The Enemies of Women Part 61

Michael would not have recognized her. He sees two ladies, escorted by two American officers, entering the Cafe. One of them is Valeria, dressed with gay and showy elegance, as though anxious to compensate in a moment for years of frugality and privation.

Against the soft twilight the cafe windows begin to gleam with a reddish glow. One after another, the large lamps within are lighted. To the Prince's ears come the voluptuous wailings of violins.

"Life has changed very greatly since you went away, Prince. Every one feels a desperate hunger for amus.e.m.e.nt. The first thing that peace brought back to life was the tango."

Then Novoa begins to think about himself:

"What can I do here? I am poor. Everything I possessed in my country I have dropped here in the Casino. I have studied the mysteries of the ocean enough. How dearly it has cost me! I have had my little dream, and now I am going to resume my ill-paid work back there as a day laborer in science."

He thinks once more of her.

"Did you notice?... The poor d.u.c.h.ess, who made her what she is now, is lying up there in her grave, and here she is dancing, only a few months after her death."

He feels the harsh indignation, the sense of outraged morality, that all who have been scorned experience.

His anger grows so strong that he gets up from his chair. He cannot remain there. The woman has seen him, and might think that he is pursuing her, that he is waiting for her to come out, in order to entreat her. Never; he has had enough of certain humiliations which he does not care to remember.

He hurriedly says good-by. They will see each other again soon. Don Marcos has invited him to dinner at the little house in Beausoleil. The Colonel was sure that his visit would please the Prince.

He grasps Lubimoff's hand and does not seem to notice it is the wooden one. His eyes and his thoughts are on the cafe windows, ablaze in mid afternoon. Through them the cadenced murmur of the violins is pa.s.sing.

As he walks away he still repeats his protest.

"The poor d.u.c.h.ess up there forgotten.... And the other woman. What a scandal! I am glad I'm going away soon, and will never see her again."

On remaining alone, the Prince leaves his table. Don Marcos is doubtless telling the news of his arrival to every one he meets, and Michael is afraid that other less interesting persons will appear.

As he walks along he notices something which he had not seen before when he was with the Colonel. The United States flag is floating above all the buildings. In the city streets there are as many signs in English as in French. There are American soldiers everywhere. Lubimoff's uniform and that of the other French fighters are lost in the great flood of men dressed in mustard color. The light automobiles of the American army pa.s.s incessantly. They are everywhere. One meets them in the streets, on the roads along the coast and climbing the slopes of the Alps like buzzing, snorting ants. Everything seems animated by a robust, gay, self-confident life, the life of a twenty-year-old boy. The concert on the terraces is being given by an American band. The people walking in the streets absent-mindedly whistle dance tunes from across the ocean and marching songs of the soldiers from the States. People stop in the squares to admire the skill of the Americans in shirt sleeves throwing a ball and sending it back again after catching it in a kind of fencing glove.

Monaco seems to have been conquered by the troops of the Great Republic; a good-natured and kindly conquest, which makes the conquered smile. It is the same in Nice and everywhere on the Riviera. The Prince recalls his brief stay in Paris a few days before. There he saw Americans just as here. How many are they? What superhuman power has been able to create in a few months this army which though of recent birth, seems to fill all s.p.a.ce?

A people has just risen above all the peoples of the earth. Never in history has such a rise been known. It dominates through friendliness, through its generous acts, and by the beneficent strength of its activities; not through terror, the base of all greatness in the past.

Lubimoff recalls his doubts of the year before. No one would have believed that a people without armies could improvise a military force equal to those of old Europe. And in only a few months the United States had organized and transported two million men to decide the outcome of the struggle, and the world's fate.

Arriving at the last moment, they had liberally given their share of dead. In five months of campaign a hundred and twenty thousand Americans had perished, a huge proportion compared to the losses of the other nations during five years of fighting.

Michael, in his silent enthusiasm, enumerates what has just been done for humanity by this great people, which shortly before was considered utilitarian and selfish, and which now reveals itself as the most romantic and generous.

Two great wars are the most striking incidents in its history: one within, for the suppression of slavery; the other, without, to prevent the glorification of war, the brutal hegemony of one people over all, the exaltation of a mystic imperialism.

For the first time in history, a democracy has intervened in the fate of a world through the centuries subjected to the rule of kings. The modern republics had until now lived an inner and retiring life. The wars of the French Revolution were defensive. The Republic of the Convention fought to exist, since all the monarchs wanted to suppress it. The American Republic had voluntarily entered the struggle, without being threatened by any immediate danger, because of a mandate of its conscience, indignant at German crimes, because of the responsibility developing upon its greatness, its democratic strength.

Before arming, before intervening in the European crash while living in patient neutrality, battles were being won for it. This war was different from others. Against Germany, ready through long years of preparation for the struggle, and with all its industrial and commercial strength mobilized for war purposes, the Allies fought during the first few months, as a brave but backward people fights against a modern nation. They showed much bravery, and great heroism, sometimes in vain, against the blind mechanical force of industrial invention applied to destruction.

If this inequality kept diminishing, it was thanks in large part to the Republic beyond the sea. Its money barons made enormous loans to the Allies; its captains of industry facilitated the manufacture of the gigantic equipment demanded by the demon-like progress of military science; its ships defying the submarine menace, brought bread which had grown scarce in Europe through the war.

And when, its patience finally exhausted, it directly intervened, what generosity it showed!

The American combatants fought for simple and robust ideals: the rights of the weak to live, the dignity and freedom of mankind, the elimination of wars, understanding between peoples, sovereign right ruling the life of nations; things which shortly before had made the Old World skeptics smile.

All the countries of Europe had frontiers to reestablish, strips of land to claim. The United States of America was not asking for anything, it did not want anything.

Each one of the contestants, on thinking of victory, calculated the indemnities it should collect to compensate for its endeavors and sacrifices. The American Republic spent more than all the other nations.

The maintenance of each of its soldiers cost it as much as seven soldiers from the other countries, and nevertheless, it entered the war and withdrew from the war without demanding any particular reimburs.e.m.e.nt.

Lubimoff admired its enormous strength in victory: Never had any Empire in the past reached such greatness; not even Rome.

It was the only country, at once both industrial and agricultural, on earth. It formed a world apart within the world. It might, without suffering, isolate itself from the rest of the Globe; but the world would feel a sensation of emptiness if the Great Republic were to turn its back upon the other nations.

Its armed citizens were retiring without boasting and without commotion, just as they had come, and without asking anything for their great endeavor. They would disappear like the fairies and enchanters in ancient legends who, after doing good, need to return to their mysterious domains.

Years would pa.s.s: history would speak of this endeavor, unique in its intensity and its generous character, and on the Riviera and in other places there would remain of this great world a memory disfigured by time. The boys of to-day, grown old, would remember how they learned to play baseball from the soldiers who had come from a land of marvels beyond the sea, the girls, becoming grandmothers, would yearningly recall the American lovers they once had.

The Prince calculates again the greatness of this people, the only one capable of still working the miracles, that religions sometimes work in the early period of their exaltation.

The Great Republic is the world's creditor. All the victorious nations owe it fabulous sums; England is its debtor by thousands of millions, and France the same. The smaller countries, Belgium, Serbia, and the rest, have been able to live, thanks to its enormous loans. It is not all known as yet, years must pa.s.s before the full extent of these generosities is brought to light. This country, which likes advertis.e.m.e.nt and loud propaganda in its commercial affairs, is modest and concise in speaking of its disinterested acts.

"To go on freely living after the cataclysm, humanity is going to need America's support, or America's benevolence," thinks the Prince. "The political center of the world has shifted. It is no longer in Paris, nor is it in London. It remained for a while, trembling unsteadily on its base, in Berlin; but now it has leaped across the ocean."

The man, as yet unknown, who in the future is to take his place in the White House for four years, professor, lawyer, merchant, or farmer, as he may be, will sway the destiny of the world more than all the rulers who fill history with the din of warlike glory. His power will be based on something more permanent and solid than the strength of armies. It will have behind it industry and wealth, which create armies; democratic power, which the power of public opinion creates.

The irresistible strength of this power is clearly seen by the Prince.

Germany, in spite of her continual military triumphs in the first few years of the war, has finally fallen in defeat. Public opinion was against her. The democratic spirit of the entire world rose against the spirit of Empire.

This triumph of democracy is beginning to be manifest everywhere.

"There is no longer a single emperor left in Europe," Michael goes on thinking. "The vanquished empires want to be republics. All the kings are forgetting their ancestors with their divine rights, and are trying to have their crowns forgiven them, that they may imitate the simple life of a president."

This unexpected att.i.tude of the world gives it a new love of life.

He has realized, for the last few months--since he gave up Villa Sirena--that Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff has become an unfashionable personage. Perhaps, with the lapse of years, others will be as he was.

History repeats itself. Times of peace and plenty inevitably produce men such as he had been. But at present humanity has been restored by grief and sacrifice, humanity is anxious to live, and longs for something new, without knowing exactly what, and is working to secure it.

Michael looks on himself with pity. What is he going to do? What can men like himself do for their fellow men?

He recalls the luncheon in the little house of Don Marcos. He is still offended by the attentions the Colonel shows him at table, cutting his meat, looking after him like a child, trying to make up for the absence of his arm. It is something disgraceful!

Farewell to Prince Lubimoff!... Even if he still wanted to continue his selfish existence, entirely given up to pleasure, it would be impossible for him. He is a cripple; he considers himself quite old. No one but Mado, who doesn't really know what she wants, would ever notice him.

Besides, he feels poor. For the first time he recalls with a certain satisfaction the heritage left him by Alicia. It was not worth anything at that moment, but who knows but what some day...! He dreams that perhaps those Mexican mines may replace his lost fortune in Russia; and then...! He feels a strong desire to regain his wealth in order to do good; a longing which is something like remorse. He knows the inefficiency of individual effort in remedying human misery: a mere drop lost in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach. But what difference does that make? He is satisfied in giving happiness to some fifty unfortunate beings, among the hundreds of millions who people the earth.

Then he thinks of his present situation. That very morning he determined on his mode of life. He will flee from the poor Colonel, because of Mado. Others may take it upon themselves to bring misfortune to Don Marcos, but not he! He will take up his residence in Nice, in a Russian _pension_ run by an impoverished n.o.blewoman. In the evenings they will talk of the days when she was rich, beautiful, and desired; of the dances at the Petersburg Court, in which they danced together so often.

Lubimoff even has a suspicion that one of his duels was over this boarding-house keeper.

The remnants of his fortune will bring him a sufficient income to live in modest comfort. He will swell the number of wrecks retiring to the Riviera, to recall, under the palm trees, their forgotten triumphs. His old valet will accompany him in his dethronement.