in the morning paris stopped in groups to whisper and to point off to the northeastward. paris was apprehensive. it had been awakened before dawn by the distant rumble of cannon, such a rumble as had never before come to its ears, and it wanted to know the reason for it. the guns had never sounded so loudly. was it that the boches had made a fresh advance and were by that much nearer to the defenses of the city? or had it been some huge air raid turned abortive before it reached its objective?... it was the 15th of july.
slowly, by devious channels, the news spread. the enemy had struck again, had launched such a blow as warfare had not seen up to this period.... and paris waited for the outcome. then dull explosions were heard in various parts of the city at regular intervals.... big bertha was at her work again; the long-range cannon was once more bombarding paris. as in the days past, one might see wagons loaded high with trunks and personal belongings moving toward a gate of the city or toward a railway station as the more apprehensive abandoned their homes for places of greater security. these were days when it was impossible to find tenants for the top floors of apartment-houses. there was a feeling that one was safer from bertha and the bomb with at least one étage between him and the roof....
papers were eagerly snatched from kiosks and from news-venders, who ran through the crowds with such speed that it was almost impossible to buy their wares—but the news was scanty. at least the guns were not heard again. after that first tremendous artillery preparation there was no sound from the direction of chateau-thierry and reims. the silence, the pall which the censorship threw over events, was portentous, threatening. people recalled the inexorability of the last two german attacks. if this one proceeded as its predecessors had done, paris would be made untenable. there would be a siege.... there was talk of complete evacuation.
then tidings of a more encouraging nature filtered in. the boches had advanced a little here and there, had been checked at this and that point. there had been no breaking through, no headlong rush upon paris, no marching down roads in columns of four with guns over shoulders.
on the 16th the apprehension was less, but the tension was still present. the 17th saw paris again almost at the normal of war-times. it was reassured. it was rumored that foch had given his word that paris was safe. the magic of one man’s name was potent to reassure the millions of citizens of the metropolis. if foch said paris was safe, then paris was safe.
then came the 18th, which dawned as other days dawn, with the same sun rising in the east, with the same blue skies above, and the same breezes moving over the surface of the same earth. but it was a day not like other days. history may well set it down as the day of days, for it marked the beginning of the end, the first note of the finale of the crashing, discordant germanic opera.... the allies had counterattacked, and fear was dead. that was the significant thing. the 18th of july, a.d., 1918, marked the death of fear in the heart of paris. from that date onward there would be no news but good news. terror of the hun had become a thing which one remembered but would no more experience.
the élysées palace h?tel knew by night that our first and second divisions had struck at the base of the german salient about reims and that our twenty-sixth division had battered the apex before chateau-thierry—and at last the american expeditionary force was in the war. the americans had come! the americans were ready! the americans had started! number 10 rue ste.-anne knew these things, as did the american censorship high up in the bourse. it was a day of exultation for americans in paris....
in spite of censorships, in spite of military secrecy, in spite of minute precautions, rumors circulate through armies which have an undeniable basis of fact. on the 4th of july kendall heard the soldiers of the first division stating confidently that they would march through paris streets on bastille day. no one had told them. nobody knew how the rumor earned its life, but it was there, and the event proved its reliability. so an army rumor receives a degree of belief which does not seem to be warranted. rumors were a plentiful harvest now; big rumors and little rumors ... and among them, circulating through the officers of the intelligence department in paris, was the whisper that some officer or officers were to be sent back to america either on a mission or to undertake permanent work.
ken heard this prophecy early in the morning, and it troubled him. he had no cause for imagining that he would be selected, yet he might be selected. the chances were, perhaps, minute, but, nevertheless, they were present, and it was far from his desire to be returned to america to run down german sympathizers in hoboken or to take a desk in some crowded bureau in washington. while he was in france there always was the hope that he might be transferred to active duty with some regiment at the front. like all men in the american expeditionary force, he wanted to serve at the front, and he did not want to return to america—at least until the work was done. man after man kendall had heard to speak longingly of america, but to couple with his homesickness the quick statement that he did not want to return until the job was done. it was a sort of religion—the cleaning up of that job. somehow each man seemed to feel that the success of the army depended on his presence, and that to be sent home before victory arrived would be to deprive him of something precious which he had earned.... it was so with ken.
but he had a stronger motive than most for wishing to stay in france. it was andree....
suddenly and very poignantly he realized what it would mean if he were compelled to part from andree. it seemed to him that she had become a part of him, an essential part without which he could not continue. she had brought an essence into his life which was sweet and desirable and wonderful. he knew that no other woman could bring to him what andree had brought so unconsciously, yet so generously.... she was andree!... andree! the world could show but one.
what was to be the outcome? it was a question he had evaded time and again, well knowing that it must some day be faced. he did not face it now, though it urged itself upon his attention. he did not believe the world had seen a more precious thing than their love—and yet, because of his training and the imprint of heredity, that love was questionable, tainted with irregularity. it was good, sweet, pure, but it was irregular as the middle west and plymouth rock perceived irregularity.
he had never known andree to utter an immodest word or to think a thought that was not clean and good. he had wondered at a certain diffident loftiness in her thoughts. she was a woman whose soul was to be regarded with awe, as any virtuous soul is to be regarded with awe. he did not believe he saw her falsely, nor that love blinded him to defects which should be apparent. he knew he saw her truly, and that she was worthy of all his love.... and yet his friends, his neighbors—above all, his mother—would despise her as a woman of light virtue, as a thing of evil.... he could see the seething among the gossips if andree were to be set down in their midst, and he despised them.... but—
again he evaded. he had not the courage to ask himself what he would do when the moment for doing arrived.... he could not give her up. that was the thought that came now—that she was indispensable.... but would he have the courage to face the vestibule of the presbyterian church with her? he did not ask.
one of those moods of depression to which he was liable when his reflections were troubled settled upon him. he was acutely unhappy. those moods possessed a physical sensation, not a pain so much as a consciousness of the existence of his body, which was very disturbing. it was as if his arms and legs had suddenly become vivid. at such times he did not want companionship, could not have answered conversational advances. the life within him seemed to become as putty—a dead mass. the only relief was to walk and walk and walk.
he left the office to trudge to the apartment, meaning to eat lightly and to wander about paris until the obsession was ejected.... at the entrance to the building the concierge was standing, waiting for him.
“oh, monsieur ... monsieur,” she said, and broke forth into weeping.
he was not surprised. such scenes were to be expected in those days when every mail brought word that some loved one had been demanded of his country. he patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“you have had evil news, madame,” he said. “i am so sorry.”
through her tears rage flared. “the boches,” she exclaimed. “why is it that the good god allows such creatures to be!... what good can it do them? but they would laugh and be joyous. it is so. i have read.... these killers of babies!”
“what is it, madame? your son? have you had the news?”
“my son, monsieur, is gone these two years,” she said, not without a lift of the shoulders. “it would not be that. when one is a soldier one must march.... to kill the men—that is war. but the babies—the helpless little babies!... they are not men, monsieur, but monsters....”
“yes.... yes,” he answered, not knowing what to say.
“and monsieur loved her, did he not? it was arlette who declared it to be so. always she spoke of the fondness of monsieur for the petite fille—the tiny arlette.”
“little arlette! what do you mean, madame? what has happened to little arlette?”
“la longue portée, monsieur. again it began to fire this day. it is that you have heard its explosions.... this big bertha of the boche that murders babies!... la pauvre enfant! she is playing in the street before her home. out of the sky comes the shell of this so wicked cannon. there is a noise of great frightfulness.” she covered her eyes. “when the smoke makes to lift itself and one can see—there lies little arlette....”
“killed!” kendall felt something that was rage and grief clutch his throat. “have they killed that child?”
“she still lives, monsieur, and asks for you. it is so.... but she will die. it is dreadful. yes.... both legs, monsieur, at the knee. they were swept from beneath her as with a scythe ... and she still lives—asking for monsieur.”
“where?”
she told him the hospital, and without a word he turned, running, to search for a taxicab. the thing was incredible. little arlette, that mite from fairyland, maimed and bleeding and dying. such things could not be. this was not war.... he raged, though tears were wet upon his cheeks.... as he rode, the dainty figure of the child stood before him, chin upraised, mouth opened birdwise to sing. he saw her as if she were real.... and then he saw that scene in the street: children playing, the sun daring to shine.... a sudden rushing in the air above, a tremendous detonation. he saw it all, even to the most minute happening. he saw little arlette standing erect, stricken with sudden fear, saw the burst of the explosion, saw the child diminish suddenly in stature as her little legs were flicked from under her and she dropped upon bleeding stumps before toppling to the pavement.... he uttered a hoarse groan of protest.... he cowered back into a corner of the taxicab and shut his eyes, as if that could shut out the pictures of his imagination.
and she had called for him!
it seemed he was expected at the hospital, for he was escorted immediately to the little bed upon which arlette lay. he had dreaded to see her, flinching from a sight which he apprehended might be horrible. he forced himself to look ... and the horror passed. the little face upon the pillow was bloodless, her eyes closed. she seemed not alive, but a thing of fragile loveliness carved from some material brought into being by the fairies for this very purpose.... there was no trace of pain—only motionlessness, a mysterious gravity ... and peace. old arlette sat with eyes fixed unwaveringly on the little face; the child’s mother cowered with her face against arlette’s ample shoulder.... ken stood in silence.
the nurse touched his arm. “speak to her,” she whispered. “it will make no difference. she has asked many times for you.”
“she is—alive?”
“and conscious.”
“it will not—harm her to arouse her?”
“nothing can harm her.”
kendall understood. little arlette was past hurt now, and he had been brought there to give to the child her last little moment of happiness.... he knelt by the cot.
“mignonne,” he said, softly.
she opened her eyes and stared at him, and then smiled.
“he is come. regard him. i said he would come.” her voice was so faint as to be almost no voice at all.
“of a certainty i have come,” he said. “what could keep me away from my little sweetheart?... does—does it hurt?”
“hurt?” she seemed vaguely surprised. “what should hurt, monsieur?” she did not know what had happened to her.
“may i kiss you?” he asked.
“but yes. is it not that i am to be your wife? i wish you to kiss me.”
“do you love me very much, mignonne?”
“oh, very much.... we shall be very happy, monsieur, in this america of the north. i am too little to be married now, is it not? but it will not be long.... my grandmother says i grow very fast.”
“i have seen it myself.”
she sighed. “i am glad. i had fear that you might grow tired of waiting....”
“i would wait for you forever, mignonne.”
again she smiled. “i shall sing for monsieur. one should stand up to sing ... but grandmother says i must not stand up to-day.”
“will it harm her?” kendall asked, quickly, of the nurse.
“nothing will harm her,” she repeated.
“then sing, dear ... sing ‘madelon.’”
the birdlike lips opened and the song came forth, faint as a morning breeze, that song of the little barmaid who stands to the poilu for the wife or sweetheart at home, the little barmaid whom he kisses in his loneliness, and in kissing her feels that he is touching the lips of one far away.... it was a song which, to middle-western ears, sounded strangely on the lips of a dying child, but it did not offend kendall.... it sprang from the soul of france.
there ceased to be any semblance of an air to the song; it became a faint whisper, halting, coming now a word at a time. arlette’s eyes were closed.... now her lips moved, but there was no sound.... presently the lips ceased to move....
kendall turned to the nurse, who nodded. he arose suddenly, looked down upon the child and then rushed from the room ... and as he traversed the corridor he found himself repeating again and again: “with a song on her lips.... with a song on her lips....”
for two months experiences had been jostling one another to enter kendall ware’s life. it seemed as if there was a conspiracy among events to modify him, to change the fiber of him, and to break down the structure that had been himself when he landed in france. as compared with these past sixty days the previous ten thousand days of his life had been colorless and without life.... it had required twenty-seven years of personal existence and more than one generation of predecessors to make him what he was—and now a mere fraction of time, a handful of minutes, were striving to undo all that had been accomplished and to create a new being. the question to be answered was: can the present overcome the past? can events master the fiber growth of heredity? it seemed an experiment to determine if individuality is a fixed quantity or if it is subject to revolution.... so far it might be asserted that kendall had been modified—but no more.
little arlette had been a bit of humor in his life—no more. he had been unconscious that she was anything more. but now in her catastrophe she loomed larger and assumed significance. his was a world of symbolisms, a religion of symbolisms. as his mother saw the hand of god in every event—the hand of god interposed with direct reference to herself—so kendall, in a minor degree, and perhaps with something of unconsciousness, was subject to the same obsession. he looked for the lessons of events. he was apprehensive of the warnings of events. an implacable god regarded him under lowering brows and now and then caused an event to occur for his guidance.... so he looked for the significance of arlette’s murder.
he had an uncomfortable feeling that innocence had been caused to perish for his benefit—as a lesson to him. it made him a sort of accessory after the fact. he rebelled in a vague way, feeling dimly that god had no right to implicate him in such a crime. old catch phrases came back to him as he walked toward his home, phrases such as that one must search for the divine purpose behind the event; that the ways of god pass human understanding; that it is all for the best!... there was no comfort in these. he could descry no divine purpose. for that matter, he could find no divine purpose back of the war.... yet god permitted it, furthered it, as it were.... and because it was, because divinity permitted it to occur, it followed indisputably that it must be right for it to occur.... he would not have dared to define his creed as stating that his god was one who committed wholesale crime that a remote benefit might accrue. yet that was his creed and the creed of hundreds of thousands of his fellow-countrymen.... it was strange that he should remember andree’s attitude toward god at that moment—her saying that the eyes of the good god must be wet with tears to see a wickedness. but he did remember, and was grateful to her.
he wandered in a maze of gloomy theorizings, a maze which was nothing but a maze, which led to no desired center. it was the struggle between present and past, and it was a drawn battle. it only left him bewildered and gloomy, treading a bog and miring at every step.... then he became aware that he wanted andree, that she was necessary to him, because there was something simple and sure about her. she gave him a handhold to cling to. he felt that she knew, and he wanted the security and uplift of her knowledge. the universe was toppling, and andree could stabilize it again—but andree was not coming.... he felt he would never need her more than at this moment, but she was residing in her land of mystery, and he had neither her name nor address....
the stark fact was that little arlette was dead—and with a song on her tiny lips. he would never again think of france without thinking of arlette ... without seeing arlette as a symbol of something at once pure and ruthless....
