WHEN the life fantastic becomes the life ordinary, when one is at the centre of prodigious events which unroll more rapidly than the picture on the screen, and appear in ever-new guise, the astonishing thing becomes a natural thing; the unheard-of becomes the expected. A distortion of sensation is produced; the brain registers only that which surpasses the climax of what has already been experienced; as on mountain heights, peaks which have been surmounted appear low, and the climber feels that only those are high which are still above him.
Thus it became the ordinary thing for Berthet and me, as for our companions, to live in the extraordinary and the supernatural. We felt quite at home in it, and moved at our ease in a situation which, for him at least, would have been untenable a few short months before. We had become soldiers like the others, eating, when we could, a meagre and coarse ration; sleeping when it was possible; in constant danger of death, but avoiding it apparently by instinct. We lived with no more care than the beasts of the field; with beards long, hands dirty. We dug in the earth, as did all the rest; we watched at the parapets with eyes puffed from lack of sleep. Uncouthness grew upon us, and we appeared, at dawn, in the glacial cold, muffled up in pieces of cloth and skins of animals; hairy, hideous, and fearsome.
We were on patrol duty one night. Creeping about, we passed the listening-post and advanced on No Man’s Land. Like savages, we stalked the enemy for hours, trying to surprise some unknown men: soldiers like ourselves, who might be lost between the lines; men anxious like ourselves, and like ourselves afraid of death and suffering. Then we returned, annoyed to come back without having bagged a foe; regretful that we had not been able to spill some man’s blood. However——
“However”—thus we reasoned.
Often, in the evening, when we were free between periods of sentry duty, we would delay our share of heavy sleep wherein one forgot all; when one lay stretched like a beast in a stable, on a little straw in the depth of a retreat, poorly protected from the wind and the shells. We would walk the hundred paces of the length of the communication-trench, conversing.
The night enveloped us; the night palpitating with the noise of battle. We could hear the crack of rifles and the roar of cannon. Sometimes the flying steel whirled over our heads with its weird whistle. Some corvées passed, heavily loaded, carrying materials for attack and defense. Habituated as we were to the sight and sound, oblivious to the familiar racket, we walked quite tranquilly, in spirit far removed from our surroundings, expanding our thoughts and confiding our dreams. All sorts of subjects shared our attention: art, history, literature, politics, we touched upon them all, commented upon all as if we had been a hundred leagues away from the war, as if no other occupation had the least claim upon us. The contrast was so vivid, the difference so striking, that sometimes we stopped and exclaimed in amazement at ourselves.
By this time we had no childish vanity in the matter. Our sense of pride was rather above it. We called no one’s attention to our calm indifference. No! It was night, we were lost in the shadows, no one could see us. We were simply relaxing our brains in withdrawing our thought from the present; in leading it, by means of conversation, toward the past and the future.
One particular desire which we held in common was frequently mentioned: we wished to visit Rheims, which was quite near. Our regiment formed a part of the troops of coverture of the city. However, we could not enter the town without permission, and this could not be obtained without good reason. We finally found an excuse, and the rest was easy.
One morning, armed with our permit, we set out. The expedition was not without danger. For several months, since we had occupied the trenches at the north of the city, we had known that the Boches were obstinately bent upon its destruction. Every day brought its rain of shells. We could see the flames shoot up, we could see writhing columns of smoke mount to the heavens. No matter; the visit tempted us, and the most violent storm of iron and fire would not have deterred us.
So we went. We prepared our minds, as we thought, for every possible surprise; we were not prepared for what we were destined to find. Approaching by the Faubourg Cires, we entered a ruin. We saw nothing but demolished houses, entire streets swept by machine fire, gnawed by flames, blackened by smoke. Tottering façades, holding their equilibrium by a miracle, supported the skeletons of apartment-buildings, in whose walls blackened shell-holes seemed like dead eyes opened on a void. Heaps of plaster and stone fallen from the walls rendered passage difficult and impeded our progress. Occasionally, an entire section of wall would swing slowly, balance for an instant, then fall in a cloud of dust. It was a house in its death-throes.
After passing this scene of desolation, we entered a quarter still intact, where, to our stupefaction, the city came to life again. There only a few injuries to buildings were visible. Here and there a shell had wounded a structure. The general appearance of everything was quite peaceful. The inhabitants followed the usual routine of life with apparent serenity. Open shops offered their merchandise. Young girls came and went smiling. A pastry-cook spread out his tarts and nougats; a stationer displayed his pencils and office supplies; a haberdasher’s window was filled with collars and cravats. Nothing indicated war. People went up and down about their business; old women gossiped on their door-step, and peddlers cried their wares.
Around the Place Royale, which was absolutely in ruins, cabmen awaited a fare, stroking the manes of their bony horses, or discussing the price received for the last trip. In the public gardens mothers watched their little ones at play, caressing them or scolding them, as if their entire life were assured, as if no thought of anything unusual entered their brain.
Was it bravery, indifference, habit? Who knows? We were dumbfounded. What! In a city crushed by shells, tortured by fire, subjected to the most barbarous treatment, how was it possible to be so matter-of-fact? Could the life of the populace continue in its usual channels, indifferent to danger, removed from fear, calm as in time of peace?
We must look closer to perceive under the surface the explanation of the anomaly; everywhere, people seated or standing observed a patient discipline in using only one side of the street: the one exposed to the direct shock of the shells. Only a city long exposed to bombardment could conceive such a mechanical precaution. It is a protection, because the shell, in falling, bursts; its splinters fly in the opposite direction to that taken by the projectile.
We soon saw the working out of the principle. Attracted by an open shop, we made some purchases at our leisure. A sinister shriek crossed the sky, and a racket followed. “They are bombarding,” calmly remarked the young woman who served us. She listened. “It is at the cathedral.” Then she continued, most unconcernedly: “Let us see! Some braid? It is at the other counter. You get the buttons here, and the wool and the thread. Is that all you wish? That makes a franc sixty.”
Another roar, this time nearer. The street was immediately deserted. So quickly that a stranger could not observe the action, every passer-by disappeared. Every one went underground, somewhere, into an open cellar. It happened as naturally and quickly as in ordinary times when people find shelter from a sudden shower. They knew that the hour to seek cover had arrived. The shower of steel would last until evening, and would not cease until a new quarter was obliterated. It was the turn of one faubourg, therefore the others would escape this time. Consequently, outside the zone attacked, existence might continue as usual.
Already the rescue squads were running in the direction of the falling shells, as resolute and well disciplined as when at drill. Duty called them. They responded, “Present,” without fear or hesitation: down there people were dying under the ruins of their homes. The stretcher-bearers rescued the injured in the midst of the tumult. If they had been praised for their heroism, they would have resented the praise as an insult.
When recovered from our first astonishment, Berthet and I set out. This martyred city, so tragic and so calm, seemed to us superhuman. We found it beautiful. We felt a desire to weep, to cry out, as we looked at its reddened walls, its yawning windows and wrecked roofs. We went about gently, as one walks in a place of suffering and sorrow. In our rather aimless wandering, reverent as in a sacred place, we came suddenly in front of the cathedral.
It rose before us like a queen, at the turn of the street. The lofty façade, stained by fire in shades of gold and blood, lifted its proud head to the sky. The towers were like two arms stretched imploringly toward heaven: one reddened by fire, the other clothed by the centuries in the blue veil which shrouds ancient monuments. Between them the shattered rose-window seemed to moan distractedly: a silent sob. That dumb mouth in that fire-reddened face seemed to cry with such hatred, with such anguish, that we stopped, gripped by the sight.
It was there that the great Crime had written its name! There, where France had inscribed the most sacred things of her history; there, by the cradle of the nation, on the book always open, the assassin had left his thumb-print; his infamy remained inscribed in each gaping wound, on each fallen statue. The high towers attested to heaven the execrable violence. The roof was gone, like the scalp which the savage tears from the head of his victim. The eyes of God could search to the flagstones and judge with one glance the foul deed.
Outside the church the Place was gloomy, but sublime. By an effect of fatality, it had become the dwelling-place of the holy relics driven from the interior. The tabernacle was no longer in the heart of the cathedral, but scattered in fragments around it: the choir encircled the church. Fragments of stained-glass replaced the organ-pipes, and the wind moaned through the leaden groins, and chanted the dirge of the sacred spot.
Cathedral! Church thrice holy! The murderer tried to destroy thee: he has given thee eternal life. He tried to gag and choke thee: but the voice from thy tortured throat resounds higher and clearer throughout the world. In his stupidity he believed he could annihilate thee: instead, he has glorified thee. Cathedral! A song in stone, a hymn—hymn too ethereal for the human ear to catch; a poem of beauty and light, which the sodden Boche thought to efface, but which stands resplendent, a witness of his shame, before humanity and eternal righteousness. Divine, immortal cathedral! Men have never created a human prayer more sublime than art thou, bombarded. The German shell believed it had power to destroy thee. It has crushed thine arches and broken thy wings. Thou hadst no need of wings to soar. As a spirit of light thou hast floated above the city; now thou rulest over the city the war, and France; as a symbol, thou art resplendent over all the world. Rheims, thou wert the shrine of France; broken, thou art become her emblem. Thou art no longer ours alone. Thy majesty rises unshaken, triumphant, a divine intelligence facing savage cruelty; a barrier touched, but not destroyed, defying bestiality.
We had no words to express our emotions. We walked about, in silent exaltation. From its purple shroud, still smoking, the enormous basilique spoke to us. Great scenes in history were enacted in its sacred precincts: all the sacred kings, the noble sons of France; Clovis baptized by St. Remy; Charles VII led by Jeanne d’Arc, whose bronze image still defies the enemy from the porch of the church; Charles X, last king anointed in this august place—all, all were there as restless phantoms; powerful, saintly, silent, looking on. We were satiated with emotion, bewildered by a hundred beauties: the light through the broken arches, the fragments of art treasures in the dust at our feet, the scintillating glass on the flagstones. We went away, fairly giddy with its impassioned grandeur.
The increased cannonade directed our course. It was impossible to remain longer. We crossed the forsaken park and made a détour around the deserted station. Behind us lay a city of silence, but her martyrdom continued incessantly. Shrill whirrings made the air quiver. Shells growled above the roofs, leaped the streets, crossed the squares, threatened, fell and exploded. There was a sudden crash of collapsing floors and of tumbling masonry. A quarter, somewhere in the city, was being pounded to dust and débris; an entire quarter was being hammered out of existence. Clouds of plaster filled the air; great stones crumbled.
Families were unable to escape. Their homes, which should have sheltered them, were thrown wide open to the brutal dangers of the street. The invalid’s bed tottered in the ruins, the baby was thrown from its cradle. The old man died at the side of the youth, the wife in the arms of her husband, the child at its mother’s breast. The criminal extermination, determined upon and planned, was completing its frightful work, was blotting out a city, was beating to death a country. The Boche, squatting on the commanding heights, aimed his guns with ease, made sure of his fire and picked out his prey. He struck practically without risk to himself, sure to hit a target in the chaos of roofs, to demolish and to destroy. A town—what an immense quarry! The shell may fall where it will: it is sure to kill. The explosion will burst in some window, will cross some bedchamber, will find some victim. A town is a quarry more easily sighted than a battery. It is huge, it is immovable, it cannot reply. One can destroy it without danger to oneself.
Therefore the shells fell unerringly; only the flames and smoke made reply....
We paid it no further attention.
My poor Berthet, charming companion, and sharer of so many unforgettable experiences, was unable to follow the regiment through all its struggles. One day, while in the Rheims sector, he suffered severely in a gas attack and the physicians ordered him to the rear for treatment in one of the resting-camps. Gradually the soft air of France healed his tortured lungs and started him on the path of recovery. The German poison had, however, severely shaken his constitution and the cure was slow. He was unable to rejoin us for the tragic trials at Verdun.