The Eagles Gather

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  ‘And America,’ said the baron. ‘The people, too, will remember. You must help them to remember. The coming war will not be between leaders, generals, kings, monsters and oppressors. It will be a war between philosophies. The philosophy of courage and life and freedom, and the philosophy of cowardice, death and slavery.’

  There was a light footfall, and Celeste entered the room. The baron rose and bowed quickly. She smiled at him, and the delicate sternness of her lips and expression softened. She bent over Peter and felt his forehead. He turned his lips to her soft palm and kissed it. She patted his cheek and looked down at him with infinite tenderness and anxiety.

  ‘You are tiring yourself, dear.’ she said. ‘Do you feel up to going down to luncheon?’ She paused. ‘Count von Bernstrom and Lord Ramsdall are already here.’

  Peter looked at the baron, who returned his glance swiftly. ‘Yes, darling,’ said Peter. ‘I am feeling quite well.’ He paused. He looked at the baron again. ‘I am feeling quite well,’ he repeated. ‘In fact, I have never felt better.’

  CHAPTER III

  It was a delightful if simple luncheon, there on the shaded terrace within sight and sound of the sea. The count was again incensed that he was to lose those paragons, Pierre and Elise, those miracle-makers who had transformed a dull bird into a pheasant cooked by angels in heaven. The prawns, the salad, the crusty sweet bread, the coffee, the tiny petis-fours, only added to his rage as they lingered in rapturous memory on his tongue. He felt much abused. In consequence, his ire rose against the Bouchards, whom he obstinately credited with his deprivation.

  He lusted after Celeste Bouchard, but now with sadism. He sneered inwardly at her husband. An example of pure decadence, most certainly. What could one expect from such inbreeding? The count was very familiar with the ramifications of the Bouchard family, that mighty munitions company which dominated all other armaments concerns in the world, and whose thin winding fingers grasped so many allied industries. This Peter Bouchard: the count ruminated. He was third cousin to his wife, born Celeste Bouchard. The count admitted that inbreeding frequently emphasized fine traits, eliminated grossnesses. One had only to consider horse-breeding. But it inevitably led to decadence, also, a refinement so extended that it became tenuous and implicit with decay. The father of Celeste had been Jules Bouchard, that brilliant and unscrupulous rascal who had become legendary. His cousin had been Honoré Bouchard, a man of intelligence and integrity. It was evident he had bequeathed these qualities to his youngest son, Peter. The count sneered again. Intelligence and integrity! The attributes of fools. Pure decadence.

  The count glanced fleetingly at the older Mrs Bouchard, the widow of Jules. Not a true Bouchard, but like so many aristocrats she, too, had that faint aura of physical and spiritual deterioration, he commented to himself. He, too, he reflected, was an aristocrat. But German aristocracy, because of its comparative youth, still retained the virility and ruthlessness of the barbarian. The French and the English were old; done. He smiled to himself.

  Adelaide, mother of Celeste, mysteriously felt the thoughts of the German. She turned her weary brown eyes to him, reluctantly. He saw her look, inclined his head courteously and with a question. She turned away in silence.

  Lord Ramsdall had been making himself very agreeable to his hostess and her husband. He repeated, bluffly, that Cannes was not going to be the same after their departure.

  ‘I can’t believe that,’ said Peter, who had only listlessly sampled the luncheon. He looked up, and his light blue eyes, square of corner and exhausted, were direct. ‘It’s very kind of you, of course, Ramsdall, to say so, but Celeste and I haven’t exactly been the life of the Coast.’ He glanced at his wife, and for a moment his expression became sad and regretful. ‘We’ve kept pretty much to ourselves, I’m afraid. So, no one will miss us.’

  As if she felt his sadness, his apology, his regret, Celeste reached under the lace edge of the cloth and pressed his hand warmly and tenderly. She looked at Ramsdall. ‘Candidly, we haven’t had much in common with the tourists or the permanent residents. We haven’t cared for the things which attracted them. We came here for a rest, for quiet, for the climate.’

  Baron Opperheim had been very silent during the luncheon. But his expressive old face, so wise and brown, the glance of his keen and sunken eye, so compassionate, so rueful and gently embittered, had seemed to add much to the desultory conversation around the table. Now he slowly glanced at each face, and his silent comments seemed actual and audible remarks. He came at last to the elder Mrs Bouchard, and smiled at her. His bearded lips made that smile sweet and intimate.

  ‘Will you regret leaving us, Madame?’ he asked.

  Her worn abstraction lightened as she turned to him. Apparently there was something in him which aroused some deep emotion in her. ‘There are a few,’ she said, in her tired and gentle voice. ‘You, most especially, Baron.’

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment of her kindness. ‘I wish I were going with you, dear friend,’ he said.

  Peter turned to him with weary alertness. ‘Yes. I wanted to ask you again, Israel. Why can’t you go? It will be an easy matter to get you a passport. I—I was able to do that for your daughter and her husband, and their children.’

  ‘Good, good of you! Do you think I forget? But for me—no.’ He paused, touched his beard. Von Bernstrom listened attentively, and with an expression of affection on his parchment features.

  ‘Israel is no alarmist,’ he said. ‘He does not believe, like you, Mr Bouchard, that there will be war.’

  The baron turned to him with bland but penetrating simplicity. His eyes regarded his friend with fixed concentration. ‘On the contrary, Wolfgang, I do believe there will be war. Are you doing to deny that you know this, also?’

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ cried Ramsdall, sturdily, holding his glass of wine in his pudgy hand. ‘Why should there be war? Granting all that we know of Hitler—that he is a paranoiac madman, that he has delusions of grandeur, that he is a monster—we must also grant that he is no fool. He knows that he cannot win. He will try for bloodless victories, such as—’

  ‘Munich,’ said Peter, and a pale convulsion passed over his face.

  Ramsdall coughed. He said, gravely: ‘You know I never agreed with you, Peter, about Munich. “Peace in our time.” What a noble phrase! And I don’t doubt its validity.’ He leaned back in his chair and smiled at the younger man. ‘I admit that I never understood that about you, Peter. I should have thought you, above all others, would have been delighted over Munich. You’ve always hated war with commendable and civilized passion. Yet, you weren’t delighted. No matter. You’ve explained that—’

  ‘I’ve said, over and over, that Munich brought war closer to the world than any other one act during the past five years,’ Peter remarked, with feverish impatience. ‘Had we admitted Russia to the discussions, had Chamberlain and Daladier refused to go to Berchtesgaden without a representative of Stalin, had such a representative been there, there would not have been a “Munich” in the present meaning of the word. When we repudiated Russia, we signed our agreement to war. Now, the blood of the world will be on our heads.’

  Ramsdall smiled indulgently. ‘I must disagree with you, Peter. Had a Russian representative been there, there would have been war indeed. The Bolsheviks are lusting for war.

  They’d like to see us all destroy ourselves, so that they can take over. Any student of modern history knows that. Stalin would have egged us on to fight Hitler, and then would have sat back, grinning, watching us cut our own throats. But, we were too clever for him.’

  ‘Much too clever,’ remarked Peter, with sombre emphasis. ‘We’ll fight Hitler alone, now.’

  ‘Drang nach Osten,’ murmured the baron.

  ‘Perfectly true, dear Israel!’ exclaimed the count. ‘Drang nach Osten! If Hitler fights, which most certainly he will not, he will attack Russia. Not England; not France; not America.’

  The baron smiled wryly. He cru
mbled a bit of bread in his brown fingers and slowly glanced about the table again.

  Peter sighed, as if the conversation wearied him. He looked at the baron. ‘But we were talking about you, Israel. Why can’t you go with us? We’ll be in Paris for a while. You can secure a passport; we’ll even wait for you’

  The baron shook his head. ‘For me—no. It is very simple, but no one understands. What has happened in Europe—it is the fault of all of us. Its doom will be upon all of us. Am I a coward?’ He shrugged. ‘It appears to me that for me to leave will be the most exquisite cowardice. Could I have helped prevent this most horrible imminent débâcle? Could any of us have done so? I am not making myself clear,’ he added apologetically. ‘We are all guilty, Englishman, Frenchman, German.’ He tapped his brown forehead, and then his chest, significantly. ‘It is in here, and here, that the guilt lies, that the disease first had its blossoming. Not in Hitller; not in Franco; not in Mussolini Only in here, and here. In the soul. In the heart. In the mind. In every man. To run, and leave the doom to fall upon one’s fellow sinners is cowardice.’ ‘What could you have done?’ cried Peter, impatiently. ‘You, a Jew? You, the first victim?’

  But the baron looked at Ramsdall, at his friend von Bernstrom, with that bland and fatal directness of his. He replied to Peter, but looked only at those two.

  ‘What could I have done? I could have thought with my soul. I could have turned to God. I could have believed. I—we—did not. There is strange power in God,’ he added, in a soft and almost inaudible tone, and his face became old and profound with pain.

  Ramsdall’s full red lips pursed themselves with amusement. But there was a baleful gleam in his eye, full of inimical contempt. ‘Jews always return to God when the power of their money fails,’ he said.

  Peter, his wife, his mother-in-law, looked at him with shock and outrage. The count grimaced.

  But the baron inclined his head almost with humility. ‘You are correct,’ he murmured, gently. ‘So we differ from you. You never return. To the last, you believe in money, in power. Even at the gallows, you believe in it. You never comprehend.’

  Ramsdall coughed. ‘I hope I didn’t offend you, Opperheim. I didn’t intend that, I assure you. In a way, I was complimenting your people. You return much sooner than we do. But, frankly, don’t you consider that real cowardice?’

  The baron smiled, and did not answer. His hands continued their crumbling of the bread, and now the movements of his fingers seemed fateful as they slowly dropped crumb after crumb so that they lay in a little mound like ashes upon the table.

  There was a silence about the table. The brilliant wind lifted the edges of the lace cloth, glittered on the silver. There was the perfume of roses strong in the air. The sea rushed in with a deep breath, and despite the light and the sun there was an ominous quality in its cosmic breathing.

  The baron looked at the heap of crumbs on the cloth, and impelled by his absorption, the others gazed at it also. No one could have explained what so compelled their attention. But the crumpled and abandoned mound seemed of enormous and terrible significance to them. They felt a pressure in the atmosphere, a constriction in their chests, even Ramsdall, even von Bernstrom.

  ‘I had an old nurse, when I was a child,’ said the baron, in a soft voice. ‘I wasted bread; I was a very wilful child. I piled up crumbs—like this. It was a favourite occupation of mine. She said to me, once: “When you waste bread, holy bread, in this fashion, your soul will never rest after it leaves your body. It will go roaming about the world, until every last crumb is gathered up, out of the earth, out of the bellies of birds and animals, out of the water. You will look long and far. For you have done a great sin.”’

  He lifted his head, and for the last time he looked slowly at each face.

  ‘“Long and far.” The world will soon be full of souls, searching. We have done a great sin.’

  The count lit a cigarette, with his graceful if wooden gesture. He blew a plume of smoke into the brighter air, and watched it curl. His thoughts were virulent, and full of contempt. But he kept his harsh face impassive and aloof. When he returned his attention to the others, after a long moment or two, the baron was watching him, his nutbrown eyes intent, significant, filled with melancholy and deep thoughtfulness. For some strange reason, the count was immediately imbued with impotent rage and hatred.

  Ramsdall stirred his fat bulk uneasily on the chair. ‘Well, in speaking for myself, I am glad to say that I am returning to England. There are currents here, in France. I confess I don’t like them. I don’t like the implication of doom here lately. The air in England is more wholesome, even if it rains almost constantly.’ He laughed with affection.

  He turned to Peter. ‘You will be glad to hear that I intend to continue my policy of peace, in my newspaper. I have always supported Chamberlain, of whom you don’t approve, my dear lad. Nevertheless, I believe the old codger is right. We’ve nothing to gain by war, even if there was the remotest chance of such a catastrophe, which there is not Your articles in my paper, Peter, were much approved by thoughtful people. May we hope for others like them?’

  ‘No,’ said Peter quietly.

  Ramsdall raised his eyebrows at this impoliteness. He assumed a whimsical expression, and sighed, leaning over to deposit the ash of his excellent cigar in the silver tray.

  The count said: ‘If I thought there was to be war, my dear Mr Bouchard, I should leave France immediately. I have my friends in Germany who keep me informed. You observe that I am quite comfortable in France. I do not leave. I remain. Does that mean nothing of significance to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter.

  The eyes of the two men met, and held.

  In the ringing silence which followed Peter’s reply, Celeste rose, and the gentlemen with her, all except Peter, who was kept in his chair by the light pressure of his wife’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You must please excuse Mama and me,’ said Celeste, in her sweet low voice. ‘We have still some packing to do.’

  She extended her hand to Lord Ramsdall, who took it warmly. Her face wore its worn look of delicate sternness, but her eyes were direct between their curved black lashes. ‘It is good-bye, then, Lord Ramsdall.’

  ‘No, rather au revoir, dear Mrs Bouchard,’ he said, gallantly. ‘I expect to be in America in October. I trust I shall see you then?’

  She smiled briefly, then turned to the count, who raised her hand to his lips. Now her sternness became fixed and hard.

  Her mother, Adelaide, received the gentlemen’s regretful remarks in polite silence. The ladies left the terrace. Their departure was soon followed by that of Lord Ramsdall and Count von Bernstrom. The baron remained.

  He and Peter sat for a long time on the sunlit terrace, not speaking, but looking out over the gulf where the sea sighed restlessly.

  ‘It will be an unhappy day for France, if or when von Bernstrom becomes the gauleiter,’ said the baron, wearily.

  Peter moved in his chair, and clasped his hands together.

  ‘You are sure, Israel? That is the plan? It is incredible!’

  The baron shrugged. ‘“I have my friends in Germany who keep me informed,”’ he quoted, with his sad and quizzical smile.

  ‘But France! The Maginot Line!’

  ‘I have told you so often, dear Peter, that a thousand Maginot Lines cannot resist the wickedness in men’s hearts.’

  ‘Israel, I must ask you again: Why don’t you inform Daladier, Bonnet, Reynaud, all of them? The authorities? That this scoundrel is a spy, a dangerous plotter?’

  Again the baron shrugged, and spread out his hands. ‘I have told you: they already know. They are helpless, or are in the plot. What is one to do?’

  Peter groaned under his breath. ‘I tell you, I can’t believe it! You must be mistaken! This is fantastic. It is a nightmare.’

  ‘It is a Walpurgis Night,’ agreed the baron. ‘The world is entering on the long night.’ He added: ‘The dance of madmen. The carni
val of the clowns. The merriment of the murderers. Listen: you can hear the wailing of the insane flutes, the beat of the terrible drums. The stage is set. The world is the audience. The world has paid the actors, and called them on the stage. It has paid its price to see them, in greed and hatred and treachery. It will leave the theatre knee-deep in blood. Its own blood.’

  He continued, in so low a tone that Peter hardly heard him: ‘Not Hitler. Not Mussolini. No. These are not the guilty. It is all the world. Not only Germany. No. England, France, America. This is the play they have demanded. These are the actors they have evoked. And may God have mercy on our souls.’

  His old enormous sickness seized Peter again, a sickness of the soul, an anguish and impotence of the mind.

  ‘There was Manchuria,’ said the baron. ‘And God said to the world: “Now? You will oppose the evil ones now?” But the greedy ones replied: “No. We shall make money by this conquest.” God is patient. There was Ethiopia: “Now?” said God. But no, it was not now. There was the same answer of the greedy, and the stupid whimpered and cried: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And then there was Spain. “O!” cried God. “Surely now? Look at the blood of the innocent, the righteous, the just, the lovers of freedom, the poor and honest men!” But the wicked sneered, the greedy reached forth their hands, the treacherous turned away. And the stupid, as always, shivered and hid their faces. Then came Czecho-Slovakia, Austria. Out of their depths, out of Germany, came the appeal of good men, innocent men, helpless men. “World,” said God, sternly, “it is now? Surely it is now?” But there was only silence, or laughter, or cries of hatred.’

  He paused. Now his voice was solemn, low, very cold. ‘There will come another day. Very soon. And God’s voice will fill the universe like a cosmic and awful thunder, saying: “Men, ye shall surely die, for ye have ignored the cries of your tortured brother. The punishment is upon you. This is the final hour. To every people there comes one terrible and inevitable final hour, when it must choose between those things by which men live, or those by which they die. The hour is upon you. It is Now. Shall it be now, O faithless and adulterous generation?”’