rule of evil is hidden in easy security among the illusions which
they heap up over us. I am nothing; I am no more than I was before,
but I am applying my hunger for the truth. I tell myself again that
there is no supernatural power, that nothing has fallen from the sky;
that everything is within us and in our hands. And in the inspiration
of that faith my eyes embrace the magnificence of the empty sky, the
abounding desert of the earth, the Paradise of the Possible.

We pass along the base of the church. Marie says to me--as if nothing
had just been said, "Look how the poor church was damaged by a bomb
from an aeroplane--all one side of the steeple gone. The good old
vicar was quite ill about it. As soon as he got up he did nothing else
but try to raise money to have his dear steeple built up again; and he
got it."

People are revolving round the building and measuring its yawning
mutilation with their eyes. My thoughts turn to all these passers-by
and to all those who will pass by, whom I shall not see, and to other
wounded steeples. The most beautiful of all voices echoes within me,
and I would fain make use of it for this entreaty, "Build not the
churches again! You who will come after us, you who, in the sharp
distinctness of the ended deluge will perhaps be able to see the order
of things more clearly, don't build the churches again! They did not
contain what we used to believe, and for centuries they have only been
the prisons of the saviours, and monumental lies. If you are still of
the faith have your temples within yourselves. But if you again bring
stones to build up a narrow and evil tradition, that is the end of all.
In the name of justice, in the name of light, in the name of pity, do
not build the churches again!"

But I did not say anything. I bow my head and walk more heavily.

I see Madame Marcassin coming out of the church with blinking eyes,
weary-looking, a widow indeed. I bow and approach her and talk to her
a little, humbly, about her husband, since I was under his orders and
saw him die. She listens to me in dejected inattention. She is
elsewhere. She says to me at last, "I had a memorial service since
it's usual." Then she maintains a silence which means "There's nothing
to be said, just as there's nothing to be done." In face of that
emptiness I understand the crime that Marcassin committed in letting
himself be killed for nothing but the glory of dying.

* *