Could a new religion ever place
such a garden of eternal happiness on earth? Where was the formula, the
dogma, that would satisfy the hopes of the mankind of to-day? What belief
should be sown to blossom forth in a harvest of strength and peace? How
could one fecundate the universal doubt so that it should give birth to a
new faith? and what sort of illusion, what divine falsehood of any kind
could be made to germinate in the contemporary world, ravaged as it had
been upon all sides, broken up by a century of science?
At that moment, without any apparent transition, Pierre saw the face of
his brother Guillaume arise in the troublous depths of his mind. Still,
he was not surprised; some secret link must have brought that vision
there. Ah! how fond they had been of one another long ago, and what a
good brother that elder brother, so upright and gentle, had been!
Henceforth, also, the rupture was complete; Pierre no longer saw
Guillaume, since the latter had cloistered himself in his chemical
studies, living like a savage in a little suburban house, with a mistress
and two big dogs. Then Pierre's reverie again diverged, and he thought of
that trial in which Guillaume had been mentioned, like one suspected of
having compromising friendships amongst the most violent revolutionaries.
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