Futurist Stories Part 7

THE human pleasure-loving side lay bleeding--dying inch by inch.

THE other, with tones of deepest beauty, rose above it, sighing that it must take such tragedy to break down its prison bars--that it might live.

IT rose--comforting Janet in many a weary hour--comforting the wounded, the dying. In a village church which had been turned into a base hospital she often played--and as they listened some pain was eased, some picture rose of happy fields, of homes. Would they see them again--

IN this tragedy of nations she had found herself. Found the purpose of her life. Her art had come into its own--had comforted.

DEATH from a sh.e.l.l might take her--as it took thousands each day--but she was fulfilling the mission of her soul.

IV

ONE night the Church Hospital lay sleeping. Very softly Janet crept to the organ loft--softer still she played to the moonlight.

HE was rapidly improving. His wounds had not been serious.

Something--very soft, faint--woke him. For a minute he could not recall his surroundings--and he rose up--but a sharp pain in his shoulder brought back the memory of the trenches, of the horror--

I MUST be dying--I hear faint music----

THE moon shone on something white--

AN angel--

FULLY awakening to his surroundings Hugh Brandon realized that it was not death--not an angel--

HE would go and find out for himself--

JANET barely touched the keys. Softer and softer grew the tones. He came nearer--fascinated as if by a magic presence.

THEIR eyes met--in the moonlight. They knew that no matter what happened to the rest of the world--no matter what happened to their own bodies--their souls were met for all Eternity.

IT was a flash from the unconscious--one of those strange illuminations which occur perhaps once in a hundred lifetimes.

PLAY on, he whispered. Play for me--for England--whose son I am

AT noon when they had eaten--Hugh and Janet slipped away. She played for him. The tones were richer than before. Into the sadness had been poured the burning heat of pure love.

V

THEY had both known what they had thought was love,--among flowers, dances, the lovely but artificial things of life--

BUT here--among the dying--blood, privation, life divested of its mantles and laid bare--the true love sprang up between these two.

Something more than love. A perfect understanding of each--like the treble and the base of a symphony--

IN the still hours of twilight Hugh and Janet would sit in the organ loft together, speaking the enchanted language only lovers know--made dearer by the phantom of separation ever near them.

DEAREST, when the Regiment has called me back, play each day at twilight--the Miserere. If--in the trenches--I shall know your soul is calling to mine--if, beyond, my soul will drink from the depths of yours----

SNOW was falling.

GOODBYE, dear, he whispered--

NOW even the organ could not calm. She had tasted the sweet of life--and it had been torn away. For what--

SUDDENLY hate possessed her--hate for this man who would rule the world--causing whole nations to rise up against him to defend their soil--hatred for the power that had brought despair into unknown lives--

BROUGHT murder into peaceful souls.

THE days followed each other in bleak sameness.

SHE moved among the wounded--a shadow self--

BUT at twilight each day, Janet lived. She played the Miserere--with her soul. Then again--the moving dazed form would return to help the men lying on mattresses where once peasants had knelt in prayer--

VI

HER music became divine. The Miserere sobbed out into the cold night air--cleansing her soul of hatred--even Peace--a joy--

THE air was rent by whistling sh.e.l.ls--the organ throbbed under her touch--

HUGH--forever--

THERE was left only a ma.s.s of charred stones--a blackened wall--

A CRUCIFIX still erect.

THE church had been unregarded by the enemy.

THEY had pa.s.sed--leaving desolation--

DEATH had found Janet at the organ--a free soul--

SEVERAL months later in the casualty list of a London newspaper appeared the name of Hugh Brandon.

THE FIFTH SYMPHONY [_To R. S. L._]

"_------It is clear that the trans.m.u.tation which the subject of the Allegro undergoes just before the close of the symphony is of the same psychological order as that of the Fate motive--a change from clouds to sunshine, from defeat to triumph._"