Warwick Deeping

“ At Beaucourt, in that room of her simple affection, Manon had sat for a while by the light of the candle, looking at the débris left by those two struggling men. What a sordid affair, what a horror to be forgotten and washed out of the mind! A chair broken, furniture overturned, crockery smashed on the floor,—a patch of blood on the tiles where Bibi had been stretched by the wall. And Philosophe, true to his name, asleep beside the stove, caring nothing for what had happened.
Manon jumped up. The inspiration was obvious, and yet passionate in its demands. ”

“ Money meant escape. There were thousands who were mad for money.
Brent fell straight into the lap of nature, with a fresh handful of simple ideals ready to be sown, and he sowed them in Beaucourt and watered them with a happy, human sweat. He did not want to slack and talk and theorize; the days were too short for him. He loved the work of his hands, the simple sensations, the smell of the sawdust, the crisply-curled shavings his plane ripped from a plank, the new nails he hammered in, the paint, the clang of his hammer, the snoring of his saw, the smell of the soil. Life was good. ”

“ When Manon was ready for the road, Brent walked with her by way of the Rue de Picardie to look at the Hôtel de Paris. The place, standing as it did at the cross-roads, had suffered badly from shell-fire, and the ragged walls rose out of a deplorable chaos of rubbish—old iron and broken brick. It had been a biggish building, and Brent saw that the house had gathered itself round the great central mass of brickwork in which were the chimney flues, a mass of brickwork that stood like a lonely tower in the middle of the ruin. ”

“ Manon’s ideas had been enlarged by the enthusiasms of old Durand, for he was a man who had remained young, whose brain was vital and alert. Age was horrible to Manon, even though she pitied it, age with its stupidly staring old face, its eternal questions, its eternal condemnation of anything new. She found herself picturing the Beaucourt of the future. What would it be like?—a little world of old men and old women, grumblers, backbiters, grudging folk who could never forgive youth for being young? The figures of Paul, Bibi and old Durand seemed to stand in the foreground of the new Beaucourt. ”

“ Mère Vitry stood below, unloaded the bucket, and packed the tiles away in a corner. They were as absorbed as two children playing a game.
“It has been a great day,” said Paul; “I don’t seem to have puzzled anybody. And the way these people work——”
He sat down in the arm-chair and watched Manon laying the table. She was very good to watch, and every now and again her eyes gave him the glimmer of light that a woman gives to her lover.
“Let him pass—Paul Rance, a good Frenchman.”
“I believe I shall pass,” he said. “I like your people. They smell of the soil.” ”

“ Paul Brent was much moved. He had been in such a confusion of remorse, self-accusation, loneliness and pain, that he had been capable of obeying any rash impulse that raised a cry of retrocession. For the moment the only possible future for him had seemed exile from Beaucourt. He would have to shoulder his knapsack and disappear. And then Manon had come to him, calm, practical and tender. She seemed to have touched him with a cool and soothing hand. There was nothing that he could not say to her or she to him.
“How you help a man,” he said. ”

“ Philipon gave a growl of applause.
“That’s it—work!”
He glared at the group of youths. Anatole went on.
“Bien. It is not my ground or your ground, it is our ground. It is our Beaucourt. What do you say? The women to the gardens and the rubbish heaps, the men to the saw and the hammer and the fields. But you know what to do. I am an old man, I am enjoying myself; I am spending what I cannot take with me. I do not stand here and crow; I want to be just a little old man in Beaucourt.”
There were cries of emotion from the little crowd. ”

“ He was astonished to find how deeply this new life of his had rooted itself in Beaucourt; England mattered to him hardly at all.
“It is the woman,” he said to himself; “it is the woman who matters.”
As they sat at supper Manon became aware of his silence. She noticed that his eyes wandered about the room, this room that had seen the beginnings of the adventure, the defeat of Bibi, the exultation of their first embrace. She saw Paul look at the pictures on the walls, the new curtains, the bowl of asters on the table by the window, Philosophe asleep on the rug by the stove. ”

“ They heard Manon’s voice coming out of that same silence, the profound silence of men and women whose sympathies are challenged by some drama of life that stirs their emotions, their loves, and their hates. They had listened to Clemenceau with stolidity and interest, but when Manon Latour began to speak to them their eyes lit up with living passion. Into the open space where Bibi and Ledoux were standing someone had pushed Pompom Crapaud, and at the sight of this sinister little devil still carrying his tin of petroleum, the crowd uttered its first cry of anger. ”

“ She stood in silence, holding out her hands to these peasants, and instantly the crowd rose to her with passionate enthusiasm. She had won them. She had given her heart into their hands, and they offered her their human and simple blessing in return. Philipon the smith was the first to give expression to the emotion that stirred them all. He came to her behind the row of chairs and kissed Manon on the forehead.
“You have shown us your heart, and we see how good it is.”
The women were more deeply moved than the men, for only women know what a good man means to a woman. ”

“ She gave him a shrewd little smile.
“I went to a good school, Paul. Do you think that because I live in a village I have been brought up in a convent? We French are very practical; we think a great deal. But I am not a little fool who imagines that she understands everything. One must have a religion, and it is none the worse if you make it yourself. Never to do mean things, and never to grow hard. And to remember—always—that one’s orchard and garden are miracles, and that life did not happen by chance.” ”

“ She saw the white stones of the cellar’s vault bright with candle light and the glow from the stove. The water bubbled contentedly in the saucepan. The arm-chair from the école stood embracing the warmth from the fire. And Manon was sensitively alert to the impression that the homeliness of the place would make on Paul. She had been busy here, exerting a woman’s forethought, not for purely selfish ends, but because a woman’s shrewdness may become involved in the things that she does for a particular man. ”

“ He struck a light and lit the candle that was stuck on the top of an old tin, and they saw that his eyes were all ashine, and his rosy face happy.
“But you gave me a fright, you two. Monsieur Paul, masquerading is the very devil!”
He shook a forefinger at Brent.
“So you will tell the truth.”
“Monsieur,” said Paul, “there is one woman whom a liar could not marry——”
“Chéri, you are not a liar!”
She jumped up and kissed him, and Monsieur Lefèbre raised his hands over them.
“Now, we must be serious. Let us see what we can make of this tangle. What is your idea, Paul?” ”

“ The woman who can be bought had always thought Brent a fool, because he had made a mystery where no mystery existed. Brent was an incorrigible romanticist, and your material woman detests romance. She suffers it in novels, but finds the thing a damnable nuisance when it comes gesturing and dreaming and getting itself mixed up with the very obvious furniture of her very obvious little life. The woman who could not be bought understood Brent at once. She was ready to trust him—but that did not help Brent to understand Manon Latour. ”

“ Harlech Dump stood in the corner of a field where the Rosières road crossed the railway line. The farm-house to which the field had belonged showed as a red ruin against the background of a wood of poplars. The dump had all the dreariness, the bald, boot-worn manginess of such places. There was a stodge of mud about it that was drying with the March wind and changing its colour from brown to a yellowish grey. Two rusty Nissen huts faced each other across a roadway made of cinders. Duck-board tracks lay about the place like huge dead worms oozing into the sludge and the slime of the soil. ”

“ Manon thought herself alone; she had thrown herself upon the bosom of Beaucourt’s solitude, and Brent felt like some Peeping Tom spying upon her nakedness.
In the end he did what the plain man and soldier in him wanted to do. Too much psychology might ruin any love affair; in life it is the emotions that matter. Brent went up the stone steps in his socked feet, walked along the short passage, and stood in the kitchen doorway, looking at Manon Latour. ”

“ Veuve Castener had helped at the Café de la Victoire before Manon’s marriage. Her very slowness made her loyal, for when she had grown fond of a person there was no time for her to grow tired. Friendship, like her petticoats, seemed to last with Veuve Castener for ever.
Manon was in a dilemma. Had she felt free to do so, she would have told her friend everything, for Marie Castener was to be trusted; but Manon held herself bound to keep Paul’s secret. He was at her mercy, and Manon had a sense of honour. ”

“ Louis Blanc stood still. He had always been afraid of Philipon, the one man in Beaucourt who was stronger than himself.
Meanwhile, the unconscious figure of Paul Brent and the two kneeling women bending over it held the crowd silent and attentive. Here was a little human scene that had all the helplessness and the inevitableness of tragedy, a man lying dead in a village street, and a woman holding his poor head in her lap. That is how the crowd saw it. They looked at Manon with a shrinking curiosity, a sympathy that was kindly inarticulate. ”

“ Manon’s eyes held his.
“You wish to become a Frenchman?”
Brent smiled one of those human and half-whimsical smiles.
“Perhaps—I want to make a fresh start. I’m not the sort of man who makes money; I’m too easy-going. I have always liked the things that you can’t buy.”
“I know what you mean,” said Manon. “One can’t buy happiness, can one?”
Brent’s eyes lit up.
“Now—how did you find that out?”
“I don’t think I ever found it out, mon ami. It’s the sort of thing I always knew. I suppose my mother gave it me. And yet, half the world never finds it out, and dies grumbling.” ”

“ It is easy for a bad man to understand the nonsensical malignity of such a theorist’s dogmatism. Good-natured people are apt to be moved by the fanatic’s enthusiasm, his burning words, his apparent altruism. He offers freedom, noble and more spacious lives. He talks of the “children of to-morrow.” And Bibi, rogue that he was, laughed at Ledoux, and his laughter was justified.
“Voilà!” he said; “give these gentlemen their food and their wine and other people’s houses—and then ask them to sweat for the good of humanity! How much work will they do? ”

“ Do we love men who are generous and honourable and masters of their own bodies? Or do we worship the animal?—the beast that seizes love by the throat and makes it nothing but a carcass? I stand by the man who has given me the labour of his hands, the man whom I love because he does good things. Have not the war and these ruins made us long for a life that looks happily at children and trees and gardens—the clean linen hanging in the orchard—the steady eyes of the quiet fellow who loves you and works for you? ”

“ To-day I came to this village of yours to see if Monsieur Durand had been telling me fairy tales, and I find a little family quarrel going on, and someone has asked me to sit here as the head of the family to decide who is right and who is wrong. At my age—and in these days—the things that are right and good for our country seem so plain and so simple that it is easy for us to judge whether a man is a good citizen or not. The ruins and the very stumps of the dead trees call to us for help. He who builds, he who plants, he who gives his sweat to France, that man is the man whom we honour. ”

“ Brent swung at the upraised arm. The bar caught the forearm bones about two inches above the wrist, and he heard them crack. The knife fell; Bibi’s hand sagged over like the absurd stuffed hand of a dummy. But Brent’s gorge was rising over this filthy scramble, this savagery of animals in a cage. He steadied himself, brought the bar down over Bibi’s head, and saw him crumple to the floor.
Brent stood, staring. He felt sick, unsteady, a man who had got up to the neck in some foul ditch. There was no exultation in him, yet no pity. He had downed a mad beast, and he was grim and cautious. ”

“ Philipon was an affectionate animal in spite of his frown and his rumbling voice, and Brent had helped him in the rebuilding of his house. His fatherliness stretched out a protective arm over these two. It is the big men who are most warm-hearted and sentimental, and Philipon was always saying to his wife, “Look at those two at the café! What a romance! It does one’s heart good.”
They walked along between the queer shapes and little twinkling lights of Beaucourt, with the stars shining overhead, and Philipon’s big feet falling emphatically on the cobbles. ”

“ There were women in Charleroi, swarthy little Belgian women, shops full of luxurious things at luxurious prices, the glitter of jewellery, the glare of electric light, Belgian flags, trams, red wine, pavements where a man could loiter and catch the smell of fleur-de-trèfle in a woman’s clothes. Charleroi made one think of the sallow face, the lowering cloth cap, and the sexual swagger of an apache.
“Escape” was written on Brent’s heart; and he had staged the first act of the adventure at Charleroi. ”

“ They climbed out of the car, and joined in council with Paul. But old Durand’s attention was divided. He was in Beaucourt, the place of his Frenchman’s dreams, in the thick of these dear ruins that were to bloom again under his hand. He looked at Manon’s house, and was delighted, and his delight almost forgot the worker and the work. Here was his symbol, his example, his banner of hope. He wanted to run through all the village on those sturdy little legs of his, and dream hard-headed dreams of reconstruction. ”

“ He saw little Manon Latour trudging along the road from Bonnière and standing with blank face and hopeless eyes before this shell of a house. He saw old women grubbing in the ruins, bent figures bowed down and trying to clean the rubbish and the fallen beams and rafters from the floors. He saw men working savagely at little shanties, or hammering at some extemporized roof, and always with an eye on the sky. ”

“ When Manon came to the meeting of the roads she saw a sight that she was never likely to forget. A thing that looked like a bundle of torn clothes was lying in the middle of the street, and Bibi was kicking at it with his heavy boots. There was something grotesquely disgusting in this great blind beast feeling for Paul Brent’s body with his feet, trampling and hacking like a blind stallion. The crowd stood round with an animal stupidity that is fascinated by violent physical action. ”

“ A man who has tasted the full bitterness of failure looks eagerly, almost incredulously at the gleam in the sky that symbolizes a new hope. Brent felt that he was escaping from under a thundercloud, and that the edge of it was behind him. He had known that emptiness of the stomach, that sense of having fallen through himself into a mood of cynical apathy and tragic surrender, when a man wonders whether he shall end his life or struggle on, whether his dead self-respect is worth carrying upon his shoulders. ”

“ It was the cupboard.
“It is for you, Paul.”
He looked at her with the eyes of a lover.
“In the kitchen, then? I have prepared the cellar for you.”
“The kitchen, then.”
She stood and directed the two men, happy as a little housewife arranging her home for the first time. Then she descended into the cellar, lit the candle, and experienced a moment of exquisite pleasure. Her eyes missed none of the details. This little white-arched cellar held more than a bed, a table, a cracked mirror; she felt in it the soul of the man who had been busy here. ”

“ Old Durand sat down on the running-board of his car and watched. He had seen his château, and he had seen Beaucourt, and perhaps he had been a little discouraged, though Manon had warned him against what he called “la maladie des ruines,” but as he watched the cheerful activities of these two, Brent hauling up the sheets and nailing them down with the speed and precision of a human machine, the adventure of it thrilled him.
“Hallo, that’s life,” he said, “the spirit of youth that strives and creates. Youth is not daunted. ”