Read Online Edith Wharton - Novel 14 by A Son at the Front (v2.1) - Free Book Online

had paused near the doorway of the Ministry of Marine, and were
looking—without visible excitement—at a white paper pasted on the wall.
                 He
crossed the street and looked too. In the middle of the paper, in queer
Gothic-looking characters, he saw the words “Les Armees de Terre et de Mer…”
                 War
had come—
                 He
knew now that he had never for an instant believed it possible. Even when he
had had that white-lipped interview with the Brants, even when he had planned
to take Fortin-Lescluze by his senile infatuation, and secure a medical
certificate for George; even then, he had simply been obeying the superstitious
impulse which makes a man carry his umbrella when he goes out on a cloudless
morning.
                 War
had come.
                 He
stood on the edge of the sidewalk, and tried to think—now that it was here—what
it really meant: that is, what it meant to him. Beyond that he had no intention
of venturing. “This is not our job anyhow,” he muttered, repeating the phrase
with which he had bolstered up his talk with Julia.
                 But
abstract thinking was impossible: his confused mind could only snatch at a few
drifting scraps of purpose. “Let’s be practical,” he said to himself.
                 The
first thing to do was to get back to the hotel and call up the physician. He
strode along at his fastest limp, suddenly contemptuous of the people who got
in his way.
                 “War—and
they’ve nothing to do but dawdle and gape! How like the French!” He found
himself hating the French.
                 He
remembered that he had asked to have his sleepings engaged for the following
night. But even if he managed to secure his son’s discharge, there could be no
thought, now, of George’s leaving the country; and he stopped at the desk to
cancel the order.
                 There
was no one behind the desk: one would have said that confusion prevailed in the
hall, if its emptiness had not made the word incongruous. At last a waiter with
rumpled hair strayed out of the restaurant, and of him, imperiously, Campton
demanded the concierges .
                 “The concierges ? He’s gone.”
                 “To get my places for Naples ?”
                 The
waiter looked blank. “Gone: mobilised—to join his regiment. It’s the war.”
                 “But
look here, some one must have attended to getting my places, I suppose,” cried
Campton wrathfully. He invaded the inner office and challenged a secretary who
was trying to deal with several unmanageable travellers, but who explained to
him, patiently, that his sleeping had certainly not been engaged, as no trains were
leaving Paris for the present. “Not for civilian travel,”
he added, still more patiently.
                 Campton
had a sudden sense of suffocation. No trains leaving Paris “for the Present”? But then people like
himself—people who had nothing on earth to do with the war—had been caught like
rats in a trap! He reflected with a shiver that Mrs. Brant would not be able to
return to Deauville , and would probably insist on his coming to
see her every day. He asked: “How long is this preposterous state of things to
last?”—but no one answered, and he stalked to the lift and had himself carried
up-stairs.
                 He
was confident that George would be there waiting; but the sitting-room was
empty. He felt as if he were on a desert island, with the last sail
disappearing over the dark rim of the world.
                 After
much vain ringing he got into communication with Fortin’s house, and heard a
confused voice saying that the physician had already left Paris .
                 “Left—for where? For how long?”
                 And
then the eternal answer: “The doctor is