Every country has swallowed up different races, not formed to think and act together; so that each one of these spiritual families, or families-in-law, which we call nations, comprises elements which in fact form part of different groups, past, present, or future.  Since these cannot be destroyed, they are oppressed; they can escape destruction only by some subterfuge, apparent submission, inward rebellion, or flight and voluntary exile.  They are Heimatlos.  To reproach them for lack of patriotism is to blame Irishmen and Poles for their resistance to English and Prussian absorption.  No matter where they are, men remain loyal to their true country.  You who pretend that the object of this war is to give the right of self-determination to all peoples, when will you restore this right to the great Republic of free souls dispersed over the whole world?

However cut off from the world, Clerambault knew that this Republic existed.  Like the Rome of Sertorius, it dwelt in him, and though they may be unknown each to the other, it dwells in every man to whom it is the true Country.

The wall of silence which surrounded Clerambault’s words fell all at once.  But it was not a friendly voice which answered his.  It seemed rather as if stupidity and blind hatred had made a breach where sympathy had been too weak to find a way.

Several weeks had passed and Clerambault was thinking of a new publication, when, one morning, Leo Camus burst noisily into his room.  He was blue with rage, as with the most tragic expression he held up a newspaper before Clerambault’s eyes: 

“Read that!” he commanded, and standing behind his brother-in-law as he read, he went on: 

“What does the beastly thing mean?”

Clerambault was dismayed to find himself stabbed by what he had believed to be a friendly hand.  A well-known writer, a colleague of Perrotin’s, a serious honourable man, and one always on good terms with him, had denounced him publicly and without hesitation.  Though he had known Clerambault long enough to have no doubt as to the purity of his intentions, he held him up as a man dishonoured.  An historian, well used to the manipulation of text, he seized upon detached phrases of Clerambault’s pamphlet and brandished them as an act of treason.  A personal letter would not have satisfied his virtuous indignation; he chose a loud “yellow journal,” a laboratory of blackmail despised by a million Frenchmen, who nevertheless swallowed all its humbug with open mouths.

“I can’t believe it,” stammered Clerambault, who felt helpless before this unexpected hostility.

“There is no time to be lost,” declared Camus, “you must answer.”

“Answer?  But what can I say?”

“The first thing, of course, is to deny it as a base invention.”

“But it is not an invention,” said Clerambault, looking Camus in the face.  It was the turn of the latter to look as if he had been struck by lightning.