Complete Works of Emile Zola (1616 page)

When Luc took leave of Jordan in the park, they had a little further conversation.

“You have not caught cold, I trust. Your sister would never forgive me.”

“No, no; I feel perfectly well.... And I shall go to rest satisfied, for my resolution is formally taken. I am going to get rid of a business which does not interest me, and which is a continual source of annoyance to me.”

Luc felt a sudden return of the sense of uneasiness which he had had before, as if this decision disturbed him, and he was silent for a moment. But as he quitted his friend, he said, with a last clasp of the hand:

“Wait; let me have a day to consider the subject; tomorrow evening we will have another talk, and then you shall decide.”

Luc did not go to sleep immediately. He was lodged in the cottage formerly built for Jordan’s maternal grandfather, Dr. Michon; he occupied the large room where the latter had lived during the last days of his life in the midst of his books; and during the three days he had been there he had been delighted with its atmosphere of industry, of kindness, and of profound peace. But this evening the fever of uncertainty which oppressed him made him feel stifled when he re-entered it; he opened one of the windows wide and leaned out of it, in order to calm himself a little before going to bed. The window looked out on the road which led from La Crêcherie to Beauclair; opposite was an extent of uncultivated fields strewn with rocks; and down below the confused mass of roofs belonging to the sleeping village could be distinguished.

For several minutes Luc breathed in deep draughts of the rushing air that swept across the boundless fields of Roumagne. The night was warm and soft; the clear blue sky was studded with stars, lightly veiled at times with clouds. For a while he heard, without distinguishing, the heavy rhythmical strokes of the hammers at the Pit, that cyclopean forge, where day and night steel was turned out. He raised his eyes and looked for the blast-furnace of La Crêcherié, silent and dark, lost in the inky line made by the promontory of the Monts Bleuses against the sky. He lowered his gaze, and it fell on the crowded roofs of the town, which in its heavy sleep seemed lulled to rest by the measured cadence of the hammers, resembling from a distance the oppressed breathing of some laboring giant, some mournful Prometheus chained to the rock of eternal toil. His discomfort increased, his feverish restlessness refused to be calmed; the people and the events of the last three days passed in review before his memory, defiling in a tragic procession on which he tried in vain to use his reason, tormenting him with the problem that had little by little grown to occupy his mind, and which promised to deprive him of rest until he should have found its solution.

He now thought that he perceived, below the window, among the bushes on the other side of the road, another sound, so light, so gentle, that he could not define what it was. Was it the fluttering of a bird’s wings, or the rustling of an insect among the leaves? He gazed around, but he saw nothing except the depths of shadow. He thought that he must have been mistaken. Then the sound made itself heard again, nearer at hand. Very much interested, and seized by a singular emotion, which surprised himself, he struggled to pierce the darkness, and at length he perceived the vague outline of a thin and shadowy form, which seemed to hover above the grass. He did not understand the nature of it, and he was beginning to think it an illusion, when a woman crossed the road with a step as light as a chamois and threw him a little bouquet, so adroitly that it fell right upon his face, as though it were a caress. It was a little nosegay of mountain - pinks, freshly gathered from among the rocks, and so fragrant that their odor filled the room.

Josine! He divined that it must have been Josine, and he recognized in this touching act of devotion a renewed expression of gratitude. An exquisite charm pervaded this action, coming as it did out of the darkness at this late hour; he was unable to account for her presence, or for her knowledge of his return, nor did he understand in what manner she had been able to make her escape and come so far, unless Ragu were, perhaps, on night duty. Already she was gone without a word; her only object had been to bestow her flowers, and when this had been so adroitly accomplished, she buried herself in the shadows that enveloped the dark fields around. Just at that moment Luc observed another very little figure, which must surely be that of Nanet, who was running at her side. They both disappeared from sight; he heard nothing now but the rhythmical movement of the hammers at the Pit. His distress of mind was not ended, but his heart was eased of a mighty load. He pressed his face to the little nosegay with delight. Ah, it is kindness that makes the tie of brotherhood, tenderness alone that creates happiness, and love itself that must save and regenerate the world!

CHAPTER V

LUC went to bed, put out his light, and hoped that the extreme fatigue of his body and mind would give him a good night’s rest, by which he might recover himself. But in the darkness and the silence of that quiet chamber he could not close his eyes; they seemed to open wider in the gloom; he was the victim of insomnia, which made him feverishly hot, and a prey to absorbing thoughts that he could not get rid of.

A vision of Josine kept rising up before him, with her child’s face so full of piteous charm. He saw her in tears; he saw her famished, terrorized, waiting near the door of the Pit; he saw her again in the
cabaret
, turned out-of-doors by Ragu, with such cruel violence that the blood gushed from her mutilated hand; again he saw her on that bench by the Mionne, left alone there on that stormy night, having no better prospect than to fall into the stream; and then, again, appeasing her hunger like some poor animal that has lost its home. And, finally, after three days of unexpected, unintentional examination, which he had been led to make through no will of his own, but led by the hand of Destiny, all that he had seen of labor, unjustly distributed and socially despised, seemed to culminate in the unhappy fate of this poor girl who had moved his heart so deeply.

Then a crowd of visions presented themselves and tortured him by their persistency. He again felt terror floating in the air in the dim streets of Beauclair, in the heavy footfalls of that miserable crowd, shut out from all the blessings nature had intended to provide for them, dreaming darkly of how they might be avenged. In the household of the Bonnaires he had seen revolution reasoned out and organized, while privation that pinched their stomachs stared the family in the face, in their cold, bare abode in which everything that ought to make a home was wanting. At Guerdache he had witnessed all the insolence of corrupt luxury, and the poisonous self-indulgence that was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of the privileged classes in a little circle of middle-class rich people gorged with the wealth that they had stolen from the labor and the sorrow of an immense number of working people. Even in La Crêcherie, that blast-furnace that stood there in a sort of wild nobleness, where not one workman had reason to complain, persistent human toil seemed to have been stricken with anathema; it was helpless sadness forever, without hope of future enfranchisement for the human race, given over to slavery, denied entrance into the city of justice and peace. He had seen, he had heard Beauclair cracking to pieces, for the ferment of destruction was not alone between classes; a tempest of folly and of hatred had burst even upon families. Horrible scenes were enacted in men’s homes, and drove in the gutters fathers, mothers, and children. They lied, they stole, they murdered. The next step after poverty and hunger was crime — women sold their purity, men took to alcohol, like beasts enraged that roared because they wanted to satisfy their bodily instincts. Too many signs announced that an inevitable catastrophe was drawing near, that the old building was about to cave in and drop to pieces in blood and ruin.

Then, frightened by such visions of punishment and shame, and distressed by reason of the human tenderness that was in his heart, Luc saw another vision rise out of the darkness. He saw the pale phantom of Josine, with her soft laugh. She held out her arms to him in touching appeal. He saw nothing but her. She was about to be crushed by the fall of a decayed, worm-eaten edifice. It seemed to him as if she were the only victim — little, frail workwoman as she was, with her wounded hand, dying of hunger, a creature whom prostitution would drag into its filth. She seemed the incarnation of the misery of the wage - earners, a pitiable little figure whose charm had moved his heart. He was suffering from what he thought that she must suffer; and he wanted to save her while he formed a wild dream of saving Beauclair. If any supernatural being had given him all power, he could, he thought, have made that place, now putrid with selfishness, a happy city of brotherhood. And then he felt that this dream was not of himself, but that it had been sent to him from afar. He had had it ever since he lived in Paris, in a poor quarter of that great city, among the mute, inglorious heroes of labor and its melancholy victims. He felt a sort of presentiment of a future that he could not precisely understand, a mission to be given him. Then suddenly, in the confusion of his senses, it seemed to him as if the moment for action had arrived. Josine was dying of hunger, Josine was sobbing. He must not let this go on — he must act. He must at once go to the rescue of so much misery and so much suffering. He must put a stop to such iniquities.

At last, overcome by fatigue, Luc fell asleep. But very soon he fancied himself called; he started up. Did he not hear sad voices in the distance? Were not poor wretches in danger of death imploring him for help? Sitting up in bed, he listened, but heard nothing in the darkness but a faint noise. His heart had been stirred, however. He was moved by the certainty that at that very moment millions of poor creatures were crushed and suffering under the iniquity of the present social system. Then, shuddering, he fell back on his pillow and went to sleep again, but even then he heard the same cries for help. Again he raised his head and listened. Half awake as he was, his sensations became extraordinarily acute; and he could not go to sleep for a moment without hearing the appeals for his help grow more importunate. It seemed as if they were called forth by some pressing need. He felt he must give his help at once, but he could not clearly perceive in what direction. Which way must he run to get most quickly to the spot where he was needed? What must he do to prepare the way for victory? He did not know. He suffered cruelly from the vague nightmare which had taken possession of his senses. It was as if something in the utter darkness gave promise of too late a dawn, as if he was continually implored to take part in a work which he could not clearly discern, though from time to time he seemed just about to discover it. And distinctly among all the voices that called on him for help he heard that of Josine, imploring and lamenting. She only was there; he felt the warmth of the kiss she had pressed upon his hand; he inhaled the scent of the little bunch of pinks that she had thrown him, whose perfume seemed to pervade his chamber.

From the moment he felt this Luc ceased to struggle for sleep. He shook off his feverish wakefulness, and was at peace. He relighted his candle, rose, and for a few minutes walked about his chamber. He tried to think of nothing, hoping to get rid of the ideas that had troubled his brain. He tried to interest himself in something else; he examined some old engravings hanging on the walls, the old furniture which told him of the habits of Dr. Michon, of his kindliness and love of study; the whole venerable room spoke much of his benevolence, much of his good sense and of his wisdom. At last the books claimed his attention. In a large bookcase with glass doors the old Saint-Simonian — the old Fourierite — had made a complete collection of the works on humanitarianism which had so greatly interested him in his youth. All the social philosophers, all the precursors and apostles of the New Evangel were there represented: Saint-Simon, Fourier, Auguste Comte, Proudhon, Cabet, Pierre Leroux, and more besides — it was a complete collection, including the writings of Fourier’s most obscure disciples. And Luc, holding his candle, grew interested as he read the names and title-pages of the different volumes, and counted them, astonished at their number — astonished that so many men had scattered seeds that had not fructified, that so many good words lay buried there waiting for the future harvest.

He had read much already on the subject; he knew the more important pages of the larger part of these works. The philosophical, economical, and social system of each of these authors was well known to him. But he felt as if a new breath of air had come to him, when he found them all thus standing together in a compact group. He never before had had so clear an appreciation of their power, of their value, of the greatness of the human evolution they were written to produce in the world. They stood there in a phalanx, the advance guard of a future century, which, by degrees, would be followed by an immense army from all nations. Above all, what struck him most as he saw them standing thus peaceably side by side, with mighty strength lying latent in their union, was their fraternity. Though he was not ignorant of the contradictory ideas which once had severed them, nor of the fierce fights they had often had with one another, they now seemed to him like brothers, reconciled by belief in one common gospel, in the sure and only truths that each one had contributed; and the great day-dawn from their works was the religion of humanity, in which they had all had faith; their tenderness for those on earth who had lost their inheritance; their hatred of social injustice; their belief in the labor which was to save them.

Luc, having opened the bookcase, thought he would take out one of these books. Since he could not sleep, he would read a few pages, and then sleep might come to him. For one moment he hesitated, then he selected a very small volume, in which a disciple of Fourier had summed up the whole teaching of his master. The title,
Solidarité,
had attracted him, for was not that just what he needed; a few pages of hope and strength was what he wanted. He went back to bed and began to read; he was soon as much excited as if he had been witnessing a drama on which the fate of the human race hung. The doctrines of Fourier, being there abridged, were presented only as the essence of the truths they formulated, and so treated they had an extraordinary force. He knew all these things before — he had even read them in the pages of the master, but never before had they so moved him, so entirely conquered him. In what state of mind could he be, at what important hour of his life had he arrived, that his heart and his brain should be thus possessed — should thus have acquired a clear vision in an instant of time? The little book became more animated; everything took à new meaning when applied to things in the present, as if living facts rose up and were impersonated.