Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/129

 es. And we continue to look on, and glorify the impeccable course of Destiny, paying court to blind Force_.

_Failing us, other things--and other men--have chosen; and not till then did we understand our mistake, but it was so dreadful to admit it, and we were so unaccustomed to be honest, that we acted as if we were in sympathy with the crime. In proof of this sympathy we have given up our own sons whom we love with all our hearts, more than life--if we could but give our lives for theirs!--but not more than our pride, with which we try to veil the moral confusion, the empty darkness of mind and heart_.

_We will say nothing of those who still believe in the old idol; grim, envious, blood be-spattered as she is--the barbarous Country. These kill, sacrificing themselves and others, but at least they know what they do. But what of those who have ceased to believe (like me, alas! and you)? Their sons are sacrificed to a lie, for if you assert what you doubt, it is a falsehood, and they offer up their own children to prove this lie to themselves; and now that our beloved have died for it, far from confessing it, we hide our heads still deeper not to see what we have done. After our sons will come others, all the others, offered up for our untruth_.

_I for my part can bear it no longer, when I think of those who still live. Does it soothe my pain to inflict injury on others? Am I a savage of Homer's time that I should believe that the sorrow of my dead son will be appeased, and his craving for light satisfied, if I sprinkle the earth which covers him with the blood of other men's sons?--Are we at that stage still?--No, each new murder kills my son again, and heaps the heavy mud of crime over his grave. He was the future; if I would save the future, I must save him also, and rescue fathers to come from the agony that I endure. Come then, and help me! Cast out these falsehoods! Surely it is not for our sakes that men wage these combats between nations, this universal brigandage? What good is