Why have I fallen back on this introspective mood in these emerging days of convalescence? I think it is as a refuge from the cafard,—a feeling of after all being a stranger in a strange land. Perhaps it has a basis in physical weakness,—perhaps simply inaction: inaction which is so demoralizing. To-day I have a longing to be back—to rub elbows with my own people—to be no longer “l’Americain” but an American among Americans.
For there is always this difference between me and Coustic and Valentin, sons of the mountain side; Canache, Apache and filcher of the gutters; Bompard, tiller of Normand soil: they are fighting for something bigger than themselves that at times raises them to heights of heroic eloquence, that obliterates the present and joins them to their forbears of the brave days of old: Grognards, Sans Culottes, Chevaliers and bearded Gauls. While I, I am fighting alone, for love of a man’s adventure, in order to find myself. I am alone, for, much as I love their country, it is theirs,—not mine.
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Yet, if I cannot entirely possess this deep spirit of nationalism, it has been the most satisfying experience of my haphazard, drifting life to live among those who did. You cannot understand the poilu with your ears alone.
Blagueur, critique, sceptique (bluffer, critic and skeptic)—I have lived two years with them, poilu myself by the grace of rags and dirt, by a thousand sworn oaths never to move a further inch. I have sung with them in the slimy trenches of the first winter. I have cursed their commanders and sat on their boards of strategy. I have doubted, rebelled, grumbled, and denied my leader and,—at the zero hour, surged up and gone over the top.
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I went into the war, heaven knows, wearied of my kind and of myself, disillusioned with man, seeking men. I have found what I sought. I have found and I understand them,—men, the mass, the race, which moves on, slowly, irresistibly, without inner questionings, doing what must be done. Above all, I have known the love of the Fatherland, the faith of the humble, handed down at simple hearths,—the will to remain, whatever the cost, French. Well, if I am fated to lie in No-man’s-land, I am honestly thankful to have known life at its simplest, its keenest, and to have served some purpose.
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Blagueur, critique, sceptique, but, at the call of duty,—ready. Often have I marveled at the soul of the poilu, the bit of sunlight that abides in it—the love of the beautiful—the answering thrill when a hero leads; that inexhaustible reserve, at the bottom of which miracles wait! Yesterday the answer came, and it illumined the dark places.
At lunch we were discussing the prospects of going back, that and the end of the war are, of course, the daily topics. Canache launched on his favorite tirade against the embusqués; Paris was full of them; the hospitals were full of them; twenty miles behind the front they were as thick as berries; before they sent back the older classes who had been shot to pieces once already, let them clean out the embusqués! As for him, Canache, he would refuse to go,—like that, flat! He’d demand justice; he’d tell a few names, and he ended by spitting contemptuously on the flagging, and exclaiming: