Part 18 (1/2)
”Congratulations, old boy, I see your enemy Bertin is dead.”
The irascible journalist had died in a few hours from an attack of pneumonia. For the last six months he had pursued with fury anyone whom he suspected of working for peace, or even of wis.h.i.+ng for it.
From one step to another he had come to look upon, not only the country, as sacred, but the war also, and among those whom he attacked most fiercely, Clerambault had a foremost place. Bertin could not pardon the resistance to his onslaughts; Clerambault's replies had at first only irritated him, but the disdainful silence with which his latest invectives had been met drove him beside himself. His swollen vanity was deeply wounded, and nothing would have satisfied him but the total annihilation of his adversary. To him Clerambault was not only a personal enemy, but a foe to the public; and in the endeavour to prove this, he made him the centre of a great pacifist plot. At any other time, this would have seemed absurd in everyone's eyes, but now no one had eyes to see with. During the last weeks Bertin's fury and violence had gone beyond anything that he had written before; they were a threat against anyone who was convicted or suspected of the dangerous heresy of Peace.
In this little reunion the news of his death was received with noisy satisfaction; and his funeral oration was preached with an energy that yielded nothing in this line to the efforts of the most famous masters. But Clerambault, absorbed in the newspaper account, scarcely seemed to hear. One of the men standing near, tapped him on the shoulder, and said:
”This ought to be a pleasure to you.”
Clerambault started: ”Pleasure,” he said, ”pleasure?”--he took his hat and went out. It was pitch dark in the street outside, all the lights having been out on account of an air-raid. Before his mind there flowered the fine clear-cut face of a boy of sixteen, with its warm pale skin and dark soft eyes, the curling hair, the mobile, smiling mouth, the tone of the sweet voice--Bertin, as he was when they first met at about the same age. Their long evening talks, the tender confidences, the discussions, the dreams ... for in those days Bertin too was a dreamer, and even his common-sense, his precocious irony did not protect him from impossible hopes and generous schemes for the renovation of the human race. How fair the future had appeared to their youthful eyes! And in those moments of ecstatic vision how their hearts had seemed to melt together in loving friends.h.i.+p ...
And now to see what life had made of them both! This rancorous struggle, Bertin's insane determination to trample under foot those early dreams, and the friend who still cherished them;--and he, too, Clerambault, who had let himself be carried away by the same murderous impulse, trying to render blow for blow, to draw blood from his adversary. Could it be that at the first moment, when he heard of the death of his former friend--he was horrified at himself--but did he not feel it as a relief? What is it that possesses us all? What wicked insanity that turns us against our better selves?...
Lost in these thoughts, he had wandered from the road, and now perceived that he was walking in the wrong direction. He could see the long arms of the search-lights stretching across the sky, hear the tremendous explosions of the Zeppelin bombs over the city, and the distant growlings of the forts in the aerial fight. The enraged people tearing each other to pieces! And to what end? That they all might be as Bertin was now, reach the extinction which awaited all men, and all countries. And those rebels who were planning more violence, other sanguinary idols to set up against the old ones, new G.o.ds of carnage that man carves for himself, in the vain hope of enn.o.bling his deadly instincts!
Good G.o.d! Why do they not see the imbecility of their conduct, in face of the gulf that swallows up each man that dies, all humanity with him? These millions of creatures who have but a moment to live, why do they persist in making it infernal by their atrocious and absurd quarrels about ideas; like wretches who cut each other's throats for a handful of spurious coins thrown to them? We are all victims, under the same sentence, and instead of uniting, we fight among ourselves.
Poor fools! On the brow of each man that pa.s.ses I can see the sweat of agony; efface it by the kiss of peace!
As he thought this, a crowd of people rushed by--men and women, shrieking with joy. ”There's one of them down! One gone! The brutes are burning up!”
And the birds of prey, in the air, rejoiced in their turn over every handful of death that they scattered on the town, like gladiators dying in the arena for the pleasure of some invisible Nero.
Alas, my poor fellow-prisoners!
PART FIVE
_They also serve who only stand and wait_.
MILTON.
Once more Clerambault found himself wrapt in solitude; but this time she appeared to him as never before, calm and beautiful, kindness s.h.i.+ning from her face, with eyes full of affection and soft cool hands which she laid on his fevered forehead. He knew that now she had chosen him for her own.
It is not given to every man to be alone; many groan under it, but with a secret pride. It is the complaint of the ages; and proves, without those who complain being aware of it, that solitude has not marked them for her own; that they are not her familiars. They have pa.s.sed the outer door, and are cooling their heels in the vestibule; but they have not had patience to wait their turn to go in, or else their recriminations have kept them at a distance.
No one can penetrate to the heart of friendly solitude unless they have the gift of G.o.d's grace, or have gained the benefit of trials bravely accepted. Outside the door you must leave the dust of the road, the harsh voices and mean thoughts of the world, egotism, vanity, miserable rebellions against disappointments in love or ambition.--It must be that, like the pure Orphic shades whose golden tablets have transmitted to us their dying voices, ”_The soul flees from the circle of pain_” and presents itself alone and bare ”_to the chill fountain which flows from the lake of Memory_.”
This is the miracle of the resurrection; he who has cast off his mortal coil and thinks that he has lost everything, finds that he is only just entering on his true life. Not only are others as well as himself restored to him, but he sees that up to now he has never really possessed them. Outside in the throng, how can he see over the heads of those who press about him? And it is not possible for him to look long into the eyes of those who influence him, even though they are his dearest, for they are pressed too close against him. There is no time; no perspective. We feel only that our bodies are crushed together, closely entwined by our common destiny, and tossed on the muddy torrent of mult.i.tudinous existence. Clerambault felt that he had not seen his son in any real sense until after his death; and the brief hour in which he and Rosine had recognised each other was one in which the bonds of a baleful delusion had been broken by the force of suffering.
Now that by means of successive eliminations, he had arrived at solitude, he felt withdrawn from the pa.s.sions of the living, but they stood out all the more to him in a kind of lucid intimacy. All, not only his wife and children, but the millions of beings whom he had thought to embrace in an oratorical affection; they all painted themselves on the dark background. On the sombre river of destiny which sweeps humanity away, and which he had confounded with it, appeared millions of struggling living fragments--men; and each had his own personality, each was a whole world of joy and sorrow, dreams and efforts and each was I. I bend over him and it is myself I see; ”I,” say the eyes, and the heart repeats ”I.” My brothers, at last I understand you, for your faults are also mine, even to the fury with which you pursue me; I recognise that also, for it is once more I.
From this time onward Clerambault began to see men, not with the eyes in his head, but with his heart;--no longer with ideas of pacifism, or Tolstosm _(another folly)_, but by seizing the thoughts of his fellows and putting himself in their place. He began to discover afresh the people around him, even those who had been most hostile to him, the intellectuals, and the politicians; and he saw plainly their wrinkles, their white hair, the bitter lines about their mouths, their bent backs, their shaky legs.... Overwrought, nervous, ready to break down,... how much they had aged in six months! The excitement of the fight had kept them up at first; but as it went on and, no matter what the issue, the ruin became plain; each one had his griefs, and each feared to lose the little--but that little, infinitely precious--remained to him. They tried to hide their agony, and clenched their teeth, but all suffered. Doubt had begun to undermine the most confident, ”Hush, not a word! it will kill me if you speak of it.” ...Clerambault, full of pity, thought of Madame Mairet; he must hold his tongue in future;--but it was too late, they all knew now what he thought, and he was a living negation and remorse to them.
Many hated him, but Clerambault no longer resented it; he was almost ready to help them to restore their lost illusions.
These souls were full of a pa.s.sionate faith which they felt to be threatened; and this lent them a quality of tragic, pitiable greatness. With the politicians this was complicated by the absurd trappings of theatrical declamation; with the intellectuals by the obstinacy of mania; but in spite of all, the wounds were visible, you could hear the cry of the heart that clings to belief, that calls for an heroic delusion.
This faith was very touching in some young and simple people; no declamations, no pretensions to knowledge; only the desperate clinging of a devotion which has given all, and in return asks for one word only: ”It is true ... Thou, my beloved, my Country, power divine, still livest, to whom I have offered up my life, and all that I loved!”--One could kneel before those poor little black gowns, before those mothers, wives and sisters; one longed to kiss the thin hands that trembled with the hope and fear of the hereafter, and say: ”Mourn not,--for ye shall be comforted.”
What consolation can one offer, when one does not believe in the ideal for which they lived, and which is killing them?--The long-sought answer finally came to Clerambault, almost unconsciously: ”You must care for men more than for illusion, or even for truth.”