Clerambault: The Story of an Independent Spirit During the War · Chapter 14Milton. (2)
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
"That is not just what I meant, but I am not very anxious to be seen."
"Why not? I should like to know," said Clerambault, in a tone which he tried to make gay.
"Because a man does not ask visitors to the house when he is not there himself."
"Where are you?" if one may ask.
"I could almost swear that I was shut up in an old Egyptian mummy"—he glanced at the bed and his immovable body:
"There is no life left in it," he said.
"You have more life than any of us," said a voice beside them. Clerambault looked up and saw on the other side of the couch a tall young man full of health and strength, who seemed to be about the same age as Edmé, who smiled and said to Clerambault: "My friend Chastenay has enough vitality to lend me some and to spare."
"If that were only literally true," said the other, and the two friends exchanged an affectionate glance. Chastenay continued:
"I should in that case only be giving back a part of what I owe you." Then turning to Clerambault, he added: "He is the one who keeps us all up, is it not so, Madame Fanny?"
"Indeed yes, I could not do without my strong son," said the mother tenderly.
"They take advantage of the fact that I cannot defend myself," said Edmé to Clerambault. "You see I cannot stir an inch."
"Was it a wound?"
"Paralysis."—Clerambault did not dare to ask for details, but after a pause: "Do you suffer much?" he inquired.
"I ought to wish that it were so perhaps; for pain is a tie between us and the shore. However, I confess that I prefer the silence of this body in which I am encased … let us say no more about it…. My mind at least is free. And if it is not true that it 'agitat molem,' does often escape."
"I know," said Clerambault, "it came to see me the other day."
"Not for the first time; it has been there before."
"And I who thought myself deserted!"
"Do you recall," said Edmé, "the words of Randolph to Cecil?—'The voice of a man alone can in one hour put more life into us than the clang of five hundred trumpets sounded continuously.'"
"That always reminds me of you," said Chastenay, but Edmé went on as if he had not heard him: … "You have waked us all up."
Clerambault looked at the brave calm eyes of the paralytic, and said:
"Your eyes do not look as if they needed to be waked."
"They do not need it now," said Edmé, "the farther off one is, the better one sees; but when I was close to everything I saw very little."
"Tell me what you see now."
"It is getting late," said Edmé, "and I am rather tired. Will you come another time?"
"Tomorrow, if you will let me."
As Clerambault went out Chastenay joined him. He felt the need of confiding to a heart that could feel the pain and grandeur of the tragedy of which his friend had been at once the hero and the victim. Edmé Froment had been struck on the spinal column by an exploding shell. Young as he was, he was one of the intellectual leaders of his generation, handsome, ardent, eloquent, overflowing with life and visions, loving and beloved, nobly ambitious, and all at once, at a blow,—a living death! His mother who had centred all her pride and love on him now saw him condemned for the rest of his days to this terrible fate. They had both suffered terribly, but each hid it from the other, and this effort kept them up. They took great pride in each other. She had all the care of him, washed and fed him like a little child, and he kept calm for her sake, and sustained her on the wings of his spirit.
"Ah," said Chastenay, "it makes one feel ashamed—when I think that I am alive and well, that I can reach out my arms to life, that I can run and leap, and draw this blessed air into my lungs…." As he spoke he stretched out his arms, raised his head, and breathed deeply.
"I ought to feel remorseful," he added, lowering his voice, "and the worst is that I do not." Clerambault could not help smiling.
"It is not very heroic," continued Chastenay, "and yet I care more for Froment than for anyone on earth, and his fate makes me wretchedly unhappy. But all the same, when I think of my luck to be here at this moment when so many are gone, and to be well and sound, I can hardly keep from showing how glad I am. It is so good to live and be whole. Poor Edmé!… You must think me terribly selfish?"
"No, what you say is perfectly natural and healthy. If we were all as sincere as you, humanity would not be the victim of the wicked notion of glory in suffering. You have every right to enjoy life after the trials you have passed through," and as he spoke he touched the Croix de Guerre which the young man wore on his breast.
"I have been through them and I am going back," said Chastenay, "but there is no merit in that; there is nothing else that I can do. I am not trying to deceive you and pretend that I love to smell powder; you cannot go through three years of war, and still want to run risks and be indifferent to danger, even if you did feel like that in the beginning. I was so—I may frankly say I did go in for heroism; but I have lost all that, it was really part ignorance and part rhetoric, and when one is rid of these, the nonsense of the war, the idiotic slaughter, the ugliness, the horrible useless sacrifice must be clear to the narrowest mind. If it is not manly to fly from the inevitable, it is not necessary either to go in search of what can be avoided. The great Corneille was a hero behind the lines; those whom I have known at the front were almost heroes in spite of themselves."
"That is the true heroism," said Clerambault.
"That is Froment's kind," said Chastenay. "He is a hero because there is nothing else that he can be, not even a man; but the dearest thing about him is, that in spite of everything, he is a real man."
The truth of this remark was abundantly evident to Clerambault in a long conversation that he had with Froment the next day. If the courage of the young man did not desert him in the ruin of his life, it was all the more to his credit, as he had never professed to be an apostle of self-abnegation. He had had great hopes and robust ambitions, fully justified by his talents and vigorous youth, but unlike his friend Chastenay, he had never for a moment cherished any illusions as to the war.
The disastrous folly of it had been clear to him at once, and this he owed not only to his own penetrating mind, but to that inspiring angel who, from his earliest infancy, had woven the soul of her son from her own pure spirit.
Whenever Clerambault went to see Edmé, Madame Froment was almost always there; but she kept in the background, sitting at the window with her work, only stopping occasionally to throw a tender glance at her son. She was not a woman of exceptional cleverness, but she had what may be called the intelligence of the heart, and her mind had been cultivated by the influence of her husband—a distinguished physician much older than herself. Thus it had happened that her whole life had been filled by these two profound feelings, an almost filial love for her husband and a more passionate sentiment for her son.
Dr. Froment, a cultivated man with much originality of mind which he concealed under a grave courtesy, as if he feared to wound others by his distinction, had travelled all over Europe, as well as in Egypt, Persia, and India. He had been a student of science and of religion, and his special interest had been the new forms of faith appearing in the world; such as Babism, Christian Science, and theosophical doctrines. As he had kept in touch with the pacifist movement, and was a friend of Baroness Suttner, whom he had known in Vienna, he had long seen the catastrophe approaching which threatened him and all he loved. But man of courage as he was, and accustomed to the indifference of nature, he had not tried to delude his family as to the future, but had rather sought to strengthen their souls to meet the danger that hung over their heads.
More than all his words, his example was sacred to his wife, for the son had been yet a child at the time of his father's death. Dr. Froment had suffered from a cancer of the intestines, and during the whole course of the slow and painful disease he had followed his ordinary occupations up to the last minute, sustaining the courage of his loved ones by this serene fortitude.
This noble picture which dwelt in Madame Froment's heart, and which she worshipped in secret, was to her what religion is to other women. To this, though she had no clear belief in the future life, she prayed, especially in difficult moments, as if to an ever-present helpful friend. And by a singular phenomenon sometimes observed after death, the essence of her husband's soul seemed to have passed into hers. For this reason her son had grown up in an atmosphere of placid thought, while most of the young generation before 1914 were feverish, restless, aggressive, irritated by delay. When the war broke out, there was no need for Madame Froment to protect herself or her son against the national excesses; they were both strangers to such ideas; but they made no attempt to resist the inevitable; they had watched the coming of this misfortune for so long! All that they could do now was to bear it bravely, while trying to preserve what was the most precious thing to them; their souls' faith. Madame Froment did not consider it necessary to be "Au-dessus de la mêlée" in order to lead it; and she accomplished in her limited sphere simply, but more efficaciously, what was attempted by writers in Germany and England,—a form of international reconciliation. She had kept in touch with many old friends, and without being troubled in circles infected by the war-spirit, or ever undertaking useless demonstrations against the war, she was a check on insane manifestations of hatred, by her simple presence, her quiet words and manner, her good judgment, and the respect inspired by her kindness. In families that were sympathetic she distributed messages from liberal Europeans, among others, Clerambault's articles, though without his knowledge. It was a source of satisfaction when she saw that their hearts were touched. A greater joy still was to see that her son himself was transformed.
Edmé Froment was not in the least a Tolstoyan pacifist. At first he thought the war more a folly than a crime, and if he had been free, he would have withdrawn, like Perrotin, into high dilettantism of art and thought, without attempting the hopeless task of fighting the prevailing opinion, for which he then felt more contempt than pity. Since his forced participation in the war, he had been obliged to acknowledge that this folly was so largely expiated by suffering that it would be superfluous to add anything to it. Man had made his own hell upon earth, and there was no need of further condemnation. He was on leave, at Paris, when he came across Clerambault's articles which showed him that there was something better for him to do than to set himself up as a judge of his companions in misery; that it would be far nobler to try to deliver them while taking his share of the common burden.
The young disciple was disposed to go farther than his master. Clerambault, who was naturally affectionate and rather weak, found his joy in communion with other men, and suffered even when divided in spirit from their errors. He was a confirmed self-doubter. He was prone to look in the eyes of the crowd for agreement with his ideas. He exhausted himself in futile efforts to reconcile his inward beliefs with the aspirations and the social struggles of his time. Froment, who had the soul of a chieftain in a helpless body, dauntlessly maintained that for him who bears the torch of a lofty ideal it is an absolute duty to hold it high over the heads of his comrades; that it would be wrong to confuse it in the other illuminations. The commonplace of democracies that Voltaire had less wit than Mr. Everybody is nonsense…. "Democritus ait; Unus mihi pro populo est…. To me an individual is as good as a thousand." … Our modern faith sees in the social group the summit of human evolution, but where is the proof? Froment thought the greatest height was reached in an individual superiority. Millions of men have lived and died to produce one perfect flower of thought, for such are the superb and prodigal ways of nature. She spends whole peoples to make a Jesus, a Buddha, an Aeschylus, a Vinci, a Newton, or a Beethoven; but without these men, what would the people have been? Or humanity itself? We do not hold with the egotist ideal of the Superman. A man who is great is great for all his fellows; his individuality expresses and often guides millions of others; it is the incarnation of their secret forces, of their highest desires; it concentrates and realises them. The sole fact that a man was Christ, has exalted and lifted generations of humanity, filling them with the divine energy; and though nineteen centuries have since passed, millions have not ceased to aspire to the height of this example, though none has attained to it.
Thus understood, the ideal individualist is more productive for human society than the ideal communist, who would lead us to the mechanical perfection of the bee-hive, and at the very least he is indispensable as corrective and complement.
This proud individualism, stated by Froment with burning eloquence, was a support to Clerambault's mind, prone to waver, and undecided from good-nature, self-distrust, and the wish to understand others.
Froment rendered Clerambault another important service. More in the current of world-thought, and through his family coming in closer contact with foreign thinkers, an accomplished linguist besides, Froment could bring to mind those other men in all nations who, great in their isolation, fought for the right to a free conscience. It was a consoling spectacle; all the work under the surface of thought suppressed, but struggling towards truth, and the knowledge that the worst tyranny that has crushed the soul of humanity since the Inquisition has failed to stifle the indomitable will to remain free and true.
No doubt these lofty individualities were rare, but their power was all the greater; the fine outline was more striking, seen against the dark horizon. In the fall of the nations to the foot of the precipice where millions lie in a shapeless mass, their voices seemed to rise with the only human note, and their action gained emphasis from the anger with which it was met. A century ago Chateaubriand wrote:
"It is vain to struggle longer; henceforward the only important thing is to be."
He did not know that "to be" in our time, be oneself, be free, implies the greatest of combats. Those who are true to themselves dominate through the levelling down of the rest.
Clerambault was not the only one to feel the benefit of of Froment's energy, for at his bedside he was sure to find some friend who came, perhaps without admitting it, more to get comfort than to bring it. Two or three of these were young, about Edmé's age, the others, men over fifty, old friends of the family, or those who had known Froment before the war.
One of these had been his professor, an old Hellenist, with a sweet absent smile. Then there was a grey-haired sculptor, his face ploughed by deep tragic lines; a country gentleman, clean-shaved, red-cheeked, with the massive head of an old peasant; and finally a doctor. He had a white beard, his face was worn and kind, and you were struck by the strange expression of his eyes; one seemed to look sharply at you, and the other was sad and dreamy.
There was little resemblance between these men who sometimes met at the invalid's house. All shades of thought could be found in the group, from the Catholic to the freethinker and the bolshevist—one of Froment's young friends professed to be of this opinion. In them you could find the traces of the most various intellectual ancestry; the ironic Lucian appeared in the old professor; the Count de Coulanges was wont to solace himself in the evenings on his estate with cattle and fertiliser, but also revelled in the gorgeous texture of Froissart's style, like cloth of gold, and the countrified, juicy talk of that rascal Gondi—the count certainly had the old French chroniclers in his veins. The sculptor wrinkled his brow in the effort to find metaphysics in Rodin and Beethoven; and Dr. Verrier had a streak of the marvellous in his disposition. This he satisfied by the hypotheses of biology, and the wonders of modern chemistry, though he would glance at the paradise of religion with the disenchanted smile of the man of science. He bore his part in the sad trials of the time, but the era of war with all its gory glory faded for him before the heroic discoveries of thought made by a new Newton, the German Einstein, in the midst of the general distraction.
These men all differed in the form of their minds and in their temperament; but they all agreed in this, they belonged to no party, each thought for himself, and each respected and loved liberty in himself or in others. What else mattered? In our day, all the old framework is broken down; religious, political, or social. It is but small progress if we call ourselves socialists, or republicans, rather than monarchists, if these castes accept nationalism of State, faith, or class. There are now only two sorts of minds: those shut up behind bars, and those open to all that is alive, to the entire race of man, even our enemies. These men, few though they may be, compose the true "International" which rests on the worship of truth and universal life. They know well that they are each too weak to embrace alone their great ideal, but it is infinite and can embrace them all. United in one object, they push on by their separate ways towards the unknown God.
These independent spirits were all drawn towards Edmé Froment at this time, because they obscurely saw in him the point where they could meet, the clearing from which every path in the forest is visible. Froment had not always tried to bring others together; as long as he was well and strong, he too had taken his own way, but since his course had been cut short, after a time of bitter despondency of which he said nothing, he had placed himself at the cross-roads. As he could not possibly act himself, he was better able to view the whole field and take part in spirit. He saw the different currents: country, revolution, contests between states and classes, science and faith—like a stream's conflicting forces, with its rapids, whirlpools, and reefs; it may sometimes slacken, or turn its course, but it always flows on irresistibly (even reaction is carried forward). And he, the poor youth staked at his cross-roads, took all these currents unto him, the entire stream.
Edmé reminded Clerambault sometimes of Perrotin, but he and Froment were worlds apart. The latter also denied nothing of what is, and wished to understand everything; but his was a fiery spirit, his whole soul was filled with ordered movement and feeling; with him all life and death went forward and upward. And his body lay there motionless.
It was a dark hour; the turn of the year 1917-18. In the foggy winter nights men waited for the supreme onslaught of the German armies, which rumour had foretold for months past; the Gotha raids on Paris had already begun. Those who wanted to fight to the end pretended confidence, the papers kept on boasting, and Clemenceau had never slept better in his life. But the tension showed in the increasing bitterness of feeling among civilians. The agonised public turned on the suspects among them, the defeatists and the pacifists, and for days at a time the baying of an accusing public pursued these miserable creatures and hunted them down. And spies swarmed of all sorts, patriotic denouncers, half-crazed witnesses. When towards the end of March the long-threatened great offensive against Paris began, the "sacred" fury between fellow-citizens reached its height, and there is no doubt that if the invasion had succeeded, before the Germans had arrived at the gates of the city, the gallows at Vincennes, that altar of the country's vengeance, would have known many victims, innocent or guilty, accused or condemned.
Clerambault was often shouted at in the streets, but he was not alarmed; perhaps because he did not realise the danger. One day Moreau found him in a group of people disputing with an excited young man who had spoken to him in a most insulting manner. While they were talking the shell from a "Big Bertha" exploded close by. Clerambault took no notice, and went on quietly explaining his position to the angry young man. There was something positively comic in this obstinacy, and the circle of listeners was quick to feel it, like true Frenchmen, and began to exchange jokes not entirely of a refined nature, but perfectly good-natured. Moreau caught hold of Clerambault's arm and tried to drag him away, but he stopped, and looking at the laughing crowd, the absurdity of the situation struck him in his turn, and he too burst out laughing.
"What an old fool I am!" said he to Moreau, who was still intent on getting him away.
"You had better look out, for you are not the only fool in this town," was the somewhat impertinent answer, but Clerambault would not understand what he meant.
The case against him had entered on a new phase; he was now accused of infraction of the law of the 5th of August, 1914—"An act to repress indiscretions in time of war." He was accused of pacifist propaganda among the working classes, where it was said that Thouron had distributed Clerambault's writings with the consent of the author; but there was no foundation for this, as Thouron was in a position to testify that Clerambault had no knowledge of such propaganda, and had certainly not authorised it.
It appeared, however, singularly enough, that Thouron would not swear to anything of the sort. His attitude was strange, for, instead of stating the facts, he equivocated as if he had something to hide; it almost looked as if he wished this to be noticed, which would have aroused suspicions if he had not been so careful. Unfortunately these suspicions seemed to glance at Clerambault, though he said nothing against him or against anyone; in fact he refused to tell anything, but he let it be understood that if he chose … but he did not choose. Clerambault was confronted with him, and his attitude was perfect, really chivalrous. He laid his hand on his heart and declared that be had the admiration of a son for the great "Master," and "Friend," and when Clerambault, getting impatient, begged him to state simply just what had passed between them, the other would do nothing but protest his "undying devotion." He would rather say nothing more; he had nothing to add to his testimony; it was all his fault.
He left with an increased reputation, while Clerambault was supposed to have sheltered himself behind his devoted henchman. The press unhesitatingly accused Clerambault of cowardice, and meanwhile the case dragged on, Clerambault appearing every day to answer useless questions, with no decision in sight. It might have been supposed that a man accused without proofs, and subject for so long to injurious suspicions, would have been entitled to the sympathy of the public; but on the contrary everyone was more down on him than before; they blamed him because he was not already convicted. All sorts of absurd stories were in circulation about him; it was asserted that experts had discovered through the shape of some letters misprinted in a pamphlet of Clerambault's that it had come from a German press, and this humbug was readily swallowed by men who were supposed to be intelligent, before the war,—only four years ago, but it seemed centuries.
So all these worthy folks passed sentence on a fellow-citizen on the slightest information; it was not the first time, and it will not be the last. The best opinion was indignant that he should still be at liberty, and reactionary papers, fearing that their prey would escape, tried to intimidate justice by loud accusations, and demanded that the case should be removed from the civil court and brought before a court-martial. This excitement soon developed into one of those paroxysms which in Paris are generally brief but violent; for this sensible people does go crazy periodically. It may be asked why men who are kind for the most part, and naturally given to mutual tolerance, not to say indifference, should have these explosions of furious fanaticism, when they seem to lose all feeling as well as common-sense. Some will tell you that this people is feminine in its virtues, as well as in its vices, that the delicate nerves and fine sensibility which cause it to excel in matters of taste and art also make it susceptible to attacks of hysteria, but I am of opinion that any people is manly only by accident, if by a man you mean a reasonable creature—a flattering but baseless idea. Men only use their reason from time to time, and are soon worn out by the effort of thinking; so those do them a favour who act for them, encouraging them in the direction of the least effort, and not much is required to hate a new idea. Do not condemn them; the Friend of all who are persecuted has said with His heroic indulgence: "They know not what they do."
An active nationalist newspaper was eager in stirring up the evil instincts that lay below the surface. It lived on the exploitation of hatred and suspicion, which it called "working for the regeneration of France,"—France being reduced to this paper and its friends. It published "Cleramboche," a collection of sanguinary articles, like those which succeeded so well against Jaurés; it roused people by declaring that the traitor owed his safety to occult influences, and that he would make his escape, if he were not carefully watched; and finally it appealed to popular justice.
Victor Vaucoux hated Clerambault; not that he knew him at all; it is not necessary to know a man in order to hate him; but if he had known him he would have detested him still more. He was his born enemy before he even knew that Clerambault existed. There are races among minds more antagonistic to each other, in all countries, than those divided by a different skin or uniform.
He was a well-to-do bourgeois from the west of France and belonged to a family of former servants of the Empire who had been sulking for the last forty years in a sterile opposition. He had a small property in the Charente, where he spent the summer, and passed the rest of the time in Paris. Having instincts for government which he could not satisfy, he laid the blame for this on his family and on life, and thus thwarted, his character had grown tyrannical so that he acted the despot unconsciously to those nearest to him, as a right and duty that could not be disputed. The word tolerance had no meaning for him; for he could not make a mistake. Nevertheless he possessed intelligence, and moral vigour; he even had a heart, but all wrapped about and knotted like an old tree-trunk till such forces of expansion as he had within him were stunted. He could absorb nothing from the outside; when he read or travelled he saw everything with hostile eyes, his one wish was to go home; and as the bark was too thick to be penetrated, all his sap came from the foot of the tree—from the dead.
He was the type of that portion of the race which, stubborn but outworn, has not life enough to spread itself abroad, and shrinks into a sentiment of aggressive self-defence. This looks with suspicion and antipathy on the young forces which overflow around it, at home and abroad; growing nations and classes, all the passionate awkward attempts at social and moral improvement. Like poor Barrès, and his dwarfed hero,[1] such people want walls and barriers, frontiers, and enemies. In this state of siege Vaucoux lived, and his family was forced to live in the same way. His wife who was a sweet, sad, effaced kind of person, found the only method of escape—and died. Left alone with his grief—of which he made a kind of rampart, as of everything about him—having only one son thirteen years of age, he had mounted guard before his youth and brought him up to do the same; strange that a man should bring a son into the world to fight against the future! Perhaps the boy, if let alone, would have found out life by instinct, but in the father's shut-up house, a sort of jail, he was his father's prey. They had few friends, few books, few, or rather one, newspaper whose petrified principles corresponded to Vaucoux' need for conservation, in the corpse-like meaning of the word. As his son, or his victim, could not get away from him, he inoculated him with all his own mental diseases; like those insects which deposit their eggs in the living bodies of others. And when the war broke out, he took him at once to a recruiting station and made him enlist. For a man of his sort, "Country" was the noblest of things—the holy of holies; he did not need to breathe the thrilling suggestion of the crowd, his head was already turned, and, besides, he never went with the crowds; he carried "Country" about with him;—The Country and The Past,—The Eternally Past.