H. Wells - The World Set Free

was amazing to discover he was living close at hand in a tent

made of carpets-and he had 'an urbane but insistent manner,' a

carefully trimmed moustache and beard, expressive eyebrows, and

hair very neatly brushed.

'No one goes into Paris,' said Barnet.

'But, Monsieur, that is very unenterprising,' the man by the

wayside submitted.

'The danger is too great. The radiations eat into people's

skins.'

The eyebrows protested. 'But is nothing to be done?'

'Nothing can be done.'

'But, Monsieur, it is extraordinarily inconvenient, this living

in exile and waiting. My wife and my little boy suffer

extremely. There is a lack of amenity. And the season advances.

I say nothing of the expense and difficulty in obtaining

provisions… When does Monsieur thinkthat something will be

done to render Paris-possible?'

Barnet considered his interlocutor.

'I'm told,' said Barnet, 'that Paris is not likely to be possible

again for several generations.'

'Oh! but this is preposterous! Consider, Monsieur! What are

people like ourselvesto do in the meanwhile? I ama costumier.

All my connections and interests, above all my style, demand

Paris…'

Barnet considered the sky, from which a light rain was beginning

to fall, the wide fields about them from which the harvest had

been taken, the trimmed poplars by the wayside.

'Naturally,' he agreed, 'you want to go to Paris. But Paris is

over.'

'Over!'

'Finished.'

'But then, Monsieur-what is to become-of ME?'

Barnet turned his face westward, whither the white road led.

'Where else, for example, may I hope to find-opportunity?'

Barnet made no reply.

'Perhaps on the Riviera. Or at some such place as Homburg. Or

some plague perhaps.'

'All that,' said Barnet, acceptingfor the first time facts that

had lain evident in his mindfor weeks; 'all that must be over,

too.'

There was a pause. Then the voice beside him broke out. 'But,

Monsieur, it is impossible! It leaves-nothing.'

'No. Not very much.'

'One cannot suddenly begin to growpotatoes!'

'It would be goodif Monsieur could bring himself--'

'To the life of a peasant! And my wife--You do not knowthe

distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a

peculiar dependent charm. Like some slender tropical

creeper-with great white flowers… But all this is foolish

talk. It is impossible that Paris, which has survived so many

misfortunes, should not presently revive.'

'I do not thinkit will ever revive. Paris is finished. London,

too, I amtold-Berlin. All the great capitals were

stricken…'

'But--! Monsieur must permit me to differ.'

'It is so.'

'It is impossible. Civilisations do not end in this manner.

Mankind will insist.'

'On Paris?'

'On Paris.'

'Monsieur, you might as well hope to go down the Maelstrom and

resume business there.'

'I am content, Monsieur, with my own faith.'

'The winter comes on. Would not Monsieur be wiserto seek a

house?'

'Farther from Paris? No, Monsieur. But it is not possible,

Monsieur, what you say, and you are under a tremendous

mistake… Indeed you are in error… I asked merely for

information…'

'When last I sawhim,' said Barnet, 'he was standing under the

signpost at the crest of the hill, gazing wistfully, yet it

seemed to me a little doubtfully, now towards Paris, and

altogether heedless of a drizzling rain that was wetting him

through and through…'

Section 5

This effectof chill dismay, of a doom as yet imperfectly

apprehended deepens as Barnet's record passes on to tell of the

approach of winter. It was too much for the great mass of those

unwilling and incompetent nomads to realise that an age had

ended, that the old helpand guidance existedno longer, that

times would not mend again, however patientlythey held out. They

were still in many cases looking to Paris when the first

snowflakes of that pitiless January came swirling about them. The

story growsgrimmer…

If it is less monstrously tragic after Barnet's return to

England, it is, if anything, harder. England was a spectacle of

fear-embittered householders, hiding food, crushing out robbery,

driving the starving wanderers from every faltering place upon

the roads lest they should die inconveniently and reproachfully

on the doorsteps of those who had failed to urge them onward…

The remnants of the British troops left France finally in March,

after urgent representations from the provisional government at

Orleans that they could be supported no longer. They seem to have

been a fairly well-behaved, but highly parasitic force

throughout, though Barnet is clearly of opinion that they did

much to suppress sporadic brigandage and maintain social order.

He came home to a famine-stricken country, and his picture of the

England of that spring is one of miserable patienceand desperate

expedients. The country was suffering much more than France,

because of the cessationof the overseas supplies on which it had

hitherto relied. His troops were given bread, dried fish, and

boiled nettles at Dover, and marched inland to Ashford and paid

off. On the way thither they sawfour men hanging from the

telegraph posts by the roadside, who had been hung for stealing

swedes. The labour refuges of Kent, he discovered, were feeding

their crowds of casual wanderers on bread into which clay and

sawdust had been mixed. In Surrey there was a shortage of even

such fare as that. He himselfstruck across country to

Winchester, fearingto approach the bomb-poisoned district round

London, and at Winchester he had the luck to be taken on as one

of the wireless assistants at the central station and given

regular rations. The station stood in a commanding position on

the chalk hill that overlooks the town from the east…

Thence he must have assisted in the transmission of the endless

cipher messages that preceded the gathering at Brissago, and

there it was that the Brissago proclamation of the end of the war

and the establishment of a world government came under his hands.

He was feelingill and apatheticthat day, and he did not realise

what it was he was transcribing. He did it mechanically, as a

part of his tedious duty.

Afterwards there came a rush of messages arising out of the

declaration that strained him very much, and in the evening when

he was relieved, he ate his scanty supper and then went out upon

the little balcony before the station, to smoke and resthis

brains after this sudden and as yet inexplicable press of duty.

It was a very beautiful, still evening. He fell talking to a

fellow operator, and for the first time, he declares, 'I began to

understandwhat it was all about. I began to seejust what

enormous issues had been under my hands for the past four hours.

But I became incredulous after my first stimulation. "This is

some sort of Bunkum," I said very sagely.

'My colleague was more hopeful. "It means an end to

bomb-throwing and destruction," he said. "It means that

presently corn will come from America."

' "Who is going to send corn when there is no more value in

money?" I asked.

'Suddenly we were startled by a clashing from the town below. The

cathedral bells, which had been silent ever since I had come into

the district, were beginning, with a sort of rheumatic

difficulty, to ring. Presently they warmed a little to the work,