"Men of to-day, young men, your turn has come. March forward over our bodies. Be greater and happier than we have been. "For my part, I say farewell to my former soul. I cast it behind me like an empty shell. Life is a series of deaths and resurrections. Let us die, Christophe, that we may be reborn." CHAPTER XVIII DEPARTURE Jean Christophe has reached the further shore. He has stridden across the river of life, encircled by roaring waves of music. Safely carried across seems the heritage which he has borne on his shoulders through storm and flood--the meaning of the world, faith in life. Once more he looks back towards his fellows in the land he has left. All has grown strange to him. He can no longer understand those who are laboring and suffering amid the ardors of illusion. He sees a new generation, young in a different way from his own, more energetic, more brutal, more impatient, inspired with a different heroism. The children of the new days have fortified their bodies with physical training, have steeled their courage in aerial flights. "They are proud of their muscles and their broad chests." They are proud of their country, their religion, their civilization, of all that they believe to be their own peculiar appanage; and from each of these prides they forge themselves a weapon. "They would rather act than understand." They wish to show their strength and test their powers. The dying man realizes with alarm that this new generation, which has never known war, wants war. He looks shudderingly around: "The fire which had been smouldering in the European forest was now breaking forth into flame. Extinguished in one place, it promptly began to rage in another. Amid whirlwinds of smoke and a rain of sparks, it leaped from point to point, while the parched undergrowth kindled. Outpost skirmishes in the east had already begun, as preludes to the great war of the nations. The whole of Europe, that Europe which was still skeptical and apathetic like a dead forest, was fuel for the conflagration. The fighting spirit was universal. From moment to moment, war seemed imminent. Stifled, it was continually reborn. The most trifling pretext served to feed its strength. The world felt itself to be at the mercy of chance, which would initiate the terrible struggle. It was waiting. A feeling of inexorable necessity weighed upon all, even upon the most pacific. The ideologues, sheltering in the shade of Proudhon the titan, hailed war as man's most splendid claim to nobility.