“The veterans of the ‘good old times’ complain bitterly about the cavalier attitudes of our children. They deplore the present system of education, which consists of spoiling them, giving in to their little whims, rendering their lives happy and easy from the beginning. ‘Our fathers made men,’ they say, ‘but you are only making girls.’ Error. Let us not bring up children in the school of adversity, by means of needless deprivations that they cannot understand; many of them are already victims when we strike them. Let us wait until they grow up to shape them for the struggles of life.
“Life is not long enough for us to hasten to sow thorns beneath the feet of children. Children, like old people, are too weak to support strife. Let us therefore smooth the path of existence, in order that they should not be horrified by it on the threshold. We know where that leads: to suicide. The men that we form progressively and naturally, are educated, practiced and laborious; they are not useless Hercules, like those you regret. What use is strength, when it is not guided by wisdom?”
“That’s all very well in theory, my dear savant,” the Marquise replied, “but look at the children of today, left to their caprices; the more they’re given, the more they want. Their affection, of which you boast, is only addressed to those who give them treats or pleasures; it can only be captured via greed or self-interest. Their fathers and mothers are nothing compared to cakes or gold coins; all the generosity and caresses of the past are effaced before the temptation of the present. With your principles, my dear, you arrive at ingratitude.”
“Your reasoning, my dear Marquise, applies to small children who are still on the path of formation—the heart and intelligence as well as the body. You demand a combination of qualities of them that is difficult to find in adulthood. Let time accomplish its work—I’m getting back to my pet subject. If the child forgets, the adult remembers. Don’t ask children for a perfection that would cause them to die of meningitis.”
“But don’t all these faculties, which exist in them as seeds, at least require fertilization?”
“And it is rigor that you employ to that end. You educate them in the worst of all vices: hypocrisy. One does not love what one fears—or, at least, very rarely; that is only seen between lovers. A child’s heart is neither as insensible nor as selfish as you asset; does not their first cry, when they fall and hurt themselves, appeal to their mother?”
“Because they need her.”
“Oh, it you make that a question of self-interest, we’ll go round in a vicious circle from which it will be impossible to find an exit. Self-interest is the dominant element in our character; it’s mixed up in everything in this world. It enters into everyone’s nature, in a more or less emphatic dose; it insinuates itself into the most well-tempered soul. And bizarrely enough, in wanting to take a stand in opposition to self-interest, one falls back into it; no matter where we try to flee, it presents itself to us in a new form.
“There is the self-interest of the heart, the self-interest of the mind, the self-interest of money, the self-interest of pleasure, the self-interest of devotion, and a hundred of other sorts of self-interest, which I don’t have presently in mind. A good action is often dictated by a vulgar sentiment of egoism, which, analyzed minutely, uncovers a black spot. Is there a sentiment nobler, purer and more respectable than maternal love? And yet, maternal love does not escape the pitiless rule; it too is tainted with self-interest. For her child, a mother is capable of any devotion. That love is immense, merciful and blind, I grant you, but the mother, in loving her child thus, is counting on a reciprocal exchange of affection; she sows in order to harvest. She concentrates all her tenderness there, because it is from there that she obtains her greatest happiness.
“What is more egotistical than friendship? Do you have a friend, in the true sense of the word? You follow him everywhere, you involve yourself in his smallest affairs, at the risk of being indiscreet; you make his absences criminal, you’re jealous of his other friendships, you want him to be solely occupied with you, never to leave you, that he be no one’s friend but yours.
“What about love? It is the egoism of friendship taken to its highest expression, for love is passionate, and the more egotistical it is, the more tyrannical it is in consequence.
“What about courage? That sentiment, which provokes enthusiasm, which is, in appearance, so fine, so noble, so great, and which, examined profoundly, lays bare all the pettiness of ambition!
“Is it always for his fatherland that a soldier launches himself toward death? Is it not, very often, for a piece of ribbon to ornament his buttonhole, or for his commander to notice him and recommend him for promotion? Is not each daring deed an effort that hoists him toward the pinnacle?”
“No,” the Marquise replied. “Under enemy fire, the soldier does not think of those vainglories. Has he even the time to covet them? The regimental drum carries him away; the powder intoxicates him; he does not know where he is going; he follows the others. And if, in the ardor of battle, a stray thought crosses his mind, it is the image of his mother, his wife or his children. He fights then to defend their fortune, their happiness—who knows?—perhaps their lives.”
“Their unhappiness or death would make him suffer. He prefers to expose himself to more immediate suffering. Egoism, always egoism!”
“With such reasoning, you make virtue a monstrosity.”
“Certainly—but you’re the one who drove me to that pernicious logic. I’m extrapolating your principle—see where it leads.”
“Debate is no longer possible with such weapons. We could continue until tomorrow morning without either of us winning. Let’s leave these deceptive procedures to the diplomats; between ourselves, let’s put our cards on the table. What do you expect? I belong to the old regime, myself, by right of birth; the prejudices of my father—if they are prejudices—are inherent in my nature, by virtue of blood. One can’t argue with prejudices.
“You’re of the revolutionary school, and, in a spirit of contradiction, you oppose yourself to our institutions. You’re playing your role. We teach our children respect and submission; you teach them familiarity and insubordination. As you please—the future will decide between us. Liberty without limit, that’s your maxim. Go on, keep going, and that liberty will explode in your hands. I’m more conciliatory than you; I admit the work of the Revolution; I combine its reforms with the law and traditional authority.”
“Combinations are superfluous. Why confuse what is so simple? From the moment when people surpass that traditional authority, why impose it on them?”
“Yes, I know—the crown of your Utopian edifice is the Republic.”
“Naturally. You judge by reference to the past and the present, without deducing the future upheavals of humankind; you judge with reference to what is no longer the case. Personally, I judge by reference to what is. For the moment, it’s necessary to take account of the spirit of populations. What is suitable to some is contrary to others. Forms of government must adapt to temperaments. One people, born with the instinct of passivity, subjects itself to a monarchy; another, born with the instinct of liberty, breaks the yoke and establishes a Republic—it’s a matter of inclination.
“And let’s not confuse the word Republic with the word Anarchy! It’s true that Anarchy is often a consequence of the Republic, but temporarily; it arises from the fact that minds fermenting for a long time have suddenly erupted under the pressure of passion. The possession of the liberty so much desired has intoxicated them; hatred has blinded them; a conflict has been produced, from which civil war has surged—but that anarchy is only accidental, and when the first lance is broken, calm is reestablished.
“For the Republic to bear its fruits, it needs to ripen; the Republic must be given time to establish itself on solid foundations, to take root in the hearts of its citizens; it has to let the impetuous rancor of parties flow. On that condition alone, the Republic will be fecund; it will become indispensable; it will impose itself. It is the
refuge of all deceived peoples; it is the daughter of indignation. Demolish it, and it will return, more powerful still! The more it is persecuted, the stronger it becomes. Is not the proof that we call carry its seed within us in our personalities, and that the political quakes that shake the social strata drive us toward the same end?”
“All that’s utopian!” replied the Marquise. “Since the world was created, it has only advanced in order to retreat again. Arts, letters and the sciences have made progress, that’s incontestable—but that progress has worked to our detriment. The more the mind develops, the more the heart hardens. Can we find, in modern history, those sublime examples of virtue, devotion and courage of which we read on every page of ancient history?”
“And which probably never existed, save in the minds of writers. In our day, actions are in accordance with reflection. You see that as a bad thing; for myself, I see it as a great step toward the end of terrestrial ordeals.”
Monsieur Landet rose to his feet in order to take his leave of the Marquise.
“You’re leaving already?”
“It’s midnight, my dear Marquise. This discussion has taken us well into the night without bringing forth any light.”
“You’ll come to dinner tomorrow?”
“Gladly.”
“But on one condition.”
“What?”
“That you bring your retinue.”
“Ah! Marquise, you want a foretaste of the work before it’s published.”
“Isn’t it me to whom you owe it? Wasn’t I its first cause? It’s agreed, then?”
“You know full well that I can refuse you nothing. But shh!—and above all, don’t invite anyone else.”
“It’ll try...”
Monsieur Landet kissed the Marquise’s delicate aristocratic hand, and went out.
Chapter VI
JUSTICE
“Summus jus, summa injuria”17
The Marquise kept her promise. She had not invited anyone else.
Immediately after dinner, Hobson put Monsieur Landet to sleep.
“Today,” said the latter, “I shall deal with an exceedingly delicate aspect of the great social problem: Justice.
“Justice is an abstraction, which everyone fashions in his own way. The law varies, according to the country, temperaments, mores and prejudices. Prejudices, especially, exert the greatest influence on the mind of a people. ‘One sees almost nothing of what is just or unjust that does not change its quality in changing climate. Three degrees of elevation toward the pole overturns all of jurisprudence. A meridian decides the truth. In a few years of possession, fundamental laws change. The law has its epochs. The entry of Saturn into Leo marks the origin of some crime. A fine justice that is bounded by a river! Truth this side of the Pyrenees, error beyond!’18
“Laws are subject to the transformations of epochs; they take on the imprint of contemporary ideas.
“Among the ancients, crime was almost an honor, and vengeance was transmitted from generation to generation, like a sacred duty to be accomplished; justice was self-made. Today, it is the other way around; vengeance is reproved and punished by the law.
“In Sparta, there were schools of thievery, as there are schools for pickpockets in London today, with the difference that the former were authorized by the State and the latter hide from the police. Everyone knows the story of the young Spartan who, during a religious ceremony, preferred to allow his entrails to be devoured by a fox that he had stolen and hidden under his robe rather than reveal his larceny. A sad courage, that which consists in application to evil!
“Was there not a time when one could marry one’s sister? It was the patriarchs themselves who first set an example of that union, considered culpable today. Ammon, the son of David, having conceived a grand passion for his sister Tamar, resolved to slake it. One day, when she came into his room to bring him food, he said: ‘Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly... Now, therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.’19
“Thus, in the time of good King David, it was quite natural to marry one’s sister. Today, however, social convention makes it incestuous. What crime is there in it, after all? The idea people attach to it.
“Marriage, in any case, is an entirely modern institution. Once, mutual consent was sufficient, and natural law accomplished its work. In India, fiancés came, hand in hand, to the bank of the Ganges, and there, facing the heavens, they each took their betrothal rings from the other’s finger and threw it in the river; that was called marriage in the manner of the Grand’hurwas.20
“Better than that, among the Jews, when the wife called legitimate proved sterile, she presented one of her maidservants to her husband, in order that he might obtain a lineage and could thus perpetuate his family. Sarai, the wife of Abraham, being unable to have children by her husband, offered him one of her maidservants: ‘And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing; I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I might obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.’21
“Sarai had the conviction that she was behaving piously, and Abraham agreed in consequence, with the satisfaction of a duty accomplished. The centuries have overturned the manners illustrated; they have imposed new prejudices on humans. In our day under the terms of the law, Sarai would be neither more nor less than a common procuress, and Abraham, in accepting his wife’s proposition, would be lending himself to an adultery all the more inadmissible because it was counseled and sanctioned by Sarai. And yet, the motive that caused Sarai to act was respectable. Examples of that sort abound in the Bible. The Jews thought that they were honoring the Lord in that way.
“Even immorality did not shock them, as can be judged by the following passage: ‘Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothe but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him, but the king knew her not.’22
“Without casting doubt on the problematic virginity of Abishag of Shunam, the act of seeking out a young woman, beautiful and virginal—virginal!—to ‘warm’ an old man chilled by age constitutes an act of monstrous depravity.
“For the Jews of those times, there was nothing immoral in that. If we regard the action as contrary to decency, it is because the centuries that have gone by since that epoch have modified our way of seeing. It’s a question of appreciation, that’s all.
“Among certain peoples of the Middle Ages, ancient hatreds between families were expunged and bloodshed halted by a marriage between the belligerent parties. Among others, and in Russia still at the present day, such a union was sacrilegious and it was said that the blood of the ancestors would fall on the children unto the 14th generation.
“In antiquity, a father had the right of life and death over his children. He killed his son at birth if he did not recognize him as his own. Today, the law attributes children born in marriage to the father, and forces him to give them his name whether he likes it or not. It thus renders him responsible for the fruits of adultery and exposes him to bear the burden of another man’s child. That is a vice within our Code; but to make good laws, it is often necessary to sacrifice the exception to the rule.
“In Sparta, the government ordered children born with a deformity or a paltry constitution to be thrown from the summits of the Taygetus, considering them as improper as imperfect maneuvers in war.
“In Rome, the rig
hts of a husband were unlimited. He condemned his wife to death if, while kissing her on the mouth, he perceived that she had drunk wine, a crime then unpardonable! Hence the Latin word osculare.23 The husband was everything, the wife nothing. He was the sovereign judge in his house; civil law had nothing to say about his domestic affairs.
“The head of the family, he grouped around his heart the members who composed it, with the exclusion of his wife’s parents; he held them under his jurisdiction, as chief, as judge, as priest. As father, he retained the right of guardianship over his children until death. After him, his eldest son, once having achieved his majority, inherited parental rights over his brothers. The laws reigning in the family, therefore, apart from a few that were generally accredited, were arbitrary. The husband and father possessed absolute power, more absolute than modern justice, since he condemned without appeal, without recourse to mercy.
“And the slaves? They were beasts of burden, objects, things that were bequeathed in wills, or given as gifts. They only had the physical appearance of men or women. They belonged to their master body and soul, who employed them as he wished, when he did not throw them to feed the lampreys that grew fat in his fish-pond. Nero tested the effects of Locusta’s poisons on them. And the Roman people, avid for human blood, sent them to face lions in the arena. Gladiators were counted in pairs, like animals. They were coupled, crossed and mated like animals in a stud-farm. That was the law.
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