Clerambault: The Story of an Independent Spirit During the WarRolland, Romain
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Clerambault: The Story of an Independent Spirit During the War
Rolland, Romain
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
_Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, politicians, and
priests, artists, authors, dancers of death; inwardly you are all full
of decay and dead men's bones. Truly you are the sons of them that
slew Christ, and like them you lay on men's shoulders burdens grievous
to be borne, which you yourselves would not touch with the end of your
fingers. Crucifiers are you like them, and those who come among you to
help the suffering peoples, bringing blessed peace in their hands, you
imprison and insult them, and as the Scripture says, persecute them
from city to city until all the righteous blood shed upon the earth
shall fall upon your heads_.
_You work only to provide food for Death; your countries are made to
subdue the future to the past, and bind the living to the putrifying
corpses of the dead. You condemn the new life to perpetuate the empty
rites of the tomb.... Let us rise! The resurrection, the Easter of the
living, is at hand_!
_Sons of men, it is not true that you are, the slaves of the dead and
are chained by them like serfs to the earth. Let the dead past bury
its dead, and itself with them; you are children of the living, and
live in your turn. Souls who are bound to the countries of the past,
shake off the neurasthenic torpor, wracked by outbursts of frenzy,
which weighs you down. Shake it off, my brothers, you who are young
and strong; be masters of the present and the past, fathers and sons
of your works. Set yourselves free! Each one of you is Man;--not flesh
that rots in the tomb, but the blazing fire of life which purifies
corruption and renews long-dead corpses, the flame ever new and young
which circles the earth with its burning arms. Be free! Conquerors
of the Bastille, you have not yet opened the dungeon within you,
the falsely called Fatality. It was built as a prison-house for you
centuries ago, by slaves or tyrants. They were all convicts of the
same stamp, who were afraid that you would discover that you were
free. Religions, races, countries, materialistic science, the heavy
shadows of the past, are between you and the sun; but go forward!
Liberty is there, behind those ramparts and towers, built of
prejudices, dead laws, and consecrated falsehoods. They are guarded by
the interests of some, the opinion of the drilled masses, and your own
doubting spirit. Dare to will; and behind the crumbling walls of
this spurious Destiny, you will once more behold the sun and the
illimitable horizon_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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