Tales of War by Lord Dunsany (classic fiction txt) 📕

that in their humble little way were luxury. And while the Kaiser looked the two young children laughed as they played on the floor, not seeing that face at the window.

Why! Look at the helmet. That was lucky. A bullet hole right through the front of it. That must have gone very close to the man’s head. How ever did it get through? It must have glanced upwards as bullets sometimes do. The hole was quite low in the helmet. It would be dreadful to have bullets coming by close like that. The firelight flickered, and the lamp shone on, and the children played on the floor, and the man was smoking out of a china pipe; he was strong and able and young, one of the wealth-winners of Germany.

“Have you seen?” said the phantom.

“Yes,” said the Kaiser. It was well, he thought, that a Kaiser should see how his people lived.

At once the fire went out and the lamp faded away, the room fell sombrely into neglect and squalor, and the soldier and the children faded away with the room; all disappeared phantasmally, and nothing remained but the helmet in a kind of glow on the wall, and the woman sitting all by herself in the darkness.

“It has all gone,” said the Kaiser.

“It has never been,” said the phantom.

The Kaiser looked again. Yes, there was nothing there, it was just a vision. There were the grey walls all damp and uncared for, and that helmet standing out solid and round, like the only real thing among fancies. No, it had never been. It was just a vision.

“It might have been,” said the phantom.

Might have been? How might it have been?

“Come,” said the phantom.

They drifted away down a little lane that in summer would have had roses, and came to an Uhlan’s house; in times of peace a small farmer. Farm buildings in good repair showed even in the night, and the black shapes of haystacks; again a well-kept garden lay by the house. The phantom and the Kaiser stood in the garden; before them a window glowed in a lamplit room.

“Look,” said the phantom.

The Kaiser looked again and saw a young couple; the woman played with a baby, and all was prosperous in the merry room. Again the hard-won wealth of Germany shone out for all to see, the cosy comfortable furniture spoke of acres well cared for, spoke of victory in the struggle with the seasons on which wealth of nations depends.

“It might have been,” said the phantom. Again the fire died out and the merry scene faded away, leaving a melancholy, ill-kept room, with poverty and mourning haunting dusty corners and the woman sitting alone.

“Why do you show me this?” said the Kaiser. “Why do you show me these visions?”

“Come,” said the phantom.

“What is it?” said the Kaiser. “Where are you bringing me?”

“Come,” said the phantom.

They went from window to window, from land to land. You had seen, had you been out that night in Germany, and able to see visions, an imperious figure passing from place to place, looking on many scenes. He looked on them, and families withered away, and happy scenes faded, and the phantom said to him “Come.” He expostulated but obeyed; and so they went from window to window of hundreds of farms in Prussia, till they came to the Prussian border and went on into Saxony; and always you would have heard, could you hear spirits speak, “It might have been,” “It might have been,” repeated from window to window.

They went down through Saxony, heading for Austria. And for long the Kaiser kept that callous, imperious look. But at last he, even he, at last he nearly wept. And the phantom turned then and swept him back over Saxony, and into Prussia again and over the sentries’ heads, back to his comfortable bed where it was so hard to sleep.

And though they had seen thousands of merry homes, homes that can never be merry now, shrines of perpetual mourning; though they had seen thousands of smiling German children, who will never be born now, but were only the visions of hopes blasted by him; for all the leagues over which he had been so ruthlessly hurried, dawn was yet barely breaking.

He had looked on the first few thousand homes of which he had robbed all time, and which he must see with his eyes before he may go hence. The first night of the Kaiser’s punishment was accomplished.