Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”Then that is very senseless! Why did you not answer me?”
But she fell back into her former silence, refusing all explanation, and with a stubborn brow kept her gaze fixed steadily on the sky.
”There, come in and go to bed, naughty child. You will tell me to-morrow.”
She did not stir, however; he begged her ten times over to go into the house, but she would not move. He ended by sitting down beside her on the short gra.s.s, through which penetrated the warmth of the pavement beneath.
”But you cannot sleep out of doors. At least answer me. What are you doing here?”
”I am looking.”
And from her large eyes, fixed and motionless, her gaze seemed to mount up among the stars. She seemed wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the pure starry depths of the summer sky.
”Ah, master!” she continued, in a low monotone; ”how narrow and limited is all that you know compared to what there is surely up there. Yes, if I did not answer you it was because I was thinking of you, and I was filled with grief. You must not think me bad.”
In her voice there was a thrill of such tenderness that it moved him profoundly. He stretched himself on the gra.s.s beside her, so that their elbows touched, and they went on talking.
”I greatly fear, my dear, that your griefs are not rational. It gives you pain to think of me. Why so?”
”Oh, because of things that I should find it hard to explain to you; I am not a _savante_. You have taught me much, however, and I have learned more myself, being with you. Besides, they are things that I feel.
Perhaps I might try to tell them to you, as we are all alone here, and the night is so beautiful.”
Her full heart overflowed, after hours of meditation, in the peaceful confidence of the beautiful night. He did not speak, fearing to disturb her, but awaited her confidences in silence.
”When I was a little girl and you used to talk to me about science, it seemed to me that you were speaking to me of G.o.d, your words burned so with faith and hope. Nothing seemed impossible to you. With science you were going to penetrate the secret of the world, and make the perfect happiness of humanity a reality. According to you, we were progressing with giant strides. Each day brought its discovery, its certainty. Ten, fifty, a hundred years more, perhaps, and the heavens would open and we should see truth face to face. Well, the years pa.s.s, and nothing opens, and truth recedes.”
”You are an impatient girl,” he answered simply. ”If ten centuries more be necessary we must only wait for them to pa.s.s.”
”It is true. I cannot wait. I need to know; I need to be happy at once, and to know everything at once, and to be perfectly and forever happy.
Oh, that is what makes me suffer, not to be able to reach at a bound complete knowledge, not to be able to rest in perfect felicity, freed from scruples and doubts. Is it living to advance with tortoiselike pace in the darkness, not to be able to enjoy an hour's tranquillity, without trembling at the thought of the coming anguish? No, no! All knowledge and all happiness in a single day? Science has promised them to us, and if she does not give them to us, then she fails in her engagements.”
Then he, too, began to grow heated.
”But what you are saying is folly, little girl. Science is not revelation. It marches at its human pace, its very effort is its glory.
And then it is not true that science has promised happiness.”
She interrupted him hastily.
”How, not true! Open your books up there, then. You know that I have read them. Do they not overflow with promises? To read them one would think we were marching on to the conquest of earth and heaven. They demolish everything, and they swear to replace everything--and that by pure reason, with stability and wisdom. Doubtless I am like the children. When I am promised anything I wish that it shall be given me at once. My imagination sets to work, and the object must be very beautiful to satisfy me. But it would have been easy not to have promised anything. And above all, at this hour, in view of my eager and painful longing, it would be very ill done to tell me that nothing has been promised me.”
He made a gesture, a simple gesture of protestation and impatience, in the serene and silent night.
”In any case,” she continued, ”science has swept away all our past beliefs. The earth is bare, the heavens are empty, and what do you wish that I should become, even if you acquit science of having inspired the hopes I have conceived? For I cannot live without belief and without happiness. On what solid ground shall I build my house when science shall have demolished the old world, and while she is waiting to construct the new? All the ancient city has fallen to pieces in this catastrophe of examination and a.n.a.lysis; and all that remains of it is a mad population vainly seeking a shelter among its ruins, while anxiously looking for a solid and permanent refuge where they may begin life anew. You must not be surprised, then, at our discouragement and our impatience. We can wait no longer. Since tardy science has failed in her promises, we prefer to fall back on the old beliefs, which for centuries have sufficed for the happiness of the world.”
”Ah! that is just it,” he responded in a low voice; ”we are just at the turning point, at the end of the century, fatigued and exhausted with the appalling acc.u.mulation of knowledge which it has set moving. And it is the eternal need for falsehood, the eternal need for illusion which distracts humanity, and throws it back upon the delusive charm of the unknown. Since we can never know all, what is the use of trying to know more than we know already? Since the truth, when we have attained it, does not confer immediate and certain happiness, why not be satisfied with ignorance, the darkened cradle in which humanity slept the deep sleep of infancy? Yes, this is the aggressive return of the mysterious, it is the reaction against a century of experimental research. And this had to be; desertions were to be expected, since every need could not be satisfied at once. But this is only a halt; the onward march will continue, up there, beyond our view, in the illimitable fields of s.p.a.ce.”
For a moment they remained silent, still motionless on their backs, their gaze lost among the myriads of worlds s.h.i.+ning in the dark sky. A falling star shot across the constellation of Ca.s.siopeia, like a flaming arrow. And the luminous universe above turned slowly on its axis, in solemn splendor, while from the dark earth around them arose only a faint breath, like the soft, warm breath of a sleeping woman.
”Tell me,” he said, in his good-natured voice, ”did your Capuchin turn your head this evening, then?”