Up and Down

by E. F. Benson

It was known that night that England would not tolerate the violation of Belgian soil, and had sent an ultimatum to Germany which would expire in twenty-four hours. And from the whole country there went up one intense sigh of relief that we were resolved to embark on what must be the most prodigious war that the world had ever seen. "Give War in our time, O Lord!" was the prayer of all who most truly knew that the only peace possible to us was a peace which would stamp the name of England with indelible infamy. And God heard their prayer, and on Wednesday we woke to a world where all was changed. The light-hearted, luxurious, unreflective days were gone, never probably in our time to return. Already the tempest of fire and blood was loosened in Europe; a line was drawn across the lives of everyone, and for the future there were but two periods in one's consciousness, the time before the war, and war-time.

It was during this week that I had a long letter from Francis written before the English ultimatum was known, but delayed in posts that were already scrutinized and censored. Though I had no friend in the world so intimate as he, his letter revealed him now as a person strangely remote, speaking an unintelligible language. So little a while ago I had spoken the same tongue as he; now all he said seemed to be gibberish, though his sentiments were just such as I might have expressed myself, if, since then, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday had not been among the days of my life.

"Things look black," he said, "and the papers, for once reflecting the mind of the people, are asking what Italy will do, if Germany and Austria go to war with France and Russia. I believe (and, remember, I speak entirely from the Italian point of view, for verily I have long ceased to be English) that it is frankly impossible that we should range ourselves side by side with Austria, our hereditary foe. It seems one of the things that can't happen; no ministry could remain in office that proposed that. And yet we are the ally of Austria and Germany, unless it is true, as the Corriere tells us, that the terms of our alliance only bind us to them in the event of aggression on the part of two nations of the Triple Entente. Be that as it may, I don't believe we can come in with Austria.

"I am extremely glad of it, for I am one of those queer creatures who do not believe that a quarrel between two countries can be justly settled by making a quantity of harmless young men on both sides shoot each other. I don't see that such a method of settling a dispute proves anything beyond showing which side has the better rifles, and has been better trained, unless you deliberately adopt the rule of life that 'Might is Right.' If you do let us be consistent, and I will waylay Caterina as she goes home with the money Seraphina has given her for the washing, rob, and, if necessary, murder her. If she proves to be stronger than me, she will scratch my face and bring her money safely home. And her father will try to shoot me next day, and I will try to shoot him. That's the logical outcome of Might is Right.

"I am glad, too, of this, that I myself am a denationalized individual, and if I have a motherland at all, it is this beloved stepmother-land, who for so long has treated me as one of her children. Damnable as I think war is, I think I could fight for her, if anyone slapped her beautiful face. And yet how could I fight against the country to whom we owe not only so much of the art and science, but of Thought itself? Germany taught mankind how to think.

"Let me know how things go in England. It looks as if you could keep out of this hurly-burly. So if Italy does too, I hope to see you here again in September. Seraphina suggests that Italy should make pretence of being friends with the 'bestia fedente,' by which she means the Austrians, and that when they are fighting the Russians, she should run swiftly from them and seize the Trentino again. There seems much good sense in this, for 'the Trentino is ours, and it is right and proper to take what belongs to us.'

"England must be peculiarly beastly with all these disturbances going on. Why don't you pack up your tooth-brush and your comb and come back again at once? The Palazzo a mare is better than Piccadilly, and the purple figs are ripe, and the cones are dropping from the stone-pine, and never were there such fat kernels for Seraphina to fry in oil. Perhaps if you come back the strega would continue walking; she seems to have had no exercise since you were here. Your room is empty, and the door makes sorrowful faces at me as I go along the passage. It frowns at me, and says it isn't I it wants. And I share the silent verdict of your door.

"I don't see what quarrel England can have with Germany, and it is unthinkable that Italy should go in with the Central Powers against the Triple Entente. Besides, how is England to fight Germany? It is the elephant and the whale. England hasn't got an army, has it? I can't remember anything connected with soldiers in England, except some sort of barracks with a small temple or chapel in front of it somewhere in St. James's Park. And I suppose the German fleet is only a sort of herring-boat compared to a liner, if it comes to ships. So really I don't see how the two countries could fight each other even if they wanted to.

"Even if you don't come now, you'll be certain to be back in September, won't you? Otherwise I shall think that there is some validity in presentiments, for you went away with a notion that it was not only for a month or two that you went. Better put an end to vain superstition by coming back before.

"Ever yours,
"FRANCIS."

"P.S.—Send a wire if you are coming. They say the posts are disorganized.

"Donna Margherita has had words with Miss Machonochie's cook. I'm sure I don't want any harm to come to Miss Machonochie or her household, but I think there must already be a leak in her cistern. That would be a good day's work for Donna Margherita, wouldn't it? Otherwise, when we all have plenty of water, why should Miss M. alone be wanting it?"

Reading this, I felt for a moment here and there that the events of this last week must have been a dream, so vividly did the island and the island life etch themselves on a page. For a half second I could smell the frying of the pine-kernels, could hear Pasqualino's quick step across the passage, as he entered from his Brangäene duty on the balcony to tell us that Miss Machonochie's foot was coming firmly up the steps. But the next moment the huge background of war was set up again, and all these things were strangely remote and dim. They had happened, perhaps, at least I seemed to remember them, but they no longer had any touch of reality about them, were of the quality of dreams.... The same unreality possessed Francis's suave surmises about the improbability of England's going to war with Germany, for the only thing that was actual was that she had done so. And not less unreal was the fact of Francis himself living the life that he and I also had lived before this cataclysm came. All that belonged to some prehistoric period which ceased something less than a week ago. Less than a week ago, too, I had been baptized and become a member of England, and already, so swiftly does the soul no less than the body adjust itself to changed conditions, the sense of having ever been otherwise, had vanished as completely as the aching of a tooth after the offender has been dealt with, and you can no longer imagine the pain it gave you.

But the letter was a difficult one to answer; I could not convey to him what had happened to me, any more than in this letter he could, except for a transient second, convey to me a realization of what had not happened to him. I began a dozen times: "I have just been to Trafalgar Square, and cannot picture to you the thrill that 'Rule, Britannia'"——Clearly that would not do. I tried again with a jest to hide the seriousness of it: "What do they know of England who only Italy know?" I tried yet again: "Since seeing you something has happened that makes——"

And at that moment the cry of a newsvendor in the street made me rush out for the sixth time that afternoon to see what the latest information was. Liège still held out, it seemed, though it was rumoured that certain of its forts had fallen. But still the most gallant of the little States held up the Titanic invasion that was pouring down upon it, maintaining in the face of terrific pressure its protest and its resistance to the onrush of that infamous sea, in the depths of which German honour already lay drowned. How could any man fail to know what the sense of the native land, of patriotism meant, when he saw what a supreme meaning it actually did have? It is the fashion of cynics to say that mankind will suffer and deny themselves for the sake of some definite concrete thing, like money or a jewel or a picture, but never for an idea. Here was an instance that blew such cynicism to atoms. Already the soil of Belgium, its cities and its plains were lost, and its people knew it But they fought, beaten and indomitable, just because it was an idea that inspired them—namely, the freedom of those who were already conquered (for none could doubt the outcome), the independence of the country which must soon for certain lay beneath the heel of Prussian murderers, who slew their children and violated their women, and could no more touch the spirit of the people than they could quench the light of the moon. Normally, perhaps, we more often feel the pull and the press of material things; but when there is heard in a man's soul the still small voice, which is greater than fire or earthquake, his true being wakes, and at the spiritual call, whether of religion or love or patriotism, he answers to an idea that far transcends all the beckonings of material sense. It is then that those we thought smug and comfort-smothered, bound in the bonds of peaceful prosperity, break from their earth-bound fetters and their sleep at the voice of the God which is immanent in them. There is no material profit to gain, but all to lose, and eagerly, like ballast that keeps them down, they cast everything else overboard, and sweep soaring into the untarnishable sunlight of their real being. For it is not only the stocks and stones of his native land that a man loves, any more than it is just the eyebrows and the throat of his mistress that he worships. He loves them because they are symbols and expression of her who inhabits them. They are the bodily tokens of the beloved spirit that dwells there. Under that inspiration the dumb lips prophecy, as the coal from the altar is laid on them, and their land becomes a temple filled, even in the darkness of their affliction, with the glory of the Lord. The terror by night and the arrow that flieth by day have no power to daunt them, for high above earthly things is set their house of defence.

There rose then from this quiet little land, sure and untroubled as the rising of the moon, a race of heroes. From further east, across the Rhine, there was another rising, the monstrous birth of a presence and a portent undreamed of. It towered into the sky, and soon at its breath the forts of Liège and of Namur crumbled and fell, and it passed on phallic and murderous over the corpses of slain children and violated mothers. Those who thought they knew Germany could not at first believe that this was the spirit and these the infamies of the land they loved. She who had stood for so much to them, she the mother of music, the cradle of sciences, the lover of all that was lovely, was changed as by the waving of a magician's rod into a monster of hell, oozing with the slime of the nethermost pit. Many could not credit the tales that flooded the press, and put them down to mere sensational news-mongering. But they were true, though they were not the whole truth; the half of it had not been told us. The race of musicians, scientists, artists, of chivalrous knights, still took as their motto: "The women and children first." But they played upon the words, and smiled to each other at the pun. Pleading the necessity that knows no law, they had torn up their treaty, avowing that it was but a scrap of paper, and dishonouring for ever the value of their word, now, like some maniac, they mutilated the law they had murdered. It may be that Germany was but the first victim of Prussian militarism, and Belgium the second; but Germany had sold its soul, and it kept its bargain with the power that had bought it.

While still Francis's letter remained unanswered on my desk, I received another from him, written several days later, which had made a quicker transit.

"This is all damnable," he said. "Of course we had to come in when Belgium was invaded. I skulked all day in the house while it was yet uncertain, for I simply dared not show an English face in the streets for shame. Thank God that's all right. I never thought I could have cared so much. They sang 'Rule, Britannia,' in the Piazza to-day, wonderfully vague and sketchy. You know what my singing is, but I tell you I joined. It was a strange thing to hear that tune in a country which was supposed to be allied with the nation on whom England has declared war, but there it was. They say that Italy has declared neutrality. You'll know by the time you get this whether that is so. By the way, if it is true that we are sending an Expeditionary Force to France, just send me a wire, will you? The papers are full of news one day which is contradicted the next, and one doesn't know what to believe about England's attitude and doings.

"There's no news on this dead-alive island. I feel frightfully cut off, and it's odd to feel cut off in the place where you've lived for so long. I began an article on the early French mystics last week, but I can't get on with it. Mind you send me a telegram.
"FRANCIS."

I sent the telegram saying that an Expeditionary Force to help the French to hold their frontier had already landed in France, and more men were being sent. Next morning I received a brief telegram in answer: