"Despite the aberrations of Fourier, the lucid portions of his system survive and will bear a critical examination. Truth triumphs and pursues its way through whatever disguise one views it and in whatever disguise one clothes it. But it would be much better that, in the age of reason which we have reached, the ridiculous manifestations of a blind enthusiasm should disappear entirely. Is not that your opinion? Has not the hour struck when serious-minded people should take possession of their true domain, and when those things that are logically proved should be professed by logicians?
"What does it matter if they are said to be inapplicable? Does it follow, because the majority of men still know and practise only what is wrong and false, that the clear-sighted man must follow the blind over the precipice?
"It's of no use to urge upon me the necessity of obeying bad laws and wrongful prejudices. Although my acts may be forced to conform to them, my mind will be only the more firmly convinced of the necessity of protesting against them.
"Was Jesus Christ in error because, during eighteen centuries, the truths demonstrated by him have germinated slowly, and have not yet bloomed in legislation?
"And now that the problems suggested by his ideal are beginning to approach a solution in the minds of some of us, how is it that we are taxed with madness because we see and believe what will be seen and believed by all men a hundred years hence? Be assured therefore that it is not necessary to be a poet or a seer to be perfectly convinced of the reality of what you are pleased to call sublime dreams. To be sure, truth is sublime, and the men who discover it are sublime as well. But they who, having received it and touched it, conform their lives to it as an excellent thing, have not really the right to be proud; for if, when they have once understood it, they reject it, they would be nothing less than idiots or madmen."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault spoke with a facility most extraordinary for him, and he might have talked on for a long while before the stupefied Emile would have thought of interrupting him.
Emile would never have believed that what he called his faith and his ideal could bloom in so cold and apathetic a mind, and he asked himself at first if it were not enough to sicken himself with it to find himself in the company of such an adept. But, little by little, notwithstanding his moderate way of speaking, the monotony of his accent and the immobility of his features, Monsieur de Boisguilbault acquired an extraordinary influence over him. That impassive man seemed to him an embodiment of the living law, the voice of destiny pronouncing its decrees over the abyss of eternity.
The solitude of that beautiful spot, the cloudless sky which, as the afterglow faded, seemed to raise its blue vault higher and higher toward the empyrean, the darkness gathering under the great trees, and the murmur of the rippling stream, which seemed in its placid continuity, the natural accompaniment of that calm, even voice—all combined to plunge Emile into a profound emotion akin to the mysterious awe which the response of the oracle in the sacred oaks must have produced in the youthful neophytes.
"Monsieur de Boisguilbault," said the young man, deeply impressed by what he had heard, "I cannot better express my submission to your enlightened views than by asking your pardon, from the bottom of my heart, for the way in which I extorted them from you. I was far from believing that you entertained such ideas, and I was drawn toward you by curiosity rather than by respect. But be sure that you will find in me henceforth the devotion of a son if you deem me worthy to manifest it."
"I never had any children," replied the marquis, taking Emile's hand in his and retaining it several moments; for he seemed to be revivified, and a sort of vital warmth enlivened his soft, dry skin. "Perhaps I was not worthy of having them; perhaps I should have brought them up badly! Nevertheless, I have deeply regretted that I have never had that joy. Now, I am entirely resigned to death; but if a little affection should come to me from without, I should accept it gratefully. I am not very trustful. Solitude breeds distrust. But I will make for your sake some effort to overcome my natural disposition, so that you may not be offended by my defects, especially by my surly humor, which horrifies everybody."