* * * * *

“He who has deciphered the secret of life and found the answer,” says the disenchanted, but harmonious voice of Amiel, “is no longer bound on the great wheel of existence, he has quitted the world of the living.  When illusion vanishes, nothingness resumes its eternal reign, the bright bubble has burst in infinite space, and our poor thought is dissolved in the immutable repose of the limitless void.”

* * * * *

Unluckily this repose in the void is the worst torture for a man of the white race.  He would rather endure any torment that life may bring.  “Do not tear them from me,” he cries, “you kill me when you destroy the cruel falsehoods by which I live.”

Clerambault bitterly adopted the name that a nationalist paper had given him in derision:  “The one against all.”  Yes, he was the common enemy, the destroyer of our life-giving illusions.

He could not bear this; the thought of making others suffer was too painful to him.  How then was he to get out of this tragic no-thoroughfare?  Wherever he turned, he found the same insolvable dilemma; either a fatal illusion, or death without it.

“I will accept neither the one nor the other.”

“Whether you accept it or no, you must yield—­for the way is barred.”

“Nevertheless, I shall pass through....”

PART FOUR

Clerambault was passing through a new danger-zone.  His solitary journey was like a mountain ascension, where a man finds himself suddenly enveloped in fog, clinging to a rock, unable to advance a step.  He could see nothing in front of him, and, no matter to which side he turned, he could hear beneath him the roar of the torrent of suffering.  Even so, he could not stand still; though he hung over the abyss and his hold threatened to give way.

He had reached one of these dark turnings, and to make it worse, the news that day, as barked out by the press, made the heart ache by its insanity.  Useless hecatombs, which the induced egotism of the world behind the lines thought natural; cruelties on all sides, criminal reprisals for crimes—­for which these good people clamoured, and loudly applauded.  The horizon that surrounded the poor human creatures in their burrow had never seemed so dark and pitiless.

Clerambault asked himself if the law of love that he felt within himself had not been designed for other worlds, and different humanities.  The mail had brought him letters full of fresh threats; and knowing that, in the tragic absurdity of the time, his life was at the mercy of the first madman who happened to turn up, he hoped secretly that he might not have long to wait.  But being of good stock, he kept on his way, his head up as usual, working steadily and methodically at his daily task so as to gain the end, no matter what that might be, of the path whereon he had set his feet.