Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

Fallows stood up—his face was in shadow, so far beneath was the odorous lamp.

“Living God—I can’t make them see—I can’t make them see! They’re all enchanted. Or else I’m dead and this is hell.... They talk about Country. They talk about making a man stand in a place of sure death for his Country—in this Twentieth Century—when war has lost its last vestige of meaning to the man in the ranks, and his Country is a thing of rottenness and moral desolation! What is the Country to the man in the ranks? A group of corrupt, inbred undermen who study to sate themselves—to tickle and soften themselves—with the property and blood and slavery of the poor.... A good man, a clean man, is torn from his house to fight, to stand in the fire-pits and die for such monsters. Suddenly the poor man sees!

“... He came forth from the grain with vision—smiling and unafraid. He is not afraid to fight, but he has found himself on the wrong side of the battle. When he fights again it will be for his child, for his house, for his brother, for his woman, for his soul. Blood in plenty has he for such a war.... Think of it, John Morning, the Empire was entrusted to poor little Luban—against this man of vision! He came forth smiling from the grain. ‘I do not belong here, my masters. I was torn away from my woman and children, and I must be home for the winter ploughing. It is a long way—and I must be off. I am a ploughman, not a soldier. I belong to my children and my field. My country does not plough my field—does not feed my children.... What could Luban do but kill him—little agent of Herod? But the starry child lives!...

“And listen, John, to-night—you heard them—we heard these fat-necked, vulture-breasted commanders—vain, envy-poisoned, scandal-mongering commanders, complaining to each other: ‘See, what stuff has been given us to win battles with!... I have told it and they cannot see. They are not even good devils; they are not decent devourers. They have no humor—that is their deadly sin. An adult, half-human murderer, seeing his soldiers leave the field, would cry aloud, ‘Hello, you Innocents—so you have wakened up at last!’ But these cannot see. Their eyes are stuck together. It is their deadly sin—the sin against the Holy Ghost—to lack humor to this extent!”

Morning laughed strangely. “Come on to bed, you old anarchist,” he said, though sleep was far from his own eyes.

“That’s it, John. Anarchy. In the name of Fatherland, Russia murders a hundred thousand workmen out here in Asia. In answer, a few men and women gather together in a Petersburg cellar, saying, ‘We are fools, not heroes. When we fight again it will be for Our Country!’ And they are anarchists—their cause is Terrorism!”

“We’re all shot to pieces to-night, Duke——”

“We are alive, John. Lowenkampf is alive. But he who spoke to me this day, who came forth so blithely to die in my arms (his woman sleeps ill to-night in the midst of her babes), and he is lying out in the rain, his face turned up to the rain. God damn the fat reptile that calls itself Fatherland!... But, I say to you, that we’re come nearly to the end of the prince and pauper business on this planet. The soul of the Ploughman was heard to-day—as long ago they heard the Soul of the Carpenter.... He is lying out there in the millet—his face turned up to the rain. Yet I say to you, John, there’s more life in him this hour than in his Tsar and all the princes of the blood.”

Fallows covered his face with his hands.

“You’re tired and thick to-night, John, but you are one who must see!” he finished passionately. “You must help me tell the story to the cellar gatherings in Petersburg, to the secret meetings in all the centers of misery, wherever a few are gathered together in the name of Brotherhood—in New York, London, Paris, and Berlin.... You must help me to make other men see—help me to tell this thing so that the world will hear it, and with such power that the world will be unable longer to lie to itself.