I wish to say at once that I have no qualifications to discuss
political, historical or economic matters. I leave to the scholars
who are versed in these redoubtable questions the task of explaining,
skilfully and definitely, the great misery that has befallen our time.
I thus at the same time renounce most of the opportunities and
obligations of my title.
But I wish, with all my heart, to pursue with a few people of good will
a friendly discussion the object of which remains, in spite of all, the
heart’s domain, or the possession of the world.
The possession of the world is not decided by guns. It is the noble
work of peace. It is not involved in the struggle which is now rending
society.
Even so, men will find themselves engaged in an undertaking that will
threaten to overwhelm them with suffering and despair.
Fate has assigned to me during the war a place and a task of such a
character that misery has been the only thing I have seen; it has been
my study and my enemy every moment. I must be forgiven for thinking of
it with a persistence that is like an obsession.
The whole intelligence of the world is absorbed by the enterprise and
the necessities of the war; there is little chance of rousing it now
from this in favor of the happiness of the race, in favor of that
happiness which is compromised for the future and destroyed for the
present. It is to the heart one must address oneself. It is to all the
generous hearts that one must make one’s appeal.
So, if I am spurred by an ambition, it is to beg the world to seek
once more whatever can lighten the present and the future distress of
mankind, to seek the springs of interest that exist for the soul in a
life harassed with difficulties, perils and disillusionments, to honor
more than ever the faithful and incorruptible resources of the inner
life.
* * * * *
The inner life!
It has never ceased to shine, a precious, quivering flame, devoting
all its ardor in a struggle against the breath of these great events,
resisting this tempest which has had no parallel.
It has never ceased to shine, but its shy and faithful light trembles
in a sort of crypt into which we fear to venture.
What has happened has seized upon us as upon its prey. During the
first months of the war, during the first years perhaps, all our
physical and moral energies were overwhelmed in this maelstrom. How,
indeed, could one refuse oneself to the appetite of the monster? We did
not even try to snatch from him our hours of leisure, our dreams. We
simply abandoned such things, as we abandoned our plans, our welfare,
and the whole of our existence.
You remember! It was a time when solitude found us more shaken, more
disarmed, than peril. We reproached ourselves for distracting a single
one of our thoughts from the universal distress. We gave ourselves day
and night to this agonizing world; and when our work was suspended,
when the wild beast unloosed its clutch, as if in play, and we returned
for a few minutes to ourselves, we did not always dare to look the
quivering inner flame in the face. What it lighted up in us seemed at
times too foreign to our anxiety, or too filled with limpid serenity.
And so we returned to our wretchedness, experiencing it to the point of
intoxication, to the point of despair.
When I think of the year 1915, it seems to me that I still hear all
those noble comrades saying to me with a sort of dejection: “I can’t
think of anything else! I can neither read, nor work, nor seek to
distract myself to any purpose. When I’m off duty I think about these
days, I think about them unceasingly, till I feel seasick, till I feel
dizzy. I’ve just had two hours of liberty. Once upon a time I should
have given them to Pascal or to Tolstoy. Today I have employed them
in reading some documentary works on the manufacture of torpedoes and
on European colonial methods. They are subjects that will always be
outside my line, subjects I shall never be interested in. But how can I
think of anything else?”
Perhaps it is not a question of thinking of anything else. It is not a
question of turning one’s back on the time, but rather of looking it in
the face, calmly and collectedly.
When the first great excitement had passed away, those who had the
wisdom and the courage to return assiduously to themselves found their
inner life ennobled, augmented, enriched. For it does not cease to
labor on in the depths of us. It is at once ourselves and something
other than ourselves, better than ourselves. Like certain of our organs
which are endowed with a marvelous independence and pursue a vigilant
activity in the midst of our agitations and our sleep, the inner life
comes to its fruitage even though we are full of ingratitude and
indifference towards it. It is the faithful spouse who keeps the home
radiant, arranges every comfort and spins at the wheel, behind the
door, awaiting our return.
And behold we are returning!
To be sure, the storm still roars on. It grows greater, more furious,
more unending. Never has it seemed more complex, more grave, more
difficult. Peril has taken up its abode with us. Every sort of opinion
holds up its head and vehemently solicits our belief.
But we have found once more the key and the path to the secret refuge.
Nothing could turn us aside now. Nothing could prevent us at certain
hours from plunging into solitude, there to find again the equilibrium,
the harmony and those moral riches which we know, after the ruin of so
many things, are alone efficacious, alone durable.
For long months now I have realized, watching the men with whom I live,
that they are waiting for words of quietude, words of rest and love.
They are like parched soil at the end of a blazing summer: they long to
slake their thirst and grow green again.
In vain have destruction, disorder and death tried to break up the
sublime and familiar colloquy that every being pursues with the better
part of himself. That colloquy revives, it begins again, in the very
midst of the battle, among the odors and the groans of the hospital.
Nevertheless, the daily work is done, well done; duty is properly
weighed and accomplished; the soul simply is unwilling any longer to
renounce its meditation upon all that is profound, imperishable, and
immaterial in the present.
Tell me that we are going to labor in concert once more at the
exploitation of our inner fortune. Tell me that we are going to labor
to save from shipwreck that part of us which, in spite of all our
errors, uncertainties, crimes and disillusionments, remains truly noble
and worthy of eternity.
* * * * *
I am able to undertake this essay thanks to the leisure moments the war
has been willing to grant me. It is not purely the fruit of solitary
meditations. I do not live alone: my chosen comrades surround me; they
share with me the confused space of our dwelling; we share together all
the thoughts that fill this space.
Friendship has accomplished the miracle of transforming into a
communion what, without it, would have remained a promiscuity.
I have a feeling that I am expressing the desires and the thoughts of
many men. Very soon, those who are here will be going to sleep; I shall
continue my writing, but with the secret certitude of not being alone
in the task, of carrying with me their tacit assent. I feel that I have
been entrusted with a sort of mandate.
I have no library, no documents. But do we need books in order to
converse together of the things that form the very substance of our
existence? Does it not suffice to consult our souls? Do we need any
other guarantee than our devout desire in order to lift an open hand
and make, for all those who await it in their solitude, the sign of
concord and of hope?