Complete Works of Emile Zola (1648 page)

Luc, in the mean time, was directing the final movements of the men, who were occupied in extinguishing the fire in the hall in which was located the steam-hammer, and which was still burning. Jordan, enveloped in wraps, insisted upon remaining, in spite of the great cold. Bonnaire, who had been one of the first to arrive, had distinguished himself by his courage in saving all that he could of the machinery and tools. Bourron and Fauchard, as well as all the old workmen from the Pit who had gone over to La Crêcherie, assisted him. They made every possible effort in the places that were so well known to them, and where they themselves had labored for so many years. But it seemed as though a malign destiny were taking the form of a hurricane, so that everything was carried off, swept away, and annihilated in spite of their efforts. Fire the avenger, fire the purifier, had just descended there like a thunderbolt, had swept the entire field, and cleared away the ruins with which the downfall of the old
régime
had obstructed it. Now the work was accomplished, the horizon was clear to an infinite distance, and it was possible for the city of justice and peace to allow the conquering tide to carry its houses up to the utmost extremity of the vast plain.

Lange, the potter and anarchist, was heard to say to the group in the midst of which he stood:

“No, no! I cannot claim the honor of doing it; it was not I who set it on fire; but no matter, for all that, it is a splendid work, and it is curious that the owners should have furthered it by roasting themselves.”

He was speaking of the fire, and the general horror was so profound that no one forced him to be silent. The crowd went over to the side of victory. The authorities of Beauclair felicitated Luc on his devotion, and the shopkeepers and burghers surrounded the workmen from La Crêcherie, and ended by openly allying themselves with the latter. Lange was in the right; a broken-down society, smitten with madness, in tragic periods throws itself upon a funeral pyre. The dark melancholy works at the Pit, where the wages system had met its death blow, after its last hours of dishonored and accursed labor, consisted now of nothing but a few crumbling walls, supporting the frames of roofs, above which the lofty chimneys and the tower for tempering guns stood upright, useless and forlorn, under the dull gray sky.

Towards eleven o’clock that morning, just as the sun had decided to appear, Monsieur Jérôme passed by in his wheeled chair, pushed by a servant. He was taking his usual airing, and had just passed along the road to Combettes, skirting the works and the growing town of La Crêcherie, by this time bright with sunlight, gay and joyous. He now saw the field of defeat spread out before him, and the Pit sacked and destroyed by the justifiable violence of the flames. He gazed for a long time with his vacant and light - colored eyes, as limpid as spring-water. He uttered not a word; he made not a motion; he simply stared and passed on; and there was nothing to indicate whether or not he had seen and understood.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

AT Guerdache the shock was terrible. This home of luxury and pleasure, the scene of continual
fêtes,
had been overtaken by ruin between one day and the next. A hunt must be countermanded, the large dinners given each Tuesday must be discontinued. The domestic force was to be dismissed in a body, and the sale of the carriages, horses, and kennels was already under discussion. The life and activity which the continual coming and going of visitors imparted to the gardens and the park had altogether ceased. All the apartments in the vast dwelling, the salons, the dining-room, the billiard - room, the smoking - room, were now nothing but deserts swept by the wind of misfortune. The place was like a dwelling struck by lightning, standing desolate amid the sudden solitude of calamity.

In the midst of this infinite sadness, Boisgelin dragged his melancholy presence up and down. Crushed and overwhelmed, with senses completely scattered, he passed the dreadful days, not knowing what to do with himself, and wandering to and fro like a soul in torment, amid the downfall of all his pleasures. He was only a poor creature at best, a man of clubs and horses, capable of nothing more than amiable mediocrity, whose fine presence, lofty and correct manner, and single eye-glass collapsed before the first tragic breath of truth and justice. Up to this time he had been occupied exclusively with pleasure, being convinced that this was his right. He had never done anything with his hands, and, believing as he did that he was a being set apart, chosen, privileged, and born only that he might be nourished and amused by the labor of others, how should he compreand the natural sequence of the catastrophe that had overwhelmed him? His devout belief in his own egoism had received a rude shock, and he remained stunned before the future of the uncertainties of which he was ignorant. In his bewilderment he had the terror of an idle man, a man accustomed to be supported, who is agitated by reason of the incapacity to earn his own livelihood, of which he is conscious. Since Delaveau was no longer there, from whom could he exact the returns that had been promised him at the time when his cousin had influenced him to put his capital in the excellent speculation of the Pit? The works were burned, the capital was sunk under its ruins, and so where could he find the means of livelihood for to-morrow? He stalked like a madman through the deserted gardens and the melancholy house without finding an answer.

At first, on the night that the tragedy occurred, Boisgelin was haunted by the terrible end of Delaveau and Fernande. He himself could entertain no doubts in regard to it, since he remembered in what a distracted manner the latter had left him, uttering threats against her husband. It must certainly have been in consequence of some dreadful scene that Delaveau had himself set fire to the house, in order that he and the woman who was guilty might perish together. This, for a man like Boisgelin, displayed a ferocity and a fury of monstrous passions, the fear of which persistently spoiled his enjoyment. What completed his discouragement was the knowledge that he had not the judgment nor the energy necessary to introduce a little order into an affair so complicated and so compromising. He revolved projects from morning till evening, without knowing which to adopt. Ought he to re-establish the works, to try to find money, a partner, an engineer, with the hope of continuing the business? The success of this scheme seemed almost impossible, for the losses were considerable. Or would he do better to find a purchaser, who would, at his own risk, make use of the land, machinery, and material saved? But he was very doubtful whether such a purchaser could be found, and ever more doubtful whether a price sufficiently large to clear the situation could be obtained from him. And even then there remained to be solved the problem of existence in the large domain of Guerdache, burdened with enormous expenses for its costly maintenance, where, at the end of a month, he would, perhaps, not have bread to eat.

There was but one person who had any pity on this wretched man, so shaken and forlorn, and that was his wife, Suzanne, that woman of heroic tenderness, whom he had so fearfully outraged. When Boisgelin first thrust upon her his
liaison
with Fernande, she had twenty times risen in the morning resolved upon making a scene in order to drive this mistress and interloper out of her house; but each time she had ended by remaining in her voluntary blindness, being sure that, if she drove away Fernande, her husband would follow her, so haunted and possessed was he. Then the abnormal situation regulated itself; she remained a lawful wife only in the eyes of the world, thus preserving appearances, and devoting herself entirely to the education of her son Paul, whom she wished to save from misfortune. Without this beautiful child, as fair and gentle as herself, she could never have become resigned. He was the real cause of her renunciation and of her sacrifice. She had, as it were, snatched away from the unworthy father a mind and heart that were her own, hers alone, where she could foster conscience and goodness and thus find her consolation. After this fashion the years had rolled away, in the quiet pleasure of seeing Paul develop in goodness and tenderness. She had assisted from a distance, so to speak, and without taking part in it, at the tragedy that had been enacted, at the slow ruin of the Pit in the face of the increasing prosperity of La Crêcherie, at the diseased craving for pleasure by which she was surrounded, and which in its madness had carried her own world into the abyss. A final insane transport had, at last, destroyed everything in one supreme blast of flame, and she also entertained no doubt that it was Delaveau who had deliberately lighted this colossal funeral pile, in order that he might be consumed together with the guilty woman who had corrupted and destroyed everything. She herself did not escape the shadow of this crime. She asked herself whether she had not in some small degree been concerned in it, by her weakness and resignation, in tolerating for so long a time the shame and treachery that were concealed in her house. If she had risen in revolt in the beginning, perhaps the crime would not have reached such lengths. This struggle of her own conscience ended by completely upsetting her and causing her to have compassion for the wretched man, whom she had seen, ever since the catastrophe, walking distractedly, in his terrible confusion, through the deserted garden and the empty house.

Then one morning as she crossed the large salon, in which they had given so many
fêtes,
she saw him sunk in an arm-chair, and weeping with deep sobs like a child. She was very much moved, and filled with profound pity. She who for so many years had not addressed a word to him except in the presence of strangers, approached him.

“It is not in despair,” said she to him, “that you will find the strength that you need.”

Surprised at seeing her and hearing her speak to him, he looked at her confusedly amid his tears.

“Yes,” she continued, “you may wander as much as you please, from morning till night, but courage must come from within yourself; you will not find it elsewhere.”

He made a movement of desolation, and answered, in a low voice:

“I am so lonely.”

He was not a bad man, only foolish and weak; one of those cowardly natures which are tyrannical by reason of egoistical enjoyment. He was sorrowing over the loneliness, grieving that his wife had left him in trouble, with an air so despondent that she was very much touched.

“You mean to say that you do not wish to be alone.

Why, then, have you not come to me since these dreadful troubles began?”

“Great Heavens!” stammered he; “do you forgive me?”

He seized the hands that she surrendered to him; and in his complete self-abandonment acknowledged his sin in a frenzied desire for repentance. He confessed nothing but what she already knew — his prolonged deceit and treachery, his destruction of their domestic happiness, and his mad passion for that woman who had been his ruin; but he brought such an outburst of frankness to his self-accusation that she was touched by it, as though it were a new, complete avowal, the humiliation of which he might have avoided. He ended by saying:

“It is true, I have insulted you this long time, and have acted abominably. Why did you not leave me — why did you do nothing to tempt me to return?”

This touched then the tender spot in her conscience, the sad remorse that she felt at having, perhaps, failed in her duty by not arresting his downfall. And the reconciliation, begun in pity, was completed through this feeling of kindly indulgence. Have not the purest and most heroic spirits often their share in the sin to which the bad and the weak around them yield?

“Yes,” said she, “I ought to have struggled more, but I wished to save my pride and to assure my own peace. We must both forget; the entire past must be buried.”

Then, as their son Paul passed in the garden under the windows, she called him. He was now a tall boy of eighteen years, quick and intelligent, whom she had formed in her own likeness, with a tender heart and a strong conscience, entirely free from all class prejudices, and ready to work with his own hands whenever circumstances should require it. He was passionately fond of the soil. He spent entire days at the farm, interesting himself in all matters of its cultivation, in the seed that was sown and the harvests that sprang from it. When his mother called him to come to her for a minute he was about going to Feuillat’s house to see a new style of plough.

“
Come, my child,” said she, “your father is in distress, and I want you to embrace him.”

There had been a rupture between father and son as well as between husband and wife. The boy, taken possession of entirely by his mother, had grown up to show only a formal respect for the man whom he felt to be evil in nature and a torment to others. So, startled and moved, Paul looked for some seconds at his parents, who were so pale and so overcome with emotion. He understood, and after he had embraced his father very affectionately he threw himself upon his mother’s neck in order to embrace her also with all his heart. The family were reunited, and there was a moment of happiness, when it seemed possible to believe that henceforward the good understanding would be perfect.

When Suzanne, in her turn, had embraced him, Boisgelin was forced to restrain a new outburst of tears.

“It is well, it is well; we are all united. Ah! my dears, this gives me courage. We are in so terrible a situation! It is necessary that we should understand one another and make some decision.”

They all three sat down and talked for a little while, for speech was a necessity to Boisgelin after his solitary distracted wanderings in his agony of weakness. He thought it his duty to remind Suzanne how they had purchased the Pit for a million francs and Guerdache for five hundred thousand, using, in order to do this, the million of her dowry and the million saved from the ruin of his own fortune. The five hundred thousand francs which remained of the two millions, left in Delaveau’s hands, had served as a fund for the running expenses of the works. All their capital, therefore, had been disposed of thus, and the worst part of it was that, during their recent embarrassments, it had been necessary to borrow six hundred thousand francs, a debt that heavily burdened the enterprise. The works could make no more money, now that they had been burned, and it would be necessary to pay the six hundred thousand francs before attempting to raise them from the ashes.