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diff --git a/76571-0.txt b/76571-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a81d5d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/76571-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14056 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76571 *** + + + + + + DEATH + OF A HERO + + + _A NOVEL BY + RICHARD ALDINGTON_ + + + 1929 + COVICI · FRIEDE · INC · NEW YORK + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY COVICI-FRIEDE, INC. + + Second printing, July, 1929 + Third printing, July, 1929 + Fourth printing, October, 1929 + + + _Manufactured in the United States of America + by the VAN REES PRESS, New York_ + + + + + _“See how we trifle! but one can’t pass one’s youth + too amusingly; for one must grow old, and that in + England; two most serious circumstances, either of + which makes people grey in the twinkling of a bed-staff; + for know you, there is not a country upon + earth where there are so many old fools + and so few young ones.”_ + + HORACE WALPOLE + + + + + TO + _HALCOTT GLOVER_ + + + MY DEAR HAL, + +Remembering George Moore’s denunciation of prefaces, I felt that what I +wanted to say here could be best expressed in a letter to you. Although +you are a little older than I, you belong essentially to the same +generation—those who spent their childhood and adolescence struggling, +like young Samsons, in the toils of the Victorians; whose early manhood +coincided with the European War. A great number of the men of our +generation died prematurely. We are unlucky or lucky enough to remain. + +I began this book almost immediately after the Armistice, in a little +Belgian cottage—my billet. I remember the landscape was buried deep +in snow, and that we had very little fuel. Then came demobilization, +and the effort of readjustment cost my manuscript its life. I threw it +aside, and never picked it up again. The attempt was premature. Then, +ten years later, almost day for day, I once more felt the impulse +return, and began this book. You, I know, will read it sympathetically +for many reasons. But I cannot expect the same favour from others. + +This book is not the work of a professional novelist. It is, +apparently, not a novel at all. Certain conventions of form and method +in the novel have been erected, I gather, into immutable laws, and +are looked upon with quite superstitious reverence. They are entirely +disregarded here. To me the excuse for the novel is that one can do +any damn thing one pleases. I am told I have done things as terrible +as if you introduced asides and soliloquies into your plays, and came +on to the stage in the middle of a scene to take part in the action. +You know how much I should be interested if you did that—I am all for +disregarding artistic rules of thumb. I dislike standardized art as +much as standardized life. Whether I have been guilty of Expressionism +or Super-realism or not, I don’t know and don’t care. I knew what +I wanted to say, and said it. And I know I have not tried to be +“original.” + +The technique of this book, if it can be said to have one, is that +which I evolved for myself in writing a longish modern poem (which +you liked) called “A Fool i’ th’ Forest.” Some people said that was +“jazz poetry”; so I suppose this is a jazz novel. You will see how +appropriate that is to the theme. + +I believe you at least will be sympathetic to the implied or expressed +idealism of this book. Through a good many doubts and hesitations and +changes I have always preserved a certain idealism. I believe in men, +I believe in a certain fundamental integrity and comradeship, without +which society could not endure. How often that integrity is perverted, +how often that comradeship betrayed, there is no need to tell you. +I disbelieve in bunk and despotism, even in a dictatorship of the +intelligentsia. I think you and I are not wholly unacquainted with the +intelligentsia? + +Some of the young, they who will “do the noble things that we forgot,” +think differently. According to them, bunk must be parried by +super-bunk. Sincerity is superannuated. It doesn’t matter what you have +to say; what matters is whether you can put it across successfully. And +the only hope is to forbid everybody to read except a few privileged +persons (chosen how and by whom?) who will autocratically tell the rest +of us what to do. Well, do we believe that? I answer on your behalf as +well as my own that we emphatically do not. Of course, these young men +may be Swiftean ironists. + +But, as you will see, this book is really a threnody, a memorial +in its ineffective way to a generation which hoped much, strove +honestly, and suffered deeply. Others, of course, may see it all very +differently. Why should they not? I believe that all we claim is that +we try to say what appears to be the truth, and that we are not afraid +either to contradict ourselves or to retract an error. + + Always yours, + + _Paris, 1929_ RICHARD ALDINGTON + + + + + NOTE + + +This novel in print differs in some particulars from the same work in +manuscript. To my astonishment, my publishers informed me that certain +words, phrases, sentences, and even passages, are at present illegal in +the United States. I have recorded nothing which I have not observed +in human life, said nothing I do not believe to be true; and I had not +the slightest intention of appealing to anyone’s salacious instincts. +My theme was too seriously tragic for that. But I am bound to accept +the advice of those who know the Law concerning the published word. I +have therefore asked my publishers to delete everything they consider +objectionable, and to substitute asterisks for every word deleted. I +would rather have my book mutilated than say what I do not believe. + + En attendant mieux, + R. A. + +P.S. I feel bound to add, in justice, that the expurgations required +in the United States are much fewer and shorter than those demanded in +England. + + + + + _CONTENTS_ + + + PROLOGUE: + _MORTE D’UN EROE_ + _ALLEGRETTO_ + + 3 + + PART ONE + _VIVACE_ + + 33 + + PART TWO + _ANDANTE CANTABILE_ + + 109 + + PART THREE + _ADAGIO_ + + 239 + + EPILOGUE + + 397 + + + + + PROLOGUE + + _MORTE D’UN EROE_ + + + + + _ALLEGRETTO_ + + +The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the +Armistice—last spasms of Europe’s severed arteries. Of course, nobody +much bothered to read the lists. Why should they? The living must +protect themselves from the dead, especially the intrusive dead. But +the twentieth century had lost its Spring with a vengeance. So a good +deal of forgetting had to be done. + +Under the heading “Killed in Action,” one of these later lists +contained the words: + + Winterbourne, Edward Frederick George, A./Capt., + 2/9 Battn., R. Foddershire Regt. + +The small interest created by this item of news and the rapidity with +which he was forgotten would have surprised even George Winterbourne; +and he had that bottomless cynicism of the infantry subaltern which +veiled itself in imbecile cheerfulness, and thereby misled a good +many not very acute people. Winterbourne had rather hoped he would be +killed, and knew that his premature demise in the middle twenties would +be borne with easy stoicism by those who survived him. But his vanity +would have been a little shocked by what actually happened. + +A life, they say, may be considered as a point of light which suddenly +appears from nowhere, out of the blue. The point describes a luminous +geometrical figure in space-time; and then just as suddenly disappears. +(Interesting to have seen the lights disappearing from Space-Time +during one of the big battles—Death dowses the glims.) Well, it +happens to us all; but our vanity is interested by the hope that the +rather tangled and not very luminous track we made will continue to +shine for a few people for a few years. I suppose Winterbourne’s name +does appear on some War Memorial, probably in the Chapel of his Public +School; and, of course, he’s got his neat ration of headstone in +France. But that’s about all. Nobody much minded that he was killed. +Unassertive people with no money have few friends; and Winterbourne +hadn’t counted much on his scanty flock, least of all on me. But I +know—because he told me himself—that he had rather relied on four +people to take some interest in him and his fate. They were his father +and mother, his wife and his mistress. If he had known what actually +occurred with these four at the news of his death I think he would +have been a little shocked, as well as heartily amused and perhaps +a bit relieved. It would have freed him from certain feelings of +responsibility. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne’s father, whom I knew slightly, was an inadequate +sentimentalist. Mild, with an affectation of gentility, incompetent, +selfishly unselfish (i.e., always patting himself on the back for +“renouncing” something he was afraid to do or be or take), he had a +genius for messing up other people’s lives. The amount of irreparable +harm which can be done by a really “good” man is astounding. Ten +astute rogues do less. Old Winterbourne messed up his wife’s life by +being weak with her; messed up his children’s lives by being weak and +sentimentalish with them and by losing his money—the unforgivable sin +in a parent; messed up the lives of his friends and clients by honestly +losing their money for them; and messed up his own most completely. +That was the one thing he ever did with complete and satisfactory +thoroughness. The mess he got his life into would have baffled an army +of psychologists to unravel. + +When I told Winterbourne what I thought of his father, he admitted +it was mostly true. But he rather liked the man, probably disarmed by +the mildness, and not sufficiently hard to his father’s soft selfish +sentimentality. Possibly old Winterbourne would have felt and have +acted differently in his reactions to George’s death, if circumstances +had been different. But he was so scared by the war, so unable to +adjust himself to a harsh intruding reality—he had spent his life +avoiding realities—that he took refuge in a drivelling religiosity. +He got to know some rather slimy Roman Catholics, and read the slimy +religious tracts they showered on him, and talked and sobbed to the +exceedingly slimy priest they found for him. So about the middle +of the war he was “received,” and found—let us hope—comfort in +much prayer and Mass-going and writing rules for Future Conduct and +rather suspecting he was like François de Sales and praying for the +beatification of the super-slimy Thérèse of Lisieux. + + * * * * * + +Old Winterbourne was in London, “doing war work,” when the news of +George’s death came. He would never have done anything so positive and +energetic if he had not been nagged and goaded into it by his wife. +She was animated less by motives of disinterested patriotism than by +exasperation with him for existing at all and for interrupting her +love affairs. Old Winterbourne always said with proud sad dignity that +his “religious convictions forbade” him to divorce her. Religious +convictions are such an easy excuse for being nasty. So she found a +war job for him in London, and put him into a position where it was +impossible for him to refuse. + +The telegram from the War Office—“Regret to inform... killed in +action.... Their Majesties’ sympathy....”—went to the home address in +the country, and was opened by Mrs. Winterbourne. Such an excitement +for her, almost a pleasant change, for it was pretty dull in the +country just before the Armistice. She was sitting by the fire, yawning +over her twenty-second lover—the affair had lasted nearly a year—when +the servant brought the telegram. It was addressed to Mr. Winterbourne, +but, of course, she opened it; she had an idea that “one of _those_ +women” was “after” her husband; who, however, was regrettably chaste, +from cowardice. + +Mrs. Winterbourne liked drama in private life. She uttered a most +creditable shriek, clasped both hands to her rather soggy bosom, +and pretended to faint. The lover, one of those nice clean sporting +Englishmen with a minimum of intelligence and an infinite capacity for +being gulled by females, especially the clean English sort, clutched +her unwillingly and automatically but with quite an Ethel M. Dell +appearance of emotion, and exclaimed: + +“Darling, what is it? Has _he_ insulted you again?” + +Poor old Winterbourne was incapable of insulting any one, but it was a +convention always established between Mrs. Winterbourne and her lovers +that Winterbourne had “insulted” her, when his worst taunt had been to +pray earnestly for her conversion to the True Faith, along with the +rest of “poor misguided England.” + +In low moaning tones, founded on the best tradition of sensational +fiction, Mrs. Winterbourne feebly ejaculated: + +“Dead, dead, dead!” + +“Who’s dead? Winterbourne?” + +(Some apprehension perhaps in the attendant Sam Browne—he would have +to propose, of course, and might be accepted.) + +“They’ve killed him, those vile, _filthy_ foreigners. My _baby_ son.” + +Sam Browne, still mystified, read the telegram. He then stood to +attention, saluted (although not wearing a cap) and said solemnly: + +“A clean sportin’ death, an _Englishman’s_ death.” + +When Huns were killed it was neither clean nor sportin’, but served the +beggars—(“buggers,” among men)—right. + +The tears Mrs. Winterbourne shed were not very natural, but they +did not take long to dry. Dramatically, she ran to the telephone. +Dramatically, she called to the local exchange: + +“Trrrunks. (Sob.) Give me Kensington 1030. Mr. Winterbourne’s number, +you know. (Sob.) Our _darling_ son—Captain Winterbourne,—has been +killed by those (sob) beasts. (Sob. Pause.) Oh, thank you _so_ much, +Mr. Crump, I _knew_ you would feel for us in our trouble. (Sob. Sob.) +But the blow is so sudden. I _must_ speak to Mr. Winterbourne. Our +hearts are _breaking_ here. (Sobissimo.) Thank you. I’ll wait till you +ring me.” + +Mrs. Winterbourne’s effort on the telephone to her husband was not +unworthy of her: + +“Is that you, George? Yes, Isabel speaking. I have just had _rather_ +bad news. No, about George. You must be prepared, darling. I fear he +is seriously ill. What? No. _George._ GEORGE. Can’t you hear? Yes, +that’s better. Now, listen, darling, you must prepare for a _great_ +shock. George is seriously ill. Yes, _our_ George, our _baby_ son. +What? Wounded? No, not wounded, very _dangerously_ ill. No, darling, +there is little hope. (Sob.) Yes, darling, a telegram from the _King_ +and _Queen_. Shall I read it? You are prepared for the shock (sob), +George, aren’t you? ‘Deeply regret... killed in action.... Their +Majesties’ sympathy....’ (Sob. Long pause.) Are you there, George? +Hullo, hullo? (Sob.) Hullo, hullo. HULLO. (Aside to Sam Browne.) He’s +rung off! How that man _insults_ me, how can I bear it in my sorrow? +After I had prepared him for the shock! (Sob. Sob.) But I have always +had to _fight_ for my children, while he squatted over his books—and +_prayed_.” + +To Mrs. Winterbourne’s credit let it be said, she had very little +belief in the value of prayer in practical affairs. But then her real +objection to religion was founded upon her dislike for doing anything +she didn’t want to do, and a profound hatred for everything distantly +resembling thought. + +At the fatal news Mr. Winterbourne had fallen upon his knees (not +forgetting, however, to ring off the harpy), ejaculating: “Lord Jesus, +receive his soul!” Mr. Winterbourne then prayed a good deal, for +George’s soul, for himself, for “my erring but beloved spouse,” for +his other children, “may they be spared and by Thy Mercy brought to +the True Faith,” for England (ditto), for his enemies, “though Thou +knowest, Dear Lord Jesus, the enmity was none of my seeking, sinner +though I be, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, Ave Maria....” + +Mr. Winterbourne remained on his knees for some time. But, as the hall +tiles hurt his knees, he went and knelt on a hassock at the prie-dieu +in his bedroom. On the top of this was an open Breviary in very +ecclesiastical binding with a florid ecclesiastical book-marker, all +lying on an ecclesiastical bit of embroidery, the “gift of a Catholic +sister in Christ.” Above, on a bracket, was a coloured B.V.M. from the +Place St. Sulpice, holding a nauseating Infant Jesus dangling a bloody +and sun-rayed Sacred Heart. Over this again was a large but rather +cheap-looking imitation bronze Crucifix, with a reproduction (coloured) +of Leonardo’s _Last Supper_ to the right, and another reproduction +(uncoloured) of Holman Hunt’s (heretical) _Light of the World_ to the +left. All of which gave Mr. Winterbourne the deepest spiritual comfort. + +After dinner, of which he ate sparingly, thinking with dreary +satisfaction how grief destroys appetite, he went round to see his +confessor, Father Slack. He spent a pleasantly emotional evening. Mr. +Winterbourne cried a good deal, and they both prayed; Father Slack +said perhaps George had been influenced by his father’s prayers and +virtues and had made an act of contrition before he died, and Mr. +Winterbourne said that although George had not been “received” he had +“a true Catholic spirit” and had once read a sermon of Bossuet; and +Father Slack said he would pray for George’s soul, and Mr. Winterbourne +left £5 for Masses for the repose of George, which was generous (if +foolish), for he didn’t earn much. + +And then Mr. Winterbourne used to pray ten minutes longer every night +and morning for George’s soul, but unfortunately he went and got +himself run over just by the Marble Arch as he was meditating on that +blessed martyr, Father Parsons, and that other more blessed martyr, +Father Garnet of Gunpowder fame. So, as the £5 was soon exhausted, +there was nobody to pray for George’s soul; and for all the Holy Roman +and Apostolic Church knows or cares, poor old George is in Hell, and +likely to remain there. But, after the last few years of his life, +George probably doesn’t find any difference. + + * * * * * + +So much for George’s father and George’s death. The “reactions” (as +they are called) of Mrs. Winterbourne were different. She found it +rather exciting and stimulating at first, especially erotically +stimulating. She was a woman who constantly dramatized herself and +her life. She was as avid of public consideration as an Italian +lieutenant, no matter what the quality of the praise. The only servants +who ever stayed more than a trial month with her were those who bowed +themselves to an abject discipline of adulation for Mrs. Winterbourne, +Mrs. Winterbourne’s doings and sayings and possessions and whims and +friends. Only, since Mrs. Winterbourne was exceedingly fickle and +quarrelsome, and was always changing friends into enemies and vowed +enemies into hollow friends, a more than diplomatic suppleness was +exacted of these mercenary retainers, who only stayed with her because +she gave them presents or raised their wages whenever the praise was +really gratifying. + +Although a lady of “mature charms,” Mrs. Winterbourne loved to fancy +herself as a delicious young thing of seventeen, passionately beloved +by a sheik-like but nevertheless “clean” (not to say “straight”) +Englishman. She was a mistress of would-be revolutionary platitudes +about marriage and property (rather like the talk of an “enlightened” +parson) but, in fact, was as sordid, avaricious, conventional and +spiteful middle-middle class woman as you could dread to meet. Like +all her class, she toadied to her betters and bullied her inferiors. +But, with her conventionality, she was, of course, a hypocrite. In +her kittenish moods, which she cultivated with a strange lack of a +sense of congruity, she liked to throw out hints about “kicking over +the traces.” But, as a matter of fact, she never soared much above +tippling, financial dishonesty, squabbling, lying, betting, and affairs +with bounderish young men, whom only her romantic effrontery could have +dared describe as “clean and straight,” although there was no doubt +whatever about their being English, and indeed sportin’ in a more or +less bounderish way. + +She had had so many of these clean straight young sheiks that even +poor Mr. Winterbourne got mixed up, and when he used to write dramatic +letters beginning: “Sir, you have robbed me of my wife’s affection like +a low hound—be it said in no unChristian spirit”—the letters were +always getting addressed to the penultimate or ante-penultimate sheik, +instead of the straight clean one of the moment. However, rendered +serious by the exhortations of the war press and still more by the ever +ripening maturity of her charms, Mrs. Winterbourne made an instinctive +and firm clutch at Sam Browne—so successfully that she clutched the +poor devil for the remainder of his abbreviated life. (She did the +abbreviating.) Sam Browne, of course, was almost too good to be true. +If I hadn’t seen him myself I should never have believed in him. He was +an animated—and not so very animated—stereotype. His knowledge of +life was rudimentary to the point of being quadruped, and intelligence +had been bestowed upon him with rigid parsimony. An adult Boy Scout, a +Public School fag in shining armour—the armour of obtuseness. He met +every situation in life with a formula, and no situation in life ever +reached him except in the shape imposed upon it by the appropriate +and pre-determined formula. So, though he wasn’t very successful at +anything, he got along all right, sliding almost decorously down +grooves which had nothing ringing about them. Unless urged, he never +mentioned his wound, his decoration, or the fact that he had “rolled +up” on August 4th. The modest well-bred, et cetera, English gentleman. + +The formula for the death of a married mistress’s son was stern +heroism, and gentle consolation to the wounded mother heart. Mrs. +Winterbourne played up at first—it was the sort of thing that the +sheik always did with his passionate but tender love. But the effect of +George’s death on her temperament was, strangely enough, almost wholly +erotic. The war did that to lots of women. All the dying and wounds and +mud and bloodiness—at a safe distance—gave them a great kick, and +excited them to an almost unbearable pitch of amorousness. Of course, +in that eternity of 1914-18 they must have come to feel that men alone +were mortal, and they immortals; wherefore they tried to behave like +houris with all available sheiks—hence the lure of “war work” with +its unbounded opportunities. And then there was the deep primitive +physiological instinct—men to kill and be killed; women to produce +more men to continue the process. (This, however, was often frustrated +by the march of Science, viz., anticonceptives; for which, much thanks.) + +So you must not be surprised if Mrs. Winterbourne’s emotion at the +death of George almost immediately took an erotic form. She was lying +on her bed in an ample pair of white drawers with very long ruffles and +a remarkably florid, if chaste, chemise. And the sheik, strong, silent, +restrained, tender, was dabbing her forehead and nose with Eau de +Cologne, while she took large sips of brandy at increasingly frequent +intervals. It was, of course, proper and even pleasant to have her +grief so much respected; but she did wish Sam hadn’t to be poked always +into taking the initiative. Couldn’t the man see that tender nerves +like hers needed to be soothed with a little Real Love _at once?_ + +“He was so much to me, Sam,” she said in low, indeed tremulous, tones, +subtly calculated, “I was only a child when he was born—a child _with_ +a child people used to say—and we grew up together. I was so young +that I did not put up my hair until two years after he was born.” (Mrs. +Winterbourne’s propaganda about her perennial youth was so obvious +that it would hardly have deceived the readers of “John Blunt”—but +the sheiks all fell for it. God knows how young they thought she +was—probably imagined Winterbourne had “insulted” her when she was +ten.) + +“We were always together, such pals, Sam, and he told me everything.” + +(Poor old George! He had such a dislike for his mother that he hadn’t +seen her five times in the last five years of his life. And as for +telling her anything—why, the most noble of noble savages would +immediately have suspected _her_. She had let George down so badly time +after time when he was a boy that he was all tight inside, and couldn’t +give confidence to his wife or his mistresses or a man.) + +“But now he’s gone,” and somehow Mrs. Winterbourne’s voice became so +erotically suggestive that even the obtuse sheik noticed it and was +vaguely troubled; “now he’s gone, I’ve nothing in the world but _you_, +Sam. You heard how that vile man insulted me on the telephone to-day. +Kiss me, Sam, and promise you’ll always be a pal, a _real_ pal.” + +Active love-making was not in the sheik’s formula for that day; +consolation there was to be, but the “sacredness” of mother grief was +not to be profaned by sexual intercourse; although that too, oddly +enough, was “sacred” between a “clean” Englishman and a “pure” woman +who had only had one husband and twenty-two lovers. But what can the +Sam Brownes of the world do against the wills, especially the will +to copulate, of the Mrs. Winterbournes? He rose—if the expression +may be allowed—powerfully to the situation. He too found a certain +queer perverse satisfaction in honeying and making love over a nasty +corpse; while, if he had been capable of making the reflection, he +would have realized that Mrs. Winterbourne was not only a sadist, but a +necrophilous one. + +In the succeeding weeks George’s death was the source of other, almost +unclouded, joys to Mrs. Winterbourne. She pardoned—temporarily—the +most offending of her enemies to increase the number of artistically +tear-blotched letters of bereavement she composed. Quite a few of the +nearly gentry, who usually avoided Mrs. Winterbourne as a particularly +virulent specimen of the human scorpion, paid calls—very brief +calls-y-of condolence. Even the Vicar appeared, and was greeted with +effusive sweetness; for though Mrs. Winterbourne professed herself a +social rebel and an “Agnostic” (not, however, until she had been more +or less kicked out of middle-class and Church society) she retained a +superstitious reverence for parsons of the Established Church. + +Another joy was squabbling with Elizabeth Winterbourne, George’s wife, +about his poor little “estate” and military effects. When George joined +up, he thought he had to give his father as his next-of-kin. Later, he +found his mistake and when he went out to France the second time, he +gave his wife. The War Office carefully preserved both records, either +under the impression that there were two George Winterbournes, or +because the original record was never erased, and so became law. At any +rate, some of George’s possessions were sent to the country address, +and, although directed to the father, were unscrupulously seized by +his mother. And the remainder of his military kit and the pay due him +went to his wife. Old Mrs. Winterbourne was fearfully enraged at this. +Stupid red tape, she said it was. Why! Wasn’t her baby son _hers?_ +Hadn’t she borne him, and therefore established complete possession +of him and his for the rest of her natural life? What can any woman +mean to a _Man_ in comparison with his _Mother?_ Therefore, it was +plain that she was the next-of-kin, and that all George’s possessions, +including the widow’s pension, should come to her and her only: Q.E.D. +She bothered her harassed husband about it, tried to stimulate Sam +Browne to action—but he evaporated in a would-be straight, clean +letter to Elizabeth, who knocked him out in the first round—and even +consulted a lawyer in London. Old Mrs. Winterbourne came back from +London in a spluttering temper. “That man” (i.e., her husband) had +“insulted” her again, by timidly stating that all George’s possessions +ought to be given to his wife, who would doubtless allow them to keep +a few “mementos.” And the lawyer—foul brute—had unsympathetically +said that George’s wife had a perfect right to sue her mother-in-law +for detaining her (Elizabeth’s) property. George’s will was perfectly +plain—he had left everything he had to his wife. However, that small +amount of George’s property which his mother got hold of, she kept, +in defiance of all the King’s horses and writs. And she took, she +embraced, the opportunity of telling “that woman” (i.e., Elizabeth) +what she thought of her—which, if believed, meant that poor Elizabeth +was a composition of Catherine of Russia, Lucrezia Borgia, Mme. de +Brinvilliers, Moll Flanders, a _tricoteuse_ and a hissing villainness +from the Surrey side. + +But George only lasted his mother as a source of posthumous excitement +for about two months. Just as the quarrel with Elizabeth reached +stupendous heights of vulgar invective (on her side), old Winterbourne +got himself run over. So there was the excitement of the inquest and +a real funeral, and widow’s weeds and more tear-blotched letters. She +even sent a tear-blotched letter to Elizabeth, which I saw, saying that +“twenty years”—it was really almost thirty—“of happy married life +were over, both father and son were now happily united, and, whatever +Mr. Winterbourne’s faults, he was a _gentleman_.” (Heavily underlined +and followed by several exclamation marks, the insinuation being +apparently that Elizabeth was no lady.) + +A month later Mrs. Winterbourne married the sheik—alas, no sheik +now—at a London registry office, whence they departed to Australia +to live a clean sportin’ life. Peace be with them both—they were too +clean and sportin’ for a corrupt and unclean Europe. + +George’s parents, of course, were grotesques. When, in a mood of +cynical merriment, he used to tell his friends the exact truth +about his parents, he was always accused—even by quite intelligent +people—of creating a monstrous legend. Unless all the accepted +ideas about heredity and environment are false—which they probably +are—it is a regular mystery of Udolpho how George managed to be so +different from his parents and the family milieu. Physically he looked +like them both—in every other respect he might have dropped from +the moon for all the resemblance he had to them. Perhaps they seemed +so grotesque because neither of them could adjust to the tremendous +revolution in everything, of which the war was a cause or symptom. The +whole immense drama went on in front of their noses, and they never +perceived it. They only worried about their rations. Old Winterbourne +also worried a good deal about “the country,” and wrote letters of +advice to the _Times_ (which didn’t publish them) and then rewrote +them on Club notepaper to the Prime Minister. They were invariably +politely acknowledged by a secretary. But Mrs. Winterbourne only +cared spasmodically about “the country.” Her view of the British +Empire was that it should continue the war as a holy crusade for the +extermination of all “filthy, vile foreigners,” making the world safe +for straight, clean sheiks and pure, sweet, kittenish English women of +fifty. Grotesques indeed, fanciful, unbelievable, like men’s fashions +of 1840. To me, who only saw them a few times, either in company with +George or as his executor, they seemed as fantastic, as ridiculous, as +prehistoric as the returning _émigrés_ seemed to Paris in 1815. Like +the Bourbons, the elder Winterbournes learned nothing from the war, and +forgot nothing. It is the tragedy of England that the war has taught +its Winterbournes nothing, and that it has been ruled by grotesques and +a groaning Civil Service of disheartened men and women, while the young +have simply chucked up the job in despair. _Gott strafe England_ is a +prayer that has been fully answered—by the insanity of retaining the +old Winterbourne grotesques and pretending they are alive. And we go +on acquiescing, we go on without even the guts to kick the grotesque +Aunt Sallies of England into the Limbo they deserve. _Pero, pacienza. +Mañana. Mañana_.... + + * * * * * + +I sometimes think that George committed suicide in that last battle +of the war. I don’t mean shot himself, but it was so very easy for a +company commander to stand up when an enemy machine gun was traversing. +The situation he had got into with Elizabeth and Fanny Welford was not +inextricable, but it would have needed a certain amount of patience +and energy and determination and common sense to put right. But by +November ’18 poor old George was whacked, whacked to the wide. He was +a bit off his head, as were nearly all the troops after six months in +the line. Since Arras (April ’17) he had lived on his nerves, and when +I saw him at the Divisional Rest Camp in October ’18, he struck me as a +man who was done for, used up. He ought to have gone to the Brigadier +and got sent down for a bit. But he was so horribly afraid of being +afraid. He told me that last night I saw him that he was afraid even +of whizz-bangs now, and that he didn’t see how we would face another +barrage. But he was damned obstinate, and insisted on going back to +the battalion, although he knew they were due for another battle. +We lay awake half the night, and he went over Elizabeth and Fanny +and himself, and himself and Fanny and Elizabeth until it was such a +nightmare, such a portentous house of Atrides tragedy, that I began to +think myself that it was hopeless. There was a series of night-bombing +attacks going on, and we lay in the darkness on sacking beds, muttering +to each other—or rather George went on and on muttering, and I tried +to interrupt and couldn’t. And every time a bomb fell anywhere near +the camp, I could feel George start in the darkness. His nerves were +certainly all to pieces. + +Elizabeth and Fanny were not grotesques. They adjusted themselves +to the war with marvellous precision and speed, just as they +afterwards adapted themselves to the post-war. They both had that +rather hard efficiency of the war and post-war female, veiling the +ancient predatory and possessive instincts of the sex under a skilful +smoke-barrage of Freudian and Havelock Ellis theories. To hear them +talk theoretically was most impressive. They were terribly at ease upon +the Zion of sex, abounding in inhibitions, dream symbolism, complexes, +sadism, repressions, masochism, Lesbianism, sodomy, et cetera. Such +wise young women, you thought; no sentimental nonsense about _them_. +No silly emotional slip-slop messes would ever come _their_ way. +They knew all about the sexual problem, and how to settle it. There +was the physical relationship and the emotional relationship and the +intellectual relationship; and they knew how to manage all three, as +easily as a pilot with twenty years’ experience brings a handy ship to +anchor in the Pool of London. They knew that freedom, complete freedom, +was the only solution. The man had his lovers, and the woman had hers. +But where there was a “proper relationship,” nothing could break it. +Jealousy? It was impossible that so primitive a passion could inhabit +those enlightened and rather flat bosoms. Female wiles and underhand +tricks? Insulting to make such a suggestion. No, men. Men must be +“free” and women must be “free.” + +Well, George had simple-Simonly believed all this. He “had an affair” +with Elizabeth, and then he “had an affair” with Fanny, her best +friend. George thought they ought to tell Elizabeth. But Fanny said why +bother? Elizabeth _must_ know instinctively, and it was so much better +to trust to the deeper instincts than to talk about things with “the +inferior intelligence.” So they said nothing to Elizabeth, who didn’t +know instinctively, and thought that George and Fanny were “sexually +antipathetic.” That was just before the war. But in 1914 something +went wrong with Elizabeth’s period, and she thought she was going to +have a baby. And then, my hat, what a pother! Elizabeth lost her head +entirely. Freud and Ellis went to the devil in a twinkling. No more +talk of “freedom” _then!_ If she had a baby, her father would cut off +her allowance, people would cut her, she wouldn’t be asked to Lady +Saint-Lawrence’s dinners, she.... Well, she “went at” George in a way +which threw him on his beam-ends. She made him use up a lot of money on +a special license, and they were married at a Registry office in the +presence of Elizabeth’s parents, who were also swept bewildered into +this sudden match, they knew not how or why. Elizabeth’s father had +feebly protested that George hadn’t any money, and Mrs. Winterbourne +senior wrote a marvellous tear-blotched dramatic epistle, in which +she said that George was a feeble-minded degenerate who had broken +his mother’s tender heart and insultingly trampled upon it, in a low +sensual lust for a vile woman who was only “after” the Winterbourne +money. As there wasn’t any Winterbourne money left, and the elder +Winterbournes lived on tick and shifts, the accusation was, to say the +least, fanciful. But Elizabeth bore down all opposition, and she and +George were married. + +After the marriage, Elizabeth breathed again and became almost human. +Then and only then did she think of consulting a doctor, who diagnosed +some minor female malady, told her to “avoid cohabitation” for a few +weeks, and poofed with laughter at her pregnancy. George and Elizabeth +took a flat in Chelsea, and within three months Elizabeth was just as +“enlightened” as before and fuller of “freedom” than ever. Relieved by +the doctor’s assurance that only an operation could enable her to have +a child, she “had an affair” with a young man from Cambridge, and told +George about it. George was rather surprised and peeved, but played +the game nobly, and most gallantly yielded the flat up for the night, +whenever Elizabeth dropped a hint. Of course, he didn’t suffer as much +deprivation as Elizabeth thought, because he invariably spent those +nights with Fanny. + +This went on until about the end of 1915. George, though attractive +to women, had a first-rate talent for the malapropos in dealing with +them. If he had told Elizabeth about his affair with Fanny at the +moment when she was full-flushed with the young man from Cambridge, she +would no doubt have acquiesced, and the thing would have been smoothed +over. Unluckily for George, he felt so certain that Fanny was right +and so certain that Elizabeth was right. He was perfectly convinced +that Elizabeth knew all about him and Fanny, and that if they didn’t +speak of it together, the only reason was that “one took such things +for granted,” no need to “cerebrize” about them. Then, one night, when +Elizabeth was getting tired of the young man from Cambridge, she was +struck by the extraordinary alacrity George showed in “getting out.” + +“But, darling,” she said, “isn’t it very expensive always going to a +hotel? Can we afford it? And don’t you mind?” + +“Oh, no,” said the innocent George, “I shall run round and spend the +night with Fanny as usual, you know.” + + * * * * * + +Then there was a blazing row, Elizabeth at George, and then Fanny at +George, and then—epic contest—Elizabeth at Fanny. Poor old George +got so fed up he went off and joined the infantry, fell into the first +recruiting office he came to, and was whisked off to a training camp +in the Midlands. But, of course, that didn’t solve the situation. +Elizabeth’s blood was up, and Fanny’s blood was up. It was Achilles +against Hector, with George as the body of Patroclus. Not that either +of them so horribly wanted George, but it was essential to each to +come off victorious and “bag” him, with the not improbable epilogue +of dropping him pretty quickly after he had been “bagged” away from +the other woman. So they each wrote him tender and emotional and +“understanding” letters, and sympathized with his sufferings under +military discipline. Elizabeth came down to the Midlands to bag him +for week-ends: and then one week when she was “having an affair” with +a young American in the Flying Corps, George got his “firing leave” +and spent it with Fanny. George was a bit obtuse with women. He was +very fond of Elizabeth, but he was also very fond of Fanny. If he +hadn’t been taken in with the “freedom” talk and had kept Elizabeth +permanently in the dark about Fanny, he might have lived an enviable +double life. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t, and never did, see +that the “freedom” talk was only talk with the two women, although +it was real enough to him. So he wrote them both the most imbecile +and provocative letters, praised Elizabeth to Fanny, and Fanny to +Elizabeth, and said how much he cared for them both; and he was like +Shelley, and Elizabeth was like Mary, and Fanny was like Emilia +Viviani. And he went on doing that even in France, right up to the end. +And he never even suspected what an ass he was. + +Of course, George had not set foot on the boat which took him to the +Bolougne Base-Camp for the first time, before both Elizabeth and Fanny +had become absorbed in other “affairs.” They only fought for George in +a desultory way as a symbol, more to spite each other than because they +wanted to saddle themselves with him. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth was out when her telegram came from the War Office. She did +not get it until nearly midnight, when she came back to the flat with a +fascinating young Swedish painter she had met at a Chelsea “rag” that +evening. She was a bit sozzled, and the young Swede—tall, blonde, +and handsome—was more than a little fired with love and whiskey. The +telegram was lying on the door-mat with two or three letters. Elizabeth +picked them up, and opened the telegram mechanically as she switched +on the electric light. The Swede stood watching her drunkenly and +amorously. She could not avoid a slight start, and turned a little pale. + +“What’s the matter?” + +Elizabeth laughed her high little nervous laugh, and laid the telegram +and letters on the table. + +“The War Office regrets that my husband has been killed in action.” + +It was now the Swede’s turn to be startled. + +“Your husband...? Perhaps I’d better...” + +“Don’t be a bloody fool,” said Elizabeth sharply, “he went out of my +life years ago. _She’ll_ mind, but I shan’t.” + +She cried a bit in the bathroom, however; but the Swede was certainly a +very attentive lover. They drank a good deal of brandy, too. + + * * * * * + +Next day Elizabeth wrote to Fanny the first letter she had sent her for +months: + +“Only a line, darling, to tell you that I have a telegram from the W. +O. to say George was killed in France on the 4th. I thought it would be +less of a shock for you to hear it from me than accidentally. Come and +see me when you get your weeps over, and we can hold a post mortem.” + + * * * * * + +Fanny didn’t reply to the letter. She had been rather fond of George, +and thought Elizabeth heartless. But Elizabeth, too, had been fond of +George; only, she wasn’t going to give it away to Fanny. I saw a good +deal of Elizabeth while settling up George’s scanty estate—mostly +furniture and books in the flat, his credit at Coxe’s, a few War +Bonds, a little money due to him from civilian sources and Elizabeth’s +pension. However, it meant a certain amount of letter-writing, which +Elizabeth was glad to have me do. I also saw Fanny once or twice, and +took her the trifles George had left her. But I never saw the two women +together—they avoided each other—and when my duties as executor were +done, I saw very little of either. Fanny went to Paris in 1919, and +soon married an American painter. I saw her in the Dome one night in +1924, pretty well rouged and quite nicely dressed, with a party. She +was laughing and flirting with a middle-aged American—possibly an art +patron—and didn’t look as if she mourned much for George. Why indeed +should she? + +As for Elizabeth, she rather went to pieces. With her father’s +allowance, which doubled and became her own income when he died, and +her widow’s pension, she was quite well off as poor people of the +“artistic” sort go. She travelled a good deal, always with a pretty +large brandy flask, and had more lovers than were good for her—or +them. I hadn’t seen her for years, until about a month ago I ran into +her on the corner of the Piazzetta in Venice. She was with Stanley +Hopkins, one of those extremely clever young novelists who oscillate +between women and homosexuality. He had recently published a novel so +exceedingly clever, so stupendously smart and up-to-date and witty +and full of personalities about well-known people, that he was quite +famous, especially in America, where all Hopkins’s brilliantly quacking +and hissing and kissing geese were taken as melodious swans and (vide +press) as a “startling revelation of the corruption of the British +Aristocracy!” We went and had ices together, all three, at Florians; +and then Hopkins went off to get something, and left us together for +half an hour. Elizabeth chattered very wittily—you had to be witty +with Hopkins or die of shame and humiliation—but never mentioned +George. George was a drab bird from a drab past. She told me that she +and Hopkins would not marry, they had both determined never to pollute +themselves with the farce of “legalized copulation,” but they would +“probably go on living with each other.” Hopkins, who was a very rich +young man as well as a successful novelist, had settled a thousand a +year on her, so that they could both be “free.” She looked as nearly +unmiserable as our cynical and battered generation can look; but she +still had the brandy flask. + + * * * * * + +Like a fool, I allowed myself to be persuaded to drink liqueur +brandies after dinner that evening; and paid for it with a sleepless +night. No doubt it was the unexpected meeting with Elizabeth which +made me think a lot about George during those ghastly wakeful hours. I +can’t claim that I had set up any altar to the deceased George in my +heart, but I truly believe that I am the only person left alive who +ever thinks of him. Perhaps because I was the only person who cared +for George for his own sake, disinterestedly. Naturally, his death +meant very little to me at the time—there were eighty deaths in my own +battalion on the day George was killed, and the Armistice and getting +out of the blasted Army and settling my own problems and starting +civilian life again and getting to work, all occupied my attention. In +fact it was not until two or three years after the war that I began to +think much, if at all, about George. Then, although I didn’t in the +least believe in it, I got a half-superstitious, half-sentimental idea +that “he” (poor old bag of decaying bones) wanted me to think about +him. I half-knew, half-guessed that the people on whom he had counted +had forgotten him, at least no longer cared that he had existed; and +would have been merely surprised and rather annoyed if he had suddenly +come back, like one of those shell-shocked heroes of fiction who +recover their wits seven years after the Armistice. His father had +taken it out in religiosity, his mother in the sheik, Elizabeth in +“unlicensed copulation” and brandy, and Fanny in tears, and marrying a +painter. But I hadn’t taken it out in anything, I hadn’t been conscious +that George’s death meant anything in particular to me; and so it was +waiting inside patiently to be dealt with in due course. + +Friendships between soldiers during the war were a real and beautiful +and unique relationship which has now entirely vanished, at least +from Western Europe. Let me at once disabuse the eager-eyed Sodomites +among my readers by stating emphatically once and for all that there +was nothing sodomitical in these friendships. I have lived and slept +for months, indeed years, with “the troops,” and had several such +companionships. But no vaguest proposal was ever made to me; I never +saw any signs of sodomy, and never heard anything to make me suppose it +existed. However, I was with the fighting troops. I can’t answer for +what went on behind the lines. + +No, no. There was no sodomy about it. It was just a human relation, a +comradeship, an undemonstrative exchange of sympathies between ordinary +men racked to extremity under a great common strain in a great common +danger. There was nothing dramatic about it. Bill and Tom would be in +the same section, or Jones and Smith subalterns in the same company. +They’d go on fatigues and patrols together, march behind each other on +trench reliefs, booze at the same estaminet, and show each other the +“photos” of “Ma” and “my tart,” if Tommies. Or they’d meet on trench +duty and volunteer for the same trench raid and back up each other’s +lies to the inspecting Brigadier and share a servant and stick together +in a battle and ride together when on rest and talk shyly about their +“fiancées” or wives in England, if officers. When they separated, +they would be glum for a bit, and then, in the course of a month or +two or three, strike up another friendship. Only, the companionship +was generally a real one, pretty unselfish. Of course, this sort of +friendship was stronger in France than in England, more vivid in the +line than out of it. Probably a man must have something to love—quite +apart from the “love” of sexual desire. (Prisoners are supposed to +love rats and spiders.) Soldiers, especially soldiers overseas in the +last war, entirely cut off from women and friends, had perforce to +love another soldier, there being no dogs available. Very few of these +friendships survived the Peace. + + * * * * * + +After seven months in France and a month’s leave, I felt pretty glum +when I was sent to an Officers’ Training Camp in a beautiful but very +remote part of Dorset. I was mooning about in a gloomy way before my +first dinner as a potential though temporary gentleman, when I ran into +another fellow similarly mooning. He was George, who had been seen off +that day from Paddington by Elizabeth and Fanny (although I did not +then know it) and who was also feeling very glum about it. We exchanged +a few words, found we were both B. E. F. (most of the others were not) +and that we were allotted to the same barrack room. We found we had +certain tastes in common, and we became friends. + +I liked George. For one thing he was the only person in the whole of +that hellish camp with whom I could exchange a word on any topic but +booze, “tarts,” “square-pushing,” smut, the war, and camp gossip. +George was very enthusiastic about modern painting. His own painting, +he told me, was “pretty dud,” but in peace time he made a good living +by writing art criticism for various papers and by buying modern +pictures, chiefly French and German, on commission for wealthy +collectors. We lent each other books from our scanty store, and George +was quite thrilled to know that I had published one or two little +books of poetry and had even met Yeats and Marinetti. I talked to him +about modern poetry, and he talked to me about modern painting; and I +think we helped to keep each other’s “souls” alive. In the evenings +we played chess or strolled about, if it was fine. George didn’t go +square-pushing with tarts, and I didn’t go square-pushing with tarts. +So on Saturday afternoons and Sundays we took long walks over that +barren but rather beautiful Dorset down country, and had a quiet dinner +with a bottle of wine in one or other of the better country inns. +And all that kept up our own particular “morale,” which each of us +had determined not to yield to the Army swinishness. Poor George had +suffered more than I. He had been more bullied as a Tommy, had a worse +time in France, and suffered horribly from that “tightness” inside, +that inability to confide himself, induced by his singular home life +and appalling mother. I feel quite sure he told me more about himself, +far more, than he ever told any one else, so that eventually I knew +quite a lot about him. He told me all about his parents and about +Elizabeth and Fanny, and about his childhood and his life in London and +Paris. + +As I say, I liked George, and I’m grateful to him because he helped +me to keep alive when a legion of the swine were trying to destroy me. +And, of course, I helped him. He had a strong dose of shyness—his +mother had sapped his self-confidence abominably—which made him seem +rather conceited and very aloof. But _au fond_ he was extraordinarily +generous, spontaneous, rather Quixotish. It was that which made him +so helpless with women, who neither want nor understand Quixotic +behaviour and scrupulousness, and who either think they mean weakness +or are veils for some devilish calculation. But with another man, +who wanted nothing from him but a frank exchange of friendliness, +he was a charming and inexhaustible companion. I was damned glad +to get my commission and leave that stinking hole of a Camp, but I +was really sorry to part from George. We agreed to write, and both +applied for commissions in the same regiment. Needless to say, we were +both gazetted to completely different regiments from those we had +applied for. We exchanged one or two letters while waiting in depots +in England, and then ceased writing. But, by an odd freak of the War +Office, we were both sent to different battalions in the same Brigade. +It was nearly two months before we found this out, when we both met by +accident at Brigade Headquarters. + +I was rather startled at George’s appearance, he looked so worried and +almost scared. I saw him on reliefs or at Brigade Headquarters or at +Divisional Rest Camp several times. He looked whacked in May ’18. In +July the Division moved down to the Somme, but George’s company front +was raided the night before we left, and he was badly rattled by it. +I had watched the box barrage from the top of Battalion Headquarters +dugout (I was then signal officer), but I never thought that George was +in it. He lost several men as prisoners, and the Brigadier was a bit +nasty about it, which made George more rattled and jumpy than ever. I +told him then that he ought to apply for a rest, but he was in an agony +of feeling that he was disgraced and a coward; and wouldn’t listen to +me. + +The last time I saw him was at Hermies, in October ’18, as I +mentioned before. I had come up from a course and found George had +been “left-out” at Divisional Rest Camp for that tour. There were some +sacking beds in the Orderly room, and George got me one. He talked on +in the dark for what seemed hours during the air-raids, and I really +thought he was demented. Next morning, we rejoined our battalions, and +I never saw him again. + +George was killed soon after dawn on the 4th of November, 1918, at a +place called Maison Blanche, on the road from La Cateau to Bavay. He +was the only officer in his battalion killed in that action, for the +Germans surrendered or ran away in less than an hour. I heard about +it that night, and, as the Brigade was “resting” on the 5th, I got +permission from my Colonel to ride back to George’s funeral. I heard +from George’s Colonel that he had got enfiladed by a machine-gun. +The whole of his company were lying down, waiting for the flying +trench-mortar squad to deal with the machine-gun, when for some +unexplained reason, George had stood up, and a dozen bullets had gone +through him. “Silly ass,” was the Colonel’s comment, as he nodded and +left me. + +No coffins were available, so they wrapped George in a blanket and the +Union Jack. The parson stood at the head of the grave, a mourning party +of Tommies and N.C.O.’s from his company on one side, and, facing them, +the officers of his battalion. I was on the extreme left of the line. +The Chaplain read the military burial service in a clear voice, and +read it well. There was very little artillery fire. Only one battery of +our own heavies, about a mile nearer the enemy, was shelling at regular +intervals like a last salute. We stood to attention, and the body was +lowered. Each of the officers in turn stepped up to the grave-side, +saluted and turned away. Then the battalion buglers blew that +soul-shattering, heart-rending Last Post, with its inexorable chains +of rapid sobbing notes and drawn-out piercing wails. I admit I did a +lot of swallowing those few minutes. You can say what you like against +the Army, but they treat you like a gentleman, when you’re dead.... The +Tommies were numbered, formed fours, right turned, and marched away; +and the officers strolled over to the mess for a drink.... + + * * * * * + +The death of a hero! What mockery, what bloody cant. What sickening +putrid cant. George’s death is a symbol to me of the whole sickening +bloody waste of it, the damnable stupid waste and torture of it. You’ve +seen how George’s own people—the makers of his body, the women who +held his body to theirs—were affected by his death. The Army did its +bit, but how could the Army individually mourn a million “heroes”? How +could the little bit of Army which knew George mourn him? At dawn next +morning we were hot-foot after the retreating enemy, and did not pause +until the Armistice—and then we had our own lives to struggle with and +disentangle. + +That night in Venice, George and his death became a symbol to me—and +still remain a symbol. Somehow or other we have to make these dead +acceptable, we have to atone for them, we have to appease them. How, +I don’t quite know. I know there’s the Two Minutes Silence. But after +all a Two Minutes Silence once a year isn’t doing much—in fact, it’s +doing nothing. Atonement, how can we atone? How can we atone for the +lost millions and millions of years of life, how atone for those lakes +and seas of blood? Something is unfulfilled, and that is poisoning us. +It is poisoning me, at any rate, though I have agonized over it, as +I now agonize over poor George, for whose death no other human being +has agonized. What can we do? Headstones and wreaths and memorials and +speeches and the cenotaph—no, no, it has got to be something _in_ us. +Somehow, we must atone to the dead, the dead, murdered, violently-dead +soldiers. The reproach is not from them, but in ourselves. Most of us +don’t know it, but it is there, and poisons us. It is the poison that +makes us heartless and hopeless and lifeless—us the war generation and +the new generation, too. The whole world is blood-guilty, cursed like +Orestes, and mad, and destroying itself, as if pursued by an infinite +legion of Eumenides. Somehow we must atone, somehow we must free +ourselves from the curse—the blood-guiltiness. We must find—where? +how?—the greater Pallas who will absolve us on some Acropolis of +Justice. But meanwhile the dead poison us and those who come after us. + + * * * * * + +That is why I am writing the life of George Winterbourne, a unit, +one human body murdered, but to me a symbol. It is an atonement, a +desperate effort to wipe off the blood-guiltiness. Perhaps it is the +wrong way. Perhaps the poison will still be in me. If so, I shall +search for some other way. But I shall search. I know what is poisoning +me. I do not know what is poisoning you, but you are poisoned. Perhaps +you too must atone. + + + + + PART ONE + + _VIVACE_ + + + + + _VIVACE_ + + + + + [ I ] + + +A very different England, that of 1890, and yet curiously the same. +In some ways so fabulous, so remote from us; in others so near, +terrifyingly near and like us. An England morally buried in great foggy +wrappings of hypocrisy and prosperity and cheapness. The wealth of +that England, the maritime power of that England, its worse than R. +L. S. optimism, its righteous cant! Victoria, broad-bottomed on her +people’s will; the possessing class, heavy-bottomed on the people’s +neck. The working class beginning to heave restively, but still Moody +and Sankeyish, still under the Golden Rule of “ever remember, my dear +Bert, you may one day be manager of that concern.” The middle classes, +especially the traders, making money hand over fist, and still “praying +that our unexampled prosperity may last.” The aristocracy still +pretty flip, keeping its tail up. Still lots of respect for Rank and +Property—Dizzy not long dead, and his novels not yet grotesques, not +yet wholly a fossil parody. The intellectuals æsthetic and Oscarish, or +æsthetic and Burne-Morrisy, or Utilitarian and Huxley-Darwinish. + +Come where the booze is cheaper. + +Where I could live on a pound a week in lux-u-ry. + +The world is so full of a number of things, I am _sure_ we should ALL +be as Happy as KINGS. + +Consols over par. + +Lord Claud Hamilton and White at the Admiralty, building, building, +building. + +Building a majestic ruin. + +George Moore, an elegant scandal in a hansom; Hardy a rural atheistic +scandal, not yet discovered to be an intolerable bore; Oscar prancing +negligently, O so clever, O so lah-di-dah. + +Rummy old England. Pox on you, you old bitch, you’ve made worms’ meat +of us. (We’ve made worms’ meat of ourselves.) But still, let me look +back upon thee. Timon knew thee. + + * * * * * + +The Winterbournes were not gentry, but nourished vague and unfounded +traditions of past genteel splendours. They were, however, fairly +comfortable middle class. Worcestershire, migrated to Sheffield. +Methodist on female side; C. of E. on the Winterbourne side. Young +George Augustus—father of our George—was pretty comfortable. His +mother was a dominating old bitch who destroyed his initiative and +courage, but in the eighties hardly any one had the sense to tell +dominating bitch-mothers to go to hell. George Augustus didn’t. +At fifteen he wrote a Non-Conformist tract (which was published) +expressing nothing but his dear Mamma’s views. He became top of his +school, in conformity with dear Mamma’s views also. He did not go to +Oxford, as he wanted, because dear Mamma thought it unpractical. And he +did pass his examinations as a lawyer, because dear Mamma thought it so +eminently right that he should have a profession and that there should +be a lawyer in the family. George Augustus was a third son. The eldest +son became a Non-Conformist parson, because dear Mamma had prayed for +guidance on her marriage night and during her first pregnancy (only she +never mentioned such horrid occurrences, even to her husband, but—she +had “prayed for guidance”) and it had been revealed to her that her +first-born must take up The Ministry. And take it up, poor devil, he +did. The second son had a little bit of spunk, and his dear Mamma made +him a waster. Remained George Augustus, dear Mamma’s darling chick, +who prayed at her knee, and was flogged regularly once a month by dear +Papa, because the Scripture says: Spare the rod, spoil the child. Dear +Papa had never done anything in particular, lived on his “means,” was +generally rather in debt, and spent the last fifteen years of his life +praying to the C. of E. God in the garden, while dear Mamma prayed to +John Wesley’s God in her bedroom. Dear Mamma admired dear pious Mr. +Bright and grand Mr. Gladstone; but dear Papa collected and even read +all the works of the Right Hnble the Earl of Beaconsfield, K. G. + +Still, George Augustus was pretty comfortable. The one thing he wanted +in life was to be pretty comfortable. After he became a full-blown +solicitor, at the age of twenty-four, a family council was held. +Present: Dear Mamma, dear Papa, George Augustus. Nothing formal, _of_ +course, just a cosy little family gathering after tea, round the +blazing hearth (coal was cheap in Sheffield then), rep curtains drawn, +and sweet domestic peace. Dear Papa opened the proceedings: + +“George, you are now come to man’s estate. At considerable sacrifice, +your dear Mamma and I have given you a Profession. You are an Admitted +Solicitor, and we are proud—I think we may say ‘proud,’ Mamma?—that +we have a legal luminary in the family....” + +But dear Mamma could not even allow dear Papa the semblance of +authority, respected not even the forms of Limited Domestic Monarchy, +and cut in: + +“Your Papa is right, George. The question is now, what are you going to +_do_ in your Profession?” + +Did a feeble hope of escape cross the bright young mind of George +Augustus? Or was that supine love of being pretty comfortable added +to the terror of disobeying dear Mamma, already dominant? He murmured +something about “getting in with a respectable and old-established +firm in London.” At the word “London” dear Mamma bridled. Although +Mr. Gladstone spent much of his time in London, it was notorious in +Sheffield Non-Conformist circles that London was a haunt of vice, +filled with theatres and unmentionable women. Besides, dear Mamma was +not going to let George Augustus off so easily; she still meant he +should plough a deuce of a long furrow of filial obedience. + +“I cannot hear of _London_, George. It would break my heart and bring +your dear Papa’s grey hairs” (dear Papa hated to be reminded that he +was bald) “in sorrow to the grave, if you went to the _bad_ in that +dreadful town. Think how we should feel if we heard you had visited a +_Theatre!_ No, George, we shall not fail in our duty. We have brought +you up to be a God-fearing Christian man... et patata et patati.” + +The upshot was, of course, that dear George Augustus did not go to +London. He didn’t even get an office of his own in Sheffield. It was +agreed that George Augustus would never marry (except for a whore or +two, furtively and ineffectually possessed on furtive ineffectual +sprees in London, George Augustus was a virgin), but would spend his +life with dear Mamma, and (afterthought) dear Papa. So some structural +alterations were made in the house. Another entrance was made, with a +new brass plate engraved in copperplate: + + G. A. WINTERBOURNE + + SOLICITOR + +Three rooms, somewhat separated from the rest of the house, were +allotted to George Augustus—a bedroom, an “Office,” and a “cosy +study.” Needless to say, George Augustus did very little practice, +except when his dear Mamma in an access of ambition procured him the +job of making the will of some female friend or of drawing up the +conveyance of the land for a new Wesleyan Chapel. What George Augustus +did with most of his time is a bit of a puzzle—twiddled his thumbs, +and read Dickens and Thackeray and Bulwer and George Augustus Sala +mostly. + + * * * * * + +This lasted three or four years. Dear Mamma had her talons deep into +George Augustus, vamped on him hideously, and was content. Dear Papa +prayed in the garden and read the Right Hnble etcetera’s novels, +and was uneasily content. George Augustus was pretty comfortable, +and thought himself rather a hell of a bhoy because he occasionally +sneaked off to a play or a whore, and bought some of the Vizitelly +books on the sly. But there was one snag dear Mamma had not foreseen. +Dear Papa had been fairly decently educated and brought up; he had, +when a young man, travelled annually for several weeks, and had seen +the Fields of Waterloo, Paris, and Ramsgate. After he married dear +Mamma, he had to be content with Malvern and Ramsgate, for he was never +allowed again to behold that wicked Continent. However, such is the +force of Tradition, George Augustus was annually allowed a month’s +holiday. In 1887 he visited Ireland; in 1888 Scotland; in 1889 the Lake +District, with “pilgrimages” to the “shrines” of those unblemished +geniuses, Wordsworth and Southey. But in 1890 George Augustus went +to “rural Kent,” with “pilgrimages” to the Dingley Dell country and +to the “shrine” of Sir Philip Sidney. But there were sirens awaiting +our Odysseus in rural Kent. George Augustus met Isabel Hartly and +before he knew where he was, had arranged irrevocably a marriage with +her—_without_ telling dear Mamma. Hic incipit vita nova. Thus was +George, young George, generated. + +The Hartlys must have been more fun than the Winterbournes. The +Winterbournes had never done a damn thing in their lives, and were as +stuffily, frowzily, mawkish-religiously boring as a family could be +and still remain—I won’t say alive or even sentient—but, able to +digest their very pudding-y meals. The Hartlys were different. They +were poor Army. Pa Hartly had chased all round the Empire, dragging +with him Ma Hartly, always in pod and always pupping in incongruous and +inconvenient spots—the Egyptian desert, a shipwrecked troop-ship, a +malarial morass in the West Indies, on the road to Khandahar. They had +an inconceivable number of children, dead, dying and alive, of all ages +and sexes. Finally, old Hartly settled down near his wife’s family in +rural Kent, with a smallish pension, a tiny “private” income, and the +world of his swarming progeny on his less than Atlantean shoulders. (I +believe he had had two or three wives, all horribly fertile. No doubt, +the earlier Mrs. Hartlys had perished of superfluous child-bearing, +“superfœtation of τὸ ἒν.”) + + * * * * * + +Isabel Hartly was one—don’t ask which in numerical order, or by +which wife—of Captain Hartly’s daughters. She was very pretty in a +florid vulgarish way, with her artful-innocent dark eyes, and flashing +smiles, and pretty little bustle and frills, and “fresh complexion” and +“abounding health.” She was fascinatingly ignorant, even to the none +too sophisticated George Augustus. And she had a strength of character +superior even to dear Mamma’s, added to a superb, an admirable +vitality, which bewitched, bewildered, electrified, the somewhat +sluggish and pretty comfortable George Augustus. He had never met any +one like her. In fact dear Mamma had never allowed him to meet any one +but rather soggy Non-Conformists of mature years, and “nice” youths and +maidens of exemplary Non-Conformist stupidity and lifelessness. + +George Augustus fell horribly in love. + +He abode at the village inn, which was cheap and pretty comfortable; +and he did himself well. On these holidays he had such a mood of +exultation (subconscious) in getting away from dear Mamma that he felt +like a hero in Bulwer-Lytton. We should say he swanked; probably the +early nineties would have said he came the masher. He certainly mashed +Isabel. + +The Hartlys didn’t swank. They made no effort to conceal their poverty +or the vulgarity imported into the family by the third (or fourth) +Mrs. Hartly. They were fond of pork; and gratefully accepted the gifts +of vegetables and fruit which the kind-hearted English country people +force on those they know are none too well off. They grew lots of +vegetables and fruit themselves; and kept pigs. They made blackberry +jam and damson jam, and scoured the country for mushrooms; and the +only “drink” ever allowed in the family was Pa Hartly’s “drop o’ grog” +secretly consumed after the innumerable children had gone to bed in +threes and fours. + +So it wasn’t hard for George Augustus to swank. He took the +Hartlys—even Isabel—in completely. He talked about “my people” and +“our place.” He talked about his Profession. He gave them copies of the +Non-Conformist tract he had published at fifteen. He gave Ma Hartly a +fourteen-pound tin of that expensive (2/3 a pound) tea she had always +pined for since they had left Ceylon. He bought fantastic things for +Isabel—a coral brooch, a copy of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ bound in +wood from the door of Bunyan’s parish church, a turkey, a year’s +subscription to the _Family Herald Supplement_, a new shawl, boxes +of 1/6 a pound chocolates, and took her for drives in an open landau +smelling of horse-piss and oats. + +The Hartlys thought he was “rich.” George Augustus was so very +comfortable and _exalté_ that he, too, really thought he was “rich.” + +One night, a sweet rural night, with a lemon moon over the sweet, +breast-round, soft English country, with the nightingales jug-jugging +and twit-twitting like mad in the leafy lanes, George Augustus +kissed Isabel by a stile, and—manly fellow—asked her to marry him. +Isabel—she had a pretty fiery temperament even then—had just sense +enough not to kiss back and let him know that other “fellows” had +kissed her, and perhaps fumbled further. She turned away her pretty +head with its Pompadour knot of dark hair, and murmured—yes, she did, +because she _had_ read the stories in the _Quiver_ and the _Family +Herald_— + +“Oh, Mr. Winterbourne, this is so unexpected!” + +But then her common-sense and the eagerness to be “rich” got the +better of her _Quiver_ artificiality, and she said, oh, so softly and +moderately: + +“_Yes!_” + +George Augustus quivered dramatically, clasped her, and they kissed a +long time. He liked her ever so much more than the London whores, but +he didn’t dare to do any more than kiss her, and exclaim: + +“Isabel! I love you. Be mine. Be my wife and build a home for me. Let +us pass our lives in a delirium of joy. Oh that I need not leave you +to-night!” + +On the way home Isabel said: + +“You must speak to father to-morrow.” + +And George Augustus, who was nothing if not the gent, replied: + + “I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Loved I not honour more.” + +Next morning, according to schedule, George Augustus called on Pa +Hartly with a bottle of 3/6 port and a leg of fresh pork; and after a +good deal of hemming and blushing and talking round the subject (as if +old Hartly hadn’t heard from Isabel what was coming) formally and with +immense solemnity applied for the job of supporting Isabel for the rest +of his and her natural lives. + +Did Pa Hartly refuse? Did he hesitate? Eagerly, gratefully, +effusively, enthusiastically, he granted the request. He slapped George +Augustus on the shoulder, which military expression of good will +startled and slightly annoyed the prim George Augustus. He said George +Augustus was a man after his own heart, the man he would have chosen to +make his daughter happy, the man he longed to have as a son-in-law. He +told two barrack-room stories, which made George Augustus exquisitely +uneasy; drank two large glasses of port; and then launched out on a +long story about how he had saved the British Army when he was an +Ensign during the Crimea. George Augustus listened patiently and +filially, but as hour after hour went by and the story showed no signs +of ending, he ventured to suggest that the good news should be broken +to Isabel and Ma Hartly, who (unknown to the gentlemen) were listening +at the keyhole in an agony of impatience. + +So they were called in, and Pa Hartly made a little speech founded on +the style of old General Snooter, K.C.B., and then Pa kissed Isabel, +and Ma embraced Isabel tearfully but enthusiastically and admiringly, +and Pa pecked at Ma, and George Augustus kissed Isabel; and they +were left alone for half an hour before “dinner”—1:30 P.M., chops, +potatoes, greens, a fruit-suet pudding and beer. + +The Hartlys still thought George Augustus was “rich.” + +But before he left rural Kent, he had to write home to his father for +ten pounds to pay his inn bill and his fare. He told dear Papa about +Isabel, and asked him to break the news to dear Mamma. “An old Army +family,” George Augustus wrote, and “a sweet pure girl who loves me +dearly and for whom I would fight like a TIGER and willingly lay down +my life.” He didn’t mention the poverty and the vulgarity and the +catch-as-catch-can atmosphere of the Hartly family, or the innumerable +progeny. Dear Papa almost thought George Augustus was marrying into the +gentry. + +Dear Papa sent George Augustus his ten pounds, and broke the news +to dear Mamma. Strangely enough, she did not cut up as rough as you +might have expected. Did she feel the force of Isabel’s character and +determination even at that distance? Had she a suspicion of the furtive +whoring, and did she think it better to marry than to burn? Perhaps +she thought she could vamp George Augustus’s wife as well as George +Augustus, and so enjoy two victims. + +She wept a bit and prayed more than ever. + +“I think, Papa,” she said, “that the Hand of Providence must have led +Augustus. I hope Miss Isabel will make him a good wife, and not be too +grand with her Army ways to darn his socks and overlook the maids. +Of course, the young couple must live here, and _I_ shall be able to +give kindly guidance to their early married life as well as religious +instruction to the bride. I pray GOD may bless them.” + +Dear Papa, who was not a bad sort, said “Umph,” and wrote George +Augustus a very decent letter, promising him £200 to start married +life, and suggesting that the honeymoon should take place either in +Paris or on the Plains of Waterloo. + + * * * * * + +The wedding took place in spring in “rural Kent.” A lot of +Winterbournes, including, of course, George’s parents, came down. Dear +Mamma was horribly shocked, not to say disgusted by the _unseemly_ +behaviour of the Hartlys; and even dear Papa was a bit staggered. But +it was then too late to retreat with honour. + +A village wedding in 1890! Gods of our fathers known of old, what a +sight! Alas! that there were no cinemas then. Can’t you see it? Old +men in bug-whiskers and top-hats; old ladies in bustles and bonnets. +Young men in drooping moustaches, “artistic” flowing ties, and probably +grey toppers. Young women in small bustles and small flowery hats. And +bridesmaids in white. And a best man. And George Augustus a bit sweaty +in a new morning suit. And Isabel, of course, “radiant” in white and +orange-blossoms. And the parson, and signing the register, and the +wedding breakfast, and the double peal on the bells, and the “going +away.”... No, it’s too painful, it’s so horrible it isn’t even funny. +It’s indecent. I’m positively sorry for George Augustus and Isabel, +especially for Isabel. What said the bells? “Come and see the *******. +Come and see the *******.” + +But Isabel enjoyed the whole ghastly ceremony, little beast. She wrote +a long description of it to one of her “fellows,” whom she really loved +but had jilted for George Augustus’s “riches.” + +“... It was a cloudy day, but as we knelt at the altar a long ray of +sunshine came through the church window and rested lovingly on our +bowed heads....” + +How could they rise to such bilge? But they did, they did, they did. +And they believed in it. If only they’d had their tongues in their +cheeks there might have been some hope. But they hadn’t. They believed +in the sickish, sweetish canting bilge, they believed in it. Believed +in it with all the superhuman force of ignorance. + +Can one tabulate the ignorances, the relevant ignorances of George +Augustus and Isabel when they pledged themselves until death do us part? + +George Augustus did not know how to make a living; he did not know +in the very least how to treat a woman; he did not know how to live +with a woman; he did not know how to make love to a woman—in fact he +was all minus there, for his experience with whores had been sordid, +dismal and repulsive; he did not know the anatomy of his own body, +let alone the anatomy of a woman’s body; he had not the faintest idea +how to postpone conception ** **** ** ***** ** **** *** ** ********** +* ****** *****, ****** ******* ** *** ****** *** **** ***** ** **** +******; he did not know what is implied by “a normal sexual life”; +** *** *** **** **** ***** *** *** ****** ***** *******; ** *** *** +**** **** ** ***** * *** *** ********* *** ******** ***** **** *** +** ******* * ***** **** * ***** *** ** *** **** ****** **** *** **** +********* ** *** *** *** **** **; ** *** **** **** ***** **** *******; +he did not know that pregnancy is a nine months’ illness; he had not +the least idea that childbirth costs money if the woman is not to +suffer vilely; he did not know that a married man dependent on his and +his wife’s parents is an abject, helpless and contemptible figure; he +did not know that it is hard to earn a decent living even when you +have “A Profession”; he knew damn little about even his profession; he +knew very little indeed about the conditions of life and nothing about +human psychology; he knew nothing about business and money, except how +to spend it; he knew nothing about indoor sanitation, food values, +carpentry, house furnishing, shopping, fire-lighting, chimney-sweeping, +higher mathematics, Greek, domestic invective, making the worse appear +the better cause, how to feed a baby, music, dancing, Swedish drill, +opening sardine tins, boiling eggs, which side of the bed to sleep with +a woman, charades, gas stoves, and an infinity of other things all +indispensable to a married man. + +He must have been rather a dull dog. + +As for Isabel—what she didn’t know includes almost the whole range +of human knowledge. The puzzle is to find out what she _did_ know. +She didn’t even know how to buy her own clothes—Ma Hartly had always +done that for her. Among the things she did not know, were: How +babies are made and come; how to make love; how to pretend she was +enjoying it even when she wasn’t; how to sew, wash, cook, scrub, run +a house, purchase provisions, keep household accounts, domineer over +a housemaid, order a dinner, dismiss a cook, know when a room was +clean, manage George Augustus when he was in a bad temper, give George +Augustus a pill when he was liverish, feed and wash a baby and pin on +its napkins, pay and receive calls, knit, crochet, make pastry, how to +tell a fresh herring is stale, the difference between pork and veal, +never to use margarine, how to make a bed comfortably, look after her +health especially in pregnancy, produce the soft answer which turneth +away wrath, keep the home fires burning, and an infinity of other +things indispensable to a married woman. + +(I really wonder how poor old George managed to get born at all.) + +On the other hand both George Augustus and Isabel knew how to read and +write, pray, eat, drink, wash themselves and dress up on Sundays. They +were both pretty well acquainted with the Bible and Hymns A. and M. + +And then they had luv. They “luved” each other. Luv was enough, luv +covered a multitude of ignorances, luv would provide, luv would strew +their path with roses and primroses. Luv and God. Failing Luv there was +God, and failing God there was Luv. I suppose, orthodoxly, God ought +to come first, but in an 1890 marriage there was such a lot of Luv and +God that there was no room for common sense, or common sex knowledge, +or any of the knowledge we vile modern decadents think necessary in men +and women. Sweet Isabel, dear George Augustus! They were _so_ young, +_so_ innocent, _so_ pure. And what hell do you think is befitting the +narrow-minded, slush-gutted, bug-whiskered or jet-bonneted he- and +she-hypocrites, who sent them to their doom? O Timon, Timon, had I thy +rhetoric! Who dares, who dares, in purity of manhood stand upright, and +say.... Let me not rave, sweet gods, let me not rave. + + * * * * * + +The honeymoon did not take place in Paris or on the Plains of Waterloo, +but in a South Coast watering place, a sweetly pretty spot Isabel had +always wanted to visit. They had a ten mile drive from the village to +the railway, and a two hours journey in a train which stopped at every +station. They arrived tired, shy and disappointed, at the small but +respectable hotel where a double-room had been booked. + +The marriage night was a failure. One might _almost_ have foreseen +it. George Augustus tried to be passionate and ecstatic, and merely +succeeded in being clumsy and brutal. Isabel tried to be modestly +yielding and complying, and was only _gauche_. She suffered a good +deal from George Augustus’s bungling defloweration. And, as many a +sweet Victorian bride of dear old England in the golden days of Good +Queen Vicky, she lay awake hour after hour, while George Augustus slept +stertorously, thinking, thinking, while the tears ran out of her eyes, +as she lay on her back, and trickled slowly down her temples on to the +bridal pillow.... + +It’s too painful, it’s really too painful—all this damn silly “purity” +and cant and Luv and ignorance. And silly ignorant girls handed over in +their ignorance and sweetly-prettiness to ignorant and clumsy young men +for them to brutalize and wound in their ignorance. It’s too painful to +think of. Poor Isabel. What an initiation! + +But, of course, that ghastly night had its consequences. In the first +place, it meant that the marriage was legally consummated, and could +not be broken without an appeal to the Divorce Courts—and I don’t +even know if you could get divorced in the golden days of grand old +Mr. Gladstone, bless his heart, may hell be hot for him. And then it +meant that Isabel shrank from sexual intercourse with George Augustus +for the rest of her days; and, since she was a woman of considerable +temperament, _that_ implied the twenty-two lovers already stirring +in the womb of futurity. And finally, since Isabel was as healthy as +a young woman could be who had to wear madly tight corsets and long +insanitary hair and long insanitary skirts, and who had rudimentary +ideas of sex hygiene,—finally, that _nuit de rêve_ gave Isabel her +first baby. + + + + + [ II ] + + +The baby was christened Edward Frederick George—Edward after the +Prince of Wales (later H.M. King Edward VII), Frederick after his +grandfather, George after his father. + +Isabel wanted to call him George Hartly, but dear Mamma saw to it that +there was as little Hartly as possible about _her_ grandson. + + * * * * * + +The early years of the Isabel-George Augustus _ménage_ are really +very dismal to contemplate. Largely because it was forced upon them by +their elders and social convention, they began on a basis of humbug; +unfortunately, they continued on a basis of humbug. Not only were they +shattered by the awful experience of the wedding-night, but they were a +good deal bored by the honeymoon generally. There wasn’t much to do at +Isabel’s sweetly-pretty watering place. George Augustus wouldn’t admit +even to himself that he was about as competent to be a husband as to +teach white mice to perform military evolutions. Isabel knew in herself +that they had begun with a ghastly failure, knew it with her instincts +rather than her mind, but she had her pride. She knew perfectly well +that the failure would be attributed to her, and that she could expect +no sympathy from any one, least of all her own family. Wasn’t she +“happily” married to a man who “luved” her—a “luv” match—and to a +“rich” man? So Isabel consoled herself with the thought that George +Augustus was “rich,” and they both wrote ecstatic humbugging honeymoon +letters to families and friends. And once they had started on the +opposite road to honesty and facing facts, they were dished for life, +condemned, they too, to the dreary landscape of humbug and “luv.” O +that God and Luv business! Isn’t it mysterious that Isabel didn’t take +warning from the wretched cat-and-dog life of Ma and Pa, and that +George Augustus hadn’t noticed the hatred which surged between dear +Mamma and dear Papa under the viscid surface of domestic peace and +religion; and that they didn’t try to break away to something a little +better? But no, they accepted the standards, they had _Luv_ and they +had _God_, so of course, all would be for the best in this best of all +possible worlds. + + * * * * * + +George Augustus continued to play at being “rich” on his honeymoon. +A week before his wedding he was allowed a banking account for the +first time in his life. Dear Papa paid in £200, and, by arrangement +with George Augustus, dear Mamma was made to believe it was £20. +To this dear Mamma added a generous £5 from her own jointure, “a +little nest-egg for a rainy day”—though what on earth you want with +a “nest-egg” on “a rainy day,” God and Luv only know. So the happy +young couple started out with £205, and not the slightest chance of +earning a penny, until George Augustus gave up being “rich” and “pretty +comfortable” and settled down to face facts and do a little work. + +They spent a good deal—for them—on the honeymoon. George Augustus had +a purse containing a lot of sovereigns and two £5 notes, with which +he swanked intolerably. Isabel had never seen so much money at once +and thought George Augustus was richer than ever. So she immediately +began sending “useful presents” to the innumerable members of the +impoverished Hartly family; and George Augustus, though annoyed—for +he was fundamentally mean—let her. Altogether they spent £30 in a +fortnight, and the first class fares back to Sheffield left mighty +little change out of another £5 note. + + * * * * * + +The first great shock of Isabel’s life was her wedding night. The +second was when she saw the dingy, smoke-blackened house of the “rich” +Winterbournes, one of a row of highly desirable yellow-brick ten-roomed +villas. The third was when she found that George Augustus earned +nothing by his Profession, that he had no money but the balance of his +£205, and that the Winterbournes were nearly as poor as the Hartlys. + + * * * * * + +Ghastly days that poor girl spent in that dreary little house during +her first pregnancy, while George Augustus twiddled his thumbs in +“the Office” (instead of in his “cosy study” as in his bachelor days) +under pretence of “working”; while dear Papa prayed, and dear Mamma +acid-sweetly nagged and humiliated her. Ghastly days when her morning +sickness was treated as a “bilious attack.” + +“Too much rich food,” said dear Mamma, “of course, darling Isabel, +you were not used to such a plentiful table at home”—and then +playful-coyly-cattish—“we must really ask your dear husband to use his +_authority_ to restrain your appetite.” + +In fact, the Hartlys, in a scratchy vulgarish way, enjoyed much more +ample and varied food than that provided by dear Mamma’s cheese-paring +genteely meagre table. + +Then, of course, there were rows. Isabel revolted, and displayed signs +of that indomitable personality and talent for violent invective she +afterwards developed to such Everest peaks of unpleasantness. Even dear +Mamma found her match, but not before she had made Isabel miserably +wretched for nearly two years and had permanently warped her character. +Blessings upon you, dear Mamma, you “prayed for guidance,” you “did all +for the best”—and you made Isabel into a first-class bitch. + +George Augustus was pained, deeply pained and surprised by these rows. +He was still pretty comfortable, and couldn’t see why Isabel wasn’t. + +“Let us continue to be a loving, united family,” he would say, “let us +bear with one another. We all have our burdens”—(e.g., thumb-twiddling +and reading novels) “and all we need is a little more Luv, a little +more Forbearance. We must pray for Strength and Guidance.” + +At first Isabel took these homilies pretty meekly. She believed she +had to “respect” her husband, and she was still a little intimidated +by George Augustus’s superior Bulwer Lytton airs. But one day she lost +her not very well-controlled temper and let the Winterbournes have it. +George Augustus was a sneak and a cad and a liar! He wasn’t “rich”! +He was “pore as a church mouse”! Him and his airs, pretending to her +father he was a rich gentleman with a Profession, when he didn’t earn +a penny and got married on the £200 his father gave him! She wouldn’t +have married him, she wouldn’t, if he hadn’t come smarming round with +his presents and his drives and pretending she would be a lady! And she +wished she was dead, she did! And she wished she’d never set eyes on +them! + +Then the fat was in the fire! Dear Mamma then took up the tale. +Reserving _in petto_ a denunciation of the guilt-stricken and +consternated father and son in the matter of their deception over the +£200, she directed a skilful enfilade fire on the disarmed Isabel. +Isabel was vulgar and irreligious, she was ill-bred and uneducated, she +was mercenary on her own showing, and had ruined the hopeful life of +George Augustus by seducing him into a disastrous marriage.... + +At that moment Isabel fainted, and most unfortunately for our George, +the threatened miscarriage was averted—thanks more to Isabel’s health +and vitality than to the ministrations of her inept husband and +in-laws. Only dear Papa was genuinely distressed, and used what shred +of influence he had to protect Isabel. As for George Augustus he simply +collapsed, and did nothing but ejaculate: + +“Dear Mamma! Isabel! Let us be loving and united. Let us bear one +another’s burdens!” + +But he was swept away in the torrent of genuine hatred revealed by +this instructive scene. Even dear Mamma dropped her Non-Conformist +tract hypocrisy, and only picked it up again when Isabel fainted. + +On dear Papa’s suggestion George Augustus took Isabel away to the +sea-side on what was left of the £200; and thus it happened that George +was born in a sea-side hotel. + +It was a difficult birth, clumsily doctored. Isabel suffered tortures +for nearly forty hours. If she had not been as strong as a young mare, +she would inevitably have died. During this agonizing labour, George +Augustus prayed freely, took short walks, read “Lorna Doone,” had a +half bottle of claret with his lunch and dinner, and slept tranquilly +o’ nights. When, finally, he was admitted on tip-toe to a glance at the +half-dead woman with the horrid little packet of red infant by her side +he raised his hand and gave them his blessing. He then tip-toed down to +dinner, and ordered a whole bottle of claret in honour of the event. + + + + + [ III ] + + +Isabel and George Augustus depress me so much that I am anxious to get +rid of them. On the other hand, it is impossible to understand George +unless you know his parents. And then the older Winterbourne _ménage_ +rather fascinates me, with a fascination of loathing and contempt. I +cannot help wondering how they could have been such ignorant fools, +how they came to make so little effort to break free from the humbug, +how less than nothing they cared about being themselves. Of course, +I tell myself that our own magnanimous nephews will ask themselves +precisely the same questions about _us_; but then I also tell myself +that they must see we _did_ struggle, we did fight against the humbug +and the squelching of life and the worn-out formulæ, as young George +fought. Perhaps Isabel did fight a little, but the forces of inertia +and active spite were too much for her. Perhaps the twenty-two lovers +and the talk about Agnosticism and Socialism (of which Isabel at all +periods of her life knew rather less than nothing) were a sort of +protest. But she was beaten by the economic factor—by the economic +factor _and_ the child. You can say what you please, but poverty and +a child will quench any woman’s instinct for self-development and +self-assertion—or turn it sour. It turned Isabel’s sour and sharp. As +for George Augustus, I doubt if he had any instincts left, except the +instinct to be pretty comfortable. Whatever he achieved in and with his +life was entirely the product of Isabel’s will and Isabel’s goading. +He was a born mucker. And, since Isabel was ignorant, self-willed and +overambitious, and turned sour and sharp under the tender mercies of +dear Mamma, she became a mucker too—through George Augustus. Yet I +have far more sympathy for Isabel than for George Augustus. She was at +least the wreck of a human being. He was a thumb-twiddler, a harmless +praying-Mantis, a zero of no value except in combination with her +integer. + + * * * * * + +When Isabel was well enough to travel—perhaps a little before—they, +who had gone out two, returned home three. They had acquired the link +which divides. They had become a “family,” the eternal triangle of +father, mother, child, which is so much more difficult and disagreeable +and hard to deal with, and so much more productive of misery, than the +other triangle of husband, wife, lover. After nine months of intimacy, +Isabel and George Augustus were just getting used to each other and +the “Luv” situation, when this new complication appeared. Isabel was +instinctively aware that yet another readjustment was needed, and, +through her, George Augustus became dimly apprehensive that something +was going on. So he prayed earnestly for Guidance, and all the way +from the South Coast to Sheffield urged Isabel to remember that they +must be a loving and united family, that they must bear one another’s +burdens, that they had “Luv” but must acquire “Forbearance.” I don’t +wish—Heaven forfend—that I had been in Isabel’s place, but I should +have liked to reply for five minutes on her behalf to George Augustus’s +angel-in-the-house, idiot-in-the-world cant. + + * * * * * + +So they returned three, and there was much sobbing and praying, and +asking for guidance, and benediction of the unconscious George. (He +was too little to make a long nose at them—let us do it for him, +as his posthumous godfathers and godmothers.) Isabel’s thwarted sex +and idealism and ambition, her physical health and complete lack of +intellectual complexity, made her an excellent mother. She really loved +that miserable little packet of babydom begotten in disappointment +and woe by George Augustus and herself in a hired bedroom of a dull +hotel in a dull little town on the dull South Coast of dull England. +She lavished herself on the infant George. The child tugging at her +nipples gave her a physical satisfaction a thousand times more acute +and exquisite than the clumsy caresses of George Augustus. She was like +an animal with a cub. George Augustus might swank to dear Papa that he +would “fight for dear Isabel like a TIGER,” but Isabel really would +have fought, and did fight, for her baby, like a hot-headed, impetuous, +pathetic, ignorant cow. If that was any achievement, she saved young +George’s life—saved him for a German machine-gun. + + * * * * * + +For a time there was peace in the smoke-blacked little house in +Sheffield. Isabel was obviously still very weak. And the first grandson +was an event. Dear Papa was enchanted with young George. He bought five +dozen bottles of port to lay down for George’s twenty-first birthday, +and then began prudently drinking them at once “to see that they were +the right vintage.” He gave George Augustus £50 he hadn’t got. He gave +young George his solemn, grandfatherly and valedictory blessing every +night when Isabel put the infant to bed. + +“God _will_ bless him,” said dear Papa impressively, “God will bless +_all_ my children _and_ my posterity,”—as if he had been Abraham or +God’s Privy Councillor, as indeed he probably thought he was. + +Even dear Mamma was quelled for a time. “A little che-ild shall lead +them,” she quoted venomously; and George Augustus wrote another +Non-Conformist tract on loving and united families, taking these holy +and inspiring words as his text. + + * * * * * + +The first four years of George’s life passed in a welter of +squabbling, incompetence and poverty, of which he was quite +unconscious, though what harm was done to his subconscious would take +a better psychologist than I to determine. I imagine that the combined +influence of dear Papa, dear Mamma, Ma and Pa Hartly, George Augustus +and Isabel started him off on the race of life with a pretty heavy +handicap weight. I should say that George was always an outsider in the +Tatersall’s Ring of Life—about 100 to 7 against. However, one can but +stick to the events as closely as possible, and leave the reader to +form conclusions and lay his own odds. + +Before George was six months old the rows had begun again in the +Sheffield house, and this time more virulently and fiercely than ever. +Dear Mamma felt she was fighting for her authority and John Wesley +against the intruder. Isabel was fighting for herself and her child +and—though she didn’t know it—any vestige of genuine humanity there +might have been in George Augustus. + +About that time George Augustus became really intolerable. A man he +had known as a law-student returned to Sheffield, bought a practice, +and did rather well. Henry Bulburry came it over George Augustus pretty +thick. He had spent three years in a London solicitor’s office, and +to hear him talk you would have thought Mr. Bulburry was the Lord +Chancellor, the Beau Brummell and the Count d’Orsay of the year 1891. +Bulburry patronized George Augustus, and George Augustus lapped his +patronage up gratefully. Bulburry knew all the latest plays, all the +latest actresses, all the latest books. He roared with laughter at +George Augustus’s Dickens and “Lorna Doone” and introduced him to +Morris, Swinburne, Rossetti, Ruskin, Hardy, Mr. Moore and young Mr. +Wilde. George Augustus got fearfully excited, and became an æsthetic. +Once when Pater came to lecture at Sheffield he was so much moved at +the spectacle of those wonderful moustaches that he fainted, and had +to be taken home in a four-wheeler. George Augustus at last found his +_métier_. He realized that he was a dreamer of dreams born out of his +due time, that he should have floated Antinous-like with the Emperor +Hadrian to the music of flutes and viols on the subtly-drifting waters +of the immemorial Nile. Under a canopy of perfumed silk he should have +sat enthroned with Zenobia while trains of naked thewed Ethiopian +slaves, glistening with oil and nard, laid at his feet jewels of the +opulent East. He was older than the rocks among which he sat. He +was subtler than delicate music; and there was no change of light, +no shifting of the shadows, no change in the tumultuous outlines of +wind-swept clouds but had a meaning for him. Babylon and Tyre were in +him, and he too had wept for beautiful Bion. In Athens he had reclined, +violet-crowned, at the banquet where Socrates reasoned of love with +Alcibiades. But above all he felt a stupendous passion for mediæval +and Renaissance Florence. He had never been to Italy, but he was wont +to boast that he had studied the plan of the city so carefully and so +frequently that he could find his way about Florence blindfold. He knew +not one word of Italian, but he spoke ecstatically of Dante and “His +Circle,” criticized the accuracy of Guicciardini, refuted Machiavelli, +and was an authority—after Roscoe—on the life and times of Lorenzo +and Leo X. + +One day George Augustus announced to the family that he should abandon +his Profession and WRITE. + + * * * * * + +There may be little differences in an English family, for the best +of friends fall out at times, but in all serious crises they may be +depended upon to show a united front. Thank God, there can still be +no doubt about it—apart from pure literature of the sheik brand and +refining pictures in the revived Millais tradition, an English family +can still be relied upon to present a united front against any of its +members’ indulging in the obscene pursuits of Literature or Art. Such +things may be left to the obscene Continent and our own degenerates +and decadents, though it would be well if stern methods were adopted +by the police to cleanse our public life of the scandal brought upon +Us by the latter. The great English middle-class mass, that dreadful +squat pillar of the nation, will only tolerate art and literature that +are fifty years out of date, eviscerated, de-testiculated, bowdlerized, +humbuggered, slip-slopped, subject to their anglicized Jehovah. They +are still that unbroken rampart of Philistia against which Byron broke +himself in vain, and which even the wings of Ariel were inadequate to +surmount. So, look out, my friend. Hasten to adopt the slimy mask of +British humbug and British fear of life, or expect to be smashed. You +may escape for a time. You may think you can compromise. You can’t. +You’ve either got to lose your soul to them or have it smashed by them. +Or you can exile yourself. + +It was probably worse in the days of George Augustus, and anyway he +was only a grotesque and didn’t much matter. Still, the vitality of +Isabel was real and should have found an outlet instead of being forced +back into her and turned into a sharp sour poison. And the pathetic +efforts of George Augustus to be an æsthete and WRITE meant something, +some inner struggle, some effort to create a life of his own. It was +an evasion, of course, a feeble flapping desire to escape into a dream +world; but if you had been George Augustus, living under the sceptre +of dear Mamma in the Sheffield of 1891, you too would have yearned +to escape. Isabel opposed this new freak of George Augustus, because +she also wanted to escape. And for her, escape was only possible if +George Augustus earned enough money to take her and her baby away. She +thought the pre-Raphaelites rather nonsensical and drivelling—and +she wasn’t far wrong. She thought Mr. Hardy very gloomy and immoral, +and Mr. George Moore very frivolous and immoral, and young Mr. Wilde +very unhealthy and immoral. But her reading in the works of all these +immortals was very sketchy and snatchy—what really animated her was +her immovable instinct that George Augustus’s only motive in life +henceforth should be to provide for her and her child, and to get them +away from Sheffield and dear Mamma. + +Dear Papa and dear Mamma also thought these new crazes of George +Augustus nonsensical and immoral. Dear Mamma read the opening pages of +one of Mr. Hardy’s novels, and then burned the Obscene Thing in the +kitchen copper. Whereupon there was a blazing row with George Augustus. +Backed by the malicious Bulburry (who hated dear Mamma so much that +he put several little bits of business he didn’t want into the hands +of George Augustus, who thereby made about £70 in six months), George +Augustus, who had never stood up for himself or his own integrity or +Isabel or anything that mattered, stood up for Mr. Hardy and his own +false pathetic pose of æstheticism. George Augustus locked all his +priceless new books into a cupboard of which he jealously kept the key. +And he spent hours a day locked in his “cosy study” WRITING, while the +enraged thunder of the offended family rolled impotently outside. But +George Augustus was firm. He bought art-y ties, and saw Bulburry nearly +every evening, and went on WRITING. Bulburry was so malevolent that he +persuaded a friend, who was editing an amateurish æsthetic review in +London, to publish an article by George Augustus, entitled _The Wonder +of Cleopatra throughout the Ages_. George Augustus got a guinea for the +article, and for a week the family was hushed and awed. + +But in that atmosphere of exasperation and dread of the Unknown +Obscene, rows were inevitable. And, since George Augustus remained +almost hermetically sealed in his cosy study, and refused to come out +and be rowed with, even when dear Mamma tapped imperiously at the door +and reminded him, through the panes, of his Duties to God, his Mamma +and Society, the rows inevitably took place between dear Mamma and +Isabel. + +One night, after George Augustus was asleep, Isabel got up and stole +£5 from his sovereign-purse. Next morning, she took the baby for a +walk as usual, but took it to the Railway station and fled to the +Hartly home in rural Kent. This was certainly not the boldest thing +Isabel ever did—she afterwards did things of incredible rashness—but +it was one of the most sensible, from her point of view. It was the +first of her big efforts to force George Augustus to action. It +reminded him that he had taken on certain responsibilities, and that +responsibilities are realities which cannot always be avoided. She +bombed him out of the dug-out of dear Mamma’s tyranny, and eventually +Archied him out of the empyrean of æstheticism and writing. + +But she didn’t let herself or George Augustus down to the Hartly +family. She reckoned—and reckoned rightly—that George Augustus would +follow her up pretty smartly, for fear of “what people would say.” So +she sent a telegram to Pa and Ma to say she was coming to see them for +a few days—they were fairly well accustomed to Isabel’s impulsive +moves by this time—and she left a note, a dramatic and naturally (not +artistically) tear-stained note for George Augustus on the bedroom +dressing-table. She took a few inexpensive presents home, and played +her part so well that at first even Ma Hartly only vaguely suspected +that something was wrong. + + * * * * * + +The loving and united home at Sheffield was in some consternation when +Isabel did not return for lunch; and the consternation almost became +panic—it certainly became rage in dear Mamma—when George Augustus +found and communicated Isabel’s letter. + +“She must be found and brought back here at once,” said dear Mamma +decisively, already scenting carnage from afar, “she has disgraced +herself, disgraced her husband and disgraced the family. I have long +noticed that she is inattentive at family prayers. She must be given +a good lesson. It was an ill day for us all when Augustus married so +far beneath him. He must go and fetch her back from her low vulgar +family—to think of our dear little George being in such _immoral_ +surroundings.” + +“Suppose she won’t come?” said dear Papa, who had suffered so many +years from dear Mamma that he had a fellow feeling for Isabel. + +“She must be _made_ to come,” said dear Mamma, “Augustus! You must +do your duty and assert your authority as a _Husband_. You must leave +to-night.” + +“But what will people _say?_” murmured George Augustus dejectedly. + +At those fatal words even dear Mamma flushed beneath the pallor of +fifty years bad temper and cloistered malevolence. What would people +say? What would people say I What indeed? What would the Minister say? +What would Mrs. Standish say? And Mrs. Gregory? And Miss Stint, who was +another Minister’s niece? And cousin Joan, who had an eye like a brace +of buzzards, and a nose for scandal and other carrion which would have +been surprising in a starving condor of the Andes? What would they say? +Why, they would say that young Mrs. Winterbourne had run away with a +ticket collector on the G. W. R. They would say young George had turned +out to have a touch of the tar-brush owing to the prolonged residence +of Captain and Mrs. Hartly in the West Indies; and that, consequently, +Mrs. Winterbourne and the infant had been spirited away “to a home.” +They would say that there was a “dreadful disease” in the Winterbourne +family, and that Isabel had run away with an infected baby. They would +also say things which, being nearer the truth, would be even more +painful. They would say that dear Mamma had plagued Isabel beyond +the verge of endurance—and so she had run away, with or without an +accomplice. They would say that George Augustus was unable to support +his family, and that Isabel had grown tired of thumb-twiddling and +“all this nonsense about books.” They would say—what would they not +say? And the Winterbournes, unique in this among human beings, were +sensitive to “what people said.” + +So when George Augustus said dejectedly: “What will people _say?_” +even the ranks of Tuscany—viz. dear Mamma—were for a moment dismayed. +But that undaunted spirit (which has made the Empire famous) soon +rallied, and dear Mamma evolved a plan; and issued orders with a +precision and clarity which may be recommended to all Brigadiers, +Battalion, Company and Platoon commanders. The maids must be told at +once that Mrs. Winterbourne had been unexpectedly called home by the +illness of her father—which was immediately done, but as the maids +had been listening with delighted eagerness to the conference in the +parlour, that bit of camouflage was not very effective. Then dear Mamma +would pay a round of visits that afternoon, and casually let drop that +“dear Isabel” had been unexpectedly et cetera; to which she would add +negligently that an “important conveyance” had detained her son in +Sheffield until the next morning, when he would follow his wife—“such +a devoted couple, and only my daughter-in-law’s earnest entreaties +could prevail upon my dear son not to neglect this important business +to act as her cavalier.” Then, George Augustus would leave next morning +for rural Kent, and would hale Isabel home like the husband of patient +Grissel, or some other hero of romance. + +All of which was carried out according to schedule, with one important +exception. When George Augustus unexpectedly walked into the +multitudinous and tumultuous Saturday dinner of the Hartly family—loin +of fresh pork, greens, potatoes, apple sauce, fruit-suet pudding, +but no beer this time—he found no patient Grissel awaiting him. And +his very impatient and aggrieved Grissel was backed up by an equally +aggrieved family, who by now had wormed out of her by no means reticent +mind something of the truth. The Hartlys were simply furious with +George Augustus for not being “rich.” The way he had come it over them! +The way he had mashed Isabel with his 1/6 a pound chocolates! The way +dear Mamma had put on her airs of righteous disapproval at Captain +Hartly’s little jokes about a fellah in India (Ha! Ha!) and a couple of +native women (He! He!)! The intolerable way in which dear Papa had come +it about ’64 Port and Paris and the Plains of Waterloo! And after the +Hartlys had endured all those humiliations to find that George Augustus +was not “rich,” after all! O horrible, most horrible! + +So when George Augustus, still half-armed with the bolts of +thunder-compelling dear Mamma, walked in dramatically to that agape +of roast pig, he found he had a tougher job to deal with than he had +imagined. + +He was greeted with very constrained and not very polite reticence +by the elder Hartlys, and gazed at by such an inordinate number of +round-O-eyed youthful Hartlys that he felt all the reproachful juvenile +eyes in the world must be directed upon him, as he struggled with an +(intentionally) tough and disagreeable portion of the meal. + + * * * * * + +Need it be said? George Augustus was defeated by Isabel and the +Hartlys, as he would have been defeated by any one with half an ounce +of spunk and half a dram of real character. + +He capitulated. + +Without the honours of war. + +He apologized to Isabel. + +And to Ma Hartly. + +And to “the Captain.” + +An Armistice was arranged, the terms of which were: + +George Augustus surrendered unconditionally, and all the honours of war +went to Isabel. + +Isabel was not to return to dear Mamma or to Sheffield, not ever again. + +They were to take a cottage in rural Kent, not far from the Hartlys. + +George Augustus was to return to Sheffield and bring to rural Kent his +precious æsthetes and as much furniture as he could cadge. + +He was to sell his “practice” in Sheffield, and to start to “practise” +in rural Kent. + +As a concession to George Augustus, he was to be allowed to WRITE—for +a time. But if the Writing proved unremunerative within a reasonable +period—such period to be determined by Isabel and the Other High +Contracting Powers—he was to “practise” with more assiduity—and +profit. + +Failing which, George Augustus would hear about it, and Isabel would +apply for a maintenance order for herself and child. + +Signed, sealed and delivered over a quart bottle of East Kent Pale Ale. + + * * * * * + +Poor old George Augustus, the shadows of the prison were rapidly +closing round _him_, though he didn’t know it. He had a hell of a +time with dear Mamma when he went home with his tail between his legs +and without Isabel, and announced that they had determined to take +a cottage in rural Kent and—WRITE. At the word “write,” dear Mamma +sniffed: + +“And who, pray, will pay your washing bills?” + +In a spirit of loving-kindness and forbearance, George Augustus ignored +this taunt, which was just as well, since he could think of nothing to +say in reply. + +Well, dear Papa came to the rescue again. He gave George Augustus +as much of the furniture as he dared, and another gift of £50 he +hadn’t got. And Bulburry got George Augustus orders for an article on +_The Friends of Lorenzo the Magnificent_, and another article on _My +Wanderings in Florence_. Bulburry also advised George Augustus to write +a book, either a history of the _Decline and Fall of the Florentine +Republic_, or a novel on the unhackneyed topic of Savonarola. +In addition, Bulburry gave him an introduction to one of those +enterprising young publishers who are always arising in London to witch +the world with noble publishing; and then, after two or three years, +always disappear in the bankruptcy court, leaving behind a sad trail of +unpaid bills and disappointed authors and wrecked reputations. + + * * * * * + +So George Augustus set up in Rural Kent as a WRITER, in a pleasant +little cottage which Isabel had found for them. + +(I do wish you could have seen the “artistic” ties George Augustus +wore when he was a WRITER; they would have given you that big feeling.) + +But—let us be just—George Augustus really worked—three hours a day, +like all the great authors—at writing. He produced articles and he +produced stories and he began the Decline and Fall of the Florentine +Republic and the most blood-curdling novel about Savonarola, beginning: +“One stormy night in December 14—, two black-cloaked figures might +have been observed traversing the Piazza della Signoria in Florence on +their way from Or San Michele to the private residence of Lorenzo the +Magnificent, now known as the Palazzo Strozzi.” + +Poor George Augustus! Take it for all in all, we shall look upon many +like him again. He had a lot to learn. He had to learn that the only +books which have the least importance are those which are made from +direct contact with life, which are built out of a man’s guts. He had +to learn that every age pullulates with imitators of the authors who +have done this, and created a fashion,—which in time and for a time +kills them and their influence. + +But still, for a year or so he had his cottage in rural Kent and was +a Writer. He dreamed his dream, though it was a pretty silly and +castrated dream. If he hadn’t married Isabel and gotten her with child, +he might have made quite a reasonably good literary hack. But, Oh! +those hostages given to Fortune! **** ***** **** *****, *** **** **** +**** **** ***** ******. + + * * * * * + +As for Isabel, she was happy for the first, and perhaps the last time +in her life. She adored her cottage in rural Kent. What did it matter +that George Augustus wasted his time Writing? He still had about £170 +and earned a few guineas a month by articles and stories. But for her +the thrill was having a real home of her own. She furnished the cottage +herself, partly with the heavy mahogany 1850 stuff George Augustus had +brought from Sheffield, partly with her own atrocious taste and bamboo. +George urged her to furnish “artistically,” and the resultant chaos of +huge solid stodgy curly mahogany and flimsy bamboo, palms, cauliflower +chintzes and framed photographs would have rendered the late Mr. Oscar +Wilde plaintive in less than fifty seconds. Never mind, Isabel was +happy. She had her home and she had George Augustus under her eye and +thumb, and she had her baby—whom she adored with all the selfishness +of a pure woman—and, best of all, she did NOT have dear Mamma +pestering and sneering and praying at her through every hour of the +day and at every turn. Dear Isabel, how happy she was in her hum-ble +little ho-o-me! Put it to yourself, now. Suppose you had been one of an +innumerable family, enduring all the abominable discomforts and lack +of privacy in that elementary Soviet System. And suppose you had then +been uncomfortably impregnated and most painfully delivered, and then +bullied and pried into and domineered over and tortured by dear Mamma; +wouldn’t you be glad to have a home of your own, however humble, and +however flimsily based on sandy foundations of WRITING and art-y ties? +Of course you would. So Isabel looked after the baby, _tant bien que +mal_, and cooked abominable meals, and was swindled by the tradesmen, +and ran up bills which frightened her, and let young George catch croup +and nearly die, and didn’t interrupt George Augustus’s wooing of the +Muse more than half a dozen times a morning and—was happy. + + * * * * * + +But in all our little arrangements on this satellite of the Sun, we +are apt to forget—among a multitude of other things—two important +facts. We are the inhabitants of a planet who keep alive only by a +daily consumption of the material products of that planet; we are +members of a crude collective organization which distributes these +essential products in accordance with certain bizarre rules painfully +evolved from chaos by primitive brains. George Augustus certainly +forgot these two facts—if he had ever recognized them. A man, a +woman and a brat cannot live forever on £170 and a few odd guineas a +month. They couldn’t do it even in the eighteen nineties, even with +extraordinary economy. And Isabel was not economical. Neither, for +that matter, was George Augustus. He was mean, but he liked to be +pretty comfortable, and his notions of the pretty comfortable were a +bit extravagant. Torn between his respect for the Right Hnble the Lord +Tennyson’s well-known predilection for Port and Mr. Algernon Charles +Swinburne’s less notorious but undisguised preference for brandy +neat, George Augustus finally became original, and fell back on his +favourite claret. But, even in the nineties, claret was not cheap; and +three dozen a month rather eat into an income of four to six guineas. +And then Isabel was inexperienced. In housekeeping inexperience costs +money. So a time arrived when the £170 was nearly at zero, and the few +guineas a month became fewer instead of more numerous. Then George, +young George, developed some infant malady; Isabel lost her head, and +insisted on a doctor; the doctor, like all the English middle classes +thought a Writer was a harmless fool with money to be bled ruthlessly, +called far more often than was necessary, and sent in a much bigger +bill than he would have dared send a stockbroker or a millionaire. Then +George Augustus had the influenza and thought he was going to die. And +after that Isabel was stricken with hemorrhoids in her secret parts; +and had to be treated. Consequently, the bank balance of a few guineas +was turned into a deficit of a good many pounds; and the affable Bank +Manager rapidly became strangely unaffable when his polite references +to the overdraft remained unsatisfied with the manna of a few cheques. + +It became obvious to Isabel—and would have long ago become obvious to +almost any one but George Augustus—that Luv and WRITING in a cottage +were hopelessly bankrupt. + +Well, dear Papa pungled once more—with a pound a week; and Pa Hartly +weighed in with a weekly five shillings. But that was misery, and +Isabel was determined that since she had married George Augustus for +his “riches,” “rich” he should be or perish in the act of trying to +acquire riches. So she brought into play all the feminine arsenal, +reinforced with a few useful underhand punches and jabs in the moral +kidneys, learned from dear Mamma. George Augustus tried to keep high +above these material and degrading necessities, but, as I said, +Isabel finally Archied him down. When they could no longer get credit +even for meat or bread, George Augustus capitulated, and agreed +to “practise” once more. He wanted to go back to Sheffield and be +pretty comfortable again, under the talons of dear Mamma. But Isabel +was—quite rightly—adamant. She refused to return to Sheffield. George +Augustus had got her on false pretences, i.e., that he was “rich.” +He was not rich. He was, in fact, damn poor. But he had taken on the +responsibility of supporting a woman, and he had got that woman with +child. He had no business to be pretty comfortable any longer under +the wings of dear Mamma. His business was to get rich as quickly as +possible; at any rate to provide for his dependents. Inexorable logic, +against which I can find no argument even in sophistry. + +So they went to a middling-sized, dreary, coast town just then in the +process of “development” (Bulburry’s suggestion) and George Augustus +put up another brass plaque. With no results. But then, just as the +situation was getting desperate dear Papa died. He did not leave his +children a fortune, but he did leave them £250 each—and strangely +enough he actually had the money. Dear Mamma was left in rather +“straitened circumstances”, but she had enough to be unreservedly +disagreeable to the end of her days. + +That £250—and the Oscar Wilde case—just saved the situation. The +£250 gave them enough to live on for a year. The Oscar Wilde case +scared George Augustus thoroughly out of æstheticism and Writing. What? +They were hanging men and women for wearing of the green? Then, George +Augustus would wear red. After “The Sentence” George Augustus, like +most of England, decided that art and literature were niminy-piminy, if +not greenery-yallery. I don’t say he burned his books and art-y ties, +but he put them out of sight with remarkable alacrity. The Great Voice +of the English People had spoken in no Uncertain Tones, and George +Augustus was not deaf to the Message. How could he be, with Isabel +pouring it into one ear by word of mouth and dear Mamma—unexpected +but welcome ally—into the other by letter? A nation of Mariners and +Sportsmen naturally excel in the twin arts of leaving a sinking ship +and kicking a man when he is down. Three months after The Sentence +you would never have suspected that George Augustus had dreamed of +Writing. His clothes were of exemplary Philistinism—indeed, the +height of his starched collars and the plainness of his ties had an +almost Judas touch in their unæsthetic ugliness. Urged on by Isabel he +became a Free Mason, an Oddfellow, an Elk, a Heart of Oak, a Buffalo, +a Druid, and God knows how many other mysterious things. He himself +abandoned Florence, forgot even the blameless Savonarola, and prayed +for Guidance. They attended the “best Church” twice on every Sunday. + +Slowly at first, then more and more rapidly George Augustus increased +his practice; and the lust of earning money came upon him. They ceased +to live in one room behind the office, and took a small but highly +respectable house in the residential quarter of the town. Two years +later they took a country cottage in a very high class resort, Martin’s +Point. Two years after that they bought a large country house at +Pamber, and another smaller house just outside the “quaint old” town of +Hamborough. George Augustus began to buy and to build houses. Isabel, +whose jointure had been less than nothing when she married, now began +to complain because her allowance was “only £1200 a year.” In short, +they prospered and prospered greatly—for a time. + + * * * * * + +They had another child, and another, and another and another. A man +and a woman who can do nothing else can always have children, and, if +they are legally married and are able to support their progeny, there +seems no end to the amount of begetting they may do and the laurel +crowns of virtue to which they are thereby entitled. Isabel put her +vitality into child-bearing, boosting George Augustus to profitable +action, thrusting herself ever onward and upward financially and +socially, buying and furnishing houses, quarrelling with her friends, +acquiring sheiks, malforming her children’s minds, capriciously +interfering with their education, swanking to the Hartlys with her +money, patronizing the now aged and less venomous dear Mamma, and other +lofty and inspiring activities. Was she happy? What a question! We are +not placed here by a benevolent Providence to be happy, but to make +ourselves unpleasant to our neighbours and to impose the least amiable +portions of our personalities on as many people as possible. Was George +Augustus happy? Which I parry with—did he deserve to be happy? He +made money anyway, which is more than you and I can do. He dropped +claret for whiskey, and the æsthetes for the “English Classics,” all +those “noble” authors who have “stood the test of time,” and thereby +become so very dull that one prefers to go to the cinema which has not +stood any such test. He had a brougham, in which he drove daily to his +office. He became a Worshipful Grand Master, and possessed any amount +of funny little medals and coloured leather _cache-sexe_, which are +apparently worn in the Mysteries of the Free Masons. He framed his +certificates as a Solicitor, a Buffalo, a Druid, and all the other +queer things, and hung them in various places to surprise and awe the +inexperienced. He had a great many bills. For about ten years he was so +prosperous that he was able to give up attending Church on Sundays. + + + + + [ IV ] + + +George, the younger, liked Hamborough best perhaps, Martin’s Point +next, Pamber hardly at all, and he detested Dullborough, the town which +contained his father’s offices and the minor public school which he +attended. + +The mind of a very young child is not very interesting. It has +imagination and wonder, but too unregulated, too bizarre, too “quaint,” +too credulous. Does it matter very much that George babbled o’ white +lobsters, stirred up frogs in a bucket, thought that the word “mist” +meant sunset, and was easily persuaded that a sort of milk pudding he +detested had been made from an ostrich’s egg? Of course a good deal of +adult imagination consists in peoples’ persuading themselves that they +can see white lobsters, just as their poetry consists in persuading +themselves that the milk pudding _did_ come out of the ostrich’s egg. +The child at least is honest, which is something. But on the whole the +young child-mind is boring. + + * * * * * + +The intellect wakes earlier than the feelings, curiosity before the +passions. The child asks the scientist’s Why? before he asks the poet’s +How? George read little primers on Botany and Geology and the Story +of the Stars, and collected butterflies, and wanted to do chemistry, +and hated Greek. And then one evening the world changed. It was at +Martin’s Point. All one night the South-West wind had streamed over the +empty downs, sweeping up in a crescendo of sound to a shrill ecstasy +of speed, sinking into abrupt sobs of dying vigour, while underneath +steadily, unyieldingly, streamed and roared the major volume of the +storm. The windows rattled. Rain pelted on the panes, oozed and bubbled +through the joints of the woodwork. The sea, dimly visible at dusk, +rolled furiously-tossing long breakers on the rocks, and made a tumult +of white horses in the Channel. Even the largest ships took shelter. In +the irregular harmony of that storm George went to sleep in his narrow +lonely child’s bed, and who knows what Genius, what Puck, what elfin +spirit of Beauty came riding on the storm from the South, and shed the +juice of what magic herb on his closed eyes? All next day the gale blew +with ever diminishing violence. It was a half holiday, and no games +on account of the wet. After lunch, George went to his room, and sank +absorbed in his books, his butterflies, his moths, his fossils. He +was aroused by a sudden glare of yellow sunlight. The storm had blown +itself out. The last clouds, broken in lurid ragged-edged fragments, +were sailing gently over a soft blue sky. Soon even they were gone. +George opened the window, and leaned out. The heavy dank smell of wet +earth-mould came up to him with its stifling hyacinth-like quality; the +rain-drenched privet was almost over-sweet; the young poplar leaves +twinkled and trembled in the last gusts, shaking down rapid chains of +diamonds. But it was all fresh, fresh with the clarity of air which +follows a great gale, with the scentless purity of young leaves, the +drenched grasses of the empty downs. The sun moved majestically and +imperceptibly downwards in a widening pool of gold, which faded, as the +great ball vanished, into pure clear hard green and blue. One, two, +a dozen blackbirds and linnets and thrushes were singing; and as the +light faded they dwindled to one blackbird tune of exquisite melancholy +and purity. + +Beauty is in us, not outside us. We recognize our own beauty in the +patterns of the infinite flux. Light, form, movement, glitter, scent, +sound, suddenly apprehended as givers of delight, as interpreters of +the inner vitality, not as the customary aspect of things. A boy, +caught for the first time in a kind of ecstasy, brooding on the mystery +of beauty. + +A penetrating voice came up the stairs: + +“Georgie! Georgie! Come out of that stuffy room at once! I want you to +get me something from Gilpin’s.” + +What perverse instinct tells them when to strike? How do they learn to +break the crystal mood so unerringly? Why do they hate the mystery so +much? + + * * * * * + +Long before he was fifteen George was living a double life—one life +for school and home, another for himself. Consummate dissimulation of +youth, fighting for the inner vitality and the mystery. How amusingly, +but rather tragically he fooled them. How innocent-seemingly he played +the fine healthy barbarian schoolboy, even to the slang and the hateful +games. Be ye soft as doves and cunning as serpents. He’s such a _real_ +boy, you know—viz., not an idea in his head, no suspicion of the +mystery. “Rippin’ game of rugger to-day, Mother. I scored two tries.” +Upstairs was that volume of Keats, artfully abstracted from the shelves. + + * * * * * + +A double row of huge old poplars beside the narrow brook swayed and +danced in the gales, rustled in the late spring breeze, stood spirelike +heavy in July sunlight—a stock-in-trade of spires without churches +left mysteriously behind by some mediæval architect. Chestnut trees +hung over the walks built on the old town walls. In late May after rain +the sweet musty scent filled the lungs and nostrils, and sheets of +white and pink petals hid the asphalt. In summer the tiled roofs of the +old town were soft deep orange and red, speckled with lemon-coloured +lichens. In winter the snow drifted down the streets and formed a +tessellated pattern of white and black in the cobbled market-place. +The sound of footsteps echoed in the deserted streets. The clock bells +from the Norman tower, with its curious bulbous Dutch cupola, rang so +leisurely, marking a fabulous Time. + + * * * * * + +Said the gardener: + +“It’s a rum thing, Master George, them rabbits don’t drink, and they +makes water; and the chickens don’t make water, but they drinks it.” + +Insoluble problem, capricious decrees of Providence. + + * * * * * + +Confirmation classes. + +“You’ll have to go and see old Squish.” + +“What’s he say to you?” + +“Oh, he gives you a lot of jaw, and asks you if you know any smut.” + +In the School Chapel. Full-dress Preparation Class for Confirmation. +The Head in academic hood and surplice entered the pulpit. Whispers +sank to intimidated silence, dramatically prolonged by the hawk-faced +man silently bullying the rows of immature eyes. Then in slow, +deliberate, impressive tones: + +“Within ten years one half of you boys will be DEAD!” + +Moral: prepare to meet Thy God, and avoid smut. + +But did he know, that blind prophet? + +Was he inspired, that stately hypocrite? + +Like a moral vulture he leaned over and tortured his palpitating prey. +Motionless in body, they writhed within, as he painted dramatically +the penalties of Vice and Sin, drew pictures of Hell. But did he know? +Did he know the hell they were going to within ten years, did he know +_how_ soon most of their names would be on the Chapel wall? How he +must have enjoyed composing that inscription to those “who went forth +unfalteringly, and proudly laid down their lives for King and Country”! + + * * * * * + +One part of the mystery was called SMUT. If you were smutty you went +mad and had to go into a lunatic asylum. Or you “contracted a loathsome +disease” and your nose fell off. + +The pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts +of the flesh. So it was wicked, like being smutty, to feel happy when +you looked at things and read Keats? Perhaps you went mad that way too +and your eyes fell out? + +“That’s what makes them lay eggs,” said the little girl, swinging her +long golden hair and laughing, as the cock leaped on a hen. + +O dreadful, O wicked little girl, you’re talking smut to me. You’ll go +mad, I shall go mad, our noses will drop off. O please don’t talk like +that, please, please. + + * * * * * + +From fornication and all other deadly sins.... What is fornication? +Have I committed fornication? Is that the holy word for smut? Why don’t +they tell me what it means, why is it “the foulest thing a decent man +can commit”? When that thing happened in the night it must have been +fornication; I shall go mad and my nose will drop off. + +Hymn Number.... A few more years shall roll. + +How wicked I must be. + +Are there two religions? A few more years shall roll, in ten years +half of you boys will be dead. Smut, nose dropping off, fornication and +all other deadly sins. Oh, wash me in Thy Precious Blood, and take my +sins away. Blood, Smut. And then the other—a draught of vintage that +has been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, tasting of Flora +and the country green, dance and Provençal song, and sun-burned mirth? +Listening to the sound of the wind as you fell asleep; watching the +blue butterflies and the Small Coppers hovering and settling on the +great scented lavender bush; taking off your clothes and letting your +body slide into a cool deep clear rock-pool, while the grey kittiwakes +clamoured round the sun-white cliffs and the scent of sea-weeds and +salt water filled you; watching the sun go down and trying to write +something of what it made you feel, like Keats; getting up very early +in the morning and riding out along the white empty lanes on your +bicycle; wanting to be alone and think about things and feeling strange +and happy and ecstatic—was that another religion? Or was that all Smut +and Sin? Best not speak of it, best keep it all hidden. I can’t help +it, if it is Smut and Sin. Is “Romeo and Juliet” smut? It’s in the same +book where you do parsing and analysis out of “King John.” Seize on the +white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand and steal immortal blessing from her +lips.... + + * * * * * + +But more than words about things were things themselves. You looked and +looked at them, and then you wanted to put down what they looked like, +re-arrange them in patterns. In the drawing class they made you look +at a dirty whitish cube, cylinder and cone, and you drew and re-drew +hard outlines which weren’t there. But for yourself you wanted to get +the colours of things and how they faded into each other and how they +formed themselves—or did you form them?—into exciting patterns. It +was so much more fun to paint things than even to read what Keats and +Shakespeare thought about them. George spent all his pocket-money on +paints and drawing pencils and sketch-books and oil sketching paper and +water-colour blocks. For a long time he hadn’t much to look at, even +in reproductions. He had Cruikshank and Quiz illustrations, which he +didn’t much care for; and a reproduction of a Bougereau which he hated, +and two Rossetti pictures which he rather liked, and a catalogue of the +Tate Collection which gave him photographs of a great many horrible +Watts and Frank Dicksees. Best of all, he liked an album of coloured +reproductions of Turner’s water-colours. Then, one spring, George +Augustus took him to Paris for a few days. They did an “educative” +visit to the Louvre, and George simply leaped at the Italians and +became very pre-Raphaelite and adored the Primitives. He was quite +feverish for weeks after he got back, unable to talk of anything else. +Isabel was worried about him—it was so _unboyish_, so, well, really, +quite _unhealthy_, all this silly craze for pictures, and spending +hours and hours crouching over paint-blocks, instead of being in the +fresh air. So much nicer for the boy to be manly. Wasn’t he old enough +to have a gun license and learn to kill things? + +So George had a gun license, and went out every morning in the autumn +shooting. He killed several plovers and a wood pigeon. Then one frosty +November morning he fired into a flock of plovers, killed one, and +wounded another, which fell down on the crisp grass with such a wail +of despair. “If you wing a bird, pick it up and wring its neck,” he +had been told. He picked up the struggling, heaving little mass of +feathers, and with infinite repugnance and shut eyes, tried to wring +its neck. The bird struggled and squawked. George wrung harder and +convulsively—and the whole head came off in his hand. The shock was +unspeakable. He left the wretched body, and hurried home shuddering. +Never again, never, never again would he kill things. He oiled his gun +dutifully, as he had been told to do, put it away, and never touched it +again. At nights he was haunted by the plover’s wail and by the ghastly +sight of the headless bleeding bird’s body. In the daytime he thought +of them. He could forget them when he went out and sketched the calm +trees and fields, or tried to design in his tranquil room. He plunged +more deeply into painting than ever, and thus ended one of the many +attempts to “make a man” of George Winterbourne. + + * * * * * + +The business of “making a man” of him was pursued at School, but with +little more success, even with the aid of compulsion. + +“The type of boy we aim at turning out,” the Head used to say to +impressed parents, “is a thoroughly manly fellow. We prepare for the +Universities, of course, but our pride is in our excellent Sports +Record. There is an O.T.C., organized by Sergeant-Major Brown (who +served throughout the South African War), and officered by the masters +who have been trained in the Militia. Every boy must undergo six months +training, and is then competent to take up arms for his Country in an +emergency.” + +The parents murmured polite approval, though rather tender mothers +hoped the discipline was not too strict and “the guns not too heavy for +young arms.” The Head was contemptuously and urbanely reassuring. On +such occasions he invariably quoted those stirring and indeed immortal +lines of Rudyard Kipling, which end up “you’ll be a man, my son.” It is +_so_ important to know how to kill. Indeed, unless you know how to kill +you cannot possibly be a Man, still less a Gentleman. + + * * * * * + +“The O.T.C. will parade in the Gymnasium for drill and instruction at +twelve. Those who are excused, will take Geography under Mr. Hobbs in +Room 14.” + +George hated the idea of the O.T.C.—he didn’t quite know why—but he +somehow didn’t want to learn to kill and be a thoroughly manly fellow. +Also, he resented being ordered about. Why should one be ordered about +by thoroughly manly fellows whom one hates and despises? But then, as +a very worthy and thoroughly manly fellow (who spent the War years in +the Intelligence Department of the War Office, censoring letters) said +of George many years later: “What Winterbourne needs is discipline, +_Discipline_. He is far too self-willed and independent. The Army will +make a Man of him.” Alas, it made a corpse of him. But then, as we all +know, there is no price too high to pay for the privilege of being made +a thoroughly manly fellow. + +So George, feeling immeasurably guilty, but immeasurably repelled, +sneaked into the Geography class, instead of parading like a thoroughly +manly fellow in embryo. In ten minutes a virtuous-looking but rather +sodomitical prefect appeared: + +“Captain James’s compliments, Sir, and is Winterbourne here?” + +As George was walked over to the Gymnasium by the innocent-looking, +rather sodomitical but thoroughly manly prefect, the latter said: + +“Why couldn’t you do what you’re told, you filthy little sneak, instead +of having to be ignominiously _fetched?_” + +George made no answer. He just went hard and obstinate, +hate-obstinate, inside. He was so clumsy and so bored—in spite of +infinite manly bullyings—that the O.T.C. was very glad indeed to +send him back to the Geography class after a few drills. He just went +hate-obstinate, and obeyed with sullen hate-obstinate docility. He +didn’t disobey, but he didn’t really obey, not with anything inside +him. He was just passive, and they could do nothing with him. + +He wrote a great many impositions that term and lost a number of his +precious half holidays, the hours when he could sketch and paint +and think about things. But they didn’t get at the inside vitality. +It retreated behind another wall or two, threw up more sullen +hate-obstinate walls, but it was there all right. It might be all Smut +and Sin, but if it was, well, Smutty and Sinful he would be. Only he +wouldn’t say “turd” and “talk smut” with the others, and he kicked +out fiercely when any of the innocent-looking, rather sodomitical +prefects tried to put their arms round him or make him a “case.” He +just wouldn’t have it. He was more than hate-obstinate then, and +blazed into fearful white rages, which left him trembling for hours, +unable even to hold a pen. Consequently, the Prefects reported that +Winterbourne had “gone smutty” and was injuring his health, and he was +“interviewed” by his House Master and the Head—but he baffled them +with the hate-obstinate silence, and the inner exultation he felt in +being Sinful and Smutty in his own way, along with Keats and Turner and +Shakespeare. + +The prefects gave him a good many “prefects’ lickings” on various +pretexts, but they never made him cry even, let alone break down the +wall between his inner aliveness and their thorough manliness. + +He got a very bad report that term, and no remove. For which he was +duly lectured and reprimanded. As the bullyingly urbane Head reproved, +did he know that the sullen, rather hard-faced boy in front of him +was not listening, was silently reciting to himself the Ode to a +Nightingale, as a kind of inner Declaration of Independence? “Magic +casements”—that was when you opened the window wide at sunset to +listen to the birds, or at night-time to look at the stars, or first +thing in the morning to smell the fresh sunlight and watch the leaves +glittering. + +“If you go on like this, Winterbourne, you will disgrace yourself, your +parents, your House and your School. You take little or no interest in +the School life, and your Games record is abominable. Your set-captain +tells me that you have cut Games ten times this term, and your Form +Master reports that you have over a thousand lines of impositions yet +to work off. Your conduct with regard to the O.T.C. was contemptible +and unmanly to a degree we have never experienced in _this_ School. I +am also told that you are ruining your health with secret abominable +practices against which I warned you—unavailingly I fear—at the time +I endeavoured to prepare you for Confirmation and Holy Communion. I +notice that you have only once taken Communion since your Confirmation, +although more than six months have passed. What you do when you cut +Games and go running off to your home, I do not know. It cannot be +anything good.” (Magic casements, opening on the foam—) “It would pain +me to have to ask your parents to remove you from the School, but we +want no wasters and sneaks here. Most, indeed all, your fellow boys +are fine manly fellows; and you have the excellent example of your +House Prefects before you. Why can you not imitate them? What nonsense +have you got into your head? Speak out, and tell me plainly. Have you +entangled yourself in any way?” + +No answer. + +“What do you do in your spare time?” + +No answer. + +“Your obstinate silence gives me the right to suspect the worst. +_What_ you do I can imagine, but prefer not to mention. Now, for the +last time, will you speak out honourably and manfully, and tell me what +it is you do that makes you neglect your work and Games and makes you +conspicuous in the School for sullen and obstinate behaviour?” + +No answer. + +“Very well. You will receive twelve strokes from the birch. Bend over.” + +George’s face quivered, but he had not shed a tear or made a sound, as +he turned silently to go. + +“Stop. Kneel down at that chair, and we will pray together that this +lesson may be of service to you, and that you may conquer your evil +habits. Let us together pray GOD that He will have Mercy upon you, and +make you into a really manly fellow.” + +They prayed. + +Or rather the Head prayed, and George remained silent. He did not even +say “Amen.” + + * * * * * + +After that the School gave him up and let him drift. He was supposed +to be dull-minded as well as obstinate and unmanly, and was allowed +to vegetate vaguely about the Lower Fifth. Maybe he picked up more +even of the little they had to teach than they suspected. But as +the silent, rather white-faced, rather worried-looking boy went +mechanically through the day’s routine, hung about in corridors, moved +from classroom to classroom, he was busy enough inside, building up +a life of his own. George went at George Augustus’s books with the +energy of a fierce physical hunger. He once showed me a list in an old +notebook of the books he had read before he was sixteen. Among other +things he had raced through most of the poets from Chaucer onwards. It +was not the amount that he read which mattered, but the way in which +he read. Having no single person to talk to openly, no one to whom he +could reveal himself, no one from whom he could learn what he wanted to +know, he was perforce thrust back upon books. The English poets and the +foreign painters were his only real friends. They were his interpreters +of the mystery, the defenders of the inner vitality which he was +fighting unconsciously to save. Naturally, the School was against him. +They set out to produce “a type of thoroughly manly fellow,” a “type” +which unhesitatingly accepted the prejudices, the “code” put before it, +docilely conformed to a set of rules. George dumbly claimed to think +for himself, above all to _be_ himself. The “others” were good enough +fellows, no doubt, but they really had no selves to _be_. They hadn’t +the flame. The things which to George were the very _cor cordium_ of +life meant nothing to them, simply passed them by. They wanted to be +approved and be healthy barbarians, cultivating a little smut on the +sly, and finally dropping into some convenient post in life where the +“thoroughly manly fellow” was appreciated—mostly one must admit, +minor and unpleasant and not very remunerative posts in unhealthy +colonies. The Empire’s backbone. George, though he didn’t realize it +then, wasn’t going to be a bit of any damned Empire’s backbone, still +less part of its kicked backside. He didn’t mind going to hell, and +disgracing himself and his parents and his House and The School, if +only he could go to hell in his own way. That’s what they couldn’t +stand—the obstinate, passive refusal to accept their prejudices, to +conform to their minor-gentry, kicked-backside-of-the-Empire code. They +worried him, they bullied him, they frightened him with cock-and-bull +yarns about Smut and noses dropping off; but they didn’t get him. I +wish he hadn’t been worried and bullied to death by those two women. I +wish he hadn’t stood up to that machine-gun just one week before the +Torture ended. After he had fought the swine (i.e., the British ones) +so gallantly for so many years. If only he had hung on a little longer, +and come back, and done what he wanted to do! He could have done it, he +could have “got there”; and then even “The School” would have fawned on +him. Bloody fool. Couldn’t he see that we have only one duty—to hang +on, and smash the swine? + + * * * * * + +Once, only once, he nearly gave himself away to The School. At the +end of the examinations, as a sort of afterthought, there was an +English Essay. One of the subjects was: What do you want to do in Life? +George’s enthusiasm got the better of his caution, and he wrote a crude +enthusiastic school-boyish rhapsody, laying down an immense programme +of life, from travel to astronomy, with the beloved Painting as the end +and crown of all. Needless to say he did not get the Prize or even any +honourable mention. But, to his amazement, on the last day of term, as +they went to evening Chapel, the Head strolled up, put an arm round his +shoulders, and pointing to the planet Venus, said: + +“Do you know what that star is, my boy?” + +“No, Sir.” + +“That is Sirius, a gigantic sun, many millions of miles distant from +us.” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +And then the conversation languished. The Head removed his arm, +and they entered the Chapel. The last hymn was “Onward, Christian +Soldiers,” because ten of the senior boys were going to Sandhurst. + +George did not join actively in the service. + + * * * * * + +The summer holidays were the only part of the year when he was really +happy. + + * * * * * + +The country inland from Martin’s Point is rather barren. But, like all +the non-industrialized parts of England it has a character, very shy +like a little silvery-grey old lady, which acts gently but in the end +rather strongly on the mind. It was the edge of one of the long chalk +downs of England, with salt marshes to left and right, and fertile +clay land far behind—too far for George to reach even on a bicycle. +In detail it seemed colourless and commonplace. From the crest of one +of the high ridges, it had a kind of silvery-grey, very old quality, +with its great bare treeless fields making faint chequer-patterns on +the long gentle slopes, with always a fringe of silvery-grey sea in +the far distance. The chalk was ridged in long parallels, like the +swell of some gigantic ocean arrested in rock. The ridges became more +abrupt and violent near the coast, and ended in a long irregular wall +of silvery-grey chalk, poised like a huge wave of rock-foam forever +motionless and forever silent, while forever at its base lapped the +petty waves of the mobile and whispering sea. The sheep-and-wind-nipped +turf of the downs grew dwarf bee-orchis, blue-purple bugloss, tall +ragged knapweed and frail hare-bells. In the valleys were tall thistles +and fox-gloves. Certain nooks were curiously rich with wildflowers +mixed with deep rich-red clover and marguerite-daisies. In the summer +these little flowery patches—so precious and conspicuous in the +surrounding barrenness—were a flicker of butterfly wings—the creamy +Marbled Whites, electric blue of the Chakhill Blue, sky-blue of the +Common and Holly Blue, rich tawny of the Fritilliaries, metallic gleam +of the Coppers, cool drab of the Meadow Browns. The Peacock, the Red +Admiral, the Painted Lady, the Tortoiseshell wheeled over the nettles +and thistles, poised on the flowers, fanning their rich mottled wings. +In a certain field in August you could find Clouded Yellows rapidly +moving in little curves and irregular dashes of flight over swaying +red-purple clover, which seemed to drift like a sea as the wind ran +over it. + +Yet with all this colour the “feel” of the land was silvery-grey. +The thorn-bushes and the rare trees were bent at an angle under the +pressure of the South-West gales. The inland hamlets and farms huddled +down in the hollows behind a protecting wall of elms. They were humble, +unpretentious but authentic, like the lives of the shepherds and +ploughmen who lived in them. The three to ten miles which separated +them from the pretentious suburbanity of Martin’s Point might have +been three hundred, so unmoved, so untouched were they by its golf and +its idleness and tea-party scandals and even its increasing number of +“cars.” In hollows, too, crouched its low, flint-built Norman churches, +so unpretentious, for all the richness of dog-toothed porches and +Byzantine-looking tympanums and conventionalized satiric heads sneering +and gaping and grimacing from the string-courses. Hard satiric people +those Norman conquerors must have been—you can see the hard satiric +effigies of some of their descendants in the Temple Churche. They must +have crushed the Saxon shepherds and swineherds under their steel +gauntlets, smiling in a hard satiric way. And even their piety was hard +and satiric, if you can judge from the little flinty satiric churches +they scattered over the land. Then they must have pushed on westward to +richer lands, abandoning those barren downs and scanty fields to the +descendants of the oppressed Saxon. So the land seemed old; but the +hard satiric quality of the Normans only remained in odd nooks of their +churches—all the rest had grown gentle and silvery-grey, like a rather +sweet and gentle silvery-grey old lady. + + * * * * * + +All this George struggled to express with his +drawing-and-paint-blocks. He tried to absorb—and to some extent +did absorb—the peculiar quality of the country. He attempted it +all, from the twenty-mile sweeps of undulating Down fringed by the +grey-silver sea, to the church doors and little patient photographic, +semi-scientific painting of the flowers and butterflies. From the point +of view of a painter, he was always too literal, too topographical, +too minutely interested in detail. He saw the poetry of the land but +didn’t express it in form and colour. The old English landscape school +of 1770-1840 died long before Turner’s body reached St. Paul’s and +his money went into the pockets of the greedy English lawyers instead +of to the painters for whom he intended it. The impulse expired in +painstaking topography and sentimental prettiness. There wasn’t the +vitality, the capacity to struggle on, which you find in the best work +of painters like Friesz, Vlaminck and even Utrillo, who can find a new +sort of poetry in tossing trees or a white farmhouse or a _bistro_ in +the Paris suburbs. George, even at fifteen, knew what he wanted to say +in paint, but couldn’t say it. He could appreciate it in others, but he +hadn’t got the power of expression in him. + + * * * * * + +Hitherto George had been quite alone in his blind instinctive +struggle—the fight against the effort to force him into a mould, the +eager searching out for life and more life which would respond to +the spark of life within. Now, he began to find unexpected allies, +discovered at first almost with suspicion, then with immense happiness, +that he was not quite alone, that there were others who valued what he +valued. He discovered men’s friendship and the touch of girls’ lips and +hands. + +First came Mr. Barnaby Slush, at that time a “most famous novelist,” +who had hit the morbid-cretinish British taste with a sensational, +crude-Christian moral novel which sold millions of copies in a year +and is now forgotten, except that it probably lies embalmed somewhere +in the Tauchnitz collection, that mausoleum of unreadable works. Mr. +Slush was a bit of a boozer and highly delighted with his notoriety. +Still, he did occasionally look around him; he was not wholly blinkered +with prejudice and unheeding blankness like most of the middle-class +inhabitants of Martin’s Point. He noticed George, laughed at some of +the pert but pretty acute schoolboyish remarks George made and for +which he was invariably squelched, was “interested” in his passion for +painting and the persistence he gave to it. + +“There’s something in that boy of yours, Mrs. Winterbourne. He’s got a +mind. He’ll do something in the world.” + +“Oh, do you think so, Mr. Slush,”—Isabel, half-flattered, +half-bristling with horror and rage at the thought that George might +“have a mind”—“he’s just a healthy, happy schoolboy, and only thinks +of pleasing his Mummie.” + +“Umph,” said Mr. Slush. “Well, I’d like to do something for him. +There’s more in him than you think. _I_ believe there’s an artist in +him.” + +“If I thought that,” exclaimed Isabel viciously, “I’d flog him till +all such nonsense was flogged out of him.” + +Mr. Slush saw he was doing George more harm than good by this +well-meant effort, and was discreetly silent. However, he gave George +one or two books, and tried to talk to him on the side. But George was +still suspicious of all grown-ups, particularly those who came and +drank whiskey in the evening with George Augustus and Isabel. Besides +poor, flabby, drink-sodden, kindly Mr. Slush rather repelled his hard +intolerant youthfulness; and they got nowhere in particular. Still, +Mr. Slush was important to the extent that he prepared George to give +some confidence to others. He broke down the first outer wall built by +George against the world. The way in which Isabel got rid of Mr. Slush, +whose possible influence on George she instinctively suspected, was +rather amusing. George Augustus and Mr. Slush went to a Free Masons’ +dinner together. Now that Free Masonry had served its purpose, Isabel +was intensely jealous of its mysteries—poor mysteries!—which George +Augustus honourably refused to reveal to her, and she hated those +periodical dinners with a bitter hatred. That night there arose one of +the most terrific thunder storms which had ever been known in that part +of the country. For six hours forked and sheet lightning leaped and +stabbed at earth and sea from three sides of the horizon; crash after +crash of thunder broke over Martin’s Point and rumbled terrifically +against the cliffs, while desperate drenching sheets of rain beat +madly on roofs and windows and gushed wetly down the steep roads. It +was impossible for the men to get home. They remained—drinking a good +deal—at the hotel until nearly four, and then drove home sleepily and +merrily. Isabel put on her tragedy queen air, sat up all night, and +greeted George Augustus with horrid invective: + +“Think of poor Mrs. Slush out there in that lonely farm, and me and the +children crouching here in terror, while you men were guzzling, and +besotting yourselves with whiskey... et cetera, et cetera.” + +Poor George Augustus attempted a feeble defence—it was swept away. +Mr. Slush innocently walked over next day to see how things were +after the storm, was insulted, and driven from the house in amazed +indignation. He “put” Isabel a little vindictively “in his next novel,” +but as she said and said truly, he never “darkened their doors” again. + + * * * * * + +In one way George loved the grey sea and barrenness, in another way he +hated them. To get away to the lush inland country was a release, an +ecstasy, the more precious in that it happened so rarely. When he was +a small child, a maid-servant took him “down home” to the hop-picking. +Confused and fantastic memories of it remained with him. He never +forgot the penetrating sunlight, the long dusty ride in the horse-bus, +the sensation of hot sharp-scented shadow under the tall vines, the joy +of the great rustling heaps falling downward as the foreman cut the +strings, the tenderness of the rough women hop-pickers, the taste of +the smoky picnic tea and heavy soggy cake (so delicious!) they gave him. + +Later—in the fourteen-sixteen years—it was a joy to visit the +Hambles. They were retired professional people, who lived in a remote +country house among lush meadows and rich woods. Mr. Hamble was a +large, freckly man who collected insects, and was a skilled botanist; +and thus charmed that side of George. But the real delight was the lush +countryside—and Priscilla. Priscilla was the Hambles’ daughter, almost +exactly George’s age; and between those two was a curious, intense, +childish passion. She was very golden and pretty; much too pretty, for +it made her self-conscious and flirtatious. But the passion between +those two children was a genuine thing. A pity that this sort of +Daphnis and Chloe passion is not allowed free physical expression under +our puling obscene conventions. There was always something a little +frustrated in both George and Priscilla because the timidity and false +modesty imposed on them prevented the natural physical expression. For +quite three years George was under the influence of his passion for +Priscilla, never really forgot her, always in a dim, dumb, subconscious +way felt the frustration. Like all passions it was something fugitive, +the product of a phase, but it ought not to have been frustrated. It +was a pity they were so often separated, because that meant infinite +letter-writing; and so made him always tend to too much idealizing +and intellectualizing in love affairs. But when they were together it +was pure happiness. Priscilla was a very demure and charming little +mistress. They played all sorts of games with other children, and +went fishing in the brook, picked flowers in the rich water-meadows, +hunted bird-nests along the hedges. All these things, great fun in +themselves, were so much more fun because Priscilla was there, because +they held hands and kissed, and felt very serious, like real lovers. +Sometimes he dared to touch her childish breasts. And the feeling of +friendliness from the clasp of Priscilla’s hands, the pleasure of her +short childish kisses and sweet breath, the delicate texture of her +warm childish-swelling breasts, never quite left him; and to remember +Priscilla was like remembering a fragrant English garden. Like an +English garden, she was a little old-fashioned and self-consciously +comely, but she was so spring-like and golden. She was immensely +important to George. She was something he could love unreservedly, even +if it was only with the mawkish love of adolescence. But far more than +that temporary service she gave him the capacity to love women, saved +him from the latent homosexuality which lurks in so many Englishmen, +and makes them forever dissatisfied with their women. She revealed to +him—all unconsciously—the subtle inexhaustible joys of the tender +companionate woman’s body. Even then he felt the delicious contrast +between his male nervous muscled hands and her tender budding breasts, +opening flowers to be held so delicately and affectionately. And from +her too he learned that the most satisfactory loves are those which do +not last too long, those which are never made thorny with hate, and +drift gently into the past, leaving behind only a fragrance—not a +sting—of regret. His memories of Priscilla were few, but all roses.... + + * * * * * + +You see, they cannot really kill the spark if it is there, not with +all their bullyings and codes and prejudices and thorough manliness. +For, of course, they are not manly at all, they are merely puppets, +the products of the system—if it may be dignified by that word. +The truly manly ones are those who have the spark, and refuse to +let it be extinguished; those who know that the true values are the +vital values, not the £. s. d. and falling-into-a-good-post and the +kicked-backside-of-the-Empire values. George had already found a sort +of ally in poor Mr. Slush, and an exquisite child-passion in Priscilla. +But he needed men, too, and was lucky enough to find them. How can one +estimate what he owed to Dudley Pollak and to Donald and Tom Conington? + + * * * * * + +Dudley Pollak was a mysterious bird. He was a married man in the late +fifties, who had been to Cambridge, made the Grand Tour, lived in +Paris, Berlin and Italy, known numbers of fairly eminent people, owned +a large country house, appeared to have means, possessed very beautiful +furniture and all sorts of _objets d’art_, and was a cultivated man—in +most of which respects he differed exceedingly from the inhabitants of +Martin’s Point. Now, what do you suppose was the reason why Pollak and +Mrs. Pollak let their large house furnished, and spent several years +in a small cottage in a rather dreary village street a couple of miles +from Martin’s Point? George never knew, and nobody else ever knew. The +fantastic and scandalous theories evolved by Martin’s Point to explain +this mystery were amusing evidence of the vulgar stupidity of those who +formed them, and have no other interest. The Pollaks themselves said +that they had grown tired of their large house and that Mrs. Pollak +was weary of managing servants. So simple is the truth that this very +likely was the real explanation. At any rate, there they lived together +in their cottage, crowded with furniture and books, cooking their own +meals very often—they were both excellent cooks—and waited on by a +couple of servants who “lived out.” Now, although Pollak was forty +years older than George, he was in a sense the boy’s first real friend. +The Pollaks had no children of their own, which may go to explain this +odd but deep friendship. + +Pollak was a much wilier bird than poor old Slush. He sized Isabel +up very quickly and accurately, and just politely refused to let her +quarrel with him, and just as politely refused to receive her. But he +was so obviously a gentleman, so obviously a man of means, that no +reasonable objection could be made when he proposed to George Augustus +that “Georgie” should come to tea once a week and learn chess. Martin’s +Point was a very chess-y place; it was somehow a mark of respectability +there. Before this, George had gone to play chess with a very elderly +gentleman, who put so much of the few brains he had into that game that +he had none left for the preposterous poems he composed, or, indeed, +anything else. So every Wednesday George went to tea with the Pollaks. + +They always began, most honourably and scrupulously, with a game of +chess; and then they had tea; and then they talked. Although George +never suspected it until years afterwards, Pollak was subtly educating +him, at the same time that he tried to give him the kind of sympathy +he needed. Pollak had many volumes of Andersen’s photographs, which he +let George turn over while he talked negligently but shrewdly about +Italian architecture, styles of painters, Della Robbia work; and Mrs. +Pollak occasionally threw in some little anecdote about travel. By the +example of his own rather fastidious manners he corrected schoolboy +uncouthnesses. He somehow got George riding lessons, for in Pollak’s +days horse-riding was an indispensable accomplishment. Pollak always +worked on the boy by suggestion and example, never by exhortation or +patronage. He always assumed that George knew what he negligently but +accurately told him. The manner in which he made George learn French +was characteristic of his methods. One afternoon Pollak told a number +of amusing stories about his young days in Paris, while George was +looking through a volume of autographed letters of Napoleon, Talleyrand +and other Frenchmen—which, of course, he could not read. Next week, +when George arrived he found Pollak reading. + +“Hullo, Georgie, how are you? Just listen to this lovely thing I’ve +been reading, and tell me what you think of it.” + +And Pollak read, in the rather chanting voice he adopted in reading +poetry, André Chenier’s: “L’épi naissant murit, de la faux respecté.” +George had to confess shamefacedly that he hadn’t understood. Pollak +handed him the book, one of those charming large-type Didot volumes; +but André Chénier was too much for George’s public school French. + +“Oh, I _do_ wish I could read it properly,” said George. “How did you +learn French?” + +“I suppose I learned it in Paris. ’Tis pleasing to be schooled in a +strange tongue by female eyes and lips, you know. But you could learn +very soon if you really tried.” + +“But how? I’ve done French at school for ages, and I simply can’t read +it, though I’ve often tried.” + +“What you learn at school is only to handle the tools—you’ve got to +learn to use them for yourself. You take _Les Trois Mousquetaires_, +read straight through a few pages, marking the words you don’t know, +look them up, make lists of them, and try to remember them. Don’t +linger over them too much, but try and get interested in the story.” + +“But I’ve read _The Three Musketeers_ in English.” + +“Well, try _Vingt Ans Après_. You can have my copy and mark it.” + +“No, there’s a paper-backed one at home. I’ll use that.” + +In a fortnight George had skipped through the first volume of _Vingt +Ans Après_. In a month he could read simple French prose easily. Three +months later he was able to read “_La Jeune Captive_” aloud to Pollak, +who afterwards turned the talk on to Ronsard; and opened up yet another +vista. + + * * * * * + +The Coningtons were much younger men, the elder a young barrister. +They also talked to George about books and pictures, in which their +taste was more modern if less sure than Pollak’s urbane Second Empire +culture. But with them George learned companionship, the fun of +infinite, everlasting arguments about “life” and ideas, the fun of +making _mots_ and laughing freely. The Coningtons were both great +walkers. George, of course, had the middle class idea that five +miles was the limit of human capacity for walking. Like Pollak, the +Coningtons treated him as if he were a man, assumed also that he could +do what they were showing him how to do. So when Donald Conington came +down for a week-end, he assumed that George would want to walk. That +day’s walk had such an effect upon George that he could even remember +the date, 2nd of June. It was one of those soft cloudless days that do +sometimes happen in England, even in June. They set out from Hamborough +soon after breakfast and struck inland, going at a steady, even pace, +talking and laughing. Donald was in excellent form, cheery and amusing, +happy to be out of harness for a few hours. Four miles brought them +beyond the limits of George’s own wanderings, and after a couple of +hours’ tramp they suddenly came out on the crest of the last chalk +ridge and looked over a wide fertile plain of woodland and tilth and +hop-fields, all shimmering in the warm sunlight. The curious hooked +noses of oast-houses sniffed over the tops of soft round elm-clumps. +They could see three church spires and a dozen hamlets. The only sound +came from the larks high overhead. + +“God!” exclaimed Donald in his slightly theatrical way, “what a fair +prospect!” + +A fair prospect indeed, and an unforgettable moment when one comes +for the first time to the crest of a hill and looks over an unknown +country shimmering in the sun, with the white coiling English lanes +inviting exploration. Donald set off down the hill, singing lustily: +“O, Mistress mine, where art thou roaming?” George followed a little +hesitatingly. His legs were already rather tired, it was long past +eleven—how would they get back in time for lunch, and what would be +said if they were late? He mentioned his fears timidly to Donald. + +“What! Tired? Why, good God, man, we’ve only just started! We’ll push +on another four miles to Crockton, and have lunch in a pub. I told them +we shouldn’t be in until after tea.” + +The rest of the day passed for George in a kind of golden glory of +fatigue and exultation. His legs ached bitterly—although they only +walked about fifteen miles all told—but he was ashamed to confess his +tiredness to Donald, who seemed as fresh at the end of the day as when +he started. George came home with confused and happy memories—the +long talk and the friendly silences, the sun’s heat, a deer park and +Georgian red-brick mansion they stopped to look at, the thatched pub +at Crockton where he ate bread and cheese and pickles and drank his +first beer, the elaborately carved Norman church at Crockton. They sat +for half an hour after lunch in the churchyard, while Donald smoked +a pipe. A Red Admiral settled on a grey flat tombstone, speckled +with crinkly orange and flat grey-green lichens. They talked with +would-be profundity about how Plato had likened the Soul—Psyche—to +a butterfly, and about death, and how one couldn’t possibly accept +theology or the idea of personal immortality. But they were cheerful +about it—the only sensible time to discuss these agonizing problems +is after a pleasant meal accompanied with strong drink—and they felt +so well and cheery and animal-insouciant in the warm sunlight that +they didn’t really believe they would ever die. In that they showed +considerable wisdom; for you will remember that the wise Montaigne +spent the first half of his life preparing for death, and the latter +part in arguing that it is much wiser never to think about dying at +all—time enough to think of _that_ when it comes along. + +For Donald that was just a pleasant day, which very soon took its +place among the vague mists of half-memory. For George it was all +extraordinarily important. For the first time he felt and understood +companionship between men, the frank unsuspicious exchange of +goodwill and talk, the spontaneous collaboration of two natures. +That was really the most important gain. But he also discovered the +real meaning of travel. It sounds absurd to speak of a fifteen-mile +walk as “travel.” But you may go thousands of miles by train and +boat between one international hotel and another, and not have the +sensation of travelling at all. Travel means the consciousness of +adventure and exploration, the sense of covering the miles, the +ability to seize indefatigably upon every new or familiar source of +delight. Hence the horror of _tourism_, which is a conventionalizing, +a codification of adventure and exploration—which is absurd. +Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is +experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be +any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else—above all a +travel bureau—arrange everything beforehand? It isn’t seeing new and +beautiful things which matters, it’s seeing them for yourself. And if +you want the sensation of covering the miles, go on foot. Three hundred +miles on foot in three weeks will give you indefinitely more sense of +travel, show you infinitely more surprising and beautiful experiences, +than thirty thousand miles of mechanical transport. + + * * * * * + +George did not rest until he went on a real exploration walk. He +did this with Tom Conington, Donald’s younger brother—and that +walk also was unforgettable, though they were rained upon daily and +subsisted almost entirely upon eggs and bacon, which seems to be the +only food heard of in English country pubs. They took the train to +Corfe Castle, and spent a day in walking over to Swanage through the +half-moor, half-marsh country, with its heather and gorse and nodding +white cotton-grasses. Then they went along the coast to Kimmeridge and +Preston and Lulworth and Lyme Regis, sleeping in cottages and small +pubs. From Lyme Regis they turned inland, and went by way of Honiton, +Collumpton, Tavistock, to Dulverton and Porlock, along the north Devon +coast to Bideford, and back to South Molton, where they had to take +the train, since they had spent their money and had only enough to pay +their fares home. The whole walk lasted less than a fortnight, but it +seemed like two months. They had such a good time, jawing away as they +walked, singing out of tune, finding their way on maps, getting wet +through and drying themselves by tap-room fires, talking to every one, +farmer or labourer, who would talk to them, reading and smoking over +a pint of beer after supper. And always that sense of adventure, of +exploration, which urged them on every morning, even through mist and +rain, and made fatigue and bad inns and muddy roads all rather fun and +an experience. + +One gropes very much through all these “influences” and “scenes” and +fragmentary events in trying to form a picture of George in those +years. For example, I found the date of the Crockton walk and a few +disjointed notes about it on the back of a rough sketch of Crockton +church porch. And the itinerary of the walk with Tom Conington, with +a few comments, I found in the back of a volume of selected English +essays, which George presumably took with him on the walk. The heart of +another is indeed a dark forest, and however much I let my imagination +work over these fragments of his life, I find it hard to imagine him +at that time, still harder to imagine what was going on in his mind. I +imagine that he more or less adjusted himself to the public school and +home hostility, that, as time passed and he began to make friends, he +felt more confidence and happiness. Like most sensitive people he was +subject to moods, affected by the weather and the season of the year. +He could pass very rapidly from a mood of exuberant gaiety almost to +despair. A chance remark—as I myself found—was enough to effect that +unfortunate change. He had a habit always of implying more or less than +he said, of assuming that others would always jump with the implied, +not with the expressed, thought. Similarly, he always expected the same +sort of subtle obliquity of expression in others, and very seldom took +remarks at their face value. He could never be convinced or convince +himself that there were not implications under the most commonplace +remark. I suppose he had very early developed this habit of irony as a +protection and as a method of being scornful with seeming innocence. He +never got rid of it. + + * * * * * + +But for a time he was very happy. At home there was a kind of +truce—ominous had he only known—and he was left much to himself. +Priscilla awoke and satisfied the need for contact with the feminine, +fed the awakening sensuality. Then, when Priscilla somehow drifted +away, there was another, much slighter, more commonplace affair with +a girl named Maisie. She was a slightly coarse, dark type, a little +older than George and much more developed. They used to meet after dark +in the steep lanes of Martin’s Point, and kiss each other. George was +a little scared by the way she gobbled his mouth and pressed herself +against him; and then felt self-reproachful, thinking of Priscilla and +her delicate, English-garden fragrance. One night, Maisie drew them +along a different walk to a deserted part of the down, where a clump of +thick pines made a close shadow over coarse grass. They had to climb up +a steep hillside. + +“Oh, I’m tired,” said Maisie, “let’s sit down.” + +She lay down on the grass, and George lay beside her. He leaned over +her and felt the low warm mounds of her breasts through his thin summer +shirt. + +“The touch of your mouth is beautiful,” said George. “Honey and milk is +under her tongue.” + +He put the tip of his tongue between her moist lips, and she touched +it with hers. ************* ** *** ****** * *** ** ** *** *** **** ** +*** *** ** *** ****. ***** *** ****** *** *****, ******* * **** ** +****** ****. George stupidly wondered why, and kissed her more tenderly +and sensually. + +“Your lips,” he murmured, “your lips.” + +“But there must be something else,” she whispered back. “I want +something from you.” + +“What more can I give you? What could be more beautiful than your +kisses?” + +She lay passive and let him kiss her for a few minutes, and then sat up +abruptly. + +“I must go home.” + +“Oh, but why? We were so happy here, and it’s still early.” + +“Yes, but I promised mother I’d be home early to-night.” + +George walked back to the door of Maisie’s house, and wondered why her +good-night kiss was so untender, so perfunctory. + +A few nights later George went out—on the pretext of “mothing”—in +the hope of finding Maisie. As he came silently round a corner, he saw +about thirty yards ahead, in the dusk, Maisie walking away from him +with a young man of about twenty. His arm was round her waist, and her +head was resting on his shoulder as she used to rest it on George’s. It +is to be hoped that she got her “something else” from the young man. +George turned, and strolled home, looking up at the soft gentle stars, +and thinking hard. “Something else? Something else?” It was his first +intimation that women always want something else—and men too, men too. + + * * * * * + +When a great liner came round the Foreland, you ran to the telescope +to see whether it was a P. and O., a Red Star or a Hamburg-Amerika. You +soon got to recognize the majestic four-funnelled _Deutschland_ as she +moved rapidly up or down the Channel. The yellow-funnelled boats for +Ostend, the white-funnelled boats for Calais and Folkestone were daily +events, hardly to be noted—and yet how they seemed to lure one to that +unknown life across the narrow seas. On clear days you could see the +faint shining of the cliffs of France. On foggy nights, the prolonged +anapæst of the Foreland Lightship fog-horn answered the hoarse spondees +of the passing ships, groping their way up channel. Even on the most +rainy or most moonlit night, the flash of the lighthouse made dabs +of yellow light on the walls of George’s bedroom. There were no +nightingales at Martin’s Point, but morning and evening thrushes and +blackbirds. + +Hamborough was so different, lying off the chalk downs on the edge of +the salt marshes, the desolate, silent, unresponsive, salt marshes, +so gorgeous at sunset. The tidal river ran turbid and level with +its banks, or deep between walls of sinister mud. Little flocks of +fleet-winged grey-white birds—called “oxey-birds”—flickered rapidly +away in front of you on sickle-moon wings. A brown-sailed barge, far +inland, seemed to be gliding overland through the flat green-brown +marsh land. Behind, far across the flat desolate ex-sea-bottom ran the +old coast line, and on a bluff stood the solid ruins of a Roman fort. +“Pe-e-e-wit,” said the plunging plovers, “pee-e-ee-wit.” No other +sound. The white clouds, dappled English clouds, moved so silently over +the cool blue English skies; such faint blue, even on what the English +call a “hot” day. + +You went to the marshes by way of the Barbican, the Barbican +through which the old English Kings and knights had ridden with +their men-at-arms, when they made one of their innumerable descents +on more civilized France. There stood the mediæval Barbican, on the +verge of the commonplace little money-grubbing town, like a stranded +vestige from some geological past. What was the Barbican to early +twentieth-century Hamborough? An obstacle to the new motor road, whose +abolition was always being discussed in the Town Council, and whose +destruction was only postponed because the thickness of the walls made +it too expensive. On the other side you walked out into flat fertile +country, past almshouses, and the hoary stone-mullioned Elizabethan +Grammar School, over the level crossing, to Saxon Friedasburg, where +tradition said a temple to Freya had once stood. How silver-grey the +distant sea-fringe, how silver-grey the lines of rippling poplars! How +warmly golden, like Priscilla, the wheat fields under the late August +afternoon sunshine! + +These are the gods, the gods who must endure for ever, or as long +as man endures, the gods whom the perverse blood-lustful, torturing +Oriental myths cannot kill. Poseidon, the sea-god, who rules his +grey and white steeds, so gentle and playful in his rare moods of +tranquillity, so savage and destructive in his rage. With a clutch +of his hand he crumples the wooden beams or steel plates of the +wave-wanderers, with a thrust of his elbow he hurls them to destruction +on the hidden sand-bank or the ruthless sharp-toothed rocks. Selene, +the moon-goddess, who flies so swiftly through the breaking clouds of +the departing storm, or hangs so motionless white, so womanly waiting, +in the cobalt night-sky among her attendant stars. Phœbus, who scorns +these silvery-grey northern lands, but whose golden light is so welcome +when it comes. Demeter, who ripens the wheat and plumps the juicy fruit +and sets cordial bitterness in the hop and trails ragged flower and red +hip and haw along the hedges. And then the lesser humbler gods—must +there not be gods of sunrise and twilight, of bird-singing and midnight +silence, of ploughing and harvesting, of the shorn fields and the +young green springing grass, gods of lazy cattle and the uneasily +bleating flocks and of the wild creatures—(hedgehogs and squirrels +and rabbits, and their enemies the weasels)—tenuous Ariel demigods of +the trembling poplars and the many-coloured flowers and the speckled +fluttering butterflies? In ever increasing numbers the motor-cars +clattered and hammered along the dusty roads; the devils of golf leaped +on the acres and made them desolate; sport and journalism and gentility +made barren men’s lives. The gods shrank away, hid shyly in forgotten +nooks, lurked unsuspected behind bramble and thorn. Where were their +worshippers? Where were their altars? Rattle of the motors, black smoke +of the railways. One—perhaps only one—worshipper was left them. One +only saw the fleet limbs glancing through the tree-trunks, saw the +bright faun-eyes peering anxiously from behind the bushes. Hamadryads, +fauns, do not fly from me! I am not one of “them,” one of the perverse +life-torturers. I know you are there, come to me, and talk with me! +Stay with me, stay with me! + + * * * * * + +Then the blow fell. + + + + + [ V ] + + +What can have happened? What can have happened? My God, what can have +happened? + +Isabel paced up and down the room, uttering this and kindred +exclamations to nobody in particular, while an outwardly calm, inwardly +very much perturbed George silently echoed the question. George +Augustus had gone to London on his usual weekly trip, and as usual +George had met the six o’clock train. No George Augustus. He met the +seven-ten, the eighty-fifty, and the eleven-five, the last train: +and still no George Augustus. No telegram, no message. A feeling of +impending calamity hung over the house that night, and there was not +much sleep for Isabel and George. Next morning a long rambling letter, +emotional and vague, arrived from George Augustus. The gist was that he +was ruined, and in flight from his creditors. + +It was a bitter enough pill for George, bitterer still for Isabel. She +had schemed and boosted George Augustus for years, she thought they +were well off and getting better off. And she had taken pride in it +as her own work. She had George Augustus so much under her thumb that +whatever he did was through her influence. But the very perfection +of her system was its ruin. He was so afraid of her that he dared +not confess when a speculation went wrong. To keep up the standard +of expense, he began to mortgage; to redeem the situation he plunged +deeper into speculation and neglected his practice. Rumours began to +get about. Then suddenly he was taken with panic, and fled. Later +investigation showed that his affairs were not so compromised as he had +imagined; but the sudden mad flight ruined everything. In a day the +Winterbournes dropped from comparative affluence to comparative poverty. + +The effect on George was really rather disastrous. After the almost +sordid distress of his early adolescence, he had succeeded in saving +the spark, and had built up a life for himself, had created a positive +happiness. But all that rested, in fact, on the family money. The +distrust of himself and others which had gradually disappeared, the +sense of suspicion and frustration, came flooding back with renewed +bitterness. And the whole calamity was aggravated by circumstances of +peculiar and unnecessary suffering, which made distrust and bitterness +not unjustifiable. Demented apparently by that madness which afflicts +those whom the gods wish to destroy, George Augustus had “had a little +talk” on the subject of a career with the boy not three months before, +when he must have known he was hopelessly involved. + +“Now, Georgie, you have only a few months longer, and you will be +leaving school. You must think of a career in life. Have you thought +about it?” + +“Yes, father.” + +“That’s right. And what career do you want to take up?” + +“I want to be a painter.” + +“I rather expected you’d say that. But you must remember that you can +hardly expect to make money by painting. Even if you have the talent, +which I’m sure you have, it takes many years to establish a reputation, +and still more years before you can hope to make an adequate income.” + +“Yes, I know that. But I’m convinced that if I had a small income and +could do what I wanted, I should be far happier than if I made a great +deal of money doing what I hated.” + +“Well, my boy, I’m really rather glad that you don’t take the purely +money point of view. But think it over. If you take your examinations +and qualify, there is a regularly established practice in which you can +take your place as my partner and, in due course as my successor. Think +it over for a few months. And if you finally decide to take the course +you mention, I daresay I can allow you two or three hundred a year, +which will be four hundred when I die.” + +Now all this was very fatherly and kindly and sensible. In an outburst +of quite genuine affection and gratitude George protested first of all +that he could not bear to think of his father’s dying and that it was +odious to think of profiting by his death. + +“But,” he added, “I am quite determined to be a painter in spite of +everything. If you can help me as you say, it will all be perfect.” + +Nothing more was said on the subject, but in the following weeks George +drew and painted hard, went twice to London to look at the galleries +and get materials, and thought he was making progress. But what strange +weakness permitted George Augustus to yield to the cruelty of raising +these hopes which he must have known would be speedily wrecked? The +thought of this was constantly in George’s mind, as he moved about +silently, rather scared, in the morning hours following the receipt of +the letter. It was a problem he never solved, but the incident did not +increase his trust in the world or himself. + +Other incidents confirmed this mood. Both Isabel and George Augustus +rather pushed George forward to take the brunt of the calamity. +Isabel’s first suggestion to George was that he should go as a grocer’s +errand boy at three shillings a week, a proposition which George +indignantly and properly rejected. Whereupon she called him a parasite +and a graceless spendthrift. Probably the suggestion was only hysteria, +but it hit hard and rankled. Then, it was George do this, and George +do that. It was George who had to interview insolent tradesmen and +creditors, and plead for further credit and “time.” It was George who +recovered £90 in gold which had been stolen by the office boy, and +was refunded. It was George who was sent to persuade his father to +come back and face out the storm. It was George who was made to go and +collect rents from suspicious and uneasy tenants. It was George who had +to see solicitors, and try to get a grasp of the situation. They even +accepted his offer of the few pounds (birthday gifts saved up) which +he had in the Post Office Savings Bank. Rather a shock for a boy not +seventeen, who had been living an _exalté_ inner life, and who had been +led to suppose that his material future was assured. It is not wholly +surprising that he was very unhappy, a bit resentful, and that his +mistrust became permanent, his modesty, diffidence. + + * * * * * + +Things went on in this joyless way for about a year. “Disgrace” +was avoided, but it was obvious that the Winterbourne opulence was +gone, and George Augustus had lost his nerve. It was from this period +that the beginnings of his subsequent conversion dated. In defeat he +returned to the beliefs of childhood, but some latent unrecognized +hostility to the influence of dear Mamma finally led him to the form +of Christianity most opposed to hers. As for George, he brooded a +great deal and oscillated between moods of hope and exultation and +moods of profound depression. They moved nearer to London, and he +tried, with very little success, to sell some of his paintings. They +were too ambitious and too youthful, with no commercial value. He was +all the time uneasily conscious that he ought to “get out” and that +his family were anxious for him to “do something.” Kind friends wrote +proposing the most dreary and humiliating jobs they could think of. +Even Priscilla—a bitter blow—thought that “George should do something +_at once_, and in a few years might be earning two pounds a week as +a clerk.” Then George made the acquaintance of a journalist, a very +uneducated but extremely kindly and good-natured man. Thomas had some +sort of sub-editorship in Fleet Street, and generously offered to allow +George to do some minor reporting for him, an offer which he jumped +at. George did his first job—which was passed—and returned home, +naturally very late, in a glow of virtuous exultation, thinking how +he would surprise his parents next morning with the news, like a good +little boy in a story-book. The surprise, however, was his. He was met +at the door by an angry Isabel, who, without awaiting his explanation, +demanded to know what he meant by coming home at that hour and accused +him of “going with a vile woman.” George was too disgusted to make any +reply, and went to bed. Next morning there was a glorious row, in which +Isabel played the part of a broken-hearted mother and George Augustus +came out very strong as a _père noble_ of the Surrey melodrama brand. +George was upset, but his contempt kept him cool. George Augustus was +perorating: + +“If you continue in this way you will break your mother’s heart!” + +It was so ludicrous—poor old George Augustus—that George couldn’t +help laughing. George Augustus raised his hand in a noble gesture of +paternal malediction: + +“Leave this house! And do not return to it until you have learned to +apologize for your behaviour.” + +“You mean it?” + +“I solemnly mean it.” + +“Right.” + +George went straight upstairs and packed his few clothes in a suitcase, +asked if he might have the volume of Keats, and left in half an +hour—with elevenpence in his pocket, humming: + +“Now of my three score years and ten, twenty will not come again.” + + * * * * * + +So that was that. + + + + + PART TWO + + _ANDANTE CANTABILE_ + + + + + _ANDANTE CANTABILE_ + + + + + [ I ] + + +Bank pass-books and private account-books are revealing documents, +strangely neglected by biographers. One of the most useful things to +know about any hero is the extent of his income, whether earned or +unearned, whether crescendo or diminuendo. Complicated _états d’âme_ +are the luxury of leisured opulence. Those who have to earn their +living must accept Appearances as Reality, and have little time for +metaphysical woes and passions. I once thought of beginning this +section with an accurate facsimile of George’s private account and +pass books. But that would be _vérisme_. It is enough to say that his +unearned income was nil, and his earned income small but crescendo. +Like most people who are too high-spirited to work for stated hours at +a weekly wage, he drifted into journalism, which may be briefly but +accurately defined as the most degrading form of that most degrading +vice, mental prostitution. Its resemblance to the less reprehensible +form is striking. Only the more fashionable cocottes of the dual trade +make a reasonable income. The similarity between the conditions of +the two parallel prostitutions becomes still more remarkable when you +reflect that on the physical side you pretend to be a milliner, or a +masseuse, or a clergyman’s daughter, or a lady of quality, or even a +lady journalist in need of a little aid for which you are prepared to +make suitable acknowledgment; and on the mental side you pretend to be +a poet, or an expert in something, or a lady of quality, or a duke. +Both require suppleness in a supreme degree, and in both the fatal +handicaps are honesty, modesty and independence. + +All of which George discovered very rapidly; and acted accordingly. +But his powers of simulation were inadequate, and consequently he +failed at all times to conceal the fact that he possessed some +knowledge and beliefs, and held to them. This, of course, for a long +time prevented his obtaining work from any but crank periodicals, of +which London before the war possessed about three, which believed in +allowing contributors to say what they thought. Needless to say, they +have since perished; and London journalism is now one compact sun of +sweetness and light. If this, or indeed anything, much mattered, one +might be tempted to deplore it. + +In the course of his _naif_ peregrinations George became temporarily +acquainted with numerous personages, whom he classified as morons, +abject morons and queer-Dicks. The abject morons were those editors +and journalists who sincerely believed in the imbecilities they +perpetrated, virtuous apprentices gone to the devil, honest bootblacks +out of a job. The morons were those who knew better but pretended +not to, and who by long dabbling in pitch had become pitchy. The +queer-Dicks were more or less honest cranks, or at least possessed so +much vanity and obstinacy that they seemed honest. After a few vague +and awkward struggles, George found himself limited to the queer-Dicks. +Of these there were three, whom for convenience sake, I shall label +Shobbe, Bobbe and Tubbe. Mr. or Herr Shobbe ran a literary review, one +of those “advanced” reviews beloved by the English, which move rapidly +forward with a crab-like motion. Herr Shobbe was a very great man. +Comrade Bobbe ran a Socialist weekly which was subsidized by a demented +eugenist and a vegetarian Theosophist. Since Marxian economics, +eugenics, pure food and theosophy did not wholly fill its columns, +the organ of the intellectual and wage-weary worker permitted regular +comments on art and literature. And since none of the directors of the +journal knew anything whatever about these subjects, they occasionally +and by accident allowed them to be treated by some one with ideas and +enthusiasm. Comrade Bobbe was a very great man. As for Mr. Waldo Tubbe, +who hailed (why “hailed”?) from the Middle Western districts of the +United States, he was an exceedingly ardent and patriotic British Tory, +standing for Royalism in Art, Authority in Politics and Classicism in +Religion. Unfortunately, there was no dormant peerage in the family; +otherwise he would certainly have spent all his modest patrimony +in endeavouring to become Lord Tubbe. Since he was an unshakable +Anglo-Catholic there were no hopes of a Papal Countship; and Tory +governments are proverbially shabby in their treatment of even the most +distinguished among their intellectual supporters. Consequently, all +Mr. Waldo Tubbe could do in that line was to hint at his aristocratic +English ancestry, to use his (possibly authentic) coat-of-arms on his +cutlery, stationery, toilette articles and book-plates, and know only +the “best” people. How George ever got to know him is a mystery, still +more how he came to write for a periodical which once advertised that +its list of subscribers included four dukes, three marquesses and +eleven earls. The only explanation is that Mr. Tubbe’s Americanized +Toryism was a bit more lively than the native brand, or that he leaned +so very far to the extreme Right that without knowing it he sometimes +tumbled into the verge of the extreme Left. But, in any case, Mr. Waldo +Tubbe was also a very great man. + +Upon the charity of these three gentlemen our hero chiefly but +not extravagantly subsisted, skating indeed upon very thin ice in +his relations with them, and expending treasures of diplomacy and +dissimulation which might have been employed in the service of his +Country. It subsequently transpired (why “transpired”?) that his +Country did not need his brains, but his blood. + + * * * * * + +Sunday in London. In the City, nuts, bolts, infinite curious pieces +of odd metal, embedded in the black shiny roads, frozen rivers of ink, +may be examined without danger. The peace of commerce which passes all +desolation. Puritan fervour relapsed to negative depression. Gigantic +wings of Ennui folded irresistibly over millions. Vast trails of +automobiles hopelessly hooting to escape. Epic melancholy of deserted +side-streets where the rhythmic beat of a horse’s hoofs is an adagio +of despair. Horrors of Gunnersbury. The spleen of the railway line +between Turnham Green and Hammersmith, the villainous sordidness of +Raynes Park, the ennui which always vibrates with the waiting train at +Gloucester Road Station, emerge triumphant when the Lord is at rest and +possess the streets. The rain is one melancholy, and the sun another. +The supreme insult of pealing bells morning and evening. Dearly beloved +brethren, miserable sinners, stand up, stand up for Jesus. Who will +deliver us, who will deliver us from the Christians? O Lord Jesus, come +quickly, and get it over. + + * * * * * + +It was a merry Sunday evening of merry England in the month of March, +1912. After a long day of unremitting but not very remunerative toil, +George had gone to call on his friend, Mr. Frank Upjohn. The word +“friend” is here, as nearly always, inexact, if by friend is meant one +who feels for another a disinterested affection unaccompanied by sexual +desire. (Friendship accompanied by sexual desire is love, the phœnix +or unicorn of passions.) In the case of George and Mr. Upjohn there +was at least a truce to the instinctive hostility and grudging which +human beings almost invariably feel for one another. Ties of mutual +self-interest bound them. George made jokes and Mr. Upjohn laughed at +them: and vice versa. Mr. Upjohn desired to make George a disciple, and +George was not averse from making use of Mr. Upjohn. Mutual admiration, +implied if not expressed and perhaps not wholly insincere, enabled them +to form a small protective nucleus against the oceanic indifference of +mankind; and thus feel superior to it. They ate together, and even lent +each other small sums of money without security. The word “friend” is +therefore justified _à peu près_. + +Needless to say, Mr. Upjohn was a very great man. He was a Painter. +Since he was destitute of any intrinsic and spontaneous originality, he +strove much to be original, and invented a new school of painting every +season. He first created a sensation with his daring and brilliant +“Christ in a Bloomsbury Brothel,” which was denounced in no unmeasured +terms by the Press, ever tender for the Purity of Public Morals and the +posthumous reputation of Our Lord. “The Blessed Damozel in Hell” passed +almost unnoticed, when fortunately the model most unjustly obtained +an affiliation order against Mr. Upjohn, and thus drew attention to +a neglected masterpiece, which was immediately bought by a man who +had made a fortune in intimate rubber goods. Mr. Upjohn then became +aware of the existence of modern French art. One season he painted in +gorgeous Pointilliste blobs, the next in monotone Fauviste smears, then +in calamitous Futuriste accidents of form and colour. At this moment +he was just about to launch the Suprematist movement in painting, to +which he hoped to convert George, or at any rate to get him to write +an article about it. Suprematist painting, which has now unfortunately +gone out of fashion, was, as its name implies, the supreme point of +modern art. Mr. Upjohn produced two pictures in illustration (the word +is perhaps inaccurate) of his theories. One was a beautiful scarlet +whorl on a background of the purest flake white. The other at first +sight appeared to be a brood of bulbous yellow chickens, with thick +elongated necks, aimlessly scattered over a grey-green meadow; but +on closer inspection the chickens turned out to be conventionalized +phalluses. The first was called Decomposition-Cosmos, and the second +Op. 49. Piano. + +Mr. Upjohn turned on both electric lights in his studio for George to +study these interesting productions, at which our friend gazed with a +feeling of baffled perplexity and the agonized certainty that he would +have to say something about them, and that what he would say would +inevitably be wrong. Fortunately, Mr. Upjohn was extremely vain and +highly nervous. He stood behind George, coughing and jerking himself +about agitatedly: + +“What I mean to say is,” he said, puncturing his discourse with coughs, +“there you’ve got it.” + +“Yes, yes, of course.” + +“What I mean is, you’ve got precise expression of precise emotion.” + +“Just what I was going to say.” + +“You see, when you’ve got that, what I mean is, you’ve got something.” + +“Why, of course!” + +“You see, what I mean to say is, if you get two or three intelligent +people to _see_ the thing, then you’ve got it. I mean you won’t get +those damned blockheaded sons of bitches like Picasso and Augustus John +to see it, I mean, it simply smashes them, you see.” + +“Did you expect them to?” + +“You see, what you’ve got is complete originality _and_ The Tradition. +One doesn’t worry about the hacks, you see, but what I mean to say, one +does _mildly_ suppose Picasso had a few gleams of intelligence, but +what I mean is they won’t _take_ anything new.” + +“I get the originality, of course, but I admit I don’t quite see the +traditional side of the movement.” + +Mr. Upjohn sighed pettishly and waved his head from side to side in +commiserating contempt. + +“Of course, you _wouldn’t_. What intelligence you have was ruined +by your lack of education, and your native obtuseness makes you +instinctively prefer the academic. I mean, can’t you SEE that the +proportions of Decomposition-Cosmos are exactly those of the Canopic +vase in the Filangieri-Museum at Naples?” + +“How could I see that,” said George, rather annoyed, “since I’ve never +been to Naples?” + +“That’s what I mean to say,” exclaimed Mr. Upjohn triumphantly, “you +simply have no education _what-so-ever!_” + +“Well, but what about the other?” said George, desiring to be placable, +“is that in the Canopic vase tradition?” + +“Christ-in-petticoats, NO! I thought even you’d see _that_. What I mean +is, can’t you _see_ it?” + +“They might be free adaptations of Greek vase painting?” said George +tentatively, hoping to soothe this excitable and irritated genius. Mr. +Upjohn flung his palette knife on the floor. + +“You’re _too_ stupid, George. What I mean is the proportion and placing +and colour-values are exactly in the best tradition of American-Indian +blankets, and what I mean is, when you’ve got that, well, I mean, +you’ve got something!” + +“Of course, of course, it _was_ stupid of me not to see. Forgive me, +I’ve been working at hack articles all day, and my mind’s a bit muzzy.” + +“I mildly supposed so!” + +And Mr. Upjohn, with spasmodic movements, jerked the two easels round +to the wall. There was a short pause in the conversation. Mr. Upjohn +irritatedly cast himself at full length upon a sofa, and spasmodically +ate candied apricots. He placed them in his mouth with his forefinger +and thumb, holding his elbow at a right angle to his body, with his +chin far extended; and bit them savagely in half. George watched this +impressive and barbaric spectacle with the interest of one who at last +discovers the meaning of the mysterious rite of Urim and Thummim. A +timid effort at making conversation was repelled by Mr. Upjohn, with a +gesture which George interpreted as meaning that Mr. Upjohn required +complete silence to digest and sweeten with candied apricots the memory +of George’s treasonable obtuseness. Suddenly George started, for Mr. +Upjohn, after coughing once or twice, swung himself from his couch +with incredible swiftness, hawked vigorously, flung open a window with +unnecessary violence and spat voluminously into the street. He then +turned and said calmly: + +“You’d better come along to fat Shobbe’s.” + +George, who was young enough to enjoy going to miscellaneous parties, +gratefully acquiesced; and was still further gratified by being allowed +to witness the strange and complex ablutions performed by Mr. Upjohn +from a wash-basin startlingly concealed in a veneered mahogany tail-boy. + +Mr. Upjohn was evidently a very clean man, at least in those portions +of his body exposed to the public gaze. He washed and rinsed his +face thoroughly, brushed his teeth until George apprehended lest the +bristles be worn to the bone, gargled and spat freely. He soaped and +pumiced his hands, which were large, yellow and slightly spatulate; and +excavated his nails with singular industry and pertinacity. He then sat +down before a folding table-mirror in three parts, which reflected both +profiles as well as full-face and combed and brushed and re-brushed +and re-combed his coarse hay-like hair until it crackled with induced +electricity. When Mr. Upjohn judged that hygiene and beauty-culture +had received their full due, he arrayed himself in a clean collar, a +tie of remarkable lustre and size, and a narrow-waisted rather long +coat which, taken in conjunction with the worn but elegant peg-top +trousers he had on, gave him a pleasantly rake-helly and Regency look. +This singular scene, which occupied the better part of an hour, was +conducted by Mr. Upjohn with great gravity, varied by the emission of a +singular and discordant chant or hum, and wild petulant oaths whenever +any object of the toilet or of his apparel did not instantly present +itself to his hand. Oddly enough, Mr. Upjohn was not a sodomist. He was +a professedly ardent admirer of what our ignorant forefathers called +the soft sex. Mr. Upjohn often asserted that after the immense toils of +Suprematist painting nothing could rest him but the presence of several +beautiful women. While gallantly and probably necessarily discreet as +to his conquests, he was always prepared to talk about love, and to +give subtle erotic advice, which led any man who had actually lain with +a woman to suspect that Mr. Upjohn was at best a fumbler and probably +still a virgin. + +Mr. Upjohn then endued a very Regency thin grey overcoat, stuck a long +ebony cane with no handle under his left arm-pit, tossed a soft grey +hat rakishly on to his hair, and made for the door. George followed, +half-impressed, half-amused by this childish swagger and self-conscious +bounce. + + * * * * * + +In the street the Sabbath ennui of London emerged from its lair like +a large dull grey octopus, and shot stealthy feelers of depression at +them. Mr. Upjohn, safe as Achilles in the Stygian dip of his conceit, +strode along energetically with an inward feeling that he had gone one +better on James McNeill Whistler. The boredom of Mr. Upjohn came from +within, not from without. He was so absorbed in Mr. Upjohn that he +rarely noticed what was going on about him. + +George fought at the monster and plunged desperately into talk. + +“What about this coal strike? Will it ruin the country as the papers +say? Isn’t it a foolish thing on both sides?” + +This strike was George’s first introduction to the reality of the +“social problem” and the bitter class hatred which smoulders in England +and at times bursts into fierce crises of hatred, restrained only +by that mingling of fear and “decency” which composes the servile +character of the British working man. + +“Well, what I mean to say is,” said Mr. Upjohn, who very rarely managed +to say what he meant but always meant to say something original and +startling, “it ain’t our affair. But what I mean is, if the miners get +more money it’ll be all the better for us. They’re more likely to buy +our pictures than sons of bitches like Mond and old Asquith.” + +George was a bit staggered at this. In the first place, he had been +looking at the problem from a national, not a personal, point of view. +And, in the second place, he knew just a little about working men and +their conditions. He could not see how five shillings a week more would +convert the miners to collecting the Suprematist school of painting, +or make them abandon their cultivated amusements of coursing, pigeon +flying, gambling, wife-beating, and drinking. But Mr. Upjohn delivered +his _obiter dicta_ with so much aplomb that a boy of twenty might be +excused for failing to see their complete absurdity. + + * * * * * + +They were walking up Church Street, Kensington, that dismal +communication trench which links the support line of Kensington High +Street with the front line of Notting Hill Gate. How curious are +cities, with their intricate trench systems and perpetual warfare, +concealed but as deadly as the open warfare of armies! We live in +trenches, with flat revetments of house-fronts as parapet and parados. +The warfare goes on behind the house-fronts—wives with husbands, +children with parents, employers with employed, tradesmen with +tradesmen, banker with lawyer, and the triumphal doctor rooting out +life’s casualties. Desperate warfare—for what? Money as the symbol +of power; power as the symbol or affirmation of existence. Throbbing +warfare of men’s cities! As fierce and implacable and concealed as the +desperate warfare of plants and the hidden carnage of animals. We walk +up Church Street. Up the communication trench. We cannot see “over the +top,” have no vista of the immense No-Man’s Land of London’s roofs. +We cannot pierce through the house-fronts. What is going on behind +those dingy unpierceable house-fronts? What tortures, what contests, +what incests, what cruelties, what sacrifice, what horror, what sordid +emptiness? We cannot pierce through the pavement and Belgian blocks, +see the subterranean veins of electric cables, the arteries of gas and +water mains, the viscera of underground railways. We cannot feel the +water filtering through London clay, do not perceive the relics of +ruined Londons waiting for archæologists from the antipodes, do not +see, far, far down, the fossillised bones of extinct animals and their +coprolites. Here in Notting Hill, the sabre-toothed tiger roared and +savagely devoured its victims, the huge-horned deer darted in terror; +wolves howled; the brown bear preyed; overhead by day screamed eagles +and by night flitted huge bats. Mysterious forest murmurs, abrupt yells +and threatening growls, and the amorous hatred of female beasts, were +vocal when the Channel was the Rhine’s estuary. + +“Time passes,” said George. “What do we know of Time? Prehistoric +beasts, like the ichthyosaurus and Queen Victoria, have laired and +copulated and brought forth....” + +A motor-bus roared by, like a fabulous noisy red ox with fiery eyes and +a luminous interior, quenching his words. + +“Eh?” said Mr. Upjohn. “*****!” + +“Now, look at these simian bipeds,” George pursued, pointing to an +inoffensive pair of lovers and a suspicious cop, “more foul, more +deadly, more incestuously blood-lustful....” + +“You see, what I mean is, nothing matters to these people but our +conversation.... Now, what I mean is, you get fat Shobbe to let you +write an article on me and Suprematism.” + +“We should go to the Zoo more often, and watch the monkeys. The +chimpanzee leaps with the dexterity of a politician. The Irish-looking +ourang smokes his pipe as placidly as a Camden Town murderer. The +purple-bottomed mandrils on heat will initiate you into love. And +the perpetual chatter of the small monkeys—how like ourselves! What +ecstatic clicking about nothing! Go to the ape, thou poet.” + +Mr. Upjohn laughed abruptly and spat with a raucous cough: + +“An old idea, but what’s it got to do with _le mouvement?_ Still, what +I mean is, I might do something with it....” + +Poor old George! He was a bloody fool. He never learned how fatally +unwise it is to express any sort of an idea to a brother—still less to +a sister—artist. + +Mr. Upjohn discoursed on Suprematism and himself. + +At Notting Hill Gate, George halted. The Sabbath ennui shot its +tentacles at him, and enlaced his spirit, dragging him down into the +whirlpool of wanhope. Why go on? Why affront the veiled hostility of +people? Why suffer those eyes to search and those nimble unerring +tongues to wound? Oh, wrap oneself in solitude, like an armoured +shroud, and bend over the dead words of a dead language! A simian +biped! O gods, gods! And Plato talks of Beauty. + +“Come along,” shouted Mr. Upjohn, a few paces ahead, “this way. Holland +Park. Old Shobbe’ll be waiting for me in that mob. What I mean is, he +knows I’m the only other intelligent person in London.” + +George still hesitated. He sank deeper in the maelstrom of +unintelligible and causeless despair. Why go on? The adolescent +love of death and suicide—corollary to youth’s vitality and vivid +energy—swept over him in choking waves. To cease upon the midnight +with no pain.... + +“I think I shan’t come,” he shouted after the retreating Mr. Upjohn. + +Mr. Upjohn hurried back and seized George’s arm: + +“What’s the matter with you? The best way to get an article out of +Shobbe is to go and see him on his Sunday evenings. Come on. We shall +be late.” + +No Euripidean chorus uttered gnomic reflections on the inevitable and +irresistible power of Ananke, the Destiny which is above the gods. No +bright god warned him, no oracular voice spoke to him. Conflict of +free-will and destiny! But is there a conflict? Whether we move or are +still, whether we go to the right or the left, hesitate or rush blindly +forward, the thread is inexorably spun. Ananke. Ananke. + +George yielded reluctantly to the tug at his arm. + +“All right, I’ll come.” + + + + + [ II ] + + +As they were shown into Mr. Shobbe’s large studio they encountered +an indescribable babble of human voices, which gave strange point to +George’s zoological remarks, since it sounded as if all the macaws at +the Zoo had got into the monkey-house to argue with its inhabitants +about theology. Mr. Shobbe’s studio, or “stew-joe,” as his humbler +Cockney contributors called it, was already dim with cigarette smoke. +The excited and elevated babble of voices was due to the fact that this +was one of Mr. Shobbe’s rare caviar and champagne evenings, and not +one of the ordinary beer and ham-sandwich _débâcles_. George and Mr. +Upjohn were still in the doorway, hidden by the opening doors, when +a couple of champagne corks popped. George noticed a look of horror +and perplexity, mingled with the satisfaction always produced by the +prospect of free alcohol, in Mr. Upjohn’s countenance. George wondered +vaguely why, and followed the ebullient swagger of Mr. Upjohn into the +large room. It was not until long afterwards that he realized the cause +of this rapid and subtle flash of horror in Mr. Upjohn. The champagne +and caviar evenings were reserved for the “better” contributors to, and +the wealthier guarantors of, Mr. Shobbe’s periodical. Upjohn was County +and Cambridge, with a small income and prospects of a large inheritance +from a senile aunt—he was therefore one of the “better” contributors. +George, on the other hand, was merely middle-class, talented, and +penniless. Mr. Upjohn had thus committed a social error of hair-raising +enormity by bringing George to the champagne reception under the false +impression that it was merely a beer “do” for the common mob. + +With genial bonhomie Mr. Shobbe greeted in Mr. Upjohn the potential +inheritance from the senile aunt. Upon George he turned a coldly +languid blue eye, and for a moment lent him a hand even limper, +flabbier and clammier than usual. George noticed the difference, +but ingenuously assumed that it was because he was younger than Mr. +Upjohn and incapable of producing “Christ in a Bloomsbury Brothel” or +the doctrines of Suprematism. But Mr. Upjohn, with more acute social +ambitions, was aware of his _gaffe_. He mumbled his apology, which was +almost lost in the surrounding babble: + +“Brought ’m ’long discuss ’n article on Me ’n S’prematism.” + +Mr. Shobbe only half-heard, and nodded vaguely. The slight awkwardness +of the situation was ended by the appearance of Mrs. Shobbe, who +greeted them both; and they passed into the room. George attributed the +feeling of strain to his own shyness and aloofness. He was still _naif_ +enough to suppose that people are welcomed for their own sake. + + * * * * * + +In justice to the distinguished gathering in Mr. Shobbe’s studio (two +“social” journalists were present) it must be said that the babble and +the excitement were not wholly due to the champagne. Pre-war London +was comparatively sober. Numbers of women did not even drink at all, +and cocktails and communal copulation had not then been developed to +their present state of intensity. Whether the art of scandal-mongering +has suffered by this new social activity is hard to say, but as ever +it remains the chief diversion of the British intelligentsia. Serious +conversation is, of course, impossible, on account of the paper-pirates +who are always hovering about to snatch up an idea. One definite +improvement is that the _bon mot_, the _recherché_ pun, the intentional +witticism, are definitely discouraged. Indeed one of the brightest +of the post-war reputations was created by a young man who had the +self-restraint to sit through forty-five literary parties without +saying a word. This frightened everybody so much that when this modern +lay Trappist departed you heard on all sides: “Brilliant young man.” + +“Extraordinarily clever.” + +“I hear he’s writing a book on metaphysics in the Stone Age.” + +“No, really?” + +“They say he’s the greatest living authority on pre-Columbian +literature.” + +“How quite too marvellous.” + +But in those distant pre-war days people strove to chatter themselves +into notice through a chaos of witticisms. On this particular evening, +however, witticisms were in the background, for an event had occurred +to stagger this small cosmos of affectation into sincerity. With the +exception of George (who was too young and unknown to matter) and a few +women, almost everybody present had been connected with a publishing +firm which had suddenly gone bankrupt. On Mr. Shobbe’s recommendation +some of his wealthier guarantors had put money into the firm; the +painters were “doing” illustrated editions or writing books on the +Renaissance artists still popular in those unenlightened days; and +the writers had received contracts for an almost unlimited number of +works. Money had been lavishly spent and some rather amusing things +had been begun. Then suddenly the publisher vanished with the lady +typist-secretary and the remainder of the cash. Hence the excited +babble. + +George stood, a little dazed, beside a small group of youngish men and +women. A dark, rather sinister-looking young man kept saying: + +“Le crapule! Ah! le crapule!” + +George wondered vaguely who was a crapule and why, and half-listened to +the conversation. + +“He was paying me three hundred a year and...” + +“My last novel did so well that he gave me a five years’ contract and +an advance of...” + +“Yes, and I was getting twenty per cent...” + +“Yes, but do let me tell you this. Shobbe says that the lawyers told +him four thousand pounds of the money came from the diocesan funds +of...” + +“Yes, I know. Shobbe told us.” + +“Le crapule!” + +“What’ll the archbishop say?” + +“Oh, they’ll smother that up.” + +“Yes, but look here—do shut up for a minute, Bessie—what I want to +know is how do we stand? What about our copyrights? Shobbe told me the +legal position is...” + +“Hang the legal position. What do we get out of it?” + +“Crapule!” + +“Nothing, probably. _You_ won’t get much anyhow. He hadn’t even +published your book, and I was to get three hundred a year and...” + +“It isn’t so much the money I mind as having my book off the market +when it was going so well—did you see the long article on me in last +week’s...” + +“Crapule!” + +George glanced almost affectionately at the sinister-looking young man. +It struck him that the repeated “crapule” was addressed as much to his +present audience as to the unknown perpetrator of these calamities. At +that moment Mr. Upjohn came along, and George took him aside. + +“I say, Frank, what’s all this talk about?” + +“Dear Bertie has eloped with Olga and the cash.” + +“Dear Bertie? Oh, you mean—. But the firm will go on, won’t it?” + +“Go on the streets. You see, there isn’t a cent left. What I mean is, I +shall have to find some one else to do my Suprematist book. What I mean +to say is, Bertie had a glimmering of intelligence....” + +“Who’s Olga?” + +But at that moment a lady with two unmarried daughters and private +information about the senile aunt’s fortune plunged sweetly at Mr. +Upjohn. + +“Oh, Mr. Upjohn, how _nice_ to see you again! How _are_ you?” + +“Mildly surviving.” + +“You _never_ came to my last at-home. Now, you _must_ come and have +dinner next week. Sir George was _so_ much impressed last week by what +you said about the new school of painting you have founded—what _is_ +the name? I’m so _stupid_ about remembering names.” + +Mr. Upjohn introduced them: + +“Lady Carter—George Winterbourne. He’s a painter—of sorts.” + +Lady Carter took in George at a glance—shabby clothes, old tie +carelessly knotted, hair too long, abstracted gaze, poor, too young +anyway—and was politely insolent. After a few words, she and Mr. +Upjohn walked away. She pretended to be amused by Mr. Upjohn’s +conversation. + + * * * * * + +George went over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of +champagne. The ceaseless babble of petty talk about petty interests +irritated and bored him. He felt isolated and hate-obstinate. So +this was Upjohn’s “only intelligent group in London!” If this is +“intelligence” then let me be a fool for God’s sake. Better the great +octopus ennui outside than these jelly-fish tentacles stinging with +conceit, self-interest and malice. + + * * * * * + +He went over to talk to Comrade-Editor Bobbe. Mr. Bobbe was a +sandy-haired, narrow-chested little man with spiteful blue eyes and a +malevolent class-hatred. He exercised his malevolence with comparative +impunity by trading upon his working-class origin and his heart +disease, of which he had been dying for twenty years. Nobody of decent +breeding could hit Mr. Bobbe as he deserved, because his looks were a +perpetual reminder of his disease, and his behaviour and habits gave +continual evidence of his origin. He was the Thersites of the day, or +rather that would have been the only excuse for him. Intellectually +he was Rousseau’s sedulous and somewhat lousy ape. His conversation +rasped. His vanity and class-consciousness made him yearn for affairs +with upper class women, although he was obviously a homosexual type. +Admirable energy, a swift and sometimes remarkable intuition into +character, a good memory and excellent faculty of imitation, a sharp +tongue and brutal frankness, gave him power. He was a little snipe, +but a dangerous one. Although biassed and sometimes absurd, his weekly +political articles were by far the best of the day. He might have +been a real influence in the rapidly growing Socialist Party if he +could have controlled his excessive malevolence, curbed his hankering +for aristocratic alcoves, and dismissed his fatuous theories of the +Unconscious, which were a singular mixture of misapprehended theosophy +and ill-digested Freud. George admired his feverish energy and talents, +pitied him for his ill-health and agonized sense of class inferiority, +disliked his malevolence, and ignored his theories. + +“What are _you_ doing here, Winterbourne? I shouldn’t have thought +Shobbe would invite _you_. You haven’t any money, have you?” + +“Upjohn brought me along.” + +“Upjohn-and-at-’em? What’s he want of you?” + +“An article on his new school of painting, I think.” + +Mr. Bobbe tittered, screwing up his eyes and nose in disgust, and +flapping his right hand with a gesture of take-it-away-it-stinks. + +“Suprematist painting! Suprematist dung-bags! Suprematist conceit and +empty-headed charlatanism. Did you see him toady to that Carter woman, +_Lady_ Carter? Puh!” + +There was such vindictiveness in that “puh” that George was +disconcerted. True, he himself suspected Mr. Upjohn was a bit of a +charlatan and knew he was odiously conceited; at the same time, there +was something very kind-hearted and generous in poor Upjohn-and-at-’em, +who had received that nickname for his furious onslaughts on any one +who was established and successful in alleged defence of any one who +was struggling and neglected. Unfortunately, these vituperative efforts +of poor Mr. Upjohn did no good to his friends and served only to bring +himself advertisement—the advertisement of ridiculousness. But George +felt he ought to say something in defence. + +“Well, of course, he’s eccentric and sometimes offensive, but he’s got +a streak of curious genius and real generosity.” + +Mr. Bobbe snarled rather than tittered. + +“He’s an insignificant toadying little cheese-worm. That’s what he +is, a toadying little _cheese-worm_. And you won’t be much better, my +lad, if you let yourself drift with these people. You’ll go to pieces, +you’ll just go _com-plete-ly_ to pieces. But humanity’s rotten. It’s +all rotten. It stinks. It’s worm-eaten. Look at those mingy fellows +prancing round those women on the tips of their toes. Cold-hearted, +****-********* mingy sneaks! Look at the women, pining for a bit o’ +real warm-hearted man’s love, and what do they get? Mingy cold-hearted +********! I know ’em, I know ’em. Curse the mingy lot of ’em. But it +won’t last long, it can’t. The workers won’t stand it. There’ll be a +revolution and a bloody one, and soon too. Mingy sons of spats and +eye-glasses!” + +George was amazed and embarrassed by this outburst. He did, indeed, +feel repelled by most of the gathering, particularly by persons like +Mr. Robert Jeames, the Poets’ Friend, who made anthologies of all +the worst authors, wore a monocle and spats, and lisped through a +wet tooth. But after all Mr. Jeames was harmless and quite amiable. +One might not agree with his taste; one might not feel attracted by +him, or indeed by most of the people present. But there was certainly +a wide difference between such a feeling and “mingy sneaks” and +“cheese-worms.” Moreover, George was a little offended by Mr. Bobbe’s +proletarian vocabulary, while he failed to see exactly why the sexual +frigidity of a few men in dinner jackets should cause the workers to +rise in bloody revolution. + +“I shouldn’t think the workers care a hoot. If it’s as you say, the +women are more likely to join the suffragettes.” + +“Faugh!” said Mr. Bobbe, “puh! Suffragettes? Take them away. They +smell. They’re unclean. They’re obscene. Women and votes! It’s the +last stage of decomposition of the mingy world. When the women start +to get power, it’s the end. It means the men are done for, mingy +cold-hearted sneaks. Once let the women in, and nothing can save the +world. Socialism, perhaps, and a genuine out-reaching of the inward +unconscious Male-life to the dark Womb-life in Woman. But no, they’re +not worthy of it. Let ’em go. You’ll see, my lad, you’ll see. Within +five years there’ll be a...” + +“Oh, Mr. Bobbe,” said Mrs. Shobbe’s voice, and a timid little greyish +lady, all in grey and silver, appeared, gentle and fluttering, beside +them, like a large gentle grey moth. “Oh, Mr. Bobbe, do forgive me +for interrupting your _interesting_ conversation. Lady Carter is _so_ +anxious to meet you and admires you so much. I’m sure you’ll like her +and her two daughters—such _beautiful_ girls.” + +George watched Mr. Bobbe as he bowed servilely to Lady Carter and +entered into an animated conversation with that living rung in the +social ladder. He watched the scene for several minutes, and was just +thinking of leaving when Mr. Waldo Tubbe came near him. + +“Well, Winterbourne,” he remarked in his neat, mincing English, +“you appeared sunk in thought. What was the precise object of your +contemplation?” + +“Bobbe was inveighing against Upjohn for toadying to Lady Carter, and +then as soon as Mrs. Shobbe came and asked him to be introduced, he +rushed off and you can see him there sitting at Lady Carter’s feet with +clasped hands.” + +Mr. Tubbe looked unnecessarily grave. + +“O-oh,” he said with a very genteel roll to the “o,” and an air of +suggesting unutterable things. This was a very great asset to Mr. +Tubbe in social intercourse. He found that an interrogative silence on +his part forced other people to talk, and made them slightly ill at +ease, so that they betrayed what they did not always wish to express. +He would then gravely remark “Oe-oh” or “In-deed?” or “Really?” with +a deportmental air which was highly impressive and somehow slightly +reproving. It was reported that Mr. Tubbe spent hours practising in +private the exact intonation of his “Oe-ohs,” “Reallys” and “Indeeds.” +He had certainly brought them to a high pitch of gentility and +suppressed significance. Mr. Tubbe drank a good deal—gin mostly—but +it must be said for him that the drunker he got the more genteel and +darkly significant he became. + +There was a pause after Mr. Tubbe’s “Oe-oh.” His interrogative silence +did its work. George plunged into talk, saying the first thing which +came into his head. + +“I came along with Upjohn, after seeing his new pictures.” + +“In-deed?” + +“He would like me to write an article on them, but it’s very difficult. +Honestly, I don’t understand them and think they’re rather nonsense, +don’t you?” + +“Oe-oh.” + +“Have you seen them?” + +“Noe-o.” + +Say something, blast you! + +Another long pause. + +“Well, my dear Winterbourne, I am very happy to have had some +conversation with you. Come in and see me soon, quite soon. Will you +excuse me? I must ask Lord Congreve a question. Good-bye. _Good_-bye!” + + * * * * * + +George observed the greeting between Mr. Waldo Tubbe and Lord Congreve. + +“Hullo, Waldo!” + +“My _dear_ Bernard...!” + +Mr. Tubbe shook hands with an air of restrained but very considerable +emotion. He treated Lord Congreve with a kind of dignified familiarity, +rather like Phélypeaux playing billiards with Louis Quatorze. Mr. +Shobbe, who was the third party to this interesting re-union, behaved +more easily, with a _puissance-à-puissance_ geniality. George could not +hear what they were saying, and did not want to. He was watching Mrs. +Shobbe, who was talking gently with two younger women on a couch in +one corner of the studio. Poor Mrs. Shobbe, of whom one always thought +as a soft, kind, grey moth, for ever fluttering with kindly intent and +for ever fluttering wrong. She had that sweet exasperating gentleness +and refined incompetence which marked so many women of the wealthier +class whose youth was blighted by Ruskin and Morris. Her portrait had +been painted by Burne-Jones—there it was on the wall, over-sweet, +over-wistful, stylized to look like one of his Arthurian damosels. And +there she was, grey and moth-like, the sweetness gone insipid, the +wistfulness become empty and regretful. Had she ever looked like that +portrait? No one would have known it was she, unless they had been told. + +Poor Mrs. Shobbe! In turns one pitied, almost loved, despised and +was exasperated by her. Such crushed insipidity. And yet such a +gallant effort to do “what is right.” Yet she somehow disgusted one +with refinement and trying to do what is right, and made one yearn +sympathetically towards a hard-swearing, hard-working, hard-drinking +motor mechanic. Her life must have been very unhappy. Her well-off +Victorian parents (wholesale wine trade, retired) had given her a +good education of travel and accomplishments, and had systematically +and gently crushed her. It was chiefly the mother, of course, that +abominable mother-daughter “love” which is compact of bullying, +jealousy, parasitism and baffled sexuality. With what ghastly +pertinacity does a disappointed wife “take it out” on her daughter! Not +consciously, of course; but the unconscious cruelty and oppression of +human beings seem the most dreadful. To escape, she had married Shobbe. + +Nothing can be more fatal for a girl than to marry an artist of any +kind. Have affairs with them, my dears, if you like. They can teach +you a great deal about life, human nature and sex, because they are +directly interested in these matters, whereas other men are cluttered +with prejudices, ideals and literary reminiscences. But do not marry +them, unless you have a writing of divorcement in the pocket of your +night-gown. If you are poor, life will be horrid even though there are +no children; and if you have children, it will be hell. If you have +money, you may be quite sure that it is not you but your money which +has been espoused. Every poor artist and intellectual is looking for a +woman to keep him. So you loot out, too. Of course, not only are there +no delicious marriages, there are not even any good ones—Rochefoucauld +was such an optimist. And in any case marriage is a primitive +institution bound to succumb before the joint attack of contraceptives +and the economic independence of women. Remember, artists are not +seeking tranquillity and legitimate posterity, but experience and an +income. So look out! + +Poor Mrs. Shobbe did not look out, she had never been allowed to do +anything so unmaidenly. She became the means whereby Mr. Shobbe avoided +the dismal but common fate of working for a living. He snubbed her, he +patronized her, he neglected her, he was unfaithful to her, but hung on +to her like a sloth to a tree-branch—she had three thousand a year, +most of which he spent. As for Shobbe he was a plump and talented snob +of German origin. His aquiline nose was the one piece of evidence, +apart from his bad manners, which supported his claim to aristocratic +birth. Before the Great War he was always talking about his year’s +service in an aristocratic German regiment, or beginning a sentence +“When I was last with the Kaiser,” or talking voluble German whenever +there was an audience, or saying “of course, you English...” After the +war he discovered that he was and always had been a patriotic English +gentleman. Be it said to his credit, he “rolled up” himself and did +not only “give” a few cousins. But then, there was Mrs. Shobbe to get +away from on a legitimate excuse—how many patriotic English gentlemen +in the war armies were rather avoiding their wives than seeking their +country’s enemies? Shobbe was an excellent example of the artist’s +amazing selfishness and vanity. After the comfort of his own person he +really cared for nothing but his prose style and literary reputation. +He was also an amazing and very amusing liar—a sort of literary +Falstaff. As for his affairs with women—my God! Yet, after all, were +they really so lurid? Probably they were grossly exaggerated because +Shobbe had talent, and everybody was jealous of it.... + + * * * * * + +George suddenly became aware that Mrs. Shobbe was beckoning to him from +the couch. Some of the noisier guests had departed—probably to drink +more freely—and a wide-opened window had carried away much of the +tobacco smoke. George emerged from his reverie and went quickly over to +her. + +“You know Mrs. Lamberton, don’t you, Mr. Winterbourne? And this is Miss +Paston, Elizabeth Paston.” + +How-do-you-dos. + +“And oh, Mr. Winterbourne, will you get us some iced lemonade, please? +We’re all dying of thirst in this smoky room.” + +George brought the drinks, and sat down in a chair facing the women. +They chatted aimlessly. Soon Mrs. Shobbe went away. She saw a lonely +old maid in the opposite corner of the room, and felt it “right” to +talk to her. Mrs. Lamberton sighed. + +“Why does one come to these intellectual agapes? An expense of spirit +in a waste of time.” + +“Now, Frances!” said Elizabeth, with her hard nervous little laugh, +“you know you’d hate it if you weren’t asked.” + +“Besides, it’s one place where you’re sure not to meet your husband,” +said George. + +“Oh, but then I _never_ see him. Only last week I had to ask the +servants if Mr. Lamberton were still alive or only pre-occupied with a +new conquest.” + +“And was he?” + +“What?” + +“Alive.” + +“I didn’t know he ever had been.” + +They laughed, though the paltry jest was near the truth. + +“And yet,” George pursued, with the ruthless clumsiness of youth, +“you must have liked him once. Why? Why do women like men? And on +what singular principle do they choose their husbands? Instinct? +Self-interest?” + +Neither answered. Women do not like these questions, especially from +young men whose duty it is to be dazzled by charms they cannot analyze. +Of course, the questions were impertinent; but if a young man is not +impertinent, what on earth is the use of him? + +The women lit cigarettes. George looked at Elizabeth Paston. A +slender figure in red silk; black glossy hair drawn back from a high +intellectual forehead; large, very intelligent dark eyes; a rather +pale, rather Egyptian-looking face with prominent cheek bones, slightly +sunken cheeks and full red lips; a nervous manner. She was one of +those “near” virgins so common in the countries of sexual prohibition. +Her hands were slender, the line from her ear to her chin exquisitely +beautiful, her breasts too flat. She smoked cigarettes too rapidly, +and had a way of sitting with a look of abstraction in a pose which +showed off the lovely line of her throat and jaw. Her teeth were a +little irregular. The delicate ear was like a frail pink shell under +the dark sea-fronds of her hair. Her calves and ankles, such important +indications of female character and temperament, were hidden under the +long skirts of those days; but the bared arms and wrists were slender +and a little sensual as they lay along her clothed thighs. George was +greatly attracted. Apparently she also liked him, and Mrs. Lamberton +noticed it with that swift rather devilish intuition of women. She rose +to leave. + +“Oh, Frances, don’t go yet!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “I only came to see +you, and you were so surrounded by men I have scarcely seen you.” + +“Yes, don’t go.” + +“I must. You don’t know the duties awaiting a careful wife and good +mother.” + +She slipped away, leaving them alone. + +“Isn’t she a dear?” said Elizabeth. + +“Something very lovely and precious. Even when she talks nonsense in +that slightly affected way she seems to be saying something valuable.” + +“Do you think she is beautiful?” + +“Beautiful? Yes, in a way, but she isn’t one of those horrid regular +beauties. You notice her at once in a room, but you’d never see her +on the walls of the Academy. It isn’t her beauty so much as her +personality, and that you feel more by intuition than by observation. +And yet the effect is beauty.” + +“Are you very much in love with her?” + +“Why, aren’t you? Isn’t every one?” + +“In love with her?” + +George was silent. He was not sure whether the question was _naif_ or +very much the reverse. Elizabeth changed the conversation. + +“What do you ‘do’?” + +“Oh, I’m a painter, and I write hack articles for Shobbe and such +people to earn a living.” + +“But don’t you sell your pictures?” + +“I try to, but you see people in England aren’t much interested in +modern art, not as they are on the Continent or even in America. They +want the same old thing done over again and done with more sugar. One +thing about the British bourgeois—he doesn’t know anything about +pictures but very stoutly stands for what he likes, and what he likes +is anything except art. The newest historians say that the Anglo-Saxons +come from the same race as the Vandals, and I can well believe it.” + +“Surely there are some up-to-date collectors in England.” + +“Why, yes, of course, probably as many as anywhere else, but too many +of them collect pictures as an investment and so only take what the +dealers advise them to buy; others are afraid to touch English art, +which has gone soggy with pre-Raphaelitism and touched imbecility with +the anecdotal picture. There are people with taste and enthusiasms, but +they’re nearly all poor. It’s much the same in Paris. The new painters +there are having a terrific struggle, but they’ll win. The young are +with them. And then in Paris it’s rather chic to know the latest +movements and to defend the rebel artists against the ordinary mass +ignorance and hostility. Here they’re still terrified by the fate of +Oscar, and it’s chic to be a sporting imbecile. The English think it’s +virile to have no sensibilities.” + +“Are you English or American?” + +“English, of course. Should I care about them if I were not? In a way, +of course, it doesn’t really matter. The nationalist epoch of painting +is over—it’s now an international language centred in Paris and +understood from Petersburg to New York. What the English think doesn’t +matter.” + +George was excited and talking volubly. Elizabeth encouraged him. +Females know instinctively or by bitter experience that males like to +tell them things. It is so very curious that we talk of vanity as if +it were almost exclusively feminine, whereas both sexes are equally +vain. Perhaps males are vainer. Women are sometimes plainly revolted +by really inane compliments, while there is no flattery too gross +for a male. There simply isn’t. And not one of us is free from it. +However much you may be on your guard, however much you may think you +dislike it, you will find yourself instinctively angling for female +flattery—and getting it. Oh, yes, you’ll get it, just as long as that +subtle female instinct warns them there is potency in your loins.... + +“Mother of the race of Æneas, voluptuous delight of gods and men, +sacred Aphrodite”—how does it go? But the poet is right. She, the +sacred one, the imperious reproductive instinct, with all Her wiles and +charms, is indeed the ruler over all living things, in the waters, in +the air, on land. Over us her sway is complete, for it is not seasonal +but permanent. (Who was the lady who said that if the animals don’t +make love all the time the reason is that they are _bêtes?_) Priests, +with all weapons from circumcision to prudery, have warred with Her; +legislators have laid down rules for Her; well-meaning persons have +tried to domesticate Her. Useless! “At thy coming, goddess,” the +celibate hides his shaved crown and sneaks to a brothel, the clerk in +holy orders enters into holy matrimony, the lawyer visits the little +shop-girl he “helps,” domestic peace is shaken alive with adulteries. +For man is an ambulatory digestive tube which wants to keep alive, +and Death waits for him. Descartes was a fool in these matters, like +so many philosophers. “I think, therefore I am.” Idiot! I am because +others loved; I love that others may be. Hunger and Death are the +realities, and between those great chasms flits a little Life. The +enemy of Death is not Thought, not Apollo with gold shafts of light, +useless against the Foe of gods and men, as you see him in the prologue +to “Alkestis.” It is She, the Cyprian, who triumphs, woman-like with +her wiles. Generations She yields Him, the Devourer, as His prey, and +unwearyingly raises up new races of men and women. It is She who swells +the loins of men with an intolerable burden of seed; She who makes +ready the thirsty womb; She who creates implacable desire and infinite +yearning and compels the life-giving act; *** *** ****** *** **** ***** +********* **** *** **** **** ********* ******; She who plumps the flat +white belly and then, treacherous and cruel to Her instrument once Her +purpose is achieved, with intolerable anguish tears forth from shaking +mother-flesh the feeble fruit of Man. All the thoughts and emotions and +desires of adult men and women circle about Her, and Her enemies are +but Death’s friends. You may elude Her with asceticism, you may thwart +Her purpose (who shall write a new myth of the rubber-tree, Death’s +subtle gift?), but if you love Life you must love Her, and if you +puritanically say She is not, you are both a fool and Death’s servant. +If you hate Life, if you think the suffering outweighs the pleasure, if +you think it the supreme crime to transmit life, then you must indeed +dread Her as the author of the supreme evil—Life. + +Elizabeth and George talked and found each other delightful. They +thought it was their interest in art and ideas. Delightful error! All +the arts of mankind are the Cyprian’s hand-maids, and even the chaster +and tweeded spectre Sport has unwittingly been made Her pander—for +with no grudging hand does the Goddess scatter Her gifts, smiling +upon the amorous play of children and not disdaining even those who +desire their own sex. She is beneficent and knows there are only too +many ready to propagate and is not anxious to create too many victims +for Hunger, and therefore patronizes even the heretics of Sparta and +Lesbos.... + + * * * * * + +We should turn churches into temples to Venus, and set up a statue +to Havelock Ellis, the moral Hercules who has partially succeeded in +cleansing the Augean stable of the white man’s mind.... + + * * * * * + +Under the benign influence of the Cyprian they talked, they went on +talking. They had drifted on to the topics of Christ and Christianity, +that interminable _pons asinorum_ of youthful discussions. + +“But I think Christ is wonderful,” Elizabeth was saying with an +air of having discovered something, “because he completely ignored +social values and considered people only for what they really were in +themselves. It is so strange to think of his being made the pretext for +the world’s most elaborate system of priest-craft when the whole of his +life and teaching are a protest against it.” + +“The bohemian Christ? But have you noticed what a Proteus he is? +Everybody interprets the historical Jesus to please himself. He is +a whole mythology in himself. If you really try to discover the +historical Jesus, you find you keep stripping away veil after veil, +and then just as you think you are coming to the real figure, you find +there’s nothing there. But, I grant you, Christ is a very sympathetic +figure. What I cannot endure is Christianity and the harm it has +done Europe. I detest its system of values, its persecution, its +hatred of life (it worships a tortured and expiring god), its cult +of self-sacrifice and sexual aberrations, like sadism, masochism and +chastity....” + +Elizabeth laughed, a little shocked. + +“Oh, oh! Now you are exaggerating!” + +“Not at all. I think I could prove what I say, at the expense of some +time and boring you. Consider the lives of Saints like Catherine +of Siena, Sebastian and all the infinite martyrs, look at their +representation in art; and then ask yourself what instincts are really +satisfied by the cult of these personalities and images.” + +“That sounds like good Protestant prejudice.” + +“There are lots of things I detest in Protestantism—its smugness and +aridity for instance—but I like its honesty. And we owe it a great +deal. It was because of the political inconveniences resulting from a +multitude of sects, that Holland and England reintroduced religious +tolerance, which had disappeared with the triumph of the Christians. Of +course, the tolerance is not complete, because the Christians are still +persecutors at heart and have a thousand ways of vexing and maligning +those who disagree with them or are merely indifferent. Hence the +extraordinary defensive puritanism of many English rationalists. But +something has been achieved. After all, during many centuries I should +have been arrested, tortured and probably murdered for what I have +just said to you, and you would have thought me a carbonized monster. +Now any alleged truth or moral proposition or belief which has to be +enforced by torture or defended by sophistry stands self-condemned.” + +Was ever woman in this manner wooed? But George had mounted one of his +hobby-horses and was careering away through a dust of words. Elizabeth, +with practical instinct, stopped him. + +“Where do you live?” + +“In Greek Street. I’ve got a large room there, big enough to paint in. +Where do you live?” + +“In Hampstead. It’s rather horrid and the place is full of old maids. +But anything is better than being at home. I don’t mind my father, but +my mother makes me so nervous when I’m at home that I feel I shall just +die if I have to be any longer with her.” + +“I’m so glad you hate your parents, at least one of them. It’s so +important to recognize these antipathies, which are after all perfectly +natural. Most animals hate their mature young. I remember I used to +watch the young robins exterminating their fathers and think how right +it was. But it ought to be the mothers. Men somehow leave each other +alone.” + +“Oh, it’s partly due to the awful domestic-den family life. They can’t +really help it, poor dears. The den was forced on them, and they had to +live in it.” + +“Not really. They must have wanted it. It’s all part of people’s +amazing cowardice, their panic terror of life. It’s a device of +governments, an official cheat.” George was off again. “All states are +founded on the obligation of a man to provide for the child he begets +and the woman who produces it. The State wants children, wants more and +more ‘citizens’ for various reasons. The State exploits the love of a +man for a woman and his tenderness towards her children—even she may +not know whether they’re his or not. And so she’s taught to say: ‘Be +careful, step warily, don’t offend any one, remember your first duty +is to provide for me and the children, you mustn’t let us starve, oh, +do be careful,’ with the result that the poor man very soon becomes a +member of the infinite army of respectable commuters....” + +“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed again, “why are you so full of moral +indignation?” + +“I’m not. Most of my brilliant acquaintances, like Upjohn, have so +much to say about themselves that I never seem to get a chance of +discussing anything else. And my non-brilliant acquaintances are +simply shocked and reproving. They think I’m utterly damned because +I read Baudelaire, for instance. Have you noticed the British +middle-class superstition that anything they can label ‘Gallic’ must +necessarily be libidinous and depraved? I get tired of telling them +that the beauty of Baudelaire’s verse is infinitely more spiritual +and ‘uplifting’—to use their damned cant—than all the confounded +nonconformist-baptist-cum-Salvation Army....” + +But the end of George’s denunciation was never uttered, for at that +moment they were interrupted by the gentle Mrs. Shobbe. + +“Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Winterbourne. Elizabeth dear, do +you know how late it is? I’m afraid you’ll miss the last bus, and you +know I promised your dear mother I would look after you....” + +Both George and Elizabeth saw with surprise and some embarrassment that +the studio was nearly empty. Almost every one else had gone and they +hadn’t noticed it, absorbed in their delightful exploration of each +other. Of course, in these cases it isn’t what is said that matters, +but all that remains unsaid. The talk is mere “parade,” a rustling out +of the peacock’s tail, a kind of antennæ delicately fumbling. Lovers +are like mirrors—each gazes rapturously at himself reflected in the +other. How delicious the first flashes of recognition! + +Elizabeth jumped nervously to her feet, almost upsetting a small table. + +“Oh, my! I’d no idea it was so late. I must go. Good-bye, Mr.—Mr.—” + +“Winterbourne,” said George. “But if you’re going to Hampstead, let +me take you back as far as Tottenham Court Road and put you on the +Hampstead bus. It’s not out of my way at all.” + +“Yes, do, Elizabeth. I feel so nervous at your being alone in London at +night like this. Whatever should we do if anything happened to you?” + +“Why, what’s likely to happen?” said George contemptuously, ever ready +to defend the cause of female emancipation, “she’s got sense enough not +to let herself be run over, and if any one tries to rape her she can +yell for a policeman.” + + * * * * * + +“Such a violent and rude young man,” Mrs. Shobbe lamented as they went +for Elizabeth’s things. “But they’re all like that now. They seem to +have _no_ respect for _anything_, not even the purity of womanhood. I +don’t know if I ought to let him take you home, Elizabeth.” + +“Oh, that’s all right; besides, I rather like him. He’s quite amusing. +I shall ask him to come and have tea with me at my studio.” + +“_Elizabeth!_” + +But Elizabeth was already at the door where George was waiting. All +the guests had departed, except Mr. Upjohn and Mr. Waldo Tubbe. A last +whiff of their conversation reached George’s ears: + +“You see, what I mean is, you take Suprematism, what I mean is, you +see, there you’ve got something....” + +And like the toll of Big Ben over the sleeping city came Mr. Tubbe’s +last, deep-breathed, significant, deportmental: + +“Oe-oh.” + + + + + [ III ] + + +This banal party and banal conversation with Elizabeth were of capital +importance in George’s life. The party, with its revelations of +character and general tedium, confirmed George in his growing dislike +for the intellectual banditti. Self-interest, though universal, is +less tolerable in those who are supposed to be above it—there is, +of course, no reason why a good artist should not be successful, but +when one considers the intrigues now necessary for success there is a +natural prejudice in favour of those who do not elbow in the throng. +Vanity is none the less odious even when there is some reason for it, +though why any one should feel vain of publishing books and exhibiting +pictures is a mystery, when you reflect that two thousand novels a year +are published in England alone and that tens of thousands of canvases +are showed annually in Paris. Gossip and scandal are none the less +scandal and gossip even when witty and the victims are more or less +conspicuous in the small world which receives, or haughtily disdains +to receive, press-cuttings. George felt it rather unimportant to know +which talented lady was “with” which famous gentleman. His interest +was comparatively so languid that he forgot most of the scandal he +was told ten minutes after he heard it, and rarely bothered to repeat +what little he remembered. Somehow people are frightfully offended +if you say, “Does it matter?” when they tell you with sparkling eyes +that somebody you know has run away with the mistress of Snooks, the +painter, or that Pocock, the eminent impresario, has just celebrated +the birth of his twenty-fifth illegitimate child. Does it matter, +indeed! Why this fascinated delight in the private lives of the great? +They’re just as sordid as everybody else’s. + +The artist, anyway, is not nearly so important as he thinks himself. +It’s all poppycock and swagger for Baudelaire to say that a man can +live three days without food but not a day without poetry. It may +have been true of Baudelaire; it certainly isn’t true of the world +in general. In any nation only a comparatively small minority are +interested in the arts, and most of those merely want to be amused. If +all the artists and writers of a nation were suddenly obliterated by +some plague of Egypt, some legitimately vengeful angel, most people +would be totally unaware that they had suffered any loss, unless the +newspapers made a fuss about it. But let the journeymen bakers go on +strike for a fortnight.... If I were a millionaire it would amuse me to +go about giving high-minded artists five hundred pounds a year to shut +up. The suggestion is not copyright. + +Our young friend was, of course, filled with numerous high-falutin’ +delusions about the supreme importance of art and the dazzling +supremacy of artists over the rest of mankind. But he had two fairly +sound ideas. One was that the artist should do his job, like any one +else, as well as he could, without making too much fuss about it; +the other was that knowledge of the arts and practice of any art are +chiefly important for sharpening the intelligence and perceptions, +extending one’s experience and intensifying life. These objects are +not furthered by scandal, preposterous vanity and arrivism. He was +therefore perfectly right in feeling a certain amount of contempt for +Mr. Shobbe’s guests. The life of Rousseau the Douanier is infinitely +more respectable than that of a fashionable portrait-painter, touting +socially for orders. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth and George continued their conversation on the bus from +Holland Park to Tottenham Court Road. Like most bright young things +they abounded in their own sense. As George said, it was perfectly +obvious that they were an immense improvement on their predecessors, +that they knew exactly how to avoid the lamentable errors and +absurdities of former generations, and that they were going to have +most interesting and delightful lives. Anybody who has not felt these +pleasing delusions at the age of twenty must, I fear, be ranged in +George’s category of abject morons. Youth is so much more valuable +than experience; it is also far more intelligent. Few things are more +astounding and touching than the kindly tolerance of the young for +their imbecile elders. For, have no doubts about it, even the greatest +minds degenerate annually, and the finest moral character is repulsive +at forty. Think of the fire and flash and inspiring genius of young +General Bonaparte and the stupid degeneracy of the Emperor who had to +retreat ignominiously from Moscow. A nation which relies on the alleged +wisdom of sexagenarians is irrevocably degenerate. Attila was only +thirty when he sacked sexagenarian Rome—at least, he ought to have +been. + +Elizabeth and George were very young and hence, on _a priori_ grounds, +extremely intelligent. Probably the highest intensity of life ever +reached by man or woman is in the early stages of their first real +love affair, particularly if it is not thwarted by insane social and +religious prejudices inherited from the timid and envious aged, and not +contaminated by marriage. + +They emerged from the stuffy smoke-heavy room into the broad avenue, +and walked towards Notting Hill tube station. A warm southwesterly wind +was blowing, moisture-laden, the kindly courier of Spring. Gone was the +raw acrid damp of Winter, and they imagined they could taste in the air +the faint salt flavour of southern seas and the earthy English acres. + +“We shall have rain to-morrow,” said George, instinctively looking up +at the cloudy sky invisible beyond the glare of street lamps. “It is +Spring at last. The crocuses will be nearly over. I must go and look at +the flowers at Hampton Court. Will you come?” + +“I’d love to, but isn’t Hampton Court full of trippers?” + +“Not if you go at the right time. I have walked there in the early +morning as solitary as ever King Charles when the Privy Garden was +really private. I should rather like to Jive in King William’s +summer-house.” + +“I like wilder and more primitive country, the Downs and those great +round empty Exmoor hills. And I like the clear rough waves dashing +against the rocks in Cornwall.” + +“I don’t know Cornwall, but I love the Downs above Storrington and +I’ve walked over Exmoor twice. But now I’m rather in revolt against +mere country—‘Nature,’ as they used to call it. Nature-worship is a +sort of Narcissus-worship, holding up Nature’s mirror to ourselves. +And how abominably selfish these Nature-worshippers are I Why! they +want a whole landscape to themselves and they complain bitterly +when farm-labourers want modern grocery stores and W. C.’s. Whole +communities apparently are to live in static ignorance and picturesque +decay in order to gratify their false ideas of what is beautiful.” + +“Of course, I hate the Simple-Lifers too. There was a set of them near +the place in the seaside where we went for the holidays as children....” + +“Oh! Have you got brothers and sisters?” + +“A sister and two brothers. Why, haven’t you?” + +“Yes, I believe so, but I never think about it. Relatives are +awful—they contribute absolutely nothing to your interest in life, and +think that gives them a perpetual right to interfere in your affairs. +And they have the monstrous impudence to pretend that you ought to love +them. ‘Blood is thicker than water,’ they say sententiously. So it may +be, but I don’t want to dabble in thick blood. I hate proverbs, don’t +you? I’ve always noticed that anything absurd or tyrannical or fatuous +can always be supported by a proverb—the collective stupidity of the +ages. But, I say, I’m so sorry I interrupted you. I go on talking and +talking, and don’t give you a chance to say a word.” + +“Oh, I like it. I think your ideas are amusing.” + +“Not amusing, merely common-sense. But you mustn’t let me talk all the +time. You see, I find most people rather oppress my spirits, and keep +me from saying what I really think. So as a rule I’m silent, but when I +find a sympathetic victim, well, you’ve already had a bitter experience +of how I chatter nineteen to the dozen. There, I’m off again! Now tell +me what you were going to say about the Simple-Lifers.” + +“The Simple-Lifers? Oh, yes, I remember. Well, there was a set of +people down there who had fled from the horrors of the mechanical +age—you know, the usual art-y sort, Ruskin-cum-William Morris....” + +“Hand-looms, vegetable diet, long embroidered frocks and home-spun +tweed trousers from the Hebrides? I know them. ‘News from Nowhere’ +people. What a gospel to lead nowhither!” + +“Yes. Well, they were to lead the simple life, work with their hands +part of the time, and do arts and crafts and write the rest of the +time. They were also to show the world an example of perfect community +life. They used to make the farm girls dance round a Maypole—the boys +wouldn’t come, they stood in the lane and jeered.” + +“And what happened?” + +“Well, those who hadn’t private incomes got very hard up, and were +always borrowing money off the two or three members who had money. +The arts and crafts didn’t sell, and the toiling on the land had very +meagre results. Then they got themselves somehow into two or three +cliques, always running down the people in the other cliques, talking +scandal about them, and saying they were ruining everything by their +selfish behaviour. Then the wife of one of the rich members ran away +with one of the men, and the other rich members were so scandalized +that they went away too, and the whole community broke up. The village +was very glad when they went. The farmers and gentry were furious +because they talked Socialism and the ideal state to the labourers. And +all the labourers’ wives were furious because the Simple-Life women +tried to brighten up their lives and make them furnish their cottages +‘artistically....’” + +They had missed two buses outside the tube station in their excited +chatter. A third came along. George grabbed Elizabeth’s arm: + +“Come on, here’s our bus. Let’s go on top.” + +The bus-top was empty except for a couple spooning on a back-seat. +George and Elizabeth a little haughtily went to the very front. + +“Other peoples’ love-affairs are very tedious,” said George +sententiously. + +“Oh, very.” + +“Rather primitive and humiliating.” + +“Why humiliating?” + +“Oh, because...” + +“Fares, please!” + +The conductor lurched skilfully against the front of the bus as it made +a cow-like leap forward. George raked in his pocket for the pennies. + +“Let me pay my share.” + +Elizabeth produced a sixpence. + +“Oh, no, please. Look, let me take you back to Hampstead, and you can +pay from Tottenham Court Road.” + +“All right.” + +The conductor and the fare-paying had interrupted the rhythm of +their communication. They were silent. The bus ran noisily along the +wave-furrowed shiny tarred street, with the dark mystery of Kensington +Gardens to the right and the equally mysterious boarding-houses of +Bayswater to the left. Near the street-lamps the grass behind the +railing was a vivid artificial green, as if some one had splashed down +a bucket-ful of bright paint. Like savages in some primitive dance, the +ancient trees swayed slowly, irregularly and mysteriously in the strong +wind. A red apocalyptic glow from the lights of Oxford Street stained +luridly and uneasily the low rolling clouds before them. The grey +monster Ennui of Sunday-in-London had vanished. George took his hat off +and let the wind rumple his hair. Their young cheeks were fresh with +driving moist wind. + +“Don’t you really like the Pre-Raphaelites?” asked Elizabeth, as the +bus slowed down near Lancaster Gate. + +“I used to. About three years ago I was quite cracked about Rossetti +and Burne-Jones and Morris. Now I simply hate them. I can still read +Browning and Swinburne—Browning for his sense of life, Swinburne for +his intoxicating rhetoric. But after spending three months in Paris I +got frightfully excited about modern painting. Do you know Apollinaire?” + +“No, who’s he?” + +“Oh, he’s a Polish Jew who has written some quite good poems and does +amusing word-pictures he calls Calligrammes. He lives by writing and +editing obscene books, and he’s the great defender of the new painters +like Picasso and Braque and Léger and Picabia.” + +“The Cubists?” + +“Yes.” + +“I’ve only heard of them. I never saw any of their work. I thought they +were just ‘wild men’ and _fumistes?_” + +“You wait ten years, and see then if you dare to say that Picasso is a +_fumiste!_ But haven’t you been to Paris?” + +“Yes, I was there last year, in September.” + +“We must have been there together. How curious, I wish I’d seen you.” + +“Oh, it was very dull. I was with father and mother, and everybody +we met kept talking about the coming war with Germany. A friend of +father’s in the Admiralty told him in confidence that it was absolutely +certain to happen.” + +“What nonsense!” said George explosively, “what absolute nonsense! +Haven’t you read Norman Angell’s ‘Great Illusion’? He shows quite +conclusively that war does nearly as much damage to the victor as the +conquered. And he also says that the structure of modern international +commerce and finance is so delicate and widespread that a war +couldn’t possibly last more than a few weeks without coming to an end +automatically, because all the nations would be ruined. I’ll lend you +the book if you like.” + +“I don’t know anything about such things, but father’s friend said the +Government was very worried about the position.” + +“I can’t believe it. What! A war between European nations in the +twentieth century? It’s quite unthinkable. We’re far too civilized. +It’s over forty years since the Franco-Prussian War....” + +“But there’s been a Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars....” + +“Well, yes, but they’re different. I can’t believe any of the big +European nations would start a war with another. Of course, there are +Chauvins and Junkers and Jingoes, but who cares a hang about them? The +people don’t want war.” + +“Of course, I don’t know, but I heard Admiral Partington telling father +that the navy is bigger, newer and more efficient than it’s ever been. +And he said the German army is huge and most efficient, and the French +are so frightened they’ve made the period of conscription three years. +And he said, look out when the Kiel canal is opened.” + +“Good Lord, you surely don’t believe what stodgy old Admirals say, do +you? It’s their job to frighten people with war scares so that they can +go on getting money out of the country and building their ridiculous +Dreadnoughts. I met a coast-guard officer last summer, who got drunk +and said he’d sealed orders as to what to do in case of war. I told +him I thought that seal would not be broken until the angels in the +Apocalypse arrived.” + +“And what did he say to that?” + +“He just shook his head, and ordered another whiskey.” + +“Well, it doesn’t concern us. It’s not our business.” + +“No, thank God, it doesn’t and can’t concern us.” + + * * * * * + +They were in Oxford Street, rolling past the shuttered shop-fronts. +A good many people were on the pavements, but the street was +comparatively empty of vehicles, empty and sonorous. As they ran down +past Selfridge’s, the curved line of lights in the centre of the street +looked like an uncoiled necklace of luminous, glittering beads. At +Oxford Circus they gazed down old Regent Street with its long lines of +_café-au-lait_ Regency houses, broken only at the Quadrant by the new +Piccadilly Hotel. + +“Isn’t that like us?” said George. “We have an attempt at +town-planning, and dull as Nash is, at any rate his design is simple +and dignified, and then we go and ruin the Quadrant with a horrid +would-be-modern hotel.” + +“But I thought you believed in modernity in art.” + +“So I do, but I don’t believe in mucking up the art of the past if it +can be avoided. Besides, I don’t call these pastiches of Renaissance +palaces modern architecture. The only people who have got a live modern +architecture are the Americans, and they don’t know it.” + +“Those awful sky-scrapers!” + +“They’re awful in one way, but they’re original. I saw some photographs +of New York from the harbour recently, and I thought it the most +beautiful city in the world, a sort of gigantic and stupendous Venice. +I’d like to go there, wouldn’t you?” + +“No, I’d like to go to Paris and live in the real student’s quarter, +and to Italy and Spain.” + + * * * * * + +The bus stopped at the end of Tottenham Court Road. They got down, and +crossed the street to wait for the Hampstead bus. + +“Look here,” said Elizabeth, “why do you bother to come all the way out +to Hampstead? I’m perfectly used to going about alone. I shall be all +right.” + +“Of course, you would be. But I’d like to come most awfully. I hope I +shall see a good deal of you, and we haven’t arranged where and when to +meet again.” + +“But there won’t be a bus back.” + +“Oh, I shall walk. I like walking. And it’ll be an antidote to the fug +and idiotic talk at Shobbe’s. Here’s the bus. Come on.” + +They clambered on to the top of the bus, and again got the front seat. +Elizabeth took off her right-hand glove to pay the fare, and after the +conductor had gone George gently and rather timidly put his hand on +hers. She did not withdraw it. Having established this delicious and +dangerous contact, they sat silent for a while. The firm cool male +hand gently espoused her slim glove-warmed fingers. In them both was +the exaltation of the Cyprian, potential desire recognized only as a +heightening of vitality. The first step along the primrose path—how +delightful! But whither does it lead? To what everlasting bonfires of +servitude or ashy wastes of indifference? Neither of them thought of +the future. Why should they? The young at least have the sense to live +only in the present moment. + +Preceded by the silver dove-drawn chariot of the Paphian, the heavy +bus lumbered northward. Sweet is the smile of Cypris, but ironic and a +little terrifying, enigmatic as the fixed smile of the Veian Apollo. + +Like all imaginative and sensitive men George was not what is called +an enterprising lover. He had too much male modesty, the inherent +_pudor_ which is so much stronger and more genuine than the induced +modesty of women, that coquettish flight of the nymph who casts a rosy +apple at her pursuer to encourage him to continue. Odd, but perhaps in +the nature of things, that those men who have most contempt for women +are generally most successful with them. There must be a vast amount +of latent masochism in women, ranging from the primitive delight in +being knocked down to the subtle enjoyment of complex jealousies. How +ghastly—if you think about it—their passion for soldiers! To breed +babes by him who has slain men—puh! there’s too much spilt blood in +the world, one sickens at it. Give me some civet.... + +Once more they fell into talk, eager, excited, more intimate talk. +They were calling each other “George” and “Elizabeth” before they +reached the stately homes of Camden Town. By the time they passed +Mornington Crescent they had admitted that they liked each other +“frightfully” and would see a good deal of each other. In their +excitement they talked rather incoherently, jumping from one topic +to another in their eagerness to say something of all that seemed to +clamour for expression, recklessly wasting their emotional energy. +Their laughter had the ring of pure happiness. George slipped his arm +through Elizabeth’s and held her fingers more amorously. Their natures +expanded in a sudden delicious efflorescence; great coloured plumes of +flowers seemed to sway and nod above their heads. They were enclosed +in a nimbler air, the clear oxygen of desire, so light, so compact, so +resistant to the grey monster Ennui of Sunday-in-London. + +“Isn’t it strange!” George exclaimed, with that fatuity peculiar to +lovers, “I only met you this evening and yet I feel as if I had known +you all my life!” + +“So do I!” + +He gratefully squeezed her fingers in silence, caught in a sudden panic +of bashfulness, unable to pursue further. + +“Do let’s meet often. We can go to the galleries and Queen’s Hall and +Hampton and Oxshott. I can get you tickets for the new picture shows. +Do you know the Allied Artists?” + +“Yes, I belong.” + +“Do you? Why ever didn’t you tell me you are a painter, too?” + +“Oh, I’m such a bad painter, besides you didn’t ask me.” + +“Touché! How self-absorbed one is. I apologize.” + +“You must come and have tea at my studio and look at my—what I call my +pictures. But you mustn’t be too critical. When can you come?” + +“Any time. To-morrow if you like.” + +Elizabeth laughed. + +“Oh! Oh! You are impatient. Can you come on Friday?” + +“So long? It seems ages away!” + +“Well, Thursday then.” + +“All right, what time?” + +“About four.” + +Elizabeth was probably not acquainted with Stendhal’s ingenious theory +of crystallization, but she acted instinctively in accordance with it. +Three days and four nights made exactly the right period. To-morrow was +too soon, the crystals would be in process of formation. A week would +be rather too long, they would be tending to disintegrate.... Infinite +subtlety of females! One must admit they need it. + + * * * * * + +George accompanied Elizabeth to the boarding-house where she lived and +took the address of her studio. She held out her hand, after putting +the latch-key in the yale lock. + +“Till Thursday then, good-night.” + +“Good-night.” + +He held her hand a moment, and then awkwardly and timidly kissed it. +In her turn she felt a sudden panic, opened the door swiftly, and +disappeared inside, with a last hasty: “Good-night, good-night!” + +George stood for several moments irresolutely on the step. He was +desolated, thinking he had offended her. + +Inside Elizabeth was murmuring silently to herself: “He kissed my hand, +he kissed my hand! I’ve a lover, a lover.” + +The sudden panic and flight were a masterpiece of erotic strategy—they +left that feeling of uncertainty, of mingled hope and fear, so valuable +to the production of a powerful crystallization. + + * * * * * + +George walked back to Greek Street, enclosing in himself a small +chaos of emotions and thoughts. He went by way of Fitzjohn’s Avenue +and St. John’s Wood. The infinite debate in a lover’s mind—did she +or didn’t she, would she or wouldn’t she?—moved in those curious +arabesques where a mind continually wanders away from a main stem of +thought, and perpetually comes back to it. Upjohn’s ridiculous conceit, +Shobbe’s party, never go to that sort of thing again, Bobbe’s acrid +offensiveness, how delicate that line from her ear to her throat, I +should like to paint her, now, in that article to-morrow I must try +to show clearly and definitely what the new painters are attempting, +I wonder if she was really offended when I kissed her hand, but I +must think about that article, let me see, begin with an explanation +of non-representational, yes, that’s it, I must get a new tie for +Thursday, this one’s worn out.... And thus, with merciless iteration. + + * * * * * + +Under a gas-lamp near Marlborough Road Station he stopped and tried to +write his first poem, and was surprised to find how difficult it was +and what nonsense he wrote. A policeman came out of a side-street, and +looked a little suspiciously at him. George moved on. A little later +he began to sing “Bid me to live,” interrupted himself halfway through +to make a note for a study in analysis of form. He walked rapidly and +absorbedly, unconscious of his physical fatigue. Just before he crossed +Oxford Street, he stopped and clapped his hands together. My God, I was +a fool to kiss her hand the first time I met her, she’ll think I do +that to every girl and won’t want to speak to me again. Oh, well, it’s +done. I wish I could kiss her mouth. I must remember to tell her on +Thursday about that show at the Leicester Gallery.... + +He lay awake long that night, unable to sleep for very love of living. +So much to see, so much to experience, so much to achieve, so much to +be and do! How wonderful to do things with Elizabeth! It would be fun +to go to New York, of course, but perhaps one ought to see the old +world first? She said something about Paris and Spain. We might go +together. Cursed money difficulty. Never mind, if one wants to do a +thing hard enough, one always manages to do it. I suppose I’m in love +with her? It would be divine to kiss her and touch her breasts and... +Of course, one mustn’t have a baby, that would be too ghastly. I must +find out. I wish we could go to Paris, the trees will be leafing in the +Luxembourg.... + + * * * * * + +In the night-silence water dripped with insistent melody in some hidden +tank. From outside came the shrill distant notes of train whistles, +rather silvery and exquisite, bringing the yearning for travel, “the +horns of elf-land faintly blowing.” Where had he read that? Oh, of +course, Stevenson. Funny how the Coningtons thought Stevenson a good +author.... + +“Good-night, Elizabeth, good-night, sweet, sweet Elizabeth, +good-night, good-night.” + + + + + [ IV ] + + +Before our eyes we have the regrettable examples of George Augustus and +Isabel, Ma and Pa Tartly, dear Mamma and dear Papa—eponyms of sexual +infelicity. + +Are we more intelligent than our ancestors? What a question for the +British Press or for those three musketeers of publicity cheap and +silly, of tattered debates on torn topics—Shaw, Chesterton and Belloc. +Shaw, yes, the puritan Beaumarchais—_un coup de chapeau_—but the +others! To the goddess Ennui sung by Pope, the groans of the Britons. +Who will deliver us from the R. C. bores? + + * * * * * + +The problem may be stated thus: + +Let X equal the _ménage_ of dear Mamma-dear Papa, or a typical couple +of the seventies and eighties; + +And let Y equal the _ménage_ George Augustus and Isabel, or a typical +couple of the nineties and noughts; + +And further, let Z equal Elizabeth and George, or a typical bright +young pair of the Georgian or European War epoch; + +Then, it remains to be proved whether Z is equal to, or greater than or +less than X and / or Y. + +A pretty theorem, not to be solved mathematically—too many unknown +quantities involved. + +I am naturally prejudiced in favour of Z, because I belong to their +generation, but what do _les jeunes_, the sole competent authority, +think? For, after all,—let us be perfectly frank—dear Papa expired +peacefully in his bed; George Augustus was unhappily but accidentally +slain in the performance of his religious duties; whereas George, if +you accept my interpretation of the facts, virtually committed suicide +at the age of twenty-six. + +But then dear Papa and George Augustus did not have to fight the +European War.... + +The problem, you see, is almost insoluble, no doubt because it is +wrongly stated. Let us examine it in different terms. + + * * * * * + +Without going back to Horace’s egg, may we not assume that he and she +have lived well who have lived with felicity? + +This not only involves the problem of the _summum bonum_ or sovereign +good, so much debated by the ancient philosophers, but the awful +difficulty of knowing who is to decide whether another person has lived +with felicity. Is there such a thing as a happy life? And, if there is +would it be the most desirable life? Would you like to be Claudian’s +old man of Verona? Or Mr. John D. Rockefeller? Or Mr. Michael Arlan? Or +any other type of unabridged felicity? + +There are, of course, lots of things and people who will eagerly or +dogmatically tell you exactly what you have to do to be happy. There +is, for instance, the collective wisdom of the ages, as embodied in our +religions, philosophies, laws, and social customs. What a mess! What +a junk-shop of dusty relics! And in any case, “the collective wisdom +of the ages” is merely one of the innumerable devices of government by +which the Anglo-Saxon peoples are humbugged into thinking themselves +free, enlightened and happy. + + * * * * * + +But let us abandon these abstruse and arid speculations.... The point +is, did George and Elizabeth (consider them for the moment, please, +rather as types than individuals) come better prepared to the erotic +life than their predecessors, were they more intelligent about it, did +they make a bigger mess of things? Does the free play of the passions +and intelligence make for more erotic happiness than the taboo system? +Liberty versus Restraint. Wise Promiscuity versus Monogamy. (This is +becoming a Norman Haire tract.) + +Here, of course, I shall come into collision (if this has not happened +long ago) with the virtuous British journalist. This gentleman will +inform us that there are far too many books about the erotic life, that +to dwell upon sex is morbid and disgusting, that monogamous marriage +as established by religion and law must remain sacred, et cetera, +et cetera, and that it provides a perfect solution, et cetera, et +cetera. Moreover, in the few cases where it goes wrong, the situation +must be met by frequent applications of cold water to the genitals, +by propelling balls of different sizes in different manners with +various instruments in mimic combat, by slaying small animals and +birds, by playing bridge for modest sums, avoiding French wines and +dancing, scattering saltpetre on one’s bread and butter, regularly +attending church, and subscribing to the virtuous organ of the virtuous +journalist.... + +To which may be said; for example, + +That without sexual intercourse, frequent and pleasant, adult life is +maimed and tedious; + +That social hypocrisy prescribes that we shall avoid open discussion +and practice of the sexual life, and that we all (virtuous journalists +included) think a great deal about it; + +That the sporting-ascetic practices recommended are only effective in +those predisposed to abnormal frigidity, and + +That they, taken in conjunction with the segregation of the sexes, +economic difficulties and insane prejudices, form one of the chief +predisposing causes of the pictures of Dorian Grey and wells of +loneliness which cause the virtuous journalist so much horror and +indignation. + +We therefore unanimously dismiss the virtuous British journalist with a +firm but vigorous kick in the seat of his intelligence, and return to +our speculations. + + * * * * * + +Mother of the race of Æneas, voluptuous delight of gods and men, +sacred Aphrodite, who from the recesses of thy divine abode lookest +in pity upon the sorrowing generations of men and women, and sheddest +upon us rose-petals of subtle and recurrent pleasure and the delicious +gift of Sleep, do Thou, Goddess, be ever with us, and neglect not the +felicity of Thy worshippers. Do Thou, alone beautiful, daughter of the +Gods, drench us with loveliness. + + * * * * * + +From which to the lives of Pa and Ma Hartley _et al._, is indeed a +staggeringly long step.... + + * * * * * + +I hold a brief for the war generation. J’aurais pu mourir; rien ne +m’eût été plus facile. J’ai encore à écrire ce que nous avons fait.... +(Bonaparte à Fontainebleau—admirez l’érudition de l’auteur.) + + * * * * * + +Yet why should we mourn, O Zeus, and why should we laugh? Why weep, +why mock? What is a generation of men that we should mourn for it? +As leaves, as leaves, says the poet, spring, burgeon and fall the +generations of Man—No! but as rats in the rolling ship of the Earth as +she plunges through the roar of the stars to the inevitable doom. And +like rats we pullulate, and like rats we scramble for greasy prey, and +like rats we fight and murder our kin.... And—O gigantic mirth!—the +voice of the Thomiste is heard! + + * * * * * + +Peace be to you, O lovers, peace unto Juliet’s grave! + + * * * * * + +At the time of which I am writing—the three or four years preceding +1914—young men and women were just as much interested in sexual +matters as they are now, or were at any other time. They were in revolt +against the family or domestic den ethic, that “ordained for the +procreation of children” attitude whereby the State turns its adult +members into a true proletariat, mere producers of _proles_. And they +were almost as much in revolt against Tennysonian and Pre-Raphaelite +“idealism,” which made love a sort of hand-holding in the Hesperides. +But, let it be remembered, Freudianism (as distinct from Freud, that +great man whom every one talks about and nobody reads) had scarcely +begun to penetrate. All things were not interpreted in terms of sexual +symbolism; and if one had the misfortune to slip on a banana peel in +the street, he was not immediately told that this implied repressed +desire to undergo the initiatory mutilating rite of the Mohammedans. +They thought they were rediscovering the importance of the physical in +love; they hoped they were not neglecting the essential tenderness, and +the mythopœic faculty of lovers which is the source of much beauty. + + * * * * * + +Late in April, George and Elizabeth went to Hampton Court. They met at +Waterloo about nine, went by train to Teddington, and walked through +Bushey Park. Each had brought a frugal lunch, half because of poverty, +half from some Pythagorean delusion about austerity in diet. + +They walked on the grass through the long elm naves. + +“How blue the sky is,” said Elizabeth, throwing back her head, and +breathing the soft air. + +“Yes, and look how the elms make long Gothic arches!” + +“Yes, and do look at the young leaves, so shrill, so virginal a green.” + +“Yes, and yet you can still see the beautiful tree skeleton—youth and +age.” + +“Yes, and the chestnut blossom will be out soon.” + +“Yes, and the young grass is— Oh Elizabeth, look, look! The deer! +There’s two young ones.” + +“Where? Where are they? I can’t see them. I _want_ to see them!” + +“There they are! Look, look, running across to the right.” + +“Oh, yes! How funny the little ones are I But how graceful. How old are +they?” + +“Only a few days I should think. Why are they so beautiful and young +babies so hideous?” + +“I don’t know. They’re always supposed to look like their fathers, +aren’t they?” + +“Touché—but I should think that would make the mothers hate them, and +they love the little beasts.” + +“Not always. A friend of mine had a baby last year, and she didn’t want +it when it was coming, but kept thinking she would love it when it +came. And when she saw it, she simply loathed it, and they had to take +it away. But she _made_ herself look after it. She says it’s ruined her +life and she doesn’t find it a bit interesting, but now she’s fond of +it and couldn’t bear it to die.” + +“Perhaps she didn’t love her husband.” + +“Oh, yes, she does. She simply dotes on him.” + +“Well, maybe it wasn’t his child.” + +“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth slightly shocked. “It _was_ his child. But one +reason why she didn’t like it was because it separated them.” + +“How long had they been married when the child was born?” + +“Oh, I don’t know—less than a year.” + +“Idiotic,” said George, banging the end of his walking stick on the +ground, “Ab-so-lute-ly idiotic! Why the devil did they go and have +a child bang off like that? Of course, she’s unhappy and they’re +‘separated.’ Serves ’em right.” + +“But could they help it? I mean—well, you know—it just happens, +doesn’t it?” + +“Good Lord, Elizabeth, what a prehistoric notion! Of course it doesn’t +‘just happen.’ There are several ways...” + +“It seems a bit revolting?” + +“Not a bit! You may feel so because you’ve had mushy ideas about +maidenly modesty and such twaddle instilled into you. That’s all part +of the taboo. Now I think the really civilized thing is _not_ to let +such things happen to us like animals, but to control them. It’s all +most frightfully important, perhaps the most important problem for our +generation to solve.” + +“But you surely don’t think everybody should give up having children?” + +“Why, of course not! I do say so sometimes when I feel discouraged +and disgusted with the poor scarecrows of humanity we are now. Fewer +and better babies. Isn’t it insane that we exercise over animals the +control they haven’t got themselves, and yet resolutely refuse even +to discuss it about human beings? How can you have a fine race if you +breed insensately like white mice?” + +“Well, but, George dear, you can’t interfere with other peoples’ lives +like that!” + +“I didn’t say one should. But I believe that if people have the +necessary knowledge and we get rid of the taboo they will for their own +sakes come to breed more eugenically. Of course, it’s an intimate and +private matter—no need for Sir Thomas Moore’s insane regulations and +naked exhibitions before modest matrons and discreet old gentlemen. +It’s not for the old to interfere with the lusts of youth! Damn the +old. But here’s another point. Like most intelligent women and a few +men you’re indignant at the way women have been treated in the past and +at the wicked mediæval laws of this country. You want women to be free +to live more interesting lives. So do I. Any man who isn’t an abject +moron would rather see women becoming more intelligent and magnanimous +instead of having them kept ignorant and timid and repressed and meekly +acquiescent, and therefore sly and catty and wanting to get their own +back. But you won’t achieve that with Suffrage. Of course, let women +have votes if they want them. But who the devil wants a vote? I’d +gladly give you mine if I had one. But the point is this—when women, +all women, know how to control their bodies, they’ll have an enormous +power. They’ll be able to choose when and how they’ll have a child and +what man they want as its father. Overpopulation causes wars as much as +commercial greed and diplomatic deceit and imbecile patriotism. Talk +about the miners’ strike! What I want to see is a universal strike of +women. They could bring all the governments of the world to their knees +in a year. Like the Lysistrata, you know, but not a failure this time.” + +“Oh, George, you are amusing with your fancies I You make me laugh!” + +“Laugh away! But I’m serious. Of course, it isn’t possible to have +such a concerted action all over the world. For one thing it wouldn’t +be politic to announce it, because the unscrupulous governments will +always go to any extent of force and fraud to sustain their infamous +régimes....” + + * * * * * + +They had crossed the road outside Bushey Park and entered the palace +gates. Between the wall which backs the Long Border, the Tudor side +of the palace and another long high wall, is the Wilderness, or old +English garden, composed on the grandiose scale advocated by Bacon. It +is both a garden and a “wilderness,” in the sense that it is planted +with innumerable bulbs (which are thinned and removed from time to +time), but otherwise allowed to run wild. George and Elizabeth stopped +with that sudden ecstasy of delight felt by the sensitive young—a +few of them—at the sight of loveliness. Great secular trees, better +protected than those in the outer Park, held up vast fans of glittering +green and gold foliage which trembled in the light wind and formed +moving patterns on the tender blue sky. The lilacs had just unfolded +their pale hearts showing the slim stalk of closed buds which would +break open later in a foam of white and blue blossoms. Underfoot was +the stouter green of wild plants, spread out like an evening sky of +verdure for the thick clustered constellations of flowers. There shone +the soft slim yellow trumpet of the wild daffodil; the daffodil which +has a pointed ruff of white petals to display its gold head; and the +more opulent double daffodil which, compared with the other two, is +like an ostentatious merchant between Florizel and Perdita. There +were the many-headed jonquils, creamy and thick-scented; the starry +narcissus, so alert on its long slender stiff stem, so sharp-eyed, so +unlike a languid youth gazing into a pool; the hyacinth-blue frail +squilla almost lost in the lush herbs; and the hyacinth, blue and +white and red, with its firm thick-set stem and innumerable bells +curling back their open points. Among them stood tulips—the red, +like thin blown bubbles of dark wine; the yellow more cup-like, more +sensually open to the soft furry entry of the eager bees; the large +parti-coloured gold and red, noble and sombre like the royal banner of +Spain. + +English spring flowers! What an answer to our ridiculous “cosmic woe,” +how salutary, what a soft reproach to bitterness and avarice and +despair, what balm to hurt minds! The lovely bulb-flowers, loveliest of +the year, so unpretentious, so cordial, so unconscious, so free from +the striving after originality of the gardener’s tamed pets! The spring +flowers of the English woods, so surprising under those bleak skies, +and the flowers the English love so much and tend so skilfully in the +cleanly wantonness of their gardens, as surprisingly beautiful as the +poets of that bleak race! When the inevitable “fuit Ilium” resounds +mournfully over London among the appalling crash of huge bombs and +the foul reek of deadly gases while the planes roar overhead, will +the conqueror think regretfully and tenderly of the flowers and the +poets...? + + * * * * * + +When George, on one of our walks, told me the gist of this +conversation with Elizabeth, I was at once more amused and more +interested than I allowed him to see. There are certain aspects of +peoples’ bodies, certain things they say and do, which not only +determine one’s attitude towards them but seem to explain them. And +more, in some cases they seem to reveal an epoch. Every one has +experience of attraction or repulsion caused by another’s body. For +instance, there was once a poet, whose work I admired; but the first +time I met him he tried to hold a girl’s hand. I didn’t mind _that_, +au contraire. What I minded was the awful spectacle of his large ugly +raw-red hand, with knotty fingers and gnawed mourning nails, trying +to enclose the washed and chubby hand of my little friend.... I could +never read his poems again without thinking of that Mr. Hyde-like hand, +the Barrymore film hand of Mr. Hyde.... + +Now I had a reason for dwelling at some length on these preliminary +conversations of George and Elizabeth with George much in the +foreground. They seem to explain a great deal, at least to me. They +reveal him and at the same time “throw more light” (as the learned +say) on the state of mind of a generation of young men who mostly +perished in their twenties. As a rule, George was very silent. Like +most people who think at all he had very little of the small change +of conversation and disliked aimless babbling. But when he was with +somebody he liked, he talked. My God, how much he talked! He was +passionately interested in ideas, passionately interested in his own +reactions to the appearances of things, comparatively little interested +in the lives of other people except in a general and abstract way. He +noticed in a flash the girl at a party who looked like a Botticelli +(people still admired Botticelli in those days and girls lived up to +it) but he would never see, for example, the look on the face of the +rather plain woman whom one guessed to be in love with the handsome +host uxoriously devoted to his new wife. Consequently his talk was all +ideas and impressions. He had an almost indecent love of ideas. If you +threw George a new idea he caught it with a skilled and grateful snap, +like a seal at the Zoo catching a fish jerked at it by the keeper. + +Of course, it is very natural that young men and women should be +interested in ideas, which are new to them though probably stale +enough to those a bit older. But the young War Generation seem to me +to have been abnormally swayed by ideas of grandiose “Social reform.” +England swarmed with Social Reformers. I don’t pretend to know why. +Perhaps it was due to the political idealism of Ruskin and Morris, +aided by the infinitely more sensible work of the Fabians. Everybody +was the architect of a New Jerusalem, and a rummy assortment of plans +they provided. This passion has now reached the disinterested and +noble-minded trade unionist and to some extent even the agricultural +labourer. Consequently, you may now hear, at Hyde Park Corner or in +pubs or third-class carriages, beautifully garbled versions of the +highbrow talk of about twenty years ago. You thus have the encouraging +and delightful spectacle of a proletariat eagerly expecting a +millennium, impossible at any time, but particularly impossible after +a catastrophe which has plunged the intellectuals into Spenglerian +pessimism and hurled the weaker or more cynical into the ironic bosom +of Mother Church.... + +George was pretty much affected by this social reform bunk. He was +always looking at things from “the point of view of the Country” and +far more frequently from “the point of view of humanity.” This may +have been a result of his Public School, kicked-backside-of-the-Empire +training. I know he resisted it with commendable contempt and fury, but +where so much pitch was flying about he could scarcely avoid some of +it. Perhaps the young are always like that, although one does not seem +to notice it. As I pointed out to George years afterwards, he was quite +right to discuss the matter frankly and openly with Elizabeth before +they proceeded further, but all this bunk about eugenics and women’s +rights and preventing wars by birth control would have discouraged any +girl who had not fully made up her mind already that she wanted him. +It was appallingly bad strategy as seduction—though, _en passant_ +let it be noted that “seduction” is one of those primitive notions +which could only inhabit the degenerate minds of lawyers and social +uplifters, since in nine cases out of ten the “seducer,” if any, is the +woman. I thought that George ought to have imparted a little elementary +information, and have pointed out that in the present state of human +affairs it is not quite right for people to have a child without being +legally married because it’s so hard on the child, although in some +cases it should be done deliberately as a protest against a foolish +prejudice. He ought then to have explained how it may spoil a sexual +relationship to have a child too soon and unthinkingly. And he should +then have demonstrated by example and precept that love is an art, and +a very difficult art, and one most dismally and disastrously neglected +especially by “well-bred” Englishmen. It sounds incredible but it is +true that there are thousands of such men, perfectly decent, humane +persons, who despise a woman if they think or know that she experiences +any sexual pleasure. And then they wonder vaguely why women are +shrewish and discontented.... + +All this will sound very elementary to some people and very +reprehensible to others. I am simply trying to explain these people. +Of course, there is always the superior person who veils puritanism by +saying: “I’m so bored with all this talk about sex. Why can’t people +go to bed with the person they want to, and stop talking about it?” +Well, why shouldn’t we talk about what interests us, and what, after +all, is extremely important to adult life and happiness? Maybe we can +learn something from the adulteries of others. It seems to me that the +error of the Elizabeth and George generation was that they were far +too absolute, too general, too dogmatic in their “ideas” about sex. +They _would_ let the Social Reform bunk distort their view. They had +seen in their own homes the dreadful unhappiness and suffering caused +by Victorian, and indeed Edwardian, ignorance and domestic dennery +and swarming infants, and they reacted violently against it. So far, +good. But they failed to see that in the way they went about it, they +were merely setting up another tyranny—the tyranny of free love. Why +shouldn’t people be monogamous if they want to be? Maybe it suits them. +Don’t be dragooned into it, of course, but don’t be frightened out of +it if you’re made that way. There are certain elementary precepts which +always hold good—for instance, Balzac’s “Never begin marriage with +a rape”—but this is a wholly personal and very complex and delicate +relation which people must work out for themselves. All one asks is +that they shall not be interfered with by law and busybodies. It is +an interesting comment on the sadism latent in communities that the +cruelty and misery of the Victorian home are legally protected and held +up as shining examples of behaviour, whereas any attempt to make people +a little more natural and happy and tolerant is supposed to be wicked. +How men destroy their own happiness! How they hate happiness and +pleasure! Think of the insane delusion of female chastity which holds +that any woman who has “had” more than one man is “impure,” whereas +in fact many women soon come to dislike profoundly their first lover, +and most are only really happy and satisfied with a fourth or sixth or +tenth. + +Alas! “with human nature what it is,” the love-lives of most people +will always alternate between brief periods of happiness and long +periods of suffering. The “sexual problem” will only be solved with the +millennium which produces a perfect humanity. Until then we can only +look on and sigh at the ruined lives; and reflect that men and women +might be to each other the great consolation, while in fact they do +little but torment each other.... + + * * * * * + +I do not pity Elizabeth and George. They were very happy that day—and +on other days—and to be quite happy even for one day is sufficient +sanction for the misfortune of existence. + +They went from the Wilderness into the large garden and walked slowly +beside the Long Border where the gardeners were busily potting out +spring flowers. The crocuses were almost over, and the large motor +lawn-mower was smoothly humming over the delicate green turf of the +great lawns. They looked at the trimmed yews and wondered if they had +been planted by Cardinal Wolsey. They criticized, somewhat adversely, +the lead statue of the three Graces and, walking under the trees by +the canals, noticed the cold green lily-leaves just beginning to +unfold under water. They stood at the end of the Long Border and for +a long time in silence watched the swirl and eddy of the Thames, the +house-boats being freshly painted for the season, the exquisite swaying +fronds of the young willows. In the Privy Garden, on the raised walk +and under the lime-tree avenue where the great clumps of crocuses +lay sprawled and dying and overgrown at the foot of each tree, they +talked of King Charles, and fought over the age-old contest of King +and Parliament. Elizabeth was romantically for the handsome melancholy +King; George Whiggish and all for political freedom, though gravely +disapproving of Puritan vandalism. They went through the Fountain Court +and the beautiful Tudor Courts, and walked along the river, and sat +under a tree to eat their lunch. They talked and argued and laughed and +made plans and reformed the world and felt important (God knows why!) +and held hands and kissed when they thought no one was looking.... And +yes, they were very happy. + + * * * * * + +Dear Lovers! If it were not for you, how dreary the world would be! +Never shall a pair of you pass me without a kindly discreet glance +and a murmured wish, “Be happy.” How my heart warmed to an old French +poet as we walked slowly on the Boulevard, and the lovers in the soft +evening air passed us by, hand so close in hand, bodies so amorously +near, eyes so sparkling and alive. Now and then, in the intoxicating +air of the spring and the tolerant kindliness of the Parisians, a +pair would feel so exuberant and so enthusiastic and so moved with +each other’s perfections, that they would have to stop and exchange +a long kiss, perfunctorily hidden by a quite inadequate tree-trunk. +Nobody interrupted them, nobody scowled, no policeman arrested them +for indecency. And the old poet paused, and laid his hand on my arm, +and said: “Mon ami, I grow old! I am nearly sixty. And sometimes as I +pass along these streets and see these warm young people I find myself +thinking: ‘How impudique! Why is this permitted? Why do they intrude +their passions on me?’ And then I remember that I too was young, and I +too passed eagerly and happily with one or other of my young mistresses +whom I thought so beautiful, each of whom I loved with so immortal a +love! And I look at the lovers passing and I say to myself: ‘Allez-y, +mes enfants, allez-y, soyez heureux!’” + +Dear Lovers! Let us never forget that you are the sweetness of the +bitter world. + + * * * * * + +And Elizabeth and George lingered through the sunny hours; and before +the afternoon became too chill—for April is cold in England—they went +back slowly through the long glades of the Park, they too hand in hand +like the lovers on the Boulevard, they too with bodies amorously near, +they too with eyes sparkling and alive, they too pausing to join their +lips when the loveliness of life and the ecstasy of loving drew them +together in a kiss. + +They were so happy they did not know they were tired. + + + + + [ V ] + + +It is fascinating to observe how people organize and disorganize their +lives, fascinating to see how an impulse of vitality sends them off on +a certain line, how they wobble, err, suffer, recover themselves. What +is the most banal street, the most tedious place you know? Think how +fascinating if only you knew the real lives of those tedious people! + +There are two centres or poles of activity in every adult life—the +economic and the sexual. Hunger and Death, the enemies. Your whole +adult life depends on how you deal with the two primitive foes, Hunger +and Death. Never mind how much the conditions of collective human life +seem to have altered them, they are there; you can never really get +away from Hunger and Death, from the need to eat and the will to live +again. + +Thus, two problems are created—the economic and the sexual. There is +no cut-and-dried solution of either. Existence is tolerable—I will +not say “happy,” though I believe in happiness—to the extent that +as an individual you are successful in solving these two problems. +Certain traditional solutions are presented to us all in youth, and the +swiftness with which we see their foolishness is an almost unerring +test of intelligence. When we have seen through them, a new and +delicate problem presents itself—we have to create our own happiness +underneath or in despite of the Laws (or rules for collective life) and +at the same time preserve intact the sense of Justice, or that which is +due to each. + +The primitive, the proletarian, the common man and woman solution is +merely one of _quantity_. Get all the grub and copulation you want and +more than you want and ipso facto you will be happy. Put money in thy +purse. Excellent Iago, what a fool you are! Noble Caliban, what a silly +beast! Savages, the heroes of Homer and working men gorge on the flesh +of beeves. To sack a town and rape all the women was the sexual ideal +of centuries of civilized savages. To do the same thing with money +sneakingly, instead of with the sword openly, is the actual ideal of +Dr. Frank Crane’s world-famous business men. The judgment of the wiser +world is upon them all. Let them join the megatherium and the wild ass. + +Then you have the Rudyard Kipling or British Public School solution. +Not so far removed from the other as you might think, for it is +a harnessing of the same primitive instincts to the service of a +group—the nation—instead of to the service of the individual. +Whatever is done for the Empire is right. Not Truth and Justice, but +British Truth and British Justice. Odious profanation! You are the +servant of the Empire, never mind whether you are rich or poor, do what +the Empire tells you, and so long as the Empire is rich and powerful +you ought to be happy. Woman? A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair. Get +rid of the sexual problem by teaching men to despise women, either by +open scorn or by putting them on the pedestal of chastity. Of course, +they’re valuable as possessions. Oh, quite! There can be no world peace +because the man who has the most money gets the best woman, as the +German Kaiser said at the gathering of the nations. As if the nations +were a set of Kiplingesque characters bidding against each other for an +expensive tart! How despicable, how odious! + +No, each of us has to work out the problems for himself and, I repeat, +on the correct solution of both depends happiness in life. I do not +pretend to be able to teach what is your solution. I think I know what +is mine; but that is not necessarily yours. But I am quite sure that +the quantitative and the British Public School solutions are wrong.... + +The struggle with Hunger, or the economic problem, leads to situations +of astonishing “human interest,” as Balzac recognized. But we are not +much concerned with it here. It was highly important in the case of +Isabel; very little in the case of Elizabeth and George. They were +content with very little, which they obtained quite easily—Elizabeth +from her parents, George by various odd jobs which occupied only a +comparatively small part of his time. Each wanted to avoid the slavery +of working eight hours a day at a stated wage, for some one else, +though both were willing to work sixteen hours a day on their own, at +what they wanted to do. Neither had the slightest ambition to dominate +others through wealth. Of course, you may say they solved the economic +problem by dodging it. However, as far as they are concerned as +individuals, that _was_ a solution. + +But this “dodging solution” (if you like to call it such) involved the +sexual problem, too. It was quite obvious that George was incapable +of supporting a woman and children on his perfunctorily performed +jobs, while his painting was rather a liability than an asset. On the +other hand, it was equally obvious that Elizabeth was not rich enough +to afford the luxury of an artist husband and a family. It therefore +followed that they could not afford children, and since they didn’t +want them, this was a misfortune they contemplated with calm. But, +since they didn’t want children, it followed that there was no need to +get married. Why get married, except for the sake of the unfortunate +little bastard? + +All of which they talked out very fully before they ever lay together. +You may say, of course, that this is very wicked and “unnatural,” that +if every one acted in this way the human race would soon come to a +full stop. I shall not make the obvious retort of “a good job too,” +but merely say that I observe no danger of under-population in Europe. +Since the population of England is about three times the amount which +the land of England can feed, I am inclined to think that George and +Elizabeth should be regarded as a national hero and heroine in this +respect.... + +If you are as quick-witted as you ought to be you will already have +noticed one big difference between the George-Elizabeth _ménage_ +(I don’t mean the legal irregularity, which is of no importance) +and the _ménages_ of George Augustus-Isabel, Dear Mamma-Dear Papa, +Ma-and-Pa Hartly. “They talked it out very fully before they ever +lay together.” You get the point? They used their intelligence, they +actually used their intelligence _before_ embarking on a joint sexual +experience. That’s the great break in the generations. Trying to use +some intelligence in life, instead of blindly following instincts and +the collective imbecility of the ages as embodied in social and legal +codes. Isabel “married for money” and got what she deserved, viz., +bankruptcy. But she had been obliquely taught that it was a girl’s duty +to use men’s sexual passions as a means of acquiring property. Whoring +within the law. The Trade Union of married women. George Augustus was +greatly attracted by Isabel and wanted to lie with her. Why not? My +God, why not? But he had never thought about the problems. He didn’t +want children; Isabel didn’t want children. Not really. But they had +been taught that if a man and woman wanted to lie together it was +horribly wicked to do so unless they were “married.” The parson, the +public ceremonies and the signatures made “sacred” what was otherwise +inexpressibly wrong and sinful. But in the code on which George +Augustus and Isabel were reared “marriage” meant “a dear little baby” +nine months after the wedding bells. All right for those who go into it +with open eyes. Perfect. Charming. I’ll be godfather every ten months. +J’adore les enfants. But all wrong, all so rottenly wrong, if you go +into it like a couple of ninnies, mess up your sexual life, disappoint +the man, disgust the woman, and produce an infant you can’t look after +properly.... + +Which is precisely what George Augustus and Isabel did, and what their +parents did before them.... + +Now the marriage of Molière’s time was jolly sensible so far as it +went. You, Eraste, love Lisette? Good. You, Lisette, love Eraste? +Admirable. You wish to crown your flame? Most natural and delightful. +But you know that means infants? Perfect. How much money have you +got, Eraste? Nothing? Ah!... But your father approves? Will give ten +thousand crowns if Lisette’s father will give another five thousand? +Delicious. _Quite_ a different situation. Your father approves, +Lisette? Yes? Quick, a notary. Bless you, my children. + +That was blunt, bluff common-sense. I’m sorry for Lisette, but not for +Lisette’s children. + +The only trouble was that Lisette and Eraste were not very happy +sexually—hence the _amants_ of Lisette and the _amies_ of Eraste. So +you dropped into promiscuity, and Eraste didn’t know if Lisette’s later +brats were his; and Lisette didn’t know how many dear little bastards +Eraste was scattering about the world. All of which made for nastiness, +cantankerousness and hypocrisy. + +The simple process of dissociating sex life from the philoprogenitive +instinct was performed by the War Generation—at least on the grand +scale, for isolated practitioners had long existed. The march of +Science (how delightful clichés are!) had brought certain engines +within the reach of all; and sensible people profited by them. The old +alternative of burning or marrying disappeared. And the following, +far better proposition arose. It was perfectly possible for man or +woman to live a satisfactory sex life without having children. Hence, +by the scientific process of trial and error, it became possible for +each to seek the really satisfactory lover; while those who were +philoprogenitively inclined might marry (en attendant mieux) for the +sake of the children. Thus there was a return to the wise promiscuity +of the Ancients (if the Ancients ever did anything so sensible, which I +greatly doubt) which was a great advance on humbug, domestic tyranny, +furtive promiscuity and whoring. One definite result, which we see +to-day, is an undeniable decline in the number of whores—the first +time this has occurred since the Edict of Milan. + +Unfortunately the pre-war “engines” were rather crude and not wholly +reliable.... + +George and Elizabeth, then, were either extremely sensible or +disgustingly immoral—I don’t mind what your judgment is, I am +recording facts. I don’t, however, attempt to disguise my own +prejudice, which is that intelligence makes for a far better life than +“Luv” and “God,” those euphuisms for stupidity and ignorance. In a +manner of speaking they were pioneers. At any rate, they thought they +were, which is all that matters here. They really thought they had +worked out a more sensible, more intelligent, more humane relationship +between the sexes. But there were certain rather important little +snags they overlooked. Like most bright young things, they were very +cock-sure of themselves, a good bit too cock-sure. And then, while one +doesn’t at all deny that they were pretty bright, and on the right +track, their knowledge was unhappily theoretical, chiefly derived +from George’s reading and meditations. It’s a confoundedly dangerous +thing for two virgins to take on the job of initiating each other into +a complicated art they only know theoretically. Dangerous, in that +high hopes may be dashed, rather lovely emotions sadly frustrated and +a beautiful relationship spoiled. There are dangers in meeting the +undeniably right person too soon in life. Two handsome young married +people, obviously deeply in love—what a charming spectacle, how +delightful.... Wait! You wait! Not very long either.... + + * * * * * + +You haven’t forgotten Fanny and the young man from Cambridge.... + + * * * * * + +Well, Elizabeth and George worked out their scheme, and for a +considerable time it all worked admirably. But for the war and the +upset of every one’s mind and life and character, it might have +weathered the small storms of Fanny and the young man—and perhaps +other Fannies and other young men—and still have gone on working. +Elizabeth abandoned her Hampstead boarding house, and found a large +room, which did as a studio, in Bloomsbury. She wrote her parents +in Manchester that she did this for the sake of economy and to be +nearer her “work”—whatever that might mean. The economy consisted in +the fact that when she spent the night with George at his “studio” +she was obviously not wearing out her own bed clothes. Elizabeth’s +mother paid her a surprise visit. Most luckily George had gone away +for the week-end, and Elizabeth was “discovered” calmly painting by +herself. She behaved with the admirable dissimulation which comes so +naturally to women, swiftly whipped away one or two objects (such as a +tobacco pipe and pouch, the _Psychology of Sex_, inscribed “To darling +Elizabeth from George”) which might have betrayed a certain intimacy +with a male, and sent George a long warning telegram. Mrs. Paston +stayed three days. Of course, she suspected “something.” Elizabeth +looked about ten times prettier, was much more smartly dressed, talked +differently, used all sorts of new phrases, and was obviously very +happy, so happy that even three days of her mother failed to depress +her completely. Elizabeth treated her char-lady with reasonable +humanity, so when Mrs. Paston severely cross-examined her in secret +about Elizabeth, the char-lady just went beautifully stupid and stood +by Elizabeth nobly. “Oh, no, Ma’am, I never seen nothin’ wrong.” “Oh, +yes, Ma’am, Miss Elizabeth’s such a nice young lady.” “I’m only here of +mornings, Ma’am.” So Mrs. Paston, baffled but somewhat suspicious—what +right had Elizabeth to look so well and happy and pretty away from her +dear parents?—had to return home and present a blank report. + +So that alarm died down. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth became inordinately proud of being no longer a virgin. You +might have thought she was the only devirginated young woman in London. +But, like King Midas, she burned to share her secret, to make somebody +else envious. So one week when George had run over to Paris about some +pictures, she invited Fanny to tea, and after a tremendous amount +of preparation, confessed the lovely secret. Partly to Elizabeth’s +disappointment and partly to her relief, Fanny took the news as +something very ordinary. + +“I’m really surprised you waited so long, my dear.” + +“But you’re nearly as old as I am!” + +“Oh, but, darling, didn’t you _know?_ I’ve had two or three affairs. +Only I didn’t say anything to _you_. I thought you’d be shocked.” + +“Shocked?” Elizabeth laughed scornfully, though she _was_ a bit +surprised. “Why on earth should _I_ be shocked? _I_ think people should +be free to have all the love affairs they want.” + +“Do tell me who he is!” + +Elizabeth blushed slightly and hesitated. + +“No, I won’t tell you now, but you’ll meet him soon.” + +“But, Elizabeth, I hope you’re careful? You won’t go and have a baby?” + +Elizabeth laughed scornfully again. + +“Have a baby? Of course not! Why ever do you think I’m so silly? George +and I talked it—” + +“Oh! His name’s ‘George’ is it?” + +“Yes. Did I let that out? Yes, George Winterbourne. Well, we talked +it all out, and we’ve got a perfectly good arrangement. George says +we’re too young to have children, so why get married; and anyway we’re +too poor. If we want children later on, we can always _get_ married. I +said I wouldn’t tie myself down with _any_ man—I don’t want anybody +else’s name. I told George that if I wanted other lovers I should have +them, and if he wanted any one else he was to have her. But, of course, +when there’s a relationship as firmly established as ours, one doesn’t +_want_ any one else.” + +Fanny smiled. + + * * * * * + +As a matter of fact, Elizabeth had not said anything of the sort, when +George drew up his Triumphal Scheme of the Perfect Sex Relationship. +She had been rather timid and uncertain at first. But George’s +discourses and the books on physiology and psychology and sex which he +made her read and her own exultation at being no longer a virgin had +sent her spinning in the other direction. She had, in a few months, +far outdistanced George in “freedom.” Her argument was rational and +quite defensible; indeed it was a corollary to George’s own views, +though he hadn’t seen it. Because you were very fond of one person, she +argued, that was no reason why you shouldn’t be attracted by others. +Monogamy was established to tyrannize women and to make sure offspring +were legitimate and to provide for them and the mother. But where +women are free and there is no offspring, what on earth is the good +of an artificial and forced fidelity? Directly one has to _promise_ +fidelity, directly an effort of will is made to “remain faithful,” a +false position is set up. The effort of keeping such a promise is the +surest assurance that it will be broken sooner or later. On the other +hand, while you are in love with some one, well, you’re in love, and +you either don’t want any one else, or if you do, you’re probably only +too happy to get back speedily to the person you do really care for. + +There was logic and a good deal of sense in this, George had to admit. +But he also had to admit to himself that he didn’t altogether like the +idea of Elizabeth “going with” somebody else. Nor, for that matter, +would Elizabeth have liked George “going with” another girl. But she +deceived herself unknowingly. At that time she was very much under the +influence of a Swedish book she had read, a book devoted to the Future +of the Race. This was the work of an earnest-minded virgin of fifty +who laid it down as an indisputable axiom that there must be complete +frankness between the sexes. “The old notion of sexual fidelity must +go,” declared this enthusiastic writer, “and only from the golden +sun-bath of divinely nude freedom can rise the glorious new race et +cetera, et cetera.” Elizabeth didn’t know the authoress was an old +maid, and she was annoyed with George for making fun of the “golden +sun-bath of divinely nude freedom.” + +“But, Elizabeth,” George had said, when she propounded this argument, +“of course, I believe that people should be free, and it’s disgusting +for them to stay together when they don’t any longer love each other. +But suppose I happened to want some one else, just a sort of whim, and +went on loving you, wouldn’t it be better if I said nothing about it? +And the same with you?” + +“And tell each other lies? Why, George, you yourself have said time and +again that there can be no genuine relationship which involves deceit. +The very essence and beauty and joy of our relation depend upon its +being honest and frank and accepting facts.” + +“Why, yes, but...” + +“Look at the lives of our parents, look at all the sneaking adulteries +going on at this very moment in every suburb of London. Don’t you see, +why, you _must_ see, that what’s wrong about adultery is not the sexual +part of it at all, but the plotting and sneaking and dissimulation and +lies and pretence....” + +“That’s true,” said George slowly and reflectively, “that’s true. +But—suppose I told you that when I was last in Paris I spent the +nights with Georgina Harris?” + +“Did you?” + +“No, of course not. But, you see...” + +“What would it have mattered if you had? My Swedish woman you make fun +of is very sound about that. She says that two people should spend a +few days or more away from each other every few weeks, and that it +may be a very good thing for them to have other sexual experience. It +prevents any feeling of sameness and satiety, and often brings two +people together more closely than ever, if only they’re frank about it.” + +“I wonder,” said George, “I wonder. Is there any one you’re interested +in, Elizabeth?” + +“Of course not. You’re really rather unintelligent about this, George. +You know perfectly well I love you and shall never love any one else +so much. But there mustn’t be any lying and dissimulation, and no +artificial fidelity. If you want to go off for a night or a week-end +or a week with some charming girl or woman, you must go. And if I want +to do the same with a man, I must. Don’t you see that by thwarting a +mere _béguin_ you may turn it into something more serious, whereas by +enjoying it you get rid of it? Probably, as my Swedish woman says, one +is so much disappointed that a single night is more than enough, and +one returns to one’s love eagerly, cured of wandering fancies for the +next six months.” + +“Yes, I daresay there’s something in that. It seems sound. And yet if +the original relationship is so secure and if the other affair is so +slight and unimportant and merely physical, it seems unnecessary to +hurt one’s love by speaking about it. I don’t tell you every day what I +had for lunch. Besides, even if one spends only one night with another +person that implies at least a one night’s preference which might hurt.” + +“Which might hurt!” Elizabeth mocked. “George, you’re being positively +old-fashioned. Why, when you go to Paris, isn’t that a preference? And +when I go to Fanny’s cottage in the country for a week-end, isn’t that +a preference? How do you know we’re not Sapphic friends?” + +“I’m jolly sure you’re not! You’re neither of you in the least bit +Lesbian types. Besides, you’d have told me.” + +“You see! You know quite well I’d have told you.” + +“Yes, but going to Paris or the country for a few days isn’t the same +sort of ‘preference.’” + +The argument tailed off in a futile attempt to define “preference.” +Ultimately Elizabeth carried her point. It was definitely established +that “nothing could break” a relationship such as theirs; but that +“love itself must have rest” and therefore there was wisdom in +occasional short separations; that so far from breaking up such +a relationship occasional “slight affairs” elsewhere would only +strengthen and stimulate it. George allowed himself to be convinced. +The snag here lay in the fact that he had definitely sensed the +possible danger of arousing jealousy, whereas Elizabeth, confident in +herself and the theories of her Swedish old maid, scorned the idea that +so base a passion could even enter _their_ relation. + + * * * * * + +About two months after this George and Elizabeth were cheerfully dining +in a small Soho restaurant when Fanny came in with a young man, the +“young man from Cambridge,” Reggie Burnside. + +“Oh, look!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “there’s Fanny and a friend with her. +Fanny! Fanny!” signalling across the room. Fanny came across. + +“This is George Winterbourne. You’ve often heard of Fanny, George. I +say, Fanny, do come and have dinner with us.” + +“Yes, do.” + +“But I’ve got Reggie Burnside with me.” + +“Well, bring him along too.” + +The young man was introduced, and they sat down at the table. In most +respects Fanny was curiously different from Elizabeth; each was not so +much the antithesis as the complement to the other. Fanny was just a +little taller than Elizabeth (George disliked short women), and where +Elizabeth was dark and Egyptian-looking and pale, Fanny was golden and +English (not chocolate-box English) and most delicate white and red. +She was a bit like Priscilla, George thought, but with the soft gold of +Priscilla made hard and glittering like an exquisite metallic flower. +There was something both gem-like and flower-like in Fanny. Perhaps +that was due to her eyes. With other women you are conscious almost +immediately of all sorts of beauties and defects, but with Fanny you +were instantaneously absorbed by the eyes. When you thought about her +afterwards, you just saw a mental image of those extraordinary blue +eyes, disassociated from the rest of her, like an Edgar Poe vision. +But unlike so many vivid blue eyes, they were gem-like rather than +flower-like; they were not soft nor stupid nor sentimental nor languid, +but clear, alert and rather hard. You may see exactly their shade +of colour in the deeper parts of Lake Garda on a sunny day. Yet the +quality was not aqueous, but vitreous. Venetian glass, perhaps? No, +that is too opaque. It is very hard to say what was the quality which +made them so remarkable. Men looked at them once and fell helplessly +in love, one might say almost noisily in love—Fanny didn’t mind, it +was obviously her _métier_ to have men fall in love with her. Perhaps +Fanny’s eyes were simply made a symbol in the imagination of that +mysterious sexual attraction which radiated from her, or perhaps they +conformed to some unwritten but instinctively recognized canon of the +perfect eye, the Platonic “idea” of eyes.... + +With Elizabeth you saw not the eyes alone, but the whole head. You +would have liked to keep Fanny’s eyes, magnificently set in gold, in +an open jewel-casket, to look at when you doubted whether any beauty +remained in the dull world. But with Elizabeth you wanted the whole +head, it was so much like one of those small stone heads of Egyptian +princesses in the Louvre. So very Egyptian. The full delicately-moulded +lips, the high cheek-bones, the slightly oblique eye-sockets, the +magnificent line from ear to chin, the upward sweep of the wide +brow, the straight black hair. Oddly enough, on analysis Elizabeth’s +eyes proved to be quite as beautiful as Fanny’s, but somehow less +ostentatiously lovely. They were deeper and softer, and which is rare +in dark eyes, intelligent. Fanny’s blue eyes were intelligent enough, +but they hadn’t quite the subtle depths of Elizabeth’s, they hadn’t the +same reserve. + +Elizabeth lived very much in and on herself; Fanny was a whole-hearted +extravert. Where Elizabeth hesitated, mused, suffered, Fanny acted, +came a cropper, picked herself up gaily and started off again with +just the same zest for experience. She was more smartly dressed +than Elizabeth. Of course, Elizabeth was always quite charming and +attractive, but you guessed that she had other things to think about +beside clothes. Fanny loved clothes, and with no more money than +Elizabeth, contrived to look stunningly fashionable where Elizabeth +merely looked O. K. Oddly enough, Fanny was not devoured by the Scylla +of clothes, the monster of millinery which is never satiate with its +female victims. Her energy saved her from that. She and Elizabeth were +both restlessly energetic, but whereas Elizabeth’s energy went into +dreaming and arguing and trying to paint, Fanny’s went into all sorts +of activities with all sorts of persons. She did not “do” anything, +having sense enough to see that in most young women, “art” is merely a +kind of safety-valve for sex. Fanny, I’m glad to say, did not need a +safety-valve for her sex; the steam-pressure was kept regulated and the +engine worked perfectly, thank you very much. She was emotionally and +mentally far less complicated than Elizabeth, less profound; therefore +to her the new sexual régime, where perfect freedom has happily taken +the place of service, presented fewer possible snags. I’ve said, of +course, that Fanny sometimes came a cropper; she did, but she hadn’t +Elizabeth’s capacity for suffering, Elizabeth’s desolate despair when +her silk purse turned out to be a sow’s ear—which every one else had +known long before. + +Perhaps the remarkable quality of Elizabeth’s mind and character is +best shown by the fact that she never said or implied anything mean or +nasty about Fanny’s clothes.... + + * * * * * + +Reggie Burnside was a rich young man engaged in some mysterious +“research work” at Cambridge, something connected with the structure +of the atom, and highly impressive because the nature of his work +could only be explained in elaborate mathematical symbols. He wore +spectacles, talked in a high intellectual voice with the peculiar +intonation and blurred syllables favoured by some members of that +great centre of learning, and appeared exceedingly weary. Even Fanny’s +impetuous dash never galvanized him into a spontaneous action or a +natural remark. He also was extremely modern, and was devoted to +Fanny. He was always at hand when nothing better presented itself—the +permanent second string to the fiddle, or, as Fanny put it, one of her +_fautes_, adding sotto-voce, my _faute-de-mieux_. + +The talk at first was the usual high-brow chatter of the +period—Flecker and Brooke and Mr. Russell, referred to as “Bertie” +in a casual way by Fanny and Reggie, to the mystification of George. +This is one of the charming traits of the English intelligentsia. Every +one they don’t know is an outsider, and they love to keep the outsider +outside by a gently condescending patronage. A most effective method is +to talk nonchalantly about well-known people by their Christian names: + +“Have you read Johnny’s last book?” + +“No-oh. Not yet. The last one was a dreadful bore. Is this any better?” + +“No-oh, I don’t think so. Tommy dislikes it profoundly. Says it reminds +him of sports on the village green.” + +“How a-_mus_ing!” + +“Oh, Tommy can be quite a-_mus_ing at times. I was with him and Bernard +the other day, and Bernard said...” + +And if the outsider is silly enough to bite, and to say timidly or +bluntly: “Who’s Johnny?” the answer comes swift and sweet: + +“O-oh! Don’t you _know_...!” + +And then the dazzled outsider is condescendingly informed who “Johnny” +is, and especially if a mere American or Continental, is crushed to +learn that “Johnny” is Johnny Walker or some other enormously brilliant +light in the firmament of British culture.... + + * * * * * + +George got sick of hearing about “Bertie” without being told who the +devil Bertie was, and began to talk about Ezra Pound, Jules Romains and +Modigliani. But he soon learned by sweet implication that such people +might be all very well in their way, but after all, well, you know +what I mean, Cambridge _is_ Cambridge.... So George shut up, and said +nothing. Then Reggie began to talk to Elizabeth about Alpine climbing, +the sport of Dons—and a very appropriate one too, if you think about +it. And Fanny talked to George. + +Now Fanny was quite a subtile little beast of the field, and saw +that George was a bit sulky, and guessed why. Vapourish airs were +indifferent to her. She had been brought up among such people, and +unconsciously adopted their tone when speaking to them. But when she +was among other sorts of people she just as unconsciously dropped the +vapourish airs, and let her natural self respond to theirs. She had +a foot, one might almost say a leg, in several social worlds; and +got on perfectly well in any of them. There was a sort of physical +indifference in Fanny which at first sight looked like mere hardness, +and wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t nearly as hard as Elizabeth, who could +be quite Stonehenge-y at times. And then suddenly crumble. But Fanny’s +physical indifference carried her through a lot; one felt that her +morning bath had something Lethean about it, and washed away the memory +of last night’s lover along with his touch. + +So Fanny began to talk to George quite naturally and gaily. He was +suspicious, and gave her three verbal bangs in quick succession. She +took them with unflinching good humour, and went on talking and trying +to find out what he was interested in. George pretty soon melted to +her gaiety—or perhaps it was the gem-like eyes. He looked at them, +and wondered what it felt like to possess natural organs which were +such superb _objets d’art_. They must, he reflected, cause her a good +deal of annoyance. Every man who met her would feel called upon to +inform her that she had wonderful eyes, as if he had made an astounding +discovery, hitherto unrevealed by any one. George decided that it would +be well _not_ to comment upon Fanny’s eyes at a first meeting. + +Reggie had failed to interest Elizabeth in Alpine climbing, and +switched off on to “a_mus_ing” anecdotes, which were more successful. +Under the mild influence of a little wine and a sympathetic listener +Reggie shed some of his worst mannerisms, and became almost human. +He liked Elizabeth. She might not be wholly “a_mus_ing” but she was +“re_fresh_ing.” (She was a good listener.) And when the talk once again +became general, George began to think that Reggie was not such a bad +fellow after all; there was a sort of “niceness” about him, the genuine +English pride and good nature under a screen of affectation. + +They sat over coffee and cigarettes until the fidgeting of the waiter +and “Madame’s” little games with the electric switches warned them that +their money and absence would now be more welcome than their company. +It was well after ten—too late for the cinema. They walked down +Shaftesbury Avenue, George with Reggie, and Elizabeth with Fanny. + +“I like your George,” said Fanny. + +“Do you? I’m so glad.” + +“He’s a bit _farouche_, but I like the way he enthuses about what +interests him. It’s not put on.” + +“I think Reggie’s rather nice.” + +“Oh! Reggie....” and Fanny waved her hand with a little shrug. + +“But he _is_ nice, Fanny. You know you like him.” + +“Yes, he’s all right. I’m not wild about him. You can have him, if you +want.” + +“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed, “wait till I ask you!” + + * * * * * + +They separated at Piccadilly Circus. Fanny and Reggie went off +somewhere in a taxi. Coming down Shaftesbury Avenue, George had noticed +that it was a clear night with a full moon, and insisted on going to +the Embankment to see the moonlight on the Thames. They turned into the +Haymarket. + +“What do you think of Fanny?” asked Elizabeth. + +“I think she has most marvelous eyes.” + +“Yes, that’s what every one says.” + +“I was trying to be original! But she’s a nice girl, too. At first, +when she and Burnside began talking, I thought she was hopelessly +infected by his sort of affectation.” + +“Why! Don’t you like him? I thought he was charming.” + +“Charming? I shouldn’t say that. I think he’s not a bad sort of fellow +really, but you know how exasperating I find the Cambridge bleat. Ah’d +much raver lis’n to a muckin’ Cawkn’y, swop me bob, I would.” + +“But you know he’s a very important young scientist, and supposed to be +doing marvelous research work.” + +“Do you know what it is?” + +“No. Fanny couldn’t tell me. She said you had to be a specialist +yourself to understand what he’s doing.” + +“Well, I must say I’m a bit suspicious of these mysterious +‘specialists,’ who can’t even tell you plainly what they’re doing. +I think Boileau’s right—what’s accurately conceived can be clearly +expressed. When Science begins to talk the language of mystic Theology +and superstition, I begin to suspect it vehemently. Besides, only the +feeble sections of any aristocracy take on vapourish airs and affected +ways of talk. Well-bred people haven’t any affectations. And men with +really fine minds haven’t any intellectual vanity.” + +“Oh, but Reggie isn’t vain. He didn’t even mention his work to me. And +he told such a_mus_ing stories.” + +“That’s just another form of insolence—they assume you’re too ignorant +and stupid to understand their great and important labours, so they +never condescend even to mention them, but tell ‘a_mus_ing stories,’ as +I see you’ve already learned to call Common-Room gossip.” + +Elizabeth was silent, ominously silent. She was more used to the +Cambridge manner than George was, and thought he fussed too much +about it. Besides, she had been really attracted by Reggie. She +thought George was making a jealous scene. There she did him a wrong; +it never occurred to George that Elizabeth might fall in love with +Reggie. (Oddly enough, it never _does_ occur to a husband or a lover +_in esse_ to suspect his probable coadjutor—until it is too late. He +suspects plenty of wrong people, but rarely the right one. The Cyprian +undoubtedly has artful ways.) As a matter of fact, George had not the +slightest feeling of jealousy. He was merely saying what he felt, as +he would have done about any other chance acquaintance. He respected +Elizabeth’s silence. It was one of their numerous pacts—to respect +each other’s silence. So they walked mutely down Whitehall, while +George thought vaguely about Fanny and his next day’s work and cocked +his head up to try to see the moon and watched the occasional busses +bounding along like rapid barges in the empty light-filled river of +Belgian blocks; and Elizabeth brooded over the supposed revelation +of a hitherto unsuspected tendency to silly jealousy in George. But +just as they approached the Abbey, George slipped his arm through +hers so naturally, affectionately and unsuspiciously that Elizabeth’s +ill-humour vanished, and in two minutes they were chattering as volubly +as ever. + +They walked along the Embankment from Westminster Bridge towards the +City. A serene sky hung over London, transposed to an astonishing blue +by the complementary yellow of the brilliant street lights. A few +trams and taxis were still moving on the Embankment, but after the +ceaseless roar of day traffic, the air seemed almost silent. At times, +they could hear the lap and gurgle of the swift river water, as the +strong flood tide ran inland, bearing a faint flavour of salt. The +river was beautifully silver in the soft steady moonlight which wavered +into multitudes of ripples as soon as it touched the broken surface of +the Thames. Blocks of moored barges stood black and immovable in the +silver flood. The Southern bank was dark, low and motionless, except +for the luminous announcements of the blessings of Lipton’s Tea and +the Daily Mail. The Scotchman in coloured moving lights pledged the +bonny highlands in countless sparkling glasses of electric whiskey. +Hungerford Railway Bridge seemed filled with the red eyes of immense +dragons, whose vast bulk lay coiled somewhere invisibly on either bank. +Occasionally a red eye would wink green, and presently a brightly-lit +train would crawl cautiously and heavily over the vibrating bridge. The +lighted windows of the Cecil and the Savoy aroused no envy in them. Nor +did they pine to inspect the records of a great people lying behind the +darkened and silent façade of Somerset House. + +Opposite the quiet Temple Garden they paused by the parapet and looked +up and down that magnificent sweep of river, with its amazing mixture +of dignified beauty and almost incredible sordidness. They stood for +some time, talking in quiet tones, comparing the Thames with the Seine, +and wondering what dream-like city would have arisen by those noble +curves if London had been inhabited by a race of artists. Elizabeth +wanted to set Florence or Oxford on either side of the Thames between +Westminster and St. Paul’s. George agreed that that would be lovely, +but thought the buildings would be dwarfed by the width of the river, +the long bridges and the length of façade. And they finally agreed +that with all its sordidness and hugger-mugger and strange contrast of +palaces abutting on slums, the Embankment had a beauty of its own which +they would not exchange even for the dream-city of a race of artists. + +Midnight boomed with majestic, policeman-like slowness from Big Ben; +and as the last deep vibrations faded from the air, the great city +seemed to be gliding into sleep and silence. They lingered a little +longer, and then turned to go. + +Then, for the first time they noticed what they knew would be there +but had forgotten in their absorbed delight in the silvery water and +moon-washed outlines of the city—that on every bench sat crouched or +huddled one or more miserable ragged human beings. In front of them +ran the mystically lovely river; behind them the dark masses of the +Temple rose solidly and sternly defensive of Law and Order behind +the spear-front of its tall sharp-pointed iron fence. And there they +crouched and huddled in rags and hunger and misery, free-born members +of the greatest Empire the earth has yet seen, citizens of Her who so +proudly claimed to be the wealthiest of cities, the exchange and mart +of the whole world. + +George gave what change he had in his pockets to a noseless syphilitic +hag, and Elizabeth emptied her purse into the hand of a shivering child +which had to be awakened to receive the gift, and cowered as if it +thought it was going to be struck. + +Ignoring the hag’s hoarse: “Thank yer kindly, Sir, Gord bless yer, +Lidy,” they fled clutching each other’s hands. They did not speak until +they said good-night outside Elizabeth’s door. + + + + + [ VI ] + + +During 1913 life ran on very pleasantly and happily for George and +Elizabeth. As in the cases of the fortunate nations without a history, +there appears to be very little to record about this year. I make no +doubt that it was the happiest in George’s life. He was, as they say, +“getting on,” and had less need to worry about money. In the spring +they went to Dorsetshire and stayed at an Inn. Elizabeth did a certain +amount of painting, but apart from a few sketches George did not +attempt landscape—especially the picturesque landscape; he wanted his +painting to be urban, contemporary and hard. They walked a good deal +over Worbarrow Down and the rather desolate heath land round about. +On more than one occasion they traversed the very same piece of land +where George was afterwards in camp with me, a coincidence which seemed +to make a great impression upon him. Certain aspects of a familiar +landscape always call up the same train of thought: and as people are +never weary of telling us what particularly strikes them, so George +rarely failed to convey this piece of stale news to me as we walked out +of camp by what had once been the rough cart-track he and Elizabeth had +followed in less desolate days. He seemed to think it remarkable that +he should be so miserable in exactly the same place where he had once +been so happy. As I pointed out, that showed great ignorance of the +ironic temper of the gods, who are very fond of such genial contrasts. +They delight to lay a corpse in a marriage bed, and to strike down a +great nation in the fullest flush of its pride and power. One might +think that happiness was “hubris,” the excess which calls down the +vengeance of Fate. + +They returned to London for a few weeks, and then went to Paris, +Elizabeth adored Paris, and wanted to live there permanently; but +George was against it. He had got some bug about the best art being +“autochthonous,” and declared that an artist ought to live in his own +country. But the real reason was that Parisian life seemed so pleasant +and the town so full of artists more gifted and more advanced than +himself that he found it almost impossible to work there. It was easier +to feel important in the comparative desert of London. So they returned +to London, and in the autumn George had his first “show,” which was not +altogether such a failure as he had expected. + +When autumn turned to winter, and the yellow leaves of the plane +trees drifted down into heaps in the London squares lying miserably +sodden under the rain—the everlasting London drizzle—Elizabeth got +very restless. She wanted to get away, anywhere under blue skies and +sun. Her throat and lungs were rather sensitive, and when the weather +turned foggy, she nearly choked in the heavy soot-laden stifling air. +They talked about going to Italy or Spain, but George knew only too +well that he could not afford it. He might indeed get assurances from +various impresarios he frequented that “work could go on as usual,” +but he knew only too well that a month’s absence would mean a decline +and that after three months he would be practically forgotten and +dropped. It’s a dangerous thing to have a national reputation for +honesty—people get to trading upon it and seem to think it absolves +them from individual obligations. So George, after forming various +vague plans for a delightful winter in Sicily or the island of Majorca, +had to admit to Elizabeth that he simply dared not go. He begged her to +go alone, or to find some friend to go with her. But Elizabeth flatly +refused to go without him. So they stayed in London, and worked and +coughed together. Perhaps it might have been better to take the risk, +for as things turned out George never saw either Spain or Italy, which +he had wanted to see so much. + +Fanny came to London for a week in November, before going South for the +winter, and they saw her nearly every day. Fanny and George were by +this time on a footing of pretty friendly familiarity. That is to say, +they always kissed each other on meeting and parting—after Fanny had +kissed Elizabeth—and held hands in taxis whether Elizabeth was there +or not. Elizabeth didn’t object at all. Not only because of her theory +of freedom. She was at that time rather deeply involved in some theory +of “erogenous zones” in women, and men’s reaction to them. And she had +got it firmly into her mind that Fanny was “sexually antipathetic” to +George, because he had one day innocently and casually remarked that +he thought Fanny rather flat-chested. Elizabeth leaped on this—it +confirmed her theory so nicely. George had known Fanny for over a year +and “nothing had happened” between them, and therefore it was plain +that Fanny’s “erogenous zones” awoke no response in him. + +“Most peculiar,” said Elizabeth, when she discussed the matter with +a demure-looking but mighty ironical Fanny, “_I_ should have thought +you’d be the very type of woman to attract him. But he only talks about +your ‘marvellous eyes,’ and they aren’t erogenous zones at all. That +means he only likes you as a human being....” + +So Elizabeth took no notice when Fanny kissed George; or when she +said: “George darling, do go and get some cigarettes for me,” and +George departed with alacrity; or when George called Fanny “My love” +or “Fanny darling.” People throw these endearments about so liberally +nowadays, how on earth is one to know? And, in fact, all this went on +for a long time, and nothing did “happen.” George was quite devoted +to Elizabeth, and then they were away when Fanny was in London, and +Fanny was away when they were in London. Both George and Fanny begged +Elizabeth to “go South” with Fanny, but Elizabeth wouldn’t. She was +very loyal, and wouldn’t take a holiday George couldn’t share. But +by this time Fanny had become fond of George, very fond indeed. She +was weary of Reggie, who was sometimes so absorbed in atoms that he +neglected his functions as Fanny’s _faute-de-mieux_. She thought it +might be an excellent plan if she and Elizabeth swopped riders, so to +speak. Not that she wanted to “take George away” from his mistress. +Oh! Not at all. Fanny didn’t want him as a _permanence_—Elizabeth +was welcome to that. But she felt he might do excellently as a locum +tenens, while Elizabeth was widening her experience with Reggie. So +there was an unusual warmth in her farewell kiss to George, who had +gone down to see her off at Victoria, and a lingeringly soft pressure +of her hand, and a particularly inviting look in her beautiful eyes. + +“Good-bye, darling!” and she leaned from the window and to his surprise +kissed him again on the lips, “of course, I’ll write—often. And mind +you write to me. I shall be back in March at latest.” + +Fanny did write—occasionally to Elizabeth, once or twice to them both, +frequently to George. Her letters to George were much longer and more +amusing than the others. George showed some of them to Elizabeth and +forgot to show others. He replied punctually and affectionately. + +Just before Christmas, Reggie Burnside passed through London on his +way to Mürren. He dropped into Elizabeth’s studio for tea, and finding +her alone asked her to marry him, in a casual offhand way, rather +as he might have suggested their going to Rumpelmeyer’s instead of +having tea in the studio. Elizabeth was surprised, flattered and +fluttered. They had quite a long discussion. Elizabeth was amazed +that Reggie should want to marry, and above all to marry her. If +she hadn’t been so flattered, she would have been offended at +any one’s thinking she would do such a thing. She had almost the +“thank-you-I’m-not-that-sort-of-girl” sniffiness about it. + +“Is this a new brand of joke, Reggie?” + +“Good God, no! I’m perfectly serious.” + +“But why in heaven’s name do you want to _marry?_” + +“It’s more convenient, you know, addressing letters and meeting people +and all that.” + +“But why want to marry _me?_” + +“Because I’m in love with you.” + +Elizabeth pondered a little over this. + +“Well,” she said slowly, “I don’t believe I’m in love with you. I’m +sure I’m not. I like you most awfully, but I’m not in love with you, +I’m in love with George.” + +“Oh, George!” Reggie waved a contemptuous hand. “What’s the good of +your wasting your time with a man like that, Elizabeth? He won’t do +anything. He doesn’t know anybody worth mentioning, except ourselves, +and nobody at Cambridge thinks anything of his painting.” + +Elizabeth was on the defensive immediately. + +“Don’t talk nonsense, Reggie! George is a dear, and I won’t have you +say things like that about him. And as if anybody cares a hang what +mouldy young Cambridge thinks about a painter!” + +Reggie changed his tack. + +“All right, if you don’t want to marry me, don’t. But, look here. You +oughtn’t to spend the winter in London with that cough and your chest. +I’ll give up Mürren if you’ll come for a month with me to some small +place on the Riviera. We can easily find a place where there aren’t any +English.” + +This was a far more gratifying and dangerous proposal to Elizabeth +than matrimony. She was heartily sick of London fog and cold and +drizzle and mire and soot and messy open fires which fill the room +with dust but don’t warm it. More than once she had regretted not +having gone away with Fanny. Moreover, a “month’s affair” with Reggie +would perfectly well fit into the arrangement with George, whereas +they hadn’t thought of and hadn’t discussed the possibility of either +marrying some one else. Elizabeth hesitated, but she had a feeling that +it would be rather mean to leave George suddenly alone in London and +go off on her own with Reggie, if only for a month. She certainly was +extraordinarily fond of George. + +“No, Reggie, I can’t come this time. Go to Mürren, and when you come +back, perhaps... well, we’ll see.” + +Elizabeth made toast and tea, and they sat on a large low divan in +front of the fire. The dingy light soon faded from the soiled London +sky, but they sat on in the firelight, holding hands. + +She let Reggie kiss her as much as he wanted, but for the time being +resisted any further encroachments. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth’s resistance, at that precise moment, to the advances of +Mr. Reginald Burnside, seems to me a striking example of George’s +infelicity. I mean that I see a direct link between it and the sudden +inexplicable standing up of a man in khaki, before a murderous machine +gun fire, not long after dawn, on the morning of the 4th of November, +1918.... Not that I wish melodramatically “to set the brand of Cain” +upon Elizabeth or upon Fanny or upon both jointly. Far from it. _They_ +didn’t make the war. _They_ didn’t give George the jumps. And after +all there is a doubt, almost a mystery involved in George’s death. Did +he really commit suicide? I don’t know. I’ve only got circumstantial +evidence and my own hunch about it, a sort of intuition, a something +haunting in my memory of the man, an Orestes-like feeling of some +inexpiated guilt. Who is to say whether a man can really commit suicide +on a battlefield? Desperate recklessness and looking for trouble may be +the very means of his escaping the death which finds the prudent coward +crouching in a shell-hole. And suppose he did deliberately get himself +killed, ought we, ought I, to attach any blame to Elizabeth and Fanny? +I don’t think so. There were plenty of other things to disgust him with +life. And even supposing that he realized the war was ending, realized +that in his state of mind he simply could not face the problem of his +relation with those two women, still I think them utterly blameless. +The mess was as much his fault as theirs. It was really quite an easy +mess to clear up. What made it impossible was George’s shattered +nerves, and for that they were not to blame. Oh, not in the least. +Perhaps I’m as much to blame as anybody. I ought to have done something +to get George sent out of the line. I think I might have gone to the +Brigadier and have told him in private what I knew about George’s state +of mind—or perhaps to his Colonel. But I didn’t go. At that time I was +not persona grata with those in authority, for I happened to sympathize +then with the young Russian Revolution, and had foolishly argued hotly +about it. So perhaps my effort would have been wasted. And anyhow it +was a very difficult and ticklish thing to do, and I was tired, very +tired.... + +At any rate, just about a fortnight after Reggie went to Mürren, +the abominable winter climate of London gave Elizabeth some sort of +a chill inside and upset her interior economy. Within four or five +days she became quite demented. She insisted that she was with child, +and insisted that the only solution was for George to marry her—at +once. Perhaps the afternoon with Reggie had somehow inserted the idea +of marriage into her “subconscious.” At all events, her extraordinary +energy was suddenly concentrated upon attaining a state which she +had hitherto utterly scorned. It was a silly thing to do, but one +really cannot blame her. Men are oddly callous about these mysterious +female maladies and demoniacal possessions. They get peevish and +pathetic enough if something goes wrong with their own livers, but +they are strangely unsympathetic about the profounder derangements +of their yoke-fellows in iniquity. Perhaps they might feel a little +more humane if they too had a sort of twenty-eight day clock inside +them, always a nuisance, often liable to go wrong and set up irregular +blood-pressure and an intolerable poisoning of the brain. George ought +to have hiked her off to a gynecologist at once. Instead of which, +he behaved as stupidly as any George Augustus would have done under +the circumstances. He did nothing but gasp and stare at Elizabeth’s +whirling tantrums, and worry, and offer exasperating comfort, and +propose remedies and measures which, as Elizabeth told him, with a +stamp of her foot, were impossible, impossible, _impossible_. Of +course, by the Triumphal Scheme for the Perfect Sex Relation, it was +duly enacted that under such circumstances there was nothing to do but +marry the girl. But elementary prudence would suggest that it might be +sensible to make certain the circumstances _had_ arisen, a precaution +which they entirely overlooked in the mental disarray caused by +Elizabeth’s regrettable dementia. + +The change wrought in Elizabeth’s outlook in a few days was amazing. +If she hadn’t felt so tragically about it, she would have been +ludicrous in her mental manœuvres. The whole Triumphal Scheme was +scrapped almost instantaneously, and by a rapid and masterly series of +evolutions her whole army of arguments was withdrawn from the outpost +line of Complete Sexual Freedom, and fell back upon the Hindenburg line +of Safety First, Female Honour, and Legal Marriage. It was, of course, +ridiculous for them to marry at all, either of them. They weren’t +the marrying sort. They were adventurers in life, not good citizens. +Neither of them was the kind of person who exults in life insurance +and buying a house on the hire-purchase system and mowing the lawn +on Saturday afternoon and taking the “kiddies” (odious word) to the +seaside. Neither of them looked forward to the “Old Age Will Come” +summit of felicity, with an elderly and imbecilly contented-looking +George sitting beside a placid and motherly white-haired Elizabeth +in the garden of a dear little home, contemplating together with +smug beatitude the document from the insurance company guaranteeing +a safe ten pounds a week for the remainder of their joint lives. I +am glad to say that George and Elizabeth would have shuddered at any +such prospect. But Elizabeth insisted upon marriage, and married they +duly were, despite the feeble protests of Elizabeth’s family and the +masterly denunciations of Isabel, already recorded. + +In all outward respects the legal marriage made no difference whatever +to their lives and relationships. Elizabeth retained her studio, and +George his. They met no more frequently and on exactly the same terms +of affectionate sensuality into which their first exultant passion had +long ago evolved. One of the terms of the Triumphal Scheme emphatically +laid down the axiom that it was most undesirable and dangerous for +two lovers to inhabit the same flat or small house. If they were +rich enough to live in separate wings of a large house, all well and +good; but if not, then they should live no nearer than neighbouring +streets. The essence of freedom is the disposal of one’s own time in +one’s own way, and how can two people do that if they are living on +top of each other? Moreover, a daily absence of several hours is quite +indispensable to the avoidance of the domestic den atmosphere. It is +far better for two lovers to be happy together for three or four hours +a day than to be indifferent or miserable for twenty-four. The joint +marriage-bed, Elizabeth used to state impressively, is destructive +of all self-respect and sexual charm, and blunts the finer edges of +sensibility.... + +Soon after the legal formalities were irrevocably accomplished and +Elizabeth’s social anxieties somewhat calmed, it occurred to her that +she ought to consult a doctor, in order to learn how to behave during +these months of “expecting,” as the modest working-class matron calls +it. So she got the address of a “modern” physician, who was supposed +to have all the latest and most enlightened methods of dealing with +pregnancy and its distresses. To Elizabeth’s amazement she found she +was not pregnant at all! With the not unnatural suspicion that most +doctors are more or less charlatans imposing on the ignorance of the +public, she refused to believe him until he told her flatly that in +her present condition she might wait till doomsday for the appearance +of an infant, but that if she neglected her present slight disorder +it might become dangerous and permanent. She then condescended to +accept his diagnosis and advice. George had accompanied her, and was +in the specialist’s waiting room. A serious, concentrated, rather +pi-jaw Elizabeth had left him to enter the consulting room, and George +fidgeted over the imbecilities of “Punch,” wondering how on earth +they would deal with the problem of an infant and feeling that he +would probably have to take a job and “settle down” into the horrible +morass of domestic life. To his amazement, as the consulting-room door +opened, he heard Elizabeth laugh with her old merry gaiety which was so +attractive, and caught the words: + +“Well, if it’s twins, Doctor, you shall be godfather.” + +To which the Doctor replied with a laugh George thought rather ribald +and heartless under the circumstances. Elizabeth rushed into the room, +exclaiming: + +“It’s all right, darling, a false alarm. I’m no more pregnant than you +are.” + +George, who was wool-gathering, might have remained indefinitely +perplexed, if the doctor had not taken him aside and told him briefly +the situation, adding that for a little time it would be well if +Elizabeth refrained from sexual relations. + +“How long do you advise?” asked George. + +“Oh, let her follow the treatment prescribed for about a month, and +then let me examine her again. I’ve no doubt whatever that she’ll be +perfectly all right again. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t have a +child without a slight operation. Only, in the future, she must avoid +chills. She ought not to spend the winter in England.” + +George wrote out a cheque for three guineas (which Elizabeth insisted +on repaying afterwards), and they celebrated the event with a dinner. + +“Let us drink,” said George, “to this happy occasion when we have NOT +committed the unforgivable sin of thrusting an unwanted existence upon +one more unfortunate human being.” + +But perhaps the most amazing circumstance in this peculiar episode was +the speed with which Elizabeth once more evacuated the old familiar +Hindenburg Line, and reoccupied the most advanced positions of Sexual +Freedom. But, of course, she did so with a difference. Though she +wouldn’t admit it even to herself, and though George tried not to see +it, in her case the Triumphal Scheme had broken down badly under its +first stern test. Directly that test had come, she had fallen back in +panic on the old cut-and-dried solution; she hadn’t had the courage to +go through with it. In a way one could excuse her by saying that the +interior trouble had temporarily deranged her brain, that she wasn’t +really responsible for her actions. But that’s only a quibble—the +fact remains that she did fly in a panic to social safety and the +registrar. And then the legal tie introduced a subtle difference +in their relation. You may say, of course, that it needn’t, that +since they continued to live in exactly the same way and to profess +exactly the same attitude towards each other and “freedom,” it made no +difference whether they were legally married or not. But it did. And +it does. You can see that perfectly well if you watch people. Somehow +the mere fact of marriage introduces the sense of possession, and +hence jealousy. Lovers, of course, may be and frequently are just as +possessive and quite as jealous. But there is a difference. As a rule +lovers are not first occupants, so to speak; and they are generally +willing to grant each other more liberty and to “forgive.” But you will +see married people who have become totally indifferent to each other, +rise in a fury of possessiveness and jealousy when they happen to find +out that the wife or husband, as the case may be, is in love with some +one else. This, indeed may be only another aspect of that peculiar +vindictiveness bred by marriage. And another curious modification of +their relationship arose. When Elizabeth reoccupied the Sexual Freedom +line, without knowing it she did so for herself alone, and not for +George. If George liked to accept the subsequent Elizabeth-Reggie +affair, in accordance with the provisions of the Triumphal Scheme, all +well and good; that was his lookout. But when it came to Elizabeth’s +accepting the Fanny-George affair in the same spirit, that was a very +different matter. Elizabeth now felt somehow responsible for George, +and feeling responsible translated itself into keeping possession of.... + +However, three months after the false alarm, Elizabeth seemed more +“advanced” and full of “freedom” than ever. Her position as a married +woman enabled her to talk with greater liberty on all sorts of topics +which are now discussed in every nursery, but at that time were +considered highly improper and not to be named before Citizens of the +Empire. She got hold of a book on the woes of the Uranians, and was +deeply affected by it. She wanted to start a crusade on their behalf, +and was greatly disappointed by the coolness with which George met her +enthusiasm. + +“It is ridiculous,” said Elizabeth, “that these unfortunate people +should be persecuted by obsolete laws derived from the prejudices of +the Jewish prophets and mediæval ignorance.” + +“Of course it is, but what can one do about it? Persecution-mania +has always existed. It’s a very curious coincidence that the vulgar +English word for one sort of intermediate sexual type originally meant +a heretic. But there’s nothing to be done.” + +“I think something ought to be done.” + +“Well, I think it’s too soon to do anything. You’ve got to allow time +for knowledge to percolate into rock-like heads, and for ignorance and +superstitions to be dispelled. Let’s get the ordinary relations of men +and women on to a decent basis first, and then it’ll be time to think +about the heretics in love.” + +“But, George darling, these people are hunted and exiled and despised +for something which is not their ‘fault’ at all, some difference in +their physiological or psychological structure. There probably isn’t +any such thing as a perfectly ‘normal’ sexual type. Simply because +we’re ‘normal’ why should we hate and despise these people?” + +“I know, I know. Theoretically, I agree with you absolutely. But it’s +no good my mind trying to defend what my instincts and feelings reject. +Frankly, I don’t like homosexuals. I respect their freedom, of course, +but I don’t like them. As a matter of fact, I don’t know any, at least +so far as I am aware. No doubt some of our friends are homosexual, but +as I’m not personally interested in it, I never notice it.” + +“Yes, but because you don’t notice it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t +exist. Don’t be narrow-minded, George. There are probably tens of +thousands of people living miserable lives....” + +“Oh, I know all about that! But you can’t break down the inherited +prejudices of ages in five minutes. I personally don’t object to such +people doing as they want. There’s no tort to person or property. But +my advice to them would be to keep jolly quiet about it, and not try to +make themselves martyrs, and flaunt themselves publicly.” + +“Oh, oh!” Elizabeth laughed. “Grandpa George foregathering with the +Victorians.” + +“All right, but I’m not going to say what I don’t feel. In this matter +you must look upon me as a neutral.” + +“Well, I think you ought to look into it more carefully and +sympathetically, and get Bobbe to let you write some articles on it.” + +“Thanks very much. You ask him to do it himself, it’s far more likely +to attract _him_. If I wrote such articles I should immediately be +suspect. It’s a damned dangerous thing to do in England; in most cases +the suspicion is far too likely to be true!” + +And they left it at that. + + * * * * * + +All this time the war was drawing steadily nearer. Probably it +had become certain since 1911, though most people were taken quite +unawares. Why did it happen? Who was responsible? Questions which +have been interminably debated already and will furnish exultant +historians with controversial material for generations to come. +Already one foresees the creation of Chairs in the History of the +First World War, to be set up in whatever civilized countries remain +in existence after the next one. But for us the debate is vain, as +vain as the pathetic and reiterated enquiry, “_Where_ did I catch this +horrible cold?” If anybody or bodies engineered this catastrophe they +must have been gratified by its shattering success. Few lives indeed +in the belligerent countries remained unaffected by it, and in most +cases the effect was unpleasant. Adult lives were cut sharply into +three sections—pre-war, war, and post-war. It is curious—perhaps not +so curious—but many people will tell you that whole areas of their +pre-war lives have become obliterated from their memories. Pre-war +seems like prehistory. What did we do, how did we feel, what were we +living for in those incredibly distant years? One feels as if the +period 1900-14 has to be treated archæologically, painfully recreated +by experts from slight vestiges. Those who were still children at +the Armistice, who were so to speak born into the war, can hardly +understand the feeling of tranquil security which existed, the almost +smug optimism of our lives. Especially in England, for the French +retained uncomfortable memories of 1870; but still, even in France life +seemed established and secure. Since Waterloo, England had engaged in +no great war. There were frontier and colonial skirmishes, and the +reputation of the country for military organization and efficiency +was immensely strengthened in the world’s eyes by the conduct of the +Crimean and Boer Wars. But there had been nothing on a really big +scale. The Franco-Prussian War was just one of those unfortunate +occurrences one must expect from backward Continental nations, and the +huge struggle of the War of Secession was observed through the wrong +end of the telescope. In some quarters, indeed, that war had been +considered as a peculiar mercy of God to His Chosen People, enabling +the British Merchant Marine to re-establish an indisputable primacy at +the expense of a regrettable upstart among nations. + +Talleyrand used to say that those who had not known Europe before +1789, had never known the real pleasure of living. No one would dare +to substitute 1914 for 1789 in that sentence. But such a wholesale +shattering of values had certainly not occurred since 1789. God knows +how many governments and rulers crashed down in the earthquake, and +those which remain are agitatedly trying to preserve their existence by +the time-honoured methods of repression and persecution. And yet 1914 +was greeted as a great release, a purgation from the vices supposed to +be engendered by peace! My God! Three days of glory engender more vices +and misery than all the alleged corrupters of humanity could achieve in +a millennium. _Les jeunes_ would be amazed if they read the nauseous +poppycock which was written in 1914-15 in England, and doubtless in all +the belligerent countries, except France where practically nothing was +printed at all. (However, the French have made up handsomely for the +loss since then.) “Our splendid troops” were to come home—oh, very +soon—purged and ennobled by slaughter and lice, and were to beget a +race of even nobler fellows to go and do likewise. We were to have a +great revival in religion, for peoples’ thoughts were now turned from +frivolities to great and serious themes. We were to have a new and +greater literature—hence the alleged vogue for “war poets,” which +resulted in the parents of the slain being asked to put up fifty pounds +for the publication (which probably cost fifteen) of poor little verses +which should never have passed the home circle. We were to have... but +really I lack courage to continue. Let those who are curious in human +imbecility consult the newspaper-files of those days.... + + * * * * * + +But we are still lingering in the golden calm of the last few months +preceding August, 1914. + +Fanny had followed Elizabeth’s amazing evolutions with considerable +surprise and that feeling of “something not displeasing” with which +we contemplate the misfortunes of our best friends. She chiefly felt +rather sorry for George.... + + * * * * * + +“You have a vendetta of the dead against the living.” Yes, it is +true, I have a vendetta. Not a personal vendetta. What am I? O God, +nothing, less than nothing, a husk, a leaving, a half-chewed morsel +on the plate, a reject. But an impersonal vendetta, an unappeased +conscience crying in the wilderness, a river of tears in the desert. +What right have I to live? Is it five million, is it ten million, is +it twenty million? What does the exact count matter? There they are, +and we are responsible. Tortures of hell, we are responsible! When I +meet an unmaimed man of my generation, I want to shout at him: “How +did you escape? How did you dodge it? What dirty trick did you play? +Why are you not dead, trickster?” It is dreadful to have outlived your +life, to have shirked your fate, to have overspent your welcome. There +is nobody upon earth who cares whether I live or die, and I am glad of +it. To be alone, icily alone. You, the war dead, I think you died in +vain, I think you died for nothing, for a blast of wind, a blather, +a humbug, a newspaper stunt, a politician’s ramp. But at least you +died. You did not reject the sharp sweet shock of bullets, the sudden +smash of the shell-burst, the insinuating agony of poison gas. You +got rid of it all. You chose the better part. “They went down like a +lot o’ Charlie Chaplins,” said the little ginger-hair sergeant of the +Durhams. Like a lot of Charlie Chaplins. Marvellous metaphor! Can’t you +see them staggering on splayed-out test and waving ineffective hands +as they went down before the accurate machine-gun fire of the Durhams +sergeant? A splendid little hero—he got the Military Medal for it. +Like a lot of Charlie Chaplins. Marvellous. But why weren’t we one of +them? What right have we to live? And the women? Oh, don’t let’s talk +about the women. They were splendid, wonderful. Such devotion, such +devotion. How they comforted the troops. Oh, wonderful, beyond all +praise! They got the vote for it, you know. Oh, wonderful! Steel-true +and blade-straight. Yes, indeed, wonderful, wonderful! Whatever should +we have done without them? White feathers, and all that, you know. Oh, +the women were marvellous. You can always rely upon the women to come +up to scratch, you know. Yes, indeed. What would the Country be without +them? So splendid, such an example. + +On Sundays the Union Jack flies over the cemetery at Etaples. It’s not +so big as it was in the old wooden cross days, but it will serve. Acres +and acres. Yes, acres and acres. And it’s too late to get one’s little +lot in the acres. Too late, too late.... + + * * * * * + +Yes, Fanny was sorry for George, and showed it with practical +feminine sympathy. In the late spring Elizabeth “had” to go and spend +a fortnight with her parents in the north. Mrs. Paston—who never +failed in any of her duties, and took jolly good care to let you know +it—was accustomed to write every week to Elizabeth. This weekly +letter was supposed to be a nice, chatty, affectionate record of the +little home circle and friends, something to keep Elizabeth in touch +with their purer lives (of pure boredom) and preserve her from the +decadents and degenerates she frequented in London. In fact the letter +was almost invariably a perfidious and insinuating effort to make +Elizabeth uncomfortable and to discourage her with her own life. Under +the endearing words of conventional family affection lurked a curious +resentment and hatred. If Mrs. Paston could think of anything likely +to worry Elizabeth she never failed to convey it, in the strain of +“isn’t it a pity, dear?...” Sometimes Elizabeth answered these letters, +sometimes she did not. Recently, they had been filled with discouraging +hints about the state of Mr. Paston’s health. “Your dear father” could +not shake off his “bronchitis” (i.e., a cold in the head), he was very +“languid” (i.e., bored, the golf links were under water), he “scarcely +ever went out” (he hardly ever had done, except to play golf), he was +“getting so frail and white-haired, poor darling daddy” (he’d been grey +for fifteen years and still ate four hearty meals daily), he “seemed to +be failing fast”—a pure piece of mythology. Elizabeth was rather fond +of her father, and began to get alarmed, although she was more or less +aware of her mother’s strategy. But it is the misfortune of youth never +really to credit the aged with their full meed of perfidy and dislike. +She felt she ought to go and see her father for herself—it would be +awful if he suddenly died without her seeing him. She told George she +was going. + +“All right, of course, if you want to. I’ll take you to the station. +When are you going?” + +“I wish you’d come with me, George. Father and mother would like to see +you, and they’d appreciate it so much.” + +“Now look here, Elizabeth, don’t let’s have any humbug here. I don’t +ask you to meet my parents and I don’t see why I should have to stay +with yours. I think your mother’s quite awful, one of those nagging +martyr women who’re always taking on unnecessary jobs and worries, and +then grumbling about how much they have to do and how little they’re +appreciated. Your father’s all right. He’s a decent sort, with a human +respect for other people. But after I’ve feigned an interest I don’t +feel in golf and we’ve shaken our heads over the wickedness of Liberal +governments, we’ve really nothing left to say to each other.” + +“But it’s so much easier for me if you’d come too.” + +“No, it wouldn’t. We’d be shown off as the happy married pair to your +mother’s friends, and our sufferings would be dreadful. Besides, it’ll +be easier for you to adjust yourself temporarily to their prejudices if +you don’t have the sensation of a satirical me watching you.” + +So Elizabeth went by herself, and George remained alone in London. He +always missed Elizabeth frightfully when she went away, but instead of +going out and amusing himself, he stayed in and tried to pass the time +by overworking. By the evening of the fifth day, he was thoroughly fed +up. He decided to go out and ring up various friends in turn, until he +found some one to have dinner with him. He had just finished washing +and was putting on a clean collar, when some one knocked at the door of +his studio. + +“Half a minute,” shouted George, “I’m dressing. Who is it?” + +The door opened, and in came Fanny, wearing a charming new dress and a +gay wide-brimmed hat with a large feather in it. + +“Why, Fanny! How good to see you, and how lovely you look!” + +They kissed affectionately. Fanny sat down on the bed. + +“I’ve come to be taken out to dinner. If you think you’re doing +anything else, you’re mistaken. You’ll have to ring up and say you +can’t come.” + +“As a matter of fact, I was on the point of going out to find somebody +to dine with me, so your coming is a godsend.” + +“How’s Elizabeth?” + +“She’s all right. I got a letter from her this morning. She’s with her +parents, you know.” + +“Yes, I know. How long’ll she be away?” + +“Another ten days. Poor darling, she sounds awfully bored already.” + +“And what are you doing?” + +“Oh, fighting the lone hand here. Do you want to see the picture I’m +finishing?” + +And George dragged round an easel with a large canvas on it, into the +light. + +“But it’s good, George! It’s got great qualities of energy and design.” + +“You don’t think it’s too hard and angular?” + +“No, not a bit. It’s excellent. By far the best thing you’ve done.” + +And Fanny jumped up from the bed, put her arm around George, and +kissed him again. For the first time her lips were not cool, shut and +sisterly, but warm and open and delicious—the lips of an accomplice. +The sudden flicker of warm desire awoke in George’s flesh, and he felt +his heart leap and the blood flush to his face. He held her to him, and +pressed eager firm lips to her soft yielding mouth. For a few seconds +she seemed to resist, and made as if to thrust him from her. He held +her more closely, and suddenly her stiffened body yielded delicately, +moulded itself to his, her head moved slowly backwards with closed +eyes. Between the moist velvet of her lips he felt on his the exquisite +caress of a gentle tongue-tip. George gently laid his hand on her left +breast, and felt the rapid beating of her heart. She softly drew away +her lips and looked at him. + +“Fanny! Fanny!” + +Her gem-like eyes, now all flower-like, looked at him. + +“Fanny! Most dear Fanny! I must have loved you a long time without +knowing it.” + +Fanny spoke slowly, still watching him: + +“You’re such a nice man, George, and yet such a boy.” + +“And you are divine and inexpressibly lovely and thrilling and +adorable....” + +They kissed again, and stood there embraced until George felt dizzy +with the blood beating in his brain. He pulled her gently towards the +bed, and they lay down, clothed, in each other’s arms. George’s hand +moved tenderly and delicately over her uncorseted girl body, so warm +and firm and fragile under the thin cool silk dress. The incoherent +words of lovers gave place to silence, and they lay trembling in each +other’s arms, almost like frightened children comforting each other. + +Fanny sighed, and opened her eyes. + +“What time is it?” + +George fumbled for his watch. + +“Nearly half-past eight!” + +“Heavens! We shall be too late for dinner if we don’t hurry.” + +George went to get his coat, and returned to find Fanny unconcernedly +drawing her silk stockings tight and trim. + +“Where can we go that’s near?” + +“There’s a new place just started in Frith Street—we can go there.” + +George watched her as she smoothed her mussed hair, and absorbedly +fitted on the large hat before the mirror. He was still trembling a +little, and noticed how steady her hands were. Only a few minutes +before they had been so close, all the barriers down, each existence +melted in the other. That had been perfect, complete happiness. “Had +been.” Already the current of ordinary life was sweeping them apart +again. Oh, not very far really, still within hailing distance. But very +far, compared with that wonderful nearness. Such an ecstasy could not +last. But why not? Perhaps one of the many bitter jests of the gods—to +show us for an hour what happiness might be if we were gods. None can +possess another, none can be possessed. Is it possible to give, is it +possible to take? Does one existence really melt into another for a few +minutes, or does it only seem to? What is she thinking now? Her mind +is as remote from mine as if she had slipped into another dimension. +Romantically we ask too much. It is much that she is lovely and finds +me desirable. Let us not ask too much. Enjoyment is enough. Yet how +fragile even that is! It is as if one tried to carry a small flickering +light in a thin glass vessel through a tumultuous hostile crowd. How +earnest is the world to suppress the delight of lovers! How bitterly +wrong all that is! + +They went down into the warm, airless street, where the lamps were +already lighted. Dirty children still played noisily and screamed +on the side-walks. An Italian woman slip-slopped past them in felt +slippers, carrying a jug of beer. Soho smelled frowzy and stale. Fanny +noticed this. + +“Why do you and Elizabeth live in this horrid district? It must be +awfully unhealthy, especially for Elizabeth.” + +“Oh, one gets used to it. Hampstead’s too far out. Kensington’s too +dear, Chelsea’s both dear and ungetatable. When I’m in town I like +to be in the middle of it. Suburbs are beastly. We all suffer from +the English ‘home’ system of building—one hut, one family—and from +our peculiar desire to be in a town and the country simultaneously. +We don’t seem able to live the purely urban life of the Latins. But +London’s too big and frowzy.” + + * * * * * + +They dined in the small restaurant, which had been “decorated” with +rather feeble pictures by young artists, to give it that Latin Quarter +air. It was somehow ineffectual. A bit amateurish. However, they didn’t +care about that. Since they were comparatively old friends, they did +not suffer the haunting and disagreeable uneasiness and strangeness +which fall between those who suddenly become lovers. The spontaneity +of their passion absorbed any possible feeling of remorse. They talked +quietly, but without any strain and effort. Fanny gave some amusing +descriptions of the odd freaks among the British “colonies” on the +Riviera. Why is it that one sees such curious and freakish specimens of +one’s countrymen abroad, types one never sees at home? Do the foreign +surroundings bring out the freakishness, or were such people destined +to emigration by their very oddity? But there could be no doubt—Fanny +and George were on a new footing with each other. There was a new and +delicious intimacy between them. Strange that a few kisses and caresses +should make such a difference. + +As they were leaving the restaurant, Fanny was hailed by some friends +at a table near the door. + +“Hullo, Fanny! How are you? I say, why don’t you come along with us? +We’re all going to Marshall’s chambers at ten. There’ll be lots of +people there. It ought to be amusing.” + +“No, I want to see that new film at the Shaftesbury.” + +“But you can see that any time.” + +“No, this is the last week, and I’m going to Dieppe to-morrow for a +week.” + +“Oh, all right. Sorry you won’t come. Look us up when you get back. +Good-bye, good-bye.” + +They got into a taxi, and Fanny gave the address of her flat. + +“Did you really mean that you are going to Dieppe to-morrow?” asked +George a little wistfully. + +Fanny squeezed his arm, and kissed him briefly and skilfully as the +taxi lurched them together. + +“Of course not, goose! We’re going to be together, unless you piously +decide not to. But it’s useful to have an alibi. People are still fussy +about one’s ‘reputation,’ you know.” + +“But suppose we meet them, or some one else who knows you?” + +“I shall say I changed my mind, or that I got bored and came straight +back.” + + * * * * * + +Fanny’s flat was small, but pleasantly clean and modern. After the +picturesque but rather dingy antiquity of his large eighteenth-century +panelled room, George found it delightful to be in bright-painted +clean rooms with a white-tiled bathroom. Among Fanny’s many remarkable +efficiencies was the genius of discovering excellent flats at a +fabulously cheap rental, furnishing them charmingly for about five +pounds and running them perfectly without the slightest fuss. She +generally shifted her quarters about every six months, and invariably +for the better. How pleasant is efficiency in others, especially when +you are rather inefficient yourself! I wouldn’t exactly say that George +was inefficient, but the details of material life rather bored him. +When you had so much else to do and so little time to do it in, he +thought it rather a waste of life to be too pernickety about one’s +surroundings and fixings. However, he decided then and there that he +and Elizabeth would have to get out of Soho. It was too disgustingly +frowzy. + +Fanny was a marvelous lover. Or, at least, George thought so. It was +not only that she was golden and supple and lithe, where Elizabeth +was dark and rather stiff and virginal, but she really cared about +love-making. It was her art. It was for her neither a painful duty nor +a degrading necessity nor a series of disappointing experiments, but a +delightful art which gave full expression to her vitality, energy and +efficiency. Like all great artists, she was entirely disinterested—art +for art’s sake. She chose her lovers with great care, and rather +preferred them to be poor, to avoid any suspicion of commercialism +or arrivism. She knew she had the genius of touch, and was unwilling +that it should be wasted. If she hadn’t been a great lover, she might +have been a good sculptor. But like all artists she was exacting, and +had her vanity. She would not waste her talents. If a subject was +not profoundly responsive and appreciative, she put him aside at the +earliest possible moment. No clumsy, inhibited Englishman for her! No, +thank you. Perhaps that is why she spent so much of her time abroad. + +But this particular Englishman was not inhibited or ineradicably +clumsy. Crude perhaps, rather lacking in style and finish, but capable +of rapid progress under expert guidance. Fanny, with the artist’s +unerring glance, had long ago perceived that there were considerable +possibilities in George. He had natural aptitudes and, what is far +more important, the sense of delicate artistry which finds its highest +satisfaction in bestowing delight. He was neither a bull nor a turkey +gobbler. Fanny was satisfied; she had not made a mistake.... + + * * * * * + +For the remaining days of Elizabeth’s absence George did no work +whatever. And a very good thing too, for he needed a holiday. He +stayed at Fanny’s flat. They made picnic meals in the flat, or ate out +at places where they were pretty certain not to meet friends—City +stockbrokers’ taverns or curious pubs with sawdust and spittoons on +the floors, where you sat on stools at the bar and had a cut from the +joint and two vegetables with beer. They went to “low” music-halls and +saw all the primitive films of the day—Charlie’s were the only good +ones—and for a lark went to see what the inside of the Abbey looked +like, a place no Londoner ever visits. They agreed that it looked +like the atelier of an incredibly bad academic sculptor installed in +an overcrowded but rather beautiful Gothic barn. Fanny rather hated +Gothic architecture, she said all those points and squiggles gave her +the creeps; but George said that if you wanted to see the real spirit +of mediæval sculpture you ought to look underneath the seats of the +canon’s stalls. But they didn’t quarrel about that. They were far too +happy. + + * * * * * + +Nothing more was said about Elizabeth, until the day before she +returned. + +“You’ll meet her, of course?” said Fanny. + +“Of course.” + +“Well, give her my love.” + +“I suppose I ought to tell her about us,” said George reflectively. + +Fanny saw the danger in a flash. Her “freedom” was of a different kind +from Elizabeth’s rather theoretical and idealizing kind. Fanny’s was +light-hearted and practical; moreover, she had observed human beings +and knew her Elizabeth far better than George did. She also knew her +George. If George told Elizabeth, she knew quite well there would be a +bust-up, that Elizabeth’s theories would be abandoned as speedily as on +the former occasion. But she knew it was useless to reveal the truth to +George. On the other hand, she didn’t want to lose him and didn’t want +to “take him away” from Elizabeth—not until much later when Elizabeth +started the struggle. Fanny knew that George had to be managed within +the limits of masculine stupidity. + +“Oh, tell her if you like. But I shouldn’t discuss it with her, if I +were you. She must have long ago felt subconsciously the attraction +between us, and you can see by her attitude that she accepts it. I +don’t see the need for all this talk and re-hashing of what’s a private +and personal matter between two people. We’re so hypnotized by words, +that we think nothing exists until we have talked about it. How can you +interpret all these deep feelings and sensations in words? It’s because +words don’t suffice that we need touch. Tell Elizabeth by loving her +better.” + +“Then you really thinks she knows?” + +Fanny was a little annoyed. Why couldn’t he _see_, why couldn’t he take +a hint? + +“If she’s as acute and experienced as she tells us, she ought to have +seen the possibility long ago. No doubt, if she’s said nothing about it +to you, the reason is that she just doesn’t want to discuss it. If she +accepts, that’s enough.” + +“But she always believes that two people should be perfectly open and +frank with each other about their other affairs.” + +“Does she? Well, I advise you to say nothing until she asks you.” + +“All right, darling, if you think so.” + + * * * * * + +George duly met Elizabeth at Euston. She was delighted to be back in +London, away from the stuffiness of family and the solemn boredom of +middle-class existence. She leaned out the window of the taxi and +sniffed the air. + +“How lovely to smell dirty old London mud again! It means I’m free, +free, free again!” + +“Was it very awful?” + +“Oh, awful, interminable.” + +“I’m so glad you’re back.” + +“It’s wonderful. And lovely to be with you again. How well you look, +George, quite handsome and Italian!” + +“That’s because you haven’t seen me for a fortnight.” + +“How’s Fanny?” + +“Oh, very well. Sent her love to you.” + +“Dear old beastly ugly Tottenham Court Road!” said Elizabeth with her +nose out the window again. + +“By the way, it was awfully frowsty in Soho while you were away. Don’t +you think we might move to somewhere more modern?” + +“What, to a suburb? Why, George! You know you hate suburbs, and always +said you liked to live in the middle of London.” + +“Yes, I know. But we might find something at Chelsea.” + +“But we couldn’t possibly afford two places at Chelsea rents.” + +“Well, why not share a fairly large one?” + +“What, and live in the same flat? George!” + +“Oh, all right, if you don’t want to, but Fanny thinks Soho is +unhealthy for you.” + +“Well, we’ll see.” + + * * * * * + +Whether, as the Swedish old-maid hinted in her book, it was the +stimulus of another affair or whether George was anxious to display the +artistries of Fanny or whether it was merely remorse, Elizabeth found +George peculiarly charming and ardent. + +She attributed this to the happy effect of a brief absence. + + + + + [ VII ] + + +In a few weeks they duly moved to Chelsea. Fanny found them an +excellent apartment, with two large rooms, a kitchen and a modern +bathroom, for less than the combined rental of their two ramshackle +rooms in Soho. Elizabeth developed an unexpected talent for +“home-making,” and fussed a good deal over the installation in spite of +George’s light satire. But they were both only too happy to get away +from the frowstiness of Soho to a clean modern flat. + +This was in June, 1914. They did not go away when the hot weather +arrived, intending to stay the summer in London, and go to Paris for +September and October. Elizabeth spent a good deal of her spare time +with Reggie Burnside, and George was absorbed in his painting. He +wanted to get enough good canvasses for a small show in Paris in the +autumn. + +One day towards the end of July he left his painting early, to meet +Reggie and Elizabeth for lunch somewhere near Piccadilly. It was a +benign day, with fine white fleecy clouds suspended in a blue sky, and +a light wind ruffling the darkened foliage of summer trees. Even the +King’s Road looked pleasant. George noticed, and afterwards remembered +vividly, because these were the last really tranquil moments of his +life, how the policeman’s gloves made a clear blotch of white against +a plane-tree as he regulated the traffic. A little band of sparrows +were squabbling and twittering noisily in the lilacs of one of the +gardens. The heat was reflected, not unpleasantly, from the warm white +flagstones of the sidewalk. + +As he waited for the number 19 bus, George did what he very rarely +did—bought a newspaper. He always said it was a waste of life to read +newspapers—if something really important happened people would tell +you about it soon enough. He didn’t know why he bought a paper that +morning. He had been working hard for two or three weeks without seeing +any one but Elizabeth, and perhaps thought he would see what was going +on in the world. Perhaps it was only to see if there was any new film. + +George clambered to the top of the bus, with the paper under his arm, +and paid his fare. He then glanced casually at the headlines and +read: Serious Situation in the Balkans, Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum +to Servia, Servian Appeal to Russia, Position of Germany and France. +George looked up vaguely at the other people on the bus. There were +four men and two women; each of the men was intently reading the same +special early edition of the evening paper. He read the despatches +eagerly and carefully, and grasped the seriousness of the situation at +once. The Austrian Empire was on the verge of war with Serbia (Servia, +it was then called, until the country became one of our plucky little +allies); Russia threatened to support Serbia; the Triple Alliance would +bring in Germany and Italy on the side of Austria; France would be +bound to support Russia under the Treaty of Alliance, and the Entente +Cordiale might involve England. There was a chance of a European war, +the biggest conflict since the defeat of Napoleon. The event he had +always declared to be impossible—a war between the “civilized” nations +was threatened, was at hand. He refused to believe it. Germany didn’t +want war, France would be mad to want it, England couldn’t want it. +The “Powers” would intervene. What was Sir Edward Grey doing? Oh, +suggesting a conference.... The man on the seat opposite George leaned +towards him, tapping the newspaper with his hand: + +“What do you say to that, Sir?” + +“I think it looks confoundedly serious.” + +“Chance of a war, eh?” + +“I sincerely hope not. The newspapers always exaggerate, you know. It +would be an appalling catastrophe.” + +“Oh, liven things up a bit. We’re getting stale, too much peace. Need a +bit of blood-letting.” + +“I don’t think it’ll come to that. I...” + +“It’s got to come sooner or later. Them Germans, you know. They’d never +be able to face our Navy.” + +“Well, let’s hope it won’t be necessary.” + +“Ah, I dunno. Shouldn’t mind ’avin’ a go at the Germans myself, and I +reckon you wouldn’t either.” + +“Oh, I’m a neutral,” said George, laughing; “don’t count on me.” + +“Umph!” said the man, as he got up to leave the bus, casting a +suspicious look at this foreign-looking and unpatriotic person. Yes, +that’s it, a foreigner, a bloody foreigner; umph, what’s he doing in +England I’d like to know? Umph! + +George was back in the newspaper, unaware of the turmoil he had excited +in that elderly but patriotic bosom. + + * * * * * + +“I say,” exclaimed George, as soon as he met Elizabeth and Reggie, +“have you two seen the newspaper to-day?” + +“Why?” said Elizabeth, “what’s in it? Something about you?” + +“No, there’s a war threatened in the Balkans, and it may apparently +involve every one else.” + +Reggie sneered. + +“Oh, piffle! How absurd you are, George, to believe a newspaper +sensation. Why, we were talking about it last night in the Common Room, +and every one agreed that the conflict would have to be localized and +that Grey would probably make a statement in a day or two. It’ll all +blow over.” + +Elizabeth had grabbed the newspaper, and was trying to find her way +through the unfamiliar mazes of sensational rhetoric. + +“So you don’t think it’ll come to anything?” said George, hanging up +his hat, and sitting down at the restaurant table. + +“Of course not!” said Reggie contemptuously. + +“What do you think, Elizabeth?” + +“I don’t know,” she said, looking up bewildered from the paper, “I +can’t understand this curious language. Are all newspapers written like +that?” + +“Mostly,” said George, “but I’m glad you think it’s only a scare, +Reggie. I admit I was startled when I read those headlines. That’s +what comes of living absorbed in one’s own life, and neglecting the +fountain-heads of truth.” + + * * * * * + +All the same, he was not quite reassured, and on the way home left an +order with a local news agent for the delivery of a daily paper until +further notice. He hoped the next morning’s news would be better. It +wasn’t. Neither was the next day’s. Then came the news that Russia +was mobilizing, and that the Grand Fleet had sailed from Spithead “on +manœuvres,” but under sealed orders. George remembered the coastguard +officer who got drunk, and let slip that he had sealed orders in case +of war. Perhaps the man would be opening those orders in a few days, +perhaps he had already opened them. He tried to paint, and couldn’t; +picked up a book, and found himself thinking: Austria, Russia, Germany, +France, England, perhaps—good God, it’s impossible, impossible. He +fidgeted about, and then went into Elizabeth’s room. She was delicately +painting a large blue bowl of variegated summer flowers. The room was +very quiet. One of the windows was opened on to a large communal garden +surrounded by the backs of houses. A wasp came in through the striped +orange and black curtain and buzzed towards a bunch of grapes on a +large Spanish plate. + +“What is it, George?” + +The room was so peaceful, so secure, Elizabeth so unperturbed and as +usual, that George felt half-surprised at his own agitation. + +“I’m worried about this war situation.” + +“Really, George! What _is_ the good of getting into such a fuss? You +know Reggie told you there was nothing in it, and he hears all the +latest news at Cambridge.” + +“Yes, darling, but it isn’t a matter of Cambridge now, but of Europe. +The Tsar and the Kaiser won’t consult the Dons before launching a war.” + +Elizabeth, rather annoyed, went on painting. + +“Well,” she said through the brush between her teeth, “I can’t help it. +Anyway it won’t concern us.” + +It won’t concern us! George stood irresolute a moment. + +“I think I’ll go out and see what’s the latest news.” + +“Yes, do. I’m dining with Reggie to-night.” + +“All right.” + + * * * * * + +George spent the first few days of August wandering about London, +taking busses, and buying innumerable editions of newspapers. London +seemed perfectly calm and as usual, and yet there was something +feverish about it. Perhaps it was George’s own feverishness +exteriorized, perhaps it was the unwonted number of special editions +with shouting newsboys in unusual places, handing out copies as fast as +they could to little groups of impatient people. His memories of those +days were confused and he couldn’t remember the chronological order of +events. Two or three scenes stood out vividly in his mind—all the rest +became a blur, the outlines obliterated by more dreadful scenes. + +He remembered dining with Elizabeth and some other friends in a private +suite of the Berkeley as the guests of a wealthy American. The talk +kept running on the possibility of war, and the positions of England +and America. George still clung to the great illusion that wars between +the highly industrialized countries were impossible. He elaborated this +view to the American man, who agreed, and said that Wall Street and +Threadneedle Street between them could stop the universe. + +“If there _is_ a war,” said George, “it will be a sort of impersonal, +natural calamity, like a plague or an earthquake. But I should think +that in their own interests all the governments will combine to avert +it, or at least limit it to Austria and Servia.” + +“But don’t you think the Germans are spoiling for a war?” said another +Englishman. + +“I don’t know, I simply don’t know. What does any of us know? The +governments don’t tell us what they’re doing or planning. We’re +completely in the dark. We can make surmises, but we don’t _know_.” + +“It’s probably got to come sooner or later. The world’s too small to +hold an expanding Germany and a non-contracting British Empire.” + +“The irresistible force and the immovable mass.... But it’s not a +question of England and Germany, but of Austria and Servia.” + +“Oh, the murder of the Archduke’s just a pretext—probably arranged +beforehand.” + +“But by which side? I can’t see the situation as a stage scene, with +villains on one side, and noble-minded fellows on the other. If the +Archduke’s murder was the result of an intrigue, as you suggest, it +was a damned despicable one. Now, either the various governments are +all despicable intriguers ready to stoop to any crime and duplicity to +attain their ends—in which case we shall certainly have a war, if they +want it—or they’re more or less decent and human men like ourselves, +in which case they’ll do anything to avert it. We can do nothing. We’re +impotent. They’ve got the power and the information. We haven’t....” + +The white-gloved, immaculate Austrian waiters were silently handing +and removing plates. George noticed one of them, a young man with +close-cropped golden hair and a sensitive face. Probably a student +from Vienna or Prague, a poor man who had chosen waiting as a means of +earning his living while studying English. They both were about the +same age and height. George suddenly realized that he and the waiter +were potential enemies! How absurd, how utterly absurd.... + +After dinner they sat about and smoked. George took his chair over +to the open window and looked down on the lights and movement of +Piccadilly. The noise of the traffic was lulled by the height to a +long continuous rumble. The placards of the evening papers along the +railings beside the Ritz were sensational and bellicose. The party +dropped the subject of a possible great war, after deciding that there +wouldn’t be one, there couldn’t. George, who had great faith in Mr. +Bobbe’s political acumen, glanced through his last article, and took +great comfort from the fact that Bobbe said there wasn’t going to be a +war. It was all a scare, a stock-market ramp.... At that moment, three +or four people came in, more or less together, though they were in +separate parties. One of them was a youngish man in immaculate evening +dress. As he shook hands with his host, George heard him say rather +excitedly: + +“I’ve just been dining with Tommy Parkinson of the Foreign Office. He +had to leave early and go back to Downing Street. It seems there are +Cabinet meetings all the time. Tommy was frightfully depressed and +pessimistic about the situation.” + +“What did he say?” asked three or four eager voices. + +“He wouldn’t commit himself at all. He was simply very gloomy and +_distrait_, and wouldn’t say anything definite.” + +“Why didn’t you ask him whether Germany is mobilizing?” + +“I did, but he wouldn’t tell me anything.” + +“Oh, well, perhaps he only has a liver.” + +Among the other guests was a tall, very erect, rather sun-burned man +of about forty, who had taken no part in the conversation. He was +sitting on a couch in silence beside a woman younger than himself—his +wife—who was also silent. George heard him introduced to another man +as Colonel Thomas. After a few minutes George went over and spoke to +him. + +“My name’s Winterbourne. You’re Colonel Thomas, aren’t you?” + +“Yes.” + +“What do you think of the situation we’ve all been discussing so +intelligently?” + +“I don’t think anything. A soldier mustn’t have political ‘views,’ you +know.” + +“Well, but do you think the Germans are mobilizing?” + +“I don’t know. I believe they are. But that doesn’t mean war +necessarily. They may be mobilizing for manœuvres. We’re mobilized for +manœuvres on Salisbury Plain.” + +“Mobilized! The British Army mobilized!” + +“Only for manœuvres, you know.” + +“Are you mobilized too?” + +“Yes, I leave to-morrow morning.” + +“Good God!” + +“Oh, it’s only manœuvres. They always happen at this time of the year.” + + * * * * * + +Another day—it must have been the Sunday before the 4th of +August—George went down to Trafalgar Square to attend a Socialist +Peace Meeting. The space round the Nelson Column was so crowded that +he could not get near enough to hear the speakers, who were standing +on the plinth above the heads of the crowd. An eager-faced man with +white hair and an aristocratic voice made a speech, directed at mob +prejudices. He apparently took the view that the threatened war was the +work of Imperial Russia. George caught repeatedly the words “knout,” +“Cossacks,” and the phrase “the eagles of war are spreadin’ their +wings.” Some of the listeners at a rival war meeting started an attack +on the peace party. There was a scuffle, which was very soon dispersed +by Mounted Police. The crowd surged away from Trafalgar Square. George +found himself carried towards the Admiralty Arch and up the Mall. He +thought he might as well go back that way, and try to get a bus at +Victoria. But opposite Buckingham Palace the road was blocked by a +huge crowd, which was continually reinforced from all three roads. The +Palace Gates were shut, with a cordon of police in front of them. The +red-coated Guardsmen in their furry busbies stood at ease in front of +the sentry-boxes. + +“We want King George! We want King George!” chanted the mob. + +“We want King George.” + +After several minutes, a window was opened on to the centre balcony, +and the King appeared. He was greeted by an immense ragged cheer, and +acknowledged it by raising his hand to his forehead. The crowd began +another chant. + +“We want War! We want War! We want WAR!” + +More cheering. The King made no gesture of approval or disapproval. + +“Speech!” shouted the mob, “speech! WE WANT WAR!” + +The King saluted again, and disappeared. A roar of mingled cheering +and disappointment came from the crowd. There were several of the +inevitable humorous optimists to cry: + +“Are we downhearted?” + +“NO-OOOO!” + +“Is Germany?” + +“YUSS!” + +“Do we care for the Germans?” + +“NO-OOOO!” + +There could be no doubt about the feelings of that small section of the +English population.... + + * * * * * + +Even then George still clung to hopes of peace, bought only the +more pacific Radical papers, and believed that Sir Edward Grey would +“do something.” Touching faith of the English in the omnipotence of +their rulers! After all, Sir Edward was not God Almighty, but merely +a harassed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in a difficult +position, with a divided Cabinet behind him. What on earth could the +man have done? Possibly a frank statement in July that if France or +Belgium were attacked, England would “come in”? People say so now, but +then it might have looked like a gesture of provocation.... Who are +we to pass judgments? And the nations cannot altogether pose as the +victims of their rulers. It is certain that the mobs in the capitals +were howling for war. It is certain that the largest demonstrations in +favour of peace occurred in Germany.... + + * * * * * + +When the news came that France had mobilized, and that the Germans had +crossed the Belgian frontier, George abandoned all hope immediately. +He knew that one of the cardinal points of British policy is never to +allow Antwerp to rest in the possession of a great power. The principle +is as old as the reign of Queen Elizabeth or older. Who was it said: +“Antwerp is a pistol pointed at England’s head”? All Europe was in +arms, and England would join. The impossible had happened. They were in +for three months of carnage and horrors. Yes, three months. It couldn’t +last longer. Probably less. Oh, much less. There would be an immense +financial collapse, and the governments would have to cease fighting. +Why, Bank Rate was ten per cent already. He jumped on a bus at Hyde +Park Corner and sat just inside the entrance. + +“What’s the news?” said the conductor. + +“Very serious; the French have mobilized.” + +“What abaht us?” + +“We’ve done nothing yet. But it looks inevitable.” + +“Wy, we ain’t declared war, ’ave we?” + +“No, not yet.” + +“Well, there’s still ’opes then. I reckon we’d best mind ah own +business, and keep aht of it.” + +Mind our own business! How quickly that unselfish sentiment was +crystallized in the national slogan: Business As Usual! + +The long unendurable nightmare had begun. And the reign of Cant, +Delusion and Delirium. I have shown, with a certain amount of +excusable ferocity, how devilishly and perniciously the old régime +of Cant affected people’s sexual lives, and hence the whole of their +lives and characters, and those of their children. The subsequent +reaction was, at least in its origin, healthy and right. There +simply _had_ to be a better attitude, the facts had to be faced. And +nobody with any courage will allow himself to be frightened out of +saying so, either by the hush-hush partisans of the old régime or +doing-what-grandpa-did-and-let’s-pretend-it’s-all-lovely, or by the +fact that numerous congenital idiots have prattled and babbled and +slobbered about “Sex” until the very word is an exacerbation. But the +sexual life _is_ important. It is in so many cases the dominant or the +next to dominant factor in peoples’ lives. We can’t write about their +lives without bringing it in; so for God’s sake let’s do so honestly +and openly, in accordance with what we believe to be the facts, or else +give up pretending that we are writing about life. No more Cant. And I +mean free love Cant just as much as orange-blossoms and pealing church +bells Cant.... + +If you’re going to argue that Cant is necessary (the old political +excuse) then for Heaven’s sake let’s chuck up the game and hand in our +checks. But it isn’t necessary. It can only be necessary when deceit is +necessary, when people have to be influenced to act against their right +instincts and true interests. If you want to judge a man, a cause, a +nation, ask: Do they Cant? If the War had been an honest affair for +any participant, it would not have needed this preposterous bolstering +up of Cant. The only honest people—if they existed—were those who +said: “This is foul brutality, but we respect and admire brutality, and +admit we are brutes; in fact, we are proud of being brutes.” All right, +then we know. “War is hell.” It is, General Sherman, it is, a bloody +brutal hell. Thanks for your honesty. You, at least, were an honourable +murderer. + +It was the régime of Cant _before_ the War which made the Cant +_during_ the War so damnably possible and easy. On our coming of age +the Victorians generously handed us a charming little cheque for fifty +guineas—fifty-one months of hell, and the results. Charming people, +weren’t they? Virtuous and far-sighted. But it wasn’t their fault? They +didn’t make the War? It was Prussia, and Prussian militarism? Right you +are, right ho! Who made Prussia a great power and subsidized Frederick +the Second to do it, thereby snatching an empire from France? England. +Who backed up Prussia against Austria, and Bismarck against Napoleon +III? England. And whose Cant governed England in the nineteenth +century? But never mind this domestic squabble of mine—put it that I +mean the “Victorians” of all nations. + +One human brain cannot hold, one memory retain, one pen portray the +limitless Cant, Delusion and Delirium let loose on the world during +those four years. It surpasses the most fantastic imagination. It +was incredible—and I suppose that was why it was believed. It was +the supreme and tragic climax of Victorian Cant, for after all the +Victorians were still in full blast in 1914, and had pretty much the +control of everything. Did they appeal to us honestly, and say: “We +have made a colossal and tragic error, we have involved you and all +of us in a huge War; it’s too late to stop it; you must come and help +us, and we promise to take the first opportunity of making peace and +making it thoroughly?” They did not. They said they didn’t want to lose +us but they thought _WE_ ought to go; they said our King and Country +needed us; they said they’d kiss us when we came home (merci! effect of +the Entente Cordiale?); they said one of the most civilized races in +the world were “Huns”; they invented Cadaver factories; they asserted +that a race of men notorious during generations for their kindliness +were habitual baby-butchers, rapers of women, crucifiers of prisoners; +they said the “Huns” were sneaks and cowards and skedadellers, but +failed to explain why it took fifty-one months to beat their hopelessly +outnumbered armies; they said they were fighting for the Liberty of the +World, and everywhere there is less liberty; they said they would Never +sheathe the Sword until et cetera, and this sort of criminal rant was +called Pisgah-Heights of Patriotism.... They said... But why continue? +Why go on? It is desolating, desolating. And then they dare wonder why +the young are cynical and despairing and angry and chaotic! And they +still have adherents, who still dare to go on preaching to _us!_ Quick! +A shrine to the goddesses Cant and Impudence.... + + * * * * * + +I don’t know if George was aware of all this, because we never +discussed it. There were numbers of things you prudently didn’t discuss +in those days; you never knew who might be listening and “report.” +I myself was twice arrested as a civilian, for wearing a cloak and +looking foreign, and for laughing in the street; I was under acute +suspicion for weeks in one battalion because I had a copy of Heine’s +poems and admitted that I had been abroad; in another I was suspected +of not being myself, God knows why. That was nothing compared with the +persecution endured by D. H. Lawrence, probably the greatest living +English novelist, and a man of whom—in spite of his failings—England +should be proud. + +I do know that George suffered profoundly from the first day of the war +until his death at the end of it. He must have realized the awfulness +of the Cant and degradation, for he occasionally talked about the +yahoos of the world having got loose, and seized control, and by Jove, +he was right. I shan’t attempt to describe the sinister degradation +of English life in the last two years of the War; for one thing I was +mostly out of England, and for another Lawrence has done it once and +for all in the chapter called “The Nightmare” in his book “Kangaroo.” + +In George’s case, the suffering which was common to all decent men +and women was increased and complicated and rendered more torturing by +his personal problems, which somehow became related to the War. You +must remember that he did not believe in the alleged causes for which +the War was fought. He looked upon the War as a ghastly calamity or a +more ghastly crime. They might talk about their idealism but it wasn’t +convincing. There wasn’t the élan, the conviction, the burning idealism +which carried the ragged untrained armies of the First French Republic +so dramatically to Victory over the hostile coalitions of the Kings. +There was always the suspicion of dupery and humbug. Therefore, he +could not take part in the War with any enthusiasm or conviction. On +the other hand, he saw the intolerable egotism of setting up oneself as +a notable exception or courting a facile martyrdom of _rouspetance_. +Going meant one more little brand in the conflagration; staying +out meant that some other, probably physically weaker brand, was +substituted. His conscience was troubled before he was in the army, and +equally troubled afterwards. The only consolation he felt was in the +fact that you certainly had a worse and a more dangerous time in the +line than out of it. + +As a matter of fact, I never really “got” George’s position. He hated +talking about the subject, and he had thought about it and worried +about it so much that he was quite muddle-headed. It seemed to involve +the whole universe, and his attempts to express his point of view +would wander off into discussions about the Greek city-states or the +principles of Machiavelli. He was frankly incoherent, which meant a +considerable inner conflict. From the very beginning of the War he +had got into the habit of worrying, and this developed with alarming +rapidity. He worried about the War, about his own attitude to it, about +his relations with Elizabeth and Fanny, about his military duties, +about everything. Now “worry” is not “caused” by an event; it is a +state which seizes upon any event to “worry” over. It is a form of +neurasthenia, which may be induced in a perfectly healthy mind by shock +and strain. And for months and months he just worried and drifted. + +When Elizabeth decided, somewhere towards the end of 1914, that +the time had come when the principles of Freedom must be put into +practice in the case of herself and Reggie, and duly informed George, +he acquiesced at once. Perhaps he was so sick at heart that he was +indifferent; perhaps he was only loyally carrying out the agreement. +What surprised me was that he did not take that opportunity of telling +her about Fanny. But he was apparently quite convinced that she knew. +It was, therefore, an additional shock when he found out that she +didn’t know, and a still greater shock to see how she behaved. He +suffered an obnubilation of the intellect in dealing with women. He +idealized them too much. When I told him with a certain amount of +bitterness that Fanny was probably a trollop who talked “freedom” as +an excuse and that Elizabeth was probably a conventional-minded woman +who talked “freedom” as in the former generation she would have talked +Ruskin and Morris politico-æstheticism, he simply got angry. He said +I was a fool. He said the War had induced in me a peculiar resentment +against women—which was probably true. He said I did not understand +either Elizabeth or Fanny—how could I possibly understand two people +I had never seen and have the cheek to try to explain them to _him_, +who knew them so well? He said I was far too downright, over-simplified +and _tranchant_ in my judgments, and that I didn’t—probably +couldn’t—understand the finer complexities of peoples’ psychology. He +said a great deal more, which I have forgotten. But we came as near to +a quarrel as two lonely men could, when they knew they had no other +companion. This was in the Officers’ Training Camp in 1917, when George +was already in a peculiar and exacerbated state of nerves. After that, +I made no effort at any sort of ruthless directness, but just allowed +him to go on talking. There was nothing else to do. He was living in a +sort of double nightmare—the nightmare of the War and the nightmare of +his own life. Each seemed inextricably interwoven. His personal life +became intolerable because of the War, and the War became intolerable +because of his own life. The strain imposed on him—or which he imposed +on himself—must have been terrific. A sort of pride kept him silent. +Once when it was my turn to act as commander of the other Cadets, I +was taking them in Company Drill. George was right-hand man in the +front rank of number one Platoon, and I glanced at him to see that he +was keeping direction properly. I was startled by the expression on +his face—so hard, so fixed, so despairing, so defiantly agonized. At +mess we ate at tables in sixes—he hardly ever spoke except to utter +some banality in an effort to be amiable or some veiled sarcasm which +sped harmlessly over the heads of those for whom it was intended. He +sneered a little too openly at the coarse obscene talk about tarts and +square-pushing, and was too obviously revolted by water-closet wit. +However, he wasn’t openly disliked. The others just thought him a rum +bloke, and left him pretty much alone. + +Probably what had distressed him most was the row between Elizabeth +and Fanny. With the whole world collapsing about him, it seemed quite +logical that the Triumphal Scheme for the Perfect Sex Relation should +collapse too. He did not feel the peevish disgust of the reforming +idealist who makes a failure. But in the general disintegration of all +things he had clung very closely to those two women, too closely of +course. They had acquired a sort of mythical and symbolical meaning +for him. They resented and deplored the War, but they were admirably +detached from it. For George they represented what hope of humanity +he had left, in them alone civilization seemed to survive. All the +rest was blood and brutality and persecution and humbug. In them alone +the thread of life remained continuous. They were two small havens of +civilized existence and alone gave him any hope for the future. They +had escaped the vindictive destructiveness which so horribly possessed +the spirits of all right-thinking people. Of course, they were +persecuted, that was inevitable. But they remained detached, and alive. +Unfortunately, they did not quite realize the strain under which he was +living, and did not perceive the widening gulf which was separating the +men of that generation from the women. How could they? The friends of a +person with cancer haven’t got cancer. They sympathize, but they aren’t +in the horrid category of the doomed. Even before the Elizabeth-Fanny +row he was subtly drifting apart from them against his will, against +his desperate efforts to remain at one with them. Over the men of that +generation hung a doom which was admirably if somewhat ruthlessly +expressed by a British Staff Officer in an address to subalterns in +France: “You are the War generation. You were born to fight this War, +and it’s got to be won—we’re determined you shall win it. So far as +you are concerned as individuals, it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn +whether you are killed or not. Most probably you will be killed, most +of you. So make up your minds to it.” + +That extension of the Kiplingesque or Kicked-backside-of-the-Empire +principle was something for which George was not prepared. He resented +it, resented it bitterly, but the doom was on him as on all the young +men. When “we” had determined that they should be killed, it was +impious to demur. + +After the row, the gap widened, and when once George had entered the +army it became complete. He still clung desperately to Elizabeth and +Fanny, of course. He wrote long letters to them trying to explain +himself, and they replied sympathetically. They were the only persons +he wanted to see when on leave, and they met him sympathetically. +But it was useless. They were gesticulating across an abyss. The +women were still human beings; he was merely a unit, a murder-robot, +a wisp of cannon-fodder. And he knew it. They didn’t. But they felt +the difference, felt it as a degradation in him, a sort of failure. +Elizabeth and Fanny occasionally met after the row, and made acid-sweet +remarks to each other. But on one point they were in agreement—George +had degenerated terribly since joining the army, and there was no +knowing to what preposterous depths of Tommydom he might fall. + +“It’s quite useless,” said Elizabeth, “he’s done for. He’ll never +be able to recover. So we may as well accept it. What was rare and +beautiful in him is as much dead now as if he were lying under the +ground in France.” + +And Fanny agreed.... + + + + + PART THREE + + _ADAGIO_ + + + + + _ADAGIO_ + + + + + [ I ] + + +The draft, under orders to proceed overseas on Active Service, without +delay, paraded again, in full marching order, at three-thirty. + +Number two in the front rank was 31819, Private Winterbourne, G. + +They had been “sized” that morning, so each man knew his number and +place. They fell in rapidly, without talking, and stood easy, waiting +for the officers, on the bleak gravelled parade ground inside the bleak +isolated citadel. Their view was rectangularly cut short either by the +damp grey masonry of the fortress walls or by the dirty yellow brick +frontals of the barracks built in under the ramparts. + +They numbered one hundred and twenty, and had been under orders to +proceed overseas for more than a week, during which period they had +been forbidden to leave the citadel under threat of Court Martial. +All sentry duties were performed by troops not in the draft, and five +rounds of ball ammunition were issued to each sentry. These exceptional +measures were the result of nervousness on the part of the Colonel, who +had been censured for what was not his fault—two men had deserted on +the eve of the departure of the last draft, and two others had to be +substituted at the last moment. “Does the old mucker think we’re going +to run away?” was the comment of the draft, wounded in their pride, +when they accidentally found this out. + +A stiff coldish wind was blowing soiled-looking ragged clouds and +occasional gusts of chilly rain over a greyish winter sky. The men +fidgeted in the ranks, some bending forward to ease the strain of +straps, some throwing their packs a fraction higher with a jerk of +their shoulders and loins; one or two had taken the regulation step +forward and were adjusting their puttees or the fold in their trouser +legs. Winterbourne stood with his weight on his right leg, holding the +projecting barrel of his obsolete drill rifle loosely in his right +hand; his head was bent slightly forward as he gazed at the gravel +expressionlessly. + +The draft had been parading for various purposes all through the +day, when they thought they would be free to idle and write letters. +The canteen had been put out of bounds to prevent a possible drunken +departure. The parades had included two kit inspections and several +visits to the Quartermaster’s Stores to draw new winter clothing +and other objects for use overseas. Consequently, in their mood of +restrained excitement, they had become rather irritated and impatient. +The fidgeting increased under the reproving gaze of the N.C.O.’s, and +the rather boiled-looking glare of the Regimental Sergeant-Major, a +military pedant of exacting standards; nothing, however, was said, +since movement is permitted at the “stand easy.” + +The mood of the draft was not improved by a sudden flurry of cold rain, +which swept across the parade-ground in a long moaning gust, at the +moment when three or four officers came out of their Mess. + +“Draft!” came the R.S.M.’s warning bellow. + +The hundred and twenty hands slipped automatically down the rifles, and +the men stood silent and motionless, looking to the front, and trying +not to sway when the pressure of the rising gale suddenly increased or +suddenly relaxed. + +“Stand still there! Stand _Steady!_” + +There was a slight bulge in the front of each of the short +service-jackets, where two field dressings in a waterproof case and +a phial of iodine had been thrust into the pocket provided for them, +inside the right-hand flap. + +“Draft!—Draft! ’Ten’shun!” + +Two hundred and forty heels met smartly in one collective snap at +the same time that the rifles were sharply brought to the sides. +The draft stood to attention, gazing fixedly to the front. A man +unconsciously turned his head slightly in trying to catch a glimpse of +the approaching officers out of the corner of his eye. + +“Stand still that man! Look to your front, can’t you?” + +Silence, except for the moaning wind and the crunch of gravel under the +officers’ boots. The Colonel and the Adjutant wore spurs, which jingled +very slightly. The Colonel acknowledged the R.S.M.’s salute and his +“All present and c’rect, Sir.” + +“Rear rank—one pace step back—March!” + +One—two. The hundred and twenty legs moved mechanically like one man’s. + +“Rear rank—stand—at—ease!” + +The Colonel inspected the front rank, and took a long time, fussing +over various details. A man with cold fingers dropped his rifle. + +“Ser’ant ’Icks, take that man’s name and number, and forward the charge +with his Crime Sheet!” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The front rank stood at ease while the Colonel inspected the rear +rank less minutely. It was beginning to get dark, and he had to make +a speech. He stood about thirty yards in front of the draft with the +other officers behind him. The youthful Adjutant held his riding crop +against his right thigh like a field-marshal’s baton. The Colonel, an +eccentric but harmless half-wit who had been returned with thanks from +France early in his first campaign, was speaking: + +“N.C.O.’s and Men of the 8th Upshires! Er—you are—er—proceeding +overseas on Active Service. Er. Er. I—er—trust you will do +your—er—duty. We have wasted—er—spared no pains to make you +efficient. Remember to keep yourselves smart and clean and—er—walk +about in a soldierly way. You must always—er—maintain the honour of +the Regiment which—er—er—which stands high in the records of the +British Army. I—...” + +A very faint murmur of “muckin’ old fool,” “silly old mucker,” +“struth!” came from the draft, too faint to reach the officer’s ears, +but the alert R.S.M. caught it, though without distinguishing the +words; and cut short the Colonel’s peroration with his stentorian: + +“Stand still there! Stand _Steady!_ Take their names, Ser’ant ’Icks!” + +A short pause, and the R.S.M. shouted: + +“P’rade again at four-fifteen outside the Armoury, in clean fatigue, to +hand in rifles. Mind they’re properly clean and pulled-through. An’ no +talking as you walk off p’rade.” + +The Adjutant had been talking to the Colonel, and saluted as his +superior departed. He walked over to the R.S.M. + +“All right, Sergeant-Major, you and the other N.C.O.’s not in the draft +may fall out. I’ll dismiss the men.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The Adjutant walked over to the draft, and stood with his right hand on +his hip. He spoke slowly but without hesitation: + +“Stand at ease. Stand easy. You can wash out what the R.S.M. just said. +Leave your rifles in the racks, but try to leave ’em clean or I shall +get strafed.... I’m afraid we’ve chased you about a bit under the new +intensive scheme of training, but it’s all in the day’s work, you know. +I’m sorry we’re not going out as a unit, but battalions are being +broken up everywhere for drafts. When you get out, don’t forget to look +after your feet—you get court-martialled for trench feet nowadays—and +don’t be in a hurry to shove your heads over the top! I’m due to follow +you myself soon, so I expect we’ll all be in the next push. Good-bye. +And the very best of luck to you all.” + +“Good-bye, Sir. Thank you, Sir. Same to you, Sir. Good-bye, Sir.” + +“Good-bye. Draft, ’shun. Slope arms. Dis-miss.” + +Simultaneously their hands tapped the rifle-butts in salute, as they +turned right. + +The draft confusedly moved over the darkened ground to the barrack +room, chattering excitedly: + +“What’s the next thing?” + +“P’rade at eight-thirty to move off at nine.” + +“Who said so?” + +“It’s in B’tallion orders.” + +“Silly ole mucker old Brandon is, give me the fair pip he did with ’is +‘walk about soldierly’—yes! up to yer arse in mud.” + +“Bloody old _c_——” + +“Yes, but the Adjutant was all right.” + +“Oh, ’e’s a gentleman, ’e is.” + +“Makes all the difference when they’ve bin in the ranks theirselves.” + +“Wonder what it’ll be like in the line?” + +“Wait till y’get there and see.” + +“I reckon we’ll be there this time to-morrow night.” “Shut up, Larkin, +and don’t get the wind up.” + +“I ain’t got the wind up.” + +“I say, Corporal, Corp’ral! What time do we p’rade to-night?” + +“Ask the Ord’ly Sergeant.” + +“Tea’s up, boys. Come on!” + + * * * * * + +They fell in again at eight-thirty. The night was very dark, with a +cold damp gusty wind from the west. All the N.C.O.’s were on parade, +carrying lighted hurricane lanterns which moved and flitted and stood +still in the darkness like will-o’-the-wisps. The draft were in full +marching order, without rifles and side-arms, wearing their greatcoats. +Their excitement occasionally broke through the military restraint and +rose from a whisper to a loud hum, which would cringe abruptly under +the R.S.M.’s “Stop talking there!” It took a long time to read the +roll-call by the flicker of the lantern. At the sound of his name each +man clicked his heels, “Here, Sir.” + +“31819, Winterbourne, G.” + +“Here, Sir.” + +“That’s the lot, Ser’ant-Major, isn’t it?” + +“That’s the lot, Sir.” + +“Move off in five minutes.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The draft stirred restlessly in the darkness. Winterbourne looked +to his left and noticed how the line of shadowy figures disappeared +into the night—he might have been at one end of a line stretching to +infinity for all he could see. + +“Draft! Draft! ’Ten’shun! Slope arms! Move to the right in column +of fours—form fours! Form two deep! Form fours! Right! By the +right—Quick March!” + +They found themselves immediately behind the regimental band, which +struck up one of the Mark III marches supplied to Army musicians. The +draft knew it well—“How can I draw rations—if I’m not the ord’ly +man?” They marched over the familiar parade ground, out through the +postern, over the swaying draw-bridge, where the sentry presented arms. + +“By the left. March at—ease. March easy.” + +The band had ceased playing. They were descending the long winding +hill road to the village and the station. As they went along they were +joined by civilians, mostly girls, who were waiting in ones and twos. +The girls called to their men in the ranks, and they, emboldened by +excitement and this momentous change in their lives, dared to answer +back. March discipline relaxed, and the draft was already marching +raggedly as it passed the first houses of the village. After the +dense blackness of the hillside, the light from the few gas-lamps was +dazzling. + +The band struck up again. Although it was past ten, the whole village +was awake and in the street to watch them go by. The loud brass music +reverberated from the house fronts. The draft were amazed to find +themselves for a moment the centre of public interest; for so long +they had learned to consider themselves fatally insignificant and +subordinate. Voices came from all sides: “’Ullo, Bert! Good-bye, ’Arry! +Hullo, Tom! Good-bye, Jack!” Winterbourne in the front rank, looked +behind; he noticed that some of the girls had broken into the ranks and +were marching with their men, clinging to their arms. They appeared to +be enjoying themselves greatly. An exceedingly ragged company surged +excitedly through the village, intoxicated by the sounding brass and +the cheers and other attentions of the inhabitants. + +The civilians were not allowed on the station platform. As the draft +marched through the open gate, with a picket of military Police on +either hand, there was another chorus of “Good-bye, Bert! Good-bye, +’Arry! Good-bye, Tom. Good-bye, Jack! Good luck. Come ’ome soon. +Good-bye. Good luck. Good-bye.” + +They piled into the waiting troop-train, which was to pick up other +drafts on the way. Twelve to a carriage. Winterbourne managed to get +the window-seat next the platform. The Adjutant came up. + +“Winterbourne. Winterbourne.” + +“Sir?” + +“Oh, there you are. Looking for you. The R.T.O. says you go to +Waterloo, and then proceed to Folkestone, he thinks.” + +“Thanks very much, Sir. It’s so much less tedious when you know what +you’re doing and why and where you’re going.” + +“You ought to have a commission. You’ll easily get one in France.” + +“Yes, but you know why I wanted to stay in the ranks, Sir.” + +“Yes, I know, but men like you are needed as officers. The casualties +among officers are terrifically high.” + +“All right, I’ll think about it, Sir.” + +“Well, good-bye, old man, the very best of luck to you.” “Thank you. +And to you.” + +They shook hands, to the impressed horror of the N.C.O.’s. + +The crowd had gathered outside the railings by the forepart of the +train, where they were not masked by the station buildings. The band +was drawn up in front of them, on the platform. The train gave a +warning whistle. The band struck up the Regimental March, and then +Auld Lang Syne, as the train slowly steamed out of the station; they +played their instruments with one hand, and ludicrously waved the +other hand to the draft crowded in the moving windows. A long wavering +cheer went up. The red faces of the soldiers on the platform were all +turned slightly upwards, and their mouths were open. Their right arms +were raised above their heads. In a blare of band music, cheering and +shouting, the cheering draft drew out of the station. + +Good-bye, Bert. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Tom. Good-bye, Jack. +Good-bye. + +The last person Winterbourne saw was the little Colonel, standing at +the extreme end of the platform under a gas-lamp, standing very erect, +standing rather tense and emotional, standing with his right hand +raised to his cap, standing to salute his men proceeding on Active +Service. + +He wasn’t a bad little man; he believed intensely in his Army. + + + + + [ II ] + + +In fifteen minutes the excited chatter over fags dwindled to the +monotony of an ordinary railway journey. The men were tired, for it +was already long after Last Post. They began to drowse. One man in the +far corner from Winterbourne was already asleep. The racks were full +of overcoats and equipment. Under the Anti-Aircraft Regulations the +curtains of the train windows were closely drawn. + +Winterbourne felt entirely unsleepy. He ceased talking to the man +beside him, and drifted into a reverie. His mind slid backwards and +forwards from one theme of thought to another. Already he found it +difficult to read or to think consecutively. He had reached the first +expressionless stage of the war soldier, which is followed by the +period of acute strain; and that in turn gives place to the second +expressionless stage—which is pretty hopeless. + +The real test was beginning. Like everybody who had not been there, +he was almost entirely ignorant of life in the trenches. Newspapers, +illustrated periodicals, almost useless. He had heard a lot of tales +from returned wounded soldiers. But many of them either blathered or +were quite inarticulate. Here and there a revealing detail or memory. +“And all the time I was delirious after I was wounded, I kep’ seein’ +them aeryplanes goin’ round and round and then makin’ a dive at me.” +And the little Cockney: “Struth! I got me tunic and me trowses all +’ung up in Fritz’s wire, an’ I couldn’t get orf. Got me pockets full +o’ bombs, I ’ad, as well as them stick-bombs in paniers. One of the +paniers was ’ung up too, an’ I ses to myself I ses: ‘If you drop them +muckin’ bombs, Bert, you’ll blow yer muckin’ ’ead orf.’ And there was +old Fritz’s machine gun bullets whizzin’ by, _zip_, _zip_. I could see +’em cuttin’ the wire—and me cursin’ and blindin’. Blimey! I wasn’t arf +afraid. But I got me muckin’ blighty, anyway.” + +Where did he meet that amusing little Cockney? Ah, yes, in the depot +the day after he joined. There had been several soldiers just out of +the hospital in the barrack room, all swopping yarns. Winterbourne’s +mind reverted to himself, and the past dreary months. He had been +unfortunate in the N.C.O.’s of his training battalion—old regulars, +who had been bullied and driven in their time, and thought they’d +escape being sent out to France by zealously bullying and driving the +new drafts. No doubt they were paying off some of the old army grudge +against civilian contempt for the mercenary soldier. They particularly +hated any educated or well-bred man in the ranks, and delighted to +impose painful or humiliating tasks on him. George remembered the man +who “took particulars” of his religion. + +“What are yer? C. of E., Methodist, R. C.?” + +“I haven’t any official religion. You’d better put me down as a +rationalist.” + +“Garn! What’s a muckin’ rationalist? Yer in the Army now.” + +“Well, I haven’t got one.” + +“Bloody well find one then. Yer’ll want suthin’ over yer muckin’ grave +in France, won’t yer? An’ yer’ll bloody well be in it in six months. No +religion! Strike me muckin’ pink!” + +An amiable hero. In his zeal for religion he got Winterbourne sent on +all the dirtiest and longest Sunday fatigues, until in self-defence +he had to put himself down Church of England. There was, of course, +no religious compulsion in the Army; that was why Church Parade was a +parade. + +Winterbourne smiled as he thought of the ludicrous scene. It had been +none the less painful. His gorge rose at the memory of the filth he had +tried to remove from the Officers’ Mess Kitchen—filth which had been +left there untouched by fifty less scrupulous “fatigues.” The kitchen +was inspected every day. + +He looked at his hands in the concentrated light of the railway +carriage. They were coarsened and chapped, ingrained with dirt +impossible to remove with ice-cold water. He thought of the delicate +hands of Fanny and Elizabeth’s slender fingers. + +On parade the officers never swore at the men, the N.C.O.’s rarely, +whatever they might do off parade. It was an offence under King’s Regs. +The Physical Training Instructors were, however, an exception. They +sometimes displayed an uncouth humour in their objurgations. There were +time-honoured pleasantries, such as “Yer may break yer muckin’ mother’s +’eart, but yer won’t break mine!” There was the Bayonet Instructor, +a singularly rough diamond from Whitechapel, who in mimic bayonet +fighting at the stuffed bags, loved to give the command: + +“At ’is stummick an’ goolies, Point!” + +This gentleman, offended at the awkward posture of a rather plump +recruit doing the “double knee bend,” had apostrophized the unfortunate +man: + +“’Ere, you, Frost. Can’t yer get down like a muckin’ soldier, and not +like a bloody great pross what’s bein’ blocked?” + +Winterbourne smiled again to himself. The road to glory was undoubtedly +devious in our fair island story. + +From Reveille at five-thirty until Lights Out they had been driven and +harassed and bullied for weeks to the strain of: “Look to yer front +there!” “’Old yer ’eads _up_, can’t yer, all them tanners was picked +up on first p’rade.” “Smith, yer got them straps crossed wrong—if +yer do it again, I’ll crime yer.” And over the voices of the various +sergeant-instructors shouting to their squads, boomed the R.S.M.’s +inevitable: “Stand still, there! Stand _Steady_.” Just like the South +Foreland light-ship in a fog. The fatigue of continual over-exercise +and of the physical and mental strain was severe to men fresh from +sedentary lives, or stiff from the plough and the workshop. For the +first weeks especially they were sore all over, and sank into heavy +unrefreshing sleep at night. Winterbourne bore it better than most. +His long walks and love for swimming had kept him supple. He could not +raise weights like the draymen or dig like the navvies, but he could +out-march and out-run them all, learn every new movement in half the +time, dismount a Lewis gun while they were wondering which way the +handle came off, score four bulls out of five, and saw immediately +why you made head-cover first when digging in. But he too felt the +fatigue. He remembered one perfectly awful day. They had been drilled +and marched and drilled and inspected from dawn to evening of a +baking autumn day; then at seven there had been three hours of night +operations. At twelve, they were all awakened by a false Fire Alarm, +and had to turn out in trousers and boots. Winterbourne had taken over +his shoulder the arm of a man who was too exhausted to run unassisted +on the parade grounds. The N.C.O.’s yelped them on like sheep dogs. + +It was not the physical fatigue Winterbourne minded, though he hated +the inevitable physical degradation—the coarse, heavy clothes, too +thick for summer; the hob-nailed boots; the plank bed; horribly cooked +food. But he accepted and got used to them. He suffered mentally, +suffered from the shock of the abrupt change from surroundings where +the things of the mind chiefly were valued to surroundings where they +were ignorantly despised. He had nobody to talk to. He suffered from +the communal life of thirty men in one large hut, which meant that +there was never a moment’s solitude. He suffered because he brooded +over Elizabeth and Fanny, over the widening gulf he knew was dividing +him from them, and suffered abominably as month after month of the +war dragged on with its interminable holocausts and immeasurable +degradation of mankind. The world of men seemed dropping to pieces, +madly cast down by men in a delirium of homicide and destructiveness. +The very apparatus of killing revolted him, took on a sort of +sinister deadness. There was something in the very look of his rifle +and equipment which filled him with depression. And then, in the +imagination, he was already facing the existence for which this was but +a preparation, already confronting the agony of his own death. Horrific +tales—alas, only too true—were told of companies and battalions +wiped out in a few instances. N.C.O. after N.C.O., as Winterbourne +got to know them better, assured him that they were the only men—or +almost the only men—left alive from their platoons or companies. And +it was the truth. The proportion of casualties was undoubtedly high +in infantry units. It was, perhaps, selfish of Winterbourne to worry +about his own extinction when so many better men had already been +obliterated. He felt rather ashamed and apologetic about it himself. +But it is human to recoil from a violent death, even at twenty-two or +-three.... + +The train began to slow down at a large junction, and he returned to +his present surroundings with a start. The other men were asleep. Well, +all the training and presenting arms and saluting by numbers were over +and in the past. They were on Active Service. It was an immense relief. +Now, henceforth, he would be facing dread realities, not Regular Army +pedants and bullies. As Winterbourne once remarked, one of the horrors +of the war was not fighting the Germans but living under the British. + + * * * * * + +After picking up more drafts, the train went on, grinding its way +heavily through the silent darkness. The men were all asleep. He +noticed the carriage was getting stuffy and headachey with foul +air. Some one had shut the windows and ventilators while he was +day-dreaming. That was the old bother—whether in huts or barracks they +_would_ try to sleep in foul air. He softly slipped the window open a +couple of inches—better already. Wonder why they like a fug? Mental +and moral fug, too. Poor devils. All brought up to touch their hats to +the gentry, do what they’re told, and work. Sort of helots. Yet they’re +decent enough, got character, but no intelligence. That’s the real war, +the only war worth fighting, the battle of the intelligence against +inertia and stupidity and... Still, the intelligence is not always +defeated, we’ve got here somehow. Yes! and look where we are! + +His mind half-sleepily ran off along a familiar track. What’s really +the cause of wars, of this War? Oh, you can’t say one cause, there +are many. The Socialists are silly fanatics when they say it’s the +wicked capitalists. I don’t believe the capitalists wanted a war—they +stand to lose too much in the disturbance. And I don’t believe the +wretched governments really wanted it—they were shoved on by great +forces they’re too timid and too unintelligent to control. It’s the +superstition of more babies and more bread, more bread and more +babies. Of course, all wars haven’t been mere population wars. ’Course +not—Greek city states, mediæval Italian republics, wars of petty +jealousy; naval wars for commercial advantages—Pisa, Genoa, Venice, +Holland, England; the sport of Kings, eighteenth-century diversion of +the aristocracy; wars of fanaticism, Moslems, the Crusades; emigration +wars like the irruption of the barbarians.... There may be commercial +motives behind this war, jolly short-sighted ones—they’ve already +lost more than they can possibly gain. No, this is fundamentally a +population war—bread and babies, babies and bread. It’s all oddly +mixed up with the sexual problem we were battling with so brightly +when this little packet of trouble was dumped on us by our virtuous +forebears. It’s the babies and bread superstition. You encourage, you +force people to have babies, lots of babies, millions of babies. As +they grow up, you’ve got to feed ’em. You need bread. We all live from +the land. England, and the rest of the world after it, went crazy with +the Industrial Revolution—thought you could eat steel and railways. +You can’t. The world of men is an inverted pyramid based on the bowed +shoulders of the ploughman—or the steel-tractor—on the land. It’s +the hunger and death business again. “Increase and multiply.” Damned +imbecility of applying to over-populated and huge nations the sexual +taboos forced on a little crowd of unhygienic Semitic nomads by sheer +force of circumstance. Think of their infantile death rate! Breed +like rabbits or vanish. Doesn’t apply to us. We’re a sacrifice to +over-breeding. Too many people in Europe. A damn sight too many babies. +The people could be made to see, are beginning to see it—but the +hurray-for-our-dear-Fatherland people, and the priests and the fanatics +and the timid and the conservative, won’t see it. Go on, breed, you +beauties—breed in column of fours, in battalions, brigades, divisions, +army corps. Wait till the population of England is five hundred million +and we’re all packed like herrings in a tub. Lovely. Wonderful. England +über alles. But there comes a time when there isn’t enough bread for +the growing babies. Colonize. Why? Either grow more food or produce +more things to exchange for food. England’s got huge colonies. Germany +very small ones. The Germans breed like tadpoles. The British breed +like rather slower tadpoles. What are you going to do with them? +Kill ’em off in a war? Kind. Humane. Kill ’em off, and grab land and +commercial advantages from the defeated nation? Right. And what next? +Oh, go on breeding. Must be a great and populous nation. And the +defeated nation? Suppose they start breeding harder than ever? Oh, have +another war, go on having ’em, get the habit. Europe’s decennial picnic +of corpses.... + +Yes, but why so sentimental? Why all this fuss over a few million +men killed and maimed? Thousands of people die weekly and somebody’s +run over in London every day. Does that argument take you in? Well, +the answer is that they’re not _murdered_. And your “thousands who +die weekly” are the old and the diseased; here it’s the young and the +strong and the healthy, the physical pick of the race. All men, too, +and no women. That’ll set up a pretty nice resentment between the +sexes—more sodomy and lesbianism. Loud cheers, we’re winning. Yes, +but going back to murder—people are murdered all the time, look at +Chicago. Look at Chicago! We’re always patting ourselves on the back +and looking smugly at wicked Chicago. When there’s a shoot-up between +gangs, do you approve of it, do you give the winning side medals for +their gallantry, do you tell ’em to go to it and you’ll kiss them when +they come back, do you march ’em by with a brass band and tell ’em what +fine fellows they are? Do you take the gunman as the high ideal of +humanity? I know all about military grandeur and devotion to duty—I’m +a soljer meself, marm. Thanks for all you’ve done for us, marm. If +violence and butchery are the natural state of man, then let’s have no +more of your humbug. Violence and butchery beget violence and butchery. +Isn’t that the theme of the great Greek tragedies of blood? Blood will +have blood. All right, now we know. It doesn’t matter whether murder +is individual or collective, whether committed on behalf of one man or +a gang or a state. It’s murder. When you approve of murder you violate +the right instincts of every human being. And a million murders egged +on, lauded, exulted over, will raise a legion of Eumenides about your +ears. The survivors will pay bitterly for it all their lives. Never +mind, you’ll go on? More babies, soon make up the losses? Have another +merry old war soon, sooner the better.... + +O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Thank God I have no son, O +Absalom, my son, my son! + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne nodded uneasily asleep. He started awake as the train +slowed down at London Bridge, and not at Waterloo. Where am I? Railway +station. Oh, of course, on a draft going out to France.... + +The draft were turned out at London Bridge, and collected in two ranks +on the platform, yawning, stretching and adjusting their equipment. The +draft conducting officer, a mild, brown-eyed young man on home service +after being wounded, explained that they had nearly three hours to +wait. Would they like to go to a Soldiers’ Canteen and get some food? + +“Yes, Sir!” + +They marched through the empty muddy streets. It was about midnight. +Some one began to sing one of the inevitable marching songs. The +officer turned round: + +“Whistle, but don’t sing. People asleep.” + +They began to whistle “Where are the lads of the village to-night?” + +Winterbourne found himself crossing the Thames and looked once more +at the familiar townscape. He noticed that the street-lamps had +been dimmed further since he had left London, and that the once +brilliantly-lighted capital now lay cowering in darkness. The dome of +St. Paul’s was just faintly visible to an eye which knew exactly where +to look for it. The man next to Winterbourne was a Worcestershire +ploughman who had never been to London and was most anxious to see St. +Paul’s. Winterbourne tried hard to show him where it was, but failed. +The ploughman never did see St. Paul’s—he was killed two months later. + +Curious to march through this unfamiliar London—everything the same, +but everything so different. The dimmed street lights, the carefully +blinded windows, the rather neglected streets, the comparative absence +of traffic, the air of being closed down indefinitely, all gave him an +uneasy feeling. It was as if a doom hung over the great city, as if it +had passed its meridian of power and splendour, and was sinking back, +back into the darkened past, back into the clay hills and marshes on +which it stands. That New Zealander sketching the ruins from a broken +pile of London Bridge seemed several centuries nearer. + + _“Where are the lads of the village to-night? + Where are the lads we knew? + In Piccadilly or Leicester Square? + No, not there! No, not there! + They’re taking a trip on the Continong....”_ + +The foolish words ran in Winterbourne’s brain as the men whistled the +tune with exasperating pertinacity. It was curious to be so near to +Fanny and Elizabeth. He wondered vaguely what they were doing. + + _“No, not there! No, not there!”_ + +He had sent Elizabeth a telegram from a station on the way up, but +probably it had not reached her. + +They crowded into the Canteen, and ate sandwiches and eggs and bacon, +and drank ginger-beer. It was too late for beer. Our temperate troops +didn’t need beer at that hour of the night. + + * * * * * + +About 2 A.M. they marched back to the station. To Winterbourne’s +surprise and delight Elizabeth and Fanny were there. Elizabeth had +received his telegram, although it was after hours. She had rung up +Fanny, and they had gone to Waterloo together, only to find that the +train with the Upshires draft was not there. Fanny had used her charms +upon a susceptible R.T.O. and he had told them where to go, so there +they were. All this Elizabeth poured out in a rapid, nervous, jerky +way. While Fanny just clutched Winterbourne’s left hand and pressed it +hard, saying nothing. They had about ten minutes before the train left. +The draft-conducting officer noticed that Winterbourne was speaking to +two women, “obviously ladies,” and came up: + +“Get in anywhere you like, Winterbourne, only don’t miss the train.” + +“Very good, Sir, thank you,” and saluted smartly. + +“D’you always have to do that?” asked Elizabeth with a little giggle. + +“Yes, it’s the custom. They seem to attach great importance to it.” + +“How absurd.” + +“Why absurd?” said Fanny, feeling that Winterbourne was somehow hurt +by the contempt in her voice. “It’s only a convention.” + +The whole train was filled with different drafts of soldiers who had +been ordered into the carriages. Only Winterbourne and the two girls +were left on the platform, except for the R.T.O. and one or two other +officers. As often happens in railway partings they seemed embarrassed, +with nothing to say to each other. Winterbourne simply felt dull and +uneasy, tongue-tied. He was saying farewell perhaps for the last time +to the only two human beings he had really loved, and found he had +nothing to say. He just felt dull and uneasy, dully remote from them. +He noticed they were both wearing new hats he hadn’t seen, and that +skirts were being worn much shorter. He wished the train would go. +Interminable waiting. What was Elizabeth saying? He interrupted her: + +“Is that the new fashion?” + +“What?” + +“Shorter skirts?” + +“Why, yes, of course, and not so very new. Where have your eyes been?” + +“Oh, there were only village women where I’ve been. I haven’t seen a +properly dressed woman since my firing leave.” + +Tactless! He had spent those few days with Fanny. Dear Fanny. A good +sort. She had thought it an awful lark to go on a week-end with a +Tommy. She was dreadfully sick of the Staff. Only it was inconvenient +that the only decent hotels and restaurants were out of bounds to +Tommies. Fanny felt quite democratic about it. Elizabeth hadn’t cared. +She lived with a kind of inner intensity which kept her from noticing +such things. + +They were silent for seconds which dragged like minutes. Then they all +began to say something together, interrupted themselves, “Sorry, I +didn’t mean to interrupt.” “What were you going to say?” “Oh, nothing, +I forget.” And then relapsed into silence again. + +Winterbourne found he was slightly intimidated by the presence of +these two well-dressed ladies. What on earth were they doing at two +o’clock in the morning, talking to a Tommy? He tried to hide his dirty +hands. + +Damn the train! Won’t it ever go? He felt uncomfortably hot in his +great-coat and began to unbutton it. The engine whistled. + +“All aboard!” shouted the R.T.O. + +Winterbourne hastily kissed Fanny and then Elizabeth. + +“Good-bye, good-bye, don’t forget to write. We’ll send you parcels.” + +“Thanks, ever so. Good-bye.” + +He made for the compartment where a door had been left open for him, +but found it full. The luggage van piled with the men’s rations was +next door. Winterbourne jumped in. + +“You’ll have to stand!” exclaimed Fanny. + +“Why, no. There’s plenty of room on the floor.” + +The train moved. + +“Good-bye.” + +Winterbourne waved his hand. He felt no particular emotion, merely an +intensifying of the general depressingness of things. He watched them +receding, as they waved their hands. Beautiful girls both of them, and +so smartly dressed. + +“Be happy!” he shouted, as a valediction, in a sudden gust of +disinterested affection for them. And then lost sight of them. + +Fanny and Elizabeth were both crying. + +“What did he shout?” asked Elizabeth through her sobs. + +“‘Be happy!’” + +“How curious of him! And how like him! Oh, I know I shall never see him +again.” + +Fanny tried to comfort her. But Elizabeth somehow felt it was all +Fanny’s fault. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne sat on his pack in the joggling van for about ten +minutes. It was almost dark. The guard was trying to read a newspaper +by the light of a dim oil lamp. The soldiers who had to see that the +rations weren’t stolen were already lying on the floor. Winterbourne +buttoned up his coat, turned up the collar, arranged a woollen scarf on +his pack to make a pillow, and lay down on the dirty floor beside them. +In five minutes he was asleep. + + + + + [ III ] + + +It was not nearly dawn when they reached Folkestone. The drafts from +various units were now amalgamated, but still remained under their own +officers. They were marched through the dull little town and bivouacked +in a row of large empty houses, probably evacuated boarding-houses, +fitted up with the usual inconveniences of small English hotels. They +washed and had some breakfast. All rather dismal. + +At seven they were marched to the quay, and then marched back. The +officer had mistaken the word “eleven” for “seven.” So they had to wait +again. It was their first introduction to the curious fact that much of +the War consisted in waiting about and in undoing things which somebody +had ordered in error or through mistaken zeal. The men, sitting on +their packs in the empty room, were eagerly and vainly discussing +their immediate future—which Base Camp would they go to, which unit +would they be drafted to, what part of the line. Winterbourne went +over to the uncurtained window and looked out. Drifting heavy clouds, +a moderately rough, dirty-looking sea. The Esplanade was practically +deserted. The shelters looked dilapidated; most of the glass in them +was smashed. The unused gas lamps looked somehow desolate on their +rusting standards. Another wounded town, dying perhaps. Depression, +monotony, boredom. He looked at his wrist-watch. Still more than two +hours to wait. Now that the inevitable had occurred, he was very +impatient to get into the front line. The only interest he had left was +a consuming curiosity to see what the War was really like. + +Curse this hanging about! He drummed his fingers on the window-pane. +The men in the room went on talking, aimlessly, foolishly, talking to +no purpose. Winterbourne wondered at his own lack of emotion. All his +past life seemed a dream, all his vital interests had become utterly +indifferent, his ambitions were dissolved, his old friends seemed +incredibly remote and unimportant, even Fanny and Elizabeth were +unsubstantial, graceful ghosts. Depression, monotony, boredom—but a +peculiar sort, a strained, worried exasperated sort. For God’s sake get +a move on. It’ll never end, so for the love of Mike let’s get it over. +Let’s catch our little packet. We know our numbers are up, so let’s get +them quickly. + +One of the men was whistling: + +_“What’s the use of worry-ing?”_ + +What indeed? But can you help it? You, cheery idiot, are worrying just +as much as any one else. Villiers’ torture by hope. If you were _quite_ +certain that your number was up, you’d have at least the tranquillity +of resignation. But you’re not quite certain. Even in the infantry men +come back. With a really healthy wound you might be out of the line +for six or nine months. That was called “getting a blighty one,” if +you were lucky enough to get sent back to England—“Blighty.” The men +were discussing blighties. Which was the most convenient blighty? Arm +or leg? Most agreed that if you lost your left hand or a foot, you were +damned lucky—you were out of the bloody War for good and you got a +pension and a wound-gratuity. Winterbourne stood with his back to them, +looking out of the window; the ghosts of past summer visitors thronged +the Esplanade. Left hand or a foot. Live a cripple. No, not that, not +that, my God. Come back whole, or not at all. But how those men love +life, how blindly they cling to their poor existences! You wouldn’t +think they’d much to live for. No beautiful and smartly dressed Fannies +and Elizabeths. Oh, they have their “tarts,” they’ve all got a girl’s +“photo” in their pay books—and what girls! Tarts for Tommies. Cream +tarts for Tommies. + +He turned away abruptly from the window and sat down to clean his +buttons. Always keep yourself clean and smart, and walk about in a +soldierly way.... + + * * * * * + +His mood changed and his spirits rose as they marched down to the +docks. Only twelve hours had passed since they left and yet it seemed +a tremendously long time. Winterbourne realized that the monotony, the +imbecile restrictions, the incredible nagging of military pedants, had +been crushing him into a condition of utter stupidity. He regretted +deeply that he had been kept in England so long. At least you were +doing something real in France, and there was movement.... + +Troops were pouring along the quay, and mounting the gangways on to +three black-painted troopships. Winterbourne recognized the ships as +old friends—they were pre-war Channel packet-boats transformed. Huge +notices were displayed on the quays: “No. 1 Ship, 33rd Div., 19th Div., +42nd Div., 118th Brigade.” An officer with a megaphone shouted: “Leave +Men to the Right, Drafts to the Left.” Another megaphone shouted: +“First Army Men, Number 1 Ship.” “Third and Fourth Armies, Number 3 +Ship.” “Captain Swanson, 11th Seaforth Highlanders, report to R.T.O.’s +office immediately.” It was rather stirring—animated and efficient as +well as bustling. + +The draft went on board, and were shepherded to one end of the +upper deck. The whole ship was swarming with leave men returning +to France. Winterbourne gazed at them fascinatedly—these were the +real war soldiers, fragments of the first half million volunteers, +the men who had believed in the War and wanted to fight. They made +a kind of epitome of the whole army. Every arm of the service was +represented—Field Artillery, Heavies, dismounted cavalry, gunners, +sappers, R.E. Sigs, Army Service Corps, Army Medical Corps, and +infantry everywhere. He recognized some of the infantry badges, the +bursting grenade of the Northumberland Fusileers, the Tiger of the +Leicesters, the Middlesex, the Bedfords, Seaforth Highlanders, Notts +and Jocks, the Buffs. He was immediately struck by their motley and +picturesque appearance. He and the other draft troops were all spick +and span, buttons bright, puttees minutely adjusted, boots polished, +peaked caps stiffened with wire, pack mathematically squared, overcoat +buttoned up to the throat. The leave men were dressed anyhow. Some had +leather equipment, some webbing. They put their equipment together +as it suited them, and none of it had been shined or polished for +months. Some wore overcoats, some shaggy goatskin or rough sheepskin +jackets. The skirts of some overcoats had been roughly hacked off +with jack-knives—not to trail in the deep mud, Winterbourne guessed. +The equipment which still weighed so heavily on the shoulders of the +draft seemed to give the real soldiers no concern at all—they either +wore it unconcernedly or chucked it carelessly on the deck with their +rifles. Winterbourne was charmed. He noticed with amused scandal that +the bolts and muzzles of their rifles were generally tightly bound with +oiled rags. Winterbourne looked more carefully at their faces. They +were lean and still curiously drawn, although the men had been out of +the line for a fortnight; the eyes had a peculiar look. They seemed +strangely worn and mature, but filled with energy, a kind of slow +enduring energy. In comparison the fresh faces of the new drafts seemed +babyish—rounded and rather feminine. + +For the first time since the declaration of War, Winterbourne felt +almost happy. These men were men. There was something intensely +masculine about them, something very pure and immensely friendly and +stimulating. They had been where no woman and no half-man had ever +been, could endure to be. There was something timeless and remote about +them as if (so Winterbourne thought) they had been Roman legionaries +or the men of Austerlitz or even the invaders of the Empire. They +looked barbaric, but not brutal; determined, but not cruel. Under their +grotesque wrappings their bodies looked lean and hard and tireless. +They were Men. With a start Winterbourne realized that in two or three +months, if he were not hit, he would be one of them, indistinguishable +from them, whereas now in the ridiculous jackanapes get-up of the +peace-time soldier he felt humiliated and ashamed beside them. + +“By God!” he said to himself, “you’re men, not boudoir rabbits and +lounge lizards. I don’t care a damn what your cause is—it’s almost +certainly a foully rotten one. But I do know you’re the first real +men I’ve looked upon. I swear you’re better than the women and the +half-men, and by God, I swear I’ll die with you rather than live in a +world without you.” + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne moved a short distance away from the draft and watched a +small group of leave men. One, a Scotchman in the uniform of an English +line regiment, was still wearing his full equipment. He was leaning on +his rifle, talking to two other infantrymen, who were sitting on their +packs. One of them, a Corporal with scandalously untrimmed hair and a +dirty sheepskin jacket, was lighting a pipe. + +“An’ wha’ y’ think?” said the Scot in his sharp-clipped speech, “when +ah got hame, they wan’ed me ta gae and tak’ tea wi’ th’ Meenister and +then gie a speech at a Bazaar for Warr Worrkers.” + +“Ah!” said the Corporal, “did you tell ’em—puff—all about the wicked +Huns—puff—and say that what we want in the line is more tiled +bath-rooms and girls and not so many woollen mufflers and whizz-bangs?” + +“Ah did not; ah said ‘gie me over that bottle o’ whiskey, wumman, and +hauld y’ whist.’” + +“What Division are you, Jock?” said the other man. + +“Thirrty-thirrd. We’ve bin spendin’ a pleasant summer on th’ Somme, and +we’re now winterrin’ at the Health-resorrts o’ Ypres.” + +“We’re forty-first Division. Just on your left in the Salient. We came +up there a month ago from Bullycourt.” + +“Bullycourt’s a verry guid place to get away from....” + +Winterbourne could not listen any further—a zealous N.C.O. herded him +back to the draft. He went unwillingly. He had been waiting eagerly +for the men to get away from their time-honoured jests and speak of +their real experiences. He was disappointed that these men talked in +such a trivial and uninteresting way. He felt they ought to be saying +important things in Shakespearian blank verse. Something adequate to +their experience, to the intensity of manhood he instinctively felt +in them and admired so humbly. But, of course, that was ridiculous of +him. He felt that at once. Part of their impressiveness was this very +triviality, their complete unconsciousness that there was anything +extraordinary or striking about them. They would have been offended +at the suggestion. They were ignorant of their own qualities. As +Winterbourne himself rapidly merged with these men and became one +of them, he lost entirely this first sharp impression of meeting a +new, curious race of men, the masculine men. It was then the other +people who became curious to him. He found that the real soldiers, the +front-line troops, had no more delusions about the War than he had. +They hadn’t his feeling of protest and agony over it all, they hadn’t +tried to think it out. They went on with the business, hating it, +because they had been told it had to be done and believed what they +had been told. They wanted the War to end, they wanted to get away +from it, and they had no feeling of hatred for their enemies on the +other side of No Man’s Land. In fact, they were almost sympathetic to +them. They also were soldiers, men segregated from the world in this +immense barbaric tumult. The fighting was so impersonal as a rule that +it seemed rather a conflict with dreadful hostile forces of Nature than +with other men. You did not see the men who fired the ceaseless hail +of shells on you, nor the machine gunners who swept away twenty men +to death in one zip of their murderous bullets, nor the hands which +projected trench-mortars that shook the earth with awful detonations, +nor even the invisible sniper who picked you off mysteriously with +the sudden impersonal “ping!” of his bullet. Even in the perpetual +trench raids you only caught a glimpse of a few differently shaped +steel helmets a couple of traverses away; and either their bombs got +you, or yours got them. Actual hand-to-hand fighting occurred, but +it was comparatively rare. It was a war of missiles, murderous and +soul-shaking explosives, not a war of hand-weapons. The sentry gazed at +dawn over a desolate flat landscape, seamed with irregular trenches, +and infinitely pitted and scarred with shell-holes, thorny with wire, +littered with débris. Five to ten thousand enemies were within range +of his vision, and not one would be visible. For days on end he might +strain his eyes, and not see one of them. He would hear them at +night—clink of shovels and picks, the scream of a wounded man, even +their coughing if there happened to be a cessation of artillery and +machine-gun fire—but not see them. In the two hours following dawn in +“quiet” sectors there was sometimes a kind of truce after the feverish +work and perpetual firing during the night. After morning Stand-down +the front-line troops snatched a little sleep. At such a time the +silence was eerie. Twenty thousand men within a mile, and not a sound. +Or so it seemed. But that was by contrast. In fact, there was always +some shelling going on—heavies firing on back areas—and generally in +the distance the long rumble which meant a general engagement.... + +The soldiers, then, were not vindictive. Nor, in general, were they +long duped by the war talk. They laughed at the newspapers. Any +new-comer who tried to be a bit high-falutin’ was at once snubbed with +“Fer Christ’s sake don’t talk patriotic!” They went on with a sort of +stubborn despair, why they didn’t quite know. The authorities obviously +mistrusted them, and forbade them to read the pacific “Nation” while +allowing them to read the infamies of “John Bull.” The mistrust was +unnecessary. They went on in their stubborn despair, with their +sentimental songs and cynical talk and perpetual grousing; and it’s my +belief that if they’d been asked to do so, they’d still be carrying +on, now. They weren’t crushed by defeat or elated by victory—their +stubborn despair had taken them far beyond that point. They carried +on. People sneer at the war slang. I, myself, have heard intellectual +“objectors” very witty at the expense of “carry on.” So like carrion, +you know. All right, let them sneer. + + * * * * * + +The troopships crossing the Channel were escorted by four plunging +little black torpedo-boats. Submarines in the Channel. A merchant +ship had been sunk that morning. Winterbourne had thought he would +be apprehensive—on the contrary, he found that he scarcely thought +about it. Nobody bothered about a little risk like that. They made for +Boulogne, and the soldiers cheered the torpedo boats as they turned +back from the harbour entrance. + +In his inexperience Winterbourne had assumed that they would at once +entrain for the front, and that he would spend that night in the +trenches. He had forgotten the element of waiting, the deliberation +necessary in moving vast masses of men about, which made the slow +ruthless movement of the huge War machine so inexorable. You hung +about, but inevitably you moved, your tiny little cog was brought into +action. And this, too, was strangely impersonal, confirmed the feeling +of fatalism. It seemed insane to think that you had any individual +importance. + +The docks at Boulogne were crowded with materials of war, and the +whole place seemed English. Notices all in English, the Union Jack, +British officers and troops everywhere, even British engines for the +trains. The leave men were roughly formed into columns and marched +off to entrain. Every one wanted to know where his Division was. The +R.T.O.’s dealt with them swiftly and efficiently. The drafts were also +formed into a column and marched up the hill to the rest camp. They +were in good spirits, and the inevitable Cockney humourist was in +action. As they went up the hill, a poor old French woman came out of +her cottage and began rheumatically and wearily to pump water. She did +not even look at the passing troops—much too accustomed to them. The +Cockney shouted to her: + +“’Ere we are! War’ll soon be over now; keep yer pecker up, Ma!” + + * * * * * + +They spent the night under canvas at the Boulogne rest camp. From his +tent Winterbourne had an excellent view of the Channel and the camp +incinerator. His first duty on active service was picking up dirty +paper and other rubbish, and dumping it in the incinerator. They were +told nothing about their future, the Army theory being that your +business is to obey orders, not to ask questions. Winterbourne fumed +and fretted at the inaction. The other men speculated interminably as +to where they were going. + +The tents had wooden floors. The men drew a blanket and waterproof +ground-sheet each, and slept twelve to a tent. It was a bit hard, +but not impossible to sleep. Winterbourne lay awake for a long time, +trying to get some order into his reflections. His attitude was plainly +modified by that day’s experience. Was there a contradiction in it? +Did it imply that he now supported the War and the War partisans? On +the contrary, he hated the War as much as ever, hated all the blather +about it, profoundly distrusted the motives of the War partisans, and +hated the Army. But he liked the soldiers, the War soldiers, not as +soldiers but as men. He respected them. If the German soldiers were +like the men he had seen on the boat that morning, then he liked and +respected them too. He was with them. With them, yes, but against whom +and what? He reflected. With them, because they were men with fine +qualities, because they had endured great hardships and dangers with +simplicity, because they had parried those hardships and dangers not by +hating the men who were supposed to be their enemies, but by developing +a comradeship among themselves. They had every excuse for turning +into brutes, and they hadn’t done it. True, they were degenerating in +certain ways, they were getting coarse and rough and a bit animal, but +with amazing simplicity and unpretentiousness they had retained and +developed a certain essential humanity and manhood. With them then to +the end, because of their manhood and humanity. With them, too, because +that manhood and humanity existed in spite of the War and not because +of it. They had saved something from a gigantic wreck, and what they +had saved was immensely important—manhood and comradeship, their +essential integrity as men, their essential brotherhood as men. + +But what were they really against, who were their real enemies? He saw +the answer with a flood of bitterness and clarity. Their enemies—the +enemies of German and English alike—were the fools who had sent them +to kill each other instead of help each other. Their enemies were +the sneaks and the unscrupulous; the false ideals, the unintelligent +ideas imposed on them, the humbug, the hypocrisy, the stupidity. If +those men were typical, then there was nothing essentially wrong with +common humanity, at least so far as the men were concerned. It was +the leadership that was wrong—not the war leadership, but the peace +leadership. The nations were governed by bunk and sacrificed to false +ideals and stupid ideas. It was assumed that they had to be governed by +bunk—but if they were never given anything else, how could you tell? +De-bunk the World. Hopeless, hopeless.... + +He sighed deeply, and turned in his blanket wrapping. One man was +snoring. Another moaned in his sleep. Like corpses they lay there, +human rejects chucked into a bell tent on the hill above Boulogne. The +pack made a hard pillow. Maybe he was all wrong, maybe it was “right” +for men to be begotten only to murder each other in huge senseless +combats. He wondered if he were not getting a little insane through +this persistent brooding over the murders, by striving so desperately +and earnestly to find out why it had happened, by agonizing over it +all, by trying to think how it could be prevented from occurring again. +After all, did it matter so much? Yes, did it matter? What were a few +million human animals more or less? Why agonize about it? The most he +could do was die. Well, die then. But O God, O God, is that all? To be +born against your will, to feel that life might in its brief passing +be so lovely and so divine, and yet to have nothing but opposition +and betrayal and hatred and death forced upon you! To be born for +the slaughter like a calf or a pig! To be violently cast back into +nothing—for what? My God, for what? Is there nothing but despair and +death? Is life vain, beauty vain, love vain, hope vain, happiness vain? +“The war to end wars!” Is any one so asinine as to believe that? A war +to breed wars, rather.... + +He sighed and turned again. It’s all useless, useless to flog one’s +brain and nerves over it all, useless to waste the night hours in +silent agonies when he might lie in the oblivion of sleep. Or the +better oblivion of death. After all, there were plenty of children, +plenty of war babies—why should one agonize for their future, any +more than the Victorians thought about ours? The children will grow +up, the war babies will grow up. Maybe they’ll have their war, maybe +they won’t. In any case they won’t care a hang about us. Why should +they? What do we care about the men of Albuera, except that the charge +of the fusileers decorates a page of rhetorical prose? Four thousand +dead—and the only permanent result a page of Napier’s prose. We have +Bairnsfather.... + +He gave it up. Time after time he reverted to the whole gigantic +tragedy, and time after time he gave it up. Two solutions. Just drift +and let come what come may; or get yourself killed in the line. And +much anyone would care whichever he did. + + + + + [ IV ] + + +They paraded at nine next morning, were casually inspected by an +officer they did not know, and told to stand by. At eleven they drew +bully beef and biscuits, and were ordered to parade again in half an +hour, ready to move off. Winterbourne’s spirits rose. At last they were +getting somewhere. He would be in the trenches that night and take his +chance with the rest. No more fiddle-faddle. + +He was mistaken. They entrained at Boulogne in a train which crawled +interminably, and they de-trained at Calais. They were simply +transferred to another Base. + +The Base Camp at Calais was desperately over-crowded. It was filled +with new drafts sent over to make up the losses on the Somme, and new +columns of men kept pouring in daily from England, faster than the +over-worked Staff could allot them to units. They were crowded into +hastily erected bell-tents, twenty-two to a tent, which is closer than +you can squeeze animals, and about as close as you can squeeze men. +There was just room to lie down, and no more. Nothing to do after +parade, except to moon about in the frosty darkness or lie down in +one’s little slice of space, or play crown-and-anchor and drink coffee +and rum while the estaminets were open. The town of Calais was out of +bounds, except to men with passes. And not many passes were granted. + +The weather grew daily colder. The misery of the interminable waiting +and the over-crowded tents and the lack of anything to do, was not +thereby alleviated. Every morning huge greyish columns of men undulated +over the sandy soil, and were drawn up in long lines. An officer on +horseback shouted orders through a megaphone. Nothing much happened, +and they raggedly undulated back again. Yet they drew nearer to the +mysterious “line.” They were given large jack-knives on lanyards. They +were given gas masks and steel helmets. They were given service rifles +and bayonets. + +The gas masks were still the old flannel diving bell variety soaked +in chemicals. They had a sharp, acrid, inhuman taste, and if worn too +long had been known to produce skin eruptions. The drafts were given +constant gas drill, and had to pass five minutes in a gas chamber, +containing a concentration of the old chlorine gas sufficient to kill +in five seconds. One man in Winterbourne’s lot lost his head and tried +to tear off his mask. The instructor leapt at him, shouting curses +through his own mask, and with the help of two of the men held him +until the doors were opened. Winterbourne noticed that the gas had +tarnished his bright brass buttons and the metal on his equipment. +Their clothes reeked of the gas for a couple of hours. + +They carefully cleaned the long steel bayonets, and examined the short +wood-enclosed rifles. Winterbourne’s had a long groove cut by a bullet +on the butt, and the bolt showed signs of considerable rust—obviously +a rifle picked up on the battle-field and re-conditioned. Winterbourne +wondered who was the man from whom he inherited it, and who would +inherit it from him. + +The days and nights grew colder and colder. Morning and evening rose +and sank in blood-red mists, and at noon the sun was a cold bloody +smear in a misty sky. Ice formed on the dykes, and the water taps +froze. It became more and more difficult to wash, and shaving and +washing in the ice-cold water became an agony. Their skins chapped as +the light north wind breathed sharper and sharper cold. There appeared +to be no baths, and they could not remove their clothes at night. To +sleep, they took off their boots, wrapped themselves in an overcoat +and blanket and shivered asleep, huddling together like sheep in a +snowstorm. Most of them caught colds and began to cough; one man of the +draft was taken to hospital with pleurisy. + +And still day after day passed, and they were not sent to their units. +Monotony, depression, boredom. By four it was dark, and there was +nothing to do until dawn. The canteens and estaminets were thronged. +Winterbourne luckily discovered that the pickets could be bribed, and +several evenings went into Calais to dine. He bought a couple of French +books and tried to read—in vain. He found he was unable to concentrate +his mind, and fell into a deeper depression. There were few parades, +and he had plenty of time for brooding. + +They passed Christmas Day at the Base. The English newspapers, which +they easily obtained a day or two late, were filled with glowing +accounts of the efforts and expense made to give the troops a real +hearty Christmas dinner. The men had looked forward to this. They ate +their meals in huts which were decorated with holly for the occasion. +The Christmas dinner turned out to be stewed bully beef and about two +square inches of cold Christmas pudding per man. The other men in +Winterbourne’s tent were furious. Their perpetual grumbling annoyed +him, and he attacked them: + +“Why fuss so much over a little charity? Why let them salve their +consciences so easily? In any case, they probably meant well. Can’t you +see that drafts at the Base are nobody’s children? The stuff’s gone to +the men in the line, who deserve it far more than we do. We haven’t +done anything yet. Or it’s been embezzled. Anyway what does it matter? +You didn’t join the army for a bit of pudding and a Christmas cracker, +did you?” + +They were silent, unable to understand his contempt. Of course, he was +unjust. They were simply grown children, angry at being defrauded of +a promised treat. They could not understand his deeper rage. Any more +than they could have understood his emotion each night when “Last Post” +was blown. The bugler was an artist and produced the most wonderful +effect of melancholy as he blew the call, which in the Army serves for +sleep and death, over the immense silent camp. Forty thousand men lying +down to sleep—and in six months how many would be alive? The bugler +seemed to know it, and prolonged the shrill melancholy notes—“Last +post! Last post!”—with an extraordinary effect of pathos. “Last +post! Last post!” Winterbourne listened for it each night. Sometimes +the melancholy was almost soothing, sometimes it was intolerable. He +wrote to Elizabeth and Fanny about the bugler, as well as about the +leave men he had seen on the boat. They felt he was getting hopelessly +sentimental: + +“Un peu gaga?” Elizabeth suggested. + +Fanny shrugged her shoulders. + + * * * * * + +Two days after Christmas their orders came. They were taking off their +equipment after morning parade when the Orderly Corporal pushed his +head through the tent flap: + +“You’ve clicked!” + +“What? How? What y’ mean?” said several voices. + +“Goin’ up the line. Parade at one-thirty ready to move off immediate. +Over you go, an’ the best of luck!” + +“What part of the line?” + +“Dunno, you’ll find that when y’ get there.” + +“What unit?” + +“Dunno. Some o’ you’s clicked for a Pioneer Batt.” + +“What’s that?” + +“Muckin well find out. Don’t f’get I warned yer for p’rade.” + +And he was off to the next tent. The men began talking excitedly, +“wondering” this and “wondering” that futilely as usual. Winterbourne +walked away from the tent lines, and stood looking over the desolate +winter landscape. Half a mile away the tent lines of another huge +camp began. Army lorries lumbered along a flat straight road in the +distance. It was beginning to snow from a hard grey sky. He wondered +vaguely how you slept in the line when there was snow. His breath +formed little clouds of vapour in the freezing air. He pulled his +muffler closer round his neck, and stamped on the ground to warm his +icy feet. He felt as if his faculties were slowly running down, as if +his whole mental power were concentrated upon mere physical endurance, +a dull keeping alive. Time, like a torture, seemed infinitely +prolonged. It seemed years since he left England, years of discomfort +and depression and boredom. If the mere “cushy” beginning were like +that, how endure the months, perhaps years of war to come? + +He experienced a rapid fall of spirits to a depth of depression he had +never before experienced. Hitherto, mere young vitality had buoyed him +up, the _élan_ of his former life had carried him along through the +days. In spite of his rages and his worryings and the complications +and boredoms, he had really remained hopeful. He had wanted to go on +living, because he had always unconsciously believed that life was +good. Now something within him was just beginning to give way, now +for the first time the last faint hues of the lovely iris of youth +faded, and in horror he faced the grey realities. He was surprised and +a little alarmed at his own listlessness and despair. He felt like a +sheet of paper, dropping in jerks and waverings through grey air into +an abyss. + +The dinner bugle call sounded. He turned mechanically and joined the +men thronging towards the eating huts. The snow was falling faster, +and the men stamped their feet as they waited for the doors to open, +cursing the cooks’ delay. There was the usual animal stampede for the +best platefuls when the door opened. Winterbourne stood aside and let +them struggle. The expressions on their faces were not pretty. He was +practically the last in, and did not fare well. He ate the stewed +bully, hunk of bread and soap-like cheese, with a sort of dog gratitude +for the warmth, which was humiliating. He scarcely even resented the +humiliation. + + * * * * * + +The train taking them to rail-head crawled interminably through a +frozen landscape thinly sprinkled with snow. The light was beginning +to wane. The skeleton outlines of dwarf trees, twisted by the wind, +loomed faintly past the window. It was bitterly cold in the unwarmed +third-class French carriage; one of the windows was smashed, and the +bitter air and snow swept in. The men sat in silence, wrapped in their +great-coats and stamping their feet rhythmically on the floor in vain +efforts to keep warm. Winterbourne was cold to the knees, and yet +felt feverish. His cough had grown worse, and he realized he had a +temperature. He felt dirtily uncomfortable, because he had not taken +his clothes off for days. The water at the camp had all frozen, and it +had been impossible to get a bath. + +Darkness slowly intensified. Slowly, more slowly the train crawled +along. Winterbourne was in that section of the draft going to the +Pioneer Battalion. He had asked the Sergeant what that meant: + +“Oh, it’s cushy, much better than the ordinary infantry.” + +“What do they do?” + +“Workin’ parties in no man’s land,” said the Sergeant with a grin, “an’ +go over the top when there’s a show.” + +The train slightly increased its speed as they passed through a large +junction. Somebody said it was St. Omer, somebody else said St. Pol, +some one else suggested Béthune. They did not know where they were, or +where they were going. About two miles outside the junction the train +came to a stop. Winterbourne peered into the thick darkness. Nothing. +He leaned out the glassless window and heard only the hissing steam +from the stationary train, saw only the faint glow of the furnace. +Suddenly, far away in front and to the left, a quick flash of light +pierced the blackness and Winterbourne heard a faint boom. The guns! +He waited, straining eyes and ears, in the freezing darkness. Silence. +Then again—flash. Boom. Flash. Boom. Very distant, very faint, but +unmistakable. The guns. They must be getting near the line. + +Once again the train started and crawled interminably once more. For +about half an hour they passed through a series of deep cuttings. +Then, from the right this time, came a much nearer and brighter flash, +followed almost at once by a deep boom audible above the noise of the +train. The other men heard it this time: + +“The guns!” + +The train crept on stealthily for another couple of minutes through the +gloom. The men were all crowded round the window. Flash. Boom. Another +two minutes. Flash. Boom. + +Three-quarters of an hour later they detrained at rail-head in +complete darkness. + + + + + [ V ] + + +Winterbourne had an easy initiation into trench warfare. The cold was +so intense that the troops on both sides were chiefly occupied in +having pneumonia and trying to keep warm. He found himself in a quiet +sector which had been fought over by the French in 1914 and had been +the scene of a fierce and prolonged battle in 1915 after the British +took over the sector. During 1916, when the main fighting shifted to +the Somme, the sector had settled down to ordinary trench warfare. +Trench raids had not then been much developed, but constant local +attacks were made on battalion or brigade fronts. A little later the +sector afterwards atoned for this calm. + +To Winterbourne, as to so many others, the time element was of extreme +importance during the war years. The hour goddesses who had danced +along so gaily before and have fled from us since with such mocking +swiftness, then paced by in a slow monotonous file as if intolerably +burdened. People at a distance thought of the fighting as heroic +and exciting, in terms of cheering bayonet charges or little knots +of determined men holding out to the last Lewis Gun. That is rather +like counting life by its champagne suppers, and forgetting all the +rest. The qualities needed were determination and endurance, inhuman +endurance. It would be much more practical to fight modern wars with +mechanical robots than with men. But then, men are cheaper, although in +a long war the initial outlay on the robots might be compensated by the +fact that the quality of the men deteriorates, while they cost more in +upkeep. But that is a question for the war departments. From the point +of view of efficiency in war, the trouble is that men have feelings; to +attain the perfect soldier, we must eliminate feelings. To the human +robots of the last war, time seemed indefinitely and most unpleasantly +prolonged. The dimension then measured as a “day” in its apparent +duration approached what we now call a “month.” And the long series +of violent stale-mates on the western front made any decision seem +impossible. In 1916 it looked as if no line could be broken, because +so long as enough new troops were hurried to threatened points the +attacker was bound to be held up; and the supplies of hew troops seemed +endless. It became a matter of which side could wear down the other’s +man power and moral endurance. So there also was the interminable. The +only alternatives seemed an indefinite prolongation of misery, or death +or mutilation, or collapse of some sort. Even a wound was a doubtful +blessing, a mere holiday, for wounded men had to be returned again and +again to the line. + + * * * * * + +For the first six or eight “weeks,” Winterbourne, like all his +companions, was occupied in fighting the cold. The Pioneer Company to +which he was attached were digging a sap out into No Man’s Land and +making trench mortar emplacements just behind the front line. They +worked on these most of the night, and slept during the day. But the +ground was frozen so hard that progress was tediously slow. + +The Company was billeted in the ruins of a village behind the Reserve +trenches, over a mile from the front line. The landscape was flat, +almost treeless except for a few shell-blasted stumps, and covered +with snow frozen hard. Every building in sight had been smashed, in +many cases almost level with the ground. It was a mining country with +great queer hills of slag and strange pit-head machinery of steel, +reduced by shell-fire to huge masses of twisted rusting metal. They +were in a salient, with the half-destroyed, evacuated town of M—— +in the elbow-crook on the extreme right. The village churchyard was +filled with graves of French soldiers; there were graves inside any +of the houses which had no cellars, and graves flourished over the +bare landscape. In all directions were crosses, little wooden crosses, +in ones and twos and threes, emerging blackly from the frozen snow. +Some were already askew; one just outside the ruined village had been +snapped short by a shell-burst. The dead men’s caps, mouldering and +falling to pieces, were hooked on to the tops of the crosses—the grey +German round cap, the French blue and red kepi, the English khaki. +There were also two large British cemeteries in sight—rectangular +plantations of wooden crosses. It was like living in the graveyard of +the world—dead trees, dead houses, dead mines, dead villages, dead +men. Only the long steel guns and the transport wagons seemed alive. +There were no civilians, but one of the mines was still worked about a +mile and a half further from the line. + +Behind Winterbourne’s billet were hidden two large howitzers. They +fired with a reverberating crash which shook the ruined houses, and the +diminishing scream of the departing shells was strangely melancholy in +the frost-silent air. The Germans rarely returned the fire—they were +saving their ammunition. Occasionally a shell screamed over and crashed +sharply among the ruins; the huge detonation spouted up black earth or +rattling bricks and tiles. Fragments of the burst shell case hummed +through the air. + +But it was the cold that mattered. In his efforts to defend himself +against it, Winterbourne, like the other men, was strangely and +wonderfully garbed. Round his belly, next the skin, he wore a flannel +belt. Over that a thick woollen vest, grey flannel shirt, knitted +cardigan jacket, long woollen under-pants and thick socks. Over that, +service jacket, trousers, puttees and boots; then a sheepskin coat, +two mufflers round his neck, two pairs of woollen gloves and over them +trench gloves. In addition came equipment, box respirator on the chest, +steel helmet, rifle and bayonet. The only clothes he took off at night +were his boots. With his legs wrapped in a great-coat, his body in a +grey blanket, a groundsheet underneath, pack for pillow, and a dixie of +hot tea and rum inside him, he just got warm enough to fall asleep when +very tired. + +Through the broken roof of his billet, Winterbourne could see the +frosty glitter of the stars and the white rime. In the morning when +he awoke, he found his breath frozen on the pillow. In the line his +short moustache formed icicles. The boots beside him froze hard, and +it was agony to struggle into them. The bread in his haversack froze +greyly; and the taste of frozen bread is horrid. Little spikes of +ice formed in the cheese. The tins of jam froze and had to be thawed +before they could be eaten. The bully beef froze in the tins and came +out like chunks of reddish ice. Washing was a torment. They had three +tubs of water between about forty of them each day. With this they +shaved and washed—about ten or fifteen to a tub. Since Winterbourne +was a late-comer to the battalion, he had to wait until the others had +finished. The water was cold and utterly filthy. He plunged his dirty +hands into it with disgust, and shut his eyes when he washed his face. +This humiliation, too, he accepted. + + * * * * * + +He always remembered his first night in the line. They paraded in the +ruined village street about four o’clock. The air seemed crackling +with frost, and the now familiar bloody smear of red sunset was dying +away in the southwest. The men were muffled up to the ears, and looked +grotesquely bulky in their sheep- or goat-skin coats, with the hump of +box respirators on their chests. Most of them had sacking covers on +their steel helmets to prevent reflection, and sacks tied round their +legs for warmth. The muffled officer came shivering from his billet, +as the men stamped their feet on the hard frost-bound road. They drew +picks and shovels from a dump, and filed silently through the ruined +street behind the officer. Their bayonets were silhouetted against the +cold sky. The man in front of Winterbourne turned abruptly left into +a ruined house. Winterbourne followed, descended four rough steps and +found himself in a trench. A notice said: + + HINTON ALLEY + ☞ To the Front Line + +To be out of the piercing cold wind in the shelter of walls of earth +was an immediate relief. Overhead shone the beautiful ironic stars. + +A field gun behind them started to crash out shells. Winterbourne +listened to the long-drawn wail as they sped away and finally crashed +faintly in the distance. He followed the man ahead of him blindly. +Word kept coming down: “Hole here, look out.” “Wire overhead.” “Mind +your head—bridge.” He passed the messages on, after tripping in the +holes, catching his bayonet in the field telephone wires, and knocking +his helmet on the low bridge. They passed the Reserve line, then +the Support, with the motionless sentries on the fire-step, and the +peculiar smell of burnt wood and foul air coming from the dug-outs. +A minute later came the sharp message: “Stop talking—don’t clink +your shovels.” They were now only a few hundred yards from the German +Front line. A few guns were firing in a desultory way. A shell crashed +outside the parapet about five yards from Winterbourne’s head. It was +only a whizz-bang, but to his unpractised ears it sounded like a heavy. +The shells came in fours—crump, Crump, _crump_, CRRUMP—the Boche was +bracketing. Every minute or so came a sharp “ping”—fixed rifles firing +at a latrine or an unprotected piece of trench. The duck-boards were +more broken. Winterbourne stumbled over an unexploded shell, then had +to clamber over a heap of earth where the side of the trench had been +smashed in, a few minutes earlier. The trench made another sharp turn, +and he saw the bayonet and helmet of a sentry silhouetted against the +sky. They were in the front line. + +They turned sharp left. To their right were the fire-steps, with a +sentry about every fifty yards. In between came traverses and dug-out +entrances, with their rolled-up blanket gas-curtains. Winterbourne +peered down them—there was a faint glow of light, a distant mutter of +talk, and a heavy stench of wood smoke and foul air. The man in front +stopped and turned to Winterbourne: + +“Halt—password to-night’s ‘Lantern.’” Winterbourne halted, and passed +the message on. They waited. He was standing almost immediately behind +a sentry, and got on the fire-step beside the man to take his first +look at No Man’s Land. + +“’Oo are you?” asked the sentry in low tones. + +“Pioneers.” + +“Got a bit o’ candle to give us, chum?” + +“Awfully, sorry, chum, I haven’t.” + +“Them muckin R.E.’s gets ’em all.” + +“I’ve got a packet of chocolate, if you’d like it.” + +“Ah. Thanks, chum.” + +The sentry broke a bit of chocolate and began to munch. + +“Muckin cold up here, it is. Me feet’s fair froze. Muckin dreary, too. +I can ’ear ole Fritz coughin’ over there in ’is listenin’ post—don’t +’arf sound ’ollow. Listen.” + +Winterbourne listened, and heard a dull hollow sound of coughing. + +“Fritz’s sentry,” whispered the men. “Pore ole bugger—needs some +liquorice.” + +“Move on,” came the word from the man in front. Winterbourne jumped +down from the fire-step and passed on the word. + +“Good-night, chum,” said the sentry. + +“Good-night, chum.” + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne was put on the party digging the sap out into No Man’s +Land. The officer stopped him as he was entering the sap. + +“You’re one of the new draft, aren’t you?” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +“Wait a minute.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The other men filed into the sap. The officer spoke in low tones: + +“You can take sentry for the first hour. Come along, and don’t stand +up.” + +The young crescent moon had risen and poured down cold faint light. +Every now and then a Verey light was fired from the German or English +lines, brilliantly illuminating the desolate landscape of torn +irregular wire and jagged shell-holes. They climbed over the parapet +and crawled over the broken ground past the end of the sap. The officer +made for a shell-hole just inside the English wire, and Winterbourne +followed him. + +“Lie here,” whispered the officer, “and keep a sharp lookout for German +patrols. Fire if you see them and give the alarm. There’s a patrol +of our own out on the right, so make sure before you fire. There’s a +couple of bombs somewhere in the shell-hole. You’ll be relieved in an +hour.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The officer crawled away, and Winterbourne remained alone in No Man’s +Land, about twenty-five yards in front of the British line. He could +hear the soft dull thuds of picks and shovels from the men working +the sap and a very faint murmur as they talked in whispers. A Verey +light hissed up from the English lines, and he strained his eyes for +the possible enemy patrol. In the brief light he saw nothing but the +irregular masses of German wire, the broken line of their parapet, +shell-holes and débris, and the large stump of a dead tree. Just as the +bright magnesium turned in its luminous parabola, a hidden machine-gun, +not thirty yards from Winterbourne, went off with a loud crackle of +bullets like the engine of a motor-bicycle. He started, and nearly +pulled the trigger of his rifle. Then silence. A British sentry coughed +with a deep hacking sound; then from the distance came the hollow +coughing of a German sentry. Eerie sounds in the pallid moonlight. +“Ping” went a sniper’s rifle. It was horribly cold. Winterbourne was +shivering, partly from cold, partly from excitement. + +Interminable minutes passed. He grew colder and colder. Occasionally a +few shells from one side or the other went wailing overhead and crashed +somewhere in the back areas. About four hundred yards away to his left +began a series of loud shattering detonations. He strained his eyes, +and could just see the flash of the explosion and the dark column +of smoke and débris. These were German trench mortars, the dreaded +“minnies,” although he did not know it. + +Nothing different happened until about three-quarters of an hour had +passed. Winterbourne got colder and colder, felt he had been out there +at least three hours, and thought he must have been forgotten. He +shivered with cold. Suddenly, he thought he saw something move to his +right, just outside the wire. He gazed intently, all tense and alert. +Yes, a dark something was moving. It stopped, and seemed to vanish. +Then near it another dark figure moved and then a third. It was a +patrol, making for the gap in the wire in front of Winterbourne. Were +they Germans or British? He pointed his rifle towards them, got the +bombs ready, and waited. They came nearer and nearer. Just before they +got to the wire, Winterbourne challenged in a loud whisper: + +“Halt, who are you?” + +All three figures instantly disappeared. + +“Halt, who are you?” + +“Friend,” came a low answer. + +“Give the word or I fire.” + +“Lantern.” + +“All right.” + +One of the men crawled through the wire to Winterbourne, followed by +the other two. They wore balaclava helmets, and carried revolvers. + +“Are you the patrol?” whispered Winterbourne. + +“Who the muckin hell d’you think we are? Father Christmas? What are you +doin’ out here?” + +“Pioneers digging a sap about fifteen yards behind.” + +“Are you Pioneers?” + +“Yes.” + +“Got a bit o’ candle, chum?” + +“Sorry, I haven’t, we don’t get them issued.” + +The patrol crawled off, and Winterbourne heard an alarmed challenge +from the men working in the sap, and the word “Lantern.” A Verey light +went up from the German lines just as the patrol were crawling over the +parapet. A German sentry fired his rifle and a machine-gun started up. +The patrol dropped hastily into the trench. The machine-gun bullets +whistled cruelly past Winterbourne’s head—Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss. He +crouched down in the hole. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss. Then silence. He lifted +his head, and continued to watch. For two or three minutes there was +complete silence. The men in the sap seemed to have knocked off work, +and made no sound. Winterbourne listened intently. No sound. It was +the most ghostly, desolate, deathly silence he had ever experienced. +He had never imagined that death could be so deathly. The feeling of +annihilation, of the end of existence, of a dead planet of the dead +arrested in a dead time and space, penetrated his flesh along with the +cold. He shuddered. So frozen, so desolate, so dead a world—everything +smashed and lying inertly broken. Then “crack-ping” went a sniper’s +rifle, and a battery of field-guns opened out with salvos about half a +mile to his right. The machine-guns began again. The noise was a relief +after that ghastly dead silence. + +At last the N.C.O. came crawling out from the sap with another man +to relieve him. A Verey light shot up from the German line in their +direction, just as the two men reached him. All three crouched +motionless, as the accurate German machine-gun fire swept the British +trench parapet—zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, the flights of bullets went over +them. Winterbourne saw a strand of wire just in front of him suddenly +flip up in the air where a low bullet had struck it. Quite near +enough—not six inches above his head. + +They crawled back to the sap, and Winterbourne tumbled in. He found +himself face to face with the platoon officer, Lieutenant Evans. +Winterbourne was shivering uncontrollably; he felt utterly chilled. His +whole body was numb, his hands stiff, his legs one ache of cold from +the knees down. He realized the cogency of the Adjutant’s farewell hint +about looking after feet, and decided to drop his indifference to goose +grease and neat’s-foot oil. + +“Cold?” asked the officer. + +“It’s bitterly cold out there, Sir,” said Winterbourne through +chattering teeth. + +“Here, take a drink of this,” and Evans held out a small flask. + +Winterbourne took the flask in his cold-shaken hand. It chinked roughly +against his teeth as he took a gulp of the terrifically potent Army +rum. The strong liquor half choked him, burned his throat, and made his +eyes water. Almost immediately, he felt the deadly chill beginning to +lessen. But he still shivered. + +“Good Lord, man, you’re frozen,” said Evans. “I thought it was colder +than ever to-night. It’s no weather for lying in No Man’s Land. +Corporal, you’ll have to change that sentry every half hour—an hour’s +too long in this frost.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +“Have some more rum?” asked Evans. + +“No, thanks, Sir,” replied Winterbourne, “I’m quite all right now. I +can warm up with some digging.” + +“No, get your rifle and come with me.” + +Evans started off briskly down the trench to visit the other working +parties. About a hundred yards from the sap he climbed out of the +trench over the parados; Winterbourne scrambled after, more impeded +by his chilled limbs, his rifle and heavier equipment. Evans gave him +a hand up. They walked about another hundred yards over the top, and +then reached the place where several parties were digging trench mortar +emplacements. The N.C.O. saw them coming and climbed out of one of the +holes to meet them. + +“Getting on all right, Sergeant?” + +“Ground’s very hard, Sir.” + +“I know, but—” + +Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, zwiss came a rush of bullets, following the +rapid tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of a machine-gun. The Sergeant +ducked double. Evans remained calmly standing. Seeing his unconcern, +Winterbourne also remained upright. + +“I know the ground’s hard,” said Evans, “but those emplacements are +urgently needed. Headquarters were at us again to-day about them. I’ll +see how you’re getting on.” + +The Sergeant hastily scuttled into one of the deep emplacements, +followed in a more leisurely way by the officer. Winterbourne remained +standing on top, and listened to Evans as he urged the men to get a +move on. Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, very close this +time. Winterbourne felt a slight creep in his spine, but since Evans +had not moved before, he decided that the right thing was to stand +still. Evans visited each of the four emplacements, and then made +straight for the front line. He paused at the parados. + +“We’re pretty close to the Boche front line here. He’s got a +machine-gun post about a hundred and fifty yards over there.” + +Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss. + +“Look! Over there.” + +Winterbourne just caught a glimpse of the quick flashes. + +“Damn!” said Evans, “I forgot to bring my prismatic compass to-night. +We might have taken a bearing on them, and got the artillery to turf +them out.” + +He jumped carelessly into the trench, and Winterbourne dutifully +followed. About fifty yards farther on, he stopped. + +“I see from your pay-book that you’re an artist in civil life.” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +“Paint pictures, and draw?” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +“Why don’t you apply for a draughtsman’s job at Division? They need +them.” + +“Well, Sir, I don’t particularly covet a hero’s grave, but I feel very +strongly I ought to take my chance in the line along with the rest.” + +“Ah. Of course. Are you a pretty good walker?” + +“I used to go on walking tours in peace time, Sir.” + +“Well, there’s an order that every officer is to have a runner. Would +you like the job of Platoon Runner? You’d have to accompany me, and +you’re supposed to take my last dying orders! You’d have to learn the +lie of the trenches, so as to act as guide; take my orders to N.C.O.’s; +know enough about what’s going on to help them if I’m knocked out, and +carry messages. It’s perhaps a bit more dangerous than the ordinary +work, and you may have to turn out at odd hours, but it’ll get you off +a certain amount of digging.” + +“I’d like it very much, Sir.” + +“All right, I’ll speak to the Major about it.” + +“It’s very good of you, Sir.” + +“Can you find your way back to the sap? It’s about two hundred yards +along this trench.” + +“I’m sure I can, Sir.” + +“All right. Go back and report to the Corporal, and carry on.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +“You haven’t forgotten the pass-word?” + +“No, Sir, ‘Lantern.’” + + * * * * * + +About thirty yards along the trench, there was a rattle of equipment, +and Winterbourne found a bayonet about two feet from his chest. It was +a gas-sentry outside Company H.Q. Dugout. + +“Halt! Who are yer?” + +“Lantern.” + +The sentry languidly lowered his rifle. + +“Muckin cold to-night, mate.” + +“Bloody cold.” + +“What are you, Bedfords or Essex?” + +“No, Pioneers.” + +“Got a bit of candle to give us, mate, it’s muckin dark in them +dugouts.” + +“Very sorry, chum, I haven’t.” + +Rather trying this constant demand for candle-ends from the Pioneers, +who were popularly supposed by the infantry to receive immense “issues” +of candles. But without candles the dugouts were merely black holes, +even in the daytime, if they were any depth. They were deep on this +front, since the line was a captured German trench reorganized. Hence +the dugouts faced the enemy, instead of being turned away from them. + +“Oh, all right, good-night.” + +“Good-night.” + +Winterbourne returned to the sap, and did two more half-hour turns as +sentry, and for the rest of the time picked, or shovelled the hard +clods of earth into sandbags. The sandbags were then carried back +to the front line and piled there to raise the parapet. It was a +slow business. The sap itself was camouflaged to avoid observation. +Winterbourne hadn’t the slightest idea what its object was. He was +very weary and sleepy when they finally knocked off work about one in +the morning. An eight-hour shift, exclusive of time taken in getting +to and from the work. The men filed wearily along the trench, rifles +slung on the left shoulder, picks and shovels carried on the right. +Winterbourne stumbled along half-asleep with the cold and the fatigue +of unaccustomed labour. He felt he didn’t mind how dangerous it was—if +it was dangerous—to be a runner, provided he got some change from the +dreariness of digging, and filling and carrying sandbags. + +After they passed the Support Line, the hitherto silent men began +to talk occasionally. At Reserve they got permission to smoke. Each +grabbed in his pockets for a fag, and lighted it as he stumbled +along the uneven duckboards. After what seemed an endless journey to +Winterbourne they reached the four steps, climbed up, and emerged into +the now familiar ruined street. It was silent and rather ghostly in the +very pale light of the new moon. They dumped their picks and shovels, +went to the cook to draw their ration of hot tea, which was served from +a large black dixie and tasted unpleasantly of stew. They filed past +the officer who gave each of them a rum ration. + +Winterbourne drank some of the tea in his billet, then took off his +boots, wrapped himself up, and drank the rest. Some real warmth flushed +into his chilled body. He was angry with himself for being so tired, +after a cushy night on a cushy front. He wondered what Elizabeth and +Fanny would say if they saw his animal gratitude for tea and rum. +Fanny? Elizabeth? They had receded far from him, not so far as all +the other people he knew, who had receded to several light years, but +very far. “Elizabeth” and “Fanny” were now memories and names at the +foot of sympathetic but rather remote letters. Drowsiness came rapidly +upon him, and he fell asleep as he was thinking of the curious “zwiss, +zwiss,” made by machine-gun bullets passing overhead. He did not hear +the two howitzers when they fired a dozen rounds before dawn. + + + + + [ VI ] + + +Except for the episode with the officer, this specimen night may stand +as a type of Winterbourne’s life in the next eight or ten days. They +went up the line at dusk; they were shot at, worked, and shivered with +cold: went down the line, slept, tried to clean themselves, and paraded +again. Four or five times they passed corpses being carried down the +trenches as they went up. There was, of course, nothing to report on +the western front. + +Then, just as the monotony was becoming almost as intolerable as +drilling to the home-service R.S.M.’s “Stand still there, stand +_steady!_” they had a night off, and were transferred to the day shift. +But this was even more tedious. They paraded soon after dawn, and +worked in Hinton Alley, about two hundred yards from the Front Line. +Their job was to hack up the frozen mud—which was about as malleable +as marble—extricate the worn duck-boards, dig “sump-holes,” and relay +new duck boards. A job which in moist weather might have occupied two +men for half an hour, in that frost occupied four men all day. + +A Lieutenant-General came along while Winterbourne was laboriously +jarring his wrists, trying to hack up the marble-like mud. + +“Well, and what are you doing, my man?” + +“Replacing duck-boards, Sir,” said Winterbourne, bringing his pick +smartly to his side, and standing to attention, toes at an angle of +forty-five degrees. + +“Well, get on with it, my man, get on with it.” + +Vive L’Empereur. + + * * * * * + +Diversions were few, but existed. There were, for instance, the rats. +Winterbourne had been too much absorbed by other new experiences to pay +much attention to them at first. And during the day they kept rather +out of sight. One evening, just about sunset, as they were returning +down Hinton Alley, there was a block in the trench. Winterbourne +happened to be just at the corner of the Support line, with its +damaged, revetted traverses, and piles of sandbags on the parapet. The +Germans were sending up some rather fancy signal rockets from their +Front line, and he was vaguely wondering what they meant, when a huge +rat darted or rather scrambled impudently just past his head. Then he +noticed that a legion of the fattest and longest rats he had ever seen +were popping in and out the crevices between the sand-bags. As far +as he could see down the trench in the dusk they were swarming over +parapet and parados. Such well-fed rats! He shuddered, thinking of what +they had probably fed upon. + +In a very short time he had become perfectly accustomed to the very +mild artillery fire, sniping and machine-gunning. No casualties had +occurred in his own company, and he began to think that the dangers +of the war had been exaggerated, while its physical discomforts and +tedium had been greatly underestimated. The intense frost prevented his +shaking off the heavy cold he had caught at Calais, and at the same +time had given him a chill on the liver. The same thing had happened +to half the men in the company, whether new-comers or old stagers; and +all suffered from diarrhœa due to the cold. There was thus the added +diversion of frequent visits to the latrine. Those in the line were +primitive affairs of a couple of biscuit boxes and buckets, interesting +from the fact that the Germans had fixed rifles trained on most of +them and might get you if you happened to stand up inopportunely. If +you had any sense you waited until the bullet ping-ed over, and then +calmly walked out: for lack of which elementary precaution somebody +occasionally was popped off. The Pioneers’ latrine, just behind their +billet, was a more elaborate six-seater (without separate compartments) +built over a deep trench and surrounded with sacking on posts. One of +the posts had been damaged by a shell, and there were numerous rents in +the sacking from shell splinters. Here Winterbourne was forced to spend +a larger portion of his spare time than was pleasant in cold weather. +One day when he entered he found another occupant, an artilleryman. +This person was carefully examining his grey flannel shirt: and such +portions of his body as were exposed to view were covered with small +bloody blotches. Some horrid skin disease, Winterbourne surmised. He +attended to his own urgent private affairs. + +“Still terribly cold,” he ventured. + +“Muckin cold,” said the artilleryman, continuing absorbedly the +mysterious search in his shirt. + +“Those are nasty skin eruptions you have.” + +“It’s them muckin chats. Billet’s fair lousy with ’em.” + +Chats? Lousy? Ah, of course, the artilleryman was lousy. So lousy +that he had been bitten all over, and had scratched himself raw. +Winterbourne felt uncomfortable. He detested the idea of vermin. + +“How d’you get them? Can’t you get rid of them?” + +“Get ’em? Everybody gets ’em. Ain’t you chatty? And there ain’t no +gettin’ rid of ’em. The clothes they gives you at the baths is as +chatty as those you ’ands in. Where there’s dug-outs and billets +there’s chats, and where there’s chats, they cops yer.” + +Winterbourne departed from the lousy artilleryman with a new +pre-occupation in life—to remain one of the chatless as long as +possible. It was not many weeks, however, before he too became resigned +to the louse as an inevitable war comrade. + + * * * * * + +Like a good many recruits when first in the line he was rather +inclined to be foolhardy than timorous. When a shell exploded near the +trench, he popped his head up to have a look at it; and listened to the +machine-gun bullets swishing past with great interest. The older hands +reproved him: + +“Don’t be so muckin anxious to look at whizz-bangs. You’ll get a damn +sight too many pretty soon. And don’t keep shovin’ yer ’ead over the +top. _We_ don’t care a muck if ole Fritz gets yer, but if he sees yer +he might put his artillery on _us_.” + +Winterbourne rather haughtily decided they were timorous, an impression +confirmed by the manner in which they instantly ducked and crouched +when a shell came whistling towards them. So many shells exploded +harmlessly that he wondered at their inefficiency. Late one afternoon +the Germans began firing on Hinton Alley—little salvos of four +whizz-bangs at a time. The men went on with their work, but a little +apprehensively. Winterbourne clambered partly up the side of the trench +and watched the shells bursting—crump, Crump, _Crump_, CRRUMP. The +splinters hummed harmoniously through the air. Suddenly he heard a loud +whizz, and zip-phut, a large piece of metal hurtled just past his head +and half-buried itself in the hard chalk of the trench. More surprised +than scared he jumped down and levered the metal up with his pick. It +was a brass nose-cap, still warm from the heat of the explosion. He +held it in his hand, gazing with curiosity at the German lettering. +The other men jeered and scolded him in a friendly way. He felt they +exaggerated—his nerves were still so much fresher than theirs. + +That night, just after he had got down into kip, the night silence +was abruptly broken by a discharge of artillery. Gun after gun, +whose existence he had never suspected, opened out all round, and in +half a minute fifty or sixty were in action. From the line came the +long rattle of a dozen or more machine-guns, with the funny little +pops of distant hand grenades. He got up and went to the door. Ruins +interrupted a direct view, but he saw the flashes of the guns, a sort +of glow over a short part of the front line, and Verey lights and +rockets flying up continually. A Corporal came unconcernedly into the +billet. + +“What is it?” asked Winterbourne, “an attack?” + +“Attack be jiggered. Identification raid, I reckon.” + +The German artillery had now opened up, and a shell dropped in the +village street. Winterbourne retired to his earth-floor. In about +three-quarters of an hour the firing quieted down; only one German +battery of five-nines kept dropping shells in and about the village. +Winterbourne began to reflect that shell-fire in gross might be more +deadly than the few odd retail discharges he had hitherto experienced. + +Next morning, the Corporal’s diagnosis proved correct. As they went up +Hinton Alley soon after dawn, they met a British Tommy escorting six +lugubrious personages in field grey, whose faces were almost concealed +in large white bandages swathed all round their heads. + +“Who are they?” he asked. + +“Fritzes. Prisoners.” + +“I wonder why they are all wounded in the head.” + +“Koshed on the napper with trench clubs. I reckon they’ve got narsty +’eadaches, pore old barstards.” + + * * * * * + +About a week after that, they had a day off, and were warned to parade +at five P.M. to begin another night shift. (Each platoon in turn did a +week’s day shift and three weeks’ night-work.) The Sergeant turned to +Winterbourne: + +“And you’re to report at the Officer’s Mess fifteen minutes before +p’rade.” + +Winterbourne duly reported, wondering uneasily what breach of military +discipline he had committed. He was met on the door-step by Evans, who +was just coming out, all muffled up. + +“Ah, there you are, Winterbourne. Major Thorpe says you may act as my +runner, so hereafter you’ll parade here fifteen minutes earlier than +the rest each night.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + + * * * * * + +All this time Winterbourne was rather wretchedly ill, and remained +so for weeks. He had a permanent cough and cold, and was weakened by +the prolonged diarrhœa. Every night he felt feverish, passing rapidly +from a cold shivering to a high temperature. On the day after his +arrival in the line, he had “gone sick” to get something to relieve his +hard cough. Major Thorpe had chosen to consider this as an attempt to +evade duty, and had promptly insulted him. Whereupon Winterbourne had +decided that so long as he could stand he would never “go sick” again. +So he carried on. The stretcher-bearer in his platoon had a clinical +thermometer. One night just before going up the line Winterbourne got +the man to take his temperature. It was 102. + +“You didn’t ought to go up the line like that, mate,” said the man, +with a sort of coarse kindness Winterbourne liked, “I’ll tell the +orfficer you ain’t fit for service, an’ make it all right with the M.O. +to-morrer.” + +Winterbourne laughed: + +“That’s decent of you, but I shan’t go sick. I only wanted to see if I +were imagining things.” + +“You’re a bloody fool. You c’d get a cushy night in kip.” + +It was a relief therefore to act as Evans’s runner. On the nights when +Evans was on duty Winterbourne did not carry a pick and shovel, and did +no manual labour. He simply followed Evans about on his rounds, and +carried messages to the N.C.O.’s for him. It was undoubtedly cushy. +Almost an officer’s job. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne was brought into much closer intimacy with Evans, and had +some opportunity to observe him. The officer was distinctly friendly, +and they talked a good deal in the long hours of hanging about in the +Front line. Evans brought sandwiches and a flask of rum with him, +and invariably shared them with his runner; a kindness which touched +Winterbourne profoundly. Usually about ten o’clock they sat on a +fire-step under the frosty stars, and ate and talked. Occasionally a +few shells would go whining overhead, or a burst of machine-gun fire +would interrupt them. Their low voices sounded strangely muffled in the +cold dead silence. + +Evans was the usual English public school boy, amazingly ignorant, +amazingly inhibited, and yet “decent” and good-humoured. He had a +strength of character which enabled him to carry out what he had +been taught was his duty to do. He accepted and obeyed every English +middle-class prejudice and taboo. What the English middle classes +thought and did was right, and what anybody else thought and did was +wrong. He was contemptuous of all foreigners. He appeared to have +read nothing but Kipling, Geoffrey Farnol, Elinor Glynn, and the +daily newspapers. He disapproved of Elinor Glynn, as too “advanced.” +He didn’t care about Shakespeare, had never heard of the Russian +Ballets, but liked to “see a good show.” He thought “Chu Chin Chow” +was the greatest play ever produced, and the Indian Love Lyrics the +most beautiful songs in the world. He thought that Parisians lived by +keeping brothels and spent most of their time in them. He thought that +all Chinamen took opium, then got drunk, and ravished white slaves +abducted from England. He thought Americans were a sort of inferior +Colonials, regrettably divorced from that finest of all institutions, +the British Empire. He rather disapproved of “Society,” which he +considered “fast,” but he held that Englishmen should never mention the +fastness of Society, since it might “lower our prestige” in the eyes +of “all these messy foreigners.” He was ineradicably convinced of his +superiority to the “lower classes,” but where that superiority lay, +Winterbourne failed to discover. Evans was an “educated” pre-war Public +Schoolboy, which means that he remembered half a dozen Latin tags, +could mumble a few ungrammatical phrases in French, knew a little of +the history of England, and had a “correct” accent. He had been taught +to respect all women as if they were his mother, would therefore have +fallen an easy prey to the first tart who came along and probably have +married her. He was a good runner, had played at stand-off half for +his school and won his colours at cricket. He could play fives, squash +rackets, golf, tennis, water-polo, bridge, and vingt-et-un, which he +called “pontoon.” He disapproved of baccarat, roulette and_petits +chevaux_, but always went in for the Derby sweepstake. He could ride a +horse, drive a motor-car, and regretted that he had been rejected by +the Flying Corps. + +He had no doubts whatever about the War. What England did must be +right, and England had declared war on Germany. Therefore, Germany +must be wrong. Evans propounded this somewhat primitive argument to +Winterbourne with a condescending air, as if he were imparting some +irrefutable piece of knowledge to a regrettably ignorant inferior. +Of course, after ten minutes’ conversation with Evans, Winterbourne +saw the kind of man he was and realized that he must continue to +dissimulate with him as with every one else in the Army. However, he +could not resist the temptation to bewilder him a little sometimes. +It was quite impossible to do anything more. Evans possessed that +British rhinoceros equipment of mingled ignorance, self-confidence +and complacency which is triple-armed against all the shafts of the +mind. And yet Winterbourne could not help liking the man. He was +exasperatingly stupid, but he was honest, he was kindly, he was +conscientious, he could obey orders and command obedience in others, he +took pains to look after his men. He could be implicitly relied upon to +lead a hopeless attack and to maintain a desperate defence to the very +end. There were thousands and tens of thousands like him. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne noticed that when they were in the line at night, Evans +made a point of walking over the top, instead of in the trenches, even +when it was plainly far more inconvenient and slower to do so, on +account of the wire and shell-holes and other obstacles. At the time, +he paid little attention to this, thinking either that it was expected +of an officer, or that Evans did it to encourage the men. Evans rather +deliberately exposed himself, and always maintained complete calm. If +the two men were exposed to shells or machine-gun fire, Evans walked +more slowly, spoke more deliberately, seemed intentionally to linger. +It was not until months afterward that Winterbourne suddenly realized +from his own experience that Evans had been reassuring, not his men, +but himself. He had been deliberately trying to prove to himself that +he did not mind being under fire. + +Any man who spent six months in the line (which almost inevitably +meant taking part in a big battle) and then claimed that he had never +felt fear, never received any shock to his nerves, never had his heart +thumping and his throat dry with apprehension, was either super-human, +subnormal or a liar. The newest troops were nearly always the least +affected. They were not braver, they were merely fresher. There were +very few—were there any?—who could resist week after week, month +after month of the physical and mental strain. It is absurd to talk +about men being brave or cowards. There were greater or less degrees +of sensibility, more or less self-control. The longer the strain on +the finer sensibility the greater the self-control needed. But this +continual neurosis steadily became worse and required a greater effort +of repression. + +Winterbourne at this time was in the state when danger—and that was +slight in these first weeks—was almost entirely a matter of curiosity, +rather stimulating than otherwise. Evans, on the other hand, had been +in two big battles, had spent eleven months in the line, and had +reached the stage when conscious self-control was needed. When a shell +exploded near them, both men appeared equally unmoved. Winterbourne +was really so, because he was fresh, and had no months of war neurosis +to control. Evans only appeared so, because he was awkwardly and with +shame struggling to control a completely subconscious reflex action of +terror. He thought it was his “fault,” that he was “getting windy,” +and was desperately ashamed in consequence. And that, of course, +made him worse. Winterbourne, on the other hand, was obviously a man +who would develop the neurosis rapidly. He had a far more delicate +sensibility. He had already reached a state of acute “worry” over Fanny +and Elizabeth and the War and his own relation to it. And yet his pride +would compel him to urge himself far beyond the point where another +man would merely have collapsed. He endured a triple strain—that of +his personal life, that of exasperation with Army routine, and that of +battle. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps it was through the implicit if unexpressed attitude of +the women that Winterbourne also endured the strain of feeling a +degradation to mind and body in the hardships he endured in common, +after all, with millions of other men. It was a fact that his mind +degenerated; slowly at first, then more and more rapidly. This could +scarcely have been otherwise. Long hours of manual labour under strict +discipline must inevitably degrade a man’s intelligence. Winterbourne +found that he was less and less able to enjoy subtleties of beauty and +anything intellectually abstruse. He came to want common amusements in +place of the intense joy he had felt in beauty and thought. He watched +his mind degenerating with horror, wondering if one day it would +suddenly crumble away like the body of Mr. Valdemar. He was bitterly +humiliated to find that he could neither concentrate nor achieve as he +had done in the past. The _élan_ of his former life had carried him +through a good many months of the Army, but after about two months in +the line, he saw that intellectually he was slowly slipping backwards. +Slipping backwards, too, in the years which should have been the most +energetic and formative and creative of his whole life. He saw that +even if he escaped the War he would be hopelessly handicapped in +comparison with those who had not served and the new generation which +would be on his heels. It was rather bitter. He had been forced to +smash through obstacles and to triumph over handicaps enough already. +These lost War months, now mounting to years, were a knock-out blow +from which he could not possibly recover. + +And he felt a degradation, a humiliation, in the dirt, the lice, the +communal life in holes and ruins, the innumerable deprivations and +hardships. He suffered at feeling that his body had become worthless, +condemned to a sort of kept tramp’s standard of living, and ruthlessly +treated as cannon-fodder. He suffered for other men too, that they +should be condemned to this; but since it was the common fate of the +men of his generation he determined he must endure it. His face lost +its fineness and took on the mask of “a red-faced Tommy,” as he was +politely told later by a genial American friend. His hands seemed +permanently coarsened, his feet deformed by heavy army boots. His body, +which had been unblemished when he joined, was already infested with +lice, and his back began to break out in little boils—a thing which +had never happened to him—either from impure drinking water or because +the clothes issued from the baths were infected. + +No doubt, it was the painter’s sense of plastic beauty which made +him feel this as something so humiliating and degrading. How else +account for the feelings of shame and horror he felt at an occurrence +which most men would have promptly forgotten? He had been in the line +about a month, and his diarrhœa had got steadily worse. One night, +when accompanying Evans on his rounds, Winterbourne felt a physical +necessity, and asked permission to go to a latrine. They were about +two hundred yards away, and before Winterbourne got there the contents +of his bowels were irresistibly evacuated in spite of his desperate +efforts to control them. It was one of the coldest nights of that long +bitter winter—the thermometer was below zero Fahrenheit. Winterbourne +halted in horror and disgust with himself. What on earth was he to do? +How return to Evans? He listened. It was one of the quietest nights he +ever experienced in the line, hardly a shot fired. Nobody was coming +along the trench. He rapidly undressed, shivering with cold, stripped +off his under-pants, cleaned himself as well as he could, and hurled +the soiled clothes into No Man’s Land. He dressed again, and rushed +back to meet Evans, who asked him a little sharply why he had been so +long about it. The discomfort passed; but the humiliation remained. + + * * * * * + +January slowly disappeared; they were halfway through February, +and still the frost held. It was a dreary experience. Each day was +practically the replica of that before and after—up the line, down the +line, sleep, attempt to get a little clean in the morning, inspection +parade, dinner, an hour or two to write letters, then parade again +for the line. Towards the end of February, the welcome news came that +they were going out of the line for four days’ rest. On the last +night before they went out, Evans and Winterbourne were watching the +men working when they heard a series of rapid sharp explosions. They +looked over and could see the dull red flashes of bombs or small trench +mortars bursting about three hundred yards away. Simultaneously they +exclaimed: + +“It’s on our sap!” + +Evans jumped into the trench and rushed towards the sap, followed by +Winterbourne, who tore the bolt-cover from his rifle and stuffed it in +his pocket as he ran. They could hear the crash, crash, crash-crash, +crash of the small mortars, which abruptly ceased when they were about +forty yards short. Verey lights were shooting up in all directions, +and the British machine-guns were rattling away. Evans dashed round a +traverse and went plump into two of his own men who were staggering +away from the sap, half-dazed and silly with the shock of explosions. + +“What’s happened?” + +They were incoherent, and Evans and Winterbourne rushed on to the +sap. Dimming down his torch with his left hand, Evans peered in; and +Winterbourne behind him saw two bodies splashed with blood. The head +of one man was smashed into his steel helmet and lay a sticky mess of +blood and hair half-severed from his body. The other man, the Corporal, +was badly wounded but still groaning. Obviously, one of the mortars had +dropped plump in the sap. Another discharge came crashing on either +side. Evans shoved his haversack under the Corporal’s head, and shouted +to make himself heard over the explosions: + +“Get the stretcher-bearer, and send those windy buggers back here.” + +“What about the sentry?” bawled Winterbourne. + +“I’ll get him in. Off with you.” + +Evans began to unbutton the Corporal’s tunic, to bind his wounds, as +Winterbourne left. The man was bleeding badly. Three hundred yards to +the stretcher-bearer and three hundred yards back. Winterbourne raced, +knowing that a matter of seconds may save the life of a man with a +severed artery. He was too late, however. The Corporal was dead when he +and the stretcher-bearer rushed panting into the sap. + +They got the sentry’s body later. + + + + + [ VII ] + + +Next day they marched back about four miles to another village, +half-destroyed but still partly inhabited. For the first time in two +months Winterbourne sheathed his bayonet. It seemed symbolical of the +four days’ rest they were promised. Four days! An immense respite. The +men were cheery, and sang all the war songs as they marched off in +platoons—“Where are the boys of the village to-night?” “It’s a long, +long trail a-winding,” “I’m so happy, oh, so happy, don’t you envy me?” +“Pack all your troubles in your old kit-bag,” “If you’re going back to +Blighty,” “I want to go home,” “Rolling home.” But not “Tipperary.” +So far as Winterbourne knew, none of the troops in France ever sang +“Tipperary.” + +He had not slept well, haunted by the vision of the dead man’s smashed, +bloody head, and the groaning Corporal. Evans looked a little pale. +But they said nothing to each other. And after all, they were going on +rest, four days’ rest. Winterbourne tried to join in the singing. Major +Thorpe trotted past them on his horse. They marched to attention, and +ceremonially saluted. That also seemed peaceful. + +In the village they were billeted in large barns. A thaw had set +in, so rapid that they started out on frozen ground and arrived in a +village street deep in slushy mud. The nights were still cold, and old +broken-down barns and earthen floors made chilly bedrooms. There seemed +to be no water supply in the village, and they had to wash in thawing +flood-pools, breaking the new thin ice with tingling fingers. But they +went to the baths and changed their underclothes. The baths were in a +shell-smashed brewery. Thirty or forty men stripped in one room and +then went into another which had rows of iron pipes running across it, +about eight feet from the ground. Small holes were punched in the pipes +at intervals of about six feet. A man stood under each hole, and then a +little trickle of warm water began to fall on his head and body. They +had about five minutes to soap themselves and get clean. Winterbourne +went back there alone the next day. By judicious bribing he managed to +get an officer’s bath and a new set of underclothes. It was delicious +to be clean and deloused again. + +The four days passed very quickly. They paraded in the morning, did a +little drill, played football or ran in the afternoons, and went to +the estaminets in the evening. Winterbourne treated his section to +beer, and drank half a bottle of Barsac himself. The men, all beer and +spirit drinkers, despised the finer flavour of French wines and called +them “vinegar.” After dark, they sneaked out and stole sandbags of +“boulets”—coal-dust made into large pellets with tar—and burned them +in a brazier to warm the chilly barn. Winterbourne protested against +this thievery. But since the others went anyhow and he benefited by the +theft, he thought he might as well share the crime too. True, it was +French government property; and nobody minds stealing from governments. +But still, he hated to be a thief. The men called it “scrounging.” +Under pressure of necessity, every man in the line became a more or +less unscrupulous scrounger. + +On the third night Winterbourne “clicked unlucky.” He was on Gas and +Fire Picket. They sat all night round the Company Field Kitchen and +drank tea, while one man was always on guard. The tin hat and the fixed +bayonet were unwelcome reminders that they were soon returning to the +line. The men talked of their homes in England, wished the war would +end, hoped anyway they’d get leave or a blighty soon, and envied the +officers sleeping in beds. One man grumbled because there was no “red +lamp” in the village. Winterbourne felt glad there wasn’t. Not that he +would have been tempted, for he was quite fiercely chaste unless in +love, but he hated the thought of these men giving their lean, sinewy +bodies to the miserable French whores in the war-area bawdy houses. + +“It’s all right in Béthune,” said the grumbler. “You can see ’em lining +up outside the red lamps after dark under a Sergeant. Soon’s the old +woman gives the signal, the Ser’ant says: ‘Next two files, right turn, +quick march,’ and in yer go. The ole woman ’as a short-arm inspection +and gives yer Condy’s Fluid, and the tart ’as Condy’s Fluid too. She +was a nice tart, she was, but she was in a ’ell of a ’urry. She kep’ +sayin’ ‘’Urry, daypaychez.’ I ’adn’t got meself buttoned up afore I +’eard the Ser’ant shoutin’: ‘Next two files, right turn, quick march.’ +But she was a nice tart, she was.” + +Winterbourne got up and walked out to the muddy road. The stars were +faint and dim and lovely in the soft misty night sky; there seemed to +be a first quiver of Spring in the scentless pure air. O Andromeda, O +Paphian! + +At dawn the birds twittered and sang, a little hesitantly in the cold +morning mist. The sun rose in a golden haze, behind rows of poplars, +over the flat dark earth. + + * * * * * + +They went into the line again, three miles to the right of their +former positions. Their billets were about a mile and a quarter behind +the town of M——, right in the crook of the salient. They lived +in cellars in a small mining village, badly smashed, and entirely +evacuated of civilians. A long treeless road led straight up to M—— +and Hill 91, one of the most fought-over places in the line, seamed +with trenches, pitted with shell-holes, honeycombed with galleries, +eviscerated with huge mine craters, blasted bare of all vegetation. +At Hill 91, the German line turned sharply left and linked up with a +long slag-hill, about five hundred yards from the Pioneers’ billets. +Consequently, although they were a long way from Hill 91, their billets +were under observation and within machine-gun range, while the road to +M—— was constantly shelled, and enfiladed by machine-guns. It was a +rotten position, and would have been evacuated but for the “prestige” +of keeping M——. A costly bit of prestige. It was estimated that +venereal disease held continually a division of troops immobilized at +Base Hospitals, to keep up the prestige of British purity; and another +Division must have been obliterated to retain that barren prestige of +holding M——. + +They arrived about eleven, and almost immediately Evans’s servant +came and told Winterbourne to report at the Officers’ Mess cellar, in +fighting order. Evans was waiting for him. + +Hitherto the Company had been under strength, and officered by Major +Thorpe and the two subalterns, Evans and Pemberton, who took duty +alternately. While on rest, they had been made up to full strength, and +were joined by three other subalterns, Franklin, Hume and Thompson. +They thus went up the line one hundred and twenty strong, with six +officers, one of whom was supernumerary. Evans had been made a sort +of unofficial second-in-command, while continuing to act as Platoon +officer. Since he was the most experienced of the subalterns, he was to +overlook the new officers until they knew their jobs. He explained all +this to Winterbourne as they went along. + +“You must give me your word not to mention it to the other men, but +there is almost certainly a show coming off on this front. Probably in +about four weeks. You mustn’t let the men know.” + +“Of course not, Sir.” + +“We shall have twelve-hour shifts up here, I’m afraid. I’ve got to +take three platoons up to Hill 91, over there, at five to-night; +and I want to reconnoitre. We’ve got to repair and revet the front +communication trenches, clear away some of our wire, and fill the gaps +with knife-rests. We’ve also got to repair Southampton Row, the main +communication trench to your left. Every time we go up, we’ve got to +take Mills bombs or trench mortars or S.A.A. I think we’re going to +have a lively time. I rode out about ten miles yesterday, and saw +fifteen batteries of heavies and a lot of tanks camouflaged by the +road. The officers said they were booked for this sector or a little +south.” + +They were walking up the narrow straight road to M——. About every +minute a heavy shell—or a salvo of heavy shells—plonked into M——. +There was a sudden spout of black smoke and débris, a heavy sullen +reverberating CLAANG as the loud detonation shook the twisted steel +mining machinery, and re-echoed from the chalky slopes of Hill 91. +To their right was a long slag-hill, mangled with shell-holes. Evans +pointed to it. + +“The Boche Front line runs just in front of that, about four hundred +yards away. At some points our own Front line is only twenty yards from +theirs. It’s a rummy and awkward position. Most of the transport for +M—— has to come up this road, and the poor devils are shelled and +machine-gunned wickedly every night. All troops on foot have to use +Southampton Row, the communication trench to your left. You see it’s +got fire-steps and a parapet—it’s also a Reserve line which we have to +man in case of necessity.” + +They got into the ruined streets of M——, and were promptly lost. +The town was blasted to about three feet of indistinguishable ruins. +A wooden notice-board over a mass of broken stones, said: “CHURCH.” +Another further on said: “POST OFFICE.” Evans got out his map, and they +stood together trying to make out the direct way to the section of +trench they wanted. ZwiiiNG, CRASH, CLAANG!—four heavy shells screamed +towards them and detonated with awful force within a hundred yards. The +nearest swished over their heads and exploded twenty yards away. Four +great columns of black smoke leaped up like miniature volcanoes; broken +bricks and fragments of shell case clattered in the empty street. The +reverberating echoes seemed like a groan from the agonizing town. The +explosions seemed to hit Winterbourne in the chest. + +“Heavies,” said Evans very calmly, “eight inch, probably.” + +ZwiiiNG, Crash, CRASH! CLAANG! Four more. + +“Seems a bit unhealthy here. We’d better push on.” + +Winterbourne was silent. For the first time he began to realize the +terrific inhuman strength of heavy artillery. Whizz-bangs and even +five-nines were one thing, but these eight or ten inch high explosive +monsters were a very different matter. + +ZwiiiNG, CRASH! CLAANG! + +Minute after minute, hour after hour, day and night, week after week, +those merciless heavies pounded the groaning town. + +ZwiiiNG, CRASH! CRAAASH! CLAAANG! + +It was too violent a thing to get accustomed to. The mere physical +shock, the slap in the chest, of the great shells exploding close +at hand, forbade that. They became a torment, an obsession, an +exasperation, a nervous nightmare. Unintentionally, as a man walked +through M——, he found himself tense and strained, waiting for that +warning “zwiing” of the approaching shell, trying to determine by the +sound whether it was coming straight at him or not. Winterbourne’s +duties during the next two and a half months necessitated his walking +through M——, often alone, twice or four times every twenty-four +hours. + + * * * * * + +The real nightmare was only just beginning. There had been the torment +of frost and cold; now came the torments of mud, of gas, of incessant +artillery, of fatigue and lack of sleep. + +Under the swift thaw the whole battered countryside seemed to turn +from ice to mud. It was deep on the _pavé_ roads, deeper round the +billets, deeper still on the unpaved tracks, and deepest of all in +the trenches. In Winterbourne’s hallucinated memories, where images +and episodes met and collided like superimposed films, that Spring +was mud. He seemed to spend his time pledging through interminable +muddy trenches, up to the ankles, up to the calves, up to the knees; +shovelling mud frantically out of trenches on to the berm, and then by +night from the berm over the parapets, while the shells crashed and +the machine-gun bullets struck gold sparks from the road stones. When +he was not doing that, he was scraping mud with a knife from his boots +and clothes, trying to dry socks and puttees and to rub some warmth +into his livid aching feet. He had not known that wet cold could keep +one’s legs so achingly dead for so long. He had not known how wearisome +it could be to drag tired legs and carry burdens through deep sticky +chalk mud, where each step was an effort, where each leg stuck deep as +the other was laboriously pulled from the sucking mud. He had not known +that one could hate an inert thing so much. Overhead it might be sunny, +with innumerable little fleecy puffs of exploded shrapnel pursuing a +darting white airplane high in the misty blue March sky. Underfoot, it +was mud. They had no time to look at the sky, as they dragged along, +toiling their bent way along those muddy ditches. + + * * * * * + +He remembered a week of blessed respite which he spent in an +underground gallery, squatting twelve hours a day by a winch and +interminably winding sandbags of chalk to men in the trench. These +galleries—which were never used—were being dug to conceal two or +three divisions before a surprise attack. They seemed to extend for +miles. The cutting and picking at the advancing end was done by R.E.’s, +skilled miners who cut with astonishing rapidity and accuracy. The +Pioneers filled the chalk into sacks, and dragged them along the +galleries, where Winterbourne incessantly wound them to the top. The +Engineers had better rations than the infantry and the Pioneers, whose +lunch was bread and cheese. They had huge cold beefsteaks and bottles +of strong tea and rum for their lunch. Winterbourne during his half +hour’s midday rest one day wandered up to their end of the gallery, +just as they were eating. He could not help glancing rather wolfishly +at their meal. One of them noticed it, and pointing to his steak, said +with his mouth full: + +“Ah reckon tha doesn’t get groob the likes o’ this in thy lot, lad.” + +“No, but the stew’s very good—only you get a bit tired of it every +day.” + +“Aye, that tha does. But we’re skilled men, we are, traade union. +They’re got to feed oos well, they ’ave.” + +Half kindly, half contemptuously, the miner cut off a hunk of his steak +and held it out to Winterbourne in his large dirty hand. + +“Here tha art, lad, take a bite at that.” + +“Oh no, thanks, it’s very kind of you, but...” + +“Nay lad, tha’s welcome; tak it, tak it. Tha looks fair famelled and +wore out. Tha’s na workin’ chap, ah knows.” + +Torn between his feeling of humiliation, his desire not to reject +the man’s kindly-meant offer and his hungry belly, Winterbourne +hesitated. He finally took it, with a rather ghastly feeling of animal +humiliation. The cold tender meat tasted delicious. It was the first +unsodden meat he had eaten for weeks. He gave them his last cigarettes, +and returned to his winch. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne detested “berming.” Hour after hour standing in wet +chilly mud, shovelling the stuff away to prevent its sliding back into +the trench from which it had been laboriously thrown, and widening the +space between the top of the trench and the parapet. The machine-guns +from the slag-hill constantly rattled away at them. One night +Winterbourne and the man next him dug up the bones, tunic, equipment +and rifle of a French soldier, who had been hastily buried in the +parapet many months before. His cartridges fell from the mouldering +pouches and still looked bright in the dim star-dusk. Winterbourne dug +up the skull; it was large and dome-shaped, a typical Frenchman’s head. +They tried to find his identity disc, but failed. Pemberton, who was on +duty that night, made them rebury what was left in a shell-hole. They +stuck a cross over it next day, marked UNKNOWN FRENCH SOLDIER. + +The best nights were those when Evans was on duty, but often the +urgency was so great that the officers’ runners and the officers +themselves worked and carried burdens. The most awkward burdens were +the long sheets of corrugated iron used for revetting. They had to +carry these along the road, since they were too large to get round the +traverses. It was impossible to keep the metal sheets from clanking +against rifles or the sheet of the man in front in the darkness. The +machine guns from the slag-hill opened out, and they could see the +spurts of gold sparks on the road come towards them. Winterbourne felt +his piece of corrugated iron violently hit and half wrenched from +his hand; the man in front went down with a clatter. Somebody yelled +“Stretcher-bearer!” The men dumped their burdens and cowered on the +ground. It was an awful confusion. Only Evans and Winterbourne were +left standing on the road. Evans cursed the N.C.O.’s, and made the men +form up again behind Winterbourne. It took a long time to find all the +sheets of metal in the darkness, and the machine-guns went on rattling +pitilessly. They were hours late in getting back to billets. + + * * * * * + +As March dragged on, more and more heavy guns arrived, clattering up +behind their tractors in the darkness. A Tank and its crew were hidden +not far from the Pioneers’ billets, and there were others farther from +the line. A new infantry Division was pushed in to the line on their +right. Other Divisions were said to be in readiness close behind. +The sector became more and more lively, but no big attack was made. +Winterbourne questioned Evans, who said it had been postponed to give +the mud a chance to dry. What hopes! + +The Germans had excellent observation posts on Hill 91, and their +aircraft were constantly over the British lines and back areas. They +were perfectly aware that an attack was being prepared. Every night +they shelled M——, shelled the cross-roads leading to M——, +shelled any artillery positions they had spotted, shelled the wrecked +village where the Pioneers were billeted. The cellars were good enough +protection against shell splinters, but far too flimsy to resist +a direct hit. Every day or night huge crumps were flung at them, +exploding with concussions which shook the ground and made sleep +impossible. In the day-time, Winterbourne sometimes crouched at his +cellar-entrance and watched the explosions within his view. If one +of these big shells hit a half-ruined house, almost every vestige +disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and rosy brick dust. + +And there was gas, a good deal of gas. It was the beginning of the +intensive use of gas projectiles, which later became so greatly +perfected. Their experience of it began one March night on Hill 91. +A smart local attack had driven the Germans out of their advance +positions and carried the British line forward—at a cost—about two +hundred and fifty yards on a front of eight hundred. Evans explained +to Winterbourne that these local attacks were being made all along the +line to deceive the Germans as to the exact position of the coming +offensive. Since the Germans would have needed to be blind or lunatic +not to see where the guns and troops were being massed, Winterbourne +thought this an over-subtle and over-costly bit of policy. However, his +not to reason why. + +The Pioneers—three platoons of them—under Evans, Pemberton and Hume, +were to dig a new communication trench from the former British front +line to their present Outpost line of hastily interlinked shell-holes. +Evans told Winterbourne not to carry any tools: + +“I expect it’ll be rather a sticky do. The old Boche is pooping off +whizz-bangs all day and night up there. And I’m hanged if I can find +out exactly where our new front line is supposed to be. It’s a network +of Boche trenches up there, and we don’t want to go barging into their +line.” + +They struggled up Southampton Row and skirted M——, which was being +shelled heavily and reverberantly. They got into another trench on the +fringe of Hill 91. Whizz-bangs kept cracking all round them, in little +masses of about a dozen—several batteries firing together. Evans and +Winterbourne were leading. Winterbourne paused: + +“There’s a curious smell about here, Sir” (sniff, sniff) “like +pineapple or pear-drops.” + +Evans sniffed the air. + +“So there is.” + +The smell rapidly became stronger after another salvo of whizz-bangs. + +“By Jove, it’s tear-gas!” said Evans. “Pass the word along to put on +gas goggles.” + +The line halted, while the men fumbled in the darkness for their +goggles; and then slowly stumbled on. Winterbourne found he was +practically blinded by his goggles in the darkness; they kept going dim +with perspiration. He took them off. + +“We shall be here all night at this rate, Sir. May as well be blinded +with tear-gas as goggles. I’ll keep mine off and reconnoitre.” + +Evans pulled off his goggles, and the two went on ahead, telling the +Sergeant to follow straight on until he came up with them. Tears poured +from the two men’s eyes as they toiled up the muddy trench. They kept +dabbing their eyes with pocket handkerchiefs, like a couple of mutes at +their own funerals. + +Crash, crash-crash, crash, crash-crash-crash-crash, came the +whizz-bangs; and the pineapple smell became stronger than ever. + +“It’ll be a jolly look-out for us,” said Evans, “if they poop over +poison-gas too. We shan’t be able to smell it with all this stink of +pear-drops. Peuh! It’s like being in a sweet factory.” + +They laughed. And then dabbed their streaming eyes again. + +In ten minutes they came up to the largest of the mine craters. The +wind was fresh on the hill-crest and there was no gas. Their smarting +eyes began to recover. + +“Here we are,” said Evans, “and there’s the old No Man’s Land, +but where in hell our Front line is, I don’t know. You stay here, +Winterbourne, and tell Sergeant Perkins to halt until I come back. I’ll +go and reconnoitre.” + +“I’ll go back and fetch them, Sir, and bring them up.” + +“All right,” and Evans vanished in the darkness. Winterbourne returned +to the line of men, dismally groping their way through the gassy +trench. They waited for Evans, who led them over the old No Man’s Land +to a very deep trench. They turned to the left. Evans whispered to +Winterbourne: + +“There’s nothing here but a net-work of Boche trenches; look how +deep they are. I couldn’t see a soul, and there are still Boche +trench-notices up. I’m hanged if I know where we are. For all I know +we’re in the Boche lines.” + +Winterbourne unslung his rifle and bayonet, and walked in front of +Evans. Verey lights went up occasionally, but most mysteriously +seemed to come from all sides, behind them as well as in front and +to the flanks. The trenches were immensely deep and dark, except +when lit dimly by the glow of Verey lights, or the abrupt flashes of +whizz-bangs. They went on and on, constantly passing cross-trenches, +completely lost, probably returning on their footsteps. They could hear +the men muttering and cursing behind them. At another cross-trench they +halted in despair. Winterbourne stood on a large hummock in the middle +of the wide trench, peering ahead through the gloom. Evans looked at +his luminous wrist-watch. + +“Good Lord! We’ve been wandering in these blasted trenches for nearly +three hours. It’ll be too late to do any work unless we get there at +once.” + +Winterbourne grabbed his arm: + +“Look!” + +Several shadowy figures were silhouetted against the skyline, coming +along the trench towards them. Too dark to distinguish the helmets. +English or German? + +“Challenge them,” whispered Evans. Winterbourne threw his rifle +forward: + +“Halt! Who are you!” + +“Frontshires,” said a weary voice. + +“Ask which company.” + +“Which company?” + +“A, B, C, D,—what’s left of ’em.” + +They were now close enough for Evans and Winterbourne to see they were +in British uniform. Evans passed down word to his men to stand to the +left and let the out-going party pass. The Frontshires staggered rather +than walked down the bumpy trench. + +“We ’ung on until nearly all of us was killed, Sir,” said one man +huskily to Evans, as if apologizing. + +“When the Springshires was wiped out, we got enfiladed, Sir,” said +another, “there’s on’y one of our officers left.” + +About fifty men, the flotsam of the wrecked battalion, stumbled past +them. Then came the Sergeant-Major and a young subaltern. Evans stopped +him, and asked the way to the front line, explaining briefly their +job. The subaltern seemed dazed with weariness. He kept swaying in the +darkness. + +“It’s up there... up there... somewhere....” + +“But how far?” + +“I don’t know... not far... I can’t stop... mustn’t leave the men.” + +And he stumbled on again. Evans turned to Winterbourne. + +“Well, Winterbourne, you might as well get off the body of that dead +Boche you’re standing on, and we’ll push along.” + +Winterbourne sprang away with a sensation of horror, and saw that he +had indeed unconsciously been standing on a dead German. + +They wandered about until nearly dawn, without finding the Front +line. They came on a couple of wounded Germans, whom Evans put into +stretchers. Just about dawn they found themselves back at the point +where they had entered the old German trenches, and recrossed to +familiar ground. The wounded Germans groaned as the stretcher-bearers +stumbled and bumped them on the ground. + + * * * * * + +The remnant of the battalion of the Frontshires very slowly made their +way into M——. Zwiing, CRASH! CLAANG! went the great crumps, but +they hardly heard them. They were too tired. They went through the +town in single file. On the straight road, the subaltern halted them, +formed them roughly into fours, and took his place at their head. They +shambled heavily along, not keeping step or attempting to, bent wearily +forward under the weight of their equipment, their unseeing eyes +turned to the muddy ground. They stumbled over inequalities; several +times one or other of them fell, and had to be dragged laboriously to +his feet. Others lagged hopelessly behind. Time and again the young +subaltern and the R.S.M. paused to allow the little group to re-form. +Hardly a word was spoken. They went very slowly, past the slag-hill, +past the ruined village, past the Pioneers’ billets, past the soldiers’ +cemetery, past the ruined château, past the closed Y.M.C.A. canteen; +and just as the fresh clear Spring dawn lightened the sky, they came to +the village where they had their rest billets. The firing had quieted +down, and the larks were singing overhead in the pure exquisite sky. In +the pale light the men’s unshaven faces looked grim and strangely old, +grey-green, haggard, inexpressibly weary. They shambled on. + +Outside of Divisional Headquarters a smart sentry was on duty. He saw +the little party wearily stumbling down the village street, and thought +they were walking wounded. The young subaltern stopped about thirty +yards from the sentry, and once more re-formed his men. The sentry +heard him say “Stick it, Frontshires.” + +Already the news had reached the back areas that the Frontshires had +been nearly wiped out in a desperate defence—fifty of them and one +officer left, out of twenty officers and seven hundred and fifty men. + +The sentry sprang to attention and took one pace forward. Sloped +arms—one, two, three, as if on parade—and remained rigid. As the +little group drew level, he sharply brought his rifle and fixed bayonet +to the “Present Arms.” + +The young officer wearily touched the brim of his steel helmet. The men +scarcely saw, and did not comprehend, the gesture. The sentry watched +them pass, with a lump in his throat. + +There was still nothing to report on the western front. + + + + + [ VIII ] + + +After a few hours sleep and a hasty meal, Evans and Winterbourne +started for the Front line again. Evans was very much ashamed at having +lost his way the night before, and the Major had strafed him for +incompetence. Evans had not replied, as he might have done, that since +the Major knew so well where they ought to have gone, he might have +taken the trouble to lead them there. + +It was about two on a sunny cold afternoon. They skirted M—— with +its everlasting, maddening Zwiiing, CRASH! CLAAAANG! In the trenches on +the edge of Hill 91, they met two walking wounded, unshaved, muddy to +the waist. One had his head bandaged and was carrying his steel helmet, +the other had his tunic half off, and his left hand and arm were +bandaged in several places. They were talking with great gravity and +earnestness, and hardly saw Evans and his runner. Winterbourne heard +one of them say: + +“I told that muckin new orfficer twice that some mucker’d get hit if he +muckin well took us up that muckin trench.” + +“Ah,” said the other, “moock ’im.” + +Evans and Winterbourne paused at the old Front line on the crest of +the hill to take breath, and looked back. The blue sky was speckled +all over with the little fleecy shrapnel bursts from Archies, pursuing +three different enemy planes. The heavy shells fell reverberantly into +M—— at their feet. They looked over a broad flat, grey-green plain, +dotted with ruined villages, seamed with the long irregular lines +of trenches. The wavering broad ribbon of No Man’s Land was clearly +visible, blasted to the white chalk. They could see the flash of the +heavies, and enemy shells bursting on cross-roads and round artillery +emplacements. A Red Cross car of wounded bumping its way from the +Advanced Dressing Station in M—— was shelled all down the road by +field artillery. They watched it eagerly, hoping it would escape. Once +or twice it disappeared in the smoke of the shell-burst and they felt +certain it was done for; but the car bumpingly reappeared and finally +vanished from sight in the direction of Rail Head. + +“God! What a dirty trick! I’m glad they didn’t get it,” said +Winterbourne, as they scrambled out of the trench. + +“Ah, well,” said Evans, “Red Cross cars have been used as camouflage +before now.” + + * * * * * + +They easily found the new Front Line in the daylight. Directions in +English had been hastily scrawled on the old German trench notices, and +they wondered how on earth they could have missed the way the night +before. The Front line was full of infantry, some on sentry-duty, some +sitting hunched up on the fire-steps, many lying in long narrow holes +like graves, scooped in the side of the trench. They found an officer, +who took them along to show them where the new communication trench was +wanted. Winterbourne, turning to answer a question from Evans, struck +the butt of his rifle sharply against a sleeping man in one of the +holes. The man did not stir. + +“Your fellows are sleeping soundly,” said Evans. + +“Yes,” said the officer tonelessly, “but he may be dead for all I know. +Stretcher-bearers too tired to take down all the bodies. Some of ’em +are dead, and some asleep. We have to go round and kick ’em to find +which is which.” + +The new trench they were to dig had been roughly marked out, and ran +from the old German Front line to the lip of Congreve’s Mine Crater, +now used as an ammunition dump. A salvo of whizz-bangs greeted them as +they went out to look at it. + +“I don’t altogether envy you this job,” said the Infantry officer; +“this is about the most unhealthy spot on Hill 91. The Boche shells +it day and night. Your Colonel had a hell of a row about it with the +Brigadier, but our fellows are too whacked to do any more digging.” + +Over came another little bunch of whizz-bangs, in corroboration—crash, +crash-crash, crash. The grey-green acrid smoke smelt foul. + +“They’re going to call it Nero Trench,” he added, as they left him, +“because the ground’s so black with coal dust and slag. Well, good-bye, +best of luck. And, by the bye, look out for gas.” + + * * * * * + +The Nero Trench job was an intensified nightmare. The Germans had it +“taped” with exactitude, and shelled it ruthlessly. Five minutes was +the longest period that ever passed without salvos of whizz-bangs. +Evans and Winterbourne, Hume and his runner, walked continually up and +down the line of men, who toiled hastily and nervously in the darkness +to make themselves a little cover. When the shells came crashing +near them, they crouched down on the ground. It was found after the +first night that each man had simply dug a hole for himself instead +of regularly excavating his three yards of trench. On some nights the +shelling was so intense that Evans withdrew the men for a time to the +shelter of a trench. They had several casualties. + +And then the Germans began a steady, systematic gas bombardment of all +the ruined villages in the advanced area. It began on the second night +of the Nero Trench job. They had noticed on Hill 91 that a pretty heavy +bombardment was proceeding from the German lines, and all the way down +from M——, they heard the shells continuously shrilling overhead. It +puzzled them that they could not hear them exploding. + +“Must be bombarding the back areas,” said Evans. “Let’s hope it gives +’em something to think about besides sending us up tons of silly +papers.” + +But as they came nearer their village they could tell by the sound +in the air that the shells must be falling close ahead of them. Soon +they heard them falling with the customary zwiiING, followed by a very +unaccustomed soft PHUT. + +“They can’t all be duds,” said Winterbourne. + +A shell dropped short, just outside the parapet, with the same curious +PHUT. Immediately a strange smell, rather like new-mown hay gone acrid, +filled the air. They sniffed, and both men exclaimed simultaneously: + +“Phosgene! Gas!” + +They all fumblingly and hastily put on their gas masks, and stumbled +on blindly down the trench. Winterbourne and Evans scrambled out on to +the road, and got into the edge of the village. A rain of gas shells +was falling on it and all around their billets—zwiing, zwiing, zwiing, +zwiing, PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT. Each took off his mask a second and gave +one sniff—the air reeked with phosgene. + +Evans and Winterbourne stood at the end of the trench to help out +the groping half-blinded men. As they filed by, grotesques with +india-rubber faces, great dead-looking goggles, and long tubes from +their mouths to the box respirators, Winterbourne thought they looked +like lost souls, expiating some horrible sin in a new Inferno. The +rolled gas blankets were pulled down tightly over the cellar entrances, +but the gas leaked through. Two men were gassed and taken off in +stretchers, foaming rather horribly at the mouth. + + * * * * * + +The gas bombardment went on until dawn, and then ceased. Winterbourne +fell asleep, with his gas mask just off his face. Hitherto they had +slept with the box respirator slung on a nail or piled with the other +equipment; after the experience of this and the subsequent nights they +always slept with the respirator on their chests and the mask ready to +slip on immediately. + +The heavies began again soon after it was light. Winterbourne was +awakened by one which crashed just outside his cellar. He lay on the +floor for a long time listening to the zwiiiING, CRASH, of the shells. +He heard two ruined houses clatter to the ground under direct hits, and +wondered if the cellars had held firm. They hadn’t. But fortunately, +they happened to be unoccupied. Presently, the German batteries +switched off and began bombarding some artillery about five hundred +yards to the left. Winterbourne profited by the lull to wash. He ran +out of the cellar in his shirtsleeves and gas mask, with the canvas +bucket in which he washed; and found that a shell had smashed the pump +outside his billet. He knew there was another about three hundred yards +to the right, although he had never been there. + +It was another cold but sunny morning, with the inevitable white +shrapnel bursts all over the sky. He was now so accustomed to them that +he scarcely noticed their existence. Occasionally a very faint rattle +of machine-gun fire came from the war in the air, of which he was +nearly as ignorant as people in England of the war on land. + +He took off his mask and sniffed. A fresh wind was blowing, and +although there was plenty of phosgene in the air, it was not in any +deadly concentration. He decided to risk leaving the mask off. The +ground was deeply delved with the conical holes made by the big +shells thrown over, and pitted everywhere by the smaller holes of +the gas shells. He found a dud, and examined it with interest. A +brownish-looking shell, about the size of a five-nine. + +The cottages were rather scattered, and unused as cellar-billets +in this direction. The top storeys had gone from nearly all, but in +several the ground floor was fairly intact. He looked into each as he +passed. The wall-paper had long ago fallen and lay in mouldering heaps. +The floors were covered with broken bricks, tiles, smashed beams, laths +and disintegrating plaster. Odd pieces of broken furniture, twisted +iron beds, large rags which had once been clothes and sheets, protruded +from the mass. He poked about and found photographs, letters in faded +ink on damp paper, broken toys, bits of smashed vases, a soiled satin +wedding-gown with its veil and wreath of artificial orange blossom. He +stood, with his head bent, looking at this pathetic débris of ruined +lives, and absent-mindedly lit a cigarette which he immediately threw +away—it tasted of phosgene. “La Gloire,” he murmured, “Deutschland +über alles, God save the King.” + +The next cottage was less damaged than the others, and its rough wooden +shutters were still on their hinges. Winterbourne peered through and +saw that the whole of the inside had been cleared of débris, and +was stacked with quantities of wooden objects. He shaded his eyes +more carefully, and saw they were ranks and ranks of wooden crosses. +Those he could see had painted on them R.I.P.; then underneath was a +blank space for the name; then came the name of one or other of the +battalions in his Division, and then the present month and year, with +a blank space for the day. Excellent forethought, he reflected as he +filled his bucket and water-bottle; how well this War is organized! + + * * * * * + +About nine, Evans’s servant told him to report immediately in fighting +order. Wearily and sleepily he threw on his equipment, re-tied the +string of his box respirator, and slung his rifle and bayonet over his +left shoulder. He waited with the officers’ servants, who gave him a +piece of bread dipped in bacon grease to eat. Presently Evans came out +and they started off. + +“I’ve got to see an R.E. officer,” said Evans, “about a new job on Hill +91. It’s a bit farther to the left of where we’ve been working, and +it’ll take us half an hour longer to get there.” + +Winterbourne seized the opportunity to put forward one or two ideas he +had been thinking over: + +“I hope you won’t mind, Sir, if I say something—it’s not an official +complaint at all, you understand, only what I’ve been personally +thinking.” + +“Go ahead.” + +“Well, Sir, I assume that the reason we are kept in billets instead of +in the line is to give us more rest so that we come fresh to work. But +here it doesn’t work out that way, especially in the past fortnight; +and it’s likely to get worse instead of better. It seems to me that we +should be much better off if we were in dug-outs in the Reserve line. +We have that long walk through the mud twice a day; we get all the +shells meant for the transport and ration parties; we get an all night +strafing in the line; we’re shelled all the way down; we come back +to gassy billets, which are shelled with heavies twenty hours out of +twenty-four. The cellars are no real protection against a direct hit. +They’re damper than dug-outs, and just as dark and ratty. There are far +more whizz-bangs and light stuff in the line, but far fewer heavies; +and if we had even fifteen-foot dug-outs, we’d get some sleep, instead +of starting awake every ten minutes with a crump outside the cellar +entrance. We’re getting a lot of useless casualties, Sir. I passed the +cook house as I came along, and the cook told me one of his mates had +just gone down with gas from last night. And the S.M. looks as green as +grass. Can’t you get us put in the line, Sir?” + +Evans cogitated a moment or two: + +“Yes, I think you’re right. No, I can’t get us moved. I haven’t the +authority. I wish I had. I’ll ask the Major to put it before the +Colonel. It’s quite true what you say. In the past week we’ve had eight +casualties in the line, and twelve here or going up and down. But with +this show coming off I expect every trench and dug-out will be packed.” + +Winterbourne felt enormously proud that Evans had not snubbed his +suggestion. Evans went on, after a pause: + +“By the way, Winterbourne, have you ever thought of taking a +commission?” + +“Why, yes, Sir, it was suggested by the Adjutant of my battalion in +England. I believe my father wrote to him about it. He, my father, was +very keen about it.” + +“Well, why don’t you apply?” + +It was now Winterbourne’s turn to cogitate: + +“I find it rather hard to explain, Sir. For many reasons, which you +might think far-fetched, I had and still have a feeling that I ought to +spend the War in the ranks and in the line. I should prefer to be in +the Infantry, but I think the Pioneers are quite near enough.” + +“They often come round for volunteers, you know. If you like, I’ll put +you down next time, and the Major will recommend you to the Colonel.” + +“It’s kind of you, Sir. I’ll think about it.” + + * * * * * + +One night, two nights, three nights, four nights passed, and still +there was no big battle. And they were not moved. Every night they were +shelled up the line, shelled in the line, shelled on the way back, +and arrived in a hail storm of gas shells. They had to wear their gas +masks for hours every day. And sleep became more and more difficult and +precarious. + +Winterbourne’s intimacy with Evans and his own “education” put him +in rather an ambiguous position. Evans trusted him more and more +to do things which would normally have been done by an N.C.O. And +Winterbourne’s feeling of responsibility led him to take on and +conscientiously carry out everything of the kind. One night there was +supposed to be a gas discharger attack by the British in retaliation +for the heavy German gas bombardments. All the officers wanted to see +it; and since it was staged for an hour before dawn, that meant either +that one officer had to take the company down or that the men had to +be kept up two hours longer, exposed to artillery retaliation. Evans +solved the problem. He sent for Winterbourne: + +“Winterbourne, we want to stop and see the fun up here. Now, you can +take the company down, can’t you? I’ll tell Sergeant Perkins that +you’re in charge; but of course you’ll give orders through him. Come +back here and report after you get them back.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +There was no British gas attack, but the Germans put up what was +then a considerable gas bombardment. They sent over approximately +thirty thousand gas shells that night, most of them in and around the +village where the Pioneers were billeted. The Company had to wear gas +masks over the last half mile, and Winterbourne had a very anxious +time getting them along. He had discovered a disused but quite deep +trench running through the village almost to their billets, and he took +the men along there instead of through the village street. It was a +little longer, but far safer. The shells were hailing all round them, +and Winterbourne didn’t want any casualties. Sergeant Perkins and he +managed to get the men safely into billets. Winterbourne turned and +said: + +“Well, good-night, Sergeant, I must go up the line again, and report to +Mr. Evans.” + +“You ain’t going up agen, are you?” + +“Yes, Mr. Evans told me to.” + +“Struth! Well, I’d rather it was you than me.” + +Winterbourne fitted on his gas mask, and groped his way out of the +Sergeant’s cellar. The night was muggy, a bit drizzly, windless and +very dark—the ideal conditions for a gas bombardment. What little wind +there was came from the German lines. He hesitated between taking the +long muddy trench or the more open road, but since he was practically +blinded in the darkness with his goggles, he decided to take the +trench, for fear of losing his way. It was rather eerie, groping his +way alone up the trench, with the legions of gas shells shrilling and +phutting all round him. They fell with a terrific “flop” when they came +within a few yards. He stumbled badly two or three times in holes they +had made in the trench since he had come down. For nearly half a mile +he had to go through the gas barrage, and it was slow work indeed, +with the mud and the darkness and the groping and the stumbling. +Interminable. He thought of nothing in the darkness but keeping his +left hand on the side of the trench to guide him and holding his right +hand raised in front to prevent his bumping into something. + +At last he got clear of the falling gas shells, and ventured a +peep outside his mask. One sniff showed him the air was deadly with +phosgene. He groped on another two hundred yards and tried again. There +was still a lot of gas, but he decided to risk it, and took off his +mask. With the mask off he could see comparatively well, and traveled +quite rapidly. About an hour before dawn he reported to Evans. + +“There’s a devil of a gas bombardment going on round the billets and +for half a mile round, Sir,” said Winterbourne; “that’s why I’m so +late. The whole country reeks of gas.” + +Evans whistled: + +“Whew! As a matter of fact, we’ve been drinking a bit in the dug-out +with some Infantry officers, and one or two are a bit groggy in +consequence.” + +“Better wait till dawn then, Sir. If you’ll come up into the trench +you’ll hear the shells going over.” + +“Oh, I’ll take your word for it. But the Major insists on going down +at once. We’ve just heard that there isn’t going to be a gas attack. +You’ll have to help me get them down.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The Major was entirely sober; Evans was perfectly self-controlled; but +the other four were all a little too merry. It was a perfect nightmare +getting them through the gas barrage. They would insist there was no +danger, that the gas was all a wash-out; and kept taking off their +masks. They disregarded the Major’s peremptory orders, and Evans and +Winterbourne had constantly to take off their own masks to argue with +the subalterns, and make them put on theirs. Winterbourne could feel +the deadly phosgene at his lungs. + +Just after dawn they reached the Officers’ Mess cellar, fortunately +without a casualty. Winterbourne felt horribly sick with the gas he had +swallowed. The Major took off his gas mask, and picked up a water jug. + +“Those confounded servants have forgotten to leave any water,” +exclaimed the Major angrily. “Winterbourne, take that tin jug and go +and get some water from the cook-house.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The shells were still pitilessly hailing down through the dawn. It was +a hundred yards to the cook-house, and Winterbourne three times just +escaped being directly hit by one of the ceaselessly falling shells. He +returned to the Mess, and left the water. + +“Thanks very much,” said Evans; “you may go now, Winterbourne. +Good-night.” + +“Good-night, Sir.” + +“Good-night,” said the Major, “thank you for getting that water, +Winterbourne, I oughtn’t to have sent you.” + +“Thank you, Sir; good-night, Sir.” + +Outside the Major’s and Evans’s part of the cellar, the other officers +were sitting round a deal table by the light of a candle stuck in +a bottle, which looked dim and ghastly. The place was practically +gas-proof, with tightly drawn blankets over every crevice. + +“Win’erbourne,” said one of them. + +“Sir?” + +“Run along to the Quar’master-Sergeant and bring us a bottle of +whiskey.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +Winterbourne climbed the cellar steps, lifted the outer gas curtain +rapidly, and stepped out. There was such a stench of phosgene that +he snapped his mask on at once. The shells were falling thicker than +ever. One hit the wall of the house, and Winterbourne felt bricks and +dust drop on his steel helmet and shoulders. He shrank against what +was left of the wall. Two hundred yards to the Q.M.S.’s billet. That +meant nearly a quarter of a mile through that deadly storm—for a +half-drunken man to get a few more whiskies. Winterbourne hesitated. It +was disobeying orders if he didn’t go. He turned resolutely and went +to his own billet; nothing was ever said of this refusal to obey an +officer’s orders in the face of the enemy. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne stood outside the entrance to his cellar, took off his +steel helmet and folded down the top part of his gas mask so that he +could see, while still keeping the nose clip on and the large rubber +mouthpiece in his teeth. The whitish morning light looked cold and +misty, and the PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT of the bursting gas shells continued +with ruthless iteration. He watched them exploding; a little curling +cloud of yellow gas rose from each shell-hole. The ground was pitted +with these new shell-holes, and newly broken bricks and débris lay +about everywhere. A dead rat lay in a gas shell-hole just outside the +entrance—so the War caught even the rats! There had been a young +slender ash-tree in what had once been the cottage garden. A heavy +explosive had fallen just at its roots, splintered the slim stem, and +dashed it prone with broken branches. The young leaves were still +green, except on one side where they were curled and withered by gas. +The grass, so tender a spring green a week before, was yellow, sickly +and withered. As he turned to lift the gas-blanket he heard the whizz +and crash of the first heavy of the day bombardment. But the gas shells +continued. + +Inside the cellar was complete darkness. He took off his mask and +fumbled his way down the broken stairs, trying not to wake the other +runners. It was important only to use one match, because matches were +scarce and precious. The air inside was foul and heavy, but only +slightly tainted with phosgene. Winterbourne half-smiled as he thought +how furiously he had contended for “fresh air” in huts and barrack +rooms, and how gladly he now welcomed any foul air which was not full +of poison gas. He lighted his stub of candle, and slowly took off his +equipment, replacing the box respirator immediately. His boots were +thick with mud, his puttees and trousers torn with wire and stained +with mud and grease. A bullet had torn a hole in his leather jerkin, +and his steel helmet was marked by a long deep dint, where it had +been struck by a flying splinter of shell. He felt amazingly weary, +and rather sick. He had known the fatigue of long walks and strenuous +Rugby football matches and cross-country runs, but nothing like +this continual cumulative weariness. He moved with the slow, almost +pottering movements of agricultural labourers and old men. The feeling +of sickness became worse and he wanted to vomit out the smell of gas +which seemed to permeate him. He heaved over his empty canvas bucket +until the water started to his eyes, but vomited nothing. He noticed +how filthy his hands were. + +He was just going to sit down on his blanket and pack, covered by the +neatly-folded groundsheet, when he saw a parcel and some letters for +him lying on them. The other runners had brought them over for him. +Decent of them. The parcel was from Elizabeth—how sweet of her to +remember! And yes, she had sent all the things he had asked for and +left out all the useless things people would send to the troops. He +mustn’t touch anything except the candles, though, until to-morrow, +when the parcel would be carefully divided among everybody in the +cellar. It was one of the good unwritten rules—all parcels strictly +divided between each section, so that every one got something, even and +especially the men who were too poor or too lonely to receive anything +from England. Dear Elizabeth—how sweet of her to remember! + +He opened her envelope with hands which shook slightly with fatigue +and the shock of explosions. Then he stopped, lighted a new candle from +the stub of the old one, blew out the stub, and carefully put it away +to give to one of the infantry. The letter was unexpectedly tender and +charming. She had just been to Hampton Court to look at the flowers. +The gardens were rather neglected, she said, and no flowers in the +long border—the gardeners were at the war, and there was no money in +England now for flowers. Did he remember how they had walked there in +April five years ago? Yes, he remembered, and thought too with a pang +of surprise that this was the first spring he had ever spent without +seeing a flower, not even a primrose. The little yellow colts-foot he +had liked so much were all dead with phosgene. Elizabeth went on: + +“I saw Fanny last week. She looked more charming and delicate than +ever—and such a marvelous hat! I hear she is _much_ attached to a +brilliant young scientist, a chemist, who does the most _peculiar_ +things. He mixes up all sorts of chemicals and then experiments with +the fumes and kills dozens of poor little monkeys with them. Isn’t it +wicked? But Fanny says it’s most _important_ war work.” + +The sickness came on him again. He turned sideways and heaved silently, +but could not vomit. He felt thirsty, and drank a little stale-tasting +water from his water-bottle. Dear Elizabeth, how sweet of her to +remember! + +Fanny’s letter was very rattling and gay. She had been there, she had +done this, she had seen so-and-so. How was darling George getting +along? She was so glad to see that there had been no fighting yet on +the western front. She added: + +“I saw Elizabeth recently. She looked a little worried, but _very_ +sweet. She was with such a charming young man—a young American who ran +away from Yale to join our Flying Corps.” + +The heavy shells outside were falling nearer and nearer. They came +over in fours, each shell a little in front of the others—bracketing. +Through the gas curtain he heard the remains of a ruined house collapse +across the street under a direct hit. Each crash made the cellar +tremble slightly, and the candle flame jumped. + +Well, it was nice of Fanny to write. Very nice. She was a thoroughly +decent sort. He picked up the other envelopes. One came from Paris and +contained the _Bulletin des Ecrivains_—names of French writers and +artists killed or wounded, and news of those in the armies. He was +horrified to see how many of his friends in Paris had been killed. +A passage had been marked in blue pencil—it contained the somewhat +belated news that M. Georges Winterbourne, _le jeune peintre anglais_, +was in camp in England. + +Another letter, forwarded by Elizabeth, came from a London art dealer. +It said that an American had bought one of Winterbourne’s sketches for +£5, and that when he heard that Winterbourne was in the trenches he had +insisted upon making it £25. The dealer therefore enclosed a cheque for +£22.10.0, being £25 less commission at ten per centum. Winterbourne +thought it rather cheek to take commission on the money which was a +gift, but still, Business as Usual. But how generous of the American! +How amazingly kind! His pay was five francs a week, so the money was +most welcome. He must write and thank.... + +The last letter was from Mr. Upjohn, from whom Winterbourne had not +heard for over a year. Elizabeth, it appeared, had asked him to write +and send news. Mr. Upjohn wrote a chatty letter. He himself had a job +in Whitehall, “of national importance.” Winterbourne rejoiced to think +that Mr. Upjohn’s importance was now recognized by the nation. Mr. +Shobbe had been in France, had stayed in the line three weeks, and was +now permanently at the base. Comrade Bobbe had come out very strong +as a conscientious objector. He had been put in prison for six weeks. +His friends had “got at” somebody influential, who had “got at” the +secretary of somebody in authority, and Mr. Bobbe had been released +as an agricultural worker. He was now “working” on a farm, run by a +philanthropic lady for conscientious objectors of the intellectual +class. Mr. Waldo Tubbe had found his vocation in the Post Office +Censorship Bureau, where he was very happy—if he could not force +people to say what he wanted, he could at least prevent them from +writing anything derogatory to his Adopted Empire.... + +George laughed silently to himself. Amusing chap Upjohn. He got out his +jack-knife and scraped away the mud so that he could unlace his boots. +Outside the shells crashed. One burst just behind the cellar. The roof +seemed to give a jump, something seemed to smack Winterbourne on the +top of the head, and the candle went out. He laboriously re-lit it. The +other runners woke up. + +“Anything up?” + +“No, only a crump outside. I’m just getting into kip.” + +“Where’ve you been?” + +“Up the line again, for the officers.” + +“Get back all right?” + +“Yes, nobody hit. But there’s a hell of a lot of gas about. Don’t go +out without putting on your gas-bag.” + +“Good-night, old man.” + +“Good-night, old boy.” + + + + + [ IX ] + + +Three more nights passed rather more tranquilly. There was +comparatively little gas, but the German heavies were persistent. They, +too, quieted down on the third night, and Winterbourne got to bed +fairly early and fell into a deep sleep. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly he was wide awake and sitting up. What on earth or hell was +happening? From outside came a terrific rumble and roaring, as if three +volcanoes and ten thunderstorms were in action simultaneously. The +whole earth was shaking as if beaten by a multitude of flying hoofs, +and the cellar walls vibrated. He seized his helmet, dashed past the +other runners who were starting up and exclaiming, rushed through the +gas curtain; and recoiled. It was still night, but the whole sky was +brilliant with hundreds of flashing lights. Two thousand British guns +were in action, and heaven and earth were filled with the roar and +flame. From about half a mile to the north, southwards as far as he +could see, the whole front was a dazzling flicker of gun-flashes. It +was as if giant hands covered with huge rings set with search-lights +were being shaken in the darkness, as if innumerable brilliant diamonds +were flashing great rays of light. There was not a fraction of a +second without its flash and roar. Only the great boom of a twelve- +or fourteen-inch naval gun just behind them punctured the general +pandemonium at regular intervals. + +Winterbourne ran stumbling forwards to get a view clear of the ruins. +He crouched by a piece of broken house and looked towards the German +lines. They were a long irregular wall of smoke, torn everywhere with +the dull red flashes of bursting shells. Behind their lines their +artillery was flickering brighter and brighter as battery after battery +came into action, making a crescendo of noise and flame when the limits +of both seemed to have been reached. Winterbourne saw but could not +hear the first of their shells as it exploded short of the village. The +great clouds of smoke over the German trenches were darkly visible in +the first very pallid light of dawn. It was the preliminary bombardment +of the long-expected battle. Winterbourne felt his heart shake with the +shaking earth and vibrating air. + +The whole thing was indescribable—a terrific spectacle, a stupendous +symphony of sound. The devil-artist who had staged it was a master, +in comparison with whom all other artists of the sublime and terrible +were babies. The roar of the guns was beyond clamour, it was an immense +rhythmic harmony, a super-jazz of tremendous drums, a ride of the +Walkyrie played by three thousand cannon. The intense rattle of the +machine-guns played a minor motif of terror. It was too dark to see +the attacking troops, but Winterbourne thought with agony how every +one of those dreadful vibrations of sound meant death or mutilation. +He thought of the ragged lines of British troops stumbling forward in +smoke and flame and a chaos of sound, crumbling away before the German +protective barrage and the reserve line machine-guns. He thought of the +German Front lines, already obliterated under that ruthless tempest of +explosions and flying metal. Nothing could live within the area of that +storm except by a miraculous hazard. Already in this first half hour +of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently +slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated. The colossal harmony +seemed to roar louder as the drum-fire barrage lifted from the Front +line to the Reserve. The battle was begun. They would be mopping-up +soon—throwing bombs and explosives down the dug-out entrances on the +men cowering inside. + +The German heavies were pounding M—— with their shells, smashing +at the communication trenches and cross-roads, hurling masses of metal +at their own ruined village. Winterbourne saw the half-ruined factory +chimney totter and crash to the ground. Two shells pitched on either +side of him, and flung earth, stones and broken bricks all round him. +He turned and ran back to his cellar, stumbling over shell-holes. He +saw an isolated house disappear in the united explosion of two huge +shells. + +He clutched his hands together as he ran, with tears in his eyes. + + + + + [ X ] + + +Winterbourne found the other runners buckling up their packs and +fastening their equipment with that febrile haste which comes with +great excitement. Even in the cellar the roar of the artillery made it +necessary for them almost to shout to each other. + +“What are the orders?” + +“Stand by in fighting order, ready to move off at once. Dump packs +outside billets.” + +Winterbourne in his turn feverishly put on his equipment, buckled his +pack, and cleaned his rifle. They stood, rifles and bayonets ready, +in the low cellar, ready to spring up the broken stairs as soon as +they were warned. In a moment such as this, a kind of paroxysm of +humanity, the most difficult thing is to wait. They dreaded the awful +storm thundering above them, but they were irresistibly hallucinated +by it, eager to plunge in and be done with it. The German shells +thudded continuously all round them, muted by the vaster clamour of +the attacking artillery. No orders came. They fidgeted, exclaimed, and +finally one by one sat silent on their packs, listening. A large rat +ran down the cellar stairs and began to nibble something. The beast +was exactly level with Winterbourne’s head. He shoved a cartridge into +the breech of his rifle, murmuring “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat +have life, and they no breath at all?” He aimed very carefully and +pulled the trigger; there was a terrific bang in the confined cellar, +and the rat was smashed dead in the air. Not ten seconds later a red, +perspiring face under a steel helmet was anxiously poked through the +cellar entrance. It was the Orderly Sergeant. + +“What the muckin hell are you doing down there?” + +“Having a spree—didn’t you hear the champagne cork?” + +“Spree be mucked—one of you buggers fired his rifle and muckin near +copped me. Mucked if I don’t report the muckin lot of yer.” + +“Wow I Put a sock in it!” + +“Muck off!” + +“Ord’ly sergeants are cheap to-day!” + +“Well, you muckers got to report to yer orfficers at once. ’Op it.” + +They ran up the broken stairs, pretending to poke their bayonets at +him, and laughing, perhaps a little hysterically. The fat good-natured +little Sergeant went off, shaking his fist at them, shouting awful +threats about the punishment awaiting them with a broad affectionate +grin on his face. + + * * * * * + +For Winterbourne the battle was a timeless confusion, a chaos of noise, +fatigue, anxiety, and horror. He did not know how many days and nights +it lasted, lost completely the sequence of events, found great gaps +in his conscious memory. He did know that he was profoundly affected +by it, that it made a cut in his life and personality. You couldn’t +say there was anything melodramatically startling, no hair going grey +in a night, or never smiling again. He looked unaltered; he behaved +in exactly the same way. But, in fact, he was a little mad. We talk +of shell-shock, but who wasn’t shell-shocked more or less? The change +in him was psychological, and showed itself in two ways. He was left +with an anxiety complex, a sense of fear he had never experienced, +the necessity to use great and greater efforts to force himself to +face artillery, anything explosive. Curiously enough, he scarcely +minded machine-gun fire, which was really more deadly, and completely +disregarded rifle-fire. And he was also left with a profound and +cynical discouragement, a shrinking horror of the human race.... + + * * * * * + +A timeless confusion. The Runners scattered outside their billet and +made for the Officers’ cellar through the falling shells, dodging +from one broken house or shell-hole to another. Winterbourne, not yet +unnerved, calmly walked straight across and arrived first. Evans took +him aside: + +“We’re going up as a Company, with orders to support and co-operate +with the infantry. Try to nab me a rifle and bayonet before we go over.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +Outside was an open box of S.A.A. and they each drew two extra +bandoliers of cartridges, which they slung round their necks. + +They moved off in sections, filing along the village street which was +filled with fresh débris and ruins re-ruined. It was snowing. They came +on two freshly killed horses. Their close-cropped necks were bent under +them, with great glassy eyeballs starting with agony. A little farther +on was a smashed limber with the driver dead beside it. + +In the trench they passed a batch of about forty German prisoners, +unarmed, in steel helmets. They looked green-pale, and were trembling. +They shrank against the side of the trench as the English soldiers +passed, but not a word was said to them. + +The snowstorm and the smoke drifting back from the barrage made the air +as murky as a November fog in London. They saw little, did not know +where they were going, what they were doing or why. They lined a trench +and waited. Nothing happened. They saw nothing but wire and snowflakes +and drifting smoke, heard only the roar of the guns and the now sharper +rattle of machine-guns. Shells dropped around them. Evans was looking +through his glasses, and cursing the lack of visibility. Winterbourne +stood beside him, with his rifle still slung on his left shoulder. + +They waited. Then Major Thorpe’s Runner came with a message. +Apparently, he had mistaken a map reference and brought them to the +wrong place. + +They plodged off through the mud, and lined another trench. They waited. + +Winterbourne found himself following Evans across what had been No +Man’s Land for months. He noticed a skeleton in British uniform, caught +sprawling in the German wire. The skull still wore a sodden cap and not +a steel helmet. They passed the bodies of British soldiers killed that +morning. Their faces were strangely pale, their limbs oddly bulging +with strange fractures. One had vomited blood. + +They were in the German trenches, with many dead bodies in field grey. +Winterbourne and Evans went down into a German dugout. Nobody was +there, but it was littered with straw, torn paper, portable cookers, +oddments of forgotten equipment and cigars. There were French tables +and chairs with human excrement on them. + +They went on. A little knot of Germans came towards them holding up +their shaking hands. They took no notice of them, but let them pass +through. + +The barrage continued. Their first casualty was caused by their own +shells dropping short. + + * * * * * + +Major Thorpe sent Winterbourne and another man with a written duplicate +message to Battalion Headquarters. They went back over the top, trying +to run. It was impossible. Their hearts beat too fast, and their +throats were parched. They went blindly at a jog-trot, slower in fact +than a brisk walk. They seemed to be tossed violently by the bursting +shells. The acrid smoke was choking. A heavy roared down beside +Winterbourne and made him stagger with its concussion. He could not +control the resultant shaking of his flesh. His teeth chattered very +slightly as he clenched them desperately. They got back to familiar +land and finally to Southampton Row. It was a long way to Battalion +Headquarters. The men in the orderly room eagerly questioned them about +the battle but they knew less than they did. + +Winterbourne asked for water and drank thirstily. He and the other +Runner were dazed and incoherent. They were given another written +message, and elaborate directions which they promptly forgot. + +The drum-fire had died down to an ordinary heavy bombardment as they +started back. Already it was late afternoon. They wandered for hours in +unfamiliar trenches before they found the company. + + * * * * * + +They slept that night in a large German dug-out, swarming with rats. +Winterbourne in his sleep felt them jump on his chest and face. + + * * * * * + +The drum-fire began again next morning. Again they lined a trench and +advanced through smoke over torn wire and shell-tormented ground. +Prisoners passed through. At night they struggled for hours, carrying +down wounded men in stretchers through the mud and clamour. Major +Thorpe was mortally wounded and his runner killed; Hume and his runner +were killed; Franklin was wounded; Pemberton was killed; Sergeant +Perkins was killed; the stretcher-bearers were killed. Men seemed to +drop away continually. + + * * * * * + +Three days later Evans and Thompson led back forty-five men to the old +billets in the ruined village. The attack on their part of the front +had failed. Farther south a considerable advance had been made and +several thousand prisoners taken, but the German line was unbroken and +stronger than ever in its new positions. Therefore that also was a +failure. + +Winterbourne and Henderson were the only two Runners left, and since +Evans was in command Winterbourne was now Company Runner. The two +men sat on their packs in the cellar without a word. Both shook very +slightly but continuously with fatigue and shock. Outside the vicious +heavies crashed eternally. They started wildly to their feet as a +terrific smash overhead brought down what was left of the house above +them and crashed into the duplicate cellar next door. A moment later +there was another enormous crash and one end of the cellar broke in +with falling bricks and a cloud of dust. They rushed out by the steps +at the other end and were sent reeling and choking by another huge +black explosion. + +They stumbled across to another cellar occupied by what was left of a +section, and asked to sleep there since their own cellar was wrecked. +Six of them and a corporal sat in silence by the light of a candle, +dully listening to the crash of shells. + + * * * * * + +In a lull they heard a strange noise outside the cellar, first like +wheels and then like a human voice calling for help. No one moved. The +voice called again. The Corporal spoke: + +“Who’s going up?” + +“Mucked if I am,” said somebody, “I’ve ’ad enough.” + +Winterbourne and Henderson simultaneously struggled to their feet. The +change from candle-light to darkness blinded them as they peered out +from the ruined doorway. They could just see a confused dark mass. The +voice came again: + +“Help, for Christ’s sake, come and help!” + +A transport limber had been smashed by a shell. The wounded horses had +dragged it along and fallen outside the cellar entrance. One man had +both legs cut short at the knees. He was still alive, but evidently +dying. They left him, lifted down the other man and carried him into +the cellar. A large shell splinter had smashed his right knee. He was +conscious, but weak. They got out his field-dressing and iodine and +dripped iodine on the wound. At the pain of burning disinfectant the +man turned deadly pale and nearly fainted. Winterbourne found that his +hands and clothes were smeared with blood. + +Then came the problem of getting the man away to a dressing station. +The Corporal and the four men refused to budge. The shells were +crashing continuously outside. Winterbourne started out to get a +stretcher and the new stretcher-bearer, groping his way through the +darkness. Outside their billet he tripped and fell into a deep shell +hole, just as a heavy exploded with terrific force at his side. But +for the fall he must have been blown to pieces. He scrambled to his +feet, breathless and shaken, and tumbled down the cellar stairs. He +noticed scared faces looking at him in the candle-light. He explained +what had happened. The stretcher-bearer jumped up, got his stretcher +and satchel of dressings, and they started back. Every shell which +exploded near seemed to shake Winterbourne’s flesh from his bones. He +was dazed and half-frantic with the physical shock of concussion after +concussion. When he got back in the cellar he collapsed into a kind of +stupor. The stretcher-bearer dressed the man’s wound, and then looked +at Winterbourne, felt his pulse, gave him a sip of rum and told him to +lie still. He tried to explain that he must help carry the wounded man, +and struggled to get to his feet. The stretcher-bearer pushed him back: + +“You lie still, mate, you’ve done enough for to-day.” + + + + + [ XI ] + + +The battle on their part of the Front died down into long snarling +artillery duels, gas bombardments, fierce local attacks and +counter-attacks. Farther south it flamed up again with intense +preludes of drum-fire. What was left of the Pioneer Company returned +to more normal occupations. So far as they were concerned, one great +advantage of the battle was that the Germans had been driven from +the long slag-hill, and from a large portion of Hill 91. By fierce +counter-attacks the Germans regained much of the lost ground on Hill +91, but they never came anywhere near recovering the slag-hill. The +ground they had lost farther south made that impossible. Consequently, +some of the worst features of the salient were at last obliterated, +and they were no longer under such close observation or enfiladed by +machine-guns. + +They had a day’s rest, and were then put on the cushy job of building +a new track up to the southern fringe of Hill 91 across the old Front +Lines and No Man’s Land. They were outside the range of vision of +the German observation posts, and it was two days before the German +airplanes discovered them—two days of comparative quiet. Then, of +course, they got it hot and strong. + +In clearing away the wire they made a number of gruesome discoveries, +and examined with great interest the primitive hand grenades and other +weapons of 1914-15 which were lying rusting there in great quantities. +Winterbourne took an immense interest in building this track, an +interest which puzzled and amused Evans, especially since this was the +first time he had ever seen Winterbourne show any enthusiasm for their +labours. + +“I can’t see why you’re so keen on this bally old track, Winterbourne. +It’s one of the dullest jobs we’ve ever had.” + +“But surely you can see, Sir. We’re making something, not destroying +things. We’re taking down wire, not putting it up; filling in +shell-holes, not desecrating the earth.” + +Evans frowned at the phrase “desecrating the earth.” He thought +it pretentious, and with all his obtuseness he had an instinctive +resentment against Winterbourne’s unspoken but unwavering and profound +condemnation of War. Evans had a superstitious reverence for War. He +believed in the Empire; the Empire was symbolized by the King-Emperor; +and the King—poor man—is always having to dress up as an Admiral +or a Field Marshal or a brass hat of some kind. Navydom and Armydom +thereby acquired a mystic importance, and since armies and navies are +obviously meant for War, it was plain that War was an integral part of +Empire-Worship. More than once he clumsily tried to trap Winterbourne +into expressing unorthodox opinions. But, of course, Winterbourne saw +him coming miles away, and easily evaded his awkward bobby traps. + +“I suppose you’re a _republican_,” he said to Winterbourne, who was +innocently humming the Marseillaise. “I don’t believe in Republics. +Why, Presidents wear evening dress in the middle of the morning.” + +Winterbourne nearly burst into a cackle of laughter but managed to +restrain himself. He denied that he was a republican, and admitted +with mock gravity that Evans had put his finger on a serious flaw in +Republican institutions. + +But his joy in constructing the track was short-lived. As they were +finishing their second day’s work he saw a battery of Field Artillery +cross the old No Man’s Land by the road they had built, and then bump +its way over shell-holes to a new position. So even this little bit of +construction was only for further destruction. + + * * * * * + +They went on to night work again, and Winterbourne distinguished +himself by pulling out of the ground a dud shell which the other men +refused to touch, in case it went off. They crouched on the ground +while Winterbourne tugged and strained to get it out, and Evans stood +beside urging him to go easy. Suddenly Winterbourne went into a series +of gasping chuckles, and in answer to Evans’ questions managed to jerk +out that the alleged shell was a stump of wood with an iron ring round +it. The men returned sheepishly to their work. In reward for his heroic +conduct Winterbourne was allowed to join a gang who were pulling up +real duds embedded in the _pavé_ of the main road, which had become +available through the German retirement. They levered and tugged the +shells up very gingerly, since the oldest duds are liable to explode if +treated roughly. Winterbourne was glad when that little job was done. + +The nightly gas bombardments became worse than ever, and Winterbourne +sometimes spent twelve hours a day in his gas mask. They used their +respirators so frequently that a new set had to be issued. + +Since Evans was now temporarily in command and had only Thompson to +help him and about forty men available for work, they did only one +shift, which Evans and Thompson took on alternate nights. As Company +Runner, Winterbourne carried all messages between the Company and +Battalion H.Q. On the other hand, Evans always let him rest on the +nights when he himself was not on duty. Winterbourne was profoundly +thankful for these nights off. His winter cough, aided perhaps by +microbes communicated by lice, had evolved into a sort of tertian ague. +Every third night he had alternate fits of sweating and shivering. It +was much pleasanter to lie down even in a damp cellar than to go up the +line feeling utterly weak and feverish. + +He was sleeping soundly alone in the Runner’s cellar, oblivious to +the Zwiing, PHUT, of the gas shells outside when he was awakened by +Henderson, the other surviving Runner, who came stumbling down the +cellar stairs in the darkness. Winterbourne lit a candle for him. +Henderson had just taken off his gas mask, and stood with rumpled hair +and a pale scared look. + +“What’s up?” said Winterbourne, “what’s the matter?” + +“Thompson’s killed.” + +“Good Lord! The only other officer! How?” + +“Whizz-bang.” + +“How did it happen?” + +“The Boche put up an attack to-night. Thompson took us off work, and +told us to line a trench. He was standing on top, and told me to get +into the trench. A whizz-bang burst just beside him. He died in five +minutes.” + +“O God! Did he say anything?” + +“Yes, he was perfectly conscious and calm. He told me how to get the +men home. He sent best of luck to Evans and you and the S.M. And he +made me take a couple of letters from his pocket to send to his wife +and mother. He was horribly mangled—right arm and right leg smashed, +ribs broken and a great tear in the side of his face. He made me +promise to make Evans write home that he was shot through the heart and +died instantaneously and painlessly.” + +“Damn. He was a nice chap. One of the best officers we had.” + +The inner gas curtain was lifted, and Evans’ servant stumbled in, +taking off his mask. + +“Report at once, fighting order, Winterbourne.” + +Winterbourne hurriedly put on his boots and puttees, struggled into his +equipment, snapped on his mask, and jog-trotted over to the officer’s +cellar through the now familiar hail of gas-shells. He was amazed +and distressed and ashamed to find how much his flesh instinctively +shrank when a shell dropped close at hand, how great an effort he now +needed to refrain from ducking or cowering. He raged at himself, called +himself coward, poltroon, sissy, anything abusive he could think of. +But still his body instinctively shrank. He had passed into the final +period of War strain, when even an air-raid became a terror. + +Evans was laboriously writing. The large cellar looked very +cellar-like and empty, with one man in place of the six who had lived +there less than a fortnight before. + +“You know Mr. Thompson’s killed?” + +“Yes, Sir. Henderson told me.” + +“I can’t carry on as a Company by myself with less than forty available +men.” Evans spoke bitterly. “There’s a chit from Division complaining +that we are doing far less work than a month ago. They don’t seem to +know there’s been a battle, and that we’re worn out and reduced to a +third our strength.” + +He was silent, re-read his despatch, folded it, and handed it to +Winterbourne. + +“Take this down to Battalion H.Q. I’ve marked it Special Urgency. Make +them get the Colonel up if he’s asleep. If he questions you, tell him +our position. I haven’t seen him for three weeks. And refuse to leave +without an answer.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +“And Winterbourne.” + +“Sir?” + +“There’s another chit here somewhere urging us to get two volunteers +for Infantry commissions in each Company. Henderson’s going—he’s a +stout little tyke. The other volunteers are that filthy cook’s mate and +the sanitary man. Idiotic. I won’t recommend them. But I want you to +volunteer. Will you?” + +Winterbourne hesitated. He didn’t want the responsibility, it was +contrary to his notion that he ought to stay in the ranks and in the +line, take the worst and humblest jobs, share in the common fate of +common men. But then he had consented to be a Runner. And then, he was +sorely tempted. It meant several months in England, it meant seeing +Fanny and Elizabeth again, it meant a respite. He was amazed to find +that he didn’t want to leave Evans, and suddenly saw that what he had +done in the past months had been chiefly done from personal attachment +to a rather common and ignorant man of the kind he most despised, the +grown-up Public Schoolboy. + +“What are you hesitating about?” + +“Well, Sir,” said Winterbourne whimsically, “I was wondering how you’d +get on without me.” + +“*****!” said Evans. “Besides at this rate, I shan’t last much longer. +Now, shall I put your name down?” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +He afterwards regretted that “Yes.” + + * * * * * + +Evans’s sharp note brought an abrupt change in their lives. They +exchanged places with one of the other Pioneer companies in a quieter +section of the line. Evans marched his forty men down as one Platoon, +and they passed successively the four Platoons of the relieving +Company. The men exchanged ironical jibes as they passed. + +Their new quarters were a great improvement. They were joined by a +Captain, who took nominal command, and two subalterns. But no men. +There appeared to be no men available. They lived in shelters and +dug-outs in the Reserve Line. Winterbourne, Henderson and two other +Runners lived in a two-foot shelter just outside the officers’ dug-out. +Winterbourne was now officially Company Runner. He lived one fortnight +in the line, and one at Battalion H.Q. The sacking bed at H.Q., the +comparative absence of shelling, the better food, the rest, made +it seem like paradise. He did not know that his application for a +commission had been passed at once, and that he was being looked after. + +Two days after they got to their new quarters, in the line, Evans’s +servant poked his head excitedly into the Runners’ shelter. + +“Winterbourne!” + +“Yes.” + +“You’re to come at once. Mr. Evans is sick.” + +“Sick!” + +Winterbourne found Evans leaning against the side of the trench, a +ghastly green pallor on his face. + +“Whatever’s the matter, Sir?” + +“Gas. I’ve swallowed too much of the beastly stuff. I can’t stand it +any longer. I’m going to the Dressing Station.” + +“Shall I get a stretcher, Sir?” + +“No, damn it, I’ll walk down. I can still stand. Take my pack and come +along.” + +Every few yards Evans had to stop and lean against the trench wall. +He heaved, but did not vomit. Winterbourne offered his arm, but he +wouldn’t take it. They passed two corpses, rather horribly mutilated, +lying on stretchers at the end of the communication trench. Neither +said anything, but Evans was thinking, “Well, gas is better than that,” +and Winterbourne thought, “How long will it be before some one puts me +there?” + +He finally got Evans to the Dressing Station, supporting him with his +right arm. They shook hands outside. + +“You’ll get your commission, Winterbourne.” + +“Thanks. Are you all right, Sir? Shall I come down with you farther?” + +“No, go back and report that you left me here.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +They shook hands again. + +“Well, good-bye, old man, best of luck to you.” + +“Good-bye, Sir, good-bye.” + +He never saw Evans again. + + * * * * * + +When Evans had gone, Winterbourne’s interest in the Company suddenly +evaporated. He did not know the new officers, rather disliked the +Captain, and, of course, was not on the same footing with them as he +had been with Evans. Henderson left for England to be trained as an +officer. Winterbourne felt lonelier than ever. And he realized with +disgust and horror that his nerve was gone. His daily trips were really +very easy—about a mile and a half, a few gusts of machine-gun bullets, +and about thirty or forty crumps on the road each way. The Germans had +discovered some tanks hidden behind a slag-hill round which he had to +pass. They shelled it with heavies. Winterbourne now found that he had +to force himself to walk forward to them and through the area where +they were bursting. It was worse at night. One night he did what he had +never done before when carrying a message—waited ten minutes for the +shelling to quiet down. + +That ten minutes, curiously enough, saved his life. He heard several +shells fall in and around Company H.Q. just as he came along the +trench. One of them had fallen plump on their fragile shelter and blown +it to pieces, instantly killing the Runner, Jenkins, a boy of nineteen, +who was lying there. If Winterbourne had not lingered that ten minutes +on the road, he would inevitably have been killed, too. He felt very +guilty about it. Perhaps if he had come back, the boy would have been +sent back with a return message. But, no, if there had been a return +message, it would have been his job. + +He lost his blanket, groundsheet and pack. The Runners were transferred +to a similar shelter twenty yards farther on. Winterbourne hated to +pass the smashed shelter. He always thought of Jenkins, and his absurd +boyish grin. Jenkins had been errand-boy and then assistant to a grocer +in a small provincial town. A most undistinguished person. He had a +solemn respect for “John Bull” and its opinions. Otherwise he wasn’t +solemn at all, always cracking rather pointless jests, and grinning his +boyish grin, and hardly ever grousing. Winterbourne regretted him. + + * * * * * + +At Battalion Headquarters, Winterbourne tried to read, and found it +impossible. He discovered an old number of “The Spectator” with an +article on Porson, written by a man he had known. He had to read the +article before he remembered who Porson was, and found himself puzzling +over quite ordinary sentences like a ploughman. He threw the paper down +in despair, and got permission to go to an estaminet. They had no wine, +and spirits were forbidden. He sat there drinking the infamous and +harmless French beer, and droning out sentimental songs with the other +Tommies. He got into the habit of bribing the Q.M.S.’s clerk to give +him extra rum. Anything to forget. + + * * * * * + +At the end of one of his fortnightly periods at Battalion H.Q. +Winterbourne went as usual to the R.S.M.: + +“Winterbourne, D Company Runner, returning for service in the line, +Sir.” + +The R.S.M. turned over some papers, pursing up his lips: + +“Let me see, let me _seeee_. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Here we are, 31819, +Private Winterbourne, G. Yes. You’re returning to England on Friday +for the purpose of proceeding to an Officer Cadet Corps. Report to the +Orderly Room at four (pip emma) on Thursday for your papers, and draw +iron rations from the Q.M.S. Will report to R.T.O. at Rail Head before +eight (ack emma) on Friday, and will be struck off the strength. Got +that?” + +“Yes, Sir. Will you give me a chit to show them in the line, please.” + +“No. To-day’s Wednesday. You’d better stay here, and I’ll send up the +Runner who is taking your place.” + +“Very good, Sir.” + +The boy who was taking Winterbourne’s place was delighted to get the +job. He was a quick-witted youth who had been trained as an Elementary +School Teacher, and thanked Winterbourne as if the new job had been his +gift. He was killed by a bullet as he climbed out of the communication +trench with his first message. Winterbourne began to feel as if he had +made a pact with the Devil, so that other men were always being killed +in his stead. + +For the remaining two days he was virtually excused duty. He was +allowed to go to the baths each day, and got himself clean and free +from lice. He received absolutely new underclothes, not the worn, +soiled garments full of dead lice usually issued at the baths, was +given new puttees and trousers in place of his soiled torn ones, and +handed in his rent leather jerkin. He had a sacking bed, and slept +twelve hours a night. Already he was a different being from the dazed +and haggard man of the Hill 91 days. + +He wanted very much to go to England, and yet his chief feeling was +that of apathy. Now that his orders had come, he felt he would just as +soon have stopped where he was. Why prolong the agony? If he stayed, +he would either be hit sooner or later, or become a Battalion Runner, +a much better and less anxious job than that of an Infantry subaltern. +Still, it might be worth while, just to see Elizabeth and Fanny +again.... + +It was hot midsummer weather. He wandered out along the straight +French road, with its ceaseless up and down of mechanical transport and +military traffic. The Military Police and armed pickets suspiciously +turned him back. He found a little hedgeless field of poppies and +yellow daisies, and sat down there. The heavies were firing with +regular deliberation; overhead the white shrapnel bursts pursued an +enemy plane; from the far distance came a very faint “claaang!” as a +shell smashed into M——. It was so strange to have unmuddy boots, to +sit on grass in the sun and look at wild flowers, to see one or two +undamaged houses, not to be continually on the alert. He sat with his +elbows on his knees, and his doubled fists under his chin, staring +in front of him. His body was rested, but he felt such an apathetic +weariness of mind that he would have been glad to die painlessly there +and then, without ever going back to England, without ever seeing +Elizabeth and Fanny again. His mind no longer wandered off in long +coherent reveries, but was either vaguely empty or thronged with too +vivid memories. It seemed incredible that only seven months or so had +passed since he had left England—more like seven years. He felt, not +so much self-contempt, as self-indifference. He did not despise George +Winterbourne, he merely wasn’t interested in him. Once he had been +extremely interested in himself and the things he wanted to do; now, +he didn’t care, he didn’t want to do anything in particular. Directly +the military yoke was lightened and he was left to himself for a few +hours, he was aimless, apathetic, listless. If he had been told there +and then that he was discharged from the Army and could go, he wouldn’t +have known what to do except to stay there and stare at the poppies and +daisies. + +The night before he left, the Runners and officers’ servants got rum, +and beer and champagne, and made him drink with them. They exhorted +him not to forget his old pals, and not to be a swine to his men when +he was an officer. He promised, regretting all the time the subtle +difference which was already dividing him from them. “Fancy ’avin’ to +salute old George,” said one of them. Fancy indeed! He wished so much +he had stayed with them. He drank a good deal, and for the first time +in his life went to bed tight. + + * * * * * + +He got to Rail Head just before eight, hot and perspiring from a rapid +walk in full kit under a July sun. An immense drum-fire was thundering +from the north. The Division was under orders to proceed there in two +days. There was to be another great offensive at Ypres. He shuddered, +thinking of the showers of bursting metal, flogging and churning the +ground, shearing and rending human flesh, the immense concourse of +detonations hammering on human nerves. + +The R.T.O. gave him directions and he got into a waiting train. It was +empty, except for a small group of leave men at the other end. He did +not join them, glad of a little solitude. + +The German heavies gave him a last amiable farewell. They began +dropping shells on Rail Head. That sickening apprehension of the +explosion came on him, and he felt sure that a shell would fall on his +carriage before the train left. He fought the apprehension savagely, +as if the only thing he wanted to do in life was to repress his fear +reflex. The shells came over one at a time of regular intervals of a +minute. He listened for them, sweating, and gripping his rifle. Either +let the train start or get it over. The train waited interminably. +ZwiiING, CRASH! to the right. ZwiiING, CRASH! to the left; ZwiiING, +CRASH! to the right; ZwiiING, CRASH! to the left. He sat there alone +for thirty-five minutes—thirty-five ZwiiING, CRASH! It was somehow +more awful than drum-fire, a more penetrating torture. + +At last the train started and puffed slowly out of the station. +Winterbourne sat quite still, listening to the Crashes growing fainter +and fainter as the train gathered speed. At last they disappeared +altogether in the rattle of wheels. In place of the long slow crawl +coming up, the train clattered along at great speed. He passed +undamaged stations, thronged with French peasants, French soldiers on +leave and British troops; he saw the lovely Corot poplars and willows +shimmering in the sun as they wavered in the light breeze; there were +cows in the fields, and he noticed yellow iris in the wet ditches and +tall white hog’s parsley. A field of red clover and white daisies made +him think of the old days at Martin’s Point. An immense effort of +imagination was needed to link himself now with himself then. He looked +almost with curiosity at his familiar khaki and rifle—so strange that +ten years later that boy should be a soldier. Then he noticed that he +had forgotten to sheath his bayonet. It had been fixed so long that he +had to wrench it off. There was a little ring of rust round the bayonet +boss. He got out his oily rag and anxiously cleaned it. The bayonet +sheath was so full of dried mud that he had to clean that too. + +At Boulogne he sent a telegram to Elizabeth. The R.T.O. told him +to leave all his kit on the quay, and to take only his personal +belongings. He slipped off his equipment and laid his rifle beside +his dinted helmet, feeling as if he were carrying out some strange +valedictory rite. He went on board ship, holding his razor, soap, +tooth-brush, comb, and some letters, wrapped in a clean khaki +handkerchief. He managed to scrounge a haversack and strap on board. + +The troop train from Folkestone to London was filled with leave +men and others returned from France. As the train puffed up to the +Junction, the men crowded to the windows. Girls and women walking in +the parallel street, standing in the doorways, leaning out the window, +waved pocket handkerchiefs, cheered shrilly and threw them kisses. The +excited men waved and shouted to them. Winterbourne was amazed at the +beauty, the almost angelic beauty of women. He had not seen a woman for +seven months. + +It was dark when they got to Victoria, but the Station was brilliantly +lighted. A long barrier separated a crowd from the soldiers, who +thronged out at one end. Here and there a woman threw her arms about +the neck of a soldier in a close embrace which at least at that moment +was sincere. The women’s shoulders trembled with their sobs; the men +stood very still, holding them close a moment, and then drew them away. +At once the women made an effort, and seemed gay and unconcerned. + +Many of the men were proceeding elsewhere, and were not met. + +Winterbourne saw Elizabeth standing, in a wide-brimmed hat, at the end +of the barrier. Again he was amazed at the beauty of women. Could it +be that he knew, that he had dared to touch, so beautiful a creature? +She looked so slender, so young, so exquisite. And so elegant. He was +intimidated, and hung back in the crowd of passing soldiers, watching +her. She was scanning the faces as they passed; twice she looked at +him, and looked away. He made his way through the throng towards her. +She looked at him again carefully, and once more began scanning the +passing faces. He walked straight up to her and held out his hands: + +“Elizabeth!” + +She started violently, stared at him, and then kissed him with the +barrier between them: + +“Why, George! How you’ve altered! I didn’t recognize you!” + + + + + [ XII ] + + +Winterbourne had a fortnight’s leave before reporting to his Regimental +Depot. He came in for two or three air raids, and lay awake listening +to the familiar bark of Archies. The bombs crashed heavily. It was +very mild—all over in half an hour. Still, the raids affected him +unpleasantly; he had not expected them. + +He spent his first morning wandering about London by himself. He +was still amazed at the beauty of women, and was afraid they would +be offended by his staring at them. Prostitutes twice spoke to him, +offering him “Oriental attractions.” He saluted them, and passed on. +The second girl muttered insults, which he scarcely heard. There seemed +to be a great many more prostitutes in London. + +The street paving was badly worn, but looked marvelously smooth and +kempt to Winterbourne, accustomed to roads worn into deep ruts and reft +with shell-holes. He was charmed to see so many houses—all unbroken. +And busses going up and down. And people carrying umbrellas—of course, +people had umbrellas. There was Khaki everywhere. Every third man +was a soldier. He passed some American marines, the advance guard of +the great armies being prepared across the Atlantic. They had wide +shoulders and narrow hips, strong-looking men; each of them had picked +up a girl. They walked in London with the same proprietory swagger that +the English used in France. + +A military policeman stopped and roughly asked him what he was doing. +Winterbourne produced his pass. + +“Sorry, thought you was a deserter, old man. Don’t go out without yer +pass.” + +The second night after his arrival Elizabeth took him to a Soho +restaurant to dine with some of her friends. Fanny was not there, but +the party included Mr. Upjohn, Mr. Waldo Tubbe and Reggie Burnside. +There were several people Winterbourne had never met, including a man +who had made a great hit by translating Armenian poetry from the French +versions of Archag Tchobanian. He was extremely intellectual and weary +in manner, and took Winterbourne’s hand in a very limp way, turning his +head aside with an air of elegant contempt as he did so. + +Winterbourne sat very silent through the meal, nervously rolling bread +pills. He was amazed to find how remote he felt, how completely he +had nothing to say. They talked about various topics he didn’t quite +follow, and titteringly gossiped about people he didn’t know. Elizabeth +got on wonderfully, chattered with every one, laughed and was a great +success. He felt very uncomfortable, like a death’s head at a feast. +He caught a glimpse of himself in one of the restaurant mirrors, and +thought he looked ludicrously solemn and distressed. + +Over coffee they shifted seats, and one or two people came and talked +to him. Mr. Upjohn dropped clumsily into the next chair, thrust out his +chin, and coughed. + +“Are you back in London for good now?” + +“No. I’ve a fortnight’s leave, and then go to an Officer’s Training +Corps.” + +“And then will you be in London?” + +“No, I shall have to go back to France again.” + +Mr. Upjohn irritably clucked his tongue—tch, tch! + +“I mildly supposed you’d finished soldiering. You look most grotesque +in those clothes.” + +“Yes, but they’re practical, you know.” + +“What I mean to say is that the most important thing is that the +processes of civilization shouldn’t be interrupted by all this war +business.” + +“I quite agree. I—...” + +“What I mean to say is, if you get time come round to my studio and +have a look at my new pictures. Are you still writing for periodicals?” + +Winterbourne smiled. + +“No. I’ve been rather busy, you know, and in the trenches one—” + +“What I mean to say is, I’d like you to do an article on my Latest +Development.” + +“Suprematism?” + +“Good Lord, NO! I finished with _that_ long ago. How extraordinarily +ignorant you are, Winterbourne! No, no. I’m working at Concavism +now. It’s by far the greatest contribution that’s been made to +twentieth-century civilization. What I means is....” + +Winterbourne ceased to listen and drank off a full glass of wine. Why +hadn’t Evans written to him? Died of the effects of gas probably. He +beckoned to the waiter. + +“Bring me another bottle of wine.” + +“Yessir.” + +“George!” came Elizabeth’s voice, warning and slightly reproving. +“Don’t drink too much!” + +He made no answer, but sat looking heavily at his coffee cup. Blast +her. Blast Upjohn. Blast the lot of them. He drank off another glass +of wine, and felt the singing dazzle of intoxication, its comforting +oblivion, stealing into him. Blast them. + +Mr. Upjohn grew tired of improving the mind of a cretin who hadn’t even +the wits to listen to him, and slid away. Presently Mr. Waldo Tubbe +took his place. + +“Well, my dear Winterbourne, I am very happy to see you again looking +so well. The military life has set you up splendidly. And Mrs. +Winterbourne tells me that at last you have received a commission. I +congratulate you—better late than never.” + +“Thanks. But I may not get it, you know. I’ve got to pass the training +school.” + +“Oh, that’ll do you a world of good, a world of good.” + +“I hope so.” + +“And how did you spend your leisure in France—still reading and +painting?” + +Winterbourne gave a little hard laugh. + +“No, mostly lying about sleeping.” + +“I’m sorry to hear that. But, you know, if you will forgive my saying +so, I always doubted whether your vocation were really towards the +arts. I felt you were more fitted for an open-air life. Of course, +you’re doing splendid work now, splendid. The Empire needs every man. +When you come back after the victory, as I trust you will return safe +and sound, why don’t you take up life in one of our colonies, Australia +or Canada? There’s a great opening for men there.” + +Winterbourne laughed again. + +“Wait till I get back, and then we’ll see. Have a glass of wine?” + +“No-oeh, thank you, no-oeh. By the way, what is that red ribbon on your +arm? Vaccination?” + +“No, Company Runner.” + +“A Company Runner? What is that? Not runner away, I hope?” + +And Mr. Tubbe laughed silently, nodding his head up and down in +appreciation of his jest. Winterbourne did not smile. + +“Well, it might be under some circumstances, if you knew which way to +run.” + +“Oh, but our men are so splendid, so splendid, so unlike the Germans, +you know. Haven’t you found the Germans mean-spirited? They have to be +chained to their machine-guns, you know.” + +“I hadn’t observed it. In fact, they’re fighting with wonderful courage +and persistence. It’s not much of a compliment to our men to suggest +otherwise, is it? We haven’t managed to shift ’em far yet.” + +“Ah, but you must not allow your own labours to distort your +perspective. The Navy is the important arm in the War, that and the +marvelous home organization, of which you, of course, can know nothing.” + +“Of course, but still....” + +Mr. Tubbe rose to move away: + +“Delighted to have seen you, my dear Winterbourne. And thank you for +all your interesting news from the Front. _Most_ stimulating. _Most_ +stimulating.” + +Winterbourne signed to his wife to go, but she ignored the signal, +and went on talking earnestly and attentively with Reggie Burnside. +He drank another glass of wine, and stretched his legs. His heavy +hobnailed boots came in contact with the shins of the man opposite. + +“Sorry. Hope I didn’t hurt you. Sorry to be so clumsy.” + +“Oh, not at all, nothing, nothing,” said the man, rubbing his bruised +shin with a look of furious anguish. Elizabeth frowned at Winterbourne, +and leaned across to get the bottle. He grabbed it first, poured +himself another glass, and then gave it to her. She looked angry at his +rudeness. He felt pleasantly drunk, and cared not a damn for any one. + +Coming home in the taxi she reproved him with gentle dignity for +drinking too much. + +“Remember, dear, you’re not with a lot of rough soldiers now. And, +please forgive me for mentioning it, but your hands and fingers are +terribly dirty—did you forget to wash them? And you were rather rude +to everybody.” + +He was silent, staring listlessly out the taxi-cab window. She sighed, +and slightly shrugged her shoulders. They did not sleep together that +night. + + * * * * * + +Next morning at breakfast they were both pre-occupied and silent. +Suddenly George emerged from his reverie: + +“I say, what’s happened to Fanny? She’s not out of town, is she?” + +“No, I don’t think so.” + +“Why wasn’t she at dinner with us last night?” + +“I didn’t ask her.” + +“You didn’t ask her! Why ever not?” + +Elizabeth looked annoyed at the question, but tried to pass it off +lightly. + +“I don’t see much of her now—Fanny’s so popular, you know.” + +“But why don’t you see her?” Winterbourne pursued clumsily. “Is +anything wrong?” + +“I don’t see her because I don’t choose to,” replied Elizabeth tartly +and decisively. + +He made no reply. So, owing to him there was fixed enmity between Fanny +and Elizabeth! His mood of depression deepened, and he went to his +room. He picked a book from the shelves at random and opened it—De +Quincey’s “Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” He had entirely +forgotten the existence of that piece of macabre irony, and gazed +stupidly at the large-type title. Murder Considered as One of the Fine +Arts. How damned appropriate. He put it down and began to look over +his painting materials. Elizabeth had taken his sketching blocks and +paper and all his unused canvases except one. The tubes of paint had +gone hard and dry, and his palette was covered with shrunken hard blobs +of paint just as he had left it fifteen months before. He carefully +cleaned it, as if he might be sent before his Company officer under the +charge of having a dirty palette. + +He turned up some of his old sketches and looked through them. Could +it be that he had composed them? They were undoubtedly signed “G. +Winterbourne.” He looked at them critically, and then slowly tore them +up, threw them in the empty fire-grate, struck a match and set fire +to them. He watched the paper curl up under the creeping flame, glow +dull red, and shrink to black fragile ash. Numbers of his canvases were +stacked in little neat piles against the wall. He ran through them +rapidly, letting them fall back into place as if they had been cards. +He paused when he came upon a forgotten portrait of himself. Had he +painted that? Yes, it was signed with his name. Now, when and where had +he done it? He held the small canvas in his hands, gazing intently at +it with a prodigious effort of memory, but simply could not remember +anything about it. The picture was undated, and he could not even +remember in which year he had done it. He deliberately put his foot +through it, tore away the strips of canvas from the frame and burned +them. It was the only portrait of him in existence, since he had always +refused to be photographed. + +In the line they had been forbidden to keep diaries or to make +sketches, since either might be of use to the enemy if they got +possession of them. He shut his eyes. In a flash he saw vividly the +ruined village, the road leading to M——, the broken desecrated +ground, the long slag-hill, and heard the “claaang” of the heavies +dropping reverberantly into M——. He went to Elizabeth’s room to get +a sheet of paper and a soft pencil to make a sketch of the scene. She +had gone out. As he rummaged at her table, he turned over and could +not help seeing the first lines of a letter in a handwriting unknown +to him. The date was that of the day on which he had returned to +England, and the words he could not help seeing were: “Darling, What a +bore, as you say! Never mind, the visitation can’t last long and....” +Winterbourne hastily covered the letter up to avoid reading any more. + +He went back to his room with paper and pencil, and began to sketch. +He was astonished to find that his hand, once as steady as the table +itself, shook very slightly but perceptibly. The drink last night, or +shell-shock? He persisted with his sketch, but the whole thing went +wrong. He got tired of blocking lines in, and irritatedly rubbing them +out. And yet that scene existed so vividly in his memory and he could +see exactly how it could be formalized into an effective pattern. +But his hand and brain failed him—he had even forgotten how to draw +rapidly and accurately. + +He dropped the pencil and rubber on the half-erased sketch and +went back to Elizabeth’s room. She was still out. The room was very +quiet and sunny. The old orange-striped curtains had gone and were +replaced by long ample curtains of thick green serge, to comply with +the regulations about lights. There were summer flowers in the large +blue bowl, and fruit on the beautiful Spanish plate. He remembered how +the wasp had come through the window like a tiny Fokker plane, almost +exactly three years ago. To his surprise he felt a lump in his throat +and tears coming to his eyes. + +A church clock outside chimed three quarters. He looked at his wrist +watch—a quarter to one. Better go somewhere and have lunch. He dropped +into the first Lyons Restaurant he came to. The waitress asked if he +would like cold corned beef—thanks, he’d had enough bully beef for the +time being. After lunch, he rang up Fanny’s flat, but got no reply. He +walked in her direction, strolling, to give her time to return home. +She was not in. He scribbled a note, asking her to meet him as soon as +she could, and then took a bus back to Chelsea, lay down on his bed and +fell asleep. Elizabeth came into the room about six and tip-toed out. +At seven she woke him. He started up, fully awake at once, mechanically +grabbing for his rifle. + +“What’s up?” + +Elizabeth was startled by this sudden leap awake, and he had +unconsciously jostled her roughly as she bent over him. + +“I’m so sorry. How you started! I didn’t mean to _frighten_ you.” + +“Oh, it’s all right. I wasn’t frightened—used to jumping up in a +hurry, you know. What time is it?” + +“Seven.” + +“Good Lord, I wonder what made me sleep that long!” + +“I came to know if you’d dine with me and Reggie to-night.” + +“Is he coming here afterwards?” + +“Of course not.” + +“I think I’ll have dinner with Fanny.” + +“All right, just as you please.” + +“Can I have the other key to the flat?” + +Elizabeth lied: + +“I’m afraid it’s lost. But I’ll leave the door unlocked as I did +to-day.” + +“All right. Thanks.” + +“Au revoir.” + +“Au revoir.” + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne washed, and worked desperately hard with a nail brush to +get out the dirt deeply and apparently ineradicably engrained in his +roughened hands. He got a little more off, but his fingers were still +striated with lines of dirt which made them look coarse and horrible. +He rang Fanny up from a call-box. + +“Hullo. That you, Fanny? George speaking.” + +“_Darling!_ How are you? When did you get back?” + +“Two or three days ago. Didn’t you get my letter?” + +Fanny lied: + +“I’ve been away, and only found it when I got back just now.” + +“It doesn’t matter. Listen, will you dine with me to-night?” + +“Darling, I’m _so_ sorry, but I simply can’t. I’ve an appointment I +simply must keep. _Such_ a bore!” + +Such a bore, as you say! Never mind, the visitation can’t last long, +and.... + +“It doesn’t matter, darling. When can we meet?” + +“Just a moment, let me look at my memorandum book.” + +A brief silence. He could hear a faint voice from another line crossing +his: “My God, you say he’s killed! And he only went back last week!” + +Fanny’s voice again. + +“Hullo? Are you there, George.” + +“Yes.” + +“To-day’s Wednesday. I’m awfully busy for some reason this week. Can +you see me on Saturday for dinner?” + +“Must it be as late as Saturday? I’ve only a fortnight, you know.” + +“Well, you can make it lunch on Friday, if you prefer. I’m lunching +with somebody, but you can come along. It’d be nicer to dine alone +together, though, wouldn’t it?” + +“Yes, of course. Saturday then. What time?” + +“Seven-thirty, the usual place.” + +“All right.” + +“Good-bye, darling.” + +“Good-bye, Fanny dear.” + + * * * * * + +He dined alone and then went to a Circassian Café, which he had been +told was the new haunt of the intelligentsia. It was very crowded, but +he knew nobody there. He found a seat, and sat by himself. Opposite +him at a couple of tables was a brilliant bevy of elegant young +homosexuals, two of them in Staff Officers’ uniforms. They paid no +attention to him, after a first supercilious stare, followed by a +sneer. He felt uneasy, and wondered if he ought to be there in his +Tommy’s uniform. Perhaps the Café was out of bounds. He paid for his +coffee and left. After wandering about the streets for a time, he +dropped into a pub in the Charing Cross road, and stood beside a couple +of Tommies drinking beer. They were home-service N.C.O.’s, instructors +he gathered from their conversation, which was all about some petty way +in which they had scored off an officer who did not know his drill. +Winterbourne thought he would stand them a drink and get into talk with +them, but his eye fell on a notice which forbade “Treating.” He paid +and left. + +He dropped into a music-hall. There were numbers of war songs, very +patriotic, and patriotic war scenes with the women dressed in the +flags of the Allied nations. All references to the superiority of the +Allies and the inferiority of the Germans were heartily applauded. A +particularly witty scene showed a Tommy capturing several Germans by +attracting them with a sausage tied to the end of his bayonet. A chorus +of girls in red pre-war military tunics sang a song about how all +the girls love Tommy, kicking up their trousered legs in unison, and +saluting very much out of unison. There was a Grand Finale of Victory +to the tune of: + + “When we’ve wound up the watch on the Rhine, + Everything will be Potsdamn fine.” + +At the end of the performance the orchestra played “God Save the King.” +Winterbourne stood rigidly to attention with the other soldiers in the +audience. + + * * * * * + +Eleven o’clock. He thought he would go and sleep at his Club. The +place was dimly lighted and empty, except for three or four elderly +men, who were earnestly discussing what ought to have been done in the +hand of Bridge they had just played. There were notices everywhere +urging Members to be economical with light. The servants were women +except the Head Waiter, a pale little spectacled man of forty-five, who +informed Winterbourne that no Club bedrooms were available. They had +all been commandeered for War purposes. Winterbourne found it odd to be +addressed as “Sir” again. + +“I’ve got me papers too, Sir,” said the Waiter, “expect to be called up +any day, Sir.” + +“What category are you?” + +“B1, Sir.” + +“Oh, you’ll be all right. Keep telling ’em you’re a skilled Club +Steward and you’ll get an Officers’ Mess job.” + +“Do you really think so, Sir? My wife worries about me something +dreadful, Sir. She says she’s sure I’ll catch my death of cold in the +trenches. I’ve a very weak chest, Sir, if you’ll pardon me mentionin’ +it, Sir.” + +“I’m sure they won’t send you out.” + +The little Waiter died of double pneumonia in a Base Hospital early in +1918. The Club Committee made a grant of ten pounds to his widow, and +agreed that his name should appear on the Club War Memorial. + +Winterbourne felt sleepless. He was so much accustomed to being alert +and awake at night and sleeping by day, that he found a difficulty +in breaking the habit. He spent the night aimlessly wandering about +the streets and sitting on Embankment benches. He noticed that there +were very few occupants of the benches—the War found work for every +one. Odd, he reflected, that in War-time the country could spend five +million pounds sterling a day in trying to kill Germans, and that in +peace-time it couldn’t afford five million a year to attack its own +destitution. Policemen spoke to him twice, quite decently, under the +impression that he was a leave-man without a bed. He tried to explain. +One of them was very fatherly: + +“You take my advice, my boy, and go to the Y.M.C.A. They’ll give yer a +bed cheap. I’ve got a boy your age in the trenches meself. Now, say you +was my boy. I wouldn’t ’ave ’im goin’ with none of these London street +women. ’E’s a good boy, ’e is. An’ they’ve treated ’im cruel, they +’ave. ’E’s been in France nearly two year, and never ’ad any leave.” + +“No leave in nearly two years! How extraordinary!” + +“No, not even after ’e was in Orspital.” + +“What was he in Hospital with?” + +“’E wrote us it was pneumonia, but we believe ’e was wounded and didn’t +want to fret us, because he wrote afterwards it was pleurisy.” + +“Do you happen to know the number of his Base Hospital?” + +“Yes, Number XP.” + +Winterbourne smiled sadly and cynically; he knew that was a Venereal +Disease Hospital. Pay was stopped while a man was under treatment, and +he lost his right to Leave for a year. Winterbourne determined not to +undeceive the policeman. + +“How long is it since he came out of hospital?” + +“Ten months or more.” + +“Oh, well, he’ll certainly get leave before Christmas.” + +“D’you think so? Reely? ’E’s such a good boy, good-lookin’ and well +set-up. P’raps you’ll see ’im when you go back. Tom Jones. Gunner Tom +Jones.” + +Winterbourne smiled again at the thought of looking for Tom Jones in +the swarming and scattered thousands of the Artillery. But he said: + +“If I meet him, I’ll tell him how much you’re looking forward to seeing +him.” + +He pressed half-a-crown in the policeman’s hand, to drink the health of +Tom and himself. The policeman touched his helmet and called him “Sir.” + + * * * * * + +He had breakfast at a Lockhart’s—kippers and tea—and washed in an +underground lavatory. He got back to the flat about ten. Unthinkingly +he went into Elizabeth’s room. She and Reggie were having breakfast in +dressing gowns. Winterbourne apologized almost abjectly, and went to +his own room. He threw off the boots from his aching feet and lay down +clothed. In ten minutes he was fast asleep. + + * * * * * + +The meeting with Fanny was somehow a failure. She was extremely gay +and pretty and well-dressed and charming, and talked cheerily at first, +and then valiantly against his awkward silences. Winterbourne did not +know why he felt so awkward and silent. He seemed to have nothing +to say to Fanny, and his mind appeared to have become sluggish—he +missed half her witty sayings and clever allusions. It was like being +up for oral examination, and continually making silly mistakes. Yet +he was very fond of Fanny, very fond of her, just as he was very fond +of Elizabeth. And yet he seemed to have so little to say to them, and +found it so hard to follow their careless intellectual chatter. He had +tried to tell Elizabeth some of his War experiences. Just as he was +describing the gas bombardments and the awful look on the faces of men +gassed, he noticed her delicate mouth was wried by a suppressed yawn. +He stopped abruptly, and tried to talk of something else. Fanny was +sympathetic, but he could see he was boring her, too. Of course, he was +boring her. She and other people got more than enough of the war from +the newspapers and everything about them; they wanted to forget it, of +course, they wanted to forget it. And there was he, dumb and dreary and +khakied, only awaking to any appearance of animation when he talked of +the line after drinking a good deal. + +He took Fanny home in a taxi, and held her hand, gazing silently in +front of him. At the door of her flat, he kissed her: + +“Good-night, Fanny dearest. Thank you so much for having dinner with +me.” + +“Aren’t you coming in?” + +“Not to-night, dear. I’m dreadfully sleepy—bit tired, you know.” + +“Oh, all right. Good-night.” + +“Good-night, darl—” + +The last syllable was cut off by the sharp closing of the flat door. + +Winterbourne walked back to Chelsea. The street lamps were very +dim. For the first time in his life he saw the stars plainly above +Piccadilly. In the King’s Road he heard the warning bugles for an air +raid. He got into bed, extinguished the light, and lay there listening, +wide awake. To his shame he found the shell-fear came back as the +Archies opened up, and he started each time he heard the thud of a +bomb. They came closer and one crashed in the next street. He found he +was sweating. + +Elizabeth did not get back until three. Reggie and she had taken +shelter in the Piccadilly Hotel. Winterbourne was still awake when she +came in, but did not call to her. + + * * * * * + +His leave came to an end, and he spent five weeks of vague routine at +his Depot. He hated coming back to barrack-room life, and did not like +the men he was with. They were all Expeditionary men, but strangely +different from what they were in the line. Most of the comradeship had +gone; they were selfish, rather malicious to each other, and servilely +flattered the N.C.O.’s who could get them passes. They seemed to think +about nothing except getting passes out, so that they could meet girls +or go to pubs. They grumbled ceaselessly. Some of them occasionally +told hair-raising War stories, which Winterbourne thought quite +probable, though he refused to accept their evidence as conclusive. He +always remembered one story, or rather episode, related by a Sergeant +in the Light Infantry: + +“We ’ad a bloody awful time on the Somme. I shan’t forget some of the +things I saw there.” + +“What things?” asked Winterbourne. + +“Well, one of our orfficers laid out there wounded, and we see a German +run up with one of those stick bombs, pull the string and stick it +under the orfficer’s head. ’E was wounded in both arms, and couldn’t +move. So ’e ’ad five seconds waitin’ for his ’ead to be blowed off by +that bomb sizzlin’ under ’is ear. We ’adn’t time to get to ’im. Some +one shot the German and then some o’ our chaps picked up a wounded +German orfficer and threw ’im alive into a burning ammunition dump. ’E +screamed something ’orrible.” + + * * * * * + +From the depot he was sent to the Officers’ Training Camp with two +days’ leave. He managed to get Fanny and Elizabeth to meet, and +had lunch with them on the day he left. They both saw him off from +Waterloo, and then parted outside the station. + +The months of dreary Training in the cold dreary camp dragged by. He +had two days’ Leave in the middle of the course, then “passed out” as +an officer, and was sent on Leave again, with orders to wait until he +received official notice of his appointment. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth and Fanny both admired the cut and material of his cadet’s +uniform, which was exactly like an officer’s except that it bore no +badges of rank and that he did not wear the shoulder-strap of his +Sam Browne belt. He looked ever so much smarter in his new officer’s +clothes, with the little blue chevron, marking service over seas, sewed +on his left sleeve. They both quite took to him again, and during +his month’s Leave gave him a good time. Fanny thought him still an +excellent lover. Only, instead of gay and amusing talk “in between,” he +sat heavily silent, or drank and talked about that boring awful War. It +was such a pity—he used to be such a charming companion. + +This Leave came to an end too. He was gazetted, and went to his new +regimental Depot, situated in wooden huts on a desolate heath in the +North of England, a place swept by rain and wind and deadeningly chill +in the wet winter days. The other officers were sharply divided into +two sections or sects. Wounded survivors from the early days of the +War, now on Permanent Home Service; and the newly gazetted officers, +with a sprinkling of wounded on Temporary Home Service. They ate in one +large mess room, but had two common rooms, which seemed to be tacitly +reserved for each of the two groups, who scarcely ever mingled. Only +the cadets from Sandhurst were admitted into the more exclusive room. + +There was very little to do—parading with the Company, inspection, +a little drill, Orderly Officer occasionally. There were so many new +officers waiting to go overseas that the quarters were uncomfortably +crowded, and there seemed to be almost as many officers as men on +parade. He got the impression that Infantry subalterns were cheap as +stinking fish. + +At last he got his orders to proceed overseas—France again, though +he had hoped for Egypt or Salonika. He had two more days of Leave and +a quarrel with Elizabeth, who found him writing a loving note to Fanny +on the morning he arrived. He went off in dudgeon and spent the time +with Fanny. He saw Elizabeth again on the afternoon of the day before +he left and patched matters up with her. She was now furiously jealous +of his spending nights with Fanny, but “forgave” him. She said that +the War had affected his mind so much that he did not know what he was +doing, and anyway as he was going out again at once, they might as well +be friends. They kissed, and he went off to keep a dinner engagement +with Fanny. + +His train left at seven the next morning. He got up at five-thirty, +and kissed Fanny, who woke up and sleepily offered to get him coffee. +But he made her lie still, dressed hastily, made himself some coffee, +found he could not eat anything, and went back to the bedroom. Fanny +had fallen asleep again. He kissed her very tenderly and gently, not +to wake her; and softly let himself out of the flat. He had difficulty +in finding a taxi, and was horribly worried lest he should miss his +train and be suspected of over-staying Leave. He got to the platform +one minute before the train started. There was no porter to carry his +large valise, but he managed to get into a carriage just as the train +started. It was a Pullman, so crowded with officers that he hadn’t room +to sit down, and had to stand all the way to Dover. Most of them had +newspapers. The news of the crushing defeat of the Fifth Army was just +coming through. They were being sent out to replace losses. He thought +of something which had happened the night before.... + + * * * * * + +Fanny had insisted on his coming with her for a couple of hours to a +party of the intelligentsia given by some one with chambers near the +Temple. As they passed Charing Cross station, Winterbourne bumped into +a man from his own Company who had just arrived by the Leave train. + +“Go on with the others, Fanny dear. I’ll catch you up. Anyway, I’ve got +the address.” + +He turned to Corporal Hobbs, and said: + +“Are you still with the old lot?” + +“No, I left ’em in November. Got trench feet at Ypres. I was supposed +to be court-martialled, but that was washed out. I’ve got a job at the +Base now.” + +“You’re lucky.” + +“You’ve heard the news, I s’pose?” + +“No, what?” + +“Well, we heard there’s a big surprise attack on the Somme. We’re +retiring, and our old Division is s’posed to have copped it badly, +smashed to pieces, the R.T.O. said.” + +“Good God!” + +“I think it must be true. All Leaves stopped. I just managed to get +away before the order came. There were only about ten men on the boat. +Lucky for me I went down early.” + +“Well, so long, old man.” + +“I see you’re an officer now.” + +“Yes, I’m just going out again.” + +“Best of luck to you.” + +“Best of luck.” + +He found the man’s chambers. There were about ten people present. +Winterbourne knew some of them. They had also heard the news of the +battle through a man in Whitehall and were discussing it. + +“It’s a bad defeat,” he said. “I’m told that the highest authorities +think it adds another year to the war and will cost at least three +hundred thousand men.” + +He said it carelessly, as if it were a matter of casual importance. +Winterbourne heard them constantly using the phrase “three hundred +thousand men,” as if they were cows or pence or radishes. He walked +up and down the large room apart from the others, thinking, no longer +listening to their chatter. The phrase “Division smashed to pieces” +rang in his brain. He wanted to seize the people in the room, the +people in authority, every one not directly in the war, and shout to +them: “Division smashed to pieces! Do you know what that means? You +must stop it, you’ve got to stop it! Division smashed to pieces!...” + + + + + [ XIII ] + + +Winterbourne listened intently. Yes, it was! He turned to his Runner: + +“Did you hear that, Baker?” + +“Hear what, Sir?” + +“Listen.” + +A plane droned gently and distantly in the still air, and then very +faintly but distinctly: + +_Claaang!_ + +“There! Did you hear it?” + +“No, Sir.” + +“It was one of the heavies falling into M——. You’ll hear them soon +enough. But come on, we must hurry. We’ve a long way to go if we’re to +get back before dark.” + + * * * * * + +A year, almost to the day, after he had gone into M—— for the first +time, Winterbourne was returning to it as an officer in command of a +Company. + +From London he had proceeded direct to Etaples, where he remained for +several days under canvas on the sandy slopes among the pines. Large +numbers of officers were being sent out, and they had to sleep four +to a tent. Winterbourne thought this a luxurious allotment of space, +but the other three subalterns, who had never been to France before, +complained that there was not enough room for their camp-beds and that +they had to sleep in their flea-bags. Winterbourne had not troubled to +bring a camp-bed, knowing how few opportunities there would be to use +it. + +There was very little to do in Etaples, even with the more extended +opportunities of an officer. They messed in a large draughty marquee, +but there was a camp cinema where he spent part of each evening. There +were numbers of Waacs at the Base, and he noticed many of them were +pregnant. Apparently there was no attempt at concealment; but then the +birth-rate was declining rapidly in England, and babies were urgently +needed for the Next War. He observed that the cemetery had doubled in +size since he had last seen it from the train a few months before. +That Ypres offensive must have been very costly. Such acres of wooden +crosses, the old ones already battered and weather-stained, the new +ones steadily gaining on the dunes. And now there was this smashing +defeat on the Somme. Haig had issued his back to the wall Order, +there was unity of Allied Command under Foch, and America had been +frantically petitioned to send reinforcements immediately. And still +the front daily yielded under the pressure of repeated German attacks. +It looked like being a longer War than ever. + +At Etaples he was allotted to the 2/9 Battalion of the Foddershires, +and left to join them with about fifteen other subalterns, most of +whom had never been in the line. He found the Battalion on rest in a +small village about twenty miles behind M——. They belonged to one +of the Divisions which had been smashed to pieces, and the battalion +had suffered severely, losing most of its officers (including the +Colonel) and the greater part of its effectives. The new Colonel was +an ex-Regular Corporal who had obtained a commission early in the +War, and by dexterity and martinet methods had risen to the rank of +acting Lieutenant-Colonel. He was not a fighting soldier, but an +expert trainer. He had the bullying manner of the barrack-square drill +instructor, and his method of “training” was to harass every officer +and man under his command from morning to night. After a week’s “rest” +under this commander, Winterbourne felt nearly as tired as if he had +been in the line. The subalterns who had never been under fire were +exhausted and dismayed. + +However, it must in justice be admitted that Colonel Straker was faced +with appalling difficulties, and Winterbourne would have sympathized +with the man if he had not so obviously been trying to push his +own professional career in the Army at the expense of every one he +commanded. The old battalion was a wreck. It had four of its officers +left, one of whom was the Adjutant; a few of its old N.C.O.’s and a +sprinkling of men were there; mostly signallers and headquarters men. +Not a single one of the Lewis Gunners remained. Two Companies had been +captured, and the remainder had fought a way out with terrific losses. +The gaps had been filled chiefly by raw half-trained boys of eighteen +and a half, many of whom were scared stiff by the mere thought of +going into the trenches. To secure an adequate number of N.C.O.’s, the +Colonel had to promote nearly every man who had any experience of the +War, even transport drivers who could scarcely write their names. + +Winterbourne had expected to go into the line at first as a +supernumerary officer under instruction, and to pick up his duties by +watching others and always going about with them. To his dismay, but +also a certain amount of flattered vanity, he found himself immediately +appointed as acting commander of B Company. But it was inevitable. +Several of the new officers were mere boys, others volunteers from +the Army Service Corps—perfectly competent at their own job but +quite ignorant of trench warfare—and others again were “keymen” from +business houses, reluctantly yielded to the “combings out” of 1917. +Winterbourne had four subalterns under him, Hutchinson, Cobbold, Paine, +and Rushton. They were all good fellows, but three of them had seen no +service whatever and the fourth had been in Egypt only. + +When Winterbourne inspected his company on the first day, his heart +sank within him. He felt it was monstrous to send these scared-looking +boys into the line without a proper stiffening of more experienced men. +It would have been far better to spread them out. They cleaned their +buttons perfectly, drilled very neatly, turned right or left with an +imitation Guards stamp, and trembled when an officer spoke to them. +But they were mighty raw stuff for the job ahead of them. Winterbourne +thought of his own greenness when he had first gone into the line, and +his heart sank lower as he thought of his own utter inexperience as an +officer. He had a very sketchy idea of how a Company was run in the +line. Of course, he had heard and carried orders, and had been roughly +schooled in Company organization—on paper—at the Cadet School. But +that was very different from assuming the responsibility for a hundred +and more men, most of them frightened boys who had never seen any but +practice trenches and never heard a shell burst. Well, the only thing +was to carry on, and do his best.... + + * * * * * + +The Division was to take over part of the M—— sector, from the +Canadian Army. Winterbourne had to occupy part of the Reserve line +just to the left of M——. The four Company commanders with their +Runners were sent on ahead in a lorry to reconnoitre the positions and +arrange details of “taking over.” The Colonel particularly impressed +upon Winterbourne the necessity for obtaining and carefully reading the +written instructions for defence which would be with the Officer he was +relieving. + +They were to have met Canadian guides at a given rendezvous, but the +guides were not there. Winterbourne, who could have found his way to +M—— in the blackest darkness, and who had twenty times passed up +and down the trench he was to occupy, decided to push on. The other +three, mistrusting him, stayed. He set out with Baker, his servant and +runner. Owing to the shortage of men, the officers’ servants had to act +as runners, with the result that they performed both jobs abominably. +Baker had been allotted to Winterbourne by the despotic Colonel, who +interfered in the minutest details and then held the Company commander +responsible for everything which went wrong. Thus, he was in a position +to take credit for every success and push off the responsibility for +failure on some one else. + +Winterbourne would certainly not have chosen Baker for himself, and +wondered what possible caprice of the Colonel had forced the boy on +him. He was a decent enough lad—a milliner’s delivery boy—but timid, +unintelligent and lazy. Baker seemed to think that he had performed all +his duties as a Runner if he followed Winterbourne so closely that he +continually trod on his officer’s heels. + +They passed many places familiar to Winterbourne—the cemetery (now +much enlarged), the ruined village (now still more ruined), the long +slag-hill, Southampton Row. Nothing had changed, except to become +a little more desolate and smashed. He noticed that several large +shells had fallen in the cemetery that morning or the night before, +digging up the graves violently, scattering bones and torn blankets and +broken crosses over the other graves. He turned in for five minutes, +and walked down the long row containing the graves of his Pioneer +companions. He stood a couple of minutes at Thompson’s grave. A shell +splinter had knocked the cross crooked. He set it straight. + + * * * * * + +Winterbourne found the trench easily enough, and asked the first +Canadian sentry for Company Headquarters. The man was leaning very +negligently on the parapet, chewing gum. Winterbourne, accustomed +to perpetual “Sirring” and heel-clicking and general servility, was +almost shocked when the man very casually jerked his thumb over his +left shoulder without saying a word, and returned thoughtfully to his +gum-chewing. He found the Company commander, a Major, democratically +sitting in the trench on a double-seated latrine, talking humorously to +one of his men. The British always had separate latrines for officers. + +Winterbourne enjoyed this hugely, and liked the Canadians. They at once +invited him to whiskey high-balls and bridge. He managed to evade this, +and then explained his own situation, asked for the written orders of +defence and to see all the positions. The Canadian officer stared and +said they had no written instructions. + +“Well, what do you do if you’re attacked?” + +“I guess you’d form a defensive flank—if they ever got past the +machine-gunners in M——.” + +The Canadian officer walked Winterbourne round the positions. He was +bare-headed—strictly against orders—and his men greeted him as he +passed with friendly nods and an occasional brief remark. Winterbourne +noticed that they did not wait for him to speak first and did not call +him “Sir.” He reflected with amusement that the Canadians were easily +the crack troops of the British armies, and were sent into all the +hardest fighting. And yet they didn’t even say “Sir” to an officer! + + * * * * * + +This meeting with the Canadians was probably the last piece of +enjoyment or tranquillity that Winterbourne ever had. From the moment +he went back to his own Battalion his life became one long harassed +nightmare. He was deluged with all sorts of documents requiring +information and statistics he was totally unable to furnish. The +blunders, the mistakes, the negligences of his inexperienced men were +legion, and all were visited upon him by the martinet Colonel. For +days and weeks he got scarcely any sleep and never once even took his +boots off. He had continually to be up and down the trench, especially +during the periodic six days in the Front line, and even in Support. He +spent hours a day answering idiotic written questions brought by weary +Runners and trying to puzzle out minute and unnecessary orders. He was +always being told to report to Battalion Headquarters, where he was +savagely attacked and reprimanded for the most piffling and unimportant +errors. He went on patrol himself, contrary to orders, to make sure +that at least one patrol a night was properly done—and was severely +reprimanded for that. The boys, suddenly released from button-polishing +and saluting and drill (which they had been taught to consider all +important) became deplorably slack in important matters. They lost +portions of their equipment, dropped their ammunition, never knew their +orders as sentries, went to sleep on sentry duty, shivered when ordered +to go on patrol, cried when put in listening posts in No Man’s Land, +littered up the trench with paper, bully beef tins and fragments of +food, urinated in the trenches, and “forgot” perpetually everything +they were told. While Winterbourne was at one end of his section of +trench, desperately and sweatingly trying to get some sort of order +and sense into them, others were committing all sorts of military +abominations at the other end. It was useless to “take their names” +for punishment, especially as there aren’t many punishments as bad as +being in the line. One day he did exasperatedly make the Sergeant-Major +“Take their names” and by nightfall found he had collected forty-two. +Ludicrous. The N.C.O.’s gave the job up in despair and let things drift. + +He found most of the recruits were hopelessly slow in getting on their +gas masks, and appeared to be in such a state of hebetude that they +did not realize that gas was dangerous. They did preposterous things. +They would, for instance, entirely abandon a Lewis Gun post to get +their dinners. It was ten days before Winterbourne discovered this. The +subalterns had seen it, of course, but had not known that they ought to +report it. Winterbourne “ran” the responsible N.C.O. as an example. He +“ran” a boy for sleeping on sentry duty, and then washed out the charge +when he reflected that the poor wretch might be shot for so serious a +military crime. His Front line positions were an exhausting nightmare, +too. His front was over five hundred yards. He had an outpost line of +four listening and observation posts with a section in each. Three +hundred yards farther back he had his main defence line and his own +headquarters. Behind that he had various isolated Lewis Gun positions. +All these were imposed upon him in spite of his protests. The defence +scheme might be all very well on paper, and might have worked out +with experienced troops, but it was hopeless under these peculiar +circumstances. He realized after a couple of nights in the Front line +that under any determined attack it would be impossible for him to +hold his positions for ten minutes. He urged this on the Colonel, +begging that the dispositions might be temporarily revised and the men +brought more closely together under his own eyes. He was told that +he was incompetent and not fit to be a Lance-Corporal. Winterbourne +sarcastically replied that some people are born Corporals and some are +not. He offered to resign his command, and was ordered to continue +it under threat of immediate arrest and court-martial for negligence +and disobeying orders in the face of the enemy. Knowing how easily a +court-martial can be “cooked,” Winterbourne unwillingly carried on. + +Most fortunately, he was not at first attacked, but he lost several +men. Two were wounded on a ration party, having lost contact and +wandered about half the night. One was shot through the neck by a +fixed rifle, although Winterbourne had thrice ordered every N.C.O. to +warn the men about it. At Stand-to one morning, the Germans bombarded +them with mustard gas shells. Winterbourne had warned them of the gas +until he was sick of doing so. Two mustard shells fell just outside +the parapet of a fire-step with six men on it. They ducked down when +the shells burst and then stood stupidly looking at the bright yellow +shell-hole, wondering what the funny smell was. Three of them were +gassed, and two died. + +Winterbourne spent most of each night plodding up and down his immense +area of trenches to see that every one was at his post. After dawn one +morning, instead of trying to snatch an hour’s sleep, he went up to +inspect his listening posts, feeling an uneasy intuition about them. +There were four, about a hundred yards apart, isolated in what had +once been the Front line. At the third listening post, he found six +rifles leaning against the trench and no men. They had been captured +by a silent raiding party in broad daylight! Probably all asleep. +Winterbourne was furious, sent his Runner back for another section, +and remained on guard himself. The Runner came back timidly after an +interminable time, and said the Sergeant wouldn’t come. Winterbourne +didn’t want the other posts to know that one had been captured, fearing +a panic. It was useless to leave the Runner on guard; he would simply +have waited until Winterbourne’s back was turned and have run to the +other posts and spread an alarmist report. Winterbourne hurried back, +and found that the Runner had delivered such a garbled and incoherent +message that the Sergeant had been utterly unable to understand, and +had sent him back for precise orders. Of course, the Colonel put all +the responsibility upon Winterbourne, and threatened him again with +a court-martial. Winterbourne protested and they had a furious row; +after which the Colonel re-doubled his persecutions. When they went +out for four days’ “rest” after their first three weeks in the line +Winterbourne felt more exhausted and depressed than he would have +believed possible. He saw that the men got into their billets, after +infinite tramplings and shoutings in the darkness, and fell on to a +sacking bed. He slept for fourteen hours. + + * * * * * + +Of course, Winterbourne had taken all this far too tragically and +responsibly. The situation happened to be one which most disastrously +fed his “worry” neurosis. A bitterly humorous destiny seemed +intentionally to involve him in circumstances which rent his mind to +pieces and exhausted his body—unnecessarily. It was a misfortune, +due possibly to the fact that the initial of his name made him come +towards the end of a list, that he was sent to a battalion so raggedly +composed and so naggingly commanded. We passed out almost together at +the Cadet School, but where everything ran comparatively easily and +smoothly for me, all went wrong with him. He brooded incessantly and +saw all things in terms of the bleakest despair—the collapse of his +own life, his present situation, the continued retirement of the Allied +Armies which seemed to promise an indefinite continuation of the War, +his feeling that even if he came out alive he would never be able to +re-build his life. It was unlucky to go straight back to M——, which +had such tragic associations for him and made it doubly hard to repress +shell-shocked nerves. His state of mind, what with sleeplessness and +worry and shock and ague, which came back as soon as he was in the +line again, and physical exhaustion and inhibited fear, almost fringed +dementia, and he would have collapsed but for his strength of will and +pride. But he was a wrecked man, swept along in the swirling cataracts +of the War. + + * * * * * + +The days passed into weeks, the weeks into months. He moved through +impressions like a man hallucinated. And every incident seemed to +beat on his brain, Death, Death, Death. All the decay and death of +battle fields entered his blood and seemed to poison him. He lived +among smashed bodies and human remains in an infernal cemetery. If +he scratched his stick idly and nervously in the side of a trench he +pulled out human ribs. He ordered a new latrine to be dug out from the +trench, and thrice the digging had to be abandoned because they came +upon terrible black masses of decomposing bodies. At dawn one morning +when it was misty he walked over the top of Hill 91, where probably +nobody had been by day since its capture. The heavy mist brooded about +him in a strange stillness. Scarcely a sound on their immediate front, +though from north and south came the vibration of furious drum-fire. +The ground was a desert of shell-holes and torn rusty wire, and +everywhere lay skeletons in steel helmets still clothed in the rags +of sodden khaki or field grey. Here a fleshless hand still clutched a +broken rusty rifle, there a gaping decaying boot showed the thin knotty +foot-bones. He came on a skeleton violently dismembered by a shell +explosion; the skull was split open and the teeth lay scattered on the +bare chalk; the force of the explosion had driven coins and a metal +pencil right into the hip-bones and femurs. In a concrete pill-box +three German skeletons lay across their machine-gun with its silent +nozzle still pointing at the loop hole. They had been attacked from the +rear with phosphorous grenades, which burn their way into the flesh and +for which there is no possible remedy. A shrunken leather strap still +held a battered wrist-watch on a fleshless wrist-bone. Alone in the +white curling mist, drifting slowly past like wraiths of the slain, +with the far-off thunder of drum-fire beating the air, Winterbourne +stood in frozen silence and contemplated the last achievements of +civilized man. + + * * * * * + +A raiding party was sent out from his front. He watched the box barrage +from the front line. The Germans filled the night with Verey lights and +coloured rockets. Their artillery and trench-mortars and machine-guns +retaliated fiercely. Smoke and gas drifted across. After interminable +waiting the officer and three of the men staggered back, bleeding, +blackened with smoke, their clothes torn to pieces on the wire. The +raid had failed. + + * * * * * + +A Company of Gas Experts came up from the Base, and sent over some +thousands of Stokes mortars loaded with a heavy concentration of poison +gas. As soon as the last mortar was fired they were in a fearful hurry +to get away. The German artillery retaliation smashed their trenches. +Next morning, Winterbourne watched through glasses the Germans carrying +out their dead on stretchers. + + * * * * * + +A British airplane fell in No Man’s Land. Winterbourne saw the pilot, +who was still alive, struggle to get out from the wreckage. An enemy +machine-gun was turned on him, and he fell limp across the side of the +cock-pit. The plane was smashed to pieces by British heavies to prevent +the Germans from obtaining the model. + + * * * * * + +They shifted to another part of the line. The Company was out in No +Man’s Land in the darkness strengthening their shattered wire against +a threatened attack. Suddenly from half a mile of German front leaped +a line of flame. There was a whistling roar of projectiles, and a +thousand gas containers crashed to the ground all about them. Men were +killed outright by direct hits, and wounded by pieces of flying metal. +Every man who took more than two breaths of the deadly concentration +was doomed. All that night and far into the misty dawn the stretchers +went down the communication trench carrying inert figures with horrible +foam on their mouths. + + * * * * * + +The German attacks spent their force, and the huge Allied +counter-attacks began. The starving German armies were hurled back +to the Hindenburg Line, their impregnable defence. The Canadians +miraculously stormed the Drocourt-Quéant switch line. + +Winterbourne was back on the Somme, that incredible desert, pursuing +the retreating enemy. They came up the Bapaume-Cambrai road by night, +and bivouacked in holes scratched with entrenching tools in the side +of a sandy bank. The wrecked country-side in the pale moonlight was a +frigid and motionless image of Death. They spoke in whispers, awed by +the immensity of desolation. By day the whole landscape was covered +with the débris left by the broken German armies. Smashed tanks, guns +with their wheels broken, stood out like fixed wrecks in the unmoving +ocean of shell-holes. The whole earth seemed a litter of overcoats, +shaggy leather packs, rifles, water-bottles, gas masks, steel helmets, +bombs, entrenching tools, cast away in the panic of flight. By night, +the sky glowed with the flames of burning Cambrai, with the black hump +of Bourlon Hill silhouetted against them. + +They drove the Germans from Cambrai, and pressed on from village to +village, constantly shelled and harassed by machine-gun fire from their +rear-guard. The German machine-gunners, fragments of the magnificent +armies of the early War years, died at their posts. The demoralized +German Infantry surrendered wholesale. + +For three days in succession Winterbourne’s Company formed the advance +guard, and he led it in the darkness over unknown ground by compass +bearing in a kind of dazed delirium. Pressing on through falling +shells in the blank night, with the ever present dread of falling into +a machine-gun ambush, became an agony. They fought their way into +inhabited villages which had been held by the Germans for over four +years. The terrified people crouched in cellars or ran distractedly +into the fields. They took the village of F——, after a brief but +fierce bombardment, an hour after dawn. The roads leading in and out +were encumbered with dead Germans, smashed transport, the contorted +bodies of dead horses. Dead German soldiers lay about the village +street, which was cluttered with fallen tiles and bricks. In a garden +a war-demented peasant was digging a grave to bury his wife, who had +been killed by a shell-burst. In the ruined village school Winterbourne +picked up a book—it was Pascal’s “Thoughts on Christianity.” + + * * * * * + +Part of Cambrai had been levelled to the ground in 1914, and stood a +melancholy monument of neatly-piled wreckage. Part of the remainder +was burned. In the undestroyed streets many houses had been looted. +The furniture had been smashed, pictures and photographs torn from +the walls, cushions ripped open with bayonets, curtains slashed down, +carpets gashed into rags. The whole mass of desecrated objects had +been flung into the centre of the floor, after which the Germans had +urinated and dropped their excrement upon it. Winterbourne gazed into +a dozen houses which had been treated in this way. The villages beyond +Cambrai had not been sacked, but were utterly filthy and swarming +with buzzing legions of flies. Isolated cottages had sometimes been +completely gutted of their contents. In one place Winterbourne found +an emaciated French woman and two starved children living in a cottage +with nothing but straw—literally nothing but straw in the place. He +gave them his iron rations and twenty francs. The woman took them with +a dull hopelessness. + + * * * * * + +They were approaching the Belgian border. On the evening of the 3rd +of November Winterbourne with about twenty men rushed into the village +of K——, just as the Germans hastily retreated from the other end. +He had been ordered to occupy the place if possible, and to arrange +billets. He lodged his Company, placed guards and pickets and then went +through the cellars. The Germans were experts in placing booby-traps +which would explode if carelessly moved, and Winterbourne did not know +whether there might not be men concealed in the cellars to take them +unawares. He went down into cellar after cellar with his electric +torch, and was soon re-assured. The Germans had fled in such haste that +they had left their rifles and equipment in several cellars. The floors +were strewn with straw. On a table he found a half-finished letter, +abandoned in the middle of a sentence. In another a large black dog lay +dead—its owner had killed it with a bullet rather than leave it to +possible ill-treatment. + + * * * * * + +The Colonel explained the dispositions for the coming battle over a +map. The conference of officers took notes of the orders which were +very elaborate, but precise and clear. It was nearly half-past three +when they had finished, and zero hour was six-thirty. Winterbourne had +been on foot since five the morning before. His eyes smarted with lack +of sleep, and his mind was so dulled that he could scarcely comprehend +and write down his orders. He misspelled words as he scrawled down +notes in shaking deformed handwriting. He puzzled a long time over +map-references, and irritated the Colonel by repeatedly asking +questions. + +They had an hour before they moved out to their battle positions. The +other officers hurried away to snatch an hour’s sleep. Winterbourne +felt utterly sleepy, but quite unable to sleep. The thought of another +battle, even with the dispirited and defeated German rear-guard, filled +him with shrinking dread. How face another barrage? He tried to write +letters to Fanny and Elizabeth, but his mind kept wandering away and he +could not collect his thoughts sufficiently to string together a few +banal sentences. He sat on a chair brought him by his servant, with his +head in his hands, staring at the straw and the dead black dog. He had +only one thought—peace. He must at least have peace. He was at the +very end of his endurance, had used up the last fraction of his energy +and strength. He wished he was one of the skeletons lying on Hill 91, +an anonymous body among the corpses lying outside in the street. He had +not even the courage to shoot himself with his revolver; and added that +last grain of self-contempt to his despair. + + * * * * * + +They assembled by platoons in the village street, and each officer +marched off in silence to his allotted position. Winterbourne followed +with his little knot of Company Headquarters, and saw that each platoon +was in its proper place. He shook hands with each officer. + +“Quite sure about your orders and objective?” + +“Yes.” + +“Good-bye.” + +“Oh, make it au revoir.” + +“Good-bye.” + +Winterbourne returned to his own position and waited. He looked at his +luminous wrist-watch. Six twenty-five. Five minutes to zero hour. The +cold November night was utterly silent. Thousands of men and hundreds +of guns were facing each other on the verge of battle, and there seemed +not a sound. He listened. Nothing. His Runner whispered something to a +signaller, who whispered a reply. Three more minutes. Silence. He could +feel the beating of his heart, more rapid than the tick of seconds as +he held his watch to his ear. + +CRASH! Like an orchestra at the signal of a baton the thousands +of guns north and south opened up. The night sprang to flickering +day-light with the gun-flashes, the earth trembled with the shock, the +air roared and screamed with shells. Lights rushed up from the German +line, and their artillery in turn flamed into action. Winterbourne +could just see a couple of his sections advancing as he started off +himself, and then everything was blotted out in a confusion of smoke +and bursting shells. He saw his Runner stagger and fall as a shell +burst between them; then his Corporal disappeared, blown to pieces by a +direct hit. He came to a sunken road, and lay on the verge, trying to +see what was happening in the faint light of dawn. He saw only smoke; +and pushed on. Suddenly German helmets were all round him. He clutched +at his revolver. Then he saw they were unarmed, holding shaking hands +above their heads. + +The German machine-guns were tat-tat-tatting at them, and there was a +ceaseless swish of bullets. He passed the bodies of several of his men. +One section wiped out by a single heavy shell. Other men lay singly. +There was Jameson dead; Halliwell dead; Sergeant Morton, Taylor and +Fish, dead in a little group. He came to the main road, which was +three hundred yards short of his objective. A deadly machine-gun fire +was holding up his Company. The officers and men were lying down, the +men firing rifles, and the Lewis Guns ripping off drums of bullets. +Winterbourne’s second Runner was hit, and lay groaning: “O for God’s +sake kill me, _kill_ me. I can’t stand it. The agony. _Kill_ me.” + +Something seemed to break in Winterbourne’s head. He felt he was going +mad, and sprang to his feet. The line of bullets smashed across his +chest like a savage steel whip. The universe exploded darkly into +oblivion. + + + + + RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE + + COMMANDEMENT EN CHEF + DES ARMÉES ALLIÉES + +_Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and Men of the Allied Armies._ + +After resolutely holding the enemy in check, for months you have +repeatedly attacked with unwearied energy and confidence. + +You have won the greatest battle in History and saved the most sacred +of all causes: The liberty of the world. + +You may well be proud. + +You have wreathed your Colours with immortal fame. + +Posterity is grateful to you. + + (Signed) F. FOCH + + MARSHAL OF FRANCE + COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ALLIED ARMIES + + + + + EPILOGUE + + + + + _EPILOGUE_ + + + Eleven years after the fall of Troy, + We, the old men—some of us nearly forty— + Met and talked on the sunny rampart + Over our wine, while the lizards scuttled + In dusty grass, and the crickets chirred. + + Some bared their wounds; + Some spoke of the thirst, dry in the throat, + And the heart-beat, in the din of battle; + Some spoke of intolerable sufferings, + The brightness gone from their eyes + And the grey already thick in their hair. + + And I sat a little apart + From the garrulous talk and old memories, + And I heard a boy of twenty + Say petulantly to a girl, seizing her arm: + “Oh, come away, why do you stand there + Listening open-mouthed to the talk of old men? + Haven’t you heard enough of Troy and Achilles? + Why should they bore us for ever + With an old quarrel and the names of dead men + We never knew, and dull forgotten battles?” + + And he drew her away, + And she looked back and laughed + As he spoke more contempt of us, + Being now out of hearing. + + And I thought of the graves by desolate Troy + And the beauty of many young men now dust, + And the long agony, and how useless it all was. + And the talk still clashed about me + Like the meeting of blade and blade. + + And as they two moved further away + He put an arm about her, and kissed her; + And afterwards I heard their gay distant laughter. + + And I looked at the hollow cheeks + And the weary eyes and the grey-streaked heads + Of the old men—nearly forty—about me; + And I too walked away + In an agony of helpless grief and pity. + + + THE END + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76571 *** |