Clerambault held out his hand to stop him:—“Ah! you have no need to tell me that, and it tortures me. Do you think I am insensible to the pain of these poor souls whose faith I undermine? Respect the beliefs of others; offend not one of these little ones. … My God! what can I do? Help me to get out of this dilemma; shall I see wrong done, let men go to ruin—or risk injuring them, wound their faith, draw hatred upon myself when I try to save them? … Show me the law!”
“Save yourself.”
“But that would be to lose myself, if the price is the life of others, if we do nothing. You and I, no effort would be too great—the ruin of Europe, of the whole world, is imminent.”
Perrotin sat quietly, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands folded over his Buddha-like belly. He twirled his thumbs, looking kindly at Clerambault, shook his head, and replied: “Your generous heart, and your artistic sensibilities urge you too far, my friend, but fortunately the world is not near its end. This is not the first time. And there will be many others. What is happening today is painful, certainly, but not in the least abnormal. War has never kept the earth from turning on its axis, nor prevented the evolution of life; it is even one of the forms of its evolution. Let an old scholar and philosopher oppose his calm inhumanity to your holy Man of Sorrows. In spite of all it may bring you some benefit. This struggle, this crisis which alarms you so much, is no more than a simple case of systole, a cosmic contraction, tumultuous, but regulated, like the folding of the earth crust accompanied by destructive earthquakes. Humanity is tightening. And war is its seismos. Yesterday, in all countries, provinces were at war with each other. Before that, in each province, cities fought together. Now that national unity has been reached, a larger unity develops. It is certainly regrettable that it should take place by violence, but that is the natural method. Of the explosive mixture of conflicting elements in conflict, a new chemical body will be born. Will it be in the East, or in Europe? I cannot tell; but surely what results will have new properties, more valuable than its parts. The end is not yet. The war of which we are now witnesses is magnificent … (I beg your pardon; I mean magnificent to the mind, where suffering does not exist) … Greater, finer conflicts still are preparing. These poor childish peoples who imagine that they can disturb the peace of eternity with their cannon shots! … The whole universe must first pass through the retort. We shall have a war between the two Americas, one between the New World and the Yellow Continent, then the conquerors and the rest of the world. … That is enough to fill up a few centuries. And I may not have seen all, my eyes are not very good. Naturally each of these shocks will lead to social struggles.
“It will all be accomplished in about a dozen centuries. (I am rather inclined to think that it will be more rapid than it seems by comparison with the past, for the movement becomes accelerated as it proceeds.) No doubt we shall arrive at a rather impoverished synthesis, for many constituent elements, some good, some bad, will be destroyed in the process, the one being too delicate to resist the hostile environment, the other injurious and impossible to assimilate. Then we shall have the celebrated United States of the whole world; and this union will be all the more solid, because, as is probable, man will be menaced by a common danger. The canals of Mars, the drying-up or cooling-off of the planet, some mysterious plague, the pendulum of Poe, in short, the vision of an inevitable death overwhelming the human race. … There will be great things to behold! The Genius of the race, stretched to the uttermost, in its last agonies.
“There will be, on the other hand, very little liberty; human multiplicity when near its end will fuse itself into a Unity of Will. Do we not see the beginnings already? Thus, without abrupt mutations, will be effected the reintegration of the complex in the one, of old Empedocles’ Hatred in Love.”
“And what then?”
“After that? A rest, and then it will all begin over again, there can be no doubt. A young cycle. The new Kalpa. The world will turn once more, on the reforged wheel.”
“And what is the answer to the riddle?”
“The Hindus would tell you Shiva. Shiva, who creates and destroys; destroys and creates.”
“What a hideous dream.”
“That is an affair of temperament. Wisdom liberates. To the Hindus, Buddha is the deliverer. As for me, curiosity is a sufficient reward.”
“It would not be enough for me, and I cannot content myself either with the wisdom of a selfish Buddha, who sets himself free by deserting the rest. I know
