Mr. Britling Sees It Through

of something I had hoped to watch⁠—always⁠—all my life,” he said. “I don’t know how it is between most fathers and sons, but I admired Hugh. I found exquisite things in him. I doubt if other people saw them. He was quiet. He seemed clumsy. But he had an extraordinary fineness. He was a creature of the most delicate and rapid responses.⁠ ⁠… These aren’t my fond delusions. It was so.⁠ ⁠… You know, when he was only a few days old, he would start suddenly at any strange sound. He was alive like an Aeolian harp from the very beginning.⁠ ⁠… And his hair when he was born⁠—he had a lot of hair⁠—was like the down on the breast of a bird. I remember that now very vividly⁠—and how I used to like to pass my hand over it. It was silk, spun silk. Before he was two he could talk⁠—whole sentences. He had the subtlest ear. He loved long words.⁠ ⁠… And then,” he said with tears in his voice, “all this beautiful fine structure, this brain, this fresh life as nimble as water⁠—as elastic as a steel spring, it is destroyed.⁠ ⁠…

“I don’t make out he wasn’t human. Often and often I have been angry with him, and disappointed in him. There were all sorts of weaknesses in him. We all knew them. And we didn’t mind them. We loved him the better. And his odd queer cleverness!⁠ ⁠… And his profound wisdom. And then all this beautiful and delicate fabric, all those clear memories in his dear brain, all his whims, his sudden inventions.⁠ ⁠…

“You know, I have had a letter from his chum Park. He was shot through a loophole. The bullet went through his eye and brow.⁠ ⁠… Think of it!

“An amazement⁠ ⁠… a blow⁠ ⁠… a splattering of blood. Rags of tormented skin and brain stuff.⁠ ⁠… In a moment. What had taken eighteen years⁠—love and care.⁠ ⁠…”

He sat thinking for an interval, and then went on, “The reading and writing alone! I taught him to read myself⁠—because his first governess, you see, wasn’t very clever. She was a very good methodical sort, but she had no inspiration. So I got up all sorts of methods for teaching him to read. But it wasn’t necessary. He seemed to leap all sorts of difficulties. He leapt to what one was trying to teach him. It was as quick as the movement of some wild animal.⁠ ⁠…

“He came into life as bright and quick as this robin looking for food.⁠ ⁠…

“And he’s broken up and thrown away.⁠ ⁠… Like a cartridge case by the side of a covert.⁠ ⁠…”

He choked and stopped speaking. His elbows were on his knees, and he put his face between his hands and shuddered and became still. His hair was troubled. The end of his stumpy moustache and a little roll of flesh stood out at the side of his hand, and made him somehow twice as pitiful. His big atlas, from which papers projected, seemed forgotten by his side. So he sat for a long time, and neither he nor Letty moved or spoke. But they were in the same shadow. They found great comfort in one another. They had not been so comforted before since their losses came upon them.

§ 9

It was Mr. Britling who broke silence. And when he drew his hands down from his face and spoke, he said one of the most amazing and unexpected things she had ever heard in her life.

“The only possible government in Albania,” he said, looking steadfastly before him down the hillside, “is a group of republican cantons after the Swiss pattern. I can see no other solution that is not offensive to God. It does not matter in the least what we owe to Serbia or what we owe to Italy. We have got to set this world on a different footing. We have got to set up the world at last⁠—on justice and reason.”

Then, after a pause, “The Treaty of Bucharest was an evil treaty. It must be undone. Whatever this German King of Bulgaria does, that treaty must be undone and the Bulgarians united again into one people. They must have themselves, whatever punishment they deserve, they must have nothing more, whatever reward they win.”

She could not believe her ears.

“After this precious blood, after this precious blood, if we leave one plot of wickedness or cruelty in the world⁠—”

And therewith he began to lecture Letty on the importance of international politics⁠—to everyone. How he and she and everyone must understand, however hard it was to understand.

“No life is safe, no happiness is safe, there is no chance of bettering life until we have made an end to all that causes war.⁠ ⁠…

“We have to put an end to the folly and vanity of kings, and to any people ruling any people but themselves. There is no convenience, there is no justice in any people ruling any people but themselves; the ruling of men by others, who have not their creeds and their languages and their ignorances and prejudices, that is the fundamental folly that has killed Teddy and Hugh⁠—and these millions. To end that folly is as much our duty and business as telling the truth or earning a living.⁠ ⁠…”

“But how can you alter it?”

He held out a finger at her. “Men may alter anything if they have motive enough and faith enough.”

He indicated the atlas beside him.

“Here I am planning the real map of the world,” he said. “Every sort of district that has a character of its own must have its own rule; and the great republic of the united states of the world must keep the federal peace between them all. That’s the plain sense of life; the federal world-republic. Why do we bother ourselves with loyalties to any other government but that? It needs only that sufficient men should say it, and that republic would be here now. Why have we loitered so long⁠—until these tragic punishments come? We have to map the world out into its