"After that? A rest, and then it will all begin over again, there can be no doubt. A young cycle. The new Kalpa. The world will turn once more, on the re-forged wheel."

"And what is the answer to the riddle?"

"The Hindoos would tell you Siva. Siva, who creates and destroys; destroys and creates."

"What a hideous dream."

"That is an affair of temperament. Wisdom liberates. To the Hindoos, Buddha is the deliverer. As for me, curiosity is a sufficient reward."

"It would not be enough for me, and I cannot content myself either with the wisdom of a selfish Buddha, who sets himself free by deserting the rest. I know the Hindoos as you do, and I love them, but even among them, Buddha has not said the last word of wisdom. Do you remember that Bodhisattva, the Master of Pity, who swore not to become Buddha, never to find freedom in Nirvana, until he had cured all pain, redeemed all crimes, consoled all sorrows?"

Perrotin smiled and patted Clerambault"s hand affectionately as he looked at his troubled face.

"Dear old Bodhisattva," he said, "what do you want to do? And whom would you save?"

"Oh, I know well enough," said Clerambault, hanging his head. "I know how small I am, how little I can do, the weakness of my wishes and protestations. Do not think me so vain; but how can I help it, if I feel it is my duty to speak?"

"Your duty is to do what is right and reasonable; not to sacrifice yourself in vain."

"Do you certainly know what is in vain? Can you tell beforehand which seed will germinate and which will turn out sterile and perish? But you sow seed nevertheless. What progress would ever have been made, if those who bore the germ of it had stopped terrified before the enormous ma.s.s of acc.u.mulated routine which hung ready to crush them, above their heads."

"I admit that a scholar is bound to defend the Truth that he has discovered, but is this social question your mission? You are a poet; keep to your dreams, and may they prove a defence to you!"

"Before considering myself as a poet, I consider myself as a man, and every honest man has a mission."

"A mind like yours is too precious and valuable to be sacrificed, it would be murder."

"Yes, you are willing to sacrifice people who have little to lose." He was silent for a moment, and then went on:

"Perrotin, I have often thought that we, men of thought, artists, all of us, we do not live up to our obligations. Not only now, but for a long time, perhaps always. We are custodians of the portion of Truth that is in us, a little light, which we have prudently kept for ourselves. More than once this has troubled me, but I shut my eyes to it then; now they have been unsealed by suffering. We are the privileged ones, and that lays duties upon us which we have not fulfilled; we are afraid of compromising ourselves. There is an aristocracy of the mind, which claims to succeed to that of blood; but it forgets that the privileges of the old order were first purchased with blood. For ages mankind has listened to words of wisdom, but it is rare to see the wise men offer themselves as a sacrifice, though it would do no harm if the world should see some of them stake their lives on their doctrines, as in the heroic days. Sacrifice is the condition of fecundity. To make others believe, you must believe first yourself, and prove it. Men do not see a truth simply because it exists, it must have the breath of life; and this spirit which is ours, we can and ought to give. If not, our thoughts are only amus.e.m.e.nts of dilettanti--a play, which deserves only a little applause. Men who advance the history of the world make stepping-stones of their own lives. How much higher than all our great men was the Son of the carpenter of Galilee. Humanity knows the difference between them and the Saviour."

"But did He save it?

""When Jahveh speaks: ""Tis my desire,"

His people work to feed the fire.""

"Your circle of flame is the last terror, and Man exists only to break through, that he may come out of it free."

"Free?" repeated Perrotin with his quiet smile.

"Yes, free! It is the highest good, but few reach it, although the name is common enough. It is as exceptional as real beauty, or real goodness. By a free man I mean one who can liberate himself from himself, his pa.s.sions, his blind instincts, those of his surroundings, or of the moment. It is said that he does this in obedience to the voice of reason; but reason in the sense that you give it, is a mirage. It is only another pa.s.sion, hardened, intellectualised, and therefore fanatical. No, he must put himself out of sight, in order to get a clear view over the clouds of dust raised by the flock on the road of today, to take in the whole horizon, so as to put events in their proper place in the scheme of the universe."

"Then," said Perrotin, "he must accommodate himself to the laws of that universe."

"Not necessarily," said Clerambault, "he can oppose them with a clear conscience if they are contrary to right and happiness. Liberty consists in that very thing, that a free man is in himself a conscious law of the universe, a counter-balance to the crushing machine, the automaton of Spitteler, the bronze _Ananke_. I see the universal Being, three parts of him still embedded in the clay, the bark, or the stone, undergoing the implacable laws of the matter in which he is encrusted. His breath and his eyes alone are free; "I hope," says his look. And his breath declares, "I will!" With the help of these he struggles to release himself. We are the look and the breath, that is what makes a free man."

"The look is enough for me," said Perrotin gently.

"And without the breath I should die!" exclaimed Clerambault.

In a man of thought there is a wide interval between the word and the deed. Even when a thing is decided upon, he finds pretexts for putting it off to another day, for he sees only too clearly what will follow; what pains and troubles. And to what end? In order to calm his restless soul he pours out a flood of energetic language on his intimate friends, or to himself alone, and in this way gains the illusion of action cheaply enough. In the bottom of his heart he does not believe in it, but like Hamlet, he waits till circ.u.mstances shall force his hand.

Clerambault was brave enough when he was talking to the indulgent Perrotin, but he had scarcely got home when he was seized again by his hesitations. Sharpened by his sorrow, his sensitiveness antic.i.p.ated the emotions of those around him; he imagined the discord that his words would cause between himself and his wife, and worse, without exactly knowing why, he was not sure of his daughter"s sympathy, and shrank from the trial. The risk was too great for an affectionate heart like his.

Matters stood thus, when a doctor of his acquaintance wrote that he had a man dangerously wounded in his hospital who had been in the great Champagne offensive, and had known Maxime. Clerambault went at once to see him.

On the bed he saw a man who might have been of any age. He lay still on his back, swathed like a mummy, his thin peasant-face all wrinkled and brown, with the big nose and grey beard emerging from the white bandages. Outside the sheet you could see his right hand, rough and work-worn; a joint of the middle-finger was missing--but that did not matter, it was a peace injury. His eyes looked out calmly under the bushy eyebrows; their clear grey light was unexpected in the burned face.

Clerambault came close and asked him how he did, and the man thanked him politely, without giving details, as if it were not worth the trouble to talk about oneself.

"You are very good, Sir. I am getting on all right." But Clerambault persisted affectionately, and it did not take long for the grey eyes to see that there was something deeper than curiosity in the blue eyes that bent over him.

"Where are you wounded?" asked Clerambault.

"Oh, a little of everywhere; it would take too long to tell you, Sir."

But as his visitor continued to press him:

"There is a wound wherever they could find a place. Shot up, all over.

I never should have thought there would have been room enough on a little man like me."

Clerambault found out at last that he had received about a score of wounds; seventeen, to be exact. He had been literally sprinkled--he called it "interlarded"--with shrapnel.

"Wounded in seventeen places!" cried Clerambault.

"I have only a dozen left," said the man.

"Did they cure the others?"

"No, they cut my legs off." Clerambault was so shocked that he almost forgot the object of his visit. Great Heaven! What agonies! Our sufferings, in comparison, are a drop in the ocean.... He put his hand over the rough one, and pressed it. The calm grey eyes took in Clerambault from his feet to the c.r.a.pe on his hat.

"You have lost someone?"

"Yes," said Clerambault, pulling himself together, "you must have known Sergeant Clerambault?"

"Surely," said the man, "I knew him."

"He was my son."

The grey eyes softened.

"Ah, Sir! I _am_ sorry for you. I should think I did know him, poor little chap! We were together for nearly a year, and a year like that counts, I can tell you! Day after day, we were like moles burrowing in the same hole.... We had our share of trouble."

"Did he suffer much?"

"Well, Sir, it _was_ pretty bad sometimes; hard on the boy, just at the first. You see he wasn"t used to it, like us."