iefs, the utter void which
he felt within him, here were these four men, who represented the
cardinal points of this century's ideas, debating the very same terrible
problem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief which
the democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days of
the immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot and
Rousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled one
another, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking and
bounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult to
distinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was the
ship of salvation going, for what port ought one to embark? Pierre had
already thought that the balance-sheet of the century ought to be drawn
up, and that, after accepting the legacies of Rousseau and the other
precursors, he ought to study the ideas of St. Simon, Fourier and even
Cabet; of Auguste Comte, Proudhon and Karl Marx as well, in order, at any
rate, to form some idea of the distance that had been travelled, and of
the cross-ways which one had now reached. And was not this an
opportunity, since chance had gathered those men together in his house,
living exponents of the conflicting doctrines which he wished to examine?

On turning round, however, he perceived that Guillaume was now very pale
and had closed his eyes. Had even he, with his faith in science, felt the
doubt which is born of contradictory theories, and the despair which
comes when one sees the fight for truth resulting in growth of error?

"Are you in pain?" the priest anxiously inquired.

"Yes, a little. But I will try to sleep."

At this they all went off with silent handshakes. Nicholas Barthes alone
remained in the house and slept in a room on the first floor which Sophie
had got ready for him. Pierre, unwilling to quit his brother, dozed off
upon a sofa. And the little house relapsed into its deep quietude, the
silence of solitude and winter, through which passed the melancholy
quiver of the souvenirs of childhood.

In the morning, as soon as it was seven o'clock, Pierre had to go for the
newspapers. Guillaume had passed a bad night and intense fever had set
in. Nevertheless, his brother was obliged to read him the articles on the
explosion. There was an amazing medley of truths and inventions, of
precise information lost amidst the most unexpected extravagance.
Sagnier's paper, the "Voix du Peup