Can we ever forget, my friend, that woman who was the lesson of your
youth, your counsellor and your example?
She lived in that dark, low room where you so loved to go and to which
you used to show me the way, a way that seemed to me that of veneration
itself.
Disillusionments, griefs, sickness and, without doubt, a great need
for renunciation had gradually sequestered her in that unlovely place
of refuge, encumbered with old books and full of the odor of dust. She
seemed cut off from the world; but in the shadow of that retreat her
eye sparkled so vivaciously, she spoke with so melodious a voice that
the world pursued her who had abandoned it even into her retirement:
the friendship of young people, that friendship which is so pure and
spontaneous, was for her a constant testimony. This was the only thing
she would not renounce, her only ornament, her last elegance, her
possession.
Year by year death came to snatch from her affection those of her own
blood. Every sort of happiness withdrew from her as she retired into
her abode, light itself she dreaded more and more, and more and more
renounced.
Every time we passed through her little door, so slow in opening, we
had at first an insurmountable feeling of being suffocated, for we were
still intoxicated with our radiant life, our destiny and our ambitions.
But soon our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, our souls recognized
the humble, penetrating odor of the hangings, and we found again
that beautiful, commanding glance, that voice with its supernatural
freshness.
Her malady struck her new blows. This woman who still possessed the
space of three rooms had to shut herself in one of them. And then,
even of this she possessed no more than a corner. Her world was only a
little wall and the wood of an old bed.
That ardent eye still shone. That spiritual voice still prevailed. One
day the voice faltered and sank, like a ship disabled in a storm which
gives up all resistance.
That day we were sad, sad, we who had not learned to renounce.
X
Delivered from romanticism, the nineteenth century toward its close and
the twentieth century at its beginning, exalted an image full of the
pride of physical life, of impetuous health.
Never had humanity seemed more intoxicated with its carnal development,
with its splendid animality, than at the very moment when the war broke
out. Our humanity! behold it now, covered with wounds so deep that for
long decades the sight of them will baffle us and fill our pity with
despair.
Behold it now, like a vast race of invalids. It creeps over a world
where now there are more graveyards than villages.
We have had an unparalleled experience of sorrow and renunciation.
And yet the desire for happiness is deeply rooted: the unanimous voice
to which our world listens repeats, from amid the sobs: “We shall
renounce nothing!”
To him who listens with an attentive ear, it says again, it says
particularly: “We shall renounce nothing, not even renunciation!”
But let us leave this immense grief to itself. Let us leave it to
satiate and appease itself with its own contemplation--Silence!
VII
THE SHELTER OF LIFE
I
Two immense worlds remain faithful to me when the others discourage or
betray me. Two refuges open to my heart when it is weary, faltering or
harassed with temptation.
I should like very much to tell you about them, since you are my
friend. I can tell you, since you have nothing to envy me, since you
bear within yourself two such worlds, two kingdoms that will submit to
you undividedly, without contest.
Yesterday I was watching some prisoners working. They were pushing the
trunk of a tree lashed to a cart. Sweat was rolling down their faces,
for the heat was great, the slope steep and the load heavy. An armed
soldier was watching them. Large letters were printed on their clothes
to proclaim their servitude. And I thought: they live, they do not look
too unhappy, they do not seem crushed by their condition. And if this
is so, it is not because they have the placidity of beasts. No! Look
at their eyes, listen to their voices. It is precisely because they
are men and they carry everywhere with them two refuges, whither the
gaoler cannot follow them, two precious possessions that no punitive
discipline can snatch from them: their future and their memories.
The longer I watch, from close by, those men who, for four years have
led the inhuman life of the army, the better I understand the meaning
of their incredible patience: between the future and the remembered
past they have the air of awaiting the passage of a storm. They are
gulping down, you would say, hastily and with closed eyes, this
bitter and criminal present, in order to reserve their hearts all the
better for the things of the future and the past. One feels in their
conversation only these two luminous existences. They seek and unite
them unceasingly above the bloody abyss. I have also observed that, in
the concerts they give themselves to cheer their periods of rest, their
souls always return, with the same rapture, to their former way of
living, to their old sons, their familiar ways of being sad or joyous.
The artistic attempts that are carried on to interest them, at the
bottom of their hearts, in the formidable present, remain sterile and,
as it were, dry.
They seem to reply, silently: “What have all these things to do with
us? Isn’t it enough for us to live them? Isn’t it enough for us to
do them, every day with our blood and tears? Give us back our dear
kingdom. Give back to our souls that memory which is their most
imperishable and marvelous possession.”