 13. The killing of Rene Davryl seemed to come to one of the most senseless crimes of the crimes the war had yet perpetrated. It brought home to him far more vividly than the distant death of Pur Gen 14. What an inculcable sum of gifts and virtues went to make up the monster's daily meal. Ah, you want genius, do you? Mere use not enough? And health and gaiety and courage? You want brains in the bud? Imagination and poetry? Ideas all folded up in their sheath. It takes that, does it? To tempt your jaded appetite? He was reminded of the rich Bulgarians who will eat only things out of season. That's what war is like he muttered savagely to himself. The next morning he went to the funeral with Mrs. Tauket between whom and himself. The tragic episode had created a sort of impoverished intimacy. Walking at her side through the November rain behind the Pur horse with the tricolour over it. At the church, while the few mourners shivered in a damp side chapel, he had time to study the family. A Pur sobbing mother, two anemic little girls and the lame sister who was musical. A pietus group smelling of poverty and tears. Behind them to his surprise he saw the curly brown head and short-sighted eyes of Bolston. Camptom wondered at the latter's presence. Then he remembered the friends of French art and concluded that the association had probably been interested in Pur davryl. With some difficulty he escaped from the thanks of the mother and sisters and picked up a taxi to take Mrs. Tauket home. No, back to the hospital, she said. A lot of bad cases have come in and I'm on duty again all day. She spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world and he shuddered at the serenity with which women endure the undurable. At the hospital he followed her in. The davryl family, she told him, had insisted that they had no claim on his picture and that it must be returned to him. Mrs. Tauket went up to fetch it and Camptom waited in one of the drawing rooms. A step sounded behind him and another nurse came in. But was it a nurse or some hallowed none from the Umbrian triptych? Her pure oval framed in white, her long fingers clasping a book and lily. Badam the little match, he cried. I'm thought a new face again, what an artist. She seized his hands. I heard from dear madge Tauket that you were here and I've asked her to leave us together. She looked at him with ravished eyes as if just risen from a penitential vigil. Come please into my little office. You did know that I was the Anthemier Mégil. My dear friend, what upheavals? What cataclysms? I see no one now. All my days and nights are given to my soldiers. She glided ahead on noiseless sandals to a little room where a bowl of jade filled with gardenias and a tortoise shellbox of gold-tipped cigarettes stood on a desk among torn and discoloured livery militaire. The room was empty and madame de Dolmets closing the door, draig Campton to a seat at her side. So close to her he saw that the perfect lines of her face were flawed by marks of suffering. The woman really has a heart, he thought, or the war couldn't have made her so much handsomer. Madame de Dolmets leaned closer. A breath of incense floated from her conventional draperies. I know why you came, she continued. You were good to that poor little Davril. She clutched Campton suddenly with a blue veined hand. My dear friend, can anything justify such horrors? Isn't it abominable that boys like that should be murdered? That some senile old beast of a diplomatist should decree after a good dinner that all we love best must be offered up. She caught his hands again. Her liturgical scent enveloped him. Campton, I know you feel as I do. She paused, pressing his fingers hard, her beautiful mouth trembling. For God's sake, tell me, she implored, how you've managed to keep your sum from the front. Campton drew away, red and inarticulate. I, my son, those things depend on the authorities. My boy's health, he stammered. Yes, yes, I know. Your George is delicate, but so is my bloody sluss, dreadfully. The lungs too. I've trembled for him for so long, and now at any moment. Two tears gathered on her long lashes and rolled down. At any moment he may be taken from the war office, where he's doing invaluable work, and forced into all that blood and horror. He may be brought back to me like those poor creatures upstairs, who are hardly men any longer. Mere, vivicinted animals, without eyes, without faces. She lowered her voice and drew her lips together, so that her very eyes seem to be whispering. Ladislas has enemies, who are jealous of him. I could give you their names. At this moment, someone who ought to be at the front is intriguing to turn him out and get his place. Oh, Campton, you've known this terror. You know what one's nights are like. Have pity. Tell me how you managed. He had no idea of what he answered or how he finally got away. Everything that was dearest to him, the thought of George, the vision of the lad dying upstairs, was defiled by the monstrous coupling of their names, with that of the middle-aged adventurer safe in his spotless uniform at the war office, and beneath the boiling up of Camptons discussed a new fear left at his head. How did Madame de Dolmets know about George? And what did she know? Evidently, there had been foolish talk somewhere. Perhaps it was Miss Sprunt, or perhaps Fortin himself. All these great doctors forgot the professional secret was some one woman, if not with many. Hadn't Fortin revealed to his own wife the reason of Camptons precipitate visit the painter escaped from Madame de Dolmets' scented lair and from the sighs and sounds of the hospital. In a state of such perturbation that for a while he stood in the street wondering where he had meant to go next. He had his own reasons for agreeing to the de Vries suggestion that the picture should be returned to him, and presently the reasons came back. They'd never dare to sell it themselves, but why shouldn't I sell it for them? He had thought remembering their denuded rooms and the rusty smell of the woman's mourning. It cost him a pang to part with the study of his boy, but he was in a superstitious and expiatory mood and eager to act on it. He remembered having been told by Bolston that the friends of French art had their office in the Palais Royal and he made his way through the deserted arcades to the door of a once famous restaurant. Behind the plate glass windows young women with rolled up sleeves and straw in their hair were delving in packing cases while divided from them by an impoverished partition another group were busy piling on the cloakroom shelves garments such as had never before dishonored them. Camden stood fascinated by the sight of the things these women were shorting pink silk combinations sporting ulsters in glaring black and white checks straw hats weathered with last summer sunburn flowers high hailed satin shoes split on the insta and fringed and bulged garments that suggested obsolete names like dolmen and mantel and looked like the costumes dug out of a country house attic by amateurs preparing to play cast was it possible that the friends of French art proposed to clue the families of fallen artists in these prehistoric properties Bolston appeared flushed and delighted and withdraw in his hair also and led his visitor up a cork screw stair they passed a room where a row of people in shabby mourning like that of the d'avril family sat on restaurant chairs before a keys yes this desk and at the desk captain saw miss anthony her veil pushed back and a card catalog at her elbow listening to a young woman who was dramatically stating her case bolston saw captain surprised and said yes we're desperately short-handed and miss anthony has deserted her refugees for a day or two to help me to straighten things out his own office was in a fetid cabinet particularly where the diner table had been turned into a desk and the week springed divan was weighed down under sits already made clothes bearing the label of a whole sale clue there these are the things we really give them but they cost a lot of money to buy bolston explained on the divan sat a handsomely dressed elderly lady with a long emaciated face and red eyes who rose as they entered bolston spoke to her in an undertone and led her into another keppie knee where captain saw her tragic figure sink down on the sofa under a glass scrawled with amorous couplets that was madame boo seat he didn't recognize her per thing her youngest boy is blind his eyes were put out by a shell she is very unhappy and she comes here and helps nine then you see we never see him he's only our honorary president bolston obviously spoke without afterthought but captain felt the sting he too was on the honorary committee per women what the young fellow who did cuba stings i hadn't heard he remembered the cruel humor that view seat when his glory began to wean had encouraged his three sons in three different lines of art so that there might always be a view seat in the fashion you must have to listen to pretty ghastly stories here he said the young man nodded and captain's less embarrassment than he had expected set forth his errand in that atmosphere it seemed natural to be planning ways of relieving misery and bolston at once put him at his ease by looking pleased but not surprised you mean to sell the sketch sir that will put the davreels out of anxiety for a long time and there in a bad way as you saw bolston undid the parcel with a respectful may I and put the campus on a chair he gazed at it for a few moments the blood rising sensitively over his face till he reached his tight ridge of hair captain remembered what george had said of his friends silent admirations he was glad the young man did not speak when he did it was to say with a businesslike accent we're trying to get up an auction of pictures and sketches and if we could lead off with us it was captain's turn to redden the possibility was one he had not thought of if the picture were sold at auction anderson brand would be sure to buy it but he could not say this to bolston he hesitated and the other who seemed quick feeling his way add it at once but perhaps you'd rather sell it privately in that case we should get the money sooner it was just the right thing to say and captain thanked him and picked up his sketch at the door he hesitated feeling that it became a member of the honorary committee to add something more how are you getting on getting all the help you need bolston smiled we need such a lot people have been very generous we've had several big sums but look at those ridiculous clothes downstairs we get boxes and boxes of such rubbish and there are so many applicants and such hard cases take those poor davreels for instance the lame davreel girl has a talent for music plays the violin well what good does it do her now the artists are having an awful time if this war goes on much longer it won't be only at the front they'll die ah captain said well i'll take this to a dealer on the way down he turned in to greet miss anthony she looked up in surprise her tired face hallowed in thumbling hairpins but she was too busy to do more than nod across the grip about her desk at his offer to take her home she shook her head i'm here till after seven mr bolston and i are nearly snowed under we've got to go down presently and help unpack and after that i'm due at my refugee canteen at the gnaw it's my night shift captain on the way back to mutt fell to wondering if such excesses of altruism were necessary or a mere vain overflow of energy he was terrified by his first close glimpse of the ravages of war and the efforts of the little band struggling to heal them seemed pitifully ineffectual no doubt they did good here and there made a few lives less intolerable but how the insatiable monster must laugh at them as he spread his red havoc wider on reaching home captain forgot everything at sight of a letter from george he had not had one for two weeks and this interruption just as the military males were growing more regular had made him anxious but it was the usual letter brief cheerful in expressive apparently there was no change in george's situation nor any wish on his part that there should be he grumbled humorously at the dullness of his work and the monotony of life in a warzone town and wondered whether if this sort of thing went on there might not soon be some talk of leave and just at the end of his affectionate and unsatisfactory two pages can't let on a name that roused him i saw a fellow who'd seen benny up sure yesterday on his way to the english front the young lunatic looked very fit you know he volunteered in the english army when he found he couldn't get into the french he's likely to get all the fighting he wants it was a relief to know that someone had seen benny up sure lately the letter was about four days old and he was then on his way to the front probably he was not yet in the fighting he wanted and one could without remorse call up an unmutilated face and clear blue eyes come to rereading the post script was struck by a small thing george had originally written i saw benny up sure yesterday and had then altered the phrase too i saw a fellow who'd seen benny up sure there was nothing out of the way in that it simply showed that he had written in haste and revised the sentence but he added the young lunatic looked very fit well that too was natural it was the fellow who reported benny as looking fit the phrase was rather elliptic but campton could hardly have said why it gave him the impression that it was george himself who had seen up sure the idea was manifestly absurd since there was the length of the front between george's staff town and the very pit yawning for his cousin canton laid aside the letter with the distinct wish that his son had not called benny up sure a young lunatic end of chapter 13 recording by chad chapter 14 of a son at the front this is a liper vox recording all liper vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liper vox.org recording by chad a son at the front by edith worton chapter 14 when campton took his sketch of george to leonice black the dealer who specialized in campton's he was surprised at the magnitude of the sum which the great picture broker lunging in a glossy wort of this uniform among his gogan and guillard immediately offered leonice black noted his surprise and smiled you think there's nothing doing nowadays don't you believe it mr campton now that the big men have stopped painting the collectors are all the keener to snap up what's left in their portfolios he placed the check in campton's hand and drew back to study the effects of the sketch which he had slipped into a frame against a velvet curtain ah he said as if he were tasting an old wine as campton turned to go the dealer's enthusiasm bubbled over haven't you got anything more remember me if you have i don't sell my sketches said campton this was exceptional for a charity i know i know well you're likely to have a good many more calls of the same sort before we get this war over the dealer remarked philosophically anyhow remember i can place anything you'll give me when people want a campton it's to me they come i've got standing orders from two clients both given before the war and both good today campton paused in the doorway seized by his old fear of the paintings passing into anderson brunt's possession look here where is this one going the dealer cogged sandsome gray head and glanced archly through pulp eyelids violation of professional secrecy well well under constraint i'll confess it's a young lady great admirer artist herself has her order by cable from new york a year ago been on the outlook ever since oh well right campton answered repocketing the money he set out at once for the friends of french art and leonis black bound for the ministry of war walked by his side regaling him alternately with the gossip of the ministry and with racy anecdotes of the dealer's world in black's opinion the war was an inexcusable blunder since germany was getting to be the best market for the kind of freak painters out of him the dealers who know how to make a man foam can make a big turnover i don't know what on earth will become of those poor devils now paris cared for them only because she knew germany would give any money for their things personally as you know i've always preferred sounder goods i'm a classic my dear captain and i can feel only classic art said the dealer swelling out his uniform breast and stroking his assyrian nose as though its handsome curve followed the pure delphic line but as long as things go on as they are at present in my department of the administration the war's not going to end in a hurry he continued and now we're in for it we've got to see the thing three captain found bolstin as usual in his melancholy cabinet particulars he was listening to the tale of a young woman with streaming eyes and an extravagant hat she was so absorbed in her trouble that she did not notice captain's entrance and behind her back the painter made a sign to say that she was not to be interrupted he was as much interested in the suppliance tale as in watching bolstin's way of listening that modest and commonplace looking young man was beginning to excite a lively curiosity and quantum it was not only that he remembered george's commendation for he knew that the generous enthousiasms of youth may be inspired by trifles imperceptible to the older it was bolstin himself who interested the painter he knew no more of the young man than the scant details miss anthony could give bolstin it appeared was the oldest hope of a well-to-do connecticut family on his leaving college a place had been reserved for him in the paternal business but he had announced good humorly that he did not mean to spend his life in an office and one day after a 10 minutes conversation with his father as to which details were lacking he had packed a suitcase and sealed for france there he had lived ever since in shabby rooms in the rue de verne on the scant allowance remitted by an irate parent apparently never running into debt he'd always ready to help a friend all the american art students in paris knew bolstin and though he was still in the early thirties they all looked up to him for bolstin had one quality which always impresses youth bolstin knew everybody whether you went with him to a smart restaurant in the rue royale or to your wine shop of the left bank the patron welcomed him with the same cordiality and sent the same instructions to the cook the first fresh peas and the tender spring chicken were always for this quiet youth who when he was alone dined cheerfully unveil un vin ordinaire if you want to know where to get the best burgundy bolstin could tell you he could also tell you where to buy an engagement ring for your girl a forward runabout going at half price or a puppy at tondra on which to address a summons to a recalcitrant laundress if you got into a row with your landlady you find the bolstin near and that at sight of him she melted and withdrew her claim or failing this he knew the solicitor in whose office her son was a clerk or had other means of producing her to reason bolstin also knew a man who could make old clogs go another who could clean flannels without their shrinking and a third who could get you old picture frames for a song and best of all when any inexperienced american youth was caught in the dark persian cobweb and the people at home were on no account to hear about it bolstin was found to be the friend and familiar of certain occult authorities who with a smile and a word of warning could break the mesh and free the victim the mystery was how and why all these people did what bolstin wanted but the reason began to dawn on campton as he watched the young woman in the foolish hat deliver herself of a grievance bolstin was simply a perfect listener and most of his life was spent in listening everything about him listened his round forehead and peering screwed up eyes his lips twitching responsibly under the close clip moustache and every crease and dimple of his sagatous and humorous young countenance even the attitude of his short fat body with elbows comfortably bedded in heaped up papers and fingers plunged into his crinkled hair there was never a hint of hurry or impatience about him having once asserted his right to do what he liked with his life he was apparently content to let all his friends prey on it you never caught his eye on the clock or his lips shaping an answer before you had turned the last corner of your story yet when the story was told when he had surveyed it in all its bearings you could be sure he would do what he could for you and do it before the day was over very well mademoiselle he said when the young woman had finished i promise you i'll see madame bucete and try to get her to recognize your claim mind you i don't ask charity i won't take charity from your committee the young lady hissed gathering up a tawdry handbag oh we're not forcing it on anyone smiled bolstering opening the door for her when he turned back to camp in his face was flushed and frying poor thing she's in usins but i'll fight to the last ditch for her the chap she lives with was bucete's secretary and understudy and deviled for him before the war the power fellow has come back from the front a complete wreck i can't even collect the salary bucete owes him for the last three months before the war bucete's plea is that he's too poor and that the war lets him out of paying of course he counts on our doing it for him and you're not going to well sit bolstering you mercilessly i shouldn't wonder if he beats us in the long run but i'll have a first try and anyhow the poor girl needn't know she used to earn a little money doing fashion articles but of course there's no market for that now and i don't see how the pair can live they have a little boy and there's an infirm mother and they're waiting to get married till the girl can find a job good lord camped and groaned with the sudden vision of the countless little trades and traffics arrested by the war and all the industrious thousands were just by couverless properism or slow death how do they live all these people they don't always i could tell you don't for god's sake i can't stand it camped and drew out the check here this is what i've got for the dove reels good lord said bolstering staring with round eyes it will pull them through anyhow won't it camped and triumphed well said bolson it will if you'll endorse it he added smiling camped and laughed and took up a pen a day or two later camped and returning home one afternoon overtook a small black veiled figure with a limp legosone he guessed it once that it was the lame devril girl come to thank him and his dislike of such ceremonies caused him to glance about for a way of escape but as he did so the girl turned with a white that put him to shame he remembered Adele anthony saying one day when he had found her in her refugee office patiently undergoing a like ordeal we've no right to refuse the only coin they can repay us in the devril girl was a plain likeness of her brother with the same hungry flame in her eyes she wore the nondescript black that cometon had remarked at the funeral and knowing the importance which the french attached to every detail of conventional mourning he wondered that mother and daughter had not laid out part of his gift in crepe but doubtless the equally strong instinct of thrift had caused madame d'avril to put away the wholesome madame d'avril greeted captain pleasantly and assured him that she had not found the long way from village ureth to mon madre too difficult i would have gone to you the painter protested but she answered that she wanted to see with her own eyes where her brother's friend lived in the studio she looked about her with a quick searching glance said oh a piano as if the fact were connected with the object of her errand and then settling herself in an armchair unclasped her shabby handbag once sure there has been a misunderstanding this money is not ours she'd let captain's check on the table a flush of annoyance rose to the painter's face what on earth had bolstin let him in for if the devrils were as proud as all that it was not worthwhile to have sold a sketch it had cost him such a pint to part with he felt the exasperation of the would-be philanthropist when he first discovers that nothing complicates life as much as doing good but mademoiselle this money is not ours if renais had lived he would never have sold your picture and we would starve rather than betray his trust when stout ladies in velvet declare that they would starve rather than sacrifice this or that principle the statement has only the cold beauty of rhetoric but on the drawn lips of a thinly clouded young woman evidently acquainted with the process it becomes a fiery reality starve nonsense my dear young lady you betray him when you talk like that said captain moved she shook her head it depends monster which things matter most to one we shall never my mother and i do anything that renais would not have done the picture was not ours we brought it back to you but if the picture's not yours it's mine captain erupted and i had a right to sell it had a right to do what i choose with the money his visitor smiled that's what we feel it was what i was coming to and clasping her threadbare glove tips about the arms of the chair mademoiselle davril set forth with extreme precision the object of her visit it was to propose that captain should hand over the check to the friends of french art devoting one third to the aid of the families of combatant painters the rest to the young musicians and authors it doesn't seem right that only the painters families should benefit by what your committee are doing and renais would have thought so too he knew so many young men of letters and journalists who before the war just managed to keep their families alive and in my profession i could tell you of poor music teachers and accompanists whose work stopped the day war broke out and who have been living ever since on the crusts their luckier comrades could spare them renais would have let us accept from you help that was shared with others he would have been so glad often of a few franks to relieve the misery we see about us and this great sum might be the beginning of a cooperative work for artists reigned by the war she went on to explain that in the families of almost all the young artists at the front there was at least one member at home who practiced one of the arts or who was capable of doing some kind of useful work the value of captain's gift ma'am zeal lefrere argued would be tripled if it were so employed as to give the artists and their families occupation producing at least the illusion that those who could were earning their living or helping their less fortunate comrades it's not only a question of saving their dignity i don't believe much in that you have dignity or you haven't and if you have it doesn't need any saving this clear toned young woman remarked the real question for all of us artists is that of keeping our hands in and our interests in our work alive sometimes too of giving a new talent its first chance at any rate it would mean work and not stagnation which is all that most charity produces she developed her plan for the musicians concerts in the private houses once her glance at the piano for the painters small exhibitions in the rooms of the committee where their pictures would be sold with the deduction of a percentage to be returned to the general fund and for the writers well their lot was perhaps the hardest to deal with but an employment agency might be opened where those who chose could put their names down and take such work as was offered above all ma'am zeal afreel again insisted the fund created by campton's gift was to be spent only in giving employment not for mere relief campton listened with growing attention nothing hitherto had been less in the line of his interests than the large schemes of general amelioration which were coming to be classed under the transatlantic term of social welfare if questioned on the subject a few months earlier he would probably have concealed his fundamental indifference under the profession of an extreme individualism and the assertion of every man's right to suffer and starve in his own way ever since rene the frills death had brought home to him the boundless havoc of the war he had felt no more than the impulse to seize his own pain by putting his hand in his pocket when a particular case was too poignant to be ignored yet here were people who had already offered their dearest difference and were now pleading to be allowed to give all the rest and who had had courage and wisdom to think out in advance the form in which their gift would do most good campton had the awe of the unpractical man for anyone who knows how to apply his ideas he felt that there was no use in disputing madam zeal davreel's plan he must either agree to it or repocket his check i'll do as you want of course but i'm not much good about details hadn't you better consult someone else he suggested oh that was already done she had outlined her project to miss anthony and mr bolston he approved all she wanted was campton's consent and this he gave the more cordially when he learned that for the present at least nothing more was expected of him first steps in beneficence he felt were unspeakably terrifying yet he was already aware that resists as he might he would never be able to keep his footing on the brink of that abyss into yet as the days went by his gaze was oftener and oftener plunged he had begun to feel that pity was his only remaining link with his kind the one barrier between himself and the dreadful stolitude which awaited him when he returned to his studio what would there have been to think of there alone among his unfinished pictures and his broken memories if not the once and most of people were bereft on himself his own future was not a thing to dwell on george was safe but what george and he were likely to make of each other after the ordeal was over was a question he preferred to put aside he was more and more taking george and his safety for granted as a solid standing ground from which to reach out a hand to the thousand struggling in the depths as long as the world's fate was in the balance it was every man's duty to throw into that balance his last ounce of brain and muscle campton wondered how he had ever thought that an accident of birth of remoteness merely geographical could justify or even make possible an attitude of moral aliveness harvey mayhew's reasons for wishing to annihilate germany began to seem less grotesque than his own for standing aside in the heat of his conversation he no longer grudged the urge given to mr mayhew he patiently led his trusland relative from one government office to another everywhere laying stress on mr mayhew's sympathy with france and his desire to advocate her cause to the in the united states trying to curtail his enumeration of his grievances by a glance at the clock and the reminder that they had another minister to see mr mayhew was not very manageable his adventure had grown with repetition and he was increasingly disposed to feel that the retaliation he called down on germany could best be justified by telling everyone what he had suffered from intensely aware of the value of time in yurika he was less sensible of it in paris and seemed to think that since he had left a flourishing business to preach the holy war other people ought to leave their affairs to give him a hearing but his zeal and persistence were irresistible and doors which campden have seen barred against the most reasonable appeals flew open at the side of mr mayhew's trumpet his pink face and silvery hair gave him an apostolic air and circles to which america had hitherto been a mere speck in space suddenly discovered that he represented that legendary character the typical american the king bolstin prompt to note and utilize the fact urge captain to interest mr mayhew in the friends of french art and with considerable flourish the former peace delegate was produced at a committee meeting and given his head but his interest flagged when he found that the friends concerned themselves with atrocities only in so far as any act of war is won and that their immediate task was the humdrum one of feeding and clothing the families of combatants and sending comforts to the trenches he served up with a somewhat dogged eloquence the unusual account of his own experiences impressed a modest gift upon the treasurer but when he departed after ringing everybody's hands and leaving the french members bejewd with emotion campden with the conviction that their quiet weekly meetings would not often be fluttered by his presence campden was spending an increasing amount of time in the palais royal restaurant where he performed any drudgery from which no initiative was required once or twice when miss anthony was submerged by a fresh influx of refugees he lent her a hand too and on most days he dropped in late at her office waited for her to sift and dismiss the last applicants and saw her home through the incessant rain it increased him to note that the ultrason she had so long wasted on pampered friends was developing into a wise and orderly benevolence they had always thought of her as an eternal skull girl now she had grown into a woman sometimes he fancied the change dated from the moment when their eyes had met across the station the day that they had seen george off he wondered whether it might not be interesting to paint her new face if ever painting became again thinkable passion i suppose the great thing is capacity for passion he mused in himself he imagined the capacity to be quite dead he loved his son yes but he was beginning to see that he loved him for certain qualities he had read into him and that perhaps after all well perhaps after all the sin for which he was now atoning in loneliness was that of having been too exclusively an artist of having cherished george too egoistically and self-indulgently too much as his own most beautiful creation if he had loved him more humanly more tenderly and recklessly might he have not put into his son the tenderness and recklessness which were beginning to seem to him the qualities most supremely human end of chapter 14 recording by chad chapter 15 of a son at the front this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by riley mcguire a son at the front by edith warden chapter 15 a week or two later coming home late from a long day's work at the office campton saw madame labelle awaiting him he always stopped for a word now fearing each time that there was bad news of joules labelle but not wishing to seem to avoid her today however madame labelle though mysterious was not anxious mon syrup will find the studio open there's a lady she insisted on going up a lady why did you let her in what kind of a lady a lady well a lady with such magnificent furs that one couldn't keep her out in the cold madame labelle answered with simplicity campton went up apprehensively the idea of unknown persons in possession of his studio always made him nervous whoever they were whatever errands they came on they always especially women disturbed the tranquil course of things faced him with unexpected problems unsettled him in one way or another bouncing in on people suddenly was like dynamiting fish it left him with his mind full of fragments of dismembered thoughts as he entered he perceived from the temperate atmosphere that madame labelle had not only opened the studio but made up the fire the lady's furs must indeed be magnificent she sat at the farther end of the room in a high backed chair near the stove and when she rose he recognized his former wife the long sable cloak which had slipped back over the chair justified madame labelle's description but the dress beneath it appeared to campton simpler than mrs brant's habitual raiment the lamplight striking up into her powdered face puffed out her underlids and made harsh hollows in her cheeks she looked frightened ill and yet determined john she began laying her hand on his sleeve it was the first time she had ever set foot in his shabby quarters and in his astonishment he could only stammer out julia but as he looked at her he saw that her face was wet with tears not bad news he broke out she shook her head and drawing a handker chiff from a diamond monogrammed bag wiped away the tears and the powder then she pressed the handker chiff to her lips gazing at him with eyes as helpless as a child's sit down said campton as they faced each other across the long table with papers and paint rags and writing materials pushed aside to make room for the threadbare napkin on which his plate and glass and bottle of vinn ordinaire were set out he wondered if the scene woke in her any memory of their first days of gaiety and poverty where she merely pitied him for still living in such squalor and suddenly it occurred to him that when the war was over and george came back it would be pleasant to hunt out a little apartment in an old house in the full bag saint germain put some good furniture in it and oppose the discreeter charm of such an interior to the heavy splendors of the avenue marignet how could he expect to hold a luxury loving youth if he only had this dingy studio to receive him in mrs brandt began to speak i came here to see you because i didn't wish anyone to know not a dell nor even anderson lenient award him she went on in short breathless sentences i've just left match talk it you know her i think she's at madame to dolmets just hospital something dreadful has happened too dreadful it seems that madame to dolmets was very much in love with lattice lass isidore a writer wasn't he i don't know his books but mange tells me they're wonderful and of course men like that ought not to be sent to the front men like what geniuses said mrs brandt he was dreadfully delicate besides and was doing admirable work on some military commission in paris i believe he knew any number of languages and poor madame to dolmets you know i've never approved of her but things are so changed nowadays and at any rate she was madly attached to him and had done everything to keep him in paris medical certificates people at headquarters working for her and all the rest but it seems that there are no end of officers always intriguing to get staff jobs strong able-bodied young men who ought to be in the trenches and are fit for nothing else but who are jealous of the others and last week in spite of all she could do poor isidore was ordered to the front camped and made an impatient movement it was even more distasteful for him to be appealed to by mrs brandt and isidore's name by madame to dolmets and georges his gorge rose at the thought that people should associate in their minds cases as different as those of his son and madame to dolmets just love her i'm sorry he said but if you've come to ask me to do something more about george take any new steps it's no use i can't do the sort of thing to keep my son's safe that madame to dolmets would do for her lover mrs brandt stared safe he was killed the day after he got to the front good lord isidore lattice lass isidore killed at the front the words remained unmeaning by no effort could campton relate them to the fat middle-aged philanderer with his jewish eyes his slab eloquence his leventine gift for getting on and for getting out from under campton tried to picture the clever contriving devil drawn in his turn into that merciless red eddy and gulped down the monster's throat with the rest what a mad world it was in which the same horrible and magnificent doom awaited the coward and the hero poor madame to dolmets he muttered remembering with a sense of remorse her desperate appeal and his curt rebuff once again the poor creature's love had enlightened her and she had foreseen what no one else in the world would have believed that her lover was to die like a hero isidore was nearly 40 and had a weak heart and she'd left nothing literally nothing undone to save him campton read in his wife's eyes what was coming it's impossible now that george should not be taken mrs brandt went on the same thought had tightened campton's own heartstrings but he had hoped she would not say it it may be george's turn any day she insisted they sat and looked at each other without speaking then she began again imploringly i tell you there's not a moment to be lost campton picked up a palette knife and began absently to rub it with an oily rag mrs brandt's anguished voice still sounded on unless something is done immediately it appears there's a regular hunt for embusques as they're called as if it was everybody's business to be killed how is the staff work to be carried on if they're all taken but it's certain that if we don't act at once act energetically he fixed his eyes on hers why do you come to me he asked her lids opened wide but he's our child your husband knows more people he has ways you've often told me she reddened faintly and seemed about to speak but the reply died on her lips why did you say campton pursued that you had come here because you wanted to see me without brandt's knowing it she lowered her eyes and fixed them on the knife he was still automatically rubbing because anderson thinks anderson won't he says he's done all he can ah cried campton drawing a deep breath he threw back his shoulders as if to shake off a weight i feel exactly as brandt does he declared you you feel as he does you george's father but a father has never done all he can for his son there's always something more that he can do the words breaking from her in a cry seemed suddenly to change her from an aging doll into a living and agonized woman campton had never before felt as near to her as moved to the depths by her for the length of a heartbeat he saw her again with a red haired baby in her arms the light of mourning on her face my dear i'm sorry he laid his hand on hers sorry sorry i don't want you to be sorry i want you to do something i want you to save him he phased her with bent head gazing absently at their interwoven fingers each hand had forgotten to release the other i can't do anything more he repeated she started up with a despairing exclamation what's happened to you who has influenced you what has changed you how could he answer her he hardly knew himself had hardly been conscious of the change till she suddenly flung it in his face if blind animal passion be the profoundest as well as the fiercest form of attachment his love for his boy was at that moment as nothing to hers yet his feeling for george in spite of all the phrases he dressed it in had formerly in its essence been no other that his boy should survive survive at any price that had been all he cared for or sought to achieve it had been convenient to justify himself by arguing that george was not bound to fight for france but campton now knew that he would have made the same effort to protect his son if the country engaged had been his own in the careless pre-war world as george himself had once said it had seemed unbelievable that people should ever again go off and die in a ditch to oblige anybody even now the automatic obedience of the millions of the on taut and the on thinking though it had its deep pathetic significance did not move campton like the clear eyed sacrifice of the few who knew why they were dying j'en fautin renais d'avril and such lads as young louis d'astry with his reasoned horror of butchery and waste in general and his instant grasp of the necessity of this particular sacrifice it was they who had first shed light on the dark problem campton had never before at least consciously thought of himself and the few beings he cared for as part of a greater whole component elements of the immense amazing spectacle but the last four months had shown him man as a defenseless animal suddenly torn from his shell stripped of all the interwoven tendrils of association habit background daily ways and words daily sights and sounds and flung out the human habitable world into naked either where nothing breathes or lives that was what war did that was why those who best understood it and all its farthest reaching abomination willingly gave their lives to put an end to it he heard mrs. brandt crying julia he said julia i wish you'd try to see she dashed away her tears see what all i see is you sitting here safe and saying you can do nothing to save him but to have the right to say that you ought to be in the trenches yourself what do you suppose those young men out there think of their fathers safe at home who are too high-minded and conscientious to protect them he looked at her compassionately yes he said that's the bitterest part of it but for that there would hardly be anything in the worst war for us old people to lie awake about mrs. brandt had stood up and was feverishly pulling on her gloves he saw that she no longer heard him he helped her to draw her furs about her and stood waiting while she straightened her veil and tapped the waves of hair into place her eyes blindly seeking for a mirror there was nothing more that either could say he lifted the lamp and went out of the door ahead of her you needn't come down she said in a sob but leaning over the rail into the darkness he answered i'll give you a light the concierge has forgotten the lamp on the stairs he went ahead of her down the long greasy flights then as they reached the ground floor he heard a noise of feet coming and going and frightened voices exclaiming in the doorway of the porter's lodge mrs. brandt splendid chauffeur stood looking on compassionately at a group of women gathered around madame labelle the old woman sat in her den her arms stretched across the table her sewing fallen at her feet on the table lay an open letter the grocer's wife from the corner stood by sobbing mrs. brandt stopped and campton sure now what was coming pushed his way through the neighbors about the door madame labelle's eyes met his with the mute reproach of a tortured animal jewels she said last wednesday through the heart campton took her old withered hand the women ceased sobbing and a hush fell upon the stifling little room when campton looked up again he saw julia brandt pale and bewildered hurrying toward her motor and the vault of the potcour chair sent back the chauffeur's answer to her startled question poor old lady yes her only son's been killed at the front end of chapter 15 recording by riley mcguire chapter 16 of a son at the front this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by chad horner a son at the front by edith worton chapter 16 campton sat with his friend dastry in the latter's pleasant little utter soul full of chinese lacquer and venetian furniture dastry in the last days of january had been sent home from his ambulance with an attack of rheumatism and when it became clear that he could no longer be of use in the mud and cold of the army zone he had reluctantly taken his place behind the desk at the ministry of war the friends had dined early so that he might get back to his night shift and they sat over coffee and liquors the mist of their cigars floating across lustrous cabinet fronts and the worn gliding of slender consoles on the other side of the hearth young bolstern sunk in an armchair smoked and listened it always comes back to the same thing campton was saying nervously what right have useless old men like me sitting here with my cigar by this good fire to preach blood and victory to boys like george and your nephew again and again during the day since mrs brunt's visit he had turned over in his mind the same torturing question how was he to answer that last hunt of hers not long ago paul dastry would have seen the last person to him he could have submitted such a problem dastry in the black august days starting for the front in such a friendly of baffled blood lust had remained for campton the type of man with him it was impossible to discuss the war but three months of hard service and along the awful battle edge i'd sent him home with a mind no longer befogged by personal problems he had done his utmost and knew it and the fact gave him the professional calm which keeps surgeons and nurses steady through all the horrors they are compelled to live among those few months have matured and mellowed him more than a lifetime of paris he leaned back with half closed lids quietly considering his friend's difficulty i see your idea is that being unable to do even the humble kind of job that i've been assigned to you've no right not to try to keep your boy out of it if you can well by any honorable means dastry laughed faintly and campton reddened the words not happy i admit i wasn't thinking of that i was considering how the meaning had evaporated out of lots of our old words as if the general smash up had broken their stoppers so many of them you see said dastry smiling we'd taken good care not to uncork for centuries since i've been on the edge of what's going on 50 miles from here a good many of my own words have lost their meaning and i'm not prepared to say we're on our lies in a case like yours he mused a moment and then went on what would george's view be campton did not immediately reply not so many weeks ago he would have welcomed the chance of explaining that george's view thank god had remained perfectly detached and objective and that the cheerful acceptance of duties for should be imposed on him had not in the least obscured his sense of the fundamental injustice of his being mixed up in the thing at all but how could he say this now if george's view was still what his father had been in the habit of saying it was then he held that view alone can't do himself no longer thought that any civilized man could afford to stand aside from such a conflict as far as i know he said george hasn't changed his mind bolston stirred in his armchair knocked the ash from his cigar and looked up at the ceiling whereas you dastry suggested yes said campton i feel differently you speak of the difference of having been in contact with what's going on out there but how can anybody not be in contact who has any imagination any sense of right and wrong do these pictures and hangings ever shut it out from you or those books over there when you turn to them after your day's work perhaps they do because you've got a real job a job you've been ordered to do and can't not do but for a useless drifting devil like me my god the sights and the sounds of it are always with me there are a good many people who wouldn't call you useless mr campton said bolston campton shook his head i wish there were any healing in the kind of thing i'm doing perhaps there is to you to him it appears to come naturally to love your kind bolston laughed service is of no use without conviction that's one of the uncomfortable truths that this stirrup has brought to the surface i was meant to paint pictures in a world at peace and i should have more respect for myself if i could go on unconcernedly doing it instead of pining to be in all the places where i'm not wanted and should be of no earthly use that's why he paused looked about him and sought understanding industri's friendly gaze that's why i respect george's opinion which really consists in not having any and simply doing without comment the work assigned to him the whole thing is so far beyond human measure that one's individual rage and revolt seem of no more use than a woman's scream at an accident she isn't in even while he spoke campton knew he was arguing only against himself he did not in the least believe that any individual sentiment counted for nothing at such a time and astry really spoke for him in rejoicing everyone can at least contribute and that attitude as you have my dear fellow bolston's here to confirm it bolston grunted his assent an attitude an attitude campton retorted the word is revolting to me anything a man like me can do is too easy to be worth doing and as for anything one can say how dare one say anything in the face of what is being done out there to keep this room and this fire and this ragged end of life safe for such survivals as you and me he crossed to the table to take another cigar as he did so he laid an apologetic pressure on his hosts shoulder men of our age are the chorus of the tragedy that's three we can't help ourselves as soon as i open my lips to blame or praise i see myself in white petticoats with a long beard held on by an elastic goading on the combatants in a cracked voice from a safe corner of the ramparts on the whole i'd soon be spinning among the women well sedustry getting up i've got to get back to my spinning at the ministry where by the way there are some very pretty young women at the dis staff it's extraordinary how much better pretty girls type than playmen's i see now why they get all the jobs the three went out into the winter blackness they were used by this time to the new paris to extinguish lamps shuttered windows deserted streets the almost total cessation of wheeled traffic all through the winter life had seemed insuspense everywhere as much on the battlefront as in the rear day after day week after week of rain and sleet and mud day after day week after week of vague non-committal news from west and east everywhere the enemy baffled but still menacing everywhere death suffering destruction without any perceptible oscillation of the scales any compensating hope of good to come out of the long slow endless waste the benumbed and darkened paris of those february days seemed the visible image of a benumbed and darkened world down the empty asphalt sheeted with rain and rare street lights stretched interminable reflections the three men crossed the bridge and stood watching the rush of the sign below them glimmed the vague bulk of deserted bathhouses unlit barges reverge steamers out of commission the sign too had ceased to live only a single orange gleam low on the water's edge undulated on the jetty waves like a streamer of seaweed the two americans left dastry aris ministry and the painter strolled on to bolstin's lodging before descending to the underground railway he whom his lameness had made so heavy and indolent now limped about for hours at a time over wet pavements and under streaming skies these midnight trumps had become a sort of expiatory need to him out there out there if they had these wet stones under them they think it was the floor of heaven he used to muse driving on obstinately through rain and darkness the thought of out there besieged him day and night the phrase was always in his ears wherever he went he was pursued by visions of that land of doom visions of fathomless mud rat hunted trenches freezing nights under the sleety sky men dying in the barbed wire between the lines or crawling out to save a comrade and being shattered to death on the return his collaboration with bolstin had brought campton into close contact with these things he knew by heart the history of scores and scores of young men of george's age who were doggedly suffering and dying a few hours away from the paleo royal office where their records were kept some of these histories were so heroically simple that the sense of pain was lost in beauty as though one were looking at suffering transmitted into poetry but others were abominable undurable in their long drawn useless horror stories of cold and filth and hunger of ineffectual effort of hideous mutilation of men perishing of thirst in a shell hole and half dismembered bodies dragging themselves back to shelter only to die as they reached it worst of all where the perpetually recurring reports of military blunders medical neglect carelessness in high places the torturing knowledge of the lives that might have been saved if this or that officer's brain this or that surgeon's hand had acted more promptly an impression of waste confusion ignorance obstinacy prejudice and the indifference of selfishness or of moral fatigue emanated from these narratives written home from the front or filtered out by white lips on hospital pillows the friends of french art especially since they had enlarged their range had to do with young men accustomed to the freest exercise of thought and criticism a nation in arms does not judge a war as simply as an army of professional soldiers all these young intelligences were so many subtly adjusted instruments for the testing of the machinery of which they formed a part and not one accepted the results passively yet in one respect all were agreed the had to be of the first day was still on every lip the german menace must be met chance willed that theirs should be the generation to meet it on that point speculation was vain and discussion useless the question that stirred them all was how the country they were defending was helping them to carry on the struggle there the evidence was clearly clear the comment often scathingly explicit and campton bending still lower over the abyss caught a shuddering glimpse of what might be must be if political blunders inertia tolerance perhaps even evil ambitions and connivances should at last outweigh the effort of the front there was no logical argument against such a possibility all civilizations had their orbit all societies rose and fell someday no doubt by the action of that law everything that made the world livable to campton and his kind would crumble in new ruins above the old yes but woe to them by whom such things came woe to the generation that bowed to such a law the powers of darkness were always watching and seeking there are but the past was a record of their failures as well as of their triumphs campton brushing up his history remembered the great turning points of progress saw how the liberties of england have been born of the breathless discipline of the norm of conquest and how even out of the hideous welter of the french revolution and the Napoleonic wars have come more freedom and a wiser order the point was to remember that the efficacy of the sacrifice was always in proportion to the worth of the victims and there at least his faith was sure he could not he felt leave his former wife's uphill unnoticed after a day or two he wrote to george telling him of mrs brant's anxiety and asking in vague terms if george himself thought any change in his situation probable his letter ended abruptly i suppose it's hardly time yet to ask for leave end of chapter 16 recording by chad horner chapter 17 of the sun at the front this is a liberfox recording all liberfox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberfox.org recording by chad a sun at the front by edith worton chapter 17 not long after his midnight trump with bolstin and dastry the post brought campton two layers one was postmarked paris the other bore the military frank and was addressed in his son's hand he laid it aside while he glanced at the first it contained an engraved card mrs anderson brunt at home on february 20th at four o'clock mr harvey mayhew will give an account of his captivity in germany madame d dullmetch will sing for the benefit of the friends of french art committee tickets 100 francs enclosed was the circular of the subcommittee in aid of musicians at the front with which campton was not directly associated it bore the names of mrs tulkett madame bossy and a number of other french and american ladies campton tossed the card away he was not annoyed by the invitation he knew that miss anthony and marinzel davril were getting up a series of drawing room entertainments for that branch of the charity and that the card had been sent to him as a member of the honorary committee but any reminder of the sort always give a sharp twitch to the brunt nerve in him he turned to george's letter it was no longer than usual but in other respects it was unlike his son's previous communications campton read it over two or three times dear dad thanks for yours of the tenth which must have come to me on skis the snow here is so deep there had in fact been a heavy snowfall in the argon sorry mother is bothering about things again as you've often reminded me they always have a way of being as they will be and even war doesn't seem to change it nothing to worry her in my case but you can't expect her to believe that can you neither you nor i can help it i suppose there's one thing that might help though and that is you're letting her feel that you're a little nearer to her war makes a lot of things look differently especially this sedentary kind of war it's rather like going over all the old odds and ends in one's cupboards and some of them do look so foolish i wish you'd see her now and then just naturally as if it had happened you know you've got one inexcusable topic between you this i t is doing well and has nothing new to communicate up to now except a change of address hereafter please write to my base instead of directing here as there's some chance of a shift of hq the precaution is probably just a new twist of the old red tape signifying nothing but base will always reach me if we are shifting let mother know and explain please otherwise she'll think the unthinkable interrupted by big drive quill drive of course as ever georgias scrublerious ps don't be too savage to uncle andy either number two i had thought of leave but perhaps you're right about that it was the first time george had written in that way of his mother his smiling policy had always been to let things alone and go on impartially dividing his devotion between his parents since they refused to share even that common blessing but war give everything a new look and he had inevitably as he put it been turning over the old things in his cupboards how was it possible campton wondered that after such a turning over he was still content to write nothing new to communicate and to make jokes about another big will drive glancing at the date of the letter campton saw that it had been written on the day after the first ineffectual infantry assault on voeck and george was sitting a few miles off safe in headquarters at saunt menu with a stout riff over his head and a beautiful brown gloss on his spits scribbling punning letters while his comrades fell back from that bloody summit suddenly campton's eyes filled no george had not written that letter for the sake of the joke the joke was meant to cover what went before it ah how young the boy was to imagine that his father would not say yes as he said war made so many of the old things look foolish campton set out for the palet royal he felt happier than for a long time past the tone of his boys later seemed to correspond with his own secret change of spirit he knew the futility of attempting to bring the brunts and himself together but was glad that george had made the suggestion he resolved to say jillia that afternoon at the palet royal he found the indefatigable bolstin busy with an exhibition of paintings sent home from the front and madam zeal davril helping to catalog them lamentable pensioners came and went bringing fresh tales of death fresh details of savagery the air was dark with poverty and sorrow in the background madame bucete flitted about tragic and ineffectual bolstin had not been able to extract a penny from bucete for his secretary and the ladders left hand at family but madame bucete had discovered a newly organized charity which lent money to temporarily embarrassed war victims and with an artless self satisfaction she had contrived to obtain a small loan for the victim of her own thrift for what other purpose or such charities found it she said gently disclaiming in advance the prayers which miss antony and bolstin had no thought of offering her whenever camden came in she faced herself behind a desk where she bent her beautiful whitehead over a card catalog without any perceptible results the telephone rang bolstin after a moment looked up from the receiver mister camden the painter glanced apprehensively at the instrument which still seemed to him charged with explosives take the message do the thing always snaps at me there was a listening pause then bolstin said it's about up sure camden started up killed not sure it's mr brunt the news was wired to the bank they want you to break it to mr mayhew oh lord the painter groan the boys faced suddenly rising before his blurred eyes miss antony was not at the office that morning or he would have turned to her at least she might have gone with him on his quest he could not ask bolstin to leave the office and he felt that curious incapacity to deal with the raw fact of sorrow which had often given an elfin unreality to most poignant moments of his life it was as though experience had to enter into the very substance of his soul before he could even feel it other people he thought would know what to say and i shan't someone meanwhile had effected a cab and he drove to the new looks though with little hope of finding mr mayhew but mr mayhew had grown two secretaries and turned the shrimp pink drawing room into an office one of the secretaries was three hammering at a typewriter she was a confident young woman who instantly extracted from her pocket diary the fact that her chief was a mrs anderson brance rehearsing rehearsing why yes he's to speak at mrs brance next week on atrocities she said surprised abcomptons ignorance she suggested telephoning but in the shrunken households of the rich were but one or two servants remained telephoning had become as difficult as in the understaffed hotels and after one or two vain attempts campton decided to go to the avenue muddy knee he felt that to get hold of mayhew as soon as possible might still in some way help her benny since it was not yet sure that he was dead or else it's just the need to rush about he thought conscious that the only way he had yet found of dealing with calamity was a kind of ant-like agitation on the way the round pink face of benny up sure continued to float before him in his very substance with tangibility there are only a painter's visions where i want to be in this thing he heard the boy repeating as if compelled by some blind instinct flowing down three centuries and centuries of persistent childish minds if he or his forebears had ever thought things out he probably would have been alive and safe today camped amused like george the average person is always just obeying impulses stored up thousands of years ago and never reexamined since but this consideration though drawn from george's own philosophy did not greatly comfort his father at the brance a bewildered surge admitted him and rang a bell which no one answered the vestibule and the stairs were piled with bales of sheeting bulging jute bags stacked up hospital supplies a boy in scott's uniform swung in adequate legs from the lofty porter's arm chair beside the table with its monumental bronze ink stand finally from above a maid called decantin to ascend in the drawing room pictures and tapestries bronzes and had vanished and a plane moquette replaced the priceless savonery a cross whose pompous garlands camped and had walked on the day of his last visit the maid led him to the ballroom through double doors of glass mr mayhew's oratorical accents accompanied by flint cords on the piano reached campedon's ears he paused and looked the far end of the great gilded room on a platform backed by velvet draperies stood mr mayhew a perfect pearl in his tie and a perfect crease in his trousers beside him was a stage property tripod surmounted by a classical perfume burner and on it madame deep dull match swathed in black leaned in an attitude of affliction beneath the platform a bushy headed pianist struck an occasional chord from chupin's dead march and near the door three or four red cross nurses perched on bales of blankets and listened under one of their queefs campedon recognized mrs tulcott she saw him and made a sign to the lady nearest her and the latter turning revealed the astonished eyes of jillia brunt campedon's first impression while they shook hands under cover of mr mayhew's rolling periods was of his former wife's gift of adaptation she had made herself a nurse's face not a theoretical imitation of it like madame deep dullmitch's nor yet the face of a nurse on a war poster like mrs tulcott's her lovely hair smoothed the way under the strict queef her chin devoutly framed in linen mrs brunt looked serious tender and efficient was it possible that she had found her vocation she gave him a glance of alarm but his eyes must have told her that he had not come about george for with the reassured smile she laid a finger on her lip and pointed to the platform campedon noticed that her nails were as beautifully polished as ever mr mayhew was saying all that i have to give yes all that is most precious to me i'm ready to surrender to offer up to lay down in the great struggle which is to save the world from barbarism i who was one of the first victims of that barbarism he paused and looked impressively at the bales of blankets the piano filled in the pause a madame dillmitch without changing her attitude almost without moving her lips saying a few notes of lamentation all that hideous barbarism mr mayhew began again i repeat that i stand here ready to give up everything i hold most dear do stop him campedon whispered to mrs brunt little mrs talk it with the quick intuition he had noted in her sprang up and threaded her way to the stage madame dillmitch flowed from one window pose into another and mr mayhew majestically descended approached mrs brunt you agree with me i hope you feel that anything more than madame dillmitch's beautiful voice anything in the way of a choral accompaniment would only weaken my effect where the facts are so overwhelming it is enough to state them that is mr mayhew add it modestly if they are stated vigorously and tertially as i hope they are madame dillmitch with a gesture of a marble mourner torn from her synotaph gilded up behind him and laid her hand in competence dear friend you've heard you remember our talk i am kassandra cursed with the hideous gift of divination tears rained down her cheeks washing off the paint like mud swept by ashore my only comfort she added fixing her perfect eyes on mr mayhew is to help our great good friend in this crusade against the assassins of my ladyslas mrs talk it had said a word to mr mayhew can't and saw his complacent face go to pieces as if it had been vitriol benny benny he screamed benny hurt my benny it's some mistake what makes you think his eyes met captain so my god why he's my sister's child he cried plunging his face into his soft manicured hands in the cab to which captain led him he continued to sob with the full throated sobs of a large invertebrate stress beating his breast for an unfindable hankerchief and when he found it immediately waving it into pulp captain had meant to leave him at the bank but when the taxi stopped mr mayhew was in too pitiful of plight for the painter to resist his intruding it was you who saw benny last you can't leave me the poor man implored and captain followed him up the majestic stairway their names were taken into mr brandt and with a motion of wonder at the unaccountable humors of fate captain found himself for the first time entering the bankers private office mr brandt was elsewhere in the great glazed labyrinth and while the visitors weighed up the painter's registering eye took in the details of the room from the body seer part two on a beach-coloured marble mantle to the blue morocco armchairs about a giant writing table on the table was an electric lamp in a seladon vase and just the right number of neatly folded papers lay under a paper weight of chinese crystal the room was as tidy as an expensive stage setting or the cage of a well-kept canary the only object marring its order was a telegram lying open on the desk mr brandt gray and glossy slipped in a noiseless painted leather he shook hands with mr mayhew bowed stiffly but depreciatingly to captain gave his usual cough and said this is terrible and suddenly as the three men sat there so impressive and important and powerless with that fatal telegram marring the tidiness of the desk captain murmured to himself if this thing were to happen to me i couldn't bear it i simply couldn't bear it benny upshire was not dead at least his death was not certain he had been seen to fall in a surprise attack near nuve schiffel the telegram from his commanding officer reporting him as wouldn't i'm missing the words had taken on a hideous significance in the last months freezing to death between the lines mutilation and torture or weeks of slow agony in german hospitals these were the alternative visions associated with the now familiar formula mr mayhew had spent a part of his time collecting details about the treatment of those who had fallen alive but wounded into german hands and camped and guessed that as he sat there every one of these details cruel sanguinary remorseless had started to life and that all their victims were the face of benny the wretched man sat speechless so unhinged and swinging less in his grief that mr brunt and captain could only look on following the thoughts he was thinking seeing the sights he was seeing and each avoiding the others eye lest they should betray to one another the secret of their shared exaltation at george's safety finally mr mayhew was put in charge of a confidential clerk who was to go with him to the english military mission in the hope of getting further information he went away small and shrunken with the depreciating smile of a man who seeks to ward off a blow as he left the room canton heard him say timidly to the clerk no doubt you speak french sir the words i want don't seem to come to me canton had meant to leave at the same time but some vague impulse held him back he remembered george's postscript don't be too savage to uncle andy and wished he could think of some friendly phrase to ease off his leave taking mr brunt seemed to have the same wish he stood erect and tightly buttoned one small hand resting on the arm of his desk chair as though he were posing for a cabinet size with the photographer telling him to look natural his lids twitched behind his protective glasses and his upper lip which was straight as a ruler detached itself by a hair's breath from the lower but no word came canton glanced up and down the white paneled walls and spoke abruptly there was no reason on earth he said why poor young up sure should never have been in this thing mr brunton bowed this sort of crazy impulse to rush into other people's rows canton continued with rising vehemence is of no more use to a civilized state than any other unreasoned instinct at bottom it's nothing but what george calls the baseball spirit just an ignorant passion for fisticuffs mr brunt looked at him intently when did george say that he asked with his usual cough before the name campden colored oh or sometime ago in the very beginning i think it was the view of most thoughtful young fellows at that time quite so said mr brunton cautiously stroking his moustache campden's eyes again wondered about the room now of course ah now the two men looked at each other and campden held out his hand mr brunt growing pink about the forehead extended his dry fingers and they shook hands in silence end of chapter 17 recording by chad chapter 18 of a sun at the front this is a liberal x recording all liberal x recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberal x dot org recording by chad horner a sun at the front by edith worton chapter 18 in the street campden looked about him with the same confused sense as when he had watched fortan le clues driving away to chalons his dead son's image in his eyes each time that campden came in contact with people on whom this calamity had fallen he grew more accurately aware of his own inadequacy if he had been fortan le clues it would have been impossible if he had to go back to chalons or museum his task if he had been harvey mayhew still less could he have accommodated himself to the intolerable the really inconceivable thought that many upshire had vanished into that fiery furnace like a crumbled letter tossed into a grate young fortan was defending his country but upshire in god's name what was benny upshire of connecticut doing in a war between the continental powers suddenly campden remembered that he had george's letter in his pocket and that he had meant to go back with it to mrs brance he had started out that morning full of the good intentions the letter had inspired but now he had no heart to carry them out yet george had said let mother know and explain please and such an injunction could not be disregarded he was still hesitating on a street corner when he remembered that miss anthony was probably on her way home from luncheon and that if he had made haste he might find her dispatching her hurried meal it was instinctive with him and difficult ours to turn to her less for counsel than for shelter her simple and perplexed view of things was as comforting as his mother's solution of the dark riddles he used to propound in the nursery he found her in her little dining room with delft plates a skew on imitation cordova leather and the death's head pen and a prussian helmet surmounting the nymph in cast bronze on the mantelpiece in entering he faced the relentless light of a ground glass window opening on an air shaft and miss anthony flinging him look dropped her fork and sprang up crying george george why george compton recovered his presence of mind under the shock of her agitation what made you think of george your your face she stammered sitting down again so absurd of me but you looked asleep for months your john she cried over her shoulder to the pantry ah my face yes i suppose so benny upshire has disappeared i've just had to break it to me oh that poor young upshire how dreadful her own face grew instantly serene i'm so sorry so very sorry yes yes you shall lunch with me i know there's another cutlet she insisted he shook his head i couldn't well then i finished she led the way into the drawing room there it was her turn to face the light and he saw that her own features were as perturbed as she had apparently discovered his to be per benny per boy she repeated in the happy voice she might have had if she had been congratulating compton on the lads escape he saw that she was still thinking not of upshire but of george and her inability to fit her intonation to her words betrayed the violence of her relief but why had she imagined george to be in danger compton recounted the sense at which he had just assisted and while she continued to murmur her sympathy he asked abruptly why on earth should you have been afraid for george miss anthony had taken her usual armchair it was placed as the armchairs of elderly ladies usually are with its high back to the light and compton could no longer observe the discrepancy between her words and her looks this probably gave her laugh its note of confidence my dear if you were to cut me open george's name would run out of every vein she said but in that tone it was your tone you thought he'd been that something had happened compton insisted how could it where he is she struck her shoulders in the foreign way she had picked up in her youth the gesture was as incongruous as her slang but it had become part of her physical self which lay in a lice mosaic of incongruities over the solid crystal block of her character why indeed i suppose there are risks everywhere aren't there i don't know he pulled out the letter he had received that morning a sudden light had eliminated it and his hands shook i don't even know where george is any longer she seemed to hesitate for a moment and then asked camille what do you mean here look at this right where to write to his base i'm to tell his mother of the change he waited cursing the faint winter light and the protecting back of her chair what can it mean he broke out except that he's left some mignon that he's been sent elsewhere and that he doesn't want us to find out where miss anthony bent her long nose over the page her hand held the letter steadily and he guessed as she perused that she had had one of the same kind and had already drawn her own conclusions what they were that first startled george seemed to say but would she ever let canton see as far into her thoughts again he continued to watch her hands patiently since nothing was to be discovered of her face the hands folded the letter with precision and handed it back to him yes i see why you thought that one might have she surprised him by conceding then darting at his unprotected face again as he seemed to feel though he could not see it if it had meant that george had been ordered to to the front how would you have felt she demanded he had not expected the question and though in the last weeks he had so often propounded it to himself it caught him in the chest like a blow a sense of humiliation a longing to lay his weakness bare suddenly rose in him and he bowed his head i couldn't i couldn't bear it he stammered she was silent for an interval then she stood up and laying her hand on his shaking shoulder across the room to a desk in which he knew she kept her private papers her keys clinked and the moment later she handed him a letter it was in george's writing and dated on the same day as his own dearest old girl nothing new but my address hereafter please write to our base this order has just been lowered from the epirene at the end of an endless veil of red tape what it means nobody knows it does not appear to imply an immediate change of headquarters but even if such a change comes my job is likely to remain the same i'm getting used to it and no wonder for one day differs not from another and i've had many of them now take care of my dad and mother and of your match herself i'm writing to father today you're george the first and last or i'll know why the two letters bore one another out in a way which carried conviction canton saw that his sudden doubts must have been produced since he had not felt them that morning by the agonizing experience he had undergone the vision of bennie upshire had unmanned him george was safe and asked only to remain so that was evident from both letters and as a certainty of a son's acquiescence once more penetrated canton it brought with it a fresh reaction of shame ashamed yes he had begun to be ashamed of george as well as of himself under the touch of edel andony's implacable honesty his last pretenses shriveled up and he longed to abase himself he lifted his head and looked at her remembering all she would be able to read in his eyes you're satisfied he inquired yes if that's the word he stretched his hand toward her and then drew it back but it's not it's not the word any longer he laboured with the need of self-expression and the opposing instinct of concealing feelings too complex for miss anthony's simple gaze how could he say i'm satisfied but i wish to god that george were not and was he satisfied after all and how could he define or even be sure that he was actually experiencing a feeling so contradictory that it seemed to be made up of anxiety for his son's safety shame and that anxiety shame at george's own acceptance of his law and terror of a possible change in that lot there were hours when it seemed to come to that the furies were listening and ready to fling their awful answer to him as if he as much as whispered to himself would to god that george were not satisfied the sense of their hunting presence laid its clutch on him and caused him after a pause to finish his phrase in another tone no satisfied's not the word i'm glad george is out of it he exclaimed miss anthony was folding away the letter as calmly as if it had been a refugee record she did not appear to notice the change in cantons voice i don't pretend to your sublime detachment you've never had a child she sneered certainly if the furies were listening they would put that down to his credit oh my poor john she said then she locked the desk took her hat from the lamp chimney on which it had been hanging jammed it down on her head like a helmet and remarked we'll go together shall we it's time i got back to the office on the way downstairs both for silent captain's ears echoed with a stupid taunt and he glanced at her without daring to speak on the last landing she paused and said i'll see julia this evening about george's change of address she may be worried and i can explain i can take her my letter oh do he ascend it and tell her tell her if she needs me it was as much of a message as he found courage for miss anthony nodda end of chapter 18 recording by chad horner