Part 25

Lily, sitting quietly inside the darkened lodge by the side of Madame Gigon, heard their shouts and the stamping of their horses in the stables. Dark figures moved above among the trees of the garden, the figures of her enemies, the men who would kill if it were possible Césaire and Jean. In the excitement, no one ventured as far from the château as the lodge, and for a time she remained safe and in peace.

The cannon were no longer to be heard. For a little while there arose the distant crackling of rifles like the sound of brush fires made by the foresters in August; but this too died away after a time.

She bathed her head, fed Madame Gigon once more and sat down again to wait, and at last, overcome by exhaustion she sank quietly into sleep.

In the château the weary Germans slept and in the stables the horses ceased their stamping. A deep unbroken stillness settled again over the garden and the wheatfields beyond, so peaceful that the firing and the shouting of a little while before might have been wholly an illusion, a nightmare which had nothing to do with reality.

Thus passed three hours.

It was the sound of knocking which aroused Lily, a violent imperious sort of knocking which wakened her sharply and brought her quickly to her feet. As if by force of habit, she opened the door and said in French, “Gently ... please.... Gently. It is not necessary to break down the door. There is a sick woman here.”

As it swung open she was enveloped by the sudden bright glare of an electric torch. At the same moment a voice speaking the most excellent French said, “I am sorry, Madame. I ask your pardon. I did not know the lodge was occupied.”

The voice was not gruff. It was rather cold and smooth and carried a hint of weariness. “I found the door locked. I always knock upon locked doors,” continued the voice. “May I come in?”

All this time Lily, blinded by the sudden light, stood leaning against the door, emerging slowly from the effects of her deep slumber. For a moment she was silent.

“I prefer to come outside,” she replied. “There is a sick woman here.... If you will turn your light inside, you will see that I am not lying. She is there.”

The light flashed across the high bed of Madame Gigon. “I believe you, Madame.”

Lily closed the door and stood leaning against it. From the one of the lower windows of the château streamed a path of light which illuminated faintly the terrace, the front of the lodge and the Uhlan officer. He was not tall and was not in the least savage in appearance. On the contrary his face was smooth shaven and narrow, rather the face of a scholar than a soldier. Yet he carried himself very erect. There was something about him that was cold, stiff, almost brittle.

“What do you want of me?” asked Lily in a voice expressionless and free of all emotion.

For a moment her companion hesitated. He switched off the electric torch which until now he had kept turned full upon her. “Were you sleeping?” he asked.

“Yes.” Again in the same dead tone.

“Extraordinary. You must be a woman of great nerve.”

“No ... not at all. I had not slept in thirty-six hours.”

Again he hesitated. “I ... I have been riding for that length of time ... and still I cannot sleep. I have tried.... My nerves are too much on edge.”

She waited silently.

“Tell me ... why did you remain behind?” he began presently.

She made a gesture indicating the window behind which lay Madame Gigon. “You have seen the reason,” she said. “It was impossible to go away.”

The man whistled softly. “Aren’t you in the least afraid?”

For a time there was no sound except a deep sigh. “There was nothing to be done,” she answered presently in the same dead voice. “When there is nothing to be done, it is foolish to fret. It is best to make the most of it. What would you have me do?” For a moment a trace of life, almost of humor entered her voice. “Would you have me lie down and scream?” Again she sighed. “What good would it do? What would come of it? I do not believe in scenes.”

The Uhlan laughed. “Unlike most women,” he said. “But you are right. Afterwards, scenes are ridiculous. Nothing really matters much.... I’ve learned that in two days,” he added with a sort of pride.

To this she made no reply but her very silence carried its own gesture of assent. She did not deny his statement.

“I suppose you hate me,” he began, “like a good Frenchwoman.”

For the first time she raised her head and looked squarely at the stranger. “What do you want?” she asked. “Why are you talking in this fashion? You understand I am helpless. I must talk with you if you choose.” In the darkness she frowned. “I suppose that is war.” And then, “Besides, I am not a Frenchwoman at all. I am an American.”

At this the stranger gave a sudden start, in the darkness more audible than visible by the sudden click of metal on some part of his uniform.

“Then you must hate me even more.... I have lived in Paris. The Americans there are more French than the French.”

This remark, it appeared, angered her for she answered quickly. “I know no Americans in Paris. I know nothing about them.”

The Uhlan laughed. “Madame, I have no intention of injuring you ... in any way.”

To this she replied, “I suppose you do not mind if I sit down. I am a little weary.”

The stranger’s manner changed abruptly. He became courteous, almost courtly.

“I am sorry. I did not know there were chairs. You see I am a stranger here. Sit down if you prefer it, by all means.... I am not one to work hardships for a woman.” She moved toward the long chair under the lindens and lay down, wrapping the cloak about her and closing her eyes.

“Perhaps,” said the stranger, “you would prefer to sleep.”

“No,” she replied quietly, “I could not sleep now.” And as if the idea amused her she added, “I might as well talk with you ... since you too suffer from insomnia.”

“As you will ... if you do not hate me too much.”

He sat in the chair by her side and slipped from his waist the belt in which hung his black lugar pistol. Thus they remained for some time, silently and peacefully, as if they were old friends between whom there was no necessity for speech. The German sat with his elbows resting on his knees, his head buried in his hands. There was a smoothness and angularity about his thin figure so trimly clad in a uniform that now carried the stains of battle.

At last he took out a cigarette and said, “I suppose you smoke, Madame?”

To which Lily replied without opening her eyes, “No.”

He was so polite, so scrupulously polite. And presently he sighed, “Ah, this civilization ... this world of monkeys. (_Monde de singes._)” And once more the night stillness descended, for Lily made no effort at speech now. She lay motionless, so still that she might have been dead. Her silence appeared to reproach him for he turned suddenly and said, “Do you fancy I like this ... this living like a burglar in a château ... your château?”

“It is not mine,” Lily murmured.

“Do you fancy I like this war.... I am not pleased with killing men. Why should I? I do not hate them. How is it possible? How can you even hate me?”

She stirred impatiently. “No. It is impossible to hate genuinely ... without a reason one can put one’s finger on. All the same you are my enemy,” she added stubbornly.

The Uhlan laughed. “Who has made me so, Madame? Not myself, surely.” And then after a little pause, he added with a kind of desperation, “No, I am like all the others. I have nothing to do with it. We are all caught, Madame, ... hopelessly caught in one great web spun by a monster. Ah, what a monster!”

In the distant stable arose suddenly the sound of two horses quarreling. There was a violent kicking ... a squealing that was savage and implacable.

“We are not even like that,” he said. “It is not even that we bite and kick.... We shoot each other at a distance. You, Madame, perhaps have friends among the men I am fighting. I kill them and they me only because the first who shoots is the safest. You know the artillerymen kill men they never even see.” He spat suddenly. “Bah! It is mechanics ... all mechanics ... machinery, you understand, which they make in great roaring factories. They kill men in factories in order to kill more men on the battlefield. What is there in that?”

Again she made no answer to his question. The quarreling horses had been separated and their squealing silenced. There was only the overpowering stillness once more, a stillness unearthly in quality which lifted all that it enveloped upon a new plane, determined by new values. Life, death, reality, dreams--all these things were confused and yet amazingly clear, as if the whole had been pierced by a single beam of cold white light.

LXXX

It must have occurred to Lily that the man was talking in an hysterical fashion with all the frenzy of a neurasthenic. “Madame, you should see one of our towns where there are great furnaces ... Essen, Madame, or Saarbrucken.. black, incredibly vile, a wallow of roaring fire and white hot steel ... I know them, Madame, I have lived in them.”

Then for the first time Lily stirred. She even laughed, faintly yet with unmistakable bitterness. “Know them? I know them. We have them in America.”

The stranger paid no heed to her interruption. “Look, Madame,” he commanded, pointing to the north where the horizon was lighted by the glow of a burning town. “Look, Madame. You see that fire in the sky. The ladles have overflowed. The white hot steel has spread across Europe. There is gold in it too ... red hot gold.... Melted Gods ... idols which we worship to-day.”

His voice rose until he was shouting. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, the fine uniform suddenly crumpled and limp. And after a time he began to speak again, softly as if the torrent of emotion had exhausted him.

“And where have we to go? If we sought to escape where have we to go? There is no place. Because the monkeys ... the fools have civilized all the world, so that they might sell their cheap cotton and tin trays. They have created a monster which is destroying them. There is no longer any peace ... any solitude. They have even wrenched the peasant from his plow ... the shepherd from his hillside.” Again he pointed toward the burning horizon. “They have driven them out upon the plains where the cauldrons have overflowed across all Europe. It is the monsters, Madame, who are at the bottom of all this. Ah, commerce, industry, wealth, power.” He tossed away his cigarette and lighted another. “When this is over, who do you think will have gained? Not the peasant, Madame. Not the shepherd, not the poet. Ah, no! They will be shoveled under the earth ... whole bodies and pieces of bodies because they are no longer of any use. Not the worker, Madame, whom the monster devours. Ah, no.” His voice rose suddenly. “It is the monster who will have gained ... the monster and the men whose pockets he fills with gold ... the monster of material, of industry. He will destroy us. He will devour us. What can we do? You see, I know. I have lived in France. I have lived in England.... My grandmother, you understand, was English. I would prefer to live in England. But No! I was in England three weeks ago. And suddenly I must go home to join my regiment, to set out upon the expedition that has brought me here into this trampled garden. What for? Who can say? Why? Who knows? Not surely because it gives me pleasure. Not surely because I care a fig whether the German empire lives or dies. That is merely an excuse to drag us into battle.” His head dropped wearily again. “You see, this is why I have not been able to sleep. I have been thinking of these things. They are not the sort that lull a man to sleep. There is blood on my hands. I killed to-day ... by shooting and stabbing. I assure you it gave me no pleasure. I should doubtless have loved the men I killed. I am helpless. I cannot fight against it. No, there is only one thing to be done. I must kill as many men as possible. I must destroy all that it is possible to destroy because if we destroy enough the monster will have nothing to feed upon. He, too, will die ... and with him this civilization ... banal, ugly, materialistic, unchristian ... this greed-ridden world.”

The Uhlan fell forward upon the table, burying his face in his arms. At the sight Lily raised herself gently and watched her strange companion in a wondering silence. At last she said softly, “Why do you tell me this? Is it because you are afraid?”

The man made a chuckling, confused, sound and sat up once more. “Ah, no! Madame. You fancy I am hysterical. Well, so I am. I don’t deny it. You see it is not easy for me to be a warrior. I am a little mad. No, I talk like this because....” For a moment he hesitated as if groping for some explanation of an emotional crisis which in a soldier was not logical at all. His manner seemed to imply that he should have accepted the affair without question. “Because.... Well, there is a time when fear does not matter, when terror does not exist, when one is enveloped by a despair so great that what happens to one’s body is of no concern. You understand that. You have answered it yourself a little time before, when you said there came a time when it was useless to be afraid.” He leaned back and made a little gesture of negation. “It does not matter,” he concluded. In the faint light from the lower windows of the château it was plain that he was smiling in a bitter, despairing fashion. “No, I shall go on killing until I am killed. It will not be a long affair. It is absurd to hope that I shall live many more days.” He whistled softly. “I might even be killed to-night ... after I have left you. I shall kill as many men as possible. I can only submit. There is nothing I can do. I am not a boy full of playing soldier.”

At this Lily winced suddenly as if he had struck her. Then she raised herself slowly. The black cloak fell from her shoulders.

“I have in the war a son and a lover,” she said. “If you met them, you would kill them. Is it not so?”

The Uhlan bowed his head in silent assent.

“And yet you do not believe in it?”

“No, Madame.”

“Then that is wrong. It is sinful.”

The stranger leaned toward her. “It is not I who would kill them. I am only a chance, a little dagger in the hand of fate ... one of a billion chances that have to do with their deaths. I myself would not be killing them.... It would be a strange ... even an impossible accident, if I killed one of them with my own hands. You understand, we are talking facts now ... hard facts. There is no room for sentimentality at a time like this....” He smiled ironically. “I can understand that it is difficult for a woman to talk facts. It is simply a matter of chances ... like roulette shall we say?”

For a time Lily remained thoughtful and silent. At last she said, “They are in the cavalry like yourself. You would kill them. You are one of the chances.” The calmness of her manner stood in terrible contrast to the hysterical outburst of the soldier.

“I can see you are a philosopher ... a _femme savant_,” mocked the stranger.

“You might choose a better time to jeer.”

The man coughed. “Forgive me.... I am sorry.... I was wrong. If you were a _femme savant_, I would not be talking to you like this.... You are a woman ... a beautiful woman. One cannot help talking to you.”

“I am only a woman living by what she believes. That is simple enough.”

“It requires courage, Madame ... and indifference, far more of both than I have.” He coughed again, nervously. “Perhaps I am too rational.... Perhaps I do not think resistance worth the trouble ... especially now, at a time when the mob ... the politicians rule absolutely.”

“You are one of the chances,” Lily repeated stubbornly.

LXXXI

The German laughed softly. “You are a primitive woman, Madame. It refreshes me to find a woman so charmingly direct, so completely feminine. There are not many left. It is a quality which should always accompany beauty. If a woman is not beautiful, it does not matter.” He paused waiting for her to speak and when she said nothing, he continued. “I envy your lover. He is a fortunate man.”

At this Lily stirred once more. It was a faint movement, yet it carried a warning of anger.

“Of course, you may say and do what you please,” she said. “I am completely helpless.”

The Uhlan rattled his spurs in the darkness. “Come ... come, now. I have no intention of harming you. I told you that before. It seems to me that this once ... on a night such as this ... we might talk honestly ... as if there was no nonsense in the world. I do not know your name and you do not know mine. We shall never meet again, for I, no doubt, will be dead before many days. You have admitted that you have a lover.” He leaned across the table with a curious pleading gesture. “You see, I am tired. I mean to say that I am wearied of keeping up deceits. Has it ever occurred to you how many barriers surround us all ... even those friends whom we know very well. The countless secrets which lie behind them ... the things which we never know, even about our dearest friends. For once ... just once, it would be a delight to talk without pretense ... to speak as if each one of us were free, quite free, to do as he pleased ... to answer to no one, to fear no one. There is no more freedom in the world. There are too many people in the world. And the life of no one is any longer his own.” He paused and passed a thin, nervous hand across his brow as if he would clear away some entanglement which had entrapped his thoughts. “I cannot say what I mean. I, like all the others, have kept my secrets hidden for too long a time. You see, if it were possible for us to talk thus with freedom ... we might separate, you knowing me and I knowing you, better than any one else in the world.” He laughed and his mood changed quickly from a resigned weariness back to the old mocking flippancy. “It is an interesting idea, but impossible of course ... because we no longer know even ourselves. We have sacrificed ourselves to those who crowd in upon us, who dare not share our secrets ... because the crowd is too stupid ... too cowardly ... too weak ... too bereft of understanding. The crowd is like sheep. They must be protected by little shepherd laws ... against themselves. And so the strong are sacrificed to the weak. That will put an end to us all some day ... an end to all this blessed civilization. Ah, if you knew how stupid sheep can be. I have a farm in Silesia, Madame. I can tell you all about sheep.” For an instant he paused, considering the imbecility of sheep. “And socialism! It’s no better, Madame. It simply buries the individual deeper under layers of muck. No, it is all wrong from the bottom up. We must kill ... kill ... you understand ... until there is room to breathe! Until the earth is freed of the sheep! Then we can be free! Then we can find solitude!”

Again his voice rang with subdued frenzy. Inside the house the frivolous gilt traveling clock struck midnight, and far away in the direction of Trilport there arose again the faint crackling sound like the brush fires. It rose and fell, tossed about at the caprice of the night wind.

“They have begun again,” said the Uhlan. “In a little while I shall be forced to leave. You see, we cannot remain here. We have pushed in too far.” He leaned forward and drew with his lighted cigarette upon the top of the table between them a V shaped line. “You see,” he said, indicating the point of the V. “We have been pushed in here.... We cannot possibly remain. It is as far as we shall advance. We have come too far already. Any fool could see it. Any fool but Von Kluck.... Why, my boot boy would know it.” He laughed again. “But my boot boy is not a general. He is not stupid enough.”

He kept wriggling, wriggling helplessly, like a butterfly impaled by a pin ... an individualist, a lonely man, caught by the savage rush of the mob.

LXXXII

What he said appeared to pass ignored by Lily, for when he had finished she began to talk once more. “I can understand the bravery of fighting for that which you believe,” she said. “I cannot understand yielding without a fight to the monster you despise. I knew a man....” For a second she hesitated. “He fought for what he believed. He gave up everything for the fight ... his health, his friends, his work, his money. He was beaten and bloody and wounded. He would have given his life if it had been necessary. He was a poor, ignorant Ukrainian peasant ... a Russian who could barely read. Yet he fought. He fought and learned ... up from nothing.” Again she paused and the distant crackling sound filled in the silence, this time more distinct and sharp, nearer at hand. “You see, I am telling you this because it is the very monster that you hate which he too fought. He is still fighting it. In the end he will win.... If one could not believe such things, one could not live. He will go on fighting because there is inside him something which will not let him stop. But there are not many like him. There are too many like you.”

Her voice carried the ring of supreme scorn. There was a quality of iciness in it, penetrating, contemptuous, acid.

Suddenly she covered her face with her hands. “In times like this,” she said, “I think of him. It helps one to live.” And after a moment, she added bitterly. “He would not have gone off to kill!”