species. In the _bourgeois_ caste the power of organisation and
expression of ideas has reached almost monstrous proportions. The
equilibrium of life is destroyed by a bureaucracy of the mind which
thinks itself much superior to the simple worker. Certainly no one can
deny that it has its uses; it collects and classifies thoughts in its
pigeon-holes and puts them to various purposes, but the idea rarely
occurs to it to examine its material and renew the content of thought.
It remains the vain guardian of a demonetised treasure. If only
this mistake were a harmless one; but ideas that are not constantly
confronted with reality, which are not frequently dipped into the
stream of experience, grow dry, and take on a toxic character. They
throw a heavy shadow over the new life, bring on the night and produce
fever. What a stupid thraldom to abstract words! Of what use is it to
dethrone kings and by what right do we jeer at those who die for their
masters, if it is only to put tyrannic entities in their places, which
we adorn with their tinsel? It is much better, to have a flesh and
blood monarch, whom you can control--suppress if necessary--than these
abstractions, these invisible despots, that no one knows now, nor ever
has known. We deal only with the head Eunuchs, the priests of the
hidden Crocodile, as Taine calls him, the wire-pulling ministers who
speak in the idol's name.--Ah! let us tear away the veil and know the
creature hidden inside of us. There is less danger when man shows
frankly as a brute than when he drapes himself in a false and sickly
idealism. He does not eliminate his animal instincts, he only deifies
and tries to explain them, but as this cannot be done without
excessive simplification--according to the law of the mind which
in order to grasp must let go an equal amount--he disguises and
intensifies them in one direction. Everything that departs from the
straight line or that interferes with the strict logic of his mental
edifice, he denies; worse he pulls it up by the roots, and commands
that it be destroyed in the name of sacred principles. It therefore
follows that he cuts down much of the infinite growth of nature, and
allows to stand only the trees of the mind that he chooses--generally
those that flourish in deserts and ruins and which there grow
abnormally. Of such is the crushing predominance of one single
tyrannous form of the Family, of Country, and of the narrow morality
which serves them. The poor creature is proud of it all; and it is he
who is the victim.
Humanity does not dare to massacre itself from interested motives. It
is not proud of its interests, but it does pride itself on its ideas
which are a thousand times more deadly. Man sees his own superiority
in his ideas, and will fight for them; but herein I perceive his
folly, for this warlike idealism is a disease peculiar to him, and its
effects are similar to those of alcoholism; they add enormously to
wickedness and criminality. This sort of intoxication deteriorates
the brain, filling it with hallucinations, to which the living are
sacrificed.
What an extraordinary spectacle, seen from the interior of our skulls!
A throng of phantoms rising from our overexcited brains: Justice,
Liberty, Right, Country.... Our poor brains are all equally honest,
but each accuses the other of insincerity. In this fantastic shadowy
struggle, we can distinguish nothing but the cries and the convulsions
of the human animal, possessed by devils.... Below are clouds charged
with lightnings, where great fierce birds are fighting; the realists,
the men of affairs, swarm and gnaw like fleas in a skin; with open
mouths, and grasping hands, secretly exciting the folly by which they
profit, but in which they do not share....
O Thought! monstrous and splendid flower springing from the humus
of our time-honoured instincts!... In truth, thou art an element
penetrating and impregnating man, but thou dost not spring from him,
thy source is beyond him, and thy strength greater than his. Our
senses are fairly well-adapted to our needs but our thought is not,
it overflows and maddens us. Very, very few among us men can guide
themselves on this torrent; the far greater number are swept along,
at random, trusting to chance. The tremendous power of thought is not
under man's control; he tries to make it serve him, and his greatest
danger is that he believes that it does so; but he is like a child
handling explosives; there is no proportion between these colossal
engines and the purpose for which his feeble hands employ them.
Sometimes they all blow up together....
How guard against this danger? Shall we stifle thought, uproot living
ideas? That would mean the castration of man's brain, the loss of his
chief stimulus in life; but nevertheless the _eau-de-vie_ of his mind
contains a poison which is the more to be dreaded because it is spread
broadcast among the masses, in the form of adulterated drugs....
Rouse thee, Man, and sober thyself! Look about; shake off ideas. Free
thyself from thine own thoughts and learn to govern thy gigantic
phantoms which devour themselves in their rage.... And begin by
taking the capitals from the names of those great goddesses, Country,
Liberty, Right. Come down from Olympus into the manger, and come
without ornaments, without arms, rich only in your beauty, and our
love.... I do not know the gods of Justice and Liberty; I only know
my brother-man, and his acts, sometimes just, sometimes unjust; and I
also know of peoples, all aspiring to real liberty but all deprived of
it, and who all, more or less, submit to oppression.
The sight of this world in a fever-fit would have filled a sage with
the desire to withdraw until the attack was over; but Clerambault was
not a sage. He knew this, and he also knew that it was vain to
speak; but none the less he felt that he must, that he should end by
speaking. He wished to delay the dangerous moment, and his timidity,
which shrank from single combat with the world, sought about him for a
companion in thought. The fight would not be so hard if there were two
or three together.
The first whose feeling he cautiously sounded were some unfortunate
people who, like him, had lost a son. The father, a well-known
painter, had a studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. His name was
Omer Calville and the Clerambaults were neighbourly with him and his
wife, a nice old couple of the middle class, devoted to each other.
They had that gentleness, common to many artists of their day, who had
known Carrière, and caught remote reflections of Tolstoïsm, which,
like their simplicity, appeared a little artificial, for though it
harmonised with their real goodness of heart, the fashion of the time
had added a touch of exaggeration.
Those artists who sincerely profess their religious respect for all
that lives, are less capable than anyone else of understanding the
passions of war. The Calvilles had held themselves outside the
struggle; they did not protest, they accepted it, without acquiescing,
as one accepts sickness, death, or the wickedness of men, with a
dignified sadness.
When Clerambault read them his burning poems they listened politely
and made little response--but strangely enough, at the very time that
Clerambault, cured of his warlike illusions, turned to them, he found
that they had changed places with him. The death of their son had
produced on them the opposite effect. And now they were awkwardly
taking part in the conflict, as if to replace their lost boy. They
snuffed up eagerly all the stench in the papers, and Clerambault found
them actually rejoicing, in their misery, over the assertion that the
United States was prepared to fight for twenty years.
"What would become of France, of Europe, in twenty years?" he tried
to say, but they hastily put this thought away from them with much
irritation, almost as if it were improper to mention, or even to think
of such a thing.
The question was to conquer; at what price? That could be settled
afterwards.--Conquer? Suppose there were no more conquerors left in
France? Never mind, so long as the others are beaten. No, it should
not be that the blood of their son had been shed in vain.
"And to avenge his death, must other innocent lives also be
sacrificed?" thought Clerambault, and in the hearts of these good
people he read the answer: "Why not?" The same idea was in the minds
of all those who, like the Calvilles, had lost through the war what
they held dearest--a son, a husband, or a brother....
"Let the others suffer as we have, we have nothing left to lose." Was
there nothing left? In truth there was one thing only, on which the
fierce egotism of these mourners kept jealous guard; their faith in
the necessity of these sacrifices. Let no one try to shake that, or
doubt that the cause was sacred for which these dear ones fell. The
leaders of the war knew this, and well did they understand how to make
the most of such a lure. No, by these sad fire-sides there was no
place for Clerambault's doubts and feelings of pity.
"They had no pity on us," thought the unhappy ones, "why should we
pity them?"
Some had suffered less, but what characterised nearly all of these
_bourgeois_ was the reverence they had for the great slogans of
the past: "Committee of Public Safety," "The Country in Danger,"
"Plutarch," "_De Viris_," "Horace,"--it seemed impossible for them to
look at the present with eyes of today; perhaps they had no eyes to
see with. Outside of the narrow circle of their own affairs, how many
of our anemic _bourgeoisie_ have the power to think for, themselves,
after they have reached the age of thirty? It would never cross their
minds; their thoughts are furnished to them like their provisions,
only more cheaply. For one or two cents a day they get them from their
papers. The more intelligent, who look for thought in books, do not
give themselves the trouble to seek it also in life, and think that
one is the reflection of the other. Like the prematurely aged, their
members become stiff, and their minds petrified.
In the great flock of those ruminating souls who fed on the past, the
group of bigots pinning its faith to the French Revolution was easily
distinguished. Among the backward _bourgeoisie_ they were reckoned
incendiary in former days;--about the time of the 16th of May, or a
little later. Like quinquagenarians grown stolid and settled, they
looked back with pride to their wild conduct, and lived on the memory
of the emotions of by-gone days. If their mirror showed them no
change, the world had altered around them without their suspecting it,
while they continued to copy their antiquated models. It is a curious
imitative instinct, a slavery of the brain, to remain hypnotised by
some point in the past, instead of trying to follow Proteus in his
course--the life of change. One picks up the old skin which the young
snake has thrown off long ago, and tries to sew it together again.
These pedantic admirers of old revolutions believe that those of the
future will be made on the same lines. They will not see that the new
liberty must have a gait of its own, and will overleap barriers before
which its grandmother of ninety-three stopped, out of breath. They are
also much more vexed by the disrespect of the young people who have
gone by them, than they are by the spiteful yelping of the old whom
they have left behind; this is only natural, for these young folks
make them feel their age, and then it is their turn to yelp.
So it ever shall be; as they grow older there are very few men willing
to let life take its own course, and who are generous enough to look
at the future through the eyes of their juniors, as their own sight
grows dim. The greater number of those who loved liberty in their
youth, want to make a case of it now for the new broods, because they
can no longer fly themselves.
The followers of the national revolutionary cult--in the style of
Danton, or of Robespierre--were the bitterest adversaries of the
internationalism of today; though they did not always agree perfectly
amongst themselves, and the friends of Danton and Robespierre, with
the shadow of the guillotine between them, hurled the epithet of
heretic at each other with the deadliest threats. They did, however,
all agree on one point, and devoted to destruction those who did not
believe that Liberty is shot out of the mouth of cannon, those who
dared to feel the same aversion towards violence, whether it was
exerted by Caesar, Demos, or his satellites, or even if it was in the
name of right and liberty itself. The face underneath is the same, no
matter what mask may be worn.
Clerambault knew several of these fanatics, but there was no point in
discussing with them whether the right, or its counterfeit, were only
on one side in war; it would have been equally sensible to argue about
the Holy Inquisition with a Manichee. Lay religions have their great
seminaries and secret societies where they deposit their doctrinal
treasures with great pride. He who departs from these is
excommunicated--until he in turn belongs to the past, when he becomes
a god, and can excommunicate in future himself.
* * * * *
If Clerambault was not tempted to convert these hardened intellectuals
with their stiff helmet of truth, he knew others who had not the same
proud certainty; far from it. Those who sinned rather through softness
and pure dilettantism--Arsène Asselin was one of these, an amiable
Parisian, unmarried, a man of the world, clever and sceptical; and as
much shocked by a defect in sentiment as in expression. How could he
like extremes of thought, which are the cultures in which the germs of
war develop? His critical and sarcastic spirit inclined him towards
doubt; so there was no reason why he should not have understood
Clerambault's point of view, and he came within an ace of doing so.
His choice depended on some fortuitous circumstances, but from
the moment that he turned his face in the other direction, it was
impossible for him to go back; and the more he stuck in the mud, the
more obstinate he grew. French self-respect cannot bear to admit its
mistakes; it would rather die in defence of them.... But French or
not, how many are there in the world who would have the strength of
mind to say: "I have made a mistake, we must begin all over again."
Better deny the evidence ... "To the bitter end" ... And then break
down.
Alexandre Mignon was a before-the-war pacifist and an old friend
of Clerambault's. He was a _bourgeois_ of about his own age,
intellectual, a member of the University, and justly respected for the
dignity of his life. He should not be confounded with those parlour
pacifists covered with official decorations and grand cordons of
international orders, for whom peace is a gilt-edged investment in
quiet times. For thirty years he had sincerely denounced the dangerous
intrigues of the dishonest politicians and speculators of his country;
he was a member of the League for the Rights of Man, and loved to make
speeches for either cause, as it might happen. It was enough if his
client purported to be oppressed; it did not matter if the victim had
been a would-be oppressor himself. His blundering generosity sometimes
made him ridiculous, but he was always liked. He did not object to the
ridicule, nor did he dread a little unpopularity, as long as he was
surrounded by his own group, whose approbation was necessary to him.
As a member of a group which was independent when they all held
together, he thought that he was an independent person, but this was
not the case. Union is strength they say, but it accustoms us to lean
upon it, as Alexandre Mignon found to his cost.
The death of Jaurès had broken up the group; and lacking one
voice--the first to speak--all the others failed. They waited for the
password that no one dared to give. When the torrent broke over them
these generous but weak men were uncertain, and were carried away by
the first rush. They did not understand nor approve of it, but they
could make no resistance. From the beginning desertions began in
their ranks, produced largely by the terrible speech-makers who
then governed the country--demagogue lawyers, practised in all the
sophistries of republican idealogy: "War for Peace, Lasting Peace at
the End ..." (_Requiescat_) ... In these artifices the poor pacifists
saw a way to get out of their dilemma; it was not a very brilliant
way and they were not proud of it, but it was their only chance. They
hoped to reconcile their pacific principles with the fact of violence
by means of "big talk" which did not sound to them as outrageous as
it really was. To refuse would have been to give themselves up to the
war-like pack, which would have devoured them.
Alexandre Mignon would have had courage to face the bloody jaws if he
had had his little community at his back, but alone it was beyond his
strength. He let things go at first, without committing himself,
but he suffered, passing through agonies something like those of
Clerambault, but with a different result. He was less impulsive and
more intellectual. In order to efface his last scruples he hid
them under close reasoning, and with the aid of his colleagues he
laboriously proved by a + b that war was the duty of consistent
pacifism. His League had every advantage in dwelling on the criminal
acts of the enemy; but did not dwell on those in its own camp.
Alexandre Mignon had occasional glimpses of the universal injustice;
an intolerable vision, on which he closed his shutters....
In proportion as he was swaddled in his war arguments, it became more
difficult for him to disentangle himself, and he persisted more and
more. Suppose a child carelessly pulls off the wing of an insect; it
is only a piece of nervous awkwardness, but the insect is done for,
and the child ashamed and irritated, tears the poor creature to pieces
to relieve his own feelings.
The pleasure with which he listened to Clerambault's _mea culpa_ may
be imagined; but the effect was surprising. Mignon, already ill at
ease, turned on Clerambault, whose self-accusations seemed to point
at him, and treated him like an enemy. In the sequel no one was more
violent than Mignon against this living remorse.
* * * * *
There were some politicians who would have understood Clerambault
better, for they knew as much as he did and perhaps more; but it did
not keep them awake at night. They had been used to mental
trickery ever since they cut their first teeth, and were expert at
_combinazione_; they had the illusion of serving their party, cheaply
gained by a few compromises here and there!... To think and walk
straightforwardly was the one thing impossible to these flabby
shufflers, who backed, or advanced in spirals, who dragged their
banner in the mud, by way of assuring its triumph, and who, to reach
the Capitol, would have crawled up the steps on their stomachs.
* * * * *
Here and there some clear-sighted spirits were hidden, but they were
easier to guess at than to see; they were melancholy glow-worms who
had put out their lanterns in their fright, so that not a gleam was
visible. They certainly had no faith in the war, but neither did they
believe in anything against it;--fatalists, pessimists all.
It was clear to Clerambault that when personal energy is lacking,
the highest qualities of head and heart only increase the public
servitude. The stoicism which submits to the laws of the universe
prevents us from resisting those which are cruel, instead of saying to
destiny: "No, thus far, and no farther!" ... If it pushes on you
will see the stoic stand politely aside, as he murmurs: "Please come
in!"--Cultivated heroism, the taste for the superhuman, even the
inhuman, chokes the soul with its sacrifices, and the more absurd they
are, the more sublime they appear--Christians of today, more generous
than their Master, render all to Caesar; a cause seems sacred to them
from the moment that they are asked to immolate themselves to it. To
the ignominy of war they piously kindle the flame of their faith, and
throw their bodies on the altar. The people bend their backs, and
accept with a passive, ironic resignation.... "No need to borrow
trouble." Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in
the end stones do wear down and become mud.
Clerambault tried to talk with one and another of these people but
found himself everywhere opposed by the same hidden, half-unconscious
resistance. They were armed with the will not to hear, or rather with
a remarkable not-will to hear. Their minds were as impervious to
contrary arguments as a duck's feathers to water. Men in general are
endowed, for their comfort, with a precious faculty; they can make
themselves blind and deaf when it does not suit them to see and hear,
and when by chance they pick up some inconvenient object, they drop it
quickly, and forget it as soon as possible. How many citizens in any
country knew the truth about the divided responsibility for the
war, or about the ill-omened part played by their politicians, who,
themselves deceived, pretended with great success to be ignorant!
If everyone is trying to escape from himself, it is clear, that a man
will run faster from someone who, like Clerambault, would help him to
recover himself. In order to avoid their own conscience, intelligent,
serious, honourable men do not blush to employ the little tricks of a
woman or a child trying to get its own way; and dreading a discussion
which might unsettle them, they would seize on the first awkward
expression used by Clerambault. They would separate it from the
context, dress it up if necessary, and with raised voices and eyes
starting from their heads, feign an indignation which they ended by
feeling sincerely. They would repeat "_mordicus_," even after the
proof, and if obliged to admit it, would rush off, banging the door
after them: "Can't stand any more of that!" But two, or perhaps ten
days after, they would come back and renew the argument, as if nothing
had happened.
Some treacherous ones provoked Clerambault to say more than he
intended, and having gained their point, exploded with rage. But even
the most good-natured told him that he lacked good sense--"good," of
course, meaning "my way of thinking."
There were the clever talkers also who, having nothing to fear from a
contest of words, began an argument in the flattering hope that they
could bring the wandering sheep back to the fold. It was not his main
idea that they disputed, so much as its desirability; they would
appeal to Clerambault's better side:
"Certainly, of course, I think as you do, or almost as you do; I
understand what you mean; ... but you ought to be cautious, my dear
friend, not to trouble the consciences of those who have to fight. You
cannot always speak the truth, at least not all at once. These fine
things may come about ... in fifty years, perhaps. We must wait and
not go too fast for nature ..."
"Wait, until the appetites of the exploiter, and the folly of the
exploited are equally exhausted? When the thinking of clear-sighted,
better sort gives way to the blindness of coarser minds, it goes
directly contrary to that nature which it professes to follow, and
against the historical destiny which they themselves make it a point
of honour to obey. For do we respect the plans of Nature when we
stifle one part of its thought, and the higher, at that? The theory
which would lop off the strongest forces from life, and bend it
before the passions of the multitude, would result in suppressing the
advance-guard, and leaving the army without leaders.... When the boat
leans over, must I not throw my weight on the other side to keep an
even keel? Or must we all sit down to leeward? Advanced ideas are
Nature's weights, intended to counter-balance the heavy stubborn past;
without them the boat will upset.... The welcome they will receive is
a side issue. Their advocates can expect to be stoned, but whoever has
these things in his mind and does not speak them, is a dishonoured
man. He is like a soldier in battle, to whom a dangerous message is
entrusted; is he free to shirk it?... Why does not everyone understand
these things?"