Then another orator excites himself and shouts that the war has been such a magnificent harvest of heroism that it must not be regretted.  It has been a good thing for France; it has made lofty virtues and noble instincts gush forth from a nation which seemed to be decadent.  Our people had need of an awakening and to recover themselves, and acquire new vigor.  With metaphors which hover and vibrate he proclaims the glory of killing and being killed, he exalts the ancient passion for plumes and scarlet in which the heart of France is molded.

Alone on the edge of the crowd I feel myself go icy by the touch of these words and commands, which link future and past together and misery to misery.  I have already heard them resounding forever.  A world of thoughts growls confusedly within me.  Once I cried noiselessly, “No!”—­a deformed cry, a strangled protest of all my faith against all the fallacy which comes down upon us.  That first cry which I have risked among men, I cast almost as a visionary, but almost as a dumb man.  The old peasant did not even turn his earthy, gigantic head.  And I hear a roar of applause go by, of popular expanse.

I go up to join Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots of them.  Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands immovable.  Up there the Bishop is on his feet.  He raises his forefinger and says, “The dead are not dead.  They are rewarded in heaven; but even here on earth they are alive.  They keep watch in our hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion.  Theirs is the immortality of glory and gratitude.  They are not dead, and we should envy them more than pity.”

And he blesses the audience, all of whom bow or kneel.  I remained upright, stubbornly, with clenched teeth.  And I remember things, and I say to myself, “Have the dead died for nothing?  If the world is to stay as it is, then—­yes!”

Several men did not bend their backs at first, and then they obeyed the general movement; and I felt on my shoulders all the heavy weight of the whole bowing multitude.

Monsieur Joseph Boneas is talking within a circle.  Seeing him again I also feel for one second the fascination he once had for me.  He is wearing an officer’s uniform of the Town Guard, and his collar hides the ravages in his neck.  He is holding forth.  What says he?  He says, “We must take the long view.”

“We must take the long view.  For my part, the only thing I admire in militarist Prussia is its military organization.  After the war—­for we must not limit our outlook to the present conflict—­we must take lessons from it, and just let the simple-minded humanitarians go on bleating about universal peace.”

He goes on to say that in his opinion the orators did not sufficiently insist on the necessity for tying the economic hands of Germany after the war.  No annexations, perhaps; but tariffs, which would be much better.  And he shows in argument the advantages and prosperity brought by carnage and destruction.