Then, under the sleepy gleams of the lamp, the others began to talk in
undertones. Old Barthes, who considered that bomb to be both idiotic and
abominable, spoke of it with the stupefaction of one who, after fighting
like a hero through all the legendary struggles for liberty, found
himself belated, out of his element, in a new era, which he could not
understand. Did not the conquest of freedom suffice for everything? he
added. Was there any other problem beyond that of founding the real
Republic? Then, referring to Mege and his speech in the Chamber that
afternoon, he bitterly arraigned Collectivism, which he declared to be
one of the democratic forms of tyranny. Theophile Morin, for his part,
also spoke against the Collectivist enrolling of the social forces, but
he professed yet greater hatred of the odious violence of the Anarchists;
for it was only by evolution that he expected progress, and he felt
somewhat indifferent as to what political means might bring about the
scientific society of to-morrow. And in like way Bache did not seem
particularly fond of the Anarchists, though he was touched by the idyllic
dream, the humanitarian hope, whose germs lay beneath their passion for
destruction. And, like Barthes, he also flew into a passion with Mege,
who since entering the Chamber had become, said he, a mere rhetorician
and theorist, dreaming of dictatorship. Meantime Janzen, still erect, his
face frigid and his lips curling ironically, listened to all three of
them, and vented a few trenchant words to express his own Anarchist
faith; the uselessness of drawing distinctions, and the necessity of
destroying everything in order that everything might be rebuilt on fresh
lines.

Pierre, who had remained near the bed, also listened with passionate
attention. Amidst the downfall of his own beliefs, the utter void which
he felt within him, here were these four men, who represented the
cardinal points of this century's ideas, debating the very same terrible