Clerambault

bad luck which had made up his life. Marriage with a girl as poor as himself⁠—“hunger wedding thirst,” as they say, sickness and death, the struggle with nature⁠—it would not be so bad if men would only help.⁠ ⁠… Homo, homini⁠ ⁠… homo.⁠ ⁠… All the social injustice weighs on the under dog. As he listened Clerambault could not keep down his indignation, but Aimé Courtois took it as a matter of course; that’s the way it always has been, and always will be; some are born to suffer, others not. You can’t have mountains without valleys. The war seemed perfectly idiotic to him, but he would not have lifted a finger to prevent it. He had in his way the fatalist passivity of the people, which hides itself, on Gallic soil, behind a veil of ironic carelessness. The “no use in getting in a sweat about it,” of the trenches. Then there is also that false pride of the French, who fear nothing so much as ridicule, and would risk death twenty times over for something they know to be absurd, rather than be laughed at for an act of unusual common sense. “You might as well try to stop the lightning as talk against war.” When it hails there is nothing to do but to cover over your cold-frames if you can, and when it’s over go round and see how much is left of your crop. And they will keep on doing this until the next hailstorm, the next war, to the end of time. “No use getting in a sweat.”⁠ ⁠… It would never occur to them that Man can change Man.

This stupid heroic resignation irritated Clerambault profoundly. The upper classes are charmed with it, no doubt, for they owe their existence to it⁠—but it makes a Danaïd’s sieve of the human race, and its age-long effort, since all its courage, its virtues, and its labours, are spent in learning how to die.⁠ ⁠… But when he looked at the fragment of a man before him, his heart was pierced with an infinite pity. What could this wretched man do, symbol as he was, of the mutilated, sacrificed people? For so many centuries he has bled and suffered under our eyes, while we, his more fortunate brothers, have only encouraged him to persevere, throwing him some careless word of praise from a distance, which cost us nothing. What help have we ever given him? Nothing at all in action, and little enough in words. We owe to his sacrifices the leisure to think; but all the fruit of our thought we have kept for ourselves; we have not given him a taste of it. We are afraid of the light, of impudent opinion and the rulers of the hour who call to us saying: “Put it out! You who have the Light, hide it, if you wish to be pardoned.⁠ ⁠…” Oh, let us be cowards no more. For who will speak, if we do not? The others are gagged and must die without a word.

A wave of pain passed over the features of the wounded man. With eyes fixed on the ceiling, his big mouth twisted, his teeth obstinately clenched, he could say no more.⁠—Clerambault went away, his mind was made up. The silence of this soldier on his bed of agony had brought him to a decision. He would speak.

Part III

Clerambault came back from the hospital, shut himself into his room, and began to write. His wife tried to come in, to discover what he was doing; it seemed as if the good woman had a suspicion, an intuition, rare with her, which gave her a sort of obscure fear of what her husband might be about to do, but he succeeded in keeping her away until he had finished. Ordinarily not a line of his was spared to his family; it was a pleasure to his simple-hearted, affectionate vanity, and a duty towards their love also, which none of them would have neglected. This time, however, he did neglect it, for reasons which he would not admit to himself, for though he was far from imagining the consequences of his act, he was afraid of their objections, he did not feel sure enough to expose himself to them, and so preferred to confront them with the accomplished fact.

His first word was a cry of self-accusation:

“Forgive Us, Ye Dead!”

This public confession began with an inscription; a musical phrase of David’s lament over the body of his son Absalom:

“Oh! Absalom my son, my son!”

I had a son whom I loved, and sent to his death. You Fathers of mourning Europe, millions of fathers, widowed of your sons, enemies or friends, I do not speak for myself only, but for you who are stained with their blood even as I am. You all speak by the voice of one of you⁠—my unhappy voice full of sorrow and repentance.

My son died, for yours, by yours.⁠—How can I tell?⁠—like yours. I laid the blame on the enemy, and on the war, as you must also have done, but I see now that the chief criminal, the one whom I accuse, is myself. Yes, I am guilty; and that means you, and all of us. You must listen while I tell you what you know well enough, but do not want to hear.

My son was twenty years old when he fell in this war. Twenty years I had loved him, protected him from hunger, cold, and sickness; saved him from darkness of mind, ignorance, error, and all the pitfalls that lie in the shadows of life. But what did I do to defend him against this scourge which was coming upon us?

I was never one of those who compounded with the passions of jealous nationalities. I loved men, and their future brotherhood was a joy to me. Why then did I do nothing against the impending danger, against the fever that brooded within us,