"My dear Daniel, you go farther than I. I do not place truth in
opposition to love of country, on the contrary I endeavour to
reconcile them."

Daniel tried to cut the matter short.

"The country is not a subject for discussion."

"Is it an article of faith?"

"You know I do not believe in religions," protested Daniel. "I have no
faith in any of them. But that is the very reason. What should we have
left on earth if it were not for our country?"

"I think that there are many great and beautiful things in the world,
and Country is only one of them; but I am not discussing the love, but
the way of loving."

"There is only one," said Daniel.

"And what is that?"

"We must obey."

"The ancient symbol, Love with bandaged eyes; I only want to open
them."

"No, no, let us alone. It is hard enough already. Don't make it any
worse for us." In a few phrases, temperate, yet broken by emotion,
Daniel brought up the terrible picture of the weeks that he had spent
in the trenches; the disgust and the horror of what he had borne
himself, the suffering he had seen in others, had inflicted on them.

"But, my dear fellow, if you see this shameful thing, why not try to
prevent it?"

"Because it is impossible."

"To be sure of that, you might at least make the attempt."

"The conflict between men is the law of Nature. Kill or be killed. So
be it."

"And can it never be changed?"

"No, never," said Daniel, in a tone of sad obstinacy, "it is the law."

There are some scientific men from whom science seems to hide the
truth it contains, so that they cannot see reality at the bottom of
the net. They embrace the whole field that has been discovered, but
would think it impossible and even ridiculous to enlarge it beyond the
limits already traced by reason. They only believe in a progress that
is chained to the inside of the enclosure. Clerambault knew only too
well the supercilious smile with which the ideas of inventors are put
aside by learned men from the official schools. There are certain
forms of science which accord perfectly with docility. David's manner
showed no irony; it expressed rather a stoical, baffled kind of
melancholy. In abstract questions he did not lack courage of thought,
but when faced with the facts of life he was a mixture, or rather a
succession, of timidity and stiffness, diffident modesty, and firmness
of conviction. In short he was a man, like other men, complex and
contradictory, not all i