Complete Works of Emile Zola (1665 page)

At this moment a figure stopped before the window of the salon; it was Suzanne, who was very uneasy. She was looking for Luc, to tell him of her anxiety; and, when she found that he was there, she explained to him how frightened she was to find that Boisgelin had not come home. He never had been so late. He never stayed out after nightfall.

“You were right,” she said, “and I was wrong to let him, in the state he was, go unwatched and unguarded. Ah! the unfortunate man! the aged child!”

Luc, infected by her fear, begged her to go home.

“He might come in at any moment,” said he, “and it is best that you should be there. I will search for him everywhere, and bring you tidings.”

He at once took two men with him, and crossed the park with the idea of beginning his search in the neighborhood of the works; but he had gone scarcely a hundred yards, and was near the edge of a small lake, under some willows, a veritable corner of paradise, when a slight cry of terror from a neighboring clump of foliage caused him suddenly to stop. From amid the foliage came two lovers in a state of fright and excitement, in one of them Luc thought that he recognized his son Jules, and, in the other, Claudine Bonnaire.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he called out to them.

They did not answer, but flew by him lightly, as if wafted by a gust of terror. They were like two little birds whose happy love-making has been interrupted by something that has startled them. Then he decided at once to see for himself, and when he entered the coppice by a narrow path among the trees, he, too, uttered a cry of terror. He had come near striking against a body hanging from a branch and barring the path with its black form. By the little light still lingering in the sky he recognized Boisgelin.

“Ah! the unfortunate man! the aged child!” he murmured, repeating Suzanne’s words. He was overwhelmed at the thought of this tragic event, which would be so painful to her.

Aided by the two men, he quickly cut the body down and laid it on the ground. But it was cold. The suicide must have taken place early in the afternoon, shortly after the unhappy man had been seen walking round the workshops. And Luc thought he understood it, when at the foot of the tree he saw a deep hole that Boisgelin must have attempted to dig with his hands and nails in order to bury in it the immense wealth which so many men as he had seen at work were accumulating for him, and which he did not know how to invest nor how to dispose of.  At last, no doubt despairing of making the hole large enough, and fearing that it would not contain the vast amount of his imaginary treasure, he had made up his mind to die upon the spot, weighed down by the difficulty of disposing of his millions of capital, every day accumulating. He had wandered around the workshops for a whole day, till he felt that he could no longer exist in this city of honest labor, and this had brought about his tragic end, when in the warm, soft night the park had been filled with lovers’ vows and innocent caresses.

To avoid alarming the happy pairs who were dimly seen flitting through the trees, Luc sent his two men to bring a stretcher from La Crêcherie, and begged them to tell no one of the mournful discovery. Then, after they had come back and laid the body under the little curtains of gray canvas, the sad cortège began its march through the darkest paths, hoping to escape observation. Thus silently the dead man was borne home in the darkness, on a delightful night in spring when everything was quivering with new life.

Suzanne was standing at her front door, anxiously trying to see into the darkness. When she perceived the stretcher she understood, and uttered a stifled cry. And when Luc in a few words told her the sad end of the poor, useless creature who lay there asleep, she could only repeat again, as she thought of the empty, corrupted, and corrupting existence from which she had suffered so much:

“Ah! the unfortunate man! the aged child!”

. Other catastrophes took place in the crumbling of the old rotten society doomed to destruction. During the following month the most startling event was the falling in of the roof of the old Church of Saint Vincent one sunny morning while Abbé Marie was at the altar celebrating mass, with no other congregation than the sparrows that were flying about in the deserted nave.

The priest had long foreseen that the roof of his church would some day fall upon his head. It had been built in the sixteenth century, and had once been very beautiful, but was now much injured and was everywhere cracked and out of repair. The steeple had been repaired forty years before, but for want of the necessary funds the restoration of the roof had been postponed, though its timbers, half rotted, were even then insecure. Ever since then Abbé Marie had asked in vain for funds. The state, groaning under a load of debt, took no interest in a church that was in an out-of-the-way part of the country. The town of Beauclair refused any contribution, for Mayor Gourier had been no friend to priests. So that the abbé, reduced to rely upon himself, had set to work personally to try to procure the large sum, more needed than ever, as all might see, from day to day, if he did not wish to see the house of God fall on his head. But in vain he applied to his rich parishioners. So long as the mayor’s wife lived —
la belle Leonore,
whose devotion to the church made up to him for the atheism of her husband — he had found valuable support in her. Afterwards Madame Mazelle was his only hope, but her fervor was growing cold, and she was not naturally generous. Later on, after financial troubles had come upon her, she visited Saint Vincent’s less frequently, and the abbé finally lost in her his last rich parishioner, and all that were left him were some poor women. His church grew more and more empty, and he officiated in solitude.

Then Abbé Marie felt that the world was coming to an end, and that everything was perishing around him. All his efforts had not been able to save the lying, corrupting
bourgeoisie,
eaten up with greed and iniquity. In vain he covered his sufferings with the cloak of religion. In vain he tried to take refuge in strict dogma, and would give in to none of the new theories of science, whose first assault against Catholicism the Church had already sustained. Science went on making breaches in the secular edifice of the Church; dogma was at last attacked and overthrown, and the Kingdom of Heaven to be set up on the earth was to be triumphant in the name of justice. It aimed to establish a new religion, the religion of humanity, a religion of knowledge, a religion freed from ancient symbolism and old mythology. Like the ancient temples of idolatry, the Catholic religion, men said, would disappear in its turn when all people should find happiness in solidarity, and should need to be governed by no system of penances or rewards. And the priest, now that his church was empty of worshippers, heard every day when he said mass the cracks in the church walls growing larger and the beams giving way more and more. It was the constant, slow work of steady disintegration, of impending destruction, and the little noises he heard were the precursors of ruin. He had not succeeded in raising enough money to hire masons for the most urgent repairs of the roof;
he
had to let the slow work of destruction go on and come to its inevitable end like other things in this world. Meantime he waited calmly, continuing daily to say mass, a hero of the faith, left alone with his God, and like Him deserted by men, while the roof of the church cracked more and more over the high altar.

That morning Abbé Marie had remarked an immense new opening in the ceiling of the nave, which had taken place during the night. He felt sure that the fall of the roof could not be far off, but he went on celebrating his last mass, clad in his richest sacerdotal vestments. Tall and strong, with an aquiline nose, he stood up straight and firm in the chancel, notwithstanding his great age. He dismissed his acolytes, and walked up and down, making the prescribed gestures as if a congregation were before him attentive to his words. And yet the church was now deserted, and only broken chairs were to be seen on the floor of the aisles, looking like seats in some desolate garden, black with mildew, forgotten all winter, and left out in the rain. Grass was growing at the foot of the pillars, which had become moss-grown. The wind blew in through broken windows, and the great door itself, which now could not be firmly closed, let creatures from the outside enter the sacred edifice. But on this beautiful day the sun was entering as a conqueror, symbolizing the triumphal invasion of a new life which was to take possession of this sad ruin. Over the altar was a great painted and gilded wooden crucifix. It stood there with the pale form hanging on the cross, with stains of black blood that had fallen drop by drop.

As Abbé Marie was reading the gospel he heard a loud crack. Dust, stones, and other fragments fell upon the altar. Then, when he reached the offertory, the noise began again, with a tearing, rending sound. There was a little shock as if the whole building were trembling for a moment before falling. Then the priest, with final energy, raised the Host, and with his whole soul prayed God to work a miracle. He had confidently expected this collapse for some days. If God willed, the church could recover the beauty of past ages, and its strong pillars would hold up the nave uninjured. Masons would not be needed; the divine word of power would be all that was wanted; the chancel would be magnificently restored with gilded chapels. It would have windows of purple glass, with wonderful woodwork and shining marble, while faithful worshippers upon their knees would sing the canticle of resurrection among thousands of tapers and to resounding peals of bells.

“O God of all power and eternity, be pleased to rebuild and re-establish Thine own house; Thou alone canst build it up and fill it again with those who worship Thee. Hear me, O Lord, lest others should think Thou Thyself art crushed under its ruins.”

And as he raised the chalice, it was not the miracle he had asked for that was sent, but his own martyrdom. He stood erect, both arms raised above his head, in an attitude of firm belief and of heroic constancy, seeming to implore his Divine Master to perish with him if the end of his church had come.

The roof cracked open with a sound like thunder.  The steeple shook, and then fell, laying the nave open to the sky, and pulling down with it the disjointed walls. Nothing remained under the bright sun but an enormous pile of stones and debris, beneath which they never found the mangled body of Abbé Marie, who seemed to have been crushed to dust under the ruins of the altar. Nor did they ever find any fragments of the great painted and gilded wooden crucifix, which also had been ground to powder. A religion had been killed along with the last priest, celebrating his last mass in the last church.

For a short time old Hermeline the school - master roamed around the ruins, talking aloud to himself, as very old people are apt to do when a fixed idea is haunting them. His words were not distinct, but he seemed to be holding an argument with the abbé, and reproaching him for not having obtained from the God in whom he believed a miracle that would have prevented this catastrophe. Then one morning they found him dead in his bed. And later, after they had cleared away the ruins of the old church, a garden was planted on the spot, with beautiful trees and umbrageous walks and intersecting fragrant lawns. Lovers came there on pleasant evenings, as they did to the park of La Crêcherie. The happy city kept growing larger; the children grew up, and made new pairs of lovers who, in their turn, gave birth to another generation. Sweet roses seemed to grow for them on all the bushes.

CHAPTER IV

DURING the next ten years the city was finally established, and the new social conditions of justice and peace were organized. In the tenth year, on the 20th of June, on the evening of one of the great labor holidays, which occurred four times a year, at each of the four seasons, Bonnaire had an adventure.

Bonnaire, who would soon be eighty-five years old, was the patriarch and the hero of labor. He was still tall, erect, and strong, very healthy, very active, and very merry, with his long hair like the white mane of some old lion in repose. The ancient revolutionist, the theoretical collectivist, now pacified by the realization of his comrades’ happiness, lived only to enjoy the recompense of his long efforts, that conquest of established harmony in which he saw his grandchildren and great-grandchildren happily brought up. He was one of the last workmen survivors of the great struggle, one of the strivers for that reorganization of labor that should lead to a just division of wealth, and thus restore to the laborer his nobility and his free personality as an intelligent and happy man. He was now full of years and glory, proud of having contributed by his numerous descendants to the fusion of antagonistic classes, useful still in the evening of his existence by reason of the beauty of his character and his infinite patriarchal kindness.

This particular evening, at the decline of day, Bonnaire was taking a walk at the entrance of the Brias gorge. He often made long excursions thus on foot, aided only by a cane, for the pleasure of seeing the country once more and invoking old reminiscences. He had reached exactly the place where the gate of the Pit, now long disused, had formerly opened. There had been there, also, a wooden bridge, thrown across the Mionne, of which there was no longer a trace, for the torrent was now covered over for about a hundred yards in order to allow a wide boulevard to cross. Among such changes who would have recognized the dark and dirty threshold of the accursed factory in this avenue bordered by smiling houses which was so calm and so bright. As Bonnaire stopped a moment he was greatly surprised at seeing another old man reclining upon a bench, and who seemed overwhelmed with poverty, his clothes in rags, his face disfigured, his hair shaggy, and his emaciated body trembling with all the ills of fever.

“A pauper!” said Bonnaire, speaking aloud in his astonishment.

It was indeed a pauper, and it was now years since he had encountered one. But this particular specimen was evidently not from the neighborhood. To judge from his shoes and his clothes, which were white with dust, he must have fallen down with fatigue at the entrance to the town after days and days of being on the march. His stick and his empty knapsack, fallen from his nerveless hands, lay at his feet. As he lay exhausted and overcome, he looked about him with wandering eyes, like a lost man who no longer knows where he is.