Chapter IV: Part 4

Reading this, I felt for a moment here and there that the events of this last week must have been a dream, so vividly did the island and the island life etch themselves on a page. For a half second I could smell the frying of the pine-kernels, could hear Pasqualino's quick step across the passage, as he entered from his Brangäene duty on the balcony to tell us that Miss Machonochie's foot was coming firmly up the steps. But the next moment the huge background of war was set up again, and all these things were strangely remote and dim. They had happened, perhaps, at least I seemed to remember them, but they no longer had any touch of reality about them, were of the quality of dreams.... The same unreality possessed Francis's suave surmises about the improbability of England's going to war with Germany, for the only thing that was actual was that she had done so. And not less unreal was the fact of Francis himself living the life that he and I also had lived before this cataclysm came. All that belonged to some prehistoric period which ceased something less than a week ago. Less than a week ago, too, I had been baptized and become a member of England, and already, so swiftly does the soul no less than the body adjust itself to changed conditions, the sense of having ever been otherwise, had vanished as completely as the aching of a tooth after the offender has been dealt with, and you can no longer imagine the pain it gave you.

But the letter was a difficult one to answer; I could not convey to him what had happened to me, any more than in this letter he could, except for a transient second, convey to me a realization of what had not happened to him. I began a dozen times: "I have just been to Trafalgar Square, and cannot picture to you the thrill that 'Rule, Britannia'"----Clearly that would not do. I tried again with a jest to hide the seriousness of it: "What do they know of England who only Italy know?" I tried yet again: "Since seeing you something has happened that makes----"

And at that moment the cry of a newsvendor in the street made me rush out for the sixth time that afternoon to see what the latest information was. Liège still held out, it seemed, though it was rumoured that certain of its forts had fallen. But still the most gallant of the little States held up the Titanic invasion that was pouring down upon it, maintaining in the face of terrific pressure its protest and its resistance to the onrush of that infamous sea, in the depths of which German honour already lay drowned. How could any man fail to know what the sense of the native land, of patriotism meant, when he saw what a supreme meaning it actually did have? It is the fashion of cynics to say that mankind will suffer and deny themselves for the sake of some definite concrete thing, like money or a jewel or a picture, but never for an idea. Here was an instance that blew such cynicism to atoms. Already the soil of Belgium, its cities and its plains were lost, and its people knew it But they fought, beaten and indomitable, just because it was an idea that inspired them--namely, the freedom of those who were already conquered (for none could doubt the outcome), the independence of the country which must soon for certain lay beneath the heel of Prussian murderers, who slew their children and violated their women, and could no more touch the spirit of the people than they could quench the light of the moon. Normally, perhaps, we more often feel the pull and the press of material things; but when there is heard in a man's soul the still small voice, which is greater than fire or earthquake, his true being wakes, and at the spiritual call, whether of religion or love or patriotism, he answers to an idea that far transcends all the beckonings of material sense. It is then that those we thought smug and comfort-smothered, bound in the bonds of peaceful prosperity, break from their earth-bound fetters and their sleep at the voice of the God which is immanent in them. There is no material profit to gain, but all to lose, and eagerly, like ballast that keeps them down, they cast everything else overboard, and sweep soaring into the untarnishable sunlight of their real being. For it is not only the stocks and stones of his native land that a man loves, any more than it is just the eyebrows and the throat of his mistress that he worships. He loves them because they are symbols and expression of her who inhabits them. They are the bodily tokens of the beloved spirit that dwells there. Under that inspiration the dumb lips prophecy, as the coal from the altar is laid on them, and their land becomes a temple filled, even in the darkness of their affliction, with the glory of the Lord. The terror by night and the arrow that flieth by day have no power to daunt them, for high above earthly things is set their house of defence.

There rose then from this quiet little land, sure and untroubled as the rising of the moon, a race of heroes. From further east, across the Rhine, there was another rising, the monstrous birth of a presence and a portent undreamed of. It towered into the sky, and soon at its breath the forts of Liège and of Namur crumbled and fell, and it passed on phallic and murderous over the corpses of slain children and violated mothers. Those who thought they knew Germany could not at first believe that this was the spirit and these the infamies of the land they loved. She who had stood for so much to them, she the mother of music, the cradle of sciences, the lover of all that was lovely, was changed as by the waving of a magician's rod into a monster of hell, oozing with the slime of the nethermost pit. Many could not credit the tales that flooded the press, and put them down to mere sensational news-mongering. But they were true, though they were not the whole truth; the half of it had not been told us. The race of musicians, scientists, artists, of chivalrous knights, still took as their motto: "The women and children first." But they played upon the words, and smiled to each other at the pun. Pleading the necessity that knows no law, they had torn up their treaty, avowing that it was but a scrap of paper, and dishonouring for ever the value of their word, now, like some maniac, they mutilated the law they had murdered. It may be that Germany was but the first victim of Prussian militarism, and Belgium the second; but Germany had sold its soul, and it kept its bargain with the power that had bought it.

While still Francis's letter remained unanswered on my desk, I received another from him, written several days later, which had made a quicker transit.

"This is all damnable," he said. "Of course we had to
come in when Belgium was invaded. I skulked all day
in the house while it was yet uncertain, for I simply
dared not show an English face in the streets for shame.
Thank God that's all right. I never thought I could
have cared so much. They sang 'Rule, Britannia,' in the
Piazza to-day, wonderfully vague and sketchy. You know
what my singing is, but I tell you I joined. It was a
strange thing to hear that tune in a country which was
supposed to be allied with the nation on whom England
has declared war, but there it was. They say that Italy
has declared neutrality. You'll know by the time you get
this whether that is so. By the way, if it is true that
we are sending an Expeditionary Force to France, just
send me a wire, will you? The papers are full of news
one day which is contradicted the next, and one doesn't
know what to believe about England's attitude and doings.

"There's no news on this dead-alive island. I feel
frightfully cut off, and it's odd to feel cut off in the
place where you've lived for so long. I began an article
on the early French mystics last week, but I can't get
on with it. Mind you send me a telegram.

"Francis."

I sent the telegram saying that an Expeditionary Force to help the French to hold their frontier had already landed in France, and more men were being sent. Next morning I received a brief telegram in answer:

"Am starting for England to-day."

Liège fell, Namur fell, and like a torrent that has gathered strength and volume from being momentarily damned up, the stream of the invaders roared through France, and on her as well as on England descended the perils of their darkest and most hazardous hour. Sheer weight of metal drove the line of the Allies back and back, wavering and dinted but never broken. In England, but for the hysterical screams of a few journalists who spoke of the "scattered units" of a routed army making their way back singly or in small companies, the temper of the nation remained steadfast and unshaken, and in France, though daily the thunder of the invaders boomed ever nearer to Paris, nothing had power to shake the inflexible will of our ally. It mattered not that the seat of the Government must be transferred to Bordeaux, and thither they went; but the heart of France beat on without a tremor, waiting for the day which none doubted would come, when they turned and faced the advancing tide, breasted it, and set up the breakwater that stretched from the North Sea to the borders of Switzerland. Right across France was it established, through ruined homesteads and devastated valleys, and against it in vain did the steel billows beat.

Here I have a little anticipated events, for it was in the days while still the Germans swept unchecked across north-eastern France that Francis arrived, after a devious and difficult journey, that brought him on shipboard at Havre. He had no psychological account to give of the change that had occurred between his first letter and his telegram; he had simply been unable to do anything else than come.

"I know you like analysis," he said, "but really there is no analysis to give you. I was, so I found myself, suddenly sick with anxiety that England should come into the war (I think I wrote you that), and when your telegram came, saying we were sending a force abroad, I merely had to come home and see if there was anything for me to do. One has got to do something, you know, got to do something! Fancy my having been English all these years, and it's only coming out now, like getting measles when you're grown up."

There was no need then to explain, and Francis, in his philosophical manner, tried to define what it was that had so moved him, and found, as so often happens when we attempt to fit words to a force that is completely unmaterial, that he could at first only mention a quantity of things that it was not. It was not that he felt the smallest affection for London, or Lincoln, or Leeds; he did not like Piccadilly any more than he had done before, or the mud, or the veiled atmosphere. Nor did he regard any of the inhabitants of our island with a greater warmth than previously. Besides myself, he had after his long absence abroad no one whom he could call a friend, and of the rest, the porter who had carried his luggage to the train at Southampton had not thanked him for a reasonable tip; the guard had been uncivil; the motor driver who brought him to my house was merely a fool. Indeed, whatever component part of the entity that made up England he considered, he found he disliked it, and yet the thought of all those disagreeable things as a whole had been enough to make him leave the siren isle, and come post-haste across the continent to get to that surly northern town, in which he had not set foot for a dozen years. And, being here, he did not regret, as an impulsive and ill-considered step, his exile from Alatri. There was no fault to be found with that; it had been as imperative as the physical needs of thirst and hunger. He got up, gesticulating, in Italian fashion.

"Where does it come from?" he said. "What is it that called me? Is it something from without? Is it a mixture, a chemical soul-mixture of the grumpy porter and the grey sea, and this dismal, half-lit afternoon that is considered a lovely day in London? Or is it from within, some instinct bred from fifty generations of English blood, that just sat quiet in me and only waited till it was wanted? I hate doing things without knowing the reason why I do them. I always said 'Why?' when I was a child, and I only don't say 'Why?' now, because if I want to know something, I sit and think about it instead of asking other people. But all the way here I've been considering it, and I can't see why I had to come back. I don't think it's only something internal. There's a magnet outside that suddenly turned its poles to us, and instantly we jumped to it like iron filings and stuck there. There's no shirking it. There I was in Italy, saying to myself that I wasn't an iron filing, and should stop exactly where I was. But the magnet didn't care. It just turned towards me, and I jumped. It will keep me attached, I suppose, as long as there's any use for me."

He was feeling his way gropingly but unerringly down into himself, and I listened as this, the simplest of men, but that deft surgeon of minds, cut and dissected down into his own.

"The magnet, the magnet!" he said. "I think that the magnet is something that lies behind mere patriotism. Patriotism perhaps is the steel of which it is made; it is the material through which the force is sent, the channel of its outpouring, but ... but it isn't only to put myself at the disposal of England in my infinitesimal manner that I have come back. England is the steel of the magnet--yes, just that; but England isn't the force that magnetizes it."

He dropped down on the hearth-rug, and lay there with the back of his hands over his eyes, as he so often lay on the beach at the _Palazzo a mare._

"I haven't wasted all those years at Alatri," he said, "when I was gardening and mooning about and looking at the sea. I have come to realize what I remember saying to you once, when I picked up a bit of green stone on the beach, that it was you or me and God. To do that I had got to get out of myself.... We collect a hard shell round ourselves like mussels or oysters, and we speak of it as 'ours.' It's just that which we are bound to get rid of, if we are to see things in any way truly. We talk of 'having' things; that's the illusion we suffer from. We can't enter into our real kingdom till we quite get rid of the sense that anything is ours, thus abdicating from the kingdom we falsely believed to be our own. That's the glorious and perfect paradox of mysticism. We have everything the moment we get rid of ourselves, and the sense that we have anything. You can express it in a hundred ways: the lover expresses it when he says: 'Oh, my beloved, I am you!' Christ expresses it when He says: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' As long as you cling to anything, you can't get at your soul, in which is God.

"Patriotism, standing by the honour of your country when your country is staking itself on a principle, seems to me a materialization of this force, the steel through which it can act. Well, when you believe in a principle, as I do, you've got to live up to your belief in it, and suffer any amount of personal inconvenience. You mustn't heed that, or else you are not getting outside yourself. So if England wants a limb or an eye, or anything else, why, it's hers, not mine."

He was silent a moment.

"And perhaps there's another thing, another drama, another war going on," he said. "Do you remember some fable in Plato, where Socrates says that all that happens here upon earth is but a reflection, an adumbration of the Real? Is it possible, do you think, that in the sphere of the eternal some great conflict is waging, and Michael and his angels are fighting against the dragon? Plato is so often right, you know. He says that is why beauty affects the soul, because the soul is reminded of the true beauty, which it saw once, and will see again. Why else should we love beauty, you know?"

He got up with a laugh.

"But it's puzzling work is talking, as Mr. Tulliver said. However, there's my guess at the answer of the riddle, as to why I came home. And it really is such a relief to me to find that I didn't cling to what I had. I was always afraid that I might, when it came to the point. But it wasn't the slightest effort to give it up, all that secure quiet life; the effort would have been not to give it up. I don't in the least want to be shot, or taken prisoner, or brutally maimed, but if any of those things are going to happen to me, I shan't quarrel with them."

"And when the war is over?" I asked.

"Why, naturally, I shall go back to Alatri by the earliest possible train and continue thinking. That's what I'm alive for, except when it's necessary to act my creed, instead of spelling out more of it. I say, may we have dinner before long? This beastly bracing English air makes me very hungry."

Francis refused all thought of getting a commission, since it seemed to him that this was not doing the thing properly, and enlisted next day as a private. For myself, since circumstances over which I had no control prevented my doing anything of the sort, I found work connected with the war which to some extent was a palliative of the sense of uselessness. It was quite dull, very regular, and entailed writing an immense quantity of letters.

* * * * *

And at this point I propose to pass over a whole year in which the grim relentless business went on. Like wrestlers, the opposing armies on the Western Front were locked in a deadly grip, each unable to advance, each refusing to give ground. On the east Russia advanced and was swept back again; in the Balkans, owing to our inept diplomacy Turkey and Bulgaria joined the enemy. During the spring Italy abandoned her neutrality and joined the Allies. Expeditions were sent out to Mesopotamia and the Dardanelles. For a year the war flamed, and the smoke of its burning overshadowed the earth.

SEPTEMBER, 1915

I do not suppose that there is any literal truth in that remarkable piece of natural history which tells us that eels get used to being skinned. It may have been invented by those who like eating that execrable worm, or, more probably, it is a proverbial simile which is meant to convey a most unquestionable truth, namely, that however unpleasant a thing may be, in time we get adjusted to it. It would be an ill thing for the human race if they did not, and argues no callousness on their part. It is simply one of Nature's arrangements, an example of the recuperative power which enables us to throw off colds, and mends the skin when we have cut ourselves shaving. If every wound, physical and moral alike, remained raw, the race could not continue, but would speedily expire from loss of blood and gangrene. And if in process of time we did not rally from staggering blows, we should all of us, at an early age lie prone on our backs, squealing, till death mercifully put an end to our troubles. But all our lives we are receiving wounds and blows, and we recuperate. Only once during this mortal existence do we fail to recover, more or less, from things that at first seemed intolerable, and then we die.

This invariable rule applies to the position in which we find ourselves after thirteen months of war. Most of us have suffered intimate losses; there is scarcely a man or woman in England whom death has not robbed of some friend or relation. But we are not as a nation bewildered and all abroad, as we were thirteen months ago. We do not wake every morning with the sense that after the oblivion of the night we are roused to a nightmare existence. We have somehow adjusted ourselves to what is happening, and this adjustment argues no callousness or insensibility; it is just the result of the natural process by virtue of which we are enabled to continue living. Also, the need that Francis felt when he said, "One must do something," has come to the aid of those who in general, before the days of the war, never did anything particular beyond amusing themselves. This really implied that other people had got to amuse them by giving them dinner-parties and concerts and what not, and since these had no time to attend to them now, a remarkably large percentage of the drones, finding that nobody was providing for them, set to work for once in their lives, and slaved away at funds or hospitals or soup-kitchens, and found that to do something for other people was not half so tedious as they had supposed before they gave it a trial. This was a very salutary piece of natural adjustment, and they all felt much the better for it. A certain number of confirmed drones I suppose there will always be, but certainly London has become a much more industrious hive than it ever used to be.

Another process has contributed to the recuperative process, for the details of life have been much simplified. When your income is ruthlessly cut down, as has happened to most of us, it is clear that something must be done. The first thing we all did, naturally, was to raise a wild chorus of asserting that we were ruined. But when these minor strains did not seem to mend matters much, most people, under the recuperative force, began to consider and make catalogues of all the things which they could quite well do without. It is astonishing how voluminous these catalogues were. Those who had footmen who went to the war, like proper young men, suddenly found out that there were such things as parlour-maids. Those who rolled about in motor-cars discovered that there were taxicabs, and it was even hinted in more advanced circles that 'buses plied upon the London streets and tubes underneath them. There was some vague element of sport about it: it was something new to lie in ambush at a street corner and pounce on No. 19 that went up Sloane Street and along Shaftesbury Avenue, or get hopelessly befogged in the stupefying rabbit warrens that are excavated below Piccadilly Circus.

In spite, then, of the huge tragedies, the cruel bereavements, the distress among those whose economies were in no way a game, but a grinding necessity, we have adjusted ourselves, and are alive to the amazing fact that the day of little things, the small ordinary caresses and pleasures of life, is not over. For a while it was utterly darkened, the sun stood in full-orbed eclipse, but now (not callously) we can take pleasure in our little amusements and _festas_ and fusses, though, owing to more useful occupations, we have not so much time for them. To compare a small affair with these great ones, I remember how a few years ago I suddenly had to face a serious operation. The moment at which I was told this was one of black horror. There the doctor sat opposite me, looking prosperous and comfortable, and said: "You must make up your mind to it; have it done at once." Being a profound physical coward, the thing seemed quite unfaceable, an impossibility. But before an hour was up, the adjustment had come, and once more the savour of the world stole back. The sun that day was just as warm as it had ever been, food was good, the faces of friends were dear, and the night before it was to take place I slept well, and when finally I was told it was time to go along the passage to where the operation was to be done, I remember turning down the page of the book I was reading and wondering less what was going to happen to me than to the characters of the novel. Nothing, in fact, is unfaceable when you have to face it; nothing entirely robs the eye and the ear of its little accustomed pleasures.

But what is much more important than the fact that the little things of life have put forth their buds again is that as a nation our eyes, half closed in dreamy contentment, have been opened to the day of great things. The outbreak of war in August last year was an earthquake inconceivable and overwhelming; but it has become one of the things that is, an austere majestic fact. Among its débris and scarred surfaces, not only has the mantle of growth with which Nature always clothes her upheavals begun to spring up, but the smoke of its ruin, like the cloud of ash over Vesuvius, has soared into high places, and its deepest shadows are lit with splendours that irradiate and transfigure them. It is not of terror alone that tragedy is compounded; there is pity in it as well, the pity that enlightens and purges, the unsealing of the human heart. God knows what still lies in the womb of the future, but already there has come to us a certain steadfastness that lay dormant, waiting for the trumpet to awaken it. We are, it is to be hoped, a little simpler, a little more serious, a little busier over doing obvious duties, a little less set on amusements and extravagancies. And I do not think we are the worse for that. The faith in which we entered the war, that ours was a righteous quarrel, has proved itself unshakeable; the need to stand firm has knitted the nation together.

Of our necessities, our failures, our endeavours and our rewards in these great matters, it is not possible to speak, for they are among the sacred things that dwell in silence. But there are, you may say, certain condiments in life which can be spoken of. First and foremost among them is a sense of humour, which has been extremely useful. Without losing sight of the main issue, or wanting to forget the tragic gravity of it all, it would be ridiculous to behave like pessimists and pacifists, and with distorted faces of gloom and pain, to shudder at the notion of finding anything to smile at. Even while we are aghast at the profanity with which the German Emperor regards himself as a Moses of the New Dispensation, and steps down from the thunderclouds of Sinai with the tables that have been personally entrusted to him, on the strength of which he orders his submarines to torpedo peaceful merchant vessels, we cannot (or should not) help smiling at this Imperial buffoon. Or why waste a shudder on his idiot son, when a smile would not be wasted, since it would do us good? Surely there are bright spots in the blackness. Or again, though hate is a most hellish emotion, and it is, of course, dreadful to think of one white nation being taught to hate another, yet when people compose a hymn of hate for the English, words and music, and have it printed and sold at a loss all over the German Empire in order to root more firmly yet the invincible resolve of the Teuton to strafe England, is it reasonable not to feel cheered up by the ludicrousness of these proceedings? Certainly it is a pity to hate anybody; but, given that, may we not treasure tenderly this crowning instance of the thoroughness of the frightful German race? I am glad they did that; it does me good. When I think of that, my food, as Walt Whitman says, nourishes me more. I like to think of Prince Oscar sending a telegram to his father, saying that he has had the overpowering happiness to be wounded for the sake of the Fatherland. I am glad his father sent for a Press agent and had those precious words published in every paper in the Fatherland, and I trust that Prince Oscar, since he likes being wounded so much, will get well quickly and go back and be wounded again. I am pleased that when Russia was sending hundreds of thousands of troops through England to join the Western battle-line, the fact was put beyond a doubt by somebody's gamekeeper seeing bearded men getting out of a train at Swindon on a hot day and stamping the snow from their boots, which proved they had come from Archangel.... It all helps. Queen Elizabeth was a wise woman when she said that we have need of mirth in England. God knows we have.

I have been a year in London, hardly stirring from it by reason of things to do; but a fortnight ago I escaped into Norfolk for a breathing-space of air and sea. It was a good sea, in the manner of northern seas, and though it was impossible not to contrast it with the hot beach and lucid waters of the _Palazzo a mare,_ I would not have exchanged it for that delectable spot. High, sheer sand-cliffs lined the coast, and on their edges were dug trenches with parapets of sandbags, while here and there, where the cliffs were broken away, there were lines of barbed wire entanglements. These, I must hope, were only, so to speak, practice efforts, for I found it saved time, when going down to bathe early, to step through these, with an eye to pyjama legs, rather than walk an extra hundred yards to a gap in those coast defences. But it all gave one a sense that this was England, alert and at war, and the sea itself aided the realization. For there every day would pass cruisers or torpedo-boats, no longer in peaceful manoeuvres, but engaged, swift and watchful, on their real business. Sometimes one would be running parallel with the coast, and then turn and roar seawards, till only a track of smoke on the horizon marked its passage. But that was the real thing; the armour of England was buckled on; it was no longer just being polished and made ready. The whole coast was patrolled, and all was part of one organized plan of defence, and when the moment came, of offence; somewhere out there the Grand Fleet waited, as it had waited more than a year; these ships that passed and went seaward again were the sentries that walked round the forts of the ocean.

A week on the coast was followed by a few days at a country house inland before I returned to London, and once again the realization of war had a vivid moment. The house where I was staying was surrounded by pheasant covers that came close up to the garden, where one night after dinner I was straying with a friend. It was warm and still; the odour of the night-blooming stocks hung on the air; the sky was windless and slightly overclouded, so that the stars burned as if through frosted glass, and we were in the dark of the moon. Then suddenly from the sleeping woods arose an inexplicable clamour of pheasant's cries; the place was more resonant with them than at the hour when they retired to roost. Every moment fresh crowings were added to the tumult. I have never heard so strange an alarum. It did not die down again, but went on and on. Then presently through it, faintly at first, but with growing distinctness, came a birring rhythmical beat, heavy and sonorous. It came beyond doubt from the air, not from the land, and was far more solid, more heavy in tone, than any aeroplanes I had ever heard. Then my friend pointed. "Look!" he said. There, a little to the east, a black shape, long and cylindrical, sped across the greyness of the shrouded sky, moving very rapidly westward. Soon it was over our heads; before long it had passed into indistinctness again. But long after its beat had become inaudible to our ears, the screams of the pheasants continued, as they yelled at the murderer on the way to the scene of his crime.

For half an hour after that some stir of uneasiness went on in the woods; the furred and feathered creatures were aware, by some sixth sense, that there was danger in the air. Then muffled and distant came the noise of explosions and the uneasiness of the woodland grew to panic again, with rustlings in the brushwood of hares seeking cover, and the cries of birds seeking each other, and asking what was this terror by night. Presently afterwards the beat of the propellers was again audible to human ears, and the Zeppelin passed over us once more, flying invisible at a great height, going eastwards again. It was moving much faster now, for its deadly work was over, and, flushed with its triumph, it was bearing home the news of its glorious exploit. Those intrepid crusaders, Lohengrins of the air, had taken their toll of smashed cottages, slain children and murdered mothers, and the anointed of the Lord next morning, hearing of their great valour above a small Norfolk hamlet, would congratulate them on their glorious exploit and decorate them with iron crosses to mark his shameful approval of their deed.

* * * * *

London at night has become a dim Joseph's coat of many colours. The authorities are experimenting in broken rainbows for the sake of our safety from above, and for our vastly increased peril on the ground. Instead of the great white flame of electric lights, and the hot orange of the gas, we have a hundred hues of veiled colour. What exactly all the decrees are which produce these rainbows, I do not know; but the effect, particularly on a wet night when the colours are reflected on wet wood pavements and asphalte, is perfectly charming, and we hope that, in compensation for the multiplied dangers of the streets, we shall be immune from the flames and fumes of incendiary and asphyxiating shells. The prudent householder--I am afraid I am not one--has had a good deal of pleasant occupation in fitting up his cellar as a place to flee unto when we are threatened with Zeppelins, and one night, shortly after my return, I had the pleasure of inspecting one of these. It lay deep in the bowels of the earth, and if the absence of air would not asphyxiate you, I am sure its refugees need fear no other cause of suffocation. There were several deck-chairs, and at a slightly withdrawn distance a serviceable wooden form on which the servants would sit, while the bombardment was going on, in a respectful row. There was a spirit-lamp on which to make tea, a tin of highly nutritious biscuits, and a variety of books to read by the light of electric torches. Upstairs the same thoroughness prevailed. Nightly, on retiring to bed, the lady of the house had on a table close at hand a bag containing the most valuable of her jewellery, and a becoming dressing-gown much padded. Her husband's Zeppelin suit, the sort of suit you might expect to find in opulent Esquimaux houses, lay on another chair, and outside in the hall was a large washing basin filled with some kind of soda-solution, and on the rim of it, hung like glasses on the top of a punch-bowl, were arranged half a dozen amazing masks, goggle-eyed and cotton-wooled, which, on the first sign of an asphyxiating bomb, would be dipped in the solution of soda and tied over the face. To provide against incendiary bombs there was a pail of sand and a pail of water at every corner, while below the cellar beckoned a welcome in case of explosions. Given a moment for preparation, this house was a fortress against which Zeppelins might furiously rage together without hurting anybody. Whether they sought to suffocate or to burn, or to blow to atoms, this thoughtful householder was prepared for any of their nasty tricks.

All this was perfectly entrancing to my flippant mind, and after dinner, when the servants had washed up, we had, at my particular request, a rehearsal of the Zeppelin game to see how it all worked. The servants and my host and hostess retired to their respective bedrooms, and we put out all the lights. As guest, I had no duty assigned to me, I was just going to be a passenger in the Ark of safety, so I remained in the hall. When I judged I had given them enough time to lie fairly down on their beds, I sounded the gong with great vigour, which denoted that a Zeppelin had begun dropping bombs in the neighbourhood. Then the house responded splendidly: in an incredibly short space of time my hostess came out of her room, with the bag containing the regalia in her hand, and her beautiful padded dressing-gown on; my host came from his with the Esquimaux suit over his dress-clothes--looking precisely like Tweedledum arrayed for battle--and the servants, with shrill giggles, waited near the basin of soda-solution. Then we all put on masks (there was one to spare, which was given me), and, omitting the ceremony of dipping them in the soda, my host caught up the basin, and we all trooped downstairs into the cellar. The servants plumped themselves down on the bench, we sat in the deck-chairs, and there we all were. The time from the sounding of the gong to the moment when the cellar door was banged, and we were safe from explosives and asphyxiating bombs, was just three minutes and five seconds. The only thing unprovided for was the event of the Zeppelin dropping incendiary bombs after we had all gone into the Ark, for in that case the house would be burned above us, and we should be slowly roasted. But that cruel contingency we settled to disregard. It would be the kind of bad luck against which it is hopeless to take precautions. So then, as it was a hot evening, my host took off his Zeppelin suit again, and after testing the nutritive biscuits, which were quite delicious, we went upstairs again with shouts of laughter. No doubt their provision had a solid base of reason, for it certainly would be very annoying to be asphyxiated in your room, when such simple arrangements as these would have resulted in your having a cup of tea in the comfortable cellar instead; but there was this added bonus of sport about it all. It was the greatest fun.

This house where I had been dining was in the neighbourhood of Bedford Square, and I left about half-past ten, with the intention of walking as far as Charing Cross, and there embarking on the underground. I had hardly gone a hundred yards from the house, when on to the quiet night there came a report so appalling that it seemed like some catastrophic noise heard in a dream. It was quite close to me, somewhere on the left, and I ran as hard as I could round the corner of a block of houses to be able to look eastwards, for there was no doubt in my mind that a Zeppelin, nearly overhead, had dropped a bomb. Before I got to the corner there was another report as loud as the first, and, looking up, I saw that the searchlights, like pencils of light, were madly scribbling about over the sky. Suddenly one caught the Zeppelin, then another, and next moment it was in the meeting focus of half a dozen of them, hanging high above my head, serene and gilded with the rays of light, a fairy creation of the air. Then began the sound of guns, one shell exploded in front of it, another far below it. Disregarding all the regulations for their protection, people ran out of their houses, and, like me, stood gaping up at it, for the excitement of it was irresistible. I noticed that one man near me put up the collar of his coat whenever there was a loud explosion, just as if a slight shower was falling, and then quite gravely and seriously put it down again. Others stepped into porches, or flattened themselves against the walls, but none did as they were told by the police regulations. A special constable was there too, who should have herded us all into cover; instead, he stared with the rest, and put the lighted end of his cigarette into his mouth. For, indeed, this was not a thing you could see every day, a Zeppelin hanging above you, and the shells from guns in London exploding round it. It fired the imagination; here was the Real Thing, which we had been reading about for a year and never seen. The air had been invaded by the enemy, and guns in the heart of the securest city in the world were belching shells at it.

Then came the end of this amazing sight: a shell burst close to that serene swimmer, and it stuck its nose in the air, and ascending with extraordinary speed, like a bubble going upwards through water, got out of the focus of searchlights and disappeared.

By this time the eastern horizon was glowing with a light that grew steadily more vivid. The airship had dropped incendiary bombs in the City, and fire-engines were racing along Oxford Street, with gleam of helmets, clanging of bells and hoarse shouts from the firemen. But there was no getting near the seat of the fire, for a cordon of police had closed all streets near it, and I walked homewards along the Embankment, with eyes fixed on the sky, and cannoning into other passengers, because I did not look where I was going, as you may see ladies doing when they gaze in a hypnotized manner into hat-shops, as they walk along the street.

Apart from the actual thrill of the adventure, there was a most interesting psychological point, which I considered as I went homewards. There were we, the crowd in the street, just average folk, just average cowards in the face of danger, and not one, as far as I could see, gave a single thought to the risk of dropped bombs or falling pieces of shrapnel. We might any or all of us be wiped out next moment, but we didn't care, not in the least because we were brave, but because the interest of what was happening utterly extinguished any other feeling. Probably the majority of the crowd had passed gloomy and uncomfortable moments imagining that very situation, namely, of having a murderous Zeppelin just above them; but when once the murderous Zeppelin was there, they all forgot it was murderous, and were merely interested in the real live Zeppelin. Just in the same way, in minute matters, we all find that ringing the dentist's bell is about the worst part of the tiresome business.

The sequel as concerns the house in which I had dined so few hours before delighted me when I was told it next day. I suppose the realistic character of our rehearsal preyed on the servants' minds, for they groped their way downstairs to the cellar in the dark, and none thought to turn on the electric light. My hostess picked up her jewel-case and groped her way after them, forgetting about the soda-solution and the masks, and my host threw open the window and gazed ecstatically at the Zeppelin till it vanished. Then he turned on the lights and fetched his household back from the cellar, since the raid was over.... It is but another instance of how, when faced with a situation, we diverge from the lines of conduct we have so carefully laid down for ourselves. I once knew a family that practised fire-drill very industriously in case that one day there might be an outbreak in the house. There were patent extinguishers to put it out with, and ropes to let yourself out of window all over the place, and everyone knew exactly what he was to do. Then the opportunity so long expected came, and a serious outbreak occurred. On which the owner forgot everything that he had learned himself and taught everybody else, and after throwing a quantity of his valuable Oriental china on to the stone terrace, he performed prodigies of single-handed valour in saving a very old piano which nobody wanted at all.... (I think this pathetic story contradicts my theory about the calmness of the crowd on the Zeppelin night, but who wants to be consistent?)

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I had arrived this September at a break in the lease of my house, and six months before (see page two of the lease in question) I had given notice to the owner in writing that I should evacuate. Consequently for the last few months I had been an assiduous frequenter of house-agents' offices, and the God of addition sums alone knows how many houses I had seen over from garret to basement. The extraordinary thing about all these was that they were all exceptional bargains, such as the agent had never before known, and that in almost every case another gentleman was in negotiation for them. In spite of that, however, if I chose at once and firmly to offer the price asked, there was a strong probability of my securing one of these marvellous bargains, and thwarting the ambitions of the other gentleman. This opportunity to thwart the other gentleman was certainly an appeal to the more villainous side of human nature, and often, if a house seemed to me the sort of habitation I was on the look-out for, the thought of the other gentleman getting it was an incentive to take it myself. But never before did I realize how hopelessly traditional is that section of the human race which designs our houses for us. The type, in the modest species of abode I was looking for, never varied. There was a narrow passage inside the front door, with a dining-room and a back room opening out of it, and a staircase up to the first floor, where lay two sitting-rooms, invariably knocked into one. There was a bath on a half-landing, there were front bedrooms and back bedrooms higher up, all exactly alike, and for a long time I looked in vain for any house that was not precisely like any other house. In fact, this became a _sine qua non_ with me, and ceasing to care whether I thwarted the other gentleman or not, I think if I had found a house where the bath-room was in the basement, or there was no staircase, so that you had to go upstairs in a basket with a rope, I should have taken it. I almost despaired of finding what I wanted, and thought of revoking, if possible, my notice of quitting, for in my present house there is something which is not quite like other houses, for some inspired tenant threw down the wall between the dining-room and the entrance passage, making a sort of hall of it, in the middle of which I dine. That there are inconveniences attaching to it I don't deny, for the guest sitting nearest the front door occasionally jumps out of his skin when the postman thunders with the evening post close by his ear; but the house isn't quite like other houses of its type, which is precisely the reason why ten years ago I took it.

With a pocket full of "orders to view," and plenty of shillings for the patient caretakers who mournfully conducted me over their charge, I used on most days to set out on these explorations after lunch, returning discouraged at tea-time. I could not see myself in any of the houses I saw, or imagine going to sleep in any of those front bedrooms, or spending the evening in the back-room behind the dining-room, or in the two sitting-rooms knocked into one. But then, though it lingered long, came the Mecca of my quest. Even at the front door I had some premonition of success, for the knocker was not like other knockers, and when the door opened, I saw, with a beating heart, that the staircase was not like other staircases. Some four feet from the ground it turned at right angles towards where the dreadful little back room should be. It couldn't go into the door of the little back room, or if it did, it would be very odd. You would have to pass through the dining-room in order to get to the bottom of the staircase.... Then advancing I saw: the staircase turned into a little hall (originally, no doubt, the dreadful little back room). Beyond lay a broad passage, and the dining-room was built out at the end. Through the open door of it I saw the windows looking out, not on to a street at all, but on to full-foliaged trees that grew in a disused graveyard. Between it and the house ran a way for foot-passengers only. Something in my brain exulted, crying out "This is it!" and simultaneously I felt a soft stroking on my shin. Looking down I saw a grave black cat rubbing against me. Was there ever such an omen? I had already settled in my mind that this must be the house intended for me (it was), and here was the bringer of good luck congratulating me on my discovery.

I made the usual grand tour, but in how different a mood, and as I mounted my spirits rose ever higher. In front was a square (so-called though it was an oblong) closed at the top end where my house was situated, so that no traffic came through it, and at the back was this big graveyard, with its church, and the dome of the Brompton Oratory (concealment is useless) rising over its shoulder like the Salute at Venice. Literally not a house was in sight; there was but the faintest sound of traffic from the Brompton Road; I might have been a country parson in his vicarage. I went straight to the house-agent's, made an offer, and didn't care one atom whether I thwarted anybody or not. Naturally I hoped I did, but it made no difference.