Complete Works of Emile Zola (1660 page)

“What have you got to say about it? — what have you got to say about it, my good Morfain?” repeated Jordan, who was triumphing.

The old master-founder gazed earnestly at what was before him. He spoke not a word; he made no gesture. It was growing dusk; the shed was becoming dark, and the operation of the battery was remarkable for its mechanical regularity. The ten furnaces, cold and dark, seemed to be asleep, while the little carts of ore, moved by the endless screw, were emptying themselves one by one. Then every five minutes the platinum doors were opened: the ten white jets from ten smeltings dispelled the darkness, and the ten pigs of iron, blossoming like blue-bottles amid spikes of gold, were carried away upon the rolling platform with a slow motion. To any one who stood watching it the spectacle was extraordinary when the shed was lighted up at regular intervals by these sudden brilliant illuminations.

Petit-Da, who till then had remained silent, now wanted to make some explanations. He pointed to the great cable which conducted the electric current and descended from the rafters.

“See, father, the electricity is brought by that, and it has such power that if its strands were broken everything would be blown up as if by a stroke of lightning.”

Luc, seeing Morfain so calm and quiet, grew less anxious, and began to laugh.

“Don’t say that,” he said; “you will frighten people. Nothing would be blown up; the imprudent person who meddled with the wires would be the only one hurt; and, besides, the cable is very strong.”

“
Ah! yes — so it is,” said Petit-Da; “it would take a tremendous grip to break it.”

Morfain, who had said nothing, had quietly drawn near, and now he had only to lift his arms above his head to grasp the cable. He stood motionless for a few moments, but on his dried-up face nothing could be read. Suddenly such a flame seemed to shoot from his eyes that Luc again grew anxious, dreading some catastrophe.

“You think it would need a strong grip?” said Morfain, breaking silence. “Let’s see about that, my boy.” And before there was time for any one to stop him he had seized the cable in both hands — those hands long hardened by fire and like iron pincers. He twisted it, and broke it by one superhuman effort, just as an angry giant would break the string of a child’s toy. Then came a flash of lightning; the wires had been touched; a dazzling flash of light shot into the darkness. Then all the shed was plunged again into darkness. All that was heard, for nothing could be seen, was the heavy fall of some large body. The grand old man, thunderstricken, had fallen prone like some great tree.

It was necessary to rim for lanterns. Jordan and Luc, who had been thrown down by the shock, could hardly believe the old man was dead. Petit-Da sobbed and screamed. The old master-founder, stretched at full length on his back, seemed scarcely to have suffered, so hardened had he been by flames that fire could hardly injure him. His clothes were burning, and had to be extinguished. No doubt he had been unwilling to survive the monster he had loved — that antique blast-furnace whose last adherent he was. With him ended the first great struggle of progress — man subduing fire, conquering metals, bending under the slavery of a toil too hard for him, but exulting in having nobly borne the burden which had weighed so heavily on mankind in its march towards future happiness. He had even declined to know anything about the new ways of progress, which, thanks to the victory of a just reward of labor, brought to every one a little rest, a little joy, a little enjoyment, such as formerly belonged only to the privileged classes, thanks to the unrighteous suffering of those beneath them. Morfain perished like a fierce, obstinate hero of the old, terrible system of labor, a Vulcan chained to his forge, the blind foe of all who would have set him free, glorying in his servitude, believing that when suffering and human toil were lessened it was a proof that the world was going wrong. The new power of the new age, the thunder and lightning whose potency he had denied and derided, had destroyed him. And he slept.

A few years later three more marriages took place which tended still more to cement classes and draw closer the ties of fraternity and peace among the people. The eldest son of Luc and Josine, Hilaire Froment, a stout fellow twenty-six years of age, married Colette, the daughter of Nanet and Nise. Thus the blood of the Delaveaus mingled with that of the Froments and of that Josine who had been picked up in the streets by Luc, so wretched, so hungry, and so miserable, at the gates of the Pit, now long passed away. Then another Froment, Thérèse, Luc’s third child, tall, handsome, and happy, married when she was seventeen Raymond, who was two years older than herself, the son of Petit-Da and Honorine Caffiaux; and this time the descendants of Luc became allied to those of Morfain, the hero of the old system of labor, and to those of Caffiaux, whose former trade Luc and La Crêcherie had destroyed. Then Léonie, at twenty, the daughter of Achille Gourier and Ma Bleue, married a son of Bonnaire, the same age as herself; he was Severin, Lucien’s younger brother. Thus the expiring
bourgeoisie
became allied with the class of working-people, the class of rough toilers who had accepted their place in life with resignation in past ages, while other revolutionary workers were planning how to deliver them.

Great
fêtes
took place on the occasion of these marriages. The descendants of Luc and Josine were about to increase and multiply, and aid to populate the city founded by Luc for the sake of Josine, and of all people who, like her, could be saved from blighting poverty. Thus the stream of love and life grew ever longer; harvests and population increased; more and more men grew up to promote truth and righteousness. Victorious Love, ever gay and ever young, made his way into families, and paired off young couples throughout the city, promoting harmony and happiness everywhere; and every marriage made an increase in the city, because in the green gardens rose another little house. The number of white houses went on ever increasing, until at last the city invaded and swept away old Beauclair, its old unsanitary quarter and its filthy abodes where labor had been slowly perishing for ages. This was pulled down, but it had before that been made more healthy. It was replaced by wide streets, planted with trees, and on each side rose pleasant houses. Then the
bourgeois
quarter felt itself in danger. New streets enabled old buildings to be turned to new uses. The subprefecture, the court - house, and the prison were demolished, but the old church still stood, crumbling slowly to pieces, in the middle of a little open space neglected and deserted and overgrown with nettles and bushes. Old family mansions and houses of pretension gave place everywhere to more fraternal and healthful buildings, that stood in the great garden which all the town was becoming; and all had abundance of light and of pure water. So the new city was founded — a large and glorious city, the sunny avenues of which stretched out farther and farther, until at last they spread between the nearest fields of the fertile plain of Roumagne.

TEN more years passed, and love which had paired young men and girls, love the conqueror, love that fecundates the human race, gave birth to many children who were growing up in happy households, and giving promise of more love and happiness in the future. In each new generation it seemed likely that more truth, righteousness, and peace would expand and reign in the world.

Luc, who was now sixty-five years of age, became, as he grew older, more and more attached to children; his love for them seemed a passion. Now that he had satisfied his aspirations as the builder of a city, the creator of a people, now that he saw the city such as he had conceived it, founded and flourishing, his first thought was of the generation growing up to live in it. He looked after the smallest children; he gave them his time, feeling that the future lay with them. They, and the children of their children, and still more the future children of their children, he trusted would some day form a people wise and good, which might accomplish all that he had dreamed of truth and justice. It is not possible to regenerate grown men who have been brought up in habits and beliefs to which they have been enslaved by heredity. It is only children who can be acted upon, by freeing them from false ideas and assisting them to grow up and to progress according to the natural evolution of the instincts they were born with. And Luc felt that each successive generation ought to make one step at least in advance, thus creating a certainty of progress on its march towards peace and happiness. So he was in the habit of saying with a laugh that children were to be the conquerors, the strongest and most victorious of his little community on the march.

In his long morning inspections, which twice a week he continued to make of his work, the best part of his time and his heart were given to the schools, and even to the
crèches,
where the babies were cared for. He generally began with them before going to the workshops and stores. He enjoyed seeing his laughing, healthy flock of little ones, merry and awake since the rising of the sun. As he changed the days of his inspection and encouragement every week, he came when he was not expected. He would drop in delighted at the surprise he created among these noisy little people, who all adored him and looked upon him as their kind and merry grandpapa.

On one Tuesday morning he was going to pay his visit to his “dear children,” as he always called them, and was walking towards the school at about eight o’clock. It was a glorious spring morning. The sunshine fell like a golden flood on the green grass, and he was slowly passing down one of the avenues when he stopped, for he heard a voice he loved calling him as he passed the house where the Boisgelins lived. The call was from Suzanne. She had seen him pass, and had come out to the garden gate.

“Oh! I beg you, my dear friend, to come in a moment. That poor man has another attack, and I am very uneasy.”

She was speaking of Boisgelin, her husband. For a little while he had tried to work, because he had got tired of doing nothing, of being a drone in this busy hive which hummed with the labor and activity of all the others. His idleness became at last too much for him. Hunting and riding on horseback did not completely fill his time. So Luc, at Suzanne’s suggestion, in hope of aiding his conversion, had given him a minor position as inspector in the general stores. But a man who has never made any use of his hands, and has been lazy from his birth, has no power of will, and cannot conform to rules of method and order. Boisgelin soon found himself incapable of any regular occupation. His brain seemed useless; his limbs ceased to obey him; he was inert and somnolent, and he succumbed after frightful suffering, in which he realized his utter impotence. He suffered too much, and gradually fell back into the void of his old existence, into his days of laziness; time passed without effecting any good. But having no longer the excitement of luxury and pleasure, he was the victim of
ennui
— a terrible feeling which grew worse and worse, and from which he saw nothing to deliver him. He was growing old now, and was stupefied, bewildered by things he had never foreseen, extraordinary events that were passing around him, and he felt as if he had fallen from another sphere.

“Are his attacks violent?” asked Luc of Suzanne.

“Oh no,” said she; “he is merely very melancholy and very suspicious, and my uneasiness is due to the fact that his folly is again getting possession of him.”

Boisgelin’s mind, indeed, seemed to be clouded in consequence of the idle life that he was leading in this city of activity and labor. From morning to night he might be seen, like a phantom of idleness, wandering about the busy streets, through the noisy schools, and through resounding workshops, obliged at every step to be on his guard against being trodden underfoot or carried away. He was the only human being at La Crêcherie who did nothing; all the others were busy, active, full of health and joy. He had not become acclimated, but had gone astray in this new world, and it gradually became his delusion, as he found himself the only man who was not working among this crowd of workers, that he was the master and king, and that all around him were slaves, working solely for his profit and amassing enormous wealth, of which he was disposing as he pleased for his own enjoyment. When the old social system broke up, he still clung to the idea of capital. He fancied himself a capitalist who was supreme above all other capitalists on earth, and he looked upon all men as his slaves, who were to work for his selfish happiness.

Luc found Boisgelin standing outside of his house, dressed with the extreme care that he still continued to take of his person. At the age of seventy he was a self-satisfied old fop, with his air of vanity, his well-shaven face, and his single eye-glass. But his vacillating expression and weak mouth showed the decay of his mind. A cane was in his hand, and a tall hat was set lightly on his head a little over his ear; this equipment showed that he was thinking of going out.

“What! Are you up already? And going for a walk?” said Luc, who assumed an air of cordiality and good humor.

“I
must
go, my dear sir,” replied Boisgelin, after a pause, in which he seemed to be suspiciously examining the speaker. “Every one seems to be cheating me. How can I remain tranquil with the millions a day that my money is bringing me and that these laborers are making for me? I want to look into the matter. I want to see how things are going on, and to make sure that hundreds of thousands of francs come safely into my purse.”

Suzanne and Luc exchanged a gesture of despair. Then she spoke:

“I have been advising him not to go out to-day. What is the use of making all this fuss?”

But her husband silenced her.

“It is not merely the loss of the money made to-day,” he said, “that troubles me; it is the disposition of all the money that has been amassed, the billions that a fresh million every day makes larger and larger. I am getting so that I hardly know myself. I don’t see how I am to live, in view of this enormous fortune. I must invest it somewhere — don’t you think so? Meantime I must watch over it, and see that I may be robbed of as little of it as possible. Oh! that involves work of which you have no idea, and is making me wretched — yes, it is worrying me to death. I am more wretched than the poor who have no bread and no fuel.”