Entre deux trains
Charles Péguy
On Holy Saturday, as I had announced on the third page of the cover of the seventh cahier, I administered, from one o’clock to four-thirty, at the headquarters of these cahiers, at my friend Tharaud’s, 19, rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, in solitude. The Parisians had left for the provinces. And the provincials had not come to Paris. A ring of the bell. My friend René Lardenois.
— Good day. I have come to say good day. I arrived at eleven fifty-nine at the Gare d’Orléans, this morning. Or at least I was supposed to arrive at eleven fifty-nine. But trains are often a little late, on account of the holidays.
— You are still at Bayonne?
— I have traveled so much that I was no longer even looking at the time on the interior dials of the stations. I was confusing day and night, which is the ultimate perversity. — Yes, still, at the Lycée de Bayonne. I had requested the Northeast. My parents live at Belval. It is the last station before Mézières. A simple halt. Failing the Northeast, I had at least requested the North. Failing the North, I had at least requested the East. They appointed me to Bayonne. A good lycée. I leave again this evening at eight forty-five, from the Gare du Nord. I shall be at home tomorrow morning on Easter Sunday. But there will be delay, on account of the holidays. Thus I have a quarter of an hour to spend with you, watch in hand. I have a pile of errands to do in Paris, and the streets are still just as impassable. I had a quarter of an hour. I still have ten minutes left.
And he placed his watch on the table.
— In ten minutes one can say nothing. It is not worth starting. We shall speak of your cahiers when we have time.
— We shall speak of your province and your class when we have time.
— During the summer holidays, at the beginning of August, I shall spend several days in Paris.
— The Exposition?
— Naturally. Am I not a provincial? And besides you Parisians, you mock, to seem witty, but you go there all the same. Only, as you are cowards, you pretend to go there to pilot your cousins. You are very glad to have cousins. Scarcely had yours, the stove-fitter from Orléans, announced to us his possible coming when already M. Serge Basset, of the Matin, had on his back, for three days, his cousin Bernard, notable merchant of Quimper-Corentin, if we wish, in any case a more serious cousin than yours, and faster.
— What can I say, my friend, his is a daily cousin and mine is only a modest bi-monthly cousin, more or less bi-monthly.
— Let us speak of our pals.
— When did you leave?
— The holidays began Wednesday evening. But I had Thursday morning a tutoring session that I could not, and that I did not want to postpone.
— You give lessons?
— No, I sell them.
— That is what I meant.
— Let us speak properly. That word you said — and by way of jest I was playing the disgusted one while smiling — seems to me hardly compatible with the dignity of the liberal professions. Let us say that I am very obliging, very officious; and without knowing myself very well in French letters, in Latin letters and in Greek letters, I let the parents of my pupils bring to my home from all sides those who are timid in Greek, in Latin, and in French, and who nevertheless, for purely disinterested reasons, desire, as they say, to pass successfully the first part of the examinations for the classical baccalaureate — and I give some to my friends for money.
— You possess your authors well.
— That is not surprising: I nourish myself on them.
— And so?
— And so, I gave my lesson Thursday morning. Then I made the journey in several stages. Thursday I went from Bayonne to Bordeaux, Friday from Bordeaux to Tours, today Saturday from Tours to the rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques. Tonight, in the middle of the night, I shall still have more than three and a half hours to spend at Laon. Total: four days at least. As much for the return, the nostos, alas! not longed for. Grand total: eight or nine days. We go back a week from Tuesday morning… The Tuesday of Quasimodo? Good. I want to be back from the evening before, for I do not want to sleep in class. It is therefore necessary…
— Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Posts and Telegraphs — Exposition. But this is not official.
— How well you speak. One can well see you have become ministerial.
— Universal International Exposition of 1900. List of international congresses of 1900. Truly I spent a good quarter of an hour there. There is the congress of Acetylene with the congress of Actuaries, the congress of Rational Feeding of Livestock, the congress of Aquaculture and Fishing. Do you know aquaculture?
— Not only do I know it, but I practice it: I have in my basin two red fish and a brown-green one.
— There is the congress of Arboriculture and pomology, that of Librarians. The official paper bears not only the names of the congresses, the date and the duration, but it further gives the names of the presidents and general secretaries of the organizing committees. The congress of Agriculture has for president a certain Monsieur Méline, rue de Commaille, 4, and the congress of the sciences of Writing has for general secretary a M. Varinard, 8, rue Servandoni.
— How one meets again.
— All the forgotten ones reappear here. M. Léon Bourgeois, rue Palatine, presides over the organization of the School of the Exposition, that of physical education…
— And that of Moral Education?
— No: and that of Social Education. That of Agricultural Education, and, toward the end, that of Agronomic Stations. There is the congress of methods for Testing materials.
— Very useful.
— Yes. And the congress for the study of Pressing Fruits. That of Mathematicians has for general secretary a M. Laisant, avenue Victor-Hugo, 162. There is the congress of Theatrical Equipment, without date or duration, no more than the congress for the unification of the Numbering of textile threads. That of Press Associations has neither date, nor duration, nor president, nor general secretary, as does that of Ramie. What is ramie?
I leaped upon my little Larousse. The word was not there.
— Ramie is a species of nettle, urtica utilis, which grows in abundance in Java, and from which one makes threads, cables and even fabrics.
— You know everything?
— General culture, aided by an old dictionary I have at home. There is the inevitable peace congress, more painfully ironic still this year. M. Boutroux, rue Saint-Jacques, 260, presides over the organization of the congress of Philosophy. Do you have any idea what it is: a congress of philosophy? I have no interesting image of it.
— I believe from memory. There is in Descartes, in the Discourse, on rightly conducting one’s reason and seeking truth in the sciences, at the end of the third part, a passage where this philosopher condemns not only the congress, but the simple mutual frequentation of philosophers. Here it is:
“But having a heart good enough not to want people to take me for other than I was, I thought that I must try by all means to make myself worthy of the reputation given me, and it is just eight years since this desire made me resolve to remove myself from all places where I might have acquaintances, and to retire here, — to Holland — to a country where the long duration of the war has caused such orders to be established, that the armies maintained there seem to serve only to make one enjoy the fruits of peace with all the more security, and where, among the crowd of a great and very active people, and more careful of its own affairs than curious about those of others, without lacking any of the conveniences that are in the most frequented cities, I have been able to live as solitary and retired as in the most remote deserts.”
— I read in the course of the sixth part:
“But I believe I am all the more obliged to husband the time that remains to me, as I have more hope of being able to employ it well; and I would doubtless have several occasions to lose it if I published the foundations of my physics…”
— Following: “One could say that these oppositions would be useful both to make me know my faults, and so that, if I had something good, others might thereby have more understanding of it; and, as several can see more than a man alone, that, beginning from now to make use of it, they might also aid me with their inventions.”
That would be favorable, if not to the congress, at least to the commerce of philosophers, to work in common, to mutuality.
“But although I recognize myself extremely subject to error, and I almost never trust the first thoughts that come to me, nevertheless the experience I have of the objections that can be made to me prevents me from hoping for any profit from them: for I have already often tested the judgments both of those I have held for my friends and of some others to whom I thought I was indifferent, and even also of some whose malignity and envy would try enough to discover what affection would hide from my friends; but it has rarely happened that anyone has objected to me something that I had not at all foreseen unless it was very far removed from my subject, so that I have almost never met any censor who did not seem to me either less rigorous or less equitable than myself.”
— And I have never remarked either — this goes not only against every congress and every commerce of philosophers, but against every academy and against the venerable institution of theses:
“And I have never remarked either, that by means of the disputations practiced in the schools, any truth has been discovered that was previously unknown; for while each one tries to win, one exercises oneself much more in setting off the plausible than in weighing the reasons on one side and the other; and those who have long been good advocates are not for all that better judges afterward.”
— M. Boutroux would therefore not preside over the organization of a congress of philosophy — for these reasons must seem to him to be valid, not only because they are from Descartes, but because they have value — if he had not doubtless resolved to conduct his reason and his actions often according to the three or four maxims of the morality that Descartes had formed for himself provisionally. I read at the beginning of the third part:
“The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, constantly retaining the religion in which God made me the grace of being instructed from my childhood, and governing myself in everything else following the most moderate opinions and the most removed from excess that were commonly received in practice by the most sensible of those with whom I would have to live. For, beginning from then to count my own for nothing, because I wanted to submit them all to examination, I was assured I could do no better than to follow those of the most sensible. And although there may be some as well sensible among the Persians or the Chinese as among us, it seemed to me that the most useful thing was to rule myself according to those with whom I would have to live; and that, in order to know what their opinions truly were, I should rather pay attention to what they practiced than to what they said, not only because in the corruption of our morals there are few people who want to say all that they believe, but also because several are ignorant of it themselves; for the action of thought by which one believes a thing being different from that by which one knows that one believes it, they are often one without the other. And, among several opinions equally received, I chose only the most moderate, both because they are always the most convenient for practice, and probably the best, all excess being customarily bad, as also so as to turn less from the true path, in case I should fail, than if, having chosen one of the extremes, it had been the other that should have been followed.”
Now it is incontestable that the laws, the customs and the religion of this country, is to make the universal exposition, and when one does not have the honor of making it…
— One has at least the honor of having undertaken it.
— No, but one has the honor of going to it, and the honor of singing in its honor a lay Te Deum of honor.
Thus do our philosophers. They adapt themselves to the splendor of the Exposition. They congress their philosophies.
— Come, let us admit that they go there provisionally, that they govern themselves in this following the most moderate opinions and the most removed from excess, that they follow the opinions of the most sensible.
— How is that?
— Nothing, I distinguish and I reconcile.
— Ah good. There is the congress of Sunday Rest, the congress of Firemen (officers and non-commissioned officers), that of Colonial Sociology, that of Pharmaceutical Specialties. I think that stenographers will stenograph the congress of Stenography: one is never so well served as by oneself.
— And one is never betrayed except by one’s own.
— There is the congress of Agricultural Unions, and it is M. the Marquis de Vogüé, rue Fabert, 2, who presides over its organization. There is the congress of Tobacco (against abuse). I see no anti-alcoholic congress, and that is a pity. There is only the Vegetarian congress. And even it has neither President, nor General Secretary. On the other hand there are two congresses for French alcoholization.
— What, two congresses for French alcoholization?
— My friend, if they were named thus one could not decently give the cross of honor to the presidents and the violet rosette to the General Secretaries. And then what would be the use of the Congress? What would be the use of the great Exposition? But reassure yourself: the first will be the congress of the trade in Wines, Spirits and Liquors; the second will be modestly the congress of Viticulture. We must encourage viticulture, sylviculture, Horticulture, which M. Viger, 55, rue des Saints-Pères, Paris, humbly presides over. All the national glories are these presidents. M. Gaston Boissier, 23, quai Conti, presides over the organization of Comparative History. The congresses of education are numerous: congress of Associations of former pupils of Higher Schools of commerce; of Physical Education and Social Education, already named, that of Agricultural Education, that of Drawing Education, that of Living Languages Education, that of Lay Societies of Popular Education, that of Primary Education, that of Secondary Education, that of Social Sciences Education, that of Higher Education, that of Technical, Commercial and Industrial Education…
— Give me back my paper, printed at the Imprimerie nationale. You saw no one, then? What has become of our friend Gaston Desbois?
— He is well. He is married. He is subscribed to the cahiers, he subscribed at twenty francs. He was rich, when he subscribed. I have just done his change of address.
— He has moved?
— Yes, he has been moved. He has been sent in the third year to the Lycée of Vesoul. To reward him for having worked at the Popular Universities.
— Ah yes, at the little mangy ones? He was also one of the little mangy ones?
— What do you mean, the little mangy ones? So you have not read the interview with Guesde that a writer from Le Temps got from him. Since then, in the provinces, we call ourselves nothing but the little mangy ones.
— So this old Desbois has become mangy? That pleases me. He is subscribed?
— I serve him the cahiers possibly. He has not yet answered me.
— He will subscribe. All the same it is amusing, that it was Desbois and Duchêne together who paid first for the Popular Universities. They were as profoundly, as sincerely, as professionally academic as each other. They took their class seriously. They had a happy influence on their pupils.
— Do you think your cahiers are not academic? What has become of our former comrade Hubert Plantagenet?
— He teaches philosophy at Coutances. He recently gave a public and popular lecture on alcoholism.
— Julien Desnoyers?
— He teaches natural sciences in a neighboring region. He recently gave a public lecture on geology.
— François Desmarais?
— Still agrégé, happy, prosperous. He sends me punctually ten francs per month.
— And Lucien Deslandes?
— Still timid, sick and unhappy. He is on leave in Sologne at his parents’, who are poor. He sends me punctually at the end of each month a subscription of twenty sous. He is someone truly rare.
In your second-to-last cahier you finally spoke of our friend Pierre Baudouin. What has become of him?
— Marcel Baudouin is dead. Pierre Baudouin has been seriously ill. I went to see him last week in Seine-et-Oise. It was at the dawn of spring. Our friend Pierre Baudouin, who is a classicist, told me that he dreaded the anxious uncertainty of that youth and the mysterious transparency of the trees. He was impatiently awaiting the coming hour when the trees will have their full beauty. What a lesson for whoever knows how to see.
— I recognize him well there: he detests figurative language, but he is passionate about instituting parables. Does he still believe that one cannot speak to men except by instituting dialogues?
— He still wants to institute. He is waiting for ungrateful life to leave him the space to institute dialogues, stories, poems and dramas.
— What does he think of the cahiers?
— I asked him. “I am your friend,” he answered me. “What a pity that you spend all your time on such futile work. What do these fortnightlies matter? Better to keep one’s soul serene and treat the great questions.” You feared ridicule, and yet ridicule is only an imagination of the fearful. You gave us a few miserable citations from the great Pascal, unsuitably brief. You neglected simply this consideration that the whole demonstration of the truth of the Christian faith is indissolubly linked to this question of death. How to examine the question of the immortality of the soul if one has not begun by studying the question of salvation, which envelops that of grace and predestination?
— There is the capital vice of your cahiers: they are interesting. What I reproach you with, my friend, is the effort you make for your cahiers to be interesting.
Thus ended Pierre Baudouin. I left him, without more.
— It is time you left him. For I was leaving you before. I have in hand: French University: Second Congress of Professors of Public Secondary Education (1898). The first congress, held in 1897, had been reported by M. Gaston Rabaud. In April 1897, one hundred and nine establishments were represented; we have today (in 1898) the adhesion of one hundred and fifty-three lycées or colleges. To our request for reduced fares, the Railway Companies responded in unison with a brief, clear and dry refusal.