Complete Works of Emile Zola (1684 page)

‘As for my children, monsieur,’ Savin was now saying, ‘my resources have not enabled me to send Achille and Philippe, my twin sons, to college; so, naturally enough, I have sent them to the secular school in accordance with my duty as a functionary and a Republican. In the same way my daughter Hortense goes to Mademoiselle Rouzaire’s; but, at bottom, I am well pleased to find that that lady has religious sentiments, and conducts her pupils to church — for, after all, such is her duty, and I should complain if she did not do so. Boys always pull through. And yet if I did not owe an account of my actions to my superiors, would it not have been more advantageous for my sons if I had sent them to a Church school? Later in life they would have been helped on, placed in good situations, supported, whereas now they will simply vegetate, as I myself have vegetated.’

His bitter rancour was overflowing; and, seized with a secret dread, he added in a lower tone: ‘The priests, you see, are the stronger, and in spite of everything one ought always to be with them.’

A feeling of compassion came over Marc; that poor, puny, trembling being, driven desperate by mediocrity of circumstances and foolishness of nature, seemed to him in sore need of pity. Foreseeing the conclusion of all his speeches the young man had already risen. ‘And so, monsieur,’ he said, ‘the information which I desired to obtain from your children—’

‘The children are not here,’ Savin answered; ‘a lady, a neighbour, has taken them for a walk. But, even if they were here, ought I to allow them to answer you? Judge for yourself. A functionary can in no case take sides. And I already have quite enough worries at my office without incurring any responsibility in this vile affair.’

Then, as Marc hastily bowed, he added: ‘Although the Jews prey on our land of France I have nothing to say against that Monsieur Simon, unless it be that a Jew ought never to be allowed to be a schoolmaster. I hope that Le
Petit Beaumontais
will start a campaign on that subject.... Liberty and justice for all — such ought to be the watchwords of a good Republican. But the country must be put first, the country alone must be considered, when it is in danger! Is that not so?’

Madame Savin, who since Marc’s entry into the room had not spoken a word, escorted the young man to the door of the flat, where, while still retaining an air of embarrassment amid her submissiveness — that of a slave-wife superior to her harsh master — she contented herself with smiling divinely. Then at the bottom of the stairs Marc encountered the children whom the neighbour was bringing home. Hortense, the girl, now nine years old, was already a pretty and coquettish little person, with artful eyes which gleamed with maliciousness when she did not veil them with the expression of hypocritical piety which she had learnt to acquire at Mademoiselle Rouzaire’s. But Marc was more interested in the twin boys, Achille and Philippe, two thin pale lads, sickly like their father, and very unruly and sly for their seven years. They pushed their sister against the banister, and almost made her fall; and when they had climbed the stairs, and the door of the fiat opened, an infant’s wail was heard, that of little Jules, who had awoke and was already in the arms of his mother, eager for her breast.

As Marc walked down the street, he caught himself talking aloud. So they were all agreed, from the ignorant peasant to the timid and idiotic clerk, passing by way of the brutified workman, the spoilt fruit of barrack life and the salary system. In ascending the social scale one merely found error aggravated by narrow egotism and base cowardice. Men’s minds remained steeped in darkness; the semi education which was nowadays acquired without method, and which reposed on no serious scientific foundation, led simply to a poisoning of the brain, to a state of disquieting corruption. There must be education certainly, but complete education, whence hypocrisy and falsehood would be banished — education which would free the mind by acquainting it with truth in its entirety. Marc trembled at the thought of the abyss of ignorance, error, and hatred which opened before him. What an awful bankruptcy there would be if those folk were needed some day for some work of truth and justice! And those folk typified France; they were the multitude, the heavy, inert mass, many of them worthy people no doubt, but none the less a mass of lead, which weighed the nation down to the ground, incapable as they were of leading a better life, of becoming free, just, and truly happy, because they were steeped in ignorance and poison.

As Marc went slowly towards the school to acquaint his friend Simon with the sad result of his visits, he suddenly remembered that he had not yet called on the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers of the Rue Courte; and although he anticipated no better result with them than with the others he resolved to fulfil his commission to the very end.

The Milhommes, the ladies’ husbands, had been two brothers, born at Maillebois. Edouard, the elder, had inherited a little stationery business from an uncle, and, being of a stay-at-home and unaspiring disposition, had made a shift to live on it with his wife; while his younger, more active, and ambitious brother Alexandre laid the foundations of a fortune while hurrying about the country as a commercial traveller. But death swooped down on both: the elder brother was the first to die, as the result of a tragic accident, a fall into a cellar; the second succumbing six months later to an attack of pulmonary congestion while he was at the other end of France. Their widows remained — one with her humble shop, the other with a capital of some twenty thousand francs, the first savings on which her husband had hoped to rear a fortune. It was to Madame Edouard, a woman of decision and diplomatic skill, that the idea occurred of inducing her sister-in-law, Madame Alexandre, to enter into a partnership, and invest her twenty thousand francs in the little business at Maillebois, which might be increased by selling books, stationery, and other articles for the schools. Each of the two widows had a son, and from that time forward the Mesdames Milhomme, as they were called, Madame Edouard with her little Victor, and Madame Alexandre with her little Sébastien, had kept house together, living in the close intimacy which their interests required, although their natures were radically different.

Madame Edouard followed the observances of the Church, but this did not mean that her faith was firm. She simply placed the requirements of her business before everything else. Her customers were chiefly pious folk whom she did not wish to displease. Madame Alexandre, on the contrary, had given up church-going at the time of her marriage, for her husband had been a gay companion and freethinker, and she refused to take up religion again. It was Madame Edouard, the clever diplomatist, who ingeniously indicated that these divergencies might become a source of profit. Their business was spreading; their shop, situated midway between the Brothers’ school and the Communal school, supplied articles suitable for both — lesson books, copybooks, diagrams, and drawing copies, without speaking of pens, pencils, and similar things. Thus it was decided that each of the two women should retain her views and ways, the one with the priests, the other with the freethinkers, in such wise as to satisfy both sides. And in order that nobody might remain ignorant of the understanding, Sébastien was sent to the secular Communal school, where Simon the Jew was master, while Victor remained at the Brothers’ school. Matters being thus settled, engineered with superior skill, the partnership prospered, and Mesdames Milhomme now owned one of the most thriving shops in Maillebois.

Marc, on reaching the Rue Courte, in which there were only two houses, the Milhommes’ and the parsonage, slackened his steps, and for a moment examined the windows of the stationery shop, in which religious prints were mingled with school pictures glorifying the Republic, whilst illustrated newspapers, hanging from strings, almost barred the doorway. He was about to enter when Madame Alexandre — a tall and gentle-looking blonde, whose face, faded already, though she was only thirty, was still lighted by a faint smile — appeared upon the threshold. Close beside her was her little Sébastien, of whom she was very fond: a child of seven, fair and gentle like his mother, very handsome also, with blue eyes, a delicately shaped nose, and a mouth bespeaking amiability.

Madame Alexandre was acquainted with Marc, and she at once referred to the abominable crime which seemed to haunt her. ‘How dreadful, Monsieur Froment!’ said she. ‘To think also that it occurred so near to us! I frequently saw poor little Zéphirin go by, either on his way to school or returning home. And he often came here to buy copybooks and pens. I can no longer sleep since I saw him dead!’

Then she spoke compassionately of Simon and his grief. She considered him to be very kind-hearted and upright, particularly as he took a great interest in her little Sébastien, who was one of his most intelligent and docile pupils. Whatever other people might say, she would never be able to think the master capable of such a frightful deed as that crime. As for the copy-slip of which people talked so much, nothing would have been proved even if similar ones had been found in the school.

‘We sell such slips, you know, Monsieur Froment,’ she continued, ‘and I have already searched through those which we have in stock. It is true that none bear those particular words, “Love one another.”’

At this moment Sébastien, who had been listening attentively, raised his head.’ I saw one like that, ‘said he.’ My cousin Victor brought one home from the Brothers’ school — there were those words on it!’

His mother appeared stupefied: ‘What are you saying?’ she exclaimed. ‘You never mentioned that to me!’

But you did not ask. Besides, Victor forbade me to tell, because it ‘s forbidden to take the copy-slips from school.’

‘Then where is that one?’

‘Ah! I don’t know. Victor hid it somewhere, so that he might not be scolded.’

Marc was following the scene, astonished, delighted, his heart beating fast with hope. Was the truth about to come forth from the mouth of that child? Perchance this would prove the feeble ray which spreads little by little until it finally expands into a great blaze of light. And the young man was already putting precise and decisive questions to Sébastien, when Madame Edouard, accompanied by Victor, appeared upon the scene. She was returning from a visit which she had just made to Brother Fulgence, under the pretext of applying for the payment of a stationery account.

Taller than her sister-in-law, Madame Edouard was dark, with a massive square-shaped face and a masculine appearance. Her gestures were quick, her speech was loud. A good and honest woman in her way, she would not have wronged her partner of a
sou
, though she never hesitated to domineer over her. She indeed was the man in the household, and the other as a means of defence only possessed her force of inertia, her very gentleness, of which she availed herself at times for weeks and months together, thereby often securing the victory. As for Victor, Madame Edouard’s son, he was a sturdy, squarely-set lad, nine years of age, with a big dark head and massive face, quite a contrast indeed to his cousin Sébastien.

Directly Madame Edouard was apprised of the situation, she looked at her son severely: ‘What! a copy? You stole a copy from the Brothers and brought it here?’

Victor had already turned a glance of despair and fury upon Sébastien. ‘No, no, mamma,’ he answered.

‘But you did, for your cousin saw it. He does not usually tell falsehoods.’

The boy ceased answering, but he still cast terrible glances at his cousin. And the latter was by no means at his ease, for he well knew the physical strength of his playmate, and commonly represented the vanquished, beaten enemy whenever they had a game at war together. Under the elder’s guidance, there were endless noisy gallops through the house; the younger, so gentle by nature, letting himself be led into them with a kind of rapturous terror.

‘No doubt he did not steal it,’ Madame Alexandre observed indulgently. ‘Perhaps he only brought it home by mistake.’

In order that his cousin might the more readily forgive his indiscretion, Sébastien at once confirmed this suggestion: ‘Of course, it was like that. I did not say he stole it.’

Madame Edouard, having now calmed down, ceased to exact an immediate answer from Victor, who remained silent as if stubbornly resolved upon making no confession. His mother, for her part, doubtless reflected that it would be scarcely prudent to investigate the matter in a stranger’s presence without weighing the gravity of the consequences. She pictured herself taking one or the other side in the affair, and setting either the Brothers’ school or the Communal school against her, thereby losing one set of customers. So, after casting a domineering glance at Madame Alexandre, she contented herself with saying to her son: ‘That will do. Go indoors, monsieur; we will settle all this by and by. Just reflect, and if you do not tell me the real truth, I shall know what to do to you.’

Then, turning to Marc, she added: ‘We will tell you what he says, monsieur; and you may depend upon it that he will soon speak unless he desires such a whipping as he is not likely to forget.’

Marc could not insist any further, however ardent might be his desire to learn the whole truth immediately, in order that he might convey it to Simon like tidings of deliverance. But he no longer felt a doubt respecting the genuineness of the decisive fact, the triumphant proof which chance had placed in his hands; so he at once hastened to his friend’s, to tell him of his successive repulses with the Bongards, the Doloirs, and the Savins, and of the unhoped-for discovery which he made at the Milhommes’. Simon listened quietly, showing no sign of the delight which Marc had anticipated. Ah! there were similar copies at the Brothers’ school? Well, he was not astonished to hear it. For his own part, why should he worry, as he was innocent?

‘I thank you very much for all the trouble you have taken, my good friend,’ he added, ‘and I fully understand the importance of that child’s statement. But I cannot accustom myself to the idea that my fate depends on what may be said, or what may not be said, considering that I am guilty of nothing. To my thinking, that is as evident as the sun in the skies.’