A Man Could Stand Up— by Ford Madox Ford (books for 5 year olds to read themselves txt) 📕
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A Man Could Stand Up— opens on Armistice Day, with Valentine Wannop learning that her love, Christopher Tietjens, has returned to London from the front. As she prepares to meet him, the narrative suddenly shifts time and place to earlier in the year, with Tietjens commanding a group of soldiers in a trench somewhere in the war zone. Tietjens leads his company bravely as they shelter from the constant German strafes, before the narrative again jumps to conclude with an actual Armistice Day celebration.
In this simple narrative Ford creates dense, complex character studies of Valentine and Tietjens. Tietjens, often called “the last Tory” for his staunch and unwavering approach to honor, duty, and fidelity, has changed greatly from the man he was in the previous installments in the series. Ford explores the psychological horror that the Great War inflicted on its combatants through the lens of Valentine’s gentle curiosity about Tietjen’s time on the front: men returned from battle injured not just in body, but in soul, too. The constant, unrelenting shelling, the endless strafes, the clouds of poison gas, the instant death of friends and comrades for no reason at all, the muddy and grim entrenchments where men lived and died—all of these permanently changed soldiers in ways that previous wars didn’t. Now the “last Tory” wants nothing more than to retreat from society and live a quiet life with the woman he loves—who is not his wife.
As we follow Valentine and Tietjens through the last day of the war, we see how the Great War was not just the destruction of men, but of an entire era.
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- Author: Ford Madox Ford
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The Adjutant, Notting, looked in and said:
“Brigade wants to know if we’re suffering any, sir?”
The Colonel surveyed Tietjens with irony:
“Well, what are you going to report?” he asked. … “This officer is taking over from me,” he said to Notting. Notting’s beady eyes and red-varnished cheeks expressed no emotions.
“Oh, tell Brigade,” the Colonel said, “that we’re all as happy as sand-boys. We could stand this till Kingdom come.” He asked: “We aren’t suffering any, are we?”
Notting said: “No, not in particular. C Company was grumbling that all its beautiful revetments had been knocked to pieces. The sentry near their own dugout complained that the pebbles in the gravel were nearly as bad as shrapnel.”
“Well, tell Brigade what I said. With Major Tietjen’s compliments, not mine. He’s in command.”
“… You may as well make a cheerful impression to begin with,” he added to Tietjens.
It was then that, suddenly, he burst out with:
“Look here! Lend me two hundred and fifty quid!”
He remained staring fixedly at Tietjens with an odd air of a man who has just asked a teasing, jocular conundrum. …
Tietjens had recoiled—really half an inch. The man said he was suffering from a loathsome disease: it was being near something dirty. You don’t contract loathsome diseases except from the cheapest kind of women or through being untidy-minded. … The man’s pals had gone back on him. That sort of man’s pals do go back on him! His accounts were all out. … He was in short the sort of swindling, unclean scoundrel to whom one lent money. … Irresistibly!
A crash of the sort that you couldn’t ignore, as is the case with certain claps in thunderstorms, sent a good deal of gravel down their cellar steps. It crashed against their shaky door. They heard Notting come out of his cellar and tell someone to shovel the beastly stuff back again where it had come from.
The Colonel looked up at the roof. He said that had knocked their parapet about a bit. Then he resumed his fixed gaze at Tietjens.
Tietjens said to himself:
“I’m losing my nerve. … It’s the damned news that Campion is coming … I’m becoming a wretched, irresolute Johnny.”
The Colonel said:
“I’m not a beastly sponger. I never borrowed before!” His chest heaved. … It really expanded and then got smaller again, the orifice in the khaki at his throat contracting. … Perhaps he never had borrowed before. …
After all, it didn’t matter what kind of man this was, it was a question of what sort of a man Tietjens was becoming. He said:
“I can’t lend you the money. I’ll guarantee an overdraft to your agents. For two hundred and fifty.”
Well, then, he remained the sort of man who automatically lent money. He was glad.
The Colonel’s face fell. His martially erect shoulders indeed collapsed. He exclaimed ruefully:
“Oh, I say, I thought you were the sort one could go to.”
Tietjens said:
“It’s the same thing. You can draw a cheque on your bank exactly as if I paid the money in.”
The Colonel said:
“I can? It’s the same thing? You’re sure?” His questions were like the pleas of a young woman asking you not to murder her.
… He obviously was not a sponger. He was a financial virgin. There could not be a subaltern of eighteen in the whole army who did not know what it meant to have an overdraft guaranteed after a fortnight’s leave. … Tietjens only wished they didn’t. He said:
“You’ve practically got the money in your hand as you sit there. I’ve only to write the letter. It’s impossible your agents should refuse my guarantee. If they do, I’ll raise the money and send it you.”
He wondered why he didn’t do that last in any case. A year or so ago he would have had no hesitation about overdrawing his account to any extent. Now he had an insupportable objection. Like a hatred!
He said:
“You’d better let me have your address.” He added, for his mind was really wandering a little. There was too much talk! “I suppose you’ll go to No. IX Red Cross at Rouen for a bit.”
The Colonel sprang to his feet:
“My God, what’s that?” he cried out. “Me … to No. IX.”
Tietjens exclaimed:
“I don’t know the procedure. You said you had. …”
The other cried out:
“I’ve got cancer. A big swelling under the armpit.” He passed his hand over his bare flesh through the opening of his shirt, the long arm disappearing to the elbow. “Good God … I suppose when I said my pals had gone back on me you thought I’d asked them for help and been refused. I haven’t. … They’re all killed. That’s the worst way you can go back on a pal, isn’t it? Don’t you understand men’s language?”
He sat heavily down on his bed again.
He said:
“By jove: if you hadn’t promised to let me have the money there would have been nothing for me but to make a hole in the water.”
Tietjens said:
“Well, don’t contemplate it now. Get yourself well looked after. What does Derry say?”
The Colonel again started violently:
“Derry! The M.O. … Do you think I’d tell him! Or little squits of subalterns? Or any man! You understand now why I wouldn’t take Derry’s beastly pill. How do I know what it mightn’t do to. …”
Again he passed his hand under his armpit, his eyes taking on a yearning and calculating expression. He added:
“I thought it a duty to tell you as I was asking you for a loan. You might not get repaid. I suppose your offer still holds good?”
Drops of moisture had hitherto made beads on his forehead; it now shone, uniformly wet.
“If you haven’t consulted anybody,” Tietjens said, “you mayn’t have got it. I should have yourself seen to right away. My offer still holds good!”
“Oh, I’ve got it, all right,” the Colonel answered with an air of infinite sapience. “My old man—my governor—had it. Just like that. And he never told a soul till three days
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