by making a groaning noise, an +absurd silly noise, just like the noise when one imitates a cow to +a child. She said "Mooo-oo."</p> +<p>And she began to run forward, with legs that seemed misfits, +waving her hands about, and as she ran she saw more and more +certainly that this wounded man in strange clothing was Teddy. She +ran faster and still faster, stumbling and nearly falling. If she +did not get to him speedily the world would burst.</p> +<p>To hold him, to hold close to him!...</p> +<p>"Letty! Letty! Just one arm...."</p> +<p>She was clinging to him and he was holding her....</p> +<p>It was all right. She had always known it was all right. (Hold +close to him.) Except just for a little while. But<a name= +"Page_412"></a> that had been foolishness. Hadn't she always known +he was alive? And here he was alive! (Hold close to him.) Only it +was so good to be sure—after all her torment; to hold him, to +hang about him, to feel the solid man, kissing her, weeping too, +weeping together with her. "Teddy my love!"</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>Letty was in the cottage struggling to hear and understand +things too complicated for her emotion-crowded mind. There was +something that Mr. Direck was trying to explain about a delayed +telegram that had come soon after she had gone out. There was much +indeed that Mr. Direck was trying to explain. What did any +explanation really matter when you had Teddy, with nothing but a +strange beard and a bandaged arm between him and yourself? She had +an absurd persuasion at first that those two strangenesses would +also presently be set aside, so that Teddy would become just +exactly what Teddy had always been.</p> +<p>Teddy had been shot through the upper arm....</p> +<p>"My hand has gone, dear little Letty. It's my left hand, +luckily. I shall have to wear a hook like some old pirate...."</p> +<p>There was something about his being taken prisoner. "That other +officer"—that was Mr. Direck's officer—"had been lying +there for days." Teddy had been shot through the upper arm, and +stunned by a falling beam. When he came to he was disarmed, with a +German standing over him....</p> +<p>Then afterwards he had escaped. In quite a little time he had +escaped. He had been in a railway station somewhere in Belgium; +locked in a waiting-room with three or four French prisoners, and +the junction had been bombed by French and British aeroplanes. +Their guard and two of the prisoners had been killed. In the +confusion the others had got away into the town. There were +trucks<a name="Page_413"></a> of hay on fire, and a store of petrol +was in danger. "After that one was bound to escape. One would have +been shot if one had been found wandering about."</p> +<p>The bomb had driven some splinters of glass and corrugated iron +into Teddy's wrist; it seemed a small place at first; it didn't +trouble him for weeks. But then some dirt got into it.</p> +<p>In the narrow cobbled street beyond the station he had happened +upon a woman who knew no English, but who took him to a priest, and +the priest had hidden him.</p> +<p>Letty did not piece together the whole story at first. She did +not want the story very much; she wanted to know about this hand +and arm.</p> +<p>There would be queer things in the story when it came to be +told. There was an old peasant who had made Teddy work in his +fields in spite of his smashed and aching arm, and who had pointed +to a passing German when Teddy demurred; there were the people +called "they" who had at that time organised the escape of +stragglers into Holland. There was the night watch, those long +nights in succession before the dash for liberty. But Letty's +concern was all with the hand. Inside the sling there was something +that hurt the imagination, something bandaged, a stump. She could +not think of it. She could not get away from the thought of it.</p> +<p>"But why did you lose your hand?"</p> +<p>It was only a little place at first, and then it got +painful....</p> +<p>"But I didn't go into a hospital because I was afraid they would +intern me, and so I wouldn't be able to come home. And I was dying +to come home. I was—homesick. No one was ever so homesick. +I've thought of this place and the garden, and how one looked out +of the window at the passers-by, a thousand times. I seemed always +to be seeing them. Old Dimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. +Wolker at the end cottage, and how she used to fetch her beer and +wink when she caught us looking<a name="Page_414"></a> at her, and +little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigs and all +the rest of them. And you, Letty. Particularly you. And how we used +to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and your +cheek just in front of my eyes.... And nothing aching at all in +one....</p> +<p>"How I thought of that and longed for that!...</p> +<p>"And so, you see, I didn't go to the hospital. I kept hoping to +get to England first. And I left it too long...."</p> +<p>"Life's come back to me with you!" said Letty. "Until just +to-day I've believed you'd come back. And to-day—I +doubted.... I thought it was all over—all the real life, love +and the dear fun of things, and that there was nothing before me, +nothing before me but just holding out—and keeping your +memory.... Poor arm. Poor arm. And being kind to people. And +pretending you were alive somewhere.... I'll not care about the +arm. In a little while.... I'm glad you've gone, but I'm gladder +you're back and can never go again.... And I will be your right +hand, dear, and your left hand and all your hands. Both my hands +for your dear lost left one. You shall have three hands instead of +two...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 13</h4> +<br> +<p>Letty stood by the window as close as she could to Teddy in a +world that seemed wholly made up of unexpected things. She could +not heed the others, it was only when Teddy spoke to the others, or +when they spoke to Teddy, that they existed for her.</p> +<p>For instance, Teddy was presently talking to Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>They had spoken about the Canadians who had come up and relieved +the Essex men after the fight in which Teddy had been captured. And +then it was manifest that Mr. Direck was talking of his regiment. +"I'm not the<a name="Page_415"></a> only American who has gone +Canadian—for the duration of the war."</p> +<p>He had got to his explanation at last.</p> +<p>"I've told a lie," he said triumphantly. "I've shifted my +birthplace six hundred miles.</p> +<p>"Mind you, I don't admit a thing that Cissie has ever said about +America—not one thing. You don't understand the sort of +proposition America is up against. America is the New World, where +there are no races and nations any more; she is the Melting Pot, +from which we will cast the better state. I've believed that +always—in spite of a thousand little things I believe it now. +I go back on nothing. I'm not fighting as an American either. I'm +fighting simply as myself.... I'm not going fighting for England, +mind you. Don't you fancy that. I don't know I'm so particularly in +love with a lot of English ways as to do that. I don't see how any +one can be very much in love with your Empire, with its dead-alive +Court, its artful politicians, its lords and ladies and snobs, its +way with the Irish and its way with India, and everybody shifting +responsibility and telling lies about your common people. I'm not +going fighting for England. I'm going fighting for Cissie—and +justice and Belgium and all that—but more particularly for +Cissie. And anyhow I can't look Pa Britling in the face any +more.... And I want to see those trenches—close. I reckon +they're a thing it will be interesting to talk about some day.... +So I'm going," said Mr. Direck. "But chiefly—it's Cissie. +See?"</p> +<p>Cissie had come and stood by the side of him.</p> +<p>She looked from poor broken Teddy to him and back again.</p> +<p>"Up to now," she said, "I've wanted you to go...."</p> +<p>Tears came into her eyes.</p> +<p>"I suppose I must let you go," she said. "Oh! I'd hate you not +to go...."</p> +<a name="Page_416"></a><br> +<h4>§ 14</h4> +<br> +<p>"Good God! how old the Master looks!" cried Teddy suddenly.</p> +<p>He was standing at the window, and as Mr. Direck came forward +inquiringly he pointed to the figure of Mr. Britling passing along +the road towards the Dower House.</p> +<p>"He does look old. I hadn't noticed," said Mr. Direck.</p> +<p>"Why, he's gone grey!" cried Teddy, peering. "He wasn't grey +when I left."</p> +<p>They watched the knickerbockered figure of Mr. Britling receding +up the hill, atlas and papers in his hands behind his back.</p> +<p>"I must go out to him," said Teddy, disengaging himself from +Letty.</p> +<p>"No," she said, arresting him with her hand.</p> +<p>"But he will be glad—"</p> +<p>She stood in her husband's way. She had a vision of Mr. Britling +suddenly called out of his dreams of God ruling the united states +of the world, to rejoice at Teddy's restoration....</p> +<p>"No," she said; "it will only make him think again of +Hugh—and how he died. Don't go out, Teddy. Not now. What does +he care for <i>you</i>?... Let him rest from such things.... Leave +him to dream over his atlas.... He isn't so desolate—if you +knew.... I will tell you, Teddy—when I can....</p> +<p>"But just now—No, he will think of Hugh again.... Let him +go.... He has God and his atlas there.... They're more than you +think."</p> +<a name="Page_417"></a> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_THE_SECOND"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> +<h2>MR. BRITLING WRITES UNTIL SUNRISE</h2> +<br> +<h4>§ 1</h4> +<br> +<p>It was some weeks later. It was now the middle of November, and +Mr. Britling, very warmly wrapped in his thick dressing-gown and +his thick llama wool pyjamas, was sitting at his night desk, and +working ever and again at an essay, an essay of preposterous +ambitions, for the title of it was "The Better Government of the +World."</p> +<p>Latterly he had had much sleepless misery. In the day life was +tolerable, but in the night—unless he defended himself by +working, the losses and cruelties of the war came and grimaced at +him, insufferably. Now he would be haunted by long processions of +refugees, now he would think of the dead lying stiff and twisted in +a thousand dreadful attitudes. Then again he would be overwhelmed +with anticipations of the frightful economic and social dissolution +that might lie ahead.... At other times he thought of wounds and +the deformities of body and spirit produced by injuries. And +sometimes he would think of the triumph of evil. Stupid and +triumphant persons went about a world that stupidity had desolated, +with swaggering gestures, with a smiling consciousness of enhanced +importance, with their scornful hatred of all measured and +temperate and kindly things turned now to scornful contempt. And +mingling with the soil they walked on lay the dead body of Hugh, +face downward. At the back of the boy's head, rimmed by +blood-stiffened hair—the hair that had once been "as soft as +the down of a bird"—was a big red hole. That hole was always +pitilessly<a name="Page_418"></a> distinct. They stepped on +him—heedlessly. They heeled the scattered stuff of his +exquisite brain into the clay....</p> +<p>From all such moods of horror Mr. Britling's circle of lamplight +was his sole refuge. His work could conjure up visions, like opium +visions, of a world of order and justice. Amidst the gloom of world +bankruptcy he stuck to the prospectus of a braver +enterprise—reckless of his chances of subscribers....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 2</h4> +<br> +<p>But this night even this circle of lamplight would not hold his +mind. Doubt had crept into this last fastness. He pulled the papers +towards him, and turned over the portion he had planned.</p> +<p>His purpose in the book he was beginning to write was to reason +out the possible methods of government that would give a stabler, +saner control to the world. He believed still in democracy, but he +was realising more and more that democracy had yet to discover its +method. It had to take hold of the consciences of men, it had to +equip itself with still unformed organisations. Endless years of +patient thinking, of experimenting, of discussion lay before +mankind ere this great idea could become reality, and right, the +proven right thing, could rule the earth.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the world must still remain a scene of blood-stained +melodrama, of deafening noise, contagious follies, vast irrational +destructions. One fine life after another went down from study and +university and laboratory to be slain and silenced....</p> +<p>Was it conceivable that this mad monster of mankind would ever +be caught and held in the thin-spun webs of thought?</p> +<p>Was it, after all, anything but pretension and folly for a man +to work out plans for the better government of the world?—was +it any better than the ambitious scheming of some fly upon the +wheel of the romantic gods?</p> +<p>Man has come, floundering and wounding and suffering,<a name= +"Page_419"></a> out of the breeding darknesses of Time, that will +presently crush and consume him again. Why not flounder with the +rest, why not eat, drink, fight, scream, weep and pray, forget +Hugh, stop brooding upon Hugh, banish all these priggish dreams of +"The Better Government of the World," and turn to the brighter +aspects, the funny and adventurous aspects of the war, the +Chestertonian jolliness, <i>Punch</i> side of things? Think you +because your sons are dead that there will be no more cakes and +ale? Let mankind blunder out of the mud and blood as mankind has +blundered in....</p> +<p>Let us at any rate keep our precious Sense of Humour....</p> +<p>He pulled his manuscript towards him. For a time he sat +decorating the lettering of his title, "The Better Government of +the World," with little grinning gnomes' heads and waggish +tails....</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 3</h4> +<br> +<p>On the top of Mr. Britling's desk, beside the clock, lay a +letter, written in clumsy English and with its envelope resealed by +a label which testified that it had been "OPENED BY CENSOR."</p> +<p>The friendly go-between in Norway had written to tell Mr. +Britling that Herr Heinrich also was dead; he had died a wounded +prisoner in Russia some months ago. He had been wounded and +captured, after undergoing great hardships, during the great +Russian attack upon the passes of the Carpathians in the early +spring, and his wound had mortified. He had recovered partially for +a time, and then he had been beaten and injured again in some +struggle between German and Croatian prisoners, and he had sickened +and died. Before he died he had written to his parents, and once +again he had asked that the fiddle he had left in Mr. Britling's +care should if possible be returned to them. It was manifest that +both for him and them now it had become a symbol with many +associations.</p> +<a name="Page_420"></a> +<p>The substance of this letter invaded the orange circle of the +lamp; it would have to be answered, and the potentialities of the +answer were running through Mr. Britling's brain to the exclusion +of any impersonal composition. He thought of the old parents away +there in Pomerania—he believed but he was not quite sure, +that Heinrich had been an only son—and of the pleasant +spectacled figure that had now become a broken and decaying thing +in a prisoner's shallow grave....</p> +<p>Another son had gone—all the world was losing its +sons....</p> +<p>He found himself thinking of young Heinrich in the very manner, +if with a lesser intensity, in which he thought about his own son, +as of hopes senselessly destroyed. His mind took no note of the +fact that Heinrich was an enemy, that by the reckoning of a "war of +attrition" his death was balance and compensation for the death of +Hugh. He went straight to the root fact that they had been gallant +and kindly beings, and that the same thing had killed them +both....</p> +<p>By no conceivable mental gymnastics could he think of the two as +antagonists. Between them there was no imaginable issue. They had +both very much the same scientific disposition; with perhaps more +dash and inspiration in the quality of Hugh; more docility and +method in the case of Karl. Until war had smashed them one against +the other....</p> +<p>He recalled his first sight of Heinrich at the junction, and how +he had laughed at the sight of his excessive Teutonism. The +close-cropped shining fair head surmounted by a yellowish-white +corps cap had appeared dodging about among the people upon the +platform, and manifestly asking questions. The face had been very +pink with the effort of an unaccustomed tongue. The young man had +been clad in a suit of white flannel refined by a purple line; his +boots were of that greenish yellow leather that only a German +student could esteem "chic"; his<a name="Page_421"></a> rucksack +was upon his back, and the precious fiddle in its case was carried +very carefully in one hand; this same dead fiddle. The other hand +held a stick with a carved knob and a pointed end. He had been too +German for belief. "Herr Heinrich!" Mr. Britling had said, and +straightway the heels had clashed together for a bow, a bow from +the waist, a bow that a heedless old lady much burthened with +garden produce had greatly disarranged. From first to last amidst +our off-hand English ways Herr Heinrich had kept his bow—and +always it had been getting disarranged.</p> +<p>That had been his constant effect; a little stiff, a little +absurd, and always clean and pink and methodical. The boys had +liked him without reserve, Mrs. Britling had liked him; everybody +had found him a likeable creature. He never complained of anything +except picnics. But he did object to picnics; to the sudden +departure of the family to wild surroundings for the consumption of +cold, knifeless and forkless meals in the serious middle hours of +the day. He protested to Mr. Britling, respectfully but very +firmly. It was, he held, implicit in their understanding that he +should have a cooked meal in the middle of the day. Otherwise his +Magen was perplexed and disordered. In the evening he could not eat +with any gravity or profit....</p> +<p>Their disposition towards under-feeding and a certain lack of +fine sentiment were the only flaws in the English scheme that Herr +Heinrich admitted. He certainly found the English unfeeling. His +heart went even less satisfied than his Magen. He was a being of +expressive affections; he wanted great friendships, mysterious +relationships, love. He tried very bravely to revere and to +understand and be occultly understood by Mr. Britling; he sought +long walks and deep talks with Hugh and the small boys; he tried to +fill his heart with Cissie; he found at last marvels of innocence +and sweetness in the Hickson girl. She wore her hair in a pigtail +when first he met<a name="Page_422"></a> her, and it made her +almost Marguerite. This young man had cried aloud for love, warm +and filling, like the Mittagsessen that was implicit in their +understanding. And all these Essex people failed to satisfy him; +they were silent, they were subtle, they slipped through the fat +yet eager fingers of his heart, so that he fell back at last upon +himself and his German correspondents and the idealisation of Maud +Hickson and the moral education of Billy. Billy. Mr. Britling's +memories came back at last to the figure of young Heinrich with the +squirrel on his shoulder, that had so often stood in the way of the +utter condemnation of Germany. That, seen closely, was the stuff of +one brutal Prussian. What quarrel had we with him?...</p> +<p>Other memories of Heinrich flitted across Mr. Britling's +reverie. Heinrich at hockey, running with extreme swiftness and +little skill, tricked and baffled by Letty, dodged by Hugh, going +headlong forward and headlong back, and then with a cry flinging +himself flat on the ground exhausted.... Or again Heinrich very +grave and very pink, peering through his glasses at his cards at +Skat.... Or Heinrich in the boats upon the great pond, or Heinrich +swimming, or Heinrich hiding very, very artfully from the boys +about the garden on a theory of his own, or Heinrich in strange +postures, stalking the deer in Claverings Park. For a time he had +had a great ambition to creep quite close to a deer and +<i>touch</i> it.... Or Heinrich indexing. He had a passion for +listing and indexing books, music, any loose classifiable thing. +His favourite amusement was devising schemes for the indentation of +dictionary leaves, so that one could turn instantly to the needed +word. He had bought and cut the edges of three dictionaries; each +in succession improved upon the other; he had had great hopes of +patents and wealth arising therefrom.... And his room had been a +source of strange sounds; his search for music upon the violin. He +had hoped when he came to Matching's Easy to join<a name= +"Page_423"></a> "some string quartette." But Matching's Easy +produced no string quartette. He had to fall back upon the pianola, +and try to play duets with that. Only the pianola did all the duet +itself, and in the hands of a small Britling was apt to betray a +facetious moodiness; sudden alternations between extreme haste and +extreme lassitude....</p> +<p>Then there came a memory of Heinrich talking very seriously; his +glasses magnifying his round blue eyes, talking of his ideas about +life, of his beliefs and disbeliefs, of his ambitions and prospects +in life.</p> +<p>He confessed two principal ambitions. They varied perhaps in +their absolute dimensions, but they were of equal importance in his +mind. The first of these was, so soon as he had taken his doctorate +in philology, to give himself to the perfecting of an International +Language; it was to combine all the virtues of Esperanto and Ido. +"And then," said Herr Heinrich, "I do not think there will be any +more wars—ever." The second ambition, which was important +first because Herr Heinrich found much delight in working at it, +and secondly because he thought it would give him great wealth and +opportunity for propagating the perfect speech, was the elaboration +of his system of marginal indentations for dictionaries and +alphabetical books of reference of all sorts. It was to be so +complete that one would just stand over the book to be consulted, +run hand and eye over its edges and open the book—"at the +very exact spot." He proposed to follow this business up with a +quite Germanic thoroughness. "Presently," he said, "I must study +the machinery by which the edges of books are cut. It is possible I +may have to invent these also." This was the double-barrelled +scheme of Herr Heinrich's career. And along it he was to go, and +incidentally develop his large vague heart that was at present so +manifestly unsatisfied....</p> +<p>Such was the brief story of Herr Heinrich.</p> +<p>That story was over—just as Hugh's story was over. That +first volume would never now have a second and<a name= +"Page_424"></a> a third. It ended in some hasty grave in Russia. +The great scheme for marginal indices would never be patented, the +duets with the pianola would never be played again.</p> +<p>Imagination glimpsed a little figure toiling manfully through +the slush and snow of the Carpathians; saw it staggering under its +first experience of shell fire; set it amidst attacks and flights +and fatigue and hunger and a rush perhaps in the darkness; guessed +at the wounding blow. Then came the pitiful pilgrimage of the +prisoners into captivity, captivity in a land desolated, +impoverished and embittered. Came wounds wrapped in filthy rags, +pain and want of occupation, and a poor little bent and broken +Heinrich sitting aloof in a crowded compound nursing a mortifying +wound....</p> +<p>He used always to sit in a peculiar attitude with his arms +crossed on his crossed legs, looking slantingly through his +glasses....</p> +<p>So he must have sat, and presently he lay on some rough bedding +and suffered, untended, in infinite discomfort; lay motionless and +thought at times, it may be, of Matching's Easy and wondered what +Hugh and Teddy were doing. Then he became fevered, and the world +grew bright-coloured and fantastic and ugly for him. Until one day +an infinite weakness laid hold of him, and his pain grew faint and +all his thoughts and memories grew faint—and still +fainter....</p> +<p>The violin had been brought into Mr. Britling's study that +afternoon, and lay upon the further window-seat. Poor little broken +sherd, poor little fragment of a shattered life! It looked in its +case like a baby in a coffin.</p> +<p>"I must write a letter to the old father and mother," Mr. +Britling thought. "I can't just send the poor little +fiddle—without a word. In all this pitiful storm of witless +hate—surely there may be one greeting—not hateful.</p> +<p>"From my blackness to yours," said Mr. Britling aloud. He would +have to write it in English. But even if<a name="Page_425"></a> +they knew no English some one would be found to translate it to +them. He would have to write very plainly.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 4</h4> +<br> +<p>He pushed aside the manuscript of "The Better Government of the +World," and began to write rather slowly, shaping his letters +roundly and distinctly:</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>Dear Sir,</i></p> +<p><i>I am writing this letter to you to tell you I am sending back +the few little things I had kept for your son at his request when +the war broke out. I am sending them—</i></p> +</div> +<p>Mr. Britling left that blank for the time until he could arrange +the method of sending to the Norwegian intermediary.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>Especially I am sending his violin, which he had asked me +thrice to convey to you. Either it is a gift from you or it +symbolised many things for him that he connected with home and you. +I will have it packed with particular care, and I will do all in my +power to ensure its safe arrival.</i></p> +<p><i>I want to tell you that all the stress and passion of this +war has not made us here in Matching's Easy forget our friend your +son. He was one of us, he had our affection, he had friends here +who are still his friends. We found him honourable and +companionable, and we share something of your loss. I have got +together for you a few snapshots I chance to possess in which you +will see him in the sunshine, and which will enable you perhaps to +picture a little more definitely than you would otherwise do the +life he led here. There is one particularly that I have marked. Our +family is lunching out-of-doors, and you will see that next to your +son is a youngster, a year or so his junior, who is touching +glasses with him. I have put a cross over his head. He is my eldest +son, he <a name="Page_426"></a>was very dear to me, and he too has +been, killed in this war. They are, you see, smiling very +pleasantly at each other.</i></p> +</div> +<p>While writing this Mr. Britling had been struck by the thought +of the photographs, and he had taken them out of the little drawer +into which he was accustomed to thrust them. He picked out the ones +that showed the young German, but there were others, bright with +sunshine, that were now charged with acquired significances; there +were two showing the children and Teddy and Hugh and Cissie and +Letty doing the goose step, and there was one of Mr. Van der Pant, +smiling at the front door, in Heinrich's abandoned slippers. There +were endless pictures of Teddy also. It is the happy instinct of +the Kodak to refuse those days that are overcast, and the +photographic record of a life is a chain of all its kindlier +aspects. In the drawer above these snapshots there were Hugh's +letters and a miscellany of trivial documents touching on his +life.</p> +<p>Mr. Britling discontinued writing and turned these papers over +and mused. Heinrich's letters and postcards had got in among them, +and so had a letter of Teddy's....</p> +<p>The letters reinforced the photographs in their reminder how +kind and pleasant a race mankind can be. Until the wild asses of +nationalism came kicking and slaying amidst them, until suspicion +and jostling greed and malignity poison their minds, until the +fools with the high explosives blow that elemental goodness into +shrieks of hate and splashes of blood. How kindly men are—up +to the very instant of their cruelties! His mind teemed suddenly +with little anecdotes and histories of the goodwill of men breaking +through the ill-will of war, of the mutual help of sorely wounded +Germans and English lying together in the mud and darkness between +the trenches, of the fellowship of captors and prisoners, +of<a name="Page_427"></a> the Saxons at Christmas fraternising with +the English.... Of that he had seen photographs in one of the daily +papers....</p> +<p>His mind came back presently from these wanderings to the task +before him.</p> +<p>He tried to picture these Heinrich parents. He supposed they +were kindly, civilised people. It was manifest the youngster had +come to him from a well-ordered and gentle-spirited home. But he +imagined them—he could not tell why—as people much +older than himself. Perhaps young Heinrich had on some occasion +said they were old people—he could not remember. And he had a +curious impulse too to write to them in phrases of consolation; as +if their loss was more pitiable than his own. He doubted whether +they had the consolation of his sanguine temperament, whether they +could resort as readily as he could to his faith, whether in +Pomerania there was the same consoling possibility of an essay on +the Better Government of the World. He did not think this very +clearly, but that was what was at the back of his mind. He went on +writing.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>If you think that these two boys have both perished, not in +some noble common cause but one against the other in a struggle of +dynasties and boundaries and trade routes and tyrannous +ascendancies, then it seems to me that you must feel as I feel that +this war is the most tragic and dreadful thing that has ever +happened to mankind.</i></p> +</div> +<p>He sat thinking for some minutes after he had written that, and +when presently he resumed his writing, a fresh strain of thought +was traceable even in his opening sentence.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>If you count dead and wounds this is the most dreadful war in +history; for you as for me, it has been almost the extremity of +personal tragedy.... Black sorrow.... <a name="Page_428"></a>But is +it the most dreadful war?</i></p> +<p><i>I do not think it is. I can write to you and tell you that I +do indeed believe that our two sons have died not altogether in +vain. Our pain and anguish may not be wasted—may be +necessary. Indeed they may be necessary. Here am I bereaved and +wretched—and I hope. Never was the fabric of war so black; +that I admit. But never was the black fabric of war so threadbare. +At a thousand points the light is shining through.</i></p> +</div> +<p>Mr. Britling's pen stopped.</p> +<p>There was perfect stillness in the study bedroom.</p> +<p>"The tinpot style," said Mr. Britling at last in a voice of +extreme bitterness.</p> +<p>He fell into an extraordinary quarrel with his style. He forgot +about those Pomeranian parents altogether in his exasperation at +his own inexpressiveness, at his incomplete control of these rebel +words and phrases that came trailing each its own associations and +suggestions to hamper his purpose with it. He read over the +offending sentence.</p> +<p>"The point is that it is true," he whispered. "It is exactly +what I want to say."...</p> +<p>Exactly?...</p> +<p>His mind stuck on that "exactly."... When one has much to say +style is troublesome. It is as if one fussed with one's uniform +before a battle.... But that is just what one ought to do before a +battle.... One ought to have everything in order....</p> +<p>He took a fresh sheet and made three trial beginnings.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>"War is like a black fabric."</i>...</p> +<p><i>"War is a curtain of black fabric across the +pathway."</i></p> +<p><i>"War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes +and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let <a name= +"Page_429"></a>through some gleams of light, and now—I am not +dreaming—it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a +thousand points the light is breaking through. We owe it to all +these dear youths—"</i></p> +</div> +<p>His pen stopped again.</p> +<p>"I must work on a rough draft," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 5</h4> +<br> +<p>Three hours later Mr. Britling was working by daylight, though +his study lamp was still burning, and his letter to old Heinrich +was still no better than a collection of material for a letter. But +the material was falling roughly into shape, and Mr. Britling's +intentions were finding themselves. It was clear to him now that he +was no longer writing as his limited personal self to those two +personal selves grieving, in the old, large, high-walled, +steep-roofed household amidst pine woods, of which Heinrich had +once shown him a picture. He knew them too little for any such +personal address. He was writing, he perceived, not as Mr. Britling +but as an Englishman—that was all he could be to +them—and he was writing to them as Germans; he could +apprehend them as nothing more. He was just England bereaved to +Germany bereaved....</p> +<p>He was no longer writing to the particular parents of one +particular boy, but to all that mass of suffering, regret, +bitterness and fatigue that lay behind the veil of the "front." +Slowly, steadily, the manhood of Germany was being wiped out. As he +sat there in the stillness he could think that at least two million +men of the Central Powers were dead, and an equal number maimed and +disabled. Compared with that our British losses, immense and +universal as they were by the standard of any previous experience, +were still slight; our larger armies had still to suffer, and we +had lost irrevocably not very much more than a quarter of a +million. But the tragedy gathered<a name="Page_430"></a> against +us. We knew enough already to know what must be the reality of the +German homes to which those dead men would nevermore return....</p> +<p>If England had still the longer account to pay, the French had +paid already nearly to the limits of endurance. They must have lost +well over a million of their mankind, and still they bled and bled. +Russia too in the East had paid far more than man for man in this +vast swapping off of lives. In a little while no Censorship would +hold the voice of the peoples. There would be no more talk of +honour and annexations, hegemonies and trade routes, but only +Europe lamenting for her dead....</p> +<p>The Germany to which he wrote would be a nation of widows and +children, rather pinched boys and girls, crippled men, old men, +deprived men, men who had lost brothers and cousins and friends and +ambitions. No triumph now on land or sea could save Germany from +becoming that. France too would be that, Russia, and lastly +Britain, each in their degree. Before the war there had been no +Germany to which an Englishman could appeal; Germany had been a +threat, a menace, a terrible trampling of armed men. It was as +little possible then to think of talking to Germany as it would +have been to have stopped the Kaiser in mid career in his hooting +car down the Unter den Linden and demand a quiet talk with him. But +the Germany that had watched those rushes with a slightly doubting +pride had her eyes now full of tears and blood. She had believed, +she had obeyed, and no real victory had come. Still she fought on, +bleeding, agonising, wasting her substance and the substance of the +whole world, to no conceivable end but exhaustion, so capable she +was, so devoted, so proud and utterly foolish. And the mind of +Germany, whatever it was before the war, would now be something +residual, something left over and sitting beside a reading-lamp as +he was sitting beside a reading-lamp, thinking, sorrowing, counting +the cost, looking into the dark future....</p> +<a name="Page_431"></a> +<p>And to that he wrote, to that dimly apprehended figure outside a +circle of the light like his own circle of light—which was +the father of Heinrich, which was great Germany, Germany which +lived before and which will yet outlive the flapping of the +eagles....</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>Our boys</i>, he wrote, <i>have died, fighting one against +the other. They have been fighting upon an issue so obscure that +your German press is still busy discussing what it was. For us it +was that Belgium was invaded and France in danger of destruction. +Nothing else could have brought the English into the field against +you. But why you invaded Belgium and France and whether that might +have been averted we do not know to this day. And still this war +goes on and still more boys die, and these men who do not fight, +these men in the newspaper offices and in the ministries plan +campaigns and strokes and counter-strokes that belong to no +conceivable plan at all. Except that now for them there is +something more terrible than war. And that is the day of reckoning +with their own people.</i></p> +<p><i>What have we been fighting for? What are we fighting for? Do +you know? Does any one know? Why am I spending what is left of my +substance and you what is left of yours to keep on this war against +each other? What have we to gain from hurting one another still +further? Why should we be puppets any longer in the hands of +crowned fools and witless diplomatists? Even if we were dumb and +acquiescent before, does not the blood of our sons now cry out to +us that this foolery should cease? We have let these people send +our sons to death.</i></p> +<p><i>It is you and I who must stop these wars, these massacres of +boys.</i></p> +<p><i>Massacres of boys! That indeed is the essence of modern war. +The killing off of the young. It is the destruction of the human +inheritance, it is the spending <a name="Page_432"></a>of all the +life and material of the future upon present-day hate and greed. +Fools and knaves, politicians, tricksters, and those who trade on +the suspicions and thoughtless, generous angers of men, make wars; +the indolence and modesty of the mass of men permit them. Are you +and I to suffer such things until the whole fabric of our +civilisation, that has been so slowly and so laboriously built up, +is altogether destroyed?</i></p> +<p><i>When I sat down to write to you I had meant only to write to +you of your son and mine. But I feel that what can be said in +particular of our loss, need not be said; it can be understood +without saying. What needs to be said and written about is this, +that war must be put an end to and that nobody else but you and me +and all of us can do it. We have to do that for the love of our +sons and our race and all that is human. War is no longer human; +the chemist and the metallurgist have changed all that. My boy was +shot through the eye; his brain was blown to pieces by some man who +never knew what he had done. Think what that means!... It is plain +to me, surely it is plain to you and all the world, that war is now +a mere putting of the torch to explosives that flare out to +universal ruin. There is nothing for one sane man to write to +another about in these days but the salvation of mankind from +war.</i></p> +<p><i>Now I want you to be patient with me and hear me out. There +was a time in the earlier part of this war when it was hard to be +patient because there hung over us the dread of losses and +disaster. Now we need dread no longer. The dreaded thing has +happened. Sitting together as we do in spirit beside the mangled +bodies of our dead, surely we can be as patient as the +hills.</i></p> +<p><i>I want to tell you quite plainly and simply that I think that +Germany which is chief and central in this war is most to blame for +this war. Writing to you as an Englishman to a German and with war +still being waged, there must be no mistake between us upon this +point. I <a name="Page_433"></a>am persuaded that in the decade +that ended with your overthrow of France in 1871, Germany turned +her face towards evil, and that her refusal to treat France +generously and to make friends with any other great power in the +world, is the essential cause of this war. Germany +triumphed—and she trampled on the loser. She inflicted +intolerable indignities. She set herself to prepare for further +aggressions; long before this killing began she was making war upon +land and sea, launching warships, building strategic railways, +setting up a vast establishment of war material, threatening, +straining all the world to keep pace with her threats.... At last +there was no choice before any European nation but submission to +the German will, or war. And it was no will to which righteous men +could possibly submit. It came as an illiberal and ungracious will. +It was the will of Zabern. It is not as if you had set yourselves +to be an imperial people and embrace and unify the world. You did +not want to unify the world. You wanted to set the foot of an +intensely national Germany, a sentimental and illiberal Germany, a +Germany that treasured the portraits of your ridiculous Kaiser and +his litter of sons, a Germany wearing uniform, reading black +letter, and despising every kultur but her own, upon the neck of a +divided and humiliated mankind. It was an intolerable prospect. I +had rather the whole world died.</i></p> +<p><i>Forgive me for writing "you." You are as little responsible +for that Germany as I am for—Sir Edward Grey. But this +happened over you; you did not do your utmost to prevent +it—even as England has happened, and I have let it happen +over me....</i></p> +</div> +<p>"It is so dry; so general," whispered Mr. Britling. "And +yet—it is this that has killed our sons."</p> +<p>He sat still for a time, and then went on reading a fresh sheet +of his manuscript.</p> +<a name="Page_434"></a> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>When I bring these charges against Germany I have little +disposition to claim any righteousness for Britain. There has been +small splendour in this war for either Germany or Britain or +Russia; we three have chanced to be the biggest of the combatants, +but the glory lies with invincible France. It is France and Belgium +and Serbia who shine as the heroic lands. They have fought +defensively and beyond all expectation, for dear land and freedom. +This war for them has been a war of simple, definite issues, to +which they have risen with an entire nobility. Englishman and +German alike may well envy them that simplicity. I look to you, as +an honest man schooled by the fierce lessons of this war, to meet +me in my passionate desire to see France, Belgium and Serbia emerge +restored from all this blood and struggle, enlarged to the limits +of their nationality, vindicated and secure. Russia I will not +write about here; let me go on at once to tell you about my own +country; remarking only that between England and Russia there are +endless parallelisms. We have similar complexities, kindred +difficulties. We have for instance an imported dynasty, we have a +soul-destroying State Church which cramps and poisons the education +of our ruling class, we have a people out of touch with a secretive +government, and the same traditional contempt for science. We have +our Irelands and Polands. Even our kings bear a curious +likeness....</i></p> +</div> +<p>At this point there was a break in the writing, and Mr. Britling +made, as it were, a fresh beginning.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>Politically the British Empire is a clumsy collection of +strange accidents. It is a thing as little to be proud of as the +outline of a flint or the shape of a potato. For the mass of +English people India and Egypt and all that side of our system mean +less than nothing; our trade is something they do not understand, +our imperial wealth something they do not share. Britain has been a +group <a name="Page_435"></a>of four democracies caught in the net +of a vast yet casual imperialism; the common man here is in a state +of political perplexity from the cradle to the grave. None the less +there is a great people here even as there is a great people in +Russia, a people with a soul and character of its own, a people of +unconquerable kindliness and with a peculiar genius, which still +struggle towards will and expression. We have been beginning that +same great experiment that France and America and Switzerland and +China are making, the experiment of democracy. It is the newest +form of human association, and we are still but half awake to its +needs and necessary conditions. For it is idle to pretend that the +little city democracies of ancient times were comparable to the +great essays in practical republicanism that mankind is making +to-day. This age of the democratic republics that dawn is a new +age. It has not yet lasted for a century, not for a paltry hundred +years.... All new things are weak things; a rat can kill a +man-child with ease; the greater the destiny, the weaker the +immediate self-protection may be. And to me it seems that your +complete and perfect imperialism, ruled by Germans for Germans, is +in its scope and outlook a more antiquated and smaller and less +noble thing than these sprawling emergent giant democracies of the +West that struggle so confusedly against it....</i></p> +<p><i>But that we do struggle confusedly, with pitiful leaders and +infinite waste and endless delay; that it is to our indisciplines +and to the dishonesties and tricks our incompleteness provokes, +that the prolongation of this war is to be ascribed, I readily +admit. At the outbreak of this war I had hoped to see militarism +felled within a year....</i></p> +</div> +<br> +<h4>§ 6</h4> +<br> +<p>From this point onward Mr. Britling's notes became more +fragmentary. They had a consecutiveness, but they were +discontinuous. His thought had leapt across gaps<a name= +"Page_436"></a> that his pen had had no time to fill. And he had +begun to realise that his letter to the old people in Pomerania was +becoming impossible. It had broken away into dissertation.</p> +<p>"Yet there must be dissertations," he said. "Unless such men as +we are take these things in hand, always we shall be misgoverned, +always the sons will die...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 7</h4> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>I do not think you Germans realise how steadily you were +conquering the world before this war began. Had you given half the +energy and intelligence you have spent upon this war to the +peaceful conquest of men's minds and spirits, I believe that you +would have taken the leadership of the world tranquilly—no +man disputing. Your science was five years, your social and +economic organisation was a quarter of a century in front of +ours.... Never has it so lain in the power of a great people to +lead and direct mankind towards the world republic and universal +peace. It needed but a certain generosity of the +imagination....</i></p> +<p><i>But your Junkers, your Imperial court, your foolish vicious +Princes; what were such dreams to them?... With an envious +satisfaction they hurled all the accomplishment of Germany into the +fires of war....</i></p> +</div> +<br> +<h4>§ 8</h4> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>Your boy, as no doubt you know, dreamt constantly of such a +world peace as this that I foreshadow; he was more generous than +his country. He could envisage war and hostility only as +misunderstanding. He thought that a world that could explain itself +clearly would surely be at peace. He was scheming always therefore +for the perfection and propagation of Esperanto or Ido, or some +such universal link. My youngster too was full of a <a name= +"Page_437"></a>kindred and yet larger dream, the dream of human +science, which knows neither king nor country nor race</i>....</p> +<p><i>These boys, these hopes, this war has killed</i>....</p> +</div> +<p>That fragment ended so. Mr. Britling ceased to read for a time. +"But has it killed them?" he whispered....</p> +<p>"If you had lived, my dear, you and your England would have +talked with a younger Germany—better than I can ever +do...."</p> +<p>He turned the pages back, and read here and there with an +accumulating discontent.</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 9</h4> +<br> +<p>"Dissertations," said Mr. Britling.</p> +<p>Never had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was a weak, +silly, ill-informed and hasty-minded writer, and never had he felt +so invincible a conviction that the Spirit of God was in him, and +that it fell to him to take some part in the establishment of a new +order of living upon the earth; it might be the most trivial part +by the scale of the task, but for him it was to be now his supreme +concern. And it was an almost intolerable grief to him that his +services should be, for all his desire, so poor in quality, so weak +in conception. Always he seemed to be on the verge of some +illuminating and beautiful statement of his cause; always he was +finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery to the impulse of +his heart, always he was finding his effort weak and ineffective. +In this instance, at the outset he seemed to see with a golden +clearness the message of brotherhood, or forgiveness, of a common +call. To whom could such a message be better addressed than to +those sorrowing parents; from whom could it come with a better +effect than from himself? And now he read what he had made of this +message. It seemed to his jaded mind a pitifully jaded effort. It +had no light, it had no<a name="Page_438"></a> depth. It was like +the disquisition of a debating society.</p> +<p>He was distressed by a fancy of an old German couple, spectacled +and peering, puzzled by his letter. Perhaps they would be obscurely +hurt by his perplexing generalisations. Why, they would ask, should +this Englishman preach to them?</p> +<p>He sat back in his chair wearily, with his chin sunk upon his +chest. For a time he did not think, and then, he read again the +sentence in front of his eyes.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>"These boys, these hopes, this war has killed."</i></p> +</div> +<p>The words hung for a time in his mind.</p> +<p>"No!" said Mr. Britling stoutly. "They live!"</p> +<p>And suddenly it was borne in upon his mind that he was not +alone. There were thousands and tens of thousands of men and women +like himself, desiring with all their hearts to say, as he desired +to say, the reconciling word. It was not only his hand that thrust +against the obstacles.... Frenchmen and Russians sat in the same +stillness, facing the same perplexities; there were Germans seeking +a way through to him. Even as he sat and wrote. And for the first +time clearly he felt a Presence of which he had thought very many +times in the last few weeks, a Presence so close to him that it was +behind his eyes and in his brain and hands. It was no trick of his +vision; it was a feeling of immediate reality. And it was Hugh, +Hugh that he had thought was dead, it was young Heinrich living +also, it was himself, it was those others that sought, it was all +these and it was more, it was the Master, the Captain of Mankind, +it was God, there present with him, and he knew that it was God. It +was as if he had been groping all this time in the darkness, +thinking himself alone amidst rocks and pitfalls and pitiless +things, and suddenly a hand, a firm strong hand, had touched his +own. And a voice within him bade him be of good courage. There was +no magic trickery in that<a name="Page_439"></a> moment; he was +still weak and weary, a discouraged rhetorician, a good intention +ill-equipped; but he was no longer lonely and wretched, no longer +in the same world with despair. God was beside him and within him +and about him.... It was the crucial moment of Mr. Britling's life. +It was a thing as light as the passing of a cloud on an April +morning; it was a thing as great as the first day of creation. For +some moments he still sat back with his chin upon his chest and his +hands dropping from the arms of his chair. Then he sat up and drew +a deep breath....</p> +<p>This had come almost as a matter of course.</p> +<p>For weeks his mind had been playing about this idea. He had +talked to Letty of this Finite God, who is the king of man's +adventure in space and time. But hitherto God had been for him a +thing of the intelligence, a theory, a report, something told about +but not realised.... Mr. Britling's thinking about God hitherto had +been like some one who has found an empty house, very beautiful and +pleasant, full of the promise of a fine personality. And then as +the discoverer makes his lonely, curious explorations, he hears +downstairs, dear and friendly, the voice of the Master coming +in....</p> +<p>There was no need to despair because he himself was one of the +feeble folk. God was with him indeed, and he was with God. The King +was coming to his own. Amidst the darknesses and confusions, the +nightmare cruelties and the hideous stupidities of the great war, +God, the Captain of the World Republic, fought his way to empire. +So long as one did one's best and utmost in a cause so mighty, did +it matter though the thing one did was little and poor?</p> +<p>"I have thought too much of myself," said Mr. Britling, "and of +what I would do by myself. I have forgotten <i>that which was with +me</i>...."</p> +<a name="Page_440"></a><br> +<h4>§ 10</h4> +<br> +<p>He turned over the rest of the night's writing presently, and +read it now as though it was the work of another man.</p> +<p>These later notes were fragmentary, and written in a sprawling +hand.</p> +<div class="blkquot"> +<p><i>"Let us make ourselves watchers and guardians of the order of +the world....</i></p> +<p><i>"If only for love of our dead....</i></p> +<p><i>"Let us pledge ourselves to service. Let us set ourselves +with all our minds and all our hearts to the perfecting and working +out of the methods of democracy and the ending for ever of the +kings and emperors and priestcrafts and the bands of adventurers, +the traders and owners and forestallers who have betrayed mankind +into this morass of hate and blood—in which our sons are +lost—in which we flounder still...."</i></p> +</div> +<p>How feeble was this squeak of exhortation! It broke into a +scolding note.</p> +<p>"Who have betrayed," read Mr. Britling, and judged the +phrase.</p> +<p>"Who have fallen with us," he amended....</p> +<p>"One gets so angry and bitter—because one feels alone, I +suppose. Because one feels that for them one's reason is no reason. +One is enraged by the sense of their silent and regardless +contradiction, and one forgets the Power of which one is a +part...."</p> +<p>The sheet that bore the sentence he criticised was otherwise +blank except that written across it obliquely in a very careful +hand were the words "Hugh," and "Hugh Philip Britling."...</p> +<p>On the next sheet he had written: "Let us set up the peace of +the World Republic amidst these ruins. Let it be our religion, our +calling."</p> +<p>There he had stopped.</p> +<a name="Page_441"></a> +<p>The last sheet of Mr. Britling's manuscript may be more +conveniently given in fac-simile than described.</p> +<center><img src="images/note.png" width="390" height="400" alt= +"[Handwritten: Hugh Hugh My dear Hugh Lawyers Princes Dealers in Contention Honesty 'Blood Blood ... [Transcriber's Note: illegible] an End to them"> +</center> +<h4>§ 11</h4> +<br> +<p>He sighed.</p> +<p>He looked at the scattered papers, and thought of the letter +they were to have made.</p> +<p>His fatigue spoke first.</p> +<p>"Perhaps after all I'd better just send the fiddle...."</p> +<p>He rested his cheeks between his hands, and remained so for a +long time. His eyes stared unseeingly. His thoughts wandered and +spread and faded. At length he<a name="Page_442"></a> recalled his +mind to that last idea. "Just send the fiddle—without a +word."</p> +<p>"No. I must write to them plainly.</p> +<p>"About God as I have found Him.</p> +<p>"As He has found me...."</p> +<p>He forgot the Pomeranians for a time. He murmured to himself. He +turned over the conviction that had suddenly become clear and +absolute in his mind.</p> +<p>"Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and until a man +has found God and been found by God, he begins at no beginning, he +works to no end. He may have his friendships, his partial +loyalties, his scraps of honour. But all these things fall into +place and life falls into place only with God. Only with God. God, +who fights through men against Blind Force and Night and +Non-Existence; who is the end, who is the meaning. He is the only +King.... Of course I must write about Him. I must tell all my world +of Him. And before the coming of the true King, the inevitable +King, the King who is present whenever just men foregather, this +blood-stained rubbish of the ancient world, these puny kings and +tawdry emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers, these +men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these war makers and +oppressors, will presently shrivel and pass—like paper thrust +into a flame...."</p> +<p>Then after a time he said:</p> +<p>"Our sons who have shown us God...."</p> +<br> +<h4>§ 12</h4> +<br> +<p>He rubbed his open hands over his eyes and forehead.</p> +<p>The night of effort had tired his brain, and he was no longer +thinking actively. He had a little interval of blankness, sitting +at his desk with his hands pressed over his eyes....</p> +<p>He got up presently, and stood quite motionless at the window, +looking out.</p> +<a name="Page_443"></a> +<p>His lamp was still burning, but for some time he had not been +writing by the light of his lamp. Insensibly the day had come and +abolished his need for that individual circle of yellow light. +Colour had returned to the world, clean pearly colour, clear and +definite like the glance of a child or the voice of a girl, and a +golden wisp of cloud hung in the sky over the tower of the church. +There was a mist upon the pond, a soft grey mist not a yard high. A +covey of partridges ran and halted and ran again in the dewy grass +outside his garden railings. The partridges were very numerous this +year because there had been so little shooting. Beyond in the +meadow a hare sat up as still as a stone. A horse neighed.... Wave +after wave of warmth and light came sweeping before the sunrise +across the world of Matching's Easy. It was as if there was nothing +but morning and sunrise in the world.</p> +<p>From away towards the church came the sound of some early worker +whetting a scythe.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<p>THE END</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14060 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14060-h/images/note.png b/14060-h/images/note.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3ccf7f --- /dev/null +++ b/14060-h/images/note.png |
