DREAMS OF ANTOINE PIDECQUE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 33, 2 November 1918, Page 10

DREAMS OF ANTOINE PIDECQUE

* A WAR-TIME SKETCH (By Lieutenant .T. B. Morton.) When Antoine Pidecque came back from the war a discharged soldier, and shut himself up in his attic, they said "he is at his dreams again." All day he would remain in his small room at the top of the house, and even Auguste, who kept the shop on the ground floor, saw little of him. He was affable enough, in a preoccupied way, when he met old acquaintances—that is to say, he did not go out of his way to avoid people in tlie street, but he never sought , their company. He had always been a dreamer, but there had been evenings of revelry, and those light-hearted moments that the most serious young men ailow themselves in France, particularly, artiste. His old haunt, the Taverne Des Mille Soupirs, knew him no more. There was no more playful tenderness for Marianne, who found him an enigma, and did not presume to corner him in his attic. It was as though a great obsession lay heavily upon him. Naturally he was the subject of discussion at th'e Taverne. The old violinist 6aid that undoubtedly things ho had seen at the war had' made of him such a strange being. Others thought that the shock of his wound had left a soar on his mind. "Anyway," they said, "he is at his dreams."

"Bitter dreams," said Marianne, for a mau who has had his right arm amputated."

One evening a girl had seen him sitting outside a cafe, with a glass of coffeebefore him. She reported to an attentive audience that he had sat gazing out across the river, never shifting his position. "He had the air," ehe said, "of a man who eees very, very far away a vision, and is afraid that if ho moves so. much as a muscle, the vision will fade." There was also, she said, a look in his eyes as if something lad died in them, and never been buried.

They began to wonder if one of them should not go -to his attie boldly, and try to engage him in conversation. Perhaps it would bo good for him. Who would go? Marianne, a»iu everybody. But Marianne would not go, for she said he had once been tender to her, and she would seem to be trying to force hers.olf on him. The old violinist said ho was not gay enough company for an ailing man. Somebody suggested that they should all go, but he Mid tlsat would be too gay. Moaiiwhilc tim.3 j)a3s?*. and Antoiue dreamed in his attic. Auguste had nothing to .say, exec-pt that his lodger walked about a. good deal at night, to and fro in his room. Subconsciously Marianne began to niako up her mind. She could bear the suspense no longer. Then, quite suddenly, ehe resolved to go to him when the others were out of the way. She would go that very evening. Tnut evening Ar.tcine Pidecque sat at his tabie near Hie open window. • His door, too, was half open, for it was sultry weaiher. I>i front of him there was a jitter of papsr anil pencils. His eyes were nearly clwied.. and his head bent. Or.ce again* ho n&v the vision; the rainswept trench, battered by shells, and the mud and water over the boards. It was all so vivid that ho could hear pii\6 of on edge of waterproof sheet against ihe oozing- mud of a traverse. Hβ saw the four figures huddled together, and he heard his own voice. "We mus.t swear, we four," he said, "that those of us that, survive the coming aitack'will devote our lives to the building up of a new art for France, out of the ruin and bloodshed and misery of war.. We must swear it, and so begin a tradiiion."

Hand on hand they had sworn, the four of thepi, with the rain beating down on their helmets. ' Then there had been the signal. They had scrambled out of the trenches, sido by side. They (stumbled on towards the German with a weird song of bullets about their ears, and one by one he had seen those other three fall. He knew by the' way they lay that they were dead, and he went alone. "And-1 am the last of us," ho said. So he carried with him tho young tradition, but an hour old, on towards Hie .German line. Then he, too, fell, with a great pain in his arm. "Dieu! do Dieu!" he said. "I am the last," and he wondered if he were going to die. ' Hβ had fainted, and after the light they had picked him up. He had regained consciousness from time to time in hospital, and found one day that they had amputated his right arm. From that day he had set his mind on keeping the trust bequeathed to him by the three dead men. It was hard, but he was loyal. His head bent lower over the table, and'ho began to trace lines with the pencil in his left hand. He became engrossed, so that he did not hear Marianne's gasp of surprises when she came quieJly to the head of the stairs, and saw his door open. She watched his hand in silence, and then her eyes went over the shabby room. The dingy carpet, the candle, and the few worn pieces of furniture caught a mystery from the beginning of dusk; the empty right-arm sleeve looked weird; twilight and candlelight cast a romance over Antoino Pidecque at his dreams. . Marianne iiptoed softly downstairs.