Chapter II: Part ONE: The Roots (2)

It was my plan not to awaken her. Since she no longer was employed at the Knit Shoppe, there was no point in getting her up. But as I deposited her clothes at the foot of the bed and turned to tiptoe out, she called to me.

"What time is it?"

I whirled around and noticed that while she was certainly wide awake, she was keeping her eyes tightly shut. I suppose that she did this out of embarrassment.

"Ten o'clock, Anita," I stammered. When she said nothing further, I went on, "Is ... is there anything I can get you? Some ... some tea? There's no coffee in the house."

"No thanks. Nothing at all."

"I've brought your clothes."

"Thanks. I'll get up in a minute."

"Oh, there's no great rush," I hurried on to say, lest she think that I wanted her to vacate the premises which, you may be sure, was not my wish. "Stay as long as you like. I.... It's nice having you here."

"Thanks."

I did not get to the store before half past ten that morning and furthermore I didn't care. The place did not seem a bit attractive to me and I did something that day that I had never thought of doing before. I watched the clock. My errand-boy, a colored chap by the name of Jiggs, remarked on my obviously distracted manner. "Boss," he said, "you sure look like somethin' shot at and missed, you do. Yes, sir!"

At five o'clock Anita made an appearance. I had half expected that she would come around to the store. I couldn't think of any reason why she should but.... Fortunately there were no customers present and I immediately dispatched Jiggs on some needless errand so that we might have privacy while I proposed to her.

"Anita," I said after several false starts, "I want you to be my wife."

I remember that she looked rather haggard and worn. There were faint lines around her lovely eyes. I waited breathlessly for her to give me her answer.

"Why not?" she sighed. And while the tone she employed struck me at the time as being somewhat unenthusiastic for one who was in love, I put it down as just another sign that she had spent an enervating night.

* * * * *

We were married quietly on July 4th. I, myself, would have selected another day but she would have none of it. "I planned on getting married on the Fourth and the Fourth it shall be." Seeing how set she was in this whim, I raised no objection although I did not like the feeling that I was stepping into someone else's shoes. All through the short ceremony I half expected the name Leo to slip from the Justice's tongue instead of my own.

I am not at all a superstitious person. Black cats and ladders and the numeral 13 mean nothing to me. But in retrospect, marrying Anita on the Fourth with firecrackers exploding out of doors and _Times_ headlines reading: VICTORY FOR OUR NAVY IN 2 BATTLES, U-BOATS TWICE ATTACKED OUR TRANSPORTS, OUR WARSHIPS SANK ONE, PERHAPS MORE, seems quite in keeping with the turbulent events that ruined both our lives.

I can recite the contents of that newspaper, _The Times_ of July 4, 1917, almost completely. You see, some practical joker phoned in the news of our wedding, making it sound so important that it was printed on the Society page. Mr. and Mrs. Peter Thatcher were not really "news" then. Now they are--only not Society news. Murderers and their victims rate much more space. Anyway, on July 4th President and Mrs. Wilson went yachting as far as the mouth of the Potomac, Herbert Hoover warned the public through the medium of the press that "America Must Save to Win War," Gimbels advertised a Clearance Sale of ladies' parasols, and I married Anita.

No sooner had the ceremony ended, it seemed to me that Anita began to make changes. I suppose all brides do that. I guess they like to have some physical evidence about that by the token of marriage they are effecting a radical metamorphosis not only in their husbands' lives but in his effects as well. For several days following Anita's moving into the house I stumbled over pieces of furniture which she had rearranged and I felt very strange sleeping in what had always been my mother's bedroom. After her death I had never thought of bunking there but had kept my familiar little room at the head of the winding stairs.

"Don't you think that this table would look better over by that window?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, Anita," I would reply.

"No.... I guess not. I'll try it in that corner."

"It looks fine there, Anita."

"Well, it will do for now."

On one or two occasions I kissed her while we were shifting the furniture back and forth. Despite the dustcloth wound around her head, the old house-dress and a pair of my slippers which were ludicrously large on her feet, she looked very beautiful and I couldn't resist taking her into my arms. However, when I did my best to maneuver her onto the couch, she would push me away gently. "Oh, please, Peter! We're so busy and I'm so tired."

I think that only a few weeks elapsed between the day we got married and the day I rented the vacant bakery shop adjacent to my store. I had made up my mind to celebrate my good fortune by enlarging the business. Soon the workmen were at work, tearing down the thick wall separating the two shops and while this was going on I could not conduct business. So it was decided that Anita and I would take a belated honeymoon. I suggested Montreal but Anita had ideas of her own.

"I want to spend all the time we can allow ourselves right in New York City. We can go to the theatre every night and eat in the fine restaurants and shop and...." She rambled on and on, becoming more enthusiastic. When I reminded her that New York in summer was scarcely the spot one would select for a vacation, she refused to listen.

Luckily my finances were in good shape so we stopped at the Waldorf. For two weeks we were miserable. The pavement and the walls of the high buildings surrounding us were unbelievably hot that summer and it seemed to me that we were slowly being baked in some great oven. Nevertheless, Anita did not complain and tried to pretend to me that she was enjoying herself.

Every night found us in some stuffy theatre or cafe. We went to the Ziegfeld Follies; we sat through "Hitchy-Koo," gasping for a breath of air while Raymond Hitchcock, Grace LaRue, Leon Errol and Irene Bordoni panted their speeches; but after a matinee of "The Thirteenth Chair," when Anita expressed the desire to inspect the new William Desmond film--"The Paws of the Bear" I think--I emphatically refused. She sulked all evening.

The trip itself would be unimportant had it not marked the birth of Anita's yearning to live in New York. She did not suggest that we move there--in so many words--but I was soon to note her waning interest in the alterations I was planning to make in the store. While I was down in the city, I ordered a very fine composition-marble soda fountain and I was justly proud of my purchase. However, when I insisted that Anita accompany me to the showroom to view it, she was totally lacking in enthusiasm.

"It's right down on Fourth Avenue, darling. We can hop a cab and be there in five minutes."

"I'll see it when it's up in Ithaca, Peter."

Upon our return home, I lost no time in getting to the store for I wanted to see what progress had been made in my absence. It was still my dream some day to own a very large place--an elaborate place with a long fountain and red-leather stools and a well-stocked drug department with several clerks in white coats to wait upon customers.

After a cursory inspection, I started home again. Anita had warned me about being late for supper and I had lingered quite a while with Doc Turnbull whom I had chanced to encounter. I hurried along down State Street at a good clip.

It was already growing dark as I passed the railroad station. The lighted windows of a halted Pullman stretched like a string of yellow beads far down the track. The train was preparing to creep out, bound west; its engine snorted at ever decreasing intervals. The few passengers who had alighted passed close to me, sweating beneath their burdens of satchels and valises. They were all headed in the direction from which I had come.

"Travel," I chuckled to myself, "is not all it's cracked up to be. Moving all the time, packing and unpacking, sleeping in cramped quarters, trying to keep the dust out of your eyes and ears.... They can have it. I'll stay here."

One of the passengers looked very familiar and as he approached me he saluted me with a cheerful wave of his hand. I squinted in his direction.

It was Leo Carpenter.

* * * * *

You can imagine what conflicting emotions took possession of me as I continued toward home. Since my marriage I had not thought of him, so busy was I in accustoming myself to a wedded state. Leo was something out of the past--a smoked cigarette, a match which had flared for a minute and then been extinguished. And while Anita, of course, had not forgotten his existence, I was certain that she had dismissed him from her thoughts. That she no longer cared for him, she had proven to me by the solemn act of marriage.

Yet, because we lived in a small community, we would have to rub elbows with him often. It was a delicate situation and I was at a loss to know the proper attitude to adopt. That Leo and Anita had been engaged was common gossip; if we avoided contact with him it would seem as though we were afraid of him. On the other hand, if we accepted him as a friend and allowed him to call at our home, there might be malicious rumors circulated that he still loved her and intended, if he could, to win her away from me.

Naturally I expected Anita to bear him a grudge and refuse to have anything to do with him, but when I informed her that I had seen him, she evinced no anger. Indeed she gave no sign that it mattered one way or the other except that her hand shook a little as she cut me another helping of pie. She offered no comments. Neither did I ask her for any. Anita, I reasoned, would be capable of deciding what course to pursue. As for myself, comfortably assured of my wife's devotion, it did not matter how we treated Carpenter.

There were two reasons, though, why I wished we could be friends with him. First of all, I felt sorry for the fellow. He had lost what I had won. Then, too, there was the store. Doctor Carpenter was a very good customer. Like old Doc Turnbull, he brought me all his prescription work. That trade alone netted me five hundred dollars a year and, in the event that Anita decided to feud, he would be forced to trade at Cavender's.

The evening after his arrival he came into the place. I could see by his face that the news had reached him. He looked pale and tensely drawn and not at all the dapper man-about-town. Of course our marriage might not have been the cause of it all. He was in mourning clothes. I remembered about his father being ill.

He came straight to the prescription counter with his hand outstretched. "Congratulations, Pete," he said quietly. "I wish you all the luck in the world. I know you'll make her happy."

I hardly expected that he would be such a good sport about it. In his place I knew that I would have been absolutely miserable. But then I remembered that he had never loved her--or so it had struck me. "Thanks, doctor. You bet I will. I suppose it was something of a shock to you, eh? So sudden and all that!"

"Yes. But that's the way things happen, you know. Suddenly."

I looked at his black suit. "I'm sorry to hear that your...."

He interrupted me before I could get any farther. I could see that he wanted to change the subject. "Hmm. Store looks nice, Pete. But what are you going to put in that big empty place?" He indicated the long, bare strip where I intended to install my fountain when it arrived.

"Secret, Doctor Carpenter. Come in next week and see for yourself."

But he never did see it. Within a week, Carpenter closed up his big house on the Heights, dismissed all the servants, recommended Doc Turnbull to many of his patients, and enlisted in the army. Although I enlisted shortly after, I never saw him again until a few weeks ago--September 9, 1937 to be precise--in his handsome New York City residence.

* * * * *

I bluntly admit that I am cowardly by nature; yet, despite this, I was not drafted into the army. I volunteered. This is not a boast but a statement of fact which, I presume, sounds paradoxical. But I have met many like myself at the front who, listening to martial music and the stirring speeches of wartime orators, could not resist rallying to the colors. During many a night in muddy French dug-outs I wondered at this rash act of mine. Volunteering had been so unlike me. At length it dawned on me that I had done it to impress Anita.

This seems to me to be the most logical reason because I have always tried to impress her. I would never have dreamed of confessing my timidity to her and, if she were still alive, I would not be confessing it here. I remember that whenever a situation arose which required firm handling, in her presence I would handle it firmly--instead of the meek attitude I took when there were no witnesses. I am referring now to the incident of the iceman, shortly after we were married. The man had gotten into an argument with Anita over a late delivery. The food in our ice-chest had spoiled and the tongue-lashing the man received provoked him. He began to shout back at her insolently. I forced myself to step in and ordered the fellow from the house. Curiously enough, he obeyed. As he stood hesitantly in the open door, I shouted: "Get out of here and don't come back!" After he had closed the door, I added ferociously for Anita's benefit: "... or I'll dust off the furniture with you, you worm!"

All the eligible men in Ithaca were enlisting. Even students from up on the hill and married men who were exempt. Although in my heart I knew that I would make a poor soldier--being much more valuable at home, keeping people fit--I was afraid that my reticence would be noticed. I took to circling an entire block to avoid passing the enlistment office on Seneca Street where a pretty town girl was drumming up recruits. However, it did not matter so much what other people thought of me, as long as Anita did not feel ashamed.

One day when I came home from work I thought I'd test her. I figured that her face would give her away if she really thought me a coward. I mentioned the fact that I contemplated joining up.

She did not throw her arms around my neck and beg me not to go as the wives in plays did (and as I had hoped _she_ would do). She merely nodded her approval and said: "Good idea, Peter. Uncle Sam needs everyone. I've been thinking of joining the Red Cross. And don't worry about the store," she went on quickly, "because that lame Murphy boy has just graduated as a pharmacist. He can look after things until you get back. The war can't last much longer now that we're in it."

I saw then that there was no getting out of it. I silently cursed myself for having left myself wide open. "But how do you know that Tom Murphy...?"

"Oh, don't worry, will you? He said he'd be only too glad to...." She stopped in embarrassment. As my eyebrows went up in surprise, she rushed on, "Oh, I knew you'd want to enlist sooner or later. So I thought I'd sound him out before Ray Cavender thought of it."

The following day as I stood in line before the recruiting office she waited to one side. I remember that she was smiling--not broadly, but only with the corners of her mouth--as though something amused her. I think that she might have suspected my meek spirit and half expected that I would make a break and run for it before it was too late! Of course, I did no such thing; although I don't mind admitting that I would have liked to have done so--and probably would have, had I not foreseen the disgrace resulting from such an act.

So I signed the enlistment papers with a great show of unconcern, easily passed the physical examination, and rejoined Anita at the curb. As we walked down Seneca toward North Albany where young Murphy lived, my chest swelled with pride and my knees felt curiously weak.

"Well, Peter," smiled Anita, "you're in the army now."

"Yes," I replied.

A few days later I received orders assigning me to Camp Mills, out on Long Island, for training. I was to leave immediately. At the station many of the men were hoping that their wives would not cry. Something told me that Anita would not; but I was not so sure about myself....

* * * * *

Anyway, late 1917 found me in France, a very bewildered apothecary armed with a rifle in place of the familiar pestle. And a more peculiar soldier never buttoned an ill-fitting uniform blouse over a quaking heart. My quiet garden and the lake now were replaced by a filthy trench, a sea of mud, tangled wire and the grim, ploughed furrows of war.

I will not bore you by going into a long dissertation on the causes, results and horrors of international strife. More capable persons have tried it before me to no avail. To the young, the exempt or the uninitiated, war seems an adventure, a thrilling episode during which one has the rare opportunity of becoming a hero. If that is so, all I can say is that it was a thrill and an adventure I would prefer not having again. And I am certainly not alone in this.

Oh, yes, I can understand the quickening of the pulse whenever a flag goes by and how handsome the boys look in their khaki and steel helmets. But it is easy to feel heroic at home, far from the awful front, surrounded by friends and pretty girls. I think that if recruits were allowed one day of fighting before finally electing to join the army, no country would be able to raise troops.

But this is not a war story; it is a confession, if you wish to call it that, of what led me to commit the crime of which I am supposed to be guilty, and the war plays no part in it with the exception of two incidents. One of them is the shell-shock I suffered; the other I relate here.

In my company were three men to whom I became very much attached. Two of them--Carter and Mullins--were privates like myself. The third was a huge fellow by the name of Wilkinson, my platoon sergeant. War and the ever-present threat of death can forge close friendships, even among people from different walks of life; but, I maintain, pinochle can forge closer ones. We played through more than seven months of front-line fire--the four of us--and it helped. At first I could not keep my mind on the cards with the low rumble of the big guns and the occasional screams of the German "minnies" in my ears; but when I saw how unperturbed the others seemed, I felt ashamed to flinch and soon I became almost as hardened to sounds as they were.

Strange how four men can get together and become friends with no more in common than a ragged deck of cards! Carter, in peace time, was a shoe salesman; Mullins, a landscape gardener; and Wilkinson, a policeman on the Yonkers force. Only infrequently did they mention their professions. Carter once delivered a long and obscene monologue on the subject of his regulation shoes. "I think they put hobnails on the inside, too!" he grumbled. Mullins once or twice commented briefly on the ravished landscape; and Sergeant Wilkinson, or "Sarge" as we called him, never felt at home with a Springfield. At those times when we had to mount the firing-step, he would pop away with his treasured police revolver. I would stand beside him, firing round after round, hoping that I was not hitting anyone.

For war or no war, the world safe or unsafe for democracy, I could not bring myself to want to kill anybody. Pointing a gun at a person and pressing the trigger was still murder to my way of thinking. The knowledge that I was legally entitled to do it did not seem to make the slightest particle of difference. I did not hate anyone. Why should I kill?

Perhaps this was not a very patriotic attitude to take. Maybe I should have taken a certain pride in killing off my country's enemies. But I couldn't help feeling that the enemy ranks contained many young men like myself into whose unwilling hands guns had been thrust. My own life, up until the war broke out, had been spent in trying to relieve pain, not to inflict it. But when I broached this subject, the Sarge sniffed. "Either you fill their bellies with lead or they fill yours. Take your pick." I solved the problem by keeping carefully out of the line of fire whenever possible and by trying to miss each shot it was my military duty to fire.

One night in October, a second lieutenant came into our dug-out and asked us to volunteer for a wire-cutting detail. "If you don't make too much noise, there shouldn't be any trouble. The Boche are in Exermont, drinking schnapps and eating pigs' knuckles and sauerkraut. I haven't the foggiest notion why this wire must be cut unless we're going to attack ... but orders are orders."

The Sarge nodded affably and asked, "Is it all right with you guys?"

Carter reached for his shoes without a word. Mullins, in disgust, threw his cards face-up on the table. "You _would_ have to come in now and bust up the first decent hand I've had in a month!" he grunted to the lieutenant.

I hesitated a second. Venturing out into noman's-land was something I was not particularly anxious to do. But I felt four sets of eyes turn my way. I tried my best to appear unafraid of the task which, I knew very well, was within my province to refuse. "Oh, hell," I said flippantly but with trembling lips, I'm afraid. "Why not? I could use a breath of air."

A shallow attempt at bravado but no one seemed to notice.

A few minutes later the four of us squirmed over the trench parapet and wiggled toward the wire entanglements. Luckily it was very dark and the enemy opposite us were firing Very lights only once in a great while. Notwithstanding, I was terribly frightened; so much so, that when I caught my wrap-arounds on a strand of wire, I lost my head and yanked them free with a loud ripping noise. Carter, Mullins and the Sarge flung themselves face-downward on the soggy ground and lay still. I quickly followed suit and heard Wilkinson cursing me roundly under his breath. But when nothing happened, we resumed our cautious crawling. My heart was pounding so hard against my chest that I felt certain it could be heard by anyone within a mile of us.

When at length we reached the wire we had been instructed to cut, the four of us went into a whispered conference on our bellies. "You go off to the right, Thatcher," the Sarge muttered between his teeth, "and get into a shell-hole. Keep your eye peeled. For Chris' sake don't go to sleep. The Heinies may have a party out, too. Mullins, you mosey over to that stump on the left. Carter and I will tackle the wire."

I was very glad to crawl into that shell-hole, believe me; and while I didn't like the idea of being separated from the others, I was infinitely grateful that I would be out of danger if shooting began. However, no sooner did I flatten myself at the muddy bottom of the hole when I felt something rub against my knee. Squinting into the inky darkness, I drew my trench-knife, believing that I might have to kill a rat. At that moment someone decided to fire up a light.

I was lying beside a German private!

He seemed as surprised as I was. We gaped open-mouthed at one another's uniforms. Terror froze the blood in my veins for an instant; then it galvanized me into action. I suddenly became conscious of what I held in my hand and, as he muttered something guttural, I drove the trench-knife deep into his neck.

When you took up this book you expected a confession. Well, now you've got one. That deed, in my own estimation, was a murder. You disagree? It was self-defense? It really wasn't anything of the kind. He had no weapon in his hand; neither did he show any sign that he meant to attack me. But you still think I was right in killing him? I'm sorry, but I don't understand such reasoning. If only someone would explain it to me! Killing Anita who deserved to die--that was a crime? Killing a boy whose only fault was having been born in Germany--that was not?

Twenty years have passed since that awful night and this outrageous misinterpretation of justice still remains to plague my logic. I have asked everyone--priests, convicts, judges, cops--but no one seems to know. Well, never mind.

Ten short minutes seemed an eternity. I lay beside the man I had killed, waiting for some signal from the Sarge. The enemy were firing many more Verys now and that, I suppose, was the reason for the delay. I tried to keep my eyes off the corpse but it was a difficult feat in that small area. In my hand I still clutched the knife and, as light after light went up, I stared horrified at the sticky blood that covered my hand up to the wrist. I tried to wipe it off on my pants.

My three comrades found me that way. The Sarge looked down at the body and then patted me on the shoulder. "Nice work," he said in a whisper. "You got him in the right place, kid. There was a Fritz party out tonight. This guy must've been a look-out. We saw 'em in time. If this baby had opened his yap, we'd all of us be pushin' up the daisies now." Then he callously began to search the dead man's pockets. "Got to look for maps and stuff," he explained. "Of course, he ain't carryin' any. He's only a buck from the rear rank. But he might have a stogie on him or a pack of butts."

The next morning while I was shaving, I remembered that I had taken a life. I peered at my reflection in the steel mirror, wondering how much the deed had changed me. I knew that I had changed inside ... but outside I looked the same.

On the night of October 4, 1918 we made our bid for Exermont. I should say, _they_ made _their_ bid; for I deserted.

Deserted in the face of the enemy. Say it. Go ahead, I don't care. I had had enough of the war. But before you condemn me, imagine what might have happened if everybody had followed my example. There would have been no more war. There would have been nothing left to shoot at.

I lagged behind when we reached that ruined cemetery on the outskirts of Exermont village. Machine-gun bullets were kicking up all around us and shells were dropping, cutting off a retreat. I don't know when the notion struck me that we were walking toward sudden and certain death, but I was sure that nothing--not even a blade of grass--could escape that heavy rain of lead. Taking advantage of the fact that it was dark and there was a lot of confusion, I ducked into a convenient shell-hole and allowed what was left of my company to go on without me.

The last thing I can remember before I came to my senses in the little French hospital was the ever-increasing whine of some great shell. A five-point-nine. I could identify it by its sound. As it came down upon me, making my ears vibrate, I tried to press my body into the wet earth. My fingers frantically dug into the ground; my eyes filled with mud; my teeth clenched until they hurt; and my bowels opened....

* * * * *

Every soldier falls in love with his nurse. I, not much of a military man anyway, did not. The war had not caused me to forget Anita and, despite her very infrequent letters, my thoughts were ever full of her. Yet, somehow, the picture was blurred, pleasurably blurred if you wish, the imperfections blotted out. Moments dwelt on in memory, moments very often of the flesh; memories of moments only to be whispered when we were alone together. Desire is an insidious parasite gnawing at one's body. And so, paradoxically enough, although it was Anita who kept me away from women who could be had for the taking, women like the pockmarked roads of France over which an army marched, it was also Anita who made me glaringly conscious of a need for women. Celibacy is the pathway to depraved thoughts, even as war is the pathway to power of depraved minds. The very fact that Anita wrote so seldom made me want her more. Man usually kills the thing he loves, and cherishes that which ultimately destroys him. In the trenches, with death ever near like a white bird flying, it was not so hard to hold one's emotions in check. So frantically were we endeavoring to cling to life, we wooed and clung to her as though she were our mistress. Then, too, we could always look forward to being relieved, new troops to supplant us in this war that was merely a prelude to all other wars, and then--a few days in Paris. Actually, the fact that few of us ever got to Paris was of little importance. Paris was a symbol. It represented any woman's arms.

Lest you suspect otherwise and visualize my nurse as some homely harridan, I would like to make it clear that Mademoiselle Monet was a very attractive person, one with whom many a man might fall in love. And pray do not think that I was viewing her with the astigmatic eyes of war which distorted everything. My nurse was truly beautiful.

Furthermore, Gilberte Monet was in love with me.

How this happened, I cannot explain. There have been many jokes made about French girls. There is the story that they considered it a patriotic duty to sleep with each and every one of the Allied troops from the brigadier generals right on down the line. Gilberte was not one of those and her love for me in no way hinged upon my uniform. Well, whatever her reason for loving me, I only know that when I eventually became aware that I was in a long, white ward, a friendly-looking dark-eyed girl in nurse's garb was bending over the bed and whispering some strange, incomprehensible syllables which she later told me meant: "So you are awake at last, my darling."

Her voice was gentle, soothing like the voice of a mother speaking softly to her frightened little boy who lay hurt and shivering on his bed, shrinking from imagined horrors. And I was that boy--but the horrors were ghastly realities. No war has ever been won, not even by the conquerors; and how can one describe that gray, terror-splashed tumult that rages in the frontiers of the mind; that frontier where reason locks with reality? Beyond the trenches lies a region like unto the world in the beginning, without form and void. This I know, for I have been there.

Yes, Gilberte Monet loved me and it was good to be loved; especially good while I lay broken mentally and physically, afraid to die, yet more afraid to live in a world gone mad.

You may laugh if you like. I wouldn't blame you at all. It does seem ludicrous that I, a timid, small-town druggist could so play havoc with a woman's heart. I am certainly no Don Juan.

I was the only American in the hospital and I must have been there quite a long time because none of the other patients were there when I was brought in. The first thing I learned was that the Armistice had been signed and that the war was at an end. You may be sure I rejoiced. But the news that my entire company had been wiped out at Exermont greatly disheartened me.

Although I was out of danger of death, my mind was periodically unsound and my memory as well. Sometimes for hours I would forget who I was, in which ward I belonged and the name of my nurse. During those periods I would suffer indescribable mental anguish until Nurse Monet came to claim me. I would always recognize her and in a minute everything would become clear again. I took to wheeling my chair after her wherever she went. She did not seem to mind.

Many evenings the nurse and I would be in the hospital garden. It was very lovely there with the green lawn and the cultivated flower beds and the stone fountain which played incessantly. She would sit beside my wheel-chair and coax me to sing to her. My nasal interpretations of "K-K-K-Katy" and "Over There" sent her into fits of laughter and she never seemed to tire of them. I would laugh with her until my shrapnel wounds began to hurt. To this day, whenever I undress for bed and notice the scars on my left leg and thigh, I think of the evenings in the garden with Gilberte Monet.

One evening in particular would be much better forgotten; and I would not mention it all were it not for my firm resolution to be frank. It happened so naturally and so sweetly that I can scarcely believe it was an adultery. Yet.... It will be hard to describe. I can only tell you what we did--and that may sound very ordinary--but what we did and what that night did to me is the important issue. That half-hour has since served as a standard by which I weigh love to ascertain its value. Gilberte's love was real, not feigned. It could, and did, weather anything--even her realization that I could not reciprocate.

Yes, she gave herself to me. And what is more, no one cared. Who cared what anyone did during those topsy-turvy years--like roulette with the play for human chips? The hospital staff was too preoccupied with a macabre puzzle to be disturbed over absurdities connected with a normal human function. They were attempting to put wrecks of men together again and, far too frequently, important pieces were missing.

And the important missing part in my own case was Anita. Gilberte helped me to fill that gap, for which I shall be eternally grateful. My only regret is the night I am trying to describe. There, and there only, did we overstep the boundaries beyond which we should never have passed. If I had loved Gilberte and not been in love with another woman it would have been quite all right. But I never loved her and, since she loved me, it must have hurt her no end to discover that she was merely receiving the crumbs from Anita's table.

However, it is too late to think about such things now. Even if we had known, I doubt if we could have prevented what happened. Before either of us realized quite what was happening, we found ourselves stretched full-length on a secluded strip of lawn, protected by the enveloping darkness. Gilberte's uniform was unfastened at the breast and my cheek rested on her satiny flesh. I became suffused with a warm glow and the intoxicating belief that nothing mattered but this one very human moment. I kissed her on the mouth--the first time I had ever done so. She responded by tightening her grip and literally melting to me. I removed one arm from under her and in a few seconds nothing--not a shred of clothing--separated us.

"I love you, Gilberte," I moaned again and again.

But, even at that time, while I held a woman in my arms for the first time in almost two years, I knew I was lying. But, somehow, that seemed the only proper thing to say.

The greater portion of the A.E.F. sailed for home on the Leviathan and other ships late in March of 1919; but I was still in no condition to make such a long trip. I'd sit in my wheel-chair, staring off into space, and think about Anita--how she was, what she was doing, and wondering why she didn't answer my letters.

It was my custom to write her each week. Gilberte provided me with paper and pen and ink; and later she would take the letters to post when she went off duty. I remember the first time I handed her a finished letter she glanced curiously at the name and the address.

"Your mothair?" she asked in her broken English.

"No," I replied, not realizing I was being cruel, "my wife." And not satisfied with that, I pulled out the picture of Anita I always carried in my breast pocket. "How do you like her, Gilberte? Isn't she lovely?"

She took the picture from my hand and studied it intently. There was a look in her eyes like some hurt animal and instantly I was ashamed of myself. Knowing how the girl felt about me, I should have known better.

"Vairy nize," she murmured and returned it. I saw a tell-tale sparkle under her lowered lids.

Now please don't think for a minute that I am manufacturing this story out of whole cloth. I can find no explanation for her misguided affections. I certainly did nothing to inspire them. The only observation I might truthfully make is that love is mighty strange and ofttimes somewhat silly. But to prove that Mademoiselle Monet was a real person and not a figment of a distorted imagination, you have only to look up the transcript of my trial in Tompkins County. One of the prosecution's major exhibits was a letter in the French language, addressed to me and signed by her. I never found out what the letter contained until I heard it translated in open court. Yes, it was a love letter. I ought to know, because it helped to convict me.

Gilberte showed her love for me in a way to which I could not possibly object. She did not try to kiss me, caress me or hug me; and pray do not imagine nightly assignations after the other patients in the ward were asleep; she was just over-kind and ever willing to go out of her way to please me. When she spoke of her love at all, it was quietly and in her own language, which I could not understand. Of course, there was no mistaking the meaning of her words. Behind them whispered something else--an international esperanto which no one could fail to have recognized.

And if, while she administered my sponge-baths, she lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary, what was so wrong in that? She liked to fuss over me like some mother with a child. In the garden on some of the nights when we were alone, she'd lean her head on my shoulder or carry one of my hands to her breast. It was done so sweetly and so lacking in the frenzied sex quality that endowed many of the other women nurses in the hospital, that I was deeply moved. I daresay had I not already lost my heart to Anita ... but that's the way it was.

Have I made myself clear? Except for that night during the early spring, there was nothing between us. And it was not Gilberte's fault that there happened even that. If anyone was the aggressor--it was I. Do not, please, get the impression that she egged me on. Her love was on a higher plane and sex was not paramount. I still have the feeling that I soiled something, strode ruthlessly across a priceless tapestry with muddy shoes.

Now, I often regret that I didn't find out more about Nurse Monet; but at the time, you can understand, my mind was flooded with thoughts of my wife and her picture blotted out everything else or threw them out of perspective. As it was, I merely tolerated Gilberte. She was merely an audience attending a nightly eulogy of Anita. Knowing where I stand now, I am sorry that I paid her so little attention. I must have been exceedingly cruel; especially do I regret taking her. If, by some chance, she ever comes across this book, I hope that she will believe me when I say that I will always hold her memory very dear. I get a little comfort by telling myself that, although she was a few years older than myself, she was still a young woman and I, probably, was merely a fleeting fancy.

But to continue, it was not for several months that I found out Gilberte was not mailing my letters to Anita. This made me very angry because, you remember, my company had been recorded as wiped out and Anita had no way of knowing that I was still alive. I found out one afternoon when Gilberte was shifting her quarters. The other nurses were lending her a hand with the heavier paraphernalia. I would have liked to have helped her myself, because I was very fond of Gilberte, but I was permitted only to sit in my wheel-chair out in the corridor and watch the proceedings.

The lid of her trunk was open as they staggered out into the hall with it. The letters were in the tray--all of them--tied neatly into a packet. At first I only stared at them in astonishment. There could be no mistaking my peculiar style of penmanship. And as the trunk passed my chair, I got a chance to inspect them at closer range. None of them had been opened.

I am thankful that I had both the control and the good taste to wait until the moving was over and the other nurses had gone before confronting Gilberte with my discovery. At first she denied it vigorously; but when I rolled myself into her new room and took the packet from the trunk to wave it in front of her nose, she began to cry.

"Why did you do it?" I demanded furiously. "Answer me, you little sneak!"

I am sure she didn't understand what I was saying and this made me angrier than ever. My temper completely got the better of me and I did something I had never dreamed of doing to a woman before: I struck her across the mouth with the back of my hand.

Poor woman, if only I could erase the mark of that blow! If only there was something, some sort of antidote for the deeds we do in this world without thinking! What she had done she had only done because she loved me. Probably I would have done the same, had I been in her position. But it was several hours before I cooled off and realized this.

That very night I wrote to Anita again. This time I posted the letter myself. The staff raised a frightful rumpus when they discovered I had wheeled myself all the way into the village to the postmaster, and, I must admit, not without just cause. I returned to the hospital totally spent and for the following two weeks I had to be confined to my bed. Throughout this brief relapse, Nurse Monet continued to care for me. I don't think that she bore me any grudge for my having struck her. Nevertheless, I found out later that she had put in an application for a change of ward and been refused.

Before I was finally discharged from the hospital I wrote some ten or twelve letters to Anita and received two in reply. I am still in possession of them. The paper on which they are written is yellowed with the years and the ink has faded until the writing is almost illegible. Intrinsically they are worth nothing; however, I think that if I copy them here, they might explain themselves and also how I felt when I first read them. In this way I might possibly be able to transfer to you the intangible mental unrest I suffered because of them.

The first was a short note, written in a great hurry on a piece of Ithaca Hotel stationery. It ran:

June 3, 1919

Dear Peter,

I am so glad to hear that you are alive and getting along nicely.
Of course, I am sorry to hear that you've been wounded but I think
you are very lucky to have gotten away so easily, don't you? You
know that the newspapers listed you in the casualties and getting
a word from you was like receiving a communication from a ghost.
As a matter of fact, I have been wearing mourning clothes for over
two months. And oh, Peter, I've been so dreadfully lonesome here in
Ithaca since the Armistice. I haven't been outside this house in
almost three weeks ... except to do my shopping. Please write to me
and let me know your plans. By all means do not leave the hospital
until you have been pronounced completely well. If it is advisable
that you remain another month or two, don't disregard the doctors.
I can wait. And don't, for heaven's sake, try anything juvenile
like surprising me.

Your wife,

Anita.

There were two things that immediately struck me as being strange about the letter. The first was the curious absence of the word "love." She had not even said, "Your _loving_ wife." The second was that while the stationery bore the insignia of the familiar Ithaca Hotel, the envelope was stamped with the incongruous postmark of New York City. If she had not been out of the house, how then could this letter have been mailed more than two hundred and fifty miles away? This worried me considerably.

Her next and last letter I received just as I was preparing to leave the hospital, bound for Paris. I thrust it into my pocket unopened, deciding to read it after I had said my goodbyes. I had made arrangements with the driver of a produce lorry to take me in with him on one of his semi-weekly trips to the capital and he was parked before the main gate, impatiently punching the rubber bulb of his horn.

Hurriedly, I bade farewell to everyone--doctors, nurses, orderlies--but Gilberte I could not find. At the risk of having the lorry proceed without me, I raced through the entire hospital, thrusting my neck into every room much to the annoyance of staff and patients. Just as I was about to give up hope, I spotted her sitting alone at the far end of the garden. I could see by her posture that there was something wrong. Her shoulders sagged disconsolately.

"Gilberte!" I called as I hurried over to her. "I'm leaving now. Didn't you know? I've been searching all over for you. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving without saying goodbye."

"Goodbye," she said apathetically.

I looked at her in astonishment. We had long since made up after our quarrel about the letters and this passive attitude on her part puzzled me. I raised her chin with one finger but she steadfastly refused to meet my eyes.

"What's wrong, Gilberte?" I asked. "Aren't you sorry to see me go? We've been such good friends and all that. I'm going to miss you, you know."

"That is nize," she replied dully.

It was then that I noticed her hands. They were clenched tightly in her lap. The knuckles were white and the skin covering them was stretched taut, almost to the point of being transparent. Her eyes she kept fixed on the ground. Though her cheeks were pale and her lips quivered at the corners, I knew that she had not been crying. I was glad of that, at least.

I moved to take her in my arms but she turned her head away. "Please," she whispered, "don't kiss me." There was a harsh, but barely audible, agony in her voice which brought a lump into my throat. At that moment I knew the full tragedy of war. War injects the virus of sadness into the veins of all and the innocent suffer along with the guilty. Sometimes I feel that the dead are the fortunate for they, at least, no longer have to look upon the wreckage.

The lorry driver began to honk away with renewed vigor. I knew that if I kept him any longer he was sure to drive off without me. Under my breath I cursed the restless fellow and, stooping quickly, I kissed Gilberte's forehead and ran to the road without a backward glance.

Needless to say, I felt very sad. Instinctively, I was aware that I would never see Nurse Monet again. My heart was cold with misgivings, as though some strange, dark traveller had passed close by and I had felt the swish of his cloak. Once beside my heavily-moustached companion, I turned for a last glimpse of her but the thick foliage above the low garden wall cut off the view.

As the lorry rattled and banged along the rural roads, quaking in every inch of its ancient frame, I tore open Anita's letter. This, too, was short. The handwriting was a scrawl, almost childish in its carelessness.

July 22, 1919

Dear Peter,

Received your letters and am happy to note that you have recovered
from your illness. I have some great news for you which ought to
cheer you up. The Great Eastern Drug Company is interested in
buying the store! They are offering an incredible sum. You know
that that is the chain with drugstores in almost every city and
town east of the Mississippi. We can consider ourselves fortunate
that they are interested in our place rather than Cavender's.
Probably, after they take over, they'll force him out of business.
Peter, maybe if we sell the store we can live in New York. What
do you think of that? You can open a place there, you know. We can
talk about it some more when I see you. Cable me what boat you'll
be on and I'll meet you at the dock.

Anita.

That's all there was. I turned the letter over and over in my hands, searching for something that was not there....

Again no word of love.