The enraged people
tearing each other to pieces! And to what end? That they all might be
as Bertin was now, reach the extinction which awaited all men, and all
countries. And those rebels who were planning more violence, other
sanguinary idols to set up against the old ones, new gods of carnage
that man carves for himself, in the vain hope of ennobling his deadly
instincts!
Good God! Why do they not see the imbecility of their conduct, in face
of the gulf that swallows up each man that dies, all humanity with
him? These millions of creatures who have but a moment to live, why
do they persist in making it infernal by their atrocious and absurd
quarrels about ideas; like wretches who cut each other's throats for
a handful of spurious coins thrown to them? We are all victims, under
the same sentence, and instead of uniting, we fight among ourselves.
Poor fools! On the brow of each man that passes I can see the sweat of
agony; efface it by the kiss of peace!
As he thought this, a crowd of people rushed by--men and women,
shrieking with joy. "There's one of them down! One gone! The brutes
are burning up!"
And the birds of prey, in the air, rejoiced in their turn over every
handful of death that they scattered on the town, like gladiators
dying in the arena for the pleasure of some invisible Nero.
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