Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/66

 little world that is a young man, a tree of Jesse, future years ... all vanished in an hour!--and why?--why?--

He was forced to try to persuade himself at least that it was for something great and necessary. Clerambault clung despairingly to this buoy during the succeeding nights, feeling that if his hold gave way he should go under. More than ever he insisted on the holiness of the cause; he would not even discuss it; but little by little his fingers slipped, he settled lower with every movement, for each new statement of the justice of his cause roused a voice in his conscience which said:

"Even if you were twenty thousand times more right in this struggle, is your justification worth the disasters it costs? Does justice demand that millions of innocents should fall, a ransom for the sins and the errors of others? Is crime to be washed out by crime? or murder by murder? And must your sons be not only victims but accomplices, assassinated and assassins?..."

He looked back at the last visit of his son, and reflected on their last talks together. How many things were clear to him now, which he had not understood at the time! Maxime's silence, the reproach in his eyes. The worst of all was when he recognised that he had understood, at the time, when his son was there, but that he would not admit it.

This discovery, which had hung over him like a dark cloud for weeks,--this realisation of inward falsehood,--crushed him to the