the people astray and by their misguided
victims. But, be sure of this--you need expect no emancipation to be
the result of the spirit that relies on the poisoning of the whole of
our social life.

Rosmer. I do not give my allegiance to the spirit that is directing
this, nor to any of those who are leading the fight. I want to try to
bring men of all shades of opinion together--as many as I can
reach--and bind them as closely together as I can. I want to live for
and devote all the strength that is in me to one end only--to create a
real public opinion in the country.

Kroll. So you do not consider that we have sufficient public opinion!
I, for my part, consider that the whole lot of us are on the high road
to be dragged down into the mire where otherwise only the common people
would be wallowing.

Rosmer. It is just for that reason that I have made up my mind as to
what should be the real task of public opinion.

Kroll. What task?

Rosmer. The task of making all our fellow-countrymen into men of
nobility.

Kroll. All our fellow-countrymen--!

Rosmer. As many as possible, at all events.

Kroll. By what means?

Rosmer. By emancipating their ideas and purifying their aspirations, it
seems to me.

Kroll. You are a dreamer, Rosmer. Are you going to emancipate them? Are
you going to purify them?

Rosmer. No, my dear fellow--I can only try to awake the desire for it
in them. The doing of it rests with themselves.

Kroll. And do you think they are capable of it?

Rosmer. Yes.

Kroll. Of their own power?

Rosmer. Yes, of their own power. There is no other that can do it.

Kroll (getting up). Is that speaking as befits a clergyman?

Rosmer. I am a clergyman no longer.

Kroll. Yes, but--what of the faith you were brought up in?

Rosmer. I have it no longer.

Kroll. You have it no longer?

Rosmer (getting up). I have given it up. I had to give it up, Kroll.

Kroll (controlling his emotion). I see. Yes, yes. The one thing implies
the other. Was that the reason, then, why you left the service of the
Church?

Rosmer. Yes. When my mind was clearly made up--when I felt the
certainty that it Was not merely a transitory temptation, but that it
was something that I would neither have the power nor the desire to
dismiss from my mind--then I took that step.

Kroll. So it has been fermenting in your mind as long as that. And
we--your friends--have never been allowed to know anything of it.
Rosmer, Rosmer--h