THE GIFT OF 
 PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 UNIV. OF GALtF. LWKARY. LO
 
 Books by 
 Warrington Dawson 
 
 LE NEGRE AUX ^TATS-UNIS 
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 THE SCAR 
 
 THE SCOURGE 
 
 THE TRUE DIMENSION
 
 l= 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 BY 
 WARRINGTON DAWSON 
 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1921, BY 
 
 WARRINGTON DAWSON 
 
 ALL BIGHTS RE8EBVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A.
 
 TO 
 
 THE GREAT HEART WHICH NEVER LOST 
 CONFIDENCE 
 
 THE GREAT GENERAL WHO STEMMED THE 
 TIDE OF INVASION AT THE MARNE, WHO 
 SAVED THE POSITIONS ON WHICH THE 
 ALLIES EVENTUALLY MANOEUVRED TO 
 DRIVE THE GERMANS FROM FRANCE, 
 WHO REORGANIZED AND TRANSFORMED 
 FOR VICTORY THAT PEERLESS AND 
 SUPREME WEAPON, THE FRENCH ARMY I 
 
 MARSHAL JOFFRE 
 
 2129092
 
 PART ONE 
 HOPE
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 As PAUL looked upon Verviller, the river-banks were 
 shaded and secret to the right, where trees rose straight 
 from sodded slopes; practical and animated to the left, 
 where a tow-path ran. An unkempt mill stood among 
 neat little dwellings; then came an arched bridge of stone, 
 beyond which the town swept in a gently rising curve. 
 A tall, thin church-steeple rested with fairy grace against 
 a blue sky so solid that it supported whole pyramids 
 of thick white cloud. The fair, high windows and tower- 
 ing chimneys of a Renaissance chateau were poised above 
 more modest houses, as the pearls and leaves of a mar- 
 quis's coronet might rise over the heads of a mul- 
 titude. 
 
 But Paul saw it all with resentful dislike, and for reasons 
 simple and sharply -defined. This was the town where 
 he must live and go to school; to come, he had been 
 torn from the grandfather he loved and from the village 
 where he had attained the dignity of seven years. 
 
 "Here, this is the street," said his mother, a woman in 
 the late twenties of a handsome, portly type, with much 
 colour in her cheeks and a quantity of coarse light hair 
 about her head. 
 
 "The next, rather," ventured the pale, stoop-shouldered 
 
 1
 
 2 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 man in the thirties who was driving them with their 
 household goods. 
 
 "I say this one," the mother re-asserted. 
 
 The father obediently turned his horse. 
 
 It did not prove to be the street, but nobody said any- 
 thing. 
 
 In Arnan, theirs had been a little rustic cottage, close to 
 the single road and separated from it by a garden. They 
 called it a garden, though only vegetables grew there. 
 Opposite was the village inn, to which crowds of strangers 
 came at certain seasons often as many as eight or nine. 
 The inn had a real garden, with beds of roses and helio- 
 trope, and great trellises of trailing wistaria, and currant 
 bushes and cherry trees, and a fawn scarce bigger than 
 a dog, kept enclosed in a corner with wire netting. 
 
 Sometimes, when there were no strangers, the propriet- 
 ress let Paul play here. He might climb the lower limbs 
 of the cherry trees, and eat the fruit; he might wander 
 among the currant bushes, but only when an older person 
 was near. It seemed unreasonable that he should be 
 watched safely on the ground and not when perilously 
 exploring trees. In the wisdom of mature years he was 
 at Verviller, then he reflected that few cherries ever 
 came within reach, whereas the currants lay at unlimited 
 mercy. 
 
 One day, when none was observing, he tried to play with 
 the fawn. The little creature dashed out as he loosened 
 the door, and knocked him down. The garden gate 
 stood open, and fields lay beyond; if the fawn got so far, 
 there would be no returning. Paul had enough presence 
 of mind neither to cry out nor to run. Dodging behind 
 trees and bushes, suppressing all unnecessary noise, he
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 3 
 
 reached the gate and closed it, while the fawn innocently 
 nipped a juicy shrub. Then he called for expert help to 
 assure the capture. 
 
 The road where he played daily, and the forest to which 
 he went in fine weather, were unending delights. Thick 
 and soft and hot with its fine whitish dust, the road sug- 
 gested wonderful games and adventures shared with little 
 Alfred, a baby friend fully two years younger than himself. 
 To the forest, he went with his mother, who said it would 
 be dangerous for Alfred, and boys made too much noise 
 when together, anyhow. She slept over her knitting; 
 or if it were forgotten, would send Paul all the way home, 
 and be asleep under the trees before he returned. He 
 transformed shelters of rock into bandits' caves, and 
 stretches of bracken into jungles. When his mother 
 snored, he would play at lions roaring miles away as they 
 galloped towards him. In a burst of enthusiasm, he 
 confided this to her, and got a smart rap on the head. 
 It was his earliest lesson in discretion. 
 
 Bad weather, while cutting him off from these pleasures, 
 brought compensation. From the window he looked out 
 to see huge rain-drops splash down the road. Figures 
 of men, hordes of men marching this way or that. Or 
 again, women hurrying to the fair, each wishing to be 
 first. Sometimes an angry mob appeared, and sometimes 
 an entire army, or two opposing armies. Occasionally, 
 they were all the people in France, going to church; and, 
 most rarely, thousands of priests and nuns all the priests 
 and nuns in the world. 
 
 Conversations with little Alfred who listened, and with 
 his grandfather who didn't, were his sole verbal opportuni- 
 ties. Grandfather would sit very still in a corner until 
 twilight, and then shake himself out of a trance. This
 
 4 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 was Paul's hour for lessons. If he preferred to talk in- 
 stead of thumbing the worn book or teasing scraps of 
 crumpled paper, he met with no opposition. Doubtless 
 imperfect as an educational method, the principles in- 
 culcated were so thoroughly impressed upon him that, 
 years later, argument and punishment were powerless 
 to show him a difference between "je etais" and "J'ai 
 etc," or "sens alle" and "s'en aller." 
 
 As the evening wore on, grandfather grew garrulous, 
 little caring whether any heeded. This was the cherished 
 secret to many of Paul's imaginings. Grandmother moaned 
 gently because of her "pains," father smoked his pipe 
 over yesterday's paper, mother sat with crossed knees 
 and folded arms and bent back, napping; while Paul, 
 attentive little audience of one, deep in his bed with 
 hypocritically tight-screwed eyes, drank in words about 
 the Franco-Prussian war, and the Commune, and Re- 
 publicans and Clericals, and like things filled with awful 
 possibilities, fascinatingly evasive. 
 
 His father, employed in the tax service, left home early 
 each morning on a bicycle, and came back for a late dinner. 
 One night there was talk of promotion, whatever that 
 might be. It meant they were to live in town, where 
 Paul should go to school and prepare to succeed his father. 
 Paul did not want that: he wanted gardens and forests 
 and a village road. He pinned his faith on grandfather, 
 who was to stay at Arnan with grandmother, and would 
 surely not let him go. When the cart was ready, the fur- 
 niture stacked in it, his parents called him. He sprang 
 upon his grandfather, beseeching to be saved. But it was 
 in the morning, soon after sunrise, and the old man could 
 find not a word to say. 
 
 Their new home, not even a house, had three ground-
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 5 
 
 floor rooms, with one window opening on a noisy paved 
 street and two on a dark foul court. The farther rooms 
 were tiled; the first boasted a floor of rotting wood. Cold 
 and sunless, the place, until recently a wash-house, reeked 
 with moisture. The wall-paper drooped in flaps and 
 sagged in pockets, sighing and creaking whenever the 
 door opened or closed. Garments which imprudently 
 slipped from a chair or a peg overnight were mould- 
 tainted by morning. After heavy rains, Paul's first 
 task on leaving bed, while his mother made breakfast, 
 would be to clear away diminutive mushrooms from 
 notoriously favourable corners. 
 
 This was hard on his mother's nerves, or what she termed 
 nerves. The father, whose health had never been good, 
 was luckily absent save at night, when the lamp had a 
 warming and drying influence. As for Paul, if he could 
 not be at Arnan with grandfather, he found Verviller 
 no worse than other towns fancied upon the same pattern. 
 None of the three complained. Had not Paul's mother 
 herself chosen the rooms, coming especially over, a week in 
 advance? 
 
 Paul was taken to the Brothers' school, a big square 
 brown building with double doors one of which swung 
 alarmingly; each of them had a cross of yellow glass as 
 window in the upper panel. The play-ground gate stood 
 ajar; he saw long, low, narrow benches of discoloured wood, 
 resting on legs straddled so far apart that they must col- 
 lapse under the slightest pressure. Paul was possessed 
 with an infinite desire to sit down on one, very hard. 
 For the moment, he forgot that school was an object for 
 righteous abhorrence. 
 
 They went into a high narrow room, his mother and he.
 
 6 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Light sifted through the crosses of yellow glass, tarnished 
 and sickening, upon the white hair and pale features 
 of the Brother Director; it danced in golden dust-patches 
 on his black skirt. Frere Alexandra stretched out a hand 
 to pat Paul's head; it became a greenish, ambered, half- 
 transparent talon. 
 
 Cupboards took the place of walls. Frere Alexandra 
 rose and went to one, unlocked it with a grinding key, 
 and reached up to a shelf. Books, books, books were 
 stacked there. Paul had not supposed there were so 
 many books in all the world. The Brother took down a 
 printed book and a blank book, with hands now very 
 fine and white, delicately veined in blue. As Paul, 
 obeying a sign, followed him, he saw his mother leaving 
 without a word. Frere Alexandre must be a wonderful 
 person indeed. 
 
 Passing through a huge sad room with benches against 
 the walls and dirty windows and several doors the 
 play-room for bad weather, the pr6au they stopped at a 
 closet where a wrinkled old woman enveloped Paul in a 
 black apron. It was not new, but one his mother had 
 made for him; and he found it here in this place he had 
 never seen before. He recognised a spot on one of the 
 wristbands, and guiltily identified a tiny rent on the hem 
 floating between his knees. For weeks after, he puzzled over 
 this. Yet it gave him a sense of familiarity with the sur- 
 roundings. Besides, that rent might now escape maternal 
 vigilance. For though he wore an apron in the house, like 
 other boys, he did not go out in one, like common boys. 
 
 Before Frere Alexandre and himself two big doors stood 
 partly open. In the dimness within, a microscopic 
 light glimmered on an altar, and over it a blue, starry 
 sky was painted so beautifully that Paul gasped with
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 7 
 
 delight. He hoped they would stop there to pray; not 
 that he knew any prayers. But the Brother led the way 
 up to a class-room, and left him. 
 
 Boys in black aprons sat or sprawled on many benches. 
 Facing them, with his back to the window, was the teacher, 
 a tall, thin, blond young man with a small mouth and 
 large teeth, and very blue eyes shining through spectacles. 
 Terrific uproar filled the room; boys, after jumping on the 
 desks, started to race about. The teacher protested in a 
 mildly distressed manner, and was answered that the "new 
 one" must be seen. Order restored itself gradually as his 
 charges tired of romping. 
 
 Paul was put on the last bench, near the door. He had 
 one neighbour; of an age near his own, with pink cheeks 
 and crisp curly black hair, and naughty sparkling eyes. 
 The teacher called him Lavenu. Another Lavenu, 
 big and fair and bullet-headed, not at all amusing, had a 
 place at the extreme corner. The two were not brothers, 
 nor even cousins. Paul's neighbour told him this, be- 
 tween licks at barley sugar. Quite remarkable, how this 
 boy ran his tongue the entire length of the stick each time, 
 and then offered to prove by appearances that he was not 
 eating, but the stick was melting. 
 
 The printed book given to Paul was an arithmetic, 
 the teacher explained, directing him to study the first 
 page. But these signs were not the alphabet grandfather 
 taught; they were meaningless and uninteresting. At 
 the end of the book, however, they grew in bunches, 
 making almost pictures, with long lines to hold them to- 
 gether and stars or crosses between. Dipping his pen 
 deeply into the ink, Paul traced some of these pretty 
 things in his blank-book. They did not come quite right, 
 but looked well when circles had been drawn round them
 
 8 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 with the help of a piece of paper, a pin, and a pen. A 
 pencil would have done better than the pen; but then, 
 the ink splashed very nicely. 
 
 Lavenu approved of ' these proceedings. Only, he 
 would force sticks of barley sugar on Paul, who accepted 
 reluctantly, not knowing how to refuse while not daring 
 to eat, and who stored away six pieces in his desk. When 
 Lavenu offered a seventh, Paul's scruples weakened; 
 refusing it, he plunged down after one of the six already 
 accepted. To his unutterable surprise, the desk was 
 empty. Lavenu laughed, still holding out the new stick. 
 Paul grasped it and had it to his mouth but his head 
 somehow disappeared into the desk, and his hand held 
 nothing save a gluey sensation. Lavenu told him the 
 sticks had all melted, and that was shameful waste, 
 and he should have no more barley sugar. 
 
 At this moment, Paul was called for his lesson. Ner- 
 vously filling his pen instead of putting it down, he drew 
 it very hard across the page instead of wiping it. Stag- 
 gered by the result, he closed the book, whereupon black 
 drops oozed out from between the leaves at the bottom, 
 luckily falling on his apron. Another fortunate accident 
 was that he had disfigured only the page he liked, and 
 not the one his teacher wanted. He did not understand 
 the questions put to him as he stood beside the big desk, 
 and answered Yes and No at random; but was presently 
 assured that he had done very well, for the first day. 
 
 Shortly after, all the classes together were turned loose in 
 the earthy yard. The bigger boys played games with 
 marbles, or with a ball sent from hand to hand as they 
 cried, "Passe I Passe toil" The smaller boys played 
 in circles, or in complicated scrambles, or else leaped on 
 and off the scatter-legged benches, changing feet each
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 9 
 
 time. Paul expected that when his immense weight was 
 thrown on, the bench would collapse. It resisted, causing 
 him a sort of disappointed relief. 
 
 At the end of three months, Paul and his parents moved 
 to a little house all their own, two rooms on each floor. 
 From his window, he could see trees and meadows, and not 
 too many roofs, and the Mareille; he could hear rumbling 
 and whistling trains, and watch them come or go. In 
 these respects, Verviller scored. Yet Arnan had a charm 
 which increased as the image dimmed. 
 
 Almost reconciled with the town, Paul was quite at 
 peace with his school. He did not have to study much, 
 and Lavenu abounded in subjects for awful admiration. 
 The high-voiced, owl-faced teacher never lost patience 
 nor gained firmness. 
 
 One month, Lavenu behaved himself, and things were 
 dull. Though accustomed to receiving the yellow certi- 
 ficate of obloquy, each week, and only by miracle the 
 green certificate of tolerable conduct and proficiency, he 
 had received successively three blue certificates reserved for 
 the elect. The fourth week, bringing still another such 
 distinction, conferred automatically upon him the honour 
 of honours, a gorgeous medal on a brilliant red ribbon, 
 to be worn for the whole month following. 
 
 Then animation returned to the class-room. Having 
 made an effort in a new direction, Lavenu undertook to 
 demonstrate that his former talents survived, open to 
 improvement. When Paul was pointed out to him as a 
 model, now, Lavenu would shrug: 
 
 "He's a stranger, M'sieur. He's from the country. 
 I was born in town. I've got warm blood." 
 
 "I shall take your medal away," the teacher would 
 threaten.
 
 10 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "You can't. Mother has sewn it to my apron." 
 Such scenes generally ended, to the delight of the class, in 
 a mad chase extending all over the room. Then Lavenu, 
 breathless, would roll like a ball under several benches 
 and bowl into the teacher's feet, to be captured gloriously 
 amid whirls of arms and legs. Having produced his 
 dramatic effect, Lavenu would finally retrieve the medal 
 by surrendering with such grace, such completeness, 
 such tears of repentance, such starry-eyed vows for future 
 perfection, that the long-suffering teacher was helpless. 
 And Monsieur would turn away, saving his dignity with 
 solemn admonitions for next time, while Lavenu, resuming 
 his place beside Paul, would wink broadly, one eye after 
 the other. 
 
 Yes, school was really agreeable, on the whole. And 
 some day, Paul would be privileged to play with the big 
 boys, and would be in the class taught by Frere Alexandre. 
 That thin pale face and tall black-robed figure seemed 
 to be everywhere and to discover everything. A word 
 of suggestion in that calm voice, while that clear look 
 sounded a boy, accomplished more than threat or punish- 
 ment. Useless to attempt deceit; the cleverest argument 
 fell short. Frere Alexandre might have been a boy him- 
 self, he understood so well what had been intended. All 
 loved him, but those in his class loved him most. 
 
 Paul began to get blue certificates. The last week 
 of another month came, and the teacher announced the 
 award of three medals. One for Jean Marie, a gawky 
 boy who wore extraordinary hair, straight and black, 
 hanging down to his waist behind, and shaved to the 
 scalp on the top and sides; he would allow intimate friends 
 to play at " pulling the horse's tail," as he called his back 
 hair. The second for Lavenu Big Lavenu, the teacher
 
 THE GIFT OP PAUL CLERMONT 11 
 
 specified. Whereupon Little Lavenu, who had been 
 writhing like a monkey, proceeded to quack like a duck 
 and, catching both cheeks with his hands, flapped 
 them in imitation of wings. The third was for Paul 
 Clermont. Howls of protest rose from all the class, be- 
 cause he was the newest boy, and came from the country 
 besides. 
 
 Lavenu escorted him home. It was the very medal 
 he had taken off that morning, after kissing it, and from 
 which he had removed the safety-pin so that it should 
 have to be stitched to his apron. Still warm from Lavenu's 
 heart, Paul thought it the most attractive of medals; 
 especially when that nice friend rooted out an ordinary 
 pin, in his shoe, or sock, or mouth, or some absurd place, 
 and decorated him. 
 
 The two walked back, in triumphal procession, to the 
 Clermont house; but it was closed. Lavenu, a youth of 
 magnificent resourcefulness, proposed celebrating on the 
 river-bank. Flushed by success, Paul rashly agreed. 
 Since he could be neither at home nor at school, and 
 loitering in the streets was forbidden, he must go some- 
 where. 
 
 By the river they met some friends of Lavenu's. They 
 all played together on the tow-path, and raised much dust 
 and unstinted noise, and were nearly swept into the river 
 by the rope of a boat, and the horse looked as if he might 
 have kicked them. No more perfect day could have 
 been arranged. Then they played singing-games, which 
 Lavenu led: 
 
 "Une souris verte 
 Qui courait dans Vherbe, 
 Je Vattrape par la queue, 
 Je la montre a ces messieurs.
 
 12 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Pim-pon d'or la bayette, la bayette, 
 Pim-pon d'or la bayette est en dehors, 
 Avec un petit cheval d'or, 
 Qui " 
 
 Paul never knew what happened to the little golden 
 horse. When he related the affair to me, I might have 
 enlightened him, but judged the detail irrelevant. 
 
 His mother had descended upon him. He reached home 
 with a breathless physical sensation, and very few mental 
 impressions. But when his father returned at dinner- 
 time, the situation, from bewildering, grew ominous. 
 All Paul could grasp was that he must tear off the medal 
 and never wear it, and that he should not see Frere 
 Alexandre, nor Monsieur, nor Marcel Lavenu, nor any 
 of his playmates again; for he was to be taken to another 
 school, the Communal school, on the morrow. 
 
 II 
 
 THE noise of Paul's hob-nailed boots and the brilliant 
 blue of his linen knickers came to break the harmony 
 of my reflections as I sat near my window in the rue du 
 Port. I had noticed this boy before, idly, in a discreet 
 suit of brown corduroy and blessedly noiseless white 
 canvas shoes as I might have noticed man, pony, or 
 stray cat. So it must have been circumstances made the 
 difference on that day when our eyes first met as strangers. 
 
 He seemed not quite thirteen. Under a tight cap worn 
 back on an intelligent head, his dark hair, closely cropped, 
 shone like velvet in the light and marked clean curves 
 to the five points surmounting a well-proportioned fore- 
 head. Big round grey eyes were conspicuous in a pale, 
 delicately modelled face. His lips parted on any pretext, 
 to show a gleam of teeth when he smiled bashfully and
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 13 
 
 a full white row when he smiled wonderingly. The 
 sailor-blouse belonging to the brown suit still served, its 
 broad collar and tie of corduroy displaying a graceful 
 neck. 
 
 Two water-jugs, of unequal size and both too heavy for 
 him, swung rather loosely from his hands; he proceeded 
 cautiously, with an occasional sidelong kick to avoid them. 
 Sense of management appreciation of balance instinct 
 of responsibility freedom from the awkwardness usual 
 at his age so I would have dismissed him. But as the 
 boy neared me, he raised his eyes, and smiled. A broad, 
 wondering smile. My response was a stare so complete 
 and so conclusive that he flushed, smiled bashfully, 
 ducked low, and took several swift steps. Even while 
 hurrying away, he cared for his movements so as not to 
 spill the contents of his jugs. 
 
 The look and the smile had implied that he knew me. 
 Why? I had scrupulously avoided acquaintances in 
 Verviller. When I needed an exchange of ideas I went 
 to Paris. What would become of the solitude needed 
 for study, if I were to be watched and identified and 
 remembered here? A whole morning's work had been 
 scattered to the winds by an idle glance and a searching 
 query. Inexplicably, the thread had snapped, had parted 
 from vital things, instead of lying at their root. 
 
 When lacking either strength or leisure to reach a hill- 
 top where my happiest hours of ease were spent, I would 
 stroll by the Mareille. The tow-path offered sure footing, 
 close to the water's edge. That afternoon I went thither, 
 to regain peace. But a patter of steel points on the soft 
 pebbly earth, and a dazzling patch of colour which had 
 nothing to do with the green of the trees, told me my fate. 
 
 A little friend, barely half his age, trotted at his heels,
 
 14 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 carrying the smaller of the jugs mpty. The boy him- 
 self caught his breath, grew paler than usual, and turned 
 crimson. Passing me, he hung his head forlornly, without 
 suggestion of the impulsive movement; and so went on 
 to the water-side. 
 
 Since morning, I had flattered myself that our exchange 
 of glances had been accidental. Now, I knew he had had 
 some reason of his own for smiling up at my window; I 
 knew, too, that my rebuff had made forgetfulness im- 
 possible. Instead of greeting me again with that smile 
 which would have been harmless if unseen, he drew away 
 as if I had injured him. And so I had in the shy sensi- 
 tiveness of boyhood. 
 
 A peculiar twinge took me off my guard. Once upon 
 a tune I had been sensitive; many years before, in a 
 country beyond the ocean. But I remembered. And 
 I had been so born that no barriers of wealth or position 
 marked me as an inferior. What must it be, then, for 
 one in an obscure station yet having a nature perhaps 
 even easier to impress? I felt as if I had wounded a 
 trusting little animal. Strange, the emotion this caused. 
 
 He filled the jugs, and came towards me with the double 
 load. I waited Dropping his head very low, when a 
 yard or so away he swerved to avoid striking me. 
 
 "That's right, young man," I said. The tone had been 
 intended approvingly, encouragingly. But unaccustomed 
 to such intercourse, my voice slipped to a dry under- 
 tone. 
 
 Turning his eyes up to mine, the boy flushed, jerked a 
 familiar, naif little nod; kept silence, ducked modestly, 
 impulsively; and went on, the jugs swinging loosely in 
 his hands and the little friend trotting at his heels. 
 
 Peace being made, our intercourse ceased. Several
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 15 
 
 times each day, as I sat at my window busy with books 
 and notes and comparisons, he would go by, on his way 
 for water or bringing it home; often he directed glances 
 towards me, but ducked quickly before knowing if I 
 would answer or deny. 
 
 Scarcely conscious while doing so, I would watch for him 
 when I heard the hob-nails, or when my eyes caught a trail 
 of blue. I would revert to my task with an annoyance 
 not conducive to cool reflection. But there were mo- 
 ments when I was stirred by the idea that any one should 
 take an interest in me. 
 
 A day came when, walking on the river-side, I suddenly 
 found myself merging from consternation to a sense of 
 pain in my hip and coldness about my feet. I became 
 aware of the boy in blue knickers, looking up at me with 
 a surprised air. He had sat down very unexpectedly 
 on an overturned jug, but had not released another, which 
 he held carefully upside down. At the moment of our 
 collision, I had been looking nowhere, as I revolved my 
 problem. Paul has since confessed that he ducked when 
 recognising me at a distance. 
 
 He did not stupidly jump up and pretend nothing 
 had happened. Nor did he waste energy in any sort of 
 exclamation. Sitting unruffled on the side of one jug 
 and holding the other as if to drain the last drop, he asked : 
 
 "Monsieur did not hurt himself?" 
 
 "No," I answered sharply, with black ungraciousness, 
 since his sole concern had been for me. That struck me 
 later. 
 
 He got up, very muddy in spots; one knee was blood- 
 stained. 
 
 "It is I who have hurt you," I said.
 
 16 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Oh that was my jug. It doesn't matter." As he 
 finished, he collapsed on the stone bench near which we 
 had met. 
 
 "Don't be so foolish! Get off that cold stone at once!" 
 I cried, visions of medical and legal complications flashing 
 before me. 
 
 Slowly he drew himself together, and stood a moment 
 on the sound leg. He glanced at the bench, then at me : 
 
 "Ah! Because the stone is cold and I am hot?- I 
 understand. Do you think that's how I got double 
 pleurisy, last year? I should like to tell you about it, some 
 time. But your feet are in the water I spilled. Be 
 careful you don't get double pleurisy." 
 
 "I shall get nothing of the kind," was my retort. 
 " I am going home to change. You had better do the same. 
 Can you walk?" 
 
 "I must." Trying, he found that he could. 
 
 "The jug you used as cushion is crushed flat," I said. 
 "Give this to your mother to buy a new one." I put 
 some money in his hand, and limped away. 
 
 "Wait, let me help you!" called the boy. "Just two 
 
 minutes, to fill the jug " He held up the sound one, 
 
 pressing the other under his arm. Methodical even in 
 emergencies, I noticed. 
 
 "Don't need any help; sorry I can't help you," was my 
 answer. "Better have that knee attended to." 
 
 On my way home a painful way, I confess I solilo- 
 quised : 
 
 "Henry Aubret, you have bought freedom at the price 
 of folly. Consider yourself fortunate though you spend 
 three days abed. You will never again be stared at and 
 so prompted to a childish and senile desire to stare back. 
 The imp will avoid you religiously for the two excellent
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 17 
 
 reasons that he is mortified by his mishap, and that you 
 have scandalously overpaid the jug." 
 
 I was right in only one respect about spending three 
 days abed. 
 
 When I could crawl about the house once more, I heard 
 the bell ring insinuatingly. Aged Leonie was at her 
 marketing. For the sake of quietude, I had only one 
 servant. She had not warned me that a boy came daily 
 inquiring after my health; and, expecting a parcel of 
 books, I went to the door. 
 
 It was the boy. 
 
 My presence distinctly perturbed him. He had walked 
 up with assurance, to make a polite inquiry and run away 
 without obtaining the interview demanded by his mother. 
 Assurance is easy, when you know nothing can happen. 
 But here appeared the old man himself. 
 
 The old man, on his side, did not for one instant pre- 
 tend to be pleased. If Paul had hesitated, or talked 
 generalities, or reached any point not shaped like a pitch- 
 fork, the interview would have ended before beginning, 
 and no relationship between us would have existed. 
 Although positive assertions of a negative order are dan- 
 gerous as well as hybrid things, I am sure of this; because 
 I am perfectly aware of my feelings at the moment, and 
 Paul has since confided to me that his mother had resolved 
 to "see me herself" if I proved refractory. 
 
 "I'm to give you back hah* your money mother says 
 I must and you are not going to have double pleurisy, 
 are you?" 
 
 Such were his three phrases, each of which disconcerted 
 me. To keep the money or return it might be compre- 
 hensible but why half? And what business had any-
 
 18 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 body's mother to interfere in the financial arrangements 
 of a freeman whose years were more than mature? Fi- 
 nally, how was a body to know whether or not he might 
 develop double pleurisy and why double pleurisy, 
 anyhow? 
 
 "You have disturbed me very much," I said, for the 
 sake of saying something. 
 
 The boy dropped his head, flushed, and looked up with 
 the bashful smile: 
 
 "I shall come back. On my way from school, at four. 
 It doesn't matter." 
 
 The old man murmured something inarticulate. 
 
 Now, my firm intention was to issue orders that I must 
 not be disturbed at four this day or the next, nor at any 
 other hour of any other day, by a boy in a brown cor- 
 duroy blouse and blue linen knickers. The latter, by 
 the way, had been washed, gathering new splendour. 
 Silence and solitude being perfect, thanks to Leonie's 
 absence, I composed such a phrase as could not be mis- 
 construed and should assure immunity for ever. My one 
 safeguard against intruders, Leonie was an Alsatian 
 who had crossed the new frontier in 1871 and taken solemn 
 oath never to speak to another German. There were 
 moments when her chatter made me almost envy the 
 Germans. 
 
 She lingered beyond her custom. I could not wait 
 indefinitely on the threshold nor in the hall; and after a 
 while, I decided to take up my work, and to speak as she 
 served lunch. But my orders, from much inward repeti- 
 tion, became concrete, and I forgot they had been spoken 
 to none save myself. 
 
 Four o'clock rang from the church-tower, which meant 
 we were within ten or fifteen minutes of the time, accord-
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 19 
 
 ing to the condition of the clock's works and of the sexton's 
 rheumatism. A soft knock came at my study door, which 
 I ignored. If Leonie had questions to ask, she knew 
 better than to dare break upon me; if money were needed, 
 she knew where to find it in a certain drawer always 
 enough to meet trifling emergencies, not more. I did not 
 even raise my eyes, until a long pause, broken by rhyth- 
 mic breathings which had nothing asthmatic about them, 
 struck me as peculiar. 
 
 The boy stood opposite me in smiling, apologetic 
 self-confidence. 
 
 By arguing a positive engagement and repeating our 
 short colloquy as he believed it to have occurred, ending 
 with a consent which ten thousand dragons could not have 
 torn from me, he had inveigled Leonie into allowing him 
 alone, of all Verviller, to force my barriers. 
 
 Ill 
 
 HE SAT down uninvited on the edge of an ottoman, 
 murmuring, "Very well, thank you," in answer to some 
 fancied question. His feet, in noiseless white canvas 
 shoes thank Heaven for that! looked ill at ease on 
 the thick red carpet, and his gaze wandered among pro- 
 fusions of books and papers. 
 
 "Mother says I am to give you back hah* the money 
 and thank you very much," he began. 
 
 I was to know later that the closing phrase had been 
 born of his own tactfulness. 
 
 "Give back half the money? Why?" I demanded. 
 
 "Mother says so." 
 
 "How can I remember what I gave you? Why should 
 I retain any recollection of it? Don't you know I have 
 many things to think of?" These successive questions
 
 20 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 were fired without allowing time for answers. If I 
 paused after the last, it was simply because nothing 
 further occurred to me. 
 
 The boy, serene master of himself, counted out two 
 silver pieces and five large coppers on the edge of my desk. 
 He could reach it by leaning over, without getting up. 
 
 "Two francs fifty it was what mother said," he in- 
 formed me. "And I want to tell you about my double 
 pleurisy, if you're not busy. I have been thinking of 
 what you said. I wasn't on cold stone, but my feet 
 were." 
 
 While I sat dumb, he proceeded with his story. 
 
 Paul was preparing for his first communion, at the time, 
 he informed me. Mother had said he must, although 
 father had taken him away from the Brothers' when quite 
 small. 
 
 "Is that what gave you pleurisy?" I demanded in a 
 tone frigid enough to precipitate acute pneumonia. 
 
 "Oh, no!" He smiled wonderingly. "Did you think 
 I meant that? I was explaining how I went to the Com- 
 munal school, and still made my first communion. Mother 
 said I should, and she said in advance, then, that I should 
 make my renewal this year and I did!" 
 
 He paused for me to recover. I did not recover, and he 
 proceeded. 
 
 A stitch in the side kept him in the house, one day; 
 then he went to school again. There was to be a cate- 
 chism lesson; hot and breathless, with his head aflame and 
 the stitch again in his side, he reached the church, and 
 sat on a chair but his feet were on cold stone. 
 
 I suppose he expected me to brag or moralise, for he 
 watched me earnestly. Not disconcerted by my aloof- 
 ness, he continued.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 21 
 
 Presently he felt unable to breathe, and a strange 
 dizziness blurred thought and movement. With the 
 one idea of reaching his mother, he got home somehow. 
 She could not think of any appropriate medicine, so 
 just put him to bed and told him to get a good night's 
 sleep. Next morning he could not wake up for a while, 
 but finally managed to dress and to get downstairs, one 
 step at a time, holding the rail tightly with one hand and 
 pressing the other against his side, where the stitch was, 
 to keep from falling. (That was how he expressed it.) 
 He could not eat, but swallowed some black coffee, which 
 did him good. 
 
 His mother started off with him to the hospital, afoot. 
 They had gone some distance, when he abruptly keeled 
 over and fell down in a dead faint, there in the street. 
 The last thing he remembered was telling himself he 
 positively must put his foot forward once more. But 
 what was there to do when everything went black and 
 vanished? He believed he raised his foot, but only to 
 step into the blackness. 
 
 Unwillingly, I had been reading through the medium 
 of his words a simple, unquestioning faith, a strain of 
 intuitive courage. 
 
 "I could help you to put your room in order, if you 
 wish," he said without change of tone or manner. "I 
 help mother." 
 
 "In order? Why, it is in order!" I protested. 
 
 Paul smiled wisely. Perhaps he had heard his mother 
 protest so, when her work was yet to be done. 
 
 "If you would like me to come two or three times a 
 week " 
 
 His individual idea of logic, unembarrassed by accident 
 or circumstance, rendered him formidable.
 
 22 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Do you know what it is to write a book? " I demanded. 
 "These papers are needed for my work." 
 
 "Oh! If you need them, I suppose you can't help it," 
 the boy said, comfortingly. "I know somebody who 
 makes books. His son is in my class. I went to his 
 shop, once. It's not like yours. He's a bookbinder. 
 Perhaps you are a printer?" 
 
 "I write books or I am going to write one." 
 
 "Everything is different, isn't it, because you are a 
 stranger," he said. Having spoken, he blushed and hung 
 his head. Because he had betrayed himself, I supposed. 
 At all events, he went on to make a clean breast of it. 
 
 A stranger! That was what fascinated him. Here, in 
 Verviller, lived a stranger, not from another village or 
 province of France, but from across the seas. 
 
 Paul had learned in his geography about the country 
 to which this stranger belonged. It was tropical, and 
 oranges and bananas grew there wild, so a boy might 
 pick them by the roadside; and they were bigger and 
 sweeter than any to be bought for five or even ten cen- 
 times apiece. It was a land of lakes and rivers where one 
 might bathe at any season lakes as big as a whole 
 departement, and rivers many, many times broader and 
 longer than the Mareille. But a boy had to be careful 
 and splash as he bathed, to frighten away alligators. 
 Paul had had the end of a finger nipped by a crawfish, 
 once, so he had some idea of what an alligator bite meant. 
 The trees in the very streets of towns as large as Verviller 
 were alive with monkeys and parrots, which fought and 
 screeched and made themselves generally delightful, and 
 sometimes darted down to knock off a man's hat or pull 
 a woman's hair. Besides, all the people were not white;
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 23 
 
 some were black, and others red, and they dressed pecu- 
 liarly or went without clothes, and they had among them- 
 selves battles much worse than monkey and parrot fights. 
 
 This, and more of the same kind, came from the geog- 
 raphy book. Easier to learn than lists of departements 
 with the prefectures and sous-prefectures and chefs-lieux, 
 and their populations and leading industries and natural 
 resources. 
 
 Yet it had seemed very remote, until he heard that the 
 old man who sat at a window in the rue du Port was born 
 in that country, and had taken a huge steamer to reach 
 France, and had travelled far across the ocean and not 
 seen land for a week or more. Paul had passed through 
 the rue du Port, and had noticed the old man; he altered 
 his way, so as to pass often. School unfortunately lay 
 in the opposite direction; but it was as near a road as any 
 for going to the river. Having first dwelt in a wash-house 
 composed principally of water, they had moved to a 
 dwelling so dry that it had no water at all. They paid 
 a neighbour for what had to be added to their wine; but 
 the river was the source for household uses, and Paul 
 the carrier. 
 
 The old man and his home were thenceforth objects 
 for a mystery and wonderment only the more alluring 
 because external aspects were ordinary. The house was 
 of stone and mortar, two-storeyed, with a door and win- 
 dows, like other dwellings of the rich; the old man was 
 not very different from Frenchmen or other people. 
 But Paul's dreams, which had wasted in fallow lands 
 since his grandfather had no longer been there to quicken 
 them, throve afresh. Signs were powerless to deceive. 
 Those rooms, seemingly innocent, must be filled with 
 extraordinary objects; their owner must reveal his true
 
 24 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 self in unguarded moments. Each time Paul passed, 
 he would devise secret, reprehensible plans for getting 
 into the house and knowing its master. Crime and lar- 
 ceny were alone excluded from such possibilities; they 
 were not right, and should they displease the old man, 
 then all chance would be forfeited. For his mad hope 
 was that this stranger might talk like his grandfather 
 and tell about monkeys and parrots, too. 
 
 Acting on previous thoughts, the first day Paul saw the 
 old man watching him, he smiled as to a friend. The 
 old man frowned fiercely. Frightened at what he had 
 done, Paul planned to let the old man forget; and then, 
 by the worst of luck, they met on the tow-path, and a 
 terribly unintelligible growl greeted him. Prudence 
 dictated that he should avoid further encounters till 
 many weeks had gone by. But somehow, his feet con- 
 tinued to seek the street. It was a habit they had fallen 
 into, and he vainly promised himself to stop them in 
 time next time. He had no trouble in going about with 
 lowered head; there was a weight to it, and to his eyes: 
 he could not have looked up to the window. 
 
 Much of this information Paul gave me only in the 
 sequel; on his first visit, he rested content with the salient 
 points, which sufficed to amaze me, with retrospective 
 remarks about the beloved grandfather in Arnan. The 
 greatest of my surprises was the revelation of the Southern 
 States as depicted by foreign geographers. Tropical splen- 
 dours, yes; but monkeys and parrots in the streets of such a 
 city as 1 choked out a furious correction, which elic- 
 ited queries about other races than the white, and about 
 the size of oranges and bananas picked from the tree. 
 
 "So you wanted to know me because of things like
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 25 
 
 these?" I asked, having difficulty in believing his words, 
 or himself, or my existence, or anything else. 
 
 "Yes," he admitted, and added: "I like to know things, 
 I went to the chdteau, the other day. We children of 
 the town aren't allowed in. But when the Marquis 
 is away, strangers may visit it; I was dressed, and slipped 
 in behind some ladies." He meant well-dressed, but I 
 quote his words. 
 
 "I saw and learned a great deal," he continued, "and 
 was very sad for a while after. I kept saying to myself: 
 'You can't ever live in a place like that! You must 
 work all day shut up in an office like father, and live in 
 three rooms that used to be a wash-house ! ' We've moved 
 out of the wash-house, but I can't help remembering it. 
 That night I cried in bed. And what can I do? There's 
 only school to help me ; and that will make me what father 
 is. But thinking of you, I said to myself, 'There's a 
 gentleman who must be very learned, and who is a stranger 
 and must have all sorts of ideas. He could teach me 
 even more than grandfather.'" 
 
 Fantastic phantasmagorical ! Who might he be, this 
 child who had so commanded my thoughts, from the 
 first time I noticed him; who now, at our first real meeting, 
 opened his heart and appealed for guidance as if it had 
 been his right to ask and my duty to give? 
 
 I reacted: 
 
 "Tell your mother I say the money is for you. And 
 now leave me, I must write." My tone was kindly, 
 while admitting of no question. But I had counted with- 
 out Paul. 
 
 "Mother said I must make you keep half." Still 
 resolute, he had grown paler. "Perhaps I had better 
 tell you precisely what happened at home. I don't
 
 26 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 dare take the money back, and shouldn't care to hide it. 
 I told her you had paid for the jug, and I held out the 
 money. She said you must take her for a fool and me for 
 a beggar. Two francs and a half would pay for a new jug 
 and for washing my clothes." He ducked, ~ and smiled 
 bashfully: "She washed the knickers herself, and the jug 
 cost one franc ninety-five!" 
 
 I rose: 
 
 "Very well. Have it as you wish. There is one remark 
 I would, however, make to you, young man, since you 
 want to learn from me. A boy ought not to discuss his 
 mother so freely with strangers." 
 
 Showing no shade of embarrassment, and as if sur- 
 prised by my ignorance: 
 
 "She's not my mother!" 
 
 "Well, a stepmother " 
 
 "She's not my stepmother. She and father just live 
 together." This came with perfect calm. "My mother 
 was living, so father couldn't marry. And by the time 
 she died, they had got used to it. I don't remember my 
 mother; I was too little. But I've heard grandfather 
 talk about it." 
 
 "Then the grandfather you love so much is your 
 father's father," I said, seizing upon any remark to bridge 
 a disastrous silence. 
 
 "Oh, no! Mother's " He turned on me wide, 
 
 tragic eyes whose grey seemed to darken; he swayed 
 slightly. Desperately, he blurted out: "He can't be 
 my grandfather!" 
 
 I looked on, helpless and remorseful. 
 
 For some moments he did not move. 
 
 "I shall love him just the same," he said. "It doesn't 
 matter."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 27 
 
 Gravely he shook my hand; yet he did not go to the 
 door. Fishing deep into his pocket, he brought forth 
 a small black object. 
 
 "A note-book," he explained. "Almost new; I have 
 drawn on the first page, you can tear that out. If you 
 write down where your papers are, you won't have to 
 waste time looking for them." He put it on the table 
 beside the money, and held out his hand again: "Au 
 revoir." 
 
 After a glance round the study whose confusion was 
 undeniable, my eyes sought the boy's modest offering. 
 It was many years since any one had thought of making 
 me a gift. 
 
 IV 
 
 ON FINE summer afternoons I would often drive to the 
 foot of the hill called Ripote, and leaving my trap with 
 its driver under the trees where the road lies level, would 
 walk up a fair incline to heights commanding a broad 
 view. Below my favourite spot a moss-covered rock 
 in a natural arbour Verviller and its part-slate, part-tile 
 roofs rested upon the shining river like a gorgeous butter- 
 fly a-glitter on a silken thread; as the sunlight danced, 
 I could all but see the flutter of wings about to take flight 
 and draw up the thread that had held them. 
 
 The day was more radiant than usual, my thought 
 more at peace with the landscape, when steps approached 
 which I did not heed, and Paul's voice surprised me: 
 
 "You don't mind?" After an instant, he added: "I 
 followed, because I should like to talk to you." 
 
 Months had passed, during which we had exchanged 
 a certain number of smiles, and occasionally a few words; 
 but he had not broken upon my solitude nor shown
 
 28 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 obtrusive tendencies. And it was because I would not 
 have refused him that I had respected this reserve, as 
 free from awkwardness as from affectation. A wistful 
 look had crept into his eyes; his features had grown more 
 delicate, his cheeks paler. 
 
 "There was nothing else for me to do," he continued, 
 sitting near me. "For a long time I wondered where the 
 carriage was taking you; then I learned how you left it 
 and walked up the hill; and once, when we were here, I 
 found this." He drew from his pocket a small, neatly 
 folded piece of paper on which a few notes were scribbled 
 in my hand. "I knew you didn't want it, because you 
 had checked off each item. That's what you did with 
 the papers to be thrown away, in your study." 
 
 If his arrival had taken me by surprise, the knowledge 
 which he showed of my methods astonished me. Yet 
 displeasure overclouded other sentiments. This retreat 
 was lost. 
 
 "So you and your mother come here?" I asked. 
 
 "No. We did come. But after finding the paper, 
 I told mother there were snakes. I did see something 
 very like a snake, only it was a stick. She's afraid, now. 
 I knew you liked to be alone. You don't mind my being 
 here to-day, though, do you when it's necessary?" 
 
 "There was a time when you considered it possible to 
 come to see me," I observed, baffled by so much mystery. 
 
 "Mother had told me to go." 
 
 His reply contained an element of unfrankness new to 
 our intercourse. 
 
 "You forget, young man, that you admitted schemes 
 for getting into my house and seeing if I wasn't a monkey 
 trained to pick oranges in trees." 
 
 "I don't think I could have said quite that; I only
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 29 
 
 wished I might," he corrected gravely. He did not deny 
 the charge about the monkey. "But mother said not to 
 go again." 
 
 "And why, pray? Did she fear the savage might eat 
 you?" 
 
 "I don't know," Paul answered. Then, with a lighten- 
 ing of the eyes, "No, I don't think it was that." But 
 he did not seem sure. 
 
 He had been watching the river. With an abrupt 
 transition, his eyes still in the distance, he said: 
 
 "I'm learning to fish. By going with father and seeing 
 how he does it. That way, it's easy to learn." 
 
 "Was that what you came to tell me?" 
 
 "No." His tone remained very casual. "I didn't 
 get my certificate the government certificate for prim- 
 ary studies. Mother says she's going to send me to a 
 training-ship for cabin-boys. Father doesn't say anything. 
 But I think he will remember I'm his son. Or do you 
 think he won't care? I shall run away, then." 
 
 Visions of Paul running away to me, scaling the garden 
 wall to reach the back of the house while his mother 
 battered down the front door, roused me. I became 
 very serious: 
 
 "A boy who fails at his examination doesn't deserve i 
 anybody's interest." 
 
 "I know," he said stolidly. 
 
 "Have you any excuse?" 
 
 "They say I am stupid." 
 
 The tone coveyed no regret nor mortification. 
 
 "Perhaps only ignorant," I suggested. "How would 
 you divide fifteen by six?" 
 
 For a moment he stared wildly, seeking counsel from 
 the distant town, from the near-by trees; twice at the
 
 30 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 verge of surrender, he resolved upon another effort. His 
 face cleared, his eyes shone: 
 
 "How I should divide fifteen by six? Why, with my 
 arithmetic!" 
 
 "If you were to go to school another year, and use your 
 wits, you would pass," I said. 
 
 "No." He turned a strange hue; his voice was scarcely 
 a breath: "That was what they wanted. But it's no use. 
 I won't work like my father." 
 
 "Aren't you rather young to decide? Discouragement 
 is natural now, but " 
 
 Paul had become so very pale, his lips were so startlingly 
 colourless and his lashes drooped so heavy and nerveless, 
 that I stopped. 
 
 "I failed on purpose," he whispered with a tinge of de- 
 spairing sullenness. "If they make me go back, I shall fail 
 on purpose once more. There's nothing else for me to do." 
 
 "And what will you gain?" 
 
 "I shall work, but not like him." 
 
 "They will send you to the training-ship." 
 
 His head hung very low, but his voice gained strength; 
 
 "I would rather be killed than kill poor people." 
 
 "You don't mean " 
 
 Then the story came. 
 
 Some months before, his grandfather had visited them. 
 Paul still loved him just the same, and didn't betray 
 the fact that he knew of their lost relationship. But 
 things weren't as in Arnan. Grandfather, who had been 
 so very wise, was less interesting, somehow; and he slept 
 downstairs, so there could be no listening at night. A 
 pity, wasn't it? For so many things would have been 
 easier to understand.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 31 
 
 That visit had served as pretext for various merry 
 parties. 
 
 "If you are not quick, we shall leave you," his mother 
 called from below, one day. "Who ever saw such a slow, 
 lazy boy?" 
 
 By "we" she meant not only grandfather but also the 
 black and white spaniel, Diane. Her strongest affection 
 seemed to be for Diane. Once she had walked eight 
 miles across country because a railway ticket had been 
 refused the dog. "And she did right," Paul paid the 
 generous tribute. "Diane is like a child and cries when 
 left at home." 
 
 From his room, Paul answered half-heartedly : "I'm 
 coming." Still he did not hurry. His mother had for- 
 bidden him to wear the brown corduroy blouse or the 
 blue knickers. He must put on his good clothes, a new 
 suit of salt-peppery drill with an exceedingly baggy 
 coat and trousers wrinkling down to his calves, and a 
 cotton shirt though he had no clean collar and must go 
 with a bone stud at his throat. Also, he was commanded 
 to renounce white canvas shoes for the sake of heavy 
 boots. His mother wished him to be "dressed." He 
 repeated the word, not realising how nice-looking, how 
 charming he was in the brown and blue, and how graceful 
 were his movements in those light shoes; not suspecting 
 that he became a workingman's son, with only his delicate 
 features and scrupulous cleanliness to retrieve him from 
 commonness, when clad and shod according to his mother's 
 idea of fashion. So he dressed as told to do; but it went 
 slowly. 
 
 Only a dim idea of what awaited him had been hinted. 
 He had often heard his father allude to such things; his 
 mother, when she listened, would say with indifference:
 
 32 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "People ought to learn to manage!" He would shudder, 
 not knowing why. By going to-day, he would know; 
 but he was afraid. 
 
 Diane led the procession, mother and grandfather 
 coming next. Paul followed some yards behind, tying 
 boot-laces, losing his hat, or inventing other means for 
 gaining time whenever they stopped and called him. 
 His father, to maintain administrative dignity, had 
 gone on from the office, alone. 
 
 They passed through the town, and reached the out- 
 skirts. Not the pleasant, open-aired suburb overhanging 
 the river, where there were big, beautiful cottages built 
 of brick and stone, or of wood painted several different 
 hues, with jagged roofs and windows at unexpected 
 places. A dingy suburb off towards the plain, remote, 
 forsaken, sparsely scattered. 
 
 The last house was what they sought. Beyond lay the 
 little settlement of outcasts living with many children in 
 damaged railway freight vans taken off their wheels 
 one van for each family. Where the clumsy sliding door 
 was drawn back, a rough wooden partition might be seen, 
 making a two-roomed "home"; round it ran a small 
 space, rubbish-filled, perhaps called "garden." The 
 boys and girls who lived there were careless in speech 
 and ways and person; bare, dirty skin showed under the 
 rags, their hair rambled in unexplored thickets; their talk, 
 when perchance overheard, savoured of midnight prowls. 
 
 Though Paul had never seen, or at all events noticed, the 
 house, he knew its occupant. Everybody called her 
 Mere Rollinet, and said she was mad. Entirely harmless, 
 her eccentricity consisted in going her own way, muttering 
 to herself. A delusion haunted her, that her only son, 
 killed in 1870, was still alive and would come back at what
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 33 
 
 she called "the end of the war." She did not often talk 
 of him; perhaps she had been offended by joking questions, 
 or else was slowly forgetting. The idea seemed to gain 
 strength when she saw young soldiers pass, each autumn, 
 after their conscription; the smooth faces, the untrained 
 gait, the ill-fitting garments swung upon strong young 
 bodies and long loose limbs, would rouse her intelligence 
 as if a familiar voice had shouted in her ear; she would 
 start, peer into the ranks, try to identify the boys one by 
 one; then would reel back with a low wail, before rushing 
 on once more, muttering, muttering the eternal complaint 
 which none ever grasped not even herself, poor soul. 
 
 Mere Rollinet's trade was mattress-making; she could 
 do only a few hours' work each day, going from house to 
 house. Not enough to live on, much less pay rent and 
 taxes. Yet she must have a home for her son. The 
 landlord had shown mercy, and she had provided for 
 the taxes. Then her strength failed steadily, and she 
 could pay nothing. Charity came to her assistance; but 
 she took to drink, and was struck off the rolls of the de- 
 serving poor. 
 
 It was a miserable two-roomed hut, with a leaky roof, 
 an unsound door, and a window which looked as if it 
 could not be opened. Voices were heard within; Mere 
 Rollinet's, always in the same whining tone, and Paul's 
 father's, arguing. Her voice stayed in one place; his 
 increased and dwindled as he came and went. Some- 
 times both were lost in a noise of heavy, rough-shod steps. 
 
 The door opened wide. A large bundle of clothes flew 
 out, and bounced down to the rickety gate. The old 
 woman, her congested face aflame, her scant yellowed 
 hair a-bristle, flew after, shrieking. 
 
 Men brought the furniture into the street. Two broken
 
 34 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 chairs. A trunk battered out of shape. A doorless 
 armoire with carved oaken cornice. Some rusted cooking 
 utensils, an uncleaned pot, an old stove with a pipe 
 like a sieve. A few unaccountable objects, including a 
 pair of mantel ornaments. 
 
 Perhaps Mere Rollinet was moving. But why the 
 crowd, the fuss, the curiosity? Paul had watched people 
 move, at appropriate seasons; this was not the season, 
 nor yet the way. 
 
 The furniture was stacked in a hand-cart and trundled 
 off. Mere Rollinet did not follow, but threw herself 
 across the bundle of clothes, sobbing softly, trying to 
 speak and unable to utter a sound. Paul's father came; 
 he and the crowd moved away. Only Paul and the group 
 of coarse boys lingered. 
 
 Whether that her wild grief had spent itself, or that the 
 clearing stage brought relief, the old woman began to 
 articulate words which she had been murmuring. Paul 
 heard them distinctly: 
 
 "Cast out in the offal jetee dans le dechetl" 
 
 His mother, with the crowd, had gone to an open space 
 not far off; Diane insanely leaped and barked about. 
 Mere Rollinet dragged her bundle out to the street, put 
 it against the fence of her last home, and sat there, for- 
 lornly propped. One of the coarse boys had been gnawing 
 a large, hard crust; he flung it on her knees, crying: 
 
 "There, take that, la mere I" 
 
 Her furniture was being sold. Paul knew at last what 
 it all meant. A seizure for taxes part of the day's work 
 for his father. His mother bought for half a franc the 
 mantel ornaments, little statues looking like lead which 
 were found to be bronze. Between the chatter of the 
 seller, the tramping of men, the comments of women,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 35 
 
 Mere Rollinet's wail would come, rising to a thin screech 
 and falling to a hoarse moan: 
 
 "Cast out in the offal jetee dans le dechet!" 
 
 Paul went home, and got his books, to study at the 
 kitchen table. His eyes, large and fixed, glowed as by 
 their own intense light while the rays of the lamp shone 
 full into them. 
 
 "Eh, toil" his mother scolded shrilly. "Will you mind 
 your business and learn that lesson? Your laziness will 
 yet make you fail at the examinations!" 
 
 "If you don't get your certificate you can't enter the 
 government service," his father admonished contentedly. 
 
 Paul had gone so far, with steadily growing but still 
 controlled emotion, not attempting to do more than sketch 
 external aspects which had stamped themselves vividly, 
 cruelly on his mind. As he paused and looked up at me, 
 he seemed to sound my sentiments before continuing. 
 His face was very white and drawn: 
 
 "All at once, I knew what I should be expected to do. I 
 knew I couldn't. And I'm only a boy, not big enough to 
 argue. There was only one thing for me. If I failed 
 to get my school certificate, they couldn't they couldn't 
 ever make me " 
 
 His head fell forward on his knees, and he broke into a 
 passion of weeping. 
 
 V 
 
 I DID not move nor speak. Yet perhaps I turned my 
 head slightly aside. For my cheeks, too, were moist. 
 
 His tears did not last long. With his forehead pressed 
 against the arms he had folded across his upraised knees, 
 he sat quite still. What I saw most clearly of him was 
 the desolate curve of the back and the drooping head
 
 36 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 with its velvet-like, well-planted hair, and the neck, 
 firm, clean-cut, resolute in the midst of this abandonment, 
 a column of faith unshaken by the storm. I don't think 
 that the possible significance of a neck had ever until 
 then been borne in upon me. His testified that though 
 the heart might be bruised and the mind bewildered, a 
 reserve of control lay between the two and would say 
 the final word. 
 
 After an impassive silence he sighed deeply, and looked 
 up not towards me, but at the landscape. I spoke : 
 
 "Paul, I can't discuss with you the principle of this." 
 
 "I had hoped you would," he said, very low. 
 
 "There are some things I may point out," I went on 
 evasively. "Provided you will answer a few questions." 
 
 "Anything. You know how to understand." 
 
 His decision had been taken six months before, I learned. 
 Then he had to seek means for living up to it. Failure 
 at the last minute would have meant only severe punish- 
 ment, because he would have had no excuse; and perhaps 
 he might have lacked the courage to fail a second time. 
 But let him be really so ignorant that he was acknowledged 
 in advance to stand barely a chance, and everything 
 would seem natural. 
 
 At home, there were continual scenes about his slighted 
 work. Since he did not like untruth, he could only seek 
 protection in silence. 
 
 "When mother has taken hold of an idea, she's never 
 the first to let go," he commented. 
 
 "If she had had a son of her own, I wonder if he would 
 have inherited the trait?" I asked. 
 
 The ghost of the wondering smile flashed in his eyes 
 and parted his lips for a second. He grew solemn again, 
 but the atmosphere was relieved.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 37 
 
 Adopting a policy of trifling, he had played on any 
 pretext. It came naturally, once you got used to it, he 
 informed me. A fly on the window-pane proved an ex- 
 ceedingly interesting object, when one had grammar to 
 learn. 
 
 The weekly school reports reflected his attitude. Con- 
 duct always "mediocre," work never more than "pass- 
 able," attention usually "deplorable." His mother her- 
 self ended by admitting it to be hopeless; though she 
 surprised him by saying to a neighbour that in other 
 respects he was a good boy. 
 
 Incredible as the entire situation appeared, his tone 
 and manner, added to recollections of my previous ex- 
 perience with him, brought conviction. But I stopped 
 him with a question. Looking six months ahead in those 
 schemes to forfeit his certificate 
 
 Not six whole months, he corrected me. He had not 
 been clever enough to think it all out at once. For some 
 time he had only drifted, seeing the end and not knowing 
 how to reach it. 
 
 Well, say several months, I resumed. Plotting syste- 
 matically, looking ahead towards the certificate he had 
 resolved not to get, had he thought of seeing beyond? 
 Had he reflected that some sort of an education was needed 
 for any career? 
 
 Why that was precisely the point! Paul replied, 
 puzzled by my denseness. He knew the projects for 
 him. A commercial course when he had got his primary 
 certificate; then an office position, preferably in a bank, 
 while waiting to enter the tax service with his father. 
 That would not be living, would it? He wanted to do 
 something, no matter what; to do something. 
 
 Unwilling to answer, I bade him go on.
 
 38 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Making bicycles was doing something; they were useful. 
 He had a friend who could help him, the son of the very 
 M. Lavenu from whom I got my carriage. They had 
 been to school together, years before, at the Brothers'; 
 and had separated, and forgotten each other, and met 
 again recently. Paul did not play with him. Marcel 
 Lavenu was a bad boy, but willing to help. 
 
 I confess to having wondered whether a great principle 
 had as much to do with Paul's heroic decision, as a wish 
 to tinker at bicycles with the rediscovered friend who was 
 a "bad boy" but "willing to help." For a youth who 
 persistently neglects his lessons, and cultivates sym- 
 pathies for flies on window-panes, and admits a weakness 
 for rural life, the prospect of riding his employer's bicycles 
 must have charms. 
 
 "What shall I do?" he asked. 
 
 By way of reply, I observed that he could never aspire 
 to be more than a workman, if he fulfilled his present 
 intentions. 
 
 This startled him. Not the idea, but the fact I should 
 raise it as an objection. He was quite willing, he assured 
 me. A workman earned his own money, and earned it 
 by making things. Not at all like being in a shop or an 
 office. The difference was that a workman made things, 
 and didn't just handle what other people had produced, 
 clearing a penny here and there. 
 
 I don't know where he got that notion of the importance 
 of "making things." He could not explain it to me then 
 nor later; he merely kept repeating it more emphatically 
 in the face of my questions. This boy of thirteen saw into 
 the future and read the conflict which must succeed 
 clashes of capital and labour or of class and mass: the 
 struggle of the world's creators of all thoughts and all
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 39 
 
 objects whatsoever, against the united powers of the unpro- 
 ductive. 
 
 "Father is better than a workman," Paul went on. 
 "I've heard him tell mother he had relatives in Brittany, 
 well-bred people who wouldn't have anything to do with 
 him because of her. But that doesn't keep us from being 
 what we are, just as father's education only taught him 
 to drive out poor people from their homes. If they would 
 
 let me tell them if they would " His voice broke; 
 
 his lashes fell, and he looked quickly away. 
 
 "There's just the possibility they might listen to me; 
 do you want me to try?" I asked. "But there's no hurry 
 about it; and meanwhile I'll make a bargain with you. 
 It's all very well for you to begin as a workman, provided 
 you have the prospect of advancing. Do you think you 
 can do that, learning to speak and to think like apprentices 
 and cyclists, and closing all the chambers of your mind 
 except those you need for manual purposes? I promise 
 to help you in your own choice of a career, if you will prom- 
 ise to go back to school and try hard for the certificate 
 next year. Meanwhile, would you like to come and help 
 put my papers in order, as you once suggested?" 
 
 Paul sprang up, and seized my hand in both of his. 
 
 The sun set, darting fire-rays through swaying trees 
 which seemed to shrink from the scorching touch. In 
 the plain, Verviller, robbed of butterfly glory, brooded 
 dull like a grey moth impaled upon a wire of shining steel. 
 Lights that glimmered one by one, and formed sudden 
 tiny clusters, would lend for an instant to its wings a faint 
 semblance of stirring in the evening breeze. But the 
 movement was short, convulsed, followed by the stillness 
 of slow-creeping death.
 
 40 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 For more than an hour I had been alone on the hill- 
 top, revolving in mind the bargain made. I could see 
 Paul through the gathering dusk as if he had yet been 
 beside me his head bowed over the arms he had crossed 
 on his upraised knees. I was asking myself if I had re- 
 grets. And I thank God humbly when I remember 
 that there was in me no shadow of turning. A word 
 had ended my life of peaceful isolation. But without that 
 word I should have been for myself an object of secret 
 reproach. 
 
 I pass over the scene which Leonie made me for staying 
 out so late and risking chills. But next morning our talk 
 was to the purpose. 
 
 "Leonie," I said, "the work here must be getting rather 
 hard. I intend to get somebody to help you in my 
 study." 
 
 That was the awkward detail. My study! Never did 
 I allow Leonie to have her own way there. 
 
 Her small, parchment-hued, much-wrinkled face, with 
 its silvery hair smooth under the starched and frilled cap, 
 the whole admirably in keeping with her trim little 
 figure and grey dress and spotless apron, gave her an 
 appearance of mildness. But I knew how to read her 
 steady eyes and her square jaw which often grew squarer. 
 
 "You may think you need help rather in the kitchen," 
 I ventured. 
 
 "My kitchen!" she snorted. "I should throw out 
 of doors, by the two shoulders, any wench who came to 
 disturb me! Help elsewhere, if you will but never in 
 my kitchen. It would do more good for the front steps 
 than for your study they, at least, can be kept tidy." 
 
 "Quite so," I hastily assented. "As things are at 
 present, you are perfectly right. But things must change,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 41 
 
 Leonie. I have developed a distaste for confusion. My 
 papers must be sorted, and kept in order. Therefore 
 I intend to take a little assistant a sort of junior secre- 
 tary." 
 
 She merely sniffed and grunted. 
 
 "Is there anybody you could suggest? I know so few 
 people in Verviller." The hope she would mention 
 Paul was faint, but worth trying; and she would be 
 flattered. 
 
 "So long as it's not the Clermont boy, it's of no con- 
 sequence," was my reward from Leonie. 
 
 "Young Clermont? Just the thing," I said. "Find 
 out the address, can you?" 
 
 "Address?" came her scornful query. "What do you 
 want with that? The woman has brought herself, and 
 him with her. They were downstairs when I came up 
 to tell you, and they are waiting now, unless they have 
 made off with my pails and brooms." 
 
 Really, Leonie was too rough. Respect ought to have 
 suggested that my silver spoons would be the prey. 
 But there was no changing her. 
 
 "Why did you not tell me?" I demanded. 
 
 "As if I hadn't first thing on entering! When I 
 came into the room, I said and they are my very words 
 'The boy Clermont and his mother, whom Monsieur sent 
 for, are downstairs!' Monsieur grows more forgetful 
 each day." 
 
 "Show them up," I ordered. 
 
 For a wonder, she went without demur. Doubtless 
 she suspected that I should call her back: 
 
 "No! I shall see them in the dining-room." 
 
 Paul's self-styled mother received me airily, almost 
 breezily :
 
 42 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "So this boy had been worrying you! Not a bad boy, 
 if he weren't so hard-headed and clumsy. I scolded 
 him for knocking you with that jug. What has he done 
 this time? He said you wanted to speak to me." 
 
 The boy had done no wrong, I assured her. I needed 
 his help during the holidays, say three tunes a week, and 
 would pay him, of course. 
 
 By all means, she said; money didn't matter; glad to be 
 rid of him. If he bothered her much more, she would 
 be rid of him entirely. In fact, she had almost made up 
 her mind to send him to the Ecole des mousses 
 
 Paul stood between us with bowed head. There was 
 no humiliation about his pose; only patient waiting with 
 an inward note of confidence, a pose which for grace as 
 well as eloquence might have inspired a classical sculptor. 
 She shot a swift glance to make sure his eyes were lowered; 
 and then winked at me. Yes, this amazing woman 
 positively winked at me over the boy's head, there in 
 my own dining-room. 
 
 "But an ignorant lad would be of no use here," I said. 
 "Unless it is agreed that he goes back to school next year, 
 and unless he promises to study his very best for that 
 certificate " 
 
 "More than anybody could make him do," said the 
 woman. "Only yesterday morning " 
 
 Paul looked up: 
 
 "I promise now." 
 
 "There! I knew I'd get it out of him sooner or later," 
 she went on. "I always have my way. Do you know, 
 when I was a girl, and not ugly, the boys used to tell me, 
 they were so impudent 
 
 "It's understood, then," I cut her short. "Good-day, 
 Madame Clermont. Paul, au revoir."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 43 
 
 Often, since, I have wondered if this was the true cause 
 of some of the events which followed. 
 
 As Paul left the room, he sent me a look heavy with 
 doubt and with pain. He was thinking that the chances 
 were she would not again allow him to cross my threshold 
 and he was pledged to study. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE woman swept the boy away and hurried him home, 
 not speaking. To keep beyond her reach and avert ir- 
 reparable words, he announced that water was needed 
 much water. For a couple of hours he trotted to the 
 river-side and back, until every jug, jar, and tub was 
 filled, and some twice over, when they could be emptied 
 without fear of detection. At last she fell asleep in a 
 chair. 
 
 He tiptoed out and ran to the tobacco-shop, where he 
 fumbled nervously at the picture post-card table. 
 
 "I don't find what I want," he felt constrained to re- 
 mark, seeing much attention centred upon him. As a 
 rule, his errands were for his father. 
 
 "When one doesn't want anything in particular it 
 takes more than a day to find," came the caustic reply. 
 "But if you did want something, and asked for it, I 
 could give satisfaction. Mine is the most complete col- 
 lection in town." 
 
 "I want a landscape," he said irresolutely. "A hilly 
 landscape, with trees." 
 
 "Here are views of the Vosges. If you don't like them, 
 you are hard to please." 
 
 "Couldn't couldn't it be something nearer to Ver- 
 viller?" 
 
 "Not unless you will be content with the Ripote."
 
 44 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 An unopened package was laid before him. His heart 
 beat like the whir of a bicycle wheel. But he controlled 
 his emotion, and said carelessly: 
 
 "That might do." 
 
 With trembling fingers he took the cards one by one. 
 There! The very view he wanted, and in colours. Artis- 
 tic and most beautiful, with a bright blue sky and brilliant 
 green trees and smudgy brown streaks for trunks and rocks 
 and other things. The identical spot where he had sat 
 the evening before could be guessed, if not exactly recog- 
 nised. It cost ten centimes, and the stamp, ten more; 
 his entire fortune having consisted of twenty-five cen- 
 times, he went out with only one sou remaining to him in 
 all the world. But he would not be driven to run away 
 from the training-ship, if he managed this affair properly. 
 
 Next, he must write the card at home, slip out to the 
 letter-box, and get back again before mother woke. The 
 risk would have been slighter if he had gone straight to 
 the post-office and written there. But nothing so delicate 
 and complicated could be attempted in public. 
 
 On the table which supported his mother's arms and 
 head, he wrote: 
 
 "Quant viendre-je vou voire. Votre petite ami, Paul." 
 
 The penmanship was excellent, but the spelling excited 
 his particular admiration. Only the question of a signa- 
 ture worried him. He had neglected to leave a place for his 
 family name in front of the Christian name, as in school 
 lists and birth-certificates. So he made a new line 
 "Clermont, Paul." Considerable space still yawned at 
 the bottom of the card, where a sketch would look very 
 well. An artistic group consisting of a pen, an ink-pot, 
 and what might have been a note-book, presently ma- 
 terialised.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 45 
 
 When he returned the second time, his mother had not 
 yet roused. Contentedly, he sat far back with eyes turned 
 to the window; one foot caught under him, the other 
 swinging slowly, easily; his fancies in that mysterious 
 house where oranges and bananas ought to grow, and 
 monkeys and heathen should rage, though they did not. 
 
 She woke at last. The morning's episode seemed for- 
 gotten. Complaining of a headache attributed to sultry 
 weather, she told him they would go to the woods, to 
 get some air. Incidentally, that air was never admitted 
 within doors; house-windows must be kept hermetically 
 sealed for purposes of health. If questioned, she could 
 only answer that "fevers" came from leaving windows 
 open, especially at night. She might have been surprised 
 to learn that her ideas were traditions handed down since 
 mediaeval days when neither drains, sewers, garbage- 
 cans, nor public hygiene existed; and that, the foulness 
 of streets having gradually disappeared, the air of towns 
 was no longer necessarily poisonous. 
 
 The fields with mellowing crops lay on either hand along 
 the road. Reaching the trees at the foot of the steep 
 incline, her fatigue grew so great that she settled down 
 on some fallen leaves, and produced her knitting. It 
 looked very like the piece she had in Arnan, and not much 
 bigger; it had been gently moth-eaten at one corner. 
 
 Paul got up and crept to the road-side. 
 
 A cloud of dust began to approach from town; the 
 carriage came on, swept past. For a moment or two he 
 stood rooted, with parted lips. Then he saw a slight figure 
 disentangle itself from the dust-cloud, which increased to 
 a species of whirl. Marcel Lavenu sprang at him. 
 
 "What are you doing, waiting there like a head on a 
 post?" Marcel demanded.
 
 46 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Hush mother's sleeping!" Paul warned. 
 
 "So is my grandmother. Are you sleeping, too? 
 You look like it and a nightmare, at that!" 
 
 "It's I who shall be scolded, if you wake her." 
 
 "Well, then you scold her! Let's catch up with that 
 old rattle-trap, and steal a ride, both of us. Quick, 
 we can do it, she's slowed down." 
 
 "You do, if you wish." Paul hesitated, and asked: 
 "Was M. Aubret inside with you?" 
 
 "No, nor inside with himself." Marcel rounded his 
 eyes solemnly. "Got the glanders, to-day." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Cold in the head, you sort of stupid! Or perhaps only 
 a chill in his toes. Nobody over there but the driver, 
 who's off on an errand. I was stealing a ride." 
 
 "In your father's carriage?" 
 
 "No, under it. I can get inside any day, that's no 
 fun. But I wanted to steal a ride; and I played motor- 
 car. It's to-morrow I begin work at the bicycle-box. 
 You coming with me? Did you get your certificate? I 
 did." 
 
 Paul smiled the bashful smile. If Marcel Lavenu had 
 passed, then anybody could. 
 
 "You failed?" Marcel went on. "That's what you 
 get for leaving the Brothers' school. Now, for the last 
 time, are you coming? She's at a walk, we can still do it. 
 All right, go back to sleep, then and you'd better go 
 back to Frere Alexandre next winter!" 
 
 With which he piped up shrilly: 
 
 " Trois petits pretres 
 Sortant du paradis, 
 Avec la bouche pleine 
 Jusqu'd demain midi "
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 47 
 
 "Oh, don't wake mother!" Paul pleaded. 
 
 Marcel laughed, made a face like an overfed squirrel, 
 spat more or less a distance of a yard and two inches, 
 wiped his chin on his sleeve, and raced off in the wake 
 of his equipage, singing louder than before : 
 
 "Clarinette, clarinette, 
 Mes soldiers ont des lunettes, 
 Pomme, poire, abricot, 
 II y en a dans le pot, 
 Dans la cuiller a pot " 
 
 He whirled abruptly, stopped with one foot extended, 
 looked back, put his hands trumpet-fashion, and ended 
 the refrain in a mad yell before speeding on once more : 
 
 "Nu-mt-ro ZeRo!" 
 
 Rather personal, perhaps. But Marcel was unusual 
 and delightful. Paul envied him generously. 
 
 So there was nothing to be done. An answer to the 
 card would come or not. Perhaps to-night, perhaps to- 
 morrow morning. One way or the other, matters would 
 probably be sealed when his father reached home. If 
 it all seemed vague if mother remembered her anger 
 
 Taking some paper and a pencil from his pocket, he 
 sat down under a tree, using his knee as desk, and prac- 
 tised drawing books until he did one conspicuously 
 unlike either a box or a house. He had not been pleased 
 with the note-book sketched on the post-card. 
 
 His father came home very tired and irritable. Dinner 
 was eaten in dull silence. The master of the establish- 
 ment took out his pipe and pouch, and the morning 
 paper. 
 
 "Paul!" he said.
 
 48 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 That sufficed, added to a half-franc. Within five 
 minutes, Paul was running in again with eyes a-sparkle 
 from the briskness of his gait and the boldness of a sudden 
 determination. He would broach the subject himself. 
 
 "I say he shall not go," he heard his mother declare in 
 her final accent. 
 
 Taking the little square blue package of caporal ordi- 
 naire, Clermont filled his pipe, struck a match, slowly 
 puffed at the flare, and smoked. As he put the news- 
 paper hi position, an edge knocked his glasses crooked; 
 he read on, not seeming aware of this, nor of the miniature 
 lamp reflected in each lens. 
 
 One thing, at least, stood out clearly in the midst of 
 Paul's desolation. If he had to run away now, only a 
 solitary sou remained to him. 
 
 A distant knocking sounded through the quiet room. 
 The postman. What good would that do? Paul got 
 up in a sort of trance, made for the window by mistake, 
 collided with the stove, and finally reached the hall. 
 At one end were the stairs leading up to his room, and 
 the door of his parents' room; at the other was the street 
 entrance. He turned to the left, as if going to bed, when 
 a second series of knocks recalled him. 
 
 He went to the door and opened it. The night was very 
 dark. 
 
 "Does M. Clermont live here?" asked the voice of which 
 he had been thinking. "Oh! It's Paul, isn't it? Will 
 you tell your father I should like to speak to him? You 
 had better ask." 
 
 For Paul already led the way. He felt that if his friend 
 were left for so much as a moment, there could be no meet- 
 ing again. 
 
 "Father is at home. I know he can see you," the boy
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 49 
 
 said. "Come in, please. I'm forbidden to leave the 
 door open at night." 
 
 Oh, Paul, Paul ! And yet, this was an assertion of fact. 
 
 M. Aubret entered the kitchen, announced thus: 
 
 "Father! It's the gentleman!" 
 
 The mother was sitting deep down in a chair, her plump 
 arms folded, her broad shoulders rounded, her head bent 
 forward with brow lowering under the shock of yellowish 
 hair. The father, a frail, debilitated, thin-haired man, 
 had eyes which were blue and straightforward when he 
 raised them; his nose and chin indicated weakness. 
 There would have been no trace of commonness in all 
 this, had he not let his moustache trail shaggily over his 
 mouth. Unquestionably, as his son had intimated, he 
 was politely born; of his own docile will he had glided 
 down that plane which gives immunity from barriers. 
 
 During a brief pause, M. Aubret observed them, and 
 also this room where they cooked, ate, and lived, in work- 
 man taste, whereas the house allowed of the courtesies 
 of existence. Its most conspicuous aspect was tidiness. 
 The furniture was principally of the showy, dear-at-a- 
 cheap-price style; but a tall, old-fashioned desk with 
 wrought brass mountings had been placed against the 
 wall, far from dangerous contact with the stove's heat. 
 
 On the mantel were two statuettes of XVIIIth Century 
 bronze; those Paul had mentioned as coming from the 
 sale of old Mere Rollinet. In Paris, they would have 
 yielded gold. 
 
 The woman did not move. The man took his pipe, 
 put it on the newspaper, removed his glasses, laid them 
 carefully to one side, and got up. 
 
 "I have made an offer to your son," M. Aubret said. 
 "Your wife has probably told you the details on which
 
 50 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 we agreed. But I wished for your confirmation, as the 
 boy's father." 
 
 No one spoke. M. Aubret caught Paul's eye, and 
 read tragedy there. The boy was colourless, with droop- 
 ing lashes and quivering lids; his lithe, graceful form rested 
 limply against the door. An instant's animation came 
 as he looked up, just once; then he fell back into the 
 desolate, unresisting pose. 
 
 "I also wished to tell you," M. Aubret resumed, speak- 
 ing more slowly, "that I shall see what can be done for 
 him at school, next winter." 
 
 The atmosphere was less tense, but no acknowledgment 
 came in words. 
 
 "Three times a week, for an hour, to help me with the 
 papers in my study; I shall pay five francs a week," 
 M. Aubret added. "You surely cannot complain of 
 such terms?" 
 
 Clermont's amazement showed that he had not been 
 enlightened about the financial arrangements : 
 
 "Why, Monsieur, you are too liberal! Certainly, the 
 boy is at your orders." 
 
 "I shall expect you to-morrow at three, Paul," M. 
 Aubret said. "Good-night." 
 
 Paul followed him out in silence, closed the door very 
 quietly, and came back not daring to breathe. He knew 
 it was not yet finished. But his mother's explosion, 
 begun during his short absence, was never destined to 
 reach its end. 
 
 "And I say you shall hold your tongue!" the man 
 roared, bringing his fist down on the table with a crash. 
 The dog woke up and growled; a dish on a shelf slipped 
 flat without breaking. "Paul, you shall go to that gentle- 
 man's to-morrow. And now, to bed!" He waited for
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 51 
 
 the boy to bolt out of the room. Then he cried: "It is my 
 son, name of a name!" 
 
 Wonderful! Father had never before defied mother 
 nor defended him by right of fatherhood. 
 
 Late into the night, Paul lay wide awake, thinking. 
 He had reached that age of ages when a boy begins to 
 discover himself and fancies he has discovered the world. 
 
 VII 
 
 No QUESTION as to what he should do there occurred 
 to Paul. Suffice it that wonderful things must happen. 
 
 He was expected to sort many papers of different sizes, 
 but looking much alike unless he puzzled over the first 
 letter of a word written at the top. No variety about this, 
 especially with words in a tongue he could not read. 
 Still, he went home fairly pleased. 
 
 I found him most cheerfully, most delightfully ineffi- 
 cient. If I say "delightfully," it is for two reasons. First, 
 there is a certain pleasure about any definite conclusion 
 in this world of uncertainties and half -measures. Secondly, 
 the charm which never abandoned him increased whenever 
 he blundered hopelessly. 
 
 His punctuality, at least, left nothing to be desired, 
 the first week. Then he arrived half an hour late, ex- 
 plaining that his mother had needed him for an errand. In 
 atonement, he came an hour too soon for the subsequent 
 appointment; it appeared his mother would need him 
 shortly after three. By way of irregularity, this was 
 doing rather well. But he soon surpassed it. He not 
 only missed an entire afternoon, but turned up on the 
 morrow, when I did not expect him. Punctually at what 
 would have been the right time, he entered smiling, 
 half-bashful, and entirely confident.
 
 52 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "I arranged to come to-day," he said. "It doesn't 
 matter." 
 
 I own to having been disconcerted . There he stood in 
 his blue knickers and brown blouse and white shoes (the 
 first and second worn by polite request, and the last by 
 strict injunction), smiling more faintly than ever before, 
 his head with the velvety sheen ducked very low, while 
 he darted up at me his wide, trusting eyes. If he had said, 
 once again, that his mother had needed him, I should have 
 been pacified. But to have the opinion volunteered 
 that it "didn't matter" . . . 
 
 My words would possibly not have been so harsh as 
 my thought. But before they came, recollection checked 
 me. He reserved that formula for things very grave, 
 very painful, beyond his power to hinder or amend, and 
 against which he must steel himself as best he might. 
 
 "Did your mother need you?" I asked. 
 
 He looked down. 
 
 "She said I was to come to-day." The voice was so 
 faint it barely reached me. 
 
 So that was it. She said he was to come to-day! He 
 could not honestly claim that she had needed him. She 
 said he was to come to-day. 
 
 Useless to distress the boy with remonstrances. That 
 night, I wrote to his father. 
 
 Paul disappeared for four days, but eventually turned up, 
 at an odd moment, serene as if such behaviour were normal. 
 He brought me a little bunch of flowers gathered in the 
 woods, and offered no explanations. Nor did I ask for any. 
 
 Reading in his eyes more than in his words, I knew that 
 Paul depended on me; and that I must not allow my util- 
 ity to diminish. But he had become an important factor 
 in my life. Devoting my final years to an abstract work,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 53 
 
 possessing no human ties of affection and having to go 
 back a lifetime before I found personal ground for memory, 
 I had come to look upon Paul's hours with me as eventful. 
 I knew the responsibility I had assumed towards him; 
 I knew that so long as he proved willing, I must abide by 
 my part of our bargain; but I knew that this was the least 
 potent of the forces driving me. Paul had made his way 
 into an old heart that had thought itself dried and withered, 
 all but crumbling to dust. An early experience in that 
 far-away country, which he and I loved for reasons so 
 different, had left me only sadness and bitterness for 
 many years; and when these passed, the vigour of my 
 heart went with them so completely that it could no 
 longer even suffer. Now, I had been roused to take 
 personal interest in this strange, neglected waif who had 
 grown a rare flower among weeds, unconscious of strength 
 or beauty or merit, who had developed just because de- 
 velopment is the natural, healthy law. 
 
 He and I must henceforth come together more completely, 
 or we should drift apart. By degrees, Paul's work with me 
 had metamorphosed into my talks with Paul while the 
 stipend paid him had continued. What I proposed was an 
 honest, radical transformation. I was to help him learn 
 how to study. " Since it will increase your future utility 
 here, it will be worth my while to do this and still pay 
 for your time," I asserted. He blushed, and smiled. 
 
 Though having less conception of method than I should 
 have thought possible, he studied with a will. Habits 
 of carelessness were so effectively ingrained that he could 
 not be careful. As for spelling, he still strongly reflected 
 the education of the rustic grandfather. But he would 
 never get distressed nor disheartened. 
 
 Accidents had continued, of course. He would still
 
 54 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 turn up at wrong hours or on wrong days, as commanded 
 by the spurious stepmother. At times he would tramp 
 in with his horrible hob-nailed boots, having been "unable 
 to find" the canvas shoes; the ill-fitting, common pepper- 
 and-salt suit, worn with a collarless shirt, replaced the 
 blue knickers and brown corduroy blouse. My protests 
 being vain, I did not insist for his sake. 
 
 His father, at all events, seemed to appreciate my efforts 
 and to note good results. We met in the street; Clermont 
 said he wanted to thank me for what he termed his son's 
 regeneration. 
 
 "The boy is studying," he said impressively; and added in 
 a contemplative voice : " It's odd, he never will do anything 
 for us. There's certainly something wrong about that 
 child." 
 
 Was there? 
 
 Paul, who stood beside his father, shot me one of his 
 olden looks, but more intense, more devoted. That look 
 reassured me against the questions already arising within 
 me. Transformations are so rare, unless a being is truer 
 than gold and clearer than crystal! 
 
 Throughout the winter and early spring, we worked 
 happily and uneventfully, with sufficient regularity; 
 I added English to his school tasks. The annual fair 
 was to come, filling the tree-shaded Avenue de la Republi- 
 que with commotion and dust-storms, and the shrieks 
 of whistles and steam pianos. I thought of profiting by 
 my martyrdom, on such occasions, to reward Paul's zeal. 
 
 "Find out what afternoon there will be the greatest 
 possible number of performances in all the side-shows, 
 and I shall take you to everything," I said. "Only let 
 me know, as there is one day I cannot be free."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 55 
 
 Paul came back with sparkling eyes and brilliant red 
 lips parted in his broadest smile. Thursday afternoon, 
 please ! 
 
 "But that is when I must go to my bank." 
 
 A gasp; a sudden paleness under the flush in his cheeks. 
 Then a deeper flush than before. With unflinching look, 
 though with a voice which could not remain steady, he 
 said: 
 
 "That's all right. It doesn't matter." 
 
 I felt an unutterable wretch. 
 
 "All things considered, I would rather break an engage- 
 ment than a promise," I said. "We shall go." 
 
 There was nothing he could say. But his eyes devoured 
 me. 
 
 "May I ask for one thing?" I went on. "I have a 
 weakness for your brown and blue. If that suit still 
 exists, it would make me happy to see you wear it." 
 
 "Oh, certainly! Those are the clothes I like best. I 
 shall tell mother," he declared confidently. 
 
 Now that so much has been made clear, it is needless 
 to describe the garb in which he presented himself. Some- 
 times I have doubted if it could have been his. It looked 
 borrowed for the occasion from a floor-scrubber. But 
 the sight of his happy face beside me throughout the 
 afternoon sufficed for recompense. 
 
 The next day, he was to come for a lesson. When he 
 appeared once more in that unspeakable suit, he was not 
 my guest, and no promise bound me. Great as my regard 
 for him might be, and much as I had already passed over, 
 I knew that if his stepmother wished to find how far I 
 would bear provocation, I must draw a line. I told him 
 to go home and change his clothes. He went and there 
 was no return.
 
 56 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 A week later I saw Paul, in the street, with his school- 
 books. He glided swiftly round a corner, hoping I 
 should not see him. 
 
 If ray heart grew heavy, there was yet a strain of re- 
 joicing in my household. Leonie had attributed to this 
 connection every domestic mishap, from an attack of 
 my gout to difficulties in keeping her copper saucepans 
 bright. 
 
 "That woman is a witch," she said. "If the boy had 
 got a firm footing in the house, terrible things would have 
 followed. I know, from my own experience in Alsace, 
 where Germans swarmed in and she is surely a German, 
 for all the French ways she tries to imitate, and can't. 
 She is capable of working the wizards on Monsieur. 
 Already she has vowed vengeance against him. It 
 seems Monsieur tried to interfere with the way she dressed 
 her husband's son. And Monsieur was working the boy 
 to death, giving him drudgery beyond his years, and 
 paying only five francs a week for services which a man 
 would have demanded twenty francs for. So she says. 
 Evil will yet come of it. I shall put the scissors to the 
 window, so none of these people may ever cross the thresh- 
 old again rusty scissors with one point broken acci- 
 dentally; a sure protection, if one knows how to do it. 
 And she has also turned the boy's father against Monsieur, 
 this time. An ugly story is told in town, about the way 
 Monsieur tried to be gallant with her when she brought 
 the boy here first. If the man were as violent as he is 
 jealous 
 
 "That will do, Leonie. Go to your work!" I exploded 
 with a fury which must have been interpreted as proof of 
 guilt. 
 
 Again I saw Paul turn away to avoid me; but if my
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 57 
 
 heart was not gay, it was at least less heavy. Going to my 
 little garden when I reached home, my attention was drawn 
 to Leonie's scissors fastened to the blinds. They caused 
 me a peculiar twinge a prophecy and a reminder. 
 
 During the half-year which followed, I met Paul 
 once, as a bicycle apprentice, behaving in a very rowdy 
 way, with a cigarette stump between his lips, calling out 
 impudent remarks to passers-by and singing snatches from 
 a not very nice refrain. On his swaggering course he 
 came so near to me that he roughly brushed me with his 
 elbow purposely, but having no idea whom he assaulted. 
 He felt very clever and devilish, doing that sort of thing, 
 he has since confessed. 
 
 At the beginning of summer, Paul hurled at his parents 
 the bomb of independence, declaring that in virtue of his 
 fourteen years he would study no longer, and intended 
 to enter a bicycle shop. He was met by a counter-blast, 
 but won his position thanks to an attitude of quiet, 
 dogged, unargumentative determination. The prospect 
 of a second failure at school had been too much for him; 
 though his decision about his future remained unaltered, 
 fourteen years bring their degree of pride among other 
 burdens. Only the promise made to me had held him 
 back for so long; but he had finally decided that, my part 
 of the bargain no longer being held, he might be freed 
 from his. And, while becoming an apprentice at Del- 
 ligny's, he was not ignorant, as when he and I had dis- 
 cussed this problem. 
 
 The boys worked very much to themselves, in a large 
 shed next to the shop; and Marcel Lavenu was the ac- 
 knowledged leader. Paul retained the same affection 
 for this friend of his childhood, while perhaps admiring
 
 58 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 him less. Marcel had a way of demanding attention 
 at any price and of slipping readily through difficulties, 
 which could not find sympathy in a nature such as Paul's. 
 Yet no action of Marcel's ever seemed grave or failed 
 to be amusing; and his position as introducer and pro- 
 tector made opposition impossible. Paul had no desire 
 to form an opposition; and presently found he could adapt 
 himself to the ways about him. He did not care to dwell 
 on these experiences, when looking back on that period; 
 though to his credit be it said that he told me the whole 
 story, with a frankness which was a solid guarantee for 
 the future. 
 
 The end came when disaster overtook the junior per- 
 sonnel of the establishment. Some things had been 
 stolen. Inquiries revealed deep and systematic corrup- 
 tion. The chief culprit, one Andre Manadan, a puny, 
 rheumatic, greenish-faced little apprentice with weak 
 knees and shifty eyes, was ignominiously ejected at a 
 moment's notice, together with others gravely compro- 
 mised. But M. Delligny, tall, lean, with a chicken-neck 
 and a depressed stomach, the sort of man who is for ever 
 apprehending ruin and often attains it in consequence, 
 did not stop there. Marcel Lavenu, as a senior appren- 
 tice enjoying much prestige and signal privileges, and 
 furthermore a clever, experienced little workman, was 
 spared because he would be useful breaking in new boys. 
 Paul, who had enjoyed himself too much to learn the 
 trade he claimed, was dismissed on general principles as a 
 superfluity who could serve only to hand down heinous 
 practices, 
 
 Before going home, Paul walked on the river-bank. 
 Matters would be less distressing if he formed some pro- 
 ject. The training-ship had ceased to give him concern;
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 59 
 
 the forfeited certificate delivered him from a tax office. 
 But the next choice he made must be his trade for life. 
 And his parents would be capable, after his present fiasco, 
 of articling him to a grocery or a wine shop. Had he not 
 been afraid, he would have ventured to call on M. Aubret. 
 
 Well, and why not? Paul asked himself abruptly. 
 No treatment could be more violent or unjust than what 
 he had got from Delligny. 
 
 So it came about that the boy sat in my study once more, 
 narrating his story and asking for counsel. 
 
 While listening, I noted his language. He had the 
 same ready flow of words, but mixed with vulgar expres- 
 sions and tripped with grammatical blunders. 
 
 As I sought indications not only in his present talk but 
 in memories of our previous intercourse, what rose most 
 compellingly before me was that taste of his for drawing. 
 Not that I dreamed of making an artist of him. 
 
 I thought of French excellence in the decorative and 
 industrial arts; an esteemed profession where he would 
 meet with better contacts than in ordinary trades. Con- 
 sidering his lack of example, his drawings were creditable. 
 I had noticed with particular pleasure that discouragement 
 did not follow when a thing had been badly rendered. 
 Thus I have seen him do over a score of times some sketch 
 which perhaps had not been worth beginning, but was 
 worth doing, once begun. Much of his leisure had been 
 given to that sort of thing. Besides which, he observed 
 furniture and objects of art; his descriptions were always 
 accurate, and he had guessed that Mere Rollinet's mantel 
 ornaments were of interest. 
 
 Various trades passed in review before us. There came 
 a hesitation. I waited. 
 
 Locksmith, he suggested. Useful, and always sure
 
 60 
 
 of work to do. Not overcrowded, like electricity and 
 automobiles. Sometimes there was designing to be 
 done, too; and art-forging. He knew one locksmith 
 who had very handsome ornamental hinges in his windows, 
 and keys with heads of gilt bronze open-work. Paul's 
 sparkling eyes showed that he had found the solution 
 simply by being allowed to express himself. I confirmed 
 the soundness of his judgment. What I did not tell him 
 was that I planned to send him to a designing school 
 if his ability were proved. 
 
 I could not resist an inquiry as to whether his mother 
 knew of this visit. 
 
 No, but he would tell her, he said. With a bashful smile 
 he acknowledged her anger against me. That day, 
 long ago, had been unfortunate. When he got home with 
 my message about the clothes, she was issuing from a 
 collision with the landlord about an increased rental 
 because running water had been supplied her. Paul, 
 breaking in and so engrossed with his own preoccupations 
 that he had not read the signal of her cheeks, reaped 
 the cyclone. 
 
 " But I didn't worry much," he declared philosophically. 
 "I knew I should come back some time." 
 
 I wondered if a conviction of the kind did not lie at the 
 base of most resignation. 
 
 He left me with a nod, after settling his cap on one side of 
 his head. Grease-stains covered the apprentice-suit of 
 blue drill; his hands were rough and dark, his face was 
 dirty ; but the step still had buoyancy, the voice cheeriness, 
 and his neck and wrists were clean. 
 
 As he looked back at me with the full, wondering smile, I 
 felt that while Paul had reached ugly shallows, he had 
 barely touched their edge.
 
 PART TWO 
 FAITH
 
 ARISTIDE BADAJEZE, the locksmith, took himself very 
 seriously as an artist and public benefactor. 
 
 "Without my art to secure your doors and windows, 
 how could you keep the trinkets made by other people?" 
 he would ask. 
 
 This importance of the thief in society was much insisted 
 upon, in his talk, as demonstrating his own utility. So, 
 when friends spoke of a golden future awaiting the world 
 from the growth of Socialism, and the approach of human 
 brotherhood, he would exclaim: 
 
 "Disarmament? Peace among nations? Rid me first 
 of robbers and cut-throats in towns, so that I need no 
 locks to my house and no gendarme within call! When 
 I leave my forge because not a citizen of Europe needs my 
 help in its most practical form, then I may trust a country 
 to be safe without an army!" 
 
 When he made these remarks to dampen the interna- 
 tional love whose lulling spirit surrounded him, Aristide 
 Badajeze was pronounced cynical, original, impossible. 
 Sometimes men of his trade, who lacked his skill, even 
 went so far as to pronounce him a bad brother. 
 
 Another of his eccentricities was a mania for air. The 
 two broad windows where he exhibited his finest wares 
 were at the front, in the rue de la Chaise Doree, with the 
 entrance between them. But the whole back of the shop, 
 in the Place du Vieux Marche, disappeared when the 
 shutters were taken down. M. Badajeze would stand 
 
 63
 
 64 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 there working in his trousers and shirt, collarless and with 
 sleeves rolled up, on cold sunless days when other inhabit- 
 ants of Verviller shivered within tight doors and windows. 
 A number of promising apprentices had been removed 
 from his influence, because anxious parents could not 
 allow their sons to contract tuberculosis for his amusement. 
 Eccentrically, he denied the charge, asserting that fresh 
 air, even when cold, was healthier than musty, never- 
 changed atmospheres, though warm. Paul felt chilly 
 at first, but liked it, and learned that the harder he worked 
 the warmer he kept. Soon he no longer needed extra 
 layers of clothes slipped under his drill jacket. Between 
 the invigorating effects of clean air in his lungs all day, 
 and hard work which genuinely appealed to him, he soon 
 developed pink cheeks and a fine glow unknown to him 
 since days in Arnan. 
 
 Paul's time was spent mostly over a forge or a vice, 
 with a hammer or pincers or files. If the anvil did not 
 ring merrily enough, or the mound of metal-dust grow 
 rapidly enough, M. Badajeze would threaten to "give 
 news of himself." That was his own expression. What 
 happened when M. Badajeze was driven to such extremes, 
 nobody knew. It must have been terrific, for he darted 
 his eyes out at the mere suggestion. They did not pre- 
 cisely pop from his head, but appeared to do so. He 
 would twirl them in a rapid circle, and would violently 
 round his eyelids, looking very stern throughout the per- 
 formance and for a moment afterwards. The result 
 was startling, set in a sallow face relieved only by a yellow 
 moustache mixed with grey, and surmounted by a head so 
 smoothly bald that he said of himself, "I wear my hair 
 en brosse the back of the brush, you know!" 
 
 Strange devices of all sorts lay about the shop: huge
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 65 
 
 old-fashioned hinges that covered half a wardrobe door; 
 locks and keys of another century, full of complicated 
 springs and rich with wrought metal; decorative designs 
 of hammered steel or carved brass, for purposes Paul 
 could not guess. He would run his fingers lovingly 
 over the surfaces, the turns and edges; he would study 
 the patterns, and try to draw them from memory at 
 night. The luxuries of the trade were not yet allowed 
 him; even his admiration had to be reserved for spare mo- 
 ments, which rarely occurred in the shop. M. Badajeze 
 held that an apprentice should learn to forge and cut and 
 file and solder pieces of simple form, before meddling 
 with questions into which art entered. He would illus- 
 trate this by a homely truth with an unexpected example : 
 
 "A baby must learn to crawl before it can walk. My 
 daughter tried to begin by walking just stood up and 
 took two steps, one day. Well, I spanked her, tiny 
 mite that she was, and taught her to crawl. It gave me 
 trouble, because I myself had to get into practice for 
 crawling, once more. But I would have no ill- trained, 
 inefficient child bearing my name. And behold what 
 Mademoiselle Badajeze is now!" 
 
 The house was next to the workshop; or rather, the 
 shop had been added to an outer wall. Through a 
 window in his dining-room or else through a glazed door 
 raised three steps above the ground, M. Badajeze could 
 watch the apprentices when he withdrew for a short rest. 
 And when perchance he dozed over his folded hands, 
 another pair of eyes watched for him. Those other eyes 
 never looked unkindly nor reported unfairly. But they 
 could show concern when anything irregular happened. 
 Sometimes apprentices were tempted to abuse. As for 
 Paul, he would have taken a hammer and smashed the
 
 66 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 handsomest lock in the artistic collection, rather than be 
 looked at again as he had been once, when he used a 
 bicycle-shop oath after a boy had odiously interfered with 
 him. 
 
 Mademoiselle Odette Badajeze was quite a young lady; 
 seventeen years old, and not destined for any trade. With 
 her figure, she would have made a splendid dress-maker, 
 Paul gravely informed me. That she was a lady, there 
 could be no doubt. A woman came to do her cooking 
 and washing and rough house-work; she wore marvellous 
 gowns, and gloves, too, on Sundays and feast days. 
 Ordinarily she was clad in neat, simple blue, with a little 
 white apron frilled all round the edge. Her father said 
 she must wear an apron at certain hours, and that frill 
 was her joke. 
 
 I urged Paul to give me an idea of her appearance : for I 
 never saw this remarkable young lady. 
 
 "She is " he would begin, and stop. "I wish you 
 
 could see her," he would add presently. And his last 
 word was always, "She's not like anybody else. I don't 
 know how to describe her." 
 
 So I was fain to be content with phrases he let fall 
 while discussing, on any chance occasion, her words or 
 actions. I learned she had "very beautiful hair," and 
 that it was "all wavy and brown, with some yellow in it 
 like bronze." Her voice he mentioned several times 
 as "sweet," but more often as "warm"; he said it "did 
 one good to hear" even when the words did not carry. 
 He must have meant when both the door and the window 
 were closed. From all I could gather, her features were 
 worthy of such charms; but he mentioned only her chin 
 she had a way of putting her head on one side with the 
 chin held up as she smiled at her father or Robert Lavenu,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 67 
 
 and her eyes would grow big, very big and even fuller 
 of light than usual. 
 
 The thought of Robert Lavenu, Marcel's soldier brother, 
 would invariably repress his confidences. I believe he 
 was jealous. From having been indifferent to questions 
 of warfare as expounded by M. Badajeze, Paul came to 
 be a sort of incipient anti-militarist. He remarked 
 scathingly : 
 
 "Robert Lavenu pretends to have been so clever and 
 patriotic, enlisting before his time. But it's because he 
 did it that he became a dragoon and was able to stay in 
 the neighbourhood, instead of being sent to the other end 
 of France. And now you know how he manages to come 
 home so often." 
 
 But it was not his visits to his home that Paul resented. 
 
 We had reached that spring during which so many 
 "mistakes" occurred at the frontier, that pacific France 
 was finally roused to ideas of self-defence. The papers 
 were full of episodes and incidents whose official explana- 
 tions rendered them only the more astonishing. Robert 
 Lavenu would call frequently to discuss it all with M. 
 Badajeze and Mademoiselle Odette. 
 
 "What are we waiting for? We must be avenged for 
 these continual provocations!" he cried, clanking his 
 sword. 
 
 "We are waiting to be attacked; and we shall not be 
 ready," M. Badajeze replied, in that dry way of his, 
 solemn yet with a grin at the back of it. 
 
 "Papa, I don't like the way you are talking," pouted 
 Mademoiselle Odette. "It is not wise, as your ideas 
 usually are. I agree entirely with M. Lavenu." 
 
 To which Paul added with emphasis: "And I don't." 
 But he was addressing only me.
 
 68 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Paul had gone home at the usual hour. His father 
 would not be in for a while, yet; his alleged mother sat 
 heavily in her chair near the window. 
 
 Odd details showed that the house had been neglected. 
 He made no motion to remedy them, for he had left school, 
 he was doing a man's work. A soft snore presently told 
 him that his mother slept. Of late, she had not been well. 
 Weak in addition to irritable, and with peculiar, drawn 
 features. Often she could not eat, though she was growing 
 stout, and would start crying nobody knew why. 
 
 From his own seat in the corner farthest away from 
 the table, Paul looked out into the street. Night was 
 closing down. One or two lights shone prematurely 
 across the way, flickering colourless and ridiculous. Their 
 rays could not even pierce the atmosphere. Workmen 
 passed, carrying tools or bundles; their shoulders were 
 bowed and their feet shifted heavily. Paul wondered how 
 long it would be before he walked so. Boys passed, too 
 apprentices like himself, walking already like their elders. 
 
 "That started me thinking," he observed when relating 
 the scene to me. "It's not only because they are tired, 
 but because they don't care, that workmen let themselves 
 go. I said to myself, 'If I try not to walk like those boys 
 now, then perhaps I needn't be like those men later.' " 
 
 The darkness grew deeper. Rays from the lights across 
 the way cut long, clear shafts of silvered gold through 
 the night, and struck the street. The end of one ray 
 rested on a tiny tuft of grass, bringing each blade into 
 relief whereas by day Paul had been unaware of its 
 existence. A foot was roughly planted on it, for an 
 instant; the grass lay flattened, hideous. The foot had 
 belonged to a boy; one running swiftly, who yelled some- 
 thing again and again.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 69 
 
 Presently another boy ran past, yelling too. Paul 
 got up and crept to the door, after an instant's thought 
 of opening the window. But if the noise did not wake his 
 mother, the air would. 
 
 Though narrow and having small importance, the street 
 opened at one end into the Avenue de la Republique, 
 and at the other connected with the business quarter; 
 so there were hours when numbers of people went by. 
 Its entire character had changed, however; the inhabitants 
 themselves poured out of their houses. 
 
 Still another boy ran by, stopped to take a newspaper 
 from his arm, and hurried on. Paul, mingling with the 
 groups, listened to comments and tried to read a line or 
 two of print. 
 
 "Ah, the pigs!" stormed a burly mason in grey cor- 
 duroys. His boots were grey too, and his hands, and his 
 face and hair. Only the thick neck stood out a startling 
 red in the lustre of a near-by gas-jet. "Ah, the pigs! 
 Openly spying, as well as insulting us!" 
 
 "Next thing, if we are not careful, we shall be at war," 
 piped a wizened little carpenter. Paul knew he must be a 
 carpenter, because of a place stitched in his trousers to 
 hold a ruler. Only no ruler was there. 
 
 "You may talk you're not fit for field service," 
 grunted the mason. "I've got a wife and children to 
 think of." 
 
 "They won't begrudge you!" said a woman. "I'll 
 have to give a husband and a son but I sha'n't hold them 
 back!" 
 
 "I who saw 1870 tell you keep out of war if you can," 
 came the dictum of the carpenter. His cheeks were as 
 parchment above a sparse white beard; his voice was as 
 weak as the light of his tired eyes. "There are things
 
 70 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 we soldiers of that time don't talk about, my children. 
 We know what Prussians are. Keep out of war if you 
 can." 
 
 "Yes, but what if war is forced on us? " cried the woman. 
 Hers was a massive form, surmounted by a small round 
 head with fat rosy cheeks and black hair drawn very 
 tightly to a knot on her ample neck. "Are we always 
 to be fearing for our husbands and children? It must 
 end some time. Let it come now!" 
 
 "It's all right for hot-heads to gossip at street-corners," 
 the carpenter's plaintive voice returned. "But our 
 political leaders know what is needed. If we could make 
 peace three times within eight years, we can let them 
 play about this time again." 
 
 "What, on our own soil?" exclaimed a newcomer. 
 Marcel Lavenu could be trusted to find centres of ex- 
 citement. 
 
 "A boy knows nothing of such matters," cried the little 
 old man who looked like a carpenter. 
 
 "Boy or not, I earn a man's living which is more than 
 you can pretend to do, Pere Elard!" Marcel retorted. 
 "And I'm ready to fight, which is more than you are. 
 Which of us, then, has the better right to talk?" 
 
 "The one who does the least thinking," said the old 
 man sharply. And, considering the point proved at the 
 boy's expense, he proceeded to hold forth: "There will be 
 strikes. When the war begins, if we are foolish enough 
 to risk it, we shall be paralysed to helplessness by our own 
 people. You needn't shake your heads." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said the mason. "We have but to hold 
 the frontier forty -eight hours, and the whole country 
 will be swept by an enthusiasm which no enemy could stem. 
 If we were to penetrate into Alsace if we could claim
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 71 
 
 to have reconquered by force of arms as much as one 
 yard of our lost provinces then, my friends, pity Ger- 
 many! For our ardour would crush her as surely as my 
 heel now crushes this pebble." 
 
 He brought his foot down with a resounding thud. 
 The noise satisfied his audience. But the pebble had 
 escaped unharmed; round and polished, it slipped under 
 the blow, and shot out. Paul knew; for it struck his 
 ankle. 
 
 "That's the way a French workman talks," Marcel 
 declared. "The matter with Pere Elard is that he fears 
 for his rentes." 
 
 It appeared that the old carpenter without tools lived 
 on a little income supplied by distant relatives. 
 
 "What has happened?" Paul asked Marcel in an ex- 
 cited, breathy whisper. 
 
 "German aeroplane, mounted by officers in uniform, 
 landed far on our side of the frontier, at Arracourt. 
 They plead a * mistake' as usual, of course. So was their 
 Zeppelin cruising over our national territory by 'mistake* 
 three weeks ago, and kept on 'mistaking' for a hundred 
 miles more. So it was by 'mistake' that their boy scouts, 
 led by an officer of the active army, crossed our frontier 
 with flag flying and band playing two days ago, selecting 
 by 'mistake' the very frontier post where war was very 
 nearly forced on us before you and I were born. So 
 it was by 'mistake' but what's the use of recalling it all? 
 We can't put up with this sort of thing for ever; we have 
 self-respect as a nation, or else we haven't. I shall go 
 off as a bicycle-scout. Don't you wish you had stuck 
 to my trade? The war may be on already, while these 
 silly people are gabbling here. I can't waste any more 
 time." After a few paces, he stopped: "Paul!" And
 
 72 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 as the other came up slowly yet eagerly: "My brother 
 Robert's at home he will know. Let's run for it. Come 
 along!" 
 
 He set the pace, Paul following. 
 
 Robert Lavenu was in his father's carriage-house, seated 
 on the step of a luxurious equipage. Draped in sheeting, 
 it made a mountain behind him; or perhaps a throne. 
 Before him several youngsters from the town and a couple 
 of stable-boys were clustered, some standing, others 
 perched on boxes. The steps of less imposing vehicles 
 lay invitingly accessible; but, from deference to the hero, 
 were unoccupied. Marcel himself sat modestly on the 
 floor. Lucky they had not chosen the stables, Paul 
 reflected as he threw himself down near his friend. 
 
 The young dragoon wore a blue and red uniform, with 
 leather boot-tops reaching nearly to his knees and spurs 
 that jingled when he stamped his foot as he often did, 
 and a huge sword which he seemed to catch between his 
 legs on purpose to make it clank. His cap was thrust 
 back on his head; a cigarette decorated his lips, above 
 which downy hairs were visible. 
 
 "You boys can see for yourselves how right I was," he 
 declared, magnificently discarding a half-burned cigarette 
 and lighting another. "Here, want to smoke? Take 
 some, all of you." 
 
 He tossed the package. They were real soldiers' 
 cigarettes, of the coarsest, sharpest tobacco. Everybody 
 took one. There were now nine little glows of smoulder- 
 ing ash in the semi-gloom caused by one lantern in conflict 
 with the night of the carriage-house. 
 
 "If I hadn't anticipated my conscription, I shouldn't 
 be ready to do much good, for it will be a short and ter- 
 rible campaign," the trooper went on sagaciously. "But
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 73 
 
 there are a hundred thousand in France who've done like 
 me." 
 
 The statement was received with a gasp. One of the 
 stable-boys ventured a "Really? As many as that?" 
 
 "As many? Much more!" declared Robert Lavenu. 
 "Why! The military authorities don't know what to do 
 with the new volunteers who keep on pouring in. At 
 some places, enlistments are being refused unless they 
 are for four or five years. No other way to get rid of part 
 of the men who feel they can't possibly wait until autumn. 
 I could name barracks where the old class is being released 
 in advance, to make room." 
 
 "How long have you known war was coming, Robert?" 
 Marcel broke in. "You didn't tell me." 
 
 "That sort of information isn't for civilians," the warrior 
 of nineteen retorted grandly. "If I can talk now, it's 
 only because of what has just happened. Our major 
 keeps repeating: 'We shall do nothing to provoke war, 
 but it's bound to come, and you boys must work hard to 
 be ready for it.' That's what he tells us, but he doesn't 
 know anything oh, no! Nor do we." 
 
 Again he passed the cigarettes, roundly cursing Paul 
 in most magnificent trooper style for not having finished 
 yet. He had no idea who the boy was; but Paul, ignoring 
 this detail, appreciated the courtesy shown him by a rival, 
 and a military rival at that. 
 
 Lavenu went on to describe his new mode of life. In 
 bed at nine and up at five, he was sleeping well for the 
 first time in years. He could not say he precisely liked 
 taking care of the horses. Dirty work, and often dan- 
 gerous. That very morning, he had had his cape torn 
 off and just saved his left cheek from the jaws of a vicious 
 mare. But the discipline, the regularity, the exercise
 
 74 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 were highly agreeable; and as for health well, boys, 
 judge for yourselves ! 
 
 The tactless youth of the stables again interposed : 
 
 "I know some soldiers who complain." 
 
 "They are not philosophers. You can find people in 
 all trades who want the fun and whine at the work. 
 That's the psychology of kickers in the army. I've 
 observed them at close quarters." 
 
 Swift questions were asked and answered throughout 
 the group; all agreed that those who complained of life 
 in the ranks had previously complained about most things 
 they had been forced to do. 
 
 In his excitement, the trooper had let his cigarette go 
 out quite a fresh one. A big overgrown boy with a head 
 like a gibbous moon and a face a size too large for it, 
 held out a box of matches, saying: 
 
 "They're English. I got them from a friend." 
 
 "If the English stand by us, all will be well," said 
 Robert Lavenu, looking at a gaudy picture on the box. 
 " We need only their navy, but a landing army would help 
 at the frontier." 
 
 As he was striking the match, a line of fine print under 
 the picture caught his eye. Leaving the seat of state, 
 he went up to the lantern, read carefully, flushed with 
 anger, and sent the box flying into the street : 
 
 "Made in Germany, you sort of a sacred imbecile! 
 What good patriot what real comrade has a French 
 match to give me?" 
 
 The culprit stole away into the night; others slipped out 
 as if the guilt were theirs. The trooper was left puffing, 
 furiously silent, while stable-boys talked nonsense. 
 
 Alone in the deserted stillness of the town echoing his 
 footsteps, Paul felt the weight of catastrophe already
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 75 
 
 upon him. He saw his father mobilised; himself alone 
 with the mother who was not even his stepmother. His 
 sentiments contained nothing noble nor heroic nor gener- 
 ous. Years before, his grandfather's words had sug- 
 gested that war was not nice. Having thought about it 
 since, and listened to various opinions, he had come to 
 the conclusion that wars did not solve anything, but only 
 killed a lot of people and cost much money which sur- 
 vivors paid in taxes. Five years more, and he too would 
 be called out. Whatever Robert Lavenu might say 
 of the rosy side of it, he would have to dress in somebody 
 else's cast-off uniform; sleep on unclean straw in noisy, 
 windy barracks; eat coarse beef and beans boiled in salt, 
 and soggy soldier-bread; be drilled and marched regard- 
 less of weather, and ordered about by a rough non- 
 commissioned officer. For what? To be killed if war 
 came, and lose his deftness at trade if war did not come. 
 
 He found his father looking very grave over the paper; 
 his mother sat pale and limp over her extraordinary form. 
 They did not ask why he was late, nor notice him at all 
 as he ate dinner between them. 
 
 Bed-time came. They did not seem to hear Paul's 
 good-night. But as though his voice or his movement 
 had roused her from a trance, the woman spoke. 
 
 "Albert "she had never appealed so gently "do 
 you know that if the war comes, I have no right to an 
 allowance because you are in the army; and our child " 
 
 Paul stumbled out into the hall. The blood surged 
 furiously within him; he was stifled, could scarcely control 
 his muscles to go upstairs. Reaching his room, he opened 
 the window. The night was so black that he could not 
 see his beloved river-banks; the course of the water itself 
 was marked by a faint ghost-like trail of mist. At last
 
 76 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 he breathed once more: not because of the free air which 
 rushed to him, but because he could hurl into space an 
 
 indignation too great for mere earth to contain 
 
 Their child? God help him NO! 
 
 II 
 
 "I'VE been to the chateau again," Paul said to me. 
 "Not as a tourist, but invited by the Marquis." 
 
 "Invited?" I echoed. 
 
 "Yes. M. Badajeze is repairing some Louis XV bronzes 
 for him very beautiful. And I am to go, always; the 
 Marquis wishes it." 
 
 Once, twice, or thrice in the course of a week or ten 
 days, Paul came to see me soon after dinner. Our even- 
 ings were divided between study and conversation. 
 Occasionally he would bring me problems of a political 
 or a philosophical order; and my replies, if happily 
 phrased, would be rewarded with the wondering smile. 
 Seen less rarely, nowadays, it had not suffered in charm nor 
 in spontaneity. 
 
 Treated by his master with bluff good-nature, sufficient 
 encouragement, and laudable firmness, Paul was liked and 
 trusted by an amiable, bibulous head-workman whose 
 "friend to speak to at the corner" came many times a day, 
 but resulted only in stiff solemnity and a wish not to be 
 disturbed at a task which never suffered in consequence. 
 
 Among the boys, Paul recognised one, Henri, as a good, 
 steady little workman; and for another, Ernest, he had 
 sympathy because, living in a railway van, his behaviour 
 was yet becoming and his zeal unfailing. But still another 
 was a problem for Paul and a source of preoccupation for 
 me. 
 
 Andre Manadan, the chief culprit in the theft and
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 77 
 
 scandal at Delligny's, had come pretending never to 
 have worked in Verviller, bringing his mother and a 
 letter to corroborate the statement that he had spent a 
 year with relatives in the country. M. Badajeze had 
 been out, and the compagnon was pursuing a "customer 
 at the corner," for a change; so Mademoiselle Odette 
 had received the dreary, slovenly woman seeming younger 
 than the wreck of a boy who tried to hide behind skirts 
 even more meagre and retiring than he. 
 
 Mademoiselle Odette must have been smitten with 
 compassion and pleaded for him when her father returned. 
 Surely M. Badajeze could not have put faith in the boy's 
 shifty eyes with bluish circles under them, conspicuous 
 features in a withered, greenish face; nor did he lack 
 extensive choice of possible material for apprentices. 
 Or perhaps he decided, arbitrary and charitable, to 
 give this eminently hopeless wastrel a chance. Such an 
 action would not have been out of keeping with his char- 
 acter. Strict in the sense of duty towards his "art," 
 he would not have allowed the excellence of his output 
 to be compromised; but among six boys, one on an average 
 was apt to turn out badly, and logic may have whispered 
 that, beginning ill in such a case, he might end well while 
 doing a kindness. 
 
 The chance did not, however, improve Andre Manadan, 
 Paul told me. The very healthiness of their surround- 
 ings gave him opportunities for deception and unfairness. 
 Somehow, he always managed to conceal his blunders 
 as well as his deliberate evil, escaping reprimand and 
 winning consideration. Given an adequate dose of 
 hypocrisy, it was easy to blind the bibulous compagnon. 
 M. Badajeze had sharper eyes, but when he was about, 
 the little sneak knew better than to run risks.
 
 78 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "If a key is found, quite spoiled, thrown under the 
 work-bench, it's never the one he had; or if there's proof 
 it was, then he pretends he finished somebody else's." 
 
 "Or complains of his tools," I suggested. 
 
 "No. M. Badajeze soon cures us of that. He says: 
 'It's a poor workman who complains of his tools the 
 good workman goes and gets what he needs.' Andre 
 Manadan just lies about it, and sticks to the lie so he can 
 outface anybody. What can you do, anyhow, with a 
 slippery worm so soft you mustn't step on it, and so 
 dirty you wouldn't touch it, and so disgusting you can't 
 be comfortable when it's in the room? He actually 
 tried to be pals with me because I'd been discharged 
 through his fault. I told him what I thought of that, 
 but he only laughed. If he hadn't been so weak and 
 little and miserable, I'd have slapped him next day, when 
 he sneered at Mademoiselle Odette. I swore at him so 
 hard, though, that he stopped his insolence to her and his 
 interference with me. Now he looks at me out of the 
 corners of his yellow eyes and talks about comradeship 
 and loyalty till I get sick of both.'* 
 
 Next day, I, too, received an "invitation" to the 
 chateau; mine was for lunch. Once I had met the Mar- 
 quis in Paris, at the house of a noted psychologist; he 
 had been interested in my work on racial and social move- 
 ments. He had a fancy for scientific and philosophical 
 ideas provided they neither demanded close study nor 
 conflicted with his religious beliefs. I should have called 
 on him when he returned to Verviller, but did not, for 
 I shrank from society obligations. Since he remembered 
 me now, it must be that he saw a relation between my 
 principles as then expounded and the international events
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 79 
 
 which had re-awakened patriotism in France. Beneath 
 these manifestations of human energy, the vast laws to 
 whose analysis I devoted my life were at work; and, 
 flattered that he should be aware of this, I went to the 
 chateau. 
 
 Often, in my walks, I had passed those stately windows 
 and cornices and chimney -tops. It was a splendid pile, 
 which many tourists came to see; mainly Renaissance, 
 it had not been altered at all since the period of Louis 
 XV; its halls and rooms were filled with handsome and 
 suitable furniture, hangings, pictures, piously collected 
 by several generations of Vervillers to repair the havoc 
 of the Revolution. The Marquis of that period, like the 
 present one, had been a kindly old gentleman, spending 
 on the town each year a considerable portion of his 
 revenues. The people had loved their XVIIIth Century 
 lord as they loved the present Marquis; which had not 
 deterred them from plundering and destroying his goods 
 and chattels, under the pretext of fraternity and other 
 humanitarian sentiments. They would have carried 
 their exertions in his behalf to the degree of stringing 
 him up on a lamp-post, if he had not been arrested at 
 Paris and fittingly guillotined as an aristocrat. In old 
 days, the town's name had been spelled with a final "s" 
 like that of the family which gave it birth. But Revolu- 
 tionary principles had abolished that superfluous, hence 
 luxurious, hence aristocratic and abominable letter; 
 and no effort since made by the lords of Vervillers had 
 induced the locality to abandon plebeian vulgarity in 
 the shape of Verviller. 
 
 I thought of this, going through the wrought-iron 
 gates which led almost immediately to the door. The 
 town pressed close upon the chateau; the estates had
 
 80 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 been confiscated and sold, and could not be recovered 
 when the son of the beheaded Marquis preferred his 
 claim under the Restoration. A street ran within three 
 yards of windows which once had commanded a lawn 
 and an avenue leading to the church whose steeple 
 still challenged the towering chimneys, but above homely 
 house-tops. 
 
 As I rang, a boy in workingman's clothes came out by 
 the side-door. It was Paul, who greeted me with a nod; 
 one hand carried a small parcel, the other did not seek 
 his cap. The free-and-easy way of the bicycle-shop 
 had adhered to him, but without insolence; had trans- 
 formed itself into that rare, unconscious form of freedom 
 proper to the light heart and the direct mind unfettered 
 by ambitions or prejudices, unable to feel inferiority 
 of position because grasping superiority only of mind 
 or of achievement. I had just nodded back, when a 
 couple of footmen took charge of me, intensifying their 
 professional solemnity to atone for my breach of manners 
 in perceiving an apprentice. One of them, conspicuously 
 accustomed to the best families, punished me at luncheon 
 by twice omitting to serve me. 
 
 The Marquis's words of greeting confirmed my belief 
 that he had sought renewed contact because of our con- 
 versation. There was another guest, introduced as 
 Frere Alexandre; from the name and from Paul's descrip- 
 tion, I knew him to be the superior of the Brothers' 
 school. I wondered how, after the application of the law 
 against religious orders, he should still be here, in his 
 habit; occupying his original post, too, as I presently 
 learned. 
 
 The Marquis de Vervillers, stout and of average height, 
 with sparse, carefully brushed hair and an ample mous-
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 81 
 
 tache grey nearly to whiteness, had that species of dignity 
 found in two categories of men. Early training and wide 
 experience, reinforced by the custom of exalted position, 
 can give it; or else the consciousness of a high and rare 
 genius which has proved its worth and attained maturity. 
 Frere Alexandre, on the contrary, was characterised by 
 the cultured simplicity and genuine amiability sometimes 
 found among men in orders who can be earnest while 
 avoiding bigotry. 
 
 We were no sooner seated at table than the Marquis 
 began to question me about my ideas. I gave, as rapidly 
 and concisely as I could, a summary of the work to which 
 I had devoted forty years and more. Listening with deep 
 interest, asking an appropriate question or making a 
 commentary to Frere Alexandre, the Marquis led me 
 on; and when I had finished, he opened a new conversation, 
 just as easily, on local charities and religious questions. 
 Then it was I understood that the motive for my presence 
 had not yet been revealed. I took to wondering why 
 I was there reflecting that Paul's "invitation" had been 
 more logical and more useful. 
 
 "Equality?" the Marquis said, capping a remark from 
 Frere Alexandre. "I never mention it, because it is of 
 those things which destroy themselves. Equality dies 
 as soon as created, since it reposes on the principle of 
 proving oneself better than one's neighbour. Every day 
 we see men working to tear down all that exists, all that 
 is noble and beautiful, all that tradition has handed us, 
 all that education and civilisation have done to make 
 gentlemen. And these same men have the one ambition 
 of bettering their own positions and giving higher educa- 
 tion to their own children! If culture is wrong in others, 
 if all that reveres tradition is reaction, if elevation is to be
 
 82 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 scorned and denounced and fought against, then surely 
 these conditions do not change their essential character 
 when applied to oneself. In order to be sincere, he 
 who contemns superiority in others should not seek it for 
 himself nor for those near him, lest he proclaim himself 
 selfishly ambitious. But hypocrisy is a profitable policy 
 in the world; by crying down others, a man attracts 
 attention to them, diverting it from himself; and so the 
 day comes when he can safely throw down what was 
 noble and refined, to put himself in its place and begin 
 the refining and nobilising process if he will. Only often 
 he will not." 
 
 Very well worded, and uttered most eloquently. I 
 remembered reading a newspaper report of it, the first 
 time he got it off in a public address. At least, I presume 
 it was the first time. 
 
 Frere Alexandre listened, pale, cool, resigned. He spoke 
 softly, evenly: 
 
 "The trouble, M. le Marquis, lies not so much with 
 what is being done for the labouring classes, or with the 
 methods employed, as with the material chosen for such 
 efforts. Right influence goes farther than evil, where a 
 nucleus of good hearts is the field for sowing. I have 
 observed many boys, from those now seven years old 
 back to those who reached that age when I began teaching, 
 more than thirty years ago. As long as the heart is right, 
 defects of character are secondary matters; as soon as the 
 heart goes wrong, the struggle is seemingly hopeless. I 
 say seemingly, because God in His wisdom has ways we do 
 not know. But men dare not hope in such cases, even 
 where duty bids us persevere. Take my word for it 
 classify your material by the amount of heart possessed; 
 and if you on your side are blessed with the celestial
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 83 
 
 quality of love, you will succeed. A narrow doctrine, 
 you may think. Yet justified by the parable of the sower 
 with the seed. That falling among rocks and tares was 
 negligible, provided that in good earth profited. You 
 look scandalised, Monsieur," he added, turning his gentle 
 eyes and thoughtful forehead towards me. "I do not 
 know how much personal experience you have had with 
 charitable works " 
 
 "None," I said dryly. "Now I have scandalised you. 
 I shall completely mortify your better feelings, I fear, 
 by adding that I consider 'charity' an outrage to brother 
 man. How can we 'give' when we have nothing of our 
 own? Can we do more than share provided we are not 
 encouraging vice nor neglecting sacred duties to ourselves 
 or to those dependent on us? I am sorry if my words 
 offend you, or you, Marquis " 
 
 "Not at all, not at all. I feel entirely as you do," 
 the Marquis assured me. "And I have heard Frere 
 Alexandre express himself similarly." 
 
 When one of my periods of insomnia sets in, I still 
 wonder, in the night, how the opinions stated by the 
 Brother and himself could be reconciled with mine. But 
 perhaps I was not meant for a society man. 
 
 The Marquis next spoke warmly of Frere Alexandre 's 
 work to regenerate France by continuing Catholic educa- 
 tion in our town. Politically, I knew, M. de Vervillers 
 had left Monarchism aside for Catholicism; while not 
 believing the Royalist cause to be dead as some pretended, 
 he considered it could be best served by allowing various 
 waves of violent feeling to blow in other directions. The 
 association between Frere Alexandre and himself in this 
 new programme was close. 
 
 "Alas! You exaggerate my importance here, M. le
 
 84 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Marquis, and I fear you overrate the influence which any 
 of us may have," the Brother said sadly. "God, in His 
 infinite mercy, grant you may be right. But I, beholding 
 the fatal slope upon which our Republic is launched 
 remembering the catastrophes visited upon us during 
 these ten years talking with men whom I have known 
 since days when their boyish souls kept no secrets from 
 me hearing in their words the admission of a weakened 
 faith, an altered conscience, a loosened morality, a freedom 
 which constitutes the worst of tyrannies because it is as 
 absolute as it is unbounded, I say that forty years 
 will be needed to undo the harm so lightly done. You 
 and I and you, M. Aubret shall not live to see the 
 beginning of a change. When the boys now corrupted 
 in Communal schools have grown up and done their worst 
 by our unhappy country, then a still younger generation 
 will appreciate the necessity to turn, as did their glorious 
 forefathers, to the path shown them by our Saviour 
 and His Blessed Mother. The reaction may come then, 
 but not before." 
 
 "Young Clermont may live to see it," the Marques 
 observed. 
 
 And as I looked up in unconcealed amazement that the 
 Marquis de Vervillers should mention a locksmith's 
 apprentice though an art-locksmith at his antique 
 table in his ancestral dining-hall, he quietly informed me 
 that he had bought the Brothers' school, and provided 
 it with a complete staff of principal and teachers, all 
 laymen. The Government had not yet been able to dis- 
 possess him. Frere Alexandre's official part consisted 
 only in being a modest tenant, who rented an upstairs 
 room for his personal use. 
 
 Laughing, the Marquis led the way to a small salon
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 85 
 
 where coffee and liqueurs and things to smoke were 
 brought. When the servants had gone out, closing the 
 door, he addressed me: 
 
 "I believe you know young Clermont?" 
 
 Then I knew that neither racial questions nor religious 
 controversies had suggested this triangular luncheon 
 party. We were to deal with my Paul; perhaps discuss 
 his future on the basis of "charity." A pang of jealousy 
 shot through me soon drowned in a frothing sea of indig- 
 nation. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ONE of those pauses fell, in which we notice a bit of 
 broken match on a table, or any other irrelevant thing 
 with an importance borrowed from the intensity of men 
 during great emotions or planning delicate endeavours. 
 Two of us, I think the second being Frere Alexandre 
 were in the first category of men, at that moment; the 
 Marquis was in the other. 
 
 "I find myself in a distressing dilemma, M. Aubret," 
 the Marquis de Vervillers began. "Duties towards the 
 community, perhaps towards public morals, stand on the 
 one hand; a desire to be as merciful as circumstances per- 
 mit rises on the other. Stated thus simply, the situation 
 might seem clear. But an element of doubt envelops 
 it; and any further inquiries would involve the very 
 person I wish to spare. Frere Alexandre informs me that 
 you take a particular interest in young Clermont. Before 
 deciding, I should be happy to hear your opinion of this 
 boy and of the facts concerning him." 
 
 "You don't mean he was committed any any " I 
 
 could not utter the word. 
 
 The Marquis nodded:
 
 86 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "He has been working here. Badajeze is repairing 
 some valuable old bronzes for me; he seems to trust this 
 Clermont, and, knowing the master, I asked no questions. 
 After a week's experience, I must say I have no trust 
 left. If it had not been for Frere Alexandre, the judicial 
 inquiry would already have been instituted." 
 
 The Brother sighed, and his weary eyelids drooped 
 assentingly. The hand with which he adjusted a fold 
 of his black gown quivered slightly. 
 
 "You don't mean for theft?" I managed to gasp. 
 
 "The charge has not been brought," the Marquis 
 pursued. "No questions have yet been asked, nor in- 
 formation sought. You see, once I send for Badajeze, 
 the matter can no longer be stopped. There is no possi- 
 ble doubt as to what has occurred. There is only hesita- 
 tion as to the amount of severity I should show. It 
 must be borne in mind that this boy, who now turns out 
 so badly, is a former pupil of our Catholic school." 
 
 Frere Alexandre made a deprecating gesture with the 
 thin, blue-veined hands which Paul had described to me: 
 
 " I beg of you, M. le Marquis, be careful. He was with 
 us scarcely half a year. All his real educational influences 
 came from the Communal school." 
 
 "You know that we should be held responsible, mon 
 frere," the Marquis returned, rather grimly. "Our anti- 
 clerical adversaries would say, 'Five months of religious 
 influence sufficed to pervert the youth's mind, so that 
 seven full years of Republican education could not 
 straighten out the twists.' The man Clermont is in the 
 tax service; a scandal about his son would certainly be 
 followed by inquiries with pre-arranged charges against 
 the legality of our school. This would mean definite 
 closing."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 87 
 
 "Think only of the general principle, M. le Marquis; 
 only of the general principle. Whether we are to be 
 charitable or not that is our sole concern. I plead 
 for Christian charity. His father has married the woman, 
 remember; a civil marriage, I regret to say, but that is 
 better than a life of open, insolent licentiousness setting 
 a deplorable example." 
 
 So the marriage had taken place. Paul had been very 
 sober, of late, but had not mentioned family affairs. 
 
 "If they did not ask the blessing of the Church, it is no 
 marriage, and does not concern me," said the Marquis. 
 "Besides, the father is dangerous. Mainly because of 
 his position, since he lacks influence personally. But 
 a mediocre mind like his, conforming itself readily to pop- 
 ular doctrines, must always be handled carefully." 
 
 "He has conformed to them by marrying the woman 
 at the Mairie; his influence may grow." 
 
 "The boy's responsibility is what counts; the rest must 
 be set aside," the Marquis exclaimed with impatience. 
 "Whether I myself proceed against him, or whether I 
 allow him the benefit of an unreal doubt so that he may 
 continue on his career of vice and be caught elsewhere, 
 a scandal is awaiting him and, consequently, us. I am 
 frank in admitting that the possible effect upon my 
 school interests me very particularly. Is it better for us 
 to face this now, or to gain time? The Government 
 has been seeking a pretext for new proceedings. I have 
 already escaped four attempts at application of the original 
 law, and one or two additional bills passed on purpose 
 to catch any who might be immune. But I can't hope 
 for such success indefinitely." 
 
 He had turned to me. I addressed him: 
 
 "Since you are frank in explaining your motives,
 
 88 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Monsieur "my tone was very formal "perhaps you 
 would kindly be frank also in telling me what all this is 
 about. You are so good as to ask my opinion on a matter 
 you don't make clear." 
 
 "I am very sorry!" the Marquis said with charming 
 simplicity. "These last days, I have talked so much to 
 
 Frere Alexandre that it seemed as if all the details 
 
 "Well! I shall be brief, for the subject is unsavoury." 
 
 Whereupon he proceeded, in the leisurely manner of the 
 cultured amateur, to develop, first, a theme which never 
 could fail in its appeal to him: 
 
 "My father was fortunate enough to find, in Italy, 
 some very handsomely carved mirror ornaments. French 
 Louis XV bronze. They exactly suited this chateau; 
 were, in fact, similar to some of the same period whose 
 traces could still be seen. Ours had been looted during 
 the Revolution; probably sold for a few livres, and melted 
 eventually for Napoleon's wars, like almost all the brass 
 and bronze art-work in France. That is why we can 
 usually secure, now, only vulgar Empire designs if we 
 wish authentic pieces, or else abominable imitations. 
 Fortunately for people of taste, much of our best work 
 had been bought by foreigners or else left abroad by 
 French Ministers and residents; and so some of it drifts 
 home again. These pieces I have mentioned were beauti- 
 ful, almost unique, and became famous; experts and col- 
 lectors have come to study them. As a precaution, I 
 allowed them to be copied. It was well I did, for they 
 suffered, one summer I let the chateau to some rich 
 Americans." 
 
 I must have betrayed my surprise. For I knew the 
 French nobility did not let ancestral homes so long as it 
 was possible for them to maintain their position. And
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 89 
 
 the Vervillers were reputed wealthy. Had not the present 
 Marquis been able to afford lavish bounties to the town 
 including the purchase and endowment of a lay school 
 for the furtherance of Conservative and Catholic senti- 
 ments? 
 
 "The Republic makes things very hard for the nobility, 
 M. Aubret," he went on. "The law compelling us to 
 divide our property equally among our children has as 
 sole object the breaking up of estates. The chdteau 
 must go with my title to the Count de Vervillers; but it 
 will be estimated at so much to be deducted from my 
 gross estate for division into equal shares. Of course, 
 there are arrangements; our family is a united one, and 
 my heir is guardian for part of the property devolving 
 by law to his sister. Well, that summer we were threat- 
 ened with new taxes, my wife was ill and in the moun- 
 tains, my children were away, I did not like the prospect 
 of remaining here alone, and I allowed myself to be tempted 
 by an advantageous offer. When I resumed possession, 
 several roses and love-knots were broken from the bronzes. 
 The tenants disclaimed responsibility; accused tourists 
 of souvenir-collecting; but they paid most generously, 
 in true American style, rather than be worried by the 
 complications of French jurisprudence when I referred 
 the matter to my attorney. 
 
 "Several years had passed, when, last month, I called 
 in Badajeze. He undertook the work of restoration, 
 and carried two pieces away with him. He had occasion 
 to send young Clermont with a message; I noticed the boy. 
 While I esteem the master-craftsman, I find him disturb- 
 ing; his ideas are very subversive, I don't like to have him 
 about the place. 
 
 "When he came to consult me over some complication,
 
 90 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 I said, 'Who is that boy? Is he reliable? Yes? Then 
 send him, in the future, for simple things an apprentice 
 can attend to. You are too much of an artist to give 
 your time to small details; spare yourself as much as 
 possible.' " 
 
 "And then?" I prompted. 
 
 "The boy brought pieces back, and put them in place. 
 They needed only adjusting with their own screws, 
 which had been set aside. But they were not my originals 
 with restorations. They were clever copies." 
 
 "Made by a boy so inexperienced?" I interposed. 
 
 "No. Substituted by him. Copies already existed, 
 remember." 
 
 "Did you keep trace of those you authorised?" 
 
 "You believe in the boy, evidently. So did I, once." 
 
 "May I- 
 
 "Oh, certainly! Badajeze made the copies. All I 
 know beyond this rests on his word that he kept them." 
 
 "And it has not occurred to you to question Badajeze? " 
 
 "Yes. My first idea, as it is yours. But consider. He 
 is no fool, and may be wealthier than I, since he has few 
 demands upon him. Why should he risk a stupid theft, 
 sure of detection and leading to disgrace?" 
 
 Perhaps M. Badajeze did not think so highly of the 
 Marquis's taste and knowledge as the Marquis himself 
 did, was my inner comment. 
 
 "No, Badajeze is morally incapable of such an act," 
 M. de Vervillers went on. "The first question addressed 
 to him on the subject would start young Clermont in 
 the path leading straight to a reformatory. But for 
 Frere Alexandre, the step would already have been taken." 
 
 "Your humanitarian sentiments caused you to hesitate, 
 to reflect," Frere Alexandre deprecated suavely. "It
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 91 
 
 was natural that your emotions upon discovering the 
 fraud should have found an intense expression." 
 
 "Luckily, Frere Alexandre chanced to be here." The 
 Marquis still addressed me. "I took him in the drawing- 
 room to admire the bronzes. The gilding caught my 
 eye. I thought the light had played me a trick. Running 
 my fingers over the intricate inner edges, and looking 
 closely, I detected a smoothness proper to mouldings, 
 not to antique hand-carvings. Where the new work 
 was supposed to be, I could not find evidences of joining. 
 Besides which, one or two slight defacements of the origi- 
 nals, which were to have been restored also, had not been 
 changed. I could no longer doubt that these were 
 Badajeze's copies, admirable like everything he under- 
 takes, but frauds conspicuous to the eye of a connois- 
 seur. In my anger, I was for summoning Badajeze at 
 once. Frere Alexandre stopped me, recalling that the 
 boy had been a pupil at our school, [and suggesting con- 
 sequences ' ' 
 
 "The principle of it, M. le Marquis, the principle of it! 
 I remember quite distinctly that I insisted upon this. Of 
 course I thought, too, of the child whose mind I had tried 
 to fashion for happier destinies. But it was the prin- 
 ciple- 
 
 " Precisely," assented the Marquis. "And in the days 
 which have elapsed, we have continued to discuss the 
 principle, M. Aubret. The idea of talking with you before 
 the affair goes further was his, and met with my entire 
 approval. Since you are not only well acquainted with 
 the boy, but appear to take an interest in him " 
 
 "Give me a week, and I undertake to prove his in- 
 nocence," I answered hotly. "Meanwhile, will you both 
 agree to keep the matter to yourselves?"
 
 92 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Not a notion as to methods had come to me. I was 
 only sure of my boy, and that sufficed. 
 
 The Marquis and the Brother exchanged a look of 
 veiled significance which made me grow hot and cold in 
 several quick successions. 
 
 "This is more than I dared hope for," the Marquis 
 said. "You apparently hold a partial confession. In 
 that case, you should deal more plainly with me." Though 
 he was consummately courteous, his eyes had hardened. 
 
 "Where he has nothing to confess, I have nothing to 
 learn from him," I said. "Others will supply you with 
 proofs in his favour. I know the boy you are accusing; 
 your lightness surprises me, Monsieur. If I ask for dis- 
 cretion, it's only that the culprit may not escape." 
 
 "One week," he mused. "One week, during which you 
 would personally conduct an inquiry for which, I believe, 
 philosophical researches in racial movements are not the 
 surest of preparations, M. Aubret. You don't mind 
 my saying this? I fear the first result of your detective 
 activities would be the irretrievable disappearance of my 
 bronzes." 
 
 "Will you name the value attached to them?" I de- 
 manded. "If it be within my means to offer you the 
 cash guarantee " 
 
 "My dear sir!" exclaimed the Marquis, utterly shocked. 
 "Where it is a question of authentic Louis XV bronze 
 work, with the original gilding, belonging to the Chateau 
 de Vervillers " 
 
 "And bought by your father in an Italian junk-shop," 
 I returned impulsively. 
 
 The Marquis observed me in silence for a moment, and 
 spoke freezingly: 
 
 "You may, if you please, defend a boy whom you
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 93 
 
 prefer to consider innocent. But I have been gravely 
 wronged, and I hold proofs. Unless I am mistaken, 
 there is fresh evidence in the house at this very moment." 
 
 He rang. 
 
 "Has the apprentice from Badajeze's returned?" he 
 asked the servant. "Send him in." 
 
 The servant having gone, he addressed me once more: 
 
 "Before further repairs should be done, I told Bada- 
 jeze, two pieces must be cleaned. A risk; but I was send- 
 ing those to help find the others. My entire series, if 
 robbed of two, would lose half the value. Now that you 
 know four are at stake, you will appreciate my desire 
 for prompt action. The pieces to be cleaned were taken 
 by young Clermont himself to-day at twelve, on the ex- 
 press understanding that they must be brought back at 
 half -past two." 
 
 That was why my poor Paul had passed me at the 
 door, sending me his gay, familiar nod. 
 
 A knock came. A boy entered. Not Paul. He 
 delivered two bits of delicate bronze-work into the Mar- 
 quis's hand. After examining the metal, the Marquis 
 dismissed him with a tip. We heard the steps reced- 
 ing. 
 
 "These are mine and the messenger was not Clermont. 
 The evidence is more conclusive than I anticipated." 
 
 "May I ask what your next move will be?" My voice 
 was unsteady. 
 
 "The police shall decide for me this afternoon." 
 
 "You have waited several days: wait for one more," 
 I pleaded. 
 
 "My motives for haste should be clear, I think. Must 
 I add that I am acquainted with this boy's record at 
 Delligny's?"
 
 94 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Frere Alexandre looked so unhappy that I knew whence 
 that information came. 
 
 "He was totally blameless, as any truthful witness can 
 establish," I said. "The only difference between his 
 innocence there and his innocence here is, that even at 
 such a place as Delligny's there was no person irresponsible 
 enough to bring an unsubstantiated charge." 
 
 The Marquis held up his hand: 
 
 "You can no longer fail to appreciate, Monsieur, that 
 my chief concern is to avoid painful consequences while 
 recovering objects of art which could not possibly be 
 replaced. When I asked you to do me the pleasure of 
 coming to-day, I wished for an expression of your opinion, 
 but I also had a definite proposition to make. You 
 enjoy the boy's confidence. Get full avowals from him 
 and the return of the stolen pieces. Frere Alexandre, 
 and you, and I, and the unhappy boy himself, shall be 
 the only ones to know. Badajeze shall never suspect 
 why this apprentice left him. For of course we must send 
 him away from Verviller, where he would be bound to 
 fall again in evil ways. I shall see that he is properly 
 taken care of, and educated to better principles. His 
 parents shall know just enough to ensure their consent. 
 Will you consider this?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You may be condemning him to prison." 
 
 " I think not. For I shall make his case mine, and shall 
 spend my last franc, if necessary, in his defence." I rose. 
 
 "Let us hope you may not be compelled to do so. My 
 course will be decided upon only after consulting people 
 competent in such questions." 
 
 With most exquisite courtesy, the Marquis saw me to 
 his door, renewing his thanks for my opinion, and all but
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 95 
 
 reopening the issue of racial movements. My last glimpse 
 of Frere Alexandre showed him palely, mournfully motion- 
 less in a graceful, gilt-limbed, silk-swathed arm-chair. 
 
 IV 
 
 MY IDEA was to see Paul at once in his workshop. 
 Going first to my house, I took a padlock from a cupboard 
 door and tried to break it. The thing was too confound- 
 edly well made. Next, straining upon the key I tried 
 to force the spring, and failed conspicuously. Then throw- 
 ing the key aside I put the padlock in my pocket. 
 
 Several apprentices were at the work-table, under their 
 master's supervision, when I entered. No sign of Paul. 
 I have since asked myself how I found time or thought to 
 glance towards the house-window. Delectable Mademoi- 
 selle Odette was not at her post. 
 
 Addressing M. Badajeze, I told a story of a lost key. 
 
 "Not very seriously lost," he observed. "How fortu- 
 nate you took the precaution of tying it!" 
 
 Indeed, I had failed to notice it was fastened to the 
 padlock by a string, and had dangled from my pocket 
 all this while. 
 
 "Er yes," I said. "Would you try it? There's 
 something wrong." 
 
 M. Badajeze snapped it again and again, with aggres- 
 sive cheer. 
 
 "Like a child going to the dentist," I said. "But the 
 pain comes back, you know. Please examine it at your 
 leisure, and do whatever may be necessary." 
 
 "A little rust, perhaps." The artistic locksmith 
 effected the cure almost before finishing the diagnosis. "I 
 promise there will be no more complaints. Only a sug- 
 gestion of oil smeared on the key with my finger, did you
 
 96 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 notice? The trouble which careless people cause me, by 
 pouring big drops into their locks, and often salad-oil, 
 at that! Indescribable!" He was fond of delivering 
 such homilies. They impressed with his variety of in- 
 formation, and also showed he was not proud. 
 
 I asked what I owed him. 
 
 "Nothing, Monsieur." 
 
 "I shall remember I am in your debt. You have taken 
 considerable interest in a young friend of mine your 
 apprentice Clermont. He is giving satisfaction, I hope?" 
 
 "He will make a workman." 
 
 "You already send him out in the town?" 
 
 "Not often." 
 
 "Yet I don't see him." I had to insist, the man would 
 give me no clue. 
 
 "His mother sent for him unexpectedly," said Aristide 
 Badajeze, leading me towards the door. He had small 
 time to waste on customers who did not discuss art. 
 
 The news of Paul's "unexpected" call preoccupied 
 me. I knew the inferences which might be drawn. 
 
 I went to Delligny's bicycle shop on the chance of iden- 
 tifying Marcel Lavenu and using him as messenger. He 
 was not visible, and I had the pleasure of buying a pneuma- 
 tic pump, the first thing I saw, from the proprietor in 
 person. Casting about for means to reach Marcel, I 
 lingered a few minutes, questioning; by good fortune, that 
 pump was a new model. Then my guardian angel or 
 Paul's brought possible consequences in a vivid flash 
 before me. After publicly tampering with Aristide 
 Badajeze, here I was at Delligny's after young Lavenu! 
 I paid for my absurd purchase, and fled. 
 
 At the end of a score of yards, I found myself suddenly 
 held up:
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 97 
 
 "Monsieur! Monsieur! You forgot your pump!" 
 A boy had been despatched after me. 
 
 "Oh, thanks!" I said. And taking it grimly, I gave 
 him half a franc. 
 
 "You are sure you know how to use it?" he asked. 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "Because if you want me to explain " 
 
 "If necessary, I can come back," was my answer, 
 delivered curtly. 
 
 The boy, black-eyed with a merry pink face, looked 
 unnecessarily grieved, I thought. I have since known 
 that he was none other than Marcel Lavenu himself. 
 
 Renouncing further ambition as a detective, I went to 
 Paul's house. Luck was with me; he opened the door, 
 and I told him I must see him that night. 
 
 "Don't fail, Paul. Whatever may happen, don't fail." 
 
 "I had intended to come. I shall not fail." His eyes 
 were red, his cheeks pale and drawn. 
 
 In my study once more, I read until the pages swam 
 before me. There had, indeed, been but two pages, I 
 believe; two solid blocks of lettering smeared black, with 
 white spaces around and between as the book lay open 
 on a lectern. For the life of me I could not say what the 
 book was. The binding was leather, and the title long ; fine 
 print, with few paragraphs. A learned book, probably. 
 
 Five o'clock! And he never came earlier than eight- 
 fifteen. Why, in the name of all that's sane or sensible 
 on earth, had I not told him to come at once? He could 
 have obeyed, evidently. My constant idea since leaving 
 the Marquis had been that I must see the boy that night. 
 Having to devise means and methods, I had been caught 
 unaware by the change in my main thought. No altering 
 now; what harm there might be, was done.
 
 98 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 His appearance, so changed since noon ; his words about 
 intending to come; the fact he had escaped from the shop 
 and let another boy go on his errand to the chateau; 
 weighed upon me. For the first time it occurred to me 
 that he might, in some silly, innocent way, have found 
 himself compromised, and not known what to do. 
 
 Intolerable hours passed. Those two ink-blurred 
 pages on the lectern afforded no relief. And all objects 
 near me brought useless thoughts of Paul. If I tried 
 looking from my window, I remembered him in his art- 
 less days; if I rested idle within my room, each thing 
 served to recall some phrase or gesture. 
 
 Entering my study, that night, Paul closed the door 
 and stood for some moments, pale and rigid. Presently 
 he said: 
 
 "The police came to our house to-day." 
 
 My heart felt caught in a steel net pressing it close 
 from all sides, while a mailed hand clutched at my throat. 
 
 "They inspected our rooms and measured them," he 
 went on. "Did they come here too? They will, prob- 
 ably. To find out how many soldiers can be quartered 
 in each house, if mobilisation is ordered." 
 
 The hand released me, the steel net burst, and the 
 wild, avenging beats of my heart stifled me. 
 
 "What what has that got to to do with " I 
 
 gasped. Lucidity pierced on one point alone: his intense 
 gravity had not left him. Indeed, he was so preoccu- 
 pied as scarcely to notice my condition. 
 
 "Mother thought the war had already begun," Paul 
 went on. "There's been so much talk about it, you see. 
 She was too frightened to ask what it meant, while they 
 were there, or to understand what they told her; and
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 99 
 
 she fainted when they had left. A neighbour heard her 
 scream, and went over, and then ran to get me. Father 
 had gone off for the day. When I got home, she was still 
 unconscious. She wasn't alone any more, though. Or per- 
 haps yes, she was alone. For the the baby was dead." 
 
 He waited for me to speak. I could not. He began 
 again : 
 
 "They hadn't warned me I was to have a brother 
 or sister. When father came, I met him at the door, and 
 told him. He said only, 'It is well.' The baby's death, 
 I suppose. She made him marry her so the child should 
 be legitimate. And I don't think it at all well. There's 
 no baby to provide for; and there mayn't be any war, so 
 the allowance as a soldier's wife doesn't matter. Yet 
 they are married and nothing can change that." 
 
 His resentment against this superfluous marriage was 
 pathetic in its primitive non-morality. I ventured a 
 word about the laws of organised society. Wildly, he 
 burst out in a storm of despair: 
 
 "But can't you understand they treat me, now, as if 
 / were illegitimate! I can't be can I? just because 
 father married his mistress? My mother was married to 
 him, and long before I was born; I know, by my birth 
 certificate; and she brought him a dot, which he spent. 
 When father ran off with with the woman who makes 
 me call her mother, he took me too, because he would have 
 his son, he said. I wasn't two years old, and don't 
 remember clearly. I know I hadn't ever cried so much, 
 nor had so many chocolates given me; I was very sick. 
 That's all I know. But I've heard say she wouldn't 
 divorce father, and didn't know how to earn money, 
 and died very poor." 
 
 "You don't mean she "
 
 100 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 He did not heed me: 
 
 "There's nothing wrong with mother's position any 
 more, so she's making up for lost time, I suppose. And 
 father's position has changed, too. But I can't under- 
 stand what has gone wrong with my position. I never 
 was her son, and now I don't seem to be his, any longer. 
 Perhaps I belong only to my real mother, and when she 
 died she didn't have a husband. Are you sure I haven't 
 become illegitimate?" 
 
 "My dear boy, nothing of the kind can affect you," I 
 said. "This is a civilised country with established laws 
 anybody can verify." 
 
 "She doesn't know it, then." His head drooped; 
 his hands lay listlessly beside him. 
 
 The events of the afternoon flashed before me. Fresh 
 from such a tragedy as this, worse hung over him, was 
 doubtless in the act of befalling. Nor would a faint 
 intimation of the trouble suffice; I had not the right to 
 spare him. 
 
 I found myself in the middle of it, somehow, having 
 had enough sense to present the story impersonally. 
 
 Paul listened without showing much surprise, but re- 
 vealing no emotion at all. 
 
 "M. Badajeze had those copies; I have seen them," 
 he observed, when I finished. "I went several times to 
 the chateau. The footman says the Marquis doesn't 
 like M. Badajeze to go there because he's a Socialist. 
 But other people say he can't be a Socialist, he's too broad 
 in his views. M. Badajeze told us apprentices that the 
 Marquis would not disturb him because he is such a great 
 artist!" Paul smiled. Then his face darkened: "I was 
 to have gone back to-day, after seeing you there. Wish 
 I had. But I was called home instead."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 101 
 
 No idea that he might in any way be concerned had yet 
 dawned on him. I, cowardly, fenced with the issue: 
 
 "Do you suspect M. Badajeze?" 
 
 "Oh, no! Impossible!" he exclaimed, utterly shocked. 
 
 "Then whom?" 
 
 "Andre Manadan." 
 
 "On general principles, or for specific reasons?" 
 
 "Both." 
 
 "Tell me what happened." But instead of letting him 
 do so, as he undoubtedly would, thereby sparing an infin- 
 ity of pain, I blunderingly admonished him: "You will 
 need proofs before bringing an accusation, you know." 
 
 "Accusation!" He stared blankly. "I'm not going 
 to accuse anybody!" 
 
 I tried to retrieve my fault: 
 
 "Tell me what happened." 
 
 "Not if it is to get a comrade into trouble." 
 
 "Surely, you don't refuse to tell me?" I urged. "You 
 have never yet refused me anything, Paul." 
 
 "I can't get a comrade into trouble." 
 
 Then, I broke down. 
 
 "Paul, Paul, can't you understand? You have been 
 going there by special arrangement you received antique 
 bronzes and brought back imitations you are the one who 
 will be defamed and disgraced, unless another person can 
 be proved guilty!" 
 
 He stared at me from a face as cold and fixed and colour- 
 less as dull stone. I waited for the desperate outburst 
 which must answer me when he should be able to speak. 
 But his words came, slow and hushed: 
 
 "I have done nothing." 
 
 "You must prove that." 
 
 "I shall try. But I won't betray a comrade."
 
 102 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Had he been less quiet, I might have hoped. 
 
 "Don't betray me, then," I said. He quivered, and 
 his eyes widened. Any change in him was welcome. I 
 went on: "This is my affair as well as yours. I have told 
 the Marquis de Vervillers so. You certainly owe me 
 as much comradeship as to a little apprentice. So answer 
 my questions, at least. How long have you known some- 
 thing was wrong?" 
 
 "Only now. I'm not a workman, and I didn't notice 
 the pieces save for their design. While you were speak- 
 ing, I remembered they had felt rather different when I 
 took them back to the chateau." 
 
 "Do you know who went in your stead, to-day?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Were any of the apprentices particularly interested 
 in the bronzes?" 
 
 " Yes. M. Badajeze brought his copies out and showed 
 them to us all when he began the restorations; he boasted 
 of his work, declaring only an expert could tell the differ- 
 ence. He said it was all prejudice and snobbishness, 
 that the old ones should be worth a fortune, and his only 
 a few louis." 
 
 "And one boy especially " I prompted. 
 
 "I don't know; my eyes were all for the bronzes." 
 
 "Yet you may have noticed something at some mo- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Nothing I could be absolutely sure of. And I couldn't 
 be a traitor, anyhow," he added doggedly. 
 
 "Do you realise that you may be sending yourself to 
 prison?" I groaned. 
 
 His muscles stiffened as if frozen, and then relaxed quite 
 limply under the tight-fitting apprentice suit. With 
 arms crossed upon his knees, he bowed his head.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 103 
 
 We seemed to be not here in my study at night, but 
 one afternoon, on the hill above Verviller; the world had 
 gone back in its course; Paul had sought me out in my 
 retreat to tell me of his school, and his father, and his 
 desperate resolve; in my ears the words rang: "I would 
 rather be killed than kill poor people." 
 
 Like an echo of those words, a veiled, scarcely audible 
 whisper reached me: 
 
 "It's better to go to prison than send a comrade 
 there." 
 
 SILENCE a mighty silence broken only by the constant 
 rustling which his own hands caused, and the occasional 
 ring of heels upon distant stone. No joy, no colour, no 
 relief about him, as he worked; no tree-shaded market- 
 place with its busy crowd; no light-hearted apprentices 
 to be viewed with admiration or dismay; no Aristide 
 Badajeze to stop in the midst of reprimands and dis- 
 cuss art-principles; no clatter of hammers, no clicking 
 of metals, no whining of files. Paul was reduced to 
 making lamp-shades; one after another, always the same 
 model, the same wires, the same paper of unchanging 
 hues; making lamp-shades from morning until night, 
 quite alone and in silence. 
 
 But he could think. With no one to see or to hear, 
 and with fingers repeating as of themselves the gestures 
 of his monotonous task, Paul could think. His thoughts 
 ran upon scenes which were still very near to him. So 
 near as to be real, and to need no recalling. Then why 
 harp upon it all? Perhaps because of the satiety brought 
 by repetition. 
 
 There were five of these scenes; some vivid, some
 
 104 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 shrouded; some seared into his eyes, others drumming 
 endlessly in his ears. Five scenes all real. 
 
 He was in the streets of Verviller, at night. 
 
 The windows of the house he had just left were dark 
 patches in the masonry, save for one the window to 
 which he had so often raised his boyish eyes. He seemed 
 to ask its light for counsel now, as he might have done 
 of old; but no answer came or could come. In spite of 
 M. Aubret's emotion, Paul knew there could be nothing 
 heroic, no element of self-sacrifice about the attitude he 
 had taken. The problem before him was very simple, 
 as far as others might be concerned; complexity existed 
 only for himself. He must get out of trouble somehow; 
 but to do this, he must perceive the trouble clearly, and 
 he could not. M. Aubret had promised all possible help 
 while agreeing to let Paul act first, and had given him a 
 little money in case of emergencies. But M. Aubret was 
 a gentleman; and there were many things about a work- 
 ingman's life which gentlemen never understood, how- 
 ever nice they might be. So Paul turned away from 
 the house in the rue du Port, having learned of a danger but 
 not of fair means for freeing himself. 
 
 The chateau chimneys rose above the tall, straight- 
 topped walls like heads of slim pines over a level of massive 
 oaks, sharpcut against a half-lighted sky filled with 
 stars. In his first glimpse of Verviller, this chdteau had 
 been one of the objects on which his attention had rested, 
 suggestive of all he must abhor. Many of the great 
 windows shone brightly; the grand salons, of dismal 
 memory, glowered blindly among them. If he could speak 
 to the Marquis, and explain, entreat! But he would not
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 105 
 
 dare go in; would not be admitted if he tried. Even 
 though the Marquis should happen to come out, he was 
 not sure of the courage to accost him. Yet he waited 
 nearly an hour, with rare shiftings of his weight from 
 one foot to the other, and a periodic quick clasping of 
 his hands, but no further movement. Then "Why 
 should he listen to me?" Paul asked himself. "I am 
 made to live in a wash-house and work as an apprentice." 
 The reflection contained no bitterness. It was a simple 
 statement of fact. 
 
 The four-roomed cottage where his parents and he lived 
 seemed remote and unfamiliar. He looked on it, afraid 
 to approach. An open-hearted talk with his father might 
 help; but his mother would hear. Lights burned in the 
 kitchen and in the ground-floor bedroom; she must be 
 awake, and he reading the paper or asleep over it. Paul 
 must say good-night; but, if father were indeed asleep, 
 he would not wake him. 
 
 Paul always began with the scene in the dark streets 
 before those three houses. That was not when circum- 
 stances had overwhelmed him. But each detail had 
 played a part he could little suspect. 
 
 Bending over the pile of lamp-shades, he counted them, 
 The number was what it should be; and if his thoughts 
 had not stopped, he would not have felt the stiffness of 
 his legs, the aching of his back, the numbness of his hands. 
 Quickly, to think again to think to think ! 
 
 ii 
 
 He was in the workshop, next morning. Nothing had 
 changed, though the air might have been rather cooler 
 than usual; he shivered once or twice as he took down the
 
 106 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 shutters with Andre Manadan. They two had this duty 
 to perform, and so always arrived first. Paul had come 
 considerably before half-past six, this morning. He 
 had not slept well. But with the bright, crisp sunshine and 
 the normal look of things, his problem had become so illu- 
 sive that it could scarcely have been said to preoccupy him. 
 
 Sleeplessness had not been his reason for coming early. 
 He wanted to take down the shutters alone, and search 
 in one or two hiding-places he knew, provided M. Bada- 
 jeze retired for another quarter of an hour after opening 
 the door, as usual. But Andre Manadan, impelled by 
 secret motives, had arrived before Paul, who was defeated 
 in the only project he had been able to form. For some 
 moments, Paul drew away from Andre with a repulsion 
 deeper than ever the sole evident change in the entire 
 situation. Then his curiosity was roused by noticing 
 that the plausible little wretch, no longer insinuating nor 
 aggressive, had become suspicious and uneasy. The 
 thought of questioning Andre as possible means for reach- 
 ing the truth, through a thicket of falsehoods, now oc- 
 curred to him. 
 
 "Was it you they sent to the chateau yesterday?" 
 Paul asked. 
 
 "What's that to you?" Andre returned, sulking. 
 
 "I'll answer your question when you have answered 
 mine." 
 
 "And I'll mind my business when you mind yours." 
 
 "There have been things stolen at the chdteau." 
 Paul had decided on direct attack. 
 
 "Well, you were there at noon." Andre had not tried 
 to feign surprise. 
 
 "You went later, when I was to have gone." 
 
 "Since you knew, why did you ask?"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 107 
 
 "I didn't know, until you gave yourself away. It's 
 you, the thief." 
 
 They had spoken rapidly, in whispers. As Paul brought 
 the charge confirmed only by Andre's lack of surprise, 
 the death-like face with its yellowed eyes drew closer, and 
 the voice snarled raspingly: 
 
 "Who are you to talk of thieves? You were caught 
 with me in the Delligny affair. I say so, and you can't 
 prove the contrary." 
 
 "If you ever dare say anything like that " Paul 
 
 tried to control himself, but was boiling, seething. 
 
 "We've stolen together once, and if we're in for it 
 now " 
 
 Andre got no further. Paul's hands had flown out 
 before he knew what he was doing, and the hollow spanks 
 of a double slap resounded in the quiet workshop, fol- 
 lovred by a piercing shriek and blatant blubbering. 
 
 " If we're in for it now if we ' ' 
 
 The words whirled round and round in Paul's brain. 
 Why had he struck before listening? For M. Badajeze was 
 upon them, bouncing out of the house while Mademoiselle 
 Odette stopped in the doorway, scared and scandalised. 
 
 "What's this? Fighting on my premises? A big boy 
 a saulting a little one!" cried out M. Badajeze. "Do 
 you take my workshop for a waggoners' eating-house?" 
 
 "Oh, it's little Andre! Is he hurt? Do bring him 
 to me, papa!" wailed Mademoiselle Odette. "Don't 
 leave him alone with that boy ! It's the second time Paul 
 has attacked Andre!" 
 
 "I never attacked him before! I only swore at him!" 
 Paul protested stormily. "You can't imagine all I have 
 had to put up with!" 
 
 "If you were larger, you might defend yourself," sneered
 
 108 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 M. Badajeze. "Here, take the boy Manadan, Odette; 
 see if he is hurt. As for yourself, young man, let me 
 ever catch you at such games again, and either your father 
 shall thrash you or I am capable of doing it myself!" 
 
 Paul had subsided. He accepted the rebuff with bowed 
 head and crimson face. He had remembered that no 
 explanation was possible. For he could not say Andre 
 had accused him of complicity in two thefts. Mademoi- 
 selle Odette put her arm round Paul's "victim" and led 
 him away; by some mysterious process he was suffering 
 acutely in his chest and left knee. Within the house, 
 Paul heard the farce continue. Manadan wept and com- 
 plained by turns ; it was as if he had been kicked up to the 
 ceiling, and then laid on the anvil and stuck with files, to 
 judge by the commotion which he and his sympathisers 
 made. Mademoiselle Odette recommended to her father, 
 who had rejoined them, that the poor, maltreated lad be 
 allowed to go home. M. Badajeze agreed; he had small 
 liking for illness, but what he abhorred most was an idle, 
 snivelling boy. 
 
 With rage in his heart, and fear at his throat for he 
 had had leisure to ponder over his graver difficulties 
 Paul bent at the table, polishing a key which was his 
 allotted first task of the morning. 
 
 There was a sound of stealthy rummaging in a corner. 
 Footsteps crept one way and another. "Hunting for his 
 things," Paul thought, not deigning to look round. Sud- 
 denly he was struck in the curve of the back, full upon the 
 spine, and his coat was jerked from his left shoulder. Even 
 a weak fist can cause sharp pain under such conditions; 
 but from the traces noted afterwards, and interpreted 
 differently, it became evident at least to Paul that a stick 
 or a bar had been used.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 109 
 
 As Paul, suffering cruelly, tried to straighten up, Andre 
 shot out through the front door. Neither M. Badajeze 
 nor Mademoiselle Odette was visible. 
 
 "Hello what's up? What's he got now?" voices cried 
 in several tones. The other apprentices had come in from 
 the Place du Vieux Marche. 
 
 Paul swayed from side to side, clinging to the edge of 
 the work-table and repressing all sounds save low moans. 
 
 "Struck his back against the table!" "Dropped his 
 key and stooped to pick it up!" "Happened to me, once 
 hurts dreadfully!" the apprentices exclaimed. 
 
 "Serves him right," M. Badajeze pronounced, entering. 
 "Take that key and finish it, Ernest. I'll give him 
 massage for his injured back." And he ordered Paul to 
 the bellows, while he put some iron on the forge. 
 
 Dizzy from pain and nervous shock, and with thoughts 
 hopelessly blurred in his heavy head, Paul pulled at the bel- 
 lows, keeping his position, as he stooped and rose, thanks to 
 the big handles on which he hung blindly. Several times he 
 fancied himself losing consciousness, but stuck to the task. 
 
 There must have been steps which Paul had failed to 
 hear; for M. Badajeze dropped the iron-work, and spoke in 
 his most urbane tone: 
 
 "Ah, M. le Marquis! Good-morning. These are 
 early hours for you. Shall we go into my parlour to talk, 
 or do you enjoy this atmosphere of art?" 
 
 "Your parlour, if you please," said the Marquis de 
 Vervillers. 
 
 Releasing the handles, and steadying himself against 
 the wall, Paul looked for something he was not sure 
 what. Perhaps that key, which Ernest had long since 
 finished. A moment later, he was sitting on the ground 
 in a heap. No one observed him. The compagnon
 
 110 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 had gone out with one of the boys, and the others were 
 very busy working or trifling. Principally the latter, 
 since M. Badajeze and Mademoiselle Odette were both 
 absent. Perhaps Paul fainted; at all events he had not 
 moved again, and some time must have elapsed, when 
 M. Badajeze yelled thunderously : 
 "PAUL CLERMONT!" 
 
 Paul always stopped abruptly there. This scene ran 
 into the next. Yet he ended it when he heard his name 
 called, and, stumbling to his feet, reeled towards the 
 parlour and a fate which even then he did not conceive. 
 
 His eyes left the lamp-shades to seek the small window 
 high above his head. The hour had nearly come for a ray 
 of sun to shine through. Every day he watched, patiently, 
 for that ray to visit him. It brought a feeling almost 
 as if the sun itself had peeped in. When the weather 
 was fair, he saw the sun as he walked in the yard. But the 
 thought that it came to him in his room almost was 
 wonderfully cheering. 
 
 in 
 
 He was in M. Badajeze's parlour. Not the din- 
 ing-room which opened into the shop; M. Badajeze had 
 met him there, and caught him by one ear, and drawn 
 him on, through a tiny hall, into the parlour, where 
 there were curtains and a carpet and like luxuries. The 
 Marquis stood near a window, very erect, superbly elegant, 
 and unapproachably dignified. 
 
 "Persuasion, not violence, M. Badajeze," the Marquis 
 commanded. "And remember my two chief objects." 
 
 "Kindness would be wasted on this," growled the 
 artistic locksmith, pushing the boy from him an instant 
 before releasing the captive ear.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 111 
 
 "Let me speak first," the Marquis said. "I want you 
 to tell me, young man, if you know why I am here." 
 
 Paul started to say Yes. Of course he knew, thanks to 
 M. Aubret's warning. But the admission might com- 
 promise him. He hung his head and did not speak. 
 
 "Will you answer, unhappy good-for-nothing?" roared 
 M. Badajeze. 
 
 "You would do better to be frank with me," the Mar- 
 quis continued, his tone developing a tinge of severity. 
 "I shall be indulgent if your attitude makes this possible. 
 Come ! Do you acknowledge knowing what has happened 
 at the chateau?" 
 
 Paul thought: "He asks me to be frank, and he is 
 right." Looking up, he said : 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 "A confession! A full confession! Cursed be the 
 hour when I admitted such a villain into my establish- 
 ment!" howled the locksmith, clapping his huge red hands 
 to his round bald head. 
 
 "Leave him alone, M. Badajeze. If you restore my 
 property, it will make a vast difference for you," the 
 Marquis went on. 
 
 Paul spoke slowly and waveringly: 
 
 "You think I stole your bronzes. I didn't. I don't 
 know where they are. I don't know anything, except 
 what M. Aubret told me. All I did was to put in place 
 the bronzes M. Badajeze gave me." 
 
 A scream like that of a wounded beast escaped the 
 artistic locksmith. When fury allowed him to speak, 
 he caught Paul by his coat : 
 
 "What, miserable one! You would accuse me?" 
 
 Something fell from Paul's pocket with a metallic 
 ring.
 
 112 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "But here we have it!" cried M. Badajeze. "Caught 
 with the goods, M. le Marquis! Caught with the goods!" 
 
 It was, indeed, a dainty bit of Louis XV bronze-work, 
 all roses and love-knots, as applied to mirrors in Pompa- 
 dour days of amorous rhapsodies. 
 
 The Marquis took it from the trembling fingers of M. 
 Badajeze. 
 
 "Yes. My original. Admirably restored, but I can 
 identify the work by the touch and the gilding. Excel- 
 lently done." The amateur had forgotten Paul. He 
 resumed: "We must have him searched. Perhaps the 
 other " 
 
 "No time like the present, in dealing with such char- 
 acters," said the locksmith. "If you move, little thief, 
 I'll flatten you against the wall with my two fists, and then 
 tie you up like a parcel for shipment to China!" 
 
 "Commit no irregularity," the Marquis admonished. 
 
 "Has he not robbed a client of mine and in my own 
 establishment? Can I let him escape with the spoils?" 
 the artistic locksmith almost sobbed. "No, worse luck! 
 His pockets are empty, save for this handkerchief and a 
 folding ruler and two or three coppers. But what is 
 this in his purse? Ten francs in gold!" 
 
 Since the moment when the mirror-piece had fallen, 
 Paul had stood dumb and inanimate. He did not know 
 how it came there. What could he say? And no one 
 asked him to say anything. Now they wanted to take his 
 money the money given him against emergencies 
 
 "It's mine!" he cried. 
 
 " Yours? You never came by this honestly!" Aristide 
 Badajeze turned to the Marquis: "The boy is allowed 
 no money. His father has told me so. He sold your 
 other bronze for ten francs. We have caught him doubly.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 113 
 
 With your permission, M. le Marquis, I shall send for the 
 police." 
 
 "M. Aubret gave me the money last night go ask 
 him," Paul said thickly. He could not control his voice, 
 and could scarcely hear it, for the surging blood in his 
 head. "As for the bronze, I don't know how it came 
 in my pocket." He made a despairing gesture, which 
 brought on more acutely the pain in his back. His coat, 
 partly wrenched off by M. Badajeze in the course of the 
 search, dragged on his shoulder, as when he had been 
 injured. 
 
 But this explained everything to him. Andre Manadan 
 had struck him to slip the thing in his pocket, after rooting 
 it out from some corner. 
 
 "Yes!" Paul exclaimed. "I know how it came there!" 
 
 "Tell me, then," said the Marquis. 
 
 The impulse was already dead. Had he not said he 
 would go to prison rather than send a comrade there? 
 It was true he had not realised what all this meant. None 
 the less he was pledged. 
 
 "Somebody somebody must have put it there," Paul 
 murmured. 
 
 The Marquis drew a step nearer: 
 
 "Return that other bronze to me, and I shall spare you 
 as far as possible. I give you my word." 
 
 "I can't return what I have never had," Paul said 
 miserably. 
 
 "A difficult case," the Marquis sighed. 
 
 "Not if handled with sufficient energy, M. le Marquis," 
 the locksmith retorted. "I promise you I know how to 
 treat young criminals." 
 
 A voice seemed to speak within Paul. As if a friend 
 whispered close to his ear, saying: "Appeal to the Mar-
 
 114 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 quis's humanity. Speak out from your heart let him 
 understand what this means to you." 
 
 The words he uttered could not have been very con- 
 vincing. He got badly tangled, avoiding accusations 
 against Manadan. But in that maze of vague, peculiar 
 evidence, the Marquis must have seen glimmerings of 
 truth. For he said : 
 
 "This affair is to go no further. I shall trust to luck 
 for the recovery of my bronze." 
 
 "Then I take up the case where you abandon it!" 
 declared the artistic locksmith. " It shall not be said that 
 an apprentice of Aristide Badajeze can steal with im- 
 punity. If the nobility grows lax in its ideas of public 
 morals, the world of art is still their bulwark. I presume 
 that at least M. le Marquis de Vervillers will not deny me 
 his testimony?" 
 
 "Should this be brought before the public, I must sup- 
 port law and order," the Marquis said sadly. "You 
 will reflect before you act, I hope; and if you wish to 
 consult with me, I am at your disposal." 
 
 He put the bronze in his pocket. 
 
 "I must ask you to leave that with me," said M. Bada- 
 jeze. "It is safe in my hands provided you don't again 
 order me to trust it to some one else. You will be kind 
 enough to recall, M. le Marquis, that you forbade me to 
 come with my work, and instructed me to send this very 
 boy who robbed you." 
 
 "Take the bronze." The Marquis handed it to him 
 without looking; he turned to Paul: "Young man, you 
 may go. I had him called, M. Badajeze. Let him go." 
 
 As the Marquis finished, Paul drew himself together 
 and bolted from the parlour across the dining-room 
 through the workshop out into the street.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 115 
 
 Paul left his task for a moment, to take up an earthen- 
 ware jug which stood near the bed. His throat always got 
 dry, at the end of this scene. 
 
 On his bench once more, he counted the lamp-shades. 
 He was ahead of the required number. It did him good 
 to rehearse all this; it kept him thinking, and helped his 
 fingers to go rapidly. 
 
 IV 
 
 He was in the streets, but by day running In the 
 streets of Verviller. Apprentice-fashion, he had worn his 
 cap when called from the workshop; and, terrified beyond 
 thinking, had not taken it off. Nobody noticed it in the 
 house; and because of it, nobody noticed him as he ran. 
 
 Panting, yet ice-cold, he reached the house in the rue du 
 Port. A stranger opened the door. What did he want? 
 Speak to M. Aubret? 
 
 "It will be many a day before any one speaks to him. 
 Picked up unconscious in the night. At his age " 
 
 Clinging to walls and halting at all street-corners, ex- 
 hausted, his courage gone, his resistance destroyed, his 
 back seeming broken in two, Paul reached home. His 
 father was there, with M. Badajeze; his mother screamed 
 out from her bedroom beyond the narrow hall. They had 
 heard the story, then. As Paul entered, his father seized 
 him by the collar of his drill jacket, holding him off at 
 arm's length. 
 
 "It is I who shall have him boxed up, before he dis- 
 graces my name further!" cried the wasted man, to whom 
 righteous anger had lent physical strength and mental 
 resolution. " That my son? I disown him!" 
 
 And he pushed the boy from him. 
 
 Paul rolled limply into a corner and stayed there, 
 motionless.
 
 116 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 It seemed to him that he was seated on a bundle of 
 rags at the gate of a hovel from which he had been turned, 
 a wanderer on the face of the earth. Any who had heeded 
 his lips would have caught a whisper 
 
 " In the offal ! Cast out in the offal ! " 
 
 Paul's work had stopped. The shortest of the scenes, 
 it had broken upon him with extraordinary brutality. 
 That his father should renounce him when M. Aubret 
 failed, was a disaster crowning what had gone before, and 
 leaving no hope anywhere. Without home or refuge, a 
 reformatory might be as good a place as another and 
 better than a railway van. 
 
 Of their own accord, his fingers sought a lamp-shade. 
 His eyes were riveted anxiously on the little opening in the 
 heavy barred door. A guard's round must be due. 
 Light as the foot-fall was, his ear, trained to the sound, 
 caught it. 
 
 An ugly face peered in; hard, searching eyes scanned 
 the young inmate's features and counted the lamp-shades. 
 The loop-hole was clicked into place ; the footsteps passed on. 
 
 Paul wearily dropped his work, looking up and round 
 the bleak walls. The sun had not sent its shaft of light, 
 to-day. He wished he had chosen brush-making. When 
 it came to counting by hundreds, brushes must be less 
 tedious, because not so gaudy and fragile. These colours 
 flashed and blinded; and the paper soiled easily. 
 
 Still one scene to recall. The work began again. 
 
 He was before a judge famous for penetrating the cor- 
 rupted heart of youth. 
 
 Dully, Paul answered questions put to him. No, he
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 117 
 
 was not guilty. Yes, he had handled the bronzes. No, he 
 could not positively declare whether they were genuine 
 or not. No, he could not explain why he had put copies 
 in place at the chateau, whereas another boy, sent in his 
 stead, had delivered the originals entrusted to him. And so 
 on, and so on. What could all this matter? Why so much 
 talking, and to so little purpose? It was all very simple, 
 if they could be made to understand. What did any of 
 the facts advanced against him amount to, if taken singly? 
 But where people would not understand. ... It was 
 all very hazy and involved, as Paul rather heard than saw. 
 The facts brought together by the righteous Badajeze, 
 bent on defending honesty in the name of art, were truly 
 impressive by their number and breadth of interpretation. 
 Not an act nor a word of Paul's during that week but 
 assumed importance. Every event of that last night 
 and last morning was capital, of course. His watching 
 before M. Aubret's house (after provoking a heart-seiz- 
 ure), and before the chateau (meditating a return of the 
 stolen pieces); his slipping up to bed without seeing his 
 father (fear of being questioned as to his movements); 
 his coming early to the shop, his assaulting Manadan, his 
 hurting his own back (while trying to conceal the stolen 
 bronze under the work-table); finally his being caught 
 with one article and with the money whose existence 
 could be explained only by the sale of the other bronze 
 (he had made sure M. Aubret's illness was serious, before 
 alleging the ten francs came from him) : so the case was 
 pieced out. 
 
 Night crept close. Paul no longer saw to work. The 
 rustling of his fingers ceased. All sounds in the corridor 
 had been hushed.
 
 118 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Upon him and his comrades in misery, each individually 
 alone, weighed collectively the mighty Silence. 
 
 VI 
 
 PAUL told me of these scenes, and of his life and thought 
 during these months. As he talked, he sat in his favourite 
 place on my ottoman; or rather, he half reclined there, for 
 his strength had not returned. Still quite pale and with 
 listless eyes, he would try to smile, at times, but betrayed 
 the effort it cost him. His lithe figure had lengthened, and 
 he seemed all the taller because his shoulders had not 
 broadened. I had supplied him with subjects other than 
 his recent experiences; but nothing in the way of books or 
 anecdotes or outside amusements was worth the freedom 
 to sit or to recline as he pleased in that spot of his olden 
 choice, and to talk by way of atonement for his almost 
 endless silence. 
 
 We were not seeing each other, as before, at odd hours 
 scattered throughout the course of a week or a month. 
 He was not a visitor, nor an apprentice, nor a wan* at any- 
 body's mercy. He had become my Paul. 
 
 "When the doors clanged after us, it was as if I had been 
 waked up suddenly," he said. "Everything was so un- 
 real, you know. It hadn't been as if I myself was act- 
 ing. But it came back gradually, when I was alone in 
 my cell." 
 
 His fate had been settled before I reached the conva- 
 lescent stage after emotion had provoked an attack of gout 
 in my throat, threatening the heart, rendering me helpless 
 and useless, bringing me near my end. Though I set 
 adequate lawyers on the trail and found ready coopera- 
 tion on the part of the Marquis, who had been stirred by 
 Paul's appeal and asked no better than to believe him
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 innocent, yet there were awkward obstacles. The task 
 might have proved simpler if Paul had been condemned 
 for felony under ordinary rules; the very measures of ac- 
 commodation adopted in his behalf, to save him from the 
 penitentiary colony, magnified the complexity of his posi- 
 tion and multiplied our difficulties. My detectives traced 
 the missing bronze to the rag-shop where the veritable 
 thief had disposed of it; but meanwhile, Andre Manadan 
 had disappeared. Shred by shred I had to gather evidence 
 against him, while destroying that against Paul. 
 
 The Marquis de Vervillers had refused to prosecute; 
 but the artistic locksmith had persisted in championing 
 the fair fame of the proletariat as besmirched by his ap- 
 prentice; and the father, while weeping and imploring 
 that his son be spared the infamy of a prison, would not 
 shelter a thief in his home. That this was the woman's 
 doing, I never doubted. 
 
 The Magistrate was not convinced on certain points, 
 and summoned two "morality witnesses" on Paul's be- 
 half. The first, Delligny, was in such fear of the law 
 that no clear expression of opinion or of recollection 
 could be drawn from him; the second, Marcel Lavenu, 
 tempestuously asserted his friend's innocence, but flew 
 into a passion when he found his word doubted, got ir- 
 retrievably tangled in judicial hair-splitting between 
 ideas and occurrences, and was finally ejected ignomini- 
 ously for rude remarks about the law. 
 
 No choice remained, then; the Magistrate exercised 
 clemency in discarding the suggestion of a penitentiary 
 colony; and Paul was consigned temporarily to an estab- 
 lishment for youth with dangerous tendencies who were 
 not yet criminals. 
 
 When securing his release, I stipulated with his parents
 
 120 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 that I should be allowed to keep him, to educate him and 
 bring him up as my own. They hesitated, warning me 
 that they would not be held responsible for what might 
 occur in my house or elsewhere; I think they had veritably 
 worked themselves up to the point of accepting him as a 
 dangerous character. But the father said at last that he 
 would not stand in the way of what I represented as 
 being the future of his son. 
 
 "The clanging of the doors woke me," Paul said. 
 " Everything had been as dreadful before, but not so real, 
 you see. Now I knew I was locked, chained, bolted in. 
 I was a prisoner, not much better than a convict. And 
 I hadn't done anything!" 
 
 Under the influence of time or disuse, his voice had 
 deepened; no longer a boy's, almost a young man's voice. 
 But those last words were spoken as a boy "And I 
 hadn't done anything!" faintly, thinly, yet with oh! 
 such tragic unconsciousness of a faith accepting, because 
 needs must, even what is most wrong with the world. 
 I covered my eyes with one hand. "Am I tiring you?" 
 he asked, quickly solicitous. I shook my head. "Then 
 I may go on? It's a relief." "Go on," I murmured. 
 And he went on, the young man speaking. 
 
 After the doors had closed, he stood in a line with other 
 boys. All were still as when they had left home, or shop, 
 or the street and in a few minutes they were to change. 
 Some were working-boys, some seemed of better fortune, 
 a few were ragged and disreputable; as for him, he wore his 
 apprentice suit of drill. Most of the boys had evil faces, 
 either recalling Andre Manadan or else belonging to the 
 criminal type. 
 
 "They reminded me of the vagabonds of the railway
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 121 
 
 vans," said Paul. "I tried to tell myself that they too 
 might give a crust to some old woman cast out in the 
 offal." 
 
 He noticed one, standing just before him in the line, 
 whose offence could not have lain deeper than weakness, 
 and so might have consisted of anything. Paul, in all his 
 life, had never owned such fine clothes. The face was 
 very pale and drawn, with heavy rings under the eyes; 
 this boy had suffered morally, whereas the others were 
 sullen, rebellious, dangerous, steeled against sensitiveness. 
 There was a mute appeal in his blue eyes directed 
 towards any official who drew near. He could not ask for 
 release, so he must have craved to be understood in that 
 which he himself would have been at loss to explain. 
 
 "His father is surely of a good family as you are, or 
 as my father used to be," Paul commented. "And I said 
 to myself, 'We are here together, for all that.' " 
 
 They were measured, and described, and photographed, 
 and the details noted down in books; they became dis- 
 tinguishable no longer as units, but as types. They took 
 it all very hard as if this was what made the difference! 
 
 He paused. Then: 
 
 "It did matter, though. You see, they had the notion 
 they must resent everything, and they began with the 
 outward signs." 
 
 Paul had then taken the first step towards philosophy in 
 his life to come, the step that was to set the pace for inner 
 development. The stability of his character, the sweet- 
 ness of his nature, were at stake. And he saved them by 
 the swift, intuitive resolution, applied to material details, 
 that he would not rebel uselessly. 
 
 His eyes, listless a few moments before, regained their 
 glow as they watched me, earnest, searching, fascinated.
 
 122 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 The light faded, and he was again listless when he spoke. 
 
 The first days were not the hardest. He had his new 
 trade to learn, the regulations to observe, the guards to 
 conciliate if possible. This gave much occupation to 
 his thoughts. By a concentrated effort of will, he fought 
 off depression and despair. If he yielded to those, he 
 would be fit for nothing when he came out. The term 
 of delivery could not be very remote. Should M. Aubret 
 recover, it might come soon; otherwise there might be 
 hope from the Marquis; or from his father and M. Bada- 
 jeze, but only if Andre Manadan were caught. 
 
 "You don't mean "I interrupted him "that you 
 could bear to think of them at this period? Or not 
 calmly, as you are speaking now? Surely, some bitter- 
 ness " 
 
 Why bitterness? he asked. His surprise at my sugges- 
 tion was deep. 
 
 "Once I had started to let them punish me, it was too 
 late to stop," he said simply. "Why should I blame any- 
 body for that? What I think of Manadan is what I 
 thought then, and that was what I knew before ever hear- 
 ing of M. Badajeze. No, I had to turn my back on ugly 
 thoughts, and say, 'I've helped to put myself here; and 
 now I'm caught and caged, I can only harm myself by 
 fighting.' That was my idea. Vague and general when 
 I stood in line with the rest, after the doors closed on us. 
 But I had plenty of leisure to work it out, in a solitary cell 
 with scarcely a sound to remind me there was anybody but 
 myself in the world." 
 
 Individually alone and collectively in silence. That was 
 the principle regulating their existence. Young outcasts 
 of society, degraded by ill-doing or evil thinking of various
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 123 
 
 sorts and in all measures short of actual crime, they had 
 to be spared corrupting contacts. 
 
 Paul's conventional notions of crime had been gathered 
 at school and in the workshop, or from newspapers, or by 
 listening to street-talk. He had never been able to 
 establish any just balance between accident and premedi- 
 tation, between the committing of an act or being checked 
 by forces beyond one's command. The moral question 
 was simple enough; so was the world's method of retribu- 
 tion; only, the two did not agree. 
 
 What counted first in the measuring out of punishment 
 seemed to be whether or not one had committed the act, 
 and secondly, whether one had planned it. So a boy who 
 ran away from home three or four times a month, but 
 returned repentant whenever starvation threatened, was 
 more moral than a confirmed but inoffensive vagabond 
 living by his wits the year round. So a boy who im- 
 pulsively pilfered gilt jewellery or cheap perfumes and 
 pomatum at a village fair was preferable to one who could 
 eat only after plundering vegetable-stalls and chicken- 
 houses. So a boy who systematically beat his mother and 
 sisters as part of the day's work, having no father, was less 
 reprehensible than a precocious bandit who, carried 
 away by drunken fury, knifed a comrade whom he had 
 previously threatened under like conditions. The osten- 
 sible purpose of isolation in penitentiary establishments 
 and reformatories was to prevent the second of each 
 category from corrupting the first. According to such 
 standards, Paul, considered guilty of planning a theft 
 and secretly disposing of the spoils, was a dangerous law- 
 breaker capable of corrupting fellow-convicts who had 
 acted accidentally, though repeatedly. Paul could not 
 believe this; no more could he believe that running away
 
 124 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 and repenting when convenient was better than a frank 
 policy of vagabondage, nor thieving from vanity more 
 respectable than stealing to live. It was all hard to 
 balance in one's judgment, and not pleasant to think about. 
 Yet it kept returning constantly, without ever bringing 
 its answer. Perhaps many here were neither guiltier nor 
 less moral than he. Or at least, perhaps they had not 
 been. For now now something in the faces he saw 
 terrified him, and something else revolted him. 
 
 With most of the boys, he had no standard of compari- 
 son; but he caught occasional glimpses of faces seen on 
 entering. The change one of two changes had come 
 over them all. He could read it in their expressions, one 
 change or the other, creeping over their faces, gnawing 
 into their hearts, and identifying them with one of two 
 types into which all were divided who had dwelt long 
 within these walls and bars. He knew that it must be 
 hanging over him, too; thought its beginning might be 
 already there, hi his face which he could never see, but 
 which others saw as he saw theirs. 
 
 Because at times they would catch fleeting glimpses of 
 one another, these young reprobates who lived in be- 
 neficent silence on the road, high or low, towards conven- 
 tional morality. When hurried, singly, through the long 
 corridors, they might seize, in a nightmarish way, an 
 impression of a face peering through a tiny barred trap 
 in the door of a cell a face of hatred and vengeance, 
 or a face of cowering fear. Those were the moral cate- 
 gories into one or the other of which the beneficiaries of 
 the establishment were reformed hatred and vengeance, 
 or cowering fear. 
 
 Once, Paul thought he recognised the boy who, on en- 
 tering, had most reminded him of Andre Manadan. His,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 125 
 
 was the hatred and vengeance. Again, he knew he recog- 
 nised the tall, nice boy, the son of a gentleman perhaps. 
 His, was the cowering fear. 
 
 A species of grey, lifeless lifting of the darkness, bringing 
 no sham semblance of light, would wake him each morning 
 before the guard came the rounds. It was as if he had 
 slept only while night pressed upon him with irresistible 
 weight; though merciful weariness of body and dullness 
 of mind had in reality stifled consciousness. But when 
 night drew away its covering, he would rouse at once, sud- 
 denly, completely, aware of every ache in his form caused 
 by work the day before, of. every discouraging thought 
 which had flitted through his brain since he had lost his 
 liberty and forfeited the respect of men. With body, 
 limbs, and head flat against his hard pallet, his eyes would 
 stare vacantly towards the dismal mockery of sun-rays 
 reflected back and forth by so many grim walls that they 
 had lost all joy or life. 
 
 Then the key would grind in the lock and a guard 
 would stand sternly, half -opening the door as if expecting 
 to be attacked. The guards did not like him, and Paul 
 did not at first know why. He came gradually to believe 
 it was because he resisted promptings of hate, and felt no 
 fear. Always ready to repress violence, they trusted 
 only those who cowered. Paul was gradually understand- 
 ing why those boys who did not rage and snarl like beasts, 
 and snap at any who neared their doors, had no choice 
 but to shrink into corners, and keep their eyes shiftily 
 lowered. But still he sank to neither category; still he 
 avoided hatred and vengeance, or cowering fear; still he 
 remained the old Paul with heart and soul yearning for 
 release to come while some remnants of himself endured.
 
 126 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 The opening door was the signal for each boy to leave 
 his cell. Through the bleak corridor, following a curved 
 sweep which made it appear endless, he passed with a 
 guard close behind. To the right were windows through 
 which he could see nothing save sheer walls and barred 
 windows; to the left, doors whose small, cage-like openings, 
 with ominous heads sometimes peering out, he would fain 
 have forgotten. Little chance to look or not to look, 
 however; if he hesitated, raised his lowered brow, or even 
 seemed to slip his eyes sideways, a premonitory growl 
 would reach him, then a mumbled threat, and a hand 
 stretched out to enforce the majesty of law. The real 
 temptation did not come from right or left, however. It 
 came from far behind or far before, where sounds of 
 other steps rang dimly through the silence. 
 
 One after another, at stated distances, they threaded 
 the long, curved corridors; went down winding stone 
 steps within an iron cage. A sharp, accidental noise would 
 break the rhythm as of a foot slipping, followed by a 
 thud; then as it were a hole of silence where that unwonted 
 noise had been. 
 
 As each boy reached a certain door, he was expected 
 to run out into a tiny, high-walled court, pause at a faucet, 
 quickly wet his face and hands, and run on to a door 
 beyond. The whole had been so organised that no two 
 boys should ever meet; at most they could catch, in long 
 corridors or winding stairs, distant glimpses of prison- 
 suits and lowered heads. But any laxness in the per- 
 formance of these summary rites might disturb the order 
 of march and cause boys to come together. Paul, having 
 washed his arms and neck too, was actually found with his 
 head in the water, and learned that such liberties were 
 inadmissible. He, the scrupulously clean one, came to
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 127 
 
 consider that a dash of water over face and hands sufficed. 
 Indeed, if it had not been for the snatch of air and the 
 brief brisk run, and the grateful coolness of these drops 
 straight from the earth, he might have judged this toilet 
 elaborate for such a residence. 
 
 Going back to their cells by other passages, always in 
 the same direction so as never to cross, they were set to 
 their work, and the monotony of the day began. 
 
 If they had given no cause for grave complaint, they 
 might pace narrow strips of cemented court with high 
 walls all round. Raising their eyes, they could see the sky, 
 but also the prison windows, whatever the way they 
 looked. When first turned out here, boys yearned towards 
 the sky. But it was too far away to help them; and be- 
 fore seeing it, they had to remember the prison whence 
 this sadly relative escape had been sanctioned for a bare 
 half -hour; also they met the eyes of guards seated above 
 the partitions, holding all the wedge-like courts in view, 
 jealous for their authority, bored by the monotony of their 
 task, happy for the relief of breaches detected in the prison 
 discipline. No, there was nothing good to see when one's 
 eyes had been raised. Under the effect of nearer and more 
 tangible suggestions, the smooth smug heavens became a 
 mockery. Thereafter the boys, with sagging heads and 
 rounded shoulders, would swing heavily back and forth, 
 with shuffling feet, not looking, not caring. 
 
 Hearing one another's steps yet cut off by impenetrable 
 walls, they were forbidden any attempt at intercourse. 
 Should a sole scratch the paving, should a step linger an 
 instant in its beat, should a body sway an inch too near 
 the masonry, sharp reprimand came, or swift punishment. 
 Yet they managed to talk after a fashion, these young 
 outcasts vowed to silence. Paul learned to know the
 
 128 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 cadence of sundry footsteps, and developed a certain 
 friendship for them, though the signals made were beyond 
 his talents of interpretation. To escape the guards' 
 attention, they had to be subtle indeed. Paul, too, de- 
 veloped a special gait. Or he seemed to develop it. His 
 was a desperate effort to maintain the gait of days when 
 he had been free. 
 
 In his cell for all other hours of light or of darkness, he 
 worked practically without respite as long as a vestige of 
 greyness lingered within his walls. To forget his fate, and 
 to keep a grasp upon his faculties, he would repeat those 
 scenes which had been preludes to disaster. Not a very 
 congenial subject, one might be tempted to believe. Bet- 
 ter than none, however; and he could fix his attention thus 
 when everything else escaped him. 
 
 Insensibly, he drifted away from those scenes, turning 
 to themes and pictures more remote. Schooldays in 
 Verviller appealed to him, and especially childish memories 
 of Arnan. But hours came when no scene could control 
 his thoughts nor still the flutters of his heart. Then, it 
 was phrases he would repeat. With fingers tightly closed 
 round a frail wire, clinging to it in his bewildered desola- 
 tion as he might have gripped a spar swayed above an 
 angry hungry ocean, he repeated phrases which came as if 
 whispered to him. 
 
 "Courage Patience Right Doing and Thinking." 
 
 "Calm is the thread by which our finest moments con- 
 nect us with the God of Nature." 
 
 Calm was what he most needed, and found most difficult 
 to preserve. It was as if the turmoil of inner storms must 
 atone for the noiselessness beneath whose vacuum his 
 health, his will, his character, the very essence of his being 
 were perishing slowly, relentlessly away.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 129 
 
 Paul left the ottoman and came close to me, resting one 
 hand on my chair. He quivered slightly. 
 
 "There is another sentence I used to hear in the night, 
 when I couldn't bear anything any longer." His voice 
 was so low and tremulous that I strained to listen. " ' Re- 
 member at all times, in all places, that you are part of All 
 Time and All Space.'" 
 
 He looked down upon me very earnestly : 
 
 "That thought saved me from falling so far that even 
 you could not have rescued me." 
 
 VII 
 
 I HAD asked Paul to go on some errand; simple enough 
 and not requiring much time or attention. The reluctance 
 which he did not seek to hide drew very near to refusal. 
 Was it possible, I wondered, that one whose nature had 
 been so genuine and character so sound throughout his 
 young years, one who had stayed so steadfastly unspoiled 
 in recent ordeals of body and soul, could be changed by a 
 short prosperity? 
 
 He stood before me in a becoming suit of brown cheviot, 
 well-cut and perfectly fitted; his brown shoes and hose 
 were neat and showed good ankles; his collar and tie 
 were impeccable. The attitude he had unconsciously 
 taken proved that he had been born to wear such clothes; 
 his movements were freer than before but equally graceful. 
 Apart from such changes, one could note that, always 
 good-looking, he had grown handsome; while the eyes, 
 the mouth, the expression, were still those of Paul. 
 
 "Very well," I said. "You need not trouble yourself. 
 I shall go." 
 
 A gasp of deep pain parted his lips and caused his nostrils 
 to widen.
 
 130 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Oh, it's not that!" he exclaimed. "If you wouldn't 
 mind giving me the money " 
 
 "We need not discuss it further. And now I wish to 
 work." 
 
 " But with the money " 
 
 "You know I have an account there," I said. "All you 
 had to do was to go ask for the paper and bring it home." 
 
 The pink which had been returning faintly to his cheeks, 
 like a distant reflection of his once bright colours, fled and 
 left him very pale. 
 
 "I didn't want to worry you." His voice was dull and 
 low. "But perhaps I ought to explain. There's not a 
 shop in Verviller where they would trust me." 
 
 Shocked out of thought or word, I fixed my eyes on him. 
 He went on : 
 
 "For everybody here except you and Marcel and 
 perhaps the Marquis I'm a thief released during good 
 behaviour." 
 
 "Who who dares say such things?" I rasped brokenly. 
 
 "Nobody. It isn't necessary. They look it and act 
 it." 
 
 "Are you not over-sensitive?" I asked. "If no one has 
 said such things if you are judging by looks and man- 
 ner " 
 
 "Remember that Andre Manadan has not been caught," 
 Paul observed quietly. "They know there's been theft, 
 and they must hold a culprit. That's natural." 
 
 "Do they forget me?" I thundered. 
 
 No. It was I who had forgotten myself. I knew it as 
 soon as that question, which remained unanswered, had 
 escaped me. In the selfishness of a studious life, I had 
 never thought of showing myself with the boy. We had 
 been out together, certainly, but hi the unostentatious
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 131 
 
 way suited to my tastes; I had not imposed him on his 
 fellow-citizens. 
 
 Paul was the first to speak: 
 
 "I'm sorry to have worried you about it. Your whole 
 morning's work is spoiled." 
 
 "My work be " 
 
 I don't know whether respect for Paul or remorse for my 
 work's sake checked me. At all events, I found a more 
 useful direction for energy. Writing two notes, I told 
 him to deliver them at once. The first introduced M. 
 Paul Clermont to my stationer, stating that he was author- 
 ised to buy whatever he pleased there and have it charged 
 to me. The second, addressed to Lavenu's stables, or- 
 dered a carriage for the afternoon. 
 
 When he had gone, I wrote to Frere Alexandre, inviting 
 him to lunch with us both. This note I entrusted to 
 Leonie for the post. I did so without trepidation. For 
 the marvel of marvels was that Paul had completely won 
 her heart. 
 
 After an hour's drive through the streets of Verviller, 
 stopping at several prominent shops which I entered lean- 
 ing on Paul's arm, we went out into the country, for he had 
 asked to see his grandfather. 
 
 The cottage, squeezed within a yard or two of a dusty 
 road, did not look the abode of all delights he had de- 
 scribed. The tavern garden across the way did not ap- 
 pear either vast or entrancingly beautiful. Paul himself 
 commented upon this: 
 
 "They must have sold more than half their garden. It 
 used to be much bigger." 
 
 "Yet the trees, which you told me stood at the end, are 
 still there," I was cruel enough to object.
 
 132 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "That's been puzzling me," he said quite simply. 
 "Anyhow, it used to be better kept. Run to weed and 
 seed, now. Our cottage is neglected, too. Grandfather 
 and grandmother are both old; they don't care much, 
 any more." 
 
 The carriage drew up. A small, frail old man, with 
 watery eyes blinking in the sun, and slightly bowed knees 
 held rigidly, watched us with melancholy, incurious gaze. 
 
 "It's not worth while introducing grandfather," Paul 
 said with his practical downrightness. "He couldn't 
 talk to you." 
 
 Paul sprang out, and I drove on. It had been under- 
 stood that I should call for him in half an hour. I wanted 
 to see the woods where he had played as a child. 
 
 Tree-stumps, barren stretches, and weather-stained 
 rocks were all that I found; and the landscape offered noth- 
 ing in other directions. I told the coachman to go slowly 
 back towards Arnan. 
 
 The village was not yet in sight when Paul landed in his 
 seat beside me, having taken a flying jump from the road. 
 
 "Let's drive on, if you don't mind," he said excitedly. 
 "We had nowhere else to go to, had we?" 
 
 Telling him to give the coachman any orders he chose, I 
 surveyed him. 
 
 Evidently, he had run fast; his breath came quickly, 
 his face was stained with dust and perspiration. As for 
 his clothes, they were mottled brown and grey, and some- 
 what rumpled; his hat a n,ew straw he carried in one 
 hand, it was broken out of shape as if several people had 
 stepped in it. Beneath this outward disorder, I noted 
 restrained exhilaration. 
 
 Was his grandfather well? I asked. He answered Yes. 
 I did not insist.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 133 
 
 When we reached the crest of the Ripote, he said: 
 
 "May we stop? You will think me silly but I should 
 like to sit where we were that day, three years ago." 
 
 This idea of his impressed me, and may explain why, as 
 I stepped from the carriage, I noticed vividly what lay 
 before me familiar features to which I had never given 
 much thought. The dome-shaped hill-top, with its 
 roads winding up to the crest from either side: the woods 
 in the direction away from town, where the level of the 
 summit curved gently down; the woods lying towards 
 town, where the earth rose yet slightly before reaching the 
 swift decline; the road itself, hemmed in by ditches, one 
 not much more than ankle-deep, the other, towards Vervil- 
 ler, scarcely knee-deep, but spanned by a rustic foot- 
 bridge or cart-way, five or six logs side by side on two 
 transversal pieces : was it because of Paul's mood that I 
 saw so vividly, or was the scene itself seeking to whisper 
 the tragedy destined soon to break this peace with uproar, 
 to steep this soil in blood? 
 
 We took our old places on the edge of the crest, beyond 
 the last trees, with Verviller and the plain of the Mareille 
 beneath us. The sun was still high enough for that 
 landscape to be simply, unsuggestively beautiful. 
 
 "I should like to talk to you about my future," he be- 
 gan. "You are sure you don't mind my staying with 
 you?" 
 
 "It is my wish that you should never leave me, Paul." 
 
 The radiant, wondering smile dawned for the first time 
 since we had been brought together again. 
 
 "I shall never leave you. And I want to be educated. 
 But I can't do more than go to night-school." After a 
 moment's pause, he added: "You see, I must work for 
 you."
 
 134 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Work for me! My dear boy, don't you understand 
 that I am pledged to your father to supply you with both 
 an education and a career? I don't want your work. I 
 want you!" 
 
 His expression increased the earnestness of his words 
 as he began again : 
 
 " It's because I belong to you that I must work. Boys 
 always have to work for their parents. Only, I don't 
 know what trade to choose. You wouldn't wish me to go 
 in an office, would you? And apprenticeship is long and 
 costs money. M. Badajeze won't take me back." His 
 voice sank and his head drooped slightly: "I went and 
 asked him." 
 
 Exposed to such a rebuff which he had concealed ! And 
 as I shrank from the idea, a double picture flashed before 
 me. On one panel I saw myself introducing to Verviller 
 society the eminently presentable young man beside me. 
 On the other, I saw him in apprentices' blue drill, holding 
 a hammer and standing at a forge which spat sparks and 
 vomited smoke over the entire neighbourhood. 
 
 "I have enough money for both of us," I said, "and 
 your plan is not only unnecessary but it would defeat mine. 
 When you are educated, you shall be absolutely free to 
 choose the career you please. Meanwhile, can't you 
 trust my judgment? " 
 
 His ah- reminded me of the mystery at Arnan, even 
 before he said : 
 
 "Grandfather didn't recognise me." 
 
 Without feigning surprise himself, he stopped as if ex- 
 pecting me to be surprised. To please him, I pretended. 
 Astonishment on my part might have been genuine, if he 
 had announced the old man had indeed recognised him. 
 
 "They must have told him I was dead," he went on.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 135 
 
 "When I went up and said, 'Grandfather, it's Paul!' he 
 shook his head and started to cry. I told him once more 
 that I was myself. 'Yes, yes!' he said. 'And there's 
 another over in the gooseberry bushes, yonder. Always 
 there, when he isn't here or in the woods with his mother.' 
 Then he laughed, tears raining down his face, and talked 
 of things that happened years and years ago." Paul 
 swallowed hard. "I thought he'd gone mad. But he 
 knew grandmother was off for the day, in the next village. 
 So I told myself, 'He is sane, but thinks me dead. If 
 what they believe were true, it would be better that way.' 
 He did say, once: 'Paul is dead.' But a minute later he 
 was talking about the woods and the gooseberry bushes. 
 
 "As he had reminded me of the garden and I hadn't 
 forgotten I went over to look at it. There wasn't 
 anybody at the inn, and I just walked through. There 
 was a boy in the bushes and shrubs and things; working, 
 not playing. And the boy wasn't Paul, but Andre Mana- 
 dan." 
 
 I sprang up. In spite of old limbs and aching joints, I 
 swear that I sprang up. 
 
 "And you let him run away? You didn't " 
 
 Paul waited, unmoved, until I should finish. His atti- 
 tude disarmed and shamed me. 
 
 *'Go on," I commanded sharply, sitting down. My 
 movements were slow and painful, this time. 
 
 "Run away?" Paul said with a tinge of scorn. "He 
 wouldn't know how. Even to dodge arrest, he didn't have 
 brains or courage to go any farther than this, and stupidly 
 chose a place I talked about very often. He had with him 
 a pocket-book he'd picked up or stolen, with the papers 
 of an orphan in it; his legs gave out at Arnan, and he asked 
 for work as kitchen and garden boy. The people of the
 
 136 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 inn thought his papers all right; he was never shy about 
 lying, you know; the description came as near fitting him 
 as it would any stunted boy of his age with overgrown hair 
 and an average form of face; and his handwriting being 
 as illegible as the signature he imitated, there was nothing 
 to give him away." 
 
 "Such a nature as his volunteered all this information?" 
 I could not help asking. 
 
 "No, I had to beat it out of him," Paul replied cheer- 
 fully. "He knew I must remember that ugly blow in the 
 back, so he raised his spade as soon as he saw me. I 
 knocked it out of his hand, and he tried to kick me with his 
 heavy nailed boot. It's funny, the sort of courage coward- 
 ice gives people when they've got a weapon and you haven't. 
 I dodged, then ducked and rammed him with my head full 
 in the chest. Always had a hard head, you know. Knocked 
 him flat. For a while, he only blubbered in answer to 
 my questions. Then he told me a straight story, I fancy. 
 I warned him I'd give him another beating for every lie I 
 caught him telling. We had to have a plain talk, you see, 
 because I don't want him to go to the reformatory." 
 
 At these words, I lost my temper. 
 
 "Do you realise that as long as that rogue remains in 
 concealment, your case is obscure?" I cried out. "I shall 
 go back at once, and " 
 
 " No ! You can't touch Andre Manadan on the strength 
 of what I'm telling you. He has my promise that I 
 sha'n't betray him." 
 
 I collapsed: 
 
 "You dear, adorable little donkey! You are enough 
 to make one long for the physical strength to thrash your 
 stupidity out of you and you give one fresh confidence 
 in the entire future of humanity!"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 137 
 
 Smiling through very solemn eyes, he finished his story : 
 
 "I told that scamp what prison life was like, and how, 
 put there by him, I'd been saved by you. And I said we 
 should try to help him if he came and made a confession. 
 The things are found, and the Marquis wouldn't prose- 
 cute; M. Badajeze wouldn't care for another scandal 
 about his shop; and Andre Manadan's mother would 
 perjure herself to the last tooth in her head for his sake. 
 So there's really nobody to interfere, if he tells the truth 
 and we back him up. But if he's caught using another 
 boy's papers and signature, it will be no longer a case for 
 his family and employer to decide. I warned him we 
 couldn't save him from that, even if we wanted to; and 
 there was no reason why we should trouble, unless he came 
 forward spontaneously and told the truth about me. The 
 picture I drew of prison life was lively, I promise you; and 
 it's the penitentiary colony, ever so much worse, which is 
 waiting for him if he's caught. I may be wrong," Paul 
 concluded abruptly, "but I fancy he will turn up within 
 the next few days. He's tired of hard work, and the 
 attic he sleeps in is full of rats." 
 
 Now that for the first time he felt free to plan whatever 
 he would, Paul went on to speak, almost whisperingly, 
 of his innermost aspirations. 
 
 He knew what he wanted to do, but it would require 
 years and cost much money. If I would help with the 
 educational expenses while they weren't too severe, he 
 asked to stay with me, helping in the house, running 
 errands, learning to be my secretary, serving me in any 
 way which might be a fair exchange. After a while, if he 
 proved his worth, perhaps I would help further by lend- 
 ing him money which he could repay later. 
 
 He must take his degree, first, and then study law. Not
 
 138 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 to practise, however; he only wanted to master it. As a 
 means for earning a livelihood, he did not like it. Too 
 often, the interpretation of texts counted for more than 
 the true principle of justice. Countries made laws to main- 
 tain right and repress evil; and then an ably defended 
 scoundrel stood a splendid chance for getting off scot-free, 
 where an innocent person who lost his head, or lacked 
 friends, or had not a genius as counsel, might be sent to 
 prison by mistake on circumstantial evidence. He felt 
 he had to know law, as a step towards his real work. 
 
 "Did I tell you," he said, "when speaking of the scene 
 in M. Badajeze's parlour, of a voice I heard? I call it a 
 voice, yet it wasn't quite that. When you speak, for 
 instance, I hear a sound in my ear, and then I understand. 
 This didn't make any sound, outside; I just understood 
 at once, as if I were hearing inside. I heard the words 
 plainly. They weren't my imagination; at the time, 
 I thought they must be; but I got to know that inner voice 
 very well, later. It would come when I wanted to scream 
 and fling myself against the walls of my cell. I knew that 
 was a silly thing to do; when such cries and noises reached 
 me from other cells, and the guards came running, the 
 thud of blows and the screams for mercy were too horri- 
 ble." He shuddered. " Oh, no!" he answered my 
 startled look with scathing sarcasm. "There was no 
 corporal punishment not officially. But when boys 
 attempted to dash their brains out. . . . 
 
 "I knew such behaviour wouldn't do any good; but at 
 times a sort of fury would come over me, and all I could do 
 was to repeat to myself those words about calm which had 
 come to me in more or less calm moments. I would repeat 
 them like a rosary praying for calm, the thread connecting 
 with the God of Nature. And as soon as I got control
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 139 
 
 of myself, the voice would speak again, but always the 
 same messaage after those attacks, always the same words, 
 'Courage Patience Right Doing and Thinking'; or else 
 those about All Time and All Space. 
 
 "And now, after leaving me, that voice has come back: 
 with different words. It tells me I have work to do, and 
 that I am living expressly to do it. I must help boys 
 who are as I was both at home and in prison." 
 
 Within a week, Andre Manadan reappeared; and 
 events came to pass very much as Paul had foreseen. 
 
 And then (my hand trembles as I write of it) the 
 stain being effaced from the boy's name, Clermont pro- 
 claimed his just and legal rights as a father; and Paul, 
 taken from me, was sent back to the workshop.
 
 PART THREE 
 DEATH
 
 THE apprentices were busy at almost noiseless tasks, 
 when Robert Lavenu, a streak of blue and red, a crash of 
 steel and leather, bolted through the workshop and rushed 
 to the house-door. 
 
 "It's coming it's here!" he shouted. 
 
 Those at the work-table looked up quickly, and toiled on 
 more quietly than before, with restrained breathing. The 
 door, pushed to, had not quite closed. 
 
 "I'm ordered to rejoin my corps," Robert Lavenu con- 
 tinued. He sat excitedly on the edge of a chair. "The 
 Germans are mobilising all along the frontier, where they 
 have stretched chains, and are cutting away the brush, 
 and placing advanced batteries." 
 
 The phrases had tripped over each other, and appeared 
 to have many more behind them, when he was stopped by 
 Pere Elard, the man who looked like a carpenter and 
 lived on an income. Lavenu did not seem to have noticed 
 Pere Elard until this moment; on entering he had shaken 
 hands only with M. Badajeze and Mademoiselle Odette. 
 
 "Eh! Eh! How you go at it, you young people !" the 
 old man croaked. "Lucky there are some white heads 
 still in the world!" 
 
 "We aren't the ones to blame," the trooper protested. 
 "If the Germans will make trouble, let them look to 
 themselves, that's all! Why, we of the regular army are 
 ordered back to our posts only to-day, and the reservists 
 aren't yet called whereas in Germany they are mobilising, 
 
 143
 
 144 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 requisitioning, taking over mills, clearing railway plat- 
 forms. That surely means business! And we are so 
 afraid of putting ourselves in the wrong that we don't 
 even dare begin proper defensive measures." 
 
 Mademoiselle Odette had looked on, tearful and fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " But why should we fight over the murder of a foreign 
 archduke?" she demanded. "Though Serbians may not 
 like what the Emperor of Austria says, and the Tsar may 
 promise to support them, what has that got to do with 
 France?" 
 
 "Don't you see Germany wants to sweep us off the map 
 first, so as to deal with Russia afterwards? Let her try!" 
 thundered Robert Lavenu. "I know what our plans are, 
 and we shall carry them out, too." 
 
 "Much a soldier in the ranks can know about plans," 
 sneered Pere Elard. 
 
 "We know what our officers tell us," Lavenu returned, 
 losing his temper. "You won't be pretending our officers 
 don't know, I suppose? And they have been saying the 
 same things to us for more than a year : 'The Germans are 
 going to attack us treacherously. At the first alarm, it is 
 you who will move forward to hold the frontier until our 
 mobilisation is completed. You may die to the last man, 
 but you will be the saviours of France. The nation 
 counts on you, my children.' Words like that are an 
 inspiration, I can tell you ! We didn't mind the hard work, 
 the deep snow, the bad quarters, the forced marches, or 
 the night alarms, after hearing what they meant. And 
 we hear it all again whenever we get slack. I can tell 
 you, we, the Eastern troops, are ready to defend the 
 frontier, and enter Alsace-Lorraine too, as soon as Ger- 
 many attacks."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 145 
 
 Pere Elard had leaned forward, listening attentively. 
 He waited, as if expecting Lavenu to continue; then 
 said: 
 
 "You are sure you won't go towards Belgium?" 
 
 Lavenu laughed: 
 
 "What could our best troops do up north?" 
 
 Pere Elard's curiosity was appeased. 
 
 " You do well to talk, since you will have no occasion to 
 act," he said. "There will be no war, because the Socialist 
 party will not allow it. Meetings in Germany have passed 
 resolutions, and are bringing pressure to bear upon the 
 Government." 
 
 "How do you know?" asked M. Badajeze. 
 
 "From the newspapers. And side by side is news of the 
 meetings we French Socialists are organising. Manifestos 
 are to be published, too, warning the proletariat not to en- 
 courage the capitalistic crime of war. We have weapons, 
 if they must be used. If only we work all together " 
 
 "We shall be working for the King of Prussia!" con- 
 cluded M. Badajeze, furiously. 
 
 "Ah! You are a bad brother. I have always heard 
 you were a bad brother." The little old carpenter who 
 lived on an income wagged his feeble white head. 
 
 " Yes, I am and I'll tell you why ! " M. Badajeze spoke 
 explosively. "Indeed, I am scarcely a brother at all, 
 since I have seen the use Socialism has tried to make of 
 France in the interests of Germany. We had to employ 
 German workmen brotherly love. We had to buy 
 German goods brotherly love. We had to make na- 
 tional concessions and territorial sacrifices to Germany 
 brotherly love. And what were we getting? Why, the 
 brotherly love of spies who were taking our wealth from 
 us and tarnishing our honour and selling us into the bar-
 
 146 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 gain ! We were told, here in France, that we could prevent 
 war by means of strikes and insurrection. Some went 
 to the extent of saying, 'Use your guns to shoot your 
 officers in the back, rather than murder your German 
 brothers.' But the rest, who didn't dare go so far, said, 
 'Strikes and insurrection !' We asked if German Socialists 
 would do as much. 'Certainly, certainly!' they answered. 
 But we were ready to give pledges, and they were not. 
 At three successive congresses of the Socialist party 
 Stuttgart, Copenhagen, and Basle, if you would know 
 our delegates were ready to give pledges; but when they 
 tried to get pledges, they failed. So, say I, our zealous 
 'brothers' are preparing to deliver France tied and 
 wounded into the hands of Germany. But there are 
 some of us who know better, and we must be taken into 
 account. That is why I am a bad brother, M. Elard!" 
 
 "You are cowardly, to insult a man of my years," 
 screamed the carpenter, as he tottered out into the street. 
 He slammed the door after him, and the apprentices 
 turned back to their tasks. 
 
 On his way home, Paul was impressed by the peaceful, 
 normal aspect of everything that came within his field of 
 vision. The shadows on the river the trees rising be- 
 yond the men and the women, and a vehicle or two cross- 
 ing the bridge at a leisurely pace the streets, from 
 thoroughfares to modest alleys, all as they might be on any 
 other day he looked with renewed wonder at each of 
 these homely, comforting expressions of dull, provincial 
 existence far from any cause for excitement. He had no 
 idea, then, that he was not again to witness normal life in 
 Verviller. The strange thing is that he found not pre- 
 monition of impending doom, but conviction that all was 
 well, in the vividness with which the town demanded his
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 147 
 
 attention on that last day of its sweet, old-fashioned 
 serenity. 
 
 The sun set beyond the Mareille, a ball of angry fire 
 glowing baleful and blood-red on long thick clouds of rose 
 and gold. 
 
 "That's the dust," said a voice. "All these carts and 
 carriages do it, hurrying along every road." The speaker 
 hurried on, too. 
 
 Paul, leaning upon the stone parapet of the bridge, 
 did not move nor speak. Of course the roads were filled 
 with dust, and so were the streets of the town. Every 
 available vehicle bore men and women fervidly this way 
 or that. Yet dust was but dust. And there, beyond the 
 fields and the woods, beyond the valley and the far hills, 
 beyond the world itself, the sun in the heavens heralded 
 the ordeal of fire with omens of carnage and conflagration. 
 
 Because of the contrast, perhaps, Paul thought of an- 
 other sunset he had watched from the top of the Ripote; 
 a sunset of soft beauty and inspiring flame, of peace and 
 security and useful toil. Ended all ended. There re- 
 mained only war. This very night, the peace which still 
 hung over ignorant nature would be broken by the roar 
 of trains bearing soldiers and supplies for the defence of 
 France. 
 
 The awful quiet of that blood-red sunset came after 
 days full of menace and violence. Wherever Paul had 
 stopped, in crowded ways among people who talked loud 
 or walked rapidly, he had heard of imminent war or 
 growling revolution. The latter seemed nearer and more 
 to be dreaded than the former. While the appetites of 
 the mob were whetted to violence, the nerves of orderly 
 citizens sought a sense of security in hoarding gold and
 
 148 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 silver. And none dared protest against disregard of pub- 
 lic right, not knowing what the morrow held nor whose law 
 would rule. 
 
 Then Paul had gone out on an errand for M. Badajeze. 
 He noticed a crowd more still, more earnest, more orderly 
 and estimable than any he had seen since the gravity of 
 the international situation had been known; fine black 
 jackets rubbed against threadbare coats or workingmen's 
 smocks. All eyes were reading a few lines written by hand 
 on a bit of paper stuck against a door. Having chanced 
 to come by at this moment, Paul learned, as they did, 
 from ink not yet dry, that the order for general mobilisa- 
 tion was signed. 
 
 A policeman stood there ; in friendly tones he repeated : 
 
 "Come! Move on! Read, and let others read!" 
 
 The crowd, swollen at every instant but with each face 
 calm and earnest like those gone before, like those pressing 
 after, read and moved on. 
 
 Regardless of class or education, the comments made 
 were the same, varying only in their expressions : 
 
 " Of course ! Germany had declared the state of menace 
 of war. She could mobilise completely before acknowl- 
 edging it." 
 
 "That meant her whole army could strike while only 
 our protective detachments would be at the frontier." 
 
 "We can't be called the aggressors. But at least we 
 shall be in a position to defend ourselves." 
 
 "Yes; if necessary." 
 
 That word of hopeful doubt never failed. Prompt 
 measures were vitally essential against a possible aggres- 
 sion so often threatened that it must come some day. But 
 none could genuinely believe the hour to be present. The 
 Government itself did not appear to believe. While all
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 149 
 
 Verviller lay under the spell of such news, did not a proc- 
 lamation come declaring that negotiations continued? 
 
 Verily, France wished peace. The fact stood out from 
 many remarks Paul heard when men stopped to analyse 
 public affairs. Yet an expression in the faces of all proved 
 them willing to meet the war, whatever the odds. There 
 was no sentiment of relief that the storm should break at 
 last, stopping long-protracted flashes and thunders. But 
 if relief was absent, courage and determination lay re- 
 vealed on all sides, in every pose and gesture, in every in- 
 flexion of the voice. A united sentiment of simple, 
 noble duty swayed the race which, one hour before, had 
 thought singly of comforts and privileges. 
 
 Over Verviller lay an intense hush filled with muffled 
 echoes of distant feet and of speeding wheels. So the 
 night passed, and all the next day, with eager inquiries 
 for news which did not come, with hasty preparations 
 many of which might never serve, with patient waiting 
 for the end to be reached in moments each in itself too 
 short. 
 
 And now, under cover of the approaching night, the 
 great movement must begin by which France would say 
 to the world, "I am ready." 
 
 Impressive as was the thought, and active as had been 
 the day, Paul felt calmer than when reading the bit of 
 paper stuck to the door, the previous afternoon. For then 
 it had all seemed so unreal as to be terrifying and it had 
 grown so real as to be the most natural thing in the world. 
 It was inevitable as the course through space of the sun 
 itself, with its train of planets and satellites and fragments 
 of dead stars. 
 
 The town, as darkness grew closer, became still and 
 deserted. A town of the dead, without objective for
 
 150 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 chance wanderers. No life few lights only distant 
 sounds. The beat of a stray step would seem to fill with 
 echoes all the plain of the Mareille. And then those 
 echoes would weaken away, ever in one same direction, 
 as if sucked to the vortex by a force each heart must feel 
 and obey the force of humanity breathing, and thinking, 
 and suffering, pressed close together before parting. 
 
 In the crowd about the station, where every resident of 
 Verviller and all the surrounding peasantry, too, seemed 
 gathered, Paul worked his way forward. The entrance 
 was held by policemen and soldiers, and barriers had been 
 put up; earlier in the evening, it was said, people had 
 forced passages and got in; very strict orders had been 
 given, and the guards reinforced : those without must stay 
 out. 
 
 Counting, with the confidence of youth, on part-luck, 
 part-resourcefulness, Paul persisted. Bending in and out 
 under people's elbows, across the small of their backs, or 
 brazenly into any diminutive space allowed for breathing, 
 he advanced inch by inch. Observing no one and thinking 
 of naught but the care needed for his movements, he 
 found that none noticed him. Boys and even a man 
 or two were roundly cursed, within a yard of him, for 
 causing less inconvenience and gaining less ground than 
 himself, while he passed unseen. Keeping his thought 
 detached, he was aware as of a panorama slipping slowly 
 past him, inch after inch. 
 
 Very quiet, very orderly, this crowd, with practically 
 nothing to say. Generalities were no longer mentioned; 
 none seemed to care how the war had come, nor why. 
 
 From the station, shrill screams of whistles resounded 
 through the town. Soon the rhythm of heavy feet tramp- 
 ing in unison rose from the stones. A body of young men
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 151 
 
 came marching as if already in uniform. Of one age and 
 actuated by one sentiment, they were of varied conditions 
 or rather, they had been, for France knew no more such 
 distinctions as trade or business or aristocracy. Mur- 
 murs of confidence, in a tone of benediction, followed these 
 boys; they, smiling yet serious, would call back an oc- 
 casional word. Twice or thrice, the beat of something 
 said in chorus might be caught. None of the boasting, 
 none of the challenge, none of the recklessness which had 
 heralded olden disasters was conveyed by this hope too 
 sacred to be cried out, and deep-rooted so as to endure. 
 The new war was beginning without wild cheers or historic 
 phrase, but with hearts determined instead of light, and 
 necessaries attended to instead of gaiter-buttons. 
 
 That the future soldiers might reach the station, the 
 crowd fell back, urged on by the police. Paul was hugged 
 so tight between two men that he left the ground and 
 stayed suspended for a moment. He fought to regain his 
 footing before a loosening of this pressure should let him 
 fall, perhaps to be trampled upon. As he freed himself, 
 he stumbled forward. Accident, and the position to 
 which he had methodically worked his way, put him in the 
 first line. Among those passing, he recognised Marcel 
 Lavenu. Paul grasped his arm, and was swept on. A 
 minute later, he was beyond the barriers, and in the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 "You coming?" Marcel whispered excitedly. 
 
 "Coming where?" Paul tried to suppress his voice, 
 yet was so thrilled that it escaped him. 
 
 "Hush ! To fight, of course." 
 
 "No! How could I?" 
 
 "lam." 
 
 "You can't. You're only six months older than L"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Sixty years older, you mean! Going to fight, I tell 
 you. How can you bear to stay behind? " 
 
 " But Marcel they are refusing enlistments from classes 
 to be called later." 
 
 "That's why I had nothing to do with any of them. I 
 slipped in here and got you in, besides. You don't 
 deny that, do you? Well! I'm going to slip into the 
 train, just the same way. And when we get to the front, 
 if I don't find soldiers to supply me with a cast-off uni- 
 form, and a gun and a cartridge-belt, then we're all un- 
 worthy of the name of Frenchmen! If you come along, 
 I'll see you're cared for, too. Will you? " 
 
 The "Yes" was on Paul's lips he throbbed under the 
 mightiest elation of his life when Duty laid her marble 
 hand upon him, turning him cold and sick. 
 
 "Father's off in a few days, and I must support mother," 
 he said weakly. "You haven't got anybody dependent 
 on you, Marcel." 
 
 " What does that matter? " the other flared. " The war 
 can't last more than three or four weeks; if Germany 
 doesn't win at the first blow and we won't let her do 
 
 that then she'll starve. For such a family as yours " 
 
 He saw the pain and the anger which swept Paul's face; 
 changing tone suddenly, he said: "Don't let's quarrel. 
 Do what you please. You may be right for you. I'm 
 right for me, anyhow." 
 
 Paul grasped his hand. 
 
 "I don't wish you good luck, because that brings bad." 
 The stock phrase of his highly modernised anti-clerical 
 school, where boys were conscientiously rid of "religious 
 superstition," had returned to him. "But here's to our 
 meeting again in Verviller." 
 
 Mentally he added, " Sooner than you suppose." Marcel
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 153 
 
 would not get far in this mad-cap scheme. Many people 
 had gained access to the station; but reaching the plat- 
 forms and the trains would be another question. The 
 wave of exultation at the thought of being in the ranks, 
 of wearing the French uniform, of playing his part with 
 gun and bayonet (which he did not know how to use) had 
 subsided. He had a duty too, of a humbler kind, without 
 praise or glory or even credit attached. To run away from 
 one kind of obligation was as shameful as to run away from 
 any other. What was the good of discipline in war, if the 
 soldiers of the future did not obey orders? 
 
 Thanks to enterprise such as Paul had shown, or to 
 special influence, or to privileges as relatives of soldiers 
 about to leave, many had got into the entrance and waiting 
 room. The Marquis de Vervillers and Frere Alexandre 
 were among the first Paul recognised; the nobleman clap- 
 ping workmen on the back and talking cordially with 
 them, the Brother more gently but no less eloquently 
 showing that lines of party and religion were smoothed 
 away like those of caste and prejudice. Presently Pere 
 Elard, the Socialist carpenter who lived on an income, 
 was holding the Marquis by the edge of his sleeve, while 
 Frere Alexandre was all but embraced by the Communal 
 school-teacher, alleged to be a rabid priest-baiter. A 
 dashing young lieutenant, in perfectly tailored uniform, 
 saluted a fat, dowdy captain. The inferior was the Comte 
 de Vervillers, son and heir to the Marquis; the superior 
 was a local bricklayer. The two shook hands, and began 
 to talk; Paul learned that they were officers of reserves in 
 the same regiment. Perfect understanding reigned be- 
 tween them. 
 
 Suddenly jarred from behind, Paul looked around. 
 Andre Manadan, terrified, shrank away. Paul said,
 
 154 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Don't be afraid of me I'm French!" Yes, there was 
 something contagious, inspiring, in the very air they 
 breathed. 
 
 Gates were opened. A few last embraces; a cheer more 
 subdued and holier than all the rest; a larger number of 
 tearful faces, with more resolute efforts to hide traces of 
 weakness and it was over. 
 
 Marcel Lavenu had melted away in the throng. 
 
 Filled with surpassing loneliness, Paul looked out from 
 his window, after returning home. Long darts of flame, 
 clear as the streak of a sword, shone upon the silvered 
 thread of steel tracks and plunged forward, endlessly 
 forward, leaving in their wake brief blotches of blackness 
 which also travelled on and on, while new flames, new long 
 clear streaks rushed close after. When his eyes grew 
 used to the great skimming head-lights, he saw that the 
 blackness following them was alight also; not brilliant, not 
 continual, but evanescent as glow-worms. And the roar 
 that went with each troop-train, dying away as softly as it 
 began, yet dominated ever by the rumbling, the grinding, 
 the speeding that came abreast, was like unceasing thun- 
 der in rock-caverns by the sea. 
 
 II 
 
 WITHIN the week, Verviller took on a new aspect. There 
 was no room for sadness nor loneliness. The streets were 
 thronged with soldiers; the avenues impassable with 
 horses tied to trees. Nothing to eat could be bought at 
 any hotel or restaurant; but numberless untenanted shops 
 had been transformed into places where light wines or 
 beer, and syrups and coffee were sold. The troops had 
 been divided up among all the flats and houses in town; 
 where residents were present a certain amount of space
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 155 
 
 was left for their use, where they were absent the authori- 
 ties broke in the doors and took possession. 
 
 Thirty troopers and a sergeant were quartered upon 
 Paul's mother, his father having already gone to the front. 
 The men slept on hay all over the hall, and upstairs ; caps, 
 belts, bayonets, hung from every knob or nail. Very dis- 
 creet, very orderly, talking low, they were giving their 
 first proof of discipline in obedience to commands that 
 they should not disturb unnecessarily those among whom 
 they were billeted. Paul's grandparents had come 
 from Arnan, and the two rooms on the ground-floor had 
 been left to the family. If Paul regretted his window, 
 he was happy to sleep in the kitchen and leave his room 
 to French soldiers. 
 
 Madame Clermont grew almost gay, and looked to her 
 toilet once more. She would stand for an hour at a 
 time, chatting with the men. There were of all kinds 
 among them, but mostly shopkeepers and employes. One 
 trooper turned out to be the proprietor of a large Parisian 
 bakery closed, because he and all his staff were called 
 out. His comrades-in-arms were similarly embarrassed. 
 But they seemed to have only one idea to reach the 
 frontier and fight quickly and be rid once for all of German 
 threats. 
 
 "What I want most is to fight; and next, to know what 
 chance we really stand," the baker said one morning to 
 Madame Clermont. "Because if we don't crush the 
 Germans so as to have done with them for ever, then 
 they'll begin this over again." 
 
 Another trooper listened, young, dark, handsome, 
 and aristocratic in spite of his heavy -wear, ill-fitting uni- 
 form, with his collar unbuttoned over a throat as fair and 
 smooth as a woman's. The medal with his matriculation
 
 156 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 number hung by a leather thong round his neck; he kept 
 caressing it, and nodded occasional approbation. 
 
 The woman made a breezy remark about the Allied 
 forces. With Russians, Belgians, English to be added to 
 the French 
 
 The baker looked doubtful; the handsome, dark young 
 trooper pursed his clean-shaven, finely chiselled lips, and 
 tossed the medal rather more energetically. 
 
 "That's all very well," the baker burst out. "But this 
 is our own fight. We're glad of their help, but we don't 
 count on anybody besides ourselves. Only, we must 
 win!" 
 
 At which the young aristocrat's handsome, olive-skinned 
 face cleared, and he let the medal fly back to its place 
 under his tunic. 
 
 "That's the spirit which does it!" said Madame Cler- 
 mont in her high, guttural voice. 
 
 Although the baker alone had spoken, she had not ad- 
 dressed him. Her eulogy, like her smiles, went to the 
 dark young trooper. 
 
 Paul, who had stood by watching and listening, flushed 
 and went out. 
 
 Not much time was allowed him. The breaking of 
 numerous locks on the eve of mobilisation, and the damage 
 since done by heavy soldier hands, had caused his trade 
 to be the most thriving in the region, after that of coffee- 
 sellers and hair-cutters. Beginning promptly at six, 
 he ended sometimes after eight; but, as a junior workman, 
 was now paid accordingly. The apprentices looked 
 up with awe to their promoted elder; the more so since the 
 bibulous compagnon was mobilised, leaving Paul next in 
 authority to M. Badajeze himself. 
 
 Under the stress of prevailing excitement and of the
 
 THE GIFT OP PAUL CLERMONT 157 
 
 numerous calls from all sides, the artistic locksmith had 
 grown more than ever convinced of his importance. 
 
 "I have told you," he harangued the boys on several 
 occasions because he repeated himself, did worthy M. 
 Badajeze " I have told you that wars would be ended only 
 when my trade should no longer be needed by mankind. 
 Well ! You perceive now that wars cause me to be needed 
 far more than ever!" 
 
 The apprentices grinned. As a matter of fact, they 
 and the junior workman were the ones needed, these 
 repairs were so simple. 
 
 With most of the town and its neighbourhood, the rule 
 was to attend only to what might be essential. People 
 preferred to have doors that would lock, even though they 
 had soldiers to lodge. Paul visited many homes, from 
 the grandest to the humblest, and learned to know Ver- 
 viller in an intimate way. He had no other diversion. 
 His grandfather had fallen into a state of virtual im- 
 becility, his grandmother was a hopelessly crippled rheu- 
 matic who could only whine about her "pains"; Marcel 
 Lavenu had not reappeared, and the apprentices were of 
 a nature so different from his that intimacy could not 
 exist; M. Aubret had gone to Paris about a passport, and 
 had been unable to return. 
 
 At least a score of windows demanded attention at the 
 enormous chateau; the Marquis accommodated ten. or 
 twelve officers in his best rooms, and put an entire wing 
 at the disposal of the soldiery. The old gentleman was 
 stirring up all the influence he could command in France, 
 . to be restored to the rank of captain he had once held, 
 and from hour to hour he hoped to hear the good news. 
 He sent for Paul, and patted him on the shoulder, asking 
 what had become of M. Aubret and laughing at the same
 
 158 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 time; and finally dismissed the boy with a five-franc tip. 
 The taking of tips always humiliated Paul; he had refused 
 them, at first, and been rated for this "stupidity" by the 
 compagnon, who said he not only spoiled the business but 
 offended clients which Paul perceived to be true. So he 
 tried to get used to the feeling, and his mother found the 
 money entirely acceptable. But this tip hurt more than 
 any he had ever taken though silver had grown scarce. 
 
 The Marquis had also ordered work done at the school- 
 house, which had been converted into veritable barracks. 
 Since new troops were pouring in steadily, only the lock on 
 Frere Alexandre's door was seen to. Paul found the 
 Brother oldened and saddened, and he listened to the 
 beginning of a homily on Christian virtues and the duty 
 of the labouring classes. Something of the old childish 
 reverence and almost love for Frere Alexandre survived 
 even now. 
 
 One day, as he passed through the rue du Port, Leonie 
 rushed out, screaming; and on the pretext of a broken key, 
 brought him in to the house and bade him "look." The 
 spectacle turned him quite sick, he acknowledged later. 
 Even my study had been stacked with straw, and my 
 drawing-room chairs, pulled close together, had served 
 as beds; pictures everywhere were racks for bayonets and 
 other tools of war. But no damage was done, and 
 not an article was gone. 
 
 Soldiers came, soldiers went; the old were replaced by 
 new, who in turn became old before going in turn; and so 
 day succeeded day in a town no longer Verviller, but ac- 
 tive, happy, triumphant. 
 
 One morning, the streets were filled with marching 
 companies, off to the front; and none came in their stead.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 159 
 
 The men regularly mobilised were all equipped and dis- 
 posed of; Verviller should not see further troops for the 
 present, though convoys of wounded might be expected. 
 The waiting-room at the station was converted into an 
 ambulance; the former convent, closed by the Government 
 but belonging to the Marquis, was opened as a bandage- 
 room by the Marquise, a stout, black-haired, pleasant- 
 looking lady, with a grey-hued complexion and very red 
 lips, who gravely used long-handled glasses. Many 
 young ladies from the town made bandages there; Made- 
 moiselle Odette, too, had been admitted. 
 
 If her hours in the dining-room were scarce, Paul thrilled 
 only the more when he caught glimpses of the brown hair, 
 or heard her delightful voice, whether or not words could 
 be distinguished. 
 
 She was always very patriotic, exulting at each report of 
 victory; her father, good-humouredly confident, laughed 
 whenever she talked. 
 
 " You should be the last to rejoice," he told her. "After 
 the war, you may have trouble in finding a sound hus- 
 band." 
 
 "I shall marry none but a wounded hero!" she declared. 
 "Only yesterday, the girls at the bandage-room were dis- 
 cussing that, and we all vowed to marry glorious mutilated 
 men. The thing we couldn't agree about was what kind 
 of maiming made the best husband. Some of the girls 
 preferred a blind man, who could not watch them too 
 closely. None wanted an armless man, as a matter of 
 choice, you know, because he would need so very much 
 care; though he couldn't slap his wife. I myself would 
 most willingly take a man without legs; he could be set up 
 in a corner, so as to give really very little trouble, and when 
 I said to him 'Be good!' he wouldn't dare refuse!"
 
 160 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 For the first time, Paul was able to think, without a 
 nauseating horror, of the mutilations of battle. To be 
 cared for by Mademoiselle Odette even to be set up 
 in a corner by her, if one were reduced to a human 
 trunk would be adequate reward for sufferings and pri- 
 vations. And though blind, the memory of her voice 
 would cheer the darkness of eternal night and of infinite 
 isolation. 
 
 Pere Elard, who had rallied from his anger and had 
 again grown assiduous in calling here as elsewhere, shook 
 his dried old head dolefully: 
 
 "Eh! Eh! I fear you may have occasion to be as good 
 as your word, Mademoiselle Odette; and you will have 
 many victims to select among. Don't be deceived by these 
 skirmishes hi Alsace. The war has not begun, for our 
 troops have not yet met the Prussians. I, who fought 
 them in 1870, know what they are. These days we have 
 been beating only the shoddy edges of the German army, 
 the Bavarian and Wurtemburgian riff-raff. Until we 
 have beaten the Prussians themselves, we must not think 
 we are safe and we can't beat them." 
 
 "Enough of such croaking!" M. Badajeze thundered. 
 "Keep to yourself the chills of your sluggish old blood 
 and let young, virile France rejoice! " 
 
 "While she can," Pere Elard muttered between his 
 stumps of teeth as he hobbled away. 
 
 The town still thrilled with stories of victory, when 
 refugees began to arrive with rumours of reverse. None 
 could be so unpatriotic as to credit them. Only when 
 wounded soldiers at the station brought, with their martial 
 prestige, confirmation worse than the first reports, did 
 people consent to believe. Then refugees arrived with
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 161 
 
 evidence which could not be questioned. All destitute, 
 all with drawn faces and wide, red eyes, they were scat- 
 tered along the roads, pressing towards the west and cry- 
 ing out their fear of the hordes wreaking death and 
 destruction which followed close upon their heels. It was 
 from desolate mothers and grandparents that France knew 
 fully of the catastrophe which threatened. It was by 
 them that the nation's calm of dignity was changed to that 
 awful, inspiring calm of stolid despair which will remain 
 ever revered and unforgotten by those who endured or 
 witnessed it. 
 
 An order came for the wounded to be evacuated from 
 Verviller. Next, word was brought that the last west- 
 bound train would leave that night; civilians were urged 
 to go before the bridges over the Mareille should be blown 
 up. The rumbling of cannon had been heard for some 
 days, intermittently; it became so loud and so customary 
 that its rhythm seemed to beat with the town's very life. 
 A fair number of people left. The Marquis de Vervillers 
 decided to go, as his last hope for reaching the front, via 
 Paris; and the Marquise, whose utility had been destroyed 
 by the closing of the station ambulance, accompanied him. 
 She wished to take Odette Badajeze, among other girls; 
 but the artistic locksmith stoutly refused. 
 
 "I shall know how to defend my daughter," he said. 
 
 The same sentiment was echoed in many breasts. Peo- 
 ple felt that they should stay to protect their property; 
 and while they could no longer deny the crimes com- 
 mitted against civilians, they held individual soldiers 
 responsible. Who had not heard of Teutonic educational 
 methods and philosophical ideas? And who, after knowing 
 of them, could fail to believe in the good behaviour of 
 masses brought up under such influences?
 
 162 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Pere Elard, more of a pessimist than ever, opined that 
 everybody ought to go; but he himself did not purpose 
 moving. 
 
 "Though the town be taken, we shall be protected, if 
 we behave in an orderly manner," said M. Badajeze. "If 
 a drunken soldier insults my daughter, I shall kill him. 
 Any officer who is a man will support me." 
 
 "Eh! Eh!" croaked the old carpenter. "You don't 
 understand that these atrocities we hear about, this whole 
 system of terrorisation, are part of the German strategic 
 plan. I remember how, in '70, French sharp-shooters 
 saved many a village, since the enemy could not know who 
 was firing nor in what numbers; and how civilians doing 
 scout duty, called spying by the Germans, rendered con- 
 siderable services to our army. The object of the present 
 methods is to stop all that, and also to block the roads 
 with refugees and their carts and cattle, so that the move- 
 ments of our troops may be impeded. It has been a 
 success from both points of view and our press has 
 foolishly spread the news, which was just what the Ger- 
 mans wanted!" 
 
 "I can suppose a drunken soldier capable of any outrage, 
 and I admit the contagion of example," said M. Badajeze. 
 "But I deny that educated officers of any race would 
 deliberately execute coldly framed orders for wholesale 
 infamies." 
 
 The old carpenter (who lived on an income) was very 
 active, at that period; here and everywhere in the streets, 
 and calling at all the houses he knew. Paul, whose work- 
 shop now closed at four and might almost as well have 
 closed permanently, would run across him in the most un- 
 expected places. Once he even met him on the top of the 
 Ripote, with a rake. Pere Elard explained he was after
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 163 
 
 some sort of roots, and seemed very cross about it; asked 
 what Paul did there, and went away grumbling, straight 
 home, without the roots. 
 
 That very day, hostile aeroplanes flew over Verviller, 
 dropping bombs. The next, Paul caught sight of the first 
 troops, retreating and stopping, but always fighting, with 
 such a support of artillery that the ground shook where he 
 stood. 
 
 The Battle of Verviller, so long announced by the can- 
 non and prophesied by refugees, began that night. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "THE house trembled and jumped every second or two, 
 and the roaring never seemed to stop. A few shells fell 
 in the town, and bits of broken glass were scattered over 
 the streets. But all that mattered to us was the noise. 
 As night wore on, and it grew worse, we stuffed mattresses, 
 pillows, blankets, overcoats, everything we could find, 
 against the doors and windows. We didn't care what 
 might happen, you understand; it was the noise we couldn't 
 endure any longer. When we had muffled it just a little, 
 we stretched out on the bare floor, all dressed, and felt 
 well perhaps it's not going too far to say 'happy.' Being 
 killed wasn't anything, provided we got relief from that 
 maddening roar." 
 
 Paul spoke thus, lying on my bed at the Hotel de File 
 de France, in Paris. Worn, haggard, exhausted, he rested 
 limply with wide-staring eyes and a helpless arm and both 
 feet bandaged. Two officers had found him on the high- 
 road, stupefied by hunger, exposure, physical effort, and 
 moral suffering. In answer to their first questions, he 
 repeated dully, again and again : 
 
 "They said I was to go to Paris Tell what I had seen
 
 164 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 How they burned and killed and mutilated They would- 
 n't kill me They tied me up and held me Wanted you 
 to know what you should expect when they get to you 
 Threw me out of town, on the road to Paris Said I was to 
 come and tell what they made me see " 
 
 The French officers observed that there were safer 
 places than Paris, and tried to start him in a new direction. 
 When he insisted that he must go on, they thought him 
 a prey to German suggestion about telling what he had 
 seen. Out of very kindness they used their authority to 
 declare he should go no farther. This roused him from 
 the stupor into which he had fallen. The repetition of 
 ghastly phrases ceased, and he told them briefly that his 
 family had been slaughtered, save for his father who was 
 somewhere with the army, if not killed; his only friend, a 
 sort of guardian, was in Paris. Struck by his story or his 
 pathetic plight, or else perhaps impressed by the boy 
 himself, the officers lent him money and gave full directions 
 for reaching me. And so he tottered in to the hotel, one 
 afternoon, with an arm stiff from a neglected bullet- 
 scratch, his feet torn and bruised, his clothes ragged and 
 gruesomely stained. 
 
 Upon getting to a bed, he fell into a protracted sleep; 
 woke only to eat, and then slept again; remained speech- 
 less for some hours, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling; and 
 finally, without question from me, began to talk. 
 
 The fighting had centred round the Ripote. French 
 infantrymen had stubbornly held it; because of the steep 
 incline, their artillery had cooperated from villages in the 
 plain. Leaving detachments to carry the heights with 
 bayonets, the Germans swept on, driving before them the 
 bulk of the French army in that region. The enemy's
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 165 
 
 heavy artillery divided its attention between the Ripote 
 and the town. 
 
 The aim seemed rather wild; the church-steeple and the 
 chateau, the clearest marks of all, were not touched. The 
 former convent and bandage-room, however, which had 
 been hastily organised as an ambulance, was struck; from 
 every five shells which reached the town, two or three fell 
 near there. 
 
 Mademoiselle Badajeze had returned to her post; many 
 women and girls worked on fearlessly, without supervision 
 but in complete harmony. One shell pierced the roof and 
 burst in a ward, killing a nurse and several patients. 
 
 "Take down the Red Cross flag!" some one shouted. 
 
 "What good will that do, now they have their aim?" 
 cried Mademoiselle Badajeze, who knew from her father 
 what was to be expected. "Find men, move the wounded 
 anywhere far from here and then don't hoist the flag on 
 our new shelter ! " 
 
 While zealous hands carried the helpless soldiers away, 
 and those who could crawled in the wake of the others, 
 the apprentice Ernest, become an ambulance scout, im- 
 provised a flag-staff and hoisted the Red Cross emblem on 
 a deserted shed covering only plough-shares. Within 
 an hour, the very plough-shares were pounded to scrap- 
 iron. 
 
 Of those who had stoutly refused to leave town, declar- 
 ing they would brave danger while none was present, a 
 few began now to scatter over the country. Troops were 
 pouring through Verviller, on their way to positions chosen 
 along the course of the Mareille. Soldiers, grimy and 
 gore-stained, with scorched faces and broken voices, 
 rasped out their advice to non-combatants: "Better stay 
 where you are safer than elsewhere." Those bent on
 
 166 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 fleeing were too terrified to listen; the soldiers, too battle- 
 mad to mind: having spoken, they would gasp, " A boire /" 
 and gulp down whatever was offered, water or wine. 
 
 While the French were in the act of concentrating, the 
 Germans appeared on the high-road crossing the plain, 
 along whose whiteness an oily spot of grey spread swiftly, 
 immeasurably. The French artillery opened a fire 
 whose double object was to retard this advance and to 
 defend Verviller. The Germans trained heavy guns no 
 longer on an inoffensive town, but on villages whence the 
 French were firing with seventy-fives, and against the 
 infantry filling a large part of the plain. Huge shells would 
 fall within a few yards of each other, tearing, killing, 
 demoralising. 
 
 Then it was that the noise within the town became wild, 
 maddening, unendurable. 
 
 The French slept upon their positions, officers and men 
 casting themselves down where they had stood, as soon as 
 darkness, broken only by bursting shells, made further 
 infantry action impossible. Unceasingly through the 
 night, the flare of bursting shells brought those lurid, 
 jagged spots of light, while the air was rent by the roar of 
 guns and the crash of explosions and the shrieks of the 
 injured. .-. 
 
 Before dawn, all valid officers and men, and some with a 
 wound hastily bound up, were afoot, prepared to fight with 
 gun and bayonet, supported by such artillery as they 
 had, against an invader superior in every respect save that 
 of courage and persistency. The winding course of the 
 Mareille was furiously disputed on both banks. But as 
 the French thought they were gaining ground in the early 
 morning gaining ground, though they were stiff and ex- 
 hausted by nigh upon three weeks of fighting without
 
 167 
 
 adequate food, or ever a shelter, having been hourly under 
 fire in the imminence of death and of complete rout a 
 rumour passed bringing a dismay immediately displaced 
 by heroic resolve. Another German army had come up 
 during the night, from beyond the far hills; the French were 
 caught between this and the army already in the plain. 
 
 Then began a battle of desperate fortunes for the 
 Germans, swift advance to Paris and an early end to the 
 war; for the French, the salvation of their soil. 
 
 The French artillery weakened. To start with, many 
 of their guns had had but twenty shells apiece; now, some 
 were silenced, and others used caps and explosives alone, to 
 encourage their infantry and disturb the enemy. Luckily, 
 the Germans were led to scatter their fire. No ruse of the 
 French produced this diversion, but the Germans' own 
 acute sense for ruses. A row of mechanical pump-handles, 
 connected with wells, on one of the far hills which the 
 French protected, was mistaken for a battery of seventy- 
 fives naively exposed; and the pump-handles were pounded 
 with untiring perseverance. If this foolish blunder did not 
 save the French, it at least gained time for them. 
 
 The fighting, begun with rifles, soon degenerated into the 
 most savage hand-to-hand conflicts. French soldiers, 
 short of cartridges, lost patience with bayonets or else 
 bent or broke them in their fury; taking rifles by the bar- 
 rels, they used the butts as clubs, braining their adversar- 
 ies. Men who stood unwounded were red with the blood 
 of others; drunk with the smell of powder, and the sight 
 of the carnage, and the contagion surrounding them. 
 
 "Who told you of this?" I asked Paul. 
 "The fighting? I saw it," he said. "My window 
 looked that way. And father had an old pair of opera-
 
 168 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 glasses. I watched at sunrise, and again after coming 
 home. It had seemed as if I wouldn't ever get back; 
 and once there, I thought best to stay at the window. 
 At least I could see something of what was going on. 
 No use hiding downstairs or anywhere else. The Ger- 
 mans weren't sending us shrapnel, but only occasional big 
 shells which passed through two or three storeys as well as 
 one, so why bother? Some of the people who ran down in 
 cellars were buried with the whole house on top. I don't 
 suppose it made much difference for them in the end, 
 when the burning and the killing came. But at the time 
 I preferred the idea of dying where there was light and air. 
 
 "Early in the morning, I had gone to ask if I could help 
 Mademoiselle Odette. But no more wounded were being 
 brought in; there wasn't time, or the chance, either; and 
 people like me, who hadn't any qualification save for carry- 
 ing stretchers, were about in any quantity. The day 
 before I'd been useful, when all the men from the Ripote 
 were brought in. All? No. I don't mean that. Thou- 
 sands died there in those pathetic little trenches, mere 
 deepenings of the ditches you and I saw together deep- 
 ened under the enemy's fire, the men who worked being 
 killed so their comrades might be protected just a little. 
 Our ambulance was filled till there wasn't a square yard 
 of floor left without a human form on it. But I couldn't 
 be of use now." 
 
 That casual remark was all I learned of his work there. 
 
 "M. Badajeze told me he was going into the centre of 
 town, and I must come too. He wanted to see if the 
 church-steeple had been hit. That question puzzled him. 
 
 "'People pretend the German marksmanship is bad,' 
 he said. 'Yet they could hit the Red Cross flag wherever 
 it was, on the ambulance or over the plough-shares.'
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 169 
 
 "'Murdering the wounded,' I said angrily. 
 
 " 'That's not what they're after,' he answered. 'They 
 use the Red Cross to shelter their artillery and ammuni- 
 tion and supplies; so of course they suspect us of doing the 
 same. Haven't you ever noticed that the systematic liar 
 suspects the word of everybody else, and that the man who 
 enjoys "fooling" others is always on his guard against 
 people ten times more honest than he? So the Germans, 
 being of bad faith in their conventions and treaties and 
 general honour, and thinking anything may be justified 
 from the fact that they do it, conclude we can't be any 
 better. They aren't destroying churches for the fun of it, 
 but because their own theory is to use steeples for ob- 
 servatories and machine-guns.' 
 
 "As soon as we caught sight of the church, M. Badajeze 
 took out his watch. 
 
 "'The clock must have been hit,' he said. 'An hour 
 slow.' 
 
 " I looked up, and exclaimed that we couldn't have taken 
 two hours to come from his house. 
 
 '"But the hands have changed since a minute ago!' he 
 said. 
 
 "I couldn't believe him. He scarcely believed himself, 
 I think. Both of us looked for some time. And we both 
 saw the hands spin round. 
 
 " 'The devil himself has got into the works,' he said; and 
 explained that a shell couldn't have such an effect. 
 
 "The hands twirled again, and he declared he was 
 going up. Of course I went too. 
 
 "The tower-door was locked. But if an artistic lock- 
 smith and his first junior workman couldn't pick an out- 
 of-date thing like that " 
 
 Pride in his trade had almost made him forget, for a
 
 170 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 moment, the tragedy which still hung over him. He so- 
 bered quickly : 
 
 "We got in, without noise. Half-way up the winding 
 stairs, we were stopped by a screech-owl's nest with several 
 young ones in it; no way to pass without stepping into the 
 thing. 
 
 "'Much too clever,' M. Badajeze remarked. He had 
 lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Whoever found that in 
 the loft, and put it here as a blind, forgot watchers came 
 yesterday. Take off your shoes.'" 
 
 Paul stopped. 
 
 "Who was it?" I prompted. 
 
 "Pere Elard. A German spy. Been so for very long. 
 He had an apparatus all ready, prepared in advance, for 
 disconnecting the hands from the clock and turning them 
 as he pleased, according to a code for signalling our posi- 
 tions." 
 
 "This accounts for his peculiar views which you used to 
 quote!" I exclaimed. 
 
 Paul nodded: 
 
 "No wonder he lived on an 'income' from mysterious 
 relatives nobody ever saw! No wonder he was always 
 running down England, and complaining she had no 
 army, and saying he wouldn't trust her to help us any- 
 how! When we caught him, he tried to buy his pardon 
 from us by turning traitor against the Germans. His 
 abject infamy was awful. But that wasn't the worst. 
 He couldn't do his dirty work alone, so do you know 
 whom he had bribed, or deceived, or browbeaten into 
 helping him? Manadan, poor, weak, diseased little Andre 
 Manadan! Pitiful little beggar, I can't believe he was 
 a traitor, or meant to be. He didn't know I would 
 swear he didn't know. We delivered them both over to
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 171 
 
 the Mayor, who locked them up in a cellar while looking 
 for an officer. 
 
 "Everybody agreed our army must be warned. There 
 weren't any soldiers available in town; so I volunteered 
 to go to the nearest post, in a little wood. An open part 
 of the plain had to be crossed to reach it." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I went." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "I got there." A silence. "It felt funny, when 
 bullets whistled and I knew they were aimed at me. I 
 think I was rather frightened. First experience, you 
 know. Shells felt different; they were meant for anybody. 
 But it was uncomfortable to think those bullets came 
 specially after me. 
 
 "The colonel said I had been foolish to come. There 
 was a military post in town which could have telephoned, 
 giving the message better and more quickly. Only we 
 didn't know. I'd risked drawing fire on them by crossing 
 that part of the plain. It may have been that, or else 
 Pere Elard's last message; but shells certainly did begin 
 to fall thick in that wood. I was told to stay. 
 
 "Like me, a woman was kept sort of prisoner there a 
 woman I had seen before, in the street. She had a huge 
 form, and a small round head, with fat rosy cheeks and 
 black hair drawn very tight to a knot on her fat neck; 
 always used to talk patriotically, and say the war had 
 better come and be done with it. But she was terrified 
 now. Every time a shell burst, she would scream and run 
 away; and since they were bursting in every direction, 
 you can imagine the sort of criss-cross game she played. 
 At last the colonel got sorry for her; besides, this business 
 was rattling the nerves of the men.
 
 172 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Don't you see,' he said, 'that what you are doing there 
 is very foolish that you are multiplying your own risks?' 
 He went on to explain that there was a very small chance 
 for a shell to fall in any one spot she might choose, but by 
 changing places every minute she was exposing herself to 
 the greatest possible number of chances. It was done so 
 kindly, and in such simple language, that she understood, 
 and thanked him, and promised not to move again. Nor 
 did she ever. 
 
 "'The colonel walked away. I followed him. We heard 
 and felt an explosion. We both looked round. The very 
 next shell had fallen right on her and literally blown her 
 to atoms vaporised her, there where she had been told 
 to stand for safety! The colonel turned green. 
 
 "After that, the fire grew so hot that the post was 
 moved, and I got permission to go back. Then I went to 
 my window and watched." 
 
 The battle lasted throughout the day, the Germans 
 gaining ground along the high-road, but not from the far 
 hills, where they had thought to surprise the French. 
 Again that night, officers and men slept on their positions. 
 An urgent call had been sent for ammunition, which 
 might still come in time. But next morning, when the 
 artillery's voice failed to speak, it became evident that 
 the field could not be held. In this extremity, the com- 
 manding general resolved on a seeming retreat which 
 should be a concentration at the Ripote, already twice 
 lost and regained. If surrounded there, he would see his 
 army cut to pieces; but that was where he had the best 
 hope for ammunition and reinforcements. 
 
 The town filled with gaunt, grimy, blood-stained men, 
 supported above exhaustion by the lust of battle, many 
 of them wounded but fighting on until shot or struck
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 173 
 
 again. As the last valid men crossed the bridge, engineers 
 blew it up, when the Germans were within a few yards 
 such quick work that three of the French were lost in the 
 ruins they created. 
 
 While the Germans crossed the river, their artillery 
 was trained on Verviller. Some of the finest buildings 
 were wrecked, and now that the church tower had stopped 
 giving signals, it was hit repeatedly, as were the chateau 
 and the town hall. From all the windows along the river- 
 front, French soldiers poured a deadly rifle-fire on pontoon- 
 bridges the Germans were throwing out; and soldiers 
 who tried swimming across were hashed to pieces by 
 bullets when they reached the bank. But with the 
 might of inexhaustible numbers and with a courage which 
 knew no shade of hesitation, they continued to come, 
 until they closed in with the last of the French who dared 
 cover, from the town, the end of the retreat. The streets 
 rang with reports and echoes of rifle-shots, and dull blows 
 of bayonets. 
 
 Night was falling. The Germans took nominal pos- 
 session; next morning, they entered officially. 
 
 When the bridge had been blown up, the house rocked 
 and the glass of Paul's window showered about his head. 
 He ran downstairs: 
 
 "No more of our soldiers were to be seen, and I couldn't 
 bear to watch only Germans. Mother vowed she wasn't 
 afraid; said she knew how to take care of herself. I didn't 
 fear for her, much; she wasn't at all attractive, any more," 
 he explained gravely. "Besides, she had grandmother 
 and grandfather as a protection very old people, whom 
 nobody could hurt, I believed. 
 
 "Before the street-fighting began, there was one thing 
 I thought of. That is, I had thought of it often, but I
 
 174 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 knew this was the time. I went to your house. Leonie 
 was in an extraordinary state of excitement. Positively 
 cursing our soldiers for allowing themselves to be driven 
 away by Germans! Almost slapped me when I said I 
 wanted to save something. Said she undertook to defend 
 the house alone against a thousand Germans. But I 
 went in. 
 
 "What I had come for was your manuscript. Then it 
 occurred to me that if I were well dressed they might treat 
 me better, so I put on my brown suit and best shoes in my 
 own room, upstairs. The clothes were a good idea. But 
 later, on the road, when my feet got torn all to pieces, I 
 almost cried for my good old hob-nailed boots. 
 
 "Your manuscript wasn't easy to find; everything 
 turned upside down, stuffed into drawers and cupboards 
 on top of whatever you had put away yourself; but I got 
 it at last. Just at that moment I heard the fighting get 
 very close; I thrust the papers up under my waistcoat, 
 and ran home. The rest of your things, I reflected, were 
 safer in your house, as a neutral, than they would be with 
 me. But I didn't intend that manuscript to be lost unless 
 I was, too." 
 
 He lay very still for a while, and said : 
 
 "It would have gone anyway, when your house was 
 burned." 
 
 " Do you think I consider such details, when I have you ? " 
 
 "It would have gone anyway," he went on as if I had 
 not spoken, "and I should have been killed." 
 
 The Germans, fearing a trap, perhaps, kept very quiet, 
 that night; and the townspeople, of course, were voiceless. 
 In fact, Paul believed the enemy had only posted guards. 
 
 Their conduct upon taking possession was orderly; 
 severe, but orderly. A proclamation warned the citizens
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 175 
 
 to be calm if they would avoid reprisals. Forty hostages 
 were held, among them Frere Alexandre, dragged from the 
 bedsides of the wounded; M. Badajeze and M. Lavenu; 
 and Paul's grandfather, this last perhaps because of his 
 venerable appearance, since he was neither rich nor 
 influential. They were paraded through the streets, and 
 insults heaped upon them by invading soldiers, though 
 hostages are supposed to be sacred. The Mayor, who 
 had received the enemy with firmness and dignity, and 
 who had been officially respected for a few hours, was 
 placed at the head of this sad procession. The Cure, 
 who had been ministering to the dying, was put in the 
 ranks too, and forced to walk though he had an ulcerated 
 leg and fell several times from pain and weakness; each 
 time, he would be picked up and kicked, and forced into 
 line once more. They were finally all thrown into the 
 cellars of the town hall and given only buckets of water 
 which, their guards told them, represented "food and 
 drink." Meanwhile, famished soldiers were busy devour- 
 ing all provisions and systematically looting wine. Not a 
 house but was entered with cries of " Champagne ! . Cham- 
 pagne!" Where it was produced in sufficient quantities, 
 they respected the giver temporarily. 
 
 Save for the noise from the battle raging round the 
 Ripote that day passed quietly enough in the town. 
 People remained within doors; there was no cause for 
 complaint beyond the treatment given to the hostages 
 and the seizing of food and wine. 
 
 His grandfather being in the hands of the enemy, Paul 
 felt an especial weight resting upon him; the slightest 
 altercation into which he might get would be doubly fatal. 
 His mother's condition alarmed him. Reserved and 
 gentle, almost affectionate when she spoke, beneath the
 
 176 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 surface one felt, in the depths of a nature which had 
 never revealed itself, a concentrated fury capable of 
 bursting out in a worthy cause. 
 
 She soothed her mother's moans and put a fresh bandage 
 on the old woman's inflamed and swollen knee. Seeing 
 Paul move to the door, she called out : 
 
 " I forbid you to go in the street ! Big as you are they 
 might they might " 
 
 She actually broke down and cried. 
 
 Shortly before sunset, the enemy's humour changed. 
 The French on the Ripote were unexpectedly supported 
 by their artillery, whose supplies the Germans had in- 
 effectually tried to cut off. Fighting on the hill-side be- 
 came furious, and the French arriving from the plain 
 gained ground. Alarming reports reached the staff in 
 Verviller; there was talk of evacuation, and menace of 
 reprisals if this should be forced, while soldiers madly 
 emptied down their throats the bottles they had captured. 
 A French shell struck the chdteau, immediately over 
 the room which the general used as his office. It became 
 evident, from this moment, that the town was doomed. 
 
 The pretext was found readily enough. Poor old Mere 
 Rollinet took it into her cracked head that these soldiers 
 had killed the son for whose return she had waited since 
 the winter of 1870. Rushing with wild screams through 
 the streets, she fell with weak, withered fists upon the 
 broad chest of a huge infantryman who immediately ran 
 his bayonet through her in self-defence. For his supe- 
 riors, it sufficed that blood was shed. An order came for 
 the hostages to be executed and the town burned. 
 
 What Paul had to tell stopped here, as a narrative. In 
 a few short, terrible phrases, he depicted the rest. But
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 177 
 
 the scene so summarily painted rises before me as if I had 
 witnessed it as indeed I am witness to its ruins and to 
 some of the lives that were wrecked. 
 
 I seem to see squads of men in mouse-grey systemati- 
 cally at work as they ransack the houses before torches are 
 lighted. All plunder being gathered and removed to 
 safety, I see soldiers run from door to door with incendiary 
 fuses and powders brought, all ready from Germany, for 
 such tasks as this. I seem to see the flames writhe slowly, 
 half smothered in smoke, and subside as if loath to be 
 slaves of such masters. And I see vast sheets of flame 
 spread and rise, absorbing, irresistible, while petroleum 
 and gasolene are showered to hasten the town's fate. 
 
 The hostages, drawn up in the square before the town 
 hall, are mowed down with machine-guns. I see Frere 
 Alexandre fall, tall and pale, with a final deprecating 
 gesture of the white hands; I see M. Badajeze, grim, 
 prophetic, ironic beneath a fury menacing apoplexy up to 
 the very instant of death; I see the poor old grandfather 
 with his pale eyes looking puzzled and weary to the last. 
 
 As far as formal orders went, the people of the town were 
 to be spared; but murders and infamies begin, somehow, 
 as of themselves. Any who try to escape towards a 
 suburb are picked off like rabbits; any who try to rescue 
 a mite from a burning home are thrust into the brazier 
 with bayonets used as pitchforks; women who are not 
 killed are outraged, and some endure both. A boy, caught 
 by the hand and hacked with a sword, runs on for a few 
 steps, screaming and waving a trunk which bathes him in 
 blood before he drops in a writhing heap. 
 
 Paul has been hurrying about the town, seeking some 
 one; by a miracle, he has escaped injury. He has culti- 
 vated inner mastery and outer detachment; he sees all
 
 178 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 things but looks at nothing, hears everything but makes 
 no comment, passes everywhere but takes no thought 
 for his physical existence: he is spirit alone by the power 
 of will. And the abstraction which he has made of his body 
 deflects the thought of those who would harm him. 
 
 He reaches the square, which is burning too. Flames 
 thrust out their long tongues from the church tower and 
 from the chateau windows; the crash of walls and the 
 crackling of fires mingle with the report of cannon from the 
 plain near the hill, and the dry report of shots bringing 
 down helpless townspeople. There, the boy stumbles 
 against a row of corpses, the feet still chained together. 
 As he recognises one among the victims, two women 
 come up, a young and an old. Piercing shrieks rin te out 
 over the body of an aged man; an instant later, soldiers 
 rush forward. A shot is fired, which grazes the boy's 
 arm: the two women are struck again and again with 
 bayonets, until their forms lose human semblance. The 
 boy, numbed and bewildered, watches with eyes which 
 have ceased to see anything beyond blood and flames, 
 with a mind which wonders at but one horror surpassing 
 all the rest that he should be spared to experience this. 
 
 But he has failed to note that a manuscript, thrust 
 beneath his waistcoat, has fallen out : a captain has seized 
 upon it. English! What! Are those devils intriguing 
 here too? The captain orders that the boy's execution be 
 stayed while he reads these papers. 
 
 The roaring of flames fills a town whose other voices 
 are dumb; soldiers have retreated to safe suburbs, taking 
 with them one or two prisoners held by order; among the 
 injured, those who could walk or crawl have followed and 
 escaped death by fire. 
 
 The captain seeks the point whither he has sent the boy.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 179 
 
 The papers are a mere work of part-theory, part-erudition, 
 on lines not at all Teutonic, hence contemptible, written 
 by some fool with a French name who uses Americanised 
 English. The boy is not a witness worth keeping. But 
 the captain is sick of slaughter and outrage; his scorn goes 
 equally to the chiefs who coldly plan and to the men who 
 willingly execute such acts. One life more would not 
 count; yet the captain hesitates. 
 
 "For God's sake, finish me!" the boy cries out, tugging 
 at his bound hands. "You have murdered all my family 
 before my eyes life is too horrible ! Kill me and be done 
 with me, if you are human!" 
 
 "No, you shall live," says the captain, suddenly in- 
 spired. "You shall live to go to Paris and tell them what 
 the Germans are. Be sure to add that we follow close 
 behind you." 
 
 "Carry him, bound, beyond our lines," he commands the 
 soldiers. "Start him on the road to Paris and see that he 
 does not turn back, but say the order is, he must not be 
 killed." 
 
 Having spoken in his own tongue, he translates his words 
 into French, addressing the boy, and continues : 
 
 "You are to go to Paris To tell what you have seen 
 How we burn and kill and mutilate Let Parisians know 
 what to expect when we get there. Go!" 
 
 IV 
 
 IN PARIS, we had been receiving only official news, brief 
 accounts of resistance in the north and victory in the east. 
 To offset this, there were vague, disquieting rumours, 
 whose origin could never be traced; those who believed 
 them were branded as pessimists, those who passed them 
 on were upbraided as no better than traitors. The
 
 180 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 truth, when it came, fell upon us with appalling sudden- 
 ness. 
 
 Having gone to Paris to secure a passport or a certificate 
 of nationality from my Embassy, and being like most 
 Americans in that I had no identification papers worth 
 mentioning, I was told I must wait until "military exi- 
 gencies" should allow my return to Verviller. Telegrams 
 I handed in at various post-offices were refused for sundry 
 reasons; and the letters I wrote to Paul remained un- 
 answered. This uncertainty, this separation, this ab- 
 sence of information about the boy, made me unhappy, 
 but did not rouse my concern. 
 
 I had put up at a small hotel just back of the Chamber 
 of Deputies, where I dined regularly with an old retired 
 colonel, now doing office work at the Ministry of War and 
 hoping to be rewarded with the command of a regiment. 
 We made life as pleasant as we could, given the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 One evening, as we sat as usual, and he was telling me 
 of his garden in the east of France and what he would 
 plant there "next spring," several English people who had 
 left an hour before, with their luggage, returned in con- 
 fusion. At the Gare du Nord, an interpreter had told 
 them all trains were stopped at Creil, because of the 
 German advance. The railroad officials would neither 
 confirm nor deny; some travellers decided to go on, others 
 preferred to await developments in Paris. 
 
 "That interpreter ought to be led out and shot for 
 creating a panic with false reports ! " thundered the colonel. 
 
 To this day, I have never been sure whether or not he 
 spoke in all innocence. 
 
 But the very next night I saw him far from our table, 
 seated with three ladies. The dining-room was filled
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 181 
 
 with grime-stained strangers. On his way out, he spoke 
 to me: 
 
 "My wife and daughter, with a friend. Got here only 
 a few minutes ago. Took me by surprise. As the Ger- 
 mans were about to enter our village, a captain who 
 knows me went and tore them from the house. They 
 would never have fled my wife and my daughter are 
 both of the blood of soldiers!" His kindly face flushed 
 purple ; the points of his white moustache, long and droop- 
 ing like that of an ancient Gaul, trembled slightly as he 
 thought of the danger they had escaped. 
 
 The situation dawned upon me only then, in all it meant 
 for Paul, for France, for the entire world. I had believed 
 so firmly that the good news from Alsace meant the war 
 was being won! I had been told so often that if the 
 French army, supported by a small English land force 
 while the British fleet controlled the Channel, could but 
 hold in Alsace for the first few days, victory would be 
 assured in the "short and terrible war" about which 
 experts agreed! 
 
 I began a weary and fruitless search through all places 
 in Paris and the environs where refugees might stop, ill- 
 starred and unoffending victims of a merciless onslaught 
 and an insatiable hate. My mission held out little hope. 
 But what else could I do; and who could have consented 
 to do nothing? 
 
 One scene I recall with particular vividness; not that it 
 was more cruel than others of its kind, but because it 
 was then I synthetised a thought I have never since driven 
 from me. 
 
 Late in the night, I entered the waiting-room of I 
 don't know what small suburban station. Old men, 
 women, and children sat or lay upon the floor or on the
 
 182 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 scant hand-luggage representing what remained to them 
 in the world. Between them, there was not one inch of 
 space to spare. All were dirty and travel-worn, all were 
 depressed into the immobility of sleep, though many were 
 beyond sleep. From fragile old people who had done 
 with all life save its suffering, down through their juniors 
 who a few days before had been hi hale and prosperous 
 middle-age, down to wasted and dispirited babies stretched 
 weak and half-sick upon young mothers' knees, they sat 
 or lay or drooped, silent, all but lifeless, totally indifferent 
 to present discomfort as to privations and sacrifices in the 
 near past, to trials and perplexities which were the sum of 
 what the future had to offer them. It was an appalling 
 sight, evoking another which somehow seemed less horri- 
 ble the Hall of the Dead in the museum at Pompeii, the 
 clay of people who had suffered and died, whereas these 
 had suffered and now lived on only to suffer more. 
 
 As always, I scanned the faces, searching for Paul or a 
 friend of Paul's; and I stumbled, like a blinded man, into 
 the outer night, gasping for clean air, for clear vision, for an 
 unstained thought in my overwhelmed soul. 
 
 I murmured then a prayer which since has been often 
 on my lips and oftener in my heart. It was not the sort 
 of prayer to which my philosophy had accustomed me. 
 It was the inspired prayer of the English prophet who saw 
 beyond the very image evoked by his genius. In my 
 craving for the triumph of right, for the damnation of evil, 
 my cry was Kipling's: "Lord God of Hosts, be with us 
 yet Lest we forget ! " 
 
 When I had abandoned my useless search, when I had 
 lost all save remembrance and grief, it was Paul who found 
 me. 
 
 His story, as spread hi military circles by the officers
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 183 
 
 who had befriended him, and confirmed by others to whom 
 they had spoken, represented him as sobbing ceaselessly. 
 I understand that, thus related, it drew tears from many. 
 Yet the truth was more terrible. He left a state of half- 
 stupor long enough to talk fully to me, just once; he 
 appeared almost natural then, especially while dealing 
 with incidents which had impressed him least. But, the 
 excitement of speaking once past, he was abandoned, woe- 
 stricken, indifferent to thought and to pain; giving scarcely 
 a sign of life save for his faint, irregular breathing and that 
 awful, fixed, haunted stare which time has since driven 
 from his eyes but which all eternity cannot efface from my 
 heart. Such physical relief as he needed had been given 
 him; but before his moral condition I was helpless. 
 
 Meanwhile, the untamed and hitherto irresistible horde 
 from the north was sweeping on. Paris, with only a 
 rampart of superannuated forts, could not defend herself, 
 though she might be defended. Resistance was fever- 
 ishly organised, regiments were grouped, houses evacuated, 
 trenches dug and earthworks thrown up. The govern- 
 ment, to avoid being cut off by an attack drawing hourly 
 nearer, had left with its archives; and funds from the 
 banks, and treasures from the museums, had been rushed 
 by train and by motor south and south-east, south-west 
 and west. 
 
 Printed placards in the streets advised citizens that 
 railroad transportation would be at their disposal for 
 three days, but that Paris would hold out. Crowds thou- 
 sands strong stood in line for hours, to get numbers which 
 would entitle them to wait hours longer in other lines, and 
 secure third-class tickets for cattle-cars privileges being 
 abolished at this climax of national peril. 
 
 A fair number of people stayed, either believing they
 
 184 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 would not be disturbed by the Prussians, or else being 
 prey to a calm despair mightier than fear. Some recalled 
 the occupation a generation before, and declared it had 
 been orderly. But others whispered of information 
 which had reached the Ministry of War, the fate reserved 
 for Paris as traced out in notes found on the bodies of 
 German officers : how the city was to be burned systemati- 
 cally, district by district, after all articles of value had 
 been stolen; how murders and mutilations were to be 
 visited, for purposes of terrorisation, upon harmless and 
 defenceless citizens. 
 
 Of all the wild rumours engendered at the period, this, 
 which was among the truest, was the most readily rejected. 
 Who could credit such infamies of officers and gentlemen, 
 whether Prussian or not? War was hell, of course; but 
 men of culture were not devils. 
 
 This is not a history of the war, nor a technical treatise 
 of any sort; it is the plain story of one among the myriads 
 whose course of thought and of life was changed by the 
 world-cataclysm. But what put an end to the death 
 carried hi the heart of an entire race, what brought promise 
 of a renewed and reinspired life, was the winning of the 
 Marne. How, therefore, should I not add my word to the 
 maze of assertions and contradictions which have striven 
 to befog that victory, a miracle in its way, perhaps, but 
 a carefully prepared and minutely executed miracle, whose 
 springs, deftly concealed, worked exactly as foreseen? 
 Not prepared, the victory of the Marne? It is true that 
 the error made by the Germans themselves in hesitating 
 opened a swift door for opportunity. But what would 
 that have availed, without Joffre's preparation? 
 
 During those most tragic days, a man in authority ad- 
 dressed to me words which, while not betraying a trust,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 185 
 
 were full of moment then and have been illuminating to 
 me since. For they showed how far into the future the 
 leaders of France had sounded. Nor am I writing now 
 only in what is ironically termed the light of subsequent 
 events. I have before me a memorandum of the period, 
 from which I copy as follows:". . . prophesied to me 
 that Prussian military prestige would reach its highest 
 point by the 6th of September and that, whatever had 
 been accomplished by Prussia up to then, she would pay 
 so heavy a price for all she might do afterwards, that her 
 star would steadily wane." 
 
 He knew, on that night of the 2nd September, what I 
 did not, could not know and did not learn until much 
 later: that the plans for the Marne were made long in 
 advance, that the retreat from Charleroi was no sooner 
 begun than France's immortal commander-in-chief sent 
 out his first order of the day, to be followed by others hi 
 logical sequence, building up step by step the mighty 
 battle he had designed, counting upon the matchless 
 flexibility of the French army to turn and stand and fight 
 and win when the moment should come. 
 
 If they could but have known, those soldiers in blue and 
 red, and those in khaki, as they retreated in an unflagging 
 spirit of valour and resolution and self-sacrifice, but with 
 despair and disaster hovering about their undaunted 
 heads! If they could but have known, as they saw the 
 ruin advancing in their wake! The French suffered for 
 their beloved soil, invaded and laid waste; but the English 
 were giving their blood for a land not their own and for a 
 cause which only later appeared plainly as their own. 
 How they fought and died for honour, for principle, for 
 generosity, those soldiers forming the sturdy flower of the 
 British army! May a modern Homer arise some day,
 
 186 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 worthy to relate such epics as the stand of the Coldstream 
 Guards at Landrecies and the death of such boys as 
 Archer Windsor-Clive : how, fighting with their handful 
 of men to hold the town against heaviest odds until their 
 division was safe, and fulfilling their mission to the end, 
 they live more than those who survived. 
 
 My friend also asked me a question which was, in a way, 
 a prophecy. Suppose, he said, a long war must be ex- 
 pected; a war of wear-and-tear and of endurance, in 
 which moral qualities would count for more than the 
 physical, in which military effectiveness and economic 
 organisation would have equal weight: would America, 
 if not an active participant, rise to the test of time and of 
 occurrences for economic and financial help, for brotherly 
 aid? I swore that she would, and more; and I gave for 
 my faith reasons which, by the grace of God and to the 
 credit of man, have not been belied by the part my country 
 has since played. 
 
 The dull glow of an afternoon sun whose rays were cut 
 off by houses across the street, reached us as I sat near the 
 bed on which Paul lay. The room, with the sitting-room 
 next to it, was in one of those exceptionally low entresols 
 found hi some of the older Parisian houses; the windows 
 were half-moons which formed the crown of the ground- 
 floor windows, and their top barely reached my watch- 
 chain when I stood up. At best, such light is trying; 
 with that peculiar, deadened, reflected glow added by the 
 houses opposite, the effect was gruesome. 
 
 "I feel as if I were in prison once more," Paul said softly. 
 It was by accident that I caught the words; they did not 
 rise above a murmur. 
 
 "We shall get other quarters," I rejoined.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 187 
 
 "I don't mind," he said. "Indeed, I rather like it. 
 Those days were calm and restful." 
 
 While he had not moved, and lay as limp as ever with 
 his bandaged feet and injured arm, he seemed more him- 
 self than at any moment since rejoining me. 
 
 Leaving the bed he walked to and fro, weakly, for 
 several minutes. By an evident effort of will, his move- 
 ments gained firmness. He saw with surprise some new 
 clothes and soft shoes I had bought and asked him to try 
 on the day before; he had been unaware of them. He 
 put them on now, expressing pleasure; and presently 
 went into the sitting-room where he dropped into an arm- 
 chair, with his elbow on the table. I followed him. As 
 that dull, ghastly light shone on us from beneath, he 
 looked aged, weary with the weight of time and knowl- 
 edge; his eyes had no spark left, his voice was colourless as 
 he said: 
 
 "Yes. I like to remember those prison-days. Beauti- 
 ful silence and thoughts which weren't hideous." 
 
 At odd moments, we had heard people pass in the 
 street. Their footfalls altered, took on new accents, 
 stopped and then pressed on in one same, though con- 
 fused, direction. A low murmur rose, becoming quickly 
 sharper. Shots rang out, dry, rapid, furious, from many 
 directions at once. 
 
 "Here already?" Paul exlaimed. He had brightened; 
 complete energy had come; he sprang up and snatched his 
 hat from the back of the door. " Let's go out. Better be 
 among the first; one doesn't see so much." 
 
 "It's only a Taube," I said. "They come almost 
 daily, at this hour." 
 
 "Oh ! Then I should like to look at it." 
 
 "You are safer in the house," I ventured.
 
 188 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 He smiled: 
 
 "Tauben are beautiful to look at when the sun shines 
 on them!" 
 
 To please him, I went down; and perhaps to please my- 
 self too. For though I had counselled prudence, I must 
 confess that I had been going, like any other fool, to see 
 this sight on previous days. 
 
 While vain puffs of smoke left the roofs of administra- 
 tive buildings and futile shots were fired from rifles in the 
 streets, the hostile aeroplane soared over our heads, glow- 
 ing with rainbow colours, like a gorgeous bird against 
 the clear sky; but the beak was sinister, for those who 
 looked closely. 
 
 The crowd about us watched with angry protests, but 
 without sign of fear. It had become known, by now, 
 that such visits did no extensive damage; and I suspect 
 that the populace even underestimated the possible 
 harm. I shall not be credited with accuracy in stating one 
 fact, I know; yet I actually saw ladies, on several different 
 days before the exodus began, raise their sunshades as 
 Tauben passed, and cry out to their children to come under 
 the protecting silk. 
 
 Grim and vulture-like in the greyness of twilight, the 
 aeroplane drifted away. 
 
 That night we wandered through streets quite dark, 
 save for rare veiled lights at windows, or flashes as military 
 motors passed at reckless speed. In the resolute black- 
 ness, spots, denser than their surroundings, would mark 
 men and women. The Chamber of Deputies, where the 
 last word of party strife seemed to have been spoken, rose 
 a solid, desolate mass against the sky. But as we crossed 
 the bridge, the moon part-cleared herself of silvery mists 
 and brought out veiled reliefs of river, of quays and para-
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 189 
 
 pets, of tree-fringed banks where pale granite lurked in 
 patches hemmed by shade; before us spread the great 
 Place de la Concorde, smooth and lifeless as a stagnant sea; 
 above us stretched serene, unbounded skies, specked 
 with white clouds on which search-lights rested and 
 shimmered and glided afield. But we alone looked on 
 this, Paul and I; we seemed the only souls in a city 
 immemorially dead; we had come back from another age 
 to behold what had once been, and to feel that, from our 
 kind, none lived on as witnesses. 
 
 Surrounded by these symbols of death or passiveness, 
 I made my appeal to Paul. Although the Germans had 
 started a turning movement, the city's position was as 
 perilous as ever, menaced either by envelopment or by a 
 junction of the forces from the east with those from the 
 north. The civilian rush was over, the last train officially 
 put at the disposal of the people had gone; but one of 
 my friends had helped me to secure a special permission 
 to leave with Paul by a military train for Bordeaux, and I 
 wished to go next morning. 
 
 Paul heard me out, and spoke : 
 
 "I want to stay. That escape from Verviller crushes 
 me. I should have died with the rest. You are safe as a 
 neutral, aren't you? Then mayn't we stay? I couldn't 
 bear to live after running a second time." 
 
 Had they not bound him I argued and was not his 
 arm still sore, as well as his feet? Had not strict orders 
 been given that harm should not come to him? Was it 
 possible that he had thought of the most contemptible 
 form of cowardice, that rush to voluntary death proper 
 to weak evaders of responsibilities who court lesser resist- 
 ance? 
 
 Of my objections, he met only one: he was already much
 
 190 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 better, and what did a scratched arm amount to, or a 
 couple of bruised heels? 
 
 The search-light whose shaft spanned the heavens over 
 our heads melted away into the moon-mistiness; those to 
 all sides, farther off, melted away too, into the dim sheen. 
 Their swift shafts would revive and shoot out, ending 
 suddenly upon a cloud in clear, radiant, lens-like shape, 
 for just an instant; and then would again die. But in all 
 the still, deserted city, none save Paul and I seemed to 
 heed. 
 
 His room was empty, next morning, when I got up at 
 my usual hour. Downstairs, the trim, pleasant, fair- 
 haired manageress told me that Paul had breakfasted be- 
 fore seven, and gone out. 
 
 From the first, when he had staggered in ill and dazed 
 and half starved, able to say not much more than my 
 name, she had taken a maternal interest in him; now his 
 story was known, she felt professional pride that the hero 
 of such adventures should lodge at the Hdtel de File de 
 France. Though her husband, the cook, and all the 
 regular waiters and men-servants were mobilised, she had, 
 with the help of her sister, re-formed a staff and assured so 
 good a service that we were scarcely aware of the city's 
 plight. Our worst privation had been want of milk for 
 our early coffee, on just two days. 
 
 "You intend to stay, M. Aubret?" she asked. 
 
 "I shall make up my mind to-night," I answered. 
 "Will you keep open?" 
 
 "We expect to." Cool and self-possessed, she entered 
 a small item in the book; her sister knitted quietly near by. 
 "One never knows among such events. Our project is to 
 remain open while we have guests."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 191 
 
 One of these last entered, wishing change for a hundred- 
 franc note. She gave him smaller notes, emptied the till 
 of its silver, and, not finding enough, took a ten-franc gold 
 piece unhesitatingly from her own purse. Done so simply, 
 and at such a time, it was magnificent. 
 
 I wandered out. The street was empty save for a 
 newsboy huskily whispering the name of his sheet, since 
 a police order forbade crying. 
 
 "This must be bad for business," I remarked. 
 
 "Ruinous," he said flegmatically, with a nod to thank 
 me for the quadruple price I paid him. 
 
 Near the corner, in an odd angle formed by two house- 
 fronts, I found the ancient newspaper woman of the 
 quarter. Her wares to-day consisted of but three or four 
 papers, all the others now appearing in Lyon or Toulouse 
 or Bordeaux. Yet she showed unmistakable satisfaction 
 as she buttered a crust with the aid of a knife-blade worn 
 down to a bodkin. 
 
 "You are not leaving?" I asked. 
 
 "No, my commerce would suffer." 
 
 "You are not afraid?" 
 
 "What would be the use?" Philosophically she cut off 
 a tiny slice from her crust, and slipped it between her 
 yellowed, shaking teeth. For a moment or two she 
 chewed with an agitation of deep wrinkles. Her shrunken 
 eyes observed my hand: "You don't want a paper, to- 
 day?" 
 
 Rebuked, I took a specimen of each. 
 
 Intense heat had already descended; unendurable as it 
 had rendered recent days, it had waxed more appalling 
 than ever. A faint haze hung, as over an African plain, 
 on the wide, untenanted streets. At times, a passer; 
 often in mourning, always preoccupied; occasionally
 
 192 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 hurrying, cowering, muttering as if mad. Characters 
 drawn by Gavarni or described by Balzac had poured from 
 attics and cellars undusted and unvisited, probably, 
 since that period, and were loose in a world quite strange 
 to them. But even among these, one might note as with 
 their sane brothers and sisters, who came and vanished 
 like them, an all-pervading gentleness. So they would 
 pass; and much time would slip on towards the mysterious 
 ends of fate before others followed; and again there would 
 be the desert stillness of broad avenues and streets whose 
 nakedness lent them vast length. I have seen Paris in 
 hours of idle merriment and in festive garb when a King 
 or an Emperor was her guest; I have seen her at toil and at 
 leisure, thronged with visitors or agitated by labour unrest; 
 but never under joy or triumph, under utility or relaxa- 
 tion, under peace or anger, have I seen her stones so 
 proud, so noble, so justly dignified, so supremely beautiful, 
 as in her hour of impending immolation. 
 
 Paul met me at lunch; he was uncommunicative. When 
 we went to our rooms, he said : 
 
 "I tried to enlist. The officers told me I must wait. 
 One was very kind and talked to me quite a lot; wanted to 
 know what was wrong with my arm and my feet. He 
 said the best thing I could do was to keep out of the way 
 of the Germans until I was ready to fight them." 
 
 "And so " 
 
 "And so I was wrong," Paul concluded. 
 
 OUR train, bearing us away from the city of vast calm 
 and loneliness unutterable, was reserved for wounded 
 soldiers and for conscripts. The wounded were not yet 
 in evidence; conscripts, like healthy children, were heard
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 193 
 
 even more than seen. One youth, particularly, kept his 
 neighbours merry with gay words and snatches of song 
 when we lost time by the way, stopping half an hour here 
 or an hour there, and hundreds poured out beside the track 
 to "see why we weren't going." To those who com- 
 plained, he observed that he was happier on a sandbank 
 than he would be in a swamp. To another who asked if 
 he liked the prospect of being shot, the boy answered that 
 he would probably be dead in a hundred years, so why 
 worry? He started a jig to display the advantages of 
 hob-nailed boots; but for these, he was still in civilian 
 dress; and, having torn his trousers while chasing a bee 
 into a bush, he remarked that the paternal government 
 had breeches waiting for him at his depot that very night 
 so, once more, why worry? 
 
 It seemed doubtful, however, if any of us should get 
 anywhere before the next day. Although our speed was 
 the military rate of sixteen miles an hour, our stops were 
 so frequent that at the end of seven hours we had covered 
 only fifty miles; and those of us who had three or four 
 hundred miles to go saw that our provisions would not 
 hold out. At the stations, nothing was obtainable save 
 water, and that only if one had luck. For the wounded or 
 soldiers in uniform, ladies served bread, fruit, chocolate, 
 and hot coffee from Red Cross kitchens. 
 
 Often, troop-trains passed us while we waited in mid- 
 country. When they proved to be English, there would 
 be wild cheering. French troop-trains were greeted with 
 cheers too, but more soberly; only when they displayed 
 at the windows tree-branches hung out, according to 
 custom, by recruits, would ours grow noisy; the leaves 
 that passed us were already withering, like our own. 
 Sometimes gay shouts died suddenly in the throats that
 
 194 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 uttered them, when the roadside unexpectedly revealed a 
 dreary procession of refugees with haggard faces and 
 spare, pathetic bundles. Paul would gaze upon these 
 until they disappeared, and then would turn away, not 
 speaking and not hearing if spoken to. 
 
 Twelve hours of travelling brought us to Orleans. Paul's 
 pinched features and colourless lips showed me that 
 fatigue, or the heat and the crowding, caused him pain; 
 though his arm was almost well, his feet were still in bad 
 condition. I told him to keep our places while I made a 
 dash for the restaurant. It had been closed, but bread 
 and wine and water were for sale in a room farther on. 
 A soldier blocked the entrance, turning his back to it as 
 he watched a comrade on the platform. The crowd, from 
 behind me, pressed on; our train was liable to start at any 
 moment, without warning. 
 
 "If you are not going in, may I pass? " I asked. 
 
 "No! I won't let you pass! Soldiers first!" he ex- 
 ploded. His face was burned red, his eyes were blood- 
 shot, his hair and moustache were full of dust and stained 
 by smoke. 
 
 Finally I succeeded in getting back to the train with a 
 loaf of sour bread and a quart of vinegary white wine. I 
 had secured also a bottle of water, but on the platform 
 an officer took it from me, saying simply, "For a soldier." 
 
 Some of our fellow-travellers had left the compartment, 
 and others had come; from this point on, the train was 
 open to the unprivileged. Next to me sat a refined, 
 sweet-looking young woman with three small children 
 including a tiny baby. The children were so white and 
 quiet, and she was so drawn and weary, that I asked her a 
 frank question or two. 
 
 They had been on the way since the day before, and their
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 195 
 
 food had given out; she and the children had had no 
 morsel to eat since dawn. She explained very simply that 
 the crush before all refreshment-rooms was so great that 
 she could not struggle there with her babies ; and she dared 
 not take them out of a station, nor leave them in the train, 
 because there was no schedule for stopping or starting; 
 and unless she met her husband as agreed at Tours that 
 night, she might never meet him again and would not 
 know what to do. 
 
 Among us, we were able to give her and the children all 
 they needed. 
 
 A handsome, fair-haired, well-dressed boy of sixteen had 
 taken a vacant place next to Paul; he alone offered nothing. 
 Paul asked when he had last eaten, and learned that his case 
 was similar to the lady's though he had tried fighting the 
 crowd and had failed. By now, all we had left for dinner 
 was one chicken sandwich and what I had just bought; 
 we gave him the sandwich and divided the remainder 
 in three. He accepted with a simplicity which seemed 
 all the more graceful when, shortly after, he took out a 
 heavy silver cigarette case and offered us gold-tipped 
 Egyptian cigarettes. 
 
 "I don't remember when I slept last," he suddenly 
 remarked, with drooping eyelids. "If I'm sleeping when 
 we reach Tours, and you happen to be awake, will you 
 rouse me?" 
 
 Whereupon, with the complete faith of youth, he fell 
 asleep sitting upright; and was roused by Paul some hours 
 later. He left us then, as did the mother and the small 
 children. 
 
 An elderly lady with two tall daughters, a consumptive 
 son-in-law, and a grandson of twelve, crowded into our 
 compartment, bringing at least a dozen bags and packages
 
 196 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 besides a huge bandbox and three dogs. All the family 
 were in the last stages of exhaustion, and very dirty. They 
 had put on their best clothes for flight, and wore much 
 jewellery, including diamonds of considerable value; the 
 unmarried daughter had on a hat with big ostrich plumes 
 sticking upright, probably worth many pieces of gold 
 when washed. 
 
 "We are Belgian refugees who had gone to Paris for 
 safety; and see where we are now!" the elderly lady said. 
 "We had to abandon our trunks at the station, and though 
 we had plenty of money, first-class tickets were refused us. 
 Sixty-seven hours spent in a cattle-box, packed in on 
 wooden benches, unable to wash or to stretch, unable to get 
 out to buy food, for we were locked in ! The horrors of 
 that unseemly journey: men, women, children. . . ." 
 
 Through what was left of the night, they slept solidly. 
 Soon after daybreak, the married daughter left us with her 
 husband, the boy, and the largest of the dogs. The boy 
 was so drunk with sleep that, when told to kiss his grand- 
 mother good-bye, he solemnly held out his hand and said 
 he was glad to meet her. At Angouleme, we were able 
 to get our first decent food and hot coffee since starting 
 from Paris for Paul and myself, twenty-four hours, for 
 these refugees, three entire days and nights. When the 
 train was once more on its way, I learned incidentally that, 
 upon reaching Angouleme, all that had remained as provi- 
 sions to these ladies was one bunch of grapes, and a small 
 phial of water they had saved for the dogs. 
 
 Their turn came, to leave us; and the aspect of the 
 travellers changed. Invalid soldiers arrived in hordes. 
 Ill rather than wounded, most seemed to be; few showed 
 bandages of any sort, and when these appeared, they were 
 on arms or feet.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 197 
 
 The man next to me was weak and emaciated; said a 
 fragment of shell had struck him in the side and hurled him 
 a distance of six yards. The skin had not been broken, 
 but the nervous shock had been such that he couldn't 
 recover. 
 
 "Never was so well taken care of as in the hospital," 
 he went on. "But I couldn't stay in bed, couldn't keep 
 still. So they're letting me go home to my wife in Mar- 
 seille. Get dizzy when I stand or walk or try to lift any- 
 thing. Never was strong; had been discharged from the 
 army, because of my poor constitution; but when the war 
 came I wanted to carry my musket once more and face the 
 enemy, though it shouldn't be for more than one day. 
 I'd held through four days of hard fighting when I got 
 knocked out. Won't have to fight again, but I can say 
 I've done something." 
 
 We stopped at a station. Nurses came to ask if they 
 needed anything. Hot coffee and grapes were distributed, 
 bread was offered and refused. 
 
 "Everybody was so kind to us this morning, that we 
 all ate too much!" the soldiers chorused. 
 
 I could not help thinking of the young mother and three 
 children of the night before. 
 
 My friend reached for his provision-bag and drew out a 
 filthy glass which he held to the spout of a coffee-pot, and 
 then gravely emptied. 
 
 "Disgusting, the way we eat and drink!" he observed 
 to me. "We get so dirty that we're used to it, and don't 
 even mind. Seemed quite natural for me to drink out of 
 that glass. But as I finished, I said to myself, 'Wouldn't 
 my wife catch it, if she dared give me such a glass at 
 home!'" Laughing, he tore his coat open. On this 
 sweltering day he wore the full French uniform of blue
 
 198 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 cloth outer coat, beneath it a tight-fitting cloth tunic, a 
 cotton shirt under that, and a flannel shirt against his 
 skin. The last two garments were stained brown and 
 black. "My wife will scream when she sees this! I can't 
 change or have them washed, because I haven't got any- 
 thing else to put on. They pretend to wash them, in 
 the regiment, but it's only steam-bleaching and disinfect- 
 ing. Do you think we mind? No not once we've got 
 used to it!" 
 
 "Wonder why the English aren't the same?" a Gascon 
 soldier asked meditatively. He was big, burly, en- 
 thusiastic, with round cheeks and bright dark eyes. 
 "They're spick-and-span. Don't know how they manage. 
 Never saw anything like their equipment; and as for their 
 food why, it's like going to the hotel ! " 
 
 By now, the compartment was filled beyond standing- 
 room, and the convalescents talked merrily about the war 
 as over, for them, and very near its end anyhow. Ab- 
 solute victory was assured, of course. They argued as to 
 whether the decisive engagement would come at the be- 
 ginning of October, or only at the close. One hazarded 
 the opinion that it might not come before November. The 
 faces of his comrades clouded, as they roundly rebuked 
 him for a pessimist. 
 
 Our approach to Bordeaux dispelled such gloomy 
 thoughts. The Gascon made a leap across various feet 
 and knees to reach the window, and waved frantically. 
 
 "The wife of Alphonse, at the door of his house!" he 
 cried to us. "When she sees me, she will know her man is 
 well!" He ended with a wild shout; she recognised him, 
 and waved gladly. Twenty yards beyond, there was 
 some one else to be greeted. At a street crossing where 
 we halted, he caused an old man nearly to die of fright by
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 199 
 
 grasping his hand violently, and shouting into his ear 
 that his son was safe. 
 
 We rolled into the station. Soldiers streamed from the 
 train, emigrants followed; our conscripts had long since 
 left us. An Italian boy stood weeping because his bicycle 
 could not be found. Officials demanded passes from 
 Frenchmen and passports from foreigners. The calling 
 of cabmen and the whistling of newsboys reached us. 
 And we knew that we were in the improvised capital. 
 
 The famous author who has described desperate revels 
 under the Mask of the Red Death would have under- 
 stood Bordeaux, I think, better than those who have 
 been scornful or righteous on the subject. The sham 
 pleasure found there in mockery of fate, and in blindness 
 of existing conditions, had the quality of a last resolve to 
 perish lightly. 
 
 Looking back upon those days, they appear the most 
 unreal in all our experiences; certainly the most evanescent 
 before efforts of memory. Yet there we witnessed, beside 
 episodes to make one despair, others which gave early 
 intimation of the heights to which the nation would rise 
 under prolonged adversity. 
 
 One Sunday, towards the end of September, I went 
 to keep an appointment, at noon, with a Cabinet Minister 
 in the public building improvised for his use. Our talk 
 was to be short, coming immediately before lunch; and I 
 was surprised to be kept waiting in the large bare hall 
 which served as ante-room. The stately head usher, in 
 impeccable evening dress with a handsome chain of cut 
 steel round his neck, presided at a battered old table, and 
 could offer me only a choice between two arm-chairs whose 
 silk was so tattered and the lining so soiled that I preferred
 
 200 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 to stand. Yet somehow he was no less grand than when 
 last I had seen him in Paris, surrounded by the luxury of 
 one of the Republic's most splendid palaces. 
 
 "The Council of Ministers is not ended," he said, ob- 
 serving that I consulted my watch; I had wondered if I 
 were forgotten. The huissier added: "Ah! I think I 
 hear the Minister." 
 
 With velvet tread, he left me. A moment later, the 
 door was thrown open majestically. 
 
 The cabinet I entered was large, and becomingly fur- 
 nished, with some of the objects removed from Paris to 
 escape the Germans, perhaps. But I had no thought for 
 this at the time. My attention was drawn at once to the 
 tall figure in the long black coat, standing near the desk, 
 with bowed head and stooping shoulders, holding listlessly 
 a morocco portfolio as if it had been forgotten there in his 
 hand. He did not hear my step, and did not move as I 
 advanced. I stopped. The slight noise of the door 
 closing upon the usher made him raise his head. The 
 face was haggard, the eyes were dimmed with tears. 
 
 "They have destroyed Reims!" He looked towards 
 me an instant, and looked away; his words had come 
 slowly, his voice had been hoarse and not more than just 
 audible. 
 
 As I started, unable to believe, and not finding a phrase 
 to express the amazement, the indignation which rose 
 within me, he spoke again : 
 
 "Us nous out dttruit Reims! The news came while we 
 sat in Council. The telegrams are here!" 
 
 With his right hand he struck the portfolio he held in 
 his left. He continued, more and more quickly and 
 clearly as he progressed : 
 
 "They bombarded the Cathedral, and wrecked it, from
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 201 
 
 vengeance, without strategic necessity or excuse; they 
 bombarded the other monuments of the town, systemati- 
 cally, mercilessly. The fate of Reims may be worse than 
 that of Lou vain. And I repeat it no strategic motive! 
 I know the orders we had given; I know the measures 
 taken. I declare to you upon my honour, as a Cabinet 
 Minister, that not a tower was used militarily ; we had but 
 our wounded in the Cathedral, and theirs too. The Ger- 
 mans knew this. No excuse only vengeance! And the 
 proof of what I tell you is here." 
 
 His hands trembling, his voice quivering, he began to 
 draw papers from his portfolio. 
 
 I went out into a town which did not yet know of this 
 latest crime against the dead, against the living, against 
 all that are to be; the ruin of this gem of line and colour, 
 of architecture and rose-windows, this sublime and in- 
 tensely beautiful Reims. 
 
 But as I saw the news break, first with incredulity, 
 then with extreme fury, I saw, too, the spirit of France 
 begin to change: I saw that Frenchmen had grasped the 
 nature of their war. What the havoc in Belgium, the 
 north, and Lorraine had prepared, what the winning 
 of the Marne and the turn of the Aisne had confirmed, the 
 bombardment of Reims concluded. 
 
 There was no further exaggeration of what might be 
 accomplished; but panic and despair vanished from men's 
 thoughts. Calm and balance being restored, those al- 
 ready brave became resolute; most of the weak became 
 brave, and the rest were so effectively driven to the wall 
 that they vanished from reckoning. Firm rather than rash, 
 proud but not haughty, dignified without trace of ar- 
 rogance, France started, in a complete solidarity which 
 knew no faltering, to retrieve her disasters to make good
 
 202 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 her honour to contribute if need were her last conceivable 
 resource, her every drop of manly blood, in defence of re- 
 awakened ideals. 
 
 We left Bordeaux, and its strange, artificial life; we 
 travelled, without an objective as without a home. The 
 thought of the war brooded upon Paul's spirits like a great- 
 winged bird of evil omen obscuring the sun and the skies, 
 yet he was restless when out of touch with those who had 
 done the fighting. Constant change of scene and of peo- 
 ple was all I could devise for his relief. We were in Mar- 
 seille when the first British troops arrrived from India 
 and we saw the generous-hearted local population go 
 madly enthusiastic over the natives while we ourselves 
 were thrilled by the calm, the dignity, the practical good- 
 sense, and the deep-lying, unemotional patriotism of the 
 officers. We were at Cette for the landing of French 
 black troops, their brightly coloured uniforms grouping 
 in strangely unexpected pictures on the otherwise deserted 
 quays. We were in various trains bound for all sorts of 
 places, casting our lot with convalescent soldiers and 
 listening as they yarned their adventures. 
 
 Paul tells me I was closely watched, most of the time, 
 by a big man with a long, fair beard and blue eyes which 
 saw sideways a secret agent, evidently. What might 
 I be about, indeed, an old foreigner wandering all over 
 the country in company of a French boy unrelated to him 
 but passed off as a nephew? A multitude of excellent 
 people behind the lines felt, at the time, that they must 
 do something patriotic besides talking; and spy-chasing 
 supplied both excitement and notoriety. I don't doubt 
 but it was an exceptionally virtuous victim of the disease 
 called acute espionitis who originally drew the attention of
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 203 
 
 a minor official to my case. What surprises me is the 
 facility with which I was granted all the visas I demanded. 
 Perhaps it was so that I might compromise both myself 
 and my accomplices thoroughly. When Paul, after some 
 anxious days during which he had observed while keeping 
 his own counsel, confided in me at last, and drew my 
 attention to the man who had made himself my shadow, 
 I went promptly back to Marseille, intending to reach 
 Paris if possible. This unforeseen return allowed us to 
 connect with a letter we had otherwise missed. It brought 
 news that Paul's father lay gravely wounded in a Ver- 
 sailles hospital; it gave me a reason for leaving a region 
 where my presence might well appear unjustified, and 
 going where it was imperative that my ward and I should 
 be. 
 
 Convalescent wounded were travelling back in great 
 numbers. The character they revealed was cheering 
 and the impressions to be gathered from them were in- 
 vigorating blasts. Never have I seen such earnestness 
 and simplicity as in these men wearing shabby uniforms 
 and shapeless boots, who liked to talk best of what their 
 comrades, not they themselves, had done; who pretended 
 to no extensive knowledge or unusual prowess; and who, 
 sore from half-healed wounds, often went foodless. 
 
 When we neared Lyon, all the compartments were 
 crowded; in ours, there was not standing-room, nor in the 
 corridor giving access to it. At one station, a tiny, red- 
 faced, fair-haired soldier hurled himself in. Struggling 
 and elbowing, he spat foul curses at the soldiers who 
 advised him to seek a place elsewhere. 
 
 A tall, slim, particularly nice-looking young infantry- 
 man, wearing a marvellously shabby uniform and an in- 
 describable cap, told him to behave decently, at least;
 
 204 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 whereupon the little soldier struck the infantryman. The 
 row degenerated into a fight; the invader tried to draw his 
 bayonet; other soldiers joined in. 
 
 "Be careful don't hurt him he's ill!" cried out the 
 man who had received the first blow. 
 
 "Yes, yes!" chorused the others, grappling with him 
 as gently as they might, and ejecting him, even yet with 
 calmness and method, upon the platform. A window- 
 pane had been broken in the process, but no one was hurt. 
 
 "Drunk," the word passed round, while the first in- 
 fantryman whispered to Paul: "Yes perhaps one glass 
 too much. But he's insane, too. More men have gone 
 mad in this war than anybody knows." 
 
 A second infantryman spoke: 
 
 "He would have been shot for this, in the army zone. 
 Now, he will only be sent to prison." 
 
 "No. Nothing will be done to him, I hope. He didn't 
 know he was striking an officer." All turned to the 
 speaker. It was the tall, nice-looking young infantryman 
 in the shabbiest of uniforms. 
 
 "What officer?" the soldiers asked, puzzled. 
 
 "Oh, only a sous-officier. I'm a sergeant." 
 
 "And you let him attack you you didn't exercise your 
 authority " 
 
 "Better let the thing pass. I haven't got my stripes 
 on. If I had told him my rank and he hadn't believed it 
 and had struck again, I should have had to order you to 
 arrest him. I wouldn't serve a comrade so when he isn't 
 himself. He couldn't hurt me; better to let it pass as a 
 soldiers' row. I'm not proud. Couldn't be, with clothes 
 like these!" He smiled as he glanced down. "You see, 
 I was promoted on the field, and shot five minutes after- 
 wards. They took me to the hospital, and then sent me
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 205 
 
 down here, and now I'm off to the front again, with my 
 same old clothes and no stripes. No gold braid left; 
 not even red for corporals. And, of course, no clothes. 
 Look at this cap!" It was battered out of all shape and 
 washed into many tones. "My capote is bad enough, 
 isn't it, with only two buttons left? Well, look at these 
 trousers!" He unbuttoned the coat. On his left knee 
 was a huge triangular rent roughly pinned up; on the other 
 leg was the mark of a small hole, to which he pointed: 
 "This is where I was shot. Here the left knee a spent 
 fragment of shell struck me with just enough force to tear 
 the cloth without scratching me. Funny, eh?" 
 
 "What has gone wrong with the clothes supply?" Paul 
 asked. 
 
 "Needed for the 1914 class; and men promoted to drill 
 them, or else on the field, used up all the braid before my 
 turn came. What does it matter? My captain tore his 
 off. Several of our officers had been killed, while a number 
 of men had been saved by their sacks. Only the captain 
 and one lieutenant were left. The captain took the 
 sack from a dead soldier lying near him, and put it on 
 himself. Then the lieutenant was killed by several bullets 
 at the same moment. 'That's the gold,' said the captain. 
 And whipping out his knife, he ripped the braid from 
 his cap and collar and sleeves. 'They have special marks- 
 men for picking out officers,' he said. 'It's enough for 
 me that you boys know me, and I want you to have one 
 officer left to help you win the fight.' And we did ! " 
 
 Half an hour later, while Red Cross ladies were handing 
 in supplies at some station the men having been without 
 food all day, save for what Paul, being well provided for 
 the purpose, had given them the little mad soldier reap- 
 peared. He had lost his cap, but recovered his wits.
 
 206 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Let me come in I'm all right I won't misbehave 
 I want to be with my copains / " he pleaded. "I've been in 
 the next carriage, where an old lady rubbed cologne on my 
 head. I'm all right!" 
 
 At a sign from the young sergeant without stripes, the 
 soldiers helped him in. 
 
 "Ah, you are real French soldiers!" the ex-madman 
 exclaimed, beginning to embrace all he could reach. " I'm 
 taken that way sometimes now," he concluded. 
 
 Harmony was restored; silence fell; most of the men 
 slept. Suddenly a breezy voice exclaimed : 
 
 "Eh, thou, the Lyonnais!" 
 
 The second infantryman was addressing the sergeant 
 without stripes, who had alluded, a while before, to his 
 origin. 
 
 "Thou, the Lyonnese! I've been thinking. Try not 
 to get up any more exhibitions in that town, wilt thou? 
 Thy 1870 Lyon Exhibition brought us the war. Thy 
 1894 Exhibition got our President murdered for us. And 
 
 now thy 1914 Exhibition Enough, enough! Don't 
 
 ever go and do it again!" 
 
 After the laugh had quieted down, Paul whispered to 
 me: 
 
 "There's a new spirit they all show. In the train from 
 Paris to Bordeaux, it was courage and enthusiasm. Now 
 it's better courage and patience." 
 
 VI 
 
 WE WALKED on the red-veined marble, of which Alfred 
 de Musset has written that a Venus sleeping in the stone 
 shed her life-blood when mere steps were carved from her 
 bosom; we reached the majestic avenues of the Park, dull 
 only for those who have failed to seize the spirit of Ver-
 
 207 
 
 sallies. But our thoughts were not of the place, nor of its 
 suggestions. 
 
 It had been agreed that we should meet here after Paul's 
 first visit to the hospital. His white cheeks and com- 
 pressed lips told me rather more than was meant. For 
 whereas I supposed Clermont dead, some slight hope 
 lingered. Paul said so, when able to speak; and a moment 
 later, explained his emotion : 
 
 "Father was very kind to me. Like a real father 
 almost." After hesitating, he added: "I don't suppose 
 fathers are absolutely gentle as children are they? That's 
 why I said 'almost'." 
 
 Two bad wounds, he went on to tell me; and a complica- 
 tion worse than either. A body-wound, from a piece of 
 shell now removed but followed by inflammation ; and the 
 bone of the left thigh splintered by a bullet, for which the 
 doctors wanted to amputate. 
 
 "He won't consent, because phlebitis has developed in 
 the other leg. The campaign did it; he was never strong, 
 you remember. So when the doctors say he will probably 
 die of blood-poisoning unless they take off the left leg near 
 the hip, he answers by asking how long after that they will 
 want to take off the right leg above the knee? I know 
 most of this from the nurse; he's too weak to talk much." 
 
 "And her opinion ?" 
 
 "She daren't say he's wrong to resist; but she doesn't 
 say he will live." 
 
 We had reached a broad, short avenue planted with 
 horse-chestnuts; the double row, whose symmetry repre- 
 sented columns, fitted the symbol-loving taste of that day; 
 its title was the Salle des Marronniers, for in a "hall" the 
 King might serve open-air banquets which would have 
 been unseemly in an "avenue." Fountains then played
 
 208 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 on the four sides; only two stagnant basins remain, one 
 at each end, while the length on either hand is strewn 
 with mossgrown busts. As Paul and I walked down the 
 gentle incline, our feet rustled upon a thick carpet of 
 leaves glowing with garnet-hued jewels; the trees which 
 had scattered them sighed, melancholy and unfathomable, 
 while we trod upon their lost fruit and cast garments. 
 
 "Do you know, I am just beginning to understand 
 father," Paul said slowly. "If we were both to live, we 
 might get on well together. I was wrong, in much of 
 what used to happen." 
 
 "Paul!" 
 
 "Yes. You see, our new generation is too different 
 from his. Probably he'd been brought up very much as he 
 wanted me to be. When I couldn't take the sort of 
 management which had suited him, he thought I was 
 abnormal. He was sensitive because he ought to have 
 been higher up in the world, and he knew what had kept 
 him down; the only single thing he had left was his honesty, 
 and when he believed I had stained that why! what 
 wonder he cast me off? Besides, we mustn't forget he 
 loved mother." 
 
 "I agree the main fault rested with her," I assented 
 dryly. 
 
 "Oh, don't take that tone!" Paul cried, with genuine 
 pain. " Even before she was cut down, when she had but 
 a small idea of danger and thought only I was threatened, 
 she wanted to protect me or to die with me. It was as if 
 she had waked from a dream to become herself." 
 
 Judging that the solution in Clermont's case, while 
 leaving no doubt as to its nature, might delay its coming, 
 I took a furnished flat belonging to an officer. The house 
 was a tall old mansion whose windows commanded an
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 209 
 
 extensive view. From my arm-chair I looked out on the 
 horticultural gardens, erst- while the royal kitchen-gardens, 
 with their plants and trees and green-draped walls. To 
 my left was a group of buildings stern without loss of 
 grace in their ancient dignity; straight before me, beyond 
 the gardens, I caught glimpses of the lake called Swiss to 
 commemorate the affection of the Great King's guard; to 
 the right rose those stately Hundred Steps with the broad 
 sweep of terrace leading to the Palace itself, whose utmost 
 splendours, scorning the vulgarity of a town, lie south and 
 west. There I would wait until Paul came home from 
 the hospital, when I could not walk out in the Park. 
 
 The landscape would smile under a crisp autumn sun, 
 or be grim under beating rain or chasing cloud; and later, 
 revealed trees and shrubs richly glistening with coats of 
 ice held on tiny twigs like long diamonds of rare lustre and 
 matchless size; but it was always calm, noble, inspiring, 
 and withal consoling. Often, a sunset of marvellous 
 splendour would paint the skies in almost Southern hues; 
 or else delicate beauties of the pearl would blend with 
 mysterious fires of the opal. I have heard men wonder 
 why Louis XIV chose Versailles as site for the palatial 
 monument to his glories. I know that he turned his own 
 room to the east, whence he alone received the kisses of 
 the rising sun to which he compared himself on shields, 
 and in frescoes, and in statuary. But I suspect he came 
 once at sunset, and the depths which must exist in even 
 such a nature as his bade him remain: and those colours 
 and masses which cheered me may have brought him 
 solace, in that old age of martial reverses, of dwindling 
 prestige, of taxing vanity, and of irksome tyranny be- 
 neath the bigoted sway of the wife who could not be his 
 queen.
 
 210 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 At each return, Paul would talk briefly of his father's 
 condition; and then, after an evident effort to say more, 
 would plunge into another subject. I supposed anxiety 
 to be the cause for this; but as time wore on, I saw there 
 must be a more complex reason. It even occurred to me 
 that Paul might have reacted against the sympathy pro- 
 voked by the first view of his father at the hospital, and 
 that he shrank from betraying himself. 
 
 But what power of mind or of soul made me feel, pres- 
 ently, that Paul was drifting away from me? I would feel 
 a thought as he drove it from him an unsounded thought 
 I could feel and not read. 
 
 The hospital was open to visitors for only a short time 
 each afternoon. With his father's consent and my ap- 
 proval, Paul had joined a society for military preparation 
 and was furthermore taking lessons in boxing and fencing, 
 and in the theory of war. There was already talk of call- 
 ing out the class which came second before his; and al- 
 though I did not seriously believe boys of seventeen or 
 eighteen would be incorporated, I knew that he needed 
 occupation. While no change was conspicuous in him 
 since physical health had returned, I could see that his 
 nerves had not recovered from the shocks received. 
 
 A messenger came for us both. We knew what was 
 meant. Clermont had expressed the wish to see me be- 
 fore his end; once, when I had gone, he had seemed self- 
 absorbed and embarrassed so that I had not gone back; 
 but he had said, "I must have a word with you." The 
 head-nurse was a lady I had known well in Paris, a major's 
 wife; she had promised to warn me if possible. 
 
 All was very still. None among the patients looked 
 towards the dying man; they were still, even to a Sene- 
 galese, whose stench filled the air and who showed his
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 211 
 
 teeth and rolled his eyes, whitish spots on a dusky skin 
 paled to grey ness under the lust of a near-by death. 
 
 The boy did not speak, but drew close and clasped 
 the thin hand that lay upon the blanket; he bent over the 
 helpless, all but lifeless form. 
 
 Hard and discoloured, the man's lips tried to move. 
 Not a syllable was shaped, nor could the glassy eyes convey 
 a meaning; but Paul understood, and took from the other 
 hand, tightly closed, a crumpled paper. 
 
 Weary, wasted, ashen, the face, paler than the pillow 
 against which it rested with the poor, frail, human halo 
 of thin and faded hair, caught a gleam of light from the 
 tall windows yawning opposite. 
 
 "Mother mother " the broken man said. 
 
 Was it on her he called, who had never been a mother to 
 his son? Or was he, the dying soldier, harking back to boy- 
 hood as brave men do, and crying from his soul, as those 
 falling on battlefields have been known to call, to the love 
 that has known neither jealous taint nor shadow of turning? 
 
 We laid him to rest in a peaceful cemetery hard by the 
 forest, where many loyal sons of France and of England 
 were to be until war's alarms should cease. The short 
 service ended, Paul and I stayed on while the wind eddied 
 round us in whirls of light leaves and sharp rain-drops. 
 
 Paul's hand sought mine for an instant and withdrew, 
 leaving against my palm that crumpled paper from the 
 hospital. 
 
 The dying father had made a will bequeathing to me all 
 he owned his son. 
 
 On the last night of that desolate December, as Paul 
 and I sat watching and listening, he asked me to tell him 
 of the subject which had commanded the forty years
 
 212 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 which might count as my active life. For me, questions 
 of philosophy now lie buried so deep beneath the sands of 
 physical illusion in which men put their trust, that no 
 theory, however pure, is worth the resurrection. I may 
 be wrong; those who have not endured the war, or those 
 who are so constituted as to be able to endure and to for- 
 get, may think differently. But for my part, human 
 cataclysms have shown me how remote the connection is 
 between theory and lif e ; how thin the illusion beside facts 
 too immense for immediate understanding but too terri- 
 ble for an instant's evasion, facts rising and mouthing and 
 mocking us on every side. It seems to me that if art and 
 thought are to survive, they must be both higher and 
 truer than ever before; but, as their primordial condition 
 for existence, they must face facts as never before in the 
 history of men. 
 
 Yet for abuse to arise, facts must exist, as well as for 
 use; one brings ignoble, as the other noble, proof of basic 
 truths. It was in no spirit of apology for Germany that 
 I spoke to Paul of the Great Law of human tendencies, 
 distorted for the furtherance of crime : 
 
 "If we care to look deeper than the social divisions in 
 which men are conscious of their activities, we find them 
 subject to a twofold law of racial destiny whose character 
 is geographical. Living his life, responding to his moods 
 and those of others, attaining success or accepting failure, 
 man is bound by powerful roots to the region in which he 
 elects to think and to act, under the influence of soil. 
 
 "Each nation possessing natural rather than artificial 
 boundaries will have as its characteristic either waterways 
 or mountains or plains; and with this physical preponder- 
 ance corresponds a human type with marked psychological 
 qualities. Where the country is extensive and possesses
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 213 
 
 varied aspects, one type may dominate in one broad region 
 and others elsewhere: so-called national unity then be- 
 comes more difficult to assure than where the soil provides 
 one strong and one or two weak parties. 
 
 "Of the three types, the most highly evolved is that 
 living on waterways. Gifted with courage, endurance, 
 enterprise, initiative, imagination, these men are the 
 creators, the explorers, the rulers at home and oversea. 
 They enjoy the advantages of moisture, of freely circulat- 
 ing air, of extensive and ready communications: they are 
 furthermore in nearest contact with the inner sources of 
 the earth's waters, on which physical life depends. 
 
 "Next, comes the type living on mountains. Pure air 
 and wide vistas may here prompt the mind to lofty pur- 
 poses, but the sternness of existence develops a hard char- 
 acter, while difficulties of exchange lead first to narrowness 
 of outlook and then to a spirit of compromise. Yet races 
 that dwell on mountains attain to inspiration because they 
 are not so remote from the earth's inner waters as might 
 appear. For mountain lakes are often in clefts descending 
 to the deep-hidden springs, and offering the next most 
 direct connection, after that of open waterways. 
 
 "The type living on interior plains is the third. The 
 struggle of these men is the hardest, their reward in beauty 
 and in facilities the scantiest; and, lacking water-courses, 
 atmospheric moisture, assured air-currents, their develop- 
 ment is the most retarded. Yet the very conditions under 
 which they must thrive, if they would live, . lay solid 
 foundations for character, and teach means for quick 
 profiting by every chance. It has been noted that the 
 fruit richest in water may come from the dryest soil, where 
 deep-reaching roots feel out after remote sustenance 
 from hidden sources. So, when plains are opened under
 
 214 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 the influence of newly turned or discovered waterways, 
 the development of these inhabitants may be enviably 
 rapid and sure. 
 
 "In his obedience to evolution, which he is so prone 
 to deny whenever conscience whispers that he has not 
 done his duty towards himself and others, man is driven 
 to seek lands rich with waterways. Though he may 
 pretext fortune or ambition, he is answering voices which 
 he rarely stops to analyse. But while he may stray as he 
 searches, he does not wander blindly in any direction. If 
 he be brave and hardy, apt for fighting and conquering, 
 he will be prompted to advance, ever struggling, against 
 the direction of the earth as it revolves upon itself. When 
 he is weakening and grows covetous rather than ambi- 
 tious, he will be content to advance with the rotation, in- 
 viting a minimum of resistance. 
 
 "Where nations of their sovereign will renounced 
 westward openings, they could injure none save them- 
 selves. Where they pursued such openings honestly, by 
 methods recognised in law and established in precedent, 
 the possible prejudice to others became a matter of prestige 
 or of commercial reckoning. But all nations did not rest 
 content with these alternatives: some, forgetful that mor- 
 als count above commercial advisability or even national 
 aspiration, claimed the right to opportunity without ob- 
 servance of those elementary honesties which are de- 
 manded, as a condition for esteem, from collectivities as 
 from individuals. The nation which, desiring greatness, 
 wantonly plans the sacrifice of others, her moral equals or 
 betters, merely because she wishes to expand, is on the level 
 of the man who, feeling the call of genius but lacking 
 means to assure his fame, would murder and rob inoffen- 
 sive fellow-citizens to buy himself opportunity. . . .
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 215 
 
 "The study of evolution, so sedulously practised in 
 Germany, has not only established the progress of life on 
 earth, it has proved how far back in the past our human 
 roots are planted. Just as a touch of nature makes the 
 whole world kin, so a touch of primaeval savagery suf- 
 ficed to make the whole world war." 
 
 A strange New Year crept upon us. 
 
 The streets were darkened and silent; there had been a 
 moon the night before, but it was lost beyond masses of 
 cloud which had deluged us with rain unceasingly for well- 
 nigh twenty-four hours. 
 
 During some little while, the rain seemed to slacken; 
 silence and blackness filled all life. Church-clocks began 
 to strike, and others took up the burden, as though we had 
 been at any hour of any day or night. There were not 
 more bells than usual; rather fewer, for the rain drowned 
 those afar. Silence fell again, and lasted a score of seconds. 
 Not men broke it, nor works of men's hands, but the 
 heavens themselves, as the flood-gates were opened afresh. 
 
 On the eve of Christmas, we had heard feet and voices 
 in the streets ; bells had pealed loud and triumphant, while 
 we saw lights shine out beneath us, bright stars in the 
 gloom of an earth-sky. We knew, then, though we did 
 not realise so fully as now by contrast, that those bells 
 had signalled a consecration, that those feet and voices 
 had marked the way of church-goers. 
 
 No peals, no prayers, no consecration to usher in the 
 prophecy of New Year: and yet, perhaps clearer from the 
 absence of physical testimony, the spirit of God seemed 
 very near for any who would heed. 
 
 We spoke of that as we parted, Paul and I he to sleep, 
 and I to wake.
 
 216 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 I did not dream : for what I saw was true. 
 
 The world had lived on through the years. I shall not 
 state how many; nor could I count them surely, though 
 I knew. 
 
 War had succeeded war, ambition had defeated ambi- 
 tion, jealousy had devoured jealousy, self-interest had 
 preyed upon self-interest; while material gain, material 
 prestige, material supremacy, were sought by men and 
 groups of men. 
 
 Whether struggling westward or sinking east, races and 
 nations had given the measure of their morality in con- 
 flicts which meant death or re-birth for all engaged, and 
 weakening or hardening for all that abstained because of 
 cowardice or of egoism. Men groped in the depths of an 
 infinite night; and the wisest could but say that the right 
 must be no less eternally right than before, the wrong no 
 less eternally wrong, though physical nature had fallen 
 as a veil between them and the first, while connecting with 
 the second. 
 
 Then there came an age when men dared seek the truth; 
 and there came an age when men dared speak the truth; and 
 there came an age when men dared face the truth : and a 
 Prophet appeared. 
 
 He spoke from his heart to those about him; he used 
 neither artifice nor violence to bring proselytes beneath his 
 sway. His words were for such as would hear: and they 
 were old as worlds that are, they were sure as worlds to be. 
 
 He taught a simple message of love; not remote love for 
 strangers where the effort cost least, but love for those 
 with whom one's life was cast; he taught that hearts should 
 be filled with love for all the children of God, since to love 
 them was to love Him, and hatred or scorn for the least 
 among them was hatred or scorn for Him in their persons.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 217 
 
 He taught that all bitterness must pass away from the 
 mind, that the stain of slander must be blotted from the 
 lips; that harsh judgments, though easy to frame and 
 though perchance just, were ever harmful to him that 
 uttered them; he taught that the words should not be 
 repressed, but the thoughts which led to them banished. 
 
 He taught that eternal life had two objects knowledge 
 and love; wherefore the lives through which men passed 
 in tentative stages towards eternity should have these 
 objects; but knowledge could come only with earnest 
 desire, which was an expression of love, so the objects 
 towards which attention was turned should be worthy of 
 love. 
 
 He taught that where the bases of a work were solid 
 and its message was true, it need not fear harm from evil 
 existing near; that the temples of Greece, the pillars and 
 arches of Rome, cared nothing for the dust men shook from 
 their feet in passing, nor did those who looked upon them 
 even in their ruins take heed for that dust, if capable of 
 seeing more than dust. He taught that only the beautiful 
 and the true should be sought, those things which might 
 be loved, and, being loved, might prompt to greater 
 love; that hardness should not be crushed from the heart, 
 but allowed to melt away in the warm rays of the love 
 which asked but to become the guiding factor in thought : 
 that hardness was only love grown cold, to crush was to 
 condense it, to warm was to retrieve it. 
 
 The Prophet bore many names, for he was many men; 
 nor was he mocked and cursed and stoned, for evolution 
 had prepared his way wherever a life had accepted sim- 
 plicity and good-faith as its law and had taken as its in- 
 spiration love the love of God in His majesty the love 
 of God in all His children the love of God in all His works.
 
 218 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Yea, a strange, sad New Year; but not a hopeless one. 
 In the morning, Paul and I saw the sun pierce the clouds 
 for two brief moments: while, rosy-pink and cream- 
 yellow, above the winter-stripped gardens and tossing 
 tree-branches, the palace of France's traditional glories 
 smiled transfigured in calm beauty against granite-hued 
 skies. 
 
 In each life, I believe, there is a period sacred beyond 
 others, which one may shrink from discussing even with 
 those concerned. Such, to me, was the time Paul and I 
 spent in Versailles. The sacredness came from the fact 
 that there were no events nor incidents, but only harmony 
 and understanding, while he worked in many ways and I 
 helped him as I could. We were nearing the end of our 
 days together; we were reaching phases of our respective 
 existences to be given to other tasks than any we had 
 known. 
 
 On his seventeenth birthday, he entered my room. His 
 eyes, whose grey had been light all this while, had dark- 
 ened : I knew the mood. 
 
 Throwing himself on the floor near me, one arm across 
 my knees, his face turned to mine, he said abruptly, in- 
 tensely : 
 
 "I've tried I've tried hard, really hard and I can't!" 
 Tears fell; he did not try to check them. "It's not my 
 fault; it's fate, it's the world, it's everything under all 
 that means anything " 
 
 "You want to leave me, Paul?" My voice came 
 steadily. 
 
 "I can't be idle any longer I can't wait for my class to 
 be called! They don't want anticipated enlistments; 
 but with the special training I owe to you and with the
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 219 
 
 detail that I want to be a plain infantryman, the man most 
 needed and with your help, if you will see the officers 
 and officials you know I'm sure I should be taken." 
 
 Still resting as he had been, but with his head bowed on 
 his hands, he continued: 
 
 "I told you I had ambitions felt a call for work in 
 the old days, at Verviller. But if I don't do my share first 
 to punish the worst crimes, to stop the greatest evils im- 
 aginable, do you think I should be worthy? I can't let 
 others do the harsh and terrible work to clear the way so 
 that I may do as I please later!" 
 
 All the influence I had was needed for the fulfilment of 
 his wish. 
 
 From Paris, he went off to join a regiment of the line at 
 a base in central France where it was re-forming; and I 
 returned to the ruins of Verviller, where others were al- 
 ready toiling to create new life from bare ashes. 
 
 Few moments of leisure occur in such an existence as 
 mine is now. Nevertheless, I have been recording my 
 evidence of him whom I alone knew fully while nature, 
 and fate, and men, and he himself were fashioning the 
 boy to make him what he is; for I wish his story to greet 
 him when he returns to what is left of these walls, though 
 I may have passed in the road that knows no turning. Or 
 am I pleading excuses for a self -sought task? Perhaps I 
 merely would write of him, now we cannot talk together. 
 As I write, there are times when he seems to be listening; 
 I see him look up with his wondering smile. 
 
 VII 
 
 WHEN Paul and I met again in Verviller, I was more 
 bent than had been my wont, and glad for that moment
 
 220 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 only; he stood tall, erect, radiant with a serenity which no 
 sentiment seemed to break. 
 
 Vistas of ruined streets stretched in all directions. Be- 
 hind us, the river with its shattered bridge and battle- 
 scarred banks; before us, the scaled, crumbling tower of 
 the church, and the broken but still chimney-crowned 
 walls of the chateau; to right, to left, only nameless, 
 figureless, indescribable desolation. Some who have 
 viewed these ruins as one of the curiosities of the war have 
 written very picturesque accounts, I am told. To one 
 who lived there, pen-pictures are vain. 
 
 "Was this our house? Yes, that is your window," said 
 Paul. 
 
 His clear eyes had not darkened, his firm cheeks had lost 
 nothing of their flush. Perhaps his shoulders had squared 
 themselves rather more resolutely under the uniform coat 
 of light grey. I am sure the visor of his cap rose, and not 
 merely because he glanced up. 
 
 "Let's go in," he said. 
 
 No hand had touched it, apparently, though many feet 
 had passed there; it was as when the cooling fires of ex- 
 hausted flames had left it to time and weather. Stone 
 and mortar and twisted metal strewed the earth, in mounds 
 where much had been consumed; the springs of my bed and 
 of Paul's lay thin and discoloured in a shadowy semblance 
 of shape, as though waiting for our ghosts to rest on them. 
 Of whatever else had been mine, nothing was recog- 
 nisable. Alone the outer walls hemmed us in, honey- 
 combed with gaping, ungarnished doors and windows 
 a shell of vanity, recalling the semblance of a life, within 
 which reigned death and corruption. At the back, metal 
 window-shades of Venetian pattern hung down to the sills, 
 creaking in the breeze, shamming usefulness. Whenever
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 221 
 
 they swayed, we caught fleeting glimpses of scorched trees 
 and rank weeds where once I had taken pleasure in my 
 small garden. 
 
 " Strange, how natural those shades seem, if one doesn't 
 watch closely," Paul said. "And even if one does, one 
 can't mind; it's too unreal. This isn't our house: ours is 
 what we remember. But what's that?" 
 
 Drawing near to one of the windows where the kitchen 
 had been he exclaimed: 
 
 "The old, rusty, broken scissors Leonie put up there to 
 keep me from coming back! You remember?" 
 
 True; there they were. And I shuddered not super- 
 stitiously, but at the thought of the sadness that first part- 
 ing had caused me. 
 
 His mood, excluding sentiment, concerned me, depressed 
 and alarmed me, made me feel deeply alone though he 
 was near. Since the moment we had met again, I had 
 noted a difference without being able to gauge its span. 
 
 "Would you like to see more?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, since I am here," he answered. 
 
 Following him, I even wondered if the events he had 
 witnessed could, by some strange process of mind, have 
 been wiped from his memory. His gait and bearing 
 would soon have reminded me he was a soldier, if I had 
 been disposed to forget; but I could not have forgotten, 
 such was the spirit inspiring his look, his voice, his move- 
 ments. All that, I understood. But his serenity bewil- 
 dered me and left no grounds for reckoning, though once 
 I had held every secret of Paul's heart and had sounded 
 deep into his soul. 
 
 With cool interest he noted odd traces of bullets and 
 bayonet-thrusts which, in the near-by walls, had survived 
 the conflagration.
 
 222 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "That's the street fighting I told you about," he said 
 calmly. "If anything is left of father's house, I can ex- 
 plain the whole action as it developed there." 
 
 I noticed that he spoke of "father's house," but had 
 called mine "ours." 
 
 "That's shell-fire," he said presently, before the heaped 
 vestiges of two buildings. "I saw them both go. Five 
 shells in succession fell on or near them. Good shooting; 
 two-hundred-and-tens, I believe. Yes, here's a small 
 piece of one. What's left of the houses isn't worth talking 
 about. Those over there most of the street, indeed got 
 a dose of smaller shells, but quite big enough to do the 
 business. Less damage, and extraordinary symmetry." 
 
 There was, indeed, that difference he mentioned, be- 
 tween the large shells which nothing resisted, and the 
 smaller which stone and brick might partly survive. 
 There was either fair resistance or complete crumbling on 
 the part of masonry no half -measures. Here, in the 
 street he pointed out, fire had been added to the havoc 
 of shells, but upright walls stood with emptied windows 
 against the sky. Metal, however, seemed to cry out in- 
 dignant protests, to make a last appeal against the violence 
 of brother-metal though alien stone might accept its fate. 
 How else explain the bars, the girders, stretched out or up 
 from sundry piles of ruin, like arms that had risen with a 
 curse but were frozen in death when the lips that cried out 
 had been stilled? 
 
 I expressed this to Paul. 
 
 "Very nice," he said. "Only it was the fire did it 
 common incendiarism, you know." 
 
 "They smashed the church, when it ceased to serve 
 them," he commented presently, glancing in through a 
 window whose ancient glass had been one of the prides of
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 223 
 
 Verviller. "Just pounded to pieces from sheer wicked- 
 ness, and burned by hand afterwards. Look at those 
 traces of smoke, there, quite low down in the corner, on 
 the stone." 
 
 Before the Chdteau de Vervillers, he said: 
 
 "The looting here was frightful, I remember hearing 
 people say not a thing but they took, whether it looked 
 valuable or not. And all the same, I shouldn't wonder if 
 they left those famous bronzes. If we were to go and 
 rummage, any odd piece of fused metal we found might be 
 Or no! Already at that time they were systematically 
 collecting brass and bronze for munitions. Stole the very 
 buttons from the uniforms of their own dead. By the 
 way, might we go to the Ripote? Got all the rest of the 
 day, and I fancy there's not much to be done in Verviller. 
 Would you feel strong enough? This afternoon, perhaps; 
 for you know there are a few people I should like to see." 
 
 "They are lunching with us," I said. "Many of us eat 
 in common, at present; not a large population, but on 
 very cordial terms. Our mess-room is at the old convent; 
 the Marquis de Vervillers came there as simply as you or 
 I, last time he passed through town. He had got his com- 
 mand, but feared it might be taken away from him, be- 
 cause of his age, as soon as any were ready for promotion." 
 
 "Probably will be," Paul observed philosophically. 
 "This is a war for the young." 
 
 "If we take that street, our way will be much longer," 
 I admonished, surprised at his forgetfulness. "Straight 
 ahead, if you wish to go to the convent." 
 
 "Yes; but I would rather turn here," he said, hi an 
 altered tone. 
 
 Then I remembered that the Place de la Mairie lay a 
 short distance ahead in the straight line.
 
 224 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Paul continued, almost apologetically: 
 
 "No use for me to see it again. I know how it looks." 
 
 After a few steps, however, he stopped and whirled 
 abruptly: 
 
 "Im'Mgo." 
 
 So rapid was his stride that I followed quite a distance 
 behind. I saw him stand in the middle of the square, with 
 face slightly paled and lips tightly pressed; he was gazing 
 deliberately at each house in succession, and stopped at a 
 wall seamed and scarred by machine-gun fire. 
 
 The minutes required for me to reach him sufficed for 
 his task of self-discipline. 
 
 "Dear boy, forgive me I wronged you," I said, taking 
 his arm as we walked away. It was best said plainly. 
 For I knew he read my moods. 
 
 "No, you didn't wrong me," he answered. "You just 
 hadn't learned the difference between the old me who could 
 only talk, and the new me who's ready to act." 
 
 Something suggested the old boyish movement of his 
 head, though his erect form and firm muscles expressed 
 no diffidence as he went on: 
 
 "My trip here was hard to manage, with only a two- 
 days' leave, and the town so near the fighting line. At 
 one moment it seemed as if I couldn't possibly be author- 
 ised to come; as if I should have to ask you to meet me in 
 Paris, or else down at my dep6t. I was relieved, almost 
 glad. As soon as I felt that, I knew I was still weak, and 
 I went to work and begged so hard, that my officers 
 smoothed out the difficulties. Now do you understand 
 what I feel here what. I felt in our house, and in the Place 
 de la Mairie? But I say to myself, 'Here's at least one 
 life to be given to help punish them'. " 
 
 Verviller had suffered most in the centre and towards
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 225 
 
 the river; as we approached the suburb on the other side, 
 signs of life were noticeable. Repairs had not yet been 
 seriously attempted; most survivors were penniless, hav- 
 ing been in local business or retail trade, or owners of 
 farms in the region; those who still had money needed it 
 for more immediate ends than house-building. One or 
 two rooms of certain homes had escaped, and elsewhere a 
 rough covering would make a ruin habitable; the fortunate 
 dwellers in such quarters would share them with destitute 
 neighbours. Occasionally we would pass a gaunt old 
 woman, classical figure of woe, seated in dingy mourning 
 upon what had been her door-step; but oftener we saw 
 children playing at hide-and-seek among ruins which to 
 them were already historic. In one house, a thrifty wife 
 profited by the missing wall to dry freshly washed clothes 
 within doors (which is a figure of speech) ; and at several 
 of the most desolate points we crossed boys with hands 
 in their pockets and caps on the back of their heads, whist- 
 ling as they went. Shop-keepers who had lost everything 
 were in any shelter they could find, with improvised stalls, 
 and a humble assortment of wares spread out for cus- 
 tomers who could scarcely afford what might be most 
 strictly necessary. 
 
 Paul plunged into one of these establishments and 
 bought some soldier-tobacco with which he filled his pipe, 
 and for me a terrific fifteen-centime cigar the best to be 
 had which he compelled me to light on the spot, for the 
 good woman's gratification. It made me rather ill, as 
 cheap green cigars always do, particularly before lunch; 
 and Paul cheered me by recalling the awful confession he 
 had made about smoking cigarettes at Delligny's bicycle 
 shop, and his surprise to learn I had been witness to the 
 act.
 
 226 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Of all the buildings in town, the convent alone had 
 been spared. The German commander had learned that 
 his wounded, as well as ours, were there; they had been 
 transferred once more when it had become evident that 
 Verviller could not be held. He had given instructions 
 that the hospital should not be especially burned, when 
 orders where issued for the town generally; but he had not 
 guaranteed immunity. The walls had somehow resisted 
 environing tongues of flame or else the wind had turned 
 or else, as some claimed, a miracle had intervened. 
 
 Old Leonie opened the door for us, seeming nearly a 
 hundred now, and rarely without tears in her eyes, charity 
 in her hands, and imprecations in her mouth at the men- 
 tion of Germans. Her adventures, she had never told. 
 After endless researches and inquiries through official 
 sources, by means of relief bureaux and with letters and 
 telegrams mostly returned to me, I had sought her in 
 every corner of France, only to locate her at last in the 
 town itself. The abominations of that night, she said, 
 had been such that nothing else could matter; and, not 
 knowing where to find me, she had waited for me to come. 
 Since we had organised relief-work at the convent, she 
 spent most of her time there, helping with the children, 
 directing the distributions of soup and meat and bread, 
 and serving at the meals. 
 
 She had not believed my tales of Paul's rescue, because 
 she had for so long wept over his death. At sight of him, 
 she fell on his neck, with disconcerting results. To save 
 the situation, he twitted her about those rusty scissors 
 with a broken point attached to the blind of what had 
 been her kitchen. She vowed her Alsatian gods that 
 they were new old scissors put there to prevent a German 
 return.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 227 
 
 "Ach!" she cried, "if I could see that^uniform on 
 Alsatian soil if my eyes could see that, before tears blind 
 them!" 
 
 "Just as soon as I rejoin my regiment," quoth Paul, "I 
 shall have the post of vivandiere revived, and then you may 
 come with us!" 
 
 We entered the refectory. A trim little nun, with 
 pale, drawn face, came up : 
 
 "How are you, Paul?" 
 
 After one look, he changed colour and turned away. 
 Regaining self-mastery, he grasped her hand: 
 
 ' ' Very well, Mademoiselle Odette. And you ? ' ' 
 
 "Soeur Angele, please," she said. "Are you very 
 hungry? We shall soon be ready for you. I know what 
 soldiers' appetites are. What do you think of our 
 establishment?" Not waiting for an answer, she flitted 
 away. 
 
 Paul glanced in her wake, tragically silent. Slowly the 
 red came to his cheeks. 
 
 "Sceur Angele." He rested his hand on the window- 
 ledge, and leaned there, facing the street. "Yes. I saw 
 Mademoiselle Odette die." 
 
 And as I remember, now, that many pages back I wrote 
 
 of Mademoiselle Odette, "I never saw her " I let the 
 
 words stand. 
 
 Among those who gradually joined us at the long table, 
 in the bare but scrupulously clean hall, there were few 
 Paul had ever spoken to, though he recognised many faces. 
 At the sound of one voice, shouting from the entrance, 
 he started; and when a monotonous thumping step fol- 
 lowed, I thought him about to fail once more. The peal 
 of laughter which accompanied the thumps helped him to 
 recover. Marcel Lavenu paused near the door of the
 
 228 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 refectory, balanced on his left foot, the other leg being 
 off above the knee, and cried out cheerily: 
 
 " Took only four jumps, this time ! But who'll help me 
 across the ice? If So3ur Angele and Leonie will polish the 
 floor " 
 
 Paul sprang towards him: 
 
 " Marcel ! My old Marcel ! " 
 
 "Why, it's the little young man !" said Marcel. "Lucky 
 you didn't run away with me, my boy, because you'd have 
 been ignominiously sent home. This way you can soon 
 take my place in the lines. Meanwhile you're filling 
 Ernest's place, though not brilliantly. He helps me a lot; 
 got two sound legs, you see, those swine left him that much, 
 though they lopped off his right hand. We've gone into 
 partnership, because it makes three legs and three hands 
 between us enough for any man and a half, which is 
 quite right because he's barely half -sized!" 
 
 "But can't you have a crutch?" Paul asked. 
 
 "Crutch!" echoed Marcel scornfully. "You don't 
 fancy I want to be taken for a cripple? " 
 
 He reached the table, hopping easily and keeping his 
 balance so well that he barely touched the arm held out to 
 him. 
 
 "Aren't they going to give you a wooden leg?" Paul 
 insisted. 
 
 "Going to? Why, they gave me one long ago, stupid!" 
 exclaimed Marcel, with eyes no less sparkling and cheeks 
 no less red than of yore. " You don't mean to accuse our 
 people of neglecting their soldiers, I suppose? I'd say 
 you were a disgrace to that uniform, if it weren't so new 
 and clean that anybody could know it hasn't seen service. 
 Here's what happened. Nothing's left of father's busi- 
 ness; and Robert was killed holding the frontier as he'd
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 229 
 
 sworn to do. Rather fine, wasn't it? You remember how 
 he used to talk." 
 
 A plate fell, and broke; Sceur Angele called out: 
 "Leonie!" But it had fallen at her own feet, and she hid 
 her face beneath the big white coif as she stooped hurriedly. 
 
 "So I said to myself," Marcel went on, '"What can 
 you do in Verviller with your one leg?' For back here I 
 was bound to come. The papers printed articles about 
 the agricultural situation, and I made up my mind to be a 
 farmer. Knew a little about it, always picked up odds 
 and ends of information about anything. And there are 
 a few old people left in the neighbourhood who can tell 
 you what was done a hundred years ago when they and 
 their grandfathers were boys together. Everybody 
 screamed at me, of course, and said a one-legged man 
 couldn't plough. But I said 'fiddlesticks,' and had my 
 wooden leg fitted with a special nail on the end which 
 lets me do what I please out of doors. Trouble is, it rips 
 wood all to pieces, so I don't wear it at Soeur Angele's 
 tavern or at Pere Aubret's hotel." 
 
 "You might have a boot fitted on it," Paul suggested. 
 
 "I did; but the boot fitted still better into a mud-hole, 
 and I left all the leg with it ! " Marcel laughed. " Oh, there 
 are lots of new things I can invent when I want to; but 
 there's no hurry because I'm learning to manage. Soon 
 sha'n't need Ernest, or you either, you sort of a grass- 
 soldier. Speaking of him, you ought to see that boy hold 
 the reins and a plough-handle, with one hand and the 
 stump of a fore-arm. Wonderful if I do say it, who 
 taught him! Ah! here he is. Come here, my right leg, 
 your right hand's waiting for you." 
 
 Ernest came up, and greeted Paul very solemnly. 
 
 "Don't look apologetic about giving your left hand to
 
 230 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 shake I step out with my left leg!" Marcel continued, 
 making room beside him and beginning to cut the meat 
 in a plate Leonie brought. "He can cut almost anything, 
 already; even managed to cut his own finger, the other day. 
 Didn't you? Speak up, young man ! He's out of breath, 
 though he has two sound legs and our farm is just beyond 
 the town. No trouble in getting land at present; and we 
 can live at Pere Aubret's hotel, and eat here, and go to our 
 work quite easily. Or I can. Ernest is impeded by a 
 superfluous leg, I believe." 
 
 The boy, wizened and sickly, began to smile; Marcel's 
 treatment for melancholia was evidently a success. 
 
 "My legs are all right, and and my hand too," he said, 
 and fell to eating heartily. 
 
 "You can't imagine the trouble he gave me at first," 
 Marcel whispered to Paul. "Depressed Lord! Made 
 me want to howl like a dog when the neighbour's cat is 
 dying out of -*ach of his teeth! But the lad's improving; 
 doesn't give me any trouble worth the mention." 
 
 When Paul questioned, but not before, Marcel told of 
 his adventures. 
 
 Hidden under a seat in the train, he had reached a town 
 near the frontier and had followed the regiment, with some 
 of whose men he made friends in transit. Their first 
 engagement started at a point where the Germans had been 
 occupying French soil for several days before declaring war; 
 while the French had been drawn back five miles so as 
 not to fall into the German trap and be accused of attack- 
 ing first, even in defence of their own invaded territory. 
 Marcel hid in the bushes; and, soldiers being killed near 
 him, he got a cap, a belt, a coat, a rifle and cartridges, 
 and fought with the men. In Verviller, he had belonged 
 to a society for military preparation, so he could shoot.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 231 
 
 They began their advance in Alsace. Marcel described 
 it as a "triumphal rush"; they absolutely ran down the 
 slopes of the Vosges, the officers running at their head 
 like schoolboys. "It was very beautiful!" Then they 
 had to draw back, but with orders to die rather than 
 yield up Nancy, which the Germans would take only by 
 fighting, not by bombardment, because of the flour stored 
 there. Thousands of men might die on either side, but the 
 Germans were bound to get that flour, and the French to 
 keep it. They were short of food, they had no water; 
 they chewed the leather of their belts to moisten tongue 
 and lips, they held pebbles in the mouth for coolness. The 
 Lorraine troops, faithful to Joffre's order to stand at any 
 price, saved Nancy, and stopped a German advance. Still 
 fighting, still short of food, they were sent north. They 
 had their reward. About the middle of October, they 
 reached a town which had not been laid waste, and where 
 warm food was to be had their first warm food since the 
 beginning of the campaign, two months and a half before. 
 
 "I'd been hit several times, or grazed, rather," said 
 Marcel. "My knapsack shot off my back, to begin with. 
 Full of souvenirs. We thought of such things to bring 
 home, then, because we believed the war would be short. 
 I had eagles from German helmets, and all sorts of stuff; 
 a pistol, too. Gone with the knapsack! Next time I 
 was hit, I'd been bayonetting so hard that I stopped to 
 thrust my cap back, and cool off and rest a minute. A 
 Boche not far away took aim and fired. Bad shot, only 
 cut my visor clean off. I was so mad, I shouldered quick 
 as a wink and that German didn't go home on con- 
 valescent leave! Then all went right till we got north. 
 Next time, it was the real thing. Knee smashed into bits 
 no bigger than your nail. Fact. I lay on the field all
 
 232 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 day; then they took me to an improvised hospital, and 
 laid me out on a shutter in the hall, because there were no 
 tables. Great luck they had chloroform to operate." 
 
 The meal ended, Marcel stumped merrily away. Paul 
 followed him with his eyes, and said slowly to me : 
 
 "You always believed we would win, didn't you? Well, 
 don't you know it now?" 
 
 Near the convent I had found a fair-sized house only 
 partially destroyed, which I had been able to repair 
 summarily. This was what Marcel Lavenu irreverently 
 called "Pere Aubret's hotel." He and Ernest shared a 
 room there; the other rooms were used by any who needed 
 them, save for a large one I had reserved as my residence 
 and reception-hall. Rather palatial, all things considered, 
 with a bed and three chairs and a table; yet not wanton 
 luxury, since the business of relief work had to be trans- 
 acted somewhere. 
 
 Our way to the Ripote, that afternoon, lay along a 
 seamed and shattered road, picketed with tree-stumps. 
 We crossed the gullies in which men had crouched to live 
 and fight one moment longer; we passed through a grove of 
 branch-stripped, bullet-riddled trees, as we walked care- 
 fully to avoid graves or relics of the dead here, a coat; 
 there, a cartridge-pouch; beyond, a rusted canteen; and, 
 under my very feet, the hasty dressing that a soldier had 
 pressed upon a first wound before fighting again and 
 falling again, doubtless to stay, for there had been no 
 quarter given and no retreat to seek. These vestiges, 
 and those many graves, mound-like or trench-like, were 
 all that testified to fifteen thousand men who had fallen 
 at the defence of Verviller and of its road to Paris. 
 
 Our progress had been slow; the sun was near the setting
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 233 
 
 when we reached the edge of the crest, and looked down 
 upon the poor, torn skeleton of the butterfly. 
 
 Paul spoke from the gloom closing in on us. 
 
 "Do you remember how we used to talk of travelling? 
 I wanted to see the Forum and the Parthenon. I don't 
 want to, any more. They wouldn't seem picturesque or 
 beautiful. I know what ruins mean."
 
 PART FOUR 
 LIFE
 
 "THE most inconceivable thing has happened," Paul 
 wrote from a mysterious point in the army zone, indicated 
 by a postal number and two groups of initials. "I've 
 been sent up here ahead of my time, which might have 
 been a compliment except that I'm not hi a fighting 
 unit! 
 
 "I didn't want to worry you before, and it didn't seem 
 worth mentioning; but I had trouble when marching with 
 my kit. Overtrained at military preparation, before en- 
 listing. The best results of all-round health, strength, 
 and development, have been found among farmers and 
 working-boys, it seems, rather than among athletes or 
 sportsmen or the specially trained in schools like mine. 
 As an apprentice, I should have stood a better chance. 
 During any long march with the regulation weight on my 
 back, my breathing goes wrong. I wouldn't believe it 
 worth bothering about; thought I should outgrow it, you 
 know. Quite unexpectedly, I was detached from my 
 corps and ordered forward with one of the supply columns, 
 as a commis ouvrier d' administration. No more than a 
 plain clerk, in uniform. If I'd had any warning, I might 
 have tried to get into the artillery, where this sort of thing 
 wouldn't matter. But the infantry seemed best; the 
 artillery must prepare and support the attack, yet it's 
 the soldier who does the actual fighting; and as trench-life 
 is the hardest and dirtiest of all, I felt that was what I 
 must do. If I'd only known, if I'd only guessed! 
 
 237
 
 238 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Uncle! I promise you my heart's as sound as it can 
 possibly be. Nothing worries me save long marches with 
 a load; and since we don't get these on the firing line, I 
 don't see why I should be disgraced. Can't you help me? 
 You know so many people. There's the Marquis de 
 Vervillers. Couldn't he do something? The Count 
 might, anyhow. 
 
 "Think of all the rifle-practice and bayonet-drill I've 
 had; and the theory of warfare I studied, so as to pull 
 through with the men if our officers got killed. I mustn't 
 lose all that, must I? What rubbish I'm writing. That 
 isn't what matters. You understand. If I can't take 
 my place, in the mud and under fire, with the genuine men, 
 to be as great as the least among them in his humble, useful 
 way, then nothing will ever seem worth while to me 
 again; because all I've worked, and waited, and hoped, 
 and lived for, will be reduced to nothing." 
 
 Must I confess that my heart leaped joyfully at the 
 beginning which told me the boy was in no danger? Yet 
 as I read on, I felt he was right. Not knowing where to 
 find either the Marquis or the Count, I wrote to the Mar- 
 quise at the auxiliary ambulance she had established in 
 Paris; to which, by the way, she had called Soeur Angele. 
 
 While I waited for her reply, I again heard from Paul. 
 He had deceitfully made friends with an army surgeon, 
 stating only as much of his case as might further his in- 
 terests; and so had secured a magnificent certificate of 
 health. By good luck, it was a surgeon of reputation, 
 and wearing in the army the four stripes of a major. This 
 I forwarded to Madame de Vervillers. A few days later 
 came her answer. She had written, she told me, to her son, 
 as being better placed to help the boy than the Marquis, 
 and had said, "Your father would certainly feel as I do,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 239 
 
 that we should render young Clermont any service in our 
 power." Bless the Marquise! I had thought her cold 
 and rather haughty, under the perfect politeness of the 
 grande dame. Perhaps I had misjudged her; or else the 
 war had transformed her, like countless others throughout 
 France. 
 
 Having done what he could, and biding developments 
 as he must, Paul found time to give me an idea of his new, 
 though as he hoped temporary existence. He wrote: 
 
 "To think I used to believe I should never live in a 
 chateau! Well, here we are, a whole bunch of us, in- 
 habiting a fine chateau with an extensive park surround- 
 ing it. Only, as our boots are armed with nails and 
 covered with mud, we might damage the carpets and 
 furniture if allowed within those stately walls. So, if you 
 would know the homely truth, we occupy the former 
 stables of Count I-Don't-Know-Who. 
 
 "But we are comfortable. Shamefully comfortable, 
 for soldiers in war-time. Fancy, we boast such luxuries 
 as pots to cook in and plates to eat from ! And we have a 
 foot-tub for purposes of washing! And a canvas bucket 
 (with a hole in one side) which reaches here quite one- 
 third full, after a trip to the well ! We even have a candel- 
 abrum; hangs from a nail in the wall, and if I hadn't a 
 sense of the fitness of things pertaining to a chateau, I 
 might vulgarly call it a lantern. We're ever so warm 
 and comfortable; old chairs and broken shutters to burn! 
 As for our beds, I must say they are not so soft as the 
 ground I slept on a little while ago, but they boast straw 
 mattresses in which only straw is lacking. 
 
 "So much for comforts shared in common. At the 
 present moment, I am monopolising a fine table, made of 
 boards stretched on a saddler's tressel, and the use of a
 
 240 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 pen-holder which I manufactured out of the top of a 
 sardine-tin. 
 
 "Regarding my health, splendid, never better. Lots 
 and lots of fresh air; at night, because our chateau is full 
 of holes; by day, as we rattle about the country on a 
 motor-lorry. Excuse me, I should have said automobile. 
 I sometimes forget to live up to the dignity of my new 
 residence. 
 
 "Until now, our column has been used only to supply 
 regiments quartered near here for a day or two. They 
 say, however, that we may soon be trusted as far as a 
 trench. I don't dare believe in such good luck. The next 
 best thing to being able to shoot is to know you are running 
 the same risks as others by being shot at. If it could be 
 true! 
 
 "You will let me know the very minute you hear from 
 the Marquis or the Count? Even though the news is 
 bad, because then I must go to work and find some other 
 scheme. Have you tried writing to your friends in Paris? 
 Perhaps " etc., etc., etc. 
 
 "At last, I've been officially under fire ! " he wrote a week 
 later. "Officially, I mean, as part of my duty, instead of 
 just happening to be there. 
 
 "I was sent with my comrades Nadier and Pazel, to 
 reach a regiment in a fairly safe place. But to get to it 
 we had to cross a part of the road where the Germans 
 always keep guns trained, firing every few minutes for 
 luck, whether they sight anything or not. You get them 
 or you don't I should say they get us or don't. 
 
 "Ran full speed, I can assure you; a giddy rate of four or 
 five miles an hour, at the very least. But we'd no sooner 
 reached it than Zing! Boom! Weren't we excited, 
 though! The shells made such an unholy row that we
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 241 
 
 were almost deafened, for a while. As for Nadier, he went 
 quite deaf. But then, he had an extraordinary adventure. 
 
 "The first shell that came, before we could crouch 
 down, burst about twenty feet away. The pieces flew 
 over our heads, by good luck; or most of them did. The 
 shell itself, however, ripped up a bit of hard dirt, as it 
 struck, and sent this new sort of projectile flying. Hit 
 Nadier on the side of the head, and knocked him over, flat. 
 He knew he was stretched out by some hideous force, and 
 knew he must be killed. Didn't we laugh, Pazel and I! 
 It was ever so long before we could get our breath to call 
 him back to life. And then he couldn't hear. We shall 
 never allow him to forget his death and funeral. Because 
 we got up a funeral for him. Made him lie down, insisting 
 that the lorry was a hearse, and he had to behave like a self- 
 respecting corpse. To tell the truth, he was glad enough 
 to be quiet, poor chap, for he had a bad headache which 
 he would have been spared if he'd been killed, he said 
 mournfully. Pazel and I think he's indecently proud of 
 the 'wound' he got, a lump on the side of his head. He 
 tries to brag, but when we're about, we take the arrogance 
 out of him by observing it's on the wrong side, i.e., where 
 he toppled over and did his best to knock the floor out of 
 the lorry. 
 
 "People talk about the behaviour of our troops," he 
 went on, "and too much couldn't be said in their praise. 
 But what may not be realised is the splendid spirit found 
 among peasants and villagers behind the lines. Simply 
 wonderful! Talking of 'calm' seems inappropriate, when 
 cannon are booming all the time and shells bursting 
 everywhere; certainly nothing in the circumstances sug- 
 gests peace of mind. Yet the impression one gets is of 
 culm. Or else a clear, cool sense of duty. I don't know
 
 242 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 how to explain it; but it's there; and it isn't either in- 
 difference or ignorance. Men and women actually 
 within the army lines, surrounded by ravages, and threat- 
 ened every minute, just go on quietly with their work, 
 making the day fruitful. 
 
 "Yesterday, at one of the most dangerous points we 
 pass, a point where even foot soldiers are made to go 
 spaced out in groups of two or three, I saw an elderly 
 peasant ploughing. I slowed down to ask if things were 
 then so quiet. He answered Yes; some shells had fallen 
 in the next field an hour before, but none where he was. 
 (While he spoke, the cannon spoke too.) I asked if 
 he could keep at it every day. 'No; some days they 
 stop me,' and calling to his horse, he went on." 
 
 Writing to me thus, Paul little suspected that Verviller, 
 again threatened, was piecing out its existence under 
 rather similar conditions. Work in shops and fields 
 continued, without hesitation or murmur, and with that 
 limitless, sublime patience which has been one of the 
 most unexpected yet most complete developments in 
 France under the influences of a protracted as well as 
 cruel war. The details of its expression were such that 
 they might pass unnoticed, unless one looked closely. 
 Often one could not detect distress, from the appearance 
 or the conversation of those most affected. 
 
 One evening, for instance, I was invited to dine with 
 an officer and his wife at their hotel in Paris; was very 
 pleasantly entertained; and learned only accidentally, 
 in reply to a question as I left, that news had reached 
 them, shortly before my arrival, of the total loss of their 
 home in Soissons. On another occasion, a man I had 
 known for years began telling me of his brother-in-law, 
 whose factory was closed and the machinery rusting,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 243 
 
 whose wife and children were dependent on the charity 
 of various members of the family, and who had no hope 
 of avoiding insolvency at the end of the war: yet they 
 were all perfectly cheerful, and spoke or wrote of nothing 
 save affairs of general interest. While my friend talked, 
 I bethought me of his personal problems, and asked after 
 his affairs. "Mine? They no longer exist," he replied 
 simply; and reverted to the theme of his admirable 
 brother-in-law. 
 
 I related these and similar instances to Paul. 
 
 "Good!" he answered. "That's the sort of spirit 
 we want." 
 
 At about this time, I received a note from the Count, 
 now Captain de Vervillers, who had spoken to his Colonel 
 about Paul. Transfers from one service to another were 
 being avoided, at that juncture, for fear of causing con- 
 fusion; but soon all men fit for field service, including 
 many from the auxiliary, would have a turn at the front. 
 The Captain hoped we should not have to await this 
 development, but could not say more at present; and 
 advised Paul to be patient, doing his best where he was, 
 and deserving the esteem of his officers. Decidedly 
 vague; yet such as it was, I forwarded the letter to Paul 
 who found much comfort in it. 
 
 Gradually, his work had extended; sometimes he would 
 go off on long expeditions with those supplies of his, 
 whatever they were for he was held to discretion in 
 certain respects, and though I often had news, I rarely 
 could guess whence it came. He surprised me, then, with 
 a long, detailed letter, prompted, I suppose, by his thrilling 
 adventure and the profound indignation he felt. No 
 names were mentioned, yet the scene was not difficult 
 to identify.
 
 244 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "The three of us had been sent to D ," he wrote, 
 
 "with a special lot of stuff, and got there so late we were 
 told to wait until morning for our return orders. Un- 
 usual; for the place, often under fire, had been practically 
 evacuated. But a good many civilians have wanted to 
 stay. They tell you: 'After the war, there will be two 
 classes of people here, those who remained and those who 
 went away. We prefer to be among the first.* And in- 
 deed they are, among the first anywhere. Why, when 
 shells burst near them, in this town which isn't a military 
 centre and has no strategic value and is being bombarded 
 only so as to terrorise the population, when shells burst 
 near them, or blow up the house next to theirs, they 
 only But I'd better tell the story properly. 
 
 "Nadier and Pazel and I were put with our lorry in a 
 sort of shed. Had been a clearing hospital, I think; 
 big place, with a bomb-proof vault under it. I was 
 acting as corporal, and in the morning was about to start 
 for our orders, when two loud explosions rang out. The 
 first thought I had was that the famous fifteen-inch 
 naval gun had been trained on the town once more. 
 Yet the rare people I saw in the street didn't pay much 
 attention to the noise, and I told myself they knew more 
 about such tea-parties than I did. 
 
 "Meanwhile, cannon were booming every fifteen 
 seconds or so; I counted forty reports, but still nobody 
 except me seemed to be noticing, so I concluded it must 
 be target-practice. The reports sounded on; I counted 
 ninety or a hundred. Then a violent explosion came, 
 not like the others, but loud and sinister. The whole 
 street shook. Over the house-tops ahead of me, I saw 
 a huge blackish cloud shoot up, funnel-shaped, and hang 
 clammily in relief against the sky; its edges grew ragged
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 245 
 
 and frittered away slowly, until it had all shivered off into 
 the air. 
 
 "If I hadn't known then that it was a big naval shell, 
 there was plenty of outer evidence. People began running 
 in all directions; no element of panic, only running to 
 gain time. Whistles and sirens blew like twenty circus 
 steam pianos gone mad all at once. On the top of the 
 Belfry, a flag with thirteen blue and white stripes was 
 hoisted. That meant a bombardment. The people I had 
 seen running were bound for their cellars. 
 
 "I'll take my chances out in the streets, if it's a case 
 of big shells in an old-fashioned town; real military de- 
 fences are different from improvised places with buildings 
 over them waiting to collapse. The annoying thing 
 about these particular shells, fired from such a distance, 
 is that they follow a trajectory with a high curve, so 
 the whistling can't be heard; there's no warning and they 
 are timed to cut through several storeys before exploding. 
 I passed some houses that had been hit. Never saw 
 neater work. Brick, cement, timbers ripped apart, 
 from ground to roof; and the pieces, including samples 
 of houses on each side, scattered about as a child might 
 toss a handful of toys over the nursery floor. 
 
 "There were several other big explosions; the calls of 
 horns and sirens grew shriller; nobody was left in the 
 streets but a few officers and soldiers bound on errands. 
 
 "When I got to the barracks, the men said that aviators 
 always preceded the bombardments; one had come this 
 morning, to give the range, and sent down quite a number 
 of bombs, then escaped while the big gun got to work. 
 
 "My orders were to clear out. As I returned to Nadier 
 and Pazel, the explosions started once more bombs 
 from another aviatik. What our planes were doing, I
 
 246 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 can't imagine; gone too far afield chasing the first Germans, 
 I suppose. Anyhow, our land-batteries bombarded the 
 thing zealously. The aviatik seemed to be right over 
 my head, though it wasn't; and as the shells fired at it 
 would burst, they spread out in little painty white clouds, 
 consistent and clean-cut like those in old pictures with 
 a Saint walking on them. They hung up there in bunches 
 for ever so long, drifting with the wind and sinking 
 slowly. The aviatik, quite the contrary, rose very high, 
 beyond range, and vanished just as successfully. 
 
 "Some people had taken refuge in our bomb-proof. 
 I groped my way in, from curiosity. Men and women 
 sat quietly on chairs; no impatience, no anxiety only 
 waiting. One lady had brought her silver toilet articles 
 with her, I don't know whether to use or to save them; 
 others cherished small trifles. A lantern swung from a 
 beam, shedding a dim light on the strange, pathetic 
 group. They asked me if it was over, and I told them I 
 didn't know; the aviatik had come again. The general 
 verdict was that it might be well to stay down there a 
 while longer; they had already waited an hour or more, 
 patient and resigned. I heard not a word of complaint 
 or impatience. 
 
 "An English Red Cross lady told me that in the railway 
 sheds some nurses and wounded soldiers had been struck. 
 
 "Nothing more seemed to happen. The aviatik 
 was now after smaller game, preferable for purposes of 
 terrorising. We three soon knew, because our way lay 
 
 through the tiny town of B , five miles to the south, 
 
 on which the big shells were presently to fall. Unde- 
 fended, ungarrisoned, as harmless as a town can be, the 
 spectacle was appalling. 
 
 "In one of the first streets, a house reduced half to
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 247 
 
 dust lay on our right. A citizen came up with a dry 
 laugh: 'Don't waste your time over that. It's nothing. 
 See the Place Gambetta.' 
 
 "We went there. A corner house had positively been 
 blown over much of the square, and some pieces had 
 reached neighbouring streets. Only the walls of the 
 inner angle were standing, and these badly damaged; 
 of the houses on either side, one had lost its roof, the other 
 its upper storey, and both were out of plumb as if about 
 to collapse. Buildings in the same block were shattered, 
 and shutters and glasses smashed as far as the other end 
 of the square. The people who lived in the wrecked 
 house had gone out, all three of them, barely twenty 
 minutes before the shell came. 
 
 "The work of other shells had been as bad, or worse. 
 One had been aimed at the military infirmary, but fell 
 next door. I looked for vestiges to show that this mass 
 of nameless trash had been a house. Not a wall, not a 
 floor, not a stick of furniture could be identified; only the 
 chimney rose, a solid column above the trash-heap, and 
 a black crucifix still hung there, over the mantel of what 
 had been the second storey the only thing spared a 
 big Jansenist crucifix, with convulsed features and writh- 
 ing limbs. Horrible! One woman had been killed and 
 a man and a woman injured; and two were buried in the 
 cellar, beyond rescue. 
 
 " Citizens stood about, quite calm, answering questions 
 or volunteering monosyllabic information. No signs of 
 panic; they were not afraid, even; only very sad. They 
 said twelve were known to be killed, seven wounded. A few 
 townspeople were already on their way to Paris, but most 
 had decided to stick it out here; some were bound for 
 a village, believed to lie beyond range, for a few days.
 
 248 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "As we were leaving, we saw a crowd gathered round 
 a young woman who wore a hat with two red plumes 
 waving half a yard above her head. A gendarme was 
 questioning her. She claimed to have come from Paris 
 forty-eight hours ago to visit a sister about whom she 
 appeared imperfectly informed; her papers, when ex- 
 amined, proved irregular. From this discovery to the 
 belief she might be a spy responsible for the destruction 
 of the town, there was but a step. Yet as the gendarme 
 led her off to make further inquiries, no threats were 
 uttered. A grizzled convalescent soldier called out, 
 and the crowd approved: 'Take off those red plumes! 
 This is no place for Paris fashions our town is in mourn- 
 ing.' 
 
 "Along the road, we met many families on then* tem- 
 porary exodus from the stricken, heroic little place. 
 Most were mothers with young children; some carried 
 babies in their arms, pushing in front of them the carriages 
 with a few small necessaries. No tears nor despair 
 visible. But sadness and patience such patience! 
 
 "I can't stand much more of this sort of thing, really. 
 I'm capable of running away to join a fighting regiment, 
 though I risk being shot as a deserter. Do you know 
 why I was 'acting' corporal in that expedition of ours? 
 I refused the stripe when offered to me, because I feared 
 it might bind me to my present work." 
 
 II 
 
 WHEN I next heard from him, his address was " Corporal 
 P. Clermont." Perhaps he had had early intimation 
 that Captain de Vervillers was to prove even better than 
 the word which had brought faint encouragement. Heavy 
 losses presently caused the th Infantry to return
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 249 
 
 to its base and re-form. Acting on instructions from his 
 protector, and presumably seconded in high places, Paul 
 obtained a short leave, proceeded to the base, was in- 
 troduced to the Colonel; and the transfer became an ac- 
 complished fact. 
 
 Knowledge that the boy was happy comforted me as 
 time wore on with scant news from him. Often for a 
 week or more all I received would be a printed post-card, 
 from which the inappropriate formulas had been deleted, 
 and to which his signature and code address were added. 
 So I learned repeatedly of his being "well," and having 
 "received your letters," and promising to "write soon"; 
 while firm strokes of blue pencil denied such painful 
 facts as being wounded or in hospital. Then it would 
 be a written card, or perhaps a letter, but so hedged in 
 by discretion that, avoiding to speak of events or opera- 
 tions, he could give me little idea of his experiences. I 
 reproached him with this, stating that I knew soldiers 
 in trenches no less active than his, doubtless, who man- 
 aged to send much information to their family and friends. 
 To which he replied: "I don't know their orders (consigne) 
 but I know ours." 
 
 Brief and restrained though they were, these phrases 
 told their tale, when brought together; and if his former 
 attitude had filled me with confidence, the new reinforced 
 me with triple steel. The fine theory and generalisation 
 of his civilian and motor-lorry days had vanished. Re- 
 mote contingencies, or the opinion of people not doing 
 the active work, had ceased to count. One single idea 
 dominated. He and comrades whom he esteemed, 
 commanded by officers they loved, had before them a hard 
 task and a long one; but they were there to see it through, 
 and so the less said about it the better.
 
 250 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 One day, after much time had passed, a small packet 
 came for me. A letter from the Count de Vervillers 
 accompanied it: 
 
 DEAR MB. AUBRET, 
 
 I surprised our friend diligently scribbling in a journal he has, 
 it seems, kept for your benefit, since lengthy letters cannot be 
 sent always. We don't approve of the principle of diaries. 
 Accordingly I confiscated this book and the appended pages. 
 But I found nothing of a nature to compromise anybody, though 
 much will be of particular interest to you. Wherefore I forward 
 it with the assent of the author, whose new responsibilities give 
 him so much work that he says he would have been unable to 
 do more than finish the sentence interrupted when I surprised 
 him at this literary task. 
 
 The book is about twice the size it should be, for pur- 
 poses of entering a pocket conveniently; so its fate has 
 been to get folded down the middle and all but broken 
 in two. Material evidence shows that it formerly be- 
 longed to a German. As frontispiece appears a wood- 
 engraving of Emperor William II, looking perhaps twenty- 
 five years old, handsome as a whiskered Adonis, undaunted 
 as a pagan god, and inspired as a first-day saint. After 
 comes a map of this monarch's domains; then follow three 
 or four pages roughly scribbled in German, notes about 
 the regions crossed by the invaders. The author lacked 
 both observation and imagination; the outline for a love- 
 letter, interleaved, must have been cribbed from a popular 
 novel. The remaining pages were filled by Paul; and, 
 not having sufficed, are swollen out with ordinary letter- 
 paper at the end. 
 
 This spoil of war, as I discovered later, had been a 
 friendly offering from the most reprehensible character 
 jn his squad; an ex-butcher of La Villette and an Apache
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 251 
 
 "chief." The name Berral occurs frequently through- 
 out the narrative. 
 
 From their initial contact, Berral had been aggressive. 
 Older than the man newly placed in authority over him, 
 and more experienced in trench-fighting, he derided 
 the idea that any benefit could result from studying the 
 theory of war; the education obtained in such districts 
 as Belleville, Charonne, La Villette might be useful, but 
 not that found elsewhere in Paris. Respectful towards 
 officers, though his entire existence had previously con- 
 sisted of anarchistic insubordination, the ex-butcher 
 resented interference from non-coms, and more especially 
 from a simple gradS. Paul could probably have been 
 trusted for tactfulness in delicate situations; and good- 
 humour is a quality which has rarely failed him; but 
 firmness, which is the third main characteristic demanded 
 of a corporal, the firmness which never blinks a serious 
 fault nor represses a slight one, unvarying in quality 
 yet infinitely adaptable, could come only with the tests 
 which help to make it. Berral supplied many such tests, 
 I gather; and I supposed, when reading the diary, that 
 Paul had some modest feeling as of a debt towards this 
 man who had made the school a hard, hence effective one. 
 
 But there was more, which I shall put down here in its 
 proper place though I heard it from Paul's lips many months 
 after reading the diary. Small wonder our corporal 
 abstained from compromising his sympathetic ruffian by 
 noting the episode. 
 
 The weather was sultry; no clean water had been 
 available for very long; the wine had gone sour beyond 
 possibility of drinking; black coffee, served as sole bever- 
 age, had reduced the men to a state which varied from 
 extreme irritability to a heaviness approaching somnolence.
 
 252 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 In the course of an intolerably hot and lifeless afternoon, 
 a fresh supply of wine came. But there was not happiness 
 in its train: for, hi the hopeless days, Berral had won, at 
 cards, the next-portion- to-come of many comrades. 
 
 'That night, just before a round by Captain de Vervillers, 
 Paul crept out in time to save Berral's life, rousing him 
 from drunken slumbers on sentry-duty; the man's fear was 
 so great that he sobered almost instantly, and Paul knew 
 him well enough to believe there would be no further of- 
 fence. The Captain suspected something; in fact, a little 
 later he addressed to Paul a cryptic phrase which was a 
 discreet endorsement for unlawful initiatives in exceptional 
 cases. 
 
 As far as I know, Paul and Berral never discussed the 
 affair afterwards; but thenceforth the Apache-butcher be- 
 came the young corporal's slave, and the gift of this diary 
 was a part of the tribute. Paul writes : 
 
 He got it early in the war, when the dragoons were sent towards 
 the frontier. They met a lot of German boys, volunteers who 
 didn't know how to do anything but ride and shoot, without 
 training or discipline, just put on horseback and sent to skirmish 
 ahead of the army and burn and pillage and terrorise and kill 
 if they could, or get killed, clearing the road for real soldiers. 
 Berral galloped down the sergeant of such a detachment, and 
 stuck him in the back with his spear " Before he could turn 
 on me, you know!" I never would have thought of keeping a 
 diary if Berral hadn't taken this one, and kept it as a treasure 
 until he gave it to me. Good old Berral! 
 
 For Captain de Vervillers, Berral devised a different 
 form of tribute. There was, within full view of their 
 trenches, a farm which had been alternately held by 
 French and by Germans, according to the variable fortunes 
 of war; and the Germans occupied it now, but dared 
 frequent it only at night. Wherefore Berral, in broad
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 253 
 
 daylight, seized upon an hour's leisure to brave the 
 "Boches," walked over as the readiest of targets, plucked 
 a handful of flowers, and brought them back to the 
 Captain. 
 
 "Close shave," Paul's diary begins. The two words 
 stand alone, at the top of a page. 
 
 Bullet struck my cartridge-pouch, full force, and knocked 
 me down. Scattered the cartridges all over the ground. Why 
 they didn't go off, I can't imagine. Anyway, they stopped the 
 bullet and saved me. Nobody could guess my first notion when 
 I recovered my senses: to find those cartridges and know why 
 they hadn't gone off! Got only three; not the right ones, be- 
 cause they hadn't a scratch. The rest must have jumped a long 
 way. But more shots were raining all round me, and I got under 
 cover, not being a fool. 
 
 The next entry bears the melancholy head-line: "No 
 shots." 
 
 That's the best I can do as a date, already we can't count 
 the days; if we're not to be able to count events either, then 
 what shall we do for calendars? To-day has been quiet like a 
 week-day along the Mareille. If this sort of thing keeps up, 
 I shall regret the food-supply column. 
 
 Yet I know I need only put my head out through those bushes 
 stuck artificially between the trees on our hill-top, five yards 
 from me, and I shouldn't have any head left. One thing I've 
 learned is lhat the art of fighting doesn't necessarily consist 
 in getting killed. Captain de Vervillers tells us at every op- 
 portunity: "Courage is an admirable quality, but no soldier ought 
 to die before accounting for at least four of the enemy." The 
 first time he said that, all looked foolish. Since I've been 
 here, I don't believe any of us has accounted for anything save 
 provisions. 
 
 For some days after, the entries are short and desultory. 
 The men have been "improving" their quarters. One
 
 254 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 note head-lined "Grand Hotel" announces the completion 
 of that establishment. Another labelled "Casino" deals 
 rather vaguely with questions of internal decoration. A 
 third entitled "Day Walk" says that so many shots have 
 been fired at soldiers hi the path ordinarily used, near the 
 crest of their hill and leading from the bastions on the very 
 edge to the rest-camp in the woods of the far slope, that a 
 new "avenue," nicely screened, has been made; and the 
 other, shorter and more convenient, will become the 
 "Night Walk." Placards have been posted at "corners" 
 of these thoroughfares; "so that," Paul continues, "we 
 might think ourselves in Paris, on the Boulevard 
 especially at night." 
 
 The next entry, long, flowing, indignant, is a surprise: 
 
 NEWS. 
 
 A bunch of papers came this morning. We are all thoroughly 
 disgusted. Every one of these Parisian sheets talks about the 
 "comforts" of our trenches, and the merry lives we lead . . . 
 
 Hang it all, we may try to make the best of it; we may for- 
 get, sometimes, much that we are forced to tolerate; but to rep- 
 resent us as enjoying a sort of picnic, better off than if we were 
 at home, or else better off than mobilised workmen who draw 
 their ten or fifteen francs a day, as in peace times, while other 
 workmen, and masters and capitalists too, wearing the same 
 uniform, subject to the same laws, are drawing their few sous a 
 day and losing their health and seeing their business go to ruin 
 into the bargain. . . . 
 
 I say, next thing will be to propose a vote of thanks to the 
 Germans, and express our appreciation of this pleasant oppor- 
 tunity they give us for leading the simple life. It is true that 
 those who don't die of pneumonia or bronchitis, or get crippled 
 with rheumatism or infected with tuberculosis, do become hard- 
 ened so that nothing but steel or lead can scratch through their 
 hides. 
 
 This sort of newspaper talk is our own fault, I suppose. We 
 certainly can't be expected to adopt a depressed tone when
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 255 
 
 writing home. There's nothing to be depressed about. But 
 that isn't saying we lie on beds of roses and drink what is 
 the stuff heathen gods used to drink? Since it's got to be 
 done not the drinking, but the work we don't grumble. 
 It even gets to seem right and natural. But from that to telling 
 civilians we're enjoying ourselves more than at home. . . . 
 
 On the last page, I alluded in rather fine language to our new 
 quarters. Perhaps I, too, have contributed to keep that legend 
 going, without wanting to. For the sake of historic accuracy, 
 I might as well specify that our own underground city is really 
 comfortable when dry; and that rough platforms of interwoven 
 twigs laid out on the earth don't begin to float until water has 
 trickled in for quite a while. The "Grand Hotel" is furnished 
 with a depth of four inches of straw on the floor, truly a luxury; 
 and it has a window a foot square which lets in appreciable light. 
 As for the "Casino" and its decorations, these consist of news- 
 paper jokes and sketches stuck over a shelf built into the logs 
 of the inner wall. Luxuries being of a relative nature, it's as 
 well to define them before getting excited. 
 
 Old Andresy has fallen into another of his melancholy moods. 
 I believe the articles are responsible. He came and sat down 
 by me as I wrote, and began to chatter in his usual way about 
 anything he sees or the first notion that enters his head. Of 
 course I let him run on. A man near the forties, discharged 
 for ill-health when trying to do his military service fifteen 
 years ago, who enlisted at once when the war began, without 
 waiting to be called up and examined of course we admire and 
 humour him. He's done a lot of fighting already, and been 
 wounded. 
 
 "I hope I get shot soon again," says he. 
 
 "Easy enough," say I. "Just look out through those 
 bushes " 
 
 "I don't want to die; I've got a wife and children," he went 
 on. "A bullet in the arm or leg, you know; doesn't hurt much, 
 and really doesn't matter. Better than fighting day after 
 day up to your knees in the water of trenches. You notice the 
 sky seems clouding over? You may recover from a bullet, but 
 once you begin with 'pains' they stay for life. I'd give a hun- 
 dred sous to a Boche to put another bullet in me, quick."
 
 256 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 He laughed. So did I. He grew very solemn and watched 
 me for some moments before saying: 
 
 "You may laugh, but I don't think it's funny." 
 
 "1 laughed because you did," I answered. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose we all try to make the best of it," he said, 
 seeming to remember. "But the only fun we had was long 
 before you came. It has stopped, now. It was in the days 
 when we dug ditches for trenches anywhere, and neither army 
 knew what it was walking into. There would be no firing, and 
 we would see the enemy coming along, quite innocent; and each 
 of us would pick his man. We said to one another, I'll take 
 that little one over there! You settle the big one on the left! 
 Which one will you drop? And so on. Then we'd get the 
 order to fire. Very funny, to see a man tumble over when you 
 have picked him out while he walked quietly along, jesting and 
 not suspecting anything! We cheered each other when our aim 
 was good and we'd kept our word. But when the answering 
 volley came, and our men died, it wasn't funny any more. No, 
 the only real fun is in picking your Boche and killing him at 
 the first discharge." 
 
 Andresy looked quite mad, as he spoke. Strange, but the face 
 of every man changes when he speaks of those he's killed. It's 
 what we are here for; yet none of us seems capable of it until we 
 get started on a charge, or else are attacked; then we go mad, 
 and get mad when we recall it. Or perhaps it's another sort of na- 
 ture that was already in us, deep down, and comes to the surface. 
 
 I didn't know what to answer. Which didn't matter, be- 
 cause Andresy became himself again, but more and more melan- 
 choly. Such a brave and simple soldier; so willing in small 
 things, and never complaining of what he has to do. Since he 
 gets satisfaction from occasional Hamletising, I don't stop him. 
 
 "We're being killed off at such a rate," he continued, "that 
 if the war lasts another six months I don't believe a single one 
 of us now fighting will still be alive." After a silence he con- 
 cluded: "When a black is in danger, or dying, he cries:' Marabout! 
 Marabout I' Means fate, I suppose, or God. That makes him 
 happy. I don't know what I shall say when my turn comes. 
 But I know I haven't ever seen Marabout, and I have seen 
 life and it's good!"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 257 
 
 I am happy to add that when Andresy appears once 
 again, on the very next page, it is in a group of radiant 
 soldiers, including the Apache Berral, who have rescued 
 three kittens under a bush and have decided to adopt 
 them as children of the regiment. Andresy has taken 
 off his coat to make a bed for them, and Berral looks 
 annoyed, for a moment, that he did not think of this 
 first; but all join in gleeful exclamations when one kitten 
 discovers that a sleeve is a tunnel in which games of 
 choo-choo cars can be organised, whereupon this infant 
 prodigy is baptised a "poilu." 
 
 Now Paul finds a classical quotation for his date, taking 
 it from that tragedy of Shakespeare's which I have pointed 
 out to him as the neglected contrast which serves to 
 illuminate Hamlet. What, indeed, could be more evident 
 than the relation between a king who meditates more than 
 is good for him after each event, and the prince who 
 meditates too much before? 
 
 "Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs." 
 
 Andresy started it. Said he never was afraid except once; 
 the first time he was under fire, but not when it started. They 
 were in the trenches, both sides going pretty hot, all aiming and 
 shooting regularly. 
 
 "The man next to me was a good friend of mine," Andresy 
 went on. "I said something and he was answering; my eyes 
 were on him. A bullet struck him over the nose, between 'the 
 eyes, and came out at the back of his head. Killed him clean, 
 in less than a second, while he was speaking and I watching 
 him. I couldn't fire for another ten minutes. Too badly 
 frightened to move. I lay where I'd been, and he lay where 
 he'd been; only I was alive and he was dead. In those ten 
 minutes I got used to the idea. So I caught up my gun and 
 went to work. It's seemed quite natural, since." 
 
 "You took it better than I did," Berral observed. "I was 
 lying in the trenches; our company was being slowly driven
 
 258 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 back all along the line. A lot of men had been killed, and 
 the others were withdrawing singly or in groups. One comrade 
 and I were the last to stay, just to take a few more shots. I 
 fired, and my friend didn't follow it up. 'He thinks it's time 
 we went too,' I said to myself; so I said aloud, 'Well, old man, 
 are we going?' I put out my hand as I spoke, and touched 
 him. He'd been killed only a moment before bullet in the 
 heart. I was alone in that trench with the dead. And I can 
 tell you I jumped up and RAN! Didn't care about the bullets 
 I drew on myself. All I cared was to get out of that place, 
 dead or alive!" 
 
 Constant had been listening in that dreamy way of his, 
 but hadn't made a remark. Looked as if he wanted to, but 
 didn't know how to begin. His face was shaved and unshaved, 
 of course. The ends of his long moustache never can find a 
 rest-place on the stubble. 
 
 "What about you?" Berral asked. 
 
 "When I was wounded," said Constant, "I'd been sent through 
 a wood with a despatch calling for reinforcements. I hadn't 
 gone very far when I pitched forward. Didn't know I was down 
 till the visor of my cap struck the ground. Then " 
 
 "Yes," Berral interrupted, "but we're talking about fear. 
 How was it when you first felt afraid?" 
 
 Constant's lank face was quite expressionless. 
 
 "The first time I was on a battle-field I didn't like it," he 
 admitted presently. "The second time, I minded less. The 
 third time, I don't believe I minded at all." 
 
 That was all we could get out of him. I may be wrong, 
 but he struck me as one of those who haven't yet roused to what 
 fear means. Brave men aren't afraid of being afraid, and cow- 
 ards are afraid of acknowledging it; between the two come heavy- 
 minded people who fail to realise, but who wake up sooner or 
 later and get a shock. 
 
 The diary abruptly changes tone; the descriptive 
 character towards which it was tending falls away, and 
 the proportion of sentiment dwindles. A shift of scene 
 has something to do with this; increased tenseness of
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 259 
 
 life, and gradual custom of hardship, add their share. 
 From the hill-top they guarded, these men have been 
 brought down into the series of trenches which carry on 
 the defences from the rolling ground at its foot, over a 
 gentle rise, to the valley of a small river. Behind the 
 third trench is a forest where heavy guns gape ready to 
 support advances and to defy attacks; and again beyond 
 these, blockhouses have been built wherever roads cross. 
 But the men consider themselves an invincible host and 
 scorn such precautions. Of these details, the last alone 
 is mentioned in writing by Paul. 
 
 Not only have his entries become short, but the 
 language undergoes a change. The English which was 
 fluent at the start becomes erratic; yet he persists in it, 
 observing that this will "help to entertain his hand " 
 which would be good French. Where a word escapes 
 him, or perhaps I should say where he is conscious of 
 not finding it, he slips in a French one, sometimes sug- 
 gesting several English equivalents. His soldier-vocabu- 
 lary sits easily on him; beef becomes singe, bread boule, 
 wine pinard; a man is no longer mad but patraque, and 
 suffers not from homesickness but from cafard; he airily 
 alludes to having been sauce by the enemy's guns, and 
 is modest enough to mention fellow-corporals as cabots. 
 
 No complaint about lack of events now; and slight 
 allusion to them, because they occur too frequently. 
 The first-line trench was very near the Germans, in that 
 smiling valley. On days when all remained quiet, the 
 strain proved terrible; at night sentinels, when relieved, 
 would collapse after the nervous tension of fancying an 
 enemy's hands ever closing upon their throats. One 
 man Chapard, of the bright black eyes, who got excited 
 so easily and never would take anything seriously rose
 
 260 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 up, from bravado, as he fired; the bullets which whistled 
 about him did no harm. 
 
 "I'll do that again, three times!" he cried out. Paul 
 writes. 
 
 We hadn't time to stop him. They seemed to be playing 
 with him, for he was able to do it twice, while I tried to get to 
 him. He rose again just as I caught him, and fell back on me, 
 dead. I couldn't help telling the others it served him right 
 for being a fool. 
 
 A week later, Paul returns to the diary, which he had 
 neglected : 
 
 Something prompted me to ask for news of the Marquis, to- 
 night. We are in rest-camp; things have been severe, of late, 
 our trenches to rebuild in part each day because of the fire, 
 and no water reaching us; but of course drill began once more 
 as soon as we got here, so the men should remain orderly. 
 
 The Captain started at my question, and asked: "What 
 made you come at this moment?" I told him it was impulse. 
 Only then, I noticed he held a letter. "Five minutes ago, I 
 learned of my father's death a soldier's death," he said. I 
 understood. We have heard about the old reserve officers, 
 many retired because of their age, but more for incompetence, 
 and the public confuses the two. I am sure the Marquis ex- 
 posed himself to death rather than risk a seeming disgrace. 
 
 Some days later, a brief note: 
 
 It's true. The Marqu's drew a sword he had got especially, 
 and charged tt the head of his men. He died in time the 
 order for his retirement was on the way. That's what I call 
 a soldier. 
 
 The pages that follow are filled with careless, fragmen- 
 tary lines, so summarily condensed as to be often inco- 
 herent. Yet through them thrills a spirit that tells, as 
 it were without words, the story of patient waiting,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 261 
 
 of stolid endurance, of valiant self-abnegation, of desper- 
 ate initiative at rare times and of resolute good-will 
 at others when the strain is heaviest; that story of sound, 
 simple faith and of the courage sublime because humble, 
 which have made the war glorious despite its horrors by 
 ennobling those who, having sacrificed most heavily, 
 have proved worthiest of their trust. 
 
 Here we are, returned. I thought we'd stay there. Berral, 
 Andresy, and Constant are still ours the last shaved and 
 unshaved, as by habit. But his tall, loose, bony form did such 
 good besogne (business? execution?) that I shall not call him 
 a hesitant character any more. 
 
 It was five, six days ago? I do not know. We attacked, 
 
 to retake the patelin of . (Village or hamlet. Bunch 
 
 of houses. For what remained of it, we could have left it, 
 and the Boches too. But we wanted it.) 
 
 Our company was not on that side. We must attack by 
 the plain. We started like fine devils. I don't know how 
 I and thirty men we were found separated from the others. I 
 alone as non-com! A true pagaille. (What's mdlimilo in Eng- 
 lish? I forget. Something like mix-up.) It must be said 
 that we had fought very much, and then, you understand. . . . 
 (That is a good formula, when one does not oneself understand 
 at all.) 
 
 The Boches have pushed forward, their new V-trench is 
 between us and ours, we are cut off. But they must think we 
 menace from this side, they must believe us a battalion at 
 least. I spread out my men. If I know not how to do the 
 officer, I commence all the same to be something of a juteux. 
 (What's the rank of adjutant in English? I think I have never 
 known.) 
 
 I order a fire of the devil to begin when ours, over there, 
 open fire. We have many cartridges, and in all cases we can 
 only fight to the end. Here we are, it commences. My "bat- 
 talion " maintains the honour of the army of General . 
 
 Night fell. There we were, surrounded. Or not quite. 
 The Boches had evacuated a small piece of isolated trench, where
 
 262 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 they were hard-pushed by ours. God knows how we shoved into 
 it and got in the earth. Soon came the black night. Nothing 
 more we could do, so we all rested on our positions. We thirty 
 took turns sleeping, and we kept very quiet, I can promise you, 
 not being sure whether we were at home or across the way. 
 
 Suddenly Constant whispers to me, "They're attacking!" I 
 look, and say, "Yes, they are." 
 
 With my glasses, I saw an army advancing, but from the 
 far plain. The points of their helmets were clear in the night. 
 At their head, a tall superior officer, though I could not count 
 the stripes to know if he was colonel or major. He accompanied 
 a stout general officer, whose stars shone at moments. 
 
 My men wished to fire. I thought better to draw the enemy 
 on a little. We were bound to die; but our men, warned by us, 
 could do better execution at close quarters. 
 
 The advance continued. What was the most impressive 
 thing was the absolute silence. Movements of officers and men 
 could be observed, but no sound was heard. Our men always 
 make a little noise; there's the click of metal or the cry of trap- 
 pings to give us away. 
 
 "An example of what perfect discipline means," I whispered 
 to the nearest to me. 
 
 Yet the advance did not progress. I concluded I must see 
 more. Very cautiously, I raised myself. 
 
 What we had seen was the waving heads of plants; the tall 
 colonel was a slim tree afar; the general was a bush with a star 
 behind it, half -hidden by leaves. And all of us had seen alike; 
 and I had had great trouble to hold my men's fire. 
 
 The Captain says I spared our army an alarm which might 
 have precipitated an engagement and compromised our chances. 
 
 But with all that, nothing to eat. Luckily, Berral, always 
 fureteur by nature, manages to dfyoter some Boche stores, 
 hams, etc. Confitures, too. All hidden in the earth, where 
 he found them. (If you didn't know what it is to dtgoter, you 
 know now.) 
 
 Three days of this life. The last, nothing to eat or drink. 
 I have to calm my men; they enervate themselves, and wish 
 to charge. But I say to them, "It is not that I attach to your 
 skins or mine a value they have not. But don't you see, im-
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 263 
 
 beciles that you are, that you should betray all the secret of the 
 comedy? We are believed to be hundreds." Already, we 
 had two lost. 
 
 In the morning it was we took the offensive. Our real troops, 
 
 I mean. The patelin of was definitely taken. The Germans, 
 
 driven back, came towards us. Now was our time. I told 
 the men we must try to cut a path through. Most of us would 
 stay there, but those who fell would help save the rest. They 
 all shook hands with me to say good-bye, and I ordered the 
 charge. It was awful. We got through on this side only thir- 
 teen. I am promoted Sergeant; Berral and Andresy, and four 
 others pass corporals; the six that remain, including Constant, 
 from simple soldiers, become first-class. 
 
 But it makes a droll effect on me, to know the Boches in- 
 stalled in our 
 
 Here breaks off the story. Had Paul not been inter- 
 rupted, fate was even then preparing for the whole diary 
 an end so complete that it would never have been read 
 by any who had a right to it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A YOUNG Frenchman, having many unusual points 
 in his appearance, attracted much attention when he 
 entered a train bound for Paris, after a short stop at a 
 junction connecting with the north. Clad hah* in uniform 
 and otherwise suggesting a tourist, he was very young, 
 but the gold stripe proclaiming him a sergeant glittered 
 on a cap of the new model; from chin to puttees, which 
 were of the regulation sort, an ordinary macintosh en- 
 veloped him, though the weather was fine. His face, 
 pale and wasted, had an almost furtive expression about 
 its sunken eyes. Unencumbered by luggage, having 
 not so much as a small bag, he jumped into a second-class 
 compartment, and immediately took out some cigarettes, 
 asking two ladies if he might smoke.
 
 264 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "Have one? They're Dutch," he said to a man in the 
 corner next to him. 
 
 The man suspiciously exchanged glances with his vis-a- 
 vis: both were middle-aged, and of the very middle-class. 
 
 "So you went to Holland to get these?" asked the man, 
 surveying the Sergeant. 
 
 "Yes! Just got back. Taken prisoner and escaped. 
 Was a fugitive for months. Slow work, you understand; 
 any mistake meant death. Passed through Holland to 
 England. Reached France last night. Tried to get in- 
 formation about my corps, and missed the train." 
 
 Meanwhile, the man had decided he could afford a 
 smoke in such company. He took one of the proffered 
 cigarettes; so did his vis-a-vis. 
 
 The Sergeant went on: 
 
 "I'm wearing any clothes I could got. Managed to 
 secure a cap with the right sort of stripe, and some put- 
 tees; then this to hide the rest." He opened the macin- 
 tosh, and displayed a civilian coat and shirt. " Anything, 
 rather than be without a uniform. Don't want to be 
 mistaken for some sort of an ambushed brother. Rather 
 be thought a spy! That happened to me once, because 
 I had no papers. But I've got papers now a Belgian 
 passport." He took it out, unfolded it, read it to him- 
 self, and put it back in his pocket-book. 
 
 By this time his manner, far more than his words, 
 had won the sympathy and the confidence of those seated 
 near him. There were the two men already mentioned; 
 a little lady who had produced her knitting and murmured 
 occasional encouragement; an English-looking civilian 
 who listened attentively. Another lady, however, in the 
 far corner, and a tall gentleman evidently her husband 
 both were in stiff, intense mourning, and so uncongenial
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 265 
 
 that only ties of /matrimony could have held them within 
 a yard of each other showed unity of views in their 
 extreme disapproval of the entire performance. 
 
 "You say you escaped from the Germans?" the little 
 lady prompted. 
 
 "Jumped from the train," the Sergeant began again, 
 eagerly. "I'd Jbeen put with others in a cattle-car. 
 The officer responsible for us had closed the doors, of 
 course. But as soon as he left, the soldiers on guard 
 began to drink. You rarely find a German soldier without 
 his beer, but you never find him without his schnapps. 
 So they fell to drinking schnapps. It was very hot, and 
 the heat and the schnapps together were too much for 
 them. They opened the door of our car just a little, 
 to get air to breathe. Then I knew I should have my 
 chance. I must say for them that they were good sorts, 
 apart from their drunkenness. Landwehr soldiers; not 
 at all like the non-com in charge, who was a brute. First 
 thing he did when taking me prisoner was to kick me. 
 One of our lieutenants, captured with me, was kicked so 
 as to be badly injured. If you know what a Prussian 
 officer's boot is like, you will understand. They ought 
 to be put in museums as curiosities, those boots. 
 
 "I watched for my opportunity when the soldiers were 
 very drunk and not noticing. We'd been going a long 
 while; rate, eighteen or twenty miles an hour. No way 
 for me to see where we were nor what obstacles lay out 
 there. I just made for the door, jerked it wider, and 
 jumped on the chance of landing somewhere and not 
 being killed. As it happened, I only hurt my knee. 
 Scrambling to my feet, I limped off, to get as far as possible 
 from the railway. When I dared stop, I got my bearings 
 and started westward."
 
 266 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "By the stars?" murmured the little knitter, roman- 
 tically. 
 
 " No, by my compass. Hidden in my puttees, it escaped 
 the men who searched me. They confiscated everything 
 else, except my money. When I left for the front, I 
 didn't want to make much; said it would only be lost if 
 I was killed, or stolen if I fell prisoner. But my" he 
 hesitated "my family insisted that I must take a large 
 sum. Well, if it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't be 
 here now. Do you know how much I have left out of a 
 thousand francs? Barely forty!" 
 
 "So you started westward," prompted the English- 
 looking civilian. 
 
 "Yes. I thought if our troops had broken through the 
 lines I might reach them, somehow. Not much to gamble 
 on, but as good as anything I could think of. Thinking 
 wasn't easy, either. I'd had a touch of gas, though I 
 was a mile away from the main attack where men were 
 falling and dying like flies. But a suggestion of the fumes 
 came our way, and rather blinded and very much stupefied 
 us for a time, though we weren't really ill. It was a 
 dreadful sight, far off that heavy, greenish cloud, close 
 to the ground, creeping along and enveloping the trench 
 as a cloth slips over a table's edge; it rose high, too, some 
 eighty feet, I should judge, turning gradually to a greenish 
 yellow. And wasn't it strong! Men who stooped to 
 pick up their guns after dropping them, or who fell at 
 the first contact, never got up again. We had masks, 
 only we weren't wearing them; some of us it was my 
 case, for instance were detailed on special duties. Then 
 the Germans attacked all along the line. First thing I 
 knew my gun lay on the ground and several bayonets 
 were against my chest. What could I do?"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 267 
 
 "There were no after effects?" asked the English- 
 looking civilian. 
 
 "Oh, yes; but mild; I hadn't been really gassed, you 
 know. My throat got chronically inflamed, and my 
 eyes remained watery for weeks. But that was nothing." 
 
 "The Boches didn't maltreat you, at least?" queried 
 the little lady. 
 
 "Only kicked me to make me be good. They finished 
 off a number of our men who were badly wounded, though ; 
 so as to send only the sound ones back to work for them 
 in camps, I suppose. I was lucky enough to be considered 
 sound. When I tumbled out of that train and hurt my 
 knee, adding that to a bad headache and what I've al- 
 ready described, I felt as if I didn't care to go far. Yet 
 there was nothing else to be done. I didn't dare inquire 
 my way, as you can imagine; so I was bound to wander 
 aside and in loops. 
 
 "When daylight came, I got civilian clothes. Some 
 good people, Belgians, wanted to give them to me, but 
 I insisted on paying five francs. More to make sure of 
 their good-will than anything else. Peasant clothes were 
 what I had chosen; I was to be a young peasant looking 
 for work. 
 
 "I had to learn something about the country, and also 
 get a notion of the accent and pick up a vocabulary. 
 So as to avoid attention, I used to hide during the entire 
 day, and start walking westward as soon as night came. 
 To eat, I depended mainly on what I could find in the 
 fields. Afraid to go about buying or begging food, you 
 see. When I had to choose between showing myself 
 or starving, I would observe people before approaching. 
 My story about the young peasant, who hadn't been 
 taken for the army because his heart was wrong, went
 
 268 THE GIFT OF PAtfL CLERMONT 
 
 down with everybody I spoke to, though many knew better 
 I'm sure. Still, I might run across a traitor; and German 
 spies and agents were everywhere. I got to know them 
 by their ways and appearance, so I avoided any I spotted; 
 but one might have come up suddenly. 
 
 "Beet-root, turnips, carrots, cabbage, anything that 
 grew was good enough. Beet-root was the best it 
 served as dessert. Sometimes I went hungry. That 
 didn't matter much; the awful thing was when I had to go 
 thirsty. Beet-root saved me several times, being food 
 and drink; the European bread-and-water tree. When 
 vegetables ran short in a field, it was often because of a 
 battle there at one period or another. Then I would 
 search for tins of preserved stuff. Sometimes I would 
 find one that had belonged to a dead soldier. Not nice 
 to think of; but I do the thinking now. Then, I was hun- 
 gry- 
 
 " Of course I would be reduced to buying food, at times. 
 Once I bought a sausage; I was carrying it in a bag a 
 peasant had given me, when I came to a deserted house 
 guarded by a lonely little dog. The thinnest thing I 
 ever saw. He must have been for days and days without 
 food. You ought to have seen him eat that sausage! 
 Does me good to remember it. He wanted to follow me, 
 afterwards, and I thought he and I would make a good 
 pair, both homeless and half-starved. So we travelled 
 on together. In a village some kind-looking people 
 asked me to give him to them. He wanted to stay with 
 me, and I'd grown attached to him; but I knew he ought 
 to take a home while he could get it. So I went on alone." 
 
 "Did you actually see our trenches from the German 
 side?" asked the little knitter. 
 
 " Luckily not. Though my knee got worse, my general
 
 THE GIFT OF PAtL CLERMONT 269 
 
 bruises improved as days went by, and then I recovered 
 something of my senses. Even supposing I could capture 
 three or four lines of German trenches from behind, which 
 wasn't really likely, you know, I would have stood a poor 
 chance, marching full into the face of our own trenches, 
 rigged out as I was. That game was no good, so I made 
 up my mind to steer northeast and get out by way of 
 Holland, if I took a year to do it." 
 
 "You must have wandered very far and very long!" 
 sighed the little lady. The clicking of her needles had 
 never ceased. 
 
 "With rheumatism settling in my knee, too," he said. 
 "If I didn't dare buy food, you can imagine I didn't 
 dare get medical help. Sleeping out in the open when 
 winter comes, without even a blanket, isn't particularly 
 good for the constitution. As a soldier, I'd slept in 
 clover in a sleeping-sack. But this was a case of bare 
 ground." 
 
 "What were you afraid of?" asked the English-looking 
 civilian. "There must be some Belgians left in Belgium 
 and the Germans can't be everywhere at once." 
 
 "If they were anywhere near, I was in danger of being 
 denounced as a soldier; and the natives might have taken 
 me for a spy. When I couldn't help showing myself, 
 I spent whatever money was necessary for hushing people. 
 Once, in a village where there were German soldiers, a 
 peasant came up to me. He said, 'Toi soldat,' I denied 
 it. He said again, 'You're a soldier' still in his dialect. 
 He was rough, and poor -looking; two starving children 
 with him. I decided I must bribe, and bribe high. 
 But money was going fast at this game. I hesitated an 
 instant, calculating what was the utmost I dared give 
 for my life this time. All of a sudden he drew a five-
 
 270 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 franc piece from his pocket and tried to give it to me. 
 'You're a soldier!' he said. 'You don't trust me! I'll 
 help you!' He spoke funny, broken French: ' Toi soldat! 
 Toi pas confiance en moi! Moi aider toi!' I told him 
 to keep the money for his children; that wasn't what I 
 needed. My life depended on avoiding attention; so if 
 he really wanted to help me, please go away." 
 
 The Sergeant lighted another cigarette, after passing 
 round the package; this time, he included the English- 
 looking civilian. Smoking silently for some moments, 
 he rested his eyes deliberately on each of those who had 
 been his listeners. It was a swift, sliding glance, which 
 always ended far to one side or on the floor. 
 
 "You notice? Funny! I can't look a single one of 
 you in the eye," he said. "Must seem compromising 
 shady character, and all that. A habit I got into. I 
 knew the only way to avoid attention was by never looking 
 at anybody. But I had to know what was going on 
 about me, and hear what people said. So I practiced 
 never looking straight at anything, and seeing a little 
 out of the corner of my eyes; and when I was compelled 
 to look straight, I'd glide my eyes away as quick as I 
 could. Took a lot of practice before it came naturally. 
 Now, I find it hard to look straight my eyes slip away 
 of themselves!" 
 
 " Incidentally, they must have seen a great deal, all the 
 same," the civilian suggested. 
 
 "Yes. But remember I had to avoid places where 
 much was occurring. Went to Brussels, though; my 
 knee had to be seen to, I couldn't walk any more, and 
 that seemed the safest town because the biggest. Besides, 
 at Brussels there's a hospital run by French civilians. 
 The surgeon observed me closely. ' Surely ' he began .
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 271 
 
 ' Yes, but don't give me away ! ' I whispered. He'd been 
 regimental surgeon at my first base in France!" 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Then I got better, and took to the road once more. 
 By that time I'd covered quite a lot of country and got a 
 pretty good idea of the way things were." He searched 
 in his pocket and produced a note-book. "I wish I 
 could have taken notes. All this I made up from memory, 
 in Holland. I had destroyed whatever papers were 
 left to me, of course, so the Germans shouldn't be able 
 to identify me if I got caught. My military livret had 
 disappeared rather peculiarly. The Germans thought 
 I was a second lieutenant because the only gold braid 
 I'd been able to get was narrow instead of broad; so they 
 were treating me as an officer, and you may be sure I 
 didn't undeceive them. But my official papers gave me 
 away, and the sous-off' who held them went to correct 
 the mistake. By the greatest luck, one of our shells 
 came along and mixed him all up with what remained 
 of my property!" 
 
 "Did you witness any atrocities?" asked the little 
 knitter in an awed tone. Somehow, atrocities always 
 seem to fascinate little knitters in trains. 
 
 "I have a good deal of evidence here; they have been 
 exaggerated by report, you know, but they were real. 
 My regimental doctor had dealt with one particularly 
 horrible case, there in Brussels a baby nine months old, 
 with both hands cut off at the wrist and both feet at the 
 ankle. The mother asked the doctor if it wouldn't be bet- 
 ter to chloroform it before it grew old enough to know." 
 
 There was a silence. He broke it himself: 
 
 "Those weren't the things I wanted to learn. I'm a 
 soldier, and I was after military things."
 
 272 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 He turned the pages of his note-book, while the train 
 rolled on. No one spoke. Presently he began again: 
 
 "I was taken for a spy but luckily I was safe, then. 
 I managed to slip across the frontier to Holland, and 
 turned up at a Belgian consulate to ask for a passport. 
 I hadn't a single paper to identify me. But my trouble 
 didn't come there. 
 
 "The consul said, 'What's your nationality?' I an- 
 swered, 'French.' He said, 'Where do you want to go?' 
 I answered, 'England.' He said, 'What do you want to 
 do there?' 'Work,' I said. Then he asked me, answering 
 the question himself, 'Not to be a soldier? No!' That 
 was his formula. 
 
 "Several young Belgians came in who had crossed 
 the frontier together, although it's harder and harder to 
 do. They all wanted to go to England to 'work,' and of 
 each one he asked, answering himself, ' Not to be a soldier? 
 No!' Being the consul of an allied power, he could give 
 me a passport as a Frenchman; and so he did, though it's 
 a Belgian passport. That being done without difficulty, 
 I started off feeling as if I were almost home again. 
 
 "But the British consul at Rotterdam wasn't so easy. 
 Asked me a lot of questions, trying to trip me up. Wanted 
 to know if I spoke German and I do, six words! Con- 
 sidered my knowledge of English very compromising. 
 Finally told me I might leave, but not that day the 
 next. If he had had me arrested that night, I shouldn't 
 have been a bit surprised. But I suppose he couldn't 
 have taken me up in a neutral country, and he had a 
 better scheme. I left next day, quite happy, and found 
 myself the object of especial and not flattering attentions 
 at Folkestone. My description, with a statement of my 
 case, had been sent on in advance."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 273 
 
 "But you got through all right?" questioned the 
 civilian. 
 
 " Rather, or I shouldn't be here," the other said simply. 
 
 By a happy inspiration, the little knitter asked what 
 the civilian had evidently been about to ask next. It 
 came more gracefully from her. 
 
 "How did you get across the frontier to Holland? 
 You forgot to tell us." 
 
 "No. I didn't forget." The Sergeant paused and 
 reflected while putting away his note-book. "But that's 
 one of the things I can't talk about, much. Shouldn't 
 like to get any of my Belgian friends into trouble, you 
 understand." 
 
 "Oh! So they managed it for you?" 
 
 "It began with the father of the starving children. He 
 followed me without my knowing it, and crept up that 
 night as I lay under a bush. I'm not ashamed to say I 
 was frightened when he touched me. Thought myself 
 caught, you know. And it seemed hard, after so many 
 months and efforts ! I wouldn't have minded being killed 
 in battle, or when jumping from the train, or else being 
 caught and shot within a few weeks. At all events I 
 didn't mind the idea of it. But to be bagged as I slept 
 under a bush, after months and months of tramping and 
 dodging and starving I hated the idea of dying then! 
 But he whispered: ' Soldat moi ami/' 
 
 "I recognised his voice and his idiom. He went on to 
 tell me that he would help me to hide for some days, and 
 would get in touch with his circle of friends. After I'd 
 been in his cellar several days, he said all was ready 
 and lent me his own passport to go as far as the next town. 
 Meant death for him as well as for myself if I'd been 
 caught. I hid again, with the help of new friends, in
 
 274 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 this town, and went on once more with another borrowed 
 passport. This continued until I reached the proper 
 point near the frontier. It seemed to be a whole system, 
 very perfect, working without a flaw." 
 
 " But I thought the frontier bristled with sentinels and 
 was a maze of wires," the civilian ventured. 
 
 "Both terms are mild, considering. But if you've 
 practiced skulking in fields and under hedges for a good 
 many months, you may creep very close to a sentinel, 
 and can lie like dead for quite a few hours knowing you 
 will be dead sure enough if you're seen. As for their 
 wires and electricity and the rest, rubber gloves sometimes 
 help. It's just possible, too, that special points of the 
 frontier must be chosen, because of the nature of their 
 soil. But that's a problem I shall let you work out for 
 yourself." 
 
 The train halted abruptly. A guard passed by the 
 windows, ordering all passengers to alight. The sedate 
 and reserved lady and gentleman seized upon their 
 bags and fled, after darting alarmed glances at the com- 
 promising sergeant. The little lady and the English- 
 looking civilian pluckily remained with him. The other 
 travellers had already left the train, at a previous station. 
 
 " I have been very much interested in what you had to 
 say," the civilian remarked. 
 
 The Sergeant laughed: 
 
 "Why, I have simply rattled on about anything that 
 passed through my mind! After so many months of 
 either silence or discretion, you can't imagine what it 
 means to be able to turn one's tongue loose among one's 
 own people. Even in England I had to be rather careful, 
 you know; couldn't make friends very well, because my 
 papers weren't exactly conventional, and I didn't know
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 275 
 
 a soul in the whole country who could identify me. And 
 then my note-book might have looked queer, among 
 strangers." 
 
 "That must be full of interesting things," the civilian 
 said meditatively. 
 
 The Sergeant, equally meditative but with eyes fixed 
 very positively on distant objects, did not appear to have 
 heard. 
 
 "Might I see that note-book?" the civilian asked. 
 
 "Oh, impossible!" the Sergeant exclaimed. "This 
 information is for my government, if it can be of any 
 use." 
 
 The passengers ahead, having hesitated in confusion for 
 some minutes, were now streaming out of the station. 
 Guards instructed them to follow the country road to 
 their right. 
 
 "Why did they stop us? What are they going to do 
 to us?" the little lady inquired nervously. But she kept 
 close to the Sergeant. 
 
 "Only a collision beyond that bridge you see in the 
 distance. Another train is waiting for us there. Both 
 tracks are blocked." 
 
 "How do you know?" demanded the civilian. 
 
 "Because I have learned to see without looking and 
 hear without listening," the Sergeant answered quietly. 
 
 The three walked on together for nearly half a mile. 
 It appeared that a collision had blocked one track; a crane 
 had been brought to clear this, and had been dropped 
 across the second track by inexperienced workmen replac- 
 ing their mobilised brothers. The train in waiting was 
 already filled with passengers from both the collided trains. 
 The Sergeant helped several ladies into a first-class com- 
 partment before getting in himself; the civilian followed.
 
 276 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 That they were crowded, none could have denied. But 
 none complained save an old gentleman in an overcoat, 
 a muffler, a sweater, and wristlets, holding a paper-backed 
 novel in one hand and a paper-knife in the other; he was 
 furthermore provided with a foot-warmer. He darted 
 furious glances from his corner, and grumbled inter- 
 mittently for four hours about people who forced them- 
 selves into other people's compartments. Several times 
 he repeated that such was war, that prior to the infamous 
 aggression of which France had been victim no one would 
 have dared behave so, and that the Germans must be made 
 to pay heavily for this and other hardships. 
 
 Conversation was impossible in such an atmosphere. 
 The little lady knitted with each elbow in the stomach of a 
 neighbour; the Sergeant, gazing through the window at 
 the landscape, seemed completely happy; and the English- 
 looking civilian, squeezed into a tiny place where the arm 
 of a seat ought to have been, thought profoundly. 
 
 They reached Paris. The little lady shook hands with 
 the Sergeant and soulfully wished him more fighting and 
 endless good-fortune. The civilian lingered. 
 
 "May I walk a little way with you, M. Clermont?" he 
 asked, as they stood on the platform. 
 
 Paul turned, thoroughly amazed. 
 
 "I should like to know, first, who you are and how you 
 know me?" 
 
 The other laughed : 
 
 "If your name is a confidential matter, you should not 
 wave your passport about so freely. I have had to become 
 something of an observer, also, by force of circumstances. 
 I am an American war correspondent." He took out a 
 card. 
 
 "A war correspondent in trains?"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 277 
 
 "As good a place as another, when we can't be at the 
 front. I have been wondering if you would tell me a little 
 more. There's that note-book; perhaps you would have 
 no objection " 
 
 "Or perhaps I would !" said Paul. 
 
 "Then won't you, at least, have a drink with me, on the 
 Boulevard? I owe you something for the conversation we 
 have already had." 
 
 Paul had been looking about him, as if expecting some- 
 body; they had passed the gates, and reached the station 
 restaurant. 
 
 "We might stop here, a moment," he said. "A cup of 
 tea would taste good to me, especially if a slice of bread 
 went with it. The last time I ate was eleven hours ago." 
 
 "I should say you needed some wine to brace you up; 
 especially after such experiences," the journalist urged. 
 
 "Oh, thanks we're not supposed to drink!" 
 
 "Only a little good wine and at this hour " the 
 
 tempter insisted. 
 
 "I'm not quite sure about the regulations," said Paul, 
 " but our tastes grow very simple. This is really good, to 
 our thinking." He tapped the tea-pot. "No cigars, 
 thank you; plain cigarettes do nicely. You don't know 
 how 'the French soldier has changed. It's no longer a 
 man's idea of happiness to get to a cafe and spend hours 
 sipping a drink or playing cards or dominoes; he wants to 
 get home, or else to go to a good old-fashioned play or the 
 cinema. More fun than excesses ever used to be. Those 
 of us who haven't died have become a healthy, reasonable 
 race; class prejudice has died down, and so have political 
 and religious animosities; there aren't any quarrels or 
 discussions or jealousies in the trenches " 
 
 "Not in the trenches," repeated the journalist.
 
 278 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "No," Paul went on, so earnestly that he missed the 
 point. "It's astonishing to note how well the aristocrat 
 and the workman, the priest and the teacher, and all that, 
 can agree, when working at the same job. The blacksmith 
 and the bricklayer no longer scorn educated men, and the 
 gentleman has no occasion to patronise the sweat of other 
 people's brows." 
 
 "War promoting harmony still in the trenches. How 
 long do you expect this to last?" 
 
 "Don't know; the wonderful thing is that it should be 
 here at all. Let's be content with that. Abstinence has 
 had much to do with this which is another point gained. 
 Men began by finding they were less fit after drinking 
 alcohol; then they ceased to care for the stuff. As for our 
 so-called 'hygienic drinks' light red or white wine we 
 get enough of that, and sour enough, to cure us completely! 
 They tried sending water in barrels, but it had to be dosed 
 first, to kill the germs or something. Whew! Smelt like 
 an apothecary's shop. We said we would wait till we 
 got to the hospital for our dose of disinfectants, thank 
 
 you!' 
 
 The journalist was probably preparing another charge at 
 the note-book, when Paul suddenly yelled out and fled, up- 
 setting a chair and breaking a glass. For I had just come 
 up, his telegram to me having suffered delays and my jour- 
 ney having added still more. 
 
 We were together for some days, while his "military 
 situation" was being straightened out; during which time 
 he told me of his wanderings. But I must confess that I 
 have drawn freely, in editing the present chapter, upon a 
 magazine article recently sent to Paul, in my care, by the 
 war correspondent to whom he had "given no informa- 
 tion," as he solemnly assured me at the time.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 279 
 
 IV 
 
 A WAVE of intense unrest swept over the plain and up the 
 hill which guarded it to the south. Men on duty in the 
 trenches fingered their guns lovingly; men stationed above 
 in fortresses of earth and logs twitched nervously. "It's 
 coming!" they whispered. "God knows it's taken long 
 enough. But now, it's coming!" 
 
 Ended, the patient wait of ceaseless privation and 
 frequent suffering; ended, the heart-racking sense that, 
 though strong, they were powerless ; ended, the humiliating 
 thought that, whereas their blood had been freely shed and 
 their land was still partly held, they were riveted to idle- 
 ness. At last, an offensive was at hand in their region, a 
 broad advance so often heralded and invariably delayed, an 
 action such as others had tried but they had been denied. 
 To gain a few yards, or else to cling to what they defended, 
 had been a Herculean effort; and had yet been long and 
 vain as the toil of Sisyphus. But what matter now now 
 that their real hour had come ! 
 
 How had they learned of it? No officer had taken them 
 into the secret. Had they read in the looks of their chiefs, 
 more preoccupied than usual, and even kinder than before? 
 Had the God whom they invoked in the simple faith and 
 manly courage of their soldier-hearts, after feigning to ig- 
 nore Him during days of pleasure, whispered to them that 
 many would soon be in another sphere and some be 
 acclaimed heroes in their own? Perhaps; but also they 
 had understood aright the voices roaring night and day, 
 material voices whose cords were of steel and whose breath 
 was of flame, and whose argument burst to rend, kill, 
 scatter. For a night and a day, and again a night and a 
 day, deafening, all-pervading, their roar had come sharp,
 
 280 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 swift, sure as the crack of machine-guns though each 
 cried alone, and was of field or siege caliber. Once, for a 
 few instants, there had been a break. Men had stirred 
 anxiously, had raised their hands to their heads, had 
 ventured glances above the trench at peril of their lives. 
 Then the cracking, the roaring, the shaking came once more 
 with increased fury; the men subsided, bewildered and 
 happy, to watch the puffs of cloud by day, the tongues of 
 fire by night. 
 
 "On all the line," they said. " Means a general attack," 
 they said. "Yes, this tune it's really coming." 
 
 "For those two days and nights, the enemy had not 
 answered, or only in a desultory sort of way. We weren't 
 positive whether this meant shortness of ammunition, or 
 else waiting to send a whirlwind bombardment which 
 might leave nothing of us." 
 
 Paul spoke to me from his bed at the Marquise de 
 Vervillers's ambulance in Paris. Several machine-gun 
 bullets had struck his right arm, above the elbow, doing 
 havoc among the muscles but missing the bone. 
 
 "I had been on duty for more than twenty-four hours, 
 either because it was my turn or because I wanted to be 
 about," he continued. "Then, in the afternoon of the 
 third day, I went into one of our bomb-proofs to get some 
 sleep. But how could it have been possible? Not that 
 I minded the racket. We're used to that. The thing was 
 that any moment might bring the enemy's reply, or the 
 order to get ready for our charge. 
 
 "A general attack! Think what that meant to us. I 
 grow excited now, just remembering the way I felt. The 
 best of all our skirmishes, taken and put together in a row, 
 wouldn't represent as much as the first dash we should
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 281 
 
 make. No; I couldn't sleep. So I went out and looked 
 through a loop-hole. 
 
 "The whole landscape had changed. Already seamed 
 with trenches, the plain was now ripped and wrenched by 
 bombs and mines until it was like a vast, whitish steppe. 
 Where there had been clumps of trees, I saw only shreds 
 of trunks; where there had been trenches I saw only con- 
 fusion or else gaping, barren holes. We had been re- 
 building, daily, our first-and second-line trenches, levelled 
 in long spaces by shells or torpedoes; but of late we hadn't 
 done more than pile up sacks of earth against the parapets. 
 The Germans were making no apparent effort to repair the 
 damage to their lines. The only spot on the landscape 
 which an unmilitary eye could have recognised was the 
 wreck of that farmhouse to which Berral had gone for 
 flowers. Repeated engagements, and our whining of the 
 hamlet of (now completely razed), had cut off the Ger- 
 mans from access to it. We didn't occupy it, because the 
 position was so exposed, but we could reach it as we pleased. 
 Though bombs and small shells had struck it, the ruin still 
 held together. We spared what was left, because it might 
 be of use for observations when we advanced; the Boches 
 neglected it apparently from indifference. So, there was 
 that one small ruin of a house, in that wide ruin of a plain. 
 Talk of dramatic effects ! No theatre, with all the artifices 
 at its command, ever presented such a tragic spectacle as 
 that death-like plain across which death continued to 
 howl. 
 
 "And still, no answer to our fire; or no answer worth 
 mentioning. We could only listen to our shells and vibrate 
 with the earth, while our impatience had to be bridled on 
 the very edge of our effort of efforts." 
 
 The weather, which had been clear, changed in the
 
 282 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 afternoon; presently drops fell. Apprehension filled the 
 men lest the attack be postponed, should rain set in. Their 
 exasperation reached a climax rendering them capable of 
 breaking from the trenches on their own initiative. 
 
 "I found Berral and his group, including Constant, in 
 that frame of mind. They muttered: 'If we could move 
 down to the first line, we should know what to do.' 'What- 
 ever the weather, your energies won't be wasted provided 
 you behave yourselves,' I told them. They had to take 
 my word for it, and luckily they did. What I couldn't 
 say frankly until the officers had spoken, was that we had 
 gone so far we couldn't have stopped. 
 
 "By the precision of our aim, I knew we must have 
 wrought havoc in the German mazes, using shrapnel first 
 to chop the wire and then heavy shells to bury the whole; 
 and with my glasses I could see many of their earth-forts 
 and shelters; yards deep, ripped up as if they had been tin 
 roofs. We were using the new big shells, adjusted to 
 explode only after sinking eight or nine feet, so that de- 
 fences and defenders were bound to go all together. In 
 our region alone, we sent seventy-five thousand shells a 
 day for those three days; and it must have been so along the 
 whole line. We had ammunition in any quantity; large 
 stores of provisions and supplies of water were ready to be 
 brought forward as soon as we started on the rush; we had 
 dug parallels for the advance of reinforcements, and sapped 
 out mines far beyond what might have been thought 
 possible a feat of engineering! Of course we had to ad- 
 vance while we could. Observation posts had already 
 reported the enemy's communications as cut off by our 
 cross-fire: for two days and a half no food had reached 
 them at some points, and it was probable ammunition also 
 would fail them. But there was even more. As night
 
 THE GIFT OP PAUL CLERMONT 283 
 
 closed down, standing on the French side of our hill, I saw 
 our fresh troops being brought up from the rear, by motors. 
 Where trenches were available, men slipped into them; 
 thousands were grouped in the huge holes torn by German 
 mines and shells; others lay flat on the ground, in the rain. 
 Thousands, thousands, thousands of them and all to 
 follow us ! For we, who had borne the brunt of the months 
 of waiting there, were to have the honour of going first. 
 No, I had no fear of the attack being postponed, though 
 I couldn't tell our boys all I had learned and seen. 
 
 "At dark, rain began to fall fast and heavy. The 
 ground, soggy from previous rains, couldn't absorb any 
 more, though these last days had been dry. The trenches 
 ran with water; the platforms of twigs beneath our feet 
 would have floated like rafts if we hadn't been there to 
 hold them down. But what matter? We were worked up 
 to so high a pitch that we couldn't have minded anything 
 except perhaps failure. 
 
 "Captain de Vervillers came to us: 'My children, it's 
 for to-morrow morning.' You ought to have heard the 
 chorus of breaths! For we couldn't cheer. No yell of 
 enthusiasm, no clamour of praise, was ever more eloquent 
 than those united breaths. It seemed to me I could hear 
 the throb of heart-beats all round me. I may have heard 
 only my own, making enough noise for scores." 
 
 The Captain went on to explain the plan of battle. At a 
 concerted moment, they were to leap out and charge due 
 north. Behind the first trench, the regiment was to be 
 drawn up in the night, a formation of three columns con- 
 sisting of a battalion each, separated by machine-guns and 
 flanked by them. Each battalion-column was subdivided 
 into smaller columns, representing companies, drawn up 
 four deep. Behind them, reinforcements would wait
 
 284 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 ready to pour forward through communication trenches, 
 unexposed until the moment they, too, were to charge. 
 
 Paul continued: 
 
 "The Germans had got wind that we planned something, 
 long before our preparation started. The first notion we 
 got of what lay ahead came from them. It was now two 
 weeks since they had begun to poke fun at us, wiggling the 
 barrels of their guns over the tops of their defences, and 
 sometimes putting rag dolls on the ends. The wind would 
 bring us snatches from the chorus of 'Viens, Poupoule.' 
 They thought we wouldn't dare try. Just wouldn't we! 
 But you can fancy the sort of exasperation into which 
 they threw our men. No better turn could have been 
 done to us. For it wasn't the sort of emotion which wears 
 off. Our ranks don't consist of the old type of happy-go- 
 lucky jokers, of je-m 'en-fichistes, and we haven't got only 
 men who plainly and simply do their duty. No! There's 
 more underlying the character of the French soldier as war 
 has shaped him. He is grave, intrepid, resolute as a Ro- 
 man legionary. You know what a general, and a cavalry 
 general at that, said of the French infantryman of to-day : 
 ' He deserves that we should go down on our knees before 
 him' 'II est a se mettre d. genoux devant!" 
 
 The Colonel came to assure himself that the orders were 
 understood; the regiment was moved down to the place it 
 should occupy. 
 
 In its very terror, the night was of marvellous beauty. 
 Flares of cannon or of bursting shell pierced at every mo- 
 ment the sheets of rain, whose mass, with the resilient 
 density of fluid, closed in where solidity would have been 
 rent to irretrievable fragments. Long fingers of flash- 
 light, accusing, menacing, would stroke the heavens and 
 cleave the elements, to break upon the earth, hungry after
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 285 
 
 morsels that bided annihilation. The horizon was the 
 rim of a vast brazier turning the most baleful of nights into 
 the most appalling of days. Ever and anon, bursting the 
 rhythmic flash of lights, and roar of explosions, and 
 tremblings of earth which ceased not for a second, a 
 mightier flare, a mightier thunder, a mightier convulsion of 
 the land's foundations, would mark a mine set off, an area 
 of soil and wood, a mass of human atoms hurled into the 
 water-charged air, amid whirls of party-coloured flame, 
 joy-fires of Hades. 
 
 Held by the fascination of the scene, awed by the 
 responsibility in which he must share, absorbing every 
 impression which his physical nature might yet receive, 
 Paul lay on the saturated earth like his comrades, but 
 slightly apart from them and not seeking sleep. 
 
 Amid the flashes of gun, shell, fuse, mine, searchlight, 
 which starred and streaked the earth's surface, as a sky 
 might appear if all its bodies burst suddenly into showers 
 of meteors, he observed a tiny light quite near. Not an 
 aeroplane light. Its steadiness first drew his attention, 
 then its modesty retained him. Or perhaps the modesty 
 was what awoke the first conscious appeal: as a man may 
 heed a whisper when a crowd's yelling has dulled his ears 
 to mere volume of sound. Among these thousands of 
 lights, this alone shone modestly, this alone failed to move. 
 Then it did move, though its power was not increased. 
 The movement was slow; up and down, twice. 
 
 Paul watched steadily. It was fixed, once more. His 
 eyes had deceived him, perhaps. 
 
 But suppose they had? Suppose the light were station- 
 ary? Why should it be there, quiet and unassuming 
 among all these swift, blatant bursts? Whence could it 
 come, and what might it mean?
 
 286 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 As he put the last question to himself, it again moved. 
 Not up and down : from left to right twice. 
 
 Understanding came so quickly that the report of his 
 rifle cracked before the thought was finished. At once, the 
 light vanished. 
 
 He had fired into the ground-floor window of the ruined 
 farmhouse. 
 
 The light and the shot passed unperceived by 
 Paul's neighbours. He waited. Some minutes went by, 
 neither in silence nor in blackness, surely, yet they 
 seemed dark and still to Paul, who thought only of the 
 light. 
 
 Again it came but higher-pitched. Again the move- 
 ment, up and down, twice; again the pause; and again, 
 left to right, twice. Then again it vanished: for Paul 
 had fired into the window of what had been an upper 
 storey. 
 
 A hand rested on his left arm, a voice breathed: 
 
 "It's Berral, Sergeant. There's been a light be- 
 hind." 
 
 "Before, you mean," Paul corrected. 
 
 "No. Behind. In a tree. I fired into it, and it dis- 
 appeared." 
 
 "Behind! An answer, then." 
 
 "A signal, at all events," Berral went on. Evidently, 
 he knew nothing of what had occurred at the farmhouse. 
 "I crept close, but couldn't find trace of anybody. So I 
 went towards the barbed wire." 
 
 "If you had been shot by a sentinel, you would have had 
 no one to thank but yourself. This is no night for in- 
 dividual experiments." 
 
 "It's as good a night as another for catching a 
 spy, Sergeant. I'm going back, and I want you with
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT . 287 
 
 me. I saw a shadow and fired, but missed. When that 
 shadow comes back, there must be two of us to catch 
 him." 
 
 "Krauss?" Paul exclaimed. 
 
 "That's what I think." 
 
 "Our lieutenant's orderly, and an Alsatian!" Paul 
 protested. 
 
 "Yes; if he is an Alsatian," Berral grumbled. "What 
 do we know about him? How can we tell where he came 
 from? Why shouldn't he have been dropped in our lines 
 some months ago by a Boche aeroplane?" 
 
 It was true that little or nothing had been ascertained 
 about this supposed Alsatian, plausible of speech, varied in 
 accomplishments, and fearless to foolhardiness. He had 
 claimed to be a refugee from a village of the region, but 
 boasted of Alsatian birth; he had produced papers con- 
 firming his statements, and had begged for permission to 
 enlist and avenge his unhappy country; he had been taken 
 as orderly by Lieutenant de Falonges because of his 
 abilities and resourcefulness. 
 
 Paul and Berral slipped along the ground, were successful 
 in appeasing several sentries, were missed by one or two 
 shots, and reached the barbed wires Berral had indicated. 
 They waited, soundless and motionless, for several hours, 
 before Paul felt a swift, firm pressure on his shoulder. An 
 instant later, they had covered with their rifles a man 
 creeping towards them. 
 
 The very atmosphere flamed and flared about them; in 
 this clear, awful night-light, they recognised Krauss, the 
 model orderly. 
 
 "Confidential mission for my lieutenant," the man said 
 calmly. 
 
 "Good. We shall take you to him," said Paul.
 
 THE GIFT OP PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "My lieutenant doesn't need interference from his 
 subordinates," Krauss tossed back insolently. 
 
 "But I demand obedience from the ranks," Paul said. 
 
 "I was only verifying the state of the wires." Krauss 
 had changed tone. 
 
 "You first plead a confidential mission, and then betray 
 it rather than report on it?" Paul asked. 
 
 Krauss did not speak at once; his mouth hardened, his 
 hands twitched. 
 
 "Come, comrades " he began. 
 
 "Lead this man to Lieutenant de Falonges," Paul 
 ordered, addressing two soldiers who had drawn near. 
 "If he tries to bolt, or as much as stirs an arm, kill him. 
 We are following." 
 
 Having got so far hi his story, Paul stopped. 
 
 "Well?" I prompted. 
 
 "Oh, why tell the rest? It was true. The Lieutenant 
 threw up both hands in helpless horror. He had ridiculed 
 my reports on the strength of Berral's statements, several 
 times in the preceding weeks. 
 
 "Krauss contradicted himself, tried the faithful-service 
 dodge, grew sullen and indignant, finally collapsed and 
 confessed. He recovered only enough energy to proclaim 
 himself a Prussian and to glory hi his behaviour, when they 
 led him away to be shot. 
 
 "I went back to my own place. Several of our shells, 
 annihilating the farmhouse, brought light and fumes and 
 tremors nearer to us than ever. I was creeping among men 
 laid out like corpses on every side. Just then, the cold 
 grey of dawn began to spread its chill over the flares sur- 
 rounding us." 
 
 With the day, the artillery increased its uproar. The 
 General strolled by, fully exposed, smoking his pipe, talking
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 289 
 
 familiarly with the men, making topographical remarks 
 and recalling the orders already given. Colonels followed 
 his example. 
 
 "You will have to run your best, boys; you have warm 
 work ahead!" said Captain de Vervillers, twisting his 
 moustache. He spoke as if planning a foot-ball rush. 
 And of such a nature, indeed, was the attack to be. 
 
 Andresy, lying near Paul, cried out: 
 
 "I think I'm hit. I haven't room to turn. Look for 
 me, and see!" 
 
 No need to look; Paul had seen his friend's left leg 
 severed beneath the knee, by a piece of shell. 
 
 "Old man, your leg is gone," he said. 
 
 "Oh ! Oh, the swine!" moaned Andresy. 
 
 At that instant, the appointed time was reached. Need- 
 ing no command, the first ranks sprang from trenches, from 
 shell-holes, from mine-caverns, from the bare ground where 
 men had lain unprotected. Like hordes of ants they 
 swarmed out, hurrying onward, irresistible by their mass 
 and by their united power of will. 
 
 As Paul leaped, a cheer close behind him, weak and 
 harrowing, made him half-look back, without stopping. 
 Andresy, clinging to the trench's edge, had drawn himself 
 up, in semblance of rising with his mates; tottering, blood- 
 stained, he swung there cheering then the next shell 
 claimed him, and he crumpled away, headless, in shapeless 
 shreds. 
 
 A curtain of smoke, greyish yellow, hemmed in the 
 horizon like a gigantic panorama; thin trails stretched 
 out across the country, forming frail illusive walls, surer 
 barriers than steel or masonry. Northward across the 
 plain, and then up a slight incline to the left or into the 
 valley of the little river to the right, all were to charge alike
 
 290 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 for several hundred yards. Within this space, their sole 
 chance depended on such swiftness that the enemy's guns 
 could not be trained on them. Thereafter the action was 
 to vary. In some places, mazes of wire had been but 
 slightly touched by the preparation, and there the fighting 
 would be furious; in others, one or two trenches and their 
 wires, partly or totally demolished, would be carried with 
 bayonets but resistance waited beyond; in others yet, no 
 vestige of defences remained, and from five to eight lines 
 would be carried in rapid succession. 
 
 The lot of Paul's brigade had been to charge up an in- 
 cline seamed with holes and slippery from ram. 
 
 "The black hail of machine-guns tried to stop us. Stop 
 us? They didn't know what we were! Stop us! We 
 poured into our first objective a little advanced fortress so 
 strong that it had held pretty well against our bombard- 
 ment we poured into it, I say, as if there was nobody to 
 defend it. And and there wasn't. 
 
 "Nobody. We found only machine-guns worked by 
 electric wires; and destroyed them. In the face of a like 
 fire, we charged the trench beyond, to find again mere 
 mechanisms dealing death. On we went, maddened by 
 disgust and a sort of uncanny fear. The next trench, we 
 carried against a handful of Germans; they were firing 
 machine-guns and had apparently been working those we 
 had already met. Here, the trench was shattered, and 
 there were many dead; whole bunches of bodies had been 
 cast together in heaps, or piled as defences, mixed in with 
 baskets of earth. But our real work lay still beyond. 
 We charged towards the third trench to stagger under a 
 whirl of shells coming from several directions at once." 
 
 Paul had been stirring fretfully in his white bed; a 
 feverish flush had been growing in his cheeks. He quivered,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 291 
 
 now, for some moments. When he spoke again* he was 
 very pale. 
 
 "We knew something had gone wrong. Our regiment 
 was leading; the Colonel ordered us to lie down. The cap- 
 tains and the lieutenants were the last to obey those of 
 them who survived. For our officers had charged at the 
 head of their men, and been killed right and left. Tradition 
 tradition it dies hard, but gloriously ! The Colonel did 
 not obey himself; he was torn to pieces as the last captain 
 lay down, the Senior Captain, the Marquis de Vervillers. 
 
 "I couldn't see much; to raise one's head meant death. 
 A corporal near me was killed, passing his tinder-box to a 
 neighbour; his forehead had bobbed up barely an inch. 
 Most of us had started to smoke, to help us keep quiet 
 and feel dry. We might have to wait so until nightfall, 
 not moving, and not able to reach the food in our sacks. 
 Men were being killed or wounded every minute; we would 
 hear the 'plump', perhaps, but no other sound. Not one 
 of our men forgot his comrades, in his own sufferings. For, 
 though death comes to mean nothing to us and we think 
 nothing of killing, when we hear screams from a some- 
 thing lying next to us, a something that was alive and 
 well, like us, a moment ago and that wears breeches like 
 ours, we can't bear it, somehow. 
 
 "Having had time to think, I began to understand. 
 What had happened was that the Germans had left the 
 little advanced fortress and the first trench, and also most 
 of the second trench, with only machine-gun garrisons in a 
 length of four hundred yards. Breaking through there 
 and reaching the third line, we got where they could fire 
 on us from the front and from both sides and slightly from 
 behind. Yet this wasn't the worst. By advancing too 
 quickly at this point where the outward condition of the
 
 292 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 defences announced sharp resistance, we had got ahead 
 of the time fixed for our artillery to lengthen its range 
 we were being hashed up by our own guns too. 
 
 "Captain de Vervillers had taken over the command; 
 he and Lieutenant de Falonges conferred together. Our 
 course was evidently to signal a 'stop' to our artillery, 
 though we should be offered as targets to the enemy; we 
 were so near that the Boches couldn't miss us. 
 
 "The Lieutenant crawled away, and rose to his full 
 height. He stood there like a figure of Liberty like a 
 Greek at Marathon like anything sublime you can recall 
 from history or philosophy, or religion either, for that 
 matter. He fell, killed outright; the first to go in that 
 attempt which alone could save us. 
 
 "Others succeeded him. Berral, for instance, who died 
 of his wound during the night, poor chap; he lay next to 
 me, his head on my left side. It meant death or serious 
 wounding for all who volunteered. One or two, bowled 
 over by a shot that didn't kill or maim them, were up 
 again at once, and signalled until genuinely knocked out. 
 After a while, the fire of our artillery ceased. 
 
 "Night came. No retreat was possible, and nobody 
 wanted it. Under cover of the dark, our men began to dig 
 a crescent-shaped trench, determined to hold that new 
 position. When dawn appeared, we were protected, and 
 began to fight the trenches near us; our artillery, brought 
 forward into the open, supported us finely. Reinforce- 
 ments charged to our rescue, too. They ought to have 
 come before, but probably thought us hopelessly done for." 
 
 " With such heavy losses among officers, you must have 
 had sergeants acting as lieutenants," I said. 
 
 "Why, in the field ambulance, I heard about a sergeant 
 who led back a whole regiment!"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 293 
 
 "You yourself, then, may have ' 
 
 "Oh I! Missed my chance. Hiding ingloriously in a 
 shell-hole, like the other wounded. This blown up." 
 
 With his left hand he pointed to his right arm. I 
 noticed that the first joint of the middle finger was missing. 
 
 "Another wound? And on that hand? You never 
 told me." 
 
 "Nail cut rather too close, that's all," he smiled. "That 
 healed before I left the other hospital." 
 
 A pretty nurse, who seemed to know Paul well, had 
 stopped to listen for some moments. Light broke upon 
 her before I had gathered my wits : 
 
 " You were one of those who volunteered to signal, and 
 signalled on until wounded a second time!" 
 
 "I did no more than the others," Paul said by way of 
 assent. "But I was in luck. I told you that Lieutenant 
 de Falonges himself was first? Well! By being quick 
 I managed to be second!" 
 
 ACCUSTOMED to seeing Sceur Angele, Paul had, little by 
 little, forgotten Mademoiselle Odette; or else remembered 
 her as a bright figure casting a radiant glow on youthful 
 memories. He had loved her while looking up to her, 
 unattainable as a star; and, star-like, she had shone 
 throughout the clear nights of yore, only to vanish in the 
 clouds which had since shrouded the face of the earth. 
 Mademoiselle Odette had gone for ever; but it was sooth- 
 ing to have Sceur Angele near him with a look or a word 
 always pleasant at the moment, and mayhap recalling that 
 dream-figure of youth. 
 
 Medical questions being disposed of for the day or the 
 hour, she would talk religion with him and make him say
 
 294 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 his prayers. He would have said prayers uninterruptedly 
 barring conversation in such company. But, to the 
 distress of his kind friend and would-be spiritual guide, he 
 had not got much further. 
 
 "You belong to us, my child," Soeur Angele would say, 
 speaking with the maturity of vocation and of experience, 
 though her advantage in years might be inconsiderable. 
 "You belong to us. Were you not baptised in the Holy 
 Church and did you not make your first communion?" 
 
 "Yes," Paul agreed. "I don't remember what I did 
 when they baptised me, but I remember my first com- 
 munion as if it were yesterday." 
 
 "The most beautiful day in your life, was it not?" 
 
 "Up to that time, yes; it was very wonderful. A great 
 emotion. I forgot even my new clothes, and the lunch 
 promised us at the church, and all the people coming to see 
 us in their Sunday dress, and the music which the Marquise 
 had said would be as good as in Paris. You know, I had 
 thought a lot of all that, in advance, like the other children; 
 it's what we talked of most; the catechism lessons bored 
 us, and we made fun of the abbe behind his back, and we 
 might have wanted to drop away entirely, if we hadn't liked 
 meeting together and escaping work at school or at home. 
 That's the plain truth of it. But when the time came, 1 
 forgot everything else in that great emotion. Deep, and 
 pure, too; I say pure, because it seemed to uplift me, and 
 there was no reaction afterwards. I seemed to drift slowly 
 back to earth, without a jar, and feeling better I almost 
 said holier. It was helpful. Only, I didn't understand." 
 
 "Understanding was not meant for us all, my child. 
 Yet we can all find grace through the Holy Church. The 
 heart must respond first; and then, God willing, the mind 
 follows."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 295 
 
 "For some, perhaps," Paul answered. "But for me, 
 dear Soeur Angele, dogma and ritual merely bind up my 
 heart and darken my eyes, and cut me off from the living 
 God whom I know and feel. You need an organised, 
 crystallised religion to connect you with God, so you are 
 right to follow it fearlessly. I respect it, and respect you, 
 too. But why shouldn't you respect my ideas and me, 
 when I assure you I am better and happier without yours? " 
 
 "Respect heresy!" cried out Soeur Angele. "Respect 
 agnosticism and infidelity? You, Paul, ask this of me?" 
 
 "No, I never asked that. I solemnly swear I didn't!" 
 Paul laughed. 
 
 His good-humoured attitude, and his willingness to 
 listen before replying, made him peculiarly difficult as a 
 venture in forcible conversion. Dogged prejudice and 
 irascible outbursts may be worn down, with patience and 
 persistence. But a temperate nature and a receptive 
 while well-developed mind offer no jagged points for scaling 
 the outer wall, and reveal so few weaknesses that the 
 best canonical artillery exhausts itself in scattered shots. 
 
 Taken aback by Paul's ready reply on this occasion, 
 Sceur Angele profited by a hint her confessor had dropped 
 the day before, when she had told him of the beautiful 
 stray lamb to be led towards spiritual as well as physical 
 health. "If general statements render him argumenta- 
 tive," the holy man had said, "bring him, through gradual 
 concessions, to matters of application which are unques- 
 tionable and whereof you are better informed than he." 
 
 Leaving his reply unnoticed, she asked, as if changing 
 the subject: 
 
 " Have you observed the new spirit which reigns through- 
 out France?" 
 
 "I haven't had much opportunity for that; but I know
 
 296 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 of the spirit which reigns in the army zone," Paul an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Ah! You have observed it!" the nun triumphed. 
 "You see as it were a new race of Frenchmen?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "You see them do bravely and die bravely?" 
 
 "They could not be surpassed." 
 
 "Then then what are you arguing about? Don't you 
 see that you and I agree? " 
 
 "Yes on this point," said Paul. 
 
 "On this point but what other point is there?" she 
 demanded. "You admit the religious renovation of our 
 race; you admit that men, once unbelievers, once enemies 
 of our faith, have returned to their most sacred duties; you 
 know, as I do, of soldiers stopping cur$s and abbes in the 
 streets to beg for scapular ies " 
 
 Paul's mouth opened at this interpretation of his own 
 words and of his companions' heroism; but as his lips met 
 again he was so moved by the kind sister's sweet, blind 
 faith, that he neither smiled nor attempted to correct her. 
 
 She continued: 
 
 "Twice already you have been worthy to receive the 
 Blessed Sacrament. If you would but consent to pre- 
 pare your heart for it once more " 
 
 "I know too well what it means for those who take it," 
 Paul answered. "From reverence, I would not imitate, 
 where they believe." 
 
 "You still doubt!" groaned the nun. "You, born and 
 bred a Catholic, can doubt! No, impossible. It is 
 courage you lack. You fear your uncle may cast you off." 
 
 "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Sceur Angele," 
 Paul said, "even though you make me out a fool or a 
 coward."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 297 
 
 "God help him, he is lost, irretrievably lost!" the nun 
 moaned. "This from you, Paul Clerinont, whose arm 
 God has saved by a miracle!" 
 
 "I wish I were sure it's saved," Paul said, his face 
 clouding. 
 
 Soaur Angele should, following the priest's advice, have 
 profited by this altered mood to begin a prayer or two. 
 But the pretty young nurse, already mentioned, had just 
 finished a task at the adjoining bed, and could not have 
 failed to hear. The sister appealed to her: 
 
 "To think that if it had not been for dangerous in- 
 fluences in childhood, he would never have drifted from 
 us ! A lay school, for years, at the most important period 
 of his youth ! Then, as if that had not abounded in snares 
 of Satan, he must come in contact with an impious 
 foreigner. The man dares pretend to an independent 
 religion, based on philosophy and personal readings of 
 the Gospels!" 
 
 "Don't forget the apostles, and especially my patron 
 saint," Paul interposed. 
 
 " But they deny our Blessed Lady ! " 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "Or they esteem her only as a privileged mother! 
 Blasphemy!" She threw up her hands. "That man, 
 who is responsible for perverting this innocent soul, may 
 call himself a philosopher, but he's no better than a com- 
 mon Protestant. That's my opinion." 
 
 "I don't know about him; but I don't worry about our 
 sous-officier," the pretty nurse replied. "He is one of us, 
 since he was baptised and made his first communion." 
 
 "And renewed it," Paul added. 
 
 "He can't escape us," the young lady pursued. "When 
 he says wicked things it's only for the fun of horrifying
 
 298 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 you, Soeur Angela. He never talks so to me. Do you, 
 Sergeant Clermont?" 
 
 No. Paul never talked so to her; never denied aught 
 she said. He looked up to her, in fact, and admired and 
 obeyed and worshipped her, as if as if she had been 
 Mademoiselle Odette of the long ago. 
 
 A very different type, though. Dark, with bright eyes 
 and crimson lips, and a faint suggestion of pink beneath 
 the cream of her cheeks. She was tall, but swift of move- 
 ment as if she had been small; fascinating to look at, in- 
 comparably delightful to talk to, and furthermore rendered 
 irresistible by a mystery. Not a mystery of speech nor of 
 appearance, for nothing could have been franker than 
 both. It was about her name. She came from Brittany, 
 and was called de Clermont. 
 
 In the relentless suffering and recurrent fears of his 
 first weeks, Paul had meditated much upon this. What 
 if they were distantly related? He thought of it, dreamed 
 of it, while not daring to mention it. And then, one day 
 when his torment was extreme, she brought up the subject : 
 
 "Your name is the same as mine. Did you know that? " 
 
 Instantaneously, martyrdom was forgotten. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "Only" (The hypocrite! He said 
 only /) "My father was from Brittany." 
 
 "But so am I," she said, surprised at this revelation. 
 (I don't doubt that he looked surprised when she did, 
 the rogue!) "My father was Baron de Clermont, of 
 Kerzevant Castle." 
 
 "Mine was plain Albert Clermont, of the tax service." 
 
 "He had a distinction which mine was denied dying 
 for his country." She had heard of his end, from Paul. 
 "Albert?" she went on. "I have known of that name in
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 200 
 
 our family. Who was your mother? You must look up 
 all the papers, as soon as you are well enough." 
 
 "There are no more records, for those who lived in 
 Arnan or Verviller." 
 
 "Never mind! We shall find out somehow. Do you 
 remember your mother's name?" 
 
 "She died when I was a baby or or at least very 
 young," Paul faltered. "But her name was on the birth 
 certificate the Bodies took from me; I had looked at it 
 often. Re vail, written with two Ps at the end. Seems 
 like a misspelling." 
 
 "Surely, I have heard that name. You may be my 
 cousin ! " said Mademoiselle de Clermont. 
 
 "She couldn't have meant it," Paul observed to me 
 later. For he did not confess this promptly. "Too 
 extraordinary, our meeting so, if we were relatives. She 
 has never asked another question, so she didn't really care. 
 But do you know, those words of hers were what pulled 
 me round the corner. 
 
 "It was the worst day I have had; I couldn't bear to 
 think of night coming. Nor was pain the only thing 
 worrying me. The doctors had agreed that if the in- 
 fection increased by morning, the arm must come off at the 
 shoulder. No more fighting no more chance to be useful ! 
 I think fear sent up my temperature more than the angri- 
 ness of the wound. Then the thought of that lovely 
 cousin perhaps! wanting to believe she was my cousin, 
 made me so happy, and brought so many delightful 
 ideas "Colour almost returned to his wan cheeks 
 "that I got control of myself, and stayed perfectly quiet 
 all night, though I didn't sleep; and in the morning the 
 arm was no worse, which meant it was better. I believe 
 she spoke as she did on purpose to keep up my spirits.
 
 300 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Any fib is righteous, in such circumstances. But though 
 she may have forgotten, I haven't! Wait till after the 
 war. She shan't forget her 'cousin,' if I can have a say!" 
 
 Where I made my mistake, was in repeating these 
 last words to Marcel Lavenu. Ever since, he has been 
 jocularly inclined, making saucy remarks to me and 
 writing impudent letters to Paul. 
 
 Paul's wish is that Marcel should live with me, now that 
 Verviller has regained so much activity that I have a house 
 of my own; Ernest has been claimed by his grandmother. 
 I had been alone, save for Leonie, scarcely able to walk 
 yet still rebellious against the suggestion of assistance. 
 And I would have continued alone, since none can replace 
 Paul. But I confess that I like to hear that stumping 
 step hurry towards me, and the cheery call ring out: 
 "Well, PereAubret?" 
 
 At night, Marcel, who always scorned books, likes 
 to talk, especially about his own adventures or Paul's, 
 balancing the two judiciously, and never quite sure which 
 of them makes the better hero. He has persuaded me to 
 read aloud the whole of this manuscript, translated cur- 
 rently into French as I proceed. For he has been too lazy 
 to accept my offer of English lessons. "One tongue 
 suffices for a one-legged man," he says. Some of the pas- 
 sages referring to Paul have filled his bright, honest eyes 
 with tears; others, devoted to himself, he has demanded 
 many times over, pronouncing them excellent, if rather 
 brief. Of the military parts, he says: "Many people will 
 criticise them, but people who have gone through the mill 
 will know they're true." 
 
 The ward where Paul lay was for the seriously wounded. 
 Of the twenty now there, his case alone seemed doubtful
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 301 
 
 as a surgical proposition. The doctors spoke encourag- 
 ingly to him and held out to me a faint hope that he 
 might remain intact with a useless, muscle-bound limb. 
 After many weeks of infection, due mainly to the grave 
 nature of his injury, but also to the number of hours he 
 had lain neglected in a shell-hole, the arm had started on a 
 dangerous course of healing only to break open again. 
 For not one moment, however, had his spirit flagged or his 
 resolution weakened; he was bound to get well and rejoin 
 his comrades, or such as remained. Of his officers, not 
 one, I believe, was left. Captain de Vervillers himself, 
 brilliantly distinguished on that famous day, had got the 
 Legion of Honour and a remarkable mention in the army's 
 Order of the Day, and was acting as Major in command 
 of an important centre. 
 
 "Perhaps you might follow him, in some capacity," 
 the Marquise said to Paul. But, seeing his face 
 cloud, she added tactfully: "When he returns to his 
 regiment." 
 
 "I would more gladly follow him there than do anything 
 else in the world," Paul replied. 
 
 It was her own home in Paris which she had transformed 
 into an auxiliary ambulance, before her husband's death; 
 and the new Marquis had approved this. The tall win- 
 dows of the grand salon, which was Paul's ward, opened on 
 a vista of lawn and trees rare even in the favoured Fau- 
 bourg St. Germain. All was bright, peaceful, comforting. 
 Sweet-faced nuns in grey dresses and white coifs, like birds 
 of good omen, fluttered about busily, speaking softly ; young 
 ladies of the aristocracy, in the uniform of the Red Cross, 
 qualified for the most delicate surgical nursing, were 
 almost gentler, almost sweeter-voiced, and equally de- 
 voted. The Marquise herself, feeling the obligations
 
 302 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 imposed upon her by rank and privilege, had taken a 
 complete hospital course, since the beginning of the war, 
 not sparing herself night-work, and rising at six when 
 on day-duty; rivalling in zeal, at more than fifty years of 
 age, with girls of twenty. Her figure had begun to bend 
 and her features showed weariness under the strain; but 
 her energy was inexhaustible, her good-humour unfailing, 
 and her kindly face, now free from all artifice of fashion, 
 had grown almost beautiful. 
 
 At least, it was beautiful to me and to many another 
 whom she befriended. She had located Paul in Lyon 
 whereas I, almost distraught, had lost trace of him after 
 his brief passage in the field-hospital; and she had arranged 
 for his transfer where her own care could help bring him 
 back to usefulness. 
 
 When the wound healed with some prospect of per- 
 manence, the muscles had re-knit stiffened and shortened. 
 In his dogged hopefulness, he believed this condition 
 might be remedied. I did not undeceive him, while know- 
 ing that parts of the muscles had been completely torn 
 away. There was scarcely a chance he might ever 
 straighten out his arm; lengthening it to match the left 
 arm, or bringing it back to normal flexibility, were 
 hypothetic conditions beyond the limits of physical 
 possibilities. 
 
 One morning I found him with drawn face, stern and 
 uncommunicative, as he sat in the chair by his bed, 
 wearing hospital-clothes but saving his dignity with the 
 sergeant's police-cap on his head. At frequent intervals 
 he would get up and walk to the end of the ward and back. 
 A two-pound weight hung from his fore-arm, crossed 
 upon his chest as it bade fair to remain. Some prospects 
 of lengthening the muscles by such means had been held
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 303 
 
 out to him. While the doctors had abstained from details, 
 Paul had read aright. 
 
 Several days passed. At last he said: 
 
 "We have got to find a way out." 
 
 "I don't understand," I said. 
 
 "For the present, I don't either," he admitted. "But 
 I believe Mademoiselle de Clermont knows. She looked 
 so wise when I asked to be allowed mechanical treatment." 
 
 The young nurse had stopped, smiling, beside him; his 
 last sentences had been addressed to her. 
 
 "Who would not have looked the same!" she cried. 
 "The doctor told you it could help only in certain cases, 
 and that the first condition was a properly healed wound. 
 Yours is doing nicely, for the how many times have we 
 had trouble with it? This time, it's decidedly better than 
 ever before; but if you were to break it open again ?" 
 
 "How else do you expect the muscles to loosen?" Paul 
 demanded. "Because they must be loosened; if not, I 
 must leave the army. An officer can do without a limb; 
 a sergeant must not only lead his men, but fight with 
 them." 
 
 "You have fought well, and helped the cause, and won 
 our gratitude," said Mademoiselle de Clermont. She 
 turned to me: "Perhaps you can make him realise what 
 it will mean if this wound gets ugly again. There's a 
 species of dust in it; looks like an expansive bullet, added 
 to the rest. We are proud of saving that arm; and now 
 he wants to spoil everything, like the naughty boy he is!" 
 
 With a shake of her head, and a smile and a frown, she 
 passed on. 
 
 "Easy for her and you to be philosophical," Paul 
 
 grumbled. "But for me " Breaking off, he asked: 
 
 "Have I changed much?"
 
 304 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 " No," I hastened to reassure him. " You are rather pale 
 and thin, and not so strong as you will soon be, but " 
 
 "That's not what I mean. Myself the I the Paul 
 you knew Have I, have we, changed?" 
 
 "You have grown in many ways." 
 
 "Something isn't as it used to be." 
 
 As he said this, I thought of all the men I had seen go to 
 the war, and of those I had seen return; and I thought of 
 the change I had noted. Beyond all my powers of analy- 
 sis, it was real and consistent in them all, whatever their 
 differences of character. Paul alone appeared as an 
 exception. But when speaking to me, he had never 
 dwelt on scenes of carnage. I thought now of what he had 
 said about this. 
 
 He went on: 
 
 "To think there was a time when brutality merely re- 
 volted me! I didn't know there were human creatures 
 who use falsehood and treachery as the deliberate way 
 towards brutality, and who fear, and respect from fear, 
 brute force alone. It's kill or be killed: and we don't 
 mind. It's go through scenes of carnage so horrible that I 
 couldn't talk about it in a peaceful town, to a decent 
 person: and we don't mind. It's count human life cheap 
 and your own cheapest of all, provided you've fought 
 out your bargain: and we don't mind. Mind? No! We 
 want to keep at it till we're rid of this nightmare. If we 
 must soil our hands, it's that the hands of those who come 
 after us may be clean! That's service, isn't it?" 
 
 Getting up, he paced once more. I could see his mouth 
 tighten each time the weight swung at his wrist, but he 
 betrayed himself in no other way. Repeatedly he stopped 
 quite still, attentive as if listening. Coming back towards 
 me, he said abruptly:
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 305 
 
 "You know what they are aiming at send me home 
 to Verviller in a few months, with my discharge in my 
 pocket and with an arm in each of my sleeves. But if I 
 am to work quietly there or elsewhere, in any room or 
 office of France or of the world, I don't need a half-dead 
 arm on my right side ! They won't listen to me but they 
 may listen to you. Tell them you wish the mechanical 
 treatment to be tried, on the bare forlorn chance it may 
 make me a sound man fit for the trenches. And tell them 
 if it fails, I shall be happier with an empty sleeve than with 
 a broken heart!" 
 
 "Bravo! That is worthy of my husband's young 
 friend!" The Marquise de Vervillers stood near us, radi- 
 ating happiness. 
 
 I addressed her sourly: 
 
 "It is boyish folly!" 
 
 "Yes. The sort of boyish folly from which a new and 
 glorious France is being made! You are right, Paul! I 
 may call you Paul, may I not? I am an old woman; and 
 my husband knew you and liked you and believed in you 
 believed in you, remember ! You are right, and I shall help 
 you. Unless M. Aubret goes so far as to protest for- 
 mally " 
 
 "He wouldn't dare!" Paul cried, hugging me with his 
 left arm. 
 
 "I shall have you transferred to the small ward near my 
 dispensary, where I attend to the patients myself, instead 
 of merely supervising," she continued. Then she added: 
 "With the assistance of Mademoiselle de Clermont, and 
 Soeur Angele, of course!" 
 
 Paul's grey eyes beamed upon her a wordless joy, while 
 his pale cheeks flushed. He looked very young, un- 
 changed and unspoiled, with his close-cropped, velvety
 
 306 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 hair marking, as in boyhood, the points above his forehead 
 and revealing the fine lines of his intelligent head. For 
 he sets to his men the example they should follow, saying: 
 "Ordinary people do as they please; only a grocer's or a 
 hairdresser's boy, and a sheep-like fool, need smother their 
 heads in wool; but a wise man shouldn't and a soldier 
 mustn't. A brain wants to breathe if it's got to work." 
 
 When the Marquise had left us, he whispered, still 
 clinging to me with his sound arm: 
 
 "You will thank her for us both, won't you? She's not 
 only saving me she's preventing you from doing me a 
 wrong!" 
 
 He was set to rowing a fictitious boat, or some like exer- 
 cise; and at once the wound burst open. Patiently, he 
 relapsed into inertness. Reaching once again the stage 
 rendering an experiment possible, he demanded a renewal 
 of the treatment. This time the consequences were so 
 serious that amputation reappeared as an imminent 
 probability. 
 
 "It's the other half of our bargain," Paul said, un- 
 disturbed, to the head surgeon who reproached him with 
 his stubborn rashness. "If you don't cure me, then the 
 arm goes to you." 
 
 Clean blood, a sound constitution, devoted nursing, and 
 an indomitable will, conquered the flesh once again. 
 
 "You may congratulate yourself on your escape," the 
 surgeon told him. "I hope this will render you more 
 reasonable." 
 
 "I promise!" Paul replied. "Suppose we say I shall 
 wait for an entire week after the first day it might be pos- 
 sible to begin?" 
 
 As I sat silently by him, he mused:
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 307 
 
 "'A miracle' was what Soeur Angele said. Miracles 
 are unaccountable things. There's a man in this ambu- 
 lance who was hit on the side of the nose; the bullet, just 
 missing his ri^ht eye, came out grazing the lid of the left. 
 Both eyes saved. A miracle, of course! But in the field 
 ambulance where I was taken, there was a patient; a bullet 
 had struck him in one eye, touched a bone, glanced off, 
 and came out through the socket of the other eye. 
 Couldn't have happened more than once in thousands of 
 similar wounds. So, a miracle. It's the same law which 
 one man has to thank for his sight, and the other for his 
 blindness." 
 
 "Why why?" he burst out suddenly, after a pause. 
 "That's the question I keep asking myself. A shell 
 exploded fifteen feet from where some comrades and I 
 were standing; another group lay beyond; nobody was 
 hurt. Why didn't it fall on some of us or why weren't 
 some of us where it fell? I've had a soup-tin, next to me 
 on the ground, riddled with holes all at once, and I not 
 touched. Once, I saw a friend's skull cut in two while I 
 looked at him, within half a yard of me; a fragment of the 
 same shell cleared my head, though I was taller than he. 
 Bullets have punched the earth an inch or two from my 
 hand. Why didn't they come nearer or why hadn't 
 I thrust my hand forward? In order to be shot, I had to 
 stand up and wave and make such a target of myself that 
 a four-year-old boy with a pea-shooter couldn't have 
 missed me; and even then, I was only winged while my com- 
 rades, who did as much as I, had to die. Why is it why ? " 
 
 "Perhaps because you were meant to live, Paul; because 
 you have work to do; because your vocation, declared in 
 boyhood, still has its demands to make, guarding you so 
 that destiny may be fulfilled!"
 
 308 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "That can't be true," he said hoarsely. With eyes 
 fixed on me, he watched me so long and so silently that I 
 thought him about to open his heart; then I thought he 
 would not speak. But his eyes did not leave me. I 
 waited. 
 
 "I still dream of those old ambitions, sometimes," he 
 said. 
 
 I felt that he had not expressed his thought; that he had 
 decided not to mention it, or at least not then. 
 
 "A question stops me, too, when I try to think," he 
 went on. "I mean, a question which doesn't depend on 
 myself. Since men haven't reached a stage where they can 
 agree even theoretically as to what is right, how can their 
 laws be made better?" 
 
 Unable to answer, I asked: 
 
 "Does your inner voice no longer prompt you?" 
 
 "I can't believe in it any more." He spoke so solemnly 
 that I dared not question further. 
 
 He had his way; the treatment succeeded. His arm 
 remains shortened not more than an inch, and may still 
 lengthen slightly; the muscular flexibility, if not complete, 
 has been sufficient for him to rejoin his corps. A surgical 
 triumph, the doctors gravely inform us; Sceur Angele 
 insists on the miracle; Mademoiselle de Clermont teasingly 
 asserts: "Luck!" But the Marquise de Vervillers and I 
 say: "Paul." 
 
 His convalescence at the ambulance was so protracted, 
 including even a course in fencing towards the end, that 
 after his medical discharge he asked for only a six-day 
 leave as for a soldier home from the front. Having no 
 reason to go far from Paris, and yet desiring country air, 
 we went to Versailles. Perhaps we had special motives,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 309 
 
 too; I know he visited the cemetery; and to me, the town 
 where I shared the last months of his independent life is 
 almost sacred. 
 
 Soon after dark, on the night before he left, we happened 
 to pass the Cathedral whose Louis XV style, Franco- 
 Spanish, suggested to us those churches so familiar in 
 Lorraine and seen nowhere else in France, I believe. A 
 bright moon in a wind-whipped sky shone near the rounded 
 dome with its thin, globe-topped spire; below, the yellowed 
 stone glowed smooth and fair. Lights from the broad 
 white windows cut across our path. Responding to I 
 know not what impulse or emotion, we stopped, turned, 
 and tacitly agreed to enter. 
 
 Blackness filled the aspiring heights of the nave; gloom 
 drifted down, veiling the capitals of the great round 
 columns but shading to greyness as it fell. About us, and 
 yet above our heads, diffused rays cast radiance wherever 
 a man might kneel or stand to pray. 
 
 As we came in, a group of worshippers faded away, 
 soundlessly, at the farther door, the sharp blow of whose 
 closing told us they had really been there and had gone. 
 We saw none save each other; but at moments a footstep, 
 half-muffled, many-echoed, would start from an invisible 
 space and clatter, ghost-like, from stone to stone. 
 
 I prayed for the boy, prayed selfishly that he might be 
 spared to me I, who lay no claim to creed but know the 
 power of prayer. And while I prayed selfishly for him, I 
 believe Paul prayed for me but his prayer was generous : 
 his features, noble as always, still boyish and yet with the 
 firmness of manhood, were transfigured as they may have 
 been on that day long ago in Verviller, which had seemed 
 "very wonderful." 
 
 Silently leaving, we crossed the ringing blocks, historic
 
 310 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 prodigies of paving, which hem in the Cathedral of St. 
 Louis; and, walking on, we entered a small unlighted 
 street, all mystery, hard by the high wall of the horticul- 
 tural gardens. People live in that street, yet few are heard 
 to pass by night or are seen by day; a wall with doors that 
 never open shuts off one side, and houses posing as tenant- 
 less guard the other. Few seem to pass; but echoes there 
 claim tribute from each step, each breath, each leaf that 
 wanders, mystery-haunted, within its precincts. 
 
 Paul spoke softly: 
 
 "I said I couldn't believe in the voice any more. Ever 
 since the old days, it has prompted me, often; and when I 
 haven't listened I've been sorry afterwards. Explain it? 
 I can't; not any more than Socrates could; but at least I 
 don't pretend, like professors and worldly wisemen, to 
 know better than Socrates and call him virtually a fool 
 simply because he had to accept the evidence of his senses. 
 I don't know what it is; but I know it's there, and I recog- 
 nise it when I hear it, quite distinct from conscience or 
 imagination. In fact, it often goes against my impulses 
 or desires. But it's never contrary to what proves eventu- 
 ally to have been right. I said never; I should have said 
 never until that day at the ambulance. You remember? 
 The voice tried to guide me wrong. It kept repeating: 
 'Paul, you have done your share. You are freed from 
 obligations. Let others do their share. Return to lead 
 your life as it was meant to be, return to prepare for your 
 work.' Now, I knew I hadn't done enough; I knew I 
 oughtn't to be inactive. And I knew I know I'm not 
 worthy, any more, of the big work I used to aspire to, once. 
 So I answered myself: 'This is not the voice. This time 
 you are a victim of imagination. And though it were 
 the voice, you must not obey it where you feel it is
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 311 
 
 wrong.' But I've understood, since, that it had really 
 spoken." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Because, since I disobeyed, it has never spoken again." 
 
 VI 
 
 THE letters Paul sends me from the region of Verdun are 
 brief, but evoke the horrors and the miseries of the cam- 
 paign like nothing he has yet written. He is living a 
 nightmare protracted for hour after hour and for week 
 after week; a state of existence in which men are heroic 
 demons, holding in their scarred hands the holy trust 
 of their country's security, Lucifers toiling grimly to 
 achieve apotheosis; an existence in which the once con- 
 flicting elements of fire and water have mingled to the 
 utter confusion of all creatures, and part when fire con- 
 sumes the very air and when water melts away the solid 
 earth, while poor human mites, deprived alike of trust and 
 of guarantee in an unfamiliar world, struggle and fight, 
 fight and struggle, until they die, or rouse with dazed senses 
 to ask how they came not to die. Paul wrote: 
 
 It is I was about to say it is a living hell, but the word's 
 too mild. A short while ago, somebody showed me a copy of 
 Dante's Inferno with Dore's illustrations. Why, that man Dore 
 didn't know what torture meant. He looked out of his study 
 window into a cozy old-fashioned garden, and saw an autumn 
 storm shaking the trees that all. 
 
 Talking with me, he has described Verdun, famed ever 
 since Roman days as the bulwark of France, unconquered 
 still among the ruins hemming in its triumphant citadel. 
 Do not those ruins form, indeed, a crown of glorious 
 jewels, set in a circle of impregnable forts?
 
 312 
 
 The town is like a palace of cards, impressive and intri- 
 cate, piled storey upon storey, ready to crumble at a breath. 
 Many houses assume a semblance of being nearly intact; 
 one can fancy them inhabited, behind tight-closed shutters, 
 by stubborn and courageous citizens defying evacuation 
 orders. Those houses are, perhaps, more ominous than 
 heaps of wreckage; for a shell has entered treacherously, 
 making but a hole in the outer wall or the roof, and has 
 pulverised the interior or uprooted the foundations, leaving 
 intact only a species of mask. Is this what German 
 barbarians sought to revive in France the heathenish 
 legend of the Lorelei whose smile lures the guileless to 
 wander on, and perish? 
 
 But though houses collapse, and though they bring 
 death, Verdun will not fall; for with Verdun as with 
 Sparta, her armies are her walls and the soldiers are the 
 bricks. 
 
 Around these phantasmal but immortal ruins, villages 
 are strewn, or what were villages once; some still showing 
 groups of pierced roofs and broken masonry; others, mere 
 heaps of refuse; many, but spots on a desolate plain. 
 Where forests waved, the pride and the splendour of 
 Lorraine, sticks of brushwood are scattered or stuck erect. 
 The earth itself but who speaks of earth? This is no 
 longer the gnarled surface of old mother earth; it is her 
 seamed and ravaged face, marred and pitted beyond recog- 
 nition by the scourge of small-pox; features once fair, and 
 ever to be loved, now disfigured, repulsive, terrible. 
 
 A difficult period has had to be weathered, with daily 
 fighting on a fragmentary scale and indefinite biding for 
 a solution, while a new and inexperienced, though all- 
 powerful, ally forms its forces for the decisive onslaught.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 313 
 
 An anxious time for those who are scrapping and stopping, 
 scrapping and stopping, whereas their indomitable courage 
 and their overwrought nerves ask only to fight and win and 
 be done with it; an anxious time, too, for us at the rear, 
 who calculate the risks already run, and the extraordinary 
 chance which has allowed our dear ones to be spared so 
 far. 
 
 Paul no longer asks "why" he is avoided by the hail of 
 steel falling all round him; he takes for granted both the 
 general danger and his present immunity. 
 
 "There's a funny thing about shells when you hear them 
 coming," he has remarked. "You often fear that particular 
 one may get a comrade, but you never think it could be for 
 you. Even if you are in the open and lie down, it's just 
 because a wee splinter might reach you, but you never 
 imagine you could be killed. Luckily!" 
 
 I had seen Paul more frequently than I could have hoped 
 yet not with the joy on which I might have had a right to 
 count. He would be brought back by a complication from 
 his old wound, or by an unexplained fever or disorder. 
 Before the doctors pronounced him convalescent, he would 
 demand to be off again. I began to suspect that in 
 addition to a half-maimed limb, he had to bear with a 
 deeply shaken nervous system. He never complained; 
 but I recall that he said to me: 
 
 "The war will come to an end, sooner or later, and some 
 of us will be left. But what can ever compensate us for 
 what we have gone through? I know men in the twenties 
 who are already worn out, and by no fault of theirs; the 
 mainspring's weakened, and the mechanism's used up; 
 they will find themselves old men when they want to begin 
 life. They may try to forget; but they have lost what 
 can't be forgotten."
 
 314 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 I left my Verviller house to Marcel, and took a flat in 
 Paris, so that Paul might have diversions when on leave. 
 That was the motive I alleged; but I had borne in mind the 
 little affair with his "cousin" Mademoiselle de Clermont. 
 The Marquise de Vervillers would occasionally invite me 
 to her house for lunch, a meal shared by the ladies helping 
 at her hospital and served in the private apartments re- 
 served on the first floor. I gathered the impression that 
 the late Baron de Clermont's only daughter had not en- 
 tirely dismissed the image of one among her many patients; 
 and I hoped that Paul might stand as good a chance as any 
 one, and better than most, to win the hand of this charm- 
 ing young aristocrat. By discussing Breton legends, I 
 gathered from Mademoiselle de Clermont notions of the 
 localities connected with her name, and so was able to set 
 qualified persons to work, diligently investigating parish 
 and township registers for possible clues to Paul's ancestry. 
 
 He and she were no more than very good friends, when 
 they met; and such were the ideal relations for them, at this 
 juncture. But I noticed that he told her much that one 
 need not relate to casual friends. I know indeed that he 
 told his entire story; and I saw for myself that it placed 
 no barrier between them. Then I thought the time come 
 to talk with the Marquise de Vervillers about the settle- 
 ment I had made on him. Of course the good lady is 
 above vulgar, sordid considerations; it is because of her 
 genuine interest in Paul that she has ever since treated 
 him almost like a child of her own. 
 
 He has again been at her hospital. Oddly enough, 
 parting from me not long before, he had said : 
 
 "Next time I see you, it will be because of a wound. 
 My turn hasn't come yet, I think; but I'm going to be 
 wounded."
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 315 
 
 I tried to laugh it off, though I had heard many strange 
 instances of soldiers who have made such prophecies, and 
 been right. 
 
 "Of course," I said, "if you go hunting for it " 
 
 "No," he answered soberly. "It doesn't come that 
 way." 
 
 Nor did it. 
 
 It hunted him out in his shell-proof. Two nights 
 previously, he had led a raid, accomplishing a perilous 
 mission and bringing back the prisoners and the informa- 
 tion wanted, and also all his own men though several were 
 wounded. He stood peacefully and in apparent security, 
 at rest with his hands in his pockets, when a shell broke 
 through and burst, killing an officer and two soldiers, and 
 wounding him thrice, in hip and side and shoulder. 
 
 So great had been the number of wounded, that no 
 anaesthetics remained at the nearest ambulance. The 
 operation was judged imperatively urgent, and he was 
 butchered in the live flesh. He says all went fairly well 
 for the extraction of the first bit, but he lost his self- 
 control and fought against those who held him down for the 
 second, and went off raving in delirium when it came to the 
 third. Complications were averted by the promptness 
 of this ghastly intervention; that is, all physical compli- 
 cations save a slight limp; but ever since, I have watched 
 him with an indefinable concern. 
 
 What I noticed at first was no more than an occasional 
 tone a look how could I tell? For I did not yet know. 
 A species of apprehension seemed to hang over him, which 
 was not a form of fear; and I could discern no further. 
 
 I was certain it could not be fear, not only by his words 
 but because I saw him tested repeatedly at what we called 
 in jest the "Paris front," a spot more exposed, indeed,
 
 316 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 than certain sectors. We who had grown accustomed to 
 the quietude of Paris have weathered a series of raids and 
 alarms; we have had them by night, and night upon night, 
 and several times in a night; and we have had long- 
 distance bombardments by day, from sunrise to sunset, 
 until the dull, re-echoing thud of shells bursting at regular 
 intervals, but more or less remote, more or less resonant, 
 were as familiar to us as the siren's lonely wail and the 
 hysterical gasp of horns, or as the boom of the cannon and 
 the cracking of shrapnel and of machine-guns. 
 
 He and I have been near the places where bombs or 
 shells burst; and we have visited the scenes of greatest 
 havoc. We have seen the dead and the mutilated; and we 
 have found houses with a storey or two destroyed, and 
 buildings with scarred faces, and innumerable smashed 
 window-panes, and iron shutters cut as by giant shears, 
 and drains blown up, and holes in asphalt or wooden pave- 
 ments. Thousands of people viewed all this; they were 
 neither frightened nor emotional. On the scene of the 
 grim spectacle, they spoke little; then they would go about 
 their business, and the life of Paris proceeded as before. 
 
 What a poor result for so much scheming and attempt- 
 ing, so much violation of human laws; so much science de- 
 voted, money expended, energy concentrated; so much 
 resolve to win, whatever the means employed: a little 
 innocent blood shed, a few homes destroyed, a large 
 masons' and glaziers' and plumbers' and carpenters' bill 
 for future reckoning and Paris going about its business 
 as before! 
 
 No; even with the shocks of these recent wounds and the 
 operation, added to his existing troubles, Paul had no fear; 
 yet I guessed an intangible apprehension. That idea, or 
 that inkling of an idea, was the nearest I approached to the
 
 317 
 
 truth until one evening when he told a story to amuse us 
 Madame de Vervillers, Mademoiselle de Clermont, and 
 myself. 
 
 As he spoke, he became his old self once again, gay and 
 graphic; it was long since I had heard him in this vein, and 
 a weight was lifted from my spirit. Whatever had 
 happened, he was still faithful and trusting, and likely to 
 say "It doesn't matter" when everything failed him, and 
 his heart was near breaking. I had done what a guardian 
 could, my part was ended: he would not again draw in- 
 spiration from me. But for the sake of the woman he 
 desired as his mate, he had recovered the qualities which 
 I thought dead; and as she listened, I knew that she was 
 not indifferent. Yet it was this tale, begun so simply and 
 with a single motive, which in the end betrayed a truth 
 constantly present to me ever since, as it had already 
 become a brooding, inseparable part of himself. 
 
 "There's somebody we mind much more than Fritz, and 
 that's Monsieur Cafard," he said lightly. "Fritz may not 
 have any sense of shame, but he has a wholesome sense of 
 retirement, and he doesn't show himself unless he has to. 
 But Monsieur Cafard sticks at nothing, he lacks the 
 commonest prudence as well as discretion." 
 
 "You mean homesickness, of course," I commented, 
 although I began to be puzzled. 
 
 "No, I mean exactly what, or rather whom, I say, 
 Monsieur Cafard. He's quite different from the ordinary 
 cafard we used to have. That was a condition, and it 
 came at you in another way. You were lonesome and 
 melancholy, and you mooned about for a little while before 
 either recovering or else going home, and that was the end 
 of it.
 
 318 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 "But Monsieur Cafard won't be treated so casually, not 
 at any price. He's after you quick as a flash, before you 
 know you are lonely or melancholy. There's no period 
 allowed for mooning, and there's no going home. And he 
 attacks most viciously when you've just got back from 
 leave and there's no prospect of home again for four 
 months, unless you get smashed. That's one of the re- 
 spects in which Monsieur Cafard shows his lack of decency 
 and fair play." 
 
 "A Boche behaves better, then?" Mademoiselle de 
 Clermont prompted. 
 
 "Fritz," Paul corrected. "The word Boche is passing 
 out. You know the course of slang. We run it into the 
 ground, and then we tire of it and fling it aside. So, from 
 the day we got the Boches thoroughly in the ground, and 
 several storeys deep, too, the word was doomed. 
 
 "I wouldn't pretend Fritz is a pleasant customer. But 
 he's easier and healthier to deal with than Monsieur 
 Cafard. If you kill him you kill him, and you can say to 
 yourself afterwards, 'There's one less, anyhow.' The 
 chief trouble with Monsieur Cafard is that you can't 
 kill him. However hard you hit when driving him away 
 this time, he'll be at you again the very next moment, un- 
 less you're careful. Kill him? Why, you can't even tire 
 the beggar! We get relative relief from him only when 
 we're hard driven fighting Fritz and haven't a chance to 
 think. Yet the first line itself isn't an entire protection 
 against Monsieur Cafard, for we must rest at certain hours. 
 It's not fair, I say. He hasn't the least notion of honour- 
 able conduct. If he weren't so tough and adaptable, I 
 should believe he was Made in Germany. But he's too 
 well-built for that; he's of good materials and sound work- 
 manship worse luck!"
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 319 
 
 Already, I had known of cafard as a condition, and I 
 had been able to accept him as a personality. This new 
 mechanical metaphor, however, got me seriously mixed. 
 I ventured to state the fact. 
 
 " So is he mixed," Paul replied calmly. "And so are we, 
 when he gets at us. As I've already told you, it's not just 
 homesickness; nor is it just depression, nor just loneliness, 
 nor just idleness. There's all of that, and weariness too; 
 and there's a big share of ennui, and rage at seeing our- 
 selves in such a mess ; and there are memories of all sorts of 
 things, nice and ugly, what we'd like to have and what 
 we've got to accept, all jumbled up together. Once our 
 thoughts have taken that mould, we're no longer prey to a 
 simple mood, we're at grips with an active, resourceful, 
 murderous enemy, full of wile and as steady as clock-work. 
 Yes, he's a condition and a mechanism, both; but he's a 
 real live creature besides, and we call him Monsieur Ca- 
 fard." 
 
 In the heat of things, a man might at least be free from 
 Monsieur Cafard, he said. Yet not always. Even ex- 
 treme danger was not a guarantee, if opportunities for 
 struggling were eliminated, and if melancholy compli- 
 cations were piled on while you waited. 
 
 For instance, knocking about in barbed wires at night, 
 for one reason or another, and having rockets go off un- 
 expectedly, and then hearing machine-guns turned loose, 
 was part of the game and nobody kicked against the 
 principle of it. But according to circumstances, Monsieur 
 Cafard might be very close or else quite forgotten. 
 
 Only a week before, Paul had had to go on a job of the 
 kind, a reconnoissance, with three men. They had to pass 
 through the worst chicane he had yet met, a narrow and 
 sharp-turning lane between fields of wire; and often they
 
 320 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 had to work their way underneath. Their helmets kept 
 striking and ringing against the steel points; and of course 
 rockets would go up, and machine-guns would begin 
 spitting; but things would quiet down, and the men would 
 creep on once more. 
 
 They finished the job, and were on their way back. It 
 had been rather nerve-racking, but not too bad, as such 
 things go. Then, when they had got within a few yards 
 of safety, the moon rose suddenly from a bank of heavy 
 cloud and flooded the whole country with light. Taken by 
 surprise, they all threw themselves flat, while bullets rained 
 round them. For ten minutes they didn't move. The 
 fire slowed down, they started to crawl forward; they were 
 both seen and heard, and the fire began afresh. 
 
 For very nearly an hour this went on: an attempt to start 
 as soon as quiet came, and the machine-guns after them 
 like cats after mice before they had crawled more than a 
 few inches. It was hideous. But not for one instant did 
 Monsieur Cafard get near them. They were too closely 
 concentrated on the wish to profit by every tiny hope for 
 drawing a little nearer to safety; though death seemed 
 inevitable, they could still struggle. 
 
 On such occasions, Monsieur Cafard felt he might 
 afford to stand clear; his chance would be sure to come 
 again, soon enough. 
 
 A perfect opportunity for him came, once, in a really 
 pleasant landscape, a rough country riddled with shell- 
 holes, rich in logs and tree-stumps mixed with wire, more 
 mud than had ever been brought together since the Flood 
 subsided, and a night as black as you make them. Paul 
 and his men had been detailed to carry torpedoes to the 
 crapouillot bombardiers in the first line; they had five 
 miles to go, each with that heavy weight on his shoulders
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 321 
 
 and permission to halt and shift it to the other side at the 
 end of every mile. 
 
 A rocket blazed up, one of those confounded new rockets 
 which make no noise until they flare, and so they catch you 
 at work. The men with their torpedoes were seen as 
 plainly as by day, and the German machine-guns began 
 their tac-tac-tac, tac-a-tac. Only one thing could be done; 
 orders were whispered to lie down and "swim," each man 
 with his torpedo on his back. 
 
 No prospect of escape, or relief, or struggle, or anything 
 else containing hope; and the certainty that the fire would 
 continue long, with such fine game to hunt. You had to 
 lie there in the mud, with that torpedo on your back, and 
 the hail of bullets striking all round you; and when you got 
 up, it would be to creep on a little farther with your load, 
 growing heavier while you grew sorer at each step which 
 drew you closer to danger. 
 
 As Paul and his comrades lay, silent and miserable, 
 thinking of this, a finishing touch was added. Rain fell, a 
 fine, stealthy drizzle soaking steadily into the flesh. That 
 was the diabolical exaggeration of misery which Monsieur 
 Cafard's ingeniousness had devised, to complete the effects 
 of weary muscles and aching bones and oozy mud and 
 pelting bullets and hideous night. 
 
 It was too much for the men. They absolutely gave 
 up. And Monsieur Cafard revelled in his ignoble tri- 
 umph. 
 
 But he had failed to take into account the fact that they 
 had their regimental fool with them. An utter, hopeless 
 fool, and generally useless, save for playing the fool. Not 
 having brains enough to appreciate the extreme forlornness 
 surrounding them all, and not having a single thought in 
 his head to make him more wretched by comparison, he
 
 322 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 chose to find something funny in the angle at which a com- 
 rade raised his nose for an instant. 
 
 "You look like a duck bobbing for water," murmured 
 Durancy the fool. "Haven't you got enough water as it 
 is?" 
 
 From sheer wretchedness, Paul laughed in a subdued 
 sort of way, and some of his neighbours followed suit. 
 Ranelle, who was no fool, saw his opening and threw down 
 a challenge to Monsieur Caf ard by sighing out in a squeaky 
 sing-song whisper: 
 
 "Tis not for us, boys, 'tis for F-r-r-r-rance!" 
 
 Another quickly braced up and added his word; though 
 a poor one, it helped: 
 
 "Oh, mother, why did you give me a back when I was 
 born?" 
 
 That sufficed. The fun had been started, and they kept 
 it going as then- last hope upon earth. They got Mon- 
 sieur Cafard roundly on the run. And presently the rain 
 stopped, and Fritz let up with his machine-guns, and they 
 all shouldered their torpedoes once more and went on their 
 way, feeling really happy. ' 
 
 "You see," Paul observed, "having downed OUT most 
 inveterate enemy, we didn't mind poor Fritz. Every- 
 thing's in the method, but thank God for a fool, once in a 
 while." 
 
 "Have you, then,' a regular method for fighting off 
 Monsieur Cafard, or does it just depend?" Mademoiselle 
 de Clermont laughed. 1 
 
 "Both. The main thing is to know his nature as well 
 as he knows yours. Monsieur Cafard does not like happi- 
 ness; and another thing he hates is light. He is sure to 
 score in a gloomy dug-out when you lack elementary com- 
 forts and essential decencies, and everybody's too nervous
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 323 
 
 to sleep. I believe the thing which makes him angriest of 
 all is a fire in winter. He likes to see you shivering miser- 
 ably in a big old barn, with wind and rain blowing in from 
 everywhere and no warmth anywhere. 
 
 "Sometimes we are able to rig up a stove out of a piece 
 of old grate from the wreck of a house; and if we're lucky 
 enough to find a battered boiler and any sort of a pipe, then 
 our stove's complete. Or no, I don't quite mean any 
 sort of pipe. Lead won't do, it melts, as we found out by 
 sad experience. We lacked heat, that night, but at least 
 Monsieur Cafard didn't get us, for we never laughed more 
 especially as Ranelle just missed a ladleful of hot lead on 
 his head. Another return to mediaeval ways of war, you 
 see! 
 
 "It's astonishing how much can be learned by ex- 
 perience. For instance, we've learned not to do too much 
 damage when we take possession of a deserted house and 
 start fires going in huge old-fashioned chimneys. We 
 used to start the chimney itself off, every time. Now, we 
 generally avoid that. Too dangerous for ourselves. 
 
 "We had got a glorious blaze going in a place of the kind, 
 which was the only shelter for miles and miles. Suddenly 
 we heard a terrific roaring above. The whole chimney 
 was a mass of flames, inside; and it was an exceptionally 
 large chimney. Quick as thought, we rammed things in 
 below, to stop the draught. But a different sort of row 
 broke loose, like a machine-gun attack on a small scale. 
 At first we thought the chimney was about to explode. 
 Then bullets whizzed in, and we understood somebody was 
 shooting. 
 
 "Fritzes? Not one bit of it. That fool of a Durancy 
 had been told, as a boy, that the surest way to put out a 
 chimney-fire was to shoot off a fowling-piece into the fire-
 
 824 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 place. Being Durancy, he climbed on the roof instead, 
 and not having a fowling-piece, turned loose with his rifle, 
 emptying the magazine down the chimney as fast as he 
 could re-load. 
 
 "When we caught on, we fell to laughing so that we 
 could hardly get out of the way of his shots; several of us 
 just missed getting our skin punched; two of us tumbled 
 from the roof as we tried to reach him and stop his activi- 
 ties. His rifle was nicely cleaned for inspection next day, 
 I can promise you. As for us, we'd had our laugh. 
 
 "Monsieur Cafard has no use for scenes like that. But 
 he's mean enough to take a dirty vengeance, when the 
 fun is over. 
 
 " I remember particularly one night of terrific cold, when 
 the men had collected a lot of wood to burn on an im- 
 provised brasero, in a leaky loft. If the fire went out they 
 would change to icicles while asleep. So, before turning 
 in, they piled on the wood. Anybody who happened to be 
 awake later was to add more you know that sort of ar- 
 rangement. What wasn't known at the time was that 
 somebody had set a big bean up on end, like a mast or a 
 tent-pole, in the very middle of the blaze. It stood 
 steadily, the base being broad and sawed straight; and 
 that sufficed for him. We are all positive it could have 
 been nobody except Durancy. 
 
 "Ranelle, who's a pretty good chap, had staid up, 
 fortunately, having a chat with the cook in the barn 
 beneath. He saw showers of sparks come down through 
 the gaps, and he chased up the ladder before it was too 
 late. 
 
 "The men put all the blame on Durancy; they said his 
 beam, or joy-mast, or whatever you choose to call it, had 
 flopped over by force of circumstances when its base got
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 325 
 
 charred away, and so it set the floor afire. But I knew 
 Durancy was only partially responsible, and I said so; 
 which pleased him, because he didn't acknowledge having 
 put the beam there. I knew they had never been more 
 successful in driving Monsieur Cafard away, than that 
 evening up to the moment when they dropped off to sleep, 
 all warm and comfortable. And so our enemy " 
 
 Paul broke off abruptly; his attention had wandered. 
 Near at hand there was a sound of knocking against a wall, 
 slow heavy thuds as from a workman's pick. 
 
 "Boom Boom Boom," he muttered, as each suc- 
 cessive blow fell. "Why can't they stop that noise? 
 One doesn't mind being in the thick of it. But to sit up 
 and listen to feeble imitations is just begging Monsieur 
 
 Cafard to come catch you. It's enough to Why did 
 
 you stop talking? Or did I stop? What was I saying? " 
 
 "You were explaining the surest ways for defeating 
 Monsieur Cafard," I answered, pointedly. 
 
 "The system consists in keeping the fun going," he re- 
 turned. "You seize any excuse for being cheerful in 
 spite of everything." 
 
 "And suppose you don't succeed?" I rashly asked. 
 
 "Suppose we don't succeed," he repeated after a good 
 many moments of reflection. "Why, then Monsieur 
 Cafard gets us. You hear about bad cases of neurasthenia 
 but it's Monsieur Cafard. A man may go mad, once in a 
 while it's Monsieur Cafard. A man may kill himself 
 after a trifling reprimand Monsieur Cafard. Or he may 
 lose his head and show lack of respect towards an officer 
 still Monsieur Cafard. 
 
 "I'm of a flegmatic temperament, or so the others tell 
 me. With the crowd, I can keep up my spirits as well as 
 the rest. But sometimes "
 
 326 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 Paul had positively changed colour; his fingers and the 
 corners of his mouth were twitching. 
 
 "I say!" he burst out violently, turning upon me with 
 a swift movement. "Why can't you change the sub- 
 ject?" 
 
 The expression in his eyes appalled me; and I saw Made- 
 moiselle de Clermont look away in pain rather than in 
 horror. 
 
 When we were alone, Paul made his confession: 
 
 "I I don't know what comes over me, at such times. 
 I'm all right, of course; but since my last wounds, coming 
 after the Verdun fighting, I I can't explain. It's foolish, 
 it's humiliating; and besides, it fills me with a dread worse 
 than anything: the dread of losing my nerve. I'm not a 
 coward yet. But suppose I ever am?" He shuddered and 
 broke off. 
 
 Later, I said to Mademoiselle de Clermont: 
 
 "What do you think of Paul's condition?" 
 
 "I think he is a hero," was her reply. 
 
 My conclusion was that Paul, having already a part- 
 useless arm unfitting him for self-defence, and being now 
 wrecked by further strain and serious wounds, must not 
 be for the present with an active unit. I believe I could 
 have secured for him an appointment in some connection 
 with the American Army; he was certainly qualified by 
 his wounds, by his knowledge and experience of fighting 
 conditions, and by his familiarity with the French and 
 English languages. But he would not allow me to take 
 steps to this effect. He has made up his mind to serve to 
 the end among his own people, for the avenging of their 
 own wrongs. He has a man's right to decide, since he has 
 done a man's work. I reproach him with his lack of 
 reason, while I bow before his will.
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 327 
 
 My plans led me to visit our American troops in train- 
 ing; and though I failed to influence Paul, I am the richer 
 for impressions which have filled him, as they have myself, 
 with admiration and with confidence. What men, lithe, 
 and comely, and athletic, cheerful-hearted, strictly disci- 
 plined, marvellously developed, supple and sure as the 
 finest steel, superb and clean as the youth of America can 
 be; preparing to fight for a principle, for a cause, for their 
 country and for other countries, preparing to fight not 
 because they hated but because they had to fight, and 
 resolved to do it well because it was their custom to do well 
 all things whatever they undertook in life! Their spirit 
 seemed to soar as Quentin Roosevelt soared, eager and 
 sincere, unassumingly courageous and unswervingly reso- 
 lute, ardent with the desire to conquer, iron-willed but 
 golden-hearted, triumphant over death itself. 
 
 I have returned to Verviller. Paul writes to me now 
 from the Reims sector. The work of barbarous destruc- 
 tion has been raging furiously. An officer who passed 
 there has described the town as "heaps of stone, piles of 
 ashes, awful wreckage, where nothing in the way of build- 
 ings can be recognised." Yet one thing, lamentable in its 
 martyrdom, can still be identified from all points of the 
 desolate landscape: the seared Cathedral, standing in 
 ghostly semblance of its olden form. 
 
 If, as I have sometimes thought, the first bombard- 
 ment of Reims marked a turning-point in the spirit of 
 France, I believe the present furious, insatiable vandal- 
 ism against a spot whose sole offence is its traditional 
 beauty and holiness will mark another and even wider 
 change. 
 
 Then, the country had tasted the bitterness of reverses,
 
 328 -^ THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 before experiencing the sweetness of reawakened hopes and 
 of newly hardened resolution. Since then, France has 
 given proofs of inexhaustible courage, and she holds 
 more than hope she grasps sureties of triumph. These 
 do not consist of mere material stakes torn from the 
 enemy. They consist in the work of her soldiers, in the 
 brains of her officers, in the resolution of her rulers; 
 in the loyalty, the energy, the effective help of powerful 
 Allies; and in her own patient fortitude through years of 
 unequalled self-abnegation and of steadfast, irresistible 
 endeavour. 
 
 Yet, with the thought of Paul lying like a leaden weight 
 within my bosom, I ask myself what even the wanton 
 destruction of homes, as of smiling fields and works of art, 
 can matter. The graves of our dead are with us; and 
 before us are the dreary years to be lived by countless 
 thousands of youths who will have to plunge, unfitted, into 
 the struggling seas of life. 
 
 This is the day of the wounded, the maimed, the ruined. 
 We take thought for them, we protect them, we love them. 
 But the day may come when they will no longer be heroes, 
 when they will merely be young men whose strong man- 
 hood, whose flower of vigour, whose glorious promise of 
 activity and of utility have been cut off. 
 
 Cut off by the will of a few, perhaps : but with what glad 
 patriotism, with what arrogant megalomania the hordes 
 obeyed the dictates of that will, and made its aims their 
 own! Cut off, that the sword might shine and the powder 
 flash, that material aggrandisement might extend beyond 
 conceivable limits, that materialist philosophy might be 
 imposed upon a world of slaves, and that Germany might 
 secure larger, better seaports, wider water-ways, stretching 
 out her triumphant wings to the west until the setting sun,
 
 329 
 
 clouded in their shadow, should sink to a mockery of rest 
 in oceans of noble blood. 
 
 The crime of crimes is doubly the holocaust of the 
 irreparable dead and the brand of suffering, of moral and 
 physical infirmity, which years cannot alter nor efface. 
 And so, in all justice, the least which can be asked of the 
 world at large is, to Remember. These heroes to-day will 
 to-morrow be only ruins if, in selfishness and in abase- 
 ment, we close our ears and our eyes and our hearts, we 
 seal up our memories and our consciences, and dare to 
 forget. 
 
 It is in order that I may not forget not forget for the 
 space of one mortal instant that I have returned to 
 Verviller, to the place made most sacred to me by what it 
 has suffered, and by its association with one who has al- 
 ready been called upon to give everything he had, save bare 
 life. 
 
 The news has been good, of late. Germany's resources 
 are evidently running short. The end cannot be far off. 
 Paul has received the Croix de Guerre with a silver star, 
 after a particularly daring and successful coup-de-main. 
 He has been recommended for a four-month course as 
 Aspirant at St. Cyr, to be given his commission upon 
 returning to the trenches; but of course he cannot leave 
 his unit while these offensives continue. 
 
 Marcel has grown active and prosperous in a reviving 
 community. His sole preoccupation, indeed, would seem 
 to be a darkness which, in spite of me, sometimes descends 
 upon my spirits. He cheers me with ever the same halting 
 step and hearty cry: 
 
 "And what of it, Pere Aubret? Haven't others gone 
 through the mill and come back, not much the worse for
 
 330 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 being winged? Besides, doesn't Paul wear the scapulary 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont gave him? Only for her sake, 
 of course!" 
 
 VII 
 
 MARCEL has just left me. I have promised I would try 
 to sleep. Instead, I take out these pages. Where do I 
 find courage to write? Perhaps in that this always served 
 to draw me nearer to my boy. 
 
 It has come. The news which was bound to come. 
 Last night, a parcel was brought; things which belonged 
 to him. To-day, a letter. All addressed to Marcel 
 Lavenu. He waited for the letter, before telling me of the 
 parcel. 
 
 "Durancy." That is the signature. I have seen the 
 name, or heard it. The letter is from him. 
 
 Five men were to repair the barbed maze. . . . Murder- 
 ous fire. . . . Sergeant Clermont volunteered, so only four 
 men. . . . 
 
 Yes. Sergeant Clermont never failed. 
 
 They do the work, and return unharmed. But a tool 
 is missing. A special tool, hard to replace. Whose? 
 Durancy confesses: "Mine." Those are tear-blots on the 
 page, I think. Dried tear-blots. These others, here, are 
 wet. 
 
 Durancy admits it. He forgot the tool. "It must be 
 recovered." But he will not go. He refused. He admits 
 this, too. Face danger, do the work, and return safely, 
 yes once. But go a second time, when every gun from 
 the German trenches is being emptied into that maze? No,
 
 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 331 
 
 not that sort of death! Not suicide! For God's sake, 
 wait till this fire slows down. The tool be ruined? To 
 the devil with the tool! Or blow out his brains as he 
 stands, then! 
 
 Sergeant Paul has neither argued nor threatened. I 
 know Sergeant Paul. He must have seen the poor wretch 
 turn pale and start a-trembling; he has heard the death- 
 rattle of a thousand bullets. He will not send a coward to 
 sure death. A man is needed for that. 
 
 Before we suspect what he is doing, he leaps out. . . . 
 
 They see him reach the spot, and seize the tool; they 
 see him returning. They see him within a few yards of the 
 trench, and are about to cheer. Then they see him 
 wounded. They forget danger, and spring to his relief 
 Durancy with the rest. Durancy was one of the three who 
 brought him in. 
 
 The boy was dying. His eyes must have been of their 
 deep grey, when he opened them. He wanted to speak. 
 They listened, bending over him. 
 
 I have an uncle who loved me. This might kill him. One 
 of you must write. Not to him. Write to Marcel Lavenu. 
 Quickly, before he can hear. The address 
 
 His hand reached feebly towards his breast; he smiled 
 upon them one by one, his grey eyes still deepening; he 
 looked last upon Durancy, for an instant longer and with 
 an even gentler message than for all the rest and died. 
 
 "Why why?" Aye, Paul why do I weep here, alone 
 in my desolation? 
 
 Turning these pages, my eyes fall on lines written of his 
 youth:
 
 832 THE GIFT OF PAUL CLERMONT 
 
 One afternoon, on the hill above Verviller . . . Paul 
 
 had sought me out ... In my ears the words rang: 
 
 "I would rather be killed than kill. . . . Like an echo 
 
 . . a veiled, scarcely audible whisper reached me: 
 
 "It's better to go to prison than send a comrade there." 
 
 Paul had been true to his life. 
 
 THE END
 
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