Good God!  Why do they not see the imbecility of their conduct, in face of the gulf that swallows up each man that dies, all humanity with him?  These millions of creatures who have but a moment to live, why do they persist in making it infernal by their atrocious and absurd quarrels about ideas; like wretches who cut each other’s throats for a handful of spurious coins thrown to them?  We are all victims, under the same sentence, and instead of uniting, we fight among ourselves.  Poor fools!  On the brow of each man that passes I can see the sweat of agony; efface it by the kiss of peace!

As he thought this, a crowd of people rushed by—­men and women, shrieking with joy.  “There’s one of them down!  One gone!  The brutes are burning up!”

And the birds of prey, in the air, rejoiced in their turn over every handful of death that they scattered on the town, like gladiators dying in the arena for the pleasure of some invisible Nero.

Alas, my poor fellow-prisoners!

PART FIVE

  They also serve who only stand and wait.

  MILTON.

Once more Clerambault found himself wrapt in solitude; but this time she appeared to him as never before, calm and beautiful, kindness shining from her face, with eyes full of affection and soft cool hands which she laid on his fevered forehead.  He knew that now she had chosen him for her own.

It is not given to every man to be alone; many groan under it, but with a secret pride.  It is the complaint of the ages; and proves, without those who complain being aware of it, that solitude has not marked them for her own; that they are not her familiars.  They have passed the outer door, and are cooling their heels in the vestibule; but they have not had patience to wait their turn to go in, or else their recriminations have kept them at a distance.

No one can penetrate to the heart of friendly solitude unless they have the gift of God’s grace, or have gained the benefit of trials bravely accepted.  Outside the door you must leave the dust of the road, the harsh voices and mean thoughts of the world, egotism, vanity, miserable rebellions against disappointments in love or ambition.—­It must be that, like the pure Orphic shades whose golden tablets have transmitted to us their dying voices, “The soul flees from the circle of pain” and presents itself alone and bare “to the chill fountain which flows from the lake of Memory.”

This is the miracle of the resurrection; he who has cast off his mortal coil and thinks that he has lost everything, finds that he is only just entering on his true life.  Not only are others as well as himself restored to him, but he sees that up to now he has never really possessed them.  Outside in the throng, how can he see over the heads of those who press about him?  And it is not possible for him to look long into the eyes of those who influence