It was a Virgil, and Jean was reading out loud the deliciousepisode of Silenus. Two youths have discovered the old god lyingin a drunken sleep--he is always drunk and it makes men mock athim, albeit they still revere him--and have bound him in chainsof flowers to force him to sing. ?glé, the fairest of the Na?ads,has stained his cheeks scarlet with juice of the mulberry, andlo! he sings.
"He sings how from out the mighty void were drawn together thegerms of earth and air and sea and of the subtle fire likewise;how of these beginnings came all the elements, and the fluidglobe of the firmament grew into solid being; how presently theground began to harden and to imprison Nereus in the ocean, andlittle by little to take on the shapes of things. He sings howanon continents marvelled to behold a new-emerging sun; how theclouds broke up in the welkin and the rains descended, what timethe woods put forth their first green and beasts first prowledby ones and twos over the unnamed mountain-tops."Jean broke off to observe:
"How admirably it all brings out Virgil's spirit, so seriousand tender! The poet has put a cosmogony in an idyll. Antiquitycalled him the Virgin. The name well befits his Muse, and weshould picture her as a Mnemosyne pondering over the works ofmen and the causes of things!"Meanwhile Garneret, with a more concentrated attention and hisfinger on the lines, was marshalling his ideas. The players werestill at their game, and the little copper discs they used forthrowing kept rolling close to his feet, and the canteen-womanpassed backwards and forwards with her little barrel.
"See this, Servien," he said presently; "in these lines Virgil,or rather the poet of the Alexandrine age who was his model,has anticipated Laplace's great hypothesis and Charles Lyell'stheories. He shows cosmic matter, that negative something fromwhich everything must come, condensing to make worlds, the plasticrind of the globe consolidating; then the formation of islandsand continents; then the rains ceasing and first appearance ofthe sun, heretofore veiled by opaque clouds; then vegetable lifemanifesting itself before animal, because the latter cannot maintainitself and endure save by absorbing the elements of the former----"At that moment a stir was apparent along the ramparts. The playersbroke off their game and the two friends lifted their heads.
It was a train of wounded going by. Under the curtains of thelumbering ambulance-waggons marked with the Geneva red cross couldbe seen livid faces tied up in bloodstained bandages. Linesmenand _mobiles_ tramped behind, their arms hanging in slings. TheNationals proffered them handfuls of tobacco and asked for news.
But the wounded men only shook their heads and trudged stolidlyon their way.
"Aren't _we_ to have some fighting soon as well as other fellows?"cried Garneret.
To which Servien growled back:
"We must first put down the traitors and incapables who governus, proclaim the Commune and march all together against thePrussians."