Chapter VIII: The European Conscience

As on so many previous occasions in his life of action, this man of inviolable faith had issued to the world an appeal for fellowship, and had issued it once more in vain. The writers, the men of science, the philosophers, the artists, all took the side of the country to which they happened to belong; the Germans spoke for Germany, the Frenchmen for France, the Englishmen for England. No one would espouse the universal cause; no one would rise superior to the device, my country right or wrong. In every land, among those of every nation, there were to be found plenty of enthusiastic advocates, persons willing blindly to justify all their country's doings, including its errors and its crimes, to excuse these errors and crimes upon the plea of necessity. There was only one land, the land common to them all, Europe, motherland of all the fatherlands, which found no advocate, no defender. There was only one idea, the most self-evident to a Christian world, which found no spokesman--the idea of ideas, humanity.

During these days, Rolland may well have recalled sacred memories of the time when Leo Tolstoi's letter came to give him a mission in life. Tolstoi had stood alone in the utterance of his celebrated outcry, "I can no longer keep silence." At that time his country was at war. He arose to defend the invisible rights of human beings, uttering a protest against the command that men should murder their brothers. Now his voice was no longer heard; his place was empty; the conscience of mankind was dumb. To Rolland, the consequent silence, the terrible silence of the free spirit amid the hurly-burly of the slaves, seemed more hateful than the roar of the cannon. Those to whom he had appealed for help had refused to answer the call. The ultimate truth, the truth of conscience, had no organized fellowship to sustain it. No one would aid him in the struggle for the freedom of the European soul, the struggle of truth against falsehood, the struggle of human lovingkindness against frenzied hate. Rolland once again was alone with his faith, more alone than during the bitterest years of solitude.

But Rolland has never been one to resign himself to loneliness. In youth he had already felt that those who are passive while wrong is being done are as criminal as the very wrongdoer. "Ceux qui subissent le mal sont aussi criminels que ceux qui le font." Upon the poet, above all, it seemed to him incumbent to find words for thought, and to vivify the words by action. It is not enough to write ornamental comments upon the history of one's time. The poet must be part of the very being of his time, must fight to make his ideas realize themselves in action. "The elite of the intellect constitutes an aristocracy which would fain replace the aristocracy of birth. But the aristocracy of intellect is apt to forget that the aristocracy of birth won its privileges with blood. For hundreds of years men have listened to the words of wisdom, but seldom have they seen a sage offering himself up to the sacrifice. If we would inspire others with faith we must show that our own faith is real. Mere words do not suffice." Fame is a sword as well as a laurel crown. Faith imposes obligations. One who had made Jean Christophe utter the gospel of a free conscience, could not, when the world had fashioned his cross, play the part of Peter denying the Lord. He must take up his apostolate, be ready should need arise to face martyrdom. Thus, while almost all the artists of the day, in their "passion d'abdiquer," in their mad desire to shout with the crowd, were not merely extolling force and victory as the masters of the hour, but were actually maintaining that force was the very meaning of civilization, that victory was the vital energy of the world, Rolland stood forth against them all, proclaiming the might of the incorruptible conscience. "Force is always hateful to me," wrote Rolland to Jouve in this decisive hour. "If the world cannot get on without force, it still behooves me to refrain from making terms with force. I must uphold an opposing principle, one which will invalidate the principle of force. Each must play his own part; each must obey his own inward monitor." He did not fail to recognize the titanic nature of the struggle into which he was entering, but the words he had written in youth still resounded in his memory. "Our first duty is to be great, and to defend greatness on earth."

Just as in those earlier days, when he had wished by means of his dramas to restore faith to his nation, when he had set up the images of the heroes as examples to a petty time, when throughout a decade of quiet effort he had summoned the people towards love and freedom, so now, Rolland set to work alone. He had no party, no newspaper, no influence. He had nothing but his passionate enthusiasm, and that indomitable courage to which the forlorn hope makes an irresistible appeal. Alone he began his onslaught upon the illusions of the multitude, when the European conscience, hunted with scorn and hatred from all countries and all hearts, had taken sanctuary in his heart.