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result! But could that other result really come from man? Was it not

rather man himself who should be changed? To start afresh from where one

was, to continue the evolution that had begun, undoubtedly meant slow

travel and dismal waiting. But how great would be the danger and even the

delay, if one went back without knowing by what road across the whole

chaos of ruins one might regain all the lost time!

"Let us go to bed," at last said Guillaume, smiling. "It's silly of me to

weary you with all these things which don't concern you."

Pierre, in his excitement, was about to reveal his own heart and mind,

and the whole torturing battle within him. But a feeling of shame again

restrained him. His brother only knew him as a believing priest, faithful

to his faith. And so, without answering, he betook himself to his room.

On the following evening, about ten o'clock, while Guillaume and Pierre

sat reading in the study, the old servant entered to announce M. Janzen

and a friend. The friend was Salvat.

"He wished to see you," Janzen explained to Guillaume. "I met him, and

when he heard of your injury and anxiety he implored me to bring him

here. And I've done so, though it was perhaps hardly prudent of me."

Guillaume had risen, full of surprise and emotion at such a visit;

Pierre, however, though equally upset by Salvat's appearance; did not

stir from his chair, but kept his eyes upon the workman.

"Monsieur Froment," Salvat ended by saying, standing there in a timid,

embarrassed way, "I was very sorry indeed when I heard of the worry I'd

put you in; for I shall never forget that you were very kind to me when

everybody else turned me away."

As he spoke he balanced himself alternately on either leg, and

transferred his old felt hat from hand to hand.

"And so I wanted to come and tell you myself that if I took a cartridge

of your powder one evening when you had your back turned, it's the only

thing that I feel any remorse about in the whole business, since it may

compromise you. And I also want to take my oath before you that you've

nothing to fear from me, that I'll let my head be cut off twenty times if

need be, rather than utter your name. That's all that I had in my heart."

He relapsed into silence and embarrassment, but his soft, dreamy eyes,

the eyes of a faithful dog, remained fixed upon Guillaume with an

expression of respectful worship. And Pierre was still gazing at him

athwart the hateful vision which his arrival had conjured up, that of the

poor, dead, errand girl, the fair pretty child lying ripped open under

the entrance of the Duvillard mansion! Was it possible that he was there,

he, that madman, that murderer, and that his eyes were actually moist!

Guillaume, touched by Salvat's words, had drawn near and pressed his

hand. "I am well aware, Salvat," said he, "that you are not wicked at

heart. But what a foolish and abominable thing you did!"

Salvat showed no sign of anger, but gently smiled. "Oh! if it had to be

done again, Monsieur Froment, I'd do it. It's my idea, you know. And,

apart from you, all is well; I am content."

He would not sit down, but for another moment continued talking with

Guillaume, while Janzen, as if he washed his hands of the business,

deeming this visit both useless and dangerous, sat down and turned over

the leaves of a picture book. And Guillaume made Salvat tell him what he

had done on the day of the crime; how like a stray dog he had wandered in

distraction through Paris, carrying his bomb with him, originally in his

tool-bag and then under his jacket; how he had gone a first time to the

Duvillard mansion and found its carriage entrance closed; then how he had

betaken himself first to the Chamber of Deputies which the ushers had

prevented him from entering, and afterwards to the Circus, where the

thought of making a great sacrifice of _bourgeois_ had occurred to him

too late. And finally, how he had at last come back to the Duvillard

mansion, as if drawn thither by the very power of destiny. His tool-bag

was lying in the depths of the Seine, he said; he had thrown it into the

water with sudden hatred of work, since it had even failed to give him

bread. And he next told the story of his flight; the explosion shaking

the whole district behind him, while, with delight and astonishment, he

found himself some distance off, in quiet streets where nothing was as

yet known. And for a month past he had been living in chance fashion, how

or where he could hardly tell, but he had often slept in the open, and

gone for a day without food. One evening little Victor Mathis had given

him five francs. And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for a

night and sent him off at the first sign of peril. A far-spreading, tacit

complicity had hitherto saved him from the police. As for going abroad,

well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description of

his person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting for

him at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding,

rather hasten his arrest? Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there that

he incurred the least risk of capture. Moreover, he no longer had

sufficient energy to flee. A fatalist as he was after his own fashion, he

could not find strength to quit the pavements of Paris, but there awaited

arrest, like a social waif carried chancewise through the multitude as in

a dream.

"And your daughter, little Celine?" Guillaume inquired. "Have you

ventured to go back to see her?"

Salvat waved his hand in a vague way. "No, but what would you have? She's

with Mamma Theodore. Women always find some help. And then I'm done for,

I can do nothing for anybody. It's as if I were already dead." However,

in spite of these words, tears were rising to his eyes. "Ah! the poor

little thing!" he added, "I kissed her with all my heart before I went

away. If she and the woman hadn't been starving so long the idea of that

business would perhaps never have come to me."

Then, in all simplicity, he declared that he was ready to die. If he had

ended by depositing his bomb at the entrance of Duvillard's house, it was

because he knew the banker well, and was aware that he was the wealthiest

of those _bourgeois_ whose fathers at the time of the Revolution had

duped the people, by taking all power and wealth for themselves,--the

power and wealth which the sons were nowadays so obstinately bent in

retaining that they would not even bestow the veriest crumbs on others.

As for the Revolution, he understood it in his own fashion, like an

illiterate fellow who had learnt the little he knew from newspapers and

speeches at public meetings. And he struck his chest with his fist as he

spoke of his honesty, and was particularly desirous that none should

doubt his courage because he had fled.

"I've never robbed anybody," said he, "and if I don't go and hand myself

up to the police, it's because they may surely take the trouble to find

and arrest me. I'm very well aware that my affair's clear enough as

they've found that bradawl and know me. All the same, it would be silly

of me to help them in their work. Still, they'd better make haste, for

I've almost had enough of being tracked like a wild beast and no longer

knowing how I live."

Janzen, yielding to curiosity, had ceased turning over the leaves of the

picture book and was looking at Salvat. There was a smile of disdain in

the Anarchist leader's cold eyes; and in his usual broken French he

remarked: "A man fights and defends himself, kills others and tries to

avoid being killed himself. That's warfare."

These words fell from his lips amidst deep silence. Salvat, however, did

not seem to have heard them, but stammered forth his faith in a long

sentence laden with fulsome expressions, such as the sacrifice of his

life in order that want might cease, and the example of a great action,

in the certainty that it would inspire other heroes to continue the

struggle. And with this certainly sincere faith and illuminism of his

there was blended a martyr's pride, delight at being one of the radiant,

worshipped saints of the dawning Revolutionary Church.

As he had come so he went off. When Janzen had led him away, it seemed as

if the night which had brought him had carried him back into its

impenetrable depths. And then only did Pierre rise from his chair. He was

stifling, and threw the large window of the room wide open. It was a very

mild but moonless night, whose silence was only disturbed by the

subsiding clamour of Paris, which stretched away, invisible, on the

horizon.

Guillaume, according to his habit, had begun to walk up and down. And at

last he spoke, again forgetting that his brother was a priest. "Ah! the

poor fellow! How well one can understand that deed of violence and hope!

His whole past life of fruitless labour and ever-growing want explains

it. Then, too, there has been all the contagion of ideas; the

frequentation of public meetings where men intoxicate themselves with

words, and of secret meetings among comrades where faith acquires

firmness and the mind soars wildly. Ah! I think I know that man well

indeed! He's a good workman, sober and courageous. Injustice has always

exasperated him. And little by little the desire for universal happiness

has cast him out of the realities of life which he has ended by holding

in horror. So how can he do otherwise than live in a dream--a dream of

redemption, which, from circumstances, has turned to fire and murder as

its fitting instruments. As I looked at him standing there, I fancied I

could picture one of the first Christian slaves of ancient Rome. All the

iniquity of olden pagan society, agonising beneath the rottenness born of

debauchery and covetousness, was weighing on his shoulders, bearing him

down. He had come from the dark Catacombs where he had whispered words of

deliverance and redemption with his wretched brethren. And a thirst for

martyrdom consumed him, he spat in the face of Caesar, he insulted the

gods, he fired the pagan temples, in order that the reign of Jesus might

come and abolish servitude. And he was ready to die, to be torn to pieces

by the wild beasts!"

Pierre did not immediately reply. He had already been struck, however, by

the fact that there were undoubted points of resemblance between the

secret propaganda and militant faith of the Anarchists, and certain

practices of the first Christians. Both sects abandon themselves to a new

faith in the hope that the humble may thereby at last reap justice.

Paganism disappears through weariness of the flesh and the need of a more

lofty and pure faith. That dream of a Christian paradise opening up a

future life with a system of compensations for the ills endured on earth,

was the outcome of young hope dawning at its historic hour. But to-day,

when eighteen centuries have exhausted that hope, when the long

experiment is over and the toiler finds himself duped and still and ever

a slave, he once more dreams of getting happiness upon this earth,

particularly as each day Science tends more and more to show him that the

happiness of the spheres beyond is a lie. And in all this there is but

the eternal struggle of the poor and the rich, the eternal question of

bringing more justice and less suffering to the world.

"But surely," Pierre at last replied, "you can't be on the side of those

bandits, those murderers whose savage violence horrifies me. I let you

talk on yesterday, when you dreamt of a great and happy people, of ideal

anarchy in which each would be free amidst the freedom of all. But what

abomination, what disgust both for mind and heart, when one passes from

theory to propaganda and practice! If yours is the brain that thinks,

whose is the hateful hand that acts, that kills children, throws down

doors and empties drawers? Do you accept that responsibility? With your

education, your culture, the whole social heredity behind you, does not

your entire being revolt at the idea of stealing and murdering?"

Guillaume halted before his brother, quivering. "Steal and murder! no!

no! I will not. But one must say everything and fully understand the

history of the evil hour through which we are passing. It is madness

sweeping by; and, to tell the truth, everything necessary to provoke it

has been done. At the very dawn of the Anarchist theory, at the very

first innocent actions of its partisans, there was such stern repression,

the police so grossly ill-treating the poor devils that fell into its

hands, that little by little came anger and rage leading to the most

horrible reprisals. It is the Terror initiated by the _bourgeois_ that

has produced Anarchist savagery. And would you know whence Salvat and his

crime have come? Why, from all our centuries of impudence and iniquity,

from all that the nations have suffered, from all the sores which are now

devouring us, the impatience for enjoyment, the contempt of the strong

for the weak, the whole monstrous spectacle which is presented by our

rotting society!"

Guillaume was again slowly walking to and fro; and as if he were

reflecting aloud he continued: "Ah! to reach the point I have attained,

through how much thought, through how many battles, have I not passed! I

was merely a Positivist, a _savant_ devoted to observation and

experiment, accepting nothing apart from proven facts. Scientifically and

socially, I admitted that simple evolution had slowly brought humanity

into being. But both in the history of the globe and that of human

society, I found it necessary to make allowance for the volcano, the

sudden cataclysm, the sudden eruption, by which each geological phase,

each historical period, has been marked. In this wise one ends by

ascertaining that no forward step has ever been taken, no progress ever

accomplished in the world's history, without the help of horrible