II
Everywhere Carol heard that the war was going to bring
a basic change in psychology, to purify and uplift everything
from marital relations to national politics, and she tried to
exult in it. Only she did not find it. She saw the women who
made bandages for the Red Cross giving up bridge, and
laughing at having to do without sugar, but over the
surgical-dressings they did not speak of God and the souls of men,
but of Miles Bjornstam's impudence, of Terry Gould's scandalous
carryings-on with a farmer's daughter four years ago,
of cooking cabbage, and of altering blouses. Their references
to the war touched atrocities only. She herself was
punctual, and efficient at making dressings, but she could not,
like Mrs. Lyman Cass and Mrs. Bogart, fill the dressings
with hate for enemies.
When she protested to Vida, "The young do the work while
these old ones sit around and interrupt us and gag with hate
because they're too feeble to do anything but hate," then
Vida turned on her:
"If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and
opinionated, now when men and women are dying. Some of
us—we have given up so much, and we're glad to. At least
we expect that you others sha'n't try to be witty at our
expense."
There was weeping.
Carol did desire to see the Prussian autocracy defeated;
she did persuade herself that there were no autocracies save
that of Prussia; she did thrill to motion-pictures of troops
embarking in New York; and she was uncomfortable when she
met Miles Bjornstam on the street and he croaked:
"How's tricks? Things going fine with me; got two new
cows. Well, have you become a patriot? Eh? Sure, they'll
bring democracy—the democracy of death. Yes, sure, in every
war since the Garden of Eden the workmen have gone out to
fight each other for perfectly good reasons—handed to them
by their bosses. Now me, I'm wise. I'm so wise that I know
I don't know anything about the war."
It was not a thought of the war that remained with her
after Miles's declamation but a perception that she and Vida
and all of the good-intentioners who wanted to "do something
for the common people" were insignificant, because the
"common people" were able to do things for themselves,
and highly likely to, as soon as they learned the fact. The
conception of millions of workmen like Miles taking control
frightened her, and she scuttled rapidly away from the thought
of a time when she might no longer retain the position of
Lady Bountiful to the Bjornstams and Beas and Oscarinas
whom she loved—and patronized.