and Liberty; I only know
my brother-man, and his acts, sometimes just, sometimes unjust; and I
also know of peoples, all aspiring to real liberty but all deprived of
it, and who all, more or less, submit to oppression.

The sight of this world in a fever-fit would have filled a sage with
the desire to withdraw until the attack was over; but Clerambault was
not a sage. He knew this, and he also knew that it was vain to
speak; but none the less he felt that he must, that he should end by
speaking. He wished to delay the dangerous moment, and his timidity,
which shrank from single combat with the world, sought about him for a
companion in thought. The fight would not be so hard if there were two
or three together.

The first whose feeling he cautiously sounded were some unfortunate
people who, like him, had lost a son. The father, a well-known
painter, had a studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. His name was
Omer Calville and the Clerambaults were neighbourly with him and his
wife, a nice old couple of the middle class, devoted to each other.
They had that gentleness, common to many artists of their day, who had
known Carriere, and caught remote reflections of Tolstoism, which,
like their simplicity, appeared a little artificial, for though it
harmonised with their real goodness of heart, the fashion of the time
had added a touch of exaggeration.

Those artists who sincerely profess their religious respect for all
that lives, are less capable than anyone else of understanding the
passions of war. The Calvilles had held themselves outside the
struggle; they did not protest, they accepted it, without acquiescing,
as one accepts sickness, death, or the wickedness of men, with a
dignified sadness.

When Clerambault read them his burning poems they listened politely
and made little response--but strangely enough, at the very time that
Clerambault, cured of his warlike illusions, turned to them, he found
that they had changed places with him. The death of their son had
produced on them the opposite effect. And now they were awkwardly
taking part in the conflict, as if to replace their lost boy. They
snuffed up eagerly all the stench in the papers, and Clerambault found
them actually rejoicing, in their misery, over the assertion that the
United States was prepared to fight for twenty years.

"What would become of France, of Europe, in twenty years?" he tried
to say, but they hastily put this thought away from them