glowed with the supreme desire, the divine
desire which is the world's very soul, the brazier of eternal life. And
that explains everything. Without desire there is no love, no courage,
and no hope. By love alone can one create. And if love be restricted
in its mission there is but failure. Yes, they lie and deceive, because
they do not love. Then they suffer and lapse into moral and physical
degradation. And at the end lies the collapse of our rotten society,
which breaks up more and more each day before our eyes. That, then, is
the truth I was seeking. It is desire and love that save. Whoever loves
and creates is the revolutionary saviour, the maker of men for the new
world which will shortly dawn."

Never before had Mathieu so plainly understood that he and his wife were
different from others. This now struck him with extraordinary force.
Comparisons ensued, and he realized that their simple life, free from
the lust of wealth, their contempt for luxury and worldly vanities, all
their common participation in toil which made them accept and glorify
life and its duties, all that mode of existence of theirs which was
at once their joy and their strength, sprang solely from the source of
eternal energy: the love with which they glowed. If, later on, victory
should remain with them, if they should some day leave behind them work
of value and health and happiness, it would be solely because they had
possessed the power of love and the courage to love freely, harvesting,
in an ever-increasing family, both the means of support and the means
of conquest. And this sudden conviction filled Mathieu with such a glow
that he leant towards his wife, who sat there deeply moved by what he
said, and kissed her ardently upon the lips. It was divine love passing
like a flaming blast. But she, though her own eyes were sparkling,
laughingly scolded him, saying: "Hush, hush, you will wake Gervais."

Then they remained there hand in hand, pressing each other's fingers
amid the silence. Evening was coming on, and at last the children, their
village finished, raised cries of rapture at seeing it standing there
among bits of wood, which figured trees. And then the softened glances
of the parents strayed now through the window towards the crops sleeping
beneath the crystalline rime, and now towards their last-born's cradle,
where hope was likewise slumbering.

Again did two long months go by. Gervais had just completed his first
year, and fin