With what terror Jaime thought of the power of the dead! They concealed themselves to make their tyranny less cruel, but they had not really perished; their souls were lying within the confines of our existence, just as their bodies formed an entrenched field roundabout the man-made towns. They scrutinized us with arbitrary eyes; they followed us, guiding us with invisible clutch at the slightest indication of deviating from the path; they banded together with diabolic determination to lead the flocks of men who rush after some new and extraordinary ideal, reëstablishing with violent reaction, the order of life, which they love, silent and placid, amid rustle of dried grasses and the flutter of butterfly wings and the sweet peace of the cemetery, asleep in the sun.
The souls of the dead fill the world. The dead do not go away, they remain as masters. The dead command, and it is useless to resist.
The man of the great cities living a giddy life, knowing not who built his house, nor who makes his bread, seeing no other works of nature than the stunted trees adorning his streets, ignores these things. He does not even realize that his life is spent among millions and millions of his forefathers crowded together but a few steps away, spying upon him and directing him. He blindly obeys their tugging, without knowing where leads the cord fastened upon his soul. Poor automaton, he believes all his acts to be the product of his will, when they are nothing less than impositions of the omnipotent invisible horde.
Jaime, submerged in the monotonous existence of a tranquil island, thinking back upon his forefathers one by one, knowing the origin and history of all that surrounded him, objects of art, clothing, furniture, and the house itself which seemed possessed of a soul, could give account of this tyranny better than could others.
Yes; the dead command! The authority of the living, their startling novelties--illusion, deception, serving only to carry forward existence.
Gazing on the sea, on whose horizon the smoke from a steamer traced a slender column, Febrer thought of the great trans-Atlantic liners, floating cities, speeding monsters, the pride of human industry, which can make the round of the world in a few short weeks. His remote ancestors in the Middle Ages who went to England in a ship no better than a fishing smack, represented something more extraordinary, and the great captains of the present time with their swarming crews, had not achieved greater deeds than the knight commander Priamo with his handful of sailors. What deceptions, what illusions, we form concerning life, to conceal from ourselves the monotony of its shams. The brevity of its experiences was maddening. It mattered not whether one lived thirty years or three hundred. Men perfected the playthings which served their egoism and their well being, machines, means of locomotion; but aside from this, they lived the same. The passions, the joys, and the sorrows were the same; the human animal did not change.