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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12904-0.txt b/12904-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b6b711 --- /dev/null +++ b/12904-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10498 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12904 *** + +LIGHT + + +BY + +HENRI BARBUSSE +AUTHOR OF "UNDER FIRE" "WE OTHERS," ETC. + + +TRANSLATED BY +FITZWATER WRAY +1919 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + I. MYSELF + II. OURSELVES + III. EVENING AND DAWN + IV. MARIE + V. DAY BY DAY + VI. A VOICE IN THE EVENING + VII. A SUMMARY + VIII. THE BRAWLER + IX. THE STORM + X. THE WALLS + XI. AT THE WORLD'S END + XII. THE SHADOWS + XIII. WHITHER GOEST THOU? + XIV. THE RUINS + XV. AN APPARITION + XVI. DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + XVII. MORNING +XVIII. EYES THAT SEE + XIX. GHOSTS + XX. THE CULT + XXI. NO! + XXII. LIGHT +XXIII. FACE TO FACE + + + + +LIGHT + + + +CHAPTER I + +MYSELF + + +All the days of the week are alike, from their beginning to their end. + +At seven in the evening one hears the clock strike gently, and then the +instant tumult of the bell. I close the desk, wipe my pen, and put it +down. I take my hat and muffler, after a glance at the mirror--a +glance which shows me the regular oval of my face, my glossy hair and +fine mustache. (It is obvious that I am rather more than a workman.) +I put out the light and descend from my little glass-partitioned +office. I cross the boiler-house, myself in the grip of the thronging, +echoing peal which has set it free. From among the dark and hurrying +crowd, which increases in the corridors and rolls down the stairways +like a cloud, some passing voices cry to me, "Good-night, Monsieur +Simon," or, with less familiarity, "Good-night, Monsieur Paulin." I +answer here and there, and allow myself to be borne away by everybody +else. + +Outside, on the threshold of the porch which opens on the naked plain +and its pallid horizons, one sees the squares and triangles of the +factory, like a huge black background of the stage, and the tall +extinguished chimney, whose only crown now is the cloud of falling +night. Confusedly, the dark flood carries me away. Along the wall +which faces the porch, women are waiting, like a curtain of shadow, +which yields glimpses of their pale and expressionless faces. With nod +or word we recognize each other from the mass. Couples are formed by +the quick hooking of arms. All along the ghostly avenue one's eyes +follow the toilers' scrambling flight. + +The avenue is a wan track cut across the open fields. Its course is +marked afar by lines of puny trees, sooty as snuffed candles; by +telegraph posts and their long spider-webs; by bushes or by fences, +which are like the skeletons of bushes. There are a few houses. Up +yonder a strip of sky still shows palely yellow above the meager suburb +where creeps the muddy crowd detached from the factory. The west wind +sets quivering their overalls, blue or black or khaki, excites the +woolly tails that flutter from muffled necks, scatters some evil odors, +attacks the sightless faces so deep-drowned beneath the sky. + +There are taverns anon which catch the eye. Their doors are closed, +but their windows and fanlights shine like gold. Between the taverns +rise the fronts of some old houses, tenantless and hollow; others, in +ruins, cut into this gloomy valley of the homes of men with notches of +sky. The iron-shod feet all around me on the hard road sound like the +heavy rolling of drums, and then on the paved footpath like dragged +chains. It is in vain that I walk with head bent--my own footsteps are +lost in the rest, and I cannot hear them. + +We hurry, as we do every evening. At that spot in the inky landscape +where a tall and twisted tree seems to writhe as if it had a soul, we +begin suddenly to descend, our feet plunging forward. Down below we +see the lights of Viviers sparkle. These men, whose day is worn out, +stride towards those earthly stars. One hope is like another in the +evening, as one weariness is like another; we are all alike. I, also. +I go towards my light, like all the others, as on every evening. + +* * * * * * + +When we have descended for a long time the gradient ends, the avenue +flattens out like a river, and widens as it pierces the town. Through +the latticed boughs of the old plane trees--still naked on this last +day of March--one glimpses the workmen's houses, upright in space, hazy +and fantastic chessboards, with squares of light dabbed on in places, +or like vertical cliffs in which our swarming is absorbed. Scattering +among the twilight colonnade of the trees, these people engulf +themselves in the heaped-up lodgings and rooms; they flow together in +the cavity of doors; they plunge into the houses; and there they are +vaguely turned into lights. + +I continue to walk, surrounded by several companions who are foremen +and clerks, for I do not associate with the workmen. Then there are +handshakes, and I go on alone. + +Some dimly seen wayfarers disappear; the sounds of sliding locks and +closing shutters are heard here and there; the houses have shut +themselves up, the night-bound town becomes a desert profound. I can +hear nothing now but my own footfall. + +Viviers is divided into two parts--like many towns, no doubt. First, +the rich town, composed of the main street, where you find the Grand +Café, the elegant hotels, the sculptured houses, the church and the +castle on the hill-top. The other is the lower town, which I am now +entering. It is a system of streets reached by an extension of that +avenue which is flanked by the workmen's barracks and climbs to the +level of the factory. Such is the way which it has been my custom to +climb in the morning and to descend when the light is done, during the +six years of my clerkship with Messrs. Gozlan & Co. In this quarter I +am still rooted. Some day I should like to live yonder; but between +the two halves of the town there is a division--a sort of frontier, +which has always been and will always be. + +In the Rue Verte I meet only a street lamp, and then a mouse-like +little girl who emerges from the shadows and enters them again without +seeing me, so intent is she on pressing to her heart, like a doll, the +big loaf they have sent her to buy. Here is the Rue de l'Etape, my +street. Through the semi-darkness, a luminous movement peoples the +hairdresser's shop, and takes shape on the dull screen of his window. +His transparent door, with its arched inscription, opens just as I +pass, and under the soap-dish,[1] whose jingle summons customers, +Monsieur Justin Pocard himself appears, along with a rich gust of +scented light. He is seeing a customer out, and improving the occasion +by the utterance of certain sentiments; and I had time to see that the +customer, convinced, nodded assent, and that Monsieur Pocard, the +oracle, was caressing his white and ever-new beard with his luminous +hand. + +[Footnote 1: The hanging sign of a French barber.--Tr.] + +I turn round the cracked walls of the former tinplate works, now bowed +and crumbling, whose windows are felted with grime or broken into black +stars. A few steps farther I think I saw the childish shadow of little +Antoinette, whose bad eyes they don't seem to be curing; but not being +certain enough to go and find her I turn into my court, as I do every +evening. + +Every evening I find Monsieur Crillon at the door of his shop at the +end of the court, where all day long he is fiercely bent upon trivial +jobs, and he rises before me like a post. At sight of me the kindly +giant nods his big, shaven face, and the square cap on top, his huge +nose and vast ears. He taps the leather apron that is hard as a plank. +He sweeps me along to the side of the street, sets my back against the +porch and says to me, in a low voice, but with heated conviction, "That +Pétrarque chap, he's really a bad lot." + +He takes off his cap, and while the crescendo nodding of his bristly +head seems to brush the night, he adds: "I've mended him his purse. +It had become percolated. I've put him a patch on that cost me thirty +centimes, and I've resewn the edge with braid, and all the lot. +They're expensive, them jobs. Well, when I open my mouth to talk about +that matter of his sewing-machine that I'm interested in and that he +can't use himself, he becomes congealed." + +He recounts to me the mad claims of Trompson in the matter of his new +soles, and the conduct of Monsieur Becret, who, though old enough to +know better, had taken advantage of his good faith by paying for the +repair of his spout with a knife "that would cut anything it sees." He +goes on to detail for my benefit all the important matters in his life. +Then he says, "I'm not rich, I'm not, but I'm consentious. If I'm a +botcher, it's 'cos my father and my grandfather were botchers before +me. There's some that's for making a big stir in the world, there are. +I don't hold with that idea. What I does, I does." + +Suddenly a sonorous tramp persists and repeats itself in the roadway, +and a shape of uncertain equilibrium emerges and advances towards us by +fits and starts; a shape that clings to itself and is impelled by a +force stronger than itself. It is Brisbille, the blacksmith, drunk, as +usual. + +Espying us, Brisbille utters exclamations. When he has reached us he +hesitates, and then, smitten by a sudden idea, he comes to a +standstill, his boots clanking on the stones, as if he were a cart. He +measures the height of the curb with his eye, but clenches his fists, +swallows what he wanted to say, and goes off reeling, with an odor of +hatred and wine, and his face slashed with red patches. + +"That anarchist!" said Crillon, in disgust; "loathsome notions, now, +aren't they? Ah! who'll rid us of him and his alcoholytes?" he adds, +as he offers me his hand. "Good-night. I'm always saying to the Town +Council, 'You must give 'em clink,' I says, 'that gang of Bolshevists, +for the slightest infractionment of the laws against drunkenness.' +Yes, indeed! There's that Jean Latrouille in the Town Council, eh? +They talk about keeping order, but as soon as it's a question of +a-doing of it, they seem like a cold draught." + +The good fellow is angry. He raises his great fist and shakes it in +space like a medieval mace. Pointing where Brisbille has just plunged +floundering into the night, he says, "That's what Socialists are,--the +conquering people what can't stand up on their legs! I may be a +botcher in life, but I'm for peace and order. Good-night, good-night. +Is she well, Aunt Josephine? I'm for tranquillity and liberty and +order. That's why I've always kept clear of their crowd. A bit since, +I saw her trotting past, as vivacious as a young girl,--but there, I +talk and I talk!" + +He enters his shop, but turns on his heel and calls me back, with a +mysterious sign. "You know they've all arrived up yonder at the +castle?" Respect has subdued his voice; a vision is absorbing him of +the lords and ladies of the manor, and as he leaves me he bows, +instinctively. + +His shop is a narrow glass cage, which is added to our house, like a +family relation. Within I can just make out the strong, plebeian +framework of Crillon himself, upright beside a serrated heap of ruins, +over which a candle is enthroned. The light which falls on his +accumulated tools and on those hanging from the wall makes a decoration +obscurely golden around the picture of this wise man; this soul all +innocent of envious demands, turning again to his botching, as his +father and grandfather botched. + +I have mounted the steps and pushed our door; the gray door, whose only +relief is the key. The door goes in grumblingly, and makes way for me +into the dark passage, which was formerly paved, though now the traffic +of soles has kneaded it with earth, and changed it into a footpath. My +forehead strikes the lamp, which is hooked on the wall; it is out, +oozing oil, and it stinks. One never sees that lamp, and always bangs +it. + +And though I had hurried so--I don't know why--to get home, at this +moment of arrival I slow down. Every evening I have the same small and +dull disillusion. + +I go into the room which serves us as kitchen and dining-room, where my +aunt is lying. This room is buried in almost complete darkness. + +"Good evening, Mame." + +A sigh, and then a sob arise from the bed crammed against the pale +celestial squares of the window. + +Then I remember that there was a scene between my old aunt and me after +our early morning coffee. Thus it is two or three times a week. This +time it was about a dirty window-pane, and on this particular morning, +exasperated by the continuous gush of her reproaches, I flung an +offensive word, and banged the door as I went off to work. So Mame has +had to weep all the day. She has fostered and ruminated her spleen, +and sniffed up her tears, even while busy with household duties. Then, +as the day declined, she put out the lamp and went to bed, with the +object of sustaining and displaying her chagrin. + +When I came in she was in the act of peeling invisible potatoes; there +are potatoes scattered over the floor, everywhere. My feet kick them +and send them rolling heavily among odds and ends of utensils and a +soft deposit of garments that are lying about. As soon as I am there +my aunt overflows with noisy tears. + +Not daring to speak again, I sit down in my usual corner. + +Over the bed I can make out a pointed shape, like a mounted picture, +silhouetted against the curtains, which slightly blacken the window. +It is as though the quilt were lifted from underneath by a stick, for +my Aunt Josephine is leanness itself. + +Gradually she raises her voice and begins to lament. "You've no +feelings, no--you're heartless,--that dreadful word you said to +me,--you said, 'You and your jawing!' Ah! people don't know what I +have to put up with--ill-natured--cart-horse!" + +In silence I hear the tear-streaming words that fall and founder in the +dark room from that obscure blot on the pillow which is her face. + +I stand up. I sit down again. I risk saying, "Come now, come; that's +all done with." + +She cries: "Done with? Ah! it will never be done with!" + +With the sheet that night is begriming she muzzles herself, and hides +her face. She shakes her head to left and to right, violently, so as +to wipe her eyes and signify dissent at the same time. + +"Never! A word like that you said to me breaks the heart forever. But +I must get up and get you something to eat. You must eat. I brought +you up when you were a little one,"--her voice capsizes--"I've given up +all for you, and you treat me as if I were an adventuress." + +I hear the sound of her skinny feet as she plants them successively on +the floor, like two boxes. She is seeking her things, scattered over +the bed or slipped to the floor; she is swallowing sobs. Now she is +upright, shapeless in the shadow, but from time to time I see her +remarkable leanness outlined. She slips on a camisole and a jacket,--a +spectral vision of garments which unfold themselves about her +handle-like arms, and above the hollow framework of her shoulders. + +She talks to herself while she dresses, and gradually all my +life-history, all my past comes forth from what the poor woman +says,--my only near relative on earth; as it were my mother and my +servant. + +She strikes a match. The lamp emerges from the dark and zigzags about +the room like a portable fairy. My aunt is enclosed in a strong light. +Her eyes are level with her face; she has heavy and spongy eyelids and +a big mouth which stirs with ruminated sorrow. Fresh tears increase +the dimensions of her eyes, make them sparkle and varnish the points of +her cheeks. She comes and goes with undiminished spleen. Her wrinkles +form heavy moldings on her face, and the skin of chin and neck is so +folded that it looks intestinal, while the crude light tinges it all +with something like blood. + +Now that the lamp is alight some items become visible of the dismal +super-chaos in which we are walled up,--the piece of bed-ticking +fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of +draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with its woolen cover; +and the door-lock, stopped with a protruding plug of paper. + +The lamp is flaring, and as Mame does not know where to stand it among +the litter, she puts it on the floor and crouches to regulate the wick. +There rises from the medley of the old lady, vividly variegated with +vermilion and night, a jet of black smoke, which returns in parachute +form. Mame sighs, but she cannot check her continual talk. + +"You, my lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred +and eighty francs a month,--you're genteel, but you're short of good +manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about. So you spat on +the window-pane; I'm certain of it. May I drop dead if you didn't. +And you're nearly twenty-four! And to revenge yourself because I'd +found out that you'd spat on the window, you told me to stop my jawing, +for that's what you said to me, after all. Ah, vulgar fellow that you +are! The factory gentlemen are too kind to you. Your poor father was +their best workman. You are more genteel than your poor father, more +English; and you preferred to go into business rather than go on +learning Latin, and everybody thought you quite right; but for hard +work you're not much good--ah, la, la! Confess that you spat on the +window. + +"For your poor mother," the ghost of Mame goes on, as she crosses the +room with a wooden spoon in her hand, "one must say that she had good +taste in dress. That's no harm, no; but certainly they must have the +wherewithal. She was always a child. I remember she was twenty-six +when they carried her away. Ah, how she loved hats! But she had +handsome ways, for all that, when she said, 'Come along with us, +Josephine!' So I brought you up, I did, and sacrificed everything...." + +Overcome by the mention of the past, Mame's speech and action both +cease. She chokes and wags her head and wipes her face with her +sleeve. + +I risk saying, gently, "Yes, I know it well." + +A sigh is my answer. She lights the fire. The coal sends out a +cushion of smoke, which expands and rolls up the stove, falls back, and +piles its muslin on the floor. Mame manipulates the stove with her +feet in the cloudy deposit; and the hazy white hair which escapes from +her black cap is also like smoke. + +Then she seeks her handkerchief and pats her pockets to get the velvet +coal-dust off her fingers. Now, with her back turned, she is moving +casseroles about. "Monsieur Crillon's father," she says, "old Dominic, +had come from County Cher to settle down here in '66 or '67. He's a +sensible man, seeing he's a town councilor. (We must tell him nicely +to take his buckets away from our door.) Monsieur Bonéas is very rich, +and he speaks so well, in spite of his bad neck. You must show +yourself off to all these gentlemen. You're genteel, and you're +already getting a hundred and eighty francs a month, and it's vexing +that you haven't got some sign to show that you're on the commercial +side, and not a workman, when you're going in and out of the factory." + +"That can be seen easily enough." + +"I'd rather you had a badge." + +Breathing damply and forcefully, she sniffs harder and quicker, and +looks here and there for her handkerchief; she prowls with the lamp. +As my eyes follow her, the room awakens more and more. My groping gaze +discovers the tiled floor, the conference of chairs backed side by side +against the wall, the motionless pallor of the window in the background +above the low and swollen bed, which is like a heap of earth and +plaster, the clothes lying on the floor like mole-hills, the protruding +edges of tables and shelves, pots, bottles, kettles and hanging clouts, +and that lock with the cotton-wool in its ear. + +"I like orderliness so much," says Mame as she tacks and worms her way +through this accumulation of things, all covered with a downy layer of +dust like the corners of pastel pictures. + +According to habit, I stretch out my legs and put my feet on the stool, +which long use has polished and glorified till it looks new. My face +turns this way and that towards the lean phantom of my aunt, and I lull +myself with the sounds of her stirring and her endless murmur. + +And now, suddenly, she has come near to me. She is wearing her jacket +of gray and white stripes which hangs from her acute shoulders, she +puts her arm around my neck, and trembles as she says, "You can mount +high, you can, with the gifts that you have. Some day, perhaps, you +will go and tell men everywhere the truth of things. That _has_ +happened. There have been men who were in the right, above everybody. +Why shouldn't you be one of them, my lad, _you_ one of these great +apostles!" + +And with her head gently nodding, and her face still tear-stained, she +looks afar, and sees the streets attentive to my eloquence! + +* * * * * * + +Hardly has this strange imagining in the bosom of our kitchen passed +away when Mame adds, with her eyes on mine, "My lad, mind you, never +look higher than yourself. You are already something of a home-bird; +you have already serious and elderly habits. That's good. Never try +to be different from others." + +"No danger of that, Mame." + +No, there is no danger of that. I should like to remain as I am. +Something holds me to the surroundings of my infancy and childhood, and +I should like them to be eternal. No doubt I hope for much from life. +I hope, I have hopes, as every one has. I do not even know all that I +hope for, but I should not like too great changes. In my heart I +should not like anything which changed the position of the stove, of +the tap, of the chestnut wardrobe, nor the form of my evening rest, +which faithfully returns. + +* * * * * * + +The fire alight, my aunt warms up the stew, stirring it with the wooden +spoon. Sometimes there spurts from the stove a mournful flame, which +seems to illumine her with tatters of light. + +I get up to look at the stew. The thick brown gravy is purring. I can +see pale bits of potato, and it is uncertainly spotted with the +mucosity of onions. Mame pours it into a big white plate. "That's for +you," she says; "now, what shall _I_ have?" + +We settle ourselves each side of the little swarthy table. Mame is +fumbling in her pocket. Now her lean hand, lumpy and dark, unroots +itself. She produces a bit of cheese, scrapes it with a knife which +she holds by the blade, and swallows it slowly. By the rays of the +lamp, which stands beside us, I see that her face is not dry. A drop +of water has lingered on the cheek that each mouthful protrudes, and +glitters there. Her great mouth works in all directions, and sometimes +swallows the remains of tears. + +So there we are, in front of our plates, of the salt which is placed on +a bit of paper, of my share of jam, which is put into a mustard-pot. +There we are, narrowly close, our foreheads and hands brought together +by the light, and for the rest but poorly clothed by the huge gloom. +Sitting in this jaded armchair, my hands on this ill-balanced +table,--which, if you lean on one side of it, begins at once to +limp,--I feel that I am deeply rooted where I am, in this old room, +disordered as an abandoned garden, this worn-out room, where the dust +touches you softly. + +After we have eaten, our remarks grow rarer. Then Mame begins again to +mumble; once again she yields to emotion under the harsh flame of the +lamp, and once again her eyes grow dim in her complicated Japanese mask +that is crowned with cotton-wool, and something dimly shining flows +from them. + +The tears of the sensitive old soul plash on that lip so voluminous +that it seems a sort of heart. She leans towards me, she comes so +near, so near, that I feel sure she is touching me. + +I have only her in the world to love me really. In spite of her humors +and her lamentations I know well that she is always in the right. + +I yawn, while she takes away the dirty plates and proceeds to hide them +in a dark corner. She fills the big bowl from the pitcher and then +carries it along to the stove for the crockery. + +Antonia has given me an appointment for eight o'clock, near the Kiosk. +It is ten past eight. I go out. The passage, the court,--by night all +these familiar things surround me even while they hide themselves. A +vague light still hovers in the sky. Crillon's prismatic shop gleams +like a garnet in the bosom of the night, behind the riotous disorder of +his buckets. There I can see Crillon,--he never seems to stop,--filing +something, examining his work close to a candle which flutters like a +butterfly ensnared, and then, reaching for the glue-pot which steams on +a little stove. One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless +face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his +ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair. +He coughs, and the window-panes vibrate. + +In the street, shadow and silence. In the distance are venturing +shapes, people emerging or entering, and some light echoing sounds. +Almost at once, on the corner, I see Monsieur Joseph Bonéas vanishing, +stiff as a ramrod. I recognized the thick white kerchief, which +consolidates the boils on his neck. As I pass the hairdresser's door +it opens, just as it did a little while ago, and his agreeable voice +says, "That's all there is to it, in business." "Absolutely," replies +a man who is leaving. In the oven of the street one can see only his +littleness--he must be a considerable personage, all the same. +Monsieur Pocard is always applying himself to business and thinking of +great schemes. A little farther, in the depths of a cavity, stoppered +by an iron-grilled window, I divine the presence of old Eudo, the bird +of ill omen, the strange old man who coughs, and has a bad eye, and +whines continually. Even indoors he must wear his mournful cloak and +the lamp-shade of his hood. People call him a spy, and not without +reason. + +Here is the Kiosk. It is waiting quite alone, with its point in the +darkness. Antonia has not come, for she would have waited for me. I +am impatient first, and then relieved. A good riddance. + +No doubt Antonia is still tempting when she is present. There is a +reddish fever in her eyes, and her slenderness sets you on fire. But I +am hardly in harmony with the Italian. She is particularly engrossed +in her private affairs, with which I am not concerned. Big Victorine, +always ready, is worth a hundred of her; or Madame Lacaille, the +pensively vicious; though I am equally satiated of her, too. Truth to +tell, I plunge unreflectingly into a heap of amorous adventures which I +shortly find vulgar. But I can never resist the magic of a first +temptation. + +I shall not wait. I go away. I skirt the forge of the ignoble +Brisbille. It is the last house in that chain of low hills which is +the street. Out of the deep dark the smithy window flames with vivid +orange behind its black tracery. In the middle of that square-ruled +page of light I see transparently outlined the smith's eccentric +silhouette, now black and sharp, now softly huge. Spectrally through +the glare, and in blundering frenzy, he strives and struggles and +fumbles horribly on the anvil. Swaying, he seems to rush to right and +to left, like a passenger on a hell-bound ferry. The more drunk he is, +the more furiously he falls upon his iron and his fire. + +I return home. Just as I am about to enter a timid voice calls +me--"Simon!" + +It is Antonia. So much the worse for her. I hurry in, followed by the +weak appeal. + +I go up to my room. It is bare and always cold; always I must shiver +some minutes before I shake it back to life. As I close the shutters I +see the street again; the massive, slanting blackness of the roofs and +their population of chimneys clear-cut against the minor blackness of +space; some still waking, milk-white windows; and, at the end of a +jagged and gloomy background, the blood-red stumbling apparition of the +mad blacksmith. Farther still I can make out in the cavity the cross +on the steeple; and again, very high and blazing with light on the +hill-top, the castle, a rich crown of masonry. In all directions the +eye loses itself among the black ruins which conceal their hosts of men +and of women--all so unknown and so like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +OURSELVES + + +It is Sunday. Through my open window a living ray of April has made +its way into my room. It has transformed the faded flowers of the +wallpaper and restored to newness the Turkey-red stuff which covers my +dressing-table. + +I dress carefully, dallying to look at myself in the glass, closely and +farther away, in the fresh scent of soap. I try to make out whether my +eyes are little or big. They are the average, no doubt, but it really +seems to me that they have a tender brightness. + +Then I look outside. It would seem that the town, under its misty +blankets in the hollow of the valley, is awaking later than its +inhabitants. + +These I can see from up here, spreading abroad in the streets, since it +is Sunday. One does not recognize them all at once, so changed are +they by their unusual clothes;--women, ornate with color, and more +monumental than on week days; some old men, slightly straightened for +the occasion; and some very lowly people, whom only their cleanness +vaguely disguises. + +The weak sunshine is dressing the red roofs and the blue roofs and the +sidewalks, and the tiny little stone setts all pressed together like +pebbles, where polished shoes are shining and squeaking. In that old +house at the corner, a house like a round lantern of shadow, gloomy old +Eudo is encrusted. It forms a comical blot, as though traced on an old +etching. A little further, Madame Piot's house bulges forth, glazed +like pottery. By the side of these uncommon dwellings one takes no +notice of the others, with their gray walls and shining curtains, +although it is of these that the town is made. + +Halfway up the hill, which rises from the river bank, and opposite the +factory's plateau, appears the white geometry of the castle, and around +its pallors a tapestry of reddish foliage, and parks. Farther away, +pastures and growing crops which are part of the demesne; farther +still, among the stripes and squares of brown earth or verdant, the +cemetery, where every year so many stones spring up. + +* * * * * * + +We have to call at Brisbille's, my aunt and I, before Church. We are +forced to tolerate him thus, so as to get our twisted key put right. I +wait for Mame in the court, sitting on a tub by the shop, which is +lifeless to-day, and full of the scattered leavings of toil. Mame is +never ready in time. She has twice appeared on the threshold in her +fine black dress and velvet cape; then, having forgotten something, she +has gone back very quickly, like a mole. Finally, she must needs go up +to my room, to cast a last glance over it. + +At last we are off, side by side. She takes my arm proudly. From time +to time she looks at me, and I at her, and her smile is an affectionate +grimace amid the sunshine. + +When we have gone a little way, my aunt stops, "You go on," she says; +"I'll catch you up." + +She has gone up to Apolline, the street-sweeper. The good woman, as +broad as she is long, was gaping on the edge of the causeway, her two +parallel arms feebly rowing in the air, an exile in the Sabbath +idleness, and awkwardly conscious of her absent broom. + +Mame brings her along, and looking back as I walk, I hear her talking +of me, hastily, as one who confides a choking secret, while Apolline +follows, with her arms swinging far from her body, limping and +outspread like a crab. + +Says Mame, "That boy's bedroom is untidy. And then, too, he uses too +many shirt-collars, and he doesn't know how to blow his nose. He +stuffs handkerchiefs into his pockets, and you find them again like +stones." + +"All the same, he's a good young man," stammers the waddling street +cleanser, brandishing her broom-bereaved hands at random, and shaking +over her swollen and many-storied boots a skirt weighted round the hem +by a coat-of-mail of dry mud. + +These confidences with which Mame is in the habit of breaking forth +before no matter whom get on my nerves. I call her with some +impatience. She starts at the command, comes up, and throws me a +martyr's glance. + +She proceeds with her nose lowered under her black hat with green +foliage, hurt that I should thus have summoned her before everybody, +and profoundly irritated. So a persevering malice awakens again in the +depths of her, and she mutters, very low, "You spat on the window the +other day!" + +But she cannot resist hooking herself again on to another interlocutor, +whose Sunday trousers are planted on the causeway, like two posts, and +his blouse as stiff as a lump of iron ore. I leave them, and go alone +into Brisbille's. + +The smithy hearth befires a workshop which bristles with black objects. +In the middle of the dark bodies of implements hanging from walls and +ceiling is the metallic Brisbille, with leaden hands, his dark apron +rainbowed with file-dust,--dirty on principle, because of his ideas, +this being Sunday. He is sober, and his face still unkindled, but he +is waiting impatiently for the church-going bell to begin, so that he +may go and drink, in complete solitude. + +Through an open square, in the ponderous and dirt-shaggy glazing of the +smithy, one can see a portion of the street, and a sketch, in bright +and airy tones, of scattered people. It is like the sharply cut field +of vision in an opera-glass, in which figures are drawn and shaded, and +cross each other; where one makes out, at times, a hat bound and +befeathered, swaying as it goes; a little boy with sky-blue tie and +buttoned boots, and tubular knickers hanging round his thin, bare +calves; a couple of gossiping dames in swollen and somber petticoats, +who tack hither and thither, meet, are mutually attracted and dissolve +in conversation, like rolling drops of ink. In the foreground of this +colored cinema which goes by and passes again, Brisbille, the sinister, +is ranting away, as always. He is red and lurid, spotted with +freckles, his hair greasy, his voice husky. For a moment, while he +paces to and fro in his cage, dragging shapeless and gaping shoes +behind him, he speaks to me in a low voice, and close to my face, in +gusts. Brisbille can shout, but not talk; there must be a definite +pressure of anger before his resounding huskiness issues from his +throat. + +Mame comes in. She sits on a stool to get her breath again, all the +while brandishing the twisted key which she clasps to the prayer-book +in her hand. Then she unburdens herself and begins to speak in fits +and starts of this key, of the mishap which twisted it, and of all the +multiple details which overlap each other in her head. But the +slipshod, gloomy smith's attention is suddenly attracted by the hole +which shows the street. + +"The lubber!" he roars. + +It is Monsieur Fontan who is passing, the wine-merchant and +café-proprietor. He is an expansive and imposing man, fat-covered, and +white as a house. He never says anything and is always alone. A great +personage he is; he makes money; he has amassed hundreds of thousands +of francs. At noon and in the evening he is not to be seen, having +dived into the room behind the shop, where he takes his meals in +solitude. The rest of the time he just sits at the receipt of custom +and says nothing. There is a hole in his counter where he slides the +money in. His house is filling with money from morning till night. + +"He's a money-trap," says Mame. + +"He's rich," I say. + +"And when you've said that," jeers Brisbille, "you've said all there is +to say. Why, you damned snob, you're only a poor drudge, like all us +chaps, but haven't you just got the snob's ideas?" + +I make a sign of impatience. It is not true, and Brisbille annoys me +with the hatred which he hurls at random, hit or miss; and all the more +because he is himself visibly impressed by the approach of this man who +is richer than the rest. The rebel opens his steely eye and relapses +into silence, like the rest of us, as the big person grows bigger. + +"The Bonéas are even richer," my aunt murmurs. + +Monsieur Fontan passes the open door, and we can hear the breathing of +the corpulent recluse. As soon as he has carried away the enormous +overcoat that sheathes him, like the hide of a pachyderm, and is +disappearing, Brisbille begins to roar, "What a snout! Did you see it, +eh? Did you see the jaws he swings from his ears, eh? The exact +likeness of a hog!" + +Then he adds, in a burst of vulgar delight, "Luckily, we can expect +it'll all burst before long!" + +He laughs alone. Mame goes and sits apart. She detests Brisbille, who +is the personification of envy, malice and coarseness. And everybody +hates this marionette, too, for his drunkenness and his forward +notions. All the same, when there is something you want him to do, you +choose Sunday morning to call, and you linger there, knowing that you +will meet others. This has become a tradition. + +"They're going to cure little Antoinette," says Benoît, as he frames +himself in the doorway. + +Benoît is like a newspaper. He to whom nothing ever happens only lives +to announce what is happening to others. + +"I know," cries Mame, "they told me so this morning. Several people +already knew it this morning at seven. A big, famous doctor's coming +to the castle itself, for the hunting, and he only treats just the +eyes." + +"Poor little angel!" sighs a woman, who has just come in. + +Brisbille intervenes, rancorous and quarrelsome, "Yes, they're always +going to cure the child, so they say. Bad luck to them! Who cares +about her?" + +"Everybody does!" reply two incensed women, in the same breath. + +"And meanwhile," said Brisbille, viciously, "she's snuffing it." And +he chews, once more, his customary saying--pompous and foolish as the +catchword of a public meeting--"She's a victim of society!" + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas has come into Brisbille's, and he does it +complacently, for he is not above mixing with the people of the +neighborhood. Here, too, are Monsieur Pocard, and Crillon, new shaved, +his polished skin taut and shiny, and several other people. Prominent +among them one marks the wavering head of Monsieur Mielvaque, who, in +his timidity and careful respect for custom, took his hat off as he +crossed the threshold. He is only a copying-clerk at the factory; he +wears much-used and dubious linen, and a frail and orphaned jacket +which he dons for all occasions. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas overawes me. My eyes are attracted by his +delicate profile, the dull gloom of his morning attire, and the luster +of his black gloves, which are holding a little black rectangle, +gilt-edged. + +He, too, has removed his hat. So I, in my corner discreetly remove +mine, too. + +He is a young man, refined and distinguished, who impresses by his +innate elegance. Yet he is an invalid, tormented by abscesses. One +never sees him but his neck is swollen, or his wrists enlarged by a +ghastly outcrop. But the sickly body encloses bright and sane +intelligence. I admire him because he is thoughtful and full of ideas, +and can express himself faultlessly. Recently he gave me a lesson in +sociology, touching the links between the France of to-day and the +France of tradition, a lesson on our origins whose plain perspicuity +was a revelation to me. I seek his company; I strive to imitate him, +and certainly he is not aware how much influence he has over me. + +All are attentive while he says that he is thinking of organizing a +young people's association in Viviers. Then he speaks to me, "The +farther I go the more I perceive that all men are afflicted with short +sight. They do not see, nor can they see, beyond the end of their +noses." + +"Yes," say I. + +My reply seems rather scanty, and the silence which follows repeats it +mercilessly. It seems so to him, too, no doubt, for he engages other +interlocutors, and I feel myself redden in the darkness of Brisbille's +cavern. + +Crillon is arguing with Brisbille on the matter of the recent +renovation of an old hat, which they keep handing to each other and +examine ardently. Crillon is sitting, but he keeps his eyes on it. +Heart and soul he applies himself to the debate. His humble trade as a +botcher does not allow a fixed tariff, and he is all alone as he +vindicates the value of his work. With his fists he hammers the +gray-striped mealy cloth on his knees, and the hair, which grows +thickly round his big neck, gives him the nape of a wild boar. + +"That felt," he complains, "I'll tell you what was the matter with it. +It was rain, heavy rain, that had drowned it. That felt, I tells you, +was only like a dirty handkerchief. What does _that_ represent--in +ebullition of steam, in gumming, and the passage of time?" + +Monsieur Justin Pocard is talking to three companions, who, hat in +hand, are listening with all their ears. He is entertaining them in +his sonorous language about the great financial and industrial +combination which he has planned. A speculative thrill electrifies the +company. + +"That'll brush business up!" says Crillon, in wonder, torn for a moment +from contemplation of the hat, but promptly relapsing on it. + +Joseph Bonéas says to me, in an undertone,--and I am flattered,--"That +Pocard is a man of no education, but he has practical sense. That's a +big idea he's got,--at least if he sees things as I see them." + +And I, I am thinking that if I were older or more influential in the +district, perhaps I should be in the Pocard scheme, which is taking +shape, and will be huge. + +Meanwhile, Brisbille is scowling. An unconfessable disquiet is +accumulating in his bosom. All this gathering is detaining him at +home, and he is tormented by the desire for drink. He cannot conceal +his vinous longing, and squints darkly at the assembly. On a week day +at this hour he would already have begun to slake his thirst. He is +parched, he burns, he drags himself from group to group. The wait is +longer than he can stand. + +Suddenly every one looks out to the street through the still open door. + +A carriage is making its way towards the church; it has a green body +and silver lamps. The old coachman, whose great glove sways the +slender scepter of a whip, is so adorned with overlapping capes that he +suggests several men on the top of each other. The black horse is +prancing. + +"He shines like a piano," says Benoît. + +The Baroness is in the carriage. The blinds are drawn, so she cannot +be seen, but every one salutes the carriage. + +"All slaves!" mumbles Brisbille. "Look at yourselves now, just look! +All the lot of you, as soon as a rich old woman goes by, there you are, +poking your noses into the ground, showing your bald heads, and growing +humpbacked." + +"She does good," protests one of the gathering. + +"Good? Ah, yes, indeed!" gurgles the evil man, writhing as though in +the grip of some one; "I call it ostentation--that's what _I_ call it." + +Shoulders are shrugged, and Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, always +self-controlled, smiles. + +Encouraged by that smile, I say, "There have always been rich people, +and there must be." + +"Of course," trumpets Crillon, "that's one of the established thoughts +that you find in your head when you fish for 'em. But mark what I +says,--there's some that dies of envy. I'm _not_ one of them that dies +of envy." + +Monsieur Mielvaque has put his hat back on his petrified head and gone +to the door. Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, also, turns his back and goes +away. + +All at once Crillon cries, "There's Pétrarque!" and darts outside on +the track of a big body, which, having seen him, opens its long pair of +compasses and escapes obliquely. + +"And to think," says Brisbille, with a horrible grimace, when Crillon +has disappeared, "that the scamp is a town councilor! Ah, by God!" + +He foams, as a wave of anger runs through him, swaying on his feet, and +gaping at the ground. Between his fingers there is a shapeless +cigarette, damp and shaggy, which he rolls in all directions, patching +up and resticking it unceasingly. + +Charged with snarls and bristling with shoulder-shrugs, the smith +rushes at his fire and pulls the bellows-chain, his yawning shoes +making him limp like Vulcan. At each pull the bellows send spouting +from the dust-filled throat of the furnace a cutting blue comet, lined +with crackling and dazzling white, and therein the man forges. + +Purpling as his agitation rises, nailed to his imprisoning corner, +alone of his kind, a rebel against all the immensity of things, the man +forges. + +* * * * * * + +The church bell rang, and we left him there. When I was leaving I +heard Brisbille growl. No doubt I got my quietus as well. But what +can he have imagined against _me_? + +We meet again, all mixed together in the Place de l'Eglise. In our +part of the town, except for a clan of workers whom one keeps one's eye +on, every one goes to church, men as well as women, as a matter of +propriety, out of gratitude to employers or lords of the manor, or by +religious conviction. Two streets open into the Place and two roads, +bordered with apple-trees, as well, so that these four ways lead town +and country to the Place. + +It has the shape of a heart, and is delightful. It is shaded by a very +old tree, under which justice was formerly administered. That is why +they call it the Great Tree, although there are greater ones. In +winter it is dark, like a perforated umbrella. In summer it gives the +bright green shadow of a parasol. Beside the tree a tall crucifix +dwells in the Place forever. + +The Place is swarming and undulating. Peasants from the surrounding +country, in their plain cotton caps, are waiting in the old corner of +the Rue Neuve, heaped together like eggs. These people are loaded with +provisions. At the farther end, square-paved, one picks out swarthy +outlines of the Epinal type, and faces as brightly colored as apples. +Groups of children flutter and chirrup; little girls with their dolls +play at being mothers, and little boys play at brigands. Respectable +people take their stand more ceremoniously than the common crowd, and +talk business piously. + +Farther away is the road, which April's illumination adorns all along +the lines of trees with embroidery of shadow and of gold, where +bicycles tinkle and carriages rumble echoingly; and the shining +river,--those long-drawn sheets of water, whereon the sun spreads +sheets of light and scatters blinding points. Looking along the road, +on either side of its stone-hard surface, one sees the pleasant, +cultivated earth, the bits of land sewn to each other, and many-hued, +brown or green as the billiard cloth, then paling in the distance. +Here and there, on this map in colors, copses bulge forth. The +by-roads are pricked out with trees, which follow each other artlessly +and divide the infantile littleness of orchards. + +This landscape holds us by the soul. It is a watercolor now (for it +rained a little last night), with its washed stones, its tiles +varnished anew, its roofs that are half slate and half light, its +shining pavements, water-jeweled in places, its delicately blue sky, +with clouds like silky paper; and between two house-fronts of yellow +ocher and tan, against the purple velvet of distant forests, there is +the neighboring steeple, which is like ours and yet different. Roundly +one's gaze embraces all the panorama, which is delightful as the +rainbow. + +From the Place, then, where one feels himself so abundantly at home, we +enter the church. From the depths of this thicket of lights, the good +priest murmurs the great infinite speech to us, blesses us, embraces us +severally and altogether, like father and mother both. In the manorial +pew, the foremost of all, one glimpses the Marquis of Monthyon, who has +the air of an officer, and his mother-in-law, Baroness Grille, who is +dressed like an ordinary lady. + +Emerging from church, the men go away; the women swarm out more +grudgingly and come to a standstill together; then all the buzzing +groups scatter. + +At noon the shops close. The fine ones do it unassisted; the others +close by the antics of some good man who exerts himself to carry and +fit the shutters. Then there is a great void. + +After lunch I wander in the streets. In the house I am bored, and yet +outside I do not know what to do. I have no friend and no calls to +pay. I am already too big to mingle with some, and too little yet to +associate with others. The cafés and licensed shops hum, jingle and +smoke already. I do not go to cafés, on principle, and because of that +fondness for spending nothing, which my aunt has impressed on me. So, +aimless, I walk through the deserted streets, which at every corner +yawn before my feet. The hours strike and I have the impression that +they are useless, that one will do nothing with them. + +I steer in the direction of the fine gardens which slope towards the +river. A little enviously I look over the walls at the tops of these +opulent enclosures, at the tips of those great branches where still +clings the soiled, out-of-fashion finery of last summer. + +Far from there, and a good while after, I encounter Tudor, the clerk at +the Modern Pharmacy. He hesitates and doubts, and does not know where +to go. Every Sunday he wears the same collar, with turned down +corners, and it is becoming gloomy. Arrived where I am, he stops, as +though it occurred to him that nothing was pushing him forward. A +half-extinguished cigarette vegetates in his mouth. + +He comes with me, and I take his silence in tow as far as the avenue of +plane trees. There are several figures outspaced in its level peace. +Some young girls attract my attention; they appear against the dullness +of house-fronts and against shop fronts in mourning. Some of the +charming ones are accompanied by their mothers, who look like +caricatures of them. + +Tudor has left me without my noticing it. + +Already, and slowly everywhere, the taverns begin to shine and cry out. +In the grayness of twilight one discerns a dark and mighty crowd, +gliding therein. In them gathers a sort of darkling storm, and flashes +emerge from them. + +* * * * * * + +And lo! Now the night approaches to soften the stony streets. + +Along the riverside, to which I have gone down alone, listless idylls +dimly appear,--shapes sketched in crayon, which seek and join each +other. There are couples that appear and vanish, strictly avoiding the +little light that is left. Night is wiping out colors and features and +names from both sorts of strollers. + +I notice a woman who waits, standing on the river bank. Her silhouette +has pearly-gray sky behind it, so that she seems to support the +darkness. I wonder what her name may be, but only discover the beauty +of her feminine stillness. Not far from that consummate caryatid, +among the black columns of the tall trees laid against the lave of the +blue, and beneath their cloudy branches, there are mystic enlacements +which move to and fro; and hardly can one distinguish the two halves of +which they are made, for the temple of night is enclosing them. + +The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope. Below +it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more +sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water. +The landscape has something exotic or antique about it. You are no +matter where in the world or among the centuries. You are on some +corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to +each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery. + +* * * * * * + +Dreamily I ascend again towards the sounds and the swarming of the +town. There, the Sunday evening rendezvous,--the prime concern of the +men,--is less discreet. Desire displays itself more crudely on the +pavements. Voices chatter and laughter dissolves, even through closed +doors; there are shouts and songs. + +Up there one sees clearly. Faces are discovered by the harsh light of +the gas jets and its reflection from plate-glass shop windows. Antonia +goes by, surrounded by men, who bend forward and look at her with +desire amid their clamor of conversation. She saw me, and a little +sound of appeal comes from her across the escort that presses upon her. +But I turn aside and let her go by. + +When she and her harness of men have disappeared, I smell in their wake +the odor of Pétrolus. He is lamp-man at the factory. Yellow, dirty, +cadaverous, red-eyed, he smells rancid, and was, perhaps, nurtured on +paraffin. He is some one washed away. You do not see him, so much as +smell him. + +Other women are there. Many a Sunday have I, too, joined in all that +love-making. + +* * * * * * + +Among these beings who chat and take hold of each other, an isolated +woman stands like a post, and makes an empty space around her. + +It is Louise Verte. She is fearfully ugly, and she was too virtuous +formerly, at a time when, so they say, she need not have been. She +regrets this, and relates it without shame, in order to be revenged on +virtue. She would like to have a lover, but no one wants her, because +of her bony face and her scraped appearance; from a sort of eczema. +Children make sport of her, knowing her needs; for the disclosures of +their elders have left a stain on them. A five-year-old girl points +her tiny finger at Louise and twitters, "She wants a man." + +In the Place is Véron, going about aimlessly, like a dead leaf--Véron, +who revolves, when he may, round Antonia. An ungainly man, whose tiny +head leans to the right and wears a colorless smile. He lives on a few +rents and does not work. He is good and affectionate, and sometimes he +is overcome by attacks of compassion. + +Véron and Louise Verte see one another,--and each makes a détour of +avoidance. They are afraid of each other. + +Here, also, on the margin of passion, is Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, very +compassionable, in spite of his intellectual superiority. Between the +turned-down brim of his hat and his swollen white kerchief,--thick as a +towel,--a mournful yellow face is stuck. + +I pity these questing solitaries who are looking for themselves! I +feel compassion to see those fruitless shadows hovering there, wavering +like ghosts, these poor wayfarers, divided and incomplete. + +Where am I? Facing the workmen's flats, whose countless windows stand +sharply out in their huge flat background. It is there that Marie +Tusson lives, whose father, a clerk at Messrs. Gozlan's, like myself, +is manager of the property. I steered to this place instinctively, +without confessing it to myself, brushing people and things without +mingling with them. + +Marie is my cousin, and yet I hardly ever see her. We just say +good-day when we meet, and she smiles at me. + +I lean against a plane tree and think of Marie. She is tall, fair, +strong and amiable, and she goes modestly clad, like a wide-hipped +Venus; her beautiful lips shine like her eyes. + +To know her so near agitates me among the shadows. If she appeared +before me as she did the last time I met her; if, in the middle of the +dark, I saw the shining radiance of her face, the swaying of her +figure, traced in silken lines, and her little sister's hand in +hers,--I should tremble. + +But that does not happen. The bluish, cold background only shows me +the two second-floor windows pleasantly warmed by lights, of which one +is, perhaps, she herself. But they take no sort of shape, and remain +in another world. + +At last my eyes leave that constellation of windows among the trees, +that vertical and silent firmament. Then I make for my home, in this +evening which comes at the end of all the days I have lived. + +* * * * * * + +Little Antoinette,--how comes it that they leave her all alone like +this?--is standing in my path and holding a hand out towards me. It is +her way that she is begging for. I guide her, ask questions and +listen, leaning over her and making little steps. But she is too +little, and too lispful, and cannot explain. Carefully I lead the +child,--who sees so feebly that already she is blind in the evening, as +far as the low door of the dilapidated dwelling where she nests. + +In my street, in front of his lantern-shaped house, with its +iron-grilled dormer, old Eudo is standing, darkly hooded, and pointed, +like the house. + +I am a little afraid of him. Assuredly, he has not got a clean +conscience. But, however guilty, he is compassionable. I stop and +speak to him. He lifts to me out of the night of his hood a face +pallid and ruined. I speak about the weather, of approaching spring. +Heedless he hears, shapes "yes" with the tip of his lips, and says, +"It's twelve years now since my wife died; twelve years that I've been +utterly alone; twelve years that I've heard the last words she said to +me." + +And the poor maniac glides farther away, hooded in his unintelligible +mourning; and certainly he does not hear me wish him good-night. + +At the back of the cold downstairs room a fire has been lighted. Mame +is sitting on the stool beside it, in the glow of the flaming coal, +outstretching her hands, clinging to the warmth. + +Entering, I see the bowl of her back. Her lean neck has a cracked look +and is white as a bone. Musingly, my aunt takes and holds a pair of +idle tongs. I take my seat. Mame does not like the silence in which I +wrap myself. She lets the tongs fall with a jangling shock, and then +begins vivaciously to talk to me about the people of the neighborhood. +"There's everything here. No need to go to Paris, nor even so much as +abroad. This part; it's a little world cut out on the pattern of the +others," she adds, proudly, wagging her worn-out head. "There aren't +many of them who've got the wherewithal and they're not of much +account. Puppets, if you like, yes. That's according to how one sees +it, because at bottom there's no puppets,--there's people that look +after themselves, because each of us always deserves to be happy, my +lad. And here, the same as everywhere, the two kinds of people that +there are--the discontented and the respectable; because, my lad, +what's always been always will be." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +EVENING AND DAWN + + +Just at the moment when I was settling down to audit the Sesmaisons' +account--I remember that detail--there came an unusual sound of steps +and voices, and before I could even turn round I heard a voice through +the glass door say, "Monsieur Paulin's aunt is very ill." + +The sentence stuns me. I am standing, and some one is standing +opposite me. A draught shuts the door with a bang. + +Both of us set off. It is Benoît who has come to fetch me. We hurry. +I breathe heavily. Crossing the busy factory, we meet acquaintances +who smile at me, not knowing the turn of affairs. + +The night is cold and nasty, with a keen wind. The sky drips with +rain. We jump over puddles as we walk. I stare fixedly at Benoît's +square shoulders in front of me, and the dancing tails of his coat as +the wind hustles them along the nocturnal way. + +Passing through the suburban quarter, the wind comes so hard between +the infrequent houses that the bushes on either side shiver and press +towards us, and seem to unfurl. Ah, we are not made for the greater +happenings! + +* * * * * * + +I meet first in the room the resounding glare of a wood fire and an +almost repelling heat. The odors of camphor and ether catch my throat. +People that I know are standing round the bed. They turn to me and +speak all together. + +I bend down to look at Mame. She is inlaid upon the whiteness of the +bed, which is motionless as marble. Her face is sunk in the cavity of +the pillow. Her eyes are half closed and do not move; her skin has +darkened. Each breath hums in her throat, and beyond that slight +stirring of larynx and lips her little frail body moves no more than a +doll's. She has not got her cap on and her gray hair is unraveled on +her head like flocks of dust. + +Several voices at once explain to me that it is "double congestion, and +her heart as well." She was attacked by a dizziness, by prolonged and +terrible shivering. She wandered, mentioned me, then suddenly +collapsed. The doctor has no hope but is coming back. The Reverend +Father Piot was here at five. + +Silence hovers. A woman puts a log in the fire, in the center of the +dazzling cluster of snarling flames, whose light throws the room into +total agitation. + +* * * * * * + +For a long time I look upon that face, where ugliness and goodness are +mingled in such a heartrending way. My eyes seek those already almost +shut, whose light is hardening. Something of darkness, an internal +shadow which is of herself, overspreads and disfigures her. One may +see now how outworn she was, how miraculously she still held on. + +This tortured and condemned woman is all that has looked after me for +twenty years. For twenty years she took my hand before she took my +arm. She always prevented me from understanding that I was an orphan. +Delicate and small as I was for so long, she was taller and stronger +and better than I! And at this moment, which shows me the past again +in one glance, I remember that she beautified the affairs of my +childhood like an old magician; and my head goes lower as I think of +her untiring admiration for me. How she did love me! And she must +love me still, confusedly, if some glimmering light yet lasts in the +depths of her. What will become of me--all alone? + +She was so sensitive, and so restless! A hundred details of her +vivacity come to life again in my eyes. Stupidly, I contemplate the +poker, the tongs, the big spoon--all the things she used to flourish as +she chattered. There they are--fallen, paralyzed, mute! + +As in a dream I go back to the times when she talked and shouted, to +days of youth, to days of spring and of springtime dresses; and all the +while my gaze, piercing that gay and airy vision, settles on the dark +stain of the hand that lies there like the shadow of a hand, on the +sheet. + +My eyes are jumbling things together. I see our garden in the first +fine days of the year; our garden--it is behind that wall--so narrow is +it that the reflected sunshine from our two windows dapples the whole +of it; so small that it only holds some pot-encaged plants, except for +the three currant bushes which have always been there. In the scarves +of the sun rays a bird--a robin--is hopping on the twigs like a rag +jewel. All dusty in the sunshine our red hound, Mirliton, is warming +himself. So gaunt is he you feel sure he must be a fast runner. +Certainly he runs after glimpsed rabbits on Sundays in the country, but +he never caught any. He never caught anything but fleas. When I lag +behind because of my littleness my aunt turns round, on the edge of the +footpath, and holds out her arms, and I run to her, and she stoops as I +come and calls me by my name. + +* * * * * * + +"Simon! Simon!" + +A woman is here. I wrench myself from the dream which had come into +the room and taken solidity before me. I stand up; it is my cousin +Marie. + +She offers me her hands among the candles which flutter by the bed. In +their poor starlight her face appears haggard and wet. My aunt loved +her. Her lips are trembling on her rows of sparkling teeth; the whole +breadth of her bosom heaves quickly. + +I have sunk again into the armchair. Memories flow again, while the +sick woman's breathing is longer drawn, and her stillness becomes more +and more inexorable. Things she used to say return to my lips. Then +my eyes are raised, and look for Marie, and turn upon her. + +* * * * * * + +She has leaned against the wall, and remains so--overcome. She invests +the corner where she stands with something like profane and sumptuous +beauty. Her changeful chestnut hair, like bronze and gold, forms moist +and disordered scrolls on her forehead and her innocent cheeks. Her +neck, especially, her white neck, appears to me. The atmosphere is so +choking, so visibly heavy, that it enshrouds us as if the room were on +fire, and she has loosened the neck of her dress, and her throat is +lighted up by the flaming logs. I smile weakly at her. My eyes wander +over the fullness of her hips and her outspread shoulders, and fasten, +in that downfallen room, on her throat, white as dawn. + +* * * * * * + +The doctor has been again. He stood some time in silence by the bed; +and as he looked our hearts froze. He said it would be over to-night, +and put the phial in his hand back in his pocket. Then, regretting +that he could not stay, he disappeared. + +And we stayed on beside the dying woman--so fragile that we dare not +touch her, nor even try to speak to her. + +Madame Piot settles down in a chair; she crosses her arms, lowers her +head, and the time goes by. + +At long intervals people take shape in the darkness by the door; people +who come in on tiptoe whisper to us and go away. + +The moribund moves her hands and feet and contorts her face. A +gurgling comes from her throat, which we can hardly see in the cavity +that is like a nest of shadow under her chin. She has blenched, and +the skin that is drawn over the bones of her face like a shroud grows +whiter every moment. + +Intent upon her breathing, we throng about her. We offer her our +hands--so near and so far--and do not know what to do. + +I am watching Marie. She has sunk onto the little stool, and her +young, full-blooming body overflows it. Holding her handkerchief in +her teeth, she has come to arrange the pillow, and leaning over the +bed, she puts one knee on a chair. The movement reveals her leg for a +moment, curved like a beautiful Greek vase, while the skin seems to +shine through the black transparency of the stocking, like clouded +gold. Ah! I lean forward towards her with a stifled, incipient appeal +above this bed, which is changing into a tomb. The border of the +tragic dress has fallen again, but I cannot remove my eyes from that +profound obscurity. I look at Marie, and look at her again; and though +I knew her, it seems to me that I wholly discover her. + +"I can't hear anything now," says a woman. + +"Yes I can----" + +"No, no!" the other repeats. + +Then I see Crillon's huge back bending over. My aunt's mouth opens +gently and remains open. The eyelids fall back almost completely upon +the stiffened gleam of the eyes, which squint in the gray and bony +mask. I see Crillon's big hand hover over the little mummified face, +lowering the eyelids and keeping them closed. + +Marie utters a cry when this movement tells her that our aunt has just +died. + +She sways. My hand goes out to her. I take her, support, and enfold +her. Fainting, she clings to me, and for one moment I carry--gently, +heavily--all the young woman's weight. The neck of her dress is +undone, and falls like foliage from her throat, and I just saw the real +curve of her bosom, nakedly and distractedly throbbing. + +Her body is agitated. She hides her face in her hands and then turns +it to mine. It chanced that our faces met, and my lips gathered the +wonderful savor of her tears! + +* * * * * * + +The room fills with lamentation; there is a continuous sound of deep +sighing. It is overrun by neighbors become friends, to whom no one +pays attention. + +And now, in this sacred homelet, where death still bleeds, I cannot +prevent a heavy heart-beat in me towards the girl who is prostrated +like the rest, but who reigns there, in spite of me--of herself--of +everything. I feel myself agitated by an obscure and huge rapture--the +birth of my flesh and my vitals among these shadows. Beside this poor +creature who was so blended with me, and who is falling, falling, +through a hell of eternity, I am uplifted by a sort of hope. + +I want to fix my attention on the fixity of the bed. I put my hand +over my eyes to shut out all thought save of the dead woman, +defenseless already, reclining on that earth into which she will sink. +But my looks, impelled by superhuman curiosity, escape between my +fingers to this other woman, half revealed to me in the tumult of +sorrow, and my eyes cannot come out of her. + +Madame Piot has changed the candles and attached a band to support the +dead woman's chin. Framed in this napkin, which is knotted over the +skull in her woolly gray hair, the face looks like a hook-nosed mask of +green bronze, with a vitrified line of eyes; the knees make two sharp +summits under the sheet; one's eyes run along the thin rods of the +shins and the feet lift the linen like two in-driven nails. + +Slowly Marie prepares to go. She has closed the neck of her dress and +hidden herself in her cloak. She comes up to me, sore-hearted, and +with her tears for a moment quenched she smiles at me without speaking. +I half rise, my hands tremble towards her smile as if to touch it, +above the past and the dust of my second mother. + +Towards the end of the night, when the dead fire is scattering +chilliness, the women go away one by one. One hour, two hours, I +remain alone. I pace the room in one direction and another, then I +look, and shiver. My aunt is no more. There is only left of her +something indistinct, struck down, of subterranean color, and her place +is desolate. Now, close to her, I am alone! Alone--magnified by my +affliction, master of my future, disturbed and numbed by the newness of +the things now beginning. At last the window grows pale, the ceiling +turns gray, and the candle-flames wink in the first traces of light. + +I shiver without end. In the depth of my dawn, in the heart of this +room where I have always been, I recall the image of a woman who filled +it--a woman standing at the chimney-corner, where a gladsome fire +flames, and she is garbed in reflected purple, her corsage scarlet, her +face golden, as she holds to the glow those hands transparent and +beautiful as flames. In the darkness, from my vigil, I look at her. + +* * * * * * + +The two nights which followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at +the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give +animation to dead things. During the two days various activities +brought me distraction, at first distressing, then depressing. + +The last night I opened my aunt's jewel box. It was called "the little +box." It was on the dressing table, at the bottom of piled-up litter. +I found some topaz ear-rings of a bygone period, a gold cross, equally +outdistanced, small and slender--a little girl's, or a young girl's; +and then, wrapped in tissue paper, like a relic, a portrait of myself +when a child. Last, a written page, torn from one of my old school +copy-books, which she had not been able to throw wholly away. +Transparent at the folds, the worn sheet was fragile as lace, and gave +the illusion of being equally precious. That was all the treasure my +aunt had collected. That jewel box held the poverty of her life and +the wealth of her heart. + +* * * * * * + +It poured with rain on the day of the funeral. All the morning groups +of people succeeded each other in the big cavern of our room, a going +and coming of sighs. My aunt was laid in her coffin towards two +o'clock, and it was carried then into the passage, where visitors' feet +had brought dirt and puddles. A belated wreath was awaited, and then +the umbrellas opened, and under their black undulation the procession +moved off. + +When we came out of the church it was not far off four o'clock. The +rain had not stopped and little rivers dashed down from either side of +the procession's sluggish flow along the street. There were many +flowers, so that the hearse made a blot of relief, beautiful enough. +There were many people, too, and I turned round several times. Always +I saw old Eudo, in his black cowl, hopping along in the mud, +hunchbacked as a crow. Marie was walking among some women in the +second half of the file, whose frail and streaming roof the hearse drew +along irregularly with jerks and halts. Her gait was jaded; she was +thinking only of our sorrow! All things darkened again to my eyes in +the ugliness of the evening. + +The cemetery is full of mud under the muslin of fallen rain, and the +footfalls make a sticky sound in it. There are a few trees, naked and +paralyzed. The sky is marshy and sprinkled with crows. + +The coffin, with its shapeless human form, is lowered from the hearse +and disappears in the fresh earth. + +They march past. Marie and her father take their places beside me. I +say thanks to every one in the same tone; they are all like each other, +with their gestures of impotence, their dejected faces, the words they +get ready and pour out as they pass before me, and their dark costume. +No one has come from the castle, but in spite of that there are many +people and they all converge upon me. I pluck up courage. + +Monsieur Lucien Gozlan comes forward, calls me "my dear sir," and +brings me the condolences of his uncles, while the rest watch us. + +Joseph Bonéas says "my dear friend" to me, and that affects me deeply. +Monsieur Pocard says, "If I had been advised in time I would have said +a few words. It is regrettable----" + +Others follow; then nothing more is to be seen in the rain, the wind +and the gloom but backs. + +"It's finished. Let's go." + +Marie lifts to me her sorrow-laved face. She is sweet; she is +affectionate; she is unhappy; but she does not love me. + +We go away in disorder, along by the trees whose skeletons the winter +has blackened. + +When we arrive in our quarter, twilight has invaded the streets. We +hear gusts of talk about the Pocard scheme. Ah, how fiercely people +live and seek success! + +Little Antoinette, cautiously feeling her way by a big wall, hears us +pass. She stops and would look if she could. We espy her figure in +that twilight of which she is beginning to make a part, though fine and +faint as a pistil. + +"Poor little angel!" says a woman, as she goes by. + +Marie and her father are the only ones left near me when we pass +Rampaille's tavern. Some men who were at the funeral are sitting at +tables there, black-clad. + +We reach my home; Marie offers me her hand, and we hesitate. "Come +in." + +She enters. We look at the dead room; the floor is wet, and the wind +blows through as if we were out of doors. Both of us are crying, and +she says, "I will come to-morrow and tidy up. Till then----" + +We take each other's hand in confused hesitation. + +* * * * * * + +A little later there is a scraping at the door, then a timid knock, and +a long figure appears. + +It is Véron who presents himself with an awkward air. His tall and +badly jointed body swings like a hanging signboard. He is an original +and sentimental soul, but no one has ever troubled to find out what he +is. He begins, "My young friend--hum, hum--" (he repeats this formless +sound every two or three words, like a sort of clock with a sonorous +tick)--"One may be wanting money, you know, for something--hum, hum; +you need money, perhaps--hum, hum; all this expense--and I'd said to +myself 'I'll take him some----'" + +He scrutinizes me as he repeats, "Hum, hum." I shake his hand with +tears in my eyes. I do not need money, but I know I shall never forget +that action; so good, so supernatural. + +And when he has swung himself out, abashed by my refusal, embarrassed +by the unusual size of his legs and his heart, I sit down in a corner, +seized with shivering. Then I obliterate myself in another corner, +equally forlorn. It seems as if Marie has gone away with all I have. +I am in mourning and I am all alone, because of her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARIE + + +The seat leans against the gray wall, at the spot where a rose tree +hangs over it, and the lane begins to slope to the river. I asked +Marie to come, and I am waiting for her in the evening. + +When I asked her--in sudden decision after so many days of +hesitation--to meet me here this evening, she was silent, astonished. +But she did not refuse; she did not answer. Some people came and she +went away. I am waiting for her, after that prayer. + +Slowly I stroll to the river bank. When I return some one is on the +seat, enthroned in the shadow. The face is indistinct, but in the +apparel of mourning I can see the neck-opening, like a faint pale +heart, and the misty expansion of the skirt. Stooping, I hear her low +voice, "I've come, you see." And, "Marie!" I say. + +I sit down beside her, and we remain silent. She is there--wholly. +Through her black veils I can make out the whiteness of her face and +neck and hands--all her beauty, like light enclosed. + +For me she had only been a charming picture, a passer-by, one apart, +living her own life. Now she has listened to me; she has come at my +call; she has brought herself here. + +* * * * * * + +The day has been scorching. Towards the end of the afternoon +storm-rain burst over the world and then ceased. One can still hear +belated drops falling from the branches which overhang the wall. The +air is charged with odors of earth and leaves and flowers, and wreaths +of wind go heavily by. + +She is the first to speak; she speaks of one thing and another. + +I do not know what she is saying; I draw nearer to see her lips; I +answer her, "I am always thinking of you." + +Hearing these words, she is silent. Her silence grows greater and +greater in the shadows. I have drawn still nearer; so near that I feel +on my cheek the wing-beat of her breath; so near that her silence +caresses me. + +Then, to keep myself in countenance, or to smoke, I have struck a +match, but I make no use of the gleam at my finger-tips. It shows me +Marie, quivering a little; it gilds her pale face. A smile arises on +her face; I have seen her full of that smile. + +My eyes grow dim and my hands tremble. I wish she would speak. + +"Tell me----" Her down-bent neck unfolds, and she lifts her head to +speak. At that moment, by the light of the flame that I hold, whose +great revealing kindness I am guarding, our eyes fall on an inscription +scratched in the wall--a heart--and inside it two initials, H-S. Ah, +that design was made by me one evening. Little Helen was lolling there +then, and I thought I adored her. For a moment I am overpowered by +this apparition of a mistake, bygone and forgotten. Marie does not +know; but seeing those initials, and divining a presence between us, +she dare not speak. + +As the match is on the point of going out I throw it down. The little +flame's last flicker has lighted up for me the edge of the poor black +serge skirt, so worn that it shines a little, even in the evening, and +has shown me the girl's shoe. There is a hole in the heel of the +stocking, and we have both seen it. In quick shame, Marie draws her +foot under her skirt; and I--I tremble still more that my eyes have +touched a little of her maiden flesh, a fragment of her real innocence. + +Gently she stands up in the grayness, and puts an end to this first +fate-changing meeting. + +We return. The obscurity is outstretched all around and against us. +Together and alone we go into the following chambers of the night. My +eyes follow the sway of her body in her dress against the vaguely +luminous background of the wall. Amid the night her dress is night +also; she is there--wholly! There is a singing in my ears; an anthem +fills the world. + +In the street, where there are no more wayfarers, she walks on the edge +of the causeway. So that my face may be on a level with hers, I walk +beside her in the gutter, and the cold water enters my boots. + +And that evening, inflated by mad longing, I am so triumphantly +confident that I do not even remember to shake her hand. By her door I +said to her, "To-morrow," and she answered, "Yes." + +On one of the days which followed, finding myself free in the +afternoon, I made my way to the great populous building of flats where +she lives. I ascended two dark flights of steps, closely encaged, and +followed a long elbowed corridor. Here it is. I knock and enter. +Complete silence greets me. There is no one, and acute disappointment +runs through me. + +I take some hesitant steps in the tiny vestibule, which is lighted by +the glass door to the kitchen, wherein I hear the drip of water. I see +a room whose curtains invest it with broidered light. There is a bed +in it, with a cover of sky-blue satinette shining like the blue of a +chromo. It is Marie's room! Her gray silk hat, rose-trimmed, hangs +from a nail on the flowery paper. She has not worn it since my aunt's +death; and alongside hang black dresses. I enter this bright blue +sanctuary, inhabited only by a cold and snow-like light, and orderly +and chaste as a picture. + +My hand goes out like a thief's. I touch, I stroke these dresses, +which are wont to touch Marie. I turn again to the blue-veiled bed. +On a whatnot there are books, and their titles invite me; for where her +thoughts dwell, the things which occupy her mind--but I leave them. I +would rather go near her bed. With a movement at once mad, frightened +and trembling, I lift the quilts that clothe it and my gaze enters it, +and my knees lean trembling on the edge of this great lifeless thing, +which, alone among dead things, is one of soft and supple flesh. + +* * * * * * + +My customary life continues and my work is always the same. I make +notes, by the way, of Crillon's honest trivialities; of Brisbille's +untimely outbursts; of the rumors anent the Pocard scheme, and the +progress of the Association of Avengers, a society to promote national +awakening, founded by Monsieur Joseph Bonéas. The same complex and +monotonous existence bears me along as it does everybody. But since +that tragic night when my sorrow was transformed into joy at the +lyke-wake in the old room, in truth the world is no longer what it was. +People and things appear to me shadowy and distant when I go out into +the current of the crowds; when I am dressing in my room and decide +that I look well in black; when I sit up late at my table in the +sunshine of hope. Now and again the memory of my aunt comes bodily +back to me. Sometimes I hear people pronounce the name of Marie. My +body starts when it hears them say "Marie," who know not what they say. +And there are moments when our separation throbs so warmly that I do +not know whether she is here or absent. + +* * * * * * + +During this walk that we have just had together the summer and the +sweetness of living have weighed more than ever on my shoulders. Her +huge home, which is such a swarming hive at certain times, is now +immensely empty in the labyrinth of its dark stairs and the landings, +whence issue the narrow closed streets of its corridors, and where in +the corners taps drip upon drain-stones. Our immense--our naked +solitude pervades us. An exquisite emotion takes hold of me while we +are slowly climbing the steep and methodical way. There is something +human in the stairway; in the inevitable shapes of its spiral and its +steps cut out of the quick, in the rhythmic repetition of its steps. A +round skylight pierces the sloping roof up there, and it is the only +light for this part of the people's house, this poor internal city. +The darkness which runs down the walls of the well, whence we are +striving to emerge step by step, conceals our laborious climb towards +that gap of daylight. Shadowed and secret as we are, it seems to me +that we are mounting to heaven. + +Oppressed by a common languor, we at last sat down side by side on a +step. There is no sound in the building under the one round window +bending over us. We lean on each other because of the stair's +narrowness. Her warmth enters into me; I feel myself agitated by that +obscure light which radiates from her. I share with her the heat of +her body and her thought itself. The darkness deepens round us. +Hardly can I see the crouching girl there, warm and hollowed like a +nest. + +I call her by her name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud +avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have +seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we +stammer, and murmur, and laugh. + +* * * * * * + +Together we are looking at a little square piece of paper. I found it +on the seat which the rose-tree overhangs on the edge of the downward +lane. Carefully folded, it had a forgotten look, and it was waiting +there, detained for a moment by its timorous weight. A few lines of +careful writing cover it. We read it: + + "I do not know how speaks the pious heart; nothing I know; th' +enraptured martyr I. Only I know the tears that brimming start, your +beauty blended with your smile to espy." + +Then, having read it, we read it again, moved by a mysterious +influence. And we finger the chance-captured paper, without knowing +what it is, without understanding very well what it says. + +* * * * * * + +When I asked her to go with me to the cemetery that Sunday, she agreed, +as she does to all I ask her. I watched her arms brush the roses as +she came in through the gardens. We walked in silence; more and more +we are losing the habit of talking to each other. We looked at the +latticed and flower-decked square where our aunt sleeps--the garden +which is only as big as a woman. Returning from the cemetery by way of +the fields, the sun already low, we join hands, seized with triumphant +delight. + +She is wearing a dress of black delaine, and the skirt, the sleeves and +the collar wave in the breeze. Sometimes she turns her radiant face to +me and it seems to grow still brighter when she looks at me. Slightly +stooping, she walks, though among the grass and flowers whose tints and +grace shine in reflection on her forehead and cheeks, she is a +giantess. A butterfly precedes us on our path and alights under our +eyes, but when we come up it takes wing again, and comes down a little +farther and begins all over again; and we smile at the butterfly that +thinks of us. + +Inlaid with gold by the slanting sun we lead each other, hand in hand, +as far as the statue of Flora, which once upon a time a lord of the +manor raised on the fringe of the wood. Against the abiding background +of distant heights the goddess stands, half-naked, in the beautiful +ripe light. Her fair hips are draped with a veil of still whiter +stone, like a linen garment. Before the old moss-mellowed pedestal I +pressed Marie desperately to my heart. Then, in the sacred solitude of +the wood, I put my hands upon her, and so that she might be like the +goddess I unfastened her black bodice, lowered the ribbon +shoulder-straps of her chemise, and laid bare her wide and rounded +bosom. + +She yielded to the adoration with lowered head, and her eyes +magnificently troubled, red-flushing with blood and sunshine. + +I put my lips on hers. Until that day, whenever I kissed her, her lips +submitted. This time she gave me back my long caress, and even her +eyes closed upon it. Then she stands there with her hands crossed on +her glorious throat, her red, wet lips ajar. She stands there, apart, +yet united to me, and her heart on her lips. + +She has covered her bosom again. The breeze is suddenly gusty. The +apple trees in the orchards are shaken and scatter bird-like jetsam in +space; and in that bright green paddock yonder the rows of out-hung +linen dance in the sunshine. The sky darkens; the wind rises and +prevails. It was that very day of the gale. It assaults our two +bodies on the flank of the hill; it comes out of infinity and sets +roaring the tawny forest foliage. We can see its agitation behind the +black grille of the trunks. It makes us dizzy to watch the swift +displacement of the gray-veiled sky, and from cloud to cloud a bird +seems hurled, like a stone. We go down towards the bottom of the +valley, clinging to the slope, an offering to the deepest breath of +heaven, driven forward yet holding each other back. + +So, gorged with the gale and deafened by the universal concert of space +that goes through our ears, we find sanctuary on the river bank. The +water flows between trees whose highest foliage is intermingled. By a +dark footpath, soft and damp, under the ogive of the branches, we +follow this crystal-paved cloister of green shadow. We come on a +flat-bottomed boat, used by the anglers. I make Marie enter it, and it +yields and groans under her weight. By the strokes of two old oars we +descend the current. + +It seems to our hearts and our inventing eyes that the banks take +flight on either side--it is the scenery of bushes and trees which +retreats. _We_--we abide! But the boat grounds among tall reeds. +Marie is half reclining and does not speak. I draw myself towards her +on my knees, and the boat quivers as I do. Her face in silence calls +me; she calls me wholly. With her prostrate body, surrendered and +disordered, she calls me. + +I possess her--she is mine! In sublime docility she yields to my +violent caress. Now she is mine--mine forever! Henceforth let what +may befall; let the years go by and the winters follow the summers, she +is mine, and my life is granted me! Proudly I think of the great and +famous lovers whom we resemble. I perceive that there is no recognized +law which can stand against the might of love. And under the transient +wing of the foliage, amid the continuous recessional of heaven and +earth, we repeat "never"; we repeat "always"; and we proclaim it to +eternity. + +* * * * * * + +The leaves are falling; the year draws near to its end; the wedding is +arranged to take place about Christmas. + +That decision was mine; Marie said "yes," as usual, and her father, +absorbed all the day in figures, would emerge from them at night, like +a shipwrecked man, seeing darkly, passive, except on rare occasions +when he had fits of mad obstinacy, and no one knew why. + +In the early morning sometimes, when I was climbing Chestnut Hill on my +way to work, Marie would appear before me at a corner, in the pale and +blushing dawn. We would walk on together, bathed in those fresh fires, +and would watch the town at our feet rising again from its ashes. Or, +on my way back, she would suddenly be there, and we would walk side by +side towards her home. We loved each other too much to be able to +talk. A very few words we exchanged just to entwine our voices, and in +speaking of other people we smiled at each other. + +One day, about that time, Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon had the +kindly thought of asking us both to an evening party at the castle, +with several leading people of our quarter. When all the guests were +gathered in a huge gallery, adorned with busts which sat in state +between high curtains of red damask, the Marquis took it into his head +to cut off the electricity. In a lordly way he liked heavy practical +jokes--I was just smiling at Marie, who was standing near me in the +middle of the crowded gallery, when suddenly it was dark. I put out my +arms and drew her to me. She responded with a spirit she had not shown +before, our lips met more passionately than ever, and our single body +swayed among the invisible, ejaculating throng that elbowed and jostled +us. The light flashed again. We had loosed our hold. Ah, it was not +Marie whom I had clasped! The woman fled with a stifled exclamation of +shame and indignation towards him who she believed had embraced her, +and who had seen nothing. Confused, and as though still blind, I +rejoined Marie, but I was myself again with difficulty. In spite of +all, that kiss which had suddenly brought me in naked contact with a +complete stranger remained to me an extraordinary and infernal delight. +Afterwards, I thought I recognized the woman by her blue dress, half +seen at the same time as the gleam of her neck after that brief and +dazzling incident. But there were three of them somewhat alike. I +never knew which of those unknown women concealed within her flesh the +half of the thrill that I could not shake off all the evening. + +* * * * * * + +There was a large gathering at the wedding. The Marquis and +Marchioness of Monthyon appeared at the sacristy. Brisbille, by good +luck, stayed away. Good sectarian that he was, he only acknowledged +civil marriages. I was a little shamefaced to see march past, taking +their share of the fine and tranquil smile distributed by Marie, some +women who had formerly been my mistresses--Madame Lacaille, nervous, +subtle, mystical; big Victorine and her good-natured rotundity, who had +welcomed me any time and anywhere; and Madeleine Chaine; and slender +Antonia above all, with the Italian woman's ardent and theatrical face, +ebony-framed, and wearing a hat of Parisian splendor. For Antonia is +very elegant since she married Véron. I could not help wincing when I +saw that lanky woman, who had clung to me in venturesome rooms, now +assiduous around us in her ceremonious attire. But how far off and +obliterated all that was! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DAY BY DAY + + +We rearranged the house. We did not alter the general arrangement, nor +the places of the heavy furniture--that would have been too great a +change. But we cast out all the dusty old stuff, the fossilized and +worthless knick-knacks that Mame had accumulated. The photographs on +the walls, which were dying of jaundice and debility, and which no +longer stood for anybody, because of the greatness of time, we cleared +out of their imitation tortoiseshell and buried in the depths of +drawers. + +I bought some furniture, and as we sniffed the odor of varnish which +hung about for a long time in the lower room, we said, "This is the +real thing." And, indeed, our home was pretty much like the +middle-class establishments of our quarter and everywhere. Is it not +the only really proud moment here on earth, when we can say, "I, too!" + +Years went by. There was nothing remarkable in our life. When I came +home in the evening, Marie, who often had not been out and had kept on +her dressing-gown and plaits, used to say, "There's been nothing to +speak of to-day." + +The aeroplanes were appearing at that time. We talked about them, and +saw photographs of them in the papers. One Sunday we saw one from our +window. We had heard the chopped-up noise of its engine expanding over +the sky; and down below, the townsfolk on their doorsteps, raised their +heads towards the ceiling of their streets. Rattling space was marked +with a dot. We kept our eyes on it and saw the great flat and noisy +insect grow bigger and bigger, silhouetting the black of its angles and +partitioned lines against the airy wadding of the clouds. When its +headlong flight had passed, when it had dwindled in our eyes and ears +amid the new world of sounds, which it drew in its train, Marie sighed +dreamily. + +"I would like," she said, "to go up in an aeroplane, into the +wind--into the sky!" + +One spring we talked a lot about a trip we would take some day. Some +railway posters had been stuck on the walls of the old tin works, that +the Pocard scheme was going to transfigure. We looked at them the day +they were freshly brilliant in their wet varnish and their smell of +paste. We preferred the bill about Corsica, which showed seaside +landscapes, harbors with picturesque people in the foreground and a +purple mountain behind, all among garlands. And later, even when +stiffened and torn and cracking in the wind, that poster attracted us. + +One evening, in the kitchen, when we had just come in--there are +memories which mysteriously outlive the rest--and Marie was lighting +the fire, with her hat on and her hands wiped out in the twilight by +the grime of the coal, she said, "We'll make that trip later!" + +Sometimes it happened that we went out, she and I, during the week. I +looked about me and shared my thoughts with her. Never very talkative, +she would listen to me. Coming out of the Place de l'Eglise, which +used to affect us so much not long ago, we often used to meet Jean and +Genevieve Trompson, near the sunken post where an old jam pot lies on +the ground. Everybody used to say of these two, "They'll separate, +you'll see; that's what comes of loving each other too much; it was +madness, I always said so." And hearing these things, unfortunately +true, Marie would murmur, with a sort of obstinate gentleness, "Love is +sacred." + +Returning, not far from the anachronistic and clandestine Eudo's lair, +we used to hear the coughing parrot. That old bird, worn threadbare, +and of a faded green hue, never ceased to imitate the fits of coughing +which two years before had torn Adolphe Piot's lungs, who died in the +midst of his family under such sad circumstances. Those days we would +return with our ears full of the obstinate clamor of that recording +bird, which had set itself fiercely to immortalize the noise that +passed for a moment through the world, and toss the echoes of an +ancient calamity, of which everybody had ceased to think. + +Almost the only people about us are Marthe, my little sister-in-law, +who is six years old, and resembles her sister like a surprising +miniature; my father-in-law, who is gradually annihilating himself; and +Crillon. This last lives always contented in the same shop while time +goes by, like his father and his grandfather, and the cobbler of the +fable, his eternal ancestor. Under his square cap, on the edge of his +glazed niche, he soliloquizes, while he smokes the short and juicy pipe +which joins him in talking and spitting--indeed, he seems to be +answering it. A lonely toiler, his lot is increasingly hard, and +almost worthless. He often comes in to us to do little jobs--mend a +table leg, re-seat a chair, replace a tile. Then he says, "There's +summat I must tell you----" + +So he retails the gossip of the district, for it is against his +conscience, as he frankly avows, to conceal what he knows. And Heaven +knows, there is gossip enough in our quarter!--a complete network, +above and below, of quarrels, intrigues and deceptions, woven around +man, woman and the public in general. One says, "It _can't_ be true!" +and then thinks about something else. + +And Crillon, in face of all this perversity, all this wrong-doing, +smiles! I like to see that happy smile of innocence on the lowly +worker's face. He is better than I, and he even understands life +better, with his unfailing good sense. + +I say to him, "But are there not any bad customs and vices? +Alcoholism, for instance?" + +"Yes," says Crillon, "as long as you don't exarrergate it. I don't +like exarrergations, and I find as much of it among the pestimists as +among the opticions. Drink, you say! It's chiefly that folks haven't +enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that +drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if +they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified +silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it +is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against +Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse +than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille weren't the anarchist he is +and frightening everybody, I'd excuse him his dirty nose and even not +taking it out of a pint pot all the week through. It isn't a crime, +isn't only being a good boozer. We've got to look ahead and have a +broad spirit, as Monsieur Joseph says. Tolerantness! We all want it, +eh?" + +"You're a good sort," I say. + +"I'm a man, like everybody," proudly replies Crillon. "It's not that I +hold by accustomary ideas; I'm not an antiquitary, but I don't like to +single-arise myself. If I'm a botcher in life, it's cos I'm the same +as others--no less," he says, straightening up. And standing still +more erect, he adds, "_Nor_ no more, neither!" + +When we are not chatting we read aloud. There is a very fine library +at the factory, selected by Madame Valentine Gozlan from works of an +educational or moral kind, for the use of the staff. Marie, whose +imagination goes further afield than mine, and who has not my +anxieties, directs the reading. She opens a book and reads aloud while +I take my ease, looking at the pastel portrait which hangs just +opposite the window. On the glass which entombs the picture I see the +gently moving and puffing reflection of the fidgety window curtains, +and the face of that glazed portrait becomes blurred with broken +streaks and all kinds of wave marks. + +"Ah, these adventures!" Marie sometimes sighs, at the end of a chapter; +"these things that never happen!" + +"Thank Heaven," I cry. + +"Alas," she replies. + +Even when people live together they differ more than they think! + +At other times Marie reads to herself, quite silently. I surprise her +absorbed in this occupation. It even happens that she applies herself +thus to poetry. In her set and stooping face her eyes come and go over +the abbreviated lines of the verses. From time to time she raises them +and looks up at the sky, and--vastly further than the visible sky--at +all that escapes from the little cage of words. + +And sometimes we are lightly touched with boredom. + +* * * * * * + +One evening Marie informed me that the canary was dead, and she began +to cry, as she showed me the open cage and the bird which lay at the +bottom, with its feet curled up, as rumpled and stark as the little +yellow plaything of a doll. I sympathized with her sorrow; but her +tears were endless, and I found her emotion disproportionate. + +"Come now," I said, "after all, a bird's only a bird, a mere point that +moved a little in a corner of the room. What then? What about the +thousands of birds that die, and the people that die, and the poor?" +But she shook her head, insisted on grieving, tried to prove to me that +it was momentous and that she was right. + +For a moment I stood bewildered by this want of understanding; this +difference between her way of feeling and mine. It was a disagreeable +revelation of the unknown. One might often, in regard to small +matters, make a multitude of reflections if one wished; but one does +not wish. + +* * * * * * + +My position at the factory and in our quarter is becoming gradually +stronger. By reason of a regular gratuity which I received, we are at +last able to put money aside each month, like everybody. + +"I say!" cried Crillon, pulling me outside with him, as I was coming in +one evening; "I must let you know that you've been spoken of +spontanially for the Town Council at the next renewment. They're +making a big effort, you know. Monsieur the Marquis is going to stand +for the legislative elections--but we've walked into the other +quarter," said Crillon, stopping dead. "Come back, come back." + +We turned right-about-face. + +"This patriotic society of Monsieur Joseph," Crillon went on, "has done +a lot of harm to the anarchists. We've all got to let 'em feel our +elbows, that's necessential. You've got a foot in the factory, eh? +You see the workmen; have a crack of talk with 'em. You ingreasiate +yourself with 'em, so's some of 'em'll vote for you. For _them's_ the +danger." + +"It's true that I am very sympathetic to them," I murmured, impressed +by this prospect. + +Crillon came to a stand in front of the Public Baths. "It's the +seventeenth to-day," he explained; "the day of the month when I takes a +bath. Oh, yes! I know that _you_ go every Thursday; but I'm not of +that mind. You're young, of course, and p'raps you have good reason! +But you take my tip, and hobnob with the working man. We must bestir +ourselves and impell ourselves, what the devil! As for me, I've +finished my political efforts for peace and order. It's _your_ turn!" + +He is right. Looking at the ageing man, I note that his framework is +slightly bowed; that his ill-shaven cheeks are humpbacked with little +ends of hair turning into white crystals. In his lowly sphere he has +done his duty. I reflect upon the mite-like efforts of the unimportant +people; of the mountains of tasks performed by anonymity. They are +necessary, these hosts of people so closely resembling each other; for +cities are built upon the poor brotherhood of paving-stones. + +He is right, as always. I, who am still young; I, who am on a higher +level than his; I must play a part, and subdue the desire one has to +let things go on as they may. + +A sudden movement of will appears in my life, which otherwise proceeds +as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A VOICE IN THE EVENING + + +I approached the workpeople with all possible sympathy. The toiler's +lot, moreover, raises interesting problems, which one should seek to +understand. So I inform myself in the matter of those around me. + +"You want to see the greasers' work? Here I am," said Marcassin, +surnamed Pétrolus. "I'm the lamp-man. Before that I was a greaser. +Is that any better? Can't say. It's here that that goes on, +look--there. My place you'll find at night by letting your nose guide +you." + +The truth is that the corner of the factory to which he leads me has an +aggressive smell. The shapeless walls of this sort of grotto are +adorned with shelves full of leaking lamps--lamps dirty as beasts. In +a bucket there are old wicks and other departed things. At the foot of +a wooden cupboard which looks like iron are lamp glasses in paper +shirts; and farther away, groups of oil-drums. All is dilapidated and +ruinous; all is dark in this angle of the great building where light is +elaborated. The specter of a huge window stands yonder. The panes +only half appear; so encrusted are they they might be covered with +yellow paper. The great stones--the rocks--of the walls are +upholstered with a dark deposit of grease, like the bottom of a +stewpan, and nests of dust hang from them. Black puddles gleam on the +floor, with beds of slime from the scraping of the lamps. + +There he lives and moves, in his armored tunic encrusted with filth as +dark as coffee-grounds. In his poor claw he grips the chief implement +of his work--a black rag. His grimy hands shine with paraffin, and the +oil, sunk and blackened in his nails, gives them a look of wick ends. +All day long he cleans lamps, and repairs, and unscrews, and fills, and +wipes them. The dirt and the darkness of this population of appliances +he attracts to himself, and he works like a nigger. + +"For it's got to be well done," he says, "and even when you're fagged +out, you must keep on rubbing hard." + +"There's six hundred and sixty-three, monsieur" (he says "monsieur" as +soon as he embarks on technical explanations), "counting the smart ones +in the fine offices, and the lanterns in the wood-yard, and the night +watchmen. You'll say to me, 'Why don't they have electricity that +lights itself?' It's 'cos that costs money and they get paraffin for +next to nothing, it seems, through a big firm 'at they're in with up +yonder. As for me, I'm always on my legs, from the morning when I'm +tired through sleeping badly, from after dinner when you feel sick with +eating, up to the evening, when you're sick of everything." + +The bell has rung, and we go away in company. He has pulled off his +blue trousers and tunic and thrown them into a corner--two objects +which have grown heavy and rusty, like tools. But the dirty shell of +his toil did upholster him a little, and he emerges from it gaunter, +and horribly squeezed within the littleness of a torturing jacket. His +bony legs, in trousers too wide and too short, break off at the bottom +in long and mournful shoes, with hillocks, and resembling crocodiles; +and their soles, being soaked in paraffin, leave oily footprints, +rainbow-hued, in the plastic mud. + +Perhaps it is because of this dismal companion towards whom I turn my +head, and whom I see trotting slowly and painfully at my side in the +rumbling grayness of the evening exodus, that I have a sudden and +tragic vision of the people, as in a flash's passing. (I do sometimes +get glimpses of the things of life momentarily.) The dark doorway to +my vision seems torn asunder. Between these two phantoms in front the +sable swarm outspreads. The multitude encumbers the plain that +bristles with dark chimneys and cranes, with ladders of iron planted +black and vertical in nakedness--a plain vaguely scribbled with +geometrical lines, rails and cinder paths--a plain utilized yet barren. +In some places about the approaches to the factory cartloads of clinker +and cinders have been dumped, and some of it continues to burn like +pyres, throwing off dark flames and darker curtains. Higher, the hazy +clouds vomited by the tall chimneys come together in broad mountains +whose foundations brush the ground and cover the land with a stormy +sky. In the depths of these clouds humanity is let loose. The immense +expanse of men moves and shouts and rolls in the same course all +through the suburb. An inexhaustible echo of cries surrounds us; it is +like hell in eruption and begirt by bronze horizons. + +At that moment I am afraid of the multitude. It brings something +limitless into being, something which surpasses and threatens us; and +it seems to me that he who is not with it will one day be trodden +underfoot. + +My head goes down in thought. I walk close to Marcassin, who gives me +the impression of an escaping animal, hopping through the +darkness--whether because of his name,[1] or his stench, I do not know. +The evening is darkening; the wind is tearing leaves away; it thickens +with rain and begins to nip. + +[Footnote 1: _Marcassin_--a young wild boar.--Tr.] + +My miserable companion's voice comes to me in shreds. He is trying to +explain to me the law of unremitting toil. An echo of his murmur +reaches my face. + +"And that's what one hasn't the least idea of. Because what's nearest +to us, often, one doesn't see it." + +"Yes, that's true," I say, rather weary of his monotonous complaining. + +I try a few words of consolation, knowing that he was recently married. +"After all, no one comes bothering you in your own little corner. +There's always that. And then, after all, you're going home--your wife +is waiting for you. You're lucky----" + +"I've no time; or rather, I've no strength. At nights, when I come +home I'm too tired--I'm too tired, you understand, to be happy, you +see. Every morning I think I shall be, and I'm hoping up till noon; +but at night I'm too knocked out, what with walking and rubbing for +eleven hours; and on Sundays I'm done in altogether with the week. +There's even times that I don't even wash myself when I come in. I +just stay with my hands mucky; and on Sundays when I'm cleaned up, it's +a nasty one when they say to me, 'You're looking well.'" + +And while I am listening to the tragicomical recital which he retails, +like a soliloquy, without expecting replies from me--luckily, for I +should not know how to answer--I can, in fact, recall those holidays +when the face of Pétrolus is embellished by the visible marks of water. + +"Apart from that," he goes on, withdrawing his chin into the gray +string of his over-large collar; "apart from that, Charlotte, she's +very good. She looks after me, and tidies the house, and it's her that +lights _our_ lamp; and she hides the books carefully away from me so's +I can't grease 'em, and my fingers make prints on 'em like criminals. +She's good, but it doesn't turn out well, same as I've told you, and +when one's unhappy everything's favorable to being unhappy." + +He is silent for a while, and then adds by way of conclusion to all he +has said, and to all that one can say, "_My_ father, he caved in at +fifty. And I shall cave in at fifty, p'raps before." + +With his thumb he points through the twilight at that sort of indelible +darkness which makes the multitude, "Them others, it's not the same +with them. There's those that want to change everything and keep going +on that notion. There's those that drink and want to drink, and keep +going that way." + +I hardly listen to him while he explains to me the grievances of the +different groups of workmen, "The molders, monsieur, them, it's a +matter of the gangs----" + +Just now, while looking at the population of the factory, I was almost +afraid; it seemed to me that these toilers were different sorts of +beings from the detached and impecunious people who live around me. +When I look at this one I say to myself, "They are the same; they are +all alike." + +In the distance, and together, they strike fear, and their combination +is a menace; but near by they are only the same as this one. One must +not look at them in the distance. + +Pétrolus gets excited; he makes gestures; he punches in and punches out +again with his fist, the hat which is stuck askew on his conical head, +over the ears that are pointed like artichoke leaves. He is in front +of me, and each of his soles is pierced by a valve which draws in water +from the saturated ground. + +"The unions, monsieur----" he cries to me in the wind, "why, it's +dangerous to point at them. You haven't the right to think any +more--that's what they call liberty. If you're in _them_, you've got +to be agin the parsons--(I'm willing, but what's that got to do with +labor?)--and there's something more serious," the lamp-man adds, in a +suddenly changed voice, "you've got to be agin the army,--the _army_!" + +And now the poor slave of the lamp seems to take a resolution. He +stops and devotionally rolling his Don Quixote eyes in his gloomy, +emaciated face, he says, "_I'm_ always thinking about something. What? +you'll say. Well, here it is. I belong to the League of Patriots." + +As they brighten still more, his eyes are like two live embers in the +darkness, "Déroulède!" he cries; "that's the man--he's _my_ God!" + +Pétrolus raises his voice and gesticulates; he makes great movements in +the night at the vision of his idol, to whom his leanness and his long +elastic arms give him some resemblance. "He's for war; he's for +Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing +else. Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear +off the earth, else it'll be us. Ah, when they talk politics to _me_, +I ask 'em, 'Are you for Déroulède, yes or no?' That's enough! I got +my schooling any old how, and I know next to nothing but I reckon it's +grand, only to think like that, and in the Reserves I'm +adjutant[1]--almost an officer, monsieur, just a lamp-man as I am!" + +[Footnote 1: A non-com., approximately equivalent to regimental +sergeant-major.--Tr.] + +He tells me, almost in shouts and signs, because of the wind across the +open, that his worship dates from a function at which Paul Déroulède +had spoken to him. "He spoke to everybody, an' then he spoke to me, as +close to me as you and me; but it was _him_! I wanted an idea, and he +gave it to me!" + +"Very good," I say to him; "very good. You are a patriot, that's +excellent." + +I feel that the greatness of this creed surpasses the selfish demands +of labor--although I have never had the time to think much about these +things--and it strikes me as touching and noble. + +A last fiery spasm gets hold of Pétrolus as he espies afar Eudo's +pointed house, and he cries that on the great day of revenge there will +be some accounts to settle; and then the fervor of this ideal-bearer +cools and fades, and is spent along the length of the roads. He is now +no more than a poor black bantam which cannot possibly take wing. His +face mournfully awakes to the evening. He shuffles along, bows his +long and feeble spine, and his spirit and his strength exhausted, he +approaches the porch of his house, where Madame Marcassin awaits him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SUMMARY + + +The workmen manifest mistrust and even dislike towards me. Why? I +don't know; but my good intentions have gradually got weary. + +One after another, sundry women have occupied my life. Antonia Véron +was first. Her marriage and mine, their hindrance and restriction, +threw us back upon each other as of yore. We found ourselves alone one +day in my house--where nothing ever used to happen, and she offered me +her lips, irresistibly. The appeal of her sensuality was answered by +mine, then, and often later. But the pleasure constantly restored, +which impelled me towards her, always ended in dismal enlightenments. +She remained a capricious and baffling egotist, and when I came away +from her house across the dark suburb among a host of beings vanishing, +like myself, I only brought away the memory of her nervous and +irritating laugh, and that new wrinkle which clung to her mouth like an +implement. + +Then younger desires destroyed the old, and gallant adventures begot +one another. It is all over with this one and that one whom I adored. +When I see them again, I wonder that I can say, at one and the same +time, of a being who has not changed, "How I loved her!" and, "How I +have ceased to love her!" + +All the while performing as a duty my daily task, all the while taking +suitable precautions so that Marie may not know and may not suffer, I +am looking for the happiness which lives. And truly, when I have a +sense of some new assent wavering and making ready, or when I am on the +way to a first rendezvous, I feel myself gloriously uplifted, and equal +to everything! + +This fills my life. Desire wears the brain as much as thought wears +it. All my being is agog for chances to shine and to be shared. When +they say in my presence of some young woman that, "she is not happy," a +thrill of joy tears through me. + +On Sundays, among the crowds, I have often felt my heart tighten with +distress as I watch the unknown women. Reverie has often held me all +day because of one who has gone by and disappeared, leaving me a clear +vision of her curtained room, and of herself, vibrating like a harp. +She, perhaps, was the one I should have always loved; she whom I seek +gropingly, desperately, from each to the next. Ah, what a delightful +thing to see and to think of a distant woman always is, whoever she may +be! + +There are moments when I suffer, and am to be pitied. Assuredly, if +one could read me really, no one would pity me. And yet all men are +like me. If they are gifted with acceptable physique they dream of +headlong adventures, they attempt them, and our heart never stands +still. But no one acknowledges that, no one, ever. + +Then, there were the women who turned me a cold shoulder; and among +them all Madame Pierron, a beautiful and genteel woman of twenty-five +years, with her black fillets and her marble profile, who still +retained the obvious awkwardness and vacant eye of young married women. +Tranquil, staid and silent, she came and went and lived, totally blind +to my looks of admiration. + +This perfect unconcern aggravated my passion. I remember my pangs one +morning in June, when I saw some feminine linen spread upon the green +hedge within her garden. The delicate white things marshaled there +were waiting, stirred by the leaves and the breeze; so that Spring lent +them frail shape and sweetness--and life. I remember, too, a gaunt +house, scorching in the sun, and a window which flashed and then shut! +The window stayed shut, like a slab. All the world was silent; and +that splendid living being was walled up there. And last, I have +recollection of an evening when, in the bluish and dark green and +chalky landscape of the town and its rounded gardens, I saw that window +lighted up. A narrow glimmer of rose and gold was enframed there, and +I could distinguish, leaning on the sill that overhung the town, in the +heart of that resplendence, a feminine form which stirred before my +eyes in inaccessible forbearance. Long did I watch with shaking knees +that window dawning upon space, as the shepherd watches the rising of +Venus. That evening, when I had come in and was alone for a +moment--Marie was busy below in the kitchen--alone in our unattractive +room, I retired to the starry window, beset by immense thoughts. These +spaces, these separations, these incalculable durations--they all +reduce us to dust, they all have a sort of fearful splendor from which +we seek defense in our hiding. + +* * * * * * + +I have not retained a definite recollection of a period of jealousy +from which I suffered for a year. From certain facts, certain profound +changes of mood in Marie, it seemed to me that there was some one +between her and me. But beyond vague symptoms and these terrible +reflections on her, I never knew anything. The truth, everywhere +around me, was only a phantom of truth. I experienced acute internal +wounds of humiliation and shame, of rebellion! I struggled feebly, as +well as I could, against a mystery too great for me, and then my +suspicions wore themselves out. I fled from the nightmare, and by a +strong effort I forgot it. Perhaps my imputations had no basis; but it +is curious how one ends in only believing what one wants to believe. + +* * * * * * + +Something which had been plotting a long while among the Socialist +extremists suddenly produced a stoppage of work at the factory, and +this was followed by demonstrations which rolled through the terrified +town. Everywhere the shutters went up. The business people blotted +out their shops, and the town looked like a tragic Sunday. + +"It's a revolution!" said Marie to me, turning pale, as Benoît cried to +us from the step of our porch the news that the workmen were marching. +"How does it come about that you knew nothing at the factory?" + +An hour later we learned that a delegation composed of the most +dangerous ringleaders was preceding the army of demonstrators, +commissioned to extort outrageous advantages, with threats, from +Messrs. Gozlan. + +Our quarter had a loose and dejected look. People went furtively, +seeking news, and doors half opened regretfully. Here and there groups +formed and lamented in undertones the public authority's lack of +foresight, the insufficient measures for preserving order. + +Rumors were peddled about on the progress of the demonstration. + +"They're crossing the river." + +"They're at the Calvary cross-roads." + +"It's a march against the castle!" + +I went into Fontan's. He was not there, and some men were talking in +the twilight of the closed shutters. + +"The Baroness is in a dreadful way. She's seen a dark mass in the +distance. Some young men of the aristocracy have armed themselves and +are guarding her. She says it's another Jacquerie[1] rising!" + +[Footnote 1: A terrible insurrection of the French peasantry in +1358.--Tr.] + +"Ah, my God! What a mess!" said Crillon. + +"It's the beginning of the end!" asserted old Daddy Ponce, shaking his +grayish-yellow forehead, all plaited with wrinkles. + +Time went by--still no news. What are they doing yonder? What shall +we hear next? + +At last, towards three o'clock Postaire is framed in the doorway, +sweating and exultant. "It's over! It's all right, my lad!" he gasps; +"I can vouch for it that they all arrived together at the Gozlans' +villa. Messrs. Gozlan were there. The delegates, I can vouch for it +that they started shouting and threatening, my lad! 'Never mind that!' +says one of the Messrs. Gozlan, 'let's have a drink first; I'll vouch +for it we'll talk better after!' There was a table and champagne, I'll +vouch for it. They gave 'em it to drink, and then some more and then +some more. I'll vouch for it they sent themselves something down, my +lad, into their waistcoats. I can vouch for it that the bottles of +champagne came like magic out of the ground. Fontan kept always +bringing them as though he was coining them. Got to admit it was an +extra-double-special guaranteed champagne, that you want to go cautious +with. So then, after three-quarters of an hour, nearly all the +deputation were drunk. They spun round, tongue-tied, and embraced each +other,--I can vouch for it. There were some that stuck it, but they +didn't count, my lad! The others didn't even know what they'd come +for. And the bosses; they'd had a fright, and they didn't half wriggle +and roar with laughing--I'll vouch for it, my lad! An' then, +to-morrow, if they want to start again, there'll be troops here!" + +Joyful astonishment--the strike had been drowned in wine! And we +repeated to each other, "To-morrow there'll be the military!" + +"Ah!" gaped Crillon, rolling wonder-struck eyes, "That's clever! Good; +that's clever, that is! Good, old chap----" + +He laughed a heavy, vengeful laugh, and repeated his familiar refrain +full-throated: "The sovereign people that can't stand on its own +legs!" + +By the side of a few faint-hearted citizens who had already, since the +morning, modified their political opinions, a great figure rises before +my eyes--Fontan. I remember that night, already long ago, when a +chance glimpse through the vent-hole of his cellar showed me shiploads +of bottles of champagne heaped together, and pointed like shells. For +some future day he foresaw to-day's victory. He is really clever, he +sees clearly and he sees far. He has rescued law and order by a sort +of genius. + +The constraint which has weighed all day on our gestures and words +explodes in delight. Noisily we cast off that demeanor of conspirators +which has bent our shoulders since morning. The windows that were +closed during the weighty hours of the insurrection are opened wide; +the houses breathe again. + +"We're saved from that gang!" people say, when they approach each +other. + +This feeling of deliverance pervades the most lowly. On the step of +the little blood-red restaurant I spy Monsieur Mielvaque, hopping for +joy. He is shivering, too, in his thin gray coat, cracked with +wrinkles, that looks like wrapping paper; and one would say that his +dwindled face had at long last caught the hue of the folios he +desperately copies among his long days and his short nights, to pick up +some sprigs of extra pay. There he stands, not daring to enter the +restaurant (for a reason he knows too well); but how delighted he is +with the day's triumph for society! And Mademoiselle Constantine, the +dressmaker, incurably poor and worn away by her sewing-machine, is +overjoyed. She opens wide the eyes which seem eternally full of tears, +and in the grayish abiding half-mourning of imperfect cleanliness, in +pallid excitement, she claps her hands. + +Marie and I can hear the furious desperate hammering of Brisbille in +his forge, and we begin to laugh as we have not laughed for a long +time. + +At night, before going to sleep, I recall my former democratic fancies. +Thank God, I have escaped from a great peril! I can see it clearly by +the terror which the workmen's menace spread in decent circles, and by +the universal joy which greeted their recoil! My deepest tendencies +take hold of me again for good, and everything settles down as before. + +* * * * * * + +Much time has gone by. It is ten years now since I was married, and in +that lapse of time there is hardly a happening that I remember, unless +it be the disillusion of the death of Marie's rich godmother, who left +us nothing. There was the failure of the Pocard scheme, which was only +a swindle and ruined many small people. Politics pervaded the scandal, +while certain people hurried with their money to Monsieur Boulaque, +whose scheme was much more safe and substantial. There was also my +father-in-law's illness and his death, which was a great shock to +Marie, and put us into black clothes. + +I have not changed. Marie _has_ somewhat. She has got stouter; her +eyelids look tired and red, and she buries herself in silences. We are +no longer quite in accord in details of our life. She who once always +said "Yes," is now primarily disposed to say "No." If I insist she +defends her opinion, obstinately, sourly; and sometimes dishonestly. +For example, in the matter of pulling down the partition downstairs, if +people had heard our high voices they would have thought there was a +quarrel. Following some of our discussions, she keeps her face +contracted and spiteful, or assumes the martyr's air, and sometimes +there are moments of hatred between us. + +Often she says, while talking of something else, "Ah, if we had had a +child, all would have been different!" + +I am becoming personally negligent, through a sort of idleness, against +which I have not sufficient grounds for reaction. When we are by +ourselves, at meal times, my hands are sometimes questionable. From +day to day, and from month to month, I defer going to the dentist and +postpone the attention required. I am allowing my molars to get +jagged. + +Marie never shows any jealousy, nor even suspicion about my personal +adventures. Her trust is almost excessive! She is not very +far-seeing, or else I am nothing very much to her, and I have a grudge +against her for this indifference. + +And now I see around me women who are too young to love me. That most +positive of obstacles, the age difference, begins to separate me from +the amorous. And yet I am not surfeited with love, and I yearn towards +youth! Marthe, my little sister-in-law, said to me one day, "Now that +you're old----" That a child of fifteen years, so freshly dawned and +really new, can bring herself to pass this artless judgment on a man of +thirty-five--that is fate's first warning, the first sad day which +tells us at midsummer that winter will come. + +One evening, as I entered the room, I indistinctly saw Marie, sitting +and musing by the window. As I came in she got up--it was Marthe! The +light from the sky, pale as a dawn, had blenched the young girl's +golden hair and turned the trace of a smile on her cheek into something +like a wrinkle. Cruelly, the play of the light showed her face faded +and her neck flabby; and because she had been yawning, even her eyes +were watery, and for some seconds the lids were sunk and reddened. + +The resemblance of the two sisters tortured me. This little Marthe, +with her luxurious and appetizing color, her warm pink cheeks and moist +lips; this plump adolescent whose short skirt shows her curving calves, +is an affecting picture of what Marie was. It is a sort of terrible +revelation. In truth Marthe resembles, more than the Marie of to-day +does, the Marie whom I formerly loved; the Marie who came out of the +unknown, whom I saw one evening sitting on the rose-tree seat, shining, +silent--in the presence of love. + +It required a great effort on my part not to try, weakly and vainly, to +approach Marthe--the impossible dream, the dream of dreams! She has a +little love affair with a youngster hardly molted into adolescence, and +rather absurd, whom one catches sight of now and again as he slips away +from her side; and that day when she sang so much in spite of herself, +it was because a little rival was ill. I am as much a stranger to her +girlish growing triumph and to her thoughts as if I were her enemy! +One morning when she was capering and laughing, flower-crowned, at the +doorstep, she looked to me like a being from another world. + +* * * * * * + +One winter's day, when Marie had gone out and I was arranging my +papers, I found a letter I had written not long before, but had not +posted, and I threw the useless document on the fire. When Marie came +back in the evening, she settled herself in front of the fire to dry +herself, and to revive it for the room's twilight; and the letter, +which had been only in part consumed, took fire again. And suddenly +there gleamed in the night a shred of paper with a shred of my +writing--"_I love you as much as you love me_!" + +And it was so clear, the inscription that flamed in the darkness, that +it was not worth while even to attempt an explanation. + +We could not speak, nor even look at each other! In the fatal +communion of thought which seized us just then, we turned aside from +each other, even shadow-veiled as we were. We fled from the truth! In +these great happenings we become strangers to each other for the reason +that we never knew each other profoundly. We are vaguely separated on +earth from everybody else, but we are mightily distant from our +nearest. + +* * * * * * + +After all these things, my former life resumed its indifferent course. +Certainly I am not so unhappy as they who have the bleeding wound of a +bereavement or remorse, but I am not so delighted with life as I once +hoped to be. Ah, men's love and women's beauty are too short-lived in +this world; and yet, is it not only thereby that we and they exist? It +might be said that love, so pure a thing, the only one worth while in +life, is a crime, since it is always punished sooner or later. I do +not understand. We are a pitiful lot; and everywhere about us--in our +movements, within our walls, and from hour to hour, there is a stifling +mediocrity. Fate's face is gray. + +Notwithstanding, my personal position has established itself and +progressively improved. I am getting three hundred and sixty francs a +month, and besides, I have a share in the profits of the litigation +office--about fifty francs a month. It is a year and a half since I +was stagnating in the little glass office, to which Monsieur Mielvaque +has been promoted, succeeding me. Nowadays they say to me, "You're +lucky!" They envy me--who once envied so many people. It astonishes +me at first, then I get used to it. + +I have restored my political plans, but this time I have a rational and +normal policy in view. I am nominated to succeed Crillon in the Town +Council. There, no doubt, I shall arrive sooner or later. I continue +to become a personality by the force of circumstances, without my +noticing it, and without any real interest in me on the part of those +around me. + +Quite a piece of my life has now gone by. When sometimes I think of +that, I am surprised at the length of the time elapsed; at the number +of the days and the years that are dead. It has come quickly, and +without much change in myself on the other hand; and I turn away from +that vision, at once real and supernatural. And yet, in spite of +myself, my future appears before my eyes--and its end. My future will +resemble my past; it does so already. I can dimly see all my life, +from one end to the other, all that I am, all that I shall have been. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BRAWLER + + +At the time of the great military maneuvers of September, 1913, Viviers +was an important center of the operations. All the district was +brightened with a swarming of red and blue and with martial ardor. + +Alone and systematically, Brisbille was the reviler. From the top of +Chestnut Hill, where we were watching a strategical display, he pointed +at the military mass. "Maneuvers, do they call them? I could die of +laughing! The red caps have dug trenches and the white-band caps have +bunged 'em up again. Take away the War Office, and you've only kids' +games left." + +"It's war!" explained an influential military correspondent, who was +standing by. + +Then the journalist talked with a colleague about the Russians. + +"The Russians!" Brisbille broke in; "when they've formed a +republic----" + +"He's a simpleton," said the journalist, smiling. + +The inebriate jumped astride his hobby horse. "War me no war, it's all +lunacy! And look, look--look at those red trousers that you can see +miles away! They must do it on purpose for soldiers to be killed, that +they don't dress 'em in the color of nothing at all!" + +A lady could not help breaking in here: "What?" Change our little +soldiers' red trousers? Impossible! There's no good reason for it. +They would never consent! They would rebel." + +"Egad!" said a young officer; "why we should all throw up our +commissions! And any way, the red trousers are not the danger one +thinks. If they were as visible as all that, the High Command would +have noticed it and would have taken steps--just for field service, and +without interfering with the parade uniform!" + +The regimental sergeant-major cut the discussion short as he turned to +Brisbille with vibrant scorn and said, "When the Day of Revenge comes, +_we_ shall have to be there to defend _you_!" + +And Brisbille only uttered a shapeless reply, for the sergeant-major +was an athlete, and gifted with a bad temper, especially when others +were present. + +The castle was quartering a Staff. Hunting parties were given for the +occasion in the manorial demesne, and passing processions of bedizened +guests were seen. Among the generals and nobles shone an Austrian +prince of the blood royal, who bore one of the great names in the +Almanach de Gotha, and who was officially in France to follow the +military operations. + +The presence of the Baroness's semi-Imperial guest caused a great +impression of historic glamour to hover over the country. His name was +repeated; his windows were pointed out in the middle of the principal +front, and one thought himself lucky if he saw the curtains moving. +Many families of poor people detached themselves from their quarters in +the evenings to take up positions before the wall behind which he was. + +Marie and I, we were close to him twice. + +One evening after dinner, we met him as one meets any passer-by among +the rest. He was walking alone, covered by a great gray waterproof. +His felt hat was adorned with a short feather. He displayed the +characteristic features of his race--a long turned-down nose and a +receding chin. + +When he had gone by, Marie and I said, both at the same time, and a +little dazzled, "An eagle!" + +We saw him again at the end of a stag-hunt. They had driven a stag +into the Morteuil forest. The _mort_ took place in a clearing in the +park, near the outer wall. The Baroness, who always thought of the +townsfolk, had ordered the little gate to be opened which gives into +this part of the demesne, so that the public could be present at the +spectacle. + +It was imperious and pompous. The scene one entered, on leaving the +sunny fields and passing through the gate, was a huge circle of dark +foliage in the heart of the ancient forest. At first, one saw only the +majestic summits of mountainous trees, like peaks and globes lost amid +the heavens, which on all sides overhung the clearing and bathed it in +twilight almost green. + +In this lordly solemnity of nature, down among the grass, moss and dead +wood, there flowed a contracted but brilliant concourse around the +final preparations for the execution of the stag. + +The animal was kneeling on the ground, weak and overwhelmed. We +pressed round, and eyes were thrust forward between heads and shoulders +to see him. One could make out the gray thicket of his antlers, his +great lolling tongue, and the enormous throb of his heart, agitating +his exhausted body. A little wounded fawn clung to him, bleeding +abundantly, flowing like a spring. + +Round about it the ceremony was arranged in several circles. The +beaters, in ranks, made a glaring red patch in the moist green +atmosphere. The hunters, men and women, all dismounted, in scarlet +coats and black hats, crowded together. Apart, the saddle and tackle +horses snorted, with creaking of leather and jingle of metal. Kept at +a respectful distance by a rope extended hastily on posts, the +inquisitive crowd flowed and increased every instant. + +The blood which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and +one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, +pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of +the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching +head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held +back with difficulty, and that of the little one, cowering beside him +and dying with gaping throat, would have been touching had one given +way to sentiment. + +I noticed that the imminent slaying of the stag excited a certain +curious fever. Around me the women and young girls especially elbowed +and wriggled their way to the front, and shuddered, and were glad. + +They cut the throats of the beasts, the big and the little, amid +absolute and religious silence, the silence of a sacrament. Madame +Lacaille vibrated from head to foot. Marie was calm, but there was a +gleam in her eyes; and little Marthe, who was hanging on to me, dug her +nails into my arm. The prince was prominent on our side, watching the +last act of the run. He had remained in the saddle. He was more +splendidly red than the others--empurpled, it seemed, by reflections +from a throne. He spoke in a loud voice, like one who is accustomed to +govern and likes to discourse; and his outline had the very form of +bidding. He expressed himself admirably in our language, of which he +knew the intimate graduations. I heard him saying, "These great +maneuvers, after all, they're a sham. It's music-hall war, directed by +scene-shifters. Hunting's better, because there's blood. We get too +much unaccustomed to blood, in our prosaic, humanitarian, and bleating +age. Ah, as long as the nations love hunting, I shall not despair of +them!" + +Just then, the crash of the horns and the thunder of the pack released +drowned all other sounds. The prince, erect in his stirrups, and +raising his proud head and his tawny mustache above the bloody and +cringing mob of the hounds, expanded his nostrils and seemed to sniff a +battlefield. + +The next day, when a few of us were chatting together in the street +near the sunken post where the old jam-pot lies, Benoît came up, full +of a tale to tell. Naturally it was about the prince. Benoît was +dejected and his lips were drawn and trembling. "He's killed a bear!" +said he, with glittering eye; "you should have seen it, ah! a tame +bear, of course. Listen--he was coming back from hunting with the +Marquis and Mademoiselle Berthe and some people behind. And he comes +on a wandering showman with a performing bear. A simpleton with long +black hair like feathers, and a bear that sat on its rump and did +little tricks and wore a belt. The prince had got his gun. I don't +know how it came about but the prince he got an idea. He said, 'I'd +like to kill that bear, as I do in my own hunting. Tell me, my good +fellow, how much shall I pay you for firing at the beast? You'll not +be a loser, I promise you.' The simpleton began to tremble and lift +his arms up in the air. He loved his bear! 'But my bear's the same as +my brother!' he says. Then do you know what the Marquis of Monthyon +did? He just simply took out his purse and opened it and put it under +the chap's nose; and all the smart hunting folk they laughed to see how +the simpleton changed when he saw all those bank notes. And naturally +he ended by nodding that it was a bargain, and he'd even seen so many +of the rustlers that he turned from crying to laughing! Then the +prince loaded his gun at ten paces from the bear and killed it with one +shot, my boy; just when he was rocking left and right, and sitting up +like a man. You ought to have seen it! There weren't a lot there; but +_I_ was there!" + +The story made an impression. No one spoke at first. Then some one +risked the opinion. "No doubt they do things like that in Hungary or +Bohemia, or where he reigns. You wouldn't see it here," he added, +innocently. + +"He's from Austria," Tudor corrected. + +"Yes," muttered Crillon, "but whether he's Austrian or whether he's +Bohemian or Hungarian, he's a grandee, so he's got the right to do what +he likes, eh?" + +Eudo looked as if he would intervene at this point and was seeking +words. (Not long before that he had had the queer notion of sheltering +and nursing a crippled hind that had escaped from a previous run, and +his act had given great displeasure in high places.) So as soon as he +opened his mouth we made him shut it. The idea of Eudo in judgment on +princes! + +And the rest lowered their heads and nodded and murmured, "Yes, he's a +grandee." + +And the little phrase spread abroad, timidly and obscurely. + +* * * * * * + +When All Saints' Day came round, many of the distinguished visitors at +the castle were still there. Every year that festival gives us +occasion for an historical ceremony on the grand scale. At two o'clock +all the townsfolk that matter gather with bunches of flowers on the +esplanade or in front of the cemetery half-way up Chestnut Hill, for +the ceremony and an open air service. + +Early in the afternoon I betook myself with Marie to the scene. I put +on a fancy waistcoat of black and white check and my new patent leather +boots, which make me look at them. It is fine weather on this Sunday +of Sundays, and the bells are ringing. Everywhere the hurrying crowd +climbs the hill--peasants in flat caps, working families in their best +clothes, young girls with faces white and glossy as the bridal satin +which is the color of their thoughts, young men carrying jars of +flowers. All these appear on the esplanade, where graying lime trees +are also in assembly. Children are sitting on the ground. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, in black, with his supremely distinguished air, +goes by holding his mother's arm. I bow deeply to them. He points at +the unfolding spectacle as he passes and says, "It is our race's +festival." + +The words made me look more seriously at the scene before my eyes--all +this tranquil and contemplative stir in the heart of festive nature. +Reflection and the vexations of my life have mellowed my mind. The +idea at last becomes clear in my brain of an entirety, an immense +multitude in space, and infinite in time, a multitude of which I am an +integral part, which has shaped me in its image, which continues to +keep me like it, and carries me along its control; my own people. + +Baroness Grille, in the riding habit that she almost always wears when +mixing with the people, is standing near the imposing entry to the +cemetery. Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon is holding aloft his +stately presence, his handsome and energetic face. Solid and sporting, +with dazzling shirt cuffs and fine ebon-black shoes, he parades a +smile. There is an M.P. too, a former Minister, very assiduous, who +chats with the old duke. There are the Messrs. Gozlan and famous +people whose names one does not know. Members of the Institute of the +great learned associations, or people fabulously wealthy. + +Not far from these groups, which are divided from the rest by a scarlet +barrier of beaters and the flashing chain of their slung horns, arises +Monsieur Fontan. The huge merchant and café-owner occupies an +intermediate and isolated place between principals and people. His +face is disposed in fat white tiers, like a Buddha's belly. +Monumentally motionless he says nothing at all, but he tranquilly spits +all around him. He radiates saliva. + +And for this ceremony, which seems like an apotheosis, all the notables +of our quarter are gathered together, as well as those of the other +quarter, who seem different and are similar. + +We elbow the ordinary types. Apolline goes crabwise. She is in new +things, and has sprinkled Eau-de-Cologne on her skin; her eye is +bright; her face well-polished; her ears richly adorned. She is always +rather dirty, and her wrists might be branches, but she has cotton +gloves. There are some shadows in the picture, for Brisbille has come +with his crony, Termite, so that his offensive and untidy presence may +be a protest. There is another blot--a working man's wife, who speaks +at their meetings; people point at her. "What's that woman doing +here?" + +"She doesn't believe in God," says some one. + +"Ah," says a mother standing by, "that's because she has no children." + +"Yes, she's got two." + +"Then," says the poor woman, "it's because they've never been ill." + +Here is little Antoinette and the old priest is holding her hand. She +must be fifteen or sixteen years old by now, and she has not grown--or, +at least, one has not noticed it. Father Piot, always white, gentle +and murmurous, has shrunk a little; more and more he leans towards the +tomb. Both of them proceed in tiny steps. + +"They're going to cure her, it seems. They're seeing to it seriously." + +"Yes--the extraordinary secret remedy they say they're going to try." + +"No, it's not that now. It's the new doctor who's come to live here, +and he says, they say, that he's going to see about it." + +"Poor little angel!" + +The almost blind child, whose Christian name alone one knows, and whose +health is the object of so much solicitude, goes stiffly by, as if she +were dumb also, and deaf to all the prayers that go on with her. + +After the service some one comes forward and begins to speak. He is an +old man, an officer of the Legion of Honor; his voice is weak but his +face noble. + +He speaks of the Dead, whose day this is. He explains to us that we +are not separated from them; not only by reason of the future life and +our sacred creeds, but because our life on earth must be purely and +simply a continuation of theirs. We must do as they did, and believe +what they believed, else shall we fall into error and utopianism. We +are all linked to each other and with the past; we are bound together +by an entirety of traditions and precepts. Our normal destiny, so +adequate to our nature, must be allowed to fulfill itself along the +indicated path, without hearkening to the temptations of novelty, of +hate, of envy--of envy above all, that social cancer, that enemy of the +great civic virtue--Discipline. + +He ceases. The echo of the great magnificent words floats in the +silence. Everybody does not understand all that has just been said; +but all have a deep impression that the text is one of simplicity, of +moderation, of obedience, and foreheads move altogether in the breath +of the phrases like a field in the breeze. + +"Yes," says Crillon, pensively, "he speaks to confection, that +gentleman. All that one thinks about, you can see it come out of his +mouth. Common sense and reverence, we're attached to 'em by +something." + +"We are attached to them by orderliness," says Joseph Bonéas. + +"The proof that it's the truth," Crillon urges, "is that it's in the +dissertions of everybody." + +"To be sure!" says Benoît, going a bit farther, "since everybody says +it, and it's become a general repetition!" + +The good old priest, in the center of an attentive circle, is +unstringing a few observations. "Er, hem," he says, "one should not +blaspheme. Ah, if there were not a good God, there would be many +things to say; but so long as there is a good God, all that happens is +adorable, as Monseigneur said. We shall make things better, certainly. +Poverty and public calamities and war, we shall change all that, we +shall set those things to rights, er, hem! But let us alone, above +all, and don't concern yourselves with it--you would spoil everything, +my children. _We_ shall do all that, but not immediately." + +"Quite so, quite so," we say in chorus. + +"Can we be happy all at once," the old man goes on; "change misery into +joy, and poverty into riches? Come now, it's not possible, and I'll +tell you why; if it had been as easy as all that, it would have been +done already, wouldn't it?" + +The bells begin to ring. The four strokes of the hour are just falling +from the steeple which the rising mists touch already, though the +evening makes use of it last of all; and just then one would say that +the church is beginning to talk even while it is singing. + +The important people get onto their horses or into their carriages and +go away--a cavalcade where uniforms gleam and gold glitters. We can +see the procession of the potentates of the day outlined on the crest +of the hill which is full of our dead. They climb and disappear, one +by one. _Our_ way is downward; but we form--they above and we +below--one and the same mass, all visible together. + +"It's fine!" says Marie, "it looks as if they were galloping over us!" + +They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal +framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past +which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions. + +And we, we are all alike, in spite of our different minds; alike in the +greatness of our common interests and even in the littleness of our +personal aims. I have become increasingly conscious of this close +concord of the masses beneath a huge and respect-inspiring hierarchy. +It permits a sort of lofty consolation and is exactly adapted to a life +like mine. This evening, by the light of the setting sun, I see it and +read it and admire it. + +All together we go down by the fields where tranquil corn is growing, +by the gardens and orchards where homely trees are making ready their +offerings--the scented blossom which lends, the fruit which gives +itself. They form an immense plain, sloping and darkling, with brown +undulations under the blue which now alone is becoming green. A little +girl, who has come from the spring, puts down her bucket and stands at +the roadside like a post, looking with all her eyes. She looks at the +marching multitude with beaming curiosity. Her littleness embraces +that immensity, because it is all a part of Order. A peasant who has +stuck to his work in spite of the festival and is bent over the deep +shadows of his field, raises himself from the earth which is so like +him, and turns towards the golden sun the shining monstrance of his +face. + +* * * * * * + +But what is this--this sort of madman, who stands in the middle of the +road and looks as if, all by himself, he would bar the crowd's passage? +We recognize Brisbille, swaying tipsily in the twilight. There is an +eddy and a muttering in the flow. + +"D'you want to know where all that's leading you?" he roars, and +nothing more can be heard but his voice. "It's leading you to hell! +It's the old rotten society, with the profiteering of all them that +can, and the stupidity of the rest! To hell, I tell you! To-morrow +look out for yourselves! To-morrow!" + +A woman's voice cries from out of the shadows, in a sort of scuffle, +"Be quiet, wicked man! You've no right to frighten folks!" + +But the drunkard continues to shout full-throated, "To-morrow! +To-morrow! D'you think things will always go on like that? You're fit +for killing! To hell!" + +Some people are impressed and disappear into the evening. Those who +are marking time around the obscure fanatic are growling, "He's not +only bad, he's mad, the dirty beast!" + +"It's disgraceful," says the young curate. + +Brisbille goes up to him. "_You_ tell me, then, _you_, what'll happen +very soon--Jesuit, puppet, land-shark! We know you, you and your +filthy, poisonous trade!" + +"_Say that again_!" + +It was I who said that. Leaving Marie's arm instinctively I sprang +forward and planted myself before the sinister person. After the +horrified murmur which followed the insult, a great silence had fallen +on the scene. + +Astounded, and his face suddenly filling with fear, Brisbille stumbles +and beats a retreat. + +The crowd regains confidence, and laughs, and congratulates me, and +reviles the back of the man who is sinking in the stream. + +"You were fine!" Marie said to me when I took her arm again, slightly +trembling. + +I returned home elated by my energetic act, still all of a tremor, +proud and happy. I have obeyed the prompting of my blood. It was the +great ancestral instinct which made me clench my fists and throw myself +bodily, like a weapon, upon the enemy of all. + +After dinner, naturally, I went to the military tattoo, at which, by an +unpardonable indifference, I have not regularly been present, although +these patriotic demonstrations have been organized by Monsieur Joseph +Bonéas and his League of Avengers. A long-drawn shudder, shrill and +sonorous, took flight through the main streets, filling the spectators +and especially the young folks, with enthusiasm for the great and +glorious deeds of the future. And Pétrolus, in the front row of the +crowd, was striding along in the crimson glow of the fairy-lamps--clad +in a visionary uniform of red. + +I remember that I talked a great deal that evening in our quarter, and +then in the house. Our quarter is something like all towns, something +like all country-sides, something like it is everywhere--it is a +foreshortened picture of all societies in the old universe, as my life +is a picture of life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE STORM + + +"There's going to be war," said Benoît, on our doorsteps in July. + +"No," said Crillon, who was there, too, "I know well enough there'll be +war some day, seeing there's always been war after war since the world +was a world, and therefore there'll be another; but just now--at +once--a big job like that? Nonsense! It's not true. No." + +Some days went by, tranquilly, as days do. Then the great story +reappeared, increased and branched out in all directions. Austria, +Serbia, the ultimatum, Russia. The notion of war was soon everywhere. +You could see it distracting men and slackening their pace in the going +and coming of work. One divined it behind the doors and windows of the +houses. + +One Saturday evening, when Marie and I--like most of the French--did +not know what to think, and talked emptily, we heard the town crier, +who performs in our quarter, as in the villages. + +"Ah!" she said. + +We went out and saw in the distance the back of the man who was tapping +a drum. His smock was ballooned. He seemed pushed aslant by the wind, +stiffening himself in the summer twilight to sound his muffled roll. +Although we could not see him well and scarcely heard him, his progress +through the street had something grand about it. + +Some people grouped in a corner said to us, "The mobilization." + +No other word left their lips. I went from group to group to form an +opinion, but people drew back with sealed faces, or mechanically raised +their arms heavenwards. And we knew no better what to think now that +we were at last informed. + +We went back into the court, the passage, the room, and then I said to +Marie, "I go on the ninth day--a week, day after to-morrow--to my depot +at Motteville." + +She looked at me, as though doubtful. + +I took my military pay book from the wardrobe and opened it on the +table. Leaning against each other, we looked chastely at the red page +where the day of my joining was written, and we spelled it all out as +if we were learning to read. + +Next day and the following days everybody went headlong to meet the +newspapers. We read in them--and under their different titles they +were then all alike--that a great and unanimous upspringing was +electrifying France, and the little crowd that we were felt itself also +caught by the rush of enthusiasm and resolution. We looked at each +other with shining eyes of approval. I, too, I heard myself cry, "At +last!" All our patriotism rose to the surface. + +Our quarter grew fevered. We made speeches, we proclaimed the moral +verities--or explained them. The echoes of vast or petty news went by +in us. In the streets, the garrison officers walked, grown taller, +disclosed. It was announced that Major de Trancheaux had rejoined, in +spite of his years, and that the German armies had attacked us in three +places at once. We cursed the Kaiser and rejoiced in his imminent +chastisement. In the middle of it all France appeared personified, and +we reflected on her great life, now suddenly and nakedly exposed. + +"It was easy to foresee this war, eh?" said Crillon. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas summarized the world-drama. We were all pacific +to the point of stupidity--little saints, in fact. No one in France +spoke any longer of revenge, nobody wished it, nobody thought of as +much as getting ready for war. We had all of us in our hearts only +dreams of universal happiness and progress, the while Germany secretly +prepared everything for hurling herself on us. "But," he added, he +also carried away, "she'll get it in the neck, and that's all about +it!" + +The desire for glory was making its way, and one cloudily imagines +Napoleon reborn. + +In these days, only the mornings and evenings returned as usual, +everything else was upside down, and seemed temporary. The workers +moved and talked in a desert of idleness, and one saw invisible changes +in the scenery of our valley and the cavity of our sky. + +We saw the Cuirassiers of the garrison go away in the evening. The +massive platoons of young-faced horsemen, whose solemn obstruction +heavily hammered the stones of the street, were separated by horses +loaded with bales of forage, by regimental wagons and baggage-carts, +which rattled unendingly. We formed a hedgerow along the twilight +causeways and watched them all disappear. Suddenly we cheered them. +The thrill that went through horses and men straightened them up and +they went away bigger--as if they were coming back! + +"It's magnificent, how warlike we are in France!" said fevered Marie, +squeezing my arm with all her might. + +The departures, of individuals or groups, multiplied. A sort of +methodical and inevitable tree-blazing--conducted sometimes by the +police--ransacked the population and thinned it from day to day around +the women. + +Increasing hurly-burly was everywhere--all the complicated measures so +prudently foreseen and so interdependent; the new posters on top of the +old ones, the requisitioning of animals and places, the committees and +the allowances, the booming and momentous gales of motor-cars filled +with officers and aristocratic nurses--so many lives turned inside out +and habits cut in two. But hope bedazzled all anxieties and stopped up +the gaps for the moment. And we admired the beauty of military +orderliness and France's preparation. + +Sometimes, at windows or street-corners, there were apparitions--people +covered with new uniforms. We had known them in vain, and did not know +them at first. Count d'Orchamp, lieutenant in the Active Reserves, and +Dr. Bardoux, town-major, displaying the cross of the Legion of Honor, +found themselves surrounded by respectful astonishment. Adjutant +Marcassin rose suddenly to the eyes as though he had come out of the +earth; Marcassin, brand-new, rigid, in blue and red, with his gold +stripe. One saw him afar, fascinating the groups of urchins who a week +ago threw stones at him. + +"The old lot--the little ones, and the middling ones and the big +ones--all getting new clothes!" says a triumphant woman of the people. + +Another said it was the coming of a new reign. + +* * * * * * + +From the Friday onwards I was engrossed by my own departure. It was +that day that we went to buy boots. We admired the beautiful +arrangement of the Cinema Hall as a Red Cross hospital. + +"They've thought of everything!" said Marie, examining the collection +of beds, furniture, and costly chests, rich and perfected material, all +arranged with delighted and very French animation by a team of +attendants who were under the orders of young Varennes, a pretty +hospital sergeant, and Monsieur Lucien Gozlan, superintendent officer. + +A center of life had created itself around the hospital. An open air +buffet had been set up in a twinkling. Apolline came there--since the +confusion of the mobilization all days were Sundays for her--to provide +herself with nips. We saw her hobbling along broadwise, hugging her +half-pint measure in her short turtle-like arms, the carrot slices of +her cheek-bones reddening as she already staggered with hope. + +On our way back, as we passed in front of Fontan's café, we caught a +glimpse of Fontan himself, assiduous, and his face lubricated with a +smile. Around him they were singing the Marseillaise in the smoke. He +had increased his staff, and he himself was making himself two, serving +and serving. His business was growing by the fatality of things. + +When we got back to our street, it was deserted, as of yore. The +faraway flutterings of the Marseillaise were dying. We heard +Brisbille, drunk, hammering with all his might on his anvil. The same +old shadows and the same lights were taking their places in the houses. +It seemed that ordinary life was coming back as it had been into our +corner after six days of supernatural disturbance, and that the past +was already stronger than the present. + +Before mounting our steps we saw, crouching in front of his shop door +by the light of a lamp that was hooded by whirling mosquitoes, the mass +of Crillon, who was striving to attach to a cudgel a flap for the +crushing of flies. Bent upon his work, his gaping mouth let hang the +half of a globular and shining tongue. Seeing us with our parcels, he +threw down his tackle, roared a sigh, and said, "That wood! It's +touchwood, yes. A butter-wire's the only thing for cutting that!" + +He stood up, discouraged; then changing his idea, and lighted from +below by his lamp so that he flamed in the evening, he extended his +tawny-edged arm and struck me on the shoulder. "We said war, war, all +along. Very well, we've got war, haven't we?" + +In our room I said to Marie, "Only three days left." + +Marie came and went and talked continually round me, all the time +sewing zinc buttons onto the new pouch, stiff with its dressing. She +seemed to be making an effort to divert me. She had on a blue blouse, +well-worn and soft, half open at the neck. Her place was a great one +in that gray room. + +She asked me if I should be a long time away, and then, as whenever she +put that question she went on, "Of course, you don't a bit know." She +regretted that I was only a private like everybody. She hoped it would +be over long before the winter. + +I did not speak. I saw that she was looking at me secretly, and she +surrounded me pell-mell with the news she had picked up. "D'you know, +the curate has gone as a private, no more nor less, like all the +clergy. And Monsieur the Marquis, who's a year past the age already, +has written to the Minister of War to put himself at his disposition, +and the Minister has sent a courier to thank him." She finished +wrapping up and tying some toilet items and also some provisions, as if +for a journey. "All your bits of things are there. You'll be +absolutely short of nothing, you see." + +Then she sat down and sighed. "Ah," she said, "war, after all, it's +more terrible than one imagines." + +She seemed to be having tragic presentiments. Her face was paler than +usual; the normal lassitude of her features was full of gentleness; her +eyelids were rosy as roses. Then she smiled weakly and said, "There +are some young men of eighteen who've enlisted, but only for the +duration of the war. They've done right; that'll be useful to them all +ways later in life." + +* * * * * * + +On Monday we hung about the house till four o'clock, when I left it to +go to the Town Hall, and then to the station. + +At the Town Hall a group of men, like myself, were stamping about. +They were loaded with parcels in string; new boots hung from their +shoulders. I went up to mix with my new companions. Tudor was topped +by an artilleryman's cap. Monsieur Mielvaque was bustling about, +embarrassed--exactly as at the factory--by the papers he held in his +hand; and he had exchanged his eyeglasses for spectacles, which stood +for the beginning of his uniform. Every man talked about himself, and +gave details concerning his regiment, his depot, and some personal +peculiarity. + +"I'm staying," says the adjutant master-at-arms, who rises impeccably +in his active service uniform, amid the bustle and the neutral-tinted +groups; "I'm not going. I'm the owner of my rank, and they haven't got +the right to send me to join the army." + +We waited long, and some hours went by. A rumor went round that we +should not go till the next day. But suddenly there was silence, a +stiffening up, and a military salute all round. The door had just +opened to admit Major de Trancheaux. + +The women drew aside. A civilian who was on the lookout for him went +up, hat in hand, and spoke to him in undertones. + +"But, my friend," cried the Major, quitting the importunate with a +quite military abruptness, "it's not worth while. In two months the +war will be over!" + +He came up to us. He was wearing a white band on his cap. + +"He's in command at the station," they say. + +He gave us a patriotic address, brief and spirited. He spoke of the +great revenge so long awaited by French hearts, assured us that we +should all be proud, later, to have lived in those hours, thrilled us +all, and added, "Come, say good-by to your folks. No more women now. +And let's be off, for I'm going with you as far as the station." + +A last confused scrimmage--with moist sounds of kisses and litanies of +advice--closed up in the great public hall. + +When I had embraced Marie I joined these who were falling in near the +road. We went off in files of four. All the causeways were garnished +with people, because of us; and at that moment I felt a lofty emotion +and a real thrill of glory. + +At the corner of a street I saw Crillon and Marie, who had run on ahead +to take their stand on our route. They waved to me. + +"Now, keep your peckers up, boys! You're not dead yet, eh!" Crillon +called to us. + +Marie was looking at me and could not speak. + +"In step! One-two!" cried Adjutant Marcassin, striding along the +detachment. + +We crossed our quarter as the day declined over it. The countryman who +was walking beside me shook his head and in the dusky immensity among +the world of things we were leaving, with big regular steps, fused into +one single step, he scattered wondering words. "Frenzy, it is," he +murmured. "_I_ haven't had time to understand it yet. And yet, you +know, there are some that say, I understand; well, I'm telling you, +that's not possible." + +The station--but we do not stop. They have opened before us the long +yellow barrier which is never opened. They make us cross the labyrinth +of hazy rails, and crowd us along a dark, covered platform between iron +pillars. + +And there, suddenly, we see that we are alone. + +* * * * * * + +The town--and life--are yonder, beyond that dismal plain of rails, +paths, low buildings and mists which surrounds us to the end of sight. +A chilliness is edging in along with twilight, and falling on our +perspiration and our enthusiasm. We fidget and wait. It goes gray, +and then black. The night comes to imprison us in its infinite +narrowness. We shiver and can see nothing more. With difficulty I can +make out, along our trampled platform, a dark flock, the buzz of +voices, the smell of tobacco. Here and there a match flame or the red +point of a cigarette makes some face phosphorescent. And we wait, +unoccupied, and weary of waiting, until we sit down, close-pressed +against each other, in the dark and the desert. + +Some hours later Adjutant Marcassin comes forward, a lantern in his +hand, and in a strident voice calls the roll. Then he goes away, and +we begin again to wait. + +At ten o'clock, after several false alarms, the right train is +announced. It comes up, distending as it comes, black and red. It is +already crowded, and it screams. It stops, and turns the platform into +a street. We climb up and put ourselves away--not without glimpses, by +the light of lanterns moving here and there, of some chalk sketches on +the carriages--heads of pigs in spiked helmets, and the inscription, +"To Berlin!"--the only things which slightly indicate where we are +going. + +The train sets off. We who have just got in crowd to the windows and +try to look outside, towards the level crossing where, perhaps, the +people in whom we live are still watching for us; but the eye can no +longer pick up anything but a vague stirring, shaded with crayon and +jumbled with nature. We are blind and we fall back each to his place. +When we are enveloped in the iron-hammered rumble of advance, we fix up +our luggage, arrange ourselves for the night, smoke, drink and talk. +Badly lighted and opaque with fumes, the compartment might be a corner +of a tavern that has been caught up and swept away into the unknown. + +Some conversation mixes its rumble with that of the train. My +neighbors talk about crops and sunshine and rain. Others, scoffers and +Parisians, speak of popular people and principally of music-hall +singers. Others sleep, lying somehow or other on the wood. Their open +mouths make murmur, and the oscillation jerks them without tearing them +from their torpor. I go over in my thoughts the details of the last +day, and even my memories of times gone by when there was nothing going +on. + +* * * * * * + +We traveled all night. At long intervals some one would let a window +drop at a station; a damp and cavernous breath would penetrate the +overdone atmosphere of the carriage. We saw darkness and some porter's +lantern dancing in the abyss of night. + +Several times we made very long halts--to let the trains of regular +troops go by. In one station where our train stood for hours, we saw +several of them go roaring by in succession. Their speed blurred the +partitions between the windows and the huge vertebrae of the coaches, +seeming to blend together the soldiers huddled there; and the glance +which plunged into the train's interior descried, in its feeble and +whirling illumination, a long, continuous and tremulous chain, clad in +blue and red. Several times on the journey we got glimpses of these +interminable lengths of humanity, hurled by machinery from everywhere +to the frontiers, and almost towing each other. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WALLS + + +At daybreak there was a stop, and they said to us, "You're there." + +We got out, yawning, our teeth chattering, and grimy with night, on to +a platform black-smudged by drizzling rain, in the middle of a sheet of +mist which was torn by blasts of distant whistling. Disinterred from +the carriages, our shadows heaped themselves there and waited, like +bales of goods in the dawn's winter. + +Adjutant Marcassin, who had gone in quest of instructions, returned at +last. "It's that way." + +He formed us in fours. "Forward! Straighten up! Keep step! Look as +if you had something about you." + +The rhythm of the step pulled at our feet and dovetailed us together. +The adjutant marched apart along the little column. Questioned by one +of us who knew him intimately, he made no reply. From time to time he +threw a quick glance, like the flick of a whip, to make sure that we +were in step. + +I thought I was going again to the old barracks, where I did my term of +service, but I had a sadder disappointment than was reasonable. Across +some land where building was going on, deeply trenched, beplastered and +soiled with white, we arrived at a new barracks, sinisterly white in a +velvet pall of fog. In front of the freshly painted gate there was +already a crowd of men like us, clothed in subdued civilian hues in the +coppered dust of the first rays of day. + +They made us sit on forms round the guard room. We waited there all +the day. As the scorching sun went round it forced us to change our +places several times. We ate with our knees for tables, and as I undid +the little parcels that Marie had made, it seemed to me that I was +touching her hands. When the evening had fallen, a passing officer +noticed us, made inquiries, and we were mustered. We plunged into the +night of the building. Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, +between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of +stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks. They led us into a dark +corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and +went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their +flames buffeted and snarling. + +A lighted doorway was stoppered by a throng--the store-room. I ended +by getting in in my turn, thanks to the pressure of the compact file +which followed me, and pushed me like a spiral spring. Some barrack +sergeants were exerting themselves authoritatively among piles of +new-smelling clothes, of caps and glittering equipment. Geared into +the jerky hustle from which we detached ourselves one by one, I made +the tour of the place, and came out of it wearing red trousers and +carrying my civilian clothes, and a blue coat on my arm; and not daring +to put on either my hat or the military cap that I held in my hand. + +We have dressed ourselves all alike. I look at the others since I +cannot look at myself, and thus I see myself dimly. Gloomily we eat +stew, by the miserable illumination of a candle, in the dull desert of +the mess room. Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great +yard, gray and stagnant. Just as we pour out into it, there is the +clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain. An armed sentry goes up +and down before the gate. It is forbidden to go out under pain of +court-martial. To westward, beyond some indistinct land, we see the +buried station, reddening and smoking like a factory, and sending out +rusty flashes. On the other side is the trench of a street; and in its +extended hollow are the bright points of some windows and the radiance +of a shop. With my face between the bars of the gate, I look on this +reflection of the other life; then I go back to the black staircase, +the corridor and the dormitory, I who am something and yet am nothing, +like a drop of water in a river. + +* * * * * * + +We stretch ourselves on straw, in thin blankets. I go to sleep with my +head on the bundle of my civilian clothes. In the morning I find +myself again and throw off a long dream--all at once impenetrable. + +My neighbor, sitting on his straw with his hair over his nose, is +occupied in scratching his feet. He yawns into tears, and says to me, +"I've dreamt about myself." + +* * * * * * + +Several days followed each other. We remained imprisoned in the +barracks, in ignorance. The only events were those related by the +newspapers which were handed to us through the gates in the morning. +The war got on very slowly; it immobilized itself, and we--we did +nothing, between the roll-calls, the parades, and from time to time +some cleaning fatigues. We could not go into the town, and we waited +for the evening--standing, sitting, strolling in the mess room (which +never seemed empty, so strong was the smell that filled it), wandering +about the dark stairs and the corridors dark as iron, or in the yard, +or as far as the gates, or the kitchens, which last were at the rear of +the buildings, and smelt in turns throughout the day of coffee-grounds +and grease. + +We said that perhaps, undoubtedly indeed, we should stay there till the +end of the war. We moped. When we went to bed we were tired with +standing still, or with walking too slowly. We should have liked to go +to the front. + +Marcassin, housed in the company office, was never far away, and kept +an eye on us in silence. One day I was sharply rebuked by him for +having turned the water on in the lavatory at a time other than +placarded. Detected, I had to stand before him at attention. He asked +me in coarse language if I knew how to read, talked of punishment, and +added, "Don't do it again!" This tirade, perhaps justified on the +whole, but tactlessly uttered by the quondam Pétrolus, humiliated me +deeply and left me gloomy all the day. Some other incidents showed me +that I no longer belonged to myself. + +* * * * * * + +One day, after morning parade, when the company was breaking off, a +Parisian of our section went up to Marcassin and asked him, "Adjutant, +we should like to know if we are going away." + +The officer took it in bad part. "To know? Always wanting to know!" +he cried; "it's a disease in France, this wanting to know. Get it well +into your heads that you _won't_ know! We shall do the knowing for +you! Words are done with. There's something else beginning, and +that's discipline and silence." + +The zeal we had felt for going to the front cooled off in a few days. +One or two well-defined cases of shirking were infectious, and you +heard this refrain again and again: "As long as the others are +dodging, I should be an ass not to do it, too." + +But there was quite a multitude who never said anything. + +At last a reinforcement draft was posted; old and young +promiscuously--a list worked out in the office amidst a seesaw of +intrigue. Protests were raised, and fell back again into the +tranquillity of the depot. + +I abode there forty-five days. Towards the middle of September, we +were allowed to go out after the evening meal and Sundays as well. We +used to go in the evening to the Town Hall to read the despatches +posted there; they were as uniform and monotonous as rain. Then a +friend and I would go to the café, keeping step, our arms similarly +swinging, exchanging some words, idle, and vaguely divided into two +men. Or we went into it in a body, which isolated me. The saloon of +the café enclosed the same odors as Fontan's; and while I stayed there, +sunk in the soft seat, my boots grating on the tiled floor, my eye on +the white marble, it was like a strip of a long dream of the past, a +scanty memory that clothed me. There I used to write to Marie, and +there I read again the letters I received from her, in which she said, +"Nothing has changed since you were away." + +One Sunday, when I was beached on a seat in the square and weeping with +yawns under the empty sky, I saw a young woman go by. By reason of +some resemblance in outline, I thought of a woman who had loved me. I +recalled the period when life was life, and that beautiful caressing +body of once-on-a-time. It seemed to me that I held her in my arms, so +close that I felt her breath, like velvet, on my face. + +We got a glimpse of the captain at one review. Once there was talk of +a new draft for the front, but it was a false rumor. Then we said, +"There'll never be any war for us," and that was a relief. + +My name flashed to my eyes in a departure list posted on the wall. My +name was read out at morning parade, and it seemed to me that it was +the only one they read. I had no time to get ready. In the evening of +the next day our detachment passed out of the barracks by the little +gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE WORLD'S END + + +"We're going to Alsace," said the well-informed. "To the Somme," said +the better-informed, louder. + +We traveled thirty-six hours on the floor of a cattle truck, wedged and +paralyzed in the vice of knapsacks, pouches, weapons and moist bodies. +At long intervals the train would begin to move on again. It has left +an impression with me that it was chiefly motionless. + +We got out, one afternoon, under a sky crowded with masses of darkness, +in a station recently bombarded and smashed, and its roof left like a +fish-bone. It overlooked a half-destroyed town, where, amid a foul +whiteness of ruin, a few families were making shift to live in the +rain. + +"'Pears we're in the Aisne country," they said. + +A downpour was in progress. Shivering, we busied ourselves with +unloading and distributing bread, our hands numbed and wet, and then +ate it hurriedly while we stood in the road, which gleamed with heavy +parallel brush-strokes of gray paint as far as the eye could see. Each +looked after himself, with hardly a thought for the next man. On each +side of the road were deserts without limits, flat and flabby, with +trees like posts, and rusty fields patched with green mud. + +"Shoulder packs, and forward!" Adjutant Marcassin ordered. + +Where were we going? No one knew. We crossed the rest of the village. +The Germans had occupied it during the August retreat. It was +destroyed, and the destruction was beginning to live, to cover itself +with fresh wreckage and dung, to smoke and consume itself. The rain +had ceased in melancholy. Up aloft in the clearings of the sky, +clusters of shrapnel stippled the air round aeroplanes, and the +detonations reached us, far and fine. Along the sodden road we met Red +Cross motor ambulances, rushing on rails of mud, but we could not see +inside them. In the first stages we were interested in everything, and +asked questions, like foreigners. A man who had been wounded and was +rejoining the regiment with us answered us from time to time, and +invariably added, "That's nothing; you'll see in a bit." Then the +march made men retire into themselves. + +My knapsack, so ingeniously compact; my cartridge-bags so ferociously +full; my round pouches with their keen-edged straps, all jostled and +then wounded my back at each step. The pain quickly became acute, +unbearable. I was suffocated and blinded by a mask of sweat, in spite +of the lashing moisture, and I soon felt that I should not arrive at +the end of the fifty minutes' march. But I did all the same, because I +had no reason for stopping at any one second sooner than another, and +because I could thus always _do one step more_. I knew later that this +is nearly always the mechanical reason which accounts for soldiers +completing superhuman physical efforts to the very end. + +The cold blast benumbed us, while we dragged ourselves through the +softened plains which evening was darkening. At one halt I saw one of +those men who used to agitate at the depot to be sent to the front. He +had sunk down at the foot of the stacked rifles; exertion had made him +almost unrecognizable, and he told me that he had had enough of war! +And little Mélusson, whom I once used to see at Viviers, lifted to me +his yellowish face, sweat-soaked, where the folds of the eyelids seemed +drawn with red crayon, and informed me that he should report sick the +next day. + +After four marches of despairing length under a lightless sky over a +colorless earth, we stood for two hours, hot and damp, at the chilly +top of a hill, where a village was beginning. An epidemic of gloom +overspread us. Why were we stopped in that way? No one knew anything. + +In the evening we engulfed ourselves in the village. But they halted +us in a street. The sky had heavily darkened. The fronts of the +houses had taken on a greenish hue and reflected and rooted themselves +in the running water of the street. The market-place curved around in +front of us--a black space with shining tracks, like an old mirror to +which the silvering only clings in strips. + +At last, night fully come, they bade us march. They made us go forward +and then draw back, with loud words of command, in the tunnels of +streets, in alleys and yards. By lantern light they divided us into +squads. I was assigned to the eleventh, quartered in a village whose +still standing parts appeared quite new. Adjutant Marcassin became my +section chief. I was secretly glad of this; for in the gloomy +confusion we stuck closely to those we knew, as dogs do. + +The new comrades of the squad--they lodged in the stable, which was +open as a cage--explained to me that we were a long way from the front, +over six miles; that we should have four days' rest and then go on +yonder to occupy the trenches at the glass works. They said it would +be like that, in shifts of four days, to the end of the war, and that, +moreover, one had not to worry. + +These words comforted the newcomers, adrift here and there in the +straw. Their weariness was alleviated. They set about writing and +card-playing. That evening I dated my letter to Marie "at the Front," +with a flourish of pride. I understood that glory consists in doing +what others have done, in being able to say, "I, too." + +* * * * * * + +Three days went by in this "rest camp." I got used to an existence +crowded with exercises in which we were living gear-wheels; crowded +also with fatigues; already I was forgetting my previous existence. + +On the Friday at three o'clock we were paraded in marching order in the +school yard. Great stones, detached from walls and arches, lay about +the forsaken grass like tombs. Hustled by the wind, we were reviewed +by the captain, who fumbled in our cartridge-pouches and knapsacks with +the intention of giving imprisonment to those who had not the right +quantity of cartridges and iron rations. In the evening we set off, +laughing and singing, along the great curves of the road. At night we +arrived swaying with fatigue and savagely silent, at a slippery and +interminable ascent which stood out against stormy rain-clouds as heavy +as dung-hills. Many dark masses stumbled and fell with a crash of +accoutrements on that huge sloping sewer. As they swarmed up the chaos +of oblique darkness which pushed them back, the men gave signs of +exhaustion and anger. Cries of "Forward! Forward!" surrounded us on +all sides, harsh cries like barks, and I heard, near me, Adjutant +Marcassin's voice, growling, "What about it, then? It's for France's +sake!" Arrived at the top of the hill, we went down the other slope. +The order came to put pipes out and advance in silence. A world of +noises was coming to life in the distance. + +A gateway made its sudden appearance in the night. We scattered among +flat buildings, whose walls here and there showed black holes, like +ovens, while the approaches were obstructed with plaster rubbish and +nail-studded beams. In places the recent collapse of stones, cement +and plaster had laid on the bricks a new and vivid whiteness that was +visible in the dark. + +"It's the glass works," said a soldier to me. + +We halted a moment in a passage whose walls and windows were broken, +where we could not make a step or sit down without breaking glass. We +left the works by sticky footpaths, full of rubbish at first, and then +of mud. Across marshy flats, chilly and sinister, obscurely lighted by +the night, we came to the edge of an immense and pallid crater. The +depths of this abyss were populated with glimmers and murmurs; and all +around a soaked and ink-black expanse of country glistened to infinity. + +"It's the quarry," they informed me. + +Our endless and bottomless march continued. Sliding and slipping we +descended, burying ourselves in these profundities and gropingly +encountering the hurly-burly of a convoy of carts and the advance guard +of the regiment we were relieving. We passed heaped-up hutments at the +foot of the circular chalky cliff that we could see dimly drawn among +the black circles of space. The sound of shots drew near and +multiplied on all sides; the vibration of artillery fire outspread +under our feet and over our heads. + +I found myself suddenly in front of a narrow and muddy ravine into +which the others were plunging one by one. + +"It's the trench," whispered the man who was following me; "you can see +its beginning, but you never see its blinking end. Anyway, on you go!" + +We followed the trench along for three hours. For three hours we +continued to immerse ourselves in distance and solitude, to immure +ourselves in night, scraping its walls with our loads, and sometimes +violently pulled up, where the defile shrunk into strangulation by the +sudden wedging of our pouches. It seemed as if the earth tried +continually to clasp and choke us, that sometimes it roughly struck us. +Above the unknown plains in which we were hiding, space was +shot-riddled. A few star-shells were softly whitening some sections of +the night, revealing the excavations' wet entrails and conjuring up a +file of heavy shadows, borne down by lofty burdens, tramping in a black +and black-bunged impasse, and jolting against the eddies. When great +guns were discharged all the vault of heaven was lighted and lifted and +then fell darkly back. + +"Look out! The open crossing!" + +A wall of earth rose in tiers before us. There was no outlet. The +trench came to a sudden end--to be resumed farther on, it seemed. + +"Why?" I asked, mechanically. + +They explained to me: "It's like that." And they added, "You stoop +down and get a move on." + +The men climbed the soft steps with bent heads, made their rush one by +one and ran hard into the belt whose only remaining defense was the +dark. The thunder of shrapnel that shattered and dazzled the air here +and there showed me too frightfully how fragile we all were. In spite +of the fatigue clinging to my limbs, I sprang forward in my turn with +all my strength, fiercely pursuing the signs of an overloaded and +rattling body which ran in front; and I found myself again in a trench, +breathless. In my passage I had glimpses of a somber field, +bullet-smacked and hole pierced, with silent blots outspread or +doubled, and a litter of crosses and posts, as black and fantastic as +tall torches extinguished, all under a firmament where day and night +immensely fought. + +"I believe I saw some corpses," I said to him who marched in front of +me; and there was a break in my voice. + +"_You've_ just left your village," he replied; "you bet there's some +stiffs about here!" + +I laughed also, in the delight of having got past. We began again to +march one behind another, swaying about, hustled by the narrowness of +this furrow they had scooped to the ancient depth of a grave, panting +under the load, dragged towards the earth by the earth and pushed +forward by will-power, under a sky shrilling with the dizzy flight of +bullets, tiger-striped with red, and in some seconds saturated with +light. At forks in the way we turned sometimes right and sometimes +left, all touching each other, the whole huge body of the company +fleeing blindly towards its bourne. + +For the last time they halted us in the middle of the night. I was so +weary that I propped my knees against the wet wall and remained +kneeling for some blissful minutes. + +My sentry turn began immediately, and the lieutenant posted me at a +loophole. He made me put my face to the hole and explained to me that +there was a wooded slope, right in front of us, of which the bottom was +occupied by the enemy; and to the right of us, three hundred yards +away, the Chauny road--"They're there." I had to watch the black +hollow of the little wood, and at every star-shell the creamy expanse +which divided our refuge from the distant hazy railing of the trees +along the road. He told me what to do in case of alarm and left me +quite alone. + +Alone, I shivered. Fatigue had emptied my head and was weighing on my +heart. Going close to the loophole, I opened my eyes wide through the +enemy night, the fathomless, thinking night. + +I thought I could see some of the dim shadows of the plain moving, and +some in the chasm of the wood, and everywhere! Affected by terror and +a sense of my huge responsibility, I could hardly stifle a cry of +anguish. But they did not move. The fearful preparations of the +shades vanished before my eyes and the stillness of lifeless things +showed itself to me. + +I had neither knapsack nor pouches, and I wrapped myself in my blanket. +I remained at ease, encircled to the horizon by the machinery of war, +surmounted by claps of living thunder. Very gently, my vigil relieved +and calmed me. I remembered nothing more about myself. I applied +myself to watching. I saw nothing, I knew nothing. + +After two hours, the sound of the natural and complaisant steps of the +sentry who came to relieve me brought me completely back to myself. I +detached myself from the spot where I had seemed riveted and went to +sleep in the "grotto." + +The dug-out was very roomy, but so low that in one place one had to +crawl on hands and knees to slip under its rough and mighty roof. It +was full of heavy damp, and hot with men. Extended in my place on +straw-dust, my neck propped by my knapsack, I closed my eyes in +comfort. When I opened them, I saw a group of soldiers seated in a +circle and eating from the same dish, their heads blotted out in the +darkness of the low roof. Their feet, grouped round the dish, were +shapeless, black, and trickling, like stone disinterred. They ate in +common, without table things, no man using more than his hands. + +The man next me was equipping himself to go on sentry duty. He was in +no hurry. He filled his pipe, drew from his pocket a tinder-lighter as +long as a tapeworm, and said to me, "You're not going on again till six +o'clock. Ah, you're very lucky!" + +Diligently he mingled his heavy tobacco-clouds with the vapors from all +those bodies which lay around us and rattled in their throats. +Kneeling at my feet to arrange his things, he gave me some advice, "No +need to get a hump, mind. Nothing ever happens here. Getting here's +by far the worst. On that job you get it hot, specially when you've +the bad luck to be sleepy, or it's not raining, but after that you're a +workman, and you forget about it. The most worst, it's the open +crossing. But nobody I know's ever stopped one there. It was other +blokes. It's been like this for two months, old man, and we'll be able +to say we've been through the war without a chilblain, we shall." + +At dawn I resumed my lookout at the loophole. Quite near, on the slope +of the little wood, the bushes and the bare branches are broidered with +drops of water. In front, under the fatal space where the eternal +passage of projectiles is as undistinguishable as light in daytime, the +field resembles a field, the road resembles a road. Ultimately one +makes out some corpses, but what a strangely little thing is a corpse +in a field--a tuft of colorless flowers which the shortest blades of +grass disguise! At one moment there was a ray of sunshine, and it +resembled the past. + +Thus went the days by, the weeks and the months; four days in the front +line, the harassing journey to and from it, the monotonous sentry-go, +the spy-hole on the plain, the mesmerism of the empty outlook and of +the deserts of waiting; and after that, four days of rest-camp full of +marches and parades and great cleansings of implements and of streets, +with regulations of the strictest, anticipating all the different +occasions for punishment, a thousand fatigues, each with as many harsh +knocks, the litany of optimist phrases, abstruse and utopian, in the +orders of the day, and a captain who chiefly concerned himself with the +two hundred cartridges and the reserve rations. The regiment had no +losses, or almost none; a few wounds during reliefs, and sometimes one +or two deaths which were announced like accidents. We only underwent +great weariness, which goes away as fast as it comes. The soldiers +used to say that on the whole they lived in peace. + +Marie would write to me, "The Piots have been saying nice things about +you," or "The Trompsons' son is a second lieutenant," or "If you knew +all the contrivances people have been up to, to hide their gold since +it's been asked for so loudly! If you knew what ugly tales there are!" +or "Everything is just the same." + +* * * * * * + +Once, when we were coming back from the lines and were entering our +usual village, we did not stop there; to the great distress of the men +who were worn out and yielding to the force of the knapsack. We +continued along the road through the evening with lowered heads; and +one hour later we dropped off around dark buildings--mournful tokens of +an unknown place--and they put us away among shadows which had new +shapes. From that time onwards, they changed the village at every +relief, and we never knew what it was until we were there. I was +lodged in barns, into which one wriggled by a ladder; in spongy and +steamy stables; in cellars where undisturbed draughts stirred up the +moldy smells that hung there; in frail and broken hangars which seemed +to brew bad weather; in sick and wounded huts; in villages remade +athwart their phantoms; in trenches and in caves--a world upside down. +We received the wind and the rain in our sleep. Sometimes we were too +brutally rescued from the pressure of the cold by braziers, whose +poisonous heat split one's head. And we forgot it all at each change +of scene. I had begun to note the names of places we were going to, +but I lost myself in the black swarm of words when I tried to recall +them. And the diversity and the crowds of the men around me were such +that I managed only with difficulty to attach fleeting names to their +faces. + +My companions did not look unfavorably on me, but I was no more than +another to them. In intervals among the occupations of the rest-camp, +I wandered spiritless, blotted out by the common soldiers' miserable +uniform, familiarly addressed by any one and every one, and stopping no +glance from a woman, by reason of the non-coms. + +I should never be an officer, like the Trompsons' son. It was not so +easy in my sector as in his. For that, it would be necessary for +things to happen which never would happen. But I should have liked to +be taken into the office. Others were there who were not so clearly +indicated as I for that work. I regarded myself as a victim of +injustice. + +* * * * * * + +One morning I found myself face to face with Termite, Brisbille's crony +and accomplice, and he arrived in our company by voluntary enlistment! +He was as skimpy and warped as ever, his body seeming to grimace +through his uniform. His new greatcoat looked worn out and his boots +on the wrong feet. He had the same ugly, blinking face and +black-furred cheeks and rasping voice. I welcomed him warmly, for by +his enlistment he was redeeming his past life. He took advantage of +the occasion to address me with intimacy. I talked with him about +Viviers and even let him share the news that Marie had just written to +me--that Monsieur Joseph Bonéas was taking an examination in order to +become an officer in the police. + +But the poacher had not completely sloughed his old self. He looked at +me sideways and shook in the air his grimy wrist and the brass identity +disk that hung from it--a disk as big as a forest ranger's, perhaps a +trophy of bygone days. Hatred of the rich and titled appeared again +upon his hairy, sly face. "Those blasted nationalists," he growled; +"they spend their time shoving the idea of revenge into folks' heads, +and patching up hatred with their Leagues of Patriots and their +military tattoos and their twaddle and their newspapers, and when their +war does come they say '_Go_ and fight.'" + +"There are some of them who have died in the first line. Those have +done more than their duty." + +With the revolutionary's unfairness, the little man would not admit it. +"No--they have only done their duty,--no more." + +I was going to urge Monsieur Joseph's weak constitution but in presence +of that puny man with his thin, furry face, who might have stayed at +home, I forebore. But I decided to avoid, in his company, those +subjects in which I felt he was full of sour hostility and always ready +to bite. + +Continually we saw Marcassin's eye fixed on us, though aloof. His new +bestriped personality had completely covered up the comical picture of +Pétrolus. He even seemed to have become suddenly more educated, and +made no mistakes when he spoke. He multiplied himself, was +attentiveness itself and found ways to expose himself to danger. When +there were night patrols in the great naked cemeteries bounded by the +graves of the living, he was always in them. + +But he scowled. We were short of the sacred fire, in his opinion, and +that distressed him. To grumbles against the fatigues which shatter, +the waiting which exhausts, the disillusion which destroys, against +misery and the blows of cold and rain, he answered violently, "Can't +you see it's for France? Why, hell and damnation! As long as it's for +France----!" + +One morning when we were returning from the trenches, ghastly in a +ghastly dawn, during the last minutes of a stage, a panting soldier let +the words escape him, "I'm fed up, I am!" + +The adjutant sprang towards him, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, hog? +Don't you think that France is worth your dirty skin and all our +skins?" + +The other, strained and tortured in his joints, showed fight. "France, +you say? Well, that's the French," he growled. + +And his pal, goaded also by weariness, raised his voice from the ranks. +"That's right! After all, it's the men that's there." + +"Great God!" the adjutant roared in their faces, "France is France and +nothing else, and you don't count, nor you either!" + +But the soldier, all the while hoisting up his knapsack with jerks of +his hips, and lowering his voice before the non-com's aggressive +excitement, clung to his notion, and murmured between his puffings, +"Men--they're humanity. That's not the truth perhaps?" + +Marcassin began to hurry through the drizzle along the side of the +marching column, shouting and trembling with emotion, "To hell with +your humanity, and your truth, too; I don't give a damn for them. _I_ +know your ideas--universal justice and 1789[1]--to hell with them, too. +There's only one thing that matters in all the earth, and that's the +glory of France--to give the Boches a thrashing and get Alsace-Lorraine +back, and money, that's where they're taking you, and that's all about +it. Once that's done, all's over. It's simple enough, even for a +blockhead like you. If you don't understand it, it's because you can't +lift your pig's head to see an ideal, or because you're only a +Socialist and a confiscator!" + +[Footnote 1: Outbreak of the French Revolution.--Tr.] + +Very reluctantly, rumbling all over, and his eye threatening, he went +away from the now silent ranks. A moment later, as he passed near me, +I noticed that his hands still trembled and I was infinitely moved to +see tears in his eyes! + +He comes and goes in pugnacious surveillance, in furies with difficulty +restrained, and masked by a contraction of the face. He invokes +Déroulède, and says that faith comes at will, like the rest. He lives +in perpetual bewilderment and distress that everybody does not think as +he does. He exerts real influence, for there are, in the multitudes, +whatever they may say, beautiful and profound instincts always near the +surface. + +The captain, who was a well-balanced man, although severe and prodigal +of prison when he found the least gap in our loads, considered the +adjutant animated by an excellent spirit, but he himself was not so +fiery. I was getting a better opinion of him; he could judge men. He +had said that I was a good and conscientious soldier, that many like me +were wanted. + +Our lieutenant, who was very young, seemed to be an amiable, +good-natured fellow. "He's a good little lad," said the grateful men; +"there's some that frighten you when you speak to them, and they solder +their jaws up. But _him_, he speaks to you even if you're stupid. +When you talk to him about you and your family, which isn't, all the +same, very interesting, well, he listens to you, old man." + +* * * * * * + +St. Martin's summer greatly warmed us as we tramped into a new village. +I remember that one of those days I took Margat with me and went with +him into a recently shelled house. (Margat was storming against the +local grocer, the only one of his kind, the inevitable and implacable +robber of his customers.) The framework of the house was laid bare, it +was full of light and plaster, and it trembled like a steamboat. We +climbed to the drawing-room of this house which had breathed forth all +its mystery and was worse than empty. The room still showed remains of +luxury and elegance--a disemboweled piano with clusters of protruding +strings; a cupboard, dislodged and rotting, as though disinterred; a +white-powdered floor, sown with golden stripes and rumpled books, and +with fragile débris which cried out when we trod on it. Across the +window, which was framed in broken glass, a curtain hung by one corner +and fluttered like a bat. Over the sundered fireplace, only a mirror +was intact and unsullied, upright in its frame. + +Then, become suddenly and profoundly like each other, we were both +fascinated by the virginity of that long glass. Its perfect integrity +lent it something like a body. Each of us picked up a brick and we +broke it with all our might, not knowing why. We ran away down the +shaking spiral stairs whose steps were hidden under deep rubbish. At +the bottom we looked at each other, still excited and already ashamed +of the fit of barbarism which had so suddenly risen in us and urged our +arms. + +"What about it? It's a natural thing to do--we're becoming men again, +that's all," said Margat. + +Having nothing to do we sat down there, commanding a view of the dale. +The day had been fine. + +Margat's looks strayed here and there. He frowned, and disparaged the +village because it was not like his own. What a comical idea to have +built it like that! He did not like the church, the singular shape of +it, the steeple in that position instead of where it should have been. + +Orango and Rémus came and sat down by us in the ripening sun of +evening. + +Far away we saw the explosion of a shell, like a white shrub. We +chuckled at the harmless shot in the hazy distance and Rémus made a +just observation. "As long as it's not dropped here, you might say as +one doesn't mind, eh, s'long as it's dropped somewhere else, eh?" + +At that moment a cloud of dirty smoke took shape five hundred yards +away at the foot of the village, and a heavy detonation rolled up to +where we were. + +"They're plugging the bottom of the village," Orango laconically +certified. + +Margat, still ruminating his grievance, cried, "'Fraid it's not on the +grocers it's dropped, that crump, seeing he lives right at the other +end. More's the pity. He charges any old price he likes and then he +says to you as well, 'If you're not satisfied, my lad, you can go to +hell.' Ah, more's the pity!" + +He sighed, and resumed. "Ah, grocers, they beat all, they do. You can +starve or you can bankrupt, that's their gospel; 'You don't matter to +me, _I've_ got to make money!'" + +"What do you want to be pasting the grocers for," Orango asked, "as +long as they've always been like that? They're Messrs. Thief & Sons." + +After a silence, Rémus coughed, to encourage his voice, and said, "I'm +a grocer." + +Then Margat said to him artlessly, "Well, what about it, old chap? We +know well enough, don't we, that here on earth profit's the strongest +of all." + +"Why, yes, to be sure, old man," Rémus replied. + +* * * * * * + +One day, while we were carrying our straw to our billets, one of my +lowly companions came up and questioned me as he walked. "I'd like you +to explain to me why there isn't any justice. I've been to the captain +to ask for leave that I'd a right to and I shows him a letter to say my +aunt's shortly deceased. 'That's all my eye and Betty Martin,' he +says. And I says to myself, that's the blinking limit, that is. Now, +then, tell me, you. When the war began, why didn't there begin full +justice for every one, seeing they could have done it and seeing no one +wouldn't have raised no objection just then. Why is it all just the +contrary? And don't believe it's only what's happened to me, but +there's big business men, they say, all of a sudden making a hundred +francs a day extra because of the murdering, and them young men an' +all, and a lot of toffed-up shirkers at the rear that's ten times +stronger than this pack of half-dead Territorials that they haven't +sent home even this morning yet, and they have beanos in the towns with +their Totties and their jewels and champagne, like what Jusserand tells +us!" + +I replied that complete justice was impossible, that we had to look at +the great mass of things generally. And then, having said this, I +became embarrassed in face of the stubborn inquisitiveness, clumsily +strict, of this comrade who was seeking the light all by himself! + +Following that incident, I often tried, during days of monotony, to +collect my ideas on war. I could not. I am sure of certain points, +points of which I have always been sure. Farther I cannot go. I rely +in the matter on those who guide us, who withhold the policy of the +State. But sometimes I regret that I no longer have a spiritual +director like Joseph Bonéas. + +For the rest, the men around me--except when personal interest is in +question and except for a few chatterers who suddenly pour out theories +which contain bits taken bodily from the newspapers--the men around me +are indifferent to every problem too remote and too profound concerning +the succession of inevitable misfortunes which sweep us along. Beyond +immediate things, and especially personal matters, they are prudently +conscious of their ignorance and impotence. + +One evening I was coming in to sleep in our stable bedroom. The men +lying along its length and breadth on the bundles of straw had been +talking together and were agreed. Some one had just wound it up--"From +the moment you start marching, that's enough." + +But Termite, coiled up like a marmot on the common litter, was on the +watch. He raised his shock of hair, shook himself as though caught in +a snare, waved the brass disk on his wrist like a bell and said, "No, +that's not enough. You must think, but think with your own idea, not +other people's." + +Some amused faces were raised while he entered into observations that +they foresaw would be endless. + +"Pay attention, you fellows, he's going to talk about militarism," +announced a wag, called Pinson, whose lively wit I had already noticed. + +"There's the question of militarism----" Termite went on. + +We laughed to see the hairy mannikin floundering on the dim straw in +the middle of his big public-meeting words, and casting fantastic +shadows on the spider-web curtain of the skylight. + +"Are you going to tell us," asked one of us, "that the Boches aren't +militarists?" + +"Yes, indeed, and in course they are," Termite consented to admit. + +"Ha! That bungs you in the optic!" Pinson hastened to record. + +"For my part, old sonny," said a Territorial who was a good soldier, +"I'm not seeking as far as you, and I'm not as spiteful. I know that +they set about us, and that we only wanted to be quiet and friends with +everybody. Why, where I come from, for instance in the Creuse country, +I know that----" + +"You know?" bawled Termite, angrily; "you know nothing about nothing! +You're only a poor little tame animal, like all the millions of pals. +They gather us together, but they separate us. They say what they like +to us, or they don't say it, and you believe it. They say to you, +'This is what you've got to believe in!' They----" + +I found myself growing privately incensed against Termite, by the same +instinct which had once thrown me upon his accomplice Brisbille. I +interrupted him. "Who are they--your 'they'?" + +"Kings," said Termite. + +At that moment Marcassin's silhouette appeared in the gray of the alley +which ended among us. "Look out--there's Marc'! Shut your jaw," one +of the audience benevolently advised. + +"I'm not afeared not to say what I think!" declared Termite, instantly +lowering his voice and worming his way through the straw that divided +the next stall from ours. + +We laughed again. But Margat was serious. "Always," he said, +"there'll be the two sorts of people there's always been--the grousers +and the obeyers." + +Some one asked, "What for did you chap 'list?" + +"'Cos there was nothing to eat in the house," answered the Territorial, +as interpreter of the general opinion. + +Having thus spoken, the old soldier yawned, went on all fours, arranged +the straw of his claim, and added, "We'll not worry, but just let him +be. 'Specially seeing we can't do otherwise." + +It was time for slumber. The shed gaped open in front and at the +sides, but the air was not cold. + +"We've done with the bad days," said Rémus; "shan't see them no more." + +"At last!" said Margat. + +We stretched ourselves out, elbow to elbow. The one in the dark corner +blew out his candle. + +"May the war look slippy and get finished!" mumbled Orango. + +"If only they'll let me transfer to the cyclists," Margat replied. + +We said no more, each forming that same great wandering prayer and some +little prayer like Margat's. Gently we wrapped ourselves up on the +straw, one with the falling night, and closed our eyes. + +* * * * * * + +At the bottom of the village, in the long pink farmhouse, there was a +charming woman, who smiled at us with twinkling eyes. As the days +emerged from the rains and fogs, I looked at her with all my soul, for +she was bathed in the youth of the year. She had a little nose and big +eyes and slight fair down on her lips and neck, like traces of gold. +Her husband was mobilized and we paid attentions to her. She smiled at +the soldiers as she went by, and chattered willingly with the non-coms; +and the passage of officers brought her to a standstill of vague +respect. I used to think about her, and I forgot, through her, to +write to Marie. + +There were many who inquired, speaking of the farmer's wife, "Any +chance?" But there were many who replied, "Nothing doing." + +One morning that was bright above all others, my companions were busy +holding their sides around a tipsy comrade whom they were catechizing +and ragging, and sprinkling now and then with little doses of wine, to +entertain him, and benefit more by him. These innocent amusements, +like those which Termite provoked when he discoursed on militarism and +the universe, did not detain me, and I gained the street. + +I went down the paved slope. In gardens and enclosures, the buds were +holding out a multitude of lilliputian green hands, all still closed, +and the apple-trees had white roses. Spring was hastening everywhere. +I came in sight of the pink house. She was alone in the road and she +took all the sunshine for herself. I hesitated, I went by--my steps +slackened heavily--I stopped, and returned towards the door. Almost in +spite of myself I went in. + +At first--light! A square of sunshine glowed on the red tiled floor of +the kitchen. Casseroles and basins were shining brightly. + +She was there! Standing by the sink she was making a streak of silver +flow into a gleaming pail, amid the luminous blush of the polished +tiles and the gold of the brass pans. The greenish light from the +window-glass was moistening her skin. She saw me and she smiled. + +I knew that she always smiled at us. But we were alone! I felt a mad +longing arise. There was something in me that was stronger than I, +that ravished the picture of her. Every second she became more +beautiful. Her plump dress proffered her figure to my eyes, and her +skirt trembled over her polished sabots. I looked at her neck, at her +throat--that extraordinary beginning. A strong perfume that enveloped +her shoulders was like the truth of her body. Urged forward, I went +towards her, and I could not even speak. + +She had lowered her head a little; her eyebrows had come nearer +together under the close cluster of her hair; uneasiness passed into +her eyes. She was used to the boyish mimicry of infatuated men. But +this woman was not for me! She dealt me the blow of an unfeeling +laugh, and disappearing, shut the door in my face. + +I opened the door. I followed her into an outhouse. Stammering +something, I found touch again with her presence, I held out my hand. +She slipped away, she was escaping me forever--when a monstrous Terror +stopped her! + +The walls and roof drew near in a hissing crash of thunder, a dreadful +hatch opened in the ceiling and all was filled with black fire. And +while I was hurled against the wall by a volcanic blast, with my eyes +scorched, my ears rent, and my brain hammered, while around me the +stones were pierced and crushed, I saw the woman uplifted in a +fantastic shroud of black and red, to fall back in a red and white +affray of clothes and linen; and something huge burst and naked, with +two legs, sprang at my face and forced into my mouth the taste of +blood. + +I know that I cried out, hiccoughing. Assaulted by the horrible kiss +and by the vile clasp that bruised the hand I had offered to the +woman's beauty--a hand still outheld--sunk in whirling smoke and ashes +and the dreadful noise now majestically ebbing, I found my way out of +the place, between walls that reeled as I did. Bodily, the house +collapsed behind me. In my flight over the shifting ground I was +brushed by the mass of maddened falling stones and the cry of the +ruins, sinking in vast dust-clouds as in a tumult of beating wings. + +A veritable squall of shells was falling in this corner of the village. +A little way off some soldiers were ejaculating in front of a little +house which had just been broken in two. They did not go close to it +because of the terrible whistling which was burying itself here and +there all around, and the splinters that riddled it at every blow. +Within the shelter of a wall we watched it appear under a vault of +smoke, in the vivid flashes of that unnatural tempest. + +"Why, you're covered with blood!" a comrade said to me, disquieted. + +Stupefied and still thunderstruck I looked at that house's bones and +broken spine, that human house. + +It had been split from top to bottom and all the front was down. In a +single second one saw all the seared cellules of its rooms, the +geometric path of the flues, and a down quilt like viscera on the +skeleton of a bed. In the upper story an overhanging floor remained, +and there we saw the bodies of two officers, pierced and spiked to +their places round the table where they were lunching when the +lightning fell--a nice lunch, too, for we saw plates and glasses and a +bottle of champagne. + +"It's Lieutenant Norbert and Lieutenant Ferrière." + +One of these specters was standing, and with cloven jaws so enlarged +that his head was half open, he was smiling. One arm was raised aloft +in the festive gesture which he had begun forever. The other, his fine +fair hair untouched, was seated with his elbows on a cloth now red as a +Turkey carpet, hideously attentive, his face besmeared with shining +blood and full of foul marks. They seemed like two statues of youth +and the joy of life framed in horror. + +"There's three!" some one shouted. + +This one, whom we had not seen at first, hung in the air with dangling +arms against the sheer wall, hooked on to a beam by the bottom of his +trousers. A pool of blood which lengthened down the flat plaster +looked like a projected shadow. At each fresh explosion splinters were +scattered round him and shook him, as though the dead man was still +marked and chosen by the blind destruction. + +There was something hatefully painful in the doll-like attitude of the +hanging corpse. + +Then Termite's voice was raised. "Poor lad!" he said. + +He went out from the shelter of the wall. + +"Are you mad?" we shouted; "he's dead, anyway!" + +A ladder was there. Termite seized it and dragged it towards the +disemboweled house, which was lashed every minute by broadsides of +splinters. + +"Termite!" cried the lieutenant, "I forbid you to go there! You're +doing no good." + +"I'm the owner of my skin, lieutenant," Termite replied, without +stopping or looking round. + +He placed the ladder, climbed up and unhooked the dead man. Around +them, against the plaster of the wall, there broke a surge of deafening +shocks and white fire. He descended with the body very skillfully, +laid it on the ground, and remaining doubled up he ran back to us--to +fall on the captain, who had witnessed the scene. + +"My friend," the captain said, "I've been told that you were an +anarchist. But I've seen that you're brave, and that's already more +than half of a Frenchman." + +He held out his hand. Termite took it, pretending to be little +impressed by the honor. + +When he returned to us he said, while his hand rummaged his hedgehog's +beard, "That poor lad--I don't know why--p'raps it's stupid--but I was +thinking of his mother." + +We looked at him with a sort of respect. First, because he had gone up +and then because he had passed through the hail of iron and won. There +was no one among us who did not earnestly wish he had tried and +succeeded in what Termite had just done. But assuredly we did not a +bit understand this strange soldier. + +A lull had come in the bombardment. "It's over," we concluded. + +As we returned we gathered round Termite and one spoke for the rest. + +"You're an anarchist, then?" + +"No," said Termite, "I'm an internationalist. That's why I enlisted." + +"Ah!" + +He tried to throw light on his words. "You understand, I'm against all +wars." + +"All wars! But there's times when war's good. There's defensive war." + +"No," said Termite again, "there's only offensive war; because if there +wasn't the offensive there wouldn't be the defensive." + +"Ah!" we replied. + +We went on chatting, dispassionately and for the sake of talking, +strolling in the dubious security of the streets which were sometimes +darkened by falls of wreckage, under a sky of formidable surprises. + +"All the same, isn't it chaps like you that prevented France from being +prepared?" + +"There's not enough chaps like me to prevent anything; and if there'd +been more, there wouldn't have been any war." + +"It's not to us, it's to the Boches and the others that you must say +that." + +"It's to all the world," said Termite; "that's why I'm an +internationalist." + +While Termite was slipping away somewhere else his questioner indicated +by a gesture that he did not understand. "Never mind," he said to us, +"that chap's better than us." + +Gradually it came about that we of the squad used to consult Termite on +any sort of subject, with a simplicity which made me smile--and +sometimes even irritated me. That week, for instance, some one asked +him, "All this firing--is it an attack they're getting ready?" + +But he knew no more than the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SHADOWS + + +We did not leave for the trenches on the day we ought to have done. +Evening came, then night--nothing happened. On the morning of the +fifth day some of us were leaning, full of idleness and uncertainty, +against the front of a house that had been holed and bunged up again, +at the corner of a street. One of our comrades said to me, "Perhaps we +shall stay here till the end of the war." + +There were signs of dissent, but all the same, the little street we had +not left on the appointed day seemed just then to resemble the streets +of yore! + +Near the place where we were watching the hours go by--and fumbling in +packets of that coarse tobacco that has skeletons in it--the hospital +was installed. Through the low door we saw a broken stream of poor +soldiers pass, sunken and bedraggled, with the sluggish eyes of +beggars; and the clean and wholesome uniform of the corporal who led +them stood forth among them. + +They were always pretty much the same men who haunted the inspection +rooms. Many soldiers make it a point of honor never to report sick, +and in their obstinacy there is an obscure and profound heroism. +Others give way and come as often as possible to the gloomy places of +the Army Medical Corps, to run aground opposite the major's door. +Among these are found real human remnants in whom some visible or +secret malady persists. + +The examining-room was contrived in a ground floor room whose furniture +had been pushed back in a heap. Through the open window came the voice +of the major, and by furtively craning our necks we could just see him +at the table, with his tabs and his eyeglass. Before him, half-naked +indigents stood, cap in hand, their coats on their arms, or their +trousers on their feet, pitifully revealing the man through the +soldier, and trying to make the most of the bleeding cords of their +varicose veins, or the arm from which a loose and cadaverous bandage +hung and revealed the hollow of an obstinate wound, laying stress on +their hernia or the everlasting bronchitis beyond their ribs. The +major was a good sort and, it seemed, a good doctor. But this time he +hardly examined the parts that were shown to him and his monotonous +verdict took wings into the street. "Fit to march--good--consultation +without penalty."[1] + +[Footnote 1: As a precaution against "scrimshanking," a penalty +attaches to "consultations" which are adjudged uncalled-for.--Tr.] + +"Consultations," which merely send the soldier back into the ranks +continued indefinitely. No one was exempted from marching. Once we +heard the husky and pitiful voice of a simpleton who was dressing again +in recrimination. The doctor argued, in a good-natured way, and then +said, his voice suddenly serious, "Sorry, my good man, but I cannot +exempt you. I have certain instructions. Make an effort. You can +still do it." + +We saw them come out, one by one, these creatures of deformed body and +dwindling movement, leaning on each other, as though attached, and +mumbling, "Nothing can be done, nothing." + +Little Mélusson, reserved and wretched, with his long red nose between +his burning cheekbones, was standing among us in the idle file with +which the morning seemed vaguely in fellowship. He had not been to the +inspection, but he said, "I can carry on to-day still; but to-morrow I +shall knock under. To-morrow----" + +We paid no attention to Mélusson's words. Some one near us said, +"Those instructions the major spoke of, they're a sign." + +* * * * * * + +On parade that same morning the chief, with his nose on a paper, read +out: "By order of the Officer Commanding," and then he stammered out +some names, names of some soldiers in the regiment brigaded with ours, +who had been shot for disobedience. There was a long list of them. At +the beginning of the reading a slight growl was heard going round. +Then, as the surnames came out, as they spread out in a crowd around +us, there was silence. This direct contact with the phantoms of the +executed set a wind of terror blowing and bowed all heads. + +It was the same again on the days that followed. After parade orders, +the commandant, whom we rarely saw, mustered the four companies under +arms on some waste ground. He spoke to us of the military situation, +particularly favorable to us on the whole front, and of the final +victory which could not be long delayed. He made promises to us. +"Soon you will be at home," and smiled on us for the first time. He +said, "Men, I do not know what is going to happen, but when it should +be necessary I rely on you. As always, do your duty and be silent. It +is so easy to be silent and to act!" + +We broke off and made ourselves scarce. Returned to quarters we +learned there was to be an inspection of cartridges and reserve rations +by the captain. We had hardly time to eat. Majorat waxed wroth, and +confided his indignation to Termite, who was a good audience, "It's all +the fault of that unlucky captain--we're just slaves!" + +He shook his fist as he spoke towards the Town Hall. + +But Termite shrugged his shoulders, looked at him unkindly, and said, +"Like a rotten egg, that's how you talk. That captain, and all the red +tabs and brass hats, it's not them that invented the rules. They're +just gilded machines--machines like you, but not so cheap. If you want +to do away with discipline, do away with war, my fellow; that's a sight +easier than to make it amusing for the private." + +He left Majorat crestfallen, and the others as well. For my part I +admired the peculiar skill with which the anti-militarist could give +answers beside the mark and yet always seem to be in the right. + +During those days they multiplied the route-marches and the exercises +intended to let the officers get the men again in hand. These +maneuvers tired us to death, and especially the sham attacks on wooded +mounds, carried out in the evening among bogs and thorn-thickets. When +we got back, most of the men fell heavily asleep just as they had +fallen, beside their knapsacks, without having the heart to eat. + +Right in the middle of the night and this paralyzed slumber, a cry +echoed through the walls, "Alarm! Stand to arms!" + +We were so weary that the brutal reveille seemed at first, to the +blinking and rusted men, like the shock of a nightmare. Then, while +the cold blew in through the open door and we heard the sentries +running through the streets, while the corporals lighted the candles +and shook us with their voices, we sat up askew, and crouched, and got +our things ready, and stood up and fell in shivering, with flabby legs +and minds befogged, in the black-hued street. + +After the roll-call and some orders and counter-orders, we heard the +command "Forward!" and we left the rest-camp as exhausted as when we +entered it. And thus we set out, no one knew where. + +At first it was the same exodus as always. It was on the same road +that we disappeared: into the same great circles of blackness that we +sank. + +We came to the shattered glass works and then to the quarry, which +daybreak was washing and fouling and making its desolation more +complete. Fatigue was gathering darkly within us and abating our pace. +Faces appeared stiff and wan, and as though they were seen through +gratings. We were surrounded by cries of "Forward!" thrown from all +directions between the twilight of the sky and the night of the earth. +It took a greater effort every time to tear ourselves away from the +halts. + +We were not the only regiment in movement in these latitudes. The +twilight depths were full. Across the spaces that surrounded the +quarry men were passing without ceasing and without limit, their feet +breaking and furrowing the earth like plows. And one guessed that the +shadows also were full of hosts going as we were to the four corners of +the unknown. Then the clay and its thousand barren ruts, these +corpse-like fields, fell away. Under the ashen tints of early day, +fog-banks of men descended the slopes. From the top I saw nearly the +whole regiment rolling into the deeps. As once of an evening in the +days gone by, I had a perception of the multitude's immensity and the +threat of its might, that might which surpasses all and is impelled by +invisible mandates. + +We stopped and drew breath again; and on the gloomy edge of this gulf +some soldiers even amused themselves by inciting Termite to speak of +militarism and anti-militarism. I saw faces which laughed, through +their black and woeful pattern of fatigue, around the little man who +gesticulated in impotence. Then we had to set off again. + +We had never passed that way but in the dark, and we did not recognize +the scenes now that we saw them. From the lane which we descended, +holding ourselves back, to gain the trench, we saw for the first time +the desert through which we had so often passed--plains and lagoons +unlimited. + +The waterlogged open country, with its dispirited pools and their +smoke-like islets of trees, seemed nothing but a reflection of the +leaden, cloud-besmirched sky. The walls of the trenches, pallid as +ice-floes, marked with their long, sinuous crawling where they had been +slowly torn from the earth by the shovels. These embossings and canals +formed a complicated and incalculable network, smudged near at hand by +bodies and wreckage; dreary and planetary in the distance. One could +make out the formal but hazy stakes and posts, aligned in the distance +to the end of sight; and here and there the swellings and round +ink-blots of the dugouts. In some sections of trench one could +sometimes even descry black lines, like a dark wall between other +walls, and these lines stirred--they were the workmen of destruction. +A whole region in the north, on higher ground, was a forest flown away, +leaving only a stranded bristling of masts, like a quayside. There was +thunder in the sky, but it was drizzling, too, and even the flashes +were gray above that infinite liquefaction in which each regiment was +as lost as each man. + +We entered the plain and disappeared into the trench. The "open +crossing" was now pierced by a trench, though it was little more than +begun. Amid the smacks of the bullets which blurred its edges we had +to crawl flat on our bellies, along the sticky bottom of this gully. +The close banks gripped and stopped our packs so that we floundered +perforce like swimmers, to go forward in the earth, under the murder in +the air. For a second the anguish and the effort stopped my heart and +in a nightmare I saw the cadaverous littleness of my grave closing over +me. + +At the end of this torture we got up again, in spite of the knapsacks. +The last star-shells were sending a bloody _aurora borealis_ into the +morning. Sudden haloes drew our glances and crests of black smoke went +up like cypresses. On both sides, in front and behind, we heard the +fearful suicide of shells. + +* * * * * * + +We marched in the earth's interior until evening. From time to time +one hoisted the pack up or pressed down one's cap into the sweat of the +forehead; had it fallen it could not have been picked up again in the +mechanism of the march; and then we began again to fight with the +distance. The hand contracted on the rifle-sling was tumefied by the +shoulder-straps and the bent arm was broken. + +Like a regular refrain the lamentation of Mélusson came to me. He kept +saying that he was going to stop, but he did not stop, ever, and he +even butted into the back of the man in front of him when the whistle +went for a halt. + +The mass of the men said nothing. And the greatness of this silence, +this despotic and oppressive motion, irritated Adjutant Marcassin, who +would have liked to see some animation. He rated and lashed us with a +vengeance. He hustled the file in the narrowness of the trench as he +clove to the corners so as to survey his charge. But then he had no +knapsack. + +Through the heavy distant noise of our tramping, through the funereal +consolation of our drowsiness, we heard the adjutant's ringing voice, +violently reprimanding this or the other. "Where have you seen, swine, +that there can be patriotism without hatred? Do you think one can love +his own country if he doesn't hate the others?" + +When some one spoke banteringly of militarism--for no one, except +Termite, who didn't count, took the word seriously--Marcassin growled +despairingly, "French militarism and Prussian militarism, they're not +the same thing, for one's French and the other's Prussian!" + +But we felt that all these wrangles only shocked and wearied him. He +was instantly and gloomily silent. + +We were halted to mount guard in a part we had never seen before, and +for that reason it seemed worse than the others to us at first. We had +to scatter and run up and down the shelterless trench all night, to +avoid the plunging files of shells. That night was but one great crash +and we were strewn in the middle of it among black puddles, upon a +ghostly background of earth. We moved on again in the morning, +bemused, and the color of night. In front of the column we still heard +the cry "Forward!" Then we redoubled the violence of our effort, we +extorted some little haste from out us; and the soaked and frozen +company went on under cathedrals of cloud which collapsed in flames, +victims of a fate whose name they had no time to seek, a fate which +only let its force be felt, like God. + +During the day, and much farther on, they cried "Halt!" and the +smothered sound of the march was silent. From the trench in which we +collapsed under our packs, while another lot went away, we could see as +far as a railway embankment. The far end of the loophole-pipe enframed +tumbledown dwellings and cabins, ruined gardens where the grass and the +flowers were interred, enclosures masked by palings, fragments of +masonry to which eloquent remains of posters even still clung--a corner +full of artificial details, of human things, of illusions. The railway +bank was near, and in the network of wire stretched between it and us +many bodies were fast-caught as flies. + +The elements had gradually dissolved those bodies and time had worn +them out. With their dislocated gestures and point-like heads they +were but lightly hooked to the wire. For whole hours our eyes were +fixed on this country all obstructed by a machinery of wires and full +of men who were not on the ground. One, swinging in the wind, stood +out more sharply than the others, pierced like a sieve a hundred times +through and through, and a void in the place of his heart. Another +specter, quite near, had doubtless long since disintegrated, while held +up by his clothes. At the time when the shadow of night began to seize +us in its greatness a wind arose, a wind which shook the desiccated +creature, and he emptied himself of a mass of mold and dust. One saw +the sky's whirlwind, dark and disheveled, in the place where the man +had been; the soldier was carried away by the wind and buried in the +sky. + +Towards the end of the afternoon the piercing whistle of the bullets +was redoubled. We were riddled and battered by the noise. The +wariness with which we watched the landscape that was watching us +seemed to exasperate Marcassin. He pondered an idea; then came to a +sudden decision and cried triumphantly, "Look!" + +He climbed to the parapet, stood there upright, shook his fist at space +with the blind and simple gesture of the apostle who is offering his +example and his heart, and shouted, "Death to the Boches!" + +Then he came down, quivering with the faith of his self-gift. + +"Better not do that again," growled the soldiers who were lined up in +the trench, gorgonized by the extraordinary sight of a living man +standing, for no reason, on a front line parapet in broad daylight, +stupefied by the rashness they admired although it outstripped them. + +"Why not? Look!" + +Marcassin sprang up once more. Lean and erect, he stood like a poplar, +and raising both arms straight into the air, he yelled, "I believe only +in the glory of France!" + +Nothing else was left for him; he was but a conviction. Hardly had he +spoken thus in the teeth of the invisible hurricane when he opened his +arms, assumed the shape of a cross against the sky, spun round, and +fell noisily into the middle of the trench and of our cries. + +He had rolled onto his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he +turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his +eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great +boots away, that we should not walk on that blood. + +"He died like an idiot," said Margat in a choking voice; "but by God +it's fine!" + +He took off his cap, saluted awkwardly and stood with bowed head. + +"Committing suicide for an idea, it's fine," mumbled Vidaine. + +"It's fine, it's fine!" other voices said. + +And these little words fluttered down like leaves and petals onto the +body of the great dead soldier. + +"Where's his cap, that he thought so much of?" groaned his orderly, +Aubeau, looking in all directions. + +"Up there, to be sure: I'll fetch it," said Termite. + +The comical man went for the relic. He mounted the parapet in his +turn, coolly, but bending low. We saw him ferreting about, frail as a +poor monkey on the terrible crest. At last he put his hand on the cap +and jumped into the trench. A smile sparkled in his eyes and in the +middle of his beard, and his brass "cold meat ticket" jingled on his +shaggy wrist. + +They took the body away. The men carried it and a third followed with +the cap. One of us said, "The war's over for him!" And during the +dead man's recessional we were mustered, and we continued to draw +nearer to the unknown. But everything seemed to recede as fast as we +advanced, even events. + +* * * * * * + +We wandered five days, six days, in the lines, almost without sleeping. +We stood for hours, for half-nights and half-days, waiting for ways to +be clear that we could not see. Unceasingly they made us go back on +our tracks and begin over again. We mounted guard in trenches, we +fitted ourselves into some stripped and sinister corner which stood out +against a charred twilight or against fire. We were condemned to see +the same abysses always. + +For two nights we bent fiercely to the mending of an old third-line +trench above the ruin of its former mending. We repaired the long +skeleton, soft and black, of its timbers. From that dried-up drain we +besomed the rubbish of equipment, of petrified weapons, of rotten +clothes and of victuals, of a sort of wreckage of forest and +house--filthy, incomparably filthy, infinitely filthy. We worked by +night and hid by day. The only light for us was the heavy dawn of +evening when they dragged us from sleep. Eternal night covered the +earth. + +After the labor, as soon as daybreak began to replace night with +melancholy, we buried ourselves methodically in the depth of the +caverns there. Only a deadened murmur penetrated to them, but the rock +moved by reason of the earthquakes. When some one lighted his pipe, by +that gleam we looked at each other. We were fully equipped; we could +start away at any minute; it was forbidden to take off the heavy +jingling chain of cartridges around us. + +I heard some one say, "In _my_ country there are fields, and paths, and +the sea; nowhere else in the world is there that." + +Among these shades of the cave--an abode of the first men as it +seemed--I saw the hand start forth of him who existed on the spectacle +of the fields and the sea, who was trying to show it and to seize it; +or I saw around a vague halo four card-players stubbornly bent upon +finding again something of an ancient and peaceful attachment in the +faces of the cards; or I saw Margat flourish a Socialist paper that had +fallen from Termite's pocket, and burst into laughter at the censored +blanks it contained. And Majorat raged against life, caressed his +reserve bottle with his lips till out of breath and then, appeased and +his mouth dripping, said it was the only way to alleviate his +imprisonment. Then sleep slew words and gestures and thoughts. I kept +repeating some phrase to myself, trying in vain to understand it; and +sleep submerged me, ancestral sleep so dreary and so deep that it seems +there had only and ever been one long, lone sleep here on earth, above +which our few actions float, and which ever returns to fill the flesh +of man with night. + +Forward! Our nights are torn from us in lots. The bodies, invaded by +caressing poison, and even by confidences and apparitions, shake +themselves and stand up again. We extricate ourselves from the hole, +and emerge from the density of buried breath; stumbling we climb into +icy space, odorless, infinite space. The oscillation of the march, +assailed on both sides by the trench, brings brief and paltry halts, in +which we recline against the walls, or cast ourselves on them. We +embrace the earth, since nothing else is left us to embrace. + +Then Movement seizes us again. Metrified by regular jolts, by the +shock of each step, by our prisoned breathing, it loses its hold no +more, but becomes incarnate in us. It sets one small word resounding +in our heads, between our teeth--"Forward!"--longer, more infinite than +the uproar of the shells. It sets us making, towards the east or +towards the north, bounds which are days and nights in length. It +turns us into a chain which rolls along with a sound of steel--the +metallic hammering of rifle, bayonet, cartridges, and of the tin cup +which shines on the dark masses like a bolt. Wheels, gearing, +machinery! One sees life and the reality of things striking and +consuming and forging each other. + +We knew well enough that we were going towards some tragedy that the +chiefs knew of; but the tragedy was above all in the going there. + +* * * * * * + +We changed country. We left the trenches and climbed out upon the +earth--along a great incline which hid the enemy horizon from us and +protected us against him. The blackening dampness turned the cold into +a thing, and laid frozen shudders on us. A pestilence surrounded us, +wide and vague; and sometimes lines of pale crosses alongside our march +spelled out death in a more precise way. + +It was our tenth night; it was at the end of all our nights, and it +seemed greater than they. The distances groaned, roared and growled, +and would sometimes abruptly define the crest of the incline among the +winding sheets of the mists. The intermittent flutters of light showed +me the soldier who marched in front of me. My eyes, resting in fixity +on him, discovered his sheepskin coat, his waist-belt, straining at the +shoulder-straps, dragged by the metal-packed cartridge pouches, by the +bayonet, by the trench-tool; his round bags, pushed backwards; his +swathed and hooded rifle; his knapsack, packed lengthways so as not to +give a handle to the earth which goes by on either side; the blanket, +the quilt, the tentcloth, folded accordion-wise on the top of each +other, and the whole surmounted by the mess-tin, ringing like a +mournful bell, higher than his head. What a huge, heavy and mighty +mass the armed soldier is, near at hand and when one is looking at +nothing else! + +Once, in consequence of a command badly given or badly understood, the +company wavered, flowed back and pawed the ground in disorder on the +declivity. Fifty men, who were all alike by reason of their sheepskins +ran here and there and one by one--a vague collection of evasive men, +small and frail, not knowing what to do; while non-coms ran round them, +abused and gathered them. Order began again, and against the whitish +and bluish sheets spread by the star-shells I saw the pendulums of the +step once more fall into line under the long body of shadows. + +During the night there was a distribution of brandy. By the light of +lanterns we saw the cups held out, shaking and gleaming. The libation +drew from our entrails a moment of delight and uplifting. The liquid's +fierce flow awoke deep impulses, restored the martial mien to us, and +made us grasp our rifles with a victorious desire to kill. + +But the night was longer than that dream. Soon, the kind of goddess +superposed on our shadows left our hands and our heads, and that thrill +of glory was of no use. + +Indeed, its memory filled our hearts with a sort of bitterness. "You +see, there's no trenches anywhere about here," grumbled the men. + +"And why are there no trenches?" said a wrongheaded man; "why, it's +because they don't care a damn for soldiers' lives." + +"Fathead!" the corporal interrupted; "what's the good of trenches +behind, if there's one in front, fathead!" + +* * * * * * + +"Halt!" + +We saw the Divisional Staff go by in the beam of a searchlight. In +that valley of night it might have been a procession of princes rising +from a subterranean palace. On cuffs and sleeves and collars badges +wagged and shone, golden aureoles encircled the heads of this group of +apparitions. + +The flashing made us start and awoke us forcibly, as it did the night. + +The men had been pressed back upon the side of the sunken hollow to +clear the way; and they watched, blended with the solidity of the dark. +Each great person in his turn pierced the fan of moted sunshine, and +each was lighted up for some paces. Hidden and abashed, the +shadow-soldiers began to speak in very low voices of those who went by +like torches. + +They who passed first, guiding the Staff, were the company and +battalion officers. We knew them. The quiet comments breathed from +the darkness were composed either of praises or curses; these were good +and clear-sighted officers; those were triflers or skulkers. + +"That's one that's killed some men!" + +"That's one I'd be killed for!" + +"The infantry officer who really does all he ought," Pélican declared, +"well, he get's killed." + +"Or else he's lucky." + +"There's black and there's white in the company officers. At bottom +you know, I say they're men. It's just a chance you've got whether you +tumble on the good or the bad sort. No good worrying. It's just +luck." + +"More's the pity for us." + +The soldier who said that smiled vaguely, lighted by a reflection from +the chiefs. One read in his face an acquiescence which recalled to me +certain beautiful smiles I had caught sight of in former days on +toilers' humble faces. Those who are around me are saying to +themselves, "Thus it is written," and they think no farther than that, +massed all mistily in the darkness, like vague hordes of negroes. + +Then officers went by of whom we did not speak, because we did not know +them. These unknown tab-bearers made a greater impression than the +others; and besides, their importance and their power were increasing. +We saw rows of increasing crowns on the caps. Then, the shadow-men +were silent. The eulogy and the censure addressed to those whom one +had seen at work had no hold on these, and all those minor things faded +away. These were admired in the lump. + +This superstition made me smile. But the general of the division +himself appeared in almost sacred isolation. The tabs and +thunderbolts[1] and stripes of his satellites glittered at a respectful +distance only. Then it seemed to me that I was face to face with Fate +itself--the will of this man. In his presence a sort of instinct +dazzled me. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +"Packs up! Forward!" + +We took back upon our hips and neck the knapsack which had the shape +and the weight of a yoke, which every minute that falls on it weighs +down more dourly. The common march went on again. It filled a great +space; it shook the rocky slopes with its weight. In vain I bent my +head--I could not hear the sound of my own steps, so blended was it +with the others. And I repeated obstinately to myself that one had to +admire the intelligent force which sets all this deep mass in movement, +which says to us or makes us say, "Forward!" or "It has to be!" or "You +will _not_ know!" which hurls the world we are into a whirlpool so +great that we do not even see the direction of our fall, into +profundities we cannot see because they are profound. We have need of +masters who know all that we do not know. + +* * * * * * + +Our weariness so increased and overflowed that it seemed as if we grew +bigger at every step! And then one no longer thought of fatigue. We +had forgotten it, as we had forgotten the number of the days and even +their names. Always we made one step more, always. + +Ah, the infantry soldiers, the pitiful Wandering Jews who are always +marching! They march mathematically, in rows of four numbers, or in +file in the trenches, four-squared by their iron load, but separate, +separate. Bent forward they go, almost prostrated, trailing their +legs, kicking the dead. Slowly, little by little, they are wounded by +the length of time, by the incalculable repetition of movements, by the +greatness of things. They are borne down by their bones and muscles, +by their own human weight. At halts of only ten minutes, they sink +down. "There's no time to sleep!" "No matter," they say, and they go +to sleep as happy people do. + +* * * * * * + +Suddenly we learned that nothing was going to happen! It was all over +for us, and we were going to return to the rest-camp. We said it over +again to ourselves. And one evening they said, "We're returning," +although they did not know, as they went on straight before them, +whether they were going forward or backward. + +In the plaster-kiln which we are marching past there is a bit of +candle, and sunk underneath its feeble illumination there are four men. +Nearer, one sees that it is a soldier, guarding three prisoners. The +sight of these enemy soldiers in greenish and red rags gives us an +impression of power, of victory. Some voices question them in passing. +They are dismayed and stupefied; the fists that prop up their yellow +cheekbones protrude triangular caricatures of features. Sometimes, at +the cut of a frank question, they show signs of lifting their heads, +and awkwardly try to give vent to an answer. + +"What's he say, that chap?" they asked Sergeant Müller. + +"He says that war's none of their fault; it's the big people's." + +"The swine!" grunts Margat. + +We climb the hill and go down the other side of it. Meandering, we +steer towards the infernal glimmers down yonder. At the foot of the +hill we stop. There ought to be a clear view, but it is +evening--because of the bad weather and because the sky is full of +black things and of chemical clouds with unnatural colors. Storm is +blended with war. Above the fierce and furious cry of the shells I +heard, in domination over all, the peaceful boom of thunder. + +They plant us in subterranean files, facing a wide plain of gentle +gradient which dips from the horizon towards us, a plain with a rolling +jumble of thorn-brakes and trees, which the gale is seizing by the +hair. Squalls charged with rain and cold are passing over and +immensifying it; and there are rivers and cataclysms of clamor along +the trajectories of the shells. Yonder, under the mass of the rust-red +sky and its sullen flames, there opens a yellow rift where trees stand +forth like gallows. The soil is dismembered. The earth's covering has +been blown a lot in slabs, and its heart is seen reddish and lined +white--butchery as far as the eye can see. + +There is nothing now but to sit down and recline one's back as +conveniently as possible. We stay there and breathe and live a little; +we are calm, thanks to that faculty we have of never seeing either the +past or the future. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHITHER GOEST THOU? + + +But soon a shiver has seized all of us. + +"Listen! It's stopped! Listen!" + +The whistle of bullets has completely ceased, and the artillery also. +The lull is fantastic. The longer it lasts the more it pierces us with +the uneasiness of beasts. We lived in eternal noise; and now that it +is hiding, it shakes and rouses us, and would drive us mad. + +"What's that?" + +We rub our eyelids and open wide our eyes. We hoist our heads with no +precaution above the crumbled parapet. We question each other--"D'you +see?" + +No doubt about it; the shadows are moving along the ground wherever one +looks. There is no point in the distance where they are not moving. + +Some one says at last:-- + +"Why, it's the Boches, to be sure!" + +And then we recognize on the sloping plain the immense geographical +form of the army that is coming upon us! + +* * * * * * + +Behind and in front of us together, a terrible crackle bursts forth and +makes somber captives of us in the depth of a valley of flames, and +flames which illuminate the plain of men marching over the plain. They +reveal them afar, in incalculable number, with the first ranks +detaching themselves, wavering a little, and forming again, the chalky +soil a series of points and lines like something written! + +Gloomy stupefaction makes us dumb in face of that living immensity. +Then we understand that this host whose fountain-head is out of sight +is being frightfully cannonaded by our 75's; the shells set off behind +us and arrive in front of us. In the middle of the lilliputian ranks +the giant smoke-clouds leap like hellish gods. We see the flashes of +the shells which are entering that flesh scattered over the earth. It +is smashed and burned entirely in places, and that nation advances like +a brazier. + +Without a stop it overflows towards us. Continually the horizon +produces new waves. We hear a vast and gentle murmur rise. With their +tearing lights and their dull glimmers they resemble in the distance a +whole town making festival in the evening. + +We can do nothing against the magnitude of that attack, the greatness +of that sum total. When a gun has fired short, we see more clearly the +littleness of each shot. Fire and steel are drowned in all that life; +it closes up and re-forms like the sea. + +"Rapid fire!" + +We fire desperately. But we have not many cartridges. Since we came +into the first line they have ceased to inspect our load of ammunition; +and many men, especially these last days, have got rid of a part of the +burden which bruises hips and belly and tears away the skin. They who +are coming do not fire; and above the long burning thicket of our line +one can see them still flowing from the east. They are closely massed +in ranks. One would say they clung to each other as though welded. +They are not using their rifles. Their only weapon is the infinity of +their number. They are coming to bury us under their feet. + +Suddenly a shift in the wind brings us the smell of ether. The +divisions advancing on us are drunk! We declare it, we tell it to +ourselves frantically. + +"They're on fire! They're on fire!" cries the trembling voice of the +man beside me, whose shoulders are shaken by the shots he is hurling. + +They draw near. They are lighted from below along the descent by the +flashing footlights of our fire; they grow bigger, and already we can +make out the forms of soldiers. They are at the same time in order and +in disorder. Their outlines are rigid, and one divines faces of stone. +Their rifles are slung and they have nothing in their hands. They come +on like sleep-walkers, only knowing how to put one foot before the +other, and surely they are singing. Yonder, in the bulk of the +invasion, the guns continue to destroy whole walls and whole structures +of life at will. On the edges of it we can clearly see isolated +silhouettes and groups as they fall, with an extended line of figures +like torchlights. + +Now they are there, fifty paces away, breathing their ether into our +faces. We do not know what to do. We have no more cartridges. We fix +bayonets, our ears filled with that endless, undefined murmur which +comes from their mouths and the hollow rolling of the flood that +marches. + +A shout spreads behind us: + +"Orders to fall back!" + +We bow down and evacuate the trench by openings at the back. There are +not a lot of us, we who thought we were so many. The trench is soon +empty, and we climb the hill that we descended in coming. We go up +towards our 75's, which are in lines behind the ridge and still +thundering. We climb at a venture, in the open, by vague paths and +tracks of mud; there are no trenches. During the gray ascent it is a +little clearer than a while ago: they do not fire on us. If they fired +on us, we should be killed. We climb in flagging jumps, in jerks, +pounded by the panting of the following waves that push us before them, +closely beset by their clattering, nor turning round to look again. We +hoist ourselves up the trembling flanks of the volcano that clamors up +yonder. Along with us are emptied batteries also climbing, and horses +and clouds of steam and all the horror of modern war. Each man pushes +this retreat on, and is pushed by it; and as our panting becomes one +long voice, we go up and up, baffled by our own weight which tries to +fall back, deformed by our knapsacks, bent and silent as beasts. + +From the summit we see the trembling inundation, murmuring and +confused, filling the trenches we have just left, and seeming already +to overflow them. But our eyes and ears are violently monopolized by +the two batteries between which we are passing; they are firing into +the infinity of the attackers, and each shot plunges into life. Never +have I been so affected by the harrowing sight of artillery fire. The +tubes bark and scream in crashes that can hardly be borne; they go and +come on their brakes in starts of fantastic distinctness and violence. + +In the hollows where the batteries lie hid, in the middle of a +fan-shaped phosphorescence, we see the silhouettes of the gunners as +they thrust in the shells. Every time they maneuver the breeches, +their chests and arms are scorched by a tawny reflection. They are +like the implacable workers of blast furnace; the breeches are reddened +by the heat of the explosions, the steel of the guns is on fire in the +evening. + +For some minutes now they have fired more slowly--as if they were +becoming exhausted. A few far-apart shots--the batteries fire no more; +and now that the salvos are extinguished, we see the fire in the steel +go out. + +In the abysmal silence we hear a gunner groan:-- + +"There's no more shell." + +The shadow of twilight resumes its place in the sky--henceforward +empty. It grows cold. There is a mysterious and terrible mourning. +Around me, springing from the obscurity, are groans and gasps for +breath, loaded backs which disappear, stupefied eyes, and the gestures +of men who wipe the sweat from their foreheads. The order to retire is +repeated, in a tone that grips us--one would call it a cry of distress. +There is a confused and dejected trampling; and then we descend, we go +away the way we came, and the host follows itself heavily and makes +more steps into the gulf. + +* * * * * * + +When we have gone again down the slope of the hill, we find ourselves +once more in the bottom of a valley, for another height begins. Before +ascending it, we stop to take breath, but ready to set off again should +the flood-tide appear on the ridge yonder. We find ourselves in the +middle of grassy expanses, without trenches or defense, and we are +astonished not to see the supports. We are in the midst of a sort of +absence. + +We sit down here and there; and some one with his forehead bowed almost +to his knees, translating the common thought, says:-- + +"It's none of our fault." + +Our lieutenant goes up to the man, puts his hand on his shoulder, and +says, gently:-- + +"No, my lads, it's none of your fault." + +Just then some sections join us who say, "We're the rearguard." And +some add that the two batteries of 75's up yonder are already captured. +A whistle rings out--"Come, march!" + +We continue the retreat. There are two battalions of us in all--no +soldier in front of us; no French soldier behind us. I have neighbors +who are unknown to me, motley men, routed and stupefied, artillery and +engineers; unknown men who come and go away, who seem to be born and +seem to die. + +At one time we get a glimpse of some confusion in the orders from +above. A Staff officer, issuing from no one knew where, throws himself +in front of us, bars our way, and questions us in a tragic voice:-- + +"What are you miserable men doing? Are you running away? Forward in +the name of France! I call upon you to return. Forward!" + +The soldiers, who would never have thought of retiring without orders, +are stunned, and can make nothing of it. + +"We're going back because they told us to go back." + +But they obey. They turn right about face. Some of them have already +begun to march forward, and they call to their comrades:-- + +"Hey there! This way, it seems!" + +But the order to retire returns definitely, and we obey once more, +fuming against those who do not know what they say; and the ebb carries +away with it the officer who shouted amiss. + +The march speeds up, it becomes precipitate and haggard. We are swept +along by an impetuosity that we submit to without knowing whence it +comes. We begin the ascent of the second hill which appears in the +fallen night a mountain. + +When fairly on it we hear round us, on all sides and quite close, a +terrible pit-pat, and the long low hiss of mown grass. There is a +crackling afar in the sky, and they who glance back for a second in the +awesome storm see the cloudy ridges catch fire horizontally. It means +that the enemy have mounted machine guns on the summit we have just +abandoned, and that the place where we are is being hacked by the +knives of bullets. On all sides soldiers wheel and rattle down with +curses, sighs and cries. We grab and hang on to each other, jostling +as if we were fighting. + +The rest at last reach the top of the rise; and just at that moment the +lieutenant cries in a clear and heartrending voice: + +"Good-by, my lads!" + +We see him fall, and he is carried away by the survivors around him. + +From the summit we go a few steps down the other side, and lie on the +ground in silence. Some one asks, "The lieutenant?" + +"He's dead." + +"Ah," says the soldier, "and how he said good-by to us!" + +We breathe a little now. We do not think any more unless it be that we +are at last saved, at last lying down. + +Some engineers fire star-shells, to reconnoiter the state of things in +the ground we have evacuated. Some have the curiosity to risk a glance +over it. On the top of the first hill--where our guns were--the big +dazzling plummets show a line of bustling excitement. One hears the +noises of picks and of mallet blows. + +They have stopped their advance and are consolidating there. They are +hollowing their trenches and planting their network of wire--which will +have to be taken again some day. We watch, outspread on our bellies, +or kneeling, or sitting lower down, with our empty rifles beside us. + +Margat reflects, shakes his head and says:-- + +"Wire would have stopped them just now. But we had no wire." + +"And machine-guns, too! but where are they, the M.G.s?" + +We have a distinct feeling that there has been an enormous blunder in +the command. Want of foresight--the reënforcements were not there; +they had not thought of supports. There were not enough guns to bar +their way, nor enough artillery ammunition; with our own eyes we had +seen two batteries cease fire in mid-action--they had not thought of +shells. In a wide stretch of country, as one could see, there were no +defense work, no trenches; they had not thought of trenches. + +It is obvious even to the common eyes of common soldiers. + +"What could we do?" says one of us; "it's the chiefs." + +We say it and we should repeat it if we were not up again and swept +away in the hustle of a fresh departure, and thrown back upon more +immediate and important anxieties. + +* * * * * * + +We do not know where we are. + +We have marched all night. More weariness bends our spines again, more +obscurity hums in our heads. By following the bed of a valley, we have +found trenches again, and then men. These splayed and squelched +alleys, with their fat and sinking sandbags, their props which rot like +limbs, flow into wider pockets where activity prevails--battalion H.Q., +or dressing-stations. About midnight we saw, through the golden line +of a dugout's half-open door, some officers seated at a white table--a +cloth or a map. Some one cries, "They're lucky!" The company officers +are exposed to dangers as we are, but only in attacks and reliefs. We +suffer long. They have neither the vigil at the loophole, nor the +knapsack, nor the fatigues. What always lasts is greater. + +And now the walls of flabby flagstones and the open-mouthed caves have +begun again. Morning rises, long and narrow as our lot. We reach a +busy trench-crossing. A stench catches my throat: some cess-pool into +which these streets suspended in the earth empty their sewage? No, we +see rows of stretchers, each one swollen. There is a tent there of +gray canvas, which flaps like a flag, and on its fluttering wall the +dawn lights up a bloody cross. + +* * * * * * + +Sometimes, when we are high enough for our eyes to unbury themselves, I +can dimly see some geometrical lines, so confused, so desolated by +distance, that I do not know if it is our country or the other; even +when one sees he does not know. Our looks are worn away in looking. +We do not see, we are powerless to people the world. We all have +nothing in common but eyes of evening and a soul of night. + +And always, always, in these trenches whose walls run down like waves, +with their stale stinks of chlorine and sulphur, chains of soldiers go +forward endlessly, towing each other. They go as quickly as they can, +as if the walls were going to close upon them. They are bowed as if +they were always climbing, wholly dark under colossal packs which they +carry without stopping, from one place to another place, as they might +rocks in hell. From minute to minute we are filling the places of the +obliterated hosts who have passed this way like the wind or have stayed +here like the earth. + +We halt in a funnel. We lean our backs against the walls, resting the +packs on the projections which bristle from them. But we examine these +things coming out of the earth, and we smell that they are knees, +elbows and heads. They were interred there one day and the following +days are disinterring them. At the spot where I am, from which I have +roughly and heavily recoiled with all my armory, a foot comes out from +a subterranean body and protrudes. I try to put it out of the way, but +it is strongly incrusted. One would have to break the corpse of steel, +to make it disappear. I look at the morsel of mortality. My thoughts, +and I cannot help them, are attracted by the horizontal body that the +world bruises; they go into the ground with it and mold a shape for it. +Its face--what is the look which rots crushed in the dark depth of the +earth at the top of these remains? Ah, one catches sight of what there +is under the battlefields! Everywhere in the spacious wall there are +limbs, and black and muddy gestures. It is a sepulchral sculptor's +great sketch-model, a bas-relief in clay that stands haughtily before +our eyes. It is the portal of the earth's interior; yes, it is the +gate of hell. + +* * * * * * + +In order to get here, I slept as I marched; and now I have an illusion +that I am hidden in this little cave, cooped up against the curve of +the roof. I am no more than this gentle cry of the flesh--Sleep! As I +begin to doze and people myself with dreams, a man comes in. He is +unarmed, and he ransacks us with the stabbing white point of his +flash-lamp. It is the colonel's batman. He says to our adjutant as +soon as he finds him:-- + +"Six fatigue men wanted." + +The adjutant's bulk rises and yawns:-- + +"Butsire, Vindame, Margat, Termite, Paulin, Rémus!" he orders as he +goes to sleep again. + +We emerge from the cave; and more slowly, from our drowsiness. We find +ourselves standing in a village street. But as soon as we touch the +open air, dazzling roars precede and follow us, mere handful of men as +we are, abruptly revealing us to each other. We hurl ourselves like a +pack of hounds into the first door or the first gaping hole, and there +are some who cry that: "We are marked. We're given away!" + +After the porterage fatigue we go back. I settle myself in my corner, +heavier, more exhausted, more buried in the bottom of everything. I +was beginning to sleep, to go away from myself, lulled by a voice which +sought in vain the number of the days we had been on the move, and was +repeating the names of the nights--Thursday, Friday, Saturday--when the +man with the pointed light returns, demands a gang, and I set off with +the others. It is so again for a third time. As soon as we are +outside, the night, which seems to lie in wait for us, sends us a +squall, with its thunderous destruction of space; it scatters us; then +we are drawn together and joined up. We carry thick planks, two by +two; and then piles of sacks which blind the bearers with a plastery +dust and make them reel like masts. + +Then the last time, the most terrible, it was wire. Each of us takes +into his hands a great hoop of coiled wire, as tall as ourselves, and +weighing over sixty pounds. When one carries it, the supple wheel +stretches out like an animal; it is set dancing by the least movement, +it works into the flesh of the shoulder, and strikes one's feet. Mine +tries to cling to me and pull me up and throw me to the ground. With +this malignantly heavy thing, animated with barbarous and powerful +movement, I cross the ruins of a railway station, all stones and beams. +We clamber up an embankment which slips away and avoids us, we drag and +push the rebellious and implacable burden. It cannot be reached, that +receding height. But we reach it, all the same. + +Ah, I am a normal man! I cling to life, and I have the consciousness +of duty. But at that moment I called from the bottom of my heart for +the bullet which would have delivered me from life. + +We return, with empty hands, in a sort of sinister comfort. I +remember, as we came in, a neighbor said to me--or to some one else: + +"Sheets of corrugated iron are worse." + +The fatigues have to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest +against the masses of stores which uselessly fill the depot. + +We sleep from six to seven in the morning. In the last traces of night +we emigrate from the cave, blinking like owls. + +"Where's the juice?"[1] we ask. + +[Footnote 1: Coffee.] + +There is none. The cooks are not there, nor the mess people. And they +reply:-- + +"Forward!" + +In the dull and pallid morning, on the approaches to a village, there +appear gardens, which no longer have human shape. Instead of +cultivation there are puddles and mud. All is burned or drowned, and +the walls scattered like bones everywhere; and we see the mottled and +bedaubed shadows of soldiers. War befouls the country as it does faces +and hearts. + +Our company gets going, gray and wan, broken down by the infamous +weariness. We halt in front of a hangar:-- + +"Those that are tired can leave their packs," the new sergeant advises; +"they'll find them again here." + +"If we're leaving our packs, it means we're going to attack," says an +ancient. + +He says it, but he does not know. + +One by one, on the dirty soil of the hangar, the knapsacks fall like +bodies. Some men, however, are mistrustful, and prefer to keep their +packs. Under all circumstances there are always exceptions. + +Forward! The same shouts put us again in movement. Forward! Come, +get up! Come on, march! Subdue your refractory flesh; lift yourselves +from your slumber as from a coffin, begin yourselves again without +ceasing, give all that you can give--Forward! Forward! It has to be. +It is a higher concern than yours, a law from above. We do not know +what it is. We only know the step we make; and even by day one marches +in the night. And then, one cannot help it. The vague thoughts and +little wishes that we had in the days when we were concerned with +ourselves are ended. There is no way now of escaping from the wheels +of fate, no way now of turning aside from fatigue and cold, disgust and +pain. Forward! The world's hurricane drives straight before them +these terribly blind who grope with their rifles. + +We have passed through a wood, and then plunged again into the earth. +We are caught in an enfilading fire. It is terrible to pass in broad +daylight in these communication trenches, at right angles to the lines, +where one is in view all the way. Some soldiers are hit and fall. +There are light eddies and brief obstructions in the places where they +dive; and then the rest, a moment halted by the barrier, sometimes +still living, frown in the wide-open direction of death, and say:-- + +"Well, if it's got to be, come on. Get on with it!" + +They deliver up their bodies wholly--their warm bodies, that the bitter +cold and the wind and the sightless death touch as with women's hands. +In these contacts between living beings and force, there is something +carnal, virginal, divine. + +* * * * * * + +They have sent me into a listening post. To get there I had to worm +myself, bent double, along a low and obstructed sap. In the first +steps I was careful not to walk on the obstructions, and then I had to, +and I dared. My foot trembled on the hard or supple masses which +peopled that sap. + +On the edge of the hole--there had been a road above it formerly, or +perhaps even a market-place--the trunk of a tree severed near the +ground arose, short as a grave-stone. The sight stopped me for a +moment, and my heart, weakened no doubt by my physical destitution, +kindled with pity for the tree become a tomb! + +Two hours later I rejoined the section in its pit. We abide there, +while the cannonade increases. The morning goes by, then the +afternoon. Then it is evening. + +They make us go into a wide dugout. It appears that an attack is +developing somewhere. From time to time, through a breach contrived +between sandbags so decomposed and oozing that they seem to have lived, +we go out to a little winterly and mournful crossing, to look about. +We consult the sky to determine the tempest's whereabouts. We can know +nothing. + +The artillery fire dazzles and then chokes up our sight. The heavens +are making a tumult of blades. + +Monuments of steel break loose and crash above our heads. Under the +sky, which is dark as with threat of deluge, the explosions throw livid +sunshine in all directions. From one end to the other of the visible +world the fields move and descend and dissolve, and the immense expanse +stumbles and falls like the sea. Towering explosions in the east, a +squall in the south; in the zenith a file of bursting shrapnel like +suspended volcanoes. + +The smoke which goes by, and the hours as well, darken the inferno. +Two or three of us risk our faces at the earthen cleft and look out, as +much for the purpose of propping ourselves against the earth as for +seeing. But we see nothing, nothing on the infinite expanse which is +full of rain and dusk, nothing but the clouds which tear themselves and +blend together in the sky, and the clouds which come out of the earth. + +Then, in the slanting rain and the limitless gray, we see a man, one +only, who advances with his bayonet forward, like a specter. + +We watch this shapeless being, this thing, leaving our lines and going +away yonder. + +We only see one--perhaps that is the shadow of another, on his left. + +We do not understand, and then we do. It is the end of the attacking +wave. + +What can his thoughts be--this man alone in the rain as if under a +curse, who goes upright away, forward, when space is changed into a +shrieking machine? By the light of a cascade of flashes I thought I +saw a strange monk-like face. Then I saw more clearly--the face of an +ordinary man, muffled in a comforter. + +"It's a chap of the 150th, not the 129th," stammers a voice by my side. + +We do not know, except that it is the end of the attacking wave. + +When he has disappeared among the eddies, another follows him at a +distance, and then another. They pass by, separate and solitary, +delegates of death, sacrificers and sacrificed. Their great-coats fly +wide; and we, we press close to each other in our corner of night; we +push and hoist ourselves with our rusted muscles, to see that void and +those great scattered soldiers. + +We return to the shelter, which is plunged in darkness. The +motor-cyclist's voice obtrudes itself to the point that we think we can +see his black armor. He is describing the "carryings on" at Bordeaux +in September, when the Government was there. He tells of the +festivities, the orgies, the expenditure, and there is almost a tone of +pride in the poor creature's voice as he recalls so many pompous +pageants all at once. + +But the uproar outside silences us. Our funk-hole trembles and cracks. +It is the barrage--the barrage which those whom we saw have gone to +fight, hand to hand. A thunderbolt falls just at the opening, it casts +a bright light on all of us, and reveals the last emotion of all, the +belief that all was ended! One man is grimacing like a malefactor +caught in the act; another is opening strange, disappointed eyes; +another is swinging his doleful head, enslaved by the love of sleep, +and another, squatting with his head in his hands, makes a lurid +entanglement. We have seen each other--upright, sitting or +crucified--in the second of broad daylight which came into the bowels +of the earth to resurrect our darkness. + +In a moment, when the guns chance to take breath, a voice at the +door-hole calls us: + +"Forward!" + +"We shall be staying there, this time over!" growl the men. + +They say this, but they do not know it. We go out, into a chaos of +crashing and flames. + +"You'd better fix bayonets," says the sergeant; "come, get 'em on." + +We stop while we adjust weapon to weapon and then run to overtake the +rest. + +We go down; we go up; we mark time; we go forward--like the others. We +are no longer in the trench. + +"Get your heads down--kneel!" + +We stop and go on our knees. A star-shell pierces us with its +intolerable gaze. + +By its light we see, a few steps in front of us, a gaping trench. We +were going to fall into it. It is motionless and empty--no, it is +occupied--yes, it is empty. It is full of a file of slain watchers. +The row of men was no doubt starting out of the earth when the shell +burst in their faces; and by the poised white rays we see that the +blast has staved them in, has taken away the flesh; and above the level +of the monstrous battlefield there is left of them only some fearfully +distorted heads. One is broken and blurred; one emerges like a peak, a +good half of it fallen into nothing. At the end of the row, the +ravages have been less, and only the eyes are smitten. The hollow +orbits in those marble heads look outwards with dried darkness. The +deep and obscure face-wounds have the look of caverns and funnels, of +the shadows in the moon; and stars of mud are clapped on the faces in +the place where eyes once shone. + +Our strides have passed that trench. We go more quickly and trouble no +more now about the star-shells, which, among us who know nothing, say, +"I know" and "I will." All is changed, all habits and laws. We march +exposed, upright, through the open fields. Then I suddenly understand +what they have hidden from us up to the last moment--we are attacking! + +Yes, the counter-attack has begun without our knowing it. I apply +myself to following the others. May I not be killed like the others; +may I be saved like the others! But if I am killed, so much the worse. + +I bear myself forward. My eyes are open but I look at nothing; +confused pictures are printed on my staring eyes. The men around me +form strange surges; shouts cross each other or descend. Upon the +fantastic walls of nights the shots make flicks and flashes. Earth and +sky are crowded with apparitions; and the golden lace of burning stakes +is unfolding. + +A man is in front of me, a man whose head is wrapped in linen. + +He is coming from the opposite direction. He is coming from the other +country! He was seeking me, and I was seeking him. He is quite +near--suddenly he is upon me. + +The fear that he is killing me or escaping me--I do not know +which--makes me throw out a desperate effort. Opening my hands and +letting the rifle go, I seize him. My fingers are buried in his +shoulder, in his neck, and I find again, with overflowing exultation, +the eternal form of the human frame. I hold him by the neck with all +my strength, and with more than all my strength, and we quiver with my +quivering. + +He had not the idea of dropping his rifle so quickly as I. He yields +and sinks. I cling to him as if it were salvation. The words in his +throat make a lifeless noise. He brandishes a hand which has only +three fingers--I saw it clearly outlined against the clouds like a +fork. + +Just as he totters in my arms, resisting death, a thunderous blow +strikes him in the back. His arms drop, and his head also, which is +violently doubled back, but his body is hurled against me like a +projectile, like a superhuman blast. + +I have rolled on the ground; I get up, and while I am hastily trying to +find myself again I feel a light blow in the waist. What is it? I +walk forward, and still forward, with my empty hands. I see the others +pass, they go by in front of me. _I_, I advance no more. Suddenly I +fall to the ground. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RUINS + + +I fall on my knees, and then full length. I do what so many others +have done. + +I am alone on the earth, face to face with the mud, and I can no longer +move. The frightful searching of the shells alights around me. The +hoarse hurricane which does not know me is yet trying to find the place +where I am! + +Then the battle goes away, and its departure is heartrending. In spite +of all my efforts, the noise of the firing fades and I am alone; the +wind blows and I am naked. + +I shall remain nailed to the ground. By clinging to the earth and +plunging my hands into the depth of the swamp as far as the stones, I +get my neck round a little to see the enormous burden that my back +supports. No--it is only the immensity on me. + +My gaze goes crawling. In front of me there are dark things all linked +together, which seem to seize or to embrace one another. I look at +those hills which shut out my horizon and imitate gestures and men. +The multitude downfallen there imprisons me in its ruins. I am walled +in by those who are lying down, as I was walled in before by those who +stood. + +I am not in pain. I am extraordinarily calm; I am drunk with +tranquillity. Are they dead, all--those? I do not know. The dead are +specters of the living, but the living are specters of the dead. +Something warm is licking my hand. The black mass which overhangs me +is trembling. It is a foundered horse, whose great body is emptying +itself, whose blood is flowing like poor touches of a tongue on to my +hand. I shut my eyes, bemused, and think of a bygone merry-making; and +I remember that I once saw, at the end of a hunt, against the operatic +background of a forest, a child-animal whose life gushed out amid +general delight. + +A voice is speaking beside me. + +No doubt the moon has come out--I cannot see as high as the cloud +escarpments, as high as the sky's opening. But that blenching light is +making the corpses shine like tombstones. + +I try to find the low voice. There are two bodies, one above the +other. The one underneath must be gigantic--his arms are thrown +backward in a hurricane gesture; his stiff, disheveled hair has crowned +him with a broken crown. His eyes are opaque and glaucous, like two +expectorations, and his stillness is greater than anything one may +dream of. On the other the moon's beams are setting points and lines +a-sparkle and silvering gold. It is he who is talking to me, quietly +and without end. But although his low voice is that of a friend, his +words are incoherent. He is mad--I am abandoned by him! No matter, I +will drag myself up to him to begin with. I look at him again. I +shake myself and blink my eyes, so as to look better. He wears on his +body a uniform accursed! Then with a start, and my hand claw-wise, I +stretch myself towards the glittering prize to secure it. But I cannot +go nearer him; it seems that I no longer have a body. He has looked at +me. He has recognized my uniform, if it is recognizable, and my cap, +if I have it still. Perhaps he has recognized the indelible seal of my +race that I carry printed on my features. Yes, on my face he has +recognized that stamp. Something like hatred has blotted out the face +that I saw dawning so close to me. Our two hearts make a desperate +effort to hurl ourselves on each other. But we can no more strike each +other than we can separate ourselves. + +But has he seen me? I cannot say now. He is stirred by fever as by +the wind; he is choked with blood. He writhes, and that shows me the +beaten-down wings of his black cloak. + +Close by, some of the wounded have cried out; and farther away one +would say they are singing--beyond the low stakes so twisted and +shriveled that they look as if guillotined. + +He does not know what he is saying. He does not even know that he is +speaking, that his thoughts are coming out. The night is torn into +rags by sudden bursts; it fills again at random with clusters of +flashes; and his delirium enters into my head. He murmurs that logic +is a thing of terrible chains, and that all things cling together. He +utters sentences from which distinct words spring, like the scattered +hasty gleams they include in hymns--the Bible, history, majesty, folly. +Then he shouts:-- + +"There is nothing in the world but the Empire's glory!" + +His cry shakes some of the motionless reefs. And I, like an invincible +echo, I cry:-- + +"There is only the glory of France!" + +I do not know if I did really cry out, and if our words did collide in +the night's horror. His head is quite bare. His slender neck and +bird-like profile issue from a fur collar. There are things like owls +shining on his breast. It seems to me as if silence is digging itself +into the brains and lungs of the dark prisoners who imprison us, and +that we are listening to it. + +He rambles more loudly now, as if he bore a stifling secret; he calls +up multitudes, and still more multitudes. He is obsessed by +multitudes--"Men, men!" he says. The soil is caressed by some sounds +of sighs, terribly soft, by confidences which are interchanged without +their wishing it. Now and again, the sky collapses into light, and +that flash of instantaneous sunshine changes the shape of the plain +every time, according to its direction. Then does the night take all +back again athwart the rolling echoes. + +"Men! Men!" + +"What about them, then?" says a sudden jeering voice which falls like a +stone. + +"Men _must_ not awake," the shining shadow goes on, in dull and hollow +tones. + +"Don't worry!" says the ironical voice, and at that moment it terrifies +me. + +Several bodies arise on their fists into the darkness--I see them by +their heavy groans--and look around them. + +The shadow talks to himself and repeats his insane words:-- + +"Men _must_ not awake." + +The voice opposite me, capsizing in laughter and swollen with a rattle, +says again:-- + +"Don't worry!" + +Yonder, in the hemisphere of night, comets glide, blending their cries +of engines and owls with their flaming entrails. Will the sky ever +recover the huge peace of the sun and the stainless blue? + +A little order, a little lucidity are coming back into my mind. Then I +begin to think about myself. + +Am I going to die, yes or no? Where can I be wounded? I have managed +to look at my hands, one by one; they are not dead, and I saw nothing +in their dark trickling. It is extraordinary to be made motionless +like this, without knowing where or how. I can do no more on earth +than lift my eyes a little to the edge of the world where I have +rolled. + +Suddenly I am pushed by a movement of the horse on which I am lying. I +see that he has turned his great head aside; he is mournfully eating +grass. I saw this horse but lately in the middle of the regiment--I +know him by the white in his mane--rearing and whinnying like the true +battle-chargers; and now, broken somewhere, he is silent as the truly +unhappy are. Once again, I recall the red deer's little one, mutilated +on its carpet of fresh crimson, and the emotion which I had not on that +bygone day rises into my throat. Animals are innocence incarnate. +This horse is like an enormous child, and if one wanted to point out +life's innocence face to face, one would have to typify, not a little +child, but a horse. My neck gives way, I utter a groan, and my face +gropes upon the ground. + +The animal's start has altered my place and shot me on my side, nearer +still to the man who was talking. He has unbent, and is lying on his +back. Thus he offers his face like a mirror to the moon's pallor, and +shows hideously that he is wounded in the neck. I feel that he is +going to die. His words are hardly more now than the rustle of wings. +He has said some unintelligible things about a Spanish painter, and +some motionless portraits in the palaces--the Escurial, Spain, Europe. +Suddenly he is repelling with violence some beings who are in his +past:-- + +"Begone, you dreamers!" he says, louder than the stormy sky where the +flames are red as blood, louder than the falling flashes and the +harrowing wind, louder than all the night which enshrouds us and yet +continues to stone us. + +He is seized with a frenzy which bares his soul as naked as his neck:-- + +"The truth is revolutionary," gasps the nocturnal voice; "get you gone, +you men of truth, you who cast disorder among ignorance, you who strew +words and sow the wind; you contrivers, begone! You bring in the reign +of men! But the multitude hates you and mocks you!" + +He laughs, as if he heard the multitude's laughter. + +And around us another burst of convulsive laughter grows hugely bigger +in the plain's black heart:-- + +"Wot's 'e sayin' now, that chap?" + +"Let him be. You can see 'e knows more'n 'e says." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +I am so near to him that I alone gather the rest of his voice, and he +says to me very quietly:-- + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +And those words stabbed me to the heart and dilated my eyes with +horror, for it seemed to me suddenly, in a flash, that he understood +what he was saying! A picture comes to life before my eyes--that +prince, whom I saw from below, once upon a time, in the nightmare of +life, he who loved the blood of the chase. Not far away a shell turns +the darkness upside down; and it seems as if that explosion also has +considered and shrieked. + +Heavy night is implanted everywhere around us. My hands are bathed in +black blood. On my neck and cheeks, rain, which is also black, bleeds. + +The funeral procession of silver-fringed clouds goes by once more, and +again a ray of moonlight besilvers the swamp that has sunk us soldiers; +it lays winding-sheets on the prone. + +All at once a swelling lamentation comes to life, one knows not where, +and glides over the plain:-- + +"Help! Help!" + +"Now then! _They're_ not coming to look for us! What about it?" + +And I see a stirring and movement, very gentle, as at the bottom of the +sea. + +Amid the glut of noises, upon that still tepid and unsubmissive expanse +where cold death sits brooding, that sharp profile has fallen back. +The cloak is quivering. The great and sumptuous bird of prey is in the +act of taking wing. + +The horse has not stopped bleeding. Its blood falls on me drop by drop +with the regularity of a clock,--as though all the blood that is +filtering through the strata of the field and all the punishment of the +wounded came to a head in him and through him. Ah, it seems that truth +goes farther in all directions than one thought! We bend over the +wrong that animals suffer, for them we wholly understand. + +Men, men! Everywhere the plain has a mangled outline. Below that +horizon, sometimes blue-black and sometimes red-black, the plain is +monumental! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AN APPARITION + + +I have not changed my place. I open my eyes. Have I been sleeping? I +do not know. There is tranquil light now. It is evening or morning. +My arms alone can tremble. I am enrooted like a distorted bush. My +wound? It is that which glues me to the ground. + +I succeed in raising my face, and the wet waves of space assail my +eyes. Patiently I pick out of the earthy pallor which blends all +things some foggy shoulders, some cloudy angles of elbows, some +hand-like lacerations. I discern in the still circle which encloses +me--faces lying on the ground and dirty as feet, faces held out to the +rain like vases, and holding stagnant tears. + +Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. +It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. +Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a +little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips +left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are +sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and +stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror. + +Water-blackened overcoats cover and clothe the whole earth around me. + +I gaze, and gaze---- + +I am frozen by a mass which supports me. My elbow sinks into it. It +is the horse's belly; its rigid leg obliquely bars the narrow circle +from which my eyes cannot escape. Ah, it is dead! It seems to me that +my breast is empty, yet still there is an echo in my heart. What I am +looking for is life. + +The distant sky is resonant, and each dull shot comes and pushes my +shoulder. Nearer, some shells are thundering heavily. Though I cannot +see them, I see the tawny reflection that their flame spreads abroad, +and the sudden darkness as well that is hurled by their clouds of +excretion. Other shadows go and come on the ground about me; and then +I hear in the air the plunge of beating wings, and cries so fierce that +I feel them ransack my head. + +* * * * * * + +Death is not yet dead everywhere. Some points and surfaces still +resist and budge and cry out, doubtless because it is dawn; and once +the wind swept away a muffled bugle-call. There are some who still +burn with the invisible fire of fever, in spite of the frozen periods +they have crossed. But the cold is working into them. The immobility +of lifeless things is passing into them, and the wind empties itself as +it goes by. + +Voices are worn away; looks are soldered to their eyes. Wounds are +staunched; they have finished. Only the earth and the stones bleed. +And just then I saw, under the trickling morning, some half-open but +still tepid dead that steamed, as if they were the blackening +rubbish-heap of a village. I watch that hovering dead breath of the +dead. The crows are eddying round the naked flesh with their flapping +banners and their war-cries. I see one which has found some shining +rubies on the black vein-stone of a foot; and one which noisily draws +near to a mouth, as if called by it. Sometimes a dead man makes a +movement, so that he will fall lower down. But they will have no more +burial than if they were the last men of all. + +* * * * * * + +There is one upright presence which I catch a glimpse of, so near, so +near; and I want to see it. In making the effort with my elbow on the +horse's ballooned body I succeed in altering the direction of my head, +and of the corridor of my gaze. Then all at once I discover a quite +new population of bronze men in rotten clothes; and especially, erect +on bended knees, a gray overcoat, lacquered with blood and pierced by a +great hole, round which is collected a bunch of heavy crimson flowers. +Slowly I lift the burden of my eyes to explore that hole. Amid the +shattered flesh, with its changing colors and a smell so strong that it +puts a loathsome taste in my mouth, at the bottom of the cage where +some crossed bones are black and rusted as iron bars, I can see +something, something isolated, dark and round. I see that it is a +heart. + +Placed there, too--I do not know how, for I cannot see the body's full +height--the arm, and the hand. The hand has only three fingers--a +fork---- Ah, I recognize that heart! It is his whom I killed. +Prostrate in the mud before him, because of my defeat and my +resemblance, I cried out to the man's profundity, to the superhuman +man. Then my eyes fell; and I saw worms moving on the edges of that +infinite wound. I was quite close to their stirring. They are whitish +worms, and their tails are pointed like stings; they curve and flatten +out, sometimes in the shape of an "i," and sometimes of a "u." The +perfection of immobility is left behind. The human material is +crumbled into the earth for another end. + +I hated that man, when he had his shape and his warmth. We were +foreigners, and made to destroy ourselves. Yet it seems to me, in face +of that bluish heart, still attached to its red cords, that I +understand the value of life. It is understood by force, like a +caress. I think I can see how many seasons and memories and beings +there had to be, yonder, to make up that life,--while I remain before +him, on a point of the plain, like a night watcher. I hear the voice +that his flesh breathed while yet he lived a little, when my ferocious +hands fumbled in him for the skeleton we all have. He fills the whole +place. He is too many things at once. How can there be worlds in the +world? That established notion would destroy all. + +This perfume of a tuberose is the breath of corruption. On the ground, +I see crows near me, like hens. + +Myself! I think of myself, of all that I am. Myself, my home, my +hours; the past, and the future,--it was going to be like the past! +And at that moment I feel, weeping within me and dragging itself from +some little bygone trifle, a new and tragical sorrow in dying, a hunger +to be warm once more in the rain and the cold: to enclose myself in +myself in spite of space, to hold myself back, to live. I called for +help, and then lay panting, watching the distance in desperate +expectation. "Stretcher-bearers!" I cry. I do not hear myself; but if +only the others heard me! + +Now that I have made that effort, I can do no more, and my head lies +there at the entrance to that world-great wound. + +There is nothing now. + +Yet there is that man. He was laid out like one dead. But suddenly, +through his shut eyes, he smiled. He, no doubt, will come back here on +earth, and something within me thanks him for his miracle. + +And there was that one, too, whom I saw die. He raised his hand, which +was drowning. Hidden in the depths of the others, it was only by that +hand that he lived, and called, and saw. On one finger shone a +wedding-ring, and it told me a sort of story. When his hand ceased to +tremble, and became a dead plant with that golden flower, I felt the +beginning of a farewell rise in me like a sob. But there are too many +of them for one to mourn them all. How many of them are there on all +this plain? How many, how many of them are there in all this moment? +Our heart is only made for one heart at a time. It wears us out to +look at all. One may say, "There are the others," but it is only a +saying. "You shall not know; you shall _not_ know." + +Barrenness and cold have descended on all the body of the earth. +Nothing moves any more, except the wind, that is charged with cold +water, and the shells, that are surrounded by infinity, and the crows, +and the thought that rolls immured in my head. + +* * * * * * + +They are motionless at last, they who forever marched, they to whom +space was so great! I see their poor hands, their poor legs, their +poor backs, resting on the earth. They are tranquil at last. The +shells which bespattered them are ravaging another world. They are in +the peace eternal. + +All is accomplished, all has terminated there. It is there, in that +circle narrow as a well that the descent into the raging heart of hell +was halted, the descent into slow tortures, into unrelenting fatigue, +into the flashing tempest. We came here because they told us to come +here. We have done what they told us to do. I think of the simplicity +of our reply on the Day of Judgment. + +The gunfire continues. Always, always, the shells come, and all those +bullets that are miles in length. Hidden behind the horizons, living +men unite with machines and fall furiously on space. They do not see +their shots. They do not know what they are doing. "You shall not +know; you shall _not_ know." + +But since the cannonade is returning, they will be fighting here again. +All these battles spring from themselves and necessitate each other to +infinity! One single battle is not enough, it is not complete, there +is no satisfaction. Nothing is finished, nothing is ever finished. +Ah, it is only men who die! No one understands the greatness of +things, and I know well that I do not understand all the horror in +which I am. + +* * * * * * + +Here is evening, the time when the firing is lighted up. The horizons +of the dark day, of the dark evening, and of the illuminated night +revolve around my remains as round a pivot. + +I am like those who are going to sleep, like the children. I am +growing fainter and more soothed; I close my eyes; I dream of my home. + +Yonder, no doubt, they are joining forces to make the evenings +tolerable. Marie is there, and some other women, getting dinner ready; +the house becomes a savor of cooking. I hear Marie speaking; standing +at first, then seated at the table. I hear the sound of the table +things which she moves on the cloth as she takes her place. Then, +because some one is putting a light to the lamp, having lifted its +chimney, Marie gets up to go and close the shutters. She opens the +window. She leans forward and outspreads her arms; but for a moment +she stays immersed in the naked night. She shivers, and I, too. +Dawning in the darkness, she looks afar, as I am doing. Our eyes have +met. It is true, for this night is hers as much as mine, the same +night, and distance is not anything palpable or real; distance is +nothing. It is true, this great close contact. + +Where am I? Where is Marie? What is she, even? I do not know, I do +not know. I do not know where the wound in my flesh is, and how can I +know the wound in my heart? + +* * * * * * + +The clouds are crowning themselves with sheaves of stars. It is an +aviary of fire, a hell of silver and gold. Planetary cataclysms send +immense walls of light falling around me. Phantasmal palaces of +shrieking lightning, with arches of star-shells, appear and vanish amid +forests of ghastly gleams. + +While the bombardment is patching the sky with continents of flame, it +is drawing still nearer. Volleys of flashes are plunging in here and +there and devouring the other lights. The supernatural army is +arriving! All the highways of space are crowded. Nearer still, a +shell bursts with all its might and glows; and among us all whom chance +defends goes frightfully in quest of flesh. Shells are following each +other into that cavity there. Again I see, among the things of earth, +a resurrected man, and he is dragging himself towards that hole! He is +wrapped in white, and the under-side of his body, which rubs the +ground, is black. Hooking the ground with his stiffened arms he +crawls, long and flat as a boat. He still hears the cry "Forward!" He +is finding his way to the hole; he does not know, and he is trailing +exactly toward its monstrous ambush. The shell will succeed! At any +second now the frenzied fangs of space will strike his side and go in +as into a fruit. I have not the strength to shout to him to fly +elsewhere with all his slowness; I can only open my mouth and become a +sort of prayer in face of the man's divinity. And yet, he is the +survivor; and along with the sleeper, to whom a dream was whispering +just now, he is the only one left to me. + +A hiss--the final blow reaches him; and in a flash I see the piebald +maggot crushing under the weight of the sibilance and turning wild eyes +towards me. + +No! It is not he! A blow of light--of all light--fills my eyes. I am +lifted up, I am brandished by an unknown blade in the middle of a globe +of extraordinary light. The shell----I! And I am falling, I fall +continually, fantastically. I fall out of this world; and in that +fractured flash I saw myself again--I thought of my bowels and my heart +hurled to the winds--and I heard voices saying again and again--far, +far away--"Simon Paulin died at the age of thirty-six." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + + +I am dead. I fall, I roll like a broken bird into bewilderments of +light, into canyons of darkness. Vertigo presses on my entrails, +strangles me, plunges into me. I drop sheer into the void, and my gaze +falls faster than I. + +Through the wanton breath of the depths that assail me I see, far +below, the seashore dawning. The ghostly strand that I glimpse while I +cling to my own body is bare, endless, rain-drowned, and supernaturally +mournful. Through the long, heavy and concentric mists that the clouds +make, my eyes go searching. On the shore I see a being who wanders +alone, veiled to the feet. It is a woman. Ah, I am one with that +woman! She is weeping. Her tears are dropping on the sand where the +waves are breaking! While I am reeling to infinity, I hold out my two +heavy arms to her. She fades away as I look. + +For a long time there is nothing, nothing but invisible time, and the +immense futility of rain on the sea. + +* * * * * * + +What are these flashes of light? There are gleams of flame in my eyes; +a surfeit of light is cast over me. I can no longer cling to +anything--fire and water! + +In the beginning, there is battle between fire and water--the world +revolving headlong in the hooked claws of its flames, and the expanses +of water which it drives back in clouds. At last the water obscures +the whirling spirals of the furnace and takes their place. Under the +roof of dense darkness, timbered with flashes, there are triumphant +downpours which last a hundred thousand years. Through centuries of +centuries, fire and water face each other; the fire, upright, buoyant +and leaping; the water flat, creeping, gliding, widening its lines and +its surface. When they touch, is it the water which hisses and roars, +or is it the fire? And one sees the reigning calm of a radiant plain, +a plain of incalculable greatness. The round meteor congeals into +shapes, and continental islands are sculptured by the water's boundless +hand. + +I am no longer alone and abandoned on the former battlefield of the +elements. Near this rock, something like another is taking shape; it +stands straight as a flame, and moves. This sketch-model thinks. It +reflects the wide expanse, the past and the future; and at night, on +its hill, it is the pedestal of the stars. The animal kingdom dawns in +that upright thing, the poor upright thing with a face and a cry, which +hides an internal world and in which a heart obscurely beats. A lone +being, a heart! But the heart, in the embryo of the first men, beats +only for fear. He whose face has appeared above the earth, and who +carries his soul in chaos, discerns afar shapes like his own, he sees +_the other_--the terrifying outline which spies and roams and turns +again, with the snare of his head. Man pursues man to kill him and +woman to wound her. He bites that he may eat, he strikes down that he +may clasp,--furtively, in gloomy hollows and hiding-places or in the +depths of night's bedchamber, dark love is writhing,--he lives solely +that he may protect, in some disputed cave, his eyes, his breast, his +belly, and the caressing brands of his hearth. + +* * * * * * + +There is a great calm in my environs. + +From place to place, men have gathered together. There are companies +and droves of men, with watchmen, in the vapors of dawn; and in the +middle one makes out the children and the women, crowding together like +fallow deer. To eastward I see, in the silence of a great fresco, the +diverging beams of morning gleaming, through the intervening and somber +statues of two hunters, whose long hair is tangled like briars, and who +hold each other's hand, upright on the mountain. + +Men have gone towards each other because of that ray of light which +each of them contains; and light resembles light. It reveals that the +isolated man, too free in the open expanses, is doomed to adversity as +if he were a captive, in spite of appearances; and that men must come +together that they may be stronger, that they may be more peaceful, and +even that they may be able to live. + +For men are made to live their life in its depth, and also in all its +length. Stronger than the elements and keener than all terrors are the +hunger to last long, the passion to possess one's days to the very end +and to make the best of them. It is not only a right; it is a virtue. + +Contact dissolves fear and dwindles danger. The wild beast attacks the +solitary man, but shrinks from the unison of men together. Around the +home-fire, that lowly fawning deity, it means the multiplication of the +warmth and even of the poor riches of its halo. Among the ambushes of +broad daylight, it means the better distribution of the different forms +of labor; among the ambushes of night, it stands for that of tender and +identical sleep. All lone, lost words blend in an anthem whose murmur +rises in the valley from the busy animation of morning and evening. + +The law which regulates the common good is called the moral law. +Nowhere nor ever has morality any other purpose than that; and if only +one man lived on earth, morality would not exist. It prunes the +cluster of the individual's appetites according to the desires of the +others. It emanates from all and from each at the same time, at one +and the same time from justice and from personal interest. It is +inflexible and natural, as much so as the law which, before our eyes, +fits the lights and shadows so perfectly together. It is so simple +that it speaks to each one and tells him what it is. The moral law has +not proceeded from any ideal; it is the ideal which has wholly +proceeded from the moral law. + +* * * * * * + +The primeval cataclysm has begun again upon the earth. My +vision--beautiful as a fair dream which shows men's composed reliance +on each other in the sunrise--collapses in mad nightmare. + +But this flashing devastation is not incoherent, as at the time of the +conflict of the first elements and the groping of dead things. For its +crevasses and flowing fires show a symmetry which is not Nature's; it +reveals discipline let loose, and the frenzy of wisdom. It is made up +of thought, of will, of suffering. Multitudes of scattered men, full +of an infinity of blood, confront each other like floods. A vision +comes and pounces on me, shaking the soil on which I am doubtless +laid--the marching flood. It approaches the ditch from all sides and +is poured into it. The fire hisses and roars in that army as in water; +it is extinguished in human fountains! + +* * * * * * + +It seems to me that I am struggling against what I see, while lying and +clinging somewhere; and once I even heard supernatural admonitions in +my ear, _as if I were somewhere else_. + +I am looking for men--for the rescue of speech, of a word. How many of +them I heard, once upon a time! I want one only, now. I am in the +regions where men are earthed up,--a crushed plain under a dizzy sky, +which goes by peopled with other stars than those of heaven, and tense +with other clouds, and continually lighted from flash to flash by a +daylight which is not day. + +Nearer, one makes out the human shape of great drifts and hilly fields, +many-colored and vaguely floral--the corpse of a section or of a +company. Nearer still, I perceive at my feet the ugliness of skulls. +Yes, I have seen them--wounds as big as men! In this new cess-pool, +which fire dyes red by night and the multitude dyes red by day, crows +are staggering, drunk. + +Yonder, that is the listening-post, keeping watch over the cycles of +time. Five or six captive sentinels are buried there in that cistern's +dark, their faces grimacing through the vent-hole, their skull-caps +barred with red as with gleams from hell, their mien desperate and +ravenous. + +When I ask them why they are fighting, they say:-- + +"To save my country." + +I am wandering on the other side of the immense fields where the yellow +puddles are strewn with black ones (for blood soils even mud), and with +thickets of steel, and with trees which are no more than the shadows of +themselves; I hear the skeleton of my jaws shiver and chatter. In the +middle of the flayed and yawning cemetery of living and dead, moonlike +in the night, there is a wide extent of leveled ruins. It was not a +village that once was there, it was a hillside whose pale bones are +like those of a village. The other people--mine--have scooped fragile +holes, and traced disastrous paths with their hands and with their +feet. Their faces are strained forward, their eyes search, they sniff +the wind. + +"Why are you fighting?" + +"To save my country." + +The two answers fall as alike in the distance as two notes of a +passing-bell, as alike as the voice of the guns. + +* * * * * * + +And I--I am seeking; it is a fever, a longing, a madness. I struggle, +I would fain tear myself from the soil and take wing to the truth. I +am seeking the difference between those people who are killing +themselves, and I can only find their resemblance. I cannot escape +from this resemblance of men. It terrifies me, and I try to cry out, +and there come from me strange and chaotic sounds which echo into the +unknown, which I almost hear! + +They do not wear similar clothes on the targets of their bodies, and +they speak different tongues; but from the bottom of that which is +human within them, identically the same simplicities come forth. They +have the same sorrows and the same angers, around the same causes. +They are alike as their wounds are alike and will be alike. Their +sayings are as similar as the cries that pain wrings from them, as +alike as the awful silence that soon will breathe from their murdered +lips. They only fight because they are face to face. Against each +other, they are pursuing a common end. Dimly, they kill themselves +because they are alike. + +And by day and by night, these two halves of war continue to lie in +wait for each other afar, to dig their graves at their feet, and I am +helpless. They are separated by frontiers of gulfs, which bristle with +weapons and explosive snares, impassable to life. They are separated +by all that can separate, by dead men and still by dead men, and ever +thrown back, each into its gasping islands, by black rivers and +consecrated fires, by heroism and hatred. + +And misery is endlessly begotten of the miserable. + +There is no real reason for it all; there is no reason. I do not wish +it. I groan, I fall back. + +Then the question, worn, but stubborn and violent as a solid thing, +seizes upon me again. Why? Why? I am like the weeping wind. I seek, +I defend myself, amid the infinite despair of my mind and heart. I +listen. I remember all. + +* * * * * * + +A booming sound vibrates and increases, like the fitful wing-beats of +some dim, tumultuous archangel, above the heads of the masses that move +in countless dungeons, or wheel round to furnish the front of the lines +with new flesh:-- + +"Forward! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" + +I remember. I have seen much of it, and I see it clearly. These +multitudes who are set in motion and let loose,--their brains and their +souls and their wills are not in them, but outside them! + +* * * * * * + +Other people, far away, think and wish for them. Other people wield +their hands and push them and pull them, others, who hold all their +controlling threads; in the distance, the people in the center of the +infernal orbits, in the capital cities, in the palaces. There is a +higher law; up above men there is a machine which is stronger than men. +The multitude is at the same time power and impotence--and I remember, +and I know well that I have seen it with my own eyes. War is the +multitude--and it is not! Why did I not know it since I have seen it? + +Soldier of the wide world, you, the man taken haphazard from among men, +remember--there was not a moment when you were yourself. Never did you +cease to be bowed under the harsh and answerless command, "It has to +be, it has to be." In times of peace encircled in the law of incessant +labor, in the mechanical mill or the commercial mill, slave of the +tool, of the pen, of your talent, or of some other thing, you were +tracked without respite from morning to evening by the daily task which +allowed you only just to overcome life, and to rest only in dreams. + +When the war comes that you never wanted--whatever your country and +your name--the terrible fate which grips you is sharply unmasked, +offensive and complicated. The wind of condemnation has arisen. + +They requisition your body. They lay hold on you with measures of +menace which are like legal arrest, from which nothing that is poor and +needy can escape. They imprison you in barracks. They strip you naked +as a worm, and dress you again in a uniform which obliterates you; they +mark your neck with a number. The uniform even enters into your flesh, +for you are shaped and cut out by the stamping-machine of exercises. +Brightly clad strangers spring up about you, and encircle you. You +recognize them--they are not strangers. It is a carnival, then,--but a +fierce and final carnival, for these are your new masters, they the +absolute, proclaiming on their fists and heads their gilded authority. +Such of them as are near to you are themselves only the servants of +others, who wear a greater power painted on their clothes. It is a +life of misery, humiliation and diminution into which you fall from day +to day, badly fed and badly treated, assailed throughout your body, +spurred on by your warders' orders. At every moment you are thrown +violently back into your littleness, you are punished for the least +action which comes out of it, or slain by the order of your masters. +It is forbidden you to speak when you would unite yourself with the +brother who is touching you. The silence of steel reigns around you. +Your thoughts must be only profound endurance. Discipline is +indispensable for the multitude to be melted into a single army; and in +spite of the vague kinship which is sometimes set up between you and +your nearest chief, the machine-like order paralyzes you first, so that +your body may be the better made to move in accordance with the rhythm +of the rank and the regiment--into which, nullifying all that is +yourself, you pass already as a sort of dead man. + +"They gather us together but they separate us!" cries a voice from the +past. + +If there are some who escape through the meshes, it means that such +"slackers" are also influential. They are uncommon, in spite of +appearances, as the influential are. You, the isolated man, the +ordinary man, the lowly thousand-millionth of humanity, you evade +nothing, and you march right to the end of all that happens, or to the +end of yourself. + +You will be crushed. Either you will go into the charnel house, +destroyed by those who are similar to you, since war is only made by +you, or you will return to your point in the world, diminished or +diseased, retaining only existence without health or joy, a home-exile +after absences too long, impoverished forever by the time you have +squandered. Even if selected by the miracle of chance, if unscathed in +the hour of victory, you also, _you_ will be vanquished. When you +return into the insatiable machine of the work-hours, among your own +people--whose misery the profiteers have meanwhile sucked dry with +their passion for gain--the task will be harder than before, because of +the war that must be paid for, with all its incalculable consequences. +You who peopled the peace-time prisons of your towns and barns, begone +to people the immobility of the battlefields--and if you survive, pay +up! Pay for a glory which is not yours, or for ruins that others have +made with your hands. + +Suddenly, in front of me and a few paces from my couch--as if I were in +a bed, in a bedroom, and had all at once woke up--an uncouth shape +rises awry. Even in the darkness I see that it is mangled. I see +about its face something abnormal which dimly shines; and I can see, +too, by his staggering steps, sunk in the black soil, that his shoes +are empty. He cannot speak, but he brings forward the thin arm from +which rags hang down and drip; and his imperfect hand, as torturing to +the mind as discordant chords, points to the place of his heart. I see +that heart, buried in the darkness of the flesh, in the black blood of +the living--for only shed blood is red. I see him profoundly, with my +heart. If he said anything he would say the words that I still hear +falling, drop by drop, as I heard them yonder--"Nothing can be done, +nothing." I try to move, to rid myself of him. But I cannot, I am +pinioned in a sort of nightmare; and if he had not himself faded away I +should have stayed there forever, dazzled in presence of his darkness. +This man said nothing. He appeared like the dead thing he is. He has +departed. Perhaps he has ceased to be, perhaps he has entered into +death, which is not more mysterious to him than life, which he is +leaving--and I have fallen back into myself. + +* * * * * * + +He has returned, to show his face to me. Ah, now there is a bandage +round his head, and so I recognize him by his crown of filth! I begin +again that moment when I clasped him against me to crush him; when I +propped him against the shell, when my arms felt his bones cracking +round his heart! It was he!--It was I! He says nothing, from the +eternal abysses in which he remains my brother in silence and +ignorance. The remorseful cry which tears my throat outstrips me, and +would find some one else. + +Who? + +That destiny which killed him by means of me--has it no human faces? + +"Kings!" said Termite. + +"The big people!" said the man whom they had snared, the close-cropped +German prisoner, the man with the convict's hexagonal face, he who was +greenish from top to toe. + +But these kings and majesties and superhuman men who are illuminated by +fantastic names and never make mistakes--were they not done away with +long since? One does not know. + +One does not see those who rule. One only sees what they wish, and +what they do with the others. + +Why have They always command? One does not know. The multitudes have +not given themselves to Them. They have taken them and They keep them. +Their power is supernatural. It is, because it was. This is its +explanation and formula and breath--"It has to be." + +As they have laid hold of arms, so they lay hold of heads, and make a +creed. + +"They tell you," cried he, whom none of the lowly soldiers would deign +to listen to; "they say to you, 'This is what you must have in your +minds and hearts.'" + +An inexorable religion has fallen from them upon us all, upholding what +exists, preserving what is. + +Suddenly I hear beside me, as if I were in a file of the executed, a +stammering death-agony; and I think I see him who struggled like a +stricken vulture, on the earth that was bloated with dead. And his +words enter my heart more distinctly than when they were still alive; +and they wound me like blows at once of darkness and of light. + +"Men _must_ not open their eyes!" + +"Faith comes at will, like the rest!" said Adjutant Marcassin, as he +fluttered in his red trousers about the ranks, like a blood-stained +priest of the God of War. + +He was right! He had grasped the chains of bondage when he hurled that +true cry against the truth. Every man is something of account, but +ignorance isolates and resignation scatters. Every poor man carries +within him centuries of indifference and servility. He is a +defenseless prey for hatred and dazzlement. + +The man of the people whom I am looking for, while I writhe through +confusion as through mud, the worker who measures his strength against +toil which is greater than he, and who never escapes from hardships, +the serf of these days--I see him as if he were here. He is coming out +of his shop at the bottom of the court. He wears a square cap. One +makes out the shining dust of old age strewn in his stubbly beard. He +chews and smokes his foul and noisy pipe. He nods his head; with a +fine and sterling smile he says, "There's always been war, so there'll +always be." + +And all around him people nod their heads and think the same, in the +poor lonely well of their heart. They hold the conviction anchored to +the bottom of their brains that things can never change any more. They +are like posts and paving stones, distinct but cemented together; they +believe that the life of the world is a sort of great stone monument, +and they obey, obscurely and indistinctly, everything which commands; +and they do not look afar, in spite of the little children. And I +remember the readiness there was to yield themselves, body and soul, to +serried resignation. Then, too, there is alcohol which murders; wine, +which drowns. + +One does not see the kings; one only sees the reflection of them on the +multitude. + +There are bemusings and spells of fascination, of which we are the +object. I think, fascinated. + +My lips religiously recite a passage in a book which a young man has +just read to me, while I, quite a child, lean drowsily on the kitchen +table--"Roland is not dead. Through long centuries our splendid +ancestor, the warrior of warriors, has been seen riding over the +mountains and hills across the France of Charlemagne and Hugh the +Great. At all times of great national disaster he has risen before the +people's eyes, like an omen of victory and glory, with his lustrous +helmet and his sword. He has appeared and has halted like a +soldier-archangel over the flaming horizon of conflagrations or the +dark mounds of battle and pestilence, leaning over his horse's winged +mane, fantastically swaying as though the earth itself were inebriate +with pride. Everywhere he has been seen, reviving the ideals and the +prowess of the Past. He was seen in Austria, at the time of the +eternal quarrel between Pope and Emperor; he was seen above the strange +stirrings of Scythians and Arabs, and the glowing civilizations which +arose and fell like waves around the Mediterranean. Great Roland can +never die." + +And after he had read these lines of a legend, the young man made me +admire them, and looked at me. + +He whom I thus see again, as precisely as one sees a portrait, just as +he was that evening so wonderfully far away, was my father. And I +remember how devoutly I believed--from that day now buried among them +all--in the beauty of those things, because my father had told me they +were beautiful. + +In the low room of the old house, under the green and watery gleam of +the diamond panes in the lancet window, the ancient citizen cries, +"There are people mad enough to believe that a day will come when +Brittany will no longer be at war with Maine!" He appears in the +vortex of the past, and so saying, sinks back in it. And an engraving, +once and for a long time heeded, again takes life: Standing on the +wooden boom of the ancient port, his scarred doublet rusted by wind and +brine, his old back bellied like a sail, the pirate is shaking his fist +at the frigate that passes in the distance; and leaning over the tangle +of tarred beams, as he used to on the nettings of his corsair ship, he +predicts his race's eternal hatred for the English. + +"Russia a republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. "Germany a +republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. + +And the great voices, the poets, the singers--what have the great +voices said? They have sung the praises of the victor's laurels +without knowing what they are. You, old Homer, bard of the lisping +tribes of the coasts, with your serene and venerable face sculptured in +the likeness of your great childlike genius, with your three times +millennial lyre and your empty eyes--you who led us to Poetry! And +you, herd of poets enslaved, who did not understand, who lived before +you could understand, in an age when great men were only the domestics +of great lords--and you, too, servants of the resounding and opulent +pride of to-day, eloquent flatterers and magnificent dunces, you +unwitting enemies of mankind! You have all sung the laurel wreath +without knowing what it is. + +There are dazzlings, and solemnities and ceremonies, to amuse and +excite the common people, to dim their sight with bright colors, with +the glitter of the badges and stars that are crumbs of royalty, to +inflame them with the jingle of bayonets and medals, with trumpets and +trombones and the big drum, and to inspire the demon of war in the +excitable feelings of women and the inflammable credulity of the young. +I see the triumphal arches, the military displays in the vast +amphitheaters of public places, and the march past of those who go to +die, who walk in step to hell by reason of their strength and youth, +and the hurrahs for war, and the real pride which the lowly feel in +bending the knee before their masters and saying, as their cavalcade +tops the hill, "It's fine! They might be galloping over us!" "It's +magnificent, how warlike we are!" says the woman, always dazzled, as +she convulsively squeezes the arm of him who is going away. + +And another kind of excitement takes form and seizes me by the throat +in the pestilential pits of hell--"They're on fire, they're on fire!" +stammers that soldier, breathless as his empty rifle, as the flood of +the exalted German divisions advances, linked elbow to elbow under a +godlike halo of ether, to drown the deeps with their single lives. + +Ah, the intemperate shapes and unities that float in morsels above the +peopled precipices! When two overlords, jewel-set with glittering +General Staffs, proclaim at the same time on either side of their +throbbing mobilized frontiers, "We will save our country!" there is one +immensity deceived and two victimized. There are two deceived +immensities! + +There is nothing else. That these cries can be uttered together in the +face of heaven, in the face of truth, proves at a stroke the +monstrosity of the laws which rule us, and the madness of the gods. + +I turn on a bed of pain to escape from the horrible vision of +masquerade, from the fantastic absurdity into which all these things +are brought back; and my fever seeks again. + +Those bright spells which blind, and the darkness which also blinds. +Falsehood rules with those who rule, effacing Resemblance everywhere, +and everywhere creating Difference. + +Nowhere can one turn aside from falsehood. Where indeed is there none? +The linked-up lies, the invisible chain, the Chain! + +Murmurs and shouts alike cross in confusion. Here and yonder, to right +and to left, they make pretense. Truth never reaches as far as men. +News filters through, false or atrophied. On _this_ side--all is +beautiful and disinterested; yonder--the same things are infamous. +"French militarism is not the same thing as Prussian militarism, since +one's French and the other's Prussian." The newspapers, the somber +host of the great prevailing newspapers, fall upon the minds of men and +wrap them up. The daily siftings link them together and chain them up, +and forbid them to look ahead. And the impecunious papers show blanks +in the places where the truth was too clearly written. At the end of a +war, the last things to be known by the children of the slain and by +the mutilated and worn-out survivors will be all the war-aims of its +directors. + +Suddenly they reveal to the people an accomplished fact which has been +worked out in the _terra incognita_ of courts, and they say, "Now that +it is too late, only one resource is left you--Kill that you be not +killed." + +They brandish the superficial incident which in the last hour has +caused the armaments and the heaped-up resentment and intrigues to +overflow in war; and they say, "That is the only cause of the war." It +is not true; the only cause of war is the slavery of those whose flesh +wages it. + +They say to the people, "When once victory is gained, agreeably to your +masters, all tyranny will have disappeared as if by magic, and there +will be peace on earth." It is not true. There will be no peace on +earth until the reign of men is come. + +But will it ever come? Will it have time to come, while hollow-eyed +humanity makes such haste to die? For all this advertisement of war, +radiant in the sunshine, all these temporary and mendacious reasons, +stupidly or skillfully curtailed, of which not one reaches the lofty +elevation of the common welfare--all these insufficient pretexts +suffice in sum to make the artless man bow in bestial ignorance, to +adorn him with iron and forge him at will. + +"It is not on Reason," cried the specter of the battlefield, whose +torturing spirit was breaking away from his still gilded body; "it is +not on Reason that the Bible of History stands. Else are the law of +majesties and the ancient quarrel of the flags essentially supernatural +and intangible, or the old world is built on principles of insanity." + +He touches me with his strong hand and I try to shake myself, and I +stumble curiously, although lying down. A clamor booms in my temples +and then thunders like the guns in my ears; it overflows me,--I drown +in that cry---- + +"It must be! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" That is the +war-cry, that is the cry of war. + +* * * * * * + +War will come again after this one. It will come again as long as it +can be determined by people other than those who fight. The same +causes will produce the same effects, and the living will have to give +up all hope. + +We cannot say out of what historical conjunctions the final tempests +will issue, nor by what fancy names the interchangeable ideals imposed +on men will be known in that moment. But the cause--that will perhaps +everywhere be fear of the nations' real freedom. What we do know is +that the tempests will come. + +Armaments will increase every year amid dizzy enthusiasm. The +relentless torture of precision seizes me. We do three years of +military training; our children will do five, they will do ten. We pay +two thousand million francs a year in preparation for war; we shall pay +twenty, we shall pay fifty thousand millions. All that we have will be +taken; it will be robbery, insolvency, bankruptcy. War kills wealth as +it does men; it goes away in ruins and smoke, and one cannot fabricate +gold any more than soldiers. We no longer know how to count; we no +longer know anything. A billion--a million millions--the word appears +to me printed on the emptiness of things. It sprang yesterday out of +war, and I shrink in dismay from the new, incomprehensible word. + +There will be nothing else on the earth but preparation for war. All +living forces will be absorbed by it; it will monopolize all discovery, +all science, all imagination. Supremacy in the air alone, the regular +levies for the control of space, will suffice to squander a nation's +fortune. For aerial navigation, at its birth in the middle of envious +circles, has become a rich prize which everybody desires, a prey they +have immeasurably torn in pieces. + +Other expenditure will dry up before that on destruction does, and +other longings as well, and all the reasons for living. Such will be +the sense of humanity's last age. + +* * * * * * + +The battlefields were prepared long ago. They cover entire provinces +with one black city, with a great metallic reservoir of factories, +where iron floors and furnaces tremble, bordered by a land of forests +whose trees are steel, and of wells where sleeps the sharp blackness of +snares; a country navigated by frantic groups of railway trains in +parallel formation, and heavy as attacking columns. At whatever point +you may be on the plain, even if you turn away, even if you take +flight, the bright tentacles of the rails diverge and shine, and cloudy +sheaves of wires rise into the air. Upon that territory of execution +there rises and falls and writhes machinery so complex that it has not +even names, so vast that it has not even shape; for aloft--above the +booming whirlwinds which are linked from east to west in the glow of +molten metal whose flashes are great as those of lighthouses, or in the +pallor of scattered electric constellations--hardly can one make out +the artificial outline of a mountain range, clapped upon space. + +This immense city of immense low buildings, rectangular and dark, is +not a city. They are assaulting tanks, which a feeble internal gesture +sets in motion, ready for the rolling rush of their gigantic knee-caps. +These endless cannon, thrust into pits which search into the fiery +entrails of the earth, and stand there upright, hardly leaning so much +as Pisa's tower; and these slanting tubes, long as factory chimneys, so +long that perspective distorts their lines and sometimes splays them +like the trumpets of Apocalypse--these are not cannon; they are +machine-guns, fed by continuous ribbons of trains which scoop out in +entire regions--and upon a country, if need be--mountains of +profundity. + +In war, which was once like the open country and is now wholly like +towns--and even like one immense building--one hardly sees the men. On +the round-ways and the casemates, the footbridges and the movable +platforms, among the labyrinth of concrete caves, above the regiment +echelonned downwards in the gulf and enormously upright,--one sees a +haggard herd of wan and stooping men, men black and trickling, men +issuing from the peaty turf of night, men who came there to save their +country. They earthed themselves up in some zone of the vertical +gorges, and one sees them, in this more accursed corner than those +where the hurricane reels. One senses this human material, in the +cavities of those smooth grottoes, like Dante's guilty shades. +Infernal glimmers disclose ranged lines of them, as long as roads, +slender and trembling spaces of night, which daylight and even sunshine +leave befouled with darkness and cyclopean dirt. Solid clouds overhang +them and hatchet-charged hurricanes, and leaping flashes set fire every +second to the sky's iron-mines up above the damned whose pale faces +change not under the ashes of death. They wait, intent on the +solemnity and the significance of that vast and heavy booming against +which they are for the moment imprisoned. They will be down forever +around the spot where they are. Like others before them, they will be +shrouded in perfect oblivion. Their cries will rise above the earth no +more than their lips. Their glory will not quit their poor bodies. + +I am borne away in one of the aeroplanes whose multitude darkens the +light of day as flights of arrows do in children's story-books, forming +a vaulted army. They are a fleet which can disembark a million men and +their supplies anywhere at any moment. It is only a few years since we +heard the puling cry of the first aeroplanes, and now their voice +drowns all others. Their development has only normally proceeded, yet +they alone suffice to make the territorial safeguards demanded by the +deranged of former generations appear at last to all people as comical +jests. Swept along by the engine's formidable weight, a thousand times +more powerful than it is heavy, tossing in space and filling my fibers +with its roar, I see the dwindling mounds where the huge tubes stick up +like swarming pins. I am carried along at a height of two thousand +yards. An air-pocket has seized me in a corridor of cloud, and I have +fallen like a stone a thousand yards lower, garrotted by furious air +which is cold as a blade, and filled by a plunging cry. I have seen +conflagrations and the explosions of mines, and plumes of smoke which +flow disordered and spin out in long black zigzags like the locks of +the God of War! I have seen the concentric circles by which the +stippled multitude is ever renewed. The dugouts, lined with lifts, +descend in oblique parallels into the depths. One frightful night I +saw the enemy flood it all with an inexhaustible torrent of liquid +fire. I had a vision of that black and rocky valley filled to the brim +with the lava-stream which dazzled the sight and sent a dreadful +terrestrial dawn into the whole of night. With its heart aflame Earth +seemed to become transparent as glass along that crevasse; and amid the +lake of fire heaps of living beings floated on some raft, and writhed +like the spirits of damnation. The other men fled upwards, and piled +themselves in clusters on the straight-lined borders of the valley of +filth and tears. I saw those swarming shadows huddled on the upper +brink of the long armored chasms which the explosions set trembling +like steamships. + +All chemistry makes flaming fireworks in the sky or spreads in sheets +of poison exactly as huge as the huge towns. Against them no wall +avails, no secret armor; and murder enters as invisibly as death +itself. Industry multiplies its magic. Electricity lets loose its +lightnings and thunders--and that miraculous mastery which hurls power +like a projectile. + +Who can say if this enormous might of electricity alone will not change +the face of war?--the centralized cluster of waves, the irresistible +orbs going infinitely forth to fire and destroy all explosives, lifting +the rooted armor of the earth, choking the subterranean gulfs with +heaps of calcined men--who will be burned up like barren coal,--and +maybe even arousing the earthquakes, and tearing the central fires from +earth's depths like ore! + +That will be seen by people who are alive to-day; and yet that vision +of the future so near at hand is only a slight magnification, flitting +through the brain. It terrifies one to think for how short a time +science has been methodical and of useful industry; and after all, is +there anything on earth more marvelously easy than destruction? Who +knows the new mediums it has laid in store? Who knows the limit of +cruelty to which the art of poisoning may go? Who knows if they will +not subject and impress epidemic disease as they do the living +armies--or that it will not emerge, meticulous, invincible, from the +armies of the dead? Who knows by what dread means they will sink in +oblivion this war, which only struck to the ground twenty thousand men +a day, which has invented guns of only seventy-five miles' range, bombs +of only one ton's weight, aeroplanes of only a hundred and fifty miles +an hour, tanks, and submarines which cross the Atlantic? Their costs +have not yet reached in any country the sum total of private fortunes. + +But the upheavals we catch sight of, though we can only and hardly +indicate them in figures, will be too much for life. The desperate and +furious disappearance of soldiers will have a limit. We may no longer +be able to count; but Fate will count. Some day the men will be +killed, and the women and children. And they also will disappear--they +who stand erect upon the ignominious death of the soldiers,--they will +disappear along with the huge and palpitating pedestal in which they +were rooted. But they profit by the present, they believe it will last +as long as they, and as they follow each other they say, "After us, the +deluge." Some day all war will cease for want of fighters. + +The spectacle of to-morrow is one of agony. Wise men make laughable +efforts to determine what may be, in the ages to come, the cause of the +inhabited world's end. Will it be a comet, the rarefaction of water, +or the extinction of the sun, that will destroy mankind? They have +forgotten the likeliest and nearest cause--Suicide. + +They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are +saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of +shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think +themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy +and limited mentality of the assassins themselves. + +The shapeless struggle of the elements will begin again on the seared +earth when men have slain themselves because they were slaves, because +they believed the same things, because they were alike. + +I utter a cry of despair and it seems as if I had turned over and +stifled it in a pillow. + +* * * * * * + +All is madness. And there is no one who will dare to rise and say that +all is not madness, and that the future does not so appear--as fatal +and unchangeable as a memory. + +But how many men will there be who will dare, in face of the universal +deluge which will be at the end as it was in the beginning, to get up +and cry "No!" who will pronounce the terrible and irrefutable issue:-- + +"No! The interests of the people and the interests of all their +present overlords are not the same. Upon the world's antiquity there +are two enemy races--the great and the little. The allies of the great +are, in spite of appearances, the great. The allies of the people are +the people. Here on earth there is one tribe only of parasites and +ringleaders who are the victors, and one people only who are the +vanquished." + +But, as in those earliest ages, will not thoughtful faces arise out of +the darkness? (For this is Chaos and the animal Kingdom; and Reason +being no more, she has yet to be born.) + +"You must think; but with your own ideas, not other people's." + +That lowly saying, a straw whirling in the measureless hand-to-hand +struggle of the armies, shines in my soul above all others. To think +is to hold that the masses have so far wrought too much evil without +wishing it, and that the ancient authorities, everywhere clinging fast, +violate humanity and separate the inseparable. + +There have been those who magnificently dared. There have been bearers +of the truth, men who groped in the world's tumult, trying to make +plain order of it. They discover what we did not yet know; chiefly +they discover what we no longer knew. + +But what a panic is here, among the powerful and the powers that be! + +"Truth is revolutionary! Get you gone, truth-bearers! Away with you, +reformers! You bring in the reign of men!" + +That cry was thrown into my ears one tortured night, like a whisper +from deeps below, when he of the broken wings was dying, when he +struggled tumultuously against the opening of men's eyes; but I had +always heard it round about me, always. + +In official speeches, sometimes, at moments of great public flattery, +they speak like the reformers, but that is only the diplomacy which +aims at felling them better. They force the light-bearers to hide +themselves and their torches. These dreamers, these visionaries, these +star-gazers,--they are hooted and derided. Laughter is let loose +around them, machine-made laughter, quarrelsome and beastly:-- + +"Your notion of peace is only utopian, anyway, as long as you never, +any day, stopped the war by yourself!" + +They point to the battlefield and its wreckage:-- + +"And you say that War won't be forever? Look, driveler!" + +The circle of the setting sun is crimsoning the mingled horizon of +humanity:-- + +"You say that the sun is bigger than the earth? Look, imbecile!" + +They are anathema, they are sacrilegious, they are excommunicated, who +impeach the magic of the past and the poison of tradition. And the +thousand million victims themselves scoff at and strike those who +rebel, as soon as they are able. All cast stones at them, all, even +those who suffer and while they are suffering--even the sacrificed, a +little before they die. + +The bleeding soldiers of Wagram cry: "Long live the emperor!" And the +mournful exploited in the streets cheer for the defeat of those who are +trying to alleviate a suffering which is brother to theirs. Others, +prostrate in resignation, look on, and echo what is said above them: +"After us the deluge," and the saying passes across town and country in +one enormous and fantastic breath, for they are innumerable who murmur +it. Ah, it was well said: + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +And I? + +I, the normal man? What have I done on earth? I have bent the knee to +the forces which glitter, without seeking to know whence they came and +whither they guide. How have the eyes availed me that I had to see +with, the intelligence that I had to judge with? + +Borne down by shame, I sobbed, "I don't know," and I cried out so +loudly that it seemed to me I was awaking for a moment out of slumber. +Hands are holding and calming me; they draw my shroud about me and +enclose me. + +It seems to me that a shape has leaned over me, quite near, so near; +that a loving voice has said something to me; and then it seems to me +that I have listened to fond accents whose caress came from a great way +off: + +"Why shouldn't _you_ be one of them, my lad,--one of those great +prophets?" + +I don't understand. I? How could I be? + +All my thoughts go blurred. I am falling again. But I bear away in my +eyes the picture of an iron bed where lay a rigid shape. Around it +other forms were drooping, and one stood and officiated. But the +curtain of that vision is drawn. A great plain opens the room, which +had closed for a moment on me, and obliterates it. + +Which way may I look? God? "_Miserere_----" The vibrating fragment +of the Litany has reminded me of God. + +* * * * * * + +I had seen Jesus Christ on the margin of the lake. He came like an +ordinary man along the path. There is no halo round his head. He is +only disclosed by his pallor and his gentleness. Planes of light draw +near and mass themselves and fade away around him. He shines in the +sky, as he shone on the water. As they have told of him, his beard and +hair are the color of wine. He looks upon the immense stain made by +Christians on the world, a stain confused and dark, whose edge alone, +down on His bare feet, has human shape and crimson color. In the +middle of it are anthems and burnt sacrifices, files of hooded cloaks, +and of torturers, armed with battle-axes, halberds and bayonets; and +among long clouds and thickets of armies, the opposing clash of two +crosses which have not quite the same shape. Close to him, too, on a +canvas wall, again I see the cross that bleeds. There are populations, +too, tearing themselves in twain that they may tear themselves the +better; there is the ceremonious alliance, "turning the needy out of +the way," of those who wear three crowns and those who wear one; and, +whispering in the ear of Kings, there are gray-haired Eminences, and +cunning monks, whose hue is of darkness. + +I saw the man of light and simplicity bow his head; and I feel his +wonderful voice saying: + +"I did not deserve the evil they have done unto me." + +Robbed reformer, he is a witness of his name's ferocious glory. The +greed-impassioned money-changers have long since chased Him from the +temple in their turn, and put the priests in his place. He is +crucified on every crucifix. + +Yonder among the fields are churches, demolished by war; and already +men are coming with mattock and masonry to raise the walls again. The +ray of his outstretched arm shines in space, and his clear voice says: + +"Build not the churches again. They are not what you think they were. +Build them not again." + +* * * * * * + +There is no remedy but in them whom peace sentences to hard labor, and +whom war sentences to death. There is no redress except among the +poor. + +* * * * * * + +White shapes seem to return into the white room. Truth is simple. +They who say that truth is complicated deceive themselves, and the +truth is not in them. I see again, not far from me, a bed, a child, a +girl-child, who is asleep in our house; her eyes are only two lines. +Into our house, after a very long time, we have led my old aunt. She +approves affectionately, but all the same she said, very quietly, as +she left the perfection of our room, "It was better in my time." I am +thrilled by one of our windows, whose wings are opened wide upon the +darkness; the appeal which the chasm of that window makes across the +distances enters into me. One night, as it seems to me, it was open to +its heart. + +_I_--my heart--a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is +mine, it is _ours_. The heart--that wound which we have. I have +compassion on myself. + +I see again the rainy shore that I saw before time was, before earth's +drama was unfolded; and the woman on the sands. She moans and weeps, +among the pictures which the clouds of mortality offer and withdraw, +amid that which weaves the rain. She speaks so low that I feel it is +to me she speaks. She is one with me. Love--it comes back to me. +Love is an unhappy man and unhappy woman. + +I awake--uttering the feeble cry of the babe new-born. + +All grows pale, and paler. The whiteness I foresaw through the +whirlwinds and clamors--it is here. An odor of ether recalls to me the +memory of an awful memory, but shapeless. A white room, white walls, +and white-robed women who bend over me. + +In a voice confused and hesitant, I say: + +"I've had a dream, an absurd dream." + +My hand goes to my eyes to drive it away. + +"You struggled while you were delirious--especially when you thought +you were falling," says a calm voice to me, a sedate and familiar +voice, which knows me without my knowing the voice. + +"Yes," I say! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MORNING + + +I went to sleep in Chaos, and then I awoke like the first man. + +I am in a bed, in a room. There is no noise--a tragedy of calm, and +horizons close and massive. The bed which imprisons me is one of a row +that I can see, opposite another row. A long floor goes in stripes as +far as the distant door. There are tall windows, and daylight wrapped +in linen. That is all which exists. I have always been here, I shall +end here. + +Women, white and stealthy, have spoken to me. I picked up the new +sound, and then lost it. A man all in white has sat by me, looked at +me, and touched me. His eyes shone strangely, because of his glasses. + +I sleep, and then they make me drink. + +The long afternoon goes by in the long corridor. In the evening they +make light; at night, they put it out, and the lamps--which are in +rows, like the beds, like the windows, like everything--disappear. +Just one lamp remains, in the middle, on my right. The peaceful ghost +of dead things enjoins peace. But my eyes are open, I awake more and +more. I take hold of consciousness in the dark. + +A stir is coming to life around me among the prostrate forms aligned in +the beds. This long room is immense; it has no end. The enshrouded +beds quiver and cough. They cough on all notes and in all ways, loose, +dry, or tearing. There is obstructed breathing, and gagged breathing, +and polluted, and sing-song. These people who are struggling with +their huge speech do not know themselves. I see their solitude as I +see them. There is nothing between the beds, nothing. + +Of a sudden I see a globular mass with a moon-like face oscillating in +the night. With hands held out and groping for the rails of the +bedsteads, it is seeking its way. The orb of its belly distends and +stretches its shirt like a crinoline, and shortens it. The mass is +carried by two little and extremely slender legs, knobbly at the knees, +and the color of string. It reaches the next bed, the one which a +single ditch separates from mine. On another bed, a shadow is swaying +regularly, like a doll. The mass and the shadow are a negro, whose +big, murderous head is hafted with a tiny neck. + +The hoarse concert of lungs and throats multiplies and widens. There +are some who raise the arms of marionettes out of the boxes of their +beds. Others remain interred in the gray of the bed-clothes. Now and +again, unsteady ghosts pass through the room and stoop between the +beds, and one hears the noise of a metal pail. At the end of the room, +in the dark jumble of those blind men who look straight before them and +the mutes who cough, I only see the nurse, because of her whiteness. +She goes from one shadow to another, and stoops over the motionless. +She is the vestal virgin who, so far as she can, prevents them from +going out. + +I turn my head on the pillow. In the bed bracketed with mine on the +other side, under the glow which falls from the only surviving lamp, +there is a squat manikin in a heavy knitted vest, poultice-color. From +time to time, he sits up in bed, lifts his pointed head towards the +ceiling, shakes himself, and grasping and knocking together his +spittoon and his physic-glass, he coughs like a lion. I am so near to +him that I feel that hurricane from his flesh pass over my face, and +the odor of his inward wound. + +* * * * * * + +I have slept. I see more clearly than yesterday. I no longer have the +veil that was in front of me. My eyes are attracted distinctly by +everything which moves. A powerful aromatic odor assails me; I seek +the source of it. Opposite me, in full daylight, a nurse is rubbing +with a drug some gnarled and blackened hands, enormous paws which the +earth of the battlefields, where they were too long implanted, has +almost made moldy. The strong-smelling liquid is becoming a layer of +frothy polish. + +The foulness of his hands appalls me. Gathering my wits with an +effort, I said aloud: + +"Why don't they wash his hands?" + +My neighbor on the right, the gnome in the mustard vest, seems to hear +me, and shakes his head. + +My eyes go back to the other side, and for hours I devote myself to +watching in obstinate detail, with wide-open eyes, the water-swollen +man whom I saw floating vaguely in the night like a balloon. By night +he was whitish. By day he is yellow, and his big eyes are glutted with +yellow. He gurgles, makes noises of subterranean water, and mingles +sighs with words and morsels of words. Fits of coughing tan his +ochreous face. + +His spittoon is always full. It is obvious that his heart, where his +wasted sulphurate hand is placed, beats too hard and presses his spongy +lungs and the tumor of water which distends him. He lives in the +settled notion of emptying his inexhaustible body. He is constantly +examining his bed-bottle, and I see his face in that yellow reflection. +All day I watched the torture and punishment of that body. His cap and +tunic, no longer in the least like him, hang from a nail. + +Once, when he lay engulfed and choking, he pointed to the negro, +perpetually oscillating, and said: + +"He wanted to kill himself because he was homesick." + +The doctor has said to me--to _me_: "You're going on nicely." I +wanted to ask him to talk to me about myself, but there was no time to +ask him! + +Towards evening my yellow-vested neighbor, emerging from his +meditations and continuing to shake his head, answers my questions of +the morning: + +"They can't wash his hands--it's embedded." + +A little later that day I became restless. I lifted my arm--it was +clothed in white linen. I hardly knew my emaciated hand--that shadow +stranger! But I recognized the identity disk on my wrist. Ah, then! +that went with me into the depths of hell! + +For hours on end my head remains empty and sleepless, and there are +hosts of things that I perceive badly, which are, and then are not. I +have answered some questions. When I say, Yes, it is a sigh that I +utter, and only that. At other times, I seem again to be half-swept +away into pictures of tumored plains and mountains crowned. Echoes of +these things vibrate in my ears, and I wish that some one would come +who could explain the dreams. + +* * * * * * + +Strange footsteps are making the floor creak, and stopping there. I +open my eyes. A woman is before me. Ah! the sight of her throws me +into infinite confusion! She is the woman of my vision. Was it true, +then? I look at her with wide-open eyes. She says to me: + +"It's me." + +Then she bends low and adds softly: + +"I'm Marie; you're Simon." + +"Ah!" I say. "I remember." + +I repeat the profound words she has just uttered. She speaks to me +again with the voice which comes back from far away. I half rise. I +look again. I learn myself again, word by word. + +It is she, naturally, who tells me I was wounded in the chest and hip, +and that I lay three days forsaken--ragged wounds, much blood lost, a +lot of fever, and enormous fatigue. + +"You'll get up soon," she says. + +I get up?--I, the prostrate being? I am astonished and afraid. + +Marie goes away. She increases my solitude, step by step, and for a +long time my eyes follow her going and her absence. + +In the evening I hear a secret and whispered conference near the bed of +the sick man in the brown vest. He is curled up, and breathes humbly. +They say, very low: + +"He's going to die--in one hour from now, or two. He's in such a state +that to-morrow morning he'll be rotten. He must be taken away on the +moment." + +At nine in the evening they say that, and then they put the lights out +and go away. I can see nothing more but him. There is the one lamp, +close by, watching over him. He pants and trickles. He shines as +though it rained on him. His beard has grown, grimily. His hair is +plastered on his sticky forehead; his sweat is gray. + +In the morning the bed is empty, and adorned with clean sheets. + +And along with the man annulled, all the things he had poisoned have +disappeared. + +"It'll be Number Thirty-six's turn next," says the orderly. + +I follow the direction of his glance. I see the condemned man. He is +writing a letter. He speaks, he lives. But he is wounded in the +belly. He carries his death like a fetus. + +* * * * * * + +It is the day when we change our clothes. Some of the invalids manage +it by themselves; and, sitting up in bed, they perform signaling +operations with arms and white linen. Others are helped by the nurse. +On their bare flesh I catch sight of scars and cavities, and parts +stitched and patched, of a different shade. There is even a case of +amputation (and bronchitis) who reveals a new and rosy stump, like a +new-born infant. The negro does not move while they strip his thin, +insect-like trunk; and then, bleached once more, he begins again to +rock his head, looking boundlessly for the sun and for Africa. They +exhume the paralyzed man from his sheets and change his clothes +opposite me. At first he lies motionless in his clean shirt, in a +lump. Then he makes a guttural noise which brings the nurse up. In a +cracked voice, as of a machine that speaks, he asks her to move his +feet, which are caught in the sheet. Then he lies staring, arranged in +rigid orderliness within the boards of his carcass. + +Marie has come back and is sitting on a chair. We both spell out the +past, which she brings me abundantly. My brain is working +incalculably. + +"We're quite near home, you know," Marie says. + +Her words extricate our home, our quarter; they have endless echoes. + +That day I raised myself on the bed and looked out of the window for +the first time, although it had always been there, within reach of my +eyes. And I saw the sky for the first time, and a gray yard as well, +where it was visibly cold, and a gray day, an ordinary day, like life, +like everything. + +Quickly the days wiped each other out. Gradually I got up, in the +middle of the men who had relapsed into childhood, and were awkwardly +beginning again, or plaintively complaining in their beds. I have +strolled in the wards, and then along a path. It is a matter of +formalities now--convalescence, and in a month's time the Medical +Board. + +At last Marie came one morning for me, to go home, for that interval. + +She found me on the seat in the yard of the hospital, which used to be +a school, under the cloth--which was the only spot where a ray of +sunshine could get in. I was meditating in the middle of an assembly +of old cripples and men with heads or arms bandaged, with ragged and +incongruous equipment, with sick clothes. I detached myself from the +miracle-yard and followed Marie, after thanking the nurse and saying +good-by to her. + +The corporal of the hospital orderlies is the vicar of our church--he +who said and who spread it about that he was going to share the +soldiers' sufferings, like all the priests. Marie says to me, "Aren't +you going to see him?" + +"No," I say. + +We set out for life by a shady path, and then the high road came. We +walked slowly. Marie carried the bundle. The horizons were even, the +earth was flat and made no noise, and the dome of the sky no longer +banged like a big clock. The fields were empty, right to the end, +because of the war; but the lines of the road were scriptural, turning +not aside to the right hand or to the left. And I, cleansed, +simplified, lucid--though still astonished at the silence and affected +by the peacefulness--I saw it all distinctly, without a veil, without +anything. It seemed to me that I bore within me a great new reason, +unused. + +We were not far away. Soon we uncovered the past, step by step. As +fast as we drew near, smaller and smaller details introduced themselves +and told us their names--that tree with the stones round it, those +forsaken and declining sheds. I even found recollections shut up in +the little retreats of the kilometer-stones. + +But Marie was looking at me with an indefinable expression. + +"You're icy cold," she said to me suddenly, shivering. + +"No," I said, "no." + +We stopped at an inn to rest and eat, and it was already evening when +we reached the streets. + +Marie pointed out a man who was crossing over, yonder. + +"Monsieur Rampaille is rich now, because of the War." + +Then it was a woman, dressed in fluttering white and blue, disappearing +round the corner of a house: + +"That's Antonia Véron. She's been in the Red Cross service. She's got +a decoration because of the War." + +"Ah!" I said, "everything's changed." + +Now we are in sight of the house. The distance between the corner of +the street and the house seems to me smaller than it should be. The +court comes to an end suddenly; its shape looks shorter than it is in +reality. In the same way, all the memories of my former life appear +dwindled to me. + +The house, the rooms. I have climbed the stairs and come down again, +watched by Marie. I have recognized everything; some things even which +I did not see. There is no one else but us two in the falling night, +as though people had agreed not to show themselves yet to this man who +comes back. + +"There--now we're at home," says Marie, at last. + +We sit down, facing each other. + +"What are we going to do?" + +"We're going to live." + +"We're going to live." + +I ponder. She looks at me stealthily, with that mysterious expression +of anguish which gets over me. I notice the precautions she takes in +watching me. And once it seemed to me that her eyes were red with +crying. I--I think of the hospital life I am leaving, of the gray +street, and the simplicity of things. + +* * * * * * + +A day has slipped away already. In one day all the time gone by has +reëstablished itself. I am become again what I was. Except that I am +not so strong or so calm as before, it is as though nothing had +happened. + +But truth is more simple than before. + +I inquire of Marie after this one or the other and question her. + +Marie says to me: + +"You're always saying Why?--like a child." + +All the same I do not talk much. Marie is assiduous; obviously she is +afraid of my silence. Once, when I was sitting opposite her and had +said nothing for a long time, she suddenly hid her face in her hands, +and in her turn she asked me, through her sobs: + +"Why are you like that?" + +I hesitate. + +"It seems to me," I say at last, by way of answer, "that I am seeing +things as they are." + +"My poor boy!" Marie says, and she goes on crying. + +I am touched by this obscure trouble. True, everything is obvious +around me, but as it were laid bare. I have lost the secret which +complicated life. I no longer have the illusion which distorts and +conceals, that fervor, that sort of blind and unreasoning bravery which +tosses you from one hour to the next, and from day to day. + +And yet I am just taking up life again where I left it. I am upright, +I am getting stronger and stronger. I am not ending, but beginning. + +I slept profoundly, all alone in our bed. + +Next morning, I saw Crillon, planted in the living-room downstairs. He +held out his arms, and shouted. After expressing good wishes, he +informs me, all in a breath: + +"You don't know what's happened in the Town Council? Down yonder, +towards the place they call Little January, y'know, there's a steep +hill that gets wider as it goes down an' there's a gaslamp and a +watchman's box where all the cyclists that want to smash their faces, +and a few days ago now a navvy comes and sticks himself in there and no +one never knew his name, an' he got a cyclist on his head an' he's gone +dead. And against that gaslamp broken up by blows from cyclists they +proposed to put a notice-board, although all recommendations would be +superfluent. You catch on that it's nothing less than a maneuver to +get the mayor's shirt out?" + +Crillon's words vanish. As fast as he utters them I detach myself from +all this poor old stuff. I cannot reply to him, when he has ceased, +and Marie and he are looking at me. I say, "Ah!" + +He coughs, to keep me in countenance. Shortly, he takes himself off. + +Others come, to talk of their affairs and the course of events in the +district. There is a regular buzz. So-and-so has been killed, but +So-and-so is made an officer. So-and-so has got a clerking job. Here +in the town, So-and-so has got rich. How's the War going on? + +They surround me, with questioning faces. And yet it is I, still more +than they, who am one immense question. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +EYES THAT SEE + + +Two days have passed. I get up, dress myself, and open my shutters. +It is Sunday, as you can see in the street. + +I put on my clothes of former days. I catch myself paying spruce +attention to my toilet, since it is Sunday, by reason of the compulsion +one feels to do the same things again. + +And now I see how much my face has hollowed, as I compare it with the +one I had left behind in the familiar mirror. + +I go out, and meet several people. Madame Piot asks me how many of the +enemy I have killed. I reply that I killed one. Her tittle-tattle +accosts another subject. I feel the enormous difference there was +between what she asked me and what I answered. + +The streets are clad in the mourning of closed shops. It is still the +same empty and hermetically sealed face of the day of holiday. My eyes +notice, near the sunken post, the old jam-pot, which has not moved. + +I climb on to Chestnut Hill. No one is there, because it is Sunday. +In that white winding-sheet, that widespread pallor of Sunday, all my +former lot builds itself again, house by house. + +I look outwards from the top of the hill. All is the same in the lines +and the tones. The spectacle of yesterday and that of to-day are as +identical as two picture postcards. I see my house--the roof, and +three-quarters of the front. I feel a pleasant thrill. I feel that I +love this corner of the earth, but especially my house. + +What, is everything the same? Is there nothing new, nothing? Is the +only changed thing the man that I am, walking too slowly in clothes too +big, the man grown old and leaning on a stick? + +The landscape is barren in the inextricable simplicity of the daylight. +I do not know why I was expecting revelations. In vain my gaze wanders +everywhere, to infinity. + +But a darkening of storm fills and agitates the sky, and suddenly +clothes the morning with a look of evening. The crowd which I see +yonder along the avenue, under cover of the great twilight which goes +by with its invisible harmony, profoundly draws my attention. + +All those shadows which are shelling themselves out along the road are +very tiny, they are separated from one another, they are of the same +stature. From a distance one sees how much one man resembles another. +And it is true that a man is like a man. The one is not of a different +species from the other. It is a certainty which I am bringing +forward--the only one; and the truth is simple, for what I believe I +see with my eyes. + +The equality of all these human spots that appear in the somber gleams +of storm, why--it is a revelation! It is a beginning of distinct order +in Chaos. How comes it that I have never seen what is so visible, how +comes it that I never perceived that obvious thing--that a man and +another man are the same thing, everywhere and always? I rejoice that +I have seen it as if my destiny were to shed a little light on us and +on our road. + +* * * * * * + +The bells are summoning our eyes to the church. It is surrounded by +scaffolding, and a long swarm of people are gliding towards it, +grouping round it, going in. + +The earth and the sky--but I do not see God. I see everywhere, +everywhere, God's absence. My gaze goes through space and returns, +forsaken. And I have never seen Him, and He is nowhere, nowhere, +nowhere. + +No one ever saw Him. I know--I always knew, for that matter!--that +there is no proof of God's existence, and that you must find, first of +all, believe in it if you want to prove it. Where does He show +Himself? What does He save? What tortures of the heart, what +disasters does He turn aside from all and each in the ruin of hearts? +Where have we known or handled or embraced anything but His name? +God's absence surrounds infinitely and even actually each kneeling +suppliant, athirst for some humble personal miracle, and each seeker +who bends over his papers as he watches for proofs like a creator; it +surrounds the spiteful antagonism of all religions, armed against each +other, enormous and bloody. God's absence rises like the sky over the +agonizing conflicts between good and evil, over the trembling +heedfulness of the upright, over the immensity--still haunting me--of +the cemeteries of agony, the charnel heaps of innocent soldiers, the +heavy cries of the shipwrecked. Absence! Absence! In the hundred +thousand years that life has tried to delay death there has been +nothing on earth more fruitless than man's cries to divinity, nothing +which gives so perfect an idea of silence. + +How does it come about that I have lasted till now without +understanding that I did not see God? I believed because they had told +me to believe. It seems to me that I am able to believe something no +longer because they command me to, and I feel myself set free. + +I lean on the stones of the low wall, at the spot where I leaned of +old, in the time when I thought I was some one and knew something. + +My looks fall on the families and the single figures which are hurrying +towards the black hole of the church porch, towards the gloom of the +nave, where one is enlaced in incense, where wheels of light and angels +of color hover under the vaults which contain a little of the great +emptiness of the heavens. + +I seem to stoop nearer to those people, and I get glimpses of certain +profundities among the fleeting pictures which my sight lends me. I +seem to have stopped, at random, in front of the richness of a single +being. I think of the "humble, quiet lives," and it appears to me +within a few words, and that in what they call a "quiet, lowly life," +there are immense expectations and waitings and weariness. + +I understand why they want to believe in God, and consequently why they +do believe in Him, since faith comes at will. + +I remember, while I lean on this wall and listen, that one day in the +past not far from here, a lowly woman raised her voice and said, "That +woman does not believe in God! It's because she has no children, or +else because they've never been ill." + +And I remember, too, without being able to picture them to myself, all +the voices I have heard saying, "It would be too unjust, if there were +no God!" + +There is no other proof of God's existence than the need we have of +Him. God is not God--He is the name of all that we lack. He is our +dream, carried to the sky. God is a prayer, He is not some one. + +They put all His kind actions into the eternal future, they hide them +in the unknown. Their agonizing dues they drown in distances which +outdistance them; they cancel His contradictions in inaccessible +uncertainty. No matter; they believe in the idol made of a word. + +And I? I have awaked out of religion, since it was a dream. It had to +be that one morning my eyes would end by opening and seeing nothing +more of it. + +I do not see God, but I see the church and I see the priests. Another +ceremony is unfolding just now, in another direction--up at the castle, +a Mass of St. Hubert. Leaning on my elbows the spectacle absorbs me. + +These ministers of the cult, blessing this pack of hounds, these guns +and hunting knives, officiating in lace and pomp side by side with +these wealthy people got up as warlike sportsmen, women and men alike, +on the great steps of a castle and facing a crowd kept aloof by +ropes,--this spectacle defines, more glaringly than any words whatever +can, the distance which separates the churches of to-day from Christ's +teaching, and points to all the gilded putridity which has accumulated +on those pure defaced beginnings. And what is here is everywhere; what +is little is great. + +The parsons, the powerful--all always joined together. Ah, certainty +is rising to the heart of my conscience. Religions destroy themselves +spiritually because they are many. They destroy whatever leans upon +their fables. But their directors, they who are the strength of the +idol, impose it. They decree authority; they hide the light. They are +men, defending their interests as men; they are rulers defending their +sway. + +It has to be! You shall _not_ know! A terrible memory shudders +through me; and I catch a confused glimpse of people who, for the needs +of their common cause, uphold, with their promises and thunder, the mad +unhappiness which lies heavy on the multitudes. + +* * * * * * + +Footsteps are climbing towards me. Marie appears, dressed in gray. +She comes to look for me. In the distance I saw that her cheeks were +brightened and rejuvenated by the wind. Close by I see that her +eyelids are worn, like silk. She finds me sunk in reflection. She +looks at me, like a frail and frightened mother; and this solicitude +which she brings me is enough by itself to calm and comfort me. + +I point out to her the dressed-up commotion below us, and make some +bitter remark on the folly of these people who vainly gather in the +church, and go to pray there, to talk all alone. Some of them believe; +and the rest say to them, "I do the same as you." + +Marie does not argue the basis of religion. "Ah," she says, "I've +never thought clearly about it, never. They've always spoken of God to +me, and I've always believed in Him. But--I don't know. I only know +one thing," she adds, her blue eyes looking at me, "and that is that +there must be delusion. The people must have religion, so as to put up +with the hardships of life, the sacrifices----" + +She goes on again at once, more emphatically, "There must be religion +for the unhappy, so that they won't give way. It may be foolishness, +but if you take that away from them, what have they left?" + +The gentle woman--the normal woman of settled habits--whom I had left +here repeats, "There must be illusion." She sticks to this idea, she +insists, she is taking the side of the unhappy. Perhaps she talks like +that for her own sake, and perhaps only because she is compassionate +for me. + +I said in vain, "No--there must never be delusion, never fallacies. +There should be no more lies. We shall not know then where we're +going." + +She persists and makes signs of dissent. + +I say no more, tired. But I do not lower my gaze before the +all-powerful surroundings of circumstance. My eyes are pitiless, and +cannot help descrying the false God and the false priests everywhere. + +We go down the footpath and return in silence. But it seems to me that +the rule of evil is hidden in easy security among the illusions which +they heap up over us. I am nothing; I am no more than I was before, +but I am applying my hunger for the truth. I tell myself again that +there is no supernatural power, that nothing has fallen from the sky; +that everything is within us and in our hands. And in the inspiration +of that faith my eyes embrace the magnificence of the empty sky, the +abounding desert of the earth, the Paradise of the Possible. + +We pass along the base of the church. Marie says to me--as if nothing +had just been said, "Look how the poor church was damaged by a bomb +from an aeroplane--all one side of the steeple gone. The good old +vicar was quite ill about it. As soon as he got up he did nothing else +but try to raise money to have his dear steeple built up again; and he +got it." + +People are revolving round the building and measuring its yawning +mutilation with their eyes. My thoughts turn to all these passers-by +and to all those who will pass by, whom I shall not see, and to other +wounded steeples. The most beautiful of all voices echoes within me, +and I would fain make use of it for this entreaty, "Build not the +churches again! You who will come after us, you who, in the sharp +distinctness of the ended deluge will perhaps be able to see the order +of things more clearly, don't build the churches again! They did not +contain what we used to believe, and for centuries they have only been +the prisons of the saviours, and monumental lies. If you are still of +the faith have your temples within yourselves. But if you again bring +stones to build up a narrow and evil tradition, that is the end of all. +In the name of justice, in the name of light, in the name of pity, do +not build the churches again!" + +But I did not say anything. I bow my head and walk more heavily. + +I see Madame Marcassin coming out of the church with blinking eyes, +weary-looking, a widow indeed. I bow and approach her and talk to her +a little, humbly, about her husband, since I was under his orders and +saw him die. She listens to me in dejected inattention. She is +elsewhere. She says to me at last, "I had a memorial service since +it's usual." Then she maintains a silence which means "There's nothing +to be said, just as there's nothing to be done." In face of that +emptiness I understand the crime that Marcassin committed in letting +himself be killed for nothing but the glory of dying. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GHOSTS + + +We have gone out together and aimlessly; we walk straight forward. + +It is an autumnal day--gray lace of clouds and wind. Some dried leaves +lie on the ground and others go whirling. We are in August, but it is +an autumn day all the same. Days do not allow themselves to be set in +strict order, like men. + +Our steps take us in the direction of the waterfall and the mill. We +have seldom been there again since our engagement days. Marie is +covered in a big gray cloak; her hat is black silk with a little square +of color embroidered in front. She looks tired, and her eyes are red. +When she walks in front of me I see the twisted mass of her beautiful +fair hair. + +Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a +time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like +scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the +tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front +of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us +with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are +worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other +inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on +as if they had been passers-by. + +Marie is tired. She often sits down, with her big cloak and her +sensible air; and as she sits she seems like a statue of nature, of +space, and the wind. + +We do not speak. We have gone down along the side of the +river--slowly, as if we were climbing--towards the stone seat of the +wall. The distances have altered. This seat, for instance, we meet it +sooner than we thought we should, like some one in the dark; but it is +the seat all right. The rose-tree which grew above it has withered +away and become a crown of thorns. + +There are dead leaves on the stone slab. They come from the chestnuts +yonder. They fell on the ground and yet they have flown away as far as +the seat. + +On this seat--where she came to me for the first time, which was once +so important to us that it seemed as if the background of things all +about us had been created by us--we sit down to-day, after we have +vainly sought in nature the traces of our transit. + +The landscape is peaceful, simple, empty; it fills us with a great +quivering. Marie is so sad and so simple that you can see her thought. + +I have leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. I have contemplated the +gravel at my feet; and suddenly I start, for I understand that my eyes +were looking for the marks of our footsteps, in spite of the stone, in +spite of the sand. + +After the solemnity of a long silence, Marie's face takes on a look of +defeat, and suddenly she begins to cry. The tears which fill her--for +one always weeps in full, drop on to her knees. And through her sobs +there fall from her wet lips words almost shapeless, but desperate and +fierce, as a burst of forced laughter. + +"It's all over!" she cries. + +* * * * * * + +I have put my arm round her waist, and I am shaken by the sorrow which +agitates her chest and throat, and sometimes shakes her rudely, the +sorrow which does not belong to me, which belongs to no one, and is +like a divinity. + +She becomes composed. I take her hand. In a weak voice she calls some +memories up--this and that--and "one morning----" She applies herself +to it and counts them. I speak, too, gently. We question each other. +"Do you remember?"--"Oh, yes." And when some more precise and intimate +detail prompts the question we only reply, "A little." Our separation +and the great happenings past which the world has whirled have made the +past recoil and shaped a deep ditch. Nothing has changed; but when we +look we see. + +Once, after we had recalled to each other an enchanted summer evening, +I said, "We loved each other," and she answered, "I remember." + +I call her by her name, in a low voice, so as to draw her out of the +dumbness into which she is falling. + +She listens to me, and then says, placidly, despairingly, +"'_Marie_,'--you used to say it like that. I can't realize that I had +the same name." + +A few moments later, as we talked of something else, she said to me at +last, "Ah, that day we had dreams of travel, about our plans--_you were +there_, sitting by my side." + +In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we +have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here. Her glances +come to me, but they do not join again the two surviving voids that we +are; her look does not wipe out our widowhood, nor change anything. +And I, I am too imbued with clear-sighted simplicity and truth to +answer "no" when it is "yes." In this moment by my side Marie is like +me. + +The immense mourning of human hearts appears to us. We dare not name +it yet; but we dare not let it not appear in all that we say. + +* * * * * * + +Then we see a woman, climbing the footpath and coming nearer to us. It +is Marthe, grown up, full-blown. She says a few words to us and then +goes away, smiling. She smiles, she who plays a part in our drama. +The likeness which formerly haunted me now haunts Marie, too--both of +us, side by side, and without saying it, harbored the same thought, to +see that child growing up and showing what Marie was. + +Marie confesses all, all at once, "I was only my youth and my beauty, +like all women. And _there_ go my youth and beauty--Marthe! Then, +I----?" In anguish she goes on, "I'm not old yet, since I'm only +thirty-five, but I've aged very quickly; I've some white hairs that you +can see, close to; I'm wrinkled and my eyes have sunk. I'm here, in +life, to live, to occupy my time; but I'm nothing more than I am! Of +course, I'm still alive, but the future comes to an end before life +does. Ah, it's really only youth that has a place in life. All young +faces are alike and go from one to the other without ever being +deceived. They wipe out and destroy all the rest, and they make the +others see themselves as they are, so that they become useless." + +She is right! When the young woman stands up she takes, in fact, the +other's place in the ideal and in the human heart, and makes of the +other a returning ghost. It is true. I knew it. Ah, I did not know +it was so true! It is too obvious. I cannot deny it. Again a cry of +assent rises to my lips and prevents me from saying, "No." + +I cannot turn away from Marthe's advent, nor as I look at her, from +recognizing Marie. I know she has had several little love-affairs. +Just now she is alone. She is alone, but she will soon be +leaning--yes, phantom or reality, man is not far from her. It is +dazzling. Most certainly, I no longer think as I used to do that it is +a sort of duty to satisfy the selfish promptings one has, and I have +now got an inward veneration for right-doing; but all the same, if that +being came to me, I know well that I should become, before all, and in +spite of all, an immense cry of delight. + +Marie falls back upon her idea, obdurately, and says, "A woman only +lives by love and for love. When she's no longer good for that she's +no longer anything." + +She repeats, "You see--I'm nothing any more." + +Ah, she is at the bottom of her abyss! She is at the extremity of a +woman's mourning! She is not thinking only of me. Her thought is +higher and vaster. She is thinking of all the woman she is, of all +that love is, of all possible things when she says, "I'm no longer +anything." And _I_--I am only he who is present with her just now, and +no help whatever is left her to look for from any one. + +I should like to pacify and console this woman who is gentleness and +simplicity and who is sinking there while she lightly touches me with +her presence--but exactly because she is there I cannot lie to her, I +can do nothing against her grief, her perfect, infallible grief. + +"Ah!" she cries, "if we came to life again!" + +But she, too, has tried to cling to illusion. I see by the track of +her tears, and because I am looking at her--that she has powdered her +face to-day and put rouge on her lips, perhaps even on her cheeks, as +she did in bygone days, laughing, to set herself off, in spite of me. +This woman who tries to keep a good likeness of herself through passing +time, to be fixed upon herself, who paints herself, she is, to that +extent like what Rembrandt the profound and Titian the bold and +exquisite did--make enduring, and save! But this time, a few tears +have washed away the fragile, mortal effort. + +She tries also to delude herself with words, and to discover something +in them which would transform her. She asserts, as she did the other +morning, "There must be illusion. No, we must not see things as they +are." But I see clearly that such words do not exist. + +Once, when she was looking at me distressfully, she murmured, +"_You_--you've no more illusion at all. I pity you!" + +At that moment, within the space of a flash, she was thinking of me +only, and she pities me! She has found something in her grief to give +me. + +She is silent. She is seeking the supreme complaint; she is trying to +find what there is which is more torturing and more simple; and she +stammers--"The truth." + +The truth is that the love of mankind is a single season among so many +others. The truth is that we have within us something much more mortal +than we are, and that it is this, all the same, which is all-important. +Therefore we survive very much longer than we live. There are things +we think we know and which yet are secrets. Do we really know what we +believe? We believe in miracles. We make great efforts to struggle, +to go mad. We should like to let all our good deserts be seen. We +fancy that we are exceptions and that something supernatural is going +to come along. But the quiet peace of the truth fixes us. The +impossible becomes again the impossible. We are as silent as silence +itself. + +We stayed lonely on the seat until evening. Our hands and faces shone +like gleams of storm in the entombment of the calm and the mist. + +We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few +hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as +never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real +drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our +movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is +empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each +other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation +of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but +close by--so close--are phantoms! + +Then bedtime comes. She is sleeping in the little bedroom opposite +mine across the landing, less fine than mine and smaller, hung with an +old and faded paper, where the patterned flowers are only an irregular +relief, with traces here and there of powder, of colored dust and +ashes. + +We are going to separate on the landing. To-day is not the first time +like that! but to-day we are feeling this great rending which is not +one. She has begun to undress. She has taken off her blouse. I see +her neck and her breasts, a little less firm than before, through her +chemise; and half tumbling on to the nape of her neck, the fair hair +which once magnificently flamed on her like a fire of straw. + +She only says, "It's better to be a man than a woman." + +Then she replies to my silence, "You see, we don't know what to say, +now." + +In the angle of the narrow doorway she spoke with a kind of immensity. + +She goes into her room and disappears. Before I went to the war we +slept in the same bed. We used to lie down side by side, so as to be +annihilated in unconsciousness, or to go and dream somewhere else. +(Commonplace life has shipwrecks worse than in Shakespearean dramas. +For man and wife--to sleep, to die.) But since I came back we separate +ourselves with a wall. This sincerity that I have brought back in my +eyes and mind has changed the semblances round about me into reality, +more than I imagine. Marie is hiding from me her faded but disregarded +body. Her modesty has begun again; yes, she has ended by beginning +again. + +She has shut her door. She is undressing, alone in her room, slowly, +and as if uselessly. There is only the light of her little lamp to +caress her loosened hair, in which the others cannot yet see the white +ones, the frosty hairs that she alone touches. + +Her door is shut, decisive, banal, dreary. + +Among some papers on my table I see the poem again which we once found +out of doors, the bit of paper escaped from the mysterious hands which +wrote on it, and come to the stone seat. It ended by whispering, "Only +I know the tears that brimming rise, your beauty blended with your +smile to espy." + +In the days of yore it had made us smile with delight. To-night there +are real tears in my eyes. What is it? I dimly see that there is +something more than what we have seen, than what we have said, than +what we have felt to-day. One day, perhaps, she and I will exchange +better and richer sayings; and so, in that day, all the sadness will be +of some service. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE CULT + + +I have been to the factory. I felt as much lost as if I had found +myself translated there after a sleep of legendary length. There are +many new faces. The factory has tripled--quadrupled in importance; +quite a town of flimsy buildings has been added to it. + +"They've built seven others like it in three months!" says Monsieur +Mielvaque to me, proudly. + +The manager is now another young nephew of the Messrs. Gozlan. He was +living in Paris and came back on the day of the general mobilization. +Old Monsieur Gozlan looks after everything. + +I have a month to wait. I wait slowly, as everybody does. The houses +in the lower town are peopled by absentees. When you go in they talk +to you about the last letter, and always make the same huge and barren +reflections on the war. In my street there are twelve houses where the +people no longer await anything and have nothing to say, like Madame +Marcassin. In some others, the one who has disappeared will perhaps +come back; and they go about in them in a sort of hope which leans only +on emptiness and silence. There are women who have begun their lives +again in a kind of happy misery. The places near them of the dead or +the living they have filled up. + +The main streets have not changed, any more than the squares, except +the one which is encrusted with a collection of huts. The life in them +is as bustling as ever, and of brighter color, and more amusing. Many +young men, rich or influential, are passing their wartime in the +offices of the depot, of the Exchange, of Food Control, of Enlistment, +of the Pay Department, and other administrations whose names one cannot +remember. The priests are swarming in the two hospitals; on the faces +of orderlies, cyclist messengers, doorkeepers and porters you can read +their origin. For myself, I have never seen a parson in the front +lines wearing the uniform of the ordinary fighting soldier, the uniform +of those who make up the fatigue parties and fight as well against +perfect misery! + +My thought turns to what the man once said to me who was by me among +the straw of a stable, "Why is there no more justice?" By the little +that I know and have seen and am seeing, I can tell what an enormous +rush sprang up, at the same time as the war, against the equality of +the living. And if that injustice, which was turning the heroism of +the others into a cheat has not been openly extended, it is because the +war has lasted too long, and the scandal became so glaring that they +were forced to look into it. It seems that it is only through fear +that they have ended by deciding so much. + +* * * * * * + +I go into Fontan's. Crillon is with me--I picked him up from the +little glass cupboard of his shop as I came out. He is finding it +harder and harder to keep going; he has aged a lot, and his frame, so +powerfully bolted together, cracks with rheumatism. + +We sit down. Crillon groans and bends so low in his hand-to-hand +struggle with the pains which beset him that I think his forehead is +going to strike the marble-topped table. + +He tells me in detail of his little business, which is going badly, and +how he has confused glimpses of the bare and empty future which awaits +him--when a sergeant with a fair mustache and eyeglasses makes his +entry. This personage, whose collar shows white thunderbolts,[1] +instead of a number, comes and sits near us. He orders a port wine and +Victorine serves it with a smile. She smiles at random, and +indistinctly, at all the men, like Nature. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +The newcomer takes off his cap, looks at the windows and yawns. "I'm +bored," he says. + +He comes nearer and freely offers us his talk. He sets himself +chattering with spirited and easy grace, of men and things. He works +at the Town Hall and knows a lot of secrets which he lets us into. He +points to a couple of sippers at a table in the corner reserved for +commercial people. "The grocer and the ironmonger," he says, "there's +two that know how to go about it! At the beginning of the war there +was a business crisis by the force of things, and they had to tighten +their belts like the rest. Then they got their revenge and swept the +dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still +revenging themselves. You should see the stocks of goods they sit on +in their cellars and wait for the rises that the newspapers foretell! +They've got one excuse, it's true--there are others, bigger people, +that are worse. Ah, you can say that the business people will have +given a rich notion of their patriotism during the war!" + +The fair young man stretches himself backward to his full length, with +his heels together on the ground, his arms rigid on the table, and +opens his mouth with all his might and for a long time. Then he goes +on in a loud voice, careless who hears him, "Why, I saw the other day, +at the Town Hall, piles of the Declarations of Profits, required by the +Treasury. I don't know, of course, for I've not read them, but I'm as +sure and certain as you are that all those innumerable piles of +declarations are just so many columns of cod and humbug and lies!" + +Intelligent and inexhaustible, accurately posted through the clerk's +job in which he is sheltering, the sergeant relates with careless +gestures his stories of scandals and huge profiteering, "while our good +fellows are fighting." He talks and talks, and concludes by saying +that after all _he_ doesn't care a damn as long as they let him alone. + +Monsieur Fontan is in the café. A woman leads up to him a tottering +being whom she introduces to him. "He's ill, Monsieur Fontan, because +he hasn't had enough to eat." + +"Well now! And I'm ill, too," says Fontan jovially, "but it's because +I eat too much." + +The sergeant takes his leave, touching us with a slight salute. "He's +right, that smart gentleman," says Crillon to me. "It's always been +like that, and it will always be like that, you know!" + +Aloof, I keep silence. I am still tired and stunned by all these +sayings in the little time since I remained so long without hearing +anything but myself. But I am sure they are all true, and that +patriotism is only a word or a tool for many. And feeling the rags of +the common soldier still on me, I knit my brows and realize that it is +a disgrace and a shame for the poor to be deceived as they are. + +Crillon is smiling, as always! On his huge face, where every passing +day now leaves some marks, on his round-eyed weakened face with its +mouth opened like a cypher, the old smile of yore is spread out. I +used to think then that resignation was a virtue; I see now that it is +a vice. The optimist is the permanent accomplice of all evil-doers. +This passive smile which I admired but lately--I find it despicable on +this poor face. + +* * * * * * + +The café has filled up with workmen, either old or very young, from the +town and the country, but chiefly the country. + +What are they doing, these lowly, these ill-paid? They are dirty and +they are drinking. They are dark, although it is the forenoon, because +they are dirty. In the light there is that obscurity which they carry +on them; and a bad smell removes itself with them. + +I see three convalescent soldiers from the hospital join the plebeian +groups; they are recognized by their coarse clothes, their caps and big +boots, and because their gestures are soldered together and conform to +a common movement. + +By force of "glasses all round," these drinkers begin to talk in loud +voices; they get excited and shout at random; and in the end they drop +visibly into unconsciousness, into oblivion, into defeat. + +The wine-merchant is at his cash desk, which shines like silver. He +stands behind the center of it, colorless, motionless, like a bust on a +pedestal. His bare arms hang down, pallid as his face. He comes and +wipes away some spilled wine, and his hands shine and drip, like a +butcher's. + +* * * * * * + +"I'm forgetting to tell you," cried Crillon, "that they had news of +your regiment a few days ago. Little Mélusson's had his head blown to +bits in an attack. Here, y'know; he was a softy and an idler. Well, +he was attacking like a devil. War remakes men like that!" + +"Termite?" I asked. + +"Ah, yes! Termite the poacher! Why it's a long time since they +haven't seen him. Disappeared, it seems. S'pose he's killed." + +Then he talks to me of this place. Brisbille, for instance, always the +same, a Socialist and a scandal. + +"There's him," says Crillon, "and that dangerous chap Eudo as well, +with his notorient civilities. Would you believe it, they've not been +able to pinch him for his spying proclensities! Nothing in his past +life, nothing in his conductions, nothing in his expensiture, nothing +to find fault with. Mustn't he be a deep one?" + +I presume to think--suppose it was all untrue? Yet it seemed a +formidable task to upset on the spot one of the oldest and most deeply +rooted creeds in our town. But I risk it. "Perhaps he's innocent." + +Crillon jumps, and shouts, "What! You suspect him of being innocent!" +His face is convulsed and he explodes with an enormous laugh, a laugh +irresistible as a tidal wave, the laugh of all! + +"Talking about Termite," says Crillon a moment later, "it seems it +wasn't him that did the poaching." + +The military convalescents are leaving the tavern. Crillon watches +them go away with their parallel movements and their sticks. + +"Yes, there's wounded here and there's dead there!" he says; "all those +who hadn't got a privilential situation! Ah, la, la! The poor devils, +when you think of it, eh, what they must have suffered! And at this +moment, all the time, there's some dying. And we stand it very well, +an' hardly think of it. They didn't need to kill so many, that's +certain--there's been faults and blunders, as everybody knows of. But +fortunately," he adds, with animation, putting on my shoulder the hand +that is big as a young animal, "the soldiers' deaths and the chief's +blunders, that'll all disappear one fine day, melted away and forgotten +in the glory of the victorious Commander!" + +* * * * * * + +There has been much talk in our quarter of a Memorial Festival. + +I am not anxious to be present and I watch Marie set off. Then I feel +myself impelled to go there, as if it were a duty. + +I cross the bridge. I stop at the corner of the Old Road, on the edge +of the fields. Two steps away there is the cemetery, which is hardly +growing, since nearly all those who die now are not anywhere. + +I lift my eyes and take in the whole spectacle together. The hill +which rises in front of me is full of people. It trembles like a swarm +of bees. Up above, on the avenue of trimmed limetrees, it is crowned +by the sunshine and by the red platform, which scintillates with the +richness of dresses and uniforms and musical instruments. + +Then there is a red barrier. On this side of that barrier, lower down, +the public swarms and rustles. + +I recognize the great picture of the past. I remember this ceremony, +spacious as a season, which has been regularly staged here so many +times in the course of my childhood and youth, and with almost the same +rites and forms. It was like this last year, and the other years, and +a century ago and centuries since. + +Near me an old peasant in sabots is planted. Rags, shapeless and +colorless--the color of time--cover the eternal man of the fields. He +is what he always was. He blinks, leaning on a stick; he holds his cap +in his hand because what he sees is so like a church service. His legs +are trembling; he wonders if he ought to be kneeling. + +And I, I feel myself diminished, cut back, returned through the cycles +of time to the little that I am. + +* * * * * * + +Up there, borne by the flag-draped rostrum, a man is speaking. He +lifts a sculptural head aloft, whose hair is white as marble. + +At my distance I can hardly hear him. But the wind carries me some +phrases, louder shouted, of his peroration. He is preaching +resignation to the people, and the continuance of things. He implores +them to abandon finally the accursed war of classes, to devote +themselves forever to the blessed war of races in all its shapes. +After the war there must be no more social utopias, but discipline +instead, whose grandeur and beauty the war has happily revealed, the +union of rich and poor for national expansion and the victory of France +in the world, and sacred hatred of the Germans, which is a virtue in +the French. Let us remember! + +Then another orator excites himself and shouts that the war has been +such a magnificent harvest of heroism that it must not be regretted. +It has been a good thing for France; it has made lofty virtues and +noble instincts gush forth from a nation which seemed to be decadent. +Our people had need of an awakening and to recover themselves, and +acquire new vigor. With metaphors which hover and vibrate he proclaims +the glory of killing and being killed, he exalts the ancient passion +for plumes and scarlet in which the heart of France is molded. + +Alone on the edge of the crowd I feel myself go icy by the touch of +these words and commands, which link future and past together and +misery to misery. I have already heard them resounding forever. A +world of thoughts growls confusedly within me. Once I cried +noiselessly, "No!"--a deformed cry, a strangled protest of all my faith +against all the fallacy which comes down upon us. That first cry which +I have risked among men, I cast almost as a visionary, but almost as a +dumb man. The old peasant did not even turn his earthy, gigantic head. +And I hear a roar of applause go by, of popular expanse. + +I go up to join Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots +of them. Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands +immovable. Up there the Bishop is on his feet. He raises his +forefinger and says, "The dead are not dead. They are rewarded in +heaven; but even here on earth they are alive. They keep watch in our +hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion. Theirs is the immortality +of glory and gratitude. They are not dead, and we should envy them +more than pity." + +And he blesses the audience, all of whom bow or kneel. I remained +upright, stubbornly, with clenched teeth. And I remember things, and I +say to myself, "Have the dead died for nothing? If the world is to +stay as it is, then--yes!" + +Several men did not bend their backs at first, and then they obeyed the +general movement; and I felt on my shoulders all the heavy weight of +the whole bowing multitude. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas is talking within a circle. Seeing him again I +also feel for one second the fascination he once had for me. He is +wearing an officer's uniform of the Town Guard, and his collar hides +the ravages in his neck. He is holding forth. What says he? He says, +"We must take the long view." + +"We must take the long view. For my part, the only thing I admire in +militarist Prussia is its military organization. After the war--for we +must not limit our outlook to the present conflict--we must take +lessons from it, and just let the simple-minded humanitarians go on +bleating about universal peace." + +He goes on to say that in his opinion the orators did not sufficiently +insist on the necessity for tying the economic hands of Germany after +the war. No annexations, perhaps; but tariffs, which would be much +better. And he shows in argument the advantages and prosperity brought +by carnage and destruction. + +He sees me. He adorns himself with a smile and comes forward with +proffered hand. I turn violently away. I have no use for the hand of +this sort of outsider, this sort of traitor. + +They lie. That ludicrous person who talks of taking the long view +while there are still in the world only a few superb martyrs who have +dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present +misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man +who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the +demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and +he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a +glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, +who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny with word +trickery the terrible evidence of death, he who rewards the martyrs +with the soft soap of false promises--all these people tell lies, lies, +lies! Through their words I can hear the mental reservation they are +chewing over--"Around us, the deluge; and after us, the deluge." Or +else they do not even lie; they see nothing and they know not what they +say. + +They have opened the red barrier. Applause and congratulations cross +each other. Some notabilities come down from the rostrum, they look at +me, they are obviously interested in the wounded soldier that I am, +they advance towards me. Among them is the intellectual person who +spoke first. He is wagging the white head and its cauliflower curls, +and looking all ways with eyes as empty as those of a king of cards. +They told me his name, but I have forgotten it with contempt. I slip +away from them. I am bitterly remorseful that for so long a portion of +my life I believed what Bonéas said. I accuse myself of having +formerly put my trust in speakers and writers who--however learned, +distinguished, famous--were only imbeciles or villains. I fly from +these people, since I am not strong enough to answer and resist +them--or to cry out upon them that the only memory it is important to +preserve of the years we have endured is that of their loathsome horror +and lunacy. + +* * * * * * + +But the few words fallen from on high have sufficed to open my eyes, to +show me that the Separation I dimly saw in the tempest of my nights in +hospital was true. It comes down from vacancy and the clouds, it takes +form and it takes root--it is there, it is there; and the indictment +comes to light, as precise and as tragic as that row of faces! + +Kings? There they are. There are many different kinds of king, just +as there are different gods. But there is one royalty everywhere, and +that is the very form of ancient society, the great machine which is +stronger than men. And all the personages enthroned on that +rostrum--those business men and bishops, those politicians and great +merchants, those bulky office-holders or journalists, those old +generals in sumptuous decorations, those writers in uniform--they are +the custodians of the highest law and its executors. + +It is those people whose interests are common and are contrary to those +of mankind; and their interests are--above all and imperiously--let +nothing change! It is those people who keep their eternal subjects in +eternal order, who deceive and dazzle them, who take their brains away +as they take their bodies, who flatter their servile instincts, who +make shallow, resplendent creeds for them, and explain huge happenings +away with all the pretexts they like. It is because of them that the +law of things does not rest on justice and the moral law. + +If some of them are unconscious of it, no matter. Neither does it +matter that all of them do not always profit by the public's servitude, +nor that some of them, sometimes, even happen to suffer from it. They +are none the less, all of them, by their solid coalition, material and +moral, the defenders of lies above and delusion below. These are the +people who reign in the place of kings, or at the same time, here as +everywhere. + +Formerly I used to see a harmony of interests and ideals on all that +festive, sunlit hill. Now I see reality broken in two, as I did on my +bed of pain. I see the two enemy races face to face--the victors and +the vanquished. + +Monsieur Gozlan looks like a master of masters--an aged collector of +fortune, whose speculations are famous, whose wealth increases unaided, +who makes as much profit as he likes and holds the district in the +hollow of his hand. His vulgar movements flash with diamonds, and a +bulky golden trinket hangs on his belly like a phallus. The generals +beside him--those glorious potentates whose smiles are made of so many +souls--and the administrators and the honorables only look like +secondary actors. + +Fontan occupies considerable space on the rostrum. He drowses there, +with his two spherical hands planted in front of him. The voluminous +trencherman digests and blows forth with his buttered mouth; and what +he has eaten purrs within him. As for Rampaille, the butcher, _he_ has +mingled with the public. He is rich but dressed with bad taste. It is +his habit to say, "I am a poor man of the people, I am; look at my +dirty clothes." A moment ago, when the lady who was collecting for the +Lest-we-Forget League suddenly confronted him and trapped him amid +general attention, he fumbled desperately in his fob and dragged three +sous out of his body. There are several like him on this side of the +barrier, looking as though they were part of the crowd, but only +attached to it by their trade. Kings do not now carry royalty +everywhere on their sleeves; they obliterate themselves in the clothes +of everybody. But all the hundred faces of royalty have the same +signs, all of them, and are distinctly repeated through their smiles of +cupidity, rapacity, ferocity. + +And there the dark multitude fidgets about. By footpaths and streets +they have come from the country and the town. I see, gazing earnestly, +stiff-set with attention, faces scorched by rude contact with the +seasons or blanched by bad atmospheres; the sharp and mummified face of +the peasant; faces of young men grown bitter before they have come of +age; of women grown ugly before they have come of age, who draw the +little wings of their capes over their faded blouses and faded throats; +the clerks of anemic and timorous career; and the little people with +whom times are so difficult, whom their mediocrity depresses; all that +stirring of backs and shoulders and hanging arms, in poverty dressed up +or naked. Behold their numbers and immense strength. Behold, +therefore, authority and justice. For justice and authority are not +hollow formulas--they are life, the most of life there can be; they are +mankind, they are mankind in all places and all times. These words, +justice and authority, do not echo in an abstract sphere. They are +rooted in the human being. They overflow and palpitate. When I demand +justice, I am not groping in a dream, I am crying from the depths of +all unhappy hearts. + +Such are they, that mountain of people heaped on the ground like metal +for the roads, overwhelmed by unhappiness, debased by charity and +asking for it, bound to the rich by urgent necessity, entangled in the +wheels of a single machine, the machine of frightful repetition. And +in that multitude I also place nearly all young people, whoever they +are, because of their docility and their general ignorance. These +lowly people form an imposing mass as far as one may see, yet each of +them is hardly anything, because he is isolated. It is almost a +mistake to count them; what you see when you look at the multitude is +an immensity made of nothing. + +And the people of to-day--overloaded with gloom and intoxicated with +prejudice--see blood, because of the red hangings of rostrums; they are +fascinated by the sparkle of diamonds, of necklaces, of decorations, of +the eyeglasses of the intellectuals. They have eyes but they see not, +ears but they hear not; arms which they do not use; and they are +thoughtless because they let others do their thinking! And the other +half of this same multitude is yonder, looking for Man and looked for +by Man, in the big black furrows where blood is scattered and the human +race is disappearing. And still farther away, in another part of the +world, the same throne-like platforms are crushing into the same +immense areas of men; and the same gilded servants of royalty are +scattering broadcast words which are only a translation of those which +fell on us here. + +Some women in mourning are hardly stains on this gloomy unity. They +wander and turn round in the open spaces, and are the same as they were +in ancient times. They are not of any age or any century, these +murdered souls, covered with black veils; they are you and I. + +My vision was true from top to bottom. The evil dream has become a +concrete tragi-comedy which is worse. It is inextricable, heavy, +crushing. I flounder from detail to detail of it; it drags me along. +Behold what is. Behold, therefore, what will be--exploitation to the +last breath, to the limit of wearing out, to death perfected! + +I have overtaken Marie. By her side I feel more defenseless than when +I am alone. While we watch the festival, the shining hurly-burly, +murmuring and eulogistic, the Baroness espies me, smiles and signs to +me to go to her. So I go, and in the presence of all she pays me some +compliment or other on my service at the front. She is dressed in +black velvet and wears her white hair like a diadem. Twenty-five years +of vassalage bow me before her and fill me with silence. And I salute +the Gozlans also, in a way which I feel is humble in spite of myself, +for they are all-powerful over me, and they make Marie an allowance +without which we could not live properly. I am no more than a man. + +I see Tudor, whose eyes were damaged in Artois, hesitating and groping. +The Baroness has found a little job for him in the castle kitchens. + +"Isn't she good to the wounded soldiers?" they are saying around me. +"She's a real benefactor!" + +This time I say aloud, "_There_ is the real benefactor," and I point to +the ruin which the young man has become whom we used to know, to the +miserable, darkened biped whose eyelids flutter in the daylight, who +leans weakly against a tree in face of the festive crowd, as if it were +an execution post. + +"Yes--after all--yes, yes," the people about me murmur, timidly; they +also blinking as though tardily enlightened by the spectacle of the +poor benefactor. + +But they are not heard--they hardly even hear themselves--in the flood +of uproar from a brass band. A triumphal march goes by with the strong +and sensual driving force of its, "Forward! You shall _not_ know!" +The audience fill themselves with brazen music, and overflow in cheers. + +The ceremony is drawing to a close. They who were seated on the +rostrum get up. Fontan, bewildered with sleepiness, struggles to put +on a tall hat which is too narrow, and while he screws it round he +grimaces. Then he smiles with his boneless mouth. All congratulate +themselves through each other; they shake their own hands; they cling +to themselves. After their fellowship in patriotism they are going +back to their calculations and gratifications, glorified in their +egotism, sanctified, beatified; more than ever will they blend their +own with the common cause and say, "_We_ are the people!" + +Brisbille, seeing one of the orators passing near him, throws him a +ferocious look, and shouts, "Land-shark!" and other virulent insults. + +But because of the brass instruments let loose, people only see him +open his mouth, and Monsieur Mielvaque dances with delight. Monsieur +Mielvaque, declared unfit for service, has been called up again. More +miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more +parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor--he blots out the shiny +places on his overcoat with his pen--Mielvaque points to Brisbille +gagged by the band, he writhes with laughter and shouts in my ear, "He +might be trying to sing!" + +Madame Marcassin's paralyzed face appears, the disappearance of which +she unceasingly thinks has lacerated her features. She also applauds +the noise and across her face--which has gone out like a lamp--there +shot a flash. Can it be only because, to-day, attention is fixed on +her? + +A mother, mutilated in her slain son, is giving her mite to the +offertory for the Lest-we-Forget League. She is bringing her poverty's +humble assistance to those who say, "Remember evil; not that it may be +avoided, but that it may be revived, by exciting at random all causes +of hatred. Memory must be made an infectious disease." Bleeding and +bloody, inflamed by the stupid selfishness of vengeance, she holds out +her hand to the collector, and drags behind her a little girl who, +nevertheless, will one day, perhaps, be a mother. + +Lower down, an apprentice is devouring an officer's uniform with his +gaze. He stands there hypnotized; and the sky-blue and beautiful +crimson come off on his eyes. At that moment I saw clearly that beauty +in uniforms is still more wicked than stupid. + +Ah! That frightful prophecy locked up within me is hammering my skull, +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +Wounded by everything I see, I sink down in a corner. Truth is simple; +but the world is no longer simple. There are so many things! How will +truth ever change its defeat into victory? How is it ever going to +heal all those who do not know! I grieve that I am weak and +ineffective, that I am only I. On earth, alas, truth is dumb, and the +heart is only a stifled cry! + +I look for support, for some one who does not leave me alone. I am too +much alone, and I look eagerly. But there is only Brisbille! + +There is only that tipsy automaton; that parody of a man. + +There he is. Close by he is more drunk than in the distance! +Drunkenness bedaubs him; his eyes are filled with wine, his cheeks are +like baked clay, his nose like a baked apple, he is almost blinded by +viscous tufts. In the middle of that open space he seems caught in a +whirlpool. It happens that he is in front of me for a moment, and he +hurls at my head some furious phrases in which I recognize, now and +again, the truths in which I believe! Then, with antics at once +desperate and too heavy for him, he tries to perform some kind of +pantomime which represents the wealthy class, round-paunched as a bag +of gold, sitting on the proletariat till their noses are crushed in the +gutter, and proclaiming, with their eyes up to heaven and their hands +on their hearts, "And above all, no more class-wars!" There is +something alarming in the awkwardness of the grimacing object begotten +by that obstructed brain. It seems as if real suffering is giving +voice through him with a beast's cry. + +When he has spoken, he collapses on to a stone. With his fist, whose +leather is covered with red hair, like a cow's, he hides the squalid +face that looks as if it had been spat upon. "Folks aren't wicked," he +says, "but they're stupid, stupid, stupid." + +And Brisbille cries. + +Just then Father Piot advances into the space, with his silver aureole, +his benevolent smile, and the vague and continuous lisping which +trickles from his lips. He stops in the middle of us, gives a nod to +each one and continuing his ingenuous reflections aloud, he murmurs, +"Hem, hem! The most important thing of all, in war, is the return to +religious ideas. Hem!" + +The monstrous calm of the saying makes me start, and communicates final +agitation to Brisbille. Throwing himself upright, the blacksmith +flourishes his trembling fist, tries to hold it under the old priest's +chin, and bawls, "You? Shall I tell you how _you_ make me feel, eh? +Why----" + +Some young men seize him, hustle him and throw him down. His head +strikes the ground and he is at last immobile. Father Piot raises his +arms to heaven and kneels over the vanquished madman. There are tears +in the old man's eyes. + +When we have made a few steps away I cannot help saying to Marie, with +a sort of courage, that Brisbille is not wrong in all that he says. +Marie is shocked, and says, "Oh!" + +"There was a time," she says, reproachfully, "when you set about him!" + +I should like Marie to understand what I am wanting to say. I explain +to her, that although he may be a drunkard and a brute, he is right in +what he thinks. He stammers and hiccups the truth, but it was not he +who made it, and it is whole and pure. He is a degraded prophet, but +the relics of his dreams have remained accurate. And that saintly old +man, who is devotion incarnate, who would not harm a fly, he is only a +lowly servant of lies; but he brings his little link to the chain, and +he smiles on the side of the executioners. + +"One shouldn't ever confuse ideas with men. It's a mistake that does a +lot of harm." + +Marie lowers her head and says nothing; then she murmurs, "Yes, that's +true." + +I pick up the little sentence she has given me. It is the first time +that approval of that sort has brought her near to me. She has +intelligence within her; she understands certain things. Women, in +spite of thoughtless impulses, are quicker in understanding than men. +Then she says to me, "Since you came back, you've been worrying your +head too much." + +Crillon was on our heels. He stands in front of me, and looks +displeased. + +"I was listening to you just now," he says; "I must tell you that since +you came back you have the air of a foreigner--a Belgian or an +American. You say intolantable things. We thought at first your mind +had got a bit unhinged. Unfortunately, it's not that. Is it because +you've turned sour? Anyway, I don't know what advantage you're after, +but I must cautionize you that you're anielating everybody. We must +put ourselves in these people's places. Apropos of this, and apropos +of that, you make proposals of a tendicious character which doesn't +escape them. You aren't like the rest any more. If you go on you'll +look as silly as a giant, and if you're going to frighten folks, look +out for yourself!" + +He plants himself before me in massive conviction. The full daylight +reveals more crudely the aging of his features. His skin is stretched +on the bones of his head, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders +work badly; they stick, like old drawers. + +"And then, after all, what _do_ you want? We've got to carry the war +on, eh? We must give the Boches hell, to sum up." + +With an effort, wearied beforehand, I ask, "And afterwards?" + +"What--afterwards? Afterwards there'll be wars, naturally, but +civilized wars. Afterwards? Why, future posterity! Own up that you'd +like to save the world, eh, what? When you launch out into these great +machinations you say enormities compulsively. The future? Ha, ha!" + +I turn away from him. Of what use to try to tell him that the past is +dead, that the present is passing, that the future alone is positive! + +Through Crillon's paternal admonishment I feel the threat of the +others. It is not yet hostility around me; but it is already a +rupture. With this truth that clings to me alone, amid the world and +its phantoms, am I not indeed rushing into a sort of tragedy impossible +to maintain? They who surround me, filled to the lips, filled to the +eyes, with the gross acceptance which turns men into beasts, they look +at me mistrustfully, ready to be let loose against me. Little more was +lacking before I should be as much a reprobate as Brisbille, who, in +this very place, before the war, stood up alone before the multitude +and tried to tell them to their faces that they were going into the +gulf. + +* * * * * * + +I move away with Marie. We go down into the valley, and then climb +Chestnut Hill. I like these places where I used so often to come in +the days when everything around me was a hell which I did not see. Now +that I am a ghost returning from the beyond, this hill still draws me +through the streets and lanes. I remember it and it remembers me. +There is something which we share, which I took away with me yonder, +everywhere, like a secret. I hear that despoiled soldier who said, +"Where I come from there are fields and paths and the sea; nowhere else +in the world is there that," and amid my unhappy memories that +extraordinary saying shines like news of the truth. + +We sit down on the bank which borders the lane. We can see the town, +the station and carts on the road; and yonder three villages make +harmony, sometimes more carefully limned by bursts of sunshine. The +horizons entwine us in a murmur. The crossing where we are is the spot +where four roads make a movement of reunion. + +But my spirit is no longer what it was. Vaguely I seek, everywhere. I +must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source. +Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; +and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible. + +* * * * * * + +There is a slight noise--a frail passer-by and a speck which jumps +round her feet. Marie looks and says mechanically, like a devout +woman, making the sign of the cross, "Poor little angel!" + +It is little Antoinette and her dog. She gropes for the edge of the +road with a stick, for she has become quite blind. They never looked +after her. They were going to do it, unendingly, but they never did +it. They always said, "Poor little angel," and that was all. + +She is so miserably clad that you lower your eyes before her, although +she cannot see. She wanders and seeks, incapable of understanding the +wrong they have done, they have allowed to be done, the wrong which no +one remembers. Alas, to the prating indifference and the indolent +negligence of men there is only this poor little blind witness. + +She stops in front of us and puts out her hand awkwardly. She is +begging! No one troubles himself about her now. She is talking to her +dog; he was born in the castle kennels--Marie told me about him. He +was the last of a litter, ill-shaped, with a head too big, and bad +eyes; and the Baroness said, as they were going to drown him, and +because she is always thinking of good things, "Give him to the little +blind girl." The child is training him to guide her; but he is young, +he wants to play when other dogs go by, he hears her with listless ear. +It is difficult for him to begin serious work; and he plucks the string +from her hands. She calls to him; and waits. + +Then, during a long time, a good many passers-by appear and vanish. We +do not look at all of them. + +But lo, turning the corner like some one of importance, here comes a +sleek and tawny mastiff, with the silvery tinkle of a trinket which +gleams on his neck. He is proclaiming and preceding his young +mistress, Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon, who is riding her pony. The +little girl caracoles sedately, clad in a riding habit, and armed with +a crop. She has been an orphan for a long time. She is the mistress +of the castle. She is twelve years old and has millions. A mounted +groom in full livery follows her, looking like a stage-player or a +chamberlain; and then, with measured steps, an elderly governess, +dressed in black silk, and manifestly thinking of some Court. + +Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon and her pretty name set us thinking of +Antoinette, who hardly has a name; and it seems to us that these two +are the only ones who have passed before our eyes. The difference in +the earthly fates of these two creatures who have both the same fragile +innocence, the same pure and complete incapacity of childhood, plunges +us into a tragedy of thought. The misery and the might which have +fallen on those little immature heads are equally undeserved. It is a +disgrace for men to see a poor child; it is also a disgrace for men to +see a rich child. + +I feel malicious towards the little sumptuous princess who has just +appeared, already haughty in spite of her littleness; and I am stirred +with pity for the frail victim whom life is obliterating with all its +might; and Marie, I can see, gentle Marie, has the same thoughts. Who +would not feel them in face of this twin picture of childhood which a +passing chance has brought us, of this one picture torn in two? + +But I resist this emotion; the understanding of things must be based, +not on sentiment, but on reason. There must be justice, not charity. +Kindness is solitary. Compassion becomes one with him whom we pity; it +allows us to fathom him, to understand him alone amongst the rest; but +it blurs and befogs the laws of the whole. I must set off with a clear +idea, like the beam of a lighthouse through the deformities and +temptations of night. + +As I have seen equality, I am seeing inequality. Equality in truth; +inequality in fact. We observe in man's beginning the beginning of his +hurt; the root of the error is in inheritance. + +Injustice, artificial and groundless authority, royalty without reason, +the fantastic freaks of fortune which suddenly put crowns on heads! It +is there, as far as the monstrous authority of the dead, that we must +draw a straight line and clean the darkness away. + +The transfer of the riches and authority of the dead, of whatever kind, +to their descendants, is not in accord with reason and the moral law. +The laws of might and of possessions are for the living alone. Every +man must occupy in the common lot a place which he owes to his work and +not to luck. + +It is tradition! But that is no reason, on the other hand. Tradition, +which is the artificial welding of the present with the mass of the +past, contrives a chain between them, where there is none. It is from +tradition that all human unhappiness comes; it piles _de facto_, truths +on to the true truth; it overrides justice; it takes all freedom away +from reason and replaces it with legendary things, forbidding reason to +look for what may be inside them. + +It is in the one domain of science and its application, and sometimes +in the technique of the arts, that experience legitimately takes the +power of law, and that acquired productions have a right to accumulate. +But to pass from this treasuring of truth to the dynastic privilege of +ideas or powers or wealth--those talismans--that is to make a senseless +assimilation which kills equality in the bud and prevents human order +from having a basis. Inheritance, which is the concrete and palpable +form of tradition, defends itself by the tradition of origins and of +beliefs--abuses defended by abuses, to infinity--and it is by reason of +that integral succession that here, on earth, we see a few men holding +the multitude of men in their hands. + +I say all this to Marie. She appears to be more struck by the +vehemence of my tone than by the obviousness of what I say. She +replies, feebly, "Yes, indeed," and nods her head; but she asks me, +"But the moral law that you talk about, isn't it tradition?" + +"No. It is the automatic law of the common good. Every time _that_ +finds itself at stake, it re-creates itself logically. It is lucid; it +shows itself every time right to its fountain-head. Its source is +reason itself, and equality, which is the same thing as reason. This +thing is good and that is evil, _because_ it is good and because it is +evil, and not because of what has been said or written. It is the +opposite of traditional bidding. There is no tradition of the good. +Wealth and power must be earned, not taken ready-made; the idea of what +is just or right must be reconstructed on every occasion and not be +taken ready-made." + +Marie listens to me. She ponders, and then says, "We shouldn't work if +we hadn't to leave what we have to our relations." + +But immediately she answers herself, "No." + +She produces some illustrations, just among our own surroundings. +So-and-so, and So-and-so. The bait of gain or influence, or even the +excitement of work and production suffice for people to do themselves +harm. And then, too, this great change would paralyze the workers less +than the old way paralyzes the prematurely enriched who pick up their +fortunes on the ground--such as he, for instance, whom we used to see +go by, who was drained and dead at twenty, and so many other ignoble +and irrefutable examples; and the comedies around bequests and heirs +and heiresses, and their great gamble with affection and love--all +these basenesses, in which custom too old has made hearts go moldy. + +She is a little excited, as if the truth, in the confusion of these +critical times, were beautiful to see--and even pleasant to detain with +words. + +All the same, she interrupts herself, and says, "They'll always find +some way of deceiving." At last she says, "Yes, it would be just, +perhaps; but it won't come." + +* * * * * * + +The valley has suddenly filled with tumult. On the road which goes +along the opposite slope a regiment is passing on its way to the +barracks, a new regiment, with its colors. The flag goes on its way in +the middle of a long-drawn hurly-burly, in vague shouting, in plumes of +dust and a sparkling mist of battle. + +We have both mechanically risen on the edge of the road. At the moment +when the flag passes before us, the habit of saluting it trembles in my +arms. But, just as when a while ago the bishop's lifted hand did not +humble me, I stay motionless, and I do not salute. + +No, I do not bow in presence of the flag. It frightens me, I hate it +and I accuse it. No, there is no beauty in it; it is not the emblem of +this corner of my native land, whose fair picture it disturbs with its +savage stripes. It is the screaming signboard of the glory of blows, +of militarism and war. It unfurls over the living surges of humanity a +sign of supremacy and command; it is a weapon. It is not the love of +our countries, it is their sharp-edged difference, proud and +aggressive, which we placard in the face of the others. It is the +gaudy eagle which conquerors and their devotees see flying in their +dreams from steeple to steeple in foreign lands. The sacred defense of +the homeland--well and good. But if there was no offensive war there +would be defensive war. Defensive war has the same infamous cause as +the offensive war which provoked it; why do we not confess it? We +persist, through blindness or duplicity, in cutting the question in +two, as if it were too great. All fallacies are possible when one +speculates on morsels of truth. But Earth only bears one single sort +of inhabitant. + +It is not enough to put something on the end of a stick in public +places, to shake it on the tops of buildings and in the faces of public +assemblies, and say, "It is decided that this is the loftiest of all +symbols; it is decided that he who will not bend the knee before it +shall be accursed." It is the duty of human intelligence to examine if +that symbolism is not fetish-worship. + +As for me, I remember it was said that logic has terrible chains and +that all hold together--the throne, the altar, the sword and the flag. +And I have read, in the unchaining and the chaining-up of war, that +these are the instruments of the cult of human sacrifices. + +Marie has sat down again, and I strolled away a little, musing. + +I recall the silhouette of Adjutant Marcassin, and him whom I quoted a +moment ago--the sincere hero, barren and dogmatic, with his furious +faith. I seem to be asking him, "Do you believe in beauty, in +progress?" He does not know, so he replies, "No! I only believe in +the glory of the French name!" "Do you believe in respect for life, in +the dignity of labor, in the holiness of happiness?" "No." "Do you +believe in truth, in justice?" "No, I only believe in the glory of the +French name." + +The idea of motherland--I have never dared to look it in the face. I +stand still in my walk and in my meditation. What, that also? But my +reason is as honest as my heart, and keeps me going forward. Yes, that +also. + +In the friendly solitude of these familiar spots on the top of this +hill, at these cross-roads where the lane has led me like an unending +companion, not far from the place where the gentle slope waits for you +to entice you, I quake to hear myself think and blaspheme. What, that +notion of Motherland also, which has so often thrilled me with gladness +and enthusiasm, as but lately that of God did? + +But it is in Motherland's name, as once in the name of God only, that +humanity robs itself and tries to choke itself with its own hands, as +it will soon succeed in doing. It is because of motherland that the +big countries, more rich in blood, have overcome the little ones. It +is because of motherland that the overlord of German nationalism +attacked France and let civil war loose among the people of the world. +The question must be placed there where it is, that is to say, +everywhere at once. One must see face to face, in one glance, all +those immense, distinct unities which each shout "I!" + +The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, +and one which must remain little. + +There is only one common good. There is only one moral duty, only one +truth, and every man is the shining recipient and guardian of it. The +present understanding of the idea of motherland divides all these great +ideas, cuts them into pieces, specializes them within impenetrable +circles. We meet as many national truths as we do nations, and as many +national duties, and as many national interests and rights--and they +are antagonistic to each other. Each country is separated from the +next by such walls--moral frontiers, material frontiers, commercial +frontiers--that you are imprisoned when you find yourself on either +side of them. We hear talk of sanctified selfishness, of the adorable +expansion of one race across the others, of noble hatreds and glorious +conquests, and we see these ideals trying to take shape on all hands. +This capricious multiplication of what ought to remain one leads the +whole of civilization into a malignant and thorough absurdity. The +words "justice" and "right" are too great in stature to be shut up in +proper nouns, any more than Providence can be, which every royalty +would fain take to itself. + +National aspirations--confessed or unconfessable--are contradictory +among themselves. All populations which are narrowly confined and +elbow each other in the world are full of dreams vaster than each of +them. The nations' territorial ambitions overlap each other on the map +of the universe; economic and financial ambitions cancel each other +mathematically. Then in the mass they are unrealizable. + +And since there is no sort of higher control over this scuffle of +truths which are not admissible, each nation realizes its own by all +possible means, by all the fidelity and anger and brute force she can +get out of herself. By the help of this state of world-wide anarchy, +the lazy and slight distinction between patriotism, imperialism and +militarism is violated, trampled, and broken through all along the +line, and it cannot be otherwise. The living universe cannot help +becoming an organization of armed rivalry. And there cannot fail to +result from it the everlasting succession of evils, without any hope of +abiding spoils, for there is no instance of conquerors who have long +enjoyed immunity, and history reveals a sort of balance of injustices +and of the fatal alternation of predominance. In all quarters the hope +of victory brings in the hope of war. It is conflict clinging to +conflict, and the recurrent murdering of murders. + +The kings! We always find the kings again when we examine popular +unhappiness right to the end! This hypertrophy of the national unities +is the doing of their leaders. It is the masters, the ruling +aristocracies--emblazoned or capitalist--who have created and +maintained for centuries all the pompous and sacred raiment, +sanctimonious or fanatical, in which national separation is clothed, +along with the fable of national interests--those enemies of the +multitudes. The primeval centralization of individuals isolated in the +inhabited spaces was in agreement with the moral law; it was the +precise embodiment of progress; it was of benefit to all. But the +decreed division, peremptory and stern, which was interposed in that +centralization--that is the doom of man, although it is necessary to +the classes who command. These boundaries, these clean cuts, permit +the stakes of commercial conflict and of war; that is to say, the +chance of big feats of glory and of huge speculations. _That_ is the +vital principle of Empire. If all interests suddenly became again the +individual interests of men, and the moral law resumed its full and +spacious action on the basis of equality, if human solidarity were +world-wide and complete, it would no longer lend itself to certain +sudden and partial increases which are never to the general advantage, +but may be to the advantage of a few fleeting profiteers. That is why +the conscious forces which have hitherto directed the old world's +destiny will always use all possible means to break up human harmony +into fragments. Authority holds fast to all its national bases. + +The insensate system of national blocks in sinister dispersal, +devouring or devoured, has its apostles and advocates. But the +theorists, the men of spurious knowledge, will in vain have heaped up +their farrago of quibbles and arguments, their fallacies drawn from +so-called precedents or from so-called economic and ethnic necessity; +for the simple, brutal and magnificent cry of life renders useless the +efforts they make to galvanize and erect doctrines which cannot stand +alone. The disapproval which attaches in our time to the word +"internationalism" proves together the silliness and meanness of public +opinion. Humanity is the living name of truth. Men are like each +other as trees! They who rule well, rule by force and deceit; but by +reason, never. + +The national group is a collectivity within the bosom of the chief one. +It is one group like any other; it is like him who knots himself to +himself under the wing of a roof, or under the wider wing of the sky +that dyes a landscape blue. It is not the definite, absolute, mystical +group into which they would fain transform it, with sorcery of words +and ideas, which they have armored with oppressive rules. Everywhere +man's poor hope of salvation on earth is merely to attain, at the end +of his life, this: To live one's life freely, where one wants to live +it; to love, to last, to produce in the chosen environment--just as the +people of the ancient Provinces have lost, along with their separate +leaders, their separate traditions of covetousness and reciprocal +robbery. + +If, from the idea of motherland, you take away covetousness, hatred, +envy and vainglory; if you take away from it the desire for +predominance by violence, what is there left of it? + +It is not an individual unity of laws; for just laws have no colors. +It is not a solidarity of interests, for there are no material national +interests--or they are not honest. It is not a unity of race; for the +map of the countries is not the map of the races. What is there left? + +There is left a restricted communion, deep and delightful; the +affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language--there +is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are +foreigners--there is left a personal and delicate preference for +certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. And even this +radiance has its limits. The cult of the masterpieces of art and +thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has +always soared above patriotic littlenesses. + +"But," the official voices trumpet, "there is another magic +formula--the great common Past of every nation." + +Yes, there is the Past. That long Golgotha of oppressed peoples; the +Law of the Strong, changing life's humble festival into useless and +recurring hecatombs; the chronology of that crushing of lives and ideas +which always tortured or executed the innovators; that Past in which +sovereigns settled their personal affairs of alliances, ruptures, +dowries and inheritance with the territory and blood which they owned; +in which each and every country was so squandered--it is common to all. +That Past in which the small attainments of moral progress, of +well-being and unity (so far as they were not solely semblances) only +crystallized with despairing tardiness, with periods of doleful +stagnation and frightful alteration along the channels of barbarism and +force; that Past of somber shame, that Past of error and disease which +every old nation has survived, which we should learn by heart that we +may hate it--yes, that Past is common to all, like misery, shame and +pain. Blessed are the new nations, for they have no remorse! + +And the blessings of the past--the splendor of the French Revolution, +the huge gifts of the navigators who brought new worlds to the old one, +and the miraculous exception of scientific discoveries, which by a +second miracle were not smothered in their youth--are they not also +common to all, like the undying beauty of the ruins of the Parthenon, +Shakespeare's lightning and Beethoven's raptures, and like love, and +like joy? + +The universal problem into which modern life, as well as past life, +rushes and embroils and rends itself, can only be dispersed by a +universal means which reduces each nation to what it is in truth; which +strips from them all the ideal of supremacy stolen by each of them from +the great human ideal; a means which, raising the human ideal +definitely beyond the reach of all those immoderate emotions, which +shout together "_Mine_ is the only point of view," gives it at last its +divine unity. Let us keep the love of the motherland in our hearts, +but let us dethrone the conception of Motherland. + +I will say what there is to say: I place the Republic before France. +France is ourselves. The Republic is ourselves and the others. The +general welfare must be put much higher than national welfare, because +it _is_ much higher. But if it is venturesome to assert, as they have +so much and so indiscriminately done, that such national interest is in +accord with the general interest, then the converse is obvious; and +that is illuminating, momentous and decisive--the good of all includes +the good of each; France can be prosperous even if the world is not, +but the world cannot be prosperous and France not. The moving argument +reëstablishes, with positive and crowding certainties which touch us +softly on all sides, that distracting stake which Pascal tried to +place, like a lever in the void--"On one side I lose; on the other I +have all to gain." + +* * * * * * + +Amid the beauty of these dear spots on Chestnut Hill, in the heart of +these four crossing ways, I have seen new things; not that any new +things have happened, but because I have opened my eyes. + +I am rewarded, I the lowest, for being the only one of all to follow up +error to the end, right into its holy places; for I am at last +disentangling all the simplicity and truth of the great horizons. The +revelation still seems to me so terrible that the silence of men, +heaped under the roofs down there at my feet, seizes and threatens me. +And if I am but timidly formulating it within myself, that is because +each of us has lived in reality more than his life, and because my +training has filled me, like the rest, with centuries of shadow, of +humiliation and captivity. + +It is establishing itself cautiously; but it is the truth, and there +are moments when logic seizes you in its godlike whirlwind. In this +disordered world where the weakness of a few oppresses the strength of +all; since ever the religion of the God of Battles and of Resignation +has not sufficed by itself to consecrate inequality. Tradition reigns, +the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is--God without +a head. Man's destiny is eternally blockaded by two forms of +tradition; in time, by hereditary succession; in space, by frontiers, +and thus it is crushed and annihilated in detail. It is the truth. I +am certain of it, for I am touching it. + +But I do not know what will become of us. All the blood poured out, +all the words poured out, to impose a sham ideal on our bodies and +souls, will they suffice for a long time yet to separate and isolate +humanity in absurdity made real? History is a Bible of errors. I have +not only seen blessings falling from on high on all which supported +evil, and curses on all which could heal it; I have seen, here below, +the keepers of the moral law hunted and derided, from little Termite, +lost like a rat in unfolding battle, back to Jesus Christ. + +We go away. For the first time since I came back I no longer lean on +Marie. It is she who leans on me. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +NO! + + +The opening of our War Museum, which was the conspicuous event of the +following days, filled Crillon with delight. + +It was a wooden building, gay with flags, which the municipality had +erected; and Room 1 was occupied by an exhibition of paintings and +drawings by amateurs in high society, all war subjects. Many of them +were sent down from Paris. + +Crillon, officially got up in his Sunday clothes, has bought the +catalogue (which is sold for the benefit of the wounded) and he is +struck with wonder by the list of exhibitors. He talks of titles, of +coats of arms, of crowns; he seeks enlightenment in matters of +aristocratic hierarchy. Once, as he stands before the row of frames, +he asks: + +"I say, now, which has got most talent in France--a princess or a +duchess?" + +He is quite affected by these things, and with his eyes fixed on the +lower edges of the pictures he deciphers the signatures. + +In the room which follows this shining exhibition of autographs there +is a crush. + +On trestles disposed around the wall trophies are arranged--peaked +helmets, knapsacks covered with tawny hair, ruins of shells. + +The complete uniform of a German infantryman has been built up with +items from different sources, some of them stained. + +In this room there was a group of convalescents from the overflow +hospital of Viviers. These soldiers looked, and hardly spoke. Several +shrugged their shoulders. But one of them growled in front of the +German phantom, "Ah the swine!" + +With a view to propaganda, they have framed a letter from a woman found +in a slain enemy's pocket. A translation is posted up as well, and +they have underlined the passage in which the woman says, "When is this +cursed war going to end?" and in which she laments the increasing cost +of little Johann's keep. At the foot of the page, the woman has +depicted, in a sentimental diagram, the increasing love that she feels +for her man. + +How simple and obvious the evidence is! No reasonable person can +dispute that the being whose private life is here thrown to the winds +and who poured out his sweat and his blood in one of these rags was not +responsible for having held a rifle, for having aimed it. In the +presence of these ruins I see with monotonous and implacable obstinacy +that the attacking multitude is as innocent as the defending multitude. + +On a little red-covered table by the side of a little tacked label +which says, "Cold Steel: May 9," there is a twisted French bayonet--a +bayonet, the flesh weapon, which has been twisted! + +"Oh, it's fine!" says a young girl from the castle. + +"It isn't Fritz and Jerry, old chap, that bends bayonets!" + +"No doubt about it, we're the first soldiers in the world," says +Rampaille. + +"We've set a beautiful example to the world," says a sprightly Member +of the Upper House to all those present. + +Excitement grows around that bayonet. The young girl, who is beautiful +and expansive, cannot tear herself away from it. At last she touches +it with her finger, and shudders. She does not disguise her pleasant +emotion:-- + +"I confess _I'm_ a patriot! I'm more than that--I'm a patriot and a +militarist!" + +All heads around her are nodded in approval. That kind of talk never +seems intemperate, for it touches on sacred things. + +And I, I see--in the night which falls for a moment, amid the tempest +of dying men which is subsiding on the ground--I see a monster in the +form of a man and in the form of a vulture, who, with the death-rattle +in his throat, holds towards that young girl the horrible head that is +scalped with a coronet, and says to her: "You do not know me, and you +do not know, but you are like me!" + +The young girl's living laugh, as she goes off with a young officer, +recalls me to events. + +All those who come after each other to the bayonet speak in the same +way, and have the same proud eyes. + +"They're not stronger than us, let me tell you! It's us that's the +strongest!" + +"Our allies are very good, but it's lucky for them we're there on the +job." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +"Why, yes, there's only the French for it. All the world admires them. +Only we're always running ourselves down." + +When you see that fever, that spectacle of intoxication, these people +who seize the slightest chance to glorify their country's physical +force and the hardness of its fists, you hear echoing the words of the +orators and the official politicians:-- + +"There is only in our hearts the condemnation of barbarism and the love +of humanity." + +And you ask yourself if there is a single public opinion in the world +which is capable of bearing victory with dignity. + +I stand aloof. I am a blot, like a bad prophet. I hear this +declaration, which bows me like an infernal burden: It is only defeat +which can open millions of eyes! + +I hear some one say, with detestation, "German militarism----" + +That is the final argument, that is the formula. Yes, German +militarism is hateful, and must disappear; all the world is agreed +about that--the jack-boots of the Junkers, of the Crown Princes, of the +Kaiser, and their courts of intellectuals and business men, and the +pan-Germanism which would dye Europe black and red, and the +half-bestial servility of the German people. Germany is the fiercest +fortress of militarism. Yes, everybody is agreed about that. + +But they who govern Thought take unfair advantage of that agreement, +for they know well that when the simple folk have said, "German +militarism," they have said all. They stop there. They amalgamate the +two words and confuse militarism with Germany--once Germany is thrown +down there's no more to say. In that way, they attach lies to truth, +and prevent us from seeing that militarism is in reality everywhere, +more or less hypocritical and unconscious, but ready to seize +everything if it can. They force opinion to add, "It is a crime to +think of anything but beating the German enemy." But the right-minded +man must answer that it is a crime to think only of that, for the enemy +is militarism, and not Germany. I know; I will no longer let myself be +caught by words which they hide one behind another. + +The Liberal Member of the Upper House says, loud enough to be heard, +that the people have behaved very well, for, after all, they have found +the cost, and they must be given credit for their good conduct. + +Another personage in the same group, an Army contractor, spoke of "the +good chaps in the trenches," and he added, in a lower voice, "As long +as they're protecting us, we're all right." + +"We shall reward them when they come back," replied an old lady. "We +shall give them glory, we shall make their leaders into Marshals, and +they'll have celebrations, and Kings will be there." + +"And there are some who won't come back." + +We see several new recruits of the 1916 class who will soon be sent to +the front. + +"They're pretty boys," says the Member of the Upper House, +good-naturedly; "but they're still a bit pale-faced. We must fatten +'em up, we must fatten 'em up!" + +An official of the Ministry of War goes up to the Member of the Upper +House, and says: + +"The science of military preparedness is still in its beginnings. +We're getting clear for it hastily, but it is an organization which +requires a long time and which can only have full effect in time of +peace. Later, we shall take them from childhood; we shall make good +sound soldiers of them, and of good health, morally as well as +physically." + +Then the band plays; it is closing time, and there is the passion of a +military march. A woman cries that it is like drinking champagne to +hear it. + +The visitors have gone away. I linger to look at the beflagged front +of the War Museum, while night is falling. It is the Temple. It is +joined to the Church, and resembles it. My thoughts go to those +crosses which weigh down, from the pinnacles of churches, the heads of +the living, join their two hands together, and close their eyes; those +crosses which squat upon the graves in the cemeteries at the front. It +is because of all these temples that in the future the sleep-walking +nations will begin again to go through the immense and mournful tragedy +of obedience. It is because of these temples that financial and +industrial tyranny, Imperial and Royal tyranny--of which all they whom +I meet on my way are the accomplices or the puppets--will to-morrow +begin again to wax fat on the fanaticism of the civilian, on the +weariness of those who have come back, on the silence of the dead. +(When the armies file through the Arc de Triomphe, who is there will +see--and yet they will be plainly visible--that six thousand miles of +French coffins are also passing through!) And the flag will continue +to float over its prey, that flag stuck into the shadowy front of the +War Museum, that flag so twisted by the wind's breath that sometimes it +takes the shape of a cross, and sometimes of a scythe! + +Judgment is passed in that case. But the vision of the future agitates +me with a sort of despair and with a holy thrill of anger. + +Ah, there are cloudy moments when one asks himself if men do not +deserve all the disasters into which they rush! No--I recover +myself--they do not deserve them. But _we_, instead of saying "I wish" +must say "I will." And what we will, we must will to build it, with +order, with method, beginning at the beginning, when once we have been +as far as that beginning. We must not only open our eyes, but our +arms, our wings. + +This isolated wooden building, with its back against a wood-pile, and +nobody in it---- + +Burn it? Destroy it? I thought of doing it. + +To cast that light in the face of that moving night, which was crawling +and trampling there in the torchlight, which had gone to plunge into +the town and grow darker among the dungeon-cells of the bedchambers, +there to hatch more forgetfulness in the gloom, more evil and misery, +or to breed unavailing generations who will be abortive at the age of +twenty! + +The desire to do it gripped my body for a moment. I fell back, and I +went away, like the others. + +It seems to me that, in not doing it, I did an evil deed. + +For if the men who are to come free themselves instead of sinking in +the quicksands, if they consider, with lucidity and with the epic pity +it deserves, this age through which I go drowning, they would perhaps +have thanked me, even me! From those who will not see or know me, but +in whom for this sudden moment I want to hope, I beg pardon for not +doing it. + +* * * * * * + +In a corner where the neglected land is turning into a desert, and +which lies across my way home, some children are throwing stones at a +mirror which they have placed a few steps away as a target. They +jostle each other, shouting noisily; each of them wants the glory of +being the first to break it. I see the mirror again that I broke with +a brick at Buzancy, because it seemed to stand upright like a living +being! Next, when the fragment of solid light is shattered into +crumbs, they pursue with stones an old dog, whose wounded foot trails +like his tail. No one wants it any more; it is ready to be finished +off, and the urchins are improving the occasion. Limping, his +pot-hanger spine all arched, the animal hurries slowly, and tries +vainly to go faster than the pebbles. + +The child is only a confused handful of confused and superficial +propensities. _Our_ deep instincts--there they are. + +I scatter the children, and they withdraw into the shadows unwillingly, +and look at me with malice. I am distressed by this maliciousness, +which is born full-grown. I am distressed also by this old dog's lot. +They would not understand me if I acknowledged that distress; they +would say, "And you who've seen so many wounded and dead!" All the +same, there is a supreme respect for life. I am not slighting +intellect; but life is common to us along with poorer living things +than ourselves. He who kills an animal, however lowly it may be, +unless there is necessity, is an assassin. + +At the crossing I meet Louise Verte, wandering about. She has gone +crazy. She continues to accost men, but they do not even know what she +begs for. She rambles, in the streets, and in her hovel, and on the +pallet where she is crucified by drunkards. She is surrounded by +general loathing. "That a woman?" says a virtuous man who is going by, +"that dirty old strumpet? A woman? A sewer, yes." She is harmless. +In a feeble, peaceful voice, which seems to live in some supernatural +region, very far from us, she says to me: + +"I am the queen." + +Immediately and strangely she adds, as though troubled by some +foreboding: + +"Don't take my illusion away from me." + +I was on the point of answering her, but I check myself, and just say, +"Yes," as one throws a copper, and she goes away happy. + +* * * * * * + +My respect for life is so strong that I feel pity for a fly which I +have killed. Observing the tiny corpse at the gigantic height of my +eyes, I cannot help thinking how well made that organized speck of dust +is, whose wings are little more than two drops of space, whose eye has +four thousand facets; and that fly occupies my thought for a moment, +which is a long time for it. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +LIGHT + + +I am leaning this evening out of the open window. As in bygone nights, +I am watching the dark pictures, invisible at first, taking shape--the +steeple towering out of the hollow, and broadly lighted against the +hill; the castle, that rich crown of masonry; and then the massive +sloping black of the chimney-peopled roofs, which are sharply outlined +against the paler black of space, and some milky, watching windows. +The eye is lost in all directions among the desolation where the +multitude of men and women are hiding, as always and as everywhere. + +That is what is. Who will say, "That is what must be!" + +I have searched, I have indistinctly seen, I have doubted. Now, I +hope. + +I do not regret my youth and its beliefs. Up to now, I have wasted my +time to live. Youth is the true force, but it is too rarely lucid. +Sometimes it has a triumphant liking for what is now, and the +pugnacious broadside of paradox may please it. But there is a degree +in innovation which they who have not lived very much cannot attain. +And yet who knows if the stern greatness of present events will not +have educated and aged the generation which to-day forms humanity's +effective frontier? Whatever our hope may be, if we did not place it +in youth, where should we place it? + +Who will speak--see, and then speak? To speak is the same thing as to +see, but it is more. Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we +are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our +hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; +truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words--what is it? It +is our breath--not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones +which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. +In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out +of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the +appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries. + +There is a voice, a low and untiring voice, which helps those who do +not and will not see themselves, a voice which brings them together, +Books--the book we choose, the favorite, the book you open, which was +waiting for you! + +Formerly, I hardly knew any books. Now, I love what they do. I have +brought together as many as I could. There they are, on the shelves, +with their immense titles, their regular, profound contents; they are +there, all around me, arranged like houses. + +* * * * * * + +Who will tell the truth? But it is not enough to say things in order +to let them be seen. + +Just now, pursued by the idea of my temptation at the War Museum, I +imagined that I had acted on it, and that I was appearing before the +judges. I should have told them a fine lot of truths, I should have +proved to them that I had done right. I should have made myself, the +accused, into the prosecutor. + +No! I should not have spoken thus, for I should not have known! I +should have stood stammering, full of a truth throbbing within me, +choking, unconfessable truth. It is not enough to speak; you must know +words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I +am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to +yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, +because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of +arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth +its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will +be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men +dazzles me when it rises before me. The very nakedness of paper +frightens me and drowns my looks. Not I shall embellish that whiteness +with writing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow +is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the +immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing, +which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced +comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we +are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever +country he may come,--but all the same, I should prefer him, at the +bottom of my heart, to speak French. + +Once more, he intervenes within me who first showed himself to me as +the specter of evil, he who guided me through hell. When the +death-agony was choking him and his head had darkened like an eagle's, +he hurled a curse which I did not understand, which I understand now, +on the masterpieces of art. He was afraid of their eternity, of that +terrible might they have--when once they are imprinted on the eyes of +an epoch--the strength which you can neither kill nor drive in front of +you. He said that Velasquez, who was only a chamberlain, had succeeded +Philip IV, that he would succeed the Escurial, that he would succeed +even Spain and Europe. He likened that artistic power, which the Kings +have tamed in all respects save in its greatness, to that of a +poet-reformer who throws a saying of freedom and justice abroad, a book +which scatters sparks among humanity somber as coal. The voice of the +expiring prince crawled on the ground and throbbed with secret blows: +"Begone, all you voices of light!" + +* * * * * * + +But what shall _we_ say? Let us spell out the Magna Charta of which we +humbly catch sight. Let us say to the people of whom all peoples are +made: "Wake up and understand, look and see; and having begun again +the consciousness which was mown down by slavery, decide that +everything must be begun again!" + +Begin again, entirely. Yes, that first. If the human charter does not +re-create everything, it will create nothing. + +Unless they are universal, the reforms to be carried out are utopian +and mortal. National reforms are only fragments of reforms. There +must be no half measures. Half measures are laughter-provoking in +their unbounded littleness when it is a question for the last time of +arresting the world's roll down the hill of horror. There must be no +half measures because there are no half truths. Do all, or you will do +nothing. + +Above all, do not let the reforms be undertaken by the Kings. That is +the gravest thing to be taught you. The overtures of liberality made +by the masters who have made the world what it is are only comedies. +They are only ways of blockading completely the progress to come, of +building up the past again behind new patchwork of plaster. + +Never listen, either, to the fine words they offer you, the letters of +which you see like dry bones on hoardings and the fronts of buildings. +There are official proclamations, full of the notion of liberty and +rights, which would be beautiful if they said truly what they say. But +they who compose them do not attach their full meaning to the words. +What they recite they are not capable of wanting, nor even of +understanding. The one indisputable sign of progress in ideas to-day +is that there are things which they dare no longer leave publicly +unsaid, and that's all. There are not all the political parties that +there seem to be. They swarm, certainly, as numerous as the cases of +short sight; but there are only two--the democrats and the +conservatives. Every political deed ends fatally either in one or the +other, and all their leaders have always a tendency to act in the +direction of reaction. Beware, and never forget that if certain +assertions are made by certain lips, that is a sufficient reason why +you should at once mistrust them. When the bleached old republicans[1] +take your cause in their hands, be quite sure that it is not yours. Be +wary as lions. + +[Footnote 1: The word is used here much in the sense of our word +"Tories."--Tr.] + +Do not let the simplicity of the new world out of your sight. The +social trust is simple. The complications are in what is overhead--the +accumulation of delusions and prejudice heaped up by ages of tyrants, +parasites, and lawyers. That conviction sheds a real glimmer of light +on your duty and points out the way to accomplish it. He who would dig +right down to the truth must simplify; his faith must be brutally +simple, or he is lost. Laugh at the subtle shades and distinctions of +the rhetoricians and the specialist physicians. Say aloud: "This is +what is," and then, "That is what must be." + +You will never have that simplicity, you people of the world, if you do +not seize it. If you want it, do it yourself with your own hands. And +I give you now the talisman, the wonderful magic word--you _can_! + +That you may be a judge of existing things, go back to their origins, +and get at the endings of all. The noblest and most fruitful work of +the human intelligence is to make a clean sweep of every enforced +idea--of advantages or meanings--and to go right through appearances in +search of the eternal bases. Thus you will clearly see the moral law +at the beginning of all things, and the conception of justice and +equality will appear to you beautiful as daylight. + +Strong in that supreme simplicity, you shall say: I am the people of +the peoples; therefore I am the King of Kings, and I will that +sovereignty flows everywhere from me, since I am might and right. I +want no more despots, confessed or otherwise, great or little; I know, +and I want no more. The incomplete liberation of 1789 was attacked by +the Kings. Complete liberation will attack the Kings. + +But Kings are not exclusively the uniformed ones among the trumpery +wares of the courts. Assuredly, the nations who have a King have more +tradition and subjection than the others. But there are countries +where no man can get up and say, "My people, my army," nations which +only experience the continuation of the kingly tradition in more +peaceful intensity. There are others with the great figures of +democratic leaders; but as long as the entirety of things is not +overthrown--always the entirety, the sacred entirety--these men cannot +achieve the impossible, and sooner or later their too-beautiful +inclinations will be isolated and misunderstood. In the formidable +urgency of progress, what do the proportions matter to you of the +elements which make up the old order of things in the world? All the +governors cling fatally together among themselves, and more solidly +than you think, through the old machine of chancelleries, ministries, +diplomacy, and the ceremonials with gilded swords; and when they are +bent on making war for themselves there is an unquenchable likeness +between them all, of which you want no more. Break the chain; suppress +all privileges, and say at last, "Let, there be equality." + +One man is as good as another. That means that no man carries within +himself any privilege which puts him above the universal law. It means +an equality in principle, and that does not invalidate the legitimacy +of the differences due to work, to talent, and to moral sense. The +leveling only affects the rights of the citizen; and not the man as a +whole. You do not create the living being; you do not fashion the +living clay, as God did in the Bible; you make regulations. Individual +worth, on which some pretend to rely, is relative and unstable, and no +one is a judge of it. In a well-organized entirety, it cultivates and +improves itself automatically. But that magnificent anarchy cannot, at +the inception of the human Charter, take the place of the obviousness +of equality. + +The poor man, the proletarian, is nobler than another, but not more +sacred. In truth, all workers and all honest men are as good as each +other. But the poor, the exploited, are fifteen hundred millions here +on earth. They are the Law because they are the Number. The moral law +is only the imperative preparation of the common good. It always +involves, in different forms, the necessary limitations of some +individual interests by the rest; that is to say, the sacrifice of one +to the many, of the many to the whole. The republican conception is +the civic translation of the moral law; what is anti-republican is +immoral. + +Socially, women are the equals of men, without restrictions. The +beings who shine and who bring forth are not made solely to lend or to +give the heat of their bodies. It is right that the sum total of work +should be shared, reduced and harmonized by their hands. It is just +that the fate of humanity should be grounded also in the strength of +women. Whatever the danger which their instinctive love of shining +things may occasion, in spite of the facility with which they color all +things with their own feelings and the totality of their slightest +impulses--the legend of their incapacity is a fog that you will +dissipate with a gesture of _your_ hands. Their advent is in the order +of things; and it is also in order to await with hopeful heart the day +when the social and political chains of women will fall off, when human +liberty will suddenly become twice as great. + +People of the world, establish equality right up to the limits of your +great life. Lay the foundations of the republic of republics over all +the area where you breathe; that is to say, the common control in broad +daylight of all external affairs, of community in the laws of labor, of +production and of commerce. The subdivision of these high social and +moral arrangements by nations or by limited unions of nations +(enlargements which are reductions) is artificial, arbitrary, and +malignant. The so-called inseparable cohesions of national interests +vanish away as soon as you draw near to examine them. There are +individual interests and a general interest, those two only. When you +say "I," it means "I"; when you say "We," it means Man. So long as a +single and identical Republic does not cover the world, all national +liberations can only be beginnings and signals! + +Thus you will disarm the "fatherlands" and "motherlands," and you will +reduce the notion of Motherland to the little bit of social importance +that it must have. You will do away with the military frontiers, and +those economic and commercial barriers which are still worse. +Protection introduces violence into the expansion of labor; like +militarism, it brings in a fatal absence of balance. You will suppress +that which justifies among nations the things which among individuals +we call murder, robbery, and unfair competition. You will suppress +battles--not nearly so much by the direct measure of supervision and +order that you will take as because you will suppress the causes of +battle. You will suppress them chiefly because it is _you_ who will do +it, by yourself, everywhere, with your invincible strength and the +lucid conscience that is free from selfish motives. You will not make +war on yourself. + +You will not be afraid of magic formulas and the churches. Your giant +reason will destroy the idol which suffocates its true believers. You +will salute the flags for the last time; to that ancient enthusiasm +which flattered the puerility of your ancestors, you will say a +peaceful and final farewell. In some corners of the calamities of the +past, there were times of tender emotion; but truth is greater, and +there are not more boundaries on the earth than on the sea! + +Each country will be a moral force, and no longer a brutal force; while +all brutal forces clash with themselves, all moral forces make mighty +harmony together. + +The universal republic is the inevitable consequence of equal rights in +life for all. Start from the principle of equality, and you arrive at +the people's international. If you do not arrive there it is because +you have not reasoned aright. They who start from the opposite point +of view--God, and the divine rights of popes and Kings and nobles, and +authority and tradition--will come, by fabulous paths but quite +logically, to opposite conclusions. You must not cease to hold that +there are only two teachings face to face. All things are amenable to +reason, the supreme Reason which mutilated humanity, wounded in the +eyes, has deified among the clouds. + +* * * * * * + +You will do away with the rights of the dead, and with heredity of +power, whatever it may be, that inheritance which is unjust in all its +gradations, for tradition takes root there, and it is an outrage on +equality, against the order of labor. Labor is a great civic deed +which all men and all women without exception must share or go down. +Such divisions will reduce it for each one to dignified proportions and +prevent it from devouring human lives. + +You will not permit colonial ownership by States, which makes stains on +the map of the world and is not justified by confessable reasons; and +you will organize the abolition of that collective slavery. You will +allow the individual property of the living to stand. It is equitable +because its necessity is inherent in the circumstances of the living, +and because there are cases where you cannot tear away the right of +ownership without tearing right itself. Besides, the love of things is +a passion, like the love of beings. The object of social organization +is not to destroy sentiment and pleasure, but on the contrary to allow +them to flourish, within the limit of not wronging others. It is right +to enjoy what you have clearly earned by your work. That focused +wisdom alone bursts among the old order of things like a curse. + +Chase away forever, everywhere, everywhere, the bad masters of the +sacred school. Knowledge incessantly remakes the whole of +civilization. The child's intelligence is too precious not to be under +the protection of all. The heads of families are not free to deal +according to their caprices with the ignorance which each child brings +into the daylight; they have not that liberty contrary to liberty. A +child does not belong body and soul to its parents; it is a person, and +our ears are wounded by the blasphemy--a residue of despotic Roman +tradition--of those who speak of their sons killed in the war and say, +"I have given my son." You do not give living beings--and all +intelligence belongs primarily to reason. + +There must no longer be a single school where they teach idolatry, +where the wills of to-morrow grow bigger under the terror of a God who +does not exist, and on whom so many bad arguments are thrown away or +justified. Nowhere must there be any more school-books where they +dress up in some finery of prestige what is most contemptible and +debasing in the past of the nations. Let there be nothing but +universal histories, nothing but the great lines and peaks, the lights +and shadows of that chaos which for six thousand years has been the +fortune of two hundred thousand millions of men. + +You will suppress everywhere the advertising of the cults, you will +wipe away the inky uniform of the parsons. Let every believer keep his +religion for himself, and let the priests stay between walls. +Toleration in face of error is a graver error. One might have dreamed +of a wise and universal church, for Jesus Christ will be justified in +His human teaching as long as there are hearts. But they who have +taken His morality in hand and fabricated their religion have poisoned +the truth; more, they have shown for two thousand years that they place +the interests of their caste before those of the sacred law of what is +right. No words, no figures can ever give an idea of the evil which +the Church has done to mankind. When she is not the oppressor herself, +upholding the right of force, she lends her authority to the oppressors +and sanctifies their pretenses; and still to-day she is closely united +everywhere with those who do not want the reign of the poor. Just as +the Jingoes invoke the charm of the domestic cradle that they may give +an impulse to war, so does the Church invoke the poetry of the Gospels; +but she has become an aristocratic party like the rest, in which every +gesture of the sign of the Cross is a slap in the Face of Jesus Christ. +Out of the love of one's native soil, they have made Nationalists; out +of Jesus they have made Jesuits. + +Only international greatness will at last permit the rooting up of the +stubborn abuses which the partition walls of nationality multiply, +entangle and solidify. The future Charter--of which we confusedly +glimpse some signs and which has for its premises the great moral +principles restored to their place, and the multitude at last restored +to theirs--will force the newspapers to confess all their resources. +By means of a young language, simple and modest, it will unite all +foreigners--those prisoners of themselves. It will mow down the +hateful complexity of judicial procedure, with its booty for the +somebodies, and its lawyers as well, who intrude the tricks of +diplomacy and the melodramatic usages of eloquence into the plain and +simple machinery of justice. The righteous man must go so far as to +say that clemency has not its place in justice; the logical majesty of +the sentence which condemns the guilty one in order to frighten +possible evil-doers (and never for another reason) is itself beyond +forgiveness. International dignity will close the taverns, forbid the +sale of poisons, and will reduce to impotence the vendors who want to +render abortive, in men and young people, the future's beauty and the +reign of intelligence. And here is a mandate which appears before my +eyes--the tenacious law which must pounce without respite on all public +robbers, on all those, little and big, cynics and hypocrites, who, when +their trade or their functions bring the opportunity, exploit misery +and speculate on necessity. There is a new hierarchy to make mistakes, +to commit offenses and crimes--the true one. + +You can form no idea of the beauty that is possible! You cannot +imagine what all the squandered treasure can provide, what can be +brought on by the resurrection of misguided human intelligence, +successively smothered and slain hitherto by infamous slavery, by the +despicable infectious necessity of armed attack and defense, and by the +privileges which debase human worth. You can have no notion what human +intelligence may one day find of new adoration. The people's absolute +reign will give to literature and the arts--whose harmonious shape is +still but roughly sketched--a splendor boundless as the rest. National +cliques cultivate narrowness and ignorance, they cause originality to +waste away; and the national academies, to which a residue of +superstition lends respect, are only pompous ways of upholding ruins. +The domes of those Institutes which look so grand when they tower above +you are as ridiculous as extinguishers. You must widen and +internationalize, without pause or limit, all which permits of it. +With its barriers collapsed, you must fill society with broad daylight +and magnificent spaces; with patience and heroism must you clear the +ways which lead from the individual to humanity, the ways which were +stopped up with corpses of ideas and with stone images all along their +great curving horizons. Let everything be remade on simple lines. +There is only one people, there is only one people! + +If you do that, you will be able to say that, at the moment when you +planned your effort and took your decision, you saved the human species +as far as it is possible on earth to do it. You will not have brought +happiness about. The fallacy-mongers do not frighten us when they +preach resignation and paralysis on the plea that no social change can +bring happiness, thus trifling with these profound things. Happiness +is part of the inner life, it is an intimate and personal paradise; it +is a flash of chance or genius which comes sweetly to life among those +who elbow each other, and it is also the sense of glory. No, it is not +in your hands, and so it is in nobody's hands. But a balanced and +heedful life is necessary to man, that he may build the isolated home +of happiness; and death is the fearful connection of the happenings +which pass away along with our profundities. External things and those +which are hidden are essentially different, but they are held together +by peace and by death. + +To accomplish the majestically practical work, to shape the whole +architecture like a statue, base nothing on impossible modifications of +human nature; await nothing from pity. + +Charity is a privilege, and must disappear. For the rest, you cannot +love unknown people any more than you can have pity on them. The human +intelligence is made for infinity; the heart is not. The being who +really suffers in his heart, and not merely in his mind or in words, by +the suffering of others whom he neither sees nor touches, is a nervous +abnormality, and he cannot be argued from as an example. The repulse +of reason, the stain of absurdity, torture the intelligence in a more +abundant way. Simple as it may be, social science is geometry. Do not +accept the sentimental meaning they give to the word "humanitarianism," +and say that the preaching of fraternity and love is vain; these words +lose their meaning amid the great numbers of man. It is in this +disordered confusion of feelings and ideas that one feels the presence +of Utopia. Mutual solidarity is of the intellect--common-sense, logic, +methodical precision, order without faltering, the ruthless inevitable +perfection of light! + +In my fervor, in my hunger, and from the depths of my abyss, I uttered +these words aloud amid the silence. My great reverie was blended with +song, like the Ninth Symphony. + +* * * * * * + +I am resting on my elbows at the window. I am looking at the night, +which is everywhere, which touches me, _me_, although I am only I, and +it is infinite night. It seems to me that there is nothing else left +me to think about. Things cling together; they will save each other, +and will do their setting in order. + +But again I am seized by the sharpest of my agonies--I am afraid that +the multitude may rest content with the partial gratifications to be +granted them everywhere by those who will use all their clinging, +cunning power to prevent the people from understanding, and then from +wishing. On the day of victory, they will pour intoxication and +dazzling deceptions into you, and put almost superhuman cries into your +mouths, "We have delivered humanity; we are the soldiers of the Right!" +without telling you all that such a statement includes of gravity, of +immense pledges and constructive genius, what it involves in respect +for great peoples, whoever they are, and of gratitude to those who are +trying to deliver themselves. They will again take up their eternal +mission of stupefying the great conscious forces, and turning them +aside from their ends. They will appeal for union and peace and +patience, to the opportunism of changes, to the danger of going too +quickly, or of meddling in your neighbor's affairs, and all the other +fallacies of the sort. They will try again to ridicule and strike down +those whom the newspapers (the ones in their pay) call dreamers, +sectarians, and traitors; once again they will flourish all their old +talismans. Doubtless they will propose, in the fashionable words of +the moment, some official parodies of international justice, which they +will break up one day like theatrical scenery; they will enunciate some +popular right, curtailed by childish restrictions and monstrous +definitions, resembling a brigand's code of honor. The wrong torn from +confessed autocracies will hatch out elsewhere--in the sham republics, +and the self-styled liberal countries who have played a hidden game. +The concessions they will make will clothe the old rotten autocracy +again, and perpetuate it. One imperialism will replace the other, and +the generations to come will be marked for the sword. Soldier, +wherever you are, they will try to efface your memory, or to exploit +it, by leading it astray, and forgetfulness of the truth is the first +form of your adversity! May neither defeat nor victory be against you. +You are above both of them, for you are all the people. + +The skies are peopled with stars, a harmony which clasps reason close, +and applies the mind to the adorable idea of universal unity. Must +that harmony give us hope or misgiving? + +We are in a great night of the world. The thing is to know if we shall +wake up to-morrow. We have only one succor--_we_ know of what the +night is made. But shall we be able to impart our lucid faith, seeing +that the heralds of warning are everywhere few, and that the greatest +victims hate the only ideal which is not one, and call it utopian? +Public opinion floats over the surface of the peoples, wavering and +submissive to the wind; it lends but fleeting conscience and conviction +to the majority; it cries "Down with the reformers!" It cries +"Sacrilege!" because it is made to see in its vague thoughts what it +could not itself see there. It cries that they are distorting it, +whereas they are enlarging it. + +I am not afraid, as many are, and as I once was myself, of being +reviled and slandered. I do not cling to respect and gratitude for +myself. But if I succeed in reaching men, I should like them not to +curse me. Why should they, since it is not for myself? It is only +because I am sure I am right. I am sure of the principles I see at the +source of all--justice, logic, equality; all those divinely human +truths whose contrast with the realized truth of to-day is so +heart-breaking. And I want to appeal to you all; and that confidence +which fills me with a tragic joy, I want to give it to you, at once as +a command and as a prayer. There are not several ways of attaining it +athwart everything, and of fastening life and the truth together again; +there is only one--right-doing. Let rule begin again with the sublime +control of the intellect. I am a man like the rest, a man like you. +You who shake your head or shrug your shoulders as you listen to +me--why are we, we two, we all, so foreign to each other, when we are +not foreign? + +I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the +momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men +in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national +egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious +statues of Right and Duty. To-night I believe--nay, I am certain--that +the new order will be built upon that archipelago of men. Even if we +have still to suffer as far as we can see ahead, the idea can no more +cease to throb and grow stronger than the human heart can; and the will +which is already rising here and there they can no longer destroy. + +I proclaim the inevitable advent of the universal republic. Not the +transient backslidings, nor the darkness and the dread, nor the tragic +difficulty of uplifting the world everywhere at once will prevent the +fulfillment of international truth. But if the great powers of +darkness persist in holding their positions, if they whose clear cries +of warning should be voices crying in the wilderness--O you people of +the world, you the unwearying vanquished of History, I appeal to your +justice and I appeal to your anger. Over the vague quarrels which +drench the strands with blood, over the plunderers of shipwrecks, over +the jetsam and the reefs, and the palaces and monuments built upon the +sand, I see the high tide coming. Truth is only revolutionary by +reason of error's disorder. Revolution is Order. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FACE TO FACE + + +Through the panes I see the town--I often take refuge at the windows. +Then I go into Marie's bedroom, which gives a view of the country. It +is such a narrow room that to get to the window I must touch her tidy +little bed, and I think of her as I pass it. A bed is something which +never seems either so cold or so lifeless as other things; it lives by +an absence. + +Marie is working in the house, downstairs. I hear sounds of moved +furniture, of a broom, and the recurring knock of the shovel on the +bucket into which she empties the dust she has collected. That society +is badly arranged which forces nearly all women to be servants. Marie, +who is as good as I am, will have spent her life in cleaning, in +stooping amid dust and hot fumes, over head and ears in the great +artificial darkness of the house. I used to find it all natural. Now +I think it is all anti-natural. + +I hear no more sounds. Marie has finished. She comes up beside me. +We have sought each other and come together as often as possible since +the day when we saw so clearly that we no longer loved each other! + +We sit closely side by side, and watch the end of the day. We can see +the last houses of the town, in the beginning of the valley, low houses +within enclosures, and yards, and gardens stocked with sheds. Autumn +is making the gardens quite transparent, and reducing them to nothing +through their trees and hedges; yet here and there foliage still +magnificently flourishes. It is not the wide landscape in its entirety +which attracts me. It is more worth while to pick out each of the +houses and look at it closely. + +These houses, which form the finish of the suburb, are not big, and are +not prosperous; but we see one adorning itself with smoke, and we think +of the dead wood coming to life again on the hearth, and of the seated +workman, whose hands are rewarded with rest. And that one, although +motionless, is alive with children--the breeze is scattering the +laughter of their games and seems to play with it, and on the sandy +ground are the crumbs of childish footsteps. Our eyes follow the +postman entering his home, his work ended; he has heroically overcome +his long journeyings. After carrying letters all day to those who were +waiting for them, he is carrying himself to his own people, who also +await him--it is the family which knows the value of the father. He +pushes the gate open, he enters the garden path, his hands are at last +empty! + +Along by the old gray wall, old Eudo is making his way, the incurable +widower whose bad news still stubbornly persists, so that he bears it +along around him, and it slackens his steps, and can be seen, and he +takes up more space than he seems to take. A woman meets him, and her +youth is disclosed in the twilight; it expands in her hurrying steps. +It is Mina, going to some trysting-place. She crosses and presses her +little fichu on her heart; we can see that distance dwindles +affectionately in front of her. As she passes away, bent forward and +smiling with her ripe lips, we can see the strength of her heart. + +Mist is gradually falling. Now we can only see white things +clearly--the new parts of houses, the walls, the high road, joined to +the other one by footpaths which straggle through the dark fields, the +big white stones, tranquil as sheep, and the horse-pond, whose gleam +amid the far obscurity imitates whiteness in unexpected fashion. Then +we can only see light things--the stains of faces and hands, those +faces which see each other in the gloom longer than is logical and +exceed themselves. + +Pervaded by a sort of serious musing, we turn back into the room and +sit down, I on the edge of the bed, she on a chair in front of the open +window, in the center of the pearly sky. + +Her thoughts are the same as mine, for she turns her face to me and +says: + +"And ourselves." + +* * * * * * + +She sighs for the thought she has. She would like to be silent, but +she must speak. + +"We don't love each other any more," she says, embarrassed by the +greatness of the things she utters; "but we did once, and I want to see +our love again." + +She gets up, opens the wardrobe, and sits down again in the same place +with a box in her hands. She says: + +"There it is. Those are our letters." + +"Our letters, our beautiful letters!" she goes on. "I could really say +they're more beautiful than all others. We know them by heart--but +would you like us to read them again? _You_ read them--there's still +light enough--and let me see how happy we've been." + +She hands the casket to me. The letters we wrote each other during our +engagement are arranged in it. + +"That one," she says, "is the first from you. Is it? Yes--no, it +isn't; do you think it is?" + +I take the letter, murmur it, and then read it aloud. It spoke of the +future, and said, "In a little while, how happy we shall be!" + +She comes near, lowers her head, reads the date and whispers: + +"Nineteen-two; it's been dead for thirteen years--it's a long time. +No, it isn't a long time--I don't know what it ought to be. Here's +another--read it." + +I go on denuding the letters. We quickly find out what a mistake it +was to say we know them by heart. This one has no date--simply the +name of a day--Monday, and we believed that would be enough! Now, it +is entirely lost and become barren, this anonymous letter in the middle +of the rest. + +"We don't know them by heart any more," Marie confesses. "Remember +ourselves? How could we remember all that?" + +* * * * * * + +This reading was like that of a book once already read in bygone days. +It could not revive again the diligent and fervent hours when our pens +were moving--and our lips, too, a little. Indistinctly it brought +back, with unfathomable gaps, the adventure lived in three days by +others, the people that we were. When I read a letter from her which +spoke of caresses to come, Marie stammered, "And she dared to write +that!" but she did not blush and was not confused. + +Then she shook her head a little, and said dolefully: + +"What a lot of things we have hidden away, little by little, in spite +of ourselves! How strong people must be to forget so much!" + +She was beginning to catch a glimpse of a bottomless abyss, and to +despair. Suddenly she broke in: + +"That's enough! We can't read them again. We can't understand what's +written. That's enough--don't take my illusion away." + +She spoke like the poor madwoman of the streets, and added in a +whisper: + +"This morning, when I opened that box where the letters were shut up, +some little flies flew out." + +We stop reading the letters a moment, and look at them. The ashes of +life! All that we can remember is almost nothing. Memory is greater +than we are, but memory is living and mortal as well. These letters, +these unintelligible flowers, these bits of lace and of paper, what are +they? Around these flimsy things what is there left? We are handling +the casket together. Thus we are completely attached in the hollow of +our hands. + +* * * * * * + +And yet we went on reading. + +But something strange is growing gradually greater; it grasps us, it +surprises us hopelessly--every letter speaks of the _future_. + +In vain Marie said to me: + +"What about afterwards? Try another--later on." + +Every letter said, "In a little while, how we shall love each other +when our time is spent together! How beautiful you will be when you +are always there. Later on we'll make that trip again; after a while +we'll carry that scheme out, later on . . ." + +"That's all we could say!" + +A little before the wedding we wrote that we were wasting our time so +far from each other, and that we were unhappy. + +"Ah!" said Marie, in a sort of terror, "we wrote that! And +afterwards . . ." + +After, the letter from which we expected all, said: + +"Soon we shan't leave each other any more. At last we shall live!" +And it spoke of a paradise, of the life that was coming. . . . + +"And afterwards?" + +"After that, there's nothing more . . . it's the last letter." + +* * * * * * + +There is nothing more. It is like a stage-trick, suddenly revealing +the truth. There is nothing between the paradise dreamed of and the +paradise lost. There is nothing, since we always want what we have not +got. We hope, and then we regret. We hope for the future, and then we +turn to the past, and then we begin slowly and desperately to hope for +the past! The two most violent and abiding feelings, hope and regret, +both lean upon nothing. To ask, to ask, to have not! Humanity is +exactly the same thing as poverty. Happiness has not the time to live; +we have not really the time to profit by what we are. Happiness, that +thing which never is--and which yet, for one day, is no longer! + +I see her drawing breath, quivering, mortally wounded, sinking upon the +chair. + +I take her hand, as I did before. I speak to her, rather timidly and +at random: "Carnal love isn't the whole of love." + +"It's love!" Marie answers. + +I do not reply. + +"Ah!" she says, "we try to juggle with words, but we can't conceal the +truth." + +"The truth! I'm going to tell you what I have been truly, _I_. . . ." + +* * * * * * + +I could not prevent myself from saying it, from crying it in a loud and +trembling voice, leaning over her. For some moments there had been +outlined within me the tragic shape of the cry which at last came +forth. It was a sort of madness of sincerity and simplicity which +seized me. + +And I, unveiling my life to her, though it slid away by the side of +hers, all my life, with its failings and its coarseness. I let her see +me in my desires, in my hungers, in my entrails. + +Never has a confession so complete been thrown off. Yes, among the +fates which men and women bear together, one must be almost mad not to +lie. I tick off my past, the succession of love-affairs multiplied by +each other, and come to naught. I have been an ordinary man, no +better, no worse, than another; well, here I am, here is the man, here +is the lover. + +I can see that she has half-risen, in the little bedroom which has lost +its color. She is afraid of the truth! She watches my words as you +look at a blasphemer. But the truth has seized me and cannot let me +go. And I recall what was--both this woman and that, and all those +whom I loved and never deigned to know what they brought me when they +brought their bodies; I recall the fierce selfishness which nothing +exhausted, and all the savagery of my life beside her. I say it +all--unable even to avoid the blows of brutal details--like a harsh +duty accomplished to the end. + +Sometimes she murmured, like a sigh, "I knew it." At others, she would +say, almost like a sob, "That's true!" And once, too, she began a +confused protest, a sort of reproach. Then, soon, she listens nigher. +She might almost be left behind by the greatness of my confession; and, +gradually, I see her falling into silence, the twice-illumined woman on +that adorable side of the room, she still receives on her hair and neck +and hands, some morsels of heaven. + +And what I am most ashamed of in those bygone days when I was mad after +the treasure of unknown women is this: that I spoke to them of eternal +fidelity, of superhuman enticements, of divine exaltation, of sacred +affinities which must be joined together at all costs, of beings who +have always been waiting for each other, and are made for each other, +and all that one _can_ say--sometimes almost sincerely, alas!--just to +gain my ends. I confess all that, I cast it from me as if I was at +last ridding myself of the lies acted upon her, and upon the others, +and upon myself. Instinct is instinct; let it rule like a force of +nature. But the Lie is a ravisher. + +I feel a sort of curse rising from me upon that blind religion with +which we clothe the things of the flesh because they are strong, those +of which I was the plaything, like everybody, always and everywhere. +No, two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two +enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There +are perfect couples, no doubt--perfection always exists somewhere--but +I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know!--the human +being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, +the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers +deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on +each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of +pleasure. There are moments when one would lay hold forcibly on joy, +if only a crime stood in the way. I know it; I know it through all +those for whom I have successively hungered, and whom I have scorned +with shut eyes--even those who were not better than I. + +And this hunger for novelty--which makes sensuous love equally +changeful and rapacious, which makes us seek the same emotion in other +bodies which we cast off as fast as they fall--turns life into an +infernal succession of disenchantments, spites and scorn; and it is +chiefly that hunger for novelty which leaves us a prey to unrealizable +hope and irrevocable regret. Those lovers who persist in remaining +together execute themselves; the name of their common death, which at +first was Absence, becomes Presence. The real outcast is not he who +returns all alone, like Olympio; they who remain together are more +apart. + +By what right does carnal love say, "I am your hearts and minds as +well, and we are indissoluble, and I sweep all along with my strokes of +glory and defeat; I am Love!"? It is not true, it is not true. Only +by violence does it seize the whole of thought; and the poets and +lovers, equally ignorant and dazzled, dress it up in a grandeur and +profundity which it has not. The heart is strong and beautiful, but it +is mad and it is a liar. Moist lips in transfigured faces murmur, +"It's grand to be mad!" _No_, you do not elevate aberration into an +ideal, and illusion is always a stain, whatever the name you lend it. + +By the curtain in the angle of the wall, upright and motionless I am +speaking in a low voice, but it seems to me that I am shouting and +struggling. + +When I have spoken thus, we are no longer the same, for there are no +more lies. + +After a silence, Marie lifts to me the face of a shipwrecked woman with +lifeless eyes, and asks me: + +"But if this love is an illusion, what is there left?" + +I come near and look at her, to answer her. Against the window's still +pallid sky I see her hair, silvered with a moonlike sheen, and her +night-veiled face. Closely I look at the share of sublimity which she +bears on it, and I reflect that I am infinitely attached to this woman, +that it is not true to say she is of less moment to me because desire +no longer throws me on her as it used to do. Is it habit? No, not +only that. Everywhere habit exerts its gentle strength, perhaps +between us two also. But there is more. There is not only the +narrowness of rooms to bring us together. There is more, there is +more! So I say to her: + +"There's you." + +"Me?" she says. "I'm nothing." + +"Yes, you are everything, you're everything to me." + +She has stood up, stammering. She puts her arms around my neck, but +falls fainting, clinging to me, and I carry her like a child to the old +armchair at the end of the room. + +All my strength has come back to me. I am no longer wounded or ill. I +carry her in my arms. It is difficult work to carry in your arms a +being equal to yourself. Strong as you may be, you hardly suffice for +it. And what I say as I look at her and see her, I say because I am +strong and not because I am weak: + +"You're everything for me because you are you, and I love _all_ of +you." + +And we think together, as if she were listening to me: + +You are a living creature, you are a human being, you are the infinity +that man is, and all that you are unites me to you. Your suffering of +just now, your regret for the ruins of youth and the ghosts of +caresses, all of it unites me to you, for I feel them, I share them. +Such as you are and such as I am. I can say to you at last, "I love +you." + +I love you, you who now appearing truly to me, you who truly duplicate +my life. We have nothing to turn aside from us to be together. All +your thoughts, all your likes, your ideas and your preferences have a +place which I feel within me, and I see that they are right even if my +own are not like them (for each one's freedom is part of his value), +and I have a feeling that I am telling you a lie whenever I do not +speak to you. + +I am only going on with my thought when I say aloud: + +"I would give my life for you, and I forgive you beforehand for +everything you might ever do to make yourself happy." + +She presses me softly in her arms, and I feel her murmuring tears and +crooning words; they are like my own. + +It seems to me that truth has taken its place again in our little room, +and become incarnate; that the greatest bond which can bind two beings +together is being confessed, the great bond we did not know of, though +it is the whole of salvation: + +"Before, I loved you for my own sake; to-day, I love you for yours." + +When you look straight on, you end by seeing the immense event--death. +There is only one thing which really gives the meaning of our whole +life, and that is our death. In that terrible light may they judge +their hearts who will one day die. Well I know that Marie's death +would be the same thing in my heart as my own, and it seems to me also +that only within her of all the world does my own likeness wholly live. +_We_ are not afraid of the too great sincerity which goes the length of +these things; and we talk about them, beside the bed which awaits the +inevitable hour when we shall not awake in it again. We say:-- + +"There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish--a +walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream." + +I stoop over her blue eyes. Just then I recalled the black, open +window in front of me--far away--that night when I nearly died. I look +at length into those clear eyes, and see that I am sinking into the +only grave I shall have had. It is neither an illusion nor an act of +charity to admire the almost incredible beauty of those eyes. + +What is there within us to-night? What is this sound of wings? Are +our eyes opening as fast as night falls? Formerly, we had the sensual +lovers' animal dread of nothingness; but to-day, the simplest and +richest proof of our love is that the supreme meaning of death to us +is--leaving each other. + +And the bond of the flesh--neither are we afraid to think and speak of +that, saying that we were so joined together that we knew each other +completely, that our bodies have searched each other. This memory, +this brand in the flesh, has its profound value; and the preference +which reciprocally graces two beings like ourselves is made of all that +they have and all that they had. + +I stand up in front of Marie--already almost a convert--and I tremble +and totter, so much is my heart my master:-- + +"Truth is more beautiful than dreams, you see." + +It is simply the truth which has come to our aid. It is truth which +has given us life. Affection is the greatest of human feelings because +it is made of respect, of lucidity, and light. To understand the truth +and make one's self equal to it is everything; and to love is the same +thing as to know and to understand. Affection, which I call also +compassion, because I see no difference between them, dominates +everything by reason of its clear sight. It is a sentiment as immense +as if it were mad, and yet it is wise, and of human things it is the +only perfect one. There is no great sentiment which is not completely +held on the arms of compassion. + +To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that +is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can +hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one +true neighbor down here. + +To live is to be happy to live. The usefulness of life--ah! its +expansion has not the mystic shapes we vainly dreamed of when we were +paralyzed by youth. Rather has it a shape of anxiety, of shuddering, +of pain and glory. Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of +happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It +beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth. + +"You've done well to say all that! Yes, it is always easy to lie for a +moment. You might have lied, but it would have been worse when we woke +up from the lies. It's a reward to talk. Perhaps it's the only reward +there is." + +She said that profoundly, right to the bottom of my heart. Now she is +helping me, and together we make the great searchings of those who are +too much in the right. Marie's assent is so complete that it is +unexpected and tragic. + +"I was like a statue, because of the forgetting and the grief. You +have given me life, you have changed me into a woman." + +"I was turning towards the church," she goes on; "you hardly believe in +God so much when you've no need of Him. When you're without anything, +you can easily believe in Him. But now, I don't want any longer." + +Thus speaks Marie. Only the idolatrous and the weak have need of +illusion as of a remedy. The rest only need see and speak. + +She smiles, vague as an angel, hovering in the purity of the evening +between light and darkness. I am so near to her that I must kneel to +be nearer still. I kiss her wet face and soft lips, holding her hand +in both of mine. + +Yes, there _is_ a Divinity, one from which we must never turn aside for +the guidance of our huge inward life and of the share we have as well +in the life of all men. It is called the truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Light, by Henri Barbusse + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12904 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff81c94 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12904 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12904) diff --git a/old/12904-0.txt b/old/12904-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d64f9e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12904-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10882 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Light, by Henri Barbusse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Light + +Author: Henri Barbusse + +Release Date: July 14, 2004 [EBook #12904] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by David S. Miller + + + + +LIGHT + + +BY + +HENRI BARBUSSE +AUTHOR OF "UNDER FIRE" "WE OTHERS," ETC. + + +TRANSLATED BY +FITZWATER WRAY +1919 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + I. MYSELF + II. OURSELVES + III. EVENING AND DAWN + IV. MARIE + V. DAY BY DAY + VI. A VOICE IN THE EVENING + VII. A SUMMARY + VIII. THE BRAWLER + IX. THE STORM + X. THE WALLS + XI. AT THE WORLD'S END + XII. THE SHADOWS + XIII. WHITHER GOEST THOU? + XIV. THE RUINS + XV. AN APPARITION + XVI. DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + XVII. MORNING +XVIII. EYES THAT SEE + XIX. GHOSTS + XX. THE CULT + XXI. NO! + XXII. LIGHT +XXIII. FACE TO FACE + + + + +LIGHT + + + +CHAPTER I + +MYSELF + + +All the days of the week are alike, from their beginning to their end. + +At seven in the evening one hears the clock strike gently, and then the +instant tumult of the bell. I close the desk, wipe my pen, and put it +down. I take my hat and muffler, after a glance at the mirror--a +glance which shows me the regular oval of my face, my glossy hair and +fine mustache. (It is obvious that I am rather more than a workman.) +I put out the light and descend from my little glass-partitioned +office. I cross the boiler-house, myself in the grip of the thronging, +echoing peal which has set it free. From among the dark and hurrying +crowd, which increases in the corridors and rolls down the stairways +like a cloud, some passing voices cry to me, "Good-night, Monsieur +Simon," or, with less familiarity, "Good-night, Monsieur Paulin." I +answer here and there, and allow myself to be borne away by everybody +else. + +Outside, on the threshold of the porch which opens on the naked plain +and its pallid horizons, one sees the squares and triangles of the +factory, like a huge black background of the stage, and the tall +extinguished chimney, whose only crown now is the cloud of falling +night. Confusedly, the dark flood carries me away. Along the wall +which faces the porch, women are waiting, like a curtain of shadow, +which yields glimpses of their pale and expressionless faces. With nod +or word we recognize each other from the mass. Couples are formed by +the quick hooking of arms. All along the ghostly avenue one's eyes +follow the toilers' scrambling flight. + +The avenue is a wan track cut across the open fields. Its course is +marked afar by lines of puny trees, sooty as snuffed candles; by +telegraph posts and their long spider-webs; by bushes or by fences, +which are like the skeletons of bushes. There are a few houses. Up +yonder a strip of sky still shows palely yellow above the meager suburb +where creeps the muddy crowd detached from the factory. The west wind +sets quivering their overalls, blue or black or khaki, excites the +woolly tails that flutter from muffled necks, scatters some evil odors, +attacks the sightless faces so deep-drowned beneath the sky. + +There are taverns anon which catch the eye. Their doors are closed, +but their windows and fanlights shine like gold. Between the taverns +rise the fronts of some old houses, tenantless and hollow; others, in +ruins, cut into this gloomy valley of the homes of men with notches of +sky. The iron-shod feet all around me on the hard road sound like the +heavy rolling of drums, and then on the paved footpath like dragged +chains. It is in vain that I walk with head bent--my own footsteps are +lost in the rest, and I cannot hear them. + +We hurry, as we do every evening. At that spot in the inky landscape +where a tall and twisted tree seems to writhe as if it had a soul, we +begin suddenly to descend, our feet plunging forward. Down below we +see the lights of Viviers sparkle. These men, whose day is worn out, +stride towards those earthly stars. One hope is like another in the +evening, as one weariness is like another; we are all alike. I, also. +I go towards my light, like all the others, as on every evening. + +* * * * * * + +When we have descended for a long time the gradient ends, the avenue +flattens out like a river, and widens as it pierces the town. Through +the latticed boughs of the old plane trees--still naked on this last +day of March--one glimpses the workmen's houses, upright in space, hazy +and fantastic chessboards, with squares of light dabbed on in places, +or like vertical cliffs in which our swarming is absorbed. Scattering +among the twilight colonnade of the trees, these people engulf +themselves in the heaped-up lodgings and rooms; they flow together in +the cavity of doors; they plunge into the houses; and there they are +vaguely turned into lights. + +I continue to walk, surrounded by several companions who are foremen +and clerks, for I do not associate with the workmen. Then there are +handshakes, and I go on alone. + +Some dimly seen wayfarers disappear; the sounds of sliding locks and +closing shutters are heard here and there; the houses have shut +themselves up, the night-bound town becomes a desert profound. I can +hear nothing now but my own footfall. + +Viviers is divided into two parts--like many towns, no doubt. First, +the rich town, composed of the main street, where you find the Grand +Café, the elegant hotels, the sculptured houses, the church and the +castle on the hill-top. The other is the lower town, which I am now +entering. It is a system of streets reached by an extension of that +avenue which is flanked by the workmen's barracks and climbs to the +level of the factory. Such is the way which it has been my custom to +climb in the morning and to descend when the light is done, during the +six years of my clerkship with Messrs. Gozlan & Co. In this quarter I +am still rooted. Some day I should like to live yonder; but between +the two halves of the town there is a division--a sort of frontier, +which has always been and will always be. + +In the Rue Verte I meet only a street lamp, and then a mouse-like +little girl who emerges from the shadows and enters them again without +seeing me, so intent is she on pressing to her heart, like a doll, the +big loaf they have sent her to buy. Here is the Rue de l'Etape, my +street. Through the semi-darkness, a luminous movement peoples the +hairdresser's shop, and takes shape on the dull screen of his window. +His transparent door, with its arched inscription, opens just as I +pass, and under the soap-dish,[1] whose jingle summons customers, +Monsieur Justin Pocard himself appears, along with a rich gust of +scented light. He is seeing a customer out, and improving the occasion +by the utterance of certain sentiments; and I had time to see that the +customer, convinced, nodded assent, and that Monsieur Pocard, the +oracle, was caressing his white and ever-new beard with his luminous +hand. + +[Footnote 1: The hanging sign of a French barber.--Tr.] + +I turn round the cracked walls of the former tinplate works, now bowed +and crumbling, whose windows are felted with grime or broken into black +stars. A few steps farther I think I saw the childish shadow of little +Antoinette, whose bad eyes they don't seem to be curing; but not being +certain enough to go and find her I turn into my court, as I do every +evening. + +Every evening I find Monsieur Crillon at the door of his shop at the +end of the court, where all day long he is fiercely bent upon trivial +jobs, and he rises before me like a post. At sight of me the kindly +giant nods his big, shaven face, and the square cap on top, his huge +nose and vast ears. He taps the leather apron that is hard as a plank. +He sweeps me along to the side of the street, sets my back against the +porch and says to me, in a low voice, but with heated conviction, "That +Pétrarque chap, he's really a bad lot." + +He takes off his cap, and while the crescendo nodding of his bristly +head seems to brush the night, he adds: "I've mended him his purse. +It had become percolated. I've put him a patch on that cost me thirty +centimes, and I've resewn the edge with braid, and all the lot. +They're expensive, them jobs. Well, when I open my mouth to talk about +that matter of his sewing-machine that I'm interested in and that he +can't use himself, he becomes congealed." + +He recounts to me the mad claims of Trompson in the matter of his new +soles, and the conduct of Monsieur Becret, who, though old enough to +know better, had taken advantage of his good faith by paying for the +repair of his spout with a knife "that would cut anything it sees." He +goes on to detail for my benefit all the important matters in his life. +Then he says, "I'm not rich, I'm not, but I'm consentious. If I'm a +botcher, it's 'cos my father and my grandfather were botchers before +me. There's some that's for making a big stir in the world, there are. +I don't hold with that idea. What I does, I does." + +Suddenly a sonorous tramp persists and repeats itself in the roadway, +and a shape of uncertain equilibrium emerges and advances towards us by +fits and starts; a shape that clings to itself and is impelled by a +force stronger than itself. It is Brisbille, the blacksmith, drunk, as +usual. + +Espying us, Brisbille utters exclamations. When he has reached us he +hesitates, and then, smitten by a sudden idea, he comes to a +standstill, his boots clanking on the stones, as if he were a cart. He +measures the height of the curb with his eye, but clenches his fists, +swallows what he wanted to say, and goes off reeling, with an odor of +hatred and wine, and his face slashed with red patches. + +"That anarchist!" said Crillon, in disgust; "loathsome notions, now, +aren't they? Ah! who'll rid us of him and his alcoholytes?" he adds, +as he offers me his hand. "Good-night. I'm always saying to the Town +Council, 'You must give 'em clink,' I says, 'that gang of Bolshevists, +for the slightest infractionment of the laws against drunkenness.' +Yes, indeed! There's that Jean Latrouille in the Town Council, eh? +They talk about keeping order, but as soon as it's a question of +a-doing of it, they seem like a cold draught." + +The good fellow is angry. He raises his great fist and shakes it in +space like a medieval mace. Pointing where Brisbille has just plunged +floundering into the night, he says, "That's what Socialists are,--the +conquering people what can't stand up on their legs! I may be a +botcher in life, but I'm for peace and order. Good-night, good-night. +Is she well, Aunt Josephine? I'm for tranquillity and liberty and +order. That's why I've always kept clear of their crowd. A bit since, +I saw her trotting past, as vivacious as a young girl,--but there, I +talk and I talk!" + +He enters his shop, but turns on his heel and calls me back, with a +mysterious sign. "You know they've all arrived up yonder at the +castle?" Respect has subdued his voice; a vision is absorbing him of +the lords and ladies of the manor, and as he leaves me he bows, +instinctively. + +His shop is a narrow glass cage, which is added to our house, like a +family relation. Within I can just make out the strong, plebeian +framework of Crillon himself, upright beside a serrated heap of ruins, +over which a candle is enthroned. The light which falls on his +accumulated tools and on those hanging from the wall makes a decoration +obscurely golden around the picture of this wise man; this soul all +innocent of envious demands, turning again to his botching, as his +father and grandfather botched. + +I have mounted the steps and pushed our door; the gray door, whose only +relief is the key. The door goes in grumblingly, and makes way for me +into the dark passage, which was formerly paved, though now the traffic +of soles has kneaded it with earth, and changed it into a footpath. My +forehead strikes the lamp, which is hooked on the wall; it is out, +oozing oil, and it stinks. One never sees that lamp, and always bangs +it. + +And though I had hurried so--I don't know why--to get home, at this +moment of arrival I slow down. Every evening I have the same small and +dull disillusion. + +I go into the room which serves us as kitchen and dining-room, where my +aunt is lying. This room is buried in almost complete darkness. + +"Good evening, Mame." + +A sigh, and then a sob arise from the bed crammed against the pale +celestial squares of the window. + +Then I remember that there was a scene between my old aunt and me after +our early morning coffee. Thus it is two or three times a week. This +time it was about a dirty window-pane, and on this particular morning, +exasperated by the continuous gush of her reproaches, I flung an +offensive word, and banged the door as I went off to work. So Mame has +had to weep all the day. She has fostered and ruminated her spleen, +and sniffed up her tears, even while busy with household duties. Then, +as the day declined, she put out the lamp and went to bed, with the +object of sustaining and displaying her chagrin. + +When I came in she was in the act of peeling invisible potatoes; there +are potatoes scattered over the floor, everywhere. My feet kick them +and send them rolling heavily among odds and ends of utensils and a +soft deposit of garments that are lying about. As soon as I am there +my aunt overflows with noisy tears. + +Not daring to speak again, I sit down in my usual corner. + +Over the bed I can make out a pointed shape, like a mounted picture, +silhouetted against the curtains, which slightly blacken the window. +It is as though the quilt were lifted from underneath by a stick, for +my Aunt Josephine is leanness itself. + +Gradually she raises her voice and begins to lament. "You've no +feelings, no--you're heartless,--that dreadful word you said to +me,--you said, 'You and your jawing!' Ah! people don't know what I +have to put up with--ill-natured--cart-horse!" + +In silence I hear the tear-streaming words that fall and founder in the +dark room from that obscure blot on the pillow which is her face. + +I stand up. I sit down again. I risk saying, "Come now, come; that's +all done with." + +She cries: "Done with? Ah! it will never be done with!" + +With the sheet that night is begriming she muzzles herself, and hides +her face. She shakes her head to left and to right, violently, so as +to wipe her eyes and signify dissent at the same time. + +"Never! A word like that you said to me breaks the heart forever. But +I must get up and get you something to eat. You must eat. I brought +you up when you were a little one,"--her voice capsizes--"I've given up +all for you, and you treat me as if I were an adventuress." + +I hear the sound of her skinny feet as she plants them successively on +the floor, like two boxes. She is seeking her things, scattered over +the bed or slipped to the floor; she is swallowing sobs. Now she is +upright, shapeless in the shadow, but from time to time I see her +remarkable leanness outlined. She slips on a camisole and a jacket,--a +spectral vision of garments which unfold themselves about her +handle-like arms, and above the hollow framework of her shoulders. + +She talks to herself while she dresses, and gradually all my +life-history, all my past comes forth from what the poor woman +says,--my only near relative on earth; as it were my mother and my +servant. + +She strikes a match. The lamp emerges from the dark and zigzags about +the room like a portable fairy. My aunt is enclosed in a strong light. +Her eyes are level with her face; she has heavy and spongy eyelids and +a big mouth which stirs with ruminated sorrow. Fresh tears increase +the dimensions of her eyes, make them sparkle and varnish the points of +her cheeks. She comes and goes with undiminished spleen. Her wrinkles +form heavy moldings on her face, and the skin of chin and neck is so +folded that it looks intestinal, while the crude light tinges it all +with something like blood. + +Now that the lamp is alight some items become visible of the dismal +super-chaos in which we are walled up,--the piece of bed-ticking +fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of +draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with its woolen cover; +and the door-lock, stopped with a protruding plug of paper. + +The lamp is flaring, and as Mame does not know where to stand it among +the litter, she puts it on the floor and crouches to regulate the wick. +There rises from the medley of the old lady, vividly variegated with +vermilion and night, a jet of black smoke, which returns in parachute +form. Mame sighs, but she cannot check her continual talk. + +"You, my lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred +and eighty francs a month,--you're genteel, but you're short of good +manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about. So you spat on +the window-pane; I'm certain of it. May I drop dead if you didn't. +And you're nearly twenty-four! And to revenge yourself because I'd +found out that you'd spat on the window, you told me to stop my jawing, +for that's what you said to me, after all. Ah, vulgar fellow that you +are! The factory gentlemen are too kind to you. Your poor father was +their best workman. You are more genteel than your poor father, more +English; and you preferred to go into business rather than go on +learning Latin, and everybody thought you quite right; but for hard +work you're not much good--ah, la, la! Confess that you spat on the +window. + +"For your poor mother," the ghost of Mame goes on, as she crosses the +room with a wooden spoon in her hand, "one must say that she had good +taste in dress. That's no harm, no; but certainly they must have the +wherewithal. She was always a child. I remember she was twenty-six +when they carried her away. Ah, how she loved hats! But she had +handsome ways, for all that, when she said, 'Come along with us, +Josephine!' So I brought you up, I did, and sacrificed everything...." + +Overcome by the mention of the past, Mame's speech and action both +cease. She chokes and wags her head and wipes her face with her +sleeve. + +I risk saying, gently, "Yes, I know it well." + +A sigh is my answer. She lights the fire. The coal sends out a +cushion of smoke, which expands and rolls up the stove, falls back, and +piles its muslin on the floor. Mame manipulates the stove with her +feet in the cloudy deposit; and the hazy white hair which escapes from +her black cap is also like smoke. + +Then she seeks her handkerchief and pats her pockets to get the velvet +coal-dust off her fingers. Now, with her back turned, she is moving +casseroles about. "Monsieur Crillon's father," she says, "old Dominic, +had come from County Cher to settle down here in '66 or '67. He's a +sensible man, seeing he's a town councilor. (We must tell him nicely +to take his buckets away from our door.) Monsieur Bonéas is very rich, +and he speaks so well, in spite of his bad neck. You must show +yourself off to all these gentlemen. You're genteel, and you're +already getting a hundred and eighty francs a month, and it's vexing +that you haven't got some sign to show that you're on the commercial +side, and not a workman, when you're going in and out of the factory." + +"That can be seen easily enough." + +"I'd rather you had a badge." + +Breathing damply and forcefully, she sniffs harder and quicker, and +looks here and there for her handkerchief; she prowls with the lamp. +As my eyes follow her, the room awakens more and more. My groping gaze +discovers the tiled floor, the conference of chairs backed side by side +against the wall, the motionless pallor of the window in the background +above the low and swollen bed, which is like a heap of earth and +plaster, the clothes lying on the floor like mole-hills, the protruding +edges of tables and shelves, pots, bottles, kettles and hanging clouts, +and that lock with the cotton-wool in its ear. + +"I like orderliness so much," says Mame as she tacks and worms her way +through this accumulation of things, all covered with a downy layer of +dust like the corners of pastel pictures. + +According to habit, I stretch out my legs and put my feet on the stool, +which long use has polished and glorified till it looks new. My face +turns this way and that towards the lean phantom of my aunt, and I lull +myself with the sounds of her stirring and her endless murmur. + +And now, suddenly, she has come near to me. She is wearing her jacket +of gray and white stripes which hangs from her acute shoulders, she +puts her arm around my neck, and trembles as she says, "You can mount +high, you can, with the gifts that you have. Some day, perhaps, you +will go and tell men everywhere the truth of things. That _has_ +happened. There have been men who were in the right, above everybody. +Why shouldn't you be one of them, my lad, _you_ one of these great +apostles!" + +And with her head gently nodding, and her face still tear-stained, she +looks afar, and sees the streets attentive to my eloquence! + +* * * * * * + +Hardly has this strange imagining in the bosom of our kitchen passed +away when Mame adds, with her eyes on mine, "My lad, mind you, never +look higher than yourself. You are already something of a home-bird; +you have already serious and elderly habits. That's good. Never try +to be different from others." + +"No danger of that, Mame." + +No, there is no danger of that. I should like to remain as I am. +Something holds me to the surroundings of my infancy and childhood, and +I should like them to be eternal. No doubt I hope for much from life. +I hope, I have hopes, as every one has. I do not even know all that I +hope for, but I should not like too great changes. In my heart I +should not like anything which changed the position of the stove, of +the tap, of the chestnut wardrobe, nor the form of my evening rest, +which faithfully returns. + +* * * * * * + +The fire alight, my aunt warms up the stew, stirring it with the wooden +spoon. Sometimes there spurts from the stove a mournful flame, which +seems to illumine her with tatters of light. + +I get up to look at the stew. The thick brown gravy is purring. I can +see pale bits of potato, and it is uncertainly spotted with the +mucosity of onions. Mame pours it into a big white plate. "That's for +you," she says; "now, what shall _I_ have?" + +We settle ourselves each side of the little swarthy table. Mame is +fumbling in her pocket. Now her lean hand, lumpy and dark, unroots +itself. She produces a bit of cheese, scrapes it with a knife which +she holds by the blade, and swallows it slowly. By the rays of the +lamp, which stands beside us, I see that her face is not dry. A drop +of water has lingered on the cheek that each mouthful protrudes, and +glitters there. Her great mouth works in all directions, and sometimes +swallows the remains of tears. + +So there we are, in front of our plates, of the salt which is placed on +a bit of paper, of my share of jam, which is put into a mustard-pot. +There we are, narrowly close, our foreheads and hands brought together +by the light, and for the rest but poorly clothed by the huge gloom. +Sitting in this jaded armchair, my hands on this ill-balanced +table,--which, if you lean on one side of it, begins at once to +limp,--I feel that I am deeply rooted where I am, in this old room, +disordered as an abandoned garden, this worn-out room, where the dust +touches you softly. + +After we have eaten, our remarks grow rarer. Then Mame begins again to +mumble; once again she yields to emotion under the harsh flame of the +lamp, and once again her eyes grow dim in her complicated Japanese mask +that is crowned with cotton-wool, and something dimly shining flows +from them. + +The tears of the sensitive old soul plash on that lip so voluminous +that it seems a sort of heart. She leans towards me, she comes so +near, so near, that I feel sure she is touching me. + +I have only her in the world to love me really. In spite of her humors +and her lamentations I know well that she is always in the right. + +I yawn, while she takes away the dirty plates and proceeds to hide them +in a dark corner. She fills the big bowl from the pitcher and then +carries it along to the stove for the crockery. + +Antonia has given me an appointment for eight o'clock, near the Kiosk. +It is ten past eight. I go out. The passage, the court,--by night all +these familiar things surround me even while they hide themselves. A +vague light still hovers in the sky. Crillon's prismatic shop gleams +like a garnet in the bosom of the night, behind the riotous disorder of +his buckets. There I can see Crillon,--he never seems to stop,--filing +something, examining his work close to a candle which flutters like a +butterfly ensnared, and then, reaching for the glue-pot which steams on +a little stove. One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless +face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his +ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair. +He coughs, and the window-panes vibrate. + +In the street, shadow and silence. In the distance are venturing +shapes, people emerging or entering, and some light echoing sounds. +Almost at once, on the corner, I see Monsieur Joseph Bonéas vanishing, +stiff as a ramrod. I recognized the thick white kerchief, which +consolidates the boils on his neck. As I pass the hairdresser's door +it opens, just as it did a little while ago, and his agreeable voice +says, "That's all there is to it, in business." "Absolutely," replies +a man who is leaving. In the oven of the street one can see only his +littleness--he must be a considerable personage, all the same. +Monsieur Pocard is always applying himself to business and thinking of +great schemes. A little farther, in the depths of a cavity, stoppered +by an iron-grilled window, I divine the presence of old Eudo, the bird +of ill omen, the strange old man who coughs, and has a bad eye, and +whines continually. Even indoors he must wear his mournful cloak and +the lamp-shade of his hood. People call him a spy, and not without +reason. + +Here is the Kiosk. It is waiting quite alone, with its point in the +darkness. Antonia has not come, for she would have waited for me. I +am impatient first, and then relieved. A good riddance. + +No doubt Antonia is still tempting when she is present. There is a +reddish fever in her eyes, and her slenderness sets you on fire. But I +am hardly in harmony with the Italian. She is particularly engrossed +in her private affairs, with which I am not concerned. Big Victorine, +always ready, is worth a hundred of her; or Madame Lacaille, the +pensively vicious; though I am equally satiated of her, too. Truth to +tell, I plunge unreflectingly into a heap of amorous adventures which I +shortly find vulgar. But I can never resist the magic of a first +temptation. + +I shall not wait. I go away. I skirt the forge of the ignoble +Brisbille. It is the last house in that chain of low hills which is +the street. Out of the deep dark the smithy window flames with vivid +orange behind its black tracery. In the middle of that square-ruled +page of light I see transparently outlined the smith's eccentric +silhouette, now black and sharp, now softly huge. Spectrally through +the glare, and in blundering frenzy, he strives and struggles and +fumbles horribly on the anvil. Swaying, he seems to rush to right and +to left, like a passenger on a hell-bound ferry. The more drunk he is, +the more furiously he falls upon his iron and his fire. + +I return home. Just as I am about to enter a timid voice calls +me--"Simon!" + +It is Antonia. So much the worse for her. I hurry in, followed by the +weak appeal. + +I go up to my room. It is bare and always cold; always I must shiver +some minutes before I shake it back to life. As I close the shutters I +see the street again; the massive, slanting blackness of the roofs and +their population of chimneys clear-cut against the minor blackness of +space; some still waking, milk-white windows; and, at the end of a +jagged and gloomy background, the blood-red stumbling apparition of the +mad blacksmith. Farther still I can make out in the cavity the cross +on the steeple; and again, very high and blazing with light on the +hill-top, the castle, a rich crown of masonry. In all directions the +eye loses itself among the black ruins which conceal their hosts of men +and of women--all so unknown and so like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +OURSELVES + + +It is Sunday. Through my open window a living ray of April has made +its way into my room. It has transformed the faded flowers of the +wallpaper and restored to newness the Turkey-red stuff which covers my +dressing-table. + +I dress carefully, dallying to look at myself in the glass, closely and +farther away, in the fresh scent of soap. I try to make out whether my +eyes are little or big. They are the average, no doubt, but it really +seems to me that they have a tender brightness. + +Then I look outside. It would seem that the town, under its misty +blankets in the hollow of the valley, is awaking later than its +inhabitants. + +These I can see from up here, spreading abroad in the streets, since it +is Sunday. One does not recognize them all at once, so changed are +they by their unusual clothes;--women, ornate with color, and more +monumental than on week days; some old men, slightly straightened for +the occasion; and some very lowly people, whom only their cleanness +vaguely disguises. + +The weak sunshine is dressing the red roofs and the blue roofs and the +sidewalks, and the tiny little stone setts all pressed together like +pebbles, where polished shoes are shining and squeaking. In that old +house at the corner, a house like a round lantern of shadow, gloomy old +Eudo is encrusted. It forms a comical blot, as though traced on an old +etching. A little further, Madame Piot's house bulges forth, glazed +like pottery. By the side of these uncommon dwellings one takes no +notice of the others, with their gray walls and shining curtains, +although it is of these that the town is made. + +Halfway up the hill, which rises from the river bank, and opposite the +factory's plateau, appears the white geometry of the castle, and around +its pallors a tapestry of reddish foliage, and parks. Farther away, +pastures and growing crops which are part of the demesne; farther +still, among the stripes and squares of brown earth or verdant, the +cemetery, where every year so many stones spring up. + +* * * * * * + +We have to call at Brisbille's, my aunt and I, before Church. We are +forced to tolerate him thus, so as to get our twisted key put right. I +wait for Mame in the court, sitting on a tub by the shop, which is +lifeless to-day, and full of the scattered leavings of toil. Mame is +never ready in time. She has twice appeared on the threshold in her +fine black dress and velvet cape; then, having forgotten something, she +has gone back very quickly, like a mole. Finally, she must needs go up +to my room, to cast a last glance over it. + +At last we are off, side by side. She takes my arm proudly. From time +to time she looks at me, and I at her, and her smile is an affectionate +grimace amid the sunshine. + +When we have gone a little way, my aunt stops, "You go on," she says; +"I'll catch you up." + +She has gone up to Apolline, the street-sweeper. The good woman, as +broad as she is long, was gaping on the edge of the causeway, her two +parallel arms feebly rowing in the air, an exile in the Sabbath +idleness, and awkwardly conscious of her absent broom. + +Mame brings her along, and looking back as I walk, I hear her talking +of me, hastily, as one who confides a choking secret, while Apolline +follows, with her arms swinging far from her body, limping and +outspread like a crab. + +Says Mame, "That boy's bedroom is untidy. And then, too, he uses too +many shirt-collars, and he doesn't know how to blow his nose. He +stuffs handkerchiefs into his pockets, and you find them again like +stones." + +"All the same, he's a good young man," stammers the waddling street +cleanser, brandishing her broom-bereaved hands at random, and shaking +over her swollen and many-storied boots a skirt weighted round the hem +by a coat-of-mail of dry mud. + +These confidences with which Mame is in the habit of breaking forth +before no matter whom get on my nerves. I call her with some +impatience. She starts at the command, comes up, and throws me a +martyr's glance. + +She proceeds with her nose lowered under her black hat with green +foliage, hurt that I should thus have summoned her before everybody, +and profoundly irritated. So a persevering malice awakens again in the +depths of her, and she mutters, very low, "You spat on the window the +other day!" + +But she cannot resist hooking herself again on to another interlocutor, +whose Sunday trousers are planted on the causeway, like two posts, and +his blouse as stiff as a lump of iron ore. I leave them, and go alone +into Brisbille's. + +The smithy hearth befires a workshop which bristles with black objects. +In the middle of the dark bodies of implements hanging from walls and +ceiling is the metallic Brisbille, with leaden hands, his dark apron +rainbowed with file-dust,--dirty on principle, because of his ideas, +this being Sunday. He is sober, and his face still unkindled, but he +is waiting impatiently for the church-going bell to begin, so that he +may go and drink, in complete solitude. + +Through an open square, in the ponderous and dirt-shaggy glazing of the +smithy, one can see a portion of the street, and a sketch, in bright +and airy tones, of scattered people. It is like the sharply cut field +of vision in an opera-glass, in which figures are drawn and shaded, and +cross each other; where one makes out, at times, a hat bound and +befeathered, swaying as it goes; a little boy with sky-blue tie and +buttoned boots, and tubular knickers hanging round his thin, bare +calves; a couple of gossiping dames in swollen and somber petticoats, +who tack hither and thither, meet, are mutually attracted and dissolve +in conversation, like rolling drops of ink. In the foreground of this +colored cinema which goes by and passes again, Brisbille, the sinister, +is ranting away, as always. He is red and lurid, spotted with +freckles, his hair greasy, his voice husky. For a moment, while he +paces to and fro in his cage, dragging shapeless and gaping shoes +behind him, he speaks to me in a low voice, and close to my face, in +gusts. Brisbille can shout, but not talk; there must be a definite +pressure of anger before his resounding huskiness issues from his +throat. + +Mame comes in. She sits on a stool to get her breath again, all the +while brandishing the twisted key which she clasps to the prayer-book +in her hand. Then she unburdens herself and begins to speak in fits +and starts of this key, of the mishap which twisted it, and of all the +multiple details which overlap each other in her head. But the +slipshod, gloomy smith's attention is suddenly attracted by the hole +which shows the street. + +"The lubber!" he roars. + +It is Monsieur Fontan who is passing, the wine-merchant and +café-proprietor. He is an expansive and imposing man, fat-covered, and +white as a house. He never says anything and is always alone. A great +personage he is; he makes money; he has amassed hundreds of thousands +of francs. At noon and in the evening he is not to be seen, having +dived into the room behind the shop, where he takes his meals in +solitude. The rest of the time he just sits at the receipt of custom +and says nothing. There is a hole in his counter where he slides the +money in. His house is filling with money from morning till night. + +"He's a money-trap," says Mame. + +"He's rich," I say. + +"And when you've said that," jeers Brisbille, "you've said all there is +to say. Why, you damned snob, you're only a poor drudge, like all us +chaps, but haven't you just got the snob's ideas?" + +I make a sign of impatience. It is not true, and Brisbille annoys me +with the hatred which he hurls at random, hit or miss; and all the more +because he is himself visibly impressed by the approach of this man who +is richer than the rest. The rebel opens his steely eye and relapses +into silence, like the rest of us, as the big person grows bigger. + +"The Bonéas are even richer," my aunt murmurs. + +Monsieur Fontan passes the open door, and we can hear the breathing of +the corpulent recluse. As soon as he has carried away the enormous +overcoat that sheathes him, like the hide of a pachyderm, and is +disappearing, Brisbille begins to roar, "What a snout! Did you see it, +eh? Did you see the jaws he swings from his ears, eh? The exact +likeness of a hog!" + +Then he adds, in a burst of vulgar delight, "Luckily, we can expect +it'll all burst before long!" + +He laughs alone. Mame goes and sits apart. She detests Brisbille, who +is the personification of envy, malice and coarseness. And everybody +hates this marionette, too, for his drunkenness and his forward +notions. All the same, when there is something you want him to do, you +choose Sunday morning to call, and you linger there, knowing that you +will meet others. This has become a tradition. + +"They're going to cure little Antoinette," says Benoît, as he frames +himself in the doorway. + +Benoît is like a newspaper. He to whom nothing ever happens only lives +to announce what is happening to others. + +"I know," cries Mame, "they told me so this morning. Several people +already knew it this morning at seven. A big, famous doctor's coming +to the castle itself, for the hunting, and he only treats just the +eyes." + +"Poor little angel!" sighs a woman, who has just come in. + +Brisbille intervenes, rancorous and quarrelsome, "Yes, they're always +going to cure the child, so they say. Bad luck to them! Who cares +about her?" + +"Everybody does!" reply two incensed women, in the same breath. + +"And meanwhile," said Brisbille, viciously, "she's snuffing it." And +he chews, once more, his customary saying--pompous and foolish as the +catchword of a public meeting--"She's a victim of society!" + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas has come into Brisbille's, and he does it +complacently, for he is not above mixing with the people of the +neighborhood. Here, too, are Monsieur Pocard, and Crillon, new shaved, +his polished skin taut and shiny, and several other people. Prominent +among them one marks the wavering head of Monsieur Mielvaque, who, in +his timidity and careful respect for custom, took his hat off as he +crossed the threshold. He is only a copying-clerk at the factory; he +wears much-used and dubious linen, and a frail and orphaned jacket +which he dons for all occasions. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas overawes me. My eyes are attracted by his +delicate profile, the dull gloom of his morning attire, and the luster +of his black gloves, which are holding a little black rectangle, +gilt-edged. + +He, too, has removed his hat. So I, in my corner discreetly remove +mine, too. + +He is a young man, refined and distinguished, who impresses by his +innate elegance. Yet he is an invalid, tormented by abscesses. One +never sees him but his neck is swollen, or his wrists enlarged by a +ghastly outcrop. But the sickly body encloses bright and sane +intelligence. I admire him because he is thoughtful and full of ideas, +and can express himself faultlessly. Recently he gave me a lesson in +sociology, touching the links between the France of to-day and the +France of tradition, a lesson on our origins whose plain perspicuity +was a revelation to me. I seek his company; I strive to imitate him, +and certainly he is not aware how much influence he has over me. + +All are attentive while he says that he is thinking of organizing a +young people's association in Viviers. Then he speaks to me, "The +farther I go the more I perceive that all men are afflicted with short +sight. They do not see, nor can they see, beyond the end of their +noses." + +"Yes," say I. + +My reply seems rather scanty, and the silence which follows repeats it +mercilessly. It seems so to him, too, no doubt, for he engages other +interlocutors, and I feel myself redden in the darkness of Brisbille's +cavern. + +Crillon is arguing with Brisbille on the matter of the recent +renovation of an old hat, which they keep handing to each other and +examine ardently. Crillon is sitting, but he keeps his eyes on it. +Heart and soul he applies himself to the debate. His humble trade as a +botcher does not allow a fixed tariff, and he is all alone as he +vindicates the value of his work. With his fists he hammers the +gray-striped mealy cloth on his knees, and the hair, which grows +thickly round his big neck, gives him the nape of a wild boar. + +"That felt," he complains, "I'll tell you what was the matter with it. +It was rain, heavy rain, that had drowned it. That felt, I tells you, +was only like a dirty handkerchief. What does _that_ represent--in +ebullition of steam, in gumming, and the passage of time?" + +Monsieur Justin Pocard is talking to three companions, who, hat in +hand, are listening with all their ears. He is entertaining them in +his sonorous language about the great financial and industrial +combination which he has planned. A speculative thrill electrifies the +company. + +"That'll brush business up!" says Crillon, in wonder, torn for a moment +from contemplation of the hat, but promptly relapsing on it. + +Joseph Bonéas says to me, in an undertone,--and I am flattered,--"That +Pocard is a man of no education, but he has practical sense. That's a +big idea he's got,--at least if he sees things as I see them." + +And I, I am thinking that if I were older or more influential in the +district, perhaps I should be in the Pocard scheme, which is taking +shape, and will be huge. + +Meanwhile, Brisbille is scowling. An unconfessable disquiet is +accumulating in his bosom. All this gathering is detaining him at +home, and he is tormented by the desire for drink. He cannot conceal +his vinous longing, and squints darkly at the assembly. On a week day +at this hour he would already have begun to slake his thirst. He is +parched, he burns, he drags himself from group to group. The wait is +longer than he can stand. + +Suddenly every one looks out to the street through the still open door. + +A carriage is making its way towards the church; it has a green body +and silver lamps. The old coachman, whose great glove sways the +slender scepter of a whip, is so adorned with overlapping capes that he +suggests several men on the top of each other. The black horse is +prancing. + +"He shines like a piano," says Benoît. + +The Baroness is in the carriage. The blinds are drawn, so she cannot +be seen, but every one salutes the carriage. + +"All slaves!" mumbles Brisbille. "Look at yourselves now, just look! +All the lot of you, as soon as a rich old woman goes by, there you are, +poking your noses into the ground, showing your bald heads, and growing +humpbacked." + +"She does good," protests one of the gathering. + +"Good? Ah, yes, indeed!" gurgles the evil man, writhing as though in +the grip of some one; "I call it ostentation--that's what _I_ call it." + +Shoulders are shrugged, and Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, always +self-controlled, smiles. + +Encouraged by that smile, I say, "There have always been rich people, +and there must be." + +"Of course," trumpets Crillon, "that's one of the established thoughts +that you find in your head when you fish for 'em. But mark what I +says,--there's some that dies of envy. I'm _not_ one of them that dies +of envy." + +Monsieur Mielvaque has put his hat back on his petrified head and gone +to the door. Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, also, turns his back and goes +away. + +All at once Crillon cries, "There's Pétrarque!" and darts outside on +the track of a big body, which, having seen him, opens its long pair of +compasses and escapes obliquely. + +"And to think," says Brisbille, with a horrible grimace, when Crillon +has disappeared, "that the scamp is a town councilor! Ah, by God!" + +He foams, as a wave of anger runs through him, swaying on his feet, and +gaping at the ground. Between his fingers there is a shapeless +cigarette, damp and shaggy, which he rolls in all directions, patching +up and resticking it unceasingly. + +Charged with snarls and bristling with shoulder-shrugs, the smith +rushes at his fire and pulls the bellows-chain, his yawning shoes +making him limp like Vulcan. At each pull the bellows send spouting +from the dust-filled throat of the furnace a cutting blue comet, lined +with crackling and dazzling white, and therein the man forges. + +Purpling as his agitation rises, nailed to his imprisoning corner, +alone of his kind, a rebel against all the immensity of things, the man +forges. + +* * * * * * + +The church bell rang, and we left him there. When I was leaving I +heard Brisbille growl. No doubt I got my quietus as well. But what +can he have imagined against _me_? + +We meet again, all mixed together in the Place de l'Eglise. In our +part of the town, except for a clan of workers whom one keeps one's eye +on, every one goes to church, men as well as women, as a matter of +propriety, out of gratitude to employers or lords of the manor, or by +religious conviction. Two streets open into the Place and two roads, +bordered with apple-trees, as well, so that these four ways lead town +and country to the Place. + +It has the shape of a heart, and is delightful. It is shaded by a very +old tree, under which justice was formerly administered. That is why +they call it the Great Tree, although there are greater ones. In +winter it is dark, like a perforated umbrella. In summer it gives the +bright green shadow of a parasol. Beside the tree a tall crucifix +dwells in the Place forever. + +The Place is swarming and undulating. Peasants from the surrounding +country, in their plain cotton caps, are waiting in the old corner of +the Rue Neuve, heaped together like eggs. These people are loaded with +provisions. At the farther end, square-paved, one picks out swarthy +outlines of the Epinal type, and faces as brightly colored as apples. +Groups of children flutter and chirrup; little girls with their dolls +play at being mothers, and little boys play at brigands. Respectable +people take their stand more ceremoniously than the common crowd, and +talk business piously. + +Farther away is the road, which April's illumination adorns all along +the lines of trees with embroidery of shadow and of gold, where +bicycles tinkle and carriages rumble echoingly; and the shining +river,--those long-drawn sheets of water, whereon the sun spreads +sheets of light and scatters blinding points. Looking along the road, +on either side of its stone-hard surface, one sees the pleasant, +cultivated earth, the bits of land sewn to each other, and many-hued, +brown or green as the billiard cloth, then paling in the distance. +Here and there, on this map in colors, copses bulge forth. The +by-roads are pricked out with trees, which follow each other artlessly +and divide the infantile littleness of orchards. + +This landscape holds us by the soul. It is a watercolor now (for it +rained a little last night), with its washed stones, its tiles +varnished anew, its roofs that are half slate and half light, its +shining pavements, water-jeweled in places, its delicately blue sky, +with clouds like silky paper; and between two house-fronts of yellow +ocher and tan, against the purple velvet of distant forests, there is +the neighboring steeple, which is like ours and yet different. Roundly +one's gaze embraces all the panorama, which is delightful as the +rainbow. + +From the Place, then, where one feels himself so abundantly at home, we +enter the church. From the depths of this thicket of lights, the good +priest murmurs the great infinite speech to us, blesses us, embraces us +severally and altogether, like father and mother both. In the manorial +pew, the foremost of all, one glimpses the Marquis of Monthyon, who has +the air of an officer, and his mother-in-law, Baroness Grille, who is +dressed like an ordinary lady. + +Emerging from church, the men go away; the women swarm out more +grudgingly and come to a standstill together; then all the buzzing +groups scatter. + +At noon the shops close. The fine ones do it unassisted; the others +close by the antics of some good man who exerts himself to carry and +fit the shutters. Then there is a great void. + +After lunch I wander in the streets. In the house I am bored, and yet +outside I do not know what to do. I have no friend and no calls to +pay. I am already too big to mingle with some, and too little yet to +associate with others. The cafés and licensed shops hum, jingle and +smoke already. I do not go to cafés, on principle, and because of that +fondness for spending nothing, which my aunt has impressed on me. So, +aimless, I walk through the deserted streets, which at every corner +yawn before my feet. The hours strike and I have the impression that +they are useless, that one will do nothing with them. + +I steer in the direction of the fine gardens which slope towards the +river. A little enviously I look over the walls at the tops of these +opulent enclosures, at the tips of those great branches where still +clings the soiled, out-of-fashion finery of last summer. + +Far from there, and a good while after, I encounter Tudor, the clerk at +the Modern Pharmacy. He hesitates and doubts, and does not know where +to go. Every Sunday he wears the same collar, with turned down +corners, and it is becoming gloomy. Arrived where I am, he stops, as +though it occurred to him that nothing was pushing him forward. A +half-extinguished cigarette vegetates in his mouth. + +He comes with me, and I take his silence in tow as far as the avenue of +plane trees. There are several figures outspaced in its level peace. +Some young girls attract my attention; they appear against the dullness +of house-fronts and against shop fronts in mourning. Some of the +charming ones are accompanied by their mothers, who look like +caricatures of them. + +Tudor has left me without my noticing it. + +Already, and slowly everywhere, the taverns begin to shine and cry out. +In the grayness of twilight one discerns a dark and mighty crowd, +gliding therein. In them gathers a sort of darkling storm, and flashes +emerge from them. + +* * * * * * + +And lo! Now the night approaches to soften the stony streets. + +Along the riverside, to which I have gone down alone, listless idylls +dimly appear,--shapes sketched in crayon, which seek and join each +other. There are couples that appear and vanish, strictly avoiding the +little light that is left. Night is wiping out colors and features and +names from both sorts of strollers. + +I notice a woman who waits, standing on the river bank. Her silhouette +has pearly-gray sky behind it, so that she seems to support the +darkness. I wonder what her name may be, but only discover the beauty +of her feminine stillness. Not far from that consummate caryatid, +among the black columns of the tall trees laid against the lave of the +blue, and beneath their cloudy branches, there are mystic enlacements +which move to and fro; and hardly can one distinguish the two halves of +which they are made, for the temple of night is enclosing them. + +The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope. Below +it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more +sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water. +The landscape has something exotic or antique about it. You are no +matter where in the world or among the centuries. You are on some +corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to +each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery. + +* * * * * * + +Dreamily I ascend again towards the sounds and the swarming of the +town. There, the Sunday evening rendezvous,--the prime concern of the +men,--is less discreet. Desire displays itself more crudely on the +pavements. Voices chatter and laughter dissolves, even through closed +doors; there are shouts and songs. + +Up there one sees clearly. Faces are discovered by the harsh light of +the gas jets and its reflection from plate-glass shop windows. Antonia +goes by, surrounded by men, who bend forward and look at her with +desire amid their clamor of conversation. She saw me, and a little +sound of appeal comes from her across the escort that presses upon her. +But I turn aside and let her go by. + +When she and her harness of men have disappeared, I smell in their wake +the odor of Pétrolus. He is lamp-man at the factory. Yellow, dirty, +cadaverous, red-eyed, he smells rancid, and was, perhaps, nurtured on +paraffin. He is some one washed away. You do not see him, so much as +smell him. + +Other women are there. Many a Sunday have I, too, joined in all that +love-making. + +* * * * * * + +Among these beings who chat and take hold of each other, an isolated +woman stands like a post, and makes an empty space around her. + +It is Louise Verte. She is fearfully ugly, and she was too virtuous +formerly, at a time when, so they say, she need not have been. She +regrets this, and relates it without shame, in order to be revenged on +virtue. She would like to have a lover, but no one wants her, because +of her bony face and her scraped appearance; from a sort of eczema. +Children make sport of her, knowing her needs; for the disclosures of +their elders have left a stain on them. A five-year-old girl points +her tiny finger at Louise and twitters, "She wants a man." + +In the Place is Véron, going about aimlessly, like a dead leaf--Véron, +who revolves, when he may, round Antonia. An ungainly man, whose tiny +head leans to the right and wears a colorless smile. He lives on a few +rents and does not work. He is good and affectionate, and sometimes he +is overcome by attacks of compassion. + +Véron and Louise Verte see one another,--and each makes a détour of +avoidance. They are afraid of each other. + +Here, also, on the margin of passion, is Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, very +compassionable, in spite of his intellectual superiority. Between the +turned-down brim of his hat and his swollen white kerchief,--thick as a +towel,--a mournful yellow face is stuck. + +I pity these questing solitaries who are looking for themselves! I +feel compassion to see those fruitless shadows hovering there, wavering +like ghosts, these poor wayfarers, divided and incomplete. + +Where am I? Facing the workmen's flats, whose countless windows stand +sharply out in their huge flat background. It is there that Marie +Tusson lives, whose father, a clerk at Messrs. Gozlan's, like myself, +is manager of the property. I steered to this place instinctively, +without confessing it to myself, brushing people and things without +mingling with them. + +Marie is my cousin, and yet I hardly ever see her. We just say +good-day when we meet, and she smiles at me. + +I lean against a plane tree and think of Marie. She is tall, fair, +strong and amiable, and she goes modestly clad, like a wide-hipped +Venus; her beautiful lips shine like her eyes. + +To know her so near agitates me among the shadows. If she appeared +before me as she did the last time I met her; if, in the middle of the +dark, I saw the shining radiance of her face, the swaying of her +figure, traced in silken lines, and her little sister's hand in +hers,--I should tremble. + +But that does not happen. The bluish, cold background only shows me +the two second-floor windows pleasantly warmed by lights, of which one +is, perhaps, she herself. But they take no sort of shape, and remain +in another world. + +At last my eyes leave that constellation of windows among the trees, +that vertical and silent firmament. Then I make for my home, in this +evening which comes at the end of all the days I have lived. + +* * * * * * + +Little Antoinette,--how comes it that they leave her all alone like +this?--is standing in my path and holding a hand out towards me. It is +her way that she is begging for. I guide her, ask questions and +listen, leaning over her and making little steps. But she is too +little, and too lispful, and cannot explain. Carefully I lead the +child,--who sees so feebly that already she is blind in the evening, as +far as the low door of the dilapidated dwelling where she nests. + +In my street, in front of his lantern-shaped house, with its +iron-grilled dormer, old Eudo is standing, darkly hooded, and pointed, +like the house. + +I am a little afraid of him. Assuredly, he has not got a clean +conscience. But, however guilty, he is compassionable. I stop and +speak to him. He lifts to me out of the night of his hood a face +pallid and ruined. I speak about the weather, of approaching spring. +Heedless he hears, shapes "yes" with the tip of his lips, and says, +"It's twelve years now since my wife died; twelve years that I've been +utterly alone; twelve years that I've heard the last words she said to +me." + +And the poor maniac glides farther away, hooded in his unintelligible +mourning; and certainly he does not hear me wish him good-night. + +At the back of the cold downstairs room a fire has been lighted. Mame +is sitting on the stool beside it, in the glow of the flaming coal, +outstretching her hands, clinging to the warmth. + +Entering, I see the bowl of her back. Her lean neck has a cracked look +and is white as a bone. Musingly, my aunt takes and holds a pair of +idle tongs. I take my seat. Mame does not like the silence in which I +wrap myself. She lets the tongs fall with a jangling shock, and then +begins vivaciously to talk to me about the people of the neighborhood. +"There's everything here. No need to go to Paris, nor even so much as +abroad. This part; it's a little world cut out on the pattern of the +others," she adds, proudly, wagging her worn-out head. "There aren't +many of them who've got the wherewithal and they're not of much +account. Puppets, if you like, yes. That's according to how one sees +it, because at bottom there's no puppets,--there's people that look +after themselves, because each of us always deserves to be happy, my +lad. And here, the same as everywhere, the two kinds of people that +there are--the discontented and the respectable; because, my lad, +what's always been always will be." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +EVENING AND DAWN + + +Just at the moment when I was settling down to audit the Sesmaisons' +account--I remember that detail--there came an unusual sound of steps +and voices, and before I could even turn round I heard a voice through +the glass door say, "Monsieur Paulin's aunt is very ill." + +The sentence stuns me. I am standing, and some one is standing +opposite me. A draught shuts the door with a bang. + +Both of us set off. It is Benoît who has come to fetch me. We hurry. +I breathe heavily. Crossing the busy factory, we meet acquaintances +who smile at me, not knowing the turn of affairs. + +The night is cold and nasty, with a keen wind. The sky drips with +rain. We jump over puddles as we walk. I stare fixedly at Benoît's +square shoulders in front of me, and the dancing tails of his coat as +the wind hustles them along the nocturnal way. + +Passing through the suburban quarter, the wind comes so hard between +the infrequent houses that the bushes on either side shiver and press +towards us, and seem to unfurl. Ah, we are not made for the greater +happenings! + +* * * * * * + +I meet first in the room the resounding glare of a wood fire and an +almost repelling heat. The odors of camphor and ether catch my throat. +People that I know are standing round the bed. They turn to me and +speak all together. + +I bend down to look at Mame. She is inlaid upon the whiteness of the +bed, which is motionless as marble. Her face is sunk in the cavity of +the pillow. Her eyes are half closed and do not move; her skin has +darkened. Each breath hums in her throat, and beyond that slight +stirring of larynx and lips her little frail body moves no more than a +doll's. She has not got her cap on and her gray hair is unraveled on +her head like flocks of dust. + +Several voices at once explain to me that it is "double congestion, and +her heart as well." She was attacked by a dizziness, by prolonged and +terrible shivering. She wandered, mentioned me, then suddenly +collapsed. The doctor has no hope but is coming back. The Reverend +Father Piot was here at five. + +Silence hovers. A woman puts a log in the fire, in the center of the +dazzling cluster of snarling flames, whose light throws the room into +total agitation. + +* * * * * * + +For a long time I look upon that face, where ugliness and goodness are +mingled in such a heartrending way. My eyes seek those already almost +shut, whose light is hardening. Something of darkness, an internal +shadow which is of herself, overspreads and disfigures her. One may +see now how outworn she was, how miraculously she still held on. + +This tortured and condemned woman is all that has looked after me for +twenty years. For twenty years she took my hand before she took my +arm. She always prevented me from understanding that I was an orphan. +Delicate and small as I was for so long, she was taller and stronger +and better than I! And at this moment, which shows me the past again +in one glance, I remember that she beautified the affairs of my +childhood like an old magician; and my head goes lower as I think of +her untiring admiration for me. How she did love me! And she must +love me still, confusedly, if some glimmering light yet lasts in the +depths of her. What will become of me--all alone? + +She was so sensitive, and so restless! A hundred details of her +vivacity come to life again in my eyes. Stupidly, I contemplate the +poker, the tongs, the big spoon--all the things she used to flourish as +she chattered. There they are--fallen, paralyzed, mute! + +As in a dream I go back to the times when she talked and shouted, to +days of youth, to days of spring and of springtime dresses; and all the +while my gaze, piercing that gay and airy vision, settles on the dark +stain of the hand that lies there like the shadow of a hand, on the +sheet. + +My eyes are jumbling things together. I see our garden in the first +fine days of the year; our garden--it is behind that wall--so narrow is +it that the reflected sunshine from our two windows dapples the whole +of it; so small that it only holds some pot-encaged plants, except for +the three currant bushes which have always been there. In the scarves +of the sun rays a bird--a robin--is hopping on the twigs like a rag +jewel. All dusty in the sunshine our red hound, Mirliton, is warming +himself. So gaunt is he you feel sure he must be a fast runner. +Certainly he runs after glimpsed rabbits on Sundays in the country, but +he never caught any. He never caught anything but fleas. When I lag +behind because of my littleness my aunt turns round, on the edge of the +footpath, and holds out her arms, and I run to her, and she stoops as I +come and calls me by my name. + +* * * * * * + +"Simon! Simon!" + +A woman is here. I wrench myself from the dream which had come into +the room and taken solidity before me. I stand up; it is my cousin +Marie. + +She offers me her hands among the candles which flutter by the bed. In +their poor starlight her face appears haggard and wet. My aunt loved +her. Her lips are trembling on her rows of sparkling teeth; the whole +breadth of her bosom heaves quickly. + +I have sunk again into the armchair. Memories flow again, while the +sick woman's breathing is longer drawn, and her stillness becomes more +and more inexorable. Things she used to say return to my lips. Then +my eyes are raised, and look for Marie, and turn upon her. + +* * * * * * + +She has leaned against the wall, and remains so--overcome. She invests +the corner where she stands with something like profane and sumptuous +beauty. Her changeful chestnut hair, like bronze and gold, forms moist +and disordered scrolls on her forehead and her innocent cheeks. Her +neck, especially, her white neck, appears to me. The atmosphere is so +choking, so visibly heavy, that it enshrouds us as if the room were on +fire, and she has loosened the neck of her dress, and her throat is +lighted up by the flaming logs. I smile weakly at her. My eyes wander +over the fullness of her hips and her outspread shoulders, and fasten, +in that downfallen room, on her throat, white as dawn. + +* * * * * * + +The doctor has been again. He stood some time in silence by the bed; +and as he looked our hearts froze. He said it would be over to-night, +and put the phial in his hand back in his pocket. Then, regretting +that he could not stay, he disappeared. + +And we stayed on beside the dying woman--so fragile that we dare not +touch her, nor even try to speak to her. + +Madame Piot settles down in a chair; she crosses her arms, lowers her +head, and the time goes by. + +At long intervals people take shape in the darkness by the door; people +who come in on tiptoe whisper to us and go away. + +The moribund moves her hands and feet and contorts her face. A +gurgling comes from her throat, which we can hardly see in the cavity +that is like a nest of shadow under her chin. She has blenched, and +the skin that is drawn over the bones of her face like a shroud grows +whiter every moment. + +Intent upon her breathing, we throng about her. We offer her our +hands--so near and so far--and do not know what to do. + +I am watching Marie. She has sunk onto the little stool, and her +young, full-blooming body overflows it. Holding her handkerchief in +her teeth, she has come to arrange the pillow, and leaning over the +bed, she puts one knee on a chair. The movement reveals her leg for a +moment, curved like a beautiful Greek vase, while the skin seems to +shine through the black transparency of the stocking, like clouded +gold. Ah! I lean forward towards her with a stifled, incipient appeal +above this bed, which is changing into a tomb. The border of the +tragic dress has fallen again, but I cannot remove my eyes from that +profound obscurity. I look at Marie, and look at her again; and though +I knew her, it seems to me that I wholly discover her. + +"I can't hear anything now," says a woman. + +"Yes I can----" + +"No, no!" the other repeats. + +Then I see Crillon's huge back bending over. My aunt's mouth opens +gently and remains open. The eyelids fall back almost completely upon +the stiffened gleam of the eyes, which squint in the gray and bony +mask. I see Crillon's big hand hover over the little mummified face, +lowering the eyelids and keeping them closed. + +Marie utters a cry when this movement tells her that our aunt has just +died. + +She sways. My hand goes out to her. I take her, support, and enfold +her. Fainting, she clings to me, and for one moment I carry--gently, +heavily--all the young woman's weight. The neck of her dress is +undone, and falls like foliage from her throat, and I just saw the real +curve of her bosom, nakedly and distractedly throbbing. + +Her body is agitated. She hides her face in her hands and then turns +it to mine. It chanced that our faces met, and my lips gathered the +wonderful savor of her tears! + +* * * * * * + +The room fills with lamentation; there is a continuous sound of deep +sighing. It is overrun by neighbors become friends, to whom no one +pays attention. + +And now, in this sacred homelet, where death still bleeds, I cannot +prevent a heavy heart-beat in me towards the girl who is prostrated +like the rest, but who reigns there, in spite of me--of herself--of +everything. I feel myself agitated by an obscure and huge rapture--the +birth of my flesh and my vitals among these shadows. Beside this poor +creature who was so blended with me, and who is falling, falling, +through a hell of eternity, I am uplifted by a sort of hope. + +I want to fix my attention on the fixity of the bed. I put my hand +over my eyes to shut out all thought save of the dead woman, +defenseless already, reclining on that earth into which she will sink. +But my looks, impelled by superhuman curiosity, escape between my +fingers to this other woman, half revealed to me in the tumult of +sorrow, and my eyes cannot come out of her. + +Madame Piot has changed the candles and attached a band to support the +dead woman's chin. Framed in this napkin, which is knotted over the +skull in her woolly gray hair, the face looks like a hook-nosed mask of +green bronze, with a vitrified line of eyes; the knees make two sharp +summits under the sheet; one's eyes run along the thin rods of the +shins and the feet lift the linen like two in-driven nails. + +Slowly Marie prepares to go. She has closed the neck of her dress and +hidden herself in her cloak. She comes up to me, sore-hearted, and +with her tears for a moment quenched she smiles at me without speaking. +I half rise, my hands tremble towards her smile as if to touch it, +above the past and the dust of my second mother. + +Towards the end of the night, when the dead fire is scattering +chilliness, the women go away one by one. One hour, two hours, I +remain alone. I pace the room in one direction and another, then I +look, and shiver. My aunt is no more. There is only left of her +something indistinct, struck down, of subterranean color, and her place +is desolate. Now, close to her, I am alone! Alone--magnified by my +affliction, master of my future, disturbed and numbed by the newness of +the things now beginning. At last the window grows pale, the ceiling +turns gray, and the candle-flames wink in the first traces of light. + +I shiver without end. In the depth of my dawn, in the heart of this +room where I have always been, I recall the image of a woman who filled +it--a woman standing at the chimney-corner, where a gladsome fire +flames, and she is garbed in reflected purple, her corsage scarlet, her +face golden, as she holds to the glow those hands transparent and +beautiful as flames. In the darkness, from my vigil, I look at her. + +* * * * * * + +The two nights which followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at +the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give +animation to dead things. During the two days various activities +brought me distraction, at first distressing, then depressing. + +The last night I opened my aunt's jewel box. It was called "the little +box." It was on the dressing table, at the bottom of piled-up litter. +I found some topaz ear-rings of a bygone period, a gold cross, equally +outdistanced, small and slender--a little girl's, or a young girl's; +and then, wrapped in tissue paper, like a relic, a portrait of myself +when a child. Last, a written page, torn from one of my old school +copy-books, which she had not been able to throw wholly away. +Transparent at the folds, the worn sheet was fragile as lace, and gave +the illusion of being equally precious. That was all the treasure my +aunt had collected. That jewel box held the poverty of her life and +the wealth of her heart. + +* * * * * * + +It poured with rain on the day of the funeral. All the morning groups +of people succeeded each other in the big cavern of our room, a going +and coming of sighs. My aunt was laid in her coffin towards two +o'clock, and it was carried then into the passage, where visitors' feet +had brought dirt and puddles. A belated wreath was awaited, and then +the umbrellas opened, and under their black undulation the procession +moved off. + +When we came out of the church it was not far off four o'clock. The +rain had not stopped and little rivers dashed down from either side of +the procession's sluggish flow along the street. There were many +flowers, so that the hearse made a blot of relief, beautiful enough. +There were many people, too, and I turned round several times. Always +I saw old Eudo, in his black cowl, hopping along in the mud, +hunchbacked as a crow. Marie was walking among some women in the +second half of the file, whose frail and streaming roof the hearse drew +along irregularly with jerks and halts. Her gait was jaded; she was +thinking only of our sorrow! All things darkened again to my eyes in +the ugliness of the evening. + +The cemetery is full of mud under the muslin of fallen rain, and the +footfalls make a sticky sound in it. There are a few trees, naked and +paralyzed. The sky is marshy and sprinkled with crows. + +The coffin, with its shapeless human form, is lowered from the hearse +and disappears in the fresh earth. + +They march past. Marie and her father take their places beside me. I +say thanks to every one in the same tone; they are all like each other, +with their gestures of impotence, their dejected faces, the words they +get ready and pour out as they pass before me, and their dark costume. +No one has come from the castle, but in spite of that there are many +people and they all converge upon me. I pluck up courage. + +Monsieur Lucien Gozlan comes forward, calls me "my dear sir," and +brings me the condolences of his uncles, while the rest watch us. + +Joseph Bonéas says "my dear friend" to me, and that affects me deeply. +Monsieur Pocard says, "If I had been advised in time I would have said +a few words. It is regrettable----" + +Others follow; then nothing more is to be seen in the rain, the wind +and the gloom but backs. + +"It's finished. Let's go." + +Marie lifts to me her sorrow-laved face. She is sweet; she is +affectionate; she is unhappy; but she does not love me. + +We go away in disorder, along by the trees whose skeletons the winter +has blackened. + +When we arrive in our quarter, twilight has invaded the streets. We +hear gusts of talk about the Pocard scheme. Ah, how fiercely people +live and seek success! + +Little Antoinette, cautiously feeling her way by a big wall, hears us +pass. She stops and would look if she could. We espy her figure in +that twilight of which she is beginning to make a part, though fine and +faint as a pistil. + +"Poor little angel!" says a woman, as she goes by. + +Marie and her father are the only ones left near me when we pass +Rampaille's tavern. Some men who were at the funeral are sitting at +tables there, black-clad. + +We reach my home; Marie offers me her hand, and we hesitate. "Come +in." + +She enters. We look at the dead room; the floor is wet, and the wind +blows through as if we were out of doors. Both of us are crying, and +she says, "I will come to-morrow and tidy up. Till then----" + +We take each other's hand in confused hesitation. + +* * * * * * + +A little later there is a scraping at the door, then a timid knock, and +a long figure appears. + +It is Véron who presents himself with an awkward air. His tall and +badly jointed body swings like a hanging signboard. He is an original +and sentimental soul, but no one has ever troubled to find out what he +is. He begins, "My young friend--hum, hum--" (he repeats this formless +sound every two or three words, like a sort of clock with a sonorous +tick)--"One may be wanting money, you know, for something--hum, hum; +you need money, perhaps--hum, hum; all this expense--and I'd said to +myself 'I'll take him some----'" + +He scrutinizes me as he repeats, "Hum, hum." I shake his hand with +tears in my eyes. I do not need money, but I know I shall never forget +that action; so good, so supernatural. + +And when he has swung himself out, abashed by my refusal, embarrassed +by the unusual size of his legs and his heart, I sit down in a corner, +seized with shivering. Then I obliterate myself in another corner, +equally forlorn. It seems as if Marie has gone away with all I have. +I am in mourning and I am all alone, because of her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARIE + + +The seat leans against the gray wall, at the spot where a rose tree +hangs over it, and the lane begins to slope to the river. I asked +Marie to come, and I am waiting for her in the evening. + +When I asked her--in sudden decision after so many days of +hesitation--to meet me here this evening, she was silent, astonished. +But she did not refuse; she did not answer. Some people came and she +went away. I am waiting for her, after that prayer. + +Slowly I stroll to the river bank. When I return some one is on the +seat, enthroned in the shadow. The face is indistinct, but in the +apparel of mourning I can see the neck-opening, like a faint pale +heart, and the misty expansion of the skirt. Stooping, I hear her low +voice, "I've come, you see." And, "Marie!" I say. + +I sit down beside her, and we remain silent. She is there--wholly. +Through her black veils I can make out the whiteness of her face and +neck and hands--all her beauty, like light enclosed. + +For me she had only been a charming picture, a passer-by, one apart, +living her own life. Now she has listened to me; she has come at my +call; she has brought herself here. + +* * * * * * + +The day has been scorching. Towards the end of the afternoon +storm-rain burst over the world and then ceased. One can still hear +belated drops falling from the branches which overhang the wall. The +air is charged with odors of earth and leaves and flowers, and wreaths +of wind go heavily by. + +She is the first to speak; she speaks of one thing and another. + +I do not know what she is saying; I draw nearer to see her lips; I +answer her, "I am always thinking of you." + +Hearing these words, she is silent. Her silence grows greater and +greater in the shadows. I have drawn still nearer; so near that I feel +on my cheek the wing-beat of her breath; so near that her silence +caresses me. + +Then, to keep myself in countenance, or to smoke, I have struck a +match, but I make no use of the gleam at my finger-tips. It shows me +Marie, quivering a little; it gilds her pale face. A smile arises on +her face; I have seen her full of that smile. + +My eyes grow dim and my hands tremble. I wish she would speak. + +"Tell me----" Her down-bent neck unfolds, and she lifts her head to +speak. At that moment, by the light of the flame that I hold, whose +great revealing kindness I am guarding, our eyes fall on an inscription +scratched in the wall--a heart--and inside it two initials, H-S. Ah, +that design was made by me one evening. Little Helen was lolling there +then, and I thought I adored her. For a moment I am overpowered by +this apparition of a mistake, bygone and forgotten. Marie does not +know; but seeing those initials, and divining a presence between us, +she dare not speak. + +As the match is on the point of going out I throw it down. The little +flame's last flicker has lighted up for me the edge of the poor black +serge skirt, so worn that it shines a little, even in the evening, and +has shown me the girl's shoe. There is a hole in the heel of the +stocking, and we have both seen it. In quick shame, Marie draws her +foot under her skirt; and I--I tremble still more that my eyes have +touched a little of her maiden flesh, a fragment of her real innocence. + +Gently she stands up in the grayness, and puts an end to this first +fate-changing meeting. + +We return. The obscurity is outstretched all around and against us. +Together and alone we go into the following chambers of the night. My +eyes follow the sway of her body in her dress against the vaguely +luminous background of the wall. Amid the night her dress is night +also; she is there--wholly! There is a singing in my ears; an anthem +fills the world. + +In the street, where there are no more wayfarers, she walks on the edge +of the causeway. So that my face may be on a level with hers, I walk +beside her in the gutter, and the cold water enters my boots. + +And that evening, inflated by mad longing, I am so triumphantly +confident that I do not even remember to shake her hand. By her door I +said to her, "To-morrow," and she answered, "Yes." + +On one of the days which followed, finding myself free in the +afternoon, I made my way to the great populous building of flats where +she lives. I ascended two dark flights of steps, closely encaged, and +followed a long elbowed corridor. Here it is. I knock and enter. +Complete silence greets me. There is no one, and acute disappointment +runs through me. + +I take some hesitant steps in the tiny vestibule, which is lighted by +the glass door to the kitchen, wherein I hear the drip of water. I see +a room whose curtains invest it with broidered light. There is a bed +in it, with a cover of sky-blue satinette shining like the blue of a +chromo. It is Marie's room! Her gray silk hat, rose-trimmed, hangs +from a nail on the flowery paper. She has not worn it since my aunt's +death; and alongside hang black dresses. I enter this bright blue +sanctuary, inhabited only by a cold and snow-like light, and orderly +and chaste as a picture. + +My hand goes out like a thief's. I touch, I stroke these dresses, +which are wont to touch Marie. I turn again to the blue-veiled bed. +On a whatnot there are books, and their titles invite me; for where her +thoughts dwell, the things which occupy her mind--but I leave them. I +would rather go near her bed. With a movement at once mad, frightened +and trembling, I lift the quilts that clothe it and my gaze enters it, +and my knees lean trembling on the edge of this great lifeless thing, +which, alone among dead things, is one of soft and supple flesh. + +* * * * * * + +My customary life continues and my work is always the same. I make +notes, by the way, of Crillon's honest trivialities; of Brisbille's +untimely outbursts; of the rumors anent the Pocard scheme, and the +progress of the Association of Avengers, a society to promote national +awakening, founded by Monsieur Joseph Bonéas. The same complex and +monotonous existence bears me along as it does everybody. But since +that tragic night when my sorrow was transformed into joy at the +lyke-wake in the old room, in truth the world is no longer what it was. +People and things appear to me shadowy and distant when I go out into +the current of the crowds; when I am dressing in my room and decide +that I look well in black; when I sit up late at my table in the +sunshine of hope. Now and again the memory of my aunt comes bodily +back to me. Sometimes I hear people pronounce the name of Marie. My +body starts when it hears them say "Marie," who know not what they say. +And there are moments when our separation throbs so warmly that I do +not know whether she is here or absent. + +* * * * * * + +During this walk that we have just had together the summer and the +sweetness of living have weighed more than ever on my shoulders. Her +huge home, which is such a swarming hive at certain times, is now +immensely empty in the labyrinth of its dark stairs and the landings, +whence issue the narrow closed streets of its corridors, and where in +the corners taps drip upon drain-stones. Our immense--our naked +solitude pervades us. An exquisite emotion takes hold of me while we +are slowly climbing the steep and methodical way. There is something +human in the stairway; in the inevitable shapes of its spiral and its +steps cut out of the quick, in the rhythmic repetition of its steps. A +round skylight pierces the sloping roof up there, and it is the only +light for this part of the people's house, this poor internal city. +The darkness which runs down the walls of the well, whence we are +striving to emerge step by step, conceals our laborious climb towards +that gap of daylight. Shadowed and secret as we are, it seems to me +that we are mounting to heaven. + +Oppressed by a common languor, we at last sat down side by side on a +step. There is no sound in the building under the one round window +bending over us. We lean on each other because of the stair's +narrowness. Her warmth enters into me; I feel myself agitated by that +obscure light which radiates from her. I share with her the heat of +her body and her thought itself. The darkness deepens round us. +Hardly can I see the crouching girl there, warm and hollowed like a +nest. + +I call her by her name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud +avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have +seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we +stammer, and murmur, and laugh. + +* * * * * * + +Together we are looking at a little square piece of paper. I found it +on the seat which the rose-tree overhangs on the edge of the downward +lane. Carefully folded, it had a forgotten look, and it was waiting +there, detained for a moment by its timorous weight. A few lines of +careful writing cover it. We read it: + + "I do not know how speaks the pious heart; nothing I know; th' +enraptured martyr I. Only I know the tears that brimming start, your +beauty blended with your smile to espy." + +Then, having read it, we read it again, moved by a mysterious +influence. And we finger the chance-captured paper, without knowing +what it is, without understanding very well what it says. + +* * * * * * + +When I asked her to go with me to the cemetery that Sunday, she agreed, +as she does to all I ask her. I watched her arms brush the roses as +she came in through the gardens. We walked in silence; more and more +we are losing the habit of talking to each other. We looked at the +latticed and flower-decked square where our aunt sleeps--the garden +which is only as big as a woman. Returning from the cemetery by way of +the fields, the sun already low, we join hands, seized with triumphant +delight. + +She is wearing a dress of black delaine, and the skirt, the sleeves and +the collar wave in the breeze. Sometimes she turns her radiant face to +me and it seems to grow still brighter when she looks at me. Slightly +stooping, she walks, though among the grass and flowers whose tints and +grace shine in reflection on her forehead and cheeks, she is a +giantess. A butterfly precedes us on our path and alights under our +eyes, but when we come up it takes wing again, and comes down a little +farther and begins all over again; and we smile at the butterfly that +thinks of us. + +Inlaid with gold by the slanting sun we lead each other, hand in hand, +as far as the statue of Flora, which once upon a time a lord of the +manor raised on the fringe of the wood. Against the abiding background +of distant heights the goddess stands, half-naked, in the beautiful +ripe light. Her fair hips are draped with a veil of still whiter +stone, like a linen garment. Before the old moss-mellowed pedestal I +pressed Marie desperately to my heart. Then, in the sacred solitude of +the wood, I put my hands upon her, and so that she might be like the +goddess I unfastened her black bodice, lowered the ribbon +shoulder-straps of her chemise, and laid bare her wide and rounded +bosom. + +She yielded to the adoration with lowered head, and her eyes +magnificently troubled, red-flushing with blood and sunshine. + +I put my lips on hers. Until that day, whenever I kissed her, her lips +submitted. This time she gave me back my long caress, and even her +eyes closed upon it. Then she stands there with her hands crossed on +her glorious throat, her red, wet lips ajar. She stands there, apart, +yet united to me, and her heart on her lips. + +She has covered her bosom again. The breeze is suddenly gusty. The +apple trees in the orchards are shaken and scatter bird-like jetsam in +space; and in that bright green paddock yonder the rows of out-hung +linen dance in the sunshine. The sky darkens; the wind rises and +prevails. It was that very day of the gale. It assaults our two +bodies on the flank of the hill; it comes out of infinity and sets +roaring the tawny forest foliage. We can see its agitation behind the +black grille of the trunks. It makes us dizzy to watch the swift +displacement of the gray-veiled sky, and from cloud to cloud a bird +seems hurled, like a stone. We go down towards the bottom of the +valley, clinging to the slope, an offering to the deepest breath of +heaven, driven forward yet holding each other back. + +So, gorged with the gale and deafened by the universal concert of space +that goes through our ears, we find sanctuary on the river bank. The +water flows between trees whose highest foliage is intermingled. By a +dark footpath, soft and damp, under the ogive of the branches, we +follow this crystal-paved cloister of green shadow. We come on a +flat-bottomed boat, used by the anglers. I make Marie enter it, and it +yields and groans under her weight. By the strokes of two old oars we +descend the current. + +It seems to our hearts and our inventing eyes that the banks take +flight on either side--it is the scenery of bushes and trees which +retreats. _We_--we abide! But the boat grounds among tall reeds. +Marie is half reclining and does not speak. I draw myself towards her +on my knees, and the boat quivers as I do. Her face in silence calls +me; she calls me wholly. With her prostrate body, surrendered and +disordered, she calls me. + +I possess her--she is mine! In sublime docility she yields to my +violent caress. Now she is mine--mine forever! Henceforth let what +may befall; let the years go by and the winters follow the summers, she +is mine, and my life is granted me! Proudly I think of the great and +famous lovers whom we resemble. I perceive that there is no recognized +law which can stand against the might of love. And under the transient +wing of the foliage, amid the continuous recessional of heaven and +earth, we repeat "never"; we repeat "always"; and we proclaim it to +eternity. + +* * * * * * + +The leaves are falling; the year draws near to its end; the wedding is +arranged to take place about Christmas. + +That decision was mine; Marie said "yes," as usual, and her father, +absorbed all the day in figures, would emerge from them at night, like +a shipwrecked man, seeing darkly, passive, except on rare occasions +when he had fits of mad obstinacy, and no one knew why. + +In the early morning sometimes, when I was climbing Chestnut Hill on my +way to work, Marie would appear before me at a corner, in the pale and +blushing dawn. We would walk on together, bathed in those fresh fires, +and would watch the town at our feet rising again from its ashes. Or, +on my way back, she would suddenly be there, and we would walk side by +side towards her home. We loved each other too much to be able to +talk. A very few words we exchanged just to entwine our voices, and in +speaking of other people we smiled at each other. + +One day, about that time, Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon had the +kindly thought of asking us both to an evening party at the castle, +with several leading people of our quarter. When all the guests were +gathered in a huge gallery, adorned with busts which sat in state +between high curtains of red damask, the Marquis took it into his head +to cut off the electricity. In a lordly way he liked heavy practical +jokes--I was just smiling at Marie, who was standing near me in the +middle of the crowded gallery, when suddenly it was dark. I put out my +arms and drew her to me. She responded with a spirit she had not shown +before, our lips met more passionately than ever, and our single body +swayed among the invisible, ejaculating throng that elbowed and jostled +us. The light flashed again. We had loosed our hold. Ah, it was not +Marie whom I had clasped! The woman fled with a stifled exclamation of +shame and indignation towards him who she believed had embraced her, +and who had seen nothing. Confused, and as though still blind, I +rejoined Marie, but I was myself again with difficulty. In spite of +all, that kiss which had suddenly brought me in naked contact with a +complete stranger remained to me an extraordinary and infernal delight. +Afterwards, I thought I recognized the woman by her blue dress, half +seen at the same time as the gleam of her neck after that brief and +dazzling incident. But there were three of them somewhat alike. I +never knew which of those unknown women concealed within her flesh the +half of the thrill that I could not shake off all the evening. + +* * * * * * + +There was a large gathering at the wedding. The Marquis and +Marchioness of Monthyon appeared at the sacristy. Brisbille, by good +luck, stayed away. Good sectarian that he was, he only acknowledged +civil marriages. I was a little shamefaced to see march past, taking +their share of the fine and tranquil smile distributed by Marie, some +women who had formerly been my mistresses--Madame Lacaille, nervous, +subtle, mystical; big Victorine and her good-natured rotundity, who had +welcomed me any time and anywhere; and Madeleine Chaine; and slender +Antonia above all, with the Italian woman's ardent and theatrical face, +ebony-framed, and wearing a hat of Parisian splendor. For Antonia is +very elegant since she married Véron. I could not help wincing when I +saw that lanky woman, who had clung to me in venturesome rooms, now +assiduous around us in her ceremonious attire. But how far off and +obliterated all that was! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DAY BY DAY + + +We rearranged the house. We did not alter the general arrangement, nor +the places of the heavy furniture--that would have been too great a +change. But we cast out all the dusty old stuff, the fossilized and +worthless knick-knacks that Mame had accumulated. The photographs on +the walls, which were dying of jaundice and debility, and which no +longer stood for anybody, because of the greatness of time, we cleared +out of their imitation tortoiseshell and buried in the depths of +drawers. + +I bought some furniture, and as we sniffed the odor of varnish which +hung about for a long time in the lower room, we said, "This is the +real thing." And, indeed, our home was pretty much like the +middle-class establishments of our quarter and everywhere. Is it not +the only really proud moment here on earth, when we can say, "I, too!" + +Years went by. There was nothing remarkable in our life. When I came +home in the evening, Marie, who often had not been out and had kept on +her dressing-gown and plaits, used to say, "There's been nothing to +speak of to-day." + +The aeroplanes were appearing at that time. We talked about them, and +saw photographs of them in the papers. One Sunday we saw one from our +window. We had heard the chopped-up noise of its engine expanding over +the sky; and down below, the townsfolk on their doorsteps, raised their +heads towards the ceiling of their streets. Rattling space was marked +with a dot. We kept our eyes on it and saw the great flat and noisy +insect grow bigger and bigger, silhouetting the black of its angles and +partitioned lines against the airy wadding of the clouds. When its +headlong flight had passed, when it had dwindled in our eyes and ears +amid the new world of sounds, which it drew in its train, Marie sighed +dreamily. + +"I would like," she said, "to go up in an aeroplane, into the +wind--into the sky!" + +One spring we talked a lot about a trip we would take some day. Some +railway posters had been stuck on the walls of the old tin works, that +the Pocard scheme was going to transfigure. We looked at them the day +they were freshly brilliant in their wet varnish and their smell of +paste. We preferred the bill about Corsica, which showed seaside +landscapes, harbors with picturesque people in the foreground and a +purple mountain behind, all among garlands. And later, even when +stiffened and torn and cracking in the wind, that poster attracted us. + +One evening, in the kitchen, when we had just come in--there are +memories which mysteriously outlive the rest--and Marie was lighting +the fire, with her hat on and her hands wiped out in the twilight by +the grime of the coal, she said, "We'll make that trip later!" + +Sometimes it happened that we went out, she and I, during the week. I +looked about me and shared my thoughts with her. Never very talkative, +she would listen to me. Coming out of the Place de l'Eglise, which +used to affect us so much not long ago, we often used to meet Jean and +Genevieve Trompson, near the sunken post where an old jam pot lies on +the ground. Everybody used to say of these two, "They'll separate, +you'll see; that's what comes of loving each other too much; it was +madness, I always said so." And hearing these things, unfortunately +true, Marie would murmur, with a sort of obstinate gentleness, "Love is +sacred." + +Returning, not far from the anachronistic and clandestine Eudo's lair, +we used to hear the coughing parrot. That old bird, worn threadbare, +and of a faded green hue, never ceased to imitate the fits of coughing +which two years before had torn Adolphe Piot's lungs, who died in the +midst of his family under such sad circumstances. Those days we would +return with our ears full of the obstinate clamor of that recording +bird, which had set itself fiercely to immortalize the noise that +passed for a moment through the world, and toss the echoes of an +ancient calamity, of which everybody had ceased to think. + +Almost the only people about us are Marthe, my little sister-in-law, +who is six years old, and resembles her sister like a surprising +miniature; my father-in-law, who is gradually annihilating himself; and +Crillon. This last lives always contented in the same shop while time +goes by, like his father and his grandfather, and the cobbler of the +fable, his eternal ancestor. Under his square cap, on the edge of his +glazed niche, he soliloquizes, while he smokes the short and juicy pipe +which joins him in talking and spitting--indeed, he seems to be +answering it. A lonely toiler, his lot is increasingly hard, and +almost worthless. He often comes in to us to do little jobs--mend a +table leg, re-seat a chair, replace a tile. Then he says, "There's +summat I must tell you----" + +So he retails the gossip of the district, for it is against his +conscience, as he frankly avows, to conceal what he knows. And Heaven +knows, there is gossip enough in our quarter!--a complete network, +above and below, of quarrels, intrigues and deceptions, woven around +man, woman and the public in general. One says, "It _can't_ be true!" +and then thinks about something else. + +And Crillon, in face of all this perversity, all this wrong-doing, +smiles! I like to see that happy smile of innocence on the lowly +worker's face. He is better than I, and he even understands life +better, with his unfailing good sense. + +I say to him, "But are there not any bad customs and vices? +Alcoholism, for instance?" + +"Yes," says Crillon, "as long as you don't exarrergate it. I don't +like exarrergations, and I find as much of it among the pestimists as +among the opticions. Drink, you say! It's chiefly that folks haven't +enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that +drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if +they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified +silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it +is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against +Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse +than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille weren't the anarchist he is +and frightening everybody, I'd excuse him his dirty nose and even not +taking it out of a pint pot all the week through. It isn't a crime, +isn't only being a good boozer. We've got to look ahead and have a +broad spirit, as Monsieur Joseph says. Tolerantness! We all want it, +eh?" + +"You're a good sort," I say. + +"I'm a man, like everybody," proudly replies Crillon. "It's not that I +hold by accustomary ideas; I'm not an antiquitary, but I don't like to +single-arise myself. If I'm a botcher in life, it's cos I'm the same +as others--no less," he says, straightening up. And standing still +more erect, he adds, "_Nor_ no more, neither!" + +When we are not chatting we read aloud. There is a very fine library +at the factory, selected by Madame Valentine Gozlan from works of an +educational or moral kind, for the use of the staff. Marie, whose +imagination goes further afield than mine, and who has not my +anxieties, directs the reading. She opens a book and reads aloud while +I take my ease, looking at the pastel portrait which hangs just +opposite the window. On the glass which entombs the picture I see the +gently moving and puffing reflection of the fidgety window curtains, +and the face of that glazed portrait becomes blurred with broken +streaks and all kinds of wave marks. + +"Ah, these adventures!" Marie sometimes sighs, at the end of a chapter; +"these things that never happen!" + +"Thank Heaven," I cry. + +"Alas," she replies. + +Even when people live together they differ more than they think! + +At other times Marie reads to herself, quite silently. I surprise her +absorbed in this occupation. It even happens that she applies herself +thus to poetry. In her set and stooping face her eyes come and go over +the abbreviated lines of the verses. From time to time she raises them +and looks up at the sky, and--vastly further than the visible sky--at +all that escapes from the little cage of words. + +And sometimes we are lightly touched with boredom. + +* * * * * * + +One evening Marie informed me that the canary was dead, and she began +to cry, as she showed me the open cage and the bird which lay at the +bottom, with its feet curled up, as rumpled and stark as the little +yellow plaything of a doll. I sympathized with her sorrow; but her +tears were endless, and I found her emotion disproportionate. + +"Come now," I said, "after all, a bird's only a bird, a mere point that +moved a little in a corner of the room. What then? What about the +thousands of birds that die, and the people that die, and the poor?" +But she shook her head, insisted on grieving, tried to prove to me that +it was momentous and that she was right. + +For a moment I stood bewildered by this want of understanding; this +difference between her way of feeling and mine. It was a disagreeable +revelation of the unknown. One might often, in regard to small +matters, make a multitude of reflections if one wished; but one does +not wish. + +* * * * * * + +My position at the factory and in our quarter is becoming gradually +stronger. By reason of a regular gratuity which I received, we are at +last able to put money aside each month, like everybody. + +"I say!" cried Crillon, pulling me outside with him, as I was coming in +one evening; "I must let you know that you've been spoken of +spontanially for the Town Council at the next renewment. They're +making a big effort, you know. Monsieur the Marquis is going to stand +for the legislative elections--but we've walked into the other +quarter," said Crillon, stopping dead. "Come back, come back." + +We turned right-about-face. + +"This patriotic society of Monsieur Joseph," Crillon went on, "has done +a lot of harm to the anarchists. We've all got to let 'em feel our +elbows, that's necessential. You've got a foot in the factory, eh? +You see the workmen; have a crack of talk with 'em. You ingreasiate +yourself with 'em, so's some of 'em'll vote for you. For _them's_ the +danger." + +"It's true that I am very sympathetic to them," I murmured, impressed +by this prospect. + +Crillon came to a stand in front of the Public Baths. "It's the +seventeenth to-day," he explained; "the day of the month when I takes a +bath. Oh, yes! I know that _you_ go every Thursday; but I'm not of +that mind. You're young, of course, and p'raps you have good reason! +But you take my tip, and hobnob with the working man. We must bestir +ourselves and impell ourselves, what the devil! As for me, I've +finished my political efforts for peace and order. It's _your_ turn!" + +He is right. Looking at the ageing man, I note that his framework is +slightly bowed; that his ill-shaven cheeks are humpbacked with little +ends of hair turning into white crystals. In his lowly sphere he has +done his duty. I reflect upon the mite-like efforts of the unimportant +people; of the mountains of tasks performed by anonymity. They are +necessary, these hosts of people so closely resembling each other; for +cities are built upon the poor brotherhood of paving-stones. + +He is right, as always. I, who am still young; I, who am on a higher +level than his; I must play a part, and subdue the desire one has to +let things go on as they may. + +A sudden movement of will appears in my life, which otherwise proceeds +as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A VOICE IN THE EVENING + + +I approached the workpeople with all possible sympathy. The toiler's +lot, moreover, raises interesting problems, which one should seek to +understand. So I inform myself in the matter of those around me. + +"You want to see the greasers' work? Here I am," said Marcassin, +surnamed Pétrolus. "I'm the lamp-man. Before that I was a greaser. +Is that any better? Can't say. It's here that that goes on, +look--there. My place you'll find at night by letting your nose guide +you." + +The truth is that the corner of the factory to which he leads me has an +aggressive smell. The shapeless walls of this sort of grotto are +adorned with shelves full of leaking lamps--lamps dirty as beasts. In +a bucket there are old wicks and other departed things. At the foot of +a wooden cupboard which looks like iron are lamp glasses in paper +shirts; and farther away, groups of oil-drums. All is dilapidated and +ruinous; all is dark in this angle of the great building where light is +elaborated. The specter of a huge window stands yonder. The panes +only half appear; so encrusted are they they might be covered with +yellow paper. The great stones--the rocks--of the walls are +upholstered with a dark deposit of grease, like the bottom of a +stewpan, and nests of dust hang from them. Black puddles gleam on the +floor, with beds of slime from the scraping of the lamps. + +There he lives and moves, in his armored tunic encrusted with filth as +dark as coffee-grounds. In his poor claw he grips the chief implement +of his work--a black rag. His grimy hands shine with paraffin, and the +oil, sunk and blackened in his nails, gives them a look of wick ends. +All day long he cleans lamps, and repairs, and unscrews, and fills, and +wipes them. The dirt and the darkness of this population of appliances +he attracts to himself, and he works like a nigger. + +"For it's got to be well done," he says, "and even when you're fagged +out, you must keep on rubbing hard." + +"There's six hundred and sixty-three, monsieur" (he says "monsieur" as +soon as he embarks on technical explanations), "counting the smart ones +in the fine offices, and the lanterns in the wood-yard, and the night +watchmen. You'll say to me, 'Why don't they have electricity that +lights itself?' It's 'cos that costs money and they get paraffin for +next to nothing, it seems, through a big firm 'at they're in with up +yonder. As for me, I'm always on my legs, from the morning when I'm +tired through sleeping badly, from after dinner when you feel sick with +eating, up to the evening, when you're sick of everything." + +The bell has rung, and we go away in company. He has pulled off his +blue trousers and tunic and thrown them into a corner--two objects +which have grown heavy and rusty, like tools. But the dirty shell of +his toil did upholster him a little, and he emerges from it gaunter, +and horribly squeezed within the littleness of a torturing jacket. His +bony legs, in trousers too wide and too short, break off at the bottom +in long and mournful shoes, with hillocks, and resembling crocodiles; +and their soles, being soaked in paraffin, leave oily footprints, +rainbow-hued, in the plastic mud. + +Perhaps it is because of this dismal companion towards whom I turn my +head, and whom I see trotting slowly and painfully at my side in the +rumbling grayness of the evening exodus, that I have a sudden and +tragic vision of the people, as in a flash's passing. (I do sometimes +get glimpses of the things of life momentarily.) The dark doorway to +my vision seems torn asunder. Between these two phantoms in front the +sable swarm outspreads. The multitude encumbers the plain that +bristles with dark chimneys and cranes, with ladders of iron planted +black and vertical in nakedness--a plain vaguely scribbled with +geometrical lines, rails and cinder paths--a plain utilized yet barren. +In some places about the approaches to the factory cartloads of clinker +and cinders have been dumped, and some of it continues to burn like +pyres, throwing off dark flames and darker curtains. Higher, the hazy +clouds vomited by the tall chimneys come together in broad mountains +whose foundations brush the ground and cover the land with a stormy +sky. In the depths of these clouds humanity is let loose. The immense +expanse of men moves and shouts and rolls in the same course all +through the suburb. An inexhaustible echo of cries surrounds us; it is +like hell in eruption and begirt by bronze horizons. + +At that moment I am afraid of the multitude. It brings something +limitless into being, something which surpasses and threatens us; and +it seems to me that he who is not with it will one day be trodden +underfoot. + +My head goes down in thought. I walk close to Marcassin, who gives me +the impression of an escaping animal, hopping through the +darkness--whether because of his name,[1] or his stench, I do not know. +The evening is darkening; the wind is tearing leaves away; it thickens +with rain and begins to nip. + +[Footnote 1: _Marcassin_--a young wild boar.--Tr.] + +My miserable companion's voice comes to me in shreds. He is trying to +explain to me the law of unremitting toil. An echo of his murmur +reaches my face. + +"And that's what one hasn't the least idea of. Because what's nearest +to us, often, one doesn't see it." + +"Yes, that's true," I say, rather weary of his monotonous complaining. + +I try a few words of consolation, knowing that he was recently married. +"After all, no one comes bothering you in your own little corner. +There's always that. And then, after all, you're going home--your wife +is waiting for you. You're lucky----" + +"I've no time; or rather, I've no strength. At nights, when I come +home I'm too tired--I'm too tired, you understand, to be happy, you +see. Every morning I think I shall be, and I'm hoping up till noon; +but at night I'm too knocked out, what with walking and rubbing for +eleven hours; and on Sundays I'm done in altogether with the week. +There's even times that I don't even wash myself when I come in. I +just stay with my hands mucky; and on Sundays when I'm cleaned up, it's +a nasty one when they say to me, 'You're looking well.'" + +And while I am listening to the tragicomical recital which he retails, +like a soliloquy, without expecting replies from me--luckily, for I +should not know how to answer--I can, in fact, recall those holidays +when the face of Pétrolus is embellished by the visible marks of water. + +"Apart from that," he goes on, withdrawing his chin into the gray +string of his over-large collar; "apart from that, Charlotte, she's +very good. She looks after me, and tidies the house, and it's her that +lights _our_ lamp; and she hides the books carefully away from me so's +I can't grease 'em, and my fingers make prints on 'em like criminals. +She's good, but it doesn't turn out well, same as I've told you, and +when one's unhappy everything's favorable to being unhappy." + +He is silent for a while, and then adds by way of conclusion to all he +has said, and to all that one can say, "_My_ father, he caved in at +fifty. And I shall cave in at fifty, p'raps before." + +With his thumb he points through the twilight at that sort of indelible +darkness which makes the multitude, "Them others, it's not the same +with them. There's those that want to change everything and keep going +on that notion. There's those that drink and want to drink, and keep +going that way." + +I hardly listen to him while he explains to me the grievances of the +different groups of workmen, "The molders, monsieur, them, it's a +matter of the gangs----" + +Just now, while looking at the population of the factory, I was almost +afraid; it seemed to me that these toilers were different sorts of +beings from the detached and impecunious people who live around me. +When I look at this one I say to myself, "They are the same; they are +all alike." + +In the distance, and together, they strike fear, and their combination +is a menace; but near by they are only the same as this one. One must +not look at them in the distance. + +Pétrolus gets excited; he makes gestures; he punches in and punches out +again with his fist, the hat which is stuck askew on his conical head, +over the ears that are pointed like artichoke leaves. He is in front +of me, and each of his soles is pierced by a valve which draws in water +from the saturated ground. + +"The unions, monsieur----" he cries to me in the wind, "why, it's +dangerous to point at them. You haven't the right to think any +more--that's what they call liberty. If you're in _them_, you've got +to be agin the parsons--(I'm willing, but what's that got to do with +labor?)--and there's something more serious," the lamp-man adds, in a +suddenly changed voice, "you've got to be agin the army,--the _army_!" + +And now the poor slave of the lamp seems to take a resolution. He +stops and devotionally rolling his Don Quixote eyes in his gloomy, +emaciated face, he says, "_I'm_ always thinking about something. What? +you'll say. Well, here it is. I belong to the League of Patriots." + +As they brighten still more, his eyes are like two live embers in the +darkness, "Déroulède!" he cries; "that's the man--he's _my_ God!" + +Pétrolus raises his voice and gesticulates; he makes great movements in +the night at the vision of his idol, to whom his leanness and his long +elastic arms give him some resemblance. "He's for war; he's for +Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing +else. Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear +off the earth, else it'll be us. Ah, when they talk politics to _me_, +I ask 'em, 'Are you for Déroulède, yes or no?' That's enough! I got +my schooling any old how, and I know next to nothing but I reckon it's +grand, only to think like that, and in the Reserves I'm +adjutant[1]--almost an officer, monsieur, just a lamp-man as I am!" + +[Footnote 1: A non-com., approximately equivalent to regimental +sergeant-major.--Tr.] + +He tells me, almost in shouts and signs, because of the wind across the +open, that his worship dates from a function at which Paul Déroulède +had spoken to him. "He spoke to everybody, an' then he spoke to me, as +close to me as you and me; but it was _him_! I wanted an idea, and he +gave it to me!" + +"Very good," I say to him; "very good. You are a patriot, that's +excellent." + +I feel that the greatness of this creed surpasses the selfish demands +of labor--although I have never had the time to think much about these +things--and it strikes me as touching and noble. + +A last fiery spasm gets hold of Pétrolus as he espies afar Eudo's +pointed house, and he cries that on the great day of revenge there will +be some accounts to settle; and then the fervor of this ideal-bearer +cools and fades, and is spent along the length of the roads. He is now +no more than a poor black bantam which cannot possibly take wing. His +face mournfully awakes to the evening. He shuffles along, bows his +long and feeble spine, and his spirit and his strength exhausted, he +approaches the porch of his house, where Madame Marcassin awaits him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SUMMARY + + +The workmen manifest mistrust and even dislike towards me. Why? I +don't know; but my good intentions have gradually got weary. + +One after another, sundry women have occupied my life. Antonia Véron +was first. Her marriage and mine, their hindrance and restriction, +threw us back upon each other as of yore. We found ourselves alone one +day in my house--where nothing ever used to happen, and she offered me +her lips, irresistibly. The appeal of her sensuality was answered by +mine, then, and often later. But the pleasure constantly restored, +which impelled me towards her, always ended in dismal enlightenments. +She remained a capricious and baffling egotist, and when I came away +from her house across the dark suburb among a host of beings vanishing, +like myself, I only brought away the memory of her nervous and +irritating laugh, and that new wrinkle which clung to her mouth like an +implement. + +Then younger desires destroyed the old, and gallant adventures begot +one another. It is all over with this one and that one whom I adored. +When I see them again, I wonder that I can say, at one and the same +time, of a being who has not changed, "How I loved her!" and, "How I +have ceased to love her!" + +All the while performing as a duty my daily task, all the while taking +suitable precautions so that Marie may not know and may not suffer, I +am looking for the happiness which lives. And truly, when I have a +sense of some new assent wavering and making ready, or when I am on the +way to a first rendezvous, I feel myself gloriously uplifted, and equal +to everything! + +This fills my life. Desire wears the brain as much as thought wears +it. All my being is agog for chances to shine and to be shared. When +they say in my presence of some young woman that, "she is not happy," a +thrill of joy tears through me. + +On Sundays, among the crowds, I have often felt my heart tighten with +distress as I watch the unknown women. Reverie has often held me all +day because of one who has gone by and disappeared, leaving me a clear +vision of her curtained room, and of herself, vibrating like a harp. +She, perhaps, was the one I should have always loved; she whom I seek +gropingly, desperately, from each to the next. Ah, what a delightful +thing to see and to think of a distant woman always is, whoever she may +be! + +There are moments when I suffer, and am to be pitied. Assuredly, if +one could read me really, no one would pity me. And yet all men are +like me. If they are gifted with acceptable physique they dream of +headlong adventures, they attempt them, and our heart never stands +still. But no one acknowledges that, no one, ever. + +Then, there were the women who turned me a cold shoulder; and among +them all Madame Pierron, a beautiful and genteel woman of twenty-five +years, with her black fillets and her marble profile, who still +retained the obvious awkwardness and vacant eye of young married women. +Tranquil, staid and silent, she came and went and lived, totally blind +to my looks of admiration. + +This perfect unconcern aggravated my passion. I remember my pangs one +morning in June, when I saw some feminine linen spread upon the green +hedge within her garden. The delicate white things marshaled there +were waiting, stirred by the leaves and the breeze; so that Spring lent +them frail shape and sweetness--and life. I remember, too, a gaunt +house, scorching in the sun, and a window which flashed and then shut! +The window stayed shut, like a slab. All the world was silent; and +that splendid living being was walled up there. And last, I have +recollection of an evening when, in the bluish and dark green and +chalky landscape of the town and its rounded gardens, I saw that window +lighted up. A narrow glimmer of rose and gold was enframed there, and +I could distinguish, leaning on the sill that overhung the town, in the +heart of that resplendence, a feminine form which stirred before my +eyes in inaccessible forbearance. Long did I watch with shaking knees +that window dawning upon space, as the shepherd watches the rising of +Venus. That evening, when I had come in and was alone for a +moment--Marie was busy below in the kitchen--alone in our unattractive +room, I retired to the starry window, beset by immense thoughts. These +spaces, these separations, these incalculable durations--they all +reduce us to dust, they all have a sort of fearful splendor from which +we seek defense in our hiding. + +* * * * * * + +I have not retained a definite recollection of a period of jealousy +from which I suffered for a year. From certain facts, certain profound +changes of mood in Marie, it seemed to me that there was some one +between her and me. But beyond vague symptoms and these terrible +reflections on her, I never knew anything. The truth, everywhere +around me, was only a phantom of truth. I experienced acute internal +wounds of humiliation and shame, of rebellion! I struggled feebly, as +well as I could, against a mystery too great for me, and then my +suspicions wore themselves out. I fled from the nightmare, and by a +strong effort I forgot it. Perhaps my imputations had no basis; but it +is curious how one ends in only believing what one wants to believe. + +* * * * * * + +Something which had been plotting a long while among the Socialist +extremists suddenly produced a stoppage of work at the factory, and +this was followed by demonstrations which rolled through the terrified +town. Everywhere the shutters went up. The business people blotted +out their shops, and the town looked like a tragic Sunday. + +"It's a revolution!" said Marie to me, turning pale, as Benoît cried to +us from the step of our porch the news that the workmen were marching. +"How does it come about that you knew nothing at the factory?" + +An hour later we learned that a delegation composed of the most +dangerous ringleaders was preceding the army of demonstrators, +commissioned to extort outrageous advantages, with threats, from +Messrs. Gozlan. + +Our quarter had a loose and dejected look. People went furtively, +seeking news, and doors half opened regretfully. Here and there groups +formed and lamented in undertones the public authority's lack of +foresight, the insufficient measures for preserving order. + +Rumors were peddled about on the progress of the demonstration. + +"They're crossing the river." + +"They're at the Calvary cross-roads." + +"It's a march against the castle!" + +I went into Fontan's. He was not there, and some men were talking in +the twilight of the closed shutters. + +"The Baroness is in a dreadful way. She's seen a dark mass in the +distance. Some young men of the aristocracy have armed themselves and +are guarding her. She says it's another Jacquerie[1] rising!" + +[Footnote 1: A terrible insurrection of the French peasantry in +1358.--Tr.] + +"Ah, my God! What a mess!" said Crillon. + +"It's the beginning of the end!" asserted old Daddy Ponce, shaking his +grayish-yellow forehead, all plaited with wrinkles. + +Time went by--still no news. What are they doing yonder? What shall +we hear next? + +At last, towards three o'clock Postaire is framed in the doorway, +sweating and exultant. "It's over! It's all right, my lad!" he gasps; +"I can vouch for it that they all arrived together at the Gozlans' +villa. Messrs. Gozlan were there. The delegates, I can vouch for it +that they started shouting and threatening, my lad! 'Never mind that!' +says one of the Messrs. Gozlan, 'let's have a drink first; I'll vouch +for it we'll talk better after!' There was a table and champagne, I'll +vouch for it. They gave 'em it to drink, and then some more and then +some more. I'll vouch for it they sent themselves something down, my +lad, into their waistcoats. I can vouch for it that the bottles of +champagne came like magic out of the ground. Fontan kept always +bringing them as though he was coining them. Got to admit it was an +extra-double-special guaranteed champagne, that you want to go cautious +with. So then, after three-quarters of an hour, nearly all the +deputation were drunk. They spun round, tongue-tied, and embraced each +other,--I can vouch for it. There were some that stuck it, but they +didn't count, my lad! The others didn't even know what they'd come +for. And the bosses; they'd had a fright, and they didn't half wriggle +and roar with laughing--I'll vouch for it, my lad! An' then, +to-morrow, if they want to start again, there'll be troops here!" + +Joyful astonishment--the strike had been drowned in wine! And we +repeated to each other, "To-morrow there'll be the military!" + +"Ah!" gaped Crillon, rolling wonder-struck eyes, "That's clever! Good; +that's clever, that is! Good, old chap----" + +He laughed a heavy, vengeful laugh, and repeated his familiar refrain +full-throated: "The sovereign people that can't stand on its own +legs!" + +By the side of a few faint-hearted citizens who had already, since the +morning, modified their political opinions, a great figure rises before +my eyes--Fontan. I remember that night, already long ago, when a +chance glimpse through the vent-hole of his cellar showed me shiploads +of bottles of champagne heaped together, and pointed like shells. For +some future day he foresaw to-day's victory. He is really clever, he +sees clearly and he sees far. He has rescued law and order by a sort +of genius. + +The constraint which has weighed all day on our gestures and words +explodes in delight. Noisily we cast off that demeanor of conspirators +which has bent our shoulders since morning. The windows that were +closed during the weighty hours of the insurrection are opened wide; +the houses breathe again. + +"We're saved from that gang!" people say, when they approach each +other. + +This feeling of deliverance pervades the most lowly. On the step of +the little blood-red restaurant I spy Monsieur Mielvaque, hopping for +joy. He is shivering, too, in his thin gray coat, cracked with +wrinkles, that looks like wrapping paper; and one would say that his +dwindled face had at long last caught the hue of the folios he +desperately copies among his long days and his short nights, to pick up +some sprigs of extra pay. There he stands, not daring to enter the +restaurant (for a reason he knows too well); but how delighted he is +with the day's triumph for society! And Mademoiselle Constantine, the +dressmaker, incurably poor and worn away by her sewing-machine, is +overjoyed. She opens wide the eyes which seem eternally full of tears, +and in the grayish abiding half-mourning of imperfect cleanliness, in +pallid excitement, she claps her hands. + +Marie and I can hear the furious desperate hammering of Brisbille in +his forge, and we begin to laugh as we have not laughed for a long +time. + +At night, before going to sleep, I recall my former democratic fancies. +Thank God, I have escaped from a great peril! I can see it clearly by +the terror which the workmen's menace spread in decent circles, and by +the universal joy which greeted their recoil! My deepest tendencies +take hold of me again for good, and everything settles down as before. + +* * * * * * + +Much time has gone by. It is ten years now since I was married, and in +that lapse of time there is hardly a happening that I remember, unless +it be the disillusion of the death of Marie's rich godmother, who left +us nothing. There was the failure of the Pocard scheme, which was only +a swindle and ruined many small people. Politics pervaded the scandal, +while certain people hurried with their money to Monsieur Boulaque, +whose scheme was much more safe and substantial. There was also my +father-in-law's illness and his death, which was a great shock to +Marie, and put us into black clothes. + +I have not changed. Marie _has_ somewhat. She has got stouter; her +eyelids look tired and red, and she buries herself in silences. We are +no longer quite in accord in details of our life. She who once always +said "Yes," is now primarily disposed to say "No." If I insist she +defends her opinion, obstinately, sourly; and sometimes dishonestly. +For example, in the matter of pulling down the partition downstairs, if +people had heard our high voices they would have thought there was a +quarrel. Following some of our discussions, she keeps her face +contracted and spiteful, or assumes the martyr's air, and sometimes +there are moments of hatred between us. + +Often she says, while talking of something else, "Ah, if we had had a +child, all would have been different!" + +I am becoming personally negligent, through a sort of idleness, against +which I have not sufficient grounds for reaction. When we are by +ourselves, at meal times, my hands are sometimes questionable. From +day to day, and from month to month, I defer going to the dentist and +postpone the attention required. I am allowing my molars to get +jagged. + +Marie never shows any jealousy, nor even suspicion about my personal +adventures. Her trust is almost excessive! She is not very +far-seeing, or else I am nothing very much to her, and I have a grudge +against her for this indifference. + +And now I see around me women who are too young to love me. That most +positive of obstacles, the age difference, begins to separate me from +the amorous. And yet I am not surfeited with love, and I yearn towards +youth! Marthe, my little sister-in-law, said to me one day, "Now that +you're old----" That a child of fifteen years, so freshly dawned and +really new, can bring herself to pass this artless judgment on a man of +thirty-five--that is fate's first warning, the first sad day which +tells us at midsummer that winter will come. + +One evening, as I entered the room, I indistinctly saw Marie, sitting +and musing by the window. As I came in she got up--it was Marthe! The +light from the sky, pale as a dawn, had blenched the young girl's +golden hair and turned the trace of a smile on her cheek into something +like a wrinkle. Cruelly, the play of the light showed her face faded +and her neck flabby; and because she had been yawning, even her eyes +were watery, and for some seconds the lids were sunk and reddened. + +The resemblance of the two sisters tortured me. This little Marthe, +with her luxurious and appetizing color, her warm pink cheeks and moist +lips; this plump adolescent whose short skirt shows her curving calves, +is an affecting picture of what Marie was. It is a sort of terrible +revelation. In truth Marthe resembles, more than the Marie of to-day +does, the Marie whom I formerly loved; the Marie who came out of the +unknown, whom I saw one evening sitting on the rose-tree seat, shining, +silent--in the presence of love. + +It required a great effort on my part not to try, weakly and vainly, to +approach Marthe--the impossible dream, the dream of dreams! She has a +little love affair with a youngster hardly molted into adolescence, and +rather absurd, whom one catches sight of now and again as he slips away +from her side; and that day when she sang so much in spite of herself, +it was because a little rival was ill. I am as much a stranger to her +girlish growing triumph and to her thoughts as if I were her enemy! +One morning when she was capering and laughing, flower-crowned, at the +doorstep, she looked to me like a being from another world. + +* * * * * * + +One winter's day, when Marie had gone out and I was arranging my +papers, I found a letter I had written not long before, but had not +posted, and I threw the useless document on the fire. When Marie came +back in the evening, she settled herself in front of the fire to dry +herself, and to revive it for the room's twilight; and the letter, +which had been only in part consumed, took fire again. And suddenly +there gleamed in the night a shred of paper with a shred of my +writing--"_I love you as much as you love me_!" + +And it was so clear, the inscription that flamed in the darkness, that +it was not worth while even to attempt an explanation. + +We could not speak, nor even look at each other! In the fatal +communion of thought which seized us just then, we turned aside from +each other, even shadow-veiled as we were. We fled from the truth! In +these great happenings we become strangers to each other for the reason +that we never knew each other profoundly. We are vaguely separated on +earth from everybody else, but we are mightily distant from our +nearest. + +* * * * * * + +After all these things, my former life resumed its indifferent course. +Certainly I am not so unhappy as they who have the bleeding wound of a +bereavement or remorse, but I am not so delighted with life as I once +hoped to be. Ah, men's love and women's beauty are too short-lived in +this world; and yet, is it not only thereby that we and they exist? It +might be said that love, so pure a thing, the only one worth while in +life, is a crime, since it is always punished sooner or later. I do +not understand. We are a pitiful lot; and everywhere about us--in our +movements, within our walls, and from hour to hour, there is a stifling +mediocrity. Fate's face is gray. + +Notwithstanding, my personal position has established itself and +progressively improved. I am getting three hundred and sixty francs a +month, and besides, I have a share in the profits of the litigation +office--about fifty francs a month. It is a year and a half since I +was stagnating in the little glass office, to which Monsieur Mielvaque +has been promoted, succeeding me. Nowadays they say to me, "You're +lucky!" They envy me--who once envied so many people. It astonishes +me at first, then I get used to it. + +I have restored my political plans, but this time I have a rational and +normal policy in view. I am nominated to succeed Crillon in the Town +Council. There, no doubt, I shall arrive sooner or later. I continue +to become a personality by the force of circumstances, without my +noticing it, and without any real interest in me on the part of those +around me. + +Quite a piece of my life has now gone by. When sometimes I think of +that, I am surprised at the length of the time elapsed; at the number +of the days and the years that are dead. It has come quickly, and +without much change in myself on the other hand; and I turn away from +that vision, at once real and supernatural. And yet, in spite of +myself, my future appears before my eyes--and its end. My future will +resemble my past; it does so already. I can dimly see all my life, +from one end to the other, all that I am, all that I shall have been. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BRAWLER + + +At the time of the great military maneuvers of September, 1913, Viviers +was an important center of the operations. All the district was +brightened with a swarming of red and blue and with martial ardor. + +Alone and systematically, Brisbille was the reviler. From the top of +Chestnut Hill, where we were watching a strategical display, he pointed +at the military mass. "Maneuvers, do they call them? I could die of +laughing! The red caps have dug trenches and the white-band caps have +bunged 'em up again. Take away the War Office, and you've only kids' +games left." + +"It's war!" explained an influential military correspondent, who was +standing by. + +Then the journalist talked with a colleague about the Russians. + +"The Russians!" Brisbille broke in; "when they've formed a +republic----" + +"He's a simpleton," said the journalist, smiling. + +The inebriate jumped astride his hobby horse. "War me no war, it's all +lunacy! And look, look--look at those red trousers that you can see +miles away! They must do it on purpose for soldiers to be killed, that +they don't dress 'em in the color of nothing at all!" + +A lady could not help breaking in here: "What?" Change our little +soldiers' red trousers? Impossible! There's no good reason for it. +They would never consent! They would rebel." + +"Egad!" said a young officer; "why we should all throw up our +commissions! And any way, the red trousers are not the danger one +thinks. If they were as visible as all that, the High Command would +have noticed it and would have taken steps--just for field service, and +without interfering with the parade uniform!" + +The regimental sergeant-major cut the discussion short as he turned to +Brisbille with vibrant scorn and said, "When the Day of Revenge comes, +_we_ shall have to be there to defend _you_!" + +And Brisbille only uttered a shapeless reply, for the sergeant-major +was an athlete, and gifted with a bad temper, especially when others +were present. + +The castle was quartering a Staff. Hunting parties were given for the +occasion in the manorial demesne, and passing processions of bedizened +guests were seen. Among the generals and nobles shone an Austrian +prince of the blood royal, who bore one of the great names in the +Almanach de Gotha, and who was officially in France to follow the +military operations. + +The presence of the Baroness's semi-Imperial guest caused a great +impression of historic glamour to hover over the country. His name was +repeated; his windows were pointed out in the middle of the principal +front, and one thought himself lucky if he saw the curtains moving. +Many families of poor people detached themselves from their quarters in +the evenings to take up positions before the wall behind which he was. + +Marie and I, we were close to him twice. + +One evening after dinner, we met him as one meets any passer-by among +the rest. He was walking alone, covered by a great gray waterproof. +His felt hat was adorned with a short feather. He displayed the +characteristic features of his race--a long turned-down nose and a +receding chin. + +When he had gone by, Marie and I said, both at the same time, and a +little dazzled, "An eagle!" + +We saw him again at the end of a stag-hunt. They had driven a stag +into the Morteuil forest. The _mort_ took place in a clearing in the +park, near the outer wall. The Baroness, who always thought of the +townsfolk, had ordered the little gate to be opened which gives into +this part of the demesne, so that the public could be present at the +spectacle. + +It was imperious and pompous. The scene one entered, on leaving the +sunny fields and passing through the gate, was a huge circle of dark +foliage in the heart of the ancient forest. At first, one saw only the +majestic summits of mountainous trees, like peaks and globes lost amid +the heavens, which on all sides overhung the clearing and bathed it in +twilight almost green. + +In this lordly solemnity of nature, down among the grass, moss and dead +wood, there flowed a contracted but brilliant concourse around the +final preparations for the execution of the stag. + +The animal was kneeling on the ground, weak and overwhelmed. We +pressed round, and eyes were thrust forward between heads and shoulders +to see him. One could make out the gray thicket of his antlers, his +great lolling tongue, and the enormous throb of his heart, agitating +his exhausted body. A little wounded fawn clung to him, bleeding +abundantly, flowing like a spring. + +Round about it the ceremony was arranged in several circles. The +beaters, in ranks, made a glaring red patch in the moist green +atmosphere. The hunters, men and women, all dismounted, in scarlet +coats and black hats, crowded together. Apart, the saddle and tackle +horses snorted, with creaking of leather and jingle of metal. Kept at +a respectful distance by a rope extended hastily on posts, the +inquisitive crowd flowed and increased every instant. + +The blood which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and +one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, +pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of +the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching +head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held +back with difficulty, and that of the little one, cowering beside him +and dying with gaping throat, would have been touching had one given +way to sentiment. + +I noticed that the imminent slaying of the stag excited a certain +curious fever. Around me the women and young girls especially elbowed +and wriggled their way to the front, and shuddered, and were glad. + +They cut the throats of the beasts, the big and the little, amid +absolute and religious silence, the silence of a sacrament. Madame +Lacaille vibrated from head to foot. Marie was calm, but there was a +gleam in her eyes; and little Marthe, who was hanging on to me, dug her +nails into my arm. The prince was prominent on our side, watching the +last act of the run. He had remained in the saddle. He was more +splendidly red than the others--empurpled, it seemed, by reflections +from a throne. He spoke in a loud voice, like one who is accustomed to +govern and likes to discourse; and his outline had the very form of +bidding. He expressed himself admirably in our language, of which he +knew the intimate graduations. I heard him saying, "These great +maneuvers, after all, they're a sham. It's music-hall war, directed by +scene-shifters. Hunting's better, because there's blood. We get too +much unaccustomed to blood, in our prosaic, humanitarian, and bleating +age. Ah, as long as the nations love hunting, I shall not despair of +them!" + +Just then, the crash of the horns and the thunder of the pack released +drowned all other sounds. The prince, erect in his stirrups, and +raising his proud head and his tawny mustache above the bloody and +cringing mob of the hounds, expanded his nostrils and seemed to sniff a +battlefield. + +The next day, when a few of us were chatting together in the street +near the sunken post where the old jam-pot lies, Benoît came up, full +of a tale to tell. Naturally it was about the prince. Benoît was +dejected and his lips were drawn and trembling. "He's killed a bear!" +said he, with glittering eye; "you should have seen it, ah! a tame +bear, of course. Listen--he was coming back from hunting with the +Marquis and Mademoiselle Berthe and some people behind. And he comes +on a wandering showman with a performing bear. A simpleton with long +black hair like feathers, and a bear that sat on its rump and did +little tricks and wore a belt. The prince had got his gun. I don't +know how it came about but the prince he got an idea. He said, 'I'd +like to kill that bear, as I do in my own hunting. Tell me, my good +fellow, how much shall I pay you for firing at the beast? You'll not +be a loser, I promise you.' The simpleton began to tremble and lift +his arms up in the air. He loved his bear! 'But my bear's the same as +my brother!' he says. Then do you know what the Marquis of Monthyon +did? He just simply took out his purse and opened it and put it under +the chap's nose; and all the smart hunting folk they laughed to see how +the simpleton changed when he saw all those bank notes. And naturally +he ended by nodding that it was a bargain, and he'd even seen so many +of the rustlers that he turned from crying to laughing! Then the +prince loaded his gun at ten paces from the bear and killed it with one +shot, my boy; just when he was rocking left and right, and sitting up +like a man. You ought to have seen it! There weren't a lot there; but +_I_ was there!" + +The story made an impression. No one spoke at first. Then some one +risked the opinion. "No doubt they do things like that in Hungary or +Bohemia, or where he reigns. You wouldn't see it here," he added, +innocently. + +"He's from Austria," Tudor corrected. + +"Yes," muttered Crillon, "but whether he's Austrian or whether he's +Bohemian or Hungarian, he's a grandee, so he's got the right to do what +he likes, eh?" + +Eudo looked as if he would intervene at this point and was seeking +words. (Not long before that he had had the queer notion of sheltering +and nursing a crippled hind that had escaped from a previous run, and +his act had given great displeasure in high places.) So as soon as he +opened his mouth we made him shut it. The idea of Eudo in judgment on +princes! + +And the rest lowered their heads and nodded and murmured, "Yes, he's a +grandee." + +And the little phrase spread abroad, timidly and obscurely. + +* * * * * * + +When All Saints' Day came round, many of the distinguished visitors at +the castle were still there. Every year that festival gives us +occasion for an historical ceremony on the grand scale. At two o'clock +all the townsfolk that matter gather with bunches of flowers on the +esplanade or in front of the cemetery half-way up Chestnut Hill, for +the ceremony and an open air service. + +Early in the afternoon I betook myself with Marie to the scene. I put +on a fancy waistcoat of black and white check and my new patent leather +boots, which make me look at them. It is fine weather on this Sunday +of Sundays, and the bells are ringing. Everywhere the hurrying crowd +climbs the hill--peasants in flat caps, working families in their best +clothes, young girls with faces white and glossy as the bridal satin +which is the color of their thoughts, young men carrying jars of +flowers. All these appear on the esplanade, where graying lime trees +are also in assembly. Children are sitting on the ground. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, in black, with his supremely distinguished air, +goes by holding his mother's arm. I bow deeply to them. He points at +the unfolding spectacle as he passes and says, "It is our race's +festival." + +The words made me look more seriously at the scene before my eyes--all +this tranquil and contemplative stir in the heart of festive nature. +Reflection and the vexations of my life have mellowed my mind. The +idea at last becomes clear in my brain of an entirety, an immense +multitude in space, and infinite in time, a multitude of which I am an +integral part, which has shaped me in its image, which continues to +keep me like it, and carries me along its control; my own people. + +Baroness Grille, in the riding habit that she almost always wears when +mixing with the people, is standing near the imposing entry to the +cemetery. Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon is holding aloft his +stately presence, his handsome and energetic face. Solid and sporting, +with dazzling shirt cuffs and fine ebon-black shoes, he parades a +smile. There is an M.P. too, a former Minister, very assiduous, who +chats with the old duke. There are the Messrs. Gozlan and famous +people whose names one does not know. Members of the Institute of the +great learned associations, or people fabulously wealthy. + +Not far from these groups, which are divided from the rest by a scarlet +barrier of beaters and the flashing chain of their slung horns, arises +Monsieur Fontan. The huge merchant and café-owner occupies an +intermediate and isolated place between principals and people. His +face is disposed in fat white tiers, like a Buddha's belly. +Monumentally motionless he says nothing at all, but he tranquilly spits +all around him. He radiates saliva. + +And for this ceremony, which seems like an apotheosis, all the notables +of our quarter are gathered together, as well as those of the other +quarter, who seem different and are similar. + +We elbow the ordinary types. Apolline goes crabwise. She is in new +things, and has sprinkled Eau-de-Cologne on her skin; her eye is +bright; her face well-polished; her ears richly adorned. She is always +rather dirty, and her wrists might be branches, but she has cotton +gloves. There are some shadows in the picture, for Brisbille has come +with his crony, Termite, so that his offensive and untidy presence may +be a protest. There is another blot--a working man's wife, who speaks +at their meetings; people point at her. "What's that woman doing +here?" + +"She doesn't believe in God," says some one. + +"Ah," says a mother standing by, "that's because she has no children." + +"Yes, she's got two." + +"Then," says the poor woman, "it's because they've never been ill." + +Here is little Antoinette and the old priest is holding her hand. She +must be fifteen or sixteen years old by now, and she has not grown--or, +at least, one has not noticed it. Father Piot, always white, gentle +and murmurous, has shrunk a little; more and more he leans towards the +tomb. Both of them proceed in tiny steps. + +"They're going to cure her, it seems. They're seeing to it seriously." + +"Yes--the extraordinary secret remedy they say they're going to try." + +"No, it's not that now. It's the new doctor who's come to live here, +and he says, they say, that he's going to see about it." + +"Poor little angel!" + +The almost blind child, whose Christian name alone one knows, and whose +health is the object of so much solicitude, goes stiffly by, as if she +were dumb also, and deaf to all the prayers that go on with her. + +After the service some one comes forward and begins to speak. He is an +old man, an officer of the Legion of Honor; his voice is weak but his +face noble. + +He speaks of the Dead, whose day this is. He explains to us that we +are not separated from them; not only by reason of the future life and +our sacred creeds, but because our life on earth must be purely and +simply a continuation of theirs. We must do as they did, and believe +what they believed, else shall we fall into error and utopianism. We +are all linked to each other and with the past; we are bound together +by an entirety of traditions and precepts. Our normal destiny, so +adequate to our nature, must be allowed to fulfill itself along the +indicated path, without hearkening to the temptations of novelty, of +hate, of envy--of envy above all, that social cancer, that enemy of the +great civic virtue--Discipline. + +He ceases. The echo of the great magnificent words floats in the +silence. Everybody does not understand all that has just been said; +but all have a deep impression that the text is one of simplicity, of +moderation, of obedience, and foreheads move altogether in the breath +of the phrases like a field in the breeze. + +"Yes," says Crillon, pensively, "he speaks to confection, that +gentleman. All that one thinks about, you can see it come out of his +mouth. Common sense and reverence, we're attached to 'em by +something." + +"We are attached to them by orderliness," says Joseph Bonéas. + +"The proof that it's the truth," Crillon urges, "is that it's in the +dissertions of everybody." + +"To be sure!" says Benoît, going a bit farther, "since everybody says +it, and it's become a general repetition!" + +The good old priest, in the center of an attentive circle, is +unstringing a few observations. "Er, hem," he says, "one should not +blaspheme. Ah, if there were not a good God, there would be many +things to say; but so long as there is a good God, all that happens is +adorable, as Monseigneur said. We shall make things better, certainly. +Poverty and public calamities and war, we shall change all that, we +shall set those things to rights, er, hem! But let us alone, above +all, and don't concern yourselves with it--you would spoil everything, +my children. _We_ shall do all that, but not immediately." + +"Quite so, quite so," we say in chorus. + +"Can we be happy all at once," the old man goes on; "change misery into +joy, and poverty into riches? Come now, it's not possible, and I'll +tell you why; if it had been as easy as all that, it would have been +done already, wouldn't it?" + +The bells begin to ring. The four strokes of the hour are just falling +from the steeple which the rising mists touch already, though the +evening makes use of it last of all; and just then one would say that +the church is beginning to talk even while it is singing. + +The important people get onto their horses or into their carriages and +go away--a cavalcade where uniforms gleam and gold glitters. We can +see the procession of the potentates of the day outlined on the crest +of the hill which is full of our dead. They climb and disappear, one +by one. _Our_ way is downward; but we form--they above and we +below--one and the same mass, all visible together. + +"It's fine!" says Marie, "it looks as if they were galloping over us!" + +They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal +framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past +which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions. + +And we, we are all alike, in spite of our different minds; alike in the +greatness of our common interests and even in the littleness of our +personal aims. I have become increasingly conscious of this close +concord of the masses beneath a huge and respect-inspiring hierarchy. +It permits a sort of lofty consolation and is exactly adapted to a life +like mine. This evening, by the light of the setting sun, I see it and +read it and admire it. + +All together we go down by the fields where tranquil corn is growing, +by the gardens and orchards where homely trees are making ready their +offerings--the scented blossom which lends, the fruit which gives +itself. They form an immense plain, sloping and darkling, with brown +undulations under the blue which now alone is becoming green. A little +girl, who has come from the spring, puts down her bucket and stands at +the roadside like a post, looking with all her eyes. She looks at the +marching multitude with beaming curiosity. Her littleness embraces +that immensity, because it is all a part of Order. A peasant who has +stuck to his work in spite of the festival and is bent over the deep +shadows of his field, raises himself from the earth which is so like +him, and turns towards the golden sun the shining monstrance of his +face. + +* * * * * * + +But what is this--this sort of madman, who stands in the middle of the +road and looks as if, all by himself, he would bar the crowd's passage? +We recognize Brisbille, swaying tipsily in the twilight. There is an +eddy and a muttering in the flow. + +"D'you want to know where all that's leading you?" he roars, and +nothing more can be heard but his voice. "It's leading you to hell! +It's the old rotten society, with the profiteering of all them that +can, and the stupidity of the rest! To hell, I tell you! To-morrow +look out for yourselves! To-morrow!" + +A woman's voice cries from out of the shadows, in a sort of scuffle, +"Be quiet, wicked man! You've no right to frighten folks!" + +But the drunkard continues to shout full-throated, "To-morrow! +To-morrow! D'you think things will always go on like that? You're fit +for killing! To hell!" + +Some people are impressed and disappear into the evening. Those who +are marking time around the obscure fanatic are growling, "He's not +only bad, he's mad, the dirty beast!" + +"It's disgraceful," says the young curate. + +Brisbille goes up to him. "_You_ tell me, then, _you_, what'll happen +very soon--Jesuit, puppet, land-shark! We know you, you and your +filthy, poisonous trade!" + +"_Say that again_!" + +It was I who said that. Leaving Marie's arm instinctively I sprang +forward and planted myself before the sinister person. After the +horrified murmur which followed the insult, a great silence had fallen +on the scene. + +Astounded, and his face suddenly filling with fear, Brisbille stumbles +and beats a retreat. + +The crowd regains confidence, and laughs, and congratulates me, and +reviles the back of the man who is sinking in the stream. + +"You were fine!" Marie said to me when I took her arm again, slightly +trembling. + +I returned home elated by my energetic act, still all of a tremor, +proud and happy. I have obeyed the prompting of my blood. It was the +great ancestral instinct which made me clench my fists and throw myself +bodily, like a weapon, upon the enemy of all. + +After dinner, naturally, I went to the military tattoo, at which, by an +unpardonable indifference, I have not regularly been present, although +these patriotic demonstrations have been organized by Monsieur Joseph +Bonéas and his League of Avengers. A long-drawn shudder, shrill and +sonorous, took flight through the main streets, filling the spectators +and especially the young folks, with enthusiasm for the great and +glorious deeds of the future. And Pétrolus, in the front row of the +crowd, was striding along in the crimson glow of the fairy-lamps--clad +in a visionary uniform of red. + +I remember that I talked a great deal that evening in our quarter, and +then in the house. Our quarter is something like all towns, something +like all country-sides, something like it is everywhere--it is a +foreshortened picture of all societies in the old universe, as my life +is a picture of life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE STORM + + +"There's going to be war," said Benoît, on our doorsteps in July. + +"No," said Crillon, who was there, too, "I know well enough there'll be +war some day, seeing there's always been war after war since the world +was a world, and therefore there'll be another; but just now--at +once--a big job like that? Nonsense! It's not true. No." + +Some days went by, tranquilly, as days do. Then the great story +reappeared, increased and branched out in all directions. Austria, +Serbia, the ultimatum, Russia. The notion of war was soon everywhere. +You could see it distracting men and slackening their pace in the going +and coming of work. One divined it behind the doors and windows of the +houses. + +One Saturday evening, when Marie and I--like most of the French--did +not know what to think, and talked emptily, we heard the town crier, +who performs in our quarter, as in the villages. + +"Ah!" she said. + +We went out and saw in the distance the back of the man who was tapping +a drum. His smock was ballooned. He seemed pushed aslant by the wind, +stiffening himself in the summer twilight to sound his muffled roll. +Although we could not see him well and scarcely heard him, his progress +through the street had something grand about it. + +Some people grouped in a corner said to us, "The mobilization." + +No other word left their lips. I went from group to group to form an +opinion, but people drew back with sealed faces, or mechanically raised +their arms heavenwards. And we knew no better what to think now that +we were at last informed. + +We went back into the court, the passage, the room, and then I said to +Marie, "I go on the ninth day--a week, day after to-morrow--to my depot +at Motteville." + +She looked at me, as though doubtful. + +I took my military pay book from the wardrobe and opened it on the +table. Leaning against each other, we looked chastely at the red page +where the day of my joining was written, and we spelled it all out as +if we were learning to read. + +Next day and the following days everybody went headlong to meet the +newspapers. We read in them--and under their different titles they +were then all alike--that a great and unanimous upspringing was +electrifying France, and the little crowd that we were felt itself also +caught by the rush of enthusiasm and resolution. We looked at each +other with shining eyes of approval. I, too, I heard myself cry, "At +last!" All our patriotism rose to the surface. + +Our quarter grew fevered. We made speeches, we proclaimed the moral +verities--or explained them. The echoes of vast or petty news went by +in us. In the streets, the garrison officers walked, grown taller, +disclosed. It was announced that Major de Trancheaux had rejoined, in +spite of his years, and that the German armies had attacked us in three +places at once. We cursed the Kaiser and rejoiced in his imminent +chastisement. In the middle of it all France appeared personified, and +we reflected on her great life, now suddenly and nakedly exposed. + +"It was easy to foresee this war, eh?" said Crillon. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas summarized the world-drama. We were all pacific +to the point of stupidity--little saints, in fact. No one in France +spoke any longer of revenge, nobody wished it, nobody thought of as +much as getting ready for war. We had all of us in our hearts only +dreams of universal happiness and progress, the while Germany secretly +prepared everything for hurling herself on us. "But," he added, he +also carried away, "she'll get it in the neck, and that's all about +it!" + +The desire for glory was making its way, and one cloudily imagines +Napoleon reborn. + +In these days, only the mornings and evenings returned as usual, +everything else was upside down, and seemed temporary. The workers +moved and talked in a desert of idleness, and one saw invisible changes +in the scenery of our valley and the cavity of our sky. + +We saw the Cuirassiers of the garrison go away in the evening. The +massive platoons of young-faced horsemen, whose solemn obstruction +heavily hammered the stones of the street, were separated by horses +loaded with bales of forage, by regimental wagons and baggage-carts, +which rattled unendingly. We formed a hedgerow along the twilight +causeways and watched them all disappear. Suddenly we cheered them. +The thrill that went through horses and men straightened them up and +they went away bigger--as if they were coming back! + +"It's magnificent, how warlike we are in France!" said fevered Marie, +squeezing my arm with all her might. + +The departures, of individuals or groups, multiplied. A sort of +methodical and inevitable tree-blazing--conducted sometimes by the +police--ransacked the population and thinned it from day to day around +the women. + +Increasing hurly-burly was everywhere--all the complicated measures so +prudently foreseen and so interdependent; the new posters on top of the +old ones, the requisitioning of animals and places, the committees and +the allowances, the booming and momentous gales of motor-cars filled +with officers and aristocratic nurses--so many lives turned inside out +and habits cut in two. But hope bedazzled all anxieties and stopped up +the gaps for the moment. And we admired the beauty of military +orderliness and France's preparation. + +Sometimes, at windows or street-corners, there were apparitions--people +covered with new uniforms. We had known them in vain, and did not know +them at first. Count d'Orchamp, lieutenant in the Active Reserves, and +Dr. Bardoux, town-major, displaying the cross of the Legion of Honor, +found themselves surrounded by respectful astonishment. Adjutant +Marcassin rose suddenly to the eyes as though he had come out of the +earth; Marcassin, brand-new, rigid, in blue and red, with his gold +stripe. One saw him afar, fascinating the groups of urchins who a week +ago threw stones at him. + +"The old lot--the little ones, and the middling ones and the big +ones--all getting new clothes!" says a triumphant woman of the people. + +Another said it was the coming of a new reign. + +* * * * * * + +From the Friday onwards I was engrossed by my own departure. It was +that day that we went to buy boots. We admired the beautiful +arrangement of the Cinema Hall as a Red Cross hospital. + +"They've thought of everything!" said Marie, examining the collection +of beds, furniture, and costly chests, rich and perfected material, all +arranged with delighted and very French animation by a team of +attendants who were under the orders of young Varennes, a pretty +hospital sergeant, and Monsieur Lucien Gozlan, superintendent officer. + +A center of life had created itself around the hospital. An open air +buffet had been set up in a twinkling. Apolline came there--since the +confusion of the mobilization all days were Sundays for her--to provide +herself with nips. We saw her hobbling along broadwise, hugging her +half-pint measure in her short turtle-like arms, the carrot slices of +her cheek-bones reddening as she already staggered with hope. + +On our way back, as we passed in front of Fontan's café, we caught a +glimpse of Fontan himself, assiduous, and his face lubricated with a +smile. Around him they were singing the Marseillaise in the smoke. He +had increased his staff, and he himself was making himself two, serving +and serving. His business was growing by the fatality of things. + +When we got back to our street, it was deserted, as of yore. The +faraway flutterings of the Marseillaise were dying. We heard +Brisbille, drunk, hammering with all his might on his anvil. The same +old shadows and the same lights were taking their places in the houses. +It seemed that ordinary life was coming back as it had been into our +corner after six days of supernatural disturbance, and that the past +was already stronger than the present. + +Before mounting our steps we saw, crouching in front of his shop door +by the light of a lamp that was hooded by whirling mosquitoes, the mass +of Crillon, who was striving to attach to a cudgel a flap for the +crushing of flies. Bent upon his work, his gaping mouth let hang the +half of a globular and shining tongue. Seeing us with our parcels, he +threw down his tackle, roared a sigh, and said, "That wood! It's +touchwood, yes. A butter-wire's the only thing for cutting that!" + +He stood up, discouraged; then changing his idea, and lighted from +below by his lamp so that he flamed in the evening, he extended his +tawny-edged arm and struck me on the shoulder. "We said war, war, all +along. Very well, we've got war, haven't we?" + +In our room I said to Marie, "Only three days left." + +Marie came and went and talked continually round me, all the time +sewing zinc buttons onto the new pouch, stiff with its dressing. She +seemed to be making an effort to divert me. She had on a blue blouse, +well-worn and soft, half open at the neck. Her place was a great one +in that gray room. + +She asked me if I should be a long time away, and then, as whenever she +put that question she went on, "Of course, you don't a bit know." She +regretted that I was only a private like everybody. She hoped it would +be over long before the winter. + +I did not speak. I saw that she was looking at me secretly, and she +surrounded me pell-mell with the news she had picked up. "D'you know, +the curate has gone as a private, no more nor less, like all the +clergy. And Monsieur the Marquis, who's a year past the age already, +has written to the Minister of War to put himself at his disposition, +and the Minister has sent a courier to thank him." She finished +wrapping up and tying some toilet items and also some provisions, as if +for a journey. "All your bits of things are there. You'll be +absolutely short of nothing, you see." + +Then she sat down and sighed. "Ah," she said, "war, after all, it's +more terrible than one imagines." + +She seemed to be having tragic presentiments. Her face was paler than +usual; the normal lassitude of her features was full of gentleness; her +eyelids were rosy as roses. Then she smiled weakly and said, "There +are some young men of eighteen who've enlisted, but only for the +duration of the war. They've done right; that'll be useful to them all +ways later in life." + +* * * * * * + +On Monday we hung about the house till four o'clock, when I left it to +go to the Town Hall, and then to the station. + +At the Town Hall a group of men, like myself, were stamping about. +They were loaded with parcels in string; new boots hung from their +shoulders. I went up to mix with my new companions. Tudor was topped +by an artilleryman's cap. Monsieur Mielvaque was bustling about, +embarrassed--exactly as at the factory--by the papers he held in his +hand; and he had exchanged his eyeglasses for spectacles, which stood +for the beginning of his uniform. Every man talked about himself, and +gave details concerning his regiment, his depot, and some personal +peculiarity. + +"I'm staying," says the adjutant master-at-arms, who rises impeccably +in his active service uniform, amid the bustle and the neutral-tinted +groups; "I'm not going. I'm the owner of my rank, and they haven't got +the right to send me to join the army." + +We waited long, and some hours went by. A rumor went round that we +should not go till the next day. But suddenly there was silence, a +stiffening up, and a military salute all round. The door had just +opened to admit Major de Trancheaux. + +The women drew aside. A civilian who was on the lookout for him went +up, hat in hand, and spoke to him in undertones. + +"But, my friend," cried the Major, quitting the importunate with a +quite military abruptness, "it's not worth while. In two months the +war will be over!" + +He came up to us. He was wearing a white band on his cap. + +"He's in command at the station," they say. + +He gave us a patriotic address, brief and spirited. He spoke of the +great revenge so long awaited by French hearts, assured us that we +should all be proud, later, to have lived in those hours, thrilled us +all, and added, "Come, say good-by to your folks. No more women now. +And let's be off, for I'm going with you as far as the station." + +A last confused scrimmage--with moist sounds of kisses and litanies of +advice--closed up in the great public hall. + +When I had embraced Marie I joined these who were falling in near the +road. We went off in files of four. All the causeways were garnished +with people, because of us; and at that moment I felt a lofty emotion +and a real thrill of glory. + +At the corner of a street I saw Crillon and Marie, who had run on ahead +to take their stand on our route. They waved to me. + +"Now, keep your peckers up, boys! You're not dead yet, eh!" Crillon +called to us. + +Marie was looking at me and could not speak. + +"In step! One-two!" cried Adjutant Marcassin, striding along the +detachment. + +We crossed our quarter as the day declined over it. The countryman who +was walking beside me shook his head and in the dusky immensity among +the world of things we were leaving, with big regular steps, fused into +one single step, he scattered wondering words. "Frenzy, it is," he +murmured. "_I_ haven't had time to understand it yet. And yet, you +know, there are some that say, I understand; well, I'm telling you, +that's not possible." + +The station--but we do not stop. They have opened before us the long +yellow barrier which is never opened. They make us cross the labyrinth +of hazy rails, and crowd us along a dark, covered platform between iron +pillars. + +And there, suddenly, we see that we are alone. + +* * * * * * + +The town--and life--are yonder, beyond that dismal plain of rails, +paths, low buildings and mists which surrounds us to the end of sight. +A chilliness is edging in along with twilight, and falling on our +perspiration and our enthusiasm. We fidget and wait. It goes gray, +and then black. The night comes to imprison us in its infinite +narrowness. We shiver and can see nothing more. With difficulty I can +make out, along our trampled platform, a dark flock, the buzz of +voices, the smell of tobacco. Here and there a match flame or the red +point of a cigarette makes some face phosphorescent. And we wait, +unoccupied, and weary of waiting, until we sit down, close-pressed +against each other, in the dark and the desert. + +Some hours later Adjutant Marcassin comes forward, a lantern in his +hand, and in a strident voice calls the roll. Then he goes away, and +we begin again to wait. + +At ten o'clock, after several false alarms, the right train is +announced. It comes up, distending as it comes, black and red. It is +already crowded, and it screams. It stops, and turns the platform into +a street. We climb up and put ourselves away--not without glimpses, by +the light of lanterns moving here and there, of some chalk sketches on +the carriages--heads of pigs in spiked helmets, and the inscription, +"To Berlin!"--the only things which slightly indicate where we are +going. + +The train sets off. We who have just got in crowd to the windows and +try to look outside, towards the level crossing where, perhaps, the +people in whom we live are still watching for us; but the eye can no +longer pick up anything but a vague stirring, shaded with crayon and +jumbled with nature. We are blind and we fall back each to his place. +When we are enveloped in the iron-hammered rumble of advance, we fix up +our luggage, arrange ourselves for the night, smoke, drink and talk. +Badly lighted and opaque with fumes, the compartment might be a corner +of a tavern that has been caught up and swept away into the unknown. + +Some conversation mixes its rumble with that of the train. My +neighbors talk about crops and sunshine and rain. Others, scoffers and +Parisians, speak of popular people and principally of music-hall +singers. Others sleep, lying somehow or other on the wood. Their open +mouths make murmur, and the oscillation jerks them without tearing them +from their torpor. I go over in my thoughts the details of the last +day, and even my memories of times gone by when there was nothing going +on. + +* * * * * * + +We traveled all night. At long intervals some one would let a window +drop at a station; a damp and cavernous breath would penetrate the +overdone atmosphere of the carriage. We saw darkness and some porter's +lantern dancing in the abyss of night. + +Several times we made very long halts--to let the trains of regular +troops go by. In one station where our train stood for hours, we saw +several of them go roaring by in succession. Their speed blurred the +partitions between the windows and the huge vertebrae of the coaches, +seeming to blend together the soldiers huddled there; and the glance +which plunged into the train's interior descried, in its feeble and +whirling illumination, a long, continuous and tremulous chain, clad in +blue and red. Several times on the journey we got glimpses of these +interminable lengths of humanity, hurled by machinery from everywhere +to the frontiers, and almost towing each other. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WALLS + + +At daybreak there was a stop, and they said to us, "You're there." + +We got out, yawning, our teeth chattering, and grimy with night, on to +a platform black-smudged by drizzling rain, in the middle of a sheet of +mist which was torn by blasts of distant whistling. Disinterred from +the carriages, our shadows heaped themselves there and waited, like +bales of goods in the dawn's winter. + +Adjutant Marcassin, who had gone in quest of instructions, returned at +last. "It's that way." + +He formed us in fours. "Forward! Straighten up! Keep step! Look as +if you had something about you." + +The rhythm of the step pulled at our feet and dovetailed us together. +The adjutant marched apart along the little column. Questioned by one +of us who knew him intimately, he made no reply. From time to time he +threw a quick glance, like the flick of a whip, to make sure that we +were in step. + +I thought I was going again to the old barracks, where I did my term of +service, but I had a sadder disappointment than was reasonable. Across +some land where building was going on, deeply trenched, beplastered and +soiled with white, we arrived at a new barracks, sinisterly white in a +velvet pall of fog. In front of the freshly painted gate there was +already a crowd of men like us, clothed in subdued civilian hues in the +coppered dust of the first rays of day. + +They made us sit on forms round the guard room. We waited there all +the day. As the scorching sun went round it forced us to change our +places several times. We ate with our knees for tables, and as I undid +the little parcels that Marie had made, it seemed to me that I was +touching her hands. When the evening had fallen, a passing officer +noticed us, made inquiries, and we were mustered. We plunged into the +night of the building. Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, +between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of +stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks. They led us into a dark +corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and +went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their +flames buffeted and snarling. + +A lighted doorway was stoppered by a throng--the store-room. I ended +by getting in in my turn, thanks to the pressure of the compact file +which followed me, and pushed me like a spiral spring. Some barrack +sergeants were exerting themselves authoritatively among piles of +new-smelling clothes, of caps and glittering equipment. Geared into +the jerky hustle from which we detached ourselves one by one, I made +the tour of the place, and came out of it wearing red trousers and +carrying my civilian clothes, and a blue coat on my arm; and not daring +to put on either my hat or the military cap that I held in my hand. + +We have dressed ourselves all alike. I look at the others since I +cannot look at myself, and thus I see myself dimly. Gloomily we eat +stew, by the miserable illumination of a candle, in the dull desert of +the mess room. Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great +yard, gray and stagnant. Just as we pour out into it, there is the +clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain. An armed sentry goes up +and down before the gate. It is forbidden to go out under pain of +court-martial. To westward, beyond some indistinct land, we see the +buried station, reddening and smoking like a factory, and sending out +rusty flashes. On the other side is the trench of a street; and in its +extended hollow are the bright points of some windows and the radiance +of a shop. With my face between the bars of the gate, I look on this +reflection of the other life; then I go back to the black staircase, +the corridor and the dormitory, I who am something and yet am nothing, +like a drop of water in a river. + +* * * * * * + +We stretch ourselves on straw, in thin blankets. I go to sleep with my +head on the bundle of my civilian clothes. In the morning I find +myself again and throw off a long dream--all at once impenetrable. + +My neighbor, sitting on his straw with his hair over his nose, is +occupied in scratching his feet. He yawns into tears, and says to me, +"I've dreamt about myself." + +* * * * * * + +Several days followed each other. We remained imprisoned in the +barracks, in ignorance. The only events were those related by the +newspapers which were handed to us through the gates in the morning. +The war got on very slowly; it immobilized itself, and we--we did +nothing, between the roll-calls, the parades, and from time to time +some cleaning fatigues. We could not go into the town, and we waited +for the evening--standing, sitting, strolling in the mess room (which +never seemed empty, so strong was the smell that filled it), wandering +about the dark stairs and the corridors dark as iron, or in the yard, +or as far as the gates, or the kitchens, which last were at the rear of +the buildings, and smelt in turns throughout the day of coffee-grounds +and grease. + +We said that perhaps, undoubtedly indeed, we should stay there till the +end of the war. We moped. When we went to bed we were tired with +standing still, or with walking too slowly. We should have liked to go +to the front. + +Marcassin, housed in the company office, was never far away, and kept +an eye on us in silence. One day I was sharply rebuked by him for +having turned the water on in the lavatory at a time other than +placarded. Detected, I had to stand before him at attention. He asked +me in coarse language if I knew how to read, talked of punishment, and +added, "Don't do it again!" This tirade, perhaps justified on the +whole, but tactlessly uttered by the quondam Pétrolus, humiliated me +deeply and left me gloomy all the day. Some other incidents showed me +that I no longer belonged to myself. + +* * * * * * + +One day, after morning parade, when the company was breaking off, a +Parisian of our section went up to Marcassin and asked him, "Adjutant, +we should like to know if we are going away." + +The officer took it in bad part. "To know? Always wanting to know!" +he cried; "it's a disease in France, this wanting to know. Get it well +into your heads that you _won't_ know! We shall do the knowing for +you! Words are done with. There's something else beginning, and +that's discipline and silence." + +The zeal we had felt for going to the front cooled off in a few days. +One or two well-defined cases of shirking were infectious, and you +heard this refrain again and again: "As long as the others are +dodging, I should be an ass not to do it, too." + +But there was quite a multitude who never said anything. + +At last a reinforcement draft was posted; old and young +promiscuously--a list worked out in the office amidst a seesaw of +intrigue. Protests were raised, and fell back again into the +tranquillity of the depot. + +I abode there forty-five days. Towards the middle of September, we +were allowed to go out after the evening meal and Sundays as well. We +used to go in the evening to the Town Hall to read the despatches +posted there; they were as uniform and monotonous as rain. Then a +friend and I would go to the café, keeping step, our arms similarly +swinging, exchanging some words, idle, and vaguely divided into two +men. Or we went into it in a body, which isolated me. The saloon of +the café enclosed the same odors as Fontan's; and while I stayed there, +sunk in the soft seat, my boots grating on the tiled floor, my eye on +the white marble, it was like a strip of a long dream of the past, a +scanty memory that clothed me. There I used to write to Marie, and +there I read again the letters I received from her, in which she said, +"Nothing has changed since you were away." + +One Sunday, when I was beached on a seat in the square and weeping with +yawns under the empty sky, I saw a young woman go by. By reason of +some resemblance in outline, I thought of a woman who had loved me. I +recalled the period when life was life, and that beautiful caressing +body of once-on-a-time. It seemed to me that I held her in my arms, so +close that I felt her breath, like velvet, on my face. + +We got a glimpse of the captain at one review. Once there was talk of +a new draft for the front, but it was a false rumor. Then we said, +"There'll never be any war for us," and that was a relief. + +My name flashed to my eyes in a departure list posted on the wall. My +name was read out at morning parade, and it seemed to me that it was +the only one they read. I had no time to get ready. In the evening of +the next day our detachment passed out of the barracks by the little +gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE WORLD'S END + + +"We're going to Alsace," said the well-informed. "To the Somme," said +the better-informed, louder. + +We traveled thirty-six hours on the floor of a cattle truck, wedged and +paralyzed in the vice of knapsacks, pouches, weapons and moist bodies. +At long intervals the train would begin to move on again. It has left +an impression with me that it was chiefly motionless. + +We got out, one afternoon, under a sky crowded with masses of darkness, +in a station recently bombarded and smashed, and its roof left like a +fish-bone. It overlooked a half-destroyed town, where, amid a foul +whiteness of ruin, a few families were making shift to live in the +rain. + +"'Pears we're in the Aisne country," they said. + +A downpour was in progress. Shivering, we busied ourselves with +unloading and distributing bread, our hands numbed and wet, and then +ate it hurriedly while we stood in the road, which gleamed with heavy +parallel brush-strokes of gray paint as far as the eye could see. Each +looked after himself, with hardly a thought for the next man. On each +side of the road were deserts without limits, flat and flabby, with +trees like posts, and rusty fields patched with green mud. + +"Shoulder packs, and forward!" Adjutant Marcassin ordered. + +Where were we going? No one knew. We crossed the rest of the village. +The Germans had occupied it during the August retreat. It was +destroyed, and the destruction was beginning to live, to cover itself +with fresh wreckage and dung, to smoke and consume itself. The rain +had ceased in melancholy. Up aloft in the clearings of the sky, +clusters of shrapnel stippled the air round aeroplanes, and the +detonations reached us, far and fine. Along the sodden road we met Red +Cross motor ambulances, rushing on rails of mud, but we could not see +inside them. In the first stages we were interested in everything, and +asked questions, like foreigners. A man who had been wounded and was +rejoining the regiment with us answered us from time to time, and +invariably added, "That's nothing; you'll see in a bit." Then the +march made men retire into themselves. + +My knapsack, so ingeniously compact; my cartridge-bags so ferociously +full; my round pouches with their keen-edged straps, all jostled and +then wounded my back at each step. The pain quickly became acute, +unbearable. I was suffocated and blinded by a mask of sweat, in spite +of the lashing moisture, and I soon felt that I should not arrive at +the end of the fifty minutes' march. But I did all the same, because I +had no reason for stopping at any one second sooner than another, and +because I could thus always _do one step more_. I knew later that this +is nearly always the mechanical reason which accounts for soldiers +completing superhuman physical efforts to the very end. + +The cold blast benumbed us, while we dragged ourselves through the +softened plains which evening was darkening. At one halt I saw one of +those men who used to agitate at the depot to be sent to the front. He +had sunk down at the foot of the stacked rifles; exertion had made him +almost unrecognizable, and he told me that he had had enough of war! +And little Mélusson, whom I once used to see at Viviers, lifted to me +his yellowish face, sweat-soaked, where the folds of the eyelids seemed +drawn with red crayon, and informed me that he should report sick the +next day. + +After four marches of despairing length under a lightless sky over a +colorless earth, we stood for two hours, hot and damp, at the chilly +top of a hill, where a village was beginning. An epidemic of gloom +overspread us. Why were we stopped in that way? No one knew anything. + +In the evening we engulfed ourselves in the village. But they halted +us in a street. The sky had heavily darkened. The fronts of the +houses had taken on a greenish hue and reflected and rooted themselves +in the running water of the street. The market-place curved around in +front of us--a black space with shining tracks, like an old mirror to +which the silvering only clings in strips. + +At last, night fully come, they bade us march. They made us go forward +and then draw back, with loud words of command, in the tunnels of +streets, in alleys and yards. By lantern light they divided us into +squads. I was assigned to the eleventh, quartered in a village whose +still standing parts appeared quite new. Adjutant Marcassin became my +section chief. I was secretly glad of this; for in the gloomy +confusion we stuck closely to those we knew, as dogs do. + +The new comrades of the squad--they lodged in the stable, which was +open as a cage--explained to me that we were a long way from the front, +over six miles; that we should have four days' rest and then go on +yonder to occupy the trenches at the glass works. They said it would +be like that, in shifts of four days, to the end of the war, and that, +moreover, one had not to worry. + +These words comforted the newcomers, adrift here and there in the +straw. Their weariness was alleviated. They set about writing and +card-playing. That evening I dated my letter to Marie "at the Front," +with a flourish of pride. I understood that glory consists in doing +what others have done, in being able to say, "I, too." + +* * * * * * + +Three days went by in this "rest camp." I got used to an existence +crowded with exercises in which we were living gear-wheels; crowded +also with fatigues; already I was forgetting my previous existence. + +On the Friday at three o'clock we were paraded in marching order in the +school yard. Great stones, detached from walls and arches, lay about +the forsaken grass like tombs. Hustled by the wind, we were reviewed +by the captain, who fumbled in our cartridge-pouches and knapsacks with +the intention of giving imprisonment to those who had not the right +quantity of cartridges and iron rations. In the evening we set off, +laughing and singing, along the great curves of the road. At night we +arrived swaying with fatigue and savagely silent, at a slippery and +interminable ascent which stood out against stormy rain-clouds as heavy +as dung-hills. Many dark masses stumbled and fell with a crash of +accoutrements on that huge sloping sewer. As they swarmed up the chaos +of oblique darkness which pushed them back, the men gave signs of +exhaustion and anger. Cries of "Forward! Forward!" surrounded us on +all sides, harsh cries like barks, and I heard, near me, Adjutant +Marcassin's voice, growling, "What about it, then? It's for France's +sake!" Arrived at the top of the hill, we went down the other slope. +The order came to put pipes out and advance in silence. A world of +noises was coming to life in the distance. + +A gateway made its sudden appearance in the night. We scattered among +flat buildings, whose walls here and there showed black holes, like +ovens, while the approaches were obstructed with plaster rubbish and +nail-studded beams. In places the recent collapse of stones, cement +and plaster had laid on the bricks a new and vivid whiteness that was +visible in the dark. + +"It's the glass works," said a soldier to me. + +We halted a moment in a passage whose walls and windows were broken, +where we could not make a step or sit down without breaking glass. We +left the works by sticky footpaths, full of rubbish at first, and then +of mud. Across marshy flats, chilly and sinister, obscurely lighted by +the night, we came to the edge of an immense and pallid crater. The +depths of this abyss were populated with glimmers and murmurs; and all +around a soaked and ink-black expanse of country glistened to infinity. + +"It's the quarry," they informed me. + +Our endless and bottomless march continued. Sliding and slipping we +descended, burying ourselves in these profundities and gropingly +encountering the hurly-burly of a convoy of carts and the advance guard +of the regiment we were relieving. We passed heaped-up hutments at the +foot of the circular chalky cliff that we could see dimly drawn among +the black circles of space. The sound of shots drew near and +multiplied on all sides; the vibration of artillery fire outspread +under our feet and over our heads. + +I found myself suddenly in front of a narrow and muddy ravine into +which the others were plunging one by one. + +"It's the trench," whispered the man who was following me; "you can see +its beginning, but you never see its blinking end. Anyway, on you go!" + +We followed the trench along for three hours. For three hours we +continued to immerse ourselves in distance and solitude, to immure +ourselves in night, scraping its walls with our loads, and sometimes +violently pulled up, where the defile shrunk into strangulation by the +sudden wedging of our pouches. It seemed as if the earth tried +continually to clasp and choke us, that sometimes it roughly struck us. +Above the unknown plains in which we were hiding, space was +shot-riddled. A few star-shells were softly whitening some sections of +the night, revealing the excavations' wet entrails and conjuring up a +file of heavy shadows, borne down by lofty burdens, tramping in a black +and black-bunged impasse, and jolting against the eddies. When great +guns were discharged all the vault of heaven was lighted and lifted and +then fell darkly back. + +"Look out! The open crossing!" + +A wall of earth rose in tiers before us. There was no outlet. The +trench came to a sudden end--to be resumed farther on, it seemed. + +"Why?" I asked, mechanically. + +They explained to me: "It's like that." And they added, "You stoop +down and get a move on." + +The men climbed the soft steps with bent heads, made their rush one by +one and ran hard into the belt whose only remaining defense was the +dark. The thunder of shrapnel that shattered and dazzled the air here +and there showed me too frightfully how fragile we all were. In spite +of the fatigue clinging to my limbs, I sprang forward in my turn with +all my strength, fiercely pursuing the signs of an overloaded and +rattling body which ran in front; and I found myself again in a trench, +breathless. In my passage I had glimpses of a somber field, +bullet-smacked and hole pierced, with silent blots outspread or +doubled, and a litter of crosses and posts, as black and fantastic as +tall torches extinguished, all under a firmament where day and night +immensely fought. + +"I believe I saw some corpses," I said to him who marched in front of +me; and there was a break in my voice. + +"_You've_ just left your village," he replied; "you bet there's some +stiffs about here!" + +I laughed also, in the delight of having got past. We began again to +march one behind another, swaying about, hustled by the narrowness of +this furrow they had scooped to the ancient depth of a grave, panting +under the load, dragged towards the earth by the earth and pushed +forward by will-power, under a sky shrilling with the dizzy flight of +bullets, tiger-striped with red, and in some seconds saturated with +light. At forks in the way we turned sometimes right and sometimes +left, all touching each other, the whole huge body of the company +fleeing blindly towards its bourne. + +For the last time they halted us in the middle of the night. I was so +weary that I propped my knees against the wet wall and remained +kneeling for some blissful minutes. + +My sentry turn began immediately, and the lieutenant posted me at a +loophole. He made me put my face to the hole and explained to me that +there was a wooded slope, right in front of us, of which the bottom was +occupied by the enemy; and to the right of us, three hundred yards +away, the Chauny road--"They're there." I had to watch the black +hollow of the little wood, and at every star-shell the creamy expanse +which divided our refuge from the distant hazy railing of the trees +along the road. He told me what to do in case of alarm and left me +quite alone. + +Alone, I shivered. Fatigue had emptied my head and was weighing on my +heart. Going close to the loophole, I opened my eyes wide through the +enemy night, the fathomless, thinking night. + +I thought I could see some of the dim shadows of the plain moving, and +some in the chasm of the wood, and everywhere! Affected by terror and +a sense of my huge responsibility, I could hardly stifle a cry of +anguish. But they did not move. The fearful preparations of the +shades vanished before my eyes and the stillness of lifeless things +showed itself to me. + +I had neither knapsack nor pouches, and I wrapped myself in my blanket. +I remained at ease, encircled to the horizon by the machinery of war, +surmounted by claps of living thunder. Very gently, my vigil relieved +and calmed me. I remembered nothing more about myself. I applied +myself to watching. I saw nothing, I knew nothing. + +After two hours, the sound of the natural and complaisant steps of the +sentry who came to relieve me brought me completely back to myself. I +detached myself from the spot where I had seemed riveted and went to +sleep in the "grotto." + +The dug-out was very roomy, but so low that in one place one had to +crawl on hands and knees to slip under its rough and mighty roof. It +was full of heavy damp, and hot with men. Extended in my place on +straw-dust, my neck propped by my knapsack, I closed my eyes in +comfort. When I opened them, I saw a group of soldiers seated in a +circle and eating from the same dish, their heads blotted out in the +darkness of the low roof. Their feet, grouped round the dish, were +shapeless, black, and trickling, like stone disinterred. They ate in +common, without table things, no man using more than his hands. + +The man next me was equipping himself to go on sentry duty. He was in +no hurry. He filled his pipe, drew from his pocket a tinder-lighter as +long as a tapeworm, and said to me, "You're not going on again till six +o'clock. Ah, you're very lucky!" + +Diligently he mingled his heavy tobacco-clouds with the vapors from all +those bodies which lay around us and rattled in their throats. +Kneeling at my feet to arrange his things, he gave me some advice, "No +need to get a hump, mind. Nothing ever happens here. Getting here's +by far the worst. On that job you get it hot, specially when you've +the bad luck to be sleepy, or it's not raining, but after that you're a +workman, and you forget about it. The most worst, it's the open +crossing. But nobody I know's ever stopped one there. It was other +blokes. It's been like this for two months, old man, and we'll be able +to say we've been through the war without a chilblain, we shall." + +At dawn I resumed my lookout at the loophole. Quite near, on the slope +of the little wood, the bushes and the bare branches are broidered with +drops of water. In front, under the fatal space where the eternal +passage of projectiles is as undistinguishable as light in daytime, the +field resembles a field, the road resembles a road. Ultimately one +makes out some corpses, but what a strangely little thing is a corpse +in a field--a tuft of colorless flowers which the shortest blades of +grass disguise! At one moment there was a ray of sunshine, and it +resembled the past. + +Thus went the days by, the weeks and the months; four days in the front +line, the harassing journey to and from it, the monotonous sentry-go, +the spy-hole on the plain, the mesmerism of the empty outlook and of +the deserts of waiting; and after that, four days of rest-camp full of +marches and parades and great cleansings of implements and of streets, +with regulations of the strictest, anticipating all the different +occasions for punishment, a thousand fatigues, each with as many harsh +knocks, the litany of optimist phrases, abstruse and utopian, in the +orders of the day, and a captain who chiefly concerned himself with the +two hundred cartridges and the reserve rations. The regiment had no +losses, or almost none; a few wounds during reliefs, and sometimes one +or two deaths which were announced like accidents. We only underwent +great weariness, which goes away as fast as it comes. The soldiers +used to say that on the whole they lived in peace. + +Marie would write to me, "The Piots have been saying nice things about +you," or "The Trompsons' son is a second lieutenant," or "If you knew +all the contrivances people have been up to, to hide their gold since +it's been asked for so loudly! If you knew what ugly tales there are!" +or "Everything is just the same." + +* * * * * * + +Once, when we were coming back from the lines and were entering our +usual village, we did not stop there; to the great distress of the men +who were worn out and yielding to the force of the knapsack. We +continued along the road through the evening with lowered heads; and +one hour later we dropped off around dark buildings--mournful tokens of +an unknown place--and they put us away among shadows which had new +shapes. From that time onwards, they changed the village at every +relief, and we never knew what it was until we were there. I was +lodged in barns, into which one wriggled by a ladder; in spongy and +steamy stables; in cellars where undisturbed draughts stirred up the +moldy smells that hung there; in frail and broken hangars which seemed +to brew bad weather; in sick and wounded huts; in villages remade +athwart their phantoms; in trenches and in caves--a world upside down. +We received the wind and the rain in our sleep. Sometimes we were too +brutally rescued from the pressure of the cold by braziers, whose +poisonous heat split one's head. And we forgot it all at each change +of scene. I had begun to note the names of places we were going to, +but I lost myself in the black swarm of words when I tried to recall +them. And the diversity and the crowds of the men around me were such +that I managed only with difficulty to attach fleeting names to their +faces. + +My companions did not look unfavorably on me, but I was no more than +another to them. In intervals among the occupations of the rest-camp, +I wandered spiritless, blotted out by the common soldiers' miserable +uniform, familiarly addressed by any one and every one, and stopping no +glance from a woman, by reason of the non-coms. + +I should never be an officer, like the Trompsons' son. It was not so +easy in my sector as in his. For that, it would be necessary for +things to happen which never would happen. But I should have liked to +be taken into the office. Others were there who were not so clearly +indicated as I for that work. I regarded myself as a victim of +injustice. + +* * * * * * + +One morning I found myself face to face with Termite, Brisbille's crony +and accomplice, and he arrived in our company by voluntary enlistment! +He was as skimpy and warped as ever, his body seeming to grimace +through his uniform. His new greatcoat looked worn out and his boots +on the wrong feet. He had the same ugly, blinking face and +black-furred cheeks and rasping voice. I welcomed him warmly, for by +his enlistment he was redeeming his past life. He took advantage of +the occasion to address me with intimacy. I talked with him about +Viviers and even let him share the news that Marie had just written to +me--that Monsieur Joseph Bonéas was taking an examination in order to +become an officer in the police. + +But the poacher had not completely sloughed his old self. He looked at +me sideways and shook in the air his grimy wrist and the brass identity +disk that hung from it--a disk as big as a forest ranger's, perhaps a +trophy of bygone days. Hatred of the rich and titled appeared again +upon his hairy, sly face. "Those blasted nationalists," he growled; +"they spend their time shoving the idea of revenge into folks' heads, +and patching up hatred with their Leagues of Patriots and their +military tattoos and their twaddle and their newspapers, and when their +war does come they say '_Go_ and fight.'" + +"There are some of them who have died in the first line. Those have +done more than their duty." + +With the revolutionary's unfairness, the little man would not admit it. +"No--they have only done their duty,--no more." + +I was going to urge Monsieur Joseph's weak constitution but in presence +of that puny man with his thin, furry face, who might have stayed at +home, I forebore. But I decided to avoid, in his company, those +subjects in which I felt he was full of sour hostility and always ready +to bite. + +Continually we saw Marcassin's eye fixed on us, though aloof. His new +bestriped personality had completely covered up the comical picture of +Pétrolus. He even seemed to have become suddenly more educated, and +made no mistakes when he spoke. He multiplied himself, was +attentiveness itself and found ways to expose himself to danger. When +there were night patrols in the great naked cemeteries bounded by the +graves of the living, he was always in them. + +But he scowled. We were short of the sacred fire, in his opinion, and +that distressed him. To grumbles against the fatigues which shatter, +the waiting which exhausts, the disillusion which destroys, against +misery and the blows of cold and rain, he answered violently, "Can't +you see it's for France? Why, hell and damnation! As long as it's for +France----!" + +One morning when we were returning from the trenches, ghastly in a +ghastly dawn, during the last minutes of a stage, a panting soldier let +the words escape him, "I'm fed up, I am!" + +The adjutant sprang towards him, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, hog? +Don't you think that France is worth your dirty skin and all our +skins?" + +The other, strained and tortured in his joints, showed fight. "France, +you say? Well, that's the French," he growled. + +And his pal, goaded also by weariness, raised his voice from the ranks. +"That's right! After all, it's the men that's there." + +"Great God!" the adjutant roared in their faces, "France is France and +nothing else, and you don't count, nor you either!" + +But the soldier, all the while hoisting up his knapsack with jerks of +his hips, and lowering his voice before the non-com's aggressive +excitement, clung to his notion, and murmured between his puffings, +"Men--they're humanity. That's not the truth perhaps?" + +Marcassin began to hurry through the drizzle along the side of the +marching column, shouting and trembling with emotion, "To hell with +your humanity, and your truth, too; I don't give a damn for them. _I_ +know your ideas--universal justice and 1789[1]--to hell with them, too. +There's only one thing that matters in all the earth, and that's the +glory of France--to give the Boches a thrashing and get Alsace-Lorraine +back, and money, that's where they're taking you, and that's all about +it. Once that's done, all's over. It's simple enough, even for a +blockhead like you. If you don't understand it, it's because you can't +lift your pig's head to see an ideal, or because you're only a +Socialist and a confiscator!" + +[Footnote 1: Outbreak of the French Revolution.--Tr.] + +Very reluctantly, rumbling all over, and his eye threatening, he went +away from the now silent ranks. A moment later, as he passed near me, +I noticed that his hands still trembled and I was infinitely moved to +see tears in his eyes! + +He comes and goes in pugnacious surveillance, in furies with difficulty +restrained, and masked by a contraction of the face. He invokes +Déroulède, and says that faith comes at will, like the rest. He lives +in perpetual bewilderment and distress that everybody does not think as +he does. He exerts real influence, for there are, in the multitudes, +whatever they may say, beautiful and profound instincts always near the +surface. + +The captain, who was a well-balanced man, although severe and prodigal +of prison when he found the least gap in our loads, considered the +adjutant animated by an excellent spirit, but he himself was not so +fiery. I was getting a better opinion of him; he could judge men. He +had said that I was a good and conscientious soldier, that many like me +were wanted. + +Our lieutenant, who was very young, seemed to be an amiable, +good-natured fellow. "He's a good little lad," said the grateful men; +"there's some that frighten you when you speak to them, and they solder +their jaws up. But _him_, he speaks to you even if you're stupid. +When you talk to him about you and your family, which isn't, all the +same, very interesting, well, he listens to you, old man." + +* * * * * * + +St. Martin's summer greatly warmed us as we tramped into a new village. +I remember that one of those days I took Margat with me and went with +him into a recently shelled house. (Margat was storming against the +local grocer, the only one of his kind, the inevitable and implacable +robber of his customers.) The framework of the house was laid bare, it +was full of light and plaster, and it trembled like a steamboat. We +climbed to the drawing-room of this house which had breathed forth all +its mystery and was worse than empty. The room still showed remains of +luxury and elegance--a disemboweled piano with clusters of protruding +strings; a cupboard, dislodged and rotting, as though disinterred; a +white-powdered floor, sown with golden stripes and rumpled books, and +with fragile débris which cried out when we trod on it. Across the +window, which was framed in broken glass, a curtain hung by one corner +and fluttered like a bat. Over the sundered fireplace, only a mirror +was intact and unsullied, upright in its frame. + +Then, become suddenly and profoundly like each other, we were both +fascinated by the virginity of that long glass. Its perfect integrity +lent it something like a body. Each of us picked up a brick and we +broke it with all our might, not knowing why. We ran away down the +shaking spiral stairs whose steps were hidden under deep rubbish. At +the bottom we looked at each other, still excited and already ashamed +of the fit of barbarism which had so suddenly risen in us and urged our +arms. + +"What about it? It's a natural thing to do--we're becoming men again, +that's all," said Margat. + +Having nothing to do we sat down there, commanding a view of the dale. +The day had been fine. + +Margat's looks strayed here and there. He frowned, and disparaged the +village because it was not like his own. What a comical idea to have +built it like that! He did not like the church, the singular shape of +it, the steeple in that position instead of where it should have been. + +Orango and Rémus came and sat down by us in the ripening sun of +evening. + +Far away we saw the explosion of a shell, like a white shrub. We +chuckled at the harmless shot in the hazy distance and Rémus made a +just observation. "As long as it's not dropped here, you might say as +one doesn't mind, eh, s'long as it's dropped somewhere else, eh?" + +At that moment a cloud of dirty smoke took shape five hundred yards +away at the foot of the village, and a heavy detonation rolled up to +where we were. + +"They're plugging the bottom of the village," Orango laconically +certified. + +Margat, still ruminating his grievance, cried, "'Fraid it's not on the +grocers it's dropped, that crump, seeing he lives right at the other +end. More's the pity. He charges any old price he likes and then he +says to you as well, 'If you're not satisfied, my lad, you can go to +hell.' Ah, more's the pity!" + +He sighed, and resumed. "Ah, grocers, they beat all, they do. You can +starve or you can bankrupt, that's their gospel; 'You don't matter to +me, _I've_ got to make money!'" + +"What do you want to be pasting the grocers for," Orango asked, "as +long as they've always been like that? They're Messrs. Thief & Sons." + +After a silence, Rémus coughed, to encourage his voice, and said, "I'm +a grocer." + +Then Margat said to him artlessly, "Well, what about it, old chap? We +know well enough, don't we, that here on earth profit's the strongest +of all." + +"Why, yes, to be sure, old man," Rémus replied. + +* * * * * * + +One day, while we were carrying our straw to our billets, one of my +lowly companions came up and questioned me as he walked. "I'd like you +to explain to me why there isn't any justice. I've been to the captain +to ask for leave that I'd a right to and I shows him a letter to say my +aunt's shortly deceased. 'That's all my eye and Betty Martin,' he +says. And I says to myself, that's the blinking limit, that is. Now, +then, tell me, you. When the war began, why didn't there begin full +justice for every one, seeing they could have done it and seeing no one +wouldn't have raised no objection just then. Why is it all just the +contrary? And don't believe it's only what's happened to me, but +there's big business men, they say, all of a sudden making a hundred +francs a day extra because of the murdering, and them young men an' +all, and a lot of toffed-up shirkers at the rear that's ten times +stronger than this pack of half-dead Territorials that they haven't +sent home even this morning yet, and they have beanos in the towns with +their Totties and their jewels and champagne, like what Jusserand tells +us!" + +I replied that complete justice was impossible, that we had to look at +the great mass of things generally. And then, having said this, I +became embarrassed in face of the stubborn inquisitiveness, clumsily +strict, of this comrade who was seeking the light all by himself! + +Following that incident, I often tried, during days of monotony, to +collect my ideas on war. I could not. I am sure of certain points, +points of which I have always been sure. Farther I cannot go. I rely +in the matter on those who guide us, who withhold the policy of the +State. But sometimes I regret that I no longer have a spiritual +director like Joseph Bonéas. + +For the rest, the men around me--except when personal interest is in +question and except for a few chatterers who suddenly pour out theories +which contain bits taken bodily from the newspapers--the men around me +are indifferent to every problem too remote and too profound concerning +the succession of inevitable misfortunes which sweep us along. Beyond +immediate things, and especially personal matters, they are prudently +conscious of their ignorance and impotence. + +One evening I was coming in to sleep in our stable bedroom. The men +lying along its length and breadth on the bundles of straw had been +talking together and were agreed. Some one had just wound it up--"From +the moment you start marching, that's enough." + +But Termite, coiled up like a marmot on the common litter, was on the +watch. He raised his shock of hair, shook himself as though caught in +a snare, waved the brass disk on his wrist like a bell and said, "No, +that's not enough. You must think, but think with your own idea, not +other people's." + +Some amused faces were raised while he entered into observations that +they foresaw would be endless. + +"Pay attention, you fellows, he's going to talk about militarism," +announced a wag, called Pinson, whose lively wit I had already noticed. + +"There's the question of militarism----" Termite went on. + +We laughed to see the hairy mannikin floundering on the dim straw in +the middle of his big public-meeting words, and casting fantastic +shadows on the spider-web curtain of the skylight. + +"Are you going to tell us," asked one of us, "that the Boches aren't +militarists?" + +"Yes, indeed, and in course they are," Termite consented to admit. + +"Ha! That bungs you in the optic!" Pinson hastened to record. + +"For my part, old sonny," said a Territorial who was a good soldier, +"I'm not seeking as far as you, and I'm not as spiteful. I know that +they set about us, and that we only wanted to be quiet and friends with +everybody. Why, where I come from, for instance in the Creuse country, +I know that----" + +"You know?" bawled Termite, angrily; "you know nothing about nothing! +You're only a poor little tame animal, like all the millions of pals. +They gather us together, but they separate us. They say what they like +to us, or they don't say it, and you believe it. They say to you, +'This is what you've got to believe in!' They----" + +I found myself growing privately incensed against Termite, by the same +instinct which had once thrown me upon his accomplice Brisbille. I +interrupted him. "Who are they--your 'they'?" + +"Kings," said Termite. + +At that moment Marcassin's silhouette appeared in the gray of the alley +which ended among us. "Look out--there's Marc'! Shut your jaw," one +of the audience benevolently advised. + +"I'm not afeared not to say what I think!" declared Termite, instantly +lowering his voice and worming his way through the straw that divided +the next stall from ours. + +We laughed again. But Margat was serious. "Always," he said, +"there'll be the two sorts of people there's always been--the grousers +and the obeyers." + +Some one asked, "What for did you chap 'list?" + +"'Cos there was nothing to eat in the house," answered the Territorial, +as interpreter of the general opinion. + +Having thus spoken, the old soldier yawned, went on all fours, arranged +the straw of his claim, and added, "We'll not worry, but just let him +be. 'Specially seeing we can't do otherwise." + +It was time for slumber. The shed gaped open in front and at the +sides, but the air was not cold. + +"We've done with the bad days," said Rémus; "shan't see them no more." + +"At last!" said Margat. + +We stretched ourselves out, elbow to elbow. The one in the dark corner +blew out his candle. + +"May the war look slippy and get finished!" mumbled Orango. + +"If only they'll let me transfer to the cyclists," Margat replied. + +We said no more, each forming that same great wandering prayer and some +little prayer like Margat's. Gently we wrapped ourselves up on the +straw, one with the falling night, and closed our eyes. + +* * * * * * + +At the bottom of the village, in the long pink farmhouse, there was a +charming woman, who smiled at us with twinkling eyes. As the days +emerged from the rains and fogs, I looked at her with all my soul, for +she was bathed in the youth of the year. She had a little nose and big +eyes and slight fair down on her lips and neck, like traces of gold. +Her husband was mobilized and we paid attentions to her. She smiled at +the soldiers as she went by, and chattered willingly with the non-coms; +and the passage of officers brought her to a standstill of vague +respect. I used to think about her, and I forgot, through her, to +write to Marie. + +There were many who inquired, speaking of the farmer's wife, "Any +chance?" But there were many who replied, "Nothing doing." + +One morning that was bright above all others, my companions were busy +holding their sides around a tipsy comrade whom they were catechizing +and ragging, and sprinkling now and then with little doses of wine, to +entertain him, and benefit more by him. These innocent amusements, +like those which Termite provoked when he discoursed on militarism and +the universe, did not detain me, and I gained the street. + +I went down the paved slope. In gardens and enclosures, the buds were +holding out a multitude of lilliputian green hands, all still closed, +and the apple-trees had white roses. Spring was hastening everywhere. +I came in sight of the pink house. She was alone in the road and she +took all the sunshine for herself. I hesitated, I went by--my steps +slackened heavily--I stopped, and returned towards the door. Almost in +spite of myself I went in. + +At first--light! A square of sunshine glowed on the red tiled floor of +the kitchen. Casseroles and basins were shining brightly. + +She was there! Standing by the sink she was making a streak of silver +flow into a gleaming pail, amid the luminous blush of the polished +tiles and the gold of the brass pans. The greenish light from the +window-glass was moistening her skin. She saw me and she smiled. + +I knew that she always smiled at us. But we were alone! I felt a mad +longing arise. There was something in me that was stronger than I, +that ravished the picture of her. Every second she became more +beautiful. Her plump dress proffered her figure to my eyes, and her +skirt trembled over her polished sabots. I looked at her neck, at her +throat--that extraordinary beginning. A strong perfume that enveloped +her shoulders was like the truth of her body. Urged forward, I went +towards her, and I could not even speak. + +She had lowered her head a little; her eyebrows had come nearer +together under the close cluster of her hair; uneasiness passed into +her eyes. She was used to the boyish mimicry of infatuated men. But +this woman was not for me! She dealt me the blow of an unfeeling +laugh, and disappearing, shut the door in my face. + +I opened the door. I followed her into an outhouse. Stammering +something, I found touch again with her presence, I held out my hand. +She slipped away, she was escaping me forever--when a monstrous Terror +stopped her! + +The walls and roof drew near in a hissing crash of thunder, a dreadful +hatch opened in the ceiling and all was filled with black fire. And +while I was hurled against the wall by a volcanic blast, with my eyes +scorched, my ears rent, and my brain hammered, while around me the +stones were pierced and crushed, I saw the woman uplifted in a +fantastic shroud of black and red, to fall back in a red and white +affray of clothes and linen; and something huge burst and naked, with +two legs, sprang at my face and forced into my mouth the taste of +blood. + +I know that I cried out, hiccoughing. Assaulted by the horrible kiss +and by the vile clasp that bruised the hand I had offered to the +woman's beauty--a hand still outheld--sunk in whirling smoke and ashes +and the dreadful noise now majestically ebbing, I found my way out of +the place, between walls that reeled as I did. Bodily, the house +collapsed behind me. In my flight over the shifting ground I was +brushed by the mass of maddened falling stones and the cry of the +ruins, sinking in vast dust-clouds as in a tumult of beating wings. + +A veritable squall of shells was falling in this corner of the village. +A little way off some soldiers were ejaculating in front of a little +house which had just been broken in two. They did not go close to it +because of the terrible whistling which was burying itself here and +there all around, and the splinters that riddled it at every blow. +Within the shelter of a wall we watched it appear under a vault of +smoke, in the vivid flashes of that unnatural tempest. + +"Why, you're covered with blood!" a comrade said to me, disquieted. + +Stupefied and still thunderstruck I looked at that house's bones and +broken spine, that human house. + +It had been split from top to bottom and all the front was down. In a +single second one saw all the seared cellules of its rooms, the +geometric path of the flues, and a down quilt like viscera on the +skeleton of a bed. In the upper story an overhanging floor remained, +and there we saw the bodies of two officers, pierced and spiked to +their places round the table where they were lunching when the +lightning fell--a nice lunch, too, for we saw plates and glasses and a +bottle of champagne. + +"It's Lieutenant Norbert and Lieutenant Ferrière." + +One of these specters was standing, and with cloven jaws so enlarged +that his head was half open, he was smiling. One arm was raised aloft +in the festive gesture which he had begun forever. The other, his fine +fair hair untouched, was seated with his elbows on a cloth now red as a +Turkey carpet, hideously attentive, his face besmeared with shining +blood and full of foul marks. They seemed like two statues of youth +and the joy of life framed in horror. + +"There's three!" some one shouted. + +This one, whom we had not seen at first, hung in the air with dangling +arms against the sheer wall, hooked on to a beam by the bottom of his +trousers. A pool of blood which lengthened down the flat plaster +looked like a projected shadow. At each fresh explosion splinters were +scattered round him and shook him, as though the dead man was still +marked and chosen by the blind destruction. + +There was something hatefully painful in the doll-like attitude of the +hanging corpse. + +Then Termite's voice was raised. "Poor lad!" he said. + +He went out from the shelter of the wall. + +"Are you mad?" we shouted; "he's dead, anyway!" + +A ladder was there. Termite seized it and dragged it towards the +disemboweled house, which was lashed every minute by broadsides of +splinters. + +"Termite!" cried the lieutenant, "I forbid you to go there! You're +doing no good." + +"I'm the owner of my skin, lieutenant," Termite replied, without +stopping or looking round. + +He placed the ladder, climbed up and unhooked the dead man. Around +them, against the plaster of the wall, there broke a surge of deafening +shocks and white fire. He descended with the body very skillfully, +laid it on the ground, and remaining doubled up he ran back to us--to +fall on the captain, who had witnessed the scene. + +"My friend," the captain said, "I've been told that you were an +anarchist. But I've seen that you're brave, and that's already more +than half of a Frenchman." + +He held out his hand. Termite took it, pretending to be little +impressed by the honor. + +When he returned to us he said, while his hand rummaged his hedgehog's +beard, "That poor lad--I don't know why--p'raps it's stupid--but I was +thinking of his mother." + +We looked at him with a sort of respect. First, because he had gone up +and then because he had passed through the hail of iron and won. There +was no one among us who did not earnestly wish he had tried and +succeeded in what Termite had just done. But assuredly we did not a +bit understand this strange soldier. + +A lull had come in the bombardment. "It's over," we concluded. + +As we returned we gathered round Termite and one spoke for the rest. + +"You're an anarchist, then?" + +"No," said Termite, "I'm an internationalist. That's why I enlisted." + +"Ah!" + +He tried to throw light on his words. "You understand, I'm against all +wars." + +"All wars! But there's times when war's good. There's defensive war." + +"No," said Termite again, "there's only offensive war; because if there +wasn't the offensive there wouldn't be the defensive." + +"Ah!" we replied. + +We went on chatting, dispassionately and for the sake of talking, +strolling in the dubious security of the streets which were sometimes +darkened by falls of wreckage, under a sky of formidable surprises. + +"All the same, isn't it chaps like you that prevented France from being +prepared?" + +"There's not enough chaps like me to prevent anything; and if there'd +been more, there wouldn't have been any war." + +"It's not to us, it's to the Boches and the others that you must say +that." + +"It's to all the world," said Termite; "that's why I'm an +internationalist." + +While Termite was slipping away somewhere else his questioner indicated +by a gesture that he did not understand. "Never mind," he said to us, +"that chap's better than us." + +Gradually it came about that we of the squad used to consult Termite on +any sort of subject, with a simplicity which made me smile--and +sometimes even irritated me. That week, for instance, some one asked +him, "All this firing--is it an attack they're getting ready?" + +But he knew no more than the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SHADOWS + + +We did not leave for the trenches on the day we ought to have done. +Evening came, then night--nothing happened. On the morning of the +fifth day some of us were leaning, full of idleness and uncertainty, +against the front of a house that had been holed and bunged up again, +at the corner of a street. One of our comrades said to me, "Perhaps we +shall stay here till the end of the war." + +There were signs of dissent, but all the same, the little street we had +not left on the appointed day seemed just then to resemble the streets +of yore! + +Near the place where we were watching the hours go by--and fumbling in +packets of that coarse tobacco that has skeletons in it--the hospital +was installed. Through the low door we saw a broken stream of poor +soldiers pass, sunken and bedraggled, with the sluggish eyes of +beggars; and the clean and wholesome uniform of the corporal who led +them stood forth among them. + +They were always pretty much the same men who haunted the inspection +rooms. Many soldiers make it a point of honor never to report sick, +and in their obstinacy there is an obscure and profound heroism. +Others give way and come as often as possible to the gloomy places of +the Army Medical Corps, to run aground opposite the major's door. +Among these are found real human remnants in whom some visible or +secret malady persists. + +The examining-room was contrived in a ground floor room whose furniture +had been pushed back in a heap. Through the open window came the voice +of the major, and by furtively craning our necks we could just see him +at the table, with his tabs and his eyeglass. Before him, half-naked +indigents stood, cap in hand, their coats on their arms, or their +trousers on their feet, pitifully revealing the man through the +soldier, and trying to make the most of the bleeding cords of their +varicose veins, or the arm from which a loose and cadaverous bandage +hung and revealed the hollow of an obstinate wound, laying stress on +their hernia or the everlasting bronchitis beyond their ribs. The +major was a good sort and, it seemed, a good doctor. But this time he +hardly examined the parts that were shown to him and his monotonous +verdict took wings into the street. "Fit to march--good--consultation +without penalty."[1] + +[Footnote 1: As a precaution against "scrimshanking," a penalty +attaches to "consultations" which are adjudged uncalled-for.--Tr.] + +"Consultations," which merely send the soldier back into the ranks +continued indefinitely. No one was exempted from marching. Once we +heard the husky and pitiful voice of a simpleton who was dressing again +in recrimination. The doctor argued, in a good-natured way, and then +said, his voice suddenly serious, "Sorry, my good man, but I cannot +exempt you. I have certain instructions. Make an effort. You can +still do it." + +We saw them come out, one by one, these creatures of deformed body and +dwindling movement, leaning on each other, as though attached, and +mumbling, "Nothing can be done, nothing." + +Little Mélusson, reserved and wretched, with his long red nose between +his burning cheekbones, was standing among us in the idle file with +which the morning seemed vaguely in fellowship. He had not been to the +inspection, but he said, "I can carry on to-day still; but to-morrow I +shall knock under. To-morrow----" + +We paid no attention to Mélusson's words. Some one near us said, +"Those instructions the major spoke of, they're a sign." + +* * * * * * + +On parade that same morning the chief, with his nose on a paper, read +out: "By order of the Officer Commanding," and then he stammered out +some names, names of some soldiers in the regiment brigaded with ours, +who had been shot for disobedience. There was a long list of them. At +the beginning of the reading a slight growl was heard going round. +Then, as the surnames came out, as they spread out in a crowd around +us, there was silence. This direct contact with the phantoms of the +executed set a wind of terror blowing and bowed all heads. + +It was the same again on the days that followed. After parade orders, +the commandant, whom we rarely saw, mustered the four companies under +arms on some waste ground. He spoke to us of the military situation, +particularly favorable to us on the whole front, and of the final +victory which could not be long delayed. He made promises to us. +"Soon you will be at home," and smiled on us for the first time. He +said, "Men, I do not know what is going to happen, but when it should +be necessary I rely on you. As always, do your duty and be silent. It +is so easy to be silent and to act!" + +We broke off and made ourselves scarce. Returned to quarters we +learned there was to be an inspection of cartridges and reserve rations +by the captain. We had hardly time to eat. Majorat waxed wroth, and +confided his indignation to Termite, who was a good audience, "It's all +the fault of that unlucky captain--we're just slaves!" + +He shook his fist as he spoke towards the Town Hall. + +But Termite shrugged his shoulders, looked at him unkindly, and said, +"Like a rotten egg, that's how you talk. That captain, and all the red +tabs and brass hats, it's not them that invented the rules. They're +just gilded machines--machines like you, but not so cheap. If you want +to do away with discipline, do away with war, my fellow; that's a sight +easier than to make it amusing for the private." + +He left Majorat crestfallen, and the others as well. For my part I +admired the peculiar skill with which the anti-militarist could give +answers beside the mark and yet always seem to be in the right. + +During those days they multiplied the route-marches and the exercises +intended to let the officers get the men again in hand. These +maneuvers tired us to death, and especially the sham attacks on wooded +mounds, carried out in the evening among bogs and thorn-thickets. When +we got back, most of the men fell heavily asleep just as they had +fallen, beside their knapsacks, without having the heart to eat. + +Right in the middle of the night and this paralyzed slumber, a cry +echoed through the walls, "Alarm! Stand to arms!" + +We were so weary that the brutal reveille seemed at first, to the +blinking and rusted men, like the shock of a nightmare. Then, while +the cold blew in through the open door and we heard the sentries +running through the streets, while the corporals lighted the candles +and shook us with their voices, we sat up askew, and crouched, and got +our things ready, and stood up and fell in shivering, with flabby legs +and minds befogged, in the black-hued street. + +After the roll-call and some orders and counter-orders, we heard the +command "Forward!" and we left the rest-camp as exhausted as when we +entered it. And thus we set out, no one knew where. + +At first it was the same exodus as always. It was on the same road +that we disappeared: into the same great circles of blackness that we +sank. + +We came to the shattered glass works and then to the quarry, which +daybreak was washing and fouling and making its desolation more +complete. Fatigue was gathering darkly within us and abating our pace. +Faces appeared stiff and wan, and as though they were seen through +gratings. We were surrounded by cries of "Forward!" thrown from all +directions between the twilight of the sky and the night of the earth. +It took a greater effort every time to tear ourselves away from the +halts. + +We were not the only regiment in movement in these latitudes. The +twilight depths were full. Across the spaces that surrounded the +quarry men were passing without ceasing and without limit, their feet +breaking and furrowing the earth like plows. And one guessed that the +shadows also were full of hosts going as we were to the four corners of +the unknown. Then the clay and its thousand barren ruts, these +corpse-like fields, fell away. Under the ashen tints of early day, +fog-banks of men descended the slopes. From the top I saw nearly the +whole regiment rolling into the deeps. As once of an evening in the +days gone by, I had a perception of the multitude's immensity and the +threat of its might, that might which surpasses all and is impelled by +invisible mandates. + +We stopped and drew breath again; and on the gloomy edge of this gulf +some soldiers even amused themselves by inciting Termite to speak of +militarism and anti-militarism. I saw faces which laughed, through +their black and woeful pattern of fatigue, around the little man who +gesticulated in impotence. Then we had to set off again. + +We had never passed that way but in the dark, and we did not recognize +the scenes now that we saw them. From the lane which we descended, +holding ourselves back, to gain the trench, we saw for the first time +the desert through which we had so often passed--plains and lagoons +unlimited. + +The waterlogged open country, with its dispirited pools and their +smoke-like islets of trees, seemed nothing but a reflection of the +leaden, cloud-besmirched sky. The walls of the trenches, pallid as +ice-floes, marked with their long, sinuous crawling where they had been +slowly torn from the earth by the shovels. These embossings and canals +formed a complicated and incalculable network, smudged near at hand by +bodies and wreckage; dreary and planetary in the distance. One could +make out the formal but hazy stakes and posts, aligned in the distance +to the end of sight; and here and there the swellings and round +ink-blots of the dugouts. In some sections of trench one could +sometimes even descry black lines, like a dark wall between other +walls, and these lines stirred--they were the workmen of destruction. +A whole region in the north, on higher ground, was a forest flown away, +leaving only a stranded bristling of masts, like a quayside. There was +thunder in the sky, but it was drizzling, too, and even the flashes +were gray above that infinite liquefaction in which each regiment was +as lost as each man. + +We entered the plain and disappeared into the trench. The "open +crossing" was now pierced by a trench, though it was little more than +begun. Amid the smacks of the bullets which blurred its edges we had +to crawl flat on our bellies, along the sticky bottom of this gully. +The close banks gripped and stopped our packs so that we floundered +perforce like swimmers, to go forward in the earth, under the murder in +the air. For a second the anguish and the effort stopped my heart and +in a nightmare I saw the cadaverous littleness of my grave closing over +me. + +At the end of this torture we got up again, in spite of the knapsacks. +The last star-shells were sending a bloody _aurora borealis_ into the +morning. Sudden haloes drew our glances and crests of black smoke went +up like cypresses. On both sides, in front and behind, we heard the +fearful suicide of shells. + +* * * * * * + +We marched in the earth's interior until evening. From time to time +one hoisted the pack up or pressed down one's cap into the sweat of the +forehead; had it fallen it could not have been picked up again in the +mechanism of the march; and then we began again to fight with the +distance. The hand contracted on the rifle-sling was tumefied by the +shoulder-straps and the bent arm was broken. + +Like a regular refrain the lamentation of Mélusson came to me. He kept +saying that he was going to stop, but he did not stop, ever, and he +even butted into the back of the man in front of him when the whistle +went for a halt. + +The mass of the men said nothing. And the greatness of this silence, +this despotic and oppressive motion, irritated Adjutant Marcassin, who +would have liked to see some animation. He rated and lashed us with a +vengeance. He hustled the file in the narrowness of the trench as he +clove to the corners so as to survey his charge. But then he had no +knapsack. + +Through the heavy distant noise of our tramping, through the funereal +consolation of our drowsiness, we heard the adjutant's ringing voice, +violently reprimanding this or the other. "Where have you seen, swine, +that there can be patriotism without hatred? Do you think one can love +his own country if he doesn't hate the others?" + +When some one spoke banteringly of militarism--for no one, except +Termite, who didn't count, took the word seriously--Marcassin growled +despairingly, "French militarism and Prussian militarism, they're not +the same thing, for one's French and the other's Prussian!" + +But we felt that all these wrangles only shocked and wearied him. He +was instantly and gloomily silent. + +We were halted to mount guard in a part we had never seen before, and +for that reason it seemed worse than the others to us at first. We had +to scatter and run up and down the shelterless trench all night, to +avoid the plunging files of shells. That night was but one great crash +and we were strewn in the middle of it among black puddles, upon a +ghostly background of earth. We moved on again in the morning, +bemused, and the color of night. In front of the column we still heard +the cry "Forward!" Then we redoubled the violence of our effort, we +extorted some little haste from out us; and the soaked and frozen +company went on under cathedrals of cloud which collapsed in flames, +victims of a fate whose name they had no time to seek, a fate which +only let its force be felt, like God. + +During the day, and much farther on, they cried "Halt!" and the +smothered sound of the march was silent. From the trench in which we +collapsed under our packs, while another lot went away, we could see as +far as a railway embankment. The far end of the loophole-pipe enframed +tumbledown dwellings and cabins, ruined gardens where the grass and the +flowers were interred, enclosures masked by palings, fragments of +masonry to which eloquent remains of posters even still clung--a corner +full of artificial details, of human things, of illusions. The railway +bank was near, and in the network of wire stretched between it and us +many bodies were fast-caught as flies. + +The elements had gradually dissolved those bodies and time had worn +them out. With their dislocated gestures and point-like heads they +were but lightly hooked to the wire. For whole hours our eyes were +fixed on this country all obstructed by a machinery of wires and full +of men who were not on the ground. One, swinging in the wind, stood +out more sharply than the others, pierced like a sieve a hundred times +through and through, and a void in the place of his heart. Another +specter, quite near, had doubtless long since disintegrated, while held +up by his clothes. At the time when the shadow of night began to seize +us in its greatness a wind arose, a wind which shook the desiccated +creature, and he emptied himself of a mass of mold and dust. One saw +the sky's whirlwind, dark and disheveled, in the place where the man +had been; the soldier was carried away by the wind and buried in the +sky. + +Towards the end of the afternoon the piercing whistle of the bullets +was redoubled. We were riddled and battered by the noise. The +wariness with which we watched the landscape that was watching us +seemed to exasperate Marcassin. He pondered an idea; then came to a +sudden decision and cried triumphantly, "Look!" + +He climbed to the parapet, stood there upright, shook his fist at space +with the blind and simple gesture of the apostle who is offering his +example and his heart, and shouted, "Death to the Boches!" + +Then he came down, quivering with the faith of his self-gift. + +"Better not do that again," growled the soldiers who were lined up in +the trench, gorgonized by the extraordinary sight of a living man +standing, for no reason, on a front line parapet in broad daylight, +stupefied by the rashness they admired although it outstripped them. + +"Why not? Look!" + +Marcassin sprang up once more. Lean and erect, he stood like a poplar, +and raising both arms straight into the air, he yelled, "I believe only +in the glory of France!" + +Nothing else was left for him; he was but a conviction. Hardly had he +spoken thus in the teeth of the invisible hurricane when he opened his +arms, assumed the shape of a cross against the sky, spun round, and +fell noisily into the middle of the trench and of our cries. + +He had rolled onto his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he +turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his +eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great +boots away, that we should not walk on that blood. + +"He died like an idiot," said Margat in a choking voice; "but by God +it's fine!" + +He took off his cap, saluted awkwardly and stood with bowed head. + +"Committing suicide for an idea, it's fine," mumbled Vidaine. + +"It's fine, it's fine!" other voices said. + +And these little words fluttered down like leaves and petals onto the +body of the great dead soldier. + +"Where's his cap, that he thought so much of?" groaned his orderly, +Aubeau, looking in all directions. + +"Up there, to be sure: I'll fetch it," said Termite. + +The comical man went for the relic. He mounted the parapet in his +turn, coolly, but bending low. We saw him ferreting about, frail as a +poor monkey on the terrible crest. At last he put his hand on the cap +and jumped into the trench. A smile sparkled in his eyes and in the +middle of his beard, and his brass "cold meat ticket" jingled on his +shaggy wrist. + +They took the body away. The men carried it and a third followed with +the cap. One of us said, "The war's over for him!" And during the +dead man's recessional we were mustered, and we continued to draw +nearer to the unknown. But everything seemed to recede as fast as we +advanced, even events. + +* * * * * * + +We wandered five days, six days, in the lines, almost without sleeping. +We stood for hours, for half-nights and half-days, waiting for ways to +be clear that we could not see. Unceasingly they made us go back on +our tracks and begin over again. We mounted guard in trenches, we +fitted ourselves into some stripped and sinister corner which stood out +against a charred twilight or against fire. We were condemned to see +the same abysses always. + +For two nights we bent fiercely to the mending of an old third-line +trench above the ruin of its former mending. We repaired the long +skeleton, soft and black, of its timbers. From that dried-up drain we +besomed the rubbish of equipment, of petrified weapons, of rotten +clothes and of victuals, of a sort of wreckage of forest and +house--filthy, incomparably filthy, infinitely filthy. We worked by +night and hid by day. The only light for us was the heavy dawn of +evening when they dragged us from sleep. Eternal night covered the +earth. + +After the labor, as soon as daybreak began to replace night with +melancholy, we buried ourselves methodically in the depth of the +caverns there. Only a deadened murmur penetrated to them, but the rock +moved by reason of the earthquakes. When some one lighted his pipe, by +that gleam we looked at each other. We were fully equipped; we could +start away at any minute; it was forbidden to take off the heavy +jingling chain of cartridges around us. + +I heard some one say, "In _my_ country there are fields, and paths, and +the sea; nowhere else in the world is there that." + +Among these shades of the cave--an abode of the first men as it +seemed--I saw the hand start forth of him who existed on the spectacle +of the fields and the sea, who was trying to show it and to seize it; +or I saw around a vague halo four card-players stubbornly bent upon +finding again something of an ancient and peaceful attachment in the +faces of the cards; or I saw Margat flourish a Socialist paper that had +fallen from Termite's pocket, and burst into laughter at the censored +blanks it contained. And Majorat raged against life, caressed his +reserve bottle with his lips till out of breath and then, appeased and +his mouth dripping, said it was the only way to alleviate his +imprisonment. Then sleep slew words and gestures and thoughts. I kept +repeating some phrase to myself, trying in vain to understand it; and +sleep submerged me, ancestral sleep so dreary and so deep that it seems +there had only and ever been one long, lone sleep here on earth, above +which our few actions float, and which ever returns to fill the flesh +of man with night. + +Forward! Our nights are torn from us in lots. The bodies, invaded by +caressing poison, and even by confidences and apparitions, shake +themselves and stand up again. We extricate ourselves from the hole, +and emerge from the density of buried breath; stumbling we climb into +icy space, odorless, infinite space. The oscillation of the march, +assailed on both sides by the trench, brings brief and paltry halts, in +which we recline against the walls, or cast ourselves on them. We +embrace the earth, since nothing else is left us to embrace. + +Then Movement seizes us again. Metrified by regular jolts, by the +shock of each step, by our prisoned breathing, it loses its hold no +more, but becomes incarnate in us. It sets one small word resounding +in our heads, between our teeth--"Forward!"--longer, more infinite than +the uproar of the shells. It sets us making, towards the east or +towards the north, bounds which are days and nights in length. It +turns us into a chain which rolls along with a sound of steel--the +metallic hammering of rifle, bayonet, cartridges, and of the tin cup +which shines on the dark masses like a bolt. Wheels, gearing, +machinery! One sees life and the reality of things striking and +consuming and forging each other. + +We knew well enough that we were going towards some tragedy that the +chiefs knew of; but the tragedy was above all in the going there. + +* * * * * * + +We changed country. We left the trenches and climbed out upon the +earth--along a great incline which hid the enemy horizon from us and +protected us against him. The blackening dampness turned the cold into +a thing, and laid frozen shudders on us. A pestilence surrounded us, +wide and vague; and sometimes lines of pale crosses alongside our march +spelled out death in a more precise way. + +It was our tenth night; it was at the end of all our nights, and it +seemed greater than they. The distances groaned, roared and growled, +and would sometimes abruptly define the crest of the incline among the +winding sheets of the mists. The intermittent flutters of light showed +me the soldier who marched in front of me. My eyes, resting in fixity +on him, discovered his sheepskin coat, his waist-belt, straining at the +shoulder-straps, dragged by the metal-packed cartridge pouches, by the +bayonet, by the trench-tool; his round bags, pushed backwards; his +swathed and hooded rifle; his knapsack, packed lengthways so as not to +give a handle to the earth which goes by on either side; the blanket, +the quilt, the tentcloth, folded accordion-wise on the top of each +other, and the whole surmounted by the mess-tin, ringing like a +mournful bell, higher than his head. What a huge, heavy and mighty +mass the armed soldier is, near at hand and when one is looking at +nothing else! + +Once, in consequence of a command badly given or badly understood, the +company wavered, flowed back and pawed the ground in disorder on the +declivity. Fifty men, who were all alike by reason of their sheepskins +ran here and there and one by one--a vague collection of evasive men, +small and frail, not knowing what to do; while non-coms ran round them, +abused and gathered them. Order began again, and against the whitish +and bluish sheets spread by the star-shells I saw the pendulums of the +step once more fall into line under the long body of shadows. + +During the night there was a distribution of brandy. By the light of +lanterns we saw the cups held out, shaking and gleaming. The libation +drew from our entrails a moment of delight and uplifting. The liquid's +fierce flow awoke deep impulses, restored the martial mien to us, and +made us grasp our rifles with a victorious desire to kill. + +But the night was longer than that dream. Soon, the kind of goddess +superposed on our shadows left our hands and our heads, and that thrill +of glory was of no use. + +Indeed, its memory filled our hearts with a sort of bitterness. "You +see, there's no trenches anywhere about here," grumbled the men. + +"And why are there no trenches?" said a wrongheaded man; "why, it's +because they don't care a damn for soldiers' lives." + +"Fathead!" the corporal interrupted; "what's the good of trenches +behind, if there's one in front, fathead!" + +* * * * * * + +"Halt!" + +We saw the Divisional Staff go by in the beam of a searchlight. In +that valley of night it might have been a procession of princes rising +from a subterranean palace. On cuffs and sleeves and collars badges +wagged and shone, golden aureoles encircled the heads of this group of +apparitions. + +The flashing made us start and awoke us forcibly, as it did the night. + +The men had been pressed back upon the side of the sunken hollow to +clear the way; and they watched, blended with the solidity of the dark. +Each great person in his turn pierced the fan of moted sunshine, and +each was lighted up for some paces. Hidden and abashed, the +shadow-soldiers began to speak in very low voices of those who went by +like torches. + +They who passed first, guiding the Staff, were the company and +battalion officers. We knew them. The quiet comments breathed from +the darkness were composed either of praises or curses; these were good +and clear-sighted officers; those were triflers or skulkers. + +"That's one that's killed some men!" + +"That's one I'd be killed for!" + +"The infantry officer who really does all he ought," Pélican declared, +"well, he get's killed." + +"Or else he's lucky." + +"There's black and there's white in the company officers. At bottom +you know, I say they're men. It's just a chance you've got whether you +tumble on the good or the bad sort. No good worrying. It's just +luck." + +"More's the pity for us." + +The soldier who said that smiled vaguely, lighted by a reflection from +the chiefs. One read in his face an acquiescence which recalled to me +certain beautiful smiles I had caught sight of in former days on +toilers' humble faces. Those who are around me are saying to +themselves, "Thus it is written," and they think no farther than that, +massed all mistily in the darkness, like vague hordes of negroes. + +Then officers went by of whom we did not speak, because we did not know +them. These unknown tab-bearers made a greater impression than the +others; and besides, their importance and their power were increasing. +We saw rows of increasing crowns on the caps. Then, the shadow-men +were silent. The eulogy and the censure addressed to those whom one +had seen at work had no hold on these, and all those minor things faded +away. These were admired in the lump. + +This superstition made me smile. But the general of the division +himself appeared in almost sacred isolation. The tabs and +thunderbolts[1] and stripes of his satellites glittered at a respectful +distance only. Then it seemed to me that I was face to face with Fate +itself--the will of this man. In his presence a sort of instinct +dazzled me. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +"Packs up! Forward!" + +We took back upon our hips and neck the knapsack which had the shape +and the weight of a yoke, which every minute that falls on it weighs +down more dourly. The common march went on again. It filled a great +space; it shook the rocky slopes with its weight. In vain I bent my +head--I could not hear the sound of my own steps, so blended was it +with the others. And I repeated obstinately to myself that one had to +admire the intelligent force which sets all this deep mass in movement, +which says to us or makes us say, "Forward!" or "It has to be!" or "You +will _not_ know!" which hurls the world we are into a whirlpool so +great that we do not even see the direction of our fall, into +profundities we cannot see because they are profound. We have need of +masters who know all that we do not know. + +* * * * * * + +Our weariness so increased and overflowed that it seemed as if we grew +bigger at every step! And then one no longer thought of fatigue. We +had forgotten it, as we had forgotten the number of the days and even +their names. Always we made one step more, always. + +Ah, the infantry soldiers, the pitiful Wandering Jews who are always +marching! They march mathematically, in rows of four numbers, or in +file in the trenches, four-squared by their iron load, but separate, +separate. Bent forward they go, almost prostrated, trailing their +legs, kicking the dead. Slowly, little by little, they are wounded by +the length of time, by the incalculable repetition of movements, by the +greatness of things. They are borne down by their bones and muscles, +by their own human weight. At halts of only ten minutes, they sink +down. "There's no time to sleep!" "No matter," they say, and they go +to sleep as happy people do. + +* * * * * * + +Suddenly we learned that nothing was going to happen! It was all over +for us, and we were going to return to the rest-camp. We said it over +again to ourselves. And one evening they said, "We're returning," +although they did not know, as they went on straight before them, +whether they were going forward or backward. + +In the plaster-kiln which we are marching past there is a bit of +candle, and sunk underneath its feeble illumination there are four men. +Nearer, one sees that it is a soldier, guarding three prisoners. The +sight of these enemy soldiers in greenish and red rags gives us an +impression of power, of victory. Some voices question them in passing. +They are dismayed and stupefied; the fists that prop up their yellow +cheekbones protrude triangular caricatures of features. Sometimes, at +the cut of a frank question, they show signs of lifting their heads, +and awkwardly try to give vent to an answer. + +"What's he say, that chap?" they asked Sergeant Müller. + +"He says that war's none of their fault; it's the big people's." + +"The swine!" grunts Margat. + +We climb the hill and go down the other side of it. Meandering, we +steer towards the infernal glimmers down yonder. At the foot of the +hill we stop. There ought to be a clear view, but it is +evening--because of the bad weather and because the sky is full of +black things and of chemical clouds with unnatural colors. Storm is +blended with war. Above the fierce and furious cry of the shells I +heard, in domination over all, the peaceful boom of thunder. + +They plant us in subterranean files, facing a wide plain of gentle +gradient which dips from the horizon towards us, a plain with a rolling +jumble of thorn-brakes and trees, which the gale is seizing by the +hair. Squalls charged with rain and cold are passing over and +immensifying it; and there are rivers and cataclysms of clamor along +the trajectories of the shells. Yonder, under the mass of the rust-red +sky and its sullen flames, there opens a yellow rift where trees stand +forth like gallows. The soil is dismembered. The earth's covering has +been blown a lot in slabs, and its heart is seen reddish and lined +white--butchery as far as the eye can see. + +There is nothing now but to sit down and recline one's back as +conveniently as possible. We stay there and breathe and live a little; +we are calm, thanks to that faculty we have of never seeing either the +past or the future. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHITHER GOEST THOU? + + +But soon a shiver has seized all of us. + +"Listen! It's stopped! Listen!" + +The whistle of bullets has completely ceased, and the artillery also. +The lull is fantastic. The longer it lasts the more it pierces us with +the uneasiness of beasts. We lived in eternal noise; and now that it +is hiding, it shakes and rouses us, and would drive us mad. + +"What's that?" + +We rub our eyelids and open wide our eyes. We hoist our heads with no +precaution above the crumbled parapet. We question each other--"D'you +see?" + +No doubt about it; the shadows are moving along the ground wherever one +looks. There is no point in the distance where they are not moving. + +Some one says at last:-- + +"Why, it's the Boches, to be sure!" + +And then we recognize on the sloping plain the immense geographical +form of the army that is coming upon us! + +* * * * * * + +Behind and in front of us together, a terrible crackle bursts forth and +makes somber captives of us in the depth of a valley of flames, and +flames which illuminate the plain of men marching over the plain. They +reveal them afar, in incalculable number, with the first ranks +detaching themselves, wavering a little, and forming again, the chalky +soil a series of points and lines like something written! + +Gloomy stupefaction makes us dumb in face of that living immensity. +Then we understand that this host whose fountain-head is out of sight +is being frightfully cannonaded by our 75's; the shells set off behind +us and arrive in front of us. In the middle of the lilliputian ranks +the giant smoke-clouds leap like hellish gods. We see the flashes of +the shells which are entering that flesh scattered over the earth. It +is smashed and burned entirely in places, and that nation advances like +a brazier. + +Without a stop it overflows towards us. Continually the horizon +produces new waves. We hear a vast and gentle murmur rise. With their +tearing lights and their dull glimmers they resemble in the distance a +whole town making festival in the evening. + +We can do nothing against the magnitude of that attack, the greatness +of that sum total. When a gun has fired short, we see more clearly the +littleness of each shot. Fire and steel are drowned in all that life; +it closes up and re-forms like the sea. + +"Rapid fire!" + +We fire desperately. But we have not many cartridges. Since we came +into the first line they have ceased to inspect our load of ammunition; +and many men, especially these last days, have got rid of a part of the +burden which bruises hips and belly and tears away the skin. They who +are coming do not fire; and above the long burning thicket of our line +one can see them still flowing from the east. They are closely massed +in ranks. One would say they clung to each other as though welded. +They are not using their rifles. Their only weapon is the infinity of +their number. They are coming to bury us under their feet. + +Suddenly a shift in the wind brings us the smell of ether. The +divisions advancing on us are drunk! We declare it, we tell it to +ourselves frantically. + +"They're on fire! They're on fire!" cries the trembling voice of the +man beside me, whose shoulders are shaken by the shots he is hurling. + +They draw near. They are lighted from below along the descent by the +flashing footlights of our fire; they grow bigger, and already we can +make out the forms of soldiers. They are at the same time in order and +in disorder. Their outlines are rigid, and one divines faces of stone. +Their rifles are slung and they have nothing in their hands. They come +on like sleep-walkers, only knowing how to put one foot before the +other, and surely they are singing. Yonder, in the bulk of the +invasion, the guns continue to destroy whole walls and whole structures +of life at will. On the edges of it we can clearly see isolated +silhouettes and groups as they fall, with an extended line of figures +like torchlights. + +Now they are there, fifty paces away, breathing their ether into our +faces. We do not know what to do. We have no more cartridges. We fix +bayonets, our ears filled with that endless, undefined murmur which +comes from their mouths and the hollow rolling of the flood that +marches. + +A shout spreads behind us: + +"Orders to fall back!" + +We bow down and evacuate the trench by openings at the back. There are +not a lot of us, we who thought we were so many. The trench is soon +empty, and we climb the hill that we descended in coming. We go up +towards our 75's, which are in lines behind the ridge and still +thundering. We climb at a venture, in the open, by vague paths and +tracks of mud; there are no trenches. During the gray ascent it is a +little clearer than a while ago: they do not fire on us. If they fired +on us, we should be killed. We climb in flagging jumps, in jerks, +pounded by the panting of the following waves that push us before them, +closely beset by their clattering, nor turning round to look again. We +hoist ourselves up the trembling flanks of the volcano that clamors up +yonder. Along with us are emptied batteries also climbing, and horses +and clouds of steam and all the horror of modern war. Each man pushes +this retreat on, and is pushed by it; and as our panting becomes one +long voice, we go up and up, baffled by our own weight which tries to +fall back, deformed by our knapsacks, bent and silent as beasts. + +From the summit we see the trembling inundation, murmuring and +confused, filling the trenches we have just left, and seeming already +to overflow them. But our eyes and ears are violently monopolized by +the two batteries between which we are passing; they are firing into +the infinity of the attackers, and each shot plunges into life. Never +have I been so affected by the harrowing sight of artillery fire. The +tubes bark and scream in crashes that can hardly be borne; they go and +come on their brakes in starts of fantastic distinctness and violence. + +In the hollows where the batteries lie hid, in the middle of a +fan-shaped phosphorescence, we see the silhouettes of the gunners as +they thrust in the shells. Every time they maneuver the breeches, +their chests and arms are scorched by a tawny reflection. They are +like the implacable workers of blast furnace; the breeches are reddened +by the heat of the explosions, the steel of the guns is on fire in the +evening. + +For some minutes now they have fired more slowly--as if they were +becoming exhausted. A few far-apart shots--the batteries fire no more; +and now that the salvos are extinguished, we see the fire in the steel +go out. + +In the abysmal silence we hear a gunner groan:-- + +"There's no more shell." + +The shadow of twilight resumes its place in the sky--henceforward +empty. It grows cold. There is a mysterious and terrible mourning. +Around me, springing from the obscurity, are groans and gasps for +breath, loaded backs which disappear, stupefied eyes, and the gestures +of men who wipe the sweat from their foreheads. The order to retire is +repeated, in a tone that grips us--one would call it a cry of distress. +There is a confused and dejected trampling; and then we descend, we go +away the way we came, and the host follows itself heavily and makes +more steps into the gulf. + +* * * * * * + +When we have gone again down the slope of the hill, we find ourselves +once more in the bottom of a valley, for another height begins. Before +ascending it, we stop to take breath, but ready to set off again should +the flood-tide appear on the ridge yonder. We find ourselves in the +middle of grassy expanses, without trenches or defense, and we are +astonished not to see the supports. We are in the midst of a sort of +absence. + +We sit down here and there; and some one with his forehead bowed almost +to his knees, translating the common thought, says:-- + +"It's none of our fault." + +Our lieutenant goes up to the man, puts his hand on his shoulder, and +says, gently:-- + +"No, my lads, it's none of your fault." + +Just then some sections join us who say, "We're the rearguard." And +some add that the two batteries of 75's up yonder are already captured. +A whistle rings out--"Come, march!" + +We continue the retreat. There are two battalions of us in all--no +soldier in front of us; no French soldier behind us. I have neighbors +who are unknown to me, motley men, routed and stupefied, artillery and +engineers; unknown men who come and go away, who seem to be born and +seem to die. + +At one time we get a glimpse of some confusion in the orders from +above. A Staff officer, issuing from no one knew where, throws himself +in front of us, bars our way, and questions us in a tragic voice:-- + +"What are you miserable men doing? Are you running away? Forward in +the name of France! I call upon you to return. Forward!" + +The soldiers, who would never have thought of retiring without orders, +are stunned, and can make nothing of it. + +"We're going back because they told us to go back." + +But they obey. They turn right about face. Some of them have already +begun to march forward, and they call to their comrades:-- + +"Hey there! This way, it seems!" + +But the order to retire returns definitely, and we obey once more, +fuming against those who do not know what they say; and the ebb carries +away with it the officer who shouted amiss. + +The march speeds up, it becomes precipitate and haggard. We are swept +along by an impetuosity that we submit to without knowing whence it +comes. We begin the ascent of the second hill which appears in the +fallen night a mountain. + +When fairly on it we hear round us, on all sides and quite close, a +terrible pit-pat, and the long low hiss of mown grass. There is a +crackling afar in the sky, and they who glance back for a second in the +awesome storm see the cloudy ridges catch fire horizontally. It means +that the enemy have mounted machine guns on the summit we have just +abandoned, and that the place where we are is being hacked by the +knives of bullets. On all sides soldiers wheel and rattle down with +curses, sighs and cries. We grab and hang on to each other, jostling +as if we were fighting. + +The rest at last reach the top of the rise; and just at that moment the +lieutenant cries in a clear and heartrending voice: + +"Good-by, my lads!" + +We see him fall, and he is carried away by the survivors around him. + +From the summit we go a few steps down the other side, and lie on the +ground in silence. Some one asks, "The lieutenant?" + +"He's dead." + +"Ah," says the soldier, "and how he said good-by to us!" + +We breathe a little now. We do not think any more unless it be that we +are at last saved, at last lying down. + +Some engineers fire star-shells, to reconnoiter the state of things in +the ground we have evacuated. Some have the curiosity to risk a glance +over it. On the top of the first hill--where our guns were--the big +dazzling plummets show a line of bustling excitement. One hears the +noises of picks and of mallet blows. + +They have stopped their advance and are consolidating there. They are +hollowing their trenches and planting their network of wire--which will +have to be taken again some day. We watch, outspread on our bellies, +or kneeling, or sitting lower down, with our empty rifles beside us. + +Margat reflects, shakes his head and says:-- + +"Wire would have stopped them just now. But we had no wire." + +"And machine-guns, too! but where are they, the M.G.s?" + +We have a distinct feeling that there has been an enormous blunder in +the command. Want of foresight--the reënforcements were not there; +they had not thought of supports. There were not enough guns to bar +their way, nor enough artillery ammunition; with our own eyes we had +seen two batteries cease fire in mid-action--they had not thought of +shells. In a wide stretch of country, as one could see, there were no +defense work, no trenches; they had not thought of trenches. + +It is obvious even to the common eyes of common soldiers. + +"What could we do?" says one of us; "it's the chiefs." + +We say it and we should repeat it if we were not up again and swept +away in the hustle of a fresh departure, and thrown back upon more +immediate and important anxieties. + +* * * * * * + +We do not know where we are. + +We have marched all night. More weariness bends our spines again, more +obscurity hums in our heads. By following the bed of a valley, we have +found trenches again, and then men. These splayed and squelched +alleys, with their fat and sinking sandbags, their props which rot like +limbs, flow into wider pockets where activity prevails--battalion H.Q., +or dressing-stations. About midnight we saw, through the golden line +of a dugout's half-open door, some officers seated at a white table--a +cloth or a map. Some one cries, "They're lucky!" The company officers +are exposed to dangers as we are, but only in attacks and reliefs. We +suffer long. They have neither the vigil at the loophole, nor the +knapsack, nor the fatigues. What always lasts is greater. + +And now the walls of flabby flagstones and the open-mouthed caves have +begun again. Morning rises, long and narrow as our lot. We reach a +busy trench-crossing. A stench catches my throat: some cess-pool into +which these streets suspended in the earth empty their sewage? No, we +see rows of stretchers, each one swollen. There is a tent there of +gray canvas, which flaps like a flag, and on its fluttering wall the +dawn lights up a bloody cross. + +* * * * * * + +Sometimes, when we are high enough for our eyes to unbury themselves, I +can dimly see some geometrical lines, so confused, so desolated by +distance, that I do not know if it is our country or the other; even +when one sees he does not know. Our looks are worn away in looking. +We do not see, we are powerless to people the world. We all have +nothing in common but eyes of evening and a soul of night. + +And always, always, in these trenches whose walls run down like waves, +with their stale stinks of chlorine and sulphur, chains of soldiers go +forward endlessly, towing each other. They go as quickly as they can, +as if the walls were going to close upon them. They are bowed as if +they were always climbing, wholly dark under colossal packs which they +carry without stopping, from one place to another place, as they might +rocks in hell. From minute to minute we are filling the places of the +obliterated hosts who have passed this way like the wind or have stayed +here like the earth. + +We halt in a funnel. We lean our backs against the walls, resting the +packs on the projections which bristle from them. But we examine these +things coming out of the earth, and we smell that they are knees, +elbows and heads. They were interred there one day and the following +days are disinterring them. At the spot where I am, from which I have +roughly and heavily recoiled with all my armory, a foot comes out from +a subterranean body and protrudes. I try to put it out of the way, but +it is strongly incrusted. One would have to break the corpse of steel, +to make it disappear. I look at the morsel of mortality. My thoughts, +and I cannot help them, are attracted by the horizontal body that the +world bruises; they go into the ground with it and mold a shape for it. +Its face--what is the look which rots crushed in the dark depth of the +earth at the top of these remains? Ah, one catches sight of what there +is under the battlefields! Everywhere in the spacious wall there are +limbs, and black and muddy gestures. It is a sepulchral sculptor's +great sketch-model, a bas-relief in clay that stands haughtily before +our eyes. It is the portal of the earth's interior; yes, it is the +gate of hell. + +* * * * * * + +In order to get here, I slept as I marched; and now I have an illusion +that I am hidden in this little cave, cooped up against the curve of +the roof. I am no more than this gentle cry of the flesh--Sleep! As I +begin to doze and people myself with dreams, a man comes in. He is +unarmed, and he ransacks us with the stabbing white point of his +flash-lamp. It is the colonel's batman. He says to our adjutant as +soon as he finds him:-- + +"Six fatigue men wanted." + +The adjutant's bulk rises and yawns:-- + +"Butsire, Vindame, Margat, Termite, Paulin, Rémus!" he orders as he +goes to sleep again. + +We emerge from the cave; and more slowly, from our drowsiness. We find +ourselves standing in a village street. But as soon as we touch the +open air, dazzling roars precede and follow us, mere handful of men as +we are, abruptly revealing us to each other. We hurl ourselves like a +pack of hounds into the first door or the first gaping hole, and there +are some who cry that: "We are marked. We're given away!" + +After the porterage fatigue we go back. I settle myself in my corner, +heavier, more exhausted, more buried in the bottom of everything. I +was beginning to sleep, to go away from myself, lulled by a voice which +sought in vain the number of the days we had been on the move, and was +repeating the names of the nights--Thursday, Friday, Saturday--when the +man with the pointed light returns, demands a gang, and I set off with +the others. It is so again for a third time. As soon as we are +outside, the night, which seems to lie in wait for us, sends us a +squall, with its thunderous destruction of space; it scatters us; then +we are drawn together and joined up. We carry thick planks, two by +two; and then piles of sacks which blind the bearers with a plastery +dust and make them reel like masts. + +Then the last time, the most terrible, it was wire. Each of us takes +into his hands a great hoop of coiled wire, as tall as ourselves, and +weighing over sixty pounds. When one carries it, the supple wheel +stretches out like an animal; it is set dancing by the least movement, +it works into the flesh of the shoulder, and strikes one's feet. Mine +tries to cling to me and pull me up and throw me to the ground. With +this malignantly heavy thing, animated with barbarous and powerful +movement, I cross the ruins of a railway station, all stones and beams. +We clamber up an embankment which slips away and avoids us, we drag and +push the rebellious and implacable burden. It cannot be reached, that +receding height. But we reach it, all the same. + +Ah, I am a normal man! I cling to life, and I have the consciousness +of duty. But at that moment I called from the bottom of my heart for +the bullet which would have delivered me from life. + +We return, with empty hands, in a sort of sinister comfort. I +remember, as we came in, a neighbor said to me--or to some one else: + +"Sheets of corrugated iron are worse." + +The fatigues have to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest +against the masses of stores which uselessly fill the depot. + +We sleep from six to seven in the morning. In the last traces of night +we emigrate from the cave, blinking like owls. + +"Where's the juice?"[1] we ask. + +[Footnote 1: Coffee.] + +There is none. The cooks are not there, nor the mess people. And they +reply:-- + +"Forward!" + +In the dull and pallid morning, on the approaches to a village, there +appear gardens, which no longer have human shape. Instead of +cultivation there are puddles and mud. All is burned or drowned, and +the walls scattered like bones everywhere; and we see the mottled and +bedaubed shadows of soldiers. War befouls the country as it does faces +and hearts. + +Our company gets going, gray and wan, broken down by the infamous +weariness. We halt in front of a hangar:-- + +"Those that are tired can leave their packs," the new sergeant advises; +"they'll find them again here." + +"If we're leaving our packs, it means we're going to attack," says an +ancient. + +He says it, but he does not know. + +One by one, on the dirty soil of the hangar, the knapsacks fall like +bodies. Some men, however, are mistrustful, and prefer to keep their +packs. Under all circumstances there are always exceptions. + +Forward! The same shouts put us again in movement. Forward! Come, +get up! Come on, march! Subdue your refractory flesh; lift yourselves +from your slumber as from a coffin, begin yourselves again without +ceasing, give all that you can give--Forward! Forward! It has to be. +It is a higher concern than yours, a law from above. We do not know +what it is. We only know the step we make; and even by day one marches +in the night. And then, one cannot help it. The vague thoughts and +little wishes that we had in the days when we were concerned with +ourselves are ended. There is no way now of escaping from the wheels +of fate, no way now of turning aside from fatigue and cold, disgust and +pain. Forward! The world's hurricane drives straight before them +these terribly blind who grope with their rifles. + +We have passed through a wood, and then plunged again into the earth. +We are caught in an enfilading fire. It is terrible to pass in broad +daylight in these communication trenches, at right angles to the lines, +where one is in view all the way. Some soldiers are hit and fall. +There are light eddies and brief obstructions in the places where they +dive; and then the rest, a moment halted by the barrier, sometimes +still living, frown in the wide-open direction of death, and say:-- + +"Well, if it's got to be, come on. Get on with it!" + +They deliver up their bodies wholly--their warm bodies, that the bitter +cold and the wind and the sightless death touch as with women's hands. +In these contacts between living beings and force, there is something +carnal, virginal, divine. + +* * * * * * + +They have sent me into a listening post. To get there I had to worm +myself, bent double, along a low and obstructed sap. In the first +steps I was careful not to walk on the obstructions, and then I had to, +and I dared. My foot trembled on the hard or supple masses which +peopled that sap. + +On the edge of the hole--there had been a road above it formerly, or +perhaps even a market-place--the trunk of a tree severed near the +ground arose, short as a grave-stone. The sight stopped me for a +moment, and my heart, weakened no doubt by my physical destitution, +kindled with pity for the tree become a tomb! + +Two hours later I rejoined the section in its pit. We abide there, +while the cannonade increases. The morning goes by, then the +afternoon. Then it is evening. + +They make us go into a wide dugout. It appears that an attack is +developing somewhere. From time to time, through a breach contrived +between sandbags so decomposed and oozing that they seem to have lived, +we go out to a little winterly and mournful crossing, to look about. +We consult the sky to determine the tempest's whereabouts. We can know +nothing. + +The artillery fire dazzles and then chokes up our sight. The heavens +are making a tumult of blades. + +Monuments of steel break loose and crash above our heads. Under the +sky, which is dark as with threat of deluge, the explosions throw livid +sunshine in all directions. From one end to the other of the visible +world the fields move and descend and dissolve, and the immense expanse +stumbles and falls like the sea. Towering explosions in the east, a +squall in the south; in the zenith a file of bursting shrapnel like +suspended volcanoes. + +The smoke which goes by, and the hours as well, darken the inferno. +Two or three of us risk our faces at the earthen cleft and look out, as +much for the purpose of propping ourselves against the earth as for +seeing. But we see nothing, nothing on the infinite expanse which is +full of rain and dusk, nothing but the clouds which tear themselves and +blend together in the sky, and the clouds which come out of the earth. + +Then, in the slanting rain and the limitless gray, we see a man, one +only, who advances with his bayonet forward, like a specter. + +We watch this shapeless being, this thing, leaving our lines and going +away yonder. + +We only see one--perhaps that is the shadow of another, on his left. + +We do not understand, and then we do. It is the end of the attacking +wave. + +What can his thoughts be--this man alone in the rain as if under a +curse, who goes upright away, forward, when space is changed into a +shrieking machine? By the light of a cascade of flashes I thought I +saw a strange monk-like face. Then I saw more clearly--the face of an +ordinary man, muffled in a comforter. + +"It's a chap of the 150th, not the 129th," stammers a voice by my side. + +We do not know, except that it is the end of the attacking wave. + +When he has disappeared among the eddies, another follows him at a +distance, and then another. They pass by, separate and solitary, +delegates of death, sacrificers and sacrificed. Their great-coats fly +wide; and we, we press close to each other in our corner of night; we +push and hoist ourselves with our rusted muscles, to see that void and +those great scattered soldiers. + +We return to the shelter, which is plunged in darkness. The +motor-cyclist's voice obtrudes itself to the point that we think we can +see his black armor. He is describing the "carryings on" at Bordeaux +in September, when the Government was there. He tells of the +festivities, the orgies, the expenditure, and there is almost a tone of +pride in the poor creature's voice as he recalls so many pompous +pageants all at once. + +But the uproar outside silences us. Our funk-hole trembles and cracks. +It is the barrage--the barrage which those whom we saw have gone to +fight, hand to hand. A thunderbolt falls just at the opening, it casts +a bright light on all of us, and reveals the last emotion of all, the +belief that all was ended! One man is grimacing like a malefactor +caught in the act; another is opening strange, disappointed eyes; +another is swinging his doleful head, enslaved by the love of sleep, +and another, squatting with his head in his hands, makes a lurid +entanglement. We have seen each other--upright, sitting or +crucified--in the second of broad daylight which came into the bowels +of the earth to resurrect our darkness. + +In a moment, when the guns chance to take breath, a voice at the +door-hole calls us: + +"Forward!" + +"We shall be staying there, this time over!" growl the men. + +They say this, but they do not know it. We go out, into a chaos of +crashing and flames. + +"You'd better fix bayonets," says the sergeant; "come, get 'em on." + +We stop while we adjust weapon to weapon and then run to overtake the +rest. + +We go down; we go up; we mark time; we go forward--like the others. We +are no longer in the trench. + +"Get your heads down--kneel!" + +We stop and go on our knees. A star-shell pierces us with its +intolerable gaze. + +By its light we see, a few steps in front of us, a gaping trench. We +were going to fall into it. It is motionless and empty--no, it is +occupied--yes, it is empty. It is full of a file of slain watchers. +The row of men was no doubt starting out of the earth when the shell +burst in their faces; and by the poised white rays we see that the +blast has staved them in, has taken away the flesh; and above the level +of the monstrous battlefield there is left of them only some fearfully +distorted heads. One is broken and blurred; one emerges like a peak, a +good half of it fallen into nothing. At the end of the row, the +ravages have been less, and only the eyes are smitten. The hollow +orbits in those marble heads look outwards with dried darkness. The +deep and obscure face-wounds have the look of caverns and funnels, of +the shadows in the moon; and stars of mud are clapped on the faces in +the place where eyes once shone. + +Our strides have passed that trench. We go more quickly and trouble no +more now about the star-shells, which, among us who know nothing, say, +"I know" and "I will." All is changed, all habits and laws. We march +exposed, upright, through the open fields. Then I suddenly understand +what they have hidden from us up to the last moment--we are attacking! + +Yes, the counter-attack has begun without our knowing it. I apply +myself to following the others. May I not be killed like the others; +may I be saved like the others! But if I am killed, so much the worse. + +I bear myself forward. My eyes are open but I look at nothing; +confused pictures are printed on my staring eyes. The men around me +form strange surges; shouts cross each other or descend. Upon the +fantastic walls of nights the shots make flicks and flashes. Earth and +sky are crowded with apparitions; and the golden lace of burning stakes +is unfolding. + +A man is in front of me, a man whose head is wrapped in linen. + +He is coming from the opposite direction. He is coming from the other +country! He was seeking me, and I was seeking him. He is quite +near--suddenly he is upon me. + +The fear that he is killing me or escaping me--I do not know +which--makes me throw out a desperate effort. Opening my hands and +letting the rifle go, I seize him. My fingers are buried in his +shoulder, in his neck, and I find again, with overflowing exultation, +the eternal form of the human frame. I hold him by the neck with all +my strength, and with more than all my strength, and we quiver with my +quivering. + +He had not the idea of dropping his rifle so quickly as I. He yields +and sinks. I cling to him as if it were salvation. The words in his +throat make a lifeless noise. He brandishes a hand which has only +three fingers--I saw it clearly outlined against the clouds like a +fork. + +Just as he totters in my arms, resisting death, a thunderous blow +strikes him in the back. His arms drop, and his head also, which is +violently doubled back, but his body is hurled against me like a +projectile, like a superhuman blast. + +I have rolled on the ground; I get up, and while I am hastily trying to +find myself again I feel a light blow in the waist. What is it? I +walk forward, and still forward, with my empty hands. I see the others +pass, they go by in front of me. _I_, I advance no more. Suddenly I +fall to the ground. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RUINS + + +I fall on my knees, and then full length. I do what so many others +have done. + +I am alone on the earth, face to face with the mud, and I can no longer +move. The frightful searching of the shells alights around me. The +hoarse hurricane which does not know me is yet trying to find the place +where I am! + +Then the battle goes away, and its departure is heartrending. In spite +of all my efforts, the noise of the firing fades and I am alone; the +wind blows and I am naked. + +I shall remain nailed to the ground. By clinging to the earth and +plunging my hands into the depth of the swamp as far as the stones, I +get my neck round a little to see the enormous burden that my back +supports. No--it is only the immensity on me. + +My gaze goes crawling. In front of me there are dark things all linked +together, which seem to seize or to embrace one another. I look at +those hills which shut out my horizon and imitate gestures and men. +The multitude downfallen there imprisons me in its ruins. I am walled +in by those who are lying down, as I was walled in before by those who +stood. + +I am not in pain. I am extraordinarily calm; I am drunk with +tranquillity. Are they dead, all--those? I do not know. The dead are +specters of the living, but the living are specters of the dead. +Something warm is licking my hand. The black mass which overhangs me +is trembling. It is a foundered horse, whose great body is emptying +itself, whose blood is flowing like poor touches of a tongue on to my +hand. I shut my eyes, bemused, and think of a bygone merry-making; and +I remember that I once saw, at the end of a hunt, against the operatic +background of a forest, a child-animal whose life gushed out amid +general delight. + +A voice is speaking beside me. + +No doubt the moon has come out--I cannot see as high as the cloud +escarpments, as high as the sky's opening. But that blenching light is +making the corpses shine like tombstones. + +I try to find the low voice. There are two bodies, one above the +other. The one underneath must be gigantic--his arms are thrown +backward in a hurricane gesture; his stiff, disheveled hair has crowned +him with a broken crown. His eyes are opaque and glaucous, like two +expectorations, and his stillness is greater than anything one may +dream of. On the other the moon's beams are setting points and lines +a-sparkle and silvering gold. It is he who is talking to me, quietly +and without end. But although his low voice is that of a friend, his +words are incoherent. He is mad--I am abandoned by him! No matter, I +will drag myself up to him to begin with. I look at him again. I +shake myself and blink my eyes, so as to look better. He wears on his +body a uniform accursed! Then with a start, and my hand claw-wise, I +stretch myself towards the glittering prize to secure it. But I cannot +go nearer him; it seems that I no longer have a body. He has looked at +me. He has recognized my uniform, if it is recognizable, and my cap, +if I have it still. Perhaps he has recognized the indelible seal of my +race that I carry printed on my features. Yes, on my face he has +recognized that stamp. Something like hatred has blotted out the face +that I saw dawning so close to me. Our two hearts make a desperate +effort to hurl ourselves on each other. But we can no more strike each +other than we can separate ourselves. + +But has he seen me? I cannot say now. He is stirred by fever as by +the wind; he is choked with blood. He writhes, and that shows me the +beaten-down wings of his black cloak. + +Close by, some of the wounded have cried out; and farther away one +would say they are singing--beyond the low stakes so twisted and +shriveled that they look as if guillotined. + +He does not know what he is saying. He does not even know that he is +speaking, that his thoughts are coming out. The night is torn into +rags by sudden bursts; it fills again at random with clusters of +flashes; and his delirium enters into my head. He murmurs that logic +is a thing of terrible chains, and that all things cling together. He +utters sentences from which distinct words spring, like the scattered +hasty gleams they include in hymns--the Bible, history, majesty, folly. +Then he shouts:-- + +"There is nothing in the world but the Empire's glory!" + +His cry shakes some of the motionless reefs. And I, like an invincible +echo, I cry:-- + +"There is only the glory of France!" + +I do not know if I did really cry out, and if our words did collide in +the night's horror. His head is quite bare. His slender neck and +bird-like profile issue from a fur collar. There are things like owls +shining on his breast. It seems to me as if silence is digging itself +into the brains and lungs of the dark prisoners who imprison us, and +that we are listening to it. + +He rambles more loudly now, as if he bore a stifling secret; he calls +up multitudes, and still more multitudes. He is obsessed by +multitudes--"Men, men!" he says. The soil is caressed by some sounds +of sighs, terribly soft, by confidences which are interchanged without +their wishing it. Now and again, the sky collapses into light, and +that flash of instantaneous sunshine changes the shape of the plain +every time, according to its direction. Then does the night take all +back again athwart the rolling echoes. + +"Men! Men!" + +"What about them, then?" says a sudden jeering voice which falls like a +stone. + +"Men _must_ not awake," the shining shadow goes on, in dull and hollow +tones. + +"Don't worry!" says the ironical voice, and at that moment it terrifies +me. + +Several bodies arise on their fists into the darkness--I see them by +their heavy groans--and look around them. + +The shadow talks to himself and repeats his insane words:-- + +"Men _must_ not awake." + +The voice opposite me, capsizing in laughter and swollen with a rattle, +says again:-- + +"Don't worry!" + +Yonder, in the hemisphere of night, comets glide, blending their cries +of engines and owls with their flaming entrails. Will the sky ever +recover the huge peace of the sun and the stainless blue? + +A little order, a little lucidity are coming back into my mind. Then I +begin to think about myself. + +Am I going to die, yes or no? Where can I be wounded? I have managed +to look at my hands, one by one; they are not dead, and I saw nothing +in their dark trickling. It is extraordinary to be made motionless +like this, without knowing where or how. I can do no more on earth +than lift my eyes a little to the edge of the world where I have +rolled. + +Suddenly I am pushed by a movement of the horse on which I am lying. I +see that he has turned his great head aside; he is mournfully eating +grass. I saw this horse but lately in the middle of the regiment--I +know him by the white in his mane--rearing and whinnying like the true +battle-chargers; and now, broken somewhere, he is silent as the truly +unhappy are. Once again, I recall the red deer's little one, mutilated +on its carpet of fresh crimson, and the emotion which I had not on that +bygone day rises into my throat. Animals are innocence incarnate. +This horse is like an enormous child, and if one wanted to point out +life's innocence face to face, one would have to typify, not a little +child, but a horse. My neck gives way, I utter a groan, and my face +gropes upon the ground. + +The animal's start has altered my place and shot me on my side, nearer +still to the man who was talking. He has unbent, and is lying on his +back. Thus he offers his face like a mirror to the moon's pallor, and +shows hideously that he is wounded in the neck. I feel that he is +going to die. His words are hardly more now than the rustle of wings. +He has said some unintelligible things about a Spanish painter, and +some motionless portraits in the palaces--the Escurial, Spain, Europe. +Suddenly he is repelling with violence some beings who are in his +past:-- + +"Begone, you dreamers!" he says, louder than the stormy sky where the +flames are red as blood, louder than the falling flashes and the +harrowing wind, louder than all the night which enshrouds us and yet +continues to stone us. + +He is seized with a frenzy which bares his soul as naked as his neck:-- + +"The truth is revolutionary," gasps the nocturnal voice; "get you gone, +you men of truth, you who cast disorder among ignorance, you who strew +words and sow the wind; you contrivers, begone! You bring in the reign +of men! But the multitude hates you and mocks you!" + +He laughs, as if he heard the multitude's laughter. + +And around us another burst of convulsive laughter grows hugely bigger +in the plain's black heart:-- + +"Wot's 'e sayin' now, that chap?" + +"Let him be. You can see 'e knows more'n 'e says." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +I am so near to him that I alone gather the rest of his voice, and he +says to me very quietly:-- + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +And those words stabbed me to the heart and dilated my eyes with +horror, for it seemed to me suddenly, in a flash, that he understood +what he was saying! A picture comes to life before my eyes--that +prince, whom I saw from below, once upon a time, in the nightmare of +life, he who loved the blood of the chase. Not far away a shell turns +the darkness upside down; and it seems as if that explosion also has +considered and shrieked. + +Heavy night is implanted everywhere around us. My hands are bathed in +black blood. On my neck and cheeks, rain, which is also black, bleeds. + +The funeral procession of silver-fringed clouds goes by once more, and +again a ray of moonlight besilvers the swamp that has sunk us soldiers; +it lays winding-sheets on the prone. + +All at once a swelling lamentation comes to life, one knows not where, +and glides over the plain:-- + +"Help! Help!" + +"Now then! _They're_ not coming to look for us! What about it?" + +And I see a stirring and movement, very gentle, as at the bottom of the +sea. + +Amid the glut of noises, upon that still tepid and unsubmissive expanse +where cold death sits brooding, that sharp profile has fallen back. +The cloak is quivering. The great and sumptuous bird of prey is in the +act of taking wing. + +The horse has not stopped bleeding. Its blood falls on me drop by drop +with the regularity of a clock,--as though all the blood that is +filtering through the strata of the field and all the punishment of the +wounded came to a head in him and through him. Ah, it seems that truth +goes farther in all directions than one thought! We bend over the +wrong that animals suffer, for them we wholly understand. + +Men, men! Everywhere the plain has a mangled outline. Below that +horizon, sometimes blue-black and sometimes red-black, the plain is +monumental! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AN APPARITION + + +I have not changed my place. I open my eyes. Have I been sleeping? I +do not know. There is tranquil light now. It is evening or morning. +My arms alone can tremble. I am enrooted like a distorted bush. My +wound? It is that which glues me to the ground. + +I succeed in raising my face, and the wet waves of space assail my +eyes. Patiently I pick out of the earthy pallor which blends all +things some foggy shoulders, some cloudy angles of elbows, some +hand-like lacerations. I discern in the still circle which encloses +me--faces lying on the ground and dirty as feet, faces held out to the +rain like vases, and holding stagnant tears. + +Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. +It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. +Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a +little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips +left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are +sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and +stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror. + +Water-blackened overcoats cover and clothe the whole earth around me. + +I gaze, and gaze---- + +I am frozen by a mass which supports me. My elbow sinks into it. It +is the horse's belly; its rigid leg obliquely bars the narrow circle +from which my eyes cannot escape. Ah, it is dead! It seems to me that +my breast is empty, yet still there is an echo in my heart. What I am +looking for is life. + +The distant sky is resonant, and each dull shot comes and pushes my +shoulder. Nearer, some shells are thundering heavily. Though I cannot +see them, I see the tawny reflection that their flame spreads abroad, +and the sudden darkness as well that is hurled by their clouds of +excretion. Other shadows go and come on the ground about me; and then +I hear in the air the plunge of beating wings, and cries so fierce that +I feel them ransack my head. + +* * * * * * + +Death is not yet dead everywhere. Some points and surfaces still +resist and budge and cry out, doubtless because it is dawn; and once +the wind swept away a muffled bugle-call. There are some who still +burn with the invisible fire of fever, in spite of the frozen periods +they have crossed. But the cold is working into them. The immobility +of lifeless things is passing into them, and the wind empties itself as +it goes by. + +Voices are worn away; looks are soldered to their eyes. Wounds are +staunched; they have finished. Only the earth and the stones bleed. +And just then I saw, under the trickling morning, some half-open but +still tepid dead that steamed, as if they were the blackening +rubbish-heap of a village. I watch that hovering dead breath of the +dead. The crows are eddying round the naked flesh with their flapping +banners and their war-cries. I see one which has found some shining +rubies on the black vein-stone of a foot; and one which noisily draws +near to a mouth, as if called by it. Sometimes a dead man makes a +movement, so that he will fall lower down. But they will have no more +burial than if they were the last men of all. + +* * * * * * + +There is one upright presence which I catch a glimpse of, so near, so +near; and I want to see it. In making the effort with my elbow on the +horse's ballooned body I succeed in altering the direction of my head, +and of the corridor of my gaze. Then all at once I discover a quite +new population of bronze men in rotten clothes; and especially, erect +on bended knees, a gray overcoat, lacquered with blood and pierced by a +great hole, round which is collected a bunch of heavy crimson flowers. +Slowly I lift the burden of my eyes to explore that hole. Amid the +shattered flesh, with its changing colors and a smell so strong that it +puts a loathsome taste in my mouth, at the bottom of the cage where +some crossed bones are black and rusted as iron bars, I can see +something, something isolated, dark and round. I see that it is a +heart. + +Placed there, too--I do not know how, for I cannot see the body's full +height--the arm, and the hand. The hand has only three fingers--a +fork---- Ah, I recognize that heart! It is his whom I killed. +Prostrate in the mud before him, because of my defeat and my +resemblance, I cried out to the man's profundity, to the superhuman +man. Then my eyes fell; and I saw worms moving on the edges of that +infinite wound. I was quite close to their stirring. They are whitish +worms, and their tails are pointed like stings; they curve and flatten +out, sometimes in the shape of an "i," and sometimes of a "u." The +perfection of immobility is left behind. The human material is +crumbled into the earth for another end. + +I hated that man, when he had his shape and his warmth. We were +foreigners, and made to destroy ourselves. Yet it seems to me, in face +of that bluish heart, still attached to its red cords, that I +understand the value of life. It is understood by force, like a +caress. I think I can see how many seasons and memories and beings +there had to be, yonder, to make up that life,--while I remain before +him, on a point of the plain, like a night watcher. I hear the voice +that his flesh breathed while yet he lived a little, when my ferocious +hands fumbled in him for the skeleton we all have. He fills the whole +place. He is too many things at once. How can there be worlds in the +world? That established notion would destroy all. + +This perfume of a tuberose is the breath of corruption. On the ground, +I see crows near me, like hens. + +Myself! I think of myself, of all that I am. Myself, my home, my +hours; the past, and the future,--it was going to be like the past! +And at that moment I feel, weeping within me and dragging itself from +some little bygone trifle, a new and tragical sorrow in dying, a hunger +to be warm once more in the rain and the cold: to enclose myself in +myself in spite of space, to hold myself back, to live. I called for +help, and then lay panting, watching the distance in desperate +expectation. "Stretcher-bearers!" I cry. I do not hear myself; but if +only the others heard me! + +Now that I have made that effort, I can do no more, and my head lies +there at the entrance to that world-great wound. + +There is nothing now. + +Yet there is that man. He was laid out like one dead. But suddenly, +through his shut eyes, he smiled. He, no doubt, will come back here on +earth, and something within me thanks him for his miracle. + +And there was that one, too, whom I saw die. He raised his hand, which +was drowning. Hidden in the depths of the others, it was only by that +hand that he lived, and called, and saw. On one finger shone a +wedding-ring, and it told me a sort of story. When his hand ceased to +tremble, and became a dead plant with that golden flower, I felt the +beginning of a farewell rise in me like a sob. But there are too many +of them for one to mourn them all. How many of them are there on all +this plain? How many, how many of them are there in all this moment? +Our heart is only made for one heart at a time. It wears us out to +look at all. One may say, "There are the others," but it is only a +saying. "You shall not know; you shall _not_ know." + +Barrenness and cold have descended on all the body of the earth. +Nothing moves any more, except the wind, that is charged with cold +water, and the shells, that are surrounded by infinity, and the crows, +and the thought that rolls immured in my head. + +* * * * * * + +They are motionless at last, they who forever marched, they to whom +space was so great! I see their poor hands, their poor legs, their +poor backs, resting on the earth. They are tranquil at last. The +shells which bespattered them are ravaging another world. They are in +the peace eternal. + +All is accomplished, all has terminated there. It is there, in that +circle narrow as a well that the descent into the raging heart of hell +was halted, the descent into slow tortures, into unrelenting fatigue, +into the flashing tempest. We came here because they told us to come +here. We have done what they told us to do. I think of the simplicity +of our reply on the Day of Judgment. + +The gunfire continues. Always, always, the shells come, and all those +bullets that are miles in length. Hidden behind the horizons, living +men unite with machines and fall furiously on space. They do not see +their shots. They do not know what they are doing. "You shall not +know; you shall _not_ know." + +But since the cannonade is returning, they will be fighting here again. +All these battles spring from themselves and necessitate each other to +infinity! One single battle is not enough, it is not complete, there +is no satisfaction. Nothing is finished, nothing is ever finished. +Ah, it is only men who die! No one understands the greatness of +things, and I know well that I do not understand all the horror in +which I am. + +* * * * * * + +Here is evening, the time when the firing is lighted up. The horizons +of the dark day, of the dark evening, and of the illuminated night +revolve around my remains as round a pivot. + +I am like those who are going to sleep, like the children. I am +growing fainter and more soothed; I close my eyes; I dream of my home. + +Yonder, no doubt, they are joining forces to make the evenings +tolerable. Marie is there, and some other women, getting dinner ready; +the house becomes a savor of cooking. I hear Marie speaking; standing +at first, then seated at the table. I hear the sound of the table +things which she moves on the cloth as she takes her place. Then, +because some one is putting a light to the lamp, having lifted its +chimney, Marie gets up to go and close the shutters. She opens the +window. She leans forward and outspreads her arms; but for a moment +she stays immersed in the naked night. She shivers, and I, too. +Dawning in the darkness, she looks afar, as I am doing. Our eyes have +met. It is true, for this night is hers as much as mine, the same +night, and distance is not anything palpable or real; distance is +nothing. It is true, this great close contact. + +Where am I? Where is Marie? What is she, even? I do not know, I do +not know. I do not know where the wound in my flesh is, and how can I +know the wound in my heart? + +* * * * * * + +The clouds are crowning themselves with sheaves of stars. It is an +aviary of fire, a hell of silver and gold. Planetary cataclysms send +immense walls of light falling around me. Phantasmal palaces of +shrieking lightning, with arches of star-shells, appear and vanish amid +forests of ghastly gleams. + +While the bombardment is patching the sky with continents of flame, it +is drawing still nearer. Volleys of flashes are plunging in here and +there and devouring the other lights. The supernatural army is +arriving! All the highways of space are crowded. Nearer still, a +shell bursts with all its might and glows; and among us all whom chance +defends goes frightfully in quest of flesh. Shells are following each +other into that cavity there. Again I see, among the things of earth, +a resurrected man, and he is dragging himself towards that hole! He is +wrapped in white, and the under-side of his body, which rubs the +ground, is black. Hooking the ground with his stiffened arms he +crawls, long and flat as a boat. He still hears the cry "Forward!" He +is finding his way to the hole; he does not know, and he is trailing +exactly toward its monstrous ambush. The shell will succeed! At any +second now the frenzied fangs of space will strike his side and go in +as into a fruit. I have not the strength to shout to him to fly +elsewhere with all his slowness; I can only open my mouth and become a +sort of prayer in face of the man's divinity. And yet, he is the +survivor; and along with the sleeper, to whom a dream was whispering +just now, he is the only one left to me. + +A hiss--the final blow reaches him; and in a flash I see the piebald +maggot crushing under the weight of the sibilance and turning wild eyes +towards me. + +No! It is not he! A blow of light--of all light--fills my eyes. I am +lifted up, I am brandished by an unknown blade in the middle of a globe +of extraordinary light. The shell----I! And I am falling, I fall +continually, fantastically. I fall out of this world; and in that +fractured flash I saw myself again--I thought of my bowels and my heart +hurled to the winds--and I heard voices saying again and again--far, +far away--"Simon Paulin died at the age of thirty-six." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + + +I am dead. I fall, I roll like a broken bird into bewilderments of +light, into canyons of darkness. Vertigo presses on my entrails, +strangles me, plunges into me. I drop sheer into the void, and my gaze +falls faster than I. + +Through the wanton breath of the depths that assail me I see, far +below, the seashore dawning. The ghostly strand that I glimpse while I +cling to my own body is bare, endless, rain-drowned, and supernaturally +mournful. Through the long, heavy and concentric mists that the clouds +make, my eyes go searching. On the shore I see a being who wanders +alone, veiled to the feet. It is a woman. Ah, I am one with that +woman! She is weeping. Her tears are dropping on the sand where the +waves are breaking! While I am reeling to infinity, I hold out my two +heavy arms to her. She fades away as I look. + +For a long time there is nothing, nothing but invisible time, and the +immense futility of rain on the sea. + +* * * * * * + +What are these flashes of light? There are gleams of flame in my eyes; +a surfeit of light is cast over me. I can no longer cling to +anything--fire and water! + +In the beginning, there is battle between fire and water--the world +revolving headlong in the hooked claws of its flames, and the expanses +of water which it drives back in clouds. At last the water obscures +the whirling spirals of the furnace and takes their place. Under the +roof of dense darkness, timbered with flashes, there are triumphant +downpours which last a hundred thousand years. Through centuries of +centuries, fire and water face each other; the fire, upright, buoyant +and leaping; the water flat, creeping, gliding, widening its lines and +its surface. When they touch, is it the water which hisses and roars, +or is it the fire? And one sees the reigning calm of a radiant plain, +a plain of incalculable greatness. The round meteor congeals into +shapes, and continental islands are sculptured by the water's boundless +hand. + +I am no longer alone and abandoned on the former battlefield of the +elements. Near this rock, something like another is taking shape; it +stands straight as a flame, and moves. This sketch-model thinks. It +reflects the wide expanse, the past and the future; and at night, on +its hill, it is the pedestal of the stars. The animal kingdom dawns in +that upright thing, the poor upright thing with a face and a cry, which +hides an internal world and in which a heart obscurely beats. A lone +being, a heart! But the heart, in the embryo of the first men, beats +only for fear. He whose face has appeared above the earth, and who +carries his soul in chaos, discerns afar shapes like his own, he sees +_the other_--the terrifying outline which spies and roams and turns +again, with the snare of his head. Man pursues man to kill him and +woman to wound her. He bites that he may eat, he strikes down that he +may clasp,--furtively, in gloomy hollows and hiding-places or in the +depths of night's bedchamber, dark love is writhing,--he lives solely +that he may protect, in some disputed cave, his eyes, his breast, his +belly, and the caressing brands of his hearth. + +* * * * * * + +There is a great calm in my environs. + +From place to place, men have gathered together. There are companies +and droves of men, with watchmen, in the vapors of dawn; and in the +middle one makes out the children and the women, crowding together like +fallow deer. To eastward I see, in the silence of a great fresco, the +diverging beams of morning gleaming, through the intervening and somber +statues of two hunters, whose long hair is tangled like briars, and who +hold each other's hand, upright on the mountain. + +Men have gone towards each other because of that ray of light which +each of them contains; and light resembles light. It reveals that the +isolated man, too free in the open expanses, is doomed to adversity as +if he were a captive, in spite of appearances; and that men must come +together that they may be stronger, that they may be more peaceful, and +even that they may be able to live. + +For men are made to live their life in its depth, and also in all its +length. Stronger than the elements and keener than all terrors are the +hunger to last long, the passion to possess one's days to the very end +and to make the best of them. It is not only a right; it is a virtue. + +Contact dissolves fear and dwindles danger. The wild beast attacks the +solitary man, but shrinks from the unison of men together. Around the +home-fire, that lowly fawning deity, it means the multiplication of the +warmth and even of the poor riches of its halo. Among the ambushes of +broad daylight, it means the better distribution of the different forms +of labor; among the ambushes of night, it stands for that of tender and +identical sleep. All lone, lost words blend in an anthem whose murmur +rises in the valley from the busy animation of morning and evening. + +The law which regulates the common good is called the moral law. +Nowhere nor ever has morality any other purpose than that; and if only +one man lived on earth, morality would not exist. It prunes the +cluster of the individual's appetites according to the desires of the +others. It emanates from all and from each at the same time, at one +and the same time from justice and from personal interest. It is +inflexible and natural, as much so as the law which, before our eyes, +fits the lights and shadows so perfectly together. It is so simple +that it speaks to each one and tells him what it is. The moral law has +not proceeded from any ideal; it is the ideal which has wholly +proceeded from the moral law. + +* * * * * * + +The primeval cataclysm has begun again upon the earth. My +vision--beautiful as a fair dream which shows men's composed reliance +on each other in the sunrise--collapses in mad nightmare. + +But this flashing devastation is not incoherent, as at the time of the +conflict of the first elements and the groping of dead things. For its +crevasses and flowing fires show a symmetry which is not Nature's; it +reveals discipline let loose, and the frenzy of wisdom. It is made up +of thought, of will, of suffering. Multitudes of scattered men, full +of an infinity of blood, confront each other like floods. A vision +comes and pounces on me, shaking the soil on which I am doubtless +laid--the marching flood. It approaches the ditch from all sides and +is poured into it. The fire hisses and roars in that army as in water; +it is extinguished in human fountains! + +* * * * * * + +It seems to me that I am struggling against what I see, while lying and +clinging somewhere; and once I even heard supernatural admonitions in +my ear, _as if I were somewhere else_. + +I am looking for men--for the rescue of speech, of a word. How many of +them I heard, once upon a time! I want one only, now. I am in the +regions where men are earthed up,--a crushed plain under a dizzy sky, +which goes by peopled with other stars than those of heaven, and tense +with other clouds, and continually lighted from flash to flash by a +daylight which is not day. + +Nearer, one makes out the human shape of great drifts and hilly fields, +many-colored and vaguely floral--the corpse of a section or of a +company. Nearer still, I perceive at my feet the ugliness of skulls. +Yes, I have seen them--wounds as big as men! In this new cess-pool, +which fire dyes red by night and the multitude dyes red by day, crows +are staggering, drunk. + +Yonder, that is the listening-post, keeping watch over the cycles of +time. Five or six captive sentinels are buried there in that cistern's +dark, their faces grimacing through the vent-hole, their skull-caps +barred with red as with gleams from hell, their mien desperate and +ravenous. + +When I ask them why they are fighting, they say:-- + +"To save my country." + +I am wandering on the other side of the immense fields where the yellow +puddles are strewn with black ones (for blood soils even mud), and with +thickets of steel, and with trees which are no more than the shadows of +themselves; I hear the skeleton of my jaws shiver and chatter. In the +middle of the flayed and yawning cemetery of living and dead, moonlike +in the night, there is a wide extent of leveled ruins. It was not a +village that once was there, it was a hillside whose pale bones are +like those of a village. The other people--mine--have scooped fragile +holes, and traced disastrous paths with their hands and with their +feet. Their faces are strained forward, their eyes search, they sniff +the wind. + +"Why are you fighting?" + +"To save my country." + +The two answers fall as alike in the distance as two notes of a +passing-bell, as alike as the voice of the guns. + +* * * * * * + +And I--I am seeking; it is a fever, a longing, a madness. I struggle, +I would fain tear myself from the soil and take wing to the truth. I +am seeking the difference between those people who are killing +themselves, and I can only find their resemblance. I cannot escape +from this resemblance of men. It terrifies me, and I try to cry out, +and there come from me strange and chaotic sounds which echo into the +unknown, which I almost hear! + +They do not wear similar clothes on the targets of their bodies, and +they speak different tongues; but from the bottom of that which is +human within them, identically the same simplicities come forth. They +have the same sorrows and the same angers, around the same causes. +They are alike as their wounds are alike and will be alike. Their +sayings are as similar as the cries that pain wrings from them, as +alike as the awful silence that soon will breathe from their murdered +lips. They only fight because they are face to face. Against each +other, they are pursuing a common end. Dimly, they kill themselves +because they are alike. + +And by day and by night, these two halves of war continue to lie in +wait for each other afar, to dig their graves at their feet, and I am +helpless. They are separated by frontiers of gulfs, which bristle with +weapons and explosive snares, impassable to life. They are separated +by all that can separate, by dead men and still by dead men, and ever +thrown back, each into its gasping islands, by black rivers and +consecrated fires, by heroism and hatred. + +And misery is endlessly begotten of the miserable. + +There is no real reason for it all; there is no reason. I do not wish +it. I groan, I fall back. + +Then the question, worn, but stubborn and violent as a solid thing, +seizes upon me again. Why? Why? I am like the weeping wind. I seek, +I defend myself, amid the infinite despair of my mind and heart. I +listen. I remember all. + +* * * * * * + +A booming sound vibrates and increases, like the fitful wing-beats of +some dim, tumultuous archangel, above the heads of the masses that move +in countless dungeons, or wheel round to furnish the front of the lines +with new flesh:-- + +"Forward! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" + +I remember. I have seen much of it, and I see it clearly. These +multitudes who are set in motion and let loose,--their brains and their +souls and their wills are not in them, but outside them! + +* * * * * * + +Other people, far away, think and wish for them. Other people wield +their hands and push them and pull them, others, who hold all their +controlling threads; in the distance, the people in the center of the +infernal orbits, in the capital cities, in the palaces. There is a +higher law; up above men there is a machine which is stronger than men. +The multitude is at the same time power and impotence--and I remember, +and I know well that I have seen it with my own eyes. War is the +multitude--and it is not! Why did I not know it since I have seen it? + +Soldier of the wide world, you, the man taken haphazard from among men, +remember--there was not a moment when you were yourself. Never did you +cease to be bowed under the harsh and answerless command, "It has to +be, it has to be." In times of peace encircled in the law of incessant +labor, in the mechanical mill or the commercial mill, slave of the +tool, of the pen, of your talent, or of some other thing, you were +tracked without respite from morning to evening by the daily task which +allowed you only just to overcome life, and to rest only in dreams. + +When the war comes that you never wanted--whatever your country and +your name--the terrible fate which grips you is sharply unmasked, +offensive and complicated. The wind of condemnation has arisen. + +They requisition your body. They lay hold on you with measures of +menace which are like legal arrest, from which nothing that is poor and +needy can escape. They imprison you in barracks. They strip you naked +as a worm, and dress you again in a uniform which obliterates you; they +mark your neck with a number. The uniform even enters into your flesh, +for you are shaped and cut out by the stamping-machine of exercises. +Brightly clad strangers spring up about you, and encircle you. You +recognize them--they are not strangers. It is a carnival, then,--but a +fierce and final carnival, for these are your new masters, they the +absolute, proclaiming on their fists and heads their gilded authority. +Such of them as are near to you are themselves only the servants of +others, who wear a greater power painted on their clothes. It is a +life of misery, humiliation and diminution into which you fall from day +to day, badly fed and badly treated, assailed throughout your body, +spurred on by your warders' orders. At every moment you are thrown +violently back into your littleness, you are punished for the least +action which comes out of it, or slain by the order of your masters. +It is forbidden you to speak when you would unite yourself with the +brother who is touching you. The silence of steel reigns around you. +Your thoughts must be only profound endurance. Discipline is +indispensable for the multitude to be melted into a single army; and in +spite of the vague kinship which is sometimes set up between you and +your nearest chief, the machine-like order paralyzes you first, so that +your body may be the better made to move in accordance with the rhythm +of the rank and the regiment--into which, nullifying all that is +yourself, you pass already as a sort of dead man. + +"They gather us together but they separate us!" cries a voice from the +past. + +If there are some who escape through the meshes, it means that such +"slackers" are also influential. They are uncommon, in spite of +appearances, as the influential are. You, the isolated man, the +ordinary man, the lowly thousand-millionth of humanity, you evade +nothing, and you march right to the end of all that happens, or to the +end of yourself. + +You will be crushed. Either you will go into the charnel house, +destroyed by those who are similar to you, since war is only made by +you, or you will return to your point in the world, diminished or +diseased, retaining only existence without health or joy, a home-exile +after absences too long, impoverished forever by the time you have +squandered. Even if selected by the miracle of chance, if unscathed in +the hour of victory, you also, _you_ will be vanquished. When you +return into the insatiable machine of the work-hours, among your own +people--whose misery the profiteers have meanwhile sucked dry with +their passion for gain--the task will be harder than before, because of +the war that must be paid for, with all its incalculable consequences. +You who peopled the peace-time prisons of your towns and barns, begone +to people the immobility of the battlefields--and if you survive, pay +up! Pay for a glory which is not yours, or for ruins that others have +made with your hands. + +Suddenly, in front of me and a few paces from my couch--as if I were in +a bed, in a bedroom, and had all at once woke up--an uncouth shape +rises awry. Even in the darkness I see that it is mangled. I see +about its face something abnormal which dimly shines; and I can see, +too, by his staggering steps, sunk in the black soil, that his shoes +are empty. He cannot speak, but he brings forward the thin arm from +which rags hang down and drip; and his imperfect hand, as torturing to +the mind as discordant chords, points to the place of his heart. I see +that heart, buried in the darkness of the flesh, in the black blood of +the living--for only shed blood is red. I see him profoundly, with my +heart. If he said anything he would say the words that I still hear +falling, drop by drop, as I heard them yonder--"Nothing can be done, +nothing." I try to move, to rid myself of him. But I cannot, I am +pinioned in a sort of nightmare; and if he had not himself faded away I +should have stayed there forever, dazzled in presence of his darkness. +This man said nothing. He appeared like the dead thing he is. He has +departed. Perhaps he has ceased to be, perhaps he has entered into +death, which is not more mysterious to him than life, which he is +leaving--and I have fallen back into myself. + +* * * * * * + +He has returned, to show his face to me. Ah, now there is a bandage +round his head, and so I recognize him by his crown of filth! I begin +again that moment when I clasped him against me to crush him; when I +propped him against the shell, when my arms felt his bones cracking +round his heart! It was he!--It was I! He says nothing, from the +eternal abysses in which he remains my brother in silence and +ignorance. The remorseful cry which tears my throat outstrips me, and +would find some one else. + +Who? + +That destiny which killed him by means of me--has it no human faces? + +"Kings!" said Termite. + +"The big people!" said the man whom they had snared, the close-cropped +German prisoner, the man with the convict's hexagonal face, he who was +greenish from top to toe. + +But these kings and majesties and superhuman men who are illuminated by +fantastic names and never make mistakes--were they not done away with +long since? One does not know. + +One does not see those who rule. One only sees what they wish, and +what they do with the others. + +Why have They always command? One does not know. The multitudes have +not given themselves to Them. They have taken them and They keep them. +Their power is supernatural. It is, because it was. This is its +explanation and formula and breath--"It has to be." + +As they have laid hold of arms, so they lay hold of heads, and make a +creed. + +"They tell you," cried he, whom none of the lowly soldiers would deign +to listen to; "they say to you, 'This is what you must have in your +minds and hearts.'" + +An inexorable religion has fallen from them upon us all, upholding what +exists, preserving what is. + +Suddenly I hear beside me, as if I were in a file of the executed, a +stammering death-agony; and I think I see him who struggled like a +stricken vulture, on the earth that was bloated with dead. And his +words enter my heart more distinctly than when they were still alive; +and they wound me like blows at once of darkness and of light. + +"Men _must_ not open their eyes!" + +"Faith comes at will, like the rest!" said Adjutant Marcassin, as he +fluttered in his red trousers about the ranks, like a blood-stained +priest of the God of War. + +He was right! He had grasped the chains of bondage when he hurled that +true cry against the truth. Every man is something of account, but +ignorance isolates and resignation scatters. Every poor man carries +within him centuries of indifference and servility. He is a +defenseless prey for hatred and dazzlement. + +The man of the people whom I am looking for, while I writhe through +confusion as through mud, the worker who measures his strength against +toil which is greater than he, and who never escapes from hardships, +the serf of these days--I see him as if he were here. He is coming out +of his shop at the bottom of the court. He wears a square cap. One +makes out the shining dust of old age strewn in his stubbly beard. He +chews and smokes his foul and noisy pipe. He nods his head; with a +fine and sterling smile he says, "There's always been war, so there'll +always be." + +And all around him people nod their heads and think the same, in the +poor lonely well of their heart. They hold the conviction anchored to +the bottom of their brains that things can never change any more. They +are like posts and paving stones, distinct but cemented together; they +believe that the life of the world is a sort of great stone monument, +and they obey, obscurely and indistinctly, everything which commands; +and they do not look afar, in spite of the little children. And I +remember the readiness there was to yield themselves, body and soul, to +serried resignation. Then, too, there is alcohol which murders; wine, +which drowns. + +One does not see the kings; one only sees the reflection of them on the +multitude. + +There are bemusings and spells of fascination, of which we are the +object. I think, fascinated. + +My lips religiously recite a passage in a book which a young man has +just read to me, while I, quite a child, lean drowsily on the kitchen +table--"Roland is not dead. Through long centuries our splendid +ancestor, the warrior of warriors, has been seen riding over the +mountains and hills across the France of Charlemagne and Hugh the +Great. At all times of great national disaster he has risen before the +people's eyes, like an omen of victory and glory, with his lustrous +helmet and his sword. He has appeared and has halted like a +soldier-archangel over the flaming horizon of conflagrations or the +dark mounds of battle and pestilence, leaning over his horse's winged +mane, fantastically swaying as though the earth itself were inebriate +with pride. Everywhere he has been seen, reviving the ideals and the +prowess of the Past. He was seen in Austria, at the time of the +eternal quarrel between Pope and Emperor; he was seen above the strange +stirrings of Scythians and Arabs, and the glowing civilizations which +arose and fell like waves around the Mediterranean. Great Roland can +never die." + +And after he had read these lines of a legend, the young man made me +admire them, and looked at me. + +He whom I thus see again, as precisely as one sees a portrait, just as +he was that evening so wonderfully far away, was my father. And I +remember how devoutly I believed--from that day now buried among them +all--in the beauty of those things, because my father had told me they +were beautiful. + +In the low room of the old house, under the green and watery gleam of +the diamond panes in the lancet window, the ancient citizen cries, +"There are people mad enough to believe that a day will come when +Brittany will no longer be at war with Maine!" He appears in the +vortex of the past, and so saying, sinks back in it. And an engraving, +once and for a long time heeded, again takes life: Standing on the +wooden boom of the ancient port, his scarred doublet rusted by wind and +brine, his old back bellied like a sail, the pirate is shaking his fist +at the frigate that passes in the distance; and leaning over the tangle +of tarred beams, as he used to on the nettings of his corsair ship, he +predicts his race's eternal hatred for the English. + +"Russia a republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. "Germany a +republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. + +And the great voices, the poets, the singers--what have the great +voices said? They have sung the praises of the victor's laurels +without knowing what they are. You, old Homer, bard of the lisping +tribes of the coasts, with your serene and venerable face sculptured in +the likeness of your great childlike genius, with your three times +millennial lyre and your empty eyes--you who led us to Poetry! And +you, herd of poets enslaved, who did not understand, who lived before +you could understand, in an age when great men were only the domestics +of great lords--and you, too, servants of the resounding and opulent +pride of to-day, eloquent flatterers and magnificent dunces, you +unwitting enemies of mankind! You have all sung the laurel wreath +without knowing what it is. + +There are dazzlings, and solemnities and ceremonies, to amuse and +excite the common people, to dim their sight with bright colors, with +the glitter of the badges and stars that are crumbs of royalty, to +inflame them with the jingle of bayonets and medals, with trumpets and +trombones and the big drum, and to inspire the demon of war in the +excitable feelings of women and the inflammable credulity of the young. +I see the triumphal arches, the military displays in the vast +amphitheaters of public places, and the march past of those who go to +die, who walk in step to hell by reason of their strength and youth, +and the hurrahs for war, and the real pride which the lowly feel in +bending the knee before their masters and saying, as their cavalcade +tops the hill, "It's fine! They might be galloping over us!" "It's +magnificent, how warlike we are!" says the woman, always dazzled, as +she convulsively squeezes the arm of him who is going away. + +And another kind of excitement takes form and seizes me by the throat +in the pestilential pits of hell--"They're on fire, they're on fire!" +stammers that soldier, breathless as his empty rifle, as the flood of +the exalted German divisions advances, linked elbow to elbow under a +godlike halo of ether, to drown the deeps with their single lives. + +Ah, the intemperate shapes and unities that float in morsels above the +peopled precipices! When two overlords, jewel-set with glittering +General Staffs, proclaim at the same time on either side of their +throbbing mobilized frontiers, "We will save our country!" there is one +immensity deceived and two victimized. There are two deceived +immensities! + +There is nothing else. That these cries can be uttered together in the +face of heaven, in the face of truth, proves at a stroke the +monstrosity of the laws which rule us, and the madness of the gods. + +I turn on a bed of pain to escape from the horrible vision of +masquerade, from the fantastic absurdity into which all these things +are brought back; and my fever seeks again. + +Those bright spells which blind, and the darkness which also blinds. +Falsehood rules with those who rule, effacing Resemblance everywhere, +and everywhere creating Difference. + +Nowhere can one turn aside from falsehood. Where indeed is there none? +The linked-up lies, the invisible chain, the Chain! + +Murmurs and shouts alike cross in confusion. Here and yonder, to right +and to left, they make pretense. Truth never reaches as far as men. +News filters through, false or atrophied. On _this_ side--all is +beautiful and disinterested; yonder--the same things are infamous. +"French militarism is not the same thing as Prussian militarism, since +one's French and the other's Prussian." The newspapers, the somber +host of the great prevailing newspapers, fall upon the minds of men and +wrap them up. The daily siftings link them together and chain them up, +and forbid them to look ahead. And the impecunious papers show blanks +in the places where the truth was too clearly written. At the end of a +war, the last things to be known by the children of the slain and by +the mutilated and worn-out survivors will be all the war-aims of its +directors. + +Suddenly they reveal to the people an accomplished fact which has been +worked out in the _terra incognita_ of courts, and they say, "Now that +it is too late, only one resource is left you--Kill that you be not +killed." + +They brandish the superficial incident which in the last hour has +caused the armaments and the heaped-up resentment and intrigues to +overflow in war; and they say, "That is the only cause of the war." It +is not true; the only cause of war is the slavery of those whose flesh +wages it. + +They say to the people, "When once victory is gained, agreeably to your +masters, all tyranny will have disappeared as if by magic, and there +will be peace on earth." It is not true. There will be no peace on +earth until the reign of men is come. + +But will it ever come? Will it have time to come, while hollow-eyed +humanity makes such haste to die? For all this advertisement of war, +radiant in the sunshine, all these temporary and mendacious reasons, +stupidly or skillfully curtailed, of which not one reaches the lofty +elevation of the common welfare--all these insufficient pretexts +suffice in sum to make the artless man bow in bestial ignorance, to +adorn him with iron and forge him at will. + +"It is not on Reason," cried the specter of the battlefield, whose +torturing spirit was breaking away from his still gilded body; "it is +not on Reason that the Bible of History stands. Else are the law of +majesties and the ancient quarrel of the flags essentially supernatural +and intangible, or the old world is built on principles of insanity." + +He touches me with his strong hand and I try to shake myself, and I +stumble curiously, although lying down. A clamor booms in my temples +and then thunders like the guns in my ears; it overflows me,--I drown +in that cry---- + +"It must be! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" That is the +war-cry, that is the cry of war. + +* * * * * * + +War will come again after this one. It will come again as long as it +can be determined by people other than those who fight. The same +causes will produce the same effects, and the living will have to give +up all hope. + +We cannot say out of what historical conjunctions the final tempests +will issue, nor by what fancy names the interchangeable ideals imposed +on men will be known in that moment. But the cause--that will perhaps +everywhere be fear of the nations' real freedom. What we do know is +that the tempests will come. + +Armaments will increase every year amid dizzy enthusiasm. The +relentless torture of precision seizes me. We do three years of +military training; our children will do five, they will do ten. We pay +two thousand million francs a year in preparation for war; we shall pay +twenty, we shall pay fifty thousand millions. All that we have will be +taken; it will be robbery, insolvency, bankruptcy. War kills wealth as +it does men; it goes away in ruins and smoke, and one cannot fabricate +gold any more than soldiers. We no longer know how to count; we no +longer know anything. A billion--a million millions--the word appears +to me printed on the emptiness of things. It sprang yesterday out of +war, and I shrink in dismay from the new, incomprehensible word. + +There will be nothing else on the earth but preparation for war. All +living forces will be absorbed by it; it will monopolize all discovery, +all science, all imagination. Supremacy in the air alone, the regular +levies for the control of space, will suffice to squander a nation's +fortune. For aerial navigation, at its birth in the middle of envious +circles, has become a rich prize which everybody desires, a prey they +have immeasurably torn in pieces. + +Other expenditure will dry up before that on destruction does, and +other longings as well, and all the reasons for living. Such will be +the sense of humanity's last age. + +* * * * * * + +The battlefields were prepared long ago. They cover entire provinces +with one black city, with a great metallic reservoir of factories, +where iron floors and furnaces tremble, bordered by a land of forests +whose trees are steel, and of wells where sleeps the sharp blackness of +snares; a country navigated by frantic groups of railway trains in +parallel formation, and heavy as attacking columns. At whatever point +you may be on the plain, even if you turn away, even if you take +flight, the bright tentacles of the rails diverge and shine, and cloudy +sheaves of wires rise into the air. Upon that territory of execution +there rises and falls and writhes machinery so complex that it has not +even names, so vast that it has not even shape; for aloft--above the +booming whirlwinds which are linked from east to west in the glow of +molten metal whose flashes are great as those of lighthouses, or in the +pallor of scattered electric constellations--hardly can one make out +the artificial outline of a mountain range, clapped upon space. + +This immense city of immense low buildings, rectangular and dark, is +not a city. They are assaulting tanks, which a feeble internal gesture +sets in motion, ready for the rolling rush of their gigantic knee-caps. +These endless cannon, thrust into pits which search into the fiery +entrails of the earth, and stand there upright, hardly leaning so much +as Pisa's tower; and these slanting tubes, long as factory chimneys, so +long that perspective distorts their lines and sometimes splays them +like the trumpets of Apocalypse--these are not cannon; they are +machine-guns, fed by continuous ribbons of trains which scoop out in +entire regions--and upon a country, if need be--mountains of +profundity. + +In war, which was once like the open country and is now wholly like +towns--and even like one immense building--one hardly sees the men. On +the round-ways and the casemates, the footbridges and the movable +platforms, among the labyrinth of concrete caves, above the regiment +echelonned downwards in the gulf and enormously upright,--one sees a +haggard herd of wan and stooping men, men black and trickling, men +issuing from the peaty turf of night, men who came there to save their +country. They earthed themselves up in some zone of the vertical +gorges, and one sees them, in this more accursed corner than those +where the hurricane reels. One senses this human material, in the +cavities of those smooth grottoes, like Dante's guilty shades. +Infernal glimmers disclose ranged lines of them, as long as roads, +slender and trembling spaces of night, which daylight and even sunshine +leave befouled with darkness and cyclopean dirt. Solid clouds overhang +them and hatchet-charged hurricanes, and leaping flashes set fire every +second to the sky's iron-mines up above the damned whose pale faces +change not under the ashes of death. They wait, intent on the +solemnity and the significance of that vast and heavy booming against +which they are for the moment imprisoned. They will be down forever +around the spot where they are. Like others before them, they will be +shrouded in perfect oblivion. Their cries will rise above the earth no +more than their lips. Their glory will not quit their poor bodies. + +I am borne away in one of the aeroplanes whose multitude darkens the +light of day as flights of arrows do in children's story-books, forming +a vaulted army. They are a fleet which can disembark a million men and +their supplies anywhere at any moment. It is only a few years since we +heard the puling cry of the first aeroplanes, and now their voice +drowns all others. Their development has only normally proceeded, yet +they alone suffice to make the territorial safeguards demanded by the +deranged of former generations appear at last to all people as comical +jests. Swept along by the engine's formidable weight, a thousand times +more powerful than it is heavy, tossing in space and filling my fibers +with its roar, I see the dwindling mounds where the huge tubes stick up +like swarming pins. I am carried along at a height of two thousand +yards. An air-pocket has seized me in a corridor of cloud, and I have +fallen like a stone a thousand yards lower, garrotted by furious air +which is cold as a blade, and filled by a plunging cry. I have seen +conflagrations and the explosions of mines, and plumes of smoke which +flow disordered and spin out in long black zigzags like the locks of +the God of War! I have seen the concentric circles by which the +stippled multitude is ever renewed. The dugouts, lined with lifts, +descend in oblique parallels into the depths. One frightful night I +saw the enemy flood it all with an inexhaustible torrent of liquid +fire. I had a vision of that black and rocky valley filled to the brim +with the lava-stream which dazzled the sight and sent a dreadful +terrestrial dawn into the whole of night. With its heart aflame Earth +seemed to become transparent as glass along that crevasse; and amid the +lake of fire heaps of living beings floated on some raft, and writhed +like the spirits of damnation. The other men fled upwards, and piled +themselves in clusters on the straight-lined borders of the valley of +filth and tears. I saw those swarming shadows huddled on the upper +brink of the long armored chasms which the explosions set trembling +like steamships. + +All chemistry makes flaming fireworks in the sky or spreads in sheets +of poison exactly as huge as the huge towns. Against them no wall +avails, no secret armor; and murder enters as invisibly as death +itself. Industry multiplies its magic. Electricity lets loose its +lightnings and thunders--and that miraculous mastery which hurls power +like a projectile. + +Who can say if this enormous might of electricity alone will not change +the face of war?--the centralized cluster of waves, the irresistible +orbs going infinitely forth to fire and destroy all explosives, lifting +the rooted armor of the earth, choking the subterranean gulfs with +heaps of calcined men--who will be burned up like barren coal,--and +maybe even arousing the earthquakes, and tearing the central fires from +earth's depths like ore! + +That will be seen by people who are alive to-day; and yet that vision +of the future so near at hand is only a slight magnification, flitting +through the brain. It terrifies one to think for how short a time +science has been methodical and of useful industry; and after all, is +there anything on earth more marvelously easy than destruction? Who +knows the new mediums it has laid in store? Who knows the limit of +cruelty to which the art of poisoning may go? Who knows if they will +not subject and impress epidemic disease as they do the living +armies--or that it will not emerge, meticulous, invincible, from the +armies of the dead? Who knows by what dread means they will sink in +oblivion this war, which only struck to the ground twenty thousand men +a day, which has invented guns of only seventy-five miles' range, bombs +of only one ton's weight, aeroplanes of only a hundred and fifty miles +an hour, tanks, and submarines which cross the Atlantic? Their costs +have not yet reached in any country the sum total of private fortunes. + +But the upheavals we catch sight of, though we can only and hardly +indicate them in figures, will be too much for life. The desperate and +furious disappearance of soldiers will have a limit. We may no longer +be able to count; but Fate will count. Some day the men will be +killed, and the women and children. And they also will disappear--they +who stand erect upon the ignominious death of the soldiers,--they will +disappear along with the huge and palpitating pedestal in which they +were rooted. But they profit by the present, they believe it will last +as long as they, and as they follow each other they say, "After us, the +deluge." Some day all war will cease for want of fighters. + +The spectacle of to-morrow is one of agony. Wise men make laughable +efforts to determine what may be, in the ages to come, the cause of the +inhabited world's end. Will it be a comet, the rarefaction of water, +or the extinction of the sun, that will destroy mankind? They have +forgotten the likeliest and nearest cause--Suicide. + +They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are +saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of +shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think +themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy +and limited mentality of the assassins themselves. + +The shapeless struggle of the elements will begin again on the seared +earth when men have slain themselves because they were slaves, because +they believed the same things, because they were alike. + +I utter a cry of despair and it seems as if I had turned over and +stifled it in a pillow. + +* * * * * * + +All is madness. And there is no one who will dare to rise and say that +all is not madness, and that the future does not so appear--as fatal +and unchangeable as a memory. + +But how many men will there be who will dare, in face of the universal +deluge which will be at the end as it was in the beginning, to get up +and cry "No!" who will pronounce the terrible and irrefutable issue:-- + +"No! The interests of the people and the interests of all their +present overlords are not the same. Upon the world's antiquity there +are two enemy races--the great and the little. The allies of the great +are, in spite of appearances, the great. The allies of the people are +the people. Here on earth there is one tribe only of parasites and +ringleaders who are the victors, and one people only who are the +vanquished." + +But, as in those earliest ages, will not thoughtful faces arise out of +the darkness? (For this is Chaos and the animal Kingdom; and Reason +being no more, she has yet to be born.) + +"You must think; but with your own ideas, not other people's." + +That lowly saying, a straw whirling in the measureless hand-to-hand +struggle of the armies, shines in my soul above all others. To think +is to hold that the masses have so far wrought too much evil without +wishing it, and that the ancient authorities, everywhere clinging fast, +violate humanity and separate the inseparable. + +There have been those who magnificently dared. There have been bearers +of the truth, men who groped in the world's tumult, trying to make +plain order of it. They discover what we did not yet know; chiefly +they discover what we no longer knew. + +But what a panic is here, among the powerful and the powers that be! + +"Truth is revolutionary! Get you gone, truth-bearers! Away with you, +reformers! You bring in the reign of men!" + +That cry was thrown into my ears one tortured night, like a whisper +from deeps below, when he of the broken wings was dying, when he +struggled tumultuously against the opening of men's eyes; but I had +always heard it round about me, always. + +In official speeches, sometimes, at moments of great public flattery, +they speak like the reformers, but that is only the diplomacy which +aims at felling them better. They force the light-bearers to hide +themselves and their torches. These dreamers, these visionaries, these +star-gazers,--they are hooted and derided. Laughter is let loose +around them, machine-made laughter, quarrelsome and beastly:-- + +"Your notion of peace is only utopian, anyway, as long as you never, +any day, stopped the war by yourself!" + +They point to the battlefield and its wreckage:-- + +"And you say that War won't be forever? Look, driveler!" + +The circle of the setting sun is crimsoning the mingled horizon of +humanity:-- + +"You say that the sun is bigger than the earth? Look, imbecile!" + +They are anathema, they are sacrilegious, they are excommunicated, who +impeach the magic of the past and the poison of tradition. And the +thousand million victims themselves scoff at and strike those who +rebel, as soon as they are able. All cast stones at them, all, even +those who suffer and while they are suffering--even the sacrificed, a +little before they die. + +The bleeding soldiers of Wagram cry: "Long live the emperor!" And the +mournful exploited in the streets cheer for the defeat of those who are +trying to alleviate a suffering which is brother to theirs. Others, +prostrate in resignation, look on, and echo what is said above them: +"After us the deluge," and the saying passes across town and country in +one enormous and fantastic breath, for they are innumerable who murmur +it. Ah, it was well said: + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +And I? + +I, the normal man? What have I done on earth? I have bent the knee to +the forces which glitter, without seeking to know whence they came and +whither they guide. How have the eyes availed me that I had to see +with, the intelligence that I had to judge with? + +Borne down by shame, I sobbed, "I don't know," and I cried out so +loudly that it seemed to me I was awaking for a moment out of slumber. +Hands are holding and calming me; they draw my shroud about me and +enclose me. + +It seems to me that a shape has leaned over me, quite near, so near; +that a loving voice has said something to me; and then it seems to me +that I have listened to fond accents whose caress came from a great way +off: + +"Why shouldn't _you_ be one of them, my lad,--one of those great +prophets?" + +I don't understand. I? How could I be? + +All my thoughts go blurred. I am falling again. But I bear away in my +eyes the picture of an iron bed where lay a rigid shape. Around it +other forms were drooping, and one stood and officiated. But the +curtain of that vision is drawn. A great plain opens the room, which +had closed for a moment on me, and obliterates it. + +Which way may I look? God? "_Miserere_----" The vibrating fragment +of the Litany has reminded me of God. + +* * * * * * + +I had seen Jesus Christ on the margin of the lake. He came like an +ordinary man along the path. There is no halo round his head. He is +only disclosed by his pallor and his gentleness. Planes of light draw +near and mass themselves and fade away around him. He shines in the +sky, as he shone on the water. As they have told of him, his beard and +hair are the color of wine. He looks upon the immense stain made by +Christians on the world, a stain confused and dark, whose edge alone, +down on His bare feet, has human shape and crimson color. In the +middle of it are anthems and burnt sacrifices, files of hooded cloaks, +and of torturers, armed with battle-axes, halberds and bayonets; and +among long clouds and thickets of armies, the opposing clash of two +crosses which have not quite the same shape. Close to him, too, on a +canvas wall, again I see the cross that bleeds. There are populations, +too, tearing themselves in twain that they may tear themselves the +better; there is the ceremonious alliance, "turning the needy out of +the way," of those who wear three crowns and those who wear one; and, +whispering in the ear of Kings, there are gray-haired Eminences, and +cunning monks, whose hue is of darkness. + +I saw the man of light and simplicity bow his head; and I feel his +wonderful voice saying: + +"I did not deserve the evil they have done unto me." + +Robbed reformer, he is a witness of his name's ferocious glory. The +greed-impassioned money-changers have long since chased Him from the +temple in their turn, and put the priests in his place. He is +crucified on every crucifix. + +Yonder among the fields are churches, demolished by war; and already +men are coming with mattock and masonry to raise the walls again. The +ray of his outstretched arm shines in space, and his clear voice says: + +"Build not the churches again. They are not what you think they were. +Build them not again." + +* * * * * * + +There is no remedy but in them whom peace sentences to hard labor, and +whom war sentences to death. There is no redress except among the +poor. + +* * * * * * + +White shapes seem to return into the white room. Truth is simple. +They who say that truth is complicated deceive themselves, and the +truth is not in them. I see again, not far from me, a bed, a child, a +girl-child, who is asleep in our house; her eyes are only two lines. +Into our house, after a very long time, we have led my old aunt. She +approves affectionately, but all the same she said, very quietly, as +she left the perfection of our room, "It was better in my time." I am +thrilled by one of our windows, whose wings are opened wide upon the +darkness; the appeal which the chasm of that window makes across the +distances enters into me. One night, as it seems to me, it was open to +its heart. + +_I_--my heart--a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is +mine, it is _ours_. The heart--that wound which we have. I have +compassion on myself. + +I see again the rainy shore that I saw before time was, before earth's +drama was unfolded; and the woman on the sands. She moans and weeps, +among the pictures which the clouds of mortality offer and withdraw, +amid that which weaves the rain. She speaks so low that I feel it is +to me she speaks. She is one with me. Love--it comes back to me. +Love is an unhappy man and unhappy woman. + +I awake--uttering the feeble cry of the babe new-born. + +All grows pale, and paler. The whiteness I foresaw through the +whirlwinds and clamors--it is here. An odor of ether recalls to me the +memory of an awful memory, but shapeless. A white room, white walls, +and white-robed women who bend over me. + +In a voice confused and hesitant, I say: + +"I've had a dream, an absurd dream." + +My hand goes to my eyes to drive it away. + +"You struggled while you were delirious--especially when you thought +you were falling," says a calm voice to me, a sedate and familiar +voice, which knows me without my knowing the voice. + +"Yes," I say! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MORNING + + +I went to sleep in Chaos, and then I awoke like the first man. + +I am in a bed, in a room. There is no noise--a tragedy of calm, and +horizons close and massive. The bed which imprisons me is one of a row +that I can see, opposite another row. A long floor goes in stripes as +far as the distant door. There are tall windows, and daylight wrapped +in linen. That is all which exists. I have always been here, I shall +end here. + +Women, white and stealthy, have spoken to me. I picked up the new +sound, and then lost it. A man all in white has sat by me, looked at +me, and touched me. His eyes shone strangely, because of his glasses. + +I sleep, and then they make me drink. + +The long afternoon goes by in the long corridor. In the evening they +make light; at night, they put it out, and the lamps--which are in +rows, like the beds, like the windows, like everything--disappear. +Just one lamp remains, in the middle, on my right. The peaceful ghost +of dead things enjoins peace. But my eyes are open, I awake more and +more. I take hold of consciousness in the dark. + +A stir is coming to life around me among the prostrate forms aligned in +the beds. This long room is immense; it has no end. The enshrouded +beds quiver and cough. They cough on all notes and in all ways, loose, +dry, or tearing. There is obstructed breathing, and gagged breathing, +and polluted, and sing-song. These people who are struggling with +their huge speech do not know themselves. I see their solitude as I +see them. There is nothing between the beds, nothing. + +Of a sudden I see a globular mass with a moon-like face oscillating in +the night. With hands held out and groping for the rails of the +bedsteads, it is seeking its way. The orb of its belly distends and +stretches its shirt like a crinoline, and shortens it. The mass is +carried by two little and extremely slender legs, knobbly at the knees, +and the color of string. It reaches the next bed, the one which a +single ditch separates from mine. On another bed, a shadow is swaying +regularly, like a doll. The mass and the shadow are a negro, whose +big, murderous head is hafted with a tiny neck. + +The hoarse concert of lungs and throats multiplies and widens. There +are some who raise the arms of marionettes out of the boxes of their +beds. Others remain interred in the gray of the bed-clothes. Now and +again, unsteady ghosts pass through the room and stoop between the +beds, and one hears the noise of a metal pail. At the end of the room, +in the dark jumble of those blind men who look straight before them and +the mutes who cough, I only see the nurse, because of her whiteness. +She goes from one shadow to another, and stoops over the motionless. +She is the vestal virgin who, so far as she can, prevents them from +going out. + +I turn my head on the pillow. In the bed bracketed with mine on the +other side, under the glow which falls from the only surviving lamp, +there is a squat manikin in a heavy knitted vest, poultice-color. From +time to time, he sits up in bed, lifts his pointed head towards the +ceiling, shakes himself, and grasping and knocking together his +spittoon and his physic-glass, he coughs like a lion. I am so near to +him that I feel that hurricane from his flesh pass over my face, and +the odor of his inward wound. + +* * * * * * + +I have slept. I see more clearly than yesterday. I no longer have the +veil that was in front of me. My eyes are attracted distinctly by +everything which moves. A powerful aromatic odor assails me; I seek +the source of it. Opposite me, in full daylight, a nurse is rubbing +with a drug some gnarled and blackened hands, enormous paws which the +earth of the battlefields, where they were too long implanted, has +almost made moldy. The strong-smelling liquid is becoming a layer of +frothy polish. + +The foulness of his hands appalls me. Gathering my wits with an +effort, I said aloud: + +"Why don't they wash his hands?" + +My neighbor on the right, the gnome in the mustard vest, seems to hear +me, and shakes his head. + +My eyes go back to the other side, and for hours I devote myself to +watching in obstinate detail, with wide-open eyes, the water-swollen +man whom I saw floating vaguely in the night like a balloon. By night +he was whitish. By day he is yellow, and his big eyes are glutted with +yellow. He gurgles, makes noises of subterranean water, and mingles +sighs with words and morsels of words. Fits of coughing tan his +ochreous face. + +His spittoon is always full. It is obvious that his heart, where his +wasted sulphurate hand is placed, beats too hard and presses his spongy +lungs and the tumor of water which distends him. He lives in the +settled notion of emptying his inexhaustible body. He is constantly +examining his bed-bottle, and I see his face in that yellow reflection. +All day I watched the torture and punishment of that body. His cap and +tunic, no longer in the least like him, hang from a nail. + +Once, when he lay engulfed and choking, he pointed to the negro, +perpetually oscillating, and said: + +"He wanted to kill himself because he was homesick." + +The doctor has said to me--to _me_: "You're going on nicely." I +wanted to ask him to talk to me about myself, but there was no time to +ask him! + +Towards evening my yellow-vested neighbor, emerging from his +meditations and continuing to shake his head, answers my questions of +the morning: + +"They can't wash his hands--it's embedded." + +A little later that day I became restless. I lifted my arm--it was +clothed in white linen. I hardly knew my emaciated hand--that shadow +stranger! But I recognized the identity disk on my wrist. Ah, then! +that went with me into the depths of hell! + +For hours on end my head remains empty and sleepless, and there are +hosts of things that I perceive badly, which are, and then are not. I +have answered some questions. When I say, Yes, it is a sigh that I +utter, and only that. At other times, I seem again to be half-swept +away into pictures of tumored plains and mountains crowned. Echoes of +these things vibrate in my ears, and I wish that some one would come +who could explain the dreams. + +* * * * * * + +Strange footsteps are making the floor creak, and stopping there. I +open my eyes. A woman is before me. Ah! the sight of her throws me +into infinite confusion! She is the woman of my vision. Was it true, +then? I look at her with wide-open eyes. She says to me: + +"It's me." + +Then she bends low and adds softly: + +"I'm Marie; you're Simon." + +"Ah!" I say. "I remember." + +I repeat the profound words she has just uttered. She speaks to me +again with the voice which comes back from far away. I half rise. I +look again. I learn myself again, word by word. + +It is she, naturally, who tells me I was wounded in the chest and hip, +and that I lay three days forsaken--ragged wounds, much blood lost, a +lot of fever, and enormous fatigue. + +"You'll get up soon," she says. + +I get up?--I, the prostrate being? I am astonished and afraid. + +Marie goes away. She increases my solitude, step by step, and for a +long time my eyes follow her going and her absence. + +In the evening I hear a secret and whispered conference near the bed of +the sick man in the brown vest. He is curled up, and breathes humbly. +They say, very low: + +"He's going to die--in one hour from now, or two. He's in such a state +that to-morrow morning he'll be rotten. He must be taken away on the +moment." + +At nine in the evening they say that, and then they put the lights out +and go away. I can see nothing more but him. There is the one lamp, +close by, watching over him. He pants and trickles. He shines as +though it rained on him. His beard has grown, grimily. His hair is +plastered on his sticky forehead; his sweat is gray. + +In the morning the bed is empty, and adorned with clean sheets. + +And along with the man annulled, all the things he had poisoned have +disappeared. + +"It'll be Number Thirty-six's turn next," says the orderly. + +I follow the direction of his glance. I see the condemned man. He is +writing a letter. He speaks, he lives. But he is wounded in the +belly. He carries his death like a fetus. + +* * * * * * + +It is the day when we change our clothes. Some of the invalids manage +it by themselves; and, sitting up in bed, they perform signaling +operations with arms and white linen. Others are helped by the nurse. +On their bare flesh I catch sight of scars and cavities, and parts +stitched and patched, of a different shade. There is even a case of +amputation (and bronchitis) who reveals a new and rosy stump, like a +new-born infant. The negro does not move while they strip his thin, +insect-like trunk; and then, bleached once more, he begins again to +rock his head, looking boundlessly for the sun and for Africa. They +exhume the paralyzed man from his sheets and change his clothes +opposite me. At first he lies motionless in his clean shirt, in a +lump. Then he makes a guttural noise which brings the nurse up. In a +cracked voice, as of a machine that speaks, he asks her to move his +feet, which are caught in the sheet. Then he lies staring, arranged in +rigid orderliness within the boards of his carcass. + +Marie has come back and is sitting on a chair. We both spell out the +past, which she brings me abundantly. My brain is working +incalculably. + +"We're quite near home, you know," Marie says. + +Her words extricate our home, our quarter; they have endless echoes. + +That day I raised myself on the bed and looked out of the window for +the first time, although it had always been there, within reach of my +eyes. And I saw the sky for the first time, and a gray yard as well, +where it was visibly cold, and a gray day, an ordinary day, like life, +like everything. + +Quickly the days wiped each other out. Gradually I got up, in the +middle of the men who had relapsed into childhood, and were awkwardly +beginning again, or plaintively complaining in their beds. I have +strolled in the wards, and then along a path. It is a matter of +formalities now--convalescence, and in a month's time the Medical +Board. + +At last Marie came one morning for me, to go home, for that interval. + +She found me on the seat in the yard of the hospital, which used to be +a school, under the cloth--which was the only spot where a ray of +sunshine could get in. I was meditating in the middle of an assembly +of old cripples and men with heads or arms bandaged, with ragged and +incongruous equipment, with sick clothes. I detached myself from the +miracle-yard and followed Marie, after thanking the nurse and saying +good-by to her. + +The corporal of the hospital orderlies is the vicar of our church--he +who said and who spread it about that he was going to share the +soldiers' sufferings, like all the priests. Marie says to me, "Aren't +you going to see him?" + +"No," I say. + +We set out for life by a shady path, and then the high road came. We +walked slowly. Marie carried the bundle. The horizons were even, the +earth was flat and made no noise, and the dome of the sky no longer +banged like a big clock. The fields were empty, right to the end, +because of the war; but the lines of the road were scriptural, turning +not aside to the right hand or to the left. And I, cleansed, +simplified, lucid--though still astonished at the silence and affected +by the peacefulness--I saw it all distinctly, without a veil, without +anything. It seemed to me that I bore within me a great new reason, +unused. + +We were not far away. Soon we uncovered the past, step by step. As +fast as we drew near, smaller and smaller details introduced themselves +and told us their names--that tree with the stones round it, those +forsaken and declining sheds. I even found recollections shut up in +the little retreats of the kilometer-stones. + +But Marie was looking at me with an indefinable expression. + +"You're icy cold," she said to me suddenly, shivering. + +"No," I said, "no." + +We stopped at an inn to rest and eat, and it was already evening when +we reached the streets. + +Marie pointed out a man who was crossing over, yonder. + +"Monsieur Rampaille is rich now, because of the War." + +Then it was a woman, dressed in fluttering white and blue, disappearing +round the corner of a house: + +"That's Antonia Véron. She's been in the Red Cross service. She's got +a decoration because of the War." + +"Ah!" I said, "everything's changed." + +Now we are in sight of the house. The distance between the corner of +the street and the house seems to me smaller than it should be. The +court comes to an end suddenly; its shape looks shorter than it is in +reality. In the same way, all the memories of my former life appear +dwindled to me. + +The house, the rooms. I have climbed the stairs and come down again, +watched by Marie. I have recognized everything; some things even which +I did not see. There is no one else but us two in the falling night, +as though people had agreed not to show themselves yet to this man who +comes back. + +"There--now we're at home," says Marie, at last. + +We sit down, facing each other. + +"What are we going to do?" + +"We're going to live." + +"We're going to live." + +I ponder. She looks at me stealthily, with that mysterious expression +of anguish which gets over me. I notice the precautions she takes in +watching me. And once it seemed to me that her eyes were red with +crying. I--I think of the hospital life I am leaving, of the gray +street, and the simplicity of things. + +* * * * * * + +A day has slipped away already. In one day all the time gone by has +reëstablished itself. I am become again what I was. Except that I am +not so strong or so calm as before, it is as though nothing had +happened. + +But truth is more simple than before. + +I inquire of Marie after this one or the other and question her. + +Marie says to me: + +"You're always saying Why?--like a child." + +All the same I do not talk much. Marie is assiduous; obviously she is +afraid of my silence. Once, when I was sitting opposite her and had +said nothing for a long time, she suddenly hid her face in her hands, +and in her turn she asked me, through her sobs: + +"Why are you like that?" + +I hesitate. + +"It seems to me," I say at last, by way of answer, "that I am seeing +things as they are." + +"My poor boy!" Marie says, and she goes on crying. + +I am touched by this obscure trouble. True, everything is obvious +around me, but as it were laid bare. I have lost the secret which +complicated life. I no longer have the illusion which distorts and +conceals, that fervor, that sort of blind and unreasoning bravery which +tosses you from one hour to the next, and from day to day. + +And yet I am just taking up life again where I left it. I am upright, +I am getting stronger and stronger. I am not ending, but beginning. + +I slept profoundly, all alone in our bed. + +Next morning, I saw Crillon, planted in the living-room downstairs. He +held out his arms, and shouted. After expressing good wishes, he +informs me, all in a breath: + +"You don't know what's happened in the Town Council? Down yonder, +towards the place they call Little January, y'know, there's a steep +hill that gets wider as it goes down an' there's a gaslamp and a +watchman's box where all the cyclists that want to smash their faces, +and a few days ago now a navvy comes and sticks himself in there and no +one never knew his name, an' he got a cyclist on his head an' he's gone +dead. And against that gaslamp broken up by blows from cyclists they +proposed to put a notice-board, although all recommendations would be +superfluent. You catch on that it's nothing less than a maneuver to +get the mayor's shirt out?" + +Crillon's words vanish. As fast as he utters them I detach myself from +all this poor old stuff. I cannot reply to him, when he has ceased, +and Marie and he are looking at me. I say, "Ah!" + +He coughs, to keep me in countenance. Shortly, he takes himself off. + +Others come, to talk of their affairs and the course of events in the +district. There is a regular buzz. So-and-so has been killed, but +So-and-so is made an officer. So-and-so has got a clerking job. Here +in the town, So-and-so has got rich. How's the War going on? + +They surround me, with questioning faces. And yet it is I, still more +than they, who am one immense question. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +EYES THAT SEE + + +Two days have passed. I get up, dress myself, and open my shutters. +It is Sunday, as you can see in the street. + +I put on my clothes of former days. I catch myself paying spruce +attention to my toilet, since it is Sunday, by reason of the compulsion +one feels to do the same things again. + +And now I see how much my face has hollowed, as I compare it with the +one I had left behind in the familiar mirror. + +I go out, and meet several people. Madame Piot asks me how many of the +enemy I have killed. I reply that I killed one. Her tittle-tattle +accosts another subject. I feel the enormous difference there was +between what she asked me and what I answered. + +The streets are clad in the mourning of closed shops. It is still the +same empty and hermetically sealed face of the day of holiday. My eyes +notice, near the sunken post, the old jam-pot, which has not moved. + +I climb on to Chestnut Hill. No one is there, because it is Sunday. +In that white winding-sheet, that widespread pallor of Sunday, all my +former lot builds itself again, house by house. + +I look outwards from the top of the hill. All is the same in the lines +and the tones. The spectacle of yesterday and that of to-day are as +identical as two picture postcards. I see my house--the roof, and +three-quarters of the front. I feel a pleasant thrill. I feel that I +love this corner of the earth, but especially my house. + +What, is everything the same? Is there nothing new, nothing? Is the +only changed thing the man that I am, walking too slowly in clothes too +big, the man grown old and leaning on a stick? + +The landscape is barren in the inextricable simplicity of the daylight. +I do not know why I was expecting revelations. In vain my gaze wanders +everywhere, to infinity. + +But a darkening of storm fills and agitates the sky, and suddenly +clothes the morning with a look of evening. The crowd which I see +yonder along the avenue, under cover of the great twilight which goes +by with its invisible harmony, profoundly draws my attention. + +All those shadows which are shelling themselves out along the road are +very tiny, they are separated from one another, they are of the same +stature. From a distance one sees how much one man resembles another. +And it is true that a man is like a man. The one is not of a different +species from the other. It is a certainty which I am bringing +forward--the only one; and the truth is simple, for what I believe I +see with my eyes. + +The equality of all these human spots that appear in the somber gleams +of storm, why--it is a revelation! It is a beginning of distinct order +in Chaos. How comes it that I have never seen what is so visible, how +comes it that I never perceived that obvious thing--that a man and +another man are the same thing, everywhere and always? I rejoice that +I have seen it as if my destiny were to shed a little light on us and +on our road. + +* * * * * * + +The bells are summoning our eyes to the church. It is surrounded by +scaffolding, and a long swarm of people are gliding towards it, +grouping round it, going in. + +The earth and the sky--but I do not see God. I see everywhere, +everywhere, God's absence. My gaze goes through space and returns, +forsaken. And I have never seen Him, and He is nowhere, nowhere, +nowhere. + +No one ever saw Him. I know--I always knew, for that matter!--that +there is no proof of God's existence, and that you must find, first of +all, believe in it if you want to prove it. Where does He show +Himself? What does He save? What tortures of the heart, what +disasters does He turn aside from all and each in the ruin of hearts? +Where have we known or handled or embraced anything but His name? +God's absence surrounds infinitely and even actually each kneeling +suppliant, athirst for some humble personal miracle, and each seeker +who bends over his papers as he watches for proofs like a creator; it +surrounds the spiteful antagonism of all religions, armed against each +other, enormous and bloody. God's absence rises like the sky over the +agonizing conflicts between good and evil, over the trembling +heedfulness of the upright, over the immensity--still haunting me--of +the cemeteries of agony, the charnel heaps of innocent soldiers, the +heavy cries of the shipwrecked. Absence! Absence! In the hundred +thousand years that life has tried to delay death there has been +nothing on earth more fruitless than man's cries to divinity, nothing +which gives so perfect an idea of silence. + +How does it come about that I have lasted till now without +understanding that I did not see God? I believed because they had told +me to believe. It seems to me that I am able to believe something no +longer because they command me to, and I feel myself set free. + +I lean on the stones of the low wall, at the spot where I leaned of +old, in the time when I thought I was some one and knew something. + +My looks fall on the families and the single figures which are hurrying +towards the black hole of the church porch, towards the gloom of the +nave, where one is enlaced in incense, where wheels of light and angels +of color hover under the vaults which contain a little of the great +emptiness of the heavens. + +I seem to stoop nearer to those people, and I get glimpses of certain +profundities among the fleeting pictures which my sight lends me. I +seem to have stopped, at random, in front of the richness of a single +being. I think of the "humble, quiet lives," and it appears to me +within a few words, and that in what they call a "quiet, lowly life," +there are immense expectations and waitings and weariness. + +I understand why they want to believe in God, and consequently why they +do believe in Him, since faith comes at will. + +I remember, while I lean on this wall and listen, that one day in the +past not far from here, a lowly woman raised her voice and said, "That +woman does not believe in God! It's because she has no children, or +else because they've never been ill." + +And I remember, too, without being able to picture them to myself, all +the voices I have heard saying, "It would be too unjust, if there were +no God!" + +There is no other proof of God's existence than the need we have of +Him. God is not God--He is the name of all that we lack. He is our +dream, carried to the sky. God is a prayer, He is not some one. + +They put all His kind actions into the eternal future, they hide them +in the unknown. Their agonizing dues they drown in distances which +outdistance them; they cancel His contradictions in inaccessible +uncertainty. No matter; they believe in the idol made of a word. + +And I? I have awaked out of religion, since it was a dream. It had to +be that one morning my eyes would end by opening and seeing nothing +more of it. + +I do not see God, but I see the church and I see the priests. Another +ceremony is unfolding just now, in another direction--up at the castle, +a Mass of St. Hubert. Leaning on my elbows the spectacle absorbs me. + +These ministers of the cult, blessing this pack of hounds, these guns +and hunting knives, officiating in lace and pomp side by side with +these wealthy people got up as warlike sportsmen, women and men alike, +on the great steps of a castle and facing a crowd kept aloof by +ropes,--this spectacle defines, more glaringly than any words whatever +can, the distance which separates the churches of to-day from Christ's +teaching, and points to all the gilded putridity which has accumulated +on those pure defaced beginnings. And what is here is everywhere; what +is little is great. + +The parsons, the powerful--all always joined together. Ah, certainty +is rising to the heart of my conscience. Religions destroy themselves +spiritually because they are many. They destroy whatever leans upon +their fables. But their directors, they who are the strength of the +idol, impose it. They decree authority; they hide the light. They are +men, defending their interests as men; they are rulers defending their +sway. + +It has to be! You shall _not_ know! A terrible memory shudders +through me; and I catch a confused glimpse of people who, for the needs +of their common cause, uphold, with their promises and thunder, the mad +unhappiness which lies heavy on the multitudes. + +* * * * * * + +Footsteps are climbing towards me. Marie appears, dressed in gray. +She comes to look for me. In the distance I saw that her cheeks were +brightened and rejuvenated by the wind. Close by I see that her +eyelids are worn, like silk. She finds me sunk in reflection. She +looks at me, like a frail and frightened mother; and this solicitude +which she brings me is enough by itself to calm and comfort me. + +I point out to her the dressed-up commotion below us, and make some +bitter remark on the folly of these people who vainly gather in the +church, and go to pray there, to talk all alone. Some of them believe; +and the rest say to them, "I do the same as you." + +Marie does not argue the basis of religion. "Ah," she says, "I've +never thought clearly about it, never. They've always spoken of God to +me, and I've always believed in Him. But--I don't know. I only know +one thing," she adds, her blue eyes looking at me, "and that is that +there must be delusion. The people must have religion, so as to put up +with the hardships of life, the sacrifices----" + +She goes on again at once, more emphatically, "There must be religion +for the unhappy, so that they won't give way. It may be foolishness, +but if you take that away from them, what have they left?" + +The gentle woman--the normal woman of settled habits--whom I had left +here repeats, "There must be illusion." She sticks to this idea, she +insists, she is taking the side of the unhappy. Perhaps she talks like +that for her own sake, and perhaps only because she is compassionate +for me. + +I said in vain, "No--there must never be delusion, never fallacies. +There should be no more lies. We shall not know then where we're +going." + +She persists and makes signs of dissent. + +I say no more, tired. But I do not lower my gaze before the +all-powerful surroundings of circumstance. My eyes are pitiless, and +cannot help descrying the false God and the false priests everywhere. + +We go down the footpath and return in silence. But it seems to me that +the rule of evil is hidden in easy security among the illusions which +they heap up over us. I am nothing; I am no more than I was before, +but I am applying my hunger for the truth. I tell myself again that +there is no supernatural power, that nothing has fallen from the sky; +that everything is within us and in our hands. And in the inspiration +of that faith my eyes embrace the magnificence of the empty sky, the +abounding desert of the earth, the Paradise of the Possible. + +We pass along the base of the church. Marie says to me--as if nothing +had just been said, "Look how the poor church was damaged by a bomb +from an aeroplane--all one side of the steeple gone. The good old +vicar was quite ill about it. As soon as he got up he did nothing else +but try to raise money to have his dear steeple built up again; and he +got it." + +People are revolving round the building and measuring its yawning +mutilation with their eyes. My thoughts turn to all these passers-by +and to all those who will pass by, whom I shall not see, and to other +wounded steeples. The most beautiful of all voices echoes within me, +and I would fain make use of it for this entreaty, "Build not the +churches again! You who will come after us, you who, in the sharp +distinctness of the ended deluge will perhaps be able to see the order +of things more clearly, don't build the churches again! They did not +contain what we used to believe, and for centuries they have only been +the prisons of the saviours, and monumental lies. If you are still of +the faith have your temples within yourselves. But if you again bring +stones to build up a narrow and evil tradition, that is the end of all. +In the name of justice, in the name of light, in the name of pity, do +not build the churches again!" + +But I did not say anything. I bow my head and walk more heavily. + +I see Madame Marcassin coming out of the church with blinking eyes, +weary-looking, a widow indeed. I bow and approach her and talk to her +a little, humbly, about her husband, since I was under his orders and +saw him die. She listens to me in dejected inattention. She is +elsewhere. She says to me at last, "I had a memorial service since +it's usual." Then she maintains a silence which means "There's nothing +to be said, just as there's nothing to be done." In face of that +emptiness I understand the crime that Marcassin committed in letting +himself be killed for nothing but the glory of dying. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GHOSTS + + +We have gone out together and aimlessly; we walk straight forward. + +It is an autumnal day--gray lace of clouds and wind. Some dried leaves +lie on the ground and others go whirling. We are in August, but it is +an autumn day all the same. Days do not allow themselves to be set in +strict order, like men. + +Our steps take us in the direction of the waterfall and the mill. We +have seldom been there again since our engagement days. Marie is +covered in a big gray cloak; her hat is black silk with a little square +of color embroidered in front. She looks tired, and her eyes are red. +When she walks in front of me I see the twisted mass of her beautiful +fair hair. + +Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a +time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like +scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the +tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front +of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us +with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are +worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other +inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on +as if they had been passers-by. + +Marie is tired. She often sits down, with her big cloak and her +sensible air; and as she sits she seems like a statue of nature, of +space, and the wind. + +We do not speak. We have gone down along the side of the +river--slowly, as if we were climbing--towards the stone seat of the +wall. The distances have altered. This seat, for instance, we meet it +sooner than we thought we should, like some one in the dark; but it is +the seat all right. The rose-tree which grew above it has withered +away and become a crown of thorns. + +There are dead leaves on the stone slab. They come from the chestnuts +yonder. They fell on the ground and yet they have flown away as far as +the seat. + +On this seat--where she came to me for the first time, which was once +so important to us that it seemed as if the background of things all +about us had been created by us--we sit down to-day, after we have +vainly sought in nature the traces of our transit. + +The landscape is peaceful, simple, empty; it fills us with a great +quivering. Marie is so sad and so simple that you can see her thought. + +I have leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. I have contemplated the +gravel at my feet; and suddenly I start, for I understand that my eyes +were looking for the marks of our footsteps, in spite of the stone, in +spite of the sand. + +After the solemnity of a long silence, Marie's face takes on a look of +defeat, and suddenly she begins to cry. The tears which fill her--for +one always weeps in full, drop on to her knees. And through her sobs +there fall from her wet lips words almost shapeless, but desperate and +fierce, as a burst of forced laughter. + +"It's all over!" she cries. + +* * * * * * + +I have put my arm round her waist, and I am shaken by the sorrow which +agitates her chest and throat, and sometimes shakes her rudely, the +sorrow which does not belong to me, which belongs to no one, and is +like a divinity. + +She becomes composed. I take her hand. In a weak voice she calls some +memories up--this and that--and "one morning----" She applies herself +to it and counts them. I speak, too, gently. We question each other. +"Do you remember?"--"Oh, yes." And when some more precise and intimate +detail prompts the question we only reply, "A little." Our separation +and the great happenings past which the world has whirled have made the +past recoil and shaped a deep ditch. Nothing has changed; but when we +look we see. + +Once, after we had recalled to each other an enchanted summer evening, +I said, "We loved each other," and she answered, "I remember." + +I call her by her name, in a low voice, so as to draw her out of the +dumbness into which she is falling. + +She listens to me, and then says, placidly, despairingly, +"'_Marie_,'--you used to say it like that. I can't realize that I had +the same name." + +A few moments later, as we talked of something else, she said to me at +last, "Ah, that day we had dreams of travel, about our plans--_you were +there_, sitting by my side." + +In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we +have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here. Her glances +come to me, but they do not join again the two surviving voids that we +are; her look does not wipe out our widowhood, nor change anything. +And I, I am too imbued with clear-sighted simplicity and truth to +answer "no" when it is "yes." In this moment by my side Marie is like +me. + +The immense mourning of human hearts appears to us. We dare not name +it yet; but we dare not let it not appear in all that we say. + +* * * * * * + +Then we see a woman, climbing the footpath and coming nearer to us. It +is Marthe, grown up, full-blown. She says a few words to us and then +goes away, smiling. She smiles, she who plays a part in our drama. +The likeness which formerly haunted me now haunts Marie, too--both of +us, side by side, and without saying it, harbored the same thought, to +see that child growing up and showing what Marie was. + +Marie confesses all, all at once, "I was only my youth and my beauty, +like all women. And _there_ go my youth and beauty--Marthe! Then, +I----?" In anguish she goes on, "I'm not old yet, since I'm only +thirty-five, but I've aged very quickly; I've some white hairs that you +can see, close to; I'm wrinkled and my eyes have sunk. I'm here, in +life, to live, to occupy my time; but I'm nothing more than I am! Of +course, I'm still alive, but the future comes to an end before life +does. Ah, it's really only youth that has a place in life. All young +faces are alike and go from one to the other without ever being +deceived. They wipe out and destroy all the rest, and they make the +others see themselves as they are, so that they become useless." + +She is right! When the young woman stands up she takes, in fact, the +other's place in the ideal and in the human heart, and makes of the +other a returning ghost. It is true. I knew it. Ah, I did not know +it was so true! It is too obvious. I cannot deny it. Again a cry of +assent rises to my lips and prevents me from saying, "No." + +I cannot turn away from Marthe's advent, nor as I look at her, from +recognizing Marie. I know she has had several little love-affairs. +Just now she is alone. She is alone, but she will soon be +leaning--yes, phantom or reality, man is not far from her. It is +dazzling. Most certainly, I no longer think as I used to do that it is +a sort of duty to satisfy the selfish promptings one has, and I have +now got an inward veneration for right-doing; but all the same, if that +being came to me, I know well that I should become, before all, and in +spite of all, an immense cry of delight. + +Marie falls back upon her idea, obdurately, and says, "A woman only +lives by love and for love. When she's no longer good for that she's +no longer anything." + +She repeats, "You see--I'm nothing any more." + +Ah, she is at the bottom of her abyss! She is at the extremity of a +woman's mourning! She is not thinking only of me. Her thought is +higher and vaster. She is thinking of all the woman she is, of all +that love is, of all possible things when she says, "I'm no longer +anything." And _I_--I am only he who is present with her just now, and +no help whatever is left her to look for from any one. + +I should like to pacify and console this woman who is gentleness and +simplicity and who is sinking there while she lightly touches me with +her presence--but exactly because she is there I cannot lie to her, I +can do nothing against her grief, her perfect, infallible grief. + +"Ah!" she cries, "if we came to life again!" + +But she, too, has tried to cling to illusion. I see by the track of +her tears, and because I am looking at her--that she has powdered her +face to-day and put rouge on her lips, perhaps even on her cheeks, as +she did in bygone days, laughing, to set herself off, in spite of me. +This woman who tries to keep a good likeness of herself through passing +time, to be fixed upon herself, who paints herself, she is, to that +extent like what Rembrandt the profound and Titian the bold and +exquisite did--make enduring, and save! But this time, a few tears +have washed away the fragile, mortal effort. + +She tries also to delude herself with words, and to discover something +in them which would transform her. She asserts, as she did the other +morning, "There must be illusion. No, we must not see things as they +are." But I see clearly that such words do not exist. + +Once, when she was looking at me distressfully, she murmured, +"_You_--you've no more illusion at all. I pity you!" + +At that moment, within the space of a flash, she was thinking of me +only, and she pities me! She has found something in her grief to give +me. + +She is silent. She is seeking the supreme complaint; she is trying to +find what there is which is more torturing and more simple; and she +stammers--"The truth." + +The truth is that the love of mankind is a single season among so many +others. The truth is that we have within us something much more mortal +than we are, and that it is this, all the same, which is all-important. +Therefore we survive very much longer than we live. There are things +we think we know and which yet are secrets. Do we really know what we +believe? We believe in miracles. We make great efforts to struggle, +to go mad. We should like to let all our good deserts be seen. We +fancy that we are exceptions and that something supernatural is going +to come along. But the quiet peace of the truth fixes us. The +impossible becomes again the impossible. We are as silent as silence +itself. + +We stayed lonely on the seat until evening. Our hands and faces shone +like gleams of storm in the entombment of the calm and the mist. + +We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few +hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as +never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real +drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our +movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is +empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each +other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation +of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but +close by--so close--are phantoms! + +Then bedtime comes. She is sleeping in the little bedroom opposite +mine across the landing, less fine than mine and smaller, hung with an +old and faded paper, where the patterned flowers are only an irregular +relief, with traces here and there of powder, of colored dust and +ashes. + +We are going to separate on the landing. To-day is not the first time +like that! but to-day we are feeling this great rending which is not +one. She has begun to undress. She has taken off her blouse. I see +her neck and her breasts, a little less firm than before, through her +chemise; and half tumbling on to the nape of her neck, the fair hair +which once magnificently flamed on her like a fire of straw. + +She only says, "It's better to be a man than a woman." + +Then she replies to my silence, "You see, we don't know what to say, +now." + +In the angle of the narrow doorway she spoke with a kind of immensity. + +She goes into her room and disappears. Before I went to the war we +slept in the same bed. We used to lie down side by side, so as to be +annihilated in unconsciousness, or to go and dream somewhere else. +(Commonplace life has shipwrecks worse than in Shakespearean dramas. +For man and wife--to sleep, to die.) But since I came back we separate +ourselves with a wall. This sincerity that I have brought back in my +eyes and mind has changed the semblances round about me into reality, +more than I imagine. Marie is hiding from me her faded but disregarded +body. Her modesty has begun again; yes, she has ended by beginning +again. + +She has shut her door. She is undressing, alone in her room, slowly, +and as if uselessly. There is only the light of her little lamp to +caress her loosened hair, in which the others cannot yet see the white +ones, the frosty hairs that she alone touches. + +Her door is shut, decisive, banal, dreary. + +Among some papers on my table I see the poem again which we once found +out of doors, the bit of paper escaped from the mysterious hands which +wrote on it, and come to the stone seat. It ended by whispering, "Only +I know the tears that brimming rise, your beauty blended with your +smile to espy." + +In the days of yore it had made us smile with delight. To-night there +are real tears in my eyes. What is it? I dimly see that there is +something more than what we have seen, than what we have said, than +what we have felt to-day. One day, perhaps, she and I will exchange +better and richer sayings; and so, in that day, all the sadness will be +of some service. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE CULT + + +I have been to the factory. I felt as much lost as if I had found +myself translated there after a sleep of legendary length. There are +many new faces. The factory has tripled--quadrupled in importance; +quite a town of flimsy buildings has been added to it. + +"They've built seven others like it in three months!" says Monsieur +Mielvaque to me, proudly. + +The manager is now another young nephew of the Messrs. Gozlan. He was +living in Paris and came back on the day of the general mobilization. +Old Monsieur Gozlan looks after everything. + +I have a month to wait. I wait slowly, as everybody does. The houses +in the lower town are peopled by absentees. When you go in they talk +to you about the last letter, and always make the same huge and barren +reflections on the war. In my street there are twelve houses where the +people no longer await anything and have nothing to say, like Madame +Marcassin. In some others, the one who has disappeared will perhaps +come back; and they go about in them in a sort of hope which leans only +on emptiness and silence. There are women who have begun their lives +again in a kind of happy misery. The places near them of the dead or +the living they have filled up. + +The main streets have not changed, any more than the squares, except +the one which is encrusted with a collection of huts. The life in them +is as bustling as ever, and of brighter color, and more amusing. Many +young men, rich or influential, are passing their wartime in the +offices of the depot, of the Exchange, of Food Control, of Enlistment, +of the Pay Department, and other administrations whose names one cannot +remember. The priests are swarming in the two hospitals; on the faces +of orderlies, cyclist messengers, doorkeepers and porters you can read +their origin. For myself, I have never seen a parson in the front +lines wearing the uniform of the ordinary fighting soldier, the uniform +of those who make up the fatigue parties and fight as well against +perfect misery! + +My thought turns to what the man once said to me who was by me among +the straw of a stable, "Why is there no more justice?" By the little +that I know and have seen and am seeing, I can tell what an enormous +rush sprang up, at the same time as the war, against the equality of +the living. And if that injustice, which was turning the heroism of +the others into a cheat has not been openly extended, it is because the +war has lasted too long, and the scandal became so glaring that they +were forced to look into it. It seems that it is only through fear +that they have ended by deciding so much. + +* * * * * * + +I go into Fontan's. Crillon is with me--I picked him up from the +little glass cupboard of his shop as I came out. He is finding it +harder and harder to keep going; he has aged a lot, and his frame, so +powerfully bolted together, cracks with rheumatism. + +We sit down. Crillon groans and bends so low in his hand-to-hand +struggle with the pains which beset him that I think his forehead is +going to strike the marble-topped table. + +He tells me in detail of his little business, which is going badly, and +how he has confused glimpses of the bare and empty future which awaits +him--when a sergeant with a fair mustache and eyeglasses makes his +entry. This personage, whose collar shows white thunderbolts,[1] +instead of a number, comes and sits near us. He orders a port wine and +Victorine serves it with a smile. She smiles at random, and +indistinctly, at all the men, like Nature. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +The newcomer takes off his cap, looks at the windows and yawns. "I'm +bored," he says. + +He comes nearer and freely offers us his talk. He sets himself +chattering with spirited and easy grace, of men and things. He works +at the Town Hall and knows a lot of secrets which he lets us into. He +points to a couple of sippers at a table in the corner reserved for +commercial people. "The grocer and the ironmonger," he says, "there's +two that know how to go about it! At the beginning of the war there +was a business crisis by the force of things, and they had to tighten +their belts like the rest. Then they got their revenge and swept the +dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still +revenging themselves. You should see the stocks of goods they sit on +in their cellars and wait for the rises that the newspapers foretell! +They've got one excuse, it's true--there are others, bigger people, +that are worse. Ah, you can say that the business people will have +given a rich notion of their patriotism during the war!" + +The fair young man stretches himself backward to his full length, with +his heels together on the ground, his arms rigid on the table, and +opens his mouth with all his might and for a long time. Then he goes +on in a loud voice, careless who hears him, "Why, I saw the other day, +at the Town Hall, piles of the Declarations of Profits, required by the +Treasury. I don't know, of course, for I've not read them, but I'm as +sure and certain as you are that all those innumerable piles of +declarations are just so many columns of cod and humbug and lies!" + +Intelligent and inexhaustible, accurately posted through the clerk's +job in which he is sheltering, the sergeant relates with careless +gestures his stories of scandals and huge profiteering, "while our good +fellows are fighting." He talks and talks, and concludes by saying +that after all _he_ doesn't care a damn as long as they let him alone. + +Monsieur Fontan is in the café. A woman leads up to him a tottering +being whom she introduces to him. "He's ill, Monsieur Fontan, because +he hasn't had enough to eat." + +"Well now! And I'm ill, too," says Fontan jovially, "but it's because +I eat too much." + +The sergeant takes his leave, touching us with a slight salute. "He's +right, that smart gentleman," says Crillon to me. "It's always been +like that, and it will always be like that, you know!" + +Aloof, I keep silence. I am still tired and stunned by all these +sayings in the little time since I remained so long without hearing +anything but myself. But I am sure they are all true, and that +patriotism is only a word or a tool for many. And feeling the rags of +the common soldier still on me, I knit my brows and realize that it is +a disgrace and a shame for the poor to be deceived as they are. + +Crillon is smiling, as always! On his huge face, where every passing +day now leaves some marks, on his round-eyed weakened face with its +mouth opened like a cypher, the old smile of yore is spread out. I +used to think then that resignation was a virtue; I see now that it is +a vice. The optimist is the permanent accomplice of all evil-doers. +This passive smile which I admired but lately--I find it despicable on +this poor face. + +* * * * * * + +The café has filled up with workmen, either old or very young, from the +town and the country, but chiefly the country. + +What are they doing, these lowly, these ill-paid? They are dirty and +they are drinking. They are dark, although it is the forenoon, because +they are dirty. In the light there is that obscurity which they carry +on them; and a bad smell removes itself with them. + +I see three convalescent soldiers from the hospital join the plebeian +groups; they are recognized by their coarse clothes, their caps and big +boots, and because their gestures are soldered together and conform to +a common movement. + +By force of "glasses all round," these drinkers begin to talk in loud +voices; they get excited and shout at random; and in the end they drop +visibly into unconsciousness, into oblivion, into defeat. + +The wine-merchant is at his cash desk, which shines like silver. He +stands behind the center of it, colorless, motionless, like a bust on a +pedestal. His bare arms hang down, pallid as his face. He comes and +wipes away some spilled wine, and his hands shine and drip, like a +butcher's. + +* * * * * * + +"I'm forgetting to tell you," cried Crillon, "that they had news of +your regiment a few days ago. Little Mélusson's had his head blown to +bits in an attack. Here, y'know; he was a softy and an idler. Well, +he was attacking like a devil. War remakes men like that!" + +"Termite?" I asked. + +"Ah, yes! Termite the poacher! Why it's a long time since they +haven't seen him. Disappeared, it seems. S'pose he's killed." + +Then he talks to me of this place. Brisbille, for instance, always the +same, a Socialist and a scandal. + +"There's him," says Crillon, "and that dangerous chap Eudo as well, +with his notorient civilities. Would you believe it, they've not been +able to pinch him for his spying proclensities! Nothing in his past +life, nothing in his conductions, nothing in his expensiture, nothing +to find fault with. Mustn't he be a deep one?" + +I presume to think--suppose it was all untrue? Yet it seemed a +formidable task to upset on the spot one of the oldest and most deeply +rooted creeds in our town. But I risk it. "Perhaps he's innocent." + +Crillon jumps, and shouts, "What! You suspect him of being innocent!" +His face is convulsed and he explodes with an enormous laugh, a laugh +irresistible as a tidal wave, the laugh of all! + +"Talking about Termite," says Crillon a moment later, "it seems it +wasn't him that did the poaching." + +The military convalescents are leaving the tavern. Crillon watches +them go away with their parallel movements and their sticks. + +"Yes, there's wounded here and there's dead there!" he says; "all those +who hadn't got a privilential situation! Ah, la, la! The poor devils, +when you think of it, eh, what they must have suffered! And at this +moment, all the time, there's some dying. And we stand it very well, +an' hardly think of it. They didn't need to kill so many, that's +certain--there's been faults and blunders, as everybody knows of. But +fortunately," he adds, with animation, putting on my shoulder the hand +that is big as a young animal, "the soldiers' deaths and the chief's +blunders, that'll all disappear one fine day, melted away and forgotten +in the glory of the victorious Commander!" + +* * * * * * + +There has been much talk in our quarter of a Memorial Festival. + +I am not anxious to be present and I watch Marie set off. Then I feel +myself impelled to go there, as if it were a duty. + +I cross the bridge. I stop at the corner of the Old Road, on the edge +of the fields. Two steps away there is the cemetery, which is hardly +growing, since nearly all those who die now are not anywhere. + +I lift my eyes and take in the whole spectacle together. The hill +which rises in front of me is full of people. It trembles like a swarm +of bees. Up above, on the avenue of trimmed limetrees, it is crowned +by the sunshine and by the red platform, which scintillates with the +richness of dresses and uniforms and musical instruments. + +Then there is a red barrier. On this side of that barrier, lower down, +the public swarms and rustles. + +I recognize the great picture of the past. I remember this ceremony, +spacious as a season, which has been regularly staged here so many +times in the course of my childhood and youth, and with almost the same +rites and forms. It was like this last year, and the other years, and +a century ago and centuries since. + +Near me an old peasant in sabots is planted. Rags, shapeless and +colorless--the color of time--cover the eternal man of the fields. He +is what he always was. He blinks, leaning on a stick; he holds his cap +in his hand because what he sees is so like a church service. His legs +are trembling; he wonders if he ought to be kneeling. + +And I, I feel myself diminished, cut back, returned through the cycles +of time to the little that I am. + +* * * * * * + +Up there, borne by the flag-draped rostrum, a man is speaking. He +lifts a sculptural head aloft, whose hair is white as marble. + +At my distance I can hardly hear him. But the wind carries me some +phrases, louder shouted, of his peroration. He is preaching +resignation to the people, and the continuance of things. He implores +them to abandon finally the accursed war of classes, to devote +themselves forever to the blessed war of races in all its shapes. +After the war there must be no more social utopias, but discipline +instead, whose grandeur and beauty the war has happily revealed, the +union of rich and poor for national expansion and the victory of France +in the world, and sacred hatred of the Germans, which is a virtue in +the French. Let us remember! + +Then another orator excites himself and shouts that the war has been +such a magnificent harvest of heroism that it must not be regretted. +It has been a good thing for France; it has made lofty virtues and +noble instincts gush forth from a nation which seemed to be decadent. +Our people had need of an awakening and to recover themselves, and +acquire new vigor. With metaphors which hover and vibrate he proclaims +the glory of killing and being killed, he exalts the ancient passion +for plumes and scarlet in which the heart of France is molded. + +Alone on the edge of the crowd I feel myself go icy by the touch of +these words and commands, which link future and past together and +misery to misery. I have already heard them resounding forever. A +world of thoughts growls confusedly within me. Once I cried +noiselessly, "No!"--a deformed cry, a strangled protest of all my faith +against all the fallacy which comes down upon us. That first cry which +I have risked among men, I cast almost as a visionary, but almost as a +dumb man. The old peasant did not even turn his earthy, gigantic head. +And I hear a roar of applause go by, of popular expanse. + +I go up to join Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots +of them. Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands +immovable. Up there the Bishop is on his feet. He raises his +forefinger and says, "The dead are not dead. They are rewarded in +heaven; but even here on earth they are alive. They keep watch in our +hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion. Theirs is the immortality +of glory and gratitude. They are not dead, and we should envy them +more than pity." + +And he blesses the audience, all of whom bow or kneel. I remained +upright, stubbornly, with clenched teeth. And I remember things, and I +say to myself, "Have the dead died for nothing? If the world is to +stay as it is, then--yes!" + +Several men did not bend their backs at first, and then they obeyed the +general movement; and I felt on my shoulders all the heavy weight of +the whole bowing multitude. + +Monsieur Joseph Bonéas is talking within a circle. Seeing him again I +also feel for one second the fascination he once had for me. He is +wearing an officer's uniform of the Town Guard, and his collar hides +the ravages in his neck. He is holding forth. What says he? He says, +"We must take the long view." + +"We must take the long view. For my part, the only thing I admire in +militarist Prussia is its military organization. After the war--for we +must not limit our outlook to the present conflict--we must take +lessons from it, and just let the simple-minded humanitarians go on +bleating about universal peace." + +He goes on to say that in his opinion the orators did not sufficiently +insist on the necessity for tying the economic hands of Germany after +the war. No annexations, perhaps; but tariffs, which would be much +better. And he shows in argument the advantages and prosperity brought +by carnage and destruction. + +He sees me. He adorns himself with a smile and comes forward with +proffered hand. I turn violently away. I have no use for the hand of +this sort of outsider, this sort of traitor. + +They lie. That ludicrous person who talks of taking the long view +while there are still in the world only a few superb martyrs who have +dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present +misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man +who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the +demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and +he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a +glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, +who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny with word +trickery the terrible evidence of death, he who rewards the martyrs +with the soft soap of false promises--all these people tell lies, lies, +lies! Through their words I can hear the mental reservation they are +chewing over--"Around us, the deluge; and after us, the deluge." Or +else they do not even lie; they see nothing and they know not what they +say. + +They have opened the red barrier. Applause and congratulations cross +each other. Some notabilities come down from the rostrum, they look at +me, they are obviously interested in the wounded soldier that I am, +they advance towards me. Among them is the intellectual person who +spoke first. He is wagging the white head and its cauliflower curls, +and looking all ways with eyes as empty as those of a king of cards. +They told me his name, but I have forgotten it with contempt. I slip +away from them. I am bitterly remorseful that for so long a portion of +my life I believed what Bonéas said. I accuse myself of having +formerly put my trust in speakers and writers who--however learned, +distinguished, famous--were only imbeciles or villains. I fly from +these people, since I am not strong enough to answer and resist +them--or to cry out upon them that the only memory it is important to +preserve of the years we have endured is that of their loathsome horror +and lunacy. + +* * * * * * + +But the few words fallen from on high have sufficed to open my eyes, to +show me that the Separation I dimly saw in the tempest of my nights in +hospital was true. It comes down from vacancy and the clouds, it takes +form and it takes root--it is there, it is there; and the indictment +comes to light, as precise and as tragic as that row of faces! + +Kings? There they are. There are many different kinds of king, just +as there are different gods. But there is one royalty everywhere, and +that is the very form of ancient society, the great machine which is +stronger than men. And all the personages enthroned on that +rostrum--those business men and bishops, those politicians and great +merchants, those bulky office-holders or journalists, those old +generals in sumptuous decorations, those writers in uniform--they are +the custodians of the highest law and its executors. + +It is those people whose interests are common and are contrary to those +of mankind; and their interests are--above all and imperiously--let +nothing change! It is those people who keep their eternal subjects in +eternal order, who deceive and dazzle them, who take their brains away +as they take their bodies, who flatter their servile instincts, who +make shallow, resplendent creeds for them, and explain huge happenings +away with all the pretexts they like. It is because of them that the +law of things does not rest on justice and the moral law. + +If some of them are unconscious of it, no matter. Neither does it +matter that all of them do not always profit by the public's servitude, +nor that some of them, sometimes, even happen to suffer from it. They +are none the less, all of them, by their solid coalition, material and +moral, the defenders of lies above and delusion below. These are the +people who reign in the place of kings, or at the same time, here as +everywhere. + +Formerly I used to see a harmony of interests and ideals on all that +festive, sunlit hill. Now I see reality broken in two, as I did on my +bed of pain. I see the two enemy races face to face--the victors and +the vanquished. + +Monsieur Gozlan looks like a master of masters--an aged collector of +fortune, whose speculations are famous, whose wealth increases unaided, +who makes as much profit as he likes and holds the district in the +hollow of his hand. His vulgar movements flash with diamonds, and a +bulky golden trinket hangs on his belly like a phallus. The generals +beside him--those glorious potentates whose smiles are made of so many +souls--and the administrators and the honorables only look like +secondary actors. + +Fontan occupies considerable space on the rostrum. He drowses there, +with his two spherical hands planted in front of him. The voluminous +trencherman digests and blows forth with his buttered mouth; and what +he has eaten purrs within him. As for Rampaille, the butcher, _he_ has +mingled with the public. He is rich but dressed with bad taste. It is +his habit to say, "I am a poor man of the people, I am; look at my +dirty clothes." A moment ago, when the lady who was collecting for the +Lest-we-Forget League suddenly confronted him and trapped him amid +general attention, he fumbled desperately in his fob and dragged three +sous out of his body. There are several like him on this side of the +barrier, looking as though they were part of the crowd, but only +attached to it by their trade. Kings do not now carry royalty +everywhere on their sleeves; they obliterate themselves in the clothes +of everybody. But all the hundred faces of royalty have the same +signs, all of them, and are distinctly repeated through their smiles of +cupidity, rapacity, ferocity. + +And there the dark multitude fidgets about. By footpaths and streets +they have come from the country and the town. I see, gazing earnestly, +stiff-set with attention, faces scorched by rude contact with the +seasons or blanched by bad atmospheres; the sharp and mummified face of +the peasant; faces of young men grown bitter before they have come of +age; of women grown ugly before they have come of age, who draw the +little wings of their capes over their faded blouses and faded throats; +the clerks of anemic and timorous career; and the little people with +whom times are so difficult, whom their mediocrity depresses; all that +stirring of backs and shoulders and hanging arms, in poverty dressed up +or naked. Behold their numbers and immense strength. Behold, +therefore, authority and justice. For justice and authority are not +hollow formulas--they are life, the most of life there can be; they are +mankind, they are mankind in all places and all times. These words, +justice and authority, do not echo in an abstract sphere. They are +rooted in the human being. They overflow and palpitate. When I demand +justice, I am not groping in a dream, I am crying from the depths of +all unhappy hearts. + +Such are they, that mountain of people heaped on the ground like metal +for the roads, overwhelmed by unhappiness, debased by charity and +asking for it, bound to the rich by urgent necessity, entangled in the +wheels of a single machine, the machine of frightful repetition. And +in that multitude I also place nearly all young people, whoever they +are, because of their docility and their general ignorance. These +lowly people form an imposing mass as far as one may see, yet each of +them is hardly anything, because he is isolated. It is almost a +mistake to count them; what you see when you look at the multitude is +an immensity made of nothing. + +And the people of to-day--overloaded with gloom and intoxicated with +prejudice--see blood, because of the red hangings of rostrums; they are +fascinated by the sparkle of diamonds, of necklaces, of decorations, of +the eyeglasses of the intellectuals. They have eyes but they see not, +ears but they hear not; arms which they do not use; and they are +thoughtless because they let others do their thinking! And the other +half of this same multitude is yonder, looking for Man and looked for +by Man, in the big black furrows where blood is scattered and the human +race is disappearing. And still farther away, in another part of the +world, the same throne-like platforms are crushing into the same +immense areas of men; and the same gilded servants of royalty are +scattering broadcast words which are only a translation of those which +fell on us here. + +Some women in mourning are hardly stains on this gloomy unity. They +wander and turn round in the open spaces, and are the same as they were +in ancient times. They are not of any age or any century, these +murdered souls, covered with black veils; they are you and I. + +My vision was true from top to bottom. The evil dream has become a +concrete tragi-comedy which is worse. It is inextricable, heavy, +crushing. I flounder from detail to detail of it; it drags me along. +Behold what is. Behold, therefore, what will be--exploitation to the +last breath, to the limit of wearing out, to death perfected! + +I have overtaken Marie. By her side I feel more defenseless than when +I am alone. While we watch the festival, the shining hurly-burly, +murmuring and eulogistic, the Baroness espies me, smiles and signs to +me to go to her. So I go, and in the presence of all she pays me some +compliment or other on my service at the front. She is dressed in +black velvet and wears her white hair like a diadem. Twenty-five years +of vassalage bow me before her and fill me with silence. And I salute +the Gozlans also, in a way which I feel is humble in spite of myself, +for they are all-powerful over me, and they make Marie an allowance +without which we could not live properly. I am no more than a man. + +I see Tudor, whose eyes were damaged in Artois, hesitating and groping. +The Baroness has found a little job for him in the castle kitchens. + +"Isn't she good to the wounded soldiers?" they are saying around me. +"She's a real benefactor!" + +This time I say aloud, "_There_ is the real benefactor," and I point to +the ruin which the young man has become whom we used to know, to the +miserable, darkened biped whose eyelids flutter in the daylight, who +leans weakly against a tree in face of the festive crowd, as if it were +an execution post. + +"Yes--after all--yes, yes," the people about me murmur, timidly; they +also blinking as though tardily enlightened by the spectacle of the +poor benefactor. + +But they are not heard--they hardly even hear themselves--in the flood +of uproar from a brass band. A triumphal march goes by with the strong +and sensual driving force of its, "Forward! You shall _not_ know!" +The audience fill themselves with brazen music, and overflow in cheers. + +The ceremony is drawing to a close. They who were seated on the +rostrum get up. Fontan, bewildered with sleepiness, struggles to put +on a tall hat which is too narrow, and while he screws it round he +grimaces. Then he smiles with his boneless mouth. All congratulate +themselves through each other; they shake their own hands; they cling +to themselves. After their fellowship in patriotism they are going +back to their calculations and gratifications, glorified in their +egotism, sanctified, beatified; more than ever will they blend their +own with the common cause and say, "_We_ are the people!" + +Brisbille, seeing one of the orators passing near him, throws him a +ferocious look, and shouts, "Land-shark!" and other virulent insults. + +But because of the brass instruments let loose, people only see him +open his mouth, and Monsieur Mielvaque dances with delight. Monsieur +Mielvaque, declared unfit for service, has been called up again. More +miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more +parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor--he blots out the shiny +places on his overcoat with his pen--Mielvaque points to Brisbille +gagged by the band, he writhes with laughter and shouts in my ear, "He +might be trying to sing!" + +Madame Marcassin's paralyzed face appears, the disappearance of which +she unceasingly thinks has lacerated her features. She also applauds +the noise and across her face--which has gone out like a lamp--there +shot a flash. Can it be only because, to-day, attention is fixed on +her? + +A mother, mutilated in her slain son, is giving her mite to the +offertory for the Lest-we-Forget League. She is bringing her poverty's +humble assistance to those who say, "Remember evil; not that it may be +avoided, but that it may be revived, by exciting at random all causes +of hatred. Memory must be made an infectious disease." Bleeding and +bloody, inflamed by the stupid selfishness of vengeance, she holds out +her hand to the collector, and drags behind her a little girl who, +nevertheless, will one day, perhaps, be a mother. + +Lower down, an apprentice is devouring an officer's uniform with his +gaze. He stands there hypnotized; and the sky-blue and beautiful +crimson come off on his eyes. At that moment I saw clearly that beauty +in uniforms is still more wicked than stupid. + +Ah! That frightful prophecy locked up within me is hammering my skull, +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +Wounded by everything I see, I sink down in a corner. Truth is simple; +but the world is no longer simple. There are so many things! How will +truth ever change its defeat into victory? How is it ever going to +heal all those who do not know! I grieve that I am weak and +ineffective, that I am only I. On earth, alas, truth is dumb, and the +heart is only a stifled cry! + +I look for support, for some one who does not leave me alone. I am too +much alone, and I look eagerly. But there is only Brisbille! + +There is only that tipsy automaton; that parody of a man. + +There he is. Close by he is more drunk than in the distance! +Drunkenness bedaubs him; his eyes are filled with wine, his cheeks are +like baked clay, his nose like a baked apple, he is almost blinded by +viscous tufts. In the middle of that open space he seems caught in a +whirlpool. It happens that he is in front of me for a moment, and he +hurls at my head some furious phrases in which I recognize, now and +again, the truths in which I believe! Then, with antics at once +desperate and too heavy for him, he tries to perform some kind of +pantomime which represents the wealthy class, round-paunched as a bag +of gold, sitting on the proletariat till their noses are crushed in the +gutter, and proclaiming, with their eyes up to heaven and their hands +on their hearts, "And above all, no more class-wars!" There is +something alarming in the awkwardness of the grimacing object begotten +by that obstructed brain. It seems as if real suffering is giving +voice through him with a beast's cry. + +When he has spoken, he collapses on to a stone. With his fist, whose +leather is covered with red hair, like a cow's, he hides the squalid +face that looks as if it had been spat upon. "Folks aren't wicked," he +says, "but they're stupid, stupid, stupid." + +And Brisbille cries. + +Just then Father Piot advances into the space, with his silver aureole, +his benevolent smile, and the vague and continuous lisping which +trickles from his lips. He stops in the middle of us, gives a nod to +each one and continuing his ingenuous reflections aloud, he murmurs, +"Hem, hem! The most important thing of all, in war, is the return to +religious ideas. Hem!" + +The monstrous calm of the saying makes me start, and communicates final +agitation to Brisbille. Throwing himself upright, the blacksmith +flourishes his trembling fist, tries to hold it under the old priest's +chin, and bawls, "You? Shall I tell you how _you_ make me feel, eh? +Why----" + +Some young men seize him, hustle him and throw him down. His head +strikes the ground and he is at last immobile. Father Piot raises his +arms to heaven and kneels over the vanquished madman. There are tears +in the old man's eyes. + +When we have made a few steps away I cannot help saying to Marie, with +a sort of courage, that Brisbille is not wrong in all that he says. +Marie is shocked, and says, "Oh!" + +"There was a time," she says, reproachfully, "when you set about him!" + +I should like Marie to understand what I am wanting to say. I explain +to her, that although he may be a drunkard and a brute, he is right in +what he thinks. He stammers and hiccups the truth, but it was not he +who made it, and it is whole and pure. He is a degraded prophet, but +the relics of his dreams have remained accurate. And that saintly old +man, who is devotion incarnate, who would not harm a fly, he is only a +lowly servant of lies; but he brings his little link to the chain, and +he smiles on the side of the executioners. + +"One shouldn't ever confuse ideas with men. It's a mistake that does a +lot of harm." + +Marie lowers her head and says nothing; then she murmurs, "Yes, that's +true." + +I pick up the little sentence she has given me. It is the first time +that approval of that sort has brought her near to me. She has +intelligence within her; she understands certain things. Women, in +spite of thoughtless impulses, are quicker in understanding than men. +Then she says to me, "Since you came back, you've been worrying your +head too much." + +Crillon was on our heels. He stands in front of me, and looks +displeased. + +"I was listening to you just now," he says; "I must tell you that since +you came back you have the air of a foreigner--a Belgian or an +American. You say intolantable things. We thought at first your mind +had got a bit unhinged. Unfortunately, it's not that. Is it because +you've turned sour? Anyway, I don't know what advantage you're after, +but I must cautionize you that you're anielating everybody. We must +put ourselves in these people's places. Apropos of this, and apropos +of that, you make proposals of a tendicious character which doesn't +escape them. You aren't like the rest any more. If you go on you'll +look as silly as a giant, and if you're going to frighten folks, look +out for yourself!" + +He plants himself before me in massive conviction. The full daylight +reveals more crudely the aging of his features. His skin is stretched +on the bones of his head, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders +work badly; they stick, like old drawers. + +"And then, after all, what _do_ you want? We've got to carry the war +on, eh? We must give the Boches hell, to sum up." + +With an effort, wearied beforehand, I ask, "And afterwards?" + +"What--afterwards? Afterwards there'll be wars, naturally, but +civilized wars. Afterwards? Why, future posterity! Own up that you'd +like to save the world, eh, what? When you launch out into these great +machinations you say enormities compulsively. The future? Ha, ha!" + +I turn away from him. Of what use to try to tell him that the past is +dead, that the present is passing, that the future alone is positive! + +Through Crillon's paternal admonishment I feel the threat of the +others. It is not yet hostility around me; but it is already a +rupture. With this truth that clings to me alone, amid the world and +its phantoms, am I not indeed rushing into a sort of tragedy impossible +to maintain? They who surround me, filled to the lips, filled to the +eyes, with the gross acceptance which turns men into beasts, they look +at me mistrustfully, ready to be let loose against me. Little more was +lacking before I should be as much a reprobate as Brisbille, who, in +this very place, before the war, stood up alone before the multitude +and tried to tell them to their faces that they were going into the +gulf. + +* * * * * * + +I move away with Marie. We go down into the valley, and then climb +Chestnut Hill. I like these places where I used so often to come in +the days when everything around me was a hell which I did not see. Now +that I am a ghost returning from the beyond, this hill still draws me +through the streets and lanes. I remember it and it remembers me. +There is something which we share, which I took away with me yonder, +everywhere, like a secret. I hear that despoiled soldier who said, +"Where I come from there are fields and paths and the sea; nowhere else +in the world is there that," and amid my unhappy memories that +extraordinary saying shines like news of the truth. + +We sit down on the bank which borders the lane. We can see the town, +the station and carts on the road; and yonder three villages make +harmony, sometimes more carefully limned by bursts of sunshine. The +horizons entwine us in a murmur. The crossing where we are is the spot +where four roads make a movement of reunion. + +But my spirit is no longer what it was. Vaguely I seek, everywhere. I +must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source. +Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; +and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible. + +* * * * * * + +There is a slight noise--a frail passer-by and a speck which jumps +round her feet. Marie looks and says mechanically, like a devout +woman, making the sign of the cross, "Poor little angel!" + +It is little Antoinette and her dog. She gropes for the edge of the +road with a stick, for she has become quite blind. They never looked +after her. They were going to do it, unendingly, but they never did +it. They always said, "Poor little angel," and that was all. + +She is so miserably clad that you lower your eyes before her, although +she cannot see. She wanders and seeks, incapable of understanding the +wrong they have done, they have allowed to be done, the wrong which no +one remembers. Alas, to the prating indifference and the indolent +negligence of men there is only this poor little blind witness. + +She stops in front of us and puts out her hand awkwardly. She is +begging! No one troubles himself about her now. She is talking to her +dog; he was born in the castle kennels--Marie told me about him. He +was the last of a litter, ill-shaped, with a head too big, and bad +eyes; and the Baroness said, as they were going to drown him, and +because she is always thinking of good things, "Give him to the little +blind girl." The child is training him to guide her; but he is young, +he wants to play when other dogs go by, he hears her with listless ear. +It is difficult for him to begin serious work; and he plucks the string +from her hands. She calls to him; and waits. + +Then, during a long time, a good many passers-by appear and vanish. We +do not look at all of them. + +But lo, turning the corner like some one of importance, here comes a +sleek and tawny mastiff, with the silvery tinkle of a trinket which +gleams on his neck. He is proclaiming and preceding his young +mistress, Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon, who is riding her pony. The +little girl caracoles sedately, clad in a riding habit, and armed with +a crop. She has been an orphan for a long time. She is the mistress +of the castle. She is twelve years old and has millions. A mounted +groom in full livery follows her, looking like a stage-player or a +chamberlain; and then, with measured steps, an elderly governess, +dressed in black silk, and manifestly thinking of some Court. + +Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon and her pretty name set us thinking of +Antoinette, who hardly has a name; and it seems to us that these two +are the only ones who have passed before our eyes. The difference in +the earthly fates of these two creatures who have both the same fragile +innocence, the same pure and complete incapacity of childhood, plunges +us into a tragedy of thought. The misery and the might which have +fallen on those little immature heads are equally undeserved. It is a +disgrace for men to see a poor child; it is also a disgrace for men to +see a rich child. + +I feel malicious towards the little sumptuous princess who has just +appeared, already haughty in spite of her littleness; and I am stirred +with pity for the frail victim whom life is obliterating with all its +might; and Marie, I can see, gentle Marie, has the same thoughts. Who +would not feel them in face of this twin picture of childhood which a +passing chance has brought us, of this one picture torn in two? + +But I resist this emotion; the understanding of things must be based, +not on sentiment, but on reason. There must be justice, not charity. +Kindness is solitary. Compassion becomes one with him whom we pity; it +allows us to fathom him, to understand him alone amongst the rest; but +it blurs and befogs the laws of the whole. I must set off with a clear +idea, like the beam of a lighthouse through the deformities and +temptations of night. + +As I have seen equality, I am seeing inequality. Equality in truth; +inequality in fact. We observe in man's beginning the beginning of his +hurt; the root of the error is in inheritance. + +Injustice, artificial and groundless authority, royalty without reason, +the fantastic freaks of fortune which suddenly put crowns on heads! It +is there, as far as the monstrous authority of the dead, that we must +draw a straight line and clean the darkness away. + +The transfer of the riches and authority of the dead, of whatever kind, +to their descendants, is not in accord with reason and the moral law. +The laws of might and of possessions are for the living alone. Every +man must occupy in the common lot a place which he owes to his work and +not to luck. + +It is tradition! But that is no reason, on the other hand. Tradition, +which is the artificial welding of the present with the mass of the +past, contrives a chain between them, where there is none. It is from +tradition that all human unhappiness comes; it piles _de facto_, truths +on to the true truth; it overrides justice; it takes all freedom away +from reason and replaces it with legendary things, forbidding reason to +look for what may be inside them. + +It is in the one domain of science and its application, and sometimes +in the technique of the arts, that experience legitimately takes the +power of law, and that acquired productions have a right to accumulate. +But to pass from this treasuring of truth to the dynastic privilege of +ideas or powers or wealth--those talismans--that is to make a senseless +assimilation which kills equality in the bud and prevents human order +from having a basis. Inheritance, which is the concrete and palpable +form of tradition, defends itself by the tradition of origins and of +beliefs--abuses defended by abuses, to infinity--and it is by reason of +that integral succession that here, on earth, we see a few men holding +the multitude of men in their hands. + +I say all this to Marie. She appears to be more struck by the +vehemence of my tone than by the obviousness of what I say. She +replies, feebly, "Yes, indeed," and nods her head; but she asks me, +"But the moral law that you talk about, isn't it tradition?" + +"No. It is the automatic law of the common good. Every time _that_ +finds itself at stake, it re-creates itself logically. It is lucid; it +shows itself every time right to its fountain-head. Its source is +reason itself, and equality, which is the same thing as reason. This +thing is good and that is evil, _because_ it is good and because it is +evil, and not because of what has been said or written. It is the +opposite of traditional bidding. There is no tradition of the good. +Wealth and power must be earned, not taken ready-made; the idea of what +is just or right must be reconstructed on every occasion and not be +taken ready-made." + +Marie listens to me. She ponders, and then says, "We shouldn't work if +we hadn't to leave what we have to our relations." + +But immediately she answers herself, "No." + +She produces some illustrations, just among our own surroundings. +So-and-so, and So-and-so. The bait of gain or influence, or even the +excitement of work and production suffice for people to do themselves +harm. And then, too, this great change would paralyze the workers less +than the old way paralyzes the prematurely enriched who pick up their +fortunes on the ground--such as he, for instance, whom we used to see +go by, who was drained and dead at twenty, and so many other ignoble +and irrefutable examples; and the comedies around bequests and heirs +and heiresses, and their great gamble with affection and love--all +these basenesses, in which custom too old has made hearts go moldy. + +She is a little excited, as if the truth, in the confusion of these +critical times, were beautiful to see--and even pleasant to detain with +words. + +All the same, she interrupts herself, and says, "They'll always find +some way of deceiving." At last she says, "Yes, it would be just, +perhaps; but it won't come." + +* * * * * * + +The valley has suddenly filled with tumult. On the road which goes +along the opposite slope a regiment is passing on its way to the +barracks, a new regiment, with its colors. The flag goes on its way in +the middle of a long-drawn hurly-burly, in vague shouting, in plumes of +dust and a sparkling mist of battle. + +We have both mechanically risen on the edge of the road. At the moment +when the flag passes before us, the habit of saluting it trembles in my +arms. But, just as when a while ago the bishop's lifted hand did not +humble me, I stay motionless, and I do not salute. + +No, I do not bow in presence of the flag. It frightens me, I hate it +and I accuse it. No, there is no beauty in it; it is not the emblem of +this corner of my native land, whose fair picture it disturbs with its +savage stripes. It is the screaming signboard of the glory of blows, +of militarism and war. It unfurls over the living surges of humanity a +sign of supremacy and command; it is a weapon. It is not the love of +our countries, it is their sharp-edged difference, proud and +aggressive, which we placard in the face of the others. It is the +gaudy eagle which conquerors and their devotees see flying in their +dreams from steeple to steeple in foreign lands. The sacred defense of +the homeland--well and good. But if there was no offensive war there +would be defensive war. Defensive war has the same infamous cause as +the offensive war which provoked it; why do we not confess it? We +persist, through blindness or duplicity, in cutting the question in +two, as if it were too great. All fallacies are possible when one +speculates on morsels of truth. But Earth only bears one single sort +of inhabitant. + +It is not enough to put something on the end of a stick in public +places, to shake it on the tops of buildings and in the faces of public +assemblies, and say, "It is decided that this is the loftiest of all +symbols; it is decided that he who will not bend the knee before it +shall be accursed." It is the duty of human intelligence to examine if +that symbolism is not fetish-worship. + +As for me, I remember it was said that logic has terrible chains and +that all hold together--the throne, the altar, the sword and the flag. +And I have read, in the unchaining and the chaining-up of war, that +these are the instruments of the cult of human sacrifices. + +Marie has sat down again, and I strolled away a little, musing. + +I recall the silhouette of Adjutant Marcassin, and him whom I quoted a +moment ago--the sincere hero, barren and dogmatic, with his furious +faith. I seem to be asking him, "Do you believe in beauty, in +progress?" He does not know, so he replies, "No! I only believe in +the glory of the French name!" "Do you believe in respect for life, in +the dignity of labor, in the holiness of happiness?" "No." "Do you +believe in truth, in justice?" "No, I only believe in the glory of the +French name." + +The idea of motherland--I have never dared to look it in the face. I +stand still in my walk and in my meditation. What, that also? But my +reason is as honest as my heart, and keeps me going forward. Yes, that +also. + +In the friendly solitude of these familiar spots on the top of this +hill, at these cross-roads where the lane has led me like an unending +companion, not far from the place where the gentle slope waits for you +to entice you, I quake to hear myself think and blaspheme. What, that +notion of Motherland also, which has so often thrilled me with gladness +and enthusiasm, as but lately that of God did? + +But it is in Motherland's name, as once in the name of God only, that +humanity robs itself and tries to choke itself with its own hands, as +it will soon succeed in doing. It is because of motherland that the +big countries, more rich in blood, have overcome the little ones. It +is because of motherland that the overlord of German nationalism +attacked France and let civil war loose among the people of the world. +The question must be placed there where it is, that is to say, +everywhere at once. One must see face to face, in one glance, all +those immense, distinct unities which each shout "I!" + +The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, +and one which must remain little. + +There is only one common good. There is only one moral duty, only one +truth, and every man is the shining recipient and guardian of it. The +present understanding of the idea of motherland divides all these great +ideas, cuts them into pieces, specializes them within impenetrable +circles. We meet as many national truths as we do nations, and as many +national duties, and as many national interests and rights--and they +are antagonistic to each other. Each country is separated from the +next by such walls--moral frontiers, material frontiers, commercial +frontiers--that you are imprisoned when you find yourself on either +side of them. We hear talk of sanctified selfishness, of the adorable +expansion of one race across the others, of noble hatreds and glorious +conquests, and we see these ideals trying to take shape on all hands. +This capricious multiplication of what ought to remain one leads the +whole of civilization into a malignant and thorough absurdity. The +words "justice" and "right" are too great in stature to be shut up in +proper nouns, any more than Providence can be, which every royalty +would fain take to itself. + +National aspirations--confessed or unconfessable--are contradictory +among themselves. All populations which are narrowly confined and +elbow each other in the world are full of dreams vaster than each of +them. The nations' territorial ambitions overlap each other on the map +of the universe; economic and financial ambitions cancel each other +mathematically. Then in the mass they are unrealizable. + +And since there is no sort of higher control over this scuffle of +truths which are not admissible, each nation realizes its own by all +possible means, by all the fidelity and anger and brute force she can +get out of herself. By the help of this state of world-wide anarchy, +the lazy and slight distinction between patriotism, imperialism and +militarism is violated, trampled, and broken through all along the +line, and it cannot be otherwise. The living universe cannot help +becoming an organization of armed rivalry. And there cannot fail to +result from it the everlasting succession of evils, without any hope of +abiding spoils, for there is no instance of conquerors who have long +enjoyed immunity, and history reveals a sort of balance of injustices +and of the fatal alternation of predominance. In all quarters the hope +of victory brings in the hope of war. It is conflict clinging to +conflict, and the recurrent murdering of murders. + +The kings! We always find the kings again when we examine popular +unhappiness right to the end! This hypertrophy of the national unities +is the doing of their leaders. It is the masters, the ruling +aristocracies--emblazoned or capitalist--who have created and +maintained for centuries all the pompous and sacred raiment, +sanctimonious or fanatical, in which national separation is clothed, +along with the fable of national interests--those enemies of the +multitudes. The primeval centralization of individuals isolated in the +inhabited spaces was in agreement with the moral law; it was the +precise embodiment of progress; it was of benefit to all. But the +decreed division, peremptory and stern, which was interposed in that +centralization--that is the doom of man, although it is necessary to +the classes who command. These boundaries, these clean cuts, permit +the stakes of commercial conflict and of war; that is to say, the +chance of big feats of glory and of huge speculations. _That_ is the +vital principle of Empire. If all interests suddenly became again the +individual interests of men, and the moral law resumed its full and +spacious action on the basis of equality, if human solidarity were +world-wide and complete, it would no longer lend itself to certain +sudden and partial increases which are never to the general advantage, +but may be to the advantage of a few fleeting profiteers. That is why +the conscious forces which have hitherto directed the old world's +destiny will always use all possible means to break up human harmony +into fragments. Authority holds fast to all its national bases. + +The insensate system of national blocks in sinister dispersal, +devouring or devoured, has its apostles and advocates. But the +theorists, the men of spurious knowledge, will in vain have heaped up +their farrago of quibbles and arguments, their fallacies drawn from +so-called precedents or from so-called economic and ethnic necessity; +for the simple, brutal and magnificent cry of life renders useless the +efforts they make to galvanize and erect doctrines which cannot stand +alone. The disapproval which attaches in our time to the word +"internationalism" proves together the silliness and meanness of public +opinion. Humanity is the living name of truth. Men are like each +other as trees! They who rule well, rule by force and deceit; but by +reason, never. + +The national group is a collectivity within the bosom of the chief one. +It is one group like any other; it is like him who knots himself to +himself under the wing of a roof, or under the wider wing of the sky +that dyes a landscape blue. It is not the definite, absolute, mystical +group into which they would fain transform it, with sorcery of words +and ideas, which they have armored with oppressive rules. Everywhere +man's poor hope of salvation on earth is merely to attain, at the end +of his life, this: To live one's life freely, where one wants to live +it; to love, to last, to produce in the chosen environment--just as the +people of the ancient Provinces have lost, along with their separate +leaders, their separate traditions of covetousness and reciprocal +robbery. + +If, from the idea of motherland, you take away covetousness, hatred, +envy and vainglory; if you take away from it the desire for +predominance by violence, what is there left of it? + +It is not an individual unity of laws; for just laws have no colors. +It is not a solidarity of interests, for there are no material national +interests--or they are not honest. It is not a unity of race; for the +map of the countries is not the map of the races. What is there left? + +There is left a restricted communion, deep and delightful; the +affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language--there +is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are +foreigners--there is left a personal and delicate preference for +certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. And even this +radiance has its limits. The cult of the masterpieces of art and +thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has +always soared above patriotic littlenesses. + +"But," the official voices trumpet, "there is another magic +formula--the great common Past of every nation." + +Yes, there is the Past. That long Golgotha of oppressed peoples; the +Law of the Strong, changing life's humble festival into useless and +recurring hecatombs; the chronology of that crushing of lives and ideas +which always tortured or executed the innovators; that Past in which +sovereigns settled their personal affairs of alliances, ruptures, +dowries and inheritance with the territory and blood which they owned; +in which each and every country was so squandered--it is common to all. +That Past in which the small attainments of moral progress, of +well-being and unity (so far as they were not solely semblances) only +crystallized with despairing tardiness, with periods of doleful +stagnation and frightful alteration along the channels of barbarism and +force; that Past of somber shame, that Past of error and disease which +every old nation has survived, which we should learn by heart that we +may hate it--yes, that Past is common to all, like misery, shame and +pain. Blessed are the new nations, for they have no remorse! + +And the blessings of the past--the splendor of the French Revolution, +the huge gifts of the navigators who brought new worlds to the old one, +and the miraculous exception of scientific discoveries, which by a +second miracle were not smothered in their youth--are they not also +common to all, like the undying beauty of the ruins of the Parthenon, +Shakespeare's lightning and Beethoven's raptures, and like love, and +like joy? + +The universal problem into which modern life, as well as past life, +rushes and embroils and rends itself, can only be dispersed by a +universal means which reduces each nation to what it is in truth; which +strips from them all the ideal of supremacy stolen by each of them from +the great human ideal; a means which, raising the human ideal +definitely beyond the reach of all those immoderate emotions, which +shout together "_Mine_ is the only point of view," gives it at last its +divine unity. Let us keep the love of the motherland in our hearts, +but let us dethrone the conception of Motherland. + +I will say what there is to say: I place the Republic before France. +France is ourselves. The Republic is ourselves and the others. The +general welfare must be put much higher than national welfare, because +it _is_ much higher. But if it is venturesome to assert, as they have +so much and so indiscriminately done, that such national interest is in +accord with the general interest, then the converse is obvious; and +that is illuminating, momentous and decisive--the good of all includes +the good of each; France can be prosperous even if the world is not, +but the world cannot be prosperous and France not. The moving argument +reëstablishes, with positive and crowding certainties which touch us +softly on all sides, that distracting stake which Pascal tried to +place, like a lever in the void--"On one side I lose; on the other I +have all to gain." + +* * * * * * + +Amid the beauty of these dear spots on Chestnut Hill, in the heart of +these four crossing ways, I have seen new things; not that any new +things have happened, but because I have opened my eyes. + +I am rewarded, I the lowest, for being the only one of all to follow up +error to the end, right into its holy places; for I am at last +disentangling all the simplicity and truth of the great horizons. The +revelation still seems to me so terrible that the silence of men, +heaped under the roofs down there at my feet, seizes and threatens me. +And if I am but timidly formulating it within myself, that is because +each of us has lived in reality more than his life, and because my +training has filled me, like the rest, with centuries of shadow, of +humiliation and captivity. + +It is establishing itself cautiously; but it is the truth, and there +are moments when logic seizes you in its godlike whirlwind. In this +disordered world where the weakness of a few oppresses the strength of +all; since ever the religion of the God of Battles and of Resignation +has not sufficed by itself to consecrate inequality. Tradition reigns, +the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is--God without +a head. Man's destiny is eternally blockaded by two forms of +tradition; in time, by hereditary succession; in space, by frontiers, +and thus it is crushed and annihilated in detail. It is the truth. I +am certain of it, for I am touching it. + +But I do not know what will become of us. All the blood poured out, +all the words poured out, to impose a sham ideal on our bodies and +souls, will they suffice for a long time yet to separate and isolate +humanity in absurdity made real? History is a Bible of errors. I have +not only seen blessings falling from on high on all which supported +evil, and curses on all which could heal it; I have seen, here below, +the keepers of the moral law hunted and derided, from little Termite, +lost like a rat in unfolding battle, back to Jesus Christ. + +We go away. For the first time since I came back I no longer lean on +Marie. It is she who leans on me. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +NO! + + +The opening of our War Museum, which was the conspicuous event of the +following days, filled Crillon with delight. + +It was a wooden building, gay with flags, which the municipality had +erected; and Room 1 was occupied by an exhibition of paintings and +drawings by amateurs in high society, all war subjects. Many of them +were sent down from Paris. + +Crillon, officially got up in his Sunday clothes, has bought the +catalogue (which is sold for the benefit of the wounded) and he is +struck with wonder by the list of exhibitors. He talks of titles, of +coats of arms, of crowns; he seeks enlightenment in matters of +aristocratic hierarchy. Once, as he stands before the row of frames, +he asks: + +"I say, now, which has got most talent in France--a princess or a +duchess?" + +He is quite affected by these things, and with his eyes fixed on the +lower edges of the pictures he deciphers the signatures. + +In the room which follows this shining exhibition of autographs there +is a crush. + +On trestles disposed around the wall trophies are arranged--peaked +helmets, knapsacks covered with tawny hair, ruins of shells. + +The complete uniform of a German infantryman has been built up with +items from different sources, some of them stained. + +In this room there was a group of convalescents from the overflow +hospital of Viviers. These soldiers looked, and hardly spoke. Several +shrugged their shoulders. But one of them growled in front of the +German phantom, "Ah the swine!" + +With a view to propaganda, they have framed a letter from a woman found +in a slain enemy's pocket. A translation is posted up as well, and +they have underlined the passage in which the woman says, "When is this +cursed war going to end?" and in which she laments the increasing cost +of little Johann's keep. At the foot of the page, the woman has +depicted, in a sentimental diagram, the increasing love that she feels +for her man. + +How simple and obvious the evidence is! No reasonable person can +dispute that the being whose private life is here thrown to the winds +and who poured out his sweat and his blood in one of these rags was not +responsible for having held a rifle, for having aimed it. In the +presence of these ruins I see with monotonous and implacable obstinacy +that the attacking multitude is as innocent as the defending multitude. + +On a little red-covered table by the side of a little tacked label +which says, "Cold Steel: May 9," there is a twisted French bayonet--a +bayonet, the flesh weapon, which has been twisted! + +"Oh, it's fine!" says a young girl from the castle. + +"It isn't Fritz and Jerry, old chap, that bends bayonets!" + +"No doubt about it, we're the first soldiers in the world," says +Rampaille. + +"We've set a beautiful example to the world," says a sprightly Member +of the Upper House to all those present. + +Excitement grows around that bayonet. The young girl, who is beautiful +and expansive, cannot tear herself away from it. At last she touches +it with her finger, and shudders. She does not disguise her pleasant +emotion:-- + +"I confess _I'm_ a patriot! I'm more than that--I'm a patriot and a +militarist!" + +All heads around her are nodded in approval. That kind of talk never +seems intemperate, for it touches on sacred things. + +And I, I see--in the night which falls for a moment, amid the tempest +of dying men which is subsiding on the ground--I see a monster in the +form of a man and in the form of a vulture, who, with the death-rattle +in his throat, holds towards that young girl the horrible head that is +scalped with a coronet, and says to her: "You do not know me, and you +do not know, but you are like me!" + +The young girl's living laugh, as she goes off with a young officer, +recalls me to events. + +All those who come after each other to the bayonet speak in the same +way, and have the same proud eyes. + +"They're not stronger than us, let me tell you! It's us that's the +strongest!" + +"Our allies are very good, but it's lucky for them we're there on the +job." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +"Why, yes, there's only the French for it. All the world admires them. +Only we're always running ourselves down." + +When you see that fever, that spectacle of intoxication, these people +who seize the slightest chance to glorify their country's physical +force and the hardness of its fists, you hear echoing the words of the +orators and the official politicians:-- + +"There is only in our hearts the condemnation of barbarism and the love +of humanity." + +And you ask yourself if there is a single public opinion in the world +which is capable of bearing victory with dignity. + +I stand aloof. I am a blot, like a bad prophet. I hear this +declaration, which bows me like an infernal burden: It is only defeat +which can open millions of eyes! + +I hear some one say, with detestation, "German militarism----" + +That is the final argument, that is the formula. Yes, German +militarism is hateful, and must disappear; all the world is agreed +about that--the jack-boots of the Junkers, of the Crown Princes, of the +Kaiser, and their courts of intellectuals and business men, and the +pan-Germanism which would dye Europe black and red, and the +half-bestial servility of the German people. Germany is the fiercest +fortress of militarism. Yes, everybody is agreed about that. + +But they who govern Thought take unfair advantage of that agreement, +for they know well that when the simple folk have said, "German +militarism," they have said all. They stop there. They amalgamate the +two words and confuse militarism with Germany--once Germany is thrown +down there's no more to say. In that way, they attach lies to truth, +and prevent us from seeing that militarism is in reality everywhere, +more or less hypocritical and unconscious, but ready to seize +everything if it can. They force opinion to add, "It is a crime to +think of anything but beating the German enemy." But the right-minded +man must answer that it is a crime to think only of that, for the enemy +is militarism, and not Germany. I know; I will no longer let myself be +caught by words which they hide one behind another. + +The Liberal Member of the Upper House says, loud enough to be heard, +that the people have behaved very well, for, after all, they have found +the cost, and they must be given credit for their good conduct. + +Another personage in the same group, an Army contractor, spoke of "the +good chaps in the trenches," and he added, in a lower voice, "As long +as they're protecting us, we're all right." + +"We shall reward them when they come back," replied an old lady. "We +shall give them glory, we shall make their leaders into Marshals, and +they'll have celebrations, and Kings will be there." + +"And there are some who won't come back." + +We see several new recruits of the 1916 class who will soon be sent to +the front. + +"They're pretty boys," says the Member of the Upper House, +good-naturedly; "but they're still a bit pale-faced. We must fatten +'em up, we must fatten 'em up!" + +An official of the Ministry of War goes up to the Member of the Upper +House, and says: + +"The science of military preparedness is still in its beginnings. +We're getting clear for it hastily, but it is an organization which +requires a long time and which can only have full effect in time of +peace. Later, we shall take them from childhood; we shall make good +sound soldiers of them, and of good health, morally as well as +physically." + +Then the band plays; it is closing time, and there is the passion of a +military march. A woman cries that it is like drinking champagne to +hear it. + +The visitors have gone away. I linger to look at the beflagged front +of the War Museum, while night is falling. It is the Temple. It is +joined to the Church, and resembles it. My thoughts go to those +crosses which weigh down, from the pinnacles of churches, the heads of +the living, join their two hands together, and close their eyes; those +crosses which squat upon the graves in the cemeteries at the front. It +is because of all these temples that in the future the sleep-walking +nations will begin again to go through the immense and mournful tragedy +of obedience. It is because of these temples that financial and +industrial tyranny, Imperial and Royal tyranny--of which all they whom +I meet on my way are the accomplices or the puppets--will to-morrow +begin again to wax fat on the fanaticism of the civilian, on the +weariness of those who have come back, on the silence of the dead. +(When the armies file through the Arc de Triomphe, who is there will +see--and yet they will be plainly visible--that six thousand miles of +French coffins are also passing through!) And the flag will continue +to float over its prey, that flag stuck into the shadowy front of the +War Museum, that flag so twisted by the wind's breath that sometimes it +takes the shape of a cross, and sometimes of a scythe! + +Judgment is passed in that case. But the vision of the future agitates +me with a sort of despair and with a holy thrill of anger. + +Ah, there are cloudy moments when one asks himself if men do not +deserve all the disasters into which they rush! No--I recover +myself--they do not deserve them. But _we_, instead of saying "I wish" +must say "I will." And what we will, we must will to build it, with +order, with method, beginning at the beginning, when once we have been +as far as that beginning. We must not only open our eyes, but our +arms, our wings. + +This isolated wooden building, with its back against a wood-pile, and +nobody in it---- + +Burn it? Destroy it? I thought of doing it. + +To cast that light in the face of that moving night, which was crawling +and trampling there in the torchlight, which had gone to plunge into +the town and grow darker among the dungeon-cells of the bedchambers, +there to hatch more forgetfulness in the gloom, more evil and misery, +or to breed unavailing generations who will be abortive at the age of +twenty! + +The desire to do it gripped my body for a moment. I fell back, and I +went away, like the others. + +It seems to me that, in not doing it, I did an evil deed. + +For if the men who are to come free themselves instead of sinking in +the quicksands, if they consider, with lucidity and with the epic pity +it deserves, this age through which I go drowning, they would perhaps +have thanked me, even me! From those who will not see or know me, but +in whom for this sudden moment I want to hope, I beg pardon for not +doing it. + +* * * * * * + +In a corner where the neglected land is turning into a desert, and +which lies across my way home, some children are throwing stones at a +mirror which they have placed a few steps away as a target. They +jostle each other, shouting noisily; each of them wants the glory of +being the first to break it. I see the mirror again that I broke with +a brick at Buzancy, because it seemed to stand upright like a living +being! Next, when the fragment of solid light is shattered into +crumbs, they pursue with stones an old dog, whose wounded foot trails +like his tail. No one wants it any more; it is ready to be finished +off, and the urchins are improving the occasion. Limping, his +pot-hanger spine all arched, the animal hurries slowly, and tries +vainly to go faster than the pebbles. + +The child is only a confused handful of confused and superficial +propensities. _Our_ deep instincts--there they are. + +I scatter the children, and they withdraw into the shadows unwillingly, +and look at me with malice. I am distressed by this maliciousness, +which is born full-grown. I am distressed also by this old dog's lot. +They would not understand me if I acknowledged that distress; they +would say, "And you who've seen so many wounded and dead!" All the +same, there is a supreme respect for life. I am not slighting +intellect; but life is common to us along with poorer living things +than ourselves. He who kills an animal, however lowly it may be, +unless there is necessity, is an assassin. + +At the crossing I meet Louise Verte, wandering about. She has gone +crazy. She continues to accost men, but they do not even know what she +begs for. She rambles, in the streets, and in her hovel, and on the +pallet where she is crucified by drunkards. She is surrounded by +general loathing. "That a woman?" says a virtuous man who is going by, +"that dirty old strumpet? A woman? A sewer, yes." She is harmless. +In a feeble, peaceful voice, which seems to live in some supernatural +region, very far from us, she says to me: + +"I am the queen." + +Immediately and strangely she adds, as though troubled by some +foreboding: + +"Don't take my illusion away from me." + +I was on the point of answering her, but I check myself, and just say, +"Yes," as one throws a copper, and she goes away happy. + +* * * * * * + +My respect for life is so strong that I feel pity for a fly which I +have killed. Observing the tiny corpse at the gigantic height of my +eyes, I cannot help thinking how well made that organized speck of dust +is, whose wings are little more than two drops of space, whose eye has +four thousand facets; and that fly occupies my thought for a moment, +which is a long time for it. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +LIGHT + + +I am leaning this evening out of the open window. As in bygone nights, +I am watching the dark pictures, invisible at first, taking shape--the +steeple towering out of the hollow, and broadly lighted against the +hill; the castle, that rich crown of masonry; and then the massive +sloping black of the chimney-peopled roofs, which are sharply outlined +against the paler black of space, and some milky, watching windows. +The eye is lost in all directions among the desolation where the +multitude of men and women are hiding, as always and as everywhere. + +That is what is. Who will say, "That is what must be!" + +I have searched, I have indistinctly seen, I have doubted. Now, I +hope. + +I do not regret my youth and its beliefs. Up to now, I have wasted my +time to live. Youth is the true force, but it is too rarely lucid. +Sometimes it has a triumphant liking for what is now, and the +pugnacious broadside of paradox may please it. But there is a degree +in innovation which they who have not lived very much cannot attain. +And yet who knows if the stern greatness of present events will not +have educated and aged the generation which to-day forms humanity's +effective frontier? Whatever our hope may be, if we did not place it +in youth, where should we place it? + +Who will speak--see, and then speak? To speak is the same thing as to +see, but it is more. Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we +are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our +hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; +truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words--what is it? It +is our breath--not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones +which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. +In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out +of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the +appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries. + +There is a voice, a low and untiring voice, which helps those who do +not and will not see themselves, a voice which brings them together, +Books--the book we choose, the favorite, the book you open, which was +waiting for you! + +Formerly, I hardly knew any books. Now, I love what they do. I have +brought together as many as I could. There they are, on the shelves, +with their immense titles, their regular, profound contents; they are +there, all around me, arranged like houses. + +* * * * * * + +Who will tell the truth? But it is not enough to say things in order +to let them be seen. + +Just now, pursued by the idea of my temptation at the War Museum, I +imagined that I had acted on it, and that I was appearing before the +judges. I should have told them a fine lot of truths, I should have +proved to them that I had done right. I should have made myself, the +accused, into the prosecutor. + +No! I should not have spoken thus, for I should not have known! I +should have stood stammering, full of a truth throbbing within me, +choking, unconfessable truth. It is not enough to speak; you must know +words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I +am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to +yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, +because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of +arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth +its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will +be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men +dazzles me when it rises before me. The very nakedness of paper +frightens me and drowns my looks. Not I shall embellish that whiteness +with writing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow +is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the +immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing, +which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced +comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we +are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever +country he may come,--but all the same, I should prefer him, at the +bottom of my heart, to speak French. + +Once more, he intervenes within me who first showed himself to me as +the specter of evil, he who guided me through hell. When the +death-agony was choking him and his head had darkened like an eagle's, +he hurled a curse which I did not understand, which I understand now, +on the masterpieces of art. He was afraid of their eternity, of that +terrible might they have--when once they are imprinted on the eyes of +an epoch--the strength which you can neither kill nor drive in front of +you. He said that Velasquez, who was only a chamberlain, had succeeded +Philip IV, that he would succeed the Escurial, that he would succeed +even Spain and Europe. He likened that artistic power, which the Kings +have tamed in all respects save in its greatness, to that of a +poet-reformer who throws a saying of freedom and justice abroad, a book +which scatters sparks among humanity somber as coal. The voice of the +expiring prince crawled on the ground and throbbed with secret blows: +"Begone, all you voices of light!" + +* * * * * * + +But what shall _we_ say? Let us spell out the Magna Charta of which we +humbly catch sight. Let us say to the people of whom all peoples are +made: "Wake up and understand, look and see; and having begun again +the consciousness which was mown down by slavery, decide that +everything must be begun again!" + +Begin again, entirely. Yes, that first. If the human charter does not +re-create everything, it will create nothing. + +Unless they are universal, the reforms to be carried out are utopian +and mortal. National reforms are only fragments of reforms. There +must be no half measures. Half measures are laughter-provoking in +their unbounded littleness when it is a question for the last time of +arresting the world's roll down the hill of horror. There must be no +half measures because there are no half truths. Do all, or you will do +nothing. + +Above all, do not let the reforms be undertaken by the Kings. That is +the gravest thing to be taught you. The overtures of liberality made +by the masters who have made the world what it is are only comedies. +They are only ways of blockading completely the progress to come, of +building up the past again behind new patchwork of plaster. + +Never listen, either, to the fine words they offer you, the letters of +which you see like dry bones on hoardings and the fronts of buildings. +There are official proclamations, full of the notion of liberty and +rights, which would be beautiful if they said truly what they say. But +they who compose them do not attach their full meaning to the words. +What they recite they are not capable of wanting, nor even of +understanding. The one indisputable sign of progress in ideas to-day +is that there are things which they dare no longer leave publicly +unsaid, and that's all. There are not all the political parties that +there seem to be. They swarm, certainly, as numerous as the cases of +short sight; but there are only two--the democrats and the +conservatives. Every political deed ends fatally either in one or the +other, and all their leaders have always a tendency to act in the +direction of reaction. Beware, and never forget that if certain +assertions are made by certain lips, that is a sufficient reason why +you should at once mistrust them. When the bleached old republicans[1] +take your cause in their hands, be quite sure that it is not yours. Be +wary as lions. + +[Footnote 1: The word is used here much in the sense of our word +"Tories."--Tr.] + +Do not let the simplicity of the new world out of your sight. The +social trust is simple. The complications are in what is overhead--the +accumulation of delusions and prejudice heaped up by ages of tyrants, +parasites, and lawyers. That conviction sheds a real glimmer of light +on your duty and points out the way to accomplish it. He who would dig +right down to the truth must simplify; his faith must be brutally +simple, or he is lost. Laugh at the subtle shades and distinctions of +the rhetoricians and the specialist physicians. Say aloud: "This is +what is," and then, "That is what must be." + +You will never have that simplicity, you people of the world, if you do +not seize it. If you want it, do it yourself with your own hands. And +I give you now the talisman, the wonderful magic word--you _can_! + +That you may be a judge of existing things, go back to their origins, +and get at the endings of all. The noblest and most fruitful work of +the human intelligence is to make a clean sweep of every enforced +idea--of advantages or meanings--and to go right through appearances in +search of the eternal bases. Thus you will clearly see the moral law +at the beginning of all things, and the conception of justice and +equality will appear to you beautiful as daylight. + +Strong in that supreme simplicity, you shall say: I am the people of +the peoples; therefore I am the King of Kings, and I will that +sovereignty flows everywhere from me, since I am might and right. I +want no more despots, confessed or otherwise, great or little; I know, +and I want no more. The incomplete liberation of 1789 was attacked by +the Kings. Complete liberation will attack the Kings. + +But Kings are not exclusively the uniformed ones among the trumpery +wares of the courts. Assuredly, the nations who have a King have more +tradition and subjection than the others. But there are countries +where no man can get up and say, "My people, my army," nations which +only experience the continuation of the kingly tradition in more +peaceful intensity. There are others with the great figures of +democratic leaders; but as long as the entirety of things is not +overthrown--always the entirety, the sacred entirety--these men cannot +achieve the impossible, and sooner or later their too-beautiful +inclinations will be isolated and misunderstood. In the formidable +urgency of progress, what do the proportions matter to you of the +elements which make up the old order of things in the world? All the +governors cling fatally together among themselves, and more solidly +than you think, through the old machine of chancelleries, ministries, +diplomacy, and the ceremonials with gilded swords; and when they are +bent on making war for themselves there is an unquenchable likeness +between them all, of which you want no more. Break the chain; suppress +all privileges, and say at last, "Let, there be equality." + +One man is as good as another. That means that no man carries within +himself any privilege which puts him above the universal law. It means +an equality in principle, and that does not invalidate the legitimacy +of the differences due to work, to talent, and to moral sense. The +leveling only affects the rights of the citizen; and not the man as a +whole. You do not create the living being; you do not fashion the +living clay, as God did in the Bible; you make regulations. Individual +worth, on which some pretend to rely, is relative and unstable, and no +one is a judge of it. In a well-organized entirety, it cultivates and +improves itself automatically. But that magnificent anarchy cannot, at +the inception of the human Charter, take the place of the obviousness +of equality. + +The poor man, the proletarian, is nobler than another, but not more +sacred. In truth, all workers and all honest men are as good as each +other. But the poor, the exploited, are fifteen hundred millions here +on earth. They are the Law because they are the Number. The moral law +is only the imperative preparation of the common good. It always +involves, in different forms, the necessary limitations of some +individual interests by the rest; that is to say, the sacrifice of one +to the many, of the many to the whole. The republican conception is +the civic translation of the moral law; what is anti-republican is +immoral. + +Socially, women are the equals of men, without restrictions. The +beings who shine and who bring forth are not made solely to lend or to +give the heat of their bodies. It is right that the sum total of work +should be shared, reduced and harmonized by their hands. It is just +that the fate of humanity should be grounded also in the strength of +women. Whatever the danger which their instinctive love of shining +things may occasion, in spite of the facility with which they color all +things with their own feelings and the totality of their slightest +impulses--the legend of their incapacity is a fog that you will +dissipate with a gesture of _your_ hands. Their advent is in the order +of things; and it is also in order to await with hopeful heart the day +when the social and political chains of women will fall off, when human +liberty will suddenly become twice as great. + +People of the world, establish equality right up to the limits of your +great life. Lay the foundations of the republic of republics over all +the area where you breathe; that is to say, the common control in broad +daylight of all external affairs, of community in the laws of labor, of +production and of commerce. The subdivision of these high social and +moral arrangements by nations or by limited unions of nations +(enlargements which are reductions) is artificial, arbitrary, and +malignant. The so-called inseparable cohesions of national interests +vanish away as soon as you draw near to examine them. There are +individual interests and a general interest, those two only. When you +say "I," it means "I"; when you say "We," it means Man. So long as a +single and identical Republic does not cover the world, all national +liberations can only be beginnings and signals! + +Thus you will disarm the "fatherlands" and "motherlands," and you will +reduce the notion of Motherland to the little bit of social importance +that it must have. You will do away with the military frontiers, and +those economic and commercial barriers which are still worse. +Protection introduces violence into the expansion of labor; like +militarism, it brings in a fatal absence of balance. You will suppress +that which justifies among nations the things which among individuals +we call murder, robbery, and unfair competition. You will suppress +battles--not nearly so much by the direct measure of supervision and +order that you will take as because you will suppress the causes of +battle. You will suppress them chiefly because it is _you_ who will do +it, by yourself, everywhere, with your invincible strength and the +lucid conscience that is free from selfish motives. You will not make +war on yourself. + +You will not be afraid of magic formulas and the churches. Your giant +reason will destroy the idol which suffocates its true believers. You +will salute the flags for the last time; to that ancient enthusiasm +which flattered the puerility of your ancestors, you will say a +peaceful and final farewell. In some corners of the calamities of the +past, there were times of tender emotion; but truth is greater, and +there are not more boundaries on the earth than on the sea! + +Each country will be a moral force, and no longer a brutal force; while +all brutal forces clash with themselves, all moral forces make mighty +harmony together. + +The universal republic is the inevitable consequence of equal rights in +life for all. Start from the principle of equality, and you arrive at +the people's international. If you do not arrive there it is because +you have not reasoned aright. They who start from the opposite point +of view--God, and the divine rights of popes and Kings and nobles, and +authority and tradition--will come, by fabulous paths but quite +logically, to opposite conclusions. You must not cease to hold that +there are only two teachings face to face. All things are amenable to +reason, the supreme Reason which mutilated humanity, wounded in the +eyes, has deified among the clouds. + +* * * * * * + +You will do away with the rights of the dead, and with heredity of +power, whatever it may be, that inheritance which is unjust in all its +gradations, for tradition takes root there, and it is an outrage on +equality, against the order of labor. Labor is a great civic deed +which all men and all women without exception must share or go down. +Such divisions will reduce it for each one to dignified proportions and +prevent it from devouring human lives. + +You will not permit colonial ownership by States, which makes stains on +the map of the world and is not justified by confessable reasons; and +you will organize the abolition of that collective slavery. You will +allow the individual property of the living to stand. It is equitable +because its necessity is inherent in the circumstances of the living, +and because there are cases where you cannot tear away the right of +ownership without tearing right itself. Besides, the love of things is +a passion, like the love of beings. The object of social organization +is not to destroy sentiment and pleasure, but on the contrary to allow +them to flourish, within the limit of not wronging others. It is right +to enjoy what you have clearly earned by your work. That focused +wisdom alone bursts among the old order of things like a curse. + +Chase away forever, everywhere, everywhere, the bad masters of the +sacred school. Knowledge incessantly remakes the whole of +civilization. The child's intelligence is too precious not to be under +the protection of all. The heads of families are not free to deal +according to their caprices with the ignorance which each child brings +into the daylight; they have not that liberty contrary to liberty. A +child does not belong body and soul to its parents; it is a person, and +our ears are wounded by the blasphemy--a residue of despotic Roman +tradition--of those who speak of their sons killed in the war and say, +"I have given my son." You do not give living beings--and all +intelligence belongs primarily to reason. + +There must no longer be a single school where they teach idolatry, +where the wills of to-morrow grow bigger under the terror of a God who +does not exist, and on whom so many bad arguments are thrown away or +justified. Nowhere must there be any more school-books where they +dress up in some finery of prestige what is most contemptible and +debasing in the past of the nations. Let there be nothing but +universal histories, nothing but the great lines and peaks, the lights +and shadows of that chaos which for six thousand years has been the +fortune of two hundred thousand millions of men. + +You will suppress everywhere the advertising of the cults, you will +wipe away the inky uniform of the parsons. Let every believer keep his +religion for himself, and let the priests stay between walls. +Toleration in face of error is a graver error. One might have dreamed +of a wise and universal church, for Jesus Christ will be justified in +His human teaching as long as there are hearts. But they who have +taken His morality in hand and fabricated their religion have poisoned +the truth; more, they have shown for two thousand years that they place +the interests of their caste before those of the sacred law of what is +right. No words, no figures can ever give an idea of the evil which +the Church has done to mankind. When she is not the oppressor herself, +upholding the right of force, she lends her authority to the oppressors +and sanctifies their pretenses; and still to-day she is closely united +everywhere with those who do not want the reign of the poor. Just as +the Jingoes invoke the charm of the domestic cradle that they may give +an impulse to war, so does the Church invoke the poetry of the Gospels; +but she has become an aristocratic party like the rest, in which every +gesture of the sign of the Cross is a slap in the Face of Jesus Christ. +Out of the love of one's native soil, they have made Nationalists; out +of Jesus they have made Jesuits. + +Only international greatness will at last permit the rooting up of the +stubborn abuses which the partition walls of nationality multiply, +entangle and solidify. The future Charter--of which we confusedly +glimpse some signs and which has for its premises the great moral +principles restored to their place, and the multitude at last restored +to theirs--will force the newspapers to confess all their resources. +By means of a young language, simple and modest, it will unite all +foreigners--those prisoners of themselves. It will mow down the +hateful complexity of judicial procedure, with its booty for the +somebodies, and its lawyers as well, who intrude the tricks of +diplomacy and the melodramatic usages of eloquence into the plain and +simple machinery of justice. The righteous man must go so far as to +say that clemency has not its place in justice; the logical majesty of +the sentence which condemns the guilty one in order to frighten +possible evil-doers (and never for another reason) is itself beyond +forgiveness. International dignity will close the taverns, forbid the +sale of poisons, and will reduce to impotence the vendors who want to +render abortive, in men and young people, the future's beauty and the +reign of intelligence. And here is a mandate which appears before my +eyes--the tenacious law which must pounce without respite on all public +robbers, on all those, little and big, cynics and hypocrites, who, when +their trade or their functions bring the opportunity, exploit misery +and speculate on necessity. There is a new hierarchy to make mistakes, +to commit offenses and crimes--the true one. + +You can form no idea of the beauty that is possible! You cannot +imagine what all the squandered treasure can provide, what can be +brought on by the resurrection of misguided human intelligence, +successively smothered and slain hitherto by infamous slavery, by the +despicable infectious necessity of armed attack and defense, and by the +privileges which debase human worth. You can have no notion what human +intelligence may one day find of new adoration. The people's absolute +reign will give to literature and the arts--whose harmonious shape is +still but roughly sketched--a splendor boundless as the rest. National +cliques cultivate narrowness and ignorance, they cause originality to +waste away; and the national academies, to which a residue of +superstition lends respect, are only pompous ways of upholding ruins. +The domes of those Institutes which look so grand when they tower above +you are as ridiculous as extinguishers. You must widen and +internationalize, without pause or limit, all which permits of it. +With its barriers collapsed, you must fill society with broad daylight +and magnificent spaces; with patience and heroism must you clear the +ways which lead from the individual to humanity, the ways which were +stopped up with corpses of ideas and with stone images all along their +great curving horizons. Let everything be remade on simple lines. +There is only one people, there is only one people! + +If you do that, you will be able to say that, at the moment when you +planned your effort and took your decision, you saved the human species +as far as it is possible on earth to do it. You will not have brought +happiness about. The fallacy-mongers do not frighten us when they +preach resignation and paralysis on the plea that no social change can +bring happiness, thus trifling with these profound things. Happiness +is part of the inner life, it is an intimate and personal paradise; it +is a flash of chance or genius which comes sweetly to life among those +who elbow each other, and it is also the sense of glory. No, it is not +in your hands, and so it is in nobody's hands. But a balanced and +heedful life is necessary to man, that he may build the isolated home +of happiness; and death is the fearful connection of the happenings +which pass away along with our profundities. External things and those +which are hidden are essentially different, but they are held together +by peace and by death. + +To accomplish the majestically practical work, to shape the whole +architecture like a statue, base nothing on impossible modifications of +human nature; await nothing from pity. + +Charity is a privilege, and must disappear. For the rest, you cannot +love unknown people any more than you can have pity on them. The human +intelligence is made for infinity; the heart is not. The being who +really suffers in his heart, and not merely in his mind or in words, by +the suffering of others whom he neither sees nor touches, is a nervous +abnormality, and he cannot be argued from as an example. The repulse +of reason, the stain of absurdity, torture the intelligence in a more +abundant way. Simple as it may be, social science is geometry. Do not +accept the sentimental meaning they give to the word "humanitarianism," +and say that the preaching of fraternity and love is vain; these words +lose their meaning amid the great numbers of man. It is in this +disordered confusion of feelings and ideas that one feels the presence +of Utopia. Mutual solidarity is of the intellect--common-sense, logic, +methodical precision, order without faltering, the ruthless inevitable +perfection of light! + +In my fervor, in my hunger, and from the depths of my abyss, I uttered +these words aloud amid the silence. My great reverie was blended with +song, like the Ninth Symphony. + +* * * * * * + +I am resting on my elbows at the window. I am looking at the night, +which is everywhere, which touches me, _me_, although I am only I, and +it is infinite night. It seems to me that there is nothing else left +me to think about. Things cling together; they will save each other, +and will do their setting in order. + +But again I am seized by the sharpest of my agonies--I am afraid that +the multitude may rest content with the partial gratifications to be +granted them everywhere by those who will use all their clinging, +cunning power to prevent the people from understanding, and then from +wishing. On the day of victory, they will pour intoxication and +dazzling deceptions into you, and put almost superhuman cries into your +mouths, "We have delivered humanity; we are the soldiers of the Right!" +without telling you all that such a statement includes of gravity, of +immense pledges and constructive genius, what it involves in respect +for great peoples, whoever they are, and of gratitude to those who are +trying to deliver themselves. They will again take up their eternal +mission of stupefying the great conscious forces, and turning them +aside from their ends. They will appeal for union and peace and +patience, to the opportunism of changes, to the danger of going too +quickly, or of meddling in your neighbor's affairs, and all the other +fallacies of the sort. They will try again to ridicule and strike down +those whom the newspapers (the ones in their pay) call dreamers, +sectarians, and traitors; once again they will flourish all their old +talismans. Doubtless they will propose, in the fashionable words of +the moment, some official parodies of international justice, which they +will break up one day like theatrical scenery; they will enunciate some +popular right, curtailed by childish restrictions and monstrous +definitions, resembling a brigand's code of honor. The wrong torn from +confessed autocracies will hatch out elsewhere--in the sham republics, +and the self-styled liberal countries who have played a hidden game. +The concessions they will make will clothe the old rotten autocracy +again, and perpetuate it. One imperialism will replace the other, and +the generations to come will be marked for the sword. Soldier, +wherever you are, they will try to efface your memory, or to exploit +it, by leading it astray, and forgetfulness of the truth is the first +form of your adversity! May neither defeat nor victory be against you. +You are above both of them, for you are all the people. + +The skies are peopled with stars, a harmony which clasps reason close, +and applies the mind to the adorable idea of universal unity. Must +that harmony give us hope or misgiving? + +We are in a great night of the world. The thing is to know if we shall +wake up to-morrow. We have only one succor--_we_ know of what the +night is made. But shall we be able to impart our lucid faith, seeing +that the heralds of warning are everywhere few, and that the greatest +victims hate the only ideal which is not one, and call it utopian? +Public opinion floats over the surface of the peoples, wavering and +submissive to the wind; it lends but fleeting conscience and conviction +to the majority; it cries "Down with the reformers!" It cries +"Sacrilege!" because it is made to see in its vague thoughts what it +could not itself see there. It cries that they are distorting it, +whereas they are enlarging it. + +I am not afraid, as many are, and as I once was myself, of being +reviled and slandered. I do not cling to respect and gratitude for +myself. But if I succeed in reaching men, I should like them not to +curse me. Why should they, since it is not for myself? It is only +because I am sure I am right. I am sure of the principles I see at the +source of all--justice, logic, equality; all those divinely human +truths whose contrast with the realized truth of to-day is so +heart-breaking. And I want to appeal to you all; and that confidence +which fills me with a tragic joy, I want to give it to you, at once as +a command and as a prayer. There are not several ways of attaining it +athwart everything, and of fastening life and the truth together again; +there is only one--right-doing. Let rule begin again with the sublime +control of the intellect. I am a man like the rest, a man like you. +You who shake your head or shrug your shoulders as you listen to +me--why are we, we two, we all, so foreign to each other, when we are +not foreign? + +I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the +momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men +in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national +egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious +statues of Right and Duty. To-night I believe--nay, I am certain--that +the new order will be built upon that archipelago of men. Even if we +have still to suffer as far as we can see ahead, the idea can no more +cease to throb and grow stronger than the human heart can; and the will +which is already rising here and there they can no longer destroy. + +I proclaim the inevitable advent of the universal republic. Not the +transient backslidings, nor the darkness and the dread, nor the tragic +difficulty of uplifting the world everywhere at once will prevent the +fulfillment of international truth. But if the great powers of +darkness persist in holding their positions, if they whose clear cries +of warning should be voices crying in the wilderness--O you people of +the world, you the unwearying vanquished of History, I appeal to your +justice and I appeal to your anger. Over the vague quarrels which +drench the strands with blood, over the plunderers of shipwrecks, over +the jetsam and the reefs, and the palaces and monuments built upon the +sand, I see the high tide coming. Truth is only revolutionary by +reason of error's disorder. Revolution is Order. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FACE TO FACE + + +Through the panes I see the town--I often take refuge at the windows. +Then I go into Marie's bedroom, which gives a view of the country. It +is such a narrow room that to get to the window I must touch her tidy +little bed, and I think of her as I pass it. A bed is something which +never seems either so cold or so lifeless as other things; it lives by +an absence. + +Marie is working in the house, downstairs. I hear sounds of moved +furniture, of a broom, and the recurring knock of the shovel on the +bucket into which she empties the dust she has collected. That society +is badly arranged which forces nearly all women to be servants. Marie, +who is as good as I am, will have spent her life in cleaning, in +stooping amid dust and hot fumes, over head and ears in the great +artificial darkness of the house. I used to find it all natural. Now +I think it is all anti-natural. + +I hear no more sounds. Marie has finished. She comes up beside me. +We have sought each other and come together as often as possible since +the day when we saw so clearly that we no longer loved each other! + +We sit closely side by side, and watch the end of the day. We can see +the last houses of the town, in the beginning of the valley, low houses +within enclosures, and yards, and gardens stocked with sheds. Autumn +is making the gardens quite transparent, and reducing them to nothing +through their trees and hedges; yet here and there foliage still +magnificently flourishes. It is not the wide landscape in its entirety +which attracts me. It is more worth while to pick out each of the +houses and look at it closely. + +These houses, which form the finish of the suburb, are not big, and are +not prosperous; but we see one adorning itself with smoke, and we think +of the dead wood coming to life again on the hearth, and of the seated +workman, whose hands are rewarded with rest. And that one, although +motionless, is alive with children--the breeze is scattering the +laughter of their games and seems to play with it, and on the sandy +ground are the crumbs of childish footsteps. Our eyes follow the +postman entering his home, his work ended; he has heroically overcome +his long journeyings. After carrying letters all day to those who were +waiting for them, he is carrying himself to his own people, who also +await him--it is the family which knows the value of the father. He +pushes the gate open, he enters the garden path, his hands are at last +empty! + +Along by the old gray wall, old Eudo is making his way, the incurable +widower whose bad news still stubbornly persists, so that he bears it +along around him, and it slackens his steps, and can be seen, and he +takes up more space than he seems to take. A woman meets him, and her +youth is disclosed in the twilight; it expands in her hurrying steps. +It is Mina, going to some trysting-place. She crosses and presses her +little fichu on her heart; we can see that distance dwindles +affectionately in front of her. As she passes away, bent forward and +smiling with her ripe lips, we can see the strength of her heart. + +Mist is gradually falling. Now we can only see white things +clearly--the new parts of houses, the walls, the high road, joined to +the other one by footpaths which straggle through the dark fields, the +big white stones, tranquil as sheep, and the horse-pond, whose gleam +amid the far obscurity imitates whiteness in unexpected fashion. Then +we can only see light things--the stains of faces and hands, those +faces which see each other in the gloom longer than is logical and +exceed themselves. + +Pervaded by a sort of serious musing, we turn back into the room and +sit down, I on the edge of the bed, she on a chair in front of the open +window, in the center of the pearly sky. + +Her thoughts are the same as mine, for she turns her face to me and +says: + +"And ourselves." + +* * * * * * + +She sighs for the thought she has. She would like to be silent, but +she must speak. + +"We don't love each other any more," she says, embarrassed by the +greatness of the things she utters; "but we did once, and I want to see +our love again." + +She gets up, opens the wardrobe, and sits down again in the same place +with a box in her hands. She says: + +"There it is. Those are our letters." + +"Our letters, our beautiful letters!" she goes on. "I could really say +they're more beautiful than all others. We know them by heart--but +would you like us to read them again? _You_ read them--there's still +light enough--and let me see how happy we've been." + +She hands the casket to me. The letters we wrote each other during our +engagement are arranged in it. + +"That one," she says, "is the first from you. Is it? Yes--no, it +isn't; do you think it is?" + +I take the letter, murmur it, and then read it aloud. It spoke of the +future, and said, "In a little while, how happy we shall be!" + +She comes near, lowers her head, reads the date and whispers: + +"Nineteen-two; it's been dead for thirteen years--it's a long time. +No, it isn't a long time--I don't know what it ought to be. Here's +another--read it." + +I go on denuding the letters. We quickly find out what a mistake it +was to say we know them by heart. This one has no date--simply the +name of a day--Monday, and we believed that would be enough! Now, it +is entirely lost and become barren, this anonymous letter in the middle +of the rest. + +"We don't know them by heart any more," Marie confesses. "Remember +ourselves? How could we remember all that?" + +* * * * * * + +This reading was like that of a book once already read in bygone days. +It could not revive again the diligent and fervent hours when our pens +were moving--and our lips, too, a little. Indistinctly it brought +back, with unfathomable gaps, the adventure lived in three days by +others, the people that we were. When I read a letter from her which +spoke of caresses to come, Marie stammered, "And she dared to write +that!" but she did not blush and was not confused. + +Then she shook her head a little, and said dolefully: + +"What a lot of things we have hidden away, little by little, in spite +of ourselves! How strong people must be to forget so much!" + +She was beginning to catch a glimpse of a bottomless abyss, and to +despair. Suddenly she broke in: + +"That's enough! We can't read them again. We can't understand what's +written. That's enough--don't take my illusion away." + +She spoke like the poor madwoman of the streets, and added in a +whisper: + +"This morning, when I opened that box where the letters were shut up, +some little flies flew out." + +We stop reading the letters a moment, and look at them. The ashes of +life! All that we can remember is almost nothing. Memory is greater +than we are, but memory is living and mortal as well. These letters, +these unintelligible flowers, these bits of lace and of paper, what are +they? Around these flimsy things what is there left? We are handling +the casket together. Thus we are completely attached in the hollow of +our hands. + +* * * * * * + +And yet we went on reading. + +But something strange is growing gradually greater; it grasps us, it +surprises us hopelessly--every letter speaks of the _future_. + +In vain Marie said to me: + +"What about afterwards? Try another--later on." + +Every letter said, "In a little while, how we shall love each other +when our time is spent together! How beautiful you will be when you +are always there. Later on we'll make that trip again; after a while +we'll carry that scheme out, later on . . ." + +"That's all we could say!" + +A little before the wedding we wrote that we were wasting our time so +far from each other, and that we were unhappy. + +"Ah!" said Marie, in a sort of terror, "we wrote that! And +afterwards . . ." + +After, the letter from which we expected all, said: + +"Soon we shan't leave each other any more. At last we shall live!" +And it spoke of a paradise, of the life that was coming. . . . + +"And afterwards?" + +"After that, there's nothing more . . . it's the last letter." + +* * * * * * + +There is nothing more. It is like a stage-trick, suddenly revealing +the truth. There is nothing between the paradise dreamed of and the +paradise lost. There is nothing, since we always want what we have not +got. We hope, and then we regret. We hope for the future, and then we +turn to the past, and then we begin slowly and desperately to hope for +the past! The two most violent and abiding feelings, hope and regret, +both lean upon nothing. To ask, to ask, to have not! Humanity is +exactly the same thing as poverty. Happiness has not the time to live; +we have not really the time to profit by what we are. Happiness, that +thing which never is--and which yet, for one day, is no longer! + +I see her drawing breath, quivering, mortally wounded, sinking upon the +chair. + +I take her hand, as I did before. I speak to her, rather timidly and +at random: "Carnal love isn't the whole of love." + +"It's love!" Marie answers. + +I do not reply. + +"Ah!" she says, "we try to juggle with words, but we can't conceal the +truth." + +"The truth! I'm going to tell you what I have been truly, _I_. . . ." + +* * * * * * + +I could not prevent myself from saying it, from crying it in a loud and +trembling voice, leaning over her. For some moments there had been +outlined within me the tragic shape of the cry which at last came +forth. It was a sort of madness of sincerity and simplicity which +seized me. + +And I, unveiling my life to her, though it slid away by the side of +hers, all my life, with its failings and its coarseness. I let her see +me in my desires, in my hungers, in my entrails. + +Never has a confession so complete been thrown off. Yes, among the +fates which men and women bear together, one must be almost mad not to +lie. I tick off my past, the succession of love-affairs multiplied by +each other, and come to naught. I have been an ordinary man, no +better, no worse, than another; well, here I am, here is the man, here +is the lover. + +I can see that she has half-risen, in the little bedroom which has lost +its color. She is afraid of the truth! She watches my words as you +look at a blasphemer. But the truth has seized me and cannot let me +go. And I recall what was--both this woman and that, and all those +whom I loved and never deigned to know what they brought me when they +brought their bodies; I recall the fierce selfishness which nothing +exhausted, and all the savagery of my life beside her. I say it +all--unable even to avoid the blows of brutal details--like a harsh +duty accomplished to the end. + +Sometimes she murmured, like a sigh, "I knew it." At others, she would +say, almost like a sob, "That's true!" And once, too, she began a +confused protest, a sort of reproach. Then, soon, she listens nigher. +She might almost be left behind by the greatness of my confession; and, +gradually, I see her falling into silence, the twice-illumined woman on +that adorable side of the room, she still receives on her hair and neck +and hands, some morsels of heaven. + +And what I am most ashamed of in those bygone days when I was mad after +the treasure of unknown women is this: that I spoke to them of eternal +fidelity, of superhuman enticements, of divine exaltation, of sacred +affinities which must be joined together at all costs, of beings who +have always been waiting for each other, and are made for each other, +and all that one _can_ say--sometimes almost sincerely, alas!--just to +gain my ends. I confess all that, I cast it from me as if I was at +last ridding myself of the lies acted upon her, and upon the others, +and upon myself. Instinct is instinct; let it rule like a force of +nature. But the Lie is a ravisher. + +I feel a sort of curse rising from me upon that blind religion with +which we clothe the things of the flesh because they are strong, those +of which I was the plaything, like everybody, always and everywhere. +No, two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two +enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There +are perfect couples, no doubt--perfection always exists somewhere--but +I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know!--the human +being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, +the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers +deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on +each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of +pleasure. There are moments when one would lay hold forcibly on joy, +if only a crime stood in the way. I know it; I know it through all +those for whom I have successively hungered, and whom I have scorned +with shut eyes--even those who were not better than I. + +And this hunger for novelty--which makes sensuous love equally +changeful and rapacious, which makes us seek the same emotion in other +bodies which we cast off as fast as they fall--turns life into an +infernal succession of disenchantments, spites and scorn; and it is +chiefly that hunger for novelty which leaves us a prey to unrealizable +hope and irrevocable regret. Those lovers who persist in remaining +together execute themselves; the name of their common death, which at +first was Absence, becomes Presence. The real outcast is not he who +returns all alone, like Olympio; they who remain together are more +apart. + +By what right does carnal love say, "I am your hearts and minds as +well, and we are indissoluble, and I sweep all along with my strokes of +glory and defeat; I am Love!"? It is not true, it is not true. Only +by violence does it seize the whole of thought; and the poets and +lovers, equally ignorant and dazzled, dress it up in a grandeur and +profundity which it has not. The heart is strong and beautiful, but it +is mad and it is a liar. Moist lips in transfigured faces murmur, +"It's grand to be mad!" _No_, you do not elevate aberration into an +ideal, and illusion is always a stain, whatever the name you lend it. + +By the curtain in the angle of the wall, upright and motionless I am +speaking in a low voice, but it seems to me that I am shouting and +struggling. + +When I have spoken thus, we are no longer the same, for there are no +more lies. + +After a silence, Marie lifts to me the face of a shipwrecked woman with +lifeless eyes, and asks me: + +"But if this love is an illusion, what is there left?" + +I come near and look at her, to answer her. Against the window's still +pallid sky I see her hair, silvered with a moonlike sheen, and her +night-veiled face. Closely I look at the share of sublimity which she +bears on it, and I reflect that I am infinitely attached to this woman, +that it is not true to say she is of less moment to me because desire +no longer throws me on her as it used to do. Is it habit? No, not +only that. Everywhere habit exerts its gentle strength, perhaps +between us two also. But there is more. There is not only the +narrowness of rooms to bring us together. There is more, there is +more! So I say to her: + +"There's you." + +"Me?" she says. "I'm nothing." + +"Yes, you are everything, you're everything to me." + +She has stood up, stammering. She puts her arms around my neck, but +falls fainting, clinging to me, and I carry her like a child to the old +armchair at the end of the room. + +All my strength has come back to me. I am no longer wounded or ill. I +carry her in my arms. It is difficult work to carry in your arms a +being equal to yourself. Strong as you may be, you hardly suffice for +it. And what I say as I look at her and see her, I say because I am +strong and not because I am weak: + +"You're everything for me because you are you, and I love _all_ of +you." + +And we think together, as if she were listening to me: + +You are a living creature, you are a human being, you are the infinity +that man is, and all that you are unites me to you. Your suffering of +just now, your regret for the ruins of youth and the ghosts of +caresses, all of it unites me to you, for I feel them, I share them. +Such as you are and such as I am. I can say to you at last, "I love +you." + +I love you, you who now appearing truly to me, you who truly duplicate +my life. We have nothing to turn aside from us to be together. All +your thoughts, all your likes, your ideas and your preferences have a +place which I feel within me, and I see that they are right even if my +own are not like them (for each one's freedom is part of his value), +and I have a feeling that I am telling you a lie whenever I do not +speak to you. + +I am only going on with my thought when I say aloud: + +"I would give my life for you, and I forgive you beforehand for +everything you might ever do to make yourself happy." + +She presses me softly in her arms, and I feel her murmuring tears and +crooning words; they are like my own. + +It seems to me that truth has taken its place again in our little room, +and become incarnate; that the greatest bond which can bind two beings +together is being confessed, the great bond we did not know of, though +it is the whole of salvation: + +"Before, I loved you for my own sake; to-day, I love you for yours." + +When you look straight on, you end by seeing the immense event--death. +There is only one thing which really gives the meaning of our whole +life, and that is our death. In that terrible light may they judge +their hearts who will one day die. Well I know that Marie's death +would be the same thing in my heart as my own, and it seems to me also +that only within her of all the world does my own likeness wholly live. +_We_ are not afraid of the too great sincerity which goes the length of +these things; and we talk about them, beside the bed which awaits the +inevitable hour when we shall not awake in it again. We say:-- + +"There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish--a +walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream." + +I stoop over her blue eyes. Just then I recalled the black, open +window in front of me--far away--that night when I nearly died. I look +at length into those clear eyes, and see that I am sinking into the +only grave I shall have had. It is neither an illusion nor an act of +charity to admire the almost incredible beauty of those eyes. + +What is there within us to-night? What is this sound of wings? Are +our eyes opening as fast as night falls? Formerly, we had the sensual +lovers' animal dread of nothingness; but to-day, the simplest and +richest proof of our love is that the supreme meaning of death to us +is--leaving each other. + +And the bond of the flesh--neither are we afraid to think and speak of +that, saying that we were so joined together that we knew each other +completely, that our bodies have searched each other. This memory, +this brand in the flesh, has its profound value; and the preference +which reciprocally graces two beings like ourselves is made of all that +they have and all that they had. + +I stand up in front of Marie--already almost a convert--and I tremble +and totter, so much is my heart my master:-- + +"Truth is more beautiful than dreams, you see." + +It is simply the truth which has come to our aid. It is truth which +has given us life. Affection is the greatest of human feelings because +it is made of respect, of lucidity, and light. To understand the truth +and make one's self equal to it is everything; and to love is the same +thing as to know and to understand. Affection, which I call also +compassion, because I see no difference between them, dominates +everything by reason of its clear sight. It is a sentiment as immense +as if it were mad, and yet it is wise, and of human things it is the +only perfect one. There is no great sentiment which is not completely +held on the arms of compassion. + +To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that +is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can +hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one +true neighbor down here. + +To live is to be happy to live. The usefulness of life--ah! its +expansion has not the mystic shapes we vainly dreamed of when we were +paralyzed by youth. Rather has it a shape of anxiety, of shuddering, +of pain and glory. Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of +happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It +beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth. + +"You've done well to say all that! Yes, it is always easy to lie for a +moment. You might have lied, but it would have been worse when we woke +up from the lies. It's a reward to talk. Perhaps it's the only reward +there is." + +She said that profoundly, right to the bottom of my heart. Now she is +helping me, and together we make the great searchings of those who are +too much in the right. Marie's assent is so complete that it is +unexpected and tragic. + +"I was like a statue, because of the forgetting and the grief. You +have given me life, you have changed me into a woman." + +"I was turning towards the church," she goes on; "you hardly believe in +God so much when you've no need of Him. When you're without anything, +you can easily believe in Him. But now, I don't want any longer." + +Thus speaks Marie. Only the idolatrous and the weak have need of +illusion as of a remedy. The rest only need see and speak. + +She smiles, vague as an angel, hovering in the purity of the evening +between light and darkness. I am so near to her that I must kneel to +be nearer still. I kiss her wet face and soft lips, holding her hand +in both of mine. + +Yes, there _is_ a Divinity, one from which we must never turn aside for +the guidance of our huge inward life and of the share we have as well +in the life of all men. It is called the truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Light, by Henri Barbusse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 12904-0.txt or 12904-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/9/0/12904/ + +Produced by David S. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/12904-0.zip b/old/12904-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..81307f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12904-0.zip diff --git a/old/12904.txt b/old/12904.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fb6c4a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12904.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10883 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Light, by Henri Barbusse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Light + +Author: Henri Barbusse + +Release Date: July 14, 2004 [EBook #12904] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by David S. Miller + + + + + +LIGHT + + +BY + +HENRI BARBUSSE +AUTHOR OF "UNDER FIRE" "WE OTHERS," ETC. + + +TRANSLATED BY +FITZWATER WRAY +1919 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + I. MYSELF + II. OURSELVES + III. EVENING AND DAWN + IV. MARIE + V. DAY BY DAY + VI. A VOICE IN THE EVENING + VII. A SUMMARY + VIII. THE BRAWLER + IX. THE STORM + X. THE WALLS + XI. AT THE WORLD'S END + XII. THE SHADOWS + XIII. WHITHER GOEST THOU? + XIV. THE RUINS + XV. AN APPARITION + XVI. DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + XVII. MORNING +XVIII. EYES THAT SEE + XIX. GHOSTS + XX. THE CULT + XXI. NO! + XXII. LIGHT +XXIII. FACE TO FACE + + + + +LIGHT + + + +CHAPTER I + +MYSELF + + +All the days of the week are alike, from their beginning to their end. + +At seven in the evening one hears the clock strike gently, and then the +instant tumult of the bell. I close the desk, wipe my pen, and put it +down. I take my hat and muffler, after a glance at the mirror--a +glance which shows me the regular oval of my face, my glossy hair and +fine mustache. (It is obvious that I am rather more than a workman.) +I put out the light and descend from my little glass-partitioned +office. I cross the boiler-house, myself in the grip of the thronging, +echoing peal which has set it free. From among the dark and hurrying +crowd, which increases in the corridors and rolls down the stairways +like a cloud, some passing voices cry to me, "Good-night, Monsieur +Simon," or, with less familiarity, "Good-night, Monsieur Paulin." I +answer here and there, and allow myself to be borne away by everybody +else. + +Outside, on the threshold of the porch which opens on the naked plain +and its pallid horizons, one sees the squares and triangles of the +factory, like a huge black background of the stage, and the tall +extinguished chimney, whose only crown now is the cloud of falling +night. Confusedly, the dark flood carries me away. Along the wall +which faces the porch, women are waiting, like a curtain of shadow, +which yields glimpses of their pale and expressionless faces. With nod +or word we recognize each other from the mass. Couples are formed by +the quick hooking of arms. All along the ghostly avenue one's eyes +follow the toilers' scrambling flight. + +The avenue is a wan track cut across the open fields. Its course is +marked afar by lines of puny trees, sooty as snuffed candles; by +telegraph posts and their long spider-webs; by bushes or by fences, +which are like the skeletons of bushes. There are a few houses. Up +yonder a strip of sky still shows palely yellow above the meager suburb +where creeps the muddy crowd detached from the factory. The west wind +sets quivering their overalls, blue or black or khaki, excites the +woolly tails that flutter from muffled necks, scatters some evil odors, +attacks the sightless faces so deep-drowned beneath the sky. + +There are taverns anon which catch the eye. Their doors are closed, +but their windows and fanlights shine like gold. Between the taverns +rise the fronts of some old houses, tenantless and hollow; others, in +ruins, cut into this gloomy valley of the homes of men with notches of +sky. The iron-shod feet all around me on the hard road sound like the +heavy rolling of drums, and then on the paved footpath like dragged +chains. It is in vain that I walk with head bent--my own footsteps are +lost in the rest, and I cannot hear them. + +We hurry, as we do every evening. At that spot in the inky landscape +where a tall and twisted tree seems to writhe as if it had a soul, we +begin suddenly to descend, our feet plunging forward. Down below we +see the lights of Viviers sparkle. These men, whose day is worn out, +stride towards those earthly stars. One hope is like another in the +evening, as one weariness is like another; we are all alike. I, also. +I go towards my light, like all the others, as on every evening. + +* * * * * * + +When we have descended for a long time the gradient ends, the avenue +flattens out like a river, and widens as it pierces the town. Through +the latticed boughs of the old plane trees--still naked on this last +day of March--one glimpses the workmen's houses, upright in space, hazy +and fantastic chessboards, with squares of light dabbed on in places, +or like vertical cliffs in which our swarming is absorbed. Scattering +among the twilight colonnade of the trees, these people engulf +themselves in the heaped-up lodgings and rooms; they flow together in +the cavity of doors; they plunge into the houses; and there they are +vaguely turned into lights. + +I continue to walk, surrounded by several companions who are foremen +and clerks, for I do not associate with the workmen. Then there are +handshakes, and I go on alone. + +Some dimly seen wayfarers disappear; the sounds of sliding locks and +closing shutters are heard here and there; the houses have shut +themselves up, the night-bound town becomes a desert profound. I can +hear nothing now but my own footfall. + +Viviers is divided into two parts--like many towns, no doubt. First, +the rich town, composed of the main street, where you find the Grand +Cafe, the elegant hotels, the sculptured houses, the church and the +castle on the hill-top. The other is the lower town, which I am now +entering. It is a system of streets reached by an extension of that +avenue which is flanked by the workmen's barracks and climbs to the +level of the factory. Such is the way which it has been my custom to +climb in the morning and to descend when the light is done, during the +six years of my clerkship with Messrs. Gozlan & Co. In this quarter I +am still rooted. Some day I should like to live yonder; but between +the two halves of the town there is a division--a sort of frontier, +which has always been and will always be. + +In the Rue Verte I meet only a street lamp, and then a mouse-like +little girl who emerges from the shadows and enters them again without +seeing me, so intent is she on pressing to her heart, like a doll, the +big loaf they have sent her to buy. Here is the Rue de l'Etape, my +street. Through the semi-darkness, a luminous movement peoples the +hairdresser's shop, and takes shape on the dull screen of his window. +His transparent door, with its arched inscription, opens just as I +pass, and under the soap-dish,[1] whose jingle summons customers, +Monsieur Justin Pocard himself appears, along with a rich gust of +scented light. He is seeing a customer out, and improving the occasion +by the utterance of certain sentiments; and I had time to see that the +customer, convinced, nodded assent, and that Monsieur Pocard, the +oracle, was caressing his white and ever-new beard with his luminous +hand. + +[Footnote 1: The hanging sign of a French barber.--Tr.] + +I turn round the cracked walls of the former tinplate works, now bowed +and crumbling, whose windows are felted with grime or broken into black +stars. A few steps farther I think I saw the childish shadow of little +Antoinette, whose bad eyes they don't seem to be curing; but not being +certain enough to go and find her I turn into my court, as I do every +evening. + +Every evening I find Monsieur Crillon at the door of his shop at the +end of the court, where all day long he is fiercely bent upon trivial +jobs, and he rises before me like a post. At sight of me the kindly +giant nods his big, shaven face, and the square cap on top, his huge +nose and vast ears. He taps the leather apron that is hard as a plank. +He sweeps me along to the side of the street, sets my back against the +porch and says to me, in a low voice, but with heated conviction, "That +Petrarque chap, he's really a bad lot." + +He takes off his cap, and while the crescendo nodding of his bristly +head seems to brush the night, he adds: "I've mended him his purse. +It had become percolated. I've put him a patch on that cost me thirty +centimes, and I've resewn the edge with braid, and all the lot. +They're expensive, them jobs. Well, when I open my mouth to talk about +that matter of his sewing-machine that I'm interested in and that he +can't use himself, he becomes congealed." + +He recounts to me the mad claims of Trompson in the matter of his new +soles, and the conduct of Monsieur Becret, who, though old enough to +know better, had taken advantage of his good faith by paying for the +repair of his spout with a knife "that would cut anything it sees." He +goes on to detail for my benefit all the important matters in his life. +Then he says, "I'm not rich, I'm not, but I'm consentious. If I'm a +botcher, it's 'cos my father and my grandfather were botchers before +me. There's some that's for making a big stir in the world, there are. +I don't hold with that idea. What I does, I does." + +Suddenly a sonorous tramp persists and repeats itself in the roadway, +and a shape of uncertain equilibrium emerges and advances towards us by +fits and starts; a shape that clings to itself and is impelled by a +force stronger than itself. It is Brisbille, the blacksmith, drunk, as +usual. + +Espying us, Brisbille utters exclamations. When he has reached us he +hesitates, and then, smitten by a sudden idea, he comes to a +standstill, his boots clanking on the stones, as if he were a cart. He +measures the height of the curb with his eye, but clenches his fists, +swallows what he wanted to say, and goes off reeling, with an odor of +hatred and wine, and his face slashed with red patches. + +"That anarchist!" said Crillon, in disgust; "loathsome notions, now, +aren't they? Ah! who'll rid us of him and his alcoholytes?" he adds, +as he offers me his hand. "Good-night. I'm always saying to the Town +Council, 'You must give 'em clink,' I says, 'that gang of Bolshevists, +for the slightest infractionment of the laws against drunkenness.' +Yes, indeed! There's that Jean Latrouille in the Town Council, eh? +They talk about keeping order, but as soon as it's a question of +a-doing of it, they seem like a cold draught." + +The good fellow is angry. He raises his great fist and shakes it in +space like a medieval mace. Pointing where Brisbille has just plunged +floundering into the night, he says, "That's what Socialists are,--the +conquering people what can't stand up on their legs! I may be a +botcher in life, but I'm for peace and order. Good-night, good-night. +Is she well, Aunt Josephine? I'm for tranquillity and liberty and +order. That's why I've always kept clear of their crowd. A bit since, +I saw her trotting past, as vivacious as a young girl,--but there, I +talk and I talk!" + +He enters his shop, but turns on his heel and calls me back, with a +mysterious sign. "You know they've all arrived up yonder at the +castle?" Respect has subdued his voice; a vision is absorbing him of +the lords and ladies of the manor, and as he leaves me he bows, +instinctively. + +His shop is a narrow glass cage, which is added to our house, like a +family relation. Within I can just make out the strong, plebeian +framework of Crillon himself, upright beside a serrated heap of ruins, +over which a candle is enthroned. The light which falls on his +accumulated tools and on those hanging from the wall makes a decoration +obscurely golden around the picture of this wise man; this soul all +innocent of envious demands, turning again to his botching, as his +father and grandfather botched. + +I have mounted the steps and pushed our door; the gray door, whose only +relief is the key. The door goes in grumblingly, and makes way for me +into the dark passage, which was formerly paved, though now the traffic +of soles has kneaded it with earth, and changed it into a footpath. My +forehead strikes the lamp, which is hooked on the wall; it is out, +oozing oil, and it stinks. One never sees that lamp, and always bangs +it. + +And though I had hurried so--I don't know why--to get home, at this +moment of arrival I slow down. Every evening I have the same small and +dull disillusion. + +I go into the room which serves us as kitchen and dining-room, where my +aunt is lying. This room is buried in almost complete darkness. + +"Good evening, Mame." + +A sigh, and then a sob arise from the bed crammed against the pale +celestial squares of the window. + +Then I remember that there was a scene between my old aunt and me after +our early morning coffee. Thus it is two or three times a week. This +time it was about a dirty window-pane, and on this particular morning, +exasperated by the continuous gush of her reproaches, I flung an +offensive word, and banged the door as I went off to work. So Mame has +had to weep all the day. She has fostered and ruminated her spleen, +and sniffed up her tears, even while busy with household duties. Then, +as the day declined, she put out the lamp and went to bed, with the +object of sustaining and displaying her chagrin. + +When I came in she was in the act of peeling invisible potatoes; there +are potatoes scattered over the floor, everywhere. My feet kick them +and send them rolling heavily among odds and ends of utensils and a +soft deposit of garments that are lying about. As soon as I am there +my aunt overflows with noisy tears. + +Not daring to speak again, I sit down in my usual corner. + +Over the bed I can make out a pointed shape, like a mounted picture, +silhouetted against the curtains, which slightly blacken the window. +It is as though the quilt were lifted from underneath by a stick, for +my Aunt Josephine is leanness itself. + +Gradually she raises her voice and begins to lament. "You've no +feelings, no--you're heartless,--that dreadful word you said to +me,--you said, 'You and your jawing!' Ah! people don't know what I +have to put up with--ill-natured--cart-horse!" + +In silence I hear the tear-streaming words that fall and founder in the +dark room from that obscure blot on the pillow which is her face. + +I stand up. I sit down again. I risk saying, "Come now, come; that's +all done with." + +She cries: "Done with? Ah! it will never be done with!" + +With the sheet that night is begriming she muzzles herself, and hides +her face. She shakes her head to left and to right, violently, so as +to wipe her eyes and signify dissent at the same time. + +"Never! A word like that you said to me breaks the heart forever. But +I must get up and get you something to eat. You must eat. I brought +you up when you were a little one,"--her voice capsizes--"I've given up +all for you, and you treat me as if I were an adventuress." + +I hear the sound of her skinny feet as she plants them successively on +the floor, like two boxes. She is seeking her things, scattered over +the bed or slipped to the floor; she is swallowing sobs. Now she is +upright, shapeless in the shadow, but from time to time I see her +remarkable leanness outlined. She slips on a camisole and a jacket,--a +spectral vision of garments which unfold themselves about her +handle-like arms, and above the hollow framework of her shoulders. + +She talks to herself while she dresses, and gradually all my +life-history, all my past comes forth from what the poor woman +says,--my only near relative on earth; as it were my mother and my +servant. + +She strikes a match. The lamp emerges from the dark and zigzags about +the room like a portable fairy. My aunt is enclosed in a strong light. +Her eyes are level with her face; she has heavy and spongy eyelids and +a big mouth which stirs with ruminated sorrow. Fresh tears increase +the dimensions of her eyes, make them sparkle and varnish the points of +her cheeks. She comes and goes with undiminished spleen. Her wrinkles +form heavy moldings on her face, and the skin of chin and neck is so +folded that it looks intestinal, while the crude light tinges it all +with something like blood. + +Now that the lamp is alight some items become visible of the dismal +super-chaos in which we are walled up,--the piece of bed-ticking +fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of +draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with its woolen cover; +and the door-lock, stopped with a protruding plug of paper. + +The lamp is flaring, and as Mame does not know where to stand it among +the litter, she puts it on the floor and crouches to regulate the wick. +There rises from the medley of the old lady, vividly variegated with +vermilion and night, a jet of black smoke, which returns in parachute +form. Mame sighs, but she cannot check her continual talk. + +"You, my lad, you who are so genteel when you like, and earn a hundred +and eighty francs a month,--you're genteel, but you're short of good +manners, it's that chiefly I find fault with you about. So you spat on +the window-pane; I'm certain of it. May I drop dead if you didn't. +And you're nearly twenty-four! And to revenge yourself because I'd +found out that you'd spat on the window, you told me to stop my jawing, +for that's what you said to me, after all. Ah, vulgar fellow that you +are! The factory gentlemen are too kind to you. Your poor father was +their best workman. You are more genteel than your poor father, more +English; and you preferred to go into business rather than go on +learning Latin, and everybody thought you quite right; but for hard +work you're not much good--ah, la, la! Confess that you spat on the +window. + +"For your poor mother," the ghost of Mame goes on, as she crosses the +room with a wooden spoon in her hand, "one must say that she had good +taste in dress. That's no harm, no; but certainly they must have the +wherewithal. She was always a child. I remember she was twenty-six +when they carried her away. Ah, how she loved hats! But she had +handsome ways, for all that, when she said, 'Come along with us, +Josephine!' So I brought you up, I did, and sacrificed everything...." + +Overcome by the mention of the past, Mame's speech and action both +cease. She chokes and wags her head and wipes her face with her +sleeve. + +I risk saying, gently, "Yes, I know it well." + +A sigh is my answer. She lights the fire. The coal sends out a +cushion of smoke, which expands and rolls up the stove, falls back, and +piles its muslin on the floor. Mame manipulates the stove with her +feet in the cloudy deposit; and the hazy white hair which escapes from +her black cap is also like smoke. + +Then she seeks her handkerchief and pats her pockets to get the velvet +coal-dust off her fingers. Now, with her back turned, she is moving +casseroles about. "Monsieur Crillon's father," she says, "old Dominic, +had come from County Cher to settle down here in '66 or '67. He's a +sensible man, seeing he's a town councilor. (We must tell him nicely +to take his buckets away from our door.) Monsieur Boneas is very rich, +and he speaks so well, in spite of his bad neck. You must show +yourself off to all these gentlemen. You're genteel, and you're +already getting a hundred and eighty francs a month, and it's vexing +that you haven't got some sign to show that you're on the commercial +side, and not a workman, when you're going in and out of the factory." + +"That can be seen easily enough." + +"I'd rather you had a badge." + +Breathing damply and forcefully, she sniffs harder and quicker, and +looks here and there for her handkerchief; she prowls with the lamp. +As my eyes follow her, the room awakens more and more. My groping gaze +discovers the tiled floor, the conference of chairs backed side by side +against the wall, the motionless pallor of the window in the background +above the low and swollen bed, which is like a heap of earth and +plaster, the clothes lying on the floor like mole-hills, the protruding +edges of tables and shelves, pots, bottles, kettles and hanging clouts, +and that lock with the cotton-wool in its ear. + +"I like orderliness so much," says Mame as she tacks and worms her way +through this accumulation of things, all covered with a downy layer of +dust like the corners of pastel pictures. + +According to habit, I stretch out my legs and put my feet on the stool, +which long use has polished and glorified till it looks new. My face +turns this way and that towards the lean phantom of my aunt, and I lull +myself with the sounds of her stirring and her endless murmur. + +And now, suddenly, she has come near to me. She is wearing her jacket +of gray and white stripes which hangs from her acute shoulders, she +puts her arm around my neck, and trembles as she says, "You can mount +high, you can, with the gifts that you have. Some day, perhaps, you +will go and tell men everywhere the truth of things. That _has_ +happened. There have been men who were in the right, above everybody. +Why shouldn't you be one of them, my lad, _you_ one of these great +apostles!" + +And with her head gently nodding, and her face still tear-stained, she +looks afar, and sees the streets attentive to my eloquence! + +* * * * * * + +Hardly has this strange imagining in the bosom of our kitchen passed +away when Mame adds, with her eyes on mine, "My lad, mind you, never +look higher than yourself. You are already something of a home-bird; +you have already serious and elderly habits. That's good. Never try +to be different from others." + +"No danger of that, Mame." + +No, there is no danger of that. I should like to remain as I am. +Something holds me to the surroundings of my infancy and childhood, and +I should like them to be eternal. No doubt I hope for much from life. +I hope, I have hopes, as every one has. I do not even know all that I +hope for, but I should not like too great changes. In my heart I +should not like anything which changed the position of the stove, of +the tap, of the chestnut wardrobe, nor the form of my evening rest, +which faithfully returns. + +* * * * * * + +The fire alight, my aunt warms up the stew, stirring it with the wooden +spoon. Sometimes there spurts from the stove a mournful flame, which +seems to illumine her with tatters of light. + +I get up to look at the stew. The thick brown gravy is purring. I can +see pale bits of potato, and it is uncertainly spotted with the +mucosity of onions. Mame pours it into a big white plate. "That's for +you," she says; "now, what shall _I_ have?" + +We settle ourselves each side of the little swarthy table. Mame is +fumbling in her pocket. Now her lean hand, lumpy and dark, unroots +itself. She produces a bit of cheese, scrapes it with a knife which +she holds by the blade, and swallows it slowly. By the rays of the +lamp, which stands beside us, I see that her face is not dry. A drop +of water has lingered on the cheek that each mouthful protrudes, and +glitters there. Her great mouth works in all directions, and sometimes +swallows the remains of tears. + +So there we are, in front of our plates, of the salt which is placed on +a bit of paper, of my share of jam, which is put into a mustard-pot. +There we are, narrowly close, our foreheads and hands brought together +by the light, and for the rest but poorly clothed by the huge gloom. +Sitting in this jaded armchair, my hands on this ill-balanced +table,--which, if you lean on one side of it, begins at once to +limp,--I feel that I am deeply rooted where I am, in this old room, +disordered as an abandoned garden, this worn-out room, where the dust +touches you softly. + +After we have eaten, our remarks grow rarer. Then Mame begins again to +mumble; once again she yields to emotion under the harsh flame of the +lamp, and once again her eyes grow dim in her complicated Japanese mask +that is crowned with cotton-wool, and something dimly shining flows +from them. + +The tears of the sensitive old soul plash on that lip so voluminous +that it seems a sort of heart. She leans towards me, she comes so +near, so near, that I feel sure she is touching me. + +I have only her in the world to love me really. In spite of her humors +and her lamentations I know well that she is always in the right. + +I yawn, while she takes away the dirty plates and proceeds to hide them +in a dark corner. She fills the big bowl from the pitcher and then +carries it along to the stove for the crockery. + +Antonia has given me an appointment for eight o'clock, near the Kiosk. +It is ten past eight. I go out. The passage, the court,--by night all +these familiar things surround me even while they hide themselves. A +vague light still hovers in the sky. Crillon's prismatic shop gleams +like a garnet in the bosom of the night, behind the riotous disorder of +his buckets. There I can see Crillon,--he never seems to stop,--filing +something, examining his work close to a candle which flutters like a +butterfly ensnared, and then, reaching for the glue-pot which steams on +a little stove. One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless +face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his +ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair. +He coughs, and the window-panes vibrate. + +In the street, shadow and silence. In the distance are venturing +shapes, people emerging or entering, and some light echoing sounds. +Almost at once, on the corner, I see Monsieur Joseph Boneas vanishing, +stiff as a ramrod. I recognized the thick white kerchief, which +consolidates the boils on his neck. As I pass the hairdresser's door +it opens, just as it did a little while ago, and his agreeable voice +says, "That's all there is to it, in business." "Absolutely," replies +a man who is leaving. In the oven of the street one can see only his +littleness--he must be a considerable personage, all the same. +Monsieur Pocard is always applying himself to business and thinking of +great schemes. A little farther, in the depths of a cavity, stoppered +by an iron-grilled window, I divine the presence of old Eudo, the bird +of ill omen, the strange old man who coughs, and has a bad eye, and +whines continually. Even indoors he must wear his mournful cloak and +the lamp-shade of his hood. People call him a spy, and not without +reason. + +Here is the Kiosk. It is waiting quite alone, with its point in the +darkness. Antonia has not come, for she would have waited for me. I +am impatient first, and then relieved. A good riddance. + +No doubt Antonia is still tempting when she is present. There is a +reddish fever in her eyes, and her slenderness sets you on fire. But I +am hardly in harmony with the Italian. She is particularly engrossed +in her private affairs, with which I am not concerned. Big Victorine, +always ready, is worth a hundred of her; or Madame Lacaille, the +pensively vicious; though I am equally satiated of her, too. Truth to +tell, I plunge unreflectingly into a heap of amorous adventures which I +shortly find vulgar. But I can never resist the magic of a first +temptation. + +I shall not wait. I go away. I skirt the forge of the ignoble +Brisbille. It is the last house in that chain of low hills which is +the street. Out of the deep dark the smithy window flames with vivid +orange behind its black tracery. In the middle of that square-ruled +page of light I see transparently outlined the smith's eccentric +silhouette, now black and sharp, now softly huge. Spectrally through +the glare, and in blundering frenzy, he strives and struggles and +fumbles horribly on the anvil. Swaying, he seems to rush to right and +to left, like a passenger on a hell-bound ferry. The more drunk he is, +the more furiously he falls upon his iron and his fire. + +I return home. Just as I am about to enter a timid voice calls +me--"Simon!" + +It is Antonia. So much the worse for her. I hurry in, followed by the +weak appeal. + +I go up to my room. It is bare and always cold; always I must shiver +some minutes before I shake it back to life. As I close the shutters I +see the street again; the massive, slanting blackness of the roofs and +their population of chimneys clear-cut against the minor blackness of +space; some still waking, milk-white windows; and, at the end of a +jagged and gloomy background, the blood-red stumbling apparition of the +mad blacksmith. Farther still I can make out in the cavity the cross +on the steeple; and again, very high and blazing with light on the +hill-top, the castle, a rich crown of masonry. In all directions the +eye loses itself among the black ruins which conceal their hosts of men +and of women--all so unknown and so like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +OURSELVES + + +It is Sunday. Through my open window a living ray of April has made +its way into my room. It has transformed the faded flowers of the +wallpaper and restored to newness the Turkey-red stuff which covers my +dressing-table. + +I dress carefully, dallying to look at myself in the glass, closely and +farther away, in the fresh scent of soap. I try to make out whether my +eyes are little or big. They are the average, no doubt, but it really +seems to me that they have a tender brightness. + +Then I look outside. It would seem that the town, under its misty +blankets in the hollow of the valley, is awaking later than its +inhabitants. + +These I can see from up here, spreading abroad in the streets, since it +is Sunday. One does not recognize them all at once, so changed are +they by their unusual clothes;--women, ornate with color, and more +monumental than on week days; some old men, slightly straightened for +the occasion; and some very lowly people, whom only their cleanness +vaguely disguises. + +The weak sunshine is dressing the red roofs and the blue roofs and the +sidewalks, and the tiny little stone setts all pressed together like +pebbles, where polished shoes are shining and squeaking. In that old +house at the corner, a house like a round lantern of shadow, gloomy old +Eudo is encrusted. It forms a comical blot, as though traced on an old +etching. A little further, Madame Piot's house bulges forth, glazed +like pottery. By the side of these uncommon dwellings one takes no +notice of the others, with their gray walls and shining curtains, +although it is of these that the town is made. + +Halfway up the hill, which rises from the river bank, and opposite the +factory's plateau, appears the white geometry of the castle, and around +its pallors a tapestry of reddish foliage, and parks. Farther away, +pastures and growing crops which are part of the demesne; farther +still, among the stripes and squares of brown earth or verdant, the +cemetery, where every year so many stones spring up. + +* * * * * * + +We have to call at Brisbille's, my aunt and I, before Church. We are +forced to tolerate him thus, so as to get our twisted key put right. I +wait for Mame in the court, sitting on a tub by the shop, which is +lifeless to-day, and full of the scattered leavings of toil. Mame is +never ready in time. She has twice appeared on the threshold in her +fine black dress and velvet cape; then, having forgotten something, she +has gone back very quickly, like a mole. Finally, she must needs go up +to my room, to cast a last glance over it. + +At last we are off, side by side. She takes my arm proudly. From time +to time she looks at me, and I at her, and her smile is an affectionate +grimace amid the sunshine. + +When we have gone a little way, my aunt stops, "You go on," she says; +"I'll catch you up." + +She has gone up to Apolline, the street-sweeper. The good woman, as +broad as she is long, was gaping on the edge of the causeway, her two +parallel arms feebly rowing in the air, an exile in the Sabbath +idleness, and awkwardly conscious of her absent broom. + +Mame brings her along, and looking back as I walk, I hear her talking +of me, hastily, as one who confides a choking secret, while Apolline +follows, with her arms swinging far from her body, limping and +outspread like a crab. + +Says Mame, "That boy's bedroom is untidy. And then, too, he uses too +many shirt-collars, and he doesn't know how to blow his nose. He +stuffs handkerchiefs into his pockets, and you find them again like +stones." + +"All the same, he's a good young man," stammers the waddling street +cleanser, brandishing her broom-bereaved hands at random, and shaking +over her swollen and many-storied boots a skirt weighted round the hem +by a coat-of-mail of dry mud. + +These confidences with which Mame is in the habit of breaking forth +before no matter whom get on my nerves. I call her with some +impatience. She starts at the command, comes up, and throws me a +martyr's glance. + +She proceeds with her nose lowered under her black hat with green +foliage, hurt that I should thus have summoned her before everybody, +and profoundly irritated. So a persevering malice awakens again in the +depths of her, and she mutters, very low, "You spat on the window the +other day!" + +But she cannot resist hooking herself again on to another interlocutor, +whose Sunday trousers are planted on the causeway, like two posts, and +his blouse as stiff as a lump of iron ore. I leave them, and go alone +into Brisbille's. + +The smithy hearth befires a workshop which bristles with black objects. +In the middle of the dark bodies of implements hanging from walls and +ceiling is the metallic Brisbille, with leaden hands, his dark apron +rainbowed with file-dust,--dirty on principle, because of his ideas, +this being Sunday. He is sober, and his face still unkindled, but he +is waiting impatiently for the church-going bell to begin, so that he +may go and drink, in complete solitude. + +Through an open square, in the ponderous and dirt-shaggy glazing of the +smithy, one can see a portion of the street, and a sketch, in bright +and airy tones, of scattered people. It is like the sharply cut field +of vision in an opera-glass, in which figures are drawn and shaded, and +cross each other; where one makes out, at times, a hat bound and +befeathered, swaying as it goes; a little boy with sky-blue tie and +buttoned boots, and tubular knickers hanging round his thin, bare +calves; a couple of gossiping dames in swollen and somber petticoats, +who tack hither and thither, meet, are mutually attracted and dissolve +in conversation, like rolling drops of ink. In the foreground of this +colored cinema which goes by and passes again, Brisbille, the sinister, +is ranting away, as always. He is red and lurid, spotted with +freckles, his hair greasy, his voice husky. For a moment, while he +paces to and fro in his cage, dragging shapeless and gaping shoes +behind him, he speaks to me in a low voice, and close to my face, in +gusts. Brisbille can shout, but not talk; there must be a definite +pressure of anger before his resounding huskiness issues from his +throat. + +Mame comes in. She sits on a stool to get her breath again, all the +while brandishing the twisted key which she clasps to the prayer-book +in her hand. Then she unburdens herself and begins to speak in fits +and starts of this key, of the mishap which twisted it, and of all the +multiple details which overlap each other in her head. But the +slipshod, gloomy smith's attention is suddenly attracted by the hole +which shows the street. + +"The lubber!" he roars. + +It is Monsieur Fontan who is passing, the wine-merchant and +cafe-proprietor. He is an expansive and imposing man, fat-covered, and +white as a house. He never says anything and is always alone. A great +personage he is; he makes money; he has amassed hundreds of thousands +of francs. At noon and in the evening he is not to be seen, having +dived into the room behind the shop, where he takes his meals in +solitude. The rest of the time he just sits at the receipt of custom +and says nothing. There is a hole in his counter where he slides the +money in. His house is filling with money from morning till night. + +"He's a money-trap," says Mame. + +"He's rich," I say. + +"And when you've said that," jeers Brisbille, "you've said all there is +to say. Why, you damned snob, you're only a poor drudge, like all us +chaps, but haven't you just got the snob's ideas?" + +I make a sign of impatience. It is not true, and Brisbille annoys me +with the hatred which he hurls at random, hit or miss; and all the more +because he is himself visibly impressed by the approach of this man who +is richer than the rest. The rebel opens his steely eye and relapses +into silence, like the rest of us, as the big person grows bigger. + +"The Boneas are even richer," my aunt murmurs. + +Monsieur Fontan passes the open door, and we can hear the breathing of +the corpulent recluse. As soon as he has carried away the enormous +overcoat that sheathes him, like the hide of a pachyderm, and is +disappearing, Brisbille begins to roar, "What a snout! Did you see it, +eh? Did you see the jaws he swings from his ears, eh? The exact +likeness of a hog!" + +Then he adds, in a burst of vulgar delight, "Luckily, we can expect +it'll all burst before long!" + +He laughs alone. Mame goes and sits apart. She detests Brisbille, who +is the personification of envy, malice and coarseness. And everybody +hates this marionette, too, for his drunkenness and his forward +notions. All the same, when there is something you want him to do, you +choose Sunday morning to call, and you linger there, knowing that you +will meet others. This has become a tradition. + +"They're going to cure little Antoinette," says Benoit, as he frames +himself in the doorway. + +Benoit is like a newspaper. He to whom nothing ever happens only lives +to announce what is happening to others. + +"I know," cries Mame, "they told me so this morning. Several people +already knew it this morning at seven. A big, famous doctor's coming +to the castle itself, for the hunting, and he only treats just the +eyes." + +"Poor little angel!" sighs a woman, who has just come in. + +Brisbille intervenes, rancorous and quarrelsome, "Yes, they're always +going to cure the child, so they say. Bad luck to them! Who cares +about her?" + +"Everybody does!" reply two incensed women, in the same breath. + +"And meanwhile," said Brisbille, viciously, "she's snuffing it." And +he chews, once more, his customary saying--pompous and foolish as the +catchword of a public meeting--"She's a victim of society!" + +Monsieur Joseph Boneas has come into Brisbille's, and he does it +complacently, for he is not above mixing with the people of the +neighborhood. Here, too, are Monsieur Pocard, and Crillon, new shaved, +his polished skin taut and shiny, and several other people. Prominent +among them one marks the wavering head of Monsieur Mielvaque, who, in +his timidity and careful respect for custom, took his hat off as he +crossed the threshold. He is only a copying-clerk at the factory; he +wears much-used and dubious linen, and a frail and orphaned jacket +which he dons for all occasions. + +Monsieur Joseph Boneas overawes me. My eyes are attracted by his +delicate profile, the dull gloom of his morning attire, and the luster +of his black gloves, which are holding a little black rectangle, +gilt-edged. + +He, too, has removed his hat. So I, in my corner discreetly remove +mine, too. + +He is a young man, refined and distinguished, who impresses by his +innate elegance. Yet he is an invalid, tormented by abscesses. One +never sees him but his neck is swollen, or his wrists enlarged by a +ghastly outcrop. But the sickly body encloses bright and sane +intelligence. I admire him because he is thoughtful and full of ideas, +and can express himself faultlessly. Recently he gave me a lesson in +sociology, touching the links between the France of to-day and the +France of tradition, a lesson on our origins whose plain perspicuity +was a revelation to me. I seek his company; I strive to imitate him, +and certainly he is not aware how much influence he has over me. + +All are attentive while he says that he is thinking of organizing a +young people's association in Viviers. Then he speaks to me, "The +farther I go the more I perceive that all men are afflicted with short +sight. They do not see, nor can they see, beyond the end of their +noses." + +"Yes," say I. + +My reply seems rather scanty, and the silence which follows repeats it +mercilessly. It seems so to him, too, no doubt, for he engages other +interlocutors, and I feel myself redden in the darkness of Brisbille's +cavern. + +Crillon is arguing with Brisbille on the matter of the recent +renovation of an old hat, which they keep handing to each other and +examine ardently. Crillon is sitting, but he keeps his eyes on it. +Heart and soul he applies himself to the debate. His humble trade as a +botcher does not allow a fixed tariff, and he is all alone as he +vindicates the value of his work. With his fists he hammers the +gray-striped mealy cloth on his knees, and the hair, which grows +thickly round his big neck, gives him the nape of a wild boar. + +"That felt," he complains, "I'll tell you what was the matter with it. +It was rain, heavy rain, that had drowned it. That felt, I tells you, +was only like a dirty handkerchief. What does _that_ represent--in +ebullition of steam, in gumming, and the passage of time?" + +Monsieur Justin Pocard is talking to three companions, who, hat in +hand, are listening with all their ears. He is entertaining them in +his sonorous language about the great financial and industrial +combination which he has planned. A speculative thrill electrifies the +company. + +"That'll brush business up!" says Crillon, in wonder, torn for a moment +from contemplation of the hat, but promptly relapsing on it. + +Joseph Boneas says to me, in an undertone,--and I am flattered,--"That +Pocard is a man of no education, but he has practical sense. That's a +big idea he's got,--at least if he sees things as I see them." + +And I, I am thinking that if I were older or more influential in the +district, perhaps I should be in the Pocard scheme, which is taking +shape, and will be huge. + +Meanwhile, Brisbille is scowling. An unconfessable disquiet is +accumulating in his bosom. All this gathering is detaining him at +home, and he is tormented by the desire for drink. He cannot conceal +his vinous longing, and squints darkly at the assembly. On a week day +at this hour he would already have begun to slake his thirst. He is +parched, he burns, he drags himself from group to group. The wait is +longer than he can stand. + +Suddenly every one looks out to the street through the still open door. + +A carriage is making its way towards the church; it has a green body +and silver lamps. The old coachman, whose great glove sways the +slender scepter of a whip, is so adorned with overlapping capes that he +suggests several men on the top of each other. The black horse is +prancing. + +"He shines like a piano," says Benoit. + +The Baroness is in the carriage. The blinds are drawn, so she cannot +be seen, but every one salutes the carriage. + +"All slaves!" mumbles Brisbille. "Look at yourselves now, just look! +All the lot of you, as soon as a rich old woman goes by, there you are, +poking your noses into the ground, showing your bald heads, and growing +humpbacked." + +"She does good," protests one of the gathering. + +"Good? Ah, yes, indeed!" gurgles the evil man, writhing as though in +the grip of some one; "I call it ostentation--that's what _I_ call it." + +Shoulders are shrugged, and Monsieur Joseph Boneas, always +self-controlled, smiles. + +Encouraged by that smile, I say, "There have always been rich people, +and there must be." + +"Of course," trumpets Crillon, "that's one of the established thoughts +that you find in your head when you fish for 'em. But mark what I +says,--there's some that dies of envy. I'm _not_ one of them that dies +of envy." + +Monsieur Mielvaque has put his hat back on his petrified head and gone +to the door. Monsieur Joseph Boneas, also, turns his back and goes +away. + +All at once Crillon cries, "There's Petrarque!" and darts outside on +the track of a big body, which, having seen him, opens its long pair of +compasses and escapes obliquely. + +"And to think," says Brisbille, with a horrible grimace, when Crillon +has disappeared, "that the scamp is a town councilor! Ah, by God!" + +He foams, as a wave of anger runs through him, swaying on his feet, and +gaping at the ground. Between his fingers there is a shapeless +cigarette, damp and shaggy, which he rolls in all directions, patching +up and resticking it unceasingly. + +Charged with snarls and bristling with shoulder-shrugs, the smith +rushes at his fire and pulls the bellows-chain, his yawning shoes +making him limp like Vulcan. At each pull the bellows send spouting +from the dust-filled throat of the furnace a cutting blue comet, lined +with crackling and dazzling white, and therein the man forges. + +Purpling as his agitation rises, nailed to his imprisoning corner, +alone of his kind, a rebel against all the immensity of things, the man +forges. + +* * * * * * + +The church bell rang, and we left him there. When I was leaving I +heard Brisbille growl. No doubt I got my quietus as well. But what +can he have imagined against _me_? + +We meet again, all mixed together in the Place de l'Eglise. In our +part of the town, except for a clan of workers whom one keeps one's eye +on, every one goes to church, men as well as women, as a matter of +propriety, out of gratitude to employers or lords of the manor, or by +religious conviction. Two streets open into the Place and two roads, +bordered with apple-trees, as well, so that these four ways lead town +and country to the Place. + +It has the shape of a heart, and is delightful. It is shaded by a very +old tree, under which justice was formerly administered. That is why +they call it the Great Tree, although there are greater ones. In +winter it is dark, like a perforated umbrella. In summer it gives the +bright green shadow of a parasol. Beside the tree a tall crucifix +dwells in the Place forever. + +The Place is swarming and undulating. Peasants from the surrounding +country, in their plain cotton caps, are waiting in the old corner of +the Rue Neuve, heaped together like eggs. These people are loaded with +provisions. At the farther end, square-paved, one picks out swarthy +outlines of the Epinal type, and faces as brightly colored as apples. +Groups of children flutter and chirrup; little girls with their dolls +play at being mothers, and little boys play at brigands. Respectable +people take their stand more ceremoniously than the common crowd, and +talk business piously. + +Farther away is the road, which April's illumination adorns all along +the lines of trees with embroidery of shadow and of gold, where +bicycles tinkle and carriages rumble echoingly; and the shining +river,--those long-drawn sheets of water, whereon the sun spreads +sheets of light and scatters blinding points. Looking along the road, +on either side of its stone-hard surface, one sees the pleasant, +cultivated earth, the bits of land sewn to each other, and many-hued, +brown or green as the billiard cloth, then paling in the distance. +Here and there, on this map in colors, copses bulge forth. The +by-roads are pricked out with trees, which follow each other artlessly +and divide the infantile littleness of orchards. + +This landscape holds us by the soul. It is a watercolor now (for it +rained a little last night), with its washed stones, its tiles +varnished anew, its roofs that are half slate and half light, its +shining pavements, water-jeweled in places, its delicately blue sky, +with clouds like silky paper; and between two house-fronts of yellow +ocher and tan, against the purple velvet of distant forests, there is +the neighboring steeple, which is like ours and yet different. Roundly +one's gaze embraces all the panorama, which is delightful as the +rainbow. + +From the Place, then, where one feels himself so abundantly at home, we +enter the church. From the depths of this thicket of lights, the good +priest murmurs the great infinite speech to us, blesses us, embraces us +severally and altogether, like father and mother both. In the manorial +pew, the foremost of all, one glimpses the Marquis of Monthyon, who has +the air of an officer, and his mother-in-law, Baroness Grille, who is +dressed like an ordinary lady. + +Emerging from church, the men go away; the women swarm out more +grudgingly and come to a standstill together; then all the buzzing +groups scatter. + +At noon the shops close. The fine ones do it unassisted; the others +close by the antics of some good man who exerts himself to carry and +fit the shutters. Then there is a great void. + +After lunch I wander in the streets. In the house I am bored, and yet +outside I do not know what to do. I have no friend and no calls to +pay. I am already too big to mingle with some, and too little yet to +associate with others. The cafes and licensed shops hum, jingle and +smoke already. I do not go to cafes, on principle, and because of that +fondness for spending nothing, which my aunt has impressed on me. So, +aimless, I walk through the deserted streets, which at every corner +yawn before my feet. The hours strike and I have the impression that +they are useless, that one will do nothing with them. + +I steer in the direction of the fine gardens which slope towards the +river. A little enviously I look over the walls at the tops of these +opulent enclosures, at the tips of those great branches where still +clings the soiled, out-of-fashion finery of last summer. + +Far from there, and a good while after, I encounter Tudor, the clerk at +the Modern Pharmacy. He hesitates and doubts, and does not know where +to go. Every Sunday he wears the same collar, with turned down +corners, and it is becoming gloomy. Arrived where I am, he stops, as +though it occurred to him that nothing was pushing him forward. A +half-extinguished cigarette vegetates in his mouth. + +He comes with me, and I take his silence in tow as far as the avenue of +plane trees. There are several figures outspaced in its level peace. +Some young girls attract my attention; they appear against the dullness +of house-fronts and against shop fronts in mourning. Some of the +charming ones are accompanied by their mothers, who look like +caricatures of them. + +Tudor has left me without my noticing it. + +Already, and slowly everywhere, the taverns begin to shine and cry out. +In the grayness of twilight one discerns a dark and mighty crowd, +gliding therein. In them gathers a sort of darkling storm, and flashes +emerge from them. + +* * * * * * + +And lo! Now the night approaches to soften the stony streets. + +Along the riverside, to which I have gone down alone, listless idylls +dimly appear,--shapes sketched in crayon, which seek and join each +other. There are couples that appear and vanish, strictly avoiding the +little light that is left. Night is wiping out colors and features and +names from both sorts of strollers. + +I notice a woman who waits, standing on the river bank. Her silhouette +has pearly-gray sky behind it, so that she seems to support the +darkness. I wonder what her name may be, but only discover the beauty +of her feminine stillness. Not far from that consummate caryatid, +among the black columns of the tall trees laid against the lave of the +blue, and beneath their cloudy branches, there are mystic enlacements +which move to and fro; and hardly can one distinguish the two halves of +which they are made, for the temple of night is enclosing them. + +The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope. Below +it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more +sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water. +The landscape has something exotic or antique about it. You are no +matter where in the world or among the centuries. You are on some +corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to +each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery. + +* * * * * * + +Dreamily I ascend again towards the sounds and the swarming of the +town. There, the Sunday evening rendezvous,--the prime concern of the +men,--is less discreet. Desire displays itself more crudely on the +pavements. Voices chatter and laughter dissolves, even through closed +doors; there are shouts and songs. + +Up there one sees clearly. Faces are discovered by the harsh light of +the gas jets and its reflection from plate-glass shop windows. Antonia +goes by, surrounded by men, who bend forward and look at her with +desire amid their clamor of conversation. She saw me, and a little +sound of appeal comes from her across the escort that presses upon her. +But I turn aside and let her go by. + +When she and her harness of men have disappeared, I smell in their wake +the odor of Petrolus. He is lamp-man at the factory. Yellow, dirty, +cadaverous, red-eyed, he smells rancid, and was, perhaps, nurtured on +paraffin. He is some one washed away. You do not see him, so much as +smell him. + +Other women are there. Many a Sunday have I, too, joined in all that +love-making. + +* * * * * * + +Among these beings who chat and take hold of each other, an isolated +woman stands like a post, and makes an empty space around her. + +It is Louise Verte. She is fearfully ugly, and she was too virtuous +formerly, at a time when, so they say, she need not have been. She +regrets this, and relates it without shame, in order to be revenged on +virtue. She would like to have a lover, but no one wants her, because +of her bony face and her scraped appearance; from a sort of eczema. +Children make sport of her, knowing her needs; for the disclosures of +their elders have left a stain on them. A five-year-old girl points +her tiny finger at Louise and twitters, "She wants a man." + +In the Place is Veron, going about aimlessly, like a dead leaf--Veron, +who revolves, when he may, round Antonia. An ungainly man, whose tiny +head leans to the right and wears a colorless smile. He lives on a few +rents and does not work. He is good and affectionate, and sometimes he +is overcome by attacks of compassion. + +Veron and Louise Verte see one another,--and each makes a detour of +avoidance. They are afraid of each other. + +Here, also, on the margin of passion, is Monsieur Joseph Boneas, very +compassionable, in spite of his intellectual superiority. Between the +turned-down brim of his hat and his swollen white kerchief,--thick as a +towel,--a mournful yellow face is stuck. + +I pity these questing solitaries who are looking for themselves! I +feel compassion to see those fruitless shadows hovering there, wavering +like ghosts, these poor wayfarers, divided and incomplete. + +Where am I? Facing the workmen's flats, whose countless windows stand +sharply out in their huge flat background. It is there that Marie +Tusson lives, whose father, a clerk at Messrs. Gozlan's, like myself, +is manager of the property. I steered to this place instinctively, +without confessing it to myself, brushing people and things without +mingling with them. + +Marie is my cousin, and yet I hardly ever see her. We just say +good-day when we meet, and she smiles at me. + +I lean against a plane tree and think of Marie. She is tall, fair, +strong and amiable, and she goes modestly clad, like a wide-hipped +Venus; her beautiful lips shine like her eyes. + +To know her so near agitates me among the shadows. If she appeared +before me as she did the last time I met her; if, in the middle of the +dark, I saw the shining radiance of her face, the swaying of her +figure, traced in silken lines, and her little sister's hand in +hers,--I should tremble. + +But that does not happen. The bluish, cold background only shows me +the two second-floor windows pleasantly warmed by lights, of which one +is, perhaps, she herself. But they take no sort of shape, and remain +in another world. + +At last my eyes leave that constellation of windows among the trees, +that vertical and silent firmament. Then I make for my home, in this +evening which comes at the end of all the days I have lived. + +* * * * * * + +Little Antoinette,--how comes it that they leave her all alone like +this?--is standing in my path and holding a hand out towards me. It is +her way that she is begging for. I guide her, ask questions and +listen, leaning over her and making little steps. But she is too +little, and too lispful, and cannot explain. Carefully I lead the +child,--who sees so feebly that already she is blind in the evening, as +far as the low door of the dilapidated dwelling where she nests. + +In my street, in front of his lantern-shaped house, with its +iron-grilled dormer, old Eudo is standing, darkly hooded, and pointed, +like the house. + +I am a little afraid of him. Assuredly, he has not got a clean +conscience. But, however guilty, he is compassionable. I stop and +speak to him. He lifts to me out of the night of his hood a face +pallid and ruined. I speak about the weather, of approaching spring. +Heedless he hears, shapes "yes" with the tip of his lips, and says, +"It's twelve years now since my wife died; twelve years that I've been +utterly alone; twelve years that I've heard the last words she said to +me." + +And the poor maniac glides farther away, hooded in his unintelligible +mourning; and certainly he does not hear me wish him good-night. + +At the back of the cold downstairs room a fire has been lighted. Mame +is sitting on the stool beside it, in the glow of the flaming coal, +outstretching her hands, clinging to the warmth. + +Entering, I see the bowl of her back. Her lean neck has a cracked look +and is white as a bone. Musingly, my aunt takes and holds a pair of +idle tongs. I take my seat. Mame does not like the silence in which I +wrap myself. She lets the tongs fall with a jangling shock, and then +begins vivaciously to talk to me about the people of the neighborhood. +"There's everything here. No need to go to Paris, nor even so much as +abroad. This part; it's a little world cut out on the pattern of the +others," she adds, proudly, wagging her worn-out head. "There aren't +many of them who've got the wherewithal and they're not of much +account. Puppets, if you like, yes. That's according to how one sees +it, because at bottom there's no puppets,--there's people that look +after themselves, because each of us always deserves to be happy, my +lad. And here, the same as everywhere, the two kinds of people that +there are--the discontented and the respectable; because, my lad, +what's always been always will be." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +EVENING AND DAWN + + +Just at the moment when I was settling down to audit the Sesmaisons' +account--I remember that detail--there came an unusual sound of steps +and voices, and before I could even turn round I heard a voice through +the glass door say, "Monsieur Paulin's aunt is very ill." + +The sentence stuns me. I am standing, and some one is standing +opposite me. A draught shuts the door with a bang. + +Both of us set off. It is Benoit who has come to fetch me. We hurry. +I breathe heavily. Crossing the busy factory, we meet acquaintances +who smile at me, not knowing the turn of affairs. + +The night is cold and nasty, with a keen wind. The sky drips with +rain. We jump over puddles as we walk. I stare fixedly at Benoit's +square shoulders in front of me, and the dancing tails of his coat as +the wind hustles them along the nocturnal way. + +Passing through the suburban quarter, the wind comes so hard between +the infrequent houses that the bushes on either side shiver and press +towards us, and seem to unfurl. Ah, we are not made for the greater +happenings! + +* * * * * * + +I meet first in the room the resounding glare of a wood fire and an +almost repelling heat. The odors of camphor and ether catch my throat. +People that I know are standing round the bed. They turn to me and +speak all together. + +I bend down to look at Mame. She is inlaid upon the whiteness of the +bed, which is motionless as marble. Her face is sunk in the cavity of +the pillow. Her eyes are half closed and do not move; her skin has +darkened. Each breath hums in her throat, and beyond that slight +stirring of larynx and lips her little frail body moves no more than a +doll's. She has not got her cap on and her gray hair is unraveled on +her head like flocks of dust. + +Several voices at once explain to me that it is "double congestion, and +her heart as well." She was attacked by a dizziness, by prolonged and +terrible shivering. She wandered, mentioned me, then suddenly +collapsed. The doctor has no hope but is coming back. The Reverend +Father Piot was here at five. + +Silence hovers. A woman puts a log in the fire, in the center of the +dazzling cluster of snarling flames, whose light throws the room into +total agitation. + +* * * * * * + +For a long time I look upon that face, where ugliness and goodness are +mingled in such a heartrending way. My eyes seek those already almost +shut, whose light is hardening. Something of darkness, an internal +shadow which is of herself, overspreads and disfigures her. One may +see now how outworn she was, how miraculously she still held on. + +This tortured and condemned woman is all that has looked after me for +twenty years. For twenty years she took my hand before she took my +arm. She always prevented me from understanding that I was an orphan. +Delicate and small as I was for so long, she was taller and stronger +and better than I! And at this moment, which shows me the past again +in one glance, I remember that she beautified the affairs of my +childhood like an old magician; and my head goes lower as I think of +her untiring admiration for me. How she did love me! And she must +love me still, confusedly, if some glimmering light yet lasts in the +depths of her. What will become of me--all alone? + +She was so sensitive, and so restless! A hundred details of her +vivacity come to life again in my eyes. Stupidly, I contemplate the +poker, the tongs, the big spoon--all the things she used to flourish as +she chattered. There they are--fallen, paralyzed, mute! + +As in a dream I go back to the times when she talked and shouted, to +days of youth, to days of spring and of springtime dresses; and all the +while my gaze, piercing that gay and airy vision, settles on the dark +stain of the hand that lies there like the shadow of a hand, on the +sheet. + +My eyes are jumbling things together. I see our garden in the first +fine days of the year; our garden--it is behind that wall--so narrow is +it that the reflected sunshine from our two windows dapples the whole +of it; so small that it only holds some pot-encaged plants, except for +the three currant bushes which have always been there. In the scarves +of the sun rays a bird--a robin--is hopping on the twigs like a rag +jewel. All dusty in the sunshine our red hound, Mirliton, is warming +himself. So gaunt is he you feel sure he must be a fast runner. +Certainly he runs after glimpsed rabbits on Sundays in the country, but +he never caught any. He never caught anything but fleas. When I lag +behind because of my littleness my aunt turns round, on the edge of the +footpath, and holds out her arms, and I run to her, and she stoops as I +come and calls me by my name. + +* * * * * * + +"Simon! Simon!" + +A woman is here. I wrench myself from the dream which had come into +the room and taken solidity before me. I stand up; it is my cousin +Marie. + +She offers me her hands among the candles which flutter by the bed. In +their poor starlight her face appears haggard and wet. My aunt loved +her. Her lips are trembling on her rows of sparkling teeth; the whole +breadth of her bosom heaves quickly. + +I have sunk again into the armchair. Memories flow again, while the +sick woman's breathing is longer drawn, and her stillness becomes more +and more inexorable. Things she used to say return to my lips. Then +my eyes are raised, and look for Marie, and turn upon her. + +* * * * * * + +She has leaned against the wall, and remains so--overcome. She invests +the corner where she stands with something like profane and sumptuous +beauty. Her changeful chestnut hair, like bronze and gold, forms moist +and disordered scrolls on her forehead and her innocent cheeks. Her +neck, especially, her white neck, appears to me. The atmosphere is so +choking, so visibly heavy, that it enshrouds us as if the room were on +fire, and she has loosened the neck of her dress, and her throat is +lighted up by the flaming logs. I smile weakly at her. My eyes wander +over the fullness of her hips and her outspread shoulders, and fasten, +in that downfallen room, on her throat, white as dawn. + +* * * * * * + +The doctor has been again. He stood some time in silence by the bed; +and as he looked our hearts froze. He said it would be over to-night, +and put the phial in his hand back in his pocket. Then, regretting +that he could not stay, he disappeared. + +And we stayed on beside the dying woman--so fragile that we dare not +touch her, nor even try to speak to her. + +Madame Piot settles down in a chair; she crosses her arms, lowers her +head, and the time goes by. + +At long intervals people take shape in the darkness by the door; people +who come in on tiptoe whisper to us and go away. + +The moribund moves her hands and feet and contorts her face. A +gurgling comes from her throat, which we can hardly see in the cavity +that is like a nest of shadow under her chin. She has blenched, and +the skin that is drawn over the bones of her face like a shroud grows +whiter every moment. + +Intent upon her breathing, we throng about her. We offer her our +hands--so near and so far--and do not know what to do. + +I am watching Marie. She has sunk onto the little stool, and her +young, full-blooming body overflows it. Holding her handkerchief in +her teeth, she has come to arrange the pillow, and leaning over the +bed, she puts one knee on a chair. The movement reveals her leg for a +moment, curved like a beautiful Greek vase, while the skin seems to +shine through the black transparency of the stocking, like clouded +gold. Ah! I lean forward towards her with a stifled, incipient appeal +above this bed, which is changing into a tomb. The border of the +tragic dress has fallen again, but I cannot remove my eyes from that +profound obscurity. I look at Marie, and look at her again; and though +I knew her, it seems to me that I wholly discover her. + +"I can't hear anything now," says a woman. + +"Yes I can----" + +"No, no!" the other repeats. + +Then I see Crillon's huge back bending over. My aunt's mouth opens +gently and remains open. The eyelids fall back almost completely upon +the stiffened gleam of the eyes, which squint in the gray and bony +mask. I see Crillon's big hand hover over the little mummified face, +lowering the eyelids and keeping them closed. + +Marie utters a cry when this movement tells her that our aunt has just +died. + +She sways. My hand goes out to her. I take her, support, and enfold +her. Fainting, she clings to me, and for one moment I carry--gently, +heavily--all the young woman's weight. The neck of her dress is +undone, and falls like foliage from her throat, and I just saw the real +curve of her bosom, nakedly and distractedly throbbing. + +Her body is agitated. She hides her face in her hands and then turns +it to mine. It chanced that our faces met, and my lips gathered the +wonderful savor of her tears! + +* * * * * * + +The room fills with lamentation; there is a continuous sound of deep +sighing. It is overrun by neighbors become friends, to whom no one +pays attention. + +And now, in this sacred homelet, where death still bleeds, I cannot +prevent a heavy heart-beat in me towards the girl who is prostrated +like the rest, but who reigns there, in spite of me--of herself--of +everything. I feel myself agitated by an obscure and huge rapture--the +birth of my flesh and my vitals among these shadows. Beside this poor +creature who was so blended with me, and who is falling, falling, +through a hell of eternity, I am uplifted by a sort of hope. + +I want to fix my attention on the fixity of the bed. I put my hand +over my eyes to shut out all thought save of the dead woman, +defenseless already, reclining on that earth into which she will sink. +But my looks, impelled by superhuman curiosity, escape between my +fingers to this other woman, half revealed to me in the tumult of +sorrow, and my eyes cannot come out of her. + +Madame Piot has changed the candles and attached a band to support the +dead woman's chin. Framed in this napkin, which is knotted over the +skull in her woolly gray hair, the face looks like a hook-nosed mask of +green bronze, with a vitrified line of eyes; the knees make two sharp +summits under the sheet; one's eyes run along the thin rods of the +shins and the feet lift the linen like two in-driven nails. + +Slowly Marie prepares to go. She has closed the neck of her dress and +hidden herself in her cloak. She comes up to me, sore-hearted, and +with her tears for a moment quenched she smiles at me without speaking. +I half rise, my hands tremble towards her smile as if to touch it, +above the past and the dust of my second mother. + +Towards the end of the night, when the dead fire is scattering +chilliness, the women go away one by one. One hour, two hours, I +remain alone. I pace the room in one direction and another, then I +look, and shiver. My aunt is no more. There is only left of her +something indistinct, struck down, of subterranean color, and her place +is desolate. Now, close to her, I am alone! Alone--magnified by my +affliction, master of my future, disturbed and numbed by the newness of +the things now beginning. At last the window grows pale, the ceiling +turns gray, and the candle-flames wink in the first traces of light. + +I shiver without end. In the depth of my dawn, in the heart of this +room where I have always been, I recall the image of a woman who filled +it--a woman standing at the chimney-corner, where a gladsome fire +flames, and she is garbed in reflected purple, her corsage scarlet, her +face golden, as she holds to the glow those hands transparent and +beautiful as flames. In the darkness, from my vigil, I look at her. + +* * * * * * + +The two nights which followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at +the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give +animation to dead things. During the two days various activities +brought me distraction, at first distressing, then depressing. + +The last night I opened my aunt's jewel box. It was called "the little +box." It was on the dressing table, at the bottom of piled-up litter. +I found some topaz ear-rings of a bygone period, a gold cross, equally +outdistanced, small and slender--a little girl's, or a young girl's; +and then, wrapped in tissue paper, like a relic, a portrait of myself +when a child. Last, a written page, torn from one of my old school +copy-books, which she had not been able to throw wholly away. +Transparent at the folds, the worn sheet was fragile as lace, and gave +the illusion of being equally precious. That was all the treasure my +aunt had collected. That jewel box held the poverty of her life and +the wealth of her heart. + +* * * * * * + +It poured with rain on the day of the funeral. All the morning groups +of people succeeded each other in the big cavern of our room, a going +and coming of sighs. My aunt was laid in her coffin towards two +o'clock, and it was carried then into the passage, where visitors' feet +had brought dirt and puddles. A belated wreath was awaited, and then +the umbrellas opened, and under their black undulation the procession +moved off. + +When we came out of the church it was not far off four o'clock. The +rain had not stopped and little rivers dashed down from either side of +the procession's sluggish flow along the street. There were many +flowers, so that the hearse made a blot of relief, beautiful enough. +There were many people, too, and I turned round several times. Always +I saw old Eudo, in his black cowl, hopping along in the mud, +hunchbacked as a crow. Marie was walking among some women in the +second half of the file, whose frail and streaming roof the hearse drew +along irregularly with jerks and halts. Her gait was jaded; she was +thinking only of our sorrow! All things darkened again to my eyes in +the ugliness of the evening. + +The cemetery is full of mud under the muslin of fallen rain, and the +footfalls make a sticky sound in it. There are a few trees, naked and +paralyzed. The sky is marshy and sprinkled with crows. + +The coffin, with its shapeless human form, is lowered from the hearse +and disappears in the fresh earth. + +They march past. Marie and her father take their places beside me. I +say thanks to every one in the same tone; they are all like each other, +with their gestures of impotence, their dejected faces, the words they +get ready and pour out as they pass before me, and their dark costume. +No one has come from the castle, but in spite of that there are many +people and they all converge upon me. I pluck up courage. + +Monsieur Lucien Gozlan comes forward, calls me "my dear sir," and +brings me the condolences of his uncles, while the rest watch us. + +Joseph Boneas says "my dear friend" to me, and that affects me deeply. +Monsieur Pocard says, "If I had been advised in time I would have said +a few words. It is regrettable----" + +Others follow; then nothing more is to be seen in the rain, the wind +and the gloom but backs. + +"It's finished. Let's go." + +Marie lifts to me her sorrow-laved face. She is sweet; she is +affectionate; she is unhappy; but she does not love me. + +We go away in disorder, along by the trees whose skeletons the winter +has blackened. + +When we arrive in our quarter, twilight has invaded the streets. We +hear gusts of talk about the Pocard scheme. Ah, how fiercely people +live and seek success! + +Little Antoinette, cautiously feeling her way by a big wall, hears us +pass. She stops and would look if she could. We espy her figure in +that twilight of which she is beginning to make a part, though fine and +faint as a pistil. + +"Poor little angel!" says a woman, as she goes by. + +Marie and her father are the only ones left near me when we pass +Rampaille's tavern. Some men who were at the funeral are sitting at +tables there, black-clad. + +We reach my home; Marie offers me her hand, and we hesitate. "Come +in." + +She enters. We look at the dead room; the floor is wet, and the wind +blows through as if we were out of doors. Both of us are crying, and +she says, "I will come to-morrow and tidy up. Till then----" + +We take each other's hand in confused hesitation. + +* * * * * * + +A little later there is a scraping at the door, then a timid knock, and +a long figure appears. + +It is Veron who presents himself with an awkward air. His tall and +badly jointed body swings like a hanging signboard. He is an original +and sentimental soul, but no one has ever troubled to find out what he +is. He begins, "My young friend--hum, hum--" (he repeats this formless +sound every two or three words, like a sort of clock with a sonorous +tick)--"One may be wanting money, you know, for something--hum, hum; +you need money, perhaps--hum, hum; all this expense--and I'd said to +myself 'I'll take him some----'" + +He scrutinizes me as he repeats, "Hum, hum." I shake his hand with +tears in my eyes. I do not need money, but I know I shall never forget +that action; so good, so supernatural. + +And when he has swung himself out, abashed by my refusal, embarrassed +by the unusual size of his legs and his heart, I sit down in a corner, +seized with shivering. Then I obliterate myself in another corner, +equally forlorn. It seems as if Marie has gone away with all I have. +I am in mourning and I am all alone, because of her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARIE + + +The seat leans against the gray wall, at the spot where a rose tree +hangs over it, and the lane begins to slope to the river. I asked +Marie to come, and I am waiting for her in the evening. + +When I asked her--in sudden decision after so many days of +hesitation--to meet me here this evening, she was silent, astonished. +But she did not refuse; she did not answer. Some people came and she +went away. I am waiting for her, after that prayer. + +Slowly I stroll to the river bank. When I return some one is on the +seat, enthroned in the shadow. The face is indistinct, but in the +apparel of mourning I can see the neck-opening, like a faint pale +heart, and the misty expansion of the skirt. Stooping, I hear her low +voice, "I've come, you see." And, "Marie!" I say. + +I sit down beside her, and we remain silent. She is there--wholly. +Through her black veils I can make out the whiteness of her face and +neck and hands--all her beauty, like light enclosed. + +For me she had only been a charming picture, a passer-by, one apart, +living her own life. Now she has listened to me; she has come at my +call; she has brought herself here. + +* * * * * * + +The day has been scorching. Towards the end of the afternoon +storm-rain burst over the world and then ceased. One can still hear +belated drops falling from the branches which overhang the wall. The +air is charged with odors of earth and leaves and flowers, and wreaths +of wind go heavily by. + +She is the first to speak; she speaks of one thing and another. + +I do not know what she is saying; I draw nearer to see her lips; I +answer her, "I am always thinking of you." + +Hearing these words, she is silent. Her silence grows greater and +greater in the shadows. I have drawn still nearer; so near that I feel +on my cheek the wing-beat of her breath; so near that her silence +caresses me. + +Then, to keep myself in countenance, or to smoke, I have struck a +match, but I make no use of the gleam at my finger-tips. It shows me +Marie, quivering a little; it gilds her pale face. A smile arises on +her face; I have seen her full of that smile. + +My eyes grow dim and my hands tremble. I wish she would speak. + +"Tell me----" Her down-bent neck unfolds, and she lifts her head to +speak. At that moment, by the light of the flame that I hold, whose +great revealing kindness I am guarding, our eyes fall on an inscription +scratched in the wall--a heart--and inside it two initials, H-S. Ah, +that design was made by me one evening. Little Helen was lolling there +then, and I thought I adored her. For a moment I am overpowered by +this apparition of a mistake, bygone and forgotten. Marie does not +know; but seeing those initials, and divining a presence between us, +she dare not speak. + +As the match is on the point of going out I throw it down. The little +flame's last flicker has lighted up for me the edge of the poor black +serge skirt, so worn that it shines a little, even in the evening, and +has shown me the girl's shoe. There is a hole in the heel of the +stocking, and we have both seen it. In quick shame, Marie draws her +foot under her skirt; and I--I tremble still more that my eyes have +touched a little of her maiden flesh, a fragment of her real innocence. + +Gently she stands up in the grayness, and puts an end to this first +fate-changing meeting. + +We return. The obscurity is outstretched all around and against us. +Together and alone we go into the following chambers of the night. My +eyes follow the sway of her body in her dress against the vaguely +luminous background of the wall. Amid the night her dress is night +also; she is there--wholly! There is a singing in my ears; an anthem +fills the world. + +In the street, where there are no more wayfarers, she walks on the edge +of the causeway. So that my face may be on a level with hers, I walk +beside her in the gutter, and the cold water enters my boots. + +And that evening, inflated by mad longing, I am so triumphantly +confident that I do not even remember to shake her hand. By her door I +said to her, "To-morrow," and she answered, "Yes." + +On one of the days which followed, finding myself free in the +afternoon, I made my way to the great populous building of flats where +she lives. I ascended two dark flights of steps, closely encaged, and +followed a long elbowed corridor. Here it is. I knock and enter. +Complete silence greets me. There is no one, and acute disappointment +runs through me. + +I take some hesitant steps in the tiny vestibule, which is lighted by +the glass door to the kitchen, wherein I hear the drip of water. I see +a room whose curtains invest it with broidered light. There is a bed +in it, with a cover of sky-blue satinette shining like the blue of a +chromo. It is Marie's room! Her gray silk hat, rose-trimmed, hangs +from a nail on the flowery paper. She has not worn it since my aunt's +death; and alongside hang black dresses. I enter this bright blue +sanctuary, inhabited only by a cold and snow-like light, and orderly +and chaste as a picture. + +My hand goes out like a thief's. I touch, I stroke these dresses, +which are wont to touch Marie. I turn again to the blue-veiled bed. +On a whatnot there are books, and their titles invite me; for where her +thoughts dwell, the things which occupy her mind--but I leave them. I +would rather go near her bed. With a movement at once mad, frightened +and trembling, I lift the quilts that clothe it and my gaze enters it, +and my knees lean trembling on the edge of this great lifeless thing, +which, alone among dead things, is one of soft and supple flesh. + +* * * * * * + +My customary life continues and my work is always the same. I make +notes, by the way, of Crillon's honest trivialities; of Brisbille's +untimely outbursts; of the rumors anent the Pocard scheme, and the +progress of the Association of Avengers, a society to promote national +awakening, founded by Monsieur Joseph Boneas. The same complex and +monotonous existence bears me along as it does everybody. But since +that tragic night when my sorrow was transformed into joy at the +lyke-wake in the old room, in truth the world is no longer what it was. +People and things appear to me shadowy and distant when I go out into +the current of the crowds; when I am dressing in my room and decide +that I look well in black; when I sit up late at my table in the +sunshine of hope. Now and again the memory of my aunt comes bodily +back to me. Sometimes I hear people pronounce the name of Marie. My +body starts when it hears them say "Marie," who know not what they say. +And there are moments when our separation throbs so warmly that I do +not know whether she is here or absent. + +* * * * * * + +During this walk that we have just had together the summer and the +sweetness of living have weighed more than ever on my shoulders. Her +huge home, which is such a swarming hive at certain times, is now +immensely empty in the labyrinth of its dark stairs and the landings, +whence issue the narrow closed streets of its corridors, and where in +the corners taps drip upon drain-stones. Our immense--our naked +solitude pervades us. An exquisite emotion takes hold of me while we +are slowly climbing the steep and methodical way. There is something +human in the stairway; in the inevitable shapes of its spiral and its +steps cut out of the quick, in the rhythmic repetition of its steps. A +round skylight pierces the sloping roof up there, and it is the only +light for this part of the people's house, this poor internal city. +The darkness which runs down the walls of the well, whence we are +striving to emerge step by step, conceals our laborious climb towards +that gap of daylight. Shadowed and secret as we are, it seems to me +that we are mounting to heaven. + +Oppressed by a common languor, we at last sat down side by side on a +step. There is no sound in the building under the one round window +bending over us. We lean on each other because of the stair's +narrowness. Her warmth enters into me; I feel myself agitated by that +obscure light which radiates from her. I share with her the heat of +her body and her thought itself. The darkness deepens round us. +Hardly can I see the crouching girl there, warm and hollowed like a +nest. + +I call her by her name, very quietly, and it is as though I made a loud +avowal! She turns, and it seems that this is the first time I have +seen her naked face. "Kiss me," she says; and without speaking we +stammer, and murmur, and laugh. + +* * * * * * + +Together we are looking at a little square piece of paper. I found it +on the seat which the rose-tree overhangs on the edge of the downward +lane. Carefully folded, it had a forgotten look, and it was waiting +there, detained for a moment by its timorous weight. A few lines of +careful writing cover it. We read it: + + "I do not know how speaks the pious heart; nothing I know; th' +enraptured martyr I. Only I know the tears that brimming start, your +beauty blended with your smile to espy." + +Then, having read it, we read it again, moved by a mysterious +influence. And we finger the chance-captured paper, without knowing +what it is, without understanding very well what it says. + +* * * * * * + +When I asked her to go with me to the cemetery that Sunday, she agreed, +as she does to all I ask her. I watched her arms brush the roses as +she came in through the gardens. We walked in silence; more and more +we are losing the habit of talking to each other. We looked at the +latticed and flower-decked square where our aunt sleeps--the garden +which is only as big as a woman. Returning from the cemetery by way of +the fields, the sun already low, we join hands, seized with triumphant +delight. + +She is wearing a dress of black delaine, and the skirt, the sleeves and +the collar wave in the breeze. Sometimes she turns her radiant face to +me and it seems to grow still brighter when she looks at me. Slightly +stooping, she walks, though among the grass and flowers whose tints and +grace shine in reflection on her forehead and cheeks, she is a +giantess. A butterfly precedes us on our path and alights under our +eyes, but when we come up it takes wing again, and comes down a little +farther and begins all over again; and we smile at the butterfly that +thinks of us. + +Inlaid with gold by the slanting sun we lead each other, hand in hand, +as far as the statue of Flora, which once upon a time a lord of the +manor raised on the fringe of the wood. Against the abiding background +of distant heights the goddess stands, half-naked, in the beautiful +ripe light. Her fair hips are draped with a veil of still whiter +stone, like a linen garment. Before the old moss-mellowed pedestal I +pressed Marie desperately to my heart. Then, in the sacred solitude of +the wood, I put my hands upon her, and so that she might be like the +goddess I unfastened her black bodice, lowered the ribbon +shoulder-straps of her chemise, and laid bare her wide and rounded +bosom. + +She yielded to the adoration with lowered head, and her eyes +magnificently troubled, red-flushing with blood and sunshine. + +I put my lips on hers. Until that day, whenever I kissed her, her lips +submitted. This time she gave me back my long caress, and even her +eyes closed upon it. Then she stands there with her hands crossed on +her glorious throat, her red, wet lips ajar. She stands there, apart, +yet united to me, and her heart on her lips. + +She has covered her bosom again. The breeze is suddenly gusty. The +apple trees in the orchards are shaken and scatter bird-like jetsam in +space; and in that bright green paddock yonder the rows of out-hung +linen dance in the sunshine. The sky darkens; the wind rises and +prevails. It was that very day of the gale. It assaults our two +bodies on the flank of the hill; it comes out of infinity and sets +roaring the tawny forest foliage. We can see its agitation behind the +black grille of the trunks. It makes us dizzy to watch the swift +displacement of the gray-veiled sky, and from cloud to cloud a bird +seems hurled, like a stone. We go down towards the bottom of the +valley, clinging to the slope, an offering to the deepest breath of +heaven, driven forward yet holding each other back. + +So, gorged with the gale and deafened by the universal concert of space +that goes through our ears, we find sanctuary on the river bank. The +water flows between trees whose highest foliage is intermingled. By a +dark footpath, soft and damp, under the ogive of the branches, we +follow this crystal-paved cloister of green shadow. We come on a +flat-bottomed boat, used by the anglers. I make Marie enter it, and it +yields and groans under her weight. By the strokes of two old oars we +descend the current. + +It seems to our hearts and our inventing eyes that the banks take +flight on either side--it is the scenery of bushes and trees which +retreats. _We_--we abide! But the boat grounds among tall reeds. +Marie is half reclining and does not speak. I draw myself towards her +on my knees, and the boat quivers as I do. Her face in silence calls +me; she calls me wholly. With her prostrate body, surrendered and +disordered, she calls me. + +I possess her--she is mine! In sublime docility she yields to my +violent caress. Now she is mine--mine forever! Henceforth let what +may befall; let the years go by and the winters follow the summers, she +is mine, and my life is granted me! Proudly I think of the great and +famous lovers whom we resemble. I perceive that there is no recognized +law which can stand against the might of love. And under the transient +wing of the foliage, amid the continuous recessional of heaven and +earth, we repeat "never"; we repeat "always"; and we proclaim it to +eternity. + +* * * * * * + +The leaves are falling; the year draws near to its end; the wedding is +arranged to take place about Christmas. + +That decision was mine; Marie said "yes," as usual, and her father, +absorbed all the day in figures, would emerge from them at night, like +a shipwrecked man, seeing darkly, passive, except on rare occasions +when he had fits of mad obstinacy, and no one knew why. + +In the early morning sometimes, when I was climbing Chestnut Hill on my +way to work, Marie would appear before me at a corner, in the pale and +blushing dawn. We would walk on together, bathed in those fresh fires, +and would watch the town at our feet rising again from its ashes. Or, +on my way back, she would suddenly be there, and we would walk side by +side towards her home. We loved each other too much to be able to +talk. A very few words we exchanged just to entwine our voices, and in +speaking of other people we smiled at each other. + +One day, about that time, Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon had the +kindly thought of asking us both to an evening party at the castle, +with several leading people of our quarter. When all the guests were +gathered in a huge gallery, adorned with busts which sat in state +between high curtains of red damask, the Marquis took it into his head +to cut off the electricity. In a lordly way he liked heavy practical +jokes--I was just smiling at Marie, who was standing near me in the +middle of the crowded gallery, when suddenly it was dark. I put out my +arms and drew her to me. She responded with a spirit she had not shown +before, our lips met more passionately than ever, and our single body +swayed among the invisible, ejaculating throng that elbowed and jostled +us. The light flashed again. We had loosed our hold. Ah, it was not +Marie whom I had clasped! The woman fled with a stifled exclamation of +shame and indignation towards him who she believed had embraced her, +and who had seen nothing. Confused, and as though still blind, I +rejoined Marie, but I was myself again with difficulty. In spite of +all, that kiss which had suddenly brought me in naked contact with a +complete stranger remained to me an extraordinary and infernal delight. +Afterwards, I thought I recognized the woman by her blue dress, half +seen at the same time as the gleam of her neck after that brief and +dazzling incident. But there were three of them somewhat alike. I +never knew which of those unknown women concealed within her flesh the +half of the thrill that I could not shake off all the evening. + +* * * * * * + +There was a large gathering at the wedding. The Marquis and +Marchioness of Monthyon appeared at the sacristy. Brisbille, by good +luck, stayed away. Good sectarian that he was, he only acknowledged +civil marriages. I was a little shamefaced to see march past, taking +their share of the fine and tranquil smile distributed by Marie, some +women who had formerly been my mistresses--Madame Lacaille, nervous, +subtle, mystical; big Victorine and her good-natured rotundity, who had +welcomed me any time and anywhere; and Madeleine Chaine; and slender +Antonia above all, with the Italian woman's ardent and theatrical face, +ebony-framed, and wearing a hat of Parisian splendor. For Antonia is +very elegant since she married Veron. I could not help wincing when I +saw that lanky woman, who had clung to me in venturesome rooms, now +assiduous around us in her ceremonious attire. But how far off and +obliterated all that was! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DAY BY DAY + + +We rearranged the house. We did not alter the general arrangement, nor +the places of the heavy furniture--that would have been too great a +change. But we cast out all the dusty old stuff, the fossilized and +worthless knick-knacks that Mame had accumulated. The photographs on +the walls, which were dying of jaundice and debility, and which no +longer stood for anybody, because of the greatness of time, we cleared +out of their imitation tortoiseshell and buried in the depths of +drawers. + +I bought some furniture, and as we sniffed the odor of varnish which +hung about for a long time in the lower room, we said, "This is the +real thing." And, indeed, our home was pretty much like the +middle-class establishments of our quarter and everywhere. Is it not +the only really proud moment here on earth, when we can say, "I, too!" + +Years went by. There was nothing remarkable in our life. When I came +home in the evening, Marie, who often had not been out and had kept on +her dressing-gown and plaits, used to say, "There's been nothing to +speak of to-day." + +The aeroplanes were appearing at that time. We talked about them, and +saw photographs of them in the papers. One Sunday we saw one from our +window. We had heard the chopped-up noise of its engine expanding over +the sky; and down below, the townsfolk on their doorsteps, raised their +heads towards the ceiling of their streets. Rattling space was marked +with a dot. We kept our eyes on it and saw the great flat and noisy +insect grow bigger and bigger, silhouetting the black of its angles and +partitioned lines against the airy wadding of the clouds. When its +headlong flight had passed, when it had dwindled in our eyes and ears +amid the new world of sounds, which it drew in its train, Marie sighed +dreamily. + +"I would like," she said, "to go up in an aeroplane, into the +wind--into the sky!" + +One spring we talked a lot about a trip we would take some day. Some +railway posters had been stuck on the walls of the old tin works, that +the Pocard scheme was going to transfigure. We looked at them the day +they were freshly brilliant in their wet varnish and their smell of +paste. We preferred the bill about Corsica, which showed seaside +landscapes, harbors with picturesque people in the foreground and a +purple mountain behind, all among garlands. And later, even when +stiffened and torn and cracking in the wind, that poster attracted us. + +One evening, in the kitchen, when we had just come in--there are +memories which mysteriously outlive the rest--and Marie was lighting +the fire, with her hat on and her hands wiped out in the twilight by +the grime of the coal, she said, "We'll make that trip later!" + +Sometimes it happened that we went out, she and I, during the week. I +looked about me and shared my thoughts with her. Never very talkative, +she would listen to me. Coming out of the Place de l'Eglise, which +used to affect us so much not long ago, we often used to meet Jean and +Genevieve Trompson, near the sunken post where an old jam pot lies on +the ground. Everybody used to say of these two, "They'll separate, +you'll see; that's what comes of loving each other too much; it was +madness, I always said so." And hearing these things, unfortunately +true, Marie would murmur, with a sort of obstinate gentleness, "Love is +sacred." + +Returning, not far from the anachronistic and clandestine Eudo's lair, +we used to hear the coughing parrot. That old bird, worn threadbare, +and of a faded green hue, never ceased to imitate the fits of coughing +which two years before had torn Adolphe Piot's lungs, who died in the +midst of his family under such sad circumstances. Those days we would +return with our ears full of the obstinate clamor of that recording +bird, which had set itself fiercely to immortalize the noise that +passed for a moment through the world, and toss the echoes of an +ancient calamity, of which everybody had ceased to think. + +Almost the only people about us are Marthe, my little sister-in-law, +who is six years old, and resembles her sister like a surprising +miniature; my father-in-law, who is gradually annihilating himself; and +Crillon. This last lives always contented in the same shop while time +goes by, like his father and his grandfather, and the cobbler of the +fable, his eternal ancestor. Under his square cap, on the edge of his +glazed niche, he soliloquizes, while he smokes the short and juicy pipe +which joins him in talking and spitting--indeed, he seems to be +answering it. A lonely toiler, his lot is increasingly hard, and +almost worthless. He often comes in to us to do little jobs--mend a +table leg, re-seat a chair, replace a tile. Then he says, "There's +summat I must tell you----" + +So he retails the gossip of the district, for it is against his +conscience, as he frankly avows, to conceal what he knows. And Heaven +knows, there is gossip enough in our quarter!--a complete network, +above and below, of quarrels, intrigues and deceptions, woven around +man, woman and the public in general. One says, "It _can't_ be true!" +and then thinks about something else. + +And Crillon, in face of all this perversity, all this wrong-doing, +smiles! I like to see that happy smile of innocence on the lowly +worker's face. He is better than I, and he even understands life +better, with his unfailing good sense. + +I say to him, "But are there not any bad customs and vices? +Alcoholism, for instance?" + +"Yes," says Crillon, "as long as you don't exarrergate it. I don't +like exarrergations, and I find as much of it among the pestimists as +among the opticions. Drink, you say! It's chiefly that folks haven't +enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that +drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if +they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified +silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it +is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against +Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse +than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille weren't the anarchist he is +and frightening everybody, I'd excuse him his dirty nose and even not +taking it out of a pint pot all the week through. It isn't a crime, +isn't only being a good boozer. We've got to look ahead and have a +broad spirit, as Monsieur Joseph says. Tolerantness! We all want it, +eh?" + +"You're a good sort," I say. + +"I'm a man, like everybody," proudly replies Crillon. "It's not that I +hold by accustomary ideas; I'm not an antiquitary, but I don't like to +single-arise myself. If I'm a botcher in life, it's cos I'm the same +as others--no less," he says, straightening up. And standing still +more erect, he adds, "_Nor_ no more, neither!" + +When we are not chatting we read aloud. There is a very fine library +at the factory, selected by Madame Valentine Gozlan from works of an +educational or moral kind, for the use of the staff. Marie, whose +imagination goes further afield than mine, and who has not my +anxieties, directs the reading. She opens a book and reads aloud while +I take my ease, looking at the pastel portrait which hangs just +opposite the window. On the glass which entombs the picture I see the +gently moving and puffing reflection of the fidgety window curtains, +and the face of that glazed portrait becomes blurred with broken +streaks and all kinds of wave marks. + +"Ah, these adventures!" Marie sometimes sighs, at the end of a chapter; +"these things that never happen!" + +"Thank Heaven," I cry. + +"Alas," she replies. + +Even when people live together they differ more than they think! + +At other times Marie reads to herself, quite silently. I surprise her +absorbed in this occupation. It even happens that she applies herself +thus to poetry. In her set and stooping face her eyes come and go over +the abbreviated lines of the verses. From time to time she raises them +and looks up at the sky, and--vastly further than the visible sky--at +all that escapes from the little cage of words. + +And sometimes we are lightly touched with boredom. + +* * * * * * + +One evening Marie informed me that the canary was dead, and she began +to cry, as she showed me the open cage and the bird which lay at the +bottom, with its feet curled up, as rumpled and stark as the little +yellow plaything of a doll. I sympathized with her sorrow; but her +tears were endless, and I found her emotion disproportionate. + +"Come now," I said, "after all, a bird's only a bird, a mere point that +moved a little in a corner of the room. What then? What about the +thousands of birds that die, and the people that die, and the poor?" +But she shook her head, insisted on grieving, tried to prove to me that +it was momentous and that she was right. + +For a moment I stood bewildered by this want of understanding; this +difference between her way of feeling and mine. It was a disagreeable +revelation of the unknown. One might often, in regard to small +matters, make a multitude of reflections if one wished; but one does +not wish. + +* * * * * * + +My position at the factory and in our quarter is becoming gradually +stronger. By reason of a regular gratuity which I received, we are at +last able to put money aside each month, like everybody. + +"I say!" cried Crillon, pulling me outside with him, as I was coming in +one evening; "I must let you know that you've been spoken of +spontanially for the Town Council at the next renewment. They're +making a big effort, you know. Monsieur the Marquis is going to stand +for the legislative elections--but we've walked into the other +quarter," said Crillon, stopping dead. "Come back, come back." + +We turned right-about-face. + +"This patriotic society of Monsieur Joseph," Crillon went on, "has done +a lot of harm to the anarchists. We've all got to let 'em feel our +elbows, that's necessential. You've got a foot in the factory, eh? +You see the workmen; have a crack of talk with 'em. You ingreasiate +yourself with 'em, so's some of 'em'll vote for you. For _them's_ the +danger." + +"It's true that I am very sympathetic to them," I murmured, impressed +by this prospect. + +Crillon came to a stand in front of the Public Baths. "It's the +seventeenth to-day," he explained; "the day of the month when I takes a +bath. Oh, yes! I know that _you_ go every Thursday; but I'm not of +that mind. You're young, of course, and p'raps you have good reason! +But you take my tip, and hobnob with the working man. We must bestir +ourselves and impell ourselves, what the devil! As for me, I've +finished my political efforts for peace and order. It's _your_ turn!" + +He is right. Looking at the ageing man, I note that his framework is +slightly bowed; that his ill-shaven cheeks are humpbacked with little +ends of hair turning into white crystals. In his lowly sphere he has +done his duty. I reflect upon the mite-like efforts of the unimportant +people; of the mountains of tasks performed by anonymity. They are +necessary, these hosts of people so closely resembling each other; for +cities are built upon the poor brotherhood of paving-stones. + +He is right, as always. I, who am still young; I, who am on a higher +level than his; I must play a part, and subdue the desire one has to +let things go on as they may. + +A sudden movement of will appears in my life, which otherwise proceeds +as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A VOICE IN THE EVENING + + +I approached the workpeople with all possible sympathy. The toiler's +lot, moreover, raises interesting problems, which one should seek to +understand. So I inform myself in the matter of those around me. + +"You want to see the greasers' work? Here I am," said Marcassin, +surnamed Petrolus. "I'm the lamp-man. Before that I was a greaser. +Is that any better? Can't say. It's here that that goes on, +look--there. My place you'll find at night by letting your nose guide +you." + +The truth is that the corner of the factory to which he leads me has an +aggressive smell. The shapeless walls of this sort of grotto are +adorned with shelves full of leaking lamps--lamps dirty as beasts. In +a bucket there are old wicks and other departed things. At the foot of +a wooden cupboard which looks like iron are lamp glasses in paper +shirts; and farther away, groups of oil-drums. All is dilapidated and +ruinous; all is dark in this angle of the great building where light is +elaborated. The specter of a huge window stands yonder. The panes +only half appear; so encrusted are they they might be covered with +yellow paper. The great stones--the rocks--of the walls are +upholstered with a dark deposit of grease, like the bottom of a +stewpan, and nests of dust hang from them. Black puddles gleam on the +floor, with beds of slime from the scraping of the lamps. + +There he lives and moves, in his armored tunic encrusted with filth as +dark as coffee-grounds. In his poor claw he grips the chief implement +of his work--a black rag. His grimy hands shine with paraffin, and the +oil, sunk and blackened in his nails, gives them a look of wick ends. +All day long he cleans lamps, and repairs, and unscrews, and fills, and +wipes them. The dirt and the darkness of this population of appliances +he attracts to himself, and he works like a nigger. + +"For it's got to be well done," he says, "and even when you're fagged +out, you must keep on rubbing hard." + +"There's six hundred and sixty-three, monsieur" (he says "monsieur" as +soon as he embarks on technical explanations), "counting the smart ones +in the fine offices, and the lanterns in the wood-yard, and the night +watchmen. You'll say to me, 'Why don't they have electricity that +lights itself?' It's 'cos that costs money and they get paraffin for +next to nothing, it seems, through a big firm 'at they're in with up +yonder. As for me, I'm always on my legs, from the morning when I'm +tired through sleeping badly, from after dinner when you feel sick with +eating, up to the evening, when you're sick of everything." + +The bell has rung, and we go away in company. He has pulled off his +blue trousers and tunic and thrown them into a corner--two objects +which have grown heavy and rusty, like tools. But the dirty shell of +his toil did upholster him a little, and he emerges from it gaunter, +and horribly squeezed within the littleness of a torturing jacket. His +bony legs, in trousers too wide and too short, break off at the bottom +in long and mournful shoes, with hillocks, and resembling crocodiles; +and their soles, being soaked in paraffin, leave oily footprints, +rainbow-hued, in the plastic mud. + +Perhaps it is because of this dismal companion towards whom I turn my +head, and whom I see trotting slowly and painfully at my side in the +rumbling grayness of the evening exodus, that I have a sudden and +tragic vision of the people, as in a flash's passing. (I do sometimes +get glimpses of the things of life momentarily.) The dark doorway to +my vision seems torn asunder. Between these two phantoms in front the +sable swarm outspreads. The multitude encumbers the plain that +bristles with dark chimneys and cranes, with ladders of iron planted +black and vertical in nakedness--a plain vaguely scribbled with +geometrical lines, rails and cinder paths--a plain utilized yet barren. +In some places about the approaches to the factory cartloads of clinker +and cinders have been dumped, and some of it continues to burn like +pyres, throwing off dark flames and darker curtains. Higher, the hazy +clouds vomited by the tall chimneys come together in broad mountains +whose foundations brush the ground and cover the land with a stormy +sky. In the depths of these clouds humanity is let loose. The immense +expanse of men moves and shouts and rolls in the same course all +through the suburb. An inexhaustible echo of cries surrounds us; it is +like hell in eruption and begirt by bronze horizons. + +At that moment I am afraid of the multitude. It brings something +limitless into being, something which surpasses and threatens us; and +it seems to me that he who is not with it will one day be trodden +underfoot. + +My head goes down in thought. I walk close to Marcassin, who gives me +the impression of an escaping animal, hopping through the +darkness--whether because of his name,[1] or his stench, I do not know. +The evening is darkening; the wind is tearing leaves away; it thickens +with rain and begins to nip. + +[Footnote 1: _Marcassin_--a young wild boar.--Tr.] + +My miserable companion's voice comes to me in shreds. He is trying to +explain to me the law of unremitting toil. An echo of his murmur +reaches my face. + +"And that's what one hasn't the least idea of. Because what's nearest +to us, often, one doesn't see it." + +"Yes, that's true," I say, rather weary of his monotonous complaining. + +I try a few words of consolation, knowing that he was recently married. +"After all, no one comes bothering you in your own little corner. +There's always that. And then, after all, you're going home--your wife +is waiting for you. You're lucky----" + +"I've no time; or rather, I've no strength. At nights, when I come +home I'm too tired--I'm too tired, you understand, to be happy, you +see. Every morning I think I shall be, and I'm hoping up till noon; +but at night I'm too knocked out, what with walking and rubbing for +eleven hours; and on Sundays I'm done in altogether with the week. +There's even times that I don't even wash myself when I come in. I +just stay with my hands mucky; and on Sundays when I'm cleaned up, it's +a nasty one when they say to me, 'You're looking well.'" + +And while I am listening to the tragicomical recital which he retails, +like a soliloquy, without expecting replies from me--luckily, for I +should not know how to answer--I can, in fact, recall those holidays +when the face of Petrolus is embellished by the visible marks of water. + +"Apart from that," he goes on, withdrawing his chin into the gray +string of his over-large collar; "apart from that, Charlotte, she's +very good. She looks after me, and tidies the house, and it's her that +lights _our_ lamp; and she hides the books carefully away from me so's +I can't grease 'em, and my fingers make prints on 'em like criminals. +She's good, but it doesn't turn out well, same as I've told you, and +when one's unhappy everything's favorable to being unhappy." + +He is silent for a while, and then adds by way of conclusion to all he +has said, and to all that one can say, "_My_ father, he caved in at +fifty. And I shall cave in at fifty, p'raps before." + +With his thumb he points through the twilight at that sort of indelible +darkness which makes the multitude, "Them others, it's not the same +with them. There's those that want to change everything and keep going +on that notion. There's those that drink and want to drink, and keep +going that way." + +I hardly listen to him while he explains to me the grievances of the +different groups of workmen, "The molders, monsieur, them, it's a +matter of the gangs----" + +Just now, while looking at the population of the factory, I was almost +afraid; it seemed to me that these toilers were different sorts of +beings from the detached and impecunious people who live around me. +When I look at this one I say to myself, "They are the same; they are +all alike." + +In the distance, and together, they strike fear, and their combination +is a menace; but near by they are only the same as this one. One must +not look at them in the distance. + +Petrolus gets excited; he makes gestures; he punches in and punches out +again with his fist, the hat which is stuck askew on his conical head, +over the ears that are pointed like artichoke leaves. He is in front +of me, and each of his soles is pierced by a valve which draws in water +from the saturated ground. + +"The unions, monsieur----" he cries to me in the wind, "why, it's +dangerous to point at them. You haven't the right to think any +more--that's what they call liberty. If you're in _them_, you've got +to be agin the parsons--(I'm willing, but what's that got to do with +labor?)--and there's something more serious," the lamp-man adds, in a +suddenly changed voice, "you've got to be agin the army,--the _army_!" + +And now the poor slave of the lamp seems to take a resolution. He +stops and devotionally rolling his Don Quixote eyes in his gloomy, +emaciated face, he says, "_I'm_ always thinking about something. What? +you'll say. Well, here it is. I belong to the League of Patriots." + +As they brighten still more, his eyes are like two live embers in the +darkness, "Deroulede!" he cries; "that's the man--he's _my_ God!" + +Petrolus raises his voice and gesticulates; he makes great movements in +the night at the vision of his idol, to whom his leanness and his long +elastic arms give him some resemblance. "He's for war; he's for +Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing +else. Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear +off the earth, else it'll be us. Ah, when they talk politics to _me_, +I ask 'em, 'Are you for Deroulede, yes or no?' That's enough! I got +my schooling any old how, and I know next to nothing but I reckon it's +grand, only to think like that, and in the Reserves I'm +adjutant[1]--almost an officer, monsieur, just a lamp-man as I am!" + +[Footnote 1: A non-com., approximately equivalent to regimental +sergeant-major.--Tr.] + +He tells me, almost in shouts and signs, because of the wind across the +open, that his worship dates from a function at which Paul Deroulede +had spoken to him. "He spoke to everybody, an' then he spoke to me, as +close to me as you and me; but it was _him_! I wanted an idea, and he +gave it to me!" + +"Very good," I say to him; "very good. You are a patriot, that's +excellent." + +I feel that the greatness of this creed surpasses the selfish demands +of labor--although I have never had the time to think much about these +things--and it strikes me as touching and noble. + +A last fiery spasm gets hold of Petrolus as he espies afar Eudo's +pointed house, and he cries that on the great day of revenge there will +be some accounts to settle; and then the fervor of this ideal-bearer +cools and fades, and is spent along the length of the roads. He is now +no more than a poor black bantam which cannot possibly take wing. His +face mournfully awakes to the evening. He shuffles along, bows his +long and feeble spine, and his spirit and his strength exhausted, he +approaches the porch of his house, where Madame Marcassin awaits him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SUMMARY + + +The workmen manifest mistrust and even dislike towards me. Why? I +don't know; but my good intentions have gradually got weary. + +One after another, sundry women have occupied my life. Antonia Veron +was first. Her marriage and mine, their hindrance and restriction, +threw us back upon each other as of yore. We found ourselves alone one +day in my house--where nothing ever used to happen, and she offered me +her lips, irresistibly. The appeal of her sensuality was answered by +mine, then, and often later. But the pleasure constantly restored, +which impelled me towards her, always ended in dismal enlightenments. +She remained a capricious and baffling egotist, and when I came away +from her house across the dark suburb among a host of beings vanishing, +like myself, I only brought away the memory of her nervous and +irritating laugh, and that new wrinkle which clung to her mouth like an +implement. + +Then younger desires destroyed the old, and gallant adventures begot +one another. It is all over with this one and that one whom I adored. +When I see them again, I wonder that I can say, at one and the same +time, of a being who has not changed, "How I loved her!" and, "How I +have ceased to love her!" + +All the while performing as a duty my daily task, all the while taking +suitable precautions so that Marie may not know and may not suffer, I +am looking for the happiness which lives. And truly, when I have a +sense of some new assent wavering and making ready, or when I am on the +way to a first rendezvous, I feel myself gloriously uplifted, and equal +to everything! + +This fills my life. Desire wears the brain as much as thought wears +it. All my being is agog for chances to shine and to be shared. When +they say in my presence of some young woman that, "she is not happy," a +thrill of joy tears through me. + +On Sundays, among the crowds, I have often felt my heart tighten with +distress as I watch the unknown women. Reverie has often held me all +day because of one who has gone by and disappeared, leaving me a clear +vision of her curtained room, and of herself, vibrating like a harp. +She, perhaps, was the one I should have always loved; she whom I seek +gropingly, desperately, from each to the next. Ah, what a delightful +thing to see and to think of a distant woman always is, whoever she may +be! + +There are moments when I suffer, and am to be pitied. Assuredly, if +one could read me really, no one would pity me. And yet all men are +like me. If they are gifted with acceptable physique they dream of +headlong adventures, they attempt them, and our heart never stands +still. But no one acknowledges that, no one, ever. + +Then, there were the women who turned me a cold shoulder; and among +them all Madame Pierron, a beautiful and genteel woman of twenty-five +years, with her black fillets and her marble profile, who still +retained the obvious awkwardness and vacant eye of young married women. +Tranquil, staid and silent, she came and went and lived, totally blind +to my looks of admiration. + +This perfect unconcern aggravated my passion. I remember my pangs one +morning in June, when I saw some feminine linen spread upon the green +hedge within her garden. The delicate white things marshaled there +were waiting, stirred by the leaves and the breeze; so that Spring lent +them frail shape and sweetness--and life. I remember, too, a gaunt +house, scorching in the sun, and a window which flashed and then shut! +The window stayed shut, like a slab. All the world was silent; and +that splendid living being was walled up there. And last, I have +recollection of an evening when, in the bluish and dark green and +chalky landscape of the town and its rounded gardens, I saw that window +lighted up. A narrow glimmer of rose and gold was enframed there, and +I could distinguish, leaning on the sill that overhung the town, in the +heart of that resplendence, a feminine form which stirred before my +eyes in inaccessible forbearance. Long did I watch with shaking knees +that window dawning upon space, as the shepherd watches the rising of +Venus. That evening, when I had come in and was alone for a +moment--Marie was busy below in the kitchen--alone in our unattractive +room, I retired to the starry window, beset by immense thoughts. These +spaces, these separations, these incalculable durations--they all +reduce us to dust, they all have a sort of fearful splendor from which +we seek defense in our hiding. + +* * * * * * + +I have not retained a definite recollection of a period of jealousy +from which I suffered for a year. From certain facts, certain profound +changes of mood in Marie, it seemed to me that there was some one +between her and me. But beyond vague symptoms and these terrible +reflections on her, I never knew anything. The truth, everywhere +around me, was only a phantom of truth. I experienced acute internal +wounds of humiliation and shame, of rebellion! I struggled feebly, as +well as I could, against a mystery too great for me, and then my +suspicions wore themselves out. I fled from the nightmare, and by a +strong effort I forgot it. Perhaps my imputations had no basis; but it +is curious how one ends in only believing what one wants to believe. + +* * * * * * + +Something which had been plotting a long while among the Socialist +extremists suddenly produced a stoppage of work at the factory, and +this was followed by demonstrations which rolled through the terrified +town. Everywhere the shutters went up. The business people blotted +out their shops, and the town looked like a tragic Sunday. + +"It's a revolution!" said Marie to me, turning pale, as Benoit cried to +us from the step of our porch the news that the workmen were marching. +"How does it come about that you knew nothing at the factory?" + +An hour later we learned that a delegation composed of the most +dangerous ringleaders was preceding the army of demonstrators, +commissioned to extort outrageous advantages, with threats, from +Messrs. Gozlan. + +Our quarter had a loose and dejected look. People went furtively, +seeking news, and doors half opened regretfully. Here and there groups +formed and lamented in undertones the public authority's lack of +foresight, the insufficient measures for preserving order. + +Rumors were peddled about on the progress of the demonstration. + +"They're crossing the river." + +"They're at the Calvary cross-roads." + +"It's a march against the castle!" + +I went into Fontan's. He was not there, and some men were talking in +the twilight of the closed shutters. + +"The Baroness is in a dreadful way. She's seen a dark mass in the +distance. Some young men of the aristocracy have armed themselves and +are guarding her. She says it's another Jacquerie[1] rising!" + +[Footnote 1: A terrible insurrection of the French peasantry in +1358.--Tr.] + +"Ah, my God! What a mess!" said Crillon. + +"It's the beginning of the end!" asserted old Daddy Ponce, shaking his +grayish-yellow forehead, all plaited with wrinkles. + +Time went by--still no news. What are they doing yonder? What shall +we hear next? + +At last, towards three o'clock Postaire is framed in the doorway, +sweating and exultant. "It's over! It's all right, my lad!" he gasps; +"I can vouch for it that they all arrived together at the Gozlans' +villa. Messrs. Gozlan were there. The delegates, I can vouch for it +that they started shouting and threatening, my lad! 'Never mind that!' +says one of the Messrs. Gozlan, 'let's have a drink first; I'll vouch +for it we'll talk better after!' There was a table and champagne, I'll +vouch for it. They gave 'em it to drink, and then some more and then +some more. I'll vouch for it they sent themselves something down, my +lad, into their waistcoats. I can vouch for it that the bottles of +champagne came like magic out of the ground. Fontan kept always +bringing them as though he was coining them. Got to admit it was an +extra-double-special guaranteed champagne, that you want to go cautious +with. So then, after three-quarters of an hour, nearly all the +deputation were drunk. They spun round, tongue-tied, and embraced each +other,--I can vouch for it. There were some that stuck it, but they +didn't count, my lad! The others didn't even know what they'd come +for. And the bosses; they'd had a fright, and they didn't half wriggle +and roar with laughing--I'll vouch for it, my lad! An' then, +to-morrow, if they want to start again, there'll be troops here!" + +Joyful astonishment--the strike had been drowned in wine! And we +repeated to each other, "To-morrow there'll be the military!" + +"Ah!" gaped Crillon, rolling wonder-struck eyes, "That's clever! Good; +that's clever, that is! Good, old chap----" + +He laughed a heavy, vengeful laugh, and repeated his familiar refrain +full-throated: "The sovereign people that can't stand on its own +legs!" + +By the side of a few faint-hearted citizens who had already, since the +morning, modified their political opinions, a great figure rises before +my eyes--Fontan. I remember that night, already long ago, when a +chance glimpse through the vent-hole of his cellar showed me shiploads +of bottles of champagne heaped together, and pointed like shells. For +some future day he foresaw to-day's victory. He is really clever, he +sees clearly and he sees far. He has rescued law and order by a sort +of genius. + +The constraint which has weighed all day on our gestures and words +explodes in delight. Noisily we cast off that demeanor of conspirators +which has bent our shoulders since morning. The windows that were +closed during the weighty hours of the insurrection are opened wide; +the houses breathe again. + +"We're saved from that gang!" people say, when they approach each +other. + +This feeling of deliverance pervades the most lowly. On the step of +the little blood-red restaurant I spy Monsieur Mielvaque, hopping for +joy. He is shivering, too, in his thin gray coat, cracked with +wrinkles, that looks like wrapping paper; and one would say that his +dwindled face had at long last caught the hue of the folios he +desperately copies among his long days and his short nights, to pick up +some sprigs of extra pay. There he stands, not daring to enter the +restaurant (for a reason he knows too well); but how delighted he is +with the day's triumph for society! And Mademoiselle Constantine, the +dressmaker, incurably poor and worn away by her sewing-machine, is +overjoyed. She opens wide the eyes which seem eternally full of tears, +and in the grayish abiding half-mourning of imperfect cleanliness, in +pallid excitement, she claps her hands. + +Marie and I can hear the furious desperate hammering of Brisbille in +his forge, and we begin to laugh as we have not laughed for a long +time. + +At night, before going to sleep, I recall my former democratic fancies. +Thank God, I have escaped from a great peril! I can see it clearly by +the terror which the workmen's menace spread in decent circles, and by +the universal joy which greeted their recoil! My deepest tendencies +take hold of me again for good, and everything settles down as before. + +* * * * * * + +Much time has gone by. It is ten years now since I was married, and in +that lapse of time there is hardly a happening that I remember, unless +it be the disillusion of the death of Marie's rich godmother, who left +us nothing. There was the failure of the Pocard scheme, which was only +a swindle and ruined many small people. Politics pervaded the scandal, +while certain people hurried with their money to Monsieur Boulaque, +whose scheme was much more safe and substantial. There was also my +father-in-law's illness and his death, which was a great shock to +Marie, and put us into black clothes. + +I have not changed. Marie _has_ somewhat. She has got stouter; her +eyelids look tired and red, and she buries herself in silences. We are +no longer quite in accord in details of our life. She who once always +said "Yes," is now primarily disposed to say "No." If I insist she +defends her opinion, obstinately, sourly; and sometimes dishonestly. +For example, in the matter of pulling down the partition downstairs, if +people had heard our high voices they would have thought there was a +quarrel. Following some of our discussions, she keeps her face +contracted and spiteful, or assumes the martyr's air, and sometimes +there are moments of hatred between us. + +Often she says, while talking of something else, "Ah, if we had had a +child, all would have been different!" + +I am becoming personally negligent, through a sort of idleness, against +which I have not sufficient grounds for reaction. When we are by +ourselves, at meal times, my hands are sometimes questionable. From +day to day, and from month to month, I defer going to the dentist and +postpone the attention required. I am allowing my molars to get +jagged. + +Marie never shows any jealousy, nor even suspicion about my personal +adventures. Her trust is almost excessive! She is not very +far-seeing, or else I am nothing very much to her, and I have a grudge +against her for this indifference. + +And now I see around me women who are too young to love me. That most +positive of obstacles, the age difference, begins to separate me from +the amorous. And yet I am not surfeited with love, and I yearn towards +youth! Marthe, my little sister-in-law, said to me one day, "Now that +you're old----" That a child of fifteen years, so freshly dawned and +really new, can bring herself to pass this artless judgment on a man of +thirty-five--that is fate's first warning, the first sad day which +tells us at midsummer that winter will come. + +One evening, as I entered the room, I indistinctly saw Marie, sitting +and musing by the window. As I came in she got up--it was Marthe! The +light from the sky, pale as a dawn, had blenched the young girl's +golden hair and turned the trace of a smile on her cheek into something +like a wrinkle. Cruelly, the play of the light showed her face faded +and her neck flabby; and because she had been yawning, even her eyes +were watery, and for some seconds the lids were sunk and reddened. + +The resemblance of the two sisters tortured me. This little Marthe, +with her luxurious and appetizing color, her warm pink cheeks and moist +lips; this plump adolescent whose short skirt shows her curving calves, +is an affecting picture of what Marie was. It is a sort of terrible +revelation. In truth Marthe resembles, more than the Marie of to-day +does, the Marie whom I formerly loved; the Marie who came out of the +unknown, whom I saw one evening sitting on the rose-tree seat, shining, +silent--in the presence of love. + +It required a great effort on my part not to try, weakly and vainly, to +approach Marthe--the impossible dream, the dream of dreams! She has a +little love affair with a youngster hardly molted into adolescence, and +rather absurd, whom one catches sight of now and again as he slips away +from her side; and that day when she sang so much in spite of herself, +it was because a little rival was ill. I am as much a stranger to her +girlish growing triumph and to her thoughts as if I were her enemy! +One morning when she was capering and laughing, flower-crowned, at the +doorstep, she looked to me like a being from another world. + +* * * * * * + +One winter's day, when Marie had gone out and I was arranging my +papers, I found a letter I had written not long before, but had not +posted, and I threw the useless document on the fire. When Marie came +back in the evening, she settled herself in front of the fire to dry +herself, and to revive it for the room's twilight; and the letter, +which had been only in part consumed, took fire again. And suddenly +there gleamed in the night a shred of paper with a shred of my +writing--"_I love you as much as you love me_!" + +And it was so clear, the inscription that flamed in the darkness, that +it was not worth while even to attempt an explanation. + +We could not speak, nor even look at each other! In the fatal +communion of thought which seized us just then, we turned aside from +each other, even shadow-veiled as we were. We fled from the truth! In +these great happenings we become strangers to each other for the reason +that we never knew each other profoundly. We are vaguely separated on +earth from everybody else, but we are mightily distant from our +nearest. + +* * * * * * + +After all these things, my former life resumed its indifferent course. +Certainly I am not so unhappy as they who have the bleeding wound of a +bereavement or remorse, but I am not so delighted with life as I once +hoped to be. Ah, men's love and women's beauty are too short-lived in +this world; and yet, is it not only thereby that we and they exist? It +might be said that love, so pure a thing, the only one worth while in +life, is a crime, since it is always punished sooner or later. I do +not understand. We are a pitiful lot; and everywhere about us--in our +movements, within our walls, and from hour to hour, there is a stifling +mediocrity. Fate's face is gray. + +Notwithstanding, my personal position has established itself and +progressively improved. I am getting three hundred and sixty francs a +month, and besides, I have a share in the profits of the litigation +office--about fifty francs a month. It is a year and a half since I +was stagnating in the little glass office, to which Monsieur Mielvaque +has been promoted, succeeding me. Nowadays they say to me, "You're +lucky!" They envy me--who once envied so many people. It astonishes +me at first, then I get used to it. + +I have restored my political plans, but this time I have a rational and +normal policy in view. I am nominated to succeed Crillon in the Town +Council. There, no doubt, I shall arrive sooner or later. I continue +to become a personality by the force of circumstances, without my +noticing it, and without any real interest in me on the part of those +around me. + +Quite a piece of my life has now gone by. When sometimes I think of +that, I am surprised at the length of the time elapsed; at the number +of the days and the years that are dead. It has come quickly, and +without much change in myself on the other hand; and I turn away from +that vision, at once real and supernatural. And yet, in spite of +myself, my future appears before my eyes--and its end. My future will +resemble my past; it does so already. I can dimly see all my life, +from one end to the other, all that I am, all that I shall have been. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BRAWLER + + +At the time of the great military maneuvers of September, 1913, Viviers +was an important center of the operations. All the district was +brightened with a swarming of red and blue and with martial ardor. + +Alone and systematically, Brisbille was the reviler. From the top of +Chestnut Hill, where we were watching a strategical display, he pointed +at the military mass. "Maneuvers, do they call them? I could die of +laughing! The red caps have dug trenches and the white-band caps have +bunged 'em up again. Take away the War Office, and you've only kids' +games left." + +"It's war!" explained an influential military correspondent, who was +standing by. + +Then the journalist talked with a colleague about the Russians. + +"The Russians!" Brisbille broke in; "when they've formed a +republic----" + +"He's a simpleton," said the journalist, smiling. + +The inebriate jumped astride his hobby horse. "War me no war, it's all +lunacy! And look, look--look at those red trousers that you can see +miles away! They must do it on purpose for soldiers to be killed, that +they don't dress 'em in the color of nothing at all!" + +A lady could not help breaking in here: "What?" Change our little +soldiers' red trousers? Impossible! There's no good reason for it. +They would never consent! They would rebel." + +"Egad!" said a young officer; "why we should all throw up our +commissions! And any way, the red trousers are not the danger one +thinks. If they were as visible as all that, the High Command would +have noticed it and would have taken steps--just for field service, and +without interfering with the parade uniform!" + +The regimental sergeant-major cut the discussion short as he turned to +Brisbille with vibrant scorn and said, "When the Day of Revenge comes, +_we_ shall have to be there to defend _you_!" + +And Brisbille only uttered a shapeless reply, for the sergeant-major +was an athlete, and gifted with a bad temper, especially when others +were present. + +The castle was quartering a Staff. Hunting parties were given for the +occasion in the manorial demesne, and passing processions of bedizened +guests were seen. Among the generals and nobles shone an Austrian +prince of the blood royal, who bore one of the great names in the +Almanach de Gotha, and who was officially in France to follow the +military operations. + +The presence of the Baroness's semi-Imperial guest caused a great +impression of historic glamour to hover over the country. His name was +repeated; his windows were pointed out in the middle of the principal +front, and one thought himself lucky if he saw the curtains moving. +Many families of poor people detached themselves from their quarters in +the evenings to take up positions before the wall behind which he was. + +Marie and I, we were close to him twice. + +One evening after dinner, we met him as one meets any passer-by among +the rest. He was walking alone, covered by a great gray waterproof. +His felt hat was adorned with a short feather. He displayed the +characteristic features of his race--a long turned-down nose and a +receding chin. + +When he had gone by, Marie and I said, both at the same time, and a +little dazzled, "An eagle!" + +We saw him again at the end of a stag-hunt. They had driven a stag +into the Morteuil forest. The _mort_ took place in a clearing in the +park, near the outer wall. The Baroness, who always thought of the +townsfolk, had ordered the little gate to be opened which gives into +this part of the demesne, so that the public could be present at the +spectacle. + +It was imperious and pompous. The scene one entered, on leaving the +sunny fields and passing through the gate, was a huge circle of dark +foliage in the heart of the ancient forest. At first, one saw only the +majestic summits of mountainous trees, like peaks and globes lost amid +the heavens, which on all sides overhung the clearing and bathed it in +twilight almost green. + +In this lordly solemnity of nature, down among the grass, moss and dead +wood, there flowed a contracted but brilliant concourse around the +final preparations for the execution of the stag. + +The animal was kneeling on the ground, weak and overwhelmed. We +pressed round, and eyes were thrust forward between heads and shoulders +to see him. One could make out the gray thicket of his antlers, his +great lolling tongue, and the enormous throb of his heart, agitating +his exhausted body. A little wounded fawn clung to him, bleeding +abundantly, flowing like a spring. + +Round about it the ceremony was arranged in several circles. The +beaters, in ranks, made a glaring red patch in the moist green +atmosphere. The hunters, men and women, all dismounted, in scarlet +coats and black hats, crowded together. Apart, the saddle and tackle +horses snorted, with creaking of leather and jingle of metal. Kept at +a respectful distance by a rope extended hastily on posts, the +inquisitive crowd flowed and increased every instant. + +The blood which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and +one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, +pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of +the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching +head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held +back with difficulty, and that of the little one, cowering beside him +and dying with gaping throat, would have been touching had one given +way to sentiment. + +I noticed that the imminent slaying of the stag excited a certain +curious fever. Around me the women and young girls especially elbowed +and wriggled their way to the front, and shuddered, and were glad. + +They cut the throats of the beasts, the big and the little, amid +absolute and religious silence, the silence of a sacrament. Madame +Lacaille vibrated from head to foot. Marie was calm, but there was a +gleam in her eyes; and little Marthe, who was hanging on to me, dug her +nails into my arm. The prince was prominent on our side, watching the +last act of the run. He had remained in the saddle. He was more +splendidly red than the others--empurpled, it seemed, by reflections +from a throne. He spoke in a loud voice, like one who is accustomed to +govern and likes to discourse; and his outline had the very form of +bidding. He expressed himself admirably in our language, of which he +knew the intimate graduations. I heard him saying, "These great +maneuvers, after all, they're a sham. It's music-hall war, directed by +scene-shifters. Hunting's better, because there's blood. We get too +much unaccustomed to blood, in our prosaic, humanitarian, and bleating +age. Ah, as long as the nations love hunting, I shall not despair of +them!" + +Just then, the crash of the horns and the thunder of the pack released +drowned all other sounds. The prince, erect in his stirrups, and +raising his proud head and his tawny mustache above the bloody and +cringing mob of the hounds, expanded his nostrils and seemed to sniff a +battlefield. + +The next day, when a few of us were chatting together in the street +near the sunken post where the old jam-pot lies, Benoit came up, full +of a tale to tell. Naturally it was about the prince. Benoit was +dejected and his lips were drawn and trembling. "He's killed a bear!" +said he, with glittering eye; "you should have seen it, ah! a tame +bear, of course. Listen--he was coming back from hunting with the +Marquis and Mademoiselle Berthe and some people behind. And he comes +on a wandering showman with a performing bear. A simpleton with long +black hair like feathers, and a bear that sat on its rump and did +little tricks and wore a belt. The prince had got his gun. I don't +know how it came about but the prince he got an idea. He said, 'I'd +like to kill that bear, as I do in my own hunting. Tell me, my good +fellow, how much shall I pay you for firing at the beast? You'll not +be a loser, I promise you.' The simpleton began to tremble and lift +his arms up in the air. He loved his bear! 'But my bear's the same as +my brother!' he says. Then do you know what the Marquis of Monthyon +did? He just simply took out his purse and opened it and put it under +the chap's nose; and all the smart hunting folk they laughed to see how +the simpleton changed when he saw all those bank notes. And naturally +he ended by nodding that it was a bargain, and he'd even seen so many +of the rustlers that he turned from crying to laughing! Then the +prince loaded his gun at ten paces from the bear and killed it with one +shot, my boy; just when he was rocking left and right, and sitting up +like a man. You ought to have seen it! There weren't a lot there; but +_I_ was there!" + +The story made an impression. No one spoke at first. Then some one +risked the opinion. "No doubt they do things like that in Hungary or +Bohemia, or where he reigns. You wouldn't see it here," he added, +innocently. + +"He's from Austria," Tudor corrected. + +"Yes," muttered Crillon, "but whether he's Austrian or whether he's +Bohemian or Hungarian, he's a grandee, so he's got the right to do what +he likes, eh?" + +Eudo looked as if he would intervene at this point and was seeking +words. (Not long before that he had had the queer notion of sheltering +and nursing a crippled hind that had escaped from a previous run, and +his act had given great displeasure in high places.) So as soon as he +opened his mouth we made him shut it. The idea of Eudo in judgment on +princes! + +And the rest lowered their heads and nodded and murmured, "Yes, he's a +grandee." + +And the little phrase spread abroad, timidly and obscurely. + +* * * * * * + +When All Saints' Day came round, many of the distinguished visitors at +the castle were still there. Every year that festival gives us +occasion for an historical ceremony on the grand scale. At two o'clock +all the townsfolk that matter gather with bunches of flowers on the +esplanade or in front of the cemetery half-way up Chestnut Hill, for +the ceremony and an open air service. + +Early in the afternoon I betook myself with Marie to the scene. I put +on a fancy waistcoat of black and white check and my new patent leather +boots, which make me look at them. It is fine weather on this Sunday +of Sundays, and the bells are ringing. Everywhere the hurrying crowd +climbs the hill--peasants in flat caps, working families in their best +clothes, young girls with faces white and glossy as the bridal satin +which is the color of their thoughts, young men carrying jars of +flowers. All these appear on the esplanade, where graying lime trees +are also in assembly. Children are sitting on the ground. + +Monsieur Joseph Boneas, in black, with his supremely distinguished air, +goes by holding his mother's arm. I bow deeply to them. He points at +the unfolding spectacle as he passes and says, "It is our race's +festival." + +The words made me look more seriously at the scene before my eyes--all +this tranquil and contemplative stir in the heart of festive nature. +Reflection and the vexations of my life have mellowed my mind. The +idea at last becomes clear in my brain of an entirety, an immense +multitude in space, and infinite in time, a multitude of which I am an +integral part, which has shaped me in its image, which continues to +keep me like it, and carries me along its control; my own people. + +Baroness Grille, in the riding habit that she almost always wears when +mixing with the people, is standing near the imposing entry to the +cemetery. Monsieur the Marquis of Monthyon is holding aloft his +stately presence, his handsome and energetic face. Solid and sporting, +with dazzling shirt cuffs and fine ebon-black shoes, he parades a +smile. There is an M.P. too, a former Minister, very assiduous, who +chats with the old duke. There are the Messrs. Gozlan and famous +people whose names one does not know. Members of the Institute of the +great learned associations, or people fabulously wealthy. + +Not far from these groups, which are divided from the rest by a scarlet +barrier of beaters and the flashing chain of their slung horns, arises +Monsieur Fontan. The huge merchant and cafe-owner occupies an +intermediate and isolated place between principals and people. His +face is disposed in fat white tiers, like a Buddha's belly. +Monumentally motionless he says nothing at all, but he tranquilly spits +all around him. He radiates saliva. + +And for this ceremony, which seems like an apotheosis, all the notables +of our quarter are gathered together, as well as those of the other +quarter, who seem different and are similar. + +We elbow the ordinary types. Apolline goes crabwise. She is in new +things, and has sprinkled Eau-de-Cologne on her skin; her eye is +bright; her face well-polished; her ears richly adorned. She is always +rather dirty, and her wrists might be branches, but she has cotton +gloves. There are some shadows in the picture, for Brisbille has come +with his crony, Termite, so that his offensive and untidy presence may +be a protest. There is another blot--a working man's wife, who speaks +at their meetings; people point at her. "What's that woman doing +here?" + +"She doesn't believe in God," says some one. + +"Ah," says a mother standing by, "that's because she has no children." + +"Yes, she's got two." + +"Then," says the poor woman, "it's because they've never been ill." + +Here is little Antoinette and the old priest is holding her hand. She +must be fifteen or sixteen years old by now, and she has not grown--or, +at least, one has not noticed it. Father Piot, always white, gentle +and murmurous, has shrunk a little; more and more he leans towards the +tomb. Both of them proceed in tiny steps. + +"They're going to cure her, it seems. They're seeing to it seriously." + +"Yes--the extraordinary secret remedy they say they're going to try." + +"No, it's not that now. It's the new doctor who's come to live here, +and he says, they say, that he's going to see about it." + +"Poor little angel!" + +The almost blind child, whose Christian name alone one knows, and whose +health is the object of so much solicitude, goes stiffly by, as if she +were dumb also, and deaf to all the prayers that go on with her. + +After the service some one comes forward and begins to speak. He is an +old man, an officer of the Legion of Honor; his voice is weak but his +face noble. + +He speaks of the Dead, whose day this is. He explains to us that we +are not separated from them; not only by reason of the future life and +our sacred creeds, but because our life on earth must be purely and +simply a continuation of theirs. We must do as they did, and believe +what they believed, else shall we fall into error and utopianism. We +are all linked to each other and with the past; we are bound together +by an entirety of traditions and precepts. Our normal destiny, so +adequate to our nature, must be allowed to fulfill itself along the +indicated path, without hearkening to the temptations of novelty, of +hate, of envy--of envy above all, that social cancer, that enemy of the +great civic virtue--Discipline. + +He ceases. The echo of the great magnificent words floats in the +silence. Everybody does not understand all that has just been said; +but all have a deep impression that the text is one of simplicity, of +moderation, of obedience, and foreheads move altogether in the breath +of the phrases like a field in the breeze. + +"Yes," says Crillon, pensively, "he speaks to confection, that +gentleman. All that one thinks about, you can see it come out of his +mouth. Common sense and reverence, we're attached to 'em by +something." + +"We are attached to them by orderliness," says Joseph Boneas. + +"The proof that it's the truth," Crillon urges, "is that it's in the +dissertions of everybody." + +"To be sure!" says Benoit, going a bit farther, "since everybody says +it, and it's become a general repetition!" + +The good old priest, in the center of an attentive circle, is +unstringing a few observations. "Er, hem," he says, "one should not +blaspheme. Ah, if there were not a good God, there would be many +things to say; but so long as there is a good God, all that happens is +adorable, as Monseigneur said. We shall make things better, certainly. +Poverty and public calamities and war, we shall change all that, we +shall set those things to rights, er, hem! But let us alone, above +all, and don't concern yourselves with it--you would spoil everything, +my children. _We_ shall do all that, but not immediately." + +"Quite so, quite so," we say in chorus. + +"Can we be happy all at once," the old man goes on; "change misery into +joy, and poverty into riches? Come now, it's not possible, and I'll +tell you why; if it had been as easy as all that, it would have been +done already, wouldn't it?" + +The bells begin to ring. The four strokes of the hour are just falling +from the steeple which the rising mists touch already, though the +evening makes use of it last of all; and just then one would say that +the church is beginning to talk even while it is singing. + +The important people get onto their horses or into their carriages and +go away--a cavalcade where uniforms gleam and gold glitters. We can +see the procession of the potentates of the day outlined on the crest +of the hill which is full of our dead. They climb and disappear, one +by one. _Our_ way is downward; but we form--they above and we +below--one and the same mass, all visible together. + +"It's fine!" says Marie, "it looks as if they were galloping over us!" + +They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal +framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past +which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions. + +And we, we are all alike, in spite of our different minds; alike in the +greatness of our common interests and even in the littleness of our +personal aims. I have become increasingly conscious of this close +concord of the masses beneath a huge and respect-inspiring hierarchy. +It permits a sort of lofty consolation and is exactly adapted to a life +like mine. This evening, by the light of the setting sun, I see it and +read it and admire it. + +All together we go down by the fields where tranquil corn is growing, +by the gardens and orchards where homely trees are making ready their +offerings--the scented blossom which lends, the fruit which gives +itself. They form an immense plain, sloping and darkling, with brown +undulations under the blue which now alone is becoming green. A little +girl, who has come from the spring, puts down her bucket and stands at +the roadside like a post, looking with all her eyes. She looks at the +marching multitude with beaming curiosity. Her littleness embraces +that immensity, because it is all a part of Order. A peasant who has +stuck to his work in spite of the festival and is bent over the deep +shadows of his field, raises himself from the earth which is so like +him, and turns towards the golden sun the shining monstrance of his +face. + +* * * * * * + +But what is this--this sort of madman, who stands in the middle of the +road and looks as if, all by himself, he would bar the crowd's passage? +We recognize Brisbille, swaying tipsily in the twilight. There is an +eddy and a muttering in the flow. + +"D'you want to know where all that's leading you?" he roars, and +nothing more can be heard but his voice. "It's leading you to hell! +It's the old rotten society, with the profiteering of all them that +can, and the stupidity of the rest! To hell, I tell you! To-morrow +look out for yourselves! To-morrow!" + +A woman's voice cries from out of the shadows, in a sort of scuffle, +"Be quiet, wicked man! You've no right to frighten folks!" + +But the drunkard continues to shout full-throated, "To-morrow! +To-morrow! D'you think things will always go on like that? You're fit +for killing! To hell!" + +Some people are impressed and disappear into the evening. Those who +are marking time around the obscure fanatic are growling, "He's not +only bad, he's mad, the dirty beast!" + +"It's disgraceful," says the young curate. + +Brisbille goes up to him. "_You_ tell me, then, _you_, what'll happen +very soon--Jesuit, puppet, land-shark! We know you, you and your +filthy, poisonous trade!" + +"_Say that again_!" + +It was I who said that. Leaving Marie's arm instinctively I sprang +forward and planted myself before the sinister person. After the +horrified murmur which followed the insult, a great silence had fallen +on the scene. + +Astounded, and his face suddenly filling with fear, Brisbille stumbles +and beats a retreat. + +The crowd regains confidence, and laughs, and congratulates me, and +reviles the back of the man who is sinking in the stream. + +"You were fine!" Marie said to me when I took her arm again, slightly +trembling. + +I returned home elated by my energetic act, still all of a tremor, +proud and happy. I have obeyed the prompting of my blood. It was the +great ancestral instinct which made me clench my fists and throw myself +bodily, like a weapon, upon the enemy of all. + +After dinner, naturally, I went to the military tattoo, at which, by an +unpardonable indifference, I have not regularly been present, although +these patriotic demonstrations have been organized by Monsieur Joseph +Boneas and his League of Avengers. A long-drawn shudder, shrill and +sonorous, took flight through the main streets, filling the spectators +and especially the young folks, with enthusiasm for the great and +glorious deeds of the future. And Petrolus, in the front row of the +crowd, was striding along in the crimson glow of the fairy-lamps--clad +in a visionary uniform of red. + +I remember that I talked a great deal that evening in our quarter, and +then in the house. Our quarter is something like all towns, something +like all country-sides, something like it is everywhere--it is a +foreshortened picture of all societies in the old universe, as my life +is a picture of life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE STORM + + +"There's going to be war," said Benoit, on our doorsteps in July. + +"No," said Crillon, who was there, too, "I know well enough there'll be +war some day, seeing there's always been war after war since the world +was a world, and therefore there'll be another; but just now--at +once--a big job like that? Nonsense! It's not true. No." + +Some days went by, tranquilly, as days do. Then the great story +reappeared, increased and branched out in all directions. Austria, +Serbia, the ultimatum, Russia. The notion of war was soon everywhere. +You could see it distracting men and slackening their pace in the going +and coming of work. One divined it behind the doors and windows of the +houses. + +One Saturday evening, when Marie and I--like most of the French--did +not know what to think, and talked emptily, we heard the town crier, +who performs in our quarter, as in the villages. + +"Ah!" she said. + +We went out and saw in the distance the back of the man who was tapping +a drum. His smock was ballooned. He seemed pushed aslant by the wind, +stiffening himself in the summer twilight to sound his muffled roll. +Although we could not see him well and scarcely heard him, his progress +through the street had something grand about it. + +Some people grouped in a corner said to us, "The mobilization." + +No other word left their lips. I went from group to group to form an +opinion, but people drew back with sealed faces, or mechanically raised +their arms heavenwards. And we knew no better what to think now that +we were at last informed. + +We went back into the court, the passage, the room, and then I said to +Marie, "I go on the ninth day--a week, day after to-morrow--to my depot +at Motteville." + +She looked at me, as though doubtful. + +I took my military pay book from the wardrobe and opened it on the +table. Leaning against each other, we looked chastely at the red page +where the day of my joining was written, and we spelled it all out as +if we were learning to read. + +Next day and the following days everybody went headlong to meet the +newspapers. We read in them--and under their different titles they +were then all alike--that a great and unanimous upspringing was +electrifying France, and the little crowd that we were felt itself also +caught by the rush of enthusiasm and resolution. We looked at each +other with shining eyes of approval. I, too, I heard myself cry, "At +last!" All our patriotism rose to the surface. + +Our quarter grew fevered. We made speeches, we proclaimed the moral +verities--or explained them. The echoes of vast or petty news went by +in us. In the streets, the garrison officers walked, grown taller, +disclosed. It was announced that Major de Trancheaux had rejoined, in +spite of his years, and that the German armies had attacked us in three +places at once. We cursed the Kaiser and rejoiced in his imminent +chastisement. In the middle of it all France appeared personified, and +we reflected on her great life, now suddenly and nakedly exposed. + +"It was easy to foresee this war, eh?" said Crillon. + +Monsieur Joseph Boneas summarized the world-drama. We were all pacific +to the point of stupidity--little saints, in fact. No one in France +spoke any longer of revenge, nobody wished it, nobody thought of as +much as getting ready for war. We had all of us in our hearts only +dreams of universal happiness and progress, the while Germany secretly +prepared everything for hurling herself on us. "But," he added, he +also carried away, "she'll get it in the neck, and that's all about +it!" + +The desire for glory was making its way, and one cloudily imagines +Napoleon reborn. + +In these days, only the mornings and evenings returned as usual, +everything else was upside down, and seemed temporary. The workers +moved and talked in a desert of idleness, and one saw invisible changes +in the scenery of our valley and the cavity of our sky. + +We saw the Cuirassiers of the garrison go away in the evening. The +massive platoons of young-faced horsemen, whose solemn obstruction +heavily hammered the stones of the street, were separated by horses +loaded with bales of forage, by regimental wagons and baggage-carts, +which rattled unendingly. We formed a hedgerow along the twilight +causeways and watched them all disappear. Suddenly we cheered them. +The thrill that went through horses and men straightened them up and +they went away bigger--as if they were coming back! + +"It's magnificent, how warlike we are in France!" said fevered Marie, +squeezing my arm with all her might. + +The departures, of individuals or groups, multiplied. A sort of +methodical and inevitable tree-blazing--conducted sometimes by the +police--ransacked the population and thinned it from day to day around +the women. + +Increasing hurly-burly was everywhere--all the complicated measures so +prudently foreseen and so interdependent; the new posters on top of the +old ones, the requisitioning of animals and places, the committees and +the allowances, the booming and momentous gales of motor-cars filled +with officers and aristocratic nurses--so many lives turned inside out +and habits cut in two. But hope bedazzled all anxieties and stopped up +the gaps for the moment. And we admired the beauty of military +orderliness and France's preparation. + +Sometimes, at windows or street-corners, there were apparitions--people +covered with new uniforms. We had known them in vain, and did not know +them at first. Count d'Orchamp, lieutenant in the Active Reserves, and +Dr. Bardoux, town-major, displaying the cross of the Legion of Honor, +found themselves surrounded by respectful astonishment. Adjutant +Marcassin rose suddenly to the eyes as though he had come out of the +earth; Marcassin, brand-new, rigid, in blue and red, with his gold +stripe. One saw him afar, fascinating the groups of urchins who a week +ago threw stones at him. + +"The old lot--the little ones, and the middling ones and the big +ones--all getting new clothes!" says a triumphant woman of the people. + +Another said it was the coming of a new reign. + +* * * * * * + +From the Friday onwards I was engrossed by my own departure. It was +that day that we went to buy boots. We admired the beautiful +arrangement of the Cinema Hall as a Red Cross hospital. + +"They've thought of everything!" said Marie, examining the collection +of beds, furniture, and costly chests, rich and perfected material, all +arranged with delighted and very French animation by a team of +attendants who were under the orders of young Varennes, a pretty +hospital sergeant, and Monsieur Lucien Gozlan, superintendent officer. + +A center of life had created itself around the hospital. An open air +buffet had been set up in a twinkling. Apolline came there--since the +confusion of the mobilization all days were Sundays for her--to provide +herself with nips. We saw her hobbling along broadwise, hugging her +half-pint measure in her short turtle-like arms, the carrot slices of +her cheek-bones reddening as she already staggered with hope. + +On our way back, as we passed in front of Fontan's cafe, we caught a +glimpse of Fontan himself, assiduous, and his face lubricated with a +smile. Around him they were singing the Marseillaise in the smoke. He +had increased his staff, and he himself was making himself two, serving +and serving. His business was growing by the fatality of things. + +When we got back to our street, it was deserted, as of yore. The +faraway flutterings of the Marseillaise were dying. We heard +Brisbille, drunk, hammering with all his might on his anvil. The same +old shadows and the same lights were taking their places in the houses. +It seemed that ordinary life was coming back as it had been into our +corner after six days of supernatural disturbance, and that the past +was already stronger than the present. + +Before mounting our steps we saw, crouching in front of his shop door +by the light of a lamp that was hooded by whirling mosquitoes, the mass +of Crillon, who was striving to attach to a cudgel a flap for the +crushing of flies. Bent upon his work, his gaping mouth let hang the +half of a globular and shining tongue. Seeing us with our parcels, he +threw down his tackle, roared a sigh, and said, "That wood! It's +touchwood, yes. A butter-wire's the only thing for cutting that!" + +He stood up, discouraged; then changing his idea, and lighted from +below by his lamp so that he flamed in the evening, he extended his +tawny-edged arm and struck me on the shoulder. "We said war, war, all +along. Very well, we've got war, haven't we?" + +In our room I said to Marie, "Only three days left." + +Marie came and went and talked continually round me, all the time +sewing zinc buttons onto the new pouch, stiff with its dressing. She +seemed to be making an effort to divert me. She had on a blue blouse, +well-worn and soft, half open at the neck. Her place was a great one +in that gray room. + +She asked me if I should be a long time away, and then, as whenever she +put that question she went on, "Of course, you don't a bit know." She +regretted that I was only a private like everybody. She hoped it would +be over long before the winter. + +I did not speak. I saw that she was looking at me secretly, and she +surrounded me pell-mell with the news she had picked up. "D'you know, +the curate has gone as a private, no more nor less, like all the +clergy. And Monsieur the Marquis, who's a year past the age already, +has written to the Minister of War to put himself at his disposition, +and the Minister has sent a courier to thank him." She finished +wrapping up and tying some toilet items and also some provisions, as if +for a journey. "All your bits of things are there. You'll be +absolutely short of nothing, you see." + +Then she sat down and sighed. "Ah," she said, "war, after all, it's +more terrible than one imagines." + +She seemed to be having tragic presentiments. Her face was paler than +usual; the normal lassitude of her features was full of gentleness; her +eyelids were rosy as roses. Then she smiled weakly and said, "There +are some young men of eighteen who've enlisted, but only for the +duration of the war. They've done right; that'll be useful to them all +ways later in life." + +* * * * * * + +On Monday we hung about the house till four o'clock, when I left it to +go to the Town Hall, and then to the station. + +At the Town Hall a group of men, like myself, were stamping about. +They were loaded with parcels in string; new boots hung from their +shoulders. I went up to mix with my new companions. Tudor was topped +by an artilleryman's cap. Monsieur Mielvaque was bustling about, +embarrassed--exactly as at the factory--by the papers he held in his +hand; and he had exchanged his eyeglasses for spectacles, which stood +for the beginning of his uniform. Every man talked about himself, and +gave details concerning his regiment, his depot, and some personal +peculiarity. + +"I'm staying," says the adjutant master-at-arms, who rises impeccably +in his active service uniform, amid the bustle and the neutral-tinted +groups; "I'm not going. I'm the owner of my rank, and they haven't got +the right to send me to join the army." + +We waited long, and some hours went by. A rumor went round that we +should not go till the next day. But suddenly there was silence, a +stiffening up, and a military salute all round. The door had just +opened to admit Major de Trancheaux. + +The women drew aside. A civilian who was on the lookout for him went +up, hat in hand, and spoke to him in undertones. + +"But, my friend," cried the Major, quitting the importunate with a +quite military abruptness, "it's not worth while. In two months the +war will be over!" + +He came up to us. He was wearing a white band on his cap. + +"He's in command at the station," they say. + +He gave us a patriotic address, brief and spirited. He spoke of the +great revenge so long awaited by French hearts, assured us that we +should all be proud, later, to have lived in those hours, thrilled us +all, and added, "Come, say good-by to your folks. No more women now. +And let's be off, for I'm going with you as far as the station." + +A last confused scrimmage--with moist sounds of kisses and litanies of +advice--closed up in the great public hall. + +When I had embraced Marie I joined these who were falling in near the +road. We went off in files of four. All the causeways were garnished +with people, because of us; and at that moment I felt a lofty emotion +and a real thrill of glory. + +At the corner of a street I saw Crillon and Marie, who had run on ahead +to take their stand on our route. They waved to me. + +"Now, keep your peckers up, boys! You're not dead yet, eh!" Crillon +called to us. + +Marie was looking at me and could not speak. + +"In step! One-two!" cried Adjutant Marcassin, striding along the +detachment. + +We crossed our quarter as the day declined over it. The countryman who +was walking beside me shook his head and in the dusky immensity among +the world of things we were leaving, with big regular steps, fused into +one single step, he scattered wondering words. "Frenzy, it is," he +murmured. "_I_ haven't had time to understand it yet. And yet, you +know, there are some that say, I understand; well, I'm telling you, +that's not possible." + +The station--but we do not stop. They have opened before us the long +yellow barrier which is never opened. They make us cross the labyrinth +of hazy rails, and crowd us along a dark, covered platform between iron +pillars. + +And there, suddenly, we see that we are alone. + +* * * * * * + +The town--and life--are yonder, beyond that dismal plain of rails, +paths, low buildings and mists which surrounds us to the end of sight. +A chilliness is edging in along with twilight, and falling on our +perspiration and our enthusiasm. We fidget and wait. It goes gray, +and then black. The night comes to imprison us in its infinite +narrowness. We shiver and can see nothing more. With difficulty I can +make out, along our trampled platform, a dark flock, the buzz of +voices, the smell of tobacco. Here and there a match flame or the red +point of a cigarette makes some face phosphorescent. And we wait, +unoccupied, and weary of waiting, until we sit down, close-pressed +against each other, in the dark and the desert. + +Some hours later Adjutant Marcassin comes forward, a lantern in his +hand, and in a strident voice calls the roll. Then he goes away, and +we begin again to wait. + +At ten o'clock, after several false alarms, the right train is +announced. It comes up, distending as it comes, black and red. It is +already crowded, and it screams. It stops, and turns the platform into +a street. We climb up and put ourselves away--not without glimpses, by +the light of lanterns moving here and there, of some chalk sketches on +the carriages--heads of pigs in spiked helmets, and the inscription, +"To Berlin!"--the only things which slightly indicate where we are +going. + +The train sets off. We who have just got in crowd to the windows and +try to look outside, towards the level crossing where, perhaps, the +people in whom we live are still watching for us; but the eye can no +longer pick up anything but a vague stirring, shaded with crayon and +jumbled with nature. We are blind and we fall back each to his place. +When we are enveloped in the iron-hammered rumble of advance, we fix up +our luggage, arrange ourselves for the night, smoke, drink and talk. +Badly lighted and opaque with fumes, the compartment might be a corner +of a tavern that has been caught up and swept away into the unknown. + +Some conversation mixes its rumble with that of the train. My +neighbors talk about crops and sunshine and rain. Others, scoffers and +Parisians, speak of popular people and principally of music-hall +singers. Others sleep, lying somehow or other on the wood. Their open +mouths make murmur, and the oscillation jerks them without tearing them +from their torpor. I go over in my thoughts the details of the last +day, and even my memories of times gone by when there was nothing going +on. + +* * * * * * + +We traveled all night. At long intervals some one would let a window +drop at a station; a damp and cavernous breath would penetrate the +overdone atmosphere of the carriage. We saw darkness and some porter's +lantern dancing in the abyss of night. + +Several times we made very long halts--to let the trains of regular +troops go by. In one station where our train stood for hours, we saw +several of them go roaring by in succession. Their speed blurred the +partitions between the windows and the huge vertebrae of the coaches, +seeming to blend together the soldiers huddled there; and the glance +which plunged into the train's interior descried, in its feeble and +whirling illumination, a long, continuous and tremulous chain, clad in +blue and red. Several times on the journey we got glimpses of these +interminable lengths of humanity, hurled by machinery from everywhere +to the frontiers, and almost towing each other. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WALLS + + +At daybreak there was a stop, and they said to us, "You're there." + +We got out, yawning, our teeth chattering, and grimy with night, on to +a platform black-smudged by drizzling rain, in the middle of a sheet of +mist which was torn by blasts of distant whistling. Disinterred from +the carriages, our shadows heaped themselves there and waited, like +bales of goods in the dawn's winter. + +Adjutant Marcassin, who had gone in quest of instructions, returned at +last. "It's that way." + +He formed us in fours. "Forward! Straighten up! Keep step! Look as +if you had something about you." + +The rhythm of the step pulled at our feet and dovetailed us together. +The adjutant marched apart along the little column. Questioned by one +of us who knew him intimately, he made no reply. From time to time he +threw a quick glance, like the flick of a whip, to make sure that we +were in step. + +I thought I was going again to the old barracks, where I did my term of +service, but I had a sadder disappointment than was reasonable. Across +some land where building was going on, deeply trenched, beplastered and +soiled with white, we arrived at a new barracks, sinisterly white in a +velvet pall of fog. In front of the freshly painted gate there was +already a crowd of men like us, clothed in subdued civilian hues in the +coppered dust of the first rays of day. + +They made us sit on forms round the guard room. We waited there all +the day. As the scorching sun went round it forced us to change our +places several times. We ate with our knees for tables, and as I undid +the little parcels that Marie had made, it seemed to me that I was +touching her hands. When the evening had fallen, a passing officer +noticed us, made inquiries, and we were mustered. We plunged into the +night of the building. Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, +between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of +stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks. They led us into a dark +corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and +went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their +flames buffeted and snarling. + +A lighted doorway was stoppered by a throng--the store-room. I ended +by getting in in my turn, thanks to the pressure of the compact file +which followed me, and pushed me like a spiral spring. Some barrack +sergeants were exerting themselves authoritatively among piles of +new-smelling clothes, of caps and glittering equipment. Geared into +the jerky hustle from which we detached ourselves one by one, I made +the tour of the place, and came out of it wearing red trousers and +carrying my civilian clothes, and a blue coat on my arm; and not daring +to put on either my hat or the military cap that I held in my hand. + +We have dressed ourselves all alike. I look at the others since I +cannot look at myself, and thus I see myself dimly. Gloomily we eat +stew, by the miserable illumination of a candle, in the dull desert of +the mess room. Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great +yard, gray and stagnant. Just as we pour out into it, there is the +clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain. An armed sentry goes up +and down before the gate. It is forbidden to go out under pain of +court-martial. To westward, beyond some indistinct land, we see the +buried station, reddening and smoking like a factory, and sending out +rusty flashes. On the other side is the trench of a street; and in its +extended hollow are the bright points of some windows and the radiance +of a shop. With my face between the bars of the gate, I look on this +reflection of the other life; then I go back to the black staircase, +the corridor and the dormitory, I who am something and yet am nothing, +like a drop of water in a river. + +* * * * * * + +We stretch ourselves on straw, in thin blankets. I go to sleep with my +head on the bundle of my civilian clothes. In the morning I find +myself again and throw off a long dream--all at once impenetrable. + +My neighbor, sitting on his straw with his hair over his nose, is +occupied in scratching his feet. He yawns into tears, and says to me, +"I've dreamt about myself." + +* * * * * * + +Several days followed each other. We remained imprisoned in the +barracks, in ignorance. The only events were those related by the +newspapers which were handed to us through the gates in the morning. +The war got on very slowly; it immobilized itself, and we--we did +nothing, between the roll-calls, the parades, and from time to time +some cleaning fatigues. We could not go into the town, and we waited +for the evening--standing, sitting, strolling in the mess room (which +never seemed empty, so strong was the smell that filled it), wandering +about the dark stairs and the corridors dark as iron, or in the yard, +or as far as the gates, or the kitchens, which last were at the rear of +the buildings, and smelt in turns throughout the day of coffee-grounds +and grease. + +We said that perhaps, undoubtedly indeed, we should stay there till the +end of the war. We moped. When we went to bed we were tired with +standing still, or with walking too slowly. We should have liked to go +to the front. + +Marcassin, housed in the company office, was never far away, and kept +an eye on us in silence. One day I was sharply rebuked by him for +having turned the water on in the lavatory at a time other than +placarded. Detected, I had to stand before him at attention. He asked +me in coarse language if I knew how to read, talked of punishment, and +added, "Don't do it again!" This tirade, perhaps justified on the +whole, but tactlessly uttered by the quondam Petrolus, humiliated me +deeply and left me gloomy all the day. Some other incidents showed me +that I no longer belonged to myself. + +* * * * * * + +One day, after morning parade, when the company was breaking off, a +Parisian of our section went up to Marcassin and asked him, "Adjutant, +we should like to know if we are going away." + +The officer took it in bad part. "To know? Always wanting to know!" +he cried; "it's a disease in France, this wanting to know. Get it well +into your heads that you _won't_ know! We shall do the knowing for +you! Words are done with. There's something else beginning, and +that's discipline and silence." + +The zeal we had felt for going to the front cooled off in a few days. +One or two well-defined cases of shirking were infectious, and you +heard this refrain again and again: "As long as the others are +dodging, I should be an ass not to do it, too." + +But there was quite a multitude who never said anything. + +At last a reinforcement draft was posted; old and young +promiscuously--a list worked out in the office amidst a seesaw of +intrigue. Protests were raised, and fell back again into the +tranquillity of the depot. + +I abode there forty-five days. Towards the middle of September, we +were allowed to go out after the evening meal and Sundays as well. We +used to go in the evening to the Town Hall to read the despatches +posted there; they were as uniform and monotonous as rain. Then a +friend and I would go to the cafe, keeping step, our arms similarly +swinging, exchanging some words, idle, and vaguely divided into two +men. Or we went into it in a body, which isolated me. The saloon of +the cafe enclosed the same odors as Fontan's; and while I stayed there, +sunk in the soft seat, my boots grating on the tiled floor, my eye on +the white marble, it was like a strip of a long dream of the past, a +scanty memory that clothed me. There I used to write to Marie, and +there I read again the letters I received from her, in which she said, +"Nothing has changed since you were away." + +One Sunday, when I was beached on a seat in the square and weeping with +yawns under the empty sky, I saw a young woman go by. By reason of +some resemblance in outline, I thought of a woman who had loved me. I +recalled the period when life was life, and that beautiful caressing +body of once-on-a-time. It seemed to me that I held her in my arms, so +close that I felt her breath, like velvet, on my face. + +We got a glimpse of the captain at one review. Once there was talk of +a new draft for the front, but it was a false rumor. Then we said, +"There'll never be any war for us," and that was a relief. + +My name flashed to my eyes in a departure list posted on the wall. My +name was read out at morning parade, and it seemed to me that it was +the only one they read. I had no time to get ready. In the evening of +the next day our detachment passed out of the barracks by the little +gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE WORLD'S END + + +"We're going to Alsace," said the well-informed. "To the Somme," said +the better-informed, louder. + +We traveled thirty-six hours on the floor of a cattle truck, wedged and +paralyzed in the vice of knapsacks, pouches, weapons and moist bodies. +At long intervals the train would begin to move on again. It has left +an impression with me that it was chiefly motionless. + +We got out, one afternoon, under a sky crowded with masses of darkness, +in a station recently bombarded and smashed, and its roof left like a +fish-bone. It overlooked a half-destroyed town, where, amid a foul +whiteness of ruin, a few families were making shift to live in the +rain. + +"'Pears we're in the Aisne country," they said. + +A downpour was in progress. Shivering, we busied ourselves with +unloading and distributing bread, our hands numbed and wet, and then +ate it hurriedly while we stood in the road, which gleamed with heavy +parallel brush-strokes of gray paint as far as the eye could see. Each +looked after himself, with hardly a thought for the next man. On each +side of the road were deserts without limits, flat and flabby, with +trees like posts, and rusty fields patched with green mud. + +"Shoulder packs, and forward!" Adjutant Marcassin ordered. + +Where were we going? No one knew. We crossed the rest of the village. +The Germans had occupied it during the August retreat. It was +destroyed, and the destruction was beginning to live, to cover itself +with fresh wreckage and dung, to smoke and consume itself. The rain +had ceased in melancholy. Up aloft in the clearings of the sky, +clusters of shrapnel stippled the air round aeroplanes, and the +detonations reached us, far and fine. Along the sodden road we met Red +Cross motor ambulances, rushing on rails of mud, but we could not see +inside them. In the first stages we were interested in everything, and +asked questions, like foreigners. A man who had been wounded and was +rejoining the regiment with us answered us from time to time, and +invariably added, "That's nothing; you'll see in a bit." Then the +march made men retire into themselves. + +My knapsack, so ingeniously compact; my cartridge-bags so ferociously +full; my round pouches with their keen-edged straps, all jostled and +then wounded my back at each step. The pain quickly became acute, +unbearable. I was suffocated and blinded by a mask of sweat, in spite +of the lashing moisture, and I soon felt that I should not arrive at +the end of the fifty minutes' march. But I did all the same, because I +had no reason for stopping at any one second sooner than another, and +because I could thus always _do one step more_. I knew later that this +is nearly always the mechanical reason which accounts for soldiers +completing superhuman physical efforts to the very end. + +The cold blast benumbed us, while we dragged ourselves through the +softened plains which evening was darkening. At one halt I saw one of +those men who used to agitate at the depot to be sent to the front. He +had sunk down at the foot of the stacked rifles; exertion had made him +almost unrecognizable, and he told me that he had had enough of war! +And little Melusson, whom I once used to see at Viviers, lifted to me +his yellowish face, sweat-soaked, where the folds of the eyelids seemed +drawn with red crayon, and informed me that he should report sick the +next day. + +After four marches of despairing length under a lightless sky over a +colorless earth, we stood for two hours, hot and damp, at the chilly +top of a hill, where a village was beginning. An epidemic of gloom +overspread us. Why were we stopped in that way? No one knew anything. + +In the evening we engulfed ourselves in the village. But they halted +us in a street. The sky had heavily darkened. The fronts of the +houses had taken on a greenish hue and reflected and rooted themselves +in the running water of the street. The market-place curved around in +front of us--a black space with shining tracks, like an old mirror to +which the silvering only clings in strips. + +At last, night fully come, they bade us march. They made us go forward +and then draw back, with loud words of command, in the tunnels of +streets, in alleys and yards. By lantern light they divided us into +squads. I was assigned to the eleventh, quartered in a village whose +still standing parts appeared quite new. Adjutant Marcassin became my +section chief. I was secretly glad of this; for in the gloomy +confusion we stuck closely to those we knew, as dogs do. + +The new comrades of the squad--they lodged in the stable, which was +open as a cage--explained to me that we were a long way from the front, +over six miles; that we should have four days' rest and then go on +yonder to occupy the trenches at the glass works. They said it would +be like that, in shifts of four days, to the end of the war, and that, +moreover, one had not to worry. + +These words comforted the newcomers, adrift here and there in the +straw. Their weariness was alleviated. They set about writing and +card-playing. That evening I dated my letter to Marie "at the Front," +with a flourish of pride. I understood that glory consists in doing +what others have done, in being able to say, "I, too." + +* * * * * * + +Three days went by in this "rest camp." I got used to an existence +crowded with exercises in which we were living gear-wheels; crowded +also with fatigues; already I was forgetting my previous existence. + +On the Friday at three o'clock we were paraded in marching order in the +school yard. Great stones, detached from walls and arches, lay about +the forsaken grass like tombs. Hustled by the wind, we were reviewed +by the captain, who fumbled in our cartridge-pouches and knapsacks with +the intention of giving imprisonment to those who had not the right +quantity of cartridges and iron rations. In the evening we set off, +laughing and singing, along the great curves of the road. At night we +arrived swaying with fatigue and savagely silent, at a slippery and +interminable ascent which stood out against stormy rain-clouds as heavy +as dung-hills. Many dark masses stumbled and fell with a crash of +accoutrements on that huge sloping sewer. As they swarmed up the chaos +of oblique darkness which pushed them back, the men gave signs of +exhaustion and anger. Cries of "Forward! Forward!" surrounded us on +all sides, harsh cries like barks, and I heard, near me, Adjutant +Marcassin's voice, growling, "What about it, then? It's for France's +sake!" Arrived at the top of the hill, we went down the other slope. +The order came to put pipes out and advance in silence. A world of +noises was coming to life in the distance. + +A gateway made its sudden appearance in the night. We scattered among +flat buildings, whose walls here and there showed black holes, like +ovens, while the approaches were obstructed with plaster rubbish and +nail-studded beams. In places the recent collapse of stones, cement +and plaster had laid on the bricks a new and vivid whiteness that was +visible in the dark. + +"It's the glass works," said a soldier to me. + +We halted a moment in a passage whose walls and windows were broken, +where we could not make a step or sit down without breaking glass. We +left the works by sticky footpaths, full of rubbish at first, and then +of mud. Across marshy flats, chilly and sinister, obscurely lighted by +the night, we came to the edge of an immense and pallid crater. The +depths of this abyss were populated with glimmers and murmurs; and all +around a soaked and ink-black expanse of country glistened to infinity. + +"It's the quarry," they informed me. + +Our endless and bottomless march continued. Sliding and slipping we +descended, burying ourselves in these profundities and gropingly +encountering the hurly-burly of a convoy of carts and the advance guard +of the regiment we were relieving. We passed heaped-up hutments at the +foot of the circular chalky cliff that we could see dimly drawn among +the black circles of space. The sound of shots drew near and +multiplied on all sides; the vibration of artillery fire outspread +under our feet and over our heads. + +I found myself suddenly in front of a narrow and muddy ravine into +which the others were plunging one by one. + +"It's the trench," whispered the man who was following me; "you can see +its beginning, but you never see its blinking end. Anyway, on you go!" + +We followed the trench along for three hours. For three hours we +continued to immerse ourselves in distance and solitude, to immure +ourselves in night, scraping its walls with our loads, and sometimes +violently pulled up, where the defile shrunk into strangulation by the +sudden wedging of our pouches. It seemed as if the earth tried +continually to clasp and choke us, that sometimes it roughly struck us. +Above the unknown plains in which we were hiding, space was +shot-riddled. A few star-shells were softly whitening some sections of +the night, revealing the excavations' wet entrails and conjuring up a +file of heavy shadows, borne down by lofty burdens, tramping in a black +and black-bunged impasse, and jolting against the eddies. When great +guns were discharged all the vault of heaven was lighted and lifted and +then fell darkly back. + +"Look out! The open crossing!" + +A wall of earth rose in tiers before us. There was no outlet. The +trench came to a sudden end--to be resumed farther on, it seemed. + +"Why?" I asked, mechanically. + +They explained to me: "It's like that." And they added, "You stoop +down and get a move on." + +The men climbed the soft steps with bent heads, made their rush one by +one and ran hard into the belt whose only remaining defense was the +dark. The thunder of shrapnel that shattered and dazzled the air here +and there showed me too frightfully how fragile we all were. In spite +of the fatigue clinging to my limbs, I sprang forward in my turn with +all my strength, fiercely pursuing the signs of an overloaded and +rattling body which ran in front; and I found myself again in a trench, +breathless. In my passage I had glimpses of a somber field, +bullet-smacked and hole pierced, with silent blots outspread or +doubled, and a litter of crosses and posts, as black and fantastic as +tall torches extinguished, all under a firmament where day and night +immensely fought. + +"I believe I saw some corpses," I said to him who marched in front of +me; and there was a break in my voice. + +"_You've_ just left your village," he replied; "you bet there's some +stiffs about here!" + +I laughed also, in the delight of having got past. We began again to +march one behind another, swaying about, hustled by the narrowness of +this furrow they had scooped to the ancient depth of a grave, panting +under the load, dragged towards the earth by the earth and pushed +forward by will-power, under a sky shrilling with the dizzy flight of +bullets, tiger-striped with red, and in some seconds saturated with +light. At forks in the way we turned sometimes right and sometimes +left, all touching each other, the whole huge body of the company +fleeing blindly towards its bourne. + +For the last time they halted us in the middle of the night. I was so +weary that I propped my knees against the wet wall and remained +kneeling for some blissful minutes. + +My sentry turn began immediately, and the lieutenant posted me at a +loophole. He made me put my face to the hole and explained to me that +there was a wooded slope, right in front of us, of which the bottom was +occupied by the enemy; and to the right of us, three hundred yards +away, the Chauny road--"They're there." I had to watch the black +hollow of the little wood, and at every star-shell the creamy expanse +which divided our refuge from the distant hazy railing of the trees +along the road. He told me what to do in case of alarm and left me +quite alone. + +Alone, I shivered. Fatigue had emptied my head and was weighing on my +heart. Going close to the loophole, I opened my eyes wide through the +enemy night, the fathomless, thinking night. + +I thought I could see some of the dim shadows of the plain moving, and +some in the chasm of the wood, and everywhere! Affected by terror and +a sense of my huge responsibility, I could hardly stifle a cry of +anguish. But they did not move. The fearful preparations of the +shades vanished before my eyes and the stillness of lifeless things +showed itself to me. + +I had neither knapsack nor pouches, and I wrapped myself in my blanket. +I remained at ease, encircled to the horizon by the machinery of war, +surmounted by claps of living thunder. Very gently, my vigil relieved +and calmed me. I remembered nothing more about myself. I applied +myself to watching. I saw nothing, I knew nothing. + +After two hours, the sound of the natural and complaisant steps of the +sentry who came to relieve me brought me completely back to myself. I +detached myself from the spot where I had seemed riveted and went to +sleep in the "grotto." + +The dug-out was very roomy, but so low that in one place one had to +crawl on hands and knees to slip under its rough and mighty roof. It +was full of heavy damp, and hot with men. Extended in my place on +straw-dust, my neck propped by my knapsack, I closed my eyes in +comfort. When I opened them, I saw a group of soldiers seated in a +circle and eating from the same dish, their heads blotted out in the +darkness of the low roof. Their feet, grouped round the dish, were +shapeless, black, and trickling, like stone disinterred. They ate in +common, without table things, no man using more than his hands. + +The man next me was equipping himself to go on sentry duty. He was in +no hurry. He filled his pipe, drew from his pocket a tinder-lighter as +long as a tapeworm, and said to me, "You're not going on again till six +o'clock. Ah, you're very lucky!" + +Diligently he mingled his heavy tobacco-clouds with the vapors from all +those bodies which lay around us and rattled in their throats. +Kneeling at my feet to arrange his things, he gave me some advice, "No +need to get a hump, mind. Nothing ever happens here. Getting here's +by far the worst. On that job you get it hot, specially when you've +the bad luck to be sleepy, or it's not raining, but after that you're a +workman, and you forget about it. The most worst, it's the open +crossing. But nobody I know's ever stopped one there. It was other +blokes. It's been like this for two months, old man, and we'll be able +to say we've been through the war without a chilblain, we shall." + +At dawn I resumed my lookout at the loophole. Quite near, on the slope +of the little wood, the bushes and the bare branches are broidered with +drops of water. In front, under the fatal space where the eternal +passage of projectiles is as undistinguishable as light in daytime, the +field resembles a field, the road resembles a road. Ultimately one +makes out some corpses, but what a strangely little thing is a corpse +in a field--a tuft of colorless flowers which the shortest blades of +grass disguise! At one moment there was a ray of sunshine, and it +resembled the past. + +Thus went the days by, the weeks and the months; four days in the front +line, the harassing journey to and from it, the monotonous sentry-go, +the spy-hole on the plain, the mesmerism of the empty outlook and of +the deserts of waiting; and after that, four days of rest-camp full of +marches and parades and great cleansings of implements and of streets, +with regulations of the strictest, anticipating all the different +occasions for punishment, a thousand fatigues, each with as many harsh +knocks, the litany of optimist phrases, abstruse and utopian, in the +orders of the day, and a captain who chiefly concerned himself with the +two hundred cartridges and the reserve rations. The regiment had no +losses, or almost none; a few wounds during reliefs, and sometimes one +or two deaths which were announced like accidents. We only underwent +great weariness, which goes away as fast as it comes. The soldiers +used to say that on the whole they lived in peace. + +Marie would write to me, "The Piots have been saying nice things about +you," or "The Trompsons' son is a second lieutenant," or "If you knew +all the contrivances people have been up to, to hide their gold since +it's been asked for so loudly! If you knew what ugly tales there are!" +or "Everything is just the same." + +* * * * * * + +Once, when we were coming back from the lines and were entering our +usual village, we did not stop there; to the great distress of the men +who were worn out and yielding to the force of the knapsack. We +continued along the road through the evening with lowered heads; and +one hour later we dropped off around dark buildings--mournful tokens of +an unknown place--and they put us away among shadows which had new +shapes. From that time onwards, they changed the village at every +relief, and we never knew what it was until we were there. I was +lodged in barns, into which one wriggled by a ladder; in spongy and +steamy stables; in cellars where undisturbed draughts stirred up the +moldy smells that hung there; in frail and broken hangars which seemed +to brew bad weather; in sick and wounded huts; in villages remade +athwart their phantoms; in trenches and in caves--a world upside down. +We received the wind and the rain in our sleep. Sometimes we were too +brutally rescued from the pressure of the cold by braziers, whose +poisonous heat split one's head. And we forgot it all at each change +of scene. I had begun to note the names of places we were going to, +but I lost myself in the black swarm of words when I tried to recall +them. And the diversity and the crowds of the men around me were such +that I managed only with difficulty to attach fleeting names to their +faces. + +My companions did not look unfavorably on me, but I was no more than +another to them. In intervals among the occupations of the rest-camp, +I wandered spiritless, blotted out by the common soldiers' miserable +uniform, familiarly addressed by any one and every one, and stopping no +glance from a woman, by reason of the non-coms. + +I should never be an officer, like the Trompsons' son. It was not so +easy in my sector as in his. For that, it would be necessary for +things to happen which never would happen. But I should have liked to +be taken into the office. Others were there who were not so clearly +indicated as I for that work. I regarded myself as a victim of +injustice. + +* * * * * * + +One morning I found myself face to face with Termite, Brisbille's crony +and accomplice, and he arrived in our company by voluntary enlistment! +He was as skimpy and warped as ever, his body seeming to grimace +through his uniform. His new greatcoat looked worn out and his boots +on the wrong feet. He had the same ugly, blinking face and +black-furred cheeks and rasping voice. I welcomed him warmly, for by +his enlistment he was redeeming his past life. He took advantage of +the occasion to address me with intimacy. I talked with him about +Viviers and even let him share the news that Marie had just written to +me--that Monsieur Joseph Boneas was taking an examination in order to +become an officer in the police. + +But the poacher had not completely sloughed his old self. He looked at +me sideways and shook in the air his grimy wrist and the brass identity +disk that hung from it--a disk as big as a forest ranger's, perhaps a +trophy of bygone days. Hatred of the rich and titled appeared again +upon his hairy, sly face. "Those blasted nationalists," he growled; +"they spend their time shoving the idea of revenge into folks' heads, +and patching up hatred with their Leagues of Patriots and their +military tattoos and their twaddle and their newspapers, and when their +war does come they say '_Go_ and fight.'" + +"There are some of them who have died in the first line. Those have +done more than their duty." + +With the revolutionary's unfairness, the little man would not admit it. +"No--they have only done their duty,--no more." + +I was going to urge Monsieur Joseph's weak constitution but in presence +of that puny man with his thin, furry face, who might have stayed at +home, I forebore. But I decided to avoid, in his company, those +subjects in which I felt he was full of sour hostility and always ready +to bite. + +Continually we saw Marcassin's eye fixed on us, though aloof. His new +bestriped personality had completely covered up the comical picture of +Petrolus. He even seemed to have become suddenly more educated, and +made no mistakes when he spoke. He multiplied himself, was +attentiveness itself and found ways to expose himself to danger. When +there were night patrols in the great naked cemeteries bounded by the +graves of the living, he was always in them. + +But he scowled. We were short of the sacred fire, in his opinion, and +that distressed him. To grumbles against the fatigues which shatter, +the waiting which exhausts, the disillusion which destroys, against +misery and the blows of cold and rain, he answered violently, "Can't +you see it's for France? Why, hell and damnation! As long as it's for +France----!" + +One morning when we were returning from the trenches, ghastly in a +ghastly dawn, during the last minutes of a stage, a panting soldier let +the words escape him, "I'm fed up, I am!" + +The adjutant sprang towards him, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, hog? +Don't you think that France is worth your dirty skin and all our +skins?" + +The other, strained and tortured in his joints, showed fight. "France, +you say? Well, that's the French," he growled. + +And his pal, goaded also by weariness, raised his voice from the ranks. +"That's right! After all, it's the men that's there." + +"Great God!" the adjutant roared in their faces, "France is France and +nothing else, and you don't count, nor you either!" + +But the soldier, all the while hoisting up his knapsack with jerks of +his hips, and lowering his voice before the non-com's aggressive +excitement, clung to his notion, and murmured between his puffings, +"Men--they're humanity. That's not the truth perhaps?" + +Marcassin began to hurry through the drizzle along the side of the +marching column, shouting and trembling with emotion, "To hell with +your humanity, and your truth, too; I don't give a damn for them. _I_ +know your ideas--universal justice and 1789[1]--to hell with them, too. +There's only one thing that matters in all the earth, and that's the +glory of France--to give the Boches a thrashing and get Alsace-Lorraine +back, and money, that's where they're taking you, and that's all about +it. Once that's done, all's over. It's simple enough, even for a +blockhead like you. If you don't understand it, it's because you can't +lift your pig's head to see an ideal, or because you're only a +Socialist and a confiscator!" + +[Footnote 1: Outbreak of the French Revolution.--Tr.] + +Very reluctantly, rumbling all over, and his eye threatening, he went +away from the now silent ranks. A moment later, as he passed near me, +I noticed that his hands still trembled and I was infinitely moved to +see tears in his eyes! + +He comes and goes in pugnacious surveillance, in furies with difficulty +restrained, and masked by a contraction of the face. He invokes +Deroulede, and says that faith comes at will, like the rest. He lives +in perpetual bewilderment and distress that everybody does not think as +he does. He exerts real influence, for there are, in the multitudes, +whatever they may say, beautiful and profound instincts always near the +surface. + +The captain, who was a well-balanced man, although severe and prodigal +of prison when he found the least gap in our loads, considered the +adjutant animated by an excellent spirit, but he himself was not so +fiery. I was getting a better opinion of him; he could judge men. He +had said that I was a good and conscientious soldier, that many like me +were wanted. + +Our lieutenant, who was very young, seemed to be an amiable, +good-natured fellow. "He's a good little lad," said the grateful men; +"there's some that frighten you when you speak to them, and they solder +their jaws up. But _him_, he speaks to you even if you're stupid. +When you talk to him about you and your family, which isn't, all the +same, very interesting, well, he listens to you, old man." + +* * * * * * + +St. Martin's summer greatly warmed us as we tramped into a new village. +I remember that one of those days I took Margat with me and went with +him into a recently shelled house. (Margat was storming against the +local grocer, the only one of his kind, the inevitable and implacable +robber of his customers.) The framework of the house was laid bare, it +was full of light and plaster, and it trembled like a steamboat. We +climbed to the drawing-room of this house which had breathed forth all +its mystery and was worse than empty. The room still showed remains of +luxury and elegance--a disemboweled piano with clusters of protruding +strings; a cupboard, dislodged and rotting, as though disinterred; a +white-powdered floor, sown with golden stripes and rumpled books, and +with fragile debris which cried out when we trod on it. Across the +window, which was framed in broken glass, a curtain hung by one corner +and fluttered like a bat. Over the sundered fireplace, only a mirror +was intact and unsullied, upright in its frame. + +Then, become suddenly and profoundly like each other, we were both +fascinated by the virginity of that long glass. Its perfect integrity +lent it something like a body. Each of us picked up a brick and we +broke it with all our might, not knowing why. We ran away down the +shaking spiral stairs whose steps were hidden under deep rubbish. At +the bottom we looked at each other, still excited and already ashamed +of the fit of barbarism which had so suddenly risen in us and urged our +arms. + +"What about it? It's a natural thing to do--we're becoming men again, +that's all," said Margat. + +Having nothing to do we sat down there, commanding a view of the dale. +The day had been fine. + +Margat's looks strayed here and there. He frowned, and disparaged the +village because it was not like his own. What a comical idea to have +built it like that! He did not like the church, the singular shape of +it, the steeple in that position instead of where it should have been. + +Orango and Remus came and sat down by us in the ripening sun of +evening. + +Far away we saw the explosion of a shell, like a white shrub. We +chuckled at the harmless shot in the hazy distance and Remus made a +just observation. "As long as it's not dropped here, you might say as +one doesn't mind, eh, s'long as it's dropped somewhere else, eh?" + +At that moment a cloud of dirty smoke took shape five hundred yards +away at the foot of the village, and a heavy detonation rolled up to +where we were. + +"They're plugging the bottom of the village," Orango laconically +certified. + +Margat, still ruminating his grievance, cried, "'Fraid it's not on the +grocers it's dropped, that crump, seeing he lives right at the other +end. More's the pity. He charges any old price he likes and then he +says to you as well, 'If you're not satisfied, my lad, you can go to +hell.' Ah, more's the pity!" + +He sighed, and resumed. "Ah, grocers, they beat all, they do. You can +starve or you can bankrupt, that's their gospel; 'You don't matter to +me, _I've_ got to make money!'" + +"What do you want to be pasting the grocers for," Orango asked, "as +long as they've always been like that? They're Messrs. Thief & Sons." + +After a silence, Remus coughed, to encourage his voice, and said, "I'm +a grocer." + +Then Margat said to him artlessly, "Well, what about it, old chap? We +know well enough, don't we, that here on earth profit's the strongest +of all." + +"Why, yes, to be sure, old man," Remus replied. + +* * * * * * + +One day, while we were carrying our straw to our billets, one of my +lowly companions came up and questioned me as he walked. "I'd like you +to explain to me why there isn't any justice. I've been to the captain +to ask for leave that I'd a right to and I shows him a letter to say my +aunt's shortly deceased. 'That's all my eye and Betty Martin,' he +says. And I says to myself, that's the blinking limit, that is. Now, +then, tell me, you. When the war began, why didn't there begin full +justice for every one, seeing they could have done it and seeing no one +wouldn't have raised no objection just then. Why is it all just the +contrary? And don't believe it's only what's happened to me, but +there's big business men, they say, all of a sudden making a hundred +francs a day extra because of the murdering, and them young men an' +all, and a lot of toffed-up shirkers at the rear that's ten times +stronger than this pack of half-dead Territorials that they haven't +sent home even this morning yet, and they have beanos in the towns with +their Totties and their jewels and champagne, like what Jusserand tells +us!" + +I replied that complete justice was impossible, that we had to look at +the great mass of things generally. And then, having said this, I +became embarrassed in face of the stubborn inquisitiveness, clumsily +strict, of this comrade who was seeking the light all by himself! + +Following that incident, I often tried, during days of monotony, to +collect my ideas on war. I could not. I am sure of certain points, +points of which I have always been sure. Farther I cannot go. I rely +in the matter on those who guide us, who withhold the policy of the +State. But sometimes I regret that I no longer have a spiritual +director like Joseph Boneas. + +For the rest, the men around me--except when personal interest is in +question and except for a few chatterers who suddenly pour out theories +which contain bits taken bodily from the newspapers--the men around me +are indifferent to every problem too remote and too profound concerning +the succession of inevitable misfortunes which sweep us along. Beyond +immediate things, and especially personal matters, they are prudently +conscious of their ignorance and impotence. + +One evening I was coming in to sleep in our stable bedroom. The men +lying along its length and breadth on the bundles of straw had been +talking together and were agreed. Some one had just wound it up--"From +the moment you start marching, that's enough." + +But Termite, coiled up like a marmot on the common litter, was on the +watch. He raised his shock of hair, shook himself as though caught in +a snare, waved the brass disk on his wrist like a bell and said, "No, +that's not enough. You must think, but think with your own idea, not +other people's." + +Some amused faces were raised while he entered into observations that +they foresaw would be endless. + +"Pay attention, you fellows, he's going to talk about militarism," +announced a wag, called Pinson, whose lively wit I had already noticed. + +"There's the question of militarism----" Termite went on. + +We laughed to see the hairy mannikin floundering on the dim straw in +the middle of his big public-meeting words, and casting fantastic +shadows on the spider-web curtain of the skylight. + +"Are you going to tell us," asked one of us, "that the Boches aren't +militarists?" + +"Yes, indeed, and in course they are," Termite consented to admit. + +"Ha! That bungs you in the optic!" Pinson hastened to record. + +"For my part, old sonny," said a Territorial who was a good soldier, +"I'm not seeking as far as you, and I'm not as spiteful. I know that +they set about us, and that we only wanted to be quiet and friends with +everybody. Why, where I come from, for instance in the Creuse country, +I know that----" + +"You know?" bawled Termite, angrily; "you know nothing about nothing! +You're only a poor little tame animal, like all the millions of pals. +They gather us together, but they separate us. They say what they like +to us, or they don't say it, and you believe it. They say to you, +'This is what you've got to believe in!' They----" + +I found myself growing privately incensed against Termite, by the same +instinct which had once thrown me upon his accomplice Brisbille. I +interrupted him. "Who are they--your 'they'?" + +"Kings," said Termite. + +At that moment Marcassin's silhouette appeared in the gray of the alley +which ended among us. "Look out--there's Marc'! Shut your jaw," one +of the audience benevolently advised. + +"I'm not afeared not to say what I think!" declared Termite, instantly +lowering his voice and worming his way through the straw that divided +the next stall from ours. + +We laughed again. But Margat was serious. "Always," he said, +"there'll be the two sorts of people there's always been--the grousers +and the obeyers." + +Some one asked, "What for did you chap 'list?" + +"'Cos there was nothing to eat in the house," answered the Territorial, +as interpreter of the general opinion. + +Having thus spoken, the old soldier yawned, went on all fours, arranged +the straw of his claim, and added, "We'll not worry, but just let him +be. 'Specially seeing we can't do otherwise." + +It was time for slumber. The shed gaped open in front and at the +sides, but the air was not cold. + +"We've done with the bad days," said Remus; "shan't see them no more." + +"At last!" said Margat. + +We stretched ourselves out, elbow to elbow. The one in the dark corner +blew out his candle. + +"May the war look slippy and get finished!" mumbled Orango. + +"If only they'll let me transfer to the cyclists," Margat replied. + +We said no more, each forming that same great wandering prayer and some +little prayer like Margat's. Gently we wrapped ourselves up on the +straw, one with the falling night, and closed our eyes. + +* * * * * * + +At the bottom of the village, in the long pink farmhouse, there was a +charming woman, who smiled at us with twinkling eyes. As the days +emerged from the rains and fogs, I looked at her with all my soul, for +she was bathed in the youth of the year. She had a little nose and big +eyes and slight fair down on her lips and neck, like traces of gold. +Her husband was mobilized and we paid attentions to her. She smiled at +the soldiers as she went by, and chattered willingly with the non-coms; +and the passage of officers brought her to a standstill of vague +respect. I used to think about her, and I forgot, through her, to +write to Marie. + +There were many who inquired, speaking of the farmer's wife, "Any +chance?" But there were many who replied, "Nothing doing." + +One morning that was bright above all others, my companions were busy +holding their sides around a tipsy comrade whom they were catechizing +and ragging, and sprinkling now and then with little doses of wine, to +entertain him, and benefit more by him. These innocent amusements, +like those which Termite provoked when he discoursed on militarism and +the universe, did not detain me, and I gained the street. + +I went down the paved slope. In gardens and enclosures, the buds were +holding out a multitude of lilliputian green hands, all still closed, +and the apple-trees had white roses. Spring was hastening everywhere. +I came in sight of the pink house. She was alone in the road and she +took all the sunshine for herself. I hesitated, I went by--my steps +slackened heavily--I stopped, and returned towards the door. Almost in +spite of myself I went in. + +At first--light! A square of sunshine glowed on the red tiled floor of +the kitchen. Casseroles and basins were shining brightly. + +She was there! Standing by the sink she was making a streak of silver +flow into a gleaming pail, amid the luminous blush of the polished +tiles and the gold of the brass pans. The greenish light from the +window-glass was moistening her skin. She saw me and she smiled. + +I knew that she always smiled at us. But we were alone! I felt a mad +longing arise. There was something in me that was stronger than I, +that ravished the picture of her. Every second she became more +beautiful. Her plump dress proffered her figure to my eyes, and her +skirt trembled over her polished sabots. I looked at her neck, at her +throat--that extraordinary beginning. A strong perfume that enveloped +her shoulders was like the truth of her body. Urged forward, I went +towards her, and I could not even speak. + +She had lowered her head a little; her eyebrows had come nearer +together under the close cluster of her hair; uneasiness passed into +her eyes. She was used to the boyish mimicry of infatuated men. But +this woman was not for me! She dealt me the blow of an unfeeling +laugh, and disappearing, shut the door in my face. + +I opened the door. I followed her into an outhouse. Stammering +something, I found touch again with her presence, I held out my hand. +She slipped away, she was escaping me forever--when a monstrous Terror +stopped her! + +The walls and roof drew near in a hissing crash of thunder, a dreadful +hatch opened in the ceiling and all was filled with black fire. And +while I was hurled against the wall by a volcanic blast, with my eyes +scorched, my ears rent, and my brain hammered, while around me the +stones were pierced and crushed, I saw the woman uplifted in a +fantastic shroud of black and red, to fall back in a red and white +affray of clothes and linen; and something huge burst and naked, with +two legs, sprang at my face and forced into my mouth the taste of +blood. + +I know that I cried out, hiccoughing. Assaulted by the horrible kiss +and by the vile clasp that bruised the hand I had offered to the +woman's beauty--a hand still outheld--sunk in whirling smoke and ashes +and the dreadful noise now majestically ebbing, I found my way out of +the place, between walls that reeled as I did. Bodily, the house +collapsed behind me. In my flight over the shifting ground I was +brushed by the mass of maddened falling stones and the cry of the +ruins, sinking in vast dust-clouds as in a tumult of beating wings. + +A veritable squall of shells was falling in this corner of the village. +A little way off some soldiers were ejaculating in front of a little +house which had just been broken in two. They did not go close to it +because of the terrible whistling which was burying itself here and +there all around, and the splinters that riddled it at every blow. +Within the shelter of a wall we watched it appear under a vault of +smoke, in the vivid flashes of that unnatural tempest. + +"Why, you're covered with blood!" a comrade said to me, disquieted. + +Stupefied and still thunderstruck I looked at that house's bones and +broken spine, that human house. + +It had been split from top to bottom and all the front was down. In a +single second one saw all the seared cellules of its rooms, the +geometric path of the flues, and a down quilt like viscera on the +skeleton of a bed. In the upper story an overhanging floor remained, +and there we saw the bodies of two officers, pierced and spiked to +their places round the table where they were lunching when the +lightning fell--a nice lunch, too, for we saw plates and glasses and a +bottle of champagne. + +"It's Lieutenant Norbert and Lieutenant Ferriere." + +One of these specters was standing, and with cloven jaws so enlarged +that his head was half open, he was smiling. One arm was raised aloft +in the festive gesture which he had begun forever. The other, his fine +fair hair untouched, was seated with his elbows on a cloth now red as a +Turkey carpet, hideously attentive, his face besmeared with shining +blood and full of foul marks. They seemed like two statues of youth +and the joy of life framed in horror. + +"There's three!" some one shouted. + +This one, whom we had not seen at first, hung in the air with dangling +arms against the sheer wall, hooked on to a beam by the bottom of his +trousers. A pool of blood which lengthened down the flat plaster +looked like a projected shadow. At each fresh explosion splinters were +scattered round him and shook him, as though the dead man was still +marked and chosen by the blind destruction. + +There was something hatefully painful in the doll-like attitude of the +hanging corpse. + +Then Termite's voice was raised. "Poor lad!" he said. + +He went out from the shelter of the wall. + +"Are you mad?" we shouted; "he's dead, anyway!" + +A ladder was there. Termite seized it and dragged it towards the +disemboweled house, which was lashed every minute by broadsides of +splinters. + +"Termite!" cried the lieutenant, "I forbid you to go there! You're +doing no good." + +"I'm the owner of my skin, lieutenant," Termite replied, without +stopping or looking round. + +He placed the ladder, climbed up and unhooked the dead man. Around +them, against the plaster of the wall, there broke a surge of deafening +shocks and white fire. He descended with the body very skillfully, +laid it on the ground, and remaining doubled up he ran back to us--to +fall on the captain, who had witnessed the scene. + +"My friend," the captain said, "I've been told that you were an +anarchist. But I've seen that you're brave, and that's already more +than half of a Frenchman." + +He held out his hand. Termite took it, pretending to be little +impressed by the honor. + +When he returned to us he said, while his hand rummaged his hedgehog's +beard, "That poor lad--I don't know why--p'raps it's stupid--but I was +thinking of his mother." + +We looked at him with a sort of respect. First, because he had gone up +and then because he had passed through the hail of iron and won. There +was no one among us who did not earnestly wish he had tried and +succeeded in what Termite had just done. But assuredly we did not a +bit understand this strange soldier. + +A lull had come in the bombardment. "It's over," we concluded. + +As we returned we gathered round Termite and one spoke for the rest. + +"You're an anarchist, then?" + +"No," said Termite, "I'm an internationalist. That's why I enlisted." + +"Ah!" + +He tried to throw light on his words. "You understand, I'm against all +wars." + +"All wars! But there's times when war's good. There's defensive war." + +"No," said Termite again, "there's only offensive war; because if there +wasn't the offensive there wouldn't be the defensive." + +"Ah!" we replied. + +We went on chatting, dispassionately and for the sake of talking, +strolling in the dubious security of the streets which were sometimes +darkened by falls of wreckage, under a sky of formidable surprises. + +"All the same, isn't it chaps like you that prevented France from being +prepared?" + +"There's not enough chaps like me to prevent anything; and if there'd +been more, there wouldn't have been any war." + +"It's not to us, it's to the Boches and the others that you must say +that." + +"It's to all the world," said Termite; "that's why I'm an +internationalist." + +While Termite was slipping away somewhere else his questioner indicated +by a gesture that he did not understand. "Never mind," he said to us, +"that chap's better than us." + +Gradually it came about that we of the squad used to consult Termite on +any sort of subject, with a simplicity which made me smile--and +sometimes even irritated me. That week, for instance, some one asked +him, "All this firing--is it an attack they're getting ready?" + +But he knew no more than the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SHADOWS + + +We did not leave for the trenches on the day we ought to have done. +Evening came, then night--nothing happened. On the morning of the +fifth day some of us were leaning, full of idleness and uncertainty, +against the front of a house that had been holed and bunged up again, +at the corner of a street. One of our comrades said to me, "Perhaps we +shall stay here till the end of the war." + +There were signs of dissent, but all the same, the little street we had +not left on the appointed day seemed just then to resemble the streets +of yore! + +Near the place where we were watching the hours go by--and fumbling in +packets of that coarse tobacco that has skeletons in it--the hospital +was installed. Through the low door we saw a broken stream of poor +soldiers pass, sunken and bedraggled, with the sluggish eyes of +beggars; and the clean and wholesome uniform of the corporal who led +them stood forth among them. + +They were always pretty much the same men who haunted the inspection +rooms. Many soldiers make it a point of honor never to report sick, +and in their obstinacy there is an obscure and profound heroism. +Others give way and come as often as possible to the gloomy places of +the Army Medical Corps, to run aground opposite the major's door. +Among these are found real human remnants in whom some visible or +secret malady persists. + +The examining-room was contrived in a ground floor room whose furniture +had been pushed back in a heap. Through the open window came the voice +of the major, and by furtively craning our necks we could just see him +at the table, with his tabs and his eyeglass. Before him, half-naked +indigents stood, cap in hand, their coats on their arms, or their +trousers on their feet, pitifully revealing the man through the +soldier, and trying to make the most of the bleeding cords of their +varicose veins, or the arm from which a loose and cadaverous bandage +hung and revealed the hollow of an obstinate wound, laying stress on +their hernia or the everlasting bronchitis beyond their ribs. The +major was a good sort and, it seemed, a good doctor. But this time he +hardly examined the parts that were shown to him and his monotonous +verdict took wings into the street. "Fit to march--good--consultation +without penalty."[1] + +[Footnote 1: As a precaution against "scrimshanking," a penalty +attaches to "consultations" which are adjudged uncalled-for.--Tr.] + +"Consultations," which merely send the soldier back into the ranks +continued indefinitely. No one was exempted from marching. Once we +heard the husky and pitiful voice of a simpleton who was dressing again +in recrimination. The doctor argued, in a good-natured way, and then +said, his voice suddenly serious, "Sorry, my good man, but I cannot +exempt you. I have certain instructions. Make an effort. You can +still do it." + +We saw them come out, one by one, these creatures of deformed body and +dwindling movement, leaning on each other, as though attached, and +mumbling, "Nothing can be done, nothing." + +Little Melusson, reserved and wretched, with his long red nose between +his burning cheekbones, was standing among us in the idle file with +which the morning seemed vaguely in fellowship. He had not been to the +inspection, but he said, "I can carry on to-day still; but to-morrow I +shall knock under. To-morrow----" + +We paid no attention to Melusson's words. Some one near us said, +"Those instructions the major spoke of, they're a sign." + +* * * * * * + +On parade that same morning the chief, with his nose on a paper, read +out: "By order of the Officer Commanding," and then he stammered out +some names, names of some soldiers in the regiment brigaded with ours, +who had been shot for disobedience. There was a long list of them. At +the beginning of the reading a slight growl was heard going round. +Then, as the surnames came out, as they spread out in a crowd around +us, there was silence. This direct contact with the phantoms of the +executed set a wind of terror blowing and bowed all heads. + +It was the same again on the days that followed. After parade orders, +the commandant, whom we rarely saw, mustered the four companies under +arms on some waste ground. He spoke to us of the military situation, +particularly favorable to us on the whole front, and of the final +victory which could not be long delayed. He made promises to us. +"Soon you will be at home," and smiled on us for the first time. He +said, "Men, I do not know what is going to happen, but when it should +be necessary I rely on you. As always, do your duty and be silent. It +is so easy to be silent and to act!" + +We broke off and made ourselves scarce. Returned to quarters we +learned there was to be an inspection of cartridges and reserve rations +by the captain. We had hardly time to eat. Majorat waxed wroth, and +confided his indignation to Termite, who was a good audience, "It's all +the fault of that unlucky captain--we're just slaves!" + +He shook his fist as he spoke towards the Town Hall. + +But Termite shrugged his shoulders, looked at him unkindly, and said, +"Like a rotten egg, that's how you talk. That captain, and all the red +tabs and brass hats, it's not them that invented the rules. They're +just gilded machines--machines like you, but not so cheap. If you want +to do away with discipline, do away with war, my fellow; that's a sight +easier than to make it amusing for the private." + +He left Majorat crestfallen, and the others as well. For my part I +admired the peculiar skill with which the anti-militarist could give +answers beside the mark and yet always seem to be in the right. + +During those days they multiplied the route-marches and the exercises +intended to let the officers get the men again in hand. These +maneuvers tired us to death, and especially the sham attacks on wooded +mounds, carried out in the evening among bogs and thorn-thickets. When +we got back, most of the men fell heavily asleep just as they had +fallen, beside their knapsacks, without having the heart to eat. + +Right in the middle of the night and this paralyzed slumber, a cry +echoed through the walls, "Alarm! Stand to arms!" + +We were so weary that the brutal reveille seemed at first, to the +blinking and rusted men, like the shock of a nightmare. Then, while +the cold blew in through the open door and we heard the sentries +running through the streets, while the corporals lighted the candles +and shook us with their voices, we sat up askew, and crouched, and got +our things ready, and stood up and fell in shivering, with flabby legs +and minds befogged, in the black-hued street. + +After the roll-call and some orders and counter-orders, we heard the +command "Forward!" and we left the rest-camp as exhausted as when we +entered it. And thus we set out, no one knew where. + +At first it was the same exodus as always. It was on the same road +that we disappeared: into the same great circles of blackness that we +sank. + +We came to the shattered glass works and then to the quarry, which +daybreak was washing and fouling and making its desolation more +complete. Fatigue was gathering darkly within us and abating our pace. +Faces appeared stiff and wan, and as though they were seen through +gratings. We were surrounded by cries of "Forward!" thrown from all +directions between the twilight of the sky and the night of the earth. +It took a greater effort every time to tear ourselves away from the +halts. + +We were not the only regiment in movement in these latitudes. The +twilight depths were full. Across the spaces that surrounded the +quarry men were passing without ceasing and without limit, their feet +breaking and furrowing the earth like plows. And one guessed that the +shadows also were full of hosts going as we were to the four corners of +the unknown. Then the clay and its thousand barren ruts, these +corpse-like fields, fell away. Under the ashen tints of early day, +fog-banks of men descended the slopes. From the top I saw nearly the +whole regiment rolling into the deeps. As once of an evening in the +days gone by, I had a perception of the multitude's immensity and the +threat of its might, that might which surpasses all and is impelled by +invisible mandates. + +We stopped and drew breath again; and on the gloomy edge of this gulf +some soldiers even amused themselves by inciting Termite to speak of +militarism and anti-militarism. I saw faces which laughed, through +their black and woeful pattern of fatigue, around the little man who +gesticulated in impotence. Then we had to set off again. + +We had never passed that way but in the dark, and we did not recognize +the scenes now that we saw them. From the lane which we descended, +holding ourselves back, to gain the trench, we saw for the first time +the desert through which we had so often passed--plains and lagoons +unlimited. + +The waterlogged open country, with its dispirited pools and their +smoke-like islets of trees, seemed nothing but a reflection of the +leaden, cloud-besmirched sky. The walls of the trenches, pallid as +ice-floes, marked with their long, sinuous crawling where they had been +slowly torn from the earth by the shovels. These embossings and canals +formed a complicated and incalculable network, smudged near at hand by +bodies and wreckage; dreary and planetary in the distance. One could +make out the formal but hazy stakes and posts, aligned in the distance +to the end of sight; and here and there the swellings and round +ink-blots of the dugouts. In some sections of trench one could +sometimes even descry black lines, like a dark wall between other +walls, and these lines stirred--they were the workmen of destruction. +A whole region in the north, on higher ground, was a forest flown away, +leaving only a stranded bristling of masts, like a quayside. There was +thunder in the sky, but it was drizzling, too, and even the flashes +were gray above that infinite liquefaction in which each regiment was +as lost as each man. + +We entered the plain and disappeared into the trench. The "open +crossing" was now pierced by a trench, though it was little more than +begun. Amid the smacks of the bullets which blurred its edges we had +to crawl flat on our bellies, along the sticky bottom of this gully. +The close banks gripped and stopped our packs so that we floundered +perforce like swimmers, to go forward in the earth, under the murder in +the air. For a second the anguish and the effort stopped my heart and +in a nightmare I saw the cadaverous littleness of my grave closing over +me. + +At the end of this torture we got up again, in spite of the knapsacks. +The last star-shells were sending a bloody _aurora borealis_ into the +morning. Sudden haloes drew our glances and crests of black smoke went +up like cypresses. On both sides, in front and behind, we heard the +fearful suicide of shells. + +* * * * * * + +We marched in the earth's interior until evening. From time to time +one hoisted the pack up or pressed down one's cap into the sweat of the +forehead; had it fallen it could not have been picked up again in the +mechanism of the march; and then we began again to fight with the +distance. The hand contracted on the rifle-sling was tumefied by the +shoulder-straps and the bent arm was broken. + +Like a regular refrain the lamentation of Melusson came to me. He kept +saying that he was going to stop, but he did not stop, ever, and he +even butted into the back of the man in front of him when the whistle +went for a halt. + +The mass of the men said nothing. And the greatness of this silence, +this despotic and oppressive motion, irritated Adjutant Marcassin, who +would have liked to see some animation. He rated and lashed us with a +vengeance. He hustled the file in the narrowness of the trench as he +clove to the corners so as to survey his charge. But then he had no +knapsack. + +Through the heavy distant noise of our tramping, through the funereal +consolation of our drowsiness, we heard the adjutant's ringing voice, +violently reprimanding this or the other. "Where have you seen, swine, +that there can be patriotism without hatred? Do you think one can love +his own country if he doesn't hate the others?" + +When some one spoke banteringly of militarism--for no one, except +Termite, who didn't count, took the word seriously--Marcassin growled +despairingly, "French militarism and Prussian militarism, they're not +the same thing, for one's French and the other's Prussian!" + +But we felt that all these wrangles only shocked and wearied him. He +was instantly and gloomily silent. + +We were halted to mount guard in a part we had never seen before, and +for that reason it seemed worse than the others to us at first. We had +to scatter and run up and down the shelterless trench all night, to +avoid the plunging files of shells. That night was but one great crash +and we were strewn in the middle of it among black puddles, upon a +ghostly background of earth. We moved on again in the morning, +bemused, and the color of night. In front of the column we still heard +the cry "Forward!" Then we redoubled the violence of our effort, we +extorted some little haste from out us; and the soaked and frozen +company went on under cathedrals of cloud which collapsed in flames, +victims of a fate whose name they had no time to seek, a fate which +only let its force be felt, like God. + +During the day, and much farther on, they cried "Halt!" and the +smothered sound of the march was silent. From the trench in which we +collapsed under our packs, while another lot went away, we could see as +far as a railway embankment. The far end of the loophole-pipe enframed +tumbledown dwellings and cabins, ruined gardens where the grass and the +flowers were interred, enclosures masked by palings, fragments of +masonry to which eloquent remains of posters even still clung--a corner +full of artificial details, of human things, of illusions. The railway +bank was near, and in the network of wire stretched between it and us +many bodies were fast-caught as flies. + +The elements had gradually dissolved those bodies and time had worn +them out. With their dislocated gestures and point-like heads they +were but lightly hooked to the wire. For whole hours our eyes were +fixed on this country all obstructed by a machinery of wires and full +of men who were not on the ground. One, swinging in the wind, stood +out more sharply than the others, pierced like a sieve a hundred times +through and through, and a void in the place of his heart. Another +specter, quite near, had doubtless long since disintegrated, while held +up by his clothes. At the time when the shadow of night began to seize +us in its greatness a wind arose, a wind which shook the desiccated +creature, and he emptied himself of a mass of mold and dust. One saw +the sky's whirlwind, dark and disheveled, in the place where the man +had been; the soldier was carried away by the wind and buried in the +sky. + +Towards the end of the afternoon the piercing whistle of the bullets +was redoubled. We were riddled and battered by the noise. The +wariness with which we watched the landscape that was watching us +seemed to exasperate Marcassin. He pondered an idea; then came to a +sudden decision and cried triumphantly, "Look!" + +He climbed to the parapet, stood there upright, shook his fist at space +with the blind and simple gesture of the apostle who is offering his +example and his heart, and shouted, "Death to the Boches!" + +Then he came down, quivering with the faith of his self-gift. + +"Better not do that again," growled the soldiers who were lined up in +the trench, gorgonized by the extraordinary sight of a living man +standing, for no reason, on a front line parapet in broad daylight, +stupefied by the rashness they admired although it outstripped them. + +"Why not? Look!" + +Marcassin sprang up once more. Lean and erect, he stood like a poplar, +and raising both arms straight into the air, he yelled, "I believe only +in the glory of France!" + +Nothing else was left for him; he was but a conviction. Hardly had he +spoken thus in the teeth of the invisible hurricane when he opened his +arms, assumed the shape of a cross against the sky, spun round, and +fell noisily into the middle of the trench and of our cries. + +He had rolled onto his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he +turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his +eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great +boots away, that we should not walk on that blood. + +"He died like an idiot," said Margat in a choking voice; "but by God +it's fine!" + +He took off his cap, saluted awkwardly and stood with bowed head. + +"Committing suicide for an idea, it's fine," mumbled Vidaine. + +"It's fine, it's fine!" other voices said. + +And these little words fluttered down like leaves and petals onto the +body of the great dead soldier. + +"Where's his cap, that he thought so much of?" groaned his orderly, +Aubeau, looking in all directions. + +"Up there, to be sure: I'll fetch it," said Termite. + +The comical man went for the relic. He mounted the parapet in his +turn, coolly, but bending low. We saw him ferreting about, frail as a +poor monkey on the terrible crest. At last he put his hand on the cap +and jumped into the trench. A smile sparkled in his eyes and in the +middle of his beard, and his brass "cold meat ticket" jingled on his +shaggy wrist. + +They took the body away. The men carried it and a third followed with +the cap. One of us said, "The war's over for him!" And during the +dead man's recessional we were mustered, and we continued to draw +nearer to the unknown. But everything seemed to recede as fast as we +advanced, even events. + +* * * * * * + +We wandered five days, six days, in the lines, almost without sleeping. +We stood for hours, for half-nights and half-days, waiting for ways to +be clear that we could not see. Unceasingly they made us go back on +our tracks and begin over again. We mounted guard in trenches, we +fitted ourselves into some stripped and sinister corner which stood out +against a charred twilight or against fire. We were condemned to see +the same abysses always. + +For two nights we bent fiercely to the mending of an old third-line +trench above the ruin of its former mending. We repaired the long +skeleton, soft and black, of its timbers. From that dried-up drain we +besomed the rubbish of equipment, of petrified weapons, of rotten +clothes and of victuals, of a sort of wreckage of forest and +house--filthy, incomparably filthy, infinitely filthy. We worked by +night and hid by day. The only light for us was the heavy dawn of +evening when they dragged us from sleep. Eternal night covered the +earth. + +After the labor, as soon as daybreak began to replace night with +melancholy, we buried ourselves methodically in the depth of the +caverns there. Only a deadened murmur penetrated to them, but the rock +moved by reason of the earthquakes. When some one lighted his pipe, by +that gleam we looked at each other. We were fully equipped; we could +start away at any minute; it was forbidden to take off the heavy +jingling chain of cartridges around us. + +I heard some one say, "In _my_ country there are fields, and paths, and +the sea; nowhere else in the world is there that." + +Among these shades of the cave--an abode of the first men as it +seemed--I saw the hand start forth of him who existed on the spectacle +of the fields and the sea, who was trying to show it and to seize it; +or I saw around a vague halo four card-players stubbornly bent upon +finding again something of an ancient and peaceful attachment in the +faces of the cards; or I saw Margat flourish a Socialist paper that had +fallen from Termite's pocket, and burst into laughter at the censored +blanks it contained. And Majorat raged against life, caressed his +reserve bottle with his lips till out of breath and then, appeased and +his mouth dripping, said it was the only way to alleviate his +imprisonment. Then sleep slew words and gestures and thoughts. I kept +repeating some phrase to myself, trying in vain to understand it; and +sleep submerged me, ancestral sleep so dreary and so deep that it seems +there had only and ever been one long, lone sleep here on earth, above +which our few actions float, and which ever returns to fill the flesh +of man with night. + +Forward! Our nights are torn from us in lots. The bodies, invaded by +caressing poison, and even by confidences and apparitions, shake +themselves and stand up again. We extricate ourselves from the hole, +and emerge from the density of buried breath; stumbling we climb into +icy space, odorless, infinite space. The oscillation of the march, +assailed on both sides by the trench, brings brief and paltry halts, in +which we recline against the walls, or cast ourselves on them. We +embrace the earth, since nothing else is left us to embrace. + +Then Movement seizes us again. Metrified by regular jolts, by the +shock of each step, by our prisoned breathing, it loses its hold no +more, but becomes incarnate in us. It sets one small word resounding +in our heads, between our teeth--"Forward!"--longer, more infinite than +the uproar of the shells. It sets us making, towards the east or +towards the north, bounds which are days and nights in length. It +turns us into a chain which rolls along with a sound of steel--the +metallic hammering of rifle, bayonet, cartridges, and of the tin cup +which shines on the dark masses like a bolt. Wheels, gearing, +machinery! One sees life and the reality of things striking and +consuming and forging each other. + +We knew well enough that we were going towards some tragedy that the +chiefs knew of; but the tragedy was above all in the going there. + +* * * * * * + +We changed country. We left the trenches and climbed out upon the +earth--along a great incline which hid the enemy horizon from us and +protected us against him. The blackening dampness turned the cold into +a thing, and laid frozen shudders on us. A pestilence surrounded us, +wide and vague; and sometimes lines of pale crosses alongside our march +spelled out death in a more precise way. + +It was our tenth night; it was at the end of all our nights, and it +seemed greater than they. The distances groaned, roared and growled, +and would sometimes abruptly define the crest of the incline among the +winding sheets of the mists. The intermittent flutters of light showed +me the soldier who marched in front of me. My eyes, resting in fixity +on him, discovered his sheepskin coat, his waist-belt, straining at the +shoulder-straps, dragged by the metal-packed cartridge pouches, by the +bayonet, by the trench-tool; his round bags, pushed backwards; his +swathed and hooded rifle; his knapsack, packed lengthways so as not to +give a handle to the earth which goes by on either side; the blanket, +the quilt, the tentcloth, folded accordion-wise on the top of each +other, and the whole surmounted by the mess-tin, ringing like a +mournful bell, higher than his head. What a huge, heavy and mighty +mass the armed soldier is, near at hand and when one is looking at +nothing else! + +Once, in consequence of a command badly given or badly understood, the +company wavered, flowed back and pawed the ground in disorder on the +declivity. Fifty men, who were all alike by reason of their sheepskins +ran here and there and one by one--a vague collection of evasive men, +small and frail, not knowing what to do; while non-coms ran round them, +abused and gathered them. Order began again, and against the whitish +and bluish sheets spread by the star-shells I saw the pendulums of the +step once more fall into line under the long body of shadows. + +During the night there was a distribution of brandy. By the light of +lanterns we saw the cups held out, shaking and gleaming. The libation +drew from our entrails a moment of delight and uplifting. The liquid's +fierce flow awoke deep impulses, restored the martial mien to us, and +made us grasp our rifles with a victorious desire to kill. + +But the night was longer than that dream. Soon, the kind of goddess +superposed on our shadows left our hands and our heads, and that thrill +of glory was of no use. + +Indeed, its memory filled our hearts with a sort of bitterness. "You +see, there's no trenches anywhere about here," grumbled the men. + +"And why are there no trenches?" said a wrongheaded man; "why, it's +because they don't care a damn for soldiers' lives." + +"Fathead!" the corporal interrupted; "what's the good of trenches +behind, if there's one in front, fathead!" + +* * * * * * + +"Halt!" + +We saw the Divisional Staff go by in the beam of a searchlight. In +that valley of night it might have been a procession of princes rising +from a subterranean palace. On cuffs and sleeves and collars badges +wagged and shone, golden aureoles encircled the heads of this group of +apparitions. + +The flashing made us start and awoke us forcibly, as it did the night. + +The men had been pressed back upon the side of the sunken hollow to +clear the way; and they watched, blended with the solidity of the dark. +Each great person in his turn pierced the fan of moted sunshine, and +each was lighted up for some paces. Hidden and abashed, the +shadow-soldiers began to speak in very low voices of those who went by +like torches. + +They who passed first, guiding the Staff, were the company and +battalion officers. We knew them. The quiet comments breathed from +the darkness were composed either of praises or curses; these were good +and clear-sighted officers; those were triflers or skulkers. + +"That's one that's killed some men!" + +"That's one I'd be killed for!" + +"The infantry officer who really does all he ought," Pelican declared, +"well, he get's killed." + +"Or else he's lucky." + +"There's black and there's white in the company officers. At bottom +you know, I say they're men. It's just a chance you've got whether you +tumble on the good or the bad sort. No good worrying. It's just +luck." + +"More's the pity for us." + +The soldier who said that smiled vaguely, lighted by a reflection from +the chiefs. One read in his face an acquiescence which recalled to me +certain beautiful smiles I had caught sight of in former days on +toilers' humble faces. Those who are around me are saying to +themselves, "Thus it is written," and they think no farther than that, +massed all mistily in the darkness, like vague hordes of negroes. + +Then officers went by of whom we did not speak, because we did not know +them. These unknown tab-bearers made a greater impression than the +others; and besides, their importance and their power were increasing. +We saw rows of increasing crowns on the caps. Then, the shadow-men +were silent. The eulogy and the censure addressed to those whom one +had seen at work had no hold on these, and all those minor things faded +away. These were admired in the lump. + +This superstition made me smile. But the general of the division +himself appeared in almost sacred isolation. The tabs and +thunderbolts[1] and stripes of his satellites glittered at a respectful +distance only. Then it seemed to me that I was face to face with Fate +itself--the will of this man. In his presence a sort of instinct +dazzled me. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +"Packs up! Forward!" + +We took back upon our hips and neck the knapsack which had the shape +and the weight of a yoke, which every minute that falls on it weighs +down more dourly. The common march went on again. It filled a great +space; it shook the rocky slopes with its weight. In vain I bent my +head--I could not hear the sound of my own steps, so blended was it +with the others. And I repeated obstinately to myself that one had to +admire the intelligent force which sets all this deep mass in movement, +which says to us or makes us say, "Forward!" or "It has to be!" or "You +will _not_ know!" which hurls the world we are into a whirlpool so +great that we do not even see the direction of our fall, into +profundities we cannot see because they are profound. We have need of +masters who know all that we do not know. + +* * * * * * + +Our weariness so increased and overflowed that it seemed as if we grew +bigger at every step! And then one no longer thought of fatigue. We +had forgotten it, as we had forgotten the number of the days and even +their names. Always we made one step more, always. + +Ah, the infantry soldiers, the pitiful Wandering Jews who are always +marching! They march mathematically, in rows of four numbers, or in +file in the trenches, four-squared by their iron load, but separate, +separate. Bent forward they go, almost prostrated, trailing their +legs, kicking the dead. Slowly, little by little, they are wounded by +the length of time, by the incalculable repetition of movements, by the +greatness of things. They are borne down by their bones and muscles, +by their own human weight. At halts of only ten minutes, they sink +down. "There's no time to sleep!" "No matter," they say, and they go +to sleep as happy people do. + +* * * * * * + +Suddenly we learned that nothing was going to happen! It was all over +for us, and we were going to return to the rest-camp. We said it over +again to ourselves. And one evening they said, "We're returning," +although they did not know, as they went on straight before them, +whether they were going forward or backward. + +In the plaster-kiln which we are marching past there is a bit of +candle, and sunk underneath its feeble illumination there are four men. +Nearer, one sees that it is a soldier, guarding three prisoners. The +sight of these enemy soldiers in greenish and red rags gives us an +impression of power, of victory. Some voices question them in passing. +They are dismayed and stupefied; the fists that prop up their yellow +cheekbones protrude triangular caricatures of features. Sometimes, at +the cut of a frank question, they show signs of lifting their heads, +and awkwardly try to give vent to an answer. + +"What's he say, that chap?" they asked Sergeant Muller. + +"He says that war's none of their fault; it's the big people's." + +"The swine!" grunts Margat. + +We climb the hill and go down the other side of it. Meandering, we +steer towards the infernal glimmers down yonder. At the foot of the +hill we stop. There ought to be a clear view, but it is +evening--because of the bad weather and because the sky is full of +black things and of chemical clouds with unnatural colors. Storm is +blended with war. Above the fierce and furious cry of the shells I +heard, in domination over all, the peaceful boom of thunder. + +They plant us in subterranean files, facing a wide plain of gentle +gradient which dips from the horizon towards us, a plain with a rolling +jumble of thorn-brakes and trees, which the gale is seizing by the +hair. Squalls charged with rain and cold are passing over and +immensifying it; and there are rivers and cataclysms of clamor along +the trajectories of the shells. Yonder, under the mass of the rust-red +sky and its sullen flames, there opens a yellow rift where trees stand +forth like gallows. The soil is dismembered. The earth's covering has +been blown a lot in slabs, and its heart is seen reddish and lined +white--butchery as far as the eye can see. + +There is nothing now but to sit down and recline one's back as +conveniently as possible. We stay there and breathe and live a little; +we are calm, thanks to that faculty we have of never seeing either the +past or the future. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WHITHER GOEST THOU? + + +But soon a shiver has seized all of us. + +"Listen! It's stopped! Listen!" + +The whistle of bullets has completely ceased, and the artillery also. +The lull is fantastic. The longer it lasts the more it pierces us with +the uneasiness of beasts. We lived in eternal noise; and now that it +is hiding, it shakes and rouses us, and would drive us mad. + +"What's that?" + +We rub our eyelids and open wide our eyes. We hoist our heads with no +precaution above the crumbled parapet. We question each other--"D'you +see?" + +No doubt about it; the shadows are moving along the ground wherever one +looks. There is no point in the distance where they are not moving. + +Some one says at last:-- + +"Why, it's the Boches, to be sure!" + +And then we recognize on the sloping plain the immense geographical +form of the army that is coming upon us! + +* * * * * * + +Behind and in front of us together, a terrible crackle bursts forth and +makes somber captives of us in the depth of a valley of flames, and +flames which illuminate the plain of men marching over the plain. They +reveal them afar, in incalculable number, with the first ranks +detaching themselves, wavering a little, and forming again, the chalky +soil a series of points and lines like something written! + +Gloomy stupefaction makes us dumb in face of that living immensity. +Then we understand that this host whose fountain-head is out of sight +is being frightfully cannonaded by our 75's; the shells set off behind +us and arrive in front of us. In the middle of the lilliputian ranks +the giant smoke-clouds leap like hellish gods. We see the flashes of +the shells which are entering that flesh scattered over the earth. It +is smashed and burned entirely in places, and that nation advances like +a brazier. + +Without a stop it overflows towards us. Continually the horizon +produces new waves. We hear a vast and gentle murmur rise. With their +tearing lights and their dull glimmers they resemble in the distance a +whole town making festival in the evening. + +We can do nothing against the magnitude of that attack, the greatness +of that sum total. When a gun has fired short, we see more clearly the +littleness of each shot. Fire and steel are drowned in all that life; +it closes up and re-forms like the sea. + +"Rapid fire!" + +We fire desperately. But we have not many cartridges. Since we came +into the first line they have ceased to inspect our load of ammunition; +and many men, especially these last days, have got rid of a part of the +burden which bruises hips and belly and tears away the skin. They who +are coming do not fire; and above the long burning thicket of our line +one can see them still flowing from the east. They are closely massed +in ranks. One would say they clung to each other as though welded. +They are not using their rifles. Their only weapon is the infinity of +their number. They are coming to bury us under their feet. + +Suddenly a shift in the wind brings us the smell of ether. The +divisions advancing on us are drunk! We declare it, we tell it to +ourselves frantically. + +"They're on fire! They're on fire!" cries the trembling voice of the +man beside me, whose shoulders are shaken by the shots he is hurling. + +They draw near. They are lighted from below along the descent by the +flashing footlights of our fire; they grow bigger, and already we can +make out the forms of soldiers. They are at the same time in order and +in disorder. Their outlines are rigid, and one divines faces of stone. +Their rifles are slung and they have nothing in their hands. They come +on like sleep-walkers, only knowing how to put one foot before the +other, and surely they are singing. Yonder, in the bulk of the +invasion, the guns continue to destroy whole walls and whole structures +of life at will. On the edges of it we can clearly see isolated +silhouettes and groups as they fall, with an extended line of figures +like torchlights. + +Now they are there, fifty paces away, breathing their ether into our +faces. We do not know what to do. We have no more cartridges. We fix +bayonets, our ears filled with that endless, undefined murmur which +comes from their mouths and the hollow rolling of the flood that +marches. + +A shout spreads behind us: + +"Orders to fall back!" + +We bow down and evacuate the trench by openings at the back. There are +not a lot of us, we who thought we were so many. The trench is soon +empty, and we climb the hill that we descended in coming. We go up +towards our 75's, which are in lines behind the ridge and still +thundering. We climb at a venture, in the open, by vague paths and +tracks of mud; there are no trenches. During the gray ascent it is a +little clearer than a while ago: they do not fire on us. If they fired +on us, we should be killed. We climb in flagging jumps, in jerks, +pounded by the panting of the following waves that push us before them, +closely beset by their clattering, nor turning round to look again. We +hoist ourselves up the trembling flanks of the volcano that clamors up +yonder. Along with us are emptied batteries also climbing, and horses +and clouds of steam and all the horror of modern war. Each man pushes +this retreat on, and is pushed by it; and as our panting becomes one +long voice, we go up and up, baffled by our own weight which tries to +fall back, deformed by our knapsacks, bent and silent as beasts. + +From the summit we see the trembling inundation, murmuring and +confused, filling the trenches we have just left, and seeming already +to overflow them. But our eyes and ears are violently monopolized by +the two batteries between which we are passing; they are firing into +the infinity of the attackers, and each shot plunges into life. Never +have I been so affected by the harrowing sight of artillery fire. The +tubes bark and scream in crashes that can hardly be borne; they go and +come on their brakes in starts of fantastic distinctness and violence. + +In the hollows where the batteries lie hid, in the middle of a +fan-shaped phosphorescence, we see the silhouettes of the gunners as +they thrust in the shells. Every time they maneuver the breeches, +their chests and arms are scorched by a tawny reflection. They are +like the implacable workers of a blast furnace; the breeches are +reddened by the heat of the explosions, the steel of the guns is on +fire in the evening. + +For some minutes now they have fired more slowly--as if they were +becoming exhausted. A few far-apart shots--the batteries fire no more; +and now that the salvos are extinguished, we see the fire in the steel +go out. + +In the abysmal silence we hear a gunner groan:-- + +"There's no more shell." + +The shadow of twilight resumes its place in the sky--henceforward +empty. It grows cold. There is a mysterious and terrible mourning. +Around me, springing from the obscurity, are groans and gasps for +breath, loaded backs which disappear, stupefied eyes, and the gestures +of men who wipe the sweat from their foreheads. The order to retire is +repeated, in a tone that grips us--one would call it a cry of distress. +There is a confused and dejected trampling; and then we descend, we go +away the way we came, and the host follows itself heavily and makes +more steps into the gulf. + +* * * * * * + +When we have gone again down the slope of the hill, we find ourselves +once more in the bottom of a valley, for another height begins. Before +ascending it, we stop to take breath, but ready to set off again should +the flood-tide appear on the ridge yonder. We find ourselves in the +middle of grassy expanses, without trenches or defense, and we are +astonished not to see the supports. We are in the midst of a sort of +absence. + +We sit down here and there; and some one with his forehead bowed almost +to his knees, translating the common thought, says:-- + +"It's none of our fault." + +Our lieutenant goes up to the man, puts his hand on his shoulder, and +says, gently:-- + +"No, my lads, it's none of your fault." + +Just then some sections join us who say, "We're the rearguard." And +some add that the two batteries of 75's up yonder are already captured. +A whistle rings out--"Come, march!" + +We continue the retreat. There are two battalions of us in all--no +soldier in front of us; no French soldier behind us. I have neighbors +who are unknown to me, motley men, routed and stupefied, artillery and +engineers; unknown men who come and go away, who seem to be born and +seem to die. + +At one time we get a glimpse of some confusion in the orders from +above. A Staff officer, issuing from no one knew where, throws himself +in front of us, bars our way, and questions us in a tragic voice:-- + +"What are you miserable men doing? Are you running away? Forward in +the name of France! I call upon you to return. Forward!" + +The soldiers, who would never have thought of retiring without orders, +are stunned, and can make nothing of it. + +"We're going back because they told us to go back." + +But they obey. They turn right about face. Some of them have already +begun to march forward, and they call to their comrades:-- + +"Hey there! This way, it seems!" + +But the order to retire returns definitely, and we obey once more, +fuming against those who do not know what they say; and the ebb carries +away with it the officer who shouted amiss. + +The march speeds up, it becomes precipitate and haggard. We are swept +along by an impetuosity that we submit to without knowing whence it +comes. We begin the ascent of the second hill which appears in the +fallen night a mountain. + +When fairly on it we hear round us, on all sides and quite close, a +terrible pit-pat, and the long low hiss of mown grass. There is a +crackling afar in the sky, and they who glance back for a second in the +awesome storm see the cloudy ridges catch fire horizontally. It means +that the enemy have mounted machine guns on the summit we have just +abandoned, and that the place where we are is being hacked by the +knives of bullets. On all sides soldiers wheel and rattle down with +curses, sighs and cries. We grab and hang on to each other, jostling +as if we were fighting. + +The rest at last reach the top of the rise; and just at that moment the +lieutenant cries in a clear and heartrending voice: + +"Good-by, my lads!" + +We see him fall, and he is carried away by the survivors around him. + +From the summit we go a few steps down the other side, and lie on the +ground in silence. Some one asks, "The lieutenant?" + +"He's dead." + +"Ah," says the soldier, "and how he said good-by to us!" + +We breathe a little now. We do not think any more unless it be that we +are at last saved, at last lying down. + +Some engineers fire star-shells, to reconnoiter the state of things in +the ground we have evacuated. Some have the curiosity to risk a glance +over it. On the top of the first hill--where our guns were--the big +dazzling plummets show a line of bustling excitement. One hears the +noises of picks and of mallet blows. + +They have stopped their advance and are consolidating there. They are +hollowing their trenches and planting their network of wire--which will +have to be taken again some day. We watch, outspread on our bellies, +or kneeling, or sitting lower down, with our empty rifles beside us. + +Margat reflects, shakes his head and says:-- + +"Wire would have stopped them just now. But we had no wire." + +"And machine-guns, too! but where are they, the M.G.s?" + +We have a distinct feeling that there has been an enormous blunder in +the command. Want of foresight--the reinforcements were not there; +they had not thought of supports. There were not enough guns to bar +their way, nor enough artillery ammunition; with our own eyes we had +seen two batteries cease fire in mid-action--they had not thought of +shells. In a wide stretch of country, as one could see, there were no +defense work, no trenches; they had not thought of trenches. + +It is obvious even to the common eyes of common soldiers. + +"What could we do?" says one of us; "it's the chiefs." + +We say it and we should repeat it if we were not up again and swept +away in the hustle of a fresh departure, and thrown back upon more +immediate and important anxieties. + +* * * * * * + +We do not know where we are. + +We have marched all night. More weariness bends our spines again, more +obscurity hums in our heads. By following the bed of a valley, we have +found trenches again, and then men. These splayed and squelched +alleys, with their fat and sinking sandbags, their props which rot like +limbs, flow into wider pockets where activity prevails--battalion H.Q., +or dressing-stations. About midnight we saw, through the golden line +of a dugout's half-open door, some officers seated at a white table--a +cloth or a map. Some one cries, "They're lucky!" The company officers +are exposed to dangers as we are, but only in attacks and reliefs. We +suffer long. They have neither the vigil at the loophole, nor the +knapsack, nor the fatigues. What always lasts is greater. + +And now the walls of flabby flagstones and the open-mouthed caves have +begun again. Morning rises, long and narrow as our lot. We reach a +busy trench-crossing. A stench catches my throat: some cess-pool into +which these streets suspended in the earth empty their sewage? No, we +see rows of stretchers, each one swollen. There is a tent there of +gray canvas, which flaps like a flag, and on its fluttering wall the +dawn lights up a bloody cross. + +* * * * * * + +Sometimes, when we are high enough for our eyes to unbury themselves, I +can dimly see some geometrical lines, so confused, so desolated by +distance, that I do not know if it is our country or the other; even +when one sees he does not know. Our looks are worn away in looking. +We do not see, we are powerless to people the world. We all have +nothing in common but eyes of evening and a soul of night. + +And always, always, in these trenches whose walls run down like waves, +with their stale stinks of chlorine and sulphur, chains of soldiers go +forward endlessly, towing each other. They go as quickly as they can, +as if the walls were going to close upon them. They are bowed as if +they were always climbing, wholly dark under colossal packs which they +carry without stopping, from one place to another place, as they might +rocks in hell. From minute to minute we are filling the places of the +obliterated hosts who have passed this way like the wind or have stayed +here like the earth. + +We halt in a funnel. We lean our backs against the walls, resting the +packs on the projections which bristle from them. But we examine these +things coming out of the earth, and we smell that they are knees, +elbows and heads. They were interred there one day and the following +days are disinterring them. At the spot where I am, from which I have +roughly and heavily recoiled with all my armory, a foot comes out from +a subterranean body and protrudes. I try to put it out of the way, but +it is strongly incrusted. One would have to break the corpse of steel, +to make it disappear. I look at the morsel of mortality. My thoughts, +and I cannot help them, are attracted by the horizontal body that the +world bruises; they go into the ground with it and mold a shape for it. +Its face--what is the look which rots crushed in the dark depth of the +earth at the top of these remains? Ah, one catches sight of what there +is under the battlefields! Everywhere in the spacious wall there are +limbs, and black and muddy gestures. It is a sepulchral sculptor's +great sketch-model, a bas-relief in clay that stands haughtily before +our eyes. It is the portal of the earth's interior; yes, it is the +gate of hell. + +* * * * * * + +In order to get here, I slept as I marched; and now I have an illusion +that I am hidden in this little cave, cooped up against the curve of +the roof. I am no more than this gentle cry of the flesh--Sleep! As I +begin to doze and people myself with dreams, a man comes in. He is +unarmed, and he ransacks us with the stabbing white point of his +flash-lamp. It is the colonel's batman. He says to our adjutant as +soon as he finds him:-- + +"Six fatigue men wanted." + +The adjutant's bulk rises and yawns:-- + +"Butsire, Vindame, Margat, Termite, Paulin, Remus!" he orders as he +goes to sleep again. + +We emerge from the cave; and more slowly, from our drowsiness. We find +ourselves standing in a village street. But as soon as we touch the +open air, dazzling roars precede and follow us, mere handful of men as +we are, abruptly revealing us to each other. We hurl ourselves like a +pack of hounds into the first door or the first gaping hole, and there +are some who cry that: "We are marked. We're given away!" + +After the porterage fatigue we go back. I settle myself in my corner, +heavier, more exhausted, more buried in the bottom of everything. I +was beginning to sleep, to go away from myself, lulled by a voice which +sought in vain the number of the days we had been on the move, and was +repeating the names of the nights--Thursday, Friday, Saturday--when the +man with the pointed light returns, demands a gang, and I set off with +the others. It is so again for a third time. As soon as we are +outside, the night, which seems to lie in wait for us, sends us a +squall, with its thunderous destruction of space; it scatters us; then +we are drawn together and joined up. We carry thick planks, two by +two; and then piles of sacks which blind the bearers with a plastery +dust and make them reel like masts. + +Then the last time, the most terrible, it was wire. Each of us takes +into his hands a great hoop of coiled wire, as tall as ourselves, and +weighing over sixty pounds. When one carries it, the supple wheel +stretches out like an animal; it is set dancing by the least movement, +it works into the flesh of the shoulder, and strikes one's feet. Mine +tries to cling to me and pull me up and throw me to the ground. With +this malignantly heavy thing, animated with barbarous and powerful +movement, I cross the ruins of a railway station, all stones and beams. +We clamber up an embankment which slips away and avoids us, we drag and +push the rebellious and implacable burden. It cannot be reached, that +receding height. But we reach it, all the same. + +Ah, I am a normal man! I cling to life, and I have the consciousness +of duty. But at that moment I called from the bottom of my heart for +the bullet which would have delivered me from life. + +We return, with empty hands, in a sort of sinister comfort. I +remember, as we came in, a neighbor said to me--or to some one else: + +"Sheets of corrugated iron are worse." + +The fatigues have to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest +against the masses of stores which uselessly fill the depot. + +We sleep from six to seven in the morning. In the last traces of night +we emigrate from the cave, blinking like owls. + +"Where's the juice?"[1] we ask. + +[Footnote 1: Coffee.] + +There is none. The cooks are not there, nor the mess people. And they +reply:-- + +"Forward!" + +In the dull and pallid morning, on the approaches to a village, there +appear gardens, which no longer have human shape. Instead of +cultivation there are puddles and mud. All is burned or drowned, and +the walls scattered like bones everywhere; and we see the mottled and +bedaubed shadows of soldiers. War befouls the country as it does faces +and hearts. + +Our company gets going, gray and wan, broken down by the infamous +weariness. We halt in front of a hangar:-- + +"Those that are tired can leave their packs," the new sergeant advises; +"they'll find them again here." + +"If we're leaving our packs, it means we're going to attack," says an +ancient. + +He says it, but he does not know. + +One by one, on the dirty soil of the hangar, the knapsacks fall like +bodies. Some men, however, are mistrustful, and prefer to keep their +packs. Under all circumstances there are always exceptions. + +Forward! The same shouts put us again in movement. Forward! Come, +get up! Come on, march! Subdue your refractory flesh; lift yourselves +from your slumber as from a coffin, begin yourselves again without +ceasing, give all that you can give--Forward! Forward! It has to be. +It is a higher concern than yours, a law from above. We do not know +what it is. We only know the step we make; and even by day one marches +in the night. And then, one cannot help it. The vague thoughts and +little wishes that we had in the days when we were concerned with +ourselves are ended. There is no way now of escaping from the wheels +of fate, no way now of turning aside from fatigue and cold, disgust and +pain. Forward! The world's hurricane drives straight before them +these terribly blind who grope with their rifles. + +We have passed through a wood, and then plunged again into the earth. +We are caught in an enfilading fire. It is terrible to pass in broad +daylight in these communication trenches, at right angles to the lines, +where one is in view all the way. Some soldiers are hit and fall. +There are light eddies and brief obstructions in the places where they +dive; and then the rest, a moment halted by the barrier, sometimes +still living, frown in the wide-open direction of death, and say:-- + +"Well, if it's got to be, come on. Get on with it!" + +They deliver up their bodies wholly--their warm bodies, that the bitter +cold and the wind and the sightless death touch as with women's hands. +In these contacts between living beings and force, there is something +carnal, virginal, divine. + +* * * * * * + +They have sent me into a listening post. To get there I had to worm +myself, bent double, along a low and obstructed sap. In the first +steps I was careful not to walk on the obstructions, and then I had to, +and I dared. My foot trembled on the hard or supple masses which +peopled that sap. + +On the edge of the hole--there had been a road above it formerly, or +perhaps even a market-place--the trunk of a tree severed near the +ground arose, short as a grave-stone. The sight stopped me for a +moment, and my heart, weakened no doubt by my physical destitution, +kindled with pity for the tree become a tomb! + +Two hours later I rejoined the section in its pit. We abide there, +while the cannonade increases. The morning goes by, then the +afternoon. Then it is evening. + +They make us go into a wide dugout. It appears that an attack is +developing somewhere. From time to time, through a breach contrived +between sandbags so decomposed and oozing that they seem to have lived, +we go out to a little winterly and mournful crossing, to look about. +We consult the sky to determine the tempest's whereabouts. We can know +nothing. + +The artillery fire dazzles and then chokes up our sight. The heavens +are making a tumult of blades. + +Monuments of steel break loose and crash above our heads. Under the +sky, which is dark as with threat of deluge, the explosions throw livid +sunshine in all directions. From one end to the other of the visible +world the fields move and descend and dissolve, and the immense expanse +stumbles and falls like the sea. Towering explosions in the east, a +squall in the south; in the zenith a file of bursting shrapnel like +suspended volcanoes. + +The smoke which goes by, and the hours as well, darken the inferno. +Two or three of us risk our faces at the earthen cleft and look out, as +much for the purpose of propping ourselves against the earth as for +seeing. But we see nothing, nothing on the infinite expanse which is +full of rain and dusk, nothing but the clouds which tear themselves and +blend together in the sky, and the clouds which come out of the earth. + +Then, in the slanting rain and the limitless gray, we see a man, one +only, who advances with his bayonet forward, like a specter. + +We watch this shapeless being, this thing, leaving our lines and going +away yonder. + +We only see one--perhaps that is the shadow of another, on his left. + +We do not understand, and then we do. It is the end of the attacking +wave. + +What can his thoughts be--this man alone in the rain as if under a +curse, who goes upright away, forward, when space is changed into a +shrieking machine? By the light of a cascade of flashes I thought I +saw a strange monk-like face. Then I saw more clearly--the face of an +ordinary man, muffled in a comforter. + +"It's a chap of the 150th, not the 129th," stammers a voice by my side. + +We do not know, except that it is the end of the attacking wave. + +When he has disappeared among the eddies, another follows him at a +distance, and then another. They pass by, separate and solitary, +delegates of death, sacrificers and sacrificed. Their great-coats fly +wide; and we, we press close to each other in our corner of night; we +push and hoist ourselves with our rusted muscles, to see that void and +those great scattered soldiers. + +We return to the shelter, which is plunged in darkness. The +motor-cyclist's voice obtrudes itself to the point that we think we can +see his black armor. He is describing the "carryings on" at Bordeaux +in September, when the Government was there. He tells of the +festivities, the orgies, the expenditure, and there is almost a tone of +pride in the poor creature's voice as he recalls so many pompous +pageants all at once. + +But the uproar outside silences us. Our funk-hole trembles and cracks. +It is the barrage--the barrage which those whom we saw have gone to +fight, hand to hand. A thunderbolt falls just at the opening, it casts +a bright light on all of us, and reveals the last emotion of all, the +belief that all was ended! One man is grimacing like a malefactor +caught in the act; another is opening strange, disappointed eyes; +another is swinging his doleful head, enslaved by the love of sleep, +and another, squatting with his head in his hands, makes a lurid +entanglement. We have seen each other--upright, sitting or +crucified--in the second of broad daylight which came into the bowels +of the earth to resurrect our darkness. + +In a moment, when the guns chance to take breath, a voice at the +door-hole calls us: + +"Forward!" + +"We shall be staying there, this time over!" growl the men. + +They say this, but they do not know it. We go out, into a chaos of +crashing and flames. + +"You'd better fix bayonets," says the sergeant; "come, get 'em on." + +We stop while we adjust weapon to weapon and then run to overtake the +rest. + +We go down; we go up; we mark time; we go forward--like the others. We +are no longer in the trench. + +"Get your heads down--kneel!" + +We stop and go on our knees. A star-shell pierces us with its +intolerable gaze. + +By its light we see, a few steps in front of us, a gaping trench. We +were going to fall into it. It is motionless and empty--no, it is +occupied--yes, it is empty. It is full of a file of slain watchers. +The row of men was no doubt starting out of the earth when the shell +burst in their faces; and by the poised white rays we see that the +blast has staved them in, has taken away the flesh; and above the level +of the monstrous battlefield there is left of them only some fearfully +distorted heads. One is broken and blurred; one emerges like a peak, a +good half of it fallen into nothing. At the end of the row, the +ravages have been less, and only the eyes are smitten. The hollow +orbits in those marble heads look outwards with dried darkness. The +deep and obscure face-wounds have the look of caverns and funnels, of +the shadows in the moon; and stars of mud are clapped on the faces in +the place where eyes once shone. + +Our strides have passed that trench. We go more quickly and trouble no +more now about the star-shells, which, among us who know nothing, say, +"I know" and "I will." All is changed, all habits and laws. We march +exposed, upright, through the open fields. Then I suddenly understand +what they have hidden from us up to the last moment--we are attacking! + +Yes, the counter-attack has begun without our knowing it. I apply +myself to following the others. May I not be killed like the others; +may I be saved like the others! But if I am killed, so much the worse. + +I bear myself forward. My eyes are open but I look at nothing; +confused pictures are printed on my staring eyes. The men around me +form strange surges; shouts cross each other or descend. Upon the +fantastic walls of nights the shots make flicks and flashes. Earth and +sky are crowded with apparitions; and the golden lace of burning stakes +is unfolding. + +A man is in front of me, a man whose head is wrapped in linen. + +He is coming from the opposite direction. He is coming from the other +country! He was seeking me, and I was seeking him. He is quite +near--suddenly he is upon me. + +The fear that he is killing me or escaping me--I do not know +which--makes me throw out a desperate effort. Opening my hands and +letting the rifle go, I seize him. My fingers are buried in his +shoulder, in his neck, and I find again, with overflowing exultation, +the eternal form of the human frame. I hold him by the neck with all +my strength, and with more than all my strength, and we quiver with my +quivering. + +He had not the idea of dropping his rifle so quickly as I. He yields +and sinks. I cling to him as if it were salvation. The words in his +throat make a lifeless noise. He brandishes a hand which has only +three fingers--I saw it clearly outlined against the clouds like a +fork. + +Just as he totters in my arms, resisting death, a thunderous blow +strikes him in the back. His arms drop, and his head also, which is +violently doubled back, but his body is hurled against me like a +projectile, like a superhuman blast. + +I have rolled on the ground; I get up, and while I am hastily trying to +find myself again I feel a light blow in the waist. What is it? I +walk forward, and still forward, with my empty hands. I see the others +pass, they go by in front of me. _I_, I advance no more. Suddenly I +fall to the ground. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RUINS + + +I fall on my knees, and then full length. I do what so many others +have done. + +I am alone on the earth, face to face with the mud, and I can no longer +move. The frightful searching of the shells alights around me. The +hoarse hurricane which does not know me is yet trying to find the place +where I am! + +Then the battle goes away, and its departure is heartrending. In spite +of all my efforts, the noise of the firing fades and I am alone; the +wind blows and I am naked. + +I shall remain nailed to the ground. By clinging to the earth and +plunging my hands into the depth of the swamp as far as the stones, I +get my neck round a little to see the enormous burden that my back +supports. No--it is only the immensity on me. + +My gaze goes crawling. In front of me there are dark things all linked +together, which seem to seize or to embrace one another. I look at +those hills which shut out my horizon and imitate gestures and men. +The multitude downfallen there imprisons me in its ruins. I am walled +in by those who are lying down, as I was walled in before by those who +stood. + +I am not in pain. I am extraordinarily calm; I am drunk with +tranquillity. Are they dead, all--those? I do not know. The dead are +specters of the living, but the living are specters of the dead. +Something warm is licking my hand. The black mass which overhangs me +is trembling. It is a foundered horse, whose great body is emptying +itself, whose blood is flowing like poor touches of a tongue on to my +hand. I shut my eyes, bemused, and think of a bygone merry-making; and +I remember that I once saw, at the end of a hunt, against the operatic +background of a forest, a child-animal whose life gushed out amid +general delight. + +A voice is speaking beside me. + +No doubt the moon has come out--I cannot see as high as the cloud +escarpments, as high as the sky's opening. But that blenching light is +making the corpses shine like tombstones. + +I try to find the low voice. There are two bodies, one above the +other. The one underneath must be gigantic--his arms are thrown +backward in a hurricane gesture; his stiff, disheveled hair has crowned +him with a broken crown. His eyes are opaque and glaucous, like two +expectorations, and his stillness is greater than anything one may +dream of. On the other the moon's beams are setting points and lines +a-sparkle and silvering gold. It is he who is talking to me, quietly +and without end. But although his low voice is that of a friend, his +words are incoherent. He is mad--I am abandoned by him! No matter, I +will drag myself up to him to begin with. I look at him again. I +shake myself and blink my eyes, so as to look better. He wears on his +body a uniform accursed! Then with a start, and my hand claw-wise, I +stretch myself towards the glittering prize to secure it. But I cannot +go nearer him; it seems that I no longer have a body. He has looked at +me. He has recognized my uniform, if it is recognizable, and my cap, +if I have it still. Perhaps he has recognized the indelible seal of my +race that I carry printed on my features. Yes, on my face he has +recognized that stamp. Something like hatred has blotted out the face +that I saw dawning so close to me. Our two hearts make a desperate +effort to hurl ourselves on each other. But we can no more strike each +other than we can separate ourselves. + +But has he seen me? I cannot say now. He is stirred by fever as by +the wind; he is choked with blood. He writhes, and that shows me the +beaten-down wings of his black cloak. + +Close by, some of the wounded have cried out; and farther away one +would say they are singing--beyond the low stakes so twisted and +shriveled that they look as if guillotined. + +He does not know what he is saying. He does not even know that he is +speaking, that his thoughts are coming out. The night is torn into +rags by sudden bursts; it fills again at random with clusters of +flashes; and his delirium enters into my head. He murmurs that logic +is a thing of terrible chains, and that all things cling together. He +utters sentences from which distinct words spring, like the scattered +hasty gleams they include in hymns--the Bible, history, majesty, folly. +Then he shouts:-- + +"There is nothing in the world but the Empire's glory!" + +His cry shakes some of the motionless reefs. And I, like an invincible +echo, I cry:-- + +"There is only the glory of France!" + +I do not know if I did really cry out, and if our words did collide in +the night's horror. His head is quite bare. His slender neck and +bird-like profile issue from a fur collar. There are things like owls +shining on his breast. It seems to me as if silence is digging itself +into the brains and lungs of the dark prisoners who imprison us, and +that we are listening to it. + +He rambles more loudly now, as if he bore a stifling secret; he calls +up multitudes, and still more multitudes. He is obsessed by +multitudes--"Men, men!" he says. The soil is caressed by some sounds +of sighs, terribly soft, by confidences which are interchanged without +their wishing it. Now and again, the sky collapses into light, and +that flash of instantaneous sunshine changes the shape of the plain +every time, according to its direction. Then does the night take all +back again athwart the rolling echoes. + +"Men! Men!" + +"What about them, then?" says a sudden jeering voice which falls like a +stone. + +"Men _must_ not awake," the shining shadow goes on, in dull and hollow +tones. + +"Don't worry!" says the ironical voice, and at that moment it terrifies +me. + +Several bodies arise on their fists into the darkness--I see them by +their heavy groans--and look around them. + +The shadow talks to himself and repeats his insane words:-- + +"Men _must_ not awake." + +The voice opposite me, capsizing in laughter and swollen with a rattle, +says again:-- + +"Don't worry!" + +Yonder, in the hemisphere of night, comets glide, blending their cries +of engines and owls with their flaming entrails. Will the sky ever +recover the huge peace of the sun and the stainless blue? + +A little order, a little lucidity are coming back into my mind. Then I +begin to think about myself. + +Am I going to die, yes or no? Where can I be wounded? I have managed +to look at my hands, one by one; they are not dead, and I saw nothing +in their dark trickling. It is extraordinary to be made motionless +like this, without knowing where or how. I can do no more on earth +than lift my eyes a little to the edge of the world where I have +rolled. + +Suddenly I am pushed by a movement of the horse on which I am lying. I +see that he has turned his great head aside; he is mournfully eating +grass. I saw this horse but lately in the middle of the regiment--I +know him by the white in his mane--rearing and whinnying like the true +battle-chargers; and now, broken somewhere, he is silent as the truly +unhappy are. Once again, I recall the red deer's little one, mutilated +on its carpet of fresh crimson, and the emotion which I had not on that +bygone day rises into my throat. Animals are innocence incarnate. +This horse is like an enormous child, and if one wanted to point out +life's innocence face to face, one would have to typify, not a little +child, but a horse. My neck gives way, I utter a groan, and my face +gropes upon the ground. + +The animal's start has altered my place and shot me on my side, nearer +still to the man who was talking. He has unbent, and is lying on his +back. Thus he offers his face like a mirror to the moon's pallor, and +shows hideously that he is wounded in the neck. I feel that he is +going to die. His words are hardly more now than the rustle of wings. +He has said some unintelligible things about a Spanish painter, and +some motionless portraits in the palaces--the Escurial, Spain, Europe. +Suddenly he is repelling with violence some beings who are in his +past:-- + +"Begone, you dreamers!" he says, louder than the stormy sky where the +flames are red as blood, louder than the falling flashes and the +harrowing wind, louder than all the night which enshrouds us and yet +continues to stone us. + +He is seized with a frenzy which bares his soul as naked as his neck:-- + +"The truth is revolutionary," gasps the nocturnal voice; "get you gone, +you men of truth, you who cast disorder among ignorance, you who strew +words and sow the wind; you contrivers, begone! You bring in the reign +of men! But the multitude hates you and mocks you!" + +He laughs, as if he heard the multitude's laughter. + +And around us another burst of convulsive laughter grows hugely bigger +in the plain's black heart:-- + +"Wot's 'e sayin' now, that chap?" + +"Let him be. You can see 'e knows more'n 'e says." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +I am so near to him that I alone gather the rest of his voice, and he +says to me very quietly:-- + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +And those words stabbed me to the heart and dilated my eyes with +horror, for it seemed to me suddenly, in a flash, that he understood +what he was saying! A picture comes to life before my eyes--that +prince, whom I saw from below, once upon a time, in the nightmare of +life, he who loved the blood of the chase. Not far away a shell turns +the darkness upside down; and it seems as if that explosion also has +considered and shrieked. + +Heavy night is implanted everywhere around us. My hands are bathed in +black blood. On my neck and cheeks, rain, which is also black, bleeds. + +The funeral procession of silver-fringed clouds goes by once more, and +again a ray of moonlight besilvers the swamp that has sunk us soldiers; +it lays winding-sheets on the prone. + +All at once a swelling lamentation comes to life, one knows not where, +and glides over the plain:-- + +"Help! Help!" + +"Now then! _They're_ not coming to look for us! What about it?" + +And I see a stirring and movement, very gentle, as at the bottom of the +sea. + +Amid the glut of noises, upon that still tepid and unsubmissive expanse +where cold death sits brooding, that sharp profile has fallen back. +The cloak is quivering. The great and sumptuous bird of prey is in the +act of taking wing. + +The horse has not stopped bleeding. Its blood falls on me drop by drop +with the regularity of a clock,--as though all the blood that is +filtering through the strata of the field and all the punishment of the +wounded came to a head in him and through him. Ah, it seems that truth +goes farther in all directions than one thought! We bend over the +wrong that animals suffer, for them we wholly understand. + +Men, men! Everywhere the plain has a mangled outline. Below that +horizon, sometimes blue-black and sometimes red-black, the plain is +monumental! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AN APPARITION + + +I have not changed my place. I open my eyes. Have I been sleeping? I +do not know. There is tranquil light now. It is evening or morning. +My arms alone can tremble. I am enrooted like a distorted bush. My +wound? It is that which glues me to the ground. + +I succeed in raising my face, and the wet waves of space assail my +eyes. Patiently I pick out of the earthy pallor which blends all +things some foggy shoulders, some cloudy angles of elbows, some +hand-like lacerations. I discern in the still circle which encloses +me--faces lying on the ground and dirty as feet, faces held out to the +rain like vases, and holding stagnant tears. + +Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. +It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. +Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a +little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips +left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are +sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and +stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror. + +Water-blackened overcoats cover and clothe the whole earth around me. + +I gaze, and gaze---- + +I am frozen by a mass which supports me. My elbow sinks into it. It +is the horse's belly; its rigid leg obliquely bars the narrow circle +from which my eyes cannot escape. Ah, it is dead! It seems to me that +my breast is empty, yet still there is an echo in my heart. What I am +looking for is life. + +The distant sky is resonant, and each dull shot comes and pushes my +shoulder. Nearer, some shells are thundering heavily. Though I cannot +see them, I see the tawny reflection that their flame spreads abroad, +and the sudden darkness as well that is hurled by their clouds of +excretion. Other shadows go and come on the ground about me; and then +I hear in the air the plunge of beating wings, and cries so fierce that +I feel them ransack my head. + +* * * * * * + +Death is not yet dead everywhere. Some points and surfaces still +resist and budge and cry out, doubtless because it is dawn; and once +the wind swept away a muffled bugle-call. There are some who still +burn with the invisible fire of fever, in spite of the frozen periods +they have crossed. But the cold is working into them. The immobility +of lifeless things is passing into them, and the wind empties itself as +it goes by. + +Voices are worn away; looks are soldered to their eyes. Wounds are +staunched; they have finished. Only the earth and the stones bleed. +And just then I saw, under the trickling morning, some half-open but +still tepid dead that steamed, as if they were the blackening +rubbish-heap of a village. I watch that hovering dead breath of the +dead. The crows are eddying round the naked flesh with their flapping +banners and their war-cries. I see one which has found some shining +rubies on the black vein-stone of a foot; and one which noisily draws +near to a mouth, as if called by it. Sometimes a dead man makes a +movement, so that he will fall lower down. But they will have no more +burial than if they were the last men of all. + +* * * * * * + +There is one upright presence which I catch a glimpse of, so near, so +near; and I want to see it. In making the effort with my elbow on the +horse's ballooned body I succeed in altering the direction of my head, +and of the corridor of my gaze. Then all at once I discover a quite +new population of bronze men in rotten clothes; and especially, erect +on bended knees, a gray overcoat, lacquered with blood and pierced by a +great hole, round which is collected a bunch of heavy crimson flowers. +Slowly I lift the burden of my eyes to explore that hole. Amid the +shattered flesh, with its changing colors and a smell so strong that it +puts a loathsome taste in my mouth, at the bottom of the cage where +some crossed bones are black and rusted as iron bars, I can see +something, something isolated, dark and round. I see that it is a +heart. + +Placed there, too--I do not know how, for I cannot see the body's full +height--the arm, and the hand. The hand has only three fingers--a +fork---- Ah, I recognize that heart! It is his whom I killed. +Prostrate in the mud before him, because of my defeat and my +resemblance, I cried out to the man's profundity, to the superhuman +man. Then my eyes fell; and I saw worms moving on the edges of that +infinite wound. I was quite close to their stirring. They are whitish +worms, and their tails are pointed like stings; they curve and flatten +out, sometimes in the shape of an "i," and sometimes of a "u." The +perfection of immobility is left behind. The human material is +crumbled into the earth for another end. + +I hated that man, when he had his shape and his warmth. We were +foreigners, and made to destroy ourselves. Yet it seems to me, in face +of that bluish heart, still attached to its red cords, that I +understand the value of life. It is understood by force, like a +caress. I think I can see how many seasons and memories and beings +there had to be, yonder, to make up that life,--while I remain before +him, on a point of the plain, like a night watcher. I hear the voice +that his flesh breathed while yet he lived a little, when my ferocious +hands fumbled in him for the skeleton we all have. He fills the whole +place. He is too many things at once. How can there be worlds in the +world? That established notion would destroy all. + +This perfume of a tuberose is the breath of corruption. On the ground, +I see crows near me, like hens. + +Myself! I think of myself, of all that I am. Myself, my home, my +hours; the past, and the future,--it was going to be like the past! +And at that moment I feel, weeping within me and dragging itself from +some little bygone trifle, a new and tragical sorrow in dying, a hunger +to be warm once more in the rain and the cold: to enclose myself in +myself in spite of space, to hold myself back, to live. I called for +help, and then lay panting, watching the distance in desperate +expectation. "Stretcher-bearers!" I cry. I do not hear myself; but if +only the others heard me! + +Now that I have made that effort, I can do no more, and my head lies +there at the entrance to that world-great wound. + +There is nothing now. + +Yet there is that man. He was laid out like one dead. But suddenly, +through his shut eyes, he smiled. He, no doubt, will come back here on +earth, and something within me thanks him for his miracle. + +And there was that one, too, whom I saw die. He raised his hand, which +was drowning. Hidden in the depths of the others, it was only by that +hand that he lived, and called, and saw. On one finger shone a +wedding-ring, and it told me a sort of story. When his hand ceased to +tremble, and became a dead plant with that golden flower, I felt the +beginning of a farewell rise in me like a sob. But there are too many +of them for one to mourn them all. How many of them are there on all +this plain? How many, how many of them are there in all this moment? +Our heart is only made for one heart at a time. It wears us out to +look at all. One may say, "There are the others," but it is only a +saying. "You shall not know; you shall _not_ know." + +Barrenness and cold have descended on all the body of the earth. +Nothing moves any more, except the wind, that is charged with cold +water, and the shells, that are surrounded by infinity, and the crows, +and the thought that rolls immured in my head. + +* * * * * * + +They are motionless at last, they who forever marched, they to whom +space was so great! I see their poor hands, their poor legs, their +poor backs, resting on the earth. They are tranquil at last. The +shells which bespattered them are ravaging another world. They are in +the peace eternal. + +All is accomplished, all has terminated there. It is there, in that +circle narrow as a well that the descent into the raging heart of hell +was halted, the descent into slow tortures, into unrelenting fatigue, +into the flashing tempest. We came here because they told us to come +here. We have done what they told us to do. I think of the simplicity +of our reply on the Day of Judgment. + +The gunfire continues. Always, always, the shells come, and all those +bullets that are miles in length. Hidden behind the horizons, living +men unite with machines and fall furiously on space. They do not see +their shots. They do not know what they are doing. "You shall not +know; you shall _not_ know." + +But since the cannonade is returning, they will be fighting here again. +All these battles spring from themselves and necessitate each other to +infinity! One single battle is not enough, it is not complete, there +is no satisfaction. Nothing is finished, nothing is ever finished. +Ah, it is only men who die! No one understands the greatness of +things, and I know well that I do not understand all the horror in +which I am. + +* * * * * * + +Here is evening, the time when the firing is lighted up. The horizons +of the dark day, of the dark evening, and of the illuminated night +revolve around my remains as round a pivot. + +I am like those who are going to sleep, like the children. I am +growing fainter and more soothed; I close my eyes; I dream of my home. + +Yonder, no doubt, they are joining forces to make the evenings +tolerable. Marie is there, and some other women, getting dinner ready; +the house becomes a savor of cooking. I hear Marie speaking; standing +at first, then seated at the table. I hear the sound of the table +things which she moves on the cloth as she takes her place. Then, +because some one is putting a light to the lamp, having lifted its +chimney, Marie gets up to go and close the shutters. She opens the +window. She leans forward and outspreads her arms; but for a moment +she stays immersed in the naked night. She shivers, and I, too. +Dawning in the darkness, she looks afar, as I am doing. Our eyes have +met. It is true, for this night is hers as much as mine, the same +night, and distance is not anything palpable or real; distance is +nothing. It is true, this great close contact. + +Where am I? Where is Marie? What is she, even? I do not know, I do +not know. I do not know where the wound in my flesh is, and how can I +know the wound in my heart? + +* * * * * * + +The clouds are crowning themselves with sheaves of stars. It is an +aviary of fire, a hell of silver and gold. Planetary cataclysms send +immense walls of light falling around me. Phantasmal palaces of +shrieking lightning, with arches of star-shells, appear and vanish amid +forests of ghastly gleams. + +While the bombardment is patching the sky with continents of flame, it +is drawing still nearer. Volleys of flashes are plunging in here and +there and devouring the other lights. The supernatural army is +arriving! All the highways of space are crowded. Nearer still, a +shell bursts with all its might and glows; and among us all whom chance +defends goes frightfully in quest of flesh. Shells are following each +other into that cavity there. Again I see, among the things of earth, +a resurrected man, and he is dragging himself towards that hole! He is +wrapped in white, and the under-side of his body, which rubs the +ground, is black. Hooking the ground with his stiffened arms he +crawls, long and flat as a boat. He still hears the cry "Forward!" He +is finding his way to the hole; he does not know, and he is trailing +exactly toward its monstrous ambush. The shell will succeed! At any +second now the frenzied fangs of space will strike his side and go in +as into a fruit. I have not the strength to shout to him to fly +elsewhere with all his slowness; I can only open my mouth and become a +sort of prayer in face of the man's divinity. And yet, he is the +survivor; and along with the sleeper, to whom a dream was whispering +just now, he is the only one left to me. + +A hiss--the final blow reaches him; and in a flash I see the piebald +maggot crushing under the weight of the sibilance and turning wild eyes +towards me. + +No! It is not he! A blow of light--of all light--fills my eyes. I am +lifted up, I am brandished by an unknown blade in the middle of a globe +of extraordinary light. The shell----I! And I am falling, I fall +continually, fantastically. I fall out of this world; and in that +fractured flash I saw myself again--I thought of my bowels and my heart +hurled to the winds--and I heard voices saying again and again--far, +far away--"Simon Paulin died at the age of thirty-six." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI + + +I am dead. I fall, I roll like a broken bird into bewilderments of +light, into canyons of darkness. Vertigo presses on my entrails, +strangles me, plunges into me. I drop sheer into the void, and my gaze +falls faster than I. + +Through the wanton breath of the depths that assail me I see, far +below, the seashore dawning. The ghostly strand that I glimpse while I +cling to my own body is bare, endless, rain-drowned, and supernaturally +mournful. Through the long, heavy and concentric mists that the clouds +make, my eyes go searching. On the shore I see a being who wanders +alone, veiled to the feet. It is a woman. Ah, I am one with that +woman! She is weeping. Her tears are dropping on the sand where the +waves are breaking! While I am reeling to infinity, I hold out my two +heavy arms to her. She fades away as I look. + +For a long time there is nothing, nothing but invisible time, and the +immense futility of rain on the sea. + +* * * * * * + +What are these flashes of light? There are gleams of flame in my eyes; +a surfeit of light is cast over me. I can no longer cling to +anything--fire and water! + +In the beginning, there is battle between fire and water--the world +revolving headlong in the hooked claws of its flames, and the expanses +of water which it drives back in clouds. At last the water obscures +the whirling spirals of the furnace and takes their place. Under the +roof of dense darkness, timbered with flashes, there are triumphant +downpours which last a hundred thousand years. Through centuries of +centuries, fire and water face each other; the fire, upright, buoyant +and leaping; the water flat, creeping, gliding, widening its lines and +its surface. When they touch, is it the water which hisses and roars, +or is it the fire? And one sees the reigning calm of a radiant plain, +a plain of incalculable greatness. The round meteor congeals into +shapes, and continental islands are sculptured by the water's boundless +hand. + +I am no longer alone and abandoned on the former battlefield of the +elements. Near this rock, something like another is taking shape; it +stands straight as a flame, and moves. This sketch-model thinks. It +reflects the wide expanse, the past and the future; and at night, on +its hill, it is the pedestal of the stars. The animal kingdom dawns in +that upright thing, the poor upright thing with a face and a cry, which +hides an internal world and in which a heart obscurely beats. A lone +being, a heart! But the heart, in the embryo of the first men, beats +only for fear. He whose face has appeared above the earth, and who +carries his soul in chaos, discerns afar shapes like his own, he sees +_the other_--the terrifying outline which spies and roams and turns +again, with the snare of his head. Man pursues man to kill him and +woman to wound her. He bites that he may eat, he strikes down that he +may clasp,--furtively, in gloomy hollows and hiding-places or in the +depths of night's bedchamber, dark love is writhing,--he lives solely +that he may protect, in some disputed cave, his eyes, his breast, his +belly, and the caressing brands of his hearth. + +* * * * * * + +There is a great calm in my environs. + +From place to place, men have gathered together. There are companies +and droves of men, with watchmen, in the vapors of dawn; and in the +middle one makes out the children and the women, crowding together like +fallow deer. To eastward I see, in the silence of a great fresco, the +diverging beams of morning gleaming, through the intervening and somber +statues of two hunters, whose long hair is tangled like briars, and who +hold each other's hand, upright on the mountain. + +Men have gone towards each other because of that ray of light which +each of them contains; and light resembles light. It reveals that the +isolated man, too free in the open expanses, is doomed to adversity as +if he were a captive, in spite of appearances; and that men must come +together that they may be stronger, that they may be more peaceful, and +even that they may be able to live. + +For men are made to live their life in its depth, and also in all its +length. Stronger than the elements and keener than all terrors are the +hunger to last long, the passion to possess one's days to the very end +and to make the best of them. It is not only a right; it is a virtue. + +Contact dissolves fear and dwindles danger. The wild beast attacks the +solitary man, but shrinks from the unison of men together. Around the +home-fire, that lowly fawning deity, it means the multiplication of the +warmth and even of the poor riches of its halo. Among the ambushes of +broad daylight, it means the better distribution of the different forms +of labor; among the ambushes of night, it stands for that of tender and +identical sleep. All lone, lost words blend in an anthem whose murmur +rises in the valley from the busy animation of morning and evening. + +The law which regulates the common good is called the moral law. +Nowhere nor ever has morality any other purpose than that; and if only +one man lived on earth, morality would not exist. It prunes the +cluster of the individual's appetites according to the desires of the +others. It emanates from all and from each at the same time, at one +and the same time from justice and from personal interest. It is +inflexible and natural, as much so as the law which, before our eyes, +fits the lights and shadows so perfectly together. It is so simple +that it speaks to each one and tells him what it is. The moral law has +not proceeded from any ideal; it is the ideal which has wholly +proceeded from the moral law. + +* * * * * * + +The primeval cataclysm has begun again upon the earth. My +vision--beautiful as a fair dream which shows men's composed reliance +on each other in the sunrise--collapses in mad nightmare. + +But this flashing devastation is not incoherent, as at the time of the +conflict of the first elements and the groping of dead things. For its +crevasses and flowing fires show a symmetry which is not Nature's; it +reveals discipline let loose, and the frenzy of wisdom. It is made up +of thought, of will, of suffering. Multitudes of scattered men, full +of an infinity of blood, confront each other like floods. A vision +comes and pounces on me, shaking the soil on which I am doubtless +laid--the marching flood. It approaches the ditch from all sides and +is poured into it. The fire hisses and roars in that army as in water; +it is extinguished in human fountains! + +* * * * * * + +It seems to me that I am struggling against what I see, while lying and +clinging somewhere; and once I even heard supernatural admonitions in +my ear, _as if I were somewhere else_. + +I am looking for men--for the rescue of speech, of a word. How many of +them I heard, once upon a time! I want one only, now. I am in the +regions where men are earthed up,--a crushed plain under a dizzy sky, +which goes by peopled with other stars than those of heaven, and tense +with other clouds, and continually lighted from flash to flash by a +daylight which is not day. + +Nearer, one makes out the human shape of great drifts and hilly fields, +many-colored and vaguely floral--the corpse of a section or of a +company. Nearer still, I perceive at my feet the ugliness of skulls. +Yes, I have seen them--wounds as big as men! In this new cess-pool, +which fire dyes red by night and the multitude dyes red by day, crows +are staggering, drunk. + +Yonder, that is the listening-post, keeping watch over the cycles of +time. Five or six captive sentinels are buried there in that cistern's +dark, their faces grimacing through the vent-hole, their skull-caps +barred with red as with gleams from hell, their mien desperate and +ravenous. + +When I ask them why they are fighting, they say:-- + +"To save my country." + +I am wandering on the other side of the immense fields where the yellow +puddles are strewn with black ones (for blood soils even mud), and with +thickets of steel, and with trees which are no more than the shadows of +themselves; I hear the skeleton of my jaws shiver and chatter. In the +middle of the flayed and yawning cemetery of living and dead, moonlike +in the night, there is a wide extent of leveled ruins. It was not a +village that once was there, it was a hillside whose pale bones are +like those of a village. The other people--mine--have scooped fragile +holes, and traced disastrous paths with their hands and with their +feet. Their faces are strained forward, their eyes search, they sniff +the wind. + +"Why are you fighting?" + +"To save my country." + +The two answers fall as alike in the distance as two notes of a +passing-bell, as alike as the voice of the guns. + +* * * * * * + +And I--I am seeking; it is a fever, a longing, a madness. I struggle, +I would fain tear myself from the soil and take wing to the truth. I +am seeking the difference between those people who are killing +themselves, and I can only find their resemblance. I cannot escape +from this resemblance of men. It terrifies me, and I try to cry out, +and there come from me strange and chaotic sounds which echo into the +unknown, which I almost hear! + +They do not wear similar clothes on the targets of their bodies, and +they speak different tongues; but from the bottom of that which is +human within them, identically the same simplicities come forth. They +have the same sorrows and the same angers, around the same causes. +They are alike as their wounds are alike and will be alike. Their +sayings are as similar as the cries that pain wrings from them, as +alike as the awful silence that soon will breathe from their murdered +lips. They only fight because they are face to face. Against each +other, they are pursuing a common end. Dimly, they kill themselves +because they are alike. + +And by day and by night, these two halves of war continue to lie in +wait for each other afar, to dig their graves at their feet, and I am +helpless. They are separated by frontiers of gulfs, which bristle with +weapons and explosive snares, impassable to life. They are separated +by all that can separate, by dead men and still by dead men, and ever +thrown back, each into its gasping islands, by black rivers and +consecrated fires, by heroism and hatred. + +And misery is endlessly begotten of the miserable. + +There is no real reason for it all; there is no reason. I do not wish +it. I groan, I fall back. + +Then the question, worn, but stubborn and violent as a solid thing, +seizes upon me again. Why? Why? I am like the weeping wind. I seek, +I defend myself, amid the infinite despair of my mind and heart. I +listen. I remember all. + +* * * * * * + +A booming sound vibrates and increases, like the fitful wing-beats of +some dim, tumultuous archangel, above the heads of the masses that move +in countless dungeons, or wheel round to furnish the front of the lines +with new flesh:-- + +"Forward! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" + +I remember. I have seen much of it, and I see it clearly. These +multitudes who are set in motion and let loose,--their brains and their +souls and their wills are not in them, but outside them! + +* * * * * * + +Other people, far away, think and wish for them. Other people wield +their hands and push them and pull them, others, who hold all their +controlling threads; in the distance, the people in the center of the +infernal orbits, in the capital cities, in the palaces. There is a +higher law; up above men there is a machine which is stronger than men. +The multitude is at the same time power and impotence--and I remember, +and I know well that I have seen it with my own eyes. War is the +multitude--and it is not! Why did I not know it since I have seen it? + +Soldier of the wide world, you, the man taken haphazard from among men, +remember--there was not a moment when you were yourself. Never did you +cease to be bowed under the harsh and answerless command, "It has to +be, it has to be." In times of peace encircled in the law of incessant +labor, in the mechanical mill or the commercial mill, slave of the +tool, of the pen, of your talent, or of some other thing, you were +tracked without respite from morning to evening by the daily task which +allowed you only just to overcome life, and to rest only in dreams. + +When the war comes that you never wanted--whatever your country and +your name--the terrible fate which grips you is sharply unmasked, +offensive and complicated. The wind of condemnation has arisen. + +They requisition your body. They lay hold on you with measures of +menace which are like legal arrest, from which nothing that is poor and +needy can escape. They imprison you in barracks. They strip you naked +as a worm, and dress you again in a uniform which obliterates you; they +mark your neck with a number. The uniform even enters into your flesh, +for you are shaped and cut out by the stamping-machine of exercises. +Brightly clad strangers spring up about you, and encircle you. You +recognize them--they are not strangers. It is a carnival, then,--but a +fierce and final carnival, for these are your new masters, they the +absolute, proclaiming on their fists and heads their gilded authority. +Such of them as are near to you are themselves only the servants of +others, who wear a greater power painted on their clothes. It is a +life of misery, humiliation and diminution into which you fall from day +to day, badly fed and badly treated, assailed throughout your body, +spurred on by your warders' orders. At every moment you are thrown +violently back into your littleness, you are punished for the least +action which comes out of it, or slain by the order of your masters. +It is forbidden you to speak when you would unite yourself with the +brother who is touching you. The silence of steel reigns around you. +Your thoughts must be only profound endurance. Discipline is +indispensable for the multitude to be melted into a single army; and in +spite of the vague kinship which is sometimes set up between you and +your nearest chief, the machine-like order paralyzes you first, so that +your body may be the better made to move in accordance with the rhythm +of the rank and the regiment--into which, nullifying all that is +yourself, you pass already as a sort of dead man. + +"They gather us together but they separate us!" cries a voice from the +past. + +If there are some who escape through the meshes, it means that such +"slackers" are also influential. They are uncommon, in spite of +appearances, as the influential are. You, the isolated man, the +ordinary man, the lowly thousand-millionth of humanity, you evade +nothing, and you march right to the end of all that happens, or to the +end of yourself. + +You will be crushed. Either you will go into the charnel house, +destroyed by those who are similar to you, since war is only made by +you, or you will return to your point in the world, diminished or +diseased, retaining only existence without health or joy, a home-exile +after absences too long, impoverished forever by the time you have +squandered. Even if selected by the miracle of chance, if unscathed in +the hour of victory, you also, _you_ will be vanquished. When you +return into the insatiable machine of the work-hours, among your own +people--whose misery the profiteers have meanwhile sucked dry with +their passion for gain--the task will be harder than before, because of +the war that must be paid for, with all its incalculable consequences. +You who peopled the peace-time prisons of your towns and barns, begone +to people the immobility of the battlefields--and if you survive, pay +up! Pay for a glory which is not yours, or for ruins that others have +made with your hands. + +Suddenly, in front of me and a few paces from my couch--as if I were in +a bed, in a bedroom, and had all at once woke up--an uncouth shape +rises awry. Even in the darkness I see that it is mangled. I see +about its face something abnormal which dimly shines; and I can see, +too, by his staggering steps, sunk in the black soil, that his shoes +are empty. He cannot speak, but he brings forward the thin arm from +which rags hang down and drip; and his imperfect hand, as torturing to +the mind as discordant chords, points to the place of his heart. I see +that heart, buried in the darkness of the flesh, in the black blood of +the living--for only shed blood is red. I see him profoundly, with my +heart. If he said anything he would say the words that I still hear +falling, drop by drop, as I heard them yonder--"Nothing can be done, +nothing." I try to move, to rid myself of him. But I cannot, I am +pinioned in a sort of nightmare; and if he had not himself faded away I +should have stayed there forever, dazzled in presence of his darkness. +This man said nothing. He appeared like the dead thing he is. He has +departed. Perhaps he has ceased to be, perhaps he has entered into +death, which is not more mysterious to him than life, which he is +leaving--and I have fallen back into myself. + +* * * * * * + +He has returned, to show his face to me. Ah, now there is a bandage +round his head, and so I recognize him by his crown of filth! I begin +again that moment when I clasped him against me to crush him; when I +propped him against the shell, when my arms felt his bones cracking +round his heart! It was he!--It was I! He says nothing, from the +eternal abysses in which he remains my brother in silence and +ignorance. The remorseful cry which tears my throat outstrips me, and +would find some one else. + +Who? + +That destiny which killed him by means of me--has it no human faces? + +"Kings!" said Termite. + +"The big people!" said the man whom they had snared, the close-cropped +German prisoner, the man with the convict's hexagonal face, he who was +greenish from top to toe. + +But these kings and majesties and superhuman men who are illuminated by +fantastic names and never make mistakes--were they not done away with +long since? One does not know. + +One does not see those who rule. One only sees what they wish, and +what they do with the others. + +Why have They always command? One does not know. The multitudes have +not given themselves to Them. They have taken them and They keep them. +Their power is supernatural. It is, because it was. This is its +explanation and formula and breath--"It has to be." + +As they have laid hold of arms, so they lay hold of heads, and make a +creed. + +"They tell you," cried he, whom none of the lowly soldiers would deign +to listen to; "they say to you, 'This is what you must have in your +minds and hearts.'" + +An inexorable religion has fallen from them upon us all, upholding what +exists, preserving what is. + +Suddenly I hear beside me, as if I were in a file of the executed, a +stammering death-agony; and I think I see him who struggled like a +stricken vulture, on the earth that was bloated with dead. And his +words enter my heart more distinctly than when they were still alive; +and they wound me like blows at once of darkness and of light. + +"Men _must_ not open their eyes!" + +"Faith comes at will, like the rest!" said Adjutant Marcassin, as he +fluttered in his red trousers about the ranks, like a blood-stained +priest of the God of War. + +He was right! He had grasped the chains of bondage when he hurled that +true cry against the truth. Every man is something of account, but +ignorance isolates and resignation scatters. Every poor man carries +within him centuries of indifference and servility. He is a +defenseless prey for hatred and dazzlement. + +The man of the people whom I am looking for, while I writhe through +confusion as through mud, the worker who measures his strength against +toil which is greater than he, and who never escapes from hardships, +the serf of these days--I see him as if he were here. He is coming out +of his shop at the bottom of the court. He wears a square cap. One +makes out the shining dust of old age strewn in his stubbly beard. He +chews and smokes his foul and noisy pipe. He nods his head; with a +fine and sterling smile he says, "There's always been war, so there'll +always be." + +And all around him people nod their heads and think the same, in the +poor lonely well of their heart. They hold the conviction anchored to +the bottom of their brains that things can never change any more. They +are like posts and paving stones, distinct but cemented together; they +believe that the life of the world is a sort of great stone monument, +and they obey, obscurely and indistinctly, everything which commands; +and they do not look afar, in spite of the little children. And I +remember the readiness there was to yield themselves, body and soul, to +serried resignation. Then, too, there is alcohol which murders; wine, +which drowns. + +One does not see the kings; one only sees the reflection of them on the +multitude. + +There are bemusings and spells of fascination, of which we are the +object. I think, fascinated. + +My lips religiously recite a passage in a book which a young man has +just read to me, while I, quite a child, lean drowsily on the kitchen +table--"Roland is not dead. Through long centuries our splendid +ancestor, the warrior of warriors, has been seen riding over the +mountains and hills across the France of Charlemagne and Hugh the +Great. At all times of great national disaster he has risen before the +people's eyes, like an omen of victory and glory, with his lustrous +helmet and his sword. He has appeared and has halted like a +soldier-archangel over the flaming horizon of conflagrations or the +dark mounds of battle and pestilence, leaning over his horse's winged +mane, fantastically swaying as though the earth itself were inebriate +with pride. Everywhere he has been seen, reviving the ideals and the +prowess of the Past. He was seen in Austria, at the time of the +eternal quarrel between Pope and Emperor; he was seen above the strange +stirrings of Scythians and Arabs, and the glowing civilizations which +arose and fell like waves around the Mediterranean. Great Roland can +never die." + +And after he had read these lines of a legend, the young man made me +admire them, and looked at me. + +He whom I thus see again, as precisely as one sees a portrait, just as +he was that evening so wonderfully far away, was my father. And I +remember how devoutly I believed--from that day now buried among them +all--in the beauty of those things, because my father had told me they +were beautiful. + +In the low room of the old house, under the green and watery gleam of +the diamond panes in the lancet window, the ancient citizen cries, +"There are people mad enough to believe that a day will come when +Brittany will no longer be at war with Maine!" He appears in the +vortex of the past, and so saying, sinks back in it. And an engraving, +once and for a long time heeded, again takes life: Standing on the +wooden boom of the ancient port, his scarred doublet rusted by wind and +brine, his old back bellied like a sail, the pirate is shaking his fist +at the frigate that passes in the distance; and leaning over the tangle +of tarred beams, as he used to on the nettings of his corsair ship, he +predicts his race's eternal hatred for the English. + +"Russia a republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. "Germany a +republic!" We raise our arms to heaven. + +And the great voices, the poets, the singers--what have the great +voices said? They have sung the praises of the victor's laurels +without knowing what they are. You, old Homer, bard of the lisping +tribes of the coasts, with your serene and venerable face sculptured in +the likeness of your great childlike genius, with your three times +millennial lyre and your empty eyes--you who led us to Poetry! And +you, herd of poets enslaved, who did not understand, who lived before +you could understand, in an age when great men were only the domestics +of great lords--and you, too, servants of the resounding and opulent +pride of to-day, eloquent flatterers and magnificent dunces, you +unwitting enemies of mankind! You have all sung the laurel wreath +without knowing what it is. + +There are dazzlings, and solemnities and ceremonies, to amuse and +excite the common people, to dim their sight with bright colors, with +the glitter of the badges and stars that are crumbs of royalty, to +inflame them with the jingle of bayonets and medals, with trumpets and +trombones and the big drum, and to inspire the demon of war in the +excitable feelings of women and the inflammable credulity of the young. +I see the triumphal arches, the military displays in the vast +amphitheaters of public places, and the march past of those who go to +die, who walk in step to hell by reason of their strength and youth, +and the hurrahs for war, and the real pride which the lowly feel in +bending the knee before their masters and saying, as their cavalcade +tops the hill, "It's fine! They might be galloping over us!" "It's +magnificent, how warlike we are!" says the woman, always dazzled, as +she convulsively squeezes the arm of him who is going away. + +And another kind of excitement takes form and seizes me by the throat +in the pestilential pits of hell--"They're on fire, they're on fire!" +stammers that soldier, breathless as his empty rifle, as the flood of +the exalted German divisions advances, linked elbow to elbow under a +godlike halo of ether, to drown the deeps with their single lives. + +Ah, the intemperate shapes and unities that float in morsels above the +peopled precipices! When two overlords, jewel-set with glittering +General Staffs, proclaim at the same time on either side of their +throbbing mobilized frontiers, "We will save our country!" there is one +immensity deceived and two victimized. There are two deceived +immensities! + +There is nothing else. That these cries can be uttered together in the +face of heaven, in the face of truth, proves at a stroke the +monstrosity of the laws which rule us, and the madness of the gods. + +I turn on a bed of pain to escape from the horrible vision of +masquerade, from the fantastic absurdity into which all these things +are brought back; and my fever seeks again. + +Those bright spells which blind, and the darkness which also blinds. +Falsehood rules with those who rule, effacing Resemblance everywhere, +and everywhere creating Difference. + +Nowhere can one turn aside from falsehood. Where indeed is there none? +The linked-up lies, the invisible chain, the Chain! + +Murmurs and shouts alike cross in confusion. Here and yonder, to right +and to left, they make pretense. Truth never reaches as far as men. +News filters through, false or atrophied. On _this_ side--all is +beautiful and disinterested; yonder--the same things are infamous. +"French militarism is not the same thing as Prussian militarism, since +one's French and the other's Prussian." The newspapers, the somber +host of the great prevailing newspapers, fall upon the minds of men and +wrap them up. The daily siftings link them together and chain them up, +and forbid them to look ahead. And the impecunious papers show blanks +in the places where the truth was too clearly written. At the end of a +war, the last things to be known by the children of the slain and by +the mutilated and worn-out survivors will be all the war-aims of its +directors. + +Suddenly they reveal to the people an accomplished fact which has been +worked out in the _terra incognita_ of courts, and they say, "Now that +it is too late, only one resource is left you--Kill that you be not +killed." + +They brandish the superficial incident which in the last hour has +caused the armaments and the heaped-up resentment and intrigues to +overflow in war; and they say, "That is the only cause of the war." It +is not true; the only cause of war is the slavery of those whose flesh +wages it. + +They say to the people, "When once victory is gained, agreeably to your +masters, all tyranny will have disappeared as if by magic, and there +will be peace on earth." It is not true. There will be no peace on +earth until the reign of men is come. + +But will it ever come? Will it have time to come, while hollow-eyed +humanity makes such haste to die? For all this advertisement of war, +radiant in the sunshine, all these temporary and mendacious reasons, +stupidly or skillfully curtailed, of which not one reaches the lofty +elevation of the common welfare--all these insufficient pretexts +suffice in sum to make the artless man bow in bestial ignorance, to +adorn him with iron and forge him at will. + +"It is not on Reason," cried the specter of the battlefield, whose +torturing spirit was breaking away from his still gilded body; "it is +not on Reason that the Bible of History stands. Else are the law of +majesties and the ancient quarrel of the flags essentially supernatural +and intangible, or the old world is built on principles of insanity." + +He touches me with his strong hand and I try to shake myself, and I +stumble curiously, although lying down. A clamor booms in my temples +and then thunders like the guns in my ears; it overflows me,--I drown +in that cry---- + +"It must be! It has to be! You shall _not_ know!" That is the +war-cry, that is the cry of war. + +* * * * * * + +War will come again after this one. It will come again as long as it +can be determined by people other than those who fight. The same +causes will produce the same effects, and the living will have to give +up all hope. + +We cannot say out of what historical conjunctions the final tempests +will issue, nor by what fancy names the interchangeable ideals imposed +on men will be known in that moment. But the cause--that will perhaps +everywhere be fear of the nations' real freedom. What we do know is +that the tempests will come. + +Armaments will increase every year amid dizzy enthusiasm. The +relentless torture of precision seizes me. We do three years of +military training; our children will do five, they will do ten. We pay +two thousand million francs a year in preparation for war; we shall pay +twenty, we shall pay fifty thousand millions. All that we have will be +taken; it will be robbery, insolvency, bankruptcy. War kills wealth as +it does men; it goes away in ruins and smoke, and one cannot fabricate +gold any more than soldiers. We no longer know how to count; we no +longer know anything. A billion--a million millions--the word appears +to me printed on the emptiness of things. It sprang yesterday out of +war, and I shrink in dismay from the new, incomprehensible word. + +There will be nothing else on the earth but preparation for war. All +living forces will be absorbed by it; it will monopolize all discovery, +all science, all imagination. Supremacy in the air alone, the regular +levies for the control of space, will suffice to squander a nation's +fortune. For aerial navigation, at its birth in the middle of envious +circles, has become a rich prize which everybody desires, a prey they +have immeasurably torn in pieces. + +Other expenditure will dry up before that on destruction does, and +other longings as well, and all the reasons for living. Such will be +the sense of humanity's last age. + +* * * * * * + +The battlefields were prepared long ago. They cover entire provinces +with one black city, with a great metallic reservoir of factories, +where iron floors and furnaces tremble, bordered by a land of forests +whose trees are steel, and of wells where sleeps the sharp blackness of +snares; a country navigated by frantic groups of railway trains in +parallel formation, and heavy as attacking columns. At whatever point +you may be on the plain, even if you turn away, even if you take +flight, the bright tentacles of the rails diverge and shine, and cloudy +sheaves of wires rise into the air. Upon that territory of execution +there rises and falls and writhes machinery so complex that it has not +even names, so vast that it has not even shape; for aloft--above the +booming whirlwinds which are linked from east to west in the glow of +molten metal whose flashes are great as those of lighthouses, or in the +pallor of scattered electric constellations--hardly can one make out +the artificial outline of a mountain range, clapped upon space. + +This immense city of immense low buildings, rectangular and dark, is +not a city. They are assaulting tanks, which a feeble internal gesture +sets in motion, ready for the rolling rush of their gigantic knee-caps. +These endless cannon, thrust into pits which search into the fiery +entrails of the earth, and stand there upright, hardly leaning so much +as Pisa's tower; and these slanting tubes, long as factory chimneys, so +long that perspective distorts their lines and sometimes splays them +like the trumpets of Apocalypse--these are not cannon; they are +machine-guns, fed by continuous ribbons of trains which scoop out in +entire regions--and upon a country, if need be--mountains of +profundity. + +In war, which was once like the open country and is now wholly like +towns--and even like one immense building--one hardly sees the men. On +the round-ways and the casemates, the footbridges and the movable +platforms, among the labyrinth of concrete caves, above the regiment +echelonned downwards in the gulf and enormously upright,--one sees a +haggard herd of wan and stooping men, men black and trickling, men +issuing from the peaty turf of night, men who came there to save their +country. They earthed themselves up in some zone of the vertical +gorges, and one sees them, in this more accursed corner than those +where the hurricane reels. One senses this human material, in the +cavities of those smooth grottoes, like Dante's guilty shades. +Infernal glimmers disclose ranged lines of them, as long as roads, +slender and trembling spaces of night, which daylight and even sunshine +leave befouled with darkness and cyclopean dirt. Solid clouds overhang +them and hatchet-charged hurricanes, and leaping flashes set fire every +second to the sky's iron-mines up above the damned whose pale faces +change not under the ashes of death. They wait, intent on the +solemnity and the significance of that vast and heavy booming against +which they are for the moment imprisoned. They will be down forever +around the spot where they are. Like others before them, they will be +shrouded in perfect oblivion. Their cries will rise above the earth no +more than their lips. Their glory will not quit their poor bodies. + +I am borne away in one of the aeroplanes whose multitude darkens the +light of day as flights of arrows do in children's story-books, forming +a vaulted army. They are a fleet which can disembark a million men and +their supplies anywhere at any moment. It is only a few years since we +heard the puling cry of the first aeroplanes, and now their voice +drowns all others. Their development has only normally proceeded, yet +they alone suffice to make the territorial safeguards demanded by the +deranged of former generations appear at last to all people as comical +jests. Swept along by the engine's formidable weight, a thousand times +more powerful than it is heavy, tossing in space and filling my fibers +with its roar, I see the dwindling mounds where the huge tubes stick up +like swarming pins. I am carried along at a height of two thousand +yards. An air-pocket has seized me in a corridor of cloud, and I have +fallen like a stone a thousand yards lower, garrotted by furious air +which is cold as a blade, and filled by a plunging cry. I have seen +conflagrations and the explosions of mines, and plumes of smoke which +flow disordered and spin out in long black zigzags like the locks of +the God of War! I have seen the concentric circles by which the +stippled multitude is ever renewed. The dugouts, lined with lifts, +descend in oblique parallels into the depths. One frightful night I +saw the enemy flood it all with an inexhaustible torrent of liquid +fire. I had a vision of that black and rocky valley filled to the brim +with the lava-stream which dazzled the sight and sent a dreadful +terrestrial dawn into the whole of night. With its heart aflame Earth +seemed to become transparent as glass along that crevasse; and amid the +lake of fire heaps of living beings floated on some raft, and writhed +like the spirits of damnation. The other men fled upwards, and piled +themselves in clusters on the straight-lined borders of the valley of +filth and tears. I saw those swarming shadows huddled on the upper +brink of the long armored chasms which the explosions set trembling +like steamships. + +All chemistry makes flaming fireworks in the sky or spreads in sheets +of poison exactly as huge as the huge towns. Against them no wall +avails, no secret armor; and murder enters as invisibly as death +itself. Industry multiplies its magic. Electricity lets loose its +lightnings and thunders--and that miraculous mastery which hurls power +like a projectile. + +Who can say if this enormous might of electricity alone will not change +the face of war?--the centralized cluster of waves, the irresistible +orbs going infinitely forth to fire and destroy all explosives, lifting +the rooted armor of the earth, choking the subterranean gulfs with +heaps of calcined men--who will be burned up like barren coal,--and +maybe even arousing the earthquakes, and tearing the central fires from +earth's depths like ore! + +That will be seen by people who are alive to-day; and yet that vision +of the future so near at hand is only a slight magnification, flitting +through the brain. It terrifies one to think for how short a time +science has been methodical and of useful industry; and after all, is +there anything on earth more marvelously easy than destruction? Who +knows the new mediums it has laid in store? Who knows the limit of +cruelty to which the art of poisoning may go? Who knows if they will +not subject and impress epidemic disease as they do the living +armies--or that it will not emerge, meticulous, invincible, from the +armies of the dead? Who knows by what dread means they will sink in +oblivion this war, which only struck to the ground twenty thousand men +a day, which has invented guns of only seventy-five miles' range, bombs +of only one ton's weight, aeroplanes of only a hundred and fifty miles +an hour, tanks, and submarines which cross the Atlantic? Their costs +have not yet reached in any country the sum total of private fortunes. + +But the upheavals we catch sight of, though we can only and hardly +indicate them in figures, will be too much for life. The desperate and +furious disappearance of soldiers will have a limit. We may no longer +be able to count; but Fate will count. Some day the men will be +killed, and the women and children. And they also will disappear--they +who stand erect upon the ignominious death of the soldiers,--they will +disappear along with the huge and palpitating pedestal in which they +were rooted. But they profit by the present, they believe it will last +as long as they, and as they follow each other they say, "After us, the +deluge." Some day all war will cease for want of fighters. + +The spectacle of to-morrow is one of agony. Wise men make laughable +efforts to determine what may be, in the ages to come, the cause of the +inhabited world's end. Will it be a comet, the rarefaction of water, +or the extinction of the sun, that will destroy mankind? They have +forgotten the likeliest and nearest cause--Suicide. + +They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are +saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of +shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think +themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy +and limited mentality of the assassins themselves. + +The shapeless struggle of the elements will begin again on the seared +earth when men have slain themselves because they were slaves, because +they believed the same things, because they were alike. + +I utter a cry of despair and it seems as if I had turned over and +stifled it in a pillow. + +* * * * * * + +All is madness. And there is no one who will dare to rise and say that +all is not madness, and that the future does not so appear--as fatal +and unchangeable as a memory. + +But how many men will there be who will dare, in face of the universal +deluge which will be at the end as it was in the beginning, to get up +and cry "No!" who will pronounce the terrible and irrefutable issue:-- + +"No! The interests of the people and the interests of all their +present overlords are not the same. Upon the world's antiquity there +are two enemy races--the great and the little. The allies of the great +are, in spite of appearances, the great. The allies of the people are +the people. Here on earth there is one tribe only of parasites and +ringleaders who are the victors, and one people only who are the +vanquished." + +But, as in those earliest ages, will not thoughtful faces arise out of +the darkness? (For this is Chaos and the animal Kingdom; and Reason +being no more, she has yet to be born.) + +"You must think; but with your own ideas, not other people's." + +That lowly saying, a straw whirling in the measureless hand-to-hand +struggle of the armies, shines in my soul above all others. To think +is to hold that the masses have so far wrought too much evil without +wishing it, and that the ancient authorities, everywhere clinging fast, +violate humanity and separate the inseparable. + +There have been those who magnificently dared. There have been bearers +of the truth, men who groped in the world's tumult, trying to make +plain order of it. They discover what we did not yet know; chiefly +they discover what we no longer knew. + +But what a panic is here, among the powerful and the powers that be! + +"Truth is revolutionary! Get you gone, truth-bearers! Away with you, +reformers! You bring in the reign of men!" + +That cry was thrown into my ears one tortured night, like a whisper +from deeps below, when he of the broken wings was dying, when he +struggled tumultuously against the opening of men's eyes; but I had +always heard it round about me, always. + +In official speeches, sometimes, at moments of great public flattery, +they speak like the reformers, but that is only the diplomacy which +aims at felling them better. They force the light-bearers to hide +themselves and their torches. These dreamers, these visionaries, these +star-gazers,--they are hooted and derided. Laughter is let loose +around them, machine-made laughter, quarrelsome and beastly:-- + +"Your notion of peace is only utopian, anyway, as long as you never, +any day, stopped the war by yourself!" + +They point to the battlefield and its wreckage:-- + +"And you say that War won't be forever? Look, driveler!" + +The circle of the setting sun is crimsoning the mingled horizon of +humanity:-- + +"You say that the sun is bigger than the earth? Look, imbecile!" + +They are anathema, they are sacrilegious, they are excommunicated, who +impeach the magic of the past and the poison of tradition. And the +thousand million victims themselves scoff at and strike those who +rebel, as soon as they are able. All cast stones at them, all, even +those who suffer and while they are suffering--even the sacrificed, a +little before they die. + +The bleeding soldiers of Wagram cry: "Long live the emperor!" And the +mournful exploited in the streets cheer for the defeat of those who are +trying to alleviate a suffering which is brother to theirs. Others, +prostrate in resignation, look on, and echo what is said above them: +"After us the deluge," and the saying passes across town and country in +one enormous and fantastic breath, for they are innumerable who murmur +it. Ah, it was well said: + +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +And I? + +I, the normal man? What have I done on earth? I have bent the knee to +the forces which glitter, without seeking to know whence they came and +whither they guide. How have the eyes availed me that I had to see +with, the intelligence that I had to judge with? + +Borne down by shame, I sobbed, "I don't know," and I cried out so +loudly that it seemed to me I was awaking for a moment out of slumber. +Hands are holding and calming me; they draw my shroud about me and +enclose me. + +It seems to me that a shape has leaned over me, quite near, so near; +that a loving voice has said something to me; and then it seems to me +that I have listened to fond accents whose caress came from a great way +off: + +"Why shouldn't _you_ be one of them, my lad,--one of those great +prophets?" + +I don't understand. I? How could I be? + +All my thoughts go blurred. I am falling again. But I bear away in my +eyes the picture of an iron bed where lay a rigid shape. Around it +other forms were drooping, and one stood and officiated. But the +curtain of that vision is drawn. A great plain opens the room, which +had closed for a moment on me, and obliterates it. + +Which way may I look? God? "_Miserere_----" The vibrating fragment +of the Litany has reminded me of God. + +* * * * * * + +I had seen Jesus Christ on the margin of the lake. He came like an +ordinary man along the path. There is no halo round his head. He is +only disclosed by his pallor and his gentleness. Planes of light draw +near and mass themselves and fade away around him. He shines in the +sky, as he shone on the water. As they have told of him, his beard and +hair are the color of wine. He looks upon the immense stain made by +Christians on the world, a stain confused and dark, whose edge alone, +down on His bare feet, has human shape and crimson color. In the +middle of it are anthems and burnt sacrifices, files of hooded cloaks, +and of torturers, armed with battle-axes, halberds and bayonets; and +among long clouds and thickets of armies, the opposing clash of two +crosses which have not quite the same shape. Close to him, too, on a +canvas wall, again I see the cross that bleeds. There are populations, +too, tearing themselves in twain that they may tear themselves the +better; there is the ceremonious alliance, "turning the needy out of +the way," of those who wear three crowns and those who wear one; and, +whispering in the ear of Kings, there are gray-haired Eminences, and +cunning monks, whose hue is of darkness. + +I saw the man of light and simplicity bow his head; and I feel his +wonderful voice saying: + +"I did not deserve the evil they have done unto me." + +Robbed reformer, he is a witness of his name's ferocious glory. The +greed-impassioned money-changers have long since chased Him from the +temple in their turn, and put the priests in his place. He is +crucified on every crucifix. + +Yonder among the fields are churches, demolished by war; and already +men are coming with mattock and masonry to raise the walls again. The +ray of his outstretched arm shines in space, and his clear voice says: + +"Build not the churches again. They are not what you think they were. +Build them not again." + +* * * * * * + +There is no remedy but in them whom peace sentences to hard labor, and +whom war sentences to death. There is no redress except among the +poor. + +* * * * * * + +White shapes seem to return into the white room. Truth is simple. +They who say that truth is complicated deceive themselves, and the +truth is not in them. I see again, not far from me, a bed, a child, a +girl-child, who is asleep in our house; her eyes are only two lines. +Into our house, after a very long time, we have led my old aunt. She +approves affectionately, but all the same she said, very quietly, as +she left the perfection of our room, "It was better in my time." I am +thrilled by one of our windows, whose wings are opened wide upon the +darkness; the appeal which the chasm of that window makes across the +distances enters into me. One night, as it seems to me, it was open to +its heart. + +_I_--my heart--a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is +mine, it is _ours_. The heart--that wound which we have. I have +compassion on myself. + +I see again the rainy shore that I saw before time was, before earth's +drama was unfolded; and the woman on the sands. She moans and weeps, +among the pictures which the clouds of mortality offer and withdraw, +amid that which weaves the rain. She speaks so low that I feel it is +to me she speaks. She is one with me. Love--it comes back to me. +Love is an unhappy man and unhappy woman. + +I awake--uttering the feeble cry of the babe new-born. + +All grows pale, and paler. The whiteness I foresaw through the +whirlwinds and clamors--it is here. An odor of ether recalls to me the +memory of an awful memory, but shapeless. A white room, white walls, +and white-robed women who bend over me. + +In a voice confused and hesitant, I say: + +"I've had a dream, an absurd dream." + +My hand goes to my eyes to drive it away. + +"You struggled while you were delirious--especially when you thought +you were falling," says a calm voice to me, a sedate and familiar +voice, which knows me without my knowing the voice. + +"Yes," I say! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MORNING + + +I went to sleep in Chaos, and then I awoke like the first man. + +I am in a bed, in a room. There is no noise--a tragedy of calm, and +horizons close and massive. The bed which imprisons me is one of a row +that I can see, opposite another row. A long floor goes in stripes as +far as the distant door. There are tall windows, and daylight wrapped +in linen. That is all which exists. I have always been here, I shall +end here. + +Women, white and stealthy, have spoken to me. I picked up the new +sound, and then lost it. A man all in white has sat by me, looked at +me, and touched me. His eyes shone strangely, because of his glasses. + +I sleep, and then they make me drink. + +The long afternoon goes by in the long corridor. In the evening they +make light; at night, they put it out, and the lamps--which are in +rows, like the beds, like the windows, like everything--disappear. +Just one lamp remains, in the middle, on my right. The peaceful ghost +of dead things enjoins peace. But my eyes are open, I awake more and +more. I take hold of consciousness in the dark. + +A stir is coming to life around me among the prostrate forms aligned in +the beds. This long room is immense; it has no end. The enshrouded +beds quiver and cough. They cough on all notes and in all ways, loose, +dry, or tearing. There is obstructed breathing, and gagged breathing, +and polluted, and sing-song. These people who are struggling with +their huge speech do not know themselves. I see their solitude as I +see them. There is nothing between the beds, nothing. + +Of a sudden I see a globular mass with a moon-like face oscillating in +the night. With hands held out and groping for the rails of the +bedsteads, it is seeking its way. The orb of its belly distends and +stretches its shirt like a crinoline, and shortens it. The mass is +carried by two little and extremely slender legs, knobbly at the knees, +and the color of string. It reaches the next bed, the one which a +single ditch separates from mine. On another bed, a shadow is swaying +regularly, like a doll. The mass and the shadow are a negro, whose +big, murderous head is hafted with a tiny neck. + +The hoarse concert of lungs and throats multiplies and widens. There +are some who raise the arms of marionettes out of the boxes of their +beds. Others remain interred in the gray of the bed-clothes. Now and +again, unsteady ghosts pass through the room and stoop between the +beds, and one hears the noise of a metal pail. At the end of the room, +in the dark jumble of those blind men who look straight before them and +the mutes who cough, I only see the nurse, because of her whiteness. +She goes from one shadow to another, and stoops over the motionless. +She is the vestal virgin who, so far as she can, prevents them from +going out. + +I turn my head on the pillow. In the bed bracketed with mine on the +other side, under the glow which falls from the only surviving lamp, +there is a squat manikin in a heavy knitted vest, poultice-color. From +time to time, he sits up in bed, lifts his pointed head towards the +ceiling, shakes himself, and grasping and knocking together his +spittoon and his physic-glass, he coughs like a lion. I am so near to +him that I feel that hurricane from his flesh pass over my face, and +the odor of his inward wound. + +* * * * * * + +I have slept. I see more clearly than yesterday. I no longer have the +veil that was in front of me. My eyes are attracted distinctly by +everything which moves. A powerful aromatic odor assails me; I seek +the source of it. Opposite me, in full daylight, a nurse is rubbing +with a drug some gnarled and blackened hands, enormous paws which the +earth of the battlefields, where they were too long implanted, has +almost made moldy. The strong-smelling liquid is becoming a layer of +frothy polish. + +The foulness of his hands appalls me. Gathering my wits with an +effort, I said aloud: + +"Why don't they wash his hands?" + +My neighbor on the right, the gnome in the mustard vest, seems to hear +me, and shakes his head. + +My eyes go back to the other side, and for hours I devote myself to +watching in obstinate detail, with wide-open eyes, the water-swollen +man whom I saw floating vaguely in the night like a balloon. By night +he was whitish. By day he is yellow, and his big eyes are glutted with +yellow. He gurgles, makes noises of subterranean water, and mingles +sighs with words and morsels of words. Fits of coughing tan his +ochreous face. + +His spittoon is always full. It is obvious that his heart, where his +wasted sulphurate hand is placed, beats too hard and presses his spongy +lungs and the tumor of water which distends him. He lives in the +settled notion of emptying his inexhaustible body. He is constantly +examining his bed-bottle, and I see his face in that yellow reflection. +All day I watched the torture and punishment of that body. His cap and +tunic, no longer in the least like him, hang from a nail. + +Once, when he lay engulfed and choking, he pointed to the negro, +perpetually oscillating, and said: + +"He wanted to kill himself because he was homesick." + +The doctor has said to me--to _me_: "You're going on nicely." I +wanted to ask him to talk to me about myself, but there was no time to +ask him! + +Towards evening my yellow-vested neighbor, emerging from his +meditations and continuing to shake his head, answers my questions of +the morning: + +"They can't wash his hands--it's embedded." + +A little later that day I became restless. I lifted my arm--it was +clothed in white linen. I hardly knew my emaciated hand--that shadow +stranger! But I recognized the identity disk on my wrist. Ah, then! +that went with me into the depths of hell! + +For hours on end my head remains empty and sleepless, and there are +hosts of things that I perceive badly, which are, and then are not. I +have answered some questions. When I say, Yes, it is a sigh that I +utter, and only that. At other times, I seem again to be half-swept +away into pictures of tumored plains and mountains crowned. Echoes of +these things vibrate in my ears, and I wish that some one would come +who could explain the dreams. + +* * * * * * + +Strange footsteps are making the floor creak, and stopping there. I +open my eyes. A woman is before me. Ah! the sight of her throws me +into infinite confusion! She is the woman of my vision. Was it true, +then? I look at her with wide-open eyes. She says to me: + +"It's me." + +Then she bends low and adds softly: + +"I'm Marie; you're Simon." + +"Ah!" I say. "I remember." + +I repeat the profound words she has just uttered. She speaks to me +again with the voice which comes back from far away. I half rise. I +look again. I learn myself again, word by word. + +It is she, naturally, who tells me I was wounded in the chest and hip, +and that I lay three days forsaken--ragged wounds, much blood lost, a +lot of fever, and enormous fatigue. + +"You'll get up soon," she says. + +I get up?--I, the prostrate being? I am astonished and afraid. + +Marie goes away. She increases my solitude, step by step, and for a +long time my eyes follow her going and her absence. + +In the evening I hear a secret and whispered conference near the bed of +the sick man in the brown vest. He is curled up, and breathes humbly. +They say, very low: + +"He's going to die--in one hour from now, or two. He's in such a state +that to-morrow morning he'll be rotten. He must be taken away on the +moment." + +At nine in the evening they say that, and then they put the lights out +and go away. I can see nothing more but him. There is the one lamp, +close by, watching over him. He pants and trickles. He shines as +though it rained on him. His beard has grown, grimily. His hair is +plastered on his sticky forehead; his sweat is gray. + +In the morning the bed is empty, and adorned with clean sheets. + +And along with the man annulled, all the things he had poisoned have +disappeared. + +"It'll be Number Thirty-six's turn next," says the orderly. + +I follow the direction of his glance. I see the condemned man. He is +writing a letter. He speaks, he lives. But he is wounded in the +belly. He carries his death like a fetus. + +* * * * * * + +It is the day when we change our clothes. Some of the invalids manage +it by themselves; and, sitting up in bed, they perform signaling +operations with arms and white linen. Others are helped by the nurse. +On their bare flesh I catch sight of scars and cavities, and parts +stitched and patched, of a different shade. There is even a case of +amputation (and bronchitis) who reveals a new and rosy stump, like a +new-born infant. The negro does not move while they strip his thin, +insect-like trunk; and then, bleached once more, he begins again to +rock his head, looking boundlessly for the sun and for Africa. They +exhume the paralyzed man from his sheets and change his clothes +opposite me. At first he lies motionless in his clean shirt, in a +lump. Then he makes a guttural noise which brings the nurse up. In a +cracked voice, as of a machine that speaks, he asks her to move his +feet, which are caught in the sheet. Then he lies staring, arranged in +rigid orderliness within the boards of his carcass. + +Marie has come back and is sitting on a chair. We both spell out the +past, which she brings me abundantly. My brain is working +incalculably. + +"We're quite near home, you know," Marie says. + +Her words extricate our home, our quarter; they have endless echoes. + +That day I raised myself on the bed and looked out of the window for +the first time, although it had always been there, within reach of my +eyes. And I saw the sky for the first time, and a gray yard as well, +where it was visibly cold, and a gray day, an ordinary day, like life, +like everything. + +Quickly the days wiped each other out. Gradually I got up, in the +middle of the men who had relapsed into childhood, and were awkwardly +beginning again, or plaintively complaining in their beds. I have +strolled in the wards, and then along a path. It is a matter of +formalities now--convalescence, and in a month's time the Medical +Board. + +At last Marie came one morning for me, to go home, for that interval. + +She found me on the seat in the yard of the hospital, which used to be +a school, under the cloth--which was the only spot where a ray of +sunshine could get in. I was meditating in the middle of an assembly +of old cripples and men with heads or arms bandaged, with ragged and +incongruous equipment, with sick clothes. I detached myself from the +miracle-yard and followed Marie, after thanking the nurse and saying +good-by to her. + +The corporal of the hospital orderlies is the vicar of our church--he +who said and who spread it about that he was going to share the +soldiers' sufferings, like all the priests. Marie says to me, "Aren't +you going to see him?" + +"No," I say. + +We set out for life by a shady path, and then the high road came. We +walked slowly. Marie carried the bundle. The horizons were even, the +earth was flat and made no noise, and the dome of the sky no longer +banged like a big clock. The fields were empty, right to the end, +because of the war; but the lines of the road were scriptural, turning +not aside to the right hand or to the left. And I, cleansed, +simplified, lucid--though still astonished at the silence and affected +by the peacefulness--I saw it all distinctly, without a veil, without +anything. It seemed to me that I bore within me a great new reason, +unused. + +We were not far away. Soon we uncovered the past, step by step. As +fast as we drew near, smaller and smaller details introduced themselves +and told us their names--that tree with the stones round it, those +forsaken and declining sheds. I even found recollections shut up in +the little retreats of the kilometer-stones. + +But Marie was looking at me with an indefinable expression. + +"You're icy cold," she said to me suddenly, shivering. + +"No," I said, "no." + +We stopped at an inn to rest and eat, and it was already evening when +we reached the streets. + +Marie pointed out a man who was crossing over, yonder. + +"Monsieur Rampaille is rich now, because of the War." + +Then it was a woman, dressed in fluttering white and blue, disappearing +round the corner of a house: + +"That's Antonia Veron. She's been in the Red Cross service. She's got +a decoration because of the War." + +"Ah!" I said, "everything's changed." + +Now we are in sight of the house. The distance between the corner of +the street and the house seems to me smaller than it should be. The +court comes to an end suddenly; its shape looks shorter than it is in +reality. In the same way, all the memories of my former life appear +dwindled to me. + +The house, the rooms. I have climbed the stairs and come down again, +watched by Marie. I have recognized everything; some things even which +I did not see. There is no one else but us two in the falling night, +as though people had agreed not to show themselves yet to this man who +comes back. + +"There--now we're at home," says Marie, at last. + +We sit down, facing each other. + +"What are we going to do?" + +"We're going to live." + +"We're going to live." + +I ponder. She looks at me stealthily, with that mysterious expression +of anguish which gets over me. I notice the precautions she takes in +watching me. And once it seemed to me that her eyes were red with +crying. I--I think of the hospital life I am leaving, of the gray +street, and the simplicity of things. + +* * * * * * + +A day has slipped away already. In one day all the time gone by has +reestablished itself. I am become again what I was. Except that I am +not so strong or so calm as before, it is as though nothing had +happened. + +But truth is more simple than before. + +I inquire of Marie after this one or the other and question her. + +Marie says to me: + +"You're always saying Why?--like a child." + +All the same I do not talk much. Marie is assiduous; obviously she is +afraid of my silence. Once, when I was sitting opposite her and had +said nothing for a long time, she suddenly hid her face in her hands, +and in her turn she asked me, through her sobs: + +"Why are you like that?" + +I hesitate. + +"It seems to me," I say at last, by way of answer, "that I am seeing +things as they are." + +"My poor boy!" Marie says, and she goes on crying. + +I am touched by this obscure trouble. True, everything is obvious +around me, but as it were laid bare. I have lost the secret which +complicated life. I no longer have the illusion which distorts and +conceals, that fervor, that sort of blind and unreasoning bravery which +tosses you from one hour to the next, and from day to day. + +And yet I am just taking up life again where I left it. I am upright, +I am getting stronger and stronger. I am not ending, but beginning. + +I slept profoundly, all alone in our bed. + +Next morning, I saw Crillon, planted in the living-room downstairs. He +held out his arms, and shouted. After expressing good wishes, he +informs me, all in a breath: + +"You don't know what's happened in the Town Council? Down yonder, +towards the place they call Little January, y'know, there's a steep +hill that gets wider as it goes down an' there's a gaslamp and a +watchman's box where all the cyclists that want to smash their faces, +and a few days ago now a navvy comes and sticks himself in there and no +one never knew his name, an' he got a cyclist on his head an' he's gone +dead. And against that gaslamp broken up by blows from cyclists they +proposed to put a notice-board, although all recommendations would be +superfluent. You catch on that it's nothing less than a maneuver to +get the mayor's shirt out?" + +Crillon's words vanish. As fast as he utters them I detach myself from +all this poor old stuff. I cannot reply to him, when he has ceased, +and Marie and he are looking at me. I say, "Ah!" + +He coughs, to keep me in countenance. Shortly, he takes himself off. + +Others come, to talk of their affairs and the course of events in the +district. There is a regular buzz. So-and-so has been killed, but +So-and-so is made an officer. So-and-so has got a clerking job. Here +in the town, So-and-so has got rich. How's the War going on? + +They surround me, with questioning faces. And yet it is I, still more +than they, who am one immense question. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +EYES THAT SEE + + +Two days have passed. I get up, dress myself, and open my shutters. +It is Sunday, as you can see in the street. + +I put on my clothes of former days. I catch myself paying spruce +attention to my toilet, since it is Sunday, by reason of the compulsion +one feels to do the same things again. + +And now I see how much my face has hollowed, as I compare it with the +one I had left behind in the familiar mirror. + +I go out, and meet several people. Madame Piot asks me how many of the +enemy I have killed. I reply that I killed one. Her tittle-tattle +accosts another subject. I feel the enormous difference there was +between what she asked me and what I answered. + +The streets are clad in the mourning of closed shops. It is still the +same empty and hermetically sealed face of the day of holiday. My eyes +notice, near the sunken post, the old jam-pot, which has not moved. + +I climb on to Chestnut Hill. No one is there, because it is Sunday. +In that white winding-sheet, that widespread pallor of Sunday, all my +former lot builds itself again, house by house. + +I look outwards from the top of the hill. All is the same in the lines +and the tones. The spectacle of yesterday and that of to-day are as +identical as two picture postcards. I see my house--the roof, and +three-quarters of the front. I feel a pleasant thrill. I feel that I +love this corner of the earth, but especially my house. + +What, is everything the same? Is there nothing new, nothing? Is the +only changed thing the man that I am, walking too slowly in clothes too +big, the man grown old and leaning on a stick? + +The landscape is barren in the inextricable simplicity of the daylight. +I do not know why I was expecting revelations. In vain my gaze wanders +everywhere, to infinity. + +But a darkening of storm fills and agitates the sky, and suddenly +clothes the morning with a look of evening. The crowd which I see +yonder along the avenue, under cover of the great twilight which goes +by with its invisible harmony, profoundly draws my attention. + +All those shadows which are shelling themselves out along the road are +very tiny, they are separated from one another, they are of the same +stature. From a distance one sees how much one man resembles another. +And it is true that a man is like a man. The one is not of a different +species from the other. It is a certainty which I am bringing +forward--the only one; and the truth is simple, for what I believe I +see with my eyes. + +The equality of all these human spots that appear in the somber gleams +of storm, why--it is a revelation! It is a beginning of distinct order +in Chaos. How comes it that I have never seen what is so visible, how +comes it that I never perceived that obvious thing--that a man and +another man are the same thing, everywhere and always? I rejoice that +I have seen it as if my destiny were to shed a little light on us and +on our road. + +* * * * * * + +The bells are summoning our eyes to the church. It is surrounded by +scaffolding, and a long swarm of people are gliding towards it, +grouping round it, going in. + +The earth and the sky--but I do not see God. I see everywhere, +everywhere, God's absence. My gaze goes through space and returns, +forsaken. And I have never seen Him, and He is nowhere, nowhere, +nowhere. + +No one ever saw Him. I know--I always knew, for that matter!--that +there is no proof of God's existence, and that you must find, first of +all, believe in it if you want to prove it. Where does He show +Himself? What does He save? What tortures of the heart, what +disasters does He turn aside from all and each in the ruin of hearts? +Where have we known or handled or embraced anything but His name? +God's absence surrounds infinitely and even actually each kneeling +suppliant, athirst for some humble personal miracle, and each seeker +who bends over his papers as he watches for proofs like a creator; it +surrounds the spiteful antagonism of all religions, armed against each +other, enormous and bloody. God's absence rises like the sky over the +agonizing conflicts between good and evil, over the trembling +heedfulness of the upright, over the immensity--still haunting me--of +the cemeteries of agony, the charnel heaps of innocent soldiers, the +heavy cries of the shipwrecked. Absence! Absence! In the hundred +thousand years that life has tried to delay death there has been +nothing on earth more fruitless than man's cries to divinity, nothing +which gives so perfect an idea of silence. + +How does it come about that I have lasted till now without +understanding that I did not see God? I believed because they had told +me to believe. It seems to me that I am able to believe something no +longer because they command me to, and I feel myself set free. + +I lean on the stones of the low wall, at the spot where I leaned of +old, in the time when I thought I was some one and knew something. + +My looks fall on the families and the single figures which are hurrying +towards the black hole of the church porch, towards the gloom of the +nave, where one is enlaced in incense, where wheels of light and angels +of color hover under the vaults which contain a little of the great +emptiness of the heavens. + +I seem to stoop nearer to those people, and I get glimpses of certain +profundities among the fleeting pictures which my sight lends me. I +seem to have stopped, at random, in front of the richness of a single +being. I think of the "humble, quiet lives," and it appears to me +within a few words, and that in what they call a "quiet, lowly life," +there are immense expectations and waitings and weariness. + +I understand why they want to believe in God, and consequently why they +do believe in Him, since faith comes at will. + +I remember, while I lean on this wall and listen, that one day in the +past not far from here, a lowly woman raised her voice and said, "That +woman does not believe in God! It's because she has no children, or +else because they've never been ill." + +And I remember, too, without being able to picture them to myself, all +the voices I have heard saying, "It would be too unjust, if there were +no God!" + +There is no other proof of God's existence than the need we have of +Him. God is not God--He is the name of all that we lack. He is our +dream, carried to the sky. God is a prayer, He is not some one. + +They put all His kind actions into the eternal future, they hide them +in the unknown. Their agonizing dues they drown in distances which +outdistance them; they cancel His contradictions in inaccessible +uncertainty. No matter; they believe in the idol made of a word. + +And I? I have awaked out of religion, since it was a dream. It had to +be that one morning my eyes would end by opening and seeing nothing +more of it. + +I do not see God, but I see the church and I see the priests. Another +ceremony is unfolding just now, in another direction--up at the castle, +a Mass of St. Hubert. Leaning on my elbows the spectacle absorbs me. + +These ministers of the cult, blessing this pack of hounds, these guns +and hunting knives, officiating in lace and pomp side by side with +these wealthy people got up as warlike sportsmen, women and men alike, +on the great steps of a castle and facing a crowd kept aloof by +ropes,--this spectacle defines, more glaringly than any words whatever +can, the distance which separates the churches of to-day from Christ's +teaching, and points to all the gilded putridity which has accumulated +on those pure defaced beginnings. And what is here is everywhere; what +is little is great. + +The parsons, the powerful--all always joined together. Ah, certainty +is rising to the heart of my conscience. Religions destroy themselves +spiritually because they are many. They destroy whatever leans upon +their fables. But their directors, they who are the strength of the +idol, impose it. They decree authority; they hide the light. They are +men, defending their interests as men; they are rulers defending their +sway. + +It has to be! You shall _not_ know! A terrible memory shudders +through me; and I catch a confused glimpse of people who, for the needs +of their common cause, uphold, with their promises and thunder, the mad +unhappiness which lies heavy on the multitudes. + +* * * * * * + +Footsteps are climbing towards me. Marie appears, dressed in gray. +She comes to look for me. In the distance I saw that her cheeks were +brightened and rejuvenated by the wind. Close by I see that her +eyelids are worn, like silk. She finds me sunk in reflection. She +looks at me, like a frail and frightened mother; and this solicitude +which she brings me is enough by itself to calm and comfort me. + +I point out to her the dressed-up commotion below us, and make some +bitter remark on the folly of these people who vainly gather in the +church, and go to pray there, to talk all alone. Some of them believe; +and the rest say to them, "I do the same as you." + +Marie does not argue the basis of religion. "Ah," she says, "I've +never thought clearly about it, never. They've always spoken of God to +me, and I've always believed in Him. But--I don't know. I only know +one thing," she adds, her blue eyes looking at me, "and that is that +there must be delusion. The people must have religion, so as to put up +with the hardships of life, the sacrifices----" + +She goes on again at once, more emphatically, "There must be religion +for the unhappy, so that they won't give way. It may be foolishness, +but if you take that away from them, what have they left?" + +The gentle woman--the normal woman of settled habits--whom I had left +here repeats, "There must be illusion." She sticks to this idea, she +insists, she is taking the side of the unhappy. Perhaps she talks like +that for her own sake, and perhaps only because she is compassionate +for me. + +I said in vain, "No--there must never be delusion, never fallacies. +There should be no more lies. We shall not know then where we're +going." + +She persists and makes signs of dissent. + +I say no more, tired. But I do not lower my gaze before the +all-powerful surroundings of circumstance. My eyes are pitiless, and +cannot help descrying the false God and the false priests everywhere. + +We go down the footpath and return in silence. But it seems to me that +the rule of evil is hidden in easy security among the illusions which +they heap up over us. I am nothing; I am no more than I was before, +but I am applying my hunger for the truth. I tell myself again that +there is no supernatural power, that nothing has fallen from the sky; +that everything is within us and in our hands. And in the inspiration +of that faith my eyes embrace the magnificence of the empty sky, the +abounding desert of the earth, the Paradise of the Possible. + +We pass along the base of the church. Marie says to me--as if nothing +had just been said, "Look how the poor church was damaged by a bomb +from an aeroplane--all one side of the steeple gone. The good old +vicar was quite ill about it. As soon as he got up he did nothing else +but try to raise money to have his dear steeple built up again; and he +got it." + +People are revolving round the building and measuring its yawning +mutilation with their eyes. My thoughts turn to all these passers-by +and to all those who will pass by, whom I shall not see, and to other +wounded steeples. The most beautiful of all voices echoes within me, +and I would fain make use of it for this entreaty, "Build not the +churches again! You who will come after us, you who, in the sharp +distinctness of the ended deluge will perhaps be able to see the order +of things more clearly, don't build the churches again! They did not +contain what we used to believe, and for centuries they have only been +the prisons of the saviours, and monumental lies. If you are still of +the faith have your temples within yourselves. But if you again bring +stones to build up a narrow and evil tradition, that is the end of all. +In the name of justice, in the name of light, in the name of pity, do +not build the churches again!" + +But I did not say anything. I bow my head and walk more heavily. + +I see Madame Marcassin coming out of the church with blinking eyes, +weary-looking, a widow indeed. I bow and approach her and talk to her +a little, humbly, about her husband, since I was under his orders and +saw him die. She listens to me in dejected inattention. She is +elsewhere. She says to me at last, "I had a memorial service since +it's usual." Then she maintains a silence which means "There's nothing +to be said, just as there's nothing to be done." In face of that +emptiness I understand the crime that Marcassin committed in letting +himself be killed for nothing but the glory of dying. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GHOSTS + + +We have gone out together and aimlessly; we walk straight forward. + +It is an autumnal day--gray lace of clouds and wind. Some dried leaves +lie on the ground and others go whirling. We are in August, but it is +an autumn day all the same. Days do not allow themselves to be set in +strict order, like men. + +Our steps take us in the direction of the waterfall and the mill. We +have seldom been there again since our engagement days. Marie is +covered in a big gray cloak; her hat is black silk with a little square +of color embroidered in front. She looks tired, and her eyes are red. +When she walks in front of me I see the twisted mass of her beautiful +fair hair. + +Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a +time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like +scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the +tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front +of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us +with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are +worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other +inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on +as if they had been passers-by. + +Marie is tired. She often sits down, with her big cloak and her +sensible air; and as she sits she seems like a statue of nature, of +space, and the wind. + +We do not speak. We have gone down along the side of the +river--slowly, as if we were climbing--towards the stone seat of the +wall. The distances have altered. This seat, for instance, we meet it +sooner than we thought we should, like some one in the dark; but it is +the seat all right. The rose-tree which grew above it has withered +away and become a crown of thorns. + +There are dead leaves on the stone slab. They come from the chestnuts +yonder. They fell on the ground and yet they have flown away as far as +the seat. + +On this seat--where she came to me for the first time, which was once +so important to us that it seemed as if the background of things all +about us had been created by us--we sit down to-day, after we have +vainly sought in nature the traces of our transit. + +The landscape is peaceful, simple, empty; it fills us with a great +quivering. Marie is so sad and so simple that you can see her thought. + +I have leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. I have contemplated the +gravel at my feet; and suddenly I start, for I understand that my eyes +were looking for the marks of our footsteps, in spite of the stone, in +spite of the sand. + +After the solemnity of a long silence, Marie's face takes on a look of +defeat, and suddenly she begins to cry. The tears which fill her--for +one always weeps in full, drop on to her knees. And through her sobs +there fall from her wet lips words almost shapeless, but desperate and +fierce, as a burst of forced laughter. + +"It's all over!" she cries. + +* * * * * * + +I have put my arm round her waist, and I am shaken by the sorrow which +agitates her chest and throat, and sometimes shakes her rudely, the +sorrow which does not belong to me, which belongs to no one, and is +like a divinity. + +She becomes composed. I take her hand. In a weak voice she calls some +memories up--this and that--and "one morning----" She applies herself +to it and counts them. I speak, too, gently. We question each other. +"Do you remember?"--"Oh, yes." And when some more precise and intimate +detail prompts the question we only reply, "A little." Our separation +and the great happenings past which the world has whirled have made the +past recoil and shaped a deep ditch. Nothing has changed; but when we +look we see. + +Once, after we had recalled to each other an enchanted summer evening, +I said, "We loved each other," and she answered, "I remember." + +I call her by her name, in a low voice, so as to draw her out of the +dumbness into which she is falling. + +She listens to me, and then says, placidly, despairingly, +"'_Marie_,'--you used to say it like that. I can't realize that I had +the same name." + +A few moments later, as we talked of something else, she said to me at +last, "Ah, that day we had dreams of travel, about our plans--_you were +there_, sitting by my side." + +In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we +have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here. Her glances +come to me, but they do not join again the two surviving voids that we +are; her look does not wipe out our widowhood, nor change anything. +And I, I am too imbued with clear-sighted simplicity and truth to +answer "no" when it is "yes." In this moment by my side Marie is like +me. + +The immense mourning of human hearts appears to us. We dare not name +it yet; but we dare not let it not appear in all that we say. + +* * * * * * + +Then we see a woman, climbing the footpath and coming nearer to us. It +is Marthe, grown up, full-blown. She says a few words to us and then +goes away, smiling. She smiles, she who plays a part in our drama. +The likeness which formerly haunted me now haunts Marie, too--both of +us, side by side, and without saying it, harbored the same thought, to +see that child growing up and showing what Marie was. + +Marie confesses all, all at once, "I was only my youth and my beauty, +like all women. And _there_ go my youth and beauty--Marthe! Then, +I----?" In anguish she goes on, "I'm not old yet, since I'm only +thirty-five, but I've aged very quickly; I've some white hairs that you +can see, close to; I'm wrinkled and my eyes have sunk. I'm here, in +life, to live, to occupy my time; but I'm nothing more than I am! Of +course, I'm still alive, but the future comes to an end before life +does. Ah, it's really only youth that has a place in life. All young +faces are alike and go from one to the other without ever being +deceived. They wipe out and destroy all the rest, and they make the +others see themselves as they are, so that they become useless." + +She is right! When the young woman stands up she takes, in fact, the +other's place in the ideal and in the human heart, and makes of the +other a returning ghost. It is true. I knew it. Ah, I did not know +it was so true! It is too obvious. I cannot deny it. Again a cry of +assent rises to my lips and prevents me from saying, "No." + +I cannot turn away from Marthe's advent, nor as I look at her, from +recognizing Marie. I know she has had several little love-affairs. +Just now she is alone. She is alone, but she will soon be +leaning--yes, phantom or reality, man is not far from her. It is +dazzling. Most certainly, I no longer think as I used to do that it is +a sort of duty to satisfy the selfish promptings one has, and I have +now got an inward veneration for right-doing; but all the same, if that +being came to me, I know well that I should become, before all, and in +spite of all, an immense cry of delight. + +Marie falls back upon her idea, obdurately, and says, "A woman only +lives by love and for love. When she's no longer good for that she's +no longer anything." + +She repeats, "You see--I'm nothing any more." + +Ah, she is at the bottom of her abyss! She is at the extremity of a +woman's mourning! She is not thinking only of me. Her thought is +higher and vaster. She is thinking of all the woman she is, of all +that love is, of all possible things when she says, "I'm no longer +anything." And _I_--I am only he who is present with her just now, and +no help whatever is left her to look for from any one. + +I should like to pacify and console this woman who is gentleness and +simplicity and who is sinking there while she lightly touches me with +her presence--but exactly because she is there I cannot lie to her, I +can do nothing against her grief, her perfect, infallible grief. + +"Ah!" she cries, "if we came to life again!" + +But she, too, has tried to cling to illusion. I see by the track of +her tears, and because I am looking at her--that she has powdered her +face to-day and put rouge on her lips, perhaps even on her cheeks, as +she did in bygone days, laughing, to set herself off, in spite of me. +This woman who tries to keep a good likeness of herself through passing +time, to be fixed upon herself, who paints herself, she is, to that +extent like what Rembrandt the profound and Titian the bold and +exquisite did--make enduring, and save! But this time, a few tears +have washed away the fragile, mortal effort. + +She tries also to delude herself with words, and to discover something +in them which would transform her. She asserts, as she did the other +morning, "There must be illusion. No, we must not see things as they +are." But I see clearly that such words do not exist. + +Once, when she was looking at me distressfully, she murmured, +"_You_--you've no more illusion at all. I pity you!" + +At that moment, within the space of a flash, she was thinking of me +only, and she pities me! She has found something in her grief to give +me. + +She is silent. She is seeking the supreme complaint; she is trying to +find what there is which is more torturing and more simple; and she +stammers--"The truth." + +The truth is that the love of mankind is a single season among so many +others. The truth is that we have within us something much more mortal +than we are, and that it is this, all the same, which is all-important. +Therefore we survive very much longer than we live. There are things +we think we know and which yet are secrets. Do we really know what we +believe? We believe in miracles. We make great efforts to struggle, +to go mad. We should like to let all our good deserts be seen. We +fancy that we are exceptions and that something supernatural is going +to come along. But the quiet peace of the truth fixes us. The +impossible becomes again the impossible. We are as silent as silence +itself. + +We stayed lonely on the seat until evening. Our hands and faces shone +like gleams of storm in the entombment of the calm and the mist. + +We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few +hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as +never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real +drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our +movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is +empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each +other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation +of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but +close by--so close--are phantoms! + +Then bedtime comes. She is sleeping in the little bedroom opposite +mine across the landing, less fine than mine and smaller, hung with an +old and faded paper, where the patterned flowers are only an irregular +relief, with traces here and there of powder, of colored dust and +ashes. + +We are going to separate on the landing. To-day is not the first time +like that! but to-day we are feeling this great rending which is not +one. She has begun to undress. She has taken off her blouse. I see +her neck and her breasts, a little less firm than before, through her +chemise; and half tumbling on to the nape of her neck, the fair hair +which once magnificently flamed on her like a fire of straw. + +She only says, "It's better to be a man than a woman." + +Then she replies to my silence, "You see, we don't know what to say, +now." + +In the angle of the narrow doorway she spoke with a kind of immensity. + +She goes into her room and disappears. Before I went to the war we +slept in the same bed. We used to lie down side by side, so as to be +annihilated in unconsciousness, or to go and dream somewhere else. +(Commonplace life has shipwrecks worse than in Shakespearean dramas. +For man and wife--to sleep, to die.) But since I came back we separate +ourselves with a wall. This sincerity that I have brought back in my +eyes and mind has changed the semblances round about me into reality, +more than I imagine. Marie is hiding from me her faded but disregarded +body. Her modesty has begun again; yes, she has ended by beginning +again. + +She has shut her door. She is undressing, alone in her room, slowly, +and as if uselessly. There is only the light of her little lamp to +caress her loosened hair, in which the others cannot yet see the white +ones, the frosty hairs that she alone touches. + +Her door is shut, decisive, banal, dreary. + +Among some papers on my table I see the poem again which we once found +out of doors, the bit of paper escaped from the mysterious hands which +wrote on it, and come to the stone seat. It ended by whispering, "Only +I know the tears that brimming rise, your beauty blended with your +smile to espy." + +In the days of yore it had made us smile with delight. To-night there +are real tears in my eyes. What is it? I dimly see that there is +something more than what we have seen, than what we have said, than +what we have felt to-day. One day, perhaps, she and I will exchange +better and richer sayings; and so, in that day, all the sadness will be +of some service. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE CULT + + +I have been to the factory. I felt as much lost as if I had found +myself translated there after a sleep of legendary length. There are +many new faces. The factory has tripled--quadrupled in importance; +quite a town of flimsy buildings has been added to it. + +"They've built seven others like it in three months!" says Monsieur +Mielvaque to me, proudly. + +The manager is now another young nephew of the Messrs. Gozlan. He was +living in Paris and came back on the day of the general mobilization. +Old Monsieur Gozlan looks after everything. + +I have a month to wait. I wait slowly, as everybody does. The houses +in the lower town are peopled by absentees. When you go in they talk +to you about the last letter, and always make the same huge and barren +reflections on the war. In my street there are twelve houses where the +people no longer await anything and have nothing to say, like Madame +Marcassin. In some others, the one who has disappeared will perhaps +come back; and they go about in them in a sort of hope which leans only +on emptiness and silence. There are women who have begun their lives +again in a kind of happy misery. The places near them of the dead or +the living they have filled up. + +The main streets have not changed, any more than the squares, except +the one which is encrusted with a collection of huts. The life in them +is as bustling as ever, and of brighter color, and more amusing. Many +young men, rich or influential, are passing their wartime in the +offices of the depot, of the Exchange, of Food Control, of Enlistment, +of the Pay Department, and other administrations whose names one cannot +remember. The priests are swarming in the two hospitals; on the faces +of orderlies, cyclist messengers, doorkeepers and porters you can read +their origin. For myself, I have never seen a parson in the front +lines wearing the uniform of the ordinary fighting soldier, the uniform +of those who make up the fatigue parties and fight as well against +perfect misery! + +My thought turns to what the man once said to me who was by me among +the straw of a stable, "Why is there no more justice?" By the little +that I know and have seen and am seeing, I can tell what an enormous +rush sprang up, at the same time as the war, against the equality of +the living. And if that injustice, which was turning the heroism of +the others into a cheat has not been openly extended, it is because the +war has lasted too long, and the scandal became so glaring that they +were forced to look into it. It seems that it is only through fear +that they have ended by deciding so much. + +* * * * * * + +I go into Fontan's. Crillon is with me--I picked him up from the +little glass cupboard of his shop as I came out. He is finding it +harder and harder to keep going; he has aged a lot, and his frame, so +powerfully bolted together, cracks with rheumatism. + +We sit down. Crillon groans and bends so low in his hand-to-hand +struggle with the pains which beset him that I think his forehead is +going to strike the marble-topped table. + +He tells me in detail of his little business, which is going badly, and +how he has confused glimpses of the bare and empty future which awaits +him--when a sergeant with a fair mustache and eyeglasses makes his +entry. This personage, whose collar shows white thunderbolts,[1] +instead of a number, comes and sits near us. He orders a port wine and +Victorine serves it with a smile. She smiles at random, and +indistinctly, at all the men, like Nature. + +[Footnote 1: Distinctive badge for Staff officers and others.--Tr.] + +The newcomer takes off his cap, looks at the windows and yawns. "I'm +bored," he says. + +He comes nearer and freely offers us his talk. He sets himself +chattering with spirited and easy grace, of men and things. He works +at the Town Hall and knows a lot of secrets which he lets us into. He +points to a couple of sippers at a table in the corner reserved for +commercial people. "The grocer and the ironmonger," he says, "there's +two that know how to go about it! At the beginning of the war there +was a business crisis by the force of things, and they had to tighten +their belts like the rest. Then they got their revenge and swept the +dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still +revenging themselves. You should see the stocks of goods they sit on +in their cellars and wait for the rises that the newspapers foretell! +They've got one excuse, it's true--there are others, bigger people, +that are worse. Ah, you can say that the business people will have +given a rich notion of their patriotism during the war!" + +The fair young man stretches himself backward to his full length, with +his heels together on the ground, his arms rigid on the table, and +opens his mouth with all his might and for a long time. Then he goes +on in a loud voice, careless who hears him, "Why, I saw the other day, +at the Town Hall, piles of the Declarations of Profits, required by the +Treasury. I don't know, of course, for I've not read them, but I'm as +sure and certain as you are that all those innumerable piles of +declarations are just so many columns of cod and humbug and lies!" + +Intelligent and inexhaustible, accurately posted through the clerk's +job in which he is sheltering, the sergeant relates with careless +gestures his stories of scandals and huge profiteering, "while our good +fellows are fighting." He talks and talks, and concludes by saying +that after all _he_ doesn't care a damn as long as they let him alone. + +Monsieur Fontan is in the cafe. A woman leads up to him a tottering +being whom she introduces to him. "He's ill, Monsieur Fontan, because +he hasn't had enough to eat." + +"Well now! And I'm ill, too," says Fontan jovially, "but it's because +I eat too much." + +The sergeant takes his leave, touching us with a slight salute. "He's +right, that smart gentleman," says Crillon to me. "It's always been +like that, and it will always be like that, you know!" + +Aloof, I keep silence. I am still tired and stunned by all these +sayings in the little time since I remained so long without hearing +anything but myself. But I am sure they are all true, and that +patriotism is only a word or a tool for many. And feeling the rags of +the common soldier still on me, I knit my brows and realize that it is +a disgrace and a shame for the poor to be deceived as they are. + +Crillon is smiling, as always! On his huge face, where every passing +day now leaves some marks, on his round-eyed weakened face with its +mouth opened like a cypher, the old smile of yore is spread out. I +used to think then that resignation was a virtue; I see now that it is +a vice. The optimist is the permanent accomplice of all evil-doers. +This passive smile which I admired but lately--I find it despicable on +this poor face. + +* * * * * * + +The cafe has filled up with workmen, either old or very young, from the +town and the country, but chiefly the country. + +What are they doing, these lowly, these ill-paid? They are dirty and +they are drinking. They are dark, although it is the forenoon, because +they are dirty. In the light there is that obscurity which they carry +on them; and a bad smell removes itself with them. + +I see three convalescent soldiers from the hospital join the plebeian +groups; they are recognized by their coarse clothes, their caps and big +boots, and because their gestures are soldered together and conform to +a common movement. + +By force of "glasses all round," these drinkers begin to talk in loud +voices; they get excited and shout at random; and in the end they drop +visibly into unconsciousness, into oblivion, into defeat. + +The wine-merchant is at his cash desk, which shines like silver. He +stands behind the center of it, colorless, motionless, like a bust on a +pedestal. His bare arms hang down, pallid as his face. He comes and +wipes away some spilled wine, and his hands shine and drip, like a +butcher's. + +* * * * * * + +"I'm forgetting to tell you," cried Crillon, "that they had news of +your regiment a few days ago. Little Melusson's had his head blown to +bits in an attack. Here, y'know; he was a softy and an idler. Well, +he was attacking like a devil. War remakes men like that!" + +"Termite?" I asked. + +"Ah, yes! Termite the poacher! Why it's a long time since they +haven't seen him. Disappeared, it seems. S'pose he's killed." + +Then he talks to me of this place. Brisbille, for instance, always the +same, a Socialist and a scandal. + +"There's him," says Crillon, "and that dangerous chap Eudo as well, +with his notorient civilities. Would you believe it, they've not been +able to pinch him for his spying proclensities! Nothing in his past +life, nothing in his conductions, nothing in his expensiture, nothing +to find fault with. Mustn't he be a deep one?" + +I presume to think--suppose it was all untrue? Yet it seemed a +formidable task to upset on the spot one of the oldest and most deeply +rooted creeds in our town. But I risk it. "Perhaps he's innocent." + +Crillon jumps, and shouts, "What! You suspect him of being innocent!" +His face is convulsed and he explodes with an enormous laugh, a laugh +irresistible as a tidal wave, the laugh of all! + +"Talking about Termite," says Crillon a moment later, "it seems it +wasn't him that did the poaching." + +The military convalescents are leaving the tavern. Crillon watches +them go away with their parallel movements and their sticks. + +"Yes, there's wounded here and there's dead there!" he says; "all those +who hadn't got a privilential situation! Ah, la, la! The poor devils, +when you think of it, eh, what they must have suffered! And at this +moment, all the time, there's some dying. And we stand it very well, +an' hardly think of it. They didn't need to kill so many, that's +certain--there's been faults and blunders, as everybody knows of. But +fortunately," he adds, with animation, putting on my shoulder the hand +that is big as a young animal, "the soldiers' deaths and the chief's +blunders, that'll all disappear one fine day, melted away and forgotten +in the glory of the victorious Commander!" + +* * * * * * + +There has been much talk in our quarter of a Memorial Festival. + +I am not anxious to be present and I watch Marie set off. Then I feel +myself impelled to go there, as if it were a duty. + +I cross the bridge. I stop at the corner of the Old Road, on the edge +of the fields. Two steps away there is the cemetery, which is hardly +growing, since nearly all those who die now are not anywhere. + +I lift my eyes and take in the whole spectacle together. The hill +which rises in front of me is full of people. It trembles like a swarm +of bees. Up above, on the avenue of trimmed limetrees, it is crowned +by the sunshine and by the red platform, which scintillates with the +richness of dresses and uniforms and musical instruments. + +Then there is a red barrier. On this side of that barrier, lower down, +the public swarms and rustles. + +I recognize the great picture of the past. I remember this ceremony, +spacious as a season, which has been regularly staged here so many +times in the course of my childhood and youth, and with almost the same +rites and forms. It was like this last year, and the other years, and +a century ago and centuries since. + +Near me an old peasant in sabots is planted. Rags, shapeless and +colorless--the color of time--cover the eternal man of the fields. He +is what he always was. He blinks, leaning on a stick; he holds his cap +in his hand because what he sees is so like a church service. His legs +are trembling; he wonders if he ought to be kneeling. + +And I, I feel myself diminished, cut back, returned through the cycles +of time to the little that I am. + +* * * * * * + +Up there, borne by the flag-draped rostrum, a man is speaking. He +lifts a sculptural head aloft, whose hair is white as marble. + +At my distance I can hardly hear him. But the wind carries me some +phrases, louder shouted, of his peroration. He is preaching +resignation to the people, and the continuance of things. He implores +them to abandon finally the accursed war of classes, to devote +themselves forever to the blessed war of races in all its shapes. +After the war there must be no more social utopias, but discipline +instead, whose grandeur and beauty the war has happily revealed, the +union of rich and poor for national expansion and the victory of France +in the world, and sacred hatred of the Germans, which is a virtue in +the French. Let us remember! + +Then another orator excites himself and shouts that the war has been +such a magnificent harvest of heroism that it must not be regretted. +It has been a good thing for France; it has made lofty virtues and +noble instincts gush forth from a nation which seemed to be decadent. +Our people had need of an awakening and to recover themselves, and +acquire new vigor. With metaphors which hover and vibrate he proclaims +the glory of killing and being killed, he exalts the ancient passion +for plumes and scarlet in which the heart of France is molded. + +Alone on the edge of the crowd I feel myself go icy by the touch of +these words and commands, which link future and past together and +misery to misery. I have already heard them resounding forever. A +world of thoughts growls confusedly within me. Once I cried +noiselessly, "No!"--a deformed cry, a strangled protest of all my faith +against all the fallacy which comes down upon us. That first cry which +I have risked among men, I cast almost as a visionary, but almost as a +dumb man. The old peasant did not even turn his earthy, gigantic head. +And I hear a roar of applause go by, of popular expanse. + +I go up to join Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots +of them. Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands +immovable. Up there the Bishop is on his feet. He raises his +forefinger and says, "The dead are not dead. They are rewarded in +heaven; but even here on earth they are alive. They keep watch in our +hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion. Theirs is the immortality +of glory and gratitude. They are not dead, and we should envy them +more than pity." + +And he blesses the audience, all of whom bow or kneel. I remained +upright, stubbornly, with clenched teeth. And I remember things, and I +say to myself, "Have the dead died for nothing? If the world is to +stay as it is, then--yes!" + +Several men did not bend their backs at first, and then they obeyed the +general movement; and I felt on my shoulders all the heavy weight of +the whole bowing multitude. + +Monsieur Joseph Boneas is talking within a circle. Seeing him again I +also feel for one second the fascination he once had for me. He is +wearing an officer's uniform of the Town Guard, and his collar hides +the ravages in his neck. He is holding forth. What says he? He says, +"We must take the long view." + +"We must take the long view. For my part, the only thing I admire in +militarist Prussia is its military organization. After the war--for we +must not limit our outlook to the present conflict--we must take +lessons from it, and just let the simple-minded humanitarians go on +bleating about universal peace." + +He goes on to say that in his opinion the orators did not sufficiently +insist on the necessity for tying the economic hands of Germany after +the war. No annexations, perhaps; but tariffs, which would be much +better. And he shows in argument the advantages and prosperity brought +by carnage and destruction. + +He sees me. He adorns himself with a smile and comes forward with +proffered hand. I turn violently away. I have no use for the hand of +this sort of outsider, this sort of traitor. + +They lie. That ludicrous person who talks of taking the long view +while there are still in the world only a few superb martyrs who have +dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present +misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man +who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the +demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and +he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a +glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, +who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny with word +trickery the terrible evidence of death, he who rewards the martyrs +with the soft soap of false promises--all these people tell lies, lies, +lies! Through their words I can hear the mental reservation they are +chewing over--"Around us, the deluge; and after us, the deluge." Or +else they do not even lie; they see nothing and they know not what they +say. + +They have opened the red barrier. Applause and congratulations cross +each other. Some notabilities come down from the rostrum, they look at +me, they are obviously interested in the wounded soldier that I am, +they advance towards me. Among them is the intellectual person who +spoke first. He is wagging the white head and its cauliflower curls, +and looking all ways with eyes as empty as those of a king of cards. +They told me his name, but I have forgotten it with contempt. I slip +away from them. I am bitterly remorseful that for so long a portion of +my life I believed what Boneas said. I accuse myself of having +formerly put my trust in speakers and writers who--however learned, +distinguished, famous--were only imbeciles or villains. I fly from +these people, since I am not strong enough to answer and resist +them--or to cry out upon them that the only memory it is important to +preserve of the years we have endured is that of their loathsome horror +and lunacy. + +* * * * * * + +But the few words fallen from on high have sufficed to open my eyes, to +show me that the Separation I dimly saw in the tempest of my nights in +hospital was true. It comes down from vacancy and the clouds, it takes +form and it takes root--it is there, it is there; and the indictment +comes to light, as precise and as tragic as that row of faces! + +Kings? There they are. There are many different kinds of king, just +as there are different gods. But there is one royalty everywhere, and +that is the very form of ancient society, the great machine which is +stronger than men. And all the personages enthroned on that +rostrum--those business men and bishops, those politicians and great +merchants, those bulky office-holders or journalists, those old +generals in sumptuous decorations, those writers in uniform--they are +the custodians of the highest law and its executors. + +It is those people whose interests are common and are contrary to those +of mankind; and their interests are--above all and imperiously--let +nothing change! It is those people who keep their eternal subjects in +eternal order, who deceive and dazzle them, who take their brains away +as they take their bodies, who flatter their servile instincts, who +make shallow, resplendent creeds for them, and explain huge happenings +away with all the pretexts they like. It is because of them that the +law of things does not rest on justice and the moral law. + +If some of them are unconscious of it, no matter. Neither does it +matter that all of them do not always profit by the public's servitude, +nor that some of them, sometimes, even happen to suffer from it. They +are none the less, all of them, by their solid coalition, material and +moral, the defenders of lies above and delusion below. These are the +people who reign in the place of kings, or at the same time, here as +everywhere. + +Formerly I used to see a harmony of interests and ideals on all that +festive, sunlit hill. Now I see reality broken in two, as I did on my +bed of pain. I see the two enemy races face to face--the victors and +the vanquished. + +Monsieur Gozlan looks like a master of masters--an aged collector of +fortune, whose speculations are famous, whose wealth increases unaided, +who makes as much profit as he likes and holds the district in the +hollow of his hand. His vulgar movements flash with diamonds, and a +bulky golden trinket hangs on his belly like a phallus. The generals +beside him--those glorious potentates whose smiles are made of so many +souls--and the administrators and the honorables only look like +secondary actors. + +Fontan occupies considerable space on the rostrum. He drowses there, +with his two spherical hands planted in front of him. The voluminous +trencherman digests and blows forth with his buttered mouth; and what +he has eaten purrs within him. As for Rampaille, the butcher, _he_ has +mingled with the public. He is rich but dressed with bad taste. It is +his habit to say, "I am a poor man of the people, I am; look at my +dirty clothes." A moment ago, when the lady who was collecting for the +Lest-we-Forget League suddenly confronted him and trapped him amid +general attention, he fumbled desperately in his fob and dragged three +sous out of his body. There are several like him on this side of the +barrier, looking as though they were part of the crowd, but only +attached to it by their trade. Kings do not now carry royalty +everywhere on their sleeves; they obliterate themselves in the clothes +of everybody. But all the hundred faces of royalty have the same +signs, all of them, and are distinctly repeated through their smiles of +cupidity, rapacity, ferocity. + +And there the dark multitude fidgets about. By footpaths and streets +they have come from the country and the town. I see, gazing earnestly, +stiff-set with attention, faces scorched by rude contact with the +seasons or blanched by bad atmospheres; the sharp and mummified face of +the peasant; faces of young men grown bitter before they have come of +age; of women grown ugly before they have come of age, who draw the +little wings of their capes over their faded blouses and faded throats; +the clerks of anemic and timorous career; and the little people with +whom times are so difficult, whom their mediocrity depresses; all that +stirring of backs and shoulders and hanging arms, in poverty dressed up +or naked. Behold their numbers and immense strength. Behold, +therefore, authority and justice. For justice and authority are not +hollow formulas--they are life, the most of life there can be; they are +mankind, they are mankind in all places and all times. These words, +justice and authority, do not echo in an abstract sphere. They are +rooted in the human being. They overflow and palpitate. When I demand +justice, I am not groping in a dream, I am crying from the depths of +all unhappy hearts. + +Such are they, that mountain of people heaped on the ground like metal +for the roads, overwhelmed by unhappiness, debased by charity and +asking for it, bound to the rich by urgent necessity, entangled in the +wheels of a single machine, the machine of frightful repetition. And +in that multitude I also place nearly all young people, whoever they +are, because of their docility and their general ignorance. These +lowly people form an imposing mass as far as one may see, yet each of +them is hardly anything, because he is isolated. It is almost a +mistake to count them; what you see when you look at the multitude is +an immensity made of nothing. + +And the people of to-day--overloaded with gloom and intoxicated with +prejudice--see blood, because of the red hangings of rostrums; they are +fascinated by the sparkle of diamonds, of necklaces, of decorations, of +the eyeglasses of the intellectuals. They have eyes but they see not, +ears but they hear not; arms which they do not use; and they are +thoughtless because they let others do their thinking! And the other +half of this same multitude is yonder, looking for Man and looked for +by Man, in the big black furrows where blood is scattered and the human +race is disappearing. And still farther away, in another part of the +world, the same throne-like platforms are crushing into the same +immense areas of men; and the same gilded servants of royalty are +scattering broadcast words which are only a translation of those which +fell on us here. + +Some women in mourning are hardly stains on this gloomy unity. They +wander and turn round in the open spaces, and are the same as they were +in ancient times. They are not of any age or any century, these +murdered souls, covered with black veils; they are you and I. + +My vision was true from top to bottom. The evil dream has become a +concrete tragi-comedy which is worse. It is inextricable, heavy, +crushing. I flounder from detail to detail of it; it drags me along. +Behold what is. Behold, therefore, what will be--exploitation to the +last breath, to the limit of wearing out, to death perfected! + +I have overtaken Marie. By her side I feel more defenseless than when +I am alone. While we watch the festival, the shining hurly-burly, +murmuring and eulogistic, the Baroness espies me, smiles and signs to +me to go to her. So I go, and in the presence of all she pays me some +compliment or other on my service at the front. She is dressed in +black velvet and wears her white hair like a diadem. Twenty-five years +of vassalage bow me before her and fill me with silence. And I salute +the Gozlans also, in a way which I feel is humble in spite of myself, +for they are all-powerful over me, and they make Marie an allowance +without which we could not live properly. I am no more than a man. + +I see Tudor, whose eyes were damaged in Artois, hesitating and groping. +The Baroness has found a little job for him in the castle kitchens. + +"Isn't she good to the wounded soldiers?" they are saying around me. +"She's a real benefactor!" + +This time I say aloud, "_There_ is the real benefactor," and I point to +the ruin which the young man has become whom we used to know, to the +miserable, darkened biped whose eyelids flutter in the daylight, who +leans weakly against a tree in face of the festive crowd, as if it were +an execution post. + +"Yes--after all--yes, yes," the people about me murmur, timidly; they +also blinking as though tardily enlightened by the spectacle of the +poor benefactor. + +But they are not heard--they hardly even hear themselves--in the flood +of uproar from a brass band. A triumphal march goes by with the strong +and sensual driving force of its, "Forward! You shall _not_ know!" +The audience fill themselves with brazen music, and overflow in cheers. + +The ceremony is drawing to a close. They who were seated on the +rostrum get up. Fontan, bewildered with sleepiness, struggles to put +on a tall hat which is too narrow, and while he screws it round he +grimaces. Then he smiles with his boneless mouth. All congratulate +themselves through each other; they shake their own hands; they cling +to themselves. After their fellowship in patriotism they are going +back to their calculations and gratifications, glorified in their +egotism, sanctified, beatified; more than ever will they blend their +own with the common cause and say, "_We_ are the people!" + +Brisbille, seeing one of the orators passing near him, throws him a +ferocious look, and shouts, "Land-shark!" and other virulent insults. + +But because of the brass instruments let loose, people only see him +open his mouth, and Monsieur Mielvaque dances with delight. Monsieur +Mielvaque, declared unfit for service, has been called up again. More +miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more +parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor--he blots out the shiny +places on his overcoat with his pen--Mielvaque points to Brisbille +gagged by the band, he writhes with laughter and shouts in my ear, "He +might be trying to sing!" + +Madame Marcassin's paralyzed face appears, the disappearance of which +she unceasingly thinks has lacerated her features. She also applauds +the noise and across her face--which has gone out like a lamp--there +shot a flash. Can it be only because, to-day, attention is fixed on +her? + +A mother, mutilated in her slain son, is giving her mite to the +offertory for the Lest-we-Forget League. She is bringing her poverty's +humble assistance to those who say, "Remember evil; not that it may be +avoided, but that it may be revived, by exciting at random all causes +of hatred. Memory must be made an infectious disease." Bleeding and +bloody, inflamed by the stupid selfishness of vengeance, she holds out +her hand to the collector, and drags behind her a little girl who, +nevertheless, will one day, perhaps, be a mother. + +Lower down, an apprentice is devouring an officer's uniform with his +gaze. He stands there hypnotized; and the sky-blue and beautiful +crimson come off on his eyes. At that moment I saw clearly that beauty +in uniforms is still more wicked than stupid. + +Ah! That frightful prophecy locked up within me is hammering my skull, +"I have confidence in the abyss of the people." + +* * * * * * + +Wounded by everything I see, I sink down in a corner. Truth is simple; +but the world is no longer simple. There are so many things! How will +truth ever change its defeat into victory? How is it ever going to +heal all those who do not know! I grieve that I am weak and +ineffective, that I am only I. On earth, alas, truth is dumb, and the +heart is only a stifled cry! + +I look for support, for some one who does not leave me alone. I am too +much alone, and I look eagerly. But there is only Brisbille! + +There is only that tipsy automaton; that parody of a man. + +There he is. Close by he is more drunk than in the distance! +Drunkenness bedaubs him; his eyes are filled with wine, his cheeks are +like baked clay, his nose like a baked apple, he is almost blinded by +viscous tufts. In the middle of that open space he seems caught in a +whirlpool. It happens that he is in front of me for a moment, and he +hurls at my head some furious phrases in which I recognize, now and +again, the truths in which I believe! Then, with antics at once +desperate and too heavy for him, he tries to perform some kind of +pantomime which represents the wealthy class, round-paunched as a bag +of gold, sitting on the proletariat till their noses are crushed in the +gutter, and proclaiming, with their eyes up to heaven and their hands +on their hearts, "And above all, no more class-wars!" There is +something alarming in the awkwardness of the grimacing object begotten +by that obstructed brain. It seems as if real suffering is giving +voice through him with a beast's cry. + +When he has spoken, he collapses on to a stone. With his fist, whose +leather is covered with red hair, like a cow's, he hides the squalid +face that looks as if it had been spat upon. "Folks aren't wicked," he +says, "but they're stupid, stupid, stupid." + +And Brisbille cries. + +Just then Father Piot advances into the space, with his silver aureole, +his benevolent smile, and the vague and continuous lisping which +trickles from his lips. He stops in the middle of us, gives a nod to +each one and continuing his ingenuous reflections aloud, he murmurs, +"Hem, hem! The most important thing of all, in war, is the return to +religious ideas. Hem!" + +The monstrous calm of the saying makes me start, and communicates final +agitation to Brisbille. Throwing himself upright, the blacksmith +flourishes his trembling fist, tries to hold it under the old priest's +chin, and bawls, "You? Shall I tell you how _you_ make me feel, eh? +Why----" + +Some young men seize him, hustle him and throw him down. His head +strikes the ground and he is at last immobile. Father Piot raises his +arms to heaven and kneels over the vanquished madman. There are tears +in the old man's eyes. + +When we have made a few steps away I cannot help saying to Marie, with +a sort of courage, that Brisbille is not wrong in all that he says. +Marie is shocked, and says, "Oh!" + +"There was a time," she says, reproachfully, "when you set about him!" + +I should like Marie to understand what I am wanting to say. I explain +to her, that although he may be a drunkard and a brute, he is right in +what he thinks. He stammers and hiccups the truth, but it was not he +who made it, and it is whole and pure. He is a degraded prophet, but +the relics of his dreams have remained accurate. And that saintly old +man, who is devotion incarnate, who would not harm a fly, he is only a +lowly servant of lies; but he brings his little link to the chain, and +he smiles on the side of the executioners. + +"One shouldn't ever confuse ideas with men. It's a mistake that does a +lot of harm." + +Marie lowers her head and says nothing; then she murmurs, "Yes, that's +true." + +I pick up the little sentence she has given me. It is the first time +that approval of that sort has brought her near to me. She has +intelligence within her; she understands certain things. Women, in +spite of thoughtless impulses, are quicker in understanding than men. +Then she says to me, "Since you came back, you've been worrying your +head too much." + +Crillon was on our heels. He stands in front of me, and looks +displeased. + +"I was listening to you just now," he says; "I must tell you that since +you came back you have the air of a foreigner--a Belgian or an +American. You say intolantable things. We thought at first your mind +had got a bit unhinged. Unfortunately, it's not that. Is it because +you've turned sour? Anyway, I don't know what advantage you're after, +but I must cautionize you that you're anielating everybody. We must +put ourselves in these people's places. Apropos of this, and apropos +of that, you make proposals of a tendicious character which doesn't +escape them. You aren't like the rest any more. If you go on you'll +look as silly as a giant, and if you're going to frighten folks, look +out for yourself!" + +He plants himself before me in massive conviction. The full daylight +reveals more crudely the aging of his features. His skin is stretched +on the bones of his head, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders +work badly; they stick, like old drawers. + +"And then, after all, what _do_ you want? We've got to carry the war +on, eh? We must give the Boches hell, to sum up." + +With an effort, wearied beforehand, I ask, "And afterwards?" + +"What--afterwards? Afterwards there'll be wars, naturally, but +civilized wars. Afterwards? Why, future posterity! Own up that you'd +like to save the world, eh, what? When you launch out into these great +machinations you say enormities compulsively. The future? Ha, ha!" + +I turn away from him. Of what use to try to tell him that the past is +dead, that the present is passing, that the future alone is positive! + +Through Crillon's paternal admonishment I feel the threat of the +others. It is not yet hostility around me; but it is already a +rupture. With this truth that clings to me alone, amid the world and +its phantoms, am I not indeed rushing into a sort of tragedy impossible +to maintain? They who surround me, filled to the lips, filled to the +eyes, with the gross acceptance which turns men into beasts, they look +at me mistrustfully, ready to be let loose against me. Little more was +lacking before I should be as much a reprobate as Brisbille, who, in +this very place, before the war, stood up alone before the multitude +and tried to tell them to their faces that they were going into the +gulf. + +* * * * * * + +I move away with Marie. We go down into the valley, and then climb +Chestnut Hill. I like these places where I used so often to come in +the days when everything around me was a hell which I did not see. Now +that I am a ghost returning from the beyond, this hill still draws me +through the streets and lanes. I remember it and it remembers me. +There is something which we share, which I took away with me yonder, +everywhere, like a secret. I hear that despoiled soldier who said, +"Where I come from there are fields and paths and the sea; nowhere else +in the world is there that," and amid my unhappy memories that +extraordinary saying shines like news of the truth. + +We sit down on the bank which borders the lane. We can see the town, +the station and carts on the road; and yonder three villages make +harmony, sometimes more carefully limned by bursts of sunshine. The +horizons entwine us in a murmur. The crossing where we are is the spot +where four roads make a movement of reunion. + +But my spirit is no longer what it was. Vaguely I seek, everywhere. I +must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source. +Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; +and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible. + +* * * * * * + +There is a slight noise--a frail passer-by and a speck which jumps +round her feet. Marie looks and says mechanically, like a devout +woman, making the sign of the cross, "Poor little angel!" + +It is little Antoinette and her dog. She gropes for the edge of the +road with a stick, for she has become quite blind. They never looked +after her. They were going to do it, unendingly, but they never did +it. They always said, "Poor little angel," and that was all. + +She is so miserably clad that you lower your eyes before her, although +she cannot see. She wanders and seeks, incapable of understanding the +wrong they have done, they have allowed to be done, the wrong which no +one remembers. Alas, to the prating indifference and the indolent +negligence of men there is only this poor little blind witness. + +She stops in front of us and puts out her hand awkwardly. She is +begging! No one troubles himself about her now. She is talking to her +dog; he was born in the castle kennels--Marie told me about him. He +was the last of a litter, ill-shaped, with a head too big, and bad +eyes; and the Baroness said, as they were going to drown him, and +because she is always thinking of good things, "Give him to the little +blind girl." The child is training him to guide her; but he is young, +he wants to play when other dogs go by, he hears her with listless ear. +It is difficult for him to begin serious work; and he plucks the string +from her hands. She calls to him; and waits. + +Then, during a long time, a good many passers-by appear and vanish. We +do not look at all of them. + +But lo, turning the corner like some one of importance, here comes a +sleek and tawny mastiff, with the silvery tinkle of a trinket which +gleams on his neck. He is proclaiming and preceding his young +mistress, Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon, who is riding her pony. The +little girl caracoles sedately, clad in a riding habit, and armed with +a crop. She has been an orphan for a long time. She is the mistress +of the castle. She is twelve years old and has millions. A mounted +groom in full livery follows her, looking like a stage-player or a +chamberlain; and then, with measured steps, an elderly governess, +dressed in black silk, and manifestly thinking of some Court. + +Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon and her pretty name set us thinking of +Antoinette, who hardly has a name; and it seems to us that these two +are the only ones who have passed before our eyes. The difference in +the earthly fates of these two creatures who have both the same fragile +innocence, the same pure and complete incapacity of childhood, plunges +us into a tragedy of thought. The misery and the might which have +fallen on those little immature heads are equally undeserved. It is a +disgrace for men to see a poor child; it is also a disgrace for men to +see a rich child. + +I feel malicious towards the little sumptuous princess who has just +appeared, already haughty in spite of her littleness; and I am stirred +with pity for the frail victim whom life is obliterating with all its +might; and Marie, I can see, gentle Marie, has the same thoughts. Who +would not feel them in face of this twin picture of childhood which a +passing chance has brought us, of this one picture torn in two? + +But I resist this emotion; the understanding of things must be based, +not on sentiment, but on reason. There must be justice, not charity. +Kindness is solitary. Compassion becomes one with him whom we pity; it +allows us to fathom him, to understand him alone amongst the rest; but +it blurs and befogs the laws of the whole. I must set off with a clear +idea, like the beam of a lighthouse through the deformities and +temptations of night. + +As I have seen equality, I am seeing inequality. Equality in truth; +inequality in fact. We observe in man's beginning the beginning of his +hurt; the root of the error is in inheritance. + +Injustice, artificial and groundless authority, royalty without reason, +the fantastic freaks of fortune which suddenly put crowns on heads! It +is there, as far as the monstrous authority of the dead, that we must +draw a straight line and clean the darkness away. + +The transfer of the riches and authority of the dead, of whatever kind, +to their descendants, is not in accord with reason and the moral law. +The laws of might and of possessions are for the living alone. Every +man must occupy in the common lot a place which he owes to his work and +not to luck. + +It is tradition! But that is no reason, on the other hand. Tradition, +which is the artificial welding of the present with the mass of the +past, contrives a chain between them, where there is none. It is from +tradition that all human unhappiness comes; it piles _de facto_, truths +on to the true truth; it overrides justice; it takes all freedom away +from reason and replaces it with legendary things, forbidding reason to +look for what may be inside them. + +It is in the one domain of science and its application, and sometimes +in the technique of the arts, that experience legitimately takes the +power of law, and that acquired productions have a right to accumulate. +But to pass from this treasuring of truth to the dynastic privilege of +ideas or powers or wealth--those talismans--that is to make a senseless +assimilation which kills equality in the bud and prevents human order +from having a basis. Inheritance, which is the concrete and palpable +form of tradition, defends itself by the tradition of origins and of +beliefs--abuses defended by abuses, to infinity--and it is by reason of +that integral succession that here, on earth, we see a few men holding +the multitude of men in their hands. + +I say all this to Marie. She appears to be more struck by the +vehemence of my tone than by the obviousness of what I say. She +replies, feebly, "Yes, indeed," and nods her head; but she asks me, +"But the moral law that you talk about, isn't it tradition?" + +"No. It is the automatic law of the common good. Every time _that_ +finds itself at stake, it re-creates itself logically. It is lucid; it +shows itself every time right to its fountain-head. Its source is +reason itself, and equality, which is the same thing as reason. This +thing is good and that is evil, _because_ it is good and because it is +evil, and not because of what has been said or written. It is the +opposite of traditional bidding. There is no tradition of the good. +Wealth and power must be earned, not taken ready-made; the idea of what +is just or right must be reconstructed on every occasion and not be +taken ready-made." + +Marie listens to me. She ponders, and then says, "We shouldn't work if +we hadn't to leave what we have to our relations." + +But immediately she answers herself, "No." + +She produces some illustrations, just among our own surroundings. +So-and-so, and So-and-so. The bait of gain or influence, or even the +excitement of work and production suffice for people to do themselves +harm. And then, too, this great change would paralyze the workers less +than the old way paralyzes the prematurely enriched who pick up their +fortunes on the ground--such as he, for instance, whom we used to see +go by, who was drained and dead at twenty, and so many other ignoble +and irrefutable examples; and the comedies around bequests and heirs +and heiresses, and their great gamble with affection and love--all +these basenesses, in which custom too old has made hearts go moldy. + +She is a little excited, as if the truth, in the confusion of these +critical times, were beautiful to see--and even pleasant to detain with +words. + +All the same, she interrupts herself, and says, "They'll always find +some way of deceiving." At last she says, "Yes, it would be just, +perhaps; but it won't come." + +* * * * * * + +The valley has suddenly filled with tumult. On the road which goes +along the opposite slope a regiment is passing on its way to the +barracks, a new regiment, with its colors. The flag goes on its way in +the middle of a long-drawn hurly-burly, in vague shouting, in plumes of +dust and a sparkling mist of battle. + +We have both mechanically risen on the edge of the road. At the moment +when the flag passes before us, the habit of saluting it trembles in my +arms. But, just as when a while ago the bishop's lifted hand did not +humble me, I stay motionless, and I do not salute. + +No, I do not bow in presence of the flag. It frightens me, I hate it +and I accuse it. No, there is no beauty in it; it is not the emblem of +this corner of my native land, whose fair picture it disturbs with its +savage stripes. It is the screaming signboard of the glory of blows, +of militarism and war. It unfurls over the living surges of humanity a +sign of supremacy and command; it is a weapon. It is not the love of +our countries, it is their sharp-edged difference, proud and +aggressive, which we placard in the face of the others. It is the +gaudy eagle which conquerors and their devotees see flying in their +dreams from steeple to steeple in foreign lands. The sacred defense of +the homeland--well and good. But if there was no offensive war there +would be defensive war. Defensive war has the same infamous cause as +the offensive war which provoked it; why do we not confess it? We +persist, through blindness or duplicity, in cutting the question in +two, as if it were too great. All fallacies are possible when one +speculates on morsels of truth. But Earth only bears one single sort +of inhabitant. + +It is not enough to put something on the end of a stick in public +places, to shake it on the tops of buildings and in the faces of public +assemblies, and say, "It is decided that this is the loftiest of all +symbols; it is decided that he who will not bend the knee before it +shall be accursed." It is the duty of human intelligence to examine if +that symbolism is not fetish-worship. + +As for me, I remember it was said that logic has terrible chains and +that all hold together--the throne, the altar, the sword and the flag. +And I have read, in the unchaining and the chaining-up of war, that +these are the instruments of the cult of human sacrifices. + +Marie has sat down again, and I strolled away a little, musing. + +I recall the silhouette of Adjutant Marcassin, and him whom I quoted a +moment ago--the sincere hero, barren and dogmatic, with his furious +faith. I seem to be asking him, "Do you believe in beauty, in +progress?" He does not know, so he replies, "No! I only believe in +the glory of the French name!" "Do you believe in respect for life, in +the dignity of labor, in the holiness of happiness?" "No." "Do you +believe in truth, in justice?" "No, I only believe in the glory of the +French name." + +The idea of motherland--I have never dared to look it in the face. I +stand still in my walk and in my meditation. What, that also? But my +reason is as honest as my heart, and keeps me going forward. Yes, that +also. + +In the friendly solitude of these familiar spots on the top of this +hill, at these cross-roads where the lane has led me like an unending +companion, not far from the place where the gentle slope waits for you +to entice you, I quake to hear myself think and blaspheme. What, that +notion of Motherland also, which has so often thrilled me with gladness +and enthusiasm, as but lately that of God did? + +But it is in Motherland's name, as once in the name of God only, that +humanity robs itself and tries to choke itself with its own hands, as +it will soon succeed in doing. It is because of motherland that the +big countries, more rich in blood, have overcome the little ones. It +is because of motherland that the overlord of German nationalism +attacked France and let civil war loose among the people of the world. +The question must be placed there where it is, that is to say, +everywhere at once. One must see face to face, in one glance, all +those immense, distinct unities which each shout "I!" + +The idea of motherland is not a false idea, but it is a little idea, +and one which must remain little. + +There is only one common good. There is only one moral duty, only one +truth, and every man is the shining recipient and guardian of it. The +present understanding of the idea of motherland divides all these great +ideas, cuts them into pieces, specializes them within impenetrable +circles. We meet as many national truths as we do nations, and as many +national duties, and as many national interests and rights--and they +are antagonistic to each other. Each country is separated from the +next by such walls--moral frontiers, material frontiers, commercial +frontiers--that you are imprisoned when you find yourself on either +side of them. We hear talk of sanctified selfishness, of the adorable +expansion of one race across the others, of noble hatreds and glorious +conquests, and we see these ideals trying to take shape on all hands. +This capricious multiplication of what ought to remain one leads the +whole of civilization into a malignant and thorough absurdity. The +words "justice" and "right" are too great in stature to be shut up in +proper nouns, any more than Providence can be, which every royalty +would fain take to itself. + +National aspirations--confessed or unconfessable--are contradictory +among themselves. All populations which are narrowly confined and +elbow each other in the world are full of dreams vaster than each of +them. The nations' territorial ambitions overlap each other on the map +of the universe; economic and financial ambitions cancel each other +mathematically. Then in the mass they are unrealizable. + +And since there is no sort of higher control over this scuffle of +truths which are not admissible, each nation realizes its own by all +possible means, by all the fidelity and anger and brute force she can +get out of herself. By the help of this state of world-wide anarchy, +the lazy and slight distinction between patriotism, imperialism and +militarism is violated, trampled, and broken through all along the +line, and it cannot be otherwise. The living universe cannot help +becoming an organization of armed rivalry. And there cannot fail to +result from it the everlasting succession of evils, without any hope of +abiding spoils, for there is no instance of conquerors who have long +enjoyed immunity, and history reveals a sort of balance of injustices +and of the fatal alternation of predominance. In all quarters the hope +of victory brings in the hope of war. It is conflict clinging to +conflict, and the recurrent murdering of murders. + +The kings! We always find the kings again when we examine popular +unhappiness right to the end! This hypertrophy of the national unities +is the doing of their leaders. It is the masters, the ruling +aristocracies--emblazoned or capitalist--who have created and +maintained for centuries all the pompous and sacred raiment, +sanctimonious or fanatical, in which national separation is clothed, +along with the fable of national interests--those enemies of the +multitudes. The primeval centralization of individuals isolated in the +inhabited spaces was in agreement with the moral law; it was the +precise embodiment of progress; it was of benefit to all. But the +decreed division, peremptory and stern, which was interposed in that +centralization--that is the doom of man, although it is necessary to +the classes who command. These boundaries, these clean cuts, permit +the stakes of commercial conflict and of war; that is to say, the +chance of big feats of glory and of huge speculations. _That_ is the +vital principle of Empire. If all interests suddenly became again the +individual interests of men, and the moral law resumed its full and +spacious action on the basis of equality, if human solidarity were +world-wide and complete, it would no longer lend itself to certain +sudden and partial increases which are never to the general advantage, +but may be to the advantage of a few fleeting profiteers. That is why +the conscious forces which have hitherto directed the old world's +destiny will always use all possible means to break up human harmony +into fragments. Authority holds fast to all its national bases. + +The insensate system of national blocks in sinister dispersal, +devouring or devoured, has its apostles and advocates. But the +theorists, the men of spurious knowledge, will in vain have heaped up +their farrago of quibbles and arguments, their fallacies drawn from +so-called precedents or from so-called economic and ethnic necessity; +for the simple, brutal and magnificent cry of life renders useless the +efforts they make to galvanize and erect doctrines which cannot stand +alone. The disapproval which attaches in our time to the word +"internationalism" proves together the silliness and meanness of public +opinion. Humanity is the living name of truth. Men are like each +other as trees! They who rule well, rule by force and deceit; but by +reason, never. + +The national group is a collectivity within the bosom of the chief one. +It is one group like any other; it is like him who knots himself to +himself under the wing of a roof, or under the wider wing of the sky +that dyes a landscape blue. It is not the definite, absolute, mystical +group into which they would fain transform it, with sorcery of words +and ideas, which they have armored with oppressive rules. Everywhere +man's poor hope of salvation on earth is merely to attain, at the end +of his life, this: To live one's life freely, where one wants to live +it; to love, to last, to produce in the chosen environment--just as the +people of the ancient Provinces have lost, along with their separate +leaders, their separate traditions of covetousness and reciprocal +robbery. + +If, from the idea of motherland, you take away covetousness, hatred, +envy and vainglory; if you take away from it the desire for +predominance by violence, what is there left of it? + +It is not an individual unity of laws; for just laws have no colors. +It is not a solidarity of interests, for there are no material national +interests--or they are not honest. It is not a unity of race; for the +map of the countries is not the map of the races. What is there left? + +There is left a restricted communion, deep and delightful; the +affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language--there +is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are +foreigners--there is left a personal and delicate preference for +certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. And even this +radiance has its limits. The cult of the masterpieces of art and +thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has +always soared above patriotic littlenesses. + +"But," the official voices trumpet, "there is another magic +formula--the great common Past of every nation." + +Yes, there is the Past. That long Golgotha of oppressed peoples; the +Law of the Strong, changing life's humble festival into useless and +recurring hecatombs; the chronology of that crushing of lives and ideas +which always tortured or executed the innovators; that Past in which +sovereigns settled their personal affairs of alliances, ruptures, +dowries and inheritance with the territory and blood which they owned; +in which each and every country was so squandered--it is common to all. +That Past in which the small attainments of moral progress, of +well-being and unity (so far as they were not solely semblances) only +crystallized with despairing tardiness, with periods of doleful +stagnation and frightful alteration along the channels of barbarism and +force; that Past of somber shame, that Past of error and disease which +every old nation has survived, which we should learn by heart that we +may hate it--yes, that Past is common to all, like misery, shame and +pain. Blessed are the new nations, for they have no remorse! + +And the blessings of the past--the splendor of the French Revolution, +the huge gifts of the navigators who brought new worlds to the old one, +and the miraculous exception of scientific discoveries, which by a +second miracle were not smothered in their youth--are they not also +common to all, like the undying beauty of the ruins of the Parthenon, +Shakespeare's lightning and Beethoven's raptures, and like love, and +like joy? + +The universal problem into which modern life, as well as past life, +rushes and embroils and rends itself, can only be dispersed by a +universal means which reduces each nation to what it is in truth; which +strips from them all the ideal of supremacy stolen by each of them from +the great human ideal; a means which, raising the human ideal +definitely beyond the reach of all those immoderate emotions, which +shout together "_Mine_ is the only point of view," gives it at last its +divine unity. Let us keep the love of the motherland in our hearts, +but let us dethrone the conception of Motherland. + +I will say what there is to say: I place the Republic before France. +France is ourselves. The Republic is ourselves and the others. The +general welfare must be put much higher than national welfare, because +it _is_ much higher. But if it is venturesome to assert, as they have +so much and so indiscriminately done, that such national interest is in +accord with the general interest, then the converse is obvious; and +that is illuminating, momentous and decisive--the good of all includes +the good of each; France can be prosperous even if the world is not, +but the world cannot be prosperous and France not. The moving argument +reestablishes, with positive and crowding certainties which touch us +softly on all sides, that distracting stake which Pascal tried to +place, like a lever in the void--"On one side I lose; on the other I +have all to gain." + +* * * * * * + +Amid the beauty of these dear spots on Chestnut Hill, in the heart of +these four crossing ways, I have seen new things; not that any new +things have happened, but because I have opened my eyes. + +I am rewarded, I the lowest, for being the only one of all to follow up +error to the end, right into its holy places; for I am at last +disentangling all the simplicity and truth of the great horizons. The +revelation still seems to me so terrible that the silence of men, +heaped under the roofs down there at my feet, seizes and threatens me. +And if I am but timidly formulating it within myself, that is because +each of us has lived in reality more than his life, and because my +training has filled me, like the rest, with centuries of shadow, of +humiliation and captivity. + +It is establishing itself cautiously; but it is the truth, and there +are moments when logic seizes you in its godlike whirlwind. In this +disordered world where the weakness of a few oppresses the strength of +all; since ever the religion of the God of Battles and of Resignation +has not sufficed by itself to consecrate inequality. Tradition reigns, +the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is--God without +a head. Man's destiny is eternally blockaded by two forms of +tradition; in time, by hereditary succession; in space, by frontiers, +and thus it is crushed and annihilated in detail. It is the truth. I +am certain of it, for I am touching it. + +But I do not know what will become of us. All the blood poured out, +all the words poured out, to impose a sham ideal on our bodies and +souls, will they suffice for a long time yet to separate and isolate +humanity in absurdity made real? History is a Bible of errors. I have +not only seen blessings falling from on high on all which supported +evil, and curses on all which could heal it; I have seen, here below, +the keepers of the moral law hunted and derided, from little Termite, +lost like a rat in unfolding battle, back to Jesus Christ. + +We go away. For the first time since I came back I no longer lean on +Marie. It is she who leans on me. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +NO! + + +The opening of our War Museum, which was the conspicuous event of the +following days, filled Crillon with delight. + +It was a wooden building, gay with flags, which the municipality had +erected; and Room 1 was occupied by an exhibition of paintings and +drawings by amateurs in high society, all war subjects. Many of them +were sent down from Paris. + +Crillon, officially got up in his Sunday clothes, has bought the +catalogue (which is sold for the benefit of the wounded) and he is +struck with wonder by the list of exhibitors. He talks of titles, of +coats of arms, of crowns; he seeks enlightenment in matters of +aristocratic hierarchy. Once, as he stands before the row of frames, +he asks: + +"I say, now, which has got most talent in France--a princess or a +duchess?" + +He is quite affected by these things, and with his eyes fixed on the +lower edges of the pictures he deciphers the signatures. + +In the room which follows this shining exhibition of autographs there +is a crush. + +On trestles disposed around the wall trophies are arranged--peaked +helmets, knapsacks covered with tawny hair, ruins of shells. + +The complete uniform of a German infantryman has been built up with +items from different sources, some of them stained. + +In this room there was a group of convalescents from the overflow +hospital of Viviers. These soldiers looked, and hardly spoke. Several +shrugged their shoulders. But one of them growled in front of the +German phantom, "Ah the swine!" + +With a view to propaganda, they have framed a letter from a woman found +in a slain enemy's pocket. A translation is posted up as well, and +they have underlined the passage in which the woman says, "When is this +cursed war going to end?" and in which she laments the increasing cost +of little Johann's keep. At the foot of the page, the woman has +depicted, in a sentimental diagram, the increasing love that she feels +for her man. + +How simple and obvious the evidence is! No reasonable person can +dispute that the being whose private life is here thrown to the winds +and who poured out his sweat and his blood in one of these rags was not +responsible for having held a rifle, for having aimed it. In the +presence of these ruins I see with monotonous and implacable obstinacy +that the attacking multitude is as innocent as the defending multitude. + +On a little red-covered table by the side of a little tacked label +which says, "Cold Steel: May 9," there is a twisted French bayonet--a +bayonet, the flesh weapon, which has been twisted! + +"Oh, it's fine!" says a young girl from the castle. + +"It isn't Fritz and Jerry, old chap, that bends bayonets!" + +"No doubt about it, we're the first soldiers in the world," says +Rampaille. + +"We've set a beautiful example to the world," says a sprightly Member +of the Upper House to all those present. + +Excitement grows around that bayonet. The young girl, who is beautiful +and expansive, cannot tear herself away from it. At last she touches +it with her finger, and shudders. She does not disguise her pleasant +emotion:-- + +"I confess _I'm_ a patriot! I'm more than that--I'm a patriot and a +militarist!" + +All heads around her are nodded in approval. That kind of talk never +seems intemperate, for it touches on sacred things. + +And I, I see--in the night which falls for a moment, amid the tempest +of dying men which is subsiding on the ground--I see a monster in the +form of a man and in the form of a vulture, who, with the death-rattle +in his throat, holds towards that young girl the horrible head that is +scalped with a coronet, and says to her: "You do not know me, and you +do not know, but you are like me!" + +The young girl's living laugh, as she goes off with a young officer, +recalls me to events. + +All those who come after each other to the bayonet speak in the same +way, and have the same proud eyes. + +"They're not stronger than us, let me tell you! It's us that's the +strongest!" + +"Our allies are very good, but it's lucky for them we're there on the +job." + +"Ah, la, la!" + +"Why, yes, there's only the French for it. All the world admires them. +Only we're always running ourselves down." + +When you see that fever, that spectacle of intoxication, these people +who seize the slightest chance to glorify their country's physical +force and the hardness of its fists, you hear echoing the words of the +orators and the official politicians:-- + +"There is only in our hearts the condemnation of barbarism and the love +of humanity." + +And you ask yourself if there is a single public opinion in the world +which is capable of bearing victory with dignity. + +I stand aloof. I am a blot, like a bad prophet. I hear this +declaration, which bows me like an infernal burden: It is only defeat +which can open millions of eyes! + +I hear some one say, with detestation, "German militarism----" + +That is the final argument, that is the formula. Yes, German +militarism is hateful, and must disappear; all the world is agreed +about that--the jack-boots of the Junkers, of the Crown Princes, of the +Kaiser, and their courts of intellectuals and business men, and the +pan-Germanism which would dye Europe black and red, and the +half-bestial servility of the German people. Germany is the fiercest +fortress of militarism. Yes, everybody is agreed about that. + +But they who govern Thought take unfair advantage of that agreement, +for they know well that when the simple folk have said, "German +militarism," they have said all. They stop there. They amalgamate the +two words and confuse militarism with Germany--once Germany is thrown +down there's no more to say. In that way, they attach lies to truth, +and prevent us from seeing that militarism is in reality everywhere, +more or less hypocritical and unconscious, but ready to seize +everything if it can. They force opinion to add, "It is a crime to +think of anything but beating the German enemy." But the right-minded +man must answer that it is a crime to think only of that, for the enemy +is militarism, and not Germany. I know; I will no longer let myself be +caught by words which they hide one behind another. + +The Liberal Member of the Upper House says, loud enough to be heard, +that the people have behaved very well, for, after all, they have found +the cost, and they must be given credit for their good conduct. + +Another personage in the same group, an Army contractor, spoke of "the +good chaps in the trenches," and he added, in a lower voice, "As long +as they're protecting us, we're all right." + +"We shall reward them when they come back," replied an old lady. "We +shall give them glory, we shall make their leaders into Marshals, and +they'll have celebrations, and Kings will be there." + +"And there are some who won't come back." + +We see several new recruits of the 1916 class who will soon be sent to +the front. + +"They're pretty boys," says the Member of the Upper House, +good-naturedly; "but they're still a bit pale-faced. We must fatten +'em up, we must fatten 'em up!" + +An official of the Ministry of War goes up to the Member of the Upper +House, and says: + +"The science of military preparedness is still in its beginnings. +We're getting clear for it hastily, but it is an organization which +requires a long time and which can only have full effect in time of +peace. Later, we shall take them from childhood; we shall make good +sound soldiers of them, and of good health, morally as well as +physically." + +Then the band plays; it is closing time, and there is the passion of a +military march. A woman cries that it is like drinking champagne to +hear it. + +The visitors have gone away. I linger to look at the beflagged front +of the War Museum, while night is falling. It is the Temple. It is +joined to the Church, and resembles it. My thoughts go to those +crosses which weigh down, from the pinnacles of churches, the heads of +the living, join their two hands together, and close their eyes; those +crosses which squat upon the graves in the cemeteries at the front. It +is because of all these temples that in the future the sleep-walking +nations will begin again to go through the immense and mournful tragedy +of obedience. It is because of these temples that financial and +industrial tyranny, Imperial and Royal tyranny--of which all they whom +I meet on my way are the accomplices or the puppets--will to-morrow +begin again to wax fat on the fanaticism of the civilian, on the +weariness of those who have come back, on the silence of the dead. +(When the armies file through the Arc de Triomphe, who is there will +see--and yet they will be plainly visible--that six thousand miles of +French coffins are also passing through!) And the flag will continue +to float over its prey, that flag stuck into the shadowy front of the +War Museum, that flag so twisted by the wind's breath that sometimes it +takes the shape of a cross, and sometimes of a scythe! + +Judgment is passed in that case. But the vision of the future agitates +me with a sort of despair and with a holy thrill of anger. + +Ah, there are cloudy moments when one asks himself if men do not +deserve all the disasters into which they rush! No--I recover +myself--they do not deserve them. But _we_, instead of saying "I wish" +must say "I will." And what we will, we must will to build it, with +order, with method, beginning at the beginning, when once we have been +as far as that beginning. We must not only open our eyes, but our +arms, our wings. + +This isolated wooden building, with its back against a wood-pile, and +nobody in it---- + +Burn it? Destroy it? I thought of doing it. + +To cast that light in the face of that moving night, which was crawling +and trampling there in the torchlight, which had gone to plunge into +the town and grow darker among the dungeon-cells of the bedchambers, +there to hatch more forgetfulness in the gloom, more evil and misery, +or to breed unavailing generations who will be abortive at the age of +twenty! + +The desire to do it gripped my body for a moment. I fell back, and I +went away, like the others. + +It seems to me that, in not doing it, I did an evil deed. + +For if the men who are to come free themselves instead of sinking in +the quicksands, if they consider, with lucidity and with the epic pity +it deserves, this age through which I go drowning, they would perhaps +have thanked me, even me! From those who will not see or know me, but +in whom for this sudden moment I want to hope, I beg pardon for not +doing it. + +* * * * * * + +In a corner where the neglected land is turning into a desert, and +which lies across my way home, some children are throwing stones at a +mirror which they have placed a few steps away as a target. They +jostle each other, shouting noisily; each of them wants the glory of +being the first to break it. I see the mirror again that I broke with +a brick at Buzancy, because it seemed to stand upright like a living +being! Next, when the fragment of solid light is shattered into +crumbs, they pursue with stones an old dog, whose wounded foot trails +like his tail. No one wants it any more; it is ready to be finished +off, and the urchins are improving the occasion. Limping, his +pot-hanger spine all arched, the animal hurries slowly, and tries +vainly to go faster than the pebbles. + +The child is only a confused handful of confused and superficial +propensities. _Our_ deep instincts--there they are. + +I scatter the children, and they withdraw into the shadows unwillingly, +and look at me with malice. I am distressed by this maliciousness, +which is born full-grown. I am distressed also by this old dog's lot. +They would not understand me if I acknowledged that distress; they +would say, "And you who've seen so many wounded and dead!" All the +same, there is a supreme respect for life. I am not slighting +intellect; but life is common to us along with poorer living things +than ourselves. He who kills an animal, however lowly it may be, +unless there is necessity, is an assassin. + +At the crossing I meet Louise Verte, wandering about. She has gone +crazy. She continues to accost men, but they do not even know what she +begs for. She rambles, in the streets, and in her hovel, and on the +pallet where she is crucified by drunkards. She is surrounded by +general loathing. "That a woman?" says a virtuous man who is going by, +"that dirty old strumpet? A woman? A sewer, yes." She is harmless. +In a feeble, peaceful voice, which seems to live in some supernatural +region, very far from us, she says to me: + +"I am the queen." + +Immediately and strangely she adds, as though troubled by some +foreboding: + +"Don't take my illusion away from me." + +I was on the point of answering her, but I check myself, and just say, +"Yes," as one throws a copper, and she goes away happy. + +* * * * * * + +My respect for life is so strong that I feel pity for a fly which I +have killed. Observing the tiny corpse at the gigantic height of my +eyes, I cannot help thinking how well made that organized speck of dust +is, whose wings are little more than two drops of space, whose eye has +four thousand facets; and that fly occupies my thought for a moment, +which is a long time for it. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +LIGHT + + +I am leaning this evening out of the open window. As in bygone nights, +I am watching the dark pictures, invisible at first, taking shape--the +steeple towering out of the hollow, and broadly lighted against the +hill; the castle, that rich crown of masonry; and then the massive +sloping black of the chimney-peopled roofs, which are sharply outlined +against the paler black of space, and some milky, watching windows. +The eye is lost in all directions among the desolation where the +multitude of men and women are hiding, as always and as everywhere. + +That is what is. Who will say, "That is what must be!" + +I have searched, I have indistinctly seen, I have doubted. Now, I +hope. + +I do not regret my youth and its beliefs. Up to now, I have wasted my +time to live. Youth is the true force, but it is too rarely lucid. +Sometimes it has a triumphant liking for what is now, and the +pugnacious broadside of paradox may please it. But there is a degree +in innovation which they who have not lived very much cannot attain. +And yet who knows if the stern greatness of present events will not +have educated and aged the generation which to-day forms humanity's +effective frontier? Whatever our hope may be, if we did not place it +in youth, where should we place it? + +Who will speak--see, and then speak? To speak is the same thing as to +see, but it is more. Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we +are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our +hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; +truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words--what is it? It +is our breath--not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones +which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. +In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out +of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the +appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries. + +There is a voice, a low and untiring voice, which helps those who do +not and will not see themselves, a voice which brings them together, +Books--the book we choose, the favorite, the book you open, which was +waiting for you! + +Formerly, I hardly knew any books. Now, I love what they do. I have +brought together as many as I could. There they are, on the shelves, +with their immense titles, their regular, profound contents; they are +there, all around me, arranged like houses. + +* * * * * * + +Who will tell the truth? But it is not enough to say things in order +to let them be seen. + +Just now, pursued by the idea of my temptation at the War Museum, I +imagined that I had acted on it, and that I was appearing before the +judges. I should have told them a fine lot of truths, I should have +proved to them that I had done right. I should have made myself, the +accused, into the prosecutor. + +No! I should not have spoken thus, for I should not have known! I +should have stood stammering, full of a truth throbbing within me, +choking, unconfessable truth. It is not enough to speak; you must know +words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I +am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to +yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, +because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of +arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth +its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will +be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men +dazzles me when it rises before me. The very nakedness of paper +frightens me and drowns my looks. Not I shall embellish that whiteness +with writing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow +is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the +immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing, +which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced +comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we +are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever +country he may come,--but all the same, I should prefer him, at the +bottom of my heart, to speak French. + +Once more, he intervenes within me who first showed himself to me as +the specter of evil, he who guided me through hell. When the +death-agony was choking him and his head had darkened like an eagle's, +he hurled a curse which I did not understand, which I understand now, +on the masterpieces of art. He was afraid of their eternity, of that +terrible might they have--when once they are imprinted on the eyes of +an epoch--the strength which you can neither kill nor drive in front of +you. He said that Velasquez, who was only a chamberlain, had succeeded +Philip IV, that he would succeed the Escurial, that he would succeed +even Spain and Europe. He likened that artistic power, which the Kings +have tamed in all respects save in its greatness, to that of a +poet-reformer who throws a saying of freedom and justice abroad, a book +which scatters sparks among humanity somber as coal. The voice of the +expiring prince crawled on the ground and throbbed with secret blows: +"Begone, all you voices of light!" + +* * * * * * + +But what shall _we_ say? Let us spell out the Magna Charta of which we +humbly catch sight. Let us say to the people of whom all peoples are +made: "Wake up and understand, look and see; and having begun again +the consciousness which was mown down by slavery, decide that +everything must be begun again!" + +Begin again, entirely. Yes, that first. If the human charter does not +re-create everything, it will create nothing. + +Unless they are universal, the reforms to be carried out are utopian +and mortal. National reforms are only fragments of reforms. There +must be no half measures. Half measures are laughter-provoking in +their unbounded littleness when it is a question for the last time of +arresting the world's roll down the hill of horror. There must be no +half measures because there are no half truths. Do all, or you will do +nothing. + +Above all, do not let the reforms be undertaken by the Kings. That is +the gravest thing to be taught you. The overtures of liberality made +by the masters who have made the world what it is are only comedies. +They are only ways of blockading completely the progress to come, of +building up the past again behind new patchwork of plaster. + +Never listen, either, to the fine words they offer you, the letters of +which you see like dry bones on hoardings and the fronts of buildings. +There are official proclamations, full of the notion of liberty and +rights, which would be beautiful if they said truly what they say. But +they who compose them do not attach their full meaning to the words. +What they recite they are not capable of wanting, nor even of +understanding. The one indisputable sign of progress in ideas to-day +is that there are things which they dare no longer leave publicly +unsaid, and that's all. There are not all the political parties that +there seem to be. They swarm, certainly, as numerous as the cases of +short sight; but there are only two--the democrats and the +conservatives. Every political deed ends fatally either in one or the +other, and all their leaders have always a tendency to act in the +direction of reaction. Beware, and never forget that if certain +assertions are made by certain lips, that is a sufficient reason why +you should at once mistrust them. When the bleached old republicans[1] +take your cause in their hands, be quite sure that it is not yours. Be +wary as lions. + +[Footnote 1: The word is used here much in the sense of our word +"Tories."--Tr.] + +Do not let the simplicity of the new world out of your sight. The +social trust is simple. The complications are in what is overhead--the +accumulation of delusions and prejudice heaped up by ages of tyrants, +parasites, and lawyers. That conviction sheds a real glimmer of light +on your duty and points out the way to accomplish it. He who would dig +right down to the truth must simplify; his faith must be brutally +simple, or he is lost. Laugh at the subtle shades and distinctions of +the rhetoricians and the specialist physicians. Say aloud: "This is +what is," and then, "That is what must be." + +You will never have that simplicity, you people of the world, if you do +not seize it. If you want it, do it yourself with your own hands. And +I give you now the talisman, the wonderful magic word--you _can_! + +That you may be a judge of existing things, go back to their origins, +and get at the endings of all. The noblest and most fruitful work of +the human intelligence is to make a clean sweep of every enforced +idea--of advantages or meanings--and to go right through appearances in +search of the eternal bases. Thus you will clearly see the moral law +at the beginning of all things, and the conception of justice and +equality will appear to you beautiful as daylight. + +Strong in that supreme simplicity, you shall say: I am the people of +the peoples; therefore I am the King of Kings, and I will that +sovereignty flows everywhere from me, since I am might and right. I +want no more despots, confessed or otherwise, great or little; I know, +and I want no more. The incomplete liberation of 1789 was attacked by +the Kings. Complete liberation will attack the Kings. + +But Kings are not exclusively the uniformed ones among the trumpery +wares of the courts. Assuredly, the nations who have a King have more +tradition and subjection than the others. But there are countries +where no man can get up and say, "My people, my army," nations which +only experience the continuation of the kingly tradition in more +peaceful intensity. There are others with the great figures of +democratic leaders; but as long as the entirety of things is not +overthrown--always the entirety, the sacred entirety--these men cannot +achieve the impossible, and sooner or later their too-beautiful +inclinations will be isolated and misunderstood. In the formidable +urgency of progress, what do the proportions matter to you of the +elements which make up the old order of things in the world? All the +governors cling fatally together among themselves, and more solidly +than you think, through the old machine of chancelleries, ministries, +diplomacy, and the ceremonials with gilded swords; and when they are +bent on making war for themselves there is an unquenchable likeness +between them all, of which you want no more. Break the chain; suppress +all privileges, and say at last, "Let, there be equality." + +One man is as good as another. That means that no man carries within +himself any privilege which puts him above the universal law. It means +an equality in principle, and that does not invalidate the legitimacy +of the differences due to work, to talent, and to moral sense. The +leveling only affects the rights of the citizen; and not the man as a +whole. You do not create the living being; you do not fashion the +living clay, as God did in the Bible; you make regulations. Individual +worth, on which some pretend to rely, is relative and unstable, and no +one is a judge of it. In a well-organized entirety, it cultivates and +improves itself automatically. But that magnificent anarchy cannot, at +the inception of the human Charter, take the place of the obviousness +of equality. + +The poor man, the proletarian, is nobler than another, but not more +sacred. In truth, all workers and all honest men are as good as each +other. But the poor, the exploited, are fifteen hundred millions here +on earth. They are the Law because they are the Number. The moral law +is only the imperative preparation of the common good. It always +involves, in different forms, the necessary limitations of some +individual interests by the rest; that is to say, the sacrifice of one +to the many, of the many to the whole. The republican conception is +the civic translation of the moral law; what is anti-republican is +immoral. + +Socially, women are the equals of men, without restrictions. The +beings who shine and who bring forth are not made solely to lend or to +give the heat of their bodies. It is right that the sum total of work +should be shared, reduced and harmonized by their hands. It is just +that the fate of humanity should be grounded also in the strength of +women. Whatever the danger which their instinctive love of shining +things may occasion, in spite of the facility with which they color all +things with their own feelings and the totality of their slightest +impulses--the legend of their incapacity is a fog that you will +dissipate with a gesture of _your_ hands. Their advent is in the order +of things; and it is also in order to await with hopeful heart the day +when the social and political chains of women will fall off, when human +liberty will suddenly become twice as great. + +People of the world, establish equality right up to the limits of your +great life. Lay the foundations of the republic of republics over all +the area where you breathe; that is to say, the common control in broad +daylight of all external affairs, of community in the laws of labor, of +production and of commerce. The subdivision of these high social and +moral arrangements by nations or by limited unions of nations +(enlargements which are reductions) is artificial, arbitrary, and +malignant. The so-called inseparable cohesions of national interests +vanish away as soon as you draw near to examine them. There are +individual interests and a general interest, those two only. When you +say "I," it means "I"; when you say "We," it means Man. So long as a +single and identical Republic does not cover the world, all national +liberations can only be beginnings and signals! + +Thus you will disarm the "fatherlands" and "motherlands," and you will +reduce the notion of Motherland to the little bit of social importance +that it must have. You will do away with the military frontiers, and +those economic and commercial barriers which are still worse. +Protection introduces violence into the expansion of labor; like +militarism, it brings in a fatal absence of balance. You will suppress +that which justifies among nations the things which among individuals +we call murder, robbery, and unfair competition. You will suppress +battles--not nearly so much by the direct measure of supervision and +order that you will take as because you will suppress the causes of +battle. You will suppress them chiefly because it is _you_ who will do +it, by yourself, everywhere, with your invincible strength and the +lucid conscience that is free from selfish motives. You will not make +war on yourself. + +You will not be afraid of magic formulas and the churches. Your giant +reason will destroy the idol which suffocates its true believers. You +will salute the flags for the last time; to that ancient enthusiasm +which flattered the puerility of your ancestors, you will say a +peaceful and final farewell. In some corners of the calamities of the +past, there were times of tender emotion; but truth is greater, and +there are not more boundaries on the earth than on the sea! + +Each country will be a moral force, and no longer a brutal force; while +all brutal forces clash with themselves, all moral forces make mighty +harmony together. + +The universal republic is the inevitable consequence of equal rights in +life for all. Start from the principle of equality, and you arrive at +the people's international. If you do not arrive there it is because +you have not reasoned aright. They who start from the opposite point +of view--God, and the divine rights of popes and Kings and nobles, and +authority and tradition--will come, by fabulous paths but quite +logically, to opposite conclusions. You must not cease to hold that +there are only two teachings face to face. All things are amenable to +reason, the supreme Reason which mutilated humanity, wounded in the +eyes, has deified among the clouds. + +* * * * * * + +You will do away with the rights of the dead, and with heredity of +power, whatever it may be, that inheritance which is unjust in all its +gradations, for tradition takes root there, and it is an outrage on +equality, against the order of labor. Labor is a great civic deed +which all men and all women without exception must share or go down. +Such divisions will reduce it for each one to dignified proportions and +prevent it from devouring human lives. + +You will not permit colonial ownership by States, which makes stains on +the map of the world and is not justified by confessable reasons; and +you will organize the abolition of that collective slavery. You will +allow the individual property of the living to stand. It is equitable +because its necessity is inherent in the circumstances of the living, +and because there are cases where you cannot tear away the right of +ownership without tearing right itself. Besides, the love of things is +a passion, like the love of beings. The object of social organization +is not to destroy sentiment and pleasure, but on the contrary to allow +them to flourish, within the limit of not wronging others. It is right +to enjoy what you have clearly earned by your work. That focused +wisdom alone bursts among the old order of things like a curse. + +Chase away forever, everywhere, everywhere, the bad masters of the +sacred school. Knowledge incessantly remakes the whole of +civilization. The child's intelligence is too precious not to be under +the protection of all. The heads of families are not free to deal +according to their caprices with the ignorance which each child brings +into the daylight; they have not that liberty contrary to liberty. A +child does not belong body and soul to its parents; it is a person, and +our ears are wounded by the blasphemy--a residue of despotic Roman +tradition--of those who speak of their sons killed in the war and say, +"I have given my son." You do not give living beings--and all +intelligence belongs primarily to reason. + +There must no longer be a single school where they teach idolatry, +where the wills of to-morrow grow bigger under the terror of a God who +does not exist, and on whom so many bad arguments are thrown away or +justified. Nowhere must there be any more school-books where they +dress up in some finery of prestige what is most contemptible and +debasing in the past of the nations. Let there be nothing but +universal histories, nothing but the great lines and peaks, the lights +and shadows of that chaos which for six thousand years has been the +fortune of two hundred thousand millions of men. + +You will suppress everywhere the advertising of the cults, you will +wipe away the inky uniform of the parsons. Let every believer keep his +religion for himself, and let the priests stay between walls. +Toleration in face of error is a graver error. One might have dreamed +of a wise and universal church, for Jesus Christ will be justified in +His human teaching as long as there are hearts. But they who have +taken His morality in hand and fabricated their religion have poisoned +the truth; more, they have shown for two thousand years that they place +the interests of their caste before those of the sacred law of what is +right. No words, no figures can ever give an idea of the evil which +the Church has done to mankind. When she is not the oppressor herself, +upholding the right of force, she lends her authority to the oppressors +and sanctifies their pretenses; and still to-day she is closely united +everywhere with those who do not want the reign of the poor. Just as +the Jingoes invoke the charm of the domestic cradle that they may give +an impulse to war, so does the Church invoke the poetry of the Gospels; +but she has become an aristocratic party like the rest, in which every +gesture of the sign of the Cross is a slap in the Face of Jesus Christ. +Out of the love of one's native soil, they have made Nationalists; out +of Jesus they have made Jesuits. + +Only international greatness will at last permit the rooting up of the +stubborn abuses which the partition walls of nationality multiply, +entangle and solidify. The future Charter--of which we confusedly +glimpse some signs and which has for its premises the great moral +principles restored to their place, and the multitude at last restored +to theirs--will force the newspapers to confess all their resources. +By means of a young language, simple and modest, it will unite all +foreigners--those prisoners of themselves. It will mow down the +hateful complexity of judicial procedure, with its booty for the +somebodies, and its lawyers as well, who intrude the tricks of +diplomacy and the melodramatic usages of eloquence into the plain and +simple machinery of justice. The righteous man must go so far as to +say that clemency has not its place in justice; the logical majesty of +the sentence which condemns the guilty one in order to frighten +possible evil-doers (and never for another reason) is itself beyond +forgiveness. International dignity will close the taverns, forbid the +sale of poisons, and will reduce to impotence the vendors who want to +render abortive, in men and young people, the future's beauty and the +reign of intelligence. And here is a mandate which appears before my +eyes--the tenacious law which must pounce without respite on all public +robbers, on all those, little and big, cynics and hypocrites, who, when +their trade or their functions bring the opportunity, exploit misery +and speculate on necessity. There is a new hierarchy to make mistakes, +to commit offenses and crimes--the true one. + +You can form no idea of the beauty that is possible! You cannot +imagine what all the squandered treasure can provide, what can be +brought on by the resurrection of misguided human intelligence, +successively smothered and slain hitherto by infamous slavery, by the +despicable infectious necessity of armed attack and defense, and by the +privileges which debase human worth. You can have no notion what human +intelligence may one day find of new adoration. The people's absolute +reign will give to literature and the arts--whose harmonious shape is +still but roughly sketched--a splendor boundless as the rest. National +cliques cultivate narrowness and ignorance, they cause originality to +waste away; and the national academies, to which a residue of +superstition lends respect, are only pompous ways of upholding ruins. +The domes of those Institutes which look so grand when they tower above +you are as ridiculous as extinguishers. You must widen and +internationalize, without pause or limit, all which permits of it. +With its barriers collapsed, you must fill society with broad daylight +and magnificent spaces; with patience and heroism must you clear the +ways which lead from the individual to humanity, the ways which were +stopped up with corpses of ideas and with stone images all along their +great curving horizons. Let everything be remade on simple lines. +There is only one people, there is only one people! + +If you do that, you will be able to say that, at the moment when you +planned your effort and took your decision, you saved the human species +as far as it is possible on earth to do it. You will not have brought +happiness about. The fallacy-mongers do not frighten us when they +preach resignation and paralysis on the plea that no social change can +bring happiness, thus trifling with these profound things. Happiness +is part of the inner life, it is an intimate and personal paradise; it +is a flash of chance or genius which comes sweetly to life among those +who elbow each other, and it is also the sense of glory. No, it is not +in your hands, and so it is in nobody's hands. But a balanced and +heedful life is necessary to man, that he may build the isolated home +of happiness; and death is the fearful connection of the happenings +which pass away along with our profundities. External things and those +which are hidden are essentially different, but they are held together +by peace and by death. + +To accomplish the majestically practical work, to shape the whole +architecture like a statue, base nothing on impossible modifications of +human nature; await nothing from pity. + +Charity is a privilege, and must disappear. For the rest, you cannot +love unknown people any more than you can have pity on them. The human +intelligence is made for infinity; the heart is not. The being who +really suffers in his heart, and not merely in his mind or in words, by +the suffering of others whom he neither sees nor touches, is a nervous +abnormality, and he cannot be argued from as an example. The repulse +of reason, the stain of absurdity, torture the intelligence in a more +abundant way. Simple as it may be, social science is geometry. Do not +accept the sentimental meaning they give to the word "humanitarianism," +and say that the preaching of fraternity and love is vain; these words +lose their meaning amid the great numbers of man. It is in this +disordered confusion of feelings and ideas that one feels the presence +of Utopia. Mutual solidarity is of the intellect--common-sense, logic, +methodical precision, order without faltering, the ruthless inevitable +perfection of light! + +In my fervor, in my hunger, and from the depths of my abyss, I uttered +these words aloud amid the silence. My great reverie was blended with +song, like the Ninth Symphony. + +* * * * * * + +I am resting on my elbows at the window. I am looking at the night, +which is everywhere, which touches me, _me_, although I am only I, and +it is infinite night. It seems to me that there is nothing else left +me to think about. Things cling together; they will save each other, +and will do their setting in order. + +But again I am seized by the sharpest of my agonies--I am afraid that +the multitude may rest content with the partial gratifications to be +granted them everywhere by those who will use all their clinging, +cunning power to prevent the people from understanding, and then from +wishing. On the day of victory, they will pour intoxication and +dazzling deceptions into you, and put almost superhuman cries into your +mouths, "We have delivered humanity; we are the soldiers of the Right!" +without telling you all that such a statement includes of gravity, of +immense pledges and constructive genius, what it involves in respect +for great peoples, whoever they are, and of gratitude to those who are +trying to deliver themselves. They will again take up their eternal +mission of stupefying the great conscious forces, and turning them +aside from their ends. They will appeal for union and peace and +patience, to the opportunism of changes, to the danger of going too +quickly, or of meddling in your neighbor's affairs, and all the other +fallacies of the sort. They will try again to ridicule and strike down +those whom the newspapers (the ones in their pay) call dreamers, +sectarians, and traitors; once again they will flourish all their old +talismans. Doubtless they will propose, in the fashionable words of +the moment, some official parodies of international justice, which they +will break up one day like theatrical scenery; they will enunciate some +popular right, curtailed by childish restrictions and monstrous +definitions, resembling a brigand's code of honor. The wrong torn from +confessed autocracies will hatch out elsewhere--in the sham republics, +and the self-styled liberal countries who have played a hidden game. +The concessions they will make will clothe the old rotten autocracy +again, and perpetuate it. One imperialism will replace the other, and +the generations to come will be marked for the sword. Soldier, +wherever you are, they will try to efface your memory, or to exploit +it, by leading it astray, and forgetfulness of the truth is the first +form of your adversity! May neither defeat nor victory be against you. +You are above both of them, for you are all the people. + +The skies are peopled with stars, a harmony which clasps reason close, +and applies the mind to the adorable idea of universal unity. Must +that harmony give us hope or misgiving? + +We are in a great night of the world. The thing is to know if we shall +wake up to-morrow. We have only one succor--_we_ know of what the +night is made. But shall we be able to impart our lucid faith, seeing +that the heralds of warning are everywhere few, and that the greatest +victims hate the only ideal which is not one, and call it utopian? +Public opinion floats over the surface of the peoples, wavering and +submissive to the wind; it lends but fleeting conscience and conviction +to the majority; it cries "Down with the reformers!" It cries +"Sacrilege!" because it is made to see in its vague thoughts what it +could not itself see there. It cries that they are distorting it, +whereas they are enlarging it. + +I am not afraid, as many are, and as I once was myself, of being +reviled and slandered. I do not cling to respect and gratitude for +myself. But if I succeed in reaching men, I should like them not to +curse me. Why should they, since it is not for myself? It is only +because I am sure I am right. I am sure of the principles I see at the +source of all--justice, logic, equality; all those divinely human +truths whose contrast with the realized truth of to-day is so +heart-breaking. And I want to appeal to you all; and that confidence +which fills me with a tragic joy, I want to give it to you, at once as +a command and as a prayer. There are not several ways of attaining it +athwart everything, and of fastening life and the truth together again; +there is only one--right-doing. Let rule begin again with the sublime +control of the intellect. I am a man like the rest, a man like you. +You who shake your head or shrug your shoulders as you listen to +me--why are we, we two, we all, so foreign to each other, when we are +not foreign? + +I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the +momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men +in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national +egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious +statues of Right and Duty. To-night I believe--nay, I am certain--that +the new order will be built upon that archipelago of men. Even if we +have still to suffer as far as we can see ahead, the idea can no more +cease to throb and grow stronger than the human heart can; and the will +which is already rising here and there they can no longer destroy. + +I proclaim the inevitable advent of the universal republic. Not the +transient backslidings, nor the darkness and the dread, nor the tragic +difficulty of uplifting the world everywhere at once will prevent the +fulfillment of international truth. But if the great powers of +darkness persist in holding their positions, if they whose clear cries +of warning should be voices crying in the wilderness--O you people of +the world, you the unwearying vanquished of History, I appeal to your +justice and I appeal to your anger. Over the vague quarrels which +drench the strands with blood, over the plunderers of shipwrecks, over +the jetsam and the reefs, and the palaces and monuments built upon the +sand, I see the high tide coming. Truth is only revolutionary by +reason of error's disorder. Revolution is Order. + +* * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FACE TO FACE + + +Through the panes I see the town--I often take refuge at the windows. +Then I go into Marie's bedroom, which gives a view of the country. It +is such a narrow room that to get to the window I must touch her tidy +little bed, and I think of her as I pass it. A bed is something which +never seems either so cold or so lifeless as other things; it lives by +an absence. + +Marie is working in the house, downstairs. I hear sounds of moved +furniture, of a broom, and the recurring knock of the shovel on the +bucket into which she empties the dust she has collected. That society +is badly arranged which forces nearly all women to be servants. Marie, +who is as good as I am, will have spent her life in cleaning, in +stooping amid dust and hot fumes, over head and ears in the great +artificial darkness of the house. I used to find it all natural. Now +I think it is all anti-natural. + +I hear no more sounds. Marie has finished. She comes up beside me. +We have sought each other and come together as often as possible since +the day when we saw so clearly that we no longer loved each other! + +We sit closely side by side, and watch the end of the day. We can see +the last houses of the town, in the beginning of the valley, low houses +within enclosures, and yards, and gardens stocked with sheds. Autumn +is making the gardens quite transparent, and reducing them to nothing +through their trees and hedges; yet here and there foliage still +magnificently flourishes. It is not the wide landscape in its entirety +which attracts me. It is more worth while to pick out each of the +houses and look at it closely. + +These houses, which form the finish of the suburb, are not big, and are +not prosperous; but we see one adorning itself with smoke, and we think +of the dead wood coming to life again on the hearth, and of the seated +workman, whose hands are rewarded with rest. And that one, although +motionless, is alive with children--the breeze is scattering the +laughter of their games and seems to play with it, and on the sandy +ground are the crumbs of childish footsteps. Our eyes follow the +postman entering his home, his work ended; he has heroically overcome +his long journeyings. After carrying letters all day to those who were +waiting for them, he is carrying himself to his own people, who also +await him--it is the family which knows the value of the father. He +pushes the gate open, he enters the garden path, his hands are at last +empty! + +Along by the old gray wall, old Eudo is making his way, the incurable +widower whose bad news still stubbornly persists, so that he bears it +along around him, and it slackens his steps, and can be seen, and he +takes up more space than he seems to take. A woman meets him, and her +youth is disclosed in the twilight; it expands in her hurrying steps. +It is Mina, going to some trysting-place. She crosses and presses her +little fichu on her heart; we can see that distance dwindles +affectionately in front of her. As she passes away, bent forward and +smiling with her ripe lips, we can see the strength of her heart. + +Mist is gradually falling. Now we can only see white things +clearly--the new parts of houses, the walls, the high road, joined to +the other one by footpaths which straggle through the dark fields, the +big white stones, tranquil as sheep, and the horse-pond, whose gleam +amid the far obscurity imitates whiteness in unexpected fashion. Then +we can only see light things--the stains of faces and hands, those +faces which see each other in the gloom longer than is logical and +exceed themselves. + +Pervaded by a sort of serious musing, we turn back into the room and +sit down, I on the edge of the bed, she on a chair in front of the open +window, in the center of the pearly sky. + +Her thoughts are the same as mine, for she turns her face to me and +says: + +"And ourselves." + +* * * * * * + +She sighs for the thought she has. She would like to be silent, but +she must speak. + +"We don't love each other any more," she says, embarrassed by the +greatness of the things she utters; "but we did once, and I want to see +our love again." + +She gets up, opens the wardrobe, and sits down again in the same place +with a box in her hands. She says: + +"There it is. Those are our letters." + +"Our letters, our beautiful letters!" she goes on. "I could really say +they're more beautiful than all others. We know them by heart--but +would you like us to read them again? _You_ read them--there's still +light enough--and let me see how happy we've been." + +She hands the casket to me. The letters we wrote each other during our +engagement are arranged in it. + +"That one," she says, "is the first from you. Is it? Yes--no, it +isn't; do you think it is?" + +I take the letter, murmur it, and then read it aloud. It spoke of the +future, and said, "In a little while, how happy we shall be!" + +She comes near, lowers her head, reads the date and whispers: + +"Nineteen-two; it's been dead for thirteen years--it's a long time. +No, it isn't a long time--I don't know what it ought to be. Here's +another--read it." + +I go on denuding the letters. We quickly find out what a mistake it +was to say we know them by heart. This one has no date--simply the +name of a day--Monday, and we believed that would be enough! Now, it +is entirely lost and become barren, this anonymous letter in the middle +of the rest. + +"We don't know them by heart any more," Marie confesses. "Remember +ourselves? How could we remember all that?" + +* * * * * * + +This reading was like that of a book once already read in bygone days. +It could not revive again the diligent and fervent hours when our pens +were moving--and our lips, too, a little. Indistinctly it brought +back, with unfathomable gaps, the adventure lived in three days by +others, the people that we were. When I read a letter from her which +spoke of caresses to come, Marie stammered, "And she dared to write +that!" but she did not blush and was not confused. + +Then she shook her head a little, and said dolefully: + +"What a lot of things we have hidden away, little by little, in spite +of ourselves! How strong people must be to forget so much!" + +She was beginning to catch a glimpse of a bottomless abyss, and to +despair. Suddenly she broke in: + +"That's enough! We can't read them again. We can't understand what's +written. That's enough--don't take my illusion away." + +She spoke like the poor madwoman of the streets, and added in a +whisper: + +"This morning, when I opened that box where the letters were shut up, +some little flies flew out." + +We stop reading the letters a moment, and look at them. The ashes of +life! All that we can remember is almost nothing. Memory is greater +than we are, but memory is living and mortal as well. These letters, +these unintelligible flowers, these bits of lace and of paper, what are +they? Around these flimsy things what is there left? We are handling +the casket together. Thus we are completely attached in the hollow of +our hands. + +* * * * * * + +And yet we went on reading. + +But something strange is growing gradually greater; it grasps us, it +surprises us hopelessly--every letter speaks of the _future_. + +In vain Marie said to me: + +"What about afterwards? Try another--later on." + +Every letter said, "In a little while, how we shall love each other +when our time is spent together! How beautiful you will be when you +are always there. Later on we'll make that trip again; after a while +we'll carry that scheme out, later on . . ." + +"That's all we could say!" + +A little before the wedding we wrote that we were wasting our time so +far from each other, and that we were unhappy. + +"Ah!" said Marie, in a sort of terror, "we wrote that! And +afterwards . . ." + +After, the letter from which we expected all, said: + +"Soon we shan't leave each other any more. At last we shall live!" +And it spoke of a paradise, of the life that was coming. . . . + +"And afterwards?" + +"After that, there's nothing more . . . it's the last letter." + +* * * * * * + +There is nothing more. It is like a stage-trick, suddenly revealing +the truth. There is nothing between the paradise dreamed of and the +paradise lost. There is nothing, since we always want what we have not +got. We hope, and then we regret. We hope for the future, and then we +turn to the past, and then we begin slowly and desperately to hope for +the past! The two most violent and abiding feelings, hope and regret, +both lean upon nothing. To ask, to ask, to have not! Humanity is +exactly the same thing as poverty. Happiness has not the time to live; +we have not really the time to profit by what we are. Happiness, that +thing which never is--and which yet, for one day, is no longer! + +I see her drawing breath, quivering, mortally wounded, sinking upon the +chair. + +I take her hand, as I did before. I speak to her, rather timidly and +at random: "Carnal love isn't the whole of love." + +"It's love!" Marie answers. + +I do not reply. + +"Ah!" she says, "we try to juggle with words, but we can't conceal the +truth." + +"The truth! I'm going to tell you what I have been truly, _I_. . . ." + +* * * * * * + +I could not prevent myself from saying it, from crying it in a loud and +trembling voice, leaning over her. For some moments there had been +outlined within me the tragic shape of the cry which at last came +forth. It was a sort of madness of sincerity and simplicity which +seized me. + +And I, unveiling my life to her, though it slid away by the side of +hers, all my life, with its failings and its coarseness. I let her see +me in my desires, in my hungers, in my entrails. + +Never has a confession so complete been thrown off. Yes, among the +fates which men and women bear together, one must be almost mad not to +lie. I tick off my past, the succession of love-affairs multiplied by +each other, and come to naught. I have been an ordinary man, no +better, no worse, than another; well, here I am, here is the man, here +is the lover. + +I can see that she has half-risen, in the little bedroom which has lost +its color. She is afraid of the truth! She watches my words as you +look at a blasphemer. But the truth has seized me and cannot let me +go. And I recall what was--both this woman and that, and all those +whom I loved and never deigned to know what they brought me when they +brought their bodies; I recall the fierce selfishness which nothing +exhausted, and all the savagery of my life beside her. I say it +all--unable even to avoid the blows of brutal details--like a harsh +duty accomplished to the end. + +Sometimes she murmured, like a sigh, "I knew it." At others, she would +say, almost like a sob, "That's true!" And once, too, she began a +confused protest, a sort of reproach. Then, soon, she listens nigher. +She might almost be left behind by the greatness of my confession; and, +gradually, I see her falling into silence, the twice-illumined woman on +that adorable side of the room, she still receives on her hair and neck +and hands, some morsels of heaven. + +And what I am most ashamed of in those bygone days when I was mad after +the treasure of unknown women is this: that I spoke to them of eternal +fidelity, of superhuman enticements, of divine exaltation, of sacred +affinities which must be joined together at all costs, of beings who +have always been waiting for each other, and are made for each other, +and all that one _can_ say--sometimes almost sincerely, alas!--just to +gain my ends. I confess all that, I cast it from me as if I was at +last ridding myself of the lies acted upon her, and upon the others, +and upon myself. Instinct is instinct; let it rule like a force of +nature. But the Lie is a ravisher. + +I feel a sort of curse rising from me upon that blind religion with +which we clothe the things of the flesh because they are strong, those +of which I was the plaything, like everybody, always and everywhere. +No, two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two +enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There +are perfect couples, no doubt--perfection always exists somewhere--but +I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know!--the human +being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, +the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers +deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on +each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of +pleasure. There are moments when one would lay hold forcibly on joy, +if only a crime stood in the way. I know it; I know it through all +those for whom I have successively hungered, and whom I have scorned +with shut eyes--even those who were not better than I. + +And this hunger for novelty--which makes sensuous love equally +changeful and rapacious, which makes us seek the same emotion in other +bodies which we cast off as fast as they fall--turns life into an +infernal succession of disenchantments, spites and scorn; and it is +chiefly that hunger for novelty which leaves us a prey to unrealizable +hope and irrevocable regret. Those lovers who persist in remaining +together execute themselves; the name of their common death, which at +first was Absence, becomes Presence. The real outcast is not he who +returns all alone, like Olympio; they who remain together are more +apart. + +By what right does carnal love say, "I am your hearts and minds as +well, and we are indissoluble, and I sweep all along with my strokes of +glory and defeat; I am Love!"? It is not true, it is not true. Only +by violence does it seize the whole of thought; and the poets and +lovers, equally ignorant and dazzled, dress it up in a grandeur and +profundity which it has not. The heart is strong and beautiful, but it +is mad and it is a liar. Moist lips in transfigured faces murmur, +"It's grand to be mad!" _No_, you do not elevate aberration into an +ideal, and illusion is always a stain, whatever the name you lend it. + +By the curtain in the angle of the wall, upright and motionless I am +speaking in a low voice, but it seems to me that I am shouting and +struggling. + +When I have spoken thus, we are no longer the same, for there are no +more lies. + +After a silence, Marie lifts to me the face of a shipwrecked woman with +lifeless eyes, and asks me: + +"But if this love is an illusion, what is there left?" + +I come near and look at her, to answer her. Against the window's still +pallid sky I see her hair, silvered with a moonlike sheen, and her +night-veiled face. Closely I look at the share of sublimity which she +bears on it, and I reflect that I am infinitely attached to this woman, +that it is not true to say she is of less moment to me because desire +no longer throws me on her as it used to do. Is it habit? No, not +only that. Everywhere habit exerts its gentle strength, perhaps +between us two also. But there is more. There is not only the +narrowness of rooms to bring us together. There is more, there is +more! So I say to her: + +"There's you." + +"Me?" she says. "I'm nothing." + +"Yes, you are everything, you're everything to me." + +She has stood up, stammering. She puts her arms around my neck, but +falls fainting, clinging to me, and I carry her like a child to the old +armchair at the end of the room. + +All my strength has come back to me. I am no longer wounded or ill. I +carry her in my arms. It is difficult work to carry in your arms a +being equal to yourself. Strong as you may be, you hardly suffice for +it. And what I say as I look at her and see her, I say because I am +strong and not because I am weak: + +"You're everything for me because you are you, and I love _all_ of +you." + +And we think together, as if she were listening to me: + +You are a living creature, you are a human being, you are the infinity +that man is, and all that you are unites me to you. Your suffering of +just now, your regret for the ruins of youth and the ghosts of +caresses, all of it unites me to you, for I feel them, I share them. +Such as you are and such as I am. I can say to you at last, "I love +you." + +I love you, you who now appearing truly to me, you who truly duplicate +my life. We have nothing to turn aside from us to be together. All +your thoughts, all your likes, your ideas and your preferences have a +place which I feel within me, and I see that they are right even if my +own are not like them (for each one's freedom is part of his value), +and I have a feeling that I am telling you a lie whenever I do not +speak to you. + +I am only going on with my thought when I say aloud: + +"I would give my life for you, and I forgive you beforehand for +everything you might ever do to make yourself happy." + +She presses me softly in her arms, and I feel her murmuring tears and +crooning words; they are like my own. + +It seems to me that truth has taken its place again in our little room, +and become incarnate; that the greatest bond which can bind two beings +together is being confessed, the great bond we did not know of, though +it is the whole of salvation: + +"Before, I loved you for my own sake; to-day, I love you for yours." + +When you look straight on, you end by seeing the immense event--death. +There is only one thing which really gives the meaning of our whole +life, and that is our death. In that terrible light may they judge +their hearts who will one day die. Well I know that Marie's death +would be the same thing in my heart as my own, and it seems to me also +that only within her of all the world does my own likeness wholly live. +_We_ are not afraid of the too great sincerity which goes the length of +these things; and we talk about them, beside the bed which awaits the +inevitable hour when we shall not awake in it again. We say:-- + +"There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish--a +walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream." + +I stoop over her blue eyes. Just then I recalled the black, open +window in front of me--far away--that night when I nearly died. I look +at length into those clear eyes, and see that I am sinking into the +only grave I shall have had. It is neither an illusion nor an act of +charity to admire the almost incredible beauty of those eyes. + +What is there within us to-night? What is this sound of wings? Are +our eyes opening as fast as night falls? Formerly, we had the sensual +lovers' animal dread of nothingness; but to-day, the simplest and +richest proof of our love is that the supreme meaning of death to us +is--leaving each other. + +And the bond of the flesh--neither are we afraid to think and speak of +that, saying that we were so joined together that we knew each other +completely, that our bodies have searched each other. This memory, +this brand in the flesh, has its profound value; and the preference +which reciprocally graces two beings like ourselves is made of all that +they have and all that they had. + +I stand up in front of Marie--already almost a convert--and I tremble +and totter, so much is my heart my master:-- + +"Truth is more beautiful than dreams, you see." + +It is simply the truth which has come to our aid. It is truth which +has given us life. Affection is the greatest of human feelings because +it is made of respect, of lucidity, and light. To understand the truth +and make one's self equal to it is everything; and to love is the same +thing as to know and to understand. Affection, which I call also +compassion, because I see no difference between them, dominates +everything by reason of its clear sight. It is a sentiment as immense +as if it were mad, and yet it is wise, and of human things it is the +only perfect one. There is no great sentiment which is not completely +held on the arms of compassion. + +To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that +is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can +hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one +true neighbor down here. + +To live is to be happy to live. The usefulness of life--ah! its +expansion has not the mystic shapes we vainly dreamed of when we were +paralyzed by youth. Rather has it a shape of anxiety, of shuddering, +of pain and glory. Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of +happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It +beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth. + +"You've done well to say all that! Yes, it is always easy to lie for a +moment. You might have lied, but it would have been worse when we woke +up from the lies. It's a reward to talk. Perhaps it's the only reward +there is." + +She said that profoundly, right to the bottom of my heart. Now she is +helping me, and together we make the great searchings of those who are +too much in the right. Marie's assent is so complete that it is +unexpected and tragic. + +"I was like a statue, because of the forgetting and the grief. You +have given me life, you have changed me into a woman." + +"I was turning towards the church," she goes on; "you hardly believe in +God so much when you've no need of Him. When you're without anything, +you can easily believe in Him. But now, I don't want any longer." + +Thus speaks Marie. Only the idolatrous and the weak have need of +illusion as of a remedy. The rest only need see and speak. + +She smiles, vague as an angel, hovering in the purity of the evening +between light and darkness. I am so near to her that I must kneel to +be nearer still. I kiss her wet face and soft lips, holding her hand +in both of mine. + +Yes, there _is_ a Divinity, one from which we must never turn aside for +the guidance of our huge inward life and of the share we have as well +in the life of all men. It is called the truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Light, by Henri Barbusse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 12904.txt or 12904.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/9/0/12904/ + +Produced by David S. 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