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What was most irritating Tchernoff was the moral lesson born of this situation which had ended by overwhelming the world the glorification of power, the sanctification of success, the triumph of materialism, the respect for the accomplished fact, the mockery of the noblest sentiments as though they were merely sonorous and absurd phrases, the reversal of moral values . . . a philosophy of bandits which pretended to be the last word of progress, and was no more than a return to despotism, violence, and the barbarity of the most primitive epochs of history.
Argensola suggested that this would be a good opportunity to uncork one of the many bottles which he was keeping in the kitchen. Tchernoff could go home through the studio door that opened on the stairway.
The foreign appearance of this Tchernoff made a great impression upon him his dishevelled beard, and oily locks, his spectacles upon a large nose that seemed deformed by a dagger-thrust. There emanated from him, like an invisible nimbus, an odor of cheap wine and soiled clothing.
Tchernoff did not appear to enjoy visits and conversation. He would smile enigmatically into his black beard, and was very sparing with his words so as to shorten the interview. But Argensola possessed the means of winning over this sullen personage.
"How beautiful it is!" exclaimed Tchernoff who was seeing something beyond the shadows. "An entire civilization, loving peace and pleasure, has passed through here." A memory greatly affected the Russian. Many an afternoon, after lunch, he had met in this very spot a robust man, stocky, with reddish beard and kindly eyes a man who looked like a giant who had just stopped growing.
Argensola recognized him as he passed near the street lamp, "Friend Tchernoff." Upon returning their greeting, the Russian betrayed a slight odor of wine. Uninvited, he had adjusted his steps to theirs, accompanying them toward the Arc de Triomphe.
Another valet took our hats and overcoats, and then Tchernoff led us up a great flight of marble stairs, and on through nearly a dozen panelled rooms with historic portraits, much like those I had once passed through at Fontainebleau, until he entered the blue drawing-room, a great, old-fashioned, eighteenth-century apartment adorned by a number of magnificent pictures by Saltzmann.
He would merely smile modestly, showing plainly that he did not wish to make any further revelations. The morning after the return of Julio Desnoyers, while Argensola was talking on the stairway with Tchernoff, the bell rang. How annoying! The Russian, who was well up in advanced politics, was just explaining the plans advanced by Jaures. There were still many who hoped that war might be averted.
The poet of great and mystic vision was exerting, across two thousand years, his influence over this mysterious revolutionary, tucked away on the top floor of a house in Paris. John had foreseen it all. His visions, unintelligible to the masses, nevertheless held within them the mystery of great human events. Tchernoff described the Apocalyptic beast rising from the depths of the sea.
According to Tchernoff, there was not in existence to-day a more dangerous nation. Its political organization was converting it into a warrior horde, educated by kicks and submitted to continual humiliations in order that the willpower which always resists discipline might be completely nullified. "It is a nation where all receive blows and desire to give them to those lower down.
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