The Eternal Flame

by Michel Corday

  “I don’t agree,” said François. He pronounced the sentence so curtly that he was surprised by the sound of his own voice.

  Chérance was bare-headed. His forehead was red. His temporal vein was near to bursting. Dryly, he said: “What does that mean?”

  “I want my discovery to serve the whole world. I don’t want it to become an instrument of discord. More precisely, I’m a supporter of an American alliance. I always have been. When we were building our factories at Fraicourt, on the banks of the Seine, I took pleasure in the thought that we were on a road that led toward the sea, toward the New World. It was childish, perhaps, but that was how I felt...”

  “But you don’t know the Americans!” exclaimed Chérance. “You’ve never been there. I’ve dealt with them, myself. I don’t deny their great qualities, but good God, they’re awkward company: puerile, pretentious...”

  “I don’t really believe in racial characteristics,” François admitted. “One race is much the same as any other. I can’t imagine that the hundred and twenty million inhabitants of the United States all have the same faults.”

  “You know full well, my friend, that in these matters it’s always a matter of a majority. If I say that the Nordic type is blond with blue eyes, it’s because the majority of Norsemen have blue eyes and blond hair.”

  “Oh, I agree with you with regard to physical characteristics,” François agreed. “At least while the races aren’t mixed—and from now on, they’ll be mixed very rapidly; remember that rapid locomotion is less than a hundred years old. But relative to mental traits, I have strong reservations. Appearance is variable—and it’s not important. A face is never anything but a small tumult of flesh on a bone structure. On the other hand, I believe that there’s very little fundamental difference between one people and another. It’s a question of skin. Have you ever looked in the window of a food shop? It’s astonishing how much one skinned rabbit resembles another...”

  Chérance cut him off with a hint of aggravation. “Where is this going?”

  François was in full flow. He continued straight ahead. “There are a lot of questions that you understand thoroughly and about which I know nothing. You’ve seen that I gladly defer to your experience—but I’ve meditated problems that might never have caught your attention. So, I can prove to you, with scientific certainty, that civilization, in the most radiant sense of the word, is heading toward America, which will be its promised land for a long time.”

  “That is indeed a demonstration that I’d be interested to hear.”

  “I’ll come to it. I’ve reflected a great deal on the question of America. The New World has been alternately exalted and denigrated. It’s the well-known phenomenon of the pendulum, which moves to the right and then to the left before finding its equilibrium. Oh, I don’t admire all Americans—or rather, I don’t understand them all. Some verdicts of their judges, their official continence, their scorn for the negro race, which they nevertheless freed at the cost of their blood—all of that disconcerts me…but they realize material well-being, and that’s the most important thing. For it’s only on that solid platform that moral wellbeing can be edified. They’re on the right path. It’s said that they’re not ideal. What a joke! Between us, what ideal have we built in the workshop of Europe? President Wilson was the greatest idealist of modern times. Besides which, America’s detractors fail to recognize, more or less consciously, all sorts of artistic, spiritual and intellectual merits that one already sees sprouting in that new land, and whose flowering will astonish the world. I don’t attribute racial traits to Americans. I say that their continent has youth in its favor, with its excesses and its immense promise.”

  “And the demonstration?”

  “It’s not mine. One finds the elements of it in any summary of astronomy. In reality, the hearth of civilization is always installed in the most temperate region of the globe. Now, that zone shifts because the axis of the Earth slowly changes its orientation, like that of a top. That blessed zone describes a curve around the Earth. One can follow its track since the earliest ages of which humans have retained some memory. From Asia it passed to Egypt, and then successively chose for its capitals Athens, Rome and Paris. Presently, it’s crossing the Ocean. It will reach land in New York. It will slowly traverse America, pause in Japan, and then return to Asia to complete its circuit and begin again. Its tour of the world takes two hundred and fifty centuries...”

  Chérance studied his companion with wide eyes. Was he, too, beginning to believe him mentally unbalanced? François did not have time to ask him. The car stopped in front of the dusty window of an old bookshop.

  “We’ll talk about this again,” the financier said, simply. “Will you come with me?”

  He leapt briskly out of the vehicle, brushed the sidewalk and lunged into Lechartreux’s bookshop.

  The atmosphere of the old bookshop was so singular that, as soon as he had crossed the threshold, Chérance seemed to forget the march of civilization around the world, the future of the United States, the American alliance and even Sidereal Energy. There are isolating walls that defend us against cold, heat and noise; in the same way, walls of old books separate us from the present day.

  Any visitor, entering an old bookshop at hazard, immediately feels distanced from the world. But that dry odor of dust and parchment intoxicated Chérance all the more powerfully because of his passion for rare books. It was even certain that he had no others, except for his formidable appetite for administration. He had no love for amour. A bachelor, he had been notoriously linked for years with the most celebrated cantatrice of the Opéra, but she was as careful to preserve her voice as he was reluctant to sacrifice himself to pleasure. It was, in consequence, a liaison of wise children, who held on to one another with their little fingers.

  Chérance introduced François to Lechartreux. He did not add that his young friend was the author of the greatest discovery of modern times, for he knew that the bookseller did not live in the present century, that he was utterly ignorant of his own era. He thought, however, that he ought to report that François Thibault was the son-in-law of Pierre Contal.

  Naturally, Lechartreux did not manifest any emotion, for the old bookseller seemed immune to admiration, sympathy and the majority of human sentiments. Nevertheless, after a brief absence, Lechartreux slid under the financier’s gaze a book that he had just collected from the back room of the shop. It was a first edition of Cléopâtre, one of Pierre Contal’s most famous works. Still silent, he opened the volume. The bibliophile who had owned the book, whose collection had doubtless been dispersed, had inserted an autograph letter from the author into it.

  Evidently, those four pages were not worth as much as the unobtainable manuscript of Génie antique, but Chérance pored over the prestigious script. His forehead was scarlet. Again, his temporal vein seemed close to bursting. He was as excited by the sight of that simple letter as he had been a little while ago, in the car, when he had been defending his supremacy, his worldly privilege. François realized that only the passion for rare paper could counterbalance the passion for power in that man.

  X

  The inauguration of the first Radio-Propulsion Company was a very simple celebration. That day, François felt a new confidence in the future. A few weeks had passed since his argument with Chérance over the American alliance. He hoped that his reasoning had taken hold in the lucid mind of the financier, who had never returned to the discussion. Sandler had left again very quickly, without seeing either of them again. The campaign in the gutter press seemed to have been aborted. The venom had lost its virulence. Francois sometimes caught a glimpse of a sort of malicious curiosity in the gazes that lingered upon him, but he had made his decision. It no longer affected him. And the Starter continued nevertheless to spread into the world.

  That first radio-propulsion enterprise involved river transport by barge between Paris and Rouen. Dutrait, the commercial director of Sidereal Energy, was the veritable c
reator of the new company. The transmitter was installed in the grounds of the factories at Fraicourt, approximately half way between the two extremities of the line.

  The inauguration was held on one of those marvelous days that autumn deploys as it declines to a beautiful death. The ceremony was analogous to that of launching a ship. The guests were to witness the departure of the first barge of the regular service. It was moored near the Pont de Tolbiac. It was called the Marianne. Its godfather and godmother were Dutrait and little Lise.

  Naturally, Dutrait arrived late. The attaché representing the Minister of the Merchant Marine displayed considerable irritation. One cannot imagine what facilities life suddenly offers to such young men. Before them, all doors open, all heads bow down. Drunk on their power, they quickly become jealous of it.

  Chérance, brisk and elegant, distributed handshakes with a haughty cordiality. He regretted not finding Pierre Contal there. Although the author of Génie antique had left Burgundy and returned to his winter abode at Passy he had refused to dignify with his presence one of the “deplorable conquests of science.”

  The attaché made the inevitable speech, but fortunately, as he was still sulking, he cut it short. Assisted by Dutrait, little Lise used scissors to cut the symbolic ribbon linking the Marianne to the bank. The barge drew away silently, amid the applause of the crowd. It did not consume any fuel. Radiation emitted at Fraicourt animated its engine. The mechanic had only to tune into it, like a radio operator picking up a broadcasting station. “The barge takes to the waves.” That mediocre wordplay delighted Dutrait, who repeated it to everyone.

  A buffet had been set up in the new company’s hangar. Champagne corks popped. Glasses sparkled in fingertips. People have not yet found any better way to hold communion than drinking together. From the royal banquet to the village wedding, people “raise their glasses.”

  In sum, the event passed almost unnoticed by the general public. The next day, however, oil shares fell noticeably on the New York Stock Exchange. That drop became steeper in the days that followed. Not only did it extend to other exchanges, but to the entire market in each of them. A crisis was beginning, whose violence was unforeseeable.

  François was still a layman in banking matters. Alerted by a telephone call from Laronce, he sought information later from Dutrait. He encountered him almost every day at the headquarters of Sidereal Energy, where they supervised the debut of the new transport company together.

  Dutrait explained that the success of the enterprise had provoked the fall in oil. The trial on the Paris-Rouen route had a symbolic value, just as the Paris-Saint-Germain railway line had been the embryo of the country-wide network. Radio-Propulsion could and would extend to all rivers, all roads and all oceans.

  But why had the drop become general, extending to all shares?

  Dutrait buttoned his jacket, with one of his familiar gestures, which he had borrowed from his boss.

  “It was inevitable. The big holders of oil shares have suffered a loss. You admit that? Good. It’s necessary that they repair it, for the needs of their treasury. What do they do? They sell other shares. Which? The ones they can sell most dearly—which is to say, the most solid, the best. They put them on the market. They fall in their turn, according to the law of supply and demand. Thus, everything goes down.”

  Like Chérance, he concluded: “It’s time.” Then, smiling, he added: “Besides which, the misfortune of one is the good fortune of others. I know people who bet on the fall and who will make fortunes from this collapse.”

  Candidly, Francois asked: “What do you mean?”

  “Yes indeed—an example. Having known that oil shares would fall, one of these lascars declares: ‘I’m selling a thousand Mondial Oil.’”

  “Even if he doesn’t have them?”

  “That’s not important. He sells dear. Before settlement, the shares go down. He buys cheap, and pockets the difference. The trick is worked.”

  So, unscrupulous people were going enrich themselves in the catastrophe. François’ anguished irritation increased. The financial organization of the world seemed to him to be fragile, temporary and artificial. Above all, it was recent. Like technology, it had the defect of extreme youth. Instantaneous communications, especially radio, brand new, gave it an excessive sensitivity. It was subject to the laws of interdependence, but not yet controlled by them. The damages were suffered without the benefits being enjoyed. In brief, the world panicked too easily. It developed fevers too rapidly. But so what? One cannot live outside one’s times.

  François was not unaware that similar crises not only provoked ruinations and suicides in the ranks of gamblers but that they also had more distant repercussions, that they devastated humble lives all the way to the depths of the crowd. The thought that his discovery might be responsible for such disasters was unbearable. He murmured: “It’s not possible.”

  He remained convinced that Chérance, and Chérance alone, could avert the catastrophe, with a word or a gesture. The financier had just arrived at Sidereal Energy. His hoarse but penetrating voice was audible through the partition wall. François decided to go and see him right away.

  Naturally, Chérance was following the development of the crisis very closely. As soon as François began to deplore it, he interrupted him. Sitting behind his desk, he struck it with the palm of his hand.

  “What of it? Those people are afraid of their shadow. What have the oil men lost so far? The few tons that the Paris-Rouen barges would have burned. That’s nothing by comparison with world-wide consumption. And like us, they have no idea what tomorrow might bring.”

  François repeated that the trial would doubtless soon be imitated on land and sea. For the holders of shares in oil, it was an alarm signal. Chérance could not deny that—and, for the first time since the lunch at the Imperial, François returned to the subject of the American partnership. He urged the financier to accept Sandler’s proposal.

  “Oh, to be sure, I’m just a layman, ignorant in these matters, but a sure instinct tells me that such an alliance would reassure the market. Those who fear losing everything would immediately realize that the damage will be limited, that they will be compensated in part by the benefits that they will derive from the Starter.”

  Chérance made an angry gesture. “Don’t ask me to abandon our privilege. I’m twenty years older than you. You’ll live longer than I will. Whatever happens, be sure that you’ll eventually regret having abandoned that supremacy, that instrument of power.”

  He got to his feet. Cordially, almost tenderly, he said: “Come on—it’s only a crisis. The market’s see many others. It will settle down, as all crises settle down.”

  Casually, he indicated that the matter was closed for the moment, that he did not intend to discuss it further. François was not tempted to pursue the conversation himself. He sensed that Chérance was utterly intoxicated, reveling in being the master of masters. He considered him with an amazement mingled with fear, as if he were one of those monstrous conquerors who, to ensure their glory and their reign, sacrifice thousands of human lives, without realizing that each of those lives, all things considered, is worth as much as his own.

  Very early the next morning, Laronce rang the doorbell of the detached house at Bellevue.

  Every time he saw his friend appear like that, François felt a constriction in his breast and his life slow down. He thought: What new catastrophe has he come to tell me about?

  Laronce had a glitter in his eye and a mournful expression.

  “I took the first train,” he explained, “in order that I can still get to the paper on time. Dispatches arrive at the Bonjour yesterday evening that have delayed publication. Yes, the newspapers are censoring themselves now. It’s a habit they acquired in the last war and haven’t yet been able to shake off. The telegrams will only appear in the avant-garde papers, but people won’t read the newspapers that prohibit them.”

  “What do the dispatches say?”

  �
�I don’t want to tell you by phone. Serious troubles have broken out in the coalfields of the North and East. In the last few days, the President of the Council, Feuillard, has received delegations from the miners’ unions. That information appeared in the papers but passed unnoticed. No one was interested. Yesterday, bands of unemployed men pillaged stores and attacked pitheads. They’ve cut the telegraph wires and taken over a telephone exchange. They’re threatening to march on Paris. It’s said that they’re armed with machine-guns and grenades. Troops were sent during the night in motorized trucks to bar their route. There’s fear of a revolutionary movement.

  “It’s the final blow,” sighed François.

  Laronce explained the news. The consumption of coal had diminished since the employment of the Starter. The mining companies, seeing their stocks growing enormously, had first reduced the working day, and then laid off a number of their workers. Sufficiently compensated, the unemployed had remained placid, but a few days ago, agitators had appeared in the region. Adding a leaven of bitterness to the mass, they had unleashed its effervescence.

  Laronce, whom François had told about Sandler’s check, was inclined to think that the big oil men had stimulated the uprising. The mining companies, in fact, had no interest in provoking mobs that were as dangerous to their equipment as to the lives of their engineers. Thus, in the contest between oil and the Starter, oil had scored a point—for everyone would attribute the responsibility for the troubles in which rumbles of revolution were heard to Sidereal Energy.

  Revolution! Francois was horrified. Before anything else, he had respect for human life. He said: “I don’t hate anything but hatred.” Logical, he detested all wars, civil wars as well as foreign wars. He curses bloody revolution with all his might. It never seemed necessary to him. He recalled that people had been able to change regimes without violence. He contended that even without the revolution of 1789, France would, solely by virtue of the influence of the Voltaires and the Diderots, have ended up with a constitutional monarchy by 1830, exactly as had happened in reality—and would have been spared the Red Terror, the monstrous Napoléonic adventure, the White Terror, and the grotesque recoil of the Restoration. He shivered at the mere thought of a collision between bands of unemployed workers and troops. He had always inveighed against the employment of the army in such tasks. What? Men, because they were wearing uniforms, were going to fire on their friends, their relatives? Perhaps that sacrilegious impact, for which he felt partly responsible, would occur within a matter of hours. It wasn’t possible.