The end of this summer in Berry was one of the most arid periods in Clerambault’s life.  He talked with no one, he wrote nothing and he had no way of communicating directly with the working people.  He had always made himself liked on the rare occasions on which he had come into contact with them—­in a crowd, on holidays, or in the workingmen’s schools; but shyness on both sides held him back.  Each felt his inferiority; with pride on the one hand, and awkwardness on the other, for Clerambault knew that in many essential respects he was inferior to the intelligent workman.  He was right; for from their ranks will be recruited the leaders of the future.  The best class of these men contained many honest and virile minds able to understand Clerambault.  With an untouched idealism they still kept a firm hold on reality, and though their daily life had accustomed them to struggles, disappointments, and treachery, they were trained to patience; young as some of them were, they were veterans of the social war, and there was much that they could have taught Clerambault.  They knew that everything is for sale, that nothing is to be had for nothing, that those who desire the future happiness of men must pay the price now, in their own sufferings; that the smallest progress is gained step by step and is lost often twenty times before it is finally conquered.  There is nothing final in this world.  These men, solid and patient as the earth, would have been of great use to Clerambault, and his vivid intelligence would have been like a ray of sunshine to them.

Unfortunately both he and they had to bear the results of the archaic caste system; injurious as it is and fatal to the community not less than to the individual, raising between the pretended equals of our so-called “democracies” the excessive inequality of fortune, education, and life.  Journalists supply the only means of communication between caste and caste, and they form a caste by themselves, representing neither the one side nor the other.  The voice of the newspapers alone now broke the silence that surrounded Clerambault, and nothing could stop their “Brekekekex, coax, coax.”

The disastrous results of a new offensive found them, as always, bravely at their post.  Once more the optimist oracles of the pontiffs of the rear-guard were proved to be wrong, but no one seemed to notice it.  Other prophecies succeeded, and were given out and swallowed with the same assurance.  Neither those who wrote, nor those who read, saw that they had deceived themselves; in all sincerity they did not know it; they did not remember what they had written the day before.  What can you expect from such feather-headed creatures who do not know if they are on their heads or their heels?  But it must be allowed that they know how to fall on their feet after one of their somersaults.  One conviction a day is enough for them; and what does the quality matter, since they are fresh every hour?