‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I ... saw him fall. As he fell he fired at me too. I am sorry I killed him. Will you tell his ... his ... people so? And tell them, too, that it is just war ... silly, wasteful war. He was a soldier, was he, by profession I mean?’
‘Yes, a soldier.’
‘Then it is his death ... I am only a soldier as all of us are soldiers. In peace I make music, compose you call it. Music is better than war.’
‘Far better,’ I answered grimly enough.
‘If I had lived I would have written great things. I had vowed it. I had in my head ... I have it still ... a ... wonderful ballet. It would have been finer than Petrouchka—as great as Coq-d’Or. And the ballet of our enemies, the Russians, would have performed it.... Enemies! how silly it is.’ He smiled.
My heart beat a little faster. This was madness, sheer madness, for us to be discussing music and the Russian ballet on the battlefield and with him dying. But at the words ‘Coq-d’Or’ my memory had suddenly stirred, and I carried on the conversation eagerly.
‘Coq-d’Or is wonderful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Where have you seen it?’
‘Where have I not?’ he answered. ‘In Moscow, Berlin, Paris, in London. It is great, astonishing.’