Chapter II: The Sans-Foyer

Love, that Love cannot share,--
Now turn to air!
And fade to ashes, O my daily bread,
Save only if you may
Bless you, to be the stay
Of the uncomforted.

Behold, you far-off lights,--
From smoke-veiled heights,
If there be dwelling in our wilderness!
For Love the refugee,
No stronghold can there be,--
No shelter more, while these go shelterless.

Love hath no home, beside
His own two arms spread wide;--
The only home, among all walls that are:
So there may come to cling,
Some yet forlorner thing
Feeling its way, along this blackened star.
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

RAIN IN BELGIUM

The heavy rain falls down, falls down,
On city streets whence all have fled,
Where tottering ruins skyward frown
Above the staring silent dead.
Here shall ye raise your Kaiser’s throne,
Stained with the blood for freedom shed.

Here where men choked for breath in vain
Who in fair fight had all withstood,
Here on this poison-haunted plain,
Made rich with babes’ and women’s blood,
Here shall ye plant your German grain,
Here shall ye reap your children’s food.

The harvest ripens--Reaper come!
Bring children singing Songs of Hate
Taught by the mother in the home--
Fit comrade she for such a mate.
Soon shall ye reap what ye have sown;
God’s mills grind thoroughly though late.

The heavy rain beats down, beats down;
I hear in it the tramp of Fate!
LILLA CABOT PERRY

“THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM”

FROM A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH]

L’EXILÉ

“O deuil de ne pouvoir emporter sur la mer
Dans l’écume salée et dans le vent amer,
L’épi de son labeur et le fruit de sa treille,
Ni la rose que l’aurore fait plus vermeille
Ni rien de tout de ce qui, selon chaque saison,
Pare divinement le seuil de la maison!
Mais, puisque mon foyer n’est plus qu’un peu de cendre,
Et que, dans mon jardin, je ne dois plus entendre
Sur les arbres chanter les oiseaux du printemps;
Que nul ne reviendra de tous ceux que j’attends,
S’abriter sous le toit où nichaient les colombes,
Adieu donc, doux pays où nous avions nos tombes,
Où nous devions, à l’heure où se ferment les yeux,
Nous endormir auprès du sommeil des aïeux!
Nous partons. Ne nous pleurez pas, tendres fontaines,
Terre que nous quittons pour des terres lointaines,
O toi que le brutal talon du conquérant
A foulée et qu’au loin, de sa lueur de sang,
Empourpre la bataille et rougit l’incendie!
Qu’un barbare vainqueur nous chasse et qu’il châtie
En nous le saint amour que nous avons pour toi,
C’est bien. La force pour un jour, prime le droit,
Mais l’exil qu’on subit pour ta cause, Justice,
Laisse au destin vengeur le temps qu’il s’accomplisse.
Nous reviendrons. Et soit que nous passions la mer
Parmi l’embrun cinglant et dans le vent amer,
Soit que le sort cruel rudement nous disperse,
Troupeau errant, sous la rafale ou sous l’averse,
Ne nous plains pas, cher hôte, en nous tendant la main,
Car n’est-il pas pour toi un étranger divin
Celui qui, le front haut et les yeux pleins de flamme,
A quitté sa maison pour fuir un joug infâme
Et dont le fier genou n’a pas voulu ployer
Et qui, pauvre, exilé, sans pain et sans foyer,
Sent monter, de son cœur à sa face pâlie,
Ce même sang sacré que saigne la Patrie.
HENRI DE RÉGNIER
_de l’Académie Française_

THE EXILE

[TRANSLATION]

Bitter our fate, that may not bear away
On the harsh winds and through the alien spray
Sheaves of our fields and fruit from the warm wall,
The rose that reddens at the morning’s call,
Nor aught of all wherewith the turning year
Our doorway garlanded, from green to sere....
But since the ash is cold upon the hearth,
And dumb the birds in garden and in garth,
Since none shall come again, of all our loves,
Back to this roof that crooned with nesting doves,
Now let us bid farewell to all our dead,
And that dear corner of earth where they are laid,
And where in turn it had been good to lay
Our kindred heads on the appointed day.

Weep not, O springs and fountains, that we go,
And thou, dear earth, the earth our footsteps know,
Weep not, thou desecrated, shamed and rent,
Consumed with fire and with blood-shed spent.
Small strength have they that hunt us from thy fold
To loosen love’s indissoluble hold,
And brighter than the flames about thy pyre
Our exiled faith shall spring for thee, and higher.
We shall return. Let Time reverse the glass.
Homeless and scattered from thy face we pass,
Through rain and tempest flying from our doors,
On seas unfriendly swept to stranger shores.
But, O you friends unknown that wait us there,
We ask no pity, though your bread we share.
For he who, flying from the fate of slaves
With brow indignant and with empty hand,
Has left his house, his country and his graves,
Comes like a Pilgrim from a Holy Land.
Receive him thus, if in his blood there be
One drop of Belgium’s immortality.
HENRI DE RÉGNIER
_de l’Académie Française_

HORREUR ET BEAUTÉ

Sabreur de mains d’enfants qui demandaient du pain,
Brûleur de basilique et de bibliothèque,
Geste obscène, œil sanglant, front d’anthropopithèque,
L’homme ne s’est jamais plus hideusement peint.

Mais Roncevaux n’a rien de plus beau, sous son Pin,
Rien de plus pur, sous son Laurier, la fable Grecque,
Que ce jeune Monarque et son vieil Archevêque:
C’est Achille et Nestor, c’est Roland et Turpin.

Roi, d’un juste reflux puissions-nous voir la vague!
Et toi, puisque ta main éleva dans sa bague
Le seul reflet de ciel qui bénit cet Enfer,

Que la pourpre sur toi soit plus cardinalice,
Prêtre! et que de la Croix qui n’était pas de Fer
Un Christ plus abondant coule dans ton calice!
EDMOND ROSTAND

HORROR AND BEAUTY

[TRANSLATION]

Gashed hands of children who cry out for bread--
While as the flames from sacred places rise
The Blonde Beast, hideous, with blood-shot eyes
And obscene gesture mutilates the dead--

But neither Roncesvalles where Roland bled
With Turpin, nor Greek deeds of high emprise
Can to a pitch of purer beauty rise
Than the Young King, the Priest, unconqueréd.

Oh King, soon all thy foes may’st thou repel!
And thou, High-Priest, from whose ring, raised to men,
Shone the one gleam of Heaven in that Hell,

May thy empurpled vestments so avail
That from the Cross--not made of Iron then--
A richer Christ glow in thy holy grail.
EDMOND ROSTAND

_Translated by Walter V. R. Berry_

THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE

Sweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread
Or the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar,
For its still, channelled current constant more,
His life was, and the few blithe words he said.

One or two poets read he, and reread;
One or two friends in boyish ardour wore
Next to his heart, incurious of the lore
Dodonian woods might murmur o’er his head.

Ah, demons of the whirlwind, have a care
What, trumpeting your triumphs, ye undo!
The earth once won, begins your long despair
That never, never is his bliss for you.
He breathed betimes this clement island air
And in unwitting lordship saw the blue.
GEORGE SANTAYANA

_Oxford, August, 1915_

INTERIOR

FROM AN ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR SKETCH]

_EDITH M. THOMAS_

THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG

_The little children in my country kiss the American flag._
MADAME VANDERVELDE

What of those children over the sea
That are beating about the world’s rough ways,
Like the tender blossoms from off a tree
That a sudden gale in Spring betrays?
The children? Oh, let them look for the sign
Of a wave-borne flag, thou land of mine!

On the old gray sea its course it holds,
Life for the famished is in its gift....
And the children are crowding to kiss its folds,
While the tears of their mothers fall free and swift.--
And what of the flag their lips have pressed?
Oh, guard it for ever--That flag is blest.
EDITH M. THOMAS

THE TROUBLER OF TELARO

1

Warm vines bloom now along thy rampart steeps
Thy shelves of olives, undercliffs of azure,
And like a lizard of the red rock sleeps
The wrinkled Tuscan sea, panting for pleasure.
Nets, too, festooned about thine elfin port,
Telaro, in the Etrurian mountain’s side,
Heavings of golden luggers scarce distort
The image of thy belfry where they ride.
But thee, Telaro, on a night long gone
That grey and holy tower upon the mole
Suddenly summoned, while yet lightnings shone
And hard gale lingered, with a ceaseless toll
That choked, with its disastrous monotone,
All the narrow channels of the hamlet’s soul.

2

For what despair, fire, shipwreck, treachery?
Was it for threat that from the macchia sprang
For Genoa’s feud, the oppressor’s piracy,
Or the Falcon of Sarzana that it rang?
Was the boat-guild’s silver plundered? Blood should pay.
Hardwon the footing of the fishers’ clan
The sea-cloud-watchers.--Loud above the spray
The maddening iron cry, the appeal of man,
Washed through the torchless midnight on and on.
Are not enough the jeopardies of day?
Riot arose--fear’s Self began the fray:
But the tower proved empty. By the lightning’s ray
They found no human ringer in the room....
The bell-rope quivered out in the sea-spume....

3

A creature fierce, soft, witless of itself,
A morbid mouth, circled by writhing arms,
By its own grasp entangled on that shelf,
Had dragged the rope and spread the death-alarms;
Insensitive, light-forgotten, up from slime,
From shelter betwixt rocks, issuing for prey
Disguised, had used man’s language of dismay.
The spawn of perished times had late in time
Emerged, and griefs upon man’s grief imposed
Incalculable.

But the fishers closed
The blind mouth, and cut off the suckers cold.
Two thousand fathoms the disturber rolled
From trough to trough into the gulf Tyrrhene;
And fear sank with it back into its night obscene.
HERBERT TRENCH

PORTRAIT OF ÉMILE VERHAEREN

FROM A PENCIL DRAWING]

_ÉMILE VERHAEREN_

LE PRINTEMPS DE 1915

Tu me disais de ta voix douce,
Tu me disais en insistant:
--Y a-t-il encore un Printemps
Et les feuilles repoussent-elles?

La guerre accapare le ciel
Les eaux, les monts, les bois, la terre:
Où sont les fleurs couleur de miel
Pour les abeilles volontaires?

Où sont les pousses des roncerois
Et les boutons des anémones?
Où sont les flûtes dans les bois
Des oiseaux sombres aux becs jaunes?

--Hélas! plus n’est de floraison
Que celle des feux dans l’espace:
Bouquet de rage et de menace
S’éparpillant sur l’horizon.

Plus n’est, hélas! de splendeur rouge
Que celle, hélas! des boulets fous
Éclaboussant de larges coups
Clochers, hameaux, fermes et bouges.

C’est le printemps de ce temps-ci:
Le vent répand de plaine en plaine,
Là-bas, ces feuillaisons de haine;
C’est la terreur de ce temps-ci.
ÉMILE VERHAEREN

_Saint-Cloud, le 31 Juillet 1915_

THE NEW SPRING

[TRANSLATION]

Sadly your dear voice said:
“Is the old spring-time dead,
And shall we never see
New leaves upon the tree?

“Shall the black wings of war
Blot out sun, moon and star,
And never a bud unfold
To the bee its secret gold?

“Where are the wind-flowers streaked,
And the wayward bramble shoots,
And the black-birds yellow-beaked
With a note like woodland flutes?”

No flower shall bloom this year
But the wild flame of fear
Wreathing the evil night
With burst of deadly light.

No splendour of petals red
But that which the cannon shed,
Raining their death-bloom down
On farm and tower and town.

This is the scarlet doom
By the wild sea-winds hurled
Over a land of gloom,
Over a grave-strewn world.
ÉMILE VERHAEREN

1915

Though desolation stain their foiled advance,
In ashen ruins hearth-stones linger whole:
Do what they may, they cannot master France;
Do what they can, they cannot quell the soul.
BARRETT WENDELL

_EDITH WHARTON_

THE TRYST

I said to the woman: Whence do you come,
With your bundle in your hand?
She said: In the North I made my home,
Where slow streams fatten the fruitful loam,
And the endless wheat-fields run like foam
To the edge of the endless sand.

I said: What look have your houses there,
And the rivers that glass your sky?
Do the steeples that call your people to prayer
Lift fretted fronts to the silver air,
And the stones of your streets, are they washed and fair
When the Sunday folk go by?

My house is ill to find, she said,
For it has no roof but the sky;
The tongue is torn from the steeple-head,
The streets are foul with the slime of the dead,
And all the rivers run poison-red
With the bodies drifting by.

I said: Is there none to come at your call
In all this throng astray?
They shot my husband against a wall,
And my child (she said), too little to crawl,
Held up its hands to catch the ball
When the gun-muzzle turned its way.

I said: There are countries far from here
Where the friendly church-bells call,
And fields where the rivers run cool and clear,
And streets where the weary may walk without fear,
And a quiet bed, with a green tree near,
To sleep at the end of it all.

She answered: Your land is too remote,
And what if I chanced to roam
When the bells fly back to the steeples’ throat,
And the sky with banners is all afloat,
And the streets of my city rock like a boat
With the tramp of her men come home?

I shall crouch by the door till the bolt is down,
And then go in to my dead.
Where my husband fell I will put a stone,
And mother a child instead of my own,
And stand and laugh on my bare hearth-stone
When the King rides by, she said.
EDITH WHARTON

_Paris, August 27th, 1915_

BRITTANY WOMAN

FROM A DRAWING IN COLOURED CRAYONS]

_MARGARET L. WOODS_

FINISTERRE

O that on some forsaken strand,
Lone ending of a lonely land,
On such an eve we two were lying,
To hear the quiet water sighing
And feel the coolness of the sand.

A red and broken moon would grow
Out of the dusk and even so
As here to-night the street she faces,
Between the half-distinguished spaces
Of sea and sky would burn and go.

The moon would go and overhead,
Like tapers lighted o’er the dead,
Star after silver star would glimmer,
The lonely night grow calmer, dimmer,
The quiet sea sink in its bed.

We, at the end of Time and Fate,
Might unconcerned with love or hate
As the sea’s voices, talk together,
Wherefore we went apart and whither,
And all the exiled years relate.

Thus were life’s grey chance-’ravelled sleave’
Outspread, we something might perceive
Which never would to chance surrender,
But through the tangled woof its slender
Golden, elusive pattern weave.

Then while the great stars larger shone
Leaned on the sea, and drew thereon
Faint paths of light, across them faring
Might steal the ship that comes for bearing
Sore-wounded souls to Avalon.
MARGARET L. WOODS

_W. B. YEATS_

A REASON FOR KEEPING SILENT

I think it better that at times like these
We poets keep our mouths shut, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He’s had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
W. B. YEATS

PORTRAIT OF IGOR STRAVINSKY

FROM A STUDY IN OILS]

_IGOR STRAVINSKY_

SOUVENIR D’UNE MARCHE BOCHE]

PORTRAIT OF VINCENT D’INDY

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING]

_VINCENT D’INDY_

LA LÉGENDE DE SAINT CHRISTOPHE

PAGE OF SCORE OF UNPUBLISHED OPERA

[ACTE I, SCÈNE III]]

PROSE]

CONTRIBUTORS OF PROSE

MAURICE BARRÈS
SARAH BERNHARDT
PAUL BOURGET
JOSEPH CONRAD
ELEONORA DUSE
JOHN GALSWORTHY
EDMUND GOSSE
PAUL HERVIEU
GÉNÉRAL HUMBERT
HENRY JAMES
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN
PAUL ELMER MORE
AGNES REPPLIER
ANDRÉ SAURÈS
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

LES FRÈRES

Je n’aime pas raconter cette histoire, dit le Général, parce que à chaque fois, c’est bête, je pleure. Mais elle fait aimer la France.... Il s’agit de deux enfants admirablement doués, pleins de cœur et d’esprit et qu’aimaient tous ceux qui les rencontraient. Je les avais connus tout petits. Quand la guerre éclata, le plus jeune, François, venait d’être admis à Saint-Cyr. Il n’eut pas le temps d’y entrer et avec toute la promotion il fut d’emblée nommé sous-lieutenant. Vous pensez s’il rayonnait de joie! Dix-neuf ans l’épaulette et les batailles! Son aîné Jacques, un garçon de vingt ans, tout à fait remarquable de science et d’éloquence, travaillait encore à la Faculté de Droit dont il était lauréat. Lui aussi il partit comme sous-lieutenant.

Les deux frères se retrouvèrent dans la même brigade de “la division de fer,” le plus jeune au 26ᵉ de ligne et l’aîné au 27ᵉ. Ils cantonnaient dans un village dévasté et chaque jour joyeusement se retrouvaient, plaisant à tous et gagnant par leur jeunesse et leur amitié une sorte de popularité auprès des soldats.

Bientôt on apprit que le régiment du Saint-Cyrien allait avoir à marcher et que ce serait chaud. En cachette Jacques s’en alla demander au colonel la permission de prendre la place de son petit François qu’il trouvait trop peu préparé pour une action qui s’annonçait rude.

Le colonel reconnut la générosité de cette demande mais coupa court en disant:

--On ne peut pas faire passer un officier d’un corps à un autre corps.

Le jour fixé pour l’attaque arriva. La première compagnie à laquelle appartenait François fut envoyé en tirailleurs. Elle fut fauchée. Une autre suivit. Et puis une autre encore. Leurs ailes durent se replier en laissant sur le terrain leurs morts et une partie de leurs blessés. Le petit sous-lieutenant n’était pas de ceux qui revinrent.

Le surlendemain nous reprîmes l’offensive. L’aîné en enlevant avec son régiment les tranchées allemandes, passa auprès du corps de son petit François tout criblé de balles. Un peu plus loin il reçut une blessure à l’épaule.

Son capitaine lui ordonna d’aller se faire panser. Il refusa, continua et fut blessé d’une balle dans la tête.

Les corps furent ramassés et ramenés dans les ruines du village. Les sapeurs du 26ᵉ dirent alors:

--On n’enterrera pas ce bon petit sous-lieutenant sans un cercueil. Nous allons lui en faire un.

Ils se mirent à scier et à clouer.

Ceux du 27ᵉ dirent alors:

--Il ne faut pas traiter différemment les deux frères. Nous allons, nous aussi, faire un cercueil pour notre lieutenant.

Au soir, on se préparait à les enterrer côte à côte quand une vieille femme éleva la voix.

C’était une vieille si pauvre qu’elle avait obstinément refusé d’abandonner le village. “J’aime mieux mourir ici,” avait-elle dit. On l’avait laissée. Elle gîtait misérablement dans sa cabane sur la paille et n’avait pas d’autre nourriture que celle que lui donnaient les soldats. Quand elle vit les deux jeunes cadavres et les préparatifs, elle dit:

--Attendez un instant avant de les enfermer. Je vais chercher quelque chose.

Elle alla fouiller la paille sur laquelle elle couchait et en tira le drap qu’elle gardait pour sa sépulture. Et revenant:

--On n’enfermera pas, dit-elle, ces beaux garçons le visage contre les planches. Je veux les ensevelir.

Elle coupa la toile en deux et les mit chacun dans son suaire, puis elle leur posa un baiser sur le front, en disant chaque fois:

--Pour la mère, mon cher enfant.

* * * * *

Nous nous tûmes quand le Général eut ainsi parlé et il n’était pas le seul à avoir des larmes dans les yeux. Une prière d’amour se formait dans nos cœurs pour la France.

MAURICE BARRÈS _de l’Académie Française_

1915

THE BROTHERS

[TRANSLATION]

I’m not fond of telling this story, said the General, because each time, like the old fool I am, it brings tears to my eyes ... but the best of France is in it.

It’s about two boys, astonishingly gifted, full of heart and brains, that nobody could meet without liking. I knew them when they were tiny little fellows. At the time war broke out, the younger one, François, had just passed his examinations for St. Cyr. He had no time to enter; he was rushed along in the wholesale promotion and made second lieutenant then and there. Fancy what it meant to him--epaulettes and battles at nineteen! His elder brother, Jacques, a boy of twenty,--a really remarkable fellow in his studies, was hard at work in the Law School, where he had taken honors. He went off to the front as second lieutenant, too.

The two brothers were thrown together for the first time in the same brigade of the “iron division,” as it was called--the younger in the 26th of the line, the other in the 27th. They were quartered in a ruined village, and each day they met, making themselves liked everywhere and enjoying a great popularity with the soldiers on account of their youth and friendliness.

It soon got round that the St. Cyr boy’s regiment was going to get some hot fighting. Jacques said nothing, but he went to his colonel and asked for permission to take the place of his brother, whom he considered too little prepared for what promised to be a violent engagement.

The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the young man short.

“An officer can’t be transferred from his own corps to another,” he said.

The day fixed for the attack came. The first company--François’ company--was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant was not among those who returned.

Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother, storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.

His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept on, and was hit full in the forehead.

The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village. The sappers of the 26th said:

“He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan’t go underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let’s make one for him.”

And they began sawing and hammering.

Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said:

“There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well make a coffin for our lieutenant, too.”

By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. “I’ve lived here, I’ll die here,” she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers. When she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she said:

“Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I’m going to fetch something.”

She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.

“They shan’t nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I want to shroud them,” she said.

She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,

“That’s for your mother, dearie.”

* * * * *

No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.

MAURICE BARRÈS _de l’Académie Française_

1915

UNE PROMESSE

Séchez vos larmes, Enfants des Flandres!

Car les canons, les mitrailleuses, les fusils, les sabres et les bras n’arrêteront leur élan que lorsque l’ennemi vaincu vous rendra vos foyers!

Et ces foyers; nous, les femmes de France, d’Angleterre, de Russie et d’Italie, nous les ensoleillerons.

SARAH BERNHARDT

1915

A PROMISE

[TRANSLATION]

Children of Flanders, dry your tears!

For all the mighty machinery of war, and the stout hearts of brave men, shall strive together till the vanquished foe has given you back your homes!

And to those homes made desolate, we, the women of France, of England, of Russia and of Italy, will bring again happiness and sunlight!

SARAH BERNHARDT

PORTRAIT OF HIS SON, WOUNDED IN THE WAR

FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH]

_PAUL BOURGET_

APRÈS UN AN

Je me trouvais, au début de ce mois d’août 1915, voyager en automobile dans une des provinces du centre de la France, que j’avais traversée de même, juste une année auparavant, quand la mobilisation commençante remplissait les routes de camions, de canons, de troupes en marche. Une année! Que de morts depuis! Mais la résolution demeure la même qu’à cette époque où le Pays tout entier n’eut qu’un mot d’ordre: y aller. Non. Rien n’a changé de cette volonté de bataille. J’entre dans un hôtel, pour y déjeuner. La patronne, que je connais pour m’arrêter là chaque fois que je passe par la petite ville, est entièrement vêtue de noir. Elle a perdu son frère en Alsace. Son mari est dans un dépôt à la veille de partir au front. “Faites-vous des affaires?” lui demandé-je.--“Pas beaucoup. Personne ne circule, et tous les mobilisés s’en vont. La caserne se vide. Encore ce matin--”--“C’est bien long,” lui dis-je, pour la tenter.--“Oui, monsieur,” répond-elle, “mais puisqu’il faut çà--” Et elle recommence d’écrire ses menus, sans une plainte. Dans la salle à manger, deux servantes, dont une aussi tout en noir. Je la questionne. Son mari a été tué sur l’Yser. Son visage est très triste. Mais pas une récrimination non plus. Elle est comme sa maîtresse. Elle accepte “puisqu’il faut ça.” Un sous-officier ouvre la porte. Il est suivi d’une femme en grand deuil, d’un enfant et d’un homme âgé.--Sa femme, son fils et son père, ai-je su depuis. Je le vois de profil, et j’observe dans son regard une fixité qui m’étonne. Il refuse une place dans le fond, et marche vers la fenêtre: “J’ai besoin d’avoir plus de jour maintenant,” répète-t-il, d’un accent singulier. A peine est-il assis avec sa famille, qu’un des convives de la table d’hôte, en train de déjeuner, se lève, et vient le saluer avec une exclamation de surprise. “Vous ici! Vous êtes donc debout? D’ailleurs, vous avez très belle mine.”--“Oui,” dit le sous-officier, “çà n’empêche pas qu’il est en verre--” Et il montre son œil droit. En quelques mots, très simplement, il raconte qu’une balle lui a enlevé cet œil droit en Argonne. “C’est dommage,” continue-t-il, “on était si bien, si contents de n’être plus dans l’eau et dans la boue.” Et l’autre de s’écrier: “Vous êtes tous comme çà, dans l’armée, si braves, si modestes! Nous autres, les vieux, nous n’avons été que de la Saint-Jean à côté de vous. 70, qu’est-ce que c’était? Rien du tout. Mais çà finira autrement.”--“Il le faut,” dit le sous-officier, “et pour nous, et pour ces pauvres Belges à qui nous devons d’avoir eu du temps. Oui,” insiste-t-il, en posant sa main sur la tête de son enfant, “pour ceux-là aussi il le faut.”--“Qui est ce monsieur?” dis-je à la servante.--“Ce sous-officier?” répond-elle, “un négociant de Paris. Le frère de sa dame a été tué.” Je regarde manger ces gens, si éprouvés. Ils sont bien sérieux, bien accablés, mais si dignes. Les mots que ce borgne héroïque a prononcés, cet “il le faut” donne à tous leurs gestes une émouvante gravité.

Je reprends ma route, et je le retrouve cet “il le faut” du sergent, ce “puisqu’il faut çà” de l’hôtelière, comme écrit dans tous les aspects de cet horizon. C’est le moment de la moisson. Des femmes y travaillent, des garçonnets, des petites filles. La suppléance du mari, du père, du frère absents, s’est faite simplement, sans qu’il y ait eu besoin d’aucun appel, d’aucun décret. Sur deux charrettes que je croise, une est menée par une femme. Des femmes conduisent les troupeaux. Des femmes étaient derrière les guichets de la Banque où je suis descendu chercher de la monnaie, dans la petite ville. Un de mes amis, qui a de gros intérêts dans le midi, me racontait que son homme d’affaires est aux Dardanelles: “Sa femme gère mes propriétés à sa place. Elle est étonnante d’intelligence et de bravoure.” Oui, c’est toujours ce même tranquille stoïcisme, cette totale absence de plainte. Un bataillon de territoriaux défile. Ils ne sont plus jeunes. Leur existence était établie. Elle est bouleversée. Ils subissent l’épreuve sans un murmure et marquent le pas sur la route brûlée de soleil avec une énergie qui révèle, chez eux aussi, le sentiment de la nécessité. C’est, pour moi, le caractère pathétique de cette guerre. Elle a la grandeur auguste des actions vitales de la nature. Elle est le geste d’un pays qui ne veut pas mourir, et qui ne mourra pas, ni lui ni cette noble Belgique, dont parlait le sous-officier, et qui, elle, a prononcé avec autant de fermeté résolue son “il le faut,” quand l’Allemand l’a provoquée, et plus pathétiquement encore. Ce n’était pas pour la vie qu’elle allait se battre, c’était pour l’honneur, pour la probité. Il n’est pas un Français qui ne le sente, et qui ne confonde sa propre cause avec celle des admirables sujets de l’admirable Roi Albert.

PAUL BOURGET _de l’Académie Française_

ONE YEAR LATER

[TRANSLATION]

During the first days of August, 1915, I found myself motoring in one of the central provinces of France. I had crossed the same region in the same way just a year before, when the beginning of mobilization was crowding the roads with waggons, with artillery and with marching troops. Only one year! How many men are dead since! But the high resolve of the nation is as firm as it was then, when all through the land there was only one impulse--to go forward. The willingness to fight and to endure has not grown less.

I went into an hotel for luncheon. I know the woman who keeps it, because I always stop there when I go through the little town. I found her dressed in black: she had lost her brother in Alsace. Her husband was waiting to be sent to the front. I asked her if she were doing any business. “Not much,” she answered. “Nobody is travelling, and all the mobilized men are gone. The barracks are empty; why, only this morning--” “It seems a long time,” I said, to draw her on. “Yes,” she said, “but since we must ...” and she went back without complaint to the task of writing her bills of fare. There were two maids in the dining-room, one of them also in black. I questioned her and learnt that her husband had been killed on the Yser. Her face was full of sorrow, but like her mistress she blamed no one, and accepted her loss because it “must” be so.

Soon a non-commissioned officer came in, followed by a woman in deep mourning, a little boy, and an elderly man; I learnt afterwards that they were the sergeant’s wife, his son, and his father. I saw his profile, and noticed that he seemed to stare fixedly. He declined a place at the back of the room, and came toward the window. “I need plenty of light now,” he said in an odd voice. He and his family had just seated themselves when one of the guests at the long _table d’hôte_ rose with an exclamation of surprise and came over to him, saying: “Why, are you out again? How well you look!” “Yes,” said the sergeant; “but all the same this one is glass,” pointing to his right eye, and in a few words he told how it had been knocked out by a bullet in the Argonne. “It was such a pity,” he said, “for we were all so glad when the fighting began, and we got out of the mud and water in the trenches.” “You are all just like that in the army!” said his friend, “all so plucky and so simple! We old fellows were only amateurs compared to you! What was the war of 1870 to this one? This time there will be a different ending.” “There must be,” said the sergeant, “not only for us but for the Belgians, who gained us so much time.” And he repeated, laying his hand on his boy’s head, “Yes, for these little chaps also it must be so.”

Presently I found a chance to ask the maid what she knew about the soldier who had been speaking. “That sergeant? He is a Paris shopkeeper. His wife’s brother has been killed.” I watched these people at table, so serious, so sorely tried, but so full of dignity, and the words which the half-blinded man had pronounced seemed to make even his ordinary gestures impressive.

All along the road, for the rest of that journey the “it must be” of the hotel-keeper and the sergeant seemed to be written over the whole country-side. It was harvest-time, and women, lads and little girls were working in the fields, replacing absent husbands, fathers and brothers. They were doing it quite simply, not drawn by any appeal, nor compelled by any order. Every other cart I met was driven by a woman. Women were herding the cattle. There was a woman at the cashier’s desk of the bank in the town where I went to get some money changed.

One of my friends, who has large interests in the south of France, told me that his man of business was at the Dardanelles. “His wife looks after my property in his place. She is astonishingly intelligent and capable.” Everywhere the same tranquil stoicism, the same entire absence of complaint.

A battalion of territorials marched past. They were not young men. All of them had had fixed duties and habits which were now broken up. Yet they submitted without a murmur, marching along the hot and dusty road with an energy which revealed in them also the same sense of compelling necessity. That, to my mind, gives to this war its pathetic side. It has all the imposing grandeur of the vital forces of nature; it is the heroic movement of a country which defies death, which is not meant to die. Nor will she allow Belgium to die--the Belgium to whom the sergeant paid his tribute, and whose “we must” rang out with such poignant firmness under the German menace. It was not for life alone that Belgium fought, but for honour and for justice. No Frenchman lives who does not feel this, and who does not merge his own cause in that of the indomitable subjects of Belgium’s indomitable King.

PAUL BOURGET _de l’Académie Française_

PEGASUS

FROM A PENCIL AND PEN-AND-INK SKETCH]

à Madame Wharton hommage très respectueux. L^{éon} Bonnat ]

_JOSEPH CONRAD_

POLAND REVISITED