under the orange-trees of Italy, under thy beautiful Venetian sky, near
thy Adriatic, hadst thou not thy well-beloved? Oh, God! I who speak to
you, who am only a feeble child, have perhaps known sorrows that you have
never suffered, and yet I believe and hope, and still bless God.

When English and German ideas had passed thus over our heads there ensued
disgust and mournful silence, followed by a terrible convulsion. For to
formulate general ideas is to change saltpetre into powder, and the
Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the
juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not believe
it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion carried them away
like grains of dust into the abyss of universal doubt.

It was a denial of all heavenly and earthly facts that might be termed
disenchantment, or if you will, despair; as if humanity in lethargy had
been pronounced dead by those who felt its pulse. Like a soldier who is
asked: "In what do you believe?" and who replies: "In myself," so the
youth of France, hearing that question, replied: "In nothing."

Then formed two camps: on one side the exalted spirits, sufferers, all
the expansive souls who yearned toward the infinite, bowed their heads
and wept; they wrapped themselves in unhealthful dreams and nothing could
be seen but broken reeds in an ocean of bitterness. On the other side the
materialists remained erect, inflexible, in the midst of positive joys,
and cared for nothing except to count the money they had acquired. It was
but a sob and a burst of laughter, the one coming from the soul, the
other from the body.

This is what the soul said:

"Alas! Alas! religion has departed; the clouds of heaven fall in rain; we
have no longer either hope or expectation, not even two little pieces of
black wood in the shape of a cross before which to clasp our hands. The
star of the future is loath to appear; it can not rise above the horizon;
it is enveloped in clouds, and like the sun in winter its disc is the
color of blood, as in '93. There is no more love, no more glory. What
heavy darkness over all the earth! And death will come ere the day
breaks."

This is what the body said:

"Man is here below to satisfy his senses; he has more or less of white or
yellow metal, by which he merits more or less esteem. To eat, to drink,
and to sleep, that is life. As for the bonds which exist between men,
friendship consists in