BOOK REVIEWS: Charles Morice's "Il est ressuscité":
by H. A. Fussell
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side.
THAT there do occur critical periods in the lives of nations and of individuals, when the irrevocable step is taken which allies them definitely with the beneficent or maleficent forces which are contending for the mastery of the world, has become a truism. It is seldom a spectacular contest—this "battle of Armageddon"; even when it is, at the moment of choice we are alone, face to face with the Higher Self.
The many and varied ways in which this contest may occur furnish the moralist and the preacher with occasions for the highest flights of eloquence, and it forms the background of history, biography, and fiction. One of its most recent presentations is by Charles Morice in his book Il est ressuscité! of which we give a résumé.
One day in the middle of December the Parisians were surprised on opening their daily papers to see the last page perfectly blank, all the questionable advertisements had disappeared, no Stock Exchange news, all the transactions by which clever financiers attract the unwary and pile up their millions, had been suppressed. Why? No one could say! Amazement on all faces! It was the same the next day, and the next—even the feuilleton, containing the inevitable sensational and sometimes salacious story was no more. At the Bourse itself there was "nothing doing"; would-be purchasers were told of the watered stocks, were advised not to buy.
In the evening the leading journalists met as usual at the "Lapin Cru." They were no wiser than the rest. Consternation was on all faces. Their occupation was gone, there was not a single piquant event in all Paris—suddenly become virtuous—to write up. On unfolding their papers—the first impression was always brought in at midnight by the office-boys from the publishers—on one of the blank pages was this notice in small print:
The Son of God needs no advertising. He has put up at the Three Kings' Hotel, Place de l'Étoile. He will be at home from noon to noon, all the day, the 14th of December and tomorrow.
Narda, a prince among journalists, sat apart, moodily. Suddenly he became aware of a man opposite him at the next table.
But what a man! There was in fact nothing remarkable about him, except that perhaps he lacked precisely those little peculiarities and idiosyncracies which distinguish one man from another. Yet he was a fine man, but his remarkable beauty did not cause surprise. The fact is, that one would have been surprised, nay scandalized, if it were not so, for his beauty, formed of the perfect equilibrium of all the elements of his person, revealed man in his ordinary and magnificent integrity. It was as if necessitated by the soul, sovereignly and ineffably serene, which shone in the eyes of the man: a constant, rich, intense light, eclipsing the crude brilliancy of the electric lights, and forming a halo in his unusually long hair. Narda was not dazzled by the light: on the contrary, he felt himself illuminated by it to the very depths of his being. He looked at this unknown man with a sympathy mingled with trust and deference. He had no desire to speak to him, to question him, fully satisfied by his presence alone, the presence of a man. A real man! he said to himself, and not a puppet like my comrades and myself.