By virtue1 of some gift of adaptation which seemed forever to discredit2 human sensibility, people were already beginning to live into the monstrous3 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 it—yes, and soundly—at 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, afterward4, her hour of triumph, the hour of the Marne; then her hour of passionate5 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 trenches6. A new speech was growing up in this new world. There were trenches now, there was a “Front”—people were beginning to talk of their sons at the front.
The first time John Campton heard the phrase it sent a shudder7 through him. Winter was coming on, and he was haunted by the vision of the youths out 112there, boys of George’s age, thousands and thousands of them, exposed by day in reeking8 wet ditches and sleeping at night under the rain and snow. People were talking calmly of victory in the spring—the spring that was still six long months away! And meanwhile, what cold and wet, what blood and agony, what shattered bodies out on that hideous9 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 front—was safe, thank God, and likely to remain so!
During the first awful weeks of silence and uncertainty10, when every morning brought news of a fresh disaster, when no letters came from the army and no private messages could reach it—during 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 incessant11 labours in a roughly-improvised operating-room, to which Campton was led between rows of stretchers laden12 with livid blood-splashed men, had said kindly13, but with a shade of impatience14, that he had not forgotten, had done what he could; that George’s health did not warrant his 113being 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 “influences” in question were brought to bear—not without Anderson Brant’s assistance—and 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 landslide15, 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 equilibrium16 of the neutrals made a pitiful show now that the monstrous facts of the first weeks were known: Germany’s diplomatic perfidy17, her savagery18 in the field, her premeditated and systematized terrorizing of the civil populations. Nothing could efface19 what had been done in Belgium and Luxembourg, the burning of Louvain, the bombardment of Rheims. These successive outrages20 had roused in Campton the same incredulous wrath21 as in the rest of mankind; but being of a speculative22 mind—and fairly sure now that George would never lie in the mud and snow with the others—he had begun to consider the landslide in its universal 114relations, as well as in its effects on his private ant-heap.
His son’s 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 protection—that this lad, by the most idiotic23 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 catastrophes24 that state might draw upon itself, this fact still seemed to Campton as unjust as when it first dawned on him that his boy’s very life might hang on some tortuous25 secret negotiation26 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. “You say Julia and I were to blame for not going home before the boy was born—and God knows I agree with you! But suppose we’d meant to go? Suppose we’d made every arrangement, taken every precaution, as my parents did in my own case, got to Havre or Cherbourg, say, and been told the steamer had broken her screw—or been prevented 115ourselves, at the last moment, by illness or accident, or any sudden grab of the Hand of God? You’ll admit we shouldn’t 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 that’s enough to prove it’s an iniquitous27 law, a travesty28 of justice. Nobody’s 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.”
“No.” Campton thundered, his fist crashing down among her tea things; “and all your word-juggling isn’t going to convince me that he ought to be there.” He paused and stared furiously about the little ladylike drawing-room into which Miss Anthony’s sharp angles were so incongruously squeezed. She made no answer, and he went on: “George looks at the thing exactly as I do.”
“He has told me nothing to the contrary. You don’t seem to be aware that military correspondence is censored31, 116and that a soldier can’t always blurt32 out everything he thinks.”
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 trophies33 from the Marne.
“I dropped in at the Luxembourg yesterday,” she said. “Do you know whom I saw there? Anderson Brant. He was looking at George’s portrait, and turned as red as a beet34. You ought to do him a sketch35 of George some day—after this.”
Campton’s face darkened. He knew it was partly through Brant’s influence that George had been detached from his regiment36 and given a staff job in the Argonne; but Miss Anthony’s reminder37 annoyed him. The Brants had acted through sheer selfish cowardice38, the desire to safeguard something which belonged to them, something they valued as they valued their pictures and tapestries39, though of course in a greater degree; whereas he, Campton, was sustained by a principle which he could openly avow40, 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. “If it had been a national issue I should have wanted him to be among the first: such as our having to fight Mexico, for instance——”
117“Yes; or the moon. For my part, I understand Julia and Anderson better. They don’t care a fig41 for national issues; they’re just animals defending their cub42.”
“Their—thank you!” Campton exclaimed.
“Well, 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.” She frowned. “Life’s a puzzle. I see perfectly43 that if you’d let everything else go to keep George you’d never have become the great John Campton: the real John Campton you were meant to be. And it wouldn’t have been half as satisfactory for you—or for George either. Only, in the meanwhile, somebody had to blow the child’s nose, and pay his dentist and doctor; and you ought to be grateful to Anderson for doing it. Aren’t there bees or ants, or something, that are kept for such purposes?”
Campton’s 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 everybody’s face nowadays at the hour when the evening paper came. The old maid-servant brought it in, and lingered to hear the communiqué. 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 a prayer.
Miss Anthony sought for her lorgnon and failed to 118find it. With a shaking hand she passed the newspaper over to Campton.
“Violent enemy attacks in the region of Dixmude, Ypres, Armentières, Arras, in the Argonne, and on the advanced slopes of the Grand Couronné de Nancy, have been successfully repulsed44. 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.
“In 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.”
A good day—oh, 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 forces—but 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. 119Suddenly they lit on a short paragraph: “Fallen on the Field of Honour.” One had got used to that with the rest; used even to the pang45 of reading names one knew, evoking46 familiar features, young faces blotted47 out in blood, young limbs convulsed in the fires of that hell called “the Front.” But this time Campton turned pale and the paper fell to his knee.
“Fortin-Lescluze; Jean-Jacques-Marie, lieutenant48 of Chasseurs à Pied, gloriously fallen for France....” There followed a ringing citation49.
Fortin’s son, his only son, was dead.
Campton saw before him the honest bourgeois50 dining-room, so strangely out of keeping with the rest of the establishment; he saw the late August sun slanting51 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 publicity52. Campton remembered his brief exchange of words with Fortin on the threshold, and the father’s uncontrollable outburst: “For his mother and myself it’s not a trifle—having our only son in the war.”
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.
“What’s the matter?” Miss Anthony asked, her hand on his arm.
120Campton could not bring the name to his lips. “Nothing—nothing. Only this room’s rather hot—and I must be off anyhow.” He got up, escaping from her solicitude53, and made his way out. He must go at once to Fortin’s 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 deserted54 streets; but to-night he was blind to it. He could see nothing but Fortin’s face, hear nothing but his voice when he said: “Our only son in the war.”
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 mud-splashed motor drove up. He noticed a soldier at the steering-wheel, then three people got out stiffly: two women smothered55 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.
“Ah—you know?” the doctor said. Campton nodded.
The father spoke56 in a firm voice. “It happened three 121days ago—at Suippes. You’ve seen his citation? They brought him in to me at Chalons without a warning—and too late. I took off both legs, but gangrene had set in. Ah—if I could have got hold of one of our big surgeons.... Yes, we’re just back from the funeral.... My mother and my wife ... they had that comfort....”
The two women stood beside him like shrouded57 statues. Suddenly Mme. Fortin’s deep voice came through the crape: “You saw him, Monsieur, that last day ... the day you came about your own son, I think?”
The physician intervened. “And, now, ma bonne mère, you’re not to be kept standing60. You’re to go straight in and take your tisane and go to bed.” He kissed his mother and pushed her into his wife’s arms. “Goodbye, my dear. Take care of her.”
The women vanished under the porte-cochère, and Fortin turned to the painter.
“Thank you for coming. I can’t ask you in—I must go back immediately.”
“Back?”
“To my work. Thank God. If it were not for that——”
He jumped into the motor, called out “En route,” and was absorbed into the night.
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1
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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3
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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6
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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8
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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9
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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10
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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11
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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13
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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14
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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15
landslide
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| n.(竞选中)压倒多数的选票；一面倒的胜利 | |
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16
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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perfidy
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| n.背信弃义，不忠贞 | |
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18
savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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19
efface
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| v.擦掉，抹去 | |
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20
outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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21
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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22
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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23
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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24
catastrophes
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| n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难 | |
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25
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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26
negotiation
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| n.谈判，协商 | |
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27
iniquitous
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| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
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28
travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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29
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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30
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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31
censored
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| 受审查的，被删剪的 | |
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32
blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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33
trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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34
beet
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| n.甜菜；甜菜根 | |
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35
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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36
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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37
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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38
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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39
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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40
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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41
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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42
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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43
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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44
repulsed
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| v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 )；驳斥；拒绝 | |
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45
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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46
evoking
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| 产生，引起，唤起( evoke的现在分词 ) | |
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47
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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48
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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49
citation
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| n.引用，引证，引用文；传票 | |
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50
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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51
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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52
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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53
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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54
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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55
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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56
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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57
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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58
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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59
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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60
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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