Clerambault Part 20

"I could almost swear that I was shut up in an old Egyptian mummy"--he glanced at the bed and his immovable body:

"There is no life left in it," he said.

"You have more life than any of us," said a voice beside them.

Clerambault looked up and saw on the other side of the couch a tall young man full of health and strength, who seemed to be about the same age as Edme, who smiled and said to Clerambault: "My friend Chastenay has enough vitality to lend me some and to spare."

"If that were only literally true," said the other, and the two friends exchanged an affectionate glance. Chastenay continued:

"I should in that case only be giving back a part of what I owe you."

Then turning to Clerambault, he added: "He is the one who keeps us all up, is it not so, Madame f.a.n.n.y?"

"Indeed yes, I could not do without my strong son," said the mother tenderly.

"They take advantage of the fact that I cannot defend myself," said Edme to Clerambault. "You see I cannot stir an inch."

"Was it a wound?"

"Paralysis."--Clerambault did not dare to ask for details, but after a pause: "Do you suffer much?" he inquired.

"I ought to wish that it were so perhaps; for pain is a tie between us and the sh.o.r.e. However, I confess that I prefer the silence of this body in which I am encased ... let us say no more about it.... My mind at least is free. And if it is not true that it '_agitat molem_,' does often escape."

"I know," said Clerambault, "it came to see me the other day."

"Not for the first time; it has been there before."

"And I who thought myself deserted!"

"Do you recall," said Edme, "the words of Randolph to Cecil?--'_The voice of a man alone can in one hour put more life into us than the clang of five hundred trumpets sounded continuously_.'"

"That always reminds me of you," said Chastenay, but Edme went on as if he had not heard him: ... "You have waked us all up."

Clerambault looked at the brave calm eyes of the paralytic, and said:

"Your eyes do not look as if they needed to be waked."

"They do not need it now," said Edme, "the farther off one is, the better one sees; but when I was close to everything I saw very little."

"Tell me what you see now."

"It is getting late," said Edme, "and I am rather tired. Will you come another time?"

"Tomorrow, if you will let me."

As Clerambault went out Chastenay joined him. He felt the need of confiding to a heart that could feel the pain and grandeur of the tragedy of which his friend had been at once the hero and the victim.

Edme Froment had been struck on the spinal column by an exploding sh.e.l.l. Young as he was, he was one of the intellectual leaders of his generation, handsome, ardent, eloquent, overflowing with life and visions, loving and beloved, n.o.bly ambitious, and all at once, at a blow,--a living death! His mother who had centred all her pride and love on him now saw him condemned for the rest of his days to this terrible fate. They had both suffered terribly, but each hid it from the other, and this effort kept them up. They took great pride in each other. She had all the care of him, washed and fed him like a little child, and he kept calm for her sake, and sustained her on the wings of his spirit.

"Ah," said Chastenay, "it makes one feel ashamed--when I think that I am alive and well, that I can reach out my arms to life, that I can run and leap, and draw this blessed air into my lungs...." As he spoke he stretched out his arms, raised his head, and breathed deeply.

"I ought to feel remorseful," he added, lowering his voice, "and the worst is that I do not." Clerambault could not help smiling.

"It is not very heroic," continued Chastenay, "and yet I care more for Froment than for anyone on earth, and his fate makes me wretchedly unhappy. But all the same, when I think of my luck to be here at this moment when so many are gone, and to be well and sound, I can hardly keep from showing how glad I am. It is so good to live and be whole.

Poor Edme!... You must think me terribly selfish?"

"No, what you say is perfectly natural and healthy. If we were all as sincere as you, humanity would not be the victim of the wicked notion of glory in suffering. You have every right to enjoy life after the trials you have pa.s.sed through," and as he spoke he touched the Croix de Guerre which the young man wore on his breast.

"I have been through them and I am going back," said Chastenay, "but there is no merit in that; there is nothing else that I can do. I am not trying to deceive you and pretend that I love to smell powder; you cannot go through three years of war, and still want to run risks and be indifferent to danger, even if you did feel like that in the beginning. I was so--I may frankly say I did go in for heroism; but I have lost all that, it was really part ignorance and part rhetoric, and when one is rid of these, the nonsense of the war, the idiotic slaughter, the ugliness, the horrible useless sacrifice must be clear to the narrowest mind. If it is not manly to fly from the inevitable, it is not necessary either to go in search of what can be avoided. The great Corneille was a hero behind the lines; those whom I have known at the front were almost heroes in spite of themselves."

"That is the true heroism," said Clerambault.

"That is Froment's kind," said Chastenay. "He is a hero because there is nothing else that he can be, not even a man; but the dearest thing about him is, that in spite of everything, he is a real man."

The truth of this remark was abundantly evident to Clerambault in a long conversation that he had with Froment the next day. If the courage of the young man did not desert him in the ruin of his life, it was all the more to his credit, as he had never professed to be an apostle of self-abnegation. He had had great hopes and robust ambitions, fully justified by his talents and vigorous youth, but unlike his friend Chastenay, he had never for a moment cherished any illusions as to the war.

The disastrous folly of it had been clear to him at once, and this he owed not only to his own penetrating mind, but to that inspiring angel who, from his earliest infancy, had woven the soul of her son from her own pure spirit.

Whenever Clerambault went to see Edme, Madame Froment was almost always there; but she kept in the background, sitting at the window with her work, only stopping occasionally to throw a tender glance at her son. She was not a woman of exceptional cleverness, but she had what may be called the intelligence of the heart, and her mind had been cultivated by the influence of her husband--a distinguished physician much older than herself. Thus it had happened that her whole life had been filled by these two profound feelings, an almost filial love for her husband and a more pa.s.sionate sentiment for her son.

Dr. Froment, a cultivated man with much originality of mind which he concealed under a grave courtesy, as if he feared to wound others by his distinction, had travelled all over Europe, as well as in Egypt, Persia, and India. He had been a student of science and of religion, and his special interest had been the new forms of faith appearing in the world; such as Babism, Christian Science, and theosophical doctrines. As he had kept in touch with the pacifist movement, and was a friend of Baroness Suttner, whom he had known in Vienna, he had long seen the catastrophe approaching which threatened him and all he loved. But man of courage as he was, and accustomed to the indifference of nature, he had not tried to delude his family as to the future, but had rather sought to strengthen their souls to meet the danger that hung over their heads.

More than all his words, his example was sacred to his wife, for the son had been yet a child at the time of his father's death. Dr.

Froment had suffered from a cancer of the intestines, and during the whole course of the slow and painful disease he had followed his ordinary occupations up to the last minute, sustaining the courage of his loved ones by this serene fort.i.tude.

This n.o.ble picture which dwelt in Madame Froment's heart, and which she wors.h.i.+pped in secret, was to her what religion is to other women.

To this, though she had no clear belief in the future life, she prayed, especially in difficult moments, as if to an ever-present helpful friend. And by a singular phenomenon sometimes observed after death, the essence of her husband's soul seemed to have pa.s.sed into hers. For this reason her son had grown up in an atmosphere of placid thought, while most of the young generation before 1914 were feverish, restless, aggressive, irritated by delay. When the war broke out, there was no need for Madame Froment to protect herself or her son against the national excesses; they were both strangers to such ideas; but they made no attempt to resist the inevitable; they had watched the coming of this misfortune for so long! All that they could do now was to bear it bravely, while trying to preserve what was the most precious thing to them; their souls' faith. Madame Froment did not consider it necessary to be "_Au-dessus de la melee_" in order to lead it; and she accomplished in her limited sphere simply, but more efficaciously, what was attempted by writers in Germany and England,--a form of international reconciliation. She had kept in touch with many old friends, and without being troubled in circles infected by the war-spirit, or ever undertaking useless demonstrations against the war, she was a check on insane manifestations of hatred, by her simple presence, her quiet words and manner, her good judgment, and the respect inspired by her kindness. In families that were sympathetic she distributed messages from liberal Europeans, among others, Clerambault's articles, though without his knowledge. It was a source of satisfaction when she saw that their hearts were touched. A greater joy still was to see that her son himself was transformed.

Edme Froment was not in the least a Tolstoyan pacifist. At first he thought the war more a folly than a crime, and if he had been free, he would have withdrawn, like Perrotin, into high dilettantism of art and thought, without attempting the hopeless task of fighting the prevailing opinion, for which he then felt more contempt than pity.

Since his forced partic.i.p.ation in the war, he had been obliged to acknowledge that this folly was so largely expiated by suffering that it would be superfluous to add anything to it. Man had made his own h.e.l.l upon earth, and there was no need of further condemnation. He was on leave, at Paris, when he came across Clerambault's articles which showed him that there was something better for him to do than to set himself up as a judge of his companions in misery; that it would be far n.o.bler to try to deliver them while taking his share of the common burden.

The young disciple was disposed to go farther than his master.

Clerambault, who was naturally affectionate and rather weak, found his joy in communion with other men, and suffered even when divided in spirit from their errors. He was a confirmed self-doubter. He was p.r.o.ne to look in the eyes of the crowd for agreement with his ideas.

He exhausted himself in futile efforts to reconcile his inward beliefs with the aspirations and the social struggles of his time. Froment, who had the soul of a chieftain in a helpless body, dauntlessly maintained that for him who bears the torch of a lofty ideal it is an absolute duty to hold it high over the heads of his comrades; that it would be wrong to confuse it in the other illuminations. The commonplace of democracies that Voltaire had less wit than Mr.

Everybody is nonsense.... "_Democritus ait; Unus mihi pro populo est_.... To me an individual is as good as a thousand." ... Our modern faith sees in the social group the summit of human evolution, but where is the proof? Froment thought the greatest height was reached in an individual superiority. Millions of men have lived and died to produce one perfect flower of thought, for such are the superb and prodigal ways of nature. She spends whole peoples to make a Jesus, a Buddha, an Aeschylus, a Vinci, a Newton, or a Beethoven; but without these men, what would the people have been? Or humanity itself? We do not hold with the egotist ideal of the Superman. A man who is great is great for all his fellows; his individuality expresses and often guides millions of others; it is the incarnation of their secret forces, of their highest desires; it concentrates and realises them. The sole fact that a man was Christ, has exalted and lifted generations of humanity, filling them with the divine energy; and though nineteen centuries have since pa.s.sed, millions have not ceased to aspire to the height of this example, though none has attained to it.

Thus understood, the ideal individualist is more productive for human society than the ideal communist, who would lead us to the mechanical perfection of the bee-hive, and at the very least he is indispensable as corrective and complement.

This proud individualism, stated by Froment with burning eloquence, was a support to Clerambault's mind, p.r.o.ne to waver, and undecided from good-nature, self-distrust, and the wish to understand others.

Froment rendered Clerambault another important service. More in the current of world-thought, and through his family coming in closer contact with foreign thinkers, an accomplished linguist besides, Froment could bring to mind those other men in all nations who, great in their isolation, fought for the right to a free conscience. It was a consoling spectacle; all the work under the surface of thought suppressed, but struggling towards truth, and the knowledge that the worst tyranny that has crushed the soul of humanity since the Inquisition has failed to stifle the indomitable will to remain free and true.

No doubt these lofty individualities were rare, but their power was all the greater; the fine outline was more striking, seen against the dark horizon. In the fall of the nations to the foot of the precipice where millions lie in a shapeless ma.s.s, their voices seemed to rise with the only human note, and their action gained emphasis from the anger with which it was met. A century ago Chateaubriand wrote:

"It is vain to struggle longer; henceforward the only important thing is to be."

He did not know that "to be" in our time, be oneself, be free, implies the greatest of combats. Those who are true to themselves dominate through the levelling down of the rest.