Part 6 (1/2)

In the great flock of those ruminating souls who fed on the past, the group of bigots pinning its faith to the French Revolution was easily distinguished. Among the backward _bourgeoisie_ they were reckoned incendiary in former days;--about the time of the 16th of May, or a little later. Like quinquagenarians grown stolid and settled, they looked back with pride to their wild conduct, and lived on the memory of the emotions of by-gone days. If their mirror showed them no change, the world had altered around them without their suspecting it, while they continued to copy their antiquated models. It is a curious imitative instinct, a slavery of the brain, to remain hypnotised by some point in the past, instead of trying to follow Proteus in his course--the life of change. One picks up the old skin which the young snake has thrown off long ago, and tries to sew it together again.

These pedantic admirers of old revolutions believe that those of the future will be made on the same lines. They will not see that the new liberty must have a gait of its own, and will overleap barriers before which its grandmother of ninety-three stopped, out of breath. They are also much more vexed by the disrespect of the young people who have gone by them, than they are by the spiteful yelping of the old whom they have left behind; this is only natural, for these young folks make them feel their age, and then it is their turn to yelp.

So it ever shall be; as they grow older there are very few men willing to let life take its own course, and who are generous enough to look at the future through the eyes of their juniors, as their own sight grows dim. The greater number of those who loved liberty in their youth, want to make a case of it now for the new broods, because they can no longer fly themselves.

The followers of the national revolutionary cult--in the style of Danton, or of Robespierre--were the bitterest adversaries of the internationalism of today; though they did not always agree perfectly amongst themselves, and the friends of Danton and Robespierre, with the shadow of the guillotine between them, hurled the epithet of heretic at each other with the deadliest threats. They did, however, all agree on one point, and devoted to destruction those who did not believe that Liberty is shot out of the mouth of cannon, those who dared to feel the same aversion towards violence, whether it was exerted by Caesar, Demos, or his satellites, or even if it was in the name of right and liberty itself. The face underneath is the same, no matter what mask may be worn.

Clerambault knew several of these fanatics, but there was no point in discussing with them whether the right, or its counterfeit, were only on one side in war; it would have been equally sensible to argue about the Holy Inquisition with a Manichee. Lay religions have their great seminaries and secret societies where they deposit their doctrinal treasures with great pride. He who departs from these is excommunicated--until he in turn belongs to the past, when he becomes a G.o.d, and can excommunicate in future himself.

If Clerambault was not tempted to convert these hardened intellectuals with their stiff helmet of truth, he knew others who had not the same proud certainty; far from it. Those who sinned rather through softness and pure dilettantism--a.r.s.ene a.s.selin was one of these, an amiable Parisian, unmarried, a man of the world, clever and sceptical; and as much shocked by a defect in sentiment as in expression. How could he like extremes of thought, which are the cultures in which the germs of war develop? His critical and sarcastic spirit inclined him towards doubt; so there was no reason why he should not have understood Clerambault's point of view, and he came within an ace of doing so.

His choice depended on some fortuitous circ.u.mstances, but from the moment that he turned his face in the other direction, it was impossible for him to go back; and the more he stuck in the mud, the more obstinate he grew. French self-respect cannot bear to admit its mistakes; it would rather die in defence of them.... But French or not, how many are there in the world who would have the strength of mind to say: ”I have made a mistake, we must begin all over again.”

Better deny the evidence ... ”To the bitter end” ... And then break down.

Alexandre Mignon was a before-the-war pacifist and an old friend of Clerambault's. He was a _bourgeois_ of about his own age, intellectual, a member of the University, and justly respected for the dignity of his life. He should not be confounded with those parlour pacifists covered with official decorations and grand cordons of international orders, for whom peace is a gilt-edged investment in quiet times. For thirty years he had sincerely denounced the dangerous intrigues of the dishonest politicians and speculators of his country; he was a member of the League for the Rights of Man, and loved to make speeches for either cause, as it might happen. It was enough if his client purported to be oppressed; it did not matter if the victim had been a would-be oppressor himself. His blundering generosity sometimes made him ridiculous, but he was always liked. He did not object to the ridicule, nor did he dread a little unpopularity, as long as he was surrounded by his own group, whose approbation was necessary to him.

As a member of a group which was independent when they all held together, he thought that he was an independent person, but this was not the case. Union is strength they say, but it accustoms us to lean upon it, as Alexandre Mignon found to his cost.

The death of Jaures had broken up the group; and lacking one voice--the first to speak--all the others failed. They waited for the pa.s.sword that no one dared to give. When the torrent broke over them these generous but weak men were uncertain, and were carried away by the first rush. They did not understand nor approve of it, but they could make no resistance. From the beginning desertions began in their ranks, produced largely by the terrible speech-makers who then governed the country--demagogue lawyers, practised in all the sophistries of republican idealogy: ”War for Peace, Lasting Peace at the End ...” (_Requiescat_) ... In these artifices the poor pacifists saw a way to get out of their dilemma; it was not a very brilliant way and they were not proud of it, but it was their only chance. They hoped to reconcile their pacific principles with the fact of violence by means of ”big talk” which did not sound to them as outrageous as it really was. To refuse would have been to give themselves up to the war-like pack, which would have devoured them.

Alexandre Mignon would have had courage to face the b.l.o.o.d.y jaws if he had had his little community at his back, but alone it was beyond his strength. He let things go at first, without committing himself, but he suffered, pa.s.sing through agonies something like those of Clerambault, but with a different result. He was less impulsive and more intellectual. In order to efface his last scruples he hid them under close reasoning, and with the aid of his colleagues he laboriously proved by a + b that war was the duty of consistent pacifism. His League had every advantage in dwelling on the criminal acts of the enemy; but did not dwell on those in its own camp.

Alexandre Mignon had occasional glimpses of the universal injustice; an intolerable vision, on which he closed his shutters....

In proportion as he was swaddled in his war arguments, it became more difficult for him to disentangle himself, and he persisted more and more. Suppose a child carelessly pulls off the wing of an insect; it is only a piece of nervous awkwardness, but the insect is done for, and the child ashamed and irritated, tears the poor creature to pieces to relieve his own feelings.

The pleasure with which he listened to Clerambault's _mea culpa_ may be imagined; but the effect was surprising. Mignon, already ill at ease, turned on Clerambault, whose self-accusations seemed to point at him, and treated him like an enemy. In the sequel no one was more violent than Mignon against this living remorse.

There were some politicians who would have understood Clerambault better, for they knew as much as he did and perhaps more; but it did not keep them awake at night. They had been used to mental trickery ever since they cut their first teeth, and were expert at _combin.a.z.ione_; they had the illusion of serving their party, cheaply gained by a few compromises here and there!... To think and walk straightforwardly was the one thing impossible to these flabby shufflers, who backed, or advanced in spirals, who dragged their banner in the mud, by way of a.s.suring its triumph, and who, to reach the Capitol, would have crawled up the steps on their stomachs.

Here and there some clear-sighted spirits were hidden, but they were easier to guess at than to see; they were melancholy glow-worms who had put out their lanterns in their fright, so that not a gleam was visible. They certainly had no faith in the war, but neither did they believe in anything against it;--fatalists, pessimists all.

It was clear to Clerambault that when personal energy is lacking, the highest qualities of head and heart only increase the public servitude. The stoicism which submits to the laws of the universe prevents us from resisting those which are cruel, instead of saying to destiny: ”No, thus far, and no farther!” ... If it pushes on you will see the stoic stand politely aside, as he murmurs: ”Please come in!”--Cultivated heroism, the taste for the superhuman, even the inhuman, chokes the soul with its sacrifices, and the more absurd they are, the more sublime they appear--Christians of today, more generous than their Master, render all to Caesar; a cause seems sacred to them from the moment that they are asked to immolate themselves to it. To the ignominy of war they piously kindle the flame of their faith, and throw their bodies on the altar. The people bend their backs, and accept with a pa.s.sive, ironic resignation.... ”No need to borrow trouble.” Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in the end stones do wear down and become mud.

Clerambault tried to talk with one and another of these people but found himself everywhere opposed by the same hidden, half-unconscious resistance. They were armed with the will not to hear, or rather with a remarkable not-will to hear. Their minds were as impervious to contrary arguments as a duck's feathers to water. Men in general are endowed, for their comfort, with a precious faculty; they can make themselves blind and deaf when it does not suit them to see and hear, and when by chance they pick up some inconvenient object, they drop it quickly, and forget it as soon as possible. How many citizens in any country knew the truth about the divided responsibility for the war, or about the ill-omened part played by their politicians, who, themselves deceived, pretended with great success to be ignorant!

If everyone is trying to escape from himself, it is clear, that a man will run faster from someone who, like Clerambault, would help him to recover himself. In order to avoid their own conscience, intelligent, serious, honourable men do not blush to employ the little tricks of a woman or a child trying to get its own way; and dreading a discussion which might unsettle them, they would seize on the first awkward expression used by Clerambault. They would separate it from the context, dress it up if necessary, and with raised voices and eyes starting from their heads, feign an indignation which they ended by feeling sincerely. They would repeat ”_mordicus_,” even after the proof, and if obliged to admit it, would rush off, banging the door after them: ”Can't stand any more of that!” But two, or perhaps ten days after, they would come back and renew the argument, as if nothing had happened.

Some treacherous ones provoked Clerambault to say more than he intended, and having gained their point, exploded with rage. But even the most good-natured told him that he lacked good sense--”good,” of course, meaning ”my way of thinking.”

There were the clever talkers also who, having nothing to fear from a contest of words, began an argument in the flattering hope that they could bring the wandering sheep back to the fold. It was not his main idea that they disputed, so much as its desirability; they would appeal to Clerambault's better side:

”Certainly, of course, I think as you do, or almost as you do; I understand what you mean; ... but you ought to be cautious, my dear friend, not to trouble the consciences of those who have to fight. You cannot always speak the truth, at least not all at once. These fine things may come about ... in fifty years, perhaps. We must wait and not go too fast for nature ...”

”Wait, until the appet.i.tes of the exploiter, and the folly of the exploited are equally exhausted? When the thinking of clear-sighted, better sort gives way to the blindness of coa.r.s.er minds, it goes directly contrary to that nature which it professes to follow, and against the historical destiny which they themselves make it a point of honour to obey. For do we respect the plans of Nature when we stifle one part of its thought, and the higher, at that? The theory which would lop off the strongest forces from life, and bend it before the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude, would result in suppressing the advance-guard, and leaving the army without leaders.... When the boat leans over, must I not throw my weight on the other side to keep an even keel? Or must we all sit down to leeward? Advanced ideas are Nature's weights, intended to counter-balance the heavy stubborn past; without them the boat will upset.... The welcome they will receive is a side issue. Their advocates can expect to be stoned, but whoever has these things in his mind and does not speak them, is a dishonoured man. He is like a soldier in battle, to whom a dangerous message is entrusted; is he free to s.h.i.+rk it?... Why does not everyone understand these things?”

When they saw that persuasion had no effect on Clerambault, they unmasked their batteries and violently taxed him with absurd, criminal pride. They asked him if he thought himself cleverer than anyone else, that he set himself up against the entire nation? On what did he found this overweening self-confidence? Duty consists in being humble, and keeping to one's proper place in the community; when it commands, our duty is to bow to it, and, whether we agree or not, we must carry out its orders. Woe to the rebel against the soul of his country! To be in the right and in opposition to her is to be wrong, and in the hour of action wrong is a crime. The Republic demands obedience from her sons.

”The Republic or death,” said Clerambault ironically. ”And this is a free country? Free, yes, because there have always been, and always will be some souls like mine, which refuse to bend to a yoke which their conscience disavows. We are become a nation of tyrants. There was no great advantage in taking the Bastille. In the old days one ran the risk of perpetual imprisonment if one made so bold as to differ from the Prince--the f.a.got, if you did not agree with the Church; but now you must think with forty millions of men and follow them in their frantic contradictions. One day you must scream: ”Down with England!”