Complete Works of Emile Zola (1617 page)

And the whole system of Fourier unfolded itself before him. His genius was shown in utilizing men’s instincts as if they were living forces. The long disastrous error of Catholicism was that it had tried to subdue and to abase them, that it had tried to destroy the man within the man, to make him the slave of a God whose true nature was unknown to him. Instincts, in the emancipated communities of the future, were to be productive of as much good as they formerly had done harm in society, enslaved and terrorized in past ages. They were immortal aspirations — the only lever that can lift up worlds, the inner fires of strength and will which give power to act to every human being. Deprived of any of his passions, a man would be mutilated as if one of his senses had been taken away from him. Instincts hitherto smothered and crushed, as if they were evil things, would, when free, become motive power of that universal attraction which tends to unity, endeavoring; amid many obstacles, to blend into final harmony the expression of universal happiness. There would be no more men then who were selfish or lazy; all would be eager for harmony and unity; all would be as brothers on the day when they should see their road so clear and wide before them that they might walk on it with ease and happiness. Then would be set free the victims of the heavy serfage now weighing upon manual labor; they would be relieved from unjust, unnatural, ill-apportioned toil; they would work joyfully, since they would have their proper part and share in the common labor of the world.

And again, with another stroke of genius, labor having once more been made honorable, would have its public functions, and become the pride, the health, the gayety — nay, even the law, of life. If labor were reorganized, all society would be reorganized too; for work ought to be made a civic obligation, the rule of life. But this would be another kind of labor, unlike that brutally imposed on human victims, on ignoble mercenaries, who could be crushed at their masters’ pleasure, and treated like hungry beasts of burden; it would be work freely accepted by all men, divided according to natural tastes and capacities, employing the laborer only for the few hours that’ were indispensable — labor varied according to the free choice of voluntary workers. A town or a commune would be like an immense hive, in which there would be no drones, where each citizen should bear his part in the work common to all — work that the city would need that all might live. The tendency to unity, to complete harmony, would draw men to one another, would form them into groups, would make them classify themselves. All the mechanism of society would be preserved, and all work be infinitely divided, each workman choosing the task he could most pleasantly perform; workers would cease to be nailed down to one employment, but each would pass when he pleased from one to another. The world could not be thus revolutionized at once; things would have to begin in a small way — making an experiment of the system on one commune with a few thousand souls, to show what could be done by a living example; then the dream would become a reality; the phalanx would have been created; there would be a military base for the great human army; they would build the phalanstery (the town-hall which was to be the centre of the system — the house common to all). At the beginning, in order to get out of the present difficulties of the situation, it would be necessary simply to call for volunteers, those who felt themselves to be suffering from painful injustice. They could then be associated; and thus could be formed a great union of capital, talent, and labor. Those who had money, those who had hands, those who had brains, could be called upon to unite, and put their all into the common fund. They would produce a hundredfold what they now do by their united energy; they would bring in returns which they would divide equitably, until the day when money, toil, and talent should become the common patrimony of a free brotherhood in which everything should belong to all, and harmony should be realized.

And on each page sparkled the splendor of that word
Solidarité
—” Association” — which was the title of the little volume. Its phrases shone like lamps in a lighthouse. Man’s reason was infallible; truth was absolute; a truth once demonstrated by science to be truth was irrevocable and eternal. Labor ought to be pleasure. The happiness of each would one day consist in the happiness of others. There would be no more envy, no more hatred, when there should be space in the world for the happiness of all. The wheels of the social machine, as they were at present, must be done away with, for they were useless — they consumed force; and trade would also have to be condemned; the consumer would have to buy from the producer. With one blow all parasites would be swept away. The innumerable unwholesome growths which live on social corruption, or on the state of warfare in which men, as things are now, live a living death, would disappear. There would be no more armies, no more law courts, no more prisons. And, above all things, when that great dawn shall have taken place, righteousness would shine like the sun, dispersing poverty, giving to every creature who is born the right to live, bestowing upon each his daily bread, and the perfect happiness which is his birthright.

Luc read no more; he began to think. All the great, heroic nineteenth century passed before him. It seemed like a great battle, with its efforts at once so brave, so sad — a vain struggle to insure truth and justice. From one thing to another the irresistible democratic movement, he foresaw, would advance; the idea of the elevation of the people inspired him. The Revolution had merely brought the
bourgeoisie
into power; it would need another century to finish its work, and to enable all classes to take part in it. The seeds had been germinating in the soil of the old monarchy, through which free winds continually blew, and after the days of’48 the question of labor and wages came into prominence; the claims of the toilers were more and more insisted on. They shook the new
bourgeois regime
which was in power — a power which owed its origin to tyranny and corruption. And now, on the verge of another century, as soon as united effort on the part of the working-classes should knock down the old social structure, the reorganization of labor would become the foundation of the future social system, which could only be brought about by a just distribution of wealth and property. All, at the next stage which the world was approaching, was ready, and waiting for this revolution. When the old world passed from slavery to paid labor — that violent crisis, which destroyed whole empires, was nothing to the present crisis which has been going on for a hundred years, shaking and unsettling all nations — the crisis of the remuneration of labor which has passed through different stages in its gradual evolution, becoming first one thing, then another. And it was this other phase of the problem which was to give birth to the happy brotherly city of to-morrow.

Softly Luc laid down the little volume and blew out the candle. He had read, and he felt calm; peaceful sleep — the sweet restorer — was stealing over him. It was not that clear answers had been given to the pressing questions that embarrassed him, or to the cries of anguish which, coming out of the darkness, had so moved him. But he no longer heard these piteous appeals, as if those who had been deprived of their rights were now sure that their cries had been heard and were content to endure longer with patience. The seed was sown; the harvest would come at length. The little book had done its work; it had fallen into the hands of an apostle and a hero; its mission would be accomplished when the hour arrived which had been fixed for it by the progress of evolution. And Luc no longer had fever in his veins; he no longer asked himself unanswerable questions, although the solution of the problem which had so much interested and excited him was put off for a time. He felt himself pregnant with an idea, and had the absolute certainty that it would in due time be born. It might be on the next day, if his sleep were sound. And he ended by yielding to his great need of rest. He slept deliciously, never moving in his sleepy watched over by his good genius, which gave him faith and will.

The next morning at seven o’clock, when Luc awoke, his first thought, when he saw the sun rising in a clear blue sky, was to get out of the house without telling the family of Monsieur Jordan, and climb the rocky cliff to the blast-furnace. He wanted to have another talk with Morfain, and get him to give him further information. He was led by a sort of sudden inspiration. He was especially anxious to be able to form a clear opinion on the subject of the old abandoned mine, and said to himself that the master-founder, a man born in those mountains, must know every stone in them. Morfain had always had an idea of his own on the subject, and, though nobody would listen to him, he often spoke about it. He thought that old Laroche, the engineer, should not have given up immediately and have ceased to work the mine as soon as he found it becoming unremunerative. No doubt the vein had become execrable, so full of sulphur and of phosphate that it was no good whatever for smelting purposes. But Morfain was convinced that they were only working a bad vein, and that if they pushed their galleries a little farther — or, better still, were to open new ones on one side of the gorge in a place he could point out — they would be able to find just as good ore as they had found formerly. And he supported his opinion by his own observation, and by his familiarity with all the rocks in that neighborhood which he had climbed and walked over for forty years. Of course he had no scientific knowledge; he was only a poor workman who could not venture to offer an opinion contrary to that of the gentlemen who were engineers. But all the same, he had been surprised to find they put so little confidence in his instinct, and shrugged their shoulders at him, without even trying to verify what he told them by a few attempts to examine whether what he said had any foundation.

The quiet conviction of this man had strongly impressed Luc, the more so because he was far from pleased with the inertia of old Laroche, and the way in which he had given up the mine after the chemical discovery which might have enabled him to make profitable use of the defective ore. This showed him into what a drowsy routine the work of the upper furnace had fallen. Now he was resolved to urge the reopening of the mine, even if he had to treat its products by the chemical process lately discovered to utilize defective ores. And then, if what Morfain felt so sure of could be realized, if they came upon rich new veins that were of pure ore!... So he accepted the proposal of the master-founder to go at once and walk round the abandoned galleries and let him explain his ideas upon the spot. On this fresh, clear morning in September it would be a delightful walk among the rocks, in that wild solitude, all perfumed with lavender. For three hours along the sides of the gorge the two men climbed. They went into grottos, followed ridges covered with pine-trees, where rocks were sticking out of the soil, like the bones of some great skeleton buried beneath. And by degrees Morfain’s conviction became that of Luc. He began to feel at least a hope that he had come upon a treasure that other men’s want of enterprise had overlooked, which the earth — that inexhaustible mother — was ready to bestow upon her children.

It was past noon. Luc accepted a breakfast of milk and eggs up in the Monts Bleuses; and when he came down, about two o’clock, delighted with what he had seen, his lungs filled with the pure air of the mountains, he was received with greetings from the Jordan family, who had been anxiously wondering what had become of him. He apologized for not having forewarned them. He said that he had been wandering about upon the mountains and had breakfasted with some peasants. He permitted himself to be guilty of this little deception because some strangers were at table with the family. Every other Tuesday of the month the Jordans always had three guests — the Abbé Merle, Dr. Novarre, and Hermeline, the schoolmaster; Sœurette liked to see these men around her; she used laughingly to call them her privy council, because all three helped her in her works of charity. La Crêcherie, so shut into itself, where Jordan lived the life of a learned recluse, as much as if he had been in a cloister, was always open to these three men, who were treated as intimate friends, and it might have been said that they owed this favor to their good understanding with one another, though all three were continually engaged in arguments and discussions; but their discussions only amused Sœurette and made them dearer to her, for she could see that they interested Jordan, who listened to them with quiet amusement.

“Then you have had breakfast?” she said to Luc. “But that is no reason why you should not take a cup of coffee with us — is it?”

“All right as to the cup of coffee,” he answered, gayly. “You are too kind. I deserve nothing but the most bitter reproaches.”

With that they went into the salon. Its windows were open; the park displayed its velvet lawns; all the charm of the great trees seemed concentrated in a delicious odor. In a porcelain vase, on a little table, was a beautiful bouquet of roses, roses that Dr. Novarre took the greatest delight in cultivating, and a bunch of which he brought to Sœurette every time he breakfasted at La Crêcherie.

While coffee was being served, an argument was resumed between the priest and the school-master.

“If you get nothing out of your pupils,” said the Abbé Merle, “it is because you have banished God from your school-room. God is the master of intelligence. We can know nothing but through him.”

Very tall, very stout, with his aquiline nose and large, broad face, and with regular features, he spoke with the absolute authority of his narrow views, for he put the whole salvation of the world in its acceptance of Catholicism, to be practised according to the letter, and in strict conformity with ecclesiastical rules. And opposite to him Bat Hermeline, the schoolmaster, with a sharp, thin face, a bony forehead, and a pointed chin, just as opinionated as his opponent, just as authoritative, and just as much a formalist; his religion was the religion of progress and of invention, to be carried on by military means, by shells and rifles.