Chapter VII (1)

_The Laurels,
Putney Heath, S. W.
November 9._

DEAR SIR,

I enclose a cheque for £250, my annual subscription to the local
War Chest of the Party. I beg you particularly to note that this
subscription makes me the creditor of the Party to the extent of
over £3000, counting interest at one above bank rate from the first
subscription. I have carefully gone into this and there can be no
error. I would further have you note that I desire no reward or
recognition for my disbursement of this sum beyond the baronetcy of
which we spoke the last time I visited you, in the presence of a
third party; and I must conclude by assuring you that any lengthy
negotiation would be extremely distasteful to me. You need not fear
my attitude in the approaching election; I am quite indifferent to
parliamentary honours, I will take the chair five times and no
more; I am good for one large garden party, three dinners, and a
set of fireworks. I will have absolutely nothing to do with the
printing, and I am,

Always at your service,
JOHN ROE.

When the Honest Man had perused these letters he decided that they should not be posted in their present form; but upon attempting to amend them he found himself singularly lacking in those phrases which he could usually discover so readily for the purposes of his correspondence.

He sent, therefore, for his secretary, and told him to re-write the letters himself according to his own judgment, which that gentleman did with singular skill and dispatch, maintaining the cheques as drafted and putting every matter in its proper light.

That night the Honest Man, who was sleeping soundly, was more annoyed than ever at the reappearance of the Devil at his bedside in the middle of the night.

"Now," said the Devil, "have I brought you to your senses?"

"No," said the Honest Man, composing himself for sleep as before, "you have not. You should have remembered that I have a secretary."

"Oh, the devil!" said the Devil impatiently, "one cannot be thinking of everything!" And he went out even more noisily than the night before.

In this way the Honest Man saved his soul and at the same time his face, which, if it were the less valuable of the two organs, was none the less of considerable moment to him in this mundane sphere.

COMPIÈGNE

[_The Main Room over the Terrace of the Palace in Compiègne. An
autumn night in 1782. The room is lit with many candles, and there
is dancing. The Queen of France is present, the Court, and some
few of the neighbouring gentry, among whom a Lady called Madame
d'Escurolles, about forty, silent, and rather timid. A gentleman
about the Court, a trifle older than herself, stands by and talks
to her as she sits and looks at the dancing. He takes his title
from Noirétable in the Forèz, but he has never been there._]

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. I cannot see anything in the Queen of what you say, M. de Noirétable. She seems to be a little violent, but not vulgar.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. It is precisely as you will, but I confess she spoils a room for me. The truth is that if she jostled and elbowed she would please me better; she always looks as though she would. I am disappointed in my amusement.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. M. de Noirétable, she is a good woman. I can see it in her eyes. They are very frank.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. Oh! Yes! Madame, they are frank enough. They are being frank just now to half the room. Ugh! I have seen market women looking so, but only at the return from market (_he pauses_). Have you ridden to-day?

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_laughing gently_). No, sir, I have not ridden. We do not ride at my age in Compiègne ... but, tell me, do you not think there is something majestic about the Queen?... You must remember I have not seen her for three years, and it may be you are used to her carriage. But do you not admire that poise of the head and that high manner; or perhaps I should say, have you not admired them?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. Oh! yes, Madame, I have admired it, and I do, as also her hairdresser and her shoemaker. Am I not at Court?

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. But they say it is at Court that she is least admired?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_shocked_). I would not presume to say that! God forbid! From what I have heard in the street I would say she was least admired in Paris, or, perhaps--(_musing_)--perhaps in the village of Louveciennes ... nay, I have forgotten St. Cloud. St. Cloud would run Louveciennes hard.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. I have do doubt these names are well known in Versailles.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. Madame, Versailles knows everything and everybody, because Versailles is the Queen. For myself, after many years in the full view of Versailles and taking my money from Versailles, yet I cannot say I like Versailles.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_innocently_). And why not, sir?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_looking vaguely at the distant candles and speaking as vaguely_). Upon my soul I cannot say!... It may be that Versailles is too frank or perhaps there is too much poise about it ... it is certainly majestic.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_as though merely to continue_). It must compare well with poor Compiègne!

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_ceasing to look at the candles_). I would not compare Versailles with Compiègne because I have seen Versailles so much and Compiègne so little. Indeed, Madame (if you will believe me!), I have but twice visited Compiègne since my year in garrison there, but that was fifteen years ago, and in those days, as you will remember, it was your father who befriended me. I found Compiègne very hospitable, and if I have returned there too seldom I very readily acknowledge my error.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_as though to change the subject_). Pray, sir, do you not find Compiègne much older? They say that age particularly affects Compiègne.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_with a little humour_). I know that _I_ have aged, but I would not swear for Compiègne. Madame d'Escurolles (_with enthusiasm_), I cannot forbear to tell you that Compiègne in my eyes does not age, but grows. The walls of Compiègne are more subtle and her woods more deep; her air is more gracious and full of certitude and peace than in those days I speak of when she held me for a full year.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. Oh! _Held_ you, Monsieur de Noirétable! You were under no constraint. It was your garrison.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_rapidly_). Madame, my youth was held. But I have not told you all of my own ageing nor of this return to Compiègne.... You say the town has aged also. Ah! You should see other towns! There is in Compiègne to-day, I swear to you, more deep and more desirable laughter than in the youngest and most virginal of towns!

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. Why, M. de Noirétable, you grow lyrical! (_Smiling._) One would think you had seen too many towns!

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_lightly and rapidly_). A man in the Service must see many towns.... It is not wholly his choice. I volunteered as well, and saw more towns than I positively needed, Madame; to tell the truth, a man is none the better for visiting too many towns.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. It is the appetite for travel, Monsieur, and the love of adventure.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. Precisely, Madame, you put it very well ... the appetite, Madame, and the love ... of adventure ... you put it very well indeed. (_Abruptly._) It led me to Narbonne, to Florac, and to Cahors.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_shuddering_). Oh! Monsieur de Noirétable! What dreadful names!

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_lightly_). Not at all, Madame! Not at all! Delightful!... but passing, very passing! Believe me, in the presence of Compiègne, no man desires to return to Florac or to Narbonne, nor even to Cahors.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES. No ... but he may choose to visit other places.

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_gravely_). He may be compelled to visit them, Madame. (_She looks away._)

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_is silent for a little while and then looks up at him as gravely_). _Must_ he visit so many towns?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_slightly lifting his shoulders_). Oh! Must! Must! Must is a strong word, Madame. But _Does, Does_; _does_ is a working word, Madame. And a man _does_ visit many towns, and he comes back to Compiègne.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_thoughtfully_). Sir, Compiègne has age upon it, though you are pleased to call it by prettier names. Compiègne is even sad with age. I will not deny her charm, I will even concede her beauty--but it is harder than ever to-day to be content with Compiègne. (_With a sudden change of tone._) We have spoken too much of cities. We old friends who do not dance treat the place too much like a card-room, and we converse when younger souls are full of the music.... Tell me, Monsieur de Noirétable--since the subject is more consonant with music and with dancing--are you fond of verse?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_solemnly_). I dote upon it! especially such verse as may be written in praise of Compiègne....

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_laughing_). Oh! Monsieur de Noirétable, you begin to be ridiculous. Come, is there no verse you may cite as your favourite?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE. Why, Madame, I fear to seem even more ridiculous if I quote Latin.

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_good-humouredly_). Not at all, sir! We know Latin in Compiègne!

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_grimly_). So I seemed to remember. Well, then, I confess my favourite verse is the Horatian Ode which begins--

Donec gratus eram tibi ...

and which ends (_he speaks glowingly_)--

... Iracundior Hadria
Tecum vivere amem; tecum obeam libens!

MADAME D'ESCUROLLES (_doubtfully_). Are you quite sure you have the Latin right? (_She ponders awhile._) For my own part I prefer the simple songs of our own people about here and the rhymes of children. Do you know

Nous n'irons plus aux bois
Les lauriers sont coupés?

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_almost yawning_). Oh! Bless you, yes. Who does not.... Madame?

(_The music ceases and the reverences to the Queen begin. Madame d'Escurolles, as she moves forward, says in a low tone to Monsieur de Noirétable as she passes him_, "When do you next come to Compiègne?")

MONSIEUR DE NOIRÉTABLE (_as he goes out alone, to himself_). When Compiègne comes to meet me halfway; which is perhaps a little difficult for so much stone.

THE CANDOUR OF MATURITY

(_The Marquis_ DE LA MISE-EN-SCÈNE _is discovered writing
at a little inlaid table. He is about 42 years of age, and looks
worse than that. He believes himself to be alone in the room,
when he is somewhat suddenly addressed from the open door by the
Duchess_ DE LA TOUR-DE-FORCE_, who has just entered. She
is a woman of about 55, somewhat too commanding. The place is
Versailles, and the time is 1753._)

THE DUCHESS DE LA TOUR-DE-FORCE. What are you doing, Monsieur de la Mise-en-Scène?

THE MARQUIS DE LA MISE-EN-SCÈNE (_continuing to write and without turning round_). I am writing, Duchess, as you can plainly see.

DUCHESS. Unfortunately I cannot see through your body, but I see you are seated at a table, and from the constrained attitude of your elbow and the awkward wagging of your head I can well believe that you are occupied as you say.

THE MARQUIS (_without turning round_). Come, Duchess, would you have me jump up like a bourgeois? Shall I ask after your health, which I know to be robust, or murmur something polite about your niece? Shall I come and hold the door for you, or do any of those things to which you are used in provincial hotels? Or shall I go on writing? (_He goes on writing._) (_A pause._) (_The_ DUCHESS _walks into the room, shuts the door rather noisily, and sits down upon a chair. She sighs._)

THE MARQUIS (_still writing, murmuring to himself_). "Indifferent"! Tut, tut, how does one spell "indifferent"? "You cannot be indifferent to my plea" ... "plea." ... I know how to spell "plea," but how does one spell "indifferent"? (_Turning round for the first time to the Duchess and showing a set, half-ironical face, with thin lips and steady grey eyes._) Duchess, how do you spell "indifferent"?

DUCHESS (_carelessly_). Oh, I spell it sometimes one way, sometimes another. But I believe there are two f's.

MARQUIS (_turning again to his letters_). "Indifferent" (with two f's) "to my plea...." (_He leans back and looks at the paper with his head on one side as though he were examining a picture._) It looks all right, Duchess. I always go by that, though I think it is easier to tell whether a bit of spelling is right if you can see it in print.

DUCHESS (_gravely_). I thoroughly agree with you, Marquis de la Mise-en-Scène. (_A pause during which the scratching of the quill continues._) I do not think she will mind about the spelling; but if I know anything of her sex she will not read the end of the letter if you make it too long.

MARQUIS (_still writing away busily_). Yes, she will, for it is full of business.

DUCHESS (_with some interest in her voice_). Why? What kind of business?

MARQUIS. I'm writing a proposal of marriage, Madam.

DUCHESS (_really startled_). Good heavens, Monsieur de la Mise-en-Scène! I always thought you were married!

MARQUIS (_continuing to write_). Madame de la Tour-de-Force, that is the malicious sort of thing people say at Versailles about provincials. (_He continues to write._)

DUCHESS. I don't care how much business you put into it; if you make it as long as that she won't read to the end.

MARQUIS. Oh, yes, she will. The letter isn't very long, but I'm writing it out several times.

DUCHESS. Really! Your cynicism! And suppose the various ladies meet, or suppose two of them accept you at once! What then?

MARQUIS (_getting up quickly_). I never thought of that! (_He puts his left hand on to the hilt of his sword, puts his right hand to his chin, and thoughtfully paces up and down the room._) Yes, Duchess, that would be very awkward. In fact (_going to the window and looking out_)--in fact, now that you have suggested it ... of course I might write to the second and say I already had an engagement ... but I think I shall drive tandem and not send off the second letter until I have received an answer to the first; nor the third until I have received an answer to the second, and so forth.... On the other hand, I'm glad I've got the work done, because the business part at the end is very complicated.

DUCHESS (_as though to make conversation_). Have you ever written a proposal of marriage before, Monsieur de la Mise-en-Scène?

MARQUIS. No, Duchess, I have not; and, what is more curious, no lady has ever shown me one. But I have a book in which various forms of letters are set down to be used upon different occasions in life. I have taken all the first part of this letter of mine from this book. The long part at the end which is all about business I got out of a letter from my solicitor.

DUCHESS (_quietly, as she folds her hands upon her lap_). If you will take my advice, Marquis, you will not put in so much business upon the very first occasion. I should have asked--Have you actually met any of these ladies?

MARQUIS (_stoutly_). Yes, all of them, and one of them three or four times. Tell me, Duchess, since you know something of the world, in what form is a declaration most pleasing?

DUCHESS (_serenely_). By word of mouth, Monsieur de la Mise-en-Scène.

MARQUIS. Oh, by word of mouth! And under what conditions? On horseback? During a gentle stroll? In a ball-room?

DUCHESS. No, rather under the conditions of ordinary life, in an ordinary room such as this, in the midst of one's ordinary avocations.

MARQUIS (_stops in his pacing up and down, stands near her, and, looking at her fixedly, says_): I attach the greatest possible value to your judgment and advice, Duchess. And I fear I have wasted a good deal of time writing those letters at the little table. Here is an ordinary room, here are we both at our ordinary avocations, which consist in doing nothing, now sauntering up and down the floors, now sitting upon chairs; all is as you would desire it. We are not on horseback, we are not at a ball, we are not strolling through the park. Will you marry me?

DUCHESS (_composedly_). Certainly not!

MARQUIS. Oh, well then, I'm very glad I did write those letters after all. It's a great thing to have one's work behind one instead of in front of one. But before I get to the tedious task again I do particularly beg you to consider my proposal. (_He sits down in a chair opposite her and begins to tick off the fingers of his left hand with the forefinger of his right._) My first point is this----

DUCHESS (_wearily_). Oh, Monsieur de la Mise-en-Scène, are you going to put it under three heads?

MARQUIS. No, Madam, I act in this fashion because I have seen the attitude adopted invariably by all diplomats when they would convince some great and powerful Sovereign; and my first point is this: We know each other and we know the world. On the other hand, we are not intimate friends, which would be fatal. We are both free. We are both careless as to differences in rank.

DUCHESS. I am not.

MARQUIS. Well, well, let us pass that: it is a matter one can soon get used to after the first years of married life.

DUCHESS. I assure you, you are wasting your time. I have not the slightest intention of marrying you or anybody else. But I will help you to get married if you like. My advice will be useful to you, as you say. And, first of all, show me those letters.

MARQUIS (_warmly_). Thank you, Madam; thank you a thousand times! This one here is to Madame de Livaudan (_hands her one letter and holds the other ready in his hand_).

DUCHESS (_glancing at it_). It is too formal!

MARQUIS. This one (_he hands her another_) is to an Italian lady, whose name I will get hold of before I write the direction outside; for the moment it escapes me, but she is a Contessa, something like Marolio, and I met her in a coach.

DUCHESS (_reads it_). It is far too long.

MARQUIS. This one (_he hands her a third_) is to a distant cousin of mine in Madrid, formerly the wife of----

DUCHESS (_in surprise_). But are they all widows?

MARQUIS (_gravely_). Yes, Madam, they are all widows--and all rich.

DUCHESS (_sighing profoundly_). It certainly seems a pity that with your knowledge of Versailles and your pleasant habit of friendship ... and your gallant record in the war ... you should be compelled to such adventures.

MARQUIS (_lightly_). There! there! Madam, do not pity me. Many a poor fellow is worse off than I. The fourth one.... (_He produces yet another letter._)

DUCHESS (_waving it aside_). No, no, I have already seen too much of that correspondence! Trust me, Marquis, it will all end in smoke, and may even very possibly make you ridiculous.

MARQUIS (_apologetically_). Madam, I have done my best. I have put before you the very reasonable proposal that we should marry. I put it before you in the very manner which you suggest. It did not, for the moment at least, meet with your approval: and surely it was common-sense to keep my line of retreat open upon the four widows, by any one of which roads I might have fallen back after my defeat at your hands.

DUCHESS (_thoughtfully_). No, I do not think we should get married. There are too many doubts.... I have seen such experiments fail ... and (_shrugging her shoulders_) succeed ... I confess I have seen them fail and succeed.

MARQUIS. Indeed?

DUCHESS (_still ruminating, but in a quiet way_). Yes.... On one's own land.... Yes, that is how it always has to begin. And then there would be the getting of a post (_she still continues to think it over, frowning with the interest of her subject; at last she rises promptly, and looking the Marquis full in the face she says_): We have half-an-hour or more before the hunt comes home. We will walk round the gardens together and give this very important matter the discussion it deserves.

MARQUIS (_cheerfully_). By all means, Duchess, so that you do not make me miss the courier who is to take the first of these missives. I am entirely at your disposal.

DUCHESS. It is my deliberate advice to you not to post the first of those letters to-day. Come! (_She goes out of the door in a rather majestic manner, and he follows, smiling._)

THE FOG

(_A young man in the uniform of a Lieutenant of Dragoons is riding
on the edge of a wood in a thick fog. The month is the month of
November, and the year is the year 1793. The young man has a
simple, open face, with rather protuberant blue eyes and sandy
hair. His mouth is at a half smile, and he does not seem to mind
having lost his way. His name is Boutroux._)

BOUTROUX. The more I see of warfare the more I am astonished!... It is true I have only seen four months of it.... My father would be very much astonished if he could see me now!... My mother would be more than astonished: she would be positively alarmed! On the other hand (_musing_) it is a great relief to me, and would be a still greater relief to her, that I cannot hear the sound of firearms.... The more I see of warfare the more and more perplexed I become. (_Looking up at the edge of the wood on his left._) Now what is that wood? Before the fog fell I could have sworn we were in an open rolling country with spinneys here and there, and I could almost have told you very roughly where we were and where the enemy were--more or less--so to speak--and now here is a horrid great wood! And where am I?

(_At this moment a single voice is heard through the fog. The
single voice belongs to a man called Metris. He is as yet unseen._)

METRIS. Get back a little! When I said follow me I did not mean bunching up like a lot of dirty linesmen. I meant keeping your spaces.... Charles, you are as pig-headed as ever! There are times when one does not answer a superior, but there are other times when one does. (_Angrily._) Charles! (_There is no reply._) Something has gone very definitely wrong with my troop! That is the worst of fog.

(_As he says this he emerges in a vast and murky way into the
vision of Boutroux. The two men stop their horses and look at each
other through the mist._)

BOUTROUX. Have you seen the Thirty-second?

METRIS. (_Boutroux perceives him to be a tall man quite ten years his senior, very lean, with menacing moustaches, and clothed in a uniform with which he is unfamiliar._) No, sir, I have not seen the Thirty-second. (_He salutes with a sword._) I take it you are an officer in the Republican service?

BOUTROUX (_wearily_). Oh yes!

METRIS (_with elaborate courtesy_). Then, sir, you are my prisoner! My name is Georges de Metris, of Heyren in this country, and my father's name will be familiar to you.

BOUTROUX. Your father's name is not familiar to me, sir. And what is more, _my_ father's name would not be familiar to you. For my poor old dad (God bless him!) is at the present moment in Bayonne, where he is a grocer--in a large way of business, I am glad to say. And talking of prisoners, you are my prisoner! It is as well I should tell you this before we go further. For if there is one thing I detest more than another in this new profession of mine it is the ambiguity thereof. (_He salutes with his sword in rather an extravagant fashion and smiles broadly._)

METRIS (_making his horse trot up quite close to Boutroux and halting stiffly while he lowers his sword_). Sir! I should be loath to quarrel with one so young and evidently so new to arms.

BOUTROUX. And I, sir (_lowering his sword as far as ever he can stretch_), would be still more loath to quarrel with one so greatly my senior and one evidently too used to this lethal game.

METRIS (_biting his lips_). I detest your principles, sir, but I respect your uniform.

BOUTROUX. You have the advantage of me, sir. Your uniform seems to me positively grotesque. But your principles I admire enormously.

METRIS (_stiffly_). Sir, I serve the Emperor. You have heard my name.

BOUTROUX. I have heard your name, and now that you tell me that you serve the Emperor I am willing to believe _that_ also. So it seems that we are enemies. I thought as much when you first showed out of the fog. It was not your uniform which gave me this opinion.

METRIS. Then what is it?

BOUTROUX. It was your singular habit of commanding men who were not there.

METRIS (_in a boiling passion, which he restrains_). I did not come here, sir, for a contest of words.

BOUTROUX (_genially, putting up his sword_). I take it you did not come here with any direct motive. You got here somehow, just as I did, and neither of us knows why.

METRIS (_in extreme anger_). But you will know why very soon, sir! And I hope I shall know why, too! Sir, I call upon you to draw!

BOUTROUX (_seating himself back in the saddle with great ease while his horse munches the wet grass_). Now, there you are. I have been a soldier only these few weeks, and I thought I had got hold of all the muddlement there was; "lines" which aren't lines, and "positions strongly held" which anybody can walk round for fun; and communications "cut," when, as a fact, one could go right along them on horseback, and "destructive fire" that hits nobody, and "excellent morale" when one's men are on the point of hitting one on the nose. But if you will allow me, sir, you positively take the prize in the matter! You suggest the duello or some such phantasy. Do you want us to fight with these cavalry swords from the saddle?

METRIS. I do not know if you are trying to gain time, sir. I suggest that you should meet me on foot here and now.

BOUTROUX. What! and lose my horse?

METRIS. Sir, we can tie the two beasts by their bridles, and we can hang their bridles so tied to the branch of one of these trees.

BOUTROUX (_frowning_). I have a very short experience of warfare--I think I have said that before--and I hesitate to correct a man of your experience. But if you can really _tie_ two bridles together and then have enough leather left to get it over the branch of a tree, you'll teach me something about the art of campaigning of which I was quite innocent.... (_Getting down from his horse._) Come, I think in the French service we have a better way than that. (_He unbuckles one end of the snaffle-rein._) You see (_looking up genially_), we leave the curb on. If I had time I would explain to you why.... Now, sir, will you not unbuckle the end of your snaffle-rein?

METRIS (_stiffly_). No, sir, I will not.

BOUTROUX (_sighing_). They are all the same! The service simply fossilises them, especially, it would seem, the enemy; though I confess (_turning courteously to_ METRIS _and bowing to him_) you are the first of the enemy I have ever met.

METRIS (_restraining himself_). Pray, sir, do not delay.

BOUTROUX (_full of good humour_). I will not! See, I pass my snaffle-rein in through the buckle of your horse's curb; and pardon me, sir, but what a fine horse! Is it yours or the Emperor's?

METRIS (_ominously_). It is mine, sir.

BOUTROUX. Keep it. This (_jerking his thumb at his weedy mount_) belongs to the Republic--if it is still a Republic, for news travels slowly to the armies. At any rate, it doesn't belong to me. (_He slowly takes the end of his snaffle-rein and looks for something to fasten it to; he shakes his head doubtfully. At last, holding the end of the snaffle-rein in his left hand while the two horses begin to browse peacefully, he draws his sword with his right, and putting himself in a theatrical posture, says_): Come on, sir, I'm damned if I will let go of these horses.

METRIS (_solemnly_). I do not jest upon these occasions.

BOUTROUX. Neither do I, sir. Indeed, I have not been in such an occasion before; and I make it a rule never to jest when I do anything for the first time. Come, draw, and put yourself in a posture of defence, or, by Heaven (so far as these two animals will allow me) I will make a mincemeat of you with my sword.

METRIS (_boiling over_). This is far more than any gentleman can endure! (_He stands before_ BOUTROUX _with his left hand clenched behind his back, his right foot well advanced, and his sabre in tierce._) Now, sir.

BOUTROUX (_very simply_). Now! (_Nothing happens._)

METRIS. Sir, are you upon your guard?

BOUTROUX. More or less (_jerking the horses_). Garrup! (_To_ METRIS) Excuse me, sir, it seems that even in browsing grass this horse of mine has a devil of a hard mouth. He nearly sprained my wrist.... Well, then, are you upon your guard?

METRIS (_courteously_). I am.

BOUTROUX (_as in surprise_). Oh, you are! (_He gives a tremendous cut at the point of the neck, which his opponent skilfully parries and replies to by a thrust._) Never ... (_rapidly parrying a sharp succession of thrusts that follow from his opponent_) never ... thrust ... with a light cavalry sword.... I don't know much about (Ah, you missed that!)--much about ... this business. But---- (_He suddenly gets round inside_ METRIS' _guard, but has the misfortune to cut with a spent blow into nothing better than cloth. They disengage._)

METRIS. Sir, you play well enough for a man who is uninstructed, but I warn you you are depending upon luck.

BOUTROUX. I know that. Luckily for me my mind is divided, and I can form no plan. For these animals at the end of the snaffle-rein have nearly pulled my arm off. However, let us have a second bout. The great thing for men like me is not to plan too much. (_Voices are heard through the fog._) Sir, let me warn you like a gentleman, though my father is but a grocer, and yours for all I know a Rouge Dragon, that I hear the voice of one who is most indubitably my Colonel. And talking of _his_ profession, he was, at the outbreak of this regrettable campaign, a butcher in Toulouse. He is a very brutal man, but I will not detain you, for your time is short.

METRIS. This is more than I will stand. (_They engage, and_ METRIS, _whose blood is now up and who means business, gets_ BOUTROUX _with a slash on the cheek at the third pass_.)

THE COLONEL (_now apparent through the thick fog, with a group of misty figures behind him_). Do I interrupt you, gentlemen?

BOUTROUX (_with great respect_). My Colonel, I had the misfortune to be separated from my troop during the fog, but I have taken this man (_pointing at the Austrian with his sword_) prisoner, but only after a sharp passage of arms, during which, my Colonel, I have been wounded. (_He points to the scratch on his cheek._)

COLONEL (_coldly_). Lieutenant Boutroux, you shall have forty days. (_He turns to a soldier._) Undo that scrimmage of bridles. (_The soldier obeys him. He turns to_ METRIS _with great courtesy_.) I take it, sir, you are an officer in the forces of the Emperor and that you hold his commission?

METRIS. Undoubtedly.

COLONEL. Then, sir, you will follow me, for I take it you constitute yourself my prisoner. (_Turning to an officer upon his right._) Major Clement, you will see to the enforcement of my sentence upon Lieutenant Boutroux. Pray add upon the record that he jested with a superior officer when discovered, separated from his command, fencing with a member of the enemy's forces. The Brigadier may deal with the complaint as he chooses.

BOUTROUX. Upon my soul, the longer I follow it, the less I comprehend the career of arms!

THE SPANIARD

When I was in the French Army I met many men who had a constant tradition of the military past. These were not in the regiment, but one came across them in the garrison town where we were quartered, and among others there was an old man whose father had fought in the Peninsula and who retained a very vivid family memory of those wars. From this old man I gathered in particular what I had learned in general from reading, an impression of the Spaniard as a soldier, but that impression was false. It was false for many reasons, but chiefly for this: that Spain, like the United Kingdom, is very highly differentiated indeed, and province differs from province to an extent hardly ever grasped by those who have never visited the country.

When, many years later, I had the opportunity to visit Spain, this was the first point I noticed. It is particularly striking in the mountains. You will find yourself with one type of man talking Catalan in some small modern village; the way in which he tills his garden, the way in which his house is built, and the way in which he bargains with you, are all native to his race. You set off over the hills and by evening you come to another village more different than is a Welsh village from an English one, for you have crossed from Catalonia into Aragon. Then, again, the boundary of the Basque Provinces, or at least of the Basque race, is as clean as a cut with a knife. One may argue indefinitely whether this is because the Basques have preferred the peculiar climate and soil of their inhabitance or whether it is their energy and tenacity which have changed the earth, but there it is. The Basque is much more separate from the people around him than is even (if he will pardon my saying so) the Irishman of the West from the Scotchman of the Lothians.

There is another form of differentiation in Spain which is so striking that I hesitate for adjectives to describe it lest those adjectives should seem excessive; but I will say this, it is more striking than the contrast between the oasis and the desert in Africa, and that is pretty strong. I mean the differentiation produced by the sudden change from the high plateaux to the sea-plains. The word "sea-plains" is not strictly accurate, the belt running back from the Mediterranean sometimes looks like a plain, sometimes like an enclosed valley, more often it is a system of terraces, hills upon hills, but at any rate when you are once out of the influence of the sea and on to the high plateaux which form, as it were, the body of the Spanish square, you pass from luxuriance to sterility, from ease to hardship, and from the man who is always willing to smile to the stoic.

Then, again, you have the contrast between Andalusia and everything to the north of Andalusia. Andalusia was the very wealthy part of Spain under the Romans. It must always remain the very wealthy part of Spain so far as agriculture is concerned. It has easy communications and a climate like nothing on earth. Therefore, when the Moors came there they found a large, active, and instructed Christian population, and they ruined Andalusia less than any other part of Spain. Nay, in some odd (and not very pleasant) way they married the Asiatic to the European, and the European solidity, the European power over stone, the European sense of a straight line, were in Andalusia used by the vague imagination of the Asiatic to his own purpose, with marvellous results. All this has produced a quite distinct type of man; and it is remarkable that, as is to be found in so many similar cases in Europe, the people exactly limitrophous to Andalusia on the north are peculiarly sparse, impoverished and alone. There lies the wide and arid sweep of La Mancha, imperishable in European letters.

Now, having said so much as to this high differentiation of the Spanish people (and one could add much more: the Asturias, always unconquered; the Atlantic tides and rivers, the tideless Eastern harbours, the curious poverty of Estremadura; the French experiments of Madrid and its neighbourhood, so utterly ill-fitted to the climate and the genius of Spain), let me say something of the Spanish unity.

No nation in Europe is so united. By which I do not mean that no other nation is so homogeneous, even in those deep things which escape superficial differentiation. The Spaniard is united to the Spaniard by the three most powerful bonds that can bind man to man--religion, historical memory, isolation. It is not to be admitted by any careful traveller that the religious emotion of the modern Spaniard is either combative or profound. Indeed, I know of nothing more remarkable than the passage from Spanish to French thought in this respect. You leave, let us say, Huesca; you notice at the morning Mass a moving and somewhat small concourse of worshippers, few communicants, but above all in the temper of the place, in the written stuff of the somewhat belated newspapers, a sort of indifference; as though the things of the soul "muddled through." You bicycle a long day to Canfranc, the next day you are over the hills (and Lord! what hills), and there you are in the seething vat of the great French quarrel. From the little villages right up to the majestic capital, Toulouse, you feel the pulsation increasing. Religion and its enemies are there at war. The thing is vital, and men are quite ready to die on either side. Of this, I say, you find little or nothing in Spain; nevertheless, religion does bind the Spaniard to the Spaniard, and it binds him firmly to his kind. For the very fact that there is so little opposition, while it produces so much indifference, produces also a singular national contempt; and every man speaking to every other man knows with precision how that man's mind stands upon the ultimate things, how careless he is and yet how secure.

Again, the Spaniards are united by that profound historical memory which is a necessity to all nations and a peculiar asset in those who retain it alive. We in this country feel the appetite for an historical memory; we attempt to satisfy that appetite by the creation of legends; we call ourselves "Anglo-Saxons"--there is even, I believe, a notable body which will have us descended from the ten Lost Tribes. The French satisfy that appetite by recurrent experiences: the reign of the Grand Monarque, the Revolution, 1870. Glorious or tragic, each national experience gives a new impetus to the historic memory of the French people. Not so the Spaniard. All Spain is bound together by the enormous recollection of the Reconquista. Here is a province in which the Faith and the Roman Order were not recovered by persuasion (as was the case with Britain) nor were utterly lost (as was the case with Africa for so long) but were got back mile by mile as the prize of hard fighting. That fighting was, so to speak, the very trade of the Spaniards, from the time when Charlemagne was a little boy to the time when Henry VIII was a little boy. All the story of our European growth, the time when we were made, the time which is to the French the accomplishment of their unity, to the English the foundation of their institutions, to the Italians the development of their art, that to the Spaniard is the story of the Reconquista. And the Middle Ages, which have impressed themselves upon every European nation as the glorious transition of youth impresses itself upon the sad memory of a man, stand to the Spaniard for the Reconquista. This has nothing to do with his knowledge of names or with what is called "Education." It is in the blood. The best proof of its result is this, that the Englishman invariably says of the Spaniard that, while other nations show differences of manner changing from class to class, the Spaniard is always a "gentleman." The word "gentleman" is a very meagre word, but on the whole the man who uses it best means the tradition of the Middle Ages, and especially of the fighting men which the Middle Ages produced, and the Spaniard everywhere shows the external qualities of those men. For instance, you cannot insult him with impunity, and that characteristic, though we often write it down, is one which in other nations is somewhat rare. Take the modern for all in all, and outside Spain, if you insult him he will usually argue.

Finally, the Spaniards are bound together by their isolation. From the Straits of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, different as province is from province, you feel everywhere something quite separate from that which lies north of the Pyrenees, and from the Pyrenees on, all over the west of Europe. Roads are an exception, paths the rule; the hours of meals, the very habit in the wearing of the clothes, the form of salutation, the mule taking the place of the horse, the perceptible restraint in every kind of converse, all these mark out the harsh soil which lends a perpetual note of nobility to the story of Europe. No man who has known Spain but would be able to say, if he were taken there blindfold, and suddenly shown his surroundings, "This is Spain." The frontier is sharp, the division clear, the isolation absolute.

The limits of these few pages forbid me a thousand things in this respect. I wish I could describe (for instance) how there is in every Spanish building, from the least to the greatest, something at once severe and strange. Bowling into that great harbour of Barcelona one sees the Customs House, a building with wings. Coming over the northern slopes of the Guadarrama one sees Segovia sailing out in some immortal way as though the cathedral and palace intended to attempt the air. Spain lives, and will revive by such imaginations.

It should be added, by way of closing these few notes, that the Spanish man is not only silent (which is perhaps a fault in him) but square, and so healthy in his limbs and in his mind that when he is rested and can speak again something will be changed in Europe.

THE FORTRESS

There is a province of Europe where a dead plain stretches out upon every side. It is not very extended if you judge by the map alone, it is perhaps but twenty-five or thirty miles from its centre to either of its boundary ranges; but to the eye it seems infinite, for it lies under that grey weather of the North in which the imagination exaggerates distance and so easily conceives imaginary flatnesses extending everywhere beyond the mist of the horizon.

In the midst of this plain there rises most abruptly a little market town. It stands upon a conical hill some 300 feet in height, and the impression it gives of being a rock or an island is enhanced by the height of its buildings, which, as is the case with nearly all mediæval work, are designed for a general effect, and are, whether consciously or unconsciously, as well planned and grouped as though one artist had sketched the whole and had left an inviolable design to posterity.

In this little town I had business some years ago to stop for the night, and when the next morning I found that there were two hours between my breakfast and my train I walked out on to the crest of the hill to see the view and to think about the past. It was autumn; the many artificially aligned trees which bordered the winding, deserted avenues all round the edge of the height were losing their leaves; the air was singularly clear, and the effect of the small but isolated height upon which one stood was very strong. I came to the north-eastern corner of the huge ramparts which still surround the little place, and there I found a most interesting man. He was upon the border between what are called now-a-days middle age and old age; that is, he was an old man, and if he lived would soon be a very old man. He was erect and spare; he was short, and he had all the bearing of a man who has been perpetually trained, and, indeed, I found out when I got to know him better that he had seen service in Africa and in Russia and in Mexico, three very distant places. He had never, however, risen beyond the rank of colonel; he was a gunner, and exceedingly poor, and he was finishing his life alone in this little town. They gave him meals at the hotel for a sum agreed upon between them. Where he lodged he did not choose to tell me, but I fancy in some very cheap and ruinous little room under one of the big Flemish roofs of the place. His only pleasure was to take these walks about the town, to read his newspaper before it was twenty-four hours old, and to remember the trade in which he had been engaged.

We sat together on the very edge of the rampart, and I asked him, since it was his business to know so much about these things, whether the place would ever in his opinion enter once again into the scheme of European war.

He told me that this was absolutely certain; he said there was no field so small nor no village so forgotten, but in its cycle was swept by one or other of those armies which the peoples of Europe send out one against the other, pursuing various ends. This little town in which we sat had never seen an enemy for over two hundred years; yet there beneath us was the enormous evidence of its past. The trench was like a street fifty feet or sixty feet deep, as the house fronts of a street are, as wide at least as the narrow streets of any of these old towns, and on the further side the enormous heap of earth, and beyond it the level descent of the glacis. Here was a town not larger than some of our smaller English cathedral towns, Ely for instance, yet having round it such a mighty effort and proof of military determination as would to-day seem worthy of a great city. These fortifications ran all round the place, the two only gates in and out of it (through which ran the great road which linked the stronghold with the capital) were flanked by such works as the great modern forts occasionally show, and upon every point of its circumference one perceived the fixed will of a crushing Government responsible for all the destinies of a nation that this place should be inviolable.

My companion said to me: "Many men choose many things as their examples of the way in which nothing human can remain, and to most men the best example is the change of taste in art or letters. They point out how great buildings put up with infinite care by men who loved them with all their souls seem tawdry to an immediate posterity; and they wonder why verse which was supreme in their childhood is ridiculed in their old age. But to me the most formidable proof of our futility is to be found in works such as these. They succeed each other all over Europe. Long before our written record began you have the Cyclopæan Wars; what you can see in Tuscany and further east in the Mediterranean. You have the Roman entrenchments, and the mediæval castles, and the new system of Vauban which the Italians created, and of which this earthquake before us is the finest work. And each in its turn bears on into its future the stamp of futility. Something changes in man: he makes a new weapon (or he forgets the old), he develops a new method of attack or a different mood in connection with war; nay, his very desires in the matter of victory change, for he will desire in one generation glory, and in another profit, and in a third the mere occupation of a particular piece of sacred land. And as these human things change in him, so the fortification of his cities become like garments out of fashion and are useless for their purpose and are thrown aside."

"You might then say," said I, "that those who fortify to-day are foolish; and, for that matter, you might add that those who have fortified in the past were foolish. For since each in turn is proved to be wrong with regard to the future, each generation might have spared itself this enormous labour."

"You are right when you call it enormous labour," said he, "but you are wrong when you say that it was ever futile. What a labour it is only those know who have looked closely into and meditated upon the fortifications of the past. The chalk hills and ramparts thrown up upon them by men perhaps who could use no spade and who depended for carriage upon baskets, which we to-day, when we estimate them in a modern method, reckon in fantastic sums of money; and this was done to defend, we know not what, by men every record of whom has perished. The ancient walls of the cities are much the largest and the strongest buildings they can boast, and much the most enduring. The transformation of a city two hundred years ago and more, when hardly a frontier place of Europe but had its elaborate system of main and out works, proves the same labour. Consider little Bayonne, never other than a little town, and yet flanked with a work which must have meant more than the building of a modern railway. And then, lastly, consider to-day the great garrisons circled with forts: Spezia and Metz, and the French frontier garrisons, and Antwerp and the line of the Meuse. And even, at the far ends of the world, Port Arthur, which, though it was never finished, was to have been among the greatest of all. Yes, it is a toil if you like, and that is why those who court defeat by boasting shirk it or ridicule it."

"But they are right to ridicule it," said I, "since time itself ridicules the walls of a city, and since it can be shown that no city has been made impregnable."

"You use a false argument," he insisted; "it is as though you were to say that because all men die therefore no man should live. These trenches and these walls and these circles of isolated forts to-day procure for men who fight under their shoulder a draft upon Time. That is what fortification is, and that is why all who have ever understood the art of war have fortified; and all who, upon the contrary, have in one way or another failed to understand the art of war, whether because they secretly desired to avoid arms or whether because they believed themselves invincible (which is the most unmilitary mood in the world!) have failed to fortify."

"I have heard it said," I answered him, "in the schools where such things are taught, that the Romans, as they were the chief masters of war, were also the most plodding in the use of the spade, and that not only would they fortify permanently every military post, but that they cast up a square fieldwork round them every night, wherever the army rested."