The Tree of Heaven Part 55

"Yes," said Anthony, "I see. I've seen it for some time."

And Michael remembered the night in August when his brother came to him in his room.

Beauty--the Forlorn Hope of G.o.d--if he cared for it supremely, why was he pursued and tormented by the thought of the s.p.a.ce between him and Nicky?

XXII

Michael had gone to Stephen's house.

He was no longer at his ease there. It seemed to him that Lawrence's eyes followed him too; not with hatred, but with a curious meditative wonder.

To-night Stephen said to him, "Did you know that Reveillaud's killed?"

"Killed? Killed? I didn't even know he was fighting."

Lawrence laughed. "What did you suppose he was doing?"

"No--but how?"

"Out with the patrol and shot down. There you are--"

He shoved the _Times_ to him, pointing to the extract from _Le Matin_: "It is with regret that we record the death of M. Jules Reveillaud, the brilliant young poet and critic--"

Michael stared at the first three lines; something in his mind prevented him from going on to the rest, as if he did not care to read about Reveillaud and know how he died.

"It is with regret that we record the death. It is with regret that we record--with regret--"

Then he read on, slowly and carefully, to the end. It was a long paragraph.

"To think," he said at last, "that this revolting thing should have happened to him."

"His death?"

"No--_this_. The _Matin_ never mentioned Reveillaud before. None of the big papers, none of the big reviews noticed his existence except to sneer at him. He goes out and gets killed like any little bourgeois, and the swine plaster him all over with their filthy praise. He'd rather they'd spat on him."

He meditated fiercely. "Well--he couldn't help it. He was conscripted."

"You think he wouldn't have gone of his own accord?"

"I'm certain he wouldn't."

"And I'm certain he would."

"I wish to G.o.d we'd got conscription here. I'd rather the Government commandeered my body than stand this everlasting interference with my soul."

"Then," said Lawrence, "you'll not be surprised at my enlisting."

"You're not--"

"I am. I'd have been in the first week if I'd known what to do about Vera."

"But--it's--it's not sane."

"Perhaps not. But it's Irish."

"Irish? I can understand ordinary Irishmen rus.h.i.+ng into a European row for the row's sake, just because they haven't got a civil war to mess about in. But you--of all Irishmen--why on earth should _you_ be in it?"

"Because I want to be in it."

"I thought," said Michael, "you were to have been a thorn in England's side?"

"So I was. So I am. But not at this minute. My grandmother was a hard Ulster woman and I hated her. But I wouldn't be a thorn in my grandmother's side if the old lady was a.s.saulted by a brutal voluptuary, and I saw her down and fighting for her honour.

"I've been a thorn in England's side all my life. But it's nothing to the thorn I'll be if I'm killed fighting for her."

"Why--why--if you want to fight in the civil war afterwards?"

"Why? Because I'm one of the few Irishmen who can reason straight. I was going into the civil war last year because it was a fight for freedom.

I'm going into this War this year because it's a bigger fight for a bigger freedom.

"You can't have a free Ireland without a free England, any more than you can have religious liberty without political liberty. If the Orangemen understood anything at all about it they'd see it was the Nationalists and the Sinn Feiners that'll help them to put down Catholicism in Ireland."

"You think it matters to Ireland whether Germany licks us or we lick Germany?"

"I think it matters to the whole world."

"What's changed you?" said Michael.

He was angry with Lawrence. He thought: "He hasn't any excuse for failing us. He hasn't been conscripted."

"Nothing's changed me. But supposing it didn't matter to the whole world, or even to Europe, and supposing the Allies were beaten in the end, you and I shouldn't be beaten, once we'd stripped ourselves, stripped our souls clean, and gone in.

"Victory, Michael--victory is a state of mind."

The opportunist had seen his supreme opportunity.

He would have s.n.a.t.c.hed at it in the first week of the War, as he had said, but that Vera had made it hard for him. She was not making it easy now. The dull, dark moth's wings of her eyes hovered about him, fluttering with anxiety.

When she heard that he was going to enlist she sent for Veronica.

Veronica said, "You must let him go."