John Passos - One Man's Initiation, 1917

“I grant that what all of you say is true, but why say it over and over again?” André Dubois talked, striding back and forth beside the table, his arms gesticulating. His compound shadow thrown by the candles on the white wall followed him back and forth, mocking him with huge blurred gestures. “The Greek philosophers said it and the Indian sages. Our descendants thousands of years from now will say it and wring their hands as we do. Has not someone on earth the courage to act?...” The men at the table turned towards him, watching his tall figure move back and forth.

“We are slaves. We are blind. We are deaf. Why should we argue, we who have no experience of different things to go on? It has always been the same: man the slave of property or religion, of his own shadow... First we must burst our bonds, open our eyes, clear our ears. Now we know nothing but what we are told by the rulers. Oh, the lies, the lies, the lies, the lies that life is smothered in! We must strike once more for freedom, for the sake of the dignity of man. Hopelessly, cynically, ruthlessly we must rise and show at least that we are not taken in; that we are slaves but not willing slaves. Oh, they have deceived us so many times. We have been such dupes, we have been such dupes!”

“You are right,” said the blonde Norman sullenly; “we have all been dupes.”

A sudden self-consciousness chilled them all to silence for a while. Without wanting to, they strained their ears to hear the guns. There they were, throbbing loud, unceasing, towards the north, like hasty muffled drum-beating.

Cease; drain not to its dregs the wine,

Of bitter Prophecy.

The world is weary of its past.

Oh, might it die or rest at last.

All through the talk snatches from Hellas had been running through Howe’s head.

After a long pause he turned to Merrier and asked him how he had fared in the attack.

“Oh, not so badly. I brought my skin back,” said Merrier, laughing. “It was a dull business. After waiting eight hours under gas bombardment we got orders to advance, and so over we went with the barrage way ahead of us. There was no resistance where we were. We took a lot of prisoners and blew up some dugouts and I had the good luck to find a lot of German chocolate. It came in handy, I can tell you, as no ravitaillement came for two days. We just had biscuits and I toasted the biscuits and chocolate together and had quite good meals, though I nearly died of thirst afterwards... We lost heavily, though, when they started counter-attacking.”

“An’ no one of you were touched?”

“Luck... But we lost many dear friends. Oh, it’s always like that.”

“Look what I brought back-a German gun,” said André Dubois, going to the corner of the room.

“That’s some souvenir,” said Tom Randolph, sitting up suddenly, shaking himself out of the reverie he had been sunk in all through the talk of the evening.

“And I have three hundred rounds. They’ll come in handy some day.”

“When?”

“In the revolution-after the war.”

“That’s the stuff I like to hear,” cried Randolph, getting to his feet. “Why wait for the war to end?”

“Why? Because we have not the courage... But it is impossible until after the war.”

“And then you think it is possible?”

“Yes.”

“Will it accomplish anything?”

“God knows.”

“One last bottle of champagne,” cried Merrier.

They seated themselves round the table again. Martin took in at a glance the eager sunburned faces, the eyes burning with hope, with determination, and a sudden joy flared through him.

“Oh, there is hope,” he said, drinking down his glass. “We are too young, too needed to fail. We must find a way, find the first step of a way to freedom, or life is a hollow mockery.”

“To Revolution, to Anarchy, to the Socialist state,” they all cried, drinking down the last of the champagne. All the candles but one had guttered out. Their shadows swayed and darted in long arms and changing, grotesque limbs about the room.

“But first there must be peace,” said the Norman, Jean Chenier, twisting his mouth into a faintly bitter smile.

“Oh, indeed, there must be peace.”

“Of all slaveries, the slavery of war, of armies, is the bitterest, the most hopeless slavery.” Lully was speaking, his smooth brown face in a grimace of excitement and loathing. “War is our first enemy.”

“But oh, my friend,” said Merrier, “we will win in the end. All the people in all the armies of the world believe as we do. In all the minds the seed is sprouting.”

“Before long the day will come. The tocsin will ring.”

“Do you really believe that?” cried Martin. “Have we the courage, have we the energy, have we the power? Are we the men our ancestors were?”

“No,” said Dubois, crashing down on the table with his fist; “we are merely intellectuals. We cling to a mummified world. But they have the power and the nerve.”

“Who?”

“The stupid average working-people.”

“We only can combat the lies,” said Lully; “they are so easily duped. After the war that is what we must do.”

“Oh, but we are all such dupes,” cried Dubois. “First we must fight the lies. It is the lies that choke us.”

It was very late. Howe and Tom Randolph were walking home under a cold white moon already well sunk in the west; northward was a little flickering glare above the tops of the low hills and a sound of firing as of muffled drums beaten hastily.

“With people like that we needn’t despair of civilisation,” said Howe.

“With people who are young and aren’t scared you can do lots.”

“We must come over and see those fellows again. It’s such a relief to be able to talk.”

“And they give you the idea that something’s really going on in the world, don’t they?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful! Think that the awakening may come soon.”

“We might wake up to-morrow and ...”

“It’s too important to joke about; don’t be an ass, Tom.”

They rolled up in their blankets in the silent barn and listened to the drum-fire in the distance. Martin saw again, as he lay on his side with his eyes closed, the group of men in blue uniforms, men with eager brown faces and eyes gleaming with hope, and saw their full red lips moving as they talked.

The candle threw the shadows of their heads, huge, fantastic, and of their gesticulating arms on the white walls of the kitchen. And it seemed to Martin Howe that all his friends were gathered in that room.

“They say you sell shoe-laces,” said Martin, his eyes blinking in the faint candlelight.

Crouched in the end of the dugout was a man with a brown skin like wrinkled leather, and white eyebrows and moustaches. All about him were piles of old boots, rotten with wear and mud, holding fantastically the imprints of the toes and ankle-bones of the feet that had worn them. The candle cast flitting shadows over them so that they seemed to move back and forth faintly, as do the feet of wounded men laid out on the floor of the dressing-station.

“I’m a cobbler by profession,” said the man. He made a gesture with the blade of his knife in the direction of a huge bundle of leather laces that hung from a beam above his head. “I’ve done all those since yesterday. I cut up old boots into laces.”

“Helps out the five sous a bit,” said Martin, laughing.

“This post is convenient for my trade,” went on the cobbler, as he picked out another boot to be cut into laces, and started hacking the upper part off the worn sole. “At the little hut, where they pile up the stiffs before they bury them-you know, just to the left outside the abri-they leave lots of their boots around. I can pick up any number I want.” With a clasp-knife he was cutting the leather in a spiral, paring off a thin lace. He contracted his bushy eyebrows as he bent over his work. The candlelight glinted on the knife blade as he twisted it about dexterously.