The Outrage Part 25

"Home! Do you remember what that home was when we left it?" cried Louise, her eyes blazing at the recollection.

"No," said Cherie, "I do not remember."

"Home! Home without Claude--without Florian! with half our friends killed or lost ..." cried Louise, and the easy tears of weakness flowed down her thin cheeks. "Home--with Mireille a silent ghost, and you--and you--" Her dark pa.s.sionate eyes lit for an instant on the figure of her sister-in-law, and horror and shame seemed to grip at her throat. "Let us never speak of it again."

And she flung the paper into the fire.

But the memory of it she could not fling away. The possibility of returning to Belgium, which before had seemed so remote, the idea of seeing their home again which they had deemed lost to them for ever, now filled her mind and Cherie's to the exclusion of every other thought.

That harsh call to return rang in their hearts by day and by night, awakening home-sickness and desire.

At night Louise would dream a thousand times of that return, a thousand times putting the idea from her with indignation and with fear. Every night she would imagine herself arriving at Bomal, hurrying through the village streets to the gate of her house, entering it, going up the stairs, opening the door to Claude's study....

Little by little home-sickness wound itself like a serpent about her heart, crus.h.i.+ng her in its strong spirals, poisoning with its virulent fang every hour of her day. Little by little the nostalgic yearning, the unutterable longing to hear her own language, to be among her own people--though tortured, though oppressed, though crushed by the invader's heel--grew in her heart until she felt that she could bear it no longer. The sense of exile became intolerable; the sound of English voices, the sight of English faces, hurt and oppressed her; the thought of the wild English waters separating her from her woeful land seemed to freeze and drown her heart.

A week after she had told Cherie never to speak about it any more she thought of nothing else, she dreamed of nothing else, but to return to her home, her wrecked and devastated home, there to await Claude in hope, in patience, and in prayer.

She would feel nearer to him when once the icy, tumbling waves of the Channel separated them no more. She would be ready for him when the day of deliverance came, the day of Belgium's freedom and redemption--surely, surely now it could not be far off! Claude would find her there, in her place, waiting for him. She would see him from afar off, she would be at the door to meet him as she always was when he had gone away even for a few days or hours. His little Mireille, alas!

was stricken, but might she not before then recover? His sister--ah! His sister!... Louise wrung her hands and wept.

Late one night she went to Cherie's room. She opened the door very gently so as not to wake her if she were asleep. But Cherie was sitting near the fire bending over some needlework and singing softly to herself. She jumped up, blus.h.i.+ng deeply, as Louise entered, and she attempted to hide her work in her lap. It was an infant's white cape she was embroidering, and as Louise saw it her own pale cheeks flushed too.

"Cherie," she faltered, "I have been thinking ... what if we went home?"

"Yes," said Cherie quietly, with the chastened calmness of those whose mission it is to wait.

"Let us go, let us go," said Louise. "We will make our house ready and beautiful for those who will return."

"Yes," said Cherie, again.

"They will return and find us there ... waiting for them ... even though the storm has pa.s.sed over us...." Her voice broke in a sob. "Mireille will recover, I know it, I feel it! And you--oh, Cherie!"--she dropped on her knees before the trembling girl--"you, you will be brave," she cried pa.s.sionately, "before it is too late ... Cherie, Cherie, I implore you...."

Cherie was silent. It was as if she did not hear. It was as if she did not understand.

In vain Louise spoke of the shame of the past, of the woe and misery of the future. To all her wild words, to her caresses and entreaties, Cherie gave no reply. Her lips seemed mute, her eyes seemed distant and unseeing as those of the mindless, wandering Mireille.

At last she rose, and stood facing Louise, her face grave, inexorable, unflinching.

"Louise, say no more. No human reasoning, no human law, no human sanction or prohibition can influence me. No one may judge between a woman and the depths of her own body and soul; in so grave a matter each must decide according to her own conscience. What to the one is shame, hatred, and horror, to the other is joy, wonder, and love. To me, Louise, this suffering--tragic and terrible though it be--is joy, wonder, and love. I do not explain it, I do not justify it; I do not think I even understand it. But this I feel, that I would sooner tear out my living heart than voluntarily destroy the life which is within me, and which I feel is part of my very soul."

Louise was silent. She felt herself face to face with the great primeval instinct of maternity; and words failed her. Then the thought of their return to Belgium clutched at her heart again.

"But if we go home! Think, think of the shame of it! What will they say, those who have known us? Think--what will they say?"

Cherie sighed. "I cannot help what they say."

"And when Claude returns, Cherie! When Claude returns...."

Cherie bowed her head and did not answer.

Louise moved nearer to her. "And have you forgotten Florian? Florian, who loves you, and hoped to make you his wife?..."

The tears welled up into Cherie's eyes, but she was silent.

Louise's voice rose to a bitter cry. "Cherie! Think of the brutal hands that bound you, of the infamous enemy that outraged you. Think, think that you, a Belgian, will be the mother of a German child!"

But Cherie cared nothing, remembered nothing, heard nothing. She heard no other voice but that child-voice asking from her the gift of life, telling her that in the land of the unborn there are no Germans and no Belgians, no victors and no vanquished, but only the innocent flowers of futurity--the white-winged doves of Jesus, and the snowy lambs of G.o.d.

BOOK III

CHAPTER XX

Feldwebel Karl Sigismund Schwarz lay on the internal slope of a crater under a red sunset sky. His eyes were shut. But he was not asleep. He was making up his mind that he must move his left arm. Something heavy seemed to be pressing it down, crus.h.i.+ng and crunching it. He would move it, he would lift it up in the air and feel the circulation return to it and the breezes of heaven blow on it. Never was there such a hot and heavy arm.... Yes. He would certainly lift it in a moment.

After this great mental exertion, Feldwebel Schwarz went to sleep for a few moments; then he woke up again, more than ever determined to move his arm. What did one do when one wanted to move one's arm? And where was his arm? Where was everything? Where was he, Karl Sigismund Schwarz?... There was evidently a 'cello playing somewhere quite close to him; he could hear it right in his head: "Zoom ... zoom-zoom ...

zoom-zoom."

He said to himself that he knew where he was. He was in Charlottenburg, in the Cafe des Westens, and the Hungarian, Makowsky, was playing on the _Ba.s.sgeige_. Zoom ... zoom-zoom.... The rest of the orchestra would join in presently. Meanwhile, what was the matter with his arm? He groaned aloud and tried to raise himself on his right elbow. He could not do so; but in turning his head he caught sight of a man lying close beside him, a man in Belgian uniform lying flat on the ground with his profile turned to the sky. This convinced Schwarz that he was not in Charlottenburg after all. He was somewhere in Flanders near a rotten old city called Ypres; and he was lying in a hole made by a sh.e.l.l. He glanced sideways at the Belgian again. Then he cried out loud, "See here, what is the matter with my arm?" But the man did not answer, and Schwarz realized that he probably did not understand German. Probably, also, he was dead.

So Karl Schwarz lay back again, and listened to the 'cello buzzing in his brain.

The red sunset had faded into a drab twilight when in his turn the Belgian opened his eyes, sighed and sat up. He saw the wounded German lying beside him with limp legs outstretched, a mangled arm and a face caked with blood. The man's eyes were open, so the Belgian nodded to him and said, "_Ca va, mon vieux?_"

"_Verfluchter Schweinehund_," replied Karl Schwarz; and Florian Audet, who did not understand that he was being called a d.a.m.ned swine-hound, nodded back again in a friendly way. Then each was silent with his thoughts.

Florian tried to realize what had happened. He tentatively moved one arm; then the other; then his feet and legs. He moved his shoulders a little; they seemed all right. He felt nothing but a pain in the back of his neck, like a violent cramp; otherwise there seemed nothing much the matter with him. Why was he lying there? Let him remember. There had been an order to attack ... a dash over the white Ypres road and across the fields to the south ... then an explosion--yes. That was it. He had been blown up. This was shock or something. He wondered where the remains of his company was and how things had turned out. There were sounds of firing not far away, the spluttering of rifles and the booming of the gun.

He tried to rise to his feet, but it was as if the earth rose with him.

He could not get his hands off the ground--earth and sky whirled round him, and he had to lie down again.

Soon darkness came up out of the thundering east and blew out the twilight.

Meanwhile Feldwebel Schwarz was again in the Cafe des Westens; the orchestra of ten thousand _Ba.s.sgeigen_ was booming like mad, and he was beating on the table with his heavy arm, calling for the waiter Max to bring him something cold to drink. Max came hurrying up and stood before him carrying a tray laden with gla.s.ses--huge cool Schoppen of Munchner and Lager, and tall gla.s.ses of lemonade with ice clinking in it. Which would he have? He could not make up his mind which he would have. His throat burned him, his stomach was on fire with thirst, and he could not say which of the cool drinks he wanted. He felt that he must drink them all--the iced Munchner, the chilly Lager, the biting lemonade--he must drink them all together, or die. Suddenly he noticed that the _Wa.s.serleiche_--you know the _Wa.s.serleiche_, the "Water-corpse" of the Cafe des Westens--the cadaverous-looking woman whose face is of such a peculiar hue that you would vow she had been drowned and left lying in the water for a couple of days before they fished her out again--well, she had come up to the waiter and was embracing him, and all the gla.s.ses were slipping off his tray. Ping!--pang!--down they crashed!

Ping!--pang! smas.h.i.+ng and cras.h.i.+ng all around. You never heard gla.s.ses make such a noise. There was nothing left to drink--nothing in the wide world.

Then Feldwebel Schwarz began to cry. He heard himself moaning and crying, until Max the waiter looked at him and then he saw that it was not Max the waiter at all that the Water-corpse was embracing. She never did embrace men. It was her friend Melanie, who stood there laughing with her mouth wide open, showing the pink roof of her mouth and her tiny wolfish teeth--the two eye-teeth slightly longer than the others and very pointed.

Karl Schwarz knew that if he wanted anything to drink he must be amiable to Melanie. He would sing her the song about "Grafin Melanie," beginning "_Nur fur Natur_...."

But he could not remember it. He could only remember the Ueberbrettel song--

"Die Flundern "Werden sich wundern...."