But because of the brass instruments let loose, people only see him open his mouth, and Monsieur Mielvaque dances with delight.  Monsieur Mielvaque, declared unfit for service, has been called up again.  More miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor—­he blots out the shiny places on his overcoat with his pen—­Mielvaque points to Brisbille gagged by the band, he writhes with laughter and shouts in my ear, “He might be trying to sing!”

Madame Marcassin’s paralyzed face appears, the disappearance of which she unceasingly thinks has lacerated her features.  She also applauds the noise and across her face—­which has gone out like a lamp—­there shot a flash.  Can it be only because, to-day, attention is fixed on her?

A mother, mutilated in her slain son, is giving her mite to the offertory for the Lest-we-Forget League.  She is bringing her poverty’s humble assistance to those who say, “Remember evil; not that it may be avoided, but that it may be revived, by exciting at random all causes of hatred.  Memory must be made an infectious disease.”  Bleeding and bloody, inflamed by the stupid selfishness of vengeance, she holds out her hand to the collector, and drags behind her a little girl who, nevertheless, will one day, perhaps, be a mother.

Lower down, an apprentice is devouring an officer’s uniform with his gaze.  He stands there hypnotized; and the sky-blue and beautiful crimson come off on his eyes.  At that moment I saw clearly that beauty in uniforms is still more wicked than stupid.

Ah!  That frightful prophecy locked up within me is hammering my skull, “I have confidence in the abyss of the people.”

* * * * * *

Wounded by everything I see, I sink down in a corner.  Truth is simple; but the world is no longer simple.  There are so many things!  How will truth ever change its defeat into victory?  How is it ever going to heal all those who do not know!  I grieve that I am weak and ineffective, that I am only I. On earth, alas, truth is dumb, and the heart is only a stifled cry!

I look for support, for some one who does not leave me alone.  I am too much alone, and I look eagerly.  But there is only Brisbille!

There is only that tipsy automaton; that parody of a man.

There he is.  Close by he is more drunk than in the distance!  Drunkenness bedaubs him; his eyes are filled with wine, his cheeks are like baked clay, his nose like a baked apple, he is almost blinded by viscous tufts.  In the middle of that open space he seems caught in a whirlpool.  It happens that he is in front of me for a moment, and he hurls at my head some furious phrases in which I recognize, now and again, the truths in which I believe!  Then, with antics at once desperate and too heavy for him, he tries to perform some kind of pantomime which represents the wealthy class, round-paunched as a bag of gold, sitting on the proletariat till their noses are crushed in the gutter, and proclaiming, with their eyes up to heaven and their hands on their hearts, “And above all, no more class-wars!” There is something alarming in the awkwardness of the grimacing object begotten by that obstructed brain.  It seems as if real suffering is giving voice through him with a beast’s cry.