The Supreme Progress

by Brian Stableford

  In the Colonel’s house, they are finishing dessert. As the night is preparing to display the light of all its stars, the windows are open. The two sisters go out on the balcony to look at the heavens. Down below, the windows have also been opened in the guest-room where the adjutants are dining. Aided by the wine, they are telling tales of their exploits. An emphatic rumor of gaiety bursts out there, to be propagated throughout the fort, between the fiery yews, the tricolor light of lanterns and the lamps in the canteens.

  Further down, the band tunes up, and then the brass section gives wings to the sound. It expands toward the course of the river, which sparkles in the shadows.

  Francine and Philomène are leaning on the balcony. The younger sister is chattering away to the Commandant.

  Philomène murmurs to Philippe: “Since I shall be unable to have love, since no one will ever possess my soul entire, what does it matter to you? Alone here, isolated from society and human contact, amid this wretched population in the livery of war, I have created for myself a second life, full of crazy and magnificent ideas. I have retreated to it permanently. Human affairs will no longer affect me, except superficially and according to the décor of existence.”

  “The Commandant’s glory has affected you.”

  “I certainly love him less than I love you—yes, less—but he won’t try to penetrate my inner being, to possess any more of me than I give him.”

  “Your body…”

  “That’s how your youth reveals itself, which frightens me. What is it, the body? Less than nothing. I don’t refuse to recognize my beauty—but even so, I don’t intend to become no more than an instrument of joy for the ardor of your youth. That would be an insult…”

  “Leave that. Tell me, Philomène, do you think you’ll be forever incapable, be it out of compassion or admiration, of consenting to sacrifice your intellectual pride and absorbing yourself in anyone…?”

  “Out of compassion, who knows? Out of admiration, yes. But for me to admire someone to the point of adoration…what an unexpected hero he would have to reveal to me!”

  “Merely the man whose actions realize the dream of your soul.”

  “I shall only cherish a dead man, then. For anyone who preaches a new faith to human beings and attempts to convert them; anyone who, like Christ, wants to offer them a living example of his doctrine, will incur the hatred of men, to the point of death. And he must sacrifice himself for the sake of sacrifice, ignorant even of the consolation of knowing that he has been useful in the redemption of the world. He must love sacrifice for its own sake, without the lure of glory, simply for the beauty of dying needlessly…but you don’t understand…”

  “I would understand if you initiate me.”

  The silence of the band, which had stopped playing, interrupted their conversation then. In the sudden atmospheric calm, the boasts of the adjutants could be heard.

  “Oh, during the Indus campaign, we fed our Asiatics to the fire, feet first, and shoved them into the fire as they were consumed. What brave fellows—they pulled horrible faces, but they didn’t scream…”

  “In the Legion, we cut the tendons in their feet with a pen-knife first…”

  “In Ethiopia, we gathered our prisoners 20 at a time in the depths of caves, in front of which we set fire to green wood, and they sneezed their lives away in the smoke. Do you remember, Firmin?”

  “When the general forbade us to waste powder shooting the Chinese, we piled them up in ditches in the paddy-fields and smashed their heads with rifle-butts for fear of spoiling the bayonets. Their skulls stuck out like rows of onions. The first pained me—so young, wasn’t he? With lovely oriental eyes, imploring…well, war’s war. One can’t take them forward, nor leave them behind the column…”

  “Then again, when one goes into their villages, doesn’t one find the heads of comrades taken by surprise in forward positions stuck on bamboo poles? They sometimes look like two rows of lamp-posts on the city boulevards—except that he poor devils’ eyes no longer light up.”

  “All that, my old mates, still isn’t worth as much as Commandant de Chaclos’ coup.”

  “My God, lads, I was there! What a mess! I put the charge under the pile of the bridge myself…we let them get on to it, and when they were plenty of them there, the commandant pressed the switch on the electric battery. Bang! The whole lot went up!”

  “We found fingers and noses, taking a stroll all alone more than 200 meters away, and eyes stuck to trees, between bits of brain and nerve-ends…and the eyes were looking at you. It was frightful, my dear chaps, frightful! The survivors beat the retreat straight away. We took their positions without any trouble…and here we are, victorious, glasses in hand. Triumphant arches have been erected; the commandant has his medal…so three cheers for war! When one comes back from it…”

  Francine, who had a bunch of primroses in her hand, suddenly dropped them—and she passed the palms of her hands over her temples, as if to dissipate a nightmare. Presumably, she did not see Monsieur de Chaclos bend down to pick up the scattered corollas in order to give them back to her, for she immediately ran away. Before she had reached the door, she collapsed on the ground with frightful cries, shaken by nervous convulsions.

  During the illness that followed this fit, the young girl was subject to sinister hallucinations. In the fever she saw the memories of war recounted by the adjutants traced out in tangible images. All military apparatus had to be taken away from her: uniforms, weapons and engravings advertising historic bravery. The distant sound of a drum sufficed for the bloody evocation, and it was a horrible thing. She sat up, slender and haggard, her hands open and extended to shove away the hideousness of the dream…

  “Oh!” she said. “Those poor lives cut short… The river of blood leaking out of the ditches… The heads rolling like balls… The fingers clenching on the saber that severs them… Oh, the eyes of the dying…! The eyes! The eyes! The eyes! The blood rises, rises…it’s in my mouth…ugh! It’s choking me…I don’t want…”

  And she fell back into another fit…

  Philomène’s marriage was delayed by the grave condition of her little sister. She never left her side. Her affection for the creature that everyone was cursing only became more fervent. The Colonel had fits of fury in which he wished the unhappy child dead. Even though they affected indulgence and pity, the officers of his entourage spoke uneasily about the delirium that withered their glory.

  Besides which, the legend of the little prophetess soon visited the imagination of the soldiers, and they talked about it in whispers in the barracks before lights out. Their courage threatened to weaken. In the ranks, twice over, recruits rebelled against orders, and it was murmured that the hour would soon come when men would cease to learn the art of killing. Cannon would be melted down to make ploughshares. Universal fraternity would not be long in blossoming.

  III

  This was very serious, because it was feared that the immense conflict of the Northern nations anticipated for 30 years, for which preparations had been patiently made, was now imminent. Certain omens of battle were beginning to appear in the heavens and in the speeches of diplomats. The first days of spring had arrived, and spring seemed, in the opinion of all men of war, to be the best time to undertake the mutual massacre of nations. Activity was redoubled in the arsenals and the drill-squares. The Colonel dreaded that the poor morale of his troops would be blamed on him by the marshal-inspectors, and to distract the minds of his soldiers from reasoning he drove them relentlessly on marches and maneuvers calculated to weary their moral strength with physical fatigue and render them docile to his hand.

  Running around the villages and miner’s hovels, however, they became even more troubled. They lamented: “What a barbaric epoch we’re still living in, for so much poverty to remain in the world. Our mothers give birth to us with the sole objective of hard labor, and we slave more than animals, without having the leisure to think, as animals do. Oh, cursed be the moments of
brief joy in which our sad fathers hurled their semen into the loins of their skinny spouses. What right had they to create us, since they were unable to leave us any other legacy than desires that can never be satisfied?

  “And the scientists say that generations succeed one another on a path of progress, and that humankind is marching to the conquest of God. Can we believe them, since we learn nothing but the art of cutting our throats, when all our strength is employed with the sole purpose of ameliorating our fate, no longer succeeding but very meagerly? In truth, the young prophetess is right, who cries by night that we remain as barbaric as wolves, and that we shall never be happy, because we love blood too much…

  “See how the drums and flags are being prepared now…we shall have to hurl ourselves upon the poor devils of other nations, without even being able to understand the reasons for our rage. Our feet have already been hardened on the roads, and our shoulders no longer feel the weight of our haversacks….

  “Let’s see—will there rise up among us a strong man, who will finally proclaim the revolution of universal Love?”

  And the petty soldiers shoved one another, saying: “You, you…” But none of them dared to say anything.

  Finally, Francine’s delirium was attenuated. She recovered her health and her reason. But when Monsieur de Chaclos wanted to raise the matter of the wedding again, Philomène told him that she would remain single. He understood then that she shared her sister’s sentiments, and that he horrified her by virtue of the blood in which he was covered.

  A little later, he learned that Philomène was engaged to Philippe. That did not surprise him, because he had overheard some of their conversation on the evening of the primroses.

  The cornet changed garrisons, and came to the fort with a detachment of Guides.

  After that, Monsieur de Chaclos was sad, for he cherished Philomène with all the tenacity of late passions. The near-certainty that he had had of marrying her had rendered the love of the 40-year-old even more unbreakable. Nevertheless, he had a noble soul; he persuaded the colonel to let Philomène marry Philippe. And when the young woman remarked on his intervention with astonishment, he told her that he loved her for herself, not for his own sake, and preferred to see her happy in another’s arms rather than unhappy in his. That would be infinitely less painful.

  When they came out of the church, the cornet said to his wife: “Now that you’ve sacrificed yourself to me out of compassion, I shall try to merit your admiration…”

  The war began…

  The Fort was guarding the frontier; the first cannon-shots were fired from its emplacements.

  The troops from the city arrived, and then the troops of workers and peasants who got off trains. They were put into uniform and weapons were distributed to them.

  Outside, the highways are filling up with mothers and children, who were begging. Young women are prostituting themselves for next to nothing. On the horizon, the keeps of the factories cease to glow for the first time in 30 years. The boulevard in the city is full of activity because public funds have been gambled away in the headquarters of the insurance companies, metallurgical companies and banks. The money men are already surreptitiously buying back bonds in order to resell them at a profit as an initial advantage is announced.

  In order to gain that initial advantage, which dispatches usually exaggerate, the Marshals hasten to gather men at that part of that frontier. They are snatched away from mines and furrows. Fanfares sound. Flags flap. Actresses in white dresses, draped in the national colors, sing in the open air on hastily-constructed stages about the sacred love of the fatherland. And the red men of the ferruginous soil file past in enormous masses, filling the overly narrow space of the streets with their bodies. Company administrators order casks of bad wine to be unearthed to warm their enthusiasm. It is a matter of gaining that precious advantage, of making a profit on the markets…

  Gendarmes are herding the wretched hordes, a sea of red heads whose waves are beating the stages where the actresses in white dresses, draped in the national colors, and tousled hair besides, are singing untiringly about the day of glory…

  A few more hours to pass, a few jolts of the railway-wagons, and the herd, furnished with uniforms and insignia of rank, coiffed in kolbacks,51 mounted on requisitioned horses, is ready to seize the advantage—two-and-a-half per cent on the Bourse tomorrow.

  The gun-carriages roll over the pebbles of the roads. The squadrons gallop amid the screech of metal. The regiments trample down the soil beneath 6000 regimental boots. The officers prance amid the gleam of their new leather-work—and now, on the crests of hills where low-lying clouds unfurl, here come the brief flashes of the enemy guns.

  In the ranks there are men who suddenly turn somersaults, with clown-like grimaces, or fall to their knees, like visionary fanatics, bewildered by the sight of the world beyond. Others are lying down, as if to go to sleep. And when the columns have passed, when the lines have stretched themselves out, there are good red heads that remain in the risen dust, coughing over redder pools…

  The countryside remains green and bright to either side of the fast-flowing river. Wheat covers the plain with its tender shots, and there is, in the hollow of the great valley, a fine nest of abundance, with its little white houses and its luminous waters, and its propitious hem of gently-sloping hills.

  Philippe, at the head of 60 cavalrymen, is in command of an observation-post. He sees the roads blacken with human swarms, the grass flourishing with bright patches donated by uniforms, rigs galloping frantically over ringing pathways. Here at there, at a stroke, flame drapes itself over the roofs of small farmhouses. Lines of infantry broaden out over the plain. They advance, running, lying down, crackling and spitting, getting up, running again, gaining shelter, abandoning it, leaving corpses huddled in the grass at every stopping-point. Around him, the fusillades are making so much nose that the air seems to be frying.

  And close at hand, the large red heads of his men are turning blue beneath the polished chains of kolbacks and the violent pomp of tassels. Boots are trembling in clicking stirrups. Hands thickened by labor in forges are sponging sweat from foreheads. Sad bargains are struck in huddled groups. Bachelors take the first rank in order to conserve he more useful lives of fathers.

  “Go…hang back, you have children…I don’t have any…if I die, you’ll look after my old mother…”

  “Understood…forward march!”

  The adjutant tries to re-establish the ranks, and growls frightful curses…

  “Let it go,” says Philippe. “Let them prepare themselves for death as they see fit, in order that they will not execrate us…their executioners!”

  A murmur of astonishment causes the shoulders of the Guides to shudder, and they look at the young cornet, whose dolorous face lights up…

  He thinks about that human desperation, and suffers. His wife’s compassion grieves him, because she cannot offer him any other kind of love. Oh, to conquer her admiration by a great sacrifice, by the beauty of a death without glory…!

  A cavalryman races toward his troop. The Captain orders the cornet to lead his men at the gallop in a charge, concealing themselves in a sunken road. He will surely reach, by that means, the enemy battery that is trotting unsuspectingly to take up a position… The regiment will launch itself forward to support him.

  “Do you see them, my boy? There are scarcely 1000 of them. That larch-wood is hiding us from their scouts. We have them. Charge! At the gallop! Forward!”

  Philippe feels his horse leap forward at the command. The animal carries him away against his hesitant will. He wants to shout: “Back! Stop the murder! My comrades…” The animal carries him away in the forced gallop of the platoon. It carries him away like the force of events, the fatality of life, the superior rhythm that leads men to pain, to death, and to God.

  The hedges pass by, with their topped willows, their branches spreading out like drunken arms. The ground flies past beneath the iron horseshoe
s. The men are breathless with fear. They will never arrive...they will arrive too soon…

  The hedge has come to an end, and before them, there are 20 poor louts covered in mud, hanging from the harness of a cannon, which a team of horses is dragging awkwardly and laboriously. Frightened and livid faces are turning toward the Guides. Incomprehensible howls are exchanged. A man on horseback fires a shot; the flame seems to spring from his fist. The platoon rouses itself for one last surge, and is about to fall upon the wretches, whose trembling hands can no longer find the triggers of their rifles…

  “Halt!”

  Philippe has shouted; the horses are yielding to the pressure to the bridle…and now he finds himself stupid in the relative silence, no longer knowing why he has ordered that halt…since the riflemen are taking aim…

  “Peace!” he shouts, again…and he continues in their language: “We could slaughter you…but the time has come for love…we must stop killing one another…we must stop killing one another…we don’t want to kill one another…we’re brothers…poor human brothers… Peace! Don’t you want that? Let’s make peace! Love us!”

  Undoubtedly, the enemies thought that he was announcing the good news of a real peace, suddenly concluded, for they threw down their arms and there was an immense outburst of joy. They ran to one another and embraced. The Guides started to laugh too, without knowing. The Adjutant turned his horse round and departed toward the regiment.

  Philippe was no longer speaking. Between his fingers, he clutched the spring of lilac given to him, on his departure, by Francine and Philomène…and he rejoiced, thinking that he had just acted in accordance with their generous prayers.

  He was about to resume his exhortations to love when he perceived that the enemy troop had grown. Soon, the Guides were surrounded by the green and white uniforms of the artillery. He wanted to explain, but an old officer arrived, who snatched away his saber…