Complete Works of Emile Zola (1670 page)

But Ragu, completely defeated, ceased from discussion, as though exhausted with fatigue and weary to the point of death.

“
Oh, let me alone; let me alone,” said he. “I am only a coward; a child should have had more courage, and I despise myself.”

Then, in a low voice, he added:

“I came to kill them both. Ah! the interminable journey, the roads and roads, the years of vague wanderings through unknown countries, with that single passion in my heart, that of returning to Beauclair to find again that man and that woman, and to plunge into each of them the knife of which I made so clumsy a use before! And see how you have beguiled me; see how I have just trembled before them, and drawn back like a coward on seeing them so beautiful, so splendid, and so radiant!”

Bonnaire shuddered at this confession. He had suspected this intended crime the evening before; but now, before the abasement of this miserable object, he felt himself seized with pity.

“
Come away, come away, poor fellow; come to my house to sleep this night again. To-morrow we will look about.”

“
Sleep again in your house? Oh no, no! I am going away. I am going away at once.”

“But you cannot set out at this hour; you are too tired, too feeble. Why will you not remain with us? You will come to be at peace, you will understand our happiness.”

“Oh no, no! I cannot. I must set out at once, at once. The potter well said that I was not fit for such a home as yours.”

And then, in the tone of a condemned soul in torment, with a deep, smothered rage, he said:

“I cannot look upon your happiness. I should suffer too much.”

Thenceforward Bonnaire insisted no further, being himself invaded by a secret uneasiness and horror. He took Ragu back to his house in silence, for the latter wanted to get his knapsack and his stick, without wishing to wait until the end of the meal. Not a word was exchanged, not a gesture of farewell. Bonnaire watched this man, old, miserable, and stricken, setting forth with a faltering step, and disappearing in the distance in the night which was gradually descending.

But Ragu was not able to flee from Beauclair in its festivities all at once. He slowly remounted the Brias gorge, and climbed painfully, step by step, among the rocks of the Monts Bleuses.

He now looked down upon the town, and as he turned took it all in at a glance. And he heard the laughter and the songs ascend; he was still taking part in that immense
fete
of this entire people assembled there like one single, fraternal family.

Then he wished to fly once more; he ascended still higher, and when he turned again it was to find the city even more resplendent. The laughter and songs by which the great human family celebrated the joy of labor on the fruitful earth reached him even more clearly. He set forth for the last time, and he walked long, long, until at length he was lost in the darkness.

CHAPTER V

MORE years rolled by, and inevitable death, the trusty worker of eternal life, completed its labors by carrying away one by one the persons who had accomplished their task. Bourron went first, and then his wife Babette, whose gay disposition showed itself up to her last breath. Then followed Petit-Da and Ma Bleue, she of the deep, celestial blue eyes. Lange died while finishing his last figure, that of a lovely girl with naked feet, in the likeness of Barefoot. Nanet and Nise went off in an embrace while still young. Finally, Bonnaire succumbed like a hero, and suddenly, as though a prey to the bustle of labor. He died one day when he had gone to the workshops to witness the operation of an immense hammer, each stroke of which forged one piece.

Of all their generation, of all the founders and creators in triumphal Beauclair, Luc and Jordan remained alone, beloved and surrounded by the affectionate cares of Josine, Sœurette, and Suzanne. The three women, of miraculous health and strength for their age, were their assistants and supporters at every hour. Luc was now gradually losing the use of his limbs, he walked with difficulty, and was confined almost entirely to an arm-chair. Ever since this had been the case Suzanne had come to live at his house, sharing with Josine the sad honor of waiting upon him. He was nearly eighty years old, but his cheerfulness was unvarying; his intelligence remained intact, and he would be, as he said, still young were it not for his cursed legs, which had become like lead. Sœurette, in her turn, did not leave her brother Jordan, who was still always employed in his laboratory, where he now slept, and whence he no longer emerged. He was Luc’s senior by ten years, but in spite of his age he had preserved the slow, methodical activity by which he accomplished his immense labors, unceasing even now at the close of his existence — labor so logical and so determined that he was still able to work, at nearly a hundred, although the other and most reliable workers of his generation had long since slept beneath the sod.

He had often said, in his feeble voice:

“Those who die do so because they wish to die; no one dies as long as he has something to do. I am not in good health, but I shall live to be very old, and shall die only upon the day when my work is finished. You will see, you will see! I shall know it very well, and I will warn you, my good friends, by saying to you: ‘Goodnight! my day is done; I am going to sleep.’”

Jordan therefore still labored, because he had not, according to himself, finished his work. He lived always wrapped up in his blankets; he drank warm water for fear of taking cold; he took long periods of repose, reclining on a couch, between the rare hours that he could give to his investigations.

In Jordan’s opinion his work would be completed only on the day when he should have given to the new city beneficent electricity, without measurement, to be used at will, like the water which pours in an inexhaustible flood from the river, or like the air which each person is free to breathe at discretion. For nearly sixty years he had been doing much towards reaching such a result, and by successive stages had solved the problems that appeared upon the way. At first he had exercised his ingenuity to reduce the expenses of carriage by burning coal under boilers as it came from the shaft, and by transmitting the power thus obtained to various works by cable, without much waste. Then he devised the apparatus, so long sought for, and succeeded in directly transforming the caloric energy contained in coal into electrical energy without passing through mechanical energy. Then the idea occurred to him that it was possible, and even certain, that coal-mines would eventually become exhausted.

Should coal fail in less than a century, would it not prove the death of the present world, the stoppage of all industries, the suppression of means of locomotion, and the stagnation of humanity? Each ton of this coal that he could not do without he saw burn with uneasiness, saying to himself that that was one ton less. Therefore he returned to work, and had already been laboring at this problem more than ten years.

But he was haunted by another idea, which gradually took entire possession of him and threw him into a profound dream that ended by being itself his complete work, through the thought that it would give happiness to the world if it were realized.

Jordan, who was so emaciated and so chilly, had always had a passion for the sun. He followed it on its course, and he looked at it each evening when it sank to rest with fear and horror of the advancing darkness; and in the morning he sometimes rose very early for the joy of seeing it return. The sun was the eternal source of life, because it was the source of light, heat, and motion. Why, therefore, should not the sun continue and complete his own work?

Jordan succeeded in solving the problem. The good and glorious sun allowed him to appropriate a little of his inexhaustible flame, with which he had been warming the earth for so many ages. After the final experiments works were erected and set in operation, which furnished Beauclair with electricity for a whole year, and as much as the inhabitants needed, just as the springs of the Monts Bleuses were furnishing them with water. But there was still one great trouble, and that was that the immense reservoirs wasted a great deal, and there was, therefore, a final improvement to be made by means of which sufficient solar rays might be perfectly stored up to light another sun above the city during the long nights of December.

Jordan set himself to work once more. He still sought and struggled, always resolved to live until his work should be complete. The day at length came. He had found a method of preventing any loss, and of rendering the reservoirs impermeable and capable of preserving the supply of electric power for a long time. This having been done, he had only one more wish, and that was to say good-bye to his work, to embrace his friends, and then to enter into universal life.

It was now October, and the sun was still imparting to the last leaves a bright, warm, golden hue. Jordan requested Sœurette to have him carried for the last time in an arm-chair to the works, where the new reservoirs had just been installed. He wished to verify there his triumphant work, that of collecting and preserving enough of the sun’s power to enable Beauclair to await the approaching spring. On a delightful afternoon he was taken to the works and passed two hours visiting everything and regulating the proper action of the apparatus. The works were constructed at the very foot of the slope of the Monts Bleuses, in that part of the, ancient park which was exposed to the full mid-day sun, and which its light had formerly made a paradise teeming with fruits and flowers. The vast structures were dominated by towers that were united by immense roofs of steel and glass, without any portion of the apparatus being visible outside, as all the cables and conductors of power passed underground. Then Jordan completed his visit by stopping for another moment in the central court, where he cast one last long look around him, on this new world, this source of eternal life, his creation, the passion of his entire existence. He turned towards Sœurette, who had not quitted him, but had followed, step by step, the arm-chair in which the two men transported him.

“Now, then,” said he, with a smile, “it is finished, and all is well. Now I can go. Let us return home, sister.”

He was very cheerful and radiant at having seen his work complete and in order, like a good workman who goes at last to seek repose. But as his sister, for the sake of exercise on this beautiful morning, had given the men orders to make a detour, he found himself all at once, on coming out of an avenue, before the cottage of Luc, who also was infirm by reason of his paralyzed lower limbs, which prevented his going out. The two friends had not been able to see each other for several months. They had been reduced to correspondence, and had news of each other only through their loving guardians, their good angels, who were always on the road from one to the other. One wish still, the last of his heart, arose in the dying man, out of the peaceful sleep that began to take possession of him.

“Oh! I beg of you, sister, let me stop under that tree at the border of those tall plants. Go up at once to Luc’s room, and tell him that I am passing by, and am here, before his door, expecting him.”

Sœurette, surprised and a little uneasy in regard to the great emotion of such an interview, hesitated a moment.

“But, my dear, Luc is like yourself; he does not move; how could he come down?”

Jordan once more smiled his kindly smile, by which his eyes were reanimated.

“He can be brought down, sister. Since I have come to him in my arm-chair, he can very well come to me in his.”

And he added, tenderly:

“It is very delightful here, and we will talk for the last time and will say our farewells. How can we part forever without having embraced each other?”

It was impossible for Sœurette to refuse further, and she went up to Luc’s room. Jordan awaited her tranquilly in the soft light of the setting sun. His sister soon reappeared and announced the coming of his friend. A profound emotion passed over Jordan when Luc appeared in his turn, also in an arm-chair carried by two men. He advanced slowly over the grass, followed by Josine and Suzanne, who never left him. Then the men deposited him near Jordan, with the arm-chairs touching each other, so that the two friends were able to clasp and press each other’s hands.

“Ah, my good Jordan, how I thank you! how good this is of you, this thought of our meeting once more and bidding each other farewell!”

“You should have come to my house, my good Luc. Since I was passing and you were here, it was so simple that we should meet again for the last time amid these plants, under one of our own dear trees, whose shade we have so much loved.”

The tree was a silver linden, a superb giant, already half stripped of its leaves. But the sun was still gilding it, and beams of light were streaming through its branches. The evening was exquisite, and a deep silence reigned. A great sunbeam flooded the two aged men with a soft light, while the three women, standing in the rear, seemed to be hovering over them with solicitude.

“Think then, my friend!” resumed Jordan, “we have spent our lives, during so many years, in labor side by side! We have ended by being to some degree part of each other! And I should be overwhelmed with remorse if I had not already forgiven myself for having believed so little in your work in the beginning, when you came to me, asking my aid to construct the future city of justice. I was convinced at that time of your failure.”

Luc began to laugh.

“Yes, yes, my friend; as you say, political, economical, and social struggles were not your affair. No doubt there had been many vain agitations among men. But what of that! Was it not necessary that facts should no longer be confused, and that evolution should be allowed to accomplish itself without hastening the hour of its deliverance? All the compromises that are sometimes necessary, all the base efforts made by leaders of men, have their excuse in the fact that they sometimes succeed in accomplishing double stages of progress.”

Jordan quickly interrupted him.

“You were right, my friend, and you have proved yourself so to me magnificently. Your efforts here have hastened and stimulated those of all the world. It may be that you have gained a hundred years upon poverty, upon human suffering, and this new town, this regenerated Beauclair of to-day, where the utmost justice and the utmost happiness now flourish, testifies to the worthiness of your mission and the beneficent kindness of your labor. You are witness that I am with you, with all my mind and all my heart, and I should not want to leave you without telling you how you have conquered me by your efforts and with what increasing affection I have followed you in all that you have just realized that is humane and great. You have often been an example to me.”