believed to be a friendly hand. A well-known writer, a colleague of
Perrotin's, a serious honourable man, and one always on good terms
with him, had denounced him publicly and without hesitation. Though he
had known Clerambault long enough to have no doubt as to the purity
of his intentions, he held him up as a man dishonoured. An historian,
well used to the manipulation of text, he seized upon detached phrases
of Clerambault's pamphlet and brandished them as an act of treason. A
personal letter would not have satisfied his virtuous indignation; he
chose a loud "yellow journal," a laboratory of blackmail despised by a
million Frenchmen, who nevertheless swallowed all its humbug with open
mouths.
"I can't believe it," stammered Clerambault, who felt helpless before
this unexpected hostility.
"There is no time to be lost," declared Camus, "you must answer."
"Answer? But what can I say?"
"The first thing, of course, is to deny it as a base invention."
"But it is not an invention," said Clerambault, looking Camus in the
face. It was the turn of the latter to look as if he had been struck
by lightning.
"You say it is not,--not?" he stammered.
"I wrote the pamphlet," said Clerambault, "but the meaning has been
distorted by this article."
Camus could not wait for the end of the sentence, but began to howl:
"You wrote a thing like that!... You, a man like you!"
Clerambault tried to calm his brother-in-law, begging him not to judge
until he knew all; but Camus would do nothing but shout, calling him
crazy, and screaming: "I don't know anything about all that. Have you
written against the war, or the country. Yes, or no?"
"I wrote that war is a crime, and that all countries are stained by
it...."
Without allowing Clerambault to explain himself farther, Camus sprang
at him, as if he meant to shake him by the collar; but restraining
himself, he hissed in his face that he was the criminal, and deserved
to be tried by court-martial at once.
The raised voices brought the servant to listen at the door, and
Madame Clerambault ran in, trying to appease her brother, in a high
key. Clerambault volunteered to read the obnoxious pamphlet to Camus,
but in vain, as he refused furiously, declaring that the papers had
told him all he wanted to know about such filth. (He said all papers
were liars, but acted on their falsehoods, none the less.) Then, in a
magisterial tone, he called on Clerambault to sit down and write on
the spot a public recantation. Clerambault shrugged his shoulders,
saying that he was accountable to nothing but his own conscience--that
he was free.
"No!" roared Camus.
"Do you mean that I am not free to say what I think?"
"You are not free, you have no right to say such things," cried the
exasperated Camus. "Your country has claims on you, and your family
first of all. They ought to shut you up."
He insisted that the letter should be written that very moment, but
Clerambault simply turned his back on him. So he left, banging the
door after him, and vowing that he would never set foot there again,
that all was over between them.
After this poor Clerambault had to submit to a string of questions
from his wife who, without knowing what he had done, lamented his
imprudence and asked with tears: "Why, why he had not kept silent? Had
they not trouble enough? What was this mania he had for talking? And
particularly for talking differently from other people?"
While this was going on, Rosine came back from an errand, and
Clerambault appealed to her, telling her in a confused manner of the
painful scene that had just taken place, and begging her to sit down
there by his table and let him read the article to her. Without even
taking off her hat and gloves, Rosine did sit down near him, and
listened sensibly, sweetly, and when he had done, kissed him and said:
"Yes, I think it's fine,--but, dear Papa, why did you do it?"
Clerambault was completely taken aback.
"What? You ask why I did it? Don't you think it is right?"
"I don't know. Yes, I believe it must be right since you say so....
But perhaps it was not necessary to write it...."
"Not necessary? But if it is right, it must be necessary."
"But if it makes such a fuss!"
"That is no reason against it."
"But why stir people up?"
"Look here, my little girl, you think as I do about this, do you not?"
"Yes, Papa, I suppose so...."
"You only suppose?... Come now, you detest the war, as I do, and wish
it were over; everything that I wrote there I have said to you, and
you agreed...."
"Yes, Papa."
"Then you think I am right?"
"Yes, Papa." She put her arms around his neck, "but we don't have to
write everything that we think."
Clerambault, much depressed, tried to explain what seemed so evident
to him. Rosine listened, and answered quietly, but it was clear that
she did not understand. When he had finished, she kissed him again and
said:
"I have told you what I think, Papa, but it is not for me to judge.
You know much better than I."
With that she went into her room, smiling at her father, and not
in the least suspecting that she had just taken away from him his
greatest support.
This abusive attack was not the only one, for when the bell was once
tied on the cat it never ceased to ring. However, the noise would
have been drowned in the general tumult, if it had not been for
a persistent voice which led the chorus of malignity against
Clerambault.
Unhappily it was the voice of one of his oldest friends, the author
Octave Bertin; for they had been school-fellows at the Lycée Henri IV.
Bertin, a little Parisian, quick-witted, elegant, and precocious, had
welcomed the awkward enthusiastic advances of the overgrown youth
fresh from the country,--ungainly in body and mind, his clothes
always too short for his long legs and arms, a mixture of innocence,
simplicity, ignorance, and bad taste, always emphatic, with
overflowing spirits, yet capable of the most original sallies, and
striking images. None of this had escaped the sharp malicious eye of
young Bertin; neither Clerambault's absurdities nor the treasures of
his mind, and after thinking him over he had decided to make a friend
of him. Clerambault's unfeigned admiration had something to do with
this decision. For several years they shared the superabundance of
their youthful ideas. Both dreamed of being artists; they read
their literary attempts to each other, and engaged in interminable
discussions, in which Bertin always had the upper hand. He was apt to
be first in everything. Clerambault never thought of contesting his
superiority; he was much more likely to use his fists to convince
anyone who denied it. He stood in open-mouthed admiration before his
brilliant friend, who won all the University prizes without seeming to
work for them, and whom his teachers thought destined to the highest
honours--official and academic, of course.
Bertin was of the same mind as his teachers; he was in haste to
succeed, and believed that the fruit of triumph has more flavour when
one's teeth are young enough to bite into it. He had scarcely left the
University when he found means to publish in a great Parisian review
a series of essays which immediately brought him to the notice of the
general public. And without pausing to take breath, he produced
one after another a novel in the style of d'Annunzio, a comedy
in Rostand's vein, a book on love, another on reforms in the
Constitution, a study of Modernism, a monograph on Sarah Bernhardt,
and, finally, the "Dialogues of the Living." The sarcastic but
measured spirit of this last work obtained for him the position of
column writer on one of the leading dailies. Having thus entered
journalism he stayed in the profession, and became one of the
ornaments of the Paris of Letters, while Clerambault's name was still
unknown. The latter had been slow in gaining the mastery over his
inward resources, and was so occupied in struggles with himself that
he had no time for the conquest of the public. His first works, which
were published with difficulty, were not read by more than a dozen
people. It is only fair to Bertin to say that he was one of the dozen,
and that he appreciated Clerambault's talents. He was even ready
to say so, when opportunity served, and as long as Clerambault was
unknown, he took pleasure in defending him. It is true that he would
sometimes add a friendly and patronising piece of advice to his
praises, which, if Clerambault did not always follow, he received with
the old affectionate respect.
In a little while Clerambault became known, and even celebrated.
Bertin, somewhat surprised, sincerely pleased by his friend's
success--the least bit vexed by it, perhaps--intimated that he thought
it exaggerated, and that the better Clerambault was the obscure
Clerambault before his reputation was made. He would even undertake to
prove this to Clerambault himself, sometimes, who neither agreed nor
disagreed. For how could he tell, who thought very little about it,
his head being always full of some new work? The two old comrades
remained on excellent terms, but little by little they began to see
less of one another.
The war had made Bertin a furious jingo. In the old days at school
he used to scandalise Clerambault's provincial mind by his impudent
disrespect for all values, political and social--country, morality,
and religion. In his literary works he continued to parade his
anarchism, but in a sceptical, worldly, bored sort of manner which was
to the taste of his rich clientèle. Now, before this clientèle and the
rest of those who purveyed to it, his brethren of the popular press
and theatres, the contemptible Parny's and Crebillon Jr.'s of the day,
he suddenly assumed the attitude of Brutus immolating his sons. It is
true he himself had none, but perhaps that was a regret to him.
Clerambault did not dream of finding fault with him for these
opinions; but he did not dream either that his old friend and
amoralist would come out against him as the defender of his outraged
country. But was it a question simply of his country?
There was a personal note in the furious diatribe that Bertin hurled
at him that Clerambault could not understand. In the general mental
confusion, Bertin, naturally shocked by Clerambault's ideas, might
have remonstrated with him frankly, face to face; but without any
warning, he began by a public denunciation. On the first page of his
paper appeared an article of the utmost virulence; he attacked, not
only his ideas, but his character, speaking of Clerambault's tragic
struggle with his conscience as an attack of literary megalomania,
brought on by undeserved success. It seemed as if he expressly chose
words likely to wound Clerambault, and he ended by summoning him to
retract his errors in a tone of the most insulting superiority.
The violence of this article, from so well-known an author, made an
event in Paris of the "Clerambault Case." It occupied the reporters
for more than a week, a long time for these feather-headed gentry.
Hardly anyone read what Clerambault had actually written; it was not
worth while. Bertin had read it, and newspaper men do not make a
practice of taking unnecessary trouble; besides it was not a question
of reading, but of judgment. A strange sort of Sacred Union was formed
over Clerambault; clericals and Jacobins came together to condemn him,
and the man whom they admired yesterday was dragged in the mud today.
The national poet became at once a public enemy, and all the myrmidons
of the press attacked him with heroic invective. The greater number
of them united bad faith with a remarkable ignorance. Very few knew
Clerambault's works, they scarcely knew his name or the titles of his
books, but that no more kept them from disparaging him now than it had
hindered them from praising him when he was the fashion. Now, in their
eyes, everything that he had written was tainted with "bochism,"
though all their quotations were inexact. In the excitement of his
investigation, one of them foisted upon Clerambault the authorship of
another man's book, the author of which, pale with fright, protested
with indignation, dissociating himself entirely from his dangerous
fellow-author. Uneasy at their intimacy with Clerambault, some of his
friends did not wait to have it recalled, but met it halfway, writing
"open letters," to which the papers gave a conspicuous place. Some,
like Bertin, coupled their public censure with a demand that he should
confess himself in the wrong, and others, less considerate, cast him
off in the bitterest and most insulting terms. Clerambault was crushed
by all this animosity; it could not arise solely from his articles,
it must have been long dormant in the hearts of these men. And why so
much hidden hatred?--What had he done to them?... A successful artist
does not suspect that besides the smiles of those around there are
also teeth, only waiting for the opportunity to bite.
Clerambault did his best to conceal the insults in the papers from his
wife. Like a schoolboy trying to spirit away his bad marks he watched
for the post so as to suppress the obnoxious sheets, but at last their
venom seemed to poison the very air. Among their friends in society,
Madame Clerambault and Rosine had to bear many painful allusions,
small affronts, even insults. With the instinct of justice which
characterises the human beast, and especially the female, they were
held responsible for Clerambault's ideas, though his wife and daughter
knew little of them and disapproved what they knew. (Their critics did
not understand them either.) The more polite were reticent, taking
pains not to mention Clerambault's name, or ask after him,--you
don't speak of ropes, you know, in the house of a man who has been
hanged.... And this calculated silence was worse than open abuse.
You would have said that Clerambault had done something dishonest or
immodest. Madame Clerambault would come back full of bitterness, and
Rosine suffered too, though she pretended not to mind. One day, a
friend, whom they met in the street, crossed to the other side,
turning away her head so as to avoid bowing to them; and Rosine was
excluded from a benevolent society where she had worked hard for
years.
Women were particularly active in this patriotic reprobation.
Clerambault's appeal for reconciliation and pardon had no more violent
opponents--and it was the same everywhere. The tyranny of public
opinion is an engine of oppression, invented by the modern State, and
much more despotic than itself. In times of war certain women have
proved, its most ferocious instruments. Bertrand Russell cites the
case of an unfortunate man, conductor on a tramway, married, with
children, and honourably discharged from the army, who killed himself
on account of the insults and persecutions of the women of Middlesex.
In all countries, poor wretches like him have been pursued, crazed,
driven to death, by these war-maddened Bacchantes. This ought not to
surprise us; if we have not foreseen this madness, it is because we,
like Clerambault hitherto, have lived on comfortable accepted opinions
and idealisations. In spite of the efforts of woman to approximate the
fallacious ideal imagined by man for his pleasure and tranquillity,
the woman of the present day, weak, cut-off, trimmed into shape as she
is, comes much closer than man to the primitive earth. She is at the
source of our instincts, and more richly endowed with forces, which
are neither moral nor immoral but simply animal. If love is her chief
function, it is not the passion sublimated by reason but love in the
raw state, splendidly blind, mingling selfishness and sacrifice,
equally irresponsible, and both subservient to the deep purposes of
the race. The tender, flowery embellishments with which the couple
always try to veil the forces that affright them, are like arches of
tropical vines over a rushing stream; their object is to deceive. Man
could not bear life if his feeble soul saw the great forces, as they
are, that carry him along.
His ingenious cowardice strives to adapt them mentally to his
weakness; he lies about love, about hatred, about his gods, and above
all he is false about woman and about Country. If the naked truth
were shown to him, he would fear to fall into convulsions, and so
he substitutes the pale chromos of his idealism. The war had broken
through the thin disguise, and Clerambault saw the cruel beast without
the mantle of feline courtesy in which civilisation drapes itself.
Among Clerambault's former friends, the most tolerant were those
belonging to the political world. Deputies, Ministers, past or future;
accustomed to drive the human flock, they know just what it is worth.
Clerambault's daring seemed merely foolish to them. What they thought
in their hearts was twenty times worse, but they thought it silly to
speak it, dangerous to write it, more dangerous still to answer it.
You make a thing known when you attack it, and condemnation only gives
it greater importance. Their best advice would have been to keep
silent about these unlucky articles, which the sleepy, stumbling
public would have neglected if left to itself. This was the course
usually followed by Germany during the war; if the authorities did
not see their way clear to suppress rebellious writers, they hid them
under some flowery humbug.
The political spirit of the French Democracy, however, is more
outspoken and more narrow-minded; silence is unknown to it, and far
from concealing its hatreds, it spits them forth from the house-tops.
Like that of Rude, French liberty opens her mouth and bawls. Anyone
who differs from her opinion of the moment is declared a traitor
forthwith; there are always some yellow journals to tell at what price
the independent voice was bought, and twenty fanatics to stir up the
crowd against it. Once started, there is nothing to do but wait until
the fit has passed off; but in the meantime, look out for yourself!
Prudent folks join in the hue and cry from a safe distance.
The editor of the magazine which had been proud to publish
Clerambault's poems for years whispered to him that all this row was
absurd--that there was really nothing in his "case," but that on
account of his subscribers he should have to scuttle him. He was
awfully sorry ... hoped there was no hard feeling?... In short,
without being rude, he made the whole thing look ridiculous.
Alas for human nature! Even Perrotin laughed at Clerambault in a
brilliantly sarcastic interview, and considered himself to be still
his friend at bottom.
In his own house Clerambault now found himself without support. His
old helpmate, who for thirty years had seen only through his eyes,
repeating his words without even understanding them, was now afraid,
indignant at what he had written, reproaching him bitterly for the
scandal, the harm done to the name of the family, to the memory of his
dead son, to the sacred cause of vengeance, to his Country.
Rosine was always loving, but she had ceased to understand him. A
woman's mind makes but few demands, if her heart is satisfied; so it
was enough for her that her father was no longer one of the haters,
that he remained compassionate and kind. She did not want him to
translate his sentiments into theories, nor above all, to proclaim
them. She had much affectionate common-sense, and as long as matters
of feeling were safe, she did not care for the rest, not understanding
the inflexible exigence of logic which pushes a man to the utmost
consequences of his faith.
She had ceased to understand, and her hour had passed--the time when,
without knowing it, she had accepted and fulfilled a maternal mission
towards her father. When he was weak, broken, and uncertain, she had
sheltered him under her wing, rescued his conscience, and given back
to him the torch which he had let fall from his hand. Now her part was
accomplished, she was once more the loving "little daughter" somewhat
in the shade, who looks on at the great events of life with eyes
that are almost indifferent, and in the depths of her soul treasured
devoutly the afterglow of the wonderful hour through which she had
lived--all uncomprehending.
It was about this time that a young man home on leave came to see
Clerambault. Daniel Favre was a friend of the family, an engineer like
his father before him. He had long been an admirer of Clerambault, for
his keen intelligence was not limited to his profession; indeed the
extended flights of modern science have brought his domain close to
that of poetry, it is itself the greatest of poems. Daniel was an
enthusiastic reader of Clerambault's writings. They corresponded
affectionately, knew each other's families, and the young man was a
frequent visitor, perhaps not solely for the pleasure of conversing
with the poet. He was a nice fellow, about thirty years old, tall,
well set-up, with good features, a timid smile, and eyes which looked
startlingly light in his sunburnt face. They were all glad to see him,
and Clerambault was not the only member of the family who enjoyed his
visits. David might easily have been assigned to duty in a munitions
factory, but he had applied for a dangerous post at the Front, where
he had quickly been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Having a few
days in town, he went to see Clerambault.
Madame Clerambault and Rosine were out, so the poet was alone,
and welcomed his young friend with delight, but Daniel responded
awkwardly, answering questions somewhat at random, and at last
abruptly brought up the subject which he had at heart. He said that
he had heard talk at the front of Clerambault's articles, and he felt
very badly. People said--they made out that--well, he had heard severe
things about them; he knew people were often unjust, but he had
come--here he pressed Clerambault's hand in a timid friendly way--he
had come to entreat him not to desert all those who loved him. He
reminded him of the devotion that had inspired the poet who had
celebrated the traditions of French soil and the glories of the
race.... "In this hour of trial," he implored, "stand by us."
"I have never been closer to you than now," answered Clerambault, and
he added:
"You say that people blame what I have written. Dear boy, what do you
think of it yourself?"
"I confess I have not read it," said Daniel. "I did not want to, for
fear that it might disturb my affection for you, or hinder me in my
duty."
"Your faith cannot be very strong, if a few lines of print can shake
it."
"My convictions are firm enough," said Daniel, a little miffed, "but
there are certain things which it is wisest not to discuss."
"That is something that I should not have expected to hear from a
scientific man," said Clerambault. "The truth can lose nothing by
discussion."
"Truth, no, but love--love of country."
"My dear Daniel, you go farther than I. I do not place truth in
opposition to love of country, on the contrary I endeavour to
reconcile them."
Daniel tried to cut the matter short.
"The country is not a subject for discussion."
"Is it an article of faith?"
"You know I do not believe in religions," protested Daniel. "I have no
faith in any of them. But that is the very reason. What should we have
left on earth if it were not for our country?"
"I think that there are many great and beautiful things in the world,
and Country is only one of them; but I am not discussing the love, but
the way of loving."
"There is only one," said Daniel.
"And what is that?"
"We must obey."
"The ancient symbol, Love with bandaged eyes; I only want to open
them."
"No, no, let us alone. It is hard enough already. Don't make it any
worse for us." In a few phrases, temperate, yet broken by emotion,
Daniel brought up the terrible picture of the weeks that he had spent
in the trenches; the disgust and the horror of what he had borne
himself, the suffering he had seen in others, had inflicted on them.
"But, my dear fellow, if you see this shameful thing, why not try to
prevent it?"
"Because it is impossible."
"To be sure of that, you might at least make the attempt."
"The conflict between men is the law of Nature. Kill or be killed. So
be it."
"And can it never be changed?"
"No, never," said Daniel, in a tone of sad obstinacy, "it is the law."