Complete Works of Emile Zola (1727 page)

Marc made a gesture of doubt.’ My poor child,’ said he, ‘you don’t know them, they will have broken down your resistance and have conquered you in a few weeks’ time. You are still only a little girl.’

In her turn Louise rebelled. ‘Ah! it is not nice of you, papa, to think there is so little seriousness in me! I am a little girl, it is true, but your little girl, and proud of it!’ She spoke those words with such childish bravery that he could not help smiling. That darling daughter, in whom he every now and again recognised himself, in whom he found thoughtfulness and logic blended with passionate earnestness, warmed his heart. He looked at her, and found her very pretty and very sensible, with a face which was both firm and proud, and bright eyes, whose frankness was admirable. And he continued listening while she, keeping his hands in her own, set forth the reasons which prompted her to join her mother in the devout little house of the Place des Capucins. Without any reference to the frightful slanders which were current, she let him understand that it would be well for them not to brave public opinion. As people said on all sides that her right place was at the ladies’ house, she was willing to repair thither; and though she was only thirteen years of age, she would certainly be its most sensible inmate, folk would see if the work she did there did not prove the best.

‘No matter, my child,’ Marc said at last with an air of great lassitude, ‘you will never convince me of the necessity of a rupture between you and me.’

She felt that he was weakening. ‘But it is not a rupture papa,’ she exclaimed; ‘I have gone to see mamma twice a week, and I shall come to see you, more often than that, too.... Besides, don’t you understand? Perhaps mamma will listen to me a little when I am beside her. I shall speak to her of you, I shall tell her how much you still
love her, how you weep for
her. And — who knows? — she
will reflect, and perhaps I
shall bring her back to you.’

Then the tears of both began to flow. They gave way to their emotion in each other’s arms. The father was upset by the deep charm of that daughter in whom so much puerility still mingled with so much sense, goodness, and hopefulness. And the girl yielded to her heart, like one ripened before her time by things of which she was vaguely conscious, but which she would have been unable to explain.

‘Do, then, as you please,’ Marc ended by stammering amid his tears. ‘But if I yield, don’t Think that I approve, for my whole being rebels and protests.’

That was the last evening they spent together. The warm night remained of an inky blackness. There seemed to be not a breath of air. And not a sound came through the open window from the resting town. Only the silent moths flew in, scorching themselves by contact with the lamp. The storm did not burst, and until very late the father and the daughter, speaking no further, remained, one in front of the other, seated at their table, as if busy with their work, but simply happy at being together yet a little longer, amid the far-spreading peaceful quietude.

How frightful, however, did the following evening prove for Marc! His daughter had left him, and he was absolutely alone in that empty and dismal dwelling. After the wife, the child — he had nobody to love him now, all his heart had been torn from him, bit by bit. Moreover, in order that he might not even have the consolation of friendship, he had been compelled, by base slanders, to cease all intercourse with the one woman whose lofty sisterly mind might have sustained him. The complete wrecking of his life, of the approach of which he had long been conscious, was now effected; the stealthy work of destruction, performed by hateful, invisible hands bent on undermining him and throwing him down on the ruins of his own work, was accomplished. And now, no doubt, the others believed they held him, bleeding from a hundred wounds, tortured and forsaken, strengthless in his blasted dwelling, that soiled and deserted home, where be was left in agony. And, indeed, on that first evening of solitude he was really a beaten man, and his enemies might well have thought him at their mercy had they been able to see him coming and going in the pale twilight with a staggering gait, like some wretched stricken beast seeking a shadowy nook there to lie down and die.

The times were, in truth, frightful. The worst possible news was current respecting the inquiry of the Court of Cassation, whose slowness seemed to hide a desire to bury the affair. In vain had Marc hitherto compelled himself to hope, each day his dread increased lest he should hear of Simon’s death before the revision of the case should be an accomplished fact. During that mournful time he pictured everything as lost, revision rejected, his long efforts proving useless, truth and justice finally slain — an execrable social crime, a shameful catastrophe, which would engulf the whole country. The thought of it filled him with a kind of pious horror, sent a chilling shudder of dread through his veins. And, besides that public disaster, there was the disaster of his own life, which weighed upon him more and more. Now that Louise was no longer there, moving his heart with her charming ways, inspiriting him with her precocious sense and courage, he asked himself how he could have been mad enough to let her go to the ladies’ house. She was but a child, she would be conquered in a few weeks by the all-powerful Church, which for ages past had been victorious over woman. She had been taken from him; she would never be restored to him, indeed he would never see her more. And it was he who had sent that still defenceless victim to error. His work, he himself, and those who belonged to him, were all annihilated; and at the thought of it he sank into heartrending despair.

Eight o’clock struck, and Marc had not yet found the strength to seat himself and dine alone in that room, which now had become quite dim, when he heard a timid knock at the door. And great was his astonishment when in came Mignot, who at first found it difficult to explain himself.

You see, Monsieur Froment,’ he began, ‘as you announced to me this morning the departure of your little Louise, an idea came to me, and I’ve been turning it over in my mind all day... So, this evening, before going to dine at the eating-house—”

He paused, seeking his words.

‘What, haven’t you dined yet, Mignot!’ Marc exclaimed.

‘Why, no, Monsieur Froment.... You see, my idea was to come and dine with you, to keep you company a little. But I hesitated and lost time.... If it would please you, however, now that you are alone, I might board with you again. Two men can always agree. We could do the cooking, and surely get through the house work together. Are you agreeable? It would please me very much.’

A little joy had returned to Marc’s heart; and, with a smile tinged with emotion, he replied: ‘I am quite willing.... You are a good fellow, Mignot.... There, sit down, we will begin by dining together.’

And they dined, face to face, the master relapsing the while into his bitterness of spirit, the assistant rising every now and then very quietly to fetch a plate or a piece of bread, amid the melancholy calm of evening.

CHAPTER II

Then, during the months and months that the inquiry of the Court of Cassation lasted, Marc again had to shut himself up in his school, and devote himself, body and soul, to his task of instructing the humble, and rendering them more capable of truth and justice.

Among the hopes and the despairs which continued to enfever him, according as the news he heard proved good or bad, there was one thought that haunted him more and more. Long previously, at the very outset of the affair, he had wondered why France, all France, did not rise to exact the release of the innocent prisoner. One of his dearest illusions had been his belief in a generous France, a magnanimous and just France, which many times already had passionately espoused the cause of equity, and which would surely prove its goodness of heart yet once again by striving its utmost to repair the most execrable of judicial errors. And the painful surprise he had experienced on finding the country so stolid and indifferent after the trial at Beaumont now increased daily, became more and more torturing; for in the earlier stages of the affair he had been able to excuse it, realising that people were ignorant of the true facts and poisoned with lies. But now, when so much light had been cast on the affair, so much truth made manifest, he could find no possible explanation for such prolonged and such shameful slumber in iniquity. Had France been changed, then? Was it no longer the liberator? Since it now knew the truth, why did it not rise
en masse
, instead of remaining an obstacle, a blind, deaf multitude barring the road.

And Marc always returned in thought to his starting-point, when the necessity of his humble work as a schoolmaster had become apparent to him. If France still slept the heavy sleep of conscienceless matter, it was because France did not yet know enough. A shudder came upon him: how many generations, how many centuries would be needed for a people, nourished with truth, to become capable of equity? For nearly fifteen years he had been endeavouring to train up just men, a generation had already passed through his hands, and he asked himself what was really the progress that had been effected. Whenever he met any of his old pupils he chatted with them, and compared them both with their parents, who were less freed from the original clay, and with the boys who nowadays attended his school, and whom he hoped to free yet more than their forerunners. Therein lay his great task, the mission he had undertaken at a decisive hour of his life, and prosecuted throughout all his sufferings, doubting its efficacy in occasional moments of weariness, but on the morrow always taking it up again with renewed faith.

One bright August evening, having strolled along the road to Valmarie as far as Bongard’s farm, Marc perceived Fernand, his former pupil, who was returning home with a scythe on his shoulder. Fernand had lately married Lucile, the daughter of Doloir, the mason; he now being five and twenty, and she nineteen years of age. They had long been friends, having played together in the old days on leaving school; and that evening the young wife, a little
blonde
, with a gentle, smiling demeanour, was also there, seated in the yard and mending some linen.

‘Well, Fernand, are you satisfied? Is there a good crop of wheat this year?’ Marc inquired.

Fernand still had a heavy face with a hard and narrow brow, and his words came slowly as in his childish days. ‘Oh! Monsieur Froment,’ he replied, ‘one can never be satisfied, there’s too much worry with this wretched land, it takes more than it gives.’

As his father, though barely fifty years of age, was already heavy of limb, tortured by rheumatic pains, Fernand, on finishing his term of military service, had resolved to help him, instead of seeking employment elsewhere. And the struggle at the farm was the same bitter one as of old, the family living from father to son on the fields whence it seemed to have sprung, and toiling and moiling blindly in its stubborn ignorance and neglect of progress.

‘Ah! no, one is never satisfied,’ Fernand slowly resumed; ‘even you are not over-pleased with things, Monsieur Froment, in spite of all you know.’

Marc detected in those words some of the jeering contempt for knowledge which was to be expected from a hard-headed, sleepy dunce who in his school days had found it difficult to remember a single lesson. Moreover, Fernand’s remark embodied a prudent allusion to the events which were upsetting the whole region, and Marc availed himself of this circumstance to inquire into his former pupil’s views.

‘Oh!  I am always pleased when my boys learn their lessons fairly well, and don’t tell too many stories,’ he said gaily. ‘You blow that very well; just remember... Besides, I received to-day some good news about the affair to which I have been attending so long. Yes, the innocence of my poor friend Simon is about to be recognised for good.’

At this Fernand manifested great embarrassment, his countenance became heavier, and the light in his eyes died away. ‘But that’s not what some folk say,’ he remarked.

‘What do they say, then?’

‘They say that the judges have found out more things about the old schoolmaster.’

‘What things are those?’

‘Oh, all sorts, it seems.’

At last Fernand consented to explain himself, and started on a ridiculous yam. The Jews, said he, had given a big sum of money, five millions of francs, to their co-religionist Simon in order that he might get a Brother of the Christian Doctrine guillotined. Simon having failed in his plan, the five millions were lying in a hiding-place, and the Jews were now striving to get Brother Gorgias sent to the galleys — even if in doing so they should drown France in blood — in order that Simon might return and dig up the treasure, the hiding place of which was known only to himself.

‘Come, my lad,’ Marc answered, quite aghast, ‘surely you don’t believe such absurdity!’

‘Well, why not?’ rejoined the young peasant, who looked only half awake.

‘Why, because your good sense ought to rebel against it. You know how to read, you know how to write, and I flattered myself also that I had in some degree awakened your mind and taught you how to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

.. Come, come, haven’t you remembered anything of what you learnt when you were with me?’

Fernand waved his hand in a tired, careless way. ‘If one had to remember everything, Monsieur Froment, one would have one’s head too full,’ he said. ‘I have only told you what I hear people saying everywhere. Folks who are far cleverer than I am give their word of honour that it’s true... Besides, I read something like it in
Le Petit Beaumontais
the day before yesterday. And since it’s in print there must surely be some truth in it.’

Marc made a gesture of despair. What! he had not overcome ignorance more than that after all his years of striving! That young fellow remained the easiest prey for error and falsehood, he blindly accepted the most stupid inventions, he possessed neither the freedom of mind nor the sense of logic necessary to enable him to weigh the fables which he read in his newspaper. So great indeed was his credulity that it seemed to disturb even his wife, the blonde Lucile.