The Eternal Flame

by Michel Corday

  Was the national press, as had been claimed for thirty years, in the pocket of industrial finance? In untiringly stoking up chauvinism, hatred and violence by means that were alternately gross and subtle, flattering the basest instincts of their readers, was the papers consciously serving those powerful individuals who wanted, not war itself, but incessant and profitable preparations for war?

  Doubtless the question was not so simple. Arnage confessed that he was incapable of answering it. But what did it matter whether the newspapers were fabricating popular opinion or simply reflecting it? In either case, that opinion existed. It was even, for the moment, white hot, raised to the temperature of an electric furnace. And damn it, a government is obliged to take account of it, if it wants to live.

  Ah, power! It exercises such an attraction. What a magnet! When one holds it, one can no longer let it go, and not just for the money, certainly—a stockbroker earns more than a minister—but for all the enjoyments it procures: the prodigiously facilitated, clean-swept life, in which all doors open; in which, as one advances, a carpet rolls out beneath one’s feet, between two hedges of bowed heads; in which one has the best seat everywhere, attentions, cares, flatteries, tributes, and even the smiles of women, because one is the State...

  At a street corner a few paces from the Ministry, Pierre Arnage stopped. He interrogated himself. In good faith, was it really to stay in power that he and his colleagues were following public opinion today in its march to war? No, a hundred times no. The conflict appeared to them to be inevitable, like a natural scourge. Had they talked less, they would not have been able to act more. They had been overtaken by events. Their chatter masked their impotence.

  He admitted it: they did not want war, but they had accepted it. Although it was illegal, they still considered it as a means, almost an institution, not as filthy or stupid butchery. It did not make them vomit. They were resigned to it, without even being able to imagine it exactly. For thirty years, in al speeches, from all lips, war had been disparaged—but in the depths of the heart, the deification of warriors continued.

  As he passed under the porch of the Ministry, the porter, sweeping the air with a great swing of his helmet, announced to him that Madame Arnage had just arrived.

  His wife? What did she want? The day before, sending the car back to Briolle, he had warned her via the chauffeur that he was retained in Paris. She had not been planning an imminent trip. He was not expecting her. He went straight up to the private apartments. He found her in the bedroom, where she was emptying a small valise on to the bed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Straight and stiff, her lips thin, her eyes wide, she was the very image of reproach. She pointed with her chin at an envelope placed on the quilt.

  “That was in the letter-box this morning.”

  He read the anonymous letter. Who could be so well-informed? His suspicion floated over the servants, without settling. He threw the piece of paper on to the bed.

  “What a dirty...”

  “Is it true?” she demanded.

  He was tempted to deny it, but it would have been necessary to make up a story, to be cunning. He had enough on his mind. He got out of it with a single word: “Yes.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “No.”

  Why had she come to interrogate him? She knew full well that he had mistresses. Ordinarily, she turned a blind eye. Doubtless she had been afraid, this time, because of the child. She was anxious about the future.

  Indeed, she demanded: “What are you going to do?”

  Already, he was irritated. He was suffering, in his pride, from having made a mistake, from being diminished, from seeming guilty before her. He replied, testily: “How do I know?”

  He strode back and forth in the large room, whose banal furniture-store luxury struck him for the first time. His wife remained standing by the bed. Suddenly, he saw that she was weeping. She simply lowered her head to hide her tears.

  At the sight of those girlish shoulders shaken by sobs, a tender pity plunged through him like a dagger, attaining depths to which he had never descended. It seemed to him that a spring of generosity welled up within him. He wanted to set himself free, but the words would not come out.

  Horrified by the tears, he simply said: “Oh, please, I beg you...”

  Someone knocked. He ran to open the door. An usher gave him a piece of paper. His chief of staff, alerted to his presence, was sending him the list of people who were waiting to see him. He read, in a whisper: “President...of the Bar…Appeal Court…” Then, to the usher, he said: “All right—I’m coming.”

  Chapter VII

  (Thursday)

  Three days had passed since the Schism of Lausanne. Late in the afternoon, François Thibault came out of his laboratory at Bellevue, traversed the gardens with an anxious tread and joined his family in the residence. His wife Marianne, his son Claude and Pierre Contal were together in the living room. He immediately went to the wireless set and set the dial to Radio France. Animated images were projected on the screen. A speaker was commenting on the views, taken all over the world. There were processions, bellicose crowds that opened passage for fanatical crowds; there were hostile assemblies outside shops kept by foreigners, in front of consulates and embassies.

  Pierre Contal sighed. “It really is the end.”

  At the first alarm he had left his property in Burgundy. He had come to his daughter in Bellevue in order to be at the source of news. For that great zealot of the Past, war retained its aureole. He dreaded it, in the sense that a believer dreads a redoubtable divinity, while François Thibault simply execrated it. Thus, it haunted both men, who nourished opposed sentiments in its regard, to the same degree. For both of them, it filled the entire horizon.

  “And to think,” said François Thibault, “that a hundred paces away from those brawls, life must be continuing placidly—but reporters, by means of images as well as words—always present events in the most alarming aspect. They seem to have given themselves the task of maddening the masses, of breathing anxiety and panic into them. One would think they experienced satisfaction, even sensuality, in predicting fatal war, war tomorrow. Are they obeying their instinct, or some instruction? Both, undoubtedly. In any case, the objective is attained. The sky’s getting darker by the hour. Yesterday, it was the closure of the Lausanne Congress, recourse to the Tribunal at The Hague. A grave indication: today, all the Stock Exchanges went down, collapsing completely.”

  He tuned in to foreign stations. He understood the majority of their communications. In the epoch when he had launched the Starter in America, he had suffered so much from his ignorance of foreign languages that he had sworn to learn the principal ones. Thanks to the most ingenious methods, and sojourns in England, Russia, Germany and Italy, he had kept his promise as soon as his success had won him independence.

  He clucked his tongue in irritation.

  “What is it now?” Pierre Contal asked.

  “Naturally, people in all the big cities in every land think they can see foreign airplanes flying overhead...”

  “On the eve of a war, people always think they can see the enemy everywhere,” said Pierre Contal, sententiously. A man of tradition, he was satisfied to observe that all wars have common features, areas of resemblance. He was one of those who reel off the irritating adage: “There’s nothing new under the sun!” He was already intent on fitting into the framework of ancient wars the monstrous conflict in which Europe would perish, turned into a desert of gravel, which only the stink of four hundred million cadavers would protect against a yellow invasion.

  The news items visibly enervated François Thibault; nevertheless, he continued to collect them. He imagined those furious cries for vengeance, those appeals to force, those provocations, al that bravado, all those messages of hated borne by the air-waves, which were intersecting, striating space, flowing into every hearth, bursting through speakers, more dangerous than lightning.

  He
was glad to think that, on the contrary, he had been able to make those same crowds hear the peaceful language of reason. Alas, on that occasion too he had been able to measure the pitch of excitement to which minds had been heated. The next morning, it was not only the orthodox newspapers that had been slavering with indignant rage, but five hundred letters he had received. The majority had been basely, sometimes excrementally, insulting. They had called him a coward and a contemptible wretch. He was “in a funk.” He had diarrhea. Or else he had sold out to the enemy. He deserved death. And on that dung-heap, only a few delightful flowers grew: fraternal spirits encouraging him. They understood that he was obedient to the concern, not of fleeing the gunfire, but of sparing others from it. In sum, brides and mothers thanks him, kissed his hands...

  The telephone bell rang. Claude rang to pick it up in the study.

  “It’s for you, Papa, on behalf of Monsieur Arnage.”

  “Indeed, I asked him to call me at seven o’clock. I’m coming.”

  On his return, he did not hide his chagrin. He let himself fall into an armchair with all his forceful mass. Sometimes wringing his hands, sometimes running his palm through the thicket of his hair, he said: “It’s incredible! I wanted to speak on Radio France again. For form’s sake, I asked Arnage to tell the Minister of the Interior. I thought I was authorized once and for all. Not at all. It appears that the Council of Ministers was alarmed by my first communication, or by its consequences, and that it has decided to forbid me to speak again. Even Arnage seemed to me to be under pressure, summary and constrained. He’s obviously disavowing me himself.

  “But I only said simple things…that peace is the natural state, that people aspire to it under every roof in the world; that war, on the contrary, resolves nothing, ruins everything, for a long time, and only enriches despicable parasites…and finally, that humans are masters of their lives at least as much as their other wealth, and that they should not be dispossessed of it without consulting them.

  “It appears that one does not have the right to proclaim these humble verities of common sense. It seems that there is still shame in celebrating peace, and glory in celebrating war. I’ve been gagged, stifled…and at what a moment!”

  He stood up. “To be unable to alert those crowds that we have left in ignorance, who are wandering in the dark, on the edge of the abyss... To be unable to warn them of the peril, to enlighten them, to make reason glow over their heads, like a rocket...”

  He meditated.

  Suddenly, he said: “Well, no. I won’t resolve myself to it. It’s necessary to run the final risk...”

  Braced on his strong legs, he had stopped in front of his wife, who was sitting next to Claude on a sofa. He consulted her with his gaze. Beneath a damascened headband, her admirable brown eyes were still resplendent. She remained “the silent darling” who only ever inserted a single decisive remark into a conversation.

  “Yes,” she said. “Do it.”

  The inventor’s powerful and tender visage lit up.

  “You really think the moment has come to risk the experiment, reckless as it seems? That it’s necessary to force people to see clearly?”

  “Yes,” she repeated. “Do it.”

  “You too, Claude?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  From the depths of an ancient armchair, Pierre Contal raised his voice. In the faint shadows of the twilight, his white hair and beard seemed shot through with light.

  “I’d really like to know what the three of you are plotting.”

  François Thibault turned toward him. “It’s a matter of a discovery. Excuse us for having kept it secret until now. You shall know all about it—but it’s Claude who took the initiative in this research; it’s only just that he should do the honors.”

  Placid and gracious, the young man remarked: “You know very well, Papa, that without you, I wouldn’t have found anything.”

  “Explain anyway.”

  In truth, Claude was about to find in Pierre Contal a deplorable listener. Like all adversaries of progress, he made considerable use of it. It did not displease him that, thanks to the most modern methods, his books were printed, and then advertised and distributed throughout the world. He appreciated the comfort of a home that was well-heated in winter and well-ventilated in summer. When ill, he demanded the most recent serum. When in a hurry, he confided himself to the fastest vehicle. But he avenged himself on that science, whose services he accepted, by maintaining in its regard a magnificent ignorance, the ignorance of a society lady or a child in the cradle.

  “Well, this is it. You know, grandfather, that air contains a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, and that by combining those two gases—which is to say, causing them to react with one another—one can obtain several compounds...”

  The author of Génie antique, opening frightened eyes, raised his hands as if to request mercy. In his placid voice, Claude continued.

  “So, one of them, nitric oxide, gives off reddish fumes known as rutilant vapors. Another, nitrous oxide, has been used as an anesthetic under the name of laughing gas, because it seems to intoxicate the patient and provoke fits of laughter. Well, Papa and I have discovered a third compound of oxygen and nitrogen, which presents new properties.”

  Pierre Contal interrupted in a sulky tone. Irritation was evidently causing him to exaggerate the dryness of his remark: “I don’t understand any of this jargon.”

  “Yes, yes,” Claude continued, tranquilly. “You understand it very well. By means of a special process of electrification, therefore, we combine the oxygen and nitrogen in the air and we obtain this new gas, which we call pink gas, because we have reason to believe that in great density it appears to be pink, as the air appears to be blue...”

  François Thibault judged that the moment had come to take over from his son. “Our laboratory experiments are conclusive. First we carried them out on ourselves, in order to assure ourselves that the pink gas wasn’t toxic, and then on our assistants, whom we hadn’t warned about the expected effects. They all experienced identical impressions. It’s a sort of expansion, of euphoria. One feels indulgent, more lucid, better. One rises above oneself. One sees clearly and far. Everything becomes simplified: barriers are lowered, base instincts buried, the finer ones exalted. All human possibilities appear in finite perspectives; one feels oneself becoming godlike...”

  “But it’s a drug like opium, your pink gas!” exclaimed Pierre Contal.

  “Not at all,” the inventor replied. It’s not a matter of sleeping or dreaming. It’s in a state of wakefulness that one experiences the generous exaltation, observes the flood of potency. It’s a very healthy sensation. It’s reminiscent of the glorious wellbeing that one aspires on high mountains, in the crystalline air rich in ozone that has passed over a snowfield. Isn’t it logical that tonic gases exist, just as there are toxic gases, gases that vivify as well as gases that kill? The great law of equilibrium that rules the world demands that compensation.”

  “But I don’t see the connection between your medicine and the imminent war,” said Pierre Contal.

  “Don’t you understand that we want to share that generous inebriation with all human beings for a few hours, in order to open their eyes, in order that they might see clearly, and become aware of their stupidity?”

  Slapping the arm of his chair with his hand, Pierre Contal cried: “Marianne, your son and your husband are mad!”

  “Less so than the warmongers,” she replied.

  “No, Father,” François Thibault went on, “the enterprise isn’t mad. By combining a small fraction of the oxygen in the air with the nitrogen, we can make the pink gas appear in the atmosphere. We’ve developed powerful broad-beam electric generators, which provoke the combination, rather like wireless stations that broadcast their waves into the air. As soon as the first threat of war emerged, four of those transmitters were sent by airplane to four of our Sidereal Energy stations, which can furnish them with the enormous power they require: Ott
awa, Tokyo, Tomsk and our factory at Fraicourt, near Mantes. They’re ready to function simultaneously, at our signal. The experiment will last one day.”

  “Madness, madness,” repeated Pierre Contal.

  “No. It’s no more inconceivable to enable everyone on Earth inhale the pink gas engendered by our stations than to enable them to hear the words propagated by radio transmission.”

  Pierre Contal put his hands together and tilted his head back, gazing at the ceiling. “To improve humankind, for a single day!”

  “But come on, Father, don’t individuals and groups attain that step toward perfection, that superior state of mind, momentarily? I’m not just talking about the slight inebriation that a glass of champagne pours into the heart, but that of lovers, fiancés, stifling their defects, expanding their sympathies, genuinely improving themselves in their desire to please. They realize, for a while, a better humanity. And at the other extreme of life, people who sense their end approaching suddenly become radiant with forbearance, altruism and grandeur. Love and death work those miracles. A generous play, a fiery speech or a noble piece of music lift the enthusiasm of an entire audience, giving it a superhuman soul. There are corners of the Earth, like our Provence, where all hearts are good, because they beat beneath a clement sky. The world of laboratories, where altruistic and disinterested scientists swarm, realize a superior humanity. Is it necessary to remind you of the historical examples—the night of August fourth,8 the cassation of the Dreyfus affair, when centuries-old prejudices melted in an hour? Even without pink gas, waves of bounty and hope sometimes pass over the Earth...”