ely time to drive her out
of the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and lofty
enough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexual
questions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? The
world would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"

Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with
the effect which he had produced on the others.

"So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois.

"He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes
together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was always
making a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending to
disdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd use
his cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! He
was Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, rolled into one!
And you can see what he has become with it all: a humbug with a diseased
mind!"

"It's a terrible symptom," muttered Pierre, "when through _ennui_ or
lassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happy
and privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers."

Francois had resumed his walk, going down towards the ornamental water,
where some children were sailing their boats. "That fellow is simply
grotesque," he replied; "but how would you have sane people give any heed
to that mysticism, that awakening of spirituality which is alleged by the
same _doctrinaires_ who started the bankruptcy of science cry, when after
so brief an evolution it produces such insanity, both in art and
literature? A few years of influence have sufficed; and now Satanism,
Occultism and other absurdities are flourishing; not to mention that,
according to some accounts, the Cities of the Plains are reconciled with
new Rome. Isn't the tree judged by its fruits? And isn't it evident that,
instead of a renascence, a far-spreading social movement bringing back
the past, we are simply witnessing a transitory reaction, which many
things explain? The old world would rather not die, and is struggling in
a final convulsion, reviving for a last hour before it is swept away by
the overflowing river of human knowledge, whose waters ever increase. And
yonder, in the future, is the new world, which the real young ones will
bring into existence, those who work, those who are not known, who are
not heard. And yet, just listen! Perhaps you will hear them, for w