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on it. The bomb appeared to have been prepared in a very rudimentary

fashion; it had been charged with small pieces of iron, and fired by

means of a match, such as a child might have devised. The extraordinary

part of the affair was the formidable power of the central cartridge,

which, although it must have been a small one, had wrought as much havoc

as any thunderbolt. And the question was this: What incalculable power of

destruction might one not arrive at if the charge were increased ten,

twenty or a hundredfold. Embarrassment began, and divergencies of opinion

clouded the issue directly one tried to specify what explosive had been

employed. Of the three experts who had been consulted, one pronounced

himself in favour of dynamite pure and simple; but the two others,

although they did not agree together, believed in some combination of

explosive matters. He, Bertheroy, had modestly declined to adjudicate,

for the fragment submitted to him bore traces of so slight a character,

that analysis became impossible. Thus he was unwilling to make any

positive pronouncement. But his opinion was that one found oneself in

presence of some unknown powder, some new explosive, whose power exceeded

anything that had hitherto been dreamt of. He could picture some unknown

_savant_, or some ignorant but lucky inventor, discovering the formula of

this explosive under mysterious conditions. And this brought him to the

point he wished to reach, the question of all the explosives which are so

far unknown, and of the coming discoveries which he could foresee. In the

course of his investigations he himself had found cause to suspect the

existence of several such explosives, though he had lacked time and

opportunity to prosecute his studies in that direction. However, he

indicated the field which should be explored, and the best way of

proceeding. In his opinion it was there that lay the future. And in a

broad and eloquent peroration, he declared that explosives had hitherto

been degraded by being employed in idiotic schemes of vengeance and

destruction; whereas it was in them possibly that lay the liberating

force which science was seeking, the lever which would change the face of

the world, when they should have been so domesticated and subdued as to

be only the obedient servants of man.

Throughout this familiar discourse Pierre could feel that Francois was

growing impassioned, quivering at thought of the vast horizon which the

master opened up. He himself had become extremely interested, for he

could not do otherwise than notice certain allusions, and connect what he

heard with what he had guessed of Guillaume's anxiety regarding that

secret which he feared to see at the mercy of an investigating

magistrate. And so as he, Pierre, before going off with Francois,

approached Bertheroy to wish him good day, he pointedly remarked:

"Guillaume will be very sorry that he was unable to hear you unfold those

admirable ideas."

The old _savant_ smiled. "Pooh!" said he; "just give him a summary of

what I said. He will understand. He knows more about the matter than I

do."

In presence of the illustrious chemist, Francois preserved the silent

gravity of a respectful pupil, but when he and Pierre had taken a few

steps down the street in silence, he remarked: "What a pity it is that a

man of such broad intelligence, free from all superstition, and anxious

for the sole triumph of truth, should have allowed himself to be

classified, ticketed, bound round with titles and academical functions!

How greatly our affection for him would increase if he took less State

pay, and freed himself from all the grand cordons which tie his hands."

"What would you have!" rejoined Pierre, in a conciliatory spirit. "A man

must live! At the same time I believe that he does not regard himself as

tied by anything."

Then, as they had reached the entrance of the Ecole Normale, the priest

stopped, thinking that his companion was going back to the college. But

Francois, raising his eyes and glancing at the old place, remarked: "No,

no, to-day's Thursday, and I'm at liberty! Oh! we have a deal of liberty,

perhaps too much. But for my own part I'm well pleased at it, for it

often enables me to go to Montmartre and work at my old little table.

It's only there that I feel any real strength and clearness of mind."

His preliminary examinations had entitled him to admission at either the

Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter,

entering its scientific section with No. 1 against his name. His father

had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if

circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own

bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now

preparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took was

in walking to and from Montmartre, or in strolling through the Luxembourg

gardens.

* The purposes of the Ecole Normale have been referred to on

p. 197. At the Ecole Polytechnique young men receive much

of the preliminary training which they require to become

either artillery officers, or military, naval or civil

engineers.--Trans.

From force of habit he now turned towards the latter, accompanied by

Pierre and chatting with him. One found the mildness of springtime there

that February afternoon; for pale sunshine streamed between the trees,

which were still leafless. It was indeed one of those first fine days

which draw little green gems from the branches of the lilac bushes.

The Ecole Normale was still the subject of conversation and Pierre

remarked: "I must own that I hardly like the spirit that prevails there.

Excellent work is done, no doubt, and the only way to form professors is

to teach men the trade by cramming them with the necessary knowledge. But

the worst is that although all the students are trained for the teaching

profession, many of them don't remain in it, but go out into the world,

take to journalism, or make it their business to control the arts,

literature and society. And those who do this are for the most part

unbearable. After swearing by Voltaire they have gone back to

spirituality and mysticism, the last drawing-room craze. Now that a firm

faith in science is regarded as brutish and inelegant, they fancy that

they rid themselves of their caste by feigning amiable doubt, and

ignorance, and innocence. What they most fear is that they may carry a

scent of the schools about with them, so they put on extremely Parisian

airs, venture on somersaults and slang, and assume all the grace of

dancing bears in their eager desire to please. From that desire spring

the sarcastic shafts which they aim at science, they who pretend that

they know everything, but who go back to the belief of the humble, the

_naive_ idealism of Biblical legends, just because they think the latter

to be more distinguished."

Francois began to laugh: "The portrait is perhaps a little overdrawn,"

said he, "still there's truth in it, a great deal of truth."

"I have known several of them," continued Pierre, who was growing

animated. "And among them all I have noticed that a fear of being duped

leads them to reaction against the entire effort, the whole work of the

century. Disgust with liberty, distrust of science, denial of the future,

that is what they now profess. And they have such a horror of the

commonplace that they would rather believe in nothing or the incredible.

It may of course be commonplace to say that two and two make four, yet

it's true enough; and it is far less foolish for a man to say and repeat

it than to believe, for instance, in the miracles of Lourdes."

Francois glanced at the priest in astonishment. The other noticed it and

strove to restrain himself. Nevertheless, grief and anger carried him

away whenever he spoke of the educated young people of the time, such as,

in his despair, he imagined them to be. In the same way as he had pitied

the toilers dying of hunger in the districts of misery and want, so here

he overflowed with contempt for the young minds that lacked bravery in

the presence of knowledge, and harked back to the consolation of

deceptive spirituality, the promise of an eternity of happiness in death,

which last was longed for and exalted as the very sum of life. Was not

the cowardly thought of refusing to live for the sake of living so as to

discharge one's simple duty in being and making one's effort, equivalent

to absolute assassination of life? However, the _Ego_ was always the

mainspring; each one sought personal happiness. And Pierre was grieved to

think that those young people, instead of discarding the past and

marching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowy

metaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps to

the excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen with

human toil.

However, Francois had begun to smile again. "But you are mistaken," said

he; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale. You only seem to know

the Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surely

change if you knew those of the Section of Sciences. It is quite true

that the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among our

literary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by the

idea of that famous bankruptcy of science. This is perhaps due to their

masters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whose

hands they have fallen. And it is still more due to fashion, the whim of

the times which, as you have very well put it, regards scientific truth

as bad taste, something graceless and altogether too brutal for light and

distinguished minds. Consequently, a young fellow of any shrewdness who

desires to please is perforce won over to the new spirit."

"The new spirit!" interrupted Pierre, unable to restrain himself. "Oh!

that is no mere innocent, passing fashion, it is a tactical device and a

terrible one, an offensive return of the powers of darkness against those

of light, of servitude against free thought, truth and justice."

Then, as the young man again looked at him with growing astonishment, he

relapsed into silence. The figure of Monseigneur Martha had risen before

his eyes, and he fancied he could again hear the prelate at the

Madeleine, striving to win Paris over to the policy of Rome, to that

spurious neo-Catholicism which, with the object of destroying democracy

and science, accepted such portions of them as it could adapt to its own

views. This was indeed the supreme struggle. Thence came all the poison

poured forth to the young. Pierre knew what efforts were being made in

religious circles to help on this revival of mysticism, in the mad hope

of hastening the rout of science. Monseigneur Martha, who was

all-powerful at the Catholic University, said to his intimates, however,

that three generations of devout and docile pupils would be needed before

the Church would again be absolute sovereign of France.

"Well, as for the Ecole Normale," continued Francois, "I assure you that

you are mistaken. There are a few narrow bigots there, no doubt. But even

in the Section of Letters the majority of the students are sceptics at

bottom--sceptics of discreet and good-natured average views. Of course

they are professors before everything else, though they are a trifle

ashamed of it; and, as professors, they judge things with no little

pedantic irony, devoured by a spirit of criticism, and quite incapable of

creating anything themselves. I should certainly be astonished to see the

man of genius whom we await come out of their ranks. To my thinking,

indeed, it would be preferable that some barbarian genius, neither well

read nor endowed with critical faculty, or power of weighing and shading

things, should come and open the next century with a hatchet stroke,

sending up a fine flare of truth and reality.... But, as for my

comrades of the Scientific Section, I assure you that neo-Catholicism and

Mysticism and Occultism, and every other branch of the fashionable

phantasmagoria trouble them very little indeed. They are not making a

religion of science, they remain open to doubt on many points; but they

are mostly men of very clear and firm minds, whose passion is the

acquirement of certainty, and who are ever absorbed in the investigations

which continue throughout the whole vast field of human knowledge. They

haven't flinched, they have remained Positivists, or Evolutionists, or

Determinists, and have set their faith in observation and experiment to

help on the final conquest of the world."

Francois himself was growing excited, as he thus confessed his faith

while strolling along the quiet sunlit garden paths. "The young indeed!"

he resumed. "Do people know them? It makes us laugh when we see all sorts

of apostles fighting for us, trying to attract us, and saying that we are

white or black or grey, according to the hue which they require for the

triumph of their particular ideas! The young, the real ones, why, they're

in the schools, the laboratories and the libraries. It's they who work

and who'll bring to-morrow to the world. It's not the young fellows of

dinner and supper clubs, manifestoes and all sorts of extravagances. The

latter make a great deal of noise, no doubt; in fact, they alone are

heard. But if you knew of the ceaseless efforts and passionate striving

of the others, those who remain silent, absorbed in their tasks. And I

know many of them: they are with their century, they have rejected none

of its hopes, but are marching on to the coming century, resolved to

pursue the work of their forerunners, ever going towards more light and

more equity. And just speak to them of the bankruptcy of science. They'll

shrug their shoulders at the mere idea, for they know well enough that

science has never before inflamed so many hearts or achieved greater