but he sees that up to now he has never
really possessed them. Outside in the throng, how can he see over the
heads of those who press about him? And it is not possible for him to
look long into the eyes of those who influence him, even though they
are his dearest, for they are pressed too close against him. There
is no time; no perspective. We feel only that our bodies are crushed
together, closely entwined by our common destiny, and tossed on the
muddy torrent of multitudinous existence. Clerambault felt that he
had not seen his son in any real sense until after his death; and the
brief hour in which he and Rosine had recognised each other was one in
which the bonds of a baleful delusion had been broken by the force of
suffering.

Now that by means of successive eliminations, he had arrived at
solitude, he felt withdrawn from the passions of the living, but they
stood out all the more to him in a kind of lucid intimacy. All, not
only his wife and children, but the millions of beings whom he had
thought to embrace in an oratorical affection; they all painted
themselves on the dark background. On the sombre river of destiny
which sweeps humanity away, and which he had confounded with it,
appeared millions of struggling living fragments--men; and each had
his own personality, each was a whole world of joy and sorrow, dreams
and efforts and each was I. I bend over him and it is myself I see;
"I," say the eyes, and the heart repeats "I." My brothers, at last I
understand you, for your faults are also mine, even to the fury with
which you pursue me; I recognise that also, for it is once more I.

From this time onward Clerambault began to see men, not with the eyes
in his head, but with his heart;--no longer with ideas of pacifism,
or Tolstoism _(another folly)_, but by seizing the thoughts of his
fellows and putting himself in their place. He began to discover
afresh the people around him, even those who had been most hostile to
him, the intellectuals, and the politicians; and he saw plainly their
wrinkles, their white hair, the bitter lines about their mouths, their
bent backs, their shaky legs.... Overwrought, nervous, ready to break
down,... how much they had aged in six months! The excitement of the
fight had kept them up at first; but as it went on and, no matter what
the issue, the ruin became plain; each one had his griefs, and
each feared to lose the little--but that little, infinitely
precious--remained to