The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“Which profession do you place first?”

“The profession of those who serve God alone.”

“The priesthood?”

“Yes. And the religious orders.”

“Nuns, too?” he demanded with the slightest hint of impatience in his pleasant voice.

The girl noticed it, looked up at him and smiled slightly.

“Had my dear Grand Duchess not asked for me, I should now he entering upon my novitiate among the Russian nuns… And she, too, I think, had there been no revolution. She was quite ready a year ago. We talked it over. But the Empress would not permit it. And then came the trouble about the Deaconesses. That was a grave mistake–”

She checked herself, then:

“I do not mean to criticise the Empress, you understand.”

“Poor lady,” he said, “such gentle criticism would seem praise to her now.”

They were walking through a pine belt, and in the shadows of that splendid growth the snow remained icy, so that they both slipped continually and she took his arm for security.

“I somehow had not thought of you, Miss Dumont, as so austerely inclined,” he said.

She smiled: “Because I’ve been a cheerful companion–even gay? Well, my gaiety made my heart sing with the prospect of seeing again my dearest friend–my closest spiritual companion–my darling little Grand Duchess… So I have been, naturally enough, good company on our three days’ journey.”

He smiled: “I never suspected you of such extreme religious inclinations,” he insisted.

“Extreme?”

“Well, a novice–” he hesitated. Then, “And you mean, ultimately, to take the black veil?”

“Of course. I shall take it some day yet.”

He turned and looked at her, and the man in him felt the pity of it as do all men when such fresh, virginal youth as was Miss Dumont’s turns an enraptured face toward that cloister door which never again opens on those who enter.

Her arm rested warmly and confidently within his; the cold had made her cheeks very pink and had crisped the tendrils of her brown hair under the fur toque.

“If,” she said happily, “you have found in me a friend, it is because my heart is much too small for all the love I bear my fellow beings.”

“That’s a quaint thing to say,” he said.

“It’s really true. I care so deeply, so keenly, for my fellow beings whom God made, that there seemed only one way to express it–to give myself to God and pass my life in His service who made these fellow creatures all around me that I love.”

“I suppose,” he said, “that is one way of looking at it.”

“It seemed to be the only way for me. I came to it by stages… And first, as a child, I was impressed by the loveliness of the world and I used to sit for hours thinking of the goodness of God. And then other phases came–socialistic cravings and settlement work–but you know that was not enough. My heart was too full to be satisfied. There was not enough outlet.”

“What did you do then?”

“I studied: I didn’t know what I wanted, what I needed. I seemed lost; I was obsessed with a desire to aid–to be of service. I thought that perhaps if I travelled and studied methods–”

She looked straight ahead of her with a sad little reflective smile:

“I have passed by many strange places in the world… And then I saw the little Grand Duchess at the Charity Bazaar… We seemed to love each other at first glance… She asked to have me for her companion… They investigated… And so I went to her.”

The girl’s face became sombre and she bent her dark eyes on the snow as they walked.

All the world was humming and throbbing with the thunder of the Russian guns. Flakes continually dropped from vibrating pine trees. A pale yellow haze veiled the sun.

Suddenly Miss Dumont lifted her head:

“If anything ever happens to part me from my friend,” she said, “I hope I shall die quickly.”

“Are you and she so devoted?” he asked gravely.

“Utterly. And if we can not some day take the vows together and enter the same order and the same convent, then the one who is free to do so is so pledged… I do not think that the Empress will consent to the Grand Duchess Marie taking the veil… And so, when she has no further need of me, I shall make my novitiate… There are soldiers ahead, Mr. Estridge. Is it the woman’s battalion?”

He, also, had caught sight of them. He nodded.

“It is the Battalion of Death,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s see what they look like.”

The girl-soldiers stood about carelessly, there in the snow among the silver birches and pines. They looked like boys in overcoats and boots and tall wool caps, leaning at ease there on their heavy rifles. Some were only fifteen years of age. Some had been servants, some saleswomen, stenographers, telephone operators, dressmakers, workers in the fields, students at the university, dancers, laundresses. And a few had been born into the aristocracy.

They came, too, from all parts of the huge, sprawling Empire, these girl-soldiers of the Battalion of Death–and there were Cossack girls and gypsies among them–girls from Finland, Courland, from the Urals, from Moscow, from Siberia–from North, South, East, West.

There were Jewesses from the Pale and one Jewess from America in the ranks; there were Chinese girls, Poles, a child of fifteen from Trebizond, a Japanese girl, a French peasant lass; and there were Finns, too, and Scandinavians–all with clipped hair under the astrakhan caps–sturdy, well shaped, soldierly girls who handled their heavy rifles without effort and carried a regulation equipment as though it were a sheaf of flowers.

Their commanding officer was a woman of forty. She lounged in front of the battalion in the snow, consulting with half a dozen officers of a man’s regiment.

The colour guard stood grouped around the battalion colours, where its white and gold folds swayed languidly in the breeze, and clots of virgin snow fell upon it, shaken down from the pines by the cannonade.

Estridge gazed at them in silence. In his man’s mind one thought dominated–the immense pity of it all. And there was a dreadful fascination in looking at these girl soldiers, whose soft, warm flesh was so soon to be mangled by shrapnel and slashed by bayonets.

“Good heavens,” he muttered at last under his breath. “Was this necessary?”

“The men ran,” said Miss Dumont.

“It was the filthy boche propaganda that demoralised them,” rejoined Estridge. “I wonder–are women more level headed? Is propaganda wasted on these girl soldiers? Are they really superior to the male of the species?”

“I think,” said Miss Dumont softly, “that their spiritual intelligence is deeper.”

“They see more clearly, morally?”

“I don’t know… I think so sometimes… We women, who are born capable of motherhood, seem to be fashioned also to realise Christ more clearly–and the holy mother who bore him… I don’t know if that’s the reason–or if, truly, in us a little flame burns more constantly–the passion which instinctively flames more brightly toward things of the spirit than of the flesh… I think it is true, Mr. Estridge, that, unless taught otherwise by men, women’s inclination is toward the spiritual, and the ardour of her passion aspires instinctively to a greater love until the lesser confuses and perplexes her with its clamorous importunity.”

“Woman’s love for man you call the lesser love?” he asked.

“Yes, it is, compared to love for God,” she said dreamily.