PARIS LETTER
421
induced it to respect a man who had acted in accordance with the
dictates of his conscience.
Perhaps it will
be
thought that I have allowed myself to be over–
come by an exaggerated pessimism or bitterness.
If
so, it is because
nothing is so painful as to see one's country miss an attainable happiness
by so narrow a margin. I have just crossed France, from south to north,
returning from a vacation. This countryside bursting with riches, these
cities where one sees--at last-more and more new building, these new
dams which spring up each year, give an impression of plenty and of
strength which cannot be false. Once more it appears that we lack
nothing except the sort of imagination which will permit us to stand
up to situations which we have not been able to foresee. Or is imagina–
tion the wrong word?
Is
not the only power which we lack that which
will permit us to see things as they are? The day when Frenchmen
awake from their dreams, when they put aside regret for a past of
greatness, they will discover all about them the elements necessary to
forge a renewed greatness. But there is still no one in sight whose voice
sounds clearly enough to arouse them.
Jean Bloch-Michel
