A Writer's Notebook (33 page)

Vladimir. He hadn't seen Vladimir for several days and wondered what had become of him. He was in none of the usual cafés. He knew where he lived and so went to his hotel, a cheap hotel off the Boulevard Raspail, frequented by students and a riff-raff of actors and musicians. Vladimir had a sordid little room on the fifth floor. He found him in bed.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why haven't you been about?”

“I can't get up. My only boots have fallen to pieces and the weather's so bad I can't go out in slippers.”

He looked at the boots and it was true no one could wear them, so, though he could ill afford it, he gave Vladimir twenty francs to buy a new pair. Vladimir thanked him profusely and they arranged to meet at the Dôme at the usual hour before dinner. But Vladimir never turned up. Neither
that evening nor the next, so on the third day he went to the hotel again and climbed the five flights to Vladimir's room. He found it full of flowers and Vladimir still in bed.

“Why haven't you come to the Dôme?” he asked.

“I can't go out, I have no boots.”

“But I gave you twenty francs to buy a pair.”

“I spent them on buying all these flowers. Aren't they beautiful?
Qui fleurit sa maison fleurit son cœur
.”

His soul was like a prisoner in a tower who saw through the narrow windows of his cell the green grass and the growing trees of the free world, yet remained perforce within those dank cold walls in perpetual gloom.

Softly the green trees grew among the ruined towers, and with a curious tenderness the ivy covered the grey stones which had withstood a hundred sieges.

The poplars, so graceful and erect, lining the river, threw on the languid stream their long reflections.

A shallow French river, limpid, mirroring the stars, while by the light of the moon the little islands shine white and beautiful. Trees in lean profusion line the banks. The fertile and charming Touraine, with its suave airs and its recollections of the romantic past.

The country stretches before you widely, so that you feel space to take a long breath, undulating and rich of soil, all green and smiling with its poplar trees, its chestnuts and its
larches. It gives you a comfortable sense of prosperity, of opulence even, but of an opulence dignified by grace and beauty and a staid sobriety.

Success. I don't believe it has had any effect on me. For one thing I always expected it, and when it came I accepted it as so natural that I didn't see anything to make a fuss about. Its only net value to me is that it has freed me from financial uncertainties that were never quite absent from my thoughts. I hated poverty. I hated having to scrape and save so as to make both ends meet. I don't think I'm so conceited as I was ten years ago.

Athens. I was sitting in the theatre of Dionysus, and from where I sat I could see the blue Ægean. When I thought of the great plays that had been acted on the stage, I got cold shivers down my spine. It was really a moment of intense emotion. I was thrilled and awed. A number of young Greek students came and began chattering to me in bad French. After a while one of them asked me if I would like him to recite something from the stage. I jumped at the chance. I thought he would recite some great speech by Sophocles or Euripides, and though I knew I shouldn't understand a word I prepared myself for a wonderful experience. He clambered down and struck an attitude, then with an appalling accent he started:
C'est nous les cadets de Gascogne
.

He was a philanthropist. His work was important and its value is enduring. He was hard-working and disinterested. He was in his small way a great man. He looked upon drink as
a curse and, busy as he was, yet found time to go up and down the country giving temperance lectures. He would not allow any member of his family to touch alcohol. There was one room in his house which he kept locked and would permit no one to enter. He died suddenly, and soon after the funeral his family broke into the room which had always excited their curiosity. They found it full of empty bottles, bottles of brandy, whisky, gin, bottles of chartreuse, benedictine and kummel. It was only too plain that he had brought the bottles in with him one by one, and having drunk their contents had not known how to get rid of them. I would give a great deal to know what passed through his mind when he came home after delivering a temperance lecture and behind locked doors sipped green chartreuse.

I met a curious man while I was having breakfast. He was a hussar and had ridden ahead of his regiment. While he breakfasted an orderly held his horse under the trees in the square. He told me he was a Cossack, born in Siberia, and for eleven years had been fighting Chinese brigands on the frontier. He was thin, with strongly marked features and large, very prominent blue eyes. He had been in Switzerland for the summer and three days before war broke out received orders to go to France at once. On the declaration he found himself unable to get back to Russia and was given a commission in a French cavalry regiment. He was talkative, vivacious and boastful. He told me that, having taken a German officer prisoner, he took him to his quarters. There he said to him: “Now I will show you how we treat prisoners and gentlemen,” and gave him a cup of chocolate; when he had drunk it he said: “Now I will show you how you treat them.” And he smacked his face. “What did he say?” I asked. “Nothing, he
knew that if he had opened his mouth I would have killed him.” He talked to me about the Senegalese. They insist on cutting off the Germans' heads: “Then you're sure they're dead—
et ça fait une bonne soupe
.” He described the shells: “They go zzz, and until they fall you don't know if you're going to be killed or not.”

Fighting is going on within twenty-five kilometres. While waiting for luncheon I talked to a sharp lad of thirteen. He told me that the other day two prisoners were brought through; the boy added that he had his cap full of hot chestnuts, and he threw them one by one in the wretched men's faces. When I told him that was very wrong he laughed and said: “Why? Everybody else was hitting them.” Some Germans came in afterwards to get a car that they had requisitioned and drove with the mayor to the house where it was. The
gendarmes
, ten of them, heard of this and followed. When they arrived the officer was passing into the house with the mayor, and one of the Germans was under the car doing something to it. The officer stepped to one side to let the mayor precede him: “It showed that he had good manners,” said the old lady with whom I am billeted; and as he did so the
gendarmes
shot him; then they shot the man who was under the car. The others held up their hands in surrender, but they shot them all.