Unhappy Far-Off Things | Page 5

the future. When I had finished
speaking of the future, he raised a knobbed stick that he carried, up to
the level of his throat, surely his son's old trench stick, and there he let
it dangle from a piece of string in the handle, which he held against his
neck. He watched me shrewdly and attentively meanwhile, for I was a
stranger and was to be taught something I might not know--a thing that
it was necessary for all men to learn. "Le Kaiser," he said. "Yes;" I said,
"the Kaiser." But I pronounced the word Kaiser differently from him,
and he repeated again "Le Kaiser," and watched me closely to be sure
that I understood. And then he said "Pendu," and made the stick quiver
a little as it dangled from its string. "Oui," I said, "Pendu."
Did I understand? He was not yet quite sure. It was important that this
thing should be quite decided between us as we stood on this road
through what had been Croisilles, where he had lived through many
sunny years and I had dwelt for a season amongst rats. "Pendu" he said.
Yes, I agreed.
It was all right. The old man almost smiled.
I offered him a cigarette and we lit two from an apparatus of flint and
steel and petrol that the old man had in his pocket.
He showed me a photograph of himself and a passport to prove, I
suppose, that he was not a spy. One could not recognize the likeness,
for it must have been taken on some happier day, before he had seen his
house of two storeys lying there by the road. But he was no spy, for
there were tears in his eyes; and Prussians I think have no tears for
what we saw across the village of Croisilles.
I spoke of the rebuilding of his house no more, I spoke no more of the
new Croisilles shining through future years; for these were not the
things that he saw in the future, and these were not the hopes of the
poor old man. He had one dark hope of the future, and no others. He
hoped to see the Kaiser hung for the wrong he had done to Croisilles. It
was for this hope he lived.
Madame or señor of whatever far country, who may chance to see these
words, blame not this old man for the fierce hope he cherished. It was
the only hope he had. You, Madame, with your garden, your house,
your church, the village where all know you, you may hope as a
Christian should, there is wide room for hope in your future. You shall

see the seasons move over your garden, you shall busy yourself with
your home, and speak and share with your neighbours innumerable
small joys, and find consolation and beauty, and at last rest, in and
around the church whose spire you see from your home. You, señor,
with your son perhaps growing up, perhaps wearing already some
sword that you wore once, you can turn back to your memories or look
with hope to the future with equal ease.
The man that I met in Croisilles had none of these things at all. He had
that one hope only.
Do not, I pray you, by your voice or vote, or by any power or influence
that you have, do anything to take away from this poor old Frenchman
the only little hope he has left. The more trivial his odd hope appears to
you compared with your own high hopes that come so easily to you
amongst all your fields and houses, the more cruel a thing must it be to
take it from him.
I learned many things in Croisilles, and the last of them is this strange
one the old man taught me. I turned and shook hands with him and said
good-bye, for I wished to see again our old front line that we used to
hold over the hill, now empty, silent at last. "The Boche is defeated," I
said.
"Vaincu, vaincu," he repeated. And I left him with something almost
like happiness looking out of his tearful eyes.

Bermondsey versus Wurtemburg
The trees grew thinner and thinner along the road, then ceased
altogether, and suddenly we saw Albert in the wood of the ghosts of
murdered trees, all grey and deserted.
Descending into Albert past trees in their agony we came all at once on
the houses. You did not see them far off as in other cities; we came on
them all at once as you come on a corpse in the grass.
We stopped and stood by a house that was covered with plaster marked
off to look like great stones, its pitiful