Kill or be killed. So
be it."
"And can it never be changed?"
"No, never," said Daniel, in a tone of sad obstinacy, "it is the law."
There are some scientific men from whom science seems to hide the
truth it contains, so that they cannot see reality at the bottom of
the net. They embrace the whole field that has been discovered, but
would think it impossible and even ridiculous to enlarge it beyond the
limits already traced by reason. They only believe in a progress that
is chained to the inside of the enclosure. Clerambault knew only too
well the supercilious smile with which the ideas of inventors are put
aside by learned men from the official schools. There are certain
forms of science which accord perfectly with docility. David's manner
showed no irony; it expressed rather a stoical, baffled kind of
melancholy. In abstract questions he did not lack courage of thought,
but when faced with the facts of life he was a mixture, or rather a
succession, of timidity and stiffness, diffident modesty, and firmness
of conviction. In short he was a man, like other men, complex and
contradictory, not all in one piece. The trouble is that, in an
intellectual and a man of science, the pieces lap over one another and
the joinings show.
Clerambault sat silent for a few moments, and then began to utter the
thoughts that had passed through his mind.
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