CHAPTER IX
A REUNION OF THE REDS
"Did Rhoda Polly send you?" Cremieux asked, though I am sure he knew.
"She bade me come here, saying that perhaps I might learn something to my advantage."
He looked at me queerly, and with a shade of suspicion which I quite misunderstood.
"Then I may take it that she does not mean to come herself?"
"I am sure she has not the least idea of that. She was in the very thick of a discussion upon the possibility of factories and ateliers being run entirely by working men. The whole family had taken sides, and when I came away I expected every moment to see them leap at each other's throats."
"They are extraordinary, but quite admirable," he said, throwing away his cigarette and rising. "We cannot breed anything of the kind in France. Our spirit of family discipline forbids it. We have the cult of ancestor worship as in China, only we do not get farther back than father and mother. It is mainly the mother who leads the young men of France. We have them among us too, these good mothers, women who teach their sons to fight to the death for the great Day of Freedom. But they are scarce. Our women are still under the heel of the priesthood, and the young men, though they may follow us, still keep the inmost corner of their hearts for their mothers; and one day when we most want them, we may find them missing at roll-call. His mother cannot bear that her son should be outcast and accursed. He need not go to Mass, but if he will only see her favourite priest a moment in secret, she is sure that he will stay at home with her. Like you, Rossel is a Protestant and has not this to put up with. He is now in Metz with Bazaine, but he will return, and then you and the world will see a man."
I asked him what the men meant to do, and if he thought he could not prevent further fighting and burning.
Before he had time to answer a bell began clanging furiously in the town.