"It was cleverly done."
"Ah, well," I said, warming to my English character, "you may get harder
knocks in the trenches. I suppose you are nearly due?"
Not for a year or so, he replied. And even then ... of course, he was
quite eligible as to physique ... it was really rather awkward ... but
as to serving in the army ... there were other jobs going. ... Was
anything more precious than life?... Could anything replace his life to
him?... To die at his age....
"It would certainly be a pity from an artistic point of view. But if
everybody thought like that, where would the Isonzo line be?"
If everybody thought as he did, there would be no Isonzo line at all.
German influence in Italy - why not? They had been there before; it was
no dark page in Italian history. Was his own government so admirable
that one should regret its disappearance? A pack of knaves and
cutthroats. Patriotism - a phrase; auto-intoxication. They say one thing
and mean another. The English too. Yes, the English too. Purely
mercenary motives, for all their noble talk.
It is always entertaining to see ourselves as others see us. I had the
presence of mind to interject some anti-British remark, which produced
the desired effect.
"Now they howl about the sufferings of Belgium, because their money-bags
are threatened. They fight for poor Belgium. They did not fight for
France in 1870, or for Denmark or Poland or Armenia. Trade was not
threatened. There was no profit in view. Profit! And they won't even
supply us with coal - - "
Always that coal.
It is clear as daylight. England has failed in her duty - her duty being
to supply everybody with coal, ships, money, cannons and anything else,
at the purchaser's valuation.
He made a few more statements of this nature, and I think he enjoyed his
little fling at that, for him, relatively speaking, since the war began,
rara avis, a genuine Englishman (Teutonic construction); I certainly
relished it. Then I asked:
"Where did you learn this? About Armenia, I mean, and Poland?"
"From my father. He was University Professor and Deputy in Parliament.
One also picks up a little something at school. Don't you agree with
me?"
"Not altogether. You seem to forget that a nation cannot indulge in
those freaks of humanitarianism which may possibly befit an individual.
A certain heroic dreamer told men to give all they had to the poor. You,
if you like, may adopt this idealistic attitude. You may do generous
actions such as your country cannot afford to do, since a nation which
abandons the line of expediency is on the high road to suicide. If I
have a bilious attack, by all means come and console me; if Poland has a
bilious attack, there is no reason why England should step in as
dry-nurse; there may be every reason, indeed, why England should stand
aloof. Now in Belgium, as you say, money is involved. Money, in this
national sense, means well-being; and well-being, in this national
sense, is one of the few things worth fighting for. However, I am only
throwing out one or two suggestions. On some other day, I would like to
discuss the matter with you point by point - some other day, that is,
when you are not playing football and have just a few clothes on. I am
now at a disadvantage. You could never get me to impugn your statements
courageously - not in that costume. It would be like haggling with Apollo
Belvedere. Why do you wear those baby things?"
"We are all wearing them, this season."
"So I perceive. How do you get into them?"
"Very slowly."
"Are they elastic?"
"I wish they were."....
Four minutes' talk. It gave me an insight. He was an intellectualist. As
such, he admired brute force but refused to employ it. He was civilized.
Like many products of civilization, he was unaware of its blessings and
unconcerned in its fate. Is it not a feature peculiar to civilization
that it thinks of everything save war? That is why they are uprooted,
these flowerings, each in its turn.
My father told me; often one hears that remark, even from adults. As if
a father could not be a fool like anybody else! That a child should have
hard-and-fast opinions - it is engaging. Children are egocentric. A
fellow of this size ought to be less positive.
These refined youths are fastidious about their clothes. They would not
dream of buying a ready-made suit, however well-fitting. They are
content to take their opinions second-hand. Unlike ours, they are seldom
alone; they lack those stretches of solitude during which they might
wrestle with themselves and do a little thinking on their own account.
When not with their family, they are always among companions, being far
more sociable and fond of herding together than their English
representatives. They talk more; they think less; they seem to do each
other's thinking, which takes away all hesitation and gives them a
precocious air of maturity. If this decorative lad engages in some
profession like medicine or engineering there is hope for him, even as
others of his age rectify their perspective by contact with crude
facts - groceries and calicoes and carburettors and so forth. Otherwise,
his doom is sealed. He remains a doctrinaire. This country is full of
them.
And then - the sterilizing influence of pavements. Even when summer comes
round, they all flock in a mass to some rowdy place like this Viareggio
or Ancona where, however pleasant the bathing, spiritual life is yet
shallower than at home. What says Craufurd Tait Ramage, LL.D.? "Their
country life consists merely in breathing a different air, though in
nothing else does it differ from the life they live in town."
He notices things, does Ramage; and might, indeed, have elaborated this
argument. The average Italian townsman seems to have lost all sense for
the beauty of rural existence; he is incurious about it; dislodge him
from the pavement - no easy task - and he gasps like a fish out of water.
Squares and cafes - they stimulate his fancy; the doings and opinions of
fellow-creatures - thence alone he derives inspiration.
