“If they should return!” added Tchernoff with a look of uneasiness.  “If they again should tread these stones! . . .  Before, they were simple-minded folk, stunned by their rapid good-fortune, who passed through here like a farmer through a salon.  They were content with money for the pocket and two provinces which should perpetuate the memory of their victory. . . .  But now they will not be the soldiers only who march against Paris.  At the tail of the armies come the maddened canteen-keepers, the Herr Professors, carrying at the side the little keg of wine with the powder which crazes the barbarian, the wine of Kultur.  And in the vans come also an enormous load of scientific savagery, a new philosophy which glorifies Force as a principle and sanctifier of everything, denies liberty, suppresses the weak and places the entire world under the charge of a minority chosen by God, just because it possesses the surest and most rapid methods of slaughter.  Humanity may well tremble for the future if again resounds under this archway the tramp of boots following a march of Wagner or any other Kapellmeister.”

They left the Arch, following the avenue Victor Hugo.  Tchernoff walking along in dogged silence as though the vision of this imaginary procession had overwhelmed him.  Suddenly he continued aloud the course of his reflections.

“And if they should enter, what does it matter? . . .  On that account, the cause of Right will not die.  It suffers eclipses, but is born again; it may be ignored and trampled under foot, but it does not, therefore, cease to exist, and all good souls recognize it as the only rule of life.  A nation of madmen wishes to place might upon the pedestal that others have raised to Right.  Useless endeavor!  The eternal hope of mankind will ever be the increasing power of more liberty, more brotherliness, more justice.”

The Russian appeared to calm himself with this statement.  He and his friends spoke of the spectacle which Paris was presenting in its preparation for war.  Tchernoff bemoaned the great suffering produced by the catastrophe, the thousands and thousands of domestic tragedies that were unrolling at that moment.  Apparently nothing had changed.  In the centre of the city and around the stations, there was unusual agitation, but the rest of the immense city did not appear affected by the great overthrow of its existence.  The solitary street was presenting its usual aspect, the breeze was gently moving the leaves.  A solemn peace seemed to be spreading itself through space.  The houses appeared wrapped in slumber, but behind the closed windows might be surmised the insomnia of the reddened eyes, the sighs from hearts anguished by the threatened danger, the tremulous agility of the hands preparing the war outfit, perhaps the last loving greetings exchanged without pleasure, with kisses ending in sobs.

Tchernoff thought of his neighbors, the husband and wife who occupied the other interior apartment behind the studio.  She was no longer playing the piano.  The Russian had overheard disputes, the banging of doors locked with violence, and the footsteps of a man in the middle of the night, fleeing from a woman’s cries.  There had begun to develop on the other side of the wall a regulation drama—­a repetition of hundreds of others, all taking place at the same time.