第 29 页

conquests! It is only if the schools, laboratories and libraries were

closed, and the social soil radically changed, that one would have cause

to fear a fresh growth of error such as weak hearts and narrow minds hold

so dear!"

At this point Francois's fine flow of eloquence was interrupted. A tall

young fellow stopped to shake hands with him; and Pierre was surprised to

recognise Baron Duvillard's son Hyacinthe, who bowed to him in very

correct style. "What! you here in our old quarter," exclaimed Francois.

"My dear fellow, I'm going to Jonas's, over yonder, behind the

Observatory. Don't you know Jonas? Ah! my dear fellow, he's a delightful

sculptor, who has succeeded in doing away with matter almost entirely. He

has carved a figure of Woman, no bigger than the finger, and entirely

soul, free from all baseness of form, and yet complete. All Woman,

indeed, in her essential symbolism! Ah! it's grand, it's overpowering. A

perfect scheme of aesthetics, a real religion!"

Francois smiled as he looked at Hyacinthe, buttoned up in his long

pleated frock-coat, with his made-up face, and carefully cropped hair and

beard. "And yourself?" said he, "I thought you were working, and were

going to publish a little poem, shortly?"

"Oh! the task of creating is so distasteful to me, my dear fellow! A

single line often takes me weeks.... Still, yes, I have a little poem

on hand, 'The End of Woman.' And you see, I'm not so exclusive as some

people pretend, since I admire Jonas, who still believes in Woman. His

excuse is sculpture, which, after all, is at best such a gross

materialistic art. But in poetry, good heavens, how we've been

overwhelmed with Woman, always Woman! It's surely time to drive her out

of the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and lofty

enough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexual

questions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? The

world would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"

Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with

the effect which he had produced on the others.

"So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois.

"He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes

together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was always

making a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending to

disdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd use

his cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! He

was Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, rolled into one!

And you can see what he has become with it all: a humbug with a diseased

mind!"

"It's a terrible symptom," muttered Pierre, "when through _ennui_ or

lassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happy

and privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers."

Francois had resumed his walk, going down towards the ornamental water,

where some children were sailing their boats. "That fellow is simply

grotesque," he replied; "but how would you have sane people give any heed

to that mysticism, that awakening of spirituality which is alleged by the

same _doctrinaires_ who started the bankruptcy of science cry, when after

so brief an evolution it produces such insanity, both in art and

literature? A few years of influence have sufficed; and now Satanism,

Occultism and other absurdities are flourishing; not to mention that,

according to some accounts, the Cities of the Plains are reconciled with

new Rome. Isn't the tree judged by its fruits? And isn't it evident that,

instead of a renascence, a far-spreading social movement bringing back

the past, we are simply witnessing a transitory reaction, which many

things explain? The old world would rather not die, and is struggling in

a final convulsion, reviving for a last hour before it is swept away by

the overflowing river of human knowledge, whose waters ever increase. And

yonder, in the future, is the new world, which the real young ones will

bring into existence, those who work, those who are not known, who are

not heard. And yet, just listen! Perhaps you will hear them, for we are

among them, in their 'quarter.' This deep silence is that of the labour

of all the young fellows who are leaning over their work-tables, and day

by day carrying forward the conquest of truth."

So saying Francois waved his hand towards all the day-schools and

colleges and high schools beyond the Luxembourg garden, towards the

Faculties of Law and Medicine, the Institute and its five Academies, the

innumerable libraries and museums which made up the broad domain of

intellectual labour. And Pierre, moved by it all, shaken in his theories

of negation, thought that he could indeed hear a low but far-spreading

murmur of the work of thousands of active minds, rising from

laboratories, studies and class, reading and lecture rooms. It was not

like the jerky, breathless trepidation, the loud clamour of factories

where manual labour toils and chafes. But here, too, there were sighs of

weariness, efforts as killing, exertion as fruitful in its results. Was

it indeed true that the cultured young were still and ever in their

silent forge, renouncing no hope, relinquishing no conquest, but in full

freedom of mind forging the truth and justice of to-morrow with the

invincible hammers of observation and experiment?

Francois, however, had raised his eyes to the palace clock to ascertain

the time. "I'm going to Montmartre," he said; "will you come part of the

way with me?"

Pierre assented, particularly as the young man added that on his way he

meant to call for his brother Antoine at the Museum of the Louvre. That

bright afternoon the Louvre picture galleries were steeped in warm and

dignified quietude, which one particularly noticed on coming from the

tumult and scramble of the streets. The majority of the few people one

found there were copyists working in deep silence, which only the

wandering footsteps of an occasional tourist disturbed. Pierre and

Francois found Antoine at the end of the gallery assigned to the

Primitive masters. With scrupulous, almost devout care he was making a

drawing of a figure by Mantegna. The Primitives did not impassion him by

reason of any particular mysticism and ideality, such as fashion pretends

to find in them, but on the contrary, and justifiably enough, by reason

of the sincerity of their ingenuous realism, their respect and modesty in

presence of nature, and the minute fidelity with which they sought to

transcribe it. He spent days of hard work in copying and studying them,

in order to learn strictness and probity of drawing from them--all that

lofty distinction of style which they owe to their candour as honest

artists.

Pierre was struck by the pure glow which a sitting of good hard work had

set in Antoine's light blue eyes. It imparted warmth and even

feverishness to his fair face, which was usually all dreaminess and

gentleness. His lofty forehead now truly looked like a citadel armed for

the conquest of truth and beauty. He was only eighteen, and his story was

simply this: as he had grown disgusted with classical studies and been

mastered by a passion for drawing, his father had let him leave the Lycee

Condorcet when he was in the third class there. Some little time had then

elapsed while he felt his way and the deep originality within him was

being evolved. He had tried etching on copper, but had soon come to wood

engraving, and had attached himself to it in spite of the discredit into

which it had fallen, lowered as it had been to the level of a mere trade.

Was there not here an entire art to restore and enlarge? For his own part

he dreamt of engraving his own drawings, of being at once the brain which

conceives and the hand which executes, in such wise as to obtain new

effects of great intensity both as regards perception and touch. To

comply with the wishes of his father, who desired each of his sons to

have a trade, he earned his bread like other engravers by working for the

illustrated newspapers. But, in addition to this current work, he had

already engraved several blocks instinct with wonderful power and life.

They were simply copies of real things, scenes of everyday existence, but

they were accentuated, elevated so to say, by the essential line, with a

maestria which on the part of so young a lad fairly astonished one.

"Do you want to engrave that?" Francois asked him, as he placed his copy

of Mantegna's figure in his portfolio.

"Oh! no, that's merely a dip into innocence, a good lesson to teach one

to be modest and sincere. Life is very different nowadays."

Then, while walking along the streets--for Pierre, who felt growing

sympathy for the two young fellows, went with them in the direction of

Montmartre, forgetful of all else,--Antoine, who was beside him, spoke

expansively of his artistic dreams.

"Colour is certainly a power, a sovereign source of charm, and one may,

indeed, say that without colour nothing can be completely represented.

Yet, singularly enough, it isn't indispensable to me. It seems to me that

I can picture life as intensely and definitely with mere black and white,

and I even fancy that I shall be able to do so in a more essential

manner, without any of the dupery which lies in colour. But what a task

it is! I should like to depict the Paris of to-day in a few scenes, a few

typical figures, which would serve as testimony for all time. And I

should like to do it with great fidelity and candour, for an artist only

lives by reason of his candour, his humility and steadfast belief in

Nature, which is ever beautiful. I've already done a few figures, I will

show them to you. But ah! if I only dared to tackle my blocks with the

graver, at the outset, without drawing my subject beforehand. For that

generally takes away one's fire. However, what I do with the pencil is a

mere sketch; for with the graver I may come upon a find, some unexpected

strength or delicacy of effect. And so I'm draughtsman and engraver all

in one, in such a way that my blocks can only be turned out by myself. If

the drawings on them were engraved by another, they would be quite

lifeless.... Yes, life can spring from the fingers just as well as

from the brain, when one really possesses creative power."

They walked on, and when they found themselves just below Montmartre, and

Pierre spoke of taking a tramcar to return to Neuilly, Antoine, quite

feverish with artistic passion, asked him if he knew Jahan, the sculptor,

who was working for the Sacred Heart. And on receiving a negative reply,

he added: "Well, come and see him for a moment. He has a great future

before him. You'll see an angel of his which has been declined."

Then, as Francois began to praise the angel in question, Pierre agreed to

accompany them. On the summit of the height, among all the sheds which

the building of the basilica necessitated, Jahan had been able to set up

a glazed workshop large enough for the huge angel ordered of him. His

three visitors found him there in a blouse, watching a couple of

assistants, who were rough-hewing the block of stone whence the angel was

to emerge. Jahan was a sturdy man of thirty-six, with dark hair and

beard, a large, ruddy mouth and fine bright eyes. Born in Paris, he had

studied at the Fine Art School, but his impetuous temperament had

constantly landed him in trouble there.

"Ah! yes," said he, "you've come to see my angel, the one which the

Archbishop wouldn't take. Well, there it is."

The clay model of the figure, some three feet high, and already drying,

looked superb in its soaring posture, with its large, outspread wings

expanding as if with passionate desire for the infinite. The body, barely

draped, was that of a slim yet robust youth, whose face beamed with the

rapture of his heavenly flight.

"They found him too human," said Jahan. "And after all they were right.

There's nothing so difficult to conceive as an angel. One even hesitates

as to the sex; and when faith is lacking one has to take the first model

one finds and copy it and spoil it. For my part, while I was modelling

that one, I tried to imagine a beautiful youth suddenly endowed with

wings, and carried by the intoxication of his flight into all the joy of

the sunshine. But it upset them, they wanted something more religious,

they said; and so then I concocted that wretched thing over there. After

all, one has to earn one's living, you know."

So saying, he waved his hand towards another model, the one for which his

assistants were preparing the stone. And this model represented an angel

of the correct type, with symmetrical wings like those of a goose, a

figure of neither sex, and commonplace features, expressing the silly

ecstasy that tradition requires.

"What would you have?" continued Jahan. "Religious art has sunk to the

most disgusting triteness. People no longer believe; churches are built

like barracks, and decorated with saints and virgins fit to make one

weep. The fact is that genius is only the fruit of the social soil; and a

great artist can only send up a blaze of the faith of the time he lives

in. For my part, I'm the grandson of a Beauceron peasant. My father came

to Paris to set himself up in business as a marble worker for tombstones

and so forth, just at the top of the Rue de la Roquette. It was there I

grew up. I began as a workman, and all my childhood was spent among the

masses, in the streets, without ever a thought coming to me of setting

foot in a church. So few Parisians think of doing so nowadays. And so

what's to become of art since there's no belief in the Divinity or even

in beauty? We're forced to go forward to the new faith, which is the

faith in life and work and fruitfulness, in all that labours and