“To conquer,” said Christophe, “you must vanquish, you must live. Truth is no hard dogma, secreted by the brain, like a stalactite by the walls of a cave. Truth is life. It is not to be found in your own head, but to be sought for in the hearts of others. Attach yourself to them, be one with them. Think as much as you like, but do you every day take a bath of humanity. You must live in the life of others and love and bow to destiny.”
“It is our fate to be what we are. It does not depend on us whether we shall or shall not think certain things, even though they be dangerous. We have reached such a pitch of civilization that we cannot turn back.”
“Yes, you have reached the farthest limit of the plateau of civilization, that dizzy height to which no nation can climb without feeling an irresistible desire to fling itself down. Religion and instinct are weakened in you. You have nothing left but intelligence. You are machines grinding out philosophy. Death comes rushing in upon you.”
“Death comes to every nation: it is a matter of centuries.”
“Have done with your centuries! The whole of life is a matter of days and hours. If you weren’t such an infernally metaphysical lot, you’d never go shuffling over into the absolute, instead of seizing and holding the passing moment.”
“What do you want? The flame burns the torch away. You can’t both live and have lived, my dear Christophe.”
“You must live.”
“It is a great thing to have been great.”
“It is only a great thing when there are still men who are alive enough and great enough to appreciate it.”
“Wouldn’t you much rather have been the Greeks, who are dead, than any of the people who are vegetating nowadays?”
“I’d much rather be myself, Christophe, and very much alive.”
Olivier gave up the argument. It was not that he was without an answer. But it did not interest him. All through the discussion he had only been thinking of Christophe. He said, with a sigh:
“You love me less than I love you.”
Christophe took his hand and pressed it tenderly:
“Dear Olivier,” he said, “I love you more than my life. But you must forgive me if I do not love you more than Life, the sun of our two races. I have a horror of the night into which your false progress drags me. All your sentiments of renunciation are only the covering of the same Buddhist Nirvana. Only action is living, even when it brings death. In this world we can only choose between the devouring flame and night. In spite of the sad sweetness of dreams in the hour of twilight, I have no desire for that peace which is the forerunner of death. The silence of infinite space terrifies me. Heap more fagots upon the fire! More! And yet more! Myself too, if needs must. I will not let the fire dwindle. If it dies down, there is an end of us, an end of everything.”
“What you say is old,” said Olivier; “it comes from the depths of the barbarous past.”
He took down from his shelves a book of Hindu poetry, and read the sublime apostrophe of the God Krishna:
“Arise, and fight with a resolute heart. Setting no store by pleasure or pain, or gain or loss, or victory or defeat, fight with all thy might. …”
Christophe snatched the book from his hands and read:
“… I have nothing in the world to bid me toil: there is nothing that is not mine: and yet I cease not from my labor. If I did not act, without a truce and without relief, setting an example for men to follow, all men would perish. If for a moment I were to cease from my labors, I should plunge the world in chaos, and I should be the destroyer of life.”
“Life,” repeated Olivier—“what is life?”
“A tragedy,” said Christophe. “Hurrah!”
The panic died down. Everyone hastened to forget, with a hidden fear in their hearts. No one seemed to remember what had happened. And yet it was plain that it was still in their thoughts, from the joy with which they resumed their lives, the pleasant life from day to day, which is never truly valued until it is endangered. As usual when danger is past, they gulped it down with renewed avidity.
Christophe flung himself into creative work with tenfold vigor. He dragged Olivier after him. In reaction against their recent gloomy thoughts they had begun to collaborate in a Rabelaisian epic. It was colored by that broad materialism which follows on periods of moral stress. To the legendary heroes—Gargantua, Friar John, Panurge—Olivier had added, on Christophe’s inspiration, a new character, a peasant, Jacques Patience, simple, cunning, sly, resigned, who was the butt of the others, putting up with it when he was thrashed and robbed—putting up with it when they made love to
