XVI DIES GLORIÆ

And I arose and went to the church where there was a great ceremony, for it was the feast of St.-Martin, patron of Masevaux, as well as the end of the war....

Afterward I stood outside on the wide rose-gray steps, under a sky of matchless silver-blue, among groups of villagers, soldiers, and officers. A blue infantry band, grouped under that blue vault against the pink church, played the “Marseillaise” and “Sambre et Meuse,” with a great blare of trumpets, quickening the heart-beats, then “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and many eyes were wet with tears of hope and loneliness.

Amid the throng I noticed some new silhouettes, always in groups. They were those of husky young men in civilian holiday garb; flat, black hats, short, black jackets coming only to the waist, long, tight, black trousers, pink vests, and high, white collars. These young men, who looked no one straight in the eye, were strange-souled ones who had burned with no fever of combat; the lamp of no cause had shone before their faces; they had known no country for whom ’twas sweet and fitting to die. Free not to serve in the French army, out of reach of the German authorities, they had passed from adolescence to manhood during the World War unsplashed by blood. And they will be a generation apart. Even as they appeared on the day of victory in groups, apart. Later, in tribulation of maturity, in weakness of old age and fear of death, they may sigh that they were not among those who “dying are not dead,” and would exchange the worn drapery of their couches for the “blue-black cloud.” And those who have not known a hot youth will know a cold old age.

A motor was standing under the lindens of the Place du Chapitre and by it a black-bearded, giant chauffeur who might have been among the hosts of Louis le Débonnaire on the Field of Lies. I got in with Laferrière and he took me up on a hillside, and from the height showed me a last time the kingdoms and principalities into which his race had come. The plain shone in a blue and exceeding beauty; we ourselves were caught in a glistening web of air shot with color by the low-arching November sun. Marking the course of the great river was a line of mist shimmering in the same warm-tinted sun of Indian summer. “L’été de St.-Martin” indeed. Here and there villages shone brighter than day, and the hills were deep-colored, yet soft and unsubstantial. Victory, like a shining, soft-rolled ball whose tangles were hidden, was in our hands—or like to a crystal sphere as yet undarkened by events.

The grass of our hillside was dew-wet in the sun, white and frosty in the shade. Each fallen, rust-colored beech leaf, each scarlet cherry leaf, was set with something glittering. All, all was a-shine. Even the heart, too, after the dark years.

I cried within myself, though I might have said it aloud, “O beauty of life, why art thou so often hidden?” And I had in mind the eternal years, though the newborn hour of victory was so passing sweet upon the hillside.

And looking at the splendid river whose course was marked by the shining band of mist, I thought how deep the Lorelei was hidden in its timeless waters, though ’tis said she betrays but once those listening to her song. And long since, for the noise of battle, the hypnotic chanting of the Rhine-maidens lulling their nation to dreams of boundless might had not been heard. I thought, too, how the blood of the world’s armies had put out the circle of fire about Brünnhilde, though whence it was first kindled it may be again rekindled; and for all our dead—and theirs—in the middle of Europe there are, I know not how many, tens of millions to whom the fire-music is their light and heat, the river the symbol of their strength; and what to do with it all? Walhalla has been destroyed in the greatest roar of sound mortal ears have ever heard, but that which wrought its pillars and its walls is still there, and in other wide-doored mansions Wotan’s warriors may drink again deep cups of hydromel.

Siegfried lies dead upon his bier, but Brünnhilde’s candle throws a light upon his face, and though Loge seems no longer at his post, it is believed he waits somewhere unseen, protecting, as best he may, the Walkyries’ unquiet sleep, until they wake and ride again, crying, “Je ho, je te ho!” inciting to battle and to sacrifice.

And as nations always have the governments their mystical qualities create, in spite of the great defeat in the West and the solvent forces in the East, I thought, “Is anything really changed in Germany of that which makes each nation like only unto itself?” Old things may take new names, but, the blood-madness past, they will walk again the banks of their great river—listen once again to the Rhine-maidens, and Lorelei, combing her hair, will sing once more for them, while the wonder-working music that has so scorched us will draw again its circle. And the German people may be more portentous in defeat than when their armies were spilling over Europe—only, one who says this too soon will be stoned and one who thinks it not at all be deceived.

Then from some distant church tower softly sounded the first noontide of peace, and, turning, I left the Germanies to their predestined fate. “He beheld and melted the nations,” and truly of them may be said “Glück und Unglück wird Gesang.”

For to each one his own, and the power of rhythmic sound over the world’s will can no more be separated from that nation’s destinies than can certain inborn qualities of the French be separated from theirs. That pervading sense of style, that illuminating, stimulating art, their conversation, that incomparable arrangement of words, their prose; or, in the mystical realm, that bright and singular thing they denominate “la Gloire,” which one of my countrywomen[25] has written of in golden words, and that other peculiar and essential translation into habit and custom of the word “honneur,” and many more deathless qualities that make France what she is and not something else....

Then I found myself following Laferrière over another diamond-set path of rustling autumn leaves, and we got into the motor and went down the hill into the beflagged and crowded town, drawn so brightly, yet so transiently, out of its antique obscurity.

At the popote many guests were assembled, among them three men of the Anglo-Saxon race, come to eat in Masevaux the first-fruits of victory, and later, not so very much later, perhaps that very night, they were to tell of it to the world, each seeming to have, as it were, the end of a telegraph wire cuddled in his pocket by his stylographic pen.

Many, I knew not who they were, came in after lunch to salute the commandant, whose house and heart were wide open that day. Black-robed, tremulous women, youngish officers with very lined faces on which, over night-loss and night-grief, was written something at once soft and shining and eager; but, with all the coming and going, a strange new quiet pervaded everything. Noise had, for a time, gone from the border-world.

Afterward we were taken up to see the room once lived in by Anna, the wife, or rather widow, of the Oberforster. In it was the most extraordinary piece of furniture, designed to occupy two sides of a corner, that I have ever seen. It was a divan, a narrow, hard divan, at right angles with itself and upholstered in mauve rep. Above the narrow seat and reaching nearly to the ceiling was a series of mirrors set in woodwork like many panes of glass, the mirror parts too high to see oneself in. On the floor near it was a hard, tasseled cushion of old-gold satin on which I am sure no foot had ever rested, for it seemed rather to belong to the dread family of bric-à-brac. On the divan was a small, woolen-lace cushion bearing the words “nur ein Viertelstündchen” in shaded silks.

Voluptuous the divan was not, neither was it respectable, nor comfortable, nor practical, nor anything natural to a divan, but it doubtless represented some dim longing of the soul of her who bought and installed it, some formless inclination toward beauty, out of the daily round of the good housewife; perhaps even a “soul storm,” after the Ibsen manner, had so externalized itself. Who knows, or ever will know, or cares?

The wide bed was of the newest and horridest of art nouveau, and over it was a spread of many pieces of coffee-colored machine-made lace put together with colored wools. There was a writing-table near the window at which you couldn’t write, for all the writing space was taken up with little drawers or tiny jutting-out shelves, and an imitation bronze vase, holding some faded artificial roses, was built into it, where the hand would naturally slip along when writing. Over it, between the windows, hung an illuminated verse, “Allein soll ich denn reisen? die Heimat ist so schön.” From the Oberforster’s album some one took and presented to me a photograph of Anna, which I couldn’t connect with that room, a rather sharp-nosed, mild-eyed woman whose head was leaning against her husband’s head. And the husband is one among millions of husbands who lie in their graves, for whom the pleasant habit of existence is no more.

Downstairs on their upright piano, in the corner of the dining-room, are those high piles of music of the masters, and much of it is arranged for four hands.

In the afternoon a great weariness came upon me, and the light of victory seemed to pale, but I knew that it was only within myself, because of the long vigil in which I had burned both oil and wick. I stood listening for a while to the military bands in the Halle aux Blés and the Place du Marché, but the gorgeous fanfare of the trumpets reached me only dully, as from a great distance.

Then many little boys, after the eternal manner of little boys, began to set off firecrackers, and the sudden noises hurt my ears.

I went to my room, but was too wearied to compose myself to rest, and soon came out, chilly and wandering. The sun had set upon the square and something cold had began to come up from the earth; I seemed to have finished both joy and mourning. I thought that perhaps forever I would be alone, unable to partake of the world’s gladness.

I could not remember, in that afternoon ebb of vitality, that with the evening hours would come rushing in the tide of nervous strength, bringing again warmth to my heart, light to my spirit, and that buoyantly I would be treading the Via Triumphalis of this borderland.

A little later in a blue twilight, bluer close to the earth where those many Sons of Victory pressed, I walked out with Laferrière past the ancient, evocative Ringelstein, along the Doller, and we called on a very charming woman who had also seen the war of 1870—Madame Caillaux. She gave us a perfect cup of tea and was flanked by no veteran, and she, the portion of whose youth and age had been war, was calm with the pleasant calm of those who harmoniously have sewed together the ends of life.

When we came out a pale white moon had arisen over some black cedars planted near the door, and as we walked slowly back, saluted by blue-clad men, or standing aside to let munition-wagons rattle by, Laferrière told me of some of the glorious deeds of his comrades of the popote, though no word of himself.

In the Place du Chapitre the populace was already gathered about the fountain of the stone flame. It was like looking at an old print, recording old victories and old rejoicings, together with the eternal hope of the people that new victories, unlike the old, may mean new things for them.

I felt through my single being the surge of the generations, and against my hand the beat of the changeless human heart, forever quickened or retarded by the same things. Loving, hating, desiring, forgetting, and finally relinquishing its beat, because it must. Though I remembered that in all times there are men who prefer something else to life....

In the evening Madame Mény gave a great dinner for the officers of the Mission, to which I was also bidden. Madame Mény is the daughter of Madame Chagué and lives next door to her mother in an ancestral home with high, sloping roof and deep windows, giving on the Place du Marché, overlooking the fountain, which I can’t see from my window. The officers wore all their decorations and even gloves, and I felt as a wren might feel among the birds of paradise, and I wished again that I had brought a good dress and something sparkling for my breast. When dinner was half through came Captain Bacquart from Paris, belated on that Belfort train, still at its old tricks. He was slightly condescending, as one might be coming from the City of Light to the dusky provinces, but everything he had to tell, even the things he had heard in the greatest solemnity from Ministers of State, had been grabbed by the Mission out of the air before he left Paris, and in addition everybody knew a lot of things he didn’t know, that had happened while he was on the way. But we did smile at the story of the routing out of a station-master, whose trust was train-schedules and lost articles rather than events, to be asked whether he knew if the armistice had been signed, by the species every station-master hates even in peace-times—that is to say, travelers—and “Saperlotte!” and “Nom de Dieu!” rose to the station vault when he found that that was what they wanted him for!

After dinner there was music and for a last time I heard Lavallée sing of “la douce Annette.” Then another officer whom I had not seen before, Lieutenant Ruchez, sang in a veiled but flooding voice many of Schumann’s songs. It began by the commandant asking for the “Two Grenadiers,” and for a time the old wounds ceased to burn, even though we thought of those many whose prayer had been “Bury me in the earth of France.” On that night of victory he sang, too, in his musician’s voice, “Du meine Seele, du mein Herz,” and “Ich grölle nicht wenn auch das Herz mir bricht,” and nobody found it strange. They knew how for all time lovers will tremble at the words, “Ewig verlor’ nes Lieb,” or in ecstasy cry out, “Du meine Seele, du mein Herz,” to the impulse of the immortal music.

Afterward we sang the “Marseillaise” with further and deeper thought of those hosts who to its sound had gone up to a death of glory.

Then M. Mény opened more champagne and each one drained a last time the red-gold hanap of victory.

And many, many shades haunt these borderlands, the clash of spear on armor mingling with the roar of 75’s and 420’s.

When we came out midnight was striking. The ancient square was dark and still where all the evening distorted forms had gesticulated in the flare of torches, crying of victory and, too, of freedom, the word I scarcely dare breathe, so strange and terrible may be its meaning.... Though what shall more deeply move us than the hope that the unborn inclination of our soul toward love in freedom shall find its being and its breath?...

The commandant and his staff accompanied me a last time across the starless, moonless square to my dwelling, where there was a close handclasping of friends in victory, for had I not been caught up in the apotheosis of the Mission? I felt for a moment, as I stood on the broad steps, like a figure in the background of some great allegorical painting.

For these men, as for me, the “moving finger having writ, was moving on.” Soon they would go from the hillside to the plain they had so long looked down upon. And the scroll of their history there is tightly rolled, nor can any man say what is written on it.

But this they knew, and with a point of sadness, that their work of intimate companionship, of trust, of hope and dolor shared in the valleys of St.-Amarin, Masevaux, and Dannemarie was already in the past. And all endings are sad, even those of victory.

The next morning, in a pale, chill, shifting fog, through which I had glimpses of camions full of shivering, velvet-bodiced, black-bowed children en route for the Belfort train to Paris, and huddled veterans bound the same way, I passed forever from Masevaux, as a wind that goeth and returneth not.

THE END