From that day on he went out less; he distrusted himself, but he
continued to stimulate his intoxication at home, where he felt himself
safe, little knowing the virulence of the plague. The infection came
in through the cracks of the doors, at the windows, on the printed
page, in every contact. The most sensitive breathe it in on first
entering the city, before they have seen or read anything; with others
a passing touch is enough, the disease will develop afterwards alone.
Clerambault, withdrawn from the crowd, had caught the contagion from
it, and the evil announced itself by the usual premonitory symptoms.
This affectionate tender-hearted man hated, loved to hate. His
intelligence, which had always been thoroughly straightforward, tried
now to trick itself secretly, to justify its instincts of hatred by
inverted reasoning. He learned to be passionately unjust and false,
for he wanted to persuade himself that he could accept the fact
of war, and participate in it, without renouncing his pacifism of
yesterday, his humanitarianism of the day before, and his constant
optimism. It was not plain sailing, but there is nothing that the
brain cannot attain to. When its master thinks it absolutely necessary
to get rid for a time of principles which are in his way, it finds
in these same principles the exception which violates them while
confirming the rule. Clerambault began to construct a thesis,
an ideal--absurd enough--in which these contradictions could be
reconciled: War against War, War for Peace, for eternal Peace.




The enthusiasm of his son was a great help to him. Maxime had
enlisted. His generation was carried away on a wave of heroic joy;