The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 81
THE German laughed softly. "You are a primitive woman, Madame. It refreshes me to find a woman so charmingly direct, so completely feminine. There are not many left. It is a quality which should al ways accompany beauty. If a woman is not beautiful, it does not matter." He paused waiting for her to speak and when she said nothing, he continued. "I envy your lover. He is a fortunate man."
At this Lily stirred once more. It was a faint movement, yet it carried a warning of anger.
"Of course, you may say and do what you please," she said. "I am completely helpless."
The Uhlan rattled his spurs in the darkness. "Come . . . come, now. I have no intention of harming you. I told you that before. It seems to me that this once . . . on a night such as this . . . we might talk honestly . . . as if there was no nonsense in the world. I do not know your name and you do not know mine. We shall never meet again, for I, no doubt, will be dead before many days. You have admitted that you have a lover." He leaned across the table with a curious pleading gesture. "You see, I am tired. I mean to say that I am wearied of keeping up deceits. Has it ever occurred to you how many barriers surround us all . . . even those friends whom we know very well. The countless secrets which lie behind them . . . the things which we never know, even about our dearest friends. For once . . . just once, it would be a delight to talk without pretense . . . to speak as if each one of us were free, quite free, to do as he pleased . . . to answer to no one, to fear no one. There is no more freedom in the world. There are too many people in the world. And the life of no one is any longer his own." He paused and passed a thin, nervous hand across his brow as if he would clear away some entanglement which had entrapped his thoughts. "I cannot say what I mean. I, like all the others, have kept my secrets hidden for too long a time. You see, if it were possible for us to talk thus with freedom . . . we might separate, you knowing me and I knowing you, better than any one else in the world." He laughed and his mood changed quickly from a resigned weariness back to the old mocking flippancy. "It is an interesting idea, but impossible of course . . . because we no longer know even ourselves. We have sacrificed ourselves to those who crowd in upon us, who dare not share our secrets . . . because the crowd is too stupid . . . too cowardly . . . too weak . . . too bereft of understanding. The crowd is like sheep. They must be protected by little shepherd laws . . . against themselves. And so the strong are sacrificed to the weak. That will put an end to us all some day . . . an end to all this blessed civilization. Ah, if you knew how stupid sheep can be. I have a farm in Silesia, Madame. I can tell you all about sheep." For an instant he paused, considering the imbecility of sheep. "And socialism! It's no better, Madame. It simply buries the individual deeper under layers of muck. No, it is all wrong from the bottom up. We must kill . . . kill . . . you understand . . . until there is room to breathe! Until the earth is freed of the sheep! Then we can be free! Then we can find solitude!"
Again his voice rang with subdued frenzy. Inside the house the frivolous gilt traveling clock struck midnight, and far away in the direction of Trilport there arose again the faint crackling sound like the brush fires. It rose and fell, tossed about at the caprice of the night wind.
"They have begun again," said the Uhlan. "In a little while I shall be forced to leave. You see, we cannot remain here. We have pushed in too far." He leaned forward and drew with his lighted cigarette upon the top of the table between them a V shaped line. "You see," he said, indicating the point of the V. "We have been pushed in here. . . . We cannot possibly remain. It is as far as we shall advance. We have come too far already. Any fool could see it. Any fool but Von Kluck. . . . Why, my boot boy would know it." He laughed again. "But my boot boy is not a general. He is not stupid enough."
He kept wriggling, wriggling helplessly, like a butterfly impaled by a pin . . . an individualist, a lonely man, caught by the savage rush of the mob.