Those who give
these warnings must know that they will be useless, because they
manifestly foresee the event as a whole; but they must also know
that one last word, which they do not pronounce, would be enough
to prevent the misfortune that is already consummated in their
prevision. They know it so well that they bring this word to the
very edge of the abyss, hold it suspended there, almost let it
fall and recapture it suddenly at the moment when its weight
would have caused happiness and life to rise once more, to the
surface of the mighty gulf. What then is this mystery? Is it
incapacity or hostility? If they are incapable, what is the
unexpected and sovereign force that interposes between them and
us? And, if they are hostile, on what, on whom are they revenging
themselves? What can be the secret of those inhuman games, of
those uncanny and cruel diversions on the most slippery and
dangerous peaks of fate? Why warn, if they know that the warning
will be in vain? Of whom are they making sport? Is there really
an inflexible fatality by virtue of which that which has to be
accomplished is accomplished from all eternity? But then why not
respect silence, since all speech is useless? Or do they, in
spite of all, perceive a gleam, a crevice in the inexorable wall?
What hope do they find in it? Have they not seen more clearly
than ourselves that no deliverance can come through that crevice?
One could understand this fluttering and wavering, all these
efforts of theirs, if they did not know; but here it is proved
that they know everything, since they foretell exactly that which
they might prevent.
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