Complete Works of Emile Zola (1663 page)

“This is all as it should be,” said Luc, when he had talked over the day’s work with Josine, Suzanne, and Sœurette. “Go on as you are doing, my dear friends, and let your own hearts regulate the rest.”

The three who stood beside him seemed like an emanation from the loving unity, the universal love that he wished to see diffused among his people. They took one another by the hand; they smiled upon him. Though they had now grown old, they were still beautiful with their soft white hair, beautiful with the beauty of kindliness and tender love.

The works, the halls, and shops had been enlarged, and all toil proceeded in healthful gayety induced by fresh air and sunshine. In all directions flowed streams of fresh water, cleansing the pavements and carrying away all dust, so that the scene of labor, once so black, so filthy, and so muddy, shone with cleanliness in all directions. Any one who entered these places found himself in a little town of order, joy, and riches. Machines were doing nearly all the labor. They were operated by electricity, and looked superb as they stood arranged in order, like an army of obedient workers, never tired, but always ready for fresh trials of strength. If their metal arms finally wore out they could be replaced. They felt no suffering, and had in part put an end to the suffering of human beings. These machines were something to be loved, not like the original machines, which increased competition and aggravated the poverty of the wage-earner by lowering prices, but machines that set men free, tools of the universe, working for man while he could take his rest. Around these sturdy workers there were employed only superintendents and those who ran them, and whose sole duty was to manœuvre starting-levers and to see to the proper working of the mechanism. The working-day was four hours, and no laborer worked at one thing more than two hours, when he was replaced by another workman, who handed over his task to another, he himself passing to other work — industrial, intellectual, or in some public function. As the general use of electric power did away with the great noise that formerly pervaded the halls, work now went on joyously to the sound of singing. The laborers had learned to sing in school, and now outbursts of harmony lightened their every - day existence. These men singing beside their great machines working so gently and quietly in silence and in the brightness of their copper and steel, showed what could be the joy of righteous labor, glorious labor, saving labor such as it had now become.

Luc, who had entered the puddling-furnace hall, stopped a moment to exchange a few friendly words with a tall lad about twenty, who sufficed to operate four furnaces.

“Well, Adolphe, are things going on all right? Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, indeed, Monsieur Luc. I have finished my two hours’ work, and here is the ball ready to be taken from the furnace.”

Adolphe was the son of Auguste Laboque and Marthe Bourron. But, unlike his maternal grandfather, who had now retired on a pension, he had nothing to do with the terrible task of rabbling in heat and flame the metal in fusion by means of the paddle. The rabbling was now done mechanically; a very ingenious system even extracted the sparkling ball and loaded it upon a car which carried it to the shingling-hammer without necessitating the intervention of a workman.

Then said Adolphe, pleasantly:

“
I would like you to see it. Its quality is first rate, and then the work is all so simple and so pleasant.”

He depressed a lever; the door was freed and opened, and out came the ball like a blazing star lighting up the horizon with its fiery train. The young man stood smiling. His face was fresh and fair, without a drop of sweat; his limbs were supple and finely formed; he was a man whose physique never would be impaired by fatigue. The car had gone to discharge its burden under the shingling-hammer, which was of a recent pattern, operated by electricity, and did all that had to be done without making the forgeman who had charge of it break his arms by turning and returning the iron in all directions. Its stroke was so clear and easy that it produced a music that made an accompaniment to the good humor of the workmen.

“
I must hurry now,” said Adolphe, after washing his hands. “I have to finish the model for a table that I am very much interested in, and shall do two hours’ work in the carpenter’s shop.”

It was true he was both a puddler and a cabinet-maker, for he had learned several trades, as all the other boys had done, so that they might not be tied down to one narrow specialty. Work became a joy to them, a recreation, for it was always fresh and varied, passing from one thing to another every day.

“A pleasant time to you!” was Luc’s farewell to him, for he was joyous at the young fellow’s joy.

“Ah! yes, thank you, Monsieur Luc. That’s the right word. Good work gives pleasure!”

But where Luc passed his pleasantest time that day was in the crucible-furnace hall. How far away he there felt himself from the hell that he had once seen, the crucible furnaces at the Pit, the blazing trenches, muttering like so many volcanoes, whence the wretched workmen in a reverberation of fire had to lift with main strength masses of one hundred pounds of metal in fusion. Instead of those dark, filthy, and dusty halls, there was now a long gallery lighted by large windows and paved with great flags, between which opened batteries of symmetrical furnaces. The use of electricity left them cold, silent, and very clean. In this place, also, machines were doing all the work of lowering the crucibles, raising them while hot and blazing, emptying them into the moulds, under the simple superintendence of the workmen. Even women were there, appointed to distribute the electric power, because they had been found to be more careful and accurate in the manipulation of apparatus of precision.

Luc walked up to a tall, handsome girl of about twenty, Laure Fauchard, daughter of Louis Fauchard and Julienne Dacheux, who was standing beside an apparatus, and very attentively was sending the current to a furnace according to signs given to her by a young workman who was watching the fusion.

“Well, Laure,” asked Luc, “you are not tired, I hope.”

“Oh no, Monsieur Luc! it amuses me. How do you suppose that I could get tired turning this little handwheel?”

The young workman, who was Hippolyte Mitaine, now nearly twenty-three, had drawn near them. He was the son of Evariste Mitaine and Olympe Lenfant, and it was said that he was engaged to Laure Fauchard.

“Monsieur Luc,” he said, “if you would like to see us cast some ingots, we are ready now.”

And the machine, having been started, lifted the incandescent crucibles with quiet ease, and emptied them into the ingot moulds, which were brought up by mechanism one by one. In five minutes, while the work - people stood looking on, the operation had been properly performed, and the furnace was ready to receive a new charge.

“There now!” said Laure, with a hearty laugh; “I well remember all the dreadful stories that my poor grandfather Fauchard used to tell me when I was a little girl. He was a little off at that time, and was accustomed to tell things that made one shudder about the way he had to draw out such crucibles, and about how he had lived in a blaze all his life, his body and his limbs devoured by fire. All the old people think that we are very lucky now.” Luc had become grave, while his eyes became moist with emotion.

“Yes, yes,” said he, “your poor grandfathers lived through much suffering. And that has resulted in better things for their grandchildren. If you do your work well, and love one another much, things will be better still for your sons and daughters.”

Luc continued his inspection, and wherever he went, into the hall where steel was cast, or into that of the big forge, or into that of the large and small lathes, he found the same healthful cleanliness, the same gayety at work, the same singing, and the same easy, interesting labor, thanks to the diversity of tasks, the help of great machines and electricity. The workman, no longer a beast overladen with his burden, showed consciousness of his true place in life, and developed an intelligence at once untrammelled and glorious. And when Luc had ended his morning round by passing through the hall of the great rolling-mill, which was close to that of the puddling - furnaces, he stopped again to say a few kind words to a young fellow of about twenty-five — Alexandre Feuillat — who had just come in.

“Yes, Monsieur Luc,” said the lad, “I have come straight from Combettes, where I am helping my father. We had to finish some sowing. I spent two hours at that, and now I am going to work two hours here, for there is an order for rails that are wanted immediately.”

He was the son of Léon Feuillat and Eugénie Yvonnot. Being a fellow with an active imagination he amused himself, after he had worked his four regular hours, in making ornamental designs for the pottery shops of Lange.

But he set to work at once superintending a series of rolling-mills which were turning out rails. Luc, happy and kindly, watched him. Ever since electricity had been employed the horrible racket kept up by the rolling-mills had ceased. They now worked softly, as if well oiled, with no noise but that of a little silvery sound as each rail dropped upon the pile of others that lay cooling. The machines were incessantly producing what would tend to peace, would cross old frontiers, and make neighboring nations one great people, until the whole globe should be furrowed by their tracks. There were great steel ships — no longer abominable ships of war, carrying devastation and death, but ships of solidarity and fraternity, exchanging the products of continents, and increasing tenfold the wealth of mankind, and to such a point that abundance was now reigning everywhere. There were bridges also facilitating communications, and girders and the metallic frame-work needed for public buildings, such as communal houses, libraries, museums, asylums, immense cooperative storehouses, elevators, and granaries able to contain grain enough to feed all nations. Finally, there were innumerable machines, which in all places and for all purposes were taking the place of the arms of men, whether tillers of the soil or toilers in the workshop. Luc rejoiced at seeing all this iron used for pacific purposes. He looked on it as the conquering metal, long used to make swords and other weapons for men of blood, then in later years it had made cannon and shells, but now he was employing it to build houses for fraternity, justice, and happiness, peace in these last times having been attained.

Before he went home Luc thought he should like to glance at the battery that supplied the electric furnaces that had replaced the blast-furnace of Morfain. The battery was at work under a great shed with large glass windows lit up by the sun. The furnaces were filled every five minutes by means of machinery after the rolling platform had carried off ten pigs of iron, the brilliancy of which was lost in the brilliant rays of the sun. Two young girls were there, also, watching over the electric apparatus, both twenty, one very fair, Claudine, daughter of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle, the other dark and splendid - looking, Celine, whose parents were Arsène Lenfant and Eulalie Laboque. As they were busy transmitting and cutting off the current, they could only smile at Luc. But then there was a pause, and they came up to him just as he saw a little group of children standing in the doorway and looking curiously into the shed.

“Good - morning again, my little Maurice,” said he; “good-morning, little Ludovic; good-morning, my little Aline! So school is out, and you have come here to look on?”

Children were allowed during their play-hours to go all over the works, for it was thought they might thus gain some familiarity with the operations, while in school they were acquiring the rudiments of learning.

Luc, glad to have his grandson Maurice with him, told them all to come in. He answered their many questions, and explained to them how the furnaces worked, and even operated the battery in order to show them how Claudine or Celine could turn a little lever and fuse the metal and make it flow forth in a dazzling stream.

“Oh, I know! I have seen all that before,” said Maurice, with the importance of a little man who in nine years has seen more things than other people. “Grandfather Morfain one day showed me; but, tell me, Grandpa Froment, is it true that there were once furnaces as tall as the mountains, and that people had to scorch their faces day and night to get anything out of them?”

All began to laugh; but Claudine answered:

“That’s quite true. Grandpapa Bonnaire often told me about it, and you ought to know the story, little Maurice, for your great-grandfather, Morfain the Great, as they still call him, fought fire to the last like a hero. He lived up yonder in a hole among the rocks. He never came down into the city, from one year’s end to another, but watched his great furnace — a giant, a monster. You can still see its ruins on the side of the mountain, like those of some old donjon of past ages.”

Maurice, with his round eyes staring with astonishment, felt the passionate interest in what Claudine was telling him that some children do in a fairy tale.

“
Oh! I know — I know,” he said. “Grandfather Morfain has told me about his father and the blast-furnace as tall as a mountain; but I fancied he was making it all up to amuse us, for he often invents stories when he wishes to make us laugh. Then it is all true?”

“Yes, quite true,” said Claudine. “Up there there were workmen who filled up the furnace by emptying coal and ore into it from little carts, and down below there were other workmen who were all the time on the lookout and taking the greatest care that the monster should not have his stomach overloaded, and so have an indigestion which would have hindered him from doing his work properly.”

“Yes,” said Céline, the other young girl, “and, that went on for seven or eight years at a time. For seven or eight years the monster never had his fire put out, but was always flaming like the crater of a volcano, only sometimes they let his fire go down a little, for if he grew cool it was a great loss. They had to open his stomach while he was hot and clean his inside, and then almost build him over again.”

“Now, then,” said Claudine, “you understand, my little Maurice, that Morfain the Great, your great-grandfather, had a terrible time watching this fire for seven or eight years, to say nothing of his having also every five hours to open the tap-hole by means of a tapping-bar in order to run off the molten metal from the crucible in a genuine stream of fire that would have roasted you as a duck is roasted on a spit.”