Wars I Have Seen (7 page)

And all that makes one think more and more of the strangeness and the unreality of those middle-western boys who were naturally called dough-boys, being in San Francisco, and then going to the Philippines, when they got to the Philippines and back again I never saw them so I do not really know what happened to them, by that time we were all interested in realism in literature, and that kind of went on until 1938, when it was all over, there was an end of the nineteenth century and realism was the last thing the nineteenth century did completely. Anybody can understand that there is no point in being realistic about here and now, no use at all not any, and so it is not the nineteenth but the twentieth century, there is no realism now, life is not real it is not earnest, it is strange which is an entirely different matter.

During the Spanish-American war there were food scandals, and in the Boer war there were concentration camps where they had nothing to eat, and all that is natural enough. The concentration camps for the Boers excited us all, nobody knew then how everybody was finally that is everybody in Europe was finally not going to have anything to eat. There was famine in China even in
Russia and there was famine in India and every one then in the time of the Boer war and before and after was very much excited about it but now here in 1943 not having anything to eat enough to eat, having what you can eat, buying eating black, that is black traffic, thinking about eating, everybody on the road bicycling or walking with a pack on their back or a basket in the hand, or a big bundle on the bicycle, hoping for provisions, somewhere in the country there would be an egg or something or something, and perhaps you will get that something. One day I was out walking, well naturally I had a basket and big prospects and hopes and I met a nice gentle little bourgeoise from Belley, and it was spring time and she had a very charming and quite large bouquet of flowers very beautifully arranged in her hand and I said what a charming bouquet of flowers, yes she said eyeing the bouquet carefully, yes, I have been in the country to visit some relations, and I had hoped, I had hoped perhaps for an egg, perhaps even perhaps for a chicken, and she heaved a little breath they gave me these flowers. They are very charming flowers I said, yes she said, and we said good-bye and went each one on our way. There are so many people in prison because they sell what they should not sell, and yet, well and yet, I met Roselyn I said you are looking very well, the restrictions do not seem to have had any effect on you, well said Roselyn, one finds things. Roselyn, I said, you indulging in black traffic, mais non, she said of course I would not, to find something is one thing, to indulge in black traffic is quite another thing. Explain the difference to me I said Well said Roselyn, to find is when you find a small amount any day at a reasonable price which will just augment your diet and keep you healthy. Black traffic is when you pay a very large sum for a large amount of food, that is the difference. And she is right that is a difference and we all all day and every day go about and in every way we do or do not find something that helps the day along. As Madame Pierlot said, you do not buy now-a-days only with money you buy with your personality. Jo Davidson used to say that you always had to sell your personality, but now it is not a question of selling it is a question
of buying by personality. Nothing is sadder these days than people who never make friends, they poor dears have nothing to eat, neither do the indiscreet, and yet almost everybody does eat. Almost everybody, almost, it comes hardest on middle aged men, not women they resist better but middle aged men, without wine and cheese, they get thinner and thinner and thinner. We women of a certain age, we reduce to a certain place and then we seem to get along all right, but the middle aged men get thin, and thinner and thinner. Naturally those that had been fat. Oh dear me.

So the Boer war was the first time we really realized that war made them thin that is the civilian population, it must have been true in the civil war, but at that time, there were so many pioneers and pioneers are always thin, and Boers were fat, and the Boer war made them thin just like that.

I just heard a nice story about a farmer’s wife. She complained that her cow could not live because she had no hay. Some one who had a large house and a lot of land heard her and said I will give you two thousand pounds of hay that is a load of hay as a present if you will sell me every day a litre of milk. And said the farmer’s wife what will I do having so much less butter. No not at all said the farmer’s wife. The Boer war might be like that just like that and so is 1943.

And so there was the Spanish-American war. So much happened in the Spanish-American war, to us and to me to the United States and to us, something to Spain too and to any Spaniard but then that was a habit, they always had these things happen in Europe. But with us although in a kind of a way in our short history it had very frequently happened still it was not a habit.

To-day we were at Aix-les-Bains, end of June 1943 when this you see remember me, and in a kind of way it was different but in a kind of way it was the middle western dough boys in San Francisco. We were at the station it was the first of July and there were many trains and many people, on one track where our train should have been it was not. And then a train came along, all trains go very slowly now, the engineers are used up the track is used up and
the coal is bad so therefore there are a fair number of trains moving they move at a walk. This train that came along and kept moving and did not stop had on it tanks and trucks which did not look very strong, as they were not armored and seated on them and seated in the open cars placed on trucks and seated anywhere were Germans all naked except a little trouser nothing on their heads and sitting there and the train went on slowly and all the French people were as if they were at a theatre that was not interesting and the train went on slowly and then our train came in and I got on it with my white dog Basket and the French people were pleased, Basket was the real circus, he was a theatre that they found interesting and they were interested and they said so, and nobody had noticed the train full of Germans except four young Frenchmen from the camp de Jeunesse and they like all young fellows of that age laughed, which reminded me of the dough boys in San Francisco, in the midst of the San Francisco public. Which ones. Those Germans.

It is funny funny in the sense of strange and peculiar and unrealisable, the fact that so many are prisoners, prisoners, prisoners every where, and now Berard where we used to lunch is in prison, for black traffic, and an Alsatian and his wife and his son, because of the younger son who went to the funeral of his fiancée and on his way he was taken and he escaped and they were in prison and now they are out and he is in safety but where. Anywhere. And whole countries in prison and now we have a feeling that they who put everybody in prison are now in prison they feel themselves in prison, they feel imprisoned. They have just told us that our friends the American consul and vice-consul although in prison and are very free and amusing themselves and have flowers in their rooms and play tennis and send messages and make excursions. Oh dear me, when this you see, but after all, when this you see, and after all you would imagine that with all that I would not any longer want to read mystery stories and spy stories and all that but not at all I want to read them more than ever, to change one reality for another, one unreality for another and so
the Spanish-American war made us Americans conscious of being a world power, conscious of the school of realism, conscious of England being nineteenth century, with Kipling and the white man’s burden, was in a way for me the beginning of killing the nineteenth century, which is now not any longer dying but dead and the little coffins that are being sent to all pro-Germans are part of the funeral. French people like New Englanders like funerals, they are a peaceful occupation, nice and quiet, and certain. Ah say the French before all this we were so happy but we did not appreciate our good fortune.

Realism.

After all there has to be realism realism in romance and in novels and the reason why is this. Novels have to resemble something and in order that they do there must be realism. Of course all writers had had realism, writers and readers always have a realism, after all living is in a way always real, that is to say what one hears and sees, even what one feels is in a way always real, but the realism of the present seems new because the realism of the past is no longer real.

And so just at the time of the Spanish-American war, there commenced the difference between Kipling’s realism, which was romanticism, but real enough, and the French and Russian realism, which was so real that it was real enough. Was it real as anybody could know realism, or was it not. Just at the time of the Spanish-American war and later the Russo-Japanese war this question of realism was becoming the vital question for Americans who having a land with a clear light manufacturing light and resistant steel, their life needed a clean and resistant realism but at the same time they needed to move around and you cannot keep moving around without feeling romantic. The nineteenth century was then in its full strength and everybody knew it, and everybody knew that when a thing is like that you have to begin to try to forget it, and they all began to they all began to begin to forget it.

It is funny about things being real. Something happened a few months ago like that, in February 1943.

We had been in Bilignin all these years of the war and now our lease had run out and our landlord and his wife wanted their home back, not that they needed it just then, but they did want it back. And so for the first time in my life, I had a lawyer and a law-suit, and we lost but nevertheless, they gave us longer, and the authorities said as long as they did not consent that we should be put out the others in spite of what the law said could do nothing about it. And then the situation changed, the French army was disbanded, and our landlord who was a captain did have more reason in asking to have his house back again and so finally some one offered us this house in Culoz, and it is quite wonderful even though modern, but after you have been living in an old house for so long a new house has pleasant things about it, windows that fit and light and air, well anyway we told the lawyer it was all right, and the new law-suit we were about to start did not go on, and we had made all our arrangements for moving including our electric water heater and our bathtub and our electric kitchen stove and our refrigerator, and we had made all preparations, and our late landlords had decided to behave nicely at last and I went down to say good-bye to everybody in Belley and first of all to my lawyer. I had always been so much taken with the way all English people I knew always were going to see their lawyer. Even if they have no income and do not earn anything they always have a lawyer and now for the first time in my life I had a lawyer, and so I went down to say good-bye to my lawyer.

We had recently quite a number of difficult moments. America had come into the war, our consul and vice-consul in Lyon with whom we had gotten very friendly because they had taken a summer home right near us and kept a white goat called Genevieve, and there we first found out that you could have goat’s milk that did not taste of goat, had been interned first at Lourdes and then taken to Germany and now I went to Belley to say good-bye as we were moving. My lawyer said that everything was nicely arranged and we thanked each other and said what a pleasure it had all been, and then he said and now I have something rather
serious to tell you. I was in Vichy yesterday, and I saw Maurice Sivain, Sivain had been sous-prefet at Belley and had been most kind and helpful in extending our privileges and our occupation of our house, and Maurice Sivain said to me, tell these ladies that they must leave at once for Switzerland, to-morrow if possible otherwise they will be put into a concentration camp. But I said we are just moving. I know he said. I felt very funny, quite completely funny. But how can we go, as the frontier is closed, I said. That he said could be arranged, I think that could be arranged. You mean pass by fraud I said, Yes he said, it could be arranged. I felt very funny. I said I think I will go home and will you telephone Madame d’Aiguy to meet me. He said shall I walk home with you, I did feel very funny, and I said no I will go home and Madame d’Aiguy will come down to see you and arrange and I went home. I came in, I felt a little less funny but I still did feel funny, and Alice Toklas and Madame d’Aiguy were there, and I said we are not moving to-morrow we are going to Switzerland. They did not understand that and I explained and then they did understand, and Madame d’Aiguy left to go and see the lawyer and arrange and Alice Toklas and I sat down to supper. We both felt funny and then I said. No, I am not going we are not going, it is better to go regularly wherever we are sent than to go irregularly where nobody can help us if we are in trouble, no I said, they are always trying to get us to leave France but here we are and here we stay. What do you think, I said, and we thought and I said we will walk down to Belley and see the lawyer and tell him no. We walked down to Belley it was night it was dark but I am always out walking at night, I like it, and I took Alice Toklas by the arm because she has not the habit of walking at night and we got to Belley, and climbed up the funny steps to the lawyer, and I said I have decided not to go. Madame d’Aiguy was still there and she said perhaps it was better so, and the lawyer said perhaps we had better go and then he said he had a house way up in the mountains and there nobody would know, and I said well perhaps later but now I said to-morrow we are going to move to Culoz, with our
large comfortable new house with two good servants and a nice big park with trees, and we all went home, and we did move the next day. It took us some weeks to get over it but we finally did.

But what was so curious in the whole affair was its unreality, like things are unreal when you are a child and before you know about realism as we did in the Spanish-American war and the Russo-Japanese war just that.