The longer I watch, from close by, those men who, for four years have led the inhuman life of the army, the better I understand the meaning of their incredible patience: between the future and the remembered past they have the air of awaiting the passage of a storm. They are gulping down, you would say, hastily and with closed eyes, this bitter and criminal present, in order to reserve their hearts all the better for the things of the future and the past. One feels in their conversation only these two luminous existences. They seek and unite them unceasingly above the bloody abyss. I have also observed that, in the concerts they give themselves to cheer their periods of rest, their souls always return, with the same rapture, to their former way of living, to their old sons, their familiar ways of being sad or joyous. The artistic attempts that are carried on to interest them, at the bottom of their hearts, in the formidable present, remain sterile and, as it were, dry.
They seem to reply, silently: “What have all these things to do with us? Isn’t it enough for us to live them? Isn’t it enough for us to do them, every day with our blood and tears? Give us back our dear kingdom. Give back to our souls that memory which is their most imperishable and marvelous possession.”
II
Between the future and the remembered past, man is left to struggle with what he possesses least, the present.
And yet this present is lavish of all sorts of materials that we can transform into riches. It is our liquid fortune, mobile and in circulation. It is the well-filled purse upon which we draw for our daily needs.
It reaches us out of the depths of time, like a great river, loaded with sailing-ships and steamers, deep, flowing, beautiful with all its reflections, and rolling gold in its sands.
But it has its rages, its whims, its cruelties. According to the season, it overflows and desolates the land or suddenly dries up and deserts the fields that it refreshed with its floods!
So be it! If the present refuses to yield its manna, we will draw upon our last resources. If the times overwhelm us with bitterness, we will flee to our refuges, where we have nothing to fear from intruders or masters or tormentors.
Common-sense folk, who have the secret of debasing life in the name of a reason that is more mischievous than actual stupidity, are in the habit of devoting an almost superstitious worship to the present reality. To tell the truth, they are greatly afraid that the taste for memory and hope will turn young men away from that immediate action which is necessary for the conquest and preservation of material wealth.
They honor with great pomp the origins in the past of those traditions that are favorable to them; and the way they invoke and prepare for the future loads the present with chains and shackles.