Letters of a Soldier, 1914-1915 Part 13

Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.

My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation of mere routine.

_February 2._

DEAR MOTHER,--I go on with this letter in the billet, where the great worry of acc.u.mulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would make her own.

Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all, whereas all that is in my being had a.s.sured me of the plenitude of the universe. Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of brotherhood, sustains me still. Oh, what a magnificent example is to be found in Jesus and in the poor. That righteous aristocrat, showing by His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and teaching, above all, that no return of grat.i.tude should be demanded. . . .

To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of expecting nothing from any one. Thus duty takes an abstract form, deprived of a human object.

An unspeakable sunrise to-day! Another spring draws near. . . . I want to tell you about our three days in the first line.

Snow and frost. We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in the village. The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of every soldier to see it. I could never say enough about the fine delicacy of this country. How can I explain to you the chiselled effect, allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above? For three days my night-service took me straight to the heart of this purity, this whiteness.

Tarnished gold-work of the trees. And, in spite of the mist, many colours, rose and blue.

There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves can hardly die. I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I feel better protected. This morning, when I came, a pink and green sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse fades away. O Beauty, in spite of all!

_February 2._

DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--Your letter of the 29th has this moment come to the billet. A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature. Alas, how sweet this emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery, but the weakness which comes ordinarily with spring only serves here to make burdens heavier.

Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far away. Ah, what sweetness there is!

I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot I noticed this phrase: 'O my G.o.d, take away my despair and leave my grief!' Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a soul formed and enriched.

I also read with pleasure the lectures on Moliere, and in him, as elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls wander. But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again through the acts of others. My dearly loved mother, I will write to you better to-morrow.

_February 4._

Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries, songs and yells. Such is life!. . . But when morning came and the wakening from sleep still brought me memories of this, I got up before the time, and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking wing, and a dawn which had pity on me. The blessed spring day gilds everything and scatters its promises and hopes.

Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi's t.i.tle, _War and Peace_. I used to think that he wanted to express the ant.i.thesis of these two states, but now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and the same folly--if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace, were not equally a burden to his mind. By all means let us keep faithful to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this precept a little in the sense of the placards: 'Be good to animals.' How hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.

_February 5._

A sleepless night. Hateful return to the barn. Such a fearful row that the corporals had to complain. Punishments.

In the morning, on the march, and, in order to rest us, work to-night!

_February 6._

MY DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After the sleepless night in our billet, we had to supply a working-party all the following night. So I have been sleeping up till the very moment of writing to you. Sleep and Night are refuges which give life still one attraction.

Mother dear, I am living over again the lovely legend of Sarpedon; and that exquisite flower of Greek poetry really gives me comfort. If you will read this pa.s.sage of the _Iliad_ in my beautiful translation by Lecomte de l'Isle, you will see that Zeus utters in regard to destiny certain words in which the divine and the eternal s.h.i.+ne out as n.o.bly as in the Christian Pa.s.sion. He suffers, and his fatherly heart undergoes a long battle, but finally he permits his son to die, and Hypnos and Thanatos are sent to gather up the beloved remains.

Hypnos--that is Sleep. To think that I should come to that, I for whom every waking hour was a waking joy, I for whom every moment of action was a thrill of pride. I catch myself longing for the escape of Sleep from the tumult that besets me. But the splendid Greek optimism s.h.i.+nes out as in those vases at the Louvre. By the two, Hypnos and Thanatos, Sarpedon is lifted to a life beyond his human death; and a.s.suredly Sleep and Death do wonderfully magnify and continue our mortal fate.

Thanatos--that is a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death, words ringing with compa.s.sion for our fears in the tremendous pa.s.sage of mortality.

_February 7._

MOST DEAR AND MOST BELOVED,--I have your splendid letter of the first.

Please don't hesitate to write what you think I would call mere chatter.

Your love and the absolute ident.i.ty of our two hearts appear in all your letters. And that is all I really care for. Yet they tell me a thousand things that interest me too.

We are living through hours of heavy labour. My rank gives me respite now and then; but for the men it means five nights at a time without sleep, and this repeatedly.

_February 9._

Another breathing-s.p.a.ce in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature?

Never before have I so fully felt her amplitude of life. Hours and seasons following one another surely, infallibly, unalterably, in unchanging unity; the looker-on has a glimpse of the immensity of the force that first set them afoot.

I had often known the delight of watching the nearer coming of a season, but it had not before been given to me to live in that delight moment by moment. It is so that one learns, without the help of any kind of science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a great one, who declared that he had not discovered G.o.d under his scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole evolution? The poet watches the coming of the seasons as it were great s.h.i.+ps that will, he knows, set sail again. At times the storm may delay them, but at their next coming they will bring with them the rich fragrance of the unknown coasts. A season coming again to our own sh.o.r.es seems to bring us delights which it has learnt by long travel.

Ah, dearest mother, if one could have again a retreat for the soul! O solitude, for those worthy to possess it! How seldom is it inviolate!

_February 11._

It may possibly be a great intended privilege for our generation to be a witness of these horrors, but what a terrible price to pay! Well, faith, eternal faith, is over all. Faith in an evolution, an Order, beyond our human patience.

_February 11_ (2nd day in the front line).

In such hours as these one must perforce take refuge in the extra-human principle of sacrifice; it is impossible for mere humanity to go further.

Let go all poor human hope. Seek something beyond; perhaps you have already found it. As for me, I feel myself to be unworthy in such days to be anything more than a memory. I picked some flowers in the mud.

Keep them in remembrance of me.

_5 o'clock._

Courage through all, courage in spite of all.

_February 13_ (4th day in the front line).

BELOVED,--After the days of tears and of rebellion of the heart that have so shaken me, I pull myself together again to say 'Thy will be done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full well that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.

Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.

I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.