The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France Part 2

"Then say to yourself that fear is nothing."

"It would be a lie. This fear is real."

"Then cease to tremble at it; kill it."

"Impossible. I am afraid of fear."

"Then carry it as your burden, your cross. Take it back to Verdun with you."

"I dare not. It would poison the others. It would bring me dishonor."

"Pray to G.o.d for help."

"He will not answer me. I am a wicked man. Father, I have made my confession. Will you give me a penance and absolve me?"

"Promise to go back to the army and fight as well as you can."

"Alas! that is what I cannot do. My mind is shaken to pieces. Whither shall I turn? I can decide nothing. I am broken. I repent of my great sin. Father, for the love of G.o.d, speak the word of absolution."

Pierre lay on his face, motionless, his arms stretched out. The priest rose and went to the spring. He scooped up a few drops in the hollow of his hand. He sprinkled it like holy water upon the soldier's head. A couple of tears fell with it.

"G.o.d have pity on you, my son, and bring you back to yourself. The word of absolution is not for me to speak while you think of forsaking France. Put that thought away from you, do penance for it, and you will be absolved from your great sin."

Pierre turned over and lay looking up at the priest's face and at the blue sky with white clouds drifting across it. He sighed. "Ah, if that could only be! But I have not the strength. It is impossible."

"All things are possible to him that believeth. Strength will come.

Perhaps Jeanne d'Arc herself will help you."

"She would never speak to a man like me. She is a great saint, very high in heaven."

"She was a farmer's la.s.s, a peasant like yourself. She would speak to you, gladly and kindly, if you saw her, and in your own language, too.

Trust her."

"But I do not know enough about her."

"Listen, Pierre. I have thought for you. I will appoint the first part of your penance. You shall take the risk of being recognized and caught. You shall go down to that village there and visit the places that belong to her--her basilica, her house, her church. Then you shall come back here and wait until you know--until you surely know what you must do. Will you promise this?"

Pierre had risen and looked up at the priest with tear-stained face.

But his eyes were quieter. "Yes, Father, I can promise you this much faithfully."

"Now I must go my way. Farewell, my son. Peace in war be with you." He held out his hand.

Pierre took it reverently. "And with you, Father," he murmured.

The Absolving Dream

Antoine Courcy was one of those who are fitted and trained by nature for the cure of souls. If you had spoken to him of psychiatry he would not have understood you. The long word would have been Greek to him.

But the thing itself he knew well. The preliminary penance which he laid upon Pierre Duval was remedial. It belonged to the true healing art, which works first in the spirit.

When the broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the mid-morning sunlight, towards Domremey, there was much misgiving and confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going, except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might not know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question him.

It was a reluctant journey.

Yet it was in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne d'Arc, simple and mysterious, humble and glorious, most human and most heavenly, flows under that place like a hidden stream, rising at every turn in springs and fountains. The poor little village lives in and for her memory. Her presence haunts the ridges and the woods, treads the green pastures, follows the white road beside the river, and breathes in the never-resting valley-wind that marries the flowers in June and spreads their seed in August.

At the small basilica built to her memory on the place where her old beech-tree, "Fair May," used to stand there was an ancient caretaker who explained to Pierre the pictures from the life of the Maid with which the walls are decorated. They are stiff and conventional, but the old man found them wonderful and told with zest the story of _La Pucelle_--how she saw her first vision; how she recognized the Dauphin in his palace at Chinon; how she broke the siege of Orleans; how she saw Charles crowned in the cathedral at Rheims; how she was burned at the stake in Rouen. But they could not kill her soul. She saved France.

In the village church there was a priest from the border of Alsace, also a pilgrim like Pierre, but one who knew the shrine better. He showed the difference between the new and the old parts of the building. Certain things the Maid herself had seen and touched.

"Here is the old holy-water basin, an antique, broken column hollowed out on top. Here her fingers must have rested often. Before this ancient statue of Saint Michel she must have often knelt to say her prayers. The cure of the parish was a friend of hers and loved to talk with her. She was a good girl, devout and obedient, not learned, but a holy and great soul. She saved France."

In the house where she was born, and pa.s.sed her childhood, a crippled old woman was custodian. It was a humble dwelling of plastered stone, standing between two tall fir-trees, with ivy growing over the walls, lilies and hollyhocks blooming in the garden. Pierre found it not half so good a house as "_L'Alouette_." But to the custodian it was more precious than a palace. In this upper room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here, in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed and worked.

"See, here is the bread-board between two timbers where she cut the bread for the _croute-au-pot_. From this small window she looked at night and saw the sanctuary light burning in the church. Here, also, as well as in the garden and in the woods, her heavenly voices spoke to her and told her what she must do for the king and her country. She was not afraid or ashamed, though she lived in so small a house. Here in this very room she braided her hair and put on her red dress, and set forth on foot for her visit to Robert de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. He was a rough man and at first he received her roughly. But at last she convinced him. He gave her a horse and arms and sent her to the king.

She saved France."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At the rustic inn Pierre at thick slices of dark bread and drank a stoup of thin red wine at noon. He sat at a bare table in the corner of the room. Behind him, at a table covered with a white cloth, two captains on furlough had already made their breakfast. They also were pilgrims, drawn by the love of Jeanne d'Arc to Domremy. They talked of nothing else but of her. Yet their points of view were absolutely different.

One of them, the younger, was short and swarthy, a Savoyard, the son of an Italian doctor at St. Jean de Maurienne. He was a skeptic; he believed in Jeanne, but not in the legends about her.

"I tell you," said he, eagerly, "she was one of the greatest among women. But all that about her 'voices' was illusion. The priests suggested it. She had hallucinations. Remember her age when they began--just thirteen. She was clever and strong; doubtless she was pretty; certainly she was very courageous. She was only a girl. But she had a big, brave idea which--the liberation of her country. Pure? Yes.

I am sure she was virtuous. Otherwise the troops would not have followed and obeyed her as they did. Soldiers are very quick about those things. They recognize and respect an honest woman. Several men were in love with her, I think. But she was '_une nature froide_.' The only thing that moved her was her big, brave idea--to save France. The Maid was a mother, but not of a mortal child. Her offspring was the patriotism of France."

The other captain was a man of middle age, from Lyons, the son of an architect. He was tall and pale and his large brown eyes had the tranquillity of a devout faith in them. He argued with quiet tenacity for his convictions.

"You are right to believe in her," said he, "but I think you are mistaken to deny her voices. They were as real as anything in her life.

You credit her when she says that she was born here, that she went to Chinon and saw the king, that she delivered Orleans. Why not credit her when she says she heard G.o.d and the saints speaking to her? The proof of it was in what she did. Have you read the story of her trial? How clear and steady her answers were! The judges could not shake her. Yet at any moment she could have saved her life by denying the voices. It was because she knew, because she was sure, that she could not deny.

Her vision was a part of her real life. She was the mother of French patriotism--yes. But she was also the daughter of true faith. That was her power."

"Well," said the younger man, "she sacrificed herself and she saved France. That was the great thing."

"Yes," said the elder man, stretching his hand across the table to clasp the hand of his companion, "there is nothing greater than that.

If we do that, G.o.d will forgive us all."

They put on their caps to go. Pierre rose and stood at attention. They returned his salute with a friendly smile and pa.s.sed out.

After a few moments he finished his bread and wine, paid his score, and followed them. He watched them going down the village street toward the railway station. Then he turned and walked slowly back to the spring in the dell.

The afternoon was hot, in spite of the steady breeze which came out of the north. The air felt as if it had pa.s.sed through a furnace. The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun, with now and then a sharper clap from St. Mihiel.

Pierre was very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen at Domremy.

Presently he fell into a profound sleep.

How long it was he could not tell, but suddenly he became aware of some one near him. He sprang up. A girl was standing beside the spring.

She wore a bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked as if she had just come from following the sheep.