Page 1684 - les-miserables

distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by
a simple elevation of level.
We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed con-
summation.
The past is very strong, it is true, at the present moment.
It censures. This rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising. Be-
hold, it is walking and advancing. It seems a victor; this
dead body is a conqueror. He arrives with his legions, su-
perstitions, with his sword, despotism, with his banner,
ignorance; a while ago, he won ten battles. He advances, he
threatens, he laughs, he is at our doors. Let us not despair,
on our side. Let us sell the field on which Hannibal is en-
camped.
What have we to fear, we who believe?
No such thing as a back-flow of ideas exists any more
than there exists a return of a river on its course.
But let those who do not desire a future reflect on this
matter. When they say ‘no’ to progress, it is not the future
but themselves that they are condemning. They are giving
themselves a sad malady; they are inoculating themselves
with the past. There is but one way of rejecting To-morrow,
and that is to die.
Now, no death, that of the body as late as possible, that of
the soul never,—this is what we desire.
Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak,
the problem will be solved.
Yes, the people, sketched out by the eighteenth century,
will be finished by the nineteenth. He who doubts this is an
idiot! The future blossoming, the near blossoming forth of

1684 Les Miserables