They point to the battlefield and its wreckage:—­

“And you say that War won’t be forever?  Look, driveler!”

The circle of the setting sun is crimsoning the mingled horizon of humanity:—­

“You say that the sun is bigger than the earth?  Look, imbecile!”

They are anathema, they are sacrilegious, they are excommunicated, who impeach the magic of the past and the poison of tradition.  And the thousand million victims themselves scoff at and strike those who rebel, as soon as they are able.  All cast stones at them, all, even those who suffer and while they are suffering—­even the sacrificed, a little before they die.

The bleeding soldiers of Wagram cry:  “Long live the emperor!” And the mournful exploited in the streets cheer for the defeat of those who are trying to alleviate a suffering which is brother to theirs.  Others, prostrate in resignation, look on, and echo what is said above them:  “After us the deluge,” and the saying passes across town and country in one enormous and fantastic breath, for they are innumerable who murmur it.  Ah, it was well said: 

“I have confidence in the abyss of the people.”

* * * * * *

And I?

I, the normal man?  What have I done on earth?  I have bent the knee to the forces which glitter, without seeking to know whence they came and whither they guide.  How have the eyes availed me that I had to see with, the intelligence that I had to judge with?

Borne down by shame, I sobbed, “I don’t know,” and I cried out so loudly that it seemed to me I was awaking for a moment out of slumber.  Hands are holding and calming me; they draw my shroud about me and enclose me.

It seems to me that a shape has leaned over me, quite near, so near; that a loving voice has said something to me; and then it seems to me that I have listened to fond accents whose caress came from a great way off: 

“Why shouldn’t you be one of them, my lad,—­one of those great prophets?”

I don’t understand.  I?  How could I be?

All my thoughts go blurred.  I am falling again.  But I bear away in my eyes the picture of an iron bed where lay a rigid shape.  Around it other forms were drooping, and one stood and officiated.  But the curtain of that vision is drawn.  A great plain opens the room, which had closed for a moment on me, and obliterates it.

Which way may I look?  God? “Miserere——­” The vibrating fragment of the Litany has reminded me of God.

* * * * * *