Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/293

 escaped the crushing yoke, fought your way through, like a nightmare in which one struggles and tears oneself out of the dark waters. You sink, choking, and all at once with a despairing effort you throw yourself beyond the reach of the wave, and sink exhausted but safe on the shore. These people wound me? So much the better, I shall wake up in the free air.

Yes, threatening world, I am indeed free from your fetters, I can never be chained again, and my detested will with which I so often had to fight, my will is now in you. You wanted, like me, to be free, and that made you suffer, and made you my enemy; but now even if you kill me, you have seen the light in me, and once seen, you can no longer reject it. Strike then! But know that in fighting against me you fight yourself also; you are beaten in advance, and when I defend myself, it is you that I defend as well. _The One against All_ is the _One for All_, and soon will be _The One with All_.

I shall no longer be solitary! I feel that I have never been in truth alone. My brothers of the world, you may indeed be scattered afar over the earth like a handful of grain, but I know that you are here beside me. The thought of a man is not solitary; the idea which grows in him springs up in others; when he feels it in his heart, let him rejoice, no matter how unhappy, how injured he may be, for it is the earth reviving. The first spark in a lonely soul is the point of the ray which will pierre the night. So, welcome, Light. Break through the night which is around and within me!... "Clerambault."