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The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(210)

By:John Galsworthy


He went out directly after breakfast.

People and cars were streaming over Westminster Bridge, no buses ran, no trams; but motor-lorries, full or empty, rumbled past. Some ‘specials’ were out already, and everybody had a look as if they were going to a tea party, cloaked in a kind of defiant jollity. Michael moved on towards Hyde Park. Over night had sprung up this amazing mish-mash of lorries and cans and tents! In the midst of all the mental and imaginative lethargy which had produced this national crisis – what a wonderful display of practical and departmental energy! ‘They say we can’t organize!’ thought Michael; ‘can’t we just – after the event!’

He went on to a big railway station. It was picketed, but they were running trains already, with volunteer labour. Poking round, he talked here and there among the volunteers. ‘By George!’ he thought, ‘these fellows’ll want feeding! What about a canteen!’ And he returned post haste to South Square.

Fleur was in.

‘Will you help me run a railway canteen for volunteers?’ He saw the expression: ‘Is that a good stunt?’ rise on her face, and hurried on:

‘It’ll mean frightfully hard work; and getting anybody we can to help. I daresay I could rope in Norah Curfew and her gang from Bethnal Green for a start. But it’s your quick head that’s wanted, and your way with men.’

Fleur smiled. ‘All right,’ she said.

They took the car – a present from Soames on their return from round the world – and went about, picking people up and dropping them again. They recruited Norah Curfew and ‘her gang’ in Bethnal Green; and during this first meeting of Fleur with one whom she had been inclined to suspect as something of a rival, Michael noted how, within five minutes, she had accepted Norah Curfew as too ‘good’ to be dangerous. He left them at South Square in conference over culinary details, and set forth to sap the natural oppositions of officialdom. It was like cutting barbed wide on a dark night before an ‘operation’. He cut a good deal, and went down to the ‘House’. Humming with unformulated ‘formulas’, it was, on the whole, the least cheerful place he had been in that day. Everyone was talking of the ‘menace to the Constitution’. The Government’s long face was longer than ever, and nothing – they said – could be done until it had been saved. The expressions ‘Freedom of the Press’ and ‘At the pistol’s mouth’, were being used to the point of tautology! He ran across Mr Blythe brooding in the Lobby on the temporary decease of his beloved weekly, and took him over to South Square ‘for a bite’ at nine o’clock. Fleur had come in for the same purpose. According to Mr Blythe, the solution was to ‘form a group’ of right-thinking opinion.

‘Exactly, Blythe! But what is right-thinking, at “the present time of speaking”?’

It all comes back to Foggartism,’ said Mr Blythe.

‘Oh!’ said Fleur, ‘I do wish you’d both drop that. Nobody will have anything to say to it. You might as well ask the people of today to live like St Francis d’Assisi.’

‘My dear young lady, suppose St Francis d’Assisi had said that, we shouldn’t be hearing today of St Francis.’

‘Well, what real effect has he had? He’s just a curiosity. All those great spiritual figures are curiosities. Look at Tolstoi now, or Christ, for that matter!’

‘Fleur’s rather right, Blythe.’

‘Blasphemy!’ said Mr Blythe.’

‘I don’t know, Blythe; I’ve been looking at the gutters lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they put a stopper on Fog-gartism. Watch the children there, and you’ll see how attractive gutters are! So long as a child can have a gutter, he’ll never leave it. And, mind you, gutters are a great civilizing influence. We have more gutters here than any other country and more children brought up in them; and we’re the most civilized people in the world. This strike’s going to prove that. There’ll be less bloodshed and more good humour than there could be anywhere else; all due to the gutter.’

‘Renegade!’ said Mr Blythe.

‘Well,’ said Michael, ‘Foggartism, like all religions, is the over-expression of a home truth. We’ve been too wholesale, Blythe. What converts have we made?’

‘None,’ said Mr Blythe. ‘But if we can’t take children from the gutter, Foggartism is no more.’

Michael wriggled; and Fleur said promptly: ‘What never was can’t be no more. Are you coming with me to see the kitchens, Michael – they’ve been left in a filthy state. How does one deal with black beetles on a large scale?’