That same evening Monsieur Bergeret received in his study a visit from
his colleague Jumage.
Alphonse Jumage and Lucien Bergeret were born on the same day, at the
same hour, and were the children of two girl friends to whom, from that
time, they became an inexhaustible source of conversation. They had
grown up together. Lucien never troubled his head in any way concerning
their simultaneous entry into the world, but Alphonse was more mindful
of the fact, and dwelt upon it with some emphasis. He formed a mental
habit of comparing the course of their two lives, which had started
simultaneously, and he gradually persuaded himself that it was only
just, equitable and salutary that their progress in life should be
equal.
He took a great interest in the development of their twin careers, both
of which were devoted to teaching, and, judging his own fortune by
another’s, he created for himself continual and futile anxieties which
obscured the natural clearness of his vision. The fact that Monsieur
Bergeret was a professor at the University, while he himself taught
grammar in a suburban _lycée_ was not, to his mind, in conformity
with the idea of divine justice engraven upon his heart. He was too
fair-minded a man to bear a grudge against his friend; but when the
latter was appointed lecturer at the Sorbonne Jumage felt it keenly.
A curious effect of this comparative study of their two lives was
that Jumage formed an inveterate habit of thinking and acting, on
every possible occasion, in a manner diametrically opposed to Monsieur
Bergeret’s way of thinking and acting; not that he had not a sincere
and upright character, but he could not help suspecting that some
malign influence was at work to ensure the success of careers which
were of greater importance and merit than his own, and were therefore
unrighteous. And thus, when he found that the professor was in favour
of the Revision, he at once joined the ranks of the Nationalists,
because he conceived all manner of perfectly genuine reasons for doing
so, and also because he had to be the antithesis, in a sense, the
inverted self, of Monsieur Bergeret. He entered his name as a member of
the League of the _Agitation française_, and even made speeches at its
meetings. In the same way he opposed his friend on every topic under
the sun, from systems of economical heating to the rules of Latin
Grammar, and as, after all, Monsieur Bergeret was not always wrong,
Jumage was not always right.
This contrariety, which with years had assumed the exactitude of a
rational system, did not in any way interfere with their life-long
friendship. Jumage was really concerned at the misfortunes that dogged
Bergeret in the course of his sometimes troubled career. He went to see
him every time he heard of a fresh calamity. He was no fair-weather
friend.
On this particular occasion, he came to his old friend with the worried
and bewildered expression, the look of mingled pain and pleasure, that
Lucien knew so well.
“You are quite well, Lucien? I’m not in your way, am I?”
“No. I was reading the story of the porter and the young girls in _The
Arabian Nights_, newly translated by Dr. Mardrus. It is a literal
translation and very different from _The Arabian Nights_ of our old
friend Galland.”
“I came to see you,” said Jumage, “because I wanted to speak to you
about something. But it’s of no consequence. So you were reading _The
Arabian Nights_?”
“Yes,” replied Monsieur Bergeret, “and for the first time too. For the
worthy Galland gives one no idea of the real thing. He is an excellent
story teller who has carefully corrected the morals of the Arabs. His
Scheherazada, like Coypel’s Esther, has her value; but here we have
Arabia with all its perfumes.”
“I’ve brought you an article to read,” continued Jumage. “But, as I
said before, it’s of no consequence.”
And he drew from his pocket a newspaper which Monsieur Bergeret slowly
extended his hand to take. Jumage replaced it in his pocket. Monsieur
Bergeret’s hand dropped to his side; then, with fingers that trembled
slightly, Jumage spread the paper on the table.
“Again, I repeat, it’s of no importance, but I thought it
better—perhaps it’s better for you to know—you have enemies, many
enemies.”
“Flatterer!” said Monsieur Bergeret.
And picking up the paper he read the following lines marked in blue
pencil:
“A common usher and a Dreyfusard, the intellectual Bergeret,
who has been stagnating in the provinces, has just been
appointed lecturer at the Sorbonne. The students of the faculty
of letters have lodged an energetic protest against the
appointment of this anti-French Protestant, and it does not
surprise us to hear that many of them have decided to greet as
he deserves, with howls of execration, the dirty German Jew
whom the Minister of Treason has had the impudence to foist
upon them as a teacher.”
And when Monsieur Bergeret had finished reading, Jumage said eagerly:
“Don’t read it, it’s not worth it. It’s so trivial.”
“Trivial, I admit,” replied Monsieur Bergeret. “Yet you must not
deprive me of this token, obscure and insufficient, but at the same
time truthful and creditable, of what I did during a difficult period.
I didn’t do a great deal; but I ran some risks. Stapfer, the Dean, was
suspended for having spoken of justice during a funeral oration, in the
days when Monsieur Bourgeois was Grand Master of the University. And
we have known worse times than those for which Monsieur Bourgeois was
responsible. If it hadn’t been for the generous firmness of my chiefs
I should have been turned out of the University by an unwise Minister.
I didn’t think about it then, but I can think of it now, and claim
the reward of my actions. Now tell me what more worthy, what nobler,
what more finely austere reward could I attain than the insults of the
enemies of justice? I could wish that the writer who, despite himself,
has given me this testimonial, had expressed his thought in a more
memorable fashion. But that would be asking too much.”
Having thus spoken, Monsieur Bergeret placed the blade of his ivory
paper-knife between the pages of _The Arabian Nights_. He enjoyed
cutting the pages of his books, being a wise man who suited his
pleasures to his condition. The austere Jumage envied him this innocent
pastime. He pulled his sleeve.
“Listen, Lucien. I share none of your opinions with regard to the
Affair. I have blamed and still blame your conduct. I fear it may
have the most deplorable results upon your future. No true Frenchman
will ever find it in his heart to forgive you. I should like to say,
however, that I most forcibly disapprove of the style of controversy
employed against you by certain newspapers. I condemn them. You believe
that, do you not?”
“Yes.”
After a moment’s silence, Jumage went on:
“You see, Lucien, you are slandered because of your position. You can
summon your slanderers before a jury. But I don’t advise you to do so.
They would be acquitted.”
“That is most probable,” said Monsieur Bergeret. “Unless I walk into
court in a plumed hat, a sword at my side, spurs on my boots, and an
army of twenty thousand paid hooligans at my heels. Then my plea would
be heard by judge and jury. When Zola was found guilty by the jury of
the Seine in respect of the very moderate letter which he addressed
to a President of the Republic who was ill-prepared to read it, their
deliberations took place amid bestial cries, hideous threats, an
unendurable clatter of ironmongery, amid all the phantoms of error and
untruth. I have not so terrific an apparatus at my disposal, therefore
it is more than probable that my defamer would be acquitted.”
“You cannot, however, remain indifferent to insults. What do you intend
to do?”
“Nothing. I am satisfied. I would just as soon be subjected to the
insults of the Press as to its praise. Truth has been served in
the newspapers by her enemies as well as by her friends. When a
mere handful of men, mindful of the honour of France, denounced the
fraudulent condemnation of an innocent man, the Government and public
opinion treated them as enemies. But they spoke out. And by their
speech they proved themselves the stronger. You know how fervently
the majority of the newspapers worked against them. But in spite of
themselves they were serving the cause of truth, and by publishing the
false documents——”
“There haven’t been so many false documents as you think, Lucien.”
“They made it possible to prove their falsity. Error had been scattered
broadcast, and could no longer collect her scattered forces, and
finally nothing was left save that which had sequence and continuity.
Truth has a faculty of linking facts together which error does not
possess. It formed, in the face of insult and impotent hatred, a chain
that could not again be broken. We owe the triumph of our cause to the
liberty, the licence of the Press.”
“But you are not victorious,” cried Jumage. “Neither are we defeated!
Quite the contrary! The opinion of the whole country is against you. I
regret to say it, but you and your friends are unanimously execrated,
dishonoured, spat upon. We defeated? You are joking. The whole of
France is with us.”
“And you are defeated from within. If I took appearances into
consideration I might think you victorious, and despair of justice.
There are criminals who go unpunished. Prevarication and perjury are
publicly approved as praiseworthy actions. I have no hope that the
enemies of truth will own themselves vanquished. Such an effort is
possible only to the highest type of mind.
“There is very little change in the general state of mind. The
ignorance of the public is still almost complete. There have been none
of those sudden changes of opinion on the part of the crowd which
are so amazing when they occur. Nothing striking or even noticeable
has happened. Nevertheless the time is past when a President of the
Republic could degrade, to the level of his own soul, justice, the
honour of the country, and the alliances of the Republic, the power of
whose ministers depended upon their understanding with the enemies of
the very institutions of which they were the guardians. A season of
brutal hypocrisy when contempt for intelligence and hatred of justice
were at one and the same time a popular opinion and a State doctrine. A
time when those in power upheld the rioters, when it was a crime to cry
‘_Vive la République!_’ Those days are already remote, as though they
had sunk into the limbo of the past and were plunged into the darkness
of the age of barbarism.
“They may return. We are divided from them as yet by nothing tangible,
nothing apparent or definite. They have faded away like the clouds of
the error which created them, and the least breath may yet rekindle
their ashes. But even if everything were to conspire to strengthen your
cause, you are none the less irretrievably lost. You are conquered from
within, and that is the irretrievable defeat. When you are conquered
from without, you can continue to resist and hope for revenge. Your
ruin is within you. The necessary consequences of your crimes and your
errors are at hand in spite of your efforts to prevent them, and with
amazement you see the beginning of your downfall. Unjust and violent,
you will be destroyed by your own injustice and violence. And the
monstrous party of unrighteousness, hitherto inviolable, respected and
feared, is falling, breaking asunder of its own weight.
“What does it matter then if legal sanctions are dilatory or lacking?
The only true and natural justice is contained in the very consequences
of the act, not in external formulæ, which are often narrow and
sometimes arbitrary. Why complain that the greatest culprits evade the
law and retain their despicable honours? That doesn’t matter either,
under the present social system, any more than it mattered, in the days
of the earth’s infancy, when the great saurians of the primeval oceans
were disappearing to make way for creatures more beautiful and of
happier instincts, that there still remained stranded, on the slime of
the beaches, a few monstrous survivors of a doomed race.”
* * * * *
As Jumage reached the gate of the Luxembourg after his visit to his
friend, he met young Goubin.
“I’ve just been to see Bergeret,” he said. “I’m sorry for him; he seems
very cast-down and dejected. The Affair has crushed him.”