"
"Even so," he said, "do you think that your republic will have no
need of astronomers, just as the first one could get along without
chemists? Or are they all to be mobilised? In that case there would be
a good chance of your all finding yourselves together at the bottom
of the well! Is that what you want? I should not object so much if
it were only a question of sharing your fate, but when it comes to
joining in your hatreds!"
"You have some of your own, from what I have heard," said one of the
young men. Just at this moment another man came in with a newspaper in
his hand and called to Clerambault:
"Congratulations, old boy, I see your enemy Bertin is dead."
The irascible journalist had died in a few hours from an attack of
pneumonia. For the last six months he had pursued with fury anyone
whom he suspected of working for peace, or even of wishing for it.
From one step to another he had come to look upon, not only the
country, as sacred, but the war also, and among those whom he attacked
most fiercely, Clerambault had a foremost place. Bertin could not
pardon the resistance to his onslaughts; Clerambault's replies had at
first only irritated him, but the disdainful silence with which his
latest invectives had been met drove him beside himself.
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