s, farewell, Chevalier, farewell!"

The handkerchiefs were at work, wiping away the mourners' tears. The
actors were weeping with all sincerity; they were weeping for
themselves.

After they had slipped away, Dr. Trublet, left alone in the cemetery
with Constantin Marc, took in the multitude of graves with a glance.

"Do you remember," he said, "one of Auguste Comte's reflections:
'Humanity is composed of the dead and the living. The dead are by far
the more numerous.' Assuredly, the dead are by far the more numerous. By
the multitudinous numbers and the magnitude of their work, they are more
powerful. It's they who rule; we obey them. Our masters lie beneath
these stones. Here is the lawgiver who made the law to which I submit
to-day; the architect who built my house, the poet who created the
illusions which still disturb us; the orator who swayed us before our
birth. Here are all the artisans of our knowledge, true or false, of our
wisdom and of our follies. There they lie, the inexorable leaders, whom
we dare not disobey. In them dwells strength, continuity, and duration.
What does a generation of living folk amount to, in comparison with the
numberless generations of the dead? What is our will of a day before the
will of a thousand centuries? Can we rebel against them? Why, we have
not even time to disobey them!"

"At last you are coming to the point, Dr. Socrates!" said Constantin
Marc. "You renounce progress, the new justice, the peace of the world,
freedom of thought; you submit to tradition. You consent to the ancient
error, the good old-fashioned ignorance, the venerable iniquity of our
forbears. You withdraw into the French tradition, you submit to ancient
custom, to the authority of our ancestors."

"Whence do you obtain custom and tradition?" asked Trablet. "Whence do
you receive authority? There are irreconcilable traditions, diverse
customs; and opposed authorities. The dead do not impose any one will
upon us. They subject us to contradictory wills. The opinions of the
past which weigh upon us are uncertain and confused. In crushing us they
destroy one another. All these dead have lived, like ourselves, in the
midst of disorder and contradiction. Each in his time, in his own
fashion, in hatred or in love, has dreamed the dream of life. Let us in
our turn dream this dream with kindness and joy, if it be possible, and
let us go to lunch. I am taking you to a little tavern in the Rue Vavin,
kept by Cleme