As if conscious of the fact that he was to pound not on the dead dry skin of his drum, but on living human hearts, he hesitated a moment before he let the sticks falls. Then sharp and loud throbbed the drum through the still-hushed street. Clear and resolute was the voice in which he read the order for mobilization.
The whole affair took little more than a minute. Those who know how heavily the disgrace and disaster of 1870 lie upon the French heart will admit that it is fair to say that all their life this crowd had lived for this moment. Now that it had come, they took it with tense white looks upon their faces. But not a cheer, not a cry, not a shaking of the fist.
The only outwardly tragic touch came from our chauffeur. When he heard the words "la mobilization" he flung down his cap, threw up his hands, bowed his head a second, then gripped his steering wheel and, for fifteen miles, drove desperately, accurately, as though his car were a winged bullet shooting straight into the face of the enemy. That fifteen-mile run from Reuilly to Paris was through a long lane of sorrow: for not to one section or cla.s.s, but to all France had come the call to mobilize. Every home had been summoned to the sacrifice of its sons.
We witnessed nowhere any wailings or wringing of hands or frantic, foolish pleading to stay at home. Long ago the question of their dear ones going had been settled. Through the years they had made ready their hearts for this offering and now they gave with a glad exaltation. How bravely the French woman met the demand upon her, only those of us who moved in and out among the homes during those days of mobilization can testify. The "General" was indeed to these mothers, wives and sweethearts left behind the saddest sound in all the world.
But if it were so sad as Sardou said in 1870, when 500,000 answered to its call, how infinitely sadder was it in 1914 when ten times that number responded to its wild alarum, a million never returning to the women that had loved them. But such statistics are just the unemotional symbols of misery. We can look at this colossal sum of human tragedy without being gripped one whit. If we look into the soul of one woman these figures become invested with a new and terrible meaning.
Such an opportunity was strangely given me as we stood in a long queue outside the American emba.s.sy waiting for the pa.s.sports that would make our personages sacrosanct when the German raiders took the city. A perspiring line, we shuffled slowly forward, thanking G.o.d that we were not as the Europeans, but had had the good sense to be born Americans. While in the next breath we tiraded against the self-same Government for not hurrying the American fleet to the rescue.
The alien-looking gentleman behind me mopped his brow and muttered something about wishing that he had not thirsted for other "joys than those of old St. Louis."
"Pennsylvania has her good points, too," I responded.
That random shot opened wide to me the gates of Romance and High Adventure. It broke the long silence of the girl just ahead.
"It"s comforting just to hear the name of one"s own home state,"
she said. "I lived in a little village in the western part of Pennsylvania," and, incidentally, she named the village where my father had once been minister of the church. I explained as much to her and marveled at the coincidence.
"More marvel still," she said, "for we come not only from the same state and the same village, but from the same house. My father was minister in that same church."
Nickleville is the prosaic name of that little hamlet in western Pennsylvania. Any gentle reader with a cynic strain there may verify this chronicle and find fresh confirmation for the ancient adage that "Fact is stranger far than Fiction."
That selfsame evening we held reunion in a cafe off the Boulevard Clichy. There I first discerned the slightness of her frame and marveled at the spirit that filled it. She was exuberant in the joy of meeting a countryman and, with the device of laughter, she kept in check the sadness which never quite came welling up in tears.
She was typical American but let her bear here the name by which her new friends in France called her--Marie. One might linger upon her large eyes and golden hair, but this is not the epic of a fair face but of a fair soul--vigorous and determined, too. To the power therein even the stolid waiter paid his homage.
"Pardon," he interjected once, "we must close now. The orders are for all lights out by nine. It is the government. They fear the Zeppelins."
"But that"s just what I"m afraid of, too," Marie answered. "How can you turn us out into that darkness filled with Zeppelins?" He succ.u.mbed to this radiant banter and, covering every crevice that might emit a ray of light, he let us linger on long after closing time.
Marie"s was one of those cla.s.sic souls which by some anomaly, pa.s.sing by the older lineages and cultures of the East, find birthplace in a bleak untutored village of the West. To this bareness some succ.u.mb, and the divine afflatus dies. Still others roam restlessly up and down, searching until they find their milieu and then for the first time their spirit glows.
Music had breathed upon this girl"s spirit, touched with a vagabond desire. To satisfy it she must have money. So she gave lessons to children. Then a publisher bought some little melodies that she had set to words. And lastly, grave and reverend committeemen, after hesitating over her youth, made her head of music in a university of western Montana.
Early in 1914, with her gold reserves grown large enough for the venture, she set sail for the siege of Paris. To her charm and sterling worth it had soon capitulated--a quicker victory than she had dared to hope for. Around her studio in a street off the Champs Elysees she gathered a coterie of kindred souls. She told of the idealism and camaraderie of the little circle, while its foibles she touched upon with much merriment. Behind this outward jesting I gained a glimpse of the fight she had made for her advance.
"It"s been hard," I said, "but what a lot you have found along the way."
"Yes, far more than you can imagine," she replied; "I have found Robert le Marchand."
"And who is he?"
"Well, he is an artist and an athlete, and he is just back from Albania--where he had most wonderful adventures. He has written them up for "Gaulois." His home is in Normandy. And he is heir to a large estate in Italy in the South--in what looks like the heel on the map. And he has a degree from the Sorbonne and he is the real prince of our little court. And, best of all, he loves me."
Then she told the story of her becoming the princess of the little court.
"From his ancestral place in Italy," she said, "Robert sent me baskets of fruit gathered in his groves by his own hands. In one he placed a sprig of orange-blossoms. We laughed about it when we met again and------"
I saw that after this affairs had ripened to a quick conclusion. In drives along the boulevards, in walks through the moonlit woods, at dinners, concerts, dances--these two mingled their dreams for their home in Normandy. The only discord in this summer symphony was a frowning father.
Marie was the epitome of all charms and graces. Yes. But she came undowered--that was all. And firm he stood against any breach in the long established code of his cla.s.s. But they did not suffer this to disturb their plans and reveries, and through those soft July days they roamed together in their lotus-land. Then suddenly thundered that dream-shattering cannon out of the north.
"I was out of town for the week end," Marie continued; "I heard the beating of the "General" and at call for mobilization I flew back here as quickly as I could. It was too late. There was only a note saying that he had gone, and how hard it was to go without one farewell."
"Now what are you going to do?"
"What can I do with Robert gone and all his friends in the army too?"
"Let me do what I can. Let me play subst.i.tute," I volunteered.
"Do you really mean what you just said?" she queried.
"I really do," I answered.
"Well, then, do you paddle a canoe?"
"Yes, but what has that to do with the question?" I replied perplexedly.
"Everything," she responded. "Robert is stationed at Corbeille, fifteen miles below here on the Seine. I have the canoe and tomorrow I want you to go with me down the river to Robert.".
My mind made a swift diagnosis of the situation. All exits from Paris carefully watched; suspicion rife everywhere--strangers off in a canoe; a sentinel challenge and a shot from the bank.
"Let us first consider------" I began.
"We can do that in the canoe to-morrow," she interrupted.
And I capitulated, quite as Paris had.
We stepped out into the darkness that cloaked the silent city from its aerial ravagers. As we walked I mused upon this modern maiden"s Iliad. While a thousand hug the quiet haven, what was it that impelled the one to cut moorings and range the deep? A chorus of croaking frogs greeted our turn into a park.
"Funny," said Marie, "but frogs drove me out of Nickleville! There was nothing to do at home but to listen to their eternal noise; to save my nerves I simply had to break away."
The prospect of that canoe trip was not conducive to easy slumber. The frog chorus in that Pennsylvania swamp, why had it not been less demonstrative? Still lots could happen before morning. One might develop appendicitis or the Germans might get the city. With these two comforting hopes I fell asleep. Morning realizing neither of them, I walked over to Marie"s studio.
"Well, then, all ready for the expedition?" I said, masking my pessimism with a smile.
For reply she handed this note which read:
"Dear Marie: I have been transferred from Corbeille to Melun. It makes me ill to be getting ever farther and farther away.--Robert."
With the river trip cancelled, life looked more roseate to me. "And now we can"t go after all," I said, mustering this time the appearance of sadness.
"Oh, don"t look so relieved," she laughed, "because we"re going anyhow."
"But what"s the use? He has gone."
"Well, we are going where he has gone, that"s all," she retorted.