herhood.
He was filled with horror at the vision of a maddened humanity,
sacrificing its most precious treasures, strength, and genius, its
highest virtues, to the bestial idol of war. It was to him a moral
agony, a heart-rending communion with these unhappy millions. To what
end? And of what use had been all the efforts of the ages? His heart
seemed gripped by the void; he felt he could no longer live if his
faith in the reason of men and their mutual love was destroyed, if he
was forced to acknowledge that the Credo of his life and art rested on
a mistake, that a dark pessimism was the answer to the riddle of the
world.

He turned his eyes away in terror, he was afraid to look it in the
face, this monster who was there, whose hot breath he felt upon him.
Clerambault implored,--he did not know who or what--that this might
not be, that it might not be. Anything rather than this should be
true! But the devouring fact stood just behind the opening door....
Through the whole night he strove to close that door ...

At last towards morning, an animal instinct began to wake, coming from
he did not know where, which turned his despair towards the secret
need of finding a definite and concrete cause, to fasten the blame on
a man, or a group of men, and angrily hold them responsible for the
misery of the world. It was as yet but a brief apparition, the first
faint sign of a strange obscure, imperious soul, ready to break forth,
the soul of the multitude ... It began to take shape when Maxime came
home, for after the night in the streets of Paris, he fairly sweated
with it; his very clothes, the hairs of his head, were impregnated.
Worn out, excited, he could not sit down; his only thought was to go
back again. The decree of mobilisation was to come out that day, war
was certain, it was necessary, beneficial; some things must be put an
end to, the future of humanity was at stake, the freedom of the world
was threatened. "They" had counted on Jaures' murder to sow dissension
and raise riots in the country they meant to attack, but the entire
nation had risen to rally round its leaders, the sublime days of the
great Revolution were re-born ...Clerambault did not discuss these
statements, he merely asked: "Do you think so? Are you quite sure?" It
was a sort of hidden appeal. He wanted Maxime to state, to redouble
his assertions. The news Maxime had brought added to the chaos, raised
it to a climax, but at the same time it began to