THE SERVICE OF MAN
In Rolland's view it was the artist's duty to serve his fatherland by
conscientious service to all mankind, to play his part in the struggle
by waging war against the suffering the war was causing and against the
thousandfold torments entailed by the war. He rejected the idea of
absolute aloofness. "An artist has no right to hold aloof while he is
still able to help others." But this aid, this participation, must not
take the form of fostering the murderous hatred which already animated
the millions. The aim must be to unite the millions further, where
unseen ties already existed, in their infinite suffering. He therefore
took his part in the ranks of the helpers, not weapon in hand, but
following the example of Walt Whitman, who, during the American Civil
War, served as hospital assistant.
Hardly had the first blows been struck when cries of anguish from all
lands began to be heard in Switzerland. Thousands who were without news
of fathers, husbands, and sons in the battlefields, stretched despairing
arms into the void. By hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands,
letters and telegrams poured into the little House of the Red Cross in
Geneva, the only international rallying point that still remained.
Isolated, like stormy petrels, came the first inquiries for missing
relatives; then these inquiries themselves became a storm. The letters
arrived in sackfuls. Nothing had been prepared for dealing with such an
inundation of misery. The Red Cross had no space, no organization, no
system, and above all no helpers.
Romain Rolland was one of the first to offer personal assistance. The
Musée Rath was quickly made available for the purposes of the Red Cross.
In one of the small wooden cubicles, among hundreds of girls, women, and
students, Rolland sat for more than eighteen months, engaged each day
for from six to eight hours side by side with the head of the
undertaking, Dr. Ferrière, to whose genius for organization myriads owe
it that the period of suspense was shortened. Here Rolland filed
letters, wrote letters, performed an abundance of detail work, seemingly
of little importance. But how momentous was every word to the
individuals whom he could help, for in this vast universe each suffering
individual is mainly concerned about his own particular grain of
unhappiness. Countless persons to-day, unaware of the fact, have to
thank the great writer for news of their lost relatives. A rough stool,
a small table of unpolished deal, the turmoil of typewriters, the bustle
of human beings questioning, calling one to another, hastening to and
fro--such was Romain Rolland's battlefield in this campaign against the
afflictions of the war. Here, while other authors and intellectuals were
doing their utmost to foster mutual hatred, he endeavored to promote
reconciliation, to alleviate the torment of a fraction among the
countless sufferers by such consolation as the circumstances rendered
possible. He neither desired, nor occupied, a leading position in the
work of the Red Cross; but, like so many other nameless assistants, he
devoted himself to the daily task of promoting the interchange of news.
His deeds were inconspicuous, and are therefore all the more memorable.
When he was allotted the Nobel peace prize, he refused to retain the
money for his own use, and devoted the whole sum to the mitigation of
the miseries of Europe, that he might suit the action to the word, the
word to the action. Ecce homo! Ecce poeta!