A Son at the Front

by Edith Wharton

It was not exactly his fault. What was there for a portrait-painter to do? He was not a portrait-painter only, and on his brief trip to Chalons some of the scenes by the way—gaunt unshorn faces of territorials at railway bridges, soldiers grouped about a provision-lorry, a mud-splashed company returning to the rear, a long grey train of “seventy-fives” ploughing forward through the rain—at these sights the old graphic instinct had stirred in him. But the approaches of the front were sternly forbidden to civilians, and especially to neutrals (Campton was beginning to wince at the word); he himself, who had been taken to Chalons by a high official of the Army Medical Board, had been given only time enough for his interview with Fortin, and brought back to Paris the same night. If ever there came a time for art to interpret the war, as Raffet, for instance, had interpreted Napoleon’s campaigns, the day was not yet; the world in which men lived at present was one in which the word “art” had lost its meaning.

And what was Campton, what had he ever been, but an artist?... A father; yes, he had waked up to the practice of that other art, he was learning to be a father. And now, at a stroke, his only two reasons for living were gone: since the second of August he had had no portraits to paint, no son to guide and to companion.

Other people, he knew, had found jobs: most of his friends had been drawn into some form of war-work. Dastrey, after vain attempts to enlist, thwarted by an untimely sciatica, had found a post near the front, on the staff of a Red Cross Ambulance. Adele Anthony was working eight or nine hours a day in a Depot which distributed food and clothing to refugees from the invaded provinces; and Mrs. Brant’s name figured on the committees of most of the newly-organized war charities. Among Campton’s other friends many had accepted humbler tasks. Some devoted their time to listing and packing hospital supplies, keeping accounts in ambulance offices, sorting out refugees at the railway-stations, and telling them where to go for food and help; still others spent their days, and sometimes their nights, at the bitter-cold suburban sidings where the long train-loads of wounded stopped on the way to the hospitals of the interior. There was enough misery and confusion at the rear for every civilian volunteer to find his task.

Among them all, Campton could not see his place. His lameness put him at a disadvantage, since taxicabs were few, and it was difficult for him to travel in the crowded métro. He had no head for figures, and would have thrown the best-kept accounts into confusion; he could not climb steep stairs to seek out refugees, nor should he have known what to say to them when he reached their attics. And so it would have been at the railway canteens; he choked with rage and commiseration at all the suffering about him, but found no word to cheer the sufferers.

Secretly, too, he feared the demands that would be made on him if he once let himself be drawn into the network of war charities. Tiresome women would come and beg for money, or for pictures for bazaars: they were already getting up bazaars.

Money he could not spare, since it was his duty to save it for George; and as for pictures—why, there were a few sketches he might give, but here again he was checked by his fear of establishing a precedent. He had seen in the papers that the English painters were already giving blank canvases to be sold by auction to millionaires in quest of a portrait. But that form of philanthropy would lead to his having to paint all the unpaintable people who had been trying to bribe a picture out of him since his sudden celebrity. No artist had a right to cheapen his art in that way: it could only result in his turning out work that would injure his reputation and reduce his sales after the war.

So far, Campton had not been troubled by many appeals for help; but that was probably because he had kept out of sight, and thrown into the fire the letters of the few ladies who had begged a sketch for their sales, or his name for their committees.

One appeal, however, he had not been able to avoid. About two months earlier he had had a visit from George’s friend Boylston, the youth he had met at Dastrey’s dinner the night before war was declared. In the interval he had entirely forgotten Boylston; but as soon as he saw the fat brown young man with a twinkle in his eyes and his hair, Campton recalled him, and held out a cordial hand. Had not George said that Boylston was the best fellow he knew?

Boylston seemed much impressed by the honour of waiting on the great man. In spite of his cool twinkling air he was evidently full of reverence for the things and people he esteemed, and Campton’s welcome sent the blood up to the edge of his tight curls. It also gave him courage to explain his visit.

He had come to beg Campton to accept the chairmanship of the American Committee of “The Friends of French Art,” an international group of painters who proposed to raise funds for the families of mobilised artists. The American group would naturally be the most active, since Americans had, in larger numbers than any other foreigners, sought artistic training in France; and all the members agreed that Campton’s name must figure at their head. But Campton was known to be inaccessible, and the committee, aware that Boylston was a friend of George’s, had asked him to transmit their request.