MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH

BY H. G. WELLS

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY H. G. WELLS

CONTENTS

BOOK I

MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE

 I MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING II MR. BRITLING CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITIONIII THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX IV MR. BRITLING IN SOLILOQUY V THE COMING OF THE DAY

BOOK II

MATCHING'S EASY AT WAR

 I ONLOOKERS II TAKING PARTIII MALIGNITY IV IN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE

BOOK III

THE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY

 I MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK II MR. BRITLING WRITES UNTIL SUNRISE

BOOK I

MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING

Section 1

It was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and he wasat his acutest perception of differences. He found England in every waygratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast with things Americanthan he had ever dared to hope. 

He had promised himself this visit for many years, but being of a sunnyrather than energetic temperament--though he firmly believed himselfto be a reservoir of clear-sighted American energy--he had allowed allsorts of things, and more particularly the uncertainties of Miss MamieNelson, to keep him back. But now there were no more uncertainties aboutMiss Mamie Nelson, and Mr. Direck had come over to England just toconvince himself and everybody else that there were other interestsin life for him than Mamie.... 

And also, he wanted to see the old country from which his maternalgrandmother had sprung. Wasn't there even now in his bedroom in New Yorka water-colour of Market Saffron church, where the dear old lady hadbeen confirmed? And generally he wanted to see Europe. As an interestingside show to the excursion he hoped, in his capacity of the ratherunderworked and rather over-salaried secretary of the MassachusettsSociety for the Study of Contemporary Thought, to discuss certainagreeable possibilities with Mr. Britling, who lived at Matching's Easy. 

Mr. Direck was a type of man not uncommon in America. He was very muchafter the fashion of that clean and pleasant-looking person one sees inthe advertisements in American magazines, that agreeable person whosmiles and says, "Good, it's the Fizgig Brand, " or "Yes, it's a Wilkins, and that's the Best, " or "My shirt-front never rucks; it's a Chesson. "But now he was saying, still with the same firm smile, "Good. It'sEnglish. " He was pleased by every unlikeness to things American, byevery item he could hail as characteristic; in the train to London hehad laughed aloud with pleasure at the chequer-board of little fieldsupon the hills of Cheshire, he had chuckled to find himself in acompartment without a corridor; he had tipped the polite yet kindlyguard magnificently, after doubting for a moment whether he ought to tiphim at all, and he had gone about his hotel in London saying "Lordy!Lordy! My _word!_" in a kind of ecstasy, verifying the delightfulabsence of telephone, of steam-heat, of any dependent bathroom. Atbreakfast the waiter (out of Dickens it seemed) had refused to know what"cereals" were, and had given him his egg in a china egg-cup such as yousee in the pictures in _Punch_. The Thames, when he sallied out to seeit, had been too good to be true, the smallest thing in rivers he hadever seen, and he had had to restrain himself from affecting a markedaccent and accosting some passer-by with the question, "Say! But is thislittle wet ditch here the Historical River Thames?"

In America, it must be explained, Mr. Direck spoke a very good andcareful English indeed, but he now found the utmost difficulty incontrolling his impulse to use a high-pitched nasal drone and indulge indry "Americanisms" and poker metaphors upon all occasions. When peopleasked him questions he wanted to say "Yep" or "Sure, " words he would nomore have used in America than he could have used a bowie knife. But hehad a sense of rôle. He wanted to be visibly and audibly Americaeye-witnessing. He wanted to be just exactly what he supposed anEnglishman would expect him to be. At any rate, his clothes had beenmade by a strongly American New York tailor, and upon the strength ofthem a taxi-man had assumed politely but firmly that the shillings onhis taximeter were dollars, an incident that helped greatly to sustainthe effect of Mr. Direck, in Mr. Direck's mind, as something standingout with an almost representative clearness against the Englishscene.... So much so that the taxi-man got the dollars.... 

Because all the time he had been coming over he had dreaded that itwasn't true, that England was a legend, that London would turn out to bejust another thundering great New York, and the English exactly like NewEnglanders.... 

Section 2

And now here he was on the branch line of the little old Great EasternRailway, on his way to Matching's Easy in Essex, and he was suddenly inthe heart of Washington Irving's England. 

Washington Irving's England! Indeed it was. He couldn't sit still andjust peep at it, he had to stand up in the little compartment and stickhis large, firm-featured, kindly countenance out of the window as if hegreeted it. The country under the June sunshine was neat and bright asan old-world garden, with little fields of corn surrounded by dog-rosehedges, and woods and small rushy pastures of an infinite tidiness. Hehad seen a real deer park, it had rather tumbledown iron gates betweenits shield-surmounted pillars, and in the distance, beyond all question, was Bracebridge Hall nestling among great trees. He had seen thatchedand timbered cottages, and half-a-dozen inns with creaking signs. He hadseen a fat vicar driving himself along a grassy lane in a governess cartdrawn by a fat grey pony. It wasn't like any reality he had ever known. It was like travelling in literature. 

Mr. Britling's address was the Dower House, and it was, Mr. Britling'snote had explained, on the farther edge of the park at Claverings. Claverings! The very name for some stately home of England.... 

And yet this was only forty-two miles from London. Surely it broughtthings within the suburban range. If Matching's Easy were in America, commuters would live there. But in supposing that, Mr. Direck displayedhis ignorance of a fact of the greatest importance to all who wouldunderstand England. There is a gap in the suburbs of London. The suburbsof London stretch west and south and even west by north, but to thenorth-eastward there are no suburbs; instead there is Essex. Essex isnot a suburban county; it is a characteristic and individualised countywhich wins the heart. Between dear Essex and the centre of things lietwo great barriers, the East End of London and Epping Forest. Before atrain could get to any villadom with a cargo of season-ticket holders itwould have to circle about this rescued woodland and travel for twentyunprofitable miles, and so once you are away from the main Great Easternlines Essex still lives in the peace of the eighteenth century, andLondon, the modern Babylon, is, like the stars, just a light in thenocturnal sky. In Matching's Easy, as Mr. Britling presently explainedto Mr. Direck, there are half-a-dozen old people who have never set eyeson London in their lives--and do not want to. 

"Aye-ya!"

"Fussin' about thea. "

"Mr. Robinson, 'e went to Lon', 'e did. That's 'ow 'e 'urt 'is fut. "

Mr. Direck had learnt at the main-line junction that he had to tell theguard to stop the train for Matching's Easy; it only stopped "byrequest"; the thing was getting better and better; and when Mr. Direckseized his grip and got out of the train there was just one little oldEssex station-master and porter and signalman and everything, holding ared flag in his hand and talking to Mr. Britling about the cultivationof the sweet peas which glorified the station. And there was the Mr. Britling who was the only item of business and the greatest expectationin Mr. Direck's European journey, and he was quite unlike the portraitsMr. Direck had seen and quite unmistakably Mr. Britling all the same, since there was nobody else upon the platform, and he was advancing witha gesture of welcome. 

"Did you ever see such peas, Mr. Dick?" said Mr. Britling by way ofintroduction. 

"My _word_, " said Mr. Direck in a good old Farmer Hayseed kind of voice. 

"Aye-ya!" said the station-master in singularly strident tones. "It be arare year for sweet peas, " and then he slammed the door of the carriagein a leisurely manner and did dismissive things with his flag, while thetwo gentlemen took stock, as people say, of one another. 

Section 3

Except in the doubtful instance of Miss Mamie Nelson, Mr. Direck's habitwas good fortune. Pleasant things came to him. Such was his position asthe salaried secretary of this society of thoughtful Massachusettsbusiness men to which allusion has been made. Its purpose was to bringitself expeditiously into touch with the best thought of the age. 

Too busily occupied with practical realities to follow the thought ofthe age through all its divagations and into all its recesses, theseMassachusetts business men had had to consider methods of access morequintessential and nuclear. And they had decided not to hunt out thebest thought in its merely germinating stages, but to wait until it hademerged and flowered to some trustworthy recognition, and then, ratherthan toil through recondite and possibly already reconsidered books andwritings generally, to offer an impressive fee to the emerged newthinker, and to invite him to come to them and to lecture to them and tohave a conference with them, and to tell them simply, competently andcompletely at first hand just all that he was about. To come, in fact, and be himself--in a highly concentrated form. In this way a number ofinteresting Europeans had been given very pleasant excursions toAmerica, and the society had been able to form very definite opinionsupon their teaching. And Mr. Britling was one of the representativethinkers upon which this society had decided to inform itself. It was tobroach this invitation and to offer him the impressive honorarium bywhich the society honoured not only its guests but itself, that Mr. Direck had now come to Matching's Easy. He had already sent Mr. Britlinga letter of introduction, not indeed intimating his precise purpose, butmentioning merely a desire to know him, and the letter had been sohappily phrased and its writer had left such a memory of pleasanthospitality on Mr. Britling's mind during Mr. Britling's former visit toNew York, that it had immediately produced for Mr. Direck an invitationnot merely to come and see him but to come and stay over the week-end. 

And here they were shaking hands. 

Mr. Britling did not look at all as Mr. Direck had expected him to look. He had expected an Englishman in a country costume of golfing tweeds, like the Englishman in country costume one sees in American illustratedstories. Drooping out of the country costume of golfing tweeds he hadexpected to see the mildly unhappy face, pensive even to its droopingmoustache, with which Mr. Britling's publisher had for some faulty andunfortunate reason familiarised the American public. Instead of this, Mr. Britling was in a miscellaneous costume, and mildness was the lastquality one could attribute to him. His moustache, his hair, hiseyebrows bristled; his flaming freckled face seemed about to bristletoo. His little hazel eyes came out with a "ping" and looked at Mr. Direck. Mr. Britling was one of a large but still remarkable class ofpeople who seem at the mere approach of photography to change theirhair, their clothes, their moral natures. No photographer had evercaught a hint of his essential Britlingness and bristlingness. Only thecamera could ever induce Mr. Britling to brush his hair, and for thecamera alone did he reserve that expression of submissive martyrdom Mr. Direck knew. And Mr. Direck was altogether unprepared for a certaincasualness of costume that sometimes overtook Mr. Britling. He waswearing now a very old blue flannel blazer, no hat, and a pair ofknickerbockers, not tweed breeches but tweed knickerbockers of aremarkable bagginess, and made of one of those virtuous socialistichomespun tweeds that drag out into woolly knots and strings whereverthere is attrition. His stockings were worsted and wrinkled, and on hisfeet were those extraordinary slippers of bright-coloured bast-likeinterwoven material one buys in the north of France. These were purplewith a touch of green. He had, in fact, thought of the necessity ofmeeting Mr. Direck at the station at the very last moment, and had comeaway from his study in the clothes that had happened to him when he gotup. His face wore the amiable expression of a wire-haired terrierdisposed to be friendly, and it struck Mr. Direck that for a man of hisreal intellectual distinction Mr. Britling was unusually short. 

For there can be no denying that Mr. Britling was, in a sense, distinguished. The hero and subject of this novel was at its verybeginning a distinguished man. He was in the _Who's Who_ of twocontinents. In the last few years he had grown with some rapidity into awriter recognised and welcomed by the more cultivated sections of theAmerican public, and even known to a select circle of British readers. To his American discoverers he had first appeared as an essayist, aserious essayist who wrote about aesthetics and Oriental thought andnational character and poets and painting. He had come through Americasome years ago as one of those Kahn scholars, those promising writersand intelligent men endowed by Auguste Kahn of Paris, who go about theworld nowadays in comfort and consideration as the travelling guests ofthat original philanthropist--to acquire the international spirit. Previously he had been a critic of art and literature and a writer ofthoughtful third leaders in the London _Times_. He had begun with aPembroke fellowship and a prize poem. He had returned from his worldtour to his reflective yet original corner of _The Times_ and to theproduction of books about national relationships and social psychology, that had brought him rapidly into prominence. 

His was a naturally irritable mind, which gave him point and passion;and moreover he had a certain obstinate originality and a generousdisposition. So that he was always lively, sometimes spacious, and nevervile. He loved to write and talk. He talked about everything, he hadideas about everything; he could no more help having ideas abouteverything than a dog can resist smelling at your heels. He sniffed atthe heels of reality. Lots of people found him interesting andstimulating, a few found him seriously exasperating. He had ideas in theutmost profusion about races and empires and social order and politicalinstitutions and gardens and automobiles and the future of India andChina and aesthetics and America and the education of mankind ingeneral.... And all that sort of thing.... 

Mr. Direck had read a very great deal of all this expressedopiniativeness of Mr. Britling: he found it entertaining and stimulatingstuff, and it was with genuine enthusiasm that he had come over toencounter the man himself. On his way across the Atlantic and duringthe intervening days, he had rehearsed this meeting in varying keys, butalways on the supposition that Mr. Britling was a large, quiet, thoughtful sort of man, a man who would, as it were, sit in attentiverows like a public meeting and listen. So Mr. Direck had prepared quitea number of pleasant and attractive openings, and now he felt was themoment for some one of these various simple, memorable utterances. Butin none of these forecasts had he reckoned with either the spontaneousactivities of Mr. Britling or with the station-master of Matching'sEasy. Oblivious of any conversational necessities between Mr. Direck andMr. Britling, this official now took charge of Mr. Direck's grip-sack, and, falling into line with the two gentlemen as they walked towards theexit gate, resumed what was evidently an interrupted discourse uponsweet peas, originally addressed to Mr. Britling. 

He was a small, elderly man with a determined-looking face and a seavoice, and it was clear he overestimated the distance of his hearers. 

"Mr. Darling what's head gardener up at Claverings, _'e_ can't get sweetpeas like that, try _'ow_ 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sandballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the otherday, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why astation-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game, ' 'esays, 'but you do. And in your orf time, too, so's to speak, ' 'e says. 'I've tried sile, ' 'e says--"

"Your first visit to England?" asked Mr. Britling of his guest. 

"Absolutely, " said Mr. Direck. 

"I says to 'im, 'there's one thing you 'aven't tried, ' I says, " thestation-master continued, raising his voice by a Herculean feat stillhigher. 

"I've got a little car outside here, " said Mr. Britling. "I'm a coupleof miles from the station. "

"I says to 'im, I says, ''ave you tried the vibritation of the trains?'I says. 'That's what you 'aven't tried, Mr. Darling. That's what you_can't_ try, ' I says. 'But you rest assured that that's the secret of mysweet peas, ' I says, 'nothing less and nothing more than the vibritationof the trains. '"

Mr. Direck's mind was a little confused by the double nature of theconversation and by the fact that Mr. Britling spoke of a car whenhe meant an automobile. He handed his ticket mechanically to thestation-master, who continued to repeat and endorse his anecdote at thetop of his voice as Mr. Britling disposed himself and his guest in theautomobile. 

"You know you 'aven't 'urt that mud-guard, sir, not the slightest bitthat matters, " shouted the station-master. "I've been a looking atit--er. It's my fence that's suffered most. And that's only strainedthe post a lil' bit. Shall I put your bag in behind, sir?"

Mr. Direck assented, and then, after a momentary hesitation, rewardedthe station-master's services. 

"Ready?" asked Mr. Britling. 

"That's all right sir, " the station-master reverberated. 

With a rather wide curve Mr. Britling steered his way out of the stationinto the highroad. 

Section 4

And now it seemed was the time for Mr. Direck to make his meditatedspeeches. But an unexpected complication was to defeat this intention. Mr. Direck perceived almost at once that Mr. Britling was probablydriving an automobile for the first or second or at the extremest thethird time in his life. 

The thing became evident when he struggled to get into the high gear--anattempt that stopped the engine, and it was even more startlingly sowhen Mr. Britling narrowly missed a collision with a baker's cart at acorner. "I pressed the accelerator, " he explained afterwards, "insteadof the brake. One does at first. I missed him by less than a foot. "The estimate was a generous one. And after that Mr. Direck becametoo anxious not to distract his host's thoughts to persist with hisconversational openings. An attentive silence came upon both gentlementhat was broken presently by a sudden outcry from Mr. Britling and agreat noise of tormented gears. "Damn!" cried Mr. Britling, and "Howthe _devil_?"

Mr. Direck perceived that his host was trying to turn the car into avery beautiful gateway, with gate-houses on either side. Then it wasmanifest that Mr. Britling had abandoned this idea, and then they cameto a stop a dozen yards or so along the main road. "Missed it, " said Mr. Britling, and took his hands off the steering wheel and blew stormily, and then whistled some bars of a fretful air, and became still. 

"Do we go through these ancient gates?" asked Mr. Direck. 

Mr. Britling looked over his right shoulder and considered problems ofcurvature and distance. "I think, " he said, "I will go round outside thepark. It will take us a little longer, but it will be simpler thanbacking and manoeuvring here now.... These electric starters areremarkably convenient things. Otherwise now I should have to get downand wind up the engine. "

After that came a corner, the rounding of which seemed to present fewdifficulties until suddenly Mr. Britling cried out, "Eh! _eh_! EH! Oh, _damn_!"

Then the two gentlemen were sitting side by side in a rather sloping carthat had ascended the bank and buried its nose in a hedge of dog-roseand honeysuckle, from which two missel thrushes, a blackbird and anumber of sparrows had made a hurried escape.... 

Section 5

"Perhaps, " said Mr. Britling without assurance, and after a littlepeaceful pause, "I can reverse out of this. "

He seemed to feel some explanation was due to Mr. Direck. "You see, at first--it's perfectly simple--one steers _round_ a corner and thenone doesn't put the wheels straight again, and so one keeps on goinground--more than one meant to. It's the bicycle habit; the bicyclerights itself. One expects a car to do the same thing. It was my fault. The book explains all this question clearly, but just at the momentI forgot. "

He reflected and experimented in a way that made the engine scoldand fuss.... 

"You see, she won't budge for the reverse.... She's--embedded.... Do youmind getting out and turning the wheel back? Then if I reverse, perhapswe'll get a move on.... "

Mr. Direck descended, and there were considerable efforts. 

"If you'd just grip the spokes. Yes, so.... One, Two, Three!... No!Well, let's just sit here until somebody comes along to help us. Oh!Somebody will come all right. Won't you get up again?"

And after a reflective moment Mr. Direck resumed his seat besideMr. Britling.... 

Section 6

The two gentlemen smiled at each other to dispel any suspicion ofdiscontent. 

"My driving leaves something to be desired, " said Mr. Britling withan air of frank impartiality. "But I have only just got this car formyself--after some years of hired cars--the sort of lazy arrangementwhere people supply car, driver, petrol, tyres, insurance and everythingat so much a month. It bored me abominably. I can't imagine now howI stood it for so long. They sent me down a succession of compact, scornful boys who used to go fast when I wanted to go slow, and slowwhen I wanted to go fast, and who used to take every corner on thewrong side at top speed, and charge dogs and hens for the sport of it, and all sorts of things like that. They would not even let me choose myroads. I should have got myself a car long ago, and driven it, if itwasn't for that infernal business with a handle one had to do when theengine stopped. But here, you see, is a reasonably cheap car with anelectric starter--American, I need scarcely say. And here I am--goingat my own pace. "

Mr. Direck glanced for a moment at the pretty disorder of the hedge inwhich they were embedded, and smiled and admitted that it was certainlymuch more agreeable. 

Before he had finished saying as much Mr. Britling was talking again. 

He had a quick and rather jerky way of speaking; he seemed to fire out athought directly it came into his mind, and he seemed to have a loadedmagazine of thoughts in his head. He spoke almost exactly twice as fastas Mr. Direck, clipping his words much more, using much compactersentences, and generally cutting his corners, and this put Mr. Direckoff his game. 

That rapid attack while the transatlantic interlocutor is deploying isindeed a not infrequent defect of conversations between Englishmen andAmericans. It is a source of many misunderstandings. The two conceptionsof conversation differ fundamentally. The English are much less disposedto listen than the American; they have not quite the same sense ofconversational give and take, and at first they are apt to reduce theirvisitors to the rôle of auditors wondering when their turn will begin. Their turn never does begin. Mr. Direck sat deeply in his slanting seatwith a half face to his celebrated host and said "Yep" and "Sure" and"That _is_ so, " in the dry grave tones that he believed an Englishmanwould naturally expect him to use, realising this only very gradually. 

Mr. Britling, from his praise of the enterprise that had at last broughta car he could drive within his reach, went on to that favourite topicof all intelligent Englishmen, the adverse criticism of things British. He pointed out that the central position of the brake and gear levers inhis automobile made it extremely easy for the American manufacturer toturn it out either as a left-handed or a right-handed car, and so adaptit either to the Continental or to the British rule of the road. NoEnglish cars were so adaptable. We British suffered much from ourinsular rule of the road, just as we suffered much from our insularweights and measures. But we took a perverse pride in suchdisadvantages. The irruption of American cars into England was a recentphenomenon, it was another triumph for the tremendous organising abilityof the American mind. They were doing with the automobile what they haddone with clocks and watches and rifles, they had standardised andmachined wholesale, while the British were still making the things oneby one. It was an extraordinary thing that England, which was theoriginator of the industrial system and the original developer of thedivision of labour, should have so fallen away from systematicmanufacturing. He believed this was largely due to the influence ofOxford and the Established Church.... 

At this point Mr. Direck was moved by an anecdote. "It will help toillustrate what you are saying, Mr. Britling, about systematicorganisation if I tell you a little incident that happened to a friendof mine in Toledo, where they are setting up a big plant with a view tocapturing the entire American and European market in the class of thethousand-dollar car--"

"There's no end of such little incidents, " said Mr. Britling, cutting inwithout apparent effort. "You see, we get it on both sides. Ourmanufacturer class was, of course, originally an insurgent class. It wasa class of distended craftsmen. It had the craftsman's naturalenterprise and natural radicalism. As soon as it prospered and sent itsboys to Oxford it was lost. Our manufacturing class was assimilated inno time to the conservative classes, whose education has always had amandarin quality--very, very little of it, and very cold and choice. InAmerica you have so far had no real conservative class at all. Fortunatecontinent! You cast out your Tories, and you were left with nothing butWhigs and Radicals. But our peculiar bad luck has been to get a sort ofrevolutionary who is a Tory mandarin too. Ruskin and Morris, forexample, were as reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukes and thebishops. Machine haters. Science haters. Rule of Thumbites to the bone. So are our current Socialists. They've filled this country with the ideathat the ideal automobile ought to be made entirely by the hand labourof traditional craftsmen, quite individually, out of beaten copper, wrought iron and seasoned oak. All this electric-starter business andthis electric lighting outfit I have here, is perfectly hateful to theEnglish mind.... It isn't that we are simply backward in these things, we are antagonistic. The British mind has never really toleratedelectricity; at least, not that sort of electricity that runs throughwires. Too slippery and glib for it. Associates it with Italians andfluency generally, with Volta, Galvani, Marconi and so on. The properBritish electricity is that high-grade useless long-sparking stuff youget by turning round a glass machine; stuff we used to call frictionalelectricity. Keep it in Leyden jars.... At Claverings here they stillrefuse to have electric bells. There was a row when the Solomonsons, whowere tenants here for a time, tried to put them in.... "

Mr. Direck had followed this cascade of remarks with a patient smile anda slowly nodding head. "What you say, " he said, "forms a very markedcontrast indeed with the sort of thing that goes on in America. Thisfriend of mine I was speaking of, the one who is connected with anautomobile factory in Toledo--"

"Of course, " Mr. Britling burst out again, "even conservatism isn't anultimate thing. After all, we and your enterprising friend at Toledo, are very much the same blood. The conservatism, I mean, isn't racial. And our earlier energy shows it isn't in the air or in the soil. Englandhas become unenterprising and sluggish because England has been soprosperous and comfortable.... "

"Exactly, " said Mr. Direck. "My friend of whom I was telling you, was aman named Robinson, which indicates pretty clearly that he was ofgenuine English stock, and, if I may say so, quite of your build andcomplexion; racially, I should say, he was, well--very much what youare.... "

Section 7

This rally of Mr. Direck's mind was suddenly interrupted. 

Mr. Britling stood up, and putting both hands to the sides of his mouth, shouted "Yi-ah! Aye-ya! Thea!" at unseen hearers. 

After shouting again, several times, it became manifest that he hadattracted the attention of two willing but deliberate labouring men. They emerged slowly, first as attentive heads, from the landscape. Withtheir assistance the car was restored to the road again. Mr. Direckassisted manfully, and noted the respect that was given to Mr. Britlingand the shillings that fell to the men, with an intelligent detachment. They touched their hats, they called Mr. Britling "Sir. " They examinedthe car distantly but kindly. "Ain't 'urt 'e, not a bit 'e ain't, notreally, " said one encouragingly. And indeed except for a slightcrumpling of the mud-guard and the detachment of the wire of one of theheadlights the automobile was uninjured. Mr. Britling resumed his seat;Mr. Direck gravely and in silence got up beside him. They started withthe usual convulsion, as though something had pricked the vehicleunexpectedly and shamefully behind. And from this point Mr. Britling, driving with meticulous care, got home without further mishap, exceptingonly that he scraped off some of the metal edge of his footboardagainst the gate-post of his very agreeable garden. 

His family welcomed his safe return, visitor and all, with undisguisedrelief and admiration. A small boy appeared at the corner of the house, and then disappeared hastily again. "Daddy's got back all right atlast, " they heard him shouting to unseen hearers. 

Section 8

Mr. Direck, though he was a little incommoded by the suppression of hisstory about Robinson--for when he had begun a thing he liked to finishit--found Mr. Britling's household at once thoroughly British, quiteun-American and a little difficult to follow. It had a quality that atfirst he could not define at all. Compared with anything he had everseen in his life before it struck him as being--he found the word atlast--sketchy. For instance, he was introduced to nobody except hishostess, and she was indicated to him by a mere wave of Mr. Britling'shand. "That's Edith, " he said, and returned at once to his car to put itaway. Mrs. Britling was a tall, freckled woman with pretty bright brownhair and preoccupied brown eyes. She welcomed him with a handshake, andthen a wonderful English parlourmaid--she at least was according toexpectations--took his grip-sack and guided him to his room. "Lunch, sir, " she said, "is outside, " and closed the door and left him to thatand a towel-covered can of hot water. 

It was a square-looking old red-brick house he had come to, veryhandsome in a simple Georgian fashion, with a broad lawn before it andgreat blue cedar trees, and a drive that came frankly up to the frontdoor and then went off with Mr. Britling and the car round to unknownregions at the back. The centre of the house was a big airy hall, oak-panelled, warmed in winter only by one large fireplace and aboundingin doors which he knew opened into the square separate rooms thatEngland favours. Bookshelves and stuffed birds comforted the landingoutside his bedroom. He descended to find the hall occupied by a smallbright bristling boy in white flannel shirt and knickerbockers and barelegs and feet. He stood before the vacant open fireplace in an attitudethat Mr. Direck knew instantly was also Mr. Britling's. "Lunch is in thegarden, " the Britling scion proclaimed, "and I've got to fetch you. And, I say! is it true? Are you American?"

"Why surely, " said Mr. Direck. 

"Well, I know some American, " said the boy. "I learnt it. "

"Tell me some, " said Mr. Direck, smiling still more amiably. 

"Oh! Well--God darn you! Ouch, Gee-whizz! Soak him, Maud! It's up toyou, Duke.... "

"Now where did you learn all that?" asked Mr. Direck recovering. 

"Out of the Sunday Supplement, " said the youthful Britling. 

"Why! Then you know all about Buster Brown, " said Mr. Direck. "He'sFine--eh?"

The Britling child hated Buster Brown. He regarded Buster Brown as atotally unnecessary infant. He detested the way he wore his hair and thepeculiar cut of his knickerbockers and--him. He thought Buster Brown theone drop of paraffin in the otherwise delicious feast of the SundaySupplement. But he was a diplomatic child. 

"I think I like Happy Hooligan better, " he said. "And dat ole Maud. "

He reflected with joyful eyes, Buster clean forgotten. "Every week, " hesaid, "she kicks some one. "

It came to Mr. Direck as a very pleasant discovery that a British infantcould find a common ground with the small people at home in thesecharacteristically American jests. He had never dreamt that the finewine of Maud and Buster could travel. 

"Maud's a treat, " said the youthful Britling, relapsing into his nativetongue. 

Mr. Britling appeared coming to meet them. He was now in a grey flannelsuit--he must have jumped into it--and altogether very much tidier.... 

Section 9

The long narrow table under the big sycamores between the house and theadapted barn that Mr. Direck learnt was used for "dancing and all thatsort of thing, " was covered with a blue linen diaper cloth, and that toosurprised him. This was his first meal in a private household inEngland, and for obscure reasons he had expected something very stiffand formal with "spotless napery. " He had also expected a very stiff andcapable service by implacable parlourmaids, and the whole thing indeedhighly genteel. But two cheerful women servants appeared from what waspresumably the kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection, which his small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter--manifestlydeservedly--and which bore on its shelves the substance of the meal. Andwhile the maids at this migratory sideboard carved and opened bottlesand so forth, the small boy and a slightly larger brother, assisted alittle by two young men of no very defined position and relationship, served the company. Mrs. Britling sat at the head of the table, andconversed with Mr. Direck by means of hostess questions and imperfectlyaccepted answers while she kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. 

The composition of the company was a matter for some perplexity to Mr. Direck. Mr. And Mrs. Britling were at either end of the table, that wasplain enough. It was also fairly plain that the two barefooted boys werelittle Britlings. But beyond this was a cloud of uncertainty. There wasa youth of perhaps seventeen, much darker than Britling but with noseand freckles rather like his, who might be an early son or a stepson; hewas shock-headed and with that look about his arms and legs thatsuggests overnight growth; and there was an unmistakable young German, very pink, with close-cropped fair hair, glasses and a panama hat, whowas probably the tutor of the younger boys. (Mr. Direck also was wearinghis hat, his mind had been filled with an exaggerated idea of thetreacheries of the English climate before he left New York. Every oneelse was hatless. ) Finally, before one reached the limits of theexplicable there was a pleasant young man with a lot of dark hair andvery fine dark blue eyes, whom everybody called "Teddy. " For him, Mr. Direck hazarded "secretary. "

But in addition to these normal and understandable presences, there wasan entirely mysterious pretty young woman in blue linen who sat andsmiled next to Mr. Britling, and there was a rather kindred-looking girlwith darker hair on the right of Mr. Direck who impressed him at thevery outset as being still prettier, and--he didn't quite place her atfirst--somehow familiar to him; there was a large irrelevant middle-agedlady in black with a gold chain and a large nose, between Teddy and thetutor; there was a tall middle-aged man with an intelligent face, whomight be a casual guest; there was an Indian young gentleman faultlesslydressed up to his brown soft linen collar and cuffs, and thereafter anuncontrolled outbreak of fine bronze modelling and abundant fuzzy hair;and there was a very erect and attentive baby of a year or less, sittingup in a perambulator and gesticulating cheerfully to everybody. Thisbaby it was that most troubled the orderly mind of Mr. Direck. Theresearch for its paternity made his conversation with Mrs. Britlingalmost as disconnected and absent-minded as her conversation with him. It almost certainly wasn't Mrs. Britling's. The girl next to him or thegirl next to Mr. Britling or the lady in black might any of them bemarried, but if so where was the spouse? It seemed improbable that theywould wheel out a foundling to lunch.... 

Realising at last that the problem of relationship must be left to solveitself if he did not want to dissipate and consume his mind entirely, Mr. Direck turned to his hostess, who was enjoying a brief lull in heradministrative duties, and told her what a memorable thing the meetingof Mr. Britling in his own home would be in his life, and how veryhighly America was coming to esteem Mr. Britling and his essays. Hefound that with a slight change of person, one of his premeditatedopenings was entirely serviceable here. And he went on to observe thatit was novel and entertaining to find Mr. Britling driving his ownautomobile and to note that it was an automobile of Americanmanufacture. In America they had standardised and systematised themaking of such things as automobiles to an extent that would, hethought, be almost startling to Europeans. It was certainly startling tothe European manufacturers. In illustration of that he might tell alittle story of a friend of his called Robinson--a man who curiouslyenough in general build and appearance was very reminiscent indeed ofMr. Britling. He had been telling Mr. Britling as much on his way herefrom the station. His friend was concerned with several others in one ofthe biggest attacks that had ever been made upon what one might describein general terms as the thousand-dollar light automobile market. Whatthey said practically was this: This market is a jig-saw puzzle waitingto be put together and made one. We are going to do it. But that waseasier to figure out than to do. At the very outset of this attack heand his associates found themselves up against an unexpected and verydifficult proposition.... 

At first Mrs. Britling had listened to Mr. Direck with an almostundivided attention, but as he had developed his opening the feast uponthe blue linen table had passed on to a fresh phase that demanded moreand more of her directive intelligence. The two little boys appearedsuddenly at her elbows. "Shall we take the plates and get thestrawberries, Mummy?" they asked simultaneously. Then one of the neatmaids in the background had to be called up and instructed inundertones, and Mr. Direck saw that for the present Robinson'silluminating experience was not for her ears. A little baffled, butquite understanding how things were, he turned to his neighbour on hisleft.... 

The girl really had an extraordinarily pretty smile, and there wassomething in her soft bright brown eye--like the movement of some quicklittle bird. And--she was like somebody he knew! Indeed she was. She wasquite ready to be spoken to. 

"I was telling Mrs. Britling, " said Mr. Direck, "what a very greatprivilege I esteem it to meet Mr. Britling in this highly familiar way. "

"You've not met him before?"

"I missed him by twenty-four hours when he came through Boston on thelast occasion. Just twenty-four hours. It was a matter of very greatregret to me. "

"I wish I'd been paid to travel round the world. "

"You must write things like Mr. Britling and then Mr. Kahn will sendyou. "

"Don't you think if I promised well?"

"You'd have to write some promissory notes, I think--just to convincehim it was all right. "

The young lady reflected on Mr. Britling's good fortune. 

"He saw India. He saw Japan. He had weeks in Egypt. And he went rightacross America. "

Mr. Direck had already begun on the liner to adapt himself to thehopping inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now what hefelt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a confidentialundertone. (It was probably Adam in his first conversation with Eve, whodiscovered the pleasantness of dropping into a confidential undertonebeside a pretty ear with a pretty wave of hair above it. )

"It was in India, I presume, " murmured Mr. Direck, "that Mr. Britlingmade the acquaintance of the coloured gentleman?"

"Coloured gentleman!" She gave a swift glance down the table as thoughshe expected to see something purple with yellow spots. "Oh, that is oneof Mr. Lawrence Carmine's young men!" she explained even moreconfidentially and with an air of discussing the silver bowl of rosesbefore him. "He's a great authority on Indian literature, he belongs toa society for making things pleasant for Indian students in London, andhe has them down. "

"And Mr. Lawrence Carmine?" he pursued. 

Even more intimately and confidentially she indicated Mr. Carmine, as itseemed by a motion of her eyelash. 

Mr. Direck prepared to be even more _sotto-voce_ and to plumb a muchprofounder mystery. His eye rested on the perambulator; he leant alittle nearer to the ear.... But the strawberries interrupted him. 

"Strawberries!" said the young lady, and directed his regard to his leftshoulder by a little movement of her head. 

He found one of the boys with a high-piled plate ready to serve him. 

And then Mrs. Britling resumed her conversation with him. She was soignorant, she said, of things American, that she did not even know ifthey had strawberries there. At any rate, here they were at the crest ofthe season, and in a very good year. And in the rose season too. It wasone of the dearest vanities of English people to think their apples andtheir roses and their strawberries the best in the world. 

"And their complexions, " said Mr. Direck, over the pyramid of fruit, quite manifestly intending a compliment. So that was all right.... Butthe girl on the left of him was speaking across the table to the Germantutor, and did not hear what he had said. So that even if it wasn'tvery neat it didn't matter.... 

Then he remembered that she was like that old daguerreotype of a cousinof his grandmother's that he had fallen in love with when he was a boy. It was her smile. Of course! Of course!... And he'd sort of adored thatportrait.... He felt a curious disposition to tell her as much.... 

"What makes this visit even more interesting if possible to me, " he saidto Mrs. Britling, "than it would otherwise be, is that this Essexcountry is the country in which my maternal grandmother was raised, andalso long way back my mother's father's people. My mother's father'speople were very early New England people indeed.... Well, no. If I said_Mayflower_ it wouldn't be true. But it would approximate. They wereEssex Hinkinsons. That's what they were. I must be a good third of me atleast Essex. My grandmother was an Essex Corner, I must confess I've hadsome thought--"

"Corner?" said the young lady at his elbow sharply. 

"I was telling Mrs. Britling I had some thought--"

"But about those Essex relatives of yours?"

"Well, of finding if they were still about in these parts.... Say! Ihaven't dropped a brick, have I?"

He looked from one face to another. 

"_She's_ a Corner, " said Mrs. Britling. 

"Well, " said Mr. Direck, and hesitated for a moment. It was sodelightful that one couldn't go on being just discreet. The atmospherewas free and friendly. His intonation disarmed offence. And he gave theyoung lady the full benefit of a quite expressive eye. "I'm very pleasedto meet you, Cousin Corner. How are the old folks at home?"

Section 10

The bright interest of this consulship helped Mr. Direck more thananything to get the better of his Robinson-anecdote crave, and whenpresently he found his dialogue with Mr. Britling resumed, he turned atonce to this remarkable discovery of his long lost and indeed hithertounsuspected relative. "It's an American sort of thing to do, I suppose, "he said apologetically, "but I almost thought of going on, on Monday, toMarket Saffron, which was the locality of the Hinkinsons, and justlooking about at the tombstones in the churchyard for a day or so. "

"Very probably, " said Mr. Britling, "you'd find something about them inthe parish registers. Lots of our registers go back three hundred yearsor more. I'll drive you over in my lil' old car. "

"Oh! I wouldn't put you to that trouble, " said Mr. Direck hastily. 

"It's no trouble. I like the driving. What I have had of it. And whilewe're at it, we'll come back by Harborough High Oak and look up theCorner pedigree. They're all over that district still. And the road'snot really difficult; it's only a bit up and down and roundabout. "

"I couldn't think, Mr. Britling, of putting you to that much trouble. "

"It's no trouble. I want a day off, and I'm dying to take Gladys--"

"Gladys?" said Mr. Direck with sudden hope. 

"That's my name for the lil' car. I'm dying to take her for somethinglike a decent run. I've only had her out four times altogether, and I'venot got her up yet to forty miles. Which I'm told she ought to doeasily. We'll consider that settled. "

For the moment Mr. Direck couldn't think of any further excuse. But itwas very clear in his mind that something must happen; he wished he knewof somebody who could send a recall telegram from London, to prevent himcommitting himself to the casual destinies of Mr. Britling's car again. And then another interest became uppermost in his mind. 

"You'd hardly believe me, " he said, "if I told you that that Miss Cornerof yours has a quite extraordinary resemblance to a miniature I've gotaway there in America of a cousin of my maternal grandmother's. Sheseems a very pleasant young lady. "

But Mr. Britling supplied no further information about Miss Corner. 

"It must be very interesting, " he said, "to come over here and pick upthese American families of yours on the monuments and tombstones. Youknow, of course, that district south of Evesham where every other churchmonument bears the stars and stripes, the arms of departed Washingtons. I doubt though if you'll still find the name about there. Nor will youfind many Hinkinsons in Market Saffron. But lots of this country herehas five or six hundred-year-old families still flourishing. That's whyEssex is so much more genuinely Old England than Surrey, say, or Kent. Round here you'll find Corners and Fairlies, and then you get Capels, and then away down towards Dunmow and Braintree Maynards and Byngs. Andthere are oaks and hornbeams in the park about Claverings that haveechoed to the howling of wolves and the clank of men in armour. All theold farms here are moated--because of the wolves. Claverings itself isTudor, and rather fine too. And the cottages still wear thatch.... "

He reflected. "Now if you went south of London instead of northward it'sall different. You're in a different period, a different society. You'rein London suburbs right down to the sea. You'll find no genuine estatesleft, not of our deep-rooted familiar sort. You'll find millionaires andthat sort of people, sitting in the old places. Surrey is full of richstockbrokers, company-promoters, bookies, judges, newspaper proprietors. Sort of people who fence the paths across their parks. They do somethingto the old places--I don't know what they do--but instantly thecountryside becomes a villadom. And little sub-estates and red-brickvillas and art cottages spring up. And a kind of new, hard neatness. Andpneumatic tyre and automobile spirit advertisements, great glaringboards by the roadside. And all the poor people are inspected and rushedabout until they forget who their grandfathers were. They become villaparasites and odd-job men, and grow basely rich and buy gramophones. This Essex and yonder Surrey are as different as Russia and Germany. Butfor one American who comes to look at Essex, twenty go to Godalming andGuildford and Dorking and Lewes and Canterbury. Those Surrey people arenot properly English at all. They are strenuous. You have to get on orget out. They drill their gardeners, lecture very fast on agriculturalefficiency, and have miniature rifle ranges in every village. It's acounty of new notice-boards and barbed-wire fences; there's always apoliceman round the corner. They dress for dinner. They dress foreverything. If a man gets up in the night to look for a burglar he putson the correct costume--or doesn't go. They've got a special scientificsystem for urging on their tramps. And they lock up their churches on aweek-day. Half their soil is hard chalk or a rationalistic sand, onlysuitable for bunkers and villa foundations. And they play golf in alarge, expensive, thorough way because it's the thing to do.... Now herein Essex we're as lax as the eighteenth century. We hunt in any oldclothes. Our soil is a rich succulent clay; it becomes semi-fluid inwinter--when we go about in waders shooting duck. All our fingerpostshave been twisted round by facetious men years ago. And we pool ourbreeds of hens and pigs. Our roses and oaks are wonderful; that aloneshows that this is the real England. If I wanted to play golf--which Idon't, being a decent Essex man--I should have to motor ten miles intoHertfordshire. And for rheumatics and longevity Surrey can't touch us. Iwant you to be clear on these points, because they really will affectyour impressions of this place.... This country is a part of the realEngland--England outside London and outside manufactures. It's one withWessex and Mercia or old Yorkshire--or for the matter of that with Meathor Lothian. And it's the essential England still.... "

Section 11

It detracted a little from Mr. Direck's appreciation of this flow ofinformation that it was taking them away from the rest of the company. He wanted to see more of his new-found cousin, and what the baby and theBengali gentleman--whom manifestly one mustn't call "coloured"--and thelarge-nosed lady and all the other inexplicables would get up to. Instead of which Mr. Britling was leading him off alone with an air ofshowing him round the premises, and talking too rapidly and variouslyfor a question to be got in edgeways, much less any broaching of thematter that Mr. Direck had come over to settle. 

There was quite a lot of rose garden, it made the air delicious, and itwas full of great tumbling bushes of roses and of neglected standards, and it had a long pergola of creepers and trailers and a great arbour, and underneath over the beds everywhere, contrary to all the rules, theblossom of a multitude of pansies and stock and little trailing plantsswarmed and crowded and scrimmaged and drilled and fought great massedattacks. And then Mr. Britling talked their way round a red-walledvegetable garden with an abundance of fruit trees, and through a doorinto a terraced square that had once been a farmyard, outside theconverted barn. The barn doors had been replaced by a door-piercedwindow of glass, and in the middle of the square space a deep tank hadbeen made, full of rainwater, in which Mr. Britling remarked casuallythat "everybody" bathed when the weather was hot. Thyme and rosemary andsuchlike sweet-scented things grew on the terrace about the tank, andten trimmed little trees of _Arbor vitae_ stood sentinel. Mr. Direck wastantalisingly aware that beyond some lilac bushes were his new-foundcousin and the kindred young woman in blue playing tennis with theIndian and another young man, while whenever it was necessary thelarge-nosed lady crossed the stage and brooded soothingly over theperambulator. And Mr. Britling, choosing a seat from which Mr. Direckjust couldn't look comfortably through the green branches at the flyingglimpses of pink and blue and white and brown, continued to talk aboutEngland and America in relation to each other and everything else underthe sun. 

Presently through a distant gate the two small boys were momentarilyvisible wheeling small but serviceable bicycles, followed after a littleinterval by the German tutor. Then an enormous grey cat came slowlyacross the garden court, and sat down to listen respectfully to Mr. Britling. The afternoon sky was an intense blue, with little puff-ballsof cloud lined out across it. 

Occasionally, from chance remarks of Mr. Britling's, Mr. Direck was ledto infer that his first impressions as an American visitor were beingrelated to his host, but as a matter of fact he was permitted to relatenothing; Mr. Britling did all the talking. He sat beside his guest andspirted and played ideas and reflections like a happy fountain in thesunshine. 

Mr. Direck sat comfortably, and smoked with quiet appreciation the oneafter-lunch cigar he allowed himself. At any rate, if he himself feltrather word-bound, the fountain was nimble and entertaining. He listenedin a general sort of way to the talk, it was quite impossible to followit thoughtfully throughout all its chinks and turnings, while his eyeswandered about the garden and went ever and again to the flittingtennis-players beyond the green. It was all very gay and comfortable andcomplete; it was various and delightful without being in the least_opulent_; that was one of the little secrets America had to learn. Itdidn't look as though it had been made or bought or cost anything, itlooked as though it had happened rather luckily.... 

Mr. Britling's talk became like a wide stream flowing through Mr. Direck's mind, bearing along momentary impressions and observations, drifting memories of all the crowded English sights and sounds of thelast five days, filmy imaginations about ancestral names and prettycousins, scraps of those prepared conversational openings on Mr. Britling's standing in America, the explanation about the lecture club, the still incompletely forgotten purport of the Robinson anecdote.... 

"Nobody planned the British estate system, nobody planned the Britisharistocratic system, nobody planned the confounded constitution, it cameabout, it was like layer after layer wrapping round an agate, but yousee it came about so happily in a way, it so suited the climate and thetemperament of our people and our island, it was on the whole so cosy, that our people settled down into it, you can't help settling down intoit, they had already settled down by the days of Queen Anne, and Heavenknows if we shall ever really get away again. We're like that littleshell the _Lingula_, that is found in the oldest rocks and lives to-day:it fitted its easy conditions, and it has never modified since. Whyshould it? It excretes all its disturbing forces. Our younger sons goaway and found colonial empires. Our surplus cottage children emigrateto Australia and Canada or migrate into the towns. It doesn't alter_this_.... "

Section 12

Mr. Direck's eye had come to rest upon the barn, and its expressionchanged slowly from lazy appreciation to a brightening intelligence. Suddenly he resolved to say something. He resolved to say it so firmlythat he determined to say it even if Mr. Britling went on talking allthe time. 

"I suppose, Mr. Britling, " he said, "this barn here dates from the daysof Queen Anne. "

"The walls of the yard here are probably earlier: probably monastic. That grey patch in the corner, for example. The barn itself isGeorgian. "

"And here it is still. And this farmyard, here it is still. "

Mr. Britling was for flying off again, but Mr. Direck would not listen;he held on like a man who keeps his grip on a lasso. 

"There's one thing I would like to remark about your barn, Mr. Britling, and I might, while I am at it, say the same thing about your farmyard. "

Mr. Britling was held. "What's that?" he asked. 

"Well, " said Mr. Direck, "the point that strikes me most about all thisis that that barn isn't a barn any longer, and that this farmyard isn'ta farmyard. There isn't any wheat or chaff or anything of that sort inthe barn, and there never will be again: there's just a pianola and adancing floor, and if a cow came into this farmyard everybody in theplace would be shooing it out again. They'd regard it as a mostunnatural object. "

He had a pleasant sense of talking at last. He kept right on. He wasmoved to a sweeping generalisation. 

"You were so good as to ask me, Mr. Britling, a little while ago, whatmy first impression of England was. Well, Mr. Britling, my firstimpression of England that seems to me to matter in the least is this:that it looks and feels more like the traditional Old England than anyone could possibly have believed, and that in reality it is less likethe traditional Old England than any one would ever possibly haveimagined. "

He was carried on even further. He made a tremendous literary epigram. "I thought, " he said, "when I looked out of the train this morning thatI had come to the England of Washington Irving. I find it is not eventhe England of Mrs. Humphry Ward. "

CHAPTER THE SECOND

MR. BRITLING CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITION

Section 1

Mr. Direck found little reason to revise his dictum in the subsequentexperiences of the afternoon. Indeed the afternoon and the next day weresteadily consistent in confirming what a very good dictum it had been. The scenery was the traditional scenery of England, and all the peopleseemed quicker, more irresponsible, more chaotic, than any one couldhave anticipated, and entirely inexplicable by any recognised code ofEnglish relationships.... 

"You think that John Bull is dead and a strange generation is wearinghis clothes, " said Mr. Britling. "I think you'll find very soon it's theold John Bull. Perhaps not Mrs. Humphry Ward's John Bull, or Mrs. HenryWood's John Bull but true essentially to Shakespeare, Fielding, Dickens, Meredith.... "

"I suppose, " he added, "there are changes. There's a new generationgrown up.... "

He looked at his barn and the swimming pool. "It's a good point of yoursabout the barn, " he said. "What you say reminds me of that very jollything of Kipling's about the old mill-wheel that began by grinding cornand ended by driving dynamos.... 

"Only I admit that barn doesn't exactly drive a dynamo.... 

"To be frank, it's just a pleasure barn.... 

"The country can afford it.... "

Section 2

He left it at that for the time, but throughout the afternoon Mr. Direckhad the gratification of seeing his thought floating round and round inthe back-waters of Mr. Britling's mental current. If it didn't itselfget into the stream again its reflection at any rate appeared andreappeared. He was taken about with great assiduity throughout theafternoon, and he got no more than occasional glimpses of the rest ofthe Dower House circle until six o'clock in the evening. 

Meanwhile the fountains of Mr. Britling's active and encyclopædic mindplayed steadily. 

He was inordinately proud of England, and he abused her incessantly. Hewanted to state England to Mr. Direck as the amiable summation of agrotesque assembly of faults. That was the view into which the comfortsand prosperities of his middle age had brought him from a radicalismthat had in its earlier stages been angry and bitter. And for Mr. Britling England was "here. " Essex was the county he knew. He took Mr. Direck out from his walled garden by a little door into a trim paddockwith two white goals. "We play hockey here on Sundays, " he said in a waythat gave Mr. Direck no hint of the practically compulsory participationof every visitor to Matching's Easy in this violent and dangerousexercise, and thence they passed by a rich deep lane and into a highroad that ran along the edge of the deer park of Claverings. "We willcall in on Claverings later, " said Mr. Britling. "Lady Homartyn has somepeople there for the week-end, and you ought to see the sort of thing itis and the sort of people they are. She wanted us to lunch thereto-morrow, but I didn't accept that because of our afternoon hockey. "

Mr. Direck received this reason uncritically. 

The village reminded Mr. Direck of Abbey's pictures. There was an innwith a sign standing out in the road, a painted sign of the ClaveringArms; it had a water trough (such as Mr. Weller senior ducked thedissenter in) and a green painted table outside its inviting door. Therewere also a general shop and a number of very pleasant cottages, eachmarked with the Mainstay crest. All this was grouped about a green withreal geese drilling thereon. Mr. Britling conducted his visitor (througha lych gate) into the church-yard, and there they found mossy, tumble-down tombstones, one with a skull and cross-bones upon it, thatwent back to the later seventeenth century. In the aisle of the churchwere three huge hatchments, and there was a side chapel devoted to theMainstay family and the Barons Homartyn, with a series of monuments thatbegan with painted Tudor effigies and came down to a vast stained glasswindow of the vilest commercial Victorian. There were also mediævalbrasses of parish priests, and a marble crusader and his lady of someextinguished family which had ruled Matching's Easy before the Mainstayscame. And as the two gentlemen emerged from the church they ran againstthe perfect vicar, Mr. Dimple, ample and genial, with an embracing laughand an enveloping voice. "Come to see the old country, " he said to Mr. Direck. "So Good of you Americans to do that! So Good of you.... "

There was some amiable sparring between the worthy man and Mr. Britlingabout bringing Mr. Direck to church on Sunday morning. "He's terriblyLax, " said Mr. Dimple to Mr. Direck, smiling radiantly. "Terribly Lax. But then nowadays Everybody _is_ so Lax. And he's very Good to my CoalClub; I don't know what we should do without him. So I just admonishhim. And if he doesn't go to church, well, anyhow he doesn't go anywhereelse. He may be a poor churchman, but anyhow he's not a dissenter.... "

"In England, you see, " Mr. Britling remarked, after they had parted fromthe reverend gentleman, "we have domesticated everything. We have evendomesticated God. "

For awhile Mr. Britling showed Mr. Direck English lanes, and then cameback along narrow white paths across small fields of rising wheat, tothe village and a little gate that led into the park. 

"Well, " said Mr. Direck, "what you say about domestication does seem tome to be very true indeed. Why! even those clouds up there look asthough they had a shepherd and were grazing. "

"Ready for shearing almost, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Indeed, " said Mr. Direck, raising his voice a little, "I've seenscarcely anything in England that wasn't domesticated, unless it wassome of your back streets in London. "

Mr. Britling seemed to reflect for a moment. "They're an excrescence, "he said.... 

Section 3

The park had a trim wildness like nature in an old Italian picture;dappled fallow deer grouped close at hand and looked at the two menfearlessly; the path dropped through oak trees and some stunted brackento a little loitering stream, that paused ever and again to play atponds and waterfalls and bear a fleet of water-lily leaves; and thentheir way curved round in an indolent sweep towards the cedars andshrubberies of the great house. The house looked low and extensive to anAmerican eye, and its red-brick chimneys rose like infantry in openorder along its extended line. There was a glimpse of flower-brightgarden and terraces to the right as they came round the corner to thefront of the house through a path cut in the laurel bushes. 

Mr. Britling had a moment of exposition as they approached the entrance. 

"I expect we shall find Philbert from the Home Office--or is it theLocal Government Board?--and Sir Thomas Loot, the Treasury man. Theremay be some other people of that sort, the people we call the GoverningClass. Wives also. And I rather fancy the Countess of Frensham iscoming, she's strong on the Irish Question, and Lady VenetiaTrumpington, who they say is a beauty--I've never seen her. It's LadyHomartyn's way to expect me to come in--not that I'm an important itemat these week-end social feasts--but she likes to see me on thetable--to be nibbled at if any one wants to do so--like the olives andthe salted almonds. And she always asks me to lunch on Sunday and Ialways refuse--because of the hockey. So you see I put in an appearanceon the Saturday afternoon.... "

They had reached the big doorway. 

It opened into a large cool hall adorned with the heads of hippopotamiand rhinoceroses and a stuffed lion, and furnished chiefly with a vasttable on which hats and sticks and newspapers were littered. Amanservant with a subdued, semi-confidential manner, conveyed to Mr. Britling that her ladyship was on the terrace, and took the hats andsticks that were handed to him and led the way through the house. Theyemerged upon a broad terrace looking out under great cedar trees uponflower beds and stone urns and tennis lawns and yew hedges that dippedto give a view of distant hills. On the terrace were grouped perhaps adozen people for the most part holding teacups, they sat in deck chairsand folding seats about a little table that bore the tea-things. LadyHomartyn came forward to welcome the newcomers. 

Mr. Direck was introduced as a travelling American gratified to see atypical English country house, and Lady Homartyn in an habituated wayran over the points of her Tudor specimen. Mr. Direck was not accustomedto titled people, and was suddenly in doubt whether you called abaroness "My Lady" or "Your Ladyship, " so he wisely avoided any form ofaddress until he had a lead from Mr. Britling. Mr. Britling presentlycalled her "Lady Homartyn. " She took Mr. Direck and sat him down besidea lady whose name he didn't catch, but who had had a lot to do with theBritish Embassy at Washington, and then she handed Mr. Britling over tothe Rt. Honble. George Philbert, who was anxious to discuss certainpoints in the latest book of essays. The conversation of the lady fromWashington was intelligent but not exacting, and Mr. Direck was able togive a certain amount of attention to the general effect of the scene. 

He was a little disappointed to find that the servants didn't wearlivery. In American magazine pictures and in American cinematographfilms of English stories and in the houses of very rich Americans livingin England, they do so. And the Mansion House is misleading; he had meta compatriot who had recently dined at the Mansion House, and who haddescribed "flunkeys" in hair-powder and cloth of gold--like Thackeray'sJeames Yellowplush. But here the only servants were two slim, discreetand attentive young gentlemen in black coats with a gentle piety intheir manner instead of pride. And he was a little disappointed too by acertain lack of splendour in the company. The ladies affected him asbeing ill-dressed; there was none of the hard snap, the "_There!_ andwhat do you say to it?" about them of the well-dressed American woman, and the men too were not so much tailored as unobtrusively and yetgrammatically clothed. 

Section 4

He was still only in the fragmentary stage of conversation wheneverything was thrown into commotion by the important arrival of LadyFrensham, and there was a general reshuffling of places. Lady Frenshamhad arrived from London by automobile; she appeared in veils andswathings and a tremendous dust cloak, with a sort of nephew in hertrain who had driven the car. She was manifestly a constitutionallytriumphant woman. A certain afternoon lassitude vanished in the swirlof her arrival. Mr. Philbert removed wrappings and handed them to themanservant. 

"I lunched with Sir Edward Carson to-day, my dear, " she told LadyHomartyn, and rolled a belligerent eye at Philbert. 

"And is he as obdurate as ever?" asked Sir Thomas. 

"Obdurate! It's Redmond who's obdurate, " cried Lady Frensham. "What doyou say, Mr. Britling?"

"A plague on both your parties, " said Mr. Britling. 

"You can't keep out of things like that, " said Lady Frensham with theutmost gusto, "when the country's on the very verge of civil war.... Youpeople who try to pretend there isn't a grave crisis when there is one, will be more accountable than any one--when the civil war does come. Itwon't spare you. Mark my words!"

The party became a circle. 

Mr. Direck found himself the interested auditor of a real Englishcountry-house week-end political conversation. This at any rate was likethe England of which Mrs. Humphry Ward's novels had informed him, butyet not exactly like it. Perhaps that was due to the fact that for themost part these novels dealt with the England of the 'nineties, andthings had lost a little in dignity since those days. But at any ratehere were political figures and titled people, and they were talkingabout the "country. "... 

Was it possible that people of this sort did "run" the country, afterall?... When he had read Mrs. Humphry Ward in America he had alwaysaccepted this theory of the story quite easily, but now that he saw andheard them--!

But all governments and rulers and ruling classes when you look at themclosely are incredible.... 

"I don't believe the country is on the verge of civil war, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Facts!" cried Lady Frensham, and seemed to wipe away delusions with arapid gesture of her hands. 

"You're interested in Ireland, Mr. Dirks?" asked Lady Homartyn. 

"We see it first when we come over, " said Mr. Direck rather neatly, andafter that he was free to attend to the general discussion. 

Lady Frensham, it was manifest, was one of that energetic body ofaristocratic ladies who were taking up an irreconcilable attitudeagainst Home Rule "in any shape or form" at that time. They were rapidlyturning British politics into a system of bitter personal feuds in whichall sense of imperial welfare was lost. A wild ambition to emulate theextremest suffragettes seems to have seized upon them. They insulted, they denounced, they refused every invitation lest they should meet that"traitor" the Prime Minister, they imitated the party hatreds of afiercer age, and even now the moderate and politic Philbert foundhimself treated as an invisible object. They were supported by theextremer section of the Tory press, and the most extraordinary writerswere set up to froth like lunatics against the government as "traitors, "as men who "insulted the King"; the _Morning Post_ and thelighter-witted side of the Unionist press generally poured out a torrentof partisan nonsense it is now almost incredible to recall. LadyFrensham, bridling over Lady Homartyn's party, and for a time leavingMr. Britling, hurried on to tell of the newest developments of the greatfeud. She had a wonderful description of Lady Londonderry sittingopposite "that old rascal, the Prime Minister, " at a performance ofMozart's _Zauberflöte_. 

"If looks could kill!" cried Lady Frensham with tremendous gusto. 

"Sir Edward is quite firm that Ulster means to fight. They havemachine-guns--ammunition. And I am sure the army is with us.... "

"Where did they get those machine-guns and ammunition?" asked Mr. Britling suddenly. 

"Ah! that's a secret, " cried Lady Frensham. 

"Um, " said Mr. Britling. 

"You see, " said Lady Frensham; "it _will_ be civil war! And yet youwriting people who have influence do nothing to prevent it!"

"What are we to do, Lady Frensham?"

"Tell people how serious it is. "

"You mean, tell the Irish Nationalists to lie down and be walked over. They won't be.... "

"We'll see about that, " cried Lady Frensham, "we'll see about that!"

She was a large and dignified person with a kind of figure-head nobilityof carriage, but Mr. Direck was suddenly reminded of a girl cousin ofhis who had been expelled from college for some particularly elaborateand aimless rioting.... 

"May I say something to you, Lady Frensham, " said Mr. Britling, "thatyou have just said to me? Do you realise that this Carsonite campaign isdragging these islands within a measurable distance of civil war?"

"It's the fault of your Lloyd George and his government. It's the faultof your Socialists and sentimentalists. You've made the mischief and youhave to deal with it. "

"Yes. But do you really figure to yourself what a civil war may mean forthe empire? Surely there are other things in the world besides thisquarrel between the 'loyalists' of Ulster and the Liberal government;there are other interests in this big empire than party advantages? Yonthink you are going to frighten this Home Rule government into someridiculous sort of collapse that will bring in the Tories at the nextelection. Well, suppose you don't manage that. Suppose instead that youreally do contrive to bring about a civil war. Very few people here orin Ireland want it--I was over there not a month ago--but when men haveloaded guns in their hands they sometimes go off. And then people seered. Few people realise what an incurable sore opens when fightingbegins. Suppose part of the army revolts and we get some extraordinaryand demoralising fighting over there. India watches these things. Bengalmay imitate Ireland. At that distance rebellion and treason arerebellion and treason whether they are coloured orange or green. Andthen suppose the Germans see fit to attack us!"

Lady Frensham had a woman's elusiveness. "Your Redmondites would welcomethem with open arms. "

"It isn't the Redmondites who invite them now, anyhow, " said Mr. Britling, springing his mine. "The other day one of your 'loyalists, 'Andrews, was talking in the _Morning Post_ of preferring conquest byGermany to Home Rule; Craig has been at the same game; Major Crawford, the man who ran the German Mausers last April, boasted that he wouldtransfer his allegiance to the German Emperor rather than see Redmond inpower. "

"Rhetoric!" said Lady Frensham. "Rhetoric!"

"But one of your Ulster papers has openly boasted that arrangements havebeen made for a 'powerful Continental monarch' to help an Ulsterrebellion. "

"Which paper?" snatched Lady Frensham. 

Mr. Britling hesitated. 

Mr. Philbert supplied the name. "I saw it. It was the _IrishChurchman_. "

"You two have got your case up very well, " said Lady Frensham. "I didn'tknow Mr. Britling was a party man. "

"The Nationalists have been circulating copies, " said Philbert. "Naturally. "

"They make it look worse than mere newspaper talk and speeches, " Mr. Britling pressed. "Carson, it seems, was lunching with the GermanEmperor last autumn. A fine fuss you'd make if Redmond did that. Allthis gun-running, too, is German gun-running. "

"What does it matter if it is?" said Lady Frensham, allowing abelligerent eye to rest for the first time on Philbert. "You drove us toit. One thing we are resolved upon at any cost. Johnny Redmond may ruleEngland if he likes; he shan't rule Ireland.... "

Mr. Britling shrugged his shoulders, and his face betrayed despair. 

"My one consolation, " he said, "in this storm is a talk I had last monthwith a young Irishwoman in Meath. She was a young person of twelve, andshe took a fancy to me--I think because I went with her in an allegeddangerous canoe she was forbidden to navigate alone. All day the eternalIrish Question had banged about over her observant head. When we wereout on the water she suddenly decided to set me right upon a disregardedessential. 'You English, ' she said, 'are just a bit disposed to take allthis trouble seriously. Don't you fret yourself about it... Half thetime we're just laffing at you. You'd best leave us all alone.... '"

And then he went off at a tangent from his own anecdote. 

"But look at this miserable spectacle!" he cried. "Here is a chance ofgetting something like a reconciliation of the old feud of English andIrish, and something like a settlement of these ancient distresses, andthere seems no power, no conscience, no sanity in any of us, sufficientto save it from this cantankerous bitterness, this sheer wicked mischiefof mutual exasperation.... Just when Ireland is getting a gleam ofprosperity.... A murrain on both your parties!"

"I see, Mr. Britling, you'd hand us all over to Jim Larkin!"

"I'd hand you all over to Sir Horace Plunkett--"

"That doctrinaire dairyman!" cried Lady Frensham, with an air of quiteconclusive repartee. "You're hopeless, Mr. Britling. You're hopeless. "

And Lady Homartyn, seeing that the phase of mere personal verdicts drewnear, created a diversion by giving Lady Frensham a second cup of tea, and fluttering like a cooling fan about the heated brows of thedisputants. She suggested tennis.... 

Section 5

Mr. Britling was still flushed and ruffled as he and his guest returnedtowards the Dower House. He criticised England himself unmercifully, buthe hated to think that in any respect she fell short of perfection; evenher defects he liked to imagine were just a subtler kind of power andwisdom. And Lady Frensham had stuck her voice and her gestures throughall these amiable illusions. He was like a lover who calls his lady afoolish rogue, and is startled to find that facts and strangers doliterally agree with him. 

But it was so difficult to resolve Lady Frensham and the Irish squabblegenerally into anything better than idiotic mischief, that for a time hewas unusually silent--wrestling with the problem, and Mr. Direck got theconversational initiative. 

"To an American mind it's a little--startling, " said Mr. Direck, "tohear ladies expressing such vigorous political opinions. "

"I don't mind that, " said Mr. Britling. "Women over here go intopolitics and into public-houses--I don't see why they shouldn't. If suchthings are good enough for men they are good enough for women; wehaven't your sort of chivalry. But it's the peculiar malignant sillinessof this sort of Toryism that's so discreditable. It's discreditable. There's no good in denying it. Those people you have heard and seen area not unfair sample of our governing class--of a certain section of ourgoverning class--as it is to-day. Not at all unfair. And you see howamazingly they haven't got hold of anything. There was a time when theycould be politic.... Hidden away they have politic instincts evennow.... But it makes me sick to think of this Irish business. Because, you know, it's true--we _are_ drifting towards civil war there. "

"You are of that opinion?" said Mr. Direck. 

"Well, isn't it so? Here's all this Ulster gun-running--you heard howshe talked of it? Isn't it enough to drive the south into openrevolt?... "

"Is there very much, do you think, in the suggestion that some of thisUlster trouble is a German intrigue? You and Mr. Philbert were sayingthings--"

"I don't know, " said Mr. Britling shortly. 

"I don't know, " he repeated. "But it isn't because I don't think ourUnionists and their opponents aren't foolish enough for anything of thesort. It's only because I don't believe that the Germans are so stupidas to do such things.... Why should they?... 

"It makes me--expressionless with anger, " said Mr. Britling after apause, reverting to his main annoyance. "They won't consider anycompromise. It's sheer love of quarrelling.... Those people there thinkthat nothing can possibly happen. They are like children in a nurseryplaying at rebellion. Unscathed and heedless. Until there is death attheir feet they will never realise they are playing with loadedguns.... "

For a time he said no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. Direcktried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the Irish Questionand the many difficult propositions an American politician has to facein that respect. And when Mr. Britling took up the thread of speechagain it had little or no relation to Mr. Direck's observations. 

"The psychology of all this recent insubordination and violenceis--curious. Exasperating too.... I don't quite grasp it.... It's thesame thing whether you look at the suffrage business or the labourpeople or at this Irish muddle. People may be too safe. You see we liveat the end of a series of secure generations in which none of the greatthings of life have changed materially. We've grown up with no sense ofdanger--that is to say, with no sense of responsibility. None of us, none of us--for though I talk my actions belie me--really believe thatlife can change very fundamentally any more forever. All this", --Mr. Britling waved his arm comprehensively--"looks as though it was bound togo on steadily forever. It seems incredible that the system could besmashed. It seems incredible that anything we can do will ever smash thesystem. Lady Homartyn, for example, is incapable of believing that shewon't always be able to have week-end parties at Claverings, and thatthe letters and the tea won't come to her bedside in the morning. Or ifher imagination goes to the point of supposing that some day _she_ won'tbe there to receive the tea, it means merely that she supposes somebodyelse will be. Her pleasant butler may fear to lose his 'situation, ' butnothing on earth could make him imagine a time when there will not be a'situation' for him to lose. Old Asquith thinks that we always have gotalong, and that we always shall get along by being quietly artful andsaying, 'Wait and see. ' And it's just because we are all convinced thatwe are so safe against a general breakdown that we are able to be sorecklessly violent in our special cases. Why shouldn't women have thevote? they argue. What does it matter? And bang goes a bomb inWestminster Abbey. Why shouldn't Ulster create an impossible position?And off trots some demented Carsonite to Germany to play at treason onsome half word of the German Emperor's and buy half a million rifles.... 

"Exactly like children being very, very naughty.... 

"And, " said Mr. Britling with a gesture to round off his discourse, "wedo go on. We shall go on--until there is a spark right into themagazine. We have lost any belief we ever had that fundamental thingshappen. We are everlasting children in an everlasting nursery.... "

And immediately he broke out again. 

"The truth of the matter is that hardly any one has ever yet masteredthe fact that the world is round. The world is round--like an orange. The thing is told us--like any old scandal--at school. For allpractical purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world asflat as a pancake. Where time never ends and nothing changes. Who reallybelieves in any world outside the circle of the horizon? Here we are andvisibly nothing is changing. And so we go on to--nothing will everchange. It just goes on--in space, in time. If we could realise thatround world beyond, then indeed we should go circumspectly.... If theworld were like a whispering gallery, what whispers might we not hearnow--from India, from Africa, from Germany, warnings from the past, intimations of the future.... 

"We shouldn't heed them.... "

Section 6

And indeed at the very moment when Mr. Britling was saying these words, in Sarajevo in Bosnia, where the hour was somewhat later, men whisperedtogether, and one held nervously to a black parcel that had been givenhim and nodded as they repeated his instructions, a black parcel withcertain unstable chemicals and a curious arrangement of detonatorstherein, a black parcel destined ultimately to shatter nearly everylandmark of Mr. Britling's and Lady Frensham's cosmogony.... 

Section 7

When Mr. Direck and Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House the guestwas handed over to Mrs. Britling and Mr. Britling vanished, to reappearat supper time, for the Britlings had a supper in the evening instead ofdinner. When Mr. Britling did reappear every trace of his vexation withthe levities of British politics and the British ruling class hadvanished altogether, and he was no longer thinking of all that might behappening in Germany or India.... 

While he was out of the way Mr. Direck extended his acquaintance withthe Britling household. He was taken round the garden and shown theroses by Mrs. Britling, and beyond the rose garden in a little arbourthey came upon Miss Corner reading a book. She looked very grave andpretty reading a book. Mr. Direck came to a pause in front of her, andMrs. Britling stopped beside him. The young lady looked up and smiled. 

"The last new novel?" asked Mr. Direck pleasantly. 

"Campanella's 'City of the Sun. '"

"My word! but isn't that stiff reading?"

"You haven't read it, " said Miss Corner. 

"It's a dry old book anyhow. "

"It's no good pretending you have, " she said, and there Mr. Direck feltthe conversation had to end. 

"That's a very pleasant young lady to have about, " he said to Mrs. Britling as they went on towards the barn court. 

"She's all at loose ends, " said Mrs. Britling. "And she reads likea--Whatever does read? One drinks like a fish. One eats like a wolf. "

They found the German tutor in a little court playing Badminton with thetwo younger boys. He was a plump young man with glasses and compactgestures; the game progressed chiefly by misses and the score wascounted in German. He won thoughtfully and chiefly through the ardour ofthe younger brother, whose enthusiastic returns invariably went out. Instantly the boys attacked Mrs. Britling with a concerted enthusiasm. "Mummy! Is it to be dressing-up supper?"

Mrs. Britling considered, and it was manifest that Mr. Direck wasmaterial to her answer. 

"We wrap ourselves up in curtains and bright things instead ofdressing, " she explained. "We have a sort of wardrobe of fancy dresses. Do you mind?"

Mr. Direck was delighted. 

And this being settled, the two small boys went off with their motherupon some special decorative project they had conceived and Mr. Direckwas left for a time to Herr Heinrich. 

Herr Heinrich suggested a stroll in the rose garden, and as Mr. Direckhad not hitherto been shown the rose garden by Herr Heinrich, he agreed. Sooner or later everybody, it was evident, had got to show him that rosegarden. 

"And how do you like living in an English household?" said Mr. Direck, getting to business at once. "It's interesting to an American to seethis English establishment, and it must be still more interesting to aGerman. "

"I find it very different from Pomerania, " said Herr Heinrich. "In somerespects it is more agreeable, in others less so. It is a pleasant lifebut it is not a serious life. 

"At any time, " continued Herr Heinrich, "some one may say, 'Let us dothis thing, ' or 'Let us do that thing, ' and then everything isdisarranged. 

"People walk into the house without ceremony. There is much kindness butno politeness. Mr. Britling will go away for three or four days, andwhen he returns and I come forward to greet him and bow, he will walkright past me, or he will say just like this, 'How do, Heinrich?'"

"Are you interested in Mr. Britling's writings?" Mr. Direck asked. 

"There again I am puzzled. His work is known even in Germany. Hisarticles are reprinted in German and Austrian reviews. You would expecthim to have a certain authority of manner. You would expect there to bediscussion at the table upon questions of philosophy and aesthetics.... It is not so. When I ask him questions it is often that they are notseriously answered. Sometimes it is as if he did not like the questionsI askt of him. Yesterday I askt of him did he agree or did he not agreewith Mr. Bernard Shaw. He just said--I wrote it down in my memoranda--hesaid: 'Oh! Mixt Pickles. ' What can one understand of that?--MixtPickles!"... 

The young man's sedulous blue eyes looked out of his pink face throughhis glasses at Mr. Direck, anxious for any light he could offer upon theatmospheric vagueness of this England. 

He was, he explained, a student of philology preparing for hisdoctorate. He had not yet done his year of military service. He wasstudying the dialects of East Anglia--

"You go about among the people?" Mr. Direck inquired. 

"No, I do not do that. But I ask Mr. Carmine and Mrs. Britling and theboys many questions. And sometimes I talk to the gardener. "

He explained how he would prepare his thesis and how it would beaccepted, and the nature of his army service and the various stages bywhich he would subsequently ascend in the orderly professorial life towhich he was destined. He confessed a certain lack of interest inphilology, but, he said, "it is what I have to do. " And so he was goingto do it all his life through. For his own part he was interested inideas of universal citizenship, in Esperanto and Ido and universallanguages and such-like attacks upon the barriers between man and man. But the authorities at home did not favour cosmopolitan ideas, and so hewas relinquishing them. "Here, it is as if there were no authorities, "he said with a touch of envy. 

Mr. Direck induced him to expand that idea. 

Herr Heinrich made Mr. Britling his instance. If Mr. Britling were aGerman he would certainly have some sort of title, a definite position, responsibility. Here he was not even called Herr Doktor. He said what heliked. Nobody rewarded him; nobody reprimanded him. When Herr Heinrichasked him of his position, whether he was above or below Mr. BernardShaw or Mr. Arnold White or Mr. Garvin or any other publicist, he madejokes. Nobody here seemed to have a title and nobody seemed to have adefinite place. There was Mr. Lawrence Carmine; he was a student ofOriental questions; he had to do with some public institution in Londonthat welcomed Indian students; he was a Geheimrath--

"Eh?" said Mr. Direck. 

"It is--what do they call it? the Essex County Council. " But nobody tookany notice of that. And when Mr. Philbert, who was a minister in thegovernment, came to lunch he was just like any one else. It was onlyafter he had gone that Herr Heinrich had learnt by chance that he was aminister and "Right Honourable.... "

"In Germany everything is definite. Every man knows his place, has hispapers, is instructed what to do.... "

"Yet, " said Mr. Direck, with his eyes on the glowing roses, the neatarbour, the long line of the red wall of the vegetable garden and adistant gleam of cornfield, "it all looks orderly enough. "

"It is as if it had been put in order ages ago, " said Herr Heinrich. 

"And was just going on by habit, " said Mr. Direck, taking up the idea. 

Their comparisons were interrupted by the appearance of "Teddy, " thesecretary, and the Indian young gentleman, damp and genial, as theyexplained, "from the boats. " It seemed that "down below" somewhere was apond with a punt and an island and a toy dinghy. And while theydiscussed swimming and boating, Mr. Carmine appeared from the directionof the park conversing gravely with the elder son. They had been for awalk and a talk together. There were proposals for a Badminton foursome. Mr. Direck emerged from the general interchange with Mr. LawrenceCarmine, and then strolled through the rose garden to see the sunsetfrom the end. Mr. Direck took the opportunity to verify his impressionthat the elder son was the present Mrs. Britling's stepson, and he alsocontrived by a sudden admiration for a distant row of evening primrosesto deflect their path past the arbour in which the evening light mustnow be getting a little too soft for Miss Corner's book. 

Miss Corner was drawn into the sunset party. She talked to Mr. Carmineand displayed, Mr. Direck thought, great originality of mind. She said"The City of the Sun" was like the cities the boys sometimes made on theplayroom floor. She said it was the dearest little city, and gave someamusing particulars. She described the painted walls that made the tourof the Civitas Solis a liberal education. She asked Mr. Carmine, who wasan authority on Oriental literature, why there were no Indian norChinese Utopias. 

Now it had never occurred to Mr. Direck to ask why there were no Indiannor Chinese Utopias, and even Mr. Carmine seemed surprised to discoverthis deficiency. 

"The primitive patriarchal village _is_ Utopia to India and China, " saidMr. Carmine, when they had a little digested the inquiry. "Or at anyrate it is their social ideal. They want no Utopias. "

"Utopias came with cities, " he said, considering the question. "And thefirst cities, as distinguished from courts and autocratic capitals, camewith ships. India and China belong to an earlier age. Ships, trade, disorder, strange relationships, unofficial literature, criticism--andthen this idea of some novel remaking of society.... "

Section 8

Then Mr. Direck fell into the hands of Hugh, the eldest son, andanticipating the inevitable, said that he liked to walk in the rosegarden. So they walked in the rose garden. 

"Do you read Utopias?" said Mr. Direck, cutting any preface, in theEnglish manner. 

"Oh, _rather_!" said Hugh, and became at once friendly and confidential. 

"We all do, " he explained. "In England everybody talks of change andnothing ever changes. "

"I found Miss Corner reading--what was it? the Sun People?--some oldclassical Italian work. "

"Campanella, " said Hugh, without betraying the slightest interest inMiss Corner. "Nothing changes in England, because the people who want tochange things change their minds before they change anything else. I'vebeen in London talking for the last half-year. Studying art they callit. Before that I was a science student, and I want to be one again. Don't you think, Sir, there's something about science--it's steadierthan anything else in the world?"

Mr. Direck thought that the moral truths of human nature were steadierthan science, and they had one of those little discussions of real lifethat begin about a difference inadequately apprehended, and do not somuch end as are abandoned. Hugh struck him as being more speculative anddetached than any American college youth of his age that he knew--butthat might not be a national difference but only the Britling strain. Heseemed to have read more and more independently, and to be doing less. And he was rather more restrained and self-possessed. 

Before Mr. Direck could begin a proper inquiry into the young man's workand outlook, he had got the conversation upon America. He wantedtremendously to see America. "The dad says in one of his books that overhere we are being and that over there you are beginning. It must betremendously stimulating to think that your country is still beingmade.... "

Mr. Direck thought that an interesting point of view. "Unless somethingtumbles down here, we never think of altering it, " the young manremarked. "And even then we just shore it up. "

His remarks had the effect of floating off from some busy mill ofthought within him. Hitherto Mr. Direck had been inclined to think thissilent observant youth, with his hands in his pockets and his shouldersa little humped, as probably shy and adolescently ineffective. But thehead was manifestly quite busy.... 

"Miss Corner, " he began, taking the first thing that came into his head, and then he remembered that he had already made the remark he was goingto make not five minutes ago. 

"What form of art, " he asked, "are you contemplating in your studies atthe present time in London?".... 

Before this question could be dealt with at all adequately, the twosmall boys became active in the garden beating in everybody to"dress-up" before supper. The secretary, Teddy, came in a fatherly wayto look after Mr. Direck and see to his draperies. 

Section 9

Mr. Direck gave his very best attention to this business of drapinghimself, for he had not the slightest intention of appearing ridiculousin the eyes of Miss Corner. Teddy came with an armful of stuff that hethought "might do. "

"What'll I come as?" asked Mr. Direck. 

"We don't wear costumes, " said Teddy. "We just put on all the brightestthings we fancy. If it's any costume at all, it's Futurist. "

"And surely why shouldn't one?" asked Mr. Direck, greatly struck by thisidea. "Why should we always be tied by the fashions and periods of thepast?"

He rejected a rather Mephistopheles-like costume of crimson and a schemefor a brigand-like ensemble based upon what was evidently an old boleroof Mrs. Britling's, and after some reflection he accepted some blacksilk tights. His legs were not legs to be ashamed of. Over this he triedvarious brilliant wrappings from the Dower House _armoire_, and chose atlast, after some hesitation in the direction of a piece of gold andpurple brocade, a big square of green silk curtain stuff adorned withgolden pheasants and other large and dignified ornaments; this he woretoga fashion over his light silken under-vest--Teddy had insisted on theabandonment of his shirt "if you want to dance at all"--and fastenedwith a large green glass-jewelled brooch. From this his head and neckprojected, he felt, with a tolerable dignity. Teddy suggested a filletof green ribbon, and this Mr. Direck tried, but after prolongedreflection before the glass rejected. He was still weighing the effectof this fillet upon the mind of Miss Corner when Teddy left him to makehis own modest preparations. Teddy's departure gave him a chance forprofile studies by means of an arrangement of the long mirror and thetable looking-glass that he had been too shy to attempt in the presenceof the secretary. The general effect was quite satisfactory. 

"Wa-a-a-l, " he said with a quaver of laughter, "now who'd have thoughtit?" and smiled a consciously American smile at himself before goingdown. 

The company was assembling in the panelled hall, and made a brilliantshow in the light of the acetylene candles against the dark background. Mr. Britling in a black velvet cloak and black silk tights was a deepershade among the shadows; the high lights were Miss Corner and hersister, in glittering garments of peacock green and silver that gave asnake-like quality to their lithe bodies. They were talking to theGerman tutor, who had become a sort of cotton Cossack, a spectacledCossack in buff and bright green. Mrs. Britling was dignified andbeautiful in a purple djibbah, and her stepson had become a handsomestill figure of black and crimson. Teddy had contrived somethingelaborate and effective in the Egyptian style, with a fish-basket and acuirass of that thin matting one finds behind washstands; the small boyswere brigands, with immensely baggy breeches and cummerbunds in whichthey had stuck a selection of paper-knives and toy pistols and similarweapons. Mr. Carmine and his young man had come provided with realIndian costumes; the feeling of the company was that Mr. Carmine was amullah. The aunt-like lady with the noble nose stood out amidst theselevities in a black silk costume with a gold chain. She refused, itseemed, to make herself absurd, though she encouraged the others toextravagance by nods and enigmatical smiles. Nevertheless she had putpink ribbons in her cap. A family of father, golden-haired mother, andtwo young daughters, sympathetically attired, had just arrived, and werediscarding their outer wrappings with the assistance of host andhostess. 

It was all just exactly what Mr. Direck had never expected in England, and equally unexpected was the supper on a long candle-lit table withouta cloth. No servants were present, but on a sideboard stood a coldsalmon and cold joints and kalter aufschnitt and kartoffel salat, and avariety of other comestibles, and many bottles of beer and wine andwhisky. One helped oneself and anybody else one could, and Mr. Direckdid his best to be very attentive to Mrs. Britling and Miss Corner, andwas greatly assisted by the latter. 

Everybody seemed unusually gay and bright-eyed. Mr. Direck foundsomething exhilarating and oddly exciting in all this unusual brightcostume and in this easy mutual service; it made everybody seem frankerand simpler. Even Mr. Britling had revealed a sturdy handsomeness thathad not been apparent to Mr. Direck before, and young Britling left nodoubts now about his good looks. Mr. Direck forgot his mission and hisposition, and indeed things generally, in an irrational satisfactionthat his golden pheasants harmonised with the glitter of the warm andsmiling girl beside him. And he sat down beside her--"You sit anywhere, "said Mrs. Britling--with far less compunction than in his ordinarycostume he would have felt for so direct a confession of preference. Andthere was something in her eyes, it was quite indefinable and yet verysatisfying, that told him that now he escaped from the stern squareimperatives of his patriotic tailor in New York she had made adiscovery of him. 

Everybody chattered gaily, though Mr. Direck would have found itdifficult to recall afterwards what it was they chattered about, exceptthat somehow he acquired the valuable knowledge that Miss Corner wascalled Cecily, and her sister Letty, and then--so far old Essex customheld--the masculine section was left for a few minutes for someimaginary drinking, and a lighting of cigars and cigarettes, after whicheverybody went through interwoven moonlight and afterglow to the barn. Mr. Britling sat down to a pianola in the corner and began the familiarcadences of "Whistling Rufus. "

"You dance?" said Miss Cecily Corner. 

"I've never been much of a dancing man, " said Mr. Direck. "What sort ofdance is this?"

"Just anything. A two-step. "

Mr. Direck hesitated and regretted a well-spent youth, and then Hughcame prancing forward with outstretched hands and swept her away. 

Just for an instant Mr. Direck felt that this young man was a triflesuperfluous.... 

But it was very amusing dancing. 

It wasn't any sort of taught formal dancing. It was a spontaneous retortto the leaping American music that Mr. Britling footed out. You kepttime, and for the rest you did as your nature prompted. If you had apartner you joined hands, you fluttered to and from one another, youpaced down the long floor together, you involved yourselves in romanticpursuits and repulsions with other couples. There was no objection toyour dancing alone. Teddy, for example, danced alone in order to developcertain Egyptian gestures that were germinating in his brain. There wasno objection to your joining hands in a cheerful serpent.... 

Mr. Direck hung on to Cissie and her partner. They danced very welltogether; they seemed to like and understand each other. It was naturalof course for two young people like that, thrown very much together, todevelop an affection for one another.... Still, she was older by threeor four years. 

It seemed unreasonable that the boy anyhow shouldn't be in love withher.... 

It seemed unreasonable that any one shouldn't be in love with her.... 

Then Mr. Direck remarked that Cissie was watching Teddy's manoeuvresover her partner's shoulder with real affection and admiration.... 

But then most refreshingly she picked up Mr. Direck's gaze and gave himthe slightest of smiles. She hadn't forgotten him. 

The music stopped with an effect of shock, and all the bobbing, whirlingfigures became walking glories. 

"Now that's not difficult, is it?" said Miss Corner, glowing happily. 

"Not when you do it, " said Mr. Direck. 

"I can't imagine an American not dancing a two-step. You must do thenext with me. Listen! It's 'Away Down Indiana' ... Ah! I knew youcould. "

Mr. Direck, too, understood now that he could, and they went off holdinghands rather after the fashion of two skaters. 

"My word!" said Mr. Direck. "To think I'd be dancing. "

But he said no more because he needed his breath. 

He liked it, and he had another attempt with one of the visitordaughters, who danced rather more formally, and then Teddy took thepianola and Mr. Direck was astonished by the spectacle of an eminentBritish thinker in a whirl of black velvet and extremely active blacklegs engaged in a kind of Apache dance in pursuit of the visitor wife. In which Mr. Lawrence Carmine suddenly mingled. 

"In Germany, " said Herr Heinrich, "we do not dance like this. It couldnot be considered seemly. But it is very pleasant. "

And then there was a waltz, and Herr Heinrich bowed to and took thevisitor wife round three times, and returned her very punctually andexactly to the point whence he had taken her, and the Indian younggentleman (who must not be called "coloured") waltzed very well withCecily. Mr. Direck tried to take a tolerant European view of this brownand white combination. But he secured her as soon as possible from thisAsiatic entanglement, and danced with her again, and then he danced withher again. 

"Come and look at the moonlight, " cried Mrs. Britling. 

And presently Mr. Direck found himself strolling through the rose gardenwith Cecily. She had the sweetest moonlight face, her white shining robemade her a thing of moonlight altogether. If Mr. Direck had not been inlove with her before he was now altogether in love. Mamie Nelson, whosefreakish unkindness had been rankling like a poisoned thorn in his heartall the way from Massachusetts, suddenly became Ancient History. 

A tremendous desire for eloquence arose in Mr. Direck's soul, a desireso tremendous that no conceivable phrase he could imagine satisfied it. So he remained tongue-tied. And Cecily was tongue-tied, too. The scentof the roses just tinted the clear sweetness of the air they breathed. 

Mr. Direck's mood was an immense solemnity, like a dark ocean beneaththe vast dome of the sky, and something quivered in every fibre of hisbeing, like moonlit ripples on the sea. He felt at the same time aportentous stillness and an immense enterprise.... 

Then suddenly the pianola, pounding a cake walk, burst out into ribaldinvitation.... 

"Come back to dance!" cried Cecily, like one from whom a spell has justbeen broken. And Mr. Direck, snatching at a vanishing scrap ofeverything he had not said, remarked, "I shall never forget thisevening. "

She did not seem to hear that. 

They danced together again. And then Mr. Direck danced with the visitorlady, whose name he had never heard. And then he danced with Mrs. Britling, and then he danced with Letty. And then it seemed time for himto look for Miss Cecily again. 

And so the cheerful evening passed until they were within a quarter ofan hour of Sunday morning. Mrs. Britling went to exert a restraininginfluence upon the pianola. 

"Oh! one dance more!" cried Cissie Corner. 

"Oh! one dance more!" cried Letty. 

"One dance more, " Mr. Direck supported, and then things really _had_ toend. 

There was a rapid putting out of candles and a stowing away of things byTeddy and the sons, two chauffeurs appeared from the region of thekitchen and brought Mr. Lawrence Carmine's car and the visitor family'scar to the front door, and everybody drifted gaily through the moonlightand the big trees to the front of the house. And Mr. Direck saw theperambulator waiting--the mysterious perambulator--a little in the darkbeyond the front door. 

The visitor family and Mr. Carmine and his young Indian departed. "Cometo hockey!" shouted Mr. Britling to each departing car-load, and Mr. Carmine receding answered: "I'll bring three!"

Then Mr. Direck, in accordance with a habit that had been growing on himthroughout the evening, looked around for Miss Cissie Corner and failedto find her. And then behold she was descending the staircase with themysterious baby in her arms. She held up a warning finger, and thenglanced at her sleeping burthen. She looked like a silvery Madonna. AndMr. Direck remembered that he was still in doubt about that baby.... 

Teddy, who was back in his flannels, seized upon the perambulator. Therewas much careful baby stowing on the part of Cecily; she displayed aninfinitely maternal solicitude. Letty was away changing; she reappearedjauntily taking leave, disregarding the baby absolutely, and Teddydeparted bigamously, wheeling the perambulator between the two sistersinto the hazes of the moonlight. There was much crying of good nights. Mr. Direck's curiosities narrowed down to a point of great intensity.... 

Of course, Mr. Britling's circle must be a very "Advanced" circle.... 

Section 10

Mr. Direck found he had taken leave of the rest of the company, anddrifted into a little parlour with Mr. Britling and certain glasses andsiphons and a whisky decanter on a tray.... 

"It is a very curious thing, " said Mr. Direck, "that in England I findmyself more disposed to take stimulants and that I no longer have theneed for iced water that one feels at home. I ascribe it to a greaterhumidity in the air. One is less dried and one is less braced. One is nolonger pursued by a thirst, but one needs something to buck one up alittle. Thank you. That is enough. "

Mr. Direck took his glass of whisky and soda from Mr. Britling's hand. 

Mr. Britling seated himself in an armchair by the fireplace and threwone leg carelessly over the arm. In his black velvet cloak and cap, andhis black silk tights, he was very like a minor character, a courtchamberlain for example, in some cloak and rapier drama. "I find thisweek-end dancing and kicking about wonderfully wholesome, " he said. "That and our Sunday hockey. One starts the new week clear and brightabout the mind. Friday is always my worst working day. "

Mr. Direck leant against the table, wrapped in his golden pheasants, andappreciated the point. 

"Your young people dance very cheerfully, " he said. 

"We all dance very cheerfully, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Then this Miss Corner, " said Mr. Direck, "she is the sister, I presume, is she? of that pleasant young lady who is married--she is married, isn't she?--to the young man you call Teddy. "

"I should have explained these young people. They're the sort of youngpeople we are producing over here now in quite enormous quantity. Theyare the sort of equivalent of the Russian Intelligentsia, anirresponsible middle class with ideas. Teddy, you know, is my secretary. He's the son, I believe, of a Kilburn solicitor. He was recommended tome by Datcher of _The Times_. He came down here and lived in lodgingsfor a time. Then suddenly appeared the young lady. "

"Miss Corner's sister?"

"Exactly. The village was a little startled. The cottager who had letthe rooms came to me privately. Teddy is rather touchy on the point ofhis personal independence, he considers any demand for explanations asan insult, and probably all he had said to the old lady was, 'This isLetty--come to share my rooms. ' I put the matter to him very gently. 'Oh, yes, ' he said, rather in the manner of some one who has overlookeda trifle. 'I got married to her in the Christmas holidays. May I bringher along to see Mrs. Britling?' We induced him to go into a littlecottage I rent. The wife was the daughter of a Colchester journalist andprinter. I don't know if you talked to her. "

"I've talked to the sister rather. "

"Well, they're both idea'd. They're highly educated in the sense thatthey do really think for themselves. Almost fiercely. So does Teddy. Ifhe thinks he hasn't thought anything he thinks for himself, he goes offand thinks it different. The sister is a teacher who wants to take theB. A. Degree in London University. Meanwhile she pays the penalty of hersex. "

"Meaning--?" asked Mr. Direck, startled. 

"Oh! that she puts in a great deal too much of her time upon houseworkand minding her sister's baby. "

"She's a very interesting and charming young lady indeed, " said Mr. Direck. "With a sort of Western college freedom of mind--and somethingabout her that isn't American at all. "

Mr. Britling was following the train of his own thoughts. 

"My household has some amusing contrasts, " he said. "I don't know if youhave talked to that German. 

"He's always asking questions. And you tell him any old thing and hegoes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards asks youanother like it in order to perplex himself by the variety of youranswers. He regards the whole world with a methodical distrust. He wantsto document it and pin it down. He suspects it only too justly ofdisorderly impulses, and a capacity for self-contradiction. He is themost extraordinary contrast to Teddy, whose confidence in the universeamounts almost to effrontery. Teddy carries our national laxness to afoolhardy extent. He is capable of leaving his watch in the middle ofClaverings Park and expecting to find it a month later--being carefullytaken care of by a squirrel, I suppose--when he happens to want it. He'srather like a squirrel himself--without the habit of hoarding. He isincapable of asking a question about anything; he would be quite sure itwas all right anyhow. He would feel that asking questions betrayed awant of confidence--was a sort of incivility. But my German, if younotice, --his normal expression is one of grave solicitude. He is like aconscientious ticket-collector among his impressions. And did you noticehow beautifully my pianola rolls are all numbered and catalogued? He didthat. He set to work and did it as soon as he got here, just as a goodcat when you bring it into the house sets to work and catches mice. Previously the pianola music was chaos. You took what God sent you. 

"And he _looks_ like a German, " said Mr. Britling. 

"He certainly does that, " said Mr. Direck. 

"He has the fair type of complexion, the rather full habit of body, thetemperamental disposition, but in addition that close-cropped head, itis almost as if it were shaved, the plumpness, the glasses--those arethings that are made. And the way he carries himself. And the way hethinks. His meticulousness. When he arrived he was delightful, he waswearing a student's corps cap and a rucksack, he carried a violin; heseemed to have come out of a book. No one would ever dare to invent soGerman a German for a book. Now, a young Frenchman or a young Italian ora young Russian coming here might look like a foreigner, but he wouldn'thave the distinctive national stamp a German has. He wouldn't be plainlyFrench or Italian or Russian. Other peoples are not made; they areneither made nor created but proceeding--out of a thousand indefinablecauses. The Germans are a triumph of directive will. I had to remark theother day that when my boys talked German they shouted. 'But when onetalks German one _must_ shout, ' said Herr Heinrich. 'It is taught so inthe schools. ' And it is. They teach them to shout and to throw out theirchests. Just as they teach them to read notice-boards and not thinkabout politics. Their very ribs are not their own. My Herr Heinrich iscomparatively a liberal thinker. He asked me the other day, 'But whyshould I give myself up to philology? But then, ' he reflected, 'it iswhat I have to do. '"

Mr. Britling seemed to have finished, and then just as Mr. Direck wasplanning a way of getting the talk back by way of Teddy to Miss Corner, he snuggled more deeply into his chair, reflected and broke out again. 

"This contrast between Heinrich's carefulness and Teddy'seasy-goingness, come to look at it, is I suppose one of the mostfundamental in the world. It reaches to everything. It mixes up witheducation, statecraft, morals. Will you make or will you take? Those arethe two extreme courses in all such things. I suppose the answer ofwisdom to that is, like all wise answers, a compromise. I suppose onemust accept and then make all one can of it.... Have you talked at allto my eldest son?"

"He's a very interesting young man indeed, " said Mr. Direck. "I shouldventure to say there's a very great deal in him. I was most impressed bythe few words I had with him. "

"There, for example, is one of my perplexities, " said Mr. Britling. 

Mr. Direck waited for some further light on this sudden transition. 

"Ah! your troubles in life haven't begun yet. Wait till you're a father. That cuts to the bone. You have the most delicate thing in the world inhand, a young kindred mind. You feel responsible for it, you know youare responsible for it; and you lose touch with it. You can't get at it. Nowadays we've lost the old tradition of fatherhood by divine right--andwe haven't got a new one. I've tried not to be a cramping ruler, adirector, a domestic tyrant to that lad--and in effect it's meant hisgoing his own way.... I don't dominate. I hoped to advise. But you seehe loves my respect and good opinion. Too much. When things go well Iknow of them. When the world goes dark for him, then he keeps histrouble from me. Just when I would so eagerly go into it with him.... There's something the matter now, something--it may be grave. I feel hewants to tell me. And there it is!--it seems I am the last person towhom he can humiliate himself by a confession of blundering, orweakness.... Something I should just laugh at and say, 'That's in theblood of all of us, dear Spit of myself. Let's see what's to bedone. '... "

He paused and then went on, finding in the unfamiliarity andtransitoriness of his visitor a freedom he might have failed to find ina close friend. 

"I am frightened at times at all I don't know about in that boy's mind. I know nothing of his religiosities. He's my son and he must havereligiosities. I know nothing of his ideas or of his knowledge about sexand all that side of life. I do not know of the things he findsbeautiful. I can guess at times; that's all; when he betrays himself.... You see, you don't know really what love is until you have children. Onedoesn't love women. Indeed you don't! One gives and gets; it's a trade. One may have tremendous excitements and expectations and overwhelmingdesires. That's all very well in its way. But the love of children is anexquisite tenderness: it rends the heart. It's a thing of God. And I lieawake at nights and stretch out my hands in the darkness to thislad--who will never know--until his sons come in their time.... "

He made one of his quick turns again. 

"And that's where our English way makes for distresses. Mr. Prussianrespects and fears his father; respects authorities, attends, obeysand--_his father has a hold upon him_. But I said to myself at theoutset, 'No, whatever happens, I will not usurp the place of God. I willnot be the Priest-Patriarch of my children. They shall grow and I willgrow beside them, helping but not cramping or overshadowing. ' They growmore. But they blunder more. Life ceases to be a discipline and becomesan experiment.... "

"That's very true, " said Mr. Direck, to whom it seemed the time was ripeto say something. "This is the problem of America perhaps even more thanof England. Though I have not had the parental experience you haveundergone.... I can see very clearly that a son is a very seriousproposition. "

"The old system of life was organisation. That is where Germany is stillthe most ancient of European states. It's a reversion to a tribal cult. It's atavistic.... To organise or discipline, or mould characters orpress authority, is to assume that you have reached finality in yourgeneral philosophy. It implies an assured end. Heinrich has his assuredend, his philological professorship or thereabouts as a part of theGermanic machine. And that too has its assured end in German nationalassertion. Here, we have none of those convictions. We know we haven'tfinality, and so we are open and apologetic and receptive, rather thanwilful.... You see all organisation, with its implication of finality, is death. We feel that. The Germans don't. What you organise you kill. Organised morals or organised religion or organised thought are deadmorals and dead religion and dead thought. Yet some organisation youmust have. Organisation is like killing cattle. If you do not kill somethe herd is just waste. But you musn't kill all or you kill the herd. The unkilled cattle are the herd, the continuation; the unorganised sideof life is the real life. The reality of life is adventure, notperformance. What isn't adventure isn't life. What can be ruled aboutcan be machined. But priests and schoolmasters and bureaucrats get holdof life and try to make it _all_ rules, _all_ etiquette and regulationand correctitude.... And parents and the love of parents make for thesame thing. It is all very well to experiment for oneself, but when onesees these dear things of one's own, so young and inexperienced and socapable of every sort of gallant foolishness, walking along the narrowplank, going down into dark jungles, ah! then it makes one want to wrapthem in laws and foresight and fence them about with 'Verboten' boardsin all the conceivable aspects.... "

"In America of course we do set a certain store upon youthfulself-reliance, " said Mr. Direck. 

"As we do here. It's in your blood and our blood. It's the instinct ofthe English and the Irish anyhow to suspect government and take therisks of the chancy way.... And manifestly the Russians, if you readtheir novelists, have the same twist in them.... When we get this youngPrussian here, he's a marvel to us. He really believes in Law. He_likes_ to obey. That seems a sort of joke to us. It's curious howforeign these Germans are--to all the rest of the world. Because oftheir docility. Scratch the Russian and you get the Tartar. Educate theRussian or the American or the Englishman or the Irishman or Frenchmanor any real northern European except the German, and you get theAnarchist, that is to say the man who dreams of order withoutorganisation--of something beyond organisation.... 

"It's one o'clock, " said Mr. Britling abruptly, perceiving a shade offatigue upon the face of his hearer and realising that his thoughts hadtaken him too far, "and Sunday. Let's go to bed. "

Section 11

For a time Mr. Direck could not sleep. His mind had been too excited bythis incessant day with all its novelties and all its provocations tocomparison. The whole complicated spectacle grouped itself, with anaturalness and a complete want of logic that all who have been youngwill understand, about Cecily Corner. 

She had to be in the picture, and so she came in as though she were thecentral figure, as though she were the quintessential England. There shewas, the type, the blood, the likeness, of no end of Massachusettsfamilies, the very same stuff indeed, and yet she was different.... 

For a time his thoughts hovered ineffectively about certain details ofher ear and cheek, and one may doubt if his interest in these things wasentirely international.... 

Then he found himself under way with an exposition of certain points toMr. Britling. In the security of his bed he could imagine that he wastalking very slowly and carefully while Mr. Britling listened; alreadyhe was more than half way to dreamland or he could not have supposedanything so incredible. 

"There's a curious sort of difference, " he was saying. "It is difficultto define, but on the whole I might express it by saying that such agathering as this if it was in America would be drawn with harder lines, would show its bones more and have everything more emphatic. And just totake one illustrative point: in America in such a gathering as thisthere would be bound to be several jokes going on as it were, runningjokes and running criticisms, from day to day and from week to week.... There would be jokes about your writing and your influence and jokesabout Miss Corner's advanced reading.... You see, in America we pay muchmore attention to personal character. Here people, I notice, are nottalked to about their personal characters at all, and many of them donot seem to be aware and do not seem to mind what personal charactersthey have.... 

"And another thing I find noteworthy is the way in which what I mightcall mature people seem to go on having a good time instead of standingby and applauding the young people having a good time.... And the youngpeople do not seem to have set out to have a good time at all.... Now inAmerica, a charming girl like Miss Corner would be distinctly more awareof herself and her vitality than she is here, distinctly more. Herpeculiarly charming sidelong look, if I might make so free withher--would have been called attention to. It's a perfectly beautifullook, the sort of look some great artist would have loved to makeimmortal. It's a look I shall find it hard to forget.... But she doesn'tseem to be aware in the least of it. In America she would be aware ofit. She would be distinctly aware of it. She would have been _made_aware of it. She would have been advised of it. It would be looked forand she would know it was looked for. She would _give_ it as a singergives her most popular song. Mamie Nelson, for example, used to give apeculiar little throw back of the chin and a laugh.... It was talkedabout. People came to see it.... 

"Of course Mamie Nelson was a very brilliant girl indeed. I suppose inEngland you would say we spoilt her. I suppose we did spoil her.... "

It came into Mr. Direck's head that for a whole day he had scarcelygiven a thought to Mamie Nelson. And now he was thinking of her--calmly. Why shouldn't one think of Mamie Nelson calmly?

She was a proud imperious thing. There was something Southern in her. Very dark blue eyes she had, much darker than Miss Corner's.... 

But how tortuous she had been behind that outward pride of hers! Forfour years she had let him think he was the only man who really matteredin the world, and all the time quite clearly and definitely she haddeceived him. She had made a fool of him and she had made a fool of theothers perhaps--just to have her retinue and play the queen in herworld. And at last humiliation, bitter humiliation, and Mamie with herchin in the air and her bright triumphant smile looking down on him. 

Hadn't he, she asked, had the privilege of loving her?

She took herself at the value they had set upon her. 

Well--somehow--that wasn't right.... 

All the way across the Atlantic Mr. Direck had been trying to forget herdownward glance with the chin up, during that last encounter--and otheraspects of the same humiliation. The years he had spent upon her! Thetime! Always relying upon her assurance of a special preference for him. He tried to think he was suffering from the pangs of unrequited love, and to conceal from himself just how bitterly his pride and vanity hadbeen rent by her ultimate rejection. There had been a time when she hadgiven him reason to laugh in his sleeve at Booth Wilmington. 

Perhaps Booth Wilmington had also had reason for laughing in hissleeve.... 

Had she even loved Booth Wilmington? Or had she just snatched at him?... 

Wasn't he, Direck, as good a man as Booth Wilmington anyhow?... 

For some moments the old sting of jealousy rankled again. He recalledthe flaring rivalry that had ended in his defeat, the competition ofgifts and treats.... A thing so open that all Carrierville knew of it, discussed it, took sides.... And over it all Mamie with her flashingsmile had sailed like a processional goddess.... 

Why, they had made jokes about him in the newspapers!

One couldn't imagine such a contest in Matching's Easy. Yet surely evenin Matching's Easy there are lovers. 

Is it something in the air, something in the climate that makes thingsharder and clearer in America?... 

Cissie--why shouldn't one call her Cissie in one's private thoughtsanyhow?--would never be as hard and clear as Mamie. She had Englisheyes--merciful eyes.... 

That was the word--_merciful_!

The English light, the English air, are merciful.... 

Merciful.... 

They tolerate old things and slow things and imperfect apprehensions. They aren't always getting at you.... 

They don't laugh at you.... At least--they laugh differently.... 

Was England the tolerant country? With its kind eyes and its warysidelong look. Toleration. In which everything mellowed and nothing wasdestroyed. A soft country. A country with a passion for imperfection. Apadded country.... 

England--all stuffed with soft feathers ... Under one's ear. Apillow--with soft, kind Corners ... Beautiful rounded Corners.... Dear, dear Corners. Cissie Corners. Corners. Could there be a better family?

Massachusetts--but in heaven.... 

Harps playing two-steps, and kind angels wrapped in moonlight. 

 Very softly I and you, One turn, two turn, three turn, too. Off we go!.... 

CHAPTER THE THIRD

THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX

Section 1

Breakfast was in the open air, and a sunny, easy-going feast. Then thesmall boys laid hands on Mr. Direck and showed him the pond and theboats, while Mr. Britling strolled about the lawn with Hugh, talkingrather intently. And when Mr. Direck returned from the boats in a stateof greatly enhanced popularity he found Mr. Britling conversing over hisgarden railings to what was altogether a new type of Britisher in Mr. Direck's experience. It was a tall, lean, sun-bitten youngish man offorty perhaps, in brown tweeds, looking more like the Englishman of theAmerican illustrations than anything Mr. Direck had met hitherto. Indeedhe came very near to a complete realisation of that ideal except thatthere was a sort of intensity about him, and that his clipped moustachehad the restrained stiffness of a wiry-haired terrier. This gentlemanMr. Direck learnt was Colonel Rendezvous. He spoke in clear shortsentences, they had an effect of being punched out, and he was refusingto come into the garden and talk. 

"Have to do my fourteen miles before lunch, " he said. "You haven't seenManning about, have you?"

"He isn't here, " said Mr. Britling, and it seemed to Mr. Direck thatthere was the faintest ambiguity in this reply. 

"Have to go alone, then, " said Colonel Rendezvous. "They told me that hehad started to come here. "

"I shall motor over to Bramley High Oak for your Boy Scout festival, "said Mr. Britling. 

"Going to have three thousand of 'em, " said the Colonel. "Good show. "

His steely eyes seemed to search the cover of Mr. Britling's garden forthe missing Manning, and then he decided to give him up. "I must begoing, " he said. "So long. Come up!"

A well-disciplined dog came to heel, and the lean figure had given Mr. Direck a semi-military salutation and gone upon its way. It marched witha long elastic stride; it never looked back. 

"Manning, " said Mr. Britling, "is probably hiding up in my rose garden. "

"Curiously enough, I guessed from your manner that that might be thecase, " said Mr. Direck. 

"Yes. Manning is a London journalist. He has a little cottage about amile over there"--Mr. Britling pointed vaguely--"and he comes down forthe week-ends. And Rendezvous has found out he isn't fit. And everybodyought to be fit. That is the beginning and end of life for Rendezvous. Fitness. An almost mineral quality, an insatiable activity of body, great mental simplicity. So he takes possession of poor old Manning andtrots him for that fourteen miles--at four miles an hour. Manning goesthrough all the agonies of death and damnation, he half dissolves, hepants and drags for the first eight or ten miles, and then I must admithe rather justifies Rendezvous' theory. He is to be found in theafternoon in a hammock suffering from blistered feet, but otherwiseunusually well. But if he can escape it, he does. He hides. "

"But if he doesn't want to go with Rendezvous, why does he?" said Mr. Direck. 

"Well, Rendezvous is accustomed to the command of men. And Manning'sonly way of refusing things is on printed forms. Which he doesn't bringdown to Matching's Easy. Ah! behold!"

Far away across the lawn between two blue cedars there appeared aleisurely form in grey flannels and a loose tie, advancing with manifestcircumspection. 

"He's gone, " cried Britling. 

The leisurely form, obviously amiable, obviously a little out ofcondition, became more confident, drew nearer. 

"I'm sorry to have missed him, " he said cheerfully. "I thought he mightcome this way. It's going to be a very warm day indeed. Let us sit aboutsomewhere and talk. 

"Of course, " he said, turning to Direck, "Rendezvous is the life andsoul of the country. "

They strolled towards a place of seats and hammocks between the bigtrees and the rose garden, and the talk turned for a time uponRendezvous. "They have the tidiest garden in Essex, " said Manning. "It'snot Mrs. Rendezvous' fault that it is so. Mrs. Rendezvous, as a matterof fact, has a taste for the picturesque. She just puts the things aboutin groups in the beds. She wants them, she says, to grow anyhow. Shedesires a romantic disorder. But she never gets it. When he walks downthe path all the plants dress instinctively.... And there's a tree neartheir gate; it used to be a willow. You can ask any old man in thevillage. But ever since Rendezvous took the place it's been trying topresent arms. With the most extraordinary results. I was passing theother day with old Windershin. 'You see that there old poplar, ' he said. 'It's a willow, ' said I. 'No, ' he said, 'it did used to be a willowbefore Colonel Rendezvous he came. But now it's a poplar. '... And, byJove, it is a poplar!"... 

The conversation thus opened by Manning centred for a time upon ColonelRendezvous. He was presented as a monster of energy and self-discipline;as the determined foe of every form of looseness, slackness, andeasy-goingness. 

"He's done wonderful work for the local Boy Scout movement, " saidManning. 

"It's Kitchenerism, " said Britling. 

"It's the army side of the efficiency stunt, " said Manning. 

There followed a digression upon the Boy Scout movement, and Mr. Direckmade comparisons with the propaganda of Seton Thompson in America. "Colonel Teddyism, " said Manning. "It's a sort of reaction againsteverything being too easy and too safe. "

"It's got its anti-decadent side, " said Mr. Direck. 

"If there is such a thing as decadence, " said Mr. Britling. 

"If there wasn't such a thing as decadence, " said Manning, "wejournalists would have had to invent it. "... 

"There is something tragical in all this--what shall I callit?--Kitchenerism, " Mr. Britling reflected "Here you have it rushingabout and keeping itself--screwed up, and trying desperately to keep thecountry screwed up. And all because there may be a war some day somehowwith Germany. Provided Germany _is_ insane. It's that war, like somesort of bee in Rendezvous' brains, that is driving him along the roadnow to Market Saffron--he always keeps to the roads because they areseverer--through all the dust and sunshine. When he might be heregossiping.... 

"And you know, I don't see that war coming, " said Mr. Britling. "Ibelieve Rendezvous sweats in vain. I can't believe in that war. It hasheld off for forty years. It may hold off forever. "

He nodded his head towards the German tutor, who had come into viewacross the lawn, talking profoundly with Mr. Britling's eldest son. 

"Look at that pleasant person. There he is--_Echt Deutsch_--if anythingever was. Look at my son there! Do you see the two of them engaged inmortal combat? The thing's too ridiculous. The world grows sane. Theymay fight in the Balkans still; in many ways the Balkan States are inthe very rear of civilisation; but to imagine decent countries like thisor Germany going back to bloodshed! No.... When I see Rendezvouskeeping it up and keeping it up, I begin to see just how poor Germanymust be keeping it up. I begin to realise how sick Germany must begetting of the high road and the dust and heat and the everlasting drilland restraint.... My heart goes out to the South Germans. Old Manninghere always reminds me of Austria. Think of Germany coming likeRendezvous on a Sunday morning, and looking stiffly over Austria'sfence. 'Come for a good hard walk, man. Keep Fit.... '"

"But suppose this Balkan trouble becomes acute, " said Manning. 

"It hasn't; it won't. Even if it did we should keep out of it. "

"But suppose Russia grappled Austria and Germany flung herself suddenlyupon France--perhaps taking Belgium on the way. "

"Oh!--we should fight. Of course we should fight. Could any one but acongenital idiot suppose we shouldn't fight? They know we should fight. They aren't altogether idiots in Germany. But the thing's absurd. Why_should_ Germany attack France? It's as if Manning here took a hatchetsuddenly and assailed Edith.... It's just the dream of their militaryjournalists. It's such schoolboy nonsense. Isn't that a beautiful pillarrose? Edith only put it in last year.... I hate all this talk of warsand rumours of wars.... It's worried all my life. And it gets worse andit gets emptier every year.... "

Section 2

Now just at that moment there was a loud report.... 

But neither Mr. Britling nor Mr. Manning nor Mr. Direck was interruptedor incommoded in the slightest degree by that report. Because it was toofar off over the curve of this round world to be either heard or seen atMatching's Easy. Nevertheless it was a very loud report. It occurred atan open space by a river that ran through a cramped Oriental city, acity spiked with white minarets and girt about by bare hills under ablazing afternoon sky. It came from a black parcel that the ArchdukeFrancis Ferdinand of Austria, with great presence of mind, had justflung out from the open hood of his automobile, where, tossed from theside of the quay, it had descended a few seconds before. It exploded asit touched the cobbled road just under the front of the second vehiclein the procession, and it blew to pieces the front of the automobile andinjured the aide-de-camp who was in it and several of the spectators. Its thrower was immediately gripped by the bystanders. The processionstopped. There was a tremendous commotion amongst that brightly-costumedcrowd, a hot excitement in vivid contrast to the Sabbath calm ofMatching's Easy.... 

Mr. Britling, to whom the explosion was altogether inaudible, continuedhis dissertation upon the common-sense of the world and the practicalsecurity of our Western peace. 

Section 3

Lunch was an open-air feast again. Three visitors had dropped in; theyhad motored down from London piled up on a motor-cycle and a side-car; abrother and two sisters they seemed to be, and they had apparentlyreduced hilariousness to a principle. The rumours of coming hockey thathad been floating on the outskirts of Mr. Direck's consciousness eversince his arrival, thickened and multiplied.... It crept into his mindthat he was expected to play.... 

He decided he would not play. He took various people into hisconfidence. He told Mr. Britling, and Mr. Britling said, "We'll make youfull back, where you'll get a hit now and then and not have very much todo. All you have to remember is to hit with the flat side of your stickand not raise it above your shoulders. " He told Teddy, and Teddy said, "I strongly advise you to dress as thinly as you can consistently withdecency, and put your collar and tie in your pocket before the gamebegins. Hockey is properly a winter game. " He told the maiden aunt-likelady with the prominent nose, and she said almost enviously, "Every onehere is asked to play except me. I assuage the perambulator. I supposeone mustn't be envious. I don't see why I shouldn't play. I'm not so oldas all that. " He told Hugh, and Hugh warned him to be careful not to gethold of one of the sprung sticks. He considered whether it wouldn't bewiser to go to his own room and lock himself in, or stroll off for awalk through Claverings Park. But then he would miss Miss Corner, whowas certain, it seemed, to come up for hockey. On the other hand, if hedid not miss her he might make himself ridiculous in her eyes, andefface the effect of the green silk stuff with the golden pheasants. 

He determined to stay behind until she arrived, and explain to her thathe was not going to play. He didn't somehow want her to think he wasn'tperfectly fit to play. 

Mr. Carmine arrived in an automobile with two Indians and a gentlemanwho had been a prospector in Alaska, the family who had danced overnightat the Dower House reappeared, and then Mrs. Teddy, very detached with aspecial hockey stick, and Miss Corner wheeling the perambulator. Thencame further arrivals. At the earliest opportunity Mr. Direck securedthe attention of Miss Corner, and lost his interest in any one else. 

"I can't play this hockey, " said Mr. Direck. "I feel strange about it. It isn't an American game. Now if it were baseball--!"

He left her to suppose him uncommonly hot stuff at baseball. 

"If you're on my side, " said Cecily, "mind you pass to me. "

It became evident to Mr. Direck that he was going to play this hockeyafter all. 

"Well, " he said, "if I've got to play hockey, I guess I've got to playhockey. But can't I just get a bit of practice somewhere before the gamebegins?"

So Miss Corner went off to get two sticks and a ball and came back toinstruct Mr. Direck. She said he had a good eye. The two small boysscenting play in the air got sticks and joined them. The overnightvisitor's wife appeared from the house in abbreviated skirts, andwearing formidable shin-guards. With her abundant fair hair, which wasalready breaking loose, so to speak, to join the fray, she looked like ashort stout dismounted Valkyr. Her gaze was clear and firm. 

Section 4

Hockey as it was played at the Dower House at Matching's Easy before thewar, was a game combining danger, physical exercise and kindliness in avery high degree. Except for the infant in the perambulator and theoutwardly calm but inwardly resentful aunt, who wheeled the child up anddown in a position of maximum danger just behind the unnetted goal, every one was involved. Quite able-bodied people acquainted with thegame played forward, the less well-informed played a defensive gamebehind the forward line, elderly, infirm, and bulky persons were usedchiefly as obstacles in goal. Several players wore padded leg-guards, and all players were assumed to have them and expected to behaveaccordingly. 

Proceedings began with an invidious ceremony called picking up. This washeralded by Mr. Britling, clad in the diaphanous flannels and bearing ahockey stick, advancing with loud shouts to the centre of the hockeyfield. "Pick up! Pick up!" echoed the young Britlings. 

Mr. Direck became aware of a tall, drooping man with long hair and longdigressive legs in still longer white flannel trousers, and a face thatwas somehow familiar. He was talking with affectionate intimacy toManning, and suddenly Mr. Direck remembered that it was in Manning'sweekly paper, _The Sectarian_, in which a bitter caricaturist enliveneda biting text, that he had become familiar with the features ofManning's companion. It was Raeburn, Raeburn the insidious, Raeburn thecompletest product of the party system.... Well, that was the Englishway. "Come for the pick up!" cried the youngest Britling, seizing uponMr. Direck's elbow. It appeared that Mr. Britling and the overnightdinner guest--Mr. Direck never learnt his name--were picking up. 

Names were shouted. "I'll take Cecily!" Mr. Direck heard Mr. Britlingsay quite early. The opposing sides as they were picked fell into twogroups. There seemed to be difficulties about some of the names. Mr. Britling, pointing to the more powerful looking of the Indian gentlemen, said, "_You_, Sir. "

"I'm going to speculate on Mr. Dinks, " said Mr. Britling's opponent. 

Mr. Direck gathered that Mr. Dinks was to be his hockey name. 

"You're on _our_ side, " said Mrs. Teddy. "I think you'll have to playforward, outer right, and keep a sharp eye on Cissie. "

"I'll do what I can, " said Mr. Direck. 

His captain presently confirmed this appointment. 

His stick was really a sort of club and the ball was a firm hard cricketball.... He resolved to be very gentle with Cecily, and see that shedidn't get hurt. 

The sides took their places for the game, and a kind of order becameapparent to Mr. Direck. In the centre stood Mr. Britling and theopposing captain, and the ball lay between them. They were preparing to"bully off" and start the game. In a line with each of them were fourother forwards. They all looked spirited and intent young people, andMr. Direck wished he had had more exercise to justify his own alertappearance. Behind each centre forward hovered one of the Britling boys. Then on each side came a vaguer row of three backs, persons of gentlerdisposition or maturer years. They included Mr. Raeburn, who wasconsidered to have great natural abilities for hockey but littleexperience. Mr. Raeburn was behind Mr. Direck. Mrs. Britling was thecentre back. Then in a corner of Mr. Direck's side was a small girl ofsix or seven, and in the half-circle about the goal a lady in a motoringdust coat and a very short little man whom Mr. Direck had not previouslyremarked. Mr. Lawrence Carmine, stripped to the braces, which wererichly ornamented with Oriental embroidery, kept goal for our team. 

The centre forwards went through a rapid little ceremony. They smotetheir sticks on the ground, and then hit the sticks together. "One, "said Mr. Britling. The operation was repeated. "Two, " ... "Three. "

Smack, Mr. Britling had got it and the ball had gone to the shorter andsturdier of the younger Britlings, who had been standing behind Mr. Direck's captain. Crack, and it was away to Teddy; smack, and it wascoming right at Direck. 

"Lordy!" he said, and prepared to smite it. 

Then something swift and blue had flashed before him, intercepted theball and shot it past him. This was Cecily Corner, and she and Teddywere running abreast like the wind towards Mr. Raeburn. 

"Hey!" cried Mr. Raeburn, "stop!" and advanced, as it seemed to Mr. Direck, with unseemly and threatening gestures towards Cissie. 

But before Mr. Direck could adjust his mind to this new phase ofaffairs, Cecily had passed the right honourable gentleman with the samemysterious ease with which she had flashed by Mr. Direck, and wasbearing down upon the miscellaneous Landwehr which formed the "backs" ofMr. Direck's side. 

"_You_ rabbit!" cried Mr. Raeburn, and became extraordinarily active inpursuit, administering great lengths of arm and leg with a centralisedefficiency he had not hitherto displayed. 

Running hard to the help of Mr. Raeburn was the youngest Britling boy, abeautiful contrast. It was like a puff ball supporting and assisting aconger eel. In front of Mr. Direck the little stout man was being alert. Teddy was supporting the attack near the middle of the field, crying"Centre!" while Mr. Britling, very round and resolute, was bouncingstraight towards the threatened goal. But Mrs. Teddy, running as swiftlyas her sister, was between Teddy and the ball. Whack! the little shortman's stick had clashed with Cecily's. Confused things happened withsticks and feet, and the little short man appeared to be trying to cutdown Cecily as one cuts down a tree, she tried to pass the ball to hercentre forward--too late, and then Mrs. Teddy had intercepted it, andwas flickering back towards Mr. Britling's goal in a rush in which Mr. Direck perceived it was his duty to join. 

Yes, he had to follow up Mrs. Teddy and pick up the ball if he had achance and send it in to her or the captain or across to the leftforwards, as circumstances might decide. It was perfectly clear. 

Then came his moment. The little formidably padded lady who had dined atthe Dower House overnight, made a gallant attack upon Mrs. Teddy. Out ofthe confusion of this clash the ball spun into Mr. Direck's radius. Where should he smite and how? A moment of reflection was natural. 

But now the easy-fitting discipline of the Dower House style of hockeybecame apparent. Mr. Direck had last observed the tall young Indiangentleman, full of vitality and anxious for destruction, far away in thedistance on the opposing right wing. But now, regardless of the moreformal methods of the game, this young man had resolved, without furtherdelay and at any cost, to hit the ball hard, and he was travelling likesome Asiatic typhoon with an extreme velocity across the remonstrancesof Mr. Britling and the general order of his side. Mr. Direck becameaware of him just before his impact. There was a sort of collision fromwhich Mr. Direck emerged with a feeling that one side of his face waspermanently flattened, but still gallantly resolved to hit thecomparatively lethargic ball. He and the staggered but resolute Indianclashed sticks again. And Mr. Direck had the best of it. Years ofexperience couldn't have produced a better pass to the captain.... 

"Good pass!"

Apparently from one of the London visitors. 

But this was _some_ game!

The ball executed some rapid movements to and fro across the field. Ourside was pressing hard. There was a violent convergence of miscellaneousbacks and suchlike irregulars upon the threatened goal. Mr. Britling'sdozen was rapidly losing its disciplined order. One of the sidecarladies and the gallant Indian had shifted their activities to thedefensive back, and with them was a spectacled gentleman waving hisstick, high above all recognised rules. Mr. Direck's captain and bothBritling boys hurried to join the fray. Mr. Britling, who seemed to Mr. Direck to be for a captain rather too demagogic, also ran back to rallyhis forces by loud cries. "Pass outwardly!" was the burthen of hiscontribution. 

The struggle about the Britling goal ceased to be a game and becamesomething between a fight and a social gathering. Mr. Britling'sgoal-keeper could be heard shouting, "I can't see the ball! _Lift yourfeet!_" The crowded conflict lurched towards the goal posts. "My shin!"cried Mr. Manning. "No, you _don't!_"

Whack, but again whack!

Whack! "Ah! _would_ you?" Whack. 

"Goal!" cried the side-car gentleman. 

"Goal!" cried the Britling boys.... 

Mr. Manning, as goal-keeper, went to recover the ball, but one of theBritling boys politely anticipated him. 

The crowd became inactive, and then began to drift back to looselyconceived positions. 

"It's no good swarming into goal like that, " Mr. Britling, with a faintasperity in his voice, explained to his followers. "We've got to keepopen and not _crowd_ each other. "

Then he went confidentially to the energetic young Indian to make somerestrictive explanation of his activities. 

Mr. Direck strolled back towards Cecily. He was very warm and a littleblown, but not, he felt, disgraced. He was winning. 

"You'll have to take your coat off, " she said. 

It was a good idea. 

It had occurred to several people and the boundary line was alreadydotted with hastily discarded jackets and wraps and so forth. But thelady in the motoring dust coat was buttoning it to the chin. 

"One goal love, " said the minor Britling boy. 

"We haven't begun yet, Sunny, " said Cecily. 

"Sonny! That's American, " said Mr. Direck. 

"No. We call him Sunny Jim, " said Cecily. "They're bullying off again. "

"Sunny Jim's American too, " said Mr. Direck, returning to his place.... 

The struggle was resumed. And soon it became clear that the first goalwas no earnest of the quality of the struggle. Teddy and Cecily formed aterribly efficient combination. Against their brilliant rushes, supported in a vehement but effective manner by the Indian to theirright and guided by loud shoutings from Mr. Britling (centre), Mr. Direck and the side-car lady and Mr. Raeburn struggled in vain. Oneswift advance was only checked by the dust cloak, its folds held theball until help arrived; another was countered by a tremendous swipe ofMr. Raeburn's that sent the ball within an inch of the youngestBritling's head and right across the field; the third resulted in aswift pass from Cecily to the elder Britling son away on her right, andhe shot the goal neatly and swiftly through the lattice of Mr. LawrenceCarmine's defensive movements. And after that very rapidly came anothergoal for Mr. Britling's side and then another. 

Then Mr. Britling cried out that it was "Half Time, " and explained toMr. Direck that whenever one side got to three goals they considered itwas half time and had five minutes' rest and changed sides. Everybodywas very hot and happy, except the lady in the dust cloak who wasperfectly cool. In everybody's eyes shone the light of battle, and not ashadow disturbed the brightness of the afternoon for Mr. Direck except acertain unspoken anxiety about Mr. Raeburn's trousers. 

You see Mr. Direck had never seen Mr. Raeburn before, and knew nothingabout his trousers. 

They appeared to be coming down. 

To begin with they had been rather loose over the feet and turned up, and as the game progressed, fold after fold of concertina-ed flannelgathered about his ankles. Every now and then Mr. Raeburn would seizethe opportunity of some respite from the game to turn up a fresh sixinches or so of this accumulation. Naturally Mr. Direck expected thispolicy to end unhappily. He did not know that the flannel trousers ofMr. Raeburn were like a river, that they could come down forever andstill remain inexhaustible.... 

He had visions of this scene of happy innocence being suddenly blastedby a monstrous disaster.... 

Apart from this worry Mr. Direck was as happy as any one there!

Perhaps these apprehensions affected his game. At any rate he didnothing that pleased him in the second half, Cecily danced all over himand round and about him, and in the course of ten minutes her side hadwon the two remaining goals with a score of Five-One; and five goals is"game" by the standards of Matching's Easy. 

And then with the very slightest of delays these insatiable peoplepicked up again. Mr. Direck slipped away and returned in a white silkshirt, tennis trousers and a belt. This time he and Cecily were on thesame side, the Cecily-Teddy combination was broken, and he it seemed wasto take the place of the redoubtable Teddy on the left wing with her. 

This time the sides were better chosen and played a long, obstinate, even game. One-One. One-Two. One-Three. (Half Time. ) Two-Three. Threeall. Four-Three. Four all.... 

By this time Mr. Direck was beginning to master the simple strategy ofthe sport. He was also beginning to master the fact that Cecily was thequickest, nimblest, most indefatigable player on the field. He scoutedfor her and passed to her. He developed tacit understandings with her. Ideas of protecting her had gone to the four winds of Heaven. Againstthem Teddy and a sidecar girl with Raeburn in support made a memorablestruggle. Teddy was as quick as a cat. "Four-Three" looked like winning, but then Teddy and the tall Indian and Mrs. Teddy pulled square. Theyalmost repeated this feat and won, but Mr. Manning saved the situationwith an immense oblique hit that sent the ball to Mr. Direck. He ranwith the ball up to Raeburn and then dodged and passed to Cecily. Therewas a lively struggle to the left; the ball was hit out by Mr. Raeburnand thrown in by a young Britling; lost by the forwards and rescued bythe padded lady. Forward again! This time will do it!

Cecily away to the left had worked round Mr. Raeburn once more. Teddy, realising that things were serious, was tearing back to attack her. 

Mr. Direck supported with silent intentness. "Centre!" cried Mr. Britling. "Cen-tre!"

"Mr. Direck!" came her voice, full of confidence. (Of such moments isthe heroic life. ) The ball shot behind the hurtling Teddy. Mr. Direckstopped it with his foot, a trick he had just learnt from the eldestBritling son. He was neither slow nor hasty. He was in the half-circle, and the way to the goal was barred only by the dust-cloak lady and Mr. Lawrence Carmine. He made as if to shoot to Mr. Carmine's left and thensmacked the ball, with the swiftness of a serpent's stroke, to hisright. 

He'd done it! Mr. Carmine's stick and feet were a yard away. 

Then hard on this wild triumph came a flash of horror. One can't seeeverything. His eye following the ball's trajectory.... 

Directly in its line of flight was the perambulator. 

The ball missed the legs of the lady with the noble nose by a kind ofmiracle, hit and glanced off the wheel of the perambulator, and wentspinning into a border of antirrhinums. 

"Good!" cried Cecily. "Splendid shot!"

He'd shot a goal. He'd done it well. The perambulator it seemed didn'tmatter. Though apparently the impact had awakened the baby. In themargin of his consciousness was the figure of Mr. Britling remarking:"Aunty. You really mustn't wheel the perambulator--_just_ there. "

"I thought, " said the aunt, indicating the goal posts by a facialmovement, "that those two sticks would be a sort of protection.... Aah!_Did_ they then?"

Never mind that. 

"That's _game!_" said one of the junior Britlings to Mr. Direck with anote of high appreciation, and the whole party, relaxing and crumplinglike a lowered flag, moved towards the house and tea. 

Section 5

"We'll play some more after tea, " said Cecily. "It will be cooler then. "

"My word, I'm beginning to like it, " said Mr. Direck. 

"You're going to play very well, " she said. 

And such is the magic of a game that Mr. Direck was humbly proud andgrateful for her praise, and trotted along by the side of this creaturewho had revealed herself so swift and resolute and decisive, full tooverflowing of the mere pleasure of just trotting along by her side. Andafter tea, which was a large confused affair, enlivened by wonderful andentirely untruthful reminiscences of the afternoon by Mr. Raeburn, theyplayed again, with fewer inefficients and greater skill and swiftness, and Mr. Direck did such quick and intelligent things that everybodydeclared that he was a hockey player straight from heaven. The dusk, which at last made the position of the ball too speculative for play, came all too soon for him. He had played in six games, and he knew hewould be as stiff as a Dutch doll in the morning. But he was very, veryhappy. 

The rest of the Sunday evening was essentially a sequel to the hockey. 

Mr. Direck changed again, and after using some embrocation that Mrs. Britling recommended very strongly, came down in a black jacket and acheerfully ample black tie. He had a sense of physical well-being suchas he had not experienced since he came aboard the liner at New York. The curious thing was that it was not quite the same sense of physicalwell-being that one had in America. That is bright and clear and alittle dry, this was--humid. His mind quivered contentedly, like sunsetmidges over a lake--it had no hard bright flashes--and his body wantedto sit about. His sense of intimacy with Cecily increased each time helooked at her. When she met his eyes she smiled. He'd caught her stylenow, he felt; he attempted no more compliments and was frankly herpupil at hockey and Badminton. After supper Mr. Britling renewed hissuggestion of an automobile excursion on the Monday. 

"There's nothing to take you back to London, " said Mr. Britling, "and wecould just hunt about the district with the little old car and seeeverything you want to see.... "

Mr. Direck did not hesitate three seconds. He thought of Gladys; hethought of Miss Cecily Corner. 

"Well, indeed, " he said, "if it isn't burthening you, if I'm not beingany sort of inconvenience here for another night, I'd be really veryglad indeed of the opportunity of going around and seeing all theseancient places.... "

Section 6

The newspapers came next morning at nine, and were full of the SarajevoMurders. Mr. Direck got the _Daily Chronicle_ and found quite animatedheadlines for a British paper. 

"Who's this Archduke, " he asked, "anyhow? And where is this Bosnia? Ithought it was a part of Turkey. "

"It's in Austria, " said Teddy. 

"It's in the middle ages, " said Mr. Britling. "What an odd, pertinaceousbusiness it seems to have been. First one bomb, then another; thenfinally the man with the pistol. While we were strolling about the rosegarden. It's like something out of 'The Prisoner of Zenda. '"

"Please, " said Herr Heinrich. 

Mr. Britling assumed an attentive expression. 

"Will not this generally affect European politics?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it will. "

"It says in the paper that Serbia has sent those bombs to Sarajevo. "

"It's like another world, " said Mr. Britling, over his paper. "Assassination as a political method. Can you imagine anything of thesort happening nowadays west of the Adriatic? Imagine some oneassassinating the American Vice-President, and the bombs being at onceascribed to the arsenal at Toronto!... We take our politics more sadlyin the West.... Won't you have another egg, Direck?"

"Please! Might this not lead to a war?"

"I don't think so. Austria may threaten Serbia, but she doesn't want toprovoke a conflict with Russia. It would be going too near the powdermagazine. But it's all an extraordinary business. "

"But if she did?" Herr Heinrich persisted. 

"She won't.... Some years ago I used to believe in the inevitableEuropean war, " Mr. Britling explained to Mr. Direck, "but it's beenthreatened so long that at last I've lost all belief in it. The Powerswrangle and threaten. They're far too cautious and civilised to let theguns go off. If there was going to be a war it would have happened twoyears ago when the Balkan League fell upon Turkey. Or when Bulgariaattacked Serbia.... "

Herr Heinrich reflected, and received these conclusions with anexpression of respectful edification. 

"I am naturally anxious, " he said, "because I am taking tickets for myholidays at an Esperanto Conference at Boulogne. "

Section 7

"There is only one way to master such a thing as driving an automobile, "said Mr. Britling outside his front door, as he took his place in thedriver's seat, "and that is to resolve that from the first you will takeno risks. Be slow if you like. Stop and think when you are in doubt. Butdo nothing rashly, permit no mistakes. "

It seemed to Mr. Direck as he took his seat beside his host that thiswas admirable doctrine. 

They started out of the gates with an extreme deliberation. Indeed twicethey stopped dead in the act of turning into the road, and the enginehad to be restarted. 

"You will laugh at me, " said Mr. Britling; "but I'm resolved to have noblunders this time. "

"I don't laugh at you. It's excellent, " said Mr. Direck. 

"It's the right way, " said Mr. Britling. "Care--oh damn! I've stoppedthe engine again. Ugh!--ah!--_so!_--Care, I was saying--and calm. "

"Don't think I want to hurry you, " said Mr. Direck. "I don't.... "

They passed through the tillage at a slow, agreeable pace, tootingloudly at every corner, and whenever a pedestrian was approached. Mr. Direck was reminded that he had still to broach the lecture project toMr. Britling. So much had happened--

The car halted abruptly and the engine stopped. 

"I thought that confounded hen was thinking of crossing the road, " saidMr. Britling. "Instead of which she's gone through the hedge. Shecertainly looked this way.... Perhaps I'm a little fussy thismorning.... I'll warm up to the work presently. "

"I'm convinced you can't be too careful, " said Mr. Direck. "And thissort of thing enables one to see the country better.... "

Beyond the village Mr. Britling seemed to gather confidence. The pacequickened. But whenever other traffic or any indication of a side wayappeared discretion returned. Mr. Britling stalked his sign posts, crawling towards them on the belly of the lowest gear; he drove all themorning like a man who is flushing ambuscades. And yet accident overtookhim. For God demands more from us than mere righteousness. 

He cut through the hills to Market Saffron along a lane-road with whichhe was unfamiliar. It began to go up hill. He explained to Mr. Direckhow admirably his engine would climb hills on the top gear. 

They took a curve and the hill grew steeper, and Mr. Direck opened thethrottle. 

They rounded another corner, and still more steeply the hill rose beforethem. 

The engine began to make a chinking sound, and the car lost pace. Andthen Mr. Britling saw a pleading little white board with the inscription"Concealed Turning. " For the moment he thought a turning might beconcealed anywhere. He threw out his clutch and clapped on his brake. Then he repented of what he had done. But the engine, after threeHerculean throbs, ceased to work. Mr. Britling with a convulsive clutchat his steering wheel set the electric hooter snarling, while one footreleased the clutch again and the other, on the accelerator, sought invain for help. Mr. Direck felt they were going back, back, in spite ofall this vocalisation. He clutched at the emergency brake. But he wastoo late to avoid misfortune. With a feeling like sitting gently inbutter, the car sank down sideways and stopped with two wheels in theditch. 

Mr. Britling said they were in the ditch--said it with quite unnecessaryviolence.... 

This time two cart horses and a retinue of five men were necessary torestore Gladys to her self-respect.... 

After that they drove on to Market Saffron, and got there in time forlunch, and after lunch Mr. Direck explored the church and the churchyardand the parish register.... 

After lunch Mr. Britling became more cheerful about his driving. Theroad from Market Saffron to Blandish, whence one turns off to Matching'sEasy, is the London and Norwich high road; it is an old Roman StaneStreet and very straightforward and honest in its stretches. You can seethe cross roads half a mile away, and the low hedges give you no chanceof a surprise. Everybody is cheered by such a road, and everybody drivesmore confidently and quickly, and Mr. Britling particularly washeartened by it and gradually let out Gladys from the almost excessiverestriction that had hitherto marked the day. "On a road like thisnothing can happen, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Unless you broke an axle or burst a tyre, " said Mr. Direck. 

"My man at Matching's Easy is most careful in his inspection, " said Mr. Britling, putting the accelerator well down and watching the speedindicator creep from forty to forty-five. "He went over the car not aweek ago. And it's not one month old--in use that is. "

Yet something did happen. 

It was as they swept by the picturesque walls under the big old treesthat encircle Brandismead Park. It was nothing but a slightmiscalculation of distances. Ahead of them and well to the left, rode apostman on a bicycle; towards them, with that curious effect ofimplacable fury peculiar to motor cycles, came a motor cyclist. FirstMr. Britling thought that he would not pass between these two, then hedecided that he would hurry up and do so, then he reverted to his formerdecision, and then it seemed to him that he was going so fast that hemust inevitably run down the postman. His instinct not to do that pulledthe car sharply across the path of the motor cyclist. "Oh, my God!"cried Mr. Britling. "My God!" twisted his wheel over and distributed hisfeet among his levers dementedly. 

He had an imperfectly formed idea of getting across right in front ofthe motor cyclist, and then they were going down the brief grassy slopebetween the road and the wall, straight at the wall, and still at a goodspeed. The motor cyclist smacked against something and vanished from theproblem. The wall seemed to rush up at them and then--collapse. Therewas a tremendous concussion. Mr. Direck gripped at his friend theemergency brake, but had only time to touch it before his head hitagainst the frame of the glass wind-screen, and a curtain fell uponeverything.... 

He opened his eyes upon a broken wall, a crumpled motor car, and anundamaged motor cyclist in the aviator's cap and thin oilskin overallsdear to motor cyclists. Mr. Direck stared and then, still stunned andpuzzled, tried to raise himself. He became aware of acute pain. 

"Don't move for a bit, " said the motor cyclist. "Your arm and side arerather hurt, I think.... "

Section 8

In the course of the next twelve hours Mr. Direck was to make adiscovery that was less common in the days before the war than it hasbeen since. He discovered that even pain and injury may be vividlyinteresting and gratifying. 

If any one had told him he was going to be stunned for five or sixminutes, cut about the brow and face and have a bone in his wrist putout, and that as a consequence he would find himself pleased andexhilarated, he would have treated the prophecy with ridicule; but herehe was lying stiffly on his back with his wrist bandaged to his side andsmiling into the darkness even more brightly than he had smiled at theEssex landscape two days before. The fact is pain hurts or irritates, but in itself it does not make a healthily constituted man miserable. The expectation of pain, the certainty of injury may make one hopelessenough, the reality rouses our resistance. Nobody wants a broken bone ora delicate wrist, but very few people are very much depressed by gettingone. People can be much more depressed by smoking a hundred cigarettesin three days or losing one per cent. Of their capital. 

And everybody had been most delightful to Mr. Direck. 

He had had the monopoly of damage. Mr. Britling, holding on to thesteering wheel, had not even been thrown out. "Unless I'm internallyinjured, " he said, "I'm not hurt at all. My liver perhaps--bruised alittle.... "

Gladys had been abandoned in the ditch, and they had been very kindlybrought home by a passing automobile. Cecily had been at the DowerHouse at the moment of the rueful arrival. She had seen how an Americancan carry injuries. She had made sympathy and helpfulness moredelightful by expressed admiration. 

"She's a natural born nurse, " said Mr. Direck, and then rather in thetone of one who addressed a public meeting: "But this sort of thingbrings out all the good there is in a woman. "

He had been quite explicit to them and more particularly to her, whenthey told him he must stay at the Dower House until his arm was cured. He had looked the application straight into her pretty eyes. 

"If I'm to stay right here just as a consequence of that little shakeup, may be for a couple of weeks, may be three, and if you're coming todo a bit of a talk to me ever and again, then I tell you I don't callthis a misfortune. It isn't a misfortune. It's right down sheer goodluck.... "

And now he lay as straight as a mummy, with his soul filled withradiance of complete mental peace. After months of distress andconfusion, he'd got straight again. He was in the middle of a real goodstory, bright and clean. He knew just exactly what he wanted. 

"After all, " he said, "it's true. There's ideals. _She's_ an ideal. Why, I loved her before ever I set eyes on Mamie. I loved her before I wasput into pants. That old portrait, there it was pointing my destiny.... It's affinity.... It's natural selection.... 

"Well, I don't know what she thinks of me yet, but I do know very wellwhat she's _got_ to think of me. She's got to think all the world ofme--if I break every limb of my body making her do it. 

"I'd a sort of feeling it was right to go in that old automobile. 

"Say what you like, there's a Guidance.... "

He smiled confidentially at the darkness as if they shared a secret. 

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

MR. BRITLING IN SOLILOQUY

Section 1

Very different from the painful contentment of the bruised and brokenMr. Direck was the state of mind of his unwounded host. He too wassleepless, but sleepless without exaltation. The day had been too muchfor him altogether; his head, to borrow an admirable Americanexpression, was "busy. "

How busy it was, a whole chapter will be needed to describe.... 

The impression Mr. Britling had made upon Mr. Direck was one ofindefatigable happiness. But there were times when Mr. Britling wascalled upon to pay for his general cheerful activity in lump sums ofbitter sorrow. There were nights--and especially after seasons ofexceptional excitement and nervous activity--when the reckoning would bepresented and Mr. Britling would welter prostrate and groaning under astormy sky of unhappiness--active insatiable unhappiness--a beating withrods. 

The sorrows of the sanguine temperament are brief but furious; the worldknows little of them. The world has no need to reckon with them. Theycause no suicides and few crimes. They hurry past, smiting at theirvictim as they go. None the less they are misery. Mr. Britling in thesemoods did not perhaps experience the grey and hopeless desolations ofthe melancholic nor the red damnation of the choleric, but he saw aworld that bristled with misfortune and error, with poisonous thorns andtraps and swampy places and incurable blunderings. An almostinsupportable remorse for being Mr. Britling would pursuehim--justifying itself upon a hundred counts.... 

And for being such a Britling!... 

Why--he revived again that bitter question of a thousand and one unhappynights--why was he such a fool? Such a hasty fool? Why couldn't he lookbefore he leapt? Why did he take risks? Why was he always so ready toact upon the supposition that all was bound to go well? (He might aswell have asked why he had quick brown eyes. )

Why, for instance, hadn't he adhered to the resolution of the earlymorning? He had begun with an extremity of caution.... 

It was a characteristic of these moods of Mr. Britling that theyproduced a physical restlessness. He kept on turning over and thenturning over again, and sitting up and lying back, like a martyr on agridiron.... 

This was just the latest instance of a life-long trouble. Will thereever be a sort of man whose thoughts are quick and his acts slow? Thenindeed we shall have a formidable being. Mr. Britling's thoughts werequick and sanguine and his actions even more eager than his thoughts. Already while he was a young man Mr. Britling had found his acts elbowtheir way through the hurry of his ideas and precipitate humiliations. Long before his reasons were marshalled, his resolutions were formed. Hehad attempted a thousand remonstrances with himself; he had sought toremedy the defects in his own character by written inscriptions in hisbedroom and memoranda inside his watch case. "Keep steady!" was one ofthem. "Keep the End in View. " And, "Go steadfastly, coherently, continuously; only so can you go where you will. " In distrusting allimpulse, scrutinising all imagination, he was persuaded lay his oneprospect of escape from the surprise of countless miseries. Otherwise hedanced among glass bombs and barbed wire. 

There had been a time when he could exhort himself to such fundamentalcharge and go through phases of the severest discipline. Always at lastto be taken by surprise from some unexpected quarter. At last he hadceased to hope for any triumph so radical. He had been content tobelieve that in recent years age and a gathering habit of wisdom hadsomewhat slowed his leaping purpose. That if he hadn't overcome he hadat least to a certain extent minimised it. But this last folly wassurely the worst. To charge through this patient world with--how muchdid the car weigh? A ton certainly and perhaps more--reckless of everyrisk. Not only to himself but others. At this thought, he clutched thesteering wheel again. Once more he saw the bent back of the endangeredcyclist, once more he felt rather than saw the seething approach of themotor bicycle, and then through a long instant he drove helplessly atthe wall.... 

Hell perhaps is only one such incident, indefinitely prolonged.... 

Anything might have been there in front of him. And indeed now, out ofthe dreamland to which he could not escape something had come, somethingthat screamed sharply.... 

"Good God!" he cried, "if I had hit a child! I might have hit a child!"The hypothesis flashed into being with the thought, tried to escape andwas caught. It was characteristic of Mr. Britling's nocturnalimagination that he should individualise this child quite sharply asrather plain and slender, with reddish hair, staring eyes, and its ribscrushed in a vivid and dreadful manner, pinned against the wall, mixedup with some bricks, only to be extracted, oh! _horribly_. 

But this was not fair! He had hurt no child! He had merely pitched outMr. Direck and broken his arm.... 

It wasn't his merit that the child hadn't been there!

The child might have been there!

Mere luck. 

He lay staring in despair--as an involuntary God might stare at many athing in this amazing universe--staring at the little victim hisimagination had called into being only to destroy.... 

Section 2

If he had not crushed a child other people had. Such things happened. Vicariously at any rate he had crushed many children.... 

Why are children ever crushed?

And suddenly all the pain and destruction and remorse of all theaccidents in the world descended upon Mr. Britling. 

No longer did he ask why am I such a fool, but why are we all suchfools? He became Man on the automobile of civilisation, crushing histhousands daily in his headlong and yet aimless career.... 

That was a trick of Mr. Britling's mind. It had this tendency to spreadoutward from himself to generalised issues. Many minds are like thatnowadays. He was not so completely individualised as people are supposedto be individualised--in our law, in our stories, in our moraljudgments. He had a vicarious factor. He could slip from concentratedreproaches to the liveliest remorse for himself as The Automobilist inGeneral, or for himself as England, or for himself as Man. From remorsefor smashing his guest and his automobile he could pass by what was forhim the most imperceptible of transitions to remorse for every accidentthat has ever happened through the error of an automobilist sinceautomobiles began. All that long succession of blunderers became Mr. Britling. Or rather Mr. Britling became all that vast succession ofblunderers. 

These fluctuating lapses from individuation made Mr. Britling aperplexity to many who judged only by the old personal standards. Attimes he seemed a monster of cantankerous self-righteousness, whomnobody could please or satisfy, but indeed when he was most pitilessabout the faults of his race or nation he was really reproachinghimself, and when he seemed more egotistical and introspective andself-centred he was really ransacking himself for a clue to that sameconfusion of purposes that waste the hope and strength of humanity. Andnow through the busy distresses of the night it would have perplexed awatching angel to have drawn the line and shown when Mr. Britling, wasgrieving for his own loss and humiliation and when he was grieving forthese common human weaknesses of which he had so large a share. 

And this double refraction of his mind by which a concentrated andindividualised Britling did but present a larger impersonal Britlingbeneath, carried with it a duplication of his conscience and sense ofresponsibility. To his personal conscience he was answerable for hisprivate honour and his debts and the Dower House he had made and so on, but to his impersonal conscience he was answerable for the whole world. The world from the latter point of view was his egg. He had asubconscious delusion that he had laid it. He had a subconscioussuspicion that he had let it cool and that it was addled. He had anurgency to incubate it. The variety and interest of his talk was largelydue to that persuasion, it was a perpetual attempt to spread his mentalfeathers over the task before him.... 

Section 3

After this much of explanation it is possible to go on to the task whichoriginally brought Mr. Direck to Matching's Easy, the task thatMassachusetts society had sent him upon, the task of organising themental unveiling of Mr. Britling. Mr. Direck saw Mr. Britling only inthe daylight, and with an increasing distraction of the attentiontowards Miss Cecily Corner. We may see him rather _more_ clearly in thedarkness, without any distraction except his own. 

Now the smashing of Gladys was not only the source of a series ofreproaches and remorses directly arising out of the smash; it had also awide system of collateral consequences, which were also banging andblundering their way through the Britling mind. It was extraordinarilyinconvenient in quite another direction that the automobile should bedestroyed. It upset certain plans of Mr. Britling's in a directiongrowing right out from all the Dower House world in which Mr. Direcksupposed him to be completely set and rooted. There were certain mattersfrom which Mr. Britling had been averting his mind most strenuouslythroughout the week-end. Now, there was no averting his mind any more. 

Mr. Britling was entangled in a love affair. It was, to be exact, anddisregarding minor affinities, his eighth love affair. And the newautomobile, so soon as he could drive it efficiently, was to have playedquite a solvent and conclusive part in certain entangled complicationsof this relationship. 

A man of lively imagination and quick impulses naturally has loveaffairs as he drives himself through life, just as he naturally hasaccidents if he drives an automobile. 

And the peculiar relations that existed between Mr. Britling and Mrs. Britling tended inevitably to make these love affairs troublesome, undignified and futile. Especially when they were viewed from the pointof view of insomnia. 

Mr. Britling's first marriage had been a passionately happy one. Hissecond was by comparison a marriage in neutral tint. There is much to besaid for that extreme Catholic theory which would make marriage notmerely lifelong but eternal. Certainly Mr. Britling would have been afiner if not a happier creature if his sentimental existence could havedied with his first wife or continued only in his love for their son. Hehad married in the glow of youth, he had had two years of clean andsimple loving, helping, quarrelling and the happy ending of quarrels. Something went out of him into all that, which could not be renewedagain. In his first extremity of grief he knew that perfectly well--andthen afterwards he forgot it. While there is life there is imagination, which makes and forgets and goes on. 

He met Edith under circumstances that did not in any way recall his lostMary. He met her, as people say, "socially"; Mary, on the other hand, had been a girl at Newnham while he was a fellow of Pembroke, and therehad been something of accident and something of furtiveness in theirlucky discovery of each other. There had been a flush in it; there wasdash in it. But Edith he saw and chose and had to woo. There was norushing together; there was solicitation and assent. Edith was aBachelor of Science of London University and several things like that, and she looked upon the universe under her broad forehead andbroad-waving brown hair with quiet watchful eyes that had nothingwhatever to hide, a thing so incredible to Mr. Britling that he hadloved and married her very largely for the serenity of her mystery. Andfor a time after their marriage he sailed over those brown depthsplumbing furiously. 

Of course he did not make his former passion for Mary at all clear toher. Indeed, while he was winning Edith it was by no means clear tohimself. He was making a new emotional drama, and consciously andsubconsciously he dismissed a hundred reminiscences that sought toinvade the new experience, and which would have been out of key with it. And without any deliberate intention to that effect he created anatmosphere between himself and Edith in which any discussion of Mary wasreduced to a minimum, and in which Hugh was accepted rather thanexplained. He contrived to believe that she understood all sorts ofunsayable things; he invented miracles of quite uncongenial mutemutuality.... 

It was over the chess-board that they first began to discover theirextensive difficulties of sympathy. Mr. Britling's play wascharacterised by a superficial brilliance, much generosity and extremeunsoundness; he always moved directly his opponent had done so--and thenreflected on the situation. His reflection was commonly much wiser thanhis moves. Mrs. Britling was, as it were, a natural antagonist to herhusband; she was as calm as he was irritable. She was never in a hurryto move, and never disposed to make a concession. Quietly, steadfastly, by caution and deliberation, without splendour, without error, she hadbeaten him at chess until it led to such dreadful fits of anger that hehad to renounce the game altogether. After every such occasion he wouldbe at great pains to explain that he had merely been angry with himself. Nevertheless he felt, and would not let himself think (while sheconcluded from incidental heated phrases), that that was not thecomplete truth about the outbreak. 

Slowly they got through the concealments of that specious explanation. Temperamentally they were incompatible. 

They were profoundly incompatible. In all things she was defensive. Shenever came out; never once had she surprised him halfway upon the roadto her. He had to go all the way to her and knock and ring, and then sheanswered faithfully. She never surprised him even by unkindness. If hehad a cut finger she would bind it up very skilfully and healingly, butunless he told her she never discovered he had a cut finger. He wasamazed she did not know of it before it happened. He piped and she didnot dance. That became the formula of his grievance. For several unhappyyears she thwarted him and disappointed him, while he filled her withdumb inexplicable distresses. He had been at first so gay an activity, and then he was shattered; fragments of him were still as gay andattractive as ever, but between were outbreaks of anger, of hostility, of something very like malignity. Only very slowly did they realise thetruth of their relationship and admit to themselves that the fine budof love between them had failed to flower, and only after long yearswere they able to delimit boundaries where they had imagined union, andto become--allies. If it had been reasonably possible for them to partwithout mutual injury and recrimination they would have done so, but twochildren presently held them, and gradually they had to work out thebroad mutual toleration of their later relations. If there was no loveand delight between them there was a real habitual affection and muchmutual help. She was proud of his steady progress to distinction, proudof each intimation of respect he won; she admired and respected hiswork; she recognised that he had some magic, of liveliness andunexpectedness that was precious and enviable. So far as she could helphim she did. And even when he knew that there was nothing behind it, that it was indeed little more than an imaginative inertness, he couldstill admire and respect her steady dignity and her consistenthonourableness. Her practical capacity was for him a matter forcontinual self-congratulation. He marked the bright order of herhousehold, her flowering borders, the prosperous high-born roses of hergarden with a wondering appreciation. He had never been able to keepanything in order. He relied more and more upon her. He showed hisrespect for her by a scrupulous attention to her dignity, and hisconfidence by a franker and franker emotional neglect. Because sheexpressed so little he succeeded in supposing she felt little, and sincenothing had come out of the brown depths of her eyes he saw fit at lastto suppose no plumb-line would ever find anything there. He pursued hisinterests; he reached out to this and that; he travelled; she made it amatter of conscience to let him go unhampered; she felt, shethought--unrecorded; he did, and he expressed and re-expressed andover-expressed, and started this and that with quick irrepressibleactivity, and so there had accumulated about them the various items ofthe life to whose more ostensible accidents Mr. Direck was now for anindefinite period joined. 

It was in the nature of Mr. Britling to incur things; it was in thenature of Mrs. Britling to establish them. Mr. Britling had taken theDower House on impulse, and she had made it a delightful home. He haddiscovered the disorderly delights of mixed Sunday hockey one week-endat Pontings that had promised to be dull, and she had made it aninstitution.... He had come to her with his orphan boy and a memory of apassionate first loss that sometimes, and more particularly at first, heseemed to have forgotten altogether, and at other times was only tooevidently lamenting with every fibre of his being. She had taken theutmost care of the relics of her duskily pretty predecessor that shefound in unexpected abundance in Mr. Britling's possession, and she haddone her duty by her sometimes rather incomprehensible stepson. Shenever allowed herself to examine the state of her heart towards thisyoungster; it is possible that she did not perceive the necessity forany such examination.... 

So she went through life, outwardly serene and dignified, one of a greatcompany of rather fastidious, rather unenterprising women who haveturned for their happiness to secondary things, to those fair inanimatethings of household and garden which do not turn again and rend one, toaestheticisms and delicacies, to order and seemliness. Moreover shefound great satisfaction in the health and welfare, the growth andanimation of her own two little boys. And no one knew, and perhaps evenshe had contrived to forget, the phases of astonishment anddisillusionment, of doubt and bitterness and secret tears, that spreadout through the years in which she had slowly realised that thisstrange, fitful, animated man who had come to her, vowing himself hers, asking for her so urgently and persuasively, was ceasing, had ceased, tolove her, that his heart had escaped her, that she had missed it; shenever dreamt that she had hurt it, and that after its first urgent, tumultuous, incomprehensible search for her it had hidden itselfbitterly away.... 

Section 4

The mysterious processes of nature that had produced Mr. Britling hadimplanted in him an obstinate persuasion that somewhere in the world, from some human being, it was still possible to find the utmostsatisfaction for every need and craving. He could imagine as existing, as waiting for him, he knew not where, a completeness of understanding, a perfection of response, that would reach all the gamut of his feelingsand sensations from the most poetical to the most entirely physical, abeauty of relationship so transfiguring that not only would she--it wentwithout saying that this completion was a woman--be perfectly beautifulin its light but, what was manifestly more incredible, that he too wouldbe perfectly beautiful and quite at his ease.... In her presence therecould be no self-reproaches, no lapses, no limitations, nothing buthappiness and the happiest activities.... To such a persuasion half theimaginative people in the world succumb as readily and naturally asducklings take to water. They do not doubt its truth any more than athirsty camel doubts that presently it will come to a spring. 

This persuasion is as foolish as though a camel hoped that some day itwould drink from such a spring that it would never thirst again. For themost part Mr. Britling ignored its presence in his mind, and resistedthe impulses it started. But at odd times, and more particularly in theafternoon and while travelling and in between books, Mr. Britling so farsuccumbed to this strange expectation of a wonder round the corner thathe slipped the anchors of his humour and self-contempt and joined thegreat cruising brotherhood of the Pilgrims of Love.... 

In fact--though he himself had never made a reckoning of it--he hadbeen upon eight separate cruises. He was now upon the eighth.... 

Between these various excursions--they took him round and about theworld, so to speak, they cast him away on tropical beaches, they lefthim dismasted on desolate seas, they involved the most startlinginterventions and the most inconvenient consequences--there wereinterludes of penetrating philosophy. For some years the suspicion hadbeen growing up in Mr. Britling's mind that in planting this persuasionin his being, the mysterious processes of Nature had been, perhaps forsome purely biological purpose, pulling, as people say, his leg, thatthere were not these perfect responses, that loving a woman is a thingone does thoroughly once for all--or so--and afterwards recallsregrettably in a series of vain repetitions, and that the career of thePilgrim of Love, so soon as you strip off its credulous glamour, iseither the most pitiful or the most vulgar and vile of perversions fromthe proper conduct of life. But this suspicion had not as yet grown toprohibitive dimensions with him, it was not sufficient to resist theseasons of high tide, the sudden promise of the salt-edged breeze, theinvitation of the hovering sea-bird; and he was now concealing beneaththe lively surface of activities with which Mr. Direck was now familiar, a very extensive system of distresses arising out of the latest, theeighth of these digressional adventures.... 

Mr. Britling had got into it very much as he had got into the ditch onthe morning before his smash. He hadn't thought the affair out and hehadn't looked carefully enough. And it kept on developing in just theways he would rather that it didn't. 

The seventh affair had been very disconcerting. He had made a fool ofhimself with quite a young girl; he blushed to think how young; ithadn't gone very far, but it had made his nocturnal reflections sodisagreeable that he had--by no means for the first time--definitelyand forever given up these foolish dreams of love. And when Mrs. Harrowdean swam into his circle, she seemed just exactly what was wantedto keep his imagination out of mischief. She came bearing flattery tothe pitch of adoration. She was the brightest and cleverest of youngwidows. She wrote quite admirably criticism in the _Scrutator_ and the_Sectarian_, and occasionally poetry in the _Right Review_--when shefelt disposed to do so. She had an intermittent vein of high spiritsthat was almost better than humour and made her quickly popular withmost of the people she met, and she was only twenty miles away in herpretty house and her absurd little jolly park. 

There was something, she said, in his thought and work that was likewalking in mountains. She came to him because she wanted to clamberabout the peaks and glens of his mind. 

It was natural to reply that he wasn't by any means the serene mountainelevation she thought him, except perhaps for a kind of loneliness.... 

She was a great reader of eighteenth century memoirs, and some sheconveyed to him. Her mental quality was all in the vein of thefriendships of Rousseau and Voltaire, and pleasantly and trippingly sheled him along the primrose path of an intellectual liaison. She camefirst to Matching's Easy, where she was sweet and bright and vividlyinterested and a great contrast to Mrs. Britling, and then he and shemet in London, and went off together with a fine sense of adventure fora day at Richmond, and then he took some work with him to her house andstayed there.... 

Then she went away into Scotland for a time and he wanted her againtremendously and clamoured for her eloquently, and then it was apparentand admitted between them that they were admirably in love, oh!immensely in love. 

The transitions from emotional mountaineering to ardent intimacies wereso rapid and impulsive that each phase obliterated its predecessor, andit was only with a vague perplexity that Mr. Britling found himselftransferred from the rôle of a mountainous objective for pretty littlepilgrims to that of a sedulous lover in pursuit of the happiness of oneof the most uncertain, intricate, and entrancing of femininepersonalities. This was not at all his idea of the proper relationsbetween men and women, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a way of challenging hisgallantry. She made him run about for her; she did not demand but shecommanded presents and treats and surprises; she even developed acertain jealousy in him. His work began to suffer from interruptions. Yet they had glowing and entertaining moments together that could temperhis rebellious thoughts with the threat of irreparable loss. "One mustlove, and all things in life are imperfect, " was how Mr. Britlingexpressed his reasons for submission. And she had a hold upon him too ina certain facile pitifulness. She was little; she could be stungsometimes by the slightest touch and then her blue eyes would be brightwith tears. 

Those possible tears could weigh at times even more than those possiblelost embraces. 

And there was Oliver. 

Oliver was a person Mr. Britling had never seen. He grew into the schemeof things by insensible gradations. He was a government official inLondon; he was, she said, extraordinarily dull, he was lackingaltogether in Mr. Britling's charm and interest, but he was faithful andtender and true. And considerably younger than Mr. Britling. He askednothing but to love. He offered honourable marriage. And when one'sheart was swelling unendurably one could weep in safety on his patientshoulder. This patient shoulder of Oliver's ultimately became Mr. Britling's most exasperating rival. 

She liked to vex him with Oliver. She liked to vex him generally. Indeedin this by no means abnormal love affair, there was a very strongantagonism. She seemed to resent the attraction Mr. Britling had forher and the emotions and pleasure she had with him. She seemed under thesway of an instinctive desire to make him play heavily for her, in time, in emotion, in self-respect. It was intolerable to her that he couldtake her easily and happily. That would be taking her cheaply. Shevalued his gifts by the bother they cost him, and was determined thatthe path of true love should not, if she could help it, run smooth. Mr. Britling on the other hand was of the school of polite and happy lovers. He thought it outrageous to dispute and contradict, and he thought thatmaking love was a cheerful, comfortable thing to be done in a state ofhigh good humour and intense mutual appreciation. This levity offendedthe lady's pride. She drew unfavourable contrasts with Oliver. If Oliverlacked charm he certainly did not lack emotion. He desired sacrifice, itseemed, almost more than satisfactions. Oliver was a person of the mostexemplary miserableness; he would weep copiously and frequently. Shecould always make him weep when she wanted to do so. By holding outhopes and then dashing them if by no other expedient. Why did Mr. Britling never weep? She wept. 

Some base streak of competitiveness in Mr. Britling's nature made itseem impossible that he should relinquish the lady to Oliver. Besides, then, what would he do with his dull days, his afternoons, his need fora properly demonstrated affection?

So Mr. Britling trod the path of his eighth digression, ratheroverworked in the matter of flowers and the selection of smalljewellery, stalked by the invisible and indefatigable Oliver, hauntedinto an unwilling industry of attentions--attentions on the model of theprofessional lover of the French novels--by the memory and expectationof tearful scenes. "Then you don't love me! And it's all spoilt. I'verisked talk and my reputation.... I was a fool ever to dream of makinglove beautifully.... "

Exactly like running your car into a soft wet ditch when you cannot getout and you cannot get on. And your work and your interests waiting andwaiting for you!... 

The car itself was an outcome of the affair. It was Mrs. Harrowdean'sidea, she thought chiefly of pleasant expeditions to friendly inns inremote parts of the country, inns with a flavour of tacit complicity, but it fell in very pleasantly with Mr. Britling's private resentment atthe extraordinary inconvenience of the railway communications betweenMatching's Easy and her station at Pyecrafts, which involved a journeyto Liverpool Street and a long wait at a junction. And now the car wassmashed up--just when he had acquired skill enough to take it over toPyecrafts without shame, and on Tuesday or Wednesday at latest he wouldhave to depart in the old way by the London train.... 

Only the most superficial mind would assert nowadays that man is areasonable creature. Man is an unreasonable creature, and it wasentirely unreasonable and human for Mr. Britling during his nocturnalself-reproaches to mix up his secret resentment at his infatuation forMrs. Harrowdean with his ill-advised attack upon the wall of BrandismeadPark. He ought never to have bought that car; he ought never to havebeen so ready to meet Mrs. Harrowdean more than halfway. 

What exacerbated his feeling about Mrs. Harrowdean was a new line shehad recently taken with regard to Mrs. Britling. From her first rashassumption that Mr. Britling was indifferent to his wife, she had cometo realise that on the contrary he was in some ways extremely tenderabout his wife. This struck her as an outrageous disloyalty. Instead ofappreciating a paradox she resented an infidelity. She smouldered withperplexed resentment for some days, and then astonished her lover by aseries of dissertations of a hostile and devastating nature upon thelady of the Dower House. 

He tried to imagine he hadn't heard all that he had heard, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a nimble pen and nimbler afterthoughts, and once her mindhad got to work upon the topic she developed her offensive inhalf-a-dozen brilliant letters.... On the other hand she professed asteadily increasing passion for Mr. Britling. And to professpassion for Mr. Britling was to put him under a sense of profoundobligation--because indeed he was a modest man. He found himself in anemotional quandary. 

You see, if Mrs. Harrowdean had left Mrs. Britling alone everythingwould have been quite tolerable. He considered Mrs. Harrowdean acharming human being, and altogether better than he deserved. Ever somuch better. She was all initiative and response and that sort of thing. And she was so discreet. She had her own reputation to think about, andone or two of her predecessors--God rest the ashes of those fires!--hadnot been so discreet. Yet one could not have this sort of thing going onbehind Edith's back. All sorts of things one might have going on behindEdith's back, but not this writing and saying of perfectly beastlythings about Edith. Nothing could alter the fact that Edith was hishonour.... 

Section 5

Throughout the week-end Mr. Britling had kept this trouble well batteneddown. He had written to Mrs. Harrowdean a brief ambiguous note saying, "I am thinking over all that you have said, " and after that he hadscarcely thought about her at all. Or at least he had always contrivedto be much more vividly thinking about something else. But now in thesenight silences the suppressed trouble burst hatches and rose about him. 

What a mess he had made of the whole scheme of his emotional life! Therehad been a time when he had started out as gaily with his passions andhis honour as he had started out with Gladys to go to Market Saffron. He had as little taste for complications as he had for ditches. And nowhis passions and his honour were in a worse case even than poor muddysmashed up Gladys as the cart-horses towed her off, for she at any ratemight be repaired. But he--he was a terribly patched fabric ofexplanations now. Not indeed that he had ever stooped to explanations. But there he was! Far away, like a star seen down the length of atunnel, was that first sad story of a love as clean as starlight. It hadbeen all over by eight-and-twenty and he could find it in his heart togrieve that he had ever given a thought to love again. He should havelived a decent widower.... Then Edith had come into his life, Edith thathonest and unconscious defaulter. And there again he should have stuckto his disappointment. He had stuck to it--nine days out of every ten. It's the tenth day, it's the odd seductive moment, it's the instant ofconfident pride--and there is your sanguine temperament in the ditch. 

He began to recapitulate items in the catalogue of his escapades, andthe details of his automobile misadventures mixed themselves up with thestory of his heart steering. For example there was that tremendousSiddons affair. He had been taking the corner of a girlish friendshipand he had taken it altogether too far. What a frightful mess that hadbeen! When once one is off the road anything may happen, from a crumpledmud-guard to the car on the top of you. And there was his forty miles anhour spurt with the great and gifted Delphine Marquise--for whom he wasto have written a play and been a perfect Annunzio. Until Willersleyappeared--very like the motor-cyclist--buzzing in the oppositedirection. And then had ensued angers, humiliations.... 

Had every man this sort of crowded catalogue? Was everyforty-five-year-old memory a dark tunnel receding from the star ofyouth? It is surely a pity that life cannot end at thirty. It comes toone clean and in perfect order.... 

Is experience worth having?

What a clean, straight thing the spirit of youth is. It is like a brightnew spear. It is like a finely tempered sword. The figure of his boytook possession of his mind, his boy who looked out on the world withhis mother's, dark eyes, the slender son of that whole-hearted firstlove. He was a being at once fine and simple, an intimate mystery. Musthe in his turn get dented and wrinkled and tarnished?

The boy was in trouble. What was the trouble?

Was it some form of the same trouble that had so tangled and tainted andscarred the private pride of his father? And how was it possible for Mr. Britling, disfigured by heedless misadventures, embarrassed bycomplications and concealments, to help this honest youngster out of hisperplexities? He imagined possible forms of these perplexities. Graceless forms. Ugly forms. Such forms as only the nocturnalimagination would have dared present.... 

Oh, why had he been such a Britling? Why was he still such a Britling?

Mr. Britling sat up in his bed and beat at the bedclothes with hisfists. He uttered uncompleted vows, "From this hour forth ... From thishour forth.... "

He must do something, he felt. At any rate he had his experiences. Hecould warn. He could explain away. Perhaps he might help to extricate, if things had got to that pitch. 

Should he write to his son? For a time he revolved a long, tactfulletter in his mind. But that was impossible. Suppose the trouble wassomething quite different? It would have to be a letter in the mostgeneral terms.... 

Section 6

It was in the doubly refracting nature of Mr. Britling's mind that whilehe was deploring his inefficiency in regard to his son, he was alsodeploring the ineffectiveness of all his generation of parents. Quiteinsensibly his mind passed over to the generalised point of view. 

In his talks with Mr. Direck, Mr. Britling could present England as agreat and amiable spectacle of carelessness and relaxation, but was itindeed an amiable spectacle? The point that Mr. Direck had made aboutthe barn rankled in his thoughts. His barn was a barn no longer, hisfarmyard held no cattle; he was just living laxly in the buildings thatancient needs had made, he was living on the accumulated prosperity offormer times, the spendthrift heir of toiling generations. Not only washe a pampered, undisciplined sort of human being; he was living in apampered, undisciplined sort of community. The two things wenttogether.... This confounded Irish business, one could laugh at it inthe daylight, but was it indeed a thing to laugh at? We were driftinglazily towards a real disaster. We had a government that seemed guidedby the principles of Mr. Micawber, and adopted for its watchword "Waitand see. " For months now this trouble had grown more threatening. Suppose presently that civil war broke out in Ireland! Suppose presentlythat these irritated, mishandled suffragettes did some desperateirreconcilable thing, assassinated for example! The bomb in WestminsterAbbey the other day might have killed a dozen people.... Suppose thesmouldering criticism of British rule in India and Egypt were fanned byadministrative indiscretions into a flame.... 

And then suppose Germany had made trouble.... 

Usually Mr. Britling kept his mind off Germany. In the daytime hepretended Germany meant nothing to England. He hated alarmists. He hateddisagreeable possibilities. He declared the idea of a whole vast nationwaiting to strike at us incredible. Why should they? You cannot haveseventy million lunatics.... But in the darkness of the night one cannotdismiss things in this way. Suppose, after all, their army was morethan a parade, their navy more than a protest?

We might be caught--It was only in the vast melancholia of suchoccasions that Mr. Britling would admit such possibilities, but we mightbe caught by some sudden declaration of war.... And how should we faceit?

He recalled the afternoon's talk at Claverings and such samples of ourgovernmental machinery as he chanced to number among his personalacquaintance. Suppose suddenly the enemy struck! With Raeburn and hisfriends to defend us! Or if the shock tumbled them out of power, thenwith these vituperative Tories, these spiteful advocates of weaktyrannies and privileged pretences in the place of them. There was noleadership in England. In the lucid darkness he knew that with aterrible certitude. He had a horrible vision of things disastrouslymuffled; of Lady Frensham and her _Morning Post_ friends firstgarrulously and maliciously "patriotic, " screaming her way withincalculable mischiefs through the storm, and finally discovering thatthe Germans were the real aristocrats and organising our nationalcapitulation on that understanding. He knew from talk he had heard thatthe navy was weak in mines and torpedoes, unprovided with the greatmonitors needed for a war with Germany; torn by doctrinaire feuds;nevertheless the sea power was our only defence. In the whole country wemight muster a military miscellany of perhaps three hundred thousandmen. And he had no faith in their equipment, in their direction. GeneralFrench, the one man who had his entire confidence, had been forced toresign through some lawyer's misunderstanding about the Irishdifficulty. He did not believe any plans existed for such a war asGermany might force upon us, any calculation, any foresight of the thingat all. 

Why had we no foresight? Why had we this wilful blindness todisagreeable possibilities? Why did we lie so open to the unexpectedcrisis? Just what he said of himself he said also of his country. It wascurious to remember that. To realise how closely Dower House could playthe microcosm to the whole Empire.... 

It became relevant to the trend of his thoughts that his son had throughhis mother a strong strain of the dark Irish in his composition. 

How we had wasted Ireland! The rich values that lay in Ireland, thegallantry and gifts, the possible friendliness, all these things werebeing left to the Ulster politicians and the Tory women to poison andspoil, just as we left India to the traditions of the chattering armywomen and the repressive instincts of our mandarins. We were too lazy, we were too negligent. We passed our indolent days leaving everything tosomebody else. Was this the incurable British, just as it was theincurable Britling, quality?

Was the whole prosperity of the British, the far-flung empire, thesecurities, the busy order, just their good luck? It was a question hehad asked a hundred times of his national as of his personal self. Nodoubt luck had favoured him. He was prosperous, and he was still only atthe livelier end of middle age. But was there not also a personalfactor, a meritorious factor? Luck had favoured the British with awell-placed island, a hardening climate, accessible minerals, but thentoo was there not also a national virtue? Once he had believed in that, in a certain gallantry, a noble levity, an underlying sound sense. Thelast ten years of politics had made him doubt that profoundly. He clungto it still, but without confidence. In the night that dear persuasionleft him altogether.... As for himself he had a certain brightness andliveliness of mind, but the year of his fellowship had been a soft year, he had got on to _The Times_ through something very like amisapprehension, and it was the chances of a dinner and a duchess thathad given him the opportunity of the Kahn show. He'd dropped into goodthings that suited him. That at any rate was the essence of it. Andthese lucky chances had been no incentive to further effort. Becausethings had gone easily and rapidly with him he had developed indolenceinto a philosophy. Here he was just over forty, and explaining to theworld, explaining all through the week-end to this American--until evenGod could endure it no longer and the smash stopped him--how excellentwas the backwardness of Essex and English go-as-you-please, and howthrough good temper it made in some mysterious way for all that wasdesirable. A fat English doctrine. _Punch_ has preached it for fortyyears. 

But this wasn't what he had always been. He thought of the strenuousintentions of his youth, before he had got into this turmoil of amorousexperiences, while he was still out there with the clean star of youth. As Hugh was.... 

In those days he had had no amiable doctrine of compromise. He hadtruckled to no "domesticated God, " but talked of the "pitiless truth";he had tolerated no easy-going pseudo-aristocratic social system, butdreamt of such a democracy "mewing its mighty youth" as the world hadnever seen. He had thought that his brains were to do their share inbuilding up this great national _imago_, winged, divine, out of theclumsy, crawling, snobbish, comfort-loving caterpillar of VictorianEngland. With such dreams his life had started, and the light of them, perhaps, had helped him to his rapid success. And then his wife haddied, and he had married again and become somehow more interested in hisincome, and then the rather expensive first of the eight experiences haddrained off so much of his imaginative energy, and the second haddrained off so much, and there had been quarrels and feuds, and the wayhad been lost, and the days had passed. He hadn't failed. Indeed hecounted as a success among his generation. He alone, in the nightwatches, could gauge the quality of that success. He was widely known, reputably known; he prospered. Much had come, oh! by a mysterious luck, but everything was doomed by his invincible defects. Beneath thathollow, enviable show there ached waste. Waste, waste, waste--his heart, his imagination, his wife, his son, his country--his automobile.... 

Then there flashed into his mind a last straw of disagreeablerealisation. 

He hadn't as yet insured his automobile! He had meant to do so. Thepapers were on his writing-desk. 

Section 7

On these black nights, when the personal Mr. Britling would lie awakethinking how unsatisfactorily Mr. Britling was going on, and when theimpersonal Mr. Britling would be thinking how unsatisfactorily hisuniverse was going on, the whole mental process had a likeness to somecomplex piece of orchestral music wherein the organ deplored themelancholy destinies of the race while the piccolo lamented the secrettrouble of Mrs. Harrowdean; the big drum thundered at the Irishpoliticians, and all the violins bewailed the intellectual laxity of theuniversity system. Meanwhile the trumpets prophesied wars and disasters, the cymbals ever and again inserted a clashing jar about the fatal delayin the automobile insurance, while the triangle broke into a plangentsolo on the topic of a certain rotten gate-post he always forgot in thedaytime, and how in consequence the cows from the glebe farm got intothe garden and ate Mrs. Britling's carnations. 

Time after time he had promised to see to that gate-post.... 

The organ _motif_ battled its way to complete predominance. The lesserthemes were drowned or absorbed. Mr. Britling returned from the rôle ofan incompetent automobilist to the rôle of a soul naked in space andtime wrestling with giant questions. These cosmic solicitudes, it maybe, are the last penalty of irreligion. Was Huxley right, and was allhumanity, even as Mr. Britling, a careless, fitful thing, playing atragically hopeless game, thinking too slightly, moving too quickly, against a relentless antagonist?

Or is the whole thing just witless, accidentally cruel perhaps, but notmalignant? Or is it wise, and merely refusing to pamper us? Is theresomewhere in the immensities some responsive kindliness, some faint hopeof toleration and assistance, something sensibly on our side againstdeath and mechanical cruelty? If so, it certainly refuses to pamperus.... But if the whole thing is cruel, perhaps also it is witless andwill-less? One cannot imagine the ruler of everything a devil--thatwould be silly. So if at the worst it is inanimate then anyhow we haveour poor wills and our poor wits to pit against it. And manifestly then, the good of life, the significance of any life that is not merereceptivity, lies in the disciplined and clarified will and thesharpened and tempered mind. And what for the last twenty years--for allhis lectures and writings--had he been doing to marshal the will andharden the mind which were his weapons against the Dark? He was readyenough to blame others--dons, politicians, public apathy, but what washe himself doing?

What was he doing now?

Lying in bed!

His son was drifting to ruin, his country was going to the devil, thehouse was a hospital of people wounded by his carelessness, the countryroads choked with his smashed (and uninsured) automobiles, the cows wereprobably lined up along the borders and munching Edith's carnations atthis very moment, his pocketbook and bureau were stuffed with venomousinsults about her--and he was just lying in bed!

Suddenly Mr. Britling threw back his bedclothes and felt for the matcheson his bedside table. 

Indeed this was by no means the first time that his brain had become awhirring torment in his skull. Previous experiences had led to the mostcareful provision for exactly such states. Over the end of the bed hunga light, warm pyjama suit of llama-wool, and at the feet of it were twotall boots of the same material that buckled to the middle of his calf. So protected, Mr. Britling proceeded to make himself tea. A Primus stovestood ready inside the fender of his fireplace, and on it was a brightlypolished brass kettle filled with water; a little table carried atea-caddy, a tea-pot, a lemon and a glass. Mr. Britling lit the stoveand then strolled to his desk. He was going to write certain "PlainWords about Ireland. " He lit his study lamp and meditated beside ituntil a sound of water boiling called him to his tea-making. 

He returned to his desk stirring the lemon in his glass of tea. He wouldwrite the plain common sense of this Irish situation. He would putthings so plainly that this squabbling folly would _have_ to cease. Itshould be done austerely, with a sort of ironical directness. Thereshould be no abuse, no bitterness, only a deep passion of sanity. 

What is the good of grieving over a smashed automobile?

He sipped his tea and made a few notes on his writing pad. His face inthe light of his shaded reading lamp had lost its distraught expression, his hand fingered his familiar fountain pen.... 

Section 8

The next morning Mr. Britling came into Mr. Direck's room. He was pinkfrom his morning bath, he was wearing a cheerful green-and-blue silkdressing gown, he had shaved already, he showed no trace of hisnocturnal vigil. In the bathroom he had whistled like a bird. "Had agood night?" he said. "That's famous. So did I. And the wrist and armdidn't even ache enough to keep you awake?"

"I thought I heard you talking and walking about, " said Mr. Direck. 

"I got up for a little bit and worked. I often do that. I hope I didn'tdisturb you. Just for an hour or so. It's so delightfully quiet in thenight.... "

He went to the window and blinked at the garden outside. His two youngersons appeared on their bicycles returning from some early expedition. Hewaved a hand of greeting. It was one of those summer mornings whenattenuated mist seems to fill the very air with sunshine dust. 

"This is the sunniest morning bedroom in the house, " he said. "It'ssouth-east. "

The sunlight slashed into the masses of the blue cedar outside with ascore of golden spears. 

"The Dayspring from on High, " he said.... "I thought of rather a usefulpamphlet in the night. 

"I've been thinking about your luggage at that hotel, " he went on, turning to his guest again. "You'll have to write and get it packed upand sent down here--

"No, " he said, "we won't let you go until you can hit out with that armand fell a man. Listen!"

Mr. Direck could not distinguish any definite sound. 

"The smell of frying rashers, I mean, " said Mr. Britling. "It's theclarion of the morn in every proper English home.... 

"You'd like a rasher, coffee?

"It's good to work in the night, and it's good to wake in the morning, "said Mr. Britling, rubbing his hands together. "I suppose I wrote nearlytwo thousand words. So quiet one is, so concentrated. And as soon as Ihave had my breakfast I shall go on with it again. "

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

THE COMING OF THE DAY

Section 1

It was quite characteristic of the state of mind of England in thesummer of 1914 that Mr. Britling should be mightily concerned about theconflict in Ireland, and almost deliberately negligent of thepossibility of a war with Germany. 

The armament of Germany, the hostility of Germany, the consistentassertion of Germany, the world-wide clash of British and Germaninterests, had been facts in the consciousness of Englishmen for morethan a quarter of a century. A whole generation had been born andbrought up in the threat of this German war. A threat that goes on fortoo long ceases to have the effect of a threat, and this overhangingpossibility had become a fixed and scarcely disturbing feature of theBritish situation. It kept the navy sedulous and Colonel Rendezvousuneasy; it stimulated a small and not very influential section of thepress to a series of reminders that bored Mr. Britling acutely, it wasthe excuse for an agitation that made national service ridiculous, andquite subconsciously it affected his attitude to a hundred things. Forexample, it was a factor in his very keen indignation at the Tory levityin Ireland, in his disgust with many things that irritated or estrangedIndian feeling. It bored him; there it was, a danger, and there was nodenying it, and yet he believed firmly that it was a mine that wouldnever be fired, an avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, astupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums onunavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument ina drawing-room, but that human weakness and folly would ever let themine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in 1911, he had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and the factthat they had not come to a conflict had enormously strengthened hisnatural disposition to believe that at bottom Germany was sane and hermilitarism a bluff. 

But the Irish difficulty was a different thing. There, he felt, was needfor the liveliest exertions. A few obstinate people in influentialpositions were manifestly pushing things to an outrageous point.... 

He wrote through the morning--and as the morning progressed the judicialcalm of his opening intentions warmed to a certain regrettable vigour ofphrasing about our politicians, about our political ladies, and ourhand-to-mouth press.... 

He came down to lunch in a frayed, exhausted condition, and was muchafflicted by a series of questions from Herr Heinrich. For it was anincurable characteristic of Herr Heinrich that he asked questions; thegreater part of his conversation took the form of question and answer, and his thirst for information was as marked as his belief that Germanshould not simply be spoken but spoken "out loud. " He invariablyprefaced his inquiries with the word "Please, " and he insisted uponascribing an omniscience to his employer that it was extremely irksometo justify after a strenuous morning of enthusiastic literary effort. Henow took the opportunity of a lull in the solicitudes andcongratulations that had followed Mr. Direck's appearance--and Mr. Direck was so little shattered by his misadventure that with theassistance of the kindly Teddy he had got up and dressed and come downto lunch--to put the matter that had been occupying his mind all themorning, even to the detriment of the lessons of the Masters Britling. 

"Please!" he said, going a deeper shade of pink and partly turning toMr. Britling. 

A look of resignation came into Mr. Britling's eyes. "Yes?" he said. 

"I do not think it will be wise to take my ticket for the EsperantoConference at Boulogne. Because I think it is probable to be war betweenAustria and Servia, and that Russia may make war on Austria. "

"That may happen. But I think it improbable. "

"If Russia makes war on Austria, Germany will make war on Russia, willshe not?"

"Not if she is wise, " said Mr. Britling, "because that would bring inFrance. "

"That is why I ask. If Germany goes to war with France I should have togo to Germany to do my service. It will be a great inconvenience to me. "

"I don't imagine Germany will do anything so frantic as to attackRussia. That would not only bring in France but ourselves. "

"England?"

"Of course. We can't afford to see France go under. The thing is asplain as daylight. So plain that it cannot possibly happen.... Cannot.... Unless Germany wants a universal war. "

"Thank you, " said Herr Heinrich, looking obedient rather than reassured. 

"I suppose now, " said Mr. Direck after a pause, "that there isn't anystrong party in Germany that wants a war. That young Crown Prince, forexample. "

"They keep him in order, " said Mr. Britling a little irritably. "Theykeep him in order.... 

"I used to be an alarmist about Germany, " said Mr. Britling, "but I havecome to feel more and more confidence in the sound common sense of themass of the German population, and in the Emperor too if it comes tothat. He is--if Herr Heinrich will permit me to agree with his ownGerman comic papers--sometimes a little theatrical, sometimes a littleegotistical, but in his operatic, boldly coloured way he means peace. Iam convinced he means peace.... "

Section 2

After lunch Mr. Britling had a brilliant idea for the ease and comfortof Mr. Direck. 

It seemed as though Mr. Direck would be unable to write any lettersuntil his wrist had mended. Teddy tried him with a typewriter, but Mr. Direck was very awkward with his left hand, and then Mr. Britlingsuddenly remembered a little peculiarity he had which it was possiblethat Mr. Direck might share unconsciously, and that was his gift oflooking-glass writing with his left hand. Mr. Britling had found outquite by chance in his schoolboy days that while his right hand had beenlaboriously learning to write, his left hand, all unsuspected, had beenpicking up the same lesson, and that by taking a pencil in his left handand writing from right to left, without watching what he was writing, and then examining the scrawl in a mirror, he could reproduce his ownhandwriting in exact reverse. About three people out of five have thisoften quite unsuspected ability. He demonstrated his gift, and then MissCecily Corner, who had dropped in in a casual sort of way to ask aboutMr. Direck, tried it, and then Mr. Direck tried it. And they could alldo it. And then Teddy brought a sheet of copying carbon, and so Mr. Direck, by using the carbon reversed under his paper, was restored tothe world of correspondence again. 

They sat round a little table under the cedar trees amusing themselveswith these experiments, and after that Cecily and Mr. Britling and thetwo small boys entertained themselves by drawing pigs with their eyesshut, and then Mr. Britling and Teddy played hard at Badminton until itwas time for tea. And Cecily sat by Mr. Direck and took an interest inhis accident, and he told her about summer holidays in the Adirondacksand how he loved to travel. She said she would love to travel. He saidthat so soon as he was better he would go on to Paris and then intoGermany. He was extraordinarily curious about this Germany and itstremendous militarism. He'd far rather see it than Italy, which was, hethought, just all art and ancient history. His turn was for modernproblems. Though of course he didn't intend to leave out Italy while hewas at it. And then their talk was scattered, and there was greatexcitement because Herr Heinrich had lost his squirrel. 

He appeared coming out of the house into the sunshine, and so distraughtthat he had forgotten the protection of his hat. He was very pink anddeeply moved. 

"But what shall I do without him?" he cried. "He has gone!"

The squirrel, Mr. Direck gathered, had been bought by Mrs. Britling forthe boys some month or so ago; it had been christened "Bill" and adoredand then neglected, until Herr Heinrich took it over. It had filled aplace in his ample heart that the none too demonstrative affection ofthe Britling household had left empty. He abandoned his pursuit ofphilology almost entirely for the cherishing and adoration of this busy, nimble little creature. He carried it off to his own room, where it ranloose and took the greatest liberties with him and his apartment. It wasan extraordinarily bold and savage little beast even for a squirrel, butHerr Heinrich had set his heart and his very large and patient will uponthe establishment of sentimental relations. He believed that ultimatelyBill would let himself be stroked, that he would make Bill love him andunderstand him, and that his would be the only hand that Bill would eversuffer to touch him. In the meanwhile even the untamed Bill waswonderful to watch. One could watch him forever. His front paws werelike hands, like a musician's hands, very long and narrow. "He would bea musician if he could only make his fingers go apart, because when Iplay my violin he listens. He is attentive. "

The entire household became interested in Herr Heinrich's attacks uponBill's affection. They watched his fingers with particular interestbecause it was upon those that Bill vented his failures to respond tothe stroking advances. 

"To-day I have stroked him once and he has bitten me three times, " HerrHeinrich reported. "Soon I will stroke him three times and he shall notbite me at all.... Also yesterday he climbed up me and sat on myshoulder, and suddenly bit my ear. It was not hard he bit, but sudden. 

"He does not mean to bite, " said Herr Heinrich. "Because when he has bitme he is sorry. He is ashamed. 

"You can see he is ashamed. "

Assisted by the two small boys, Herr Heinrich presently got a huge boughof oak and brought it into his room, converting the entire apartmentinto the likeness of an aviary. "For this, " said Herr Heinrich, lookinggrave and diplomatic through his glasses, "Billy will be very grateful. And it will give him confidence with me. It will make him feel we are inthe forest together. "

Mrs. Britling came to console her husband in the matter. 

"It is not right that the bedroom should be filled with trees. All sortsof dust and litter came in with it. "

"If it amuses him, " said Mr. Britling. 

"But it makes work for the servants. "

"Do they complain?"

"No. "

"Things will adjust themselves. And it is amusing that he should do sucha thing.... "

And now Billy had disappeared, and Herr Heinrich was on the verge oftears. It was so ungrateful of Billy. Without a word. 

"They leave my window open, " he complained to Mr. Direck. "Often I haveaskit them not to. And of course he did not understand. He has outclimbit by the ivy. Anything may have happened to him. Anything. He isnot used to going out alone. He is too young. 

"Perhaps if I call--"

And suddenly he had gone off round the house crying: "Beelee! Beelee!Here is an almond for you! An almond, Beelee!"

"Makes me want to get up and help, " said Mr. Direck. "It's a tragedy. "

Everybody else was helping. Even the gardener and his boy knocked offwork and explored the upper recesses of various possible trees. 

"He is too young, " said Herr Heinrich, drifting back.... And thenpresently: "If he heard my voice I am sure he would show himself. But hedoes not show himself. "

It was clear he feared the worst.... 

At supper Billy was the sole topic of conversation, and condolence wasin the air. The impression that on the whole he had displayed rather abrutal character was combated by Herr Heinrich, who held that a certainbrusqueness was Billy's only fault, and told anecdotes, almost sacredanecdotes, of the little creature's tenderer, nobler side. "When I feedhim always he says, 'Thank you, '" said Herr Heinrich. "He never fails. "He betrayed darker thoughts. "When I went round by the barn there was acat that sat and looked at me out of a laurel bush, " he said. "I do notlike cats. "

Mr. Lawrence Carmine, who had dropped in, was suddenly reminded of thatlugubrious old ballad, "The Mistletoe Bough, " and recited large wornfragments of it impressively. It tells of how a beautiful girl hid awayin a chest during a Christmas game of hide-and-seek, and how she wasfound, a dried vestige, years afterwards. It took a very powerful holdupon Herr Heinrich's imagination. "Let us now, " he said, "make anexamination of every box and cupboard and drawer. Marking each as wego.... "

When Mr. Britling went to bed that night, after a long gossip withCarmine about the Bramo Samaj and modern developments of Indian thoughtgenerally, the squirrel was still undiscovered. 

The worthy modern thinker undressed slowly, blew out his candle and gotinto bed. Still meditating deeply upon the God of the Tagores, he thrusthis right hand under his pillow according to his usual practice, andencountered something soft and warm and active. He shot out of bedconvulsively, lit his candle, and lifted his pillow discreetly. 

He discovered the missing Billy looking crumpled and annoyed. 

For some moments there was a lively struggle before Billy was gripped. He chattered furiously and bit Mr. Britling twice. Then Mr. Britling wasout in the passage with the wriggling lump of warm fur in his hand, andpaddling along in the darkness to the door of Herr Heinrich. He openedit softly. 

A startled white figure sat up in bed sharply. 

"Billy, " said Mr. Britling by way of explanation, dropped his capture onthe carpet, and shut the door on the touching reunion. 

Section 3

A day was to come when Mr. Britling was to go over the history of thatsunny July with incredulous minuteness, trying to trace the realsuccession of events that led from the startling crime at Sarajevo toEurope's last swift rush into war. In a sense it was untraceable; in asense it was so obvious that he was amazed the whole world had notwatched the coming of disaster. The plain fact of the case was thatthere was no direct connection; the Sarajevo murders were dropped fortwo whole weeks out of the general consciousness, they went out of thepapers, they ceased to be discussed; then they were picked up again andused as an excuse for war. Germany, armed so as to be a threat to allthe world, weary at last of her mighty vigil, watching the course ofevents, decided that her moment had come, and snatched the dead archdukeout of his grave again to serve her tremendous ambition. 

It may well have seemed to the belligerent German patriot that all herpossible foes were confused, divided within themselves, at an extremityof distraction and impotence. The British Isles seemed slipping steadilyinto civil war. Threat was met by counter-threat, violent fool competedwith violent fool for the admiration of the world, the NationalVolunteers armed against the Ulster men; everything moved on with a kindof mechanical precision from parade and meeting towards the fatalgun-running of Howth and the first bloodshed in Dublin streets. Thatwretched affray, far more than any other single thing, must havestiffened Germany in the course she had chosen. There can be no doubt ofit; the mischief makers of Ireland set the final confirmation upon theEuropean war. In England itself there was a summer fever of strikes;Liverpool was choked by a dockers' strike, the East Anglian agriculturallabourers were in revolt, and the building trade throughout the countrywas on the verge of a lockout. Russia seemed to be in the crisis of asocial revolution. From Baku to St. Petersburg there wereinsurrectionary movements in the towns, and on the 23rd--the very day ofthe Austrian ultimatum--Cossacks were storming barbed wire entanglementsin the streets of the capital. The London Stock Exchange was in a stateof panic disorganisation because of a vast mysterious selling ofsecurities from abroad. And France, France it seemed was lost to allother consideration in the enthralling confrontations and denunciationsof the Caillaux murder trial, the trial of the wife of her ex-primeMinister for the murder of a blackmailing journalist. It was a case fullof the vulgarest sexual violence. Before so piquant a spectacle Franceit seemed could have no time nor attention for the revelation of M. Humbert, the Reporter of the Army Committee, proclaiming that theartillery was short of ammunition, that her infantry had boots "thirtyyears old" and not enough of those.... 

Such were the appearances of things. Can it be wondered if it seemed tothe German mind that the moment for the triumphant assertion of theGerman predominance in the world had come? A day or so before the Dublinshooting, the murder of Sarajevo had been dragged again into theforeground of the world's affairs by an ultimatum from Austria to Serbiaof the extremest violence. From the hour when the ultimatum wasdischarged the way to Armageddon lay wide and unavoidable before thefeet of Europe. After the Dublin conflict there was no turning back. Fora week Europe was occupied by proceedings that were little more than therecital of a formula. Austria could not withdraw her unqualified threatswithout admitting error and defeat, Russia could not desert Serbiawithout disgrace, Germany stood behind Austria, France was bound toRussia by a long confederacy of mutual support, and it was impossiblefor England to witness the destruction of France or the furtherstrengthening of a loud and threatening rival. It may be that Germanycounted on Russia giving way to her, it may be she counted on theindecisions and feeble perplexities of England, both these possibilitieswere in the reckoning, but chiefly she counted on war. She counted onwar, and since no nation in all the world had ever been so fullyprepared in every way for war as she was, she also counted on victory. 

One writes "Germany. " That is how one writes of nations, as though theyhad single brains and single purposes. But indeed while Mr. Britling layawake and thought of his son and Lady Frensham and his smashedautomobile and Mrs. Harrowdean's trick of abusive letter-writing and ofGod and evil and a thousand perplexities, a multitude of other brainsmust also have been busy, lying also in beds or sitting in studies orwatching in guard-rooms or chatting belatedly in cafés or smoking-roomsor pacing the bridges of battleships or walking along in city orcountry, upon this huge possibility the crime of Sarajevo had justopened, and of the state of the world in relation to such possibilities. Few women, one guesses, heeded what was happening, and of the men, themen whose decision to launch that implacable threat turned the destiniesof the world to war, there is no reason to believe that a single one ofthem had anything approaching the imaginative power needed to understandfully what it was they were doing. We have looked for an hour or so intothe seething pot of Mr. Britling's brain and marked its multiplestrands, its inconsistencies, its irrational transitions. It was but aspecimen. Nearly every brain of the select few that counted in thiscardinal determination of the world's destinies, had its streak ofpersonal motive, its absurd and petty impulses and deflections. One mandecided to say _this_ because if he said _that_ he would contradictsomething he had said and printed four or five days ago; another took acertain line because so he saw his best opportunity of putting a rivalinto a perplexity. It would be strange if one could reach out now andrecover the states of mind of two such beings as the German Kaiser andhis eldest son as Europe stumbled towards her fate through the long daysand warm, close nights of that July. Here was the occasion for which somuch of their lives had been but the large pretentious preparation, coming right into their hands to use or forgo, here was the opportunitythat would put them into the very forefront of history forever; thisjournalist emperor with the paralysed arm, this common-fibred, sly, lascivious son. It is impossible that they did not dream of glory overall the world, of triumphant processions, of a world-throne that wouldoutshine Caesar's, of a godlike elevation, of acting Divus Caesar whileyet alive. And being what they were they must have imagined spectators, and the young man, who was after all a young man of particularly poorquality, imagined no doubt certain women onlookers, certain humiliatedand astonished friends, and thought of the clothes he would wear andthe gestures he would make. The nickname his English cousins had giventhis heir to all the glories was the "White Rabbit. " He was the backboneof the war party at court. And presently he stole bric-à-brac. That willhelp posterity to the proper values of things in 1914. And the Teutonicgenerals and admirals and strategists with their patient and perfectplans, who were so confident of victory, each within a busy skull musthave enacted anticipatory dreams of his personal success and marshalledhis willing and unwilling admirers. Readers of histories and memoirs asmost of this class of men are, they must have composed little eulogisticdescriptions of the part themselves were to play in the opening drama, imagined pleasing vindications and interesting documents. Some of themperhaps saw difficulties, but few foresaw failure. For all this set ofbrains the thing came as a choice to take or reject; they could make waror prevent it. And they chose war. 

It is doubtful if any one outside the directing intelligence of Germanyand Austria saw anything so plain. The initiative was with Germany. TheRussian brains and the French brains and the British brains, the fewthat were really coming round to look at this problem squarely, had afar less simple set of problems and profounder uncertainties. To Mr. Britling's mind the Round Table Conference at Buckingham Palace wastypical of the disunion and indecision that lasted up to the veryoutbreak of hostilities. The solemn violence of Sir Edward Carson wasintensely antipathetic to Mr. Britling, and in his retrospectiveinquiries he pictured to himself that dark figure with its droppingunder-lip, seated, heavy and obstinate, at that discussion, stillimplacable though the King had but just departed after a little speechthat was packed with veiled intimations of imminent danger... 

Mr. Britling had no mercy in his mind for the treason of obstinateegotism and for persistence in a mistaken course. His own temperamentalweaknesses lay in such different directions. He was always ready toleave one trail for another; he was always open to conviction, trustingto the essentials of his character for an ultimate consistency. He hatedCarson in those days as a Scotch terrier might hate a bloodhound, assomething at once more effective and impressive, and exasperatingly, infinitely less intelligent. 

Section 4

Thus--a vivid fact as yet only in a few hundred skulls or so--the vastcatastrophe of the Great War gathered behind the idle, dispersed andconfused spectacle of an indifferent world, very much as the storms andrains of late September gathered behind the glow and lassitudes ofAugust, and with scarcely more of set human intention. For the greaterpart of mankind the European international situation was at mostsomething in the papers, no more important than the politicaldisturbances in South Africa, where the Herzogites were curiouslyuneasy, or the possible trouble between Turkey and Greece. The thingsthat really interested people in England during the last months of peacewere boxing and the summer sales. A brilliant young Frenchman, Carpentier, who had knocked out Bombardier Wells, came over again todefeat Gunboat Smith, and did so to the infinite delight of France andthe whole Latin world, amidst the generous applause of Anglo-Saxondom. And there was also a British triumph over the Americans at polo, and alively and cultured newspaper discussion about a proper motto for thearms of the London County Council. The trial of Madame Caillaux filledthe papers with animated reports and vivid pictures; Gregori Rasputinwas stabbed and became the subject of much lively gossip about theRussian Court; and Ulivi, the Italian impostor who claimed he couldexplode mines by means of an "ultra-red" ray, was exposed and fled witha lady, very amusingly. For a few days all the work at Woolwich Arsenalwas held up because a certain Mr. Entwhistle, having refused to erect amachine on a concrete bed laid down by non-unionists, was ratheruncivilly dismissed, and the Irish trouble pounded along its tiresomemischievous way. People gave a divided attention to these varioustopics, and went about their individual businesses. 

And at Dower House they went about their businesses. Mr. Direck's armhealed rapidly; Cecily Corner and he talked of their objects in life andUtopias and the books of Mr. Britling, and he got down from a Londonbookseller Baedeker's guides for Holland and Belgium, South Germany andItaly; Herr Heinrich after some doubt sent in his application form andhis preliminary deposit for the Esperanto Conference at Boulogne, andBilly consented to be stroked three times but continued to bite withgreat vigour and promptitude. And the trouble about Hugh, Mr. Britling'seldest son, resolved itself into nothing of any vital importance, andsettled itself very easily. 

Section 5

After Hugh had cleared things up and gone back to London Mr. Britlingwas inclined to think that such a thing as apprehension was a sinagainst the general fairness and integrity of life. 

Of all things in the world Hugh was the one that could most easily rouseMr. Britling's unhappy aptitude for distressing imaginations. Hugh wasnearer by far to his heart and nerves than any other creature. In thelast few years Mr. Britling, by the light of a variety of emotionalexcursions in other directions, had been discovering this. Whatever Mr. Britling discovered he talked about; he had evolved from his realisationof this tenderness, which was without an effort so much tenderer thanall the subtle and tremendous feelings he had attempted inhis--excursions, the theory that he had expounded to Mr. Direck that itis only through our children that we are able to achieve disinterestedlove, real love. But that left unexplained that far more intimateemotional hold of Hugh than of his very jolly little step-brothers. Thatwas a fact into which Mr. Britling rather sedulously wouldn't look.... 

Mr. Britling was probably much franker and more open-eyed with himselfand the universe than a great number of intelligent people, and yetthere were quite a number of aspects of his relations with his wife, with people about him, with his country and God and the nature ofthings, upon which he turned his back with an attentive persistence. Buta back too resolutely turned may be as indicative as a pointing finger, and in this retrogressive way, and tacitly even so far as his formalthoughts, his unspoken comments, went, Mr. Britling knew that he lovedhis son because he had lavished the most hope and the most imaginationupon him, because he was the one living continuation of that dear lifewith Mary, so lovingly stormy at the time, so fine now in memory, thathad really possessed the whole heart of Mr. Britling. The boy had beenthe joy and marvel of the young parents; it was incredible to them thatthere had ever been a creature so delicate and sweet, and they broughtconsiderable imagination and humour to the detailed study of his minutepersonality and to the forecasting of his future. Mr. Britling's mindblossomed with wonderful schemes for his education. All that mentalgrowth no doubt contributed greatly to Mr. Britling's peculiaraffection, and with it there interwove still tenderer and subtlerelements, for the boy had a score of Mary's traits. But there were otherthings still more conspicuously ignored. One silent factor in the slowwidening of the breach between Edith and Mr. Britling was her coolestimate of her stepson. She was steadfastly kind to this shock-headed, untidy little dreamer, he was extremely well cared for in her hands, sheliked him and she was amused by him--it is difficult to imagine whatmore Mr. Britling could have expected--but it was as plain as daylightthat she felt that this was not the child she would have cared to haveborne. It was quite preposterous and perfectly natural that this shouldseem to Mr. Britling to be unfair to Hugh. 

Edith's home was more prosperous than Mary's; she brought her own moneyto it; the bringing up of her children was a far more efficient businessthan Mary's instinctive proceedings. Hugh had very nearly died in hisfirst year of life; some summer infection had snatched at him; that hadtied him to his father's heart by a knot of fear; but no infection hadever come near Edith's own nursery. And it was Hugh that Mr. Britlinghad seen, small and green-faced and pitiful under an anaesthetic forsome necessary small operation to his adenoids. His younger children hadnever stabbed to Mr. Britling's heart with any such pitifulness; theywere not so thin-skinned as their elder brother, not so assailable bythe little animosities of dust and germ. And out of such things as thisevolved a shapeless cloud of championship for Hugh. Jealousies andsuspicions are latent in every human relationship. We go about theaffairs of life pretending magnificently that they are not so, pretending to the generosities we desire. And in all step-relationshipsjealousy and suspicion are not merely latent, they stir. 

It was Mr. Britling's case for Hugh that he was something exceptional, something exceptionally good, and that the peculiar need there was totake care of him was due to a delicacy of nerve and fibre that wasultimately a virtue. The boy was quick, quick to hear, quick to move, very accurate in his swift way, he talked unusually soon, he began tosketch at an early age with an incurable roughness and a remarkableexpressiveness. That he was sometimes ungainly, often untidy, that hewould become so mentally preoccupied as to be uncivil to people abouthim, that he caught any malaise that was going, was all a part of that. The sense of Mrs. Britling's unexpressed criticisms, the impliedcontrasts with the very jolly, very uninspired younger family, kept upa nervous desire in Mr. Britling for evidences and manifestations ofHugh's quality. Not always with happy results; it caused much mutualirritation, but not enough to prevent the growth of a real response onHugh's part to his father's solicitude. The youngster knew and felt thathis father was his father just as certainly as he felt that Mrs. Britling was not his mother. To his father he brought his successes andto his father he appealed. 

But he brought his successes more readily than he brought his troubles. So far as he himself was concerned he was disposed to take a humorousview of the things that went wrong and didn't come off with him, but asa "Tremendous Set-Down for the Proud Parent" they resisted humoroustreatment.... 

Now the trouble that he had been hesitating to bring before his fatherwas concerned with that very grave interest of the young, his Object inLife. It had nothing to do with those erotic disturbances that haddistressed his father's imagination. Whatever was going on below thesurface of Hugh's smiling or thoughtful presence in that respect hadstill to come to the surface and find expression. But he was botheredvery much by divergent strands in his own intellectual composition. Twosets of interests pulled at him, one--it will seem a dry interest tomany readers, but for Hugh it glittered and fascinated--wascrystallography and molecular physics; the other was caricature. Bothaptitudes sprang no doubt from the same exceptional sensitiveness toform. As a schoolboy he exercised both very happily, but now he wasgetting to the age of specialisation, and he was fluctuating very muchbetween science and art. After a spell of scientific study he would comeupon a fatigue period and find nothing in life but absurdities and alark that one could represent very amusingly; after a bout of funnydrawings his mind went back to his light and crystals and films like aMagdalen repenting in a church. After his public school he had refusedCambridge and gone to University College, London, to work under thegreat and inspiring Professor Cardinal; simultaneously Cardinal had beenarranging to go to Cambridge, and Hugh had scarcely embarked upon hisLondon work when Cardinal was succeeded by the dull, conscientious anddepressing Pelkingham, at whose touch crystals became as puddings, bubble films like cotton sheets, transparency vanished from the world, and X rays dwarfed and died. And Hugh degenerated immediately into ascoffing trifler who wished to give up science for art. 

He gave up science for art after grave consultation with his father, andthe real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, was that now herepented and wanted to follow Cardinal to Cambridge, and--a yearlost--go on with science again. He felt it was a discreditablefluctuation; he knew it would be a considerable expense; and so he tooktwo weeks before he could screw himself up to broaching the matter. 

"So _that_ is all, " said Mr. Britling, immensely relieved. 

"My dear Parent, you didn't think I had backed a bill or forged acheque?"

"I thought you might have married a chorus girl or something of thatsort, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Or bought a large cream-coloured motor-car for her on the instalmentsystem, which she'd smashed up. No, that sort of thing comes later.... I'll just put myself down on the waiting list of one of those bits ofdelight in the Cambridge tobacco shops--and go on with my studies for ayear or two.... "

Section 6

Though Mr. Britling's anxiety about his son was dispelled, his mindremained curiously apprehensive throughout July. He had a feeling thatthings were not going well with the world, a feeling he tried in vain todispel by various distractions. Perhaps some subtler subconsciousanalysis of the situation was working out probabilities that hisconscious self would not face. And when presently he bicycled off toMrs. Harrowdean for flattery, amusement, and comfort generally, he foundher by no means the exalting confirmation of everything he wished tobelieve about himself and the universe, that had been her delightfulrôle in the early stages of their romantic friendship. She maintainedher hostility to Edith; she seemed bent on making things impossible. Andyet there were one or two phases of the old sustaining intimacies. 

They walked across her absurd little park to the summer-house with theview on the afternoon of his arrival, and they discussed the Irishpamphlet which was now nearly finished. 

"Of course, " she said, "it will be a wonderful pamphlet. "

There was a reservation in her voice that made him wait. 

"But I suppose all sorts of people could write an Irish pamphlet. Nobodybut you could write 'The Silent Places. ' Oh, _why_ don't you finish thatgreat beautiful thing, and leave all this world of reality andnewspapers, all these Crude, Vulgar, Quarrelsome, Jarring things toother people? You have the magic gift, you might be a poet, you can takeus out of all these horrid things that are, away to Beautyland, and youare just content to be a critic and a disputer. It's your surroundings. It's your sordid realities. It's that Practicality at your elbow. Youought never to see a newspaper. You ought never to have an American comewithin ten miles of you. You ought to live on bowls of milk drunk invalleys of asphodel. "

Mr. Britling, who liked this sort of thing in a way, and yet at the sametime felt ridiculously distended and altogether preposterous while itwas going on, answered feebly and self-consciously. 

"There was your letter in the _Nation_ the other day, " she said. "Why_do_ you get drawn into arguments? I wanted to rush into the _Nation_and pick you up and wipe the anger off you, and carry you out of itall--into some quiet beautiful place. "

"But one _has_ to answer these people, " said Mr. Britling, rolling alongby the side of her like a full moon beside Venus, and quite artlesslyfalling in with the tone of her. 

She repeated lines from "The Silent Places" from memory. She threw quitewonderful emotion into her voice. She made the words glow. And he hadonly shown her the thing once.... 

Was he indeed burying a marvellous gift under the dust of currentaffairs? When at last in the warm evening light they strolled back fromthe summer-house to dinner he had definitely promised her that he wouldtake up and finish "The Silent Places. "... And think over the Irishpamphlet again before he published it.... 

Pyecrafts was like a crystal casket of finer soil withdrawn from thetarred highways of the earth.... 

And yet the very next day this angel enemy of controversies broke out inthe most abominable way about Edith, and he had to tell her more plainlythan he had done hitherto, that he could not tolerate that sort ofthing. He wouldn't have Edith guyed. He wouldn't have Edith made to seembase. And at that there was much trouble between them, and tears andtalk of Oliver.... 

Mr. Britling found himself unable to get on either with "The SilentPlaces" or the pamphlet, and he was very unhappy.... 

Afterwards she repented very touchingly, and said that if only he wouldlove her she would swallow a thousand Ediths. He waived a certaindisrespect in the idea of her swallowing Edith, and they had a beautifulreconciliation and talked of exalted things, and in the evening heworked quite well upon "The Silent Places" and thought of half-a-dozenquite wonderful lines, and in the course of the next day he returned toDower House and Mr. Direck and considerable piles of correspondence andthe completion of the Irish pamphlet. 

But he was restless. He was more restless in his house than he had everbeen. He could not understand it. Everything about him was just as ithad always been, and yet it was unsatisfactory, and it seemed moreunstable than anything had ever seemed before. He was bored by thesolemn development of the Irish dispute; he was irritated by thesmouldering threat of the Balkans; he was irritated by the suffragettesand by a string of irrational little strikes; by the general absence ofany main plot as it were to hold all these wranglings and trivialitiestogether.... At the Dower House the most unpleasant thoughts would cometo him. He even had doubts whether in "The Silent Places, " he had beenplagiarising, more or less unconsciously, from Henry James's "Great GoodPlace. "... 

On the twenty-first of July Gladys came back repaired and looking nonethe worse for her misadventure. Next day he drove her very carefullyover to Pyecrafts, hoping to drug his uneasiness with the pretence of agrand passion and the praises of "The Silent Places, " that beautifulwork of art that was so free from any taint of application, and alas! hefound Mrs. Harrowdean in an evil mood. He had been away from her for tendays--ten whole days. No doubt Edith had manoeuvred to keep him. Shehadn't! _Hadn't_ she? How was he, poor simple soul! to tell that shehadn't? That was the prelude to a stormy afternoon. 

The burthen of Mrs. Harrowdean was that she was wasting her life, thatshe was wasting the poor, good, patient Oliver's life, that for the sakeof friendship she was braving the worst imputations and that he treatedher cavalierly, came when he wished to do so, stayed away heartlessly, never thought she needed _little_ treats, _little_ attentions, _little_presents. Did he think she could settle down to her poor work, such asit was, in neglect and loneliness? He forgot women were dear littletender things, and had to be made happy and _kept_ happy. Oliver mightnot be clever and attractive but he did at least in his clumsy wayunderstand and try and do his duty.... 

Towards the end of the second hour of such complaints the spirit of Mr. Britling rose in revolt. He lifted up his voice against her, he chargedhis voice with indignant sorrow and declared that he had come over toPyecrafts with no thought in his mind but sweet and loving thoughts, that he had but waited for Gladys to be ready before he came, that hehad brought over the manuscript of "The Silent Places" with him topolish and finish up, that "for days and days" he had been longing to dothis in the atmosphere of the dear old summer-house with its distantview of the dear old sea, and that now all that was impossible, thatMrs. Harrowdean had made it impossible and that indeed she was rapidlymaking everything impossible.... 

And having delivered himself of this judgment Mr. Britling, a littlesurprised at the rapid vigour of his anger, once he had let it loose, came suddenly to an end of his words, made a renunciatory gesture withhis arms, and as if struck with the idea, rushed out of her room and outof the house to where Gladys stood waiting. He got into her and startedher up, and after some trouble with the gear due to the violence of hisemotion, he turned her round and departed with her--crushing the cornerof a small bed of snapdragon as he turned--and dove her with a sulkysedulousness back to the Dower House and newspapers and correspondenceand irritations, and that gnawing and irrational sense of a hollow andaimless quality in the world that he had hoped Mrs. Harrowdean wouldassuage. And the further he went from Mrs. Harrowdean the harsher andunjuster it seemed to him that he had been to her. 

But he went on because he did not see how he could very well go back. 

Section 7

Mr. Direck's broken wrist healed sooner than he desired. From the firsthe had protested that it was the sort of thing that one can carry aboutin a sling, that he was quite capable of travelling about and takingcare of himself in hotels, that he was only staying on at Matching'sEasy because he just loved to stay on and wallow in Mrs. Britling'skindness and Mr. Britling's company. While as a matter of fact hewallowed as much as he could in the freshness and friendliness of MissCecily Corner, and for more than a third of this period Mr. Britling wasaway from home altogether. 

Mr. Direck, it should be clear by this time, was a man of more thanEuropean simplicity and directness, and his intentions towards the younglady were as simple and direct and altogether honest as such intentionscan be. It is the American conception of gallantry more than any otherpeople's, to let the lady call the tune in these affairs; the man'splace is to be protective, propitiatory, accommodating and clever, andthe lady's to be difficult but delightful until he catches her andhouses her splendidly and gives her a surprising lot of pocket-money, and goes about his business; and upon these assumptions Mr. Direck wentto work. But quite early it was manifest to him that Cecily did notrecognise his assumptions. She was embarrassed when he got down one ortwo little presents of chocolates and flowers for her from London--theBritling boys were much more appreciative--she wouldn't let him contrivecostly little expeditions for her, and she protested against complimentsand declared she would stay away when he paid them. And she was notcontented by his general sentiments about life, but asked the mostdirect questions about his occupation and his activities. His chiefoccupation was being the well provided heir of a capable lawyer, andhis activities in the light of her inquiries struck him as being lightand a trifle amateurish, qualities he had never felt as any drawbackabout them before. So that he had to rely rather upon aspirations andthe possibility, under proper inspiration, of a more activelyserviceable life in future. 

"There's a feeling in the States, " he said, "that we've had rather atendency to overdo work, and that there is scope for a leisure class todevelop the refinement and the wider meanings of life. "

"But a leisure class doesn't mean a class that does nothing, " saidCecily. "It only means a class that isn't busy in business. "

"You're too hard on me, " said Mr. Direck with that quiet smile of his. 

And then by way of putting her on the defensive he asked her what shethought a man in his position ought to do. 

"_Something_, " she said, and in the expansion of this vague demand theytouched on a number of things. She said that she was a Socialist, andthere was still in Mr. Direck's composition a streak of theold-fashioned American prejudice against the word. He associatedSocialists with Anarchists and deported aliens. It was manifest too thatshe was deeply read in the essays and dissertations of Mr. Britling. Shethought everybody, man or woman, ought to be chiefly engaged in doingsomething definite for the world at large. ("There's my secretaryship ofthe Massachusetts Modern Thought Society, anyhow, " said Mr. Direck. ) Andshe herself wanted to be doing something--it was just because she didnot know what it was she ought to be doing that she was reading soextensively and voraciously. She wanted to lose herself in something. Deep in the being of Mr. Direck was the conviction that what she oughtto be doing was making love in a rapturously egotistical manner, andenjoying every scrap of her own delightful self and her own delightfulvitality--while she had it, but for the purposes of their conversationhe did not care to put it any more definitely than to say that hethought we owed it to ourselves to develop our personalities. Upon whichshe joined issue with great vigour. 

"That is just what Mr. Britling says about you in his 'AmericanImpressions, '" she said. "He says that America overdoes the developmentof personalities altogether, that whatever else is wrong about Americathat is where America is most clearly wrong. I read that this morning, and directly I read it I thought, 'Yes, that's exactly it! Mr. Direck isoverdoing the development of personalities. '"

"Me!"

"Yes. I like talking to you and I don't like talking to you. And I seenow it is because you keep on talking of my Personality and yourPersonality. That makes me uncomfortable. It's like having some onefollowing me about with a limelight. And in a sort of way I do like it. I like it and I'm flattered by it, and then I go off and dislike it, dislike the effect of it. I find myself trying to be what you have toldme I am--sort of acting myself. I want to glance at looking-glasses tosee if I am keeping it up. It's just exactly what Mr. Britling says inhis book about American women. They act themselves, he says; they get akind of story and explanation about themselves and they are alwaystrying to make it perfectly plain and clear to every one. Well, when youdo that you can't think nicely of other things. "

"We like a clear light on people, " said Mr. Direck. 

"We don't. I suppose we're shadier, " said Cecily. 

"You're certainly much more in half-tones, " said Mr. Direck. "And Iconfess it's the half-tones get hold of me. But still you haven't toldme, Miss Cissie, what you think I ought to do with myself. Here I am, you see, very much at your disposal. What sort of business do you thinkit's my duty to go in for?"

"That's for some one with more experience than I have, to tell you. Youshould ask Mr. Britling. "

"I'd rather have it from you. "

"I don't even know for myself, " she said. 

"So why shouldn't we start to find out together?" he asked. 

It was her tantalising habit to ignore all such tentatives. 

"One can't help the feeling that one is in the world for something morethan oneself, " she said.... 

Section 8

Soon Mr. Direck could measure the time that was left to him at the DowerHouse no longer by days but by hours. His luggage was mostly packed, histickets to Rotterdam, Cologne, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, were all inorder. And things were still very indefinite between him and Cecily. ButGod has not made Americans clean-shaven and firm-featured for nothing, and he determined that matters must be brought to some sort ofdefinition before he embarked upon travels that were rapidly losingtheir attractiveness in this concentration of his attention.... 

A considerable nervousness betrayed itself in his voice and manner whenat last he carried out his determination. 

"There's just a lil' thing, " he said to her, taking advantage of amoment when they were together after lunch, "that I'd value now morethan anything else in the world. "

She answered by a lifted eyebrow and a glance that had not so muchinquiry in it as she intended. 

"If we could just take a lil' walk together for a bit. Round byClaverings Park and all that. See the deer again and the old trees. Sortof scenery I'd like to remember when I'm away from it. "

He was a little short of breath, and there was a quite disproportionategravity about her moment for consideration. 

"Yes, " she said with a cheerful acquiescence that came a couple of barstoo late. "Let's. It will be jolly. "

"These fine English afternoons are wonderful afternoons, " he remarkedafter a moment or so of silence. "Not quite the splendid blaze we get inour summer, but--sort of glowing. "

"It's been very fine all the time you've been here, " she said.... 

After which exchanges they went along the lane, into the road by thepark fencing, and so to the little gate that lets one into the park, without another word. 

The idea took hold of Mr. Direck's mind that until they got through thepark gate it would be quite out of order to say anything. The lane andthe road and the stile and the gate were all so much preliminary stuffto be got through before one could get to business. But after the littlewhite gate the way was clear, the park opened out and one could getahead without bothering about the steering. And Mr. Direck had, he felt, been diplomatically involved in lanes and by-ways long enough. 

"Well, " he said as he rejoined her after very carefully closing thegate. "What I really wanted was an opportunity of just mentioningsomething that happens to be of interest to you--if it does happen tointerest you.... I suppose I'd better put the thing as simply aspossible.... Practically.... I'm just right over the head and all inlove with you.... I thought I'd like to tell you.... "

Immense silences. 

"Of course I won't pretend there haven't been others, " Mr. Direcksuddenly resumed. "There have. One particularly. But I can assure youI've never felt the depth and height or anything like the sort of QuietClear Conviction.... And now I'm just telling you these things, MissCorner, I don't know whether it will interest you if I tell you thatyou're really and truly the very first love I ever had as well as mylast. I've had sent over--I got it only yesterday--this lil' photographof a miniature portrait of one of my ancestor's relations--a Corner justas you are. It's here.... "

He had considerable difficulties with his pockets and papers. Cecily, mute and flushed and inconvenienced by a preposterous and unaccountableimpulse to weep, took the picture he handed her. 

"When I was a lil' fellow of fifteen, " said Mr. Direck in the tone ofone producing a melancholy but conclusive piece of evidence, "I_worshipped_ that miniature. It seemed to me--the loveliest person.... And--it's just you.... "

He too was preposterously moved. 

It seemed a long time before Cecily had anything to say, and then whatshe had to say she said in a softened, indistinct voice. "You're verykind, " she said, and kept hold of the little photograph. 

They had halted for the photograph. Now they walked on again. 

"I thought I'd like to tell you, " said Mr. Direck and becametremendously silent. 

Cecily found him incredibly difficult to answer. She tried to makeherself light and offhand, and to be very frank with him. 

"Of course, " she said, "I knew--I felt somehow--you meant to saysomething of this sort to me--when you asked me to come with you--"

"Well?" he said. 

"And I've been trying to make my poor brain think of something to say toyou. "

She paused and contemplated her difficulties.... 

"Couldn't you perhaps say something of the same kind--such as I've beentrying to say?" said Mr. Direck presently, with a note of earnesthelpfulness. "I'd be very glad if you could. "

"Not exactly, " said Cecily, more careful than ever. 

"Meaning?"

"I think you know that you are the best of friends. I think you are, oh--a Perfect Dear. "

"Well--that's all right--so far. "

"That _is_ as far. "

"You don't know whether you love me? That's what you mean to say. "

"No.... I feel somehow it isn't that.... Yet.... "

"There's nobody else by any chance?"

"No. " Cecily weighed things. "You needn't trouble about that. "

"Only ... Only you don't know. "

Cecily made a movement of assent. 

"It's no good pretending I haven't thought about you, " she said. 

"Well, anyhow I've done my best to give you the idea, " said Mr. Direck. "I seem now to have been doing that pretty nearly all the time. "

"Only what should we do?"

Mr. Direck felt this question was singularly artless. "Why!--we'dmarry, " he said. "And all that sort of thing. "

"Letty has married--and all that sort of thing, " said Cecily, fixing hereye on him very firmly because she was colouring brightly. "And itdoesn't leave Letty very much--forrader. "

"Well now, they have a good time, don't they? I'd have thought they havea lovely time!"

"They've had a lovely time. And Teddy is the dearest husband. And theyhave a sweet little house and a most amusing baby. And they play hockeyevery Sunday. And Teddy does his work. And every week is like everyother week. It is just heavenly. Just always the same heavenly. EverySunday there is a fresh week of heavenly beginning. And this, you see, isn't heaven; it is earth. And they don't know it but they are gettingbored. I have been watching them, and they are getting dreadfully bored. It's heart-breaking to watch, because they are almost my dearest people. Teddy used to be making perpetual jokes about the house and the baby andhis work and Letty, and now--he's made all the possible jokes. It's onlynow and then he gets a fresh one. It's like spring flowers andthen--summer. And Letty sits about and doesn't sing. They want somethingnew to happen.... And there's Mr. And Mrs. Britling. They love eachother. Much more than Mrs. Britling dreams, or Mr. Britling for thematter of that. Once upon a time things were heavenly for them too, Isuppose. Until suddenly it began to happen to them that nothing new everhappened.... "

"Well, " said Mr. Direck, "people can travel. "

"But that isn't _real_ happening, " said Cecily. 

"It keeps one interested. "

"But real happening is doing something. "

"You come back to that, " said Mr. Direck. "I never met any one beforewho'd quite got that spirit as you have it. I wouldn't alter it. It'spart of you. It's part of this place. It's what Mr. Britling alwaysseems to be saying and never quite knowing he's said it. It's just asthough all the things that are going on weren't the things that ought tobe going on--but something else quite different. Somehow one falls intoit. It's as if your daily life didn't matter, as if politics didn'tmatter, as if the King and the social round and business and all thosethings weren't anything really, and as though you felt there wassomething else--out of sight--round the corner--that you ought to begetting at. Well, I admit, that's got hold of me too. And it's all mixedup with my idea of you. I don't see that there's really a contradictionin it at all. I'm in love with you, all my heart's in love with you, what's the good of being shy about it? I'd just die for your littlestwish right here now, it's just as though I'd got love in my veinsinstead of blood, but that's not taking me away from that other thing. It's bringing me round to that other thing. I feel as if without you Iwasn't up to anything at all, but _with_ you--We'd not go settling downin a cottage or just touring about with a Baedeker Guide or anything ofthat kind. Not for long anyhow. We'd naturally settle down side by sideand _do_ ... "

"But what should we do?" asked Cecily. 

There came a hiatus in their talk. 

Mr. Direck took a deep breath. 

"You see that old felled tree there. I was sitting on it the day beforeyesterday and thinking of you. Will you come there and sit with me onit? When you sit on it you get a view, oh! a perfectly lovely Englishview, just a bit of the house and those clumps of trees and the valleyaway there with the lily pond. I'd love to have you in my memory ofit.... "

They sat down, and Mr. Direck opened his case. He was shy and clumsyabout opening it, because he had been thinking dreadfully hard about it, and he hated to seem heavy or profound or anything but artless andspontaneous to Cecily. And he felt even when he did open his case thatthe effect of it was platitudinous and disappointing. Yet when he hadthought it out it had seemed very profound and altogether living. 

"You see one doesn't want to use terms that have been used in a thousanddifferent senses in any way that isn't a perfectly unambiguous sense, and at the same time one doesn't want to seem to be canting about thingsor pitching anything a note or two higher than it ought legitimately togo, but it seems to me that this sort of something that Mr. Britling isalways asking for in his essays and writings and things, and what youare looking for just as much and which seems so important to you thateven love itself is a secondary kind of thing until you can square thetwo together, is nothing more nor less than Religion--I don't mean thisReligion or that Religion but just Religion itself, a Big, Solemn, Comprehensive Idea that holds you and me and all the world together inone great, grand universal scheme. And though it isn't quite the sort ofidea of love-making that's been popular--well, in places likeCarrierville--for some time, it's the right idea; it's got to befollowed out if we don't want love-making to be a sort of idle, troublesome game of treats and flatteries that is sure as anything tolead right away to disappointments and foolishness and unfaithfulnessand--just Hell. What you are driving at, according to my interpretation, is that marriage has got to be a religious marriage or else you aresplitting up life, that religion and love are most of life and all thepower there is in it, and that they can't afford to be harnessed in twodifferent directions.... I never had these ideas until I came here andmet you, but they come up now in my mind as though they had always beenthere.... And that's why you don't want to marry in a hurry. And that'swhy I'm glad almost that you don't want to marry in a hurry. "

He considered. "That's why I'll have to go on to Germany and just letboth of us turn things over in our minds. "

"Yes, " said Cecily, weighing his speech. "_I_ think that is it. I thinkthat I do want a religious marriage, and that what is wrong with Teddyand Letty is that they aren't religious. They pretend they are religioussomewhere out of sight and round the corner.... Only--"

He considered her gravely. 

"What _is_ Religion?" she asked. 

Here again there was a considerable pause. 

"Very nearly two-thirds of the papers read before our Massachusettssociety since my connection with it, have dealt with that veryquestion, " Mr. Direck began. "And one of our most influential memberswas able to secure the services of a very able and highly trained youngwoman from Michigan University, to make a digest of all theserepresentative utterances. We are having it printed in a thoroughlyartistic mariner, as the club book for our autumn season. The drift ofher results is that religion isn't the same thing as religions. Thatmost religions are old and that religion is always new.... Well, puttingit simply, religion is the perpetual rediscovery of that Great Thing OutThere.... What the Great Thing is goes by all sorts of names, but if youknow it's there and if you remember it's there, you've got religion.... That's about how she figured it out.... I shall send you the book assoon as a copy comes over to me.... I can't profess to put it as clearlyas she puts it. She's got a real analytical mind. But it's one of themost suggestive lil' books I've ever seen. It just takes hold of you and_makes_ you think. "

He paused and regarded the ground before him--thoughtfully. 

"Life, " said Cecily, "has either got to be religious or else it goes topieces.... Perhaps anyhow it goes to pieces.... "

Mr. Direck endorsed these observations by a slow nodding of the head. 

He allowed a certain interval to elapse. Then a vaguely apprehendedpurpose that had been for a time forgotten in these higher interestscame back to him. He took it up with a breathless sense of temerity. 

"Well, " he said, "then you don't hate me?"

She smiled. 

"You don't dislike me or despise me?"

She was still reassuring. 

"You don't think I'm just a slow American sort of portent?"

"No. "

"You think, on the whole, I might even--someday--?"

She tried to meet his eyes with a pleasant frankness, and perhaps shewas franker than she meant to be. 

"Look here, " said Mr. Direck, with a little quiver of emotion softeninghis mouth. "I'll ask you something. We've got to wait. Until you feelclearer. Still.... Could you bring yourself--? If just once--I couldkiss you.... 

"I'm going away to Germany, " he went on to her silence. "But I shan't begiving so much attention to Germany as I supposed I should when Iplanned it out. But somehow--if I felt--that I'd kissed you.... "

With a delusive effect of calmness the young lady looked first over herleft shoulder and then over her right and surveyed the park about them. Then she stood up. "We can go that way home, " she said with a movementof her head, "through the little covert. "

Mr. Direck stood up too. 

"If I was a poet or a bird, " said Mr. Direck, "I should sing. But beingjust a plain American citizen all I can do is just to talk about all I'ddo if I wasn't.... "

And when they had reached the little covert, with its pathway of softmoss and its sheltering screen of interlacing branches, he broke thesilence by saying, "Well, what's wrong with right here and now?" andCecily stood up to him as straight as a spear, with gifts in her cleareyes. He took her soft cool face between his trembling hands, and kissedher sweet half-parted lips. When he kissed her she shivered, and he heldher tighter and would have kissed her again. But she broke away fromhim, and he did not press her. And muter than ever, pondering deeply, and secretly trembling in the queerest way, these two outwardly sedateyoung people returned to the Dower House.... 

And after tea the taxicab from the junction came for him and hevanished, and was last seen as a waving hat receding along the top ofthe dog-rose hedge that ran beyond the hockey field towards the village. 

"He will see Germany long before I shall, " said Herr Heinrich with agust of nostalgia. "I wish almost I had not agreed to go to Boulogne. "

And for some days Miss Cecily Corner was a very grave and dignifiedyoung woman indeed. Pondering.... 

Section 9

After the departure of Mr. Direck things international began to moveforward with great rapidity. It was exactly as if his Americandeliberation had hitherto kept things waiting. Before his postcard fromRotterdam reached the Dower House Austria had sent an ultimatum toSerbia, and before Cecily had got the letter he wrote her from Cologne, a letter in that curiously unformed handwriting the stenographer and thetypewriter are making an American characteristic, Russia was mobilising, and the vast prospect of a European war had opened like the rolling upof a curtain on which the interests of the former week had been but atrivial embroidery. So insistent was this reality that revealed itselfthat even the shooting of the Dublin people after the gun-running ofHowth was dwarfed to unimportance. The mind of Mr. Britling came roundfrom its restless wanderings to a more and more intent contemplation ofthe hurrying storm-clouds that swept out of nothingness to blacken allhis sky. He watched it, he watched amazed and incredulous, he watchedthis contradiction of all his reiterated confessions of faith in Germansanity and pacifism, he watched it with all that was impersonal in hisbeing, and meanwhile his personal life ran in a continually deeper andnarrower channel as his intelligence was withdrawn from it. 

Never had the double refraction of his mind been more clearly defined. On the one hand the Britling of the disinterested intelligence saw thehabitual peace of the world vanish as the daylight vanishes when ashutter falls over the window of a cell; and on the other the Britlingof the private life saw all the pleasant comfort of his relations withMrs. Harrowdean disappearing in a perplexing irrational quarrel. He didnot want to lose Mrs. Harrowdean; he contemplated their breach with aprofound and profoundly selfish dismay. It seemed the wanton terminationof an arrangement of which he was only beginning to perceive the extremeand irreplaceable satisfactoriness. 

It wasn't that he was in love with her. He knew almost as clearly asthough he had told himself as much that he was not. But then, on theother hand, it was equally manifest in its subdued and ignored way thatas a matter of fact she was hardly more in love with him. Whatconstituted the satisfactoriness of the whole affair was its essentialunlovingness and friendly want of emotion. It left their minds free toplay with all the terms and methods of love without distress. She couldsummon tears and delights as one summons servants, and he could act hispart as lover with no sense of lost control. They supplied in eachother's lives a long-felt want--if only, that is, she could control hercurious aptitude for jealousy and the sexual impulse to vex. There, hefelt, she broke the convention of their relations and brought in seriousrealities, and this little rift it was that had widened to a nowconsiderable breach. He knew that in every sane moment she dreaded andwished to heal that breach as much as he did. But the deep simplicitiesof the instincts they had tacitly agreed to bridge over washed the piersof their reconciliation away. 

And unless they could restore the bridge things would end, and Mr. Britling felt that the ending of things would involve for him the mostextraordinary exasperation. She would go to Oliver for comfort; shewould marry Oliver; and he knew her well enough to be sure that shewould thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver unsparingly upon hisattention; while he, on the other hand, being provided with nocorresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of emotional celibate, with his slack times and his afternoons and his general need forflattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own hands. He would betormented by jealousy. In which case--and here he came to verities--hiswork would suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague demandsshe satisfied fermented unassuaged. 

And, after the fashion of our still too adolescent world, Mr. Britlingand Mrs. Harrowdean proceeded to negotiate these extremely unromanticmatters in the phrases of that simple, honest and youthfulpassionateness which is still the only language available, and at timesMr. Britling came very near persuading himself that he had something ofthe passionate love for her that he had once had for his Mary, and thatthe possible loss of her had nothing to do with the convenience ofPyecrafts or any discretion in the world. Though indeed the only thingin the whole plexus of emotional possibility that still kept anything ofits youthful freshness in his mind was the very strong objection indeedhe felt to handing her over to anybody else in the world. And inaddition he had just a touch of fatherly feeling that a younger manwould not have had, and it made him feel very anxious to prevent hermaking a fool of herself by marrying a man out of spite. He felt thatsince an obstinate lover is apt to be an exacting husband, in the endthe heavy predominance of Oliver might wring much sincerer tears fromher than she had ever shed for himself. But that generosity was but thebright edge to a mainly possessive jealousy. 

It was Mr. Britling who reopened the correspondence by writing a littleapology for the corner of the small snapdragon bed, and this evoked anadmirably touching reply. He replied quite naturally with assurances anddeclarations. But before she got his second letter her mood had changed. She decided that if he had really and truly been lovingly sorry, insteadof just writing a note to her he would have rushed over to her in awild, dramatic state of mind, and begged forgiveness on his knees. Shewrote therefore a second letter to this effect, crossing his second one, and, her literary gift getting the better of her, she expanded herthesis into a general denunciation of his habitual off-handedness withher, to an abandonment of all hope of ever being happy with him, to adecision to end the matter once for all, and after a decent interval ofdignified regrets to summon Oliver to the reward of his patience andgoodness. The European situation was now at a pitch to get upon Mr. Britling's nerves, and he replied with a letter intended to beconciliatory, but which degenerated into earnest reproaches for her"unreasonableness. " Meanwhile she had received his second and tenderlyeloquent letter; it moved her deeply, and having now cleared her mind ofmuch that had kept it simmering uncomfortably, she replied with asweetly loving epistle. From this point their correspondence had a kindof double quality, being intermittently angry and loving; her thirdletter was tender, and it was tenderly answered in his fourth; but inthe interim she had received his third and answered it with considerableacerbity, to which his fifth was a retort, just missing her generous andconclusive fifth. She replied to his fifth on a Saturday evening--it wasthat eventful Saturday, Saturday the First of August, 1914--by atelegram. Oliver was abroad in Holland, engaged in a much-neededemotional rest, and she wired to Mr. Britling: "Have wired for Oliver, he will come to me, do not trouble to answer this. "

She was astonished to get no reply for two days. She got no reply fortwo days because remarkable things were happening to the telegraph wiresof England just then, and her message, in the hands of a boy scout on abicycle, reached Mr. Britling's house only on Monday afternoon. He wasthen at Claverings discussing the invasion of Belgium that madeBritain's participation in the war inevitable, and he did not open thelittle red-brown envelope until about half-past six. He failed to markthe date and hours upon it, but he perceived that it was essentially achallenge. He was expected, he saw, to go over at once with hisrenovated Gladys and end this unfortunate clash forever in one strikingand passionate scene. His mind was now so full of the war that he foundthis the most colourless and unattractive of obligations. But he feltbound by the mysterious code of honour of the illicit love affair toplay his part. He postponed his departure until after supper--there wasno reason why he should be afraid of motoring by moonlight if he wentcarefully--because Hugh came in with Cissie demanding a game of hockey. Hockey offered a nervous refreshment, a scampering forgetfulness of thetremendous disaster of this war he had always believed impossible, thatnothing else could do, and he was very glad indeed of the irruption.... 

Section 10

For days the broader side of Mr. Britling's mind, as distinguished fromits egotistical edge, had been reflecting more and more vividly andcoherently the spectacle of civilisation casting aside the thousanddispersed activities of peace, clutching its weapons and setting itsteeth, for a supreme struggle against militarist imperialism. From thepoint of view of Matching's Easy that colossal crystallising ofaccumulated antagonisms was for a time no more than a confusion ofheadlines and a rearrangement of columns in the white windows of thenewspapers through which those who lived in the securities of Englandlooked out upon the world. It was a display in the sphere of thought andprint immeasurably remote from the real green turf on which one walked, from the voice and the church-bells of Mr. Dimple that sounded theirample caresses in one's ears, from the clashing of the stags who werebeginning to knock the velvet from their horns in the park, or theclatter of the butcher's cart and the respectful greeting of the butcherboy down the lane. It was the spectacle of the world less real even tomost imaginations than the world of novels or plays. People talked ofthese things always with an underlying feeling that they romanced andintellectualised. 

On Thursday, July 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian minister at Belgradepresented his impossible ultimatum to the Serbian government, anddemanded a reply within forty-eight hours. With the wisdom of retrospectwe know now clearly enough what that meant. The Sarajevo crime was to beresuscitated and made an excuse for war. But nine hundred andninety-nine Europeans out of a thousand had still no suspicion of whatwas happening to them. The ultimatum figured prominently in the morningpapers that came to Matching's Easy on Friday, but it by no meansdominated the rest of the news; Sir Edward Carson's rejection of thegovernment proposals for Ulster was given the pride of place, and almostequally conspicuous with the Serbian news were the Caillaux trial andthe storming of the St. Petersburg barricades by Cossacks. HerrHeinrich's questions at lunch time received reassuring replies. 

On Saturday Sir Edward Carson was still in the central limelight, Russiahad intervened and demanded more time for Serbia, and the _DailyChronicle_ declared the day a critical one for Europe. Dublin withbayonet charges and bullets thrust Serbia into a corner on Monday. Noshots had yet been fired in the East, and the mischief in Ireland thatGermany had counted on was well ahead. Sir Edward Grey was said to beworking hard for peace. 

"It's the cry of wolf, " said Mr. Britling to Herr Heinrich. 

"But at last there did come a wolf, " said Herr Heinrich. "I wish I hadnot sent my first moneys to that Conference upon Esperanto. I feel sureit will be put off. "

"See!" said Teddy very cheerfully to Herr Heinrich on Tuesday, and heldup the paper, in which "The Bloodshed in Dublin" had squeezed the "WarCloud Lifting" into a quite subordinate position. 

"What did we tell you?" said Mrs. Britling. "Nobody wants a Europeanwar. "

But Wednesday's paper vindicated his fears. Germany had commanded Russianot to mobilise. 

"Of course Russia will mobilise, " said Herr Heinrich. 

"Or else forever after hold her peace, " said Teddy. 

"And then Germany will mobilise, " said Herr Heinrich, "and all myholiday will vanish. I shall have to go and mobilise too. I shall haveto fight. I have my papers. "

"I never thought of you as a soldier before, " said Teddy. 

"I have deferred my service until I have done my thesis, " said HerrHeinrich. "Now all that will be--Piff! And my thesis three-quartersfinished. "

"That is serious, " said Teddy. 

"_Verdammte Dummheit!_" said Herr Heinrich. "Why do they do suchthings?"

On Thursday, the 30th of July, Caillaux, Carson, strikes, and all thecommon topics of life had been swept out of the front page of the paperaltogether; the stock exchanges were in a state of wild perturbation, and food prices were leaping fantastically. Austria was bombardingBelgrade, contrary to the rules of war hitherto accepted; Russia wasmobilising; Mr. Asquith was, he declared, not relaxing his efforts "todo everything possible to circumscribe the area of possible conflict, "and the Vienna Conference of Peace Societies was postponed. "I do notsee why a conflict between Russia and Austria should involve WesternEurope, " said Mr. Britling. "Our concern is only for Belgium andFrance. "

But Herr Heinrich knew better. "No, " he said. "It is the war. It hascome. I have heard it talked about in Germany many times. But I havenever believed that it was obliged to come. Ach! It considers no one. Solong as Esperanto is disregarded, all these things must be. "

Friday brought photographs of the mobilisation in Vienna, and the newsthat Belgrade was burning. Young men in straw hats very like English orFrench or Belgian young men in straw hats were shown parading thestreets of Vienna, carrying flags and banners portentously, blowingtrumpets or waving hats and shouting. Saturday saw all Europemobilising, and Herr Heinrich upon Teddy's bicycle in wild pursuit ofevening papers at the junction. Mobilisation and the emotions of HerrHeinrich now became the central facts of the Dower House situation. Thetwo younger Britlings mobilised with great vigour upon the playroomfloor. The elder had one hundred and ninety toy soldiers with aconsiderable equipment of guns and wagons; the younger had a force of ahundred and twenty-three, not counting three railway porters (withtrucks complete), a policeman, five civilians and two ladies. Also theymade a number of British and German flags out of paper. But as neitherwould allow his troops to be any existing foreign army, they agreed tobe Redland and Blueland, according to the colour of their prevailinguniforms. Meanwhile Herr Heinrich confessed almost promiscuously thecomplication of his distresses by a hitherto unexpected emotionalinterest in the daughter of the village publican. She was a placidreceptive young woman named Maud Hickson, on whom the young man had, itseemed, imposed the more poetical name of Marguerite. 

"Often we have spoken together, oh yes, often, " he assured Mrs. Britling. "And now it must all end. She loves flowers, she loves birds. She is most sweet and innocent. I have taught her many words in Germanand several times I have tried to draw her in pencil, and now I must goaway and never see her any more. "

His implicit appeal to the whole literature of Teutonic romanticismdisarmed Mrs. Britling's objection that he had no business whatever toknow the young woman at all. 

"Also, " cried Herr Heinrich, facing another aspect of his distresses, "how am I to pack my things? Since I have been here I have bought manythings, many books, and two pairs of white flannel trousers and someshirts and a tin instrument that I cannot work, for developing privatelyKodak films. All this must go into my little portmanteau. And it willnot go into my little portmanteau!

"And there is Billy! Who will now go on with the education of Billy?"

The hands of fate paused not for Herr Heinrich's embarrassments anddistresses. He fretted from his room downstairs and back to his room, hewent out upon mysterious and futile errands towards the village inn, heprowled about the garden. His head and face grew pinker and pinker; hiseyes were flushed and distressed. Everybody sought to say and do kindand reassuring things to him. 

"Ach!" he said to Teddy; "you are a civilian. You live in a freecountry. It is not your war. You can be amused at it.... "

But then Teddy was amused at everything. 

Something but very dimly apprehended at Matching's Easy, somethingmethodical and compelling away in London, seemed to be fumbling andfeeling after Herr Heinrich, and Herr Heinrich it appeared wasresponding. Sunday's post brought the decision. 

"I have to go, " he said. "I must go right up to London to-day. To anaddress in Bloomsbury. Then they will tell me how to go to Germany. Imust pack and I must get the taxi-cab from the junction and I must go. Why are there no trains on the branch line on Sundays for me to go byit?"

At lunch he talked politics. "I am entirely opposed to the war, " hesaid. "I am entirely opposed to any war. "

"Then why go?" asked Mr. Britling. "Stay here with us. We all like you. Stay here and do not answer your mobilisation summons. "

"But then I shall lose all my country. I shall lose my papers. I shallbe outcast. I must go. "

"I suppose a man should go with his own country, " Mr. Britlingreflected. 

"If there was only one language in all the world, none of such thingswould happen, " Herr Heinrich declared. "There would be no English, noGermans, no Russians. "

"Just Esperantists, " said Teddy. 

"Or Idoists, " said Herr Heinrich. "I am not convinced of which. In someways Ido is much better. "

"Perhaps there would have to be a war between Ido and Esperanto tosettle it, " said Teddy. 

"Who shall we play skat with when you have gone?" asked Mrs. Britling. 

"All this morning, " said Herr Heinrich, expanding in the warmth ofsympathy, "I have been trying to pack and I have been unable to pack. Mymind is too greatly disordered. I have been told not to bring muchluggage. Mrs. Britling, please. "

Mrs. Britling became attentive. 

"If I could leave much of my luggage, my clothes, some of them, andparticularly my violin, it would be much more to my convenience. I donot care to be mobilised with my violin. There may be much crowding. Then I would but just take my rucksack.... "

"If you will leave your things packed up. "

"And afterwards they could be sent. "

But he did not leave them packed up. The taxi-cab, to order which he hadgone to the junction in the morning on Teddy's complaisant machine, camepresently to carry him off, and the whole family and the firstcontingent of the usual hockey players gathered about it to see him off. The elder boy of the two juniors put a distended rucksack upon the seat. Herr Heinrich then shook hands with every one. 

"Write and tell us how you get on, " cried Mrs. Britling. 

"But if England also makes war!"

"Write to Reynolds--let me give you his address; he is my agent in NewYork, " said Mr. Britling, and wrote it down. 

"We'll come to the village corner with you, Herr Heinrich, " cried theboys. 

"No, " said Herr Heinrich, sitting down into the automobile, "I will partwith you altogether. It is too much.... "

"_Auf Wiedersehen!_" cried Mr. Britling. "Remember, whatever happensthere will be peace at last!"

"Then why not at the beginning?" Herr Heinrich demanded with areasonable exasperation and repeated his maturer verdict on the wholeEuropean situation; "_Verdammte Bummelei!_"

"Go, " said Mr. Britling to the taxi driver. 

"_Auf Wiedersehen_, Herr Heinrich!"

"_Auf Wiedersehen!_"

"Good-bye, Herr Heinrich!"

"Good luck, Herr Heinrich!"

The taxi started with a whir, and Herr Heinrich passed out of the gatesand along the same hungry road that had so recently consumed Mr. Direck. "Give him a last send-off, " cried Teddy. "One, Two, Three! _AufWiedersehen!_"

The voices, gruff and shrill, sounded raggedly together. The dog-rosehedge cut off the sight of the little face. Then the pink head bobbed upagain. He was standing up and waving the panama hat. Careless ofsunstroke.... 

Then Herr Heinrich had gone altogether.... 

"Well, " said Mr. Britling, turning away. 

"I do hope they won't hurt him, " said a visitor. 

"Oh, they won't put a youngster like that in the fighting line, " saidMr. Britling. "He's had no training yet. And he has to wear glasses. Howcan he shoot? They'll make a clerk of him. "

"He hasn't packed at all, " said Mrs. Britling to her husband. "Just comeup for an instant and peep at his room. It's--touching. "

It was touching. 

It was more than touching; in its minute, absurd way it was symbolicaland prophetic, it was the miniature of one small life uprooted. 

The door stood wide open, as he had left it open, careless of all thelittle jealousies and privacies of occupation and ownership. Even thewindows were wide open as though he had needed air; he who had always sosedulously shut his windows since first he came to England. Across theempty fireplace stretched the great bough of oak he had brought in forBilly, but now its twigs and leaves had wilted, and many had broken offand fallen on the floor. Billy's cage stood empty upon a little table inthe corner of the room. Instead of packing, the young man had evidentlypaced up and down in a state of emotional elaboration; the bed wasdisordered as though he had several times flung himself upon it, and hisbooks had been thrown about the room despairfully. He had made somelittle commencements of packing in a borrowed cardboard box. The violinlay as if it lay in state upon the chest of drawers, the drawers wereall partially open, and in the middle of the floor sprawled a pitifulshirt of blue, dropped there, the most flattened and broken-hearted ofgarments. The fireplace contained an unsuccessful pencil sketch of agirl's face, torn across.... 

Husband and wife regarded the abandoned room in silence for a time, andwhen Mr. Britling spoke he lowered his voice. 

"I don't see Billy, " he said. 

"Perhaps he has gone out of the window, " said Mrs. Britling also in ahushed undertone.... 

"Well, " said Mr. Britling abruptly and loudly, turning away from thisfirst intimation of coming desolations, "let us go down to our hockey!He had to go, you know. And Billy will probably come back again when hebegins to feel hungry.... "

Section 11

Monday was a public holiday, the First Monday in August, and the dayconsecrated by long-established custom to the Matching's Easy FlowerShow in Claverings Park. The day was to live in Mr. Britling's memorywith a harsh brightness like the brightness of that sunshine one sees attimes at the edge of a thunderstorm. There were tents with the exhibits, and a tent for "Popular Refreshments, " there was a gorgeous gold andyellow steam roundabout with motor-cars and horses, and another in greenand silver with wonderfully undulating ostriches and lions, and each hadan organ that went by steam; there were cocoanut shies and manyingenious prize-giving shooting and dart-throwing and ring-throwingstalls, each displaying a marvellous array of crockery, clocks, metalornaments, and suchlike rewards. There was a race of gas balloons, eachwith a postcard attached to it begging the finder to say where itdescended, and you could get a balloon for a shilling and have a chanceof winning various impressive and embarrassing prizes if your balloonwent far enough--fish carvers, a silver-handled walking-stick, a bog-oakgramophone-record cabinet, and things like that. And by a special gateone could go for sixpence into the Claverings gardens, and the sixpencewould be doubled by Lady Homartyn and devoted next winter to theMatching's Easy coal club. And Mr. Britling went through all the showswith his boys, and finally left them with a shilling each and hisblessing and paid his sixpence for the gardens and made his way as hehad promised, to have tea with Lady Homartyn. 

The morning papers had arrived late, and he had been reading them andre-reading them and musing over them intermittently until his family hadinsisted upon his coming out to the festivities. They said that if forno other reason he must come to witness Aunt Wilshire's extraordinaryskill at the cocoanut shy. She could beat everybody. Well, one must notmiss a thing like that. The headlines proclaimed, "The Great Powers atWar; France Invaded by Germany; Germany invaded by Russia; 100, 000Germans march into Luxemburg; Can England Abstain? Fifty Million Loan tobe Issued. " And Germany had not only violated the Treaty of London butshe had seized a British ship in the Kiel Canal.... The roundabouts werevery busy and windily melodious, and the shooting gallery kept poppingand jingling as people shot and broke bottles, and the voices of theyoung men and women inviting the crowd to try their luck at this andthat rang loud and clear. Teddy and Letty and Cissie and Hugh weredeveloping a quite disconcerting skill at the dart-throwing, and werebent upon compiling a complete tea-set for the Teddy cottage out oftheir winnings. There was a score of automobiles and a number of trapsand gigs about the entrance to the portion of the park that had beenrailed off for the festival, the small Britling boys had met somenursery visitors from Claverings House and were busy displaying skilland calm upon the roundabout ostriches, and less than four hundred milesaway with a front that reached from Nancy to Liège more than a millionand a quarter of grey-clad men, the greatest and best-equipped host theworld had ever seen, were pouring westward to take Paris, grip andparalyse France, seize the Channel ports, invade England, and make theGerman Empire the master-state of the earth. Their equipment was amarvel of foresight and scientific organisation, from the motor kitchensthat rumbled in their wake to the telescopic sights of thesharp-shooters, the innumerable machine-guns of the infantry, the supplyof entrenching material, the preparations already made in the invadedcountry.... 

"Let's try at the other place for the sugar-basin!" said Teddy, hurryingpast. "Don't get _two_ sugar-basins, " said Cissie breathless inpursuit. "Hugh is trying for a sugar-basin at the other place. "

Then Mr. Britling heard a bellicose note. 

"Let's have a go at the bottles, " said a cheerful young farmer. "Oughtto keep up our shooting, these warlike times.... "

Mr. Britling ran against Hickson from the village inn and learnt that hewas disturbed about his son being called up as a reservist. "Just whenhe was settling down here. It seems a pity they couldn't leave him for abit. "

"'Tis a noosence, " said Hickson, "but anyhow, they give first prize tohis radishes. He'll be glad to hear they give first prize to hisradishes. Do you think, Sir, there's very much probability of this war?It do seem to be beginning like. "

"It looks more like beginning than it has ever done, " said Mr. Britling. "It's a foolish business. "

"I suppose if they start in on us we got to hit back at them, " said Mr. Hickson. "Postman--he's got his papers too.... "

Mr. Britling made his way through the drifting throng towards the littlewicket that led into the Gardens.... 

He was swung round suddenly by a loud bang. 

It was the gun proclaiming the start of the balloon race. 

He stood for some moments watching the scene. The balloon start hadgathered a little crowd of people, village girls in white gloves andcheerful hats, young men in bright ties and ready-made Sunday suits, fathers and mothers, boy scouts, children, clerks in straw hats, bicyclists and miscellaneous folk. Over their heads rose Mr. Cheshunt, the factotum of the estate. He was standing on a table and handing thelittle balloons up into the air one by one. They floated up from hishand like many-coloured grapes, some rising and falling, some soaringsteadily upward, some spinning and eddying, drifting eastward before thegentle breeze, a string of bubbles against the sky and the big treesthat bounded the park. Farther away to the right were the stripedcanvas tents of the flower-show, still farther off the roundaboutschurned out their music, the shooting galleries popped, and the swingboats creaked through the air. Cut off from these things by a line offencing lay the open park in which the deer grouped themselves under thegreat trees and regarded the festival mistrustfully. Teddy and Hughappeared breaking away from the balloon race cluster, and hurrying backto their dart-throwing. A man outside a little tent that stood apart wasputting up a brave-looking notice, "Unstinted Teas One Shilling. " TheTeddy perambulator was moored against the cocoanut shy, and AuntWilshire was still displaying her terrible prowess at the cocoanuts. Already she had won twenty-seven. Strange children had been impressed byher to carry them, and formed her retinue. A wonderful old lady was AuntWilshire.... 

Then across all the sunshine of this artless festival there appeared, asif it were writing showing through a picture, "France Invaded byGermany; Germany Invaded by Russia. "

Mr. Britling turned again towards the wicket, with its collectors oftribute, that led into the Gardens. 

Section 12

The Claverings gardens, and particularly the great rockery, the lilypond, and the herbaceous borders, were unusually populous withunaccustomed visitors and shy young couples. Mr. Britling had to go tothe house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found LadyHomartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the dairy. Shehad been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and she was restingin a deck chair while a spinster relation presided over the tea. Mrs. Britling had fled the outer festival earlier, and was sitting by thetea-things. Lady Meade and two or three visitors had motored out fromHartleytree to assist, and Manning had come in with his tremendousconfirmation of all that the morning papers had foreshadowed. 

"Have you any news?" asked Mr. Britling. 

"It's _war!_" said Mrs. Britling. 

"They are in Luxemburg, " said Manning. "That can only mean that they arecoming through Belgium. "

"Then I was wrong, " said Mr. Britling, "and the world is altogether mad. And so there is nothing else for us to do but win.... Why could they notleave Belgium alone?"

"It's been in all their plans for the last twenty years, " said Manning. 

"But it brings us in for certain. "

"I believe they have reckoned on that. "

"Well!" Mr. Britling took his tea and sat down, and for a time he saidnothing. 

"It is three against three, " said one of the visitors, trying to countthe Powers engaged. 

"Italy, " said Manning, "will almost certainly refuse to fight. In factItaly is friendly to us. She is bound to be. This is, to begin with, anAustrian war. And Japan will fight for us.... "

"I think, " said old Lady Meade, "that this is the suicide of Germany. They cannot possibly fight against Russia and France and ourselves. Whyhave they ever begun it?"

"It may be a longer and more difficult war than people suppose, " saidManning. "The Germans reckon they are going to win. "

"Against us all?"

"Against us all. They are tremendously prepared. "

"It is impossible that Germany should win, " said Mr. Britling, breakinghis silence. "Against her Germany has something more than armies; allreason, all instinct--the three greatest peoples in the world. "

"At present very badly supplied with war material. "

"That may delay things; it may make the task harder; but it will notalter the end. Of course we are going to win. Nothing else is thinkable. I have never believed they meant it. But I see now they meant it. Thisinsolent arming and marching, this forty years of national blustering;sooner or later it had to topple over into action.... "

He paused and found they were listening, and he was carried on by hisown thoughts into further speech. 

"This isn't the sort of war, " he said, "that is settled by counting gunsand rifles. Something that has oppressed us all has become intolerableand has to be ended. And it will be ended. I don't know what soldiersand politicians think of our prospects, but I do know what ordinaryreasonable men think of the business. I know that all we millions ofreasonable civilised onlookers are prepared to spend our last shillingsand give all our lives now, rather than see Germany unbeaten. I knowthat the same thing is felt in America, and that given half a chance, given just one extra shake of that foolish mailed fist in the face ofAmerica, and America also will be in this war by our side. Italy willcome in. She is bound to come in. France will fight like one man. I'mquite prepared to believe that the Germans have countless rifles andguns; have got the most perfect maps, spies, plans you can imagine. I'mquite prepared to hear that they have got a thousand tremendoussurprises in equipment up their sleeves. I'm quite prepared for sweepingvictories for them and appalling disasters for us. Those are the firstthings. What I do know is that the Germans understand nothing of thespirit of man; that they do not dream for a moment of the devil ofresentment this war will arouse. Didn't we all trust them not to let offtheir guns? Wasn't that the essence of our liberal and pacific faith?And here they are in the heart of Europe letting off their guns?"

"And such a lot of guns, " said Manning. 

"Then you think it will be a long war, Mr. Britling?" said Lady Meade. 

"Long or short, it will end in the downfall of Germany. But I do notbelieve it will be long. I do not agree with Manning. Even now I cannotbelieve that a whole great people can be possessed by war madness. Ithink the war is the work of the German armaments party and of the Courtparty. They have forced this war on Germany. Well--they must win and goon winning. So long as they win, Germany will hold together, so long astheir armies are not clearly defeated nor their navy destroyed. But oncecheck them and stay them and beat them, then I believe that suddenly thespirit of Germany will change even as it changed after Jena.... "

"Willie Nixon, " said one of the visitors, "who came back from Hamburgyesterday, says they are convinced they will have taken Paris and St. Petersburg and one or two other little places and practically settledeverything for us by about Christmas. "

"And London?"

"I forgot if he said London. But I suppose a London more or less hardlymatters. They don't think we shall dare come in, but if we do they willZeppelin the fleet and walk through our army--if you can call it anarmy. "

Manning nodded confirmation. 

"They do not understand, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Sir George Padish told me the same sort of thing, " said Lady Homartyn. "He was in Berlin in June. "

"Of course the efficiency of their preparations is almost incredible, "said another of Lady Meade's party. 

"They have thought out and got ready for everything--literallyeverything. "

Section 13

Mr. Britling had been a little surprised by the speech he had made. Hehadn't realised before he began to talk how angry and scornful he was atthis final coming into action of the Teutonic militarism that had solong menaced his world. He had always said it would never reallyfight--and here it was fighting! He was furious with the indignation ofan apologist betrayed. He had only realised the strength and passion ofhis own belligerent opinions as he had heard them, and as he walked backwith his wife through the village to the Dower House, he was still inthe swirl of this self-discovery; he was darkly silent, devisingfiercely denunciatory phrases against Krupp and Kaiser. "Krupp andKaiser, " he grasped that obvious, convenient alliteration. "It is allthat is bad in mediævalism allied to all that is bad in modernity, " hetold himself. 

"The world, " he said, startling Mrs. Britling with his sudden speech, "will be intolerable to live in, it will be unendurable for a decenthuman being, unless we win this war. 

"We must smash or be smashed.... "

His brain was so busy with such stuff that for a time he stared at Mrs. Harrowdean's belated telegram without grasping the meaning of a word ofit. He realised slowly that it was incumbent upon him to go over to her, but he postponed his departure very readily in order to play hockey. Besides which it would be a full moon, and he felt that summer moonlightwas far better than sunset and dinner time for the declarations he wasexpected to make. And then he went on phrase-making again about Germanyuntil he had actually bullied off at hockey. 

Suddenly in the midst of the game he had an amazing thought. It came tohim like a physical twinge. 

"What the devil are we doing at this hockey?" he asked abruptly ofTeddy, who was coming up to bully after a goal. "We ought to be drillingor shooting against those infernal Germans. "

Teddy looked at him questioningly. 

"Oh, come on!" said Mr. Britling with a gust of impatience, and snappedthe sticks together. 

Section 14

Mr. Britling started for his moonlight ride about half-past nine thatnight. He announced that he could neither rest nor work, the war hadthrown him into a fever; the driving of the automobile was just thedistraction he needed; he might not, he added casually, return for a dayor so. When he felt he could work again he would come back. He filled uphis petrol tank by the light of an electric torch, and sat in his car inthe garage and studied his map of the district. His thoughts wanderedfrom the road to Pyecrafts to the coast, and to the possible route of araider. Suppose the enemy anticipated a declaration of war! Here hemight come, and here.... 

He roused himself from these speculations to the business in hand. 

The evening seemed as light as day, a cool moonshine filled the world. The road was silver that flushed to pink at the approach of Mr. Britling's headlight, the dark turf at the wayside and the bushes on thebank became for a moment an acid green as the glare passed. The fullmoon was climbing up the sky, and so bright that scarcely a star wasvisible in the blue grey of the heavens. Houses gleamed white a mileaway, and ever and again a moth would flutter and hang in the light ofthe lamps, and then vanish again in the night. 

Gladys was in excellent condition for a run, and so was Mr. Britling. Hewent neither fast nor slow, and with a quite unfamiliar confidence. Life, which had seemed all day a congested confusion darkened bythreats, became cool, mysterious and aloof and with a quality ofdignified reassurance. 

He steered along the narrow road by the black dog-rose hedge, and sointo the high road towards the village. The village was alight atseveral windows but almost deserted. Out beyond, a coruscation of lightsburnt like a group of topaz and rubies set in the silver shield of thenight. The festivities of the Flower Show were still in full progress, and the reduction of the entrance fee after seven had drawn in everylingering outsider. The roundabouts churned out their relentless music, and the bottle-shooting galleries popped and crashed. Thewell-patronised ostriches and motorcars flickered round in a pulsingrhythm; black, black, black, before the naphtha flares. 

Mr. Britling pulled up at the side of the road, and sat for a littlewhile watching the silhouettes move hither and thither from shadow toshadow across the bright spaces. 

"On the very brink of war--on the brink of Armageddon, " he whispered atlast. "Do they understand? Do any of us understand?"

He slipped in his gear to starting, and was presently running quietlywith his engine purring almost inaudibly along the level road toHartleytree. The sounds behind him grew smaller and smaller, and diedaway leaving an immense unruffled quiet under the moon. There seemed nomotion but his own, no sound but the neat, subdued, mechanical rhythm infront of his feet. Presently he ran out into the main road, and heedlessof the lane that turned away towards Pyecrafts, drove on smoothlytowards the east and the sea. Never before had he driven by night. Hehad expected a fumbling and tedious journey; he found he had come intoan undreamt-of silvery splendour of motion. For it seemed as though eventhe automobile was running on moonlight that night.... Pyecrafts couldwait. Indeed the later he got to Pyecrafts the more moving and romanticthe little comedy of reconciliation would be. And he was in no hurry forthat comedy. He felt he wanted to apprehend this vast summer calm abouthim, that alone of all the things of the day seemed to convey anythingwhatever of the majestic tragedy that was happening to mankind. As oneslipped through this still vigil one could imagine for the first timethe millions away there marching, the wide river valleys, villages, cities, mountain-ranges, ports and seas inaudibly busy. 

"Even now, " he said, "the battleships may be fighting. "

He listened, but the sound was only the low intermittent drumming of hiscylinders as he ran with his throttle nearly closed, down a stretch ofgentle hill. 

He felt that he must see the sea. He would follow the road beyond theRodwell villages, and then turn up to the crest of Eastonbury Hill. Andthither he went and saw in the gap of the low hills beyond a V-shapedlevel of moonlit water that glittered and yet lay still. He stopped hiscar by the roadside, and sat for a long time looking at this and musing. And once it seemed to him three little shapes like short black needlespassed in line ahead across the molten silver. 

But that may have been just the straining of the eyes.... 

All sorts of talk had come to Mr. Britling's ears about the navies ofEngland and France and Germany; there had been public disputes ofexperts, much whispering and discussion in private. We had the heaviervessels, the bigger guns, but it was not certain that we had thepreeminence in science and invention. Were they relying as we wererelying on Dreadnoughts, or had they their secrets and surprises for us?To-night, perhaps, the great ships were steaming to conflict.... 

To-night all over the world ships must be in flight and ships pursuing;ten thousand towns must be ringing with the immediate excitement ofwar.... 

Only a year ago Mr. Britling had been lunching on a battleship andlooking over its intricate machinery. It had seemed to him then thatthere could be no better human stuff in the world than the quiet, sunburnt, disciplined men and officers he had met.... And our littlearmy, too, must be gathering to-night, the little army that had beenchastened and reborn in South Africa, that he was convinced wasindividually more gallant and self-reliant and capable than any otherarmy in the world. He would have sneered or protested if he had heardanother Englishman say that, but in his heart he held the dearbelief.... 

And what other aviators in the world could fly as the Frenchmen andEnglishmen he had met once or twice at Eastchurch and Salisbury couldfly? These are things of race and national quality. Let the German clingto his gasbags. "We shall beat them in the air, " he whispered. "We shallbeat them on the seas. Surely we shall beat them on the seas. If we havemen enough and guns enough we shall beat them on land.... Yet--For yearsthey have been preparing.... "

There was little room in the heart of Mr. Britling that night for anylove but the love of England. He loved England now as a nation of men. There could be no easy victory. Good for us with our too easy naturesthat there could be no easy victory. But victory we must have now--orperish.... 

He roused himself with a sigh, restarted his engine, and went on to findsome turning place. He still had a colourless impression that thejourney's end was Pyecrafts. 

"We must all do the thing we can, " he thought, and for a time the courseof his automobile along a winding down-hill road held his attention sothat he could not get beyond it. He turned about and ran up over thehill again and down long slopes inland, running very softly and smoothlywith his lights devouring the road ahead and sweeping the banks andhedges beside him, and as he came down a little hill through a villagehe heard a confused clatter and jingle of traffic ahead, and saw thedanger triangle that warns of cross-roads. He slowed down and thenpulled up abruptly. 

Riding across the gap between the cottages was a string of horsemen, andthen a grey cart, and then a team drawing a heavy object--a gun, andthen more horsemen, and then a second gun. It was all a dim brownprocession in the moonlight. A mounted officer came up beside him andlooked at him and then went back to the cross-roads, but as yet Englandwas not troubling about spies. Four more guns passed, and then a stringof carts and more mounted men, sitting stiffly. Nobody was singing orshouting; scarcely a word was audible, and through all the column therewas an effect of quiet efficient haste. And so they passed, and rumbledand jingled and clattered out of the scene, leaving Mr. Britling in hiscar in the dreaming village. He restarted his engine once more, and wenthis way thoughtfully. 

He went so thoughtfully that presently he missed the road toPyecrafts--if ever he had been on the road to Pyecrafts atall--altogether. He found himself upon a highway running across aflattish plain, and presently discovered by the sight of the Great Bear, faint but traceable in the blue overhead, that he was going due north. Well, presently he would turn south and west; that in good time; now hewanted to feel; he wanted to think. How could he best help England inthe vast struggle for which the empty silence and beauty of this nightseemed to be waiting? But indeed he was not thinking at all, butfeeling, feeling wonder, as he had never felt it since his youth hadpassed from him. This war might end nearly everything in the world as hehad known the world; that idea struggled slowly through the moonlightinto consciousness, and won its way to dominance in his mind. 

The character of the road changed; the hedges fell away, the pine treesand pine woods took the place of the black squat shapes of the hawthornand oak and apple. The houses grew rarer and the world emptier andemptier, until he could have believed that he was the only man awake andout-of-doors in all the slumbering land.... 

For a time a little thing caught hold of his dreaming mind. Continuallyas he ran on, black, silent birds rose startled out of the dust of theroad before him, and fluttered noiselessly beyond his double wedge oflight. What sort of bird could they be? Were they night-jars? Were theydifferent kinds of birds snatching at the quiet of the night for a dustbath in the sand? This little independent thread of inquiry ran throughthe texture of his mind and died away.... 

And at one place there was a great bolting of rabbits across the road, almost under his wheels.... 

The phrases he had used that afternoon at Claverings came back presentlyinto his head. They were, he felt assured, the phrases that had to besaid now. This war could be seen as the noblest of wars, as the crowningstruggle of mankind against national dominance and national aggression;or else it was a mere struggle of nationalities and pure destruction andcatastrophe. Its enormous significances, he felt, must not be lost inany petty bickering about the minor issues of the conflict. But werethese enormous significances being stated clearly enough? Were theybeing understood by the mass of liberal and pacific thinkers? He drovemore and more slowly as these questions crowded upon his attention untilat last he came to a stop altogether.... "Certain things must be saidclearly, " he whispered. "Certain things--The meaning of England.... Thedeep and long-unspoken desire for kindliness and fairness.... Now is thetime for speaking. It must be put as straight now as her gun-fire, ashonestly as the steering of her ships. "

Phrases and paragraphs began to shape themselves in his mind as he satwith one arm on his steering-wheel. 

Suddenly he roused himself, turned over the map in the map-case besidehim, and tried to find his position.... 

So far as he could judge he had strayed right into Suffolk.... 

About one o'clock in the morning he found himself in Newmarket. Newmarket too was a moonlit emptiness, but as he hesitated at thecross-roads he became aware of a policeman standing quite stiff andstill at the corner by the church. 

"Matching's Easy?" he cried. 

"That road, Sir, until you come to Market Saffron, and then to theleft.... "

Mr. Britling had a definite purpose now in his mind, and he drovefaster, but still very carefully and surely. He was already within amile or so of Market Saffron before he remembered that he had made akind of appointment with himself at Pyecrafts. He stared at twoconflicting purposes. He turned over certain possibilities. 

At the Market Saffron cross-roads he slowed down, and for a moment hehung undecided. 

"Oliver, " he said, and as he spoke he threw over his steering-wheeltowards the homeward way.... He finished his sentence when he hadnegotiated the corner safely. "Oliver must have her.... "

And then, perhaps fifty yards farther along, and this time almostindignantly: "She ought to have married him long ago.... "

He put his automobile in the garage, and then went round under the blackshadow of his cedars to the front door. He had no key, and for a longtime he failed to rouse his wife by flinging pebbles and gravel at herhalf-open window. But at last he heard her stirring and called out toher. 

He explained he had returned because he wanted to write. He wantedindeed to write quite urgently. He went straight up to his room, lit hisreading-lamp, made himself some tea, and changed into his nocturnalsuit. Daylight found him still writing very earnestly at his pamphlet. The title he had chosen was: "And Now War Ends. "

Section 15

In this fashion it was that the great war began in Europe and came toone man in Matching's Easy, as it came to countless intelligent men incountless pleasant homes that had scarcely heeded its coming through allthe years of its relentless preparation. The familiar scenery of lifewas drawn aside, and War stood unveiled. "I am the Fact, " said War, "andI stand astride the path of life. I am the threat of death andextinction that has always walked beside life, since life began. Therecan be nothing else and nothing more in human life until you havereckoned with me. "

BOOK II

MATCHING'S EASY AT WAR

CHAPTER THE FIRST

ONLOOKERS

Section 1

On that eventful night of the first shots and the first deaths Mr. Britling did not sleep until daylight had come. He sat writing at thispamphlet of his, which was to hail the last explosion and the ending ofwar. For a couple of hours he wrote with energy, and then his energyflagged. There came intervals when he sat still and did not write. Heyawned and yawned again and rubbed his eyes. The day had come and thebirds were noisy when he undressed slowly, dropping his clothes anyhowupon the floor, and got into bed.... 

He woke to find his morning tea beside him and the housemaid going outof the room. He knew that something stupendous had happened to theworld, but for a few moments he could not remember what it was. Then heremembered that France was invaded by Germany and Germany by Russia, andthat almost certainly England was going to war. It seemed a harsh andterrible fact in the morning light, a demand for stresses, a certaintyof destruction; it appeared now robbed of all the dark and dignifiedbeauty of the night. He remembered just the same feeling of unpleasant, anxious expectation as he now felt when the Boer War had begun fifteenyears ago, before the first news came. The first news of the Boer Warhad been the wrecking of a British armoured train near Kimberley. Whatsimilar story might not the overdue paper tell when presently it came?

Suppose, for instance, that some important division of our Fleet hadbeen surprised and overwhelmed.... 

Suppose the Germans were already crumpling up the French armies betweenVerdun and Belfort, very swiftly and dreadfully.... 

Suppose after all that the Cabinet was hesitating, and that there wouldbe no war for some weeks, but only a wrangle about Belgian neutrality. While the Germans smashed France.... 

Or, on the other hand, there might be some amazing, prompt success onour part. Our army and navy people were narrow, but in their narrow wayhe believed they were extraordinarily good.... 

What would the Irish do?... 

His thoughts were no more than a thorny jungle of unanswerable questionsthrough which he struggled in un-progressive circles. 

He got out of bed and dressed in a slow, distraught manner. When hereached his braces he discontinued dressing for a time; he opened theatlas at Northern France, and stood musing over the Belgian border. Thenhe turned to Whitaker's Almanack to browse upon the statistics of thegreat European armies. He was roused from this by the breakfast gong. 

At breakfast there was no talk of anything but war. Hugh was as excitedas a cat in thundery weather, and the small boys wanted informationabout flags. The Russian and the Serbian flag were in dispute, and theflag page of Webster's Dictionary had to be consulted. Newspapers andletters were both abnormally late, and Mr. Britling, tiring of supplyingtrivial information to his offspring, smoked cigarettes in the garden. He had an idea of intercepting the postman. His eyes and ears informedhim of the approach of Mrs. Faber's automobile. It was an old, resolute-looking machine painted red, and driven by a trusted gardener;there was no mistaking it. 

Mrs. Faber was in it, and she stopped it outside the gate and madesignals. Mrs. Britling, attracted by the catastrophic sounds of Mrs. Faber's vehicle, came out by the front door, and she and her husbandboth converged upon the caller. 

Section 2

"I won't come in, " cried Mrs. Faber, "but I thought I'd tell you. I'vebeen getting food. "

"Food?"

"Provisions. There's going to be a run on provisions. Look at my flitchof bacon!"

"But--"

"Faber says we have to lay in what we can. This war--it's going to stopeverything. We can't tell what will happen. I've got the children toconsider, so here I am. I was at Hickson's before nine.... "

The little lady was very flushed and bright-eyed. Her fair hair wasdisordered, her hat a trifle askew. She had an air of enjoying unwontedexcitements. "All the gold's being hoarded too, " she said, with a crowof delight in her voice. "Faber says that probably our cheques won't beworth _that_ in a few days. He rushed off to London to get gold at hisclubs--while he can. I had to insist on Hickson taking a cheque. 'Never, ' I said, 'will I deal with you again--never--unless you do.... 'Even then he looked at me almost as if he thought he wouldn't. 

"It's Famine!" she said, turning to Mr. Britling. "I've laid hands onall I can. I've got the children to consider. "

"But why is it famine?" asked Mr. Britling. 

"Oh! it _is_!" she said. 

"But why?"

"Faber understands, " she said. "Of course it's Famine.... "

"And would you believe me, " she went on, going back to Mrs. Britling, "that man Hickson stood behind his counter--where I've dealt with himfor _years_, and refused absolutely to let me have more than a dozentins of sardines. _Refused!_ Point blank!

"I was there before nine, and even then Hickson's shop wascrowded--_crowded_, my dear!"

"What have you got?" said Mr. Britling with an inquiring movementtowards the automobile. 

She had got quite a lot. She had two sides of bacon, a case of sugar, bags of rice, eggs, a lot of flour. 

"What are all these little packets?" said Mr. Britling. 

Mrs. Faber looked slightly abashed. 

"Cerebos salt, " she said. "One gets carried away a little. I just gothold of it and carried it out to the car. I thought we might have tosalt things later. "

"And the jars are pickles?" said Mr. Britling. 

"Yes. But look at all my flour! That's what will go first.... "

The lady was a little flurried by Mr. Britling's too detailedexamination of her haul. "What good is blacking?" he asked. She wouldnot hear him. She felt he was trying to spoil her morning. She declaredshe must get on back to her home. "Don't say I didn't warn you, " shesaid. "I've got no end of things to do. There's peas! I want to showcook how to bottle our peas. For this year--it's lucky, we've got no endof peas. I came by here just for the sake of telling you. " And with thatshe presently departed--obviously ruffled by Mrs. Britling's lethargyand Mr. Britling's scepticism. 

Mr. Britling watched her go off with a slowly rising indignation. 

"And that, " he said, "is how England is going to war! Scrambling forfood--at the very beginning. "

"I suppose she is anxious for the children, " said Mrs. Britling. 

"Blacking!"

"After all, " said Mr. Britling, "if other people are doing that sort ofthing--"

"That's the idea of all panics. We've got not to do it.... The countryhasn't even declared war yet! Hallo, here we are! Better late thannever. "

The head of the postman, bearing newspapers and letters, appearedgliding along the top of the hedge as he cycled down the road towardsthe Dower House corner. 

Section 3

England was not yet at war, but all the stars were marching to that end. It was as if an event so vast must needs take its time to happen. Nodoubt was left upon Mr. Britling's mind, though a whole-pageadvertisement in the _Daily News_, in enormous type and of mysteriousorigin, implored Great Britain not to play into the hands of Russia, Russia the Terrible, that bugbear of the sentimental Radicals. The newswas wide and sweeping, and rather inaccurate. The Germans were said tobe in Belgium and Holland, and they had seized English ships in the KielCanal. A moratorium had been proclaimed, and the reports of a food panicshowed Mrs. Faber to be merely one example of a large class of excitablepeople. 

Mr. Britling found the food panic disconcerting. It did not harmonisewith his leading _motif_ of the free people of the world rising againstthe intolerable burthen of militarism. It spoilt his picture.... 

Mrs. Britling shared the paper with Mr. Britling, they stood by the bedof begonias near the cedar tree and read, and the air was full of thecheerful activities of the lawn-mower that was being drawn by acarefully booted horse across the hockey field. 

Presently Hugh came flitting out of the house to hear what had happened. "One can't work somehow, with all these big things going on, " heapologised. He secured the _Daily News_ while his father and mother read_The Times_. The voices of the younger boys came from the shade of thetrees; they had brought all their toy soldiers out of doors, and weremaking entrenched camps in the garden. 

"The financial situation is an extraordinary one, " said Mr. Britling, concentrating his attention.... "All sorts of staggering things mayhappen. In a social and economic system that has grown just anyhow.... Never been planned.... In a world full of Mrs. Fabers.... "

"Moratorium?" said Hugh over his _Daily News_. "In relation to debts andso on? Modern side you sent me to, Daddy. I live at hand to mouth inetymology. Mors and crematorium--do we burn our bills instead of payingthem?"

"Moratorium, " reflected Mr. Britling; "Moratorium. What nonsense youtalk! It's something that delays, of course. Nothing to do with death. Just a temporary stoppage of payments.... Of course there's bound to bea tremendous change in values.... "

Section 4

"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values. "

On that text Mr. Britling's mind enlarged very rapidly. It produced awonderful crop of possibilities before he got back to his study. He satdown to his desk, but he did not immediately take up his work. He haddiscovered something so revolutionary in his personal affairs that eventhe war issue remained for a time in suspense. 

Tucked away in the back of Mr. Britling's consciousness was somethingthat had not always been there, something warm and comforting that madelife and his general thoughts about life much easier and pleasanter thanthey would otherwise have been, the sense of a neatly arrangedinvestment list, a shrewdly and geographically distributed system ofholdings in national loans, municipal investments, railway debentures, that had amounted altogether to rather over five-and-twenty thousandpounds; his and Mrs. Britling's, a joint accumulation. This was, so tospeak, his economic viscera. It sustained him, and kept him going andcomfortable. When all was well he did not feel its existence; he hadmerely a pleasant sense of general well-being. When here or there asecurity got a little disarranged he felt a vague discomfort. Now hebecame aware of grave disorders. It was as if he discovered he had beenaccidentally eating toadstools, and didn't quite know whether theyweren't a highly poisonous sort. But an analogy may be carried toofar.... 

At any rate, when Mr. Britling got back to his writing-desk he was muchtoo disturbed to resume "And Now War Ends. "

"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values!"

He had never felt quite so sure as most people about the stability ofthe modern financial system. He did not, he felt, understand the workingof this moratorium, or the peculiar advantage of prolonging the bankholidays. It meant, he supposed, a stoppage of payment all round, and acutting off of the supply of ready money. And Hickson the grocer, according to Mrs. Faber, was already looking askance at cheques. 

Even if the bank did reopen Mr. Britling was aware that his currentbalance was low; at the utmost it amounted to twenty or thirty pounds. He had been expecting cheques from his English and American publishers, and the usual _Times_ cheque. Suppose these payments were intercepted!

All these people might, so far as he could understand, stop paymentunder this moratorium! That hadn't at first occurred to him. But, ofcourse, quite probably they might refuse to pay his account when it felldue. 

And suppose _The Times_ felt his peculiar vein of thoughtfulnessunnecessary in these stirring days!

And then if the bank really did lock up his deposit account, and hissecurities became unsaleable!

Mr. Britling felt like an oyster that is invited to leave its shell.... 

He sat back from his desk contemplating these things. His imaginationmade a weak attempt to picture a world in which credit has vanished andmoney is of doubtful value. He supposed a large number of people wouldjust go on buying and selling at or near the old prices by force ofhabit. 

His mind and conscience made a valiant attempt to pick up "And Now WarEnds" and go on with it, but before five minutes were out he was back atthe thoughts of food panic and bankruptcy.... 

Section 5

The conflict of interests at Mr. Britling's desk became unendurable. Hefelt he must settle the personal question first. He wandered out uponthe lawn and smoked cigarettes. 

His first conception of a great convergent movement of the nations tomake a world peace and an end to militant Germany was being obscured bythis second, entirely incompatible, vision of a world confused anddisorganised. Mrs. Fabers in great multitudes hoarding provisions, riotous crowds attacking shops, moratorium, shut banks and waitingqueues. Was it possible for the whole system to break down through ashock to its confidence? Without any sense of incongruity the dignifiedpacification of the planet had given place in his mind to these moreintimate possibilities. He heard a rustle behind him, and turned to facehis wife. 

"Do you think, " she asked, "that there is any chance of a shortage offood?"

"If all the Mrs. Fabers in the world run and grab--"

"Then every one must grab. I haven't much in the way of stores in thehouse. "

"H'm, " said Mr. Britling, and reflected.... "I don't think we must buystores now. "

"But if we are short. "

"It's the chances of war, " said Mr. Britling. 

He reflected. "Those who join a panic make a panic. After all, there isjust as much food in the world as there was last month. And short ofburning it the only way of getting rid of it is to eat it. And theharvests are good. Why begin a scramble at a groaning board?"

"But people _are_ scrambling! It would be awkward--with the children andeverything--if we ran short. "

"We shan't. And anyhow, you mustn't begin hoarding, even if it meanshardship. "

"Yes. But you won't like it if suddenly there's no sugar for your tea. "

Mr. Britling ignored this personal application. 

"What is far more serious than a food shortage is the possibility of amoney panic. "

He paced the lawn with her and talked. He said that even now very fewpeople realised the flimsiness of the credit system by which the modernworld was sustained. It was a huge growth of confidence, due verylargely to the uninquiring indolence of--everybody. It was sound so longas mankind did, on the whole, believe in it; give only a sufficient lossof faith and it might suffer any sort of collapse. It might vanishaltogether--as the credit system vanished at the breaking up of Italy bythe Goths--and leave us nothing but tangible things, real property, possession nine points of the law, and that sort of thing. Did sheremember that last novel of Gissing's?--"Veranilda, " it was called. Itwas a picture of the world when there was no wealth at all except whatone could carry hidden or guarded about with one. That sort of thingcame to the Roman Empire slowly, in the course of lifetimes, butnowadays we lived in a rapider world--with flimsier institutions. Nobodyknew the strength or the weakness of credit; nobody knew whether eventhe present shock might not send it smashing down.... And then all thelittle life we had lived so far would roll away.... 

Mrs. Britling, he noted, glanced ever and again at her sunlithouse--there were new sunblinds, and she had been happy in her choice ofa colour--and listened with a sceptical expression to thisdisquisition. 

"A few days ago, " said Mr. Britling, trying to make things concrete forher, "you and I together were worth five-and-twenty thousand pounds. Nowwe don't know what we are worth; whether we have lost a thousand or tenthousand.... "

He examined his sovereign purse and announced he had six pounds. "Whathave you?"

She had about eighteen pounds in the house. 

"We may have to get along with that for an indefinite time. "

"But the bank will open again presently, " she said. "And people abouthere trust us. "

"Suppose they don't?"

She did not trouble about the hypothesis. "And our investments willrecover. They always do recover. "

"Everything may recover, " he admitted. "But also nothing may recover. All this life of ours which has seemed so settled and secure--isn'tsecure. I have felt that we were fixed here and rooted--for all ourlives. Suppose presently things sweep us out of it? It's a possibilitywe may have to face. I feel this morning as if two enormous gates hadopened in our lives, like the gates that give upon an arena, gatesgiving on a darkness--through which anything might come. Even death. Suppose suddenly we were to see one of those great Zeppelins in the air, or hear the thunder of guns away towards the coast. And if a messengercame upon a bicycle telling us to leave everything and go inland.... "

"I see no reason why one should go out to meet things like that. "

"But there is no reason why one should not envisage them.... "

"The curious thing, " said Mr. Britling, pursuing his examination of thematter, "is that, looking at these things as one does now, as thingsquite possible, they are not nearly so terrifying and devastating to themind as they would have seemed--last week. I believe I should load youall into Gladys and start off westward with a kind of exhilaration.... "

She looked at him as if she would speak, and said nothing. She suspectedhim of hating his home and affecting to care for it out of politeness toher.... 

"Perhaps mankind tries too much to settle down. Perhaps these stirringsup have to occur to save us from our disposition to stuffy comfort. There's the magic call of the unknown experience, of dangers andhardships. One wants to go. But unless some push comes one does not go. There is a spell that keeps one to the lair and the old familiar ways. Now I am afraid--and at the same time I feel that the spell is broken. The magic prison is suddenly all doors. You may call this ruin, bankruptcy, invasion, flight; they are doors out of habit androutine.... I have been doing nothing for so long, except idle thingsand discursive things. "

"I thought that you managed to be happy here. You have done a lot ofwork. "

"Writing is recording, not living. But now I feel suddenly that we areliving intensely. It is as if the whole quality of life was changing. There are such times. There are times when the spirit of life changesaltogether. The old world knew that better than we do. It made adistinction between weekdays and Sabbaths, and between feasts and fastsand days of devotion. That is just what has happened now. Week-day rulesmust be put aside. Before--oh! three days ago, competition was fair, itwas fair and tolerable to get the best food one could and hold on toone's own. But that isn't right now. War makes a Sabbath, and we shutthe shops. The banks are shut, and the world still feels as thoughSunday was keeping on.... "

He saw his own way clear. 

"The scale has altered. It does not matter now in the least if we areruined. It does not matter in the least if we have to live upon potatoesand run into debt for our rent. These now are the most incidental ofthings. A week ago they would have been of the first importance. Here weare face to face with the greatest catastrophe and the greatestopportunity in history. We have to plunge through catastrophe toopportunity. There is nothing to be done now in the whole world exceptto get the best out of this tremendous fusing up of all the settledthings of life. " He had got what he wanted. He left her standing uponthe lawn and hurried back to his desk.... 

Section 6

When Mr. Britling, after a strenuous morning among high ideals, descended for lunch, he found Mr. Lawrence Carmine had come over to joinhim at that meal. Mr. Carmine was standing in the hall with his legsvery wide apart reading _The Times_ for the fourth time. "I can do nowork, " he said, turning round. "I can't fix my mind. I suppose we aregoing to war. I'd got so used to the war with Germany that I neverimagined it would happen. Gods! what a bore it will be.... And Maxse andall those scaremongers cock-a-hoop and 'I told you so. ' Damn theseGermans!"

He looked despondent and worried. He followed Mr. Britling towards thedining-room with his hands deep in his pockets. 

"It's going to be a tremendous thing, " he said, after he had greetedMrs. Britling and Hugh and Aunt Wilshire and Teddy, and seated himselfat Mr. Britling's hospitable board. "It's going to upset everything. Wedon't begin to imagine all the mischief it is going to do. "

Mr. Britling was full of the heady draught of liberal optimism he hadbeen brewing upstairs. "I am not sorry I have lived to see this war, " hesaid. "It may be a tremendous catastrophe in one sense, but in anotherit is a huge step forward in human life. It is the end of forty years ofevil suspense. It is crisis and solution. "

"I wish I could see it like that, " said Mr. Carmine. 

"It is like a thaw--everything has been in a frozen confusion since thatJew-German Treaty of Berlin. And since 1871. "

"Why not since Schleswig-Holstein?" said Mr. Carmine. 

"Why not? Or since the Treaty of Vienna?"

"Or since--One might go back. "

"To the Roman Empire, " said Hugh. 

"To the first conquest of all, " said Teddy.... 

"I couldn't work this morning, " said Hugh. "I have been reading in theEncyclopædia about races and religions in the Balkans.... It's verymixed. "

"So long as it could only be dealt with piecemeal, " said Mr. Britling. "And that is just where the tremendous opportunity of this war comes in. Now everything becomes fluid. We can redraw the map of the world. A weekago we were all quarrelling bitterly about things too little for humanimpatience. Now suddenly we face an epoch. This is an epoch. The worldis plastic for men to do what they will with it. This is the end and thebeginning of an age. This is something far greater than the FrenchRevolution or the Reformation.... And we live in it.... "

He paused impressively. 

"I wonder what will happen to Albania?" said Hugh, but his comment wasdisregarded. 

"War makes men bitter and narrow, " said Mr. Carmine. 

"War narrowly conceived, " said Mr. Britling. "But this is an indignantand generous war. "

They speculated about the possible intervention of the United States. Mr. Britling thought that the attack on Belgium demanded theintervention of every civilised power, that all the best instincts ofAmerica would be for intervention. "The more, " he said, "the quicker. "

"It would be strange if the last power left out to mediate were to beChina, " said Mr. Carmine. "The one people in the world who reallybelieve in peace.... I wish I had your confidence, Britling. "

For a time they contemplated a sort of Grand Inquest on Germany andmilitarism, presided over by the Wisdom of the East. Militarism was, asit were, to be buried as a suicide at four cross-roads, with a stakethrough its body to prevent any untimely resuscitation. 

Section 7

Mr. Britling was in a phase of imaginative release. Such a release wasone of the first effects of the war upon many educated minds. Thingsthat had seemed solid forever were visibly in flux; things that hadseemed stone were alive. Every boundary, every government, was seen forthe provisional thing it was. He talked of his World Congress meetingyear by year, until it ceased to be a speculation and became a mereintelligent anticipation; he talked of the "manifest necessity" of aSupreme Court for the world. He beheld that vision at the Hague, but Mr. Carmine preferred Delhi or Samarkand or Alexandria or Nankin. "Let usget away from the delusion of Europe anyhow, " said Mr. Carmine.... 

As Mr. Britling had sat at his desk that morning and surveyed thestupendous vistas of possibility that war was opening, the catastrophehad taken on a more and more beneficial quality. "I suppose that it isonly through such crises as these that the world can reconstructitself, " I said. And, on the whole that afternoon he was disposed tohope that the great military machine would not smash itself too easily. "We want the nations to feel the need of one another, " he said. "Toobrief a campaign might lead to a squabble for plunder. The Englishmanhas to learn his dependence on the Irishman, the Russian has to betaught the value of education and the friendship of the Pole.... Europewill now have to look to Asia, and recognise that Indians and Chinamemare also 'white. '... But these lessons require time and stresses ifthey are to be learnt properly.... "

They discussed the possible duration of the war. 

Mr. Carmine thought it would be a long struggle; Mr. Britling thoughtthat the Russians would be in Berlin by the next May. He was afraid theymight get there before the end of the year. He thought that the Germanswould beat out their strength upon the French and Belgian lines, andnever be free to turn upon the Russian at all. He was sure they hadunderrated the strength and energy of the French and of ourselves. "TheRussians meanwhile, " he said, "will come on, slowly, steadily, inevitably.... "

Section 8

That day of vast anticipations drew out into the afternoon. It was aday--obsessed. It was the precursor of a relentless series of doomed andfettered days. There was a sense of enormous occurrences going on justout of sound and sight--behind the mask of Essex peacefulness. From thisthere was no escape. It made all other interests fitful. Games ofBadminton were begun and abruptly truncated by the arrival of theevening papers; conversations started upon any topic whatever returnedto the war by the third and fourth remark.... 

After lunch Mr. Britling and Mr. Carmine went on talking. Nothing elsewas possible. They repeated things they had already said. They went intothings more thoroughly. They sat still for a time, and then suddenlybroke out with some new consideration.... 

It had been their custom to play skat with Herr Heinrich, who had shownthem the game very explicitly and thoroughly. But there was no longerany Herr Heinrich--and somehow German games were already out of fashion. The two philosophers admitted that they had already considered skat tobe complicated without subtlety, and that its chief delight for them hadbeen the pink earnestness of Herr Heinrich, his inability to grasptheir complete but tacit comprehension of its innocent strategy, and hisinvariable ill-success to bring off the coups that flashed before hisimagination. 

He would survey the destructive counter-stroke with unconcealedsurprise. He would verify his first impression by craning towards it andadjusting his glasses on his nose. He had a characteristic way of doingthis with one stiff finger on either side of his sturdy nose. 

"It is very fortunate for you that you have played that card, " he wouldsay, growing pinker and pinker with hasty cerebration. "Or else--yes"--aglance at his own cards--"it would have been altogether bad for you. Ihad taken only a very small risk.... Now I must--"

He would reconsider his hand. 

"_Zo!_" he would say, dashing down a card.... 

Well, he had gone and skat had gone. A countless multitude of such linkswere snapping that day between hundreds of thousands of English andGerman homes. 

Section 9

The imminence of war produced a peculiar exaltation in Aunt Wilshire. She developed a point of view that was entirely her own. 

It was Mr. Britling's habit, a habit he had set himself to acquire aftermuch irritating experience, to disregard Aunt Wilshire. She was not, strictly speaking, his aunt; she was one of those distant cousins wefind already woven into our lives when we attain to years ofresponsibility. She had been a presence in his father's household whenMr. Britling was a boy. Then she had been called "Jane, " or "CousinJane, " or "Your cousin Wilshire. " It had been a kindly freak of Mr. Britling's to promote her to Aunty rank. 

She eked out a small inheritance by staying with relatives. Mr. Britling's earlier memories presented her as a slender young woman ofthirty, with a nose upon which small boys were forbidden to comment. Yetshe commented upon it herself, and called his attention to its markedresemblance to that of the great Duke of Wellington. "He was, I amtold, " said Cousin Wilshire to the attentive youth, "a great friend ofyour great-grandmother's. At any rate, they were contemporaries. Sincethen this nose has been in the family. He would have been the last todraw a veil over it, but other times, other manners. 'Publish, ' he said, 'and be damned. '"

She had a knack of exasperating Mr. Britling's father, a knack which toa less marked degree she also possessed in relation to the son. But Mr. Britling senior never acquired the art of disregarding her. Hermethod--if one may call the natural expression of a personality amethod--was an invincibly superior knowledge, a firm and ill-concealedbelief that all statements made in her hearing were wrong and most ofthem absurd, and a manner calm, assured, restrained. She may have beenborn with it; it is on record that at the age of ten she was pronounceda singularly trying child. She may have been born with the air ofthinking the doctor a muff and knowing how to manage all this businessbetter. Mr. Britling had known her only in her ripeness. As a boy, hehad enjoyed her confidences--about other people and the general neglectof her advice. He grew up rather to like her--most people rather likedher--and to attach a certain importance to her unattainable approval. She was sometimes kind, she was frequently absurd.... 

With very little children she was quite wise and Jolly.... 

So she circulated about a number of houses which at any rate alwayswelcomed her coming. In the opening days of each visit she performedmarvels of tact, and set a watch upon her lips. Then the demons ofcontroversy and dignity would get the better of her. She would begin tocorrect, quietly but firmly, she would begin to disapprove of the toneand quality of her treatment. It was quite common for her visit toterminate in speechless rage both on the side of host and of visitor. The remarkable thing was that this speechless rage never endured. Thoughshe could exasperate she could never offend. Always after an intervalduring which she was never mentioned, people began to wonder how CousinJane was getting on.... A tentative correspondence would begin, leadingslowly up to a fresh invitation. 

She spent more time in Mr. Britling's house than in any other. There wasa legend that she had "drawn out" his mind, and that she had "stood up"for him against his father. She had certainly contradicted quite anumber of those unfavourable comments that fathers are wont to makeabout their sons. Though certainly she contradicted everything. And Mr. Britling hated to think of her knocking about alone in boarding-housesand hydropathic establishments with only the most casual chances forcontradiction. 

Moreover, he liked to see her casting her eye over the morning paper. She did it with a manner as though she thought the terrestrial globe agreat fool, and quite beyond the reach of advice. And as though sheunderstood and was rather amused at the way in which the newspaperpeople tried to keep back the real facts of the case from her. 

And now she was scornfully entertained at the behaviour of everybody inthe war crisis. 

She confided various secrets of state to the elder of the youngerBritlings--preferably when his father was within earshot. 

"None of these things they are saying about the war, " she said, "reallymatter in the slightest degree. It is all about a spoilt carpet andnothing else in the world--a madman and a spoilt carpet. If people hadpaid the slightest attention to common sense none of this war would havehappened. The thing was perfectly well known. He was a delicate child, difficult to rear and given to screaming fits. Consequently he was nevercrossed, allowed to do everything. Nobody but his grandmother had theslightest influence with him. And she prevented him spoiling this carpetas completely as he wished to do. The story is perfectly well known. Itwas at Windsor--at the age of eight. After that he had but one thought:war with England.... 

"Everybody seemed surprised, " she said suddenly at tea to Mr. Carmine. "I at least am not surprised. I am only surprised it did not comesooner. If any one had asked me I could have told them, three years, five years ago. "

The day was one of flying rumours, Germany was said to have declared waron Italy, and to have invaded Holland as well as Belgium. 

"They'll declare war against the moon next!" said Aunt Wilshire. 

"And send a lot of Zeppelins, " said the smallest boy. "Herr Heinrichtold us they can fly thousands of miles. "

"He will go on declaring war until there is nothing left to declare waragainst. That is exactly what he has always done. Once started he cannotdesist. Often he has had to be removed from the dinner-table for fear ofinjury. _Now_, it is ultimatums. "

She was much pleased by a headline in the _Daily Express_ that streamedright across the page: "The Mad Dog of Europe. " Nothing else, she said, had come so near her feelings about the war. 

"Mark my words, " said Aunt Wilshire in her most impressive tones. "He isinsane. It will be proved to be so. He will end his days in anasylum--as a lunatic. I have felt it myself for years and said so inprivate.... Knowing what I did.... To such friends as I could trust notto misunderstand me.... Now at least I can speak out. 

"With his moustaches turned up!" exclaimed Aunt Wilshire after aninterval of accumulation.... "They say he has completely lost the use ofthe joint in his left arm, he carries it stiff like a Punch andJudy--and he wants to conquer Europe.... While his grandmother livedthere was some one to keep him in order. He stood in Awe of her. Hehated her, but he did not dare defy her. Even his uncle had someinfluence. Now, nothing restrains him. 

"A double-headed mad dog, " said Aunt Wilshire. "Him and his eagles!... Aman like that ought never to have been allowed to make a war.... Noteven a little war.... If he had been put under restraint when I said so, none of these things would have happened. But, of course I am nobody.... It was not considered worth attending to. "

Section 10

One remarkable aspect of the English attitude towards the war was thedisposition to treat it as a monstrous joke. It is a dispositiontraceable in a vast proportion of the British literature of the time. Inspite of violence, cruelty, injustice, and the vast destruction andstill vaster dangers of the struggles, that disposition held. TheEnglish mind refused flatly to see anything magnificent or terrible inthe German attack, or to regard the German Emperor or the Crown Princeas anything more than figures of fun. From first to last theirconception of the enemy was an overstrenuous, foolish man, red witheffort, with protruding eyes and a forced frightfulness of demeanour. That he might be tremendously lethal did not in the least obscure thefact that he was essentially ridiculous. And if as the war went on thejoke grew grimmer, still it remained a joke. The German might make adesert of the world; that could not alter the British conviction that hewas making a fool of himself. 

And this disposition kept coming to the surface throughout theafternoon, now in a casual allusion, now in some deliberate jest. Thesmall boys had discovered the goose step, and it filled their littlesouls with amazement and delight. That human beings should consent tothose ridiculous paces seemed to them almost incredibly funny. Theytried it themselves, and then set out upon a goose-step propaganda. Letty and Cissie had come up to the Dower House for tea and news, andthey were enrolled with Teddy and Hugh. The six of them, chuckling andswaying, marched, in vast scissor strides across the lawn. "Left, " criedHugh. "Left. "

"Toes _out_ more, " said Mr. Lawrence Carmine. 

"Keep stiffer, " said the youngest Britling. 

"Watch the Zeppelins and look proud, " said Hugh. "With the chest out. _Zo!_"

Mrs. Britling was so much amused that she went in for her camera, andtook a snapshot of the detachment. It was a very successful snapshot, and a year later Mr. Britling was to find a print of it among hispapers, and recall the sunshine and the merriment.... 

Section 11

That night brought the British declaration of war against Germany. Tonearly every Englishman that came as a matter of course, and it is oneof the most wonderful facts in history that the Germans were surprisedby it. When Mr. Britling, as a sample Englishman, had said that therewould never be war between Germany and England, he had always meant thatit was inconceivable to him that Germany should ever attack Belgium orFrance. If Germany had been content to fight a merely defensive war uponher western frontier and let Belgium alone, there would scarcely havebeen such a thing as a war party in Great Britain. But the attack uponBelgium, the westward thrust, made the whole nation flame unanimouslyinto war. It settled a question that was in open debate up to the veryoutbreak of the conflict. Up to the last the English had cherished theidea that in Germany, just as in England, the mass of people werekindly, pacific, and detached. That had been the English mistake. Germany was really and truly what Germany had been professing to be forforty years, a War State. With a sigh--and a long-forgottenthrill--England roused herself to fight. Even now she still rousedherself sluggishly. It was going to be an immense thing, but just howimmense it was going to be no one in England had yet imagined. 

Countless men that day whom Fate had marked for death and wounds staredopen-mouthed at the news, and smiled with the excitement of theheadlines, not dreaming that any of these things would come within threehundred miles of them. What was war to Matching's Easy--to all theMatching's Easies great and small that make up England? The last homethat was ever burnt by an enemy within a hundred miles of Matching'sEasy was burnt by the Danes rather more than a thousand years ago.... And the last trace of those particular Danes in England were certainhorny scraps of indurated skin under the heads of the nails in the doorof St. Clement Danes in London.... 

Now again, England was to fight in a war which was to light fires inEngland and bring death to English people on English soil. There wereinconceivable ideas in August, 1914. Such things must happen before theycan be comprehended as possible. 

Section 12

This story is essentially the history of the opening and of therealisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of peoplein Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human brain. Itcame at first to all these people in a spectacular manner, as a thinghappening dramatically and internationally, as a show, as something inthe newspapers, something in the character of an historical epoch ratherthan a personal experience; only by slow degrees did it and itsconsequences invade the common texture of English life. If this storycould be represented by sketches or pictures the central figure would beMr. Britling, now sitting at his desk by day or by night and writingfirst at his tract "And Now War Ends" and then at other things, nowwalking about his garden or in Claverings park or going to and fro inLondon, in his club reading the ticker or in his hall reading thenewspaper, with ideas and impressions continually clustering, expanding, developing more and more abundantly in his mind, arranging themselves, reacting upon one another, building themselves into generalisations andconclusions.... 

All Mr. Britling's mental existence was soon threaded on the war. Hismore or less weekly _Times_ leader became dissertations upon the Germanpoint of view; his reviews of books and Literary Supplement articleswere all oriented more and more exactly to that one supreme fact.... 

It was rare that he really seemed to be seeing the war; few people sawit; for most of the world it came as an illimitable multitude ofincoherent, loud, and confusing impressions. But all the time he was atleast doing his utmost to see the war, to simplify it and extract theessence of it until it could be apprehended as something epic andexplicable, as a stateable issue.... 

Most typical picture of all would be Mr. Britling writing in a littlecircle of orange lamplight, with the blinds of his room open for thesake of the moonlight, but the window shut to keep out the moths thatbeat against it. Outside would be the moon and the high summer sky andthe old church tower dim above the black trees half a mile away, withits clock--which Mr. Britling heard at night but never noted byday--beating its way round the slow semicircle of the nocturnal hours. He had always hated conflict and destruction, and felt that war betweencivilised states was the quintessential expression of human failure, itwas a stupidity that stopped progress and all the free variation ofhumanity, a thousand times he had declared it impossible, but even nowwith his country fighting he was still far from realising that this wasa thing that could possibly touch him more than intellectually. He didnot really believe with his eyes and finger-tips and backbone thatmurder, destruction, and agony on a scale monstrous beyond precedent wasgoing on in the same world as that which slumbered outside the black ivyand silver shining window-sill that framed his peaceful view. 

War had not been a reality of the daily life of England for more than athousand years. The mental habit of the nation for fifty generations wasagainst its emotional recognition. The English were the spoilt childrenof peace. They had never been wholly at war for three hundred years, andfor over eight hundred years they had not fought for life against aforeign power. Spain and France had threatened in turn, but never evencrossed the seas. It is true that England had had her civil dissensionsand had made wars and conquests in every part of the globe andestablished an immense empire, but that last, as Mr. Britling had toldMr. Direck, was "an excursion. " She had just sent out younger sons andsurplus people, emigrants and expeditionary forces. Her own soil hadnever seen any successful foreign invasion; her homeland, the bulk ofher households, her general life, had gone on untouched by these things. Nineteen people out of twenty, the middle class and most of the lowerclass, knew no more of the empire than they did of the ArgentineRepublic or the Italian Renaissance. It did not concern them. War thatcalls upon every man and threatens every life in the land, war of thewhole national being, was a thing altogether outside English experienceand the scope of the British imagination. It was still incredible, itwas still outside the range of Mr. Britling's thoughts all through thetremendous onrush and check of the German attack in the west that openedthe great war. Through those two months he was, as it were, a more andmore excited spectator at a show, a show like a baseball match, aspectator with money on the event, rather than a really participatingcitizen of a nation thoroughly at war.... 

Section 13

After the jolt of the food panic and a brief, financial scare, the vastinertia of everyday life in England asserted itself. When the publicwent to the banks for the new paper money, the banks tenderedgold--apologetically. The supply of the new notes was very insufficient, and there was plenty of gold. After the first impression that auniversal catastrophe had happened there was an effect as if nothing hadhappened. 

Shops re-opened after the Bank Holiday, in a tentative spirit thatspeedily became assurance; people went about their business again, andthe war, so far as the mass of British folk were concerned, was for someweeks a fever of the mind and intelligence rather than a physical andpersonal actuality. There was a keen demand for news, and for a timethere was very little news. The press did its best to cope with thisimmense occasion. Led by the _Daily Express_, all the halfpennynewspapers adopted a new and more resonant sort of headline, thestreamer, a band of emphatic type that ran clean across the page andannounced victories or disconcerting happenings. They did this everyday, whether there was a great battle or the loss of a trawler toannounce, and the public mind speedily adapted itself to the new pitch. 

There was no invitation from the government and no organisation for anygeneral participation in war. People talked unrestrictedly; every oneseemed to be talking; they waved flags and displayed much vaguewillingness to do something. Any opportunity of service was taken veryeagerly. Lord Kitchener was understood to have demanded five hundredthousand men; the War Office arrangements for recruiting, arrangementsconceived on a scale altogether too small, were speedily overwhelmed bya rush of willing young men. The flow had to be checked by raising thephysical standard far above the national average, and recruiting dieddown to manageable proportions. There was a quite genuine belief thatthe war might easily be too exclusively considered; that for the greatmass of people it was a disturbing and distracting rather than a vitalinterest. The phase "Business as Usual" ran about the world, and thepapers abounded in articles in which going on as though there was no warat all was demonstrated to be the truest form of patriotism. "Leavethings to Kitchener" was another watchword with a strong appeal to thenational quality. "Business as usual during Alterations to the Map ofEurope" was the advertisement of one cheerful barber, widely quoted.... 

Hugh was at home all through August. He had thrown up his rooms inLondon with his artistic ambitions, and his father was making all thenecessary arrangements for him to follow Cardinal to Cambridge. Meanwhile Hugh was taking up his scientific work where he had laid itdown. He gave a reluctant couple of hours in the afternoon to themysteries of Little-go Greek, and for the rest of his time he was eitherworking at mathematics and mathematical physics or experimenting in alittle upstairs room that had been carved out of the general space ofthe barn. It was only at the very end of August that it dawned upon himor Mr. Britling that the war might have more than a spectacular andsympathetic appeal for him. Hitherto contemporary history had happenedwithout his personal intervention. He did not see why it should notcontinue to happen with the same detachment. The last elections--and ageneral election is really the only point at which the life of thereasonable Englishman becomes in any way public--had happened four yearsago, when he was thirteen. 

Section 14

For a time it was believed in Matching's Easy that the German armies hadbeen defeated and very largely destroyed at Liège. It was a mistake notconfined to Matching's Easy. 

The first raiding attack was certainly repulsed with heavy losses, andso were the more systematic assaults on August the sixth and seventh. After that the news from Liège became uncertain, but it was believed inEngland that some or all of the forts were still holding out right up tothe German entry into Brussels. Meanwhile the French were pushing intotheir lost provinces, occupying Altkirch, Mulhausen and Saarburg; theRussians were invading Bukovina and East Prussia; the _Goeben_, the_Breslau_ and the _Panther_ had been sunk by the newspapers in animaginary battle in the Mediterranean, and Togoland was captured by theFrench and British. Neither the force nor the magnitude of the Germanattack through Belgium was appreciated by the general mind, and it waspossible for Mr. Britling to reiterate his fear that the war would beover too soon, long before the full measure of its possible benefitscould be secured. But these apprehensions were unfounded; the lessonsthe war had in store for Mr. Britling were far more drastic thananything he was yet able to imagine even in his most exalted moods. 

He resisted the intimations of the fall of Brussels and the appearanceof the Germans at Dinant. The first real check to his excessiveanticipations of victory for the Allies came with the suddenreappearance of Mr. Direck in a state of astonishment and dismay atMatching's Easy. He wired from the Strand office, "Coming to tell youabout things, " and arrived on the heels of his telegram. 

He professed to be calling upon Mr. And Mrs. Britling, and to a certainextent he was; but he had a quick eye for the door or windows; hisglance roved irrelevantly as he talked. A faint expectation of Cissiecame in with him and hovered about him, as the scent of violets followsthe flower. 

He was, however, able to say quite a number of things before Mr. Britling's natural tendency to do the telling asserted itself. 

"My word, " said Mr. Direck, "but this is _some_ war. It is going onregardless of every decent consideration. As an American citizen Inaturally expected to be treated with some respect, war or no war. Thatexpectation has not been realised.... Europe is dislocated.... You haveno idea here yet how completely Europe is dislocated.... 

"I came to Europe in a perfectly friendly spirit--and I must say I amsurprised. Practically I have been thrown out, neck and crop. All myluggage is lost. Away at some one-horse junction near the Dutch frontierthat I can't even learn the name of. There's joy in some German home, Iguess, over my shirts; they were real good shirts. This tweed suit Ihave is all the wardrobe I've got in the world. All my money--goodAmerican notes--well, they laughed at them. And when I produced Englishgold they suspected me of being English and put me under arrest.... Ican assure you that the English are most unpopular in Germany at thepresent time, thoroughly unpopular.... Considering that they are gettingexactly what they were asking for, these Germans are really remarkablyannoyed.... Well, I had to get the American consul to advance me money, and I've done more waiting about and irregular fasting and travelling onan empty stomach and viewing the world, so far as it was permitted, fromrailway sidings--for usually they made us pull the blinds down whenanything important was on the track--than any cow that ever came toChicago.... I was handed as freight--low grade freight.... It doesn'tbear recalling. "

Mr. Direck assumed as grave and gloomy an expression as the facialhabits of years would permit. 

"I tell you I never knew there was such a thing as war until thishappened to me. In America we don't know there is such a thing. It'slike pestilence and famine; something in the story books. We'veforgotten it for anything real. There's just a few grandfathers goaround talking about it. Judge Holmes and sage old fellows like him. Otherwise it's just a game the kids play at.... And then suddenly here'severybody running about in the streets--hating and threatening--and niceold gentlemen with white moustaches and fathers of families scheming andplanning to burn houses and kill and hurt and terrify. And nice youngwomen, too, looking for an Englishman to spit at; I tell you I've beenwithin range and very uncomfortable several times.... And what one can'tbelieve is that they are really doing these things. There's a littlevillage called Visé near the Dutch frontier; some old chap got foolingthere with a fowling-piece; and they've wiped it out. Shot the people bythe dozen, put them out in rows three deep and shot them, and burnt theplace. Short of scalping, Red Indians couldn't have done worse. Respectable German soldiers.... 

"No one in England really seems to have any suspicion what is going onin Belgium. You hear stories--People tell them in Holland. It takes yourbreath away. They have set out just to cow those Belgians. They havestarted in to be deliberately frightful. You do not begin tounderstand.... Well.... Outrages. The sort of outrages Americans havenever heard of. That one doesn't speak of.... Well.... Rape.... Theyhave been raping women for disciplinary purposes on tables in themarket-place of Liège. Yes, sir. It's a fact. I was told it by a man whohad just come out of Belgium. Knew the people, knew the place, kneweverything. People over here do not seem to realise that those women arethe same sort of women that you might find in Chester or Yarmouth, or inMatching's Easy for the matter of that. They still seem to think thatContinental women are a different sort of women--more amenable to thatsort of treatment. They seem to think there is some special Providentiallaw against such things happening to English people. And it's withintwo hundred miles of you--even now. And as far as I can see there'sprecious little to prevent it coming nearer.... "

Mr. Britling thought there were a few little obstacles. 

"I've seen the new British army drilling in London, Mr. Britling. Idon't know if you have. I saw a whole battalion. And they hadn't gothalf-a-dozen uniforms, and not a single rifle to the whole battalion. 

"You don't begin to realise in England what you are up against. You haveno idea what it means to be in a country where everybody, the women, theelderly people, the steady middle-aged men, are taking war as seriouslyas business. They haven't the slightest compunction. I don't know whatGermany was like before the war, I had hardly gotten out of my trainbefore the war began; but Germany to-day is one big armed camp. It's allcrawling with soldiers. And every soldier has his uniform and his bootsand his arms and his kit. 

"And they're as sure of winning as if they had got London now. They meanto get London. They're cocksure they are going to walk through Belgium, cocksure they will get to Paris by Sedan day, and then they are going todestroy your fleet with Zeppelins and submarines and make a dash acrossthe Channel. They say it's England they are after, in this invasion ofBelgium. They'll just down France by the way. They say they've got gunsto bombard Dover from Calais. They make a boast of it. They know forcertain you can't arm your troops. They know you can't turn out tenthousand rifles a week. They come and talk to any one in the trains, andexplain just how your defeat is going to be managed. It's just as thoughthey were talking of rounding up cattle. "

Mr. Britling said they would soon be disillusioned. 

Mr. Direck, with the confidence of his authentic observations, remarkedafter a perceptible interval, "I wonder how. "

He reverted to the fact that had most struck upon his imagination. 

"Grown-up people, ordinary intelligent experienced people, taking warseriously, talking of punishing England; it's a revelation. A sort ofsolemn enthusiasm. High and low.... 

"And the trainloads of men and the trainloads of guns.... "

"Liège, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Liège was just a scratch on the paint, " said Mr. Direck. "A fewthousand dead, a few score thousand dead, doesn't matter--not a red centto them. There's a man arrived at the Cecil who saw them marching intoBrussels. He sat at table with me at lunch yesterday. All day it wenton, a vast unending river of men in grey. Endless waggons, endless guns, the whole manhood of a nation and all its stuff, marching.... 

"I thought war, " said Mr. Direck, "was a thing when most people stoodabout and did the shouting, and a sort of special team did the fighting. Well, Germany isn't fighting like that.... I confess it, I'm scared.... It's the very biggest thing on record; it's the very limit in wars.... Idreamt last night of a grey flood washing everything in front of it. Youand me--and Miss Corner--curious thing, isn't it? that she came intoit--were scrambling up a hill higher and higher, with that flood pouringafter us. Sort of splashing into a foam of faces and helmets andbayonets--and clutching hands--and red stuff.... Well, Mr. Britling, Iadmit I'm a little bit overwrought about it, but I can assure you youdon't begin to realise in England what it is you've butted against.... "

Section 15

Cissie did not come up to the Dower House that afternoon, and so Mr. Direck, after some vague and transparent excuses, made his way to thecottage. 

Here his report become even more impressive. Teddy sat on the writingdesk beside the typewriter and swung his legs slowly. Letty brooded inthe armchair. Cissie presided over certain limited crawling operationsof the young heir. 

"They could have the equal of the whole British Army killed three timesover and scarcely know it had happened. They're _all_ in it. It's awhole country in arms. "

Teddy nodded thoughtfully. 

"There's our fleet, " said Letty. 

"Well, _that_ won't save Paris, will it?"

Mr. Direck didn't, he declared, want to make disagreeable talk, but thiswas a thing people in England had to face. He felt like one of themhimself--"naturally. " He'd sort of hurried home to them--it was justlike hurrying home--to tell them of the tremendous thing that was goingto hit them. He felt like a man in front of a flood, a great grey flood. He couldn't hide what he had been thinking. "Where's our army?" askedLetty suddenly. 

"Lost somewhere in France, " said Teddy. "Like a needle in a bottle ofhay. "

"What I keep on worrying at is this, " Mr. Direck resumed. "Suppose theydid come, suppose somehow they scrambled over, sixty or seventy thousandmen perhaps. "

"Every man would turn out and take a shot at them, " said Letty. 

"But there's no rifles!"

"There's shot guns. "

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of, " said Mr. Direck. "They'dmassacre.... 

"You may be the bravest people on earth, " said Mr. Direck, "but if youhaven't got arms and the other chaps have--you're just as if you weresheep. "

He became gloomily pensive. 

He roused himself to describe his experiences at some length, and theextraordinary disturbance of his mind. He related more particularly hisattempts to see the sights of Cologne during the stir of mobilisation. After a time his narrative flow lost force, and there was a generalfeeling that he ought to be left alone with Cissie. Teddy had a letterthat must be posted; Letty took the infant to crawl on the mossy stonesunder the pear tree. Mr. Direck leant against the window-sill and becamesilent for some moments after the door had closed on Letty. 

"As for you, Cissie, " he began at last, "I'm anxious. I'm real anxious. I wish you'd let me throw the mantle of Old Glory over you. "

He looked at her earnestly. 

"Old Glory?" asked Cissie. 

"Well--the Stars and Stripes. I want you to be able to claim Americancitizenship--in certain eventualities. It wouldn't be so very difficult. All the world over, Cissie, Americans are respected.... Nobody darestouch an American citizen. We are--an inviolate people. "

He paused. "But how?" asked Cissie. 

"It would be perfectly easy--perfectly. "

"How?"

"Just marry an American citizen, " said Mr. Direck, with his face beamingwith ingenuous self-approval. "Then you'd be safe, and I'd not have toworry. "

"Because we're in for a stiff war!" cried Cissie, and Direck perceivedhe had blundered. 

"Because we may be invaded!" she said, and Mr. Direck's sense of errordeepened. 

"I vow--" she began. 

"No!" cried Mr. Direck, and held out a hand. 

There was a moment of crisis. 

"Never will I desert my country--while she is at war, " said Cissie, reducing her first fierce intention, and adding as though she regrettedher concession, "Anyhow. "

"Then it's up to me to end the war, Cissie, " said Mr. Direck, trying toget her back to a less spirited attitude. 

But Cissie wasn't to be got back so easily. The war was alreadybeckoning to them in the cottage, and drawing them down from theauditorium into the arena. 

"This is the rightest war in history, " she said. "If I was an American Ishould be sorry to be one now and to have to stand out of it. I wish Iwas a man now so that I could do something for all the decency andcivilisation the Germans have outraged. I can't understand how any mancan be content to keep out of this, and watch Belgium being destroyed. It is like looking on at a murder. It is like watching a dog killing akitten.... "

Mr. Direck's expression was that of a man who is suddenly shown strangelights upon the world. 

Section 16

Mr. Britling found Mr. Direck's talk very indigestible. 

He was parting very reluctantly from his dream of a disastrous collapseof German imperialism, of a tremendous, decisive demonstration of theinherent unsoundness of militarist monarchy, to be followed by a worldconference of chastened but hopeful nations, and--the Millennium. Hetried now to think that Mr. Direck had observed badly and misconceivedwhat he saw. An American, unused to any sort of military occurrences, might easily mistake tens of thousands for millions, and the excitementof a few commercial travellers for the enthusiasm of a united people. But the newspapers now, with a kindred reluctance, were beginning toqualify, bit by bit, their first representation of the German attackthrough Belgium as a vast and already partly thwarted parade ofincompetence. The Germans, he gathered, were being continually beaten inBelgium; but just as continually they advanced. Each fresh newspapername he looked up on the map marked an oncoming tide. Alost--Charleroi. Farther east the French were retreating from the Saales Pass. Surely theBritish, who had now been in France for a fortnight, would presently bemanifest, stemming the onrush; somewhere perhaps in Brabant or EastFlanders. It gave Mr. Britling an unpleasant night to hear at Claveringsthat the French were very ill-equipped; had no good modern guns eitherat Lille or Maubeuge, were short of boots and equipment generally, andrather depressed already at the trend of things. Mr. Britling dismissedthis as pessimistic talk, and built his hopes on the still invisibleBritish army, hovering somewhere--

He would sit over the map of Belgium, choosing where he would prefer tohave the British hover.... 

Namur fell. The place names continued to shift southward and westward. The British army or a part of it came to light abruptly at Mons. It hadbeen fighting for thirty-eight hours and defeating enormously superiorforces of the enemy. That was reassuring until a day or so later "theCambray--Le Cateau line" made Mr. Britling realise that the victoriousBritish had recoiled five and twenty miles.... 

And then came the Sunday of _The Times_ telegram, which spoke of a"retreating and a broken army. " Mr. Britling did not see this, but Mr. Manning brought over the report of it in a state of profoundconsternation. Things, he said, seemed to be about as bad as they couldbe. The English were retreating towards the coast and in much disorder. They were "in the air" and already separated from the Trench. They hadnarrowly escaped "a Sedan" under the fortifications of Maubeuge.... Mr. Britling was stunned. He went to his study and stared helplessly atmaps. It was as if David had flung his pebble--and missed!

But in the afternoon Mr. Manning telephoned to comfort his friend. Areassuring despatch from General French had been published and--all waswell--practically--and the British had been splendid. They had beenfighting continuously for several days round and about Mons; they hadbeen attacked at odds of six to one, and they had repulsed andinflicted enormous losses on the enemy. They had established anincontestable personal superiority over the Germans. The Germans hadbeen mown down in heaps; the British had charged through their cavalrylike charging through paper. So at last and very gloriously for theBritish, British and German had met in battle. After the hard fightingof the 26th about Landrecies, the British had been comparativelyunmolested, reinforcements covering double the losses had joined themand the German advance was definitely checked ... Mr. Britling's mindswung back to elation. He took down the entire despatch from Mr. Manning's dictation, and ran out with it into the garden where Mrs. Britling, with an unwonted expression of anxiety, was presiding over theteas of the usual casual Sunday gathering.... The despatch was readaloud twice over. After that there was hockey and high spirits, and thenMr. Britling went up to his study to answer a letter from Mrs. Harrowdean, the first letter that had come from her since their breachat the outbreak of the war, and which he was now in a better mood toanswer than he had been hitherto. 

She had written ignoring his silence and absence, or rather treating itas if it were an incident of no particular importance. Apparently shehad not called upon the patient and devoted Oliver as she hadthreatened; at any rate, there were no signs of Oliver in hercommunication. But she reproached Mr. Britling for deserting her, andshe clamoured for his presence and for kind and strengthening words. Shewas, she said, scared by this war. She was only a little thing, and itwas all too dreadful, and there was not a soul in the world to hold herhand, at least no one who understood in the slightest degree how shefelt. (But why was not Oliver holding her hand?) She was like a childleft alone in the dark. It was perfectly horrible the way that peoplewere being kept in the dark. The stories one heard, "_often from quitetrustworthy sources_, " were enough to depress and terrify any one. Battleship after battleship had been sunk by German torpedoes, a thingkept secret from us for no earthly reason, and Prince Louis ofBattenberg had been discovered to be a spy and had been sent to theTower. Haldane too was a spy. Our army in France had been "practically_sold_" by the French. Almost all the French generals were in Germanpay. The censorship and the press were keeping all this back, but whatgood was it to keep it back? It was folly not to trust people! But itwas all too dreadful for a poor little soul whose only desire was tolive happily. Why didn't he come along to her and make her feel she hadprotecting arms round her? She couldn't think in the daytime: shecouldn't sleep at night.... 

Then she broke away into the praises of serenity. Never had she thoughtso much of his beautiful "Silent Places" as she did now. How she longedto take refuge in some such dreamland from violence and treachery andfoolish rumours! She was weary of every reality. She wanted to fly awayinto some secret hiding-place and cultivate her simple garden there--asVoltaire had done.... Sometimes at night she was afraid to undress. Sheimagined the sound of guns, she imagined landings and frightful scouts"in masks" rushing inland on motor bicycles.... 

It was an ill-timed letter. The nonsense about Prince Louis ofBattenberg and Lord Haldane and the torpedoed battleships annoyed himextravagantly. He had just sufficient disposition to believe such talesas to find their importunity exasperating. The idea of going over toPyecrafts to spend his days in comforting a timid little dear obsessedby such fears, attracted him not at all. He had already heard enoughadverse rumours at Claverings to make him thoroughly uncomfortable. Hehad been doubting whether after all his "Examination of War" was reallymuch less of a futility than "And Now War Ends"; his mind was full of asense of incomplete statements and unsubstantial arguments. He wasindeed in a state of extreme intellectual worry. He was moreoverextraordinarily out of love with Mrs. Harrowdean. Never had anyaffection in the whole history of Mr. Britling's heart collapsed soswiftly and completely. He was left incredulous of ever having cared forher at all. Probably he hadn't. Probably the whole business had beendeliberate illusion from first to last. The "dear little thing"business, he felt, was all very well as a game of petting, but timeswere serious now, and a woman of her intelligence should do somethingbetter than wallow in fears and elaborate a winsome feebleness. A veryunnecessary and tiresome feebleness. He came almost to the pitch ofwriting that to her. 

The despatch from General French put him into a kindlier frame of mind. He wrote instead briefly but affectionately. As a gentleman should. "Howcould you doubt our fleet or our army?" was the gist of his letter. Heignored completely every suggestion of a visit to Pyecrafts that herletter had conveyed. He pretended that it had contained nothing of thesort.... And with that she passed out of his mind again under the stressof more commanding interests.... 

Mr. Britling's mood of relief did not last through the week. Thedefeated Germans continued to advance. Through a week of deepeningdisillusionment the main tide of battle rolled back steadily towardsParis. Lille was lost without a struggle. It was lost with mysteriousease.... The next name to startle Mr. Britling as he sat with newspaperand atlas following these great events was Compiègne. "Here!" Manifestlythe British were still in retreat. Then the Germans were in possessionof Laon and Rheims and still pressing south. Maubeuge surrounded and cutoff for some days, had apparently fallen.... 

It was on Sunday, September the sixth, that the final capitulation ofMr. Britling's facile optimism occurred. 

He stood in the sunshine reading the _Observer_ which the gardener's boyhad just brought from the May Tree. He had spread it open on a gardentable under the blue cedar, and father and son were both reading it, each as much as the other would let him. There was fresh news fromFrance, a story of further German advances, fighting at Senlis--"Butthat is quite close to Paris!"--and the appearance of German forces atNogent-sur-Seine. "Sur Seine!" cried Mr. Britling. "But where can thatbe? South of the Marne? Or below Paris perhaps?"

It was not marked upon the _Observer's_ map, and Hugh ran into the housefor the atlas. 

When he returned Mr. Manning was with his father, and they both lookedgrave. 

Hugh opened the map of northern France. "Here it is, " he said. 

Mr. Britling considered the position. 

"Manning says they are at Rouen, " he told Hugh. "Our base is to be movedround to La Rochelle.... "

He paused before the last distasteful conclusion. 

"Practically, " he admitted, taking his dose, "they have got Paris. It isalmost surrounded now. "

He sat down to the map. Mr. Manning and Hugh stood regarding him. Hemade a last effort to imagine some tremendous strategic reversal, somestone from an unexpected sling that should fell this Goliath in themidst of his triumph. 

"Russia, " he said, without any genuine hope.... 

Section 17

And then it was that Mr. Britling accepted the truth. 

"One talks, " he said, "and then weeks and months later one learns themeaning of the things one has been saying. I was saying a month ago thatthis is the biggest thing that has happened in history. I said thatthis was the supreme call upon the will and resources of England. Isaid there was not a life in all our empire that would not be vitallychanged by this war. I said all these things; they came through mymouth; I suppose there was a sort of thought behind them.... Only atthis moment do I understand what it is that I said. Now--let me say itover as if I had never said it before; this _is_ the biggest thing inhistory, that we _are_ all called upon to do our utmost to resist thistremendous attack upon the peace and freedom of the world. Well, doingour utmost does not mean standing about in pleasant gardens waiting forthe newspaper.... It means the abandonment of ease and security.... 

"How lazy we English are nowadays! How readily we grasp the comfortingdelusion that excuses us from exertion. For the last three weeks I havebeen deliberately believing that a little British army--they say it isscarcely a hundred thousand men--would somehow break this rush ofmillions. But it has been driven back, as any one not in love with easydreams might have known it would be driven back--here and then here andthen here. It has been fighting night and day. It has made the mostsplendid fight--and the most ineffectual fight.... You see the vastswing of the German flail through Belgium. And meanwhile we have beenstanding about talking of the use we would make of our victory.... 

"We have been asleep, " he said. "This country has been asleep.... 

"At the back of our minds, " he went on bitterly, "I suppose we thoughtthe French would do the heavy work on land--while we stood by at sea. Sofar as we thought at all. We're so temperate-minded; we're so full ofqualifications and discretions.... And so leisurely.... Well, France isdown. We've got to fight for France now over the ruins of Paris. Becauseyou and I, Manning, didn't grasp the scale of it, because we indulged ingeneralisations when we ought to have been drilling and working. Because we've been doing 'business as usual' and all the rest of thatsort of thing, while Western civilisation has been in its death agony. If this is to be another '71, on a larger scale and against not merelyFrance but all Europe, if Prussianism is to walk rough-shod overcivilisation, if France is to be crushed and Belgium murdered, then lifeis not worth having. Compared with such an issue as that no other issue, no other interest matters. Yet what are we doing to decide it--you andI? How can it end in anything but a German triumph if you and I, by themillion, stand by.... "

He paused despairfully and stared at the map. 

"What ought we to be doing?" asked Mr. Manning. 

"Every man ought to be in training, " said Mr. Britling. "Every one oughtto be participating.... In some way.... At any rate we ought not to betaking our ease at Matching's Easy any more.... "

Section 18

"It interrupts everything, " said Hugh suddenly. "These Prussians are thebiggest nuisance the world has ever seen. "

He considered. "It's like every one having to run out because the housecatches fire. But of course we have to beat them. It has to be done. Andevery one has to take a share. 

"Then we can get on with our work again. "

Mr. Britling turned his eyes to his eldest son with a startledexpression. He had been speaking--generally. For the moment he hadforgotten Hugh. 

CHAPTER THE SECOND

TAKING PART

Section 1

There were now two chief things in the mind of Mr. Britling. One was alarge and valiant thing, a thing of heroic and processional quality, theidea of taking up one's share in the great conflict, of leaving theDower House and its circle of habits and activities and going out--. From that point he wasn't quite sure where he was to go, nor exactlywhat he meant to do. His imagination inclined to the figure of avolunteer in an improvised uniform inflicting great damage upon araiding invader from behind a hedge. The uniform, one presumes, wouldhave been something in the vein of the costume in which he met Mr. Direck. With a "brassard. " Or he thought of himself as working at atelephone or in an office engaged upon any useful quasi-administrativework that called for intelligence rather than training. Still, ofcourse, with a "brassard. " A month ago he would have had doubts aboutthe meaning of "brassard"; now it seemed to be the very keyword fornational organisation. He had started for London by the early train onMonday morning with the intention of immediate enrolment in any suchservice that offered; of getting, in fact, into his brassard at once. The morning papers he bought at the station dashed his conviction of theinevitable fall of Paris into hopeful doubts, but did not shake hisresolution. The effect of rout and pursuit and retreat and retreat andretreat had disappeared from the news. The German right was beingcounter-attacked, and seemed in danger of getting pinched between Parisand Verdun with the British on its flank. This relieved his mind, butit did nothing to modify his new realisation of the tremendous gravityof the war. Even if the enemy were held and repulsed a little there wasstill work for every man in the task of forcing them back upon their owncountry. This war was an immense thing, it would touch everybody.... That meant that every man must give himself. That he had to givehimself. He must let nothing stand between him and that clearunderstanding. It was utterly shameful now to hold back and not to doone's utmost for civilisation, for England, for all the ease and safetyone had been given--against these drilled, commanded, obsessed millions. 

Mr. Britling was a flame of exalted voluntaryism, of patriotic devotion, that day. 

But behind all this bravery was the other thing, the second thing in themind of Mr. Britling, a fear. He was prepared now to spread himself likesome valiant turkey-gobbler, every feather at its utmost, against theaggressor. He was prepared to go out and flourish bayonets, march anddig to the limit of his power, shoot, die in a ditch if needful, ratherthan permit German militarism to dominate the world. He had no fear forhimself. He was prepared to perish upon the battlefield or cut a valiantfigure in the military hospital. But what he perceived very clearly anddid his utmost not to perceive was this qualifying and discouragingfact, that the war monster was not nearly so disposed to meet him as hewas to meet the war, and that its eyes were fixed on something besideand behind him, that it was already only too evidently stretching out along and shadowy arm past him towards Teddy--and towards Hugh.... 

The young are the food of war.... 

Teddy wasn't Mr. Britling's business anyhow. Teddy must do as he thoughtproper. Mr. Britling would not even advise upon that. And as for Hugh--

Mr. Britling did his best to brazen it out. 

"My eldest boy is barely seventeen, " he said. "He's keen to go, and I'dbe sorry if he wasn't. He'll get into some cadet corps of course--he'salready done something of that kind at school. Or they'll take him intothe Territorials. But before he's nineteen everything will be over, oneway or another. I'm afraid, poor chap, he'll feel sold.... "

And having thrust Hugh safely into the background of his mindas--juvenile, doing a juvenile share, no sort of man yet--Mr. Britlingcould give a free rein to his generous imaginations of a nationaluprising. From the idea of a universal participation in the struggle hepassed by an easy transition to an anticipation of all Britain armed andgravely embattled. Across gulfs of obstinate reality. He himself wasprepared to say, and accordingly he felt that the great mass of theBritish must be prepared to say to the government: "Here we are at yourdisposal. This is not a diplomatists' war nor a War Office war; this isa war of the whole people. We are all willing and ready to lay aside ourusual occupations and offer our property and ourselves. Whim andindividual action are for peace times. Take us and use us as you thinkfit. Take all we possess. " When he thought of the government in thisway, he forgot the governing class he knew. The slack-trousered Raeburn, the prim, attentive Philbert, Lady Frensham at the top of her voice, stern, preposterous Carson, boozy Bandershoot and artful Taper, wilyAsquith, the eloquent yet unsubstantial George, and the immobile Grey, vanished out of his mind; all those representative exponents of the waythings are done in Great Britain faded in the glow of his imaginativeeffort; he forgot the dreary debates, the floundering newspapers, the"bluffs, " the intrigues, the sly bargains of the week-end party, the"schoolboy honour" of grown men, the universal weak dishonesty inthinking; he thought simply of a simplified and ideal government thatgoverned. He thought vaguely of something behind and beyond them, England, the ruling genius of the land; something with a dignifiedassurance and a stable will. He imagined this shadowy ruler miraculouslyprovided with schemes and statistics against this supreme occasion whichhad for so many years been the most conspicuous probability before thecountry. His mind leaping forwards to the conception of a great nationreluctantly turning its vast resources to the prosecution of a righteousdefensive war, filled in the obvious corollaries of plan andcalculation. He thought that somewhere "up there" there must be peoplewho could count and who had counted everything that we might need forsuch a struggle, and organisers who had schemed and estimated down topracticable and manageable details.... 

Such lapses from knowledge to faith are perhaps necessary that humanheroism may be possible.... 

His conception of his own share in the great national uprising was avery modest one. He was a writer, a footnote to reality; he had no trickof command over men, his rôle was observation rather than organisation, and he saw himself only as an insignificant individual dropping from hisindividuality into his place in a great machine, taking a rifle in atrench, guarding a bridge, filling a cartridge--just with a brassard orsomething like that on--until the great task was done. Sunday night wasfull of imaginations of order, of the countryside standing up to itstask, of roads cleared and resources marshalled, of the petty interestsof the private life altogether set aside. And mingling with that it wasstill possible for Mr. Britling, he was still young enough, to producesuch dreams of personal service, of sudden emergencies swiftly andbravely met, of conspicuous daring and exceptional rewards, such dreamsas hover in the brains of every imaginative recruit.... 

The detailed story of Mr. Britling's two days' search for some easy andconvenient ladder into the service of his threatened country would be avoluminous one. It would begin with the figure of a neatly brushedpatriot, with an intent expression upon his intelligent face, seated inthe Londonward train, reading the war news--the first comforting warnews for many days--and trying not to look as though his life was tornup by the roots and all his being aflame with devotion; and it wouldconclude after forty-eight hours of fuss, inquiry, talk, waiting, telephoning, with the same gentleman, a little fagged and with a kind ofweary apathy in his eyes, returning by the short cut from the stationacross Claverings park to resume his connection with his abandonedroots. The essential process of the interval had been the correction ofMr. Britling's temporary delusion that the government of the BritishEmpire is either intelligent, instructed, or wise. 

The great "Business as Usual" phase was already passing away, and Londonwas in the full tide of recruiting enthusiasm. That tide was breakingagainst the most miserable arrangements for enlistment it is possible toimagine. Overtaxed and not very competent officers, whose one idea ofbeing very efficient was to refuse civilian help and be very, very slowand circumspect and very dignified and overbearing, sat in dirty littlerooms and snarled at this unheard-of England that pressed at door andwindow for enrolment. Outside every recruiting office crowds of men andyouths waited, leaning against walls, sitting upon the pavements, waitedfor long hours, waiting to the end of the day and returning nextmorning, without shelter, without food, many sick with hunger; men whohad hurried up from the country, men who had thrown up jobs of everykind, clerks, shopmen, anxious only to serve England and "teach thosedamned Germans a lesson. " Between them and this object they haddiscovered a perplexing barrier; an inattention. As Mr. Britling madehis way by St. Martin's Church and across Trafalgar Square and markedthe weary accumulation of this magnificently patriotic stuff, he had hisfirst inkling of the imaginative insufficiency of the War Office thathad been so suddenly called upon to organise victory. He was to be morefully informed when he reached his club. 

His impression of the streets through which he passed was an impressionof great unrest. There were noticeably fewer omnibuses and less roadtraffic generally, but there was a quite unusual number of driftingpedestrians. The current on the pavements was irritatingly sluggish. There were more people standing about, and fewer going upon theirbusiness. This was particularly the case with the women he saw. Many ofthem seemed to have drifted in from the suburbs and outskirts of Londonin a state of vague expectation, unable to stay in their homes. 

Everywhere there were the flags of the Allies; in shop windows, overdoors, on the bonnets of automobiles, on people's breasts, and there wasa great quantity of recruiting posters on the hoardings and in windows:"Your King and Country Need You" was the chief text, and they stillcalled for "A Hundred Thousand Men" although the demand of LordKitchener had risen to half a million. There were also placards callingfor men on nearly all the taxicabs. The big windows of the offices ofthe Norddeutscher Lloyd in Cockspur Street were boarded up, andplastered thickly with recruiting appeals. 

At his club Mr. Britling found much talk and belligerent stir. In thehall Wilkins the author was displaying a dummy rifle of bent iron rod toseveral interested members. It was to be used for drilling until riflescould be got, and it could be made for eighteen pence. This was thefirst intimation Mr. Britling got that the want of foresight of the WarOffice only began with its unpreparedness for recruits. Men were talkingvery freely in the club; one of the temporary effects of the war in itsearlier stages was to produce a partial thaw in the constitutionalBritish shyness; and men who had glowered at Mr. Britling over theirlunches and had been glowered at by Mr. Britling in silence for yearsnow started conversations with him. 

"What is a man of my sort to do?" asked a clean-shaven barrister. 

"Exactly what I have been asking, " said Mr. Britling. "They are fixingthe upward age for recruits at thirty; it's absurdly low. A man wellover forty like myself is quite fit to line a trench or guard a bridge. I'm not so bad a shot.... "

"We've been discussing home defence volunteers, " said the barrister. "Anyhow we ought to be drilling. But the War Office sets its face assternly against our doing anything of the sort as though we were goingto join the Germans. It's absurd. Even if we older men aren't fit to goabroad, we could at least release troops who could. "

"If you had the rifles, " said a sharp-featured man in grey to the rightof Mr. Britling. 

"I suppose they are to be got, " said Mr. Britling. 

The sharp-featured man indicated by appropriate facial action andhead-shaking that this was by no means the case. 

"Every dead man, many wounded men, most prisoners, " he said, "mean eachone a rifle lost. We have lost five-and-twenty thousand rifles alonesince the war began. Quite apart from arming new troops we have toreplace those rifles with the drafts we send out. Do you know what isthe maximum weekly output of rifles at the present time in thiscountry?"

Mr. Britling did not know. 

"Nine thousand. "

Mr. Britling suddenly understood the significance of Wilkins and hisdummy gun. 

The sharp-featured man added with an air of concluding the matter: "It'sthe barrels are the trouble. Complicated machinery. We haven't got itand we can't make it in a hurry. And there you are!"

The sharp-featured man had a way of speaking almost as if he wasthrowing bombs. He threw one now. "Zinc, " he said. 

"We're not short of zinc?" said the lawyer. 

The sharp-featured man nodded, and then became explicit. 

Zinc was necessary for cartridges; it had to be refined zinc and verypure, or the shooting went wrong. Well, we had let the refining businessdrift away from England to Belgium and Germany. There were just one ortwo British firms still left.... Unless we bucked up tremendously weshould get caught short of cartridges.... At any rate of cartridges somade as to ensure good shooting. "And there you are!" said thesharp-featured man. 

But the sharp-featured man did not at that time represent anyconsiderable section of public thought. "I suppose after all we can getrifles from America, " said the lawyer. "And as for zinc, if the shortageis known the shortage will be provided for.... "

The prevailing topic in the smoking-room upstairs was the inability ofthe War Office to deal with the flood of recruits that was pouring in, and its hostility to any such volunteering as Mr. Britling had in mind. Quite a number of members wanted to volunteer; there was much talk oftheir fitness; "I'm fifty-four, " said one, "and I could do mytwenty-five miles in marching kit far better than half those boys ofnineteen. " Another was thirty-eight. "I must hold the businesstogether, " he said; "but why anyhow shouldn't I learn to shoot and use abayonet?" The personal pique of the rejected lent force to theircriticisms of the recruiting and general organisation. "The War Officehas one incurable system, " said a big mine-owner. "During peace time itruns all its home administration with men who will certainly be wantedat the front directly there is a war. Directly war comes, therefore, there is a shift all round, and a new untried man--usually a dug-out inan advanced state of decay--is stuck into the job. Chaos followsautomatically. The War Office always has done this, and so far as onecan see it always will. It seems incapable of realising that anotherman will be wanted until the first is taken away. Its imaginationdoesn't even run to that. "

Mr. Britling found a kindred spirit in Wilkins. 

Wilkins was expounding his tremendous scheme for universal volunteering. Everybody was to be accepted. Everybody was to be assigned andregistered and--_badged_. 

"A brassard, " said Mr. Britling. 

"It doesn't matter whether we really produce a fighting force or not, "said Wilkins. "Everybody now is enthusiastic--and serious. Everybody iswilling to put on some kind of uniform and submit to some sort oforders. And the thing to do is to catch them in the willing stage. Nowis the time to get the country lined up and organised, ready to meet theinternal stresses that are bound to come later. But there's nodisposition whatever to welcome this universal offering. It's just asthough this war was a treat to which only the very select friends of theWar Office were to be admitted. And I don't admit that the nationalvolunteers would be ineffective--even from a military point of view. There are plenty of fit men of our age, and men of proper age who arebetter employed at home--armament workers for example, and there are allthe boys under the age. They may not be under the age before things areover.... "

He was even prepared to plan uniforms. 

"A brassard, " repeated Mr. Britling, "and perhaps coloured strips on therevers of a coat. "

"Colours for the counties, " said Wilkins, "and if there isn't colouredcloth to be got there's--red flannel. Anything is better than leavingthe mass of people to mob about.... "

A momentary vision danced before Mr. Britling's eyes of red flannelpetticoats being torn up in a rapid improvisation of soldiers to resista sudden invasion. Passing washerwomen suddenly requisitioned. But onemust not let oneself be laughed out of good intentions because ofridiculous accessories. The idea at any rate was the sound one.... 

The vision of what ought to be done shone brightly while Mr. Britlingand Mr. Wilkins maintained it. But presently under discouragingreminders that there were no rifles, no instructors, and, above all, theopen hostility of the established authorities, it faded again.... 

Afterwards in other conversations Mr. Britling reverted to more modestambitions. 

"Is there no clerical work, no minor administrative work, a man might beused for?" he asked. 

"Any old dug-out, " said the man with the thin face, "any old dodderingColonel Newcome, is preferred to you in that matter.... "

Mr. Britling emerged from his club about half-past three with his mindrather dishevelled and with his private determination to do somethingpromptly for his country's needs blunted by a perplexing "How?" Hissearch for doors and ways where no doors and ways existed went on with agathering sense of futility. 

He had a ridiculous sense of pique at being left out, like a child shutout from a room in which a vitally interesting game is being played. 

"After all, it is _our_ war, " he said. 

He caught the phrase as it dropped from his lips with a feeling that itsaid more than he intended. He turned it over and examined it, and themore he did so the more he was convinced of its truth and soundness.... 

Section 2

By night there was a new strangeness about London. The authorities weretrying to suppress the more brilliant illumination of the chiefthoroughfares, on account of the possibility of an air raid. Shopkeeperswere being compelled to pull down their blinds, and many of the bigstandard lights were unlit. Mr. Britling thought these precautions werevery fussy and unnecessary, and likely to lead to accidents amidst thetraffic. But it gave a Rembrandtesque quality to the London scene, turned it into mysterious arrangements of brown shadows and cones andbars of light. At first many people were recalcitrant, and here andthere a restaurant or a draper's window still blazed out and broke thegloom. There were also a number of insubordinate automobiles with bighead-lights. But the police were being unusually firm.... 

"It will all glitter again in a little time, " he told himself. 

He heard an old lady who was projecting from an offending automobile atPiccadilly Circus in hot dispute with a police officer. "Zeppelinsindeed!" she said. "What nonsense! As if they would _dare_ to come here!Who would _let_ them, I should like to know?"

Probably a friend of Lady Frensham's, he thought. Still--the idea ofZeppelins over London did seem rather ridiculous to Mr. Britling. Hewould not have liked to have been caught talking of it himself.... Therenever had been Zeppelins over London. They were gas bags.... 

Section 3

On Wednesday morning Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House, and hewas still a civilian unassigned. 

In the hall he found a tall figure in khaki standing and reading _TheTimes_ that usually lay upon the hall table. The figure turned at Mr. Britling's entry, and revealed the aquiline features of Mr. LawrenceCarmine. It was as if his friend had stolen a march on him. 

But Carmine's face showed nothing of the excitement and patrioticsatisfaction that would have seemed natural to Mr. Britling. He waswhite and jaded, as if he had not slept for many nights. "You see, " heexplained almost apologetically of the three stars upon his sleeve, "Iused to be a captain of volunteers. " He had been put in charge of avolunteer force which had been re-embodied and entrusted with the careof the bridges, gasworks, factories and railway tunnels, and with anumber of other minor but necessary duties round about Easinghampton. "I've just got to shut up my house, " said Captain Carmine, "and go intolodgings. I confess I hate it.... But anyhow it can't last sixmonths.... But it's beastly.... Ugh!... "

He seemed disposed to expand that "Ugh, " and then thought better of it. And presently Mr. Britling took control of the conversation. 

His two days in London had filled him with matter, and he was glad tohave something more than Hugh and Teddy and Mrs. Britling to talk itupon. What was happening now in Great Britain, he declared, was_adjustment_. It was an attempt on the part of a great unorganisednation, an attempt, instinctive at present rather than intelligent, toreadjust its government and particularly its military organisation tothe new scale of warfare that Germany had imposed upon the world. Fortwo strenuous decades the British navy had been growing enormously underthe pressure of German naval preparations, but the British militaryestablishment had experienced no corresponding expansion. It was truethere had been a futile, rather foolishly conducted agitation foruniversal military service, but there had been no accumulation ofmaterial, no preparation of armament-making machinery, no planning andno foundations for any sort of organisation that would have facilitatedthe rapid expansion of the fighting forces of a country in a time ofcrisis. Such an idea was absolutely antagonistic to the mental habits ofthe British military caste. The German method of incorporating all thestrength and resources of the country into one national fighting machinewas quite strange to the British military mind--still. Even after amonth of war. War had become the comprehensive business of the Germannation; to the British it was an incidental adventure. In Germany thenation was militarised, in England the army was specialised. The nationfor nearly every practical purpose got along without it. Just aspolitical life had also become specialised.... Now suddenly we wanted agovernment to speak for every one, and an army of the whole people. Howwere we to find it?

Mr. Britling dwelt upon this idea of the specialised character of theBritish army and navy and government. It seemed to him to be the clue toeverything that was jarring in the London spectacle. The army had been athing aloof, for a special end. It had developed all the characteristicsof a caste. It had very high standards along the lines of itsspecialisation, but it was inadaptable and conservative. Itsexclusiveness was not so much a deliberate culture as a consequence ofits detached function. It touched the ordinary social body chieflythrough three other specialised bodies, the court, the church, and thestage. Apart from that it saw the great unofficial civilian world assomething vague, something unsympathetic, something possiblyantagonistic, which it comforted itself by snubbing when it dared andtricking when it could, something that projected members of Parliamenttowards it and was stingy about money. Directly one grasped how apartthe army lived from the ordinary life of the community, fromindustrialism or from economic necessities, directly one understood thatthe great mass of Englishmen were simply "outsiders" to the War Officemind, just as they were "outsiders" to the political clique, one beganto realise the complete unfitness of either government or War Office forthe conduct of so great a national effort as was now needed. Thesepeople "up there" did not know anything of the broad mass of Englishlife at all, they did not know how or where things were made; when theywanted things they just went to a shop somewhere and got them. This wasthe necessary psychology of a small army under a clique government. Nothing else was to be expected. But now--somehow--the nation had totake hold of the government that it had neglected so long.... 

"You see, " said Mr. Britling, repeating a phrase that was becoming moreand more essential to his thoughts, "this is _our_ war.... 

"Of course, " said Mr. Britling, "these things are not going to be donewithout a conflict. We aren't going to take hold of our country which wehave neglected so long without a lot of internal friction. But inEngland we can make these readjustments without revolution. It is ourstrength.... 

"At present England is confused--but it's a healthy confusion. It'sastir. We have more things to defeat than just Germany.... 

"These hosts of recruits--weary, uncared for, besieging the recruitingstations. It's symbolical.... Our tremendous reserves of will andmanhood. Our almost incredible insufficiency of direction.... 

"Those people up there have no idea of the Will that surges up inEngland. They are timid little manoeuvring people, afraid of property, afraid of newspapers, afraid of trade-unions. They aren't leading usagainst the Germans; they are just being shoved against the Germans bynecessity.... "

From this Mr. Britling broke away into a fresh addition to his alreadylarge collection of contrasts between England and Germany. Germany was anation which has been swallowed up and incorporated by an army and anadministration; the Prussian military system had assimilated to itselfthe whole German life. It was a State in a state of repletion, a Statethat had swallowed all its people. Britain was not a State. It was anunincorporated people. The British army, the British War Office, and theBritish administration had assimilated nothing; they were little oldpartial things; the British nation lay outside them, beyond theirunderstanding and tradition; a formless new thing, but a great thing;and now this British nation, this real nation, the "outsiders, " had totake up arms. Suddenly all the underlying ideas of that outer, greaterEnglish life beyond politics, beyond the services, were challenged, itstolerant good humour, its freedom, and its irresponsibility. It was notsimply English life that was threatened; it was all the latitudes ofdemocracy, it was every liberal idea and every liberty. It wascivilisation in danger. The uncharted liberal system had been taken bythe throat; it had to "make good" or perish.... 

"I went up to London expecting to be told what to do. There is no one totell any one what to do.... Much less is there any one to compel us whatto do.... 

"There's a War Office like a college during a riot, with its doors andwindows barred; there's a government like a cockle boat in an Atlanticgale.... 

"One feels the thing ought to have come upon us like the sound of atrumpet. Instead, until now, it has been like a great noise, that wejust listened to, in the next house.... And now slowly the nationawakes. London is just like a dazed sleeper waking up out of a deepsleep to fire and danger, tumult and cries for help, near at hand. Thestreets give you exactly that effect. People are looking about andlistening. One feels that at any moment, in a pause, in a silence, theremay come, from far away, over the houses, faint and little, the boom ofguns or the small outcries of little French or Belgian villages inagony.... "

Such was the gist of Mr. Britling's discourse. 

He did most of the table talk, and all that mattered. Teddy was anassenting voice, Hugh was silent and apparently a little inattentive, Mrs. Britling was thinking of the courses and the servants and the boys, and giving her husband only half an ear, Captain Carmine said little andseemed to be troubled by some disagreeable preoccupation. Now and thenhe would endorse or supplement the things Mr. Britling was saying. Thrice he remarked: "People still do not begin to understand. "... 

Section 4It was only when they sat together in the barn court out of the way ofMrs. Britling and the children that Captain Carmine was able to explainhis listless bearing and jaded appearance. He was suffering from a badnervous shock. He had hardly taken over his command before one of hismen had been killed--and killed in a manner that had left a scar uponhis mind. 

The man had been guarding a tunnel, and he had been knocked down by onetrain when crossing the line behind another. So it was that the bomb ofSarajevo killed its first victim in Essex. Captain Carmine had found thebody. He had found the body in a cloudy moonlight; he had almost fallenover it; and his sensations and emotions had been eminentlydisagreeable. He had had to drag the body--it was very dreadfullymangled--off the permanent way, the damaged, almost severed head hadtwisted about very horribly in the uncertain light, and afterwards hehad found his sleeves saturated with blood. He had not noted this at thetime, and when he had discovered it he had been sick. He had thought thewhole thing more horrible and hateful than any nightmare, but he hadsucceeded in behaving with a sufficient practicality to set an exampleto his men. Since this had happened he had not had an hour of dreamlesssleep. 

"One doesn't expect to be called upon like that, " said Captain Carmine, "suddenly here in England.... When one is smoking after supper.... "

Mr. Britling listened to this experience with distressed brows. All histalking and thinking became to him like the open page of a monthlymagazine. Across it this bloody smear, this thing of red and black, wasdragged.... 

Section 5

The smear was still bright red in Mr. Britling's thoughts when Teddycame to him. 

"I must go, " said Teddy, "I can't stop here any longer. "

"Go where?"

"Into khaki. I've been thinking of it ever since the war began. Do youremember what you said when we were bullying off at hockey on BankHoliday--the day before war was declared?"

Mr. Britling had forgotten completely; he made an effort. "What did Isay?"

"You said, 'What the devil are we doing at this hockey? We ought to bedrilling or shooting against those confounded Germans!' ... I've neverforgotten it.... I ought to have done it before. I've been ascout-master. In a little while they will want officers. In London, I'mtold, there are a lot of officers' training corps putting men throughthe work as quickly as possible.... If I could go.... "

"What does Letty think?" said Mr. Britling after a pause. This wasright, of course--the only right thing--and yet he was surprised. 

"She says if you'd let her try to do my work for a time.... "

"She _wants_ you to go?"

"Of course she does, " said Teddy. "She wouldn't like me to be ashirker.... But I can't unless you help. "

"I'm quite ready to do that, " said Mr. Britling. "But somehow I didn'tthink it of you. I hadn't somehow thought of _you_--"

"What _did_ you think of me?" asked Teddy. 

"It's bringing the war home to us.... Of course you ought to go--if youwant to go. "

He reflected. It was odd to find Teddy in this mood, strung up andserious and businesslike. He felt that in the past he had done Teddyinjustice; this young man wasn't as trivial as he had thought him.... 

They fell to discussing ways and means; there might have to be a loanfor Teddy's outfit, if he did presently secure a commission. And therewere one or two other little matters.... Mr. Britling dismissed aridiculous fancy that he was paying to send Teddy away to something thatneither that young man nor Letty understood properly.... 

The next day Teddy vanished Londonward on his bicycle. He was going tolodge in London in order to be near his training. He was zealous. Neverbefore had Teddy been zealous. Mrs. Teddy came to the Dower House forthe correspondence, trying not to look self-conscious and important. 

Two Mondays later a very bright-eyed, excited little boy came running toMr. Britling, who was smoking after lunch in the rose garden. "Daddy!"squealed the small boy. "Teddy! In khaki!"

The other junior Britling danced in front of the hero, who was walkingbeside Mrs. Britling and trying not to be too aggressively a soldierlyfigure. He looked a very man in khaki and more of a boy than ever. Mrs. Teddy came behind, quietly elated. 

Mr. Britling had a recurrence of that same disagreeable fancy that theseyoung people didn't know exactly what they were going into. He wished hewas in khaki himself; then he fancied this compunction wouldn't troublehim quite so much. 

The afternoon with them deepened his conviction that they really didn'tin the slightest degree understand. Life had been so good to themhitherto, that even the idea of Teddy's going off to the war seemed asort of fun to them. It was just a thing he was doing, a serious, seriously amusing, and very creditable thing. It involved his dressingup in these unusual clothes, and receiving salutes in the street.... They discussed every possible aspect of his military outlook with thezest of children, who recount the merits of a new game. They wereputting Teddy through his stages at a tremendous pace. In quite a littletime he thought he would be given the chance of a commission. 

"They want subalterns badly. Already they've taken nearly a third of ourpeople, " he said, and added with the wistfulness of one who glances atinaccessible delights: "one or two may get out to the front quite soon. "

He spoke as a young actor might speak of a star part. And with a touchof the quality of one who longs to travel in strange lands.... One mustbe patient. Things come at last.... 

"If I'm killed she gets eighty pounds a year, " Teddy explained amongmany other particulars. 

He smiled--the smile of a confident immortal at this amusing idea. 

"He's my little annuity, " said Letty, also smiling, "dead or alive. "

"We'll miss Teddy in all sorts of ways, " said Mr. Britling. 

"It's only for the duration of the war, " said Teddy. "And Letty's veryintelligent. I've done my best to chasten the evil in her. "

"If you think you're going to get back your job after the war, " saidLetty, "you're very much mistaken. I'm going to raise the standard. "

"_You_!" said Teddy, regarding her coldly, and proceeded ostentatiouslyto talk of other things. 

Section 6

"Hugh's going to be in khaki too, " the elder junior told Teddy. "He'stoo young to go out in Kitchener's army, but he's joined theTerritorials. He went off on Thursday.... I wish Gilbert and me wasolder.... "

Mr. Britling had known his son's purpose since the evening of Teddy'sannouncement. 

Hugh had come to his father's study as he was sitting musing at hiswriting-desk over the important question whether he should continue his"Examination of War" uninterruptedly, or whether he should not put thaton one side for a time and set himself to state as clearly as possiblethe not too generally recognised misfit between the will and strength ofBritain on the one hand and her administrative and military organisationon the other. He felt that an enormous amount of human enthusiasm andenergy was being refused and wasted; that if things went on as they weregoing there would continue to be a quite disastrous shortage of gear, and that some broadening change was needed immediately if the swiftexemplary victory over Germany that his soul demanded was to be ensured. Suppose he were to write some noisy articles at once, an article, forinstance, to be called "The War of the Mechanics" or "The War of Gear, "and another on "Without Civil Strength there is no Victory. " If he wrotesuch things would they be noted or would they just vanishindistinguishably into the general mental tumult? Would they be audibleand helpful shouts, or just waste of shouting?... That at least was whathe supposed himself to be thinking; it was, at any rate, the maincurrent of his thinking; but all the same, just outside the circle ofhis attention a number of other things were dimly apprehended, bobbingup and down in the flood and ready at the slightest chance to swirl intothe centre of his thoughts. There was, for instance, Captain Carmine inthe moonlight lugging up a railway embankment something horrible, something loose and wet and warm that had very recently been a man. There was Teddy, serious and patriotic--filling a futile penman withincredulous respect. There was the thin-faced man at the club, and acurious satisfaction he had betrayed in the public disarrangement. Andthere was Hugh. Particularly there was Hugh, silent but watchful. Theboy never babbled. He had his mother's gift of deep dark silences. Outof which she was wont to flash, a Black Princess waving a sword. Hewandered for a little while among memories.... But Hugh didn't come outlike that, though it always seemed possible he might--perhaps he didn'tcome out because he was a son. Revelation to his father wasn't hisbusiness.... What was he thinking of it all? What was he going to do?Mr. Britling was acutely anxious that his son should volunteer; he wasalmost certain that he would volunteer, but there was just a littleshadow of doubt whether some extraordinary subtlety of mind mightn'thave carried the boy into a pacifist attitude. No! that was impossible. In the face of Belgium.... But as greatly--and far more deeply in thewarm flesh of his being--did Mr. Britling desire that no harm, no evilshould happen to Hugh.... 

The door opened, and Hugh came in.... 

Mr. Britling glanced over his shoulder with an affectation ofindifference. "Hal-_lo!_" he said. "What do you want?"

Hugh walked awkwardly to the hearthrug. 

"Oh!" he said in an off-hand tone; "I suppose I've got to go soldieringfor a bit. I just thought--I'd rather like to go off with a man I knowto-morrow.... "

Mr. Britling's manner remained casual. 

"It's the only thing to do now, I'm afraid, " he said. 

He turned in his chair and regarded his son. "What do you mean to do?O. T. C. ?"

"I don't think I should make much of an officer. I hate giving orders toother people. We thought we'd just go together into the Essex Regimentas privates.... "

There was a little pause. Both father and son had rehearsed this scenein their minds several times, and now they found that they had no usefor a number of sentences that had been most effective in theserehearsals. Mr. Britling scratched his cheek with the end of his pen. "I'm glad you want to go, Hugh, " he said. 

"I _don't_ want to go, " said Hugh with his hands deep in his pockets. "Iwant to go and work with Cardinal. But this job has to be done by everyone. Haven't you been saying as much all day?... It's like turning outto chase a burglar or suppress a mad dog. It's like necessarysanitation.... "

"You aren't attracted by soldiering?"

"Not a bit. I won't pretend it, Daddy. I think the whole business is abore. Germany seems to me now just like some heavy horrible dirty massthat has fallen across Belgium and France. We've got to shove the stuffback again. That's all.... "

He volunteered some further remarks to his father's silence. 

"You know I can't get up a bit of tootle about this business, " he said. "I think killing people or getting killed is a thoroughly nastyhabit.... I expect my share will be just drilling and fatigue duties androute marches, and loafing here in England.... "

"You can't possibly go out for two years, " said Mr. Britling, as if heregretted it. 

A slight hesitation appeared in Hugh's eyes. "I suppose not, " he said. 

"Things ought to be over by then--anyhow, " Mr. Britling added, betrayinghis real feelings. 

"So it's really just helping at the furthest end of the shove, " Hughendorsed, but still with that touch of reservation in his manner.... 

The pause had the effect of closing the theoretical side of thequestion. "Where do you propose to enlist?" said Mr. Britling, comingdown to practical details. 

Section 7

The battle of the Marne passed into the battle of the Aisne, and thenthe long lines of the struggle streamed north-westward until the Britishwere back in Belgium failing to clutch Menin and then defending Ypres. The elation of September followed the bedazzlement and dismay of Augustinto the chapter of forgotten moods; and Mr. Britling's sense of themagnitude, the weight and duration of this war beyond all wars, increased steadily. The feel of it was less and less a feeling of crisisand more and more a feeling of new conditions. It wasn't as it hadseemed at first, the end of one human phase and the beginning ofanother; it was in itself a phase. It was a new way of living. And stillhe could find no real point of contact for himself with it all exceptthe point of his pen. Only at his writing-desk, and more particularly atnight, were the great presences of the conflict his. Yet he was alwaysdesiring some more personal and physical participation. 

Hugh came along one day in October in an ill-fitting uniform, lookingalready coarser in fibre and with a nose scorched red by the autumnalsun. He said the life was rough, but it made him feel extraordinarilywell; perhaps man was made to toil until he dropped asleep fromexhaustion, to fast for ten or twelve hours and then eat like a wolf. Hewas acquiring a taste for Woodbine cigarettes, and a heady variety ofmineral waters called Monsters. He feared promotion; he felt he couldnever take the high line with other human beings demanded of a corporal. He was still trying to read a little chemistry and crystallography, butit didn't "go with the life. " In the scanty leisure of a recruit intraining it was more agreeable to lie about and write doggerel versesand draw caricatures of the men in one's platoon. Invited to choose whathe liked by his family, he demanded a large tuckbox such as he used tohave at school, only "_much_ larger, " and a big tin of insect powder. It must be able to kill ticks.... 

When he had gone, the craving for a personal share in the nation'sphysical exertions became overpowering in Mr. Britling. He wanted, hefelt, to "get his skin into it. " He had decided that the volunteermovement was a hopeless one. The War Office, after a stout resistance toany volunteer movement at all, decided to recognise it in such a manneras to make it ridiculous. The volunteers were to have no officers and nouniforms that could be remotely mistaken for those of the regulars, sothat in the event of an invasion the Germans would be able to tell whatthey had to deal with miles away. Wilkins found his conception of awhole nation, all enrolled, all listed and badged according to capacity, his dream of every one falling into place in one great voluntarynational effort, treated as the childish dreaming of that most ignorantof all human types, a "novelist. " _Punch_ was delicately funny abouthim; he was represented as wearing a preposterous cocked hat of his owndesign, designing cocked hats for every one. Wilkins was told to "shutup" in a multitude of anonymous letters, and publicly and privately to"leave things to Kitchener. " To bellow in loud clear tones "leave thingsto Kitchener, " and to depart for the theatre or the river or anautomobile tour, was felt very generally at that time to be the properconduct for a patriot. There was a very general persuasion that tobecome a volunteer when one ought to be just modestly doing nothing atall, was in some obscure way a form of disloyalty.... 

So Mr. Britling was out of conceit with volunteering, and instead hewent and was duly sworn and entrusted with the badge of a specialconstable. The duties of a special constable were chiefly not tounderstand what was going on in the military sphere, and to do what hewas told in the way of watching and warding conceivably vulnerablepoints. He had also to be available in the event of civil disorder. Mr. Britling was provided with a truncheon and sent out to guard variousculverts, bridges, and fords in the hilly country to the north-westwardof Matching's Easy. It was never very clear to him what he would do ifhe found a motor-car full of armed enemies engaged in undermining aculvert, or treacherously deepening some strategic ford. He supposed hewould either engage them in conversation, or hit them with histruncheon, or perhaps do both things simultaneously. But as he reallydid not believe for a moment that any human being was likely to tamperwith the telegraphs, telephones, ways and appliances committed to hiscare, his uncertainty did not trouble him very much. He prowled thelonely lanes and paths in the darkness, and became better acquaintedwith a multitude of intriguing little cries and noises that came fromthe hedges and coverts at night. One night he rescued a young leveretfrom a stoat, who seemed more than half inclined to give him battle forits prey until he cowed and defeated it with the glare of his electrictorch.... 

As he prowled the countryside under the great hemisphere of Essex sky, or leant against fences or sat drowsily upon gates or sheltered fromwind and rain under ricks or sheds, he had much time for meditation, andhis thoughts went down and down below his first surface impressions ofthe war. He thought no longer of the rights and wrongs of thisparticular conflict but of the underlying forces in mankind that madewar possible; he planned no more ingenious treaties and conventionsbetween the nations, and instead he faced the deeper riddles ofessential evil and of conceivable changes in the heart of man. And therain assailed him and thorns tore him, and the soaked soft meadowsbogged and betrayed his wandering feet, and the little underworld of thehedges and ditches hissed and squealed in the darkness and pursued andfled, and devoured or were slain. 

And one night in April he was perplexed by a commotion among thepheasants and a barking of distant dogs, and then to his greatastonishment he heard noises like a distant firework display and sawsomething like a phantom yellowish fountain-pen in the sky far away tothe east lit intermittently by a quivering search-light and going veryswiftly. And after he had rubbed his eyes and looked again, he realisedthat he was looking at a Zeppelin--a Zeppelin flying Londonward overEssex. 

And all that night was wonder.... 

Section 8

While Mr. Britling was trying to find his duty in the routine of aspecial constable, Mrs. Britling set to work with great energy to attendvarious classes and qualify herself for Red Cross work. And early inOctober came the great drive of the Germans towards Antwerp and the sea, the great drive that was apparently designed to reach Calais, and whichswept before it multitudes of Flemish refugees. There was an exodus ofall classes from Antwerp into Holland and England, and then a hugeprocess of depopulation in Flanders and the Pas de Calais. This floodcame to the eastern and southern parts of England and particularly toLondon, and there hastily improvised organisations distributed it to anumber of local committees, each of which took a share of the refugees, hired and furnished unoccupied houses for the use of the penniless, andassisted those who had means into comfortable quarters. The Matching'sEasy committee found itself with accommodation for sixty people, andwith a miscellaneous bag of thirty individuals entrusted to its care, who had been part of the load of a little pirate steam-boat from Ostend. There were two Flemish peasant families, and the rest were more or lessmiddle-class refugees from Antwerp. They were brought from the stationto the Tithe barn at Claverings, and there distributed, under thepersonal supervision of Lady Homartyn and her agent, among those whowere prepared for their entertainment. There was something likecompetition among the would-be hosts; everybody was glad of the chanceof "doing something, " and anxious to show these Belgians what Englandthought of their plucky little country. Mr. Britling was proud to leadoff a Mr. Van der Pant, a neat little bearded man in a black tail-coat, a black bowler hat, and a knitted muffler, with a large rucksack and aconspicuously foreign-looking bicycle, to the hospitalities of DowerHouse. Mr. Van der Pant had escaped from Antwerp at the eleventh hour, he had caught a severe cold and, it would seem, lost his wife and familyin the process; he had much to tell Mr. Britling, and in his zeal totell it he did not at once discover that though Mr. Britling knew Frenchquite well he did not know it very rapidly. 

The dinner that night at the Dower House marked a distinct fresh step inthe approach of the Great War to the old habits and securities ofMatching's Easy. The war had indeed filled every one's mind to theexclusion of all other topics since its very beginning; it had carriedoff Herr Heinrich to Germany, Teddy to London, and Hugh to Colchester, it had put a special brassard round Mr. Britling's arm and carried himout into the night, given Mrs. Britling several certificates, andinterrupted the frequent visits and gossip of Mr. Lawrence Carmine; butso far it had not established a direct contact between the life ofMatching's Easy and the grim business of shot, shell, and bayonet at thefront. But now here was the Dower House accomplishing wonderful idiomsin Anglo-French, and an animated guest telling them--sometimes oneunderstood clearly and sometimes the meaning was clouded--of men blownto pieces under his eyes, of fragments of human beings lying about inthe streets; there was trouble over the expression _omoplate d'unefemme_, until one of the youngsters got the dictionary and found out itwas the shoulder-blade of a woman; of pools of blood--everywhere--andof flight in the darkness. 

Mr. Van der Pant had been in charge of the dynamos at the Antwerp PowerStation, he had been keeping the electrified wires in the entanglements"alive, " and he had stuck to his post until the German high explosiveshad shattered his wires and rendered his dynamos useless. He gave vividlittle pictures of the noises of the bombardment, of the dead lyingcasually in the open spaces, of the failure of the German guns to hitthe bridge of boats across which the bulk of the defenders and refugeesescaped. He produced a little tourist's map of the city of Antwerp, anddotted at it with a pencil-case. "The--what do you call?--_obus_, ah, shells! fell, so and so and so. " Across here he had fled on his_bécane_, and along here and here. He had carried off his rifle, and hidit with the rifles of various other Belgians between floor and ceilingof a house in Zeebrugge. He had found the pirate steamer in the harbour, its captain resolved to extract the uttermost fare out of every refugeehe took to London. When they were all aboard and started they foundthere was no food except the hard ration biscuits of some Belgiansoldiers. They had portioned this out like shipwrecked people on araft.... The _mer_ had been _calme_; thank Heaven! All night they hadbeen pumping. He had helped with the pumps. But Mr. Van der Pant hopedstill to get a reckoning with the captain of that ship. 

Mr. Van der Pant had had shots at various Zeppelins. When the Zeppelinscame to Antwerp everybody turned out on the roofs and shot at them. Hewas contemptuous of Zeppelins. He made derisive gestures to express hisopinion of them. They could do nothing unless they came low, and if theycame low you could hit them. One which ventured down had been riddled;it had had to drop all its bombs--luckily they fell in an open field--inorder to make its lame escape. It was all nonsense to say, as theEnglish papers did, that they took part in the final bombardment. Not aZeppelin.... So he talked, and the Britling family listened andunderstood as much as they could, and replied and questioned inAnglo-French. Here was a man who but a few days ago had been steeringhis bicycle in the streets of Antwerp to avoid shell craters, pools ofblood, and the torn-off arms and shoulder-blades of women. He had seenhouses flaring, set afire by incendiary bombs, and once at a corner hehad been knocked off his bicycle by the pouff of a bursting shell.... Not only were these things in the same world with us, they were sittingat our table. 

He told one grim story of an invalid woman unable to move, lying in bedin her _appartement_, and of how her husband went out on the balcony tolook at the Zeppelin. There was a great noise of shooting. Ever andagain he would put his head back into the room and tell her things, andthen after a time he was silent and looked in no more. She called tohim, and called again. Becoming frightened, she raised herself by agreat effort and peered through the glass. At first she was too puzzledto understand what had happened. He was hanging over the front of thebalcony, with his head twisted oddly. Twisted and shattered. He had beenkilled by shrapnel fired from the outer fortifications.... 

These are the things that happen in histories and stories. They do nothappen at Matching's Easy.... 

Mr. Van der Pant did not seem to be angry with the Germans. But hemanifestly regarded them as people to be killed. He denounced nothingthat they had done; he related. They were just an evil accident that hadhappened to Belgium and mankind. They had to be destroyed. He gave Mr. Britling an extraordinary persuasion that knives were being sharpened inevery cellar in Brussels and Antwerp against the day of inevitableretreat, of a resolution to exterminate the invader that was far toodeep to be vindictive.... And the man was most amazingly unconquered. Mr. Britling perceived the label on his habitual dinner wine with aslight embarrassment. "Do you care, " he asked, "to drink a German wine?This is Berncasteler from the Moselle. " Mr. Van der Pant reflected. "Butit is a good wine, " he said. "After the peace it will be Belgian.... Yes, if we are to be safe in the future from such a war as this, we musthave our boundaries right up to the Rhine. "

So he sat and talked, flushed and, as it were, elated by the vividnessof all that he had undergone. He had no trace of tragic quality, no hintof subjugation. But for his costume and his trimmed beard and hislanguage he might have been a Dubliner or a Cockney. 

He was astonishingly cut off from all his belongings. His house inAntwerp was abandoned to the invader; valuables and cherished objectsvery skilfully buried in the garden; he had no change of clothing exceptwhat the rucksack held. His only footwear were the boots he came in. Hecould not get on any of the slippers in the house, they were all toosmall for him, until suddenly Mrs. Britling bethought herself of HerrHeinrich's pair, still left unpacked upstairs. She produced them, andthey fitted exactly. It seemed only poetical justice, a foretaste ofnational compensations, to annex them to Belgium forthwith.... 

Also it became manifest that Mr. Van der Pant was cut off from all hisfamily. And suddenly he became briskly critical of the English way ofdoing things. His wife and child had preceded him to England, crossingby Ostend and Folkestone a fortnight ago; her parents had come inAugust; both groups had been seized upon by improvised Britishorganisations and very thoroughly and completely lost. He had written tothe Belgian Embassy and they had referred him to a committee in London, and the committee had begun its services by discovering a Madame Van derPant hitherto unknown to him at Camberwell, and displaying a certainsuspicion and hostility when he said she would not do. There had beensome futile telegrams. "What, " asked Mr. Van der Pant, "ought one todo?"

Mr. Britling temporised by saying he would "make inquiries, " and put Mr. Van der Pant off for two days. Then he decided to go up to London withhim and "make inquiries on the spot. " Mr. Van der Pant did not discoverhis family, but Mr. Britling discovered the profound truth of a commentof Herr Heinrich's which he had hitherto considered utterly trivial, butwhich had nevertheless stuck in his memory. "The English, " Herr Heinrichhad said, "do not understanding indexing. It is the root of all goodorganisation. "

Finally, Mr. Van der Pant adopted the irregular course of asking everyBelgian he met if they had seen any one from his district in Antwerp, ifthey had heard of the name of "Van der Pant, " if they had encounteredSo-and-so or So-and-so. And by obstinacy and good fortune he really goton to the track of Madame Van der Pant; she had been carried off intoKent, and a day later the Dower House was the scene of a happy reunion. Madame was a slender lady, dressed well and plainly, with a Belgiancommon sense and a Catholic reserve, and André was like a child of wax, delicate and charming and unsubstantial. It seemed incredible that hecould ever grow into anything so buoyant and incessant as his father. The Britling boys had to be warned not to damage him. A sitting-room washanded over to the Belgians for their private use, and for a time thetwo families settled into the Dower House side by side. Anglo-Frenchbecame the table language of the household. It hampered Mr. Britlingvery considerably. And both families set themselves to much unrecordedobservation, much unspoken mutual criticism, and the exercise of greatpatience. It was tiresome for the English to be tied to a language thatcrippled all spontaneous talk; these linguistic gymnastics were fun tobegin with, but soon they became very troublesome; and the Belgianssuspected sensibilities in their hosts and a vast unwritten code ofetiquette that did not exist; at first they were always waiting, as itwere, to be invited or told or included; they seemed alwaysdeferentially backing out from intrusions. Moreover, they would not atfirst reveal what food they liked or what they didn't like, or whetherthey wanted more or less.... But these difficulties were soon smoothedaway, they Anglicised quickly and cleverly. André grew bold andcheerful, and lost his first distrust of his rather older Englishplaymates. Every day at lunch he produced a new, carefully preparedpiece of English, though for some time he retained a marked preferencefor "Good morning, Saire, " and "Thank you very mush, " over all otherlocutions, and fell back upon them on all possible and many impossibleoccasions. And he could do some sleight-of-hand tricks with remarkableskill and humour, and fold paper with quite astonishing results. Meanwhile Mr. Van der Pant sought temporary employment in England, wentfor long rides upon his bicycle, exchanged views with Mr. Britling upona variety of subjects, and became a wonderful player of hockey. 

He played hockey with an extraordinary zest and nimbleness. Always heplayed in the tail coat, and the knitted muffler was never relinquished;he treated the game entirely as an occasion for quick tricks andpersonal agility; he bounded about the field like a kitten, hepirouetted suddenly, he leapt into the air and came down in newdirections; his fresh-coloured face was alive with delight, the coattails and the muffler trailed and swished about breathlessly behind hisagility. He never passed to other players; he never realised hisappointed place in the game; he sought simply to make himself a leapingscreen about the ball as he drove it towards the goal. But André hewould not permit to play at all, and Madame played like a lady, like aMadonna, like a saint carrying the instrument of her martyrdom. Thegame and its enthusiasms flowed round her and receded from her; sheremained quite valiant but tolerant, restrained; doing her best to dothe extraordinary things required of her, but essentially a being ofpassive dignities, living chiefly for them; Letty careering by her, keenand swift, was like a creature of a different species.... 

Mr. Britling cerebrated abundantly about these contrasts. 

"What has been blown in among us by these German shells, " he said, "isessentially a Catholic family. Blown clean out of its setting.... We whoare really--Neo-Europeans.... 

"At first you imagine there is nothing separating us but language. Presently you find that language is the least of our separations. Thesepeople are people living upon fundamentally different ideas from ours, ideas far more definite and complete than ours. You imagine that home inAntwerp as something much more rounded off, much more closed in, a cell, a real social unit, a different thing altogether from this place ofmeeting. Our boys play cheerfully with all comers; little André hasn'tlearnt to play with any outside children at all. We must seem incredibly_open_ to these Van der Pants. A house without sides.... Last Sunday Icould not find out the names of the two girls who came on bicycles andplayed so well. They came with Kitty Westropp. And Van der Pant wantedto know how they were related to us. Or how was it they came?... 

"Look at Madame. She's built on a fundamentally different plan from anyof our womenkind here. Tennis, the bicycle, co-education, the two-step, the higher education of women.... Say these things over to yourself, andthink of her. It's like talking of a nun in riding breeches. She's aspecialised woman, specialising in womanhood, her sphere is the home. Soft, trailing, draping skirts, slow movements, a veiled face; for noOriental veil could be more effectual than her beautiful Catholicquiet. Catholicism invented the invisible purdah. She is far more akinto that sweet little Indian lady with the wonderful robes whom Carminebrought over with her tall husband last summer, than she is to Letty orCissie. She, too, undertook to play hockey. And played it very much asMadame Van der Pant played it.... 

"The more I see of our hockey, " said Mr. Britling, "the more wonderfulit seems to me as a touchstone of character and culture andbreeding.... "

Mr. Manning, to whom he was delivering this discourse, switched him onto a new track by asking what he meant by "Neo-European. "

"It's a bad phrase, " said Mr. Britling. "I'll withdraw it. Let me tryand state exactly what I have in mind. I mean something that is comingup in America and here and the Scandinavian countries and Russia, a newculture, an escape from the Levantine religion and the Catholic culturethat came to us from the Mediterranean. Let me drop Neo-European; let mesay Northern. We are Northerners. The key, the heart, the nucleus andessence of every culture is its conception of the relations of men andwomen; and this new culture tends to diminish the specialisation ofwomen as women, to let them out from the cell of the home into commoncitizenship with men. It's a new culture, still in process ofdevelopment, which will make men more social and co-operative and womenbolder, swifter, more responsible and less cloistered. It minimisesinstead of exaggerating the importance of sex.... 

"And, " said Mr. Britling, in very much the tones in which a preachermight say "Sixthly, " "it is just all this Northern tendency that thisworld struggle is going to release. This war is pounding through Europe, smashing up homes, dispersing and mixing homes, setting Madame Van derPant playing hockey, and André climbing trees with my young ruffians; itis killing young men by the million, altering the proportions of thesexes for a generation, bringing women into business and office andindustry, destroying the accumulated wealth that kept so many of them inrefined idleness, flooding the world with strange doubts and novelideas.... "

Section 9

But the conflict of manners and customs that followed the invasion ofthe English villages by French and Belgian refugees did not alwayspresent the immigrants as Catholics and the hosts as "Neo-European. " Inthe case of Mr. Dimple it was the other way round. He met Mr. Britlingin Claverings park and told him his troubles.... 

"Of course, " he said, "we have to do our Utmost for Brave LittleBelgium. I would be the last to complain of any little inconvenience onemay experience in doing that. Still, I must confess I think you and dearMrs. Britling are fortunate, exceptionally fortunate, in the Belgiansyou have got. My guests--it's unfortunate--the man is some sort ofjournalist and quite--oh! much too much--an Atheist. An open positiveone. Not simply Honest Doubt. I'm quite prepared for honest doubtnowadays. You and I have no quarrel over that. But he is aggressive. Hemakes remarks about miracles, quite derogatory remarks, and not alwaysin French. Sometimes he almost speaks English. And in front of mysister. And he goes out, he says, looking for a Café. He never finds aCafé, but he certainly finds every public house within a radius ofmiles. And he comes back smelling dreadfully of beer. When I drop aLittle Hint, he blames the beer. He says it is not good beer--our goodEssex beer! He doesn't understand any of our simple ways. He'ssophisticated. The girls about here wear Belgian flags--and air theirlittle bits of French. And he takes it as an encouragement. Onlyyesterday there was a scene. It seems he tried to kiss the Hickson girlat the inn--Maudie.... And his wife; a great big slow woman--in everyway she is--Ample; it's dreadful even to seem to criticise, but I do so_wish_ she would not see fit to sit down and nourish her baby in my poorold bachelor drawing-room--often at the most _unseasonable_ times. And--so lavishly.... "

Mr. Britling attempted consolations. 

"But anyhow, " said Mr. Dimple, "I'm better off than poor dear Mrs. Bynne. She secured two milliners. She insisted upon them. And theirclothes were certainly beautifully made--even my poor old unworldly eyecould tell that. And she thought two milliners would be so useful with alarge family like hers. They certainly _said_ they were milliners. Butit seems--I don't know what we shall do about them.... My dear Mr. Britling, those young women are anything but milliners--anything butmilliners.... "

A faint gleam of amusement was only too perceptible through the goodman's horror. 

"Sirens, my dear Mr. Britling. Sirens. By profession. "... 

Section 10

October passed into November, and day by day Mr. Britling was forced toapprehend new aspects of the war, to think and rethink the war, to havehis first conclusions checked and tested, twisted askew, replaced. Histhoughts went far and wide and deeper--until all his earlier writingseemed painfully shallow to him, seemed a mere automatic response ofobvious comments to the stimulus of the war's surprise. As his ideasbecame subtler and profounder, they became more difficult to express; hetalked less; he became abstracted and irritable at table. To two peoplein particular Mr. Britling found his real ideas inexpressible, to Mr. Direck and to Mr. Van der Pant. 

Each of these gentlemen brought with him the implication or theintimation of a critical attitude towards England. It was all very wellfor Mr. Britling himself to be critical of England; that is anEnglishman's privilege. To hear Mr. Van der Pant questioning Britishefficiency or to suspect Mr. Direck of high, thin American superioritiesto war, was almost worse than to hear Mrs. Harrowdean saying hostilethings about Edith. It roused an even acuter protective emotion. 

In the case of Mr. Van der Pant matters were complicated by thedifficulty of the language, which made anything but the crudeststatements subject to incalculable misconception. 

Mr. Van der Pant had not the extreme tactfulness of his so typicallyCatholic wife; he made it only too plain that he thought the Britishpostal and telegraph service slow and slack, and the management of theGreat Eastern branch lines wasteful and inefficient. He said the workmenin the fields and the workmen he saw upon some cottages near thejunction worked slowlier and with less interest than he had ever seenany workman display in all his life before. He marvelled that Mr. Britling lit his house with acetylene and not electric light. He thoughtfresh eggs were insanely dear, and his opinion of Matching's Easypig-keeping was uncomplimentary. The roads, he said, were not a means ofgetting from place to place, they were a _dédale_; he drew derisive mapswith his finger on the table-cloth of the lane system about the DowerHouse. He was astonished that there was no Café in Matching's Easy; hedeclared that the "public house" to which he went with considerableexpectation was no public house at all; it was just a sly place fordrinking beer.... All these were things Mr. Britling might have remarkedhimself; from a Belgian refugee he found them intolerable. 

He set himself to explain to Mr. Van der Pant firstly that these thingsdid not matter in the slightest degree, the national attention, thenational interest ran in other directions; and secondly that they were, as a matter of fact and on the whole, merits slightly disguised. Heproduced a pleasant theory that England is really not the Englishman'sfield, it is his breeding place, his resting place, a place not forefficiency but good humour. If Mr. Van der Pant were to make inquirieshe would find there was scarcely a home in Matching's Easy that had notsent some energetic representative out of England to become one of theEnglish of the world. England was the last place in which English energywas spent. These hedges, these dilatory roads were full of associations. There was a road that turned aside near Market Saffron to avoid Turk'swood; it had been called Turk's wood first in the fourteenth centuryafter a man of that name. He quoted Chesterton's happy verses to justifythese winding lanes. 

 "The road turned first towards the left, Where Perkin's quarry made the cleft; The path turned next towards the right, Because the mastiff used to bite.... "

And again:

 "And I should say they wound about To find the town of Roundabout, The merry town of Roundabout That makes the world go round. "

If our easy-going ways hampered a hard efficiency, they did at leastdevelop humour and humanity. Our diplomacy at any rate had not failedus.... 

He did not believe a word of this stuff. His deep irrational love forEngland made him say these things.... For years he had been gettinghimself into hot water because he had been writing and hinting just suchcriticisms as Mr. Van der Pant expressed so bluntly.... But he wasn'tgoing to accept foreign help in dissecting his mother.... 

And another curious effect that Mr. Van der Pant had upon Mr. Britlingwas to produce an obstinate confidence about the war and the nearnessof the German collapse. He would promise Mr. Van der Pant that he shouldbe back in Antwerp before May; that the Germans would be over the Rhineby July. He knew perfectly well that his ignorance of all the militaryconditions was unqualified, but still he could not restrain himself fromthis kind of thing so soon as he began to speak EntenteCordiale--Anglo-French, that is to say. Something in his relationship toMr. Van der Pant obliged him to be acutely and absurdly the protectingBritish.... At times he felt like a conscious bankrupt talking off thehour of disclosure. But indeed all that Mr. Britling was trying to sayagainst the difficulties of a strange language and an alien temperament, was that the honour of England would never be cleared until Belgium wasrestored and avenged.... 

While Mr. Britling was patrolling unimportant roads and entertaining Mr. Van der Pant with discourses upon the nearness of victory and the subtleestimableness of all that was indolent, wasteful and evasive in Englishlife, the war was passing from its first swift phases into a slower, grimmer struggle. The German retreat ended at the Aisne, and the longoutflanking manoeuvres of both hosts towards the Channel began. TheEnglish attempts to assist Belgium in October came too late for thepreservation of Antwerp, and after a long and complicated struggle inFlanders the British failed to outflank the German right, lost Ghent, Menin and the Belgian coast, but held Ypres and beat back every attemptof the enemy to reach Dunkirk and Calais. Meanwhile the smaller Germancolonies and islands were falling to the navy, the Australian battleship_Sydney_ smashed the _Emden_ at Cocos Island, and the British navaldisaster of Coronel was wiped out by the battle of the Falklands. TheRussians were victorious upon their left and took Lemberg, and aftersome vicissitudes of fortune advanced to Przemysl, occupying the largerpart of Galicia; but the disaster of Tannenberg had broken theirprogress in East Prussia, and the Germans were pressing towards Warsaw. Turkey had joined the war, and suffered enormous losses in the Caucasus. The Dardanelles had been shelled for the first time, and the Britishwere at Basra on the Euphrates. 

Section 11

The Christmas of 1914 found England, whose landscape had hitherto beenalmost as peaceful and soldierless as Massachusetts, already far gonealong the path of transformation into a country full of soldiers andmunition makers and military supplies. The soldiers came first, on thewell-known and greatly admired British principle of "first catch yourhare" and then build your kitchen. Always before, Christmas had been atime of much gaiety and dressing up and prancing and two-stepping at theDower House, but this year everything was too uncertain to allow of anygathering of guests. Hugh got leave for the day after Christmas, butTeddy was tied; and Cissie and Letty went off with the small boy to takelodgings near him. The Van der Pants had hoped to see an EnglishChristmas at Matching's Easy, but within three weeks of Christmas DayMr. Van der Pant found a job that he could do in Nottingham, and carriedoff his family. The two small boys cheered their hearts with paperdecorations, but the Christmas Tree was condemned as too German, and itwas discovered that Santa Claus had suddenly become Old Father Christmasagain. The small boys discovered that the price of lead soldiers hadrisen, and were unable to buy electric torches, on which they had settheir hearts. There was to have been a Christmas party at Claverings, but at the last moment Lady Homartyn had to hurry off to an orphannephew who had been seriously wounded near Ypres, and the light ofClaverings was darkened. 

Soon after Christmas there were rumours of an impending descent of theHeadquarters staff of the South-Eastern army upon Claverings. Then Mr. Britling found Lady Homartyn back from France, and very indignantbecause after all the Headquarters were to go to Lady Wensleydale atLadyholt. It was, she felt, a reflection upon Claverings. Lady Homartynbecame still more indignant when presently the new armies, which weregathering now all over England like floods in a low-lying meadow, camepouring into the parishes about Claverings to the extent of a battalionand a Territorial battery. Mr. Britling heard of their advent only a dayor two before they arrived; there came a bright young officer with anorderly, billeting; he was much exercised to get, as he expressed itseveral times, a quart into a pint bottle. He was greatly pleased withthe barn. He asked the size of it and did calculations. He could "sticktwenty-five men into it--easy. " It would go far to solve his problems. He could manage without coming into the house at all. It was a rippingplace. "No end. "

"But beds, " said Mr. Britling. 

"Lord! they don't want _beds_, " said the young officer.... 

The whole Britling family, who were lamenting the loss of theirBelgians, welcomed the coming of the twenty-five with great enthusiasm. It made them feel that they were doing something useful once more. Forthree days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers--the kitchen motorshad as usual gone astray--and she did so in a style that made theirboastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of theirbattery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, andMr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, suppliednot only generous firing and lighting, but unlimited cigarettes, cardsand games, illustrated newspapers, a cocoa supper with such littlesurprises as sprats and jam roly-poly, and a number of more incidentalcomforts. The men arrived fasting under the command of two very sagemiddle-aged corporals, and responded to Mrs. Britling's hospitalities bya number of good resolutions, many of which they kept. They never madenoises after half-past ten, or at least only now and then when asingsong broke out with unusual violence; they got up and went out atfive or six in the morning without a sound; they were almostinconveniently helpful with washing-up and tidying round. 

In quite a little time Mrs. Britling's mind had adapted itself to thespectacle of half-a-dozen young men in khaki breeches and shirtsperforming their toilets in and about her scullery, or improvising anunsanctioned game of football between the hockey goals. These men werenot the miscellaneous men of the new armies; they were the earlierTerritorial type with no heroics about them; they came from themidlands; and their two middle-aged corporals kept them well in hand andruled them like a band of brothers. But they had an illegal side, thatdeveloped in directions that set Mr. Britling theorising. They seemed, for example, to poach by nature, as children play and sing. Theypossessed a promiscuous white dog. They began to add rabbits to theirsupper menu, unaccountable rabbits. One night there was a mighty smellof frying fish from the kitchen, and the cook reported trout. "Trout!"said Mr. Britling to one of the corporals; "now where did you chaps gettrout?"

The "fisherman, " they said, had got them with a hair noose. Theyproduced the fisherman, of whom they were manifestly proud. It was, heexplained, a method of fishing he had learnt when in New York Harbour. He had been a stoker. He displayed a confidence in Mr. Britling thatmade that gentleman an accessory after his offence, his very seriousoffence against pre-war laws and customs. It was plain that the troutwere the trout that Mr. Pumshock, the stock-broker and amateurgentleman, had preserved so carefully in the Easy. Hitherto thecountryside had been forced to regard Mr. Pumshock's trout with analmost superstitious respect. A year ago young Snooker had done a monthfor one of those very trout. But now things were different. 

"But I don't really fancy fresh-water fish, " said the fisherman. "It'sjust the ketchin' of 'em I like.... "

And a few weeks later the trumpeter, an angel-faced freckled child withdeep-blue eyes, brought in a dozen partridge eggs which he wanted Maryto cook for him.... 

The domesticity of the sacred birds, it was clear, was no longer safe inEngland.... 

Then again the big guns would go swinging down the road and intoClaverings park, and perform various exercises with commendablesmartness and a profound disregard for Lady Homartyn's known objectionto any departure from the public footpath.... 

And one afternoon as Mr. Britling took his constitutional walk, areverie was set going in his mind by the sight of a neglected-lookingpheasant with a white collar. The world of Matching's Easy was gettingfull now of such elderly birds. Would _that_ go on again after the war?He imagined his son Hugh as a grandfather, telling the little ones aboutparks and preserves and game laws, and footmen and butlers and themarvellous game of golf, and how, suddenly, Mars came tramping throughthe land in khaki and all these things faded and vanished, so thatpresently it was discovered they were gone.... 

CHAPTER THE THIRD

MALIGNITY

Section 1

And while the countryside of England changed steadily from its laxpacific amenity to the likeness of a rather slovenly armed camp, whilelong-fixed boundaries shifted and dissolved and a great irreparablewasting of the world's resources gathered way, Mr. Britling did his dutyas a special constable, gave his eldest son to the Territorials, entertained Belgians, petted his soldiers in the barn, helped Teddy tohis commission, contributed to war charities, sold out securities at aloss and subscribed to the War Loan, and thought, thought endlesslyabout the war. 

He could think continuously day by day of nothing else. His mind was ascaught as a galley slave, as unable to escape from tugging at this oar. All his universe was a magnetic field which oriented everything, whetherhe would have it so or not, to this one polar question. 

His thoughts grew firmer and clearer; they went deeper and wider. Hisfirst superficial judgments were endorsed and deepened or replaced byothers. He thought along the lonely lanes at night; he thought at hisdesk; he thought in bed; he thought in his bath; he tried over histhoughts in essays and leading articles and reviewed them and correctedthem. Now and then came relaxation and lassitude, but never release. Thewar towered over him like a vigilant teacher, day after day, week afterweek, regardless of fatigue and impatience, holding a rod in its hand. 

Section 2

Certain things had to be forced upon Mr. Britling because they jarred sogreatly with his habits of mind that he would never have accepted themif he could have avoided doing so. 

Notably he would not recognise at first the extreme bitterness of thiswar. He would not believe that the attack upon Britain and WesternEurope generally expressed the concentrated emotion of a whole nation. He thought that the Allies were in conflict with a system and not with anational will. He fought against the persuasion that the whole mass of agreat civilised nation could be inspired by a genuine and sustainedhatred. Hostility was an uncongenial thing to him; he would notrecognise that the greater proportion of human beings are more readilyhostile than friendly. He did his best to believe--in his "And Now WarEnds" he did his best to make other people believe--that this war wasthe perverse exploit of a small group of people, of limited but powerfulinfluences, an outrage upon the general geniality of mankind. Thecruelty, mischief, and futility of war were so obvious to him that hewas almost apologetic in asserting them. He believed that war had but tobegin and demonstrate its quality among the Western nations in order tounify them all against its repetition. They would exclaim: "But we can'tdo things like this to one another!" He saw the aggressive imperialismof Germany called to account even by its own people; a struggle, acollapse, a liberal-minded conference of world powers, and a universalresumption of amiability upon a more assured basis of security. Hebelieved--and many people in England believed with him--that a greatsection of the Germans would welcome triumphant Allies as theirliberators from intolerable political obsessions. 

The English because of their insularity had been political amateurs forendless generations. It was their supreme vice, it was their supremevirtue, to be easy-going. They had lived in an atmosphere of comedy, anddenied in the whole tenor of their lives that life is tragic. Not eventhe Americans had been more isolated. The Americans had had theirIndians, their negroes, their War of Secession. Until the Great War theChannel was as broad as the Atlantic for holding off every vitalchallenge. Even Ireland was away--a four-hour crossing. And so theEnglish had developed to the fullest extent the virtues and vices ofsafety and comfort; they had a hatred of science and dramatic behaviour;they could see no reason for exactness or intensity; they dislikedproceeding "to extremes. " Ultimately everything would turn out allright. But they knew what it is to be carried into conflicts byenergetic minorities and the trick of circumstances, and they were readyto understand the case of any other country which has suffered thatfate. All their habits inclined them to fight good-temperedly andcomfortably, to quarrel with a government and not with a people. It tookMr. Britling at least a couple of months of warfare to understand thatthe Germans were fighting in an altogether different spirit. 

The first intimations of this that struck upon his mind were the news ofthe behaviour of the Kaiser and the Berlin crowd upon the declaration ofwar, and the violent treatment of the British subjects seeking to returnto their homes. Everywhere such people had been insulted andill-treated. It was the spontaneous expression of a long-gatheredbitterness. While the British ambassador was being howled out of Berlin, the German ambassador to England was taking a farewell stroll, quiteunmolested, in St. James's Park.... One item that struck particularlyupon Mr. Britling's imagination was the story of the chorus of youngwomen who assembled on the railway platform of the station through whichthe British ambassador was passing to sing--to his drawnblinds--"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles. " Mr. Britling couldimagine those young people, probably dressed more or less uniformly inwhite, with flushed faces and shining eyes, letting their voices go, full throated, in the modern German way.... 

And then came stories of atrocities, stories of the shooting of old menand the butchery of children by the wayside, stories of wounded menbayoneted or burnt alive, of massacres of harmless citizens, of lootingand filthy outrages.... 

Mr. Britling did his utmost not to believe these things. Theycontradicted his habitual world. They produced horrible strains in hismind. They might, he hoped, be misreported so as to seem more violent orless justifiable than they were. They might be the acts of straycriminals, and quite disconnected from the normal operations of the war. Here and there some weak-minded officer may have sought to make himselfterrible.... And as for the bombardment of cathedrals and the crime ofLouvain, well, Mr. Britling was prepared to argue that Gothicarchitecture is not sacrosanct if military necessity cuts through it.... It was only after the war had been going on some months that Mr. Britling's fluttering, unwilling mind was pinned down by officialreports and a cloud of witnesses to a definite belief in the grimreality of systematic rape and murder, destruction, dirtiness andabominable compulsions that blackened the first rush of the Prussiansinto Belgium and Champagne.... 

They came hating and threatening the lands they outraged. They soughtoccasion to do frightful deeds.... When they could not be frightful inthe houses they occupied, then to the best of their ability they weredestructive and filthy. The facts took Mr. Britling by the throat.... 

The first thing that really pierced Mr. Britling with the convictionthat there was something essentially different in the English and theGerman attitude towards the war was the sight of a bale of German comicpapers in the study of a friend in London. They were filled withcaricatures of the Allies and more particularly of the English, and theydisplayed a force and quality of passion--an incredible force andquality of passion. Their amazing hate and their amazing filthinessalike overwhelmed Mr. Britling. There was no appearance of nationalpride or national dignity, but a bellowing patriotism and a limitlessdesire to hurt and humiliate. They spat. They were red in the face andthey spat. He sat with these violent sheets in his hands--_ashamed_. 

"But I say!" he said feebly. "It's the sort of thing that might come outof a lunatic asylum.... "

One incredible craving was manifest in every one of them. The Germancaricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except in extremelytight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to represent themwithout thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering blood, into the moreindelicate parts of their persons. This was the _leit-motif_ of the waras the German humorists presented it. "But, " said Mr. Britling, "thesethings can't represent anything like the general state of mind inGermany. "

"They do, " said his friend. 

"But it's blind fury--at the dirt-throwing stage. "

"The whole of Germany is in that blind fury, " said his friend. "While weare going about astonished and rather incredulous about this war, andstill rather inclined to laugh, that's the state of mind of Germany.... There's a sort of deliberation in it. They think it gives them strength. They _want_ to foam at the mouth. They do their utmost to foam more. They write themselves up. Have you heard of the 'Hymn of Hate'?"

Mr. Britling had not. 

"There was a translation of it in last week's _Spectator_.... This isthe sort of thing we are trying to fight in good temper and withoutextravagance. Listen, Britling!

 "_You_ will we hate with a lasting hate; We will never forgo our hate-- Hate by water and hate by land, Hate of the head and hate of the hand, Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, Hate of seventy millions, choking down; We love as one, we hate as one, We have _one_ foe, and one alone-- ENGLAND!"

He read on to the end. 

"Well, " he said when he had finished reading, "what do you think of it?"

"I want to feel his bumps, " said Mr. Britling after a pause. "It'sincomprehensible. "

"They're singing that up and down Germany. Lissauer, I hear, has beendecorated.... "

"It's--stark malignity, " said Mr. Britling. "What have we done?"

"It's colossal. What is to happen to the world if these people prevail?"

"I can't believe it--even with this evidence before me.... No! I want tofeel their bumps.... "

Section 3

"You see, " said Mr. Britling, trying to get it into focus, "I have knownquite decent Germans. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.... Iwonder what makes them hate us. There seems to me no reason in it. "

"I think it is just thoroughness, " said his friend. "They are at war. Tobe at war is to hate. "

"That isn't at all my idea. "

"We're not a thorough people. When we think of anything, we also thinkof its opposite. When we adopt an opinion we also take in a provisionalidea that it is probably nearly as wrong as it is right. Weare--atmospheric. They are concrete.... All this filthy, vile, unjustand cruel stuff is honest genuine war. We pretend war does not hurt. They know better.... The Germans are a simple honest people. It istheir virtue. Possibly it is their only virtue.... "

Section 4

Mr. Britling was only one of a multitude who wanted to feel the bumps ofGermany at that time. The effort to understand a people who had suddenlybecome incredible was indeed one of the most remarkable facts in Englishintellectual life during the opening phases of the war. The Englishstate of mind was unlimited astonishment. There was an enormous sale ofany German books that seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of thisamazing concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of countlessarticles and interminable discussions. One saw little clerks on the wayto the office and workmen going home after their work earnestly readingthese remarkable writers. They were asking, just as Mr. Britling wasasking, what it was the British Empire had struck against. They weretrying to account for this wild storm of hostility that was coming atthem out of Central Europe. 

It was a natural next stage to this, when after all it became manifestthat instead of there being a liberal and reluctant Germany at the backof imperialism and Junkerdom, there was apparently one solid andenthusiastic people, to suppose that the Germans were in somedistinctive way evil, that they were racially more envious, arrogant, and aggressive than the rest of mankind. Upon that supposition a greatnumber of English people settled. They concluded that the Germans had apeculiar devil of their own--and had to be treated accordingly. That wasthe second stage in the process of national apprehension, and it wasmarked by the first beginnings of a spy hunt, by the first denunciationof naturalised aliens, and by some anti-German rioting among the mixedalien population in the East End. Most of the bakers in the East End ofLondon were Germans, and for some months after the war began they wenton with their trade unmolested. Now many of these shops were wrecked.... It was only in October that the British gave these first signs of asense that they were fighting not merely political Germany but theGermans. 

But the idea of a peculiar malignity in the German quality as a key tothe broad issue of the war was even less satisfactory and less permanentin Mr. Britling's mind than his first crude opposition of militarism anda peaceful humanity as embodied respectively in the Central Powers andthe Russo-Western alliance. It led logically to the conclusion that theextermination of the German peoples was the only security for thegeneral amiability of the world, a conclusion that appealed but weaklyto his essential kindliness. After all, the Germans he had met and seenwere neither cruel nor hate-inspired. He came back to that obstinately. From the harshness and vileness of the printed word and the uncleanpicture, he fell back upon the flesh and blood, the humanity andsterling worth, of--as a sample--young Heinrich. 

Who was moreover a thoroughly German young German--a thoroughly Prussianyoung Prussian. 

At times young Heinrich alone stood between Mr. Britling and the beliefthat Germany and the whole German race was essentially wicked, essentially a canting robber nation. Young Heinrich became a sort ofadvocate for his people before the tribunal of Mr. Britling's mind. (Andon his shoulder sat an absurdly pampered squirrel. ) s fresh, pink, sedulous face, very earnest, adjusting his glasses, saying "Please, "intervened and insisted upon an arrest of judgment.... 

Since the young man's departure he had sent two postcards of greetingdirectly to the "Familie Britling, " and one letter through the friendlyintervention of Mr. Britling's American publisher. Once also he sent amessage through a friend in Norway. The postcards simply recordedstages in the passage of a distraught pacifist across Holland to hisenrolment. The letter by way of America came two months later. He hadbeen converted into a combatant with extreme rapidity. He had beentrained for three weeks, had spent a fortnight in hospital with a severecold, and had then gone to Belgium as a transport driver--his father hadbeen a horse-dealer and he was familiar with horses. "If anythinghappens to me, " he wrote, "please send my violin at least very carefullyto my mother. " It was characteristic that he reported himself as verycomfortably quartered in Courtrai with "very nice people. " The nicenessinvolved restraints. "Only never, " he added, "do we talk about the war. It is better not to do so. " He mentioned the violin also in the latercommunication through Norway. Therein he lamented the lost fleshpots ofCourtrai. He had been in Posen, and now he was in the Carpathians, up tohis knees in snow and "very uncomfortable.... "

And then abruptly all news from him ceased. 

Month followed month, and no further letter came. 

"Something has happened to him. Perhaps he is a prisoner.... "

"I hope our little Heinrich hasn't got seriously damaged.... He may bewounded.... "

"Or perhaps they stop his letters.... Very probably they stop hisletters. "

Section 5

Mr. Britling would sit in his armchair and stare at his fire, and recallconflicting memories of Germany--of a pleasant land, of friendly people. He had spent many a jolly holiday there. So recently as 1911 all theBritling family had gone up the Rhine from Rotterdam, had visited astring of great cities and stayed for a cheerful month of sunshine atNeunkirchen in the Odenwald. 

The little village perches high among the hills and woods, and at itsvery centre is the inn and the linden tree and--Adam Meyer. Or at leastAdam Meyer _was_ there. Whether he is there now, only the spirit ofchange can tell; if he live to be a hundred no friendly English willever again come tramping along by the track of the Blaue Breiecke or theWeisse Streiche to enjoy his hospitality; there are rivers of bloodbetween, and a thousand memories of hate.... 

It was a village distended with hospitalities. Not only the inn but allthe houses about the place of the linden tree, the shoe-maker's, thepost-mistress's, the white house beyond, every house indeed except thepastor's house, were full of Adam Meyer's summer guests. And about itand over it went and soared Adam Meyer, seeing they ate well, seeingthey rested well, seeing they had music and did not miss themoonlight--a host who forgot profit in hospitality, an inn-keeper withthe passion of an artist for his inn. 

Music, moonlight, the simple German sentiment, the hearty German voices, the great picnic in a Stuhl Wagen, the orderly round games the boysplayed with the German children, and the tramps and confidences Hugh hadwith Kurt and Karl, and at last a crowning jollification, a dance, withsome gipsy musicians whom Mr. Britling discovered, when the Germanstaught the English various entertaining sports with baskets and potatoesand forfeits and the English introduced the Germans to the licence ofthe two-step. And everybody sang "Britannia, Rule the Waves, " and"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, " and Adam Meyer got on a chair andmade a tremendous speech more in dialect than ever, and there was muchdrinking of beer and sirops in the moonlight under the linden.... 

Afterwards there had been a periodic sending of postcards and greetings, which indeed only the war had ended. 

Right pleasant people those Germans had been, sun and green-leaf lovers, for whom "Frisch Auf" seemed the most natural of national cries. Mr. Britling thought of the individual Germans who had made up theassembly, of the men's amusingly fierce little hats of green and bluewith an inevitable feather thrust perkily into the hatband behind, ofthe kindly plumpnesses behind their turned-up moustaches, of the blonde, sedentary women, very wise about the comforts of life and very kind tothe children, of their earnest pleasure in landscape and Art and GreatWriters, of their general frequent desire to sing, of their plasticityunder the directing hands of Adam Meyer. He thought of the mellow southGerman landscape, rolling away broad and fair, of the little cleanred-roofed townships, the old castles, the big prosperous farms, theneatly marked pedestrian routes, the hospitable inns, and the artlessabundant Aussichtthurms.... 

He saw all those memories now through a veil of indescribablesadness--as of a world lost, gone down like the cities of Lyonessebeneath deep seas.... 

Right pleasant people in a sunny land! Yet here pressing relentlesslyupon his mind were the murders of Visé, the massacres of Dinant, themassacres of Louvain, murder red-handed and horrible upon an inoffensivepeople, foully invaded, foully treated; murder done with a sickeningcant of righteousness and racial pretension.... 

The two pictures would not stay steadily in his mind together. When hethought of the broken faith that had poured those slaughtering hostsinto the decent peace of Belgium, that had smashed her cities, burnt hervillages and filled the pretty gorges of the Ardennes with blood andsmoke and terror, he was flooded with self-righteous indignation, aself-righteous indignation that was indeed entirely Teutonic in itsquality, that for a time drowned out his former friendship and everykindly disposition towards Germany, that inspired him with destructiveimpulses, and obsessed him with a desire to hear of death and more deathand yet death in every German town and home.... 

Section 6

It will be an incredible thing to the happier reader of a coming age--ifever this poor record of experience reaches a reader in the days tocome--to learn how much of the mental life of Mr. Britling was occupiedat this time with the mere horror and atrocity of warfare. It is idleand hopeless to speculate now how that future reader will envisage thiswar; it may take on broad dramatic outlines, it may seem a thing, just, logical, necessary, the burning of many barriers, the destruction ofmany obstacles. Mr. Britling was too near to the dirt and pain and heatfor any such broad landscape consolations. Every day some new detail ofevil beat into his mind. Now it would be the artless story of someBelgian refugee. There was a girl from Alost in the village for example, who had heard the fusillade that meant the shooting of citizens, theshooting of people she had known, she had seen the still blood-stainedwall against which two murdered cousins had died, the streaked sandalong which their bodies had been dragged; three German soldiers hadbeen quartered in her house with her and her invalid mother, and hadtalked freely of the massacres in which they had been employed. One ofthem was in civil life a young schoolmaster, and he had had, he said, tokill a woman and a baby. The girl had been incredulous. Yes, he had doneso! Of course he had done so! His officer had made him do it, had stoodover him. He could do nothing but obey. But since then he had beenunable to sleep, unable to forget. 

"We had to punish the people, " he said. "They had fired on us. "

And besides, his officer had been drunk. It had been impossible toargue. His officer had an unrelenting character at all times.... 

Over and over again Mr. Britling would try to imagine that youngschoolmaster soldier at Alost. He imagined with a weak staring face andwatery blue eyes behind his glasses, and that memory of murder.... 

Then again it would be some incident of death and mutilation in Antwerp, that Van der Pant described to him. The Germans in Belgium were shootingwomen frequently, not simply for grave spying but for trivialoffences.... Then came the battleship raid on Whitby and Scarborough, and the killing among other victims of a number of children on their wayto school. This shocked Mr. Britling absurdly, much more than theBelgian crimes had done. They were _English_ children. At home!... Thedrowning of a great number of people on a torpedoed ship full ofrefugees from Flanders filled his mind with pitiful imaginings for days. The Zeppelin raids, with their slow crescendo of blood-stained futility, began before the end of 1914.... It was small consolation for Mr. Britling to reflect that English homes and women and children were, after all, undergoing only the same kind of experience that our shipshave inflicted scores of times in the past upon innocent people in thevillages of Africa and Polynesia.... 

Each month the war grew bitterer and more cruel. Early in 1915 theGermans began their submarine war, and for a time Mr. Britling's concernwas chiefly for the sailors and passengers of the ships destroyed. Henoted with horror the increasing indisposition of the German submarinesto give any notice to their victims; he did not understand the grimreasons that were turning every submarine attack into a desperatechallenge of death. For the Germans under the seas had pitted themselvesagainst a sea power far more resourceful, more steadfast and skilful, sterner and more silent, than their own. It was not for many months thatMr. Britling learnt the realities of the submarine blockade. Submarineafter submarine went out of the German harbours into the North Sea, never to return. No prisoners were reported, no boasting was publishedby the British fishers of men; U boat after U boat vanished into achilling mystery.... Only later did Mr. Britling begin to hear whispersand form ideas of the noiseless, suffocating grip that sought throughthe waters for its prey. 

The _Falaba_ crime, in which the German sailors were reported to havejeered at the drowning victims in the water, was followed by the sinkingof the _Lusitania_. At that a wave of real anger swept through theEmpire. Hate was begetting hate at last. There were violent riots inGreat Britain and in South Africa. Wretched little German hairdressersand bakers and so forth fled for their lives, to pay for the momentarysatisfaction of the Kaiser and Herr Ballin. Scores of German homes inEngland were wrecked and looted; hundreds of Germans maltreated. War iswar. Hard upon the _Lusitania_ storm came the publication of the BryceReport, with its relentless array of witnesses, its particulars ofcountless acts of cruelty and arrogant unreason and uncleanness inBelgium and the occupied territory of France. Came also the gaspingtorture of "gas, " the use of flame jets, and a new exacerbation of thesavagery of the actual fighting. For a time it seemed as though thetaking of prisoners along the western front would cease. Tales oftorture and mutilation, tales of the kind that arise nowhere and out ofnothing, and poison men's minds to the most pitiless retaliations, drifted along the opposing fronts.... 

The realities were evil enough without any rumours. Over variousdinner-tables Mr. Britling heard this and that first-hand testimony ofharshness and spite. One story that stuck in his memory was of Britishprisoners on the journey into Germany being put apart at a station fromtheir French companions in misfortune, and forced to "run the gauntlet"back to their train between the fists and bayonets of files of Germansoldiers. And there were convincing stories of the same prisoners robbedof overcoats in bitter weather, baited with dogs, separated from theircountrymen, and thrust among Russians and Poles with whom they couldhold no speech. So Lissauer's Hate Song bore its fruit in a thousandcruelties to wounded and defenceless men. The English had cheated greatGermany of another easy victory like that of '71. They had to bepunished. That was all too plainly the psychological process. At oneGerman station a woman had got out of a train and crossed a platform tospit on the face of a wounded Englishman.... And there was no monopolyof such things on either side. At some journalistic gathering Mr. Britling met a little white-faced, resolute lady who had recently beennursing in the north of France. She told of wounded men lying among thecoal of coal-sheds, of a shortage of nurses and every sort of material, of an absolute refusal to permit any share in such things to reach theGerman "swine. " ... "Why have they come here? Let our own boys have itfirst. Why couldn't they stay in their own country? Let the filth die. "

Two soldiers impressed to carry a wounded German officer on a stretcherhad given him a "joy ride, " pitching him up and down as one tosses a manin a blanket. "He was lucky to get off with that. "... 

"All _our_ men aren't angels, " said a cheerful young captain back fromthe front. "If you had heard a little group of our East London boystalking of what they meant to do when they got into Germany, you'd feelanxious.... "

"But that was just talk, " said Mr. Britling weakly, after a pause.... 

There were times when Mr. Britling's mind was imprisoned beyond any hopeof escape amidst such monstrous realities.... 

He was ashamed of his one secret consolation. For nearly two years yetHugh could not go out to it. There would surely be peace beforethat.... 

Section 7

Tormenting the thought of Mr. Britling almost more acutely than thisgrowing tale of stupidly inflicted suffering and waste and sheerdestruction was the collapse of the British mind from its first finephase of braced-up effort into a state of bickering futility. 

Too long had British life been corrupted by the fictions of loyalty toan uninspiring and alien Court, of national piety in an official Church, of freedom in a politician-rigged State, of justice in an economicsystem where the advertiser, the sweater and usurer had a hundredadvantages over the producer and artisan, to maintain itself nowsteadily at any high pitch of heroic endeavour. It had bought itscomfort with the demoralisation of its servants. It had no completelyhonest organs; its spirit was clogged by its accumulated insincerities. Brought at last face to face with a bitter hostility and a powerful andunscrupulous enemy, an enemy socialistic, scientific and efficient to anunexampled degree, it seemed indeed to be inspired for a time by anunwonted energy and unanimity. Youth and the common people shone. Thesons of every class went out to fight and die, full of a splendid dreamof this war. Easy-going vanished from the foreground of the picture. Butonly to creep back again as the first inspiration passed. Presently theolder men, the seasoned politicians, the owners and hucksters, thecharming women and the habitual consumers, began to recover from thisblaze of moral exaltation. Old habits of mind and procedure reassertedthemselves. The war which had begun so dramatically missed its climax;there was neither heroic swift defeat nor heroic swift victory. Therewas indecision; the most trying test of all for an undisciplined people. There were great spaces of uneventful fatigue. Before the Battle of theYser had fully developed the dramatic quality had gone out of the war. It had ceased to be either a tragedy or a triumph; for both sides itbecame a monstrous strain and wasting. It had become a wearisomethrusting against a pressure of evils.... 

Under that strain the dignity of England broke, and revealed a malignityless focussed and intense than the German, but perhaps even moredistressing. No paternal government had organised the British spirit forpatriotic ends; it became now peevish and impatient, like someill-trained man who is sick, it directed itself no longer against theenemy alone but fitfully against imagined traitors and shirkers; itwasted its energies in a deepening and spreading net of internalsquabbles and accusations. Now it was the wily indolence of the PrimeMinister, now it was the German culture of the Lord Chancellor, now theimaginative enterprise of the First Lord of the Admiralty that focusseda vindictive campaign. There began a hunt for spies and of suspects ofGerman origin in every quarter except the highest; a denunciation now of"traitors, " now of people with imaginations, now of scientific men, nowof the personal friend of the Commander-in-Chief, now of this group andthen of that group.... Every day Mr. Britling read his three or fournewspapers with a deepening disappointment. 

When he turned from the newspaper to his post, he would find theanonymous letter-writer had been busy.... 

Perhaps Mr. Britling had remarked that Germans were after all humanbeings, or that if England had listened to Matthew Arnold in the'eighties our officers by this time might have added efficiency to theircourage and good temper. Perhaps he had himself put a touch of irritantacid into his comment. Back flared the hate. "Who are _you_, Sir? Whatare _you_, Sir? What right have _you_, Sir? What claim have _you_, Sir?"... 

Section 8

"Life had a wrangling birth. On the head of every one of us rests theancestral curse of fifty million murders. "

So Mr. Britling's thoughts shaped themselves in words as he prowled onenight in March, chill and melancholy, across a rushy meadow under anovercast sky. The death squeal of some little beast caught suddenly in adistant copse had set loose this train of thought. "Life strugglingunder a birth curse?" he thought. "How nearly I come back at times tothe Christian theology!... And then, Redemption by the shedding ofblood. "

"Life, like a rebellious child, struggling out of the control of thehate which made it what it is. "

But that was Mr. Britling's idea of Gnosticism, not of orthodoxChristianity. He went off for a time into faded reminiscences oftheological reading. What had been the Gnostic idea? That the God of theOld Testament was the Devil of the New? But that had been the idea ofthe Manichæans!... 

Mr. Britling, between the black hedges, came back presently from hisattempts to recall his youthful inquiries into man's ancientspeculations, to the enduring riddles that have outlasted a thousandspeculations. Has hate been necessary, and is it still necessary, andwill it always be necessary? Is all life a war forever? The rabbit isnimble, lives keenly, is prevented from degenerating into a diseasedcrawling eater of herbs by the incessant ferret. Without the ferret ofwar, what would life become?... War is murder truly, but is not Peacedecay?

It was during these prowling nights in the first winter of the war thatMr. Britling planned a new writing that was to go whole abysses beneaththe facile superficiality of "And Now War Ends. " It was to be called the"Anatomy of Hate. " It was to deal very faithfully with the function ofhate as a corrective to inefficiency. So long as men were slack, menmust be fierce. This conviction pressed upon him.... 

In spite of his detestation of war Mr. Britling found it impossible tomaintain that any sort of peace state was better than a state of war. Ifwars produced destructions and cruelties, peace could produce indolence, perversity, greedy accumulation and selfish indulgences. War isdiscipline for evil, but peace may be relaxation from good. The poor manmay be as wretched in peace time as in war time. The gathering forces ofan evil peace, the malignity and waste of war, are but obverse andreverse of the medal of ill-adjusted human relationships. Was there noGreater Peace possible; not a mere recuperative pause in killing anddestruction, but a phase of noble and creative living, a phase ofbuilding, of discovery, of beauty and research? He remembered, as oneremembers the dead, dreams he had once dreamt of the great cities, thesplendid freedoms, of a coming age, of marvellous enlargements of humanfaculty, of a coming science that would be light and of art that couldbe power.... 

But would that former peace have ever risen to that?... 

After all, had such visions ever been more than idle dreams? Had the wardone more than unmask reality?... 

He came to a gate and leant over it. 

The darkness drizzled about him; he turned up his collar and watched thedim shapes of trees and hedges gather out of the night to meet thedismal dawn. He was cold and hungry and weary. 

He may have drowsed; at least he had a vision, very real and plain, avision very different from any dream of Utopia. 

It seemed to him that suddenly a mine burst under a great ship at sea, that men shouted and women sobbed and cowered, and flares played uponthe rain-pitted black waves; and then the picture changed and showed abattle upon land, and searchlights were flickering through the rain andshells flashed luridly, and men darkly seen in silhouette against redflames ran with fixed bayonets and slipped and floundered over the mud, and at last, shouting thinly through the wind, leapt down into the enemytrenches.... 

And then he was alone again staring over a wet black field towards a dimcrest of shapeless trees. 

Section 9

Abruptly and shockingly, this malignity of warfare, which had been sofar only a festering cluster of reports and stories and rumours andsuspicions, stretched out its arm into Essex and struck a barb ofgrotesque cruelty into the very heart of Mr. Britling. Late oneafternoon came a telegram from Filmington-on-Sea, where Aunt Wilshirehad been recovering her temper in a boarding-house after a round ofvisits in Yorkshire and the moorlands. And she had been "very seriouslyinjured" by an overnight German air raid. It was a raid that had notbeen even mentioned in the morning's papers. She had asked to see him. 

It was, ran the compressed telegraphic phrase, "advisable to come atonce. "

Mrs. Britling helped him pack a bag, and came with him to the station inorder to drive the car back to the Dower House; for the gardener's boywho had hitherto attended to these small duties had now gone off as anunskilled labourer to some munition works at Chelmsford. Mr. Britlingsat in the slow train that carried him across country to the junctionfor Filmington, and failed altogether to realise what had happened tothe old lady. He had an absurd feeling that it was characteristic of herto intervene in affairs in this manner. She had always been so tough andunbent an old lady that until he saw her he could not imagine her asbeing really seriously and pitifully hurt.... 

But he found her in the hospital very much hurt indeed. She had beensmashed in some complicated manner that left the upper part of her bodyintact, and lying slantingly upon pillows. Over the horror of bandagedbroken limbs and tormented flesh below sheets and a counterpane weredrawn. Morphia had been injected, he understood, to save her from pain, but presently it might be necessary for her to suffer. She lay up in herbed with an effect of being enthroned, very white and still, her strongprofile with its big nose and her straggling hair and a certain dignitygave her the appearance of some very important, very old man, of an agedpope for instance, rather than of an old woman. She had made no remarkafter they had set her and dressed her and put her to bed except "sendfor Hughie Britling, The Dower House, Matching's Easy. He is the best ofthe bunch. " She had repeated the address and this commendation firmlyover and over again, in large print as it were, even after they hadassured her that a telegram had been despatched. 

In the night, they said, she had talked of him. 

He was not sure at first that she knew of his presence. 

"Here I am, Aunt Wilshire, " he said. 

She gave no sign. 

"Your nephew Hugh. "

"Mean and preposterous, " she said very distinctly. 

But she was not thinking of Mr. Britling. She was talking of somethingelse. 

She was saying: "It should not have been known I was here. There arespies everywhere. Everywhere. There is a spy now--or a lump very like aspy. They pretend it is a hot-water bottle. Pretext.... Oh, yes! Iadmit--absurd. But I have been pursued by spies. Endless spies. Endless, endless spies. Their devices are almost incredible.... He has neverforgiven me.... 

"All this on account of a carpet. A palace carpet. Over which I had nocontrol. I spoke my mind. He knew I knew of it. I never concealed it. So I was hunted. For years he had meditated revenge. Now he has it. Butat what a cost! And they call him Emperor. Emperor!

"His arm is withered; his son--imbecile. He will die--withoutdignity.... "

Her voice weakened, but it was evident she wanted to say something more. 

"I'm here, " said Mr. Britling. "Your nephew Hughie. "

She listened. 

"Can you understand me?" he asked. 

She became suddenly an earnest, tender human being. "My dear!" she said, and seemed to search for something in her mind and failed to find it. 

"You have always understood me, " she tried. 

"You have always been a good boy to me, Hughie, " she said, rathervacantly, and added after some moments of still reflection, "_au fond_. "

After that she was silent for some minutes, and took no notice of hiswhispers. 

Then she recollected what had been in her mind. She put out a hand thatsought for Mr. Britling's sleeve. 

"Hughie!"

"I'm here, Auntie, " said Mr. Britling. "I'm here. "

"Don't let him get at _your_ Hughie.... Too good for it, dear. Oh!much--much too good.... People let these wars and excitements run awaywith them.... They put too much into them.... They aren't--they aren'tworth it. Don't let him get at your Hughie. "

"No!"

"You understand me, Hughie?"

"Perfectly, Auntie. "

"Then don't forget it. Ever. "

She had said what she wanted to say. She had made her testament. Sheclosed her eyes. He was amazed to find this grotesque old creature hadsuddenly become beautiful, in that silvery vein of beauty one sometimesfinds in very old men. She was exalted as great artists will sometimesexalt the portraits of the aged. He was moved to kiss her forehead. 

There came a little tug at his sleeve. 

"I think that is enough, " said the nurse, who had stood forgotten at hiselbow. 

"But I can come again?"

"Perhaps. "

She indicated departure by a movement of her hand. 

Section 10

The next day Aunt Wilshire was unconscious of her visitor. 

They had altered her position so that she lay now horizontally, staringinflexibly at the ceiling and muttering queer old disconnected things. 

The Windsor Castle carpet story was still running through her mind, butmixed up with it now were scraps of the current newspaper controversiesabout the conduct of the war. And she was still thinking of the dynasticaspects of the war. And of spies. She had something upon her mind aboutthe King's more German aunts. 

"As a precaution, " she said, "as a precaution. Watch them all.... ThePrincess Christian.... Laying foundation stones.... Cement.... Guns. Orelse why should they always be laying foundation stones?... Always.... Why?... Hushed up.... 

"None of these things, " she said, "in the newspapers. They ought to be. "

And then after an interval, very distinctly, "The Duke of Wellington. Myancestor--in reality.... Publish and be damned. "

After that she lay still.... 

The doctors and nurses could hold out only very faint hopes to Mr. Britling's inquiries; they said indeed it was astonishing that she wasstill alive. 

And about seven o'clock that evening she died.... 

Section 11

Mr. Britling, after he had looked at his dead cousin for the last time, wandered for an hour or so about the silent little watering-place beforehe returned to his hotel. There was no one to talk to and nothing elseto do but to think of her death. 

The night was cold and bleak, but full of stars. He had already masteredthe local topography, and he knew now exactly where all the bombs thathad been showered upon the place had fallen. Here was the corner ofblackened walls and roasted beams where three wounded horses had beenburnt alive in a barn, here the row of houses, some smashed, some almostintact, where a mutilated child had screamed for two hours before shecould be rescued from the debris that had pinned her down, and taken tothe hospital. Everywhere by the dim light of the shaded street lamps hecould see the black holes and gaps of broken windows; sometimesabundant, sometimes rare and exceptional, among otherwise uninjureddwellings. Many of the victims he had visited in the little cottagehospital where Aunt Wilshire had just died. She was the eleventh dead. Altogether fifty-seven people had been killed or injured in thisbrilliant German action. They were all civilians, and only twelve weremen. 

Two Zeppelins had come in from over the sea, and had been fired at by ananti-aircraft gun coming on an automobile from Ipswich. The firstintimation the people of the town had had of the raid was the report ofthis gun. Many had run out to see what was happening. It was doubtful ifany one had really seen the Zeppelins, though every one testified to thesound of their engines. Then suddenly the bombs had come streamingdown. Only six had made hits upon houses or people; the rest had fallenruinously and very close together on the local golf links, and at leasthalf had not exploded at all and did not seem to have been released toexplode. 

A third at least of the injured people had been in bed when destructioncame upon them. 

The story was like a page from some fantastic romance of Jules Verne's;the peace of the little old town, the people going to bed, the quietstreets, the quiet starry sky, and then for ten minutes an uproar ofguns and shells, a clatter of breaking glass, and then a fire here, afire there, a child's voice pitched high by pain and terror, scaredpeople going to and fro with lanterns, and the sky empty again, theraiders gone.... 

Five minutes before, Aunt Wilshire had been sitting in theboarding-house drawing-room playing a great stern "Patience, " theEmperor Patience ("Napoleon, my dear!--not that Potsdam creature") thattook hours to do. Five minutes later she was a thing of elemental terrorand agony, bleeding wounds and shattered bones, plunging about in thedarkness amidst a heap of wreckage. And already the German airmen werebuzzing away to sea again, proud of themselves, pleased no doubt--likeboys who have thrown a stone through a window, beating their way back tothanks and rewards, to iron crosses and the proud embraces of delightedFraus and Fräuleins.... 

For the first time it seemed to Mr. Britling he really saw the immediatehorror of war, the dense cruel stupidity of the business, plain andclose. It was as if he had never perceived anything of the sort before, as if he had been dealing with stories, pictures, shows andrepresentations that he knew to be shams. But that this dear, absurd oldcreature, this thing of home, this being of familiar humours andfamiliar irritations, should be torn to pieces, left in torment like asmashed mouse over which an automobile has passed, brought the wholebusiness to a raw and quivering focus. Not a soul among all those whohad been rent and torn and tortured in this agony of millions, but wasto any one who understood and had been near to it, in some way lovable, in some way laughable, in some way worthy of respect and care. Poor AuntWilshire was but the sample thrust in his face of all this mangledmultitude, whose green-white lips had sweated in anguish, whose brokenbones had thrust raggedly through red dripping flesh.... The detestedfeatures of the German Crown Prince jerked into the centre of Mr. Britling's picture. The young man stood in his dapper uniform andgrinned under his long nose, carrying himself jauntily, proud of hisextreme importance to so many lives.... 

And for a while Mr. Britling could do nothing but rage. 

"Devils they are!" he cried to the stars. 

"Devils! Devilish fools rather. Cruel blockheads. Apes with all sciencein their hands! My God! but _we will teach them a lesson yet!_... "

That was the key of his mood for an hour of aimless wandering, wanderingthat was only checked at last by a sentinel who turned him back towardsthe town.... 

He wandered, muttering. He found great comfort in scheming vindictivedestruction for countless Germans. He dreamt of swift armouredaeroplanes swooping down upon the flying airship, and sending it reelingearthward, the men screaming. He imagined a shattered Zeppelinstaggering earthward in the fields behind the Dower House, and how hewould himself run out with a spade and smite the Germans down. "Quarterindeed! Kamerad! Take _that_, you foul murderer!"

In the dim light the sentinel saw the retreating figure of Mr. Britlingmake an extravagant gesture, and wondered what it might mean. Signalling? What ought an intelligent sentry to do? Let fly at him?Arrest him?... Take no notice?... 

Mr. Britling was at that moment killing Count Zeppelin and beating outhis brains. Count Zeppelin was killed that night and the German Emperorwas assassinated; a score of lesser victims were offered up to the_manes_ of Aunt Wilshire; there were memorable cruelties before thewrath and bitterness of Mr. Britling was appeased. And then suddenly hehad had enough of these thoughts; they were thrust aside, they vanishedout of his mind. 

Section 12

All the while that Mr. Britling had been indulging in these imaginativeslaughterings and spending the tears and hate that had gathered in hisheart, his reason had been sitting apart and above the storm, like thesun waiting above thunder, like a wise nurse watching and patient abovethe wild passions of a child. And all the time his reason had beenmaintaining silently and firmly, without shouting, without speech, thatthe men who had made this hour were indeed not devils, were no moredevils than Mr. Britling was a devil, but sinful men of like nature withhimself, hard, stupid, caught in the same web of circumstance. "Killthem in your passion if you will, " said reason, "but understand. Thisthing was done neither by devils nor fools, but by a conspiracy offoolish motives, by the weak acquiescences of the clever, by a crimethat was no man's crime but the natural necessary outcome of theineffectiveness, the blind motives and muddleheadedness of all mankind. "

So reason maintained her thesis, like a light above the head of Mr. Britling at which he would not look, while he hewed airmen to quiveringrags with a spade that he had sharpened, and stifled German princes withtheir own poison gas, given slowly and as painfully as possible. "Andwhat of the towns _our_ ships have bombarded?" asked reason unheeded. "What of those Tasmanians _our_ people utterly swept away?"

"What of French machine-guns in the Atlas?" reason pressed the case. "OfHimalayan villages burning? Of the things we did in China? Especiallyof the things we did in China.... "

Mr. Britling gave no heed to that. 

"The Germans in China were worse than we were, " he threw out.... 

He was maddened by the thought of the Zeppelin making off, high and farin the sky, a thing dwindling to nothing among the stars, and thethought of those murderers escaping him. Time after time he stood stilland shook his fist at Boötes, slowly sweeping up the sky.... 

And at last, sick and wretched, he sat down on a seat upon the desertedparade under the stars, close to the soughing of the invisible seabelow.... 

His mind drifted back once more to those ancient heresies of theGnostics and the Manichæans which saw the God of the World as altogetherevil, which sought only to escape by the utmost abstinences and evasionsand perversions from the black wickedness of being. For a while his soulsank down into the uncongenial darknesses of these creeds of despair. "Iwho have loved life, " he murmured, and could have believed for a timethat he wished he had never had a son.... 

Is the whole scheme of nature evil? Is life in its essence cruel? Is manstretched quivering upon the table of the eternal vivisector for noend--and without pity?

These were thoughts that Mr. Britling had never faced before the war. They came to him now, and they came only to be rejected by the inherentquality of his mind. For weeks, consciously and subconsciously, his mindhad been grappling with this riddle. He had thought of it during hislonely prowlings as a special constable; it had flung itself inmonstrous symbols across the dark canvas of his dreams. "Is there indeeda devil of pure cruelty? Does any creature, even the very cruellest ofcreatures, really apprehend the pain it causes, or inflict it for thesake of the infliction?" He summoned a score of memories, a score ofimaginations, to bear their witness before the tribunal of his mind. Heforgot cold and loneliness in this speculation. He sat, trying allBeing, on this score, under the cold indifferent stars. 

He thought of certain instances of boyish cruelty that had horrified himin his own boyhood, and it was clear to him that indeed it was notcruelty, it was curiosity, dense textured, thick skinned, so that itcould not feel even the anguish of a blinded cat. Those boys who hadwrung his childish soul to nigh intolerable misery, had not indeed beentormenting so much as observing torment, testing life as wantonly as onebreaks thin ice in the early days of winter. In very much cruelty thereal motive is surely no worse than that obtuse curiosity; a mere stepof understanding, a mere quickening of the nerves and mind, makes itimpossible. But that is not true of all or most cruelty. Most crueltyhas something else in it, something more than the clumsy plunging intoexperience of the hobbledehoy; it is vindictive or indignant; it isnever tranquil and sensuous; it draws its incentive, however crippledand monstrous the justification may be, from something punitive in man'sinstinct, something therefore that implies a sense, however misguided, of righteousness and vindication. That factor is present even in spite;when some vile or atrocious thing is done out of envy or malice, thatenvy and malice has in it always--_always?_ Yes, always--a genuinecondemnation of the hated thing as an unrighteous thing, as an unjustusurpation, as an inexcusable privilege, as a sinful overconfidence. Those men in the airship?--he was coming to that. He found himselfasking himself whether it was possible for a human being to do any cruelact without an excuse--or, at least, without the feeling ofexcusability. And in the case of these Germans and the outrages they hadcommitted and the retaliations they had provoked, he perceived thatalways there was the element of a perceptible if inadequatejustification. Just as there would be if presently he were to maltreat afallen German airman. There was anger in their vileness. These Germanswere an unsubtle people, a people in the worst and best sense of thewords, plain and honest; they were prone to moral indignation; and moralindignation is the mother of most of the cruelty in the world. Theyperceived the indolence of the English and Russians, they perceivedtheir disregard of science and system, they could not perceive thelonger reach of these greater races, and it seemed to them that themission of Germany was to chastise and correct this laxity. Surely, theyhad argued, God was not on the side of those who kept an untilled field. So they had butchered these old ladies and slaughtered these childrenjust to show us the consequences:

 "All along of dirtiness, all along of mess, All along of doing things rather more or less. "

The very justification our English poet has found for a thousandoverbearing actions in the East! "Forget not order and the real, " thatwas the underlying message of bomb and gas and submarine. After all, what right had we English _not_ to have a gun or an aeroplane fit tobring down that Zeppelin ignominiously and conclusively? Had we notundertaken Empire? Were we not the leaders of great nations? Had weindeed much right to complain if our imperial pose was flouted? "There, at least, " said Mr. Britling's reason, "is one of the lines of thoughtthat brought that unseen cruelty out of the night high over the housesof Filmington-on-Sea. That, in a sense, is the cause of this killing. Cruel it is and abominable, yes, but is it altogether cruel? Hasn't it, after all, a sort of stupid rightness?--isn't it a stupid reaction to anindolence at least equally stupid?"

What was this rightness that lurked below cruelty? What was theinspiration of this pressure of spite, this anger that was aroused byineffective gentleness and kindliness? Was it indeed an altogether evilthing; was it not rather an impulse, blind as yet, but in its ultimatequality _as good as mercy_, greater perhaps in its ultimate values thanmercy?

This idea had been gathering in Mr. Britling's mind for many weeks; ithad been growing and taking shape as he wrote, making experimentalbeginnings for his essay, "The Anatomy of Hate. " Is there not, he nowasked himself plainly, a creative and corrective impulse behind allhate? Is not this malignity indeed only the ape-like precursor of thegreat disciplines of a creative state?

The invincible hopefulness of his sanguine temperament had now got Mr. Britling well out of the pessimistic pit again. Already he had been onthe verge of his phrase while wandering across the rushy fields towardsMarket Saffron; now it came to him again like a legitimate monarchreturning from exile. 

"When hate shall have become creative energy.... 

"Hate which passes into creative power; gentleness which is indolenceand the herald of euthanasia.... 

"Pity is but a passing grace; for mankind will not always be pitiful. "

But meanwhile, meanwhile.... How long were men so to mingle wrong withright, to be energetic without mercy and kindly without energy?... 

For a time Mr. Britling sat on the lonely parade under the stars and inthe sound of the sea, brooding upon these ideas. 

His mind could make no further steps. It had worked for its spell. Hisrage had ebbed away now altogether. His despair was no longer infinite. But the world was dark and dreadful still. It seemed none the less darkbecause at the end there was a gleam of light. It was a gleam of lightfar beyond the limits of his own life, far beyond the life of his son. It had no balm for these sufferings. Between it and himself stretchedthe weary generations still to come, generations of bickering andaccusation, greed and faintheartedness, and half truth and the hastyblow. And all those years would be full of pitiful things, such pitifulthings as the blackened ruins in the town behind, the little grey-facedcorpses, the lives torn and wasted, the hopes extinguished and thegladness gone.... 

He was no longer thinking of the Germans as diabolical. They were human;they had a case. It was a stupid case, but our case, too, was a stupidcase. How stupid were all our cases! What was it we missed? Something, he felt, very close to us, and very elusive. Something that wouldresolve a hundred tangled oppositions.... 

His mind hung at that. Back upon his consciousness came crowding thehorrors and desolations that had been his daily food now for threequarters of a year. He groaned aloud. He struggled against that renewedenvelopment of his spirit. "Oh, blood-stained fools!" he cried, "oh, pitiful, tormented fools!

"Even that vile airship was a ship of fools!

"We are all fools still. Striving apes, irritated beyond measure by ourown striving, easily moved to anger. "

Some train of subconscious suggestion brought a long-forgotten speechback into Mr. Britling's mind, a speech that is full of that light whichstill seeks so mysteriously and indefatigably to break through thedarkness and thickness of the human mind. 

He whispered the words. No unfamiliar words could have had the sameeffect of comfort and conviction. 

He whispered it of those men whom he still imagined flying far awaythere eastward, through the clear freezing air beneath the stars, thosemuffled sailors and engineers who had caused so much pain and agony inthis little town. 

"_Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. _"

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

IN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE

Section 1

Hugh's letters were becoming a very important influence upon Mr. Britling's thought. Hugh had always been something of a letter-writer, and now what was perhaps an inherited desire to set things down wasmanifest. He had been accustomed to decorate his letters from schoolwith absurd little sketches--sometimes his letters had been allsketches--and now he broke from drawing to writing and back to drawingin a way that pleased his father mightily. The father loved this queertrick of caricature; he did not possess it himself, and so it seemed tohim the most wonderful of all Hugh's little equipment of gifts. Mr. Britling used to carry these letters about until their edges got grimy;he would show them to any one he felt capable of appreciating theiryouthful freshness; he would quote them as final and conclusive evidenceto establish this or that. He did not dream how many thousands ofmothers and fathers were treasuring such documents. He thought othersons were dull young men by comparison with Hugh. 

The earlier letters told much of the charms of discipline and the openair. "All the bother about what one has to do with oneself is over, "wrote Hugh. "One has disposed of oneself. That has the effect of a greatrelief. Instead of telling oneself that one ought to get up in themorning, a bugle tells you that.... And there's no nonsense about it, nochance of lying and arguing about it with oneself.... I begin to see thesense of men going into monasteries and putting themselves under rules. One is carried along in a sort of moral automobile instead of trudgingthe road.... "

And he was also sounding new physical experiences. 

"Never before, " he declared, "have I known what fatigue is. It's amiraculous thing. One drops down in one's clothes on any hard old thingand sleeps.... "

And in his early letters he was greatly exercised by the elementaryscience of drill and discipline, and the discussion of whether thesethings were necessary. He began by assuming that their importance wasoverrated. He went on to discover that they constituted the veryessentials of all good soldiering. "In a crisis, " he concluded, "thereis no telling what will get hold of a man, his higher instincts or hislower. He may show courage of a very splendid sort--or a hastydiscretion. A habit is much more trustworthy than an instinct. Sodiscipline sets up a habit of steady and courageous bearing. If you keepyour head you are at liberty to be splendid. If you lose it, the habitwill carry you through. "

The young man was also very profound upon the effects of the suggestionof various exercises upon the mind. 

"It is surprising how bloodthirsty one feels in a bayonet charge. Wehave to shout; we are encouraged to shout. The effect is to paralyseone's higher centres. One ceases to question--anything. One becomes a'bayoneteer. ' As I go bounding forward I imagine fat men, succulent menahead, and I am filled with the desire to do them in neatly. This sortof thing--"

A sketch of slaughter followed, with a large and valiant Hugh leaving atrain of fallen behind him. 

"Not like this. This is how I used to draw it in my innocent childhood, but it is incorrect. More than one German on the bayonet at a time is anincumbrance. And it would be swank--a thing we detest in the army. "

The second sketch showed the same brave hero with half a dozen of theenemy skewered like cat's-meat. 

"As for the widows and children, I disregard 'em. "

Section 2

But presently Hugh began to be bored. 

"Route marching again, " he wrote. "For no earthly reason than that theycan do nothing else with us. We are getting no decent musketry trainingbecause there are no rifles. We are wasting half our time. If youmultiply half a week by the number of men in the army you will see wewaste centuries weekly.... If most of these men here had just beenenrolled and left to go about their business while we trained officersand instructors and got equipment for them, and if they had then beenput through their paces as rapidly as possible, it would have beeninfinitely better for the country.... In a sort of way we are keepingraw; in a sort of way we are getting stale.... I get irritated by this. I feel we are not being properly done by. 

"Half our men are educated men, reasonably educated, but we are alwaysbeing treated as though we were too stupid for words.... 

"No good grousing, I suppose, but after Statesminster and a glimpse ofold Cardinal's way of doing things, one gets a kind of toothache in themind at the sight of everything being done twice as slowly and half aswell as it need be. "

He went off at a tangent to describe the men in his platoon. "The bestman in our lot is an ex-grocer's assistant, but in order to save us fromvain generalisations it happens that the worst man--a moon-facedcreature, almost incapable of lacing up his boots without help andobjurgation--is also an ex-grocer's assistant. Our most offensive memberis a little cad with a snub nose, who has read Kipling and imagines heis the nearest thing that ever has been to Private Ortheris. He goesabout looking for the other two of the Soldiers Three; it is rather likean unpopular politician trying to form a ministry. And he isconscientiously foul-mouthed. He feels losing a chance of saying'bloody' as acutely as a snob feels dropping an H. He goes backsometimes and says the sentence over again and puts the 'bloody' in. Iused to swear a little out of the range of your parental ear, butOrtheris has cured me. When he is about I am mincing in my speech. Iperceive now that cursing is a way of chewing one's own dirt. In aplatoon there is no elbow-room for indifference; you must either love orhate. I have a feeling that my first taste of battle will not be withGermans, but with Private Ortheris.... "

And one letter was just a picture, a parody of the well-known picture ofthe bivouac below and the soldier's dream of return to his belovedabove. But Master Hugh in the dream was embracing an enormous retort, while a convenient galvanometer registered his emotion and littletripods danced around him. 

Section 3

Then came a letter which plunged abruptly into criticism. 

"My dear Parent, this is a swearing letter. I must let go to somebody. And somehow none of the other chaps are convenient. I don't know if Iought to be put against a wall and shot for it, but I hereby declarethat all the officers of this battalion over and above the rank ofcaptain are a constellation of incapables--and several of the captainsare herewith included. Some of them are men of a pleasant dispositionand carefully aborted mental powers, and some are men of an unpleasantdisposition and no mental powers at all. And I believe--a littleenlightened by your recent letter to _The Times_--that they are a fairsample of the entire 'army' class which has got to win this war. Usuallythey are indolent, but when they are thoroughly roused they are fussy. The time they should spend in enlarging their minds and increasing theirmilitary efficiency they devote to keeping fit. They are, roughlyspeaking, fit--for nothing. They cannot move us thirty miles withoutgetting half of us left about, without losing touch with food andshelter, and starving us for thirty-six hours or so in the process, andthey cannot count beyond the fingers of one hand, not having learnt touse the nose for arithmetical operations.... I conclude this war isgoing to be a sort of Battle of Inkerman on a large scale. We chaps inthe ranks will have to do the job. Leading is 'off. '... 

"All of this, my dear Parent, is just a blow off. I have been needlesslystarved, and fagged to death and exasperated. We have movedfive-and-twenty miles across country--in fifty-seven hours. And withoutfood for about eighteen hours. I have been with my Captain, who has beenbilleting us here in Cheasingholt. Oh, he is a MUFF! Oh God! oh God ofHeaven! what a MUFF! He is afraid of printed matter, but he controlshimself heroically. He prides himself upon having no 'sense of locality, confound it!' Prides himself! He went about this village, which is alittle dispersed, at a slight trot, and wouldn't avail himself of theone-inch map I happened to have. He judged the capacity of each roomwith his eye and wouldn't let me measure, even with God's own paces. Notwith the legs I inherit. 'We'll put five fellahs hea!' he said. 'Whatd'you want to measure the room for? We haven't come to lay downcarpets. ' Then, having assigned men by _coup d'oeil_, so as to congesthalf the village miserably, he found the other half unoccupied and hadto begin all over again. 'If you measured the floor space first, sir, ' Isaid, 'and made a list of the houses--' 'That isn't the way I'm going todo it, ' he said, fixing me with a pitiless eye.... 

"That isn't the way they are going to do it, Daddy! The sort of thingthat is done over here in the green army will be done over there in thedry. They won't be in time; they'll lose their guns where now they loseour kitchens. I'm a mute soldier; I've got to do what I'm told; still, I begin to understand the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. 

"They say the relations of men and officers in the new army arebeautiful. Some day I may learn to love my officer--but not just yet. Not till I've forgotten the operations leading up to the occupation ofCheasingholt.... He muffs his real job without a blush, and yet he wouldrather be shot than do his bootlaces up criss-cross. What I say aboutofficers applies only and solely to him really.... How well I understandnow the shooting of officers by their men.... But indeed, fatigue andexasperation apart, this shift has been done atrociously.... "

The young man returned to these criticisms in a later letter. 

"You will think I am always carping, but it does seem to me that nearlyeverything is being done here in the most wasteful way possible. Wewaste time, we waste labour, we waste material, oh Lord! how we wasteour country's money. These aren't, I can assure you, the opinions of aconceited young man. It's nothing to be conceited about.... We're boredto death by standing about this infernal little village. There isnothing to do--except trail after a small number of slatternly youngwomen we despise and hate. I _don't_, Daddy. And I don't drink. Why haveI inherited no vices? We had a fight here yesterday--sheer boredom. Ortheris has a swollen lip, and another private has a bad black eye. There is to be a return match. I perceive the chief horror of warfare isboredom.... 

"Our feeding here is typical of the whole system. It is a systeminvented not with any idea of getting the best results--that does notenter into the War Office philosophy--but to have a rule for everything, and avoid arguments. There is rather too generous an allowance of breadand stuff per man, and there is a very fierce but not very efficientsystem of weighing and checking. A rather too generous allowance is, ofcourse, a direct incentive to waste or stealing--as any one but oursilly old duffer of a War Office would know. The checking is forquantity, which any fool can understand, rather than for quality. Thetest for the quality of army meat is the smell. If it doesn't smell bad, it is good.... 

"Then the raw material is handed over to a cook. He is a common soldierwho has been made into a cook by a simple ceremony. He is told, 'You area cook. ' He does his best to be. Usually he roasts or bakes to beginwith, guessing when the joint is done, afterwards he hacks up what isleft of his joints and makes a stew for next day. A stew is hacked meatboiled up in a big pot. It has much fat floating on the top. After youhave eaten your fill you want to sit about quiet. The men are fedusually in a large tent or barn. We have a barn. It is not a clean barn, and just to make it more like a picnic there are insufficient plates, knives and forks. (I tell you, no army people can count beyond eight orten. ) The corporals after their morning's work have to carve. When theyhave done carving they tell me they feel they have had enough dinner. They sit about looking pale, and wander off afterwards to the villagepub. (I shall probably become a corporal soon. ) In these islands beforethe war began there was a surplus of women over men of about a million. (See the publications of the Fabian Society, now so popular among theyoung. ) None of these women have been trusted by the government with thedifficult task of cooking and giving out food to our soldiers. No man ofthe ordinary soldier class ever cooks anything until he is a soldier.... All food left over after the stew or otherwise rendered uneatable by thecook is thrown away. We throw away pail-loads. _We bury meat_.... 

"Also we get three pairs of socks. We work pretty hard. We don't knowhow to darn socks. When the heels wear through, come blisters. Badblisters disable a man. Of the million of surplus women (see above) thegovernment has not had the intelligence to get any to darn our socks. So a certain percentage of us go lame. And so on. And so on. 

"You will think all this is awful grousing, but the point I want tomake--I hereby to ease my feelings make it now in a fair round hand--isthat all this business could be done far better and far cheaper if itwasn't left to these absolutely inexperienced and extremely exclusivemilitary gentlemen. They think they are leading England and showing usall how; instead of which they are just keeping us back. Why in thunderare they doing everything? Not one of them, when he is at home, isallowed to order the dinner or poke his nose into his own kitchen orcheck the household books.... The ordinary British colonel is a helplessold gentleman; he ought to have a nurse.... This is not merely thetrivial grievance of my insulted stomach, it is a serious matter for thecountry. Sooner or later the country may want the food that is beingwasted in all these capers. In the aggregate it must amount to a dailydestruction of tons of stuff of all sorts. Tons.... Suppose the warlasts longer than we reckon!"

From this point Hugh's letter jumped to a general discussion of themilitary mind. 

"Our officers are beastly good chaps, nearly all of them. That's wherethe perplexity of the whole thing comes in. If only they weren't suchgood chaps! If only they were like the Prussian officers to their men, then we'd just take on a revolution as well as the war, and makeeverything tidy at once. But they are decent, they are charming.... Onlythey do not think hard, and they do not understand that doing a jobproperly means doing it as directly and thought-outly as you possiblycan. They won't worry about things. If their tempers were worse perhapstheir work might be better. They won't use maps or timetables or booksof reference. When we move to a new place they pick up what they canabout it by hearsay; not one of our lot has the gumption to possess acontoured map or a Michelin guide. They have hearsay minds. They arefussy and petty and wasteful--and, in the way of getting things done, pretentious. By their code they're paragons of honour. Courage--they'reall right about that; no end of it; honesty, truthfulness, and soon--high. They have a kind of horsey standard of smartness and pluck, too, that isn't bad, and they have a fine horror of whiskers and beingunbuttoned. But the mistake they make is to class thinking withwhiskers, as a sort of fussy sidegrowth. Instead of classing it withunbuttonedupness. They hate economy. And preparation.... 

"They won't see that inefficiency is a sort of dishonesty. If a mandoesn't steal sixpence, they think it a light matter if he wastes half acrown. Here follows wisdom! _From the point of view of a nation at war, sixpence is just a fifth part of half a crown_.... 

"When I began this letter I was boiling with indignation, complicated, Isuspect, by this morning's 'stew'; now I have written thus far I feelI'm an ungenerous grumbler.... It is remarkable, my dear Parent, that Ilet off these things to you. I like writing to you. I couldn't possiblysay the things I can write. Heinrich had a confidential friend atBreslau to whom he used to write about his Soul. I never had one ofthose Teutonic friendships. And I haven't got a Soul. But I have towrite. One must write to some one--and in this place there is nothingelse to do. And now the old lady downstairs is turning down the gas; shealways does at half-past ten. She didn't ought. She gets--ninepenceeach. Excuse the pencil.... "

That letter ended abruptly. The next two were brief and cheerful. Thensuddenly came a new note. 

"We've got rifles! We're real armed soldiers at last. Every blessed manhas got a rifle. And they come from Japan! They are of a sort of lightwood that is like new oak and art furniture, and makes one feel thatone belongs to the First Garden Suburb Regiment; but I believe much canbe done with linseed oil. And they are real rifles, they go bang. We area little light-headed about them. Only our training and disciplineprevent our letting fly at incautious spectators on the skyline. I saw aman yesterday about half a mile off. I was possessed by the idea that Icould get him--right in the middle.... Ortheris, the little beast, hasgot a motor-bicycle, which he calls his 'b----y oto'--no one knowswhy--and only death or dishonourable conduct will save me, I gather, from becoming a corporal in the course of the next month.... "

Section 4

A subsequent letter threw fresh light on the career of the young manwith the "oto. " Before the rifle and the "oto, " and in spite of hisfights with some person or persons unknown, Ortheris found trouble. Hughtold the story with the unblushing _savoir-faire_ of the very young. 

"By the by, Ortheris, following the indications of his creator andsuccumbing to the universal boredom before the rifles came, forgot LordKitchener's advice and attempted 'seduktion. ' With painful results whichhe insists upon confiding to the entire platoon. He has been severelysmacked and scratched by the proposed victim, and warned off thepremises (licensed premises) by her father and mother--both formidablepersons. They did more than warn him off the premises. They haddisplayed neither a proper horror of Don Juan nor a proper respect forthe King's uniform. Mother, we realise, got hold of him and cuffed himseverely. 'What the 'ell's a chap to do?' cried Ortheris. 'You can't go'itting a woman back. ' Father had set a dog on him. A less ingenuouscharacter would be silent about such passages--I should be tooegotistical and humiliated altogether--but that is not his quality. Hetells us in tones of naïve wonder. He talks about it and talks aboutit. 'I don't care what the old woman did, ' he says, 'not--reely. What'urts me about it is that I jest made a sort of mistake 'ow _she'd_ tikeit. You see, I sort of feel I've 'urt and insulted _'er_. And reely Ididn't mean to. Swap me, I didn't mean to. Gawd 'elp me. I wouldn't 'ave'ad it 'appened as it 'as 'appened, not for worlds. And now I can't getround to 'er, or anyfing, not to explain.... You chaps may laugh, butyou don't know what there is _in_ it.... I tell you it worries mesomething frightful. You think I'm just a little cad who took libertieshe didn't ought to. (Note of anger drowning uncharitable grunts ofassent. ) 'Ow the 'ell is 'e to know _when_ 'e didn't ought to? ... I_swear_ she liked me.... '

"This kind of thing goes on for hours--in the darkness. 

"'I'd got regular sort of fond of 'er. '

"And the extraordinary thing is it makes me begin to get regular fond ofOrtheris. 

"I think it is because the affair has surprised him right out of actingOrtheris and Tommy Atkins for a bit, into his proper self. He'sfrightfully like some sort of mongrel with a lot of wiry-haired terrierand a touch of Airedale in it. A mongrel you like in spite of theflavour of all the horrid things he's been nosing into. And he's as hardas nails and, my dear daddy! he can't box for nuts. "

Section 5

Mr. Britling, with an understanding much quickened by Hugh's letters, went about Essex in his automobile, and on one or two journeys intoBerkshire and Buckinghamshire, and marked the steady conversion of theold pacific countryside into an armed camp. He was disposed to minimiseHugh's criticisms. He found in them something of the harshness of youth, which is far too keen-edged to be tolerant with half performance andour poor human evasion of perfection's overstrain. "Our poor humanevasion of perfection's overstrain"; this phrase was Mr. Britling's. ToMr. Britling, looking less closely and more broadly, the new army was apride and a marvel. 

He liked to come into some quiet village and note the clusters of sturdykhaki-clad youngsters going about their business, the tethered horses, the air of subdued bustle, the occasional glimpses of guns andammunition trains. Wherever one went now there were soldiers and stillmore soldiers. There was a steady flow of men into Flanders, andpresently to Gallipoli, but it seemed to have no effect upon themultitude in training at home. He was pleasantly excited by the evidentincrease in the proportion of military material upon the railways; heliked the promise and mystery of the long lines of trucks bearingtarpaulin-covered wagons and carts and guns that he would pass on hisway to Liverpool Street station. He could apprehend defeat in thesilence of the night, but when he saw the men, when he went about theland, then it was impossible to believe in any end but victory.... 

But through the spring and summer there was no victory. The "greatoffensive" of May was checked and abandoned after a series ofineffective and very costly attacks between Ypres and Soissons. TheGermans had developed a highly scientific defensive in whichmachine-guns replaced rifles and a maximum of punishment was inflictedupon an assaulting force with a minimum of human loss. The War Officehad never thought much of machine-guns before, but now it thought a gooddeal. Moreover, the energies of Britain were being turned more and moretowards the Dardanelles. 

The idea of an attack upon the Dardanelles had a traditionalattractiveness for the British mind. Old men had been brought up fromchildhood with "forcing the Dardanelles" as a familiar phrase; it hadnone of the flighty novelty and vulgarity about it that made an "aerialoffensive" seem so unwarrantable a proceeding. Forcing the Dardanelleswas historically British. It made no break with tradition. Soon afterTurkey entered the war British submarines appeared in the Sea ofMarmora, and in February a systematic bombardment of the Dardanellesbegan; this was continued intermittently for a month, the defendersprofiting by their experiences and by spells of bad weather tostrengthen their works. This first phase of the attack culminated in theloss of the _Irresistible_, _Ocean_, and _Bouvet_, when on the 17th ofMarch the attacking fleet closed in upon the Narrows. After an interludeof six weeks to allow of further preparations on the part of thedefenders, who were now thoroughly alive to what was coming, the Alliedarmies gathered upon the scene, and a difficult and costly landing wasachieved at two points upon the peninsula of Gallipoli. With that begana slow and bloody siege of the defences of the Dardanelles, clamberingup to the surprise landing of a fresh British army in Suvla Bay inAugust, and its failure in the battle of Anafarta, through incompetentcommanders and a general sloppiness of leading, to cut off and captureMaidos and the Narrows defences.... Meanwhile the Russian hosts, whichhad reached their high-water mark in the capture of Przemysl, were beingforced back first in the south and then in the north. The Germansrecaptured Lemberg, entered Warsaw, and pressed on to take BrestLitowsk. The Russian lines rolled back with an impressive effect ofdefeat, and the Germans thrust towards Riga and Petrograd, reachingVilna about the middle of September.... 

Day after day Mr. Britling traced the swaying fortunes of the conflict, with impatience, with perplexity, but with no loss of confidence in theultimate success of Britain. The country was still swarming with troops, and still under summer sunshine. A second hay harvest redeemed thescantiness of the first, the wheat crops were wonderful, and the greatfig tree at the corner of the Dower House had never borne so bountifullynor such excellent juicy figs.... 

And one day in early June while those figs were still only a hope, Teddyappeared at the Dower House with Letty, to say good-bye before going tothe front. He was going out in a draft to fill up various gaps andlosses; he did not know where. Essex was doing well but bloodily overthere. Mrs. Britling had tea set out upon the lawn under the blue cedar, and Mr. Britling found himself at a loss for appropriate sayings, andtalked in his confusion almost as though Teddy's departure was of nosignificance at all. He was still haunted by that odd sense ofresponsibility for Teddy. Teddy was not nearly so animated as he hadbeen in his pre-khaki days; there was a quiet exaltation in his mannerrather than a lively excitement. He knew now what he was in for. He knewnow that war was not a lark, that for him it was to be the gravestexperience he had ever had or was likely to have. There were no morejokes about Letty's pension, and a general avoidance of the topics ofhigh explosives and asphyxiating gas.... 

Mr. And Mrs. Britling took the young people to the gate. 

"Good luck!" cried Mr. Britling as they receded. 

Teddy replied with a wave of the hand. 

Mr. Britling stood watching them for some moments as they walked towardsthe little cottage which was to be the scene of their private parting. 

"I don't like his going, " he said. "I hope it will be all right withhim.... Teddy's so grave nowadays. It's a mean thing, I know, it hasnone of the Roman touch, but I am glad that this can't happen withHugh--" He computed. "Not for a year and three months, even if theymarch him into it upon his very birthday.... 

"It may all he over by then.... "

Section 6

In that computation he reckoned without Hugh. 

Within a month Hugh was also saying "Good-bye. "

"But how's this?" protested Mr. Britling, who had already guessed theanswer. "You're not nineteen. "

"I'm nineteen enough for this job, " said Hugh. "In fact, I enlisted asnineteen. "

Mr. Britling said nothing for a little while. Then he spoke with a catchin his breath. "I don't blame you, " he said. "It was--the right spirit. "

Drill and responsibilities of non-commissioned rank had imposed a novelmanliness upon the bearing of Corporal Britling. "I always classified alittle above my age at Statesminster, " he said as though that cleared upeverything. 

He looked at a rosebud as though it interested him. Then he remarkedrather casually:

"I thought, " he said, "that if I was to go to war I'd better do thething properly. It seemed--sort of half and half--not to be eligible forthe trenches.... I ought to have told you.... "

"Yes, " Mr. Britling decided. 

"I was shy about it at first.... I thought perhaps the war would be overbefore it was necessary to discuss anything.... Didn't want to go intoit. "

"Exactly, " said Mr. Britling as though that was a complete explanation. 

"It's been a good year for your roses, " said Hugh. 

Section 7

Hugh was to stop the night. He spent what seemed to him and every one along, shy, inexpressive evening. Only the small boys were really naturaland animated. They were much impressed and excited by his departure, andwanted to ask a hundred questions about the life in the trenches. Manyof them Hugh had to promise to answer when he got there. Then he wouldsee just exactly how things were. Mrs. Britling was motherly andintelligent about his outfit. "Will you want winter things?" sheasked.... 

But when he was alone with his father after every one had gone to bedthey found themselves able to talk. 

"This sort of thing seems more to us than it would be to a Frenchfamily, " Hugh remarked, standing on the hearthrug. 

"Yes, " agreed Mr. Britling. "Their minds would be better prepared.... They'd have their appropriate things to say. They have been educated bythe tradition of service--and '71. "

Then he spoke--almost resentfully. 

"The older men ought to go before you boys. Who is to carry on if a lotof you get killed?"

Hugh reflected. "In the stiffest battle that ever can be the odds areagainst getting killed, " he said. 

"I suppose they are. "

"One in three or four in the very hottest corners. "

Mr. Britling expressed no satisfaction. 

"Every one is going through something of this sort. "

"All the decent people, at any rate, " said Mr. Britling.... 

"It will be an extraordinary experience. Somehow it seems out ofproportion--"

"With what?"

"With life generally. As one has known it. "

"It isn't in proportion, " Mr. Britling admitted. 

"Incommensurables, " said Hugh. 

He considered his phrasing. "It's not, " he said, "as though one wasgoing into another part of the same world, or turning up another side ofthe world one was used to. It is just as if one had been living in aroom and one had been asked to step outside.... It makes me think of aqueer little thing that happened when I was in London last winter. Igot into Queer Company. I don't think I told you. I went to have supperwith some students in Chelsea. I hadn't been to the place before, butthey seemed all right--just people like me--and everybody. And aftersupper they took me on to some people _they_ didn't know very well;people who had to do with some School of Dramatic Art. There were two orthree young actresses there and a singer and people of that sort, sitting about smoking cigarettes, and we began talking plays and booksand picture shows and all that stuff; and suddenly there was a knockingat the door and some one went out and found a policeman with a warranton the landing. They took off our host's son.... It had to do with amurder.... "

Hugh paused. "It was the Bedford Mansions mystery. I don't suppose youremember about it or read about it at the time. He'd killed a man.... Itdoesn't matter about the particulars anyhow, but what I mean is theeffect. The effect of a comfortable well-lit orderly room and the senseof harmless people--and then the door opening and the policeman and thecold draught flowing in. _Murder!_ A girl who seemed to know the peoplewell explained to me in whispers what was happening. It was like theopening of a trap-door going down into some pit you have always knownwas there, but never really believed in. "

"I know, " said Mr. Britling. "I know. "

"That's just how I feel about this war business. There's no real deathover here. It's laid out and boxed up. And accidents are all paddedabout. If one got a toss from a horse here, you'd be in bed andcomfortable in no time.... And there; it's like another planet. It'soutside.... I'm going outside.... Instead of there being no deathanywhere, it is death everywhere, outside there. We shall be using ourutmost wits to kill each other. A kind of reverse to this world. "

Mr. Britling nodded. 

"I've never seen a dead body yet. In Dower-House land there aren't deadbodies. "

"We've kept things from you--horrid things of that sort. "

"I'm not complaining, " said Hugh.... "But--Master Hugh--the Master Hughyou kept things from--will never come back. "

He went on quickly as his father raised distressed eyes to him. "I meanthat anyhow _this_ Hugh will never come back. Another one may. But Ishall have been outside, and it will all be different.... "

He paused. Never had Mr. Britling been so little disposed to take up thediscourse. 

"Like a man, " he said, seeking an image and doing no more than imitatehis son's; "who goes out of a busy lighted room through a trap-door intoa blizzard, to mend the roof.... "

For some moments neither father nor son said anything more. They had aqueer sense of insurmountable insufficiency. Neither was saying what hehad wanted to say to the other, but it was not clear to them now whatthey had to say to one another.... 

"It's wonderful, " said Mr. Britling. 

Hugh could only manage: "The world has turned right over.... "

"The job has to be done, " said Mr. Britling. 

"The job has to be done, " said Hugh. 

The pause lengthened. 

"You'll be getting up early to-morrow, " said Mr. Britling.... 

Section 8

When Mr. Britling was alone in his own room all the thoughts andfeelings that had been held up downstairs began to run more and morerapidly and abundantly through his mind. 

He had a feeling--every now and again in the last few years he had hadthe same feeling--as though he was only just beginning to discover Hugh. This perpetual rediscovery of one's children is the experience of everyobservant parent. He had always considered Hugh as a youth, and now aman stood over him and talked, as one man to another. And this man, thisvery new man, mint new and clean and clear, filled Mr. Britling withsurprise and admiration. 

It was as if he perceived the beauty of youth for the first time inHugh's slender, well balanced, khaki-clad body. There was infinitedelicacy in his clear complexion, his clear eyes; the delicatelypencilled eyebrow that was so exactly like his mother's. And this thingof brightness and bravery talked as gravely and as wisely as anyweather-worn, shop-soiled, old fellow.... 

The boy was wise. 

Hugh thought for himself; he thought round and through his position, notegotistically but with a quality of responsibility. He wasn't justhero-worshipping and imitating, just spinning some self-centred romance. If he was a fair sample of his generation then it was a bettergeneration than Mr. Britling's had been.... 

At that Mr. Britling's mind went off at a tangent to the grievance ofthe rejected volunteer. It was acutely shameful to him that all thesefine lads should be going off to death and wounds while the men of fortyand over lay snug at home. How stupid it was to fix things like that!Here were the fathers, who had done their work, shot their bolts, returned some value for the costs of their education, unable to gettraining, unable to be of any service, shamefully safe, doing April foolwork as special constables; while their young innocents, untried, alltheir gathering possibilities of service unbroached, went down into thedeadly trenches.... The war would leave the world a world of cripplesand old men and children.... 

He felt himself as a cowardly brute, fat, wheezy, out of training, sheltering behind this dear one branch of Mary's life. 

He writhed with impotent humiliation.... 

How stupidly the world is managed. 

He began to fret and rage. He could not lie in peace in his bed; he gotup and prowled about his room, blundering against chairs and tables inthe darkness.... We were too stupid to do the most obvious things; wewere sending all these boys into hardship and pitiless danger; we weresending them ill-equipped, insufficiently supported, we were sending ourchildren through the fires to Moloch, because essentially we Englishwere a world of indolent, pampered, sham good-humoured, old andmiddle-aged men. (So he distributed the intolerable load ofself-accusation. ) Why was he doing nothing to change things, to get thembetter? What was the good of an assumed modesty, an effort at tolerancefor and confidence in these boozy old lawyers, these ranting platformmen, these stiff-witted officers and hide-bound officials? They werebutchering the youth of England. Old men sat out of danger contrivingdeath for the lads in the trenches. That was the reality of the thing. "My son!" he cried sharply in the darkness. His sense of our nationaldeficiencies became tormentingly, fantastically acute. It was as if allhis cherished delusions had fallen from the scheme of things.... Whatwas the good of making believe that up there they were planning somegreat counter-stroke that would end in victory? It was as plain asdaylight that they had neither the power of imagination nor thecollective intelligence even to conceive of a counter-stroke. Any dullmass may resist, but only imagination can strike. Imagination! To theend we should not strike. We might strike through the air. We mightstrike across the sea. We might strike hard at Gallipoli instead ofdribbling inadequate armies thither as our fathers dribbled men at theRedan.... But the old men would sit at their tables, replete and sleepy, and shake their cunning old heads. The press would chatter and make oddambiguous sounds like a shipload of monkeys in a storm. The politicalharridans would get the wrong men appointed, would attack every possibleleader with scandal and abuse and falsehood.... 

The spirit and honour and drama had gone out of this war. 

Our only hope now was exhaustion. Our only strategy was to barter bloodfor blood--trusting that our tank would prove the deeper.... 

While into this tank stepped Hugh, young and smiling.... 

The war became a nightmare vision.... 

Section 9

In the morning Mr. Britling's face was white from his overnight brainstorm, and Hugh's was fresh from wholesome sleep. They walked about thelawn, and Mr. Britling talked hopefully of the general outlook until itwas time for them to start to the station.... 

The little old station-master grasped the situation at once, andpresided over their last hand-clasp. 

"Good luck, Hugh!" cried Mr. Britling. 

"Good luck!" cried the little old station-master. 

"It's not easy a-parting, " he said to Mr. Britling as the train slippeddown the line. "There's been many a parting hea' since this here old warbegan. Many. And some as won't come back again neether. "

Section 10

For some days Mr. Britling could think of nothing but Hugh, and alwayswith a dull pain at his heart. He felt as he had felt long ago while hehad waited downstairs and Hugh upstairs had been under the knife of asurgeon. But this time the operation went on and still went on. At theworst his boy had but one chance in five of death or serious injury, butfor a time he could think of nothing but that one chance. He felt itpressing upon his mind, pressing him down.... 

Then instead of breaking under that pressure, he was released by thetrick of the sanguine temperament. His mind turned over, abruptly, tothe four chances out of five. It was like a dislocated joint slippingback into place. It was as sudden as that. He found he had adaptedhimself to the prospect of Hugh in mortal danger. It had become a factestablished, a usual thing. He could bear with it and go about hisaffairs. 

He went up to London, and met other men at the club in the sameemotional predicament. He realised that it was neither very wonderfulnor exceptionally tragic now to have a son at the front. 

"My boy is in Gallipoli, " said one. "It's tough work there. "

"My lad's in Flanders, " said Mr. Britling. "Nothing would satisfy himbut the front. He's three months short of eighteen. He misstated hisage. "

And they went on to talk newspaper just as if the world was where it hadalways been. 

But until a post card came from Hugh Mr. Britling watched the postmanlike a lovesick girl. 

Hugh wrote more frequently than his father had dared to hope, pencilledletters for the most part. It was as if he was beginning to feel aninherited need for talk, and was a little at a loss for a sympatheticear. Park, his schoolmate, who had enlisted with him, wasn't, it seemed, a theoriser. "Park becomes a martinet, " Hugh wrote. "Also he is asergeant now, and this makes rather a gulf between us. " Mr. Britling hadthe greatest difficulty in writing back. There were many grave deepthings he wanted to say, and never did. Instead he gave elaboratedetails of the small affairs of the Dower House. Once or twice, with ahalf-unconscious imitation of his boy's style, he took a shot at thetheological and philosophical hares that Hugh had started. But theexemplary letters that he composed of nights from a Father to a Son atWar were never written down. It was just as well, for there are manythings of that sort that are good to think and bad to say.... 

Hugh was not very explicit about his position or daily duties. What hewrote now had to pass through the hands of a Censor, and any sort ofdefinite information might cause the suppression of his letter. Mr. Britling conceived him for the most part as quartered some way behindthe front, but in a flat, desolated country and within hearing of greatguns. He assisted his imagination with the illustrated papers. Sometimeshe put him farther back into pleasant old towns after the fashion ofBeauvais, and imagined loitering groups in the front of cafés; sometimeshe filled in the obvious suggestions of the phrase that all the Pas deCalais was now one vast British camp. Then he crowded the picture withtethered horses and tents and grey-painted wagons, and Hugh in theforeground--bare-armed, with a bucket.... 

Hugh's letters divided themselves pretty fairly between two main topics;the first was the interest of the art of war, the second the reactionagainst warfare. "After one has got over the emotion of it, " he wrote, "and when one's mind has just accepted and forgotten (as it does) thehorrors and waste of it all, then I begin to perceive that war isabsolutely the best game in the world. That is the real strength of war, I submit. Not as you put it in that early pamphlet of yours; ambition, cruelty, and all those things. Those things give an excuse for war, theyrush timid and base people into war, but the essential matter is thehold of the thing itself upon an active imagination. It's such a biggame. Instead of being fenced into a field and tied down to one set oftools as you are in almost every other game, you have all the world toplay and you may use whatever you can use. You can use every scrap ofimagination and invention that is in you. And it's wonderful.... Butreal soldiers aren't cruel. And war isn't cruel in its essence. Only inits consequences. Over here one gets hold of scraps of talk that lightup things. Most of the barbarities were done--it is quite clear--by anexcited civilian sort of men, men in a kind of inflamed state. The greatpart of the German army in the early stage of the war was really an armyof demented civilians. Trained civilians no doubt, but civilians insoul. They were nice orderly clean law-abiding men suddenly torn up bythe roots and flung into quite shocking conditions. They felt they wererushing at death, and that decency was at an end. They thought everyBelgian had a gun behind the hedge and a knife in his trouser leg. Theysaw villages burning and dead people, and men smashed to bits. Theylived in a kind of nightmare. They didn't know what they were doing. They did horrible things just as one does them sometimes in dreams.... "

He flung out his conclusion with just his mother's leapingconsecutiveness. "Conscript soldiers are the ruin of war.... Half theGermans and a lot of the French ought never to have been brought withinten miles of a battlefield. 

"What makes all this so plain are the diaries the French and Englishhave been finding on the dead. You know at the early state of the warevery German soldier was expected to keep a diary. He was ordered to doit. The idea was to keep him interested in the war. Consequently, fromthe dead and wounded our people have got thousands.... It helps one torealise that the Germans aren't really soldiers at all. Not as our menare. They are obedient, law-abiding, intelligent people, who have beenshoved into this. They have to see the war as something romantic andmelodramatic, or as something moral, or as tragic fate. They have tobellow songs about 'Deutschland, ' or drag in 'Gott. ' They don't take tothe game as our men take to the game.... 

"I confess I'm taking to the game. I wish at times I had gone into theO. T. C. With Teddy, and got a better hold of it. I was too high-browedabout this war business. I dream now of getting a commission.... 

"That diary-hunting strategy is just the sort of thing that makes thiswar intellectually fascinating. Everything is being thought out and thentried over that can possibly make victory. The Germans go in forpsychology much more than we do, just as they go in for war more than wedo, but they don't seem to be really clever about it. So they set out tomake all their men understand the war, while our chaps are singing'Tipperary. ' But what the men put down aren't the beautiful things theyought to put down; most of them shove down lists of their meals, some ofthe diaries are all just lists of things eaten, and a lot of them havewritten the most damning stuff about outrages and looting. Which theFrench are translating and publishing. The Germans would give anythingnow to get back these silly diaries. And now they have made an orderthat no one shall go into battle with any written papers at all.... Ourpeople got so keen on documenting and the value of chance writings thatone of the principal things to do after a German attack had failed hadbeen to hook in the documentary dead, and find out what they had onthem.... It's a curious sport, this body fishing. You have a sort oftriple hook on a rope, and you throw it and drag. They do the same. Theother day one body near Hooghe was hooked by both sides, and they had atug-of-war. With a sharpshooter or so cutting in whenever our men gottoo excited. Several men were hit. The Irish--it was an Irishregiment--got him--or at least they got the better part of him.... 

"Now that I am a sergeant, Park talks to me again about all thesethings, and we have a first lieutenant too keen to resist such technicaldetails. They are purely technical details. You must take them as that. One does not think of the dead body as a man recently deceased, who hadperhaps a wife and business connections and a weakness for oysters orpale brandy. Or as something that laughed and cried and didn't likegetting hurt. That would spoil everything. One thinks of him merely as auniform with marks upon it that will tell us what kind of stuff we haveagainst us, and possibly with papers that will give us a hint of how farhe and his lot are getting sick of the whole affair.... 

"There's a kind of hardening not only of the body but of the mindthrough all this life out here. One is living on a different level. Youknow--just before I came away--you talked of Dower-House-land--andoutside. This is outside. It's different. Our men here are kind enoughstill to little things--kittens or birds or flowers. Behind the front, for example, everywhere there are Tommy gardens. Some are quite brightlittle patches. But it's just nonsense to suppose we are tender to thewounded up here--and, putting it plainly, there isn't a scrap of pityleft for the enemy. Not a scrap. Not a trace of such feeling. They weretender about the wounded in the early days--men tell me--and reverentabout the dead. It's all gone now. There have been atrocities, gas, unforgettable things. Everything is harder. Our people are inclined nowto laugh at a man who gets hit, and to be annoyed at a man with atroublesome wound. The other day, they say, there was a big dead Germanoutside the Essex trenches. He became a nuisance, and he was dragged inand taken behind the line and buried. After he was buried, a kindly soulwas putting a board over him with 'Somebody's Fritz' on it, when a shellburst close by. It blew the man with the board a dozen yards and woundedhim, and it restored Fritz to the open air. He was lifted clean out. Heflew head over heels like a windmill. This was regarded as a tremendousjoke against the men who had been at the pains of burying him. For atime nobody else would touch Fritz, who was now some yards behind hisoriginal grave. Then as he got worse and worse he was buried again bysome devoted sanitarians, and this time the inscription was 'Somebody'sFritz. R. I. P. ' And as luck would have it, he was spun up again. Inpieces. The trench howled with laughter and cries of 'Good old Fritz!''This isn't the Resurrection, Fritz. '... 

"Another thing that appeals to the sunny humour of the trenches as areally delicious practical joke is the trick of the fuses. We have twokinds of fuse, a slow-burning fuse such as is used for hand-grenades andsuch-like things, a sort of yard-a-minute fuse, and a rapid fuse thatgoes a hundred yards a second--for firing mines and so on. The latter iscarefully distinguished from the former by a conspicuous red thread. Also, as you know, it is the habit of the enemy and ourselves when thetrenches are near enough, to enliven each other by the casting of homelybut effective hand-grenades made out of tins. When a grenade drops in aBritish trench somebody seizes it instantly and throws it back. To hoistthe German with his own petard is particularly sweet to the Britishmind. When a grenade drops into a German trench everybody runs. (Atleast that is what I am told happens by the men from our trenches;though possibly each side has its exceptions. ) If the bomb explodes, itexplodes. If it doesn't, Hans and Fritz presently come creeping back tosee what has happened. Sometimes the fuse hasn't caught properly, it hasbeen thrown by a nervous man; or it hasn't burnt properly. Then Hans orFritz puts in a new fuse and sends it back with loving care. To hoistthe Briton with his own petard is particularly sweet to the Germanmind.... But here it is that military genius comes in. Some giftedspirit on our side procured (probably by larceny) a length of mine fuse, the rapid sort, and spent a laborious day removing the red thread andmaking it into the likeness of its slow brother. Then bits of it wereattached to tin-bombs and shied--unlit of course--into the Germantrenches. A long but happy pause followed. I can see the chaps holdingthemselves in. Hans and Fritz were understood to be creeping back, to beexamining the unlit fuse, to be applying a light thereunto, in order torestore it to its maker after their custom.... 

"A loud bang in the German trenches indicated the moment of lighting, and the exit of Hans and Fritz to worlds less humorous. 

"The genius in the British trenches went on with the preparation of thenext surprise bomb--against the arrival of Kurt and Karl.... 

"Hans, Fritz, Kurt, Karl, Michael and Wilhelm; it went for quite a longtime before they grew suspicious.... 

"You once wrote that all fighting ought to be done nowadays by metalsoldiers. I perceive, my dear Daddy, that all real fighting is.... "

Section 11

Not all Hugh's letters were concerned with these grim technicalities. Itwas not always that news and gossip came along; it was rare that a youngman with a commission would condescend to talk shop to two young menwithout one; there were few newspapers and fewer maps, and even inFrance and within sound of guns, Hugh could presently find warfarealmost as much a bore as it had been at times in England. But hiscriticism of military methods died away. "Things are done better outhere, " he remarked, and "We're nearer reality here. I begin to respectmy Captain. Who is developing a sense of locality. Happily for ourprospects. " And in another place he speculated in an oddlycharacteristic manner whether he was getting used to the army way, whether he was beginning to see the sense of the army way, or whetherit really was that the army way braced up nearer and nearer toefficiency as it got nearer to the enemy. "And here one hasn't thehaunting feeling that war is after all an hallucination. It's alreadycommon sense and the business of life.... 

"In England I always had a sneaking idea that I had 'dressed up' in myuniform.... 

"I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of waitingabout and going through duties and exercises that were only tooobviously a means of preventing our discovering just how much waitingabout we were doing. I suppose there is no great harm in describing theplace I am in here; it's a kind of scenery that is somehow all of apiece with the life we lead day by day. It is a village that has beenonly partly smashed up; it has never been fought through, indeed theGermans were never within two miles of it, but it was shelledintermittently for months before we made our advance. Almost all thehouses are still standing, but there is not a window left with a squarefoot of glass in the place. One or two houses have been burnt out, andone or two are just as though they had been kicked to pieces by alunatic giant. We sleep in batches of four or five on the floors of therooms; there are very few inhabitants about, but the village inn stillgoes on. It has one poor weary billiard-table, very small with very bigballs, and the cues are without tops; it is The Amusement of the place. Ortheris does miracles at it. When he leaves the army he says he's goingto be a marker, 'a b----y marker. ' The country about us isflat--featureless--desolate. How I long for hills, even for Essex mudhills. Then the road runs on towards the front, a brick road frightfullyworn, lined with poplars. Just at the end of the village mechanicaltransport ends and there is a kind of depot from which all the stuffgoes up by mules or men or bicycles to the trenches. It is the onlymovement in the place, and I have spent hours watching men shift grub orammunition or lending them a hand. All day one hears guns, a kind ofthud at the stomach, and now and then one sees an aeroplane, very highand small. Just beyond this point there is a group of poplars which havebeen punished by a German shell. They are broken off and splintered inthe most astonishing way; all split and ravelled out like the end of acane that has been broken and twisted to get the ends apart. The choiceof one's leisure is to watch the A. S. C. Or play football, twenty a side, or sit about indoors, or stand in the doorway, or walk down to theEstaminet and wait five or six deep for the billiard-table. Ultimatelyone sits. And so you get these unconscionable letters. "

"Unconscionable, " said Mr. Britling. "Of course--he will grow out ofthat sort of thing. 

"And he'll write some day, sure enough. He'll write. "

He went on reading the letter. 

"We read, of course. But there never could be a library here big enoughto keep us going. We can do with all sorts of books, but I don't thinkthe ordinary sensational novel is quite the catch it was for a lot ofthem in peace time. Some break towards serious reading in the oddestfashion. Old Park, for example, says he wants books you can chew; he isreading a cheap edition of 'The Origin of Species. ' He used to regardFlorence Warden and William le Queux as the supreme delights of print. Iwish you could send him Metchnikoff's 'Nature of Man' or Pearson's'Ethics of Freethought. ' I feel I am building up his tender mind. Notfor me though, Daddy. Nothing of that sort for me. These things takepeople differently. What I want here is literary opium. I want somethingabout fauns and nymphs in broad low glades. I would like to readSpenser's 'Faerie Queen. ' I don't think I have read it, and yet I have avery distinct impression of knights and dragons and sorcerers and wickedmagic ladies moving through a sort of Pre-Raphaelite tapestryscenery--only with a light on them. I could do with some Hewlett of the'Forest Lovers' kind. Or with Joseph Conrad in his Kew Palm-house mood. And there is a book, I once looked into it at a man's room in London; Idon't know the title, but it was by Richard Garnett, and it was allabout gods who were in reduced circumstances but amidst sunnypicturesque scenery. Scenery without steel or poles or wire. A thingafter the manner of Heine's 'Florentine Nights. ' Any book about Greekgods would be welcome, anything about temples of ivory-coloured stoneand purple seas, red caps, chests of jewels, and lizards in the sun. Iwish there was another 'Thais. ' The men here are getting a kind ofnewspaper sheet of literature scraps called _The Times_ Broadsheets. Snippets, but mostly from good stuff. They're small enough to stir theappetite, but not to satisfy it. Rather an irritant--and one wants noirritant.... I used to imagine reading was meant to be a stimulant. Outhere it has to be an anodyne.... 

"Have you heard of a book called 'Tom Cringle's Log'?

"War is an exciting game--that I never wanted to play. It excites oncein a couple of months. And the rest of it is dirt and muddle andboredom, and smashed houses and spoilt roads and muddy scenery andboredom, and the lumbering along of supplies and the lumbering back ofthe wounded and weary--and boredom, and continual vague guessing of howit will end and boredom and boredom and boredom, and thinking of thework you were going to do and the travel you were going to have, and thewaste of life and the waste of days and boredom, and splintered poplarsand stink, everywhere stink and dirt and boredom.... And all becausethese accursed Prussians were too stupid to understand what a boredomthey were getting ready when they pranced and stuck their chests out andearnt the praises of Mr. Thomas Carlyle.... _Gott strafeDeutschland_.... So send me some books, books of dreams, books aboutChina and the willow-pattern plate and the golden age and fairyland. Andsend them soon and address them very carefully.... "

Section 12

Teddy's misadventure happened while figs were still ripening on Mr. Britling's big tree. It was Cissie brought the news to Mr. Britling. Shecame up to the Dower House with a white, scared face. 

"I've come up for the letters, " she said. "There's bad news of Teddy, and Letty's rather in a state. "

"He's not--?" Mr. Britling left the word unsaid. 

"He's wounded and missing, " said Cissie. 

"A prisoner!" said Mr. Britling. 

"And wounded. _How_, we don't know. "

She added: "Letty has gone to telegraph. "

"Telegraph to whom?"

"To the War Office, to know what sort of wound he has. They tellnothing. It's disgraceful. "

"It doesn't say _severely_?"

"It says just nothing. Wounded and missing! Surely they ought to give usparticulars. "

Mr. Britling thought. His first thought was that now news might come atany time that Hugh was wounded and missing. Then he set himself topersuade Cissie that the absence of "seriously" meant that Teddy wasonly quite bearably wounded, and that if he was also "missing" it mightbe difficult for the War Office to ascertain at once just exactly whatshe wanted to know. But Cissie said merely that "Letty was in an awfulstate, " and after Mr. Britling had given her a few instructions for histyping, he went down to the cottage to repeat these mitigatoryconsiderations to Letty. He found her much whiter than her sister, andin a state of cold indignation with the War Office. It was clear shethought that organisation ought to have taken better care of Teddy. Shehad a curious effect of feeling that something was being kept back fromher. It was manifest too that she was disposed to regard Mr. Britling asbiased in favour of the authorities. 

"At any rate, " she said, "they could have answered my telegrampromptly. I sent it at eight. Two hours of scornful silence. "

This fierce, strained, unjust Letty was a new aspect to Mr. Britling. Her treatment of his proffered consolations made him feel slightlyhenpecked. 

"And just fancy!" she said. "They have no means of knowing if he hasarrived safely on the German side. How can they know he is a prisonerwithout knowing that?"

"But the word is 'missing. '"

"That _means_ a prisoner, " said Letty uncivilly.... 

Section 13

Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House perplexed and profoundlydisturbed. He had a distressful sense that things were far more seriouswith Teddy than he had tried to persuade Letty they were; that "woundedand missing" meant indeed a man abandoned to very sinisterprobabilities. He was distressed for Teddy, and still more acutelydistressed for Mrs. Teddy, whose every note and gesture betrayedsuppositions even more sinister than his own. And that preposteroussense of liability, because he had helped Teddy to get his commission, was more distressful than it had ever been. He was surprised that Lettyhad not assailed him with railing accusations. 

And this event had wiped off at one sweep all the protective scab ofhabituation that had gathered over the wound of Hugh's departure. He wasback face to face with the one evil chance in five.... 

In the hall there was lying a letter from Hugh that had come by thesecond post. It was a relief even to see it.... 

Hugh had had his first spell in the trenches. 

Before his departure he had promised his half brothers a long andcircumstantial account of what the trenches were really like. Here heredeemed his promise. He had evidently written with the idea that theletter would be handed over to them. 

"Tell the bruddykinses I'm glad they're going to Brinsmead school. Lateron, I suppose, they will go on to Statesminster. I suppose that youdon't care to send them so far in these troubled times.... 

"And now about those trenches--as I promised. The great thing to graspis that they are narrow. They are a sort of negative wall. They are morelike giant cracks in the ground than anything else.... But perhaps I hadbetter begin by telling how we got there. We started about one in themorning ladened up with everything you can possibly imagine on asoldier, and in addition I had a kettle--filled with water--most of thechaps had bundles of firewood, and some had extra bread. We marched outof our quarters along the road for a mile or more, and then we took thefields, and presently came to a crest and dropped into a sort of maze ofzigzag trenches going up to the front trench. These trenches, you know, are much deeper than one's height; you don't see anything. It's likewalking along a mud-walled passage. You just trudge along them in singlefile. Every now and then some one stumbles into a soakaway for rainwateror swears at a soft place, or somebody blunders into the man in front ofhim. This seems to go on for hours and hours. It certainly went on foran hour; so I suppose we did two or three miles of it. At one place wecrossed a dip in the ground and a ditch, and the trench was built upwith sandbags up to the ditch and there was a plank. Overhead there werestars, and now and then a sort of blaze thing they send up lit up theedges of the trench and gave one a glimpse of a treetop or a factoryroof far away. Then for a time it was more difficult to go on becauseyou were blinded. Suddenly just when you were believing that this sortof trudge was going on forever, we were in the support trenches behindthe firing line, and found the men we were relieving ready to comeback. 

"And the firing line itself? Just the same sort of ditch with a parapetof sandbags, but with dug-outs, queer big holes helped out with sleepersfrom a nearby railway track, opening into it from behind. Dug-outs varya good deal. Many are rather like the cubby-house we made at the end ofthe orchard last summer; only the walls are thick enough to stand a highexplosive shell. The best dug-out in our company's bit of front wasquite a dressy affair with some woodwork and a door got from the ruinsof a house twenty or thirty yards behind us. It had a stove in it too, and a chimbley, and pans to keep water in. It was the best dug-out formiles. This house had a well, and there was a special trench ran back tothat, and all day long there was a coming and going for water. There hadonce been a pump over the well, but a shell had smashed that.... 

"And now you expect me to tell of Germans and the fight and shelling andall sorts of things. _I haven't seen a live German_; I haven't beenwithin two hundred yards of a shell burst, there has been no attack andI haven't got the V. C. I have made myself muddy beyond describing; I'vebeen working all the time, but I've not fired a shot or fought aha'porth. We were busy all the time--just at work, repairing theparapet, which had to be done gingerly because of snipers, bringing ourfood in from the rear in big carriers, getting water, pushing our trenchout from an angle slantingways forward. Getting meals, clearing up andso on takes a lot of time. We make tea in big kettles in the bigdug-out, which two whole companies use for their cooking, and carry themwith a pole through the handles to our platoons. We wash up and wash andshave. Dinner preparation (and consumption) takes two or three hours. Tea too uses up time. It's like camping out and picnicking in the park. This first time (and next too) we have been mixed with some Sussex menwho have been here longer and know the business.... It works out that wedo most of the fatigue. Afterwards we shall go up alone to a pitch ofour own.... 

"But all the time you want to know about the Germans. They are a quarterof a mile away at this part, or nearly a quarter of a mile. When yousnatch a peep at them it is like a low parti-coloured stone wall--onlythe stones are sandbags. The Germans have them black and white, so thatyou cannot tell which are loopholes and which are black bags. Our peoplehaven't been so clever--and the War Office love of uniformity has givenus only white bags. No doubt it looks neater. But it makes our loopholesplain. For a time black sandbags were refused. The Germans sniped at us, but not very much. Only one of our lot was hit, by a chance shot thatcame through the sandbag at the top of the parapet. He just had a cut inthe neck which didn't prevent his walking back. They shelled thetrenches half a mile to the left of us though, and it looked pretty hot. The sandbags flew about. But the men lie low, and it looks worse than itis. The weather was fine and pleasant, as General French always says. And after three days and nights of cramped existence and petty chores, one in the foremost trench and two a little way back, and then two daysin support, we came back--and here we are again waiting for our secondGo. 

"The night time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You getyour head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with itsruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and its longvague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like white windmillarms and an occasional flare or star shell. And you have a nasty feelingof people creeping and creeping all night between the trenches.... 

"Some of us went out to strengthen a place in the parapet that was onlyone sandbag thick, where a man had been hit during the day. We made itfour bags thick right up to the top. All the while you were doing it, you dreaded to find yourself in the white glare of a searchlight, andyou had a feeling that something would hit you suddenly from behind. Ihad to make up my mind not to look round, or I should have kept onlooking round.... Also our chaps kept shooting over us, within a foot ofone's head. Just to persuade the Germans that we were not out of thetrench.... 

"Nothing happened to us. We got back all right. It was silly to haveleft that parapet only one bag thick. There's the truth, and all of myfirst time in the trenches. 

"And the Germans?

"I tell you there was no actual fighting at all. I never saw the head ofone. 

"But now see what a good bruddykins I am. I have seen a fight, a realexciting fight, and I have kept it to the last to tell you about.... Itwas a fight in the air. And the British won. It began with a Germanmachine appearing, very minute and high, sailing towards our lines along way to the left. We could tell it was a German because of the blackcross; they decorate every aeroplane with a black Iron Cross on itswings and tail; that our officer could see with his glasses. (He let melook. ) Suddenly whack, whack, whack, came a line of little puffs ofsmoke behind it, and then one in front of it, which meant that ouranti-aircraft guns were having a go at it. Then, as suddenly, Archibaldstopped, and we could see the British machine buzzing across the path ofthe German. It was just like two birds circling in the air. Or wasps. They buzzed like wasps. There was a little crackling--like brushing yourhair in frosty weather. They were shooting at each other. Then ourlieutenant called out, 'Hit, by Jove!' and handed the glasses to Parkand instantly wanted them back. He says he saw bits of the machineflying off. 

"When he said that you could fancy you saw it too, up there in the blue. 

"Anyhow the little machine cocked itself up on end. Rather slowly.... Then down it came like dropping a knife.... 

"It made you say 'Ooooo!' to see that dive. It came down, seemed to geta little bit under control, and then dive down again. You could hear theengine roar louder and louder as it came down. I never saw anything fallso fast. We saw it hit the ground among a lot of smashed-up buildings onthe crest behind us. It went right over and flew to pieces, all tosmithereens.... 

"It hurt your nose to see it hit the ground.... 

"Somehow--I was sort of overcome by the thought of the men in that dive. I was trying to imagine how they felt it. From the moment when theyrealised they were going. 

"What on earth must it have seemed like at last?

"They fell seven thousand feet, the men say; some say nine thousandfeet. A mile and a half!

"But all the chaps were cheering.... And there was our machine hangingin the sky. You wanted to reach up and pat it on the back. It went uphigher and away towards the German lines, as though it was looking foranother German. It seemed to go now quite slowly. It was an Englishmachine, though for a time we weren't sure; our machines are done intri-colour just as though they were French. But everybody says it wasEnglish. It was one of our crack fighting machines, and from first tolast it has put down seven Germans.... And that's really all thefighting there was. There has been fighting here; a month ago. There areperhaps a dozen dead Germans lying out still in front of the lines. Little twisted figures, like overthrown scarecrows, about a hundredyards away. But that is all. 

"No, the trenches have disappointed me. They are a scene of tiresomedomesticity. They aren't a patch on our quarters in the rear. Thereisn't the traffic. I've not found a single excuse for firing my rifle. Idon't believe I shall ever fire my rifle at an enemy--ever.... 

"You've seen Rendezvous' fresh promotion, I suppose? He's one of the menthe young officers talk about. Everybody believes in him. Do youremember how Manning used to hide from him?... "

Section 14

Mr. Britling read this through, and then his thoughts went back toTeddy's disappearance and then returned to Hugh. The youngster was rightin the front now, and one had to steel oneself to the possibilities ofthe case. Somehow Mr. Britling had not expected to find Hugh so speedilyin the firing line, though he would have been puzzled to find a reasonwhy this should not have happened. But he found he had to begin thelesson of stoicism all over again. 

He read the letter twice, and then he searched for some indication ofits date. He suspected that letters were sometimes held back.... 

Four days later this suspicion was confirmed by the arrival of anotherletter from Hugh in which he told of his second spell in the trenches. This time things had been much more lively. They had been heavilyshelled and there had been a German attack. And this time he was writingto his father, and wrote more freely. He had scribbled in pencil. 

"Things are much livelier here than they were. Our guns are getting towork. They are firing in spells of an hour or so, three or four times aday, and just when they seem to be leaving off they begin again. TheGermans suddenly got the range of our trenches the day before yesterday, and begun to pound us with high explosive.... Well, it's trying. Younever seem quite to know when the next bang is coming, and that keepsyour nerves hung up; it seems to tighten your muscles and tire you. We've done nothing but lie low all day, and I feel as weary as if I hadmarched twenty miles. Then 'whop, ' one's near you, and there is a flashand everything flies. It's a mad sort of smash-about. One came much tooclose to be pleasant; as near as the old oil jars are from the barncourt door. It bowled me clean over and sent a lot of gravel over me. When I got up there was twenty yards of trench smashed into a mere hole, and men lying about, and some of them groaning and one three-quartersburied. We had to turn to and get them out as well as we could.... 

"I felt stunned and insensitive; it was well to have something to do.... 

"Our guns behind felt for the German guns. It was the damnest racket. Like giant lunatics smashing about amidst colossal pots and pans. Theyfired different sorts of shells; stink shells as well as Jack Johnsons, and though we didn't get much of that at our corner there was a sting ofchlorine in the air all through the afternoon. Most of the stink shellsfell short. We hadn't masks, but we rigged up a sort of protection withour handkerchiefs. And it didn't amount to very much. It was rather likethe chemistry room after Heinrich and the kids had been mixing things. Most of the time I was busy helping with the men who had got hurt. Suddenly there came a lull. Then some one said the Germans were coming, and I had a glimpse of them. 

"You don't look at anything steadily while the guns are going. When abig gun goes off or a shell bursts anywhere near you, you seem neitherto see nor hear for a moment. You keep on being intermittently stunned. One sees in a kind of flicker in between the impacts.... 

"Well, there they were. This time I saw them. They were coming out andrunning a little way and dropping, and our shell was bursting among themand behind them. A lot of it was going too far. I watched what our menwere doing, and poured out a lot of cartridges ready to my hand andbegan to blaze away. Half the German attack never came out of theirtrench. If they really intended business against us, which I doubt, theywere half-hearted in carrying it out. They didn't show for fiveminutes, and they left two or three score men on the ground. Whenever wesaw a man wriggle we were told to fire at him; it might be an unwoundedman trying to crawl back. For a time our guns gave them beans. Then itwas practically over, but about sunset their guns got back at us again, and the artillery fight went on until it was moonlight. The chaps in ourthird company caught it rather badly, and then our guns seemed to findsomething and get the upper hand.... 

"In the night some of our men went out to repair the wire entanglements, and one man crawled halfway to the enemy trenches to listen. But I haddone my bit for the day, and I was supposed to sleep in the dug-out. Iwas far too excited to sleep. All my nerves were jumping about, and mymind was like a lot of flying fragments flying about very fast.... 

"They shelled us again next day and our tea dixy was hit; so that wedidn't get any tea.... 

"I slept thirty hours after I got back here. And now I am slowlydigesting these experiences. Most of our fellows are. My mind and nerveshave been rather bumped and bruised by the shelling, but not so much asyou might think. I feel as though I'd presently not think very much ofit. Some of our men have got the stun of it a lot more than I have. Itgets at the older men more. Everybody says that. The men of overthirty-five don't recover from a shelling for weeks. They go about--sortof hesitatingly.... 

"Life is very primitive here--which doesn't mean that one is gettingdown to anything fundamental, but only going back to something immediateand simple. It's fetching and carrying and getting water and gettingfood and going up to the firing line and coming back. One goes on forweeks, and then one day one finds oneself crying out, 'What is all thisfor? When is it to end?' I seemed to have something ahead of me beforethis war began, education, science, work, discoveries; all sorts ofthings; but it is hard to feel that there is anything ahead of ushere.... 

"Somehow the last spell in the fire trench has shaken up my mind a lot. I was getting used to the war before, but now I've got back to myoriginal amazement at the whole business. I find myself wondering whatwe are really up to, why the war began, why we were caught into thisamazing routine. It looks, it feels orderly, methodical, purposeful. Ourofficers give us orders and get their orders, and the men back there gettheir orders. Everybody is getting orders. Back, I suppose, to LordKitchener. It goes on for weeks with the effect of being quite sane andintended and the right thing, and then, then suddenly it comes whackinginto one's head, 'But this--this is utterly _mad_!' This going to andfro and to and fro and to and fro; this monotony which breaks ever andagain into violence--violence that never gets anywhere--is exactly thelife that a lunatic leads. Melancholia and mania.... It's just acollective obsession--by war. The world is really quite mad. I happen tobe having just one gleam of sanity, that won't last after I havefinished this letter. I suppose when an individual man goes mad and getsout of the window because he imagines the door is magically impossible, and dances about in the street without his trousers jabbing atpassers-by with a toasting-fork, he has just the same sombre sense ofunavoidable necessity that we have, all of us, when we go off with ourpacks into the trenches.... 

"It's only by an effort that I can recall how life felt in the spring of1914. Do you remember Heinrich and his attempt to make a table chart ofthe roses, so that we could sit outside the barn and read the names ofall the roses in the barn court? Like the mountain charts they have ontables in Switzerland. What an inconceivable thing that is now! For allI know I shot Heinrich the other night. For all I know he is one of thelumps that we counted after the attack went back. 

"It's a queer thing, Daddy, but I have a sort of _seditious_ feeling inwriting things like this. One gets to feel that it is wrong to think. It's the effect of discipline. Of being part of a machine. Still, Idoubt if I ought to think. If one really looks into things in thisspirit, where is it going to take us? Ortheris--his real name by the byis Arthur Jewell--hasn't any of these troubles. 'The b----y Germansbutted into Belgium, ' he says. 'We've got to 'oof 'em out again. That'sall abart it. Leastways it's all _I_ know.... I don't know nothing aboutSerbia, I don't know nothing about anything, except that the Germans gotto stop this sort of gime for Everlasting, Amen. '... 

"Sometimes I think he's righter than I am. Sometimes I think he is onlymadder. "

Section 15

These letters weighed heavily upon Mr. Britling's mind. He perceivedthat this precociously wise, subtle youngster of his was now close up tothe line of injury and death, going to and fro from it, in a perpetual, fluctuating danger. At any time now in the day or night the evil thingmight wing its way to him. If Mr. Britling could have prayed, he wouldhave prayed for Hugh. He began and never finished some ineffectualprayers. 

He tried to persuade himself of a Roman stoicism; that he would besternly proud, sternly satisfied, if this last sacrifice for his countrywas demanded from him. He perceived he was merely humbugging himself.... 

This war had no longer the simple greatness that would make any suchstern happiness possible.... 

The disaster to Teddy and Mrs. Teddy hit him hard. He winced at thethought of Mrs. Teddy's white face; the unspoken accusation in her eyes. He felt he could never bring himself to say his one excuse to her: "Idid not keep Hugh back. If I had done that, then you might have theright to blame. "

If he had overcome every other difficulty in the way to an heroic posethere was still Hugh's unconquerable lucidity of outlook. War _was_ amadness.... 

But what else was to be done? What else could be done? We could not givein to Germany. If a lunatic struggles, sane men must struggle too.... 

Mr. Britling had ceased to write about the war at all. All his laterwritings about it had been abandoned unfinished. He could not imaginethem counting, affecting any one, producing any effect. Indeed he waswriting now very intermittently. His contributions to _The Times_ hadfallen away. He was perpetually thinking now about the war, about lifeand death, about the religious problems that had seemed so remote in thedays of the peace; but none of his thinking would become clear anddefinite enough for writing. All the clear stars of his mind were hiddenby the stormy clouds of excitement that the daily newspaper perpetuallyrenewed and by the daily developments of life. And just as hisprofessional income shrank before his mental confusion and impotence, the private income that came from his and his wife's investments becameuncertain. She had had two thousand pounds in the Constantinople loan, seven hundred in debentures of the Ottoman railway; he had held similarsums in two Hungarian and one Bulgarian loan, in a linoleum factory atRouen and in a Swiss Hotel company. All these stopped payments, and thedividends from their other investments shrank. There seemed no limit setto the possibilities of shrinkage of capital and income. Income tax hadleapt to colossal dimensions, the cost of most things had risen, and thetangle of life was now increased by the need for retrenchments andeconomies. He decided that Gladys, the facetiously named automobile, wasa luxury, and sold her for a couple of hundred pounds. He lost hisgardener, who had gone to higher priced work with a miller, and he hadgreat trouble to replace him, so that the garden became disagreeablyunkempt and unsatisfactory. He had to give up his frequent trips toLondon. He was obliged to defer Statesminster for the boys. For a timeat any rate they must go as day boys to Brinsmead. At every point he metthis uncongenial consideration of ways and means. For years now he hadgone easy, lived with a certain self-indulgence. It was extraordinarilyvexatious to have one's greater troubles for one's country and one's sonand one's faith crossed and complicated by these little troubles of theextra sixpence and the untimely bill. 

What worried his mind perhaps more than anything else was his gradualloss of touch with the essential issues of the war. At first themilitarism, the aggression of Germany, had seemed so bad that he couldnot see the action of Britain and her allies as anything but entirelyrighteous. He had seen the war plainly and simply in the phrase, "Nowthis militarism must end. " He had seen Germany as a system, asimperialism and junkerism, as a callous materialist aggression, as thespirit that makes war, and the Allies as the protest of humanity againstall these evil things. 

Insensibly, in spite of himself, this first version of the war wasgiving place to another. The tawdry, rhetorical German Emperor, who hadbeen the great antagonist at the outset, the last upholder of Cæsarism, God's anointed with the withered arm and the mailed fist, had recededfrom the foreground of the picture; that truer Germany which is thoughtand system, which is the will to do things thoroughly, the Germany ofOstwald and the once rejected Hindenburg, was coming to the fore. Itmade no apology for the errors and crimes that had been imposed upon itby its Hohenzollern leadership, but it fought now to save itself fromthe destruction and division that would be its inevitable lot if itaccepted defeat too easily; fought to hold out, fought for a secondchance, with discipline, with skill and patience, with a steadfastwill. It fought with science, it fought with economy, with machines andthought against all too human antagonists. It necessitated an implacableresistance, but also it commanded respect. Against it fought three greatpeoples with as fine a will; but they had neither the unity, thehabitual discipline, nor the science of Germany, and it was the latterdefect that became more and more the distressful matter of Mr. Britling's thoughts. France after her initial experiences, after herfirst reeling month, had risen from the very verge of defeat to a steelysplendour of resolution, but England and Russia, those twin slackgiants, still wasted force, were careless, negligent, uncertain. Everywhere up and down the scale, from the stupidity of the uniformsandbags and Hugh's young officer who would not use a map, to thegeneral conception and direction of the war, Mr. Britling's inflamed andoversensitised intelligence perceived the same bad qualities for whichhe had so often railed upon his countrymen in the days of the peace, that impatience, that indolence, that wastefulness and inconclusiveness, that failure to grip issues and do obviously necessary things. The samelax qualities that had brought England so close to the supremeimbecility of a civil war in Ireland in July, 1914, were now muddlingand prolonging the war, and postponing, it might be for ever, thevictory that had seemed so certain only a year ago. The politician stillintrigued, the ineffectives still directed. Against brains used to theutmost their fight was a stupid thrusting forth of men and men and yetmore men, men badly trained, under-equipped, stupidly led. A pressclamour for invention and scientific initiative was stifled under acommittee of elderly celebrities and eminent dufferdom; from the outset, the Ministry of Munitions seemed under the influence of the "businessman. "... 

It is true that righteousness should triumph over the tyrant and therobber, but have carelessness and incapacity any right to triumph overcapacity and foresight? Men were coming now to dark questioningsbetween this intricate choice. And, indeed, was our cause allrighteousness?

There surely is the worst doubt of all for a man whose son is facingdeath. 

Were we indeed standing against tyranny for freedom?

There came drifting to Mr. Britling's ears a confusion of voices, voicesthat told of reaction, of the schemes of employers to best the tradeunions, of greedy shippers and greedy house landlords reaping theirharvest, of waste and treason in the very households of the Ministry, ofreligious cant and intolerance at large, of self-advertisement writtenin letters of blood, of forestalling and jobbery, of irrational andexasperating oppressions in India and Egypt.... It came with a shock tohim, too, that Hugh should see so little else than madness in the war, and have so pitiless a realisation of its essential futility. The boyforced his father to see--what indeed all along he had been seeing moreand more clearly. The war, even by the standards of adventure andconquest, had long since become a monstrous absurdity. Some way theremust be out of this bloody entanglement that was yielding victory toneither side, that was yielding nothing but waste and death beyond allprecedent. The vast majority of people everywhere must be desiringpeace, willing to buy peace at any reasonable price, and in all theworld it seemed there was insufficient capacity to end the dailybutchery and achieve the peace that was so universally desired, thepeace that would be anything better than a breathing space for furtherwarfare.... Every day came the papers with the balanced story ofbattles, losses, destructions, ships sunk, towns smashed. And never adecision, never a sign of decision. 

One Saturday afternoon Mr. Britling found himself with Mrs. Britling atClaverings. Lady Homartyn was in mourning for her two nephews, theGlassington boys, who had both been killed, one in Flanders, the otherin Gallipoli. Raeburn was there too, despondent and tired-looking. There were three young men in khaki, one with the red of a staffofficer; there were two or three women whom Mr. Britling had not metbefore, and Miss Sharsper the novelist, fresh from nursing experienceamong the convalescents in the south of France. But he was disgusted tofind that the gathering was dominated by his old antagonist, LadyFrensham, unsubdued, unaltered, rampant over them all, arrogant, impudent, insulting. She was in mourning, she had the most splendidblack furs Mr. Britling had ever seen; her large triumphant profile cameout of them like the head of a vulture out of its ruff; her elderbrother was a wounded prisoner in Germany, her second was dead; it wouldseem that hers were the only sacrifices the war had yet extorted fromany one. She spoke as though it gave her the sole right to criticise thewar or claim compensation for the war. 

Her incurable propensity to split the country, to make mischievousaccusations against classes and districts and public servants, washaving full play. She did her best to provoke Mr. Britling into adispute, and throw some sort of imputation upon his patriotism asdistinguished from her own noisy and intolerant conceptions of"loyalty. "

She tried him first with conscription. She threw out insults at theshirkers and the "funk classes. " All the middle-class people clung on totheir wretched little businesses, made any sort of excuse.... 

Mr. Britling was stung to defend them. "A business, " he said acidly, "isn't like land, which waits and grows rich for its owner. And thesepeople can't leave ferrety little agents behind them when they go off toserve. Tens of thousands of middle-class men have ruined themselves andflung away every prospect they had in the world to go to this war. "

"And scores of thousands haven't!" said Lady Frensham. "They are the menI'm thinking of. "... 

Mr. Britling ran through a little list of aristocratic stay-at-homesthat began with a duke. 

"And not a soul speaks to them in consequence, " she said. 

She shifted her attack to the Labour people. They would rather see thecountry defeated than submit to a little discipline. 

"Because they have no faith in the house of lawyers or the house oflandlords, " said Mr. Britling. "Who can blame them?"

She proceeded to tell everybody what she would do with strikers. Shewould give them "short shrift. " She would give them a taste of thePrussian way--homoeopathic treatment. "But of course old vote-catchingAsquith daren't--he daren't!" Mr. Britling opened his mouth and saidnothing; he was silenced. The men in khaki listened respectfully butambiguously; one of the younger ladies it seemed was entirely of LadyFrensham's way of thinking, and anxious to show it. The good lady havingnow got her hands upon the Cabinet proceeded to deal faithfully with itstwo-and-twenty members. Winston Churchill had overridden Lord Fisherupon the question of Gallipoli, and incurred terrible responsibilities. Lord Haldane--she called him "Tubby Haldane"--was a convicted traitor. "The man's a German out and out. Oh! what if he hasn't a drop of Germanblood in his veins? He's a German by choice--which is worse. "

"I thought he had a certain capacity for organisation, " said Mr. Britling. 

"We don't want his organisation, and we don't want _him_, " said LadyFrensham. 

Mr. Britling pleaded for particulars of the late Lord Chancellor'streasons. There were no particulars. It was just an idea the good ladyhad got into her head, that had got into a number of accessible heads. There was only one strong man in all the country now, Lady Frenshaminsisted. That was Sir Edward Carson. 

Mr. Britling jumped in his chair. 

"But has he ever done anything?" he cried, "except embitter Ireland?"

Lady Frensham did not hear that question. She pursued her glorioustheme. Lloyd George, who had once been worthy only of the gallows, wasnow the sole minister fit to put beside her hero. He had won her heartby his condemnation of the working man. He was the one man who was notafraid to speak out, to tell them they drank, to tell them they shirkedand loafed, to tell them plainly that if defeat came to this country theblame would fall upon _them_!

"_No!_" cried Mr. Britling. 

"Yes, " said Lady Frensham. "Upon them and those who have flattered andmisled them.... "

And so on.... 

It presently became necessary for Lady Homartyn to rescue Mr. Britlingfrom the great lady's patriotic tramplings. He found himself driftinginto the autumnal garden--the show of dahlias had never been sowonderful--in the company of Raeburn and the staff officer and a smallwoman who was presently discovered to be remarkably well-informed. Theywere all despondent. "I think all this promiscuous blaming of people isquite the worst--and most ominous--thing about us just now, " said Mr. Britling after the restful pause that followed the departure from thepresence of Lady Frensham. 

"It goes on everywhere, " said the staff officer. 

"Is it really--honest?" said Mr. Britling. 

Raeburn, after reflection, decided to answer. "As far as it is stupid, yes. There's a lot of blame coming; there's bound to be a day ofreckoning, and I suppose we've all got an instinctive disposition tofind a scapegoat for our common sins. The Tory press is pretty rotten, and there's a strong element of mere personal spite--in the Churchillattacks for example. Personal jealousy probably. Our 'old families'seem to have got vulgar-spirited imperceptibly--in a generation or so. They quarrel and shirk and lay blame exactly as bad servants do--andthings are still far too much in their hands. Things are getting muffed, there can be no doubt about that--not fatally, but still ratherseriously. And the government--it was human before the war, and we'veadded no archangels. There's muddle. There's mutual suspicion. You neverknow what newspaper office Lloyd George won't be in touch with next. He's honest and patriotic and energetic, but he's mortally afraid of oldwomen and class intrigues. He doesn't know where to get his backing. He's got all a labour member's terror of the dagger at his back. There'sa lack of nerve, too, in getting rid of prominent officers--who havefriends. "

The staff officer nodded. 

"Northcliffe seems to me to have a case, " said Mr. Britling. "Every oneabuses him. "

"I'd stop his _Daily Mail_, " said Raeburn. "I'd leave _The Times_, butI'd stop the _Daily Mail_ on the score of its placards alone. Itoverdoes Northcliffe. It translates him into the shrieks and yells ofunderlings. The plain fact is that Northcliffe is scared out of his witsby German efficiency--and in war time when a man is scared out of hiswits, whether he is honest or not, you put his head in a bag or hold apistol to it to calm him.... What is the good of all this clamouring fora change of government? We haven't a change of government. It's liketelling a tramp to get a change of linen. Our men, all our public men, are second-rate men, with the habits of advocates. There is nothingmasterful in their minds. How can you expect the system to produceanything else? But they are doing as well as they can, and there is noway of putting in any one else now, and there you are. "

"Meanwhile, " said Mr. Britling, "our boys--get killed. "

"They'd get killed all the more if you had--let us say--Carson andLloyd George and Northcliffe and Lady Frensham, with, I suppose, AustinHarrison and Horatio Bottomley thrown in--as a Strong SilentGovernment.... I'd rather have Northcliffe as dictator than that.... Wecan't suddenly go back on the past and alter our type. We didn't listento Matthew Arnold. We've never thoroughly turned out and cleaned up ourhigher schools. We've resisted instruction. We've preferred to maintainour national luxuries of a bench of bishops and party politics. Andcompulsory Greek and the university sneer. And Lady Frensham. And allthat sort of thing. And here we are!... Well, damn it, we're in for itnow; we've got to plough through with it--with what we have--as what weare. "

The young staff officer nodded. He thought that was "about it. "

"You've got no sons, " said Mr. Britling. 

"I'm not even married, " said Raeburn, as though he thanked God. 

The little well-informed lady remarked abruptly that she had two sons;one was just home wounded from Suvla Bay. What her son told her made herfeel very grave. She said that the public was still quite in the darkabout the battle of Anafarta. It had been a hideous muddle, and we hadbeen badly beaten. The staff work had been awful. Nothing joined up, nothing was on the spot and in time. The water supply, for example, hadgone wrong; the men had been mad with thirst. One regiment which shenamed had not been supported by another; when at last the first cameback the two battalions fought in the trenches regardless of the enemy. There had been no leading, no correlation, no plan. Some of the guns, she declared, had been left behind in Egypt. Some of the train wasuntraceable to this day. It was mislaid somewhere in the Levant. At thebeginning Sir Ian Hamilton had not even been present. He had failed toget there in time. It had been the reckless throwing away of an army. And so hopeful an army! Her son declared it meant the complete failureof the Dardanelles project.... 

"And when one hears how near we came to victory!" she cried, and left itat that. 

"Three times this year, " said Raeburn, "we have missed victories becauseof the badness of our staff work. It's no good picking out scapegoats. It's a question of national habit. It's because the sort of man we turnout from our public schools has never learnt how to catch trains, get toan office on the minute, pack a knapsack properly, or do anythingsmartly and quickly--anything whatever that he can possibly get done forhim. You can't expect men who are habitually easy-going to keep buckedup to a high pitch of efficiency for any length of time. All theirtraining is against it. All their tradition. They hate being prigs. AnEnglishman will be any sort of stupid failure rather than appear a prig. That's why we've lost three good fights that we ought to have won--andthousands and thousands of men--and material and time, precious beyondreckoning. We've lost a year. We've dashed the spirit of our people. "

"My boy in Flanders, " said Mr. Britling, "says about the same thing. Hesays our officers have never learnt to count beyond ten, and that theyare scared at the sight of a map.... "

"And the war goes on, " said the little woman. 

"How long, oh Lord! how long?" cried Mr. Britling. 

"I'd give them another year, " said the staff officer. "Just going as weare going. Then something _must_ give way. There will be no moneyanywhere. There'll be no more men.... I suppose they'll feel thatshortage first anyhow. Russia alone has over twenty millions. "

"That's about the size of it, " said Raeburn.... 

"Do you think, sir, there'll be civil war?" asked the young staffofficer abruptly after a pause. 

There was a little interval before any one answered this surprisingquestion. 

"After the peace, I mean, " said the young officer. 

"There'll be just the devil to pay, " said Raeburn. 

"One thing after another in the country is being pulled up by itsroots, " reflected Mr. Britling. 

"We've never produced a plan for the war, and it isn't likely we shallhave one for the peace, " said Raeburn, and added: "and Lady Frensham'slittle lot will be doing their level best to sit on the safety-valve.... They'll rake up Ireland and Ulster from the very start. But I doubt ifUlster will save 'em. "

"We shall squabble. What else do we ever do?"

No one seemed able to see more than that. A silence fell on the littleparty. 

"Well, thank heaven for these dahlias, " said Raeburn, affecting thephilosopher. 

The young staff officer regarded the dahlias without enthusiasm.... 

Section 16

Mr. Britling sat one September afternoon with Captain Lawrence Carminein the sunshine of the barn court, and smoked with him and sometimestalked and sometimes sat still. 

"When it began I did not believe that this war could be like otherwars, " he said. "I did not dream it. I thought that we had grown wiserat last. It seemed to me like the dawn of a great clearing up. I thoughtthe common sense of mankind would break out like a flame, an indignantflame, and consume all this obsolete foolery of empires and banners andmilitarism directly it made its attack upon human happiness. A score ofthings that I see now were preposterous, I thought musthappen--naturally. I thought America would declare herself against theBelgian outrage; that she would not tolerate the smashing of the greatsister republic--if only for the memory of Lafayette. Well--I gatherAmerica is chiefly concerned about our making cotton contraband. Ithought the Balkan States were capable of a reasonable give and take; ofa common care for their common freedom. I see now three German royaltiestrading in peasants, and no men in their lands to gainsay them. I sawthis war, as so many Frenchmen have seen it, as something that mightlegitimately command a splendid enthusiasm of indignation.... It was alla dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had never come tothe cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, everywhere small feuds andhatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, timidities, feebleness of purpose, dwarfish imaginations, swarm over the great and simple issues.... It isa war now like any other of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that haveshattered empires and devastated the world; it is a war without point, awar that has lost its soul, it has become mere incoherent fighting anddestruction, a demonstration in vast and tragic forms of the stupidityand ineffectiveness of our species.... "

He stopped, and there was a little interval of silence. 

Captain Carmine tossed the fag end of his cigar very neatly into a tubof hydrangeas. "Three thousand years ago in China, " he said, "there weremen as sad as we are, for the same cause. "

"Three thousand years ahead perhaps, " said Mr. Britling, "there willstill be men with the same sadness.... And yet--and yet.... No. Just nowI have no elasticity. It is not in my nature to despair, but things arepressing me down. I don't recover as I used to recover. I tell myselfstill that though the way is long and hard the spirit of hope, thespirit of creation, the generosities and gallantries in the heart ofman, must end in victory. But I say that over as one repeats a worn-outprayer. The light is out of the sky for me. Sometimes I doubt if it willever come back. Let younger men take heart and go on with the world. IfI could die for the right thing now--instead of just having to live onin this world of ineffective struggle--I would be glad to die now, Carmine.... "

Section 17

In these days also Mr. Direck was very unhappy. 

For Cissie, at any rate, had not lost touch with the essential issues ofthe war. She was as clear as ever that German militarism and the Germanattack on Belgium and France was the primary subject of the war. And shedismissed all secondary issues. She continued to demand why America didnot fight. "We fight for Belgium. Won't you fight for the Dutch andNorwegian ships? Won't you even fight for your own ships that theGermans are sinking?"

Mr. Direck attempted explanations that were ill received. 

"You were ready enough to fight the Spaniards when they blew up the_Maine_. But the Germans can sink the _Lusitania_! That's--as you say--adifferent proposition. "

His mind was shot by an extraordinary suspicion that she thought the_Lusitania_ an American vessel. But Mr. Direck was learning his Cissie, and he did not dare to challenge her on this score. 

"You haven't got hold of the American proposition, " he said. "We'rethinking beyond wars. "

"That's what we have been trying to do, " said Cissie. "Do you think wecame into it for the fun of the thing?"

"Haven't I shown in a hundred ways that I sympathise?"

"Oh--sympathy!... "

He fared little better at Mr. Britling's hands. Mr. Britling talkeddarkly, but pointed all the time only too plainly at America. "There'stwo sorts of liberalism, " said Mr. Britling, "that pretend to be thesame thing; there's the liberalism of great aims and the liberalism ofdefective moral energy.... "

Section 18

It was not until Teddy had been missing for three weeks that Hugh wroteabout him. The two Essex battalions on the Flanders front wereapparently wide apart, and it was only from home that Hugh learnt whathad happened. 

"You can't imagine how things narrow down when one is close up againstthem. One does not know what is happening even within a few miles of us, until we get the newspapers. Then, with a little reading between thelines and some bold guessing, we fit our little bit of experience with ageneral shape. Of course I've wondered at times about Teddy. But oddlyenough I've never thought of him very much as being out here. It'squeer, I know, but I haven't. I can't imagine why.... 

"I don't know about 'missing. ' We've had nothing going on here that hasled to any missing. All our men have been accounted for. But every fewmiles along the front conditions alter. His lot may have been closer upto the enemy, and there may have been a rush and a fight for a bit oftrench either way. In some parts the German trenches are not thirtyyards away, and there is mining, bomb throwing, and perpetual creepingup and give and take. Here we've been getting a bit forward. But I'lltell you about that presently. And, anyhow, I don't understand about'missing. ' There's very few prisoners taken now. But don't tell Lettythat. I try to imagine old Teddy in it.... 

"Missing's a queer thing. It isn't tragic--or pitiful. Or partlyreassuring like 'prisoner. ' It just sends one speculating andspeculating. I can't find any one who knows where the 14th Essex are. Things move about here so mysteriously that for all I know we may findthem in the next trench next time we go up. But there _is_ a chance forTeddy. It's worth while bucking Letty all you can. And at the same timethere's odds against him. There plainly and unfeelingly is how thingsstand in my mind. I think chiefly of Letty. I'm glad Cissie is with her, and I'm glad she's got the boy. Keep her busy. She was frightfully fondof him. I've seen all sorts of things between them, and I know that.... I'll try and write to her soon, and I'll find something hopeful to tellher. 

"Meanwhile I've got something to tell you. I've been through a fight, abig fight, and I haven't got a scratch. I've taken two prisoners with mylily hand. Men were shot close to me. I didn't mind that a bit. It wasas exciting as one of those bitter fights we used to have round thehockey goal. I didn't mind anything till afterwards. Then when I was inthe trench in the evening I trod on something slippery--pah! And afterit was all over one of my chums got it--sort of unfairly. And I keep onthinking of those two things so much that all the early part is justdreamlike. It's more like something I've read in a book, or seen in the_Illustrated London News_ than actually been through. One had beenthinking so often, how will it feel? how shall I behave? that when itcame it had an effect of being flat and ordinary. 

"They say we hadn't got enough guns in the spring or enough ammunition. That's all right now--anyhow. They started in plastering the Germansovernight, and right on until it was just daylight. I never heard such arow, and their trenches--we could stand up and look at them withoutgetting a single shot at us--were flying about like the crater of avolcano. We were not in our firing trench. We had gone back into somenew trenches, at the rear--I think to get out of the way of the counterfire. But this morning they weren't doing very much. For once our gunswere on top. There was a feeling of anticipation--very like waiting foran examination paper to be given out; then we were at it. Getting out ofa trench to attack gives you an odd feeling of being just hatched. Suddenly the world is big. I don't remember our gun fire stopping. Andthen you rush. 'Come on! Come on!' say the officers. Everybody gives asort of howl and rushes. When you see men dropping, you rush the faster. The only thing that checks you at all is the wire twisted abouteverywhere. You don't want to trip over that. The frightening thing isthe exposure. After being in the trenches so long you feel naked. Yourun like a scared child for the German trench ahead. I can't understandthe iron nerve of a man who can expose his back by turning to run away. And there's a thirsty feeling with one's bayonet. But they didn't wait. They dropped rifles and ran. But we ran so fast after them that wecaught one or two in the second trench. I got down into that, heard avoice behind me, and found my two prisoners lying artful in a dug-out. They held up their hands as I turned. If they hadn't I doubt if I shouldhave done anything to them. I didn't feel like it. I felt _friendly_. 

"Not all the Germans ran. Three or four stuck to their machine-gunsuntil they got bayoneted. Both the trenches were frightfully smashedabout, and in the first one there were little knots and groups of dead. We got to work at once shying the sandbags over from the old front ofthe trench to the parados. Our guns had never stopped all the time; theywere now plastering the third line trenches. And almost at once theGerman shells began dropping into us. Of course they had the range to aninch. One didn't have any time to feel and think; one just set oneselfwith all one's energy to turn the trench over.... 

"I don't remember that I helped or cared for a wounded man all the time, or felt anything about the dead except to step over them and not onthem. I was just possessed by the idea that we had to get the trenchinto a sheltering state before they tried to come back. And then stickthere. I just wanted to win, and there was nothing else in my mind.... 

"They did try to come back, but not very much.... 

"Then when I began to feel sure of having got hold of the trench forgood, I began to realise just how tired I was and how high the sun hadgot. I began to look about me, and found most of the other men workingjust as hard as I had been doing. 'We've done it!' I said, and that wasthe first word I'd spoken since I told my two Germans to come out of it, and stuck a man with a wounded leg to watch them. 'It's a bit of AllRight, ' said Ortheris, knocking off also, and lighting a half-consumedcigarette. He had been wearing it behind his ear, I believe, ever sincethe charge. Against this occasion. He'd kept close up to me all thetime, I realised. And then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weakbayonet jab in his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was goodto see him practically all right too. 

"'I took two prisoners, ' I said, and everybody I spoke to I told that. Iwas fearfully proud of it. 

"I thought that if I could take two prisoners in my first charge I wasgoing to be some soldier. 

"I had stood it all admirably. I didn't feel a bit shaken. I was astough as anything. I'd seen death and killing, and it was all justhockey. 

"And then that confounded Ortheris must needs go and get killed. 

"The shell knocked me over, and didn't hurt me a bit. I was a littlestunned, and some dirt was thrown over me, and when I got up on my kneesI saw Jewell lying about six yards off--and his legs were all smashedabout. Ugh! Pulped!

"He looked amazed. 'Bloody, ' he said, 'bloody. ' He fixed his eyes on me, and suddenly grinned. You know we'd once had two fights about his saying'bloody, ' I think I told you at the time, a fight and a return match, he couldn't box for nuts, but he stood up like a Briton, and it appealednow to his sense of humour that I should be standing there too dazed toprotest at the old offence. 'I thought _you_ was done in, ' he said. 'I'min a mess--a bloody mess, ain't I? Like a stuck pig. Bloody--rightenough. Bloody! I didn't know I 'ad it _in_ me. '

"He looked at me and grinned with a sort of pale satisfaction in keepingup to the last--dying good Ortheris to the finish. I just stood uphelpless in front of him, still rather dazed. 

"He said something about having a thundering thirst on him. 

"I really don't believe he felt any pain. He would have done if he hadlived. 

"And then while I was fumbling with my water-bottle, he collapsed. Heforgot all about Ortheris. Suddenly he said something that cut me all toribbons. His face puckered up just like the face of a fretful childwhich refuses to go to bed. 'I didn't want to be aut of it, ' he saidpetulantly. 'And I'm done!' And then--then he just looked discontentedand miserable and died--right off. Turned his head a little way over. Asif he was impatient at everything. Fainted--and fluttered out. 

"For a time I kept trying to get him to drink.... 

"I couldn't believe he was dead.... 

"And suddenly it was all different. I began to cry. Like a baby. I kepton with the water-bottle at his teeth long after I was convinced he wasdead. I didn't want him to be aut of it! God knows how I didn't. Iwanted my dear little Cockney cad back. Oh! most frightfully I wantedhim back. 

"I shook him. I was like a scared child. I blubbered and howledthings.... It's all different since he died. 

"My dear, dear Father, I am grieving and grieving--and it's altogethernonsense. And it's all mixed up in my mind with the mess I trod on. Andit gets worse and worse. So that I don't seem to feel anything really, even for Teddy. 

"It's been just the last straw of all this hellish foolery.... 

"If ever there was a bigger lie, my dear Daddy, than any other, it isthat man is a reasonable creature.... 

"War is just foolery--lunatic foolery--hell's foolery.... 

"But, anyhow, your son is sound and well--if sorrowful and angry. Wewere relieved that night. And there are rumours that very soon we are tohave a holiday and a refit. We lost rather heavily. We have beenpraised. But all along, Essex has done well. I can't reckon to get backyet, but there are such things as leave for eight-and-forty hours or soin England.... 

"I shall be glad of that sort of turning round.... 

"I'm tired. Oh! I'm tired.... 

"I wanted to write all about Jewell to his mother or his sweetheart orsome one; I wanted to wallow in his praises, to say all the things Ireally find now that I thought about him, but I haven't even had thatsatisfaction. He was a Poor Law child; he was raised in one of thoseawful places between Sutton and Banstead in Surrey. I've told you of allthe sweethearting he had. 'Soldiers Three' was his Bible; he was alwayssinging 'Tipperary, ' and he never got the tune right nor learnt morethan three lines of it. He laced all his talk with 'b----y'; it was hisjewel, his ruby. But he had the pluck of a robin or a squirrel; I neverknew him scared or anything but cheerful. Misfortunes, humiliations, only made him chatty. And he'd starve to have something to give away. 

"Well, well, this is the way of war, Daddy. This is what war is. Damnthe Kaiser! Damn all fools.... Give my love to the Mother and thebruddykins and every one.... "

Section 19

It was just a day or so over three weeks after this last letter fromHugh that Mr. Direck reappeared at Matching's Easy. He had had a trip toHolland--a trip that was as much a flight from Cissie's reproaches as amission of inquiry. He had intended to go on into Belgium, where he hadalready been doing useful relief work under Mr. Hoover, but theconfusion of his own feelings had checked him and brought him back. 

Mr. Direck's mind was in a perplexity only too common during thestresses of that tragic year. He was entangled in a paradox; like alarge majority of Americans at that time his feelings were quitedefinitely pro-Ally, and like so many in that majority he had a veryclear conviction that it would be wrong and impossible for the UnitedStates to take part in the war. His sympathies were intensely with theDower House and its dependent cottage; he would have wept with generousemotion to see the Stars and Stripes interwoven with the three othergreat banners of red, white and blue that led the world against Germanimperialism and militarism, but for all that his mind would not march tothat tune. Against all these impulses fought something very fundamentalin Mr. Direck's composition, a preconception of America that had grownalmost insensibly in his mind, the idea of America as a polity alooffrom the Old World system, as a fresh start for humanity, as somethingaltogether too fine and precious to be dragged into even the noblest ofEuropean conflicts. America was to be the beginning of the fusion ofmankind, neither German nor British nor French nor in any way national. She was to be the great experiment in peace and reasonableness. She hadto hold civilisation and social order out of this fray, to be a refugefor all those finer things that die under stress and turmoil; it was hertask to maintain the standards of life and the claims of humanitarianismin the conquered province and the prisoners' compound, she had to bethe healer and arbitrator, the remonstrance and not the smiting hand. Surely there were enough smiting hands. 

But this idea of an America judicial, remonstrating, and aloof, led himto a conclusion that scandalised him. If America will not, and shouldnot use force in the ends of justice, he argued, then America has noright to make and export munitions of war. She must not trade in whatshe disavows. He had a quite exaggerated idea of the amount of munitionsthat America was sending to the Allies, he was inclined to believe thatthey were entirely dependent upon their transatlantic supplies, and sohe found himself persuaded that the victory of the Allies and the honourof America were incompatible things. And--in spite of his ethicalaloofness--he loved the Allies. He wanted them to win, and he wantedAmerica to abandon a course that he believed was vitally necessary totheir victory. It was an intellectual dilemma. He hid thisself-contradiction from Matching's Easy with much the same feelings thata curate might hide a poisoned dagger at a tea-party.... 

It was entirely against his habits of mind to hide anything--moreparticularly an entanglement with a difficult proposition--but heperceived quite clearly that neither Cecily nor Mr. Britling were reallyto be trusted to listen calmly to what, under happier circumstances, might be a profoundly interesting moral complication. Yet it was not inhis nature to conceal; it was in his nature to state. 

And Cecily made things much more difficult. She was pitiless with him. She kept him aloof. "How can I let you make love to me, " she said, "whenour English men are all going to the war, when Teddy is a prisoner andHugh is in the trenches. If I were a man--!"

She couldn't be induced to see any case for America. England wasfighting for freedom, and America ought to be beside her. "All theworld ought to unite against this German wickedness, " she said. 

"I'm doing all I can to help in Belgium, " he protested. "Aren't Iworking? We've fed four million people. "

He had backbone, and he would not let her, he was resolved, bully himinto a falsehood about his country. America was aloof. She was right tobe aloof.... At the same time, Cecily's reproaches were unendurable. Andhe could feel he was drifting apart from her.... 

_He_ couldn't make America go to war. 

In the quiet of his London hotel he thought it all out. He sat at awriting-table making notes of a perfectly lucid statement of thereasonable, balanced liberal American opinion. An instinct of cautiondetermined him to test it first on Mr. Britling. 

But Mr. Britling realised his worst expectations. He was beyondlistening. 

"I've not heard from my boy for more than three weeks, " said Mr. Britling in the place of any salutation. "This morning makesthree-and-twenty days without a letter. "

It seemed to Mr. Direck that Mr. Britling had suddenly grown ten yearsolder. His face was more deeply lined; the colour and texture of hiscomplexion had gone grey. He moved restlessly and badly; his nerves weremanifestly unstrung. 

"It's intolerable that one should be subjected to this ghastly suspense. The boy isn't three hundred miles away. "

Mr. Direck made obvious inquiries. 

"Always before he's written--generally once a fortnight. "

They talked of Hugh for a time, but Mr. Britling was fitful andirritable and quite prepared to hold Mr. Direck accountable for thelaxity of the War Office, the treachery of Bulgaria, the ambiguity ofRoumania or any other barb that chanced to be sticking into hissensibilities. They lunched precariously. Then they went into the studyto smoke. 

There Mr. Direck was unfortunate enough to notice a copy of thatinnocent American publication _The New Republic_, lying close to two orthree numbers of _The Fatherland_, a pro-German periodical which at thattime inflicted itself upon English writers with the utmostdetermination. Mr. Direck remarked that _The New Republic_ was aninteresting effort on the part of "_la Jeunesse Américaine_. " Mr. Britling regarded the interesting effort with a jaded, unloving eye. 

"You Americans, " he said, "are the most extraordinary people in theworld. "

"Our conditions are exceptional, " said Mr. Direck. 

"You think they are, " said Mr. Britling, and paused, and then began todeliver his soul about America in a discourse of accumulatingbitterness. At first he reasoned and explained, but as he went on helost self-control; he became dogmatic, he became denunciatory, he becameabusive. He identified Mr. Direck more and more with his subject; hethrust the uncivil "You" more and more directly at him. He let his cigargo out, and flung it impatiently into the fire. As though America wasresponsible for its going out.... 

Like many Britons Mr. Britling had that touch of patriotic feelingtowards America which takes the form of impatient criticism. No one inBritain ever calls an American a foreigner. To see faults in Germany orSpain is to tap boundless fountains of charity; but the faults ofAmerica rankle in an English mind almost as much as the faults ofEngland. Mr. Britling could explain away the faults of England readilyenough; our Hanoverian monarchy, our Established Church and itsdeadening effect on education, our imperial obligations and the strainthey made upon our supplies of administrative talent were all veryserviceable for that purpose. But there in America was the old race, without Crown or Church or international embarrassment, and it wasstill falling short of splendid. His speech to Mr. Direck had therancour of a family quarrel. Let me only give a few sentences that wereto stick in Mr. Direck's memory. 

"You think you are out of it for good and all. So did we think. We wereas smug as you are when France went down in '71.... Yours is only onefurther degree of insularity. You think this vacuous aloofness of yoursis some sort of moral superiority. So did we, so did we.... 

"It won't last you ten years if we go down.... 

"Do you think that our disaster will leave the Atlantic for you? Do youfancy there is any Freedom of the Seas possible beyond such freedom aswe maintain, except the freedom to attack you? For forty years theBritish fleet has guarded all America from European attack. Your Monroedoctrine skulks behind it now.... 

"I'm sick of this high thin talk of yours about the war.... You are anation of ungenerous onlookers--watching us throttle or be throttled. You gamble on our winning. And we shall win; we shall win. And you willprofit. And when we have won a victory only one shade less terrible thandefeat, then you think you will come in and tinker with our peace. Bleedus a little more to please your hyphenated patriots.... "

He came to his last shaft. "You talk of your New Ideals of Peace. Yousay that you are too proud to fight. But your business men in New Yorkgive the show away. There's a little printed card now in half theoffices in New York that tells of the real pacificism of America. They're busy, you know. Trade's real good. And so as not to interrupt itthey stick up this card: 'Nix on the war!' Think of it!--'Nix on thewar!' Here is the whole fate of mankind at stake, and America'scontribution is a little grumbling when the Germans sank the_Lusitania_, and no end of grumbling when we hold up a ship or two andsome fool of a harbour-master makes an overcharge. Otherwise--'Nix onthe war!'... 

"Well, let it be Nix on the war! Don't come here and talk to me! You whowere searching registers a year ago to find your Essex kin. Let it beNix! Explanations! What do I want with explanations? And"--he mocked hisguest's accent and his guest's mode of thought--"dif'cult prap'sitions. "

He got up and stood irresolute. He knew he was being preposterouslyunfair to America, and outrageously uncivil to a trusting guest; he knewhe had no business now to end the talk in this violent fashion. But itwas an enormous relief. And to mend matters--_No!_ He was glad he'd saidthese things.... 

He swung a shoulder to Mr. Direck, and walked out of the room.... 

Mr. Direck heard him cross the hall and slam the door of the littleparlour.... 

Mr. Direck had been stirred deeply by the tragic indignation of thisexplosion, and the ring of torment in Mr. Britling's voice. He had stoodup also, but he did not follow his host. 

"It's his boy, " said Mr. Direck at last, confidentially to thewriting-desk. "How can one argue with him? It's just hell for him.... "

Section 20

Mr. Direck took his leave of Mrs. Britling, and went very slowly towardsthe little cottage. But he did not go to the cottage. He felt he wouldonly find another soul in torment there. 

"What's the good of hanging round talking?" said Mr. Direck. 

He stopped at the stile in the lane, and sat thinking deeply. "Only onething will convince her, " he said. 

He held out his fingers. "First this, " he whispered, "and then that. Yes. "

He went on as far as the bend from which one sees the cottage, and stoodfor a little time regarding it. 

He returned still more sorrowfully to the junction, and with every stephe took it seemed to him that he would rather see Cecily angry andinsulting than not see her at all. 

At the post office he stopped and wrote a letter-card. 

"Dear Cissie, " he wrote. "I came down to-day to see you--and thoughtbetter of it. I'm going right off to find out about Teddy. Somehow I'llget that settled. I'll fly around and do that somehow if I have to go upto the German front to do it. And when I've got that settled I've gotsomething else in my mind--well, it will wipe out all this littletrouble that's got so big between us about neutrality. And I love youdearly, Cissie. "

That was all the card would hold. 

Section 21

And then as if it were something that every one in the Dower House hadbeen waiting for, came the message that Hugh had been killed. 

The telegram was brought up by a girl in a pinafore instead of the boyof the old dispensation, for boys now were doing the work of youths andyouths the work of the men who had gone to the war. 

Mr. Britling was standing at the front door; he had been surveying thelate October foliage, touched by the warm light of the afternoon, whenthe messenger appeared. He opened the telegram, hoping as he had hopedwhen he opened any telegram since Hugh had gone to the front that itwould not contain the exact words he read; that it would say wounded, that at the worst it would say "missing, " that perhaps it might eventell of some pleasant surprise, a brief return to home such as the lastletter had foreshadowed. He read the final, unqualified statement, theterse regrets. He stood quite still for a moment or so, staring at thewords.... 

It was a mile and a quarter from the post office to the Dower House, andit was always his custom to give telegraph messengers who came to hishouse twopence, and he wanted very much to get rid of the telegraphgirl, who stood expectantly before him holding her red bicycle. He feltnow very sick and strained; he had a conviction that if he did not by aneffort maintain his bearing cool and dry he would howl aloud. He felt inhis pocket for money; there were some coppers and a shilling. He pulledit all out together and stared at it. 

He had an absurd conviction that this ought to be a sixpenny telegram. The thing worried him. He wanted to give the brat sixpence, and he hadonly threepence and a shilling, and he didn't know what to do and hisbrain couldn't think. It would be a shocking thing to give her ashilling, and he couldn't somehow give just coppers for so important athing as Hugh's death. Then all this problem vanished and he handed thechild the shilling. She stared at him, inquiring, incredulous. "Is therea reply, Sir, please?"

"No, " he said, "that's for you. All of it.... This is a peculiar sort oftelegram.... It's news of importance.... "

As he said this he met her eyes, and had a sudden persuasion that sheknew exactly what it was the telegram had told him, and that she wasshocked at this gala-like treatment of such terrible news. He hesitated, feeling that he had to say something else, that he was sociallyinadequate, and then he decided that at any cost he must get his faceaway from her staring eyes. She made no movement to turn away. Sheseemed to be taking him in, recording him, for repetition, greedily, with every fibre of her being. 

He stepped past her into the garden, and instantly forgot about herexistence.... 

Section 22

He had been thinking of this possibility for the last few weeks almostcontinuously, and yet now that it had come to him he felt that he hadnever thought about it before, that he must go off alone by himself toenvisage this monstrous and terrible fact, without distraction orinterruption. 

He saw his wife coming down the alley between the roses. 

He was wrenched by emotions as odd and unaccountable as the emotions ofadolescence. He had exactly the same feeling now that he had had when inhis boyhood some unpleasant admission had to be made to his parents. Hefelt he could not go through a scene with her yet, that he could notendure the task of telling her, of being observed. He turned abruptly tohis left. He walked away as if he had not seen her, across his lawntowards the little summer-house upon a knoll that commanded the highroad. She called to him, but he did not answer.... 

He would not look towards her, but for a time all his senses were alertto hear whether she followed him. Safe in the summer-house he couldglance back. 

It was all right. She was going into the house. 

He drew the telegram from his pocket again furtively, almost guiltily, and re-read it. He turned it over and read it again.... 

_Killed. _

Then his own voice, hoarse and strange to his ears, spoke his thought. 

"My God! how unutterably silly.... Why did I let him go? Why did I lethim go?"

Section 23

Mrs. Britling did not learn of the blow that had struck them until afterdinner that night. She was so accustomed to ignore his incomprehensiblemoods that she did not perceive that there was anything tragic abouthim until they sat at table together. He seemed heavy and sulky anddisposed to avoid her, but that sort of moodiness was nothing verystrange to her. She knew that things that seemed to her utterly trivial, the reading of political speeches in _The Times_, little comments onlife made in the most casual way, mere movements, could so avert him. She had cultivated a certain disregard of such fitful darknesses. But atthe dinner-table she looked up, and was stabbed to the heart to see ahaggard white face and eyes of deep despair regarding her ambiguously. 

"Hugh!" she said, and then with a chill intimation, "_What is it?_"

They looked at each other. His face softened and winced. 

"My Hugh, " he whispered, and neither spoke for some seconds. 

"_Killed_, " he said, and suddenly stood up whimpering, and fumbled withhis pocket. 

It seemed he would never find what he sought. It came at last, acrumpled telegram. He threw it down before her, and then thrust hischair back clumsily and went hastily out of the room. She heard him sob. She had not dared to look at his face again. 

"Oh!" she cried, realising that an impossible task had been thrust uponher. 

"But what can I _say_ to him?" she said, with the telegram in her hand. 

The parlourmaid came into the room. 

"Clear the dinner away!" said Mrs. Britling, standing at her place. "Master Hugh is killed.... " And then wailing: "Oh! what can I _say_?What can I _say_?"

Section 24

That night Mrs. Britling made the supreme effort of her life to burstthe prison of self-consciousness and inhibition in which she wasconfined. Never before in all her life had she so desired to bespontaneous and unrestrained; never before had she so felt herselfhampered by her timidity, her self-criticism, her deeply ingrained habitof never letting herself go. She was rent by reflected distress. Itseemed to her that she would be ready to give her life and the wholeworld to be able to comfort her husband now. And she could conceive nogesture of comfort. She went out of the dining-room into the hall andlistened. She went very softly upstairs until she came to the door ofher husband's room. There she stood still. She could hear no sound fromwithin. She put out her hand and turned the handle of the door a littleway, and then she was startled by the loudness of the sound it made andat her own boldness. She withdrew her hand, and then with a gesture ofdespair, with a face of white agony, she flitted along the corridor toher own room. 

Her mind was beaten to the ground by this catastrophe, of which to thismoment she had never allowed herself to think. She had never allowedherself to think of it. The figure of her husband, like some pitifulbeast, wounded and bleeding, filled her mind. She gave scarcely athought to Hugh. "Oh, what can I _do_ for him?" she asked herself, sitting down before her unlit bedroom fire.... "What can I say or do?"

She brooded until she shivered, and then she lit her fire.... 

It was late that night and after an eternity of resolutions and doubtsand indecisions that Mrs. Britling went to her husband. He was sittingclose up to the fire with his chin upon his hands, waiting for her; hefelt that she would come to him, and he was thinking meanwhile of Hughwith a slow unprogressive movement of the mind. He showed by a movementthat he heard her enter the room, but he did not turn to look at her. Heshrank a little from her approach. 

She came and stood beside him. She ventured to touch him very softly, and to stroke his head. "My dear, " she said. "My poor dear!

"It is so dreadful for you, " she said, "it is so dreadful for you. Iknow how you loved him.... "

He spread his hands over his face and became very still. 

"My poor dear!" she said, still stroking his hair, "my poor dear!"

And then she went on saying "poor dear, " saying it presently becausethere was nothing more had come into her mind. She desired supremely tobe his comfort, and in a little while she was acting comfort so poorlythat she perceived her own failure. And that increased her failure, andthat increased her paralysing sense of failure.... 

And suddenly her stroking hand ceased. Suddenly the real woman cried outfrom her. 

"I can't _reach_ you!" she cried aloud. "I can't reach you. I would doanything.... You! You with your heart half broken.... "

She turned towards the door. She moved clumsily, she was blinded by hertears. 

Mr. Britling uncovered his face. He stood up astonished, and then pityand pitiful understanding came storming across his grief. He made a stepand took her in his arms. "My dear, " he said, "don't go from me.... "

She turned to him weeping, and put her arms about his neck, and he toowas weeping. 

"My poor wife!" he said, "my dear wife. If it were not for you--I thinkI could kill myself to-night. Don't cry, my dear. Don't, don't cry. Youdo not know how you comfort me. You do not know how you help me. "

He drew her to him; he put her cheek against his own.... 

His heart was so sore and wounded that he could not endure that anotherhuman being should go wretched. He sat down in his chair and drew herupon his knees, and said everything he could think of to console herand reassure her and make her feel that she was of value to him. Hespoke of every pleasant aspect of their lives, of every aspect, exceptthat he never named that dear pale youth who waited now.... He couldwait a little longer.... 

At last she went from him. 

"Good night, " said Mr. Britling, and took her to the door. "It was verydear of you to come and comfort me, " he said.... 

Section 25

He closed the door softly behind her. 

The door had hardly shut upon her before he forgot her. Instantly he wasalone again, utterly alone. He was alone in an empty world.... 

Loneliness struck him like a blow. He had dependents, he had cares. Hehad never a soul to whom he might weep.... 

For a time he stood beside his open window. He looked at the bed--but nosleep he knew would come that night--until the sleep of exhaustion came. He looked at the bureau at which he had so often written. But thewriting there was a shrivelled thing.... 

This room was unendurable. He must go out. He turned to the window, andoutside was a troublesome noise of night-jars and a distant roaring ofstags, black trees, blacknesses, the sky clear and remote with a greatcompany of stars.... The stars seemed attentive. They stirred and yetwere still. It was as if they were the eyes of watchers. He would go outto them.... 

Very softly he went towards the passage door, and still more softly felthis way across the landing and down the staircase. Once or twice hepaused to listen. 

He let himself out with elaborate precautions.... 

Across the dark he went, and suddenly his boy was all about him, playing, climbing the cedars, twisting miraculously about the lawn on abicycle, discoursing gravely upon his future, lying on the grass, breathing very hard and drawing preposterous caricatures. Once againthey walked side by side up and down--it was athwart this veryspot--talking gravely but rather shyly.... 

And here they had stood a little awkwardly, before the boy went in tosay good-bye to his stepmother and go off with his father to thestation.... 

"I will work to-morrow again, " whispered Mr. Britling, "butto-night--to-night.... To-night is yours.... Can you hear me, can youhear? Your father ... Who had counted on you.... "

Section 26

He went into the far corner of the hockey paddock, and there he movedabout for a while and then stood for a long time holding the fence withboth hands and staring blankly into the darkness. At last he turnedaway, and went stumbling and blundering towards the rose garden. A sprayof creeper tore his face and distressed him. He thrust it asidefretfully, and it scratched his hand. He made his way to the seat in thearbour, and sat down and whispered a little to himself, and then becamevery still with his arm upon the back of the seat and his head upon hisarm. 

BOOK III

THE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK

Section 1

All over England now, where the livery of mourning had been a rare thingto see, women and children went about in the October sunshine in newblack clothes. Everywhere one met these fresh griefs, mothers who hadlost their sons, women who had lost their men, lives shattered and hopesdestroyed. The dyers had a great time turning coloured garments toblack. And there was also a growing multitude of crippled and disabledmen. It was so in England, much more was it so in France and Russia, inall the countries of the Allies, and in Germany and Austria; away intoAsia Minor and Egypt, in India and Japan and Italy there was mourning, the world was filled with loss and mourning and impoverishment anddistress. 

And still the mysterious powers that required these things of mankindwere unappeased, and each day added its quota of heart-stabbing messagesand called for new mourning, and sent home fresh consignments of brokenand tormented men. 

Some clung to hopes that became at last almost more terrible than blackcertainties.... 

Mrs. Teddy went about the village in a coloured dress bearing herselfconfidently. Teddy had been listed now as "missing, since reportedkilled, " and she had had two letters from his comrades. They said Teddyhad been left behind in the ruins of a farm with one or two otherwounded, and that when the Canadians retook the place these wounded hadall been found butchered. None had been found alive. Afterwards theCanadians had had to fall back. Mr. Direck had been at great pains tohunt up wounded men from Teddy's company, and also any likely Canadiansboth at the base hospital in France and in London, and to get what hecould from them. He had made it a service to Cissie. Only one of hiswitnesses was quite clear about Teddy, but he, alas! was dreadfullyclear. There had been only one lieutenant among the men left behind, hesaid, and obviously that must have been Teddy. "He had been prodded inhalf-a-dozen places. His head was nearly severed from his body. "

Direck came down and told the story to Cissie. "Shall I tell it to her?"he asked. 

Cissie thought. "Not yet, " she said.... 

Letty's face changed in those pitiful weeks when she was denying death. She lost her pretty colour, she became white; her mouth grew hard andher eyes had a hard brightness. She never wept, she never gave a sign ofsorrow, and she insisted upon talking about Teddy, in a dry offhandvoice. Constantly she referred to his final return. "Teddy, " she said, "will be surprised at this, " or "Teddy will feel sold when he sees how Ihave altered that. "

"Presently we shall see his name in a list of prisoners, " she said. "Heis a wounded prisoner in Germany. "

She adopted that story. She had no justification for it, but she wouldhear no doubts upon it. She presently began to prepare parcels to sendhim. "They want almost everything, " she told people. "They are treatedabominably. He has not been able to write to me yet, but I do not thinkI ought to wait until he asks me. "

Cissie was afraid to interfere with this. 

After a time Letty grew impatient at the delay in getting any addressand took her first parcel to the post office. 

"Unless you know what prison he is at, " said the postmistress. 

"Pity!" said Letty. "I don't know that. Must it wait for that? Ithought the Germans were so systematic that it didn't matter. "

The postmistress made tedious explanations that Letty did not seem tohear. She stared straight in front of her at nothing. Then in a pause inthe conversation she picked up her parcel. 

"It's tiresome for him to have to wait, " she said. "But it can't be longbefore I know. "

She took the parcel back to the cottage. 

"After all, " she said, "it gives us time to get the better sort ofthroat lozenges for him--the sort the syndicate shop doesn't keep. "

She put the parcel conspicuously upon the dresser in the kitchen whereit was most in the way, and set herself to make a jersey for Teddyagainst the coming of the cold weather. 

But one night the white mask fell for a moment from her face. 

Cissie and she had been sitting in silence before the fire. She had beenknitting--she knitted very badly--and Cissie had been pretending toread, and had been watching her furtively. Cissie eyed the slow, toilsome growth of the slack woolwork for a time, and the touch of angryeffort in every stroke of the knitting needles. Then she was stirred toremonstrance. 

"Poor Letty!" she said very softly. "Suppose after all, he is dead?"

Letty met her with a pitiless stare. 

"He is a prisoner, " she said. "Isn't that enough? Why do you jab at meby saying that? A wounded prisoner. Isn't that enough despicabletrickery for God even to play on Teddy--our Teddy? To the very lastmoment he shall not be dead. Until the war is over. Until six monthsafter the war.... 

"I will tell you why, Cissie.... "

She leant across the table and pointed her remarks with her knittingneedles, speaking in a tone of reasonable remonstrance. "You see, " shesaid, "if people like Teddy are to be killed, then all our ideas thatlife is meant for, honesty and sweetness and happiness, are wrong, andthis world is just a place of devils; just a dirty cruel hell. Gettingborn would be getting damned. And so one must not give way to that idea, however much it may seem likely that he is dead.... 

"You see, if he _is_ dead, then Cruelty is the Law, and some one mustpay me for his death.... Some one must pay me.... I shall wait for sixmonths after the war, dear, and then I shall go off to Germany and learnmy way about there. And I will murder some German. Not just a commonGerman, but a German who belongs to the guilty kind. A sacrifice. Itought, for instance, to be comparatively easy to kill some of thechildren of the Crown Prince or some of the Bavarian princes. I shallprefer German children. I shall sacrifice them to Teddy. It ought not tobe difficult to find people who can be made directly responsible, thepeople who invented the poison gas, for instance, and kill them, or tokill people who are dear to them. Or necessary to them.... Women can dothat so much more easily than men.... 

"That perhaps is the only way in which wars of this kind will ever bebrought to an end. By women insisting on killing the kind of people whomake them. Rooting them out. By a campaign of pursuit and assassinationthat will go on for years and years after the war itself is over.... Murder is such a little gentle punishment for the crime of war.... Itwould be hardly more than a reproach for what has happened. Falling likesnow. Death after death. Flake by flake. This prince. That statesman. The count who writes so fiercely for war.... That is what I am going todo. If Teddy is really dead.... We women were ready enough a year or soago to starve and die for the Vote, and that was quite a little thing incomparison with this business.... Don't you see what I mean? It's soplain and sensible, Cissie. Whenever a man sits and thinks whether hewill make a war or not, then he will think too of women, women withdaggers, bombs; of a vengeance that will never tire nor rest; ofconsecrated patient women ready to start out upon a pilgrimage that willonly end with his death.... I wouldn't hurt these war makers. No. Inspite of the poison gas. In spite of trench feet and the men who havebeen made blind and the wounded who have lain for days, dying slowly inthe wet. Women ought not to hurt. But I would kill. Like killingdangerous vermin. It would go on year by year. Balkan kings, Germanprinces, chancellors, they would have schemed for so much--and come tojust a rattle in the throat.... And if presently other kings andemperors began to prance about and review armies, they too would go.... 

"Until all the world understood that women would not stand war any moreforever.... 

"Of course I shall do something of the sort. What else is there to donow for me?"

Letty's eyes were bright and intense, but her voice was soft andsubdued. She went on after a pause in the same casual voice. "You seenow, Cissie, why I cling to the idea that Teddy is alive. If Teddy isalive, then even if he is wounded, he will get some happiness out ofit--and all this won't be--just rot. If he is dead then everything is sodesperately silly and cruel from top to bottom--"

She smiled wanly to finish her sentence. 

"But, Letty!" said Cissie, "there is the boy!"

"I shall leave the boy to you. Compared with Teddy I don't care _that_for the boy. I never did. What is the good of pretending? Some women aremade like that. "

She surveyed her knitting. "Poor stitches, " she said.... 

"I'm hard stuff, Cissie. I take after mother more than father. Teddy ismy darling. All the tenderness of my life is Teddy. If it goes, itgoes.... I won't crawl about the world like all these other snivellingwidows. If they've killed my man I shall kill. Blood for blood and lossfor loss. I shall get just as close to the particular Germans who madethis war as I can, and I shall kill them and theirs.... 

"The Women's Association for the Extirpation of the whole breed of WarLords, " she threw out. "If I _do_ happen to hurt--does it matter?"

She looked at her sister's shocked face and smiled again. 

"You think I go about staring at nothing, " she remarked.... "Not a bitof it! I have been planning all sorts of things.... I have been thinkinghow I could get to Germany.... Or one might catch them inSwitzerland.... I've had all sorts of plans. They can't go guarded forever.... 

"Oh, it makes me despise humanity to see how many soldiers and how fewassassins there are in the world.... After the things we have seen. Ifpeople did their duty by the dagger there wouldn't be such a thing as aWar Lord in the world. Not one.... The Kaiser and his sons and his sons'sons would know nothing but fear now for all their lives. Fear wouldonly cease to pursue as the coffin went down into the grave. Fear bysea, fear by land, for the vessel he sailed in, the train he travelledin, fear when he slept for the death in his dreams, fear when he wakedfor the death in every shadow; fear in every crowd, fear whenever he wasalone. Fear would stalk him through the trees, hide in the corner of thestaircase; make all his food taste perplexingly, so that he would wantto spit it out.... "

She sat very still brooding on that idea for a time, and then stood up. 

"What nonsense one talks!" she cried, and yawned. "I wonder why poorTeddy doesn't send me a post card or something to tell me his address. Itell you what I _am_ afraid of sometimes about him, Cissie. "

"Yes?" said Cissie. 

"Loss of memory. Suppose a beastly lump of shell or something whackedhim on the head.... I had a dream of him looking strange about the eyesand not knowing me. That, you know, really _may_ have happened.... Itwould be beastly, of course.... "

Cissie's eyes were critical, but she had nothing ready to say. 

There were some moments of silence. 

"Oh! bed, " said Letty. "Though I shall just lie scheming. "

Section 2

Cissie lay awake that night thinking about her sister as if she hadnever thought about her before. 

She began to weigh the concentrated impressions of a thousand memories. She and her sister were near in age; they knew each other with anextreme intimacy, and yet it seemed to Cissie that night as though shedid not know Letty at all. A year ago she would have been certain sheknew everything about her. But the old familiar Letty, with the brightcomplexion, and the wicked eye, with her rebellious schoolgirlinsistence upon the beautifulness of "Boof'l young men, " and her frankand glowing passion for Teddy, with her delight in humorousmystifications and open-air exercise and all the sunshine and laughterof life, this sister Letty, who had been so satisfactory and completeand final, had been thrust aside like a mask. Cissie no longer knew hersister's eyes. Letty's hand had become thin and unfamiliar and a littlewrinkled; she was sharp-featured and thin-lipped; her acts, which hadonce been predictable, were incomprehensible, and Cissie was thrown backupon speculations. In their schooldays Letty had had a streak of intensesensibility; she had been easily moved to tears. But never once had shewept or given any sign of weeping since Teddy's name had appeared in thecasualty list.... What was the strength of this tragic tension? How farwould it carry her? Was Letty really capable of becoming a CharlotteCorday? Of carrying out a scheme of far-seeing vengeance, of making herway through long months and years nearer and nearer to revenge?

Were such revenges possible?

Would people presently begin to murder the makers of the Great War? Whata strange thing it would be in history if so there came a punishment andend to the folly of kings!

Only a little while ago Cissie's imagination might have been captured byso romantic a dream. She was still but a year or so out of the stage ofmelodrama. But she was out of it. She was growing up now to a subtlerwisdom. People, she was beginning to realise, do not do these simplethings. They make vows of devotion and they are not real vows ofdevotion; they love--quite honestly--and qualify. There are no greatrevenges but only little mean ones; no life-long vindications except theunrelenting vengeance of the law. There is no real concentration ofpeople's lives anywhere such as romance demands. There is change, thereis forgetfulness. Everywhere there is dispersal. Even to the tragicstory of Teddy would come the modifications of time. Even to thewickedness of the German princes would presently be added someconflicting aspects. Could Letty keep things for years in her mind, hardand terrible, as they were now? Surely they would soften; other thingswould overlay them.... 

There came a rush of memories of Letty in a dozen schoolgirl adventures, times when she had ventured, and times when she had failed; Lettyfrightened, Letty vexed, Letty launching out to great enterprises, goinghigh and hard and well for a time, and then failing. She had seen Lettysnivelling and dirty; Letty shamed and humiliated. She knew her Letty tothe soul. Poor Letty! Poor dear Letty! With a sudden clearness of visionCissie realised what was happening in her sister's mind. All this tensescheming of revenges was the imaginative play with which Letty wardedoff the black alternative to her hope; it was not strength, it wasweakness. It was a form of giving way. She could not face starkly thesimple fact of Teddy's death. That was too much for her. So she wasbuilding up this dream of a mission of judgment against the day when shecould resist the facts no longer. She was already persuaded, only shewould not be persuaded until her dream was ready. If this state ofsuspense went on she might establish her dream so firmly that it wouldat last take complete possession of her mind. And by that time also shewould have squared her existence at Matching's Easy with the elaborationof her reverie. 

She would go about the place then, fancying herself preparing for thistremendous task she would never really do; she would study German maps;she would read the papers about German statesmen and rulers; perhaps shewould even make weak attempts to obtain a situation in Switzerland or inGermany. Perhaps she would buy a knife or a revolver. Perhaps presentlyshe would begin to hover about Windsor or Sandringham when peace wasmade, and the German cousins came visiting again.... 

Into Cissie's mind came the image of the thing that might be; Letty, shabby, draggled, with her sharp bright prettiness become haggard, anassassin dreamer, still dependent on Mr. Britling, doing his work ratherbadly, in a distraught unpunctual fashion. 

She must be told, she must be convinced soon, or assuredly she wouldbecome an eccentric, a strange character, a Matching's Easy MissFlite.... 

Section 3

Cissie could think more clearly of Letty's mind than of her own. 

She herself was in a tangle. She had grown to be very fond of Mr. Direck, and to have a profound trust and confidence in him, and herfondness seemed able to find no expression at all except a constantgirding at his and America's avoidance of war. She had fallen in lovewith him when he was wearing fancy dress; she was a young woman with astronger taste for body and colour than she supposed; what indeed sheresented about him, though she did not know it, was that he seemed neverdisposed to carry the spirit of fancy dress into everyday life. To beginwith he had touched both her imagination and senses, and she wanted himto go on doing that. Instead of which he seemed lapsing more and moreinto reiterated assurances of devotion and the flat competent dischargeof humanitarian duties. Always nowadays he was trying to persuade herthat what he was doing was the right and honourable thing for him to do;what he did not realise, what indeed she did not realise, was theexasperation his rightness and reasonableness produced in her. When hesaw he exasperated her he sought very earnestly to be righter andreasonabler and more plainly and demonstrably right and reasonable thanever. 

Withal, as she felt and perceived, he was such a good thing, such a verygood thing; so kind, so trustworthy, with a sort of slow strength, witha careful honesty, a big good childishness, a passion for fairness. Andso helpless in her hands. She could lash him and distress him. Yet shecould not shake his slowly formed convictions. 

When Cissie had dreamt of the lover that fate had in store for her inher old romantic days, he was to be _perfect_ always, he and she werealways to be absolutely in the right (and, if the story needed it, theworld in the wrong). She had never expected to find herself tied by heraffections to a man with whom she disagreed, and who went contrary toher standards, very much as if she was lashed on the back of a very niceelephant that would wince to but not obey the goad.... 

So she nagged him and taunted him, and would hear no word of his case. And he wanted dreadfully to discuss his case. He felt that the point ofconscience about the munitions was particularly fine and difficult. Hewished she would listen and enter into it more. But she thought withthat more rapid English flash which is not so much thinking as feeling. He loved that flash in her in spite of his persuasion of its injustice. 

Her thought that he ought to go to the war made him feel like arenegade; but her claim that he was somehow still English held him inspite of his reason. In the midst of such perplexities he was glad tofind one neutral task wherein he could find himself whole-heartedly withand for Cissie. 

He hunted up the evidence of Teddy's fate with a devoted pertinacity. 

And in the meanwhile the other riddle resolved itself. He had had acertain idea in his mind for some time. He discovered one day that itwas an inspiration. He could keep his conscientious objection aboutAmerica, and still take a line that would satisfy Cissie. He took it. 

When he came down to Matching's Easy at her summons to bear hisconvincing witness of Teddy's fate, he came in an unwonted costume. Itwas a costume so wonderful in his imagination that it seemed to cryaloud, to sound like a trumpet as he went through London to LiverpoolStreet station; it was a costume like an international event; it was acostume that he felt would blare right away to Berlin. And yet it was acostume so commonplace, so much the usual wear now, that Cissie, meetinghim at the station and full of the thought of Letty's trouble, did notremark it, felt indeed rather than observed that he was looking morestrong and handsome than he had ever done since he struck upon herimagination in the fantastic wrap that Teddy had found for him in themerry days when there was no death in the world. And Letty too, resistant, incalculable, found no wonder in the wonderful suit. 

He bore his testimony. It was the queer halting telling of apatched-together tale.... 

"I suppose, " said Letty, "if I tell you now that I don't believe thatthat officer was Teddy you will think I am cracked.... But I don't. "

She sat staring straight before her for a time after saying this. Thensuddenly she got up and began taking down her hat and coat from the pegbehind the kitchen door. The hanging strap of the coat was twisted andshe struggled with it petulantly until she tore it. 

"Where are you going?" cried Cissie. 

Letty's voice over her shoulder was the harsh voice of a scolding woman. 

"I'm going out--anywhere. " She turned, coat in hand. "Can't I go out ifI like?" she asked. "It's a beautiful day.... Mustn't I go out?... Isuppose you think I ought to take in what you have told me in a moment. Just smile and say '_Indeed!_' ... Abandoned!--while his men retreated!How jolly! And then not think of it any more.... Besides, I must go out. You two want to be left together. You want to canoodle. Do it while youcan!"

Then she put on coat and hat, jamming her hat down on her head, and saidsomething that Cissie did not immediately understand. 

"_He'll_ have his turn in the trenches soon enough. Now that he's madeup his mind.... He might have done it sooner.... "

She turned her back as though she had forgotten them. She stood for amoment as though her feet were wooden, not putting her feet as sheusually put her feet. She took slow, wide, unsure steps. She wentout--like something that is mortally injured and still walks--into theautumnal sunshine. She left the door wide open behind her. 

Section 4

And Cissie, with eyes full of distress for her sister, had still tograsp the fact that Direck was wearing a Canadian uniform.... 

He stood behind her, ashamed that in such a moment this fact and itsneglect by every one could be so vivid in his mind. 

Section 5

Cissie's estimate of her sister's psychology had been just. The reverieof revenge had not yet taken a grip upon Letty's mind sufficientlystrong to meet the challenge of this conclusive evidence of Teddy'sdeath. She walked out into a world of sunshine now almost completelyconvinced that Teddy was dead, and she knew quite well that her dream ofsome dramatic and terrible vindication had gone from her. She knew thatin truth she could do nothing of that sort.... 

She walked out with a set face and eyes that seemed unseeing, and yet itwas as if some heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It wasover; there was no more to hope for and there was nothing more to fear. She would have been shocked to realise that her mind was relieved. 

She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be away from every eye. She waslike some creature that after a long nightmare incubation is at lastborn into a clear, bleak day. She had to feel herself; she had tostretch her mind in this cheerless sunshine, this new world, where therewas to be no more Teddy and no real revenge nor compensation for Teddy. Teddy was past.... 

Hitherto she had had an angry sense of being deprived of Teddy--almostas though he were keeping away from her. Now, there was no more Teddy tobe deprived of.... 

She went through the straggling village, and across the fields to thehillside that looks away towards Mertonsome and its steeple. And wherethe hill begins to fall away she threw herself down under the hedge bythe path, near by the stile into the lane, and lay still. She did not somuch think as remain blank, waiting for the beginning of impressions.... 

It was as it were a blank stare at the world.... 

She did not know if it was five minutes or half an hour later that shebecame aware that some one was looking at her. She turned with a start, and discovered the Reverend Dimple with one foot on the stile, and anexpression of perplexity and consternation upon his chubby visage. 

Instantly she understood. Already on four different occasions sinceTeddy's disappearance she had seen the good man coming towards her, always with a manifest decision, always with the same faltering doubt asnow. Often in their happy days had she and Teddy discussed him andderided him and rejoiced over him. They had agreed he was as good asJane Austen's Mr. Collins. He really was very like Mr. Collins, exceptthat he was plumper. And now, it was as if he was transparent to herhard defensive scrutiny. She knew he was impelled by his tradition, byhis sense of fitness, by his respect for his calling, to offer her hisministrations and consolations, to say his large flat amiabilities overher and pat her kindly with his hands. And she knew too that he dreadedher. She knew that the dear old humbug knew at the bottom of his heartquite certainly that he was a poor old humbug, and that she was in hissecret. And at the bottom of his heart he found himself too honest toforce his poor platitudes upon any who would not be glad of them. If shecould have been glad of them he would have had no compunction. He was aman divided against himself; failing to carry through his richpretences, dismayed. 

He had been taking his afternoon "constitutional. " He had discovered herbeyond the stile just in time to pull up. Then had come a fatal, apreposterous hesitation. She stared at him now, with hard, expressionless eyes. 

He stared back at her, until his plump pink face was all consternation. He was extraordinarily distressed. It was as if a thousand unspokenthings had been said between them. 

"No wish, " he said, "intrude. "

If he had had the certain balm, how gladly would he have given it!

He broke the spell by stepping back into the lane. He made a gesturewith his hands, as if he would have wrung them. And then he had fleddown the lane--almost at a run. 

"Po' girl, " he shouted. "Po' girl, " and left her staring. 

Staring--and then she laughed. 

This was good. This was the sort of thing one could tell Teddy, when atlast he came back and she could tell him anything. And then she realisedagain; there was no more Teddy, there would be no telling. And suddenlyshe fell weeping. 

"Oh, Teddy, Teddy, " she cried through her streaming tears. "How couldyou leave me? How can I bear it?"

Never a tear had she shed since the news first came, and now she couldweep, she could weep her grief out. She abandoned herself unreservedlyto this blessed relief.... 

Section 6

There comes an end to weeping at last, and Letty lay still, in the redlight of the sinking sun. 

She lay so still that presently a little foraging robin came dirtingdown to the grass not ten yards away and stopped and looked at her. Andthen it came a hop or so nearer. 

She had been lying in a state of passive abandonment, her swollen weteyes open, regardless of everything. But those quick movements caughther back to attention. She began to watch the robin, and to note how itglanced sidelong at her and appeared to meditate further approaches. Shemade an almost imperceptible movement, and straightway the littlecreature was in a projecting spray of berried hawthorn overhead. 

Her tear-washed mind became vaguely friendly. With an unconsciouscomfort it focussed down to the robin. She rolled over, sat up, andimitated his friendly "cheep. "

Section 7

Presently she became aware of footsteps rustling through the grasstowards her. 

She looked over her shoulder and discovered Mr. Britling approaching bythe field path. He looked white and tired and listless, even hisbristling hair and moustache conveyed his depression; he was dressed inan old tweed knickerbocker suit and carrying a big atlas and somepapers. He had an effect of hesitation in his approach. It was as if hewanted to talk to her and doubted her reception for him. 

He spoke without any preface. "Direck has told you?" he said, standingover her. 

She answered with a sob. 

"I was afraid it was so, and yet I did not believe it, " said Mr. Britling. "Until now. "

He hesitated as if he would go on, and then he knelt down on the grass alittle way from her and seated himself. There was an interval ofsilence. 

"At first it hurts like the devil, " he said at last, looking away atMertonsome spire and speaking as if he spoke to no one in particular. "And then it hurts. It goes on hurting.... And one can't say much to anyone.... "

He said no more for a time. But the two of them comforted one another, and knew that they comforted each other. They had a common feeling offellowship and ease. They had been stricken by the same thing; theyunderstood how it was with each other. It was not like the attemptedcomfort they got from those who had not loved and dreaded.... 

She took up a little broken twig and dug small holes in the ground withit. 

"It's strange, " she said, "but I'm glad I know for sure. "

"I can understand that, " said Mr. Britling. 

"It stops the nightmares.... It isn't hopes I've had so much asfears.... I wouldn't admit he was dead or hurt. Because--I couldn'tthink it without thinking it--horrible. _Now_--"

"It's final, " said Mr. Britling. 

"It's definite, " she said after a pause. "It's like thinking he'sasleep--for good. "

But that did not satisfy her. There was more than this in her mind. "Itdoes away with the half and half, " she said. "He's dead or he isalive.... "

She looked up at Mr. Britling as if she measured his understanding. 

"You don't still doubt?" he said. 

"I'm content now in my mind--in a way. He wasn't anyhow there--unless hewas dead. But if I saw Teddy coming over the hedge there to me--It wouldbe just natural.... No, don't stare at me. I know really he is dead. Andit is a comfort. It is peace.... All the thoughts of him being crusheddreadfully or being mutilated or lying and screaming--or things likethat--they've gone. He's out of his spoilt body. He's my unbroken Teddyagain.... Out of sight somewhere.... Unbroken.... Sleeping. "

She resumed her excavation with the little stick, with the tears runningdown her face. 

Mr. Britling presently went on with the talk. "For me it came all atonce, without a doubt or a hope. I hoped until the last that nothingwould touch Hugh. And then it was like a black shutter falling--in aninstant.... "

He considered. "Hugh, too, seems just round the corner at times. But attimes, it's a blank place.... 

"At times, " said Mr. Britling, "I feel nothing but astonishment. Thewhole thing becomes incredible. Just as for weeks after the war began Icouldn't believe that a big modern nation could really go towar--seriously--with its whole heart.... And they have killed Teddy andHugh.... 

"They have killed millions. Millions--who had fathers and mothers andwives and sweethearts.... "

Section 8

"Somehow I can't talk about this to Edith. It is ridiculous, I know. Butin some way I can't.... It isn't fair to her. If I could, I would.... Quite soon after we were married I ceased to talk to her. I mean talkingreally and simply--as I do to you. And it's never come back. I don'tknow why.... And particularly I can't talk to her of Hugh.... Littlethings, little shadows of criticism, but enough to make itimpossible.... And I go about thinking about Hugh, and what has happenedto him sometimes... As though I was stifling. "

Letty compared her case. 

"I don't want to talk about Teddy--not a word. "

"That's queer.... But perhaps--a son is different. Now I come to thinkof it--I've never talked of Mary.... Not to any one ever. I've neverthought of that before. But I haven't. I couldn't. No. Losing a lover, that's a thing for oneself. I've been through that, you see. But ason's more outside you. Altogether. And more your own making. It's notlosing a thing _in_ you; it's losing a hope and a pride.... Once when Iwas a little boy I did a drawing very carefully. It took me a longtime.... And a big boy tore it up. For no particular reason. Just out ofcruelty.... That--that was exactly like losing Hugh.... "

Letty reflected. 

"No, " she confessed, "I'm more selfish than that. "

"It isn't selfish, " said Mr. Britling. "But it's a different thing. It'sless intimate, and more personally important. "

"I have just thought, 'He's gone. He's gone. ' Sometimes, do you know, Ihave felt quite angry with him. Why need he have gone--so soon?"

Mr. Britling nodded understandingly. 

"I'm not angry. I'm not depressed. I'm just bitterly hurt by the endingof something I had hoped to watch--always--all my life, " he said. "Idon't know how it is between most fathers and sons, but I admired Hugh. I found exquisite things in him. I doubt if other people saw them. Hewas quiet. He seemed clumsy. But he had an extraordinary fineness. Hewas a creature of the most delicate and rapid responses.... These aren'tmy fond delusions. It was so.... You know, when he was only a few daysold, he would start suddenly at any strange sound. He was alive like anÆolian harp from the very beginning.... And his hair when he wasborn--he had a lot of hair--was like the down on the breast of a bird. Iremember that now very vividly--and how I used to like to pass my handover it. It was silk, spun silk. Before he was two he could talk--wholesentences. He had the subtlest ear. He loved long words.... And then, "he said with tears in his voice, "all this beautiful fine structure, this brain, this fresh life as nimble as water--as elastic as a steelspring, it is destroyed.... 

"I don't make out he wasn't human. Often and often I have been angrywith him, and disappointed in him. There were all sorts of weaknesses inhim. We all knew them. And we didn't mind them. We loved him the better. And his odd queer cleverness!.... And his profound wisdom. And then allthis beautiful and delicate fabric, all those clear memories in his dearbrain, all his whims, his sudden inventions.... 

"You know, I have had a letter from his chum Park. He was shot through aloophole. The bullet went through his eye and brow.... Think of it!

"An amazement ... A blow ... A splattering of blood. Rags of tormentedskin and brain stuff.... In a moment. What had taken eighteenyears--love and care.... "

He sat thinking for an interval, and then went on, "The reading andwriting alone! I taught him to read myself--because his first governess, you see, wasn't very clever. She was a very good methodical sort, butshe had no inspiration. So I got up all sorts of methods for teachinghim to read. But it wasn't necessary. He seemed to leap all sorts ofdifficulties. He leapt to what one was trying to teach him. It was asquick as the movement of some wild animal.... 

"He came into life as bright and quick as this robin looking forfood.... 

"And he's broken up and thrown away.... Like a cartridge case by theside of a covert.... "

He choked and stopped speaking. His elbows were on his knees, and he puthis face between his hands and shuddered and became still. His hair wastroubled. The end of his stumpy moustache and a little roll of fleshstood out at the side of his hand, and made him somehow twice aspitiful. His big atlas, from which papers projected, seemed forgotten byhis side. So he sat for a long time, and neither he nor Letty moved orspoke. But they were in the same shadow. They found great comfort inone another. They had not been so comforted before since their lossescame upon them. 

Section 9

It was Mr. Britling who broke silence. And when he drew his hands downfrom his face and spoke, he said one of the most amazing and unexpectedthings she had ever heard in her life. 

"The only possible government in Albania, " he said, looking steadfastlybefore him down the hill-side, "is a group of republican cantons afterthe Swiss pattern. I can see no other solution that is not offensive toGod. It does not matter in the least what we owe to Serbia or what weowe to Italy. We have got to set this world on a different footing. Wehave got to set up the world at last--on justice and reason. "

Then, after a pause, "The Treaty of Bucharest was an evil treaty. Itmust be undone. Whatever this German King of Bulgaria does, that treatymust be undone and the Bulgarians united again into one people. Theymust have themselves, whatever punishment they deserve, they must havenothing more, whatever reward they win. "

She could not believe her ears. 

"After this precious blood, after this precious blood, if we leave oneplot of wickedness or cruelty in the world--"

And therewith he began to lecture Letty on the importance ofinternational politics--to every one. How he and she and every one mustunderstand, however hard it was to understand. 

"No life is safe, no happiness is safe, there is no chance of betteringlife until we have made an end to all that causes war.... 

"We have to put an end to the folly and vanity of kings, and to anypeople ruling any people but themselves. There is no convenience, thereis no justice in any people ruling any people but themselves; the rulingof men by others, who have not their creeds and their languages andtheir ignorances and prejudices, that is the fundamental folly that haskilled Teddy and Hugh--and these millions. To end that folly is as muchour duty and business as telling the truth or earning a living.... "

"But how can you alter it?"

He held out a finger at her. "Men may alter anything if they have motiveenough and faith enough. "

He indicated the atlas beside him. 

"Here I am planning the real map of the world, " he said. "Every sort ofdistrict that has a character of its own must have its own rule; and thegreat republic of the united states of the world must keep the federalpeace between them all. That's the plain sense of life; the federalworld-republic. Why do we bother ourselves with loyalties to any othergovernment but that? It needs only that sufficient men should say it, and that republic would be here now. Why have we loitered so long--untilthese tragic punishments come? We have to map the world out into itsstates, and plan its government and the way of its tolerations. "

"And you think it will come?"

"It will come. "

"And you believe that men will listen to such schemes?" said Letty. 

Mr. Britling, with his eyes far away over the hills, seemed to think. "Yes, " he said. "Not perhaps to-day--not steadily. But kings and empiresdie; great ideas, once they are born, can never die again. In the endthis world-republic, this sane government of the world, is as certain asthe sunset. Only.... "

He sighed, and turned over a page of his atlas blindly. 

"Only we want it soon. The world is weary of this bloodshed, weary ofall this weeping, of this wasting of substance and this killing of sonsand lovers. We want it soon, and to have it soon we must work to bringit about. We must give our lives. What is left of our lives.... 

"That is what you and I must do, Letty. What else is there left for usto do?... I will write of nothing else, I will think of nothing else nowbut of safety and order. So that all these dear dead--not one of thembut will have brought the great days of peace and man's real beginningnearer, and these cruel things that make men whimper like children, thatbreak down bright lives into despair and kill youth at the very momentwhen it puts out its clean hands to take hold of life--these cruelties, these abominations of confusion, shall cease from the earth forever. "

Section 10

Letty regarded him, frowning, and with her chin between her fists.... 

"But do you really believe, " said Letty, "that things can be better thanthey are?"

"But--_Yes!_" said Mr. Britling. 

"I don't, " said Letty. "The world is cruel. It is just cruel. So it willalways be. "

"It need not be cruel, " said Mr. Britling. 

"It is just a place of cruel things. It is all set with knives. It isfull of diseases and accidents. As for God--either there is no God or heis an idiot. He is a slobbering idiot. He is like some idiot who pullsoff the wings of flies. "

"No, " said Mr. Britling. 

"There is no progress. Nothing gets better. How can _you_ believe in Godafter Hugh? _Do_ you believe in God?"

"Yes, " said Mr. Britling after a long pause; "I do believe in God. "

"Who lets these things happen!" She raised herself on her arm and thrusther argument at him with her hand. "Who kills my Teddy and yourHugh--and millions. "

"No, " said Mr. Britling. 

"But he _must_ let these things happen. Or why do they happen?"

"No, " said Mr. Britling. "It is the theologians who must answer that. They have been extravagant about God. They have had silly absoluteideas--that He is all powerful. That He's omni-everything. But thecommon sense of men knows better. Every real religious thought deniesit. After all, the real God of the Christians is Christ, not GodAlmighty; a poor mocked and wounded God nailed on a cross of matter.... Some day He will triumph.... But it is not fair to say that He causesall things now. It is not fair to make out a case against him. You havebeen misled. It is a theologian's folly. God is not absolute; God isfinite.... A finite God who struggles in his great and comprehensive wayas we struggle in our weak and silly way--who is _with_ us--that is theessence of all real religion.... I agree with you so--Why! if I thoughtthere was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and deaths andall the waste and horror of this war--able to prevent thesethings--doing them to amuse Himself--I would spit in his empty face.... "

"Any one would.... "

"But it's your teachers and catechisms have set you against God.... Theywant to make out He owns all Nature. And all sorts of silly claims. Likethe heralds in the Middle Ages who insisted that Christ was certainly agreat gentleman entitled to bear arms. But God is within Nature andnecessity. Necessity is a thing beyond God--beyond good and ill, beyondspace and time, a mystery everlastingly impenetrable. God is nearer thanthat. Necessity is the uttermost thing, but God is the innermost thing. Closer He is than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. He is theOther Thing than this world. Greater than Nature or Necessity, for he isa spirit and they are blind, but not controlling them.... Not yet.... "

"They always told me He was the maker of Heaven and Earth. "

"That's the Jew God the Christians took over. It's a Quack God, aPanacea. It's not my God. "

Letty considered these strange ideas. 

"I never thought of Him like that, " she said at last. "It makes it allseem different. "

"Nor did I. But I do now.... I have suddenly found it and seen it plain. I see it so plain that I am amazed that I have not always seen it.... Itis, you see, so easy to understand that there is a God, and how complexand wonderful and brotherly He is, when one thinks of those dear boyswho by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, have laid down theirlives.... Ay, and there were German boys too who did the same.... Thecruelties, the injustice, the brute aggression--they saw it differently. They laid down their lives--they laid down their lives.... Those dearlives, those lives of hope and sunshine.... 

"Don't you see that it must be like that, Letty? Don't you see that itmust be like that?"

"No, " she said, "I've seen things differently from that. "

"But it's so plain to me, " said Mr. Britling. "If there was nothing elsein all the world but our kindness for each other, or the love that madeyou weep in this kind October sunshine, or the love I bear Hugh--ifthere was nothing else at all--if everything else was cruelty andmockery and filthiness and bitterness, it would still be certain thatthere was a God of love and righteousness. If there were no signs of Godin all the world but the godliness we have seen in those two boys ofours; if we had no other light but the love we have between us.... 

"You don't mind if I talk like this?" said Mr. Britling. "It's all I canthink of now--this God, this God who struggles, who was in Hugh andTeddy, clear and plain, and how He must become the ruler of theworld.... "

"This God who struggles, " she repeated. "I have never thought of Himlike that. "

"Of course He must be like that, " said Mr. Britling. "How can God be aPerson; how can He be anything that matters to man, unless He is limitedand defined and--human like ourselves.... With things outside Him andbeyond Him. "

Section 11

Letty walked back slowly through the fields of stubble to her cottage. 

She had been talking to Mr. Britling for an hour, and her mind was fullof the thought of this changed and simplified man, who talked of God ashe might have done of a bird he had seen or of a tree he had shelteredunder. And all mixed up with this thought of Mr. Britling was thisstrange idea of God who was also a limited person, who could come asclose as Teddy, whispering love in the darkness. She had a ridiculousfeeling that God really struggled like Mr. Britling, and that with onlysome indefinable inferiority of outlook Mr. Britling loved like God. Sheloved him for his maps and his dreams and the bareness of his talk toher. It was strange how the straining thought of the dead Teddy hadpassed now out of her mind. She was possessed by a sense of ending andbeginning, as though a page had turned over in her life and everythingwas new. She had never given religion any thought but contemptuousthought for some years, since indeed her growing intelligence haddismissed it as a scheme of inexcusable restraints and empty pretences, a thing of discords where there were no discords except of its making. She had been a happy Atheist. She had played in the sunshine, a naturalcreature with the completest confidence in the essential goodness of theworld in which she found herself. She had refused all thought ofpainful and disagreeable things. Until the bloody paw of war had wipedout all her assurance. Teddy, the playmate, was over, the love game wasended for ever; the fresh happy acceptance of life as life; and in theplace of Teddy was the sorrow of life, the pity of life, and this comingof God out of utter remoteness into a conceivable relation to her ownexistence. 

She had left Mr. Britling to his atlas. He lay prone under the hedgewith it spread before him. His occupation would have seemed to her onlya little while ago the absurdest imaginable. He was drawing boundarieson his maps very carefully in red ink, with a fountain pen. But now sheunderstood. 

She knew that those red ink lines of Mr. Britling's might in the endprove wiser and stronger than the bargains of the diplomats.... 

In the last hour he had come very near to her. She found herself full ofan unwonted affection for him. She had never troubled her head about herrelations with any one except Teddy before. Now suddenly she seemed tobe opening out to all the world for kindness. This new idea of afriendly God, who had a struggle of his own, who could be thought of askindred to Mr. Britling, as kindred to Teddy--had gripped herimagination. He was behind the autumnal sunshine; he was in the littlebird that had seemed so confident and friendly. Whatever was kind, whatever was tender; there was God. And a thousand old phrases she hadread and heard and given little heed to, that had lain like dry bones inher memory, suddenly were clothed in flesh and became alive. ThisGod--if this was God--then indeed it was not nonsense to say that Godwas love, that he was a friend and companion.... With him it might bepossible to face a world in which Teddy and she would never walk side byside again nor plan any more happiness for ever. After all she had beenvery happy; she had had wonderful happiness. She had had far morehappiness, far more love, in her short years or so than most people hadin their whole lives. And so in the reaction of her emotions, Letty, whohad gone out with her head full of murder and revenge, came back throughthe sunset thinking of pity, of the thousand kindnesses and tendernessesof Teddy that were, after all, perhaps only an intimation of thelimitless kindnesses and tendernesses of God.... What right had she to awhite and bitter grief, self-centred and vindictive, while old Britlingcould still plan an age of mercy in the earth and a red-gold sunlightthat was warm as a smile from Teddy lay on all the world.... 

She must go into the cottage and kiss Cissie, and put away that parcelout of sight until she could find some poor soldier to whom she couldsend it. She had been pitiless towards Cissie in her grief. She had, inthe egotism of her sorrow, treated Cissie as she might have treated achair or a table, with no thought that Cissie might be weary, mightdream of happiness still to come. Cissie had still to play the lover, and her man was already in khaki. There would be no such year as Lettyhad had in the days before the war darkened the world. Before Cissie'smarrying the peace must come, and the peace was still far away. AndDireck too would have to take his chances.... 

Letty came through the little wood and over the stile that brought herinto sight of the cottage. The windows of the cottage as she saw itunder the bough of the big walnut tree, were afire from the sun. Thecrimson rambler over the porch that she and Teddy had planted was stillbearing roses. The door was open and people were moving in the porch. 

Some one was coming out of the cottage, a stranger, in an unfamiliarcostume, and behind him was a man in khaki--but that was Mr. Direck! Andbehind him again was Cissie. 

But the stranger!

He came out of the frame of the porch towards the garden gate.... 

Who--who was this stranger?

It was a man in queer-looking foreign clothes, baggy trousers of somesoft-looking blue stuff and a blouse, and he had a white-bandaged leftarm. He had a hat stuck at the back of his head, and a beard.... 

He was entirely a stranger, a foreigner. Was she going insane? Of coursehe was a stranger!

And then he moved a step, he made a queer sideways pace, a caper, on thepath, and instantly he ceased to be strange and foreign. He becameamazingly, incredibly, familiar by virtue of that step.... 

_No!_

Her breath stopped. All Letty's being seemed to stop. And this strangerwho was also incredibly familiar, after he had stared at her motionlessform for a moment, waved his hat with a gesture--a gesture that crownedand scaled the effect of familiarity. She gave no sign in reply. 

No, that familiarity was just a mad freakishness in things. 

This strange man came from Belgium perhaps, to tell something aboutTeddy.... 

And then she surprised herself by making a groaning noise, an absurdsilly noise, just like the noise when one imitates a cow to a child. Shesaid "Mooo-oo. "

And she began to run forward, with legs that seemed misfits, waving herhands about, and as she ran she saw more and more certainly that thiswounded man in strange clothing was Teddy. She ran faster and stillfaster, stumbling and nearly falling. If she did not get to him speedilythe world would burst. 

To hold him, to hold close to him!... 

"Letty! Letty! Just one arm.... "

She was clinging to him and he was holding her.... 

It was all right. She had always known it was all right. (Hold close tohim. ) Except just for a little while. But that had been foolishness. Hadn't she always known he was alive? And here he was alive! (Hold closeto him. ) Only it was so good to be sure--after all her torment; to holdhim, to hang about him, to feel the solid man, kissing her, weeping too, weeping together with her. "Teddy my love!"

Section 12

Letty was in the cottage struggling to hear and understand things toocomplicated for her emotion-crowded mind. There was something that Mr. Direck was trying to explain about a delayed telegram that had come soonafter she had gone out. There was much indeed that Mr. Direck was tryingto explain. What did any explanation really matter when you had Teddy, with nothing but a strange beard and a bandaged arm between him andyourself? She had an absurd persuasion at first that those twostrangenesses would also presently be set aside, so that Teddy wouldbecome just exactly what Teddy had always been. 

Teddy had been shot through the upper arm.... 

"My hand has gone, dear little Letty. It's my left hand, luckily. Ishall have to wear a hook like some old pirate.... "

There was something about his being taken prisoner. "That otherofficer"--that was Mr. Direck's officer--"had been lying there fordays. " Teddy had been shot through the upper arm, and stunned by afalling beam. When he came to he was disarmed, with a German standingover him.... 

Then afterwards he had escaped. In quite a little time he had escaped. He had been in a railway station somewhere in Belgium; locked in awaiting-room with three or four French prisoners, and the junction hadbeen bombed by French and British aeroplanes. Their guard and two of theprisoners had been killed. In the confusion the others had got away intothe town. There were trucks of hay on fire, and a store of petrol wasin danger. "After that one was bound to escape. One would have been shotif one had been found wandering about. "

The bomb had driven some splinters of glass and corrugated iron intoTeddy's wrist; it seemed a small place at first; it didn't trouble himfor weeks. But then some dirt got into it. 

In the narrow cobbled street beyond the station he had happened upon awoman who knew no English, but who took him to a priest, and the priesthad hidden him. 

Letty did not piece together the whole story at first. She did not wantthe story very much; she wanted to know about this hand and arm. 

There would be queer things in the story when it came to be told. Therewas an old peasant who had made Teddy work in his fields in spite of hissmashed and aching arm, and who had pointed to a passing German whenTeddy demurred; there were the people called "they" who had at that timeorganised the escape of stragglers into Holland. There was the nightwatch, those long nights in succession before the dash for liberty. ButLetty's concern was all with the hand. Inside the sling there wassomething that hurt the imagination, something bandaged, a stump. Shecould not think of it. She could not get away from the thought of it. 

"But why did you lose your hand?"

It was only a little place at first, and then it got painful.... 

"But I didn't go into a hospital because I was afraid they would internme, and so I wouldn't be able to come home. And I was dying to comehome. I was--homesick. No one was ever so homesick. I've thought of thisplace and the garden, and how one looked out of the window at thepassers-by, a thousand times. I seemed always to be seeing them. OldDimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. Wolker at the end cottage, and how she used to fetch her beer and wink when she caught us lookingat her, and little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigsand all the rest of them. And you, Letty. Particularly you. And how weused to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and yourcheek just in front of my eyes.... And nothing aching at all in one.... 

"How I thought of that and longed for that!... 

"And so, you see, I didn't go to the hospital. I kept hoping to get toEngland first. And I left it too long.... "

"Life's come back to me with you!" said Letty. "Until just to-day I'vebelieved you'd come back. And to-day--I doubted.... I thought it was allover--all the real life, love and the dear fun of things, and that therewas nothing before me, nothing before me but just holding out--andkeeping your memory.... Poor arm. Poor arm. And being kind to people. And pretending you were alive somewhere.... I'll not care about the arm. In a little while.... I'm glad you've gone, but I'm gladder you're backand can never go again.... And I will be your right hand, dear, and yourleft hand and all your hands. Both my hands for your dear lost left one. You shall have three hands instead of two.... "

Section 13

Letty stood by the window as close as she could to Teddy in a world thatseemed wholly made up of unexpected things. She could not heed theothers, it was only when Teddy spoke to the others, or when they spoketo Teddy, that they existed for her. 

For instance, Teddy was presently talking to Mr. Direck. 

They had spoken about the Canadians who had come up and relieved theEssex men after the fight in which Teddy had been captured. And then itwas manifest that Mr. Direck was talking of his regiment. "I'm not theonly American who has gone Canadian--for the duration of the war. "

He had got to his explanation at last. 

"I've told a lie, " he said triumphantly. "I've shifted my birthplace sixhundred miles. 

"Mind you, I don't admit a thing that Cissie has ever said aboutAmerica--not one thing. You don't understand the sort of propositionAmerica is up against. America is the New World, where there are noraces and nations any more; she is the Melting Pot, from which we willcast the better state. I've believed that always--in spite of a thousandlittle things I believe it now. I go back on nothing. I'm not fightingas an American either. I'm fighting simply as myself.... I'm not goingfighting for England, mind you. Don't you fancy that. I don't know I'mso particularly in love with a lot of English ways as to do that. Idon't see how any one can be very much in love with your Empire, withits dead-alive Court, its artful politicians, its lords and ladies andsnobs, its way with the Irish and its way with India, and everybodyshifting responsibility and telling lies about your common people. I'mnot going fighting for England. I'm going fighting for Cissie--andjustice and Belgium and all that--but more particularly for Cissie. Andanyhow I can't look Pa Britling in the face any more.... And I want tosee those trenches--close. I reckon they're a thing it will beinteresting to talk about some day.... So I'm going, " said Mr. Direck. "But chiefly--it's Cissie. See?"

Cissie had come and stood by the side of him. 

She looked from poor broken Teddy to him and back again. 

"Up to now, " she said, "I've wanted you to go.... "

Tears came into her eyes. 

"I suppose I must let you go, " she said. "Oh! I'd hate you not togo.... "

Section 14

"Good God! how old the Master looks!" cried Teddy suddenly. 

He was standing at the window, and as Mr. Direck came forwardinquiringly he pointed to the figure of Mr. Britling passing along theroad towards the Dower House. 

"He does look old. I hadn't noticed, " said Mr. Direck. 

"Why, he's gone grey!" cried Teddy, peering. "He wasn't grey when Ileft. "

They watched the knickerbockered figure of Mr. Britling receding up thehill, atlas and papers in his hands behind his back. 

"I must go out to him, " said Teddy, disengaging himself from Letty. 

"No, " she said, arresting him with her hand. 

"But he will be glad--"

She stood in her husband's way. She had a vision of Mr. Britlingsuddenly called out of his dreams of God ruling the united states of theworld, to rejoice at Teddy's restoration.... 

"No, " she said; "it will only make him think again of Hugh--and how hedied. Don't go out, Teddy. Not now. What does he care for _you_?... Lethim rest from such things.... Leave him to dream over his atlas.... Heisn't so desolate--if you knew.... I will tell you, Teddy--when Ican.... 

"But just now--No, he will think of Hugh again.... Let him go.... He hasGod and his atlas there.... They're more than you think. "

CHAPTER THE SECOND

MR. BRITLING WRITES UNTIL SUNRISE

Section 1

It was some weeks later. It was now the middle of November, and Mr. Britling, very warmly wrapped in his thick dressing-gown and his thickllama wool pyjamas, was sitting at his night desk, and working ever andagain at an essay, an essay of preposterous ambitions, for the title ofit was "The Better Government of the World. "

Latterly he had had much sleepless misery. In the day life wastolerable, but in the night--unless he defended himself by working, thelosses and cruelties of the war came and grimaced at him, insufferably. Now he would be haunted by long processions of refugees, now he wouldthink of the dead lying stiff and twisted in a thousand dreadfulattitudes. Then again he would be overwhelmed with anticipations of thefrightful economic and social dissolution that might lie ahead.... Atother times he thought of wounds and the deformities of body and spiritproduced by injuries. And sometimes he would think of the triumph ofevil. Stupid and triumphant persons went about a world that stupidityhad desolated, with swaggering gestures, with a smiling consciousness ofenhanced importance, with their scornful hatred of all measured andtemperate and kindly things turned now to scornful contempt. Andmingling with the soil they walked on lay the dead body of Hugh, facedownward. At the back of the boy's head, rimmed by blood-stiffenedhair--the hair that had once been "as soft as the down of a bird"--was abig red hole. That hole was always pitilessly distinct. They stepped onhim--heedlessly. They heeled the scattered stuff of his exquisite braininto the clay.... 

From all such moods of horror Mr. Britling's circle of lamplight was hissole refuge. His work could conjure up visions, like opium visions, of aworld of order and justice. Amidst the gloom of world bankruptcy hestuck to the prospectus of a braver enterprise--reckless of his chancesof subscribers.... 

Section 2

But this night even this circle of lamplight would not hold his mind. Doubt had crept into this last fastness. He pulled the papers towardshim, and turned over the portion he had planned. 

His purpose in the book he was beginning to write was to reason out thepossible methods of government that would give a stabler, saner controlto the world. He believed still in democracy, but he was realising moreand more that democracy had yet to discover its method. It had to takehold of the consciences of men, it had to equip itself with stillunformed organisations. Endless years of patient thinking, ofexperimenting, of discussion lay before mankind ere this great ideacould become reality, and right, the proven right thing, could rule theearth. 

Meanwhile the world must still remain a scene of blood-stainedmelodrama, of deafening noise, contagious follies, vast irrationaldestructions. One fine life after another went down from study anduniversity and laboratory to be slain and silenced.... 

Was it conceivable that this mad monster of mankind would ever be caughtand held in the thin-spun webs of thought?

Was it, after all, anything but pretension and folly for a man to workout plans for the better government of the world?--was it any betterthan the ambitious scheming of some fly upon the wheel of the romanticgods?

Man has come, floundering and wounding and suffering, out of thebreeding darknesses of Time, that will presently crush and consume himagain. Why not flounder with the rest, why not eat, drink, fight, scream, weep and pray, forget Hugh, stop brooding upon Hugh, banish allthese priggish dreams of "The Better Government of the World, " and turnto the brighter aspects, the funny and adventurous aspects of the war, the Chestertonian jolliness, _Punch_ side of things? Think you becauseyour sons are dead that there will be no more cakes and ale? Let mankindblunder out of the mud and blood as mankind has blundered in.... 

Let us at any rate keep our precious Sense of Humour.... 

He pulled his manuscript towards him. For a time he sat decorating thelettering of his title, "The Better Government of the World, " withlittle grinning gnomes' heads and waggish tails.... 

Section 3

On the top of Mr. Britling's desk, beside the clock, lay a letter, written in clumsy English and with its envelope resealed by a labelwhich testified that it had been "OPENED BY CENSOR. "

The friendly go-between in Norway had written to tell Mr. Britling thatHerr Heinrich also was dead; he had died a wounded prisoner in Russiasome months ago. He had been wounded and captured, after undergoinggreat hardships, during the great Russian attack upon the passes of theCarpathians in the early spring, and his wound had mortified. He hadrecovered partially for a time, and then he had been beaten and injuredagain in some struggle between German and Croatian prisoners, and he hadsickened and died. Before he died he had written to his parents, andonce again he had asked that the fiddle he had left in Mr. Britling'scare should if possible be returned to them. It was manifest that bothfor him and them now it had become a symbol with many associations. 

The substance of this letter invaded the orange circle of the lamp; itwould have to be answered, and the potentialities of the answer wererunning through Mr. Britling's brain to the exclusion of any impersonalcomposition. He thought of the old parents away there in Pomerania--hebelieved but he was not quite sure, that Heinrich had been an onlyson--and of the pleasant spectacled figure that had now become a brokenand decaying thing in a prisoner's shallow grave.... 

Another son had gone--all the world was losing its sons.... 

He found himself thinking of young Heinrich in the very manner, if witha lesser intensity, in which he thought about his own son, as of hopessenselessly destroyed. His mind took no note of the fact that Heinrichwas an enemy, that by the reckoning of a "war of attrition" his deathwas balance and compensation for the death of Hugh. He went straight tothe root fact that they had been gallant and kindly beings, and that thesame thing had killed them both.... 

By no conceivable mental gymnastics could he think of the two asantagonists. Between them there was no imaginable issue. They had bothvery much the same scientific disposition; with perhaps more dash andinspiration in the quality of Hugh; more docility and method in the caseof Karl. Until war had smashed them one against the other.... 

He recalled his first sight of Heinrich at the junction, and how he hadlaughed at the sight of his excessive Teutonism. The close-croppedshining fair head surmounted by a yellowish-white corps cap had appeareddodging about among the people upon the platform, and manifestly askingquestions. The face had been very pink with the effort of anunaccustomed tongue. The young man had been clad in a suit of whiteflannel refined by a purple line; his boots were of that greenish yellowleather that only a German student could esteem "chic"; his rucksackwas upon his back, and the precious fiddle in its case was carried verycarefully in one hand; this same dead fiddle. The other hand held astick with a carved knob and a pointed end. He had been too German forbelief. "Herr Heinrich!" Mr. Britling had said, and straightway theheels had clashed together for a bow, a bow from the waist, a bow that aheedless old lady much burthened with garden produce had greatlydisarranged. From first to last amidst our off-hand English ways HerrHeinrich had kept his bow--and always it had been getting disarranged. 

That had been his constant effect; a little stiff, a little absurd, andalways clean and pink and methodical. The boys had liked him withoutreserve, Mrs. Britling had liked him; everybody had found him a likeablecreature. He never complained of anything except picnics. But he didobject to picnics; to the sudden departure of the family to wildsurroundings for the consumption of cold, knifeless and forkless mealsin the serious middle hours of the day. He protested to Mr. Britling, respectfully but very firmly. It was, he held, implicit in theirunderstanding that he should have a cooked meal in the middle of theday. Otherwise his Magen was perplexed and disordered. In the evening hecould not eat with any gravity or profit.... 

Their disposition towards under-feeding and a certain lack of finesentiment were the only flaws in the English scheme that Herr Heinrichadmitted. He certainly found the English unfeeling. His heart went evenless satisfied than his Magen. He was a being of expressive affections;he wanted great friendships, mysterious relationships, love. He triedvery bravely to revere and to understand and be occultly understood byMr. Britling; he sought long walks and deep talks with Hugh and thesmall boys; he tried to fill his heart with Cissie; he found at lastmarvels of innocence and sweetness in the Hickson girl. She wore herhair in a pigtail when first he met her, and it made her almostMarguerite. This young man had cried aloud for love, warm and filling, like the Mittagsessen that was implicit in their understanding. And allthese Essex people failed to satisfy him; they were silent, they weresubtle, they slipped through the fat yet eager fingers of his heart, sothat he fell back at last upon himself and his German correspondents andthe idealisation of Maud Hickson and the moral education of Billy. Billy. Mr. Britling's memories came back at last to the figure of youngHeinrich with the squirrel on his shoulder, that had so often stood inthe way of the utter condemnation of Germany. That, seen closely, wasthe stuff of one brutal Prussian. What quarrel had we with him?... 

Other memories of Heinrich flitted across Mr. Britling's reverie. Heinrich at hockey, running with extreme swiftness and little skill, tricked and baffled by Letty, dodged by Hugh, going headlong forward andheadlong back, and then with a cry flinging himself flat on the groundexhausted.... Or again Heinrich very grave and very pink, peeringthrough his glasses at his cards at Skat.... Or Heinrich in the boatsupon the great pond, or Heinrich swimming, or Heinrich hiding very, veryartfully from the boys about the garden on a theory of his own, orHeinrich in strange postures, stalking the deer in Claverings Park. Fora time he had had a great ambition to creep quite close to a deer and_touch_ it.... Or Heinrich indexing. He had a passion for listing andindexing books, music, any loose classifiable thing. His favouriteamusement was devising schemes for the indentation of dictionary leaves, so that one could turn instantly to the needed word. He had bought andcut the edges of three dictionaries; each in succession improved uponthe other; he had had great hopes of patents and wealth arisingtherefrom.... And his room had been a source of strange sounds; hissearch for music upon the violin. He had hoped when he came toMatching's Easy to join "some string quartette. " But Matching's Easyproduced no string quartette. He had to fall back upon the pianola, andtry to play duets with that. Only the pianola did all the duet itself, and in the hands of a small Britling was apt to betray a facetiousmoodiness; sudden alternations between extreme haste and extremelassitude.... 

Then there came a memory of Heinrich talking very seriously; his glassesmagnifying his round blue eyes, talking of his ideas about life, of hisbeliefs and disbeliefs, of his ambitions and prospects in life. 

He confessed two principal ambitions. They varied perhaps in theirabsolute dimensions, but they were of equal importance in his mind. Thefirst of these was, so soon as he had taken his doctorate in philology, to give himself to the perfecting of an International Language; it wasto combine all the virtues of Esperanto and Ido. "And then, " said HerrHeinrich, "I do not think there will be any more wars--ever. " The secondambition, which was important first because Herr Heinrich found muchdelight in working at it, and secondly because he thought it would givehim great wealth and opportunity for propagating the perfect speech, wasthe elaboration of his system of marginal indentations for dictionariesand alphabetical books of reference of all sorts. It was to be socomplete that one would just stand over the book to be consulted, runhand and eye over its edges and open the book--"at the very exact spot. "He proposed to follow this business up with a quite Germanicthoroughness. "Presently, " he said, "I must study the machinery by whichthe edges of books are cut. It is possible I may have to invent thesealso. " This was the double-barrelled scheme of Herr Heinrich's career. And along it he was to go, and incidentally develop his large vagueheart that was at present so manifestly unsatisfied.... 

Such was the brief story of Herr Heinrich. 

That story was over--just as Hugh's story was over. That first volumewould never now have a second and a third. It ended in some hasty gravein Russia. The great scheme for marginal indices would never bepatented, the duets with the pianola would never be played again. 

Imagination glimpsed a little figure toiling manfully through the slushand snow of the Carpathians; saw it staggering under its firstexperience of shell fire; set it amidst attacks and flights and fatigueand hunger and a rush perhaps in the darkness; guessed at the woundingblow. Then came the pitiful pilgrimage of the prisoners into captivity, captivity in a land desolated, impoverished and embittered. Came woundswrapped in filthy rags, pain and want of occupation, and a poor littlebent and broken Heinrich sitting aloof in a crowded compound nursing amortifying wound.... 

He used always to sit in a peculiar attitude with his arms crossed onhis crossed legs, looking slantingly through his glasses.... 

So he must have sat, and presently he lay on some rough bedding andsuffered, untended, in infinite discomfort; lay motionless and thoughtat times, it may be, of Matching's Easy and wondered what Hugh and Teddywere doing. Then he became fevered, and the world grew bright-colouredand fantastic and ugly for him. Until one day an infinite weakness laidhold of him, and his pain grew faint and all his thoughts and memoriesgrew faint--and still fainter.... 

The violin had been brought into Mr. Britling's study that afternoon, and lay upon the further window-seat. Poor little broken sherd, poorlittle fragment of a shattered life! It looked in its case like a babyin a coffin. 

"I must write a letter to the old father and mother, " Mr. Britlingthought. "I can't just send the poor little fiddle--without a word. Inall this pitiful storm of witless hate--surely there may be onegreeting--not hateful. 

"From my blackness to yours, " said Mr. Britling aloud. He would have towrite it in English. But even if they knew no English some one would befound to translate it to them. He would have to write very plainly. 

Section 4

He pushed aside the manuscript of "The Better Government of the World, "and began to write rather slowly, shaping his letters roundly anddistinctly:

 _Dear Sir, _

 _I am writing this letter to you to tell you I am sending back the few little things I had kept for your son at his request when the war broke out. I am sending them--_

Mr. Britling left that blank for the time until he could arrange themethod of sending to the Norwegian intermediary. 

 _Especially I am sending his violin, which he had asked me thrice to convey to you. Either it is a gift from you or it symbolised many things for him that he connected with home and you. I will have it packed with particular care, and I will do all in my power to ensure its safe arrival. _

 _I want to tell you that all the stress and passion of this war has not made us here in Matching's Easy forget our friend your son. He was one of us, he had our affection, he had friends here who are still his friends. We found him honourable and companionable, and we share something of your loss. I have got together for you a few snapshots I chance to possess in which you will see him in the sunshine, and which will enable you perhaps to picture a little more definitely than you would otherwise do the life he led here. There is one particularly that I have marked. Our family is lunching out-of-doors, and you will see that next to your son is a youngster, a year or so his junior, who is touching glasses with him. I have put a cross over his head. He is my eldest son, he was very dear to me, and he too has been, killed in this war. They are, you see, smiling very pleasantly at each other. _

While writing this Mr. Britling had been struck by the thought of thephotographs, and he had taken them out of the little drawer into whichhe was accustomed to thrust them. He picked out the ones that showed theyoung German, but there were others, bright with sunshine, that were nowcharged with acquired significances; there were two showing the childrenand Teddy and Hugh and Cissie and Letty doing the goose step, and therewas one of Mr. Van der Pant, smiling at the front door, in Heinrich'sabandoned slippers. There were endless pictures of Teddy also. It is thehappy instinct of the Kodak to refuse those days that are overcast, andthe photographic record of a life is a chain of all its kindlieraspects. In the drawer above these snapshots there were Hugh's lettersand a miscellany of trivial documents touching on his life. 

Mr. Britling discontinued writing and turned these papers over andmused. Heinrich's letters and postcards had got in among them, and sohad a letter of Teddy's.... 

The letters reinforced the photographs in their reminder how kind andpleasant a race mankind can be. Until the wild asses of nationalism camekicking and slaying amidst them, until suspicion and jostling greed andmalignity poison their minds, until the fools with the high explosivesblow that elemental goodness into shrieks of hate and splashes of blood. How kindly men are--up to the very instant of their cruelties! His mindteemed suddenly with little anecdotes and histories of the goodwill ofmen breaking through the ill-will of war, of the mutual help of sorelywounded Germans and English lying together in the mud and darknessbetween the trenches, of the fellowship of captors and prisoners, ofthe Saxons at Christmas fraternising with the English.... Of that he hadseen photographs in one of the daily papers.... 

His mind came back presently from these wanderings to the task beforehim. 

He tried to picture these Heinrich parents. He supposed they werekindly, civilised people. It was manifest the youngster had come to himfrom a well-ordered and gentle-spirited home. But he imagined them--hecould not tell why--as people much older than himself. Perhaps youngHeinrich had on some occasion said they were old people--he could notremember. And he had a curious impulse too to write to them in phrasesof consolation; as if their loss was more pitiable than his own. Hedoubted whether they had the consolation of his sanguine temperament, whether they could resort as readily as he could to his faith, whetherin Pomerania there was the same consoling possibility of an essay on theBetter Government of the World. He did not think this very clearly, butthat was what was at the back of his mind. He went on writing. 

 _If you think that these two boys have both perished, not in some noble common cause but one against the other in a struggle of dynasties and boundaries and trade routes and tyrannous ascendancies, then it seems to me that you must feel as I feel that this war is the most tragic and dreadful thing that has ever happened to mankind. _

He sat thinking for some minutes after he had written that, and whenpresently he resumed his writing, a fresh strain of thought wastraceable even in his opening sentence. 

 _If you count dead and wounds this is the most dreadful war in history; for you as for me, it has been almost the extremity of personal tragedy.... Black sorrow.... But is it the most dreadful war?_

 _I do not think it is. I can write to you and tell you that I do indeed believe that our two sons have died not altogether in vain. Our pain and anguish may not be wasted--may be necessary. Indeed they may be necessary. Here am I bereaved and wretched--and I hope. Never was the fabric of war so black; that I admit. But never was the black fabric of war so threadbare. At a thousand points the light is shining through. _

Mr. Britling's pen stopped. 

There was perfect stillness in the study bedroom. 

"The tinpot style, " said Mr. Britling at last in a voice of extremebitterness. 

He fell into an extraordinary quarrel with his style. He forgot aboutthose Pomeranian parents altogether in his exasperation at his owninexpressiveness, at his incomplete control of these rebel words andphrases that came trailing each its own associations and suggestions tohamper his purpose with it. He read over the offending sentence. 

"The point is that it is true, " he whispered. "It is exactly what I wantto say. "... 

Exactly?... 

His mind stuck on that "exactly. "... When one has much to say style istroublesome. It is as if one fussed with one's uniform before abattle.... But that is just what one ought to do before a battle.... Oneought to have everything in order.... 

He took a fresh sheet and made three trial beginnings. 

 _"War is like a black fabric. "_... 

 _"War is a curtain of black fabric across the pathway. "_

 _"War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and now--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through. We owe it to all these dear youths--"_

His pen stopped again. 

"I must work on a rough draft, " said Mr. Britling. 

Section 5

Three hours later Mr. Britling was working by daylight, though his studylamp was still burning, and his letter to old Heinrich was still nobetter than a collection of material for a letter. But the material wasfalling roughly into shape, and Mr. Britling's intentions were findingthemselves. It was clear to him now that he was no longer writing as hislimited personal self to those two personal selves grieving, in the old, large, high-walled, steep-roofed household amidst pine woods, of whichHeinrich had once shown him a picture. He knew them too little for anysuch personal address. He was writing, he perceived, not as Mr. Britlingbut as an Englishman--that was all he could be to them--and he waswriting to them as Germans; he could apprehend them as nothing more. Hewas just England bereaved to Germany bereaved.... 

He was no longer writing to the particular parents of one particularboy, but to all that mass of suffering, regret, bitterness and fatiguethat lay behind the veil of the "front. " Slowly, steadily, the manhoodof Germany was being wiped out. As he sat there in the stillness hecould think that at least two million men of the Central Powers weredead, and an equal number maimed and disabled. Compared with that ourBritish losses, immense and universal as they were by the standard ofany previous experience, were still slight; our larger armies had stillto suffer, and we had lost irrevocably not very much more than a quarterof a million. But the tragedy gathered against us. We knew enoughalready to know what must be the reality of the German homes to whichthose dead men would nevermore return.... 

If England had still the longer account to pay, the French had paidalready nearly to the limits of endurance. They must have lost well overa million of their mankind, and still they bled and bled. Russia too inthe East had paid far more than man for man in this vast swapping off oflives. In a little while no Censorship would hold the voice of thepeoples. There would be no more talk of honour and annexations, hegemonies and trade routes, but only Europe lamenting for her dead.... 

The Germany to which he wrote would be a nation of widows and children, rather pinched boys and girls, crippled men, old men, deprived men, menwho had lost brothers and cousins and friends and ambitions. No triumphnow on land or sea could save Germany from becoming that. France toowould be that, Russia, and lastly Britain, each in their degree. Beforethe war there had been no Germany to which an Englishman could appeal;Germany had been a threat, a menace, a terrible trampling of armed men. It was as little possible then to think of talking to Germany as itwould have been to have stopped the Kaiser in mid career in his hootingcar down the Unter den Linden and demand a quiet talk with him. But theGermany that had watched those rushes with a slightly doubting pride hadher eyes now full of tears and blood. She had believed, she had obeyed, and no real victory had come. Still she fought on, bleeding, agonising, wasting her substance and the substance of the whole world, to noconceivable end but exhaustion, so capable she was, so devoted, so proudand utterly foolish. And the mind of Germany, whatever it was before thewar, would now be something residual, something left over and sittingbeside a reading-lamp as he was sitting beside a reading-lamp, thinking, sorrowing, counting the cost, looking into the dark future.... 

And to that he wrote, to that dimly apprehended figure outside a circleof the light like his own circle of light--which was the father ofHeinrich, which was great Germany, Germany which lived before and whichwill yet outlive the flapping of the eagles.... 

 _Our boys_, he wrote, _have died, fighting one against the other. They have been fighting upon an issue so obscure that your German press is still busy discussing what it was. For us it was that Belgium was invaded and France in danger of destruction. Nothing else could have brought the English into the field against you. But why you invaded Belgium and France and whether that might have been averted we do not know to this day. And still this war goes on and still more boys die, and these men who do not fight, these men in the newspaper offices and in the ministries plan campaigns and strokes and counter-strokes that belong to no conceivable plan at all. Except that now for them there is something more terrible than war. And that is the day of reckoning with their own people. _

 _What have we been fighting for? What are we fighting for? Do you know? Does any one know? Why am I spending what is left of my substance and you what is left of yours to keep on this war against each other? What have we to gain from hurting one another still further? Why should we be puppets any longer in the hands of crowned fools and witless diplomatists? Even if we were dumb and acquiescent before, does not the blood of our sons now cry out to us that this foolery should cease? We have let these people send our sons to death. _

 _It is you and I who must stop these wars, these massacres of boys. _

 _Massacres of boys! That indeed is the essence of modern war. The killing off of the young. It is the destruction of the human inheritance, it is the spending of all the life and material of the future upon present-day hate and greed. Fools and knaves, politicians, tricksters, and those who trade on the suspicions and thoughtless, generous angers of men, make wars; the indolence and modesty of the mass of men permit them. Are you and I to suffer such things until the whole fabric of our civilisation, that has been so slowly and so laboriously built up, is altogether destroyed?_

 _When I sat down to write to you I had meant only to write to you of your son and mine. But I feel that what can be said in particular of our loss, need not be said; it can be understood without saying. What needs to be said and written about is this, that war must be put an end to and that nobody else but you and me and all of us can do it. We have to do that for the love of our sons and our race and all that is human. War is no longer human; the chemist and the metallurgist have changed all that. My boy was shot through the eye; his brain was blown to pieces by some man who never knew what he had done. Think what that means!... It is plain to me, surely it is plain to you and all the world, that war is now a mere putting of the torch to explosives that flare out to universal ruin. There is nothing for one sane man to write to another about in these days but the salvation of mankind from war. _

 _Now I want you to be patient with me and hear me out. There was a time in the earlier part of this war when it was hard to be patient because there hung over us the dread of losses and disaster. Now we need dread no longer. The dreaded thing has happened. Sitting together as we do in spirit beside the mangled bodies of our dead, surely we can be as patient as the hills. _

 _I want to tell you quite plainly and simply that I think that Germany which is chief and central in this war is most to blame for this war. Writing to you as an Englishman to a German and with war still being waged, there must be no mistake between us upon this point. I am persuaded that in the decade that ended with your overthrow of France in 1871, Germany turned her face towards evil, and that her refusal to treat France generously and to make friends with any other great power in the world, is the essential cause of this war. Germany triumphed--and she trampled on the loser. She inflicted intolerable indignities. She set herself to prepare for further aggressions; long before this killing began she was making war upon land and sea, launching warships, building strategic railways, setting up a vast establishment of war material, threatening, straining all the world to keep pace with her threats.... At last there was no choice before any European nation but submission to the German will, or war. And it was no will to which righteous men could possibly submit. It came as an illiberal and ungracious will. It was the will of Zabern. It is not as if you had set yourselves to be an imperial people and embrace and unify the world. You did not want to unify the world. You wanted to set the foot of an intensely national Germany, a sentimental and illiberal Germany, a Germany that treasured the portraits of your ridiculous Kaiser and his litter of sons, a Germany wearing uniform, reading black letter, and despising every kultur but her own, upon the neck of a divided and humiliated mankind. It was an intolerable prospect. I had rather the whole world died. _

 _Forgive me for writing "you. " You are as little responsible for that Germany as I am for--Sir Edward Grey. But this happened over you; you did not do your utmost to prevent it--even as England has happened, and I have let it happen over me.... _

"It is so dry; so general, " whispered Mr. Britling. "And yet--it is thisthat has killed our sons. "

He sat still for a time, and then went on reading a fresh sheet of hismanuscript. 

 _When I bring these charges against Germany I have little disposition to claim any righteousness for Britain. There has been small splendour in this war for either Germany or Britain or Russia; we three have chanced to be the biggest of the combatants, but the glory lies with invincible France. It is France and Belgium and Serbia who shine as the heroic lands. They have fought defensively and beyond all expectation, for dear land and freedom. This war for them has been a war of simple, definite issues, to which they have risen with an entire nobility. Englishman and German alike may well envy them that simplicity. I look to you, as an honest man schooled by the fierce lessons of this war, to meet me in my passionate desire to see France, Belgium and Serbia emerge restored from all this blood and struggle, enlarged to the limits of their nationality, vindicated and secure. Russia I will not write about here; let me go on at once to tell you about my own country; remarking only that between England and Russia there are endless parallelisms. We have similar complexities, kindred difficulties. We have for instance an imported dynasty, we have a soul-destroying State Church which cramps and poisons the education of our ruling class, we have a people out of touch with a secretive government, and the same traditional contempt for science. We have our Irelands and Polands. Even our kings bear a curious likeness.... _

At this point there was a break in the writing, and Mr. Britling made, as it were, a fresh beginning. 

 _Politically the British Empire is a clumsy collection of strange accidents. It is a thing as little to be proud of as the outline of a flint or the shape of a potato. For the mass of English people India and Egypt and all that side of our system mean less than nothing; our trade is something they do not understand, our imperial wealth something they do not share. Britain has been a group of four democracies caught in the net of a vast yet casual imperialism; the common man here is in a state of political perplexity from the cradle to the grave. None the less there is a great people here even as there is a great people in Russia, a people with a soul and character of its own, a people of unconquerable kindliness and with a peculiar genius, which still struggle towards will and expression. We have been beginning that same great experiment that France and America and Switzerland and China are making, the experiment of democracy. It is the newest form of human association, and we are still but half awake to its needs and necessary conditions. For it is idle to pretend that the little city democracies of ancient times were comparable to the great essays in practical republicanism that mankind is making to-day. This age of the democratic republics that dawn is a new age. It has not yet lasted for a century, not for a paltry hundred years.... All new things are weak things; a rat can kill a man-child with ease; the greater the destiny, the weaker the immediate self-protection may be. And to me it seems that your complete and perfect imperialism, ruled by Germans for Germans, is in its scope and outlook a more antiquated and smaller and less noble thing than these sprawling emergent giant democracies of the West that struggle so confusedly against it.... _

 _But that we do struggle confusedly, with pitiful leaders and infinite waste and endless delay; that it is to our indisciplines and to the dishonesties and tricks our incompleteness provokes, that the prolongation of this war is to be ascribed, I readily admit. At the outbreak of this war I had hoped to see militarism felled within a year.... _

Section 6

From this point onward Mr. Britling's notes became more fragmentary. They had a consecutiveness, but they were discontinuous. His thought hadleapt across gaps that his pen had had no time to fill. And he hadbegun to realise that his letter to the old people in Pomerania wasbecoming impossible. It had broken away into dissertation. 

"Yet there must be dissertations, " he said. "Unless such men as we aretake these things in hand, always we shall be misgoverned, always thesons will die.... "

Section 7

 _I do not think you Germans realise how steadily you were conquering the world before this war began. Had you given half the energy and intelligence you have spent upon this war to the peaceful conquest of men's minds and spirits, I believe that you would have taken the leadership of the world tranquilly--no man disputing. Your science was five years, your social and economic organisation was a quarter of a century in front of ours.... Never has it so lain in the power of a great people to lead and direct mankind towards the world republic and universal peace. It needed but a certain generosity of the imagination.... _

 _But your Junkers, your Imperial court, your foolish vicious Princes; what were such dreams to them?... With an envious satisfaction they hurled all the accomplishment of Germany into the fires of war.... _

Section 8

 _Your boy, as no doubt you know, dreamt constantly of such a world peace as this that I foreshadow; he was more generous than his country. He could envisage war and hostility only as misunderstanding. He thought that a world that could explain itself clearly would surely be at peace. He was scheming always therefore for the perfection and propagation of Esperanto or Ido, or some such universal link. My youngster too was full of a kindred and yet larger dream, the dream of human science, which knows neither king nor country nor race_.... 

 _These boys, these hopes, this war has killed_.... 

That fragment ended so. Mr. Britling ceased to read for a time. "But hasit killed them?" he whispered.... 

"If you had lived, my dear, you and your England would have talked witha younger Germany--better than I can ever do.... "

He turned the pages back, and read here and there with an accumulatingdiscontent. 

Section 9

"Dissertations, " said Mr. Britling. 

Never had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was a weak, silly, ill-informed and hasty-minded writer, and never had he felt soinvincible a conviction that the Spirit of God was in him, and that itfell to him to take some part in the establishment of a new order ofliving upon the earth; it might be the most trivial part by the scale ofthe task, but for him it was to be now his supreme concern. And it wasan almost intolerable grief to him that his services should be, for allhis desire, so poor in quality, so weak in conception. Always he seemedto be on the verge of some illuminating and beautiful statement of hiscause; always he was finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery tothe impulse of his heart, always he was finding his effort weak andineffective. In this instance, at the outset he seemed to see with agolden clearness the message of brotherhood, or forgiveness, of a commoncall. To whom could such a message be better addressed than to thosesorrowing parents; from whom could it come with a better effect thanfrom himself? And now he read what he had made of this message. Itseemed to his jaded mind a pitifully jaded effort. It had no light, ithad no depth. It was like the disquisition of a debating society. 

He was distressed by a fancy of an old German couple, spectacled andpeering, puzzled by his letter. Perhaps they would be obscurely hurt byhis perplexing generalisations. Why, they would ask, should thisEnglishman preach to them?

He sat back in his chair wearily, with his chin sunk upon his chest. Fora time he did not think, and then, he read again the sentence in frontof his eyes. 

 _"These boys, these hopes, this war has killed. "_

The words hung for a time in his mind. 

"No!" said Mr. Britling stoutly. "They live!"

And suddenly it was borne in upon his mind that he was not alone. Therewere thousands and tens of thousands of men and women like himself, desiring with all their hearts to say, as he desired to say, thereconciling word. It was not only his hand that thrust against theobstacles.... Frenchmen and Russians sat in the same stillness, facingthe same perplexities; there were Germans seeking a way through to him. Even as he sat and wrote. And for the first time clearly he felt aPresence of which he had thought very many times in the last few weeks, a Presence so close to him that it was behind his eyes and in his brainand hands. It was no trick of his vision; it was a feeling of immediatereality. And it was Hugh, Hugh that he had thought was dead, it wasyoung Heinrich living also, it was himself, it was those others thatsought, it was all these and it was more, it was the Master, the Captainof Mankind, it was God, there present with him, and he knew that it wasGod. It was as if he had been groping all this time in the darkness, thinking himself alone amidst rocks and pitfalls and pitiless things, and suddenly a hand, a firm strong hand, had touched his own. And avoice within him bade him be of good courage. There was no magictrickery in that moment; he was still weak and weary, a discouragedrhetorician, a good intention ill-equipped; but he was no longer lonelyand wretched, no longer in the same world with despair. God was besidehim and within him and about him.... It was the crucial moment of Mr. Britling's life. It was a thing as light as the passing of a cloud on anApril morning; it was a thing as great as the first day of creation. Forsome moments he still sat back with his chin upon his chest and hishands dropping from the arms of his chair. Then he sat up and drew adeep breath.... 

This had come almost as a matter of course. 

For weeks his mind had been playing about this idea. He had talked toLetty of this Finite God, who is the king of man's adventure in spaceand time. But hitherto God had been for him a thing of the intelligence, a theory, a report, something told about but not realised.... Mr. Britling's thinking about God hitherto had been like some one who hasfound an empty house, very beautiful and pleasant, full of the promiseof a fine personality. And then as the discoverer makes his lonely, curious explorations, he hears downstairs, dear and friendly, the voiceof the Master coming in.... 

There was no need to despair because he himself was one of the feeblefolk. God was with him indeed, and he was with God. The King was comingto his own. Amidst the darknesses and confusions, the nightmarecruelties and the hideous stupidities of the great war, God, the Captainof the World Republic, fought his way to empire. So long as one didone's best and utmost in a cause so mighty, did it matter though thething one did was little and poor?

"I have thought too much of myself, " said Mr. Britling, "and of what Iwould do by myself. I have forgotten _that which was with me_.... "

Section 10

He turned over the rest of the night's writing presently, and read itnow as though it was the work of another man. 

These later notes were fragmentary, and written in a sprawling hand. 

 _"Let us make ourselves watchers and guardians of the order of the world.... _

 _"If only for love of our dead.... _

 _"Let us pledge ourselves to service. Let us set ourselves with all our minds and all our hearts to the perfecting and working out of the methods of democracy and the ending for ever of the kings and emperors and priestcrafts and the bands of adventurers, the traders and owners and forestallers who have betrayed mankind into this morass of hate and blood--in which our sons are lost--in which we flounder still.... "_

How feeble was this squeak of exhortation! It broke into a scoldingnote. 

"Who have betrayed, " read Mr. Britling, and judged the phrase. 

"Who have fallen with us, " he amended.... 

"One gets so angry and bitter--because one feels alone, I suppose. Because one feels that for them one's reason is no reason. One isenraged by the sense of their silent and regardless contradiction, andone forgets the Power of which one is a part.... "

The sheet that bore the sentence he criticised was otherwise blankexcept that written across it obliquely in a very careful hand were thewords "Hugh, " and "Hugh Philip Britling. "... 

On the next sheet he had written: "Let us set up the peace of the WorldRepublic amidst these ruins. Let it be our religion, our calling. "

There he had stopped. 

The last sheet of Mr. Britling's manuscript may be more convenientlygiven in fac-simile than described. 

[Handwritten:

 Hugh Hugh My dear Hugh

 Lawyers Princes Dealers in Contention

 _Honesty_

 'Blood Blood ... 

 [Transcriber's Note: illegible] an End to them

]

Section 11

He sighed. 

He looked at the scattered papers, and thought of the letter they wereto have made. 

His fatigue spoke first. 

"Perhaps after all I'd better just send the fiddle.... "

He rested his cheeks between his hands, and remained so for a long time. His eyes stared unseeingly. His thoughts wandered and spread and faded. At length he recalled his mind to that last idea. "Just send thefiddle--without a word. "

"No. I must write to them plainly. 

"About God as I have found Him. 

"As He has found me.... "

He forgot the Pomeranians for a time. He murmured to himself. He turnedover the conviction that had suddenly become clear and absolute in hismind. 

"Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and until a man hasfound God and been found by God, he begins at no beginning, he works tono end. He may have his friendships, his partial loyalties, his scrapsof honour. But all these things fall into place and life falls intoplace only with God. Only with God. God, who fights through men againstBlind Force and Night and Non-Existence; who is the end, who is themeaning. He is the only King.... Of course I must write about Him. Imust tell all my world of Him. And before the coming of the true King, the inevitable King, the King who is present whenever just menforegather, this blood-stained rubbish of the ancient world, these punykings and tawdry emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers, these men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these war makers andoppressors, will presently shrivel and pass--like paper thrust into aflame.... "

Then after a time he said:

"Our sons who have shown us God.... "

Section 12

He rubbed his open hands over his eyes and forehead. 

The night of effort had tired his brain, and he was no longer thinkingactively. He had a little interval of blankness, sitting at his deskwith his hands pressed over his eyes.... 

He got up presently, and stood quite motionless at the window, lookingout. 

His lamp was still burning, but for some time he had not been writing bythe light of his lamp. Insensibly the day had come and abolished hisneed for that individual circle of yellow light. Colour had returned tothe world, clean pearly colour, clear and definite like the glance of achild or the voice of a girl, and a golden wisp of cloud hung in the skyover the tower of the church. There was a mist upon the pond, a softgrey mist not a yard high. A covey of partridges ran and halted and ranagain in the dewy grass outside his garden railings. The partridges werevery numerous this year because there had been so little shooting. Beyond in the meadow a hare sat up as still as a stone. A horseneighed.... Wave after wave of warmth and light came sweeping before thesunrise across the world of Matching's Easy. It was as if there wasnothing but morning and sunrise in the world. 

From away towards the church came the sound of some early workerwhetting a scythe. 

THE END