Chapter IX: Part TWO: Certain Interiors (4)

In the end, I think, the world will be driven to become a great beehive: there will be the workers who think of nothing but their work. They will think nothing of the profits. And there will be the drones who provide the jazz noises and the wheels--and who will be killed off from time to time.

That is what I have gathered from the ruined houses in Flanders and from the aloof quality of the faces that came back to me whilst I sat dozing and Rosalie Prudent sewed. The faces were those of the Lincolnshire Private, of Lieutenant Morgan, of Henri Gaudier, and of the caretaker in the house at Albert--and of the Quartermaster of the Wiltshires.[16] But, so that you may not think that I limit myself to one class of society, I will add the faces of Lord Kitchener, of Sir Edward Grey, and of the French Minister, whose name I have forgotten. I did not need to see in imagination the faces of the orderly or of Mme. Rosalie, for they were with me.

You will object that I single out for salvation in Gomorrah only those of whom I have talked. Certainly, it is only those that I single out--those of that type, for those, for me, are the _homines bonæ voluntatis_ who must be preserved if the State is to continue. They have rather abstracted expressions since they think only of their work; they have aspects of fatigue, since the salvation of a world is a large order, and they bear on their backs the burden of the whole world; but they look at you directly, and in their glance is no expression of pride, ambition, profit, or renown. They have expressions of responsibility, for they are the governing classes. Others will have that title in the newspapers--but they govern only those who make the noises of jazz-bands. The food supply and the supply of poetry is in the hands of the Gringoires.

Buzzing noises make the world pleasant; it would be a grim and silent world without them. I should not like it, nor would the other Gringoires like it. It was in Coventry Street that I last met Lieutenant Morgan-Gringoire. But, from time to time the buzzers must be killed off. Destiny is remorseless: either those who buzz must die in occasional crowds or those who live to give food and poetry must go starve and the others with them. Destiny is remorseless.

But destiny is also just. The drones of the hive have a good time--and give a good time. Moreover they make splendid soldiers of the type of the Cockney or the Parigot. That, perhaps, is how destiny means them to get killed off. So they will have their good times; and they will also have glory, the glory of finding the person of the Sacred Emperor in some such low teahouse as was the Bois de Mametz on the 14/7/’16 when the 38th Division was murdered.

And maybe that is the best glory of all. God forbid that I should say it is not. And I like to think that, along with the good time that they had and the glory of standing in the presence of the Sacred Emperor, they found also--sanctuary. For I like very much to remember the smile that was on the face of Lt. Morgan when they dug him out from under the dirt of the communication-trench.

Do you remember the old Catholic idea that a man may find salvation between the saddle and the ground? Well, we know little of death--nothing of death. So I hope it is not a heresy to think that, as the eyelids of those who fell closed on their glory, they had long, long visions, like that green vision that came to me from time to time. For time is a very relative thing; and may they not well have had long, long illusions, seeming to last for years and years?--to the effect that they had found, each his imagined sanctuary, where there was the gingerbread cottage that, hand in hand, on tiptoe with some Gretel, they explored, crossing their fingers and crying “_Feignits_” in the face of destiny--and where the Hou-Hou-oo of the wolf upon the Montagne Noire shall sound so very distantly as to be only the comforting reminder of the Grimm we knew as children.

----Something like that.

That is all I have to say about the war, here and now. But you have poked your sardonic fun at me from time to time, Mr. Compiler, and though bargaining is no part of my nature, a determination to have my own way was born in me as pawkiness was in you. And now, I say this:

“You have poked your fun at me as writer and as cook, and decorated with only those attributions of yours--as if each of those little, half-concealed smiles were a rag and tatter on my shining-seated _pantalons_, you propose to exhibit me to your public. Well, you shan’t except on my own terms. The first is that, as you have spoken of me as writer you should enshrine--like a shining fly in amber--in the gum of your lucubrations a specimen of my own writing as it came to me, precisely, in Nieppe. And the second is that, since you began this compilation with what purports to be an account of my entertainment of the guests who honor this lowly roof of ours, you shall, as truthfully entertain your readers--as truthfully as you can, for God gives to some of us vision and to some the gift of recounting things askew for the entertainment of those wider of mouth than of intelligence--you shall then entertain your readers with an account of the dishes which since early morning I have been preparing for the evening degustation of yourself, of my dear Sélysette and your friend Mrs. Carmody. For I observe that, though you poke fun at my hospitality you are not averse from begging your dimity madams to share what you have called, I think, our rough oaken board.”

Mrs. Carmody was no more than the wife of the Headmaster of the King Edward VI Grammar School where your Compiler gives lessons in the English language and drill, in the neighboring town. She had expressed an urgent curiosity to witness the domestic felicities and the supposedly eccentric habits of my friends. For it is not to be imagined that a figure so marked as that of our poet could conceal itself in an isolated dingle of a Home County without setting a considerable part of that county agog with curiosity--any more than it is to be imagined that an usher in a diminutive but immensely ancient public school could forever stave off from contact with his most intimate friends the young and agreeable but still imperious wife of his Head.

But to the alarmed, but only half-expressed remonstrances of your Compiler--for what, he wondered would Gringoire insist on inserting into his pages; and wouldn’t his patiently prosecuted work when, if ever, it saw the light, wouldn’t it have the aspect of a mere rag-bag? To these alarmed, if only half-expressed remonstrances, Gringoire, arising to his lean, gray height, announced his immutable programme for the day. It was by then towards four of a very hot, but fast cooling, July afternoon. The sunflowers drooped on their stalks, flycatchers made their curious, interrupted flights into the shining air and back to the old roof. The cows from the meadow had crowded to the other side of the quickset hedge, and, rubbing themselves unceasingly to get rid of flies from their backs made a curious sound like the tearing of thin paper interspersed with the deep, tranquil sighings of their breaths. It was in short an English July afternoon--a time when, if ever, men should sit and ruminate in quiet.

But there was such a clamor! You would have said that the itch of all the authors and all the regimental sergeants major had entered into our friend. Quick, the boy, dozing behind the house, must put in the mare and go to the station and see if the Bombay duck had come for the curry. Quick, the maid must bring tea half an hour before that diminutive creature was accustomed to bring it. Or, no.... She must put back tea an hour and Madame Sélysette must with her own incomparable fingers blow three quarts of shandygaff and not forget the lime-juice. And Madame Sélysette must find the article he had written at Nieppe, and must put out paper and pens and cut two quills just as he liked them and come down and entertain Compi--your humble servant the compiler--and see that no wasps had got under the cabbage-leaves that covered the syllabubs in the spring and see that the boy did not take the traces up two holes too short and ...

Madame Sélysette put her charming and provocative bust out of the little square window space above and to the left of the porch.

“You propose to write, my friend?” she asked. “But you swore this morning that you would send me to Coventry for a week if I did not goad you into picking the greengages....”

Gringoire made a sound like “Grrh”, as if the Wolf of the Mountains had humorously snarled. He said:

“You have no soul!” She made at him a little grimace and disappeared. But I could hear their endearments as they met on the sounding little wooden stairs and felt all the summer regrets of the nearly old bachelor.

There was however no rest that afternoon. It was well to have the great blue three-quart jug of shandygaff on the seat in the porch; it was agreeable to have Madame Sélysette to one’s self whilst she dotted a few of the ‘i’s’ and crossed the ‘t’s’ as to the entangled career and theories of her great man--and there is no better drink of an English July afternoon than shandygaff that has a little edge of lime-juice given to it and that since dawn has had all its ingredients cooled in an ice-cold spring. And there is no pleasanter topic in the mouth of a gay and tranquil young woman assured of the adoration of her mate than her expressions of her humorous adoration for Himself and his crotchets. You reply that the adoration of a lively young woman expressed to yourself would be more agreeable, but that is not the case. For lively young women do not express adoration to the faces of their males; but, failing and replacing that, it is pleasant to sit in a porch and hearken to adoration of a roaring genius overhead. For it causes you to have daydreams of a time when you in revenge may sit in an upper room, with a lively young woman expressing to a third the adoration that she feels for yourself....

But continuously our Gringoire’s voice rumbled from inside his upper room. Then coming to the window he would shout:

“Sélysette Sé ... ly ... _sette_.... What is the colloquial English for ...” Some phrase that I did not catch. Or:

“Sé ... ly ... sette.... _Est-ce que_ ...” And again something that I did not catch for my French is none of the strongest. But I should gather that it had something to do with his pots that were on the stove in the disreputable shanty that he called his cookhouse. For Madame would enter that erection like Eurydice disappearing into Orcus. Immediately would come the thunder of Gringoire descending the stairs as if he had fallen. He too would enter the cookhouse and there would be the sound of impassioned and farcical altercations. Then Gringoire would approach the porch with a face that resembled a beet root with the heat. He would drink a pint of shandygaff at a swallow, exclaim:

“The stuff’s bilge.... No, I don’t mean the shandygaff. There is no one like Sélysette for compounding cold drinks. I trained her. I mean my prose. My prose is bilge....” And he would thunder up the stairs whilst Madame tranquilly resumed her place.

Once she asked some questions about Mrs. Carmody and when I said that lady had the greatest possible admiration for Gringoire and even had some of his verses by heart she expressed amused relief. “For,” said she, “there are going to be great storms and dinner won’t be ready till ten.”

It wasn’t.

For, you understand, in the sometimes tranquil, sometimes tempestuous but always complex nature of my friend, the pride of authorship had for the moment come uppermost and he was determined to get _his_ prose into his compiler’s volume. But of late he had only written in French as he has told you. So he would come to the window and shout to me the question whether he would be allowed to insert his French prose. Without waiting for me to answer his question he would shout: “No, of course you won’t!” and disappear. Then he would shout:

“But I can’t translate my own damned stuff. In heaven’s name what’s the English for ... The beastly colloquial English....”

Towards seven, just when I was thinking that I must go and tidy myself for the approach of Mrs. Carmody, he appeared before me, dishevelled and with a mess of written papers dangling from his hands.

“Here, you,” he exclaimed, “get your reporter’s notebook and come with me!”

And, at the bottom of the garden, under the hedge beneath the damson trees he made me lie down in the grass which was there long and began to dictate to me. He couldn’t, as he said, translate his own French prose because his own French was near his heart and his English much less. You might say that his passions were for English countrysides and for French prose and here the two met to his confusion. Perhaps it is impossible to interpret French prose in the long grass beneath an English quickset hedge.

In any case Gringoire was distracted as he dictated and I was distracted, using a shorthand that I almost never employ to take down his words that he whispered or shouted or intermingled with ejaculations that I was not intended to record.... And I was the more distracted because at the top of the garden I could see Mrs. Carmody and Madame Sélysette carrying implements and provisions for the dinner from the house door to the little platform beneath the enormous oak that overshadowed the spring. Those gay young things laughed over their burdens--for Mrs. Carmody, out of her School House, was at least as gay as Madame Sélysette. And every time that they laughed Gringoire, lying in the long grass, groaned and writhed with the whole of his immense length. I have relegated his French, for which he gave me the copy from some Swiss magazine, to an appendix. I can only hope that his French is better than his English version of it. But as to that I am no judge. I only wish that he had not insisted on my presenting an untidy book to the world, for in common, I believe, with most readers, I much dislike appendices. For when on a bookstall I see a book and, examining it, find appendices at the end, I think either that that is a learned work for which I am seldom in the mood, having studies enough of my own to pursue, or that the author is an untidy-minded fellow who has not given himself the pains to digest and put into his own phraseology matter that will almost certainly be tedious to read.

But in this case I have no alternative. The rages of Gringoire are things that I have no mind to face. Print his lucubrations I must or there would be the devil to pay. I am not certain that there won’t be at least a minor fiend to propitiate as it is--I mean when Gringoire comes to look for his prose and finds it at the end of the volume.

There certainly was a tremendous row when he discovered that he had kept the ladies waiting. He howled with rage, sprang to his feet, rushed into his cookhouse....

And the first view that Mrs. Carmody had of a poet for whom, as you shall discover, she had a real veneration, was rushing along the face of the house towards the dinner-table beneath the oak. He was hatless, coatless, his shirt-collar was widely unbuttoned and he was bearing a huge tray covered with little saucersful of the piquant messes that he calls _hors d’œuvres_.

We dined.

I am, alas, no Brillat Savarin and Gringoire as cook is to say the least inarticulate. When he is not that he is profane. We had his _hors d’œuvres_. Then we had his curried lobster. What shall I say about his curry?

Do you know the sensation of suddenly leaving the level and swooping downwards on the little railways you get at Exhibitions or in fairgrounds? It is like that. You take your first forkful of one of Gringoire’s inventions with misgivings mingled with anticipations. Then you are reassured. You say:

“This is at least supportable. I shall survive this.”

You take a sip of his white wine. After that it flies.

But you can’t _believe_ in Gringoire as cook.... I sometimes wonder if even he believes in himself. I mean, I asked him the other day for the recipe for his curry, just as, at the beginning of this book, as I have reported, I tried to extract from him his directions for household management. The results were even more inarticulate. He said:

“Oh, you take any old thing--tinned lobster, bully beef, cold mutton.... And of course you fry ... But curry powder is good for any dish.... Because of the garlic in it.... And which curry are you talking about? There are hundreds. The only thing that unites them is that the curry must be cooked. Don’t you understand? The curry--the powder--itself must be cooked. For hours and hours. Do you see? No, you don’t see. How can I remember what I put into the curry for your friend? Any old thing....”

I know he hadn’t put in any old thing, though it is probably true that the chief ingredient of his dish is his fine frenzy. But I remember the energy he had put into securing the fresh lobsters for that particular effort--and the special brand of French preserved oysters that he had had to have for his beefsteak, kidney and oyster pudding which on that menu followed the curry. The boy had been sent on a bicycle in one direction, Madame Sélysette and I in the dogcart to Ulpeston, he himself had borrowed a lift in the baker’s cart and gone to Storrinton.... No, surely, not any old thing--though he surely believed what he said....

At any rate towards eleven we were contented and he, appeased, sat back in his chair and talked about poultry foods to Mrs. Carmody, that being the first time that he had paid her any attention.

The great boughs of the oak in which there now hung three Chinese lanthorns--Madame Sélysette loves Chinese lanthorns--the great boughs of the oak towered quietly up towards the planets, great white moths appearing and disappearing again into the blackness around the glow of the lanthorns. The Dog-star hung low on the horizon before us and the owls called at ten-yard intervals as they flew along the little stream in the meadow. When they were silent the night-jar churned intermittently. When we too were silent the little tinkle of the stream from the spring made itself heard.

I think that Mrs. Carmody did not much want to talk about poultry though her white Leghorns had taken many prizes at County or even more important shows. I think she let the conversation drag purposely. For suddenly, when we had all been pensive for a minute or two, her voice said from the shadows:

“‘I should like to imagine a night...!’”

Gringoire exclaimed sharply:

“What? What’s that? Don’t!”

But Mrs. Carmody said defiantly:

“I will. Just to pay you.... To show you....” And she began again:

“‘I should like to imagine
A moonlight in which there would be no machine guns!
For it is possible
To come out of a trench or a hut or a tent or a church all in ruins;
To see the black perspective of long avenues
All silent;
The white strips of sky
At the sides, cut by the poplar trunks;
The white strips of sky
Above, diminishing--
The silence and blackness of the avenue
Enclosed by immensities of space
Spreading away
Over No Man’s Land....

For a minute ...
For ten....
There will be no star-shells
But the light of the untroubled stars;
There will be no Verey light,
But the light of the quiet moon
Like a swan.
And silence!...’”

The moon was at that moment just tipping over the ridge of trees before us. Mrs. Carmody hesitated.

“‘Then ... a long way ...’”

The voice of Madame Sélysette said slowly:

“‘Then far away to the right ...’”

Mrs. Carmody said: “Thank you!” and continued:

“‘Then far away to the right thro’ the moonbeams
_Wukka Wukka_ will go the machine guns,
And, far away to the left
_Wukka Wukka_
And sharply
_Wuk_ ... _Wuk_ ... and then silence
For a space in the clear of the moon.’”

The impassive face of Gringoire that the moonlight just showed worked suddenly, the mouth just moving--oh, rather like a rabbit munching. He said:

“I wrote that in Nieppe in September ’sixteen....” He added:

“And it’s pleasant ... you two remembering....”

He reached out his right hand and took Mrs. Carmody’s left, and his left and took Madame Sélysette’s right.

“‘Rest,’” he said with his heavy tired voice, “‘after toil, port after stormy seas ...’” He paused and added after a moment: “‘Do greatly please!’”

[Footnotes]

[13] Gringoire particularly asks me to style this chapter as above because the Eminent Reformer, mentioned in Part I, Chapter VI, once said that the Writing on the Wall at Belshazzar’s Feast was the first recorded instance of a Kinematographic production. It seems stupid: but our friend insists. He also asks me to say that Mme. Prudent’s name was really _Dutoit_.

[14] It should be remembered that the military description of “tactics” is the direction of troops when in contact with the enemy. “Strategy” includes the direction of all movements that take place outside the immediate firing line. The conversion of neutral nations into allies or the cementing of bonds between allies by literary manifestations is specifically and according to the textbooks a branch of strategy, so that Gringoire is using the correct military word.

[15] As far as the compiler has been able to discover, the poet’s only ground for this diatribe is a review that his last volume of poems received from the ---- Literary Supplement. In this the reviewer devotes one line to saying that the volume of poems is the best that was published during the war and the rest to personal abuse of our friend--and that is all. Our friend says that this is not cricket. It probably is not; but one should never say so.

[16] _Note by Gringoire._ I do not know why I am haunted by the remembrance of this man. He was killed by the direct hit of a shell. When I last saw him, he was reading a paper with the spectacles at the end of his nose like the caretaker at Albert. His tunic--with ten ribbons!--was open over his fat stomach, and he wore carpet slippers. He was as brave as a lion and as simple as a sheep: no soul then alive knew his job better. He was a butcher of Stratford-on-Avon. If he have left a young son, may the shade of the Divine William guide that young son’s footsteps gently and humorously through the ways of life!

ENVOI

UNE PARTIE DE CRICKET

BEING A LETTER WRITTEN FROM THE LINES OF SUPPORT
TO CAPITAINE UN TEL AT PARIS.

Mon cher Monsieur, Camarade et Confrère,

C’était derrière le bois de Bécourt, un soir de juillet, et nous étions en train de jouer au cricket tandis que les obus allemands passaient au-dessus de nos têtes. Les obus allemands arrivaient, semblant vouloir crier le mot anglais _weary_,--qui veut dire fatigué,--puis changeant d’avis, ils disaient--et péremptoirement--_whack_. Mais en jouant au cricket, on oublie l’orchestre boche: on n’entend plus les obus qui passent. Nous courions; nous adressions des objurgations au malheureux qui n’attrapait pas la balle; nous discutions même, parce que les règles du jeu de cricket--qu’on joue avec une balle de tennis, deux marteaux et deux caisses de _bully-beef_--sont un peu élastiques. La pelouse est d’argile, dure et cuite par le soleil presque tropical; en fait d’herbe nous n’avons que des chardons, pour spectateurs et pour barrières à la fois, les mulets de transport, alignés. Mais jamais le cricket international qu’on joue sur le terrain des Lords, dans le bois de Saint-Jean, n’a été si accidenté ni si émouvant que notre partie de cricket derrière le bois de Bécourt, ce soir de juillet. Nous avons crié, gesticulé, discuté, hurlé ... nous, les officiers anglais, mornes, taciturnes!

Je vous présente ces considérations en forme de lettre, mon cher ... j’aurais voulu plutôt écrire un essai, soigné, balancé, bien pensant. Mais il m’est impossible de ciseler de la prose ces jours-ci. “Que voulez-vous,”--comme disent nos Tommies,--“c’est la guerre!” J’ai passé vingt-cinq ans à chercher des cadences, à chasser des assonances, avec une rage acharnée, comme celle du bon père Flaubert. Mais aujourd’hui je n’écris que des lettres,--longues, diffuses, banales. L’autre affaire demande trop de temps, de loisir,--de chance!

Donc, nous étions en train de jouer au cricket, quand je vis passer tout près de nous un officier français de ma connaissance,--officier d’une de ces batteries de 75, admirables, et que, la nuit surtout, nous avons trouvées tellement réconfortantes, à cause de leur voix qui roulait sans cesse, à peu de mètres derrière notre dos. C’était un colosse gris-bleu, aux yeux bruns et sombres, à la moustache brune et lourde. Il restait là, campé sur ses jambes et sur sa canne, comme quelque instrument de guerre à trois jambes, silencieux et d’acier. Et quand je m’approchai de lui, il me dit:

--_I find that a little shocking. Very shocking!_ (Je trouve ça un peu shocking. Même très shocking.)

Il regardait les joueurs de cricket qui continuaient à crier, à gesticuler et à courir entre les chardons gigantesques et les jambes des mulets dangereux. Je m’écriai:

--Au nom du bon Dieu, pourquoi?

Il ne cessait pas de regarder les joueurs, et réfléchit longtemps avant de répondre. Et ce fut moi qui, m’impatientant, commençai à parler, et même à gesticuler. Je disais que nous étions nouvellement sortis des tranchées; que le jeu donnait la santé, remettait le moral, faisait oublier la guerre ... que sais-je? Il réfléchissait toujours, et moi je parlais toujours. Puis enfin, il dit:

--_I find that this war should be a religion. On coming out the trenches one should sit--and reflect. Perhaps one should pray_ ... (Je trouve que cette guerre devrait être conduite en religion. En sortant des tranchées l’on devrait s’asseoir--et réfléchir. Peut-être devrait-on prier.)

Et puis ... je parlai encore longuement sans qu’il répondît autre chose que:

--_I find that, all the same._

Alors j’éclatai de rire. Car la situation me semblait tout d’un coup allégorique. Et si vous y pensez, mon cher, vous verrez pourquoi je riais. C’est parce que c’était lui, le représentant de Cyrano de Bergerac, qui parlait l’anglais et employait les monosyllabes d’un lord Kitchener de théâtre; tandis que moi, le représentant de tant de milords et officiers qui pendant tant de siècles n’ont rien trouvé de plus à dire que les deux syllabes “O ... ah”,--moi, qui aurais dû porter monocle et favoris jaunes, j’étais occupé à hurler et à mimer des phrases d’un français assez incohérent, comme un vrai Tartarin. Et tous les autres--officiers et O. R.--de mon régiment continuaient à sauter, à crier et à rire comme des enfants méridionaux.

* * * * *

Et, en vérité, le changement est étonnant et quelque peu émouvant. Nous avons toujours eu l’idée--tout le monde, même le Français a eu l’idée--que le peuple français, et surtout les officiers et soldats français étaient gais, débonnaires, loquaces, goguenards,--“bretteurs et hâbleurs sans vergogne.” Eh bien, j’ai voyagé en permission de Steenewerck à Paris,--voyage qui dura dix-sept heures. Et, pendant ces dix-sept heures, quoiqu’il y eût toujours des officiers français assis dans les voitures, ou debout dans les couloirs du train, le voyage a été le plus silencieux que j’aie fait de ma vie. Personne ne parlait. Mais personne! Il y avait des colonels, des commandants, des capitaines. Et je ne puis croire que ce fût tout à fait de ma faute. Il est vrai que, partout dans le train, on lisait: “Taisez-vous; méfiez-vous”,--et le reste. Mais c’eût été impossible que _tous_ ces messieurs gris-bleus m’eussent attribué les oreilles ennemies dont parle l’affiche. Je portais l’uniforme khaki.

Non, certainement, le voyage n’a pas été accidenté. Je vais vous en raconter les incidents: de Hazebrouck à Calais cinq officiers français, qui n’échangèrent pas deux mots; de Calais à Abbeville, trente officiers. Je m’adressai à un capitaine d’artillerie, en grognant que le train marchait très lentement. Il me répondit en anglais:

--_Many troops moving!_

Et puis, silence!

A Amiens entre un monsieur en civil. C’était un samedi vers huit heures du matin, et le train avait l’air de ne vouloir arriver à Paris qu’après trois heures de l’après-midi. Comme j’avais des affaires à Paris et que je devais partir le lundi avant six heures, je demandai à ce monsieur si je trouverais les banques fermées, et les ministères, et les magasins. Il me répondit qu’il n’en savait rien, qu’il n’était pas chez lui à Paris. Il allait à Jersey pour prendre possession du corps d’une jeune fille qui, ayant été noyée à Dieppe, avait flotté jusqu’à Jersey. _Et lui aussi me répondit en anglais._

Il commençait à pleurer tout doucement.

Et puis ... silence; les officiers regardaient ce monsieur avec des yeux qui ne disaient rien. Mais ce n’était pas gai!

A Creil montent deux dames, jolies et bien mises. Elles ont assez parlé, ces deux-là. Croix-Rouge, œuvres de charité, colonels, familles! Mais les officiers ne les regardaient jamais. Pas un ne levait les yeux, quoiqu’elles fussent jeunes, jolies, bien mises....

Tandis que, pendant le trajet de Rouen à Albert, nous autres--qui n’allions pas en permission!--nous avons chanté, parlé aux demoiselles qu’on voyait sur les perrons; joué au football le long du train; grimpé sur le toit des voitures.

J’exagère un peu, naturellement, ces différences. Ce n’est pas un article que je suis en train d’écrire, c’est une lettre. Mais je reconte quand même ce que mes yeux ont vu et mes oreilles entendu.... Et comment l’expliquer? Parce que ce n’est pas assez de dire--comme on me l’a dit assez souvent--que si, en Angleterre, les Allemands étaient établis entre York et Manchester, s’ils avaient saisi les industries, pillé les villes,--et fait ce que font les Boches!--nous aussi, nous serions tristes, mornes, silencieux. Je ne parle pas de la population civile de mon pays; je parle de gens dont la vie n’est pas gaie, qui sont expatriés, loin de leur patrie, et qui souffrent, je vous l’assure, d’une nostalgie très sincère. Car là-bas, sur la Somme ou en Belgique, l’on se sent bien oublié, bien abandonné, et très, très isolé, d’un isolement semblable à l’isolement de ... Eh bien! c’est comme si l’on était suspendu--nous, quelques millions d’hommes!--sur un tapis, dans les infinitudes de l’espace. Les routes qui s’étendent devant nous cessent tout d’un coup, à quelques mètres, dans le _No Man’s Land_. Et c’est bien triste à contempler, des grand’routes qui cessent tout d’un coup. Et puis les sentiers par lesquels on est venu--et qui s’étendent entre soi et son pays--sont des chemins que l’on ne doit pas traverser.... Et, tout comme un autre, l’on aime sa femme, sa maison, ses enfants, ses parents, son coin du feu, ses champs, ses fumiers, ses bœufs et ses bois.... Le soldat français a cela, au moins, qu’il se bat chez soi! Et c’est quelque chose pour lui, comme individu.

Je suppose que c’est pour oublier, non seulement les obus allemands, mais aussi celles qui nous sont si chères, le coin du feu où nous avons si souvent devisé, les champs, les fumiers, les bœufs et les bois,--c’est pour trouver “l’herbe qui s’appelle l’oubli”, que nous jouons au cricket près de Bécourt, et sortons des tranchées en donnant des coups de pied à un football qui saute à travers les corps des hommes tombés, vers les Allemands. Est-ce faiblesse? Est-ce la source dont nous tirons ce que nous avons de fermeté, de hardiesse, de courage? Je n’en sais rien.

Aussi bien que moi, mon cher, vous avez connu la difficulté de définir exactement et en termes justes les différences, les nuances des différences, qu’il y a entre des nations. Nous commençons par développer une théorie--et nous théorisons beaucoup trop tôt; ou bien nous prenons le contre-pied d’une théorie admise depuis des siècles. Nous avons eu en Angleterre les caricatures du dix-neuvième siècle, des guerres de Napoléon I^{er}, qui nous montraient le Français selon l’imagination populaire anglaise. C’était un coiffeur, mince et affamé, qui ne mangeait que des grenouilles. Et vous autres, vous aviez votre John Bull, gros comme un bœuf, le ventre grand comme le ventre d’un bœuf, et qui dévorait des bœufs entiers. Ou vous aviez le milord qui se suicidait par pur spleen. Elles étaient stupides, ces caricatures, mais il m’est impossible de croire qu’elles ne fussent pas sincères. Les Anglais qui s’étaient battus en France en 1815 avaient cherché ce qu’ils voyaient--mais ils l’avaient vu. De même pour les Français.

De même, peut-être, pour moi. J’étais venu d’une Angleterre émotionnée, couverte, de l’île d’Anglesey jusqu’à North Foreland, d’affiches patriotiques et coloriées, et puis, de la frontière belge jusqu’à Paris, j’ai vu une France sans affiches, grise, silencieuse, préoccupée. Mais pour moi il n’y avait rien de neuf à trouver la France préoccupée--parce que, pour moi, la France a toujours été la France des champs, des villages, des bois et des paysans. Et la France des paysans est une France bien laborieuse, qui travaille sans cesse entre bois et étangs ou sous les oliviers du Midi.

Et pour moi la population anglaise a toujours été un peuple des villes. Or, ce sont les habitants des grandes-villes qui, tout en travaillant aussi bien que vous voudrez, ont besoin de faire de temps en temps la noce--chacun selon sa nature. Et c’est peut-être là la raison--la _causa causans_--des différences entre l’armée française et nous autres. L’armée anglaise est une armée ouvrière, l’armée française est une armée plutôt paysanne. Des paysans, et surtout des paysans français, ont l’habitude de mesurer les sévérités, les nécessités implacables de la nature. Ils les confrontent sans cesse, pendant des semaines, des mois, des années. Ils ne peuvent y échapper,--ils ne peuvent pas s’évader de la contemplation des maux de la vie, des vents et des vers qui détruisent les récoltes, en prenant des jours de permission, en faisant des calembours, ou par cet “humour” âcre et plutôt triste qui est, peut-être, la qualité souveraine du Tommy anglais. Car inscrire sur un obus qu’on va lancer contre les Boches les mots “_Love to little Willie_” peut paraître stupide, shocking à des gens qui n’ont jamais été là-bas. Mais la psychologie humaine est très compliquée, et il est certain que la lecture d’inscriptions de ce genre sur les grands obus à côté desquels on passe le long des chaussées a beaucoup fait pour nous encourager quand nous avons avancé d’Albert vers La Boisselle. Pourquoi? C’est difficile à dire. C’est peut-être parce que, les obus étant terribles et funestes, voici un obus qui est devenu ridicule, joyeux, ou même humain. Car nous sommes tous anthropomorphistes--et qu’un seul obus puisse se commettre à être le véhicule d’un jeu d’esprit, cela suffit pour donner à des coeurs superstitieux l’idée que tous les obus peuvent être un peu moins surhumains qu’ils n’en ont l’air. Car on a peur des obus. Ce sont les messagers des dieux qui ont soif, qui se manifestent en sifflant, qui disent qu’ils sont fatigués, mais qui détruisent, en deux minutes, des villages, des fumiers, des champs entiers. De même pour la partie de cricket que nous avons jouée parmi des chardons couverts de poussière et qui cachaient les ossements des soldats tombés. C’était peut-être sacrilège, peut-être stupide.

Mais je vous assure, mon cher, que ce paysage de Bécourt, Fricourt, Mametz n’était pas joyeux. C’était en juillet, et le soleil laissait tomber ses rayons sur les vallées larges, sur la poussière qui montait au ciel, sur les pentes, sur les bois noirs. Mais cette terre ne riait pas! Elle s’étendait loin, loin; et sous l’horizon bleu-gris se trouvaient les terrains auxquels personne ne voulait penser. Non, la nature, là, semblait terrible et funeste--territoire où le Destin aveugle et implacable devait se manifester à des millions d’êtres. Et puis nous y avons joué au cricket--et tout de suite ce paysage funeste et surhumain est devenu ... est devenu un champ de cricket!

Pour un intellectuel, un terrain restera un terrain, qu’on y voie en l’air des bombes, des obus ou une balle de tennis. Mais pour nous autres, un terrain où nous avons joué au cricket devient moins terrible, et nous y passerons nos jours avec plus de contentement, malgré les ossements des tombés qui se cachent sous la poussière des chardons énormes. C’est stupide, c’est sacrilège, si vous voulez. Mais nous sommes ainsi faits, nous autres qui sortons des grandes villes pour faire la guerre. Moi, je suis comme cela, j’ai senti comme cela, là-bas, derrière le bois de Bécourt, par un soir de juillet 1916.

Et je reste toujours votre affectionné,
G.

P.S. Et je vous prie de remarquer que toutes les personnes que j’ai rencontrées entre Steenewerck et Paris parlaient l’anglais. C’est déjà quelque chose.

THE END