London (England) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Anonyma said: "When I think of those old fairy-like German songs, I feel
as if I had lost a bit of my heart and shall never find it again. That is
what I regret most about this War. It is bad art."
"Art, indeed," said Cousin Gustus. "Why, every time they steal a picture
they get an Iron Cross. I know a man who saw a German wearing a perfect
rosary of Iron Crosses; the fellow was boasting of having bayoneted more
babies than any other man in the regiment. Listen to this: 'The enemy
attacked the outskirts of the village of What D'you Call'em, and engaged
our troops in hand-to-hand fighting.' Think of it, and we used to say
they were a civilised race. At the point of the bayonet, it says--isn't
it atrocious? 'The enemy were finally repulsed at the point of the
bay--' oh well, of course that may be different. I don't pretend to be
a military expert...."
"I hate the Germans," said Anonyma, "because they have spoilt my own idea
of them. I hate having a mistake brought home to me."
"I hate the Germans," began Mr. Russell, "because--"
"I'm going for a walk," said Anonyma. "I am sick of sitting here and
hearing you two old fogies argue about the War. If War is bad art, it is
vulgar to refer to it."
I know exactly what Mr. Russell was going to say. He had a vague culinary
metaphor in his mind. I hate the Germans because they are underdone, they
are red meat. Their vices and their virtues and their music, and their
greed and their fairyism and their militarism, all seem to have been
roasted in a hurry, and to contain, like red meat, the natural juices to
an extent that seems to us excessive. The reason why some of us dislike
red meat is that it reminds us too much of what our food originally was.
As we ourselves, possibly, are rather overcooked by the fire of
civilisation, this vulgar deficiency in our enemy is very apparent to us.
This is an elaborate, but not a pleasing analogy, and it was fortunate
that Mr. Russell was interrupted. Otherwise, I think he might have been
trying to this day to explain it to an exasperated Cousin Gustus. He
spoke of it to his Hound, and the idea interested that animal very much.
Mr. Russell, unfortunately, had a cold, and was therefore unable on such
a wet day to leave the house or Cousin Gustus. But Anonyma went out in a
mackintosh that gave her the "silhouette" of a Cossack, and a beautiful
little tarpaulin sou'wester, and high boots, and a skirt short enough to
give the boots every chance of advertisement. The notebook was safe in a
water-tight pocket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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