Wars I Have Seen

  What makes the legend real between babyhood and fourteen is that there is then the first struggle not to die and the first struggle to help kill the century in which you are born.

  It is a struggle not to die between babyhood and fourteen, not not to actually die, that is a matter for parents and nurses and guardians, but the not to know that death is there, and not to share, that is to be secret and not die, and not to not know why, that is what makes any one shy between babyhood and fourteen, and later on there are other things in between, there is eternity, there is or there is not being a king or a queen, but between babyhood and fourteen, beside reading writing and arithmetic, and counting, and games, and coincidences, and hot and cold, one is always either very hot or very cold between babyhood and fourteen.

  There is no use in remembering between babyhood and fourteen, actually there was no war then, there might have been but actually there was no war then then when I was between babyhood and fourteen and I was a legend then, of course I was, to myself and to them and of course I was struggling not to be dying that is not to know that dying was dying and frightening was not only frightening but connected with any thing. Believe it or not, to-day they say, that children that anybody between babyhood and fourteen, does not live any life in between this which is not 1914 but 1943 and the nineteenth century is dead dead dead, and between babyhood and fourteen, I was there to begin to kill what was not dead, the nineteenth century which was so sure of evolution and prayers, and esperanto and their ideas. You might think I mean that between babyhood and fourteen, I might mean to be doing what I was doing, and in a way I was, I see them now, between babyhood and fourteen and in a kind of a way I was.

  What is a legend.

  There are no legends now, because nobody can now can see how they have been not now, this is 1943.

  From babyhood until fourteen, to play in a garden in the evening when it is darkening is a legend. It feels like that, it is like that, any evening when it is darkening.

  Between babyhood and fourteen there comes a time when in reading you cannot help thinking what happened after and what happened to their children and their grandchildren and which one married which one and what war was going on when they were growing or grown up and were they after all the time it took to be born and grown were they killed in the war that was going on then. Now in 1943 when there are armies and armies and they come humming in and the air at night, when the moon is bright is full of them going over to Italy to do their bombing and the mountain makes a reverberation as a woman said to me like being inside a copper cooking utensil well then you keep on thinking how quickly anybody can get killed, just as quickly just as very quickly, more quickly even than in a book even much more quickly than in any book, those up there flying and bombing and those down below, with houses tumbling, and burning.

  So between babyhood and fourteen you first begin to think of anything going on and going on, and at the same time stopping, but that is not reasonable no not at all reasonable between babyhood, and fourteen.

  Between babyhood and fourteen their names might be Paul and Pauline and they might know how they learned the why and the when and the wherefore and how they learned excitement, hope and calm.

  Imagine between the ages of babyhood and fourteen being either Paul or Pauline and living when there is no war or living when there is one.

  Between babyhood and fourteen when I was living then there was no war and my name was neither Paul nor Pauline. I had an aunt named Pauline but I did not know of her then, and I did not know anybody by the name of Paul although I always did think it was a nice name and liked it when I saw it in a book.

  How many books I read then, I am always reading books, there was of course Paul and Virginia under an umbrella, I do not know why but they always are under an umbrella and I thought the way the Negroes talked was very strange. Dialect in books was upsetting, even then and even now, then when there was no esperanto and now when there is no esperanto, no universal knowledge although everybody does know everything. You lose a stocking and it was the best one, it was lost in the stream when they were washing, there is no soap, this is 1943, and so they wash in running water and the stocking went down the stream and it was the very best woolen stocking, only one but of what use is only one stocking, and we neither of us slept very much that night, because the stocking was gone, her stocking, and yet in these days, what you keep you have that is you have while you keep it.

  Between my babyhood and fourteen that was not true you had what you kept and kept what you had and you could wonder what the children and grandchildren were doing, particularly if it was already past. All very dreamy and exciting.

  Then there was another thing, in Gulliver’s Travels there was a description of the people that never die, and it is supposed to show that death is necessary, because those that do not die do not live then when they do not die. That is what some think and when I was between babyhood and fourteen I did think that it was not necessary to be old like that to never die, why could not one be young like that and never die, and if you do not cry and if you like never to die, why not go on being just like that. Why not. To be sure the time passes very slowly between babyhood and fourteen and if it did pass even slower really even slower then certainly there is no reason why any one should not live forever, no reason. It was many years later that I did think that if everybody did not die the earth would be all covered over and I, I as I, could not have come to be and try as much as I can try not to be I, nevertheless, I would mind that so much, as much as anything, so then why not die, and yet and again not a thing, not a thing to be liking, not a thing.

  But to come back to being between babyhood and fourteen and being a legend. Of course I was one. Any one is then one.

  Roses and pansies, buttercups and daisies, this is what makes a legend, long before it makes poetry. And by a legend I mean that you do everything, just the way you should look as if you did, and you do. Any little girl and little boy between babyhood and fourteen, knows just how they seem, knows just exactly how they seem, and so it is natural enough that there was no war then, because really a war a really war is not quite legendary enough it is not exactly just the way it seems.

  When my brother and I walked and walked up into the mountains on the dusty roads, and we left and we came and everything and nothing came in between, we were a legend then, just then. When we went camping and dragged a little wagon and slept closely huddled together and any little boy or any little girl could have been what any little girl or any little boy was, we were a legend then, we were legendary then. Any one is between babyhood and fourteen. It is as if it were, and really any actual war is not like that, it really is not.

  To-day, there was an airplane over our heads, and Victor, he is nineteen, said I am afraid. And we said and why are you afraid, well he said the reason I am afraid, of course they are not dropping bombs on us. Of course not we said even if they are boches because this is no place to drop bombs. Of course not said Victor, but I am afraid. Why we said, Because they are kids who are going up in those German planes now, and you know what kids are, they do not know what to do and they might fall down and so drop down upon us. Now that is not legendary. That is uncertain but between babyhood and fourteen, why you are afraid and why you are glad and why you are you, and why you play, and why you scream and then cry, all this however you think you can try, all this is legendary. There is nothing else but legend. Even if a little girl of six tells how she was sick and in bed and naturally they had fled, naturally in 1940, and when the doctor came to see he said three rooms in one bed or three beds in one room and nobody dead, and the little girl of six and a half could do nothing but laugh although she was not well, and they all had fled, and they were none of them dead.

  This is what I mean when I say that between babyhood and fourteen it is a legend, anything and everything is what it can seem, and it does seem and there is nothing in between.

  Eating and vomiting and war, the end of between being a baby
and fourteen, makes this be a scene. Any day and in every way this can be seen, eating and vomiting and war. In any way that eating is something that is to be done with or without stealing makes vomiting and war. And the end of babyhood to fourteen, makes this not a dream, but an awakening. When a baby eats and vomits it is not war. But when fourteen eats and vomits then it is war.

  There is one thing certain when there is no food or very little food, it is easy to digest, that food, much easier than when there is food, regular food. Now in 1943, well there is food of course there is food, and everybody well not everybody but quite a few find food. Every day they start to find food, and every day and in every way they find food. Some one said that it was like prohibition in America but it is not because then they finally found too much food, but here and now the only ones who find too much food are the farmers, and they do not find it, they grow it. They say and they mean it, it is what everybody wants, they want food more than they want anything and we are the only ones that grow it and so we are the only ones who have the right to eat it, and eat it they do. Farmers used to be thin but now they are not. Nobody else used to be thin and now they are, men more than women, in general women can get along better with what is found to eat than men. But anyway even a little boy a very little boy a very fat little boy not yet four, when he sees on a strange lady’s hat, three apples very little apples at that, says to the lady, I would like to have three apples like that and even when he knows that they are not real apples, he keeps on saying when he is awakening, I would like three little apples like that.

  Anyway between babyhood and fourteen, anything they are saying, anything they are knowing, everything they are repeating is a legend, because it has to be a legend, to be learned, legs belong to them, feet to belong to them, hands and fingers come easier to belong to them and are not quite as legendary as legs and feet, not quite as legendary but still legendary enough.

  And at the end of babyhood to fourteen, at the end there is nothing in between. What did she say when she was fourteen. She said she was not willing to be a queen. And he, he was not interested in a king or a queen not when he was fourteen. Not at all. And in this way from fifteen to twenty-four began and it began with also ran.

  Mediaeval means, that life and place and the crops you plant and your wife and children, all are uncertain. They can be driven away or taken away, or burned away, or left behind, that is what it is to be mediaeval. And being a pioneer has a little of the same not all the same but something of the same and when you are fifteen it is all very real, mediaeval and pioneer. And now and here 1943, it is just like that, you take a train, you disappear, you move away your house is gone, your children too, your crops are taken away, there is nothing to say, you are on the road, and where are they, if you go there is nobody to say so, anything can come and anything can go and they can say yes and no, and they can say, go, they never do say come, but yes they do now, they say come now, and they have to come and they have to go, everything is all the same what can happen here can happen there, and what can happen there can happen anywhere and it does, beside it does.

  So at fifteen there comes to be a realisation of what living was in mediaeval times and as a pioneer. It is very near. And now in 1943 it is here.

  It is disconcerting to know and it gives you a funny feeling, that any time not only that you can be told to go and you go but also that you can be taken. Nevertheless you stay, and if you stay you do not go away. That was true in mediaeval times too.

  I have just been reading King John, when I was fifteen, King John was real, but now King John is realer, here and now it is all the same, that is the way they act and that is the way they are, the way they were in Shakespearean King John. It often makes me know that as a cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change, it is not in the same pockets after a change and that is all there is to say about money. Well power is the same thing, in King John it was the king and the church, and when I was young it was the middle class that is the middle class that had money, and now it is the lower middle class that is in power, and men can have and men will have money, if it is had it would not go on being the lower middle class, because that class has no legend and it has no love interest and it is not timely and it does not like to live, and move about and it does not care what it is all about, it knows what it is and it stays there, and that is what the lower middle class is and it is they that make the last there is of life in the nineteenth century because they have no hope and no adventure. Think of the dictators they are just like that. What did I say. I said it was just like that.

  However fifteen is not just like that, not very likely although when it is the lower middle class it tries to be but fifteen is really mediaevel and pioneer and nothing is clear and nothing is sure, and nothing is safe and nothing is come and nothing is gone. But it all might be.

  At fifteen they light a pack on their back. It makes them feel strong. At fifteen they conquer when they have a pack on their back. And now in 1943, everybody has a pack on their back, they go about just like that, they need anything and everything that can be put into a pack on their back. And so from fifteen to twenty-four and now from five to ninety everybody can have a pack on their back, in hope of finding something to put into that pack on their back.

  From fifteen to twenty-four there was the Boer war, and it was the first time I knew about how many or how few should surrender and it was the first time I knew about khaki and all that, and it was the same with everybody, and now here khaki is over, at least right here, Germans and Italians wear sad green and grey, and any color can be dirty that way.

  Between fifteen and twenty-five they all can be quite a good deal alive.

  From fifteen on to twenty-five it is natural to think that every Sunday is good weather. And to hope that every day will be Sunday bye and bye. At fifteen walking and riding and coming and going is always a pleasure and everything else is an indecision, and everything else is better or more than that. And here and now in 1943, now that the war is coming to an end, everybody that is nobody knows whether there is or is not any future and at fifteen it is like that everybody and nobody knows whether there is or is not any future. Funny things happen, you milk a goat for the first time, you see a girl taller than yourself for the first time and you are not sure whether she is beautiful or not, you spend all day intending to go somewhere and nothing happens and you wonder if you will ever be revenged. That is what is now happening in 1943 and fifteen years old is like that. You think everything is funny and the moonlight is not clouded over and the wind blows and trees make a noise and people say funny things, they do not mean what they say, fifteen years old is like that and now in 1943 it is like that. There is a funny story about a goat.

  A young woman came from Switzerland to Aix-les-Bains to work in an embroidery shop, and she went to live with a woman who always had one boarder. When she came the woman said to her I must tell you that I do not keep a cow I only keep a goat. Oh dear said the young Swiss, I come from the mountains where my people ever since I was a baby kept one cow just to nourish me. Oh dear I cannot drink goat’s milk, never never. All right said the woman I will arrange with a neighbor and you shall have your cow’s milk as you want it. The young woman stayed there for three years and lived happily ever after. She married and from time to time she went to see the woman who had been kind to her when she had come there a stranger. Many years later the older woman was sick and dying, and the younger woman went quite often to see her, and then one day a message was brought that the woman was dying and must see her. She went and the dying woman said, before I die I want to tell you, all those years you lived with me I deceived you, it was not true that I got you cow’s milk from a neighbor, I just gave you goat’s milk and you did not know and I did not tell you but now before I die I must tell you, I could not die deceiving you, and they cried together and she died and it was all over.

  She told us this because we were all happy, this was in 1943, she had just got
ten a cow for herself and her husband and her children and we had just gotten a goat, and we were all so happy and we were telling about it to each other. We said that we had never wanted to taste goat’s milk and now we had and it was more delicate and sweeter and lighter and creamier than a cow, yes she said and she told us her story, and they had a cow now, that is to say that had bought one for a farmer who had just lost his horse which had died, and they did not buy him a new horse they bought him a cow so they could have milk of a cow. Nobody knows unless they have been in it what it is to eat only things cooked in water and now she had a cow and we had a goat a lovely white goat, whose name is Bizerte, because we got it the day of that victory in the morning. I love to walk the goat and now I let it loose a man told me to and I always do whatever they tell me to which is in a way the way it is between fifteen and twenty-four and no more. We laugh very much we are so pleased to have the goat.

  Fifteen to twenty-four, yes there was a war there, the Boer war.

  Fifteen the time does not pass slowly but a great deal of time there is nothing to do except stand around, in games and in the evening and in the day, stand around, not even get up and sit down but just stand around. And now, just now, everybody has to grow something to eat or run around to find something to eat now in 1943 so it is not like fifteen, but more like twenty-two, at twenty-two, everybody is very busy just to be you.

  And that was the time there was the Boer war and it was a shock and a surprise to know that armies could surrender, not many killed and they could surrender and the war not be over. That was the new thing the Boer war told us, the English could surrender even when there was a smaller percent of them dead than there should have been according to statistics before they did surrender but they did not lose the war. And that was a new thing. When they had surrendered like that in our revolutionary war then the war was over, they lost it but in the Boer war when they did like that the war was not over and they had not lost it and that was a new thing. That went very well with my being twenty-two or something very well indeed.