“It takes all sorts to make a world.”
Christophe imagined that she was borne up by her religion: but one day she said, speaking of others who were richer and more happy:
“But in the end we shall all be equal.”
“When?” asked Christophe. “After the social revolution?”
“The revolution?” said she. “Oh, there’ll be much water flowing under bridges before that. I don’t believe that stuff. Things will always be the same.”
“When shall we all be equal, then?”
“When we’re dead, of course! That’s the end of everybody.”
He was surprised by her calm materialism. He dared not say to her:
“Isn’t it a frightful thing, in that case, if there is only one life, that it should be the like of yours, while there are so many others who are happy?”
But she seemed to have guessed his thought: she went on phlegmatically, resignedly, and a little ironically:
“One has to put up with it. Everybody cannot draw a prize. I’ve drawn a blank: so much the worse!”
She never even thought of looking for a more profitable place outside France. (She had once been offered a situation in America.) The idea of leaving the country never entered her head. She said:
“Stones are hard everywhere.”
There was in her a profound, skeptical, and mocking fatalism. She was of the stock that has little or no faith, few considered reasons for living, and yet a tremendous vitality—the stock of the French peasantry, industrious and apathetic, riotous and submissive, who have no great love of life, but cling to it, and have no need of artificial stimulants to keep up their courage.
Christophe, who had not yet come across them, was astonished to find in the girl an absence of all faith: he marveled at her tenacious hold on life, without pleasure or purpose, and most of all he admired her sturdy moral sense that had no need of prop or support. Till then he had only seen the French people through naturalistic novels, and the theories of the mannikins of contemporary literature, who, reacting from the art of the century of pastoral scenes and the Revolution, loved to present natural man as a vicious brute, in order to sanctify their own vices. … He was amazed when he discovered Sidonie’s uncompromising honesty. It was not a matter of morality but of instinct and pride. She had her aristocratic pride. For it is foolish to imagine that everybody belonging to the people is “popular.” The people have their aristocrats just as the upper classes have their vulgarians. The aristocrats are those creatures whose instincts, and perhaps whose blood, are purer than those of the others: those who know and are conscious of what they are, and must be true to themselves. They are in the minority: but, even when they are forced to live apart, the others know that they are the salt of the earth: and the fact of their existence is a check upon the others, who are forced to model themselves upon them, or to pretend to do so. Every province, every village, every congregation of men, is, to a certain degree, what its aristocrats are: and public opinion varies accordingly, and is, in one place, severe, in another, lax. The present anarchy and upheaval of the majority will not change the unvoiced power of the minority. It is more dangerous for them to be uprooted from their native soil and scattered far and wide in the great cities. But even so, lost amid strange surroundings, living in isolation, yet the individualities of the good stock persist and never mix with those about them.—Sidonie knew nothing, wished to know nothing, of all that Christophe had seen in Paris. She was no more interested in the sentimental and unclean literature of the newspapers than in the political news. She did not even know that there were Popular Universities: and, if she had known, it is probable that she would have put herself out as little to go to them as she did to hear a sermon. She did her work, and thought for herself: she was not concerned with what other people thought. Christophe congratulated her.
“Why is that surprising?” she asked. “I am like everybody else. You haven’t met any French people.”
“I’ve been living among them for a year,” said Christophe, “and I haven’t met a single one who thought of anything but amusing himself or of aping those who amuse him.”
“That’s true,” said Sidonie. “You have only seen rich people. The rich are the same everywhere. You’ve seen nothing at all.”
“That’s true,” said Christophe. “I’m beginning.”
For the first time he caught a glimpse of the people of France, men and women who seem to be built for eternity, who are one with the earth, who, like the earth, have seen so many conquering races, so many masters of a day, pass away, while they themselves endure and do not pass.
When he was getting better and was allowed to get up for a little, the first thing he thought of was to pay Sidonie back for the expenses she had incurred during his illness. It was impossible for him to go about Paris looking for work, and he had to bring himself to write to Hecht: he asked him for an advance on account of future work. With his amazing
