“Meanwhile the honourable M. Laprat-Teulet is at Mazas! He was taken there on the morning of the very day on which he was due here to preside over the Social Defence Leagui banquet. This arrest, which was carried out on the day after the vote that authorised the prosecution, has taken M. Worms-Clavelin completely by surprise. He had arranged for M. Dellion to preside at the banquet, since his integrity, guaranteed by inherited wealth and by forty years of commercial prosperity, is universally respected. Though the préfet deplores the fact that the most prominent officials of the Republic are continually subject to suspicion, yet, at the same time, he congratulates himself on the loyalty of their constituents, who remain true to the established system, even when it seems the general wish to bring it into disrepute. He declares, in fact, that parliamentary episodes such as the one which has just occurred, even when they follow on others of the same kind, leave the working-classes of the department absolutely indifferent. And M. Worms-Clavelin is quite right: he is by no means exaggerating the phlegmatic calm of these classes, which seem no longer capable of surprise. The herd of nobodies read in the newspapers that Senator Laprat-Teulet has been sent to solitary confinement; they manifest no surprise at the news, and they would have received with the same phlegm the information that he had been sent as ambassador to some foreign court. It is even probable that, if the arm of justice sends him back to parliamentary life, M. Laprat-Teulet will sit next year on the budget commission. There is, at any rate, no doubt whatever that at the end of his sentence he will be re-elected.”
The abbé here interrupted M. Bergeret.
“There, Monsieur Bergeret, you put your finger on the weak point; there you make the void to echo. The public is becoming used to the spectacle of wrong-doing and is losing the power to discriminate between good and evil. That’s where the danger lies. Now one public scandal after another arises, only to be at once hushed up. Under the Monarchy and the Empire there was such a thing as public opinion; there is none to-day. This nation, once so high-spirited and generous, has suddenly become incapable of either hatred or love, of either admiration or scorn.”
“Like you,” said M. Bergeret, “I have been struck by this change and I have sought in vain for the causes of it. We read in many Chinese fables of a very ugly spirit, of lumpish gait, but subtle mind, who loves to play pranks. He makes his way by night into inhabited houses, then opening a sleeper’s brain, as though it were a box, he takes out the brain, puts another in its place and softly closes the skull. He takes infinite delight in passing thus from house to house, interchanging brains as he goes, and when, at dawn, this tricksy elf has returned to his temple, the mandarin awakes with the mind of a courtesan, and the young girl with the dreams of a hardened opium-eater. Some spirit of this sort must assuredly have been busy bartering French brains for those of some tame, spiritless people, who drag out a melancholy existence without rising to the height of a new desire, indifferent alike to justice and injustice. For, indeed, we are no longer at all like ourselves.”
Stopping suddenly, M. Bergeret shrugged his shoulders. Then he went on, in a tone of gentle sadness:
“Yet, it is the effect of age and the sign of a certain wisdom. Infancy is the age of awe and wonder; youth, of fiery revolt. It is the mere passing of the years that has brought us this mood of peaceful indifference: I ought to have understood it better. Our condition of mind, at any rate, assures us both internal and external peace.”
“Do you think so?” asked Abbé Lantaigne. “And have you no presentiment of approaching catastrophe?”
“Life in itself is a catastrophe,” answered M. Bergeret. “It is a constant catastrophe, in fact, since it can only manifest itself in an unstable environment, and since the essential condition of its existence is the instability of the forces which produce it. The life of a nation, like that of an individual, is a never-ceasing ruin, a series of downfalls, an endless prospect of misery and crime. Our country, though it is the finest in the world, only exists, like others, by the perpetual renewal of its miseries and mistakes. To live is to destroy. To act is to injure. But at this particular moment, Monsieur Lantaigne, the finest country in the world is feeble in action, and plays but a sluggard’s part in the drama of existence. It is that fact which reassures me, for I detect no signs in the heavens. I foresee no evils approaching with special and peculiar menace to our peaceful land. Tell me, Monsieur l’abbé, when you foretell catastrophe, is it from within or from without that you see it coming?”
“The danger is all round us,” answered M. Lantaigne, “and yet you laugh.”
“I feel no desire whatever to laugh,” answered M. Bergeret. “There is little enough for me to laugh at in this sublunary world, on this terrestrial globe whose inhabitants are almost all either hateful or ridiculous. But I do not believe that either our peace or our independence is threatened by any powerful neighbour. We inconvenience no one. We are not a menace to the comity of nations. We are restrained and reasonable. So far as we know, our statesmen are not formulating extravagant schemes which, if successful, would establish our power, or if unsuccessful, would bring about our ruin. We make no claim to the sovereignty of the globe. Europe of to-day finds us quite bearable: the feeling must be a happy novelty.
“Just look for a moment at the portraits of our statesmen that Madame Fusellier, the stationer, keeps in her shop-window. Tell me if there is a single one of them who looks as if he were made to unleash the dogs of war and lay the world waste. Their talents match their power, for both are but mediocre. They are not made to be the perpetrators of great crimes, for, thank God! they are not great men. Hence, we can sleep in peace. Besides, although Europe is armed to the teeth, I believe she is by no means inclined to war. For in war there breathes a generous spirit unpopular nowadays. True, they set the Turks fighting the Greeks: that is, they bet on them, as men bet on cocks or horses. But they will not fight between themselves. In 1840 Auguste Comte foretold the end of war and, of course, the prophecy was not exactly and literally fulfilled. Yet possibly the vision of this great man penetrated into the far-distant future. War is, indeed, the everyday condition of a feudal and monarchical Europe, but the feudal system is now dead and the ancient despotisms are opposed by new forces. The question of peace or war in our days depends less on absolute sovereigns than on the great international banking interests, more influential than the Powers themselves. Financial Europe is in a peaceful temper, or, if that be not quite true, she certainly has no love for war as war, no respect for any sentiment of chivalry. Besides, her barren influence is not destined to live long and she will one day be engulfed in the abyss of industrial revolution. Socialistic Europe will probably be friendly to peace, for there will be a socialistic Europe, Monsieur Lantaigne, if indeed that unknown power which is approaching can be rightly called Socialism.”
“Sir,” answered Abbé Lantaigne, “only one Europe is possible, and that is Christian Europe. There will always be wars, for peace is not ordained for this world. If only we could recover the courage and faith of our ancestors! As a soldier of the Church militant, I know well that war will only end with the consummation of the ages. And, like Ajax in old Homer, I pray God that I may fight in the light of day. What terrifies me is neither the number nor the boldness of our enemies, but the weakness and indecision which prevail in our own camp. The Church is an army, and I grieve when I see chasms and openings right along her battle-front; I rage when I see atheists slipping into her ranks and the worshippers of the Golden Calf volunteering for the defence of the sanctuary. I groan when I see the struggle going on all around me, amidst the confusion of a great darkness propitious to cowards and traitors. The will of God be done! I am certain of the final triumph, of the ultimate conquest of sin and error at the last day, which will be the day of glory and justice.”
He rose with firm and steady glance, yet his heavy face was downcast. His soul within him was sorrowful, and not without good reason. For under his administration the high seminary was on its way t
o ruin. There was a financial deficit, and now that he was being prosecuted by Lafolie the butcher, to whom he owed ten thousand, two hundred and thirty-one francs, his pride lived in perpetual dread of a rebuke from the Cardinal-Archbishop. The mitre towards which he had stretched out his hand was eluding his grasp and already he saw himself banished to some poor country benefice. Turning towards M. Bergeret, he said:
“The most terrible storm-cloud is ready to burst over France,”
XIII
JUST now M. Bergeret was on his way to the restaurant, for every evening he spent an hour at the Café de la Comédie. Everybody blamed him for doing so, but here he could enjoy a cheery warmth which had nothing to do with wedded bliss. Here, too, he could read the papers and look on the faces of people who bore him no ill-will. Sometimes, too, he met M. Goubin here — M. Goubin, who had become his favourite pupil since M. Roux’s treachery. M. Bergeret had his favourites, for the simple reason that his artistic soul took pleasure in the very act of making a choice. He had a partiality for M. Goubin, though he could scarcely be said to love him, and, as a matter of fact, M. Goubin was not lovable. Thin and lank, poverty-stricken in physique, in hair, in voice, and in brain, his weak eyes hidden by eye-glasses, his lips close-locked, he was petty in every way, and endowed, not only with the foot, but with the mind of a young girl. Yet, with these characteristics, he was accurate and painstaking, and to his puny frame had been fitted vast and powerful protruding ears, the only riches with which nature had blessed this feeble organism. M. Goubin was naturally qualified to be a capital listener.
M. Bergeret was in the habit of talking to M. Goubin, while they sat with two large beer-glasses in front of them, amidst the noise of the dominoes clicking on the marble tables all around them. At eleven o’clock the master rose and the pupil followed his example. Then they walked across the empty Place du Théâtre and by back ways until they reached the gloomy Tintelleries.
In such fashion they proceeded one night in May when the air, which had been cleared by a heavy storm of rain, was fresh and limpid and full of the smell of earth and leaves. In the purple depths of the moonless, cloudless sky hung points of light that sparkled with the white gleam of diamonds. Amid them, here and there, twinkled bright facets of red or blue. Lifting his eyes to the sky, M. Bergeret watched the stars. He knew the constellations fairly well, and, with his hat on the back of his head and his face turned upwards, he pointed out Gemini with the end of his stick to the vague, wandering glance of M. Goubin’s ignorance. Then he murmured:
“Would that the clear star of Helen’s twin brothers
Might ‘neath thy barque the wild waters assuage,
Would that to Pæstum o’er seas of Ionia...”
(“Oh! soit que l’astre pur des deux frères d’Hélène
Calme sous ton vaisseau la vague ionienne,
Soit qu’aux bords de Pæstum...”)
Then he said abruptly:
“Have you heard, Monsieur Goubin, that news of Venus has reached us from America and that the news is bad?”
M. Goubin tried obediently to look for Venus in the sky, but the professor informed him that she had set.
“That beautiful star,” he continued, “is a hell of fire and ice. I have it from M. Camille Flammarion himself, who tells me every month, in the excellent articles he writes, all the news from the sky. Venus always turns the same side to the sun, as the moon does to the earth. The astronomer at Mount Hamilton swears that it is so. If we pin our faith to him, one of the hemispheres of Venus is a burning desert, the other, a waste of ice and darkness, and that glorious luminary of our evenings and mornings is filled with naught but silence and death.”
“Really!” said M. Goubin.
“Such is the prevailing creed this year,” answered M. Bergeret. “For my part, I am not far from being convinced that life, at any rate in the form which it presents on earth, is the result of a disease in the constitution of the planet, that it is a morbid growth, a leprosy, something loathsome, in fact, which would never be found in a healthy, well-constituted star. By life I mean, of course, that state of activity manifested by organic matter in plants and animals. I derive pleasure and consolation from this idea. For, indeed, it is a melancholy thing to fancy that all these suns that flame above our heads bring warmth to other planets as miserable as our own, and that the universe gives birth to suffering and squalor in, never-ending succession.
“We cannot speak of the planets attendant on Sirius or Aldebaran, on Altaïr or Vega, of those dark masses of dust that may perchance accompany these points of fire that lie scattered over the sky, for even that they exist is not known to us, and we only suspect it by virtue of the analogy existing between our sun and the other stars of the universe. But if we try to form some conception of the planets in our own system, we cannot possibly imagine that life exists there in the mean forms which she usually presents on our earth. One cannot suppose that beings constructed on our model are to be found in the weltering chaos of the giants Saturn and Jupiter. Uranus and Neptune have neither light nor heat, and therefore that form of corruption which we call organic life - cannot exist on them. Neither is it credible that life can be manifested in that star-dust dispersed in the ether between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, for that dust is but the scattered material of a planet. The tiny ball Mercury seems too blazing hot to produce that mouldy dampness which we call animal and vegetable life. The moon is a dead world, and we have just discovered that the temperature of Venus does not suit what we call organic life. Thus, we can imagine nothing at all comparable with man in all the solar system, unless it be on the planet Mars, which, unfortunately for itself, has some points in common with the earth. It has both air and water; it has, alas! maybe, the materials for the making of animals like ourselves.”
“Isn’t it true that it is believed to be inhabited?” asked M. Goubin.
“We have sometimes been disposed to imagine so,” answered M. Bergeret. “The appearance of this planet is not very well known to us. It seems to vary and to be always in confusion. On it canals can be seen, whose nature and origin we cannot understand. We cannot be absolutely certain that this neighbour of ours is saddened and degraded by human beings like ourselves.”
M. Bergeret had reached his door. He stopped and said:
“I would fain believe that organic life is an evil peculiar to this wretched little planet of ours. It is a ghastly idea that in the infinitude of heaven they eat and are eaten in endless succession.”
XIV
THE cab which was carrying Madame Worms-Clavelin into Paris passed through the Porte Maillot between the gratings crowned in civic style with a hedge of pike-heads. Near these lay dusty custom-house officers and sunburnt flower-girls asleep in the sun. As it passed, it left, on the right, the Avenue de la Révolte, where low, mouldy, red-bedaubed inns and stunted arbours face the Chapel of Saint-Ferdinand, which crouches, lonely and dwarfish, on the edge of a gloomy military moat covered with sickly patches of scorched grass. Thence it emerged into the melancholy Rue de Chartres, with its everlasting pall of dust from the stone-cutting yards, and passed down it into the beautiful shady roads that open into the royal park, now cut up into small, middle-class estates. As the cab rumbled heavily along the causeway down an avenue of plane-trees, every second or so, through the silent solitude, there passed lightly-clad bicyclists who skimmed by with bent backs and heads cutting the air like quick-moving animals. With their rapid flight and long, swift, bird-like movements, they were almost graceful through sheer ease, almost beautiful by the mere amplitude of the curves they described. Between the bordering tree-trunks Madame Worms-Clavelin could see lawns, little ponds, steps, and glass-door canopies in the most correct taste, cut off by rows of palings. Then she lost herself in a vague dream of how, in her old age, she would live f in a house like those whose fresh plaster and slate she could see through the leaves. She was a sensible woman and moderate in her desires, so that now she felt a dawning love of fowls and rabbits ri
sing in her breast. Here and there, in the larger avenues, big buildings stood out, chapels, schools, asylums, hospitals, an Anglican church with its gables of stern Gothic, religious houses, severely peaceful in appearance, with a cross on the gate and a very black bell against the wall and, hanging down, the chain by which to ring it. Then the cab plunged into the low-lying, deserted region of market-gardens, where the glass roofs of hot-houses glittered at the end of narrow, sandy paths, or where the eye was caught by the sudden appearance of one of those ridiculous summer-houses that country builders delight to construct, or by the trunks of dead trees imitated in stoneware by an ingenious maker of garden ornaments. In this Bas-Neuilly district one can feel the freshness of the river hard by. Vapours rise there from a soil that is still damp with the waters which covered it, up to quite a late period, according to the geologists — exhalations from marshes on which the wind bent the reeds scarcely a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago.
Madame Worms-Clavelin looked out of the carriage window: she had nearly arrived. In front of her the pointed tops of the poplars which fringe the river rose at the end of the avenue. Once more the surroundings were varied and bustling. High walls and zigzag roof-ridges followed one another uninterruptedly. The cab stopped in front of a large modern house, evidently built with special regard to economy and even stinginess, in defiance of all considerations of art or beauty. Yet the effect was neat and pleasant on the whole. It was pierced with narrow windows, among which one could distinguish those of the chapel by the leaden tracery that bound the window-panes. On its dull, plain façade one was discreetly reminded of the traditions of French religious art by means of triangular dormer windows set in the woodwork of the roof and capped with trefoils. On the pediment of the front door an ampulla was carved, typifying the phial in which was contained the blood of the Saviour that Joseph of Arimathæa had carried away in a glove. This was the escutcheon of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, a confraternity founded in 1829 by Madame Marie Latreille, which received state recognition in 1868, thanks to the goodwill of the Empress Eugénie. The Sisters of the Precious Blood devoted themselves to the training of young girls.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 140