k
times, the hurricanes of consumption carrying off the weak, whilst the
strong clenched their fists and dreamt of vengeance. One evening, too,
perhaps, he might again enter some room of horror and find that another
mother had killed herself and her five little ones, her last-born in her
arms clinging to her drained breast, and the others scattered over the
bare tiles, at last contented, feeling hunger no more, now that they were
dead! But no, no, such awful things were no longer possible: such black
misery conducting to suicide in the heart of that great city of Paris,
which is brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, and flings
millions out of window for mere pleasure! The very foundations of the
social edifice were rotten; all would soon collapse amidst mire and
blood. Never before had Pierre so acutely realised the derisive futility
of Charity. And all at once he became conscious that the long-awaited
word, the word which was at last springing from the great silent
multitude, the crushed and gagged people was _Justice_! Aye, Justice not
Charity! Charity had only served to perpetuate misery, Justice perhaps
would cure it. It was for Justice that the wretched hungered; an act of
Justice alone could sweep away the olden world so that the new one might
be reared. After all, the great silent multitude would belong neither to
Vatican nor to Quirinal, neither to pope nor to king. If it had covertly
growled through the ages in its long, sometimes mysterious, and sometimes
open contest; if it had struggled betwixt pontiff and emperor who each
had wished to retain it for himself alone, it had only done so in order
that it might free itself, proclaim its resolve to belong to none on the
day when it should cry Justice! Would to-morrow then at last prove that
day of Justice and Truth? For his part, Pierre amidst his anguish--having
on one hand that need of the divine which tortures man, and on the other
sovereignty of reason which enables man to remain erect--was only sure of
one thing, that he would keep his vows, continue a priest, watching over
the belief of others though he could not himself believe, and would thus
chastely and honestly follow his profession, amidst haughty sadness at
having been unable to renounce his intelligence in the same way as he had
renounced his flesh and his dream of saving the nations. And again, as
after Lourdes, he would wait.

So deeply was he plunged in reflection at that window, face to