the
rest of our lives," said Durtal, "I marvel at the placidity of the
Utopian who imagines that man is perfectible. There is no denying that
the human creature is born selfish, abusive, vile. Just look around you
and see. Society cynical and ferocious, the humble heckled and pillaged
by the rich traffickers in necessities. Everywhere the triumph of the
mediocre and unscrupulous, everywhere the apotheosis of crooked politics
and finance. And you think you can make any progress against a stream
like that? No, man has never changed. His soul was corrupt in the days
of Genesis and is not less rotten at present. Only the form of his sins
varies. Progress is the hypocrisy which refines the vices."

"All the more reason," Carhaix rejoined, "why society--if it is as you
have described it--should fall to pieces. I, too, think it is putrefied,
its bones ulcerated, its flesh dropping off. It can neither be poulticed
nor cured, it must be interred and a new one born. And who but God can
accomplish such a miracle?"

"If we admit," said Des Hermies, "that the infamousness of the times is
transitory, it is self-evident that only the intervention of a God can
wash it away; for neither socialism nor any other chimera of the
ignorant and hate-filled workers will modify human nature and reform the
peoples. These tasks are above human forces."

"And the time awaited by Johannes is at hand," Gevingey proclaimed.
"Here are some of the manifest proofs. Raymond Lully asserted that the
end of the old world would be announced by the diffusion of the
doctrines of Antichrist. He defined these doctrines. They are
materialism and the monstrous revival of magic. This prediction applies
to our age, I think. On the other hand, the good tidings was to be
realized, according to Our Lord, as reported by Saint Matthew, 'When ye
shall see the abomination of desolation ... stand in the holy place.'
And isn't it standing in the holy place now? Look at our timorous,
skeptical Pope, lukewarm and politic, our episcopate of simonists and
cowards, our flabby, indulgent clergy. See how they are ravaged by
Satanism, then tell me if the Church can fall any lower."

"The promises are explicit and cannot fail," and with his elbows on the
table, his chin in his hands, and his eyes to heaven, the bell-ringer
murmured, "Our father--thy kingdom come!"

"It's getting late," said Des Hermies, "time we were going."

While they were putting on their coats, Carhaix quest