(Claudel! The poet pronounces the name with a touching admiration and emotion.)
‘Claudel! I shall never forget our first interview. He was already a great writer in the eyes of a little clan. I still see the small room into which we were shown, my friend and I. It was a sort of bare cell: three things attracted my attention, a rosary, an old woman’s prayer-book, and Barrès’s Appel au Soldat. And then Claudel came in. It was as if a Roman bust were to move its lips and speak. He disliked the person who accompanied me, and I remember the harsh cut-and-dry tone of his short answers. But the next day I lunched with him and Schwob; and the icy marble softened into flesh and blood. I was lost in wonder, a sort of happy astonishment. Catholicism had entered into my life....’
‘The Faun began to feel anxious?’
‘The Faun stood firm! But, little by little, I began to ask myself: Where lies the Truth? And the sense of my ignorance, that feeling of a limit to what man can do and be, was the canker in the fruit. I felt there was a force in Life—a force that I did not possess.
‘And while in that state of doubt and disillusion, I was overtaken by a cruel moral crisis. I wallowed in the Slough of Despond. One of my friends lived at Bordeaux; I went to stay with him, and it was there that, by God’s grace, I received a letter from Claudel. Such an admirable letter, full of consolation and instruction! I was struck by it. And I pondered it in my heart. “If this dear life,” said I, “that I so love, remains a riddle, if there is no answer to our questions, then away with it! Life is a horror, a madhouse!” I went to the Cathedral, and for a long while I wept; the miracle of grace began to operate in my soul.
‘I returned to my home at Orthez. That which Claudel’s letter had begun, speech with Claudel was to effectuate. He came; he spoke to me of religion like a great philosopher, like a man of science, too; and we prayed together. I was in the bottom of the pit, dying, dejected. On the 7th of July, 1905, I went to confession, I received the Communion; Claudel, my guardian angel, served the Mass. Since then I have found all that I missed in life; I have recovered my delight. After the harshest solitudes I have come to a place of certainty: I am a Catholic!’
(And M. Jammes flings this cry forth into space, like a chant of triumph.)
‘A real thorough-going Catholic?’ said I; ‘absolute, obedient faith?’
‘The faith of a cobbler! I am no neo-Christian; I practise all the precepts of the Church I know. You smile (I used to smile) at certain observances. The Church would not have enjoined them if all the faithful stood on the intellectual level of a Pascal or a Claudel. But humanity is not made up of Pascals and Claudels. These minor practices are just knots in our handkerchief, lest we forget! The Church thinks them necessary; I bow to her decision. I know this attitude seems disconcerting to certain persons, who really are not Catholics at all, but would like to exploit the Church in favour of a political system. But, when the flame of faith is lit in our hearts, we scorn to be the catspaw of a politician. We are just Catholics.’
‘You speak as though you were sure of possessing Truth itself!’