Part 10

As we enter St.-Amarin, the long, central street is like a pale-blue ribbon, for through it a battalion of some Marseilles regiment is passing. As my eye received it I knew the lovely picture for some bleaching daguerreotype, its color and lineaments to fade in the bright light of peace. We stop a moment at the Administration building and see again M. de Maroussem, to whom, on meeting him first at Madame Galland’s, I had said, “You are an Englishman?” And to those who have frequented international worlds I don’t need to say how he looks. To others I would say that he is tall, blond, athletic, wearing easily a well-cut, not too new uniform, and having a perceptive blue eye (which, however, is really a very French eye when one takes a second look). One would have known that he hunted in England and had polo-ponies in France. In civil life he is a banker.

Now among other things he is chef of the St.-Amarin _popote_ and tells me dinner is at 7.45 “tapant.” The hour is near wherein I am to be shown how far superior the St.-Amarin _popote_ is to that of Masevaux.

Then the commandant accompanies me to the house of M. Helmer, the well-known Alsatian lawyer who is counsel for the Mission. Also it was he who defended Hansi when he was brought before the German courts and condemned for _lèse-majesté_.[17]

From the great bowed window of Madame Helmer’s drawing-room I could look down the suddenly mystical-seeming valley, discerned by the spirit rather than the eye at 4.30 of a November afternoon. It was but a stretch of white filmy substance between violet hills, under a gray-green heaven, with something warm and precious at its western edge. Such a passing of the day as the saints of old would have loved.

Hung along the wall opposite the great window are engravings of the Mantegna frieze from Hampton Court, and there were many books.

After tea the commandant took his leave and Madame Helmer showed me to my comfortable room where I had thirty saving minutes, horizontal and in the dark, fully conscious, but completely resting, thought consecutive but not active, flowing in a smooth way between banks of quiet nerves in quiet flesh.

“Seven forty-five tapant” finds me again at the Administration building, whither M. Helmer accompanied me, and it is very pleasant as I enter. Commandant Poulet is sitting at a huge desk signing papers, more blue-clad officers and two _infirmières_ are presented, after which we pass into the dining-room, whose doors are flung open in classic style by a well-trained orderly. In Masevaux we simply gathered and sat down. Now the mess-table of St.-Amarin has a decided touch of elegance, too, in the way of pink-shaded candles, and in the middle there was an arrangement of chrysanthemums and autumn leaves. Instead of a Mère Labonne they have a _cordon bleu_ who performs his rites very suitably in the dark-blue uniform of the chasseurs. We sit down to a dinner that might have been served with pride at Voisin’s or the Café de Paris, where all except the chairs is extra and getting back a cane or hat costs the remaining eye (if one remains) of the head. I am indeed impressed, as I was meant to be, and M. de Maroussem might have said, “Didn’t I tell you so?” in his pure and pleasant English. I sat between the commandant and Captain Perdrizet, chief of the Forestry Service of the Thann district, and to the sound of cannon, which in spite of peace prospects was heavily firing over the Hartmannswillerkopf, we consumed _carpes à la Flamande_, a course of game elaborately presented with all its feathers, finishing with _poires Bordaloue_, the whole perpetuated on a charming menu card decorated with the classic Alsatian stork by Andrieux, one of the officers of the mess.

As I sat down I saw in front of me a sign over the door leading into the pantry, a somewhat Y.M.C.A.-ish sign, “_Sois sobre et tu vivras longtemps_” (“Be sober and you will live long”), and de Maroussem’s feelings were almost hurt when I asked if perhaps behind me there was one that said, “_Mange peu et tu seras invité souvent_” (“Eat little and you will be invited often”). And when it came time for coffee and cigarettes and some especially old _quetsch_ he brought out the book, “The Friends of France,” that I had first seen at Harry Sleeper’s in Gloucester Bay, a thousand years ago, it seemed, and we turned to the death and citation of Norman Hall, Commandant Poulet recalling again that he had begun his work in Alsace on the 25th of December, 1914, and on the 26th he had stood by Norman Hall’s open grave.

Then a radio, just received, concerning the Parlementaries, is discussed; among them is slated von Hintze, leading to talk of the days when I had known him in Mexico. Count Oberndorf, too, husband of a dear and charming friend of Dutch and American birth, was on the list, and we spoke of Vienna as it had been—and was no more. _Sic transit_ ... though I thought within myself, as I looked, for a flashing moment, down the vista of history, many things return.

It was late when two officers accompanied me to my dwelling, to the sucking sound of boots in mud, and under a starless sky hanging dark and heavy over a black, black earth. At last I could draw literally the drapery of my couch about me and lie down to dreams of _my_ men in blood and glory before Sedan.

XI

THE RE-GALLICIZING OF ALSACE

_November 8th, St.-Amarin, Night._—Fancy and feeling too quickened for sleep. If there is anything I did not see or anything I did not feel, in and about St.-Amarin, I challenge some one of the Mission to produce it.

This was my day, or rather half of it. At 8.45 Lieutenant Fress, Inspector of Schools, came to fetch me, and not knowing how to be late (alack!), I am on the stairs as he rings the bell. We pass out into a white, rather flat November world toward the schoolhouses, everywhere the clean odor of freshly hewn wood and sawdust hanging on the November air.

Now the re-Gallicizing of Alsace is one of the most interesting political operations I have ever seen, and Heaven knows I’ve seen many in many lands. But this washing out and marking in of history on the clean slate of childhood is different from anything else, though easier than most things, the eye of youth glancing easily from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth—and soft and eager the slate of its mind.

The St.-Amarin schoolhouse is a large, solid building, its walls hung everywhere with huge war-posters, all of those one sees in Paris and many besides.

The classes for the smaller children, in accordance with the traditions of the valley, here also are in the hands of the Sisters of “The Divine Providence,” who, in the earliest years of the nineteenth century, opened in St.-Amarin the first school for girls. The other classes are taught by carefully selected Alsatian teachers or by mobilized French schoolmasters. Formerly French was the language of honor, for the well-to-do only, but now this article, once “of luxury,” is for all the language of their country and their heart, and pride mixes with the zeal with which the peasants pursue _la belle langue_—not always successfully. For in these border regions the tongue has an un-Gallic thickness; the voice is placed far back in the throat, with a strong accent on the tonic, nothing of the light flinging from the lips that makes the beauty of the French language and its conquest so difficult.

We begin with a class of small children, where a smiling, almost exuberantly happy nun is teaching a group of little delivered darlings to sing, “_il y avait une bergère et ron, ron, ron, petit pat à pon_”—to my surprise, in the latest manner of Jacques Dalcroze. They evidently mean to keep abreast of the times here in Alsace.

While they recited I looked about. The room was large, light, and superheated by a small, black, iron stove fiercely burning. On the wall were maps of the Old World, and, I had almost said, of the world to come, for new divisions of countries were indicated. Among the many posters and in the place of honor was a big colored text, which I afterward saw in every room, with the head-line, “_Pourquoi on ne peut pas conclure une paix fondée sur la parole de l’Allemagne_” (“Why one cannot make a peace founded on the word of Germany”).

The children were literally as good as gold. No scuffling of feet nor restless rubbing about on the seats. I remarked this as we left the room after listening to “_Le Loup et l’Agneau_” recited in those shrill, thin voices, and Lieutenant Fress said, with a smile:

“What remains of the Boche discipline makes them docile and attentive scholars; they are often several hours in class without needing to be reprimanded for chattering or lack of attention.”

Later I delicately inquired about ink-throwing or “spitballs,” but it appeared they’re unknown.

We then betook ourselves upstairs to a class of older girls, from ten to thirteen or thereabouts, to whom Lieutenant Fress, with the greatest confidence, put the most difficult questions. It was a class of French history, and he began boldly with the Druids and finished with the war of 1914. He has a gift for teaching, and was so easy with those children, whom I should have been embarrassed, not to say terrified, to approach, that the answers came pleasantly and quickly. When at a certain moment, however, there was a delay, I got anxious, thinking to myself, suppose the Sister or Lieutenant Fress were to say to the class:

“You don’t know? Then we must ask this _aimable_ lady who has come across the ocean to visit you. _She_ will tell us.” And of Charles the Fat, then engaging our attention, I only remembered vaguely that he had had a saintly wife of whom he grew tired. There were other questions, too, about Louis of Aquitaine, which awakened only the faintest echoes in memory, but which to my relief were answered to complete satisfaction by a determined, dark-eyed, round-faced girl of twelve or thereabouts.

Lieutenant Fress then asked who could recite “_La Laitière et le Pot au Lait_.” All hands shot up, and the recitation proceeded with much _brio_.

“What does this teach us?” he boldly asked at the end.

At this a heavy-jawed, but very bright, near-together-eyed girl raised her hand without a second’s hesitation, and equally without a second’s hesitation answered:

“To think only of the present.” As is elegantly expressed in the enemies’ tongue, that girl wasn’t one of whom it would be said she would be “left hanging,” except of course as regards the imponderabilities.

Lieutenant Fress: “But is it well to think only of the present? What of imagination, and things that may happen in the future?”

A small, undersized girl with a deep-blue eye somewhat nervously answered:

“In imagination one builds castles in Spain.”

This was encouraging, but what she called _châteaux d’Espagne_ seemed not, however, to find great favor, for a silence fell on that bright-eyed class.

“But isn’t that all right?” continued Lieutenant Fress, giving a fillip. “Must we think only of the things we can see and touch?”

At the mention of seeing and touching, hands again shot up. He indicated a thick-haired, heavy-browed girl.

“In thinking of the things she doesn’t see, the good housewife would forget to cook the dinner, _et cela serait tommage_,” was the answer coming from the deepest depths of her consciousness.

On which we leave the schoolroom, with its extremely practical atmosphere, the argument being unanswerable, even by Lieutenant Fress. I could but think on that long line of peasants who have wrestled with realities, begotten, brought forth, tilled the soil, baked the bread, struggling all the time with their border-destiny, nature and history, even more than their own wills, having made them what they are. It struck me as reasonable that they should be a canny set, those little girls. Something alert, perceptive of realities, was forming them, they could not be over-given to dreams, for which one is both sorry and glad, according to the way one happens to feel about human things at the moment—and not necessarily the way they are. Even Marcus Aurelius tells us that “if a thing displease us” (I suppose he only forgot to add, “or if a thing please us”) “it is not that thing, but our view of that thing.” And certainly a lot of perfectly good things are spoiled by the point of view.

In the next room they were having a lesson in American history, quite in the note everywhere these days, and I know the Sister saw the hand of God as I entered at that special moment (she was a quiet-eyed, not very young Sister, who had trod further paths than those of learning). Then and there I heard the tale of the Boston Tea-party, and its consequences, of the War of the Rebellion, and the name of Lincoln, pronounced “Lancone,” who “wanted all men to be free and equal,” sounded through the room. No one, of course, expressed a doubt, nor ever will in schoolrooms, that men aren’t free, neither are they equal. As for myself, I thank God nearly every morning that some men always will be better than others, realizing that there is more difference between man and man than between man and beast, which truth was recalled to me but shortly by an equalitarian friend of the New Republic—but it’s not for schools, like many other truths. Even Saint Paul can do nothing except cry out, “Shall not the potter have power to shape the vessel as he will, some to honor, some to dishonor?” which again recognizes the fact of inequality without explaining it. However, there’s no use going into that now.

I soon found myself in a class of boys of twelve to fifteen years of age. They were having a lesson in German, and were reading a “piece” called “_Der arme Sepp_,” the history of whose misfortunes (he was a stable-boy, and the horse ran away and the wagon was broken, and he was received by his master with blows) didn’t seem to stick; for after it had been read out no boy, in answer to Lieutenant Fress’s questions, could recount the short and simple annals of poor Sepp.

They weren’t nearly so bright as the girls. Dull-eyed, pimply-faced, squeaky-voiced, they were wrestling with something that was for the time stronger than books—the eternal _Frühlings Erwachen_, that has always occupied philosophers and scientists—though not so much parents, who are apt to avoid the issues involved.

We passed finally into a class where young women were dissecting _Les Obsèques de la Lionne_, under the guidance of a brown-bearded, one-armed teacher in uniform. It was a small room, and you could have cut the air with a knife. And for the mist I could scarcely see the placard “_Pourquoi on ne peut pas conclure une paix fondée sur la parole d’Allemagne_” and the portraits of Clémenceau and Poincaré.

About this time I began to understand that La Fontaine is the pillar of the French educational system; and there is no doubt that he _did_ clear up a lot of doubtful things, in the most liquid use of the clearest of all languages.

We listened here to dissertations on the falseness of courts and courtiers, the charms of which were not touched on. How those who frequented them learned disastrous habits of dissimulation, not to say lying, and how ’twas better to live in obscurity (which for some reason is always supposed to be cheerful and where nobody ever lies perhaps because it isn’t worth while). Courts are not in favor anywhere just now, but everybody will admit they’ve had a glorious past; and as for democracy’s future, which the Bolsheviki and the New Freedom are decidedly handicapping, they _may_ run it a close second. This class was not so interesting, however, as were the children’s—discussions of intellectual propositions by people who aren’t intellectual being an awful bore at any time.

Toward the end there was a horrid moment, Lieutenant Fress bearing up with equanimity, when the over-bold teacher, interrupting the reading, asked the meaning of the word “_apothéose_.” Dead silence.

“_Continuez_,” he finally said, though a young woman with an immense amount of corn-colored hair waved low about some spectacled blue eyes, and wearing a large silver pin with the word “_Adieu_” on it, showed signs of being about to bring forth the answer.

They finished the fable in unison in their strong border-accent, which seemed to get thicker and thicker as we got farther up the flights of learning.

_Amusez les rois par tes songes,_ _Flattez-les, payez les d’agréables mensonges._ _Quelque intignation dont leur cœur soit rembli,_ _Ils goberont l’abbât, vous serez leur ami._

But methought it isn’t anything like what the “people” will have to “swallow,” when everybody is free and nobody is equal. And I wondered again at those who think to change the destinies of nations from without, by formulas or commands, when each evolves mysteriously, mystically, inevitably from within, out of its own particular shape and substance and strength. Even one from over the seas, clad in the supremest power a great nation has ever lent a mortal, though he pull the earth to pieces in the attempt, cannot change this law of nature. “_Que direz-vous, races futures?_”

And time respects nothing that is done without it.

As we came out into the square, little boys were bringing in armfuls of wood for their schoolroom stoves, others were already noisily scampering home for dinner in the crisp, sawdusty air; straight columns of smoke from many chimneys evoked women standing about noonday fires; there was a homely, human feeling about it all....

As I went through the school it seemed to me that the types of the children were modified in two ways, inclining now toward the elongated head, with pointed chin, dark hair, dark eyes, and mantling color, now toward the round-headed, square-jawed, blond type, with full, dreamy, blue eyes. But under these modifications one felt that there was a persistent something that was their own, neither German nor French nor anything else, for all the mingling; the Alsatian root and stem, with an inalienable, peculiar life mounting in it, its very own, its race-gift.

And this essential gift, this rich, diverse inheritance, had been received from each point of the compass. From the south, through the defiles of the Alps, the great Latin traditions had infiltered. From the north and east had come Germanic thought, with its mystical reactions, its metaphysical inclinations, its marvelous legends, and its romantic chronicles of gods and half-gods. From the west, from Gaul, came grace and courtesy and the deathless wish for liberty. Was ever a people more richly endowed? Yet, how shall even such a seed grow if it never lie quiet in the warm darkness of the earth?...

Then I turned from the paths of learning, and went over to the very well-kept ambulance, in charge, since several years, of the ladies from Mulhouse, whom I had met at dinner the night before.

And I stood by the bed of a dying negro of the Fifteenth New York Infantry, his eyes already glazed, and thought how he was to leave the broad valley of the Thur for that other wider Valley of the Soul, where, it is said, we are all of one color. And I am inclined to believe it, for the further I go, even in this life, the less real difference I find in people; even the white, unfortunately, are extraordinarily alike about most things; and one can but wonder why the few high differences, rather than the low and easy likenesses, are discouraged by so many good men.

Then I sought out the church of pink stone, passing a pink fountain in the chestnut-planted square it fronts on, where blue-clad soldiers were coming and going, busy about their midday meal. And, entering the church, I thought, after commending the soul of the negro to its Maker, of St.-Amarin, who has given his name to the broad, sweet valley and its pleasant town.

The chronicles have it that he erected an oratory hereabouts with his own hands. Later when St.-Prix, the holy bishop of Auvergne, was passing by, on his way to the court of Childeric to obtain permission to build a church, he stopped at the oratory to rest and found its builder lying ill of a fever. St.-Prix making the sign of the cross upon his breast, immediately the fever falls, and Amarin finds himself bathed in a gentle sweat. He arises, gives thanks to God, and in gratitude offers to accompany St.-Prix to the king’s court.

Now, some time before, St.-Prix had run afoul of a vicious, thick-souled man named Hector, Count of Marseille. The matter being brought to court, in the final judgment the holy bishop had been acquitted, and the wicked Hector convicted and put to death.

But the family of Hector was proud and vengeful and powerful (in our days we’ve seen such), and learning that St.-Prix had set out on the journey, sent a squad of archers and other soldiery to make away with him _en route_.

These came upon him, accompanied by St.-Amarin, in a village known as Volvic. Now when Amarin saw the assassins stretching their bows, the first thought of the natural man was to get out of harm’s way. But St.-Prix, further advanced in sanctity and therefore more perceptive of the invisibilities, seizing him by the arm, said to him the words, alas! so incomprehensible to us, children of the age: “If you lose this opportunity for martyrdom, you will perhaps never find it again!”

At this Amarin stood his ground, though one has a feeling from the little one knows of him that he had a natural love for life. He was the first to be massacred, “his soul leaving his body in the company of angels.”

The assassins, thinking their work well done, were about to depart, when St.-Prix called to them, saying: “But I am he whom you seek. Do with me what you will.” Whereupon one of the evil men, Radebert by name, gave him a sword-thrust through the breast. And as he cried out the words each one of us should ever have ready on his tongue (Heaven knows they are needed often enough), “Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do,” another thrust caused his brains to spurt from his head. Whereupon angels were seen again descending, and the murderers, appalled by a great light that filled the valley, took their flight.

Sitting quietly in the pink church of St.-Amarin (its interior is noble of breadth and length, though not high), I thought how sweet is the mystical gift, and that one but stingily endowed in other ways, without houses or lands, or even learning or beauty or grace, if he have but the inner light, draws many unto him.

So alluring are such that kings in anguish call for them; even the wasters of life, they know not why, sometimes seek them out; others have been known to forget their money-making, or stop their spending, and render themselves physically uncomfortable, trying to get at the strange and secret gift they offer.

For the permanent interest of life is the unseen, and neither visible joys nor visible griefs can compete with it, nor any of the ways of the flesh, however pleasant or however straight.