The Confession of a Child of the Century | Page 7

the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not
believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion carried
them away like grains of dust into the abyss of universal doubt.
It was a denial of all heavenly and earthly facts that might be termed
disenchantment, or if you will, despair; as if humanity in lethargy had
been pronounced dead by those who felt its pulse. Like a soldier who is
asked: "In what do you believe?" and who replies: "In myself," so the
youth of France, hearing that question, replied: "In nothing."
Then formed two camps: on one side the exalted spirits, sufferers, all
the expansive souls who yearned toward the infinite, bowed their heads
and wept; they wrapped themselves in unhealthful dreams and nothing
could be seen but broken reeds in an ocean of bitterness. On the other
side the materialists remained erect, inflexible, in the midst of positive
joys, and cared for nothing except to count the money they had

acquired. It was but a sob and a burst of laughter, the one coming from
the soul, the other from the body.
This is what the soul said:
"Alas! Alas! religion has departed; the clouds of heaven fall in rain; we
have no longer either hope or expectation, not even two little pieces of
black wood in the shape of a cross before which to clasp our hands. The
star of the future is loath to appear; it can not rise above the horizon; it
is enveloped in clouds, and like the sun in winter its disc is the color of
blood, as in '93. There is no more love, no more glory. What heavy
darkness over all the earth! And death will come ere the day breaks."
This is what the body said:
"Man is here below to satisfy his senses; he has more or less of white or
yellow metal, by which he merits more or less esteem. To eat, to drink,
and to sleep, that is life. As for the bonds which exist between men,
friendship consists in loaning money; but one rarely has a friend whom
he loves enough for that. Kinship determines inheritance; love is an
exercise of the body; the only intellectual joy is vanity."
Like the Asiatic plague exhaled from the vapors of the Ganges,
frightful despair stalked over the earth. Already Chateaubriand, prince
of poesy, wrapping the horrible idol in his pilgrim's mantle, had placed
it on a marble altar in the midst of perfumes and holy incense. Already
the children were clenching idle hands and drinking in a bitter cup the
poisoned brewage of doubt. Already things were drifting toward the
abyss, when the jackals suddenly emerged from the earth. A deathly
and infected literature, which had no form but that of ugliness, began to
sprinkle with fetid blood all the monsters of nature.
Who will dare to recount what was passing in the colleges? Men
doubted everything: the young men denied everything. The poets sang
of despair; the youth came from the schools with serene brow, their
faces glowing with health, and blasphemy in their mouths. Moreover,
the French character, being by nature gay and open, readily assimilated
English and German ideas; but hearts too light to struggle and to suffer

withered like crushed flowers. Thus the seed of death descended slowly
and without shock from the head to the bowels. Instead of having the
enthusiasm of evil we had only the negation of the good; instead of
despair, insensibility. Children of fifteen, seated listlessly under
flowering shrubs, conversed for pastime on subjects which would have
made shudder with terror the still thickets of Versailles. The
Communion of Christ, the Host, those wafers that stand as the eternal
symbol of divine love, were used to seal letters; the children spit upon
the Bread of God.
Happy they who escaped those times! Happy they who passed over the
abyss while looking up to Heaven. There are such, doubtless, and they
will pity us.
It is unfortunately true that there is in blasphemy a certain outlet which
solaces the burdened heart. When an atheist, drawing his watch, gave
God a quarter of an hour in which to strike him dead, it is certain that it
was a quarter of an hour of wrath and of atrocious joy. It was the
paroxysm of despair, a nameless appeal to all celestial powers; it was a
poor, wretched creature squirming under the foot that was crushing him;
it was a loud cry of pain. Who knows? In the eyes of Him who sees all
things, it was perhaps a prayer.
Thus these youth found employment for their idle powers in a fondness
for despair. To scoff at glory, at religion, at love, at all the world, is a
great consolation for