"Himself, first of all!" He stopped in the middle of his recitation.
"Who?" asked Christophe.
"The pump-maker who wrote that!"
Christophe did not understand. But Mannheim went on:
"I should like to have a general cleaning up of art and thought every fifty years—nothing to be left standing."
"A little drastic," said Christophe, smiling.
"No, I assure you. Fifty years is too much: I should say thirty…. And even less!… It is a hygienic measure. One does not keep one's ancestors in one's house. One gets rid of them, when they are dead, and sends, them elsewhere,—there politely to rot, and one places stones on them to be quite sure that they will not come back. Nice people put flowers on them, too. I don't mind if they like it. All I ask is to be left in peace. I leave them alone! Each for his own side, say I: the dead and the living."
"There are some dead who are more alive than the living."
"No, no! It would be more true to say that there are some living who are more dead than the dead."
"Maybe. In any case, there are old things which are still young."