 Section 16 of Three Soldiers. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by MB. Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos. Section 16. Three. No, nothing could make me go back now. It's no use talking about it. But you're crazy, man! You're crazy! One man alone can't buck the system like that, can he, Henslow? Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the lamp. Henslow, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the circle of light. Honestly, Andy, said Henslow with tears in his voice, I think you'd better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it. I'm not being heroic, Henny, cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed. He drew his feet under him, tailor-fashioned, and went on talking very quietly. Look, it's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point where I don't give a damn what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot or if I live to be 80. I'm sick of being ordered round. One more order shouted at my head is not worth living to be 80. To me, that's all. For God's sake, let's talk about something else. But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got in this school detachment? Not one! You can put through your discharge application, probably. Walters got to his feet, letting the chair crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. Look here, here's my proposition, he went on. I don't think you're marked AWOL in the school office. Things are so damn badly run there. You can turn up and say you've been sick and draw your back pay, and nobody'll say a thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top sergeant. He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the record some way, but for God's sake, don't ruin your whole life on account of a little stubbornness Damn fool, anarchistic ideas or other fellow like you ought to have more sense than to pick up. He's right, Andy, said Henslow in a low voice. Please don't talk any more about it, you've told me all that before, said Andrew sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over towards the wall. They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up from the courtyard. But look here, Andy, said Henslow nervously stroking his mustache. You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught, I think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your head, but even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live on for long over here, you haven't? Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you ever had a man you've been chatting with five minutes before deliberately knock you down? Good God, you don't know what you're talking about, you two. I've got to be free now. I don't care at what cost. Being free is the only thing that matters. Andrews lay on his back, talking towards the ceiling. Henslow was on his feet, striding nervously about the room. As if anyone was ever free, he muttered. All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy necessary for survival. The man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly. Go on, Andrews' voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown boy's voice. Andy, what on earth's got hold of you? God, I hate to go away this way, added Henslow after a pause. I'll pull through, all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in Syria disguised as an Arab shake. Andrews laughed excitedly. If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay. But there's nothing I can do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs and their own damn fool away. So long, Walters. Walters and Henslow shook hands absently. Henslow came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews. Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And write me, Care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned anxious, honestly. Don't you worry, we'll go traveling together yet, said Andrews, sitting up and taking Henslow's hand. They heard Henslow's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a moment on the pavings of the courtyard. Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews' bed. Now look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your family and haven't you any patriotism? Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the world. Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each word. I can't explain it, but I shall never put a uniform on again. So for Christ's sake, shut up! All right, do what you goddamn please, I'm through with you. Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently. Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the ceiling. Then he, too, undressed, put the light out and got into bed. The roue des petits gens, then, was a short street in a district of warehouses. A gray, windowless wall shut out the light along all of one side. Opposite was a cluster of three old houses, seen together as if the outer ones were trying to support the beatling Mansard roof of the centre-house. Beside them rose a huge building with rows and rows of black windows. When Andrews stopped to look about him, he found the street completely deserted. The ominous stillness that had brooded over the city during all the walk from his room near the Pantheon seemed here to culminate in sheer desolation. In the silence he could hear the light padding noise made by the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of the street. The house with the Mansard roof was number eight. The front of the lower story had once been painted in chocolate colour, across the top of which was still decipherable the sign Charbonne, Bois, Le Mans. On the grime window beside the door was painted in white, Débis de Boisson. Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the interior a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the street. On the wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a crack in it the shape of a star, and under it a bench with three marble-top tables. The zinc bar filled up the third wall. In the fourth was a glass door pasted up with newspapers. Andrews walked over to the bar. The jangling of the bell faded to silence. He waited, a curious uneasiness gradually taking possession of him. Anyways he thought he was wasting his time. He ought to be doing something to arrange his future. He walked over to the street door. The bell jangled again when he opened it. At the same moment a man came out through the door the newspapers were pasted over. It was a stout man in a dingy white shirt stained to a brownish color around the armpits and caught in very tightly at the waist by the broad elastic belt that held up his yellow corduroy trousers. His face was flabby of a greenish color. Black eyes looked at Andrews fixately through barely open lids so that they seemed long slits above the cheekbones. That's the chink, thought Andrews. Well, said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his legs far apart. A beer, please, said Andrews. There isn't any. A glass of wine, then. The man nodded his head and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews all the while strode out of the door again. A moment later Crisfield came out with rumpled hair, yawning, rubbing an eye with the knuckles of his fist. Lousy! I just woke up, Andy. Come along him back. Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches, down a corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes and up a staircase littered with dirt and garbage. Crisfield opened a door directly on the stairs and they stumbled into a large room with a window that gave on the court. Crisfield closed the door carefully and turned to Andrews with a smile. I was right smart askeered, you wouldn't find it, Andy. So this is where you live? A bunch of us lives here. A wide bed without coverings where a man in olive drab, slept rolled in a blanket, was the only furniture of the room. Three of us sleeps in that bed, said Crisfield. Who's that? cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly. All right, Al. He's a buddy of mine, said Crisfield. He's taken off his uniform. Jesus, you got guts, said the man in the bed. Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of toweling, splotched here and there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head and a hand, swabbed in bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's mouth took on a twisted expression of pain as he left his head gradually down to the bed again. Gosh, what did you do to yourself? cried Andrews. I tried to hop afraid at Marseille. Needs practice to do that sort of thing, said Crisfield, who sat on the bed pulling his shoes off. I'm going to get back to bed, Andy. I'm just dead tired. I took cabbages all night at the market. They give you a job there without asking no questions. Have a cigarette. Andrews sat down on the end of the bed and threw a cigarette towards Crisfield. Have one? he asked Al. No, I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the wheels went over it. I cut what was left of the little finger with a razor. Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his cheek as he spoke. Christ, that poor bugger's been having a time, Andy. We was scared to get a doctor and we all didn't know what to do. I got some pure alcohol and washed it in that. It's not infected. I guess it'll be all right. Where are you from, Al? asked Andrews. Frisco. Oh, I'm going to try and sleep. I haven't slept a wink for four nights. Why don't you get some dope? Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anything, Andy. Oh, if we had kale, we could live like kings. Not, said Al, in the middle of a nervous little giggle. Look, Christ said, Andrews, I'll have with you. I've got 500 francs. Jesus God, man, don't kid about anything like that. Here's 250. It's not so much as it sounds. Andrews handed him five 50 franc notes. Say, how did you come to bust loose? Said Al, turning his head towards Andrews. I got away from a labour battalion one night. That's all. Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hands so much when I'm talking to somebody. I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace. Say, don't you think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good-looking? Got my goat every time I saw one. I was coming back from leave at Grenoble, and I went through Strasbourg, some town. My outfit was in coblents. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raised in hell around Strasbourg, and I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plum picture-esque. Just like a kid I used to know at home whose folks were Italian and used to talk about when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl down there who said she'd just come down to a place like that to look for her brother, who was in the foreign legion. Andrews and Chris Field laughed. What are you laughing at? Went on Al in an eager, taut voice. Honest to God, I'm going to marry her if ever I get out of this. She's the best little girl I ever met up with. She was a waitress in a restaurant, and when she was off duty, she used to wear that their Alsatian costume. Hell, I just stayed on. Every day I thought I'd go away the next day. Anyway, the war was over. I worn a damn bit of use. Hasn't a fellow got any rights at all? Then the MPs started cleaning up Strasbourg after A-Walls, and I beat it out of there, and Christ, it don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back. Say Andy, said Chris Field suddenly. Let's go down after some booze. All right. Say Al, you don't want me to get you anything at the drugstore. No, I don't want to do anything but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and then against infection. Anyways, it's the 1st of May. You'd be crazy to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on. Gosh, I forgot it was the 1st of May, cried Andrews. They're running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia, and a guy told me, said Al in a shrill voice, there might be a revolution. Come along, Andy, said Chris from the door. On the stairs, Andrews felt Chris Field's hand squeezing his arm hard. Say Andy! Chris put his lips close to Andrews' ear and spoke in a rasping whisper. You're the only one that knows. You know that. You and that Sergeant. Don't you say anything so that the guys here can catch on. Do you hear? All right, Chris, I won't. But man alive, you oughtn't to lose your nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot and shut your face. Do you hear? muttered Chris Field savagely. They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next to the bar, they found the chink reading a newspaper. Is he French? whispered Andrews. I don't know what he is. He ain't a white man, I'll wager that, said Chris. But he's square. Do you know anything about what's going on? asked Andrews in French, going up to the chink. Where? the chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the corners of his slit-like eyes. Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution? The chink shrugged his shoulders. Anything's possible, he said. Do you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in one day like that? Who? broke in Chris Field. Why the people, Chris? The ordinary people, like you and me, who are tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being crumpled down by other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with the system. Do you know what I'll do when the revolution comes? Broken the chink with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand. I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, Rue Royale, and fill my pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds. What good will that do you? What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need them in the end. Do you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another system. When there's a system, there are always men to be bought with diamonds. That's what the world's like. But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth anything. Huh, we'll see, said the chink. Do you think that it could happen, Andy? And there'd be a revolution? And there wouldn't be any more armies? And we'd be able to go around like we are civilians? I don't think so. Fellas like us ain't got it in them to buck the system, Andy. Many systems gone down before. It will happen again. They're fighting the Guard Republican now before the Guard Alast, said the chink in an expressionless voice. What do you want down there? You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put over on us. Give us two bottles of Van Blank, chink, said Chris Field. When'll you pay? Right now. This guy's giving me 50 francs. Rich, are you? Said the chink with hatred in his voice, turning to Andrews. Won't last long at that rate. Wait here. He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping feet. Andrews and Chris Field tiptoed into the dark corridor where they stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their nostrils with the stench of plaster damp and rotting wine. At last the chink came back with three bottles of wine. Well, you're right, he said to Andrews. They were putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta. On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin and a pretty-colored, fleshy face. Chris Field caught her up to him and kissed her as he passed. We all calls her the dog-faced girl, he said to Andrews in explanation. She does our work. I liked to have a fight with Slippery over her yesterday. Didn't I, Slippery? When he followed Chris Field into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting on the window-edge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, but his patees were brilliantly polished and he smoked through a long amber cigarette holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured. This is Slippery, Andy, said Chris Field. This guy's an old buddy of mine. We was monkeys together a hell of a time, wasn't we, Andy? You bet we were. So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish, said Slippery. Suppose they nab you. It's all up now, anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed, said Andrews. We got booze, said Chris Field. Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers with each throw. I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris, he said. Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily. His face flushed and his mouth twitching. Hello, he said. What's the news? They say they're putting up barricades near the guard alast. It may be something. God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they did in Russia. Then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the States for a while, but there wouldn't be no MPs to hunt us like we were criminals. I'm going to sit up a while and talk. Al giggled hysterically for a moment. Have a swig of wine, asked Andrews. Sure, it may help a bit, thanks. He drank greedily from the bottle, spilling a little over his chin. Say, is your face badly cut up, Al? No, it's just scotched. Skin's off, looks like beef steak, I reckon. Ever been to Strasburg? No. Man, that's the town. And the girl's in that costume? Whee! Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you? Sure. Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at Training Camp, a kid named Fuseli from Frisco? Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got! You don't know where he is now, do you? I saw him here in Paris two months ago. Well, I'll be damned! God, that's great! Al's voice was staccato from excitement. So you knew Dan at Training Camp? The last letter from him was about a year ago. Dan had just got to be corporal. He's a damn clever kid, Dan is, and ambitious, too. One of the guys always makes good. God, I'd hate to see him this way. Do you know, we used to see a hell of a lot of each other in Frisco, and he always used to tell me how he'd make good before I did. He was goddamn right, too. Said I was too soft about girls. Did you know him real well? Yes, I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he knew who was called Al. He used to tell me about how you two used to go down to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with lights through the golden gate. And he used to tell you he'd go over to Europe in one when he'd made his pile. That's why Strasburg made me think of him broken Al tremendously excited, because it was so picturesque like. But honest, I've tried hard to make good in this army. I've done everything a fellow could. And all I did was get into a cushy job in the regimental office. But damn, God, he may even be an officer by this time. No, he's not that, said Andrews. Look here, you ought to keep quiet with that hand of yours. Damn my hand! Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You see, my foot slipped when they shunted the car I was just climbing into it. I guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But gee, when I think that if I hadn't been a fool about that girl, I might have been home by now. The chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta. That means business, kid. Business nothing shouted slippery from where he and Chris Field leaned over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window. One tank and a few husky Senegalese will make your goddamn socialists run so fast they won't stop till they get to Dijon. You guys ought to have more sense. Slippery got to his feet and came over to the bed jingling the dice in his hand. It'll take more than a handful of socialists paid by the Bosch to break the army. If he could be broke, don't you think people would have done it long ago? Shut up a minute! I thought I heard something, said Chris Field, suddenly going to the window. They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in it. No, warn't nothing. I thought I'd heard people singing. The international cried out. Shut up, said Chris Field on a low gruff voice. Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs. All right, it's only smitty, said Slippery, and he threw the dice down on the tiles again. The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a long face and long teeth. Who's the frog, he said in the startled way with one hand on the doorknob. All right, smitty, it ain't a frog. It's a guy Chris knows. He's taken his uniform off. Hello, buddy, said smitty, shaking Andrews' hand. God, you look like a frog. That's good, said Andrews. There's hell to pay, broke out smitty breathlessly. You know Gus Evans and the little black-haired guy goes round with him? They've been picked up. I've seen him myself with some MPs at Place de la Bastille, and a guy I talked to under the bridge where I slept last night said a guy had told him they were going to clean the A-walls out of Paris that they had to search through every house in the place. If they come here, they'll get something they ain't looking for, muttered Chris Field. I'm going down to Nice, getting few hot around here, said Slippery. I've got travel orders in my pocket now. How did you get him? Easy as pie, said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing effectively towards the ceiling. I met up with a guy, a second loot, in the Knickerbocker bar. We get strung together and goes on a party with two girls I know. In the morning, I get up bright and early, and now I've got five thousand francs, a leaf clip and a silver cigarette case, and Lieutenant J.B. Franklin's running around saying how he was robbed by a Paris whore. Or more likely, keeping damn quiet about it. That's my system. But gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy and drink with him and then rob him, cried Hal, from the bed. No different from cleaning a guy up at crafts. Well? And suppose that fellow I knew was only a bloody private. Don't you think he'd have turned me over to the MPs like Winken? No, I don't think so, said Hal. They're just like you and me. Scared to death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a fellow unless they have to. That's a goddamn lie, cried Chrisfield. They like riding ya. A dough-boy's less than a dog to him. I'd shoot any one of them like I'd shoot a Knicker. Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face. It suddenly flushed red. He was silent, abruptly. His eyes met Andrews' eyes with a flash of fear. They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us, I was insisting. But you damn fools quit arguing, cried Smitty. What the hell are we going to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look at it. They were silent. At last Chrisfield said, What are you going to do, Andy? I hardly know. I think I'll go out to Saint-Germain to see a boy I know there who works on a farm, to see if it's safe to take a job there. I won't stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here that I want to look up. I must see her. Andrews broke off suddenly, and started walking back and forth across the end of the room. You better be damn careful. They'll probably shoot you if they catch you, said Slippery. Andrews shrugged his shoulders. Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years. God, I would, cried Al. How do you fellas eat here? asked Slippery. We buy stuff, and the dog-faced girl cooks it for us. Got anything for this noon? I'll see if I can buy some stuff, said Andrews. It's safer for me to go out than for you. All right, here's twenty francs, said Slippery, handing Andrews a bill with an offhand gesture. Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the passage at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews' shoulder and whispered, Say, Andy, do you think there's anything in that revolution business? I had never thought they could buck the system that way. They did in Russia. Then we'd be free, civilians like we all was before the draft. But that ain't possible, Andy. That ain't possible, Andy. We'll see, said Andrews, as he opened the door to the bar. He went up excitedly to the chink, who sat behind the row of bottles along the bar. Well, what's happening? Where? By the guard last, where they were putting up barricades? Barricades, shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking at the table. Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the trees if you call that barricades, but they're cowards. Whenever the cops charge, they run. They're dirty cowards. Do you think anything's going to happen? What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty cowards? What do you think about it, said Andrews, turning to the chink. The chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out. When he came back, he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room. Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his fingernails. On the wall opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected from the opposite wall of the court. For God's sake, beat it, Chris. I'm all right." Al was saying in a weak, whining voice, his face twisted up by pain. What's the matter, cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle? Slippery's seen an MP nosing around in front of the gin mill. Good God! The trouble is, Al's too sick. Honest to God, I'll stay with you, Al. No, if you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here with Al and talk French to the MPs if they come. We'll fool them somehow." Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous. Honest to God, Andy. I'd stay if it weren't that that sergeant knows, said Chrisfield in a jerky voice. Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste. So long, Andy, Chrisfield slipped out of the door. It's funny, Al, said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and unwrapping the package of food. I'm not a damn bit scared anymore. I think I'm free of the army, Al. How's your hand? I don't know. Oh, how I wish I was in my old, bunk at Coeblance. I weren't made for bucking against the world this way. If we had old Dan with us, funny that you know Dan, he'd have made a million ideas for getting out of this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bowl me out so for not having made good. He's a powerful, ambitious kid, as Dan. But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al, said Andrews slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the courtyard, only very far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry over cobblestones. The sky had become overcast, and the room was very dark. The moldy plaster peeling off the walls had streaks of green in it. The light from the courtyard had a greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and dead, like the faces of men that have long been shut up between damp prison walls. And, if you saw, he had a girl named Mabe, said Andrews. Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding, said Al. End of Section 16. Section 17 of Three Soldiers. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by MB. Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos. Section 17. Four. At last I've got to you. John Andrews had caught sight of Zhenviev on a bench at the end of the garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a splotch of sun as she got to her feet. She held out both her hands to him. How good-looking you are like that, she cried. He was conscious only of her hands in his hands, and of her pale brown eyes, and of the bright sun's blotches and the green shadows fluttering all about them. So you were out of prison, she said, and demobilized. How wonderful! Why didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about you. How did you find me here? Your mother said you were here. And how do you like it, my porsac? She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent moment side by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of rounded box bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters of pink and purple and apricot color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old gray house with, at one end, a squat round tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the house were tall, lush green poplars through which glittered patches of silver-gray river and of yellow sandbanks. From somewhere came a drowsy scent of moan grass. How brown you are, she said again. I thought I had lost you. You might kiss me, Jean. The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape leaves made a flutter of dancing light and shadow about them. How hot you are with the sun, she said. I love the smell of the sweat on your body. You must have run very hard coming here. Do you remember one night in the spring when we walked home from Pelea and Mélisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then like this. Andrew's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty. There is the château très froid et très profond, she said with a little laugh. And your hair? Je les tiens dans la boîte, je les tiens dans la bouche. Tout à chevalure, tout à chevalure Mélisande et tombé de la tour. Do you remember? How wonderful you are. They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each other. It's silly burst out Andrew's excitedly. We should have faith in our own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live at all of ourselves. Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized long? I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very dirty. How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything from the moment you left me in Chartres. I'll tell you about Chartres later, said Andrews, roughly. It has been superb. One of the biggest weeks of my life walking all day under the sun with the road like a white ribbon in the sun over the hills and along river banks where there were yellow irises blooming and through woods full of black birds and with the dust in a little white cloud around my feet and all the time walking towards you, walking towards you. And l'ochende saba? How is it coming? I don't know. I've been here many times since I thought of it. Have you been here long? Hardly a week. But what are you going to do? I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very fat woman with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin. Madame Boncourt. Of course, you must know everybody. It's so small. And you're going to stay here a long time. Just forever and work and talk to you. May I use your piano now and then? How wonderful! Ch'undeev roe jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him leaning against one of the twisted stems of the vines so that the broad leaves fluttered about her face. A white cloud bright as silver covered the sun so that the hairy young leaves and the wind-blown grass of the lawn took on a silvery sheen. Two white butterflies fluttered for a second about the arbor. You must always dress like that, she said after a while. Andrews laughed. A little cleaner, I hope, he said. But there can't be much change. I have no other clothes and ridiculously little money. Who cares for money? cried Ch'undeev. Andrews fancied he detected a slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea from his mind immediately. I wonder if there's a farm round here where I could get work. But you couldn't do the work of a farm laborer, cried Ch'undeev, laughing. You just watch me. It'll spoil your hands for the piano. I don't care about that. But all that's later, much later. Before anything else I must finish a thing I'm working on. There was a theme that came to me when I was first in the army, when I was washing windows at the training camp. How funny you are, Jean. Oh, it's lovely to have you about again. But you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you kiss me. But Ch'undeev, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's back. But with you in this wonderful place. Oh, I've never seen such sappy richness of vegetation. And think of it, a week's walking first across those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois down into the haze of richness at the Loire. Do you know Vendôme? I came by a funny little town from Vendôme to Blois. And you see my feet. And what wonderful cold baths I've had on the sandbanks at the Loire. No, after a while the rhythm of legs all being made the same length on drill fields, the hopeless caged dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of this world of yours. He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers. You see the little grapes are already forming. Look up there, she said, as she brushed the leaves aside just above his head. These grapes here are the earliest. But I must show you my domain and my cousins and the henyard and everything. She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like children hand in hand round the box bordered paths. What I mean is this, he stammered following her across the lawn. If I could once manage to express all that misery and music I could shove it far down into my memory. I should be free to live my own existence in the midst of this carnival of summer. At the house she turned to him. You see the very battered ladies over the door, she said. They are said to be by a pupil of Jean Gougeon. They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever tell you about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I was wounded? No, but I want you to look at the house now. See that's the tower, all that's left of the old building. I live here and right under the roof there's a haunted room I used to be terribly afraid of. I'm still afraid of it. You see this only couch part of the house was just a fourth of the house as planned. This lawn would have been the court. We dug up the foundations where the roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to why the house was never finished. You must tell me them. I shall, later. But now you must come and beat my aunts and my cousins. Please not just now, Jean Fiat. I don't feel like talking to anyone except you. I have so much to talk to you about. But it's nearly lunchtime, Jean. We can have all that after lunch. No, I can't talk to anyone else just now. I must go and clean myself up a little anyway. Just as you like. But you must come this afternoon and play to us. Two or three people are coming to tea. It would be very sweet of you if you'd play to us, Jean. But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now. Just as you like. Cedrin Viev, flushing, her hand on the iron latch of the door. Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more like meeting people after talking to you a long while. You see, I... He paused with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out in a low, passionate voice. Oh, if only I could get it out of my mind. Those tramping feet. Those voices shouting orders. His hand trembled when he put it in Cedrin Viev's hand. She looked in his eyes calmly with her wide, brown eyes. How strange you are today, Jean. Anyway, come back early tomorrow. She went in the door. He walked round the house through the carriage gate and went off with long strides down the road along the river that led under linden trees to the village. Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head like wasps about a rotting fruit. So at last he'd seen Jean Viev and had held her in his arms and kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the future had never gone beyond that point. He hardly knew what he had expected, but in all the sunny days of walking, in all the furtive days in Paris he had thought of nothing else. He would see Jean Viev and tell her all about himself. He would unroll his life like a scroll before her eyes. Together they would piece together the future. A sudden terror took possession of him. She had failed him. Floods of denial seeped through his mind. It was that he had expected so much. He had expected her to understand him without explanation, instinctively. He had told her nothing. He had not even told her he was a deserter. What was it that had kept him from telling her? Puzzle as he could he could not formulate it. Only far within him the certainty lay like an icy weight. She had failed him. He was alone. What a fool he had been to build his whole life on a chance of sympathy. No, it was rather this morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a touchy old maid thinking imaginary results. Take life at its face value he kept telling himself. They loved each other anyway, somehow. It did not matter how. And he was free to work. Wasn't that enough? But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her? To tell her everything? To break down all the silly little barriers between them so that they might look directly into each other's lives? The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the entrance to the village. Through half open doors Andrews got glimpses of neatly cultivated kitchen gardens and orchards where silver-leaved boughs swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved again into the village crowded into a narrow paved street by the white and cream-colored houses with green or gray shutters and pale red-tiled roofs. At the end stained golden with lichen the mauve gray tower of the church held up its bells against the sky in a belfry of broad pointed arches. In front of the church Andrews turned down a little lane towards the river again to come out in a moment on a key shaded by skinny acacia trees. On the corner house a ramshackle house with roofs and gables projecting in all directions was a sign Rendez-vous de la marine? The room he stepped into was so low Andrews had to stoop under the heavy brown beams as he crossed it. Stairs went up from a door behind a worn billiard table in the corner. Madame Boncor stood between Andrews and the stairs. She was a flabby elderly woman with round eyes and a round, very red face and a curious smirk about the lips. Monsieur perd un petit peu d'avance, n'est-ce pas monsieur? All right, said Andrews reaching for his pocket-book shall I pay you a week in advance? The woman smiled broadly. See Monsieur Daisy here. It's that life is so dear nowadays. People like us can barely get along. I know that only too well, said Andrews. Monsieur Ray étranger began the woman in a weedling tone when she had received the money. Yes, I was only demobilized a short time ago. Ah ha! Monsieur Ray des mobilisés! Monsieur remplira le petit feuillre pour la police, n'est-ce pas? The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed slip. All right, I'll fill it out now, said Andrews, his heart thumping. Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of the billiard table and wrote, John Brown, aged twenty-three, Chicago, Illinois, Etats-Unis, musician, holder of passport number 1,432,286. Merci, Monsieur. A bientôt, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur. The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his room. It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he had put down for a passport number his army number. And why did I write John Brown as a name, he asked himself? John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah, but his soul goes marching on. He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his hand through his hair. Outside the loir rambled in great loops towards the blue distance. Silvery reach upon silvery reach. With here and there the broad gleam of a sandbank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched in various greens, rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On the bare summit of the highest hill, a windmill waved lazy arms against the marbled sky. Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He pulled the sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat, took a long swig of water from the pitcher on the wash stand, and settled himself at the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively for a long while. Then he wrote, Arbite und Rithmus in a large careful hand at the top of the paper. After that he looked out of the window without moving, watching the plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships against the slate blue sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had written and scrawled above it the body and soul of John Brown. He got to his feet and walked about the room with clenched hands. How curious that I should have written that name! How curious that I should have written that name! he said aloud. He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that possessed him. The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to occupy himself until it should be time to go see Jean-Vierve. The memory of his first days in the army spent washing windows at the training camp was very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again standing naked in the middle of a wide, bare room while the recruiting sergeant measured and prodded him. And now he was a deserter. Was there any sense to it at all? Had his life led in any particular direction since he had been caught haphazard in the treadmill or was it all chance, a toad hopping across a road in front of a steamroller? He stood still and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was the river with its sand-banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy was wading far out in the river catching minnows with a net. Andrews watched his quick movements as he jerked his net through the water. And that boy too would be a soldier. The lithe body would be thrown into a mould to be made the same as other bodies. The quick movements would be standardised into the manual at arms. The inquisitive, petulant mind would be battered into servility. The stockade was built. Not one of the sheep would escape. And those that were not sheep? They were deserters. Every rifle-muzzle held death for them. They would not live long. And yet other nightmares had been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man who stood up courageously to die loosened the grip of the nightmare. Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the dust like a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the grass under some locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their flowers and the grumbling of the bees that hung drunkenly on the white racemes made him feel very drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by heavy white horses. An old man with his back curved like the top of a sunflower stalk, hobbled after, using the whip as a walking stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes turned on him suspiciously. A faint pang of fright went through him. Did the old man know he was a deserter? The cart and the old man had already disappeared round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while listening to the jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving him again to the sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms. When he sat up again, convinced that through a break in the hedge beyond the slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see rising above the trees the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower of Jean-Vierve Rosehouse. He remembered the first day he had seen Jean-Vierve and the boyish awkwardness with which she poured tea. Would he and Jean-Vierve ever find a moment of real contact? All at once a bitter thought came to him. Or is it that she wants a tame pianist as an ornament to a clever young woman's drawing-room? He jumped to his feet and started walking fast towards the town again. He would go to see her at once and settle all that forever. The village clock had begun to strike. The clear notes vibrated crisply across the fields. Ten. Walking back to the village, he began to think of money. His room was twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and twenty-four francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver, he found three francs and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven francs fifty. If he could live on forty francs a week, he would have three weeks in which to work on the body and soul of John Brown. Only three weeks, and then he must find work. In any case, he would write to Henslow to send him money if he had any. This was no time for decency. Everything depended on his having money. And he swore to himself that he would work for three weeks, that he would throw the idea that flamed within him into shape on paper whatever happened. He racked his brains to think of someone in America he could write to for money. A ghastly sense of solitude possessed him. And would Junviev fail him too? Junviev was coming out by the front door of the house when he reached the carriage gate beside the road. She ran to meet him. Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you. She seized his hand and pressed it hard. How sweet of you! But, Junviev, you're not coming from the village. I've been walking. How early you must get up. You see the sun rises just opposite my window and shines in on my bed. That makes me get up early. She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the hall to a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-backed chairs and in front of the French windows that opened on the garden a round table of black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin dresses stood beside the piano. These are my cousins. Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma Cousine Berth and ma Cousine Jean. Now you've got to play to us. We are bored to death with everything we know. All right. But I have a great deal to talk to you about later. Andrews said in a low voice. Junviev nodded, understandingly. Why don't you play us la reine de sa bâche, Jean? Oh, do play that! Twittered the cousins. If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach. There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner, cried Junviev. It's ridiculous. Everything in the house is jammed with music. They leaned over the chest together so that Andrews felt her hair brush against his cheek and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. The cousins remained by the piano. I must talk to you alone soon, whispered Andrews. All right, she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the chest. On the top of the music was a revolver. I doubt it's loaded, she said, when he picked it up. He looked at her inquiringly. I have another in my room. You see, mother and I are often alone here and then I like firearms, don't you? I hate them, muttered Andrews. Here's tons of Bach. Fine. Look, Junviev, he said suddenly, lend me that revolver for a few days. I'll tell you why I want it later. Certainly. Be careful because it's loaded, she said in an offhand manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under each arm. Andrews closed the chest and followed her, suddenly bubbling with gaiety. He opened a volume haphazard. To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey he read. Oh, I used to know that. He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a pianissimo passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other, qui l'a l'air intéressant? Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre révolutionnaire, answered the other cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Madame Roe was smiling at him. He got to his feet. Mais ne vous déranger pas, she said. A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in black with a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into the room, followed by a stout woman in hat and veil with long white cotton gloves on her arms. Introductions were made. Andrews' spirits began to ebb. All these people were making strong the barrier between him and Genvieve. Whenever he looked at her some well-dressed person stepped in front of her with a gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a ring of well-deserved conventions that danced about him with grotesque gestures of politeness. All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump to his feet and shout, Look at me! I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels of your system. If your system doesn't succeed in killing me it will be that much weaker. It will have less strength to kill others. There was talk about his demobilization and his music and the Scola cantorum. He felt he was being exhibited. But they don't know what they're exhibiting, he said to himself with a certain bitter joy. After lunch they went out into the grape-arbor where coffee was brought. Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was about empire furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the broad sun-splotched leaves of the grapevines, remembering how the sun and shade had danced about Genvieve's hair when they had been in the arbor alone the day before, turning it all to red flame. Today she sat in the shadow and her hair was rusty and dull. Time dragged by very slowly. At last Genvieve got to her feet. You haven't seen my boat, she said to Andrews. Let's go for a row. I'll row you about. Andrews jumped up eagerly. Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews. She's dreadfully imprudent, said Madame Rowe. You were bored to death, said Genvieve as they walked out on the road. No, but all these people seem to be building new walls between you and me. God knows there are enough already. She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing. They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge till they came to an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange stripe drawn up among the reeds. It will probably sink. Can you swim? She asked, laughing. Andrews smiled and said in a stiff voice, I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the arming. What do you mean? When I deserted. When you deserted? Genvieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost touching. They pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then pushed it half out onto the river. And if you were caught? They might shoot me. I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it would probably be life imprisonment for at least twenty years. Can you speak of it as coolly as that? It is no new idea to my mind. What induced you to do such a thing? I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill. Come, let's go out on the river. Genvieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars. Now push her off and don't fall in, she cried. The boat glided out into the water. Genvieve began pulling on the oars slowly and regularly, Andrews looking at her without speaking. When you're tired, I'll row, he said after a while. Behind them, the village, patched white and buff color and russet and pale red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs rose in an irregular pyramid to the church. Through the wide pointed arches of the belfry they could see the bells hanging against the sky. Below in the river the town was reflected complete with a great rift of steely blue across it where the wind ruffled the water. The oars creaked rhythmically as Genvieve pulled on them. Remember when you're tired, said Andrews again after a long pause. Genvieve spoke through clenched teeth. Of course you have no patriotism, as you mean it, none. They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard. Andrews put his hands beside her hands on the oars and pushed with her. The bow of the boat grounded in some reeds under willows. We'll stay here, she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in the sun as she jerked them dripping silver out of the water. She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him. So that is why you want my revolver. Tell me about it, from chart! She said, in a choked voice. You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labour battalion, the equivalent of your army prison without being able to get word to my commanding officer in the school detachment. He paused. A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud. Beyond the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly in the wind, the sky was full of silvery and cream-coloured clouds. With yearn there, a patch the colour of a robin's egg. Andrews began laughing softly. But Chynviev, how silly those words are, those pompous, efficient words. Detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It would have all happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point, that was all. I could not submit any longer to the discipline. Oh, those long Roman words, what millstones they are about men's necks. That was silly too. I was quite willing to help in the killing of Germans I had no quarrel with, out of curiosity or cowardice. You see, it has taken me so long to find out how the world is. There was no one to show me the way. He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow tree was still singing. Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little, so that Andrews could see him. A small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song. It seems to me, he said very softly, that human society has always been that, and perhaps will be always that. Organisations growing and stifling individuals, and individuals revolting hopelessly against them, and at last forming new societies to crush the old societies, and becoming slaves again in their turn. I thought you were a socialist, broke injured via sharply, in a voice that hurt him to the quick. He did not know why. A man told me at the labour battalion, began Andrews again, that they tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow lighted cigarettes. Well, every order shouted at me, every new humiliation before the authorities, was as great an agony to me. Can't you understand? His voice rose suddenly to a tone of entreaty. She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered in a little wind. The bird had gone. But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting. We were working unloading cement at Passy. Cement to build the stadium the army is presenting to the French, a slave labour like the pyramids. Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there? There was a boy working with me, the kid. Lagasse, it'd be in French. Without him I should never have done it. I was completely crushed. I suppose that he was drowned. Anyway, we swam underwater as far as we could, and as it was nearly dark, I managed to get on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never heard of the kid since. Then I bought these clothes that amuse you, so J'enviève, and came back to Paris to find you, mainly. I mean as much to you as that, whispered J'enviève. In Paris, too, I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a farm near Saint-Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone to sea. If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone straight to Bordeaux or Marseille. They aren't too particular who they take as a seaman now. But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life, always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foul-smelling surroundings? You, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are almost crazy after years of that. J'enviève spoke passionately, with her eyes fixed on his face. Oh, it wasn't that, said Andrews with despair in his voice. I rather like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people are so slight. His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the hard shape of the revolver against his leg. But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends, burst out J'enviève. You were treated with a horrible injustice. You can get yourself reinstated and properly demobilized. They'll see you as a person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody. I must be, as you say, a little mad, J'enviève, said Andrews. But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it is towards human freedom, I can't feel that... Oh, I suppose I'm a fool. But there you have me, just as I am, J'enviève. He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands clasping the gunnels of the boat. After a long while, J'enviève said in a dry little voice, Well, we must go back now. It's time for tea. Andrews looked up. There was a dragonfly poised on the top of a reed with silver wings and a long crimson body. Look just behind you, J'enviève. Oh, a dragonfly! What people was it that made them the symbol of life? It wasn't the Egyptians. Oh, I've forgotten. I'll row, said Andrews. The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes they had pulled it up on the bank in front of the rose house. Come and have some tea, said J'enviève. No, I must work. You're doing something new, aren't you? Andrews nodded. What's its name? The soul and body of John Brown. Who's John Brown? He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about him. Is it based on popular themes? Not that I know of. I only thought of the name yesterday. It came to me by a very curious accident. You'll come tomorrow. If you're not too busy. Let's see, the Bois-Los are coming to lunch. There won't be anybody at tea time. We can have tea together alone. He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate. All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music, you said. She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of farewell and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There was one idea in his head to get to his room and lock the door and throw himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and throw himself face downward on the bed. I wonder if I shall cry, he thought. Madame Boncourt was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said, So you are a friend of Madame Gros Monsieur. How did you know that? A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek. You know, in the country, one knows everything, she said. Auvoire, he said, starting up the stairs. Monsieur, you should have told me. If I had known I should not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never! You must pardon me, Monsieur. All right. Monsieur les Américains? Monsieur les Américains? You see, I know a lot. Her puffy cheeks shook when she giggled. And Monsieur has known Madame Gros et Mademoiselle Gros a long time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician. Yes. Bonsoir! Andrews ran up the stairs. Auvoire, Monsieur! Her chanting voice followed him up the stairs. He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed. When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he had to wait that day to see Geneviève. Then he remembered their talk of the day before. Was it worthwhile going to see her at all? he asked himself. And very gradually he felt cold despair taking hold of him. He felt for a moment that he was the only living thing in this world of dead machines. The toad hopping across the road in front of a steamroller. Suddenly he thought of Jean. He remembered her grimy overworked fingers lying in her lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front of the café de Rohe on Wednesday night waiting for him. In the place of Geneviève, what would Jean have done? Yet people were always alone, really. However much they loved each other there could be no real union. Those who rode in the great car could never feel as the others felt, the toads hopping across the road. He felt no rancor against Geneviève. These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee and eating the dry bread that made his breakfast. And afterwards, walking back and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and body becoming as if fluid and supple and trembling, bent in the rush of his music like a poplar tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a pencil and went up to his room again. The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table, the square of blue through the window and the hills topped by their windmill and the silver-blue of the river were constantly in his eyes. Sometimes he wrote notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, seeing nothing. Other times he sat for long periods, staring at the sky and at the windmill vaguely happy, playing with unexpected thoughts that came and vanished, as now and then a moth fluttered in the window to blunder about the ceiling beams and, at last, to disappear without his knowing how. When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two days he had eaten nothing but bread, sausage, and cheese. Finding Madame Boncaud behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he ordered dinner of her. She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine at once and stood over him, watching him eat it, her arms a kimbo and the dimples showing in her huge red cheeks. Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw, she said. I'm working hard, said Andrews, flushing. But when you work hard, you have to eat a great deal, a great deal. And if the money is short, asked Andrews with a smile, something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes for a minute startled him. There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see it on a market day. Monsieur will take dessert, cheese and coffee. Nothing more, it's the season of strawberries. Nothing more, thank you. When Madame Boncaud came back with the cheese, she said, I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with them, too. They were deserters. They went away without paying with the gendarme after them. I hope they were caught and sent to the front, those good-for-nothings. There are all sorts of Americans, said Andrews in a low voice. He was angry with himself because his heart beat so. Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame. Monsieur is going for a little walk. A musée du bien, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur. Madame Boncaud's sing-song tones followed him out. A little before four, Andrews knocked at the front door of the Rose House. He could hear a song tone, the little blackened hand, barking inside. Madame Rose came to the door for him herself. Oh, here you are, she said. Come and have some tea. Did the work go well today? And je ne veux pas, stammered Andrews. She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you. It's on the tea table. He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking tea, putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white, dead mist. Jeunviève's note said, Jean, I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a neutral country. Why couldn't you have come and talked it over with me first before cutting off every chance of going back? I'll be in tomorrow at the same time. Bienavu, G.R. Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rose? Andrews found himself asking all at once. No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you. It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to the two cousins, as well as to Madame Rose. At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket and played the theme that had come to him while he'd been washing windows at the top of a step ladder at the training camp, arranging it, modeling it, forgetting everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work it was nearly dark. Jeunviève-Ros, a veil around her head, stood in the French window that led to the garden. I heard you, she said. Go on. I'm through. How was your motor-ride? I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring. Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone, cried Andrews bitterly. You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No one has rights over me. She spoke as if it were not the first time she had thought of the phrase. He walked over and leaned against the window beside her. Has it made such a difference to you, Jeunviève, finding out that I am a deserter? No, of course not, she said hastily. I think it has, Jeunviève. What do you want me to do? Do you think I should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given himself up, but he hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that makes a difference. He was a nice fellow. His name was Al. He was from San Francisco. He had nerve, for he amputated his own little finger when his hand was crushed by a freight car. Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a great composer. I feel sure of it. Why would have been? The stuff I'm doing now is better than any of the dribbling things I've done before. I know that. Oh, yes, but you'll need to study to get yourself known. If I pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have gone. I don't believe they extradite deserters. Yes, but the shame of it. The danger of being found out all the time. I am ashamed of many things in my life, Geneviève. I'm rather proud of this. But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions of individual liberty? I must go, Geneviève. You must come in again soon. One of these days. And he was out in the road in the windy twilight with his music papers crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous purple clouds. Between them were spaces of clear, claret-colored light, and here and there a gleam of opal. There were a few drops of rain in the wind that rustled the broad leaves of the lindons and filled the wheat fields with waves like the sea and made the river very dark between rosy sand banks. It began to rain. Andrews hurried home so as not to drench his only suit. Once in his room he lit four candles and placed them at the corners of his table. A little cold crimson light still filtered in through the rain from the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly glimmer. Then he lay on his bed and staring up at the flickering light on the ceiling, tried to think. Well, you're alone now, John Andrews, he said aloud after a half hour, and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself and yawned. Outside the rain pattered loudly and steadily. Let's have a general accounting, he said to himself. It'll be easily a month before I hear from old Howe in America and longer before I hear from Henslow, and already I've spent twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way. Then in real possessions I have one volume of Vian, a green book on Counterpoint, a map of France torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked mind. He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top of his disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he went on, piling his possessions there as he thought of them. Three pencils, a fountain pen. Automatically he reached for his watch, but he remembered he'd given it to Al in case he didn't decide to give himself up and needed money. A toothbrush, a shaving set, a piece of soap, a hairbrush and a broken comb. Anything else? He groped in the musette that hung on the foot of the bed. A box of matches, a knife with one blade missing and a mashed cigarette. Amusement growing on him every minute, he contemplated the pile. Then in the drawer, he remembered, was a clean shirt and two pairs of soiled socks. And that was all, absolutely all. Nothing saleable there, except Genvieve's revolver. He pulled it out of his pocket. The candlelight flashed on the bright nickel. No, he might need that. It was too valuable to sell. He pointed it towards himself. Under the chin was said to be the best place. He wondered if he would pull the trigger when the barrel was pressed against his chin. No, when his money gave out, he'd sell the revolver. An expensive death for a starving man. He sat on the edge of the bed and laughed. Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day, shocking, he said to himself. Whistling joyfully like a schoolboy, he strode down the rickety stairs to order a meal of Madame Boncair. It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was whistling was. John Brown's body lies a mulled in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house, great gusts of fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open window. Andrews lay across the table with his eyes closed and his cheek in a mass of ruled papers. He was very tired. The first movement of the soul and body of John Brown was down on paper. The village clock struck two. He got to his feet and stood a moment looking absently out of the window. It was a sultry afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the river. The windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to hear Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her so long ago. You would have been a great composer. He walked over to his table and turned over some sheets without looking at them. Would have been. He shrugged his shoulders. So you couldn't be a great composer and a deserter too in the year 1919. Probably Genevieve was right. But he must have something to eat. But how late it is, expostulated Madame Bancourt when he asked for lunch. I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work I'm doing. And do you get paid a great deal when that is finished? Asked Madame Bancourt the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks. Someday, perhaps, you will be lonely now that the rose have left. Have they left? Didn't you know? Didn't you go to say goodbye? They've gone to the seashore. But I'll make you a little omelet. Thank you. When Madame Bancourt came back with the omelet and fried potatoes she said to him in a mysterious voice you didn't go to see the roses often these last few weeks. No. Madame Bancourt stood staring at him with her red arms folded round her breasts in her head. When he got up to go upstairs again she suddenly shouted and when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have paid me. But Madame Bancourt, I told you I have no money. If you wait a day or two I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a day or two. I've heard that story before. I've even tried to get work at several farms around here. Madame Bancourt threw back her head and laughed, showing the blackened teeth of her lower jaw. Look here, she said at length. After this week it's finished. You either pay me or... And I sleep very lightly, monsieur. Her voice took on suddenly its usual sleek sing-song tone. Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room. I must fly the coop tonight, he said to himself. But suppose then letters came with money the next day. He writhed in indecision all the afternoon. That evening he took a long walk. In passing the rose house he saw that the shutters were closed. It gave him sort of a relief to know that Geneviève no longer lived near him. His solitude was complete now. And why, instead of writing music that would have been worthwhile if he hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself hadn't he tried long ago to act to make a gesture, however feeble, however forlorn for other people's freedom. Half by accident he had managed to free himself from the treadmill. Couldn't he have helped others? If he only had his life to live over again. No, he had not lived up to the name of John Brown. It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to wait one more day. The next morning he started working on the second movement. The lack of a piano made it very difficult to get ahead. Yet he said to himself that he should put down what he could as it would be long before he found leisure again. One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window, watching the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft, heavy step on the landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked. The key turned in the lock. The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed aloud. The window was only twenty feet from the ground and there was a trellis. He got into bed contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow night he would slip out of the window and make for Bordeaux. Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews' papers as he worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and slate-colored. The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled clouds. The scent of the lindens came only intermittently on the sharp wind. In spite of himself, the tune of John Brown's body had crept in among his ideas. Andrews sat with a pencil at his lips, whistling softly, while in the back of his mind a vast chorus seemed singing. John Brown's body lies in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah, but his soul goes marching on. If one only could find freedom by marching for it came the thought. All at once he became rigid. His hands clutched the table edge. There was an American voice under his window. Do you think she's kidding us, Charlie? Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could things repeat themselves like that? Would everything be repeated? And he seemed to hear voices whisper in his ears. One of you men teach him how to salute. He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. The woman had taken the revolver. It's all planned then. She knew, he said aloud, in a low voice. He became suddenly calm. A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted bright green. The man wore a curious jacket of a burnt brown color and held a fishing pole. Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but there was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white clouds. There were steps on the stairs. Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so that Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way they folded their legs against their pale gray bellies. There was a knock. Come in, said Andrews firmly. I beg your pardon, said a soldier with his hat that had a band in his hand. Are you the American? Yes. Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in very good order. The man stammered with embarrassment. Their eyes met. No, I'm a deserter, said Andrews. The MP snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an answering whistle from outside the window. Get your stuff together. I have nothing. Right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me. Outside, the windmill was turning, turning against the piled white clouds of the sky. Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The MP closed the door after them and followed on his heels down the steps. On John Andrews' writing table, the brisk wind rustled among the broad sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the table until the floor was littered with them. End of Section 17. End of Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos.