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100 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
fancy and an empty stomach." 17
The college never held a class,
although one might suppose that this stellar faculty could have
attracted some students.
The Vorticists received a serious setback when the most volatile
of their number, Gaudier, aged twenty-three, was killed in
France. 18
It had taken determination and a long campaign for him
to get himself killed. Before the outbreak of the war, he had gone
home, but according to the laws of compulsory military service in
France, he had been listed as a deserter. He faced the death penalty
for this. When he returned to defend his country, he was arrested
as soon as he landed in Calais, thrown into jail, and told that he
would be shot.
As the result of living on a sculptor's income, he was very thin,
and during the night, he managed to squeeze through the barred
window and escape. He returned to England, but the plight of his
homeland continued to affect his conscience. He went to the
French Embassy in London, told them his story, and they gave him
a safe-conduct to France. He was enrolled in the army, and attained
the rank of sergeant before being killed at Neuville-Saint
Vaast.
Wyndham Lewis had been ill with septicemia, which prevented
him from enlisting in the army, and also delayed the second issue
of Blast. The magazine finally appeared with a sober khaki cover,
in July, 1915, more than a year after the first number. Included
was a last notice for Gaudier-Brzeska, written from the trenches:
"WITH ALL THE DESTRUCTION THAT WORKS
AROUND US NOTHING IS CHANGED, EVEN SUPER­
FICIALLY. LIFE IS THE SAME STRENGTH, THE MOVING
AGENT THAT PERMITS THE SMALL INDIVIDUAL TO
ASSERT HIMSELF."
This statement was surrounded by a black box, with the note,
"Mort Pour La Patrie, killed June 5, 1915."
Earlier, in his book on Gaudier, Pound had written, "If the
accursed Germans succeed in damaging Gaudier-Brzeska they will
have done more harm to art than they have by the destruction of
Rheims Cathedral, for a building once made and recorded can,
with some care, be remade, but the uncreated forms of a man of
genius cannot be set forth by another." 19