Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (422 page)

“The men fell upon their faces and waited. The shells ploughed the ground around them, smothering them with dirt. A horrible, griping pain started in my young friend’s stomach, and began creeping upwards. His head and heart both seemed to be shrinking and growing cold. A shot tore off the head of the man next to him, sending the blood spurting into his face; a minute later another ripped open the back of a poor fellow lying to the front of him.

“His body seemed not to belong to himself at all. A strange, shrivelled creature had taken possession of it. He raised his head and peered about him. He and three soldiers — youngsters, like himself, who had never before been under fire — appeared to be utterly alone in that hell. They were the end men of the regiment, and the configuration of the ground completely hid them from their comrades.

“They glanced at each other, these four, and read one another’s thoughts. Leaving their rifles lying on the grass, they commenced to crawl stealthily upon their bellies, the lieutenant leading, the other three following.

“Some few hundred yards in front of them rose a small, steep hill. If they could reach this it would shut them out of sight. They hastened on, pausing every thirty yards or so to lie still and pant for breath, then hurrying on again, quicker than before, tearing their flesh against the broken ground.

“At last they reached the base of the slope, and slinking a little way round it, raised their heads and looked back. Where they were it was impossible for them to be seen from the Prussian lines.

“They sprang to their feet and broke into a wild race. A dozen steps further they came face to face with an Austrian field battery.

“The demon that had taken possession of them had been growing stronger the further they had fled. They were not men, they were animals mad with fear. Driven by the same frenzy that prompted other panic-stricken creatures to once rush down a steep place into the sea, these four men, with a yell, flung themselves, sword in hand, upon the whole battery; and the whole battery, bewildered by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack, thinking the entire battalion was upon them, gave way, and rushed pell-mell down the hill.

“With the sight of those flying Austrians the fear, as independently as it had come to him, left him, and he felt only a desire to hack and kill. The four Prussians flew after them, cutting and stabbing at them as they ran; and when the Prussian cavalry came thundering up, they found my young lieutenant and his three friends had captured two guns and accounted for half a score of the enemy.

“Next day, he was summoned to headquarters.

“‘Will you be good enough to remember for the future, sir,’ said the Chief of the Staff, ‘that His Majesty does not require his lieutenants to execute manoeuvres on their own responsibility, and also that to attack a battery with three men is not war, but damned tomfoolery. You ought to be court-martialled, sir!’

“Then, in somewhat different tones, the old soldier added, his face softening into a smile: ‘However, alertness and daring, my young friend, are good qualities, especially when crowned with success. If the Austrians had once succeeded in planting a battery on that hill it might have been difficult to dislodge them. Perhaps, under the circumstances, His Majesty may overlook your indiscretion.’

“‘His Majesty not only overlooked it, but bestowed upon me the Iron Cross,’ concluded my friend. ‘For the credit of the army, I judged it better to keep quiet and take it. But, as you can understand, the sight of it does not recall very pleasurable reflections.’”

* * * * *

To return to my diary, I see that on November 14th we held another meeting. But at this there were present only “Jephson, MacShaughnassy, and Self”; and of Brown’s name I find henceforth no further trace. On Christmas eve we three met again, and my notes inform me that MacShaughnassy brewed some whiskey-punch, according to a recipe of his own, a record suggestive of a sad Christmas for all three of us. No particular business appears to have been accomplished on either occasion.

Then there is a break until February 8th, and the assemblage has shrunk to “Jephson and Self.” With a final flicker, as of a dying candle, my diary at this point, however, grows luminous, shedding much light upon that evening’s conversation.

Our talk seems to have been of many things — of most things, in fact, except our novel. Among other subjects we spoke of literature generally.

“I am tired of this eternal cackle about books,” said Jephson; “these columns of criticism to every line of writing; these endless books about books; these shrill praises and shrill denunciations; this silly worship of novelist Tom; this silly hate of poet Dick; this silly squabbling over playwright Harry. There is no soberness, no sense in it all. One would think, to listen to the High Priests of Culture, that man was made for literature, not literature for man. Thought existed before the Printing Press; and the men who wrote the best hundred books never read them. Books have their place in the world, but they are not its purpose. They are things side by side with beef and mutton, the scent of the sea, the touch of a hand, the memory of a hope, and all the other items in the sum-total of our three-score years and ten. Yet we speak of them as though they were the voice of Life instead of merely its faint echo. Tales are delightful
as
tales — sweet as primroses after the long winter, restful as the cawing of rooks at sunset. But we do not write ‘tales’ now; we prepare ‘human documents’ and dissect souls.”

He broke off abruptly in the midst of his tirade. “Do you know what these ‘psychological studies,’ that are so fashionable just now, always make me think of?” he said. “One monkey examining another monkey for fleas.

“And what, after all, does our dissecting pen lay bare?” he continued. “Human nature? or merely some more or less unsavoury undergarment, disguising and disfiguring human nature? There is a story told of an elderly tramp, who, overtaken by misfortune, was compelled to retire for a while to the seclusion of Portland. His hosts, desiring to see as much as possible of their guest during his limited stay with them, proceeded to bath him. They bathed him twice a day for a week, each time learning more of him; until at last they reached a flannel shirt. And with that they had to be content, soap and water proving powerless to go further.

“That tramp appears to me symbolical of mankind. Human Nature has worn its conventions for so long that its habit has grown on to it. In this nineteenth century it is impossible to say where the clothes of custom end and the natural man begins. Our virtues are taught to us as a branch of ‘Deportment’; our vices are the recognised vices of our reign and set. Our religion hangs ready-made beside our cradle to be buttoned upon us by loving hands. Our tastes we acquire, with difficulty; our sentiments we learn by rote. At cost of infinite suffering, we study to love whiskey and cigars, high art and classical music. In one age we admire Byron and drink sweet champagne: twenty years later it is more fashionable to prefer Shelley, and we like our champagne dry. At school we are told that Shakespeare is a great poet, and that the Venus di Medici is a fine piece of sculpture; and so for the rest of our lives we go about saying what a great poet we think Shakespeare, and that there is no piece of sculpture, in our opinion, so fine as the Venus di Medici. If we are Frenchmen we adore our mother; if Englishmen we love dogs and virtue. We grieve for the death of a near relative twelve months; but for a second cousin we sorrow only three. The good man has his regulation excellencies to strive after, his regulation sins to repent of. I knew a good man who was quite troubled because he was not proud, and could not, therefore, with any reasonableness, pray for humility. In society one must needs be cynical and mildly wicked: in Bohemia, orthodoxly unorthodox. I remember my mother expostulating with a friend, an actress, who had left a devoted husband and eloped with a disagreeable, ugly, little low comedian (I am speaking of long, long ago).

“‘You must be mad,’ said my mother; ‘what on earth induced you to take such a step?’

“‘My dear Emma,’ replied the lady; ‘what else was there for me? You know I can’t act. I had to do
something
to show I was ‘an artiste!’

“We are dressed-up marionettes. Our voice is the voice of the unseen showman, Convention; our very movements of passion and pain are but in answer to his jerk. A man resembles one of those gigantic bundles that one sees in nursemaids’ arms. It is very bulky and very long; it looks a mass of delicate lace and rich fur and fine woven stuffs; and somewhere, hidden out of sight among the finery, there is a tiny red bit of bewildered humanity, with no voice but a foolish cry.

“There is but one story,” he went on, after a long pause, uttering his own thoughts aloud rather than speaking to me. “We sit at our desks and think and think, and write and write, but the story is ever the same. Men told it and men listened to it many years ago; we are telling it to one another to-day; we shall be telling it to one another a thousand years hence; and the story is: ‘Once upon a time there lived a man, and a woman who loved him.’ The little critic cries that it is not new, and asks for something fresh, thinking — as children do — that there are strange things in the world.”

* * * * *

At that point my notes end, and there is nothing in the book beyond. Whether any of us thought any more of the novel, whether we ever met again to discuss it, whether it were ever begun, whether it were ever abandoned — I cannot say. There is a fairy story that I read many, many years ago that has never ceased to haunt me. It told how a little boy once climbed a rainbow. And at the end of the rainbow, just behind the clouds, he found a wondrous city. Its houses were of gold, and its streets were paved with silver, and the light that shone upon it was as the light that lies upon the sleeping world at dawn. In this city there were palaces so beautiful that merely to look upon them satisfied all desires; temples so perfect that they who once knelt therein were cleansed of sin. And all the men who dwelt in this wondrous city were great and good, and the women fairer than the women of a young man’s dreams. And the name of the city was, “The city of the things men meant to do.”

SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

CONTENTS

ON THE ART OF MAKING UP ONE’S MIND

ON THE DISADVANTAGE OF NOT GETTING WHAT ONE WANTS

ON THE EXCEPTIONAL MERIT ATTACHING TO THE THINGS WE MEANT TO DO

ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES

ON THE DELIGHTS AND BENEFITS OF SLAVERY

ON THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF WOMEN

ON THE MINDING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS

ON THE TIME WASTED IN LOOKING BEFORE ONE LEAPS

ON THE NOBILITY OF OURSELVES

ON THE MOTHERLINESS OF MAN

ON THE INADVISABILITY OF FOLLOWING ADVICE

ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES

ON THE ART OF MAKING UP ONE’S MIND

“Now, which would you advise, dear? You see, with the red I shan’t be able to wear my magenta hat.”

“Well then, why not have the grey?”

“Yes — yes, I think the grey will be MORE useful.”

“It’s a good material.”

“Yes, and it’s a PRETTY grey. You know what I mean, dear; not a COMMON grey. Of course grey is always an UNINTERESTING colour.”

“Its quiet.”

“And then again, what I feel about the red is that it is so warm-looking. Red makes you FEEL warm even when you’re NOT warm. You know what I mean, dear!”

“Well then, why not have the red? It suits you — red.”

“No; do you really think so?”

“Well, when you’ve got a colour, I mean, of course!”

“Yes, that is the drawback to red. No, I think, on the whole, the grey is SAFER.”

“Then you will take the grey, madam?”

“Yes, I think I’d better; don’t you, dear?”

“I like it myself very much.”

“And it is good wearing stuff. I shall have it trimmed with — Oh! you haven’t cut it off, have you?”

“I was just about to, madam.”

“Well, don’t for a moment. Just let me have another look at the red. You see, dear, it has just occurred to me — that chinchilla would look so well on the red!”

“So it would, dear!”

“And, you see, I’ve got the chinchilla.”

“Then have the red. Why not?”

“Well, there is the hat I’m thinking of.”

“You haven’t anything else you could wear with that?”

“Nothing at all, and it would go so BEAUTIFULLY with the grey. — Yes, I think I’ll have the grey. It’s always a safe colour — grey.”

“Fourteen yards I think you said, madam?”

“Yes, fourteen yards will be enough; because I shall mix it with — One minute. You see, dear, if I take the grey I shall have nothing to wear with my black jacket.”