Robert Keable

“ On the right bank the flat plain of Normandy stretches to the sky-line, pink-and-white in spring with miles of apple-orchards. The white clouds chase across its fair blue sky, driven by the winds from the sea, and tall poplars rise in their uniform rows along the river as if to guard a Paradise.
Caudebec can be reached from Le Havre in a few hours, and although cars for hire and petrol were not abundant in France at the time, one could find a chauffeur to make the journey if one was prepared to pay. Given fine weather, it was an ideal place for a day off in the spring. And Peter knew it. ”

“ Did you hear him, Julie? Christ comes in between—He got in between God and man. All the anger that darted out of God against sin hit Him; all the blows that man struck back against God hit Him. Do you see that, Julie? That was wonderfully put, but the end was more wonderful. Both, ultimately, cannot kill the Heart of Jesus. There's no sin there to merit or to feel the anger, and we can hurt, but we can't destroy His love."
Peter stopped, "That's what I saw a little this morning," he said after a minute. ”

“ One could imagine that the distant cathedral brooding over the city heard, saw, and spoke, if in another language than the language of men.
"If that were all, Langton," said Peter suddenly, "I'd shoot myself."
"You're a queer fellow, Graham," said Langton. "I almost think you might. I'd like to know what becomes of you, anyway. Forgive me—I don't mean to be rude—but you may make a parson yet. But don't found a new religion for Heaven's sake, and don't muddle up man-made laws and God-made instincts—if they are God-made," he added. ”

“ In the doorway stood Pennell, regarding him with amusement. "Here am I trying to read, and you pacing up and down like a wild beast. What the devil's up?"
"The devil himself, that's what's up," said Peter savagely. "Look here,
Pen, come on down town and let's have a spree. I hate this place and this
infernal camp. It gets on my nerves. I must have a change. Will you come?
It's my do."
"I'm with you, old thing. I know what you feel like; I get like that myself sometimes. It's a pleasure to see that you're so human. We'll go down town and razzle-dazzle for once. I'm off duty till to-night. ”

“ He rose carefully, not looking towards the lounge, like a man; and Julie got up too, glancing at that other couple with such an ordinary merely interested look that Peter smiled to himself to see it. They threaded their way in necessary silence through the tables and chairs to the doors, and said hardly a word in the lift. But in their sitting-room, cosy as ever, Julie turned to him in a passion of emotion such as he had scarcely dreamed could exist even in her. ”

“ Cheerio, Solomon!"
They drank to each other. Then: "And love?" queried Peter softly.
Julie did not reply for a minute. She set her wine-glass down and toyed with the stem. Then she looked up at him under her eyelashes with that old daring look of hers, and repeated: "And love, Peter. But real love, not stodgy humdrum liking, Peter. I want the love that's like the hot sun, and the wide, tossing blue sea east of Suez, and the nights under the moon where the real world wakes up and doesn't go to sleep, like it does in the country in the cold, hard North. ”

“ That very respectability, that very conventionality, that very contented backboneless religion made it possible—all but made it necessary. For it was those things which allowed the world to drift into the war, and what the war was nine days out of ten ought to be thrust under the eyes of those who will not believe. It is a small thing that men die in battle, for a man has but one life to live and it is good to give it for one's friends; but it is such an evil that it has no like, this drifting of a world into a hell to which men's souls are driven like red maple leaves before the autumn wind. ”

“ Our love is like a candle held up to the sun beside it. Our love wants something, doesn't it? It burns, it—it intoxicates, Julie. But this love waits, waits, do you understand? It asks nothing; it gives, it suffices all. Year after year it just waits, Julie, waits for anyone, waits for everyone. And you can spurn it, spit on it, crucify it, and it is still there when you—need, Julie." And Peter leaned forward, and buried his face in her little hand. ”

“ Peter answered quickly, "Whose fault? Why, all our faults—yours and mine, and the fault of men like Pennell and Donovan, as well as her own, too, as like as not. We've all helped build up the scheme of things as they are, and we are all responsible. We curse the Germans for making this damned war, and it is the war that has done most to make that girl; but they didn't make it. No Kaiser made it, and no Nietzsche. The only person who had no hand in it that I know of was Jesus Christ." ”

“ If a man cares to do without either, he runs a risk, of course. Society's hard on a woman, and man's meant to be a gregarious creature. But that's all there is in it."
"But how can you tell lust from love?" demanded Peter.
"You can't, I think," said Langton. "Most men can't, anyway. Women may do, but I don't know. I reckon that what they lust after mostly is babies and a home. I don't think they know it any more than men know that what they're after is the gratification of a passion; but there it is. We're sewer rats crawling up a damned long drain, if you ask me, padre! ”

“ She dragged him into the bathroom and into that bath, and then she filled a sponge with cold water and trickled it on him, until he threatened to jump out and give her a cold douche. Then, panting with her exertions and dry now, she collapsed on the chair and began to fumble with her hair and its solitary rose. It was exactly Julie who sat there unashamed in her nakedness, Peter thought. She had kept the soul of a child through everything, and it could burst through the outer covering of the woman who had tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and laugh in the sun. ”

“ Again and again those trumpets rang out, and hardly had the last echoes died away than the organ thundered the Pange Lingua, as a priest in cloth of gold turned from the altar with the glittering monstrance in his hand. Even from where he stood Peter could see the white centre of the Host for Whom all this was enacted. Then the canopy, borne by four French laymen in frock-coats and white gloves, hid It from his sight; and the high gold cross, and its attendant tapers, swung round a great buttress into view. ”

“ Peter grimaced. Then he looked thoughtful. "It wouldn't have been any so remarkable for me at one time, Julie," he said.
She shook her head. "It would, my dear. You're not made for it."
"What am I made for, then?"
She regarded him solemnly, and then relaxed into a smile. "I haven't a notion, but not that. The thing is never to worry. You get what you're made for in the end, I think."
"I wonder," said Peter. "Perhaps, but not always. The world's full of square pegs in round holes."
"Then they're stodgy pegs, without anything in them. If I was a square peg I'd never go into a round hole." ”

“ Oh no, I shan't be a fool. A fool would follow him to the end of the world. A fool of a woman would give him all he wants for the sake of giving, and be content with nothing in return. I see that. But I'm not made for that sort of foolery.... No, I shan't be a fool."
Mrs. Lessing could not conceal her satisfaction. "Well, I am sure I am very glad to hear you say it, and so would your father be. We have not brought you up carefully for nothing, Hilda. You are a woman now, and I don't believe in trying to force a woman against her will, but I am heartily glad, my dear, that you are so sensible. ”

“ One thing at least is certain—this Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the rest is lies—
The flower that once has blown for ever dies."
They lunched in the hotel, and at the table Peter put the first necessary questions that they both dreaded. "I'm going to tell them to make out my bill, Julie," he said. "I've to be at Victoria at seven-thirty a.m. to-morrow, you know. You've still got some leave, haven't you, dear; what are you going to do? How long will you stay on here?"
"Not after you've gone, Peter," she said. "Let them make it out for me till after breakfast to-morrow." ”

“ A big city, seen for the first time by oneself alone when one does not know a soul in it, may be intensely boring or intensely interesting. It depends on oneself. Peter was in the mood to be interested. He was introspective. It pleased him to watch the early morning stir; to see the women come out in shawls and slipshod slippers and swill down their bit of pavement; to see sleepy shopkeepers take down their shutters and street-vendors set up their stalls; to try to gauge the thoughts and doings of the place from the shop-windows and the advertisements. ”

“ Tired people go there to be refreshed, and sad people to be made gay, and people sick of life to laugh and forget it. It's the world's big anodyne. It offers a great exchange. And all for a few shillings, Julie, and for a few hours. The sensation lingers, but one has to go again and again. It tricks one into thinking, almost, that it's the real thing, that one can dance like mayflies in the sun. Only, Julie, there comes an hour when down sinks the sun, and what of the mayflies then? ”

“ But you're right, of course, Peter, though I hate to think of that."
"I see how we're like, and how we're unlike, Julie," said Peter suddenly, "You like real things, and so do I. You hate to feel stuffy and tied up in conventions, and so do I. But you're content with just that, and I'm not."
"Am I?" she queried, looking at him a little strangely.
Peter did not notice; he was bent on pursuing his argument. "Yes, you are," he said. "When you're in the grip of real vital things—nature naked and unashamed—you have all you want. You don't stop to think of to-morrow. You live. ”

“ Down the central aisle at last they came, and Peter knelt with the rest. He saw how the boys went before throwing flowers; how in pairs, as the censers were recharged, the thurifers walked backward before the three beneath the canopy, of whom one, white-haired and old, bore That in the monstrance which all adored. In music and light and colour and scent the Host went by, as It had gone for centuries in that ancient place, and Peter knew, all bewildered as he was, there, by the side of the girl, that a new vista was opening before his eyes. ”

“ Pennell and Peter left the camp and crossed the swing bridge into the maze of docks. Threading their way along as men who knew it thoroughly they came at length to the main roadway, with its small, rather smelly shops, its narrow side-streets almost like Edinburgh closes, and its succession of sheds and offices between which one glimpsed the water. Just here, the war had made a difference. There was less pleasure traffic up Seine and along Channel, though the Southampton packet ran as regularly as if no submarine had ever been built. Peter liked Pennell. ”

“ He slid into the familiar chair and ran his fingers through his hair. "Forgive me, dear," he muttered. "I think I am mad to-night, but I am not drunk, as you thought, except with worrying. I feel lost, unclean, body and soul, and I thought you would help me to forget—no, more than that, help me to feel a man. Can't you, won't you?" he demanded, looking up. "I am tired of play-acting. I've a body, like other men. Let me plunge down deep to-night, Louise. It will do me good, and it doesn't matter. That girl was right after all. Oh, what a fool I am!" ”