Red Fleece
Comfort, Will Levington, 1878-1932
English
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RED FLEECE
BY
WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT
Author of "Midstream," "Down Among Men," "Fate Knocks At the Door,"
"Routledge Rides Alone," Etc., Etc.
1915,
TO THE HOUR--WHEN TROOPS TURN HOME
CONTENTS
I. THE WOMAN AND THE EXILE
II. THE COURT OF EXECUTION
III. THE HOUSE OF AMPUTATIONS
IV. IN THE BOMB-PROOF PIT
V. THE SKYLIGHT PRISON
VI. THE FIELD OF HELMETS
VII. THE GREEN OF CEDARS
I
THE WOMAN AND THE EXILE
Peter Mowbray first saw her at the corner of Palace Square nearest the
river. He was not in the least the kind of young man who appraises
passing women, very far from a starer. At the instant their eyes met,
his thoughts had been occupied with work matters and the trickery of
events. In fact, there was so much to do that he resented the
intrusion, found himself hoping in the first flash that she would show
some flaw to break the attraction.
It may have been that her eyes were called to the passer-by just as
his had been, without warning or volition. In any event their eyes met
full, leisurely in that stirring silence before the consciousness of
self, time, place and convention rushes in. ... Though she seemed very
poor, there was something about her beyond reach in nobility. He was
left with the impression of the whitest skin, the blackest hair and
the reddest lips, but mainly of a gray-eyed girl--eyes that had become
wider and wider, and had filled with sudden amazement (doubtless at
her own answering look) before they turned away.
Desolation was abroad in Warsaw after this encounter. Mowbray thought
of New York with loneliness, the zest gone from all present activity.
Presently with curious grip his thoughts returned to a certain
luncheon in New York with a tired literary man who had talked about
women with the air of a connoisseur. The pith of the writer's
observations was restored to his mind in this form:
"If I were to marry again it would be to a Latin woman--French,
Italian, even Spanish--a close-to-nature woman born and bred in one of
the Mediterranean countries. Not a blue-blood, for that has to do with
decadence, but a woman of the people. They are passionate but pure, as
Poe would say. If they find a man of any value, he becomes their
world. They are strong natural mothers--mothering their children and
their husband, too,--and immune to common sicknesses. Given a little
food, they know enough to prepare it with art. If a man has a bit of a
dream left, such a woman will either make him forget it painlessly, or
she will make it come true."
There was no apparent relation, and none that proved afterward. What
he had seen at the corner of Palace Square nearest the Vistula was not
the face of a Latin woman, nor was any looseness of common birth
evident in it. The key might have had to do with the little hat she
wore, just a hat for wearing on the head, a protection against sun and
rain, and with the austerely simple black dress; but these weathered
exteriors again were effective in contrast to the vivid freshness of
her natural coloring. As for what remained of the literary man's
picture of the ideal woman to marry, it was the last word of
decadence--the eminent selfishness of a man willing to accept the
luxury of a woman who asks little to be happy. ... The next day at the
same time and place Mowbray was there, and saw her coming from afar.
She seemed both afraid and angry, stopped abruptly and asked in Polish
what he wanted. He was startled. It was a hard moment. He explained
with difficulty that her language was as yet an inconvenient vehicle
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