The Eternal Flame

by Michel Corday

  Then, shoving the useless weapon back in his pocket, he launched himself toward the terrace where Claude Thibault, left alone, seemed to be studying the nacreous sky. He almost shouted at him: “You’re Claude Thibault, aren’t you? I’m Emile Truchard. We’ve never done more than catch glimpses of one another at Briolle. Our families have been at odds for such a long time that I no longer know why. You don’t either, do you? Would you like to put an end to it?”

  He held out his hands.

  Claude seized them, and said: “I should think so!”

  He did not seem unduly surprised by that action. He welcomed it with an amused smile, as if he had expected it. Without further consultation, they began to walk along the terrace together.

  They talked abundantly about their families, filling in the gap. “Me, my father...” said Emile. “Me, Papa...” said Claude. For they were both very proud of their fathers.

  Emile revealed the difficulties and vicissitudes that his own had encountered, and he delighted in those confessions. He tasted the profound joy of reconciliation, the gladness of making up for lost time, of resuscitating the past, of making the present…the gladness of forgiving and being forgiven…the gladness of vanquishing the malice of fate, the traps that destiny sets for us.

  Even under the dominion of that clear frankness, however, the two men retained secret corners within them. Emile Truchard did not tell Claude that he had left his room at dawn and traversed the Bois on foot, driven by the obsession of killing his father. And Claude did not admit to his companion that he was his first “subject,” the first creature in which the miracle of the pink sky was being accomplished before his eyes.

  Chapter II

  That same morning, the ministers, reunited in Council at the Élysée, had to determine the role of their two delegates to The Hague.

  Although the combination of circumstances was grave, the session opened in an atmosphere of confidence and hope. The Head of State, the austere Crépin, started speaking in a tone that was almost affable to the President of the Council, Martory. A half-smile humanized his granite face.

  It was soon perceptible that the prime minister’s manner had also changed. He had dropped his nonchalant and disillusioned mannerisms. Instead of slumping sideways, on one buttock, in the depths of his armchair, he was sitting up straight, his elbows by his sides. His forearms were resting on the table. With a very simple gesture, he drew them apart, as one opens a fan, and he said: “My dear President, my dear colleagues, everyone here desires, don’t we, to avoid war?”

  Ordinarily, such a declaration would have seemed shocking. One did not simply admit one’s love of peace, especially before a threat of conflict. One dressed it up, took detours. There was, however, such benevolence in the air that no one gave evidence of astonishment or reservations. The approval was unanimous. One could feel it pass by, like a warm breath.

  “Well,” Martory went on, “I’m of the opinion that our two representatives at The Hague should speak straightforwardly, as their hearts bids them to—that they say what they think, quite frankly: what everyone here thinks; what the immense majority in all countries think.”

  Pierre Arnage, who was due to depart for The Hague, pronounced in a penetrating voice: “Obviously.”

  He had just spent the most atrocious night of his life. He had almost summoned the worldwide catastrophe that would prevent Marilène from belonging to someone else. Undoubtedly, however, like the prime minister, he had been touched by grace. He was not at all surprised to approve and applaud his courageous sincerity.

  Martory continued: “For after all, we’re ministers, which is to say that we’re here, as our name indicates, to administer the interests of our fellow citizens. Now, the immense majority in the country—in all countries—wants peace. Under every roof, around every hearth, the same dream of tranquil happiness is nourished. Do you know how many people are appealing, more or less secretly, for war? About one per cent. Yes, from the most powerful armaments manufacturer to the smallest shopkeeper, the people who will make a profit from the slaughter represent scarcely a hundredth part of the mass. The others can expect nothing from war but anguish, mourning, ruination, martyrdom or death. Well, I say that we ought to speak, and ought to act, not on behalf of the hundredth person but on behalf of the other ninety-nine!”

  “That’s perfectly evident,” said Arnage, again.

  To tell the truth, Martory, who had deplored and then prohibited François Thibault’s speech before the microphone, maintained an analogous position in the presence of his colleagues, but Arnage felt in his heart such a need for generosity and frankness that he was not astonished by this conversion.

  “Then again,” Martory continued, “it’s necessary to have the courage to say it: war resolves nothing. The final treaty doesn’t conclude it; it prolongs it. It encloses deadly germs in the bandaged wound. War ruins both those one continues to call victors and those one considers defeated. All our misfortunes are the consequences of war. Forty years after the last conflict, we’re still expiating it. Imagine that, of every five francs of tax, two francs go to pay for the last war and two to prepare for the next. Only the last franc goes to the endeavors of life: education, public works, public hygiene, science, the arts and solidarity.”

  “It’s crazy,” said the Ministry of Finance, “but it’s true.”

  “Since war ruins everyone and resolves nothing, it’s necessary to avoid it. We can. I shout it out loud: there is no inevitable war. It’s necessary to howl it at every horizon. Oh, I know. Someone will object that in some cases, prestige or honor demands combat. But when two individuals submit their litigation to the law, do they suffer any loss of dignity? Less, at any rate, than if they settled their quarrel with their fists like two drunken rag-pickers. Well, the Nations are now sufficient grown-up to offer themselves the luxury of an arbiter.

  “Someone else will say to us: there are predator nations; there are others that dream of revenge. If we are attacked, should we allow ourselves to be invaded? To begin with, let us mistrust the accusations that represent our neighbors as bloodthirsty. They have been leveled at us; we know, therefore, that they can be unjust. And then again, between ourselves, don’t we know how conflict is born? The peoples, I repeat, are composed of people who want nothing but happiness in peace. They do not hurl themselves against one another; they are hurled.”

  All around the table, voices approved: “Of course... Very true…, Bravo!”

  And Martory concluded: “in brief, everything comes down to unmasking, in every country, the men who drive the others—and we know them well; we, the ministers, know them well, all those who, coveting commands and markets, besiege us, needle us an oppress us…all those who, seconded by the impatience of military men, the impotence of diplomats and the frenzy of fanatics, mobilize their banks, their press, their loudspeakers, first alarming and then inflaming universal opinion, attempting to put the authorities at the service of their appetites and govern the government...

  “It is necessary not to hold it against them. They don’t know. It has been said: they are inhuman. They would blow up the planet to preserve their profit. But it is against them that we ought to struggle, against them that we ought to put the crowd on the alert. Here, in The Hague, in all the capitals, we ought to denounce them. We ought to track them to their lairs, shine the searchlights of clarity upon them, keep watch on them, frustrate their maneuvers, and prevent them from doing harm.”

  Was that frankness contagious? Henceforth, all the ministers in the Council spoke in a tone of confidence, effusively, as at the end of a generous repast. They searched the table instinctively for half-full cups and bottles, cigars that were smoking by themselves in the notches in ash-trays.

  Ducros, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, confessed that it was, in fact, necessary not to count on diplomats to prevent the conflict. Some of them, in circumstances that had not yet been forgotten, had exposed the country to mortal risks: amateurs who had sinned out of
ignorance and sadists who had slaked their cruelty. But most of them were, in the main, victims of their upbringing. Strangers to the century, pretentious and superannuated, they lost their footing in a tempest, carried away by the first gust like little paper manikins.

  And Ducros started to read the latest diplomatic notes: “We ought to associate ourselves with all efforts in favor of peace compatible with our engagements, but it is important to leave responsibilities where they are...

  “In a conversation of the highest importance we have long envisaged the redoubtable difficulties presented with an equal good will to adapt them to reciprocally acceptable solutions...

  “It is appropriate to dispute whether certain accommodations are compatible with the dignity and prestige for which the States have an equal concern...”

  He did not go any further. In contrast with the gigantic events that were looming over the horizon, the frightful platitude of the formulas became obvious. The body of ministers at the table burst into laughter, with a certain nervousness, as people who have just escaped a great danger laugh. To think that it had been possible to confide the future of the world to such weak hands, such puppets…what madness! Fortunately, the peril had been discovered in time.

  In his turn, Barbier, the Minister of War, agreed that the impatience of military professionals unwittingly served the designs of the great feudal lords of industry.

  “They’re honest, disinterested, often ascetic men, but an incredible thirst for advancement devours them—and one never advanced in rank as rapidly as in wartime. They always want to ‘form a column,’ as the colonials put it. It’s damnable difficult to hold them back. Oh, the swine aren’t easy to manage. For a start, they’re bitter; they’re serving a regime they execrate. Think of it—in the armies of the Republic, there’s not a single Republican. Then again, they’re spoiled children. They’re treated as gods. Even though, in modern warfare, the danger is equal for everyone, they alone seem to wear the aureole of sacrifice. As they form a closed caste, regulated by ancient laws, they ignore or despise the rest of society.

  “But what renders them particularly redoubtable is that they never consent to being reduced. On the contrary, they always tend to increase. If you give them an airfield they build a city. They’re very enthusiastic to adopt new weapons, but without abandoning the old ones. The cavalry has never been as numerous as it is now that it’s unnecessary. I’m sure that they wouldn’t let me abolish the warden of a battery even if it dated back to Vauban.11 They put out branches, I tell you, they pullulate. And as no country will allow itself to be overtaken, you can see that the armaments manufacturers have free play...”

  Florentin, the Air Minister, interrupted. A former pilot, he had a dreamy gaze, romantic hair, and a voice as profound and musical as a cello. “Leave your military men in peace,” he said to Barbier. “In general, they don’t talk much, and that’s a good thing. It’s us, most of all, who play the game of the big metallurgists, with our inflammatory speeches. They only have to blow on the coals that we’ve lighted.

  “Of course, it’s natural to love one’s country. One is attached to it, like a plant to the soil. It’s a prolongation of ourselves. But what connection is there, I ask you, between that love and the hateful chauvinism that sets the tone today, that species of aggressive and furious monster, that bogey-man which spits bile and farts fire, which bristles with spikes, puffs itself up, wants to be the first in everything, to have the biggest paw, the highest crest, the longest tail?

  “That overheated nationalism can’t be very old, though. It didn’t animate the great ministers of the seventeenth century or the great thinkers of the eighteenth. One can find no trace of it in their speeches or their writings. It must date from the Revolution, from the Empire. Scarcely two centuries! And yet it only requires the clash of a cymbal, an emblem, a word, to excite it in us. I’ve given in to it like others, but I was using a conventional language that wasn’t in accord with my profound sentiments—and I reproach myself today before you all for having done wrong.”

  In his turn, Gabrillon, the Minister of Public Education, took the floor. He was a sensitive, emaciated, nervous man. He sat up straight, as white as a bust, and said, in an excited voice: “Yes, yet, we have our share of the responsibility. Let’s admit it. We didn’t do anything to combat the great supporters of war, against those who protect it and who live it. We didn’t warn the crowd against them. We didn’t put them in a state to resist their abominable influence.

  “It’s them, we know full well, who are advertising, or having advertised on their behalf, the fatal war, the inevitable war, the imminent war, tomorrow’s war. It’s them who are incessantly spreading, or having spread, alarming news and slyly concealing all the signs of détente, all the reasons for hope. Well, we don’t enlighten the crowd about these maneuvers, we don’t give it the judgment, wisdom, self-confidence and investigative spirit that would permit it to avoid panic.

  “Nor do we combat the resignation to war that renders war possible. We let the mothers and sons murmur ‘Since it’s necessary,’ lowering their heads. How can they look up, then, and perceive above them, in the tempest, the unleashing of great mercantile appetites?

  “We don’t act by means of education, which can do anything, and could in a generation bring about a metamorphosis of the world. In our textbooks, war is still the framework of history, the capital source of heroism and glory. We don’t fight war itself. We still admit it in its language, its mores and its exploit. We don’t yet commit it to execration. We don’t yet put it to shame, as we put all the actions from which we want to deter people...

  “Finally, the international organizations, like the Society of Nations and the European Union, have never opposed either war, or resignation to war. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. We’ve created an International Bureau of Employment; we haven’t created an International Bureau of Education. And yet, salvation is there. We haven’t yet undertaken the great international crusade to the cry of ‘Shame upon War!’ We continue to live in convention, in deceit, in darkness. It’s now time to react, and preach by example……”

  The austere Crépin stood up, and pronounced the words that the sovereigns whose portraits decorated the walls had never heard;

  “Yes, my friends, let’s tell the truth...”

  Chapter III

  Sprawling in his armchair, head tilted back, chin held high, legs apart, Marigot, in his office in the Hôtel de Ville, is listening to the carillon that precedes the chimes of noon. He has knotted his fingers over his belly, as if he were giving himself a cordial handshake. He is smiling blissfully. Above him, the notes take flight from the bell-tower like little airborne ballerinas. Soon, the hour itself, that star dancer, will make her entrance on tiptoe, her arms rounded.

  But the carillon has fallen silent, and the mayor is still smiling. That is because he is not only listening to the genteel ballet of the bells. From time to time, in the next room, from which he is only separated by a stood that stands ajar, he can hear another music, even more enchanting: the laughter of Jeanne Surène. A laughter fresher than that of a child, purer than the sound of a little waterfall, an arbor full of birdsong, of pearls shaken in a crystal cup.

  Yes, the laughter of Jeanne Surène. All morning, she received enquiries with a good grace, a cheerful patience. She elucidated every matter briskly, and explained it abundantly. After she had spoken, everything seemed clear and simple. The good people who had approached the caustic secretary cautiously, were ecstatic, melting in gestures of thanks. She interrupted them with polite remarks, which punctuated her pearly laughter: “Not at all... It’s quite natural... That’s what I’m here for... It’s necessary to be helpful...”

  Marigot, who was no longer astonished by anything that morning, thought he knew the secret of that metamorphosis, and he abandoned himself to his pleasant dream. Oh, if smiling words could be exchanged in that manner across all counters, how much more pleasant life would be, without it cost
ing anyone anything...

  The public, the poor public, would no longer confront, with quailing hearts, shrewish employees...and the work would be less ingrate, and the functionaries more human. How sunny the day would be, by the grace of a smile...

  In all the offices in the world, a hint of cordiality, of good humor, would change the taste of life.

  Marigot could not know that his dream was being realized at that very moment, that the miracle was being accomplished every where on Earth that it way daylight. For him, it was very simple: Jeanne Surène was amiable because she knew that she was beloved.

  Yes, he had declared himself, an hour earlier. He had asked her to marry him. It was an event so unexpected that he sometimes wondered himself how it had come about.

  It is true that he had woken up unusually cheerful. The weather was beautiful, as fresh as a rose. Outside, his steps bounced on the esplanade. In his office, he was tempted to sweep away with a gesture all the military papers that continued to pile up there. “What’s the point! There can’t be a war in weather like this!”

  Reckless words, evidently. He knew full well that the beauty of the sky does not appease the stupidity of human beings, and that the World War had been unleashed in the splendor of the month of August. But it was so bright and so mild what one could, so to speak, breathe in confidence in the future. And he nursed the hope that the lesson of the past had not gone to waste; forty years after the last conflict, the planet had suffered enough, and it would perish from a relapse.

  In accordance with his custom, he had taken advantage of a moment when Jeanne Surène was alone to join her in her office in order to bring himself up to date with the day’s business. With him, she always seemed to be in a good mood; she reserved her surliness for the public. This morning, however, he had found her particularly agreeable. Momentarily, the list of marriage banns had fallen under his eyes. They had increased since the rumors of war had begun to circulate. Future spouses were complaining to the secretary that the delays had not yet been reduced in the face of the threat. Marigot had ventured to Jean Surène: “And you calmed them down?”