The poets--that is, those only who were worthy of that splendid name, so bandied by the Press and the Academies and doled out to divers windbags greedy of money and flattery--the poets, despising impudent rhetoric and that slavish realism which nibbles at the surface of things without penetrating to reality, had intrenched themselves in the very center of the soul, in a mystic vision into which was drawn the universe of form and idea, like a torrent falling into a lake, there to take on the color of the inward life. The very intensity of this idealism, which withdrew into itself to recreate the universe, made it inaccessible to the mob. Christophe himself did not understand it at first. The transition was too abrupt after the market-place. It was as though he had passed from a furious rush and scramble in the hot sunlight into silence and the night. His ears buzzed. He could see nothing. At first, with his ardent love of life, he was shocked by the contrast. Outside was the roaring of the rushing streams of passion overturning France and stirring all humanity. And at the first glance there was not a trace of it in this art of theirs. Christophe asked Olivier: "You have been lifted to the stars and hurled down to the depths of hell by your Dreyfus affair. Where is the poet in whose soul the height and depth of it were felt? Now, at this very moment, in the souls of your religious men and women there is the mightiest struggle there has been for centuries between the authority of the Church and the rights of conscience. Where is the poet in whose soul this sacred agony is reflected? The working classes are preparing for war, nations are dying, nations are springing to new life, the Armenians are massacred, Asia, awaking from its sleep of a thousand years, hurls down the Muscovite colossus, the keeper of the keys of Europe: Turkey, like Adam, opens its eyes on the light of day: the air is conquered by man: the old earth cracks under our feet and opens: it devours a whole people.... All these prodigies, accomplished in twenty years, enough to supply material for twenty _Iliads_: but where are they, where shall their fiery traces be found in the books of your poets? Are they of all men unable to see the poetry of the world?" "Patience, my friend, patience!" replied Olivier. "Be silent, say nothing, listen...." Slowly the creaking of the axle-tree of the world died away and the rumbling over the stones of the heavy car of action was lost in the distance. And there arose the divine song of silence.... _The hum of bees, and the perfume of the limes.... The wind, With his golden lips kissing the earth of the plains... The soft sound of the rain and the scent of the roses._ There rang out the hammer and chisel of the poets carving the sides of a vase with _The fine majesty of simple things,_ solemn, joyous life, _With its flutes of gold and flutes of ebony,_ religious joy, faith welling up like a fountain of souls