The Crimson Tide: A Novel

Estridge glanced up interrogatively, suddenly remembering all the uncontradicted gossip concerning a tacit understanding between Shotwell, Jr., and Elorn Sharrow. It is true that no engagement had been announced; but none had been denied, either. And Miss Sharrow had inherited her mother’s fortune. And Shotwell, Jr., made only a young man’s living.

“You ought to be rather careful with such a girl,” he remarked carelessly.

“How, careful?”

“Well, she’s rather perilously attractive, isn’t she?” insisted Estridge smilingly.

“She’s extremely interesting.”

“She certainly is. She’s rather an amazing girl in her way. More amazing than perhaps you imagine.”

“Amazing?”

“Yes, even astounding.”

“For example?”

“I’ll give you an example. When the Reds invaded that convent and seized the Czarina and her children, Palla Dumont, then a novice of six weeks, attempted martyrdom by pretending that she herself was the little Grand Duchess Marie. And when the Reds refused to believe her, she demanded the privilege of dying beside her little friend. She even insulted the Reds, defied them, taunted them until they swore to return and cut her throat as soon as they finished with the Imperial family. And then this same Palla Dumont, to whom you sold a house in New York the other day, flew into an ungovernable passion; tried to batter her way into the cellar; shattered half a dozen chapel chairs against the oak door of the crypt behind which preparations for the assassination were taking place; then, helpless, called on God to interfere and put a stop to it. And, when deity, as usual, didn’t interfere with the scheme of things, this girl tore the white veil from her face and the habit from her body and denounced as nonexistent any alleged deity that permitted such things to be.”

Shotwell gazed at Estridge in blank astonishment.

“Where on earth did you hear all that dope?” he demanded incredulously.

Estridge smiled: “It’s all quite true, Jim. And Palla Dumont escaped having her slender throat slit open only because a sotnia of Kaladines’ Cossacks cantered up, discovered what the Reds were up to in the cellar, and beat it with Palla and another girl just in the nick of time.”

“Who handed you this cinema stuff?”

“The other girl.”

“You believe her?”

“You can judge for yourself. This other girl was a young Swedish soldier who had served in the Battalion of Death. It’s really cinema stuff, as you say. But Russia, to-day, is just one hell after another in an endless and bloody drama. Such picturesque incidents,–the wildest episodes, the craziest coincidences–are occurring by thousands every day of the year in Russia… And, Jim, it was due to one of those daily and crazy coincidences that my sleigh, in which I was beating it for Helsingfors, was held up by that same sotnia of the Wild Division on a bitter day, near the borders of a pine forest.

“And that’s where I encountered Palla Dumont again. And that’s where I heard–not from her, but from her soldier comrade, Ilse Westgard–the story I have just told you.”

For a while they continued to walk up and down in silence.

Finally Estridge said: “There was a girl for you!”

“Palla Dumont!” nodded Shotwell, still too astonished to talk.

“No, the other… An amazing girl… Nearly six feet; physically perfect;–what the human girl ought to be and seldom is;–symmetrical, flawless, healthy–a super-girl … like some young daughter of the northern gods!.. Ilse Westgard.”

“One of those women soldiers, you say?” inquired Shotwell, mildly curious.

“Yes. There were all kinds of women in that Death Battalion. We saw them,–your friend Palla Dumont and I,–saw them halted and standing at ease in a birch wood; saw them marching into fire… And there were all sorts of women, Jim; peasant, bourgeoise and aristocrat;–there were dressmakers, telephone operators, servant-girls, students, Red Cross nurses, actresses from the Marinsky, Jewesses from the Pale, sisters of the Yellow Ticket, Japanese girls, Chinese, Cossack, English, Finnish, French… And they went over the top cheering for Russia!.. They went over to shame the army which had begun to run from the hun… Pretty fine, wasn’t it?”

“Fine!”

“You bet!.. After this war–after what women have done the world over–I wonder whether there are any asses left who desire to restrict woman to a ‘sphere’?.. I’d like to see Ilse Westgard again,” he added absently.

“Was she a peasant girl?”

“No. A daughter of well-to-do people. Quite the better sort, I should say. And she was more thoroughly educated than the average girl of our own sort… A brave and cheerful soldier in the Battalion of Death… Ilse Westgard… Amazing, isn’t it?”

After another brief silence Shotwell ventured: “I suppose you’d find it agreeable to meet Palla Dumont again, wouldn’t you?”

“Why, yes, of course,” replied the other pleasantly.

“Then, if you like, she’ll ask us to tea some day–after her new house is in shape.”

“You seem to be very sure about what Palla Dumont is likely to do,” said Estridge, smiling.

“Indeed, I’m not!” retorted Shotwell, with emphasis. “Palla Dumont has a mind of her own,–although you don’t seem to think so,–”

“I think she has a will of her own,” interrupted the other, amused.

“Glad you concede her some mental attribute.”

“I do indeed! I never intimated that she is weak-willed. She isn’t. Other and stronger wills don’t dominate hers. Perhaps it would be better if they did sometimes…

“But no; Palla Dumont arrives headlong at her own red-hot decisions. It is not the will of others that influences her; it is their indecision, their lack of willpower, their very weakness that seems to stimulate and vitally influence such a character as Palla Dumont’s–”

“–Such a character?” repeated Shotwell. “What sort of character do you suppose hers to be, anyway? Between you and your psychological and pathological surmises you don’t seem to leave her any character at all.”

“I’m telling you,” said Estridge, “that the girl is influenced not by the will or desire of others, but by their necessities, their distress, their needs… Or what she believes to be their needs… And you may decide for yourself how valuable are the conclusions of an impulsive, wilful, fearless, generous girl whose heart regulates her thinking apparatus.”

“According to you, then, she is practically mindless,” remarked Shotwell, ironically. “You medically minded gentlemen are wonders!–all of you.”

“You don’t get me. The girl is clever and intelligent when her accumulated emotions let her brain alone. When they interfere, her logic goes to smash and she does exaggerated things–like trying to sacrifice herself for her friend in the convent there–like tearing off the white garments of her novitiate and denouncing deity!–like embracing an extravagant pantheistic religion of her own manufacture and proclaiming that the Law of Love is the only law!

“I’ve heard the young lady on the subject, Jim. And, medically minded or not, I’m medically on to her.”

They walked on together in silence for nearly a whole block; then Estridge said bluntly:

“She’d be better balanced if she were married and had a few children. Such types usually are.”

Shotwell made no comment. Presently the other spoke again:

“The Law of Love! What rot! That’s sheer hysteria. Follow that law and you become a saint, perhaps, perhaps a devil. Love sacred, love profane–both, when exaggerated, arise from the same physical condition–too much pep for the mind to distribute.

“What happens? Exaggerations. Extravagances. Hallucinations. Mysticisms.

“What results? Nuns. Hermits. Yogis. Exhorters. Fanatics. Cranks. Sometimes. For, from the same chrysalis, Jim, may emerge either a vestal, or one of those tragic characters who, swayed by this same remarkable Law of Love, may give … and burn on–slowly–from the first lover to the next. And so, into darkness.”

He added, smiling: “The only law of love subscribed to by sane people is framed by a balanced brain and interpreted by common sense. Those who obey any other code go a-glimmering, saint and sinner, novice and Magdalene alike… This is your street, I believe.”

They shook hands cordially.