Chapter I: Have a Palliasse (2)

It was dusk. Brissot and I were strolling along the slopes discussing, apropos of Bergson, the relationships between philosophy and life. I was surprised that, instead of pushing straight ahead, he turned about. I like to walk quickly, but he insisted upon pacing gently to and fro on the top of the slope looking towards Hepperg. Hands in pockets, wearing the close-fitting tunic of the chasseurs alpins, little Brissot was scanning the horizon from time to time, when two men whom I had not noticed before, Loux, a colonial infantryman, and Vernes, a linesman of the 1910 class, a compositor on _Le Journal_, who were stationed at the two angles of the eastern escarp, simultaneously exclaimed: “There he is!”—“Hullo!” says Brissot, “he’s got a big load this evening.” I look. From behind the recently felled pine-trees bordering the Hepperg road appears a man carrying a box under one arm and a large sack under the other. He crosses the ploughed fields and comes straight in our direction. His progress is slow. He stumbles over the ridges. He looks utterly exhausted. From time to time he stops and deposits his two burdens on the ground. After he has reached the foot of the battery, we lose sight of him for some minutes. Then he reappears upon the advanced glacis, among the wild rose bushes. I recognize Georg Doppel, the baron’s orderly, his face grey and dripping with sweat. He is in full dress, looking very smart in the light blue Bavarian uniform with its red cuff-facings. He wears a fancy cap similar to that of his _Herr Major_. But here comes the sentinel making his rounds! “Twenty-two,” call out Vernes and Loux. Brissot takes off his cap; it is a signal. Georg lies down among the bushes. The sentinel, pipe in mouth, his threadbare _Mütze_ drawn down over his eyes, walks carelessly by, looking like a country bumpkin. His rifle, hanging to the sling, knocks against his thighs. He passes on to the northern wall and disappears. Brissot puts on his cap again. “Get to the rope, quick!” says he to Loux, “and you, Vernes, to the ditch!” Georg has placed his sack and his box on the masonry of the counterscarp. He ties them to a rope and allows them to glide down into the great ditch. There Vernes receives the goods, sets them against the wall of the escarp, and ties them successively to the rope which the colonial infantryman lowers to him from the top of the wall. Two hauls, and the food is inside the fort. It is now quite dark, and Vernes and Loux hurry off to get them safely housed in No. 34, Brissot’s room.

Georg makes for the great iron gate and rings the bell. The man on guard peeps out through the judas. Recognizing the commandant’s orderly, he hastens to unbolt the gate, and respectfully draws aside, though without going quite so far as to stand to attention as he would for the major himself. The boot-polisher enters, firm of tread, head erect, giving a gentle greeting. In the most dignified manner he makes his way to No. 34. “_Grüss Gott, Georg!_” Conversation ensues between him and Brissot. Gold coins pass from the French purse into the German, and the boot-polisher takes his leave. “Now then, you chaps,” says Brissot, “let’s have dinner!”

To-day Brissot’s guests ate buttered eggs, herrings from the Baltic, known here as “Bismarcks,” and a great dish of stewed pippins, all washed down with the contents of a small barrel of cool beer, and cooked upon an illicit stove by Loux, the colonial infantryman, a sabot-maker from Bresse, cook-in-ordinary to Brissot.

Since this banquet, the sprightly Le Second, who in the kitchens had already nicknamed our “salon” the “navel of Fort Orff,” has taken to calling casemate No. 34 the “Capua of Fort Orff.”

The palliasse of the man who is averse to “squandering” is not far from that on which Brissot and his guests were dining, semi-recumbent in Roman fashion. The rat-hunter was watching their culinary activities. When the time came to dispose of the herrings, he ran up, saying: “Don’t squander the heads and the tails!”—“There you are, old chap.”—“That will be fine seasoning to-morrow for my rats. These fish are dripping with brine. Since the kitchens have been rationed in the matter of salt I have found it impossible to get even a pinch from the cooks.” When the diners attacked the pippins, each guest peeling a portion for the common stew, the little soldier said: “Don’t squander the parings.” Nimble and lively as a squirrel, he ran from one to another, receiving the strips of peel in his képi as they fell from the knife.

I saw him next day under the birches, beaming with delight over his stewpan. “Here’s plenty!” he said. “I have a rat, the apple peelings, and the heads and tails of the Bismarcks! Best of all, they have just turned out this straw here.”—“But the straw is contaminated. Surely you know that this is the bedding from a lousy casemate.”—“What does that matter? Fire purifies everything. It’s a devil of a business now to get any wood in the fort. Reeds, raspberry canes, the lower branches of the trees—they’ve all been burned. Some of our fellows are attacking the timber-shores of the counterscarp and the lids of the latrines. But that is a dangerous game. I don’t want to spend a week in the clink on bread and water.”

With these words he began to throw the condemned straw by handfuls between the two stones of his fireplace. What a smoke it made! From time to time, with his hard and black fingers he lifted the scorching lid of the mess-tin, saying, “Just look at this rat, it’s as large as a guinea-pig!” Licking the stick with which he had been stirring his stew, he exclaimed: “I assure you this will be excellent. The dash of fish gives it a rare flavour!”—“But tell me,” I said, “what use do you make of the Münster cheese-rind? The comrades have told me that you collect it from them.”—“I put it in my bowl when I go for my ration of coffee. It melts in the hot liquid. I give a stir, and then I have coffee with cream. It beats caramel. If Brissot knew that, I bet you he’d keep the rind for himself!”

Since yesterday, Brissot has been extremely put out. Germany is short of men, and all the physically unfit have orders to present themselves for re-examination. Upon receipt of his notice, Georg trembled. Providing himself with a pair of large spectacles, he set out for Ingolstadt. To gain the double end of having a good time and of making himself look sickly, he went on the spree. It was of no avail; he was declared _feldtauglich_, fit for active service.

Yesterday the commandant, walking between M. Langlois and me, observed: “My _Diener_ has not come back yet from Ingolstadt. He is a good boy, but he sometimes takes extraordinary ideas into his head. The other day he asked my permission to present his sister to me. I agreed, and gave him an afternoon’s leave to go and fetch her. I did not see him again for three days. When he returned, he acknowledged that his ‘sister’ was a lady-love from Ratisbon whom he was pining to see, and for whose journey he had paid. This time I have sent him before the medical board, and he has been away for two days! He is an excellent servant, but he has odd ways.” Baron von Stengel laughed. I made answer: “_Herr Major_, your _Bursch_ seems to me a smart man, lively and intelligent, and of imposing appearance. I would rather be served by a clean and ready-witted rogue than by a virtuous dullard.”—“I am quite of your opinion, monsieur Riou.”

Georg did not turn up until this morning. I was working at the “ministerial” table. The eight cauldrons were steaming fiercely. The kitchen was filled with vapour, so that I could hardly see what I was writing. Suddenly some one tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, to find Brissot, accompanied by Georg. I shook them both by the hand.

“_Felduntauglich?_” (Ineligible?)

“_Nein! Donnerwetter!_”

“Georg wants you to do him a service,” said Brissot. “Will you translate for him this letter to the French medical officers?”

I drew a sheet of paper from my haversack. Without studying the contents of the petition as a whole, I translated it phrase by phrase, almost word for word. This is what I wrote:

“HONOURED COMRADES,—

“In an unexpected manner, has struck the hour which summons me
to fight for my king and country. Like all of you, I must do my
duty; and, like all of you, it is possible that in a short time
I shall find myself in France (_sic_) as a prisoner of war. If
I encounter there men having like sentiments with myself, I
shall have no fears for the future. As far as I have been able,
I have fulfilled towards you and your comrades the duty of
loving one’s neighbour.

“An old proverb says: ‘What you do to me, I will do to you!’ I
trust that you also, honoured comrades, will take this proverb
to heart.

“I am a poor soldier who was orphaned in early childhood, and
who, from the age of eight upwards, had to live among strangers.

“From my sixteenth to my twenty-fourth year I have been a
wanderer in the world, and my experiences have been mingled of
good and evil.

“You will excuse me, honoured comrades, if I now venture to
make a request.

“Among your colleagues there must be some in a position to do
me a good turn.

“I beg the officers to allow a little collection to be made,
and shall be eternally grateful for this permission.

“Awaiting your favours, I remain, the most devoted of your
comrades,

“GEORG DOPPEL.

“PS.—I had some conversation yesterday with the principal
medical officer of the Ingolstadt hospital. He informed me that
there would be a continual exchange of medical officers and
of the personnel of the French medical department with German
prisoners.”

Without comment, I handed the letter to Brissot, who then said: “Georg also wants you to give him a letter of introduction to the principal medical officer.” It is a weakness of mine that I cannot say “no,” and I therefore promptly wrote this note:

“MONSIEUR LE MÉDECIN-CHEF,—

“M. Georg Doppel has begged me to translate the accompanying
petition, and to give him a letter of introduction to you. In
my humble opinion, he has rendered services [I should have
liked to add the words ‘extremely onerous’] to many of our
comrades. For my own part, I shall gladly contribute to a
collection, if you think it well to permit one.

“Your affectionate soldier,

“GASTON RIOU.”

In a very few minutes, M. Langlois arrived. “Here’s a funny business!” he cried, laughing with his mischievous eyes and all his fat and benevolent little body. “This letter of Doppel’s is a pearl! I shall treasure it. And the Parthian shaft-the postscript promising my own release! Doppel is really a most amusing rascal.”

“And what are you going to do, monsieur le Médecin-chef? Are you going to allow the collection?

“Certainly not. Hasn’t he fleeced us enough already? He ought to have put something by.”

“No doubt. But he never thought they would send him to the front. He imagined that he would be able to go on luxuriating at our expense in the neighbouring villages, living like a lord, until the end of the war. The fact is, he is pretty well cleared out!”

“Don’t you worry. I’ve been able to make his mind easy. I have just given him a general letter of introduction to the French officers. If you had seen him unbuttoning his tunic and putting away my letter in the pocket of his shirt as if it had been a scapular! To be a prisoner in France will be like heaven to him. I am sure that I have deprived Germany of a rifle.”

* * * * *

Poor Georg! Poor Bavarian Gil Blas! You are of those who come to terms frankly with their prejudices and their appetites. The service of king, country, and religion; the precepts of morality: he has never had any thought of violating these sacred things. He allows them to float vaguely in his heaven and to widen the horizon of his thought, remote images which it is obvious that people love, familiar lineaments of the region in which he is accustomed to live. The idea has never entered his mind to declare that the idols of his nation are false gods. He endeavours to humbug them, but he believes in them. He is no scoundrel. He lacks the unalloyed selfishness, the whole-hearted scepticism, characteristic of the thoroughgoing knave, the successful brigand, the true diplomatist and dealer in men. His actions are unscrupulous, not so his thoughts.

Hedonist, scapegrace, having at bottom the heart of a child, indifferently adapting his practice to his beliefs or his beliefs to his practice, he reveres in good faith, like most Germans, virtue, honour, religion, the prince. With the grandiloquence natural to his race, he embellishes in his own mind the most trifling of his private machinations.

A little while ago, a French comrade asked him to pay a debt. He frowned, drew himself up, and assumed an offended air. Turning to d’Arnoult, who was passing at the time, he said:

“When I think of the way in which, scorning the risk of death, I have provided him with goods, how I have hazarded my life again and again to bring him tobacco, and that he now dares, in your presence, to insult me by asking for this paltry sum of twenty-four marks! I punish such a man with my contempt.”

“Oh,” answered d’Arnoult commiseratingly, “don’t rub it in. You have punished him enough already!”

Georg has a soaring imagination. He loves the great and the impressive, that which breathes order and power. He loves his commanding officer. He loves the royal army. He loves his uniform. He loves that civilians should tremble before him. He loves to be admired. He loves to make a heroic figure in the world. After one of our casual feasts, when Brissot asks him to sing some Munich songs, he reserves always for the tit-bit certain verses which he declares he wrote himself in praise of one of his numerous _Geliebten_. We gather that in the village of Hepperg alone six women are madly in love with him—the burgomaster’s wife, the schoolmaster’s wife and sister, the wives of both the grocers, and the belle of the countryside. “The seven nights of the week,” he gravely assures us, “hardly suffice.” Whereupon, this Don Juan removes his cap and takes a small collection from the guests. He is so expert a liar that I suspect him of being the first victim of his own romances. Every one knows him to be _felduntauglich_, a man unfit for active service. But this is no hindrance to his having taken part in the battle of Dieuze and to his having been wounded there by a French bullet! He bares his chest and makes you touch the scar. Tarascon is situated much further to the north than most people imagine.

On All Souls’ Day we went to the Ingolstadt cemetery. Détry and I carried the wreath. Half hidden by the leafy garlands, tied with the French colours, we set the pace firmly through the Theresienstrasse, which was packed with townsmen come to stare at us, almost all in mourning—old men, women, wounded soldiers on leave, and a noisy rout of children. There were no hostile cries, as there had been two months earlier. Some of the onlookers uncovered as we passed; the children loudly demanded buttons as souvenirs, crying _Knopf_, _Knopf_, in a manner that was not at all bellicose. We went at the quick march, eyes front, knowing well that we, the prisoners, were the victors.

Our squad had a fine appearance. We had selected the best-looking and tidiest of our men. Three of our medical officers, MM. Jeandidier of Longwy, Romant of Marseilles, and Bouvat of Ardèche, sturdy figures all, marched at the head, immediately behind the wreath. Eight Bavarians with fixed bayonets escorted us. Lacking their spiked helmets, which they had been compelled to hand over to men in the fighting-line, still with the countryman’s slouch, for drill had not yet had time to take effect, their stiff legs finding it difficult to accommodate themselves to our brisk French pace, these peasant farmers and agricultural labourers made a poor show. This also gave us pleasure. Among these good Swabians, our feelings were much like those of the Athenians in Bœotia.

But Georg, who marches at my left as a supernumerary, wears a helmet. Dapper, authoritative, disdainfully chiding his compatriots, he feels that his mere presence serves to atone for the humble and awkward bucolicism of the escort. At the cemetery he uncovers; he marshals us around the sixty French graves. He follows the Latin prayers with a thoughtful air. When, in accordance with a suggestion made by M. Langlois, we then go to pray beside the graves of the German soldiers, his eyes are moist. He remains dignified.

When the commemoration is over, and when, the rest of the little troop having started back for the fort, the three medical officers, with Durupt, Détry, and myself, go for a walk through the town under Georg’s supervision, he suddenly declares himself in a great hurry to return.

“By the commandant-major’s orders we must be at Orff for dinner!”

“But it is only four o’clock!”

“We’ve a long way to walk.”

“Anyhow, by the commandant-major’s orders we have to go to the bank, the bookseller, the tailor, and the surgical instrument maker.”

“Order? It is not an order. You can hardly call it a permission!”

“Never mind.”

So we go to the Königliche Bayerische Bank, where, in exchange for good French gold, we receive packets of one mark notes; to the military tailor, who, with the assistance of a plump and smiling wife, does his best to find for us among the German reds one that sufficiently resembles our scarlet; to the bookseller, whose window is beplastered with picture postcards of Zeppelins flying over the Place de l’Opéra, of battles, of soldiers in the death agony thinking of their fiancées (figured in the corner of the card haloed in shining clouds); to the surgical instrument maker, where Détry, our dentist, is careful not to supply all his needs on this occasion, desiring an excuse for another visit to the town.

The boot-polisher hustles us on. Here we are in the street, three in front, three behind, flanked by Georg’s bayonet.

All at once, seeing a pastrycook’s window, with a grand display of buns and tarts beneath the lamps, with one impulse, without stopping to parley, we hurl ourselves, all six, into the _Conditorei_. Georg invokes all the devils of hell, but follows us. “Mange,” says Détry to him, forcing him to sit down at a table loaded with custard tartlets and éclairs. And we, who have been craving for sweet things for months, begin to devour all that comes to our hands. Trembling with concupiscence, I go to the counter, I take the mistress by the hand, and, my mouth full, say to her: “Madame, you will be an angel if you can get me two pounds of butter!” She does not sell butter, but a mother is never able to resist the cry of a child, and she lets me have her own butter. “I can buy some more,” she says with a smile. I open the show-cases: “Hullo, Suchard! How much this pile?” She names the price. “There you are.” Then I spy some little sponge-cakes coated with sugar. In a trice I have filled my haversack, which I carry beneath my coat. Big-bellied as a Bavarian, I am unable to rebutton.

“_Vorwärts!_” cries Georg, stuffed with good things. We pay our shot. Leaving the pastrycook’s we overwhelm our gaoler with prayers: “Do let us go to the ham and beef shop, to the tobacconist.…”—“It’s absolutely impossible,” he cries. In reality, he dreads losing his commission! He marches on at a terrible rate, kicking out of the way, driving out of the way with the butt end of his musket, the escorting rabble of children. It is only two young girls of really charming appearance, ten or twelve years of age, who walked by my side on the way to the cemetery and to whom I said, “I have sisters of your age who are like you,” that continue to accompany me, notwithstanding the roughness of the _Bursch_. We talk like old friends. They leave us at the wicket of the cavalry barracks, with a parting “_Grüss Gott, Herr Franzose!_”

My companions are still arguing with Georg. “It won’t take a minute to buy a dozen packets of tobacco and a string of sausages!” The innocents! They reason with Georg. Durupt especially, who is eloquent in the Teutonic tongue, surpasses himself. “To be at the source of all good things and not to drink from it! To pass stupidly by!”—“_Ne, ne_,” the _Bursch_ growls continually. Now we are traversing badly lighted streets. We make our way through the suburbs, and beyond the station we reach the dull country on the outskirts of the town.

“Old fellow,” says Détry to Durupt, “we are greatly indebted to you. With all your German, you have not been smart enough to get us the smallest of sausages, a single pipefull of tobacco! It is obvious, O Durupt the Just, that you do not know the only language in which it is possible to persuade Georg!”

We are about to reach a tavern. Détry, who does not know a word of German, lays a hand on the orderly’s shoulder. Abstracting Georg’s hat, he puts it on his own head and decorates the Bavarian with the French képi. Georg beams! Then Détry shakes him vigorously by the hand, saying: “Tiens, mon poteau! voilà pour graisser ta sale patte.”[25] Georg does not understand French, but he understands very well that he has two marks in his hand. Arm in arm, the two comrades lead the way. In front of the inn, Détry loudly calls, “_Bier, Bier!_” The innkeeper comes forth, wearing a military uniform. All smiles, he invites us to enter. We place two mugs in the hands of Georg and lay before him a plate of steaming sausages. In this rig, with his rifle and fixed bayonet against his shoulder, he is irresistible. I make the tour of the _Wirtschaft_ and discover a number of plates charged with slices of cold meats ready for a battalion which is about to pass on its way to the Russian front. “How much, _gnädige Frau_?”—“Fifty pfennig a plate.”

What a dinner we ate! It was not a varied menu, but quantity made up for everything. The joy of it! You who have never been hungry, you who have never been rationed, cannot understand how it is that there is no delight in the world greater than that of finding oneself, after three months’ imprisonment, in front of plates filled with sausage, salad of ox muzzle, and gherkins. The _Wirt_ had a swarm of children. We treated the children. We overwhelmed them with pfennig. We paid the most polite compliments to the _gnädige Frau Wirtin_.

Es zogen drei Bursche wohl über den Rhein,
Bei einer Frau Wirtin da kehrten sie ein.…

We were intoxicated, not with beer, but with the feeling of plenty. We ordered cigars. “Have you boxes of cigars?”—“Here you are.”—“How much?”—“And this cluster of sausages? Can I buy them? How much?” We made a clean sweep. Georg continued to eat and to drink, amid a rain of friendly smiles and pats on the back. All of us being thoroughly replete, we resumed our journey. There was a thick fog. Two companies of the Bavarian battalion in full marching kit, on the way to entrain, met us. They went by, walking heavily, without a word. We were singing.

Détry made Georg repeat some French phrases:

“Mademoiselle, voulez-vous tanser?”

“Non, môssieu, _ch_’ai mal au pied.”

Master and pupil kicked up their legs in unison. We held our sides with laughter. To tell the truth, this unwonted good cheer had turned our heads a little.

Détry was pelting Durupt with gibes. “Old Aristides the Just, you will never know how to manage men. Georg is like all the Bavarians in our guard—he thinks first of all of his own skin, and next he likes to enjoy himself. Don’t you talk to me about German honour and German virtue. These fellows are very fond of sonorous phrases, but they can’t resist a modest tip!” No doubt Détry was exaggerating a little.

Georg is no longer gay. Closed, alas, his Fort Orff campaign, his campaign of junketings and sensual enjoyments. Now he is to have a taste of real war. Poor Georg, if only his imaginary wound of Dieuze could suffice. Certainly he loves German “glory,” German “virtue.” Certainly he loves his king. But he loves just as much to be cock of the walk in the villages, with the aid of French money! He loves the fatherland and military displays. But he loves also to feed well and to lie warm. He is fond of so many things that he always chooses the nearest and the easiest, and his actions are invariably dictated by opportunity.

Now he is to go to the firing-line. In a few days he will be rotting in the trenches, his boots sticking fast in the clay. Despite the best will in the world, he may be laid low by a bullet before he has found a favourable opportunity of getting himself safely taken prisoner by the French. His name will then appear in the lists among those of the heroes who have fallen on the field of honour. Such is life!

But how will my dear little Brissot manage in future to procure chocolate and Baltic herrings?

OUR GAOLER

_November 13, 1914._

On Sunday, Baron von Stengel went to the Palatinate to buy horses for the artillery. He returned yesterday evening, after an absence of five days, looking a little thinner, his eyes weeping from a cold in the head. The weather in the transrhenish province had been wintry. The railway service was irregular, so he was compelled to make use of an open motor. During the first snows he had to drive about the country visiting horse-dealers. He is seventy years of age.

He has just been walking up and down with us, and recounting to us the incidents of this unexpected journey. “I tired myself out to no advantage,” he said. “Horses are becoming rare with us, almost as rare as louis d’or. You have Algeria, Boulonnais, the region round Tarbes, and the splendid horse-breeding centre of Huysne. We have nothing of the kind. The question of remounts is becoming serious. It has been difficult to buy even a few horses in the Palatinate. Sorry screws, and dear at that! The peasants asked from two to three thousand marks for horses worth eight hundred at the outside.”

* * * * *

Our commandant is very tall and upright, with a finely cut jaw, and a round flat beard like the knights in the days of Maximilian of Austria. His manners are above criticism. His natural dignity is relieved by a genial expression of countenance.

He has the equable temper and regulated life of a sage. Precise but never punctilious, he fulfils here the duties of postmaster, money-changer, censor of correspondence, headmaster, major-domo—and does it all without irritability and without giving the impression that he is lowering himself in any way. In his bold, firm, regular, almost heraldic handwriting, he registers the arrival and departure of letters; he enters in the account-book payments we make for haberdashery; he keeps memoranda of the interminable series of money-orders. He works deliberately, making neat rows of figures, using a ruler whenever he wishes to draw a line, and taking great care not to ink his long white fingers or to make blots on the large folios of ministerial paper. There is not a speck of dust on his writing-table; everything is neatly laid out in squares, as in a French garden. Behind him, on the top of the closed wash-hand stand, a lemon, cut in two exactly equal halves, a loaf of ration bread, cut with precision, and a glass of fresh water, combine to form a picture as definite and sober as a scene of still life by Chardin. The casemate is well-lighted, vast, and in keeping with its tenant. A narrow iron bedstead, a trunk, a clothes-hanger upon which are seen a _Mütze_, a long grey cape, and a sword; two deal tables standing end to end, one for himself and the other for d’Arnoult, his secretary; a small dressing-table, three chairs—this comprises all the furniture. In this formal, cold, geometrical environment sits the huge man (much too large for his table, so that his arms and legs are cramped), writing all day.

Humble work, well within the capacity of any honest “swivel-officer” of the reserve. But Baron von Stengel, bending his long back to it, infusing it with his air of refinement, stamps it with an almost hieratic character. It is possible that he would prefer to be in command of a park of artillery upon the Warthe or upon the Ypres canal. Perhaps he envies his two sons, captains in the army of Lorraine, who have just announced to him almost simultaneously the receipt of the iron cross. But this much is certain, that it is not without sadness that he recalls the last war.

He thinks of the 1870 campaign, which, as _Oberleutnant_, he spent at Ulm, employed, as to-day, in guarding prisoners. He thinks of his young colleagues of those days, of the interminable conversations when they were all intoxicated with the glorious news that streamed in, the news of Wörth, Borny, Gravelotte, Metz, and Sedan. He recalls the ardency of those years, and the cheerful noise of his steps as he walked beside the Danube in the beautiful night-time. He remembers seeing in the river the reflection of the cathedral spire, graceful and ornate, a silent witness of the ancient German glories then renascent—victory, love.

He was an old man when the new call to arms came. Nevertheless he offered his services to King Louis; though a septuagenarian, he begged to be allowed to help. Hence he is at Fort Orff. To one who watches him at work, censoring our letters, doing our little banking business, fulfilling the thousand and one trifling duties of his office, it is obvious that he is performing a rite, the great rite of patriotism.

Although hungry men are seldom just, I have never heard any of the prisoners utter a single ill-natured word about the commandant. As he walks with slow gait along the parapet, every one salutes him with manifest goodwill. White-headed, wearing an ample grey cloak falling in straight folds, he looks like a patriarch of ancient days visiting his faithful tribe. He wields authority so naturally, and is so free from hauteur, that no one dreams of murmuring. He has worked the miracle of uniting in a sentiment of respect for his personality all the inhabitants of this little France of Fort Orff, this miniature of great France, the factious and ungovernable nation, the nation of eternal discontent. He is so obviously straightforward and humane that the most savage of our prisoners would protest if any one, suddenly seized by an evil whimsy, should desire to make this good old man of the great century responsible for our short commons.

The major in command at headquarters in Ingolstadt, on the other hand, who must be a jingo of the most pronounced type, is prodigal of petty vexations. He forbids tobacco, chocolate, and sugar, “articles of luxury.” He forbids the foundation of a canteen; he forbids the receipt of more than ten marks at a time, and the writing of more than one letter every ten days; he forbids pen and ink; he forbids access to the escarp and to the summit of the slopes, doubtless considering the view too beautiful for prisoners of war. He issues orders that the sentinels shall fire without challenge upon any who break his rules, and it was owing to this that Georg, being taken for a Frenchman, was shot at one evening in the gloaming. Every day a new _Verboten_ is issued.

Amid this maze of prohibitions, our life would be a torture but for Baron von Stengel. Discreet and tactful as he is, those among us who come into close contact with him know with how much disgust, with how much suppressed annoyance, he receives these vexatious orders. He carries them out, being too good a soldier to disobey. But, too good a soldier to misuse soldiers, too much of a gentleman to treat as galley-slaves combatants seamed with wounds, holy priests, red cross men who have received their baptism of fire, he often carries out his orders in a way which is tantamount to a generous evasion.

He is an adept in the art of humanizing his agents, the _Feldwebel_ and the soldiers of the Bavarian guard. Unfortunately these are changed every week, and every week therefore he has to begin this civilizing task anew. The men come to us white hot from reading the newspapers, in savage mood—“duty, duty.” For two days the fort is an inferno. Then everything returns to order—not German order, but our own. Their zeal is mitigated when they take note of the way in which the commandant treats us. Our hail-fellow-well-met air, our good-humoured cheek, do the rest. The soldiers are tamed. Soon they cease to guard us; they contemplate us, and take part in our life. There they stand, with fixed bayonets, somewhat nonplussed and puzzled, almost timid, abashed as it were, hardly knowing, when we dig them in the ribs, whether we are fond of them or are making fun of them. At bottom they feel themselves to be our inferiors, less lively and less intelligent. They all have much the same idea as fat Max, the canteen keeper, who secretly breaks the pumps whenever a fresh levy is being made, in order to render himself more indispensable here than at the front. In view of the activity of our comrades, their carvings in wood and in stone, the tin rings they make, the horsehair watch-chains, the stools, tables, and cupboards which they knock together out of bits of planking filched from the workyards at Ingolstadt, this mighty beer-drinker is unable to control his astonishment. He waves his great arms, exclaiming:

“These Frenchmen, what workers! I’ve always maintained, _Herr Gott Sakrament_, that every one of them has a devil in his inside.”

M. von Stengel is of much the same way of thinking as Max.

Little as he seems to notice, wishing, as he does, to avoid having to allot punishment, hardly anything happens in the fort without his being aware of it. Nothing licit or illicit escapes his keen gaze, and what he does not see he divines. Nevertheless, with the roguish indulgence of a grand seigneur, he is careful to avoid any display of anger. I am confident that he derives a good deal of secret enjoyment from the contemplation of the network of customs, subterfuges, and evasions, whose threads are interwoven behind the iron grating of German regulations. He watches with amusement the supple boldness with which prudent advances are made, the care with which direct conflict with authority is avoided, and the ingenuity with which the regulations are taken in the flank, circumvented, or ignored. He admires the stratagems by means of which this miniature France, prisoned in a foreign fortress, is enabled to reintegrate the life of the homeland. He does not fail to recognize that these breaches of discipline serve, even more clearly than the ingenuity with which the breaches are effected, to manifest the hardihood of his prisoners, and to prove their possession of an individuality at once gentle and intractable.

This German, at any rate, does not regard the French as “monkeys.” He is not misled by their superficial levity, their suppleness, their apparent scepticism—shining armour with which they protect their ego, a vivacious and rebellious ego, which resists everything, which always gets even, is ever elastic, artful, or frank, as circumstances prescribe, but immalleable, incapable of being passive, obstinately itself. The commandant is impressed with the fact that the Frenchman is what he is and remains what he is, jealous of his privacy, greatly prizing his own humour, tastes, and ideas. It may be that M. von Stengel considers that we are excessively individualized, that whilst we often seem to treat grave matters as trifles, the least onslaught upon our intimate personality arouses in us an excess of fury, a revolt which may go so far as to compromise the collective interest. But it is certain that he knows us and accepts us as we are. He imposes no constraint, and has no desire to refashion us after the Teuton model. It is even possible that he regards with secret approval the delicate compost of national merits and peculiarities. In any case, in his relations with us he is extremely careful to do everything he can to blunt the sharp, harassing, and painful angles of Germanic discipline.

Nevertheless this man, so sensible, moderate, and well-bred, does not possess a perfectly unified character. One recognizes in him both the German and the natural man. The former enunciates cynical maxims to the latter, insisting, for example, upon the value of war for war’s sake. The latter listens, but shies at the idea. It is as if, while enjoying the refined sweetness of a French morning, he should suddenly be disturbed by the horrid bellowing of all the war-horns of the Huns. The dicta of this brutal philosophy rack his ears. But, being good-mannered, he hearkens. His brother seems to him a thick-skinned fellow, coarse-blooded, grim, and savage-hearted. However, he makes no protest. His brother reiterates his statements, repeats his massive assertions loudly and unceasingly, and insists upon agreement. He has to pay for being well-mannered, for hating scenes, for disliking to give pain. From very kindness of heart, from love of peace, from very sensitiveness, he assumes a barbaric mask. The good brother! It goes much against the grain, but he gives an apparent assent.

It is thanks to a series of such sacrifices, invariably one-sided, that the German and the natural man seem, in Baron von Stengel, to live on harmonious terms.

His natural man is good and just. Making no parade of humanitarian convictions, he practises humaneness.

It is touching to watch this grand old man, lofty of stature, with a solid prognathous chin, irreproachably dressed, when he stops to speak to a soldier suffering from despondency. “Fous êtes triste?” he asks in his slow and broken French, gently pulling the man by the ear. The prisoner does not misunderstand; he knows that though the major can read French he is unable to speak it, and that in this laconic phrase he desires to condense an entire friendly conversation.

A few days ago, having learned that a loaf of bread priced at thirty pfennig had been sold at one mark fifty pfennig to a prisoner by a soldier of the guard, he was greatly enraged, and in the presence of Durupt, who was helping him to write up the register of money orders, he exclaimed, “There is but one price for bread, and I shall proceed with the utmost rigour against anyone, be he French or German, who asks a higher price. It is disgraceful to rob prisoners in this way!” The joke is that officially we are not supposed to buy anything at all.

The day before yesterday there was a fall of sleet. The men were loitering up and down the corridors. In front of the _Kommandantur_ there was a great clatter of hobnailed shoes, and the noise was reinforced by light songs, laughter, and chatter. The commandant was reading our eleven hundred letters. Two days earlier he had sent them to Ingolstadt. Headquarters, cantankerous as usual, had returned them, under some pretext, to be re-read. This was something calculated to put the gentlest of men out of humour. Scrupulously obedient to orders, he was now for the second time reading these poor papers, badly written in pencil, insipid, and all exactly alike. On the other side of the door, the procession of prisoners passed and repassed unceasingly. The clatter of nails on the cement got on his nerves. “Oh, the noise, the noise!” he said, as if speaking to himself. D’Arnoult was there and rose from his seat, intending to ask the comrades to be a little quieter. The commandant stopped him, saying, “No, monsieur d’Arnoult, do not go out. _Mein Zimmer ist doch nur eine Kanzlei_—after all, my room is only an office!” And once more he immersed himself in his reading.

Withal, in the major’s innermost being, the natural man invariably acts and governs. The other, the German, merely utters professions of faith.

Out walking, just now, we had paused for a moment, dazzled by the beauty of the evening. We were on the strip of greyish-white pasture which arches along the edge of the pine wood, and looked like the woolly back of a sheep. Before us, seemingly at our very feet, the Danubian plain, with its gentle undulations, stretched away through the iridescent haze. The sun had just set. A breeze was blowing from the west, chasing before it golden mist-wreaths. The branches and faded foliage of the oaks, dry and nipped by the frost, rustled in the chill wind; the pine needles, interlaced with gossamer, reddened by many sunsets, whispered and murmured. We were a silent company, Baron von Stengel, Major Langlois, MM. Jeandidier, Cavaillé, Lœbre, Romant, Bouvat, my friend Laloux, and myself. The vastness of the prospect, the silence of the fields, the fading of the light, the shivering of the undergrowth in the twilight, the strange sensation of being suddenly plunged into the heart of winter—all these influences combined to keep us mute.

What a waste of time! I thought. Already three months in prison. Three months lost beyond recall. And the baron had just said to me, “England is intractable. I hardly think you will get away before next autumn.” More than a year lived through for nothing, suffered for nothing. A whole year cut out from the short span of our days. I was prey to a cold, hard sadness. Then, my thoughts turned to you.… All at once a song rose from the road. The recruits quartered at Hepperg were returning to quarters, marching with that slow and heavy German pace which will never be a match for our French step.

They were singing the famous

Nun ade, wir müssen Abschied nehmen.…

with which all the _Feldgrau_, before going to the front, have made the quiet Bavarian taverns ring, sitting over their great tankards, each holding the beloved one’s hand. I was familiar with the strains. The little sergeant of whom I have previously written to you had made his men sing it to me one evening in the guardroom, and had copied out the text for me:

Now farewell. We must take leave. We must charge our muskets.
With stout hearts we shall give to the war and to the fields of
battle the finest days of our youth. Farewell, dear parents,
brothers, and sisters. Shake hands for the last time. If we
are never to meet again, let us hope for a reunion in a better
world.

Farewell, best beloved, you who know that our parting is harder
to bear than death. It may be that we shall never meet again.
Yet every day, when night falls, let us renew our hopes.

The shells are whistling through the air. The bayonets are
fixed. The flags are waving in the breeze. Our dread is
concealed beneath the smoke of the combat. As we fight we cry,
hurrah, hurrah!

We are in the thick of it, like good Bavarians.

“What are you thinking about, my dear enemy?” said von Stengel all at once with a smile.—“_Herr Kommandant_,” I replied, in an access of dull rage, “_dieser Krieg wird die grosse Schande Europas sein!_”[26]

Slowly, to suit the baron, we descended the incline, soft beneath our feet, the turf torn, and littered with fragments of shell; here and there grew handsome stone-pines with twisted trunks. Being unable to run, I was shivering in my summer clothing. We took the road beside the hop-garden, and as we walked the baron gave me his views upon the war.

In truth, all he did was to repeat the words of Harnack, Lujo Brentano, Troeltsch, Willamovitz-Moellendorff, and the hundred representatives of German Kultur. As I listened, I seemed to be re-reading the articles which these writers were now publishing in the war editions of the _Internationale Monatsschrift_:

“Germany has never desired anything but peace; William is the peace emperor; Sir Edward Grey is the villain of the drama; English commercialism led to the war; Germany was suddenly seized by the throat and had to defend herself; she is engaged in a life and death struggle.…

“_Ueber welches Volk wird einst das Tribunal der Weltgeschichte den Urteilsspruch ‘Schuldig’ fallen? Eins ist gewiss! Deutschland kann dem Urteilsspruch mit reinem Gewissen entgegen sehen._”[27]

I had no interest in all this. If the major had been a man of my own age, I should have bluntly begged him to spare me these phrases of the good bourgeois who has just been reading the newspapers. I should have said to him: “In actual fact, our respective countries are at war. Let us leave it to our grandchildren, should they have a fancy for writing history, to ascertain who is responsible for this butchery. But as far as I am myself concerned, be good enough to consider me a man of sound intelligence, and don’t attempt to befool me with your political myths. I agree that these myths have their uses, and that they are necessary for the soldier. To him one must lie perforce. Above all, in our democratic epoch, the violent man does wisely to wear sheep’s clothing, and to give himself the air of defending civilization and humanity, for otherwise the citizen would never be willing to play the part of soldier. If needs must, the citizen will allow himself to be killed for the sake of principles, or in defence of hearth and home, but never for the interest of the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, or a business corporation. Agreed, the aggressor must lie.

“But we are not now on a public platform; we are not composing a proclamation. Do not let us deceive ourselves, nor soil our minds with a superfluous falsehood.”

But to this old man I said nothing of the sort. I listened patiently. The wind bit my ears, and my body seemed a vast Siberia. As I walked, I looked at the birches, each one of which was known to me individually. Their delicate ramifications, now leafless, hung like horses’ manes. But the youngest trees, those whose tresses were not yet grown, so that their branches pointed directly upwards like the twigs of an ill-made besom, still retained some sparse foliage. In the icy wind, the white of their stems standing out against the greenish-black of the acacias in the ditch had a somewhat funereal air.

“War,” said von Stengel, “is an essential condition of social life. Without war, the human race would become anæmic, would slip back into barbarism, ignorance, and hebetude. Even though man loves peace, he must also be a great fighter before the Lord, _ein Streiter vor dem Herrn_. Do not imagine that wars are the work of a few men; the ferment works in the very heart of the race, and when this happens the maintenance of peace becomes impossible. The friction is so great, the heat generated is so intense, that the flames burst forth spontaneously. Then patience is out of place, and it is necessary to unsheathe the sword. Blood, much blood, must flow to appease the fierce angers and to restore men to their customary calm.”

It was the German in Baron von Stengel, not the man, who spoke, enunciating the doctrine that war is necessary, that war is a natural function of social life.

“For the rest,” he added, humanizing to the best of his ability the myth formulated by the German, for now the natural man was resuming sway, “once war has broken out, it is the duty of us all to do our best to diminish its horrors. Men differ widely, and yet, through contact with upright and noble characters, even the worst of human beings, even those of malignant and dark nature, come to learn the value of peace, of good understanding, and acquire the faculty of enduring with equanimity.”

Thus talking, we reached the great iron gate, adorned with the Bavarian lions. I rang. The gate was opened, the baron drew aside to allow his “boarders” to pass in, and these in turn signalled to him to take precedence.

The commandant major, Baron Stefan von Stengel, very erect, head held high, passed through the gateway. The guard, fully armed, stood at attention, lined up in two rows. Upon an order from the _Feldwebel_, “_Hurrah für den Major_,” twenty recruits shouted with a single voice. Night had fallen. All the windows of the fort, which had been invisible as long as we were outside the walls, were now seen to be lighted up, and the red of the bricks was manifest in the starlight. We crossed the drawbridge. “Now that the snows have come,” said the commandant, pointing to the ditch, “we could make a good skating-rink there.” He saluted, and withdrew into his casemate.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, I have not entirely lost my time here, since I have succeeded in classifying adequately in the social hierarchy such a man as Baron von Stengel, who is neither hero nor genius, who has no ambition to display supernatural virtues, but who is simply a man with pleasant manners, refined, well-bred, free from all stiffness, easy to get on with, a truly civilized being.

You, my friends, have spoiled me. It is owing to you that I had always remained ignorant how restricted is the genus of “decent folk.” The war has changed my views in this respect. Hardened, simplified, freer in relation to external conditions, as adaptable as any one could wish—when the campaign is over I shall be somewhat less confiding than of yore towards my kind. Now that I sample them in the mass, elbowing them unceasingly morning, noon, and night throughout the entire day of twenty-four hours, listening to them as they talk, chatter, grumble, quarrel, and snore, looking on at them while they enjoy themselves, complain, play, eat, bargain, pull out the personal stop, pass judgments, take things at their ease; now that I no longer contemplate them through the prism of my doctrines and of my leniency, but look at them as they really are, all the scenery of civil life removed, all social trappings stripped off—there are certain categories of mind which I understand better than before. I understand better, for example, hermits, misanthropes, jansenists, and all pessimists, pagan as well as Christian, all those who can see nothing in man but the primitive beast, and those who never cease talking of original sin. How greatly now do I prize good manners, the veneer of culture, the mask of decency. These are but externals, things which do not give expression to man’s intimate nature. They even aim at veiling that nature. But precisely because they exercise this occlusive and embellishing function, they seem to me august. The sight of the real arouses an appetite for fiction, creates a necessity for art and for dreams. Are these lies? Yes, they are lies, poor lies! What matter? Must we live in hell by deliberate choice? It cannot be asserted that such illusions make a paradise of our ill-conditioned and sordid world; but at least they mitigate the stench to some extent, neutralize its offensiveness, and render the bestial hustle a thought less aggressive.

My nose is still uneasy with the memory of the carrion odour from the battlefields of Moncourt, Lagarde, and Kerprich. It was here that I learned the value of shroud, coffin, quicklime, and tomb. Now that I have come to know men better, I know also that the trifling restraints and delicate veils of conventional good manners are absolutely essential.

THE SLOPES ARE FORBIDDEN

_November 20, 1914._

Snow has been falling throughout the night. Risking a shot, for the new orders from headquarters are still more stringent, I walked for a good hour at dawn upon the northern ramparts. When the sun rose over the village of Hepperg there was sketched in the opposite quarter, towards France, in three strokes of the brush, the most striking of pastels: in the foreground, the old gold of the oaks, flaming, sanguine, and burnished: in the middle distance, the wide field of virgin snow; in the background, the heavy and sombre line of the pines, interspersed with larches, sparkling with hoar-frost.