And the peace they had fought for became in the hands of diplomats and politicians a tawdry thing. Their glib trivial lips talked of it as if it were an annoying and exasperating, but still a rather amusing puzzle; the peace a million men had died for had become the sport of bureaucrats.
One asked oneself—what was the use?—No use—they had given their lives in vain. But these were the men who had sent the nations to war. Had this group of well-fed clerks and shopkeepers the right to condemn a million innocent men to death? Would they, the men of France, have gone, had they known, had they understood? Ah, the pity of it,—all the young, all the strong, all the simple folk were gone. I heard talk of Alsace-Lorraine, of the Rhine Provinces, of indemnities. Very difficult it seemed to fix the boundaries of all the new nations that had come into existence. Impossible to get enough money out of Germany to pay for the war.
Reparation! Every one was talking of reparation! But how could they hope to repair the irreparable. The war had been a gigantic crime against the “people.” Who was responsible? I wanted to get out of this crowd of jabbering diplomats. I wanted to get away and think things out, but I couldn’t. Jinny kept me.
Jinny’s world, where was it? What was it to be? That was the immediate question, the pressing problem. She had told me that she knew all about Philibert and me. What did that mean? How much did she know? I could not tell. Her mind was closed to me.
She eyed us, her parents, strangely. “What,” her eyes seemed to ask, “are you going to do about me? You must do something. You may be done for, both of you; you may have ruined your lives; I’ve a right to live.”
It was true. We both felt it. Our nerves on edge, we saw and with exasperating clearness that we ought to join together, try to understand each other for her sake, and set about the solution of her future.
But we were strangers. The war had driven us in opposite directions. We looked at each other across an immense distance. And the fact that Jinny knew we were strangers to each other made us feel more strange. It was as if the pretence we had made for her sake had really almost become a reality; now that we need no longer keep it up, we felt uncomfortable without it. And we knew further that there was going to be a struggle between us about Jinny and we were both afraid to open the subject of her future. And we were both afraid, a little, of her. She stood there between us, lovely, aloof, mysterious, reading us, divining our thoughts, judging us. Obscurely we felt this through the lethargy that enveloped us.
Philibert was peevish. He kept asking me how much longer the Government would want to keep our house as a hospital. When I said I didn’t know, he snarled, scuffled his feet and said: “Well, can’t you tell them to take their wounded away? I want to get back there. I want to reorganize my existence. This, living like this makes me sick. Who knows what state the pictures are in? Some may have been stolen. The Alfred Stevens I’ve reason to believe were not properly packed. Everything will be damaged. I feel it. I feel it. The Aubusson tapestries from the blue salon—Janson you say, saw to them—a good firm, but I’m worried, and any way, it will take months to get everything back. What a world, what disorder! I detest disorder. Look out there at those American soldiers on their motor bicycles—riding like mad men—Paris isn’t fit to live in. It’s too bad—too bad—what is one to do? All these foreign troops swarming about. One can’t call one’s soul one’s own.”
“They helped to win the war.”
He flung off with a growl. He suspected me of not doing what I could to help him get back to his house. He knew that had I wanted to I could have got the wounded transferred at once, but he didn’t want to make the move himself at the “Service de Santé”—for fear that his action might seem unbecoming, and he was afraid to ask me point blank what my idea was. I had no idea—I was waiting for something to happen.