Out To Win: The Story of America in FranceDawson, Coningsby
History
Out To Win: The Story of America in France
Dawson, Coningsby
World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
There is a blasphemous story by Leonid Andreyev, which recounts the
bitterness of the after years of Lazarus and the mischief Christ
wrought in recalling him from the grave. After his unnatural return
to life there was a blueness as of putrescence beneath his pallor;
an iciness to his touch; a choking silence in his presence; a horror
in his gaze, as if he were remembering his three days in the
sepulchre--as if forbidden knowledge groped behind his eyes. He rarely
looked at any one; there were none who courted his glance, who did not
creep away to die. The terror of his fame spread beyond Bethany. Rome
heard of him, and at that safe distance laughed. It did not laugh
after Caesar Augustus had sent for him. Caesar Augustus was a god upon
earth; he could not die. But when he had questioned Lazarus, peeped
through the windows of his eyes, and read what lay hidden in that
forbidden memory, he commanded that red-hot irons should quench such
sight for ever. From Rome Lazarus groped his way back to Palestine and
there, long years after his Saviour had been crucified, continued to
stumble through his own particular Gethsemane of blindness. I thought
of that story in the presence of this crowd, which carried with it the
taint of the grave.
But the band was still playing the Marseillaise--over and over it
played it. With each repetition it was as though these people, three
years dead, made another effort to cast aside their shrouds. Little
by little something was happening--something wonderful. Backs were
straightening; skirts were being caught up; resolution was rippling
from face to face--it passed and re-passed with each new roll of the
drums. The hoarse cries and moaning with which we had commenced were
gradually transforming themselves into singing.
There were some who were too weak to walk; these were carried by the
American Red Cross men into the waiting ambulances. The remainder were
marshalled into a disorderly procession and led out of the station by
the band.
We were moving down the hill to the palaces beside the lake--the
palaces to which all France used to troop for pleasure. We moved
soddenly at first, shuffling in our steps. But the drums were still
rolling out their defiance and the bugles were still blowing. The
laziest man in the French Army was doing his utmost to belie his
record. The ill-shod, flattened feet took up the music. They began to
dance. Were there ever feet less suited to dancing? That they should
dance was the acme of tragedy. Stockings fell down in creases about
the ankles. Women commenced to jig their Boche babies in their arms;
consumptive men and ancients waved their sauce-pans and grotesque
bundles of umbrellas. The sight was damnable. It was a burlesque. It
pierced the heart. What right had the Boche to leave these people so
comic after he had squeezed the life-blood out of them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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