Book Two
X
The war was three months oldâthree centuries. By virtue of some gift of adaptation which seemed forever to discredit human sensibility, people were already beginning to live into the monstrous idea of it, acquire its ways, speak its language, regard it as a thinkable, endurable, arrangeable fact; to eat it by day, and sleep on itâyes, and soundlyâat night.
The war went on; life went on; Paris went on. She had had her great hour of resistance, when, alone, exposed and defenceless, she had held back the enemy and broken his strength. She had had, afterward, her hour of triumph, the hour of the Marne; then her hour of passionate and prayerful hope, when it seemed to the watching nations that the enemy was not only held back but thrust back, and victory finally in reach. That hour had passed in its turn, giving way to the grey reality of the trenches. A new speech was growing up in this new world. There were trenches now, there was a âFrontââpeople were beginning to talk of their sons at the front.
The first time John Campton heard the phrase it sent a shudder through him. Winter was coming on, and he was haunted by the vision of the youths out there, boys of Georgeâs age, thousands and thousands of them, exposed by day in reeking wet ditches and sleeping at night under the rain and snow. People were talking calmly of victory in the springâthe spring that was still six long months away! And meanwhile, what cold and wet, what blood and agony, what shattered bodies out on that hideous front, what shattered homes in all the lands it guarded!
Campton could bear to think of these things now. His son was not at the frontâwas safe, thank God, and likely to remain so!
During the first awful weeks of silence and uncertainty, when every morning brought news of a fresh disaster, when no letters came from the army and no private messages could reach itâduring those weeks, while Campton, like other fathers, was without news of his son, the war had been to him simply a huge featureless mass crushing him earthward, blinding him, letting him neither think nor move nor breathe.
But at last he had got permission to go to Chalons, whither Fortin, who chanced to have begun his career as a surgeon, had been hastily transferred. The physician, called from his incessant labours in a roughly-improvised operating-room, to which Campton was led between rows of stretchers laden with livid blood-splashed men, had said kindly, but with a shade of impatience, that he had not forgotten, had done what he could; that Georgeâs health did not warrant his being discharged from the army, but that he was temporarily on a staff-job at the rear, and would probably be kept there if such and such influences were brought to bear. Then, calling for hot water and fresh towels, the surgeon vanished and Campton made his way back with lowered eyes between the stretchers.
The âinfluencesâ in question were brought to bearânot without Anderson Brantâs assistanceâand now that George was fairly certain to be kept at clerical work a good many miles from the danger-zone Campton felt less like an ant under a landslide, and was able for the first time to think of the war as he might have thought of any other war: objectively, intellectually, almost dispassionately, as of history in the making.
It was not that he had any doubt as to the rights and wrongs of the case. The painfully preserved equilibrium of the neutrals made a pitiful show now that the monstrous facts of the first weeks were known: Germanyâs diplomatic perfidy, her savagery in the field, her premeditated and systematized terrorizing of the civil populations. Nothing could efface what had been done in Belgium and Luxembourg, the burning of Louvain, the bombardment of Rheims. These successive outrages had roused in Campton the same incredulous wrath as in the rest of mankind; but being of a speculative mindâand fairly sure now that George would never lie in the mud and snow with the othersâhe had begun to consider the landslide in its universal relations, as well as in its effects on his private ant-heap.
His sonâs situation, however, was still his central thought. That this lad, who was meant to have been born three thousand miles away in his own safe warless country, and who was regarded by the government of that country as having been born there, as subject to her laws and entitled to her protectionâthat this lad, by the most idiotic of blunders, a blunder perpetrated before he was born, should have been dragged into a conflict in which he was totally unconcerned, should become temporarily and arbitrarily the subject of a foreign state, exposed to whatever catastrophes that state might draw upon itself, this fact dawned on him that his boyâs very life might hang on some tortuous secret negotiation between the cabinets of Europe.
He still refused to admit that France had any claim on George, any right to his time, to his suffering or to his life. He had argued it out a hundred times with Adele Anthony. âYou say Julia and I were to blame for not going home before the boy was bornâand God knows I agree with you! But suppose weâd meant to go? Suppose weâd made every arrangement, taken every precaution, as my parents did in my case, got to Havre or Cherbourg, say, and been told the steamer had broken her screwâor been prevented ourselves, at the last moment, by illness or accident, or any sudden grab of the Hand of God? Youâll admit we shouldnât have been to blame for that; yet the law would have recognized no difference. George would still have found himself a French soldier on the second of last August because, by the same kind of unlucky accident, he and I were born on the wrong side of the Atlantic. And I say thatâs enough to prove itâs an iniquitous law, a travesty of justice. Nobodyâs going to convince me that, because a steamer may happen to break a phlange of her screw at the wrong time, or a poor woman be frightened by a thunderstorm, France has the right to force an American boy to go and rot in the trenches.â
âIn the trenchesâis George in the trenches?â Adele Anthony asked, raising her pale eyebrows.
âNo,â Campton thundered, his fist crashing down among her tea things; âand all your word-juggling isnât going to convince me that he ought to be there.â He paused and stared furiously about the little lady-like drawing-room into which Miss Anthonyâs sharp angles were so incongruously squeezed. She made no answer, and he went on: âGeorge looks at the thing exactly as I do.â
âHas he told you so?â Miss Anthony enquired, rescuing his teacup and putting sugar into her own.
âHe has told me nothing to the contrary. You donât seem to be aware that military correspondence is censored, and that a solider canât always blurt out everything he thinks.â
Miss Anthony followed his glance about the room, and her eyes paused with his on her own portrait, now in the place of honour over the mantelpiece, where it hung incongruously above a menagerie of china animals and a collection of trophies for the Marne.
âI dropped in at the Luxembourg yesterday,â she said. âDo you know whom I saw there? Anderson Brant. He was looking at Georgeâs portrait, and turned as red as a beet. You ought to do him a sketch of George some dayâafter this.â
Camptonâs face darkened. He knew it was partly through Brantâs influence that George had been detached from his regiment and given a staff job in the Argonne; but Miss Anthonyâs reminder annoyed him. The Brants had acted through sheer selfish cowardice, the desire to safeguard something which belonged to them, something they valued as they valued their pictures and tapestries, though of course in a greater degree; whereas he, Campton, was sustained by a principle which he could openly avow, and was ready to discuss with any one who had the leisure to listen.
He had explained all this so often to Miss Anthony that the words rose again to his lips without an effort. âIf it had been a national issue I should have wanted him to be among the first: such as our having to fight Mexico, for instanceââ
âYes; or the moon. For my part, I understand Julia and Anderson better. They donât care a fig for national issues; theyâre just animals defending their cub.â
âTheirâthank you!â Campton exclaimed.
âWell, poor Anderson really was a dry-nurse to the boy. Who else was there to look after him? You were painting Spanish beauties at the time.â She frowned. âLifeâs a puzzle. I see perfectly that if youâd let everything else go to keep George youâd never have become the great John Campton: the real John Campton you were meant to be. And it wouldnât have been half as satisfactory for youâor for George either. Only, in the meanwhile, somebody had to blow the childâs nose, and pay his dentist and doctor; and you ought to be grateful to Anderson for doing it. Arenât there bees or ants, or something, that are kept for such purposes?â
Camptonâs lips were opened to reply when her face changed, and he saw that he had ceased to exist for her. He knew the reason. That look came over everybodyâs face nowadays at the hour when the evening paper came. The old maid-servant brought it in, and lingered to hear the communiquĂŠ. At that hour, everywhere over the globe, business and labour and pleasure (if it still existed) were suspended for a moment while the hearts of all men gathered themselves up in a question and prayer.
Miss Anthony sought for her lorgnon and failed to find it. With a shaking hand she passed the newspaper over to Campton.
âViolent enemy attacks in the region of Dixmude, Ypres, Armentières, Arras, in the Argonne, and on the advanced slopes of the Grand CouronnĂŠ de Nancy, have been successfully repulsed. We have taken back the village of Soupir, near Vailly (Aisne); we have taken Maucourt and Mogeville, to the northeast of Verdun. Progress has been made in the region of Vermelles (Pas-de-Calais), south of Aix Noulette. Enemy attacks in the Hauts-de-Meuse and southeast of Saint-Mihiel have also been repulsed.
âIn Poland the Austrian retreat is becoming general. The Russians are still advancing in the direction of Kielce-Sandomir and have progressed beyond the San in Galicia. Mlawa has been reoccupied, and the whole railway system of Poland is now controlled by the Russian forces.â
A good dayâoh, decidedly a good day. At this rate, what became of the gloomy forecasts of the people who talked of a winter in the trenches, to be followed by a spring campaign? True, the Serbian army was still retreating before superior Austrian forcesâbut there too the scales would soon be turned if the Russians continued to progress. That day there was hope everywhere: the old maid-servant went away smiling, and Miss Anthony poured out another cup of tea.
Campton had not lifted his eyes from the paper. Suddenly they lit on a short paragraph: âFallen on the Field of Honour.â One had got used to that with the rest; used even to the pang of reading names one knew, evoking familiar features, young faces blotted out in blood, young limbs convulsed in the fires of that hell called âthe Front.â But this time Campton turned pale and the paper fell to his knee.
âFortin-Lescluze; Jean-Jacques-Marie, lieutenant of Chasseurs Ă Pied, gloriously fallen for France âŚâ There followed a ringing citation.
Fortinâs son, his only son, was dead.
Campton saw before him the honest bourgeois dining-room, so strangely out of keeping with the rest of the establishment; he saw the late August sun slanting in on the group about the table, on the ambitious and unscrupulous great man, the two quiet women hidden under his illustrious roof, and the youth who had held together these three dissimilar people, making an invisible home in the heart of all that publicity. Campton remembered his brief exchange of words with Fortin on the threshold, and the fatherâs uncontrollable outburst: âFor his mother and myself itâs not a trifleâhaving our only son in the war.â
Campton shut his eyes and leaned back, sick with the memory. This man had had a share in saving George; but his own son he could not save.
âWhatâs the matter?â Miss Anthony asked, her hand on his arm.
Campton could not bring the name to his lips. âNothingânothing. Only this roomâs rather hotâand I must be off anyhow.â He got up, escaping from her solicitude, and made his way out. He must go at once to Fortinâs for news. The physician was still at Chalons; but there would surely be some one at the house, and Campton could at least leave a message and ask where to write.
Dusk had fallen. His eyes usually feasted on the beauty of the new Paris, the secret mysterious Paris of veiled lights and deserted streets; but to-night he was blind to it. He could see nothing but Fortinâs face, hear nothing but his voice when he said: âOur only son in the war.â
He groped along the pitch-black street for the remembered outline of the house (since no house-numbers were visible), and rang several times without result. He was just turning away when a big mudsplashed motor drove up. He noticed a soldier at the steering-wheel, then three people got out stiffly: two women smothered in crape and a haggard man in a dirty uniform. Campton stopped, and Fortin-Lescluze recognized him by the light of the motor-lamp. The four stood and looked at each other. The old mother, under her crape, appeared no bigger than a child.
âAhâyou know?â the doctor said. Campton nodded.
The father spoke in a firm voice. âIt happened three days agoâat Suippes. Youâve seen his citation? They brought him in to me at Chalons without a warningâand too late. I took off both legs, but gangrene had set in. Ahâif I could have got hold of one of our big surgeons ⌠Yes, weâre just back from the funeral ⌠My mother and my wife ⌠they had that comfort âŚâ
The two women stood beside him like shrouded statues. Suddenly Mme. Fortinâs deep voice came through the crape: âYou saw him, Monsieur, that last day ⌠the day you came about your own son, I think?â
âI ⌠yes âŚâ Campton stammered in anguish.
The physician intervened. âAnd, now, ma bonne mere, youâre not to be kept standing. Youâre to go straight in and take your tisane and go to bed.â He kissed his mother and pushed her into his wifeâs arms. âGood-bye, my dear. Take care of her.â
The women vanished under the porte-cochère, and Fortin turned to the painter.
âThank you for coming. I canât ask you inâI must go back immediately.â
âBack?â
âTo my work. Thank God. If it were not for thatââ
He jumped into the motor, called out âEn route,â and was absorbed into the night.
XI
Campton went home to his studio.
He still lived there, shiftlessly and uncomfortablyâfor Mariette had never come back from Lille. She had not come back, and there was no news of her. Lille had become a part of the âoccupied provinces,â from which there was no escape; and people were beginning to find out what that living burial meant.
Adele Anthony had urged Campton to go back to the hotel, but he obstinately refused. What business had he to be living in expensive hotels when, for the Lord knew how long, his means of earning a livelihood were gone, and when it was his duty to save up for GeorgeâGeorge, who was safe, who was definitely out of danger, and whom he longed more than ever, when the war was over, to withdraw from the stifling atmosphere of his stepfatherâs millions?
He had been so near to having the boy to himself when the war broke out! He had almost had in sight the proud day when he should be able to say: âLook here: this is your own b...