Non-Combatants and Others by Rose Macaulay

Author:Rose Macaulay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Handheld Press
Published: 2020-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

6

The cold made Alix shiver. She stiffly uncurled herself and got off the bed. She brushed her hair before the glass. Her face looked back at her, pointed and ghostly, in the gaslight and shadows.

‘Cad,’ whispered Alix, without emotion, to the pale image. ‘Cad – and liar.’

‘It’s the war,’ explained Alix presently, with detached, half-cynical analysis. ‘I shouldn’t have done that before the war. I suppose I might do anything now. Probably I shall. There seems no way out …’

Alix had heard and read plenty of views on the psychological effects of war; some of them were interesting, some were true; many were true for some people and false for others but she did not remember that even the most penetrating (or pessimistic) had laid enough emphasis on the mental and moral collapse that shook the foundations of life for some people. For her, anyhow, and for Paul; and they surely could not be the only ones. Observers seemed more apt to take the cases of those men and women who were improved; who were strengthened, steadied, made more unselfish and purposeful (that was the favourite word), with a finer sense of the issues and responsibilities of life; or of those young sportsmen at the front who kept their jollity, their sweetness, their equilibrium, through it all. Well, no doubt there were plenty of these. Look at Terry. Look at Dorothy and Margot at Wood End, in their new strenuousness and ardours. They weren’t demoralised by horror, or eaten by jealousy like a canker. They could even minister to combatants without envying them …

There were such. There might be many. But Alix looked at them far off, herself a broken, nerve-wracked, frightened child, grabbing at other people’s things to comfort herself, ashamed but outrageous.

‘There seems no way out,’ said Alix, and looked, as she changed her frock, down vistas of degradation.

Downstairs Florence rang the supper bell. The smell of Welsh rarebit drifted through Violette. That, anyhow, was something; Alix liked it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.