Ephraïm Mikhaël: Why have not my brethren of the army known the dream of God?

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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Ephraïm Mikhaël
The Evocator
Translated by Stuart Merrill

As the army of the Conqueror issued from the forest, the barbaric archers riding in the van cried out that they saw in the distance an immense and bizarre city. Yonder, in the ruddy haze of the Occident, arose high towers of marble, and the blood of the dying day flowed as in sacred patens upon terraces paved with gold. But when the army had come nearer they saw that the city since centuries, doubtless was silent and deserted. Then the soldiers, lowering their pikes, entered peaceably, and they marched long, by grass-grown walls and closed doors, through the solemn streets. At last, upon a square, before a colossal temple, an old man came forth to meet them.

“Strangers,” said he, “you have come to an austere spot. If you are impure and covetous, go hence towards the proud cities of Asia. You will find here no treasures to rifle nor virgins to violate. Go hence, for this is the city of the gods. Yet if you still preserve, O warriors from happy lands, some care for the distant heaven, come towards the lamps that no earthly wind can extinguish, in the sanctuary, where, like an august lion made captive, the Divinity offers itself to the gaze of men.”

The soldiers murmured, weary and surprised; yet, on account of the long march accomplished, they resolved to pass the night by the fires lighted in the supernatural city. But they could not sleep, because the thought of the neighboring god troubled them.

And thus, little by little, the temple was filled with an insolent crowd awaiting the divine vision. Within stood men of all conditions: imperious soldiers, timid army varlets, ironical scribes, a sage from the shores of the Ganges, emaciated by fearful fasts, clad by everlasting alms, whom out of vanity the Conqueror dragged in his train.

When the day appeared, all these men came out from the temple, trembling with meditations; and on the square they questioned one another anxiously. Some had seen strange figures, grimacing and cruel, half veiled in bloody mists; others announced grotesque gods, with enormous bellies, with stupid and joyous faces. A few also spoke of a smiling god who pointed with his hand to the world, and then moved his arms, as though to excuse himself.

But the silent sage re-entered the temple and questioned the old man: “Why, O revealer of gods, hast thou not granted to all these men the same vision? I have watched throughout the night with them, and amid a music of paradise, I saw an ineffable dawn of splendor and charity burst forth and spread over the world. Why, then, hast thou lied to them, why have not my brethren of the army known the dream of God?”

“Stranger, you have all seen the God. Dost thou not know that the heavens, dreamed of and perhaps unreal, are but a vast mirror where every one sees himself invested with immortality? They have seen themselves in the heavens and they blaspheme. Listen to what they say.”

Then, by a window, the sage looked out. Irritated by the ridiculous and blood-guilty gods, the mob was preparing torches with which to fire the temple, and was leaping forward with laughter and insults. And now to the hearing of the sage the proffered syllables yielded a new meaning; and in a marvellous language of primitive times, become suddenly intelligible, he heard the blasphemous confess their sins and their crimes, and proclaim before the holy doors their own inanity.