Desperate Games by Pierre Boulle Page A

of its birth,
    And the cen-tre of our faith.
    Then suddenly the tones of
La Marseillaise
burst forth:
    Oh sac-red love of Sci-ence,
    You alone shall guide our minds,
    You alone can make us live in hope
    For but one world full of peace,
    For but one world full of peace…
    However this text was not deemed satisfactory by everyone, and a commission was appointed to perfect it. On that day of the first world festival, the music was satisfactory and suitable. This was Fawell’s opinion, who, after giving a fleeting glance at the crowd, felt that there was an impression of harmony becoming manifest, which was giving rise to a certain emotion.
    He got back into his car, and, still standing, and making a gesture of response to the cheering, he slowly drove up part of Fifth Avenue, to take his place on the official platform set up at Madison Square.
    While twice smiling and gesturing benevolently at the crowd, he looked with a critical eye at the double line of new banners which decorated the avenue.
    The matter of world banners had been the subject of debates just as lively as those about the anthem. The usual loud colours of the flags of former days were excluded, as being too evocative of the nationalist past. A plain white material symbolising peace was judged to be too simplistic and unsuitable for exciting the least emotion. So someone suggested that the banner should bear the portrait of a scholar who personified the greatest development in ideas. The idea seemed to be an interesting one, and the clan of physicists very quickly agreed on Einstein. Fawell approved of this choice, and it seemed to him no serious scientific objection could be made to it. What is more, the great scholar had the advantage of being known to people due to innumerable images of him. His face, with its deeply marked features, framed by the famous halo of untidy hair, was well suited to arouse a romantic enthusiasm, if the image was created by a talented artist.
    Alas, this proposal immediately rekindled the rivalry between the physicists and the physiologists among the
Nobels
. After furious protests the plan had to be abandoned, and as none of the names proposed subsequently could satisfy all the scholars, Fawell had to give up the idea and look for another emblem.
    This time it was Yranne who found, with the perfect logic of a mathematician, a solution acceptable to all.
    ‘We are quarrelling about our differences,’ he said, ‘but we should do the opposite. You know, there is one point on which all the scientists agree. We essentially have the same ideal. The central focus of all our efforts, our research, is the truth.’
    A murmur of approval greeted his words, as hopes arose of getting out of the tricky situation which they had got bogged down in.
    ‘Therefore the world banner should symbolise truth. What’s more, the minds of ordinary people should be able to understand it clearly.’
    ‘We are agreed on these general points,’ the scholars responded, ‘but how can we devise a symbol of truth which is understandable to ordinary minds?’
    ‘We don’t have to devise it at all,’ cut in Yranne. ‘It already exists. The symbol of truth, for everyone in the world, is a naked woman coming out of a well.’
    Quite a long silence greeted this conclusion. Matured by years of patient studies, and frequently reaching the point where they had to consider apparently crazy things, (the results of their experiments), it was not the scholars’ practice to reject
a
priori
an unusual proposition, however bizarre it might appear at first sight. They always made it a rule to analyse the content. So they reflected before expressing their opinion. And having thought about it, they felt forced to conclude that it was the only suggestion which would get them out of an awkward situation.
    ‘It’s an idea which is brilliant in its marvellous simplicity, and I can recognise in it the force of mathematical reasoning,’ was O’Kearn’s comment when he was