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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44b42db --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68557 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68557) diff --git a/old/68557-0.txt b/old/68557-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b1a9bd7..0000000 --- a/old/68557-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5529 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of You no longer count, by René Boylesve - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: You no longer count - -Author: René Boylesve - -Translator: Louise Seymour Houghton - -Release Date: July 18, 2022 [eBook #68557] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by - Hathi Trust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NO LONGER COUNT *** - - -_YOU_ NO LONGER -COUNT - -(TU N'ES PLUS RIEN!) - - - - -BY - - - - -RENÉ BOYLESVE - - - - -TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH - -BY - -LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON - - - - -NEW YORK - -CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS - -1918 - - - - -CONTENTS -CHAPTER I -CHAPTER II -CHAPTER III -CHAPTER IV -CHAPTER V -CHAPTER VI -CHAPTER VII -CHAPTER VIII -CHAPTER IX -CHAPTER X -CHAPTER XI -CHAPTER XII -CHAPTER XIII -CHAPTER XIV -CHAPTER XV -CHAPTER XVI -CHAPTER XVII -CHAPTER XVIII -CHAPTER XIX -CHAPTER XX -CHAPTER XXI -CHAPTER XXII -CHAPTER XXIII -CHAPTER XXIV -CHAPTER XXV -CHAPTER XXVI -CHAPTER XXVII -CHAPTER XXVIII -CHAPTER XXIX -CHAPTER XXX -CHAPTER XXXI -CHAPTER XXXII -CHAPTER XXXIII -CHAPTER XXXIV -CHAPTER XXXV -CHAPTER XXXVI - - - - -_YOU_ NO LONGER COUNT - - - - -I - - -From the swoon into which the sudden, agonizing shock had thrown her, -her soul escaped, shook itself free, as the mind shakes off a nightmare. -There is first a sensation of relief from discomfort, then a cheering -sense of safety, and one slips contentedly into a half-slumber. Then it -all begins again, for one no longer believes that it answers to any -reality. - -Was she still asleep? Was it memory, was it imagination that unrolled -before her vision pictures of the past which yet her musings had never -till then evoked, and which suddenly presented themselves with annoying -vividness? There were whisperings, murmuring voices in the next room. -She was aware of them, yet to the unwonted sounds she paid no attention; -the gentle, persistent pressure of an invisible hand turned back her -thoughts to days gone by. - -A hushed step upon the carpet, a finger questioning her pulse, no more -disturbed her than the familiar cry of the huckster in the street. She -did not wonder: "What, am I ill? Are they anxious about me? Why am I in -bed, in broad daylight, I so young, so unused to illness of any kind?" -She was recalling a certain time, days that seemed far remote, a period -of her life that seemed to have been acted before her eyes, like a play -in the theatre. - -A summer month of one of the previous years. She saw again the last days -in her suburban home, just outside of Paris, the sloping garden and the -vista through the leafage over far-distant hills, splendid and ethereal. -Every one was getting ready for the summer holiday; some of the men were -going to the training-camps. What a world of talk! What discussions with -friends who had been invited to the country for an afternoon of -farewells! They were a world by themselves--young, alert, fond of -pleasure, and of all things beautiful and adventurous, care-free, and -charming. The oldest of the men was M. de la Villaumer, whose hair was -beginning to turn gray, but who enjoyed himself only among kindly faces. -Several were artists--musicians or painters. They loved the beautiful -things of life and that life of the intellect which easily adapts itself -to the beautiful. Love was king in their circle, a love rather kindly -than passionate, whose ravages they had learned how to conceal. Yet many -admirable couples were found among them. Odette Jacquelin and her -husband were always cited as the most enamoured pair of the group. After -them came Clotilde and George Avvogade, who cooed like turtle-doves, but -were lovers only "for a curtain-raiser," it used to be said. Rose -Misson, whom they called "good Rose," Simone de Prans, Germaine Le -Gault, were all women who adored their husbands and asked for no other -happiness, having no idea of anything else than happiness. - -Why, they used to ask, was Jean Jacquelin an officer of reserves? What -was the sense of that biennial war-game for a chap who had nothing -military in him, whether by tradition, education, or belief? The old -father had made a point of it, because he held to the ineradicable -prejudices of his time. As for Jean himself, he made light of it; he was -a young fellow well on the way to make a fortune and give Odette all the -luxuries that in their circle were considered not superfluities, but -things indispensable. It never occurred to him that any other purpose -could seriously occupy a man's mind. Without entering into the thousand -and one interests of certain of his more cultivated friends who were -given to reasoning and theorizing, he simply found that the uniform of a -sublieutenant was becoming, and that, when he was obliged to wear it, it -was simply an opportunity to make himself fit; physical fatigue was -nothing to him; he might be inclined to think the Grand Manœuvres a -superannuated exercise; he might even smile at them and amuse himself by -enumerating the blunders of such and such a commander; but something -always kept him from ever making light of the thing itself. For that -matter, being a reserve officer was perhaps one of the many whims of -society, but it was what is called decent; in certain circles it was -done. So he let them talk and harangue, opposing no arguments but -continuing to be a reserve officer, carrying through his period of -instruction when he was called. - -This time the young wife had gone with him as far as Tours, to be with -him a few hours longer and after that to receive his letters more -promptly. How long the time had seemed, all alone in the Hôtel de -l'Univers! And yet she had a pretty room! She had amused herself with -piquing public curiosity on the Rue Nationale, with her little -walking-suit of the latest cut, and her simple canoe hat--quite the -"Parisienne on a holiday"--and the elegance of her manners, at once -independent and circumspect, as were all her ways. It was generally -agreed that she was pretty. Who was not asking questions about her in -the hotel, at the restaurant? It had amused her to see a family of -tourists inventing pretexts for changing places at their small table, -this one in order to face her, that one in order that the grown-up son -might not face her. And how they had stared at her! - -Telegrams had come from the sublieutenant. "Be at Pont-de-Piles -to-morrow, darling," or "Ligueil, such a day for lunch," or "Loches, -Hôtel de France, after breaking up." And she had sometimes waited a -long while in wayside inns or beside dusty highways. - -Conversations at table began to come back to her. Every one had been -talking of the manœuvres, discussing the names of generals, the -communes that were being occupied. The presence of the President of the -Republic was an event in the countryside. There had been old men who -would consent to speak of nothing nearer than 1870; others, of fewer -years, would recall the magnificent condition of the reconstituted army -at the time of Gambetta's death, or at the period of the Schnaebele -affair, when the country was so near to seeing it in action. A -politician of the neighborhood--not more stupid, after all, than most of -his contemporaries--rubicund, his eyes bloodshot at the end of dinner, -had fallen foul of all these memories, regrets, would-be warlike -emotions, and turned them upside down like eggs in a frying-pan. -According to him, war was the scourge of bygone ages. France, the nation -of progress, still consented to carry on a semblance of it, by way of -facilitating necessary transitions, but it was a mere play of protocols, -a final concession to the past. War was destructive; modern society was -interested wholly in production; to believe in war was to turn back the -clock of history. For that matter, every well-informed person was aware -that scientific means of destruction had become such that a fratricidal -conflict had been rendered impossible, im-pos-si-ble! One must be an -idiot not to perceive that everything would be reduced to fragments in -the twinkling of an eye. The manœuvres! ah, you made him laugh with -your manœuvres! The manœuvres were no more like war than a toy pistol -was like a German mortar. War, should it ever break out, would not last -the time it would take to concentrate your army corps; the first of two -adversaries who should be half a day ahead would bring the other to cry -mercy. - -"Well, say," some one had interrupted, "it wouldn't be a bad plan, then, -to do one's best to get that half-day's advance?" - -"Useless! Count your population, consider your aspirations. Think of the -finances. Finances! There is not a country of great armaments that could -maintain war for six weeks, nor one that could even endure three years' -preparation for war.... Ask the great banks, which have the world in -leading-strings, emperors and kings as well as peoples; don't deceive -yourselves; war is impossible, im-pos-si-ble! We are witnessing, with -your manœuvres, the final deeds of a prehistoric age.... Turn your eyes -to the future, gentlemen, and all this bedizened and vociferous gang -will seem to you like children's toys!" - -"But Germany--the militant party--the Pangermanists?" - -"Germany is a pacific nation, industrial and commercial, which uses its -cannon as an advertising dodge. What we lack--don't you know?--is -precisely business sense. And Germany has business sense. The military -party? A drop of water in a lake. The Pangermanists? Advertising men in -the pay of the national industry. In the first place, the Emperor, as -every one says who has seen him near at hand, is a secret friend of -France ... and I will add, the most republican of us all. Socialism, -that's his enemy! ... The army that we need is not a rabble of soldiers, -but a group of men bent upon keeping the peace. Humanity is on the -march--it can never be repeated too often--toward a future of liberty, -equality, fraternity. Ah, you must reckon with economic rivalry; that is -the law of life." - -"Precisely so." - -Memory, quickened no doubt by her feverish condition, brought back to -the young wife with extraordinary precision, even to the least of them, -these utterances overheard at her solitary little table. True, she had -amused herself with repeating them to the sublieutenant, her -husband--she even recalled the moment--he was splashing in his bath, -soaping himself, on his return from the manœuvres. He had laughed with -all his heart, for when Jean had come back from the manœuvres he was -another man from what he had been when going to them. Only a few days of -presence with the corps, among his military comrades, had transformed -him or, more correctly, had restored him to his normal disposition; or, -in any case, had made him victor over the indolence with which he -usually replied to the fine talkers of Paris. - -As for Odette, she had attached not the slightest importance to any of -these ideas, by whomever enunciated. Brought up in the one religion of -happiness, she held that happiness through love was the sole boon to be -asked of fate. What was the use of arguing? Why think about calamity? -Did not certain of her friends, those most reputed for intelligence, -insist that it was the honor of civilized man not even to think of acts -of barbarism, that man raised himself in dignity as he neglected to -prepare himself to make use of arms? Among many other sayings the -oft-repeated, if somewhat cynical, pronouncement of M. de la Villaumer -came back to her: "We are not in a condition to make war. We are unaware -how far we are not in a condition to make war, because we do not in the -least know what war is. If war is made upon us, as there is reason to -fear--as well the deluge." - -And yet, that day, on coming out of his bath, Jean had become so wrought -up in talking of the army that he had almost made his wife afraid! She -had thrown her arms around him as he wrapped himself in his bathrobe, -saying: - -"Don't talk so, Jean! Oh, imagine, if even you were to be so much as -disfigured by an ugly wound! Your lovely eyes, my darling! Your -beautiful teeth!--No, that would drive me wild!" - -And because he had laughed, laughed heartily, so as completely to close -his lovely eyes, she had at once thought of something else. - -Without ever thinking of going even slightly into subjects of this sort, -she had been buoyed up by a great credulity, born of optimism; not, -indeed, as to war, which interested her not the least, but as to Jean, -who alone was of consequence, and who, as a "reserve officer," she was -sure could not be called to take part in a campaign. It was an artless -idea, rooted in her mind by the pressure of her exuberant happiness. For -nothing in the world would she have tried to get at the root of it, lest -the result should prove uncomfortable. It was the same self-indulgent, -mental indolence which, for example, had withheld her from asking -herself the meaning of words that dropped from her husband's lips: - -"Well, here I am, attached to the covering troops. You and I will not be -able to go into Touraine." Well, they would not be able to go into -Touraine; they would go somewhere else. - -Then memory carried her on to the beginning of last season, at the -seashore. The weather had been so fine! Jean had been so lucky as to get -his vacation from his commercial house by the 15th of July; they had -gone to Surville. The Hotel de Normandie was already well filled, the -Casino was crowded, sports were humming, the Little Theatre was -exhibiting Parisian vedettes, a row of autos was sending vile smells up -to the terrace where every one sat of afternoons imbibing soft drinks -and roasting in the sun to the music of the gypsy orchestra; elegant -young men were displaying khaki costumes, martingales, and broad-brimmed -hats. In the evening every one had danced the tango in the hall. The -great stir of the watering-place had begun--futile doings without -number, comings and goings, from bar to bar, from casino to casino, from -luncheon to luncheon. - -"Oh, say, are you coming? Look here, Jean! Aren't you tiresome, always -reading despatches! One would say that you were expecting something to -happen. What concern is it of yours?" - -Every evening, on their way to the great hall of the Casino through the -gallery that looked out upon the sea, whether going to the theatre or -the music-hall, or simply intending to sit down and drink their coffee -or their camomile, they had found a crowd of, men in tuxedos standing -before the frame that hung on the right of the door, on which despatches -from Paris and quotations of the Bourse were posted. Odette could still -hear the reproaches she had addressed to her husband as he returned with -unwonted seriousness from reading them. - -"Well, what about it all?" she had asked. Jean had kept back some of the -more sensational news, but one evening he had added: - -"There is an ultimatum to Serbia." - -"What of that?" - -Nothing more had been said. But Jean had risen twice from his chair to -speak to men whom he knew, conferring with them in the lobby, then -returning to his wife. - -"Oh, nothing will happen yet," he had said. - -This had gone on for several evenings. It had become necessary to -explain some things. Then Odette herself had become anxious; she would -go with her husband to read the despatches; she would go to them by -herself in the daytime. But the number of readers was increasing, and -the silence, or the few words that would escape from the group, troubled -her; she would go down to the beach to read the despatches at the -_Figaro_ kiosk. Threats of war? ... European war? ... War? ... No, -surely that was not likely. The idea was finding extreme difficulty in -penetrating people's skulls. Despatch was succeeding despatch, twice a -day, now reassuring, now disturbing; but whenever one contained matter -for alarm, it was always better founded than that of the previous day. - -Odette had at last asked her husband: - -"Well, if by any chance there should be war, would that affect -you--yourself?" - -"Don't be in a hurry, my darling; war has not yet been declared." - -"But--but--if it should be?" - -"Well, if it should be, I am a reserve officer." - -"What is the reserve? Is it when there are no more active soldiers?" - -He had kissed her, laughing. Not long before a relative of one of the -most influential bankers in Paris had declared, at a neighboring table, -that "All was arranged!" But the next morning a rumor had been spread at -the Casino that the news was so discouraging it had not been posted. -Jean had gone to ascertain. The rumor had been confirmed. Then he had -said to his wife: "It is time to take precautions. Listen, my darling, I -shall go to Paris this evening. I will set my business in order, I will -see La Villaumer, who knows everything, and Avvogade, who lunches with -the President of the Council. I shall learn what can be learned, and I -shall try to return by night." - -Once again she could hear all these words, could see again his slightest -actions, could imagine La Villaumer, so far--seeing, and Clotilde -Avvogade, surrounded by her flowers in her almost too delicious -apartment, making a face when she heard her husband talking of -disagreeable things. She lived over again the sad night that she had -passed alone, sleepless, and the bat that had flown into her room like a -little devil, and the faces next morning at the Casino, on the beach, -everywhere! And the departures, the almost empty hotel, ever since that -evening when she had been expecting her husband--the evening when he did -not come! - -He did not come because he had found in Paris an order to "join -immediately for a period of instruction." He had telegraphed to her: -"Don't leave; all will be well; will write." - -A period of instruction! So suddenly decided upon! What did that mean? -Was it war? She had asked the people around her. Some had seemed stunned -by her question; others had said: "A period of instruction? Nothing is -more usual." - -"As a matter of fact, they are mobilizing," some one had remarked. A -gentleman had said: "No, madame, mobilization cannot be other than -general. It may be that certain officers have been summoned -individually, but that is merely a measure of precaution; the situation -is evidently strained." - -"But why should he be called and not others? He is only an officer of -reserves." - -"That depends upon the locality of his depot, no doubt. Do you know -where it is?" - -"I know that he formerly belonged to the Eleventh Corps, but I think he -has been passed over to Nancy." - -"Covering troops. Ah--ah!" - -"That is it precisely, sir; he is attached to the covering troops." - -"Oh, very well! Oh, very well!" - -She had found another woman in the same case as herself, or nearly so. -But the husband of this one, who also had been individually called, was -a captain in active service, and in garrison at Pont-à-Mousson. - -"That one," Odette had said to herself; "it is all over with him." - -The difference had seemed to be to her own advantage, and her courage -had risen correspondingly. Jean was only a sublieutenant; he belonged -only to the reserves. She was absorbed in compassion for the other -woman, so different in character from herself, bravely prepared for the -war and ready to sacrifice everything; who had said: "I regret that my -boys are not grown; they would be so many more defenders of the -country." - -Odette had been as ill prepared as possible for such an utterance. -Everything about it surprised her; she could not understand it in the -least. - -A lady had arrived from Paris, the wife of a deputy. She had said to any -who would listen: - -"I may as well tell you; mobilization will be ordered to-morrow." - -The weather had been ideally fine, though there had been a suggestion of -thunderstorms in the west. Children were playing on the beach; the sea, -under a cloudless sky, was calm even to torpor. One could see Havre -stretched along in the sunlight, like a greyhound panting with heat; in -the distance were noble passenger-ships, and tiny sails apparently -motionless. Never had the sky, the sea, the land, appeared so much to -long for peace; never, perhaps, had the joy of existence been more -imperious. Whatever might be the subjects of alarm, everything cried -aloud that to believe in coming misfortune was impossible. - -The next day, Saturday, August I, Odette, distressed by vague talk that -gave no definite information, had gone to the post with a letter to her -dear Jean. She had addressed it to Paris, since she had no knowledge -where to reach him. It was about four o'clock. She had seen a group -forming before the mayor's office, and the town drummer arriving, with a -long retinue of street urchins at his heels. The drummer was a tall -youth, lean and wan, grave with a gravity not usual in a town drummer -who has to announce that a little, long-haired, bright-gray dog is lost. -The crowd had gathered around him with frantic eagerness, while he -executed his preliminary performance. Then, drawing a paper from his -pocket, he had unfolded it and read at the top of his voice, without the -slightest change of countenance: - -"General mobilization is declared! The first day of mobilization is -Sunday, August 2. No man may set out without first consulting the bill -which will be immediately posted." And the drummer had beaten the ban. - -With a single impulse, as if under orders, the crowd, mainly composed of -young men, had raised their hats, crying: "_Vive la France_!" One lad -had said: "_Vive la guerre_!" And the drummer had departed to repeat his -message at another crossroads. - -It had seemed a perfectly simple event, something almost usual, at the -junction of these four streets of the little town. A deed done; the -pattering of dispersing feet; silence! And this simple act, repeated -hundreds of thousands of times at this same hour, was the most tragic -alarm-cry in the history of man, reverberating at the same moment of -time over all the terrestrial globe. Little noise, almost no words, and -all these men, raising their hats to pronounce a word suddenly become -sacred, had made the sacrifice of their lives. Imagination loses itself -in picturing the multitude of points upon this earth on which a like -gift of self had just been made. For if the man who goes hopes to be -spared, he who learns that he is called to go, for the moment gives -himself, body and soul. - -Almost instantaneously the church-bells had broken out with the tocsin, -as if the town had been on fire. Every church; then, on the hills, -throughout the countryside, the same signal of distress spread like an -epidemic. It had been too recent to be utterly terrifying; many heard it -and did not think. No one realized the tragedy to which these humble -little bells were sorrowfully calling the world. It is the salvation of -men that they always limit their thoughts to the most immediate duty. -The thought of a pair of shoes, of the place where one's _livret_ is -hidden, of saying good-by to this one or that one, checks the vertigo -which the enormity of the event might well produce. - -At first Odette had felt oppressed and wept like a nervous child who -hears a sudden alarm. She had been unable, for her tears, to see the -letter-box into which she dropped that letter to Jean which no longer -signified anything and would doubtless never reach him to whom it was -addressed. And all around her, at the doors, in the streets, on the -beach, at the hotel, women had been weeping. - -Odette had gone up to her room. She had said to her maid: - -"What about you, Amelia?" - -"Me? Mine must join on the second day. I thought of asking Madame if I -might take this evening's train; to-morrow there will be no room for -civilians. That way I might kiss him good-by----" - -"Go, Amelia." - -She had seated herself at the window that looked out upon the -flower-garden, the deserted tennis-courts, the sea. She was alone. There -was nothing for her to do but think and wait. - -Everything around her had seemed stunned, congealed. It was as if there -was no longer any one anywhere. The smoke of three great transatlantics -in the Havre roadstead--sole perceptible movement--was rising straight -up in the motionless air. A few fair-weather clouds on the horizon were -turning a fleecy rose color. One or two fishing-smacks, all sails -spread, were idling as on a lake. In ordinary times one would have said: -"What a glorious sunset we shall have!" And Odette thought: "The men in -those boats, at this moment, _do not know_!" - -An involuntary change had instantaneously taken place in her mind. She -had transported herself to a time like that which still reigned in the -boats, a time when "_They did not know_!" A time when there was nothing -unusual in the world, when life, smiling, had sung to her, when the hope -of a yet lovelier life had lulled thought to sleep. That time--already -so far distant--was only an hour ago. And everything had been -changed--changed as nothing had ever been changed before. Were they -living on the same planet as in that former time? Who could have -dreamed, at that time, of what was taking place now? She tried to -foresee the morrow, but she could imagine nothing--nothing. Only La -Villaumer's saying came back to her: "We are not in condition.... As -well the deluge!" - -And for all that, deep down, very deep within herself, she had not at -all believed in the horror that had come. - -She had remained sitting there, at her window, until the hour for -dinner, living over her past life with Jean--thrilling with his first -caresses. She had never loved any one but Jean before her marriage; -since her marriage, only him. It was no longer the war which seemed to -her unimaginable, but the power of her love for Jean. And instead of -imagining chaos, her natural inclination had impelled her to summon up -the loveliest pictures of the past. She had smiled, her body had -relaxed, her fingers had quivered as if in anticipation of a caress, and -in the empty air her lips had made the motion of a kiss. - -A man's voice on the balcony next her own had said: - -"It is absurd to think of nature as taking note of our affairs; but just -for curiosity look at that sky: I have never seen anything like it." - -The words had been spoken to some one in the next room, who drew near to -the window, and she had heard a woman's voice exclaiming, with a moan or -in desperate appeal, such as one seldom hears. - -Odette had risen, and she too had looked out. She had never been -superstitious, and was especially not inclined to doleful -prognostications. She had always been happy; her life had flowed along, -so to speak, like one continued festival. Being alone in her room, she -did not speak; but all her flesh quivered. - -It may well be that similar phenomena occur sometimes without attracting -our attention; yet, on that day, to three persons occupying neighboring -rooms in a hotel, to others also, who had spoken of it at dinner or in -the evening, that sunset appeared utterly unusual, and such as might -justify all gossiping conjectures as to the relations of the earth with -the marvellous changes, stupendous in their nature, which take place in -the vault of heaven. Above the quiet sea the whole horizon was a fiery -furnace, blazing with intense fervency, across which were spread, like -fragments of slashed flesh, long clouds of a livid bluish red. Before -long the intense fire died down, as if all the combustible matter had -been devoured by the fury of the flames. Then the disk of the sun -appeared in outline, like a gigantic blood-blister, like a crystal bowl -so overful that the viscous liquid was escaping by some fissure and -spreading to right and left into a marsh, a lake, an ocean of human -serum, flowing in every direction toward rivers with contracted banks, -which upheaved against it a formidable tide. Suddenly the sinister -blister burst of itself and was absorbed in the mass of burning matter, -or of thick waters, heavy and foul, and became thin streams like those -that trickle from a slaughter-house. - -No, truly, it was no vertigo of the imagination, no hallucination of the -vision, no compliant romance; it was a real picture, symbolic of aspect, -preceding, like an inadequate vignette, the flaming pages of the great -book of history that had just been opened. - -In Odette's soul it had been like a curtain that falls before a new act; -once the curtain is raised, one's expectation is fixed; no more light -comedy, no more pleasant extravaganzas, no more ballet! The tragedy is -about to begin. - -With a bound her fevered memory overleaped several months of war. They -had entered an atmosphere of fire; it was hard, but they endured it. -Alsace: a breath of wild hope, penultimate moment of Old France; -Belgium: enthusiasm first, horror afterward; alliances: -prognostications, so-called assured, as to the "final result"; invasion: -a march to the scaffold in which the condemned cling to a hope of the -improbable; the Marne: the improbable realized, for which no one had -dared to hope; the enemy grappled with and hurled back; the fall of -Antwerp, of which so many folk, who will appear again in the end, insist -that "it has not the least importance." - -Odette had received letters from Jean. How could Jean be in such a fiery -furnace? And how had she been able to endure the thought? But many -things once believed impossible were beginning to be recognized as -possible. Jean was enduring his fatigues, and everything in him was -taking on a new character. She had found him not such as he had been on -his return from the manœuvres, but a man exalted above himself, who -seemed to have transcended his own height, however he might try to -appear simply his usual charming self. She could divine his sufferings, -and yet she felt him to be happy. Odette had even come to think: "How -little he needs me!" She had returned to Paris that she might receive -his letters more promptly. But he appeared no longer to have any notion -of time. That was because he was no longer master of his time. Odette -was always writing to him as to an isolated being, who could do with -himself as he liked. Without intending it, he would reply to her letters -as if he were one who had no individual existence, a man carried away by -something greater than himself, something which alone counted. She had -not yet been able to understand, and she had gently reproached Jean for -neglecting her. - -And yet Odette's perpetual anxiety had been gradually growing less; she -was already gaining confidence. Jean had passed through so many dangers! -She had begun to believe in a possible immunity. How many men had been -in the midst of wars through all a long life, and yet had died in bed, -surrounded by their families! - -Then, suddenly, one fine morning in the second fortnight of September -Odette, still in bed, had heard the door-bell at an hour when seldom any -one came to the front door. Amelia, her own maid, who had answered the -bell, had rushed, breathless, to her mistress: - -"Madame! it is Madame de Prans who insists upon seeing Madame!" - -From her bed Odette had called out: "Come in, Simone, come right in!" - -Simone de Prans had brought tidings of Jean. She had received them from -dear Pierrot, her husband, who had been sent to Paris for twenty-four -hours on a mission. - -Tidings of Jean? But, to begin with, they were satisfactory? -How?--satisfactory? Well, she could say that they were not bad. But "not -bad" is not good! No, but one must not exaggerate things. In short, -half-admissions, denials, returns upon the question, openings left for -hope, equivocal utterances, embarrassments of which Odette soon ceased -to be the dupe. And she had had courage to say, suddenly: - -"My little Simone, you dare not acknowledge that the greatest of -calamities has befallen me." - -It was at that moment of half-wakefulness during which all these -previous events had passed before her memory, that Odette suddenly came -broad awake. She uttered a great cry, and every one in the next room -came running. - -But now, after all, Odette refused to believe the dreadful fact which -she herself had divined! She declared that it could not be, it was "too -unjust." - -Why should Jean be killed and not another? With fierce anger she -revolted against her lot, crying out and struggling in her bed like a -mad woman. - -"It is not true! it is not true! you all have a grudge against me! you -are jealous of me because of Jean! ... Jean, my Jean, I shall yet -embrace you, or there is no God!"--until suddenly, vociferating and -shrieking, she again lost consciousness. - - - - -II - - -Her doctor was there, in a major's uniform. They had found him as by a -miracle: he happened to be at home, at the telephone, the very moment -when Amelia called him. As he could not remain he gave his instructions -to Simone de Prans, to Germaine Le Gault, to Rose Misson, the last two, -notified by Simone, having dressed in all haste and rushed to her. The -door-bell was constantly ringing. The news of Odette's affliction was -spreading through Paris. True, the war had already caused many -bereavements, but among this intimate group, Lieutenant Jacquelin was -the first to fall. - -Odette, recovering her senses, found herself in the position of an -exceptional victim among her friends, both women and men. - -But the women, while encompassing her with compassion, had in their -eyes, their voices, something other than bereavement usually inspires. -When they tried to utter consoling words, all, without exception, spoke -of "pride," of the "honor" which was reflected upon Odette. Odette -accepted the words as a part of the phraseology of condolence; but she -considered only one thing--Jean no longer existed. Her Jean, her lover, -her happiness, her preoccupation, her days, her nights, her revery of -yesterday, her hope for to-morrow; Jean, caresses, kisses, tenderness, -sweetness, perfume, foolishness and wisdom, the beloved master and yet -the child, to be cradled in her arms; Jean--a thousand times more than -her own life--was no longer numbered among men! She could see him again, -from head to foot, in the minutest physical details, and in the same -moment she was certain that he was no longer anything other than a -phantom; that never again her arms of flesh would press to her his -flesh, that her lips would never again kiss his lips. Tears did not come -in the torrents that bring solace to the sharpest griefs. The period of -yielding to a cruel fate, when one pities oneself, had not come to her. -Rebellion still persisted. Odette raged, uttered bitter words. The -honeyed soothings of her friends only exasperated her. Other friends -were continually coming up to see her. She fell into hysterics. The -doctor had gone. The most determined of those present, "good" Rose -Misson and Mme. de Blauve, a woman who inspired respect, took upon -themselves to turn all the others out of the room and to close the front -door against every one. - -Rose Misson was a little woman, plump and mild, whose husband, some -fifteen years older than herself, and free of all military obligation, -had entered the service as chauffeur at the beginning of the war. Misson -was somewhat criticised for this step. Therefore Rose, who felt the -power of public opinion, was full of admiration of the lot of her friend -Odette. Private griefs are nothing in comparison with the special -consciousness which public opinion arouses in us. Notwithstanding her -real love for him, at the present moment Rose would have preferred her -husband dead rather than ill appreciated. Rose's sentiment with regard -to her friend might have been thus expressed: - -"Yes, my dear, your grief is immense; your existence as a wife is -shattered. But everybody feels that your lot is beautiful. You will grow -greater among us all, will eclipse us, each and every one. From this day -you have gained universal veneration; your name is pronounced with -reverence; you are changed in our eyes; your presence brings even to us -a meaning which we never knew before; the memory of your husband, his -glorious name, is something august which is penetrating a circle in -which such a quality has never been known." - -Rose said nothing of all this to her friend, because the language of -their circle did not lend itself to such thoughts; perhaps also, even -while thinking them, she had no wish to utter them. - -For the first time since the outbreak of war Odette did not ask for the -evening paper. To read the news--the _communiqué_? How indifferent she -was to all that! There was nothing more for her to learn. Her husband -was dead; for her the war was ended. The war had been him, anxiety for -his special fate. Him disappeared, what did the rest matter? - -And the sense of nothingness which had seized her by the throat that -morning touched her again, more glacial than before. Nothing! No longer -anything! Yes, the war was an unheard-of misfortune; but the war had -captivated one like a drama of unequalled interest. The drama might go -on henceforth; she would not go to witness it. She had gone to it only -for one actor, who, having played his part, had disappeared. She too -would disappear. - -Odette slept and spoke as in a dream. She fell into delirium; insisted -on going with her husband, saying: "_If I had known_, I would not have -let you go one step." He seemed to reply to her, alluding to a grave -wound which the commandant had received. She would repeat: "The -commandant's leg? ... Oh, let them touch you once, you! I am here.... I -am here to care for you, my love...." And she awoke with a start. - -"He is dead, Rose! Ah, Rose, how fortunate you are!" - -"But my husband is fifty years old, Odette!" - -"Oh, if my husband had only been sixty!" - -Simone de Prans and Mme. de Blauve came again in the afternoon. - -"Your husband, Odette, fell like a hero; there is no more beautiful -death." - -"There is no beautiful death." - -"Yes, there is!" - -"It is easy for you to talk." - -"No, Odette, you don't consider that everything is changed." - -"One's heart, too?" - -"Yes, one's heart, too. Many among us pass for hard-hearted and inhuman, -but everything now appears from another point of view." - -"Love is always love." - -Odette, whose sense of hearing was extremely acute, overheard a -low-voiced conversation in which Simone was saying how well her dear -Pierrot was looking, and she swooned again. - -The rest of the day was only one lamentation, an inarticulate and -continuous moaning. - -The following days were no better. The physician dreaded meningitis. - -Human beings are often weak in the face of great catastrophes when they -are governed only by their natural sentiments. Yet Rose, who was in all -things natural, remained completely devoted to Odette. - -"It is easier," said Mme. de Blauve, "to nurse a gravely wounded man -than a woman distracted with grief, for whom there is nothing to do, to -whom there is nothing to say." - -The first two days of Odette's grief were as nothing in comparison with -those that followed. She uttered no sound except to moan; she fell into -delirious slumbers, had hours of furious insomnia, nightmares, -hallucinations, attacks of hysterics. At last came the period of -confidences, with torrents of tears. - -Among Odette's friends, some had not been pleased because they had not -been admitted to her room the first day; others were forgetting -everything in their dominant desire to obtain a place as nurse in a -hospital. Some of these, having succeeded in compassing their wishes, -came at last, and were not denied entrance to the sick-room, by reason -of the costume that they wore. At first it seemed as if they might harm -Odette by the lamentable scenes which they described. These nurses -delighted in employing new, technical words, which they had taken pains -to learn by heart, like so many schoolgirls. But Odette would murmur: -"All your unhappy ones, with their surgical operations--they are alive, -after all." And she would think to herself: "Mine is dead." What answer -could be made to that? - -Odette received heaps of letters, whose eloquence overwhelmed without -touching her. She deemed all their expressions exaggerated, and yet she -could not say that they rang false; they spoke of France, of glory and -honor; hardly did they make allusion to her love, which to her was all. - -She was beginning to get up, to come and go about her apartment. It made -things worse. Every place, every article, reminded her of Jean. He used -to sit in that chair; he had loved to play with that little ornament. -Before his photographs, in the drawing-room, she succumbed once more. -Here he was in tennis-costume, so graceful, so lithe, so beautiful; -there in house dress, that velvet jacket that she had so often encircled -with her arms. She would walk through the rooms trying to breathe the -faint odors of a perfume which he might have left there. She would sink -down upon the divan where once there had been room for him.... And she -started with a sudden thrill when the shadow of Amelia formed a -halo-surrounded image against the fixed curtain of the glass door. In -the old days, when he came in, a great shadow would spread thus behind -the yellow silk, and suddenly his tall form would rise above the -curtain, and his kind smile would appear through the glass.... Then she -would listen for the sound of a key in the door. No one would ever again -enter that door by means of a key.... - -As she was opening, in a drawer, the box of his favorite cigars and -would fain have lost herself in the odor which brought before her the -image of her man, a telegram was brought to her. She tore it open -mechanically, all news being indifferent to her. It was from Mlle. de -Blauve, a girl of fourteen, and announced that her father, Commandant de -Blauve, had died upon the field of honor. Her mother had been for the -last few days a nurse at Rheims, her natal city, under bombardment. The -three little De Blauve girls were alone at home with the governess, the -two older brothers being in Jersey at school. - -For the first time since her bereavement Odette was obliged to think of -others. She closed the box of cigars, and thought of that house in the -Avenue d'Iena that she knew so well, of those charming little girls, -henceforth orphaned, the eldest of whom was so calmly acquitting herself -of the duties of courtesy. - -"I must go there," she said, and called her maid to dress her. Her -mourning dress had been brought home the day before yesterday, but she -had not so much as tried it on. Now for the first time she put on her -clothes without a thought of her appearance. She took a carriage and -went to the Avenue d'Iena. - - - - -III - - -She was expecting to find consternation in a family crushed by their -fate, and during the drive she reflected with astonishment that it was -not altogether painful to her to visit people in grief; in her inmost -heart she would rather meet the little de Blauve girls mourning, -unhappy, than her consolatory friends, overflowing with kind and -beautiful words, but not personally sorrowing. "It is not the sight of -happiness that consoles us in our sorrows," she said to herself, "but to -come into touch with a grief that is like our own." - -The little de Blauves were not yet in black. The eldest wept a little -when Odette kissed her with flowing tears--for Odette was thinking of -her own grief--but the little girls were not at all prostrated, and -there was even something radiant in their expression. - -"What is it all about, dear children?" asked Odette. - -Then they clapped their hands and said that their brother had just -landed from his island and was up-stairs washing himself, and that he -had received his mother's permission to enlist. - -"To enlist!" exclaimed Odette. "Why, how old is he, the poor little -fellow?" - -"He is almost seventeen," said the eldest girl. "Papa is dead, he must -replace him." - -"And what does the big brother say to that?" - -"Oh, he is delighted. He had begged to enlist as soon as mobilization -was declared, but papa would not consent; he said: 'You will go with -your class, when the time comes; it will not be long.'" - -The big brother appeared, coming down-stairs. He was a fine boy, -delicate, surprisingly like his mother's portrait, painted in her youth, -which hung above the great sofa. He rushed past like a bomb, exclaiming: -"I must hurry to the recruiting-office!" No more was said about the dead -father, and yet Odette knew that he was adored by all his family. Only -to the governess, a confidential person well on in years, did Odette say -a word about the event. - -"It is a great honor," said the governess. - -"Do they know how he was killed?" - -"A bomb, which at the same time killed seventeen men who were near him." - -It was fearlessly said in the presence of the children. Not one of the -little ones showed the least emotion, while Odette shuddered through her -whole body. She asked after the mother. - -"Mama writes that the mortars send a regular hail; she is almost -deafened with them. The noise disturbs her in her work. They jump, at -times, as over a skipping-rope, she writes.... She has also some Boches -to wait upon her; did you know?" - -And that was all. Odette looked at the dead man's portrait, opposite -that of the Red Cross nurse, who was jumping, at this moment, at the -sound of the marmites, and had just sent her young son to the -firing-line, casting at least one more de Blauve into the furnace that -had consumed his father. Monsieur de Blauve had not been painted in -uniform; he showed only the good face of a clever and kindly man. It -must have been in all tranquillity, without uttering a single grand -word, that he had prepared his whole family for the eventualities of -war; and his children, to the last one, were as ready to die as to go on -a walk, or to church. - - - -IV - - -Odette went away disconcerted. Not a word had been said about her Jean, -who also had died heroically. But what had they said about the other -hero, Commandant de Blauve, whose death had brought her there? Men -disappear; they are replaced; a memory of them remains, which is -henceforth called "honor," and which does not admit of emotion. That was -precisely what certain of her friends had already said to her. They had -seemed to know that in advance, but Odette--no. She thought, as she -returned home, of that bloody sunset over the sea, upon which she had -gazed at Surville on August I, and during which she had had the -impression that she was entering a new world. - -She found three letters in the vestibule; one, belated, from a friend in -the country, who had only just heard of the death of Lieutenant -Jacquelin, and who "complimented" her, basing her consolation upon "the -honor with which she saw her adorned." The others were from strangers -charged to announce to her that the husband of a friend who lived in -Versailles, and that of another in Bourg-la-Reine, had just been killed. - -Odette sank down upon the divan, her head feeling bruised as if she had -bumped it against the wall; killed, killed--then there were dead men -everywhere? And she felt a dark rancor toward all those fatal events -that fell upon her so furiously to disturb her grief, her personal -grief. - -She saw again those three men of whose loss she had been told that very -day--in a single half-day--Commandant de Blauve, a magnificent man, a -man without a blot, "a type of Plutarch" as he had been called, always -with the added words, "characters such as his were no longer made"; then -Jacques Graveur, him of Versailles, a good comrade of Jean's, one who -never made an ado about anything, and passed for none too serious; it -appeared that he had saved his whole company by coolness and the -sacrifice of himself; Louis Silvain, he of Bourg-la-Reine, had brought -his captain in upon his shoulders, across two hundred metres of open -ground under a hail of grape-shot, had come within three metres of his -trench, when a ball passed through his body--but the officer was saved. -He had been, in ordinary life, a big fellow, with no other occupation -than to haunt the theatres, play at the races, and drink cocktails at -the bars.... Such different figures, suddenly united in a similar act, -for which some of them had from all time been prepared, the others not -at all--the strangeness, the incomprehensibility of it all! - -She must write letters of condolence--she, who had received so many! -While she was writing to the others she was thinking especially of her -Jean; she felt a certain fascination in writing of grief; she dwelt upon -it too much at length; it would be apparent to the wives to whom she -wrote that she was thinking only of herself.... But each of them would -have done the same, and would forgive her. - -All through the day the memory of Jean shook off from her the haunting -thought of the three other dead men. She consulted a map of the Touring -Club of which she had sometimes made use with her husband in their -automobile drives. The spot where Jean had fallen was not far from a -highway over which they had often driven. "Perhaps I saw one day the -very spot where his body is lying to-day...." Then followed endless -despairing reveries. How had she not foreseen the possibility of the -event--of the war, at least? Yet war had often been discussed in her -presence, at the time of the alarms of Agadir, of Casablanca, even of -Tangier, when she was a young girl. Then things were possible, things -which perhaps might happen to-morrow, of which people were talking -to-day, and to which her mind had been hermetically closed? War, war! -She used to know old people who talked about it; yes, because they had -seen it. And they were tiresome. Young people didn't believe in such -things. She tried to excuse herself; then she pronounced herself guilty. -Why had they usually avoided people who talked of serious things? And -why had they considered as clever those who ridiculed everything? -Suddenly she thought of "Monsieur's linen," "Monsieur's wardrobe," of -all those belongings of _his_ which would never again be used, never.... -Should she go on leaving them all in their places? Should she do away -with them? Or should she put them all away in a closet, a reliquary? - -She was at that point in her reflections when Amelia entered, in tears: - -"The son of the concierge, madame!" - -"Well, what?" - -"He too, madame!" - -Then the details; the unlucky fellow had been buried alive in an -upheaval caused by a bomb, and had been dug out only too late. And -Amelia began to talk of her husband, as if it had been he who was buried -alive. - -When a few days passed without tidings of more deaths, all the women -grew calm and began to hope. When a man whom they knew was killed, each -one saw in him her husband, her father, her cousin, her son; all the men -were wept for in advance in the person of the one who had fallen. If any -one had said to these women: "But there are thousands falling every day, -thousands!" they would have opened their eyes wide, only partly -terrorized, for they had not yet become accustomed to the new condition -of things. The one who should maintain that the war would not be over in -a few weeks would be considered a bad patriot, or an ill-timed jester. - -The next morning a new catastrophe; Pierre de Prans, otherwise Pierrot, -he who had brought the news of Jean's death, had been brought to -Val-de-Grâce hospital in a very alarming condition. His orderly, a fine -fellow, who was wounded at the same time, was as good as dead. Pierrot -had a bullet in the breast, one lung laid bare, and a broken arm. His -orderly had stanched his wounds under a violent bombardment, filling up -the enormous cavity with bandages snatched from the dead who surrounded -them, then both had remained for six hours, their heads in a -vile-smelling hole under a paving-stone, their bodies hidden by bushes. -In the course of the night, hearing the French language spoken, they had -kicked with their feet and the stretcher-bearers had drawn them out, -both still living. - -The narrative of these particulars produced a worse effect upon Odette -than tidings of death; the more as some one had the lightness to say in -her presence: "Much better to be shot dead at an unexpected moment than -to endure such long and cruel agony." - -"That is a fine idea!" retorted Odette. "Much better to be alive than -dead." - -Notwithstanding the sadness of these visits of friends when there was -always some new death to weep for, deaths which had occurred under the -most frightful circumstances, Odette felt that no other sorrow was equal -to her sorrow; and she detested them all, not as losses hateful to -endure, not as making part of a national calamity the like of which had -never been before, but as unwelcome events intruding themselves between -her and her own grief. She desired to be alone with her sorrow, and she -resolved henceforth to know nothing of all the rest. - -One idea possessed her during several days: to see the place where Jean -lay buried. Oh! if she could also see that where he received his -death-blow! She appealed to three or four influential persons of her -acquaintance, hung over the telephone. What she asked was to the last -degree impossible. Word came to her from the Minister that it would be -easier for her to go to Berlin, passing through Switzerland after -procuring the necessary papers, than to reach her husband's tomb, near -as it was. Then it seemed to her that the government, even more than -death, had robbed her of her husband by means never practised before, -the refined cruelty of which had been invented for her alone. - - - - -V - - -Her old friend, La Villaumer, had come to make her a brief visit of -condolence. He was the only man of their former group of intimates left -in Paris, because of his years. Now he came to see her again. - -"I do not come seeking to console you, my friend. If I am making a -mistake, turn me to the door. In my mind there is no consolation for -you; you are an unfortunate woman. You must not ask much of life, do you -see? You have known happiness. To most people happiness is unknown. Let -those to whom it is a stranger deceive themselves with words and -attitudes; as for you, weep for all you have lost; weep; what you have -lost is worth all tears." - -"Thank you, my friend; do not feel that you are obliged to make a -heroine of me, you of all others! You know, of all others, that I am not -a heroic soul, but simply a woman who loves." - -"You are the purest woman whom I have known, in the sense that you are -the most natural. You were born in a terrestrial paradise, and until now -you have lived in one. You have not been put outside the gate for some -misdeed by the angel with the fiery sword; a hurricane has arisen and -devastated the garden." - -"But I am none the less outside of the gate!" - -"I recognize that. There would be no use in seeking to deny it, and it -is all in vain to say to you that if others are less vividly aware of -being outside the gate it is because they never lived in the garden, -like you." - -"But they tell me that everything is changed." - -"They are right, and you see it clearly because you are outside of Eden, -which you had never left before. It is only that some of them accept the -change quickly because they were prepared for it, and others because -they are less sensitive than you." - -"Then, if such a change exists, does that mean that I should cease to -mourn my husband?" - -"No; but the day will come when you will mourn him more. Remember what I -say: you will mourn him more. That is the way in which you will take -your part in the change." - -"More!" ejaculated Odette. "Is it possible? I do not understand you." - -"I mean by 'more' another manner of mourning, which you will doubtless -find more endurable. Let us not talk more about it now, but keep in mind -what I have said." - -She shrank more and more from society, till she could endure neither -news nor the face of a friend. She caused herself to be denied at the -door--forbade her maid to speak to her of the war, even to bring in the -newspapers. She wished to hear nothing. - -Then Paris became odious to her because she could not keep herself -sufficiently in retirement. Since she was not permitted to go and -stretch herself upon Jean's tomb, like a faithful dog, she decided to -seek a refuge where she could think only of Jean, weep for him in -solitude, live only in his memory, stun herself with her own grief, give -herself body and soul to this grief from which no earthly power had the -right to tear her. - -She thought of returning to Surville, where Jean had bidden her good-by, -where she had spent those last weeks with him, those beloved days of the -end of the world. To find herself there in present circumstances would -be atrocious pain; so much the better! There was only one sort of -torture that she feared; that which should forbid her to live in -intimate union with the memory of Jean. To suffer, to suffer even to -martyrdom, to the martyrdom which Jean's death was causing her, this was -the greatest good for which she could ask. - -Odette set out for Surville. - - - - -VI - - -It was the end of October. The war, still violent and deadly along all -that line of conflict which was called the battle of the Aisne, was -becoming more terrible in the north, and was being carried over into -Belgium, as at the beginning. Universal anguish, for a time checked by -the victory of the Marne, was as acute as in the first days. Surville, -on the seashore, could not but be deserted and sad at this season. The -Hôtel de Normandie closed, the public houses that were open far from -comfortable, the best way to be alone and not hear war talk from morning -till night was to rent a small villa. A pavilion was recommended; it was -separated from the street by a row of poplars with yellowing foliage and -a narrow grass-plot where two pergolas were in summer covered with -climbing roses. At this season the dull melancholy of this abode was -accentuated by the silence of the dead town. Odette found that it suited -her. No sooner had she arrived than she had made a pilgrimage under the -closed windows and drawn-down blinds of the room that she had occupied -with Jean. The wind was blowing from the country, driving the heavy -clouds out to sea; the old Casino, once so gay, was boarded up; at the -door there still hung a poster announcing the races. Odette followed the -alley, passed over the dunes between the deserted tennis-courts, and -went down to the beach, where she could indulge in the bitterness of -unmingled grief. - -This was where she had planted her tent and lived with Jean through a -fortnight of sunny days, in utter abandonment to a delight that arose -from the earth or fell down from the magnificent sky. Children had been -playing about; excited little dogs had been barking to coax them to -throw a pebble into the sea. They had ceased their indolent repose only -to plunge into the sea, swimming side by side with delight. - -To-day the beach was abandoned, and seemed to stretch away, gray and -monotonous, to the end of the world. Odette seated herself under the -shelter of the dune and uttered the beloved name of Jean. The raging -wind carried it, like a flake of foam, toward that distant Havre where a -number of transports were lying in the roadstead. The coachman who -brought her from the train had pointed them out to her: they had brought -over British troops; an average of fifty to fifty-five vessels was -arriving every day. The war! Here, too, here again, when she had hardly -left the train, she had been reminded of it. - -Nevertheless, the hours passed and no one spoke of it, to her at least. -The monotonous sound of the sea soothed her, and the sea, -notwithstanding the troop-ships over there, seemed like something grand, -entirely foreign to all the human butchery. Odette rested her eyes on -the limitless plain, ever restless and sad. But this sadness was allied -to her own, and at the same time something immense, majestic, and -superhuman seemed to enter the depths of her still rudimentary -consciousness of the dawn of a new time. She would have remained there -for hours if the approach of evening had not rendered intolerable the -sense of despair suggested by the scene, and if the rain had not begun -to fall in torrents. - -Odette took one of the paths leading back to the town. - -Hardly had she reached it when she was surprised to see through the -driving wind and rain that buffeted her, many illuminated buildings -where she had expected only the shadows of a sleeping city. That was the -Casino, which she had lately seen shut up by boards! And that was the -Grand Hotel, all twinkling with light! She had to round the corner of -the latter to reach her cottage, and by degrees as she approached it she -saw a swarm of human beings, became aware of a commotion in the vast -building which had seemed so funereal. Men with bandaged heads, with -arms in slings, men walking on crutches; and the white head-dresses and -red crosses of nurses; it was a hospital. The wind brought its odors to -her--the smell of tincture of iodine, of cooking and an indescribable -unsavoriness. - -She drew near, passed beneath the windows. The sight was not so -heart-breaking as she would have expected. The nurses, some of them -young, wore a smile; if certain wounded men were stretched out, inert, -others, seated on their beds, were quietly chatting, calling across to -one another; a great burst of boyish laughter took her by surprise, -while at the same moment she saw, close-pressed to the window-pane, -directly under the electric light, the pitiful, waxen face of a sort of -Lazarus rising from the tomb. She became aware that the other building, -opposite, was equally crowded; she saw at the door an orderly in -uniform, and the inscription on white linen: "Supplementary Hospital." -She had thought to flee from the war; everything was bringing it to her. -The pavilion that she had selected, with its green lawns, its poplars, -its pergolas, was situated not far from these hospitals. All day long -she would see only men who had been in the war! - -Somewhat disheartened, she returned home. It was not what she had -expected to find here. Two telegrams were awaiting her; she opened them -listlessly--no news could be of serious moment to her. Both of them -announced the death of young men whom she knew intimately, old friends -of her husband; the first, an aviator crushed under his machine; the -second, killed on the banks of the Yser. - -The next morning several letters brought to her details of this twofold -loss. The first of these young men, whom she remembered to have had at -her house not three months before, had joined in aerial conflict with an -enemy machine, at an altitude of two thousand metres; despairing of -overcoming it by shots of grape, he had dashed upon it, crushing his own -screw, but had also seen his adversary wrecked as they fell to earth -together. It was one of the first exploits of the kind; its effect upon -the imagination was great. The other victim of the day, an officer by -profession, after having his shoulder crushed and his useless arm bound -to his body by withes, had continued for an hour to command his company, -until a bomb had scattered him in fragments. - -Odette shuddered. The heroism touched her, as it touched every one; but -these fine deeds, these multiplied deaths, overshadowed the case of her -husband, blotted it out; the death of Lieutenant Jacquelin was fading -from the general memory; other deaths were making more of a stir than -his; as the war became more and more furious it seemed to relegate its -earlier stages to a long-past time, somewhat inferior to the later -tragedy. Lieutenant Jacquelin had been killed in the first days of the -war, of a war still fought in old-fashioned way. The miseries of the -trenches under the autumn rains was another sort of war, one which alone -seemed to be true war. The headlong rush of the enemy on the Yser, of -which people were better informed than of the earlier invasion at the -Marne, arrested and absorbed the public mind. Odette felt this, and -though she was determined that no thought of glory should mingle with -her grief, the idea of glory and of the gigantic struggle that was going -on did penetrate her mind in spite of herself, by reason of the -diminution which the prestige of her own hero was suffering. She had -never dreamed of finding a cause of pride in what he had done; one -single thought had absorbed her: that her Jean, her love, was dead. In -her wounded pride she was hurried into saying to herself: "He died -nobly, he had a beautiful death, he too!" Yet the universal chorus -seemed to reply: "Since him, others have done better." - -She wrote to her newly widowed friends in words of exaggerated praise, -affecting not to speak at all of her personal sorrow. It was a -gratuitous effusion of temper, for the widows did not find her praises -at all extravagant, and never observed Odette's reserve as to her own -case. - -She decided not to leave the house, that she might see nothing, hear -nothing, learn nothing. For a while she even thought of notifying the -post-office not to forward her correspondence; but she was always hoping -that the Minister would send her a permit to visit Jean's grave. -Jealously she shut herself up with the memory of her husband. - -Everything irritated her; everything was odious to her; everything -seemed to conspire to raise between her and the beloved memory a barrier -of bleeding corpses, a screen upon which were portrayed horrors invented -by a satanic imagination, together with sentences of exalted morality -unknown to her and whose new radiance blinded her. - -Stamping her foot, tearing the handkerchief with which she was stanching -her tears, she declared to herself that she would henceforth live only -for Jean and by him. She kissed the photographs that she had brought -with her. She stretched herself upon a lounge, engulfing herself in the -torturing memory of him. For one day, several days, a week, perhaps -longer, she would be able to live upon only the thought of him. She -would open neither letters nor despatches that might come; if she was -late with her condolences, her congratulations, what did it matter? - -The idea of military glory entered her mind and suggested to her the -hope of erecting a monument to her husband. She was caressing the -thought when her maid entered her room like a gust of wind. - -"Madame, the wounded! the wounded! Swarms of them! In automobiles, on -trucks; it appears that there are twice as many for Sousville, and the -train has carried as many more to Houlgate and Cabourg!" - -Amelia threw open the windows. The train of wounded men was passing the -house. Odette dared not forbid herself to look at it. - -Autos were rumbling by, some of them covered, others displaying to the -light of day a heap of men, motionless, bandaged, covered with clay, an -agglutinated mass of flesh in which all individuality if not all life -seemed to be held in suspense, a cart-load of humanity: not a single man -but a mass of bloody pulp in which the suffering that it covered must be -a common suffering. Then came a truck, two trucks, three. They were -great drays across which were placed stretchers, and on these stretchers -were extended what they call the bedded wounded, those whose legs are -broken, or already amputated, or dreadfully crushed, those -fever-stricken from projectiles received in the body, those with cloven -skulls, hastily bound together. They were marine gunners, foot-soldiers, -blacks; tall, handsome, Moroccans with brown skins. Distinguished from -all the others by excess of ill fortune, they were stretched out, -straight and rigid like corpses placed in order, at equal distances, -upon the marble slabs of a morgue. The trucks going at a walk and -carrying the most seriously wounded, at each check, each halt, each -starting again, one could hear hollow moans; sometimes the outcry of a -Moroccan, sharp like the voice of a child or a woman, would make you -catch your breath, and the country folk, crowded along the sidewalks, -would whimper as if they themselves were being tortured. - -Amelia, who in the beginning had been chattering without ceasing, was -now suffocated with sobs, and her elbows upon the window-ledge was -weeping silently over this procession. Odette, hidden at another window, -wept like her servant, incapable either of tearing herself away from the -sight or of controlling her emotion. - -At length, having closed the windows, the two women found themselves -face to face with wet eyes. Amelia said: - -"It is better to be dead than alive." - -Never had they experienced such emotions in Paris, where they thought -themselves nearer the war because of the number of kilometres between -them and the front, or because they heard men deemed well informed -telling contradictory news from morning to night. Here in this remote -and quiet corner they had now touched the very relics of the hecatomb. -The eyes alone tell the truth; words are a small matter. - -Amelia could not remain still; she ran to the hospital after the -procession. Never in her life had she seen anything so exciting. - -On her return she said that she could hardly recognize the entrance of -the Grand Hotel, whither she had gone a few months before to carry notes -from Monsieur or Madame to M. X or M. Y who were dead now, like -Monsieur. - -She brought back much information. The wounded who came that morning -were from the Department of the North, where a frightful battle had been -raging for weeks. "Some of them talk, madame; some of them say nothing; -their eyes break your heart, like poor, sick dogs that glance at you as -if ashamed and pretend to be asleep." "I could see from where I was," -she went on after a little, "the surgeon as he appeared to be, all in -white, with a cap like a cook and bare arms; he received them at the -door and sorted them out, sending them up-stairs, down-stairs, to the -right, the left, pestered by the nurses, who begged for them." - -But Odette had not seen them entering the hospital, and this did not -interest her. She was pursuing her own thoughts. - -"There was one in the procession," she said, "one that was lying down, -who was so pale, poor boy! He will not go far." - -She had vowed to herself that she would not go out; she would remain -with her grief the whole day, the whole week. But immediately after -luncheon she put on her hat and went to wander around the hospital. - -A hedge separated the street from the great court in which there was -still a circular clump of trees surrounded with withered summer flowers; -opposite, above another hedge, the vines in a charming flower-garden -were reddening on the pergolas. Everything bore the impress of a time of -display and enjoyment, and she felt that decorations like these were -henceforth antiquated, absurd. - -Odette knew already, through Amelia, the disposition of each part of the -hospital, whose interior hum she could hear from without. She knew that -one flight up, at the first turn, were the typhoids, nursed by a Sister -who for twelve years past, wherever she might be sent, had done nothing -else than care for typhoids, and go to the nearest church to put up a -little prayer. She knew the situation of the staircase leading to the -basements, where the food was brought in and the dead carried out. She -knew that at a corner of the building looking upon the sea was the -operating-theatre, visible from without. And in fact, passing by it, she -perceived a group of white-robed men and women, their sleeves turned -back, leaning over something or some one. Then she fled toward the sea -like a coward and was ashamed. In reality, this assemblage of suffering -creatures at once repelled and attracted her, producing a complex -sentiment, unfamiliar and incongruous. - -From afar she looked at the building and its surroundings. At the sight -of this countryside, these villas, these hotels, the memory of the past -summer overpowered her, and at the same time she experienced a cruel -dispelling of her memories of the past summer. Meanwhile she stood there -as if hypnotized by the great house of suffering. On the ground floor, -through the glazed verandas she discerned a constant coming and going of -white caps. And she thought of the labors which those hundred and fifty -new arrivals of the morning must necessitate. She was seized with -timidity at the thought of approaching this august place. Before it she -seemed to herself a profane person, idle, gloved, parasol in hand, her -one interest her personal grief. - -An unknown power held her motionless, kept her from going toward the -sea, where she had hoped to meet her cruel and too-much loved memories, -and yet forbidding her to return to that place of common suffering which -she had not made her own. While she stood there, hesitating on the -levelled dune, she was shot through with an unaccustomed shiver, which -frightened her. - -As a pretext for again drawing near the place she told herself that she -desired to see once more the poor boy whom she had seen lying so pale on -his stretcher. Had they revived him? Sincerely, she would have loved to -know. But how set about it? No sooner had she returned to the road that -surrounded the glazed verandas than she lost courage to present herself -as a curious stranger; men in bed, others sitting up, would stare at the -newcomer, young and perhaps pretty under her crape veil. - -She returned to her house much more agitated than if she had met any -one, and let Amelia talk to her of all that she had learned concerning -not only that hospital, but all the hospitals of the region. She -remembered of all she heard only the name of a lady whom she had met in -August at the Hôtel de Normandie, and who, it appeared, was nursing the -wounded in the neighboring hospital, Madame de Calouas. - -She shut herself up again, distrustful of the strange attraction that -the city of suffering exercised over her. She talked to Jean's -photograph, saying to it: "I will be only yours, think of nothing but of -you." She read over again the books that they had read together; or -rather, she pleased herself by telling herself that she had read these -books with Jean. Or she walked in her little garden, making forty turns -over the tour of the hedge-bordered alley, strewn with golden flakes -which the poplars shed like rain. Sometimes she would pause before the -latticed gate upon the road, amusing herself with counting the minutes -that one might stand there without seeing a single passer-by. One day -she thought she recognized Mme. de Calouas hastening past on a bicycle, -light and fleet as a dragon-fly. And she felt a desire to see her again, -not on her own account, for she had left upon her only a vague -impression, but to talk to her or hear her talk of Jean. - -Vainly she watched for her. She even permitted herself to walk out, in -the hope of meeting Mme. de Calouas. - -"But, madame," said Amelia, "it is very easy. Every one knows when these -ladies come back and forth to the hospital. Madame has only to walk up -and down before the great court." - -It was not till the following Sunday, at eleven o'clock mass, that -Odette met Mme. de Calouas and spoke to her. - -"What!" exclaimed Mme. de Calouas, "you here! What hospital do you -belong to?" - -Odette thought that the nurse had made a mistake, intending to say: -"Where are you staying?" - -"I am at the Elizabeth pavilion." - -"Is that the new auxiliary post opened for contagious diseases?" - -"It is just a little villa," said Odette simply. "It is large enough for -me alone." - -"And what are you doing there, good God?" - -"I came here," said Odette, "that I might mourn for my husband in -peace." - -Mme. de Calouas assumed a suitable expression, but made no reply. Odette -continued: - -"He was killed in the end of September, at the head of his company, -going out from the village----" - -"Yes, I heard," said Mme. de Calouas. "I ought to have sent you a card; -but in times like these----" - -"You yourself are in mourning," observed Odette. - -"Oh--I! I have lost my husband, my two brothers, my uncle the colonel, -several cousins--" She waved her hand with a gesture which signified: -"They are past counting!" Before leaving Odette she added: - -"Come to see me at the hospital, from eight o'clock to noon, and from -two to four. From four to six I have another service at the Red Cross, -close by. I will show you things. Come." - -For a long time Odette hesitated. Again she shut herself up with her -adored memories. She was irritated that Mme. de Calouas had not said a -word about that exquisite man who was her Jean, and whom she had met at -the hotel. When she went out it was precisely at an hour when she knew -Mme. de Calouas to be at her hospitals. When the sea-wind was too strong -she would walk in the dull streets of the deserted summer city, a -pleasure resort in which the word "pleasure" had become strange and -unfitting. The streets crossed at right angles; nearly all of them were -bordered by hedges beyond which one could see a garden, the wire cage of -a tennis-court, a Norman villa, and no one. Often, the whole length of -her walk she met only one human being, a big man, almost impotent, whose -duty it was to sweep up the dead leaves--an absurd duty since the wind -scattered them as fast as he swept, and the trees shed down behind him -another layer of little golden, rolling, dead things. - -Sometimes, walking daringly, Odette crossed the long terrace, and -braving the wind went as far as to the sea. - -At certain hours the beach was covered with men under treatment. You -recognized them by the slings that supported their arms, by their -crutches, their bandaged heads, not often by their uniforms, of which -they preserved only odd parts. They wore old jackets, knitted -waistcoats, trousers brought forth from old Norman wardrobes. Some of -the men limped, others wearily dragged their feet along the sand; those -who had legs wrestled with one another, ran races, played like children. -They delighted in the edge of the sea, gathering shells, and regaling -themselves with the slimy flesh of cockles. Some of them cast a too -expressive glance upon the young woman, with an awkward word which at -another time would have made her smile. It was an amazing group of -tatterdemalions; within the memory of man no eye had ever looked upon -such a sight. It excited compassion; and yet almost every man in -particular had gained, without trying, the manly merit of always seeming -to be in good humor. - -Whenever she saw them Odette felt moved, and at the same time somewhat -jealous. _He_ had not been washed, bandaged, ministered to, nor even -clothed in rags; _he_ had not been able to drag his mangled limbs along -the seashore; _he_ had been killed outright. She would say to herself: -"Perhaps one of these soldiers knew him, perhaps he saw him fall; he -could tell me the details, could describe his last days, his last hour, -his last minute." And she grew faint at the possibility of asking them, -of learning. - -The low tide, the stormy sky, the wind, the grayish hillsides, the -transports on the horizon, always this immense deserted beach, these -wretched relics of the war, and she, disconsolate widow, imploring the -wind to snatch her away and destroy her in its eddies! The constant -reminders of the past, the sight of these same places, natural -background of all the pleasant things of life! The thought of that water -which had bathed the limbs of Jean, and of the August sun, and the -restless multitude, gay and elegant, whom the many-colored sweaters set -off like a profusion of tulips; the movement of automobiles, the music -of the orchestra! Her heart ached at these contrasts even more than it -had done in Paris. The solitude, the approaching winter, and the near -contact with suffering aroused in her an unwelcome agitation. The -restless air, dark with cawing crows, brought a bitter taste to her -lips, and yet aroused in her an indescribable sense of splendor. - - - - -VII - - -Nothing less than the thought of meeting Mme. de Calouas at church on -the following Sunday before she had paid her promised visit could have -induced Odette to cross the threshold of the hospital. - -She went on Saturday, between two and four o'clock. An orderly wearing a -corporal's bands detained her as if her hand-bag might conceal -incendiary bombs, but was softened on hearing the name of Mme. de -Calouas, and led her to room 74. Odette was kept a long time standing at -the door of room 74; at last a doctor came out, carrying a case of -instruments. He was followed by Mme. de Calouas, who said: - -"It is too bad, dear madame! I beg you to excuse me; one of my patients -detained me. But now I am at your service; just let me change my blouse -before taking you to see the wards." - -Her change of costume was soon made, and she took Odette to a -neighboring room where a very young nurse and two military orderlies -were with great difficulty holding down a patient in an attack of -tetanus. The sick man's head with its contracted jaws and inflexible -neck reminded her of certain "attractions" of the waxworks; the upheaved -body, forming an arc from head to heels, was as rigid and unyielding as -the arch of a bridge. Odette turned pale, and Mme. de Calouas said: - -"You lack training. See this child who is nursing him! She isn't twenty -years old--a mere girl." - -They passed into another room, from which exhaled a pestilential odor. - -"Gangrene from the gas," said Mme. de Calouas. "It is not a perfume for -the pocket-handkerchief, far from it! But one gets accustomed to -anything. With assiduous care and absolute asepsis we have saved a -certain number of wounded who suffer from this complication. We are so -fortunate here as to have a surgeon who is not in haste to use the -knife." - -In the long corridor nurses, for the most part young, were gliding or -running. A priest, wearing his alb, was hastening to one of the rooms. -Carried along by his speed, Mme. de Calouas entered after him, and -Odette followed her. - -It was a comfortable hotel bedroom, hung with brightly colored paper; -there were two women in white, and on a clean white bed lay a tall young -man, uncovered, almost as white as the bed, from whose lips poured a -stream of blood. He had received a fragment of shell in the sinus, had -been operated upon that morning, and hemorrhage had set in--a stream -white and red, unlike anything she had ever seen; it overwhelmed her -with horror. - -"You should apply a tampon," said Mme. de Calouas. - -"The doctor is coming," replied one of the nurses. - -They were both leaning over the white body; one was injecting serum into -the stomach, the other was applying a syringe with ipecac to the thigh. -The priest was standing at the cadaverous feet, anointing them with the -sacred oil. The doctor arrived and applied the proper tampons. - -To Mme. de Calouas this was one of the normal cases which one meets on -visiting a military hospital. Odette was making every effort to stand -upright. She begged to go out in the air. Mme. de Calouas smiled. - -"It is war! And we are only in one of the rear hospitals. There is no -rain of shells here. Shall we visit the wards down-stairs, if you -please?" - -The vast wards were almost vacant at this hour, for many of the patients -were out-of-doors. - -"They recover rapidly, if you only knew! One can see the new flesh -grow." - -"And they return to the firing-line?" asked Odette. - -"They must, indeed!" - -A group of four convalescents was playing a game of cards on a bed. -Others, stretched at length, were reading; several were sleeping, some -were receiving friends. A photographer in a corner was taking pictures. - -Beds and beds, and torn flesh, and perforated limbs, and members sawn -off, and trepanned skulls! And the tetanus, the gangrene, the typhus, -and that red torrent by which the soul of a man was taking flight, amid -all that whiteness! - -Odette felt as if she should die, and left the hospital. During all her -visit one question had been upon her lips: "Shall I find here any one -who knew my husband?" What was it that kept her from uttering it? She -could not have told how it was, but she had not so much as pronounced -her husband's name. A weight had seemed to be crushing her during the -whole time. She had felt overwhelmed by the new horror. The worst was -that when at last she reached home she felt ashamed to weep for her own -sorrow. - -The fact also that all that human flesh had been ravaged for the same -cause; that of those unhappy ones who were groaning, not one thought of -blaming the cause; and that other fact that one part of humanity, -upright and able, was bending with help over the other, gasping part, -forced her to gather up her disordered thoughts and in the midst of her -confusion to exclaim: - -"Something is changed!" - -That evening, at six o'clock, instead of wandering about the streets in -heavy sadness, she went, as Mme. de Calouas had begged her to do, to -evening prayer at the Chapel of the Orphanage, in which the Red Cross -was now installed. It was a convent chapel, reserved for nuns, the -public being admitted only behind a sort of screen of carved wood, -through which could be seen the orderly rows of Sisters and orphans, the -altar and the lights. She found herself in the midst of valid soldiers; -that is to say, such as by one means or another could move from place to -place. There were bandaged heads, arms in slings, stiff or deformed -legs, crutches. Odette was moved by the singing more than she could have -believed. Suddenly sobs choked her, and she wept. The men turned toward -this young woman in mourning whom they could hardly have helped -noticing, and who kept on wiping her eyes. She was weeping from a -natural need of weeping. She was weeping for Jean, but also she wept -with great pity for all those lacerated bodies; and for the first time -she realized that these men, or these fragments of men, had come from -places where death and pain were of all things the most usual. - -Mme. de Calouas heard and saw her, and knew that Odette had come here to -weep for her husband. As they went out she said to her: - -"You loved him much, then?" - -And by these words Odette realized that she had been weeping for an -immeasurable loss, which had left her in a sense benumbed. - - - - -VIII - - -This did not last long, and as soon as she reached home she made -honorable amends to Jean. She drove from her every thought except of -him, denouncing the universal conspiracy against her beloved memories. -What could she do to mitigate the misfortunes of others, however great -and innumerable they might be? Those women who seemed to deny their own -griefs filled her with a sort of dismay. - -She passed hours of sleeplessness revolving these ideas, determining at -whatever cost to master herself, and forget the whole distracted world. -She fell asleep vowing henceforth to belong wholly to the memory of -Jean. - -Yet the next morning, Sunday, coming out of church, she found no rest -till she had met Mme. de Calouas and asked her: - -"Could I be of use to you at the hospital?" - -"I was expecting you," Mme. de Calouas replied. "I would do nothing to -bring you before the time; but I am glad that you wish to come. I will -begin by taking you under my wing; for your initiation you shall be my -helper. Does that suit you?" - -"Of course. I do not know how to do anything." - -"When will you come?" - -"When you please." - -"Well, I will leave you your Sunday. Or rather, come with me now, that I -may at once get you received by the head doctor, and find a provisional -cap and blouse for you. The rest will be for to-morrow morning." - -Odette saw the head doctor; she tried on the nurse's costume which her -friend would lend to her until she could procure one; and at eight -o'clock the next morning, after having signed an engagement, she entered -the hospital, almost as if she was entering a convent. - -At that hour the hired women were sponging the floors with wet cloths, -and through the wards resounded the click of buckets set down, the metal -handle falling against their sides. The floors exhaled moisture. The sea -air, entering by the open windows, swept out the odor of the sick-room. -Convalescent men were going to the lavatories; others were helping -comrades with helpless arms to wash themselves upon their cots. - -Odette asked for Mme. de Calouas, and found her before the twenty beds -allotted to her. A dozen of them were occupied by seriously wounded men, -who gazed upon the newcomer with embarrassing steadfastness. Mme. de -Calouas led Odette to the room where dressings were done, passing -through the whole ward, where sixty men were exchanging the morning -greetings of the soldier, now rough, now amusing. She was, above all, -surprised that the nurses paid them no attention. - -While giving instructions to her pupil Mme. de Calouas was busy -disinfecting mugs, unrolling pieces of cotton and tearing them into -bits, counting piles of compresses, tubes, drains. The room exhaled an -odor of antiseptics, sweet and insipid. - -They returned to the ward, and Mme. de Calouas made known to her each -patient by name, with certain indications as to his case; she begged -Odette to wash this or that one, to make the bed of an unfortunate who, -with only one arm, could not do it alone. - -"Be careful what you say to them," she whispered in her ear. "Remember -that their estimate of you will depend upon your first words." - -Odette observed that the patients gazed at her without once turning away -their eyes. She won their approval by the first words she uttered, and -by the gentleness with which she washed the faces of two or three -helpless men, and she saw their expressions change. Those eyes so full -of agony, which make unpractised fingers tremble, were softened. Her -hands were dexterous, her face attractive. There was one poor fellow -whom she had to wash from head to foot, like a new-born baby, a -difficult task for a beginner. When all was finished and he was wrapped -in clean linen she was about to pass to another bed, when the patient -said: "Wait, madame!" And she saw him painfully turn in his bed, raise -his sheet, awkwardly stretch out a suffering arm in the attempt at any -cost to reach the case that hung at the head of the bed. She held the -linen bag within his reach, and he, hesitating, fumbling, blindly -feeling among a litter of things, a knife, letters, bits of bread, -succeeded in extracting two photographs, those of his wife and his two -little children. He desired to reward the new nurse for her kind -offices, and he did his best by introducing her to his little family. -Deeply touched, Odette praised the wife and the two children, and -thenceforward the poor fellow was her friend. - -Mme. de Calouas came to say that the stretcher-bearers were coming to -carry "the thigh" to be dressed. Odette followed "the thigh." The new -nurse was asked to cut the dressing. She broke into a cold perspiration; -she thought the scissors were defective, and her remark provoked a smile -from all the experts around; only the patient looked at her with an -apprehension which seemed to paralyze her. - -"You must learn to cut dressings," said Mme. de Calouas. "You will get -used to it; just a knack." - -Finally the steel succeeded in biting through the damp compresses. When -they fell apart the wound appeared. It was an open fracture of the leg, -whence exhaled the special sickening smell of osseous pus. The large -wound spread open like a nightmare flower with thick petals, soft and -viscid, covered with a creamy layer of dull old-rose color. They washed -it; the patient gritted his teeth; now and again a cry escaped from the -thin little brown face. When they looked at him he was brave enough to -smile and say, "That's all right." - -Odette was more ill than the wounded man. As on the previous evening, -she asked that she might go out into the air, and when she stumbled at -the door, turned pale, and was about to faint, the orderly, who -understood these phenomena, with the help of a valid patient laid her -all along upon a marble slab. It was only for a moment, and she returned -to the room, saying, like the wounded man: "That's all right." The -uninterrupted process of dressing made even her forget the incident. A -kindly woman drew her into an embrasure and gave her a drop of cordial. - -At that moment a man was being carried to the operating-room. He -blustered a little as he addressed to his comrades the classic _au -revoir_ which may so well be an _adieu_: "I am going to my game of -billiards!" - -"Try to win, old fellow," they answered from all parts of the ward. - -And, without flinching, Odette was present at "her" first operation. - -She returned home at half past twelve, exhausted, but lighter in heart -and satisfied with herself. - -"Madame is pale," said Amelia. "Madame is the color of the lamp-shade -when the lamp is lighted." - -After luncheon she slept heavily for half an hour, and returned to the -hospital. The afternoon was more calm, at least until the second visit -of the head physician, before the men's six-o'clock meal. She made -further acquaintance with her patients; she heard them talk about the -war. She found occasion to say, "My poor husband was killed on the 22d -of September," but it produced no great effect, none of those soldiers -having known Lieutenant Jacquelin. Each told about what he had seen, and -nothing else seemed to him to have a real existence. She was -disappointed, but by their various touching stories of what they had -been through, she was introduced to that war of which she had determined -to know nothing since her husband was dead. The battles of the Yser, the -sufferings of the combatants who had passed day after day in freezing -water, the grotesque onslaughts of the Germans, the piles of dead under -the ominous skies, set her imagination to work. Always thinking of her -husband, she saw him all alone in the face of those infuriated enemies, -trampled down by them.... He had gone out with drawn sabre from his -little village, at the head of his company, and he had been killed -outright. Before the survivors of the Yser she no longer dared speak of -the circumstance of the lieutenant's death, beautiful though it was. -This war seemed to be enlarging, growing beyond measure great. - -They were beginning to organize the hospital for the winter; certain -persons insisted that the war would not be over in six months; others -said with conviction: "Nor in eighteen months either!" But these were -suspected of sowing demoralization. Yet the English were making -preparations for three years! From her friend La Villaumer, who was -still in Paris, Odette received letters in which he wrote: - -"We are like children, sometimes gay, laughing and gamboling, at others -howling, no one knows why. My dear friend, busy yourself with your work, -and don't read the papers. As for me, there is something which impresses -me more than the monstrous movements of the German colossus: it is the -soul of the colossus. It is _one_; it has only one purpose, which is the -greatness of the German nation. It is a rudimentary sentiment, savage, -primitive, barbarous, but how strong! We ourselves are fighting because -we have been attacked, and also to defend ideas which do us the greatest -honor: liberty, justice, and the like. We are animated by a very lively -sentiment of the rights of man. We love humanity; they, the Germans, -love Germany. How much more simple it is, and how it relieves them of -all the scruples that hold us back! And yet, in the final issue, it is -he who shall have triumphed by force who will lay down the moral values -of the future." - -Thus, uncertainty, admiration, confidence, scepticism, and a state of -alarm were concurrently implanted in minds, and Odette, affected by -them, like every one else, began from that day to be infected, as with -the odor of the hospital, with this irritating compound. - -Little by little it seemed to her that she no longer upheld herself, but -that she let herself be carried away, borne along and guided by the life -of the hospital. It was at once horrible and almost laughable. A place -of pain, the perpetual reminder of enormities which the human brain -could never have conceived, it was also an assemblage dominated by -youth, which saves all. In the gaze of those prostrate wounded, gaze -which had become of so much importance to her who passed and repassed -along the bedsides, burned a flame disturbing and alluring, result of -the burning away of something that could not be named. At times, one -felt as if in certain of those wounded men one saw beings returned from -the beyond. They had seen what nothing had prepared them to see, -something that confused them, both their senses and their judgment. Some -of them said: "It was hell!" Others, much more simple-minded, merely said: -"One must have been there!" Certain of them, without imagination or -memory, living entirely in the present moment, shut up within themselves -an unconscious gravity which was in strange contrast with their youthful -natures. But in a general way a new nurse like Odette could aver: - -"But the wounded are not sad!" - -"Because," some one would reply, "they are all happy at not being dead." - -Thus, day succeeded day, without softening Odette's personal sorrow, but -as if shrouding it behind a mourning veil which covered all that she -could imagine of earth's surface. Everything made her think of Jean, but -she had not time to appear to be thinking of him, and she shrank from -speaking of him. - -She led a very active life. It would happen that just as she sat down at -table, all alone in the evening in the Elizabeth pavilion, the door-bell -would ring. It would be one of the volunteer employees, passing along on -his bicycle to notify the nurses that a train of one hundred and twenty -wounded men was announced to reach the station at eleven o'clock. By -half past ten Odette, who would not take a nap, and who knew not what to -do at home, was already at the hospital, in her cap and blouse. The more -zealous ones were there, and the more indolent ones as well, welcoming -the opportunity to get together and gossip. The head physician was -coming and going, opening and shutting doors; the doctors were arriving -one by one; the surgeon, all in white, his sleeves turned back to the -elbows, was talking with the women. The telephone-bell rang; it was the -police commissioner sending word that the train was an hour late. A few -persons were in despair; there were some whom the matter moved to -laughter. Every one waited. And sometimes the train, instead of one -hour, was two or three hours late. Resignation became general in -proportion as reasons for impatience accumulated. In the great hall -where they were all assembled some seated themselves on anything they -could find, others lay down upon stretchers. Bright conversation grew -dim with the lights. White-robed women, going up or down stairs on -tiptoe, seemed like angelic apparitions. Through the partitions came the -heavy breathing of sleeping men. Suddenly the ringing of a bell startled -every one; the train was drawing into the station at last. The lights -were turned up. Ten minutes later the first automobiles were sounding in -the court. The double-leaved doors were thrown wide, notwithstanding the -cold, the stretcher-bearers rushed out, and in a moment, contrasting -with their rapid bounds, came slowly the wounded soldiers, bleeding, -bearded, covered with earth, wan, exhausted; some of them half-naked, -some with frozen feet, upheld or carried by sturdy fifteen-year-old -lads. All were silent, a religious respect hushed the words upon the -lips. This torn flesh, these rags of French uniform, wrought in the mind -of every being not utterly insensible a change in his idea of the -pathetic; something of the atmosphere of the firing-line entered and -asepticized every heart. - -The next morning the sense of familiarity returned. But in that one hour -of the dark winter night, while the surgeon, bending over each victim, -was asking him almost tenderly: "And you, my child?"--something august, -an exhalation of the colossal human sacrifice, penetrated into this -commonplace old hotel hall, sanctifying it for all time to come. And not -one of those men or women who had been there, however advanced the hour -of the night, however visible the fatigue on all their faces, but was -glad for having been there. - -Whence came these wounded men? From Ypres, from Arras, from Notre-Dame -de Lorette. The names called up all that any one knew, through -newspapers and private talk, of those charnel-houses whose image the -imagination refuses to harbor, upon which those who have escaped from -them keep silence. - -Odette, soapy brush in hand, forcing back all repugnance, doing as -others did, was helping to soothe agonies which humanity seems never -before to have known or dreamed of. The most shocking duties no longer -repelled her. The very effort which she was compelled to make, by the -contrast between what she was seeing and doing and what life had -formerly offered her, pressed the character of the catastrophe to her -mind which lacked capacity to conceive of it. "Is it, then, so great?" -she would wonder. And even: "Is there after all anything great?" For no -soul in the world had taught her this. The inevitable contrast with her -past life, all for herself, for her individual satisfaction, seemed to -dishonor her memories, even of happiness, making them almost trivial. -This, indeed, was the opinion of Mme. de Calouas, but not that of -Amelia, whom in her solitude it became sometimes necessary to oppose. - -"Madame adopts the ideas of those around her," the maid would say; "it -is all very well, but Madame may believe me: the good time, and the true -time, was before all this, when the poor men were not preparing to be -made into hash." - - - - -IX - - -Who would have believed it a year ago? Odette took the inclination to -follow to the cemetery the pitiful funerals of dead soldiers, not -because it offered her a pretext for a walk into the country in the free -air, for she had done that--she, so susceptible to cold--all through the -black winter. But before everything else she was thinking that she had -not followed her husband to the grave. After all that she had endured, -still reverent of century-old rites, not to have followed the body of -her husband in a funeral car to his last abode seemed to her to have -failed in a sovereign duty. Alas! her husband's body had been carried in -no funeral car, no one had followed him to the grave! She did not permit -herself to dwell upon these heartrending details, but in accompanying -the mortal remains of the soldiers she felt that she was to a certain -degree acquitting herself of an indispensable duty that had not been -rendered to Jean. Then the ceremony at the church moved her. The panoply -of war mingling with hymns and words of peace, the tumult of battle set -over against the sacerdotal acts of the priest, and the prayers for the -eternal rest of the soul that had known to the uttermost the horror of -earthly chaos, combined in some way to deaden the pain of mind, senses, -and heart. - -The funeral train would climb the narrow, serpentine road which led to -the old town on the hill. Wounded comrades, hobbling along, their feet -ill defended from the rough ground by straw slippers, some of them -lacking an arm and others an eye, would follow the hearse of the poor, -covered with the tricolor, behind the old parents or the young widow in -tears; then would come delegates from the municipality and the hospital, -then kindly disposed followers, pious people, idlers. The hedges would -be growing green; the farms, with flocks of children at the doors and -lowing cattle, would be awaking from the sleep of the long winter; one -could hear the click of the milk-pail as it was set down upon the -ground, the apple-trees in the fields were great tufts of unsullied -flowers. When the procession, having climbed the hillside, turned toward -the right the town came into view, its hotels and casinos transformed -into hospitals with the floating red cross, its church-towers, its long -white beach, the boundless sea with its line of English transports, -untiringly through all the months, bringing from afar British troops to -the land of France. The whole picture melted away into the national flag -that covered the body of the little soldier, shot through by a ball on -the plains of Picardy. In all this there was a new and incomparable -poetry; the self-sacrifice of a man to something that he hardly -understands, a notable act in which all desired to participate; and by -contract the everlasting unconcern, the utter indifference, of nature. - -Every one, without exception, was thinking of the end of the war. It was -an illusion wrought by the spring, the renaissance of all that lives, -the urgent need of peace and happiness that all creatures and plants cry -out for beneath the returning sun. Those behind the hearse shook their -heads, saying: "What a calamity!" But all were thinking: "It will surely -soon be over." They sighed: "My God, grant that this may be the last to -go!" Alas, it was only the first springtide of the war! If a prophetic -voice should have cried: "In the spring of next year, in the spring of -another year, and still of another, this same ceremony will take place, -the same hopes will be uttered, the same illusions cherished! For season -shall follow upon season, year upon year, only the horror and -unhappiness shall be changed, for they shall increase and time shall -know them out of all proportions that are called reasonable"--assuredly -these good people would have been crushed. - -As they went down the hill they gathered flowers along the roadside. The -soldiers stopped in the wine-shops where they were given cider, and all -returned to their places at once moved, saddened, and enriched by hopes, -as is always the case when a new victim has succumbed. - -Spring passed, and summer, and autumn. - -Odette never spoke of her husband's death, though she was always -thinking of it. She had found neither officer nor soldier who had known -him. The death of Lieutenant Jacquelin in the early days of the war was -a disappearance like so many others, in a chain of events that had no -common measure. A man would fall, another man would take his place; -nearly all the officers by profession were dead, and there were officers -still. - -"What is a man?" a common soldier asked her one day on the beach. - - - - -X - - -Early in the following spring, when the gardens that surrounded the -villas of Surville were gay with flowering plums, and the countryside -was again covered with those lovely trees of rosy snow that it is a pain -to look at when men are killing one another, when the woods were -venturing to confide to the brisk air their new-born foliage, Odette was -obliged to make a visit to Paris. - -During the journey, in company with convalescents and men on furlough, -old men, and women in mourning, she was astonished to find herself so -much attached to the hospital which she had entered almost against her -will, drawn by something which seemed not to belong to her real self. - -"Most of the women that I have met there," she reflected, "are of an -unlovely pettiness, and one would say that they strive to transform the -most innocent act into a shameful offense, from a desire to believe that -there are traitors, guilty persons everywhere, and by a strange -inclination to find the presence of the devil in every corner! And yet -their service is excellent." Cunning malice, destructive backbiting, -scandal set on foot by inconsiderate comments on trivial acts, often -meaningless and that might well have been left unnoticed, open jealousy, -absurd vanity, the most insidious intrigues to work up to distinction; -to sum up, utter triviality--all these composed a body of customs -recognized, admitted, in no respect casting a blot upon respectability. -Only one thing led up to the mark of infamy: anything which nearly or -remotely might resemble love. - -How surprising this had appeared in the eyes of a Parisian woman of -twenty-seven, who had lived in the world of society during the years -between 1905 and 1914! - -Odette mused upon that social circle, young, cheerful, given to sports, -relatively kindly and prosperous, who before the war had surrounded her. - -What had become of Simone de Prans, Rose Misson, Clotilde Avvogade, -Germaine Le Gault, and M. de La Villaumer? She had received brief -missives from them, postal-cards rather than letters. On her part, had -Odette perhaps disconcerted her friends by the accounts she sent them; -had she perhaps wearied them by her persistent grief? Simone and Rose -still had their husbands, the former grievously wounded, the other still -whole, running about in his car as usual; Avvogade was attached to Great -Headquarters. Can any one understand the sorrow from which he does not -himself suffer? - -On reaching Paris Odette was singularly impressed. When she had gone to -Surville in 1914, to forget the war and think only of her dead, she had -been surprised to find herself on the contrary all the nearer to the -war. The trains of wounded, life among the wounded, the almost sole -society of men but recently escaped from death; all this was far -different from her recluse life in the apartment of the Rue de Balzac, -which had indeed recalled the memory of Jean, but had also recalled the -memory of the time of peace. Monotony of occupation, the continual -living-over of the same emotions, at last dulls the sensibilities. The -war as it appeared to her after eighteen months of hospital experience -was a state of things to which her organism and her thought had become -moulded. The long daily weariness, the constantly renewed effort, dulled -her senses and confused her perception of events. - -Paris in March, 1916, seemed to her much more like war than Surville. -The battle of Verdun was at its height, and all Paris was ringing with -its echoes wherever one might be. Newspapers, conversations, the -tramways, the metro, the taxi chauffeur who gave you change, the woman -who sold you a magazine, servants, masters, the rich, the poor, bank -employees, even to the sellers of violets in the streets, all brought to -mind the war and Verdun, yet mutely, less by outcries than by quiet -words, less by words than by changed color, the graying of the hair or -of the beard, faded eyes, new wrinkles, and a certain indefinable -manner. The whole earth and everything that it bears, every creature -moving upon it, were a single sensitiveness, raised to its most acute -degree. Acts and gestures apparently most remote from the war, -receptions, dinners, the crowd at the entrance of the moving-picture -shows, of classical concerts, of the few remaining music-halls, only -showed the necessity for certain temperaments to tear themselves away -from the nightmare of Verdun. Every one was affected by it, and so much -the more as they were forced to tell themselves: "There are those who -are suffering infinitely more than we." - -Odette, in her apartment, was once again overwhelmed by her personal -sorrow. She had lived in Surville with her grief buried in the depths of -her heart, for though everything she saw reminded her of Jean she had no -leisure to give herself to dwelling upon the past. In the Rue de Balzac -all her sorrow came to meet her entire as on the first day. It seemed as -if her stay at Surville had done nothing for her. When Simone de Prans -came to welcome her, it seemed to Odette that her friend had just -arrived with the terrible news, and she melted into tears. Her tears -surprised Simone, who dared not reproach her with exaggerating her -sorrow, but who yet brought herself to give her to understand that so -long and so violent a grief was not fitting, that no one any longer wept -like that. Odette, made docile by eighteen months of punctual obedience -to orders, did not resist, made no objection. "No one any longer wept -like that"; it was a custom, one of those sovereign customs, which a -Parisian woman instinctively accepts. Simone had said: "You understand, -there are too many!" Which signified, such misfortunes are too numerous; -they are raining down on everybody. The human heart would not be equal -to its task if it must be always sympathizing; each woman in mourning -would herself die of it, creating a new and superfluous pain. She spoke -with the greatest ease of her Pierrot, one leg paralyzed, one arm five -centimetres shorter than the other and with shattered nerves. He was at -the Ministry of War, and was content. She told of a ceremony which she -had accidentally witnessed that morning, passing the Madeleine on her -way back from the Flower Market. "A fine marriage, you know; red carpet -on the steps, a crowd to right and left. Just as I was passing the doors -opened, and up above I saw the young couple." - -"There are still men to marry?" - -"Listen; she, who appeared to be pretty, a lovely girl, a brunette, -tall, leaning, as if enamoured, on her husband's arm; he in uniform, his -decorations flashing on his breast. Oh, the handsome fellow, not thirty -years old! He held himself upright, splendid, not looking at his feet; -two large eyes wide open and fixed, as if he were speaking to a -superior. She seemed to be indicating the steps by a gentle pressure of -the arm, that he might not lose an inch of his fine height. Behind them -one could hear the swellings of the great organ. There was an impulse to -applaud, for he was evidently a hero, unmaimed and superb. Every one was -glad in the happiness of his charming wife, though pitying her in the -midst of admiration, for to-morrow her handsome officer must return to -the firing-line, and the war is endless. Suddenly there was a movement -in the crowd, murmurs, whisperings, faces turned pale; the handsome -officer had just missed falling, my dear, notwithstanding the care of -his young wife to hide his infirmity, for he was blind!" - -"It's frightful, frightful," exclaimed Odette. - -She had seen and nursed most grievously wounded soldiers; but -unconsciously a sort of convention had been established in her mind by -which nothing that she saw, or that happened in the hospital at -Surville, should move her. This first result of the war which had faced -her elsewhere than at Surville, and under another aspect, impressed her -almost intolerably. On the other hand, Simone had become accustomed to -the dramatic scenes which at times occur in Paris, where everything is -perhaps all the more sad because the war drama is close at hand, aping -normal life. This juxtaposition of the manners of a time of peace and -these shadows of the pit which mingle with the life of every day, more -like a prolonged dream than like reality, produce surprising effects -upon reflective minds. - -Simone de Prans, who for a time had taken up work in a model hospital, -an American hospital, was no longer a nurse. That was no longer done. - -"What about our good Rose?" asked Odette. - -"Rose Misson has arranged her life. She has resolved not to yield to -things; she has been too much teased about her old husband, always going -about in his automobile. Neither Rose nor her husband is disturbed by -that; he remains on his seat; she dresses, visits the shops as in former -times and receives the few friends who are not indignant because her -husband has not lost two or three limbs. Between ourselves, I think she -is a woman who is doing a great deal of good." - -"Only she does not cry it upon the housetops?" - -"No; they will be upbraided for it all their lives, she and her husband; -he, free from all military obligation, for having 'ambushed' himself in -his automobile, she for having retained her placid manner, her good -humor." - -"I thought that optimism was in fashion." - -"Optimism, yes, but not naturalness. The approved sort of optimism -consists in unendingly predicting victory, with the jaw of a tigress, -and in determinedly transforming all bad news into a presage of success. -But those who maintain a quiet confidence without talking about it, and -make life around them more pleasant by their usual good temper, are -suspected of indifference." - -"And in all this, what about you, Simone?" - -"Me? I have a husband deep in government councils, haven't I? It is a -power in these days. People leave me alone." - -"And Germaine?" asked Odette. - -Simone appeared somewhat embarrassed. People hardly dared to talk of -Germaine Le Gault. Germaine Le Gault had lost her husband at about the -same time with Odette, and almost under the same circumstances. Like -Odette, Germaine adored her husband. Germaine had taken the loss even -more deeply to heart than Odette; her life had even been in danger. -Germaine, like Odette, still wore her deep widow's mourning. And -Germaine was now in love; in love beyond the possibility of concealment, -in love with a head physician in whose service she had worked. He was a -married man and a father. - -"La Villaumer insists," said Simone, "that in her case it is simply a -lack of imagination, and that no one should blame her. He says, you -understand, that she is unable to bring before herself, as you do, for -example, a vision of her husband. If she had been capable of bearing -about with her a persistent picture of him, she would have been -faithful, if it were only to a picture; but she has no imagination; it -is necessary to her that her mind should rest upon an object. It is one -explanation--probably a paradox." - -At that moment they heard in the neighboring apartment the playing of an -excellent pianist which had formerly lulled the reveries of Odette when -she was waiting for Jean. That neighboring apartment, into which the -Jacquelins had never set foot, was separated from theirs only by a thin -partition and a door. The music had often fretted Jean, but when Odette -was alone she had loved to hear it. - -"Listen!" said Odette. "Oh, it is more than eighteen months since I have -heard music!" - -"That is so," said Simone; "in Paris one finds a little of everything -that one used to love; it is that that hurts." - -"What is she playing?" asked Simone after a moment. - -It was a revery; two lovers who are seeking one another, groping in the -darkness of a garden on a lovely summer night; you hear their hesitating -footsteps, you suspect their vexed and feverish gestures, their eager -lips that call one another without imprudently pronouncing a name; -though their footsteps creak upon the gravel and a fountain drops its -slow pearls into the basin. Suddenly the music of a waltz attracts them -separately to the lighted house, and they exchange kisses on the steps -of the entrance, before being swallowed up in the intoxicating motion. - -"Oh!" exclaimed Odette, thrilled, "do you remember, do you remember?" - -"What?" asked Simone. - -"Why, everything! Everything that happened _before_, before this end of -the world that never ends!" - -Odette, overcome by the harmonious reminder of the waltz of a possible -festival, of the joy of living, of being pretty, young, beloved, could -only repeat: - -"I haven't heard ... anything ... for more than eighteen months, Simone! -Do you remember that evening at Mme. Sormellier's, at Bellevue, where -both our husbands were so beautiful?" - -"And we, too, Odette! We shall be old after the war. We shall have had -hardly five or six years of youth. I will confess to you that sometimes -I juggle with fate. I go to see Clotilde, who refuses to permit herself -to be touched by events. She says: 'I can do nothing about it; I am good -for nothing. Let the world let me alone as I let it alone! Till my last -hour I will stay with my flowers, my books, and my music.'" - -"Ah! Clotilde, yes; do you know, I had forgotten her!" - -"Everybody is forgetting her, and she forgets everybody. Her husband is -at Great Headquarters; he often comes. She is a privileged person, and -she says: 'Why should I not accept all the good that is offered me?'" - -"Yes," said Odette, "it is tempting, but I could not do it.--No, I could -not.--See, I tried to shut myself up with my grief. Well, I could not. -It is too great--this universal sorrow--too absorbing. Listen!" - -The pianist next door, still devoted to her Chopin, which she performed -in a remarkable manner, was beginning the First Nocturne, the one that -contains that phrase of lamentation, heartrending in its sober scheme -and its sustained phrasing, without outcry or burst of passion, leaving -the soul to the lasting sense of human woe. - -"Oh, listen--listen!" - -The pianist was accompanying herself with her grave, finely cadenced -voice, following without words the sinuous course of the thrice-repeated -utterance of sorrow. Odette began to sob; her nerves were unstrung by -the apparent return to things of former days, while yet acutely -conscious of the dreadful present. - -"I must give up this apartment, after all," she said between her sobs. - -"Yes, you will have to," replied Simone; "you would be overwhelmed with -your sense of loss." - -"For that matter I must give up everything." - -"Everything? What more, do tell me!" - -"Myself! See, I cannot delude myself longer." - -"My poor Odette! You are hardly four days out of your hospital, and you -go to pieces! We are only kept up by the presence of those who have -suffered a thousand times more than we. You can't imagine what it is for -me that my Pierrot has miraculously escaped death, with his body half -destroyed. It is he who saves me from unhappiness. Those who have looked -death in the face and yet have returned to life find it beautiful, -whatever it is, and their wonder at it spreads to all around them." - -"Yes, yes. I have felt that. If I had my poor Jean, even all broken to -pieces, I should think only of the joy of having him safe. But I have -him no longer, and the past draws me, at times, as if some one much -stronger than I were taking me by the arms and drawing me backward with -irresistible power. Do you remember Isadora dancing among her children -and throwing flowers in one of the motives of the ballet of "Armida"? -And that great fool Antoine Laloire behind us, crying: 'When one has -seen that one may well say, "Thank you," to God and close one's eyes -forever!' He had no idea how well he was speaking. They say he had a -splendid death." - -"Yes. All our admiration must from this time forward be given to the -beauty of our warriors. Harmonious forms, enchantment--we are done with -them all, my poor child, done with them!" - -"Done with them! So they say. So I thought, too, when I saw those men -coming in by the hundreds, reduced to a mass of bleeding pulp; I still -think so when I think of the long line of devastation which is spreading -over Europe, of all those human beings who are every day dying around -their torpedoed vessels; but think! The moment the art of our former -days is able to realize itself anywhere, beyond a partition, it rises -upon us like the sun that has been two days hidden. It will rise again, -Simone! If only a few individuals are left who can hear a note, a -shepherd will be found to invent the flute once again, by bringing reeds -together." - -"You say that because the art of which you are speaking only increases -your sadness. You are cultivating your sadness, and loving it still. If -you were less melancholy, like me, you would consent to accept the new -life just as it offers itself; but you will always see it irremediably -disfigured, poisoned by an overwhelming horror. Life from henceforth is -a Lady Macbeth with red and horrific hands, marking with a bloody spot -everything that it touches. What fine art could flourish except by means -of men not yet born, men who will not come into the world until after -this horror is no longer spoken about?" - -"Remember what those poor friends of ours used to say when they talked -so well in our gatherings of former days: the flowers that bloom on -graves are as fresh and the harvests that grow on battlefields are more -abundant than those on fields that have never known crime and death; -they are innocent, divinely innocent of all the past. The souls of -artists are like flowers; and they purify the imaginations that have -been soiled." - -"And the conclusion is that you and I both, my dear, have after all a -good share of optimism, otherwise called a reserve strength upon which -we can draw for a certain time. Let us hope it may be for a long time. -And we find the same thing under the distress of nearly all men. Ah, how -strong life is!" - - - - -XI - - -Odette began a round of visits. - -For the most part they were visits of condolence. She went first to Mme. -de Blauve, who had lately lost her young son, that charming boy of -seventeen whom Odette had seen for a second in the Avenue d'Iena flying -to the recruiting-office, to take the place of his father, who had been -killed in the second month of the war. Mme. de Blauve had come back from -Rheims, where at that time she had been a nurse, under unceasing -bombardments; she had returned to her daughters, who were now growing -up. Odette found the family no more crushed or morose than at the first -time. The father, Commandant de Blauve, adored by all, was dead; the -elder son, in his nineteenth year, was dead. - -"Happily," said Mme. de Blauve, "I have one left." - -"How old is he?" asked Odette anxiously. - -"He is about to enlist," said Mme. de Blauve simply. "Through him, I -hope that our name will be represented to the end." - -Every one knew that this last son was her Benjamin, petted more than all -her other children. Her present anxiety was for her daughters; she would -fain have married them at once. - -"Marry them!" cried Odette; "but to whom, at such a time as this?" - -"To good young soldiers, that they may soon have children." - -Not the slightest emotion, though the family was truly affectionate; one -single idea--to come to the defense of the country, by whatever means. -Odette could not but admire, though at the same time she trembled. - -"How far advanced is your mourning?" asked Mme. de Blauve almost -severely. - -"What?" asked Odette. - -"I mean, how long is it since you lost you dear husband?" - -"Just eighteen months," replied Odette. - -"You are young," said Mme. de Blauve; "my child, you still have duties -to perform." - -"But," said Odette, bewildered, "I am doing what I can." - -"We will speak again of it in a few months," said Mme. de Blauve. "I -shall not lose sight of you. I count you among the _good_ ones." - -She dwelt upon the word "good" as she bade Odette good-by. - -Odette did not in the least grasp Mme. de Blauve's meaning. Did she find -her "good" because she had for a long time been conscientiously doing a -nurse's duties, and did she think of sending her to some difficult post, -requiring courage and constancy? She was cheerfully ready for anything. -Only one thing troubled her; it was that the memory of Jean seemed to be -relegated to so distant a past, seemed to hold so small a place in the -thoughts of the people whom she was about to see, she being still in -deep mourning, and having been away only seventeen months, to mourn for -Jean. - -Why did Odette go directly from the Avenue d'Iena to see Clotilde? Not -in the least by reason of the love of contrast, or the need for it, but -because she was passing the Place of the United States, which attracted -her with its trees adorned with their young leafage. - -She found Clotilde as she had always found her, extended upon an ancient -couch, amid twenty cushions, a dozen books and magazines, in an elegant -room, with a bunch of carnations flaunting their glory, and hyacinths in -pots surrounding the young woman with a fragrant suggestion of spring. - -"Ah!" exclaimed Odette as she entered, without quite perceiving the -significance of her exclamation. - -Clotilde, perfumed and her tall figure clothed in a Babani robe, kissed -her joyfully. - -"You haven't fallen off much, Odette. Tell me, are these your cheeks? No -more rouge than in the old days? Oh, how often I think of your loss, my -dear!" - -She was the first person, except La Villaumer, who had spoken to her of -her loss. Then there was still some one who remembered what had been her -happiness, her extraordinary happiness. - -"I haven't written to you, Odette, because I was too lazy, and because I -need to imagine the face of the person to whom I write. So far away, -under your nurse's cap, I couldn't tell--you are pretty; I love you -always. Oh, how sorry I am for you!" - -Odette, surprised, embarrassed, still under the influence of the life -she had been leading, spoke as every one did: - -"There are so many of us who deserve to be pitied." - -"No, Odette, no; I am not saying that. No doubt there are many widows -and many young women whose husbands or lovers are maimed, disfigured, -ruined. But there are not many who, before all that, have truly enjoyed -life and love. You have known love. You have had a few years that are -worth being regretted." - -Tears rose to Odette's eyes. They were tears that gave no pain, which -rather comforted her. It seemed that she had long been waiting to shed -such tears. She had so constantly heard conventional words, forced -expressions, the result of a strained situation which there was surely -no reason to criticise; but, except from her wounded soldiers, she had -not before heard words simply human. - -Clotilde was not afraid to talk persistently of Jean, not because she -felt that at bottom she was giving pleasure to her friend, but because -her thoughts naturally turned to attractive things, and she loved to -remember that charming couple of perfect lovers that Jean and Odette had -been. Never having checked her instinct, it now told her that Odette, in -spite of her tears, enjoyed the revival of these memories. It was not -Jean the soldier, Jean the hero, whose praises Clotilde sang. Odette had -heard so many praises of heroes! She had handled so many with her own -hands! There had never been but one Jean. He was Jean, just Jean, a -fine, good, and handsome fellow who had nothing military, nothing -surprising about him, except just that he was beloved. Who had dared to -talk to her of that Jean since the war? No one. Clotilde was doing it in -the unconsciousness of a woman who was still what she had been _before_. -And Odette had felt some apprehension about seeing Clotilde again, just -because she had feared that Clotilde had really not changed enough! - -The interview was soothing, even delightful to her. Clotilde seemed -almost to have forgotten the war--a little more and she would have made -her forget it. She talked of the books that she was reading; books -written earlier than the present time; she talked, too, laughingly of -her clothes, on the pretext of the diminished resources of the family; -she spoke of certain middle-aged and even old men, saying that they had -not been appreciated in the days when there had been plenty of young -fellows. She offered her friend a cigarette; she smoked, and the two -women looked at each other through curls of long, light clouds, as if in -a dream. - -Odette went out somewhat amazed at the incredible ivory tower which -Clotilde had succeeded in building around her youth, her beauty, and her -selfishness. - -"Is Clotilde selfish?" she asked herself, as she turned from the Square -of the United States. "And yet how she asked about my Jean! Clotilde is -like every one else; she is interested in just one thing, has a passion -for it. She has kept as by a miracle the one thing that she had before -the war, and that is love. Everything that represents love captivates -her; one feels that she gives herself up to it. The others yield to a -different passion which, by the conditions of our time, takes on a more -sympathetic form. Mme. de Blauve with sacred fury throws all her family -into the jaws of Moloch; Mme. de Calouas, in Surville, has a passion -only for the wounded, exclusively for wounded soldiers; I have seen her -utterly insensible to an accident to a civilian; most of those women in -the hospital had a passion for their duties there, thought themselves -degraded when they had not the number of beds that satisfied their -pride, lamented as if for a public misfortune when, by chance, fewer -wounded soldiers came. There are even people whose passion it is to have -no passions--and they are the most to be dreaded. Why should Clotilde -deprive herself of her bouquet of carnations, her pot of hyacinths, her -perfumed cigarettes, while they serve to create around her the illusion -by which she lives, and of which, when the occasion comes, she gives her -weary friends the benefit for a whole hour? Yet, could I do like her? -No; decidedly not. Did not I, then, love love as she does? I do not -know, I loved Jean. Then I am less simple than she; everything affects -me. And everything is shaken. I am not flattering myself when I -recognize that I am alive to more than one thing. I wanted to be wholly -devoted to one--to my sorrow. I believe that I am alive only to my -grief, and yet sometimes I think that in this I am mistaken." - - -That day she felt an overwhelming lassitude. Clotilde had lapped her in -"soft odors." As she was asking herself how she could finish the day she -bethought her that she had been told that Mme. Leconque was another -Clotilde, that is to say, a fairy capable of drawing one out of the war -mood, though she belonged to a social set that was just now holding it -as a great honor to give to it unstintingly both life and fortune. - -"I must not fail of seeing her," said Odette to herself, "and just now I -prefer another Clotilde to a second Mme. de Blauve, who makes me -shudder." She took a taxi to the end of the Avenue du Bois. - -Mme. Leconque was at home and alone. Muffled up in an ermine coverlet, -in a room brightened by a wood-fire large enough to warm an -assembly-room in the city hall, and surrounded by objects of art, -ancient trinkets, Watteaux, Fragonards, she lay on a couch near a -majestic bed, high and royal, covered with Venetian point, determinedly -knitting, amid yawns, little stockings of coarse wool, for refugee -children. - -"You, at least, have had enough of this butchery," she said. - -Odette, under her mourning-veil, admitted that for her part she found no -pleasure in it. - -"I should be glad to know," went on Mme. Leconque, "what sort of a life -they are giving us." - -Odette looked around at the great wood-fire, the walls of the room, a -perfect museum, and at the silky fleece that enwrapped the form of the -dissatisfied woman. - -"They have just telephoned me," Mme. Leconque went on, "that we have -evacuated Malancourt. Just look at my stockings, if you call them -stockings! I admit that I never paid seventy-five francs a pair for -mine--I always sent to London for them and got them at thirty-five -francs. And to-day I am wearing stockings at 3 francs 95!" - -"Why do you?" asked Odette. - -"You would despise me if I paid more for them, in these days. You are in -mourning, my poor dear; you don't think about these matters. Do you know -where we are all getting our clothes? In the Rue d'Alesia, my child, in -a store where they sell ribbons on the main floor for eight sous a -metre, and up-stairs you find models of all the great Paris dressmakers -at a third of the regular price. You might go there out of curiosity; -I'll take you, if you like. You will find ten autos at the door, lined -up before the tin-shop, the general shops, the house-painters, and the -wine-shops. And where do you think we try on? Anywhere, no matter where. -On the staircase, in the corridors, in the shop itself, three women -together, not to speak of the old husbands and the men on leave, in a -little parlor decorated with two opposite mirrors! Absolute promiscuity, -a mob that reminds you of the old Neuilly fair; broken windows, no heat, -and drafts of air that pierce through the lungs! My dear, I bought a -charmeuse gown there for one hundred and seventy-five francs that would -have cost seven hundred and fifty at Lanvin's! The Duchess of -Chateauruque goes there; the wife of the ambassador from X. goes, too. -Can you imagine such a thing? Oh! we run against picturesque things -during this war! Do you believe that life can go on this way?" - -"I don't think so, indeed," said Odette. - -"I see that you aren't pitying us. Well, for my part I tell you that I -have had enough of this war, and that I despise it! Do you understand? I -despise it. Ugh! ugh! and ugh!" - -Odette returned home along the darkening streets, thinking of Mme. de -Blauve, the terrible. She felt much indulgence for Mme. de Blauve, the -terrible. - - - - -XII - - -Odette had bought a newspaper. During the night the Germans had made a -series of massed attacks, debouching upon Malancourt from three -directions at once. Our troops had evacuated the devastated village -"while keeping its outlets." - -Once again she tried to take refuge in her memories of love. But this -evening the portraits of Jean that she saw around her did not speak to -her of love. She felt that Jean, if he were there, would not talk of -love that evening, but would turn away like an overwrought man to whom -the beloved one insists upon saying: "Kiss me!" She could distinctly see -the gesture which, however, she had seldom known. She could almost hear -Jean saying: "My little love, I am anxious.... It is not that I lack -confidence, but they are advancing step by step; it is disquieting, -disquieting. You will think me cruel, but I should be glad to go back -there. I would rather be there, do you see?" If he had been with her on -permission he would have gone back! What torture! And she said to -herself: "If he had not been killed the second month he would have been -killed since then: twenty months without respite under the shells!" - -Days passed; the German attack upon Verdun wrought upon the great public -of France a great silence. No noise, not an exclamation, no excesses in -Paris; an imposing calm; a quiet crowd upon the boulevards, perfect -order even on Sunday; almost gayety around the men who were home on -leave who went about surrounded by young women in short skirts, Anamite -caps or toques borrowed from the Palais, painfully walking on -extravagantly high heels! Between four o'clock and seven every one was -reading the newspaper. They were sold all through the city, not with -loud shouts as if all Europe had been put to fire and sword, as when -celebrated trials were going on; now that Europe actually was put to -fire and sword, with less uproar than after the Auteuil races. In almost -every heart the sublimity of the French struggle, the universal respect -which it evoked throughout the world, overcame apprehension, stifled the -sense of uncounted losses, and dominated that crater on the banks of the -Meuse, in eruption over an extent of thirty-five kilometres, its lava -overwhelming a whole countryside. - -Odette was invited to dine with officers who had returned from that -hell, who were going back to it; and these men talked futilities like -every one else: partly from kindliness, partly for their own pleasure, -or in courteous resumption of the decorum of former days. Between two -witticisms they would relate an episode such as no story of the age of -fable could offer. Many of them were men who two years before had danced -the tango, whom strait-laced old twaddlers had in those days held up to -opprobrium. Thus Odette met again a young fellow of twenty-four, a -captain, an officer of the Legion of Honor, lacking several fingers, -wounded in the leg and the breast. He had the same simplicity, the same -childlike grace, as in the old time at the Casino in Surville, and yet -he had taken part in actions infinitely more grand than those of the -Homeric heroes or of the wars of Cæsar or Alexander. - -He kissed a lady's hand, and that same evening went back to the jaws of -the volcano. And that same week the word came that after having been -three times buried alive in the undermined earth, his young body had -been blown to atoms on Hill 304. - - - - -XIII - - -The next morning, her friend La Villaumer having come to see her, she -introduced a subject which had been tormenting her. - -"The individuality of the soldier is not obliterated," said La -Villaumer. "Either he expects to come through safe, believing himself to -be a privileged person among the unlucky, or else he says to himself, 'I -shall die, but it will be for something worth while,' and that even -exalts his individuality. When that disappears or becomes attenuated it -is by excess of suffering, of hoping against hope for the end of all -that he is enduring--mud, cold, the incessant wooing of death, and ills -without number, have annihilated in him all power of thought and -feeling. And still it would be speaking too strongly to say that he goes -deliberately to meet death. Never has any living being failed to pay to -death the honor of a particular deference." - -"Do you think," asked Odette, "that one's individuality can be suddenly -lost, or is it not rather unconsciously modified from day to day? You -see, in the latter case no one can tell how far the metamorphosis may -go! I see many people who have changed in the last eighteen months, and -who seem not to be aware of it. I feel very clearly that I myself am -different. I find only one part of myself unchanged; the part which -binds me to the memory of my poor husband; nothing there is modified -even in the very slightest degree--nothing; when I have leisure to think -intently of him, I become again precisely the woman I used to be." - -"Yes, but with grief in addition." - -"That is true." - -"It is that which modifies us. It broadens us when it finds a heart in -us, and for that matter it exists only so far as it finds a heart. It -holds within itself many possibilities. Your grief began with embracing -your personal calamity; that alone; and it still hugs it to itself, that -is most natural; but it has unconsciously taken a further step, -embracing the sorrows of others, a change which you never looked for. -And that is making of you another person." - -"Will every one like me find themselves a tone above or below what they -used to be--as if the whole keyboard had been transposed?" - -"I do not think so," said La Villaumer. "Nature changes little. Only -sensitive souls are modified, and they are rare. It is they who at last, -at the long last, act upon and change those around them. Characters -change little, never fear! Yet this war will have been so intense that -those at least who have had a part in it will retain something of it, -like a strong leaven which will cause new things to germinate. We must -expect new things; but we must not look to see the human race thrown off -its centre. Historians, sociologists will have their work to do, while -philosophers, moralists, the general run of writers may go on as they -have done. The word 'democracy,' for instance, will cover much -paper----" - -"Do you believe in such a thing, yourself?" - -"I believe in the word as I believe in all words. It is a mistake to -disdain the old-fashioned verbalism--rhetoric, eloquence. The majority -of words are hollow--yes, but they are hollow like bells whose -sonorousness may by itself shake the whole world. Those who use words -are inspired by various things, and generally by sentiments that they -cannot acknowledge; yet the word touches the finest chords in the soul -of men whom one wants to win over. 'Democracy' has a tone----" - -"Which will work good?--or evil?" - -"Alas! The popular instinct and an inevitable necessity urge men, in -spite of words, to enslave themselves, and they will of their own accord -submit to the tyranny of new leaders, new groups representing interests -of which the crowd will know nothing. Almost all my pessimism is founded -on the irresistible character of this law. Men must be commanded, and no -one can be sure that those who command will not abuse their authority or -the confidence which is freely granted to them. However, the official -programme of democracy will be to devote all its effort to the -well-being of poor humans who have not an average of fifty years to live -in this world, who no longer believe in another world, and who in truth -have some legitimate aspirations to live their few years for their own -benefit, and with as little pain as possible." - -"Poor men!" - -"Yes, 'poor men!' That expresses the immense pity that will well up in -every breast, throughout the entire universe. Fate will have demanded -much of the human race. No doubt man has suffered through all time; but -in a manner so prolonged and so scientifically cruel--no! At all events, -never have men suffered in such great numbers; never have they been so -acutely conscious of their sufferings. And then, in former times men who -suffered had not been learnedly informed that the world had come to the -end of suffering. Those who are suffering now believed themselves to -have reached the highest point of a period of progress in every -direction. Never had man more firmly believed himself to be on the -border of the Promised Land, than at the very moment when he stumbled -into the infernal pit! What an aggravation of torment! Men may have been -sacrificed for far-off ends which too often have not been attained; they -may have been obliged, merely for their own preservation as living -beings, to obliterate their own intelligence, and to become through long -years--they themselves have said it--a sort of brute. Those who will -survive will not ask the meaning of subtleties, or will not be in a -condition to understand them. They will have only one thought: 'And now, -what of me, me, me?'" - -"A revival of individuality, then?" - -"Yes, but of a fierce individuality, in which all that has for so long a -time been stifled within them will urge them on to mistaken acts; or -else of an exhausted individuality which will be the prey of exploiters -never known before." - -"Then you do not believe in a general betterment after this upheaval?" - -"I only believe in more or less prolonged periods during which faith in -betterment is possible." - -"But, after all, man has goodness within him! He carries an ideal in his -breast!" - -"That is to say that he carries within himself--nowhere but in -himself--that small portion of happiness which he may ever hope to -attain. In fact, I hold him to be truly happy only as he exercises -goodness, or as he aspires to what he deems the best. Man, the child, -the savage, very clearly recognizes justice, much less clearly the -beautiful; but the idea of the beautiful, however imperfect it may be in -him, moves and may make him better. If he permits himself to slide down -those inclines which deviate from these ideas, he may experience a dizzy -joy of a bad kind. He may work himself up to enjoy strange pleasures, -but seldom without at the same time perceiving that he is duping -himself, and that pure and deep joy is not in these things. Yes, it is -in himself that man finds his sole source of felicity, as the glowworm -his light. It may be that justice is entirely inapplicable and the -beautiful wholly conventional, but what we may be sure of is that the -inclination toward the just and the beautiful is most fruitful in happy -results, though they will perhaps never find absolute realization." - -"That is all very well; but in fact you believe neither in beauty nor in -justice!" - -"I believe in the passionate endeavor of man toward beauty and justice." - -"Which he will never attain?" - -La Villaumer suddenly changed his tone, and gazing smilingly upon the -young woman said: - -"That would be paradise, my dear friend; be reasonable!" - - - - -XIV - - -It was the last hour of an April afternoon; budding foliage on the -trees, the Arc de Triomphe, upon which every saunterer who looks to-day, -looks with the vision of the triumphal procession to come, and the -Champs-Elysées, unequalled promenade, which Odette and La Villaumer had -so often seen crowded and joyful, in the days when the world was happy. - -"Do you remember? Oh, you were a little girl, loving to hang around -Guignol and trail after the goat-carts. But I was then no longer very -young. Do you remember the time when there were no automobiles, and when -the victorias used to go slowly down the street bearing beautifully -dressed women whom one had time to admire, to criticise, to recognize, -and salute? The auto is perfect, but the best it can do is to rush from -one place to another, and that has by no means the interest of the daily -procession, when it seemed that every one still had time to live. Excuse -my capricious imagination, but it seems to me that these machines were -made just to bring us with all the more haste to the frightful time in -which we are living. I dare say this to you because I know that you are -not going to remind me that autos are rendering admirable service to the -war, especially at this very time. You think, like me, that they also -render service to our enemies, and that all these rapid means of -reaching the battlefield coincide with a war without a conceivable end. -In a general way, scientific inventions--don't confuse them with the -sciences, which merit all veneration--conspire to give to this war a -character of atrocity to which no armed conflict has ever attained, and -I wish that it could be proved to me that they alleviate it in equal -proportion. Think only of the horror which this 'progress' in the art of -extermination inspires. How many brains are unable to resist it? -Civilians are dying every day, and the best of them, who go to pieces -merely from imagining the war. We see them fall like the hollow bark -which still seems to support a tree. You yourself did not know in your -childhood the amazement that Jules Verne's 'Nautilus' caused. But you -witnessed the crazy conduct of your contemporaries the first time they -saw an airship sailing about in the air. It was pretty, to be sure, and -the audacity of the early pilots roused us all to enthusiasm. Recall to -mind the saying that was current on the greensward at Deauville when -twelve airplanes arrived from Havre, three hundred metres above the -earth, all rosy in the sunset rays. 'The flying Peace,' some one said. -I shrugged my shoulders sorrowfully, because I know that in the face of -an astounding invention one must always think of the homicidal use to -which man may put it. Man has once again stolen the fire of heaven; a -new Zeus will punish him for it. Humanity will blindly and with ecstasy -invent the instrument of its own destruction. By means of an admirable -scientific instrument it will commit wholesale suicide with a beatific -smile. Man has already abdicated in favor of a machine. The war that is -being waged is a war no longer of men but of material. Man is belittled; -the machine surpasses him! A rudimentary intelligence suffices to set -the true force in motion. We are still believers in the ancient saying -that the true force is manly virtue, the fine, old-fashioned bravery. We -have belittled the only thing in the world which might be wholly -great--man. Do we profess to worship that bravery of man which all the -past has justified? Why, by the scientific character of war it has -become--one dares permit himself the blasphemy--almost a sign of -inferiority. We reckon upon the mystical value of our bravery, and we -send our men by the thousands against an army of tools! By virtue of our -century-old prejudices we honor only the man who exposes himself, -sacrifices himself, furnishes, however uselessly, his proofs of courage, -when the glory of our arms will belong to him who shall most securely -have sheltered his divisions behind gigantic steam-hammers! The applied -sciences have caused a moral revolution. By riveting man, who is before -all else a soul, to material elements, they have destroyed whatever -might be justifiable in the great contests of humanity. A paltry little -engineer behind his disguised heavy cannon, or with his mitrailleuse -under thirty metres of cement, counts for more than our superb heroes -with their courage, their loyalty, and their white gloves. Man, chained -like a galley-slave to a machine, to a chemical substance, is forced to -unlearn what it is to be a man. He appears very intelligent when he is -equipped with algebra and terminology; yes, we must grant to matter all -that it can give, but pause a little: have you not an impression that -something superior is lacking in so abnormal a compound? They have -domesticated the forces of nature; they believe themselves Titans; and -there they stand glowering at one another like beasts; they cannot -distinguish themselves from these material fabrics that surprise and -overwhelm them. They call themselves masters of matter, and matter is -all the time jeering at them. Engineering genius is probably not the -result of a knowledge of matter, but of a knowledge of man." - - - - -XV - - -At that period people were still dulling their senses with words and -stupefying their minds with discussions, if so they might divert them -from that one place which for the time being was as the pivot of the -world, upon which they had for six months felt that all depended, as two -years before all had for ten days depended upon the battle of the Marne. - -La Villaumer went to his club; his lip curled with an almost wicked -smile at the thought of the ridiculously false news which that evening, -as every other, he was about to hear. Then he reflected that the -charming Odette, whom he had just quitted was very young, and asked -himself whom she might marry. - -Odette, still carried away with the life at Surville, sick at heart with -those friends of hers who were doing nothing but dying of _ennui_ and so -demoralizing those around them, found comfort in frequenting such hives -of activity as the Franco-Belgian headquarters and its numerous annexes, -all congregated in the same building on the Champs-Elysées, where it -seemed that all the misery of the world was perpetually going up and -down its staircases, without respite and without end. She would go there -as if in answer to a summons. So many, so many unfortunates who had lost -their dearest possessions, their house, their village church! Meeting -them on the muddy steps, she seemed to see, reflected in their startled -eyes, a bit of countryside, a poplar-bordered road, a bit of garden, a -hillside, fields of beets or of wheat. She had travelled, she knew all -those sights which are the natural companions of the life of men. The -odor of the hamlets came back to her, the warm breath of stables, the -noisome scent of stagnant pools, the sharp smell of the tanneries in the -north, the balsamic fragrance of cedar smoke from the bakeries, the -appetizing aroma of warm bread, so little known in Paris. Then she would -picture to herself the bewilderment of all these folk who had found -refuge in a great, strange city to which they were not born, of these -families who would never, never again see anything but the ruins of -their villages, their countryside made unrecognizable by the absence of -every elm, every bit of woods! She could have embraced them as they -passed her; she longed to give them everything she possessed, things -which, alas! could not replace what they had lost! - -She thought to herself: "What have they done? Of what are these people -guilty? Why are these men tortured? Why were they captured and their -poor homes and little fields destroyed, and the sons of their blood, who -alone gave a moral meaning to their lives? Why were not these people -masters of themselves? Why were they the prey of bandits who consider -even their own people as puppets, created to serve their vainglory as -soldiers, and who care less for the existence of thousands of living -creatures than a child for his tin soldiers?" Her heart throbbed, her -soul revolted. She reached the top of the stairs. - -To this building she had come without invitation to see an American -woman who was freely and calmly consecrating her fortune, her -intelligence, and her time to the unfortunates of the war. She came to -ask if there was not something that she could do. The American woman -looked at her with a smile. - -"You have something better to do for your country." - -"What?" asked Odette. - -"Oh, we will speak of that later." - -This answer had already been made to her. It had been said to her even -at Surville, in the hospital, and with a mysterious air. - -She was disturbed by it, and spoke of it, on a venture, to Simone de -Prans, whom she saw that evening. - -Simone and her husband both smiled as the American lady had done. - -"What do you all mean?" - -"Don't be disturbed," said Pierre de Prans seriously; "take care of -yourself. A woman like you has services to give." - -"Well, I must do something," said Odette, trembling under her veil, "and -as it is, I am doing absolutely nothing with my ten fingers!" - - - - -XVI - - -"Whenever the cloud of anguish rises even a little from the sky of -Paris," said La Villaumer, "this city, so marvellously alive, clasps to -itself life, of whatever kind, with a simple, natural impulse, without -immoderation, but with a secret smile, always ready. Yet this power of -life, on the whole so beautiful, has something that brings a frown to -the brow of the onlooker; for it has within it insensibility and -forgetfulness. - -"How disconcerting it is to see this new, mutilated humanity, pass in -the streets almost without attracting attention. Young men in uniform, -or returned to civil life minus a leg, on crutches, with an artificial -limb, leaning on a cane like an old man, with an empty coat sleeve, an -eye gone, nothing left of the nose but two breathing-holes, the jaw -moulded over like a lump of potter's clay--or led along, sightless! They -hardly arouse compassion, seldom even curiosity. There are so many of -them! You can see the like in any place. War crosses, military medals, -the Legion of Honor on the breast of a mere youth, which at one time -would have attracted admiring glances and brought tears to women's eyes, -are now hardly noticed. There are so many who have received or have -deserved them! Most of those who possess them now wear only the ribbon -on their jackets like civilians. The long duration and the barbarism of -the war have spoiled everything. Men whose exploits cast into the shade -the most famous examples of history with which the memory of school -children is crammed, refuse to be called heroes. Heroes! There are so -many of them! It was not to distinguish themselves, nor to cover their -families with honor, nor even to set a noble example, that so many men -have wrought prodigies; they did them modestly, because they had to be -done in order to put an end to an abomination. With many the idea even -of the country is attenuated in favor of something which makes much less -appeal to the heart, the motive of which is only the cold persuasion -that militarism must be destroyed; one must fight for very hatred of -fighting. And here is something new, this vast uprising for war is -producing no enthusiasm for war; it is animated only by hatred of war. -All these brave men, riddled like sieves, rescued from an ordeal without -precedent, are cherishing no ambition to march in a procession of -victors, under waving flags, amid the acclamations of women, children, -and old men; they had the rudimentary purpose of the peasant who -struggles with a mad dog, and who having downed him digs a hole, buries -the carrion, washes his hands at the pump, and goes in to dinner. - -"Germany has robbed man of his divine childhood. In less than two years -all these men have grown old; that charming faculty of innocent -enthusiasm which had often deceived him, but which had given him joys -never to be replaced, has been withered. The most deplorable ruins which -the monster has spread abroad over our land are perhaps not so much the -splendid monuments of Belgium and France, as the youth of humanity, that -had seemed eternal, that was bearing it on to a great outburst of a -common hope--faith in Fraternity, faith in Liberty, faith in Justice, -potent religion of Progress. Cold reason, like the German gas, has -poisoned all this fresh and ebullient vigor. The whole world has become -allied, only to strangle a jackal. No man who has come back from the too -severe ordeal will ever again feel the desire to enjoy the days that yet -remain to him. Scepticism, which used to seem only a way of looking at -things, cherished by very distinguished gentlemen, has now taken -possession of the mass. But it has become commonplace, and so has ceased -all relations with its brother, dilettantism. You will see what sort of -thing realistic scepticism will become." - -"People will always dream," said Odette. - - - - -XVII - - -Odette returned to Surville in the beginning of August. It was a time of -great heat. The second anniversary of mobilization had been observed. -War had become an accepted condition. Many already found it difficult to -remember a state of peace. At the hospital there were even discussions -as to how things had been there before the war. There were those who, -though they had then been living in Surville, could not recall them to -mind. "You remember the inaugural address of the head doctor, the 16th -of August, before the first train of wounded came?" Some of the women -insisted that he had given an antimilitarist lecture; others that he had -spoken only against alcohol; others that he had given an eloquently -patriotic address; some said that it was not he who had spoken, but the -surgeon, a very handsome man; and still others that the address was -given on another date. One lady could only remember the first time she -had posed to the photographer in white blouse and cap. The first arrival -of wounded, who had come from Charleroi on August 25, were confused with -those who had come in September. Two years! What a long time when one -has seen only wretchedness upon wretchedness! Nothing pleasant for -twenty-four months! The communiqué of the battle of the Marne? Yes, -that counted for something; but at the time no one understood its full -importance; there had been no public rejoicing. Our later long and -magnificent victories that merely held back the enemy presented to the -mind nothing like what is generally thought of as military success; it -was only after a while that their importance was recognized, when new -misfortunes had touched us elsewhere. Two years of dull, black -weariness, of constant apprehension, of bereavement upon bereavement. - -This year a good many foreigners had invaded the beach. The -tennis-courts were occupied by young men from beyond the sea, bringing -up the memory of former days; the crowd was enlivened by a profusion of -multicolored Japanese lanterns; the sea dashed against the glossy flesh -of women who seemed as natural as Aphrodite; automobiles were almost as -much in the way as in happier days; and between the rows of tents among -the manifold tints of colored stuffs, beside the waves where so many -beautiful limbs were disporting themselves, was a race of beings that -might have been deemed peculiar, coming, going, or remaining motionless; -they were the men who had escaped from the fire. They wore nondescript -garments, they lacked one limb or even two, they hobbled, their armpits -strained by crutches, or lay at length on the warm sand, smoking, timid -of appearance, exchanging remarks hardly comprehensible, keeping silent, -too, thinking--of what? - -This last spectacle alone seemed in Odette's eyes to merit -consideration. She had lived the greater part of the time among the -wounded, she had also lived in Paris with the social world. "All is -over," she would say to herself; "nothing will heal all this; it is mere -mummery to ape the life of other days; all that is blotted out; La -Villaumer was right when he said: 'Men have suffered too much.'" - -It was in this very place--there, opposite, at the hotel--that she had -become acquainted with Jean. They were pleased with one another at the -first glance, carried out of themselves, even. She remembered how mad -with love she had been in those garden walks, between those -tennis-screens, on that beach, and along that terrace which now she was -treading overwhelmed with despair, a despair that she could not name, -greater than herself, greater than the broad horizon of the sea, greater -than all things. - -She had forgotten nothing. She recalled all the preludes of marriage, -then those first vacations, their dual solitude in the midst of the -throng; kisses exchanged on these dunes, along these roadsides, in some -charming farm orchard, or on certain evenings before the fairylike -spectacle of the phosphorescent sea; she remembered that room in the -Hôtel de Normandie where he had left her a few days before the 2d of -August! And she recalled to mind the beautiful sky of that day, and the -tocsin pealing from all the church-towers of the countryside, and the -rolling of the drum, and the young men raising their hats. How many of -them were alive to-day? - - - - -XVIII - - -She had hardly finished luncheon when she heard the jingling of the -little bell at the wooden gate of her garden. Mme. de Calouas came in. - -Mme. de Calouas found Odette surrounded by photographs of Jean. They -were on the walls, the chimneypiece, the tables, the desk, the piano. -Odette had taken the opportunity of her journey to carry to the -photographer every film that she possessed; she had had them enlarged, -and she was surrounded by Jean as if Jean had become a whole people; she -saw him in every room of her cottage and in all places; she felt -somewhat tranquil only when she could see him. If she seldom or never -spoke of him elsewhere, as soon as she returned home she belonged only -to him. She talked to him, consulted him, and heard the replies which, -in accordance with his character, he would have made her to-day, if he -had lived, if he had known what was taking place. - -Mme. de Calouas looked about her at all these likenesses. - -Mme. de Calouas was not among the number of hospital nurses who had been -rewarded by the epidemic medal, although she had not absented herself -for forty-eight hours since the outbreak of the war, and though her -position in the hospital was a most important one; but neglect of this -sort was either indifferent to her or it flattered her pride. She -belonged to a family of which every member professed absolute -indifference to rewards, especially to any that might come from the -public powers, and this although it was the tradition of the family to -addict themselves constantly to the highest duties. The magistrates -among them had retired some thirty-five years previously; the officers -remained fixed in the rank of captain. In the Morbihan the expression -"the Captains de Calouas" had become a common locution. At the outbreak -of the war "the Captains de Calouas" had shown themselves to be men of -the old-fashioned kind who considered that the finest part one can play -in the face of the enemy is to be killed by him. Their unanimous and -hardy bravery had, indeed, crowned nearly every one of them with the -halo of sacrifice. Those with whom death would have absolutely nothing -to do had this time risen in rank, and had received the cross after a -succession of actions and for exceptional valor even amidst so many -astonishing deeds. Of seven of them, only one was left, recently named -lieutenant-colonel, with an artificial arm and a damaged lung. - -Mme. de Calouas excused herself for coming so early, but said that she -had felt an irresistible desire to talk freely with a friend in whom she -had discerned "a choice soul." - -"In the sort of convent in which we lived so long side by side," she -said, "I consider myself somewhat as a mother to you, if you will permit -me to say so, seeing that I had the responsibility of opening its door -to you. Will you let me talk to you as a mother?" - -"I have great need of it," said Odette; - -"I have no mother, and I am a widow----" - -She pointed around to the photographs of the dead. It was as if she were -in a cemetery, herself living in one of its vaults. Her eyes filled with -sudden tears. - -"I love him as on the day he died; as on that other day, that dreadful -day when he left me--I cannot cry all this upon the housetops. You, -madame, have suffered like me, more even than me, the pain of this -horrible war; we can no longer speak of our dead! We have no right to -show our grief! There are too many griefs, too many dead. I have never -been able to talk about him; I have found only one person who would -consent to recall him with kindliness, and she is a Parisian, a -self-centred woman who has managed not to permit herself to be touched -by the war, a young woman, like me, but already a woman of former days. -Who is there, henceforth, who can dwell on her personal sorrow?" - -"It remains to be seen, my poor dear," said Mme. de Calouas, "whether -what you say is an evil. I mean an evil for the time in which we live, -during this war which has no end, and during the many years after this -war; in a word, during all our lives--even yours. You know, my child, -that I am a woman bound to all the old customs. In our family widowhood -is a serious thing, and usually a thing for life. But this war has -modified even our most firmly established customs. Great necessities, -painful new duties, lie before us. We have been obliged to put down, -with a strong hand, many of our feelings; we are bound to subordinate -our personality and its most sacred traditions to the common weal. To -mourn a beloved husband--what is more touching and more worthy in a -young woman? But, my little friend, let me confide to you a cruel truth, -of which you are already beginning to be aware. You were just saying to -me that we can no longer talk about our dead husbands, however -gloriously they may have been killed; it is equally the case of both of -us. Well, forgive me for what I am going to say--it is one of the most -cruel features of this time that has no name--to mourn our husbands is a -sort of self-indulgence, it is a personal civility, it is almost a -delight! I shall startle you, but I must say it to you, I who am twenty -years older than you, because I recognize in you a noble heart, -broadened rather than belittled by this storm. My poor child, you have -no right to remain surrounded by these likenesses of the dead. If we -belonged to ourselves, we would give ourselves up to what our hearts -would prefer--weak, human creatures that we are! We would choose to -remember and to mourn. But we are no longer our own! Let us imitate our -husbands! They would certainly have preferred to live. To assert the -contrary is mere boasting. But without hesitating they accepted death. -They understood, every one of them, that they were not their own. Nor -are we our own. I give you my word of honor--and you can never imagine -the object of reverence or the cause of joy that for twenty years my -husband was to me--if I were still young enough to have children I would -marry again to-morrow! I am too old, and this is why you see me take so -much pains in other directions. What the country asks of you is not work -like what I am doing----" - -"I prefer that work," said Odette. - -"You are not your own." - -"What the world asks of me is worse than death." - -"Our husbands endured the sufferings of hell, and died only -afterward----" - -Odette burst into sobs. - -"My child, my dear little friend," said Mme. de Calouas, "I beg you not -to give way to despondency of any sort. Believe what I say, and do not -think me hard, as I may appear to be. I am not hard. I have simply -covered myself with a shell, because we are engaged in a merciless -conflict. Let us not permit ourselves to be weakened whether by -catastrophe or painful loss or bitter trial. To give way to grief is to -grow less strong. For the time, we can be sure only of suffering. Each -grief should give us the opportunity not to weep, but to do more than -before. There is only one aim. How that simplifies things! We look -toward it, and toward it alone. We direct our eyes neither to the right -nor the left. Anything may happen: we are ready, we will not fail. We -may be asked for more than is in reason, but we have offered our -services. No hesitation, no boasting; above all, no consideration of -ourselves; let us leave all that to women of petty minds, since it is -the only motive that can move them. We who know better must set them an -example." - - - - -XIX - - -Odette went to her room to bathe her eyes, but it was all in vain; she -began again to weep; she had an invincible desire for tears; she wept -until the hour for going to the hospital. - -She had photographs of Jean in her bed-room as in her drawing-room. And -now it seemed to her that to give way to her grief was, indeed, "a -delight"! She was in the habit of giving herself up to sorrow; who would -have believed that it was a way of giving herself up to pleasure? Yet in -comparison with the excessive sadness of the present time, to wrap -herself up, weeping, in the memory of happy days, was to set herself -apart, to abstract herself in herself, to intoxicate herself with the -fragrance of the incense on her own private altar, to divest herself of -strength for the great common act which it had given her so much pain to -accept, but the imperious command of which she could not now deny. - -"It is still a pleasure," she repeated to herself. What chaos must have -been wrought that her most acute sufferings, recalled to her by -imagination, should take on the form of felicity! - -Mme. de Calouas had affirmed that, for her part, had she fewer years, -she would not hesitate to marry again!--Ah, no, that was too much! -Anything, anything, but that! "'They endured the pains of hell, and did -not die until afterward?' Yes, their martyrdom, their death, I would -gladly accept for myself; but I refuse to be false to my adored -memories----" - -Another burst of grief overwhelmed her in which her whole tortured -personality resisted and asserted itself. She seized Jean's photographs -and kissed them frantically. She would fain detest all the rest of the -world and give herself wholly to this one sacred memory. For the moment -she spurned the opinion of Mme. de Calouas: "If it is a self-indulgence, -let it be so! I yield myself to this self-indulgence! I love Jean, I -have never loved any one but Jean!" - -In the old days she used to bicycle with Jean, and the two, side by -side, often exchanging glances, sometimes throwing kisses, would roll -breathlessly along the Norman roads, between the high, thick hedges -where they were as if enclosed, with only one way out, where they had -nothing to do but roll along. An auto would appear; Jean would go first, -Odette following in his track, breathing his perfume until the cloud of -dust and the smell of oil or of gasolene choked her. Sometimes, going -slowly, they would take one another by the hand. She was flexible, -slight, and lightly clothed; she would play acrobatic tricks on her -machine, and her joyful agility would fill Jean with delight. Suddenly -he would jump down, she would follow his example, and they would -exchange a kiss, folded lingeringly in one another's arms. There was a -little wayside inn where, under the arbor, they would call for cider -with bread and white cheese. They had never met any one there; the wind -would ruffle the foliage around them, the dog would gaze at them with a -twinkle in his eye, the hostess would serve them with a smile. More -often than elsewhere they used to go to the orchard, the incomparable -orchard of the farm at the foot of the ruins of Saint-Gingolph, where -they were welcomed as friends, both so young, so beautiful, so radiant -with happiness. There in the autumn they would walk in the little paths -bordered with sorrel and thyme; where dahlias were growing beside -onions, where there were currant-bushes loaded with rubies, in a corner -a fig-tree whose fruit never ripened, under which they must bend to go -to the pear-trees. There Odette would bite into a pear as she passed it, -and this would make Jean scold; he would gather the pear, nibble at the -place which her teeth had damaged, and carry it to the good-natured -farmer's wife, saying: "Just see what mischief we have done!" - -"Oh!" the farmer's wife would simply reply, "Madame seems to enjoy it -so!" - -Delicious and terrible memories! Odette could not endure again to visit -those places, so near, yet which would now have given her so much pain! - -Nor could she again go in the evening, at nightfall, to the edge of the -sea, where in each vague shadow she would have thought she saw the -shadow of Jean. They used to love to wander there in the warm obscurity -of August. The long-drawn moan of the sea was to them a cradle-song -composed by a musician of genius. No doubt Odette used to see in those -days fewer large waves than to-day; but in those days all things blended -with her love and seemed marvellous to her. Sometimes Jean, who had his -boyish ways, would amuse himself by leaving her, suddenly disappearing -from her eyes in the darkness. She would call him in an anxious voice, -"Jean!" And she would always recognize his shadow as he drew near by his -extending his arms in the form of a cross, and throwing them around her, -to press her to him the moment he met her. In those days they would hear -afar off the music of the violins, and would see above the dune the dark -villas and the illuminated hotels. Now she knew that in those hotels -were lying a thousand men swathed in bandages, poisoned by pus and -gangrene, and the sea was holding up a long chaplet of buoys from which -were hanging nets to ward off submarines. How could she go back there? - -The summer wore away in a manner almost satisfactory, and with great -hopes in the military operations. A wave of optimism passed over the -country. Rumanian colors were floated from the town-hall; the battle of -the Somme had freed Verdun and was itself beginning to slacken. In the -beginning of October the wounded in the hospital were almost few. -Odette, with too little to do, reduced to solitude, began to droop. She -found the conversation of Mme. de Calouas very fine, but it did not -touch her. Why not? - -She would have her lay aside her mourning--the two years being now a -long month over past. Other widows had almost joyfully put off their -crape in the late summer heat. Odette considered it a profanation. "Time -was passing." No doubt it was. It was long--without measure long. But to -her Jean had died yesterday, nothing in her feelings had been changed by -what she had seen. She thought of all those bodily wounds which she had -dressed with her own hands, and which had healed. The great wound within -herself remained open. At times she would forget the war, the sorrows of -which at other times would crush her, and think only of the beloved -being to whom she was bound for eternity. - -One afternoon she dragged herself, on foot and alone, along the road to -Saint-Gingolph, between the brook, the fields, and the hillock that -separates two valleys. The weather was fine, underfoot were leaves of -plane-trees, some decaying, others rolling along the ground, driven by -the autumn wind. She had not the courage to go to the farm; the orchard -came down to the roadside. She sat down upon the grass of the ditch and -reflected that this was the third autumn that she had been there, since -the war! She recalled to mind the first one, when people were beginning -to find the hostilities very long; when every evening, passing by the -post-office, one hoped to read the news of some event which would bring -about its sudden end. She thought of the little soldiers whom she used -to follow to the cemetery, and of whom every one insisted upon thinking: -"He is the last one!" - -Before her, on the crest of the hillock, like a fantastic screen whose -edge has been clumsily cut by a child, a long avenue of very ancient -elms broke in upon the view. They bore scattered clusters of foliage, -still golden; a dense cloud of crows rose up and lighted with sinister -croakings upon their ragged tops. These birds with their lugubrious -cries seemed about to give battle for the possession of a notable -charnel-house. And suddenly they plunged into the branches and -disappeared, and nothing remained of them but the wound inflicted by the -rasping voices upon the motionless air. Then the black cloud uprose -again, as if the avenue of old elms, mown down at the roots by shells, -had upheaved itself before its final downfall. It seemed as if the heart -of the hillock were painfully throbbing. The raucous croaking of these -thousands of birds grated upon her nerves and aroused all her powers of -mournful revery. - -Odette resumed her walk back to the town. Evening was falling. Lush -meadows along the brookside, a gray steeple almost hidden in foliage of -rose ochre, the racecourse--relic of a brilliant worldliness--two or -three pretty villas, whose reddening hopvines were flaunting themselves -derisively before closed windows, reminded her too painfully of a past -era--a lost paradise. Among the persons whom she met, already half -hidden in the shadow, some were laughing. Then people could laugh? Why, -yes! Life, diverse as it is, has ever its source in the waters of a -Fountain of Youth. - -The darkness and the croakings of the crows haunted her. When she -reached the cottage she threw herself upon a divan, and remained there, -overcome, until Amelia came to call her to her solitary dinner. - -The evening mail brought her tidings of the death of the last de Blauve -boy, who had voluntarily gone to the firing-line in advance of those of -his age, and had been killed outright in the very hour when he first set -foot in the trench. Almost mechanically, and as a daily duty, she read -two newspapers, line by line. She seemed to feel a great inward -emptiness; she felt herself going to pieces. She must make a change, at -whatever cost. There was just now no necessity for her presence in the -hospital. She resolved to return to Paris, without other reason than the -impossibility of remaining in Surville. How many feverish changes she -had made, since the beginning of this war, with no more serious motive -than this! - - - - -XX - - -Arrived in Paris, she went at once to see Mme. de Blauve. This woman, -who had lost a much-loved husband and two sons hardly old enough to be -soldiers, was not weeping, was not feeling dull, had no hard words to -say about the war. She gave full evidence of tenderness toward her -family, but, above all, she knew how to live, and that, in a time of -war, means total forgetfulness of self and of all whom one loves. She -was not sending her daughters into the hospitals, where they were not -needed; she had herself given up her work as nurse, in order to give -special attention to preparing them for marriage. - -"Marriage is the civic duty of women," she said; "at sixteen and a half -one can very well have a child. Marriage is a difficult matter in a time -like this, but I am willing to pay the price!" She was thinking only of -this, the oldest girl having passed her fifteenth year. - -To Odette, Mme. de Blauve was another Mme. de Calouas in Paris. She felt -at ease with neither of them, and yet both of them attracted her -inexplicably. She felt herself at a distance from them while yet being -influenced by them, to a degree that surprised some indefinable part of -herself. Both of them shocked her, wounded her, even; she was appalled -before their stoicism. She looked at them darkly, almost malevolently, -when they seemed to gaze with reprobation upon the mourning garments -which she persisted in wearing. These women, brought up to worship the -dead, uprose like spectres from the depths of the past which was their -element, and uttered a word unfamiliar to their lips: "Forward!" The -impression was most disturbing. - -Not that she envied them, under the pretext that both appeared to have -adjusted themselves to the sorrows of the time. Odette had no desire -thus to adjust herself. On the contrary, she implored to be left alone, -to bury herself in unending grief. And yet she felt a secret sympathy -with these unavowed foes of the perpetuation of her love. - - - - -XXI - - -Crossing the Champs-Elysées on her homeward way, Odette met two groups -of blinded soldiers, each one led by a woman who helped him to pass from -refuge to refuge. A blinded soldier invariably caused Odette to shudder -with dismay. Of all the wounded by the war, such as he most painfully -touched her sympathies. She stood on the first refuge as if petrified, -gazing at these men led by the hand by young women, a third clinging to -his comrade's coat, groping in the air with a timid arm. - -In the face of distress like this, coachmen and chauffeurs, however much -in haste, stopped short as before a funeral procession, which all Paris -respects. The double stream of circulation was arrested in both -directions recalling pictures of the waters of the Red Sea. The crowded -foot-passengers formed a rampart with their bodies. No one saluted, for -that is not the custom, but the seriousness of all faces spoke of the -impulse, almost the need, thus to act. Veneration, such as has never -before been seen on French faces, was stamped upon the features of men -and women, even of children. That which was taking place was almost -nothing, simply a group of soldiers whose organs of sight had been -destroyed, with charitable women serving them as guides. For two minutes -they interrupted the movement of the Champs-Elysées. Yet it was a moral -influence, an unrecognized, unclassified power, poor and even lamentable -of aspect, which had suddenly arrested the prosperous physical movement -of a great city. Odette felt her heart throb; her eyes were so blurred -that as she reached the sidewalk she almost failed to recognize her -friend La Villaumer, who was standing there, gazing at that simple, -pathetic transit. - -After the first greeting he said to Odette: - -"I have often imagined Jesus returning among us; I thought just now that -I saw him at the head of that group, motioning with his gentle hand to -the crowd of busy mortals, 'Pause, travellers!' He had come back as the -God of justice and of love, just when the demon was making his most -determined attack upon his beloved, just when each one of us is obliged -to look into the inmost recesses of his heart and ask himself: 'What is -going to be left?' And he was replying to us, 'Verily, I say unto you, -henceforth cherish, all of you, a concern for human distress.' I -thought, too, that I heard him whisper--pardon the blasphemy if it -shocks you!--I heard him whisper softly: 'My sufferings have been -surpassed; the sufferings of my martyrs have been surpassed.'" - -"Oh!" - -"Yes, they and he, while suffering, had the assurance of entering the -Kingdom of God, and that within a relatively short time. The majority of -these poor fellows are without that assurance; many of them are without -hope, and their martyrdom has already lasted for twenty-eight months! -They are about to endure a third winter, and some of them will last for -a fourth! And who knows? From all this will be born into the world, my -friend, a 'religion of mankind.' It is not simply the human blood shed, -it is the indefinitely prolonged torture of men, millions and millions -of men, which will create a new mystic element upon which the religions -of the future will draw. It is a dangerous vision; the salvation of -humanity lies at the present time in nothing that in the least resembles -humanitarianism. - -"But I have something to tell you, my friend; Misson, the husband of our -good Rose, whom we have so often ridiculed because he stuck to his -automobile-- Well, he has been killed, the good fellow, blown to pieces -by the bursting of a shell, as he was driving some officers----" - -"Oh, my dear Rose! I must hasten to her!" - -"Do not go yet. It happened on the road to Rheims. She has obtained -leave to go for his body-- Do you know what Mme. Leconque said, when she -learned that Misson's body had been blown to fragments by a bursting -shell? She said: 'In his auto?--What a stupid death!' The death that one -receives in an automobile, you see, is not noble. It was, we now learn, -the one-hundred-and-fourth time that a shell has fallen within less than -thirty metres of his machine, and the ninth machine that has been struck -in the course of his journeys. He will forever be unrecognized." - -Odette could not refrain from wiping her eyes. - -La Villaumer, who lost nothing of her actions, said to her: - -"You are weeping for another sorrow than your own?" - -"Is that what you think?" asked Odette; "it is still my sorrow; it is he -who makes me more alive to the sorrows of others." - -"Yes, but from the moment when you can thus weep for others your own -grief becomes more tolerable." - -"I would not wish to suffer less." - -"You are not suffering less; there is room in your heart for a still -greater sorrow." - -"You always make me afraid when you say that." - -"Odette, you must not be afraid of anything." - -As they went up the avenue La Villaumer went on: - -"I remember, last spring, regretting in your presence the marvellous -aspect of the Champs-Elysées in the days of prosperity. And yet not one -of those beautiful old days ever aroused in me so much feeling as the -crossing over of those ten war-blinded soldiers. I do not cease to -regret the time when these poor young fellows enjoyed the light; but I -am asking myself by what mystery the greatest suffering uplifts us above -the greatest pleasure. I even believe that the stimulus of the greatest -pleasure is short-lived and degenerates rapidly, while the other lasts -long and is endlessly purified." - -"You are being converted, La Villaumer!" - -"You know that there is no more convinced sceptic than I, and you know -my predilection for the simple life, frank, wholesome, normally -developing; one may say, happy in the pagan manner. But this mode of -life does not exhaust life, though I believe it to conform most -perfectly to the destiny of man. Life has acquired other dispositions, -other tendencies. And this does not prevent asceticism, for instance, -attractive as it is, from having at its base an incontestable -psychological truth. In the present state of civilization we are not -permitted to allow inconsistencies of which nevertheless the world is -composed. If you so much as mention two contradictory propositions you -are accused of instability, if not of dishonesty. Each of us remains -shut up in his little, partial, incomplete truth; that is why the human -race seems to one inconsequential and sometimes stupid." - -"Come, explain yourself a little; how, for example, can one at the same -time love pleasure and that which forbids it?" - -"The problem does appear to be insoluble; but observe that there are -none like the greatly self-indulgent to recognize the importance of an -event which consists in renouncing all pleasure. It is those who most -intensely enjoy the exquisite things of life who are thrilled to their -inmost souls at the sight of a voluntary death. I have been present, as -a relative, or as a mere onlooker, at more than one taking of the veil. -Think what the taking of the veil must be to a beautiful young girl! -Well, fathers excepted, I have never seen tears in the eyes of men -professing the same faith as the novice, but I have seen robust artists -almost faint at the sight. They were wholly indifferent to the person -who was thus leaving the world, but they adored beauty and love. They -believed in nothing else than beauty and love, and they were the only -ones in the company to be overwhelmed by the power of the motive that -can tear a human being away from the attraction of such a magnet. These -unbelievers, these intruders in the temple, experienced such a shock -that they came nearer to fervent adherence to a God to them unknown than -the men of tranquil faith, who looked upon the ceremony as something -usual and in conformity with the order of things. Ardent converts are -not recruited from among the friends of religion, but from among its -declared enemies or those totally ignorant of it." - - - - -XXII - - -Odette must leave a card with a word of sympathy at the door of the -bereaved Rose, and see her, stand by her, try, however vainly, to -console her. - -Fortunately Simone overpowered both Rose and Odette with her chatter. -She was as well-informed, as in the time of peace, of everything that -went on in private life. Mathilde Aviron--another Germaine Le Gault--was -in love with a deputy. - -"But," said Odette, "she lost her husband only four weeks after me." - -"That is two years and two months ago, my dear!" - -"That is true." - -"It all depends on circumstances. They are going to be married, it -appears.--And that poor Ogivier is slowly wasting away, in solitary -misery, because his wife believes herself called to be heroic in the -hospitals! Opinions differ; some say: 'She is doing right. What would -you have? Ogivier is fifty-five years old; he is useless----'" - -"But after all, he is her husband. Are her services indispensable in the -hospitals?" - -"No one is indispensable, every one says." - -"Well, then?" - -"Well, then, it is war. Some forget their duties, others don't know -where they are. Mme. de Gaspari is absolutely bent upon making shells. -She used to shed perfume at fifteen paces; she had her hair waved by X., -and the beautiful hands that you remember--Some one has given her a -chance in a factory! And how many things are happening that no one talks -about! There are husbands who were in love with their wives, and who -after the wives have been doing service in the hospitals, no longer feel -the same toward them. It is not their fault! I know some who did not in -the least object to it; but love is what it can be; many love in their -wives only an illusion pleasing to themselves, such, for example, as -that a wife should come physically near only to her husband. When their -wives come back after having spent whole days--perhaps nights--in those -hospital rooms--what would you hear? Every one cannot get over a painful -impression simply by the aid of reason." - -"And what about the girls who do the same?" - -"Yes, it is evident that men will have to accept new ideas." - -"Say, that unlucky Gendron has had an attack." - -"What, at his age?" - -"Yes, he is still young; and he was so healthy! He was by no means a -useless man. Here he is cut down; he cannot endure the idea of the war. -War perhaps seems worse to him at a distance than if he were in the -trenches. 'My head is splitting; it seems as if a petard had been fired -into my ear. I would rather explode than watch for it.'" - -"He is a singular man." - -"He didn't 'explode' as he said. He is 'watching for it' with his mouth -drawn to one side and an arm and a leg paralyzed--his intellect intact. -People's lots are different. We see all sorts." - -"There are unfortunate people; here and there are some who, whether they -will or no, find the war turning to their advantage; and then there are -many who really do not know what they are going through; they are as if -possessed." - -"What do you think of La Villaumer?" asked Simone. - -"I hope that you don't propose to have him exorcised," said Odette. - -"No, but has he told you that he is trying to sell all his property, his -collections, his books? He wants to realize on all that he owns, and -give it for the war." - -"He is very much touched by it." - -"But, my dear friends, who is there who is not?" - -"Mme. de Boulainvilliers has distributed her entire fortune among war -works; she has mortgaged her house to enable her to support an auxiliary -hospital which she has opened in it; she is already begging right and -left. She will come to be a charge upon the public charities. All her -sons have been killed; but her relatives are furious." - -"Little do I care about relatives," said Odette; "she is doing a good -thing, and all the more because every one knows that she isn't in the -least pretentious. 'There is no great merit in what I am doing,' the old -lady says modestly. 'Why, I shall soon be seventy years old; if I do not -take care of my wounded the state will have to do it, and that would -impair the fortune of my relatives as well as of everybody else.' But -she does not say everything that she thinks. What she thinks is much -simpler than that; she enjoys, above all things, making little creams -for her soldiers. 'But for my hospital,' she says, 'they wouldn't get -any!'" - -"Have you heard of Clotilde's adventure?" asked Simone. - -"My goodness! has Clotilde too been touched by the war?" - -"Oh, in the most unexpected way. You know that she vowed to keep the war -away from her. Her husband is at General Headquarters; when she sees him -she forbids him to speak about the war. But Avvogade had a friend of his -childhood, a school comrade--a man whom one never met at their house in -the old days--a modest employee in a Trust Company, but a tall, -well-made fellow. The poor fellow lost his sight as the result of -trepanning. His condition produced a great effect upon Avvogade; -Avvogade suddenly felt all the old friendship for his comrade revive; he -goes to him as often as he can, takes him out to walk, brings him home -to lunch. Clotilde dares not object, but she is simply aghast. The -mutilated man's conversation does not interest her and the sight of him -horrifies her. 'We don't talk about the war,' says her husband. 'I am -not breaking our agreement.' They don't talk about the war, but this man -with his closed eyes embodies the war to her, and thus the war has -entered her house. And no one has anything to say to her but: 'You can't -escape it, my dear.' If Clotilde was not such a dear every one would -laugh, for, after all, her trouble is not a great one and there is -something absurd in the adventure." - - - - -XXIII - - -As she went about among her friends Odette perceived that she was -regarded in Paris as one of the women who during the war was sacrificing -herself for the public good. One must have a "war" reputation at all -costs. No one said a word as to her conduct as a widow, or as to her -moral ideas. But because she had been absent and was known to have been -for a long time a hospital nurse, every one ascribed to her that spirit -of self-abnegation which gives reason to expect all things from certain -exceptional persons, born for sublimities. The compliments that she -received were not ironical. Her profound and unalterable grief for her -husband's death, the very discretion which she observed in making no -lamentation before her friends, were not lost upon them. Odette, sad and -silent, enjoyed what might be called "a good press." The praises -bestowed upon her simply transformed into extraordinary virtue what was -only natural to her. At first she found it stupid; then it disturbed -her. - -"But what am I, after all?" she would ask. - -"You are an exquisite woman! Your conduct is admirable!" - -And every one present would acquiesce. It was in a drawing-room which -might have been supposed to be the seat of the War Committee, where were -young women, women on the further verge of youth, poetesses, princesses; -through which passed generals, convalescent heroes, ministers, men of -all shades of politics, literary celebrities, and the sad relics of -before-the-war æstheticism. The secrets of military operations were -known there, whether carried out or simply planned, the underside of -diplomacy, future declarations of war, historic nights, scandals unknown -to the public. News was handed about, discredited, misconstrued, torn to -pieces. An apparition from another world, like Odette, felt herself -facing all Europe in arms, or some world-congress; rising from the -modest tomb in which she had been living she was dazzled, her head was -turned with it all. She rose to return to her solitude. - -On the staircase she met La Villaumer, his smile scornful at the thought -of the foolishness which he was about to hear. - -"What do they expect of me?" she asked. "Imagine, there are those -up-stairs who were ready to swear that I, all by myself, directed the -battle of the Somme!" - -"Not at all," he replied. "It is simply that you are a very worthy -woman; you honor the house." - -"All very well! But they frighten me. They seem to be expecting -something of me----" - -"That you will do the house still greater honor! Receptions of this sort -would fain be taken as pictures of the country, in the small." - -"Tell me about yourself, La Villaumer; how much truth is there in what -they tell me--that you are going to distribute all your property and -live in a garret?" - -"Oh, it is a naturally erroneous paraphrase of an expression of which, -like you, like many others, I have often made use. I have said: 'I no -longer count. None of us any longer counts.' Which means: 'Whatever our -value may formerly have been, the common cause is too grand for us to -indulge in the fatuity of putting a value upon ourselves. Whoever we may -be, we are reduced to nothingness by something superior to ourselves.' -It is a rather stern assertion, and just because it is so it sets -imaginations to work. Our amiable gossips immediately translate it into -a child's picture, impressive by its crude coloring, in which they see -me shivering on a pallet." - -"And the story of Mme. de Boulainvilliers?" - -"So they have told you the story of Mme. de Boulainvilliers as well? -She is a truly generous woman, but not an imprudent one. She so well -knows what a snare there is for her in the pleasure of coddling her -hundred and twenty soldiers, that, having no direct heirs, she has put a -part of her property into an annuity, in order to become a charge upon -no one as long as she may live. All the rest she gives away. She detests -her relations and delights in frustrating them. No one would talk about -her, perhaps, if it were not for the cream of the end of the story, a -little detail which happens to be true, and which does good." - -"Let us have done with our good women and our special cases. But you, -yourself, what do you think, on the whole, of sacrifice?" - -"The general opinion is that men are without exception ruled by base -personal interests; but this view only takes into consideration the calm -level of the human ocean; in reality it has its tempests, which are the -passions, and man in a state of passion no longer thinks of his -interests. In the depths of my soul I believe that sacrifice may very -well cause the greatest happiness." - - - - -XXIV - - -Some little time later Odette went to see Clotilde. It was early in a -mortally cold winter; for two months already cold weather had raged, -bitter and uninterrupted. The question of fuel was beginning to be -serious; there were rumors of restrictions in many things. Paris was -uneasy, though the newspapers, with their miracle-working ink, turned -adversity into beauty. - -Odette found Clotilde in her usual atmosphere, a happy accident having -permitted her apartment to be warmed. She was surrounded by books and -flowers, and wore a robe of some silken fabric which moulded itself to -her sinuous form. She at once exclaimed: - -"Do you notice anything changed here?" - -"Not you, certainly!" - -"I have had the rooms done over; how do you like this gray?" - -"It's lovely! With the cherry color of the curtains it is really -perfect." - -"Ah! I was sure that you would think so! The others go through the rooms -as if they were daft; they don't notice anything." - -"You have a new photograph of your husband. It is wonderfully good." - -"Doesn't he grow handsome? And yet the dear fellow is overworking. It -isn't a sinecure, I assure you, his position at General Headquarters! -But I feel sure that I amuse him; I divert him from his worries. Without -flattering myself I please him, these days. And I love him, Oh, how I -love him!" - -"You are two lucky people." - -"Forgive me, dear Odette, I am almost ashamed to dwell upon my happiness -before you. But you are the only person who understands; you, who have -truly loved." - -"Who love still, Clotilde." - -Clotilde opened her eyes wide, thinking that she had not heard aright. -She knew what love was, surely, but it was difficult for her to admit -that after two years and a half one could love a dead man, as she loved -her strong and handsome husband. Yet she certainly could entertain no -suspicion concerning Odette, and she at once resolved to make the most -of her friend's enduring sentiments to talk to her about her own -personal love. She overwhelmed her with it as with a flood. Her love had -reached an intensity which it had never known in times of peace. The -seclusion which she had chosen in order to avoid hearing any talk of war -had built around her an ivory tower; and no longer meeting any one but -her husband, her pleasures ministered to only by him, she had found him -taking a place of unusual importance in her life; in himself he embodied -all the delights of which the war had deprived her, and which she had -learned to forget. - -Odette herself began to speak of love. The subject was painful to her, -and yet she enjoyed it. Clotilde was the only creature with whom, since -the war, she had been able to converse on the subject without -diffidence. Letting herself go along the lines of her memories and her -habitual reveries, she began to taste the joy of a prisoner shut up in -a dark cell, who finds an opportunity to mention the brook that flows -through the sun-bathed field below his father's house. - -"After all," she concluded, "the things that we have been saying, if -they could be noted down, would interest the world more, fifty or a -hundred years hence, than all the terrible events that are taking -place." - -Clotilde would hear nothing about "terrible events." Love alone was -worth considering. - -"We meet love everywhere," said Odette. "I find it springing up under my -feet wherever I go; in the operating-room, at the bedside of the wounded -and the dying. The towns nearest to the front are fuller of it than any -others, it would seem. They say that it has never caused such a stir." - -"It represents life, which must be perpetuated, whatever happens. In -your case, my dear Odette, love is joined to death, but in general, no; -it severs itself from death. Those of our day who sing of love and -practise it are more surely serving the future than those who conceive -of restraint as the sole virtue." - -In spite of herself, these unpremeditated words brought a sudden light -into the perplexed thoughts with which Odette's persistent sorrow and -her natural disposition as a loving young woman inspired Clotilde. She -felt impelled to cry out to her: "You think you are loving a dead man, -my poor dear! but you are not twenty-eight years old; you are in love -with love; it is always here, and is waiting for you!" - -Both of them were equally incapable of disguising the truth as it -appeared to them. Odette, bound by a tie whose almost inconceivable -strength kept down every other sort of desire; Clotilde simply deep in -love to the point of hardly being able to imagine a case different from -her own. By chance she had not uttered words which deeply wound a -bleeding heart, but Odette's acute senses at once perceived that there -is hardly any conversation possible even upon the dearest subject that -they may have in common, between two creatures, one of whom is happy and -the other in sorrow. - -She at least observed this: that Clotilde, from an absolutely opposite -point of view, was at one with Mme. de Blauve, with Mme. de Calouas, -with La Villaumer, with each and every one, in saying to her: "My dear -friend, you should not always mourn." - -And her grief, so genuine, was increased tenfold. - -But Clotilde, self-indulgent, egotistic, and thinking only of her own -pleasure or of sparing herself pain, was saying to Odette: - -"See here, my dear; will you do me a great service? Will you come to -lunch with us to-morrow? Would that bore you?" - -"Why should it bore me? Why do you call it doing you a service?" - -"It is settled, then. See here; I must tell you a secret. You know how I -love my husband, how happy I am. There is only one dark spot: my husband -has a friend, a blinded officer--Captain Dessaud. He brings him two or -three times a week to lunch, on the pretext that he is lonely, with no -family, and desperate. Of course I cannot object, you understand; but -the sight of that man is painful to me to a degree that you would never -believe. I have to talk to him, and I have nothing to say to a fellow -who has lost his sight, who hopes for nothing, who has no motive for -being happy. I am sick with it. Come to my help--you are used to -wretchedness, you know!" - -"Yes indeed, yes indeed, I will come." - - - - -XXV - - -Once at home, Odette thought more about Clotilde's conversation than -about the coming meeting with the blinded man, which she dreaded. On the -other side of the thin partition of her little drawing-room, her -neighbor, the musician, who was sometimes reinforced by a 'cellist, was -filling all space with enamoured, passionate, and agitating sounds, -enough to rend the heart. Love, love, everywhere and always love! For -the first time in her life Odette, who adored love, who but now had been -delighting in talking freely of love, who even admitted the justice of -some of Clotilde's assertions on the superlatively beneficent office of -love, Odette felt that in thinking of love and talking of love with her -friend she had lost tone, and now she had only one thought, heard only -the one voice from beyond the tomb. "When I am talking with my friend," -she said to herself, "I seem to be taking part in what is said, or is -laughed at; yes, but I take part in it like the dead to whom it is given -to perceive earthly things once more. The war, when it robbed me of my -Jean, crushed the vitality of my body. My heart has become forever -insensible. I am carried along in the whirlwind of present events like -the threshed straw which might float above the standing harvest, -thinking to recognize in it stalks like itself, without realizing that -the iron has cut it off, separated it forever from the earth." - -The moaning of the violoncello, the influence of the music, gave a sort -of lyric inclination to her usually modest thought and contributed to -increase her agitation. - -"The times are so hard," she continued, "that I have not had, for two -years, the slight consolation of talking with any one of my love-sorrow. -I could hope to do so with one alone, because her love is, so to speak, -apart from the war. But when she speaks to me of love I perceive that -her idea of love is not mine, or is no longer mine. The love that I bear -within me is no longer accessible to any human creature!" - -The musician in the next room took up, as usual, her favorite -_Nocturne_, accompanying it with her voice, wordlessly, until the grand, -inspired utterance of desolation, thrice repeated, enwrapped the hearer -like the long dark locks of night itself. - -Then Odette, solitary amidst the pictures of her well-beloved, fell into -a long fit of weeping, as she had so often done before. - - - - -XXVI - - -She found Clotilde alone next day at the lunch-hour, her husband being -almost always late, especially when he had to go to fetch the blinded -man. At last she recognized the voice of the handsome George in the -anteroom, and saw him pushing before him, as a ventriloquist guides his -automaton, a tall young man, neither handsome nor plain, in the uniform -of a captain of light infantry, and with closed eyes. The blinded man -bowed, and clasped the hand that Clotilde laid within his own; George -explained to him that one of their friends was with them, a young -war-widow, Mme. Jacquelin. The blind man also pressed the hand that -Odette extended to him. - -He already knew the apartment with minute exactness. He walked to the -table without aid, almost without feeling his way; and recognized each -flower by its perfume; they directed his fingers to the primroses which -have no perfume, and one would have said that his eager fingers -recognized the table decorations as strange little mute personages. -After a brief touch he knew the precise situation of each object; with -the blade of his knife he recognized the nature of the food on his -plate, and cut it adroitly. Possibly he might have been able to help -himself, like others, from the dish presented by the servant, but he was -spared the necessity of this feat by the question: "What do you prefer, -captain?" - -He talked freely, almost gayly, though with an evident effort. He -appeared to be intelligent without ever having been cultivated; but -neither his person nor his mind revealed anything remarkable. He would -doubtless have been a man like any other if he had not been blinded. - -Odette shuddered on looking at those closed eyelids on the face of a man -in whom one divined, notwithstanding his effort to conceal it, a secret -suffering. Yet his voice was not that of a man who bore a mystery about -with him; his suffering probably did not attain to those higher regions -which a rich imagination transforms into torture-chambers for men -unhappily deprived of the light of day; he did not dream of romantic -sunsets, of the contemplation of the celestial vault, or of Correggio's -sunlight, nor even of the beauty of houris. - -As George was offering to his touch the cigars in a box, he whispered in -his ear: - -"You have been lunching with a pretty-woman, old fellow, don't you -know?" - -"Your wife? I should think so!" - -"My wife, yes, but the other one, young, very pretty!" - -The blind man seemed to reflect, shook his head and said: - -"That always gives pleasure." - -"Her husband," George went on, "was killed in the early days----" - -"Has she children?" asked the blinded man. - -"They had only been married three or four years; they would have -had----" - -"Perhaps she loved him too much? That sometimes happens, it appears." - -"Yes," said George. - -The blinded man turned his closed eyes, like an extinguished lighthouse, -in Odette's direction. He experienced a curious feeling, almost envy, of -the dead man who had been so much beloved. - -He became more interested in Odette. It appeared that she had nursed one -of his comrades through a bad affair at Surville. Men cut to pieces, -gaping wounds, sensational operations, and the agonized resignation of -those young men did not produce in her one-quarter of the pitying revolt -which was caused her by the eternal privation from light which a living, -healthy being might suffer by her side. - -In his presence she recovered something of her manner of speaking with -the wounded, but her natural frankness was not animated by that smiling -perspective of a still possible future which a woman perceives at the -bedside of a soldier, even one who has lost a limb. The nurse speaks no -falsehood when she says: "My little friend, when you are well, when you -once more see your home, your village--" But when she is constrained to -omit from her vocabulary the radiant word see, how constrained and -powerless she is! - -Blinded men always awoke in her extreme compassion when she met them in -the street, when they were spoken of in her presence. She remembered how -tears had risen to her eyes, how her throat had contracted, when Simone -had described that wedding at the Madeleine, the handsome couple coming -down the steps, the bridegroom all adorned with decorations, in the face -of an admiring crowd who suddenly perceived that he could not see. But -she had never before been obliged to carry on a conversation with one of -those beings whom the deprivation of a sense makes more different from -ourselves than the loss of many limbs. She instinctively managed it very -well, though she was moved to the last degree; she knew at once how to -speak to one who had been greatly afflicted--as she would have done to -a normal man, without appearing to notice his condition. The captain was -grateful to her for it, and it was evident that he was much more at ease -with Odette, on this first meeting, than he had ever succeeded in being -with Clotilde, whom he had known a long time. Clotilde, incapable of -dominating her selfishness, could have been brought by no human power to -the point of forcing herself to an act not agreeable to herself. Her -husband, who was pained by her attitude, said to her: "See how gracious -Odette is!" - -The blinded man went away with his friend, evidently happy for having -chatted with a pretty and afflicted woman, for having been able to -induce her to act as if neither she nor he had been touched by -misfortune. - -"Judge," said Clotilde when the two men had gone out, "to what point I -am stupid and benumbed, and what a service you have rendered me! But I -beg pardon for having inflicted it upon you." - -"When a thing of this sort pains me," said Odette, "I do not know what I -feel. I have noticed that at the hospital, especially in the early days. -I don't deny that it seems as if I were being rubbed the wrong way, but -there is a sort of miraculous cure that acts of itself, penetrating like -a drop of balm, to the very depths of the wound." - -"I don't understand you at all," said Clotilde; "a thing that bores me -bores me, and when anything hurts me I simply must push it away or go -away myself." - -"I used to be like you," said Odette; "I am still, in all that concerns -my grief. For that there is no balm; nothing will ever heal it. Perhaps -there is something exceptional in love; it takes possession of us, it -makes us happy to an extent that blinds us to everything besides, or it -wounds us to death. But all that is not love, and what tries to embitter -us must carry its antidote within itself." - -"When we love," said Clotilde, "nothing else can seriously affect us." - -"Notwithstanding which, I assure you that I have often within the past -two years been painfully affected, and I have not ceased to love." - -"You think so, my poor Odette! But if Jean had continued to be with you, -you would have had no feeling but for him." - -"Clotilde, you are spoiled by happiness; you understand nothing!" - -Clotilde shook her head. She felt that she had somewhat nettled her -friend in unveiling her thought to her. - -"You will come again all the same, Odette? Even to face my blind man?" - -"If you wish," said Odette sadly. - - - - -XXVII - - -Clotilde's state of mind, which she had until now rather enjoyed, began -to trouble Odette. She had thought herself entirely in harmony with -Clotilde, just as Clotilde had imagined herself to think in unison with -Odette, because both of them loved, and because until then nothing had -seemed to come between them. But to-day Odette was repelled by -Clotilde's attitude, her ivory tower, her aversion to suffering, and her -lack of suavity. "I used to be like her," Odette said to herself. "Am I -different now because events have taken me by storm? Or is it indeed, as -she says, because Jean, whom I surely do not love less, is not here to -engross me?" - -She was terrorized by this idea, which nevertheless she felt to be -false. She was overwhelmed with remorse and accused herself of having -grown cool in the worship of her husband. It was true that too many -things were conspiring to lead her away from the thought which ought to -be her only one. She returned once more to her mortuary chapel, her -relics, her portraits. To guard against her sorrow being frittered away -by the many sympathies with which her walks inspired her, she shut -herself up at home. The winter, aggravated by the hostile cold, was so -depressing, the news from without was so gloomy, that Odette fell into a -sort of neurasthenia. She, who had never known illness, was constrained -to call in a physician. He ordered, not medicine, but diversion at any -cost. - -"There are still many theatres open," he said; "I don't ask you to go to -see 'gay pieces,' which are cruder than anything else, but go to -something good. A woman of your years," he added, "has no right to let -herself die of inanition." - -She obeyed the doctor, not to save her health, but because she was -touched with shame. Here was another who said to her: "You have no -right." It was a middle-aged physician of great celebrity, and even -intelligent; he had lost his two sons in the war; his wife had died of -grief, he himself was mobilized and was working hard in the hospitals. - -She went once to a benefit performance. _Carmen_ was given. She had -adored that work whose obscure and brilliant genius had often benumbed -her like a bunch of dark carnations with their pungent fragrance. But -her attention was captured by the presence at her side of a -sublieutenant whose sleeve hung empty by his side, and when the young -man, all on fire, turned to his neighbor on the other side, who must -have been his mother, or to some friends behind him, the soft, -superfluous cloth, with its short gold braid brushed Odette's knee. The -officer became aware of it and, excusing himself, gathered up the cloth -with his right hand. More than this, from one of the boxes broke out, at -almost regular and too frequent intervals, a man's laugh, abrupt, -uncontrollable, and without the least relation to the dramatic work that -was being given. Several persons turned that way, indignant at first, -even angry, until one of them perceived that this ill-timed gayety came -from an officer who was listening with the utmost seriousness, but who -was affected by the results of a cerebral shock. Word was whispered -about, no head was again turned; every one was universally commiserating -the infirmity whose tragic character equalled that of the masterpiece to -which they were listening. - -"'You must be diverted at any cost,'" thought Odette. - -"In the matter of therapeutics," her friend La Villaumer said to her, -not long after this experience, "for my part I believe in a very old -rule, which says: 'For great evils great remedies.' In times like ours, -for any one who has greatly suffered, diversions are less appropriate -than strenuous tasks." - - - - -XXVIII - - -Odette went occasionally to lunch with Clotilde to help her entertain -her blinded man. In general she went about fitfully, now here, now -there, to offer her small services. She was welcomed at sales, for she -pleased people. - -She even inspired, at her booths, what people call passions--sudden and -burning--which, however, manifested themselves indirectly and -discreetly, so much did even the boldest man dread to approach a young -widow universally known to be so proper, and so faithful to her grief. - -The first was a commandant of infantry who had been wounded three or -four times, and who had a long convalescent leave; he was barely -thirty-four years old, and was one of the finest types of soldier in the -present war. After having conversed with Odette he sent a friend to ask -her if later, strictly speaking, much later, she would consent to become -his wife. She declined the request as if it had been insane; could any -one suppose that she would ever marry again? - -The second was a man about fifty years of age, well known about town, a -member of the Jockey Club, enjoying, as the novels say, an immense -fortune and unquestionably holding a very prominent position in society. -He was the organizer of most of the war charities in which Odette's help -had been sought. He loaned for them his buildings and what remained to -him of his staff of servants, gave to them his time and his purse. -Odette had touched him with one of those lightning strokes which reach -only men of that age, and after her refusal he fell violently ill, -remained depressed, downcast, aged, incapable of managing his business, -obliged to retire to one of his country-places, where he became -oblivious of everything, even of the war and its evils, of which up to -this time he had thought only to seek a remedy, thinking now only of the -cruel Odette. - -She was as indifferent to this adventure as to the other, -notwithstanding the friendly remonstrances that poured in upon her. The -latter offer had been made to her through Mme. de Blauve, and this -friend, while bowing to the sentiment of fidelity which bound Odette to -a beloved memory, took courage to point out to her that in the midst of -her married happiness she had failed to found a family. Odette, with all -her intelligence, her sincere devotion, did not understand. She had -loved one man; she continued to love his memory. No other idea, with -whatever importance it might be clothed, commanded her respect; she -understood only her own heart, which simply clung like an ivy to the -tree, however dried up it might be, and to which no power could prevent -her clinging. - -All Odette's friends shared Mme. de Blauve's opinion, however unlike -they might be to this noble woman--ail of them, even to Clotilde. - -Yes, even Clotilde blamed her for not having at least accepted the young -commandant. Odette was amazed at this, the result being that these two -loving women fell out. - -La Villaumer, to whom Odette confided this trouble, said to her: - -"If your friend Clotilde were to be so unfortunate as to lose her -husband, whom she adores, the chances are sixty to a hundred that after -a certain time she would love another as much or almost as much as him, -while you judge such a transferrence of love inadmissible." - -"But, after all, one loves or one does not love; that is perfectly -simple!" - -"No, indeed, it is not so simple as that. One loves and one can love as -Clotilde does, or as you do, yourself. We do not easily distinguish -differences so long as lovers, being united, are happy." - -"You frighten me. Are there then loves that are not love? Is not -sentiment the finest thing in love? And can there be a fine sentiment -that is not lasting?" - -"In the first place, my dear friend, permit me to believe that you do -not profess your sentiment because it is fine, nor does it last with you -because you find it beautiful. You find your sentiment beautiful because -it is yours. You look upon it as lasting indefinitely because your eyes -are incapable of looking as far as its end; that is all. In your case -there is no constraint, no submission to any law, aesthetic or moral. -You feel that way. Your friend Clotilde loves in her way, and she finds -it beautiful, believe me." - -"All the same! All the same, there is an almost general consent to -consider that love superior which is adorned with sentiment, and does -not consent to be short-lived." - -"Yes; and this is in conformity with the morality which has ruled us -thus far. This morality is all delicacy. But, reduced to this degree of -purity, will it suffice to keep alive a struggle as ardent as the one -which we are now witnessing, for the possession of a part of the outside -of the world, or even for the supremacy of certain ideas? It must -concede provisionally a preponderance to material, mortal life, since it -is evident that the morality of the just will triumph only on condition -that it has force on its side. Do you follow me, my poor friend? All -this is very dry. But this is my way of telling you that these -crystalline sentiments, that are an 'ornament' in ordinary times, become -a luxury in our age of iron and fire. Luxury is no longer permissible. -The time has come when all refinements must give way to a very stern -reality. As you have been very well told: 'We are not our own.' General -consent? It should be given to the best good of the cause which unites -us all, and carries us all away with itself. Forgive me, my very dear -friend. I am going to commit a rudeness which gives me pain--and you -know that only the extremity of an unheard-of calamity could bring me to -that--yes, your sentiment, with its persistence, is beautiful in itself, -most beautiful; but we are no longer at leisure to look at things 'in -themselves.' Well, if your friend Clotilde had lost her husband in your -place and at the same time, and if she were to-day the wife of another -who had made her a mother, for example, we ought really to hold her case -in higher esteem than yours!" - -A sob choked Odette. They were walking along the Champs-Elysées. She -sought for a chair and sank upon it. - -"I am not vexed with you," she said as soon as she could speak; -"something in my inmost being understands you-- It has already been said -to me-- But it is hard!" - -"The time is exceptional." - - - - -XXIX - - -Odette spent much of her time in consoling poor Rose. Her husband's -death had passed almost unnoticed. But other and very dramatic deaths -had also passed unnoticed. When men were brought home in fragments it -made a sensation, but once they were dead the sad equality of the earth -obscured their memory. Indescribable episodes had attained such a -character, and had reached such numbers, that people hardly dared speak -of them. Minds were saturated and automatically closed against any new -sensation. Many were unable to endure any story of the war, whether in -the newspapers or in books. Odette recalled to mind the impression which -the wounded had formerly made. They were already saying "formerly" when -speaking of the present war! Now there were wounded everywhere. It was -rather the unscathed men upon whom one looked as if to say to them: "See -here, you! what are you doing with your arms, with your legs?" Certain -persons, with a strong revulsion of the instinct of self-preservation, -refused, like Clotilde, even to think about the war; others, on the -other hand, buried themselves in it with passionate intensity. - -Mme. de Blauve, who had become fond of Odette and occasionally came to -see her, now came to announce the marriage of her eldest daughter. She -told the news almost as if saying: "At last!" as if it were the case of -an old maid whom she had despaired of marrying off. Mlle. de Blauve was -barely sixteen, she was attractive and endowed with much charm, had been -most carefully educated, and promised to be really beautiful. She was to -marry a wounded sublieutenant. - -"Ah!" said Odette; "does she love him?" - -"He is a young man of good family," said Mme. de Blauve, "and he has -behaved admirably." - -"But he will return to the front! You will be in perpetual anxiety!" - -"Not that," replied Mme. de Blauve. "To be sure, my daughter would have -liked to be the wife of a soldier who remained a soldier, like her -father. But soldiers in active service will always find some one to -marry them, and wives must be found for those less favored, who have -been checked in their career----" - -"Has her fiancé been retired?" asked Odette. "Don't tell me that he is -badly----" - -"Oh, this is not the time to think about things that girls used to care -for; the question is to save our men by giving them wives, so that they -may be in a position to found a family. This young man is from the -devastated regions. He has lost all his family--some of them have been -shot, others have died during the occupation of the enemy--and it is -entirely impossible for him to earn a decent living. We ourselves have -sacrificed more blood than money; my daughter will still have a certain -amount of fortune, therefore----" - -"But what is the matter with him? What has he lost?" asked Odette, -thinking only of that absolute union of two beings which had illuminated -her own life. - -"Oh, it is very sad," said Mme. de Blauve; "my future son-in-law is one -of those most deserving of interest, who have received face wounds. His -face--how can I tell you?--lacks almost everything except the passages -that are necessary for eating and breathing----" - -Odette uttered an inarticulate exclamation and rang the bell. But she -did not faint until Mme. de Blauve was gone. - - -The case of Mlle. de Blauve evoked more criticism than admiration. -According to some it was absolutely too terrible and not to be thought -about. In most cases, however, sensitiveness had been so dulled by the -constant hearing of war-stories that very little attention was paid to -this act of superhuman devotion. Some said: "The mother is crazy and the -young girl does not realize what she is doing. One may do violence to -nature, or may dupe it for a short time; this is a time when we ought to -resolve upon any sacrifice, even to throwing ourselves into the arms of -death; but death is either the end or the beginning of the unknown. The -idea of marrying a superb girl of sixteen to a man without a face!" - -Yet every one knew that far from bringing pressure to bear upon her -daughter, Mme. de Blauve had made every possible effort to prevent her -marrying another wounded man, an unlucky fellow who, approaching a -trench with a grenade in each hand, had had both eyes burned at the very -moment when a bursting shell had set off the two grenades and shattered -both hands. What she was now doing was a slight thing in comparison with -the thing that she had prevented. - -Odette felt that she must know La Villaumer's opinion on this matter. -They had no regular engagement for meeting, and met only by chance. She -decided to go to his house shortly before the luncheon hour. An old -servant ushered her into a room where, to her great surprise, she heard -the tones of a harmonium mingled with a man's voice entirely untrained. -It proceeded from the neighboring room, separated from her by a glass -door partly screened by a curtain of Chinese silk. The thing was so -unusual and so puzzling that she could not refrain from peeping around -the edge of the curtain. She saw at the instrument an organist whom she -knew, and standing beside him a man bereft of both arms, and the pose of -whose head was that of a blind man trying to catch the notes which the -teacher was patiently repeating. All around them were soldiers wearing -black glasses, with closed eyes or with bandaged faces, and Villaumer in -his dressing-gown coming and going among them. He suddenly disappeared -and came into the room where Odette was standing. - -"I have caught you!" said she. "Try now to convince me that what I have -been told of you is not true! You are no longer in your own home!" - -"My good friend," he replied, "I am having lessons given to the most -unfortunate of those unhappy ones whom evil fortune and inaction are -driving to despair. They are being taught the rudiments of music; they -are trying to sing; it occupies them." - -"I knew that you were kind----" - -"I am not kind; I am generally severe upon men. But the sight of -misfortune is intolerable to me; and for men like these, who have been -three-quarters destroyed for the sake of saving us, yes, I confess that -I could give my last shirt; I would wait upon them at table-- Will you -take luncheon with us?" - -Through the half-open door into the dining-room she could see a table -spread for twelve. - -"Do you take lunch with them?" asked Odette. - -"I permit myself that honor-- It is my last self-indulgence. Well, will -you take advantage of it?" - -"I cannot, my friend, I cannot. I should weep through the whole meal. -That is not what they need." - -"No. One must have the courage to bestow upon them the gayety--which we -don't possess. Social hypocrisy has not been practised all this time in -vain, if it has taught this to some of us." - -"I am ashamed of my weakness," said Odette. "I should not flinch before -any sort of wound, but the thought that the war has deprived a man of -the light of day forces me to ask myself whether I myself have a right -to look upon these beautiful silks, this sunlight----" - -"Take pleasure in the silks, in objects of art, and in sunlight, you who -are made to charm that portion of humanity that remains intact. You -would not, on the pretext that millions of men have been plunged into -darkness or death, irritate them gratuitously by an ill-regulated -sympathy? Innumerable lives have, alas, been shattered, but life -remains, the light is brilliant, plants are growing, animals and even -men still swarm upon the earth. Recall to mind the tragic and -paradoxical truth that human life, which is the highest work and appears -to have been the purpose of the creation of the world, is that for -which, on the whole, that great work appears to care the least. Whatever -part man may be called to play, his destiny is to pass away. That horror -of war with which we are inspired by the extermination of men is in the -long run kept up and perpetuated by material depredations; the memory of -an illustrious building destroyed will last longer than that of a -hundred thousand young men mown down in their youth." - -"And meanwhile you are throwing overboard all you possess to rescue men -who are only half alive. That is all that I wanted to know." - - - - -XXX - - -Odette spent several days in bed as a consequence of the marriage of the -little de Blauve girl--which took place in the strictest privacy, and -which she had not attended. But her imagination was lively, and she -pictured things to herself. - -She sought out her friend La Villaumer, as it were, now that she had -detected him in an act of kindness. As for him, in her presence he took -less pains to conceal his acts, now that she understood him better. - -"I have always loved men," he said. "Why should I not love them since I -have always professed to criticise them? Have I misunderstood them? -Remember how indulgent I was for all that in them is so far removed from -the only thing that I really prize--intelligence. How vulnerable I have -been to their instincts! How I have smiled at their innumerable follies! -I simply enjoyed studying them, without the slightest partiality, -notwithstanding my secret reverence for reason, which seems to me to be -a torch lighted at the altar of a god and carefully transmitted by -certain privileged beings to certain privileged beings, while yet the -chain that they form never succeeds--no one can tell why--in producing -an illumination. Therefore, I have never believed that the world -belonged to what we have learned to venerate under the name of -intelligence. Intelligence is a divine part which no doubt gives us -notions of what there is on high, but which has almost no application to -things here below. The world is not governed by intelligence. Sometimes -intelligence makes converts, and we believe that its reign has come. -Illusion! It is precisely then that we are upon the point of falling -again into blessed ignorance, and going back to the age of barbarism. Do -you know, I am tempted to believe that the age of barbarism is the -normal period of humanity! We probably need cruelty, absurdity, -injustice, superstition, torrents of bloodshed, in order that the -mystery which we admire under the name of life may exist and perpetuate -itself. Our bodies can be fed only by offensive means. The majority of -human pleasures are unfathomably stupid. The great masses obey certain -elementary formulas, sayings of which they have never weighed the -meaning, and which often have no meaning. Governments are not carried on -by luminous reasoning, but by the allurement of sounding words that -flatter the senses. In order to hold our own in a large and influential -social group, my poor friend, are we going to be called to admit the -timeliness of belief in prophets, in wonder-workers, in ghosts, in the -platitudes of 'apparitions,' in the genius of simple minds? Is a torrent -of puerility about to inundate the surface of the globe? May it be that -this is the indispensable element of reparation? Intelligence, reduced -to its own resources, has in fact no power of expansion, no means of -action. It is enough to make one die of shame and vexation! Law, -justice, liberty--we can imagine men shrugging their shoulders when they -hear the words, for the words are efficacious only when they are emptied -of their significance and travestied into elementary ideas which -naturally lead to the violation of law, liberty, justice. In the matter -of ideas men believe only in their tutelary virtue; they are protecting -divinities; and the idea is nothing but a word that men symbolize on -their flagstaffs, like a fetich. We are as credulous as Homer's -warriors. Minerva fights with us. For that matter, I do not think that -there ever was a better opportunity for adopting the theocratic -conception of the world, for men are at this moment given over to the -elements, and the greatest political genius imaginable would probably be -powerless so long as the convulsions with which the world is attacked -are not quieted of themselves. In these conditions there is no room in -the home of a poor fellow for any but the virtues of pity and affection. -I confess the fact, my dear Odette, I can no longer control my heart." - -"To be moved to compassion is to be weakened, I have been told." - -"There is truth in that opinion so far as those persons are concerned -who are more especially called by circumstances to act, and especially -to direct the actions of others; such must put on blinders and look only -to the immediate purpose which demands all their energies. But it is -desirable that in the midst of this tempest-tossed world a few -contemplative persons shall devote themselves to pity as to the -conservation of a 'precious blood'; if only for the sake of the -efficacy, or at least of the beauty of the thing. And the worshippers at -this altar will need to contend--do you know with whom?--with humanity -itself, which has little remembrance of its own ills, and which, like a -kitten, hastens to play with the first ray of sunshine. It is true that -the dead keep a great silence." - - - - -XXXI - - -Odette was at home one evening, and alone. Stretched out upon a lounge, -she was gazing at the photographs of Jean on little tables or within her -reach upon the walls, hypnotizing herself with the sight of them, -kissing them as she always did. - -Amelia came in saying that the next apartment was "crammed full." - -"Madame, if there aren't twenty men six feet high in that room, my own -poor husband isn't a prisoner with the Boches!" - -In fact there was a great commotion on the other side of the partition. -Furniture and chairs were being moved about, and as all sounds -penetrated through the cracks of the door, the syllables of an -unfamiliar language could be heard, perhaps Rumanian or Russian. The -neighbor was a foreigner. - -Suddenly there was silence. Amelia had withdrawn. It was an imposed, -perhaps a concerted, silence. "It is a musical recital," said Odette to -herself. In fact she almost immediately recognized the sprightly touch -of the pianist, mellow, languishing, melting into the keyboard as into a -tender flesh, by turns nervous, light, cruel as a hammer, heavy as a -pile-driver, seeming to crush the instrument, then suddenly soft, -fluttering on the keys like the wing of a dying bird. Though the woman -often played for herself alone, this was not the first time that many -people had gathered around her to hear her music. - -A chorus of men's voices burst forth. It was strange, weird, enough to -make one catch one's breath. Odette listened. That sensitiveness to -music which often reached depths in her unknown to herself, was suddenly -wrought up to its utmost pitch. She did not know the chorus, and sought -in vain for an author to whom to ascribe it. It might be a popular song, -perhaps very ancient, to judge by its artless simplicity, its pure -rhythm, and its wild, sweet accent. At times a soprano voice uprose in a -solo, and the chorus, a third below, responded softly in whisperings -that grew nearer and nearer, quickly spreading like oil upon the sea, or -as if transmitted from man to man over immense plains and endlessly -flowing rivers. Suddenly two or three raucous or strident cries gathered -up all the voices to a sharp point directed toward the heavens. Then all -sound ceased, and one felt as if falling from a superb altitude into the -depths of an abyss. - -Then the fingers of the enchantress executed a ballad of Balakireff, -or Dvorak's hymn, "On the Death of a Hero." And then, after a pause, -another chorus broke forth. - -There was in it all a melancholy which no words could so much as -suggest, in which amid the uniformly plaintive murmur one discerned such -lifelike wailings that one could have stretched out the hands to succor -these vague, unrecognized, and multiplied sufferings. They swelled, -spread abroad, took on so mighty an extension that in spite of oneself -one saw the surface of the suffering world, heard the feeble and -resigned voice of man, of man always the sport of fate, always in -leading-strings, always sacrificed like cattle to gods whose secret he -could not fathom. It was the lament of the ancient earth of humanity, -timid, uncouth, and despairing, issuing from bruised hearts, from torn -flesh, from souls robbed of their innocent ideals, a disturbing lament -issuing from the borders of marshes, from forests, from glacial plains, -from desert steppes, from nameless villages, prisons, palaces, -battlefields, tombs, and stoically, pathetically, and yet childishly -addressed to--no one! - -Odette had often been on the verge of sentiments corresponding to this -music, primitive, barbarous, perhaps divine, but when music comes to be -mingled with our sentiments it reveals them to themselves and amplifies -them without measure. Odette saw what she had never dared to see; for -the first time she was transported outside of herself, or at least she -felt the conviction that she was. It produced in her such an overturning -of her points of view as almost to make her dizzy. She suddenly -discovered how completely she had considered everything with reference -to herself, even in her seemingly most generous moments. At this instant -she thought of herself in relation to the incalculable number of persons -who were not she. It was not that the moans of humanity were now -reaching her for the first time, but it was the first time that the sobs -of others came to her ears with a tone of majestic sadness which forced -her to grovel upon the earth, saying: "I no longer count; I am only the -servant of grief." - -It was a painful sentiment if there is one, and yet, by a curious -contradiction, a sentiment in the same degree joyful. A boundless -commiseration caused her heart to throb and tears to come to her eyes, -and yet this painful sympathy, far from being cruel or depressing, -wrought in her soul an unsuspected outflowering, like an outburst of -inconceivable elation in which was mingled bitterness and pity. - -There is no compensation for the personal suffering that we may -experience. On the contrary, in a close and complete union with the -sufferings of others is hidden a joy of mutual pain; an active desire to -give aid impels to the beginning of a helpful act, provokes to so -fervent a prayer for heavenly mercy that the heart no longer knows -whether it lies prone in utter distress or has attained to a radiant -phase of existence incomparably higher than its paltry estate as an -isolated being. The word "love" presents itself to a soul thus -irradiated without any sustaining form which might limit its character; -it is without extent as without form; as to the source that feeds it, -springing up no one knows where, one is convinced that there is no fear -that it will ever be exhausted. - -Odette often wept, but to-day it was with other tears. She took up one -of Jean's photographs and found but one word to say to it: - -"Forgive me!" - -She understood neither what she felt nor what she was doing, but she was -conscious of failing Jean. Not of failing Jean in favor of another, but -for the sake of a multitude of others among whom no one man could be -discerned. When she was able to formulate a thought, she said to -herself: "I was pitying." She might have said: "Charity has taken -possession of me." - - - - -XXXII - - -There was no sign that any event had occurred that evening. Odette had -spent it alone in her little drawing-room. The chorus in the next -apartment was stilled. But that evening was made up of the most -important hours which the young wife had experienced since the death of -her husband. - -Odette was aware that something had been revealed within herself, but -she was ill adapted to analyze herself, and the phenomenon was still -wrapped in mist. It had manifested its reality only by a single act of -hers--an act which she remembered, which abode with her: the prayer for -forgiveness addressed to the picture of her beloved Jean. She returned -continually to this material fact; she had seized the photograph and had -kissed it as if she had been at fault. Thanks to this fact, the -spiritual operations of which it was the conclusion were not arrested, -did not vanish like smoke, and pursued her that night, on the morrow, -and during the following days. - -So sudden a burst of light might indeed have been ephemeral in -character. We are all subject, especially under an exterior influence -acting upon the senses, to similar spasms of enthusiasm, or to dreams of -a like generosity which may be only a passing impulse. They die away and -we return to a condition which we call reasonable, that is to say, -lucid, calm, well-balanced, and tame. - -With Odette this illumination had not the character of a sudden impulse, -but was rather the outcome of a long and almost unconscious preparation. -How many words, how many tidings, how many hints registered in her -memory, how many puzzling suggestions, how many dramatic scenes, how -many ideas had been as so many arrows of direction, guiding her toward -the place where she had received the divine spark! How many books read, -how many musings, apparently without result, had determined the -direction that had brought her here! Odette was like a clay which during -two and a half years had been continually receiving the touches of a -thumb or chisel, powerless to give her the form which an invisible -artist desired her to take, and the last touch, removing an encumbering -bit, had produced precisely the shape desired. - -Odette awoke next morning in the same condition in which she had fallen -asleep, with the one difference that she no longer wept. But the tears -of the evening had had their sweetness. She found herself in an almost -grateful tranquillity. She went and came in the midst of Jean's -photographs, and Jean did not reproach her for her new state of mind. -His memory seemed to be in nowise outraged. And yet Odette did not -forget that she had begged his forgiveness, as if it had been possible -that she had failed him. This fact marked a well-determined date in the -perturbations of her soul. But it seemed to her that she had received to -her "Forgive me!" a gentle, calming reply, a loving approbation. - - - - -XXXIII - - -Yet the moment came when it seemed to her that she was losing her -reason. She had seen many cases of cerebral disturbance since the war; -they had been more or less apparent. Some persons of her acquaintance -had been duly shut up in insane asylums, but there were many at large -who showed the almost imperceptible wound by which the microbe had -penetrated. - -By way of discovering whether or no she was mentally affected, she -imposed upon herself the test of behaving for a while like a woman who -has decided to lead the usual life until the end. She said to herself: -"I am not insane, for I think it requires more courage to adopt, every -day and every hour, the attitude of ordinary life, as if the war did not -exist--seeing that the majority of people who act thus have been crushed -or tortured by it--than to give oneself up to the monster bound hand and -foot. I am the less strong in not being able to endure the commingling -of both interests and throwing myself into these horrors. I should be -senseless if I deemed my own actions alone to be good, beautiful, and -worthy. But I am judging myself. I am therefore not demented." - -Out of curiosity she went one day to see Clotilde, still by way of test. -"To measure myself," she said to herself. - -Clotilde's undue self-satisfaction made her friends really -uncomfortable, a discomfort which from the first they had sought to hide -or refused to recognize, which until now such a friend as Odette had -even refused to admit, but which to-day she could not endure. Clotilde, -surrounded by flowers, bathed in a perfumed atmosphere, talked only of a -change she had made in the decoration of her rooms, of her clothes, or -of matters so utterly foreign to current events that it seemed as if for -her the latter had no existence. She never went out, lest she should be -obliged to see or hear disagreeable things, and yet never had she bought -so many hats and gowns as since the war. On her earlier visits Odette -had slightly shrugged her shoulders as if amused and not wholly -displeased. By degrees, the disproportion between such interests and the -wound with which the whole world was bleeding overmastered her ability -to make allowances. - -Odette reminded her friend that she had not of late called upon her for -help, and asked if she had lost her blind man. Clotilde was amazingly -frank in her reply: - -"My darling, 'my blind man,' as you call him, continues to exist and to -charm my husband. But what would you have? It is not that I am lost to -all sense of humanity, but you can imagine how the presence of this man -annoys me. He cannot see me, I am nothing to him, and it is necessary -for me to please----" - -"But one may please even those who don't see us. One can try to amuse -these unfortunates, to make time pass pleasantly for them----" - -"You speak as if you possessed some gift in which I am lacking. It is -only that you like them, and know how to please them----" - -"Oh!" - -"You succeed in pleasing them! This man who visits us, with whom you -took lunch, is always asking for you. He never so much as speaks of me. -And yet it is I who permit him to come!" - -"A man who cannot see you in your place at the head of the table, and to -whom you never give any proof that you are there, may naturally forget -you." - -"You find it all right because he doesn't forget you. He dotes upon you, -by what George says; he asks for news of you, he longs to hear your -voice! He annoys me. In fact, child, it was precisely on your account, -I admit, that I was obliged to turn him away; he was falling in love -with you. Can you imagine it? You ought to thank me!" - -"In love with me! If that were true I should be all the more sorry for -him, poor man! But he must have heard about me? He knows that I am not -to be had?" - -"He hasn't gone as far as that; he only feels happy in your company. -When you are not there he misses you. That is all." - -"Well, where is the love in that? He is like the wounded men whom I have -nursed; they were happy in my company; when I went away, I suppose they -missed me. If I had concluded from that that they were in love with -me----" - -"You didn't conclude it, on your part, but as for them, what do you -know? Perhaps you broke their hearts!" - -"You are romantic and think only of love! Men who have suffered as they -have, prefer to think of their own comfort, and of those who make them -comfortable. I knew a nurse seventy years old for whom her patients -clamored like children. Were they in love with her?" - -"That proves nothing. A blind man feels very clearly whether the woman -near him is one who charms." - -"Then he ought also to feel the compassion that he inspires, and that -does not lead to love." - -"Are you uncomfortable in the presence of a blind man?" - -"It is an undefinable emotion; my head turns. I lose my self-command." - -"You didn't seem to, here." - -"One does almost involuntarily the thing that costs the most, if one is -determined to comfort those whose misfortunes arouse your emotions." - -And they talked of other things. - - - - -XXXIV - - -Odette would no doubt have forgotten "her" blind man if a visit which -Mme. de Blauve paid her had not recalled him to mind in the most -unexpected manner. - -Mme. de Blauve, whose calmness had always impressed every one, from the -time when she was living under the bombardment of Rheims through the -days in which she had made the sacrifice of her husband, her two sons, -and, one may say, her daughter, now appeared unnerved. She had grown -thin; her eyes were sunken; she was evidently suffering. - -With her habitual resolution she opened to Odette the purpose of her -visit. She had heard--it was rumored--that her dear friend, having amply -and worthily overpassed the period of her widowhood, was purposing--not -by inclination, but in order to accomplish a great act of charity--to -become the wife of a blinded officer. People were talking about it. She -herself had been extremely moved by the news, and all the more because -she feared that she had incurred a certain responsibility in the matter, -having probably been one of the first to urge upon the young widow the -duty of a second marriage. - -Odette was amazed. What were people about? Never had she had the -slightest idea of such a thing. Startled at first, she went on, almost -laughing, to hear what Mme. de Blauve had to say. - -"It is untrue, you say," said Mme. de Blauve; "but, my little friend, -experience has taught me that there is always a grain of truth at the -bottom of a wide-spread rumor. Whether good or bad, such plants do not -grow out of nothing." - -Odette told her upon how slight a fact this rumor might possibly have -been based. She had lunched at Clotilde Avvogade's with a blinded -officer, and Clotilde insisted that she had pleased him. - -"Nothing more would be needed!" said Mme. de Blauve, "and your friend -has probably told the story all around. It must be so, for I have heard -the name of the man, the institution where he has been re-educated; I -even know all about his circumstances; he is a widower without fortune -of any sort, and father of two little children about whom he feels great -anxiety." - -"Well," said Odette, "for my part I knew nothing of these last -particulars, and this is surely a proof that my romance has not gone -very far." - -Mme. de Blauve was lost in apologies. Nevertheless, she did not go so -far as to regret the step she had taken. If it proved to have no reason -in the present case, an analogous case might arise; she knew Odette's -susceptibility, the noble impulses of her soul, and it was her duty to -warn her against impressions and impulses---- - -"What!" interrupted Odette; "you, madame, whose daughter----" - -"Yes, yes, precisely I, 'whose daughter'--It is because my daughter has -made a marriage--beautiful, surely, from the moral point of view, but, -after all, a marriage--how shall I say it--somewhat daring, that I -believe myself to be authorized to say to you: 'My very dear child, be -careful, reflect!' Understand me; I regret nothing that has occurred; I -congratulate myself on the happiness which my daughter is assuring to a -victim of the war, who is a hundred times deserving of it. Let me tell -you, by way of parenthesis, that my daughter has hope of a child, and I -trust that God will bring everything out right, although----" - -"Although," repeated Odette anxiously. - -"Although--oh, the dear child is lacking neither in love nor in -admiration for her husband, who is a hero; but our poor human nature has -strange revulsions--I tell you, you alone, in confidence; since my -daughter has reason for hope of becoming a mother, she feels--alas! it -is frightful, let me whisper it to you--she feels a sort of apprehension -at the sight of her husband, whose terrible affliction you know of!-- We -must, at all costs, prevent her husband having the slightest suspicion -of the--temporary--feeling that he inspires, and the young wife is -obliged to put the strongest restraint upon herself in order to show -nothing. Just how far this incessant constraint is consistent with the -happy maintenance of her condition, and with hope for its normal -outcome, who shall say? This is what we are asking ourselves, this is -our anxiety." - -"Oh, dear, dear madame, how sorry I am for you!" - -"You understand that I would not wish to have to be sorry for you, in my -turn, for a reason like this. It was to avoid it that I came here, as -much humiliated by my apprehensions as I was proud on the day of the -marriage. You have no plan of the sort, you tell me, my child? So much -the better! But I have become excessively apprehensive; I am afraid of -characters like yours, which may be inclined to do too well. Sometimes a -little pride enters into the good or the noble things that we do. Do you -understand?" - - - - -XXXV - - -Mme. de Blauve had taken her leave with these words, and Odette, still -breathless at the thought that there could be any question of her -marrying, a little ruffled, even, remembered only the secret -discomfiture confessed to by the mother of the poor little bride. It was -one more cause of horror added to all those of which she was the daily -witness. Her calamity had doubtless shaken Mme. de Blauve's spirit to -the point of causing in her mind a sort of hallucination as to the fate -which might be threatening the young widow. Or else Mme. de Blauve had -made the most of slight rumors with no basis of truth, as a pretext for -coming to confess her own anxiety. Or else--a conjecture which barely -touched Odette's mind--Mme. de Blauve, as she had herself intimated, -always erring through pride, felt a frightful satisfaction in the -dangers with which she and her family were perpetually menaced, -jealously guarding this bitter eminence, lest it might be seized upon by -others! For one can come even to such a point. - -What analogy could there be between the marriage of the little de Blauve -girl, an ignorant child, with one of the most horribly mutilated of -soldiers, and an imaginary marriage between her, Odette, who was going -on to her thirtieth year, with a blinded man who was not disfigured? -Young girls, women, were marrying blinded men every day; many more of -them would do so, one must hope! The case might indeed be peculiarly -delicate for her, a widow still in love with her husband, and who was -peculiarly sensitive to blindness; but if the case ever occurred it was -she alone who had the right to judge of it. No one knew either the -lasting nature of her grief or her personal repugnances; the matter in -no slightest degree deserved attention. - -In fact, at the point that Odette had reached, she could imagine no -limit to devotion. In the marriages now in question, there was no -mention of anything that had formerly been called happiness; the only -thought was of kindliness toward most deserving beings who were -suffering under the greatest of misfortunes, and the greater their -misfortune, the greater, it appeared, ought to be the pleasure of -alleviating it. She did not approve of Mme. de Blauve, if it was she who -had urged her daughter to a marriage of charity, but she could perfectly -understand the daughter's having made such a marriage. If a temporary -check now and then occurred, it was due to a pathological condition -which would eventually cease. She recalled to mind one of her friends, a -perfectly well-balanced girl, married to a very fine man whom she -adored, who had taken a dislike to her husband during the whole period -of her pregnancy, without in the least knowing why. - -A few days later Odette received a letter from Mme. de Calouas, still in -Surville, alluding to the prospect of her marriage to a blinded officer. -So the utterly unfounded rumor had made its way to the depths of -Normandy! And Mme. de Calouas, who was wisdom itself, and utterly -removed from any suggestion that might have acted upon Mme. de Blauve, -wrote to her as Mme. de Blauve had spoken: "Yes, dear friend, marry; I -have never concealed from you that it is almost your duty. But beware of -an excess of zeal! Take care not to undertake more than a woman of your -temperament, brought up as you have been, attached to a beloved memory -as you still are, will be able to endure. Remember that many of us can -be heroic for a few seconds, a few hours, a few days, but that is very -different from a whole lifetime." - -Odette smiled, not only at the thought of what people were thinking of -her, but at the solicitude which they expressed for her, and that sort -of obsession for heroic acts which every one seemed to cherish. Odette -had not the slightest intention of performing a heroic act. Nothing in -her character had ever inclined her in that direction. Her heart was -made for loving. She loved, she was sure that she loved. The one whom -she loved was her husband--her Jean. She could ill analyze the character -of the tenderness which at the same time she felt for every suffering -creature on earth. And that was all. What would they have of her? - - - - -XXXVI - - -Nevertheless she continued to be disturbed by the strange rumor which -had been set afloat, which was still afloat, and she promised herself to -speak about it to Clotilde, who without doubt had been the cause of its -diffusion. - -On drawing near to the house in which Clotilde lived, she met Lieutenant -Avvogade guiding his blinded man by the arm. She had not so much as -thought of avoiding such an encounter. - -When the blind man recognized Odette's voice his whole face was -transfigured. He turned pale; he hardly had courage to speak. But she -felt the effort with which his closed eyelids were directed toward the -point in space from which her voice had come; her perfume had been -wafted to him. This blinded man was looking at her, was seeing her in -his imagination; perhaps he was seeing her much more beautiful, more -alluring, than he had dreamed! He had been disturbed because -opportunities to be with her had no longer been afforded him, and he did -not know that it was not she herself who had prevented them. But an -inward instinct, stronger than he had yet known, filled him with ecstasy -in that moment of the young woman's presence. He inhaled her like a -flower, he listened to her, was saturated with her. Believing himself to -be behind the veil which hid the daylight from him, as behind a screen, -he neglected to keep a watch on himself, to impose constraint upon -himself. His emotion was evident to those who saw him, and the agitation -of a man so much to be pitied impressed her profoundly. - -Odette told him that she had learned that he had two little children. -Then the blinded man extended his hand to her; his throat contracted; he -could not utter a word. Without hesitation Odette took the hand of this -man, so good-hearted and so wretched, and let her own be enfolded in -his. Not a word had been added to those alluding to the children, yet -she felt that she had never heard from human lips such an expression of -gratitude. - - * - * * - -They were there, under the trees of the Square of the United States, one -of the beauty spots of opulent, worldly Paris, where so many -conventional words and actions must have been exchanged; and this -agitated silence, those clasped hands, result of the universal woe, -seemed to embody as in marble the symbol of a new beauty which effaced -all that had before been known. - -As the blind man made a motion to relinquish her hand, Odette said: - -"_Au revoir_, messieurs"; and left them. The blind man remained -motionless, either because he could not think it possible that she -should go, or because he waited for his friend, who hesitated to urge -him to leave the place. - - * - * * - -Odette did not go up to Clotilde, even at the risk of permitting her -lack of protestation to be accepted as acquiescence. She felt herself -incapable of talking with any one whose heart was not overflowing. She -did not disdain the sight of her flowers, her preoccupation with -personal pleasures; she would despise nothing, these were tastes which -inspired her rather with pity. Toward those who have greatly suffered it -was not pity that she felt, but _attraction_; an irresistible -attraction. - - * - * * - -She was soon joined by one who greeted her. It was La Villaumer, -returning from a visit to a sick man in the Rue Bizet. He turned toward -the two men who were going away and asked Odette: - -"Then it is true? They told me----" - -"Only one single thing is true," said Odette, "and that is that they -told you." - -"There is only one single thing true," replied La Villaumer, "and that -is that you feel as imperative a need to do good, as most poor mortals -of good being done to them. If I had not seen--I should say to you, as -others will say to you: 'My friend, take care, keep yourself in hand!' -But I have just seen the face of this man who is deprived of light, and -who perhaps feels the lack of you more than of the beauty of the light, -and I tremble-- It seems to me that I see you, my poor dear friend, -reaching the last stage of an evolution which I have watched as if it -had been my own. Many will look upon this acme of your self-sacrifice as -an immolation. But I recall to mind the words that I have so often -spoken to myself: 'You no longer Count!' The individual is dead-- -Provisionally, but for a time which we cannot estimate, the individual -is dead-- In fact, you yourself have perceived that you no longer have -any rights, not even the right to mourn your unending grief. The moment -has come to mourn more largely, more grandly, with the only grief that -can save a soul like yours. The only hope of a resurrection lies in -giving oneself to the common need, and losing oneself in it with love." - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NO LONGER COUNT *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/68557-0.zip b/old/68557-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 343b4b8..0000000 --- a/old/68557-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68557-h.zip b/old/68557-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f9e13c8..0000000 --- a/old/68557-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68557-h/68557-h.htm b/old/68557-h/68557-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 86e3bb6..0000000 --- a/old/68557-h/68557-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6424 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of You no longer count - by René Boylesve. - </title> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; - text-indent:4%; -} - -.nind {text-indent:0%;} - -.center {text-align: center;text-indent:0%;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - clear: both; -} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - - /* Poetry */ -.poem { - margin-left:10%; - margin-right:10%; - text-align: left; -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of You no longer count, by René Boylesve</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: You no longer count</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: René Boylesve</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Louise Seymour Houghton</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 18, 2022 [eBook #68557]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NO LONGER COUNT ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/no_longer_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/no_longer_frontispiece.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - - -<h1><i>YOU</i> NO LONGER<br /> -COUNT</h1> - -<h3>(TU N'ES PLUS RIEN!)</h3> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>BY</h4> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h2>RENÉ BOYLESVE</h2> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH</h4> - -<h5>BY</h5> - -<h3>LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON</h3> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>NEW YORK</h4> - -<h4>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h4> - -<h5>1918</h5> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> -<p class="nind"> -CHAPTER <a href="#I">I</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#II">II</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#III">III</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#V">V</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#VI">VI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#VII">VII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#IX">IX</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#X">X</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XI">XI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XII">XII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XIII">XIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XIV">XIV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XV">XV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XVI">XVI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XVII">XVII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XIX">XIX</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XX">XX</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXI">XXI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXII">XXII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXV">XXV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXX">XXX</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a><br /> -CHAPTER <a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a></p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><i>YOU</i> NO LONGER COUNT</h4> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="I">I</a></h4> - -<p> -From the swoon into which the sudden, agonizing shock had thrown her, -her soul escaped, shook itself free, as the mind shakes off a nightmare. -There is first a sensation of relief from discomfort, then a cheering -sense of safety, and one slips contentedly into a half-slumber. Then it -all begins again, for one no longer believes that it answers to any -reality. -</p> -<p> -Was she still asleep? Was it memory, was it imagination that unrolled -before her vision pictures of the past which yet her musings had never -till then evoked, and which suddenly presented themselves with annoying -vividness? There were whisperings, murmuring voices in the next room. -She was aware of them, yet to the unwonted sounds she paid no attention; -the gentle, persistent pressure of an invisible hand turned back her -thoughts to days gone by. -</p> -<p> -A hushed step upon the carpet, a finger questioning her pulse, no more -disturbed her than the familiar cry of the huckster in the street. She -did not wonder: "What, am I ill? Are they anxious about me? Why am I in -bed, in broad daylight, I so young, so unused to illness of any kind?" -She was recalling a certain time, days that seemed far remote, a period -of her life that seemed to have been acted before her eyes, like a play -in the theatre. -</p> -<p> -A summer month of one of the previous years. She saw again the last days -in her suburban home, just outside of Paris, the sloping garden and the -vista through the leafage over far-distant hills, splendid and ethereal. -Every one was getting ready for the summer holiday; some of the men were -going to the training-camps. What a world of talk! What discussions with -friends who had been invited to the country for an afternoon of -farewells! They were a world by themselves—young, alert, fond of -pleasure, and of all things beautiful and adventurous, care-free, and -charming. The oldest of the men was M. de la Villaumer, whose hair was -beginning to turn gray, but who enjoyed himself only among kindly faces. -Several were artists—musicians or painters. They loved the beautiful -things of life and that life of the intellect which easily adapts itself -to the beautiful. Love was king in their circle, a love rather kindly -than passionate, whose ravages they had learned how to conceal. Yet many -admirable couples were found among them. Odette Jacquelin and her -husband were always cited as the most enamoured pair of the group. After -them came Clotilde and George Avvogade, who cooed like turtle-doves, but -were lovers only "for a curtain-raiser," it used to be said. Rose -Misson, whom they called "good Rose," Simone de Prans, Germaine Le -Gault, were all women who adored their husbands and asked for no other -happiness, having no idea of anything else than happiness. -</p> -<p> -Why, they used to ask, was Jean Jacquelin an officer of reserves? What -was the sense of that biennial war-game for a chap who had nothing -military in him, whether by tradition, education, or belief? The old -father had made a point of it, because he held to the ineradicable -prejudices of his time. As for Jean himself, he made light of it; he was -a young fellow well on the way to make a fortune and give Odette all the -luxuries that in their circle were considered not superfluities, but -things indispensable. It never occurred to him that any other purpose -could seriously occupy a man's mind. Without entering into the thousand -and one interests of certain of his more cultivated friends who were -given to reasoning and theorizing, he simply found that the uniform of a -sublieutenant was becoming, and that, when he was obliged to wear it, it -was simply an opportunity to make himself fit; physical fatigue was -nothing to him; he might be inclined to think the Grand Manœuvres a -superannuated exercise; he might even smile at them and amuse himself by -enumerating the blunders of such and such a commander; but something -always kept him from ever making light of the thing itself. For that -matter, being a reserve officer was perhaps one of the many whims of -society, but it was what is called decent; in certain circles it was -done. So he let them talk and harangue, opposing no arguments but -continuing to be a reserve officer, carrying through his period of -instruction when he was called. -</p> -<p> -This time the young wife had gone with him as far as Tours, to be with -him a few hours longer and after that to receive his letters more -promptly. How long the time had seemed, all alone in the Hôtel de -l'Univers! And yet she had a pretty room! She had amused herself with -piquing public curiosity on the Rue Nationale, with her little -walking-suit of the latest cut, and her simple canoe hat—quite the -"Parisienne on a holiday"—and the elegance of her manners, at once -independent and circumspect, as were all her ways. It was generally -agreed that she was pretty. Who was not asking questions about her in -the hotel, at the restaurant? It had amused her to see a family of -tourists inventing pretexts for changing places at their small table, -this one in order to face her, that one in order that the grown-up son -might not face her. And how they had stared at her! -</p> -<p> -Telegrams had come from the sublieutenant. "Be at Pont-de-Piles -to-morrow, darling," or "Ligueil, such a day for lunch," or "Loches, -Hôtel de France, after breaking up." And she had sometimes waited a -long while in wayside inns or beside dusty highways. -</p> -<p> -Conversations at table began to come back to her. Every one had been -talking of the manœuvres, discussing the names of generals, the -communes that were being occupied. The presence of the President of the -Republic was an event in the countryside. There had been old men who -would consent to speak of nothing nearer than 1870; others, of fewer -years, would recall the magnificent condition of the reconstituted army -at the time of Gambetta's death, or at the period of the Schnaebele -affair, when the country was so near to seeing it in action. A politician -of the neighborhood—not more stupid, after all, than most of -his contemporaries—rubicund, his eyes bloodshot at the end of dinner, -had fallen foul of all these memories, regrets, would-be warlike -emotions, and turned them upside down like eggs in a frying-pan. -According to him, war was the scourge of bygone ages. France, the nation -of progress, still consented to carry on a semblance of it, by way of -facilitating necessary transitions, but it was a mere play of protocols, -a final concession to the past. War was destructive; modern society was -interested wholly in production; to believe in war was to turn back the -clock of history. For that matter, every well-informed person was aware -that scientific means of destruction had become such that a fratricidal -conflict had been rendered impossible, im-pos-si-ble! One must be an -idiot not to perceive that everything would be reduced to fragments in -the twinkling of an eye. The manœuvres! ah, you made him laugh with -your manœuvres! The manœuvres were no more like war than a toy pistol -was like a German mortar. War, should it ever break out, would not last -the time it would take to concentrate your army corps; the first of two -adversaries who should be half a day ahead would bring the other to cry -mercy. -</p> -<p> -"Well, say," some one had interrupted, "it wouldn't be a bad plan, then, -to do one's best to get that half-day's advance?" -</p> -<p> -"Useless! Count your population, consider your aspirations. Think of the -finances. Finances! There is not a country of great armaments that could -maintain war for six weeks, nor one that could even endure three years' -preparation for war.... Ask the great banks, which have the world in -leading-strings, emperors and kings as well as peoples; don't deceive -yourselves; war is impossible, im-pos-si-ble! We are witnessing, with -your manœuvres, the final deeds of a prehistoric age.... Turn your eyes -to the future, gentlemen, and all this bedizened and vociferous gang -will seem to you like children's toys!" -</p> -<p> -"But Germany—the militant party—the Pangermanists?" -</p> -<p> -"Germany is a pacific nation, industrial and commercial, which uses its -cannon as an advertising dodge. What we lack—don't you know?—is -precisely business sense. And Germany has business sense. The military -party? A drop of water in a lake. The Pangermanists? Advertising men in -the pay of the national industry. In the first place, the Emperor, as -every one says who has seen him near at hand, is a secret friend of -France ... and I will add, the most republican of us all. Socialism, -that's his enemy! ... The army that we need is not a rabble of soldiers, -but a group of men bent upon keeping the peace. Humanity is on the -march—it can never be repeated too often—toward a future of -liberty, equality, fraternity. Ah, you must reckon with economic rivalry; -that is the law of life." -</p> -<p> -"Precisely so." -</p> -<p> -Memory, quickened no doubt by her feverish condition, brought back to -the young wife with extraordinary precision, even to the least of them, -these utterances overheard at her solitary little table. True, she had -amused herself with repeating them to the sublieutenant, her -husband—she even recalled the moment—he was splashing in his -bath, soaping himself, on his return from the manœuvres. He had laughed -with all his heart, for when Jean had come back from the manœuvres he was -another man from what he had been when going to them. Only a few days of -presence with the corps, among his military comrades, had transformed -him or, more correctly, had restored him to his normal disposition; or, -in any case, had made him victor over the indolence with which he -usually replied to the fine talkers of Paris. -</p> -<p> -As for Odette, she had attached not the slightest importance to any of -these ideas, by whomever enunciated. Brought up in the one religion of -happiness, she held that happiness through love was the sole boon to be -asked of fate. What was the use of arguing? Why think about calamity? -Did not certain of her friends, those most reputed for intelligence, -insist that it was the honor of civilized man not even to think of acts -of barbarism, that man raised himself in dignity as he neglected to -prepare himself to make use of arms? Among many other sayings the -oft-repeated, if somewhat cynical, pronouncement of M. de la Villaumer -came back to her: "We are not in a condition to make war. We are unaware -how far we are not in a condition to make war, because we do not in the -least know what war is. If war is made upon us, as there is reason to -fear—as well the deluge." -</p> -<p> -And yet, that day, on coming out of his bath, Jean had become so wrought -up in talking of the army that he had almost made his wife afraid! She -had thrown her arms around him as he wrapped himself in his bathrobe, -saying: -</p> -<p> -"Don't talk so, Jean! Oh, imagine, if even you were to be so much as -disfigured by an ugly wound! Your lovely eyes, my darling! Your -beautiful teeth!—No, that would drive me wild!" -</p> -<p> -And because he had laughed, laughed heartily, so as completely to close -his lovely eyes, she had at once thought of something else. -</p> -<p> -Without ever thinking of going even slightly into subjects of this sort, -she had been buoyed up by a great credulity, born of optimism; not, -indeed, as to war, which interested her not the least, but as to Jean, -who alone was of consequence, and who, as a "reserve officer," she was -sure could not be called to take part in a campaign. It was an artless -idea, rooted in her mind by the pressure of her exuberant happiness. For -nothing in the world would she have tried to get at the root of it, lest -the result should prove uncomfortable. It was the same self-indulgent, -mental indolence which, for example, had withheld her from asking -herself the meaning of words that dropped from her husband's lips: -</p> -<p> -"Well, here I am, attached to the covering troops. You and I will not be -able to go into Touraine." Well, they would not be able to go into -Touraine; they would go somewhere else. -</p> -<p> -Then memory carried her on to the beginning of last season, at the -seashore. The weather had been so fine! Jean had been so lucky as to get -his vacation from his commercial house by the 15th of July; they had -gone to Surville. The Hotel de Normandie was already well filled, the -Casino was crowded, sports were humming, the Little Theatre was -exhibiting Parisian vedettes, a row of autos was sending vile smells up -to the terrace where every one sat of afternoons imbibing soft drinks -and roasting in the sun to the music of the gypsy orchestra; elegant -young men were displaying khaki costumes, martingales, and broad-brimmed -hats. In the evening every one had danced the tango in the hall. The -great stir of the watering-place had begun—futile doings without -number, comings and goings, from bar to bar, from casino to casino, from -luncheon to luncheon. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, say, are you coming? Look here, Jean! Aren't you tiresome, always -reading despatches! One would say that you were expecting something to -happen. What concern is it of yours?" -</p> -<p> -Every evening, on their way to the great hall of the Casino through the -gallery that looked out upon the sea, whether going to the theatre or -the music-hall, or simply intending to sit down and drink their coffee -or their camomile, they had found a crowd of, men in tuxedos standing -before the frame that hung on the right of the door, on which despatches -from Paris and quotations of the Bourse were posted. Odette could still -hear the reproaches she had addressed to her husband as he returned with -unwonted seriousness from reading them. -</p> -<p> -"Well, what about it all?" she had asked. Jean had kept back some of the -more sensational news, but one evening he had added: -</p> -<p> -"There is an ultimatum to Serbia." -</p> -<p> -"What of that?" -</p> -<p> -Nothing more had been said. But Jean had risen twice from his chair to -speak to men whom he knew, conferring with them in the lobby, then -returning to his wife. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, nothing will happen yet," he had said. -</p> -<p> -This had gone on for several evenings. It had become necessary to -explain some things. Then Odette herself had become anxious; she would -go with her husband to read the despatches; she would go to them by -herself in the daytime. But the number of readers was increasing, and -the silence, or the few words that would escape from the group, troubled -her; she would go down to the beach to read the despatches at the -<i>Figaro</i> kiosk. Threats of war? ... European war? ... War? ... No, -surely that was not likely. The idea was finding extreme difficulty in -penetrating people's skulls. Despatch was succeeding despatch, twice a -day, now reassuring, now disturbing; but whenever one contained matter -for alarm, it was always better founded than that of the previous day. -</p> -<p> -Odette had at last asked her husband: -</p> -<p> -"Well, if by any chance there should be war, would that affect -you—yourself?" -</p> -<p> -"Don't be in a hurry, my darling; war has not yet been declared." -</p> -<p> -"But—but—if it should be?" -</p> -<p> -"Well, if it should be, I am a reserve officer." -</p> -<p> -"What is the reserve? Is it when there are no more active soldiers?" -</p> -<p> -He had kissed her, laughing. Not long before a relative of one of the -most influential bankers in Paris had declared, at a neighboring table, -that "All was arranged!" But the next morning a rumor had been spread at -the Casino that the news was so discouraging it had not been posted. -Jean had gone to ascertain. The rumor had been confirmed. Then he had -said to his wife: "It is time to take precautions. Listen, my darling, I -shall go to Paris this evening. I will set my business in order, I will -see La Villaumer, who knows everything, and Avvogade, who lunches with -the President of the Council. I shall learn what can be learned, and I -shall try to return by night." -</p> -<p> -Once again she could hear all these words, could see again his slightest -actions, could imagine La Villaumer, so far—seeing, and Clotilde -Avvogade, surrounded by her flowers in her almost too delicious -apartment, making a face when she heard her husband talking of -disagreeable things. She lived over again the sad night that she had -passed alone, sleepless, and the bat that had flown into her room like a -little devil, and the faces next morning at the Casino, on the beach, -everywhere! And the departures, the almost empty hotel, ever since that -evening when she had been expecting her husband—the evening when he -did not come! -</p> -<p> -He did not come because he had found in Paris an order to "join -immediately for a period of instruction." He had telegraphed to her: -"Don't leave; all will be well; will write." -</p> -<p> -A period of instruction! So suddenly decided upon! What did that mean? -Was it war? She had asked the people around her. Some had seemed stunned -by her question; others had said: "A period of instruction? Nothing is -more usual." -</p> -<p> -"As a matter of fact, they are mobilizing," some one had remarked. A -gentleman had said: "No, madame, mobilization cannot be other than -general. It may be that certain officers have been summoned -individually, but that is merely a measure of precaution; the situation -is evidently strained." -</p> -<p> -"But why should he be called and not others? He is only an officer of -reserves." -</p> -<p> -"That depends upon the locality of his depot, no doubt. Do you know -where it is?" -</p> -<p> -"I know that he formerly belonged to the Eleventh Corps, but I think he -has been passed over to Nancy." -</p> -<p> -"Covering troops. Ah—ah!" -</p> -<p> -"That is it precisely, sir; he is attached to the covering troops." -</p> -<p> -"Oh, very well! Oh, very well!" -</p> -<p> -She had found another woman in the same case as herself, or nearly so. -But the husband of this one, who also had been individually called, was -a captain in active service, and in garrison at Pont-à-Mousson. -</p> -<p> -"That one," Odette had said to herself; "it is all over with him." -</p> -<p> -The difference had seemed to be to her own advantage, and her courage -had risen correspondingly. Jean was only a sublieutenant; he belonged -only to the reserves. She was absorbed in compassion for the other -woman, so different in character from herself, bravely prepared for the -war and ready to sacrifice everything; who had said: "I regret that my -boys are not grown; they would be so many more defenders of the -country." -</p> -<p> -Odette had been as ill prepared as possible for such an utterance. -Everything about it surprised her; she could not understand it in the -least. -</p> -<p> -A lady had arrived from Paris, the wife of a deputy. She had said to any -who would listen: -</p> -<p> -"I may as well tell you; mobilization will be ordered to-morrow." -</p> -<p> -The weather had been ideally fine, though there had been a suggestion of -thunderstorms in the west. Children were playing on the beach; the sea, -under a cloudless sky, was calm even to torpor. One could see Havre -stretched along in the sunlight, like a greyhound panting with heat; in -the distance were noble passenger-ships, and tiny sails apparently -motionless. Never had the sky, the sea, the land, appeared so much to -long for peace; never, perhaps, had the joy of existence been more -imperious. Whatever might be the subjects of alarm, everything cried -aloud that to believe in coming misfortune was impossible. -</p> -<p> -The next day, Saturday, August I, Odette, distressed by vague talk that -gave no definite information, had gone to the post with a letter to her -dear Jean. She had addressed it to Paris, since she had no knowledge -where to reach him. It was about four o'clock. She had seen a group -forming before the mayor's office, and the town drummer arriving, with a -long retinue of street urchins at his heels. The drummer was a tall -youth, lean and wan, grave with a gravity not usual in a town drummer -who has to announce that a little, long-haired, bright-gray dog is lost. -The crowd had gathered around him with frantic eagerness, while he -executed his preliminary performance. Then, drawing a paper from his -pocket, he had unfolded it and read at the top of his voice, without the -slightest change of countenance: -</p> -<p> -"General mobilization is declared! The first day of mobilization is -Sunday, August 2. No man may set out without first consulting the bill -which will be immediately posted." And the drummer had beaten the ban. -</p> -<p> -With a single impulse, as if under orders, the crowd, mainly composed of -young men, had raised their hats, crying: "<i>Vive la France</i>!" One lad -had said: "<i>Vive la guerre</i>!" And the drummer had departed to repeat -his message at another crossroads. -</p> -<p> -It had seemed a perfectly simple event, something almost usual, at the -junction of these four streets of the little town. A deed done; the -pattering of dispersing feet; silence! And this simple act, repeated -hundreds of thousands of times at this same hour, was the most tragic -alarm-cry in the history of man, reverberating at the same moment of -time over all the terrestrial globe. Little noise, almost no words, and -all these men, raising their hats to pronounce a word suddenly become -sacred, had made the sacrifice of their lives. Imagination loses itself -in picturing the multitude of points upon this earth on which a like -gift of self had just been made. For if the man who goes hopes to be -spared, he who learns that he is called to go, for the moment gives -himself, body and soul. -</p> -<p> -Almost instantaneously the church-bells had broken out with the tocsin, -as if the town had been on fire. Every church; then, on the hills, -throughout the countryside, the same signal of distress spread like an -epidemic. It had been too recent to be utterly terrifying; many heard it -and did not think. No one realized the tragedy to which these humble -little bells were sorrowfully calling the world. It is the salvation of -men that they always limit their thoughts to the most immediate duty. -The thought of a pair of shoes, of the place where one's <i>livret</i> is -hidden, of saying good-by to this one or that one, checks the vertigo -which the enormity of the event might well produce. -</p> -<p> -At first Odette had felt oppressed and wept like a nervous child who -hears a sudden alarm. She had been unable, for her tears, to see the -letter-box into which she dropped that letter to Jean which no longer -signified anything and would doubtless never reach him to whom it was -addressed. And all around her, at the doors, in the streets, on the -beach, at the hotel, women had been weeping. -</p> -<p> -Odette had gone up to her room. She had said to her maid: -</p> -<p> -"What about you, Amelia?" -</p> -<p> -"Me? Mine must join on the second day. I thought of asking Madame if I -might take this evening's train; to-morrow there will be no room for -civilians. That way I might kiss him good-by——" -</p> -<p> -"Go, Amelia." -</p> -<p> -She had seated herself at the window that looked out upon the -flower-garden, the deserted tennis-courts, the sea. She was alone. There -was nothing for her to do but think and wait. -</p> -<p> -Everything around her had seemed stunned, congealed. It was as if there -was no longer any one anywhere. The smoke of three great transatlantics -in the Havre roadstead—sole perceptible movement—was rising -straight up in the motionless air. A few fair-weather clouds on the -horizon were turning a fleecy rose color. One or two fishing-smacks, all -sails spread, were idling as on a lake. In ordinary times one would have -said: "What a glorious sunset we shall have!" And Odette thought: "The -men in those boats, at this moment, <i>do not know</i>!" -</p> -<p> -An involuntary change had instantaneously taken place in her mind. She -had transported herself to a time like that which still reigned in the -boats, a time when "<i>They did not know</i>!" A time when there was -nothing unusual in the world, when life, smiling, had sung to her, when -the hope of a yet lovelier life had lulled thought to sleep. That -time—already so far distant—was only an hour ago. And -everything had been changed—changed as nothing had ever been -changed before. Were they living on the same planet as in that former -time? Who could have dreamed, at that time, of what was taking place -now? She tried to foresee the morrow, but she could imagine -nothing—nothing. Only La Villaumer's saying came back to her: "We -are not in condition.... As well the deluge!" -</p> -<p> -And for all that, deep down, very deep within herself, she had not at -all believed in the horror that had come. -</p> -<p> -She had remained sitting there, at her window, until the hour for -dinner, living over her past life with Jean—thrilling with his first -caresses. She had never loved any one but Jean before her marriage; -since her marriage, only him. It was no longer the war which seemed to -her unimaginable, but the power of her love for Jean. And instead of -imagining chaos, her natural inclination had impelled her to summon up -the loveliest pictures of the past. She had smiled, her body had -relaxed, her fingers had quivered as if in anticipation of a caress, and -in the empty air her lips had made the motion of a kiss. -</p> -<p> -A man's voice on the balcony next her own had said: -</p> -<p> -"It is absurd to think of nature as taking note of our affairs; but just -for curiosity look at that sky: I have never seen anything like it." -</p> -<p> -The words had been spoken to some one in the next room, who drew near to -the window, and she had heard a woman's voice exclaiming, with a moan or -in desperate appeal, such as one seldom hears. -</p> -<p> -Odette had risen, and she too had looked out. She had never been -superstitious, and was especially not inclined to doleful -prognostications. She had always been happy; her life had flowed along, -so to speak, like one continued festival. Being alone in her room, she -did not speak; but all her flesh quivered. -</p> -<p> -It may well be that similar phenomena occur sometimes without attracting -our attention; yet, on that day, to three persons occupying neighboring -rooms in a hotel, to others also, who had spoken of it at dinner or in -the evening, that sunset appeared utterly unusual, and such as might -justify all gossiping conjectures as to the relations of the earth with -the marvellous changes, stupendous in their nature, which take place in -the vault of heaven. Above the quiet sea the whole horizon was a fiery -furnace, blazing with intense fervency, across which were spread, like -fragments of slashed flesh, long clouds of a livid bluish red. Before -long the intense fire died down, as if all the combustible matter had -been devoured by the fury of the flames. Then the disk of the sun -appeared in outline, like a gigantic blood-blister, like a crystal bowl -so overful that the viscous liquid was escaping by some fissure and -spreading to right and left into a marsh, a lake, an ocean of human -serum, flowing in every direction toward rivers with contracted banks, -which upheaved against it a formidable tide. Suddenly the sinister -blister burst of itself and was absorbed in the mass of burning matter, -or of thick waters, heavy and foul, and became thin streams like those -that trickle from a slaughter-house. -</p> -<p> -No, truly, it was no vertigo of the imagination, no hallucination of the -vision, no compliant romance; it was a real picture, symbolic of aspect, -preceding, like an inadequate vignette, the flaming pages of the great -book of history that had just been opened. -</p> -<p> -In Odette's soul it had been like a curtain that falls before a new act; -once the curtain is raised, one's expectation is fixed; no more light -comedy, no more pleasant extravaganzas, no more ballet! The tragedy is -about to begin. -</p> -<p> -With a bound her fevered memory overleaped several months of war. They -had entered an atmosphere of fire; it was hard, but they endured it. -Alsace: a breath of wild hope, penultimate moment of Old France; -Belgium: enthusiasm first, horror afterward; alliances: -prognostications, so-called assured, as to the "final result"; invasion: -a march to the scaffold in which the condemned cling to a hope of the -improbable; the Marne: the improbable realized, for which no one had -dared to hope; the enemy grappled with and hurled back; the fall of -Antwerp, of which so many folk, who will appear again in the end, insist -that "it has not the least importance." -</p> -<p> -Odette had received letters from Jean. How could Jean be in such a fiery -furnace? And how had she been able to endure the thought? But many -things once believed impossible were beginning to be recognized as -possible. Jean was enduring his fatigues, and everything in him was -taking on a new character. She had found him not such as he had been on -his return from the manœuvres, but a man exalted above himself, who -seemed to have transcended his own height, however he might try to -appear simply his usual charming self. She could divine his sufferings, -and yet she felt him to be happy. Odette had even come to think: "How -little he needs me!" She had returned to Paris that she might receive -his letters more promptly. But he appeared no longer to have any notion -of time. That was because he was no longer master of his time. Odette -was always writing to him as to an isolated being, who could do with -himself as he liked. Without intending it, he would reply to her letters -as if he were one who had no individual existence, a man carried away by -something greater than himself, something which alone counted. She had -not yet been able to understand, and she had gently reproached Jean for -neglecting her. -</p> -<p> -And yet Odette's perpetual anxiety had been gradually growing less; she -was already gaining confidence. Jean had passed through so many dangers! -She had begun to believe in a possible immunity. How many men had been -in the midst of wars through all a long life, and yet had died in bed, -surrounded by their families! -</p> -<p> -Then, suddenly, one fine morning in the second fortnight of September -Odette, still in bed, had heard the door-bell at an hour when seldom any -one came to the front door. Amelia, her own maid, who had answered the -bell, had rushed, breathless, to her mistress: -</p> -<p> -"Madame! it is Madame de Prans who insists upon seeing Madame!" -</p> -<p> -From her bed Odette had called out: "Come in, Simone, come right in!" -</p> -<p> -Simone de Prans had brought tidings of Jean. She had received them from -dear Pierrot, her husband, who had been sent to Paris for twenty-four -hours on a mission. -</p> -<p> -Tidings of Jean? But, to begin with, they were satisfactory? -How?—satisfactory? Well, she could say that they were not bad. But -"not bad" is not good! No, but one must not exaggerate things. In short, -half-admissions, denials, returns upon the question, openings left for -hope, equivocal utterances, embarrassments of which Odette soon ceased -to be the dupe. And she had had courage to say, suddenly: -</p> -<p> -"My little Simone, you dare not acknowledge that the greatest of -calamities has befallen me." -</p> -<p> -It was at that moment of half-wakefulness during which all these -previous events had passed before her memory, that Odette suddenly came -broad awake. She uttered a great cry, and every one in the next room -came running. -</p> -<p> -But now, after all, Odette refused to believe the dreadful fact which -she herself had divined! She declared that it could not be, it was "too -unjust." -</p> -<p> -Why should Jean be killed and not another? With fierce anger she -revolted against her lot, crying out and struggling in her bed like a -mad woman. -</p> -<p> -"It is not true! it is not true! you all have a grudge against me! you -are jealous of me because of Jean! ... Jean, my Jean, I shall yet -embrace you, or there is no God!"—until suddenly, vociferating and -shrieking, she again lost consciousness. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="II">II</a></h4> - -<p> -Her doctor was there, in a major's uniform. They had found him as by a -miracle: he happened to be at home, at the telephone, the very moment -when Amelia called him. As he could not remain he gave his instructions -to Simone de Prans, to Germaine Le Gault, to Rose Misson, the last two, -notified by Simone, having dressed in all haste and rushed to her. The -door-bell was constantly ringing. The news of Odette's affliction was -spreading through Paris. True, the war had already caused many -bereavements, but among this intimate group, Lieutenant Jacquelin was -the first to fall. -</p> -<p> -Odette, recovering her senses, found herself in the position of an -exceptional victim among her friends, both women and men. -</p> -<p> -But the women, while encompassing her with compassion, had in their -eyes, their voices, something other than bereavement usually inspires. -When they tried to utter consoling words, all, without exception, spoke -of "pride," of the "honor" which was reflected upon Odette. Odette -accepted the words as a part of the phraseology of condolence; but she -considered only one thing—Jean no longer existed. Her Jean, her -lover, her happiness, her preoccupation, her days, her nights, her -revery of yesterday, her hope for to-morrow; Jean, caresses, kisses, -tenderness, sweetness, perfume, foolishness and wisdom, the beloved -master and yet the child, to be cradled in her arms; Jean—a -thousand times more than her own life—was no longer numbered among -men! She could see him again, from head to foot, in the minutest -physical details, and in the same moment she was certain that he was no -longer anything other than a phantom; that never again her arms of flesh -would press to her his flesh, that her lips would never again kiss his -lips. Tears did not come in the torrents that bring solace to the -sharpest griefs. The period of yielding to a cruel fate, when one pities -oneself, had not come to her. Rebellion still persisted. Odette raged, -uttered bitter words. The honeyed soothings of her friends only -exasperated her. Other friends were continually coming up to see her. -She fell into hysterics. The doctor had gone. The most determined of -those present, "good" Rose Misson and Mme. de Blauve, a woman who -inspired respect, took upon themselves to turn all the others out of the -room and to close the front door against every one. -</p> -<p> -Rose Misson was a little woman, plump and mild, whose husband, some -fifteen years older than herself, and free of all military obligation, -had entered the service as chauffeur at the beginning of the war. Misson -was somewhat criticised for this step. Therefore Rose, who felt the -power of public opinion, was full of admiration of the lot of her friend -Odette. Private griefs are nothing in comparison with the special -consciousness which public opinion arouses in us. Notwithstanding her -real love for him, at the present moment Rose would have preferred her -husband dead rather than ill appreciated. Rose's sentiment with regard -to her friend might have been thus expressed: -</p> -<p> -"Yes, my dear, your grief is immense; your existence as a wife is -shattered. But everybody feels that your lot is beautiful. You will grow -greater among us all, will eclipse us, each and every one. From this day -you have gained universal veneration; your name is pronounced with -reverence; you are changed in our eyes; your presence brings even to us -a meaning which we never knew before; the memory of your husband, his -glorious name, is something august which is penetrating a circle in -which such a quality has never been known." -</p> -<p> -Rose said nothing of all this to her friend, because the language of -their circle did not lend itself to such thoughts; perhaps also, even -while thinking them, she had no wish to utter them. -</p> -<p> -For the first time since the outbreak of war Odette did not ask for the -evening paper. To read the news—the <i>communiqué</i>? How -indifferent she was to all that! There was nothing more for her to -learn. Her husband was dead; for her the war was ended. The war had been -him, anxiety for his special fate. Him disappeared, what did the rest -matter? -</p> -<p> -And the sense of nothingness which had seized her by the throat that -morning touched her again, more glacial than before. Nothing! No longer -anything! Yes, the war was an unheard-of misfortune; but the war had -captivated one like a drama of unequalled interest. The drama might go -on henceforth; she would not go to witness it. She had gone to it only -for one actor, who, having played his part, had disappeared. She too -would disappear. -</p> -<p> -Odette slept and spoke as in a dream. She fell into delirium; insisted -on going with her husband, saying: "<i>If I had known</i>, I would not have -let you go one step." He seemed to reply to her, alluding to a grave -wound which the commandant had received. She would repeat: "The -commandant's leg? ... Oh, let them touch you once, you! I am here.... I -am here to care for you, my love...." And she awoke with a start. -</p> -<p> -"He is dead, Rose! Ah, Rose, how fortunate you are!" -</p> -<p> -"But my husband is fifty years old, Odette!" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, if my husband had only been sixty!" -</p> -<p> -Simone de Prans and Mme. de Blauve came again in the afternoon. -</p> -<p> -"Your husband, Odette, fell like a hero; there is no more beautiful -death." -</p> -<p> -"There is no beautiful death." -</p> -<p> -"Yes, there is!" -</p> -<p> -"It is easy for you to talk." -</p> -<p> -"No, Odette, you don't consider that everything is changed." -</p> -<p> -"One's heart, too?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, one's heart, too. Many among us pass for hard-hearted and inhuman, -but everything now appears from another point of view." -</p> -<p> -"Love is always love." -</p> -<p> -Odette, whose sense of hearing was extremely acute, overheard a -low-voiced conversation in which Simone was saying how well her dear -Pierrot was looking, and she swooned again. -</p> -<p> -The rest of the day was only one lamentation, an inarticulate and -continuous moaning. -</p> -<p> -The following days were no better. The physician dreaded meningitis. -</p> -<p> -Human beings are often weak in the face of great catastrophes when they -are governed only by their natural sentiments. Yet Rose, who was in all -things natural, remained completely devoted to Odette. -</p> -<p> -"It is easier," said Mme. de Blauve, "to nurse a gravely wounded man -than a woman distracted with grief, for whom there is nothing to do, to -whom there is nothing to say." -</p> -<p> -The first two days of Odette's grief were as nothing in comparison with -those that followed. She uttered no sound except to moan; she fell into -delirious slumbers, had hours of furious insomnia, nightmares, -hallucinations, attacks of hysterics. At last came the period of -confidences, with torrents of tears. -</p> -<p> -Among Odette's friends, some had not been pleased because they had not -been admitted to her room the first day; others were forgetting -everything in their dominant desire to obtain a place as nurse in a -hospital. Some of these, having succeeded in compassing their wishes, -came at last, and were not denied entrance to the sick-room, by reason -of the costume that they wore. At first it seemed as if they might harm -Odette by the lamentable scenes which they described. These nurses -delighted in employing new, technical words, which they had taken pains -to learn by heart, like so many schoolgirls. But Odette would murmur: "All -your unhappy ones, with their surgical operations—they are alive, -after all." And she would think to herself: "Mine is dead." What answer -could be made to that? -</p> -<p> -Odette received heaps of letters, whose eloquence overwhelmed without -touching her. She deemed all their expressions exaggerated, and yet she -could not say that they rang false; they spoke of France, of glory and -honor; hardly did they make allusion to her love, which to her was all. -</p> -<p> -She was beginning to get up, to come and go about her apartment. It made -things worse. Every place, every article, reminded her of Jean. He used -to sit in that chair; he had loved to play with that little ornament. -Before his photographs, in the drawing-room, she succumbed once more. -Here he was in tennis-costume, so graceful, so lithe, so beautiful; -there in house dress, that velvet jacket that she had so often encircled -with her arms. She would walk through the rooms trying to breathe the -faint odors of a perfume which he might have left there. She would sink -down upon the divan where once there had been room for him.... And she -started with a sudden thrill when the shadow of Amelia formed a -halo-surrounded image against the fixed curtain of the glass door. In -the old days, when he came in, a great shadow would spread thus behind -the yellow silk, and suddenly his tall form would rise above the -curtain, and his kind smile would appear through the glass.... Then she -would listen for the sound of a key in the door. No one would ever again -enter that door by means of a key.... -</p> -<p> -As she was opening, in a drawer, the box of his favorite cigars and -would fain have lost herself in the odor which brought before her the -image of her man, a telegram was brought to her. She tore it open -mechanically, all news being indifferent to her. It was from Mlle. de -Blauve, a girl of fourteen, and announced that her father, Commandant de -Blauve, had died upon the field of honor. Her mother had been for the -last few days a nurse at Rheims, her natal city, under bombardment. The -three little De Blauve girls were alone at home with the governess, the -two older brothers being in Jersey at school. -</p> -<p> -For the first time since her bereavement Odette was obliged to think of -others. She closed the box of cigars, and thought of that house in the -Avenue d'Iena that she knew so well, of those charming little girls, -henceforth orphaned, the eldest of whom was so calmly acquitting herself -of the duties of courtesy. -</p> -<p> -"I must go there," she said, and called her maid to dress her. Her -mourning dress had been brought home the day before yesterday, but she -had not so much as tried it on. Now for the first time she put on her -clothes without a thought of her appearance. She took a carriage and -went to the Avenue d'Iena. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="III">III</a></h4> - -<p> -She was expecting to find consternation in a family crushed by their -fate, and during the drive she reflected with astonishment that it was -not altogether painful to her to visit people in grief; in her inmost -heart she would rather meet the little de Blauve girls mourning, -unhappy, than her consolatory friends, overflowing with kind and -beautiful words, but not personally sorrowing. "It is not the sight of -happiness that consoles us in our sorrows," she said to herself, "but to -come into touch with a grief that is like our own." -</p> -<p> -The little de Blauves were not yet in black. The eldest wept a little -when Odette kissed her with flowing tears—for Odette was thinking of -her own grief—but the little girls were not at all prostrated, and -there was even something radiant in their expression. -</p> -<p> -"What is it all about, dear children?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -Then they clapped their hands and said that their brother had just -landed from his island and was up-stairs washing himself, and that he -had received his mother's permission to enlist. -</p> -<p> -"To enlist!" exclaimed Odette. "Why, how old is he, the poor little -fellow?" -</p> -<p> -"He is almost seventeen," said the eldest girl. "Papa is dead, he must -replace him." -</p> -<p> -"And what does the big brother say to that?" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, he is delighted. He had begged to enlist as soon as mobilization -was declared, but papa would not consent; he said: 'You will go with -your class, when the time comes; it will not be long.'" -</p> -<p> -The big brother appeared, coming down-stairs. He was a fine boy, -delicate, surprisingly like his mother's portrait, painted in her youth, -which hung above the great sofa. He rushed past like a bomb, exclaiming: -"I must hurry to the recruiting-office!" No more was said about the dead -father, and yet Odette knew that he was adored by all his family. Only -to the governess, a confidential person well on in years, did Odette say -a word about the event. -</p> -<p> -"It is a great honor," said the governess. -</p> -<p> -"Do they know how he was killed?" -</p> -<p> -"A bomb, which at the same time killed seventeen men who were near him." -</p> -<p> -It was fearlessly said in the presence of the children. Not one of the -little ones showed the least emotion, while Odette shuddered through her -whole body. She asked after the mother. -</p> -<p> -"Mama writes that the mortars send a regular hail; she is almost -deafened with them. The noise disturbs her in her work. They jump, at -times, as over a skipping-rope, she writes.... She has also some Boches -to wait upon her; did you know?" -</p> -<p> -And that was all. Odette looked at the dead man's portrait, opposite -that of the Red Cross nurse, who was jumping, at this moment, at the -sound of the marmites, and had just sent her young son to the -firing-line, casting at least one more de Blauve into the furnace that -had consumed his father. Monsieur de Blauve had not been painted in -uniform; he showed only the good face of a clever and kindly man. It -must have been in all tranquillity, without uttering a single grand -word, that he had prepared his whole family for the eventualities of -war; and his children, to the last one, were as ready to die as to go on -a walk, or to church. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="IV">IV</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette went away disconcerted. Not a word had been said about her Jean, -who also had died heroically. But what had they said about the other -hero, Commandant de Blauve, whose death had brought her there? Men -disappear; they are replaced; a memory of them remains, which is -henceforth called "honor," and which does not admit of emotion. That was -precisely what certain of her friends had already said to her. They had -seemed to know that in advance, but Odette—no. She thought, as she -returned home, of that bloody sunset over the sea, upon which she had -gazed at Surville on August I, and during which she had had the -impression that she was entering a new world. -</p> -<p> -She found three letters in the vestibule; one, belated, from a friend in -the country, who had only just heard of the death of Lieutenant -Jacquelin, and who "complimented" her, basing her consolation upon "the -honor with which she saw her adorned." The others were from strangers -charged to announce to her that the husband of a friend who lived in -Versailles, and that of another in Bourg-la-Reine, had just been killed. -</p> -<p> -Odette sank down upon the divan, her head feeling bruised as if she had -bumped it against the wall; killed, killed—then there were dead men -everywhere? And she felt a dark rancor toward all those fatal events -that fell upon her so furiously to disturb her grief, her personal -grief. -</p> -<p> -She saw again those three men of whose loss she had been told that very -day—in a single half-day—Commandant de Blauve, a magnificent -man, a man without a blot, "a type of Plutarch" as he had been called, -always with the added words, "characters such as his were no longer -made"; then Jacques Graveur, him of Versailles, a good comrade of -Jean's, one who never made an ado about anything, and passed for none -too serious; it appeared that he had saved his whole company by coolness -and the sacrifice of himself; Louis Silvain, he of Bourg-la-Reine, had -brought his captain in upon his shoulders, across two hundred metres of -open ground under a hail of grape-shot, had come within three metres of -his trench, when a ball passed through his body—but the officer -was saved. He had been, in ordinary life, a big fellow, with no other -occupation than to haunt the theatres, play at the races, and drink -cocktails at the bars.... Such different figures, suddenly united in a -similar act, for which some of them had from all time been prepared, the -others not at all—the strangeness, the incomprehensibility of it -all! -</p> -<p> -She must write letters of condolence—she, who had received so many! -While she was writing to the others she was thinking especially of her -Jean; she felt a certain fascination in writing of grief; she dwelt upon -it too much at length; it would be apparent to the wives to whom she -wrote that she was thinking only of herself.... But each of them would -have done the same, and would forgive her. -</p> -<p> -All through the day the memory of Jean shook off from her the haunting -thought of the three other dead men. She consulted a map of the Touring -Club of which she had sometimes made use with her husband in their -automobile drives. The spot where Jean had fallen was not far from a -highway over which they had often driven. "Perhaps I saw one day the -very spot where his body is lying to-day...." Then followed endless -despairing reveries. How had she not foreseen the possibility of the -event—of the war, at least? Yet war had often been discussed in her -presence, at the time of the alarms of Agadir, of Casablanca, even of -Tangier, when she was a young girl. Then things were possible, things -which perhaps might happen to-morrow, of which people were talking -to-day, and to which her mind had been hermetically closed? War, war! -She used to know old people who talked about it; yes, because they had -seen it. And they were tiresome. Young people didn't believe in such -things. She tried to excuse herself; then she pronounced herself guilty. -Why had they usually avoided people who talked of serious things? And -why had they considered as clever those who ridiculed everything? -Suddenly she thought of "Monsieur's linen," "Monsieur's wardrobe," of all -those belongings of <i>his</i> which would never again be used, never.... -Should she go on leaving them all in their places? Should she do away -with them? Or should she put them all away in a closet, a reliquary? -</p> -<p> -She was at that point in her reflections when Amelia entered, in tears: -</p> -<p> -"The son of the concierge, madame!" -</p> -<p> -"Well, what?" -</p> -<p> -"He too, madame!" -</p> -<p> -Then the details; the unlucky fellow had been buried alive in an -upheaval caused by a bomb, and had been dug out only too late. And -Amelia began to talk of her husband, as if it had been he who was buried -alive. -</p> -<p> -When a few days passed without tidings of more deaths, all the women -grew calm and began to hope. When a man whom they knew was killed, each -one saw in him her husband, her father, her cousin, her son; all the men -were wept for in advance in the person of the one who had fallen. If any -one had said to these women: "But there are thousands falling every day, -thousands!" they would have opened their eyes wide, only partly -terrorized, for they had not yet become accustomed to the new condition -of things. The one who should maintain that the war would not be over in -a few weeks would be considered a bad patriot, or an ill-timed jester. -</p> -<p> -The next morning a new catastrophe; Pierre de Prans, otherwise Pierrot, -he who had brought the news of Jean's death, had been brought to -Val-de-Grâce hospital in a very alarming condition. His orderly, a fine -fellow, who was wounded at the same time, was as good as dead. Pierrot -had a bullet in the breast, one lung laid bare, and a broken arm. His -orderly had stanched his wounds under a violent bombardment, filling up -the enormous cavity with bandages snatched from the dead who surrounded -them, then both had remained for six hours, their heads in a -vile-smelling hole under a paving-stone, their bodies hidden by bushes. -In the course of the night, hearing the French language spoken, they had -kicked with their feet and the stretcher-bearers had drawn them out, -both still living. -</p> -<p> -The narrative of these particulars produced a worse effect upon Odette -than tidings of death; the more as some one had the lightness to say in -her presence: "Much better to be shot dead at an unexpected moment than -to endure such long and cruel agony." -</p> -<p> -"That is a fine idea!" retorted Odette. "Much better to be alive than -dead." -</p> -<p> -Notwithstanding the sadness of these visits of friends when there was -always some new death to weep for, deaths which had occurred under the -most frightful circumstances, Odette felt that no other sorrow was equal -to her sorrow; and she detested them all, not as losses hateful to -endure, not as making part of a national calamity the like of which had -never been before, but as unwelcome events intruding themselves between -her and her own grief. She desired to be alone with her sorrow, and she -resolved henceforth to know nothing of all the rest. -</p> -<p> -One idea possessed her during several days: to see the place where Jean -lay buried. Oh! if she could also see that where he received his -death-blow! She appealed to three or four influential persons of her -acquaintance, hung over the telephone. What she asked was to the last -degree impossible. Word came to her from the Minister that it would be -easier for her to go to Berlin, passing through Switzerland after -procuring the necessary papers, than to reach her husband's tomb, near -as it was. Then it seemed to her that the government, even more than -death, had robbed her of her husband by means never practised before, -the refined cruelty of which had been invented for her alone. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="V">V</a></h4> - -<p> -Her old friend, La Villaumer, had come to make her a brief visit of -condolence. He was the only man of their former group of intimates left -in Paris, because of his years. Now he came to see her again. -</p> -<p> -"I do not come seeking to console you, my friend. If I am making a -mistake, turn me to the door. In my mind there is no consolation for -you; you are an unfortunate woman. You must not ask much of life, do you -see? You have known happiness. To most people happiness is unknown. Let -those to whom it is a stranger deceive themselves with words and -attitudes; as for you, weep for all you have lost; weep; what you have -lost is worth all tears." -</p> -<p> -"Thank you, my friend; do not feel that you are obliged to make a -heroine of me, you of all others! You know, of all others, that I am not -a heroic soul, but simply a woman who loves." -</p> -<p> -"You are the purest woman whom I have known, in the sense that you are -the most natural. You were born in a terrestrial paradise, and until now -you have lived in one. You have not been put outside the gate for some -misdeed by the angel with the fiery sword; a hurricane has arisen and -devastated the garden." -</p> -<p> -"But I am none the less outside of the gate!" -</p> -<p> -"I recognize that. There would be no use in seeking to deny it, and it -is all in vain to say to you that if others are less vividly aware of -being outside the gate it is because they never lived in the garden, -like you." -</p> -<p> -"But they tell me that everything is changed." -</p> -<p> -"They are right, and you see it clearly because you are outside of Eden, -which you had never left before. It is only that some of them accept the -change quickly because they were prepared for it, and others because -they are less sensitive than you." -</p> -<p> -"Then, if such a change exists, does that mean that I should cease to -mourn my husband?" -</p> -<p> -"No; but the day will come when you will mourn him more. Remember what I -say: you will mourn him more. That is the way in which you will take -your part in the change." -</p> -<p> -"More!" ejaculated Odette. "Is it possible? I do not understand you." -</p> -<p> -"I mean by 'more' another manner of mourning, which you will doubtless -find more endurable. Let us not talk more about it now, but keep in mind -what I have said." -</p> -<p> -She shrank more and more from society, till she could endure neither -news nor the face of a friend. She caused herself to be denied at the -door—forbade her maid to speak to her of the war, even to bring in -the newspapers. She wished to hear nothing. -</p> -<p> -Then Paris became odious to her because she could not keep herself -sufficiently in retirement. Since she was not permitted to go and -stretch herself upon Jean's tomb, like a faithful dog, she decided to -seek a refuge where she could think only of Jean, weep for him in -solitude, live only in his memory, stun herself with her own grief, give -herself body and soul to this grief from which no earthly power had the -right to tear her. -</p> -<p> -She thought of returning to Surville, where Jean had bidden her good-by, -where she had spent those last weeks with him, those beloved days of the -end of the world. To find herself there in present circumstances would -be atrocious pain; so much the better! There was only one sort of -torture that she feared; that which should forbid her to live in -intimate union with the memory of Jean. To suffer, to suffer even to -martyrdom, to the martyrdom which Jean's death was causing her, this was -the greatest good for which she could ask. -</p> -<p> -Odette set out for Surville. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="VI">VI</a></h4> - -<p> -It was the end of October. The war, still violent and deadly along all -that line of conflict which was called the battle of the Aisne, was -becoming more terrible in the north, and was being carried over into -Belgium, as at the beginning. Universal anguish, for a time checked by -the victory of the Marne, was as acute as in the first days. Surville, -on the seashore, could not but be deserted and sad at this season. The -Hôtel de Normandie closed, the public houses that were open far from -comfortable, the best way to be alone and not hear war talk from morning -till night was to rent a small villa. A pavilion was recommended; it was -separated from the street by a row of poplars with yellowing foliage and -a narrow grass-plot where two pergolas were in summer covered with -climbing roses. At this season the dull melancholy of this abode was -accentuated by the silence of the dead town. Odette found that it suited -her. No sooner had she arrived than she had made a pilgrimage under the -closed windows and drawn-down blinds of the room that she had occupied -with Jean. The wind was blowing from the country, driving the heavy -clouds out to sea; the old Casino, once so gay, was boarded up; at the -door there still hung a poster announcing the races. Odette followed the -alley, passed over the dunes between the deserted tennis-courts, and -went down to the beach, where she could indulge in the bitterness of -unmingled grief. -</p> -<p> -This was where she had planted her tent and lived with Jean through a -fortnight of sunny days, in utter abandonment to a delight that arose -from the earth or fell down from the magnificent sky. Children had been -playing about; excited little dogs had been barking to coax them to -throw a pebble into the sea. They had ceased their indolent repose only -to plunge into the sea, swimming side by side with delight. -</p> -<p> -To-day the beach was abandoned, and seemed to stretch away, gray and -monotonous, to the end of the world. Odette seated herself under the -shelter of the dune and uttered the beloved name of Jean. The raging -wind carried it, like a flake of foam, toward that distant Havre where a -number of transports were lying in the roadstead. The coachman who -brought her from the train had pointed them out to her: they had brought -over British troops; an average of fifty to fifty-five vessels was -arriving every day. The war! Here, too, here again, when she had hardly -left the train, she had been reminded of it. -</p> -<p> -Nevertheless, the hours passed and no one spoke of it, to her at least. -The monotonous sound of the sea soothed her, and the sea, -notwithstanding the troop-ships over there, seemed like something grand, -entirely foreign to all the human butchery. Odette rested her eyes on -the limitless plain, ever restless and sad. But this sadness was allied -to her own, and at the same time something immense, majestic, and -superhuman seemed to enter the depths of her still rudimentary -consciousness of the dawn of a new time. She would have remained there -for hours if the approach of evening had not rendered intolerable the -sense of despair suggested by the scene, and if the rain had not begun -to fall in torrents. -</p> -<p> -Odette took one of the paths leading back to the town. -</p> -<p> -Hardly had she reached it when she was surprised to see through the -driving wind and rain that buffeted her, many illuminated buildings -where she had expected only the shadows of a sleeping city. That was the -Casino, which she had lately seen shut up by boards! And that was the -Grand Hotel, all twinkling with light! She had to round the corner of -the latter to reach her cottage, and by degrees as she approached it she -saw a swarm of human beings, became aware of a commotion in the vast -building which had seemed so funereal. Men with bandaged heads, with -arms in slings, men walking on crutches; and the white head-dresses and -red crosses of nurses; it was a hospital. The wind brought its odors to -her—the smell of tincture of iodine, of cooking and an indescribable -unsavoriness. -</p> -<p> -She drew near, passed beneath the windows. The sight was not so -heart-breaking as she would have expected. The nurses, some of them -young, wore a smile; if certain wounded men were stretched out, inert, -others, seated on their beds, were quietly chatting, calling across to -one another; a great burst of boyish laughter took her by surprise, -while at the same moment she saw, close-pressed to the window-pane, -directly under the electric light, the pitiful, waxen face of a sort of -Lazarus rising from the tomb. She became aware that the other building, -opposite, was equally crowded; she saw at the door an orderly in -uniform, and the inscription on white linen: "Supplementary Hospital." -She had thought to flee from the war; everything was bringing it to her. -The pavilion that she had selected, with its green lawns, its poplars, -its pergolas, was situated not far from these hospitals. All day long -she would see only men who had been in the war! -</p> -<p> -Somewhat disheartened, she returned home. It was not what she had -expected to find here. Two telegrams were awaiting her; she opened them -listlessly—no news could be of serious moment to her. Both of them -announced the death of young men whom she knew intimately, old friends -of her husband; the first, an aviator crushed under his machine; the -second, killed on the banks of the Yser. -</p> -<p> -The next morning several letters brought to her details of this twofold -loss. The first of these young men, whom she remembered to have had at -her house not three months before, had joined in aerial conflict with an -enemy machine, at an altitude of two thousand metres; despairing of -overcoming it by shots of grape, he had dashed upon it, crushing his own -screw, but had also seen his adversary wrecked as they fell to earth -together. It was one of the first exploits of the kind; its effect upon -the imagination was great. The other victim of the day, an officer by -profession, after having his shoulder crushed and his useless arm bound -to his body by withes, had continued for an hour to command his company, -until a bomb had scattered him in fragments. -</p> -<p> -Odette shuddered. The heroism touched her, as it touched every one; but -these fine deeds, these multiplied deaths, overshadowed the case of her -husband, blotted it out; the death of Lieutenant Jacquelin was fading -from the general memory; other deaths were making more of a stir than -his; as the war became more and more furious it seemed to relegate its -earlier stages to a long-past time, somewhat inferior to the later -tragedy. Lieutenant Jacquelin had been killed in the first days of the -war, of a war still fought in old-fashioned way. The miseries of the -trenches under the autumn rains was another sort of war, one which alone -seemed to be true war. The headlong rush of the enemy on the Yser, of -which people were better informed than of the earlier invasion at the -Marne, arrested and absorbed the public mind. Odette felt this, and -though she was determined that no thought of glory should mingle with -her grief, the idea of glory and of the gigantic struggle that was going -on did penetrate her mind in spite of herself, by reason of the -diminution which the prestige of her own hero was suffering. She had -never dreamed of finding a cause of pride in what he had done; one -single thought had absorbed her: that her Jean, her love, was dead. In -her wounded pride she was hurried into saying to herself: "He died -nobly, he had a beautiful death, he too!" Yet the universal chorus -seemed to reply: "Since him, others have done better." -</p> -<p> -She wrote to her newly widowed friends in words of exaggerated praise, -affecting not to speak at all of her personal sorrow. It was a -gratuitous effusion of temper, for the widows did not find her praises -at all extravagant, and never observed Odette's reserve as to her own -case. -</p> -<p> -She decided not to leave the house, that she might see nothing, hear -nothing, learn nothing. For a while she even thought of notifying the -post-office not to forward her correspondence; but she was always hoping -that the Minister would send her a permit to visit Jean's grave. -Jealously she shut herself up with the memory of her husband. -</p> -<p> -Everything irritated her; everything was odious to her; everything -seemed to conspire to raise between her and the beloved memory a barrier -of bleeding corpses, a screen upon which were portrayed horrors invented -by a satanic imagination, together with sentences of exalted morality -unknown to her and whose new radiance blinded her. -</p> -<p> -Stamping her foot, tearing the handkerchief with which she was stanching -her tears, she declared to herself that she would henceforth live only -for Jean and by him. She kissed the photographs that she had brought -with her. She stretched herself upon a lounge, engulfing herself in the -torturing memory of him. For one day, several days, a week, perhaps -longer, she would be able to live upon only the thought of him. She -would open neither letters nor despatches that might come; if she was -late with her condolences, her congratulations, what did it matter? -</p> -<p> -The idea of military glory entered her mind and suggested to her the -hope of erecting a monument to her husband. She was caressing the -thought when her maid entered her room like a gust of wind. -</p> -<p> -"Madame, the wounded! the wounded! Swarms of them! In automobiles, on -trucks; it appears that there are twice as many for Sousville, and the -train has carried as many more to Houlgate and Cabourg!" -</p> -<p> -Amelia threw open the windows. The train of wounded men was passing the -house. Odette dared not forbid herself to look at it. -</p> -<p> -Autos were rumbling by, some of them covered, others displaying to the -light of day a heap of men, motionless, bandaged, covered with clay, an -agglutinated mass of flesh in which all individuality if not all life -seemed to be held in suspense, a cart-load of humanity: not a single man -but a mass of bloody pulp in which the suffering that it covered must be -a common suffering. Then came a truck, two trucks, three. They were -great drays across which were placed stretchers, and on these stretchers -were extended what they call the bedded wounded, those whose legs are -broken, or already amputated, or dreadfully crushed, those -fever-stricken from projectiles received in the body, those with cloven -skulls, hastily bound together. They were marine gunners, foot-soldiers, -blacks; tall, handsome, Moroccans with brown skins. Distinguished from -all the others by excess of ill fortune, they were stretched out, -straight and rigid like corpses placed in order, at equal distances, -upon the marble slabs of a morgue. The trucks going at a walk and -carrying the most seriously wounded, at each check, each halt, each -starting again, one could hear hollow moans; sometimes the outcry of a -Moroccan, sharp like the voice of a child or a woman, would make you -catch your breath, and the country folk, crowded along the sidewalks, -would whimper as if they themselves were being tortured. -</p> -<p> -Amelia, who in the beginning had been chattering without ceasing, was -now suffocated with sobs, and her elbows upon the window-ledge was -weeping silently over this procession. Odette, hidden at another window, -wept like her servant, incapable either of tearing herself away from the -sight or of controlling her emotion. -</p> -<p> -At length, having closed the windows, the two women found themselves -face to face with wet eyes. Amelia said: -</p> -<p> -"It is better to be dead than alive." -</p> -<p> -Never had they experienced such emotions in Paris, where they thought -themselves nearer the war because of the number of kilometres between -them and the front, or because they heard men deemed well informed -telling contradictory news from morning to night. Here in this remote -and quiet corner they had now touched the very relics of the hecatomb. -The eyes alone tell the truth; words are a small matter. -</p> -<p> -Amelia could not remain still; she ran to the hospital after the -procession. Never in her life had she seen anything so exciting. -</p> -<p> -On her return she said that she could hardly recognize the entrance of -the Grand Hotel, whither she had gone a few months before to carry notes -from Monsieur or Madame to M. X or M. Y who were dead now, like -Monsieur. -</p> -<p> -She brought back much information. The wounded who came that morning -were from the Department of the North, where a frightful battle had been -raging for weeks. "Some of them talk, madame; some of them say nothing; -their eyes break your heart, like poor, sick dogs that glance at you as -if ashamed and pretend to be asleep." "I could see from where I was," -she went on after a little, "the surgeon as he appeared to be, all in -white, with a cap like a cook and bare arms; he received them at the -door and sorted them out, sending them up-stairs, down-stairs, to the -right, the left, pestered by the nurses, who begged for them." -</p> -<p> -But Odette had not seen them entering the hospital, and this did not -interest her. She was pursuing her own thoughts. -</p> -<p> -"There was one in the procession," she said, "one that was lying down, -who was so pale, poor boy! He will not go far." -</p> -<p> -She had vowed to herself that she would not go out; she would remain -with her grief the whole day, the whole week. But immediately after -luncheon she put on her hat and went to wander around the hospital. -</p> -<p> -A hedge separated the street from the great court in which there was -still a circular clump of trees surrounded with withered summer flowers; -opposite, above another hedge, the vines in a charming flower-garden -were reddening on the pergolas. Everything bore the impress of a time of -display and enjoyment, and she felt that decorations like these were -henceforth antiquated, absurd. -</p> -<p> -Odette knew already, through Amelia, the disposition of each part of the -hospital, whose interior hum she could hear from without. She knew that -one flight up, at the first turn, were the typhoids, nursed by a Sister -who for twelve years past, wherever she might be sent, had done nothing -else than care for typhoids, and go to the nearest church to put up a -little prayer. She knew the situation of the staircase leading to the -basements, where the food was brought in and the dead carried out. She -knew that at a corner of the building looking upon the sea was the -operating-theatre, visible from without. And in fact, passing by it, she -perceived a group of white-robed men and women, their sleeves turned -back, leaning over something or some one. Then she fled toward the sea -like a coward and was ashamed. In reality, this assemblage of suffering -creatures at once repelled and attracted her, producing a complex -sentiment, unfamiliar and incongruous. -</p> -<p> -From afar she looked at the building and its surroundings. At the sight -of this countryside, these villas, these hotels, the memory of the past -summer overpowered her, and at the same time she experienced a cruel -dispelling of her memories of the past summer. Meanwhile she stood there -as if hypnotized by the great house of suffering. On the ground floor, -through the glazed verandas she discerned a constant coming and going of -white caps. And she thought of the labors which those hundred and fifty -new arrivals of the morning must necessitate. She was seized with -timidity at the thought of approaching this august place. Before it she -seemed to herself a profane person, idle, gloved, parasol in hand, her -one interest her personal grief. -</p> -<p> -An unknown power held her motionless, kept her from going toward the -sea, where she had hoped to meet her cruel and too-much loved memories, -and yet forbidding her to return to that place of common suffering which -she had not made her own. While she stood there, hesitating on the -levelled dune, she was shot through with an unaccustomed shiver, which -frightened her. -</p> -<p> -As a pretext for again drawing near the place she told herself that she -desired to see once more the poor boy whom she had seen lying so pale on -his stretcher. Had they revived him? Sincerely, she would have loved to -know. But how set about it? No sooner had she returned to the road that -surrounded the glazed verandas than she lost courage to present herself -as a curious stranger; men in bed, others sitting up, would stare at the -newcomer, young and perhaps pretty under her crape veil. -</p> -<p> -She returned to her house much more agitated than if she had met any -one, and let Amelia talk to her of all that she had learned concerning -not only that hospital, but all the hospitals of the region. She -remembered of all she heard only the name of a lady whom she had met in -August at the Hôtel de Normandie, and who, it appeared, was nursing the -wounded in the neighboring hospital, Madame de Calouas. -</p> -<p> -She shut herself up again, distrustful of the strange attraction that -the city of suffering exercised over her. She talked to Jean's -photograph, saying to it: "I will be only yours, think of nothing but of -you." She read over again the books that they had read together; or -rather, she pleased herself by telling herself that she had read these -books with Jean. Or she walked in her little garden, making forty turns -over the tour of the hedge-bordered alley, strewn with golden flakes -which the poplars shed like rain. Sometimes she would pause before the -latticed gate upon the road, amusing herself with counting the minutes -that one might stand there without seeing a single passer-by. One day -she thought she recognized Mme. de Calouas hastening past on a bicycle, -light and fleet as a dragon-fly. And she felt a desire to see her again, -not on her own account, for she had left upon her only a vague -impression, but to talk to her or hear her talk of Jean. -</p> -<p> -Vainly she watched for her. She even permitted herself to walk out, in -the hope of meeting Mme. de Calouas. -</p> -<p> -"But, madame," said Amelia, "it is very easy. Every one knows when these -ladies come back and forth to the hospital. Madame has only to walk up -and down before the great court." -</p> -<p> -It was not till the following Sunday, at eleven o'clock mass, that -Odette met Mme. de Calouas and spoke to her. -</p> -<p> -"What!" exclaimed Mme. de Calouas, "you here! What hospital do you -belong to?" -</p> -<p> -Odette thought that the nurse had made a mistake, intending to say: -"Where are you staying?" -</p> -<p> -"I am at the Elizabeth pavilion." -</p> -<p> -"Is that the new auxiliary post opened for contagious diseases?" -</p> -<p> -"It is just a little villa," said Odette simply. "It is large enough for -me alone." -</p> -<p> -"And what are you doing there, good God?" -</p> -<p> -"I came here," said Odette, "that I might mourn for my husband in -peace." -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas assumed a suitable expression, but made no reply. Odette -continued: -</p> -<p> -"He was killed in the end of September, at the head of his company, -going out from the village——" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, I heard," said Mme. de Calouas. "I ought to have sent you a card; -but in times like these——" -</p> -<p> -"You yourself are in mourning," observed Odette. -</p> -<p> -"Oh—I! I have lost my husband, my two brothers, my uncle the colonel, -several cousins—" She waved her hand with a gesture which signified: -"They are past counting!" Before leaving Odette she added: -</p> -<p> -"Come to see me at the hospital, from eight o'clock to noon, and from -two to four. From four to six I have another service at the Red Cross, -close by. I will show you things. Come." -</p> -<p> -For a long time Odette hesitated. Again she shut herself up with her -adored memories. She was irritated that Mme. de Calouas had not said a -word about that exquisite man who was her Jean, and whom she had met at -the hotel. When she went out it was precisely at an hour when she knew -Mme. de Calouas to be at her hospitals. When the sea-wind was too strong -she would walk in the dull streets of the deserted summer city, a -pleasure resort in which the word "pleasure" had become strange and -unfitting. The streets crossed at right angles; nearly all of them were -bordered by hedges beyond which one could see a garden, the wire cage of -a tennis-court, a Norman villa, and no one. Often, the whole length of -her walk she met only one human being, a big man, almost impotent, whose -duty it was to sweep up the dead leaves—an absurd duty since the wind -scattered them as fast as he swept, and the trees shed down behind him -another layer of little golden, rolling, dead things. -</p> -<p> -Sometimes, walking daringly, Odette crossed the long terrace, and -braving the wind went as far as to the sea. -</p> -<p> -At certain hours the beach was covered with men under treatment. You -recognized them by the slings that supported their arms, by their -crutches, their bandaged heads, not often by their uniforms, of which -they preserved only odd parts. They wore old jackets, knitted -waistcoats, trousers brought forth from old Norman wardrobes. Some of -the men limped, others wearily dragged their feet along the sand; those -who had legs wrestled with one another, ran races, played like children. -They delighted in the edge of the sea, gathering shells, and regaling -themselves with the slimy flesh of cockles. Some of them cast a too -expressive glance upon the young woman, with an awkward word which at -another time would have made her smile. It was an amazing group of -tatterdemalions; within the memory of man no eye had ever looked upon -such a sight. It excited compassion; and yet almost every man in -particular had gained, without trying, the manly merit of always seeming -to be in good humor. -</p> -<p> -Whenever she saw them Odette felt moved, and at the same time somewhat -jealous. <i>He</i> had not been washed, bandaged, ministered to, nor -even clothed in rags; <i>he</i> had not been able to drag his mangled -limbs along the seashore; <i>he</i> had been killed outright. She would -say to herself: "Perhaps one of these soldiers knew him, perhaps he saw -him fall; he could tell me the details, could describe his last days, -his last hour, his last minute." And she grew faint at the possibility -of asking them, of learning. -</p> -<p> -The low tide, the stormy sky, the wind, the grayish hillsides, the -transports on the horizon, always this immense deserted beach, these -wretched relics of the war, and she, disconsolate widow, imploring the -wind to snatch her away and destroy her in its eddies! The constant -reminders of the past, the sight of these same places, natural -background of all the pleasant things of life! The thought of that water -which had bathed the limbs of Jean, and of the August sun, and the -restless multitude, gay and elegant, whom the many-colored sweaters set -off like a profusion of tulips; the movement of automobiles, the music -of the orchestra! Her heart ached at these contrasts even more than it -had done in Paris. The solitude, the approaching winter, and the near -contact with suffering aroused in her an unwelcome agitation. The -restless air, dark with cawing crows, brought a bitter taste to her -lips, and yet aroused in her an indescribable sense of splendor. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="VII">VII</a></h4> - -<p> -Nothing less than the thought of meeting Mme. de Calouas at church on -the following Sunday before she had paid her promised visit could have -induced Odette to cross the threshold of the hospital. -</p> -<p> -She went on Saturday, between two and four o'clock. An orderly wearing a -corporal's bands detained her as if her hand-bag might conceal -incendiary bombs, but was softened on hearing the name of Mme. de -Calouas, and led her to room 74. Odette was kept a long time standing at -the door of room 74; at last a doctor came out, carrying a case of -instruments. He was followed by Mme. de Calouas, who said: -</p> -<p> -"It is too bad, dear madame! I beg you to excuse me; one of my patients -detained me. But now I am at your service; just let me change my blouse -before taking you to see the wards." -</p> -<p> -Her change of costume was soon made, and she took Odette to a -neighboring room where a very young nurse and two military orderlies -were with great difficulty holding down a patient in an attack of -tetanus. The sick man's head with its contracted jaws and inflexible -neck reminded her of certain "attractions" of the waxworks; the upheaved -body, forming an arc from head to heels, was as rigid and unyielding as -the arch of a bridge. Odette turned pale, and Mme. de Calouas said: -</p> -<p> -"You lack training. See this child who is nursing him! She isn't twenty -years old—a mere girl." -</p> -<p> -They passed into another room, from which exhaled a pestilential odor. -</p> -<p> -"Gangrene from the gas," said Mme. de Calouas. "It is not a perfume for -the pocket-handkerchief, far from it! But one gets accustomed to -anything. With assiduous care and absolute asepsis we have saved a -certain number of wounded who suffer from this complication. We are so -fortunate here as to have a surgeon who is not in haste to use the -knife." -</p> -<p> -In the long corridor nurses, for the most part young, were gliding or -running. A priest, wearing his alb, was hastening to one of the rooms. -Carried along by his speed, Mme. de Calouas entered after him, and -Odette followed her. -</p> -<p> -It was a comfortable hotel bedroom, hung with brightly colored paper; -there were two women in white, and on a clean white bed lay a tall young -man, uncovered, almost as white as the bed, from whose lips poured a -stream of blood. He had received a fragment of shell in the sinus, had -been operated upon that morning, and hemorrhage had set in—a stream -white and red, unlike anything she had ever seen; it overwhelmed her -with horror. -</p> -<p> -"You should apply a tampon," said Mme. de Calouas. -</p> -<p> -"The doctor is coming," replied one of the nurses. -</p> -<p> -They were both leaning over the white body; one was injecting serum into -the stomach, the other was applying a syringe with ipecac to the thigh. -The priest was standing at the cadaverous feet, anointing them with the -sacred oil. The doctor arrived and applied the proper tampons. -</p> -<p> -To Mme. de Calouas this was one of the normal cases which one meets on -visiting a military hospital. Odette was making every effort to stand -upright. She begged to go out in the air. Mme. de Calouas smiled. -</p> -<p> -"It is war! And we are only in one of the rear hospitals. There is no -rain of shells here. Shall we visit the wards down-stairs, if you -please?" -</p> -<p> -The vast wards were almost vacant at this hour, for many of the patients -were out-of-doors. -</p> -<p> -"They recover rapidly, if you only knew! One can see the new flesh -grow." -</p> -<p> -"And they return to the firing-line?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"They must, indeed!" -</p> -<p> -A group of four convalescents was playing a game of cards on a bed. -Others, stretched at length, were reading; several were sleeping, some -were receiving friends. A photographer in a corner was taking pictures. -</p> -<p> -Beds and beds, and torn flesh, and perforated limbs, and members sawn -off, and trepanned skulls! And the tetanus, the gangrene, the typhus, -and that red torrent by which the soul of a man was taking flight, amid -all that whiteness! -</p> -<p> -Odette felt as if she should die, and left the hospital. During all her -visit one question had been upon her lips: "Shall I find here any one -who knew my husband?" What was it that kept her from uttering it? She -could not have told how it was, but she had not so much as pronounced -her husband's name. A weight had seemed to be crushing her during the -whole time. She had felt overwhelmed by the new horror. The worst was -that when at last she reached home she felt ashamed to weep for her own -sorrow. -</p> -<p> -The fact also that all that human flesh had been ravaged for the same -cause; that of those unhappy ones who were groaning, not one thought of -blaming the cause; and that other fact that one part of humanity, -upright and able, was bending with help over the other, gasping part, -forced her to gather up her disordered thoughts and in the midst of her -confusion to exclaim: -</p> -<p> -"Something is changed!" -</p> -<p> -That evening, at six o'clock, instead of wandering about the streets in -heavy sadness, she went, as Mme. de Calouas had begged her to do, to -evening prayer at the Chapel of the Orphanage, in which the Red Cross -was now installed. It was a convent chapel, reserved for nuns, the -public being admitted only behind a sort of screen of carved wood, -through which could be seen the orderly rows of Sisters and orphans, the -altar and the lights. She found herself in the midst of valid soldiers; -that is to say, such as by one means or another could move from place to -place. There were bandaged heads, arms in slings, stiff or deformed -legs, crutches. Odette was moved by the singing more than she could have -believed. Suddenly sobs choked her, and she wept. The men turned toward -this young woman in mourning whom they could hardly have helped -noticing, and who kept on wiping her eyes. She was weeping from a -natural need of weeping. She was weeping for Jean, but also she wept -with great pity for all those lacerated bodies; and for the first time -she realized that these men, or these fragments of men, had come from -places where death and pain were of all things the most usual. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas heard and saw her, and knew that Odette had come here to -weep for her husband. As they went out she said to her: -</p> -<p> -"You loved him much, then?" -</p> -<p> -And by these words Odette realized that she had been weeping for an -immeasurable loss, which had left her in a sense benumbed. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="VIII">VIII</a></h4> - -<p> -This did not last long, and as soon as she reached home she made -honorable amends to Jean. She drove from her every thought except of -him, denouncing the universal conspiracy against her beloved memories. -What could she do to mitigate the misfortunes of others, however great -and innumerable they might be? Those women who seemed to deny their own -griefs filled her with a sort of dismay. -</p> -<p> -She passed hours of sleeplessness revolving these ideas, determining at -whatever cost to master herself, and forget the whole distracted world. -She fell asleep vowing henceforth to belong wholly to the memory of -Jean. -</p> -<p> -Yet the next morning, Sunday, coming out of church, she found no rest -till she had met Mme. de Calouas and asked her: -</p> -<p> -"Could I be of use to you at the hospital?" -</p> -<p> -"I was expecting you," Mme. de Calouas replied. "I would do nothing to -bring you before the time; but I am glad that you wish to come. I will -begin by taking you under my wing; for your initiation you shall be my -helper. Does that suit you?" -</p> -<p> -"Of course. I do not know how to do anything." -</p> -<p> -"When will you come?" -</p> -<p> -"When you please." -</p> -<p> -"Well, I will leave you your Sunday. Or rather, come with me now, that I -may at once get you received by the head doctor, and find a provisional -cap and blouse for you. The rest will be for to-morrow morning." -</p> -<p> -Odette saw the head doctor; she tried on the nurse's costume which her -friend would lend to her until she could procure one; and at eight -o'clock the next morning, after having signed an engagement, she entered -the hospital, almost as if she was entering a convent. -</p> -<p> -At that hour the hired women were sponging the floors with wet cloths, -and through the wards resounded the click of buckets set down, the metal -handle falling against their sides. The floors exhaled moisture. The sea -air, entering by the open windows, swept out the odor of the sick-room. -Convalescent men were going to the lavatories; others were helping -comrades with helpless arms to wash themselves upon their cots. -</p> -<p> -Odette asked for Mme. de Calouas, and found her before the twenty beds -allotted to her. A dozen of them were occupied by seriously wounded men, -who gazed upon the newcomer with embarrassing steadfastness. Mme. de -Calouas led Odette to the room where dressings were done, passing -through the whole ward, where sixty men were exchanging the morning -greetings of the soldier, now rough, now amusing. She was, above all, -surprised that the nurses paid them no attention. -</p> -<p> -While giving instructions to her pupil Mme. de Calouas was busy -disinfecting mugs, unrolling pieces of cotton and tearing them into -bits, counting piles of compresses, tubes, drains. The room exhaled an -odor of antiseptics, sweet and insipid. -</p> -<p> -They returned to the ward, and Mme. de Calouas made known to her each -patient by name, with certain indications as to his case; she begged -Odette to wash this or that one, to make the bed of an unfortunate who, -with only one arm, could not do it alone. -</p> -<p> -"Be careful what you say to them," she whispered in her ear. "Remember -that their estimate of you will depend upon your first words." -</p> -<p> -Odette observed that the patients gazed at her without once turning away -their eyes. She won their approval by the first words she uttered, and -by the gentleness with which she washed the faces of two or three -helpless men, and she saw their expressions change. Those eyes so full -of agony, which make unpractised fingers tremble, were softened. Her -hands were dexterous, her face attractive. There was one poor fellow -whom she had to wash from head to foot, like a new-born baby, a -difficult task for a beginner. When all was finished and he was wrapped -in clean linen she was about to pass to another bed, when the patient -said: "Wait, madame!" And she saw him painfully turn in his bed, raise -his sheet, awkwardly stretch out a suffering arm in the attempt at any -cost to reach the case that hung at the head of the bed. She held the -linen bag within his reach, and he, hesitating, fumbling, blindly -feeling among a litter of things, a knife, letters, bits of bread, -succeeded in extracting two photographs, those of his wife and his two -little children. He desired to reward the new nurse for her kind -offices, and he did his best by introducing her to his little family. -Deeply touched, Odette praised the wife and the two children, and -thenceforward the poor fellow was her friend. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas came to say that the stretcher-bearers were coming to -carry "the thigh" to be dressed. Odette followed "the thigh." The new -nurse was asked to cut the dressing. She broke into a cold perspiration; -she thought the scissors were defective, and her remark provoked a smile -from all the experts around; only the patient looked at her with an -apprehension which seemed to paralyze her. -</p> -<p> -"You must learn to cut dressings," said Mme. de Calouas. "You will get -used to it; just a knack." -</p> -<p> -Finally the steel succeeded in biting through the damp compresses. When -they fell apart the wound appeared. It was an open fracture of the leg, -whence exhaled the special sickening smell of osseous pus. The large -wound spread open like a nightmare flower with thick petals, soft and -viscid, covered with a creamy layer of dull old-rose color. They washed -it; the patient gritted his teeth; now and again a cry escaped from the -thin little brown face. When they looked at him he was brave enough to -smile and say, "That's all right." -</p> -<p> -Odette was more ill than the wounded man. As on the previous evening, -she asked that she might go out into the air, and when she stumbled at -the door, turned pale, and was about to faint, the orderly, who -understood these phenomena, with the help of a valid patient laid her -all along upon a marble slab. It was only for a moment, and she returned -to the room, saying, like the wounded man: "That's all right." The -uninterrupted process of dressing made even her forget the incident. A -kindly woman drew her into an embrasure and gave her a drop of cordial. -</p> -<p> -At that moment a man was being carried to the operating-room. He -blustered a little as he addressed to his comrades the classic <i>au -revoir</i> which may so well be an <i>adieu</i>: "I am going to my game of -billiards!" -</p> -<p> -"Try to win, old fellow," they answered from all parts of the ward. -</p> -<p> -And, without flinching, Odette was present at "her" first operation. -</p> -<p> -She returned home at half past twelve, exhausted, but lighter in heart -and satisfied with herself. -</p> -<p> -"Madame is pale," said Amelia. "Madame is the color of the lamp-shade -when the lamp is lighted." -</p> -<p> -After luncheon she slept heavily for half an hour, and returned to the -hospital. The afternoon was more calm, at least until the second visit -of the head physician, before the men's six-o'clock meal. She made -further acquaintance with her patients; she heard them talk about the -war. She found occasion to say, "My poor husband was killed on the 22d -of September," but it produced no great effect, none of those soldiers -having known Lieutenant Jacquelin. Each told about what he had seen, and -nothing else seemed to him to have a real existence. She was -disappointed, but by their various touching stories of what they had -been through, she was introduced to that war of which she had determined -to know nothing since her husband was dead. The battles of the Yser, the -sufferings of the combatants who had passed day after day in freezing -water, the grotesque onslaughts of the Germans, the piles of dead under -the ominous skies, set her imagination to work. Always thinking of her -husband, she saw him all alone in the face of those infuriated enemies, -trampled down by them.... He had gone out with drawn sabre from his -little village, at the head of his company, and he had been killed -outright. Before the survivors of the Yser she no longer dared speak of -the circumstance of the lieutenant's death, beautiful though it was. -This war seemed to be enlarging, growing beyond measure great. -</p> -<p> -They were beginning to organize the hospital for the winter; certain -persons insisted that the war would not be over in six months; others -said with conviction: "Nor in eighteen months either!" But these were -suspected of sowing demoralization. Yet the English were making -preparations for three years! From her friend La Villaumer, who was -still in Paris, Odette received letters in which he wrote: -</p> -<p> -"We are like children, sometimes gay, laughing and gamboling, at others -howling, no one knows why. My dear friend, busy yourself with your work, -and don't read the papers. As for me, there is something which impresses -me more than the monstrous movements of the German colossus: it is the -soul of the colossus. It is <i>one</i>; it has only one purpose, which is -the greatness of the German nation. It is a rudimentary sentiment, savage, -primitive, barbarous, but how strong! We ourselves are fighting because -we have been attacked, and also to defend ideas which do us the greatest -honor: liberty, justice, and the like. We are animated by a very lively -sentiment of the rights of man. We love humanity; they, the Germans, -love Germany. How much more simple it is, and how it relieves them of -all the scruples that hold us back! And yet, in the final issue, it is -he who shall have triumphed by force who will lay down the moral values -of the future." -</p> -<p> -Thus, uncertainty, admiration, confidence, scepticism, and a state of -alarm were concurrently implanted in minds, and Odette, affected by -them, like every one else, began from that day to be infected, as with -the odor of the hospital, with this irritating compound. -</p> -<p> -Little by little it seemed to her that she no longer upheld herself, but -that she let herself be carried away, borne along and guided by the life -of the hospital. It was at once horrible and almost laughable. A place -of pain, the perpetual reminder of enormities which the human brain -could never have conceived, it was also an assemblage dominated by -youth, which saves all. In the gaze of those prostrate wounded, gaze -which had become of so much importance to her who passed and repassed -along the bedsides, burned a flame disturbing and alluring, result of -the burning away of something that could not be named. At times, one -felt as if in certain of those wounded men one saw beings returned from -the beyond. They had seen what nothing had prepared them to see, -something that confused them, both their senses and their judgment. Some -of them said: "It was hell!" Others, much more simple-minded, merely said: -"One must have been there!" Certain of them, without imagination or -memory, living entirely in the present moment, shut up within themselves -an unconscious gravity which was in strange contrast with their youthful -natures. But in a general way a new nurse like Odette could aver: -</p> -<p> -"But the wounded are not sad!" -</p> -<p> -"Because," some one would reply, "they are all happy at not being dead." -</p> -<p> -Thus, day succeeded day, without softening Odette's personal sorrow, but -as if shrouding it behind a mourning veil which covered all that she -could imagine of earth's surface. Everything made her think of Jean, but -she had not time to appear to be thinking of him, and she shrank from -speaking of him. -</p> -<p> -She led a very active life. It would happen that just as she sat down at -table, all alone in the evening in the Elizabeth pavilion, the door-bell -would ring. It would be one of the volunteer employees, passing along on -his bicycle to notify the nurses that a train of one hundred and twenty -wounded men was announced to reach the station at eleven o'clock. By -half past ten Odette, who would not take a nap, and who knew not what to -do at home, was already at the hospital, in her cap and blouse. The more -zealous ones were there, and the more indolent ones as well, welcoming -the opportunity to get together and gossip. The head physician was -coming and going, opening and shutting doors; the doctors were arriving -one by one; the surgeon, all in white, his sleeves turned back to the -elbows, was talking with the women. The telephone-bell rang; it was the -police commissioner sending word that the train was an hour late. A few -persons were in despair; there were some whom the matter moved to -laughter. Every one waited. And sometimes the train, instead of one -hour, was two or three hours late. Resignation became general in -proportion as reasons for impatience accumulated. In the great hall -where they were all assembled some seated themselves on anything they -could find, others lay down upon stretchers. Bright conversation grew -dim with the lights. White-robed women, going up or down stairs on -tiptoe, seemed like angelic apparitions. Through the partitions came the -heavy breathing of sleeping men. Suddenly the ringing of a bell startled -every one; the train was drawing into the station at last. The lights -were turned up. Ten minutes later the first automobiles were sounding in -the court. The double-leaved doors were thrown wide, notwithstanding the -cold, the stretcher-bearers rushed out, and in a moment, contrasting -with their rapid bounds, came slowly the wounded soldiers, bleeding, -bearded, covered with earth, wan, exhausted; some of them half-naked, -some with frozen feet, upheld or carried by sturdy fifteen-year-old -lads. All were silent, a religious respect hushed the words upon the -lips. This torn flesh, these rags of French uniform, wrought in the mind -of every being not utterly insensible a change in his idea of the -pathetic; something of the atmosphere of the firing-line entered and -asepticized every heart. -</p> -<p> -The next morning the sense of familiarity returned. But in that one hour -of the dark winter night, while the surgeon, bending over each victim, was -asking him almost tenderly: "And you, my child?"—something august, -an exhalation of the colossal human sacrifice, penetrated into this -commonplace old hotel hall, sanctifying it for all time to come. And not -one of those men or women who had been there, however advanced the hour -of the night, however visible the fatigue on all their faces, but was -glad for having been there. -</p> -<p> -Whence came these wounded men? From Ypres, from Arras, from Notre-Dame -de Lorette. The names called up all that any one knew, through -newspapers and private talk, of those charnel-houses whose image the -imagination refuses to harbor, upon which those who have escaped from -them keep silence. -</p> -<p> -Odette, soapy brush in hand, forcing back all repugnance, doing as -others did, was helping to soothe agonies which humanity seems never -before to have known or dreamed of. The most shocking duties no longer -repelled her. The very effort which she was compelled to make, by the -contrast between what she was seeing and doing and what life had -formerly offered her, pressed the character of the catastrophe to her -mind which lacked capacity to conceive of it. "Is it, then, so great?" -she would wonder. And even: "Is there after all anything great?" For no -soul in the world had taught her this. The inevitable contrast with her -past life, all for herself, for her individual satisfaction, seemed to -dishonor her memories, even of happiness, making them almost trivial. -This, indeed, was the opinion of Mme. de Calouas, but not that of -Amelia, whom in her solitude it became sometimes necessary to oppose. -</p> -<p> -"Madame adopts the ideas of those around her," the maid would say; "it -is all very well, but Madame may believe me: the good time, and the true -time, was before all this, when the poor men were not preparing to be -made into hash." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="IX">IX</a></h4> - -<p> -Who would have believed it a year ago? Odette took the inclination to -follow to the cemetery the pitiful funerals of dead soldiers, not -because it offered her a pretext for a walk into the country in the free -air, for she had done that—she, so susceptible to cold—all -through the black winter. But before everything else she was thinking -that she had not followed her husband to the grave. After all that she -had endured, still reverent of century-old rites, not to have followed -the body of her husband in a funeral car to his last abode seemed to her -to have failed in a sovereign duty. Alas! her husband's body had been -carried in no funeral car, no one had followed him to the grave! She did -not permit herself to dwell upon these heartrending details, but in -accompanying the mortal remains of the soldiers she felt that she was to -a certain degree acquitting herself of an indispensable duty that had -not been rendered to Jean. Then the ceremony at the church moved her. -The panoply of war mingling with hymns and words of peace, the tumult of -battle set over against the sacerdotal acts of the priest, and the -prayers for the eternal rest of the soul that had known to the uttermost -the horror of earthly chaos, combined in some way to deaden the pain of -mind, senses, and heart. -</p> -<p> -The funeral train would climb the narrow, serpentine road which led to -the old town on the hill. Wounded comrades, hobbling along, their feet -ill defended from the rough ground by straw slippers, some of them -lacking an arm and others an eye, would follow the hearse of the poor, -covered with the tricolor, behind the old parents or the young widow in -tears; then would come delegates from the municipality and the hospital, -then kindly disposed followers, pious people, idlers. The hedges would -be growing green; the farms, with flocks of children at the doors and -lowing cattle, would be awaking from the sleep of the long winter; one -could hear the click of the milk-pail as it was set down upon the -ground, the apple-trees in the fields were great tufts of unsullied -flowers. When the procession, having climbed the hillside, turned toward -the right the town came into view, its hotels and casinos transformed -into hospitals with the floating red cross, its church-towers, its long -white beach, the boundless sea with its line of English transports, -untiringly through all the months, bringing from afar British troops to -the land of France. The whole picture melted away into the national flag -that covered the body of the little soldier, shot through by a ball on -the plains of Picardy. In all this there was a new and incomparable -poetry; the self-sacrifice of a man to something that he hardly -understands, a notable act in which all desired to participate; and by -contract the everlasting unconcern, the utter indifference, of nature. -</p> -<p> -Every one, without exception, was thinking of the end of the war. It was -an illusion wrought by the spring, the renaissance of all that lives, -the urgent need of peace and happiness that all creatures and plants cry -out for beneath the returning sun. Those behind the hearse shook their -heads, saying: "What a calamity!" But all were thinking: "It will surely -soon be over." They sighed: "My God, grant that this may be the last to -go!" Alas, it was only the first springtide of the war! If a prophetic -voice should have cried: "In the spring of next year, in the spring of -another year, and still of another, this same ceremony will take place, -the same hopes will be uttered, the same illusions cherished! For season -shall follow upon season, year upon year, only the horror and -unhappiness shall be changed, for they shall increase and time shall know -them out of all proportions that are called reasonable"—assuredly -these good people would have been crushed. -</p> -<p> -As they went down the hill they gathered flowers along the roadside. The -soldiers stopped in the wine-shops where they were given cider, and all -returned to their places at once moved, saddened, and enriched by hopes, -as is always the case when a new victim has succumbed. -</p> -<p> -Spring passed, and summer, and autumn. -</p> -<p> -Odette never spoke of her husband's death, though she was always -thinking of it. She had found neither officer nor soldier who had known -him. The death of Lieutenant Jacquelin in the early days of the war was -a disappearance like so many others, in a chain of events that had no -common measure. A man would fall, another man would take his place; -nearly all the officers by profession were dead, and there were officers -still. -</p> -<p> -"What is a man?" a common soldier asked her one day on the beach. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="X">X</a></h4> - -<p> -Early in the following spring, when the gardens that surrounded the -villas of Surville were gay with flowering plums, and the countryside -was again covered with those lovely trees of rosy snow that it is a pain -to look at when men are killing one another, when the woods were -venturing to confide to the brisk air their new-born foliage, Odette was -obliged to make a visit to Paris. -</p> -<p> -During the journey, in company with convalescents and men on furlough, -old men, and women in mourning, she was astonished to find herself so -much attached to the hospital which she had entered almost against her -will, drawn by something which seemed not to belong to her real self. -</p> -<p> -"Most of the women that I have met there," she reflected, "are of an -unlovely pettiness, and one would say that they strive to transform the -most innocent act into a shameful offense, from a desire to believe that -there are traitors, guilty persons everywhere, and by a strange -inclination to find the presence of the devil in every corner! And yet -their service is excellent." Cunning malice, destructive backbiting, -scandal set on foot by inconsiderate comments on trivial acts, often -meaningless and that might well have been left unnoticed, open jealousy, -absurd vanity, the most insidious intrigues to work up to distinction; -to sum up, utter triviality—all these composed a body of customs -recognized, admitted, in no respect casting a blot upon respectability. -Only one thing led up to the mark of infamy: anything which nearly or -remotely might resemble love. -</p> -<p> -How surprising this had appeared in the eyes of a Parisian woman of -twenty-seven, who had lived in the world of society during the years -between 1905 and 1914! -</p> -<p> -Odette mused upon that social circle, young, cheerful, given to sports, -relatively kindly and prosperous, who before the war had surrounded her. -</p> -<p> -What had become of Simone de Prans, Rose Misson, Clotilde Avvogade, -Germaine Le Gault, and M. de La Villaumer? She had received brief -missives from them, postal-cards rather than letters. On her part, had -Odette perhaps disconcerted her friends by the accounts she sent them; -had she perhaps wearied them by her persistent grief? Simone and Rose -still had their husbands, the former grievously wounded, the other still -whole, running about in his car as usual; Avvogade was attached to Great -Headquarters. Can any one understand the sorrow from which he does not -himself suffer? -</p> -<p> -On reaching Paris Odette was singularly impressed. When she had gone to -Surville in 1914, to forget the war and think only of her dead, she had -been surprised to find herself on the contrary all the nearer to the -war. The trains of wounded, life among the wounded, the almost sole -society of men but recently escaped from death; all this was far -different from her recluse life in the apartment of the Rue de Balzac, -which had indeed recalled the memory of Jean, but had also recalled the -memory of the time of peace. Monotony of occupation, the continual -living-over of the same emotions, at last dulls the sensibilities. The -war as it appeared to her after eighteen months of hospital experience -was a state of things to which her organism and her thought had become -moulded. The long daily weariness, the constantly renewed effort, dulled -her senses and confused her perception of events. -</p> -<p> -Paris in March, 1916, seemed to her much more like war than Surville. -The battle of Verdun was at its height, and all Paris was ringing with -its echoes wherever one might be. Newspapers, conversations, the -tramways, the metro, the taxi chauffeur who gave you change, the woman -who sold you a magazine, servants, masters, the rich, the poor, bank -employees, even to the sellers of violets in the streets, all brought to -mind the war and Verdun, yet mutely, less by outcries than by quiet -words, less by words than by changed color, the graying of the hair or -of the beard, faded eyes, new wrinkles, and a certain indefinable -manner. The whole earth and everything that it bears, every creature -moving upon it, were a single sensitiveness, raised to its most acute -degree. Acts and gestures apparently most remote from the war, -receptions, dinners, the crowd at the entrance of the moving-picture -shows, of classical concerts, of the few remaining music-halls, only -showed the necessity for certain temperaments to tear themselves away -from the nightmare of Verdun. Every one was affected by it, and so much -the more as they were forced to tell themselves: "There are those who -are suffering infinitely more than we." -</p> -<p> -Odette, in her apartment, was once again overwhelmed by her personal -sorrow. She had lived in Surville with her grief buried in the depths of -her heart, for though everything she saw reminded her of Jean she had no -leisure to give herself to dwelling upon the past. In the Rue de Balzac -all her sorrow came to meet her entire as on the first day. It seemed as -if her stay at Surville had done nothing for her. When Simone de Prans -came to welcome her, it seemed to Odette that her friend had just -arrived with the terrible news, and she melted into tears. Her tears -surprised Simone, who dared not reproach her with exaggerating her -sorrow, but who yet brought herself to give her to understand that so -long and so violent a grief was not fitting, that no one any longer wept -like that. Odette, made docile by eighteen months of punctual obedience -to orders, did not resist, made no objection. "No one any longer wept -like that"; it was a custom, one of those sovereign customs, which a -Parisian woman instinctively accepts. Simone had said: "You understand, -there are too many!" Which signified, such misfortunes are too numerous; -they are raining down on everybody. The human heart would not be equal -to its task if it must be always sympathizing; each woman in mourning -would herself die of it, creating a new and superfluous pain. She spoke -with the greatest ease of her Pierrot, one leg paralyzed, one arm five -centimetres shorter than the other and with shattered nerves. He was at -the Ministry of War, and was content. She told of a ceremony which she -had accidentally witnessed that morning, passing the Madeleine on her -way back from the Flower Market. "A fine marriage, you know; red carpet -on the steps, a crowd to right and left. Just as I was passing the doors -opened, and up above I saw the young couple." -</p> -<p> -"There are still men to marry?" -</p> -<p> -"Listen; she, who appeared to be pretty, a lovely girl, a brunette, -tall, leaning, as if enamoured, on her husband's arm; he in uniform, his -decorations flashing on his breast. Oh, the handsome fellow, not thirty -years old! He held himself upright, splendid, not looking at his feet; -two large eyes wide open and fixed, as if he were speaking to a -superior. She seemed to be indicating the steps by a gentle pressure of -the arm, that he might not lose an inch of his fine height. Behind them -one could hear the swellings of the great organ. There was an impulse to -applaud, for he was evidently a hero, unmaimed and superb. Every one was -glad in the happiness of his charming wife, though pitying her in the -midst of admiration, for to-morrow her handsome officer must return to -the firing-line, and the war is endless. Suddenly there was a movement -in the crowd, murmurs, whisperings, faces turned pale; the handsome -officer had just missed falling, my dear, notwithstanding the care of -his young wife to hide his infirmity, for he was blind!" -</p> -<p> -"It's frightful, frightful," exclaimed Odette. -</p> -<p> -She had seen and nursed most grievously wounded soldiers; but -unconsciously a sort of convention had been established in her mind by -which nothing that she saw, or that happened in the hospital at -Surville, should move her. This first result of the war which had faced -her elsewhere than at Surville, and under another aspect, impressed her -almost intolerably. On the other hand, Simone had become accustomed to -the dramatic scenes which at times occur in Paris, where everything is -perhaps all the more sad because the war drama is close at hand, aping -normal life. This juxtaposition of the manners of a time of peace and -these shadows of the pit which mingle with the life of every day, more -like a prolonged dream than like reality, produce surprising effects -upon reflective minds. -</p> -<p> -Simone de Prans, who for a time had taken up work in a model hospital, -an American hospital, was no longer a nurse. That was no longer done. -</p> -<p> -"What about our good Rose?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"Rose Misson has arranged her life. She has resolved not to yield to -things; she has been too much teased about her old husband, always going -about in his automobile. Neither Rose nor her husband is disturbed by -that; he remains on his seat; she dresses, visits the shops as in former -times and receives the few friends who are not indignant because her -husband has not lost two or three limbs. Between ourselves, I think she -is a woman who is doing a great deal of good." -</p> -<p> -"Only she does not cry it upon the housetops?" -</p> -<p> -"No; they will be upbraided for it all their lives, she and her husband; -he, free from all military obligation, for having 'ambushed' himself in -his automobile, she for having retained her placid manner, her good -humor." -</p> -<p> -"I thought that optimism was in fashion." -</p> -<p> -"Optimism, yes, but not naturalness. The approved sort of optimism -consists in unendingly predicting victory, with the jaw of a tigress, -and in determinedly transforming all bad news into a presage of success. -But those who maintain a quiet confidence without talking about it, and -make life around them more pleasant by their usual good temper, are -suspected of indifference." -</p> -<p> -"And in all this, what about you, Simone?" -</p> -<p> -"Me? I have a husband deep in government councils, haven't I? It is a -power in these days. People leave me alone." -</p> -<p> -"And Germaine?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -Simone appeared somewhat embarrassed. People hardly dared to talk of -Germaine Le Gault. Germaine Le Gault had lost her husband at about the -same time with Odette, and almost under the same circumstances. Like -Odette, Germaine adored her husband. Germaine had taken the loss even -more deeply to heart than Odette; her life had even been in danger. -Germaine, like Odette, still wore her deep widow's mourning. And -Germaine was now in love; in love beyond the possibility of concealment, -in love with a head physician in whose service she had worked. He was a -married man and a father. -</p> -<p> -"La Villaumer insists," said Simone, "that in her case it is simply a -lack of imagination, and that no one should blame her. He says, you -understand, that she is unable to bring before herself, as you do, for -example, a vision of her husband. If she had been capable of bearing -about with her a persistent picture of him, she would have been -faithful, if it were only to a picture; but she has no imagination; it -is necessary to her that her mind should rest upon an object. It is one -explanation—probably a paradox." -</p> -<p> -At that moment they heard in the neighboring apartment the playing of an -excellent pianist which had formerly lulled the reveries of Odette when -she was waiting for Jean. That neighboring apartment, into which the -Jacquelins had never set foot, was separated from theirs only by a thin -partition and a door. The music had often fretted Jean, but when Odette -was alone she had loved to hear it. -</p> -<p> -"Listen!" said Odette. "Oh, it is more than eighteen months since I have -heard music!" -</p> -<p> -"That is so," said Simone; "in Paris one finds a little of everything -that one used to love; it is that that hurts." -</p> -<p> -"What is she playing?" asked Simone after a moment. -</p> -<p> -It was a revery; two lovers who are seeking one another, groping in the -darkness of a garden on a lovely summer night; you hear their hesitating -footsteps, you suspect their vexed and feverish gestures, their eager -lips that call one another without imprudently pronouncing a name; -though their footsteps creak upon the gravel and a fountain drops its -slow pearls into the basin. Suddenly the music of a waltz attracts them -separately to the lighted house, and they exchange kisses on the steps -of the entrance, before being swallowed up in the intoxicating motion. -</p> -<p> -"Oh!" exclaimed Odette, thrilled, "do you remember, do you remember?" -</p> -<p> -"What?" asked Simone. -</p> -<p> -"Why, everything! Everything that happened <i>before</i>, before this end -of the world that never ends!" -</p> -<p> -Odette, overcome by the harmonious reminder of the waltz of a possible -festival, of the joy of living, of being pretty, young, beloved, could -only repeat: -</p> -<p> -"I haven't heard ... anything ... for more than eighteen months, Simone! -Do you remember that evening at Mme. Sormellier's, at Bellevue, where -both our husbands were so beautiful?" -</p> -<p> -"And we, too, Odette! We shall be old after the war. We shall have had -hardly five or six years of youth. I will confess to you that sometimes -I juggle with fate. I go to see Clotilde, who refuses to permit herself -to be touched by events. She says: 'I can do nothing about it; I am good -for nothing. Let the world let me alone as I let it alone! Till my last -hour I will stay with my flowers, my books, and my music.'" -</p> -<p> -"Ah! Clotilde, yes; do you know, I had forgotten her!" -</p> -<p> -"Everybody is forgetting her, and she forgets everybody. Her husband is -at Great Headquarters; he often comes. She is a privileged person, and -she says: 'Why should I not accept all the good that is offered me?'" -</p> -<p> -"Yes," said Odette, "it is tempting, but I could not do it.—No, I -could not.—See, I tried to shut myself up with my grief. Well, I -could not. It is too great—this universal sorrow—too -absorbing. Listen!" -</p> -<p> -The pianist next door, still devoted to her Chopin, which she performed -in a remarkable manner, was beginning the First Nocturne, the one that -contains that phrase of lamentation, heartrending in its sober scheme -and its sustained phrasing, without outcry or burst of passion, leaving -the soul to the lasting sense of human woe. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, listen—listen!" -</p> -<p> -The pianist was accompanying herself with her grave, finely cadenced -voice, following without words the sinuous course of the thrice-repeated -utterance of sorrow. Odette began to sob; her nerves were unstrung by -the apparent return to things of former days, while yet acutely -conscious of the dreadful present. -</p> -<p> -"I must give up this apartment, after all," she said between her sobs. -</p> -<p> -"Yes, you will have to," replied Simone; "you would be overwhelmed with -your sense of loss." -</p> -<p> -"For that matter I must give up everything." -</p> -<p> -"Everything? What more, do tell me!" -</p> -<p> -"Myself! See, I cannot delude myself longer." -</p> -<p> -"My poor Odette! You are hardly four days out of your hospital, and you -go to pieces! We are only kept up by the presence of those who have -suffered a thousand times more than we. You can't imagine what it is for -me that my Pierrot has miraculously escaped death, with his body half -destroyed. It is he who saves me from unhappiness. Those who have looked -death in the face and yet have returned to life find it beautiful, -whatever it is, and their wonder at it spreads to all around them." -</p> -<p> -"Yes, yes. I have felt that. If I had my poor Jean, even all broken to -pieces, I should think only of the joy of having him safe. But I have -him no longer, and the past draws me, at times, as if some one much -stronger than I were taking me by the arms and drawing me backward with -irresistible power. Do you remember Isadora dancing among her children -and throwing flowers in one of the motives of the ballet of "Armida"? -And that great fool Antoine Laloire behind us, crying: 'When one has -seen that one may well say, "Thank you," to God and close one's eyes -forever!' He had no idea how well he was speaking. They say he had a -splendid death." -</p> -<p> -"Yes. All our admiration must from this time forward be given to the -beauty of our warriors. Harmonious forms, enchantment—we are done -with them all, my poor child, done with them!" -</p> -<p> -"Done with them! So they say. So I thought, too, when I saw those men -coming in by the hundreds, reduced to a mass of bleeding pulp; I still -think so when I think of the long line of devastation which is spreading -over Europe, of all those human beings who are every day dying around -their torpedoed vessels; but think! The moment the art of our former -days is able to realize itself anywhere, beyond a partition, it rises -upon us like the sun that has been two days hidden. It will rise again, -Simone! If only a few individuals are left who can hear a note, a -shepherd will be found to invent the flute once again, by bringing reeds -together." -</p> -<p> -"You say that because the art of which you are speaking only increases -your sadness. You are cultivating your sadness, and loving it still. If -you were less melancholy, like me, you would consent to accept the new -life just as it offers itself; but you will always see it irremediably -disfigured, poisoned by an overwhelming horror. Life from henceforth is -a Lady Macbeth with red and horrific hands, marking with a bloody spot -everything that it touches. What fine art could flourish except by means -of men not yet born, men who will not come into the world until after -this horror is no longer spoken about?" -</p> -<p> -"Remember what those poor friends of ours used to say when they talked -so well in our gatherings of former days: the flowers that bloom on -graves are as fresh and the harvests that grow on battlefields are more -abundant than those on fields that have never known crime and death; -they are innocent, divinely innocent of all the past. The souls of -artists are like flowers; and they purify the imaginations that have -been soiled." -</p> -<p> -"And the conclusion is that you and I both, my dear, have after all a -good share of optimism, otherwise called a reserve strength upon which -we can draw for a certain time. Let us hope it may be for a long time. -And we find the same thing under the distress of nearly all men. Ah, how -strong life is!" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XI">XI</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette began a round of visits. -</p> -<p> -For the most part they were visits of condolence. She went first to Mme. -de Blauve, who had lately lost her young son, that charming boy of -seventeen whom Odette had seen for a second in the Avenue d'Iena flying -to the recruiting-office, to take the place of his father, who had been -killed in the second month of the war. Mme. de Blauve had come back from -Rheims, where at that time she had been a nurse, under unceasing -bombardments; she had returned to her daughters, who were now growing -up. Odette found the family no more crushed or morose than at the first -time. The father, Commandant de Blauve, adored by all, was dead; the -elder son, in his nineteenth year, was dead. -</p> -<p> -"Happily," said Mme. de Blauve, "I have one left." -</p> -<p> -"How old is he?" asked Odette anxiously. -</p> -<p> -"He is about to enlist," said Mme. de Blauve simply. "Through him, I -hope that our name will be represented to the end." -</p> -<p> -Every one knew that this last son was her Benjamin, petted more than all -her other children. Her present anxiety was for her daughters; she would -fain have married them at once. -</p> -<p> -"Marry them!" cried Odette; "but to whom, at such a time as this?" -</p> -<p> -"To good young soldiers, that they may soon have children." -</p> -<p> -Not the slightest emotion, though the family was truly affectionate; one -single idea—to come to the defense of the country, by whatever means. -Odette could not but admire, though at the same time she trembled. -</p> -<p> -"How far advanced is your mourning?" asked Mme. de Blauve almost -severely. -</p> -<p> -"What?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"I mean, how long is it since you lost you dear husband?" -</p> -<p> -"Just eighteen months," replied Odette. -</p> -<p> -"You are young," said Mme. de Blauve; "my child, you still have duties -to perform." -</p> -<p> -"But," said Odette, bewildered, "I am doing what I can." -</p> -<p> -"We will speak again of it in a few months," said Mme. de Blauve. "I -shall not lose sight of you. I count you among the <i>good</i> ones." -</p> -<p> -She dwelt upon the word "good" as she bade Odette good-by. -</p> -<p> -Odette did not in the least grasp Mme. de Blauve's meaning. Did she find -her "good" because she had for a long time been conscientiously doing a -nurse's duties, and did she think of sending her to some difficult post, -requiring courage and constancy? She was cheerfully ready for anything. -Only one thing troubled her; it was that the memory of Jean seemed to be -relegated to so distant a past, seemed to hold so small a place in the -thoughts of the people whom she was about to see, she being still in -deep mourning, and having been away only seventeen months, to mourn for -Jean. -</p> -<p> -Why did Odette go directly from the Avenue d'Iena to see Clotilde? Not -in the least by reason of the love of contrast, or the need for it, but -because she was passing the Place of the United States, which attracted -her with its trees adorned with their young leafage. -</p> -<p> -She found Clotilde as she had always found her, extended upon an ancient -couch, amid twenty cushions, a dozen books and magazines, in an elegant -room, with a bunch of carnations flaunting their glory, and hyacinths in -pots surrounding the young woman with a fragrant suggestion of spring. -</p> -<p> -"Ah!" exclaimed Odette as she entered, without quite perceiving the -significance of her exclamation. -</p> -<p> -Clotilde, perfumed and her tall figure clothed in a Babani robe, kissed -her joyfully. -</p> -<p> -"You haven't fallen off much, Odette. Tell me, are these your cheeks? No -more rouge than in the old days? Oh, how often I think of your loss, my -dear!" -</p> -<p> -She was the first person, except La Villaumer, who had spoken to her of -her loss. Then there was still some one who remembered what had been her -happiness, her extraordinary happiness. -</p> -<p> -"I haven't written to you, Odette, because I was too lazy, and because I -need to imagine the face of the person to whom I write. So far away, -under your nurse's cap, I couldn't tell—you are pretty; I love you -always. Oh, how sorry I am for you!" -</p> -<p> -Odette, surprised, embarrassed, still under the influence of the life -she had been leading, spoke as every one did: -</p> -<p> -"There are so many of us who deserve to be pitied." -</p> -<p> -"No, Odette, no; I am not saying that. No doubt there are many widows -and many young women whose husbands or lovers are maimed, disfigured, -ruined. But there are not many who, before all that, have truly enjoyed -life and love. You have known love. You have had a few years that are -worth being regretted." -</p> -<p> -Tears rose to Odette's eyes. They were tears that gave no pain, which -rather comforted her. It seemed that she had long been waiting to shed -such tears. She had so constantly heard conventional words, forced -expressions, the result of a strained situation which there was surely -no reason to criticise; but, except from her wounded soldiers, she had -not before heard words simply human. -</p> -<p> -Clotilde was not afraid to talk persistently of Jean, not because she -felt that at bottom she was giving pleasure to her friend, but because -her thoughts naturally turned to attractive things, and she loved to -remember that charming couple of perfect lovers that Jean and Odette had -been. Never having checked her instinct, it now told her that Odette, in -spite of her tears, enjoyed the revival of these memories. It was not -Jean the soldier, Jean the hero, whose praises Clotilde sang. Odette had -heard so many praises of heroes! She had handled so many with her own -hands! There had never been but one Jean. He was Jean, just Jean, a -fine, good, and handsome fellow who had nothing military, nothing -surprising about him, except just that he was beloved. Who had dared to -talk to her of that Jean since the war? No one. Clotilde was doing it in -the unconsciousness of a woman who was still what she had been -<i>before</i>. And Odette had felt some apprehension about seeing -Clotilde again, just because she had feared that Clotilde had really not -changed enough! -</p> -<p> -The interview was soothing, even delightful to her. Clotilde seemed -almost to have forgotten the war—a little more and she would have -made her forget it. She talked of the books that she was reading; books -written earlier than the present time; she talked, too, laughingly of -her clothes, on the pretext of the diminished resources of the family; -she spoke of certain middle-aged and even old men, saying that they had -not been appreciated in the days when there had been plenty of young -fellows. She offered her friend a cigarette; she smoked, and the two -women looked at each other through curls of long, light clouds, as if in -a dream. -</p> -<p> -Odette went out somewhat amazed at the incredible ivory tower which -Clotilde had succeeded in building around her youth, her beauty, and her -selfishness. -</p> -<p> -"Is Clotilde selfish?" she asked herself, as she turned from the Square -of the United States. "And yet how she asked about my Jean! Clotilde is -like every one else; she is interested in just one thing, has a passion -for it. She has kept as by a miracle the one thing that she had before -the war, and that is love. Everything that represents love captivates -her; one feels that she gives herself up to it. The others yield to a -different passion which, by the conditions of our time, takes on a more -sympathetic form. Mme. de Blauve with sacred fury throws all her family -into the jaws of Moloch; Mme. de Calouas, in Surville, has a passion -only for the wounded, exclusively for wounded soldiers; I have seen her -utterly insensible to an accident to a civilian; most of those women in -the hospital had a passion for their duties there, thought themselves -degraded when they had not the number of beds that satisfied their -pride, lamented as if for a public misfortune when, by chance, fewer -wounded soldiers came. There are even people whose passion it is to have -no passions—and they are the most to be dreaded. Why should Clotilde -deprive herself of her bouquet of carnations, her pot of hyacinths, her -perfumed cigarettes, while they serve to create around her the illusion -by which she lives, and of which, when the occasion comes, she gives her -weary friends the benefit for a whole hour? Yet, could I do like her? -No; decidedly not. Did not I, then, love love as she does? I do not -know, I loved Jean. Then I am less simple than she; everything affects -me. And everything is shaken. I am not flattering myself when I -recognize that I am alive to more than one thing. I wanted to be wholly -devoted to one—to my sorrow. I believe that I am alive only to my -grief, and yet sometimes I think that in this I am mistaken." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -That day she felt an overwhelming lassitude. Clotilde had lapped her in -"soft odors." As she was asking herself how she could finish the day she -bethought her that she had been told that Mme. Leconque was another -Clotilde, that is to say, a fairy capable of drawing one out of the war -mood, though she belonged to a social set that was just now holding it -as a great honor to give to it unstintingly both life and fortune. -</p> -<p> -"I must not fail of seeing her," said Odette to herself, "and just now I -prefer another Clotilde to a second Mme. de Blauve, who makes me -shudder." She took a taxi to the end of the Avenue du Bois. -</p> -<p> -Mme. Leconque was at home and alone. Muffled up in an ermine coverlet, -in a room brightened by a wood-fire large enough to warm an -assembly-room in the city hall, and surrounded by objects of art, -ancient trinkets, Watteaux, Fragonards, she lay on a couch near a -majestic bed, high and royal, covered with Venetian point, determinedly -knitting, amid yawns, little stockings of coarse wool, for refugee -children. -</p> -<p> -"You, at least, have had enough of this butchery," she said. -</p> -<p> -Odette, under her mourning-veil, admitted that for her part she found no -pleasure in it. -</p> -<p> -"I should be glad to know," went on Mme. Leconque, "what sort of a life -they are giving us." -</p> -<p> -Odette looked around at the great wood-fire, the walls of the room, a -perfect museum, and at the silky fleece that enwrapped the form of the -dissatisfied woman. -</p> -<p> -"They have just telephoned me," Mme. Leconque went on, "that we have -evacuated Malancourt. Just look at my stockings, if you call them -stockings! I admit that I never paid seventy-five francs a pair for -mine—I always sent to London for them and got them at thirty-five -francs. And to-day I am wearing stockings at 3 francs 95!" -</p> -<p> -"Why do you?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"You would despise me if I paid more for them, in these days. You are in -mourning, my poor dear; you don't think about these matters. Do you know -where we are all getting our clothes? In the Rue d'Alesia, my child, in -a store where they sell ribbons on the main floor for eight sous a -metre, and up-stairs you find models of all the great Paris dressmakers -at a third of the regular price. You might go there out of curiosity; -I'll take you, if you like. You will find ten autos at the door, lined -up before the tin-shop, the general shops, the house-painters, and the -wine-shops. And where do you think we try on? Anywhere, no matter where. -On the staircase, in the corridors, in the shop itself, three women -together, not to speak of the old husbands and the men on leave, in a -little parlor decorated with two opposite mirrors! Absolute promiscuity, -a mob that reminds you of the old Neuilly fair; broken windows, no heat, -and drafts of air that pierce through the lungs! My dear, I bought a -charmeuse gown there for one hundred and seventy-five francs that would -have cost seven hundred and fifty at Lanvin's! The Duchess of -Chateauruque goes there; the wife of the ambassador from X. goes, too. -Can you imagine such a thing? Oh! we run against picturesque things -during this war! Do you believe that life can go on this way?" -</p> -<p> -"I don't think so, indeed," said Odette. -</p> -<p> -"I see that you aren't pitying us. Well, for my part I tell you that I -have had enough of this war, and that I despise it! Do you understand? I -despise it. Ugh! ugh! and ugh!" -</p> -<p> -Odette returned home along the darkening streets, thinking of Mme. de -Blauve, the terrible. She felt much indulgence for Mme. de Blauve, the -terrible. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XII">XII</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette had bought a newspaper. During the night the Germans had made a -series of massed attacks, debouching upon Malancourt from three -directions at once. Our troops had evacuated the devastated village -"while keeping its outlets." -</p> -<p> -Once again she tried to take refuge in her memories of love. But this -evening the portraits of Jean that she saw around her did not speak to -her of love. She felt that Jean, if he were there, would not talk of -love that evening, but would turn away like an overwrought man to whom -the beloved one insists upon saying: "Kiss me!" She could distinctly see -the gesture which, however, she had seldom known. She could almost hear -Jean saying: "My little love, I am anxious.... It is not that I lack -confidence, but they are advancing step by step; it is disquieting, -disquieting. You will think me cruel, but I should be glad to go back -there. I would rather be there, do you see?" If he had been with her on -permission he would have gone back! What torture! And she said to -herself: "If he had not been killed the second month he would have been -killed since then: twenty months without respite under the shells!" -</p> -<p> -Days passed; the German attack upon Verdun wrought upon the great public -of France a great silence. No noise, not an exclamation, no excesses in -Paris; an imposing calm; a quiet crowd upon the boulevards, perfect -order even on Sunday; almost gayety around the men who were home on -leave who went about surrounded by young women in short skirts, Anamite -caps or toques borrowed from the Palais, painfully walking on -extravagantly high heels! Between four o'clock and seven every one was -reading the newspaper. They were sold all through the city, not with -loud shouts as if all Europe had been put to fire and sword, as when -celebrated trials were going on; now that Europe actually was put to -fire and sword, with less uproar than after the Auteuil races. In almost -every heart the sublimity of the French struggle, the universal respect -which it evoked throughout the world, overcame apprehension, stifled the -sense of uncounted losses, and dominated that crater on the banks of the -Meuse, in eruption over an extent of thirty-five kilometres, its lava -overwhelming a whole countryside. -</p> -<p> -Odette was invited to dine with officers who had returned from that -hell, who were going back to it; and these men talked futilities like -every one else: partly from kindliness, partly for their own pleasure, -or in courteous resumption of the decorum of former days. Between two -witticisms they would relate an episode such as no story of the age of -fable could offer. Many of them were men who two years before had danced -the tango, whom strait-laced old twaddlers had in those days held up to -opprobrium. Thus Odette met again a young fellow of twenty-four, a -captain, an officer of the Legion of Honor, lacking several fingers, -wounded in the leg and the breast. He had the same simplicity, the same -childlike grace, as in the old time at the Casino in Surville, and yet -he had taken part in actions infinitely more grand than those of the -Homeric heroes or of the wars of Cæsar or Alexander. -</p> -<p> -He kissed a lady's hand, and that same evening went back to the jaws of -the volcano. And that same week the word came that after having been -three times buried alive in the undermined earth, his young body had -been blown to atoms on Hill 304. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XIII">XIII</a></h4> - -<p> -The next morning, her friend La Villaumer having come to see her, she -introduced a subject which had been tormenting her. -</p> -<p> -"The individuality of the soldier is not obliterated," said La -Villaumer. "Either he expects to come through safe, believing himself to -be a privileged person among the unlucky, or else he says to himself, 'I -shall die, but it will be for something worth while,' and that even -exalts his individuality. When that disappears or becomes attenuated it -is by excess of suffering, of hoping against hope for the end of all -that he is enduring—mud, cold, the incessant wooing of death, and -ills without number, have annihilated in him all power of thought and -feeling. And still it would be speaking too strongly to say that he goes -deliberately to meet death. Never has any living being failed to pay to -death the honor of a particular deference." -</p> -<p> -"Do you think," asked Odette, "that one's individuality can be suddenly -lost, or is it not rather unconsciously modified from day to day? You -see, in the latter case no one can tell how far the metamorphosis may -go! I see many people who have changed in the last eighteen months, and -who seem not to be aware of it. I feel very clearly that I myself am -different. I find only one part of myself unchanged; the part which -binds me to the memory of my poor husband; nothing there is modified -even in the very slightest degree—nothing; when I have leisure to -think intently of him, I become again precisely the woman I used to be." -</p> -<p> -"Yes, but with grief in addition." -</p> -<p> -"That is true." -</p> -<p> -"It is that which modifies us. It broadens us when it finds a heart in -us, and for that matter it exists only so far as it finds a heart. It -holds within itself many possibilities. Your grief began with embracing -your personal calamity; that alone; and it still hugs it to itself, that -is most natural; but it has unconsciously taken a further step, -embracing the sorrows of others, a change which you never looked for. -And that is making of you another person." -</p> -<p> -"Will every one like me find themselves a tone above or below what they -used to be—as if the whole keyboard had been transposed?" -</p> -<p> -"I do not think so," said La Villaumer. "Nature changes little. Only -sensitive souls are modified, and they are rare. It is they who at last, -at the long last, act upon and change those around them. Characters -change little, never fear! Yet this war will have been so intense that -those at least who have had a part in it will retain something of it, -like a strong leaven which will cause new things to germinate. We must -expect new things; but we must not look to see the human race thrown off -its centre. Historians, sociologists will have their work to do, while -philosophers, moralists, the general run of writers may go on as they -have done. The word 'democracy,' for instance, will cover much -paper——" -</p> -<p> -"Do you believe in such a thing, yourself?" -</p> -<p> -"I believe in the word as I believe in all words. It is a mistake to -disdain the old-fashioned verbalism—rhetoric, eloquence. The majority -of words are hollow—yes, but they are hollow like bells whose -sonorousness may by itself shake the whole world. Those who use words -are inspired by various things, and generally by sentiments that they -cannot acknowledge; yet the word touches the finest chords in the soul -of men whom one wants to win over. 'Democracy' has a tone——" -</p> -<p> -"Which will work good?—or evil?" -</p> -<p> -"Alas! The popular instinct and an inevitable necessity urge men, in -spite of words, to enslave themselves, and they will of their own accord -submit to the tyranny of new leaders, new groups representing interests -of which the crowd will know nothing. Almost all my pessimism is founded -on the irresistible character of this law. Men must be commanded, and no -one can be sure that those who command will not abuse their authority or -the confidence which is freely granted to them. However, the official -programme of democracy will be to devote all its effort to the -well-being of poor humans who have not an average of fifty years to live -in this world, who no longer believe in another world, and who in truth -have some legitimate aspirations to live their few years for their own -benefit, and with as little pain as possible." -</p> -<p> -"Poor men!" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, 'poor men!' That expresses the immense pity that will well up in -every breast, throughout the entire universe. Fate will have demanded -much of the human race. No doubt man has suffered through all time; but in -a manner so prolonged and so scientifically cruel—no! At all events, -never have men suffered in such great numbers; never have they been so -acutely conscious of their sufferings. And then, in former times men who -suffered had not been learnedly informed that the world had come to the -end of suffering. Those who are suffering now believed themselves to -have reached the highest point of a period of progress in every -direction. Never had man more firmly believed himself to be on the -border of the Promised Land, than at the very moment when he stumbled -into the infernal pit! What an aggravation of torment! Men may have been -sacrificed for far-off ends which too often have not been attained; they -may have been obliged, merely for their own preservation as living -beings, to obliterate their own intelligence, and to become through long -years—they themselves have said it—a sort of brute. Those who -will survive will not ask the meaning of subtleties, or will not be in a -condition to understand them. They will have only one thought: 'And now, -what of me, me, me?'" -</p> -<p> -"A revival of individuality, then?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, but of a fierce individuality, in which all that has for so long a -time been stifled within them will urge them on to mistaken acts; or -else of an exhausted individuality which will be the prey of exploiters -never known before." -</p> -<p> -"Then you do not believe in a general betterment after this upheaval?" -</p> -<p> -"I only believe in more or less prolonged periods during which faith in -betterment is possible." -</p> -<p> -"But, after all, man has goodness within him! He carries an ideal in his -breast!" -</p> -<p> -"That is to say that he carries within himself—nowhere but in -himself—that small portion of happiness which he may ever hope to -attain. In fact, I hold him to be truly happy only as he exercises -goodness, or as he aspires to what he deems the best. Man, the child, -the savage, very clearly recognizes justice, much less clearly the -beautiful; but the idea of the beautiful, however imperfect it may be in -him, moves and may make him better. If he permits himself to slide down -those inclines which deviate from these ideas, he may experience a dizzy -joy of a bad kind. He may work himself up to enjoy strange pleasures, -but seldom without at the same time perceiving that he is duping -himself, and that pure and deep joy is not in these things. Yes, it is -in himself that man finds his sole source of felicity, as the glowworm -his light. It may be that justice is entirely inapplicable and the -beautiful wholly conventional, but what we may be sure of is that the -inclination toward the just and the beautiful is most fruitful in happy -results, though they will perhaps never find absolute realization." -</p> -<p> -"That is all very well; but in fact you believe neither in beauty nor in -justice!" -</p> -<p> -"I believe in the passionate endeavor of man toward beauty and justice." -</p> -<p> -"Which he will never attain?" -</p> -<p> -La Villaumer suddenly changed his tone, and gazing smilingly upon the -young woman said: -</p> -<p> -"That would be paradise, my dear friend; be reasonable!" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XIV">XIV</a></h4> - -<p> -It was the last hour of an April afternoon; budding foliage on the -trees, the Arc de Triomphe, upon which every saunterer who looks to-day, -looks with the vision of the triumphal procession to come, and the -Champs-Elysées, unequalled promenade, which Odette and La Villaumer had -so often seen crowded and joyful, in the days when the world was happy. -</p> -<p> -"Do you remember? Oh, you were a little girl, loving to hang around -Guignol and trail after the goat-carts. But I was then no longer very -young. Do you remember the time when there were no automobiles, and when -the victorias used to go slowly down the street bearing beautifully -dressed women whom one had time to admire, to criticise, to recognize, -and salute? The auto is perfect, but the best it can do is to rush from -one place to another, and that has by no means the interest of the daily -procession, when it seemed that every one still had time to live. Excuse -my capricious imagination, but it seems to me that these machines were -made just to bring us with all the more haste to the frightful time in -which we are living. I dare say this to you because I know that you are -not going to remind me that autos are rendering admirable service to the -war, especially at this very time. You think, like me, that they also -render service to our enemies, and that all these rapid means of -reaching the battlefield coincide with a war without a conceivable end. -In a general way, scientific inventions—don't confuse them with the -sciences, which merit all veneration—conspire to give to this war a -character of atrocity to which no armed conflict has ever attained, and -I wish that it could be proved to me that they alleviate it in equal -proportion. Think only of the horror which this 'progress' in the art of -extermination inspires. How many brains are unable to resist it? -Civilians are dying every day, and the best of them, who go to pieces -merely from imagining the war. We see them fall like the hollow bark -which still seems to support a tree. You yourself did not know in your -childhood the amazement that Jules Verne's 'Nautilus' caused. But you -witnessed the crazy conduct of your contemporaries the first time they -saw an airship sailing about in the air. It was pretty, to be sure, and -the audacity of the early pilots roused us all to enthusiasm. Recall to -mind the saying that was current on the greensward at Deauville when -twelve airplanes arrived from Havre, three hundred metres above the -earth, all rosy in the sunset rays. 'The flying Peace,' some one said. -I shrugged my shoulders sorrowfully, because I know that in the face of -an astounding invention one must always think of the homicidal use to -which man may put it. Man has once again stolen the fire of heaven; a -new Zeus will punish him for it. Humanity will blindly and with ecstasy -invent the instrument of its own destruction. By means of an admirable -scientific instrument it will commit wholesale suicide with a beatific -smile. Man has already abdicated in favor of a machine. The war that is -being waged is a war no longer of men but of material. Man is belittled; -the machine surpasses him! A rudimentary intelligence suffices to set -the true force in motion. We are still believers in the ancient saying -that the true force is manly virtue, the fine, old-fashioned bravery. We -have belittled the only thing in the world which might be wholly -great—man. Do we profess to worship that bravery of man which all the -past has justified? Why, by the scientific character of war it has -become—one dares permit himself the blasphemy—almost a sign of -inferiority. We reckon upon the mystical value of our bravery, and we -send our men by the thousands against an army of tools! By virtue of our -century-old prejudices we honor only the man who exposes himself, -sacrifices himself, furnishes, however uselessly, his proofs of courage, -when the glory of our arms will belong to him who shall most securely -have sheltered his divisions behind gigantic steam-hammers! The applied -sciences have caused a moral revolution. By riveting man, who is before -all else a soul, to material elements, they have destroyed whatever -might be justifiable in the great contests of humanity. A paltry little -engineer behind his disguised heavy cannon, or with his mitrailleuse -under thirty metres of cement, counts for more than our superb heroes -with their courage, their loyalty, and their white gloves. Man, chained -like a galley-slave to a machine, to a chemical substance, is forced to -unlearn what it is to be a man. He appears very intelligent when he is -equipped with algebra and terminology; yes, we must grant to matter all -that it can give, but pause a little: have you not an impression that -something superior is lacking in so abnormal a compound? They have -domesticated the forces of nature; they believe themselves Titans; and -there they stand glowering at one another like beasts; they cannot -distinguish themselves from these material fabrics that surprise and -overwhelm them. They call themselves masters of matter, and matter is -all the time jeering at them. Engineering genius is probably not the -result of a knowledge of matter, but of a knowledge of man." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XV">XV</a></h4> - -<p> -At that period people were still dulling their senses with words and -stupefying their minds with discussions, if so they might divert them -from that one place which for the time being was as the pivot of the -world, upon which they had for six months felt that all depended, as two -years before all had for ten days depended upon the battle of the Marne. -</p> -<p> -La Villaumer went to his club; his lip curled with an almost wicked -smile at the thought of the ridiculously false news which that evening, -as every other, he was about to hear. Then he reflected that the -charming Odette, whom he had just quitted was very young, and asked -himself whom she might marry. -</p> -<p> -Odette, still carried away with the life at Surville, sick at heart with -those friends of hers who were doing nothing but dying of <i>ennui</i> and -so demoralizing those around them, found comfort in frequenting such hives -of activity as the Franco-Belgian headquarters and its numerous annexes, -all congregated in the same building on the Champs-Elysées, where it -seemed that all the misery of the world was perpetually going up and -down its staircases, without respite and without end. She would go there -as if in answer to a summons. So many, so many unfortunates who had lost -their dearest possessions, their house, their village church! Meeting -them on the muddy steps, she seemed to see, reflected in their startled -eyes, a bit of countryside, a poplar-bordered road, a bit of garden, a -hillside, fields of beets or of wheat. She had travelled, she knew all -those sights which are the natural companions of the life of men. The -odor of the hamlets came back to her, the warm breath of stables, the -noisome scent of stagnant pools, the sharp smell of the tanneries in the -north, the balsamic fragrance of cedar smoke from the bakeries, the -appetizing aroma of warm bread, so little known in Paris. Then she would -picture to herself the bewilderment of all these folk who had found -refuge in a great, strange city to which they were not born, of these -families who would never, never again see anything but the ruins of -their villages, their countryside made unrecognizable by the absence of -every elm, every bit of woods! She could have embraced them as they -passed her; she longed to give them everything she possessed, things -which, alas! could not replace what they had lost! -</p> -<p> -She thought to herself: "What have they done? Of what are these people -guilty? Why are these men tortured? Why were they captured and their -poor homes and little fields destroyed, and the sons of their blood, who -alone gave a moral meaning to their lives? Why were not these people -masters of themselves? Why were they the prey of bandits who consider -even their own people as puppets, created to serve their vainglory as -soldiers, and who care less for the existence of thousands of living -creatures than a child for his tin soldiers?" Her heart throbbed, her -soul revolted. She reached the top of the stairs. -</p> -<p> -To this building she had come without invitation to see an American -woman who was freely and calmly consecrating her fortune, her -intelligence, and her time to the unfortunates of the war. She came to -ask if there was not something that she could do. The American woman -looked at her with a smile. -</p> -<p> -"You have something better to do for your country." -</p> -<p> -"What?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, we will speak of that later." -</p> -<p> -This answer had already been made to her. It had been said to her even -at Surville, in the hospital, and with a mysterious air. -</p> -<p> -She was disturbed by it, and spoke of it, on a venture, to Simone de -Prans, whom she saw that evening. -</p> -<p> -Simone and her husband both smiled as the American lady had done. -</p> -<p> -"What do you all mean?" -</p> -<p> -"Don't be disturbed," said Pierre de Prans seriously; "take care of -yourself. A woman like you has services to give." -</p> -<p> -"Well, I must do something," said Odette, trembling under her veil, "and -as it is, I am doing absolutely nothing with my ten fingers!" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XVI">XVI</a></h4> - -<p> -"Whenever the cloud of anguish rises even a little from the sky of -Paris," said La Villaumer, "this city, so marvellously alive, clasps to -itself life, of whatever kind, with a simple, natural impulse, without -immoderation, but with a secret smile, always ready. Yet this power of -life, on the whole so beautiful, has something that brings a frown to -the brow of the onlooker; for it has within it insensibility and -forgetfulness. -</p> -<p> -"How disconcerting it is to see this new, mutilated humanity, pass in -the streets almost without attracting attention. Young men in uniform, -or returned to civil life minus a leg, on crutches, with an artificial -limb, leaning on a cane like an old man, with an empty coat sleeve, an -eye gone, nothing left of the nose but two breathing-holes, the jaw -moulded over like a lump of potter's clay—or led along, sightless! -They hardly arouse compassion, seldom even curiosity. There are so many of -them! You can see the like in any place. War crosses, military medals, -the Legion of Honor on the breast of a mere youth, which at one time -would have attracted admiring glances and brought tears to women's eyes, -are now hardly noticed. There are so many who have received or have -deserved them! Most of those who possess them now wear only the ribbon -on their jackets like civilians. The long duration and the barbarism of -the war have spoiled everything. Men whose exploits cast into the shade -the most famous examples of history with which the memory of school -children is crammed, refuse to be called heroes. Heroes! There are so -many of them! It was not to distinguish themselves, nor to cover their -families with honor, nor even to set a noble example, that so many men -have wrought prodigies; they did them modestly, because they had to be -done in order to put an end to an abomination. With many the idea even -of the country is attenuated in favor of something which makes much less -appeal to the heart, the motive of which is only the cold persuasion -that militarism must be destroyed; one must fight for very hatred of -fighting. And here is something new, this vast uprising for war is -producing no enthusiasm for war; it is animated only by hatred of war. -All these brave men, riddled like sieves, rescued from an ordeal without -precedent, are cherishing no ambition to march in a procession of -victors, under waving flags, amid the acclamations of women, children, -and old men; they had the rudimentary purpose of the peasant who -struggles with a mad dog, and who having downed him digs a hole, buries -the carrion, washes his hands at the pump, and goes in to dinner. -</p> -<p> -"Germany has robbed man of his divine childhood. In less than two years -all these men have grown old; that charming faculty of innocent -enthusiasm which had often deceived him, but which had given him joys -never to be replaced, has been withered. The most deplorable ruins which -the monster has spread abroad over our land are perhaps not so much the -splendid monuments of Belgium and France, as the youth of humanity, that -had seemed eternal, that was bearing it on to a great outburst of a -common hope—faith in Fraternity, faith in Liberty, faith in Justice, -potent religion of Progress. Cold reason, like the German gas, has -poisoned all this fresh and ebullient vigor. The whole world has become -allied, only to strangle a jackal. No man who has come back from the too -severe ordeal will ever again feel the desire to enjoy the days that yet -remain to him. Scepticism, which used to seem only a way of looking at -things, cherished by very distinguished gentlemen, has now taken -possession of the mass. But it has become commonplace, and so has ceased -all relations with its brother, dilettantism. You will see what sort of -thing realistic scepticism will become." -</p> -<p> -"People will always dream," said Odette. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XVII">XVII</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette returned to Surville in the beginning of August. It was a time of -great heat. The second anniversary of mobilization had been observed. -War had become an accepted condition. Many already found it difficult to -remember a state of peace. At the hospital there were even discussions -as to how things had been there before the war. There were those who, -though they had then been living in Surville, could not recall them to -mind. "You remember the inaugural address of the head doctor, the 16th -of August, before the first train of wounded came?" Some of the women -insisted that he had given an antimilitarist lecture; others that he had -spoken only against alcohol; others that he had given an eloquently -patriotic address; some said that it was not he who had spoken, but the -surgeon, a very handsome man; and still others that the address was -given on another date. One lady could only remember the first time she -had posed to the photographer in white blouse and cap. The first arrival -of wounded, who had come from Charleroi on August 25, were confused with -those who had come in September. Two years! What a long time when one -has seen only wretchedness upon wretchedness! Nothing pleasant for -twenty-four months! The communiqué of the battle of the Marne? Yes, -that counted for something; but at the time no one understood its full -importance; there had been no public rejoicing. Our later long and -magnificent victories that merely held back the enemy presented to the -mind nothing like what is generally thought of as military success; it -was only after a while that their importance was recognized, when new -misfortunes had touched us elsewhere. Two years of dull, black -weariness, of constant apprehension, of bereavement upon bereavement. -</p> -<p> -This year a good many foreigners had invaded the beach. The -tennis-courts were occupied by young men from beyond the sea, bringing -up the memory of former days; the crowd was enlivened by a profusion of -multicolored Japanese lanterns; the sea dashed against the glossy flesh -of women who seemed as natural as Aphrodite; automobiles were almost as -much in the way as in happier days; and between the rows of tents among -the manifold tints of colored stuffs, beside the waves where so many -beautiful limbs were disporting themselves, was a race of beings that -might have been deemed peculiar, coming, going, or remaining motionless; -they were the men who had escaped from the fire. They wore nondescript -garments, they lacked one limb or even two, they hobbled, their armpits -strained by crutches, or lay at length on the warm sand, smoking, timid -of appearance, exchanging remarks hardly comprehensible, keeping silent, -too, thinking—of what? -</p> -<p> -This last spectacle alone seemed in Odette's eyes to merit -consideration. She had lived the greater part of the time among the -wounded, she had also lived in Paris with the social world. "All is -over," she would say to herself; "nothing will heal all this; it is mere -mummery to ape the life of other days; all that is blotted out; La -Villaumer was right when he said: 'Men have suffered too much.'" -</p> -<p> -It was in this very place—there, opposite, at the hotel—that -she had become acquainted with Jean. They were pleased with one another -at the first glance, carried out of themselves, even. She remembered how -mad with love she had been in those garden walks, between those -tennis-screens, on that beach, and along that terrace which now she was -treading overwhelmed with despair, a despair that she could not name, -greater than herself, greater than the broad horizon of the sea, greater -than all things. -</p> -<p> -She had forgotten nothing. She recalled all the preludes of marriage, -then those first vacations, their dual solitude in the midst of the -throng; kisses exchanged on these dunes, along these roadsides, in some -charming farm orchard, or on certain evenings before the fairylike -spectacle of the phosphorescent sea; she remembered that room in the -Hôtel de Normandie where he had left her a few days before the 2d of -August! And she recalled to mind the beautiful sky of that day, and the -tocsin pealing from all the church-towers of the countryside, and the -rolling of the drum, and the young men raising their hats. How many of -them were alive to-day? -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XVIII">XVIII</a></h4> - -<p> -She had hardly finished luncheon when she heard the jingling of the -little bell at the wooden gate of her garden. Mme. de Calouas came in. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas found Odette surrounded by photographs of Jean. They -were on the walls, the chimneypiece, the tables, the desk, the piano. -Odette had taken the opportunity of her journey to carry to the -photographer every film that she possessed; she had had them enlarged, -and she was surrounded by Jean as if Jean had become a whole people; she -saw him in every room of her cottage and in all places; she felt -somewhat tranquil only when she could see him. If she seldom or never -spoke of him elsewhere, as soon as she returned home she belonged only -to him. She talked to him, consulted him, and heard the replies which, -in accordance with his character, he would have made her to-day, if he -had lived, if he had known what was taking place. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas looked about her at all these likenesses. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas was not among the number of hospital nurses who had been -rewarded by the epidemic medal, although she had not absented herself -for forty-eight hours since the outbreak of the war, and though her -position in the hospital was a most important one; but neglect of this -sort was either indifferent to her or it flattered her pride. She -belonged to a family of which every member professed absolute -indifference to rewards, especially to any that might come from the -public powers, and this although it was the tradition of the family to -addict themselves constantly to the highest duties. The magistrates -among them had retired some thirty-five years previously; the officers -remained fixed in the rank of captain. In the Morbihan the expression -"the Captains de Calouas" had become a common locution. At the outbreak -of the war "the Captains de Calouas" had shown themselves to be men of -the old-fashioned kind who considered that the finest part one can play -in the face of the enemy is to be killed by him. Their unanimous and -hardy bravery had, indeed, crowned nearly every one of them with the -halo of sacrifice. Those with whom death would have absolutely nothing -to do had this time risen in rank, and had received the cross after a -succession of actions and for exceptional valor even amidst so many -astonishing deeds. Of seven of them, only one was left, recently named -lieutenant-colonel, with an artificial arm and a damaged lung. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas excused herself for coming so early, but said that she -had felt an irresistible desire to talk freely with a friend in whom she -had discerned "a choice soul." -</p> -<p> -"In the sort of convent in which we lived so long side by side," she -said, "I consider myself somewhat as a mother to you, if you will permit -me to say so, seeing that I had the responsibility of opening its door -to you. Will you let me talk to you as a mother?" -</p> -<p> -"I have great need of it," said Odette; -</p> -<p> -"I have no mother, and I am a widow——" -</p> -<p> -She pointed around to the photographs of the dead. It was as if she were -in a cemetery, herself living in one of its vaults. Her eyes filled with -sudden tears. -</p> -<p> -"I love him as on the day he died; as on that other day, that dreadful -day when he left me—I cannot cry all this upon the housetops. You, -madame, have suffered like me, more even than me, the pain of this -horrible war; we can no longer speak of our dead! We have no right to -show our grief! There are too many griefs, too many dead. I have never -been able to talk about him; I have found only one person who would -consent to recall him with kindliness, and she is a Parisian, a -self-centred woman who has managed not to permit herself to be touched -by the war, a young woman, like me, but already a woman of former days. -Who is there, henceforth, who can dwell on her personal sorrow?" -</p> -<p> -"It remains to be seen, my poor dear," said Mme. de Calouas, "whether -what you say is an evil. I mean an evil for the time in which we live, -during this war which has no end, and during the many years after this -war; in a word, during all our lives—even yours. You know, my child, -that I am a woman bound to all the old customs. In our family widowhood -is a serious thing, and usually a thing for life. But this war has -modified even our most firmly established customs. Great necessities, -painful new duties, lie before us. We have been obliged to put down, -with a strong hand, many of our feelings; we are bound to subordinate -our personality and its most sacred traditions to the common weal. To -mourn a beloved husband—what is more touching and more worthy in a -young woman? But, my little friend, let me confide to you a cruel truth, -of which you are already beginning to be aware. You were just saying to -me that we can no longer talk about our dead husbands, however -gloriously they may have been killed; it is equally the case of both of -us. Well, forgive me for what I am going to say—it is one of the most -cruel features of this time that has no name—to mourn our husbands is -a sort of self-indulgence, it is a personal civility, it is almost a -delight! I shall startle you, but I must say it to you, I who am twenty -years older than you, because I recognize in you a noble heart, -broadened rather than belittled by this storm. My poor child, you have -no right to remain surrounded by these likenesses of the dead. If we -belonged to ourselves, we would give ourselves up to what our hearts -would prefer—weak, human creatures that we are! We would choose to -remember and to mourn. But we are no longer our own! Let us imitate our -husbands! They would certainly have preferred to live. To assert the -contrary is mere boasting. But without hesitating they accepted death. -They understood, every one of them, that they were not their own. Nor -are we our own. I give you my word of honor—and you can never imagine -the object of reverence or the cause of joy that for twenty years my -husband was to me—if I were still young enough to have children I -would marry again to-morrow! I am too old, and this is why you see me take -so much pains in other directions. What the country asks of you is not work -like what I am doing——" -</p> -<p> -"I prefer that work," said Odette. -</p> -<p> -"You are not your own." -</p> -<p> -"What the world asks of me is worse than death." -</p> -<p> -"Our husbands endured the sufferings of hell, and died only -afterward——" -</p> -<p> -Odette burst into sobs. -</p> -<p> -"My child, my dear little friend," said Mme. de Calouas, "I beg you not -to give way to despondency of any sort. Believe what I say, and do not -think me hard, as I may appear to be. I am not hard. I have simply -covered myself with a shell, because we are engaged in a merciless -conflict. Let us not permit ourselves to be weakened whether by -catastrophe or painful loss or bitter trial. To give way to grief is to -grow less strong. For the time, we can be sure only of suffering. Each -grief should give us the opportunity not to weep, but to do more than -before. There is only one aim. How that simplifies things! We look -toward it, and toward it alone. We direct our eyes neither to the right -nor the left. Anything may happen: we are ready, we will not fail. We -may be asked for more than is in reason, but we have offered our -services. No hesitation, no boasting; above all, no consideration of -ourselves; let us leave all that to women of petty minds, since it is -the only motive that can move them. We who know better must set them an -example." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XIX">XIX</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette went to her room to bathe her eyes, but it was all in vain; she -began again to weep; she had an invincible desire for tears; she wept -until the hour for going to the hospital. -</p> -<p> -She had photographs of Jean in her bed-room as in her drawing-room. And -now it seemed to her that to give way to her grief was, indeed, "a -delight"! She was in the habit of giving herself up to sorrow; who would -have believed that it was a way of giving herself up to pleasure? Yet in -comparison with the excessive sadness of the present time, to wrap -herself up, weeping, in the memory of happy days, was to set herself -apart, to abstract herself in herself, to intoxicate herself with the -fragrance of the incense on her own private altar, to divest herself of -strength for the great common act which it had given her so much pain to -accept, but the imperious command of which she could not now deny. -</p> -<p> -"It is still a pleasure," she repeated to herself. What chaos must have -been wrought that her most acute sufferings, recalled to her by -imagination, should take on the form of felicity! -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Calouas had affirmed that, for her part, had she fewer years, -she would not hesitate to marry again!—Ah, no, that was too much! -Anything, anything, but that! "'They endured the pains of hell, and did -not die until afterward?' Yes, their martyrdom, their death, I would -gladly accept for myself; but I refuse to be false to my adored -memories——" -</p> -<p> -Another burst of grief overwhelmed her in which her whole tortured -personality resisted and asserted itself. She seized Jean's photographs -and kissed them frantically. She would fain detest all the rest of the -world and give herself wholly to this one sacred memory. For the moment -she spurned the opinion of Mme. de Calouas: "If it is a self-indulgence, -let it be so! I yield myself to this self-indulgence! I love Jean, I -have never loved any one but Jean!" -</p> -<p> -In the old days she used to bicycle with Jean, and the two, side by -side, often exchanging glances, sometimes throwing kisses, would roll -breathlessly along the Norman roads, between the high, thick hedges -where they were as if enclosed, with only one way out, where they had -nothing to do but roll along. An auto would appear; Jean would go first, -Odette following in his track, breathing his perfume until the cloud of -dust and the smell of oil or of gasolene choked her. Sometimes, going -slowly, they would take one another by the hand. She was flexible, -slight, and lightly clothed; she would play acrobatic tricks on her -machine, and her joyful agility would fill Jean with delight. Suddenly -he would jump down, she would follow his example, and they would -exchange a kiss, folded lingeringly in one another's arms. There was a -little wayside inn where, under the arbor, they would call for cider -with bread and white cheese. They had never met any one there; the wind -would ruffle the foliage around them, the dog would gaze at them with a -twinkle in his eye, the hostess would serve them with a smile. More -often than elsewhere they used to go to the orchard, the incomparable -orchard of the farm at the foot of the ruins of Saint-Gingolph, where -they were welcomed as friends, both so young, so beautiful, so radiant -with happiness. There in the autumn they would walk in the little paths -bordered with sorrel and thyme; where dahlias were growing beside -onions, where there were currant-bushes loaded with rubies, in a corner -a fig-tree whose fruit never ripened, under which they must bend to go -to the pear-trees. There Odette would bite into a pear as she passed it, -and this would make Jean scold; he would gather the pear, nibble at the -place which her teeth had damaged, and carry it to the good-natured -farmer's wife, saying: "Just see what mischief we have done!" -</p> -<p> -"Oh!" the farmer's wife would simply reply, "Madame seems to enjoy it -so!" -</p> -<p> -Delicious and terrible memories! Odette could not endure again to visit -those places, so near, yet which would now have given her so much pain! -</p> -<p> -Nor could she again go in the evening, at nightfall, to the edge of the -sea, where in each vague shadow she would have thought she saw the -shadow of Jean. They used to love to wander there in the warm obscurity -of August. The long-drawn moan of the sea was to them a cradle-song -composed by a musician of genius. No doubt Odette used to see in those -days fewer large waves than to-day; but in those days all things blended -with her love and seemed marvellous to her. Sometimes Jean, who had his -boyish ways, would amuse himself by leaving her, suddenly disappearing -from her eyes in the darkness. She would call him in an anxious voice, -"Jean!" And she would always recognize his shadow as he drew near by his -extending his arms in the form of a cross, and throwing them around her, -to press her to him the moment he met her. In those days they would hear -afar off the music of the violins, and would see above the dune the dark -villas and the illuminated hotels. Now she knew that in those hotels -were lying a thousand men swathed in bandages, poisoned by pus and -gangrene, and the sea was holding up a long chaplet of buoys from which -were hanging nets to ward off submarines. How could she go back there? -</p> -<p> -The summer wore away in a manner almost satisfactory, and with great -hopes in the military operations. A wave of optimism passed over the -country. Rumanian colors were floated from the town-hall; the battle of -the Somme had freed Verdun and was itself beginning to slacken. In the -beginning of October the wounded in the hospital were almost few. -Odette, with too little to do, reduced to solitude, began to droop. She -found the conversation of Mme. de Calouas very fine, but it did not -touch her. Why not? -</p> -<p> -She would have her lay aside her mourning—the two years being now a -long month over past. Other widows had almost joyfully put off their -crape in the late summer heat. Odette considered it a profanation. "Time -was passing." No doubt it was. It was long—without measure long. But -to her Jean had died yesterday, nothing in her feelings had been changed by -what she had seen. She thought of all those bodily wounds which she had -dressed with her own hands, and which had healed. The great wound within -herself remained open. At times she would forget the war, the sorrows of -which at other times would crush her, and think only of the beloved -being to whom she was bound for eternity. -</p> -<p> -One afternoon she dragged herself, on foot and alone, along the road to -Saint-Gingolph, between the brook, the fields, and the hillock that -separates two valleys. The weather was fine, underfoot were leaves of -plane-trees, some decaying, others rolling along the ground, driven by -the autumn wind. She had not the courage to go to the farm; the orchard -came down to the roadside. She sat down upon the grass of the ditch and -reflected that this was the third autumn that she had been there, since -the war! She recalled to mind the first one, when people were beginning -to find the hostilities very long; when every evening, passing by the -post-office, one hoped to read the news of some event which would bring -about its sudden end. She thought of the little soldiers whom she used -to follow to the cemetery, and of whom every one insisted upon thinking: -"He is the last one!" -</p> -<p> -Before her, on the crest of the hillock, like a fantastic screen whose -edge has been clumsily cut by a child, a long avenue of very ancient -elms broke in upon the view. They bore scattered clusters of foliage, -still golden; a dense cloud of crows rose up and lighted with sinister -croakings upon their ragged tops. These birds with their lugubrious -cries seemed about to give battle for the possession of a notable -charnel-house. And suddenly they plunged into the branches and -disappeared, and nothing remained of them but the wound inflicted by the -rasping voices upon the motionless air. Then the black cloud uprose -again, as if the avenue of old elms, mown down at the roots by shells, -had upheaved itself before its final downfall. It seemed as if the heart -of the hillock were painfully throbbing. The raucous croaking of these -thousands of birds grated upon her nerves and aroused all her powers of -mournful revery. -</p> -<p> -Odette resumed her walk back to the town. Evening was falling. Lush -meadows along the brookside, a gray steeple almost hidden in foliage of -rose ochre, the racecourse—relic of a brilliant worldliness—two -or three pretty villas, whose reddening hopvines were flaunting themselves -derisively before closed windows, reminded her too painfully of a past -era—a lost paradise. Among the persons whom she met, already half -hidden in the shadow, some were laughing. Then people could laugh? Why, -yes! Life, diverse as it is, has ever its source in the waters of a -Fountain of Youth. -</p> -<p> -The darkness and the croakings of the crows haunted her. When she -reached the cottage she threw herself upon a divan, and remained there, -overcome, until Amelia came to call her to her solitary dinner. -</p> -<p> -The evening mail brought her tidings of the death of the last de Blauve -boy, who had voluntarily gone to the firing-line in advance of those of -his age, and had been killed outright in the very hour when he first set -foot in the trench. Almost mechanically, and as a daily duty, she read -two newspapers, line by line. She seemed to feel a great inward -emptiness; she felt herself going to pieces. She must make a change, at -whatever cost. There was just now no necessity for her presence in the -hospital. She resolved to return to Paris, without other reason than the -impossibility of remaining in Surville. How many feverish changes she -had made, since the beginning of this war, with no more serious motive -than this! -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XX">XX</a></h4> - -<p> -Arrived in Paris, she went at once to see Mme. de Blauve. This woman, -who had lost a much-loved husband and two sons hardly old enough to be -soldiers, was not weeping, was not feeling dull, had no hard words to -say about the war. She gave full evidence of tenderness toward her -family, but, above all, she knew how to live, and that, in a time of -war, means total forgetfulness of self and of all whom one loves. She -was not sending her daughters into the hospitals, where they were not -needed; she had herself given up her work as nurse, in order to give -special attention to preparing them for marriage. -</p> -<p> -"Marriage is the civic duty of women," she said; "at sixteen and a half -one can very well have a child. Marriage is a difficult matter in a time -like this, but I am willing to pay the price!" She was thinking only of -this, the oldest girl having passed her fifteenth year. -</p> -<p> -To Odette, Mme. de Blauve was another Mme. de Calouas in Paris. She felt -at ease with neither of them, and yet both of them attracted her -inexplicably. She felt herself at a distance from them while yet being -influenced by them, to a degree that surprised some indefinable part of -herself. Both of them shocked her, wounded her, even; she was appalled -before their stoicism. She looked at them darkly, almost malevolently, -when they seemed to gaze with reprobation upon the mourning garments -which she persisted in wearing. These women, brought up to worship the -dead, uprose like spectres from the depths of the past which was their -element, and uttered a word unfamiliar to their lips: "Forward!" The -impression was most disturbing. -</p> -<p> -Not that she envied them, under the pretext that both appeared to have -adjusted themselves to the sorrows of the time. Odette had no desire -thus to adjust herself. On the contrary, she implored to be left alone, -to bury herself in unending grief. And yet she felt a secret sympathy -with these unavowed foes of the perpetuation of her love. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXI">XXI</a></h4> - -<p> -Crossing the Champs-Elysées on her homeward way, Odette met two groups -of blinded soldiers, each one led by a woman who helped him to pass from -refuge to refuge. A blinded soldier invariably caused Odette to shudder -with dismay. Of all the wounded by the war, such as he most painfully -touched her sympathies. She stood on the first refuge as if petrified, -gazing at these men led by the hand by young women, a third clinging to -his comrade's coat, groping in the air with a timid arm. -</p> -<p> -In the face of distress like this, coachmen and chauffeurs, however much -in haste, stopped short as before a funeral procession, which all Paris -respects. The double stream of circulation was arrested in both -directions recalling pictures of the waters of the Red Sea. The crowded -foot-passengers formed a rampart with their bodies. No one saluted, for -that is not the custom, but the seriousness of all faces spoke of the -impulse, almost the need, thus to act. Veneration, such as has never -before been seen on French faces, was stamped upon the features of men -and women, even of children. That which was taking place was almost -nothing, simply a group of soldiers whose organs of sight had been -destroyed, with charitable women serving them as guides. For two minutes -they interrupted the movement of the Champs-Elysées. Yet it was a moral -influence, an unrecognized, unclassified power, poor and even lamentable -of aspect, which had suddenly arrested the prosperous physical movement -of a great city. Odette felt her heart throb; her eyes were so blurred -that as she reached the sidewalk she almost failed to recognize her -friend La Villaumer, who was standing there, gazing at that simple, -pathetic transit. -</p> -<p> -After the first greeting he said to Odette: -</p> -<p> -"I have often imagined Jesus returning among us; I thought just now that -I saw him at the head of that group, motioning with his gentle hand to -the crowd of busy mortals, 'Pause, travellers!' He had come back as the -God of justice and of love, just when the demon was making his most -determined attack upon his beloved, just when each one of us is obliged -to look into the inmost recesses of his heart and ask himself: 'What is -going to be left?' And he was replying to us, 'Verily, I say unto you, -henceforth cherish, all of you, a concern for human distress.' I -thought, too, that I heard him whisper—pardon the blasphemy if it -shocks you!—I heard him whisper softly: 'My sufferings have been -surpassed; the sufferings of my martyrs have been surpassed.'" -</p> -<p> -"Oh!" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, they and he, while suffering, had the assurance of entering the -Kingdom of God, and that within a relatively short time. The majority of -these poor fellows are without that assurance; many of them are without -hope, and their martyrdom has already lasted for twenty-eight months! -They are about to endure a third winter, and some of them will last for -a fourth! And who knows? From all this will be born into the world, my -friend, a 'religion of mankind.' It is not simply the human blood shed, -it is the indefinitely prolonged torture of men, millions and millions -of men, which will create a new mystic element upon which the religions -of the future will draw. It is a dangerous vision; the salvation of -humanity lies at the present time in nothing that in the least resembles -humanitarianism. -</p> -<p> -"But I have something to tell you, my friend; Misson, the husband of our -good Rose, whom we have so often ridiculed because he stuck to his -automobile— Well, he has been killed, the good fellow, blown to -pieces by the bursting of a shell, as he was driving some -officers——" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, my dear Rose! I must hasten to her!" -</p> -<p> -"Do not go yet. It happened on the road to Rheims. She has obtained -leave to go for his body— Do you know what Mme. Leconque said, -when she learned that Misson's body had been blown to fragments by a -bursting shell? She said: 'In his auto?—What a stupid death!' The -death that one receives in an automobile, you see, is not noble. It was, -we now learn, the one-hundred-and-fourth time that a shell has fallen -within less than thirty metres of his machine, and the ninth machine -that has been struck in the course of his journeys. He will forever be -unrecognized." -</p> -<p> -Odette could not refrain from wiping her eyes. -</p> -<p> -La Villaumer, who lost nothing of her actions, said to her: -</p> -<p> -"You are weeping for another sorrow than your own?" -</p> -<p> -"Is that what you think?" asked Odette; "it is still my sorrow; it is he -who makes me more alive to the sorrows of others." -</p> -<p> -"Yes, but from the moment when you can thus weep for others your own -grief becomes more tolerable." -</p> -<p> -"I would not wish to suffer less." -</p> -<p> -"You are not suffering less; there is room in your heart for a still -greater sorrow." -</p> -<p> -"You always make me afraid when you say that." -</p> -<p> -"Odette, you must not be afraid of anything." -</p> -<p> -As they went up the avenue La Villaumer went on: -</p> -<p> -"I remember, last spring, regretting in your presence the marvellous -aspect of the Champs-Elysées in the days of prosperity. And yet not one -of those beautiful old days ever aroused in me so much feeling as the -crossing over of those ten war-blinded soldiers. I do not cease to -regret the time when these poor young fellows enjoyed the light; but I -am asking myself by what mystery the greatest suffering uplifts us above -the greatest pleasure. I even believe that the stimulus of the greatest -pleasure is short-lived and degenerates rapidly, while the other lasts -long and is endlessly purified." -</p> -<p> -"You are being converted, La Villaumer!" -</p> -<p> -"You know that there is no more convinced sceptic than I, and you know -my predilection for the simple life, frank, wholesome, normally -developing; one may say, happy in the pagan manner. But this mode of -life does not exhaust life, though I believe it to conform most -perfectly to the destiny of man. Life has acquired other dispositions, -other tendencies. And this does not prevent asceticism, for instance, -attractive as it is, from having at its base an incontestable -psychological truth. In the present state of civilization we are not -permitted to allow inconsistencies of which nevertheless the world is -composed. If you so much as mention two contradictory propositions you -are accused of instability, if not of dishonesty. Each of us remains -shut up in his little, partial, incomplete truth; that is why the human -race seems to one inconsequential and sometimes stupid." -</p> -<p> -"Come, explain yourself a little; how, for example, can one at the same -time love pleasure and that which forbids it?" -</p> -<p> -"The problem does appear to be insoluble; but observe that there are -none like the greatly self-indulgent to recognize the importance of an -event which consists in renouncing all pleasure. It is those who most -intensely enjoy the exquisite things of life who are thrilled to their -inmost souls at the sight of a voluntary death. I have been present, as -a relative, or as a mere onlooker, at more than one taking of the veil. -Think what the taking of the veil must be to a beautiful young girl! -Well, fathers excepted, I have never seen tears in the eyes of men -professing the same faith as the novice, but I have seen robust artists -almost faint at the sight. They were wholly indifferent to the person -who was thus leaving the world, but they adored beauty and love. They -believed in nothing else than beauty and love, and they were the only -ones in the company to be overwhelmed by the power of the motive that -can tear a human being away from the attraction of such a magnet. These -unbelievers, these intruders in the temple, experienced such a shock -that they came nearer to fervent adherence to a God to them unknown than -the men of tranquil faith, who looked upon the ceremony as something -usual and in conformity with the order of things. Ardent converts are -not recruited from among the friends of religion, but from among its -declared enemies or those totally ignorant of it." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXII">XXII</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette must leave a card with a word of sympathy at the door of the -bereaved Rose, and see her, stand by her, try, however vainly, to -console her. -</p> -<p> -Fortunately Simone overpowered both Rose and Odette with her chatter. -She was as well-informed, as in the time of peace, of everything that -went on in private life. Mathilde Aviron—another Germaine Le -Gault—was in love with a deputy. -</p> -<p> -"But," said Odette, "she lost her husband only four weeks after me." -</p> -<p> -"That is two years and two months ago, my dear!" -</p> -<p> -"That is true." -</p> -<p> -"It all depends on circumstances. They are going to be married, it -appears.—And that poor Ogivier is slowly wasting away, in solitary -misery, because his wife believes herself called to be heroic in the -hospitals! Opinions differ; some say: 'She is doing right. What would -you have? Ogivier is fifty-five years old; he is useless——'" -</p> -<p> -"But after all, he is her husband. Are her services indispensable in the -hospitals?" -</p> -<p> -"No one is indispensable, every one says." -</p> -<p> -"Well, then?" -</p> -<p> -"Well, then, it is war. Some forget their duties, others don't know -where they are. Mme. de Gaspari is absolutely bent upon making shells. -She used to shed perfume at fifteen paces; she had her hair waved by X., -and the beautiful hands that you remember—Some one has given her a -chance in a factory! And how many things are happening that no one talks -about! There are husbands who were in love with their wives, and who -after the wives have been doing service in the hospitals, no longer feel -the same toward them. It is not their fault! I know some who did not in -the least object to it; but love is what it can be; many love in their -wives only an illusion pleasing to themselves, such, for example, as -that a wife should come physically near only to her husband. When their -wives come back after having spent whole days—perhaps -nights—in those hospital rooms—what would you hear? Every -one cannot get over a painful impression simply by the aid of reason." -</p> -<p> -"And what about the girls who do the same?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, it is evident that men will have to accept new ideas." -</p> -<p> -"Say, that unlucky Gendron has had an attack." -</p> -<p> -"What, at his age?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, he is still young; and he was so healthy! He was by no means a -useless man. Here he is cut down; he cannot endure the idea of the war. -War perhaps seems worse to him at a distance than if he were in the -trenches. 'My head is splitting; it seems as if a petard had been fired -into my ear. I would rather explode than watch for it.'" -</p> -<p> -"He is a singular man." -</p> -<p> -"He didn't 'explode' as he said. He is 'watching for it' with his mouth -drawn to one side and an arm and a leg paralyzed—his intellect -intact. People's lots are different. We see all sorts." -</p> -<p> -"There are unfortunate people; here and there are some who, whether they -will or no, find the war turning to their advantage; and then there are -many who really do not know what they are going through; they are as if -possessed." -</p> -<p> -"What do you think of La Villaumer?" asked Simone. -</p> -<p> -"I hope that you don't propose to have him exorcised," said Odette. -</p> -<p> -"No, but has he told you that he is trying to sell all his property, his -collections, his books? He wants to realize on all that he owns, and -give it for the war." -</p> -<p> -"He is very much touched by it." -</p> -<p> -"But, my dear friends, who is there who is not?" -</p> -<p> -"Mme. de Boulainvilliers has distributed her entire fortune among war -works; she has mortgaged her house to enable her to support an auxiliary -hospital which she has opened in it; she is already begging right and -left. She will come to be a charge upon the public charities. All her -sons have been killed; but her relatives are furious." -</p> -<p> -"Little do I care about relatives," said Odette; "she is doing a good -thing, and all the more because every one knows that she isn't in the -least pretentious. 'There is no great merit in what I am doing,' the old -lady says modestly. 'Why, I shall soon be seventy years old; if I do not -take care of my wounded the state will have to do it, and that would -impair the fortune of my relatives as well as of everybody else.' But -she does not say everything that she thinks. What she thinks is much -simpler than that; she enjoys, above all things, making little creams -for her soldiers. 'But for my hospital,' she says, 'they wouldn't get -any!'" -</p> -<p> -"Have you heard of Clotilde's adventure?" asked Simone. -</p> -<p> -"My goodness! has Clotilde too been touched by the war?" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, in the most unexpected way. You know that she vowed to keep the war -away from her. Her husband is at General Headquarters; when she sees him -she forbids him to speak about the war. But Avvogade had a friend of his -childhood, a school comrade—a man whom one never met at their house -in the old days—a modest employee in a Trust Company, but a tall, -well-made fellow. The poor fellow lost his sight as the result of -trepanning. His condition produced a great effect upon Avvogade; -Avvogade suddenly felt all the old friendship for his comrade revive; he -goes to him as often as he can, takes him out to walk, brings him home -to lunch. Clotilde dares not object, but she is simply aghast. The -mutilated man's conversation does not interest her and the sight of him -horrifies her. 'We don't talk about the war,' says her husband. 'I am -not breaking our agreement.' They don't talk about the war, but this man -with his closed eyes embodies the war to her, and thus the war has -entered her house. And no one has anything to say to her but: 'You can't -escape it, my dear.' If Clotilde was not such a dear every one would -laugh, for, after all, her trouble is not a great one and there is -something absurd in the adventure." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXIII">XXIII</a></h4> - -<p> -As she went about among her friends Odette perceived that she was -regarded in Paris as one of the women who during the war was sacrificing -herself for the public good. One must have a "war" reputation at all -costs. No one said a word as to her conduct as a widow, or as to her -moral ideas. But because she had been absent and was known to have been -for a long time a hospital nurse, every one ascribed to her that spirit -of self-abnegation which gives reason to expect all things from certain -exceptional persons, born for sublimities. The compliments that she -received were not ironical. Her profound and unalterable grief for her -husband's death, the very discretion which she observed in making no -lamentation before her friends, were not lost upon them. Odette, sad and -silent, enjoyed what might be called "a good press." The praises -bestowed upon her simply transformed into extraordinary virtue what was -only natural to her. At first she found it stupid; then it disturbed -her. -</p> -<p> -"But what am I, after all?" she would ask. -</p> -<p> -"You are an exquisite woman! Your conduct is admirable!" -</p> -<p> -And every one present would acquiesce. It was in a drawing-room which -might have been supposed to be the seat of the War Committee, where were -young women, women on the further verge of youth, poetesses, princesses; -through which passed generals, convalescent heroes, ministers, men of -all shades of politics, literary celebrities, and the sad relics of -before-the-war æstheticism. The secrets of military operations were -known there, whether carried out or simply planned, the underside of -diplomacy, future declarations of war, historic nights, scandals unknown -to the public. News was handed about, discredited, misconstrued, torn to -pieces. An apparition from another world, like Odette, felt herself -facing all Europe in arms, or some world-congress; rising from the -modest tomb in which she had been living she was dazzled, her head was -turned with it all. She rose to return to her solitude. -</p> -<p> -On the staircase she met La Villaumer, his smile scornful at the thought -of the foolishness which he was about to hear. -</p> -<p> -"What do they expect of me?" she asked. "Imagine, there are those -up-stairs who were ready to swear that I, all by myself, directed the -battle of the Somme!" -</p> -<p> -"Not at all," he replied. "It is simply that you are a very worthy -woman; you honor the house." -</p> -<p> -"All very well! But they frighten me. They seem to be expecting -something of me——" -</p> -<p> -"That you will do the house still greater honor! Receptions of this sort -would fain be taken as pictures of the country, in the small." -</p> -<p> -"Tell me about yourself, La Villaumer; how much truth is there in what -they tell me—that you are going to distribute all your property and -live in a garret?" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, it is a naturally erroneous paraphrase of an expression of which, -like you, like many others, I have often made use. I have said: 'I no -longer count. None of us any longer counts.' Which means: 'Whatever our -value may formerly have been, the common cause is too grand for us to -indulge in the fatuity of putting a value upon ourselves. Whoever we may -be, we are reduced to nothingness by something superior to ourselves.' -It is a rather stern assertion, and just because it is so it sets -imaginations to work. Our amiable gossips immediately translate it into -a child's picture, impressive by its crude coloring, in which they see -me shivering on a pallet." -</p> -<p> -"And the story of Mme. de Boulainvilliers?" -</p> -<p> -"So they have told you the story of Mme. de Boulainvilliers as well? -She is a truly generous woman, but not an imprudent one. She so well -knows what a snare there is for her in the pleasure of coddling her -hundred and twenty soldiers, that, having no direct heirs, she has put a -part of her property into an annuity, in order to become a charge upon -no one as long as she may live. All the rest she gives away. She detests -her relations and delights in frustrating them. No one would talk about -her, perhaps, if it were not for the cream of the end of the story, a -little detail which happens to be true, and which does good." -</p> -<p> -"Let us have done with our good women and our special cases. But you, -yourself, what do you think, on the whole, of sacrifice?" -</p> -<p> -"The general opinion is that men are without exception ruled by base -personal interests; but this view only takes into consideration the calm -level of the human ocean; in reality it has its tempests, which are the -passions, and man in a state of passion no longer thinks of his -interests. In the depths of my soul I believe that sacrifice may very -well cause the greatest happiness." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXIV">XXIV</a></h4> - -<p> -Some little time later Odette went to see Clotilde. It was early in a -mortally cold winter; for two months already cold weather had raged, -bitter and uninterrupted. The question of fuel was beginning to be -serious; there were rumors of restrictions in many things. Paris was -uneasy, though the newspapers, with their miracle-working ink, turned -adversity into beauty. -</p> -<p> -Odette found Clotilde in her usual atmosphere, a happy accident having -permitted her apartment to be warmed. She was surrounded by books and -flowers, and wore a robe of some silken fabric which moulded itself to -her sinuous form. She at once exclaimed: -</p> -<p> -"Do you notice anything changed here?" -</p> -<p> -"Not you, certainly!" -</p> -<p> -"I have had the rooms done over; how do you like this gray?" -</p> -<p> -"It's lovely! With the cherry color of the curtains it is really -perfect." -</p> -<p> -"Ah! I was sure that you would think so! The others go through the rooms -as if they were daft; they don't notice anything." -</p> -<p> -"You have a new photograph of your husband. It is wonderfully good." -</p> -<p> -"Doesn't he grow handsome? And yet the dear fellow is overworking. It -isn't a sinecure, I assure you, his position at General Headquarters! -But I feel sure that I amuse him; I divert him from his worries. Without -flattering myself I please him, these days. And I love him, Oh, how I -love him!" -</p> -<p> -"You are two lucky people." -</p> -<p> -"Forgive me, dear Odette, I am almost ashamed to dwell upon my happiness -before you. But you are the only person who understands; you, who have -truly loved." -</p> -<p> -"Who love still, Clotilde." -</p> -<p> -Clotilde opened her eyes wide, thinking that she had not heard aright. -She knew what love was, surely, but it was difficult for her to admit -that after two years and a half one could love a dead man, as she loved -her strong and handsome husband. Yet she certainly could entertain no -suspicion concerning Odette, and she at once resolved to make the most -of her friend's enduring sentiments to talk to her about her own -personal love. She overwhelmed her with it as with a flood. Her love had -reached an intensity which it had never known in times of peace. The -seclusion which she had chosen in order to avoid hearing any talk of war -had built around her an ivory tower; and no longer meeting any one but -her husband, her pleasures ministered to only by him, she had found him -taking a place of unusual importance in her life; in himself he embodied -all the delights of which the war had deprived her, and which she had -learned to forget. -</p> -<p> -Odette herself began to speak of love. The subject was painful to her, -and yet she enjoyed it. Clotilde was the only creature with whom, since -the war, she had been able to converse on the subject without -diffidence. Letting herself go along the lines of her memories and her -habitual reveries, she began to taste the joy of a prisoner shut up in -a dark cell, who finds an opportunity to mention the brook that flows -through the sun-bathed field below his father's house. -</p> -<p> -"After all," she concluded, "the things that we have been saying, if -they could be noted down, would interest the world more, fifty or a -hundred years hence, than all the terrible events that are taking -place." -</p> -<p> -Clotilde would hear nothing about "terrible events." Love alone was -worth considering. -</p> -<p> -"We meet love everywhere," said Odette. "I find it springing up under my -feet wherever I go; in the operating-room, at the bedside of the wounded -and the dying. The towns nearest to the front are fuller of it than any -others, it would seem. They say that it has never caused such a stir." -</p> -<p> -"It represents life, which must be perpetuated, whatever happens. In -your case, my dear Odette, love is joined to death, but in general, no; -it severs itself from death. Those of our day who sing of love and -practise it are more surely serving the future than those who conceive -of restraint as the sole virtue." -</p> -<p> -In spite of herself, these unpremeditated words brought a sudden light -into the perplexed thoughts with which Odette's persistent sorrow and -her natural disposition as a loving young woman inspired Clotilde. She -felt impelled to cry out to her: "You think you are loving a dead man, -my poor dear! but you are not twenty-eight years old; you are in love -with love; it is always here, and is waiting for you!" -</p> -<p> -Both of them were equally incapable of disguising the truth as it -appeared to them. Odette, bound by a tie whose almost inconceivable -strength kept down every other sort of desire; Clotilde simply deep in -love to the point of hardly being able to imagine a case different from -her own. By chance she had not uttered words which deeply wound a -bleeding heart, but Odette's acute senses at once perceived that there -is hardly any conversation possible even upon the dearest subject that -they may have in common, between two creatures, one of whom is happy and -the other in sorrow. -</p> -<p> -She at least observed this: that Clotilde, from an absolutely opposite -point of view, was at one with Mme. de Blauve, with Mme. de Calouas, -with La Villaumer, with each and every one, in saying to her: "My dear -friend, you should not always mourn." -</p> -<p> -And her grief, so genuine, was increased tenfold. -</p> -<p> -But Clotilde, self-indulgent, egotistic, and thinking only of her own -pleasure or of sparing herself pain, was saying to Odette: -</p> -<p> -"See here, my dear; will you do me a great service? Will you come to -lunch with us to-morrow? Would that bore you?" -</p> -<p> -"Why should it bore me? Why do you call it doing you a service?" -</p> -<p> -"It is settled, then. See here; I must tell you a secret. You know how I -love my husband, how happy I am. There is only one dark spot: my husband -has a friend, a blinded officer—Captain Dessaud. He brings him two or -three times a week to lunch, on the pretext that he is lonely, with no -family, and desperate. Of course I cannot object, you understand; but -the sight of that man is painful to me to a degree that you would never -believe. I have to talk to him, and I have nothing to say to a fellow -who has lost his sight, who hopes for nothing, who has no motive for -being happy. I am sick with it. Come to my help—you are used to -wretchedness, you know!" -</p> -<p> -"Yes indeed, yes indeed, I will come." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXV">XXV</a></h4> - -<p> -Once at home, Odette thought more about Clotilde's conversation than -about the coming meeting with the blinded man, which she dreaded. On the -other side of the thin partition of her little drawing-room, her -neighbor, the musician, who was sometimes reinforced by a 'cellist, was -filling all space with enamoured, passionate, and agitating sounds, -enough to rend the heart. Love, love, everywhere and always love! For -the first time in her life Odette, who adored love, who but now had been -delighting in talking freely of love, who even admitted the justice of -some of Clotilde's assertions on the superlatively beneficent office of -love, Odette felt that in thinking of love and talking of love with her -friend she had lost tone, and now she had only one thought, heard only -the one voice from beyond the tomb. "When I am talking with my friend," -she said to herself, "I seem to be taking part in what is said, or is -laughed at; yes, but I take part in it like the dead to whom it is given -to perceive earthly things once more. The war, when it robbed me of my -Jean, crushed the vitality of my body. My heart has become forever -insensible. I am carried along in the whirlwind of present events like -the threshed straw which might float above the standing harvest, -thinking to recognize in it stalks like itself, without realizing that -the iron has cut it off, separated it forever from the earth." -</p> -<p> -The moaning of the violoncello, the influence of the music, gave a sort -of lyric inclination to her usually modest thought and contributed to -increase her agitation. -</p> -<p> -"The times are so hard," she continued, "that I have not had, for two -years, the slight consolation of talking with any one of my love-sorrow. -I could hope to do so with one alone, because her love is, so to speak, -apart from the war. But when she speaks to me of love I perceive that -her idea of love is not mine, or is no longer mine. The love that I bear -within me is no longer accessible to any human creature!" -</p> -<p> -The musician in the next room took up, as usual, her favorite -<i>Nocturne</i>, accompanying it with her voice, wordlessly, until the -grand, inspired utterance of desolation, thrice repeated, enwrapped the -hearer like the long dark locks of night itself. -</p> -<p> -Then Odette, solitary amidst the pictures of her well-beloved, fell into -a long fit of weeping, as she had so often done before. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXVI">XXVI</a></h4> - -<p> -She found Clotilde alone next day at the lunch-hour, her husband being -almost always late, especially when he had to go to fetch the blinded -man. At last she recognized the voice of the handsome George in the -anteroom, and saw him pushing before him, as a ventriloquist guides his -automaton, a tall young man, neither handsome nor plain, in the uniform -of a captain of light infantry, and with closed eyes. The blinded man -bowed, and clasped the hand that Clotilde laid within his own; George -explained to him that one of their friends was with them, a young -war-widow, Mme. Jacquelin. The blind man also pressed the hand that -Odette extended to him. -</p> -<p> -He already knew the apartment with minute exactness. He walked to the -table without aid, almost without feeling his way; and recognized each -flower by its perfume; they directed his fingers to the primroses which -have no perfume, and one would have said that his eager fingers -recognized the table decorations as strange little mute personages. -After a brief touch he knew the precise situation of each object; with -the blade of his knife he recognized the nature of the food on his -plate, and cut it adroitly. Possibly he might have been able to help -himself, like others, from the dish presented by the servant, but he was -spared the necessity of this feat by the question: "What do you prefer, -captain?" -</p> -<p> -He talked freely, almost gayly, though with an evident effort. He -appeared to be intelligent without ever having been cultivated; but -neither his person nor his mind revealed anything remarkable. He would -doubtless have been a man like any other if he had not been blinded. -</p> -<p> -Odette shuddered on looking at those closed eyelids on the face of a man -in whom one divined, notwithstanding his effort to conceal it, a secret -suffering. Yet his voice was not that of a man who bore a mystery about -with him; his suffering probably did not attain to those higher regions -which a rich imagination transforms into torture-chambers for men -unhappily deprived of the light of day; he did not dream of romantic -sunsets, of the contemplation of the celestial vault, or of Correggio's -sunlight, nor even of the beauty of houris. -</p> -<p> -As George was offering to his touch the cigars in a box, he whispered in -his ear: -</p> -<p> -"You have been lunching with a pretty-woman, old fellow, don't you -know?" -</p> -<p> -"Your wife? I should think so!" -</p> -<p> -"My wife, yes, but the other one, young, very pretty!" -</p> -<p> -The blind man seemed to reflect, shook his head and said: -</p> -<p> -"That always gives pleasure." -</p> -<p> -"Her husband," George went on, "was killed in the early days——" -</p> -<p> -"Has she children?" asked the blinded man. -</p> -<p> -"They had only been married three or four years; they would have -had——" -</p> -<p> -"Perhaps she loved him too much? That sometimes happens, it appears." -</p> -<p> -"Yes," said George. -</p> -<p> -The blinded man turned his closed eyes, like an extinguished lighthouse, -in Odette's direction. He experienced a curious feeling, almost envy, of -the dead man who had been so much beloved. -</p> -<p> -He became more interested in Odette. It appeared that she had nursed one -of his comrades through a bad affair at Surville. Men cut to pieces, -gaping wounds, sensational operations, and the agonized resignation of -those young men did not produce in her one-quarter of the pitying revolt -which was caused her by the eternal privation from light which a living, -healthy being might suffer by her side. -</p> -<p> -In his presence she recovered something of her manner of speaking with -the wounded, but her natural frankness was not animated by that smiling -perspective of a still possible future which a woman perceives at the -bedside of a soldier, even one who has lost a limb. The nurse speaks no -falsehood when she says: "My little friend, when you are well, when you -once more see your home, your village—" But when she is constrained -to omit from her vocabulary the radiant word see, how constrained and -powerless she is! -</p> -<p> -Blinded men always awoke in her extreme compassion when she met them in -the street, when they were spoken of in her presence. She remembered how -tears had risen to her eyes, how her throat had contracted, when Simone -had described that wedding at the Madeleine, the handsome couple coming -down the steps, the bridegroom all adorned with decorations, in the face -of an admiring crowd who suddenly perceived that he could not see. But -she had never before been obliged to carry on a conversation with one of -those beings whom the deprivation of a sense makes more different from -ourselves than the loss of many limbs. She instinctively managed it very -well, though she was moved to the last degree; she knew at once how to -speak to one who had been greatly afflicted—as she would have done to -a normal man, without appearing to notice his condition. The captain was -grateful to her for it, and it was evident that he was much more at ease -with Odette, on this first meeting, than he had ever succeeded in being -with Clotilde, whom he had known a long time. Clotilde, incapable of -dominating her selfishness, could have been brought by no human power to -the point of forcing herself to an act not agreeable to herself. Her -husband, who was pained by her attitude, said to her: "See how gracious -Odette is!" -</p> -<p> -The blinded man went away with his friend, evidently happy for having -chatted with a pretty and afflicted woman, for having been able to -induce her to act as if neither she nor he had been touched by -misfortune. -</p> -<p> -"Judge," said Clotilde when the two men had gone out, "to what point I -am stupid and benumbed, and what a service you have rendered me! But I -beg pardon for having inflicted it upon you." -</p> -<p> -"When a thing of this sort pains me," said Odette, "I do not know what I -feel. I have noticed that at the hospital, especially in the early days. -I don't deny that it seems as if I were being rubbed the wrong way, but -there is a sort of miraculous cure that acts of itself, penetrating like -a drop of balm, to the very depths of the wound." -</p> -<p> -"I don't understand you at all," said Clotilde; "a thing that bores me -bores me, and when anything hurts me I simply must push it away or go -away myself." -</p> -<p> -"I used to be like you," said Odette; "I am still, in all that concerns -my grief. For that there is no balm; nothing will ever heal it. Perhaps -there is something exceptional in love; it takes possession of us, it -makes us happy to an extent that blinds us to everything besides, or it -wounds us to death. But all that is not love, and what tries to embitter -us must carry its antidote within itself." -</p> -<p> -"When we love," said Clotilde, "nothing else can seriously affect us." -</p> -<p> -"Notwithstanding which, I assure you that I have often within the past -two years been painfully affected, and I have not ceased to love." -</p> -<p> -"You think so, my poor Odette! But if Jean had continued to be with you, -you would have had no feeling but for him." -</p> -<p> -"Clotilde, you are spoiled by happiness; you understand nothing!" -</p> -<p> -Clotilde shook her head. She felt that she had somewhat nettled her -friend in unveiling her thought to her. -</p> -<p> -"You will come again all the same, Odette? Even to face my blind man?" -</p> -<p> -"If you wish," said Odette sadly. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXVII">XXVII</a></h4> - -<p> -Clotilde's state of mind, which she had until now rather enjoyed, began -to trouble Odette. She had thought herself entirely in harmony with -Clotilde, just as Clotilde had imagined herself to think in unison with -Odette, because both of them loved, and because until then nothing had -seemed to come between them. But to-day Odette was repelled by -Clotilde's attitude, her ivory tower, her aversion to suffering, and her -lack of suavity. "I used to be like her," Odette said to herself. "Am I -different now because events have taken me by storm? Or is it indeed, as -she says, because Jean, whom I surely do not love less, is not here to -engross me?" -</p> -<p> -She was terrorized by this idea, which nevertheless she felt to be -false. She was overwhelmed with remorse and accused herself of having -grown cool in the worship of her husband. It was true that too many -things were conspiring to lead her away from the thought which ought to -be her only one. She returned once more to her mortuary chapel, her -relics, her portraits. To guard against her sorrow being frittered away -by the many sympathies with which her walks inspired her, she shut -herself up at home. The winter, aggravated by the hostile cold, was so -depressing, the news from without was so gloomy, that Odette fell into a -sort of neurasthenia. She, who had never known illness, was constrained -to call in a physician. He ordered, not medicine, but diversion at any -cost. -</p> -<p> -"There are still many theatres open," he said; "I don't ask you to go to -see 'gay pieces,' which are cruder than anything else, but go to -something good. A woman of your years," he added, "has no right to let -herself die of inanition." -</p> -<p> -She obeyed the doctor, not to save her health, but because she was -touched with shame. Here was another who said to her: "You have no -right." It was a middle-aged physician of great celebrity, and even -intelligent; he had lost his two sons in the war; his wife had died of -grief, he himself was mobilized and was working hard in the hospitals. -</p> -<p> -She went once to a benefit performance. <i>Carmen</i> was given. She had -adored that work whose obscure and brilliant genius had often benumbed -her like a bunch of dark carnations with their pungent fragrance. But -her attention was captured by the presence at her side of a -sublieutenant whose sleeve hung empty by his side, and when the young -man, all on fire, turned to his neighbor on the other side, who must -have been his mother, or to some friends behind him, the soft, -superfluous cloth, with its short gold braid brushed Odette's knee. The -officer became aware of it and, excusing himself, gathered up the cloth -with his right hand. More than this, from one of the boxes broke out, at -almost regular and too frequent intervals, a man's laugh, abrupt, -uncontrollable, and without the least relation to the dramatic work that -was being given. Several persons turned that way, indignant at first, -even angry, until one of them perceived that this ill-timed gayety came -from an officer who was listening with the utmost seriousness, but who -was affected by the results of a cerebral shock. Word was whispered -about, no head was again turned; every one was universally commiserating -the infirmity whose tragic character equalled that of the masterpiece to -which they were listening. -</p> -<p> -"'You must be diverted at any cost,'" thought Odette. -</p> -<p> -"In the matter of therapeutics," her friend La Villaumer said to her, -not long after this experience, "for my part I believe in a very old -rule, which says: 'For great evils great remedies.' In times like ours, -for any one who has greatly suffered, diversions are less appropriate -than strenuous tasks." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXVIII">XXVIII</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette went occasionally to lunch with Clotilde to help her entertain -her blinded man. In general she went about fitfully, now here, now -there, to offer her small services. She was welcomed at sales, for she -pleased people. -</p> -<p> -She even inspired, at her booths, what people call passions—sudden -and burning—which, however, manifested themselves indirectly and -discreetly, so much did even the boldest man dread to approach a young -widow universally known to be so proper, and so faithful to her grief. -</p> -<p> -The first was a commandant of infantry who had been wounded three or -four times, and who had a long convalescent leave; he was barely -thirty-four years old, and was one of the finest types of soldier in the -present war. After having conversed with Odette he sent a friend to ask -her if later, strictly speaking, much later, she would consent to become -his wife. She declined the request as if it had been insane; could any -one suppose that she would ever marry again? -</p> -<p> -The second was a man about fifty years of age, well known about town, a -member of the Jockey Club, enjoying, as the novels say, an immense -fortune and unquestionably holding a very prominent position in society. -He was the organizer of most of the war charities in which Odette's help -had been sought. He loaned for them his buildings and what remained to -him of his staff of servants, gave to them his time and his purse. -Odette had touched him with one of those lightning strokes which reach -only men of that age, and after her refusal he fell violently ill, -remained depressed, downcast, aged, incapable of managing his business, -obliged to retire to one of his country-places, where he became -oblivious of everything, even of the war and its evils, of which up to -this time he had thought only to seek a remedy, thinking now only of the -cruel Odette. -</p> -<p> -She was as indifferent to this adventure as to the other, -notwithstanding the friendly remonstrances that poured in upon her. The -latter offer had been made to her through Mme. de Blauve, and this -friend, while bowing to the sentiment of fidelity which bound Odette to -a beloved memory, took courage to point out to her that in the midst of -her married happiness she had failed to found a family. Odette, with all -her intelligence, her sincere devotion, did not understand. She had -loved one man; she continued to love his memory. No other idea, with -whatever importance it might be clothed, commanded her respect; she -understood only her own heart, which simply clung like an ivy to the -tree, however dried up it might be, and to which no power could prevent -her clinging. -</p> -<p> -All Odette's friends shared Mme. de Blauve's opinion, however unlike -they might be to this noble woman—ail of them, even to Clotilde. -</p> -<p> -Yes, even Clotilde blamed her for not having at least accepted the young -commandant. Odette was amazed at this, the result being that these two -loving women fell out. -</p> -<p> -La Villaumer, to whom Odette confided this trouble, said to her: -</p> -<p> -"If your friend Clotilde were to be so unfortunate as to lose her -husband, whom she adores, the chances are sixty to a hundred that after -a certain time she would love another as much or almost as much as him, -while you judge such a transferrence of love inadmissible." -</p> -<p> -"But, after all, one loves or one does not love; that is perfectly -simple!" -</p> -<p> -"No, indeed, it is not so simple as that. One loves and one can love as -Clotilde does, or as you do, yourself. We do not easily distinguish -differences so long as lovers, being united, are happy." -</p> -<p> -"You frighten me. Are there then loves that are not love? Is not -sentiment the finest thing in love? And can there be a fine sentiment -that is not lasting?" -</p> -<p> -"In the first place, my dear friend, permit me to believe that you do -not profess your sentiment because it is fine, nor does it last with you -because you find it beautiful. You find your sentiment beautiful because -it is yours. You look upon it as lasting indefinitely because your eyes -are incapable of looking as far as its end; that is all. In your case -there is no constraint, no submission to any law, aesthetic or moral. -You feel that way. Your friend Clotilde loves in her way, and she finds -it beautiful, believe me." -</p> -<p> -"All the same! All the same, there is an almost general consent to -consider that love superior which is adorned with sentiment, and does -not consent to be short-lived." -</p> -<p> -"Yes; and this is in conformity with the morality which has ruled us -thus far. This morality is all delicacy. But, reduced to this degree of -purity, will it suffice to keep alive a struggle as ardent as the one -which we are now witnessing, for the possession of a part of the outside -of the world, or even for the supremacy of certain ideas? It must -concede provisionally a preponderance to material, mortal life, since it -is evident that the morality of the just will triumph only on condition -that it has force on its side. Do you follow me, my poor friend? All -this is very dry. But this is my way of telling you that these -crystalline sentiments, that are an 'ornament' in ordinary times, become -a luxury in our age of iron and fire. Luxury is no longer permissible. -The time has come when all refinements must give way to a very stern -reality. As you have been very well told: 'We are not our own.' General -consent? It should be given to the best good of the cause which unites -us all, and carries us all away with itself. Forgive me, my very dear -friend. I am going to commit a rudeness which gives me pain—and you -know that only the extremity of an unheard-of calamity could bring me to -that—yes, your sentiment, with its persistence, is beautiful in -itself, most beautiful; but we are no longer at leisure to look at things -'in themselves.' Well, if your friend Clotilde had lost her husband in your -place and at the same time, and if she were to-day the wife of another -who had made her a mother, for example, we ought really to hold her case -in higher esteem than yours!" -</p> -<p> -A sob choked Odette. They were walking along the Champs-Elysées. She -sought for a chair and sank upon it. -</p> -<p> -"I am not vexed with you," she said as soon as she could speak; -"something in my inmost being understands you— It has already been -said to me— But it is hard!" -</p> -<p> -"The time is exceptional." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXIX">XXIX</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette spent much of her time in consoling poor Rose. Her husband's -death had passed almost unnoticed. But other and very dramatic deaths -had also passed unnoticed. When men were brought home in fragments it -made a sensation, but once they were dead the sad equality of the earth -obscured their memory. Indescribable episodes had attained such a -character, and had reached such numbers, that people hardly dared speak -of them. Minds were saturated and automatically closed against any new -sensation. Many were unable to endure any story of the war, whether in -the newspapers or in books. Odette recalled to mind the impression which -the wounded had formerly made. They were already saying "formerly" when -speaking of the present war! Now there were wounded everywhere. It was -rather the unscathed men upon whom one looked as if to say to them: "See -here, you! what are you doing with your arms, with your legs?" Certain -persons, with a strong revulsion of the instinct of self-preservation, -refused, like Clotilde, even to think about the war; others, on the -other hand, buried themselves in it with passionate intensity. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Blauve, who had become fond of Odette and occasionally came to -see her, now came to announce the marriage of her eldest daughter. She -told the news almost as if saying: "At last!" as if it were the case of -an old maid whom she had despaired of marrying off. Mlle. de Blauve was -barely sixteen, she was attractive and endowed with much charm, had been -most carefully educated, and promised to be really beautiful. She was to -marry a wounded sublieutenant. -</p> -<p> -"Ah!" said Odette; "does she love him?" -</p> -<p> -"He is a young man of good family," said Mme. de Blauve, "and he has -behaved admirably." -</p> -<p> -"But he will return to the front! You will be in perpetual anxiety!" -</p> -<p> -"Not that," replied Mme. de Blauve. "To be sure, my daughter would have -liked to be the wife of a soldier who remained a soldier, like her -father. But soldiers in active service will always find some one to -marry them, and wives must be found for those less favored, who have -been checked in their career——" -</p> -<p> -"Has her fiancé been retired?" asked Odette. "Don't tell me that he is -badly——" -</p> -<p> -"Oh, this is not the time to think about things that girls used to care -for; the question is to save our men by giving them wives, so that they -may be in a position to found a family. This young man is from the -devastated regions. He has lost all his family—some of them have been -shot, others have died during the occupation of the enemy—and it is -entirely impossible for him to earn a decent living. We ourselves have -sacrificed more blood than money; my daughter will still have a certain -amount of fortune, therefore——" -</p> -<p> -"But what is the matter with him? What has he lost?" asked Odette, -thinking only of that absolute union of two beings which had illuminated -her own life. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, it is very sad," said Mme. de Blauve; "my future son-in-law is one -of those most deserving of interest, who have received face wounds. His -face—how can I tell you?—lacks almost everything except the -passages that are necessary for eating and breathing——" -</p> -<p> -Odette uttered an inarticulate exclamation and rang the bell. But she -did not faint until Mme. de Blauve was gone. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -The case of Mlle. de Blauve evoked more criticism than admiration. -According to some it was absolutely too terrible and not to be thought -about. In most cases, however, sensitiveness had been so dulled by the -constant hearing of war-stories that very little attention was paid to -this act of superhuman devotion. Some said: "The mother is crazy and the -young girl does not realize what she is doing. One may do violence to -nature, or may dupe it for a short time; this is a time when we ought to -resolve upon any sacrifice, even to throwing ourselves into the arms of -death; but death is either the end or the beginning of the unknown. The -idea of marrying a superb girl of sixteen to a man without a face!" -</p> -<p> -Yet every one knew that far from bringing pressure to bear upon her -daughter, Mme. de Blauve had made every possible effort to prevent her -marrying another wounded man, an unlucky fellow who, approaching a -trench with a grenade in each hand, had had both eyes burned at the very -moment when a bursting shell had set off the two grenades and shattered -both hands. What she was now doing was a slight thing in comparison with -the thing that she had prevented. -</p> -<p> -Odette felt that she must know La Villaumer's opinion on this matter. -They had no regular engagement for meeting, and met only by chance. She -decided to go to his house shortly before the luncheon hour. An old -servant ushered her into a room where, to her great surprise, she heard -the tones of a harmonium mingled with a man's voice entirely untrained. -It proceeded from the neighboring room, separated from her by a glass -door partly screened by a curtain of Chinese silk. The thing was so -unusual and so puzzling that she could not refrain from peeping around -the edge of the curtain. She saw at the instrument an organist whom she -knew, and standing beside him a man bereft of both arms, and the pose of -whose head was that of a blind man trying to catch the notes which the -teacher was patiently repeating. All around them were soldiers wearing -black glasses, with closed eyes or with bandaged faces, and Villaumer in -his dressing-gown coming and going among them. He suddenly disappeared -and came into the room where Odette was standing. -</p> -<p> -"I have caught you!" said she. "Try now to convince me that what I have -been told of you is not true! You are no longer in your own home!" -</p> -<p> -"My good friend," he replied, "I am having lessons given to the most -unfortunate of those unhappy ones whom evil fortune and inaction are -driving to despair. They are being taught the rudiments of music; they -are trying to sing; it occupies them." -</p> -<p> -"I knew that you were kind——" -</p> -<p> -"I am not kind; I am generally severe upon men. But the sight of -misfortune is intolerable to me; and for men like these, who have been -three-quarters destroyed for the sake of saving us, yes, I confess that -I could give my last shirt; I would wait upon them at table— Will you -take luncheon with us?" -</p> -<p> -Through the half-open door into the dining-room she could see a table -spread for twelve. -</p> -<p> -"Do you take lunch with them?" asked Odette. -</p> -<p> -"I permit myself that honor— It is my last self-indulgence. Well, -will you take advantage of it?" -</p> -<p> -"I cannot, my friend, I cannot. I should weep through the whole meal. -That is not what they need." -</p> -<p> -"No. One must have the courage to bestow upon them the gayety—which -we don't possess. Social hypocrisy has not been practised all this time in -vain, if it has taught this to some of us." -</p> -<p> -"I am ashamed of my weakness," said Odette. "I should not flinch before -any sort of wound, but the thought that the war has deprived a man of -the light of day forces me to ask myself whether I myself have a right -to look upon these beautiful silks, this sunlight——" -</p> -<p> -"Take pleasure in the silks, in objects of art, and in sunlight, you who -are made to charm that portion of humanity that remains intact. You -would not, on the pretext that millions of men have been plunged into -darkness or death, irritate them gratuitously by an ill-regulated -sympathy? Innumerable lives have, alas, been shattered, but life -remains, the light is brilliant, plants are growing, animals and even -men still swarm upon the earth. Recall to mind the tragic and -paradoxical truth that human life, which is the highest work and appears -to have been the purpose of the creation of the world, is that for -which, on the whole, that great work appears to care the least. Whatever -part man may be called to play, his destiny is to pass away. That horror -of war with which we are inspired by the extermination of men is in the -long run kept up and perpetuated by material depredations; the memory of -an illustrious building destroyed will last longer than that of a -hundred thousand young men mown down in their youth." -</p> -<p> -"And meanwhile you are throwing overboard all you possess to rescue men -who are only half alive. That is all that I wanted to know." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXX">XXX</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette spent several days in bed as a consequence of the marriage of the -little de Blauve girl—which took place in the strictest privacy, and -which she had not attended. But her imagination was lively, and she -pictured things to herself. -</p> -<p> -She sought out her friend La Villaumer, as it were, now that she had -detected him in an act of kindness. As for him, in her presence he took -less pains to conceal his acts, now that she understood him better. -</p> -<p> -"I have always loved men," he said. "Why should I not love them since I -have always professed to criticise them? Have I misunderstood them? -Remember how indulgent I was for all that in them is so far removed from -the only thing that I really prize—intelligence. How vulnerable I -have been to their instincts! How I have smiled at their innumerable -follies! I simply enjoyed studying them, without the slightest -partiality, notwithstanding my secret reverence for reason, which seems -to me to be a torch lighted at the altar of a god and carefully -transmitted by certain privileged beings to certain privileged beings, -while yet the chain that they form never succeeds—no one can tell -why—in producing an illumination. Therefore, I have never believed -that the world belonged to what we have learned to venerate under the -name of intelligence. Intelligence is a divine part which no doubt gives -us notions of what there is on high, but which has almost no application -to things here below. The world is not governed by intelligence. -Sometimes intelligence makes converts, and we believe that its reign has -come. Illusion! It is precisely then that we are upon the point of -falling again into blessed ignorance, and going back to the age of -barbarism. Do you know, I am tempted to believe that the age of -barbarism is the normal period of humanity! We probably need cruelty, -absurdity, injustice, superstition, torrents of bloodshed, in order that -the mystery which we admire under the name of life may exist and -perpetuate itself. Our bodies can be fed only by offensive means. The -majority of human pleasures are unfathomably stupid. The great masses -obey certain elementary formulas, sayings of which they have never -weighed the meaning, and which often have no meaning. Governments are -not carried on by luminous reasoning, but by the allurement of sounding -words that flatter the senses. In order to hold our own in a large and -influential social group, my poor friend, are we going to be called to -admit the timeliness of belief in prophets, in wonder-workers, in -ghosts, in the platitudes of 'apparitions,' in the genius of simple -minds? Is a torrent of puerility about to inundate the surface of the -globe? May it be that this is the indispensable element of reparation? -Intelligence, reduced to its own resources, has in fact no power of -expansion, no means of action. It is enough to make one die of shame and -vexation! Law, justice, liberty—we can imagine men shrugging their -shoulders when they hear the words, for the words are efficacious only -when they are emptied of their significance and travestied into -elementary ideas which naturally lead to the violation of law, liberty, -justice. In the matter of ideas men believe only in their tutelary -virtue; they are protecting divinities; and the idea is nothing but a -word that men symbolize on their flagstaffs, like a fetich. We are as -credulous as Homer's warriors. Minerva fights with us. For that matter, -I do not think that there ever was a better opportunity for adopting the -theocratic conception of the world, for men are at this moment given -over to the elements, and the greatest political genius imaginable would -probably be powerless so long as the convulsions with which the world is -attacked are not quieted of themselves. In these conditions there is no -room in the home of a poor fellow for any but the virtues of pity and -affection. I confess the fact, my dear Odette, I can no longer control -my heart." -</p> -<p> -"To be moved to compassion is to be weakened, I have been told." -</p> -<p> -"There is truth in that opinion so far as those persons are concerned -who are more especially called by circumstances to act, and especially -to direct the actions of others; such must put on blinders and look only -to the immediate purpose which demands all their energies. But it is -desirable that in the midst of this tempest-tossed world a few -contemplative persons shall devote themselves to pity as to the -conservation of a 'precious blood'; if only for the sake of the -efficacy, or at least of the beauty of the thing. And the worshippers at -this altar will need to contend—do you know with whom?—with -humanity itself, which has little remembrance of its own ills, and -which, like a kitten, hastens to play with the first ray of sunshine. It -is true that the dead keep a great silence." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXI">XXXI</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette was at home one evening, and alone. Stretched out upon a lounge, -she was gazing at the photographs of Jean on little tables or within her -reach upon the walls, hypnotizing herself with the sight of them, -kissing them as she always did. -</p> -<p> -Amelia came in saying that the next apartment was "crammed full." -</p> -<p> -"Madame, if there aren't twenty men six feet high in that room, my own -poor husband isn't a prisoner with the Boches!" -</p> -<p> -In fact there was a great commotion on the other side of the partition. -Furniture and chairs were being moved about, and as all sounds -penetrated through the cracks of the door, the syllables of an -unfamiliar language could be heard, perhaps Rumanian or Russian. The -neighbor was a foreigner. -</p> -<p> -Suddenly there was silence. Amelia had withdrawn. It was an imposed, -perhaps a concerted, silence. "It is a musical recital," said Odette to -herself. In fact she almost immediately recognized the sprightly touch -of the pianist, mellow, languishing, melting into the keyboard as into a -tender flesh, by turns nervous, light, cruel as a hammer, heavy as a -pile-driver, seeming to crush the instrument, then suddenly soft, -fluttering on the keys like the wing of a dying bird. Though the woman -often played for herself alone, this was not the first time that many -people had gathered around her to hear her music. -</p> -<p> -A chorus of men's voices burst forth. It was strange, weird, enough to -make one catch one's breath. Odette listened. That sensitiveness to -music which often reached depths in her unknown to herself, was suddenly -wrought up to its utmost pitch. She did not know the chorus, and sought -in vain for an author to whom to ascribe it. It might be a popular song, -perhaps very ancient, to judge by its artless simplicity, its pure -rhythm, and its wild, sweet accent. At times a soprano voice uprose in a -solo, and the chorus, a third below, responded softly in whisperings -that grew nearer and nearer, quickly spreading like oil upon the sea, or -as if transmitted from man to man over immense plains and endlessly -flowing rivers. Suddenly two or three raucous or strident cries gathered -up all the voices to a sharp point directed toward the heavens. Then all -sound ceased, and one felt as if falling from a superb altitude into the -depths of an abyss. -</p> -<p> -Then the fingers of the enchantress executed a ballad of Balakireff, -or Dvorak's hymn, "On the Death of a Hero." And then, after a pause, -another chorus broke forth. -</p> -<p> -There was in it all a melancholy which no words could so much as -suggest, in which amid the uniformly plaintive murmur one discerned such -lifelike wailings that one could have stretched out the hands to succor -these vague, unrecognized, and multiplied sufferings. They swelled, -spread abroad, took on so mighty an extension that in spite of oneself -one saw the surface of the suffering world, heard the feeble and -resigned voice of man, of man always the sport of fate, always in -leading-strings, always sacrificed like cattle to gods whose secret he -could not fathom. It was the lament of the ancient earth of humanity, -timid, uncouth, and despairing, issuing from bruised hearts, from torn -flesh, from souls robbed of their innocent ideals, a disturbing lament -issuing from the borders of marshes, from forests, from glacial plains, -from desert steppes, from nameless villages, prisons, palaces, -battlefields, tombs, and stoically, pathetically, and yet childishly -addressed to—no one! -</p> -<p> -Odette had often been on the verge of sentiments corresponding to this -music, primitive, barbarous, perhaps divine, but when music comes to be -mingled with our sentiments it reveals them to themselves and amplifies -them without measure. Odette saw what she had never dared to see; for -the first time she was transported outside of herself, or at least she -felt the conviction that she was. It produced in her such an overturning -of her points of view as almost to make her dizzy. She suddenly -discovered how completely she had considered everything with reference -to herself, even in her seemingly most generous moments. At this instant -she thought of herself in relation to the incalculable number of persons -who were not she. It was not that the moans of humanity were now -reaching her for the first time, but it was the first time that the sobs -of others came to her ears with a tone of majestic sadness which forced -her to grovel upon the earth, saying: "I no longer count; I am only the -servant of grief." -</p> -<p> -It was a painful sentiment if there is one, and yet, by a curious -contradiction, a sentiment in the same degree joyful. A boundless -commiseration caused her heart to throb and tears to come to her eyes, -and yet this painful sympathy, far from being cruel or depressing, -wrought in her soul an unsuspected outflowering, like an outburst of -inconceivable elation in which was mingled bitterness and pity. -</p> -<p> -There is no compensation for the personal suffering that we may -experience. On the contrary, in a close and complete union with the -sufferings of others is hidden a joy of mutual pain; an active desire to -give aid impels to the beginning of a helpful act, provokes to so -fervent a prayer for heavenly mercy that the heart no longer knows -whether it lies prone in utter distress or has attained to a radiant -phase of existence incomparably higher than its paltry estate as an -isolated being. The word "love" presents itself to a soul thus -irradiated without any sustaining form which might limit its character; -it is without extent as without form; as to the source that feeds it, -springing up no one knows where, one is convinced that there is no fear -that it will ever be exhausted. -</p> -<p> -Odette often wept, but to-day it was with other tears. She took up one -of Jean's photographs and found but one word to say to it: -</p> -<p> -"Forgive me!" -</p> -<p> -She understood neither what she felt nor what she was doing, but she was -conscious of failing Jean. Not of failing Jean in favor of another, but -for the sake of a multitude of others among whom no one man could be -discerned. When she was able to formulate a thought, she said to -herself: "I was pitying." She might have said: "Charity has taken -possession of me." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXII">XXXII</a></h4> - -<p> -There was no sign that any event had occurred that evening. Odette had -spent it alone in her little drawing-room. The chorus in the next -apartment was stilled. But that evening was made up of the most -important hours which the young wife had experienced since the death of -her husband. -</p> -<p> -Odette was aware that something had been revealed within herself, but -she was ill adapted to analyze herself, and the phenomenon was still -wrapped in mist. It had manifested its reality only by a single act of -hers—an act which she remembered, which abode with her: the prayer -for forgiveness addressed to the picture of her beloved Jean. She returned -continually to this material fact; she had seized the photograph and had -kissed it as if she had been at fault. Thanks to this fact, the -spiritual operations of which it was the conclusion were not arrested, -did not vanish like smoke, and pursued her that night, on the morrow, -and during the following days. -</p> -<p> -So sudden a burst of light might indeed have been ephemeral in -character. We are all subject, especially under an exterior influence -acting upon the senses, to similar spasms of enthusiasm, or to dreams of -a like generosity which may be only a passing impulse. They die away and -we return to a condition which we call reasonable, that is to say, -lucid, calm, well-balanced, and tame. -</p> -<p> -With Odette this illumination had not the character of a sudden impulse, -but was rather the outcome of a long and almost unconscious preparation. -How many words, how many tidings, how many hints registered in her -memory, how many puzzling suggestions, how many dramatic scenes, how -many ideas had been as so many arrows of direction, guiding her toward -the place where she had received the divine spark! How many books read, -how many musings, apparently without result, had determined the -direction that had brought her here! Odette was like a clay which during -two and a half years had been continually receiving the touches of a -thumb or chisel, powerless to give her the form which an invisible -artist desired her to take, and the last touch, removing an encumbering -bit, had produced precisely the shape desired. -</p> -<p> -Odette awoke next morning in the same condition in which she had fallen -asleep, with the one difference that she no longer wept. But the tears -of the evening had had their sweetness. She found herself in an almost -grateful tranquillity. She went and came in the midst of Jean's -photographs, and Jean did not reproach her for her new state of mind. -His memory seemed to be in nowise outraged. And yet Odette did not -forget that she had begged his forgiveness, as if it had been possible -that she had failed him. This fact marked a well-determined date in the -perturbations of her soul. But it seemed to her that she had received to -her "Forgive me!" a gentle, calming reply, a loving approbation. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXIII">XXXIII</a></h4> - -<p> -Yet the moment came when it seemed to her that she was losing her -reason. She had seen many cases of cerebral disturbance since the war; -they had been more or less apparent. Some persons of her acquaintance -had been duly shut up in insane asylums, but there were many at large -who showed the almost imperceptible wound by which the microbe had -penetrated. -</p> -<p> -By way of discovering whether or no she was mentally affected, she -imposed upon herself the test of behaving for a while like a woman who -has decided to lead the usual life until the end. She said to herself: -"I am not insane, for I think it requires more courage to adopt, every -day and every hour, the attitude of ordinary life, as if the war did not -exist—seeing that the majority of people who act thus have been -crushed or tortured by it—than to give oneself up to the monster -bound hand and foot. I am the less strong in not being able to endure -the commingling of both interests and throwing myself into these -horrors. I should be senseless if I deemed my own actions alone to be -good, beautiful, and worthy. But I am judging myself. I am therefore not -demented." -</p> -<p> -Out of curiosity she went one day to see Clotilde, still by way of test. -"To measure myself," she said to herself. -</p> -<p> -Clotilde's undue self-satisfaction made her friends really -uncomfortable, a discomfort which from the first they had sought to hide -or refused to recognize, which until now such a friend as Odette had -even refused to admit, but which to-day she could not endure. Clotilde, -surrounded by flowers, bathed in a perfumed atmosphere, talked only of a -change she had made in the decoration of her rooms, of her clothes, or -of matters so utterly foreign to current events that it seemed as if for -her the latter had no existence. She never went out, lest she should be -obliged to see or hear disagreeable things, and yet never had she bought -so many hats and gowns as since the war. On her earlier visits Odette -had slightly shrugged her shoulders as if amused and not wholly -displeased. By degrees, the disproportion between such interests and the -wound with which the whole world was bleeding overmastered her ability -to make allowances. -</p> -<p> -Odette reminded her friend that she had not of late called upon her for -help, and asked if she had lost her blind man. Clotilde was amazingly -frank in her reply: -</p> -<p> -"My darling, 'my blind man,' as you call him, continues to exist and to -charm my husband. But what would you have? It is not that I am lost to -all sense of humanity, but you can imagine how the presence of this man -annoys me. He cannot see me, I am nothing to him, and it is necessary -for me to please——" -</p> -<p> -"But one may please even those who don't see us. One can try to amuse -these unfortunates, to make time pass pleasantly for them——" -</p> -<p> -"You speak as if you possessed some gift in which I am lacking. It is -only that you like them, and know how to please them——" -</p> -<p> -"Oh!" -</p> -<p> -"You succeed in pleasing them! This man who visits us, with whom you -took lunch, is always asking for you. He never so much as speaks of me. -And yet it is I who permit him to come!" -</p> -<p> -"A man who cannot see you in your place at the head of the table, and to -whom you never give any proof that you are there, may naturally forget -you." -</p> -<p> -"You find it all right because he doesn't forget you. He dotes upon you, -by what George says; he asks for news of you, he longs to hear your -voice! He annoys me. In fact, child, it was precisely on your account, -I admit, that I was obliged to turn him away; he was falling in love -with you. Can you imagine it? You ought to thank me!" -</p> -<p> -"In love with me! If that were true I should be all the more sorry for -him, poor man! But he must have heard about me? He knows that I am not -to be had?" -</p> -<p> -"He hasn't gone as far as that; he only feels happy in your company. -When you are not there he misses you. That is all." -</p> -<p> -"Well, where is the love in that? He is like the wounded men whom I have -nursed; they were happy in my company; when I went away, I suppose they -missed me. If I had concluded from that that they were in love with -me——" -</p> -<p> -"You didn't conclude it, on your part, but as for them, what do you -know? Perhaps you broke their hearts!" -</p> -<p> -"You are romantic and think only of love! Men who have suffered as they -have, prefer to think of their own comfort, and of those who make them -comfortable. I knew a nurse seventy years old for whom her patients -clamored like children. Were they in love with her?" -</p> -<p> -"That proves nothing. A blind man feels very clearly whether the woman -near him is one who charms." -</p> -<p> -"Then he ought also to feel the compassion that he inspires, and that -does not lead to love." -</p> -<p> -"Are you uncomfortable in the presence of a blind man?" -</p> -<p> -"It is an undefinable emotion; my head turns. I lose my self-command." -</p> -<p> -"You didn't seem to, here." -</p> -<p> -"One does almost involuntarily the thing that costs the most, if one is -determined to comfort those whose misfortunes arouse your emotions." -</p> -<p> -And they talked of other things. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXIV">XXXIV</a></h4> - -<p> -Odette would no doubt have forgotten "her" blind man if a visit which -Mme. de Blauve paid her had not recalled him to mind in the most -unexpected manner. -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Blauve, whose calmness had always impressed every one, from the -time when she was living under the bombardment of Rheims through the -days in which she had made the sacrifice of her husband, her two sons, -and, one may say, her daughter, now appeared unnerved. She had grown -thin; her eyes were sunken; she was evidently suffering. -</p> -<p> -With her habitual resolution she opened to Odette the purpose of her -visit. She had heard—it was rumored—that her dear friend, -having amply and worthily overpassed the period of her widowhood, was -purposing—not by inclination, but in order to accomplish a great -act of charity—to become the wife of a blinded officer. People -were talking about it. She herself had been extremely moved by the news, -and all the more because she feared that she had incurred a certain -responsibility in the matter, having probably been one of the first to -urge upon the young widow the duty of a second marriage. -</p> -<p> -Odette was amazed. What were people about? Never had she had the -slightest idea of such a thing. Startled at first, she went on, almost -laughing, to hear what Mme. de Blauve had to say. -</p> -<p> -"It is untrue, you say," said Mme. de Blauve; "but, my little friend, -experience has taught me that there is always a grain of truth at the -bottom of a wide-spread rumor. Whether good or bad, such plants do not -grow out of nothing." -</p> -<p> -Odette told her upon how slight a fact this rumor might possibly have -been based. She had lunched at Clotilde Avvogade's with a blinded -officer, and Clotilde insisted that she had pleased him. -</p> -<p> -"Nothing more would be needed!" said Mme. de Blauve, "and your friend -has probably told the story all around. It must be so, for I have heard -the name of the man, the institution where he has been re-educated; I -even know all about his circumstances; he is a widower without fortune -of any sort, and father of two little children about whom he feels great -anxiety." -</p> -<p> -"Well," said Odette, "for my part I knew nothing of these last -particulars, and this is surely a proof that my romance has not gone -very far." -</p> -<p> -Mme. de Blauve was lost in apologies. Nevertheless, she did not go so -far as to regret the step she had taken. If it proved to have no reason -in the present case, an analogous case might arise; she knew Odette's -susceptibility, the noble impulses of her soul, and it was her duty to -warn her against impressions and impulses—— -</p> -<p> -"What!" interrupted Odette; "you, madame, whose daughter——" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, yes, precisely I, 'whose daughter'—It is because my daughter -has made a marriage—beautiful, surely, from the moral point of -view, but, after all, a marriage—how shall I say it—somewhat -daring, that I believe myself to be authorized to say to you: 'My very -dear child, be careful, reflect!' Understand me; I regret nothing that -has occurred; I congratulate myself on the happiness which my daughter -is assuring to a victim of the war, who is a hundred times deserving of -it. Let me tell you, by way of parenthesis, that my daughter has hope of -a child, and I trust that God will bring everything out right, -although——" -</p> -<p> -"Although," repeated Odette anxiously. -</p> -<p> -"Although—oh, the dear child is lacking neither in love nor in -admiration for her husband, who is a hero; but our poor human nature has -strange revulsions—I tell you, you alone, in confidence; since my -daughter has reason for hope of becoming a mother, she feels—alas! -it is frightful, let me whisper it to you—she feels a sort of -apprehension at the sight of her husband, whose terrible affliction you -know of!— We must, at all costs, prevent her husband having the -slightest suspicion of the—temporary—feeling that he -inspires, and the young wife is obliged to put the strongest restraint -upon herself in order to show nothing. Just how far this incessant -constraint is consistent with the happy maintenance of her condition, -and with hope for its normal outcome, who shall say? This is what we are -asking ourselves, this is our anxiety." -</p> -<p> -"Oh, dear, dear madame, how sorry I am for you!" -</p> -<p> -"You understand that I would not wish to have to be sorry for you, in my -turn, for a reason like this. It was to avoid it that I came here, as -much humiliated by my apprehensions as I was proud on the day of the -marriage. You have no plan of the sort, you tell me, my child? So much -the better! But I have become excessively apprehensive; I am afraid of -characters like yours, which may be inclined to do too well. Sometimes a -little pride enters into the good or the noble things that we do. Do you -understand?" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXV">XXXV</a></h4> - -<p> -Mme. de Blauve had taken her leave with these words, and Odette, still -breathless at the thought that there could be any question of her -marrying, a little ruffled, even, remembered only the secret -discomfiture confessed to by the mother of the poor little bride. It was -one more cause of horror added to all those of which she was the daily -witness. Her calamity had doubtless shaken Mme. de Blauve's spirit to -the point of causing in her mind a sort of hallucination as to the fate -which might be threatening the young widow. Or else Mme. de Blauve had -made the most of slight rumors with no basis of truth, as a pretext for -coming to confess her own anxiety. Or else—a conjecture which barely -touched Odette's mind—Mme. de Blauve, as she had herself intimated, -always erring through pride, felt a frightful satisfaction in the -dangers with which she and her family were perpetually menaced, -jealously guarding this bitter eminence, lest it might be seized upon by -others! For one can come even to such a point. -</p> -<p> -What analogy could there be between the marriage of the little de Blauve -girl, an ignorant child, with one of the most horribly mutilated of -soldiers, and an imaginary marriage between her, Odette, who was going -on to her thirtieth year, with a blinded man who was not disfigured? -Young girls, women, were marrying blinded men every day; many more of -them would do so, one must hope! The case might indeed be peculiarly -delicate for her, a widow still in love with her husband, and who was -peculiarly sensitive to blindness; but if the case ever occurred it was -she alone who had the right to judge of it. No one knew either the -lasting nature of her grief or her personal repugnances; the matter in -no slightest degree deserved attention. -</p> -<p> -In fact, at the point that Odette had reached, she could imagine no -limit to devotion. In the marriages now in question, there was no -mention of anything that had formerly been called happiness; the only -thought was of kindliness toward most deserving beings who were -suffering under the greatest of misfortunes, and the greater their -misfortune, the greater, it appeared, ought to be the pleasure of -alleviating it. She did not approve of Mme. de Blauve, if it was she who -had urged her daughter to a marriage of charity, but she could perfectly -understand the daughter's having made such a marriage. If a temporary -check now and then occurred, it was due to a pathological condition -which would eventually cease. She recalled to mind one of her friends, a -perfectly well-balanced girl, married to a very fine man whom she -adored, who had taken a dislike to her husband during the whole period -of her pregnancy, without in the least knowing why. -</p> -<p> -A few days later Odette received a letter from Mme. de Calouas, still in -Surville, alluding to the prospect of her marriage to a blinded officer. -So the utterly unfounded rumor had made its way to the depths of -Normandy! And Mme. de Calouas, who was wisdom itself, and utterly -removed from any suggestion that might have acted upon Mme. de Blauve, -wrote to her as Mme. de Blauve had spoken: "Yes, dear friend, marry; I -have never concealed from you that it is almost your duty. But beware of -an excess of zeal! Take care not to undertake more than a woman of your -temperament, brought up as you have been, attached to a beloved memory -as you still are, will be able to endure. Remember that many of us can -be heroic for a few seconds, a few hours, a few days, but that is very -different from a whole lifetime." -</p> -<p> -Odette smiled, not only at the thought of what people were thinking of -her, but at the solicitude which they expressed for her, and that sort -of obsession for heroic acts which every one seemed to cherish. Odette -had not the slightest intention of performing a heroic act. Nothing in -her character had ever inclined her in that direction. Her heart was -made for loving. She loved, she was sure that she loved. The one whom -she loved was her husband—her Jean. She could ill analyze the -character of the tenderness which at the same time she felt for every -suffering creature on earth. And that was all. What would they have of -her? -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="XXXVI">XXXVI</a></h4> - -<p> -Nevertheless she continued to be disturbed by the strange rumor which -had been set afloat, which was still afloat, and she promised herself to -speak about it to Clotilde, who without doubt had been the cause of its -diffusion. -</p> -<p> -On drawing near to the house in which Clotilde lived, she met Lieutenant -Avvogade guiding his blinded man by the arm. She had not so much as -thought of avoiding such an encounter. -</p> -<p> -When the blind man recognized Odette's voice his whole face was -transfigured. He turned pale; he hardly had courage to speak. But she -felt the effort with which his closed eyelids were directed toward the -point in space from which her voice had come; her perfume had been -wafted to him. This blinded man was looking at her, was seeing her in -his imagination; perhaps he was seeing her much more beautiful, more -alluring, than he had dreamed! He had been disturbed because -opportunities to be with her had no longer been afforded him, and he did -not know that it was not she herself who had prevented them. But an -inward instinct, stronger than he had yet known, filled him with ecstasy -in that moment of the young woman's presence. He inhaled her like a -flower, he listened to her, was saturated with her. Believing himself to -be behind the veil which hid the daylight from him, as behind a screen, -he neglected to keep a watch on himself, to impose constraint upon -himself. His emotion was evident to those who saw him, and the agitation -of a man so much to be pitied impressed her profoundly. -</p> -<p> -Odette told him that she had learned that he had two little children. -Then the blinded man extended his hand to her; his throat contracted; he -could not utter a word. Without hesitation Odette took the hand of this -man, so good-hearted and so wretched, and let her own be enfolded in -his. Not a word had been added to those alluding to the children, yet -she felt that she had never heard from human lips such an expression of -gratitude. -</p> - -<p class="center"> *<br /> -* *</p> - -<p> -They were there, under the trees of the Square of the United States, one -of the beauty spots of opulent, worldly Paris, where so many -conventional words and actions must have been exchanged; and this -agitated silence, those clasped hands, result of the universal woe, -seemed to embody as in marble the symbol of a new beauty which effaced -all that had before been known. -</p> -<p> -As the blind man made a motion to relinquish her hand, Odette said: -</p> -<p> -"<i>Au revoir</i>, messieurs"; and left them. The blind man remained -motionless, either because he could not think it possible that she -should go, or because he waited for his friend, who hesitated to urge -him to leave the place. -</p> - -<p class="center"> *<br /> -* *</p> - -<p> -Odette did not go up to Clotilde, even at the risk of permitting her -lack of protestation to be accepted as acquiescence. She felt herself -incapable of talking with any one whose heart was not overflowing. She -did not disdain the sight of her flowers, her preoccupation with -personal pleasures; she would despise nothing, these were tastes which -inspired her rather with pity. Toward those who have greatly suffered it -was not pity that she felt, but <i>attraction</i>; an irresistible -attraction. -</p> - -<p class="center"> *<br /> -* *</p> - -<p> -She was soon joined by one who greeted her. It was La Villaumer, -returning from a visit to a sick man in the Rue Bizet. He turned toward -the two men who were going away and asked Odette: -</p> -<p> -"Then it is true? They told me——" -</p> -<p> -"Only one single thing is true," said Odette, "and that is that they -told you." -</p> -<p> -"There is only one single thing true," replied La Villaumer, "and that -is that you feel as imperative a need to do good, as most poor mortals -of good being done to them. If I had not seen—I should say to you, as -others will say to you: 'My friend, take care, keep yourself in hand!' -But I have just seen the face of this man who is deprived of light, and -who perhaps feels the lack of you more than of the beauty of the light, -and I tremble— It seems to me that I see you, my poor dear friend, -reaching the last stage of an evolution which I have watched as if it -had been my own. Many will look upon this acme of your self-sacrifice as -an immolation. But I recall to mind the words that I have so often -spoken to myself: 'You no longer Count!' The individual is dead— -Provisionally, but for a time which we cannot estimate, the individual -is dead— In fact, you yourself have perceived that you no longer have -any rights, not even the right to mourn your unending grief. The moment -has come to mourn more largely, more grandly, with the only grief that -can save a soul like yours. The only hope of a resurrection lies in -giving oneself to the common need, and losing oneself in it with love." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NO LONGER COUNT ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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