Claude, on leaving the terminus, with his feet once more on the Paris pavement, had lost his nervous agitation, like a man who at last finds himself once more at home.  And with the cold, absent-minded air which he now usually displayed, he listened to Sandoz trying to enliven him.  The novelist treated his friend like a mistress whose head he wished to turn; they partook of delicate, highly spiced dishes and heady wines.  But mirth was rebellious, and Sandoz himself ended by becoming gloomy.  All his hopes of immortality were shaken by his excursion to that ungrateful country village, that Bennecourt, so loved and so forgetful, where he and Claude had not found a single stone retaining any recollection of them.  If things which are eternal forget so soon, can one place any reliance for one hour on the memory of man?

‘Do you know, old fellow,’ said the novelist, ’it’s that which sometimes sends me into a cold sweat.  Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of?  One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by relying on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts.  But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works!  Ah! what a sell it would be, eh?  To have led a convict’s life—­to have screwed oneself down to one’s work—­all for a mere delusion!  Please notice that it’s quite possible, after all.  There are some consecrated reputations which I wouldn’t give a rap for.  Classical education has deformed everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile talent, who follow the beaten track.  To them one may prefer men of free tendencies, whose work is at times unequal; but these are only known to a few people of real culture, so that it looks as if immortality might really go merely to the middle-class “average” talent, to the men whose names are forced into our brains at school, when we are not strong enough to defend ourselves.  But no, no, one mustn’t say those things; they make me shudder!  Should I have the courage to go on with my task, should I be able to remain erect amid all the jeering around me if I hadn’t the consoling illusion that I shall some day be appreciated?’

Claude had listened with his dolorous expression, and he now made a gesture of indifference tinged with bitterness.

’Bah! what does it matter?  Well, there’s nothing hereafter.  We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman.  When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won’t add one atom to its dust.’

‘That’s quite true,’ summed up Sandoz, who was very pale.  ’What’s the use of trying to fill up the void of space?  And to think that we know it, and that our pride still battles all the same!’