第 33 页

catastrophes. Each advance has meant the sacrifice of millions and

millions of human lives. This of course revolts us, given our narrow

ideas of justice, and we regard nature as a most barbarous mother; but,

if we cannot excuse the volcano, we ought to deal with it when it bursts

forth, like _savants_ forewarned of its possibility.... And then, ah,

then! well, perhaps I'm a dreamer like others, but I have my own

notions."

With a sweeping gesture he confessed what a social dreamer there was

within him beside the methodical and scrupulous _savant_. His constant

endeavour was to bring all back to science, and he was deeply grieved at

finding in nature no scientific sign of equality or even justice, such as

he craved for in the social sphere. His despair indeed came from this

inability to reconcile scientific logic with apostolic love, the dream of

universal happiness and brotherhood and the end of all iniquity.

Pierre, however, who had remained near the open window, gazing into the

night towards Paris, whence ascended the last sounds of the evening of

passionate pleasure, felt the whole flood of his own doubt and despair

stifling him. It was all too much: that brother of his who had fallen

upon him with his scientific and apostolic beliefs, those men who came to

discuss contemporary thought from every standpoint, and finally that

Salvat who had brought thither the exasperation of his mad deed. And

Pierre, who had hitherto listened to them all without a word, without a

gesture, who had hidden his secrets from his brother, seeking refuge in

his supposed priestly views, suddenly felt such bitterness stirring his

heart that he could lie no longer.

"Ah! brother, if you have your dream, I have my sore which has eaten into

me and left me void! Your Anarchy, your dream of just happiness, for

which Salvat works with bombs, why, it is the final burst of insanity

which will sweep everything away! How is it that you can't realise it?

The century is ending in ruins. I've been listening to you all for a

month past. Fourier destroyed Saint-Simon, Proudhon and Comte demolished

Fourier, each in turn piling up incoherences and contradictions, leaving

mere chaos behind them, which nobody dares to sort out. And since then,

Socialist sects have been swarming and multiplying, the more sensible of

them leading simply to dictatorship, while the others indulge in most

dangerous reveries. And after such a tempest of ideas there could indeed

come nothing but your Anarchy, which undertakes to bring the old world to

a finish by reducing it to dust.... Ah! I expected it, I was waiting

for it--that final catastrophe, that fratricidal madness, the inevitable

class warfare in which our civilisation was destined to collapse!

Everything announced it: the want and misery below, the egotism up above,

all the cracking of the old human habitation, borne down by too great a

weight of crime and grief. When I went to Lourdes it was to see if the

divinity of simple minds would work the awaited miracle, and restore the

belief of the early ages to the people, which rebelled through excess of

suffering. And when I went to Rome it was in the _naive_ hope of there

finding the new religion required by our democracies, the only one that

could pacify the world by bringing back the fraternity of the golden age.

But how foolish of me all that was! Both here and there, I simply lighted

on nothingness. There where I so ardently dreamt of finding the salvation

of others, I only sank myself, going down apeak like a ship not a timber

of which is ever found again. One tie still linked me to my fellow-men,

that of charity, the dressing, relieving, and perhaps, in the long run,

healing, of wounds and sores; but that last cable has now been severed.

Charity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice,

to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessity

and can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, an

empty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything,

anything whatever!"

Pierre had risen to his full height, with arms outstretched as if to let

all the nothingness within his heart and mind fall from them. And

Guillaume, distracted by the sight of such a fierce denier, such a

despairing Nihilist as was now revealed to him, drew near, quivering:

"What are you saying, brother! I thought you so firm, so calm in your

belief! A priest to be admired, a saint worshipped by the whole of this

parish! I was unwilling even to discuss your faith, and now it is you who

deny all, and believe in nothing whatever!"

Pierre again slowly stretched out his arms. "There is nothing, I tried to

learn all, and only found the atrocious grief born of the nothingness

that overwhelms me."

"Ah! how you must suffer, Pierre, my little brother! Can religion, then,

be even more withering than science, since it has ravaged you like that,

while I have yet remained an old madman, still full of fancies?"

Guillaume caught hold of Pierre's hands and pressed them, full of

terrified compassion in presence of all the grandeur and horror embodied

in that unbelieving priest who watched over the belief of others, and

chastely, honestly discharged his duty amidst the haughty sadness born of

his falsehood. And how heavily must that falsehood have weighed upon his

conscience for him to confess himself in that fashion, amidst an utter

collapse of his whole being! A month previously, in the unexpansiveness

of his proud solitude, he would never have taken such a course. To speak

out it was necessary that he should have been stirred by many things, his

reconciliation with his brother, the conversations he had heard of an

evening, the terrible drama in which he was mingled, as well as his

reflections on labour struggling against want, and the vague hope with

which the sight of intellectual youth had inspired him. And, indeed, amid

the very excess of his negation was there not already the faint dawn of a

new faith?

This Guillaume must have understood, on seeing how he quivered with

unsatisfied tenderness as he emerged from the fierce silence which he had

preserved so long. He made him sit down near the window, and placed

himself beside him without releasing his hands. "But I won't have you

suffer, my little brother!" he said; "I won't leave you, I'll nurse you.

For I know you much better than you know yourself. You would never have

suffered were it not for the battle between your heart and your mind, and

you will cease to suffer on the day when they make peace, and you love

what you understand." And in a lower voice, with infinite affection, he

went on: "You see, it's our poor mother and our poor father continuing

their painful struggle in you. You were too young at the time, you

couldn't know what went on. But I knew them both very wretched: he,

wretched through her, who treated him as if he were one of the damned;

and she, suffering through him, tortured by his irreligion. When he died,

struck down by an explosion in this very room, she took it to be the

punishment of God. Yet, what an honest man he was, with a good, great

heart, what a worker, seeking for truth alone, and desirous of the love

and happiness of all! Since we have spent our evenings here, I have felt

him coming back, reviving as it were both around and within us; and she,

too, poor, saintly woman, is ever here, enveloping us with love, weeping,

and yet stubbornly refusing to understand. It is they, perhaps, who have

kept me here so long, and who at this very moment are present to place

your hands in mine."

And, indeed, it seemed to Pierre as if he could feel the breath of

vigilant affection which Guillaume evoked passing over them both. There

was again a revival of all the past, all their youth, and nothing could

have been more delightful.

"You hear me, brother," Guillaume resumed. "You must reconcile them, for

it is only in you that they can be reconciled. You have his firm, lofty

brow, and her mouth and eyes of unrealisable tenderness. So, try to bring

them to agreement, by some day contenting, as your reason shall allow,

the everlasting thirst for love, and self-bestowal, and life, which for

lack of satisfaction is killing you. Your frightful wretchedness has no

other cause. Come back to life, love, bestow yourself, be a man!"

Pierre raised a dolorous cry: "No, no, the death born of doubt has swept

through me, withering and shattering everything, and nothing more can

live in that cold dust!"

"But, come," resumed Guillaume, "you cannot have reached such absolute

negation. No man reaches it. Even in the most disabused of minds there

remains a nook of fancy and hope. To deny charity, devotion, the

prodigies which love may work, ah! for my part I do not go so far as

that. And now that you have shown me your sore, why should I not tell you

my dream, the wild hope which keeps me alive! It is strange; but, are

_savants_ to be the last childish dreamers, and is faith only to spring

up nowadays in chemical laboratories?"

Intense emotion was stirring Guillaume; there was battle waging in both

his brain and his heart. And at last, yielding to the deep compassion

which filled him, vanquished by his ardent affection for his unhappy

brother, he spoke out. But he had drawn yet closer to Pierre, even passed

one arm around him; and it was thus embracing him that he, in his turn,

made his confession, lowering his voice as if he feared that someone

might overhear his secret. "Why should you not know it?" he said. "My own

sons are ignorant of it. But you are a man and my brother, and since

there is nothing of the priest left in you, it is to the brother I will

confide it. This will make me love you the more, and perhaps it may do

you good."

Then he told him of his invention, a new explosive, a powder of such

extraordinary force that its effects were incalculable. And he had found

employment for this powder in an engine of warfare, a special cannon,

hurling bombs which would assure the most overwhelming victory to the

army using them. The enemy's forces would be destroyed in a few hours,

and besieged cities would fall into dust at the slightest bombardment. He

had long searched and doubted, calculated, recalculated and experimented;

but everything was now ready: the precise formula of the powder, the

drawings for the cannon and the bombs, a whole packet of precious papers

stored in a safe spot. And after months of anxious reflection he had

resolved to give his invention to France, so as to ensure her a certainty

of victory in her coming, inevitable war with Germany!

At the same time, he was not a man of narrow patriotism; on the contrary

he had a very broad, international conception of the future liberative

civilisation. Only he believed in the initiatory mission of France, and

particularly in that of Paris, which, even as it is to-day, was destined

to be the world's brain to-morrow, whence all science and justice would

proceed. The great idea of liberty and equality had already soared from

it at the prodigious blast of the Revolution; and from its genius and

valour the final emancipation of man would also take its flight. Thus it

was necessary that Paris should be victorious in the struggle in order

that the world might be saved.

Pierre understood his brother, thanks to the lecture on explosives which

he had heard at Bertheroy's. And the grandeur of this scheme, this dream,

particularly struck him when he thought of the extraordinary future which

would open for Paris amidst the effulgent blaze of the bombs. Moreover,

he was struck by all the nobility of soul which had lain behind his

brother's anxiety for a month past. If Guillaume had trembled it was

simply with fear that his invention might be divulged in consequence of

Salvat's crime. The slightest indiscretion might compromise everything;

and that little stolen cartridge, whose effects had so astonished

_savants_, might reveal his secret. He felt it necessary to act in

mystery, choosing his own time, awaiting the proper hour, until when the

secret would slumber in its hiding-place, confided to the sole care of

Mere-Grand, who had her orders and knew what she was to do should he, in

any sudden accident, disappear.

"And, now," said Guillaume in conclusion, "you know my hopes and my

anguish, and you can help me and even take my place if I am unable to

reach the end of my task. Ah! to reach the end! Since I have been shut up

here, reflecting, consumed by anxiety and impatience, there have been

hours when I have ceased to see my way clearly! There is that Salvat,

that wretched fellow for whose crime we are all of us responsible, and

who is now being hunted down like a wild beast! There is also that

insensate and insatiable _bourgeoisie_, which will let itself be crushed

by the fall of the shaky old house, rather than allow the least repair to

it! And there is further that avaricious, that abominable Parisian press,

so harsh towards the weak and little, so fond of insulting those who have

none to defend them, so eager to coin money out of public misfortune, and

ready to spread insanity on all sides, simply to increase its sales!

Where, therefore, shall one find truth and justice, the hand endowed with

logic and health that ought to be armed with the thunderbolt? Would Paris

the conqueror, Paris the master of the nations, prove the justiciar, the

saviour that men await! Ah! the anguish of believing oneself to be the

master of the world's destinies, and to have to choose and decide."

He had risen again quivering, full of anger and fear that human

wretchedness and baseness might prevent the realisation of his dream. And

amidst the heavy silence which fell in the room, the little house

suddenly resounded with a regular, continuous footfall.

"Ah, yes! to save men and love them, and wish them all to be equal and

free," murmured Pierre, bitterly. "But just listen! Barthes's footsteps