XI: EDMUND
This man’s son was the most charming boy I ever set eyes on. He was eighteen, but had the carriage and assurance of a young man in his prime, most resolute and happy. He liked talking to me and was more communicative than his father. For a fortnight he would work steadily at his books, imbibing the principles of government in the philosophers from Plato down. He thought they were all wrong, said so, and but for his simplicity I should have put him down as conceited. It was very slowly as I talked to him that I came to realise the revolution in thought produced by the great European wars and the terrible consequences, how fatal they had been to the old easy idealism. The new spirit in its generous acceptance of the gross stuff of human nature and its indomitable search for beauty in it has been expressed for all time by our poet, Hohlenheim, and I only need state here that I encountered it for the first time in that ruined city. Not, however, till Hohlenheim expressed it did I recognise it.
But for Hohlenheim I could believe in a Providence when I think of Edmund and Audrey. They were as bee and flower. The honey of her beauty drew him and he was hers, she his, from the first moment. I had regarded her as a child and was amazed to see how she rejoiced in him. I had expected more modesty until I reflected how in such darkness as that which enveloped Fatland love must blaze. It flared up between them and burned them into one spirit. So moved was I that all other marriage, even my own, has always seemed a mockery to me.
How gracious Audrey was to me! She promised me that Edmund would hurry up his revolution so that I could return to my own country, but I was given to understand that the position was very difficult, because his own mother was Vice-Chairwoman of the Governing Committee. For a week at a time Edmund would be away rounding up outlaws, and, at great risk, preaching to the kilted and registered men in the fields. Had he been caught he would have been tickled to death.
After a time I went with him on his expeditions. It was amazing how his eloquence and his personality produced their effect even on the dullest minds. The stream of men proceeding to the ruined city increased every day, and we began to have enough good people to suppress the reckless rioters somewhat and to organise the life of the town something after the fashion of the Italian city-state, except that we made no warlike preparations whatsoever. Most encouraging of all, we had a growing number of young women coming into the place, and thankful as they were to escape the nunneries or the spinsterhood of the farms, they quickly found mates and produced children. The birth of every baby was made a matter of public rejoicing.
But alas! my ill-luck pursued me. On one of our expeditions we were cut off and surrounded in a field by a patrol of women. Edmund managed to escape, but I was captured and tortured into making a confession of what was going on in the ruined city. I did not see how my confession could do any harm, and I don’t know what happened, but though my friends must have known where I was they made no attempt to rescue me or to communicate with me. I think I should have died rather than confess but for the thought of my wife. My strongest passion then was to see her again. Let that, if excuse is needed, be mine.