e go by, of popular expanse.

I go up to join Marie, mingling with the crowd; I divide serried knots
of them. Suddenly there is profound silence, and every one stands
immovable. Up there the Bishop is on his feet. He raises his
forefinger and says, "The dead are not dead. They are rewarded in
heaven; but even here on earth they are alive. They keep watch in our
hearts, eternally preserved from oblivion. Theirs is the immortality
of glory and gratitude. They are not dead, and we should envy them
more than pity."

And he blesses the audience, all of whom bow or kneel. I remained
upright, stubbornly, with clenched teeth. And I remember things, and I
say to myself, "Have the dead died for nothing? If the world is to
stay as it is, then--yes!"

Several men did not bend their backs at first, and then they obeyed the
general movement; and I felt on my shoulders all the heavy weight of
the whole bowing multitude.

Monsieur Joseph Boneas is talking within a circle. Seeing him again I
also feel for one second the fascination he once had for me. He is
wearing an officer's uniform of the Town Guard, and his collar hides
the ravages in his neck. He is holding forth. What says he? He says,
"We must take the long view."

"We must take the long view. For my part, the only thing I admire in
militarist Prussia is its military organization. After the war--for we
must not limit our outlook to the present conflict--we must take
lessons from it, and just let the simple-minded humanitarians go on
bleating about universal peace."

He goes on to say that in his opinion the orators did not sufficiently
insist on the necessity for tying the economic hands of Germany after
the war. No annexations, perhaps; but tariffs, which would be much
better. And he shows in argument the advantages and prosperity brought
by carnage and destruction.

He sees me. He adorns himself with a smile and comes forward with
proffered hand. I turn violently away. I have no use for the hand of
this sort of outsider, this sort of traitor.

They lie. That ludicrous person who talks of taking the long view
while there are still in the world only a few superb martyrs who have
dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present
misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man
who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the
demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre;