“Let us put it a little to the test. Here in this company of intellectuals are several young Irishmen. Are they for or against militarism—after the war to end war? I have heard something of a little bloodshed in Ireland—or is it only a rumour? They are Catholics and Christians. Beautiful is the simplicity of Irish faith! Have they abandoned the use of Force as a way of argument? Do they believe in Universal brotherhood, among nations and peoples? Or are they using the bomb and the revolver to break away from brotherhood with a nation to whom they are bound in blood, to entrench themselves more narrowly in national isolation? Tell me, little ones. I am an ignorant old man!”
They told him at some length, and with passionate argument. Mr. Mahoney said that the international ideal must be based first of all on national liberty, that universal brotherhood presupposed justice between one people and another.
It was Aristide de Méricourt, who interested Bertram most, for he was the immediate opposite in ideals and convictions of Armand de Vaux who loved the adventure of war and believed that it developed the noblest qualities of man. But there was something strange and sinister in the quiet way in which this cripple denounced the existing institutions of his own country and of western civilisation, the national heroes of France, all the old loyalties of tradition and faith.
Marshal Foch, he said, had “the soul of a grocer.” He counted men, battalions, divisions, as so many packets. The sacrifice of human life left him untouched, unperturbed. Poincaré was a stuffed puppet with a squeak. French politicians were corrupt and bought. There must be a clean sweep of superstition—the superstition of the Flag, of the Church, of Patriotism, of national egotism. The democracies of the world must unite against the powers of capitalism. France must link up with Russia for the overthrow of all the forces of bourgeois stupidity and tyranny. There must be a revolution in England and the United States, so that Anglo-Saxon democracy might join hands with Latin and Slav. It was the only hope of the world.
“The audacity of youth!” said Lajeunesse. “Once, too, I had those dreams! A thousand years ago!”
“As a Catholic Irishman I disagree with such revolutionary gospel,” said Mr. Mahony, but there was benevolent tolerance in his blue eyes for the heresy of the younger man.
Bertram pleaded with his sister for a little private talk.
“All this discussion is very interesting, no doubt, but no good to me. I want to know what you’re doing and going to do. I want to tell you Of my own troubles.”
“Joyce?” she asked, and he wondered how much she knew of that trouble, his greatest.
They went out to a café close by, and took a seat in a far corner away from a group of men drinking with painted women.