rewarded elsewhere. But now I am happy, so sublimely happy that I truly believe I have received my reward on earth. So you see, I have lost my proof of immortality.
Hérault. Never try to find it again.
Camille. How simple it is to be happy! There are so few who know how to be!
Hérault. The simpler a thing is, the oftener it eludes us. It is said that men wish to be happy. A great mistake! They wish to be unhappy; they insist on it. Pharaohs and Sesostris, kings with hawks' heads and tigers' claws; butchers of the Inquisition, conquerors of Bastilles; wars that sow murder and rapine—that is what they want. The obscurity of the mysteries is necessary to belief; the absurdity of suffering, to love. But reason, tolerance, love, happiness—bah! Give them that, and you insult them!
Camille. You are bitter. You must do good to men in spite of themselves.
Hérault. That is what everybody is doing nowadays, and the result is nothing to boast of.
Camille. Poor Republic! What have they done to You? Oh, flowering fields, rejuvenated earth, clear air, and bright light of the heavens, clear-eyed Reason has sent packing the sorry superstitions and the ancient Gothic saints from fair France. Young men and women dancing in the meadows, heroic armies, fraternal feeling, impregnable wall against which the armies of Europe in vain break their lances; joy of beauty, noble Panathenaics, white-armed maidens, dressed in thin flowing draperies; liberty to live, pleasure that throbs
