"Without going more deeply into questions which we could discuss the rest of our lives," said Durtal, "I marvel at the placidity of the Utopian who imagines that man is
perfectible. There is no denying that the human creature is born selfish, abusive, vile. Just look around you and see. Society cynical and ferocious, the humble heckled and pillaged by the rich traffickers in necessities. Everywhere the triumph of the mediocre and unscrupulous, everywhere the apotheosis of crooked politics and finance. And you think you can make any progress against a stream like that? No, man has never changed. His soul was corrupt in the days of Genesis and is not less rotten at present. Only the form of his sins varies. Progress is the hypocrisy which refines the vices."
"All the more reason," Carhaix rejoined, "why society—if it is as you have described it—should fall to pieces. I, too, think it is putrefied, its bones ulcerated, its flesh dropping off. It can neither be poulticed nor cured, it must be interred and a new one born. And who but God can accomplish such a miracle?"
"If we admit," said Des Hermies, "that the infamousness of the times is transitory, it is self-evident that only the intervention of a God can wash it away; for neither socialism nor any other chimera of the ignorant and hate-filled workers will modify human nature and reform the peoples. These tasks are above human forces."
"And the time awaited by Johannès is at hand," Gévingey proclaimed. "Here are some of the manifest proofs. Raymond Lully asserted that the end of the old world would be announced by the diffusion of the doctrines of Antichrist. He defined these doctrines. They are materialism and the monstrous revival of magic. This prediction applies to our age, I think. On the other hand, the good tidings was to be realized, according to Our Lord, as reported by Saint Matthew, 'When ye shall see the abomination of desolation ... stand in the holy place.' And isn't it standing in the holy place now? Look at our timorous, skeptical Pope, lukewarm and politic, our episcopate of simonists and cowards, our flabby, indulgent clergy. See how they are ravaged by Satanism, then tell me if the Church can fall any lower."
"The promises are explicit and cannot fail," and with his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, and his eyes to heaven, the bell-ringer murmured, "Our father—thy kingdom come!"
"It's getting late," said Des Hermies, "time we were going."
While they were putting on their coats, Carhaix questioned Durtal. "What do you hope for if you have no faith in the coming of Christ?"
"I hope for nothing at all."
"I pity you. Really, you believe in no future amelioration?"