Margaret Deland

“ Before this belief that the Kingdom of Heaven may be brought about by pressure from the outside, how was one to say that when the roof was put back on the barn les animaux would not again squeal and nip and tear, and the smell of the gaz'l be as pronounced as ever?
It is hardly necessary to say that the immense majority of people do not believe in this possibility of a revolution. They are waiting for victory—complete, complacent, vindictive victory! With no Gaston anywhere in it—except, indeed, as he has been privileged to help in bringing it about, by dying for his country. ”

“ Once they have done what they have to do, this motor rage ebbs. But it does not ebb from the little pools on the shore which it has filled—Gaston's mind, and mine, and many, many other minds, which have no outlet of action; they lie harsh and brackish, long after the tide has swept back into the deep. It is the menace to the future of this inactive fury of non-combatants which frightens me, because it is corrosive; it may poison the springs of the idealism which we had hoped would make democracy safe for the world. ”

“ America is stepping out into the cataclysm with a sunshade and a smiling face. The French do not resent the smiling—they smiled themselves with complete self-confidence when they started in. They do not resent the sunshade—they, too, know the parasitic plague of politicians who bind the hands of War Departments with miles of red tape; they do not even resent the mentality that makes it possible for an American soldier to say, "These here French 'ain't taught me nothin'!" It is not these things they fear in us. ”

“ Some say for an Allied victory. Some say the same words, but add a question, "Then what?" Others—only a very few—say they wait for an Allied defeat; these whisper their confidence that out of defeat will come the real victory—the birth of the Spirit! The Allies (so these people say) need rebirth as much as Germany. On all sides is this inchoate expectancy. ”

“ As to the present moment, the French look facts in the face, as we Americans have not yet done. To begin with, many of them feel, so people say, that the war now is as much a state of mind as it is a military situation. That is why they are afraid. Their state of mind has resulted from recognizing perfectly obvious things—first, that they are tired; next, that the English are tired—and hungry; then, that America (not the soldiers, but the nation) which has come into the war, "so late," is neither tired nor hungry; it is something much worse—it is not serious. ”

“ These are my perplexities, which are jumbled in my mind like beads in a child's box: Why are we angry with this curious kind of anger? Why do we fear something that has no name? Does grief imply a final joy? Is courage to be trusted to make the race gentler? ... Sometimes I ask Gaston what pattern he thinks my beads will make. Gaston's height indicates that he is eleven, but his little white, pinched, wicked-eyed face suggests that he is at least fifteen. ”

“ One thing that puzzles me is the sense of unreality which many of us Americans feel. "Nothing seems real," we say to one another, with bewildered looks. Back of the sense of unrealnesss an inarticulate something that seems like anger. Yet it is not exactly anger, or anger at least implies the outraged sense of justice, which is deeply righteous. ”

“ Or is it that the "natural man" in us has been masquerading as the "spiritual man" by hiding himself under splendid words—courage, patriotism, justice—and now he rises up and glares at us with blood-red eyes? At any rate, fury is here, and most of us are shaken by the surge of it—except the blind man groping and stumbling up the steps of the Madeleine. ”

“ If this is a possibility hidden in the unspoken expectancy, surely the color of Fear has its place in the vaguely growing pattern. At any rate, it seems as if many of these brave people, these people of supreme courage, are afraid. They are afraid, not because they are cowardly, but because they are intelligent. Their wisdom shows them two things to be afraid of—first, the kind of peace which may come ”

“ Nobody in America is venturing to say that the bright lexicon of Youth does contain such a word as failure. The French people are not so—young. When they see us here—with our government's sunshades and smiles—they are kind to us, extraordinarily kind to us! ”

“ There is one more hope that a very, very few people feel; it is even more like Fear than the hope of the owner of the gaz'l. I heard it expressed by a little group of Americans, who thought, so some of them said, that the only certain way of ushering in the Kingdom of God was to refrain from ever putting the roof on the stable. "Let 'em all grow their own hair if they want to be warm!" ”

“ Those who do go farther believe, as this girl put it, that an Allied victory will be only a temporary uplifting; that Gaston would be but a palliative, and that it is better, not only for France, but for Western civilization, to get to the bottom as quickly as possible.
"Don't prolong the agony by defeating Germany," one of them said. But whether victory comes, or defeat, Gaston, they say, will do his part. Under his star there will be, perforce, some huddling; and dogs and horses and gaz'l will be quite sure that they are going to live happily for evermore. ”

“ I think M. Blank is right, and we shall 'huddle.' But I feel pretty sure that there will come a moment when the gaz'l will suddenly take the whole box-stall; and I sha'n't blame him! Civilization has created him, and it is he who has suffered the most from a war which he did not desire, and did not make, but only fought. When he gets the stall he will die in it, because it isn't Nature— Or turn into a horse, and then we'd have the whole business to do over again! ”

“ Gaston won't accomplish it."
This girl, her eyebrows gathering into a frown, seemed to be trying to talk out her perplexities. Some one had said that Nationalism was responsible for the idea that population should be valued by quantity, not quality; naturally, such a standard can contemplate polygamy! "Nationalism is the seed of war," this person said. "Dulce et decorum is death for an ideal, but not for a geographical boundary! Christ died for People, not for Nations. We must learn to think of ourselves, not as French or American or German, but as we are born—just poor, little, naked humans! ”

“ But there are others who call it Hope, and not Fear at all. This handful of dreamers have opened their windows toward the east! Their "state of mind" bids them look beyond the gathering darkness toward a Dawn. ”

“ When we do that the foolishness of war will end." But the Girl went further than that: "An Allied victory will just strengthen Nationalism," she said, "and, of course, there is going to be an Allied victory! Must be, you know. I don't doubt it for a moment! We've simply got to win—only—sometimes I—I wonder ..."
"I wonder most all of the time," I confessed.
"Isn't it possible," she said, slowly, "that if we just prop up Nationalism we shall prop up for a little while longer this rotten thing that you call civilization? Is it worth while to do that? Civilization is rotten ”

“ I am tired to death of all this talk about working-people. They never wash, and there's a great deal too much done for them, anyhow. All these tiresome girls' clubs! I say, let working-girls stay home with their mothers in the evenings, instead of running around to girls' clubs! ”

“ We knew that in that flaming star were men keyed to furious living, panting, screaming orders to each other, sweating, tearing at levers, knowing they were plunging from abysmal heights to smash like eggs on some slate roof. ”

“ Those who hear that Voice in the unspoken expectancy are waiting with good courage; they are willing to tread even the hard road of Defeat, because they are confident that they will meet Him at its end! ”

“ But for most of us the sense of waiting takes the color of Fear, and black beads grow into the pattern. ... With them come the crystal beads. As I look at these, shining among the rest, I wonder whether—there are so many of them!—any far-off interest of tears can possibly repay the nations—all the nations!—for their present pain? Some say it will. "Vivre pour tout cela," said a man whose son has died for France, "mourir pour tout cela. ... ça en vaut la peine." So men have always said—for themselves ”

“ In the United States we have known, with horrible disgust, that Germany, facing some such possibility for herself, has—with her customary efficiency—begun to educate her people as to the probable necessity of polygamy. France has not been credited with any such foresight. ”

“ They know it is beyond the question of a struggle between the Central Powers and the Allies; some of them believe that it has become a cosmic question—that Civilization and Chaos are at grips. The Americans, on the other hand, seem to be under the impression that it is the local issue of throttling Fritz—a thing which they mean to do P.D.Q.! "Oh, the simplicity of us!" said an American long resident in France. "We are provincial in the death struggle!" ”

“ For the World—not just the Allies, and poor, mad Germany, who happens to be the child who took the candle into the powder-magazine—the whole World is shaking! The French people know it, if we don't, and what their knowledge may do in creating a "state of mind" needs no comment. The two worn and haggard officers in the train put it into words: "Même avec les plus grandes victoires. ..."
You will not wonder that I mark the expectancy in the air by a black bead?
The wife of the concierge calls that bead the fear of defeat ”

“ Some of them say, a little impatiently, that the Americans do not know how big it all is, or how far-reaching in its outcome. But the French know! They know that the present situation is as far beyond the declaration of war in 1914 as the declaration of war was beyond that pistol-shot in the street in Sarajevo. ”

“ But oftener it is the open and unashamed vindictiveness which would like to feel the blood spurt. As non-combatants have no chance to sink their fingers into howling throats, they find it a satisfaction to make Gaston's gesture in their minds. ”

“ They say that the falling birth-rate has for several years been an anxiety, but that the talk about it now, apropos of a million and a half dead young men, is confession. "While there are any of us left"—we shall not be "finished." ”