"It was for this, then, that there had been effected a physical and moral resurrection of the races of the west! It was towards these butcheries that the streams of action and passionate faith had been hastening! None but a Napoleonic genius could have directed these blind impulses to a foreseen and deliberately chosen end. But nowhere in Europe was there any one endowed with the genius for action. It seemed as if the world had singled out the most commonplace among its sons to be governors. The forces of the human spirit were coursing in other channels." Christophe recalls those earlier days when he and Olivier had been concerned about the prospect of war. At that time there were but distant rumblings of the storm. Now the storm clouds covered all the skies of Europe. Fruitless had been the call to unity; vain had been the pointing out of the path through the darkness. Mournfully the seer contemplates in the distance the horsemen of the Apocalypse, the heralds of fratricidal strife. But beside the dying man is the Child, smiling and full of knowledge; the Child who is Eternal Life. PART FIVE INTERMEZZO SCHERZOSO (Colas Breugnon) "Brugnon, mauvais garçon, tu ris, n'as tu pas honte?"--"Que veux tu, mon ami? Je suis ce que je suis. Rire ne m'empêche pas de souffrir; mais souffrir n'empêchera jamais un bon Français de rire. Et qu'il rie ou larmoie, il faut d'abord qu'il voie." COLAS BREUGNON. CHAPTER I TAKEN UNAWARES At length, in this arduous career, came a period of repose. The great ten-volume novel had been finished; the work of European scope had been completed. For the first time Romain Rolland could exist outside his work, free for new words, new configurations, new labors. His disciple Jean Christophe, "the livest man of our acquaintance," as Ellen Key phrased it, had gone out into the world; Christophe was collecting a circle of friends around him, a quiet but continually enlarging community. For Rolland, nevertheless, Jean Christophe's message was already a thing of the past. The author was in search of a new messenger, for a new message. Romain Rolland returned to Switzerland, a land he loved, lying between the three countries to which his affection had been chiefly given. The Swiss environment had been favorable to so much of his work. _Jean Christophe_ had been begun in Switzerland. A calm and beautiful summer enabled Rolland to recruit his energies. There was a certain relaxation of tension. Almost idly, he turned over various plans. He had already begun to collect materials for a new novel, a dramatic romance belonging to the same intellectual and cultural category as Jean Christophe.