How little he cared for public favour! He wore his battle smile, and I thought it very contemptuous. In the mysticism in which I had taken refuge I held myself aloof from all mankind; but so long as I was not obliged to associate with them I was quite willing to grant them all the virtues, even that of consistency. The crowd was already defiling before the gate, singing,
It’s Rambert, Rambert, Rambert,
It’s Rambert that we need!
Was there then only one Rambert? Grandfather, for whom no one was calling, slipped away, I alone observing his movement of retreat; he was probably going back to his tower, returning quietly to his telescope; the planet that he had been observing had not yet sunk below the horizon.
I would fain have followed him, but father asked me to look out. I looked, without interest, at the confused mass whose surges were beating against the gate and the wall of enclosure. It might have been a long, enormous serpent, a long, enormous mole-cricket whose body filled the breadth of the street, and whose tail must have stretched far away, beyond the turn of the road.
Suddenly the gate gave way, and the great beast, like the gipsies long ago, invaded the short avenue and the flower borders. In a moment it was assaulting the house. Aunt Deen, at my side, was torn between the joys of popularity and the instinctive defence of our garden.
By way of checking the onrush of the multitude father opened the window. He was saluted with a tempest of applause, but easily commanded silence, his voice ringing out like a deep-toned church bell:
“My friends,” he said, “we shall do all we can to check the progress of this scourge. Count upon me, go back home, and above all, invoke the help of God.”
Invoke the help of God! But it was he whom they looked upon as Providence! In all that manifestation my mother had been the only one who had thought of praying. Aunt Deen was drinking in her nephew’s words, but their eloquence touched me not at all. I could have wished him to utter a few noble sentiments in praise of science, which alone was capable of dealing with epidemics and preventing contagions; but of science my father had said never a word. At that moment I noticed how large a number of good women were in the crowd, some of them brandishing their babies at arms’ length, as if offering them to my father. No doubt he had been talking for the good women.
Nevertheless he had gained his point. Little by little the crowd was calming down and gradually dribbling away. They passed out of the gate, and the lovely summer night, but now torn with shoutings, slowly gained its empire over the last lingerers in the garden, over the roads and the fields, and gave them back to silence.