But the table? How find it in this still seething land over so much of which the lava was still hot and uncrossable, with so many craters where at every instant new eruptions threatened. They tried it—went into the sea for their table, at a spot of which some of those who chose it had never heard, and to which one at least objected—soundly enough—because the name sounded so like the name of a comic opera.
And the table selected, how get contestants there? In this Europe they were remaking, such was the physical, military and political hampering that there was no spot to which it was certain that everybody could reach. And, as in the Prinkipo case, you ran up against things more unyielding than armies or parties—that hardening of will, that deadening of the spirit of coöperation which is one of the most terrible works of revolutions—something happening to men who have all their lives been good men, devoted to the end of human happiness, freezing them until they will no longer work with other men to bring order and peace to a tormented land for which they have always slaved.
To sit at a table and hear a great noble, white-bearded advocate of human rights, turned to bitterness and scorn of those who have ruined his plan of doing things but who, for the moment, are in the saddle, carrying out their own violent, fanatic way, refuse to even meet at the Prinkipo table the representative of those advocates of violence in order to attempt to somehow soften their madness—you know then that you have reached a human limit, a limit to the human being’s capacity to face those who disagree and those whom he despises though in that meeting there may be a remote, though ever so remote, chance to stay a murderous hand and soften a murderous spirit.
It was not only such curious impressions of the limitations of the human mind one received, but of the human heart as well. It seemed as if it were not big enough—even in the case of those whose profession it is to be humane—not big enough to cover anything but some special group whose cause they espoused. There were many disheartening exhibits of this limitation. One that will always stick in my mind as one of the most hideous was the tears of a great humanitarian over the German prisoner in France—a prisoner at that time receiving the same rations and even better shelter and more clothes than most French refugees, and an absolute setting of lips and hardness of eyes at the mention of children and women in the caves of Lens, the shattered ruins of Peronne—it was not humanity but an espoused group of humanity that stirred his sympathy.
Limits to human endurance, human capacity, human kindness, human foresight—that was what every day of the Peace Conference cried louder and louder into your ear.
CHAPTER VI
WHY DID HE DO IT?
But Washington was not to parallel Paris. The uproar caused by M. Briand’s speech died away in an amazingly short time—so far as Washington was concerned. The violence and indiscretions of the press to which so much of the disturbance on the other side of the Atlantic was due was not followed up. Those that had been responsible were all of them, I think, a little ashamed, though Mr. Wells obstinately came back once or twice to tell what he thought of the French. Explanations quieted the Italians. M. Briand had never used the offensive word attributed to him, it had been but a mistake of the cables—and a serious mistake, it should be said, too, of the journalist that had cabled it without verification. On all sides lectures were read to the correspondents. Go on this way and they could easily wreck the whole thing. Go on this way and peace never at any time could be made in the world. Any effort of man could be easily upset if passionate judgments and unconfirmed suspicions were to be sent broadcast through the newspapers. People believe what they read, unhappily, and have little or no way of verifying. There was much of this reproving talk going on and some of those who handled it most vigorously belonged to the Washington press. It had its effect at once.
Then, too, it was hard to be continuously violent and suspicious in Washington. The lovely days, the wide streets, the freedom from the turmoil of business and industry, the very absence of exciting night life—all tended to calm the spirit. How different from Paris in 1919! There one lived in a city encircled by vast hospitals where thousands upon thousands of shattered men tossed on their beds of pain. Soldiers of all nations swarmed everywhere. In many streets of the city the shops were still sealed up. On all sides one found great staring gaps—the wounds of the city made by the shells of Big Bertha or the nightly visits of airplanes. Everywhere you went you saw still the signs “Abri” (shelter), vividly recalling the long years in which no man safely went out without knowing that there was a refuge near by. The streets at night were still dark, and those within still tightened their shutters and drew close their curtains, unable to believe that light was no longer a danger.
You rode in battered taxicabs over streets that were rough from long inattention. In every house you entered the marks of war still remained. Nothing had been mended or repaired in Paris for five years. A heating apparatus out of order, it stayed out of order. A window broken, it stayed broken. A hinge off, it stayed off. Carpets and furniture went uncleaned. And in the homes of the rich where there had been beautiful pictures, empty frames hung on the wall, the canvas having been cut out and sent to some place of safety. There was no color. All Paris was in black. Even in the windows of the shops you saw nothing but black. Your dressmaker and milliner had no heart to work in colors, it still to them was bad taste. It was only the influx and the demand of the visiting foreigners, who multiplied as the Conference went on, that brought back colors to the shop windows.
What a contrast to all this was Washington in the fall of 1921, with its gayety and lavishness, its incessant round of lunches and teas and dinners, its over-weighted tables, unbelievable in their abundance to the visiting strangers, so long—and still—on stricter rations. You could not be tragic long in Washington.