Clerambault Part 4

In this somewhat legal phraseology love is bound to s.e.x, age, and social cla.s.ses; it is either natural or unnatural, legitimate or the reverse. But this is a mere trickle of water from the deep springs of love, which is as the law of gravitation that keeps the stars in their courses, and cares nothing for the ways that we trace for it. This infinite love fulfils itself between souls far removed by time and s.p.a.ce; across the centuries it unites the thoughts of the living and the dead; weaves close and chaste ties between old and young hearts; through it, friend is nearer to friend, the child is closer in spirit to the old man than are husband or wife in the whole course of their lives. Between fathers and children these ties often exist unconsciously, and "the world" as our forefathers used to say, counts so little in comparison with love eternal, that the positions are sometimes reversed, and the younger may not always be the most childlike. How many sons are there who feel a devout paternal affection for an old mother? And do we not often see ourselves small and humble under the eyes of a child? The look with which the Bambino of Botticelli contemplates the innocent Virgin is heavy with a sad unconscious experience, and as old as the world.

The affection of Clerambault and Rosine was of this sort; fine, religious, above the reach of reason. That is why, in the depths of the troubled sea, below the pains and the conflicts of conscience caused by the war, a secret drama went on, without signs, almost without words, between these hearts united by a sacred love. This unavowed sentiment explained the sensitiveness of their mutual reactions. At first Rosine drew away in silence, disappointed in her affection, her secret wors.h.i.+p tarnished, by the effect of the war on her father; she stood apart from him, like a little antique statue, chastely draped. At once Clerambault became uneasy; his sensibility sharpened by tenderness, felt instantly this _Noli me tangere_, and from this arose an unexpressed estrangement between the father and daughter. Words are so coa.r.s.e, one would not dare to speak even in the purest sense of disappointed love, but this inner discord, of which neither ever spoke a word, was pain to both of them; made the young girl unhappy, and irritated Clerambault. He knew the cause well enough, but his pride refused to admit it; though little by little he was not far from confessing that Rosine was right. He was ready to humiliate himself, but his tongue was tied by false shame; and so the difference between their minds grew wider, while in their hearts each longed to yield.

In the confusion that followed Maxime's death, this inward prayer pressed more on the one less able to resist. Clerambault was prostrated by his grief, his wife aimlessly busy, and Rosine was out all day at her war work. They only came together at meals. But it happened that one evening after dinner Clerambault heard her mother violently scolding Rosine, who had spoken of wounded enemies whom she wanted to take care of. Madame Clerambault was as indignant as if her daughter had committed a crime, and appealed to her husband. His weary, vague, sad eyes had begun to see; he looked at Rosine who was silent, her head bent, waiting for his reply.

"You are right, my little girl," he said.

Rosine started and flushed, for she had not expected this; she raised her grateful eyes to his, and their look seemed to say: "You have come back to me at last."

After the brief repast they usually separated; each to eat out his heart in solitude. Clerambault sat before his writing-table and wept, his face hidden in his hands. Rosine's look had pierced through to his suffering heart; his soul lost, stifled for so long, had come to be as it was before the war. Oh, the look in her eyes!...

He listened, wiping away his tears; his wife had locked herself into Maxime's room as she did every evening, and was folding and unfolding his clothes, arranging the things left behind.... He went into the room where Rosine sat alone by the window, sewing. She was absorbed in thought, and did not hear him coming till he stood before her; till he laid his grey head on her shoulder and murmured: "My little girl."

Then her heart melted also. She took the dear old head between her hands, with its rough hair, and answered:

"My dear father."

Neither needed to ask or to explain why he was there. After a long silence, when he was calmer, he looked at her and said:

"It seems as if I had waked up from a frightful dream." ... But she merely stroked his hair, without speaking.

"You were watching over me, were you not?... I saw it.... Were you unhappy?" ...

She just bowed her head not daring to look at him. He stooped to kiss her hands, and raising his head he whispered:

"My good angel. You have saved me!"

When he had gone back to his room she stayed there without moving, filled with emotion, which kept her for long, still, with drooping head, her hands clasped on her knees. The waves of feeling that flowed through her almost took away her breath. Her heart was bursting with love, happiness, and shame. The humility of her father overcame her.... And all at once a pa.s.sionate impulse of tender, filial piety broke the bonds which paralysed her soul and body, as she stretched out her arms towards the absent, and threw herself at the foot of her bed, thanking G.o.d, beseeching Him to give all the suffering to her, and happiness to the one she loved.

The G.o.d to whom she prayed did not give ear; for it was on the head of this young girl that he poured the sweet sleep of forgetfulness; but Clerambault had to climb his Calvary to the end.

Alone in his room, the lamp put out, in darkness, Clerambault looked within himself. He was determined to pierce to the bottom of his timid, lying soul which tried to hide itself. On his head he could still feel the coolness of his daughter's hand, which had effaced all his hesitation.

He would face this monster Truth, though he were torn by its claws which never relax, once they have taken hold.

With a firm hand, in spite of his anguish, he began to tear off in bleeding fragments the covering of mortal prejudices, pa.s.sions, and ideas foreign to his real nature, which clung to him.

First came the thick fleece of the thousand-headed beast, the collective soul of the herd. He had hidden under it from fear and weariness. It is hot and stifling, a dirty feather-bed; but once wrapped in it, one cannot move to throw it off, or even wish to do so; there is no need to will, or to think; one is sheltered from cold, from responsibilities. Laziness, cowardice!... Come, away with it!...

Let the chilly wind blow through the rents. You shrink at first, but already this breath has shaken the torpor; the enfeebled energy begins to stagger to its feet. What will it find outside? No matter what, we must see....

Sick with disgust, he saw first what he was loath to believe; how this greasy fleece had stuck to his flesh. He could sniff the musty odour of the primitive beast, the savage instincts of war, of murder, the l.u.s.t for blood like living meat torn by his jaws. The elemental force which asks death for life. Far down in the depths of human nature is this slaughter-house in the ditch, never filled up but covered with the veil of a false civilisation, over which hangs a faint whiff from the butcher's shop.... This filthy odour finally sobered Clerambault; with horror he tore off the skin of the beast whose prey he had been.

Ah, how thick it was,--warm, silky, and beautiful, and at the same time stinking and b.l.o.o.d.y, made of the lowest instincts, and the highest illusions. To love, give ourselves to all, be a sacrifice for all, be but one body and one soul, our Country the sole life!... What then is this Country, this living thing to which a man sacrifices his life, the life of all but his conscience and the consciences of others? What is this blind love, of which the other side of the s.h.i.+eld is an equally blinded hate?

... "It was a great error to take the name of reason from that of love," says Pascal, "and we have no good cause to think them opposed, for love and reason are in truth the same. Love is a precipitation of thought to one side without considering everything; but it is always reason." ...

Well, let us consider everything. Is not this love in a great measure the fear of examining all things, as a child hides his head under the sheet, so as not to see the shadow on the wall?

Country? A Hindoo temple: men, monsters, and G.o.ds. What is she? The earth we tread on? The whole earth is the mother of us all. The family? It is here and there, with the enemy as with ourselves, and it asks nothing but peace. The poor, the workers, the people, they are on both sides, equally miserable, equally exploited. Thinkers have a common field, and as for their rivalries and their vanities, they are as ridiculous in the East as in the West; the world does not go to war over the quarrels of a Vadius or a Trissotin. The State? But the State and the Country are not the same thing. The confusion is made by those who find profit in it; the State is our strength, used and abused by men like ourselves, no better than ourselves, often worse. We are not duped by them, and in times of peace we judge them fairly enough, but let a war come on, they are given _carte blanche_, they can appeal to the lowest instincts, stifle all control, suppress liberty and truth, destroy all humanity; they are masters, we must stand shoulder to shoulder to defend the honour and the mistakes of these Masacarilles arrayed in borrowed plumes. We are all answerable, do you say?

Terrible net-work of words! Responsible no doubt we are for the best and the worst of our people, it is a fact as we well know, but that it is a duty that binds us to their injustices and their insanities.... I deny it!...

There can be no question as to community of interest. No one, thought Clerambault, has had more joy in it, or said more in praise of its greatness. It is good and healthy, it makes for rest and strength, to plunge the bare, stiff, cold ego into the collective mind, as into a bath of confidence and fraternal gifts. It unbends, gives itself, breathes more deeply; man needs his fellow-man, and owes himself to him, but in order to give out, he must possess, he must be something.

But how can he be, if his self is merged in others? He has many duties, but the highest of all is to be and remain himself; even when he sacrifices and gives all that he is. To bathe in the soul of others would be dangerous as a permanent state; one dip, for health's sake, but do not stay too long, or you will lose all moral vigour. In our day you are plunged from childhood, whether you like it or not, into the democratic tub. Society thinks for you, imposes its morality upon you; its State acts for you, its fas.h.i.+ons and its opinions steal from you the very air you breathe; you have no lungs, no heart, no light of your own. You serve what you despise, you lie in every gesture, word, and thought, you surrender, become nothing.... What does it profit us all, if we all surrender? For the sake of whom, or what? To satisfy blind instincts, or rogues? Does G.o.d rule, or do some charlatans speak for the oracle? Let us lift the veil, and look the hidden thing behind it in the face.... Our Country! A great n.o.ble word! The father, brother embracing brother.... That is not what your false country offers me, but an enclosure, a pit full of beasts, trenches, barriers, prison bars.... My brothers, where are they? Where are those who travail all over the world? Cain, what hast thou done with them? I stretch out my arms; a wave of blood separates us; in my own country I am only an anonymous instrument of a.s.sa.s.sination.... My Country! but it is you who destroy her!... My Country was the great community of mankind; you have ravaged it, for thought and liberty know not where to lay their heads in Europe today. I must rebuild my house, the home of us all, for you have none, yours is a dungeon.... How can it be done, where shall I look, or find shelter?... They have taken everything from me! There is not a free spot on earth or in the mind; all the sanctuaries of the soul, of art, of science, religion, they are all violated, all enslaved! I am alone, lost, nothing remains to me but death!...

When he had torn everything away, there remained nothing but his naked soul. And for the rest of the night, it could only stand chilled and s.h.i.+vering. But a spark lived in this spirit that s.h.i.+vered, in this tiny being lost in the universe like those shapes which the primitive painters represented coming out of the mouth of the dying. With the dawn the feeble flame, stifled under so many falsehoods, began to revive, and was relighted by the first breath of free air; nothing could again extinguish it.

Upon this agony or parturition of the soul there followed a long sad day, the repose of a broken spirit, in a great silence with the aching relief of duty performed.... Clerambault sat with his head against the back of his armchair, and thought; his body was feverish, his heart heavy with recollections. The tears fell unnoticed from his eyes, while out of doors nature awoke sadly to the last days of winter, like him stripped and bare. But still there trembled a warmth beneath the icy air, which was to kindle a new fire everywhere.

PART TWO

It was a week before Clerambault could go out again. The terrible crisis through which he had pa.s.sed had left him weak but resolved, and though the exaltation of his despair had quieted down, he was stoically determined to follow the truth even to the end. The remembrance of the errors in which his mind had delighted, and the half-truths on which it had fed made him humble; he doubted his own strength, and wished to advance step by step. He was ready to welcome the advice of those wiser than himself. He remembered how Perrotin listened to his former confidences with a sarcastic reserve that irritated him at the time, but which now attracted him. His first visit of convalescence was to this wise old friend.

Perrotin was rather short-sighted and selfish, and did not take the trouble to look carefully at things that were not necessary to him, being a closer observer of books than of faces, but he was none the less struck by the alteration in Clerambault's expression.

"My dear friend," said he, "have you been ill?"

"Yes, ill enough," answered Clerambault, "but I have pulled myself together again, and am better now."

"It is the cruelest blow of all," said Perrotin, "to lose at our age, such a friend as your poor boy was to you ..."

"The most cruel is not his loss," said the father, "it is that I contributed to his death."

"What do you mean, my good friend?" said Perrotin in surprise. "How can you imagine such things to add to your trouble?"

"It was I who shut his eyes," said Clerambault bitterly, "and he has opened mine."

Perrotin pushed aside the work, which according to his habit he had continued to ruminate upon during the conversation, and looked narrowly at his friend, who bent his head, and began his story in an indistinct voice, sad and charged with feeling. Like a Christian of the early times making public confession, he accused himself of falsehood towards his faith, his heart, and his reason.

When the Apostle saw his Lord in chains, he was afraid and denied Him; but he was not brought so low as to offer his services as executioner.

He, Clerambault, had not only deserted the cause of human brotherhood, he had debased it; he had continued to talk of fraternity, while he was stirring up hatred. Like those lying priests who distort the Scriptures to serve their wicked purposes, he had knowingly altered the most generous ideas to disguise murderous pa.s.sions.

He extolled war, while calling himself a pacifist; professed to be humanitarian, previously putting the enemy outside humanity.... Oh, how much franker it would have been to yield to force than to lend himself to its dishonouring compromises! It was thanks to such sophistries as his that the idealism of young men was thrown into the arena. Those old poisoners, the artists and thinkers, had sweetened the death-brew with their honeyed rhetoric, which would have been found out and rejected by every conscience with disgust, if it had not been for their falsehoods....

"The blood of my son is on my head," said Clerambault sadly. "The death of the youth of Europe, in all countries, lies at the door of European thought. It has been everywhere a servant to the hangman."