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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paris, by Emile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Paris
+       From the "Three Cities"
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+Translator: Ernest A. Vizetelly
+
+Posting Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9169]
+Release Date: October, 2005
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PARIS
+
+FROM THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+By Emile Zola
+
+
+Translated By Ernest A. Vizetelly
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+
+WITH the present work M. Zola completes the "Trilogy of the Three
+Cities," which he began with "Lourdes" and continued with "Rome"; and
+thus the adventures and experiences of Abbe Pierre Froment, the doubting
+Catholic priest who failed to find faith at the miraculous grotto by the
+Cave, and hope amidst the crumbling theocracy of the Vatican, are here
+brought to what, from M. Zola's point of view, is their logical
+conclusion. From the first pages of "Lourdes," many readers will have
+divined that Abbe Froment was bound to finish as he does, for, frankly,
+no other finish was possible from a writer of M. Zola's opinions.
+
+Taking the Trilogy as a whole, one will find that it is essentially
+symbolical. Abbe Froment is Man, and his struggles are the struggles
+between Religion, as personified by the Roman Catholic Church, on the one
+hand, and Reason and Life on the other. In the Abbe's case the victory
+ultimately rests with the latter; and we may take it as being M. Zola's
+opinion that the same will eventually be the case with the great bulk of
+mankind. English writers are often accused of treating subjects from an
+insular point of view, and certainly there may be good ground for such a
+charge. But they are not the only writers guilty of the practice. The
+purview of French authors is often quite as limited: they regard French
+opinion as the only good opinion, and judge the rest of the world by
+their own standard. In the present case, if we leave the world and
+mankind generally on one side, and apply M. Zola's facts and theories to
+France alone, it will be found, I think, that he has made out a
+remarkably good case for himself. For it is certain that Catholicism, I
+may say Christianity, is fast crumbling in France. There may be revivals
+in certain limited circles, efforts of the greatest energy to prop up the
+tottering edifice by a "rallying" of believers to the democratic cause,
+and by a kindling of the most bitter anti-Semitic warfare; but all these
+revivals and efforts, although they are extremely well-advertised and
+create no little stir, produce very little impression on the bulk of the
+population. So far as France is concerned, the policy of Leo XIII. seems
+to have come too late. The French masses regard Catholicism or
+Christianity, whichever one pleases, as a religion of death,--a religion
+which, taking its stand on the text "There shall always be poor among
+you," condemns them to toil and moil in poverty and distress their whole
+life long, with no other consolation than the promise of happiness in
+heaven. And, on the other hand, they see the ministers of the Deity,
+"whose kingdom is not of this world," supporting the wealthy and
+powerful, and striving to secure wealth and power for themselves. Charity
+exists, of course, but the masses declare that it is no remedy; they do
+not ask for doles, they ask for Justice. It is largely by reason of all
+this that Socialism and Anarchism have made such great strides in France
+of recent years. Robespierre, as will be remembered, once tried to
+suppress Christianity altogether, and for a time certainly there was a
+virtually general cessation of religious observances in France. But no
+such Reign of Terror prevails there to-day. Men are perfectly free to
+believe if they are inclined to do so; and yet never were there fewer
+religious marriages, fewer baptisms or smaller congregations in the
+French churches. I refer not merely to Paris and other large cities, but
+to the smaller towns, and even the little hamlets of many parts. Old
+village priests, men practising what they teach and possessed of the most
+loving, benevolent hearts, have told me with tears in their eyes of the
+growing infidelity of their parishioners.
+
+I have been studying this matter for some years, and write without
+prejudice, merely setting down what I believe to be the truth. Of course
+we are all aware that the most stupendous efforts are being made by the
+Catholic clergy and zealous believers to bring about a revival of the
+faith, and certainly in some circles there has been a measure of success.
+But the reconversion of a nation is the most formidable of tasks; and, in
+my own opinion, as in M. Zola's, France as a whole is lost to the
+Christian religion. On this proposition, combined with a second one,
+namely, that even as France as a nation will be the first to discard
+Christianity, so she will be the first to promulgate a new faith based on
+reason, science and the teachings of life, is founded the whole argument
+of M. Zola's Trilogy.
+
+Having thus dealt with the Trilogy's religious aspects, I would now speak
+of "Paris," its concluding volume. This is very different from "Lourdes"
+and "Rome." Whilst recounting the struggles and fate of Abbe Froment and
+his brother Guillaume, and entering largely into the problem of Capital
+and Labour, which problem has done so much to turn the masses away from
+Christianity, it contains many an interesting and valuable picture of the
+Parisian world at the close of the nineteenth century. It is no
+guide-book to Paris; but it paints the city's social life, its rich and
+poor, its scandals and crimes, its work and its pleasures. Among the
+households to which the reader is introduced are those of a banker, an
+aged Countess of the old _noblesse_, a cosmopolitan Princess, of a kind
+that Paris knows only too well, a scientist, a manufacturer, a working
+mechanician, a priest, an Anarchist, a petty clerk and an actress of a
+class that so often dishonours the French stage. Science and art and
+learning and religion, all have their representatives. Then, too, the
+political world is well to the front. There are honest and unscrupulous
+Ministers of State, upright and venal deputies, enthusiastic and cautious
+candidates for power, together with social theoreticians of various
+schools. And the _blase_, weak-minded man of fashion is here, as well as
+the young "symbolist" of perverted, degraded mind. The women are of all
+types, from the most loathsome to the most lovable. Then, too, the
+journalists are portrayed in such life-like fashion that I might give
+each of them his real name. And journalism, Parisian journalism, is
+flagellated, shown as it really is,--if just a few well-conducted organs
+be excepted,--that is, venal and impudent, mendacious and even petty.
+
+The actual scenes depicted are quite as kaleidoscopic as are the
+characters in their variety. We enter the banker's gilded saloon and the
+hovel of the pauper, the busy factory, the priest's retired home and the
+laboratory of the scientist. We wait in the lobbies of the Chamber of
+Deputies, and afterwards witness "a great debate"; we penetrate into the
+private sanctum of a Minister of the Interior; we attend a fashionable
+wedding at the Madeleine and a first performance at the Comedie
+Francaise; we dine at the Cafe Anglais and listen to a notorious vocalist
+in a low music hall at Montmartre; we pursue an Anarchist through the
+Bois de Boulogne; we slip into the Assize Court and see that Anarchist
+tried there; we afterwards gaze upon his execution by the guillotine; we
+are also on the boulevards when the lamps are lighted for a long night of
+revelry, and we stroll along the quiet streets in the small hours of the
+morning, when crime and homeless want are prowling round.
+
+And ever the scene changes; the whole world of Paris passes before one.
+Yet the book, to my thinking, is far less descriptive than analytical.
+The souls of the principal characters are probed to their lowest depths.
+Many of the scenes, too, are intensely dramatic, admirably adapted for
+the stage; as, for instance, Baroness Duvillard's interview with her
+daughter in the chapter which I have called "The Rivals." And side by
+side with baseness there is heroism, while beauty of the flesh finds its
+counterpart in beauty of the mind. M. Zola has often been reproached for
+showing us the vileness of human nature; and no doubt such vileness may
+be found in "Paris," but there are contrasting pictures. If some of M.
+Zola's characters horrify the reader, there are others that the latter
+can but admire. Life is compounded of good and evil, and unfortunately it
+is usually the evil that makes the most noise and attracts the most
+attention. Moreover, in M. Zola's case, it has always been his purpose to
+expose the evils from which society suffers in the hope of directing
+attention to them and thereby hastening a remedy, and thus, in the course
+of his works, he could not do otherwise than drag the whole frightful
+mass of human villany and degradation into the full light of day. But if
+there are, again, black pages in "Paris," others, bright and comforting,
+will be found near them. And the book ends in no pessimist strain.
+Whatever may be thought of the writer's views on religion, most readers
+will, I imagine, agree with his opinion that, despite much social
+injustice, much crime, vice, cupidity and baseness, we are ever marching
+on to better things.
+
+In the making of the coming, though still far-away, era of truth and
+justice, Paris, he thinks, will play the leading part, for whatever the
+stains upon her, they are but surface-deep; her heart remains good and
+sound; she has genius and courage and energy and wit and fancy. She can
+be generous, too, when she chooses, and more than once her ideas have
+irradiated the world. Thus M. Zola hopes much from her, and who will
+gainsay him? Not I, who can apply to her the words which Byron addressed
+to the home of my own and M. Zola's forefathers:--
+
+     "I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
+      Was as a fairy city of the heart."
+
+Thus I can but hope that Paris, where I learnt the little I know, where I
+struggled and found love and happiness, whose every woe and disaster and
+triumph I have shared for over thirty years, may, however dark the clouds
+that still pass over her, some day fully justify M. Zola's confidence,
+and bring to pass his splendid dream of perfect truth and perfect
+justice.
+
+E. A. V.
+
+MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND,
+
+Feb. 5, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+
+I. THE PRIEST AND THE POOR
+
+THAT morning, one towards the end of January, Abbe Pierre Froment, who
+had a mass to say at the Sacred Heart at Montmartre, was on the height,
+in front of the basilica, already at eight o'clock. And before going in
+he gazed for a moment upon the immensity of Paris spread out below him.
+
+After two months of bitter cold, ice and snow, the city was steeped in a
+mournful, quivering thaw. From the far-spreading, leaden-hued heavens a
+thick mist fell like a mourning shroud. All the eastern portion of the
+city, the abodes of misery and toil, seemed submerged beneath ruddy
+steam, amid which the panting of workshops and factories could be
+divined; while westwards, towards the districts of wealth and enjoyment,
+the fog broke and lightened, becoming but a fine and motionless veil of
+vapour. The curved line of the horizon could scarcely be divined, the
+expanse of houses, which nothing bounded, appeared like a chaos of stone,
+studded with stagnant pools, which filled the hollows with pale steam;
+whilst against them the summits of the edifices, the housetops of the
+loftier streets, showed black like soot. It was a Paris of mystery,
+shrouded by clouds, buried as it were beneath the ashes of some disaster,
+already half-sunken in the suffering and the shame of that which its
+immensity concealed.
+
+Thin and sombre in his flimsy cassock, Pierre was looking on when Abbe
+Rose, who seemed to have sheltered himself behind a pillar of the porch
+on purpose to watch for him, came forward: "Ah! it's you at last, my dear
+child," said he, "I have something to ask you."
+
+He seemed embarrassed and anxious, and glanced round distrustfully to
+make sure that nobody was near. Then, as if the solitude thereabouts did
+not suffice to reassure him, he led Pierre some distance away, through
+the icy, biting wind, which he himself did not seem to feel. "This is the
+matter," he resumed, "I have been told that a poor fellow, a former
+house-painter, an old man of seventy, who naturally can work no more, is
+dying of hunger in a hovel in the Rue des Saules. So, my dear child, I
+thought of you. I thought you would consent to take him these three
+francs from me, so that he may at least have some bread to eat for a few
+days."
+
+"But why don't you take him your alms yourself?"
+
+At this Abbe Rose again grew anxious, and cast vague, frightened glances
+about him. "Oh, no, oh, no!" he said, "I can no longer do that after all
+the worries that have befallen me. You know that I am watched, and should
+get another scolding if I were caught giving alms like this, scarcely
+knowing to whom I give them. It is true that I had to sell something to
+get these three francs. But, my dear child, render me this service, I
+pray you."
+
+Pierre, with heart oppressed, stood contemplating the old priest, whose
+locks were quite white, whose full lips spoke of infinite kindliness, and
+whose eyes shone clear and childlike in his round and smiling face. And
+he bitterly recalled the story of that lover of the poor, the
+semi-disgrace into which he had fallen through the sublime candour of his
+charitable goodness. His little ground-floor of the Rue de Charonne,
+which he had turned into a refuge where he offered shelter to all the
+wretchedness of the streets, had ended by giving cause for scandal. His
+_naivete_ and innocence had been abused; and abominable things had gone
+on under his roof without his knowledge. Vice had turned the asylum into
+a meeting-place; and at last, one night, the police had descended upon it
+to arrest a young girl accused of infanticide. Greatly concerned by this
+scandal, the diocesan authorities had forced Abbe Rose to close his
+shelter, and had removed him from the church of Ste. Marguerite to that
+of St. Pierre of Montmartre, where he now again acted as curate. Truth to
+tell, it was not a disgrace but a removal to another spot. However, he
+had been scolded and was watched, as he said; and he was much ashamed of
+it, and very unhappy at being only able to give alms by stealth, much
+like some harebrained prodigal who blushes for his faults.
+
+Pierre took the three francs. "I promise to execute your commission, my
+friend, oh! with all my heart," he said.
+
+"You will go after your mass, won't you? His name is Laveuve, he lives in
+the Rue des Saules in a house with a courtyard, just before reaching the
+Rue Marcadet. You are sure to find it. And if you want to be very kind
+you will tell me of your visit this evening at five o'clock, at the
+Madeleine, where I am going to hear Monseigneur Martha's address. He has
+been so good to me! Won't you also come to hear him?"
+
+Pierre made an evasive gesture. Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis
+and all powerful at the archiepiscopal palace, since, like the genial
+propagandist he was, he had been devoting himself to increasing the
+subscriptions for the basilica of the Sacred Heart, had indeed supported
+Abbe Rose; in fact, it was by his influence that the abbe had been kept
+in Paris, and placed once more at St. Pierre de Montmartre.
+
+"I don't know if I shall be able to hear the address," said Pierre, "but
+in any case I will go there to meet you."
+
+The north wind was blowing, and the gloomy cold penetrated both of them
+on that deserted summit amidst the fog which changed the vast city into a
+misty ocean. However, some footsteps were heard, and Abbe Rose, again
+mistrustful, saw a man go by, a tall and sturdy man, who wore clogs and
+was bareheaded, showing his thick and closely-cut white hair. "Is not
+that your brother?" asked the old priest.
+
+Pierre had not stirred. "Yes, it is my brother Guillaume," he quietly
+responded. "I have found him again since I have been coming occasionally
+to the Sacred Heart. He owns a house close by, where he has been living
+for more than twenty years, I think. When we meet we shake hands, but I
+have never even been to his house. Oh! all is quite dead between us, we
+have nothing more in common, we are parted by worlds."
+
+Abbe Rose's tender smile again appeared, and he waved his hand as if to
+say that one must never despair of love. Guillaume Froment, a savant of
+lofty intelligence, a chemist who lived apart from others, like one who
+rebelled against the social system, was now a parishioner of the abbe's,
+and when the latter passed the house where Guillaume lived with his three
+sons--a house all alive with work--he must often have dreamt of leading
+him back to God.
+
+"But, my dear child," he resumed, "I am keeping you here in this dark
+cold, and you are not warm. Go and say your mass. Till this evening, at
+the Madeleine." Then, in entreating fashion, after again making sure that
+none could hear them, he added, still with the air of a child at fault:
+"And not a word to anybody about my little commission--it would again be
+said that I don't know how to conduct myself."
+
+Pierre watched the old priest as he went off towards the Rue Cartot,
+where he lived on a damp ground-floor, enlivened by a strip of garden.
+The veil of disaster, which was submerging Paris, now seemed to grow
+thicker under the gusts of the icy north wind. And at last Pierre entered
+the basilica, his heart upset, overflowing with the bitterness stirred up
+by the recollection of Abbe Rose's story--that bankruptcy of charity, the
+frightful irony of a holy man punished for bestowing alms, and hiding
+himself that he might still continue to bestow them. Nothing could calm
+the smart of the wound reopened in Pierre's heart--neither the warm
+peacefulness into which he entered, nor the silent solemnity of the
+broad, deep fabric, whose new stonework was quite bare, without a single
+painting or any kind of decoration; the nave being still half-barred by
+the scaffoldings which blocked up the unfinished dome. At that early hour
+the masses of entreaty had already been said at several altars, under the
+grey light falling from the high and narrow windows, and the tapers of
+entreaty were burning in the depths of the apse. So Pierre made haste to
+go to the sacristy, there to assume his vestments in order that he might
+say his mass in the chapel of St. Vincent de Paul.
+
+But the floodgates of memory had been opened, and he had no thought but
+for his distress whilst, in mechanical fashion, he performed the rites
+and made the customary gestures. Since his return from Rome three years
+previously, he had been living in the very worst anguish that can fall on
+man. At the outset, in order to recover his lost faith, he had essayed a
+first experiment: he had gone to Lourdes, there to seek the innocent
+belief of the child who kneels and prays, the primitive faith of young
+nations bending beneath the terror born of ignorance; but he had rebelled
+yet more than ever in presence of what he had witnessed at Lourdes: that
+glorification of the absurd, that collapse of common sense; and was
+convinced that salvation, the peace of men and nations nowadays, could
+not lie in that puerile relinquishment of reason. And afterwards, again
+yielding to the need of loving whilst yet allowing reason, so hard to
+satisfy, her share in his intellect, he had staked his final peace on a
+second experiment, and had gone to Rome to see if Catholicism could there
+be renewed, could revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity and
+become the religion of the democracy, the faith which the modern world,
+upheaving and in danger of death, was awaiting in order to calm down and
+live. And he had found there naught but ruins, the rotted trunk of a tree
+that could never put forth another springtide; and he had heard there
+naught but the supreme rending of the old social edifice, near to its
+fall. Then it was, that, relapsing into boundless doubt, total negation,
+he had been recalled to Paris by Abbe Rose, in the name of their poor,
+and had returned thither that he might forget and immolate himself and
+believe in them--the poor--since they and their frightful sufferings
+alone remained certain. And then it was too, that for three years he came
+into contact with that collapse, that very bankruptcy of goodness itself:
+charity a derision, charity useless and flouted.
+
+Those three years had been lived by Pierre amidst ever-growing torments,
+in which his whole being had ended by sinking. His faith was forever
+dead; dead, too, even his hope of utilising the faith of the multitudes
+for the general salvation. He denied everything, he anticipated nothing
+but the final, inevitable catastrophe: revolt, massacre and
+conflagration, which would sweep away a guilty and condemned world.
+Unbelieving priest that he was, yet watching over the faith of others,
+honestly, chastely discharging his duties, full of haughty sadness at the
+thought that he had been unable to renounce his mind as he had renounced
+his flesh and his dream of being a saviour of the nations, he withal
+remained erect, full of fierce yet solitary grandeur. And this
+despairing, denying priest, who had dived to the bottom of nothingness,
+retained such a lofty and grave demeanour, perfumed by such pure
+kindness, that in his parish of Neuilly he had acquired the reputation of
+being a young saint, one beloved by Providence, whose prayers wrought
+miracles. He was but a personification of the rules of the Church; of the
+priest he retained only the gestures; he was like an empty sepulchre in
+which not even the ashes of hope remained; yet grief-stricken weeping
+women worshipped him and kissed his cassock; and it was a tortured mother
+whose infant was in danger of death, who had implored him to come and ask
+that infant's cure of Jesus, certain as she felt that Jesus would grant
+her the boon in that sanctuary of Montmartre where blazed the prodigy of
+His heart, all burning with love.
+
+Clad in his vestments, Pierre had reached the chapel of St. Vincent de
+Paul. He there ascended the altar-step and began the mass; and when he
+turned round with hands spread out to bless the worshippers he showed his
+hollow cheeks, his gentle mouth contracted by bitterness, his loving eyes
+darkened by suffering. He was no longer the young priest whose
+countenance had glowed with tender fever on the road to Lourdes, whose
+face had been illumined by apostolic fervour when he started for Rome.
+The two hereditary influences which were ever at strife within him--that
+of his father to whom he owed his impregnable, towering brow, that of his
+mother who had given him his love-thirsting lips, were still waging war,
+the whole human battle of sentiment and reason, in that now ravaged face
+of his, whither in moments of forgetfulness ascended all the chaos of
+internal suffering. The lips still confessed that unquenched thirst for
+love, self-bestowal and life, which he well thought he could nevermore
+content, whilst the solid brow, the citadel which made him suffer,
+obstinately refused to capitulate, whatever might be the assaults of
+error. But he stiffened himself, hid the horror of the void in which he
+struggled, and showed himself superb, making each gesture, repeating each
+word in sovereign fashion. And gazing at him through her tears, the
+mother who was there among the few kneeling women, the mother who awaited
+a supreme intercession from him, who thought him in communion with Jesus
+for the salvation of her child, beheld him radiant with angelic beauty
+like some messenger of the divine grace.
+
+When, after the offertory, Pierre uncovered the chalice he felt contempt
+for himself. The shock had been too great, and he thought of those things
+in spite of all. What puerility there had been in his two experiments at
+Lourdes and Rome, the _naivete_ of a poor distracted being, consumed by
+desire to love and believe. To have imagined that present-day science
+would in his person accommodate itself to the faith of the year One
+Thousand, and in particular to have foolishly believed that he, petty
+priest that he was, would be able to indoctrinate the Pope and prevail on
+him to become a saint and change the face of the world! It all filled him
+with shame; how people must have laughed at him! Then, too, his idea of a
+schism made him blush. He again beheld himself at Rome, dreaming of
+writing a book by which he would violently sever himself from Catholicism
+to preach the new religion of the democracies, the purified, human and
+living Gospel. But what ridiculous folly! A schism? He had known in Paris
+an abbe of great heart and mind who had attempted to bring about that
+famous, predicted, awaited schism. Ah! the poor man, the sad, the
+ludicrous labour in the midst of universal incredulity, the icy
+indifference of some, the mockery and the reviling of others! If Luther
+were to come to France in our days he would end, forgotten and dying of
+hunger, on a Batignolles fifth-floor. A schism cannot succeed among a
+people that no longer believes, that has ceased to take all interest in
+the Church, and sets its hope elsewhere. And it was all Catholicism, in
+fact all Christianity, that would be swept away, for, apart from certain
+moral maxims, the Gospel no longer supplied a possible code for society.
+And this conviction increased Pierre's torment on the days when his
+cassock weighed more heavily on his shoulders, when he ended by feeling
+contempt for himself at thus celebrating the divine mystery of the mass,
+which for him had become but the formula of a dead religion.
+
+Having half filled the chalice with wine from the vase, Pierre washed his
+hands and again perceived the mother with her face of ardent entreaty.
+Then he thought it was for her that, with the charitable leanings of a
+vow-bound man, he had remained a priest, a priest without belief, feeding
+the belief of others with the bread of illusion. But this heroic conduct,
+the haughty spirit of duty in which he imprisoned himself, was not
+practised by him without growing anguish. Did not elementary probity
+require that he should cast aside the cassock and return into the midst
+of men? At certain times the falsity of his position filled him with
+disgust for his useless heroism; and he asked himself if it were not
+cowardly and dangerous to leave the masses in superstition. Certainly the
+theory of a just and vigilant Providence, of a future paradise where all
+these sufferings of the world would receive compensation, had long seemed
+necessary to the wretchedness of mankind; but what a trap lay in it, what
+a pretext for the tyrannical grinding down of nations; and how far more
+virile it would be to undeceive the nations, however brutally, and give
+them courage to live the real life, even if it were in tears. If they
+were already turning aside from Christianity was not this because they
+needed a more human ideal, a religion of health and joy which should not
+be a religion of death? On the day when the idea of charity should
+crumble, Christianity would crumble also, for it was built upon the idea
+of divine charity correcting the injustice of fate, and offering future
+rewards to those who might suffer in this life. And it was crumbling; for
+the poor no longer believed in it, but grew angry at the thought of that
+deceptive paradise, with the promise of which their patience had been
+beguiled so long, and demanded that their share of happiness should not
+always be put off until the morrow of death. A cry for justice arose from
+every lip, for justice upon this earth, justice for those who hunger and
+thirst, whom alms are weary of relieving after eighteen hundred years of
+Gospel teaching, and who still and ever lack bread to eat.
+
+When Pierre, with his elbows on the altar, had emptied the chalice after
+breaking the sacred wafer, he felt himself sinking into yet greater
+distress. And so a third experiment was beginning for him, the supreme
+battle of justice against charity, in which his heart and his mind would
+struggle together in that great Paris, so full of terrible, unknown
+things. The need for the divine still battled within him against
+domineering intelligence. How among the masses would one ever be able to
+content the thirst for the mysterious? Leaving the _elite_ on one side,
+would science suffice to pacify desire, lull suffering, and satisfy the
+dream? And what would become of himself in the bankruptcy of that same
+charity, which for three years had alone kept him erect by occupying his
+every hour, and giving him the illusion of self-devotion, of being useful
+to others? It seemed, all at once, as if the ground sank beneath him, and
+he heard nothing save the cry of the masses, silent so long, but now
+demanding justice, growling and threatening to take their share, which
+was withheld from them by force and ruse. Nothing more, it seemed, could
+delay the inevitable catastrophe, the fratricidal class warfare that
+would sweep away the olden world, which was condemned to disappear
+beneath the mountain of its crimes. Every hour with frightful sadness he
+expected the collapse, Paris steeped in blood, Paris in flames. And his
+horror of all violence froze him; he knew not where to seek the new
+belief which might dissipate the peril. Fully conscious, though he was,
+that the social and religious problems are but one, and are alone in
+question in the dreadful daily labour of Paris, he was too deeply
+troubled himself, too far removed from ordinary things by his position as
+a priest, and too sorely rent by doubt and powerlessness to tell as yet
+where might be truth, and health, and life. Ah! to be healthy and to
+live, to content at last both heart and reason in the peace, the certain,
+simply honest labour, which man has come to accomplish upon this earth!
+
+The mass was finished, and Pierre descended from the altar, when the
+weeping mother, near whom he passed, caught hold of a corner of the
+chasuble with her trembling hands, and kissed it with wild fervour, as
+one may kiss some relic of a saint from whom one expects salvation. She
+thanked him for the miracle which he must have accomplished, certain as
+she felt that she would find her child cured. And he was deeply stirred
+by that love, that ardent faith of hers, in spite of the sudden and yet
+keener distress which he felt at being in no wise the sovereign minister
+that she thought him, the minister able to obtain a respite from Death.
+But he dismissed her consoled and strengthened, and it was with an ardent
+prayer that he entreated the unknown but conscious Power to succour the
+poor creature. Then, when he had divested himself in the sacristy, and
+found himself again out of doors before the basilica, lashed by the keen
+wintry wind, a mortal shiver came upon him, and froze him, while through
+the mist he looked to see if a whirlwind of anger and justice had not
+swept Paris away: that catastrophe which must some day destroy it,
+leaving under the leaden heavens only the pestilential quagmire of its
+ruins.
+
+Pierre wished to fulfil Abbe Rose's commission immediately. He followed
+the Rue des Norvins, on the crest of Montmartre; and, reaching the Rue
+des Saules, descended by its steep slope, between mossy walls, to the
+other side of Paris. The three francs which he was holding in his
+cassock's pocket, filled him at once with gentle emotion and covert anger
+against the futility of charity. But as he gradually descended by the
+sharp declivities and interminable storeys of steps, the mournful nooks
+of misery which he espied took possession of him, and infinite pity wrung
+his heart. A whole new district was here being built alongside the broad
+thoroughfares opened since the great works of the Sacred Heart had begun.
+Lofty middle-class houses were already rising among ripped-up gardens and
+plots of vacant land, still edged with palings. And these houses with
+their substantial frontages, all new and white, lent a yet more sombre
+and leprous aspect to such of the old shaky buildings as remained, the
+low pot-houses with blood-coloured walls, the _cites_ of workmen's
+dwellings, those abodes of suffering with black, soiled buildings in
+which human cattle were piled. Under the low-hanging sky that day, the
+pavement, dented by heavily-laden carts, was covered with mud; the thaw
+soaked the walls with an icy dampness, whilst all the filth and
+destitution brought terrible sadness to the heart.
+
+After going as far as the Rue Marcadet, Pierre retraced his steps; and in
+the Rue des Saules, certain that he was not mistaken, he entered the
+courtyard of a kind of barracks or hospital, encompassed by three
+irregular buildings. This court was a quagmire, where filth must have
+accumulated during the two months of terrible frost; and now all was
+melting, and an abominable stench arose. The buildings were half falling,
+the gaping vestibules looked like cellar holes, strips of paper streaked
+the cracked and filthy window-panes, and vile rags hung about like flags
+of death. Inside a shanty which served as the door-keeper's abode Pierre
+only saw an infirm man rolled up in a tattered strip of what had once
+been a horse-cloth.
+
+"You have an old workman named Laveuve here," said the priest. "Which
+staircase is it, which floor?"
+
+The man did not answer, but opened his anxious eyes, like a scared idiot.
+The door-keeper, no doubt, was in the neighbourhood. For a moment the
+priest waited; then seeing a little girl on the other side of the
+courtyard, he risked himself, crossed the quagmire on tip-toe, and asked:
+"Do you know an old workman named Laveuve in the house, my child?"
+
+The little girl, who only had a ragged gown of pink cotton stuff about
+her meagre figure, stood there shivering, her hands covered with
+chilblains. She raised her delicate face, which looked pretty though
+nipped by the cold: "Laveuve," said she, "no, don't know, don't know."
+And with the unconscious gesture of a beggar child she put out one of her
+poor, numbed and disfigured hands. Then, when the priest had given her a
+little bit of silver, she began to prance through the mud like a joyful
+goat, singing the while in a shrill voice: "Don't know, don't know."
+
+Pierre decided to follow her. She vanished into one of the gaping
+vestibules, and, in her rear, he climbed a dark and fetid staircase,
+whose steps were half-broken and so slippery, on account of the vegetable
+parings strewn over them, that he had to avail himself of the greasy rope
+by which the inmates hoisted themselves upwards. But every door was
+closed; he vainly knocked at several of them, and only elicited, at the
+last, a stifled growl, as though some despairing animal were confined
+within. Returning to the yard, he hesitated, then made his way to another
+staircase, where he was deafened by piercing cries, as of a child who is
+being butchered. He climbed on hearing this noise and at last found
+himself in front of an open room where an infant, who had been left
+alone, tied in his little chair, in order that he might not fall, was
+howling and howling without drawing breath. Then Pierre went down again,
+upset, frozen by the sight of so much destitution and abandonment.
+
+But a woman was coming in, carrying three potatoes in her apron, and on
+being questioned by him she gazed distrustfully at his cassock. "Laveuve,
+Laveuve? I can't say," she replied. "If the door-keeper were there, she
+might be able to tell you. There are five staircases, you see, and we
+don't all know each other. Besides, there are so many changes. Still try
+over there; at the far end."
+
+The staircase at the back of the yard was yet more abominable than the
+others, its steps warped, its walls slimy, as if soaked with the sweat of
+anguish. At each successive floor the drain-sinks exhaled a pestilential
+stench, whilst from every lodging came moans, or a noise of quarrelling,
+or some frightful sign of misery. A door swung open, and a man appeared
+dragging a woman by the hair whilst three youngsters sobbed aloud. On the
+next floor, Pierre caught a glimpse of a room where a young girl in her
+teens, racked by coughing, was hastily carrying an infant to and fro to
+quiet it, in despair that all the milk of her breast should be exhausted.
+Then, in an adjoining lodging, came the poignant spectacle of three
+beings, half clad in shreds, apparently sexless and ageless, who, amidst
+the dire bareness of their room, were gluttonously eating from the same
+earthen pan some pottage which even dogs would have refused. They barely
+raised their heads to growl, and did not answer Pierre's questions.
+
+He was about to go down again, when right atop of the stairs, at the
+entry of a passage, it occurred to him to make a last try by knocking at
+the door. It was opened by a woman whose uncombed hair was already
+getting grey, though she could not be more than forty; while her pale
+lips, and dim eyes set in a yellow countenance, expressed utter
+lassitude, the shrinking, the constant dread of one whom wretchedness has
+pitilessly assailed. The sight of Pierre's cassock disturbed her, and she
+stammered anxiously: "Come in, come in, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+However, a man whom Pierre had not at first seen--a workman also of some
+forty years, tall, thin and bald, with scanty moustache and beard of a
+washed-out reddish hue--made an angry gesture--a threat as it were--to
+turn the priest out of doors. But he calmed himself, sat down near a
+rickety table and pretended to turn his back. And as there was also a
+child present--a fair-haired girl, eleven or twelve years old, with a
+long and gentle face and that intelligent and somewhat aged expression
+which great misery imparts to children--he called her to him, and held
+her between his knees, doubtless to keep her away from the man in the
+cassock.
+
+Pierre--whose heart was oppressed by his reception, and who realised the
+utter destitution of this family by the sight of the bare, fireless room,
+and the distressed mournfulness of its three inmates--decided all the
+same to repeat his question: "Madame, do you know an old workman named
+Laveuve in the house?"
+
+The woman--who now trembled at having admitted him, since it seemed to
+displease her man--timidly tried to arrange matters. "Laveuve, Laveuve?
+no, I don't. But Salvat, you hear? Do you know a Laveuve here?"
+
+Salvat merely shrugged his shoulders; but the little girl could not keep
+her tongue still: "I say, mamma Theodore, it's p'raps the Philosopher."
+
+"A former house-painter," continued Pierre, "an old man who is ill and
+past work."
+
+Madame Theodore was at once enlightened. "In that case it's him, it's
+him. We call him the Philosopher, a nickname folks have given him in the
+neighbourhood. But there's nothing to prevent his real name from being
+Laveuve."
+
+With one of his fists raised towards the ceiling, Salvat seemed to be
+protesting against the abomination of a world and a Providence that
+allowed old toilers to die of hunger just like broken-down beasts.
+However, he did not speak, but relapsed into the savage, heavy silence,
+the bitter meditation in which he had been plunged when the priest
+arrived. He was a journeyman engineer, and gazed obstinately at the table
+where lay his little leather tool-bag, bulging with something it
+contained--something, perhaps, which he had to take back to a work-shop.
+He might have been thinking of a long, enforced spell of idleness, of a
+vain search for any kind of work during the two previous months of that
+terrible winter. Or perhaps it was the coming bloody reprisals of the
+starvelings that occupied the fiery reverie which set his large, strange,
+vague blue eyes aglow. All at once he noticed that his daughter had taken
+up the tool-bag and was trying to open it to see what it might contain.
+At this he quivered and at last spoke, his voice kindly, yet bitter with
+sudden emotion, which made him turn pale. "Celine, you must leave that
+alone. I forbade you to touch my tools," said he; then taking the bag, he
+deposited it with great precaution against the wall behind him.
+
+"And so, madame," asked Pierre, "this man Laveuve lives on this floor?"
+
+Madame Theodore directed a timid, questioning glance at Salvat. She was
+not in favour of hustling priests when they took the trouble to call, for
+at times there was a little money to be got from them. And when she
+realised that Salvat, who had once more relapsed into his black reverie,
+left her free to act as she pleased, she at once tendered her services.
+"If Monsieur l'Abbe is agreeable, I will conduct him. It's just at the
+end of the passage. But one must know the way, for there are still some
+steps to climb."
+
+Celine, finding a pastime in this visit, escaped from her father's knees
+and likewise accompanied the priest. And Salvat remained alone in that
+den of poverty and suffering, injustice and anger, without a fire,
+without bread, haunted by his burning dream, his eyes again fixed upon
+his bag, as if there, among his tools, he possessed the wherewithal to
+heal the ailing world.
+
+It indeed proved necessary to climb a few more steps; and then, following
+Madame Theodore and Celine, Pierre found himself in a kind of narrow
+garret under the roof, a loft a few yards square, where one could not
+stand erect. There was no window, only a skylight, and as the snow still
+covered it one had to leave the door wide open in order that one might
+see. And the thaw was entering the place, the melting snow was falling
+drop by drop, and coming over the tiled floor. After long weeks of
+intense cold, dark dampness rained quivering over all. And there, lacking
+even a chair, even a plank, Laveuve lay in a corner on a little pile of
+filthy rags spread upon the bare tiles; he looked like some animal dying
+on a dung-heap.
+
+"There!" said Celine in her sing-song voice, "there he is, that's the
+Philosopher!"
+
+Madame Theodore had bent down to ascertain if he still lived. "Yes, he
+breathes; he's sleeping I think. Oh! if he only had something to eat
+every day, he would be well enough. But what would you have? He has
+nobody left him, and when one gets to seventy the best is to throw
+oneself into the river. In the house-painting line it often happens that
+a man has to give up working on ladders and scaffoldings at fifty. He at
+first found some work to do on the ground level. Then he was lucky enough
+to get a job as night watchman. But that's over, he's been turned away
+from everywhere, and, for two months now, he's been lying in this nook
+waiting to die. The landlord hasn't dared to fling him into the street as
+yet, though not for want of any inclination that way. We others sometimes
+bring him a little wine and a crust, of course; but when one has nothing
+oneself, how can one give to others?"
+
+Pierre, terrified, gazed at that frightful remnant of humanity, that
+remnant into which fifty years of toil, misery and social injustice had
+turned a man. And he ended by distinguishing Laveuve's white, worn,
+sunken, deformed head. Here, on a human face, appeared all the ruin
+following upon hopeless labour. Laveuve's unkempt beard straggled over
+his features, suggesting an old horse that is no longer cropped; his
+toothless jaws were quite askew, his eyes were vitreous, and his nose
+seemed to plunge into his mouth. But above all else one noticed his
+resemblance to some beast of burden, deformed by hard toil, lamed, worn
+to death, and now only good for the knackers.
+
+"Ah! the poor fellow," muttered the shuddering priest. "And he is left to
+die of hunger, all alone, without any succour? And not a hospital, not an
+asylum has given him shelter?"
+
+"Well," resumed Madame Theodore in her sad yet resigned voice, "the
+hospitals are built for the sick, and he isn't sick, he's simply
+finishing off, with his strength at an end. Besides he isn't always easy
+to deal with. People came again only lately to put him in an asylum, but
+he won't be shut up. And he speaks coarsely to those who question him,
+not to mention that he has the reputation of liking drink and talking
+badly about the gentle-folks. But, thank Heaven, he will now soon be
+delivered."
+
+Pierre had leant forward on seeing Laveuve's eyes open, and he spoke to
+him tenderly, telling him that he had come from a friend with a little
+money to enable him to buy what he might most pressingly require. At
+first, on seeing Pierre's cassock, the old man had growled some coarse
+words; but, despite his extreme feebleness, he still retained the pert
+chaffing spirit of the Parisian artisan: "Well, then, I'll willingly
+drink a drop," he said distinctly, "and have a bit of bread with it, if
+there's the needful; for I've lost taste of both for a couple of days
+past."
+
+Celine offered her services, and Madame Theodore sent her to fetch a loaf
+and a quart of wine with Abbe Rose's money. And in the interval she told
+Pierre how Laveuve was at one moment to have entered the Asylum of the
+Invalids of Labour, a charitable enterprise whose lady patronesses were
+presided over by Baroness Duvillard. However, the usual regulation
+inquiries had doubtless led to such an unfavourable report that matters
+had gone no further.
+
+"Baroness Duvillard! but I know her, and will go to see her to-day!"
+exclaimed Pierre, whose heart was bleeding. "It is impossible for a man
+to be left in such circumstances any longer."
+
+Then, as Celine came back with the loaf and the wine, the three of them
+tried to make Laveuve more comfortable, raised him on his heap of rags,
+gave him to eat and to drink, and then left the remainder of the wine and
+the loaf--a large four-pound loaf--near him, recommending him to wait
+awhile before he finished the bread, as otherwise he might stifle.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe ought to give me his address in case I should have any
+news to send him," said Madame Theodore when she again found herself at
+her door.
+
+Pierre had no card with him, and so all three went into the room. But
+Salvat was no longer alone there. He stood talking in a low voice very
+quickly, and almost mouth to mouth, with a young fellow of twenty. The
+latter, who was slim and dark, with a sprouting beard and hair cut in
+brush fashion, had bright eyes, a straight nose and thin lips set in a
+pale and slightly freckled face, betokening great intelligence. With
+stern and stubborn brow, he stood shivering in his well-worn jacket.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe wants to leave me his address for the Philosopher's
+affair," gently explained Madame Theodore, annoyed to find another there
+with Salvat.
+
+The two men had glanced at the priest and then looked at one another,
+each with terrible mien. And they suddenly ceased speaking in the bitter
+cold which fell from the ceiling. Then, again with infinite precaution,
+Salvat went to take his tool-bag from alongside the wall.
+
+"So you are going down, you are again going to look for work?" asked
+Madame Theodore.
+
+He did not answer, but merely made an angry gesture, as if to say that he
+would no longer have anything to do with work since work for so long a
+time had not cared to have anything to do with him.
+
+"All the same," resumed the woman, "try to bring something back with you,
+for you know there's nothing. At what time will you be back?"
+
+With another gesture he seemed to answer that he would come back when he
+could, perhaps never. And tears rising, despite all his efforts, to his
+vague, blue, glowing eyes he caught hold of his daughter Celine, kissed
+her violently, distractedly, and then went off, with his bag under his
+arm, followed by his young companion.
+
+"Celine," resumed Madame Theodore, "give Monsieur l'Abbe your pencil,
+and, see, monsieur, seat yourself here, it will be better for writing."
+
+Then, when Pierre had installed himself at the table, on the chair
+previously occupied by Salvat, she went on talking, seeking to excuse her
+man for his scanty politeness: "He hasn't a bad heart, but he's had so
+many worries in life that he has become a bit cracked. It's like that
+young man whom you just saw here, Monsieur Victor Mathis. There's another
+for you, who isn't happy, a young man who was well brought up, who has a
+lot of learning, and whose mother, a widow, has only just got the
+wherewithal to buy bread. So one can understand it, can't one? It all
+upsets their heads, and they talk of blowing up everybody. For my part
+those are not my notions, but I forgive them, oh! willingly enough."
+
+Perturbed, yet interested by all the mystery and vague horror which he
+could divine around him, Pierre made no haste to write his address, but
+lingered listening, as if inviting confidence.
+
+"If you only knew, Monsieur l'Abbe, that poor Salvat was a forsaken
+child, without father or mother, and had to scour the roads and try every
+trade at first to get a living. Then afterwards he became a mechanician,
+and a very good workman, I assure you, very skilful and very painstaking.
+But he already had those ideas of his, and quarrelled with people, and
+tried to bring his mates over to his views; and so he was unable to stay
+anywhere. At last, when he was thirty, he was stupid enough to go to
+America with an inventor, who traded on him to such a point that after
+six years of it he came back ill and penniless. I must tell you that he
+had married my younger sister Leonie, and that she died before he went to
+America, leaving him little Celine, who was then only a year old. I was
+then living with my husband, Theodore Labitte, a mason; and it's not to
+brag that I say it, but however much I wore out my eyes with needlework
+he used to beat me till he left me half-dead on the floor. But he ended
+by deserting me and going off with a young woman of twenty, which, after
+all, caused me more pleasure than grief. And naturally when Salvat came
+back he sought me out and found me alone with his little Celine, whom he
+had left in my charge when he went away, and who called me mamma. And
+we've all three been living together since then--"
+
+She became somewhat embarrassed, and then, as if to show that she did not
+altogether lack some respectable family connections, she went on to say:
+"For my part I've had no luck; but I've another sister, Hortense, who's
+married to a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, and lives in a pretty lodging
+on the Boulevard Rochechouart. There were three of us born of my father's
+second marriage,--Hortense, who's the youngest, Leonie, who's dead, and
+myself, Pauline, the eldest. And of my father's first marriage I've still
+a brother Eugene Toussaint, who is ten years older than me and is an
+engineer like Salvat, and has been working ever since the war in the same
+establishment, the Grandidier factory, only a hundred steps away in the
+Rue Marcadet. The misfortune is that he had a stroke lately. As for me,
+my eyes are done for; I ruined them by working ten hours a day at fine
+needlework. And now I can no longer even try to mend anything without my
+eyes filling with water till I can't see at all. I've tried to find
+charwoman's work, but I can't get any; bad luck always follows us. And so
+we are in need of everything; we've nothing but black misery, two or
+three days sometimes going by without a bite, so that it's like the
+chance life of a dog that feeds on what it can find. And with these last
+two months of bitter cold to freeze us, it's sometimes made us think that
+one morning we should never wake up again. But what would you have? I've
+never been happy, I was beaten to begin with, and now I'm done for, left
+in a corner, living on, I really don't know why."
+
+Her voice had begun to tremble, her red eyes moistened, and Pierre could
+realise that she thus wept through life, a good enough woman but one who
+had no will, and was already blotted out, so to say, from existence.
+
+"Oh! I don't complain of Salvat," she went on. "He's a good fellow; he
+only dreams of everybody's happiness, and he doesn't drink, and he works
+when he can. Only it's certain that he'd work more if he didn't busy
+himself with politics. One can't discuss things with comrades, and go to
+public meetings and be at the workshop at the same time. In that he's at
+fault, that's evident. But all the same he has good reason to complain,
+for one can't imagine such misfortunes as have pursued him. Everything
+has fallen on him, everything has beaten him down. Why, a saint even
+would have gone mad, so that one can understand that a poor beggar who
+has never had any luck should get quite wild. For the last two months he
+has only met one good heart, a learned gentleman who lives up yonder on
+the height, Monsieur Guillaume Froment, who has given him a little work,
+just something to enable us to have some soup now and then."
+
+Much surprised by this mention of his brother, Pierre wished to ask
+certain questions; but a singular feeling of uneasiness, in which fear
+and discretion mingled, checked his tongue. He looked at Celine, who
+stood before him, listening in silence with her grave, delicate air; and
+Madame Theodore, seeing him smile at the child, indulged in a final
+remark: "It's just the idea of that child," said she, "that throws Salvat
+out of his wits. He adores her, and he'd kill everybody if he could, when
+he sees her go supperless to bed. She's such a good girl, she was
+learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a
+shift to go there in."
+
+Pierre, who had at last written his address, slipped a five-franc piece
+into the little girl's hand, and, desirous as he was of curtailing any
+thanks, he hastily said: "You will know now where to find me if you need
+me for Laveuve. But I'm going to busy myself about him this very
+afternoon, and I really hope that he will be fetched away this evening."
+
+Madame Theodore did not listen, but poured forth all possible blessings;
+whilst Celine, thunderstruck at seeing five francs in her hand, murmured:
+"Oh! that poor papa, who has gone to hunt for money! Shall I run after
+him to tell him that we've got enough for to-day?"
+
+Then the priest, who was already in the passage, heard the woman answer:
+"Oh! he's far away if he's still walking. He'll p'raps come back right
+enough."
+
+However, as Pierre, with buzzing head and grief-stricken heart, hastily
+escaped out of that frightful house of suffering, he perceived to his
+astonishment Salvat and Victor Mathis standing erect in a corner of the
+filthy courtyard, where the stench was so pestilential. They had come
+downstairs, there to continue their interrupted colloquy. And again, they
+were talking in very low tones, and very quickly, mouth to mouth,
+absorbed in the violent thoughts which made their eyes flare. But they
+heard the priest's footsteps, recognised him, and suddenly becoming cold
+and calm, exchanged an energetic hand-shake without uttering another
+word. Victor went up towards Montmartre, whilst Salvat hesitated like a
+man who is consulting destiny. Then, as if trusting himself to stern
+chance, drawing up his thin figure, the figure of a weary, hungry toiler,
+he turned into the Rue Marcadet, and walked towards Paris, his tool-bag
+still under his arm.
+
+For an instant Pierre felt a desire to run and call to him that his
+little girl wished him to go back again. But the same feeling of
+uneasiness as before came over the priest--a commingling of discretion
+and fear, a covert conviction that nothing could stay destiny. And he
+himself was no longer calm, no longer experienced the icy, despairing
+distress of the early morning. On finding himself again in the street,
+amidst the quivering fog, he felt the fever, the glow of charity which
+the sight of such frightful wretchedness had ignited, once more within
+him. No, no! such suffering was too much; he wished to struggle still, to
+save Laveuve and restore a little joy to all those poor folk. The new
+experiment presented itself with that city of Paris which he had seen
+shrouded as with ashes, so mysterious and so perturbing beneath the
+threat of inevitable justice. And he dreamed of a huge sun bringing
+health and fruitfulness, which would make of the huge city the fertile
+field where would sprout the better world of to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+II. WEALTH AND WORLDLINESS
+
+THAT same morning, as was the case nearly every day, some intimates were
+expected to _dejeuner_ at the Duvillards', a few friends who more or less
+invited themselves. And on that chilly day, all thaw and fog, the regal
+mansion in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy near the Boulevard de la Madeleine
+bloomed with the rarest flowers, for flowers were the greatest passion of
+the Baroness, who transformed the lofty, sumptuous rooms, littered with
+marvels, into warm and odoriferous conservatories, whither the gloomy,
+livid light of Paris penetrated caressingly with infinite softness.
+
+The great reception rooms were on the ground-floor looking on to the
+spacious courtyard, and preceded by a little winter garden, which served
+as a vestibule where two footmen in liveries of dark green and gold were
+invariably on duty. A famous gallery of paintings, valued at millions of
+francs, occupied the whole of the northern side of the house. And the
+grand staircase, of a sumptuousness which also was famous, conducted to
+the apartments usually occupied by the family, a large red drawing-room,
+a small blue and silver drawing-room, a study whose walls were hung with
+old stamped leather, and a dining-room in pale green with English
+furniture, not to mention the various bedchambers and dressing-rooms.
+Built in the time of Louis XIV. the mansion retained an aspect of noble
+grandeur, subordinated to the epicurean tastes of the triumphant
+_bourgeoisie_, which for a century now had reigned by virtue of the
+omnipotence of money.
+
+Noon had not yet struck, and Baron Duvillard, contrary to custom, found
+himself the first in the little blue and silver _salon_. He was a man of
+sixty, tall and sturdy, with a large nose, full cheeks, broad, fleshy
+lips, and wolfish teeth, which had remained very fine. He had, however,
+become bald at an early age, and dyed the little hair that was left him.
+Moreover, since his beard had turned white, he had kept his face
+clean-shaven. His grey eyes bespoke his audacity, and in his laugh there
+was a ring of conquest, while the whole of his face expressed the fact
+that this conquest was his own, that he wielded the sovereignty of an
+unscrupulous master, who used and abused the power stolen and retained by
+his caste.
+
+He took a few steps, and then halted in front of a basket of wonderful
+orchids near the window. On the mantel-piece and table tufts of violets
+sent forth their perfume, and in the warm, deep silence which seemed to
+fall from the hangings, the Baron sat down and stretched himself in one
+of the large armchairs, upholstered in blue satin striped with silver. He
+had taken a newspaper from his pocket, and began to re-peruse an article
+it contained, whilst all around him the entire mansion proclaimed his
+immense fortune, his sovereign power, the whole history of the century
+which had made him the master. His grandfather, Jerome Duvillard, son of
+a petty advocate of Poitou, had come to Paris as a notary's clerk in
+1788, when he was eighteen; and very keen, intelligent and hungry as he
+was, he had gained the family's first three millions--at first in
+trafficking with the _emigres'_ estates when they were confiscated and
+sold as national property, and later, in contracting for supplies to the
+imperial army. His father, Gregoire Duvillard, born in 1805, and the real
+great man of the family--he who had first reigned in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, after King Louis Philippe had granted him the title of
+Baron--remained one of the recognized heroes of modern finance by reason
+of the scandalous profits which he had made in every famous thieving
+speculation of the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, such as mines,
+railroads, and the Suez Canal. And he, the present Baron, Henri by name,
+and born in 1836, had only seriously gone into business on Baron
+Gregoire's death soon after the Franco-German War. However, he had done
+so with such a rageful appetite, that in a quarter of a century he had
+again doubled the family fortune. He rotted and devoured, corrupted,
+swallowed everything that he touched; and he was also the tempter
+personified--the man who bought all consciences that were for
+sale--having fully understood the new times and its tendencies in
+presence of the democracy, which in its turn had become hungry and
+impatient. Inferior though he was both to his father and his grandfather,
+being a man of enjoyment, caring less for the work of conquest than the
+division of the spoil, he nevertheless remained a terrible fellow, a
+sleek triumpher, whose operations were all certainties, who amassed
+millions at each stroke, and treated with governments on a footing of
+equality, able as he was to place, if not France, at least a ministry in
+his pocket. In one century and three generations, royalty had become
+embodied in him: a royalty already threatened, already shaken by the
+tempest close ahead. And at times his figure grew and expanded till it
+became, as it were, an incarnation of the whole _bourgeoisie_--that
+_bourgeoisie_ which at the division of the spoils in 1789 appropriated
+everything, and has since fattened on everything at the expense of the
+masses, and refuses to restore anything whatever.
+
+The article which the Baron was re-perusing in a halfpenny newspaper
+interested him. "La Voix du Peuple" was a noisy sheet which, under the
+pretence of defending outraged justice and morality, set a fresh scandal
+circulating every morning in the hope of thereby increasing its sales.
+And that morning, in big type on its front page, this sub-title was
+displayed: "The Affair of the African Railways. Five Millions spent in
+Bribes: Two Ministers Bought, Thirty Deputies and Senators Compromised."
+Then in an article of odious violence the paper's editor, the famous
+Sagnier, announced that he possessed and intended to publish the list of
+the thirty-two members of Parliament, whose support Baron Duvillard had
+purchased at the time when the Chambers had voted the bill for the
+African Railway Lines. Quite a romantic story was mingled with all this,
+the adventures of a certain Hunter, whom the Baron had employed as his
+go-between and who had now fled. The Baron, however, re-perused each
+sentence and weighed each word of the article very calmly; and although
+he was alone he shrugged his shoulders and spoke aloud with the tranquil
+assurance of a man whose responsibility is covered and who is, moreover,
+too powerful to be molested.
+
+"The idiot," he said, "he knows even less than he pretends."
+
+Just then, however, a first guest arrived, a man of barely four and
+thirty, elegantly dressed, dark and good looking, with a delicately
+shaped nose, and curly hair and beard. As a rule, too, he had laughing
+eyes, and something giddy, flighty, bird-like in his demeanour; but that
+morning he seemed nervous, anxious even, and smiled in a scared way.
+
+"Ah! it's you, Duthil," said the Baron, rising. "Have you read this?" And
+he showed the new comer the "Voix du Peuple," which he was folding up to
+replace it in his pocket.
+
+"Why yes, I've read it. It's amazing. How can Sagnier have got hold of
+the list of names? Has there been some traitor?"
+
+The Baron looked at his companion quietly, amused by his secret anguish.
+Duthil, the son of a notary of Angouleme, almost poor and very honest,
+had been sent to Paris as deputy for that town whilst yet very young,
+thanks to the high reputation of his father; and he there led a life of
+pleasure and idleness, even as he had formerly done when a student.
+However, his pleasant bachelor's quarters in the Rue de Suresnes, and his
+success as a handsome man in the whirl of women among whom he lived, cost
+him no little money; and gaily enough, devoid as he was of any moral
+sense, he had already glided into all sorts of compromising and lowering
+actions, like a light-headed, superior man, a charming, thoughtless
+fellow, who attached no importance whatever to such trifles.
+
+"Bah!" said the Baron at last. "Has Sagnier even got a list? I doubt it,
+for there was none; Hunter wasn't so foolish as to draw one up. And then,
+too, it was merely an ordinary affair; nothing more was done than is
+always done in such matters of business."
+
+Duthil, who for the first time in his life had felt anxious, listened
+like one that needs to be reassured. "Quite so, eh?" he exclaimed.
+"That's what I thought. There isn't a cat to be whipped in the whole
+affair."
+
+He tried to laugh as usual, and no longer exactly knew how it was that he
+had received some ten thousand francs in connection with the matter,
+whether it were in the shape of a vague loan, or else under some pretext
+of publicity, puffery, or advertising, for Hunter had acted with extreme
+adroitness so as to give no offence to the susceptibilities of even the
+least virginal consciences.
+
+"No, there's not a cat to be whipped," repeated Duvillard, who decidedly
+seemed amused by the face which Duthil was pulling. "And besides, my dear
+fellow, it's well known that cats always fall on their feet. But have you
+seen Silviane?"
+
+"I just left her. I found her in a great rage with you. She learnt this
+morning that her affair of the Comedie is off."
+
+A rush of anger suddenly reddened the Baron's face. He, who could scoff
+so calmly at the threat of the African Railways scandal, lost his balance
+and felt his blood boiling directly there was any question of Silviane,
+the last, imperious passion of his sixtieth year. "What! off?" said he.
+"But at the Ministry of Fine Arts they gave me almost a positive promise
+only the day before yesterday."
+
+He referred to a stubborn caprice of Silviane d'Aulnay, who, although she
+had hitherto only reaped a success of beauty on the stage, obstinately
+sought to enter the Comedie Francaise and make her _debut_ there in the
+part of "Pauline" in Corneille's "Polyeucte," which part she had been
+studying desperately for several months past. Her idea seemed an insane
+one, and all Paris laughed at it; but the young woman, with superb
+assurance, kept herself well to the front, and imperiously demanded the
+_role_, feeling sure that she would conquer.
+
+"It was the minister who wouldn't have it," explained Duthil.
+
+The Baron was choking. "The minister, the minister! Ah! well, I will soon
+have that minister sent to the rightabout."
+
+However, he had to cease speaking, for at that moment Baroness Duvillard
+came into the little drawing-room. At forty-six years of age she was
+still very beautiful. Very fair and tall, having hitherto put on but
+little superfluous fat, and retaining perfect arms and shoulders, with
+speckless silky skin, it was only her face that was spoiling, colouring
+slightly with reddish blotches. And these blemishes were her torment, her
+hourly thought and worry. Her Jewish origin was revealed by her somewhat
+long and strangely charming face, with blue and softly voluptuous eyes.
+As indolent as an Oriental slave, disliking to have to move, walk, or
+even speak, she seemed intended for a harem life, especially as she was
+for ever tending her person. That day she was all in white, gowned in a
+white silk toilette of delicious and lustrous simplicity.
+
+Duthil complimented her, and kissed her hand with an enraptured air. "Ah!
+madame, you set a little springtide in my heart. Paris is so black and
+muddy this morning."
+
+However, a second guest entered the room, a tall and handsome man of five
+or six and thirty; and the Baron, still disturbed by his passion,
+profited by this opportunity to make his escape. He carried Duthil away
+into his study, saying, "Come here an instant, my dear fellow. I have a
+few more words to say to you about the affair in question. Monsieur de
+Quinsac will keep my wife company for a moment."
+
+The Baroness, as soon as she was alone with the new comer, who, like
+Duthil, had most respectfully kissed her hand, gave him a long, silent
+look, while her soft eyes filled with tears. Deep silence, tinged with
+some slight embarrassment, had fallen, but she ended by saying in a very
+low voice: "How happy I am, Gerard, to find myself alone with you for a
+moment. For a month past I have not had that happiness."
+
+The circumstances in which Henri Duvillard had married the younger
+daughter of Justus Steinberger, the great Jew banker, formed quite a
+story which was often recalled. The Steinbergers--after the fashion of
+the Rothschilds--were originally four brothers--Justus, residing in
+Paris, and the three others at Berlin, Vienna, and London, a circumstance
+which gave their secret association most formidable power in the
+financial markets of Europe. Justus, however, was the least wealthy of
+the four, and in Baron Gregoire Duvillard he had a redoubtable adversary
+against whom he was compelled to struggle each time that any large prey
+was in question. And it was after a terrible encounter between the pair,
+after the eager sharing of the spoils, that the crafty idea had come to
+Justus of giving his younger daughter Eve in marriage, by way of
+_douceur_, to the Baron's son, Henri. So far the latter had only been
+known as an amiable fellow, fond of horses and club life; and no doubt
+Justus's idea was that, at the death of the redoubtable Baron, who was
+already condemned by his physicians, he would be able to lay his hands on
+the rival banking-house, particularly if he only had in front of him a
+son-in-law whom it was easy to conquer. As it happened, Henri had been
+mastered by a violent passion for Eve's blond beauty, which was then
+dazzling. He wished to marry her, and his father, who knew him,
+consented, in reality greatly amused to think that Justus was making an
+execrably bad stroke of business. The enterprise became indeed disastrous
+for Justus when Henri succeeded his father and the man of prey appeared
+from beneath the man of pleasure and carved himself his own huge share in
+exploiting the unbridled appetites of the middle-class democracy, which
+had at last secured possession of power. Not only did Eve fail to devour
+Henri, who in his turn had become Baron Duvillard, the all-powerful
+banker, more and more master of the market; but it was the Baron who
+devoured Eve, and this in less than four years' time. After she had borne
+him a daughter and a son in turn, he suddenly drew away from her,
+neglected her, as if she were a mere toy that he no longer cared for. She
+was at first both surprised and distressed by the change, especially on
+learning that he was resuming his bachelor's habits, and had set his
+fickle if ardent affections elsewhere. Then, however, without any kind of
+recrimination, any display of anger, or even any particular effort to
+regain her ascendency over him, she, on her side, imitated his example.
+She could not live without love, and assuredly she had only been born to
+be beautiful, to fascinate and reap adoration. To the lover whom she
+chose when she was five and twenty she remained faithful for more than
+fifteen years, as faithful as she might have been to a husband; and when
+he died her grief was intense, it was like real widowhood. Six months
+later, however, having met Count Gerard de Quinsac she had again been
+unable to resist her imperative need of adoration, and an intrigue had
+followed.
+
+"Have you been ill, my dear Gerard?" she inquired, noticing the young
+man's embarrassment. "Are you hiding some worry from me?"
+
+She was ten years older than he was; and she clung desperately to this
+last passion of hers, revolting at the thought of growing old, and
+resolved upon every effort to keep the young man beside her.
+
+"No, I am hiding nothing, I assure you," replied the Count. "But my
+mother has had much need of me recently."
+
+She continued looking at him, however, with anxious passion, finding him
+so tall and aristocratic of mien, with his regular features and dark hair
+and moustaches which were always most carefully tended. He belonged to
+one of the oldest families of France, and resided on a ground-floor in
+the Rue St. Dominique with his widowed mother, who had been ruined by her
+adventurously inclined husband, and had at most an income of some fifteen
+thousand francs* to live upon. Gerard for his part had never done
+anything; contenting himself with his one year of obligatory military
+service, he had renounced the profession of arms in the same way as he
+had renounced that of diplomacy, the only one that offered him an opening
+of any dignity. He spent his days in that busy idleness common to all
+young men who lead "Paris life." And his mother, haughtily severe though
+she was, seemed to excuse this, as if in her opinion a man of his birth
+was bound by way of protest to keep apart from official life under a
+Republic. However, she no doubt had more intimate, more disturbing
+reasons for indulgence. She had nearly lost him when he was only seven,
+through an attack of brain fever. At eighteen he had complained of his
+heart, and the doctors had recommended that he should be treated gently
+in all respects. She knew, therefore, what a lie lurked behind his proud
+demeanour, within his lofty figure, that haughty _facade_ of his race. He
+was but dust, ever threatened with illness and collapse. In the depths of
+his seeming virility there was merely girlish _abandon_; and he was
+simply a weak, good-natured fellow, liable to every stumble. It was on
+the occasion of a visit which he had paid with his mother to the Asylum
+of the Invalids of Labour that he had first seen Eve, whom he continued
+to meet; his mother, closing her eyes to this culpable connection in a
+sphere of society which she treated with contempt, in the same way as she
+had closed them to so many other acts of folly which she had forgiven
+because she regarded them as the mere lapses of an ailing child.
+Moreover, Eve had made a conquest of Madame de Quinsac, who was very
+pious, by an action which had recently amazed society. It had been
+suddenly learnt that she had allowed Monseigneur Martha to convert her to
+the Roman Catholic faith. This thing, which she had refused to do when
+solicited by her lawful husband, she had now done in the hope of ensuring
+herself a lover's eternal affection. And all Paris was still stirred by
+the magnificence exhibited at the Madeleine, on the occasion of the
+baptism of this Jewess of five and forty, whose beauty and whose tears
+had upset every heart.
+
+  * About 3000 dollars.
+
+Gerard, on his side, was still flattered by the deep and touching
+tenderness shown to him; but weariness was coming, and he had already
+sought to break off the connection by avoiding any further assignations.
+He well understood Eve's glances and her tears, and though he was moved
+at sight of them he tried to excuse himself. "I assure you," said he, "my
+mother has kept me so busy that I could not get away." But she, without a
+word, still turned her tearful glance on him, and weak, like herself, in
+despair that he should have been left alone with her in this fashion, he
+yielded, unable to continue refusing. "Well, then," said he, "this
+afternoon at four o'clock if you are free."
+
+He had lowered his voice in speaking, but a slight rustle made him turn
+his head and start like one in fault. It was the Baroness's daughter
+Camille entering the room. She had heard nothing; but by the smile which
+the others had exchanged, by the very quiver of the air, she understood
+everything; an assignation for that very day and at the very spot which
+she suspected. Some slight embarrassment followed, an exchange of anxious
+and evil glances.
+
+Camille, at three and twenty, was a very dark young woman, short of
+stature and somewhat deformed, with her left shoulder higher than the
+right. There seemed to be nothing of her father or mother in her. Her
+case was one of those unforeseen accidents in family heredity which make
+people wonder whence they can arise. Her only pride lay in her beautiful
+black eyes and superb black hair, which, short as she was, would, said
+she, have sufficed to clothe her. But her nose was long, her face
+deviated to the left, and her chin was pointed. Her thin, witty, and
+malicious lips bespoke all the rancour and perverse anger stored in the
+heart of this uncomely creature, whom the thought of her uncomeliness
+enraged. However, the one whom she most hated in the whole world was her
+own mother, that _amorosa_ who was so little fitted to be a mother, who
+had never loved her, never paid attention to her, but had abandoned her
+to the care of servants from her very infancy. In this wise real hatred
+had grown up between the two women, mute and frigid on the one side, and
+active and passionate on the other. The daughter hated her mother because
+she found her beautiful, because she had not been created in the same
+image: beautiful with the beauty with which her mother crushed her. Day
+by day she suffered at being sought by none, at realising that the
+adoration of one and all still went to her mother. As she was amusing in
+her maliciousness, people listened to her and laughed; however, the
+glances of all the men--even and indeed especially the younger ones--soon
+reverted to her triumphant mother, who seemingly defied old age. In part
+for this reason Camille, with ferocious determination, had decided that
+she would dispossess her mother of her last lover Gerard, and marry him
+herself, conscious that such a loss would doubtless kill the Baroness.
+Thanks to her promised dowry of five millions of francs, the young woman
+did not lack suitors; but, little flattered by their advances, she was
+accustomed to say, with her malicious laugh: "Oh! of course; why for five
+millions they would take a wife from a mad-house." However, she, herself,
+had really begun to love Gerard, who, good-natured as he was, evinced
+much kindness towards this suffering young woman whom nature had treated
+so harshly. It worried him to see her forsaken by everyone, and little by
+little he yielded to the grateful tenderness which she displayed towards
+him, happy, handsome man that he was, at being regarded as a demi-god and
+having such a slave. Indeed, in his attempt to quit the mother there was
+certainly a thought of allowing the daughter to marry him, which would be
+an agreeable ending to it all, though he did not as yet acknowledge this,
+ashamed as he felt and embarrassed by his illustrious name and all the
+complications and tears which he foresaw.
+
+The silence continued. Camille with her piercing glance, as sharp as any
+knife, had told her mother that she knew the truth; and then with another
+and pain-fraught glance she had complained to Gerard. He, in order to
+re-establish equilibrium, could only think of a compliment: "Good
+morning, Camille. Ah! that havana-brown gown of yours looks nice! It's
+astonishing how well rather sombre colours suit you."
+
+Camille glanced at her mother's white robe, and then at her own dark
+gown, which scarcely allowed her neck and wrists to be seen. "Yes," she
+replied laughing, "I only look passable when I don't dress as a young
+girl."
+
+Eve, ill at ease, worried by the growth of a rivalry in which she did not
+as yet wish to believe, changed the conversation. "Isn't your brother
+there?" she asked.
+
+"Why yes, we came down together."
+
+Hyacinthe, who came in at that moment, shook hands with Gerard in a weary
+way. He was twenty, and had inherited his mother's pale blond hair, and
+her long face full of Oriental languor; while from his father he had
+derived his grey eyes and thick lips, expressive of unscrupulous
+appetites. A wretched scholar, regarding every profession with the same
+contempt, he had decided to do nothing. Spoilt by his father, he took
+some little interest in poetry and music, and lived in an extraordinary
+circle of artists, low women, madmen and bandits; boasting himself of all
+sorts of crimes and vices, professing the very worst philosophical and
+social ideas, invariably going to extremes, becoming in turn a
+Collectivist, an Individualist, an Anarchist, a Pessimist, a Symbolist,
+and what not besides; without, however, ceasing to be a Catholic, as this
+conjunction of Catholicity with something else seemed to him the supreme
+_bon ton_. In reality he was simply empty and rather a fool. In four
+generations the vigorous hungry blood of the Duvillards, after producing
+three magnificent beasts of prey, had, as if exhausted by the contentment
+of every passion, ended in this sorry emasculated creature, who was
+incapable alike of great knavery or great debauchery.
+
+Camille, who was too intelligent not to realise her brother's
+nothingness, was fond of teasing him; and looking at him as he stood
+there, tightly buttoned in his long frock coat with pleated skirt--a
+resurrection of the romantic period, which he carried to exaggeration,
+she resumed: "Mamma has been asking for you, Hyacinthe. Come and show her
+your gown. You are the one who would look nice dressed as a young girl."
+
+However, he eluded her without replying. He was covertly afraid of her,
+though they lived together in great intimacy, frankly exchanging
+confidences respecting their perverse views of life. And he directed a
+glance of disdain at the wonderful basket of orchids which seemed to him
+past the fashion, far too common nowadays. For his part he had left the
+lilies of life behind him, and reached the ranunculus, the flower of
+blood.
+
+The two last guests who were expected now arrived almost together. The
+first was the investigating magistrate Amadieu, a little man of five and
+forty, who was an intimate of the household and had been brought into
+notoriety by a recent anarchist affair. Between a pair of fair, bushy
+whiskers he displayed a flat, regular judicial face, to which he tried to
+impart an expression of keenness by wearing a single eyeglass behind
+which his glance sparkled. Very worldly, moreover, he belonged to the new
+judicial school, being a distinguished psychologist and having written a
+book in reply to the abuses of criminalist physiology. And he was also a
+man of great, tenacious ambition, fond of notoriety and ever on the
+lookout for those resounding legal affairs which bring glory. Behind him,
+at last appeared General de Bozonnet, Gerard's uncle on the maternal
+side, a tall, lean old man with a nose like an eagle's beak. Chronic
+rheumatism had recently compelled him to retire from the service. Raised
+to a colonelcy after the Franco-German War in reward for his gallant
+conduct at St. Privat, he had, in spite of his extremely monarchical
+connections, kept his sworn faith to Napoleon III. And he was excused in
+his own sphere of society for this species of military Bonapartism, on
+account of the bitterness with which he accused the Republic of having
+ruined the army. Worthy fellow that he was, extremely fond of his sister,
+Madame de Quinsac, it seemed as though he acted in accordance with some
+secret desire of hers in accepting the invitations of Baroness Duvillard
+by way of rendering Gerard's constant presence in her house more natural
+and excusable.
+
+However, the Baron and Duthil now returned from the study, laughing
+loudly in an exaggerated way, doubtless to make the others believe that
+they were quite easy in mind. And one and all passed into the large
+dining-room where a big wood fire was burning, its gay flames shining
+like a ray of springtide amid the fine mahogany furniture of English make
+laden with silver and crystal. The room, of a soft mossy green, had an
+unassuming charm in the pale light, and the table which in the centre
+displayed the richness of its covers and the immaculate whiteness of its
+linen adorned with Venetian point, seemed to have flowered miraculously
+with a wealth of large tea roses, most admirable blooms for the season,
+and of delicious perfume.
+
+The Baroness seated the General on her right, and Amadieu on her left.
+The Baron on his right placed Duthil, and on his left Gerard. Then the
+young people installed themselves at either end, Camille between Gerard
+and the General, and Hyacinthe between Duthil and Amadieu. And forthwith,
+from the moment of starting on the scrambled eggs and truffles,
+conversation began, the usual conversation of Parisian _dejeuners_, when
+every event, great or little, of the morning or the day before is passed
+in review: the truths and the falsehoods current in every social sphere,
+the financial scandal, and the political adventure of the hour, the novel
+that has just appeared, the play that has just been produced, the stories
+which should only be retailed in whispers, but which are repeated aloud.
+And beneath all the light wit which circulates, beneath all the laughter,
+which often has a false ring, each retains his or her particular worry,
+or distress of mind, at times so acute that it becomes perfect agony.
+
+With his quiet and wonted impudence, the Baron, bravely enough, was the
+first to speak of the article in the "Voix du Peuple." "I say, have you
+read Sagnier's article this morning? It's a good one; he has _verve_ you
+know, but what a dangerous lunatic he is!"
+
+This set everybody at ease, for the article would certainly have weighed
+upon the _dejeuner_ had no one mentioned it.
+
+"It's the 'Panama' dodge over again!" cried Duthil. "But no, no, we've
+had quite enough of it!"
+
+"Why," resumed the Baron, "the affair of the African Railway Lines is as
+clear as spring water! All those whom Sagnier threatens may sleep in
+peace. The truth is that it's a scheme to upset Barroux's ministry. Leave
+to interpellate will certainly be asked for this afternoon. You'll see
+what a fine uproar there'll be in the Chamber."
+
+"That libellous, scandal-seeking press," said Amadieu gravely, "is a
+dissolving agent which will bring France to ruin. We ought to have laws
+against it."
+
+The General made an angry gesture: "Laws, what's the use of them, since
+nobody has the courage to enforce them."
+
+Silence fell. With a light, discreet step the house-steward presented
+some grilled mullet. So noiseless was the service amid the cheerful
+perfumed warmth that not even the faintest clatter of crockery was heard.
+Without anyone knowing how it had come about, however, the conversation
+had suddenly changed; and somebody inquired: "So the revival of the piece
+is postponed?"
+
+"Yes," said Gerard, "I heard this morning that 'Polyeucte' wouldn't get
+its turn till April at the earliest."
+
+At this Camille, who had hitherto remained silent, watching the young
+Count and seeking to win him back, turned her glittering eyes upon her
+father and mother. It was a question of that revival in which Silviane
+was so stubbornly determined to make her _debut_. However, the Baron and
+the Baroness evinced perfect serenity, having long been acquainted with
+all that concerned each other. Moreover Eve was too much occupied with
+her own passion to think of anything else; and the Baron too busy with
+the fresh application which he intended to make in tempestuous fashion at
+the Ministry of Fine Arts, so as to wrest Silviane's engagement from
+those in office. He contented himself with saying: "How would you have
+them revive pieces at the Comedie! They have no actresses left there."
+
+"Oh, by the way," the Baroness on her side simply remarked, "yesterday,
+in that play at the Vaudeville, Delphine Vignot wore such an exquisite
+gown. She's the only one too who knows how to arrange her hair."
+
+Thereupon Duthil, in somewhat veiled language, began to relate a story
+about Delphine and a well-known senator. And then came another scandal,
+the sudden and almost suspicious death of a lady friend of the
+Duvillards'; whereupon the General, without any transition, broke in to
+relieve his bitter feelings by denouncing the idiotic manner in which the
+army was nowadays organised. Meantime the old Bordeaux glittered like
+ruby blood in the delicate crystal glasses. A truffled fillet of venison
+had just cast its somewhat sharp scent amidst the dying perfume of the
+roses, when some asparagus made its appearance, a _primeur_ which once
+had been so rare but which no longer caused any astonishment.
+
+"Nowadays we get it all through the winter," said the Baron with a
+gesture of disenchantment.
+
+"And so," asked Gerard at the same moment, "the Princess de Harn's
+_matinee_ is for this afternoon?"
+
+Camille quickly intervened. "Yes, this afternoon. Shall you go?"
+
+"No, I don't think so, I shan't be able," replied the young man in
+embarrassment.
+
+"Ah! that little Princess, she's really deranged you know," exclaimed
+Duthil. "You are aware that she calls herself a widow? But the truth, it
+seems, is that her husband, a real Prince, connected with a royal house
+and very handsome, is travelling about the world in the company of a
+singer. She with her vicious urchin-like face preferred to come and reign
+in Paris, in that mansion of the Avenue Hoche, which is certainly the
+most extraordinary Noah's ark imaginable, with its swarming of
+cosmopolitan society indulging in every extravagance!"
+
+"Be quiet, you malicious fellow," the Baroness gently interrupted. "We,
+here, are very fond of Rosemonde, who is a charming woman."
+
+"Oh! certainly," Camille again resumed. "She invited us; and we are going
+to her place by-and-by, are we not, mamma?"
+
+To avoid replying, the Baroness pretended that she did not hear, whilst
+Duthil, who seemed to be well-informed concerning the Princess, continued
+to make merry over her intended _matinee_, at which she meant to produce
+some Spanish dancing girls, whose performance was so very indecorous that
+all Paris, forewarned of the circumstance, would certainly swarm to her
+house. And he added: "You've heard that she has given up painting. Yes,
+she busies herself with chemistry. Her _salon_ is full of Anarchists
+now--and, by the way, it seemed to me that she had cast her eyes on you,
+my dear Hyacinthe."
+
+Hyacinthe had hitherto held his tongue, as if he took no interest in
+anything. "Oh! she bores me to death," he now condescended to reply. "If
+I'm going to her _matinee_ it's simply in the hope of meeting my friend
+young Lord George Eldrett, who wrote to me from London to give me an
+appointment at the Princess's. And I admit that hers is the only _salon_
+where I find somebody to talk to."
+
+"And so," asked Amadieu in an ironical way, "you have now gone over to
+Anarchism?"
+
+With his air of lofty elegance Hyacinthe imperturbably confessed his
+creed: "But it seems to me, monsieur, that in these times of universal
+baseness and ignominy, no man of any distinction can be other than an
+Anarchist."
+
+A laugh ran round the table. Hyacinthe was very much spoilt, and
+considered very entertaining. His father in particular was immensely
+amused by the notion that he of all men should have an Anarchist for a
+son. However, the General, in his rancorous moments, talked anarchically
+enough of blowing up a society which was so stupid as to let itself be
+led by half a dozen disreputable characters. And, indeed, the
+investigating magistrate, who was gradually making a specialty of
+Anarchist affairs, proved the only one who opposed the young man,
+defending threatened civilisation and giving terrifying particulars
+concerning what he called the army of devastation and massacre. The
+others, while partaking of some delicious duck's-liver _pate_, which the
+house-steward handed around, continued smiling. There was so much misery,
+said they; one must take everything into account: things would surely end
+by righting themselves. And the Baron himself declared, in a conciliatory
+manner: "It's certain that one might do something, though nobody knows
+exactly what. As for all sensible and moderate claims, oh! I agree to
+them in advance. For instance, the lot of the working classes may be
+ameliorated, charitable enterprises may be undertaken, such, for
+instance, as our Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, which we have reason
+to be proud of. But we must not be asked for impossibilities."
+
+With the dessert came a sudden spell of silence; it was as if, amidst the
+restless fluttering of the conversation, and the dizziness born of the
+copious meal, each one's worry or distress was again wringing the heart
+and setting an expression of perturbation on the countenance. The nervous
+unconscientiousness of Duthil, threatened with denunciation, was seen to
+revive; so, too, the anxious anger of the Baron, who was meditating how
+he might possibly manage to content Silviane. That woman was this sturdy,
+powerful man's taint, the secret sore which would perhaps end by eating
+him away and destroying him. But it was the frightful drama in which the
+Baroness, Camille and Gerard were concerned that flitted by most visibly
+across the faces of all three of them: that hateful rivalry of mother and
+daughter, contending for the man they loved. And, meantime, the
+silver-gilt blades of the dessert-knives were delicately peeling choice
+fruit. And there were bunches of golden grapes looking beautifully fresh,
+and a procession of sweetmeats, little cakes, an infinity of dainties,
+over which the most satiated appetites lingered complacently.
+
+Then, just as the finger-glasses were being served, a footman came and
+bent over the Baroness, who answered in an undertone, "Well, show him
+into the _salon_, I will join him there." And aloud to the others she
+added: "It's Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, who has called and asks most
+particularly to see me. He won't be in our way; I think that almost all
+of you know him. Oh! he's a genuine saint, and I have much sympathy for
+him."
+
+For a few minutes longer they loitered round the table, and then at last
+quitted the dining-room, which was full of the odours of viands, wines,
+fruits and roses; quite warm, too, with the heat thrown out by the big
+logs of firewood, which were falling into embers amidst the somewhat
+jumbled brightness of all the crystal and silver, and the pale, delicate
+light which fell upon the disorderly table.
+
+Pierre had remained standing in the centre of the little blue and silver
+_salon_. Seeing a tray on which the coffee and the liqueurs were in
+readiness, he regretted that he had insisted upon being received. And his
+embarrassment increased when the company came in rather noisily, with
+bright eyes and rosy cheeks. However, his charitable fervour had revived
+so ardently within him that he overcame this embarrassment, and all that
+remained to him of it was a slight feeling of discomfort at bringing the
+whole frightful morning which he had just spent amid such scenes of
+wretchedness, so much darkness and cold, so much filth and hunger, into
+this bright, warm, perfumed affluence, where the useless and the
+superfluous overflowed around those folks who seemed so gay at having
+made a delightful meal.
+
+However, the Baroness at once came forward with Gerard, for it was
+through the latter, whose mother he knew, that the priest had been
+presented to the Duvillards at the time of the famous conversion. And as
+he apologised for having called at such an inconvenient hour, the
+Baroness responded: "But you are always welcome, Monsieur l'Abbe. You
+will allow me just to attend to my guests, won't you? I will be with you
+in an instant."
+
+She thereupon returned to the table on which the tray had been placed, in
+order to serve the coffee and the liqueurs, with her daughter's
+assistance. Gerard, however, remained with Pierre; and, it so chanced,
+began to speak to him of the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, where
+they had met one another at the recent laying of the foundation-stone of
+a new pavilion which was being erected, thanks to a handsome donation of
+100,000 francs made by Baron Duvillard. So far, the enterprise only
+comprised four pavilions out of the fourteen which it was proposed to
+erect on the vast site given by the City of Paris on the peninsula of
+Gennevilliers*; and so the subscription fund remained open, and, indeed,
+no little noise was made over this charitable enterprise, which was
+regarded as a complete and peremptory reply to the accusations of those
+evilly disposed persons who charged the satiated _bourgeoisie_ with doing
+nothing for the workers. But the truth was that a magnificent chapel,
+erected in the centre of the site, had absorbed two-thirds of the funds
+hitherto collected. Numerous lady patronesses, chosen from all the
+"worlds" of Paris--the Baroness Duvillard, the Countess de Quinsac, the
+Princess Rosemonde de Harn, and a score of others--were entrusted with
+the task of keeping the enterprise alive by dint of collections and fancy
+bazaars. But success had been chiefly obtained, thanks to the happy idea
+of ridding the ladies of all the weighty cares of organisation, by
+choosing as managing director a certain Fonsegue, who, besides being a
+deputy and editor of the "Globe" newspaper, was a prodigious promoter of
+all sorts of enterprises. And the "Globe" never paused in its propaganda,
+but answered the attacks of the revolutionaries by extolling the
+inexhaustible charity of the governing classes in such wise that, at the
+last elections, the enterprise had served as a victorious electoral
+weapon.
+
+  * This so-called peninsula lies to the northwest of Paris, and
+    is formed by the windings of the Seine.--Trans.
+
+However, Camille was walking about with a steaming cup of coffee in her
+hand: "Will you take some coffee, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she inquired.
+
+"No, thank you, mademoiselle."
+
+"A glass of Chartreuse then?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+Then everybody being served, the Baroness came back and said amiably:
+"Come, Monsieur l'Abbe, what do you desire of me?"
+
+Pierre began to speak almost in an undertone, his throat contracting and
+his heart beating with emotion. "I have come, madame, to appeal to your
+great kindness of heart. This morning, in a frightful house, in the Rue
+des Saules, behind Montmartre, I beheld a sight which utterly upset me.
+You can have no idea what an abode of misery and suffering it was; its
+inmates without fire or bread, the men reduced to idleness because there
+is no work, the mothers having no more milk for their babes, the children
+barely clad, coughing and shivering. And among all these horrors I saw
+the worst, the most abominable of all, an old workman, laid on his back
+by age, dying of hunger, huddled on a heap of rags, in a nook which a dog
+would not even accept as kennel."
+
+He tried to recount things as discreetly as possible, frightened by the
+very words he spoke, the horrors he had to relate in that sphere of
+superlative luxury and enjoyment, before those happy ones who possessed
+all the gifts of this world; for--to use a slang expression--he fully
+realised that he sang out of tune, and in most uncourteous fashion. What
+a strange idea of his to have called at the hour when one has just
+finished _dejeuner_, when the aroma of hot coffee flatters happy
+digestion. Nevertheless he went on, and even ended by raising his voice,
+yielding to the feeling of revolt which gradually stirred him, going to
+the end of his terrible narrative, naming Laveuve, insisting on the
+unjust abandonment in which the old man was left, and asking for succour
+in the name of human compassion. And the whole company approached to
+listen to him; he could see the Baron and the General, and Duthil and
+Amadieu, in front of him, sipping their coffee, in silence, without a
+gesture.
+
+"Well, madame," he concluded, "it seemed to me that one could not leave
+that old man an hour longer in such a frightful position, and that this
+very evening you would have the extreme goodness to have him admitted
+into the Asylum of the Invalids of Labour, which is, I think, the proper
+and only place for him."
+
+Tears had moistened Eve's beautiful eyes. She was in consternation at so
+sad a story coming to her to spoil her afternoon when she was looking
+forward to her assignation with Gerard. Weak and indolent as she was,
+lacking all initiative, too much occupied moreover with her own person,
+she had only accepted the presidency of the Committee on the condition
+that all administrative worries were to fall on Fonsegue. "Ah! Monsieur
+l'Abbe," she murmured, "you rend my heart. But I can do nothing, nothing
+at all, I assure you. Moreover, I believe that we have already inquired
+into the affair of that man Laveuve. With us, you know, there must be the
+most serious guarantees with regard to every admission. A reporter is
+chosen who has to give us full information. Wasn't it you, Monsieur
+Duthil, who was charged with this man Laveuve's affair?"
+
+The deputy was finishing a glass of Chartreuse. "Yes, it was I. That fine
+fellow played you a comedy, Monsieur l'Abbe. He isn't at all ill, and if
+you left him any money you may be sure he went down to drink it as soon
+as you were gone. For he is always drunk; and, besides that, he has the
+most hateful disposition imaginable, crying out from morning till evening
+against the _bourgeois_, and saying that if he had any strength left in
+his arms he would undertake to blow up the whole show. And, moreover, he
+won't go into the asylum; he says that it's a real prison where one's
+guarded by Beguins who force one to hear mass, a dirty convent where the
+gates are shut at nine in the evening! And there are so many of them like
+that, who rather than be succoured prefer their liberty, with cold and
+hunger and death. Well then, let the Laveuves die in the street, since
+they refuse to be with us, and be warm and eat in our asylums!"
+
+The General and Amadieu nodded their heads approvingly. But Duvillard
+showed himself more generous. "No, no, indeed! A man's a man after all,
+and should be succoured in spite of himself."
+
+Eve, however, in despair at the idea that she would be robbed of her
+afternoon, struggled and sought for reasons. "I assure you that my hands
+are altogether tied. Monsieur l'Abbe does not doubt my heart or my zeal.
+But how call I possibly assemble the Committee without a few days' delay?
+And I have particular reasons for coming to no decision, especially in an
+affair which has already been inquired into and pronounced upon, without
+the Committee's sanction." Then, all at once she found a solution: "What
+I advise you to do, Monsieur l'Abbe, is to go at once to see Monsieur
+Fonsegue, our managing director. He alone can act in an urgent case, for
+he knows that the ladies have unlimited confidence in him and approve
+everything he does."
+
+"You will find Fonsegue at the Chamber," added Duthil smiling, "only the
+sitting will be a warm one, and I doubt whether you will be able to have
+a comfortable chat with him."
+
+Pierre, whose heart had contracted yet more painfully, insisted on the
+subject no further; but at once made up his mind to see Fonsegue, and in
+any event obtain from him a promise that the wretched Laveuve should be
+admitted to the Asylum that very evening. Then he lingered in the saloon
+for a few minutes listening to Gerard, who obligingly pointed out to him
+how he might best convince the deputy, which was by alleging how bad an
+effect such a story could have, should it be brought to light by the
+revolutionary newspapers. However, the guests were beginning to take
+their leave. The General, as he went off, came to ask his nephew if he
+should see him that afternoon at his mother's, Madame de Quinsac, whose
+"day" it was: a question which the young man answered with an evasive
+gesture when he noticed that both Eve and Camille were looking at him.
+Then came the turn of Amadieu, who hurried off saying that a serious
+affair required his presence at the Palace of Justice. And Duthil soon
+followed him in order to repair to the Chamber.
+
+"I'll see you between four and five at Silviane's, eh?" said the Baron as
+he conducted him to the door. "Come and tell me what occurs at the
+Chamber in consequence of that odious article of Sagnier's. I must at all
+events know. For my part I shall go to the Ministry of Fine Arts, to
+settle that affair of the Comedie; and besides I've some calls to make,
+some contractors to see, and a big launching and advertisement affair to
+settle."
+
+"It's understood then, between four and five, at Silviane's," said the
+deputy, who went off again mastered by his vague uneasiness, his anxiety
+as to what turn that nasty affair of the African Railway Lines might
+take.
+
+And all of them had forgotten Laveuve, the miserable wretch who lay at
+death's door; and all of them were hastening away to their business or
+their passions, caught in the toils, sinking under the grindstone and
+whisked away by that rush of all Paris, whose fever bore them along,
+throwing one against another in an ardent scramble, in which the sole
+question was who should pass over the others and crush them.
+
+"And so, mamma," said Camille, who continued to scrutinise her mother and
+Gerard, "you are going to take us to the Princess's _matinee_?"
+
+"By-and-by, yes. Only I shan't be able to stay there with you. I received
+a telegram from Salmon about my corsage this morning, and I must
+absolutely go to try it on at four o'clock."
+
+By the slight trembling of her mother's voice, the girl felt certain that
+she was telling a falsehood. "Oh!" said she, "I thought you were only
+going to try it on to-morrow? In that case I suppose we are to go and
+call for you at Salmon's with the carriage on leaving the _matinee_?"
+
+"Oh! no my dear! One never knows when one will be free; and besides, if I
+have a moment, I shall call at the _modiste's_."
+
+Camille's secret rage brought almost a murderous glare to her dark eyes.
+The truth was evident. But however passionately she might desire to set
+some obstacle across her mother's path, she could not, dared not, carry
+matters any further. In vain had she attempted to implore Gerard with her
+eyes. He was standing to take his leave, and turned away his eyes.
+Pierre, who had become acquainted with many things since he had
+frequented the house, noticed how all three of them quivered, and divined
+thereby the mute and terrible drama.
+
+At this moment, however, Hyacinthe, stretched in an armchair, and
+munching an ether capsule, the only liqueur in which he indulged, raised
+his voice: "For my part, you know, I'm going to the Exposition du Lis.
+All Paris is swarming there. There's one painting in particular, 'The
+Rape of a Soul,' which it's absolutely necessary for one to have seen."
+
+"Well, but I don't refuse to drive you there," resumed the Baroness.
+"Before going to the Princess's we can look in at that exhibition."
+
+"That's it, that's it," hastily exclaimed Camille, who, though she
+harshly derided the symbolist painters as a rule, now doubtless desired
+to delay her mother. Then, forcing herself to smile, she asked: "Won't
+you risk a look-in at the Exposition du Lis with us, Monsieur Gerard?"
+
+"Well, no," replied the Count, "I want to walk. I shall go with Monsieur
+l'Abbe Froment to the Chamber."
+
+Thereupon he took leave of mother and daughter, kissing the hand of each
+in turn. It had just occurred to him that to while away his time he also
+might call for a moment at Silviane's, where, like the others, he had his
+_entrees_. On reaching the cold and solemn courtyard he said to the
+priest, "Ah! it does one good to breathe a little cool air. They keep
+their rooms too hot, and all those flowers, too, give one the headache."
+
+Pierre for his part was going off with his brain in a whirl, his hands
+feverish, his senses oppressed by all the luxury which he left behind
+him, like the dream of some glowing, perfumed paradise where only the
+elect had their abode. At the same time his reviving thirst for charity
+had become keener than ever, and without listening to the Count, who was
+speaking very affectionately of his mother, he reflected as to how he
+might obtain Laveuve's admission to the Asylum from Fonsegue. However,
+when the door of the mansion had closed behind them and they had taken a
+few steps along the street, it occurred to Pierre that a moment
+previously a sudden vision had met his gaze. Had he not seen a workman
+carrying a tool-bag, standing and waiting on the foot pavement across the
+road, gazing at that monumental door, closed upon so much fabulous
+wealth--a workman in whom he fancied he had recognised Salvat, that
+hungry fellow who had gone off that morning in search of work? At this
+thought Pierre hastily turned round. Such wretchedness in face of so much
+affluence and enjoyment made him feel anxious. But the workman, disturbed
+in his contemplation, and possibly fearing that he had been recognised,
+was going off with dragging step. And now, getting only a back view of
+him, Pierre hesitated, and ended by thinking that he must have been
+mistaken.
+
+
+
+
+III. RANTERS AND RULERS
+
+WHEN Abbe Froment was about to enter the Palais-Bourbon he remembered
+that he had no card, and he was making up his mind that he would simply
+ask for Fonsegue, though he was not known to him, when, on reaching the
+vestibule, he perceived Mege, the Collectivist deputy, with whom he had
+become acquainted in his days of militant charity in the poverty-stricken
+Charonne district.
+
+"What, you here? You surely have not come to evangelise us?" said Mege.
+
+"No, I've come to see Monsieur Fonsegue on an urgent matter, about a poor
+fellow who cannot wait."
+
+"Fonsegue? I don't know if he has arrived. Wait a moment." And stopping a
+short, dark young fellow with a ferreting, mouse-like air, Mege said to
+him: "Massot, here's Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, who wants to speak to your
+governor at once."
+
+"The governor? But he isn't here. I left him at the office of the paper,
+where he'll be detained for another quarter of an hour. However, if
+Monsieur l'Abbe likes to wait he will surely see him here."
+
+Thereupon Mege ushered Pierre into the large waiting-hall, the Salle des
+Pas Perdus, which in other moments looked so vast and cold with its
+bronze Minerva and Laocoon, and its bare walls on which the pale mournful
+winter light fell from the glass doors communicating with the garden.
+Just then, however, it was crowded, and warmed, as it were, by the
+feverish agitation of the many groups of men that had gathered here and
+there, and the constant coming and going of those who hastened through
+the throng. Most of these were deputies, but there were also numerous
+journalists and inquisitive visitors. And a growing uproar prevailed:
+colloquies now in undertones, now in loud voices, exclamations and bursts
+of laughter, amidst a deal of passionate gesticulation, Mege's return
+into the tumult seemed to fan it. He was tall, apostolically thin, and
+somewhat neglectful of his person, looking already old and worn for his
+age, which was but five and forty, though his eyes still glowed with
+youth behind the glasses which never left his beak-like nose. And he had
+a warm but grating voice, and had always been known to cough, living on
+solely because he was bitterly intent on doing so in order to realise the
+dream of social re-organisation which haunted him. The son of an
+impoverished medical man of a northern town, he had come to Paris when
+very young, living there during the Empire on petty newspaper and other
+unknown work, and first making a reputation as an orator at the public
+meetings of the time. Then, after the war, having become the chief of the
+Collectivist party, thanks to his ardent faith and the extraordinary
+activity of his fighting nature, he had at last managed to enter the
+Chamber, where, brimful of information, he fought for his ideas with
+fierce determination and obstinacy, like a _doctrinaire_ who has decided
+in his own mind what the world ought to be, and who regulates in advance,
+and bit by bit, the whole dogma of Collectivism. However, since he had
+taken pay as a deputy, the outside Socialists had looked upon him as a
+mere rhetorician, an aspiring dictator who only tried to cast society in
+a new mould for the purpose of subordinating it to his personal views and
+ruling it.
+
+"You know what is going on?" he said to Pierre. "This is another nice
+affair, is it not? But what would you have? We are in mud to our very
+ears."
+
+He had formerly conceived genuine sympathy for the priest, whom he had
+found so gentle with all who suffered, and so desirous of social
+regeneration. And the priest himself had ended by taking an interest in
+this authoritarian dreamer, who was resolved to make men happy in spite
+even of themselves. He knew that he was poor, and led a retired life with
+his wife and four children, to whom he was devoted.
+
+"You can well understand that I am no ally of Sagnier's," Mege resumed.
+"But as he chose to speak out this morning and threaten to publish the
+names of all those who have taken bribes, we can't allow ourselves to
+pass as accomplices any further. It has long been said that there was
+some nasty jobbery in that suspicious affair of the African railways. And
+the worst is that two members of the present Cabinet are in question, for
+three years ago, when the Chambers dealt with Duvillard's emission,
+Barroux was at the Home Department, and Monferrand at that of Public
+Works. Now that they have come back again, Monferrand at the Home
+Department, and Barroux at that of Finance, with the Presidency of the
+Council, it isn't possible, is it, for us to do otherwise than compel
+them to enlighten us, in their own interest even, about their former
+goings-on? No, no, they can no longer keep silence, and I've announced
+that I intend to interpellate them this very day."
+
+It was the announcement of Mege's interpellation, following the terrible
+article of the "Voix du Peuple," which thus set the lobbies in an uproar.
+And Pierre remained rather scared at this big political affair falling
+into the midst of his scheme to save a wretched pauper from hunger and
+death. Thus he listened without fully understanding the explanations
+which the Socialist deputy was passionately giving him, while all around
+them the uproar increased, and bursts of laughter rang out, testifying to
+the astonishment which the others felt at seeing Mege in conversation
+with a priest.
+
+"How stupid they are!" said Mege disdainfully. "Do they think then that I
+eat a cassock for _dejeuner_ every morning? But I beg your pardon, my
+dear Monsieur Froment. Come, take a place on that seat and wait for
+Fonsegue."
+
+Then he himself plunged into all the turmoil, and Pierre realised that
+his best course was to sit down and wait quietly. His surroundings began
+to influence and interest him, and he gradually forgot Laveuve for the
+passion of the Parliamentary crisis amidst which he found himself cast.
+The frightful Panama adventure was scarcely over; he had followed the
+progress of that tragedy with the anguish of a man who every night
+expects to hear the tocsin sound the last hour of olden, agonising
+society. And now a little Panama was beginning, a fresh cracking of the
+social edifice, an affair such as had been frequent in all parliaments in
+connection with big financial questions, but one which acquired mortal
+gravity from the circumstances in which it came to the front. That story
+of the African Railway Lines, that little patch of mud, stirred up and
+exhaling a perturbing odour, and suddenly fomenting all that emotion,
+fear, and anger in the Chamber, was after all but an opportunity for
+political strife, a field on which the voracious appetites of the various
+"groups" would take exercise and sharpen; and, at bottom, the sole
+question was that of overthrowing the ministry and replacing it by
+another. Only, behind all that lust of power, that continuous onslaught
+of ambition, what a distressful prey was stirring--the whole people with
+all its poverty and its sufferings!
+
+Pierre noticed that Massot, "little Massot," as he was generally called,
+had just seated himself on the bench beside him. With his lively eye and
+ready ear listening to everything and noting it, gliding everywhere with
+his ferret-like air, Massot was not there in the capacity of a gallery
+man, but had simply scented a stormy debate, and come to see if he could
+not pick up material for some occasional "copy." And this priest lost in
+the midst of the throng doubtless interested him.
+
+"Have a little patience, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he, with the amiable
+gaiety of a young gentleman who makes fun of everything. "The governor
+will certainly come, for he knows well enough that they are going to heat
+the oven here. You are not one of his constituents from La Correze, are
+you?"
+
+"No, no! I belong to Paris; I've come on account of a poor fellow whom I
+wish to get admitted into the Asylum of the Invalids of Labour."
+
+"Oh! all right. Well, I'm a child of Paris, too."
+
+Then Massot laughed. And indeed he was a child of Paris, son of a chemist
+of the St. Denis district, and an ex-dunce of the Lycee Charlemagne,
+where he had not even finished his studies. He had failed entirely, and
+at eighteen years of age had found himself cast into journalism with
+barely sufficient knowledge of orthography for that calling. And for
+twelve years now, as he often said, he had been a rolling stone wandering
+through all spheres of society, confessing some and guessing at others.
+He had seen everything, and become disgusted with everything, no longer
+believing in the existence of great men, or of truth, but living
+peacefully enough on universal malice and folly. He naturally had no
+literary ambition, in fact he professed a deliberate contempt for
+literature. Withal, he was not a fool, but wrote in accordance with no
+matter what views in no matter what newspaper, having neither conviction
+nor belief, but quietly claiming the right to say whatever he pleased to
+the public on condition that he either amused or impassioned it.
+
+"And so," said he, "you know Mege, Monsieur l'Abbe? What a study in
+character, eh? A big child, a dreamer of dreams in the skin of a terrible
+sectarian! Oh! I have had a deal of intercourse with him, I know him
+thoroughly. You are no doubt aware that he lives on with the everlasting
+conviction that he will attain to power in six months' time, and that
+between evening and morning he will have established that famous
+Collectivist community which is to succeed capitalist society, just as
+day follows night. And, by the way, as regards his interpellation to-day,
+he is convinced that in overthrowing the Barroux ministry he'll be
+hastening his own turn. His system is to use up his adversaries. How many
+times haven't I heard him making his calculations: there's such a one to
+be used up, then such a one, and then such a one, so that he himself may
+at last reign. And it's always to come off in six months at the latest.
+The misfortune is, however, that others are always springing up, and so
+his turn never comes at all."
+
+Little Massot openly made merry over it. Then, slightly lowering his
+voice, he asked: "And Sagnier, do you know him? No? Do you see that
+red-haired man with the bull's neck--the one who looks like a butcher?
+That one yonder who is talking in a little group of frayed frock-coats."
+
+Pierre at last perceived the man in question. He had broad red ears, a
+hanging under-lip, a large nose, and big, projecting dull eyes.
+
+"I know that one thoroughly, as well," continued Massot; "I was on the
+'Voix du Peuple' under him before I went on the 'Globe.' The one thing
+that nobody is exactly aware of is whence Sagnier first came. He long
+dragged out his life in the lower depths of journalism, doing nothing at
+all brilliant, but wild with ambition and appetite. Perhaps you remember
+the first hubbub he made, that rather dirty affair of a new Louis XVII.
+which he tried to launch, and which made him the extraordinary Royalist
+that he still is. Then it occurred to him to espouse the cause of the
+masses, and he made a display of vengeful Catholic socialism, attacking
+the Republic and all the abominations of the times in the name of justice
+and morality, under the pretext of curing them. He began with a series of
+sketches of financiers, a mass of dirty, uncontrolled, unproved
+tittle-tattle, which ought to have led him to the dock, but which met, as
+you know, with such wonderful success when gathered together in a volume.
+And he goes on in the same style in the 'Voix du Peuple,' which he
+himself made a success at the time of the Panama affair by dint of
+denunciation and scandal, and which to-day is like a sewer-pipe pouring
+forth all the filth of the times. And whenever the stream slackens, why,
+he invents things just to satisfy his craving for that hubbub on which
+both his pride and his pocket subsist."
+
+Little Massot spoke without bitterness; indeed, he had even begun to
+laugh again. Beneath his thoughtless ferocity he really felt some respect
+for Sagnier. "Oh! he's a bandit," he continued, "but a clever fellow all
+the same. You can't imagine how full of vanity he is. Lately it occurred
+to him to get himself acclaimed by the populace, for he pretends to be a
+kind of King of the Markets, you know. Perhaps he has ended by taking his
+fine judge-like airs in earnest, and really believes that he is saving
+the people and helping the cause of virtue. What astonishes me is his
+fertility in the arts of denunciation and scandalmongering. Never a
+morning comes but he discovers some fresh horror, and delivers fresh
+culprits over to the hatred of the masses. No! the stream of mud never
+ceases; there is an incessant, unexpected spurt of infamy, an increase of
+monstrous fancies each time that the disgusted public shows any sign of
+weariness. And, do you know, there's genius in that, Monsieur l'Abbe; for
+he is well aware that his circulation goes up as soon as he threatens to
+speak out and publish a list of traitors and bribe-takers. His sales are
+certain now for some days to come."
+
+Listening to Massot's gay, bantering voice, Pierre began to understand
+certain things, the exact meaning of which had hitherto escaped him. He
+ended by questioning the young journalist, surprised as he was that so
+many deputies should be in the lobbies when the sitting was in progress.
+Oh! the sitting indeed. The gravest matters, some bill of national
+interest, might be under discussion, yet every member fled from it at the
+sudden threat of an interpellation which might overturn the ministry. And
+the passion stirring there was the restrained anger, the growing anxiety
+of the present ministry's clients, who feared that they might have to
+give place to others; and it was also the sudden hope, the eager hunger
+of all who were waiting--the clients of the various possible ministries
+of the morrow.
+
+Massot pointed to Barroux, the head of the Cabinet, who, though he was
+out of his element in the Department of Finances, had taken it simply
+because his generally recognised integrity was calculated to reassure
+public opinion after the Panama crisis. Barroux was chatting in a corner
+with the Minister of Public Instruction, Senator Taboureau, an old
+university man with a shrinking, mournful air, who was extremely honest,
+but totally ignorant of Paris, coming as he did from some far-away
+provincial faculty. Barroux for his part was of decorative aspect, tall,
+and with a handsome, clean-shaven face, which would have looked quite
+noble had not his nose been rather too small. Although he was sixty, he
+still had a profusion of curly snow-white hair completing the somewhat
+theatrical majesty of his appearance, which he was wont to turn to
+account when in the tribune. Coming of an old Parisian family,
+well-to-do, an advocate by profession, then a Republican journalist under
+the Empire, he had reached office with Gambetta, showing himself at once
+honest and romantic, loud of speech, and somewhat stupid, but at the same
+time very brave and very upright, and still clinging with ardent faith to
+the principles of the great Revolution. However, his Jacobinism was
+getting out of fashion, he was becoming an "ancestor," as it were, one of
+the last props of the middle-class Republic, and the new comers, the
+young politicians with long teeth, were beginning to smile at him.
+Moreover, beneath the ostentation of his demeanour, and the pomp of his
+eloquence, there was a man of hesitating, sentimental nature, a good
+fellow who shed tears when re-perusing the verses of Lamartine.
+
+However, Monferrand, the minister for the Home Department, passed by and
+drew Barroux aside to whisper a few words in his ear. He, Monferrand, was
+fifty, short and fat, with a smiling, fatherly air; nevertheless a look
+of keen intelligence appeared at times on his round and somewhat common
+face fringed by a beard which was still dark. In him one divined a man of
+government, with hands which were fitted for difficult tasks, and which
+never released a prey. Formerly mayor of the town of Tulle, he came from
+La Correze, where he owned a large estate. He was certainly a force in
+motion, one whose constant rise was anxiously watched by keen observers.
+He spoke in a simple quiet way, but with extraordinary power of
+conviction. Having apparently no ambition, affecting indeed the greatest
+disinterestedness, he nevertheless harboured the most ferocious
+appetites. Sagnier had written that he was a thief and a murderer, having
+strangled two of his aunts in order to inherit their property. But even
+if he were a murderer, he was certainly not a vulgar one.
+
+Then, too, came another personage of the drama which was about to be
+performed--deputy Vignon, whose arrival agitated the various groups. The
+two ministers looked at him, whilst he, at once surrounded by his
+friends, smiled at them from a distance. He was not yet thirty-six. Slim,
+and of average height, very fair, with a fine blond beard of which he
+took great care, a Parisian by birth, having rapidly made his way in the
+government service, at one time Prefect at Bordeaux, he now represented
+youth and the future in the Chamber. He had realised that new men were
+needed in the direction of affairs in order to accomplish the more
+urgent, indispensable reforms; and very ambitious and intelligent as he
+was, knowing many things, he already had a programme, the application of
+which he was quite capable of attempting, in part at any rate. However,
+he evinced no haste, but was full of prudence and shrewdness, convinced
+that his day would dawn, strong in the fact that he was as yet
+compromised in nothing, but had all space before him. At bottom he was
+merely a first-class administrator, clear and precise in speech, and his
+programme only differed from Barroux's by the rejuvenation of its
+formulas, although the advent of a Vignon ministry in place of a Barroux
+ministry appeared an event of importance. And it was of Vignon that
+Sagnier had written that he aimed at the Presidency of the Republic, even
+should he have to march through blood to reach the Elysee Palace.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_!" Massot was explaining, "it's quite possible that Sagnier
+isn't lying this time, and that he has really found a list of names in
+some pocket-book of Hunter's that has fallen into his hands. I myself
+have long known that Hunter was Duvillard's vote-recruiter in the affair
+of the African Railways. But to understand matters one must first realise
+what his mode of proceeding was, the skill and the kind of amiable
+delicacy which he showed, which were far from the brutal corruption and
+dirty trafficking that people imagine. One must be such a man as Sagnier
+to picture a parliament as an open market, where every conscience is for
+sale and is impudently knocked down to the highest bidder. Oh! things
+happened in a very different way indeed; and they are explainable, and at
+times even excusable. Thus the article is levelled in particular against
+Barroux and Monferrand, who are designated in the clearest possible
+manner although they are not named. You are no doubt aware that at the
+time of the vote Barroux was at the Home Department and Monferrand at
+that of Public Works, and so now they are accused of having betrayed
+their trusts, the blackest of all social crimes. I don't know into what
+political combinations Barroux may have entered, but I am ready to swear
+that he put nothing in his pocket, for he is the most honest of men. As
+for Monferrand, that's another matter; he's a man to carve himself his
+share, only I should be much surprised if he had put himself in a bad
+position. He's incapable of a blunder, particularly of a stupid blunder,
+like that of taking money and leaving a receipt for it lying about."
+
+Massot paused, and with a jerk of his head called Pierre's attention to
+Duthil, who, feverish, but nevertheless smiling, stood in a group which
+had just collected around the two ministers. "There! do you see that
+young man yonder, that dark handsome fellow whose beard looks so
+triumphant?"
+
+"I know him," said Pierre.
+
+"Oh! you know Duthil. Well, he's one who most certainly took money. But
+he's a mere bird. He came to us from Angouleme to lead the pleasantest of
+lives here, and he has no more conscience, no more scruples, than the
+pretty finches of his native part, who are ever love-making. Ah! for
+Duthil, Hunter's money was like manna due to him, and he never even
+paused to think that he was dirtying his fingers. You may be quite sure
+he feels astonished that people should attach the slightest importance to
+the matter."
+
+Then Massot designated another deputy in the same group, a man of fifty
+or thereabouts, of slovenly aspect and lachrymose mien, lanky, too, like
+a maypole, and somewhat bent by the weight of his head, which was long
+and suggestive of a horse's. His scanty, straight, yellowish hair, his
+drooping moustaches, in fact the whole of his distracted countenance,
+expressed everlasting distress.
+
+"And Chaigneux, do you know him?" continued Massot, referring to the
+deputy in question. "No? Well, look at him and ask yourself if it isn't
+quite as natural that he, too, should have taken money. He came from
+Arras. He was a solicitor there. When his division elected him he let
+politics intoxicate him, and sold his practice to make his fortune in
+Paris, where he installed himself with his wife and his three daughters.
+And you can picture his bewilderment amidst those four women, terrible
+women ever busy with finery, receiving and paying visits, and running
+after marriageable men who flee away. It's ill-luck with a vengeance, the
+daily defeat of a poor devil of mediocre attainments, who imagined that
+his position as a deputy would facilitate money-making, and who is
+drowning himself in it all. And so how can Chaigneux have done otherwise
+than take money, he who is always hard up for a five-hundred-franc note!
+I admit that originally he wasn't a dishonest man. But he's become one,
+that's all."
+
+Massot was now fairly launched, and went on with his portraits, the
+series which he had, at one moment, dreamt of writing under the title of
+"Deputies for Sale." There were the simpletons who fell into the furnace,
+the men whom ambition goaded to exasperation, the low minds that yielded
+to the temptation of an open drawer, the company-promoters who grew
+intoxicated and lost ground by dint of dealing with big figures. At the
+same time, however, Massot admitted that these men were relatively few in
+number, and that black sheep were to be found in every parliament of the
+world. Then Sagnier's name cropped up again, and Massot remarked that
+only Sagnier could regard the French Chambers as mere dens of thieves.
+
+Pierre, meantime, felt most interested in the tempest which the threat of
+a ministerial crisis was stirring up before him. Not only the men like
+Duthil and Chaigneux, pale at feeling the ground tremble beneath them,
+and wondering whether they would not sleep at the Mazas prison that
+night, were gathered round Barroux and Monferrand; all the latters'
+clients were there, all who enjoyed influence or office through them, and
+who would collapse and disappear should they happen to fall. And it was
+something to see the anxious glances and the pale dread amidst all the
+whispered chatter, the bits of information and tittle-tattle which were
+carried hither and thither. Then, in a neighbouring group formed round
+Vignon, who looked very calm and smiled, were the other clients, those
+who awaited the moment to climb to the assault of power, in order that
+they, in their turn, might at last possess influence or office. Eyes
+glittered with covetousness, hopeful delight could be read in them,
+pleasant surprise at the sudden opportunity now offered. Vignon avoided
+replying to the over-direct questions of his friends, and simply
+announced that he did not intend to intervene. Evidently enough his plan
+was to let Mege interpellate and overthrow the ministry, for he did not
+fear him, and in his own estimation would afterwards simply have to stoop
+to pick up the fallen portfolios.
+
+"Ah! Monferrand now," little Massot was saying, "there's a rascal who
+trims his sails! I knew him as an anti-clerical, a devourer of priests,
+Monsieur l'Abbe, if you will allow me so to express myself; however, I
+don't say this to be agreeable to you, but I think I may tell you for
+certain that he has become reconciled to religion. At least, I have been
+told that Monseigneur Martha, who is a great converter, now seldom leaves
+him. This is calculated to please one in these new times, when science
+has become bankrupt, and religion blooms afresh with delicious mysticism
+on all sides, whether in art, literature, or society itself."
+
+Massot was jesting, according to his wont; but he spoke so amiably that
+the priest could not do otherwise than bow. However, a great stir had set
+in before them; it was announced that Mege was about to ascend the
+tribune, and thereupon all the deputies hastened into the assembly hall,
+leaving only the inquisitive visitors and a few journalists in the Salle
+des Pas Perdus.
+
+"It's astonishing that Fonsegue hasn't yet arrived," resumed Massot;
+"he's interested in what's going on. However, he's so cunning, that when
+he doesn't behave as others do, one may be sure that he has his reasons
+for it. Do you know him?" And as Pierre gave a negative answer, Massot
+went on: "Oh! he's a man of brains and real power--I speak with all
+freedom, you know, for I don't possess the bump of veneration; and, as
+for my editors, well, they're the very puppets that I know the best and
+pick to pieces with the most enjoyment. Fonsegue, also, is clearly
+designated in Sagnier's article. Moreover, he's one of Duvillard's usual
+clients. There can be no doubt that he took money, for he takes money in
+everything. Only he always protects himself, and takes it for reasons
+which may be acknowledged--as payment or commission on account of
+advertising, and so forth. And if I left him just now, looking, as it
+seemed to me, rather disturbed, and if he delays his arrival here to
+establish, as it were, a moral alibi, the truth must be that he has
+committed the first imprudent action in his life."
+
+Then Massot rattled on, telling all there was to tell about Fonsegue. He,
+too, came from the department of La Correze, and had quarrelled for life
+with Monferrand after some unknown underhand affairs. Formerly an
+advocate at Tulle, his ambition had been to conquer Paris; and he had
+really conquered it, thanks to his big morning newspaper, "Le Globe," of
+which he was both founder and director. He now resided in a luxurious
+mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and no enterprise was launched
+but he carved himself a princely share in it. He had a genius for
+"business," and employed his newspaper as a weapon to enable him to reign
+over the market. But how very carefully he had behaved, what long and
+skilful patience he had shown, before attaining to the reputation of a
+really serious man, who guided authoritatively the most virtuous and
+respected of the organs of the press! Though in reality he believed
+neither in God nor in Devil, he had made this newspaper the supporter of
+order, property, and family ties; and though he had become a Conservative
+Republican, since it was to his interest to be such, he had remained
+outwardly religious, affecting a Spiritualism which reassured the
+_bourgeoisie_. And amidst all his accepted power, to which others bowed,
+he nevertheless had one hand deep in every available money-bag.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," said Massot, "see to what journalism may lead a
+man. There you have Sagnier and Fonsegue: just compare them a bit. In
+reality they are birds of the same feather: each has a quill and uses it.
+But how different the systems and the results. Sagnier's print is really
+a sewer which rolls him along and carries him to the cesspool; while the
+other's paper is certainly an example of the best journalism one can
+have, most carefully written, with a real literary flavour, a treat for
+readers of delicate minds, and an honour to the man who directs it. But
+at the bottom, good heavens! in both cases the farce is precisely the
+same!"
+
+Massot burst out laughing, well pleased with this final thrust. Then all
+at once: "Ah! here's Fonsegue at last!" said he.
+
+Quite at his ease, and still laughing, he forthwith introduced the
+priest. "This is Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, my dear _patron_, who has been
+waiting more than twenty minutes for you--I'm just going to see what is
+happening inside. You know that Mege is interpellating the government."
+
+The new comer started slightly: "An interpellation!" said he. "All right,
+all right, I'll go to it."
+
+Pierre was looking at him. He was about fifty years of age, short of
+stature, thin and active, still looking young without a grey hair in his
+black beard. He had sparkling eyes, too, but his mouth, said to be a
+terrible one, was hidden by his moustaches. And withal he looked a
+pleasant companion, full of wit to the tip of his little pointed nose,
+the nose of a sporting dog that is ever scenting game. "What can I do for
+you, Monsieur l'Abbe?" he inquired.
+
+Then Pierre briefly presented his request, recounting his visit to
+Laveuve that morning, giving every heart-rending particular, and asking
+for the poor wretch's immediate admittance to the Asylum.
+
+"Laveuve!" said the other, "but hasn't his affair been examined? Why,
+Duthil drew up a report on it, and things appeared to us of such a nature
+that we could not vote for the man's admittance."
+
+But the priest insisted: "I assure you, monsieur, that your heart would
+have burst with compassion had you been with me this morning. It is
+revolting that an old man should be left in such frightful abandonment
+even for another hour. He must sleep at the Asylum to-night."
+
+Fonsegue began to protest. "To-night! But it's impossible, altogether
+impossible! There are all sorts of indispensable formalities to be
+observed. And besides I alone cannot take such responsibility. I haven't
+the power. I am only the manager; all that I do is to execute the orders
+of the committee of lady patronesses."
+
+"But it was precisely Baroness Duvillard who sent me to you, monsieur,
+telling me that you alone had the necessary authority to grant immediate
+admittance in an exceptional case."
+
+"Oh! it was the Baroness who sent you? Ah! that is just like her,
+incapable of coming to any decision herself, and far too desirous of her
+own quietude to accept any responsibility. Why is it that she wants me to
+have the worries? No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, I certainly won't go against
+all our regulations; I won't give an order which would perhaps embroil me
+with all those ladies. You don't know them, but they become positively
+terrible directly they attend our meetings."
+
+He was growing lively, defending himself with a jocular air, whilst in
+secret he was fully determined to do nothing. However, just then Duthil
+abruptly reappeared, darting along bareheaded, hastening from lobby to
+lobby to recruit absent members, particularly those who were interested
+in the grave debate at that moment beginning. "What, Fonsegue!" he cried,
+"are you still here? Go, go to your seat at once, it's serious!" And
+thereupon he disappeared.
+
+His colleague evinced no haste, however. It was as if the suspicious
+affair which was impassioning the Chamber had no concern for him. And he
+still smiled, although a slight feverish quiver made him blink. "Excuse
+me, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said at last. "You see that my friends have need
+of me. I repeat to you that I can do absolutely nothing for your
+_protege_."
+
+But Pierre would not accept this reply as a final one. "No, no,
+monsieur," he rejoined, "go to your affairs, I will wait for you here.
+Don't come to a decision without full reflection. You are wanted, and I
+feel that your mind is not sufficiently at liberty for you to listen to
+me properly. By-and-by, when you come back and give me your full
+attention, I am sure that you will grant me what I ask."
+
+And, although Fonsegue, as he went off, repeated that he could not alter
+his decision, the priest stubbornly resolved to make him do so, and sat
+down on the bench again, prepared, if needful, to stay there till the
+evening. The Salle des Pas Perdus was now almost quite empty, and looked
+yet more frigid and mournful with its Laocoon and its Minerva, its bare
+commonplace walls like those of a railway-station waiting-room, between
+which all the scramble of the century passed, though apparently without
+even warming the lofty ceiling. Never had paler and more callous light
+entered by the large glazed doors, behind which one espied the little
+slumberous garden with its meagre, wintry lawns. And not an echo of the
+tempest of the sitting near at hand reached the spot; from the whole
+heavy pile there fell but death-like silence, and a covert quiver of
+distress that had come from far away, perhaps from the entire country.
+
+It was that which now haunted Pierre's reverie. The whole ancient,
+envenomed sore spread out before his mind's eye, with its poison and
+virulence. Parliamentary rottenness had slowly increased till it had
+begun to attack society itself. Above all the low intrigues and the rush
+of personal ambition there certainly remained the loftier struggle of the
+contending principles, with history on the march, clearing the past away
+and seeking to bring more truth, justice, and happiness in the future.
+But in practice, if one only considered the horrid daily cuisine of the
+sphere, what an unbridling of egotistical appetite one beheld, what an
+absorbing passion to strangle one's neighbour and triumph oneself alone!
+Among the various groups one found but an incessant battle for power and
+the satisfactions that it gives. "Left," "Right," "Catholics,"
+"Republicans," "Socialists," the names given to the parties of twenty
+different shades, were simply labels classifying forms of the one burning
+thirst to rule and dominate. All questions could be reduced to a single
+one, that of knowing whether this man, that man, or that other man should
+hold France in his grasp, to enjoy it, and distribute its favours among
+his creatures. And the worst was that the outcome of the great
+parliamentary battles, the days and the weeks lost in setting this man in
+the place of that man, and that other man in the place of this man, was
+simply stagnation, for not one of the three men was better than his
+fellows, and there were but vague points of difference between them; in
+such wise that the new master bungled the very same work as the previous
+one had bungled, forgetful, perforce, of programmes and promises as soon
+as ever he began to reign.
+
+However, Pierre's thoughts invincibly reverted to Laveuve, whom he had
+momentarily forgotten, but who now seized hold of him again with a quiver
+as of anger and death. Ah! what could it matter to that poor old wretch,
+dying of hunger on his bed of rags, whether Mege should overthrow
+Barroux's ministry, and whether a Vignon ministry should ascend to power
+or not! At that rate, a century, two centuries, would be needed before
+there would be bread in the garrets where groan the lamed sons of labour,
+the old, broken-down beasts of burden. And behind Laveuve there appeared
+the whole army of misery, the whole multitude of the disinherited and the
+poor, who agonised and asked for justice whilst the Chamber, sitting in
+all pomp, grew furiously impassioned over the question as to whom the
+nation should belong to, as to who should devour it. Mire was flowing on
+in a broad stream, the hideous, bleeding, devouring sore displayed itself
+in all impudence, like some cancer which preys upon an organ and spreads
+to the heart. And what disgust, what nausea must such a spectacle
+inspire; and what a longing for the vengeful knife that would bring
+health and joy!
+
+Pierre could not have told for how long he had been plunged in this
+reverie, when uproar again filled the hall. People were coming back,
+gesticulating and gathering in groups. And suddenly he heard little
+Massot exclaim near him: "Well, if it isn't down it's not much better
+off. I wouldn't give four sous for its chance of surviving."
+
+He referred to the ministry, and began to recount the sitting to a fellow
+journalist who had just arrived. Mege had spoken very eloquently, with
+extraordinary fury of indignation against the rotten _bourgeoisie_, which
+rotted everything it touched; but, as usual, he had gone much too far,
+alarming the Chamber by his very violence. And so, when Barroux had
+ascended the tribune to ask for a month's adjournment of the
+interpellation, he had merely had occasion to wax indignant, in all
+sincerity be it said, full of lofty anger that such infamous campaigns
+should be carried on by a certain portion of the press. Were the shameful
+Panama scandals about to be renewed? Were the national representatives
+going to let themselves be intimidated by fresh threats of denunciation?
+It was the Republic itself which its adversaries were seeking to submerge
+beneath a flood of abominations. No, no, the hour had come for one to
+collect one's thoughts, and work in quietude without allowing those who
+hungered for scandal to disturb the public peace. And the Chamber,
+impressed by these words, fearing, too, lest the electorate should at
+last grow utterly weary of the continuous overflow of filth, had
+adjourned the interpellation to that day month. However, although Vignon
+had not personally intervened in the debate, the whole of his group had
+voted against the ministry, with the result that the latter had merely
+secured a majority of two votes--a mockery.
+
+"But in that case they will resign," said somebody to Massot.
+
+"Yes, so it's rumoured. But Barroux is very tenacious. At all events if
+they show any obstinacy they will be down before a week is over,
+particularly as Sagnier, who is quite furious, declares that he will
+publish the list of names to-morrow."
+
+Just then, indeed, Barroux and Monferrand were seen to pass, hastening
+along with thoughtful, busy mien, and followed by their anxious clients.
+It was said that the whole Cabinet was about to assemble to consider the
+position and come to a decision. And then Vignon, in his turn, reappeared
+amidst a stream of friends. He, for his part, was radiant, with a joy
+which he sought to conceal, calming his friends in his desire not to cry
+victory too soon. However, the eyes of the band glittered, like those of
+a pack of hounds when the moment draws near for the offal of the quarry
+to be distributed. And even Mege also looked triumphant. He had all but
+overthrown the ministry. That made another one that was worn out, and
+by-and-by he would wear out Vignon's, and at last govern in his turn.
+
+"The devil!" muttered little Massot, "Chaigneux and Duthil look like
+whipped dogs. And see, there's nobody who is worth the governor. Just
+look at him, how superb he is, that Fonsegue! But good-by, I must now be
+off!"
+
+Then he shook hands with his brother journalist unwilling as he was to
+remain any longer, although the sitting still continued, some bill of
+public importance again being debated before the rows of empty seats.
+
+Chaigneux, with his desolate mien, had gone to lean against the pedestal
+of the high figure of Minerva; and never before had he been more bowed
+down by his needy distress, the everlasting anguish of his ill-luck. On
+the other hand, Duthil, in spite of everything, was perorating in the
+centre of a group with an affectation of scoffing unconcern; nevertheless
+nervous twitches made his nose pucker and distorted his mouth, while the
+whole of his handsome face was becoming moist with fear. And even as
+Massot had said, there really was only Fonsegue who showed composure and
+bravery, ever the same with his restless little figure, and his eyes
+beaming with wit, though at times they were just faintly clouded by a
+shadow of uneasiness.
+
+Pierre had risen to renew his request; but Fonsegue forestalled him,
+vivaciously exclaiming: "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, I repeat that I cannot
+take on myself such an infraction of our rules. There was an inquiry, and
+a decision was arrived at. How would you have me over-rule it?"
+
+"Monsieur," said the priest, in a tone of deep grief, "it is a question
+of an old man who is hungry and cold, and in danger of death if he be not
+succoured."
+
+With a despairing gesture, the director of "Le Globe" seemed to take the
+very walls as witnesses of his powerlessness. No doubt he feared some
+nasty affair for his newspaper, in which he had abused the Invalids of
+Labour enterprise as an electoral weapon. Perhaps, too, the secret terror
+into which the sitting of the Chamber had just thrown him was hardening
+his heart. "I can do nothing," he repeated. "But naturally I don't ask
+better than to have my hands forced by the ladies of the Committee. You
+already have the support of the Baroness Duvillard, secure that of some
+others."
+
+Pierre, who was determined to fight on to the very end, saw in this
+suggestion a supreme chance. "I know the Countess de Quinsac," he said,
+"I can go to see her at once."
+
+"Quite so! an excellent idea, the Countess de Quinsac! Take a cab and go
+to see the Princess de Harn as well. She bestirs herself a great deal,
+and is becoming very influential. Secure the approval of these ladies, go
+back to the Baroness's at seven, get a letter from her to cover me, and
+then call on me at the office of my paper. That done, your man shall
+sleep at the Asylum at nine o'clock!"
+
+He evinced in speaking a kind of joyous good nature, as though he no
+longer doubted of success now that he ran no risk of compromising
+himself. And great hope again came back to the priest: "Ah! thank you,
+monsieur," he said; "it is a work of salvation that you will accomplish."
+
+"But you surely know that I ask nothing better. Ah! if we could only cure
+misery, prevent hunger and thirst by a mere word. However, make haste,
+you have not a minute to lose."
+
+They shook hands, and Pierre at once tried to get out of the throng.
+This, however, was no easy task, for the various groups had grown larger
+as all the anger and anguish, roused by the recent debate, ebbed back
+there amid a confused tumult. It was as when a stone, cast into a pool,
+stirs the ooze below, and causes hidden, rotting things to rise once more
+to the surface. And Pierre had to bring his elbows into play and force a
+passage athwart the throng, betwixt the shivering cowardice of some, the
+insolent audacity of others, and the smirchings which sullied the greater
+number, given the contagion which inevitably prevailed. However, he
+carried away a fresh hope, and it seemed to him that if he should save a
+life, make but one man happy that day, it would be like a first
+instalment of redemption, a sign that a little forgiveness would be
+extended to the many follies and errors of that egotistical and
+all-devouring political world.
+
+On reaching the vestibule a final incident detained him for a moment
+longer. Some commotion prevailed there following upon a quarrel between a
+man and an usher, the latter of whom had prevented the former from
+entering on finding that the admission ticket which he tendered was an
+old one, with its original date scratched out. The man, very rough at the
+outset, had then refrained from insisting, as if indeed sudden timidity
+had come upon him. And in this ill-dressed fellow Pierre was astonished
+to recognise Salvat, the journeyman engineer, whom he had seen going off
+in search of work that same morning. This time it was certainly he, tall,
+thin and ravaged, with dreamy yet flaming eyes, which set his pale
+starveling's face aglow. He no longer carried his tool-bag; his ragged
+jacket was buttoned up and distended on the left side by something that
+he carried in a pocket, doubtless some hunk of bread. And on being
+repulsed by the ushers, he walked away, taking the Concorde bridge,
+slowly, as if chancewise, like a man who knows not whither he is going.
+
+
+
+
+IV. SOCIAL SIDELIGHTS
+
+IN her old faded drawing-room--a Louis Seize _salon_ with grey
+woodwork--the Countess de Quinsac sat near the chimney-piece in her
+accustomed place. She was singularly like her son, with a long and noble
+face, her chin somewhat stern, but her eyes still beautiful beneath her
+fine snowy hair, which was arranged in the antiquated style of her youth.
+And whatever her haughty coldness, she knew how to be amiable, with
+perfect, kindly graciousness.
+
+Slightly waving her hand after a long silence, she resumed, addressing
+herself to the Marquis de Morigny, who sat on the other side of the
+chimney, where for long years he had always taken the same armchair. "Ah!
+you are right, my friend, Providence has left us here forgotten, in a
+most abominable epoch."
+
+"Yes, we passed by the side of happiness and missed it," the Marquis
+slowly replied, "and it was your fault, and doubtless mine as well."
+
+Smiling sadly, she stopped him with another wave of her hand. And the
+silence fell once more; not a sound from the streets reached that gloomy
+ground floor at the rear of the courtyard of an old mansion in the Rue
+St. Dominique, almost at the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne.
+
+The Marquis was an old man of seventy-five, nine years older than the
+Countess. Short and thin though he was, he none the less had a
+distinguished air, with his clean-shaven face, furrowed by deep,
+aristocratic wrinkles. He belonged to one of the most ancient families of
+France, and remained one of the last hopeless Legitimists, of very pure
+and lofty views, zealously keeping his faith to the dead monarchy amidst
+the downfall of everything. His fortune, still estimated at several
+millions of francs, remained, as it were, in a state of stagnation,
+through his refusal to invest it in any of the enterprises of the
+century. It was known that in all discretion he had loved the Countess,
+even when M. de Quinsac was alive, and had, moreover, offered marriage
+after the latter's death, at the time when the widow had sought a refuge
+on that damp ground floor with merely an income of some 15,000 francs,
+saved with great difficulty from the wreck of the family fortune. But
+she, who adored her son Gerard, then in his tenth year, and of delicate
+health, had sacrificed everything to the boy from a kind of maternal
+chasteness and a superstitious fear that she might lose him should she
+set another affection and another duty in her life. And the Marquis,
+while bowing to her decision, had continued to worship her with his whole
+soul, ever paying his court as on the first evening when he had seen her,
+still gallant and faithful after a quarter of a century had passed. There
+had never been anything between them, not even the exchange of a kiss.
+
+Seeing how sad she looked, he feared that he might have displeased her,
+and so he asked: "I should have liked to render you happy, but I didn't
+know how, and the fault can certainly only rest with me. Is Gerard giving
+you any cause for anxiety?"
+
+She shook her head, and then replied: "As long as things remain as they
+are we cannot complain of them, my friend, since we accepted them."
+
+She referred to her son's culpable connection with Baroness Duvillard.
+She had ever shown much weakness with regard to that son whom she had had
+so much trouble to rear, for she alone knew what exhaustion, what racial
+collapse was hidden behind his proud bearing. She tolerated his idleness,
+the apathetic disgust which, man of pleasure that he was, had turned him
+from the profession of diplomacy as from that of arms. How many times had
+she not repaired his acts of folly and paid his petty debts, keeping
+silent concerning them, and refusing all pecuniary help from the Marquis,
+who no longer dared offer his millions, so stubbornly intent she was on
+living upon the remnants of her own fortune. And thus she had ended by
+closing her eyes to her son's scandalous love intrigue, divining in some
+measure how things had happened, through self-abandonment and lack of
+conscience--the man weak, unable to resume possession of himself, and the
+woman holding and retaining him. The Marquis, however, strangely enough,
+had only forgiven the intrigue on the day when Eve had allowed herself to
+be converted.
+
+"You know, my friend, how good-natured Gerard is," the Countess resumed.
+"In that lie both his strength and weakness. How would you have me scold
+him when he weeps over it all with me? He will tire of that woman."
+
+M. de Morigny wagged his head. "She is still very beautiful," said he.
+"And then there's the daughter. It would be graver still if he were to
+marry her--"
+
+"But the daughter's infirm?"
+
+"Yes, and you know what would be said: A Quinsac marrying a monster for
+the sake of her millions."
+
+This was their mutual terror. They knew everything that went on at the
+Duvillards, the affectionate friendship of the uncomely Camille and the
+handsome Gerard, the seeming idyll beneath which lurked the most awful of
+dramas. And they protested with all their indignation. "Oh! that, no, no,
+never!" the Countess declared. "My son in that family, no, I will never
+consent to it."
+
+Just at that moment General de Bozonnet entered. He was much attached to
+his sister and came to keep her company on the days when she received,
+for the old circle had gradually dwindled down till now only a few
+faithful ones ventured into that grey gloomy _salon_, where one might
+have fancied oneself at thousands of leagues from present-day Paris. And
+forthwith, in order to enliven the room, he related that he had been to
+_dejeuner_ at the Duvillards, and named the guests, Gerard among them. He
+knew that he pleased his sister by going to the banker's house whence he
+brought her news, a house, too, which he cleansed in some degree by
+conferring on it the great honour of his presence. And he himself in no
+wise felt bored there, for he had long been gained over to the century
+and showed himself of a very accommodating disposition in everything that
+did not pertain to military art.
+
+"That poor little Camille worships Gerard," said he; "she was devouring
+him with her eyes at table."
+
+But M. de Morigny gravely intervened: "There lies the danger, a marriage
+would be absolutely monstrous from every point of view."
+
+The General seemed astonished: "Why, pray? She isn't beautiful, but it's
+not only the beauties who marry! And there are her millions. However, our
+dear child would only have to put them to a good use. True, there is also
+the mother; but, _mon Dieu_! such things are so common nowadays in Paris
+society."
+
+This revolted the Marquis, who made a gesture of utter disgust. What was
+the use of discussion when all collapsed? How could one answer a
+Bozonnet, the last surviving representative of such an illustrious
+family, when he reached such a point as to excuse the infamous morals
+that prevailed under the Republic; after denying his king, too, and
+serving the Empire, faithfully and passionately attaching himself to the
+fortunes and memory of Caesar? However, the Countess also became
+indignant: "Oh! what are you saying, brother? I will never authorize such
+a scandal, I swore so only just now."
+
+"Don't swear, sister," exclaimed the General; "for my part I should like
+to see our Gerard happy. That's all. And one must admit that he's not
+good for much. I can understand that he didn't go into the Army, for that
+profession is done for. But I do not so well understand why he did not
+enter the diplomatic profession, or accept some other occupation. It is
+very fine, no doubt, to run down the present times and declare that a man
+of our sphere cannot possibly do any clean work in them. But, as a matter
+of fact, it is only idle fellows who still say that. And Gerard has but
+one excuse, his lack of aptitude, will and strength."
+
+Tears had risen to the mother's eyes. She even trembled, well knowing how
+deceitful were appearances: a mere chill might carry her son off, however
+tall and strong he might look. And was he not indeed a symbol of that
+old-time aristocracy, still so lofty and proud in appearance, though at
+bottom it is but dust?
+
+"Well," continued the General, "he's thirty-six now; he's constantly
+hanging on your hands, and he must make an end of it all."
+
+However, the Countess silenced him and turned to the Marquis: "Let us put
+our confidence in God, my friend," said she. "He cannot but come to my
+help, for I have never willingly offended Him."
+
+"Never!" replied the Marquis, who in that one word set an expression of
+all his grief, all his affection and worship for that woman whom he had
+adored for so many years.
+
+But another faithful friend came in and the conversation changed. M. de
+Larombiere, Vice-President of the Appeal Court, was an old man of
+seventy-five, thin, bald and clean shaven but for a pair of little white
+whiskers. And his grey eyes, compressed mouth and square and obstinate
+chin lent an expression of great austerity to his long face. The grief of
+his life was that, being afflicted with a somewhat childish lisp, he had
+never been able to make his full merits known when a public prosecutor,
+for he esteemed himself to be a great orator. And this secret worry
+rendered him morose. In him appeared an incarnation of that old royalist
+France which sulked and only served the Republic against its heart, that
+old stern magistracy which closed itself to all evolution, to all new
+views of things and beings. Of petty "gown" nobility, originally a
+Legitimist but now supporting Orleanism, he believed himself to be the
+one man of wisdom and logic in that _salon_, where he was very proud to
+meet the Marquis.
+
+They talked of the last events; but with them political conversation was
+soon exhausted, amounting as it did to a mere bitter condemnation of men
+and occurrences, for all three were of one mind as to the abominations of
+the Republican _regime_. They themselves, however, were only ruins, the
+remnants of the old parties now all but utterly powerless. The Marquis
+for his part soared on high, yielding in nothing, ever faithful to the
+dead past; he was one of the last representatives of that lofty obstinate
+_noblesse_ which dies when it finds itself without an effort to escape
+its fate. The judge, who at least had a pretender living, relied on a
+miracle, and demonstrated the necessity for one if France were not to
+sink into the depths of misfortune and completely disappear. And as for
+the General, all that he regretted of the two Empires was their great
+wars; he left the faint hope of a Bonapartist restoration on one side to
+declare that by not contenting itself with the Imperial military system,
+and by substituting thereto obligatory service, the nation in arms, the
+Republic had killed both warfare and the country.
+
+When the Countess's one man-servant came to ask her if she would consent
+to receive Abbe Froment she seemed somewhat surprised. "What can he want
+of me? Show him in," she said.
+
+She was very pious, and having met Pierre in connection with various
+charitable enterprises, she had been touched by his zeal as well as by
+the saintly reputation which he owed to his Neuilly parishioners.
+
+He, absorbed by his fever, felt intimidated directly he crossed the
+threshold. He could at first distinguish nothing, but fancied he was
+entering some place of mourning, a shadowy spot where human forms seemed
+to melt away, and voices were never raised above a whisper. Then, on
+perceiving the persons present, he felt yet more out of his element, for
+they seemed so sad, so far removed from the world whence he had just
+come, and whither he was about to return. And when the Countess had made
+him sit down beside her in front of the chimney-piece, it was in a low
+voice that he told her the lamentable story of Laveuve, and asked her
+support to secure the man's admittance to the Asylum for the Invalids of
+Labour.
+
+"Ah! yes," said she, "that enterprise which my son wished me to belong
+to. But, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have never once attended the Committee
+meetings. So how could I intervene, having assuredly no influence
+whatever?"
+
+Again had the figures of Eve and Gerard arisen before her, for it was at
+this asylum that the pair had first met. And influenced by her sorrowful
+maternal love she was already weakening, although it was regretfully that
+she had lent her name to one of those noisy charitable enterprises, which
+people abused to further their selfish interests in a manner she
+condemned.
+
+"But, madame," Pierre insisted, "it is a question of a poor starving old
+man. I implore you to be compassionate."
+
+Although the priest had spoken in a low voice the General drew near.
+"It's for your old revolutionary that you are running about, is it not,"
+said he. "Didn't you succeed with the manager, then? The fact is that
+it's difficult to feel any pity for fellows who, if they were the
+masters, would, as they themselves say, sweep us all away."
+
+M. de Larombiere jerked his chin approvingly. For some time past he had
+been haunted by the Anarchist peril. But Pierre, distressed and
+quivering, again began to plead his cause. He spoke of all the frightful
+misery, the homes where there was no food, the women and children
+shivering with cold, and the fathers scouring muddy, wintry Paris in
+search of a bit of bread. All that he asked for was a line on a visiting
+card, a kindly word from the Countess, which he would at once carry to
+Baroness Duvillard to prevail on her to set the regulations aside. And
+his words fell one by one, tremulous with stifled tears, in that mournful
+_salon_, like sounds from afar, dying away in a dead world where there
+was no echo left.
+
+Madame de Quinsac turned towards M. de Morigny, but he seemed to take no
+interest in it all. He was gazing fixedly at the fire, with the haughty
+air of a stranger who was indifferent to the things and beings in whose
+midst an error of time compelled him to live. But feeling that the glance
+of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him he raised his head; and
+then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite
+gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_!" said she, "I know your merits, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I won't
+refuse my help to one of your good works."
+
+Then she went off for a moment, and returned with a card on which she had
+written that she supported with all her heart Monsieur l'Abbe Froment in
+the steps he was taking. And he thanked her and went off delighted, as if
+he carried yet a fresh hope of salvation from that drawing-room where, as
+he retired, gloom and silence once more seemed to fall on that old lady
+and her last faithful friends gathered around the fire, last relics of a
+world that was soon to disappear.
+
+Once outside, Pierre joyfully climbed into his cab again, after giving
+the Princess de Harn's address in the Avenue Kleber. If he could also
+obtain her approval he would no longer doubt of success. However, there
+was such a crush on the Concorde bridge, that the driver had to walk his
+horse. And, on the foot-pavement, Pierre again saw Duthil, who, with a
+cigar between his lips, was smiling at the crowd, with his amiable
+bird-like heedlessness, happy as he felt at finding the pavement dry and
+the sky blue on leaving that worrying sitting of the Chamber. Seeing how
+gay and triumphant he looked, a sudden inspiration came to the priest,
+who said to himself that he ought to win over this young man, whose
+report had had such a disastrous effect. As it happened, the cab having
+been compelled to stop altogether, the deputy had just recognized him and
+was smiling at him.
+
+"Where are you going, Monsieur Duthil?" Pierre asked.
+
+"Close by, in the Champs Elysees."
+
+"I'm going that way, and, as I should much like to speak to you for a
+moment, it would be very kind of you to take a seat beside me. I will set
+you down wherever you like."
+
+"Willingly, Monsieur l'Abbe. It won't inconvenience you if I finish my
+cigar?"
+
+"Oh! not at all."
+
+The cab found its way out of the crush, crossed the Place de la Concorde
+and began to ascend the Champs Elysees. And Pierre, reflecting that he
+had very few minutes before him, at once attacked Duthil, quite ready for
+any effort to convince him. He remembered what a sortie the young deputy
+had made against Laveuve at the Baron's; and thus he was astonished to
+hear him interrupt and say quite pleasantly, enlivened as he seemed by
+the bright sun which was again beginning to shine: "Ah, yes! your old
+drunkard! So you didn't settle his business with Fonsegue? And what is it
+you want? To have him admitted to-day? Well, you know I don't oppose it?"
+
+"But there's your report."
+
+"My report, oh, my report! But questions change according to the way one
+looks at them. And if you are so anxious about your Laveuve I won't
+refuse to help you."
+
+Pierre looked at him in astonishment, at bottom extremely well pleased.
+And there was no further necessity even for him to speak.
+
+"You didn't take the matter in hand properly," continued Duthil, leaning
+forward with a confidential air. "It's the Baron who's the master at
+home, for reasons which you may divine, which you may very likely know.
+The Baroness does all that he asks without even discussing the point; and
+this morning,--instead of starting on a lot of useless visits, you only
+had to gain his support, particularly as he seemed to be very well
+disposed. And she would then have given way immediately." Duthil began to
+laugh. "And so," he continued, "do you know what I'll do? Well, I'll gain
+the Baron over to your cause. Yes, I am this moment going to a house
+where he is, where one is certain to find him every day at this time."
+Then he laughed more loudly. "And perhaps you are not ignorant of it,
+Monsieur l'Abbe. When he is there you may be certain he never gives a
+refusal. I promise you I'll make him swear that he will compel his wife
+to grant your man admission this very evening. Only it will, perhaps, be
+rather late."
+
+Then all at once, as if struck by a fresh idea, Duthil went on: "But why
+shouldn't you come with me? You secure a line from the Baron, and
+thereupon, without losing a minute, you go in search of the Baroness. Ah!
+yes, the house embarrasses you a little, I understand it. Would you like
+to see only the Baron there? You can wait for him in a little _salon_
+downstairs; I will bring him to you."
+
+This proposal made Duthil altogether merry, but Pierre, quite scared,
+hesitated at the idea of thus going to Silviane d'Aulnay's. It was hardly
+a place for him. However, to achieve his purpose, he would have descended
+into the very dwelling of the fiend, and had already done so sometimes
+with Abbe Rose, when there was hope of assuaging wretchedness. So he
+turned to Duthil and consented to accompany him.
+
+Silviane d'Aulnay's little mansion, a very luxurious one, displaying,
+too, so to say, the luxury of a temple, refined but suggestive of
+gallantry, stood in the Avenue d'Antin, near the Champs Elysees. The
+inmate of this sanctuary, where the orfrays of old dalmaticas glittered
+in the mauve reflections from the windows of stained-glass, had just
+completed her twenty-fifth year. Short and slim she was, of an adorable,
+dark beauty, and all Paris was acquainted with her delicious, virginal
+countenance of a gentle oval, her delicate nose, her little mouth, her
+candid cheeks and artless chin, above all which she wore her black hair
+in thick, heavy bands, which hid her low brow. Her notoriety was due
+precisely to her pretty air of astonishment, the infinite purity of her
+blue eyes, the whole expression of chaste innocence which she assumed
+when it so pleased her, an expression which contrasted powerfully with
+her true nature, shameless creature that she really was, of the most
+monstrous, confessed, and openly-displayed perversity; such as, in fact,
+often spring up from the rotting soil of great cities. Extraordinary
+things were related about Silviane's tastes and fancies. Some said that
+she was a door-keeper's, others a doctor's, daughter. In any case she had
+managed to acquire instruction and manners, for when occasion required
+she lacked neither wit, nor style, nor deportment. She had been rolling
+through the theatres for ten years or so, applauded for her beauty's
+sake, and she had even ended by obtaining some pretty little successes in
+such parts as those of very pure young girls or loving and persecuted
+young women. Since there had been a question, though, of her entering the
+Comedie Francaise to play the _role_ of Pauline in "Polyeucte," some
+people had waxed indignant and others had roared with laughter, so
+ridiculous did the idea appear, so outrageous for the majesty of classic
+tragedy. She, however, quiet and stubborn, wished this thing to be, was
+resolved that it should be, certain as she was that she would secure it,
+insolent like a creature to whom men had never yet been able to refuse
+anything.
+
+That day, at three o'clock, Gerard de Quinsac, not knowing how to kill
+the time pending the appointment he had given Eve in the Rue Matignon,
+had thought of calling at Silviane's, which was in the neighbourhood. She
+was an old caprice of his, and even nowadays he would sometimes linger at
+the little mansion if its pretty mistress felt bored. But he had this
+time found her in a fury; and, reclining in one of the deep armchairs of
+the _salon_ where "old gold" formed the predominant colour, he was
+listening to her complaints. She, standing in a white gown, white indeed
+from head to foot like Eve herself at the _dejeuner_, was speaking
+passionately, and fast convincing the young man, who, won over by so much
+youth and beauty, unconsciously compared her to his other flame, weary
+already of his coming assignation, and so mastered by supineness, both
+moral and physical, that he would have preferred to remain all day in the
+depths of that armchair.
+
+"You hear me, Gerard!" she at last exclaimed, "I'll have nothing whatever
+to do with him, unless he brings me my nomination."
+
+Just then Baron Duvillard came in, and forthwith she changed to ice and
+received him like some sorely offended young queen who awaits an
+explanation; whilst he, who foresaw the storm and brought moreover
+disastrous tidings, forced a smile, though very ill at ease. She was the
+stain, the blemish attaching to that man who was yet so sturdy and so
+powerful amidst the general decline of his race. And she was also the
+beginning of justice and punishment, taking all his piled-up gold from
+him by the handful, and by her cruelty avenging those who shivered and
+who starved. And it was pitiful to see that feared and flattered man,
+beneath whom states and governments trembled, here turn pale with
+anxiety, bend low in all humility, and relapse into the senile, lisping
+infancy of acute passion.
+
+"Ah! my dear friend," said he, "if you only knew how I have been rushing
+about. I had a lot of worrying business, some contractors to see, a big
+advertisement affair to settle, and I feared that I should never be able
+to come and kiss your hand."
+
+He kissed it, but she let her arm fall, coldly, indifferently, contenting
+herself with looking at him, waiting for what he might have to say to
+her, and embarrassing him to such a point that he began to perspire and
+stammer, unable to express himself. "Of course," he began, "I also
+thought of you, and went to the Fine Arts Office, where I had received a
+positive promise. Oh! they are still very much in your favour at the Fine
+Arts Office! Only, just fancy, it's that idiot of a minister, that
+Taboureau,* an old professor from the provinces who knows nothing about
+our Paris, that has expressly opposed your nomination, saying that as
+long as he is in office you shall not appear at the Comedie."
+
+  * Taboureau is previously described as Minister of Public
+    Instruction. It should be pointed out, however, that
+    although under the present Republic the Ministries of
+    Public Instruction and Fine Arts have occasionally been
+    distinct departments, at other times they have been
+    united, one minister, as in Taboureau's case, having
+    charge of both.--Trans.
+
+Erect and rigid, she spoke but two words: "And then?"
+
+"And then--well, my dear, what would you have me do? One can't after all
+overthrow a ministry to enable you to play the part of Pauline."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+He pretended to laugh, but his blood rushed to his face, and the whole of
+his sturdy figure quivered with anguish. "Come, my little Silviane," said
+he, "don't be obstinate. You can be so nice when you choose. Give up the
+idea of that _debut_. You, yourself, would risk a great deal in it, for
+what would be your worries if you were to fail? You would weep all the
+tears in your body. And besides, you can ask me for so many other things
+which I should be so happy to give you. Come now, at once, make a wish
+and I will gratify it immediately."
+
+In a frolicsome way he sought to take her hand again. But she drew back
+with an air of much dignity. "No, you hear me, my dear fellow, I will
+have nothing whatever to do with you--nothing, so long as I don't play
+Pauline."
+
+He understood her fully, and he knew her well enough to realise how
+rigorously she would treat him. Only a kind of grunt came from his
+contracted throat, though he still tried to treat the matter in a jesting
+way. "Isn't she bad-tempered to-day!" he resumed at last, turning towards
+Gerard. "What have you done to her that I find her in such a state?"
+
+But the young man, who kept very quiet for fear lest he himself might be
+bespattered in the course of the dispute, continued to stretch himself
+out in a languid way and gave no answer.
+
+But Silviane's anger burst forth. "What has he done to me? He has pitied
+me for being at the mercy of such a man as you--so egotistical, so
+insensible to the insults heaped upon me. Ought you not to be the first
+to bound with indignation? Ought you not to have exacted my admittance to
+the Comedie as a reparation for the insult? For, after all, it is a
+defeat for you; if I'm considered unworthy, you are struck at the same
+time as I am. And so I'm a drab, eh? Say at once that I'm a creature to
+be driven away from all respectable houses."
+
+She went on in this style, coming at last to vile words, the abominable
+words which, in moments of anger, always ended by returning to her
+innocent-looking lips. The Baron, who well knew that a syllable from him
+would only increase the foulness of the overflow, vainly turned an
+imploring glance on the Count to solicit his intervention. Gerard, with
+his keen desire for peace and quietness, often brought about a
+reconciliation, but this time he did not stir, feeling too lazy and
+sleepy to interfere. And Silviane all at once came to a finish, repeating
+her trenchant, severing words: "Well, manage as you can, secure my
+_debut_, or I'll have nothing more to do with you, nothing!"
+
+"All right! all right!" Duvillard at last murmured, sneering, but in
+despair, "we'll arrange it all."
+
+However, at that moment a servant came in to say that M. Duthil was
+downstairs and wished to speak to the Baron in the smoking-room.
+Duvillard was astonished at this, for Duthil usually came up as though
+the house were his own. Then he reflected that the deputy had doubtless
+brought him some serious news from the Chamber which he wished to impart
+to him confidentially at once. So he followed the servant, leaving Gerard
+and Silviane together.
+
+In the smoking-room, an apartment communicating with the hall by a wide
+bay, the curtain of which was drawn up, Pierre stood with his companion,
+waiting and glancing curiously around him. What particularly struck him
+was the almost religious solemnness of the entrance, the heavy hangings,
+the mystic gleams of the stained-glass, the old furniture steeped in
+chapel-like gloom amidst scattered perfumes of myrrh and incense. Duthil,
+who was still very gay, tapped a low divan with his cane and said: "She
+has a nicely-furnished house, eh? Oh! she knows how to look after her
+interests."
+
+Then the Baron came in, still quite upset and anxious. And without even
+perceiving the priest, desirous as he was of tidings, he began: "Well,
+what did they do? Is there some very bad news, then?"
+
+"Mege interpellated and applied for a declaration of urgency so as to
+overthrow Barroux. You can imagine what his speech was."
+
+"Yes, yes, against the _bourgeois_, against me, against you. It's always
+the same thing--And then?"
+
+"Then--well, urgency wasn't voted, but, in spite of a very fine defence,
+Barroux only secured a majority of two votes."
+
+"Two votes, the devil! Then he's down, and we shall have a Vignon
+ministry next week."
+
+"That's what everybody said in the lobbies."
+
+The Baron frowned, as if he were estimating what good or evil might
+result to the world from such a change. Then, with a gesture of
+displeasure, he said: "A Vignon ministry! The devil! that would hardly be
+any better. Those young democrats pretend to be virtuous, and a Vignon
+ministry wouldn't admit Silviane to the Comedie."
+
+This, at first, was his only thought in presence of the crisis which made
+the political world tremble. And so the deputy could not refrain from
+referring to his own anxiety. "Well, and we others, what is our position
+in it all?"
+
+This brought Duvillard back to the situation. With a fresh gesture, this
+time a superbly proud one, he expressed his full and impudent confidence.
+"We others, why we remain as we are; we've never been in peril, I
+imagine. Oh! I am quite at ease. Sagnier can publish his famous list if
+it amuses him to do so. If we haven't long since bought Sagnier and his
+list, it's because Barroux is a thoroughly honest man, and for my part I
+don't care to throw money out of the window--I repeat to you that we fear
+nothing."
+
+Then, as he at last recognised Abbe Froment, who had remained in the
+shade, Duthil explained what service the priest desired of him. And
+Duvillard, in his state of emotion, his heart still rent by Silviane's
+sternness, must have felt a covert hope that a good action might bring
+him luck; so he at once consented to intervene in favour of Laveuve's
+admission. Taking a card and a pencil from his pocket-book he drew near
+to the window. "Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said, "I
+shall be very happy to participate in this good work. Here, this is what
+I have written: 'My dear, please do what M. l'Abbe Froment solicits in
+favour of this unfortunate man, since our friend Fonsegue only awaits a
+word from you to take proper steps.'"
+
+At this moment through the open bay Pierre caught sight of Gerard, whom
+Silviane, calm once more, and inquisitive no doubt to know why Duthil had
+called, was escorting into the hall. And the sight of the young woman
+filled him with astonishment, so simple and gentle did she seem to him,
+full of the immaculate candour of a virgin. Never had he dreamt of a lily
+of more unobtrusive yet delicious bloom in the whole garden of innocence.
+
+"Now," continued Duvillard, "if you wish to hand this card to my wife at
+once, you must go to the Princess de Harn's, where there is a
+_matinee_--"
+
+"I was going there, Monsieur le Baron."
+
+"Very good. You will certainly find my wife there; she is to take the
+children there." Then he paused, for he too had just seen Gerard; and he
+called him: "I say, Gerard, my wife said that she was going to that
+_matinee_, didn't she? You feel sure--don't you?--that Monsieur l'Abbe
+will find her there?"
+
+Although the young man was then going to the Rue Matignon, there to wait
+for Eve, it was in the most natural manner possible that he replied: "If
+Monsieur l'Abbe makes haste, I think he will find her there, for she was
+certainly going there before trying on a corsage at Salmon's."
+
+Then he kissed Silviane's hand, and went off with the air of a handsome,
+indolent man, who knows no malice, and is even weary of pleasure.
+
+Pierre, feeling rather embarrassed, was obliged to let Duvillard
+introduce him to the mistress of the house. He bowed in silence, whilst
+she, likewise silent, returned his bow with modest reserve, the tact
+appropriate to the occasion, such as no _ingenue_, even at the Comedie,
+was then capable of. And while the Baron accompanied the priest to the
+door, she returned to the _salon_ with Duthil, who was scarcely screened
+by the door-curtain before he passed his arm round her waist.
+
+When Pierre, who at last felt confident of success, found himself, still
+in his cab, in front of the Princess de Harn's mansion in the Avenue
+Kleber, he suddenly relapsed into great embarrassment. The avenue was
+crowded with carriages brought thither by the musical _matinee_, and such
+a throng of arriving guests pressed round the entrance, decorated with a
+kind of tent with scallopings of red velvet, that he deemed the house
+unapproachable. How could he manage to get in? And how in his cassock
+could he reach the Princess, and ask for a minute's conversation with
+Baroness Duvillard? Amidst all his feverishness he had not thought of
+these difficulties. However, he was approaching the door on foot, asking
+himself how he might glide unperceived through the throng, when the sound
+of a merry voice made him turn: "What, Monsieur l'Abbe! Is it possible!
+So now I find you here!"
+
+It was little Massot who spoke. He went everywhere, witnessed ten sights
+a day,--a parliamentary sitting, a funeral, a wedding, any festive or
+mourning scene,--when he wanted a good subject for an article. "What!
+Monsieur l'Abbe," he resumed, "and so you have come to our amiable
+Princess's to see the Mauritanians dance!"
+
+He was jesting, for the so-called Mauritanians were simply six Spanish
+dancing-girls, who by the sensuality of their performance were then
+making all Paris rush to the Folies-Bergere. For drawing-room
+entertainments these girls reserved yet more indecorous dances--dances of
+such a character indeed that they would certainly not have been allowed
+in a theatre. And the _beau monde_ rushed to see them at the houses of
+the bolder lady-entertainers, the eccentric and foreign ones like the
+Princess, who in order to draw society recoiled from no "attraction."
+
+But when Pierre had explained to little Massot that he was still running
+about on the same business, the journalist obligingly offered to pilot
+him. He knew the house, obtained admittance by a back door, and brought
+Pierre along a passage into a corner of the hall, near the very entrance
+of the grand drawing-room. Lofty green plants decorated this hall, and in
+the spot selected Pierre was virtually hidden. "Don't stir, my dear
+Abbe," said Massot, "I will try to ferret out the Princess for you. And
+you shall know if Baroness Duvillard has already arrived."
+
+What surprised Pierre was that every window-shutter of the mansion was
+closed, every chink stopped up so that daylight might not enter, and that
+every room flared with electric lamps, an illumination of supernatural
+intensity. The heat was already very great, the atmosphere heavy with a
+violent perfume of flowers and _odore di femina_. And to Pierre, who felt
+both blinded and stifled, it seemed as if he were entering one of those
+luxurious, unearthly Dens of the Flesh such as the pleasure-world of
+Paris conjures from dreamland. By rising on tiptoes, as the drawing-room
+entrance was wide open, he could distinguish the backs of the women who
+were already seated, rows of necks crowned with fair or dark hair. The
+Mauritanians were doubtless executing their first dance. He did not see
+them, but he could divine the lascivious passion of the dance from the
+quiver of all those women's necks, which swayed as beneath a great gust
+of wind. Then laughter arose and a tempest of bravos, quite a tumult of
+enjoyment.
+
+"I can't put my hand on the Princess; you must wait a little," Massot
+returned to say. "I met Janzen and he promised to bring her to me. Don't
+you know Janzen?"
+
+Then, in part because his profession willed it, and in part for
+pleasure's sake, he began to gossip. The Princess was a good friend of
+his. He had described her first _soiree_ during the previous year, when
+she had made her _debut_ at that mansion on her arrival in Paris. He knew
+the real truth about her so far as it could be known. Rich? yes, perhaps
+she was, for she spent enormous sums. Married she must have been, and to
+a real prince, too; no doubt she was still married to him, in spite of
+her story of widowhood. Indeed, it seemed certain that her husband, who
+was as handsome as an archangel, was travelling about with a vocalist. As
+for having a bee in her bonnet that was beyond discussion, as clear as
+noonday. Whilst showing much intelligence, she constantly and suddenly
+shifted. Incapable of any prolonged effort, she went from one thing that
+had awakened her curiosity to another, never attaching herself anywhere.
+After ardently busying herself with painting, she had lately become
+impassioned for chemistry, and was now letting poetry master her.
+
+"And so you don't know Janzen," continued Massot. "It was he who threw
+her into chemistry, into the study of explosives especially, for, as you
+may imagine, the only interest in chemistry for her is its connection
+with Anarchism. She, I think, is really an Austrian, though one must
+always doubt anything she herself says. As for Janzen, he calls himself a
+Russian, but he's probably German. Oh! he's the most unobtrusive,
+enigmatical man in the world, without a home, perhaps without a name--a
+terrible fellow with an unknown past. I myself hold proofs which make me
+think that he took part in that frightful crime at Barcelona. At all
+events, for nearly a year now I've been meeting him in Paris, where the
+police no doubt are watching him. And nothing can rid me of the idea that
+he merely consented to become our lunatic Princess's lover in order to
+throw the detectives off the scent. He affects to live in the midst of
+_fetes_, and he has introduced to the house some extraordinary people,
+Anarchists of all nationalities and all colours--for instance, one
+Raphanel, that fat, jovial little man yonder, a Frenchman he is, and his
+companions would do well to mistrust him. Then there's a Bergaz, a
+Spaniard, I think, an obscure jobber at the Bourse, whose sensual,
+blobber-lipped mouth is so disquieting. And there are others and others,
+adventurers and bandits from the four corners of the earth!... Ah! the
+foreign colonies of our Parisian pleasure-world! There are a few spotless
+fine names, a few real great fortunes among them, but as for the rest,
+ah! what a herd!"
+
+Rosemonde's own drawing-room was summed up in those words: resounding
+titles, real millionaires, then, down below, the most extravagant medley
+of international imposture and turpitude. And Pierre thought of that
+internationalism, that cosmopolitanism, that flight of foreigners which,
+ever denser and denser, swooped down upon Paris. Most certainly it came
+thither to enjoy it, as to a city of adventure and delight, and it helped
+to rot it a little more. Was it then a necessary thing, that
+decomposition of the great cities which have governed the world, that
+affluxion of every passion, every desire, every gratification, that
+accumulation of reeking soil from all parts of the world, there where, in
+beauty and intelligence, blooms the flower of civilisation?
+
+However, Janzen appeared, a tall, thin fellow of about thirty, very fair
+with grey, pale, harsh eyes, and a pointed beard and flowing curly hair
+which elongated his livid, cloudy face. He spoke indifferent French in a
+low voice and without a gesture. And he declared that the Princess could
+not be found; he had looked for her everywhere. Possibly, if somebody had
+displeased her, she had shut herself up in her room and gone to bed,
+leaving her guests to amuse themselves in all freedom in whatever way
+they might choose.
+
+"Why, but here she is!" suddenly said Massot.
+
+Rosemonde was indeed there, in the vestibule, watching the door as if she
+expected somebody. Short, slight, and strange rather than pretty, with
+her delicate face, her sea-green eyes, her small quivering nose, her
+rather large and over-ruddy mouth, which was parted so that one could see
+her superb teeth, she that day wore a sky-blue gown spangled with silver;
+and she had silver bracelets on her arms and a silver circlet in her pale
+brown hair, which rained down in curls and frizzy, straggling locks as
+though waving in a perpetual breeze.
+
+"Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said to Pierre as soon as
+she knew his business. "If they don't take your old man in at our asylum,
+send him to me, I'll take him, I will; I will sleep him somewhere here."
+
+Still, she remained disturbed, and continually glanced towards the door.
+And on the priest asking if Baroness Duvillard had yet arrived, "Why no!"
+she cried, "and I am much surprised at it. She is to bring her son and
+daughter. Yesterday, Hyacinthe positively promised me that he would
+come."
+
+There lay her new caprice. If her passion for chemistry was giving way to
+a budding taste for decadent, symbolical verse, it was because one
+evening, whilst discussing Occultism with Hyacinthe, she had discovered
+an extraordinary beauty in him: the astral beauty of Nero's wandering
+soul! At least, said she, the signs of it were certain.
+
+And all at once she quitted Pierre: "Ah, at last!" she cried, feeling
+relieved and happy. Then she darted forward: Hyacinthe was coming in with
+his sister Camille.
+
+On the very threshold, however, he had just met the friend on whose
+account he was there, young Lord George Eldrett, a pale and languid
+stripling with the hair of a girl; and he scarcely condescended to notice
+the tender greeting of Rosemonde, for he professed to regard woman as an
+impure and degrading creature. Distressed by such coldness, she followed
+the two young men, returning in their rear into the reeking, blinding
+furnace of the drawing-room.
+
+Massot, however, had been obliging enough to stop Camille and bring her
+to Pierre, who at the first words they exchanged relapsed into despair.
+"What, mademoiselle, has not madame your mother accompanied you here?"
+
+The girl, clad according to her wont in a dark gown, this time of
+peacock-blue, was nervous, with wicked eyes and sibilant voice. And as
+she ragefully drew up her little figure, her deformity, her left shoulder
+higher than the right one, became more apparent than ever. "No," she
+rejoined, "she was unable. She had something to try on at her
+dressmaker's. We stopped too long at the Exposition du Lis, and she
+requested us to set her down at Salmon's door on our way here."
+
+It was Camille herself who had skilfully prolonged the visit to the art
+show, still hoping to prevent her mother from meeting Gerard. And her
+rage arose from the ease with which her mother had got rid of her, thanks
+to that falsehood of having something to try on.
+
+"But," ingenuously said Pierre, "if I went at once to this person Salmon,
+I might perhaps be able to send up my card."
+
+Camille gave a shrill laugh, so funny did the idea appear to her. Then
+she retorted: "Oh! who knows if you would still find her there? She had
+another pressing appointment, and is no doubt already keeping it!"
+
+"Well, then, I will wait for her here. She will surely come to fetch you,
+will she not?"
+
+"Fetch us? Oh no! since I tell you that she has other important affairs
+to attend to. The carriage will take us home alone, my brother and I."
+
+Increasing bitterness was infecting the girl's pain-fraught irony. Did he
+not understand her then, that priest who asked such naive questions which
+were like dagger-thrusts in her heart? Yet he must know, since everybody
+knew the truth.
+
+"Ah! how worried I am," Pierre resumed, so grieved indeed that tears
+almost came to his eyes. "It's still on account of that poor man about
+whom I have been busying myself since this morning. I have a line from
+your father, and Monsieur Gerard told me--" But at this point he paused
+in confusion, and amidst all his thoughtlessness of the world, absorbed
+as he was in the one passion of charity, he suddenly divined the truth.
+"Yes," he added mechanically, "I just now saw your father again with
+Monsieur de Quinsac."
+
+"I know, I know," replied Camille, with the suffering yet scoffing air of
+a girl who is ignorant of nothing. "Well, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you have a
+line from papa for mamma, you must wait till mamma has finished her
+business. You might come to the house about six o'clock, but I doubt if
+you'll find her there, as she may well be detained."
+
+While Camille thus spoke, her murderous eyes glistened, and each word she
+uttered, simple as it seemed, became instinct with ferocity, as if it
+were a knife, which she would have liked to plunge into her mother's
+breast. In all certainty she had never before hated her mother to such a
+point as this in her envy of her beauty and her happiness in being loved.
+And the irony which poured from the girl's virgin lips, before that
+simple priest, was like a flood of mire with which she sought to submerge
+her rival.
+
+Just then, however, Rosemonde came back again, feverish and flurried as
+usual. And she led Camille away: "Ah, my dear, make haste. They are
+extraordinary, delightful, intoxicating!"
+
+Janzen and little Massot also followed the Princess. All the men hastened
+from the adjoining rooms, scrambled and plunged into the _salon_ at the
+news that the Mauritanians had again begun to dance. That time it must
+have been the frantic, lascivious gallop that Paris whispered about, for
+Pierre saw the rows of necks and heads, now fair, now dark, wave and
+quiver as beneath a violent wind. With every window-shutter closed, the
+conflagration of the electric lamps turned the place into a perfect
+brazier, reeking with human effluvia. And there came a spell of rapture,
+fresh laughter and bravos, all the delight of an overflowing orgy.
+
+When Pierre again found himself on the footwalk, he remained for a moment
+bewildered, blinking, astonished to be in broad daylight once more.
+Half-past four would soon strike, but he had nearly two hours to wait
+before calling at the house in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What should he
+do? He paid his driver; preferring to descend the Champs Elysees on foot,
+since he had some time to lose. A walk, moreover, might calm the fever
+which was burning his hands, in the passion of charity which ever since
+the morning had been mastering him more and more, in proportion as he
+encountered fresh and fresh obstacles. He now had but one pressing
+desire, to complete his good work, since success henceforth seemed
+certain. And he tried to restrain his steps and walk leisurely down the
+magnificent avenue, which had now been dried by the bright sun, and was
+enlivened by a concourse of people, while overhead the sky was again
+blue, lightly blue, as in springtime.
+
+Nearly two hours to lose while, yonder, the wretched Laveuve lay with
+life ebbing from him on his bed of rags, in his icy den. Sudden feelings
+of revolt, of well-nigh irresistible impatience ascended from Pierre's
+heart, making him quiver with desire to run off and at once find Baroness
+Duvillard so as to obtain from her the all-saving order. He felt sure
+that she was somewhere near, in one of those quiet neighbouring streets,
+and great was his perturbation, his grief-fraught anger at having to wait
+in this wise to save a human life until she should have attended to those
+affairs of hers, of which her daughter spoke with such murderous glances!
+He seemed to hear a formidable cracking, the family life of the
+_bourgeoisie_ was collapsing: the father was at a hussy's house, the
+mother with a lover, the son and daughter knew everything; the former
+gliding to idiotic perversity, the latter enraged and dreaming of
+stealing her mother's lover to make a husband of him. And meantime the
+splendid equipages descended the triumphal avenue, and the crowd with its
+luxury flowed along the sidewalks, one and all joyous and superb,
+seemingly with no idea that somewhere at the far end there was a gaping
+abyss wherein everyone of them would fall and be annihilated!
+
+When Pierre got as far as the Summer Circus he was much surprised at
+again seeing Salvat, the journeyman engineer, on one of the avenue seats.
+He must have sunk down there, overcome by weariness and hunger, after
+many a vain search. However, his jacket was still distended by something
+he carried in or under it, some bit of bread, no doubt, which he meant to
+take home with him. And leaning back, with his arms hanging listlessly,
+he was watching with dreamy eyes the play of some very little children,
+who, with the help of their wooden spades, were laboriously raising
+mounds of sand, and then destroying them by dint of kicks. As he looked
+at them his red eyelids moistened, and a very gentle smile appeared on
+his poor discoloured lips. This time Pierre, penetrated by disquietude,
+wished to approach and question him. But Salvat distrustfully rose and
+went off towards the Circus, where a concert was drawing to a close; and
+he prowled around the entrance of that festive edifice in which two
+thousand happy people were heaped up together listening to music.
+
+
+
+
+V. FROM RELIGION TO ANARCHY
+
+AS Pierre was reaching the Place de la Concorde he suddenly remembered
+the appointment which Abbe Rose had given him for five o'clock at the
+Madeleine, and which he was forgetting in the feverishness born of his
+repeated steps to save Laveuve. And at thought of it he hastened on, well
+pleased at having this appointment to occupy and keep him patient.
+
+When he entered the church he was surprised to find it so dark. There
+were only a few candles burning, huge shadows were flooding the nave, and
+amidst the semi-obscurity a very loud, clear voice spoke on with a
+ceaseless streaming of words. All that one could at first distinguish of
+the numerous congregation was a pale, vague mass of heads, motionless
+with extreme attention. In the pulpit stood Monseigneur Martha, finishing
+his third address on the New Spirit. The two former ones had re-echoed
+far and wide, and so what is called "all Paris" was there--women of
+society, politicians, and writers, who were captivated by the speaker's
+artistic oratory, his warm, skilful language, and his broad, easy
+gestures, worthy of a great actor.
+
+Pierre did not wish to disturb the solemn attention, the quivering
+silence above which the prelate's voice alone rang out. Accordingly he
+resolved to wait before seeking Abbe Rose, and remained standing near a
+pillar. A parting gleam of daylight fell obliquely on Monseigneur Martha,
+who looked tall and sturdy in his white surplice, and scarcely showed a
+grey hair, although he was more than fifty. He had handsome features:
+black, keen eyes, a commanding nose, a mouth and chin of the greatest
+firmness of contour. What more particularly struck one, however, what
+gained the heart of every listener, was the expression of extreme
+amiability and anxious sympathy which ever softened the imperious
+haughtiness of the prelate's face.
+
+Pierre had formerly known him as Cure, or parish priest, of Ste.
+Clotilde. He was doubtless of Italian origin, but he had been born in
+Paris, and had quitted the seminary of St. Sulpice with the best possible
+record. Very intelligent and very ambitious, he had evinced an activity
+which even made his superiors anxious. Then, on being appointed Bishop of
+Persepolis, he had disappeared, gone to Rome, where he had spent five
+years engaged in work of which very little was known. However, since his
+return he had been astonishing Paris by his brilliant propaganda, busying
+himself with the most varied affairs, and becoming much appreciated and
+very powerful at the archiepiscopal residence. He devoted himself in
+particular, and with wonderful results, to the task of increasing the
+subscriptions for the completion of the basilica of the Sacred Heart. He
+recoiled from nothing, neither from journeys, nor lectures, nor
+collections, nor applications to Government, nor even endeavours among
+Israelites and Freemasons. And at last, again enlarging his sphere of
+action, he had undertaken to reconcile Science with Catholicism, and to
+bring all Christian France to the Republic, on all sides expounding the
+policy of Pope Leo XIII., in order that the Church might finally triumph.
+
+However, in spite of the advances of this influential and amiable man,
+Pierre scarcely liked him. He only felt grateful to him for one thing,
+the appointment of good Abbe Rose as curate at St. Pierre de Montmartre,
+which appointment he had secured for him no doubt in order to prevent
+such a scandal as the punishment of an old priest for showing himself too
+charitable. On thus finding and hearing the prelate speak in that
+renowned pulpit of the Madeleine, still and ever pursuing his work of
+conquest, Pierre remembered how he had seen him at the Duvillards' during
+the previous spring, when, with his usual _maestria_, he had achieved his
+greatest triumph--the conversion of Eve to Catholicism. That church, too,
+had witnessed her baptism, a wonderfully pompous ceremony, a perfect gala
+offered to the public which figures in all the great events of Parisian
+life. Gerard had knelt down, moved to tears, whilst the Baron triumphed
+like a good-natured husband who was happy to find religion establishing
+perfect harmony in his household. It was related among the spectators
+that Eve's family, and particularly old Justus Steinberger, her father,
+was not in reality much displeased by the affair. The old man sneeringly
+remarked, indeed, that he knew his daughter well enough to wish her to
+belong to his worst enemy. In the banking business there is a class of
+security which one is pleased to see discounted by one's rivals. With the
+stubborn hope of triumph peculiar to his race, Justus, consoling himself
+for the failure of his first scheme, doubtless considered that Eve would
+prove a powerful dissolving agent in the Christian family which she had
+entered, and thus help to make all wealth and power fall into the hands
+of the Jews.
+
+However, Pierre's vision faded. Monseigneur Martha's voice was rising
+with increase of volume, celebrating, amidst the quivering of the
+congregation, the benefits that would accrue from the New Spirit, which
+was at last about to pacify France and restore her to her due rank and
+power. Were there not certain signs of this resurrection on every hand?
+The New Spirit was the revival of the Ideal, the protest of the soul
+against degrading materialism, the triumph of spirituality over filthy
+literature; and it was also Science accepted, but set in its proper
+place, reconciled with Faith, since it no longer pretended to encroach on
+the latter's sacred domain; and it was further the Democracy welcomed in
+fatherly fashion, the Republic legitimated, recognised in her turn as
+Eldest Daughter of the Church. A breath of poetry passed by. The Church
+opened her heart to all her children, there would henceforth be but
+concord and delight if the masses, obedient to the New Spirit, would give
+themselves to the Master of love as they had given themselves to their
+kings, recognising that the Divinity was the one unique power, absolute
+sovereign of both body and soul.
+
+Pierre was now listening attentively, wondering where it was that he had
+previously heard almost identical words. And suddenly he remembered; and
+could fancy that he was again at Rome, listening to the last words of
+Monsignor Nani, the Assessor of the Holy Office. Here, again, he found
+the dream of a democratic Pope, ceasing to support the compromised
+monarchies, and seeking to subdue the masses. Since Caesar was down, or
+nearly so, might not the Pope realise the ancient ambition of his
+forerunners and become both emperor and pontiff, the sovereign, universal
+divinity on earth? This, too, was the dream in which Pierre himself, with
+apostolic naivete, had indulged when writing his book, "New Rome": a
+dream from which the sight of the real Rome had so roughly roused him. At
+bottom it was merely a policy of hypocritical falsehood, the priestly
+policy which relies on time, and is ever tenacious, carrying on the work
+of conquest with extraordinary suppleness, resolved to profit by
+everything. And what an evolution it was, the Church of Rome making
+advances to Science, to the Democracy, to the Republican _regimes_,
+convinced that it would be able to devour them if only it were allowed
+the time! Ah! yes, the New Spirit was simply the Old Spirit of
+Domination, incessantly reviving and hungering to conquer and possess the
+world.
+
+Pierre thought that he recognised among the congregation certain deputies
+whom he had seen at the Chamber. Wasn't that tall gentleman with the fair
+beard, who listened so devoutly, one of Monferrand's creatures? It was
+said that Monferrand, once a devourer of priests, was now smilingly
+coquetting with the clergy. Quite an underhand evolution was beginning in
+the sacristies, orders from Rome flitted hither and thither; it was a
+question of accepting the new form of government, and absorbing it by
+dint of invasion. France was still the Eldest Daughter of the Church, the
+only great nation which had sufficient health and strength to place the
+Pope in possession of his temporal power once more. So France must be
+won; it was well worth one's while to espouse her, even if she were
+Republican. In the eager struggle of ambition the bishop made use of the
+minister, who thought it to his interest to lean upon the bishop. But
+which of the two would end by devouring the other? And to what a _role_
+had religion sunk: an electoral weapon, an element in a parliamentary
+majority, a decisive, secret reason for obtaining or retaining a
+ministerial portfolio! Of divine charity, the basis of religion, there
+was no thought, and Pierre's heart filled with bitterness as he
+remembered the recent death of Cardinal Bergerot, the last of the great
+saints and pure minds of the French episcopacy, among which there now
+seemed to be merely a set of intriguers and fools.
+
+However, the address was drawing to a close. In a glowing peroration,
+which evoked the basilica of the Sacred Heart dominating Paris with the
+saving symbol of the Cross from the sacred Mount of the Martyrs,*
+Monseigneur Martha showed that great city of Paris Christian once more
+and master of the world, thanks to the moral omnipotence conferred upon
+it by the divine breath of the New Spirit. Unable to applaud, the
+congregation gave utterance to a murmur of approving rapture, delighted
+as it was with this miraculous finish which reassured both pocket and
+conscience. Then Monseigneur Martha quitted the pulpit with a noble step,
+whilst a loud noise of chairs broke upon the dark peacefulness of the
+church, where the few lighted candles glittered like the first stars in
+the evening sky. A long stream of men, vague, whispering shadows, glided
+away. The women alone remained, praying on their knees.
+
+  * Montmartre.
+
+Pierre, still in the same spot, was rising on tip-toes, looking for Abbe
+Rose, when a hand touched him. It was that of the old priest, who had
+seen him from a distance. "I was yonder near the pulpit," said he, "and I
+saw you plainly, my dear child. Only I preferred to wait so as to disturb
+nobody. What a beautiful address dear Monseigneur delivered!"
+
+He seemed, indeed, much moved. But there was deep sadness about his
+kindly mouth and clear childlike eyes, whose smile as a rule illumined
+his good, round white face. "I was afraid you might go off without seeing
+me," he resumed, "for I have something to tell you. You know that poor
+old man to whom I sent you this morning and in whom I asked you to
+interest yourself? Well, on getting home I found a lady there, who
+sometimes brings me a little money for my poor. Then I thought to myself
+that the three francs I gave you were really too small a sum, and as the
+thought worried me like a kind of remorse, I couldn't resist the impulse,
+but went this afternoon to the Rue des Saules myself."
+
+He lowered his voice from a feeling of respect, in order not to disturb
+the deep, sepulchral silence of the church. Covert shame, moreover,
+impeded his utterance, shame at having again relapsed into the sin of
+blind, imprudent charity, as his superiors reproachfully said. And,
+quivering, he concluded in a very low voice indeed: "And so, my child,
+picture my grief. I had five francs more to give the poor old man, and I
+found him dead."
+
+Pierre suddenly shuddered. But he was unwilling to understand: "What,
+dead!" he cried. "That old man dead! Laveuve dead?"
+
+"Yes, I found him dead--ah! amidst what frightful wretchedness, like an
+old animal that has laid itself down for the finish on a heap of rags in
+the depths of a hole. No neighbours had assisted him in his last moments;
+he had simply turned himself towards the wall. And ah! how bare and cold
+and deserted it was! And what a pang for a poor creature to go off like
+that without a word, a caress. Ah! my heart bounded within me and it is
+still bleeding!"
+
+Pierre in his utter amazement at first made but a gesture of revolt
+against imbecile social cruelty. Had the bread left near the unfortunate
+wretch, and devoured too eagerly, perhaps, after long days of abstinence,
+been the cause of his death? Or was not this rather the fatal
+_denouement_ of an ended life, worn away by labour and privation?
+However, what did the cause signify? Death had come and delivered the
+poor man. "It isn't he that I pity," Pierre muttered at last; "it is
+we--we who witness all that, we who are guilty of these abominations."
+
+But good Abbe Rose was already becoming resigned, and would only think of
+forgiveness and hope. "No, no, my child, rebellion is evil. If we are all
+guilty we can only implore Providence to forget our faults. I had given
+you an appointment here hoping for good news; and it's I who come to tell
+you of that frightful thing. Let us be penitent and pray."
+
+Then he knelt upon the flagstones near the pillar, in the rear of the
+praying women, who looked black and vague in the gloom. And he inclined
+his white head, and for a long time remained in a posture of humility.
+
+But Pierre was unable to pray, so powerfully did revolt stir him. He did
+not even bend his knees, but remained erect and quivering. His heart
+seemed to have been crushed; not a tear came to his ardent eyes. So
+Laveuve had died yonder, stretched on his litter of rags, his hands
+clenched in his obstinate desire to cling to his life of torture, whilst
+he, Pierre, again glowing with the flame of charity, consumed by
+apostolic zeal, was scouring Paris to find him for the evening a clean
+bed on which he might be saved. Ah! the atrocious irony of it all! He
+must have been at the Duvillards' in the warm _salon_, all blue and
+silver, whilst the old man was expiring; and it was for a wretched corpse
+that he had then hastened to the Chamber of Deputies, to the Countess de
+Quinsac's, to that creature Silviane's, and to that creature Rosemonde's.
+And it was for that corpse, freed from life, escaped from misery as from
+prison, that he had worried people, broken in upon their egotism,
+disturbed the peace of some, threatened the pleasures of others! What was
+the use of hastening from the parliamentary den to the cold _salon_ where
+the dust of the past was congealing; of going from the sphere of
+middle-class debauchery to that of cosmopolitan extravagance, since one
+always arrived too late, and saved people when they were already dead?
+How ridiculous to have allowed himself to be fired once more by that
+blaze of charity, that final conflagration, only the ashes of which he
+now felt within him? This time he thought he was dead himself; he was
+naught but an empty sepulchre.
+
+And all the frightful void and chaos which he had felt that morning at
+the basilica of the Sacred Heart after his mass became yet deeper,
+henceforth unfathomable. If charity were illusory and useless the Gospel
+crumbled, the end of the Book was nigh. After centuries of stubborn
+efforts, Redemption through Christianity failed, and another means of
+salvation was needed by the world in presence of the exasperated thirst
+for justice which came from the duped and wretched nations. They would
+have no more of that deceptive paradise, the promise of which had so long
+served to prop up social iniquity; they demanded that the question of
+happiness should be decided upon this earth. But how? By means of what
+new religion, what combination between the sentiment of the Divine and
+the necessity for honouring life in its sovereignty and its fruitfulness?
+Therein lay the grievous, torturing problem, into the midst of which
+Pierre was sinking; he, a priest, severed by vows of chastity and
+superstition from the rest of mankind.
+
+He had ceased to believe in the efficacy of alms; it was not sufficient
+that one should be charitable, henceforth one must be just. Given
+justice, indeed, horrid misery would disappear, and no such thing as
+charity would be needed. Most certainly there was no lack of
+compassionate hearts in that grievous city of Paris; charitable
+foundations sprouted forth there like green leaves at the first warmth of
+springtide. There were some for every age, every peril, every misfortune.
+Through the concern shown for mothers, children were succoured even
+before they were born; then came the infant and orphan asylums lavishly
+provided for all sorts of classes; and, afterwards, man was followed
+through his life, help was tendered on all sides, particularly as he grew
+old, by a multiplicity of asylums, almshouses, and refuges. And there
+were all the hands stretched out to the forsaken ones, the disinherited
+ones, even the criminals, all sorts of associations to protect the weak,
+societies for the prevention of crime, homes that offered hospitality to
+those who repented. Whether as regards the propagation of good deeds, the
+support of the young, the saving of life, the bestowal of pecuniary help,
+or the promotion of guilds, pages and pages would have been needed merely
+to particularise the extraordinary vegetation of charity that sprouted
+between the paving-stones of Paris with so fine a vigour, in which
+goodness of soul was mingled with social vanity. Still that could not
+matter, since charity redeemed and purified all. But how terrible the
+proposition that this charity was a useless mockery! What! after so many
+centuries of Christian charity not a sore had healed. Misery had only
+grown and spread, irritated even to rage. Incessantly aggravated, the
+evil was reaching the point when it would be impossible to tolerate it
+for another day, since social injustice was neither arrested nor even
+diminished thereby. And besides, if only one single old man died of cold
+and hunger, did not the social edifice, raised on the theory of charity,
+collapse? But one victim, and society was condemned, thought Pierre.
+
+He now felt such bitterness of heart that he could remain no longer in
+that church where the shadows ever slowly fell, blurring the sanctuaries
+and the large pale images of Christ nailed upon the Cross. All was about
+to sink into darkness, and he could hear nothing beyond an expiring
+murmur of prayers, a plaint from the women who were praying on their
+knees, in the depths of the shrouding gloom.
+
+At the same time he hardly liked to go off without saying a word to Abbe
+Rose, who in his entreaties born of simple faith left the happiness and
+peace of mankind to the good pleasure of the Invisible. However, fearing
+that he might disturb him, Pierre was making up his mind to retire, when
+the old priest of his own accord raised his head. "Ah, my child," said
+he, "how difficult it is to be good in a reasonable manner. Monseigneur
+Martha has scolded me again, and but for the forgiveness of God I should
+fear for my salvation."
+
+For a moment Pierre paused under the porticus of the Madeleine, on the
+summit of the great flight of steps which, rising above the railings,
+dominates the Place. Before him was the Rue Royale dipping down to the
+expanse of the Place de la Concorde, where rose the obelisk and the pair
+of plashing fountains. And, farther yet, the paling colonnade of the
+Chamber of Deputies bounded the horizon. It was a vista of sovereign
+grandeur under that pale sky over which twilight was slowly stealing, and
+which seemed to broaden the thoroughfares, throw back the edifices, and
+lend them the quivering, soaring aspect of the palaces of dreamland. No
+other capital in the world could boast a scene of such aerial pomp, such
+grandiose magnificence, at that hour of vagueness, when falling night
+imparts to cities a dreamy semblance, the infinite of human immensity.
+
+Motionless and hesitating in presence of the opening expanse, Pierre
+distressfully pondered as to whither he should go now that all which he
+had so passionately sought to achieve since the morning had suddenly
+crumbled away. Was he still bound for the Duvillard mansion in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy? He no longer knew. Then the exasperating remembrance,
+with its cruel irony, returned to him. Since Laveuve was dead, of what
+use was it for him to kill time and perambulate the pavements pending the
+arrival of six o'clock? The idea that he had a home, and that the most
+simple course would be to return to it, did not even occur to him. He
+felt as if there were something of importance left for him to do, though
+he could not possibly tell what it might be. It seemed to him to be
+everywhere and yet very far away, to be so vague and so difficult of
+accomplishment that he would certainly never be in time or have
+sufficient power to do it. However, with heavy feet and tumultuous brain
+he descended the steps and, yielding to some obstinate impulse, began to
+walk through the flower-market, a late winter market where the first
+azaleas were opening with a little shiver. Some women were purchasing
+Nice roses and violets; and Pierre looked at them as if he were
+interested in all that soft, delicate, perfumed luxury. But suddenly he
+felt a horror of it and went off, starting along the Boulevards.
+
+He walked straight before him without knowing why or whither. The falling
+darkness surprised him as if it were an unexpected phenomenon. Raising
+his eyes to the sky he felt astonished at seeing its azure gently pale
+between the slender black streaks of the chimney funnels. And the huge
+golden letters by which names or trades were advertised on every balcony
+also seemed to him singular in the last gleams of the daylight. Never
+before had he paid attention to the motley tints seen on the
+house-fronts, the painted mirrors, the blinds, the coats of arms, the
+posters of violent hues, the magnificent shops, like drawing-rooms and
+boudoirs open to the full light. And then, both in the roadway and along
+the foot-pavements, between the blue, red or yellow columns and kiosks,
+what mighty traffic there was, what an extraordinary crowd! The vehicles
+rolled along in a thundering stream: on all sides billows of cabs were
+parted by the ponderous tacking of huge omnibuses, which suggested lofty,
+bright-hued battle-ships. And on either hand, and farther and farther,
+and even among the wheels, the flood of passengers rushed on incessantly,
+with the conquering haste of ants in a state of revolution. Whence came
+all those people, and whither were all those vehicles going? How
+stupefying and torturing it all was.
+
+Pierre was still walking straight ahead, mechanically, carried on by his
+gloomy reverie. Night was coming, the first gas-burners were being
+lighted; it was the dusk of Paris, the hour when real darkness has not
+yet come, when the electric lights flame in the dying day. Lamps shone
+forth on all sides, the shop-fronts were being illumined. Soon, moreover,
+right along the Boulevards the vehicles would carry their vivid starry
+lights, like a milky way on the march betwixt the foot-pavements all
+glowing with lanterns and cordons and girandoles, a dazzling profusion of
+radiance akin to sunlight. And the shouts of the drivers and the jostling
+of the foot passengers re-echoed the parting haste of the Paris which is
+all business or passion, which is absorbed in the merciless struggle for
+love and for money. The hard day was over, and now the Paris of Pleasure
+was lighting up for its night of _fete_. The cafes, the wine shops, the
+restaurants, flared and displayed their bright metal bars, and their
+little white tables behind their clear and lofty windows, whilst near
+their doors, by way of temptation, were oysters and choice fruits. And
+the Paris which was thus awaking with the first flashes of the gas was
+already full of the gaiety of enjoyment, already yielding to an unbridled
+appetite for whatsoever may be purchased.
+
+However, Pierre had a narrow escape from being knocked down. A flock of
+newspaper hawkers came out of a side street, and darted through the crowd
+shouting the titles of the evening journals. A fresh edition of the "Voix
+du Peuple" gave rise, in particular, to a deafening clamour, which rose
+above all the rumbling of wheels. At regular intervals hoarse voices
+raised and repeated the cry: "Ask for the 'Voix du Peuple'--the new
+scandal of the African Railway Lines, the repulse of the ministry, the
+thirty-two bribe-takers of the Chamber and the Senate!" And these
+announcements, set in huge type, could be read on the copies of the
+paper, which the hawkers flourished like banners. Accustomed as it was to
+such filth, saturated with infamy, the crowd continued on its way without
+paying much attention. Still a few men paused and bought the paper, while
+painted women, who had come down to the Boulevards in search of a dinner,
+trailed their skirts and waited for some chance lover, glancing
+interrogatively at the outside customers of the cafes. And meantime the
+dishonouring shout of the newspaper hawkers, that cry in which there was
+both smirch and buffet, seemed like the last knell of the day, ringing
+the nation's funeral at the outset of the night of pleasure which was
+beginning.
+
+Then Pierre once more remembered his morning and that frightful house in
+the Rue des Saules, where so much want and suffering were heaped up. He
+again saw the yard filthy like a quagmire, the evil-smelling staircases,
+the sordid, bare, icy rooms, the families fighting for messes which even
+stray dogs would not have eaten; the mothers, with exhausted breasts,
+carrying screaming children to and fro; the old men who fell in corners
+like brute beasts, and died of hunger amidst filth. And then came his
+other hours with the magnificence or the quietude or the gaiety of the
+_salons_ through which he had passed, the whole insolent display of
+financial Paris, and political Paris, and society Paris. And at last he
+came to the dusk, and to that Paris-Sodom and Paris-Gomorrah before him,
+which was lighting itself up for the night, for the abominations of that
+accomplice night which, like fine dust, was little by little submerging
+the expanse of roofs. And the hateful monstrosity of it all howled aloud
+under the pale sky where the first pure, twinkling stars were gleaming.
+
+A great shudder came upon Pierre as he thought of all that mass of
+iniquity and suffering, of all that went on below amid want and crime,
+and all that went on above amid wealth and vice. The _bourgeoisie_,
+wielding power, would relinquish naught of the sovereignty which it had
+conquered, wholly stolen, while the people, the eternal dupe, silent so
+long, clenched its fists and growled, claiming its legitimate share. And
+it was that frightful injustice which filled the growing gloom with
+anger. From what dark-breasted cloud would the thunderbolt fall? For
+years he had been waiting for that thunderbolt which low rumbles
+announced on all points of the horizon. And if he had written a book full
+of candour and hope, if he had gone in all innocence to Rome, it was to
+avert that thunderbolt and its frightful consequences. But all hope of
+the kind was dead within him; he felt that the thunderbolt was
+inevitable, that nothing henceforth could stay the catastrophe. And never
+before had he felt it to be so near, amidst the happy impudence of some,
+and the exasperated distress of others. And it was gathering, and it
+would surely fall over that Paris, all lust and bravado, which, when
+evening came, thus stirred up its furnace.
+
+Tired out and distracted, Pierre raised his eyes as he reached the Place
+de l'Opera. Where was he then? The heart of the great city seemed to beat
+on this spot, in that vast expanse where met so many thoroughfares, as if
+from every point the blood of distant districts flowed thither along
+triumphal avenues. Right away to the horizon stretched the great gaps of
+the Avenue de l'Opera, the Rue du Quatre-Septembre, and the Rue de la
+Paix, still showing clearly in a final glimpse of daylight, but already
+starred with swarming sparks. The torrent of the Boulevard traffic poured
+across the Place, where clashed, too, all that from the neighbouring
+streets, with a constant turning and eddying which made the spot the most
+dangerous of whirlpools. In vain did the police seek to impose some
+little prudence, the stream of pedestrians still overflowed, wheels
+became entangled and horses reared amidst all the uproar of the human
+tide, which was as loud, as incessant, as the tempest voice of an ocean.
+Then there was the detached mass of the opera-house, slowly steeped in
+gloom, and rising huge and mysterious like a symbol, its lyre-bearing
+figure of Apollo, right aloft, showing a last reflection of daylight
+amidst the livid sky. And all the windows of the house-fronts began to
+shine, gaiety sprang from those thousands of lamps which coruscated one
+by one, a universal longing for ease and free gratification of each
+desire spread with the increasing darkness; whilst, at long intervals,
+the large globes of the electric lights shone as brightly as the moons of
+the city's cloudless nights.
+
+But why was he, Pierre, there, he asked himself, irritated and wondering.
+Since Laveuve was dead he had but to go home, bury himself in his nook,
+and close up door and windows, like one who was henceforth useless, who
+had neither belief nor hope, and awaited naught save annihilation. It was
+a long journey from the Place de l'Opera to his little house at Neuilly.
+Still, however great his weariness, he would not take a cab, but retraced
+his steps, turning towards the Madeleine again, and plunging into the
+scramble of the pavements, amidst the deafening uproar from the roadway,
+with a bitter desire to aggravate his wound and saturate himself with
+revolt and anger. Was it not yonder at the corner of that street, at the
+end of that Boulevard, that he would find the expected abyss into which
+that rotten world, whose old society he could hear rending at each step,
+must soon assuredly topple?
+
+However, when Pierre wished to cross the Rue Scribe a block in the
+traffic made him halt. In front of a luxurious cafe two tall,
+shabbily-clad and very dirty fellows were alternately offering the "Voix
+du Peuple" with its account of the scandals and the bribe-takers of the
+Chamber and the Senate, in voices so suggestive of cracked brass that
+passers-by clustered around them. And here, in a hesitating, wandering
+man, who after listening drew near to the large cafe and peered through
+its windows, Pierre was once again amazed to recognise Salvat. This time
+the meeting struck him forcibly, filled him with suspicion to such a
+point that he also stopped and resolved to watch the journeyman engineer.
+He did not expect that one of such wretched aspect, with what seemed to
+be a hunk of bread distending his old ragged jacket, would enter and seat
+himself at one of the cafe's little tables amidst the warm gaiety of the
+lamps. However, he waited for a moment, and then saw him wander away with
+slow and broken steps as if the cafe, which was nearly empty, did not
+suit him. What could he have been seeking, whither had he been going,
+since the morning, ever on a wild, solitary chase through the Paris of
+wealth and enjoyment while hunger dogged his steps? It was only with
+difficulty that he now dragged himself along, his will and energy seemed
+to be exhausted. As if quite overcome, he drew near to a kiosk, and for a
+moment leant against it. Then, however, he drew himself up again, and
+walked on further, still as it were in search of something.
+
+And now came an incident which brought Pierre's emotion to a climax. A
+tall sturdy man on turning out of the Rue Caumartin caught sight of
+Salvat, and approached him. And just as the new comer without false pride
+was shaking the workman's hand, Pierre recognised him as his brother
+Guillaume. Yes, it was indeed he, with his thick bushy hair already white
+like snow, though he was but seven and forty. However, his heavy
+moustaches had remained quite dark without one silver thread, thus
+lending an expression of vigorous life to his full face with its lofty
+towering brow. It was from his father that he had inherited that brow of
+impregnable logic and reason, similar to that which Pierre himself
+possessed. But the lower part of the elder brother's countenance was
+fuller than that of his junior; his nose was larger, his chin was square,
+and his mouth broad and firm of contour. A pale scar, the mark of an old
+wound, streaked his left temple. And his physiognomy, though it might at
+first seem very grave, rough, and unexpansive, beamed with masculine
+kindliness whenever a smile revealed his teeth, which had remained
+extremely white.
+
+While looking at his brother, Pierre remembered what Madame Theodore had
+told him that morning. Guillaume, touched by Salvat's dire want, had
+arranged to give him a few days' employment. And this explained the air
+of interest with which he now seemed to be questioning him, while the
+engineer, whom the meeting disturbed, stamped about as if eager to resume
+his mournful ramble. For a moment Guillaume appeared to notice the
+other's perturbation, by the embarrassed answers which he obtained from
+him. Still, they at last parted as if each were going his way. Then,
+however, almost immediately, Guillaume turned round again and watched the
+other, as with harassed stubborn mien he went off through the crowd. And
+the thoughts which had come to Guillaume must have been very serious and
+very pressing, for he all at once began to retrace his steps and follow
+the workman from a distance, as if to ascertain for certain what
+direction he would take.
+
+Pierre had watched the scene with growing disquietude. His nervous
+apprehension of some great unknown calamity, the suspicions born of his
+frequent and inexplicable meetings with Salvat, his surprise at now
+seeing his brother mingled with the affair, all helped to fill him with a
+pressing desire to know, witness, and perhaps prevent. So he did not
+hesitate, but began to follow the others in a prudent way.
+
+Fresh perturbation came upon him when first Salvat and then Guillaume
+suddenly turned into the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What destiny was thus
+bringing him back to that street whither a little time previously he had
+wished to return in feverish haste, and whence only the death of Laveuve
+had kept him? And his consternation increased yet further when, after
+losing sight of Salvat for a moment, he saw him standing in front of the
+Duvillard mansion, on the same spot where he had fancied he recognised
+him that morning. As it happened the carriage entrance of the mansion was
+wide open. Some repairs had been made to the paving of the porch, and
+although the workmen had now gone off, the doorway remained gaping, full
+of the falling night. The narrow street, running from the glittering
+Boulevard, was steeped in bluish gloom, starred at long intervals by a
+few gas-lamps. Some women went by, compelling Salvat to step off the
+foot-pavement. But he returned to it again, lighted the stump of a cigar,
+some remnant which he had found under a table outside a cafe, and then
+resumed his watch, patient and motionless, in front of the mansion.
+
+Disturbed by his dim conjectures, Pierre gradually grew frightened, and
+asked himself if he ought not to approach that man. The chief thing that
+detained him was the presence of his brother, whom he had seen disappear
+into a neighbouring doorway, whence he also was observing the engineer,
+ready to intervene. And so Pierre contented himself with not losing sight
+of Salvat, who was still waiting and watching, merely taking his eyes
+from the mansion in order to glance towards the Boulevard as though he
+expected someone or something which would come from that direction. And
+at last, indeed, the Duvillards' landau appeared, with coachman and
+footman in livery of green and gold--a closed landau to which a pair of
+tall horses of superb build were harnessed in stylish fashion.
+
+Contrary to custom, however, the carriage, which at that hour usually
+brought the father and mother home, was only occupied that evening by the
+son and daughter, Hyacinthe and Camille. Returning from the Princess de
+Harn's _matinee_, they were chatting freely, with that calm immodesty by
+which they sought to astonish one another. Hyacinthe, influenced by his
+perverted ideas, was attacking women, whilst Camille openly counselled
+him to respond to the Princess's advances. However, she was visibly
+irritated and feverish that evening, and, suddenly changing the subject,
+she began to speak of their mother and Gerard de Quinsac.
+
+"But what can it matter to you?" quietly retorted Hyacinthe; and, seeing
+that she almost bounded from the seat at this remark, he continued: "Are
+you still in love with him, then? Do you still want to marry him?"
+
+"Yes, I do, and I will!" she cried with all the jealous rage of an
+uncomely girl, who suffered so acutely at seeing herself spurned whilst
+her yet beautiful mother stole from her the man she wanted.
+
+"You will, you will!" resumed Hyacinthe, well pleased to have an
+opportunity of teasing his sister, whom he somewhat feared. "But you
+won't unless _he_ is willing--And he doesn't care for you."
+
+"He does!" retorted Camille in a fury. "He's kind and pleasant with me,
+and that's enough."
+
+Her brother felt afraid as he noticed the blackness of her glance, and
+the clenching of her weak little hands, whose fingers bent like claws.
+And after a pause he asked: "And papa, what does he say about it?"
+
+"Oh, papa! All that he cares about is the other one."
+
+Then Hyacinthe began to laugh.
+
+But the landau, with its tall horses trotting on sonorously, had turned
+into the street and was approaching the house, when a slim fair-haired
+girl of sixteen or seventeen, a modiste's errand girl with a large
+bandbox on her arm, hastily crossed the road in order to enter the arched
+doorway before the carriage. She was bringing a bonnet for the Baroness,
+and had come all along the Boulevard musing, with her soft blue eyes, her
+pinky nose, and her mouth which ever laughed in the most adorable little
+face that one could see. And it was at this same moment that Salvat,
+after another glance at the landau, sprang forward and entered the
+doorway. An instant afterwards he reappeared, flung his lighted cigar
+stump into the gutter; and without undue haste went off, slinking into
+the depths of the vague gloom of the street.
+
+And then what happened? Pierre, later on, remembered that a dray of the
+Western Railway Company in coming up stopped and delayed the landau for a
+moment, whilst the young errand girl entered the doorway. And with a
+heart-pang beyond description he saw his brother Guillaume in his turn
+spring forward and rush into the mansion as though impelled to do so by
+some revelation, some sudden certainty. He, Pierre, though he understood
+nothing clearly, could divine the approach of some frightful horror. But
+when he would have run, when he would have shouted, he found himself as
+if nailed to the pavement, and felt his throat clutched as by a hand of
+lead. Then suddenly came a thunderous roar, a formidable explosion, as if
+the earth was opening, and the lightning-struck mansion was being
+annihilated. Every window-pane of the neighbouring houses was shivered,
+the glass raining down with the loud clatter of hail. For a moment a
+hellish flame fired the street, and the dust and the smoke were such that
+the few passers-by were blinded and howled with affright, aghast at
+toppling, as they thought, into that fiery furnace.
+
+And that dazzling flare brought Pierre enlightenment. He once more saw
+the bomb distending the tool-bag, which lack of work had emptied and
+rendered useless. He once more saw it under the ragged jacket, a
+protuberance caused, he had fancied, by some hunk of bread, picked up in
+a corner and treasured that it might be carried home to wife and child.
+After wandering and threatening all happy Paris, it was there that it had
+flared, there that it had burst with a thunder-clap, there on the
+threshold of the sovereign _bourgeoisie_ to whom all wealth belonged. He,
+however, at that moment thought only of his brother Guillaume, and flung
+himself into that porch where a volcanic crater seemed to have opened.
+And at first he distinguished nothing, the acrid smoke streamed over all.
+Then he perceived the walls split, the upper floor rent open, the paving
+broken up, strewn with fragments. Outside, the landau which had been on
+the point of entering, had escaped all injury; neither of the horses had
+been touched, nor was there even a scratch on any panel of the vehicle.
+But the young girl, the pretty, slim, fair-haired errand girl, lay there
+on her back, her stomach ripped open, whilst her delicate face remained
+intact, her eyes clear, her smile full of astonishment, so swiftly and
+lightning-like had come the catastrophe. And near her, from the fallen
+bandbox, whose lid had merely come unfastened, had rolled the bonnet, a
+very fragile pink bonnet, which still looked charming in its flowery
+freshness.
+
+By a prodigy Guillaume was alive and already on his legs again. His left
+hand alone streamed with blood, a projectile seemed to have broken his
+wrist. His moustaches moreover had been burnt, and the explosion by
+throwing him to the ground had so shaken and bruised him that he shivered
+from head to feet as with intense cold. Nevertheless, he recognised his
+brother without even feeling astonished to see him there, as indeed often
+happens after great disasters, when the unexplained becomes providential.
+That brother, of whom he had so long lost sight, was there, naturally
+enough, because it was necessary that he should be there. And Guillaume,
+amidst the wild quivers by which he was shaken, at once cried to him
+"Take me away! take me away! To your house at Neuilly, oh! take me away!"
+
+Then, for sole explanation, and referring to Salvat, he stammered: "I
+suspected that he had stolen a cartridge from me; only one, most
+fortunately, for otherwise the whole district would have been blown to
+pieces. Ah! the wretched fellow! I wasn't in time to set my foot upon the
+match."
+
+With perfect lucidity of mind, such as danger sometimes imparts, Pierre,
+neither speaking nor losing a moment, remembered that the mansion had a
+back entrance fronting the Rue Vignon. He had just realised in what
+serious peril his brother would be if he were found mixed up in that
+affair. And with all speed, when he had led him into the gloom of the Rue
+Vignon, he tied his handkerchief round his wrist, which he bade him press
+to his chest, under his coat, as that would conceal it.
+
+But Guillaume, still shivering and haunted by the horror he had
+witnessed, repeated: "Take me away--to your place at Neuilly--not to my
+home."
+
+"Of course, of course, be easy. Come, wait here a second, I will stop a
+cab."
+
+In his eagerness to procure a conveyance, Pierre had brought his brother
+down to the Boulevard again. But the terrible thunderclap of the
+explosion had upset the whole neighbourhood, horses were still rearing,
+and people were running demented, hither and thither. And numerous
+policemen had hastened up, and a rushing crowd was already blocking the
+lower part of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, which was now as black as a pit,
+every light in it having been extinguished; whilst on the Boulevard a
+hawker of the "Voix du Peuple" still stubbornly vociferated: "The new
+scandal of the African Railway Lines! The thirty-two bribe-takers of the
+Chamber and the Senate! The approaching fall of the ministry!"
+
+Pierre was at last managing to stop a cab when he heard a person who ran
+by say to another, "The ministry? Ah, well! that bomb will mend it right
+enough!"
+
+Then the brothers seated themselves in the cab, which carried them away.
+And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an
+unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime
+and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice
+swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and
+Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them from all the black clouds of
+the horizon.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+
+
+I. REVOLUTIONISTS
+
+
+IN that out-of-the-way street at Neuilly, along which nobody passed after
+dusk, Pierre's little house was now steeped in deep slumber under the
+black sky; each of its shutters closed, and not a ray of light stealing
+forth from within. And one could divine, too, the profound quietude of
+the little garden in the rear, a garden empty and lifeless, benumbed by
+the winter cold.
+
+Pierre had several times feared that his brother would faint away in the
+cab in which they were journeying. Leaning back, and often sinking down,
+Guillaume spoke not a word. And terrible was the silence between them--a
+silence fraught with all the questions and answers which they felt it
+would be useless and painful to exchange at such a time. However, the
+priest was anxious about the wound, and wondered to what surgeon he might
+apply, desirous as he was of admitting only a sure, staunch man into the
+secret, for he had noticed with how keen a desire to disappear his
+brother had sought to hide himself.
+
+Until they reached the Arc de Triomphe the silence remained unbroken. It
+was only there that Guillaume seemed to emerge from the prostration of
+his reverie. "Mind, Pierre," said he, "no doctor. We will attend to this
+together."
+
+Pierre was on the point of protesting, but he realised that it would be
+useless to discuss the subject at such a moment, and so he merely waved
+his hand to signify that he should act in spite of the prohibition were
+it necessary. In point of fact, his anxiety had increased, and, when the
+cab at last drew up before the house, it was with real relief that he saw
+his brother alight without evincing any marked feebleness. He himself
+quickly paid the driver, well-pleased, too, at finding that nobody, not
+even a neighbour, was about. And having opened the door with his latch
+key, he helped the injured man to ascend the steps.
+
+A little night lamp glimmered faintly in the vestibule. On hearing the
+door open, Pierre's servant, Sophie, had at once emerged from the
+kitchen. A short, thin, dark woman of sixty, she had formed part of the
+household for more than thirty years, having served the mother before
+serving the son. She knew Guillaume, having seen him when he was a young
+man, and doubtless she now recognised him, although well-nigh ten years
+had gone by since he had last crossed that threshold. Instead of evincing
+any surprise, she seemed to consider his extraordinary return quite
+natural, and remained as silent and discreet as usual. She led, indeed,
+the life of a recluse, never speaking unless her work absolutely required
+it. And thus she now contented herself with saying: "Monsieur l'Abbe,
+Monsieur Bertheroy is in the study, and has been waiting there for a
+quarter of an hour."
+
+At this Guillaume intervened, as if the news revived him: "Does Bertheroy
+still come here, then? I'll see him willingly. His is one of the best,
+the broadest, minds of these days. He has still remained my master."
+
+A former friend of their father,--the illustrious chemist, Michel
+Froment,--Bertheroy had now, in his turn, become one of the loftiest
+glories of France, one to whom chemistry owed much of the extraordinary
+progress that has made it the mother-science, by which the very face of
+the earth is being changed. A member of the Institute, laden with offices
+and honours, he had retained much affection for Pierre, and occasionally
+visited him in this wise before dinner, by way of relaxation, he would
+say.
+
+"You showed him into the study? All right, then, we will go there," said
+the Abbe to the servant. "Light a lamp and take it into my room, and get
+my bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once."
+
+While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying these
+instructions, the brothers went into their father's former laboratory, of
+which the priest had now made a spacious study. And it was with a cry of
+joyous astonishment that the _savant_ greeted them on seeing them enter
+the room side by side, the one supporting the other. "What, together!" he
+exclaimed. "Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greater
+pleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding."
+
+Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features. His
+yellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeks
+and jaw. Moreover, there was nothing imposing about him; he looked like
+some old shop-keeping herbalist. At the same time he had a fine, broad,
+smooth brow, and his eyes still glittered brightly beneath his tangled
+hair.
+
+"What, have you injured yourself, Guillaume?" he continued, as soon as he
+saw the bandaged hand.
+
+Pierre remained silent, so as to let his brother tell the story as he
+chose. Guillaume had realised that he must confess the truth, but in
+simple fashion, without detailing the circumstances. "Yes, in an
+explosion," he answered, "and I really think that I have my wrist
+broken."
+
+At this, Bertheroy, whose glance was fixed upon him, noticed that his
+moustaches were burnt, and that there was an expression of bewildered
+stupor, such as follows a catastrophe, in his eyes. Forthwith the
+_savant_ became grave and circumspect; and, without seeking to compel
+confidence by any questions, he simply said: "Indeed! an explosion! Will
+you let me see the injury? You know that before letting chemistry ensnare
+me I studied medicine, and am still somewhat of a surgeon."
+
+On hearing these words Pierre could not restrain a heart-cry: "Yes, yes,
+master! Look at the injury--I was very anxious, and to find you here is
+unhoped-for good fortune!"
+
+The _savant_ glanced at him, and divined that the hidden circumstances of
+the accident must be serious. And then, as Guillaume, smiling, though
+paling with weakness, consented to the suggestion, Bertheroy retorted
+that before anything else he must be put to bed. The servant just then
+returned to say the bed was ready, and so they all went into the
+adjoining room, where the injured man was soon undressed and helped
+between the sheets.
+
+"Light me, Pierre," said Bertheroy, "take the lamp; and let Sophie give
+me a basin full of water and some cloths." Then, having gently washed the
+wound, he resumed: "The devil! The wrist isn't broken, but it's a nasty
+injury. I am afraid there must be a lesion of the bone. Some nails passed
+through the flesh, did they not?"
+
+Receiving no reply, he relapsed into silence. But his surprise was
+increasing, and he closely examined the hand, which the flame of the
+explosion had scorched, and even sniffed the shirt cuff as if seeking to
+understand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of one
+of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. In
+the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were
+characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.
+
+"And so," he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by
+professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put
+you in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concocting
+then?"
+
+Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury,
+had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and
+agitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay
+precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first
+experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of
+restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me,
+master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility of
+nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession."
+
+"Oh! certainly, my friend," exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret. Your
+discovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you are
+capable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must be
+aware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions of
+others, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance and
+motive."
+
+So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant and
+free from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his,
+which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all the
+academical titles that he bore as an official _savant_, made him a man of
+the boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth,
+as he himself said.
+
+He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after
+making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh.
+Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the
+morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some
+comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be
+well.
+
+On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting up
+and seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise his
+loved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had to
+take up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately retained full use
+of his right hand, and was thus able to pen a few lines to say that he
+would not be home that night. He addressed the note to Madame Leroi, the
+mother of his deceased mistress, who, since the latter's death, had
+remained with him and had reared his three sons. Pierre was aware also
+that the household at Montmartre included a young woman of five or six
+and twenty, the daughter of an old friend, to whom Guillaume had given
+shelter on her father's death, and whom he was soon to marry, in spite of
+the great difference in their ages. For the priest, however, all these
+were vague, disturbing things, condemnable features of disorderly life,
+and he had invariably pretended to be ignorant of them.
+
+"So you wish this note to be taken to Montmartre at once?" he said to his
+brother.
+
+"Yes, at once. It is scarcely more than seven o'clock now, and it will be
+there by eight. And you will choose a reliable man, won't you?"
+
+"The best course will be for Sophie to take a cab. We need have no fear
+with her. She won't chatter. Wait a moment, and I will settle
+everything."
+
+Sophie, on being summoned, at once understood what was wanted of her, and
+promised to say, in reply to any questions, that M. Guillaume had come to
+spend the night at his brother's, for reasons which she did not know. And
+without indulging in any reflections herself, she left the house, saying
+simply: "Monsieur l'Abbe's dinner is ready; he will only have to take the
+broth and the stew off the stove."
+
+However, when Pierre this time returned to the bedside to sit down there,
+he found that Guillaume had fallen back with his head resting on both
+pillows. And he looked very weary and pale, and showed signs of fever.
+The lamp, standing on a corner of a side table, cast a soft light around,
+and so deep was the quietude that the big clock in the adjoining
+dining-room could be heard ticking. For a moment the silence continued
+around the two brothers, who, after so many years of separation, were at
+last re-united and alone together. Then the injured man brought his right
+hand to the edge of the sheet, and the priest grasped it, pressed it
+tenderly in his own. And the clasp was a long one, those two brotherly
+hands remaining locked, one in the other.
+
+"My poor little Pierre," Guillaume faintly murmured, "you must forgive me
+for falling on you in this fashion. I've invaded the house and taken your
+bed, and I'm preventing you from dining."
+
+"Don't talk, don't tire yourself any more," interrupted Pierre. "Is not
+this the right place for you when you are in trouble?"
+
+A warmer pressure came from Guillaume's feverish hand, and tears gathered
+in his eyes. "Thanks, my little Pierre. I've found you again, and you are
+as gentle and loving as you always were. Ah! you cannot know how
+delightful it seems to me."
+
+Then the priest's eyes also were dimmed by tears. Amidst the deep
+quietude, the great sense of comfort which had followed their violent
+emotion, the brothers found an infinite charm in being together once more
+in the home of their childhood.* It was there that both their father and
+mother had died--the father tragically, struck down by an explosion in
+his laboratory; the mother piously, like a very saint. It was there, too,
+in that same bed, that Guillaume had nursed Pierre, when, after their
+mother's death, the latter had nearly died; and it was there now that
+Pierre in his turn was nursing Guillaume. All helped to bow them down and
+fill them with emotion: the strange circumstances of their meeting, the
+frightful catastrophe which had caused them such a shock, the
+mysteriousness of the things which remained unexplained between them. And
+now that after so long a separation they were tragically brought together
+again, they both felt their memory awaking. The old house spoke to them
+of their childhood, of their parents dead and gone, of the far-away days
+when they had loved and suffered there. Beneath the window lay the
+garden, now icy cold, which once, under the sunbeams, had re-echoed with
+their play. On the left was the laboratory, the spacious room where their
+father had taught them to read. On the right, in the dining-room, they
+could picture their mother cutting bread and butter for them, and looking
+so gentle with her big, despairing eyes--those of a believer mated to an
+infidel. And the feeling that they were now alone in that home, and the
+pale, sleepy gleam of the lamp, and the deep silence of the garden and
+the house, and the very past itself, all filled them with the softest of
+emotion blended with the keenest bitterness.
+
+  * See M. Zola's "Lourdes," Day I., Chapter II.
+
+They would have liked to talk and unbosom themselves. But what could they
+say to one another? Although their hands remained so tightly clasped, did
+not the most impassable of chasms separate them? In any case, they
+thought so. Guillaume was convinced that Pierre was a saint, a priest of
+the most robust faith, without a doubt, without aught in common with
+himself, whether in the sphere of ideas or in that of practical life. A
+hatchet-stroke had parted them, and each lived in a different world. And
+in the same way Pierre pictured Guillaume as one who had lost caste,
+whose conduct was most suspicious, who had never even married the mother
+of his three children, but was on the point of marrying that girl who was
+far too young for him, and who had come nobody knew whence. In him,
+moreover, were blended the passionate ideas of a _savant_ and a
+revolutionist, ideas in which one found negation of everything,
+acceptance and possibly provocation of the worst forms of violence, with
+a glimpse of the vague monster of Anarchism underlying all. And so, on
+what basis could there be any understanding between them, since each
+retained his prejudices against the other, and saw him on the opposite
+side of the chasm, without possibility of any plank being thrown across
+it to enable them to unite? Thus, all alone in that room, their poor
+hearts bled with distracted brotherly love.
+
+Pierre knew that, on a previous occasion, Guillaume had narrowly escaped
+being compromised in an Anarchist affair. He asked him no questions, but
+he could not help reflecting that he would not have hidden himself in
+this fashion had he not feared arrest for complicity. Complicity with
+Salvat? Was he really an accomplice? Pierre shuddered, for the only
+materials on which he could found a contrary opinion were, on one hand,
+the words that had escaped his brother after the crime, the cry he had
+raised accusing Salvat of having stolen a cartridge from him; and, on the
+other hand, his heroic rush into the doorway of the Duvillard mansion in
+order to extinguish the match. A great deal still remained obscure; but
+if a cartridge of that frightful explosive had been stolen from Guillaume
+the fact must be that he manufactured such cartridges and had others at
+home. Of course, even if he were not an accomplice, the injury to his
+wrist had made it needful for him to disappear. Given his bleeding hand,
+and the previous suspicions levelled against him, he would never have
+convinced anybody of his innocence. And yet, even allowing for these
+surmises, the affair remained wrapt in darkness: a crime on Guillaume's
+part seemed a possibility, and to Pierre it was all dreadful to think of.
+
+Guillaume, by the trembling of his brother's moist, yielding hand, must
+in some degree have realised the prostration of his poor mind, already
+shattered by doubt and finished off by this calamity. Indeed, the
+sepulchre was empty now, the very ashes had been swept out of it.
+
+"My poor little Pierre," the elder brother slowly said. "Forgive me if I
+do not tell you anything. I cannot do so. And besides, what would be the
+use of it? We should certainly not understand one another.... So let
+us keep from saying anything, and let us simply enjoy the delight of
+being together and loving one another in spite of all."
+
+Pierre raised his eyes, and for a long time their glances lingered, one
+fixed on the other. "Ah!" stammered the priest, "how frightful it all
+is!"
+
+Guillaume, however, had well understood the mute inquiry of Pierre's
+eyes. His own did not waver but replied boldly, beaming with purity and
+loftiness: "I can tell you nothing. Yet, all the same, let us love each
+other, my little Pierre."
+
+And then Pierre for a moment felt that his brother was above all base
+anxiety, above the guilty fear of the man who trembles for himself. In
+lieu thereof he seemed to be carried away by the passion of some great
+design, the noble thought of concealing some sovereign idea, some secret
+which it was imperative for him to save. But, alas! this was only the
+fleeting vision of a vague hope; for all vanished, and again came the
+doubt, the suspicion, of a mind dealing with one that it knew nothing of.
+
+And all at once a souvenir, a frightful spectacle, arose before Pierre's
+eyes and distracted him: "Did you see, brother," he stammered, "did you
+see that fair-haired girl lying under the archway, ripped open, with a
+smile of astonishment on her face?"
+
+Guillaume in his turn quivered, and in a low and dolorous voice replied:
+"Yes, I saw her! Ah, poor little thing! Ah! the atrocious necessities,
+the atrocious errors, of justice!"
+
+Then, amidst the frightful shudder that seemed to sweep by, Pierre, with
+his horror of all violence, succumbed, and let his face sink upon the
+counterpane at the edge of the bed. And he sobbed distractedly: a sudden
+attack of weakness, overflowing in tears, cast him there exhausted, with
+no more strength than a child. It was as if all his sufferings since the
+morning, the deep grief with which universal injustice and woe inspired
+him, were bursting forth in that flood of tears which nothing now could
+stay. And Guillaume, who, to calm his little brother, had set his hand
+upon his head, in the same way as he had often caressingly stroked his
+hair in childhood's days, likewise felt upset and remained silent, unable
+to find a word of consolation, resigned, as he was, to the eruption which
+in life is always possible, the cataclysm by which the slow evolution of
+nature is always liable to be precipitated. But how hard a fate for the
+wretched ones whom the lava sweeps away in millions! And then his tears
+also began to flow amidst the profound silence.
+
+"Pierre," he gently exclaimed at last, "you must have some dinner. Go, go
+and have some. And screen the lamp; leave me by myself, and let me close
+my eyes. It will do me good."
+
+Pierre had to content him. Still, he left the dining-room door open; and,
+weak for want of food, though he had not hitherto noticed it, he ate
+standing, with his ears on the alert, listening lest his brother should
+complain or call him. And the silence seemed to have become yet more
+complete, the little house sank, as it were, into annihilation, instinct
+with all the melancholy charm of the past.
+
+At about half-past eight, when Sophie returned from her errand to
+Montmartre, Guillaume heard her step, light though it was. And he at once
+became restless and wanted to know what news she brought. It was Pierre,
+however, who enlightened him. "Don't be anxious. Sophie was received by
+an old lady who, after reading your note, merely answered, 'Very well.'
+She did not even ask Sophie a question, but remained quite composed
+without sign of curiosity."
+
+Guillaume, realising that this fine serenity perplexed his brother,
+thereupon replied with similar calmness: "Oh! it was only necessary that
+grandmother should be warned. She knows well enough that if I don't
+return home it is because I can't."
+
+However, from that moment it was impossible for the injured man to rest.
+Although the lamp was hidden away in a corner, he constantly opened his
+eyes, glanced round him, and seemed to listen, as if for sounds from the
+direction of Paris. And it at last became necessary for the priest to
+summon the servant and ask her if she had noticed anything strange on her
+way to or from Montmartre. She seemed surprised by the question, and
+answered that she had noticed nothing. Besides, the cab had followed the
+outer boulevards, which were almost deserted. A slight fog had again
+begun to fall, and the streets were steeped in icy dampness.
+
+By the time it was nine o'clock Pierre realised that his brother would
+never be able to sleep if he were thus left without news. Amidst his
+growing feverishness the injured man experienced keen anxiety, a haunting
+desire to know if Salvat were arrested and had spoken out. He did not
+confess this; indeed he sought to convey the impression that he had no
+personal disquietude, which was doubtless true. But his great secret was
+stifling him; he shuddered at the thought that his lofty scheme, all his
+labour and all his hope, should be at the mercy of that unhappy man whom
+want had filled with delusions and who had sought to set justice upon
+earth by the aid of a bomb. And in vain did the priest try to make
+Guillaume understand that nothing certain could yet be known. He
+perceived that his impatience increased every minute, and at last
+resolved to make some effort to satisfy him.
+
+But where could he go, of whom could he inquire? Guillaume, while talking
+and trying to guess with whom Salvat might have sought refuge, had
+mentioned Janzen, the Princess de Harn's mysterious lover; and for a
+moment he had even thought of sending to this man for information. But he
+reflected that if Janzen had heard of the explosion he was not at all the
+individual to wait for the police at home.
+
+Meantime Pierre repeated: "I will willingly go to buy the evening papers
+for you--but there will certainly be nothing in them. Although I know
+almost everyone in Neuilly I can think of nobody who is likely to have
+any information, unless perhaps it were Bache--"
+
+"You know Bache, the municipal councillor?" interrupted Guillaume.
+
+"Yes, we have both had to busy ourselves with charitable work in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+"Well, Bache is an old friend of mine, and I know no safer man. Pray go
+to him and bring him back with you."
+
+A quarter of an hour later Pierre returned with Bache, who resided in a
+neighbouring street. And it was not only Bache whom he brought with him,
+for, much to his surprise, he had found Janzen at Bache's house. As
+Guillaume had suspected, Janzen, while dining at the Princess de Harn's,
+had heard of the crime, and had consequently refrained from returning to
+his little lodging in the Rue des Martyrs, where the police might well
+have set a trap for him. His connections were known, and he was aware
+that he was watched and was liable at any moment to arrest or expulsion
+as a foreign Anarchist. And so he had thought it prudent to solicit a few
+days' hospitality of Bache, a very upright and obliging man, to whom he
+entrusted himself without fear. He would never have remained with
+Rosemonde, that adorable lunatic who for a month past had been exhibiting
+him as her lover, and whose useless and dangerous extravagance of conduct
+he fully realised.
+
+Guillaume was so delighted on seeing Bache and Janzen that he wished to
+sit up in bed again. But Pierre bade him remain quiet, rest his head on
+the pillows, and speak as little as possible. Then, while Janzen stood
+near, erect and silent, Bache took a chair and sat down by the bedside
+with many expressions of friendly interest. He was a stout man of sixty,
+with a broad, full face, a large white beard and long white hair. His
+little, gentle eyes had a dim, dreamy expression, while a pleasant,
+hopeful smile played round his thick lips. His father, a fervent St.
+Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. While
+retaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towards
+orderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, in
+such wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so to
+say, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied
+himself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, his
+only adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of
+1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell.
+Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates,
+he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly had
+elected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less by
+way of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for his
+worthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district.
+
+Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his two
+visitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat's flight, and how he
+himself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen,
+with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters often
+attribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at last
+said slowly in a gentle voice: "Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it might
+be little Mathis--I'm surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn't
+made up his mind." Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thought
+that Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: "Oh! no; oh! no."
+
+However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsh
+eyes: "After all, there's no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment."
+
+Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to
+think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be
+extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And
+Guillaume, at sight of Janzen's contemptuous coldness, must have suffered
+keenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured by
+the one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could he
+reveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish without betraying
+the secret which he had hidden even from his brother?
+
+However, at this moment Sophie came to tell her master that M. Theophile
+Morin had called with another gentleman. Much astonished by this visit at
+so late an hour, Pierre hastened into the next room to receive the new
+comers. He had become acquainted with Morin since his return from Rome,
+and had helped him to introduce a translation of an excellent scientific
+manual, prepared according to the official programmes, into the Italian
+schools.* A Franc-Comtois by birth, a compatriot of Proudhon, with whose
+poor family he had been intimate at Besancon, Morin, himself the son of a
+journeyman clockmaker, had grown up with Proudhonian ideas, full of
+affection for the poor and an instinctive hatred of property and wealth.
+Later on, having come to Paris as a school teacher, impassioned by study,
+he had given his whole mind to Auguste Comte. Beneath the fervent
+Positivist, however, one might yet find the old Proudhonian, the pauper
+who rebelled and detested want. Moreover, it was scientific Positivism
+that he clung to; in his hatred of all mysticism he would have naught to
+do with the fantastic religious leanings of Comte in his last years. And
+in Morin's brave, consistent, somewhat mournful life, there had been but
+one page of romance: the sudden feverish impulse which had carried him
+off to fight in Sicily by Garibaldi's side. Afterwards he had again
+become a petty professor in Paris, obscurely earning a dismal livelihood.
+
+  * See M. Zola's "Rome," Chapters IV. and XVI.
+
+When Pierre returned to the bedroom he said to his brother in a tone of
+emotion: "Morin has brought me Barthes, who fancies himself in danger and
+asks my hospitality."
+
+At this Guillaume forgot himself and became excited: "Nicholas Barthes, a
+hero with a soul worthy of antiquity. Oh! I know him; I admire and love
+him. You must set your door open wide for him."
+
+Bache and Janzen, however, had glanced at one another smiling. And the
+latter, with his cold ironical air, slowly remarked: "Why does Monsieur
+Barthes hide himself? A great many people think he is dead; he is simply
+a ghost who no longer frightens anybody."
+
+Four and seventy years of age as he now was, Barthes had spent nearly
+half a century in prison. He was the eternal prisoner, the hero of
+liberty whom each successive Government had carried from citadel to
+fortress. Since his youth he had been marching on amidst his dream of
+fraternity, fighting for an ideal Republic based on truth and justice,
+and each and every endeavour had led him to a dungeon; he had invariably
+finished his humanitarian reverie under bolts and bars. Carbonaro,
+Republican, evangelical sectarian, he had conspired at all times and in
+all places, incessantly struggling against the Power of the day, whatever
+it might be. And when the Republic at last had come, that Republic which
+had cost him so many years of gaol, it had, in its own turn, imprisoned
+him, adding fresh years of gloom to those which already had lacked
+sunlight. And thus he remained the martyr of freedom: freedom which he
+still desired in spite of everything; freedom, which, strive as he might,
+never came, never existed.
+
+"But you are mistaken," replied Guillaume, wounded by Janzen's raillery.
+"There is again a thought of getting rid of Barthes, whose uncompromising
+rectitude disturbs our politicians; and he does well to take his
+precautions!"
+
+Nicholas Barthes came in, a tall, slim, withered old man, with a nose
+like an eagle's beak, and eyes that still burned in their deep sockets,
+under white and bushy brows. His mouth, toothless but still refined, was
+lost to sight between his moustaches and snowy beard; and his hair,
+crowning him whitely like an aureola, fell in curls over his shoulders.
+Behind him with all modesty came Theophile Morin, with grey whiskers,
+grey, brush-like hair, spectacles, and yellow, weary mien--that of an old
+professor exhausted by years of teaching. Neither of them seemed
+astonished or awaited an explanation on finding that man in bed with an
+injured wrist. And there were no introductions: those who were acquainted
+merely smiled at one another.
+
+Barthes, for his part, stooped and kissed Guillaume on both cheeks. "Ah!"
+said the latter, almost gaily, "it gives me courage to see you."
+
+However, the new comers had brought a little information. The boulevards
+were in an agitated state, the news of the crime had spread from cafe to
+cafe, and everybody was anxious to see the late edition which one paper
+had published giving a very incorrect account of the affair, full of the
+most extraordinary details. Briefly, nothing positive was as yet known.
+
+On seeing Guillaume turn pale Pierre compelled him to lie down again, and
+even talked of taking the visitors into the next room. But the injured
+man gently replied: "No, no, I promise you that I won't stir again, that
+I won't open my mouth. But stay there and chat together. I assure you
+that it will do me good to have you near me and hear you."
+
+Then, under the sleepy gleams of the lamp, the others began to talk in
+undertones. Old Barthes, who considered that bomb to be both idiotic and
+abominable, spoke of it with the stupefaction of one who, after fighting
+like a hero through all the legendary struggles for liberty, found
+himself belated, out of his element, in a new era, which he could not
+understand. Did not the conquest of freedom suffice for everything? he
+added. Was there any other problem beyond that of founding the real
+Republic? Then, referring to Mege and his speech in the Chamber that
+afternoon, he bitterly arraigned Collectivism, which he declared to be
+one of the democratic forms of tyranny. Theophile Morin, for his part,
+also spoke against the Collectivist enrolling of the social forces, but
+he professed yet greater hatred of the odious violence of the Anarchists;
+for it was only by evolution that he expected progress, and he felt
+somewhat indifferent as to what political means might bring about the
+scientific society of to-morrow. And in like way Bache did not seem
+particularly fond of the Anarchists, though he was touched by the idyllic
+dream, the humanitarian hope, whose germs lay beneath their passion for
+destruction. And, like Barthes, he also flew into a passion with Mege,
+who since entering the Chamber had become, said he, a mere rhetorician
+and theorist, dreaming of dictatorship. Meantime Janzen, still erect, his
+face frigid and his lips curling ironically, listened to all three of
+them, and vented a few trenchant words to express his own Anarchist
+faith; the uselessness of drawing distinctions, and the necessity of
+destroying everything in order that everything might be rebuilt on fresh
+lines.
+
+Pierre, who had remained near the bed, also listened with passionate
+attention. Amidst the downfall of his own beliefs, the utter void which
+he felt within him, here were these four men, who represented the
+cardinal points of this century's ideas, debating the very same terrible
+problem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief which
+the democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days of
+the immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot and
+Rousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled one
+another, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking and
+bounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult to
+distinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was the
+ship of salvation going, for what port ought one to embark? Pierre had
+already thought that the balance-sheet of the century ought to be drawn
+up, and that, after accepting the legacies of Rousseau and the other
+precursors, he ought to study the ideas of St. Simon, Fourier and even
+Cabet; of Auguste Comte, Proudhon and Karl Marx as well, in order, at any
+rate, to form some idea of the distance that had been travelled, and of
+the cross-ways which one had now reached. And was not this an
+opportunity, since chance had gathered those men together in his house,
+living exponents of the conflicting doctrines which he wished to examine?
+
+On turning round, however, he perceived that Guillaume was now very pale
+and had closed his eyes. Had even he, with his faith in science, felt the
+doubt which is born of contradictory theories, and the despair which
+comes when one sees the fight for truth resulting in growth of error?
+
+"Are you in pain?" the priest anxiously inquired.
+
+"Yes, a little. But I will try to sleep."
+
+At this they all went off with silent handshakes. Nicholas Barthes alone
+remained in the house and slept in a room on the first floor which Sophie
+had got ready for him. Pierre, unwilling to quit his brother, dozed off
+upon a sofa. And the little house relapsed into its deep quietude, the
+silence of solitude and winter, through which passed the melancholy
+quiver of the souvenirs of childhood.
+
+In the morning, as soon as it was seven o'clock, Pierre had to go for the
+newspapers. Guillaume had passed a bad night and intense fever had set
+in. Nevertheless, his brother was obliged to read him the articles on the
+explosion. There was an amazing medley of truths and inventions, of
+precise information lost amidst the most unexpected extravagance.
+Sagnier's paper, the "Voix du Peuple," distinguished itself by its
+sub-titles in huge print and a whole page of particulars jumbled together
+chance-wise. It had at once decided to postpone the famous list of the
+thirty-two deputies and senators compromised in the African Railways
+affair; and there was no end to the details it gave of the aspect of the
+entrance to the Duvillard mansion after the explosion the pavement broken
+up, the upper floor rent open, the huge doors torn away from their
+hinges. Then came the story of the Baron's son and daughter preserved as
+by a miracle, the landau escaping the slightest injury, while the banker
+and his wife, it was alleged, owed their preservation to the circumstance
+that they had lingered at the Madeleine after Monseigneur Martha's
+remarkable address there. An entire column was given to the one victim,
+the poor, pretty, fair-haired errand girl, whose identity did not seem to
+be clearly established, although a flock of reporters had rushed first to
+the modiste employing her, in the Avenue de l'Opera, and next to the
+upper part of the Faubourg St. Denis, where it was thought her
+grandmother resided. Then, in a gravely worded article in "Le Globe,"
+evidently inspired by Fonsegue, an appeal was made to the Chamber's
+patriotism to avoid giving cause for any ministerial crisis in the
+painful circumstances through which the country was passing. Thus the
+ministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weeks
+longer.
+
+Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was not
+known; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor even
+suspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a false
+scent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbour
+swore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion.
+Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him from
+another paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction that
+had been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of it
+showed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed into
+anxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violent
+ravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some new
+explosive of incalculable power was already suspected.
+
+At eight o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was
+sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young
+sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had
+brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he
+became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot with
+fever.
+
+"Ah! I see that you haven't been reasonable, my dear child," said he.
+"You must have talked too much, and have bestirred and excited yourself."
+Then, having carefully probed the wound, he added, while dressing it:
+"The bone is injured, you know, and I won't answer for anything unless
+you behave better. Any complications would make amputation necessary."
+
+Pierre shuddered, but Guillaume shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that
+he might just as well be amputated since all was crumbling around him.
+Bertheroy, who had sat down, lingering there for another moment,
+scrutinised both brothers with his keen eyes. He now knew of the
+explosion, and must have thought it over. "My dear child," he resumed in
+his brusque way, "I certainly don't think that you committed that
+abominable act of folly in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. But I fancy that you
+were in the neighbourhood--no, no, don't answer me, don't defend
+yourself. I know nothing and desire to know nothing, not even the formula
+of that devilish powder of which your shirt cuff bore traces, and which
+has wrought such terrible havoc."
+
+And then as the brothers remained surprised, turning cold with anxiety,
+in spite of his assurances, he added with a sweeping gesture: "Ah! my
+friends, I regard such an action as even more useless than criminal! I
+only feel contempt for the vain agitation of politics, whether they be
+revolutionary or conservative. Does not science suffice? Why hasten the
+times when one single step of science brings humanity nearer to the goal
+of truth and justice than do a hundred years of politics and social
+revolt? Why, it is science alone which sweeps away dogmas, casts down
+gods, and creates light and happiness. And I, Member of the Institute as
+I am, decorated and possessed of means, I am the only true
+Revolutionist."
+
+Then he began to laugh and Guillaume realised all the good-natured irony
+of his laugh. While admiring him as a great _savant_, he had hitherto
+suffered at seeing him lead such a _bourgeois_ life, accepting whatever
+appointments and honours were offered him, a Republican under the
+Republic, but quite ready to serve science under no matter what master.
+But now, from beneath this opportunist, this hieratical _savant_, this
+toiler who accepted wealth and glory from all hands, there appeared a
+quiet yet terrible evolutionist, who certainly expected that his own work
+would help to ravage and renew the world!
+
+However, Bertheroy rose and took his leave: "I'll come back; behave
+sensibly, and love one another as well as you can."
+
+When the brothers again found themselves alone, Pierre seated at
+Guillaume's bedside, their hands once more sought each other and met in a
+burning clasp instinct with all their anguish. How much threatening
+mystery and distress there was both around and within them! The grey
+wintry daylight came into the room, and they could see the black trees in
+the garden, while the house remained full of quivering silence, save that
+overhead a faint sound of footsteps was audible. They were the steps of
+Nicholas Barthes, the heroic lover of freedom, who, rising at daybreak,
+had, like a caged lion, resumed his wonted promenade, the incessant
+coming and going of one who had ever been a prisoner. And as the brothers
+ceased listening to him their eyes fell on a newspaper which had remained
+open on the bed, a newspaper soiled by a sketch in outline which
+pretended to portray the poor dead errand girl, lying, ripped open,
+beside the bandbox and the bonnet it had contained. It was so frightful,
+so atrociously hideous a scene, that two big tears again fell upon
+Pierre's cheeks, whilst Guillaume's blurred, despairing eyes gazed
+wistfully far away, seeking for the Future.
+
+
+
+
+II. A HOME OF INDUSTRY
+
+THE little house in which Guillaume had dwelt for so many years, a home
+of quietude and hard work, stood in the pale light of winter up yonder at
+Montmartre, peacefully awaiting his return. He reflected, however, after
+_dejeuner_ that it might not be prudent for him to go back thither for
+some three weeks, and so he thought of sending Pierre to explain the
+position of affairs. "Listen, brother," he said. "You must render me this
+service. Go and tell them the truth--that I am here, slightly injured,
+and do not wish them to come to see me, for fear lest somebody should
+follow them and discover my retreat. After the note I wrote them last
+evening they would end by getting anxious if I did not send them some
+news." Then, yielding to the one worry which, since the previous night,
+had disturbed his clear, frank glance, he added: "Just feel in the
+right-hand pocket of my waistcoat; you will find a little key there.
+Good! that's it. Now you must give it to Madame Leroi, my mother-in-law,
+and tell her that if any misfortune should happen to me, she is to do
+what is understood between us. That will suffice, she will understand
+you."
+
+At the first moment Pierre had hesitated; but he saw how even the slight
+effort of speaking exhausted his brother, so he silenced him, saying:
+"Don't talk, but put your mind at ease. I will go and reassure your
+people, since you wish that this commission should be undertaken by me."
+
+Truth to tell, the errand was so distasteful to Pierre that he had at
+first thought of sending Sophie in his place. All his old prejudices were
+reviving; it was as if he were going to some ogre's den. How many times
+had he not heard his mother say "that creature!" in referring to the
+woman with whom her elder son cohabited. Never had she been willing to
+kiss Guillaume's boys; the whole connection had shocked her, and she was
+particularly indignant that Madame Leroi, the woman's mother, should have
+joined the household for the purpose of bringing up the little ones.
+Pierre retained so strong a recollection of all this that even nowadays,
+when he went to the basilica of the Sacred Heart and passed the little
+house on his way, he glanced at it distrustfully, and kept as far from it
+as he could, as if it were some abode of vice and error. Undoubtedly, for
+ten years now, the boys' mother had been dead, but did not another
+scandal-inspiring creature dwell there, that young orphan girl to whom
+his brother had given shelter, and whom he was going to marry, although a
+difference of twenty years lay between them? To Pierre all this was
+contrary to propriety, abnormal and revolting, and he pictured a home
+given over to social rebellion, where lack of principle led to every kind
+of disorder.
+
+However, he was leaving the room to start upon his journey, when
+Guillaume called him back. "Tell Madame Leroi," said he, "that if I
+should die you will let her know of it, so that she may immediately do
+what is necessary."
+
+"Yes, yes," answered Pierre. "But calm yourself, and don't move about.
+I'll say everything. And in my absence Sophie will stop here with you in
+case you should need her."
+
+Having given full instructions to the servant, Pierre set out to take a
+tramcar, intending to alight from it on the Boulevard de Rochechouart,
+and then climb the height on foot. And on the road, lulled by the gliding
+motion of the heavy vehicle, he began to think of his brother's past life
+and connections, with which he was but vaguely, imperfectly, acquainted.
+It was only at a later date that details of everything came to his
+knowledge. In 1850 a young professor named Leroi, who had come from Paris
+to the college of Montauban with the most ardent republican ideas, had
+there married Agathe Dagnan, the youngest of the five girls of an old
+Protestant family from the Cevennes. Young Madame Leroi was _enceinte_
+when her husband, threatened with arrest for contributing some violent
+articles to a local newspaper, immediately after the "Coup d'Etat," found
+himself obliged to seek refuge at Geneva. It was there that the young
+couple's daughter, Marguerite, a very delicate child, was born in 1852.
+For seven years, that is until the Amnesty of 1859, the household
+struggled with poverty, the husband giving but a few ill-paid lessons,
+and the wife absorbed in the constant care which the child required.
+Then, after their return to Paris, their ill-luck became even greater.
+For a long time the ex-professor vainly sought regular employment; it was
+denied him on account of his opinions, and he had to run about giving
+lessons in private houses. When he was at last on the point of being
+received back into the University a supreme blow, an attack of paralysis,
+fell upon him. He lost the use of both legs. And then came utter misery,
+every kind of sordid drudgery, the writing of articles for dictionaries,
+the copying of manuscripts, and even the addressing of newspaper
+wrappers, on the fruits of which the household barely contrived to live,
+in a little lodging in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.
+
+It was there that Marguerite grew up. Leroi, embittered by injustice and
+suffering, predicted the advent of a Republic which would avenge the
+follies of the Empire, and a reign of science which would sweep away the
+deceptive and cruel divinity of religious dogmas. On the other hand,
+Agathe's religious faith had collapsed at Geneva, at sight of the narrow
+and imbecile practices of Calvinism, and all that she retained of it was
+the old Protestant leaven of rebellion. She had become at once the head
+and the arm of the house; she went for her husband's work, took it back
+when completed, and even did much of it herself, whilst, at the same
+time, performing her house duties, and rearing and educating her
+daughter. The latter, who attended no school, was indebted for all she
+learnt to her father and mother, on whose part there was never any
+question of religious instruction. Through contact with her husband,
+Madame Leroi had lost all belief, and her Protestant heredity inclining
+her to free inquiry and examination, she had arranged for herself a kind
+of peaceful atheism, based on paramount principles of human duty and
+justice, which she applied courageously, irrespective of all social
+conventionalities. The long iniquity of her husband's fate, the
+undeserved misfortunes which struck her through him and her daughter,
+ended by endowing her with wonderful fortitude and devotion, which made
+her, whether as a judge, a manager, or a consoler, a woman of
+incomparable energy and nobleness of character.
+
+It was in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince that Guillaume became acquainted
+with the Leroi family, after the war of 1870. On the same floor as their
+little lodging he occupied a large room, where he devoted himself
+passionately to his studies. At the outset there was only an occasional
+bow, for Guillaume's neighbours were very proud and very grave, leading
+their life of poverty in fierce silence and retirement. Then intercourse
+began with the rendering of little services, such as when the young man
+procured the ex-professor a commission to write a few articles for a new
+encyclopaedia. But all at once came the catastrophe: Leroi died in his
+armchair one evening while his daughter was wheeling him from his table
+to his bed. The two distracted women had not even the money to bury him.
+The whole secret of their bitter want flowed forth with their tears, and
+they were obliged to accept the help of Guillaume, who, from that moment,
+became the necessary confidant and friend. And the thing which was bound
+to happen did happen, in the most simple and loving manner, permitted by
+the mother herself, who, full of contempt for a social system which
+allowed those of good hearts to die of hunger, refused to admit the
+necessity of any social tie. Thus there was no question of a regular
+marriage. One day Guillaume, who was twenty-three years old, found
+himself mated to Marguerite, who was twenty; both of them handsome,
+healthy, and strong, adoring one another, loving work, and full of hope
+in the future.
+
+From that moment a new life began. Since his father's death, Guillaume,
+who had broken off all intercourse with his mother, had been receiving an
+allowance of two hundred francs a month. This just represented daily
+bread; however, he was already doubling the amount by his work as a
+chemist,--his analyses and researches, which tended to the employment of
+certain chemical products in industry. So he and Marguerite installed
+themselves on the very summit of Montmartre, in a little house, at a
+rental of eight hundred francs a year, the great convenience of the place
+being a strip of garden, where one might, later on, erect a wooden
+workshop. In all tranquillity Madame Leroi took up her abode with the
+young people, helping them, and sparing them the necessity of keeping a
+second servant. And at successive intervals of two years, her three
+grandchildren were born, three sturdy boys: first Thomas, then Francois,
+and then Antoine. And in the same way as she had devoted herself to her
+husband and daughter, and then to Guillaume, so did she now devote
+herself to the three children. She became "Mere-Grand"--an emphatic and
+affectionate way of expressing the term "grandmother"--for all who lived
+in the house, the older as well as the younger ones. She there
+personified sense, and wisdom, and courage; it was she who was ever on
+the watch, who directed everything, who was consulted about everything,
+and whose opinion was always followed. Indeed, she reigned there like an
+all-powerful queen-mother.
+
+For fifteen years this life went on, a life of hard work and peaceful
+affection, while the strictest economy was observed in contenting every
+need of the modest little household. Then Guillaume lost his mother, took
+his share of the family inheritance, and was able to satisfy his old
+desire, which was to buy the house he lived in, and build a spacious
+workshop in the garden. He was even able to build it of bricks, and add
+an upper story to it. But the work was scarcely finished, and life seemed
+to be on the point of expanding and smiling on them all, when misfortune
+returned, and typhoid fever, with brutal force, carried off Marguerite,
+after a week's illness. She was then five and thirty, and her eldest boy,
+Thomas, was fourteen. Thus Guillaume, distracted by his loss, found
+himself a widower at thirty-eight. The thought of introducing any unknown
+woman into that retired home, where all hearts beat in tender unison, was
+so unbearable to him that he determined to take no other mate. His work
+absorbed him, and he would know how to quiet both his heart and his
+flesh. Mere-Grand, fortunately, was still there, erect and courageous;
+the household retained its queen, and in her the children found a
+manageress and teacher, schooled in adversity and heroism.
+
+Two years passed; and then came an addition to the family. A young woman,
+Marie Couturier, the daughter of one of Guillaume's friends, suddenly
+entered it. Couturier had been an inventor, a madman with some measure of
+genius, and had spent a fairly large fortune in attempting all sorts of
+fantastic schemes. His wife, a very pious woman, had died of grief at it
+all; and although on the rare occasions when he saw his daughter, he
+showed great fondness for her and loaded her with presents, he had first
+placed her in a boarding college, and afterwards left her in the charge
+of a poor female relative. Remembering her only on his death-bed, he had
+begged Guillaume to give her an asylum, and find her a husband. The poor
+relation, who dealt in ladies' and babies' linen, had just become a
+bankrupt. So, at nineteen, the girl, Marie, found herself a penniless
+outcast, possessed of nothing save a good education, health and courage.
+Guillaume would never allow her to run about giving lessons. He took her,
+in quite a natural way, to help Mere-Grand, who was no longer so active
+as formerly. And the latter approved the arrangement, well pleased at the
+advent of youth and gaiety, which would somewhat brighten the household,
+whose life had been one of much gravity ever since Marguerite's death.
+Marie would simply be an elder sister; she was too old for the boys, who
+were still at college, to be disturbed by her presence. And she would
+work in that house where everybody worked. She would help the little
+community pending the time when she might meet and love some worthy
+fellow who would marry her.
+
+Five more years elapsed without Marie consenting to quit that happy home.
+The sterling education she had received was lodged in a vigorous brain,
+which contented itself with the acquirement of knowledge. Yet she had
+remained very pure and healthy, even very _naive_, maidenly by reason of
+her natural rectitude. And she was also very much a woman, beautifying
+and amusing herself with a mere nothing, and ever showing gaiety and
+contentment. Moreover, she was in no wise of a dreamy nature, but very
+practical, always intent on some work or other, and only asking of life
+such things as life could give, without anxiety as to what might lie
+beyond it. She lovingly remembered her pious mother, who had prepared her
+for her first Communion in tears, imagining that she was opening heaven's
+portals to her. But since she had been an orphan she had of her own
+accord ceased all practice of religion, her good sense revolting and
+scorning the need of any moral police regulations to make her do her
+duty. Indeed, she considered such regulations dangerous and destructive
+of true health. Thus, like Mere-Grand, she had come to a sort of quiet
+and almost unconscious atheism, not after the fashion of one who reasons,
+but simply like the brave, healthy girl she was, one who had long endured
+poverty without suffering from it, and believed in nothing save the
+necessity of effort. She had been kept erect, indeed, by her conviction
+that happiness was to be found in the normal joys of life, lived
+courageously. And her happy equilibrium of mind had ever guided and saved
+her, in such wise that she willingly listened to her natural instinct,
+saying, with her pleasant laugh, that this was, after all, her best
+adviser. She rejected two offers of marriage, and on the second occasion,
+as Guillaume pressed her to accept, she grew astonished, and inquired if
+he had had enough of her in the house. She found herself very
+comfortable, and she rendered service there. So why should she leave and
+run the risk of being less happy elsewhere, particularly as she was not
+in love with anybody?
+
+Then, by degrees, the idea of a marriage between Marie and Guillaume
+presented itself; and indeed what could have been more reasonable and
+advantageous for all? If Guillaume had not mated again it was for his
+sons' sake, because he feared that by introducing a stranger to the house
+he might impair its quietude and gaiety. But now there was a woman among
+them who already showed herself maternal towards the boys, and whose
+bright youth had ended by disturbing his own heart. He was still in his
+prime, and had always held that it was not good for man to live alone,
+although, personally, thanks to his ardour for work, he had hitherto
+escaped excessive suffering in his bereavement. However, there was the
+great difference of ages to be considered; and he would have bravely
+remained in the background and have sought a younger husband for Marie,
+if his three big sons and Mere-Grand herself had not conspired to effect
+his happiness by doing all they could to bring about a marriage which
+would strengthen every home tie and impart, as it were, a fresh
+springtide to the house. As for Marie, touched and grateful to Guillaume
+for the manner in which he had treated her for five years past, she
+immediately consented with an impulse of sincere affection, in which, she
+fancied, she could detect love. And at all events, could she act in a
+more sensible, reasonable way, base her life on more certain prospects of
+happiness? So the marriage had been resolved upon; and about a month
+previously it had been decided that it should take place during the
+ensuing spring, towards the end of April.
+
+When Pierre, after alighting from the tramcar, began to climb the
+interminable flights of steps leading to the Rue St. Eleuthere, a feeling
+of uneasiness again came over him at the thought that he was about to
+enter that suspicious ogre's den where everything would certainly wound
+and irritate him. Given the letter which Sophie had carried thither on
+the previous night, announcing that the master would not return, how
+anxious and upset must all its inmates be! However, as Pierre ascended
+the final flight and nervously raised his head, the little house appeared
+to him right atop of the hill, looking very serene and quiet under the
+bright wintry sun, which had peered forth as if to bestow upon the modest
+dwelling an affectionate caress.
+
+There was a door in the old garden wall alongside the Rue St. Eleuthere,
+almost in front of the broad thoroughfare conducting to the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart; but to reach the house itself one had to skirt the wall
+and climb to the Place du Tertre, where one found the facade and the
+entrance. Some children were playing on the Place, which, planted as it
+was with a few scrubby trees, and edged with humble shops,--a
+fruiterer's, a grocer's and a baker's,--looked like some square in a
+small provincial town. In a corner, on the left, Guillaume's dwelling,
+which had been whitewashed during the previous spring, showed its bright
+frontage and five lifeless windows, for all its life was on the other,
+the garden, side, which overlooked Paris and the far horizon.
+
+Pierre mustered his courage and, pulling a brass knob which glittered
+like gold, rang the bell. There came a gay, distant jingle; but for a
+moment nobody appeared, and he was about to ring again, when the door was
+thrown wide open, revealing a passage which ran right through the house,
+beyond which appeared the ocean of Paris, the endless sea of house roofs
+bathed in sunlight. And against this spacious, airy background, stood a
+young woman of twenty-six, clad in a simple gown of black woolen stuff,
+half covered by a large blue apron. She had her sleeves rolled up above
+her elbows, and her arms and hands were still moist with water which she
+had but imperfectly wiped away.
+
+A moment's surprise and embarrassment ensued. The young woman, who had
+hastened to the door with laughing mien, became grave and covertly
+hostile at sight of the visitor's cassock. The priest thereupon realised
+that he must give his name: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment."
+
+At this the young woman's smile of welcome came back to her. "Oh! I beg
+your pardon, monsieur--I ought to have recognised you, for I saw you wish
+Guillaume good day one morning as you passed."
+
+She said Guillaume; she, therefore, must be Marie. And Pierre looked at
+her in astonishment, finding her very different from what he had
+imagined. She was only of average height, but she was vigorously,
+admirably built, broad of hip and broad of shoulder, with the small firm
+bosom of an amazon. By her erect and easy step, instinct with all the
+adorable grace of woman in her prime, one could divine that she was
+strong, muscular and healthy. A brunette, but very white of skin, she had
+a heavy helm of superb black hair, which she fastened in a negligent way,
+without any show of coquetry. And under her dark locks, her pure,
+intelligent brow, her delicate nose and gay eyes appeared full of intense
+life; whilst the somewhat heavier character of her lower features, her
+fleshy lips and full chin, bespoke her quiet kindliness. She had surely
+come on earth as a promise of every form of tenderness, every form of
+devotion. In a word, she was a true mate for man.
+
+However, with her heavy, straying hair and superb arms, so ingenuous in
+their nudity, she only gave Pierre an impression of superfluous health
+and extreme self-assurance. She displeased him and even made him feel
+somewhat anxious, as if she were a creature different from all others.
+
+"It is my brother Guillaume who has sent me," he said.
+
+At this her face again changed; she became grave and hastened to admit
+him to the passage. And when the door was closed she answered: "You have
+brought us news of him, then! I must apologise for receiving you in this
+fashion. The servants have just finished some washing, and I was making
+sure if the work had been well done. Pray excuse me, and come in here for
+a moment; it is perhaps best that I should be the first to know the
+news."
+
+So saying, she led him past the kitchen to a little room which served as
+scullery and wash-house. A tub full of soapy water stood there, and some
+dripping linen hung over some wooden bars. "And so, Guillaume?" she
+asked.
+
+Pierre then told the truth in simple fashion: that his brother's wrist
+had been injured; that he himself had witnessed the accident, and that
+his brother had then sought an asylum with him at Neuilly, where he
+wished to remain and get cured of his injury in peace and quietness,
+without even receiving a visit from his sons. While speaking in this
+fashion, the priest watched the effect of his words on Marie's face:
+first fright and pity, and then an effort to calm herself and judge
+things reasonably.
+
+"His letter quite froze me last night," she ended by replying. "I felt
+sure that some misfortune had happened. But one must be brave and hide
+one's fear from others. His wrist injured, you say; it is not a serious
+injury, is it?"
+
+"No; but it is necessary that every precaution should be taken with it."
+
+She looked him well in the face with her big frank eyes, which dived into
+his own as if to reach the very depths of his being, though at the same
+time she plainly sought to restrain the score of questions which rose to
+her lips. "And that is all: he was injured in an accident," she resumed;
+"he didn't ask you to tell us anything further about it?"
+
+"No, he simply desires that you will not be anxious."
+
+Thereupon she insisted no further, but showed herself obedient and
+respectful of the decision which Guillaume had arrived at. It sufficed
+that he should have sent a messenger to reassure the household--she did
+not seek to learn any more. And even as she had returned to her work in
+spite of the secret anxiety in which the letter of the previous evening
+had left her, so now, with her air of quiet strength, she recovered an
+appearance of serenity, a quiet smile and clear brave glance.
+
+"Guillaume only gave me one other commission," resumed Pierre, "that of
+handing a little key to Madame Leroi."
+
+"Very good," Marie answered, "Mere-Grand is here; and, besides, the
+children must see you. I will take you to them."
+
+Once more quite tranquil, she examined Pierre without managing to conceal
+her curiosity, which seemed of rather a kindly nature blended with an
+element of vague pity. Her fresh white arms had remained bare. In all
+candour she slowly drew down her sleeves; then took off the large blue
+apron, and showed herself with her rounded figure, at once robust and
+elegant, in her modest black gown. He meanwhile looked at her, and most
+certainly he did not find her to his liking. On seeing her so natural,
+healthy, and courageous, quite a feeling of revolt arose within him,
+though he knew not why.
+
+"Will you please follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she said. "We must cross
+the garden."
+
+On the ground-floor of the house, across the passage, and facing the
+kitchen and the scullery, there were two other rooms, a library
+overlooking the Place du Tertre, and a dining-room whose windows opened
+into the garden. The four rooms on the first floor served as bedchambers
+for the father and the sons. As for the garden, originally but a small
+one, it had now been reduced to a kind of gravelled yard by the erection
+of the large workshop at one end of it. Of the former greenery, however,
+there still remained two huge plum-trees with old knotted trunks, as well
+as a big clump of lilac-bushes, which every spring were covered with
+bloom. And in front of the latter Marie had arranged a broad flower-bed,
+in which she amused herself with growing a few roses, some wallflowers
+and some mignonette.
+
+With a wave of her hand as she went past, she called Pierre's attention
+to the black plum-trees and the lilacs and roses, which showed but a few
+greenish spots, for winter still held the little nook in sleep. "Tell
+Guillaume," she said, "that he must make haste to get well and be back
+for the first shoots."
+
+Then, as Pierre glanced at her, she all at once flushed purple. Much to
+her distress, sudden and involuntary blushes would in this wise
+occasionally come upon her, even at the most innocent remarks. She found
+it ridiculous to feel such childish emotion when she had so brave a
+heart. But her pure maidenly blood had retained exquisite delicacy, such
+natural and instinctive modesty that she yielded to it perforce. And
+doubtless she had merely blushed because she feared that the priest might
+think she had referred to her marriage in speaking of the spring.
+
+"Please go in, Monsieur l'Abbe. The children are there, all three." And
+forthwith she ushered him into the workshop.
+
+It was a very spacious place, over sixteen feet high, with a brick
+flooring and bare walls painted an iron grey. A sheet of light, a stream
+of sunshine, spread to every corner through a huge window facing the
+south, where lay the immensity of Paris. The Venetian shutters often had
+to be lowered in the summer to attenuate the great heat. From morn till
+night the whole family lived here, closely and affectionately united in
+work. Each was installed as fancy listed, having a particular chosen
+place. One half of the building was occupied by the father's chemical
+laboratory, with its stove, experiment tables, shelves for apparatus,
+glass cases and cupboards for phials and jars. Near all this Thomas, the
+eldest son, had installed a little forge, an anvil, a vice bench, in fact
+everything necessary to a working mechanician, such as he had become
+since taking his bachelor's degree, from his desire to remain with his
+father and help him with certain researches and inventions. Then, at the
+other end, the younger brothers, Francois and Antoine, got on very well
+together on either side of a broad table which stood amidst a medley of
+portfolios, nests of drawers and revolving book-stands. Francois, laden
+with academical laurels, first on the pass list for the Ecole Normale,
+had entered that college where young men are trained for university
+professorships, and was there preparing for his Licentiate degree, while
+Antoine, who on reaching the third class at the Lycee Condorcet had taken
+a dislike to classical studies, now devoted himself to his calling as a
+wood-engraver. And, in the full light under the window, Mere-Grand and
+Marie likewise had their particular table, where needlework, embroidery,
+all sorts of _chiffons_ and delicate things lay about near the somewhat
+rough jumble of retorts, tools and big books.
+
+Marie, however, on the very threshold called out in her calm voice, to
+which she strove to impart a gay and cheering accent: "Children!
+children! here is Monsieur l'Abbe with news of father!"
+
+Children, indeed! Yet what motherliness she already set in the word as
+she applied it to those big fellows whose elder sister she had long
+considered herself to be! At three and twenty Thomas was quite a
+colossus, already bearded and extremely like his father. But although he
+had a lofty brow and energetic features, he was somewhat slow both in
+mind and body. And he was also taciturn, almost unsociable, absorbed in
+filial devotion, delighted with the manual toil which made him a mere
+workman at his master's orders. Francois, two years younger than Thomas,
+and nearly as tall, showed a more refined face, though he had the same
+large brow and firm mouth, a perfect blending of health and strength, in
+which the man of intellect, the scientific Normalian, could only be
+detected by the brighter and more subtle sparkle of the eyes. The
+youngest of the brothers, Antoine, who for his eighteen years was almost
+as strong as his elders, and promised to become as tall, differed from
+them by his lighter hair and soft, blue, dreamy eyes, which he had
+inherited from his mother. It had been difficult, however, to distinguish
+one from the other when all three were schoolboys at the Lycee Condorcet;
+and even nowadays people made mistakes unless they saw them side by side,
+so as to detect the points of difference which were becoming more marked
+as age progressed.
+
+On Pierre's arrival the brothers were so absorbed in their work that they
+did not even hear the door open. And again, as in the case of Marie, the
+priest was surprised by the discipline and firmness of mind, which amidst
+the keenest anxiety gave the young fellows strength to take up their
+daily task. Thomas, who stood at his vice-bench in a blouse, was
+carefully filing a little piece of copper with rough but skilful hands.
+Francois, leaning forward, was writing in a bold, firm fashion, whilst on
+the other side of the table, Antoine, with a slender graver between his
+fingers, finished a block for an illustrated newspaper.
+
+However, Marie's clear voice made them raise their heads: "Children,
+father has sent you some news!"
+
+Then all three with the same impulse hurriedly quitted their work and
+came forward. One could divine that directly there was any question of
+their father they were drawn together, blended one with the other, so
+that but one and the same heart beat in their three broad chests.
+However, a door at the far end of the workroom opened at that moment, and
+Mere-Grand, coming from the upper floor where she and Marie had their
+bedrooms, made her appearance. She had just absented herself to fetch a
+skein of wool; and she gazed fixedly at the priest, unable to understand
+the reason of his presence.
+
+Marie had to explain matters. "Mere-Grand," said she, "this is Monsieur
+l'Abbe Froment, Guillaume's brother; he has come from him."
+
+Pierre on his side was examining the old lady, astonished to find her so
+erect and full of life at seventy. Her former beauty had left a stately
+charm on her rather long face; youthful fire still lingered in her brown
+eyes; and very firm was the contour of her pale lips, which in parting
+showed that she had retained all her teeth. A few white hairs alone
+silvered her black tresses, which were arranged in old-time fashion. Her
+cheeks had but slightly withered, and her deep, symmetrical wrinkles gave
+her countenance an expression of much nobility, a sovereign air as of a
+queen-mother, which, tall and slight of stature as she was, and
+invariably gowned in black woollen stuff, she always retained, no matter
+how humble her occupation.
+
+"So Guillaume sent you, monsieur," she said; "he is injured, is he not?"
+
+Surprised by this proof of intuition, Pierre repeated his story. "Yes,
+his wrist is injured--but oh! it's not a case of immediate gravity."
+
+On the part of the three sons, he had divined a sudden quiver, an impulse
+of their whole beings to rush to the help and defence of their father.
+And for their sakes he sought words of comfort: "He is with me at
+Neuilly. And with due care it is certain that no serious complications
+will arise. He sent me to tell you to be in no wise uneasy about him."
+
+Mere-Grand for her part evinced no fears, but preserved great calmness,
+as if the priest's tidings contained nothing beyond what she had known
+already. If anything, she seemed rather relieved, freed from anxiety
+which she had confided to none. "If he is with you, monsieur," she
+answered, "he is evidently as comfortable as he can be, and sheltered
+from all risks. We were surprised, however, by his letter last night, as
+it did not explain why he was detained, and we should have ended by
+feeling frightened. But now everything is satisfactory."
+
+Mere-Grand and the three sons, following Marie's example, asked no
+explanations. On a table near at hand Pierre noticed several morning
+newspapers lying open and displaying column after column of particulars
+about the crime. The sons had certainly read these papers, and had feared
+lest their father should be compromised in that frightful affair. How far
+did their knowledge of the latter go? They must be ignorant of the part
+played by Salvat. It was surely impossible for them to piece together all
+the unforeseen circumstances which had brought about their father's
+meeting with the workman, and then the crime. Mere-Grand, no doubt, was
+in certain respects better informed than the others. But they, the sons
+and Marie, neither knew nor sought to know anything. And thus what a
+wealth of respect and affection there was in their unshakable confidence
+in the father, in the tranquillity they displayed directly he sent them
+word that they were not to be anxious about him!
+
+"Madame," Pierre resumed, "Guillaume told me to give you this little key,
+and to remind you to do what he charged you to do, if any misfortune
+should befall him."
+
+She started, but so slightly that it was scarcely perceptible; and taking
+the key she answered as if some ordinary wish on the part of a sick
+person were alone in question. "Very well. Tell him that his wishes shall
+be carried out." Then she added, "But pray take a seat, monsieur."
+
+Pierre, indeed, had remained standing. However, he now felt it necessary
+to accept a chair, desirous as he was of hiding the embarrassment which
+he still felt in this house, although he was _en famille_ there. Marie,
+who could not live without occupation for her fingers, had just returned
+to some embroidery, some of the fine needlework which she stubbornly
+executed for a large establishment dealing in baby-linen and bridal
+_trousseaux_; for she wished at any rate to earn her own pocket-money,
+she often said with a laugh. Mere-Grand, too, from habit, which she
+followed even when visitors were present, had once more started on her
+perpetual stocking-mending; while Francois and Antoine had again seated
+themselves at their table; and Thomas alone remained on his legs, leaning
+against his bench. All the charm of industrious intimacy pervaded the
+spacious, sun-lit room.
+
+"But we'll all go to see father to-morrow," Thomas suddenly exclaimed.
+
+Before Pierre could answer Marie raised her head. "No, no," said she, "he
+does not wish any of us to go to him; for if we should be watched and
+followed we should betray the secret of his retreat. Isn't that so,
+Monsieur l'Abbe?"
+
+"It would indeed be prudent of you to deprive yourselves of the pleasure
+of embracing him until he himself can come back here. It will be a matter
+of some two or three weeks," answered Pierre.
+
+Mere-Grand at once expressed approval of this. "No doubt," said she.
+"Nothing could be more sensible."
+
+So the three sons did not insist, but bravely accepted the secret anxiety
+in which they must for a time live, renouncing the visit which would have
+caused them so much delight, because their father bade them do so and
+because his safety depended perhaps on their obedience.
+
+However, Thomas resumed: "Then, Monsieur l'Abbe, will you please tell him
+that as work will be interrupted here, I shall return to the factory
+during his absence. I shall be more at ease there for the researches on
+which we are engaged."
+
+"And please tell him from me," put in Francois, "that he mustn't worry
+about my examination. Things are going very well. I feel almost certain
+of success."
+
+Pierre promised that he would forget nothing. However, Marie raised her
+head, smiling and glancing at Antoine, who had remained silent with a
+faraway look in his eyes. "And you, little one," said she, "don't you
+send him any message?"
+
+Emerging from a dream, the young fellow also began to smile. "Yes, yes, a
+message that you love him dearly, and that he's to make haste back for
+you to make him happy."
+
+At this they all became merry, even Marie, who in lieu of embarrassment
+showed a tranquil gaiety born of confidence in the future. Between her
+and the young men there was naught but happy affection. And a grave smile
+appeared even on the pale lips of Mere-Grand, who likewise approved of
+the happiness which life seemed to be promising.
+
+Pierre wished to stay a few minutes longer. They all began to chat, and
+his astonishment increased. He had gone from surprise to surprise in this
+house where he had expected to find that equivocal, disorderly life, that
+rebellion against social laws, which destroy morality. But instead of
+this he had found loving serenity, and such strong discipline that life
+there partook of the gravity, almost the austerity, of convent life,
+tempered by youth and gaiety. The vast room was redolent of industry and
+quietude, warm with bright sunshine. However, what most particularly
+struck him was the Spartan training, the bravery of mind and heart among
+those sons who allowed nothing to be seen of their personal feelings, and
+did not presume to judge their father, but remained content with his
+message, ready to await events, stoical and silent, while carrying on
+their daily tasks. Nothing could be more simple, more dignified, more
+lofty. And there was also the smiling heroism of Mere-Grand and Marie,
+those two women who slept over that laboratory where terrible
+preparations were manipulated, and where an explosion was always
+possible.
+
+However, such courage, orderliness and dignity merely surprised Pierre,
+without touching him. He had no cause for complaint, he had received a
+polite greeting if not an affectionate one; but then he was as yet only a
+stranger there, a priest. In spite of everything, however, he remained
+hostile, feeling that he was in a sphere where none of his own torments
+could be shared or even divined. How did these folks manage to be so calm
+and happy amidst their religious unbelief, their sole faith in science,
+and in presence of that terrifying Paris which spread before them the
+boundless sea, the growling abomination of its injustice and its want? As
+this thought came to him he turned his head and gazed at the city through
+the huge window, whence it stretched away, ever present, ever living its
+giant life. And at that hour, under the oblique sun-rays of the winter
+afternoon, all Paris was speckled with luminous dust, as if some
+invisible sower, hidden amidst the glory of the planet, were fast
+scattering seed which fell upon every side in a stream of gold. The whole
+field was covered with it; for the endless chaos of house roofs and
+edifices seemed to be land in tilth, furrowed by some gigantic plough.
+And Pierre in his uneasiness, stirred, despite everything, by an
+invincible need of hope, asked himself if this was not a good sowing, the
+furrows of Paris strewn with light by the divine sun for the great future
+harvest, that harvest of truth and justice of whose advent he had
+despaired.
+
+At last he rose and took his leave, promising to return at once, if there
+should be any bad news. It was Marie who showed him to the front door.
+And there another of those childish blushes which worried her so much
+suddenly rose to her face, just as she, in her turn, also wished to send
+her loving message to the injured man. However, with her gay, candid eyes
+fixed on those of the priest, she bravely spoke the words: "_Au revoir,
+Monsieur l'Abbe_. Tell Guillaume that I love him and await him."
+
+
+
+
+III. PENURY AND TOIL
+
+THREE days went by, and every morning Guillaume, confined to his bed and
+consumed by fever and impatience, experienced fresh anxiety directly the
+newspapers arrived. Pierre had tried to keep them from him, but Guillaume
+then worried himself the more, and so the priest had to read him column
+by column all the extraordinary articles that were published respecting
+the crime.
+
+Never before had so many rumours inundated the press. Even the "Globe,"
+usually so grave and circumspect, yielded to the general _furore_, and
+printed whatever statements reached it. But the more unscrupulous papers
+were the ones to read. The "Voix du Peuple" in particular made use of the
+public feverishness to increase its sales. Each morning it employed some
+fresh device, and printed some frightful story of a nature to drive
+people mad with terror. It related that not a day passed without Baron
+Duvillard receiving threatening letters of the coarsest description,
+announcing that his wife, his son and his daughter would all be killed,
+that he himself would be butchered in turn, and that do what he might his
+house would none the less be blown up. And as a measure of precaution the
+house was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothes
+officers. Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention.
+Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near the
+Madeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning a
+perfect volcano there, into which one half of Paris would sink. And at
+another time it was alleged that the police were on the track of a
+terrible plot which embraced all Europe, from the depths of Russia to the
+shores of Spain. The signal for putting it into execution was to be given
+in France, and there would be a three days' massacre, with grape shot
+sweeping everyone off the Boulevards, and the Seine running red, swollen
+by a torrent of blood. Thanks to these able and intelligent devices of
+the Press, terror now reigned in the city; frightened foreigners fled
+from the hotels _en masse_; and Paris had become a mere mad-house, where
+the most idiotic delusions at once found credit.
+
+It was not all this, however, that worried Guillaume. He was only anxious
+about Salvat and the various new "scents" which the newspaper reporters
+attempted to follow up. The engineer was not yet arrested, and, so far
+indeed, there had been no statement in print to indicate that the police
+were on his track. At last, however, Pierre one morning read a paragraph
+which made the injured man turn pale.
+
+"Dear me! It seems that a tool has been found among the rubbish at the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion. It is a bradawl, and its handle bears
+the name of Grandidier, which is that of a man who keeps some well-known
+metal works. He is to appear before the investigating magistrate to-day."
+
+Guillaume made a gesture of despair. "Ah!" said he, "they are on the
+right track at last. That tool must certainly have been dropped by
+Salvat. He worked at Grandidier's before he came to me for a few days.
+And from Grandidier they will learn all that they need to know in order
+to follow the scent."
+
+Pierre then remembered that he had heard the Grandidier factory mentioned
+at Montmartre. Guillaume's eldest son, Thomas, had served his
+apprenticeship there, and even worked there occasionally nowadays.
+
+"You told me," resumed Guillaume, "that during my absence Thomas intended
+to go back to the factory. It's in connection with a new motor which he's
+planning, and has almost hit upon. If there should be a perquisition
+there, he may be questioned, and may refuse to answer, in order to guard
+his secret. So he ought to be warned of this, warned at once!"
+
+Without trying to extract any more precise statement from his brother,
+Pierre obligingly offered his services. "If you like," said he, "I will
+go to see Thomas this afternoon. Perhaps I may come across Monsieur
+Grandidier himself and learn how far the affair has gone, and what was
+said at the investigating magistrate's."
+
+With a moist glance and an affectionate grasp of the hand, Guillaume at
+once thanked Pierre: "Yes, yes, brother, go there, it will be good and
+brave of you."
+
+"Besides," continued the priest, "I really wanted to go to Montmartre
+to-day. I haven't told you so, but something has been worrying me. If
+Salvat has fled, he must have left the woman and the child all alone up
+yonder. On the morning of the day when the explosion took place I saw the
+poor creatures in such a state of destitution, such misery, that I can't
+think of them without a heart-pang. Women and children so often die of
+hunger when the man is no longer there."
+
+At this, Guillaume, who had kept Pierre's hand in his own, pressed it
+more tightly, and in a trembling voice exclaimed: "Yes, yes, and that
+will be good and brave too. Go there, brother, go there."
+
+That house of the Rue des Saules, that horrible home of want and agony,
+had lingered in Pierre's memory. To him it was like an embodiment of the
+whole filthy _cloaca_, in which the poor of Paris suffer unto death. And
+on returning thither that afternoon, he found the same slimy mud around
+it; its yard littered with the same filth, its dark, damp stairways
+redolent of the same stench of neglect and poverty, as before. In winter
+time, while the fine central districts of Paris are dried and cleansed,
+the far-away districts of the poor remain gloomy and miry, beneath the
+everlasting tramp of the wretched ones who dwell in them.
+
+Remembering the staircase which conducted to Salvat's lodging, Pierre
+began to climb it amidst a loud screaming of little children, who
+suddenly became quiet, letting the house sink into death-like silence
+once more. Then the thought of Laveuve, who had perished up there like a
+stray dog, came back to Pierre. And he shuddered when, on the top
+landing, he knocked at Salvat's door, and profound silence alone answered
+him. Not a breath was to be heard.
+
+However, he knocked again, and as nothing stirred he began to think that
+nobody could be there. Perhaps Salvat had returned to fetch the woman and
+the child, and perhaps they had followed him to some humble nook abroad.
+Still this would have astonished him; for the poor seldom quit their
+homes, but die where they have suffered. So he gave another gentle knock.
+
+And at last a faint sound, the light tread of little feet, was heard
+amidst the silence. Then a weak, childish voice ventured to inquire: "Who
+is there?"
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+The silence fell again, nothing more stirred. There was evidently
+hesitation on the other side.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day," said Pierre again.
+
+This evidently put an end to all uncertainty, for the door was set ajar
+and little Celine admitted the priest. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur
+l'Abbe," said she, "but Mamma Theodore has gone out, and she told me not
+to open the door to anyone."
+
+Pierre had, for a moment, imagined that Salvat himself was hiding there.
+But with a glance he took in the whole of the small bare room, where man,
+woman and child dwelt together. At the same time, Madame Theodore
+doubtless feared a visit from the police. Had she seen Salvat since the
+crime? Did she know where he was hiding? Had he come back there to
+embrace and tranquillise them both?
+
+"And your papa, my dear," said Pierre to Celine, "isn't he here either?"
+
+"Oh! no, monsieur, he has gone away."
+
+"What, gone away?"
+
+"Yes, he hasn't been home to sleep, and we don't know where he is."
+
+"Perhaps he's working."
+
+"Oh, no! he'd send us some money if he was."
+
+"Then he's gone on a journey, perhaps?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He wrote to Mamma Theodore, no doubt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Pierre asked no further questions. In fact, he felt somewhat ashamed of
+his attempt to extract information from this child of eleven, whom he
+thus found alone. It was quite possible that she knew nothing, that
+Salvat, in a spirit of prudence, had even refrained from sending any
+tidings of himself. Indeed, there was an expression of truthfulness on
+the child's fair, gentle and intelligent face, which was grave with the
+gravity that extreme misery imparts to the young.
+
+"I am sorry that Mamma Theodore isn't here," said Pierre, "I wanted to
+speak to her."
+
+"But perhaps you would like to wait for her, Monsieur l'Abbe. She has
+gone to my Uncle Toussaint's in the Rue Marcadet; and she can't stop much
+longer, for she's been away more than an hour."
+
+Thereupon Celine cleared one of the chairs on which lay a handful of
+scraps of wood, picked up on some waste ground.
+
+The bare and fireless room was assuredly also a breadless one. Pierre
+could divine the absence of the bread-winner, the disappearance of the
+man who represents will and strength in the home, and on whom one still
+relies even when weeks have gone by without work. He goes out and scours
+the city, and often ends by bringing back the indispensable crust which
+keeps death at bay. But with his disappearance comes complete
+abandonment, the wife and child in danger, destitute of all prop and
+help.
+
+Pierre, who had sat down and was looking at that poor, little, blue-eyed
+girl, to whose lips a smile returned in spite of everything, could not
+keep from questioning her on another point. "So you don't go to school,
+my child?" said he.
+
+She faintly blushed and answered: "I've no shoes to go in."
+
+He glanced at her feet, and saw that she was wearing a pair of ragged old
+list-slippers, from which her little toes protruded, red with cold.
+
+"Besides," she continued, "Mamma Theodore says that one doesn't go to
+school when one's got nothing to eat. Mamma Theodore wanted to work but
+she couldn't, because her eyes got burning hot and full of water. And so
+we don't know what to do, for we've had nothing left since yesterday, and
+if Uncle Toussaint can't lend us twenty sous it'll be all over."
+
+She was still smiling in her unconscious way, but two big tears had
+gathered in her eyes. And the sight of the child shut up in that bare
+room, apart from all the happy ones of earth, so upset the priest that he
+again felt his anger with want and misery awakening. Then, another ten
+minutes having elapsed, he became impatient, for he had to go to the
+Grandidier works before returning home.
+
+"I don't know why Mamma Theodore doesn't come back," repeated Celine.
+"Perhaps she's chatting." Then, an idea occurring to her she continued:
+"I'll take you to my Uncle Toussaint's, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you like.
+It's close by, just round the corner."
+
+"But you have no shoes, my child."
+
+"Oh! that don't matter, I walk all the same."
+
+Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: "Well, yes, that will
+be better, take me there. And I'll buy you some shoes."
+
+Celine turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him after
+carefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife,
+though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place.
+
+In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Theodore that before calling on
+her brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might first
+essay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married little
+Chretiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on the
+Boulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and the
+poor woman only made the venture because Celine had been fasting since
+the previous day.
+
+Eugene Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother,
+by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whom
+the latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters,
+Pauline, Leonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugene, who
+already had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a short
+time with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother,
+fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get out
+of difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughter
+Pauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Leonie there; so
+that Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier and
+more delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, later
+on,--after Pauline had married Labitte the stonemason, and Leonie, Salvat
+the journeyman-engineer,--Hortense, while serving as assistant at a
+confectioner's in the Rue des Martyrs, there became acquainted with
+Chretiennot, a clerk, who married her. Leonie had died young, only a few
+weeks after her mother; Pauline, forsaken by her husband, lived with her
+brother-in-law Salvat, and Hortense alone wore a light silk gown on
+Sundays, resided in a new house, and ranked as a _bourgeoise_, at the
+price, however, of interminable worries and great privation.
+
+Madame Theodore knew that her sister was generally short of money towards
+the month's end, and therefore felt rather ill at ease in thus venturing
+to apply for a loan. Chretiennot, moreover, embittered by his own
+mediocrity, had of late years accused his wife of being the cause of
+their spoilt life, and had ceased all intercourse with her relatives.
+Toussaint, no doubt, was a decent workman; but that Madame Theodore who
+lived in misery with her brother-in-law, and that Salvat who wandered
+from workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employer
+would keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had ended
+by incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler for
+the proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered in
+his own life. And thus he had forbidden Hortense to receive her sister.
+
+All the same, as Madame Theodore climbed the carpeted staircase of the
+house on the Boulevard Rochechouart, she experienced a certain feeling of
+pride at the thought that she had a relation living in such luxury. The
+Chretiennot's rooms were on the third floor, and overlooked the
+courtyard. Their _femme-de-menage_--a woman who goes out by the day or
+hour charring, cleaning and cooking--came back every afternoon about four
+o'clock to see to the dinner, and that day she was already there. She
+admitted the visitor, though she could not conceal her anxious surprise
+at her boldness in calling in such slatternly garb. However, on the very
+threshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short in
+wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on
+one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so
+proud.
+
+"What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore.
+
+Her sister, though scarcely two and thirty, was no longer "the beautiful
+Hortense" of former days. She retained a doll-like appearance, with a
+tall slim figure, pretty eyes and fine, fair hair. But she who had once
+taken so much care of herself, had now come down to dressing-gowns of
+doubtful cleanliness. Her eyelids, too, were reddening, and blotches were
+appearing on her skin. She had begun to fade after giving birth to two
+daughters, one of whom was now nine and the other seven years of age.
+Very proud and egotistical, she herself had begun to regret her marriage,
+for she had formerly considered herself a real beauty, worthy of the
+palaces and equipages of some Prince Charming. And at this moment she was
+plunged in such despair, that her sister's sudden appearance on the scene
+did not even astonish her: "Ah! it's you," she gasped. "Ah! if you only
+knew what a blow's fallen on me in the middle of all our worries!"
+
+Madame Theodore at once thought of the children, Lucienne and Marcelle.
+"Are your daughters ill?" she asked.
+
+"No, no, our neighbour has taken them for a walk on the Boulevard. But
+the fact is, my dear, I'm _enceinte_, and when I told Chretiennot of it
+after _dejeuner_, he flew into a most fearful passion, saying the most
+dreadful, the most cruel things!"
+
+Then she again sobbed. Gentle and indolent by nature, desirous of peace
+and quietness before anything else, she was incapable of deceiving her
+husband, as he well knew. But the trouble was that an addition to the
+family would upset the whole economy of the household.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_!" said Madame Theodore at last, "you brought up the others,
+and you'll bring up this one too."
+
+At this an explosion of anger dried the other's eyes; and she rose,
+exclaiming: "You are good, you are! One can see that our purse isn't
+yours. How are we to bring up another child when we can scarcely make
+both ends meet as it is?"
+
+And thereupon, forgetting the _bourgeois_ pride which usually prompted
+her to silence or falsehood, she freely explained their embarrassment,
+the horrid pecuniary worries which made their life a perpetual misery.
+Their rent amounted to 700 francs,* so that out of the 3000 francs**
+which the husband earned at his office, barely a couple of hundred were
+left them every month. And how were they to manage with that little sum,
+provide food and clothes, keep up their rank and so forth? There was the
+indispensable black coat for monsieur, the new dress which madame must
+have at regular intervals, under penalty of losing caste, the new boots
+which the children required almost every month, in fact, all sorts of
+things that could not possibly be dispensed with. One might strike a dish
+or two out of the daily menu, and even go without wine; but evenings came
+when it was absolutely necessary to take a cab. And, apart from all this,
+one had to reckon with the wastefulness of the children, the disorder in
+which the discouraged wife left the house, and the despair of the
+husband, who was convinced that he would never extricate himself from his
+difficulties, even should his salary some day be raised to as high a
+figure as 4000 francs. Briefly, one here found the unbearable penury of
+the petty clerk, with consequences as disastrous as the black want of the
+artisan: the mock facade and lying luxury; all the disorder and suffering
+which lie behind intellectual pride at not earning one's living at a
+bench or on a scaffolding.
+
+  * $140.
+
+  ** $600.
+
+"Well, well," repeated Madame Theodore, "you can't kill the child."
+
+"No, of course not; but it's the end of everything," answered Hortense,
+sinking into the armchair again. "What will become of us, _mon Dieu_!
+What will become of us!" Then she collapsed in her unbuttoned dressing
+gown, tears once more gushing from her red and swollen eyes.
+
+Much vexed that circumstances should be so unpropitious, Madame Theodore
+nevertheless ventured to ask for the loan of twenty sons; and this
+brought her sister's despair and confusion to a climax. "I really haven't
+a centime in the house," said she, "just now I borrowed ten sous for the
+children from the servant. I had to get ten francs from the Mont de Piete
+on a little ring the other day. And it's always the same at the end of
+the month. However, Chretiennot will be paid to-day, and he's coming back
+early with the money for dinner. So if I can I will send you something
+to-morrow."
+
+At this same moment the servant hastened in with a distracted air, being
+well aware that monsieur was in no wise partial to madame's relatives.
+"Oh madame, madame!" said she; "here's monsieur coming up the stairs."
+
+"Quick then, quick, go away!" cried Hortense, "I should only have another
+scene if he met you here. To-morrow, if I can, I promise you."
+
+To avoid Chretiennot who was coming in, Madame Theodore had to hide
+herself in the kitchen. As he passed, she just caught sight of him, well
+dressed as usual in a tight-fitting frock-coat. Short and lean, with a
+thin face and long and carefully tended beard, he had the bearing of one
+who is both vain and quarrelsome. Fourteen years of office life had
+withered him, and now the long evening hours which he spent at a
+neighbouring cafe were finishing him off.
+
+When Madame Theodore had quitted the house she turned with dragging steps
+towards the Rue Marcadet where the Toussaints resided. Here, again, she
+had no great expectations, for she well knew what ill-luck and worry had
+fallen upon her brother's home. During the previous autumn Toussaint,
+though he was but fifty, had experienced an attack of paralysis which had
+laid him up for nearly five months. Prior to this mishap he had borne
+himself bravely, working steadily, abstaining from drink, and bringing up
+his three children in true fatherly fashion. One of them, a girl, was now
+married to a carpenter, with whom she had gone to Le Havre, while of the
+others, both boys--one a soldier, had been killed in Tonquin, and the
+other Charles, after serving his time in the army, had become a working
+mechanician. Still, Toussaint's long illness had exhausted the little
+money which he had in the Savings Bank, and now that he had been set on
+his legs again, he had to begin life once more without a copper before
+him.
+
+Madame Theodore found her sister-in-law alone in the cleanly kept room
+which she and her husband occupied. Madame Toussaint was a portly woman,
+whose corpulence increased in spite of everything, whether it were worry
+or fasting. She had a round puffy face with bright little eyes; and was a
+very worthy woman, whose only faults were an inclination for gossiping
+and a fondness for good cheer. Before Madame Theodore even opened her
+mouth she understood the object of her visit. "You've come on us at a bad
+moment, my dear," she said, "we're stumped. Toussaint wasn't able to go
+back to the works till the day before yesterday, and he'll have to ask
+for an advance this evening."
+
+As she spoke, she looked at the other with no great sympathy, hurt as she
+felt by her slovenly appearance. "And Salvat," she added, "is he still
+doing nothing?"
+
+Madame Theodore doubtless foresaw the question, for she quietly lied: "He
+isn't in Paris, a friend has taken him off for some work over Belgium
+way, and I'm waiting for him to send us something."
+
+Madame Toussaint still remained distrustful, however: "Ah!" she said,
+"it's just as well that he shouldn't be in Paris; for with all these bomb
+affairs we couldn't help thinking of him, and saying that he was quite
+mad enough to mix himself up in them."
+
+The other did not even blink. If she knew anything she kept it to
+herself.
+
+"But you, my dear, can't you find any work?" continued Madame Toussaint.
+
+"Well, what would you have me do with my poor eyes? It's no longer
+possible for me to sew."
+
+"That's true. A seamstress gets done for. When Toussaint was laid up here
+I myself wanted to go back to my old calling as a needlewoman. But there!
+I spoilt everything and did no good. Charring's about the only thing that
+one can always do. Why don't you get some jobs of that kind?"
+
+"I'm trying, but I can't find any."
+
+Little by little Madame Toussaint was softening at sight of the other's
+miserable appearance. She made her sit down, and told her that she would
+give her something if Toussaint should come home with money. Then,
+yielding to her partiality for gossiping, since there was somebody to
+listen to her, she started telling stories. The one affair, however, on
+which she invariably harped was the sorry business of her son Charles and
+the servant girl at a wine shop over the way. Before going into the army
+Charles had been a most hard-working and affectionate son, invariably
+bringing his pay home to his mother. And certainly he still worked and
+showed himself good-natured; but military service, while sharpening his
+wits, had taken away some of his liking for ordinary manual toil. It
+wasn't that he regretted army life, for he spoke of his barracks as a
+prison. Only his tools had seemed to him rather heavy when, on quitting
+the service, he had been obliged to take them in hand once more.
+
+"And so, my dear," continued Madame Toussaint, "it's all very well for
+Charles to be kind-hearted, he can do no more for us. I knew that he
+wasn't in a hurry to get married, as it costs money to keep a wife. And
+he was always very prudent, too, with girls. But what would you have?
+There was that moment of folly with that Eugenie over the road, a regular
+baggage who's already gone off with another man, and left her baby
+behind. Charles has put it out to nurse, and pays for it every month. And
+a lot of expense it is too, perfect ruination. Yes, indeed, every
+possible misfortune has fallen on us."
+
+In this wise Madame Toussaint rattled on for a full half hour. Then
+seeing that waiting and anxiety had made her sister-in-law turn quite
+pale, she suddenly stopped short. "You're losing patience, eh?" she
+exclaimed. "The fact is, that Toussaint won't be back for some time.
+Shall we go to the works together? I'll easily find out if he's likely to
+bring any money home."
+
+They then decided to go down, but at the bottom of the stairs they
+lingered for another quarter of an hour chatting with a neighbour who had
+lately lost a child. And just as they were at last leaving the house they
+heard a call: "Mamma! mamma!"
+
+It came from little Celine, whose face was beaming with delight. She was
+wearing a pair of new shoes and devouring a cake. "Mamma," she resumed,
+"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day wants to see you. Just look! he
+bought me all this!"
+
+On seeing the shoes and the cake, Madame Theodore understood matters. And
+when Pierre, who was behind the child, accosted her she began to tremble
+and stammer thanks. Madame Toussaint on her side had quickly drawn near,
+not indeed to ask for anything herself, but because she was well pleased
+at such a God-send for her sister-in-law, whose circumstances were worse
+than her own. And when she saw the priest slip ten francs into Madame
+Theodore's hand she explained to him that she herself would willingly
+have lent something had she been able. Then she promptly started on the
+stories of Toussaint's attack and her son Charles's ill-luck.
+
+But Celine broke in: "I say, mamma, the factory where papa used to work
+is here in this street, isn't it? Monsieur l'Abbe has some business
+there."*
+
+  * Although the children of the French peasantry almost
+    invariably address their parents as "father" and "mother,"
+    those of the working classes of Paris, and some other large
+    cities, usually employ the terms "papa" and "mamma."--Trans.
+
+"The Grandidier factory," resumed Madame Toussaint; "well, we were just
+going there, and we can show Monsieur l'Abbe the way."
+
+It was only a hundred steps off. Escorted by the two women and the child,
+Pierre slackened his steps and tried to extract some information about
+Salvat from Madame Theodore. But she at once became very prudent. She had
+not seen him again, she declared; he must have gone with a mate to
+Belgium, where there was a prospect of some work. From what she said, it
+appeared to the priest that Salvat had not dared to return to the Rue des
+Saules since his crime, in which all had collapsed, both his past life of
+toil and hope, and his recent existence with its duties towards the woman
+and the child.
+
+"There's the factory, Monsieur l'Abbe," suddenly said Madame Toussaint,
+"my sister-in-law won't have to wait now, since you've been kind enough
+to help her. Thank you for her and for us."
+
+Madame Theodore and Celine likewise poured forth their thanks, standing
+beside Madame Toussaint in the everlasting mud of that populous district,
+amidst the jostling of the passers-by. And lingering there as if to see
+Pierre enter, they again chatted together and repeated that, after all,
+some priests were very kind.
+
+The Grandidier works covered an extensive plot of ground. Facing the
+street there was only a brick building with narrow windows and a great
+archway, through which one espied a long courtyard. But, in the rear,
+came a suite of habitations, workshops, and sheds, above whose never
+ending roofs arose the two lofty chimneys of the generators. From the
+very threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all
+the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up
+above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident
+puff, as if it were the very breath of that huge, toiling hive.
+
+Bicycles were now the principal output of the works. When Grandidier had
+taken them on leaving the Dijon Arts and Trades School, they were
+declining under bad management, slowly building some little motive
+engines by the aid of antiquated machinery. Foreseeing the future,
+however, he had induced his elder brother, one of the managers of the Bon
+Marche, to finance him, on the promise that he would supply that great
+emporium with excellent bicycles at 150 francs apiece. And now quite a
+big venture was in progress, for the Bon Marche was already bringing out
+the new popular machine "La Lisette," the "Bicycle for the Multitude," as
+the advertisements asserted. Nevertheless, Grandidier was still in all
+the throes of a great struggle, for his new machinery had cast a heavy
+burden of debt on him. At the same time each month brought its effort,
+the perfecting or simplifying of some part of the manufacture, which
+meant a saving in the future. He was ever on the watch; and even now was
+thinking of reverting to the construction of little motors, for he
+thought he could divine in the near future the triumph of the motor-car.
+
+On asking if M. Thomas Froment were there, Pierre was led by an old
+workman to a little shed, where he found the young fellow in the linen
+jacket of a mechanician, his hands black with filings. He was adjusting
+some piece of mechanism, and nobody would have suspected him to be a
+former pupil of the Lycee Condorcet, one of the three clever Froments who
+had there rendered the name famous. But his only desire had been to act
+as his father's faithful servant, the arm that forges, the embodiment of
+the manual toil by which conceptions are realised. And, a giant of three
+and twenty, ever attentive and courageous, he was likewise a man of
+patient, silent and sober nature.
+
+On catching sight of Pierre he quivered with anxiety and sprang forward.
+"Father is no worse?" he asked.
+
+"No, no. But he read in the papers that story of a bradawl found in the
+Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, and it made him anxious, because the police may make
+a perquisition here."
+
+Thomas, his own anxiety allayed, began to smile. "Tell him he may sleep
+quietly," he responded. "To begin with, I've unfortunately not yet hit on
+our little motor such as I want it to be. In fact, I haven't yet put it
+together. I'm keeping the pieces at our house, and nobody here knows
+exactly what I come to do at the factory. So the police may search, it
+will find nothing. Our secret runs no risk."
+
+Pierre promised to repeat these words to Guillaume, so as to dissipate
+his fears. However, when he tried to sound Thomas, and ascertain the
+position of affairs, what the factory people thought of the discovery of
+the bradawl, and whether there was as yet any suspicion of Salvat, he
+once more found the young man taciturn, and elicited merely a "yes" or a
+"no" in answer to his inquiries. The police had not been there as yet?
+No. But the men must surely have mentioned Salvat? Yes, of course, on
+account of his Anarchist opinions. But what had Grandidier, the master,
+said, on returning from the investigating magistrate's? As for that
+Thomas knew nothing. He had not seen Grandidier that day.
+
+"But here he comes!" the young man added. "Ah! poor fellow, his wife, I
+fancy, had another attack this morning."
+
+He alluded to a frightful story which Guillaume had already recounted to
+Pierre. Grandidier, falling in love with a very beautiful girl, had
+married her; but for five years now she had been insane: the result of
+puerperal fever and the death of an infant son. Her husband, with his
+ardent affection for her, had been unwilling to place her in an asylum,
+and had accordingly kept her with him in a little pavilion, whose
+windows, overlooking the courtyard of the factory, always remained
+closed. She was never seen; and never did he speak of her to anybody. It
+was said that she was usually like a child, very gentle and very sad, and
+still beautiful, with regal golden hair. At times, however, attacks of
+frantic madness came upon her, and he then had to struggle with her, and
+often hold her for hours in his arms to prevent her from splitting her
+head against the walls. Fearful shrieks would ring out for a time, and
+then deathlike silence would fall once more.
+
+Grandidier came into the shed where Thomas was working. A handsome man of
+forty, with an energetic face, he had a dark and heavy moustache,
+brush-like hair and clear eyes. He was very partial to Thomas, and during
+the young fellow's apprenticeship there, had treated him like a son. And
+he now let him return thither whenever it pleased him, and placed his
+appliances at his disposal. He knew that he was trying to devise a new
+motor, a question in which he himself was extremely interested; still he
+evinced the greatest discretion, never questioning Thomas, but awaiting
+the result of his endeavours.
+
+"This is my uncle, Abbe Froment, who looked in to wish me good day," said
+the young man, introducing Pierre.
+
+An exchange of polite remarks ensued. Then Grandidier sought to cast off
+the sadness which made people think him stern and harsh, and in a
+bantering tone exclaimed: "I didn't tell you, Thomas, of my business with
+the investigating magistrate. If I hadn't enjoyed a good reputation we
+should have had all the spies of the Prefecture here. The magistrate
+wanted me to explain the presence of that bradawl in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, and I at once realised that, in his opinion, the culprit
+must have worked here. For my part I immediately thought of Salvat. But I
+don't denounce people. The magistrate has my hiring-book, and as for
+Salvat I simply answered that he worked here for nearly three months last
+autumn, and then disappeared. They can look for him themselves! Ah! that
+magistrate! you can picture him a little fellow with fair hair and
+cat-like eyes, very careful of his appearance, a society man evidently,
+but quite frisky at being mixed up in this affair."
+
+"Isn't he Monsieur Amadieu?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Yes, that's his name. Ah! he's certainly delighted with the present
+which those Anarchists have made him, with that crime of theirs."
+
+The priest listened in deep anxiety. As his brother had feared, the true
+scent, the first conducting wire, had now been found. And he looked at
+Thomas to see if he also were disturbed. But the young man was either
+ignorant of the ties which linked Salvat to his father, or else he
+possessed great power of self-control, for he merely smiled at
+Grandidier's sketch of the magistrate.
+
+Then, as Grandidier went to look at the piece of mechanism which Thomas
+was finishing, and they began to speak about it, Pierre drew near to an
+open doorway which communicated with a long workshop where engine lathes
+were rumbling, and the beams of press-drills falling quickly and
+rhythmically. Leather gearing spun along with a continuous gliding, and
+there was ceaseless bustle and activity amidst the odoriferous dampness
+of all the steam. Scores of perspiring workmen, grimy with dust and
+filings, were still toiling. Still this was the final effort of the day.
+And as three men approached a water-tap near Pierre to wash their hands,
+he listened to their talk, and became particularly interested in it when
+he heard one of them, a tall, ginger-haired fellow, call another
+Toussaint, and the third Charles.
+
+Toussaint, a big, square-shouldered man with knotty arms, only showed his
+fifty years on his round, scorched face, which besides being roughened
+and wrinkled by labour, bristled with grey hairs, which nowadays he was
+content to shave off once a week. It was only his right arm that was
+affected by paralysis, and moved rather sluggishly. As for Charles, a
+living portrait of his father, he was now in all the strength of his six
+and twentieth year, with splendid muscles distending his white skin, and
+a full face barred by a heavy black moustache. The three men, like their
+employer, were speaking of the explosion at the Duvillard mansion, of the
+bradawl found there, and of Salvat, whom they all now suspected.
+
+"Why, only a brigand would do such a thing!" said Toussaint. "That
+Anarchism disgusts me. I'll have none of it. But all the same it's for
+the _bourgeois_ to settle matters. If the others want to blow them up,
+it's their concern. It's they who brought it about."
+
+This indifference was undoubtedly the outcome of a life of want and
+social injustice; it was the indifference of an old toiler, who, weary of
+struggling and hoping for improvements, was now quite ready to tolerate
+the crumbling of a social system, which threatened him with hunger in his
+impotent old age.
+
+"Well, you know," rejoined Charles, "I've heard the Anarchists talking,
+and they really say some very true and sensible things. And just take
+yourself, father; you've been working for thirty years, and isn't it
+abominable that you should have had to pass through all that you did pass
+through recently, liable to go off like some old horse that's slaughtered
+at the first sign of illness? And, of course, it makes me think of
+myself, and I can't help feeling that it won't be at all amusing to end
+like that. And may the thunder of God kill me if I'm wrong, but one feels
+half inclined to join in their great flare-up if it's really to make
+everybody happy!"
+
+He certainly lacked the flame of enthusiasm, and if he had come to these
+views it was solely from impatience to lead a less toilsome life, for
+obligatory military service had given him ideas of equality among all
+men--a desire to struggle, raise himself and obtain his legitimate share
+of life's enjoyments. It was, in fact, the inevitable step which carries
+each generation a little more forward. There was the father, who,
+deceived in his hope of a fraternal republic, had grown sceptical and
+contemptuous; and there was the son advancing towards a new faith, and
+gradually yielding to ideas of violence, since political liberty had
+failed to keep its promises.
+
+Nevertheless, as the big, ginger-haired fellow grew angry, and shouted
+that if Salvat were guilty, he ought to be caught and guillotined at
+once, without waiting for judges, Toussaint ended by endorsing his
+opinion. "Yes, yes, he may have married one of my sisters, but I renounce
+him.... And yet, you know, it would astonish me to find him guilty,
+for he isn't wicked at heart. I'm sure he wouldn't kill a fly."
+
+"But what would you have?" put in Charles. "When a man's driven to
+extremities he goes mad."
+
+They had now washed themselves; but Toussaint, on perceiving his
+employer, lingered there in order to ask him for an advance. As it
+happened, Grandidier, after cordially shaking hands with Pierre,
+approached the old workman of his own accord, for he held him in esteem.
+And, after listening to him, he gave him a line for the cashier on a
+card. As a rule, he was altogether against the practice of advancing
+money, and his men disliked him, and said he was over rigid, though in
+point of fact he had a good heart. But he had his position as an employer
+to defend, and to him concessions meant ruin. With such keen competition
+on all sides, with the capitalist system entailing a terrible and
+incessant struggle, how could one grant the demands of the workers, even
+when they were legitimate?
+
+Sudden compassion came upon Pierre when, after quitting Thomas, he saw
+Grandidier, who had finished his round, crossing the courtyard in the
+direction of the closed pavilion, where all the grief of his
+heart-tragedy awaited him. Here was that man waging the battle of life,
+defending his fortune with the risk that his business might melt away
+amidst the furious warfare between capital and labour; and at the same
+time, in lieu of evening repose, finding naught but anguish it his
+hearth: a mad wife, an adored wife, who had sunk back into infancy, and
+was for ever dead to love! How incurable was his secret despair! Even on
+the days when he triumphed in his workshops, disaster awaited him at
+home. And could any more unhappy man, any man more deserving of pity, be
+found even among the poor who died of hunger, among those gloomy workers,
+those vanquished sons of labour who hated and who envied him?
+
+When Pierre found himself in the street again he was astonished to see
+Madame Toussaint and Madame Theodore still there with little Celine. With
+their feet in the mud, like bits of wreckage against which beat the
+ceaseless flow of wayfarers, they had lingered there, still and ever
+chatting, loquacious and doleful, lulling their wretchedness to rest
+beneath a deluge of tittle-tattle. And when Toussaint, followed by his
+son, came out, delighted with the advance he had secured, he also found
+them on the same spot. Then he told Madame Theodore the story of the
+bradawl, and the idea which had occurred to him and all his mates that
+Salvat might well be the culprit. She, however, though turning very pale,
+began to protest, concealing both what she knew and what she really
+thought.
+
+"I tell you I haven't seen him for several days," said she. "He must
+certainly be in Belgium. And as for a bomb, that's humbug. You say
+yourself that he's very gentle and wouldn't harm a fly!"
+
+A little later as Pierre journeyed back to Neuilly in a tramcar he fell
+into a deep reverie. All the stir and bustle of that working-class
+district, the buzzing of the factory, the overflowing activity of that
+hive of labour, seemed to have lingered within him. And for the first
+time, amidst his worries, he realised the necessity of work. Yes, it was
+fatal, but it also gave health and strength. In effort which sustains and
+saves, he at last found a solid basis on which all might be reared. Was
+this, then, the first gleam of a new faith? But ah! what mockery! Work an
+uncertainty, work hopeless, work always ending in injustice! And then
+want ever on the watch for the toiler, strangling him as soon as slack
+times came round, and casting him into the streets like a dead dog
+immediately old age set in.
+
+On reaching Neuilly, Pierre found Bertheroy at Guillaume's bedside. The
+old _savant_ had just dressed the injured wrist, and was not yet certain
+that no complications would arise. "The fact is," he said to Guillaume,
+"you don't keep quiet. I always find you in a state of feverish emotion
+which is the worst possible thing for you. You must calm yourself, my
+dear fellow, and not allow anything to worry you."
+
+A few minutes later, though, just as he was going away, he said with his
+pleasant smile: "Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview me
+about that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men know
+everything! I told the one who called on me that it would be very kind of
+_him_ to enlighten _me_ as to what powder was employed. And, by the way,
+I am giving a lesson on explosives at my laboratory to-morrow. There will
+be just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as to
+give an account of it to Guillaume; it would interest him."
+
+At a glance from his brother, Pierre accepted the invitation. Then,
+Bertheroy having gone, he recounted all he had learnt during the
+afternoon, how Salvat was suspected, and how the investigating magistrate
+had been put on the right scent. And at this news, intense fever again
+came over Guillaume, who, with his head buried in the pillow, and his
+eyes closed, stammered as if in a kind of nightmare: "Ah! then, this is
+the end! Salvat arrested, Salvat interrogated! Ah! that so much toil and
+so much hope should crumble!"
+
+
+
+
+IV. CULTURE AND HOPE
+
+ON the morrow, punctually at one o'clock, Pierre reached the Rue d'Ulm,
+where Bertheroy resided in a fairly large house, which the State had
+placed at his disposal, in order that he might install in it a laboratory
+for study and research. Thus the whole first floor had been transformed
+into one spacious apartment, where, from time to time, the illustrious
+chemist was fond of receiving a limited number of pupils and admirers,
+before whom he made experiments, and explained his new discoveries and
+theories.
+
+For these occasions a few chairs were set out before the long and massive
+table, which was covered with jars and appliances. In the rear one saw
+the furnace, while all around were glass cases, full of vials and
+specimens. The persons present were, for the most part, fellow _savants_,
+with a few young men, and even a lady or two, and, of course, an
+occasional journalist. The whole made up a kind of family gathering, the
+visitors chatting with the master in all freedom.
+
+Directly Bertheroy perceived Pierre he came forward, pressed his hand and
+seated him on a chair beside Guillaume's son Francois, who had been one
+of the first arrivals. The young man was completing his third year at the
+Ecole Normale, close by, so he only had a few steps to take to call upon
+his master Bertheroy, whom he regarded as one of the firmest minds of the
+age. Pierre was delighted to meet his nephew, for he had been greatly
+impressed in his favour on the occasion of his visit to Montmartre.
+Francois, on his side, greeted his uncle with all the cordial
+expansiveness of youth. He was, moreover, well pleased to obtain some
+news of his father.
+
+However, Bertheroy began. He spoke in a familiar and sober fashion, but
+frequently employed some very happy expressions. At first he gave an
+account of his own extensive labours and investigations with regard to
+explosive substances, and related with a laugh that he sometimes
+manipulated powders which would have blown up the entire district. But,
+said he, in order to reassure his listeners, he was always extremely
+prudent. At last he turned to the subject of that explosion in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, which, for some days, had filled Paris with dismay. The
+remnants of the bomb had been carefully examined by experts, and one
+fragment had been brought to him, in order that he might give his opinion
+on it. The bomb appeared to have been prepared in a very rudimentary
+fashion; it had been charged with small pieces of iron, and fired by
+means of a match, such as a child might have devised. The extraordinary
+part of the affair was the formidable power of the central cartridge,
+which, although it must have been a small one, had wrought as much havoc
+as any thunderbolt. And the question was this: What incalculable power of
+destruction might one not arrive at if the charge were increased ten,
+twenty or a hundredfold. Embarrassment began, and divergencies of opinion
+clouded the issue directly one tried to specify what explosive had been
+employed. Of the three experts who had been consulted, one pronounced
+himself in favour of dynamite pure and simple; but the two others,
+although they did not agree together, believed in some combination of
+explosive matters. He, Bertheroy, had modestly declined to adjudicate,
+for the fragment submitted to him bore traces of so slight a character,
+that analysis became impossible. Thus he was unwilling to make any
+positive pronouncement. But his opinion was that one found oneself in
+presence of some unknown powder, some new explosive, whose power exceeded
+anything that had hitherto been dreamt of. He could picture some unknown
+_savant_, or some ignorant but lucky inventor, discovering the formula of
+this explosive under mysterious conditions. And this brought him to the
+point he wished to reach, the question of all the explosives which are so
+far unknown, and of the coming discoveries which he could foresee. In the
+course of his investigations he himself had found cause to suspect the
+existence of several such explosives, though he had lacked time and
+opportunity to prosecute his studies in that direction. However, he
+indicated the field which should be explored, and the best way of
+proceeding. In his opinion it was there that lay the future. And in a
+broad and eloquent peroration, he declared that explosives had hitherto
+been degraded by being employed in idiotic schemes of vengeance and
+destruction; whereas it was in them possibly that lay the liberating
+force which science was seeking, the lever which would change the face of
+the world, when they should have been so domesticated and subdued as to
+be only the obedient servants of man.
+
+Throughout this familiar discourse Pierre could feel that Francois was
+growing impassioned, quivering at thought of the vast horizon which the
+master opened up. He himself had become extremely interested, for he
+could not do otherwise than notice certain allusions, and connect what he
+heard with what he had guessed of Guillaume's anxiety regarding that
+secret which he feared to see at the mercy of an investigating
+magistrate. And so as he, Pierre, before going off with Francois,
+approached Bertheroy to wish him good day, he pointedly remarked:
+"Guillaume will be very sorry that he was unable to hear you unfold those
+admirable ideas."
+
+The old _savant_ smiled. "Pooh!" said he; "just give him a summary of
+what I said. He will understand. He knows more about the matter than I
+do."
+
+In presence of the illustrious chemist, Francois preserved the silent
+gravity of a respectful pupil, but when he and Pierre had taken a few
+steps down the street in silence, he remarked: "What a pity it is that a
+man of such broad intelligence, free from all superstition, and anxious
+for the sole triumph of truth, should have allowed himself to be
+classified, ticketed, bound round with titles and academical functions!
+How greatly our affection for him would increase if he took less State
+pay, and freed himself from all the grand cordons which tie his hands."
+
+"What would you have!" rejoined Pierre, in a conciliatory spirit. "A man
+must live! At the same time I believe that he does not regard himself as
+tied by anything."
+
+Then, as they had reached the entrance of the Ecole Normale, the priest
+stopped, thinking that his companion was going back to the college. But
+Francois, raising his eyes and glancing at the old place, remarked: "No,
+no, to-day's Thursday, and I'm at liberty! Oh! we have a deal of liberty,
+perhaps too much. But for my own part I'm well pleased at it, for it
+often enables me to go to Montmartre and work at my old little table.
+It's only there that I feel any real strength and clearness of mind."
+
+His preliminary examinations had entitled him to admission at either the
+Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter,
+entering its scientific section with No. 1 against his name. His father
+had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if
+circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own
+bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now
+preparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took was
+in walking to and from Montmartre, or in strolling through the Luxembourg
+gardens.
+
+  * The purposes of the Ecole Normale have been referred to on
+    p. 197. At the Ecole Polytechnique young men receive much
+    of the preliminary training which they require to become
+    either artillery officers, or military, naval or civil
+    engineers.--Trans.
+
+From force of habit he now turned towards the latter, accompanied by
+Pierre and chatting with him. One found the mildness of springtime there
+that February afternoon; for pale sunshine streamed between the trees,
+which were still leafless. It was indeed one of those first fine days
+which draw little green gems from the branches of the lilac bushes.
+
+The Ecole Normale was still the subject of conversation and Pierre
+remarked: "I must own that I hardly like the spirit that prevails there.
+Excellent work is done, no doubt, and the only way to form professors is
+to teach men the trade by cramming them with the necessary knowledge. But
+the worst is that although all the students are trained for the teaching
+profession, many of them don't remain in it, but go out into the world,
+take to journalism, or make it their business to control the arts,
+literature and society. And those who do this are for the most part
+unbearable. After swearing by Voltaire they have gone back to
+spirituality and mysticism, the last drawing-room craze. Now that a firm
+faith in science is regarded as brutish and inelegant, they fancy that
+they rid themselves of their caste by feigning amiable doubt, and
+ignorance, and innocence. What they most fear is that they may carry a
+scent of the schools about with them, so they put on extremely Parisian
+airs, venture on somersaults and slang, and assume all the grace of
+dancing bears in their eager desire to please. From that desire spring
+the sarcastic shafts which they aim at science, they who pretend that
+they know everything, but who go back to the belief of the humble, the
+_naive_ idealism of Biblical legends, just because they think the latter
+to be more distinguished."
+
+Francois began to laugh: "The portrait is perhaps a little overdrawn,"
+said he, "still there's truth in it, a great deal of truth."
+
+"I have known several of them," continued Pierre, who was growing
+animated. "And among them all I have noticed that a fear of being duped
+leads them to reaction against the entire effort, the whole work of the
+century. Disgust with liberty, distrust of science, denial of the future,
+that is what they now profess. And they have such a horror of the
+commonplace that they would rather believe in nothing or the incredible.
+It may of course be commonplace to say that two and two make four, yet
+it's true enough; and it is far less foolish for a man to say and repeat
+it than to believe, for instance, in the miracles of Lourdes."
+
+Francois glanced at the priest in astonishment. The other noticed it and
+strove to restrain himself. Nevertheless, grief and anger carried him
+away whenever he spoke of the educated young people of the time, such as,
+in his despair, he imagined them to be. In the same way as he had pitied
+the toilers dying of hunger in the districts of misery and want, so here
+he overflowed with contempt for the young minds that lacked bravery in
+the presence of knowledge, and harked back to the consolation of
+deceptive spirituality, the promise of an eternity of happiness in death,
+which last was longed for and exalted as the very sum of life. Was not
+the cowardly thought of refusing to live for the sake of living so as to
+discharge one's simple duty in being and making one's effort, equivalent
+to absolute assassination of life? However, the _Ego_ was always the
+mainspring; each one sought personal happiness. And Pierre was grieved to
+think that those young people, instead of discarding the past and
+marching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowy
+metaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps to
+the excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen with
+human toil.
+
+However, Francois had begun to smile again. "But you are mistaken," said
+he; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale. You only seem to know
+the Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surely
+change if you knew those of the Section of Sciences. It is quite true
+that the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among our
+literary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by the
+idea of that famous bankruptcy of science. This is perhaps due to their
+masters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whose
+hands they have fallen. And it is still more due to fashion, the whim of
+the times which, as you have very well put it, regards scientific truth
+as bad taste, something graceless and altogether too brutal for light and
+distinguished minds. Consequently, a young fellow of any shrewdness who
+desires to please is perforce won over to the new spirit."
+
+"The new spirit!" interrupted Pierre, unable to restrain himself. "Oh!
+that is no mere innocent, passing fashion, it is a tactical device and a
+terrible one, an offensive return of the powers of darkness against those
+of light, of servitude against free thought, truth and justice."
+
+Then, as the young man again looked at him with growing astonishment, he
+relapsed into silence. The figure of Monseigneur Martha had risen before
+his eyes, and he fancied he could again hear the prelate at the
+Madeleine, striving to win Paris over to the policy of Rome, to that
+spurious neo-Catholicism which, with the object of destroying democracy
+and science, accepted such portions of them as it could adapt to its own
+views. This was indeed the supreme struggle. Thence came all the poison
+poured forth to the young. Pierre knew what efforts were being made in
+religious circles to help on this revival of mysticism, in the mad hope
+of hastening the rout of science. Monseigneur Martha, who was
+all-powerful at the Catholic University, said to his intimates, however,
+that three generations of devout and docile pupils would be needed before
+the Church would again be absolute sovereign of France.
+
+"Well, as for the Ecole Normale," continued Francois, "I assure you that
+you are mistaken. There are a few narrow bigots there, no doubt. But even
+in the Section of Letters the majority of the students are sceptics at
+bottom--sceptics of discreet and good-natured average views. Of course
+they are professors before everything else, though they are a trifle
+ashamed of it; and, as professors, they judge things with no little
+pedantic irony, devoured by a spirit of criticism, and quite incapable of
+creating anything themselves. I should certainly be astonished to see the
+man of genius whom we await come out of their ranks. To my thinking,
+indeed, it would be preferable that some barbarian genius, neither well
+read nor endowed with critical faculty, or power of weighing and shading
+things, should come and open the next century with a hatchet stroke,
+sending up a fine flare of truth and reality.... But, as for my
+comrades of the Scientific Section, I assure you that neo-Catholicism and
+Mysticism and Occultism, and every other branch of the fashionable
+phantasmagoria trouble them very little indeed. They are not making a
+religion of science, they remain open to doubt on many points; but they
+are mostly men of very clear and firm minds, whose passion is the
+acquirement of certainty, and who are ever absorbed in the investigations
+which continue throughout the whole vast field of human knowledge. They
+haven't flinched, they have remained Positivists, or Evolutionists, or
+Determinists, and have set their faith in observation and experiment to
+help on the final conquest of the world."
+
+Francois himself was growing excited, as he thus confessed his faith
+while strolling along the quiet sunlit garden paths. "The young indeed!"
+he resumed. "Do people know them? It makes us laugh when we see all sorts
+of apostles fighting for us, trying to attract us, and saying that we are
+white or black or grey, according to the hue which they require for the
+triumph of their particular ideas! The young, the real ones, why, they're
+in the schools, the laboratories and the libraries. It's they who work
+and who'll bring to-morrow to the world. It's not the young fellows of
+dinner and supper clubs, manifestoes and all sorts of extravagances. The
+latter make a great deal of noise, no doubt; in fact, they alone are
+heard. But if you knew of the ceaseless efforts and passionate striving
+of the others, those who remain silent, absorbed in their tasks. And I
+know many of them: they are with their century, they have rejected none
+of its hopes, but are marching on to the coming century, resolved to
+pursue the work of their forerunners, ever going towards more light and
+more equity. And just speak to them of the bankruptcy of science. They'll
+shrug their shoulders at the mere idea, for they know well enough that
+science has never before inflamed so many hearts or achieved greater
+conquests! It is only if the schools, laboratories and libraries were
+closed, and the social soil radically changed, that one would have cause
+to fear a fresh growth of error such as weak hearts and narrow minds hold
+so dear!"
+
+At this point Francois's fine flow of eloquence was interrupted. A tall
+young fellow stopped to shake hands with him; and Pierre was surprised to
+recognise Baron Duvillard's son Hyacinthe, who bowed to him in very
+correct style. "What! you here in our old quarter," exclaimed Francois.
+
+"My dear fellow, I'm going to Jonas's, over yonder, behind the
+Observatory. Don't you know Jonas? Ah! my dear fellow, he's a delightful
+sculptor, who has succeeded in doing away with matter almost entirely. He
+has carved a figure of Woman, no bigger than the finger, and entirely
+soul, free from all baseness of form, and yet complete. All Woman,
+indeed, in her essential symbolism! Ah! it's grand, it's overpowering. A
+perfect scheme of aesthetics, a real religion!"
+
+Francois smiled as he looked at Hyacinthe, buttoned up in his long
+pleated frock-coat, with his made-up face, and carefully cropped hair and
+beard. "And yourself?" said he, "I thought you were working, and were
+going to publish a little poem, shortly?"
+
+"Oh! the task of creating is so distasteful to me, my dear fellow! A
+single line often takes me weeks.... Still, yes, I have a little poem
+on hand, 'The End of Woman.' And you see, I'm not so exclusive as some
+people pretend, since I admire Jonas, who still believes in Woman. His
+excuse is sculpture, which, after all, is at best such a gross
+materialistic art. But in poetry, good heavens, how we've been
+overwhelmed with Woman, always Woman! It's surely time to drive her out
+of the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and lofty
+enough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexual
+questions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? The
+world would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"
+
+Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with
+the effect which he had produced on the others.
+
+"So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois.
+
+"He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes
+together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was always
+making a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending to
+disdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd use
+his cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! He
+was Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, rolled into one!
+And you can see what he has become with it all: a humbug with a diseased
+mind!"
+
+"It's a terrible symptom," muttered Pierre, "when through _ennui_ or
+lassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happy
+and privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers."
+
+Francois had resumed his walk, going down towards the ornamental water,
+where some children were sailing their boats. "That fellow is simply
+grotesque," he replied; "but how would you have sane people give any heed
+to that mysticism, that awakening of spirituality which is alleged by the
+same _doctrinaires_ who started the bankruptcy of science cry, when after
+so brief an evolution it produces such insanity, both in art and
+literature? A few years of influence have sufficed; and now Satanism,
+Occultism and other absurdities are flourishing; not to mention that,
+according to some accounts, the Cities of the Plains are reconciled with
+new Rome. Isn't the tree judged by its fruits? And isn't it evident that,
+instead of a renascence, a far-spreading social movement bringing back
+the past, we are simply witnessing a transitory reaction, which many
+things explain? The old world would rather not die, and is struggling in
+a final convulsion, reviving for a last hour before it is swept away by
+the overflowing river of human knowledge, whose waters ever increase. And
+yonder, in the future, is the new world, which the real young ones will
+bring into existence, those who work, those who are not known, who are
+not heard. And yet, just listen! Perhaps you will hear them, for we are
+among them, in their 'quarter.' This deep silence is that of the labour
+of all the young fellows who are leaning over their work-tables, and day
+by day carrying forward the conquest of truth."
+
+So saying Francois waved his hand towards all the day-schools and
+colleges and high schools beyond the Luxembourg garden, towards the
+Faculties of Law and Medicine, the Institute and its five Academies, the
+innumerable libraries and museums which made up the broad domain of
+intellectual labour. And Pierre, moved by it all, shaken in his theories
+of negation, thought that he could indeed hear a low but far-spreading
+murmur of the work of thousands of active minds, rising from
+laboratories, studies and class, reading and lecture rooms. It was not
+like the jerky, breathless trepidation, the loud clamour of factories
+where manual labour toils and chafes. But here, too, there were sighs of
+weariness, efforts as killing, exertion as fruitful in its results. Was
+it indeed true that the cultured young were still and ever in their
+silent forge, renouncing no hope, relinquishing no conquest, but in full
+freedom of mind forging the truth and justice of to-morrow with the
+invincible hammers of observation and experiment?
+
+Francois, however, had raised his eyes to the palace clock to ascertain
+the time. "I'm going to Montmartre," he said; "will you come part of the
+way with me?"
+
+Pierre assented, particularly as the young man added that on his way he
+meant to call for his brother Antoine at the Museum of the Louvre. That
+bright afternoon the Louvre picture galleries were steeped in warm and
+dignified quietude, which one particularly noticed on coming from the
+tumult and scramble of the streets. The majority of the few people one
+found there were copyists working in deep silence, which only the
+wandering footsteps of an occasional tourist disturbed. Pierre and
+Francois found Antoine at the end of the gallery assigned to the
+Primitive masters. With scrupulous, almost devout care he was making a
+drawing of a figure by Mantegna. The Primitives did not impassion him by
+reason of any particular mysticism and ideality, such as fashion pretends
+to find in them, but on the contrary, and justifiably enough, by reason
+of the sincerity of their ingenuous realism, their respect and modesty in
+presence of nature, and the minute fidelity with which they sought to
+transcribe it. He spent days of hard work in copying and studying them,
+in order to learn strictness and probity of drawing from them--all that
+lofty distinction of style which they owe to their candour as honest
+artists.
+
+Pierre was struck by the pure glow which a sitting of good hard work had
+set in Antoine's light blue eyes. It imparted warmth and even
+feverishness to his fair face, which was usually all dreaminess and
+gentleness. His lofty forehead now truly looked like a citadel armed for
+the conquest of truth and beauty. He was only eighteen, and his story was
+simply this: as he had grown disgusted with classical studies and been
+mastered by a passion for drawing, his father had let him leave the Lycee
+Condorcet when he was in the third class there. Some little time had then
+elapsed while he felt his way and the deep originality within him was
+being evolved. He had tried etching on copper, but had soon come to wood
+engraving, and had attached himself to it in spite of the discredit into
+which it had fallen, lowered as it had been to the level of a mere trade.
+Was there not here an entire art to restore and enlarge? For his own part
+he dreamt of engraving his own drawings, of being at once the brain which
+conceives and the hand which executes, in such wise as to obtain new
+effects of great intensity both as regards perception and touch. To
+comply with the wishes of his father, who desired each of his sons to
+have a trade, he earned his bread like other engravers by working for the
+illustrated newspapers. But, in addition to this current work, he had
+already engraved several blocks instinct with wonderful power and life.
+They were simply copies of real things, scenes of everyday existence, but
+they were accentuated, elevated so to say, by the essential line, with a
+maestria which on the part of so young a lad fairly astonished one.
+
+"Do you want to engrave that?" Francois asked him, as he placed his copy
+of Mantegna's figure in his portfolio.
+
+"Oh! no, that's merely a dip into innocence, a good lesson to teach one
+to be modest and sincere. Life is very different nowadays."
+
+Then, while walking along the streets--for Pierre, who felt growing
+sympathy for the two young fellows, went with them in the direction of
+Montmartre, forgetful of all else,--Antoine, who was beside him, spoke
+expansively of his artistic dreams.
+
+"Colour is certainly a power, a sovereign source of charm, and one may,
+indeed, say that without colour nothing can be completely represented.
+Yet, singularly enough, it isn't indispensable to me. It seems to me that
+I can picture life as intensely and definitely with mere black and white,
+and I even fancy that I shall be able to do so in a more essential
+manner, without any of the dupery which lies in colour. But what a task
+it is! I should like to depict the Paris of to-day in a few scenes, a few
+typical figures, which would serve as testimony for all time. And I
+should like to do it with great fidelity and candour, for an artist only
+lives by reason of his candour, his humility and steadfast belief in
+Nature, which is ever beautiful. I've already done a few figures, I will
+show them to you. But ah! if I only dared to tackle my blocks with the
+graver, at the outset, without drawing my subject beforehand. For that
+generally takes away one's fire. However, what I do with the pencil is a
+mere sketch; for with the graver I may come upon a find, some unexpected
+strength or delicacy of effect. And so I'm draughtsman and engraver all
+in one, in such a way that my blocks can only be turned out by myself. If
+the drawings on them were engraved by another, they would be quite
+lifeless.... Yes, life can spring from the fingers just as well as
+from the brain, when one really possesses creative power."
+
+They walked on, and when they found themselves just below Montmartre, and
+Pierre spoke of taking a tramcar to return to Neuilly, Antoine, quite
+feverish with artistic passion, asked him if he knew Jahan, the sculptor,
+who was working for the Sacred Heart. And on receiving a negative reply,
+he added: "Well, come and see him for a moment. He has a great future
+before him. You'll see an angel of his which has been declined."
+
+Then, as Francois began to praise the angel in question, Pierre agreed to
+accompany them. On the summit of the height, among all the sheds which
+the building of the basilica necessitated, Jahan had been able to set up
+a glazed workshop large enough for the huge angel ordered of him. His
+three visitors found him there in a blouse, watching a couple of
+assistants, who were rough-hewing the block of stone whence the angel was
+to emerge. Jahan was a sturdy man of thirty-six, with dark hair and
+beard, a large, ruddy mouth and fine bright eyes. Born in Paris, he had
+studied at the Fine Art School, but his impetuous temperament had
+constantly landed him in trouble there.
+
+"Ah! yes," said he, "you've come to see my angel, the one which the
+Archbishop wouldn't take. Well, there it is."
+
+The clay model of the figure, some three feet high, and already drying,
+looked superb in its soaring posture, with its large, outspread wings
+expanding as if with passionate desire for the infinite. The body, barely
+draped, was that of a slim yet robust youth, whose face beamed with the
+rapture of his heavenly flight.
+
+"They found him too human," said Jahan. "And after all they were right.
+There's nothing so difficult to conceive as an angel. One even hesitates
+as to the sex; and when faith is lacking one has to take the first model
+one finds and copy it and spoil it. For my part, while I was modelling
+that one, I tried to imagine a beautiful youth suddenly endowed with
+wings, and carried by the intoxication of his flight into all the joy of
+the sunshine. But it upset them, they wanted something more religious,
+they said; and so then I concocted that wretched thing over there. After
+all, one has to earn one's living, you know."
+
+So saying, he waved his hand towards another model, the one for which his
+assistants were preparing the stone. And this model represented an angel
+of the correct type, with symmetrical wings like those of a goose, a
+figure of neither sex, and commonplace features, expressing the silly
+ecstasy that tradition requires.
+
+"What would you have?" continued Jahan. "Religious art has sunk to the
+most disgusting triteness. People no longer believe; churches are built
+like barracks, and decorated with saints and virgins fit to make one
+weep. The fact is that genius is only the fruit of the social soil; and a
+great artist can only send up a blaze of the faith of the time he lives
+in. For my part, I'm the grandson of a Beauceron peasant. My father came
+to Paris to set himself up in business as a marble worker for tombstones
+and so forth, just at the top of the Rue de la Roquette. It was there I
+grew up. I began as a workman, and all my childhood was spent among the
+masses, in the streets, without ever a thought coming to me of setting
+foot in a church. So few Parisians think of doing so nowadays. And so
+what's to become of art since there's no belief in the Divinity or even
+in beauty? We're forced to go forward to the new faith, which is the
+faith in life and work and fruitfulness, in all that labours and
+produces."
+
+Then suddenly breaking off he exclaimed: "By the way, I've been doing
+some more work to my figure of Fecundity, and I'm fairly well pleased
+with it. Just come with me and I'll show it you."
+
+Thereupon he insisted on taking them to his private studio, which was
+near by, just below Guillaume's little house. It was entered by way of
+the Rue du Calvaire, a street which is simply a succession of ladder-like
+flights of steps. The door opened on to one of the little landings, and
+one found oneself in a spacious, well-lighted apartment littered with
+models and casts, fragments and figures, quite an overflow of sturdy,
+powerful talent. On a stool was the unfinished model of Fecundity swathed
+in wet cloths. These Jahan removed, and then she stood forth with her
+rounded figure, her broad hips and her wifely, maternal bosom, full of
+the milk which nourishes and redeems.
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?" asked Jahan. "Built as she is, I fancy
+that her children ought to be less puny than the pale, languid, aesthetic
+fellows of nowadays!"
+
+While Antoine and Francois were admiring the figure, Pierre, for his
+part, took most interest in a young girl who had opened the door to them,
+and who had now wearily reseated herself at a little table to continue a
+book she was reading. This was Jahan's sister, Lise. A score of years
+younger than himself, she was but sixteen, and had been living alone with
+him since their father's death. Very slight and delicate looking, she had
+a most gentle face, with fine light hair which suggested pale gold-dust.
+She was almost a cripple, with legs so weak that she only walked with
+difficulty, and her mind also was belated, still full of childish
+_naivete_. At first this had much saddened her brother, but with time he
+had grown accustomed to her innocence and languor. Busy as he always was,
+ever in a transport, overflowing with new plans, he somewhat neglected
+her by force of circumstances, letting her live beside him much as she
+listed.
+
+Pierre had noticed, however, the sisterly impulsiveness with which she
+had greeted Antoine. And the latter, after congratulating Jahan on his
+statue, came and sat down beside her, questioned her and wished to see
+the book which she was reading. During the last six months the most pure
+and affectionate intercourse had sprung up between them. He, from his
+father's garden, up yonder on the Place du Tertre, could see her through
+the huge window of that studio where she led so innocent a life. And
+noticing that she was always alone, as if forsaken, he had begun to take
+an interest in her. Then had come acquaintance; and, delighted to find
+her so simple and so charming, he had conceived the design of rousing her
+to intelligence and life, by loving her, by becoming at once the mind and
+the heart whose power fructifies. Weak plant that she was, in need of
+delicate care, sunshine and affection, he became for her all that her
+brother had, through circumstances, failed to be. He had already taught
+her to read, a task in which every mistress had previously failed. But
+him she listened to and understood. And by slow degrees a glow of
+happiness came to the beautiful clear eyes set in her irregular face. It
+was love's miracle, the creation of woman beneath the breath of a young
+lover who gave himself entirely. No doubt she still remained very
+delicate, with such poor health that one ever feared that she might
+expire in a faint sigh; and her legs, moreover, were still too weak to
+admit of her walking any distance. But all the same, she was no longer
+the little wilding, the little ailing flower of the previous spring.
+
+Jahan, who marvelled at the incipient miracle, drew near to the young
+people. "Ah!" said he, "your pupil does you honour. She reads quite
+fluently, you know, and understands the fine books you send her. You read
+to me of an evening now, don't you, Lise?"
+
+She raised her candid eyes, and gazed at Antoine with a smile of infinite
+gratitude. "Oh! whatever he'll teach me," she said, "I'll learn it, and
+do it."
+
+The others laughed gently. Then, as the visitors were going off, Francois
+paused before a model which had cracked while drying. "Oh! that's a
+spoilt thing," said the sculptor. "I wanted to model a figure of Charity.
+It was ordered of me by a philanthropic institution. But try as I might,
+I could only devise something so commonplace that I let the clay spoil.
+Still, I must think it over and endeavour to take the matter in hand
+again."
+
+When they were outside, it occurred to Pierre to go as far as the
+basilica of the Sacred Heart in the hope of finding Abbe Rose there. So
+the three of them went round by way of the Rue Gabrielle and climbed the
+steps of the Rue Chape. And just as they were reaching the summit where
+the basilica reared its forest of scaffoldings beneath the clear sky,
+they encountered Thomas, who, on leaving the factory, had gone to give an
+order to a founder in the Rue Lamarck.
+
+He, who as a rule was so silent and discreet, now happened to be in an
+expansive mood, which made him look quite radiant. "Ah! I'm so pleased,"
+he said, addressing Pierre; "I fancy that I've found what I want for our
+little motor. Tell father that things are going on all right, and that he
+must make haste to get well."
+
+At these words his brothers, Francois and Antoine, drew close to him with
+a common impulse. And they stood there all three, a valiant little group,
+their hearts uniting and beating with one and the same delight at the
+idea that their father would be gladdened, that the good news they were
+sending him would help him towards recovery. As for Pierre, who, now that
+he knew them, was beginning to love them and judge them at their worth,
+he marvelled at the sight of these three young giants, each so strikingly
+like the other, and drawn together so closely and so promptly, directly
+their filial affection took fire.
+
+"Tell him that we are waiting for him, and will come to him at the first
+sign if we are wanted."
+
+Then each in turn shook the priest's hand vigorously. And while he
+remained watching them as they went off towards the little house, whose
+garden he perceived over the wall of the Rue Saint Eleuthere, he fancied
+he could there detect a delicate silhouette, a white, sunlit face under a
+help of dark hair. It was doubtless the face of Marie, examining the buds
+on her lilac bushes. At that evening hour, however, the diffuse light was
+so golden that the vision seemed to fade in it as in a halo. And Pierre,
+feeling dazzled, turned his head, and on the other side saw naught but
+the overwhelming, chalky mass of the basilica, whose hugeness shut out
+all view of the horizon.
+
+For a moment he remained motionless on that spot, so agitated by
+conflicting thoughts and feelings that he could read neither heart nor
+mind clearly. Then, as he turned towards the city, all Paris spread
+itself out at his feet, a limpid, lightsome Paris, beneath the pink glow
+of that spring-like evening. The endless billows of house-roofs showed
+forth with wonderful distinctness, and one could have counted the chimney
+stacks and the little black streaks of the windows by the million. The
+edifices rising into the calm atmosphere seemed like the anchored vessels
+of some fleet arrested in its course, with lofty masting which glittered
+at the sun's farewell. And never before had Pierre so distinctly observed
+the divisions of that human ocean. Eastward and northward was the city of
+manual toil, with the rumbling and the smoke of its factories. Southward,
+beyond the river, was the city of study, of intellectual labour, so calm,
+so perfectly serene. And on all sides the passion of trade ascended from
+the central districts, where the crowds rolled and scrambled amidst an
+everlasting uproar of wheels; while westward, the city of the happy and
+powerful ones, those who fought for sovereignty and wealth, spread out
+its piles of palaces amidst the slowly reddening flare of the declining
+planet.
+
+And then, from the depths of his negation, the chaos into which his loss
+of faith had plunged him, Pierre felt a delicious freshness pass like the
+vague advent of a new faith. So vague it was that he could not have
+expressed even his hope of it in words. But already among the rough
+factory workers, manual toil had appeared to him necessary and
+redemptive, in spite of all the misery and abominable injustice to which
+it led. And now the young men of intellect of whom he had despaired, that
+generation of the morrow which he had thought spoilt, relapsing into
+ancient error and rottenness, had appeared to him full of virile promise,
+resolved to prosecute the work of those who had gone before, and effect,
+by the aid of Science only, the conquest of absolute truth and absolute
+justice.
+
+
+
+
+V. PROBLEMS
+
+A FULL month had already gone by since Guillaume had taken refuge at his
+brother's little house at Neuilly. His wrist was now nearly healed. He
+had long ceased to keep his bed, and often strolled through the garden.
+In spite of his impatience to go back to Montmartre, join his loved ones
+and resume his work there, he was each morning prompted to defer his
+return by the news he found in the newspapers. The situation was ever the
+same. Salvat, whom the police now suspected, had been perceived one
+evening near the central markets, and then again lost sight of. Every
+day, however, his arrest was said to be imminent. And in that case what
+would happen? Would he speak out, and would fresh perquisitions be made?
+
+For a whole week the press had been busy with the bradawl found under the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion. Nearly every reporter in Paris had
+called at the Grandidier factory and interviewed both workmen and master.
+Some had even started on personal investigations, in the hope of
+capturing the culprit themselves. There was no end of jesting about the
+incompetence of the police, and the hunt for Salvat was followed all the
+more passionately by the general public, as the papers overflowed with
+the most ridiculous concoctions, predicting further explosions, and
+declaring even that all Paris would some morning be blown into the air.
+The "Voix du Peuple" set a fresh shudder circulating every day by its
+announcements of threatening letters, incendiary placards and mysterious,
+far-reaching plots. And never before had so base and foolish a spirit of
+contagion wafted insanity through a civilised city.
+
+Guillaume, for his part, no sooner awoke of a morning than he was all
+impatience to see the newspapers, quivering at the idea that he would at
+last read of Salvat's arrest. In his state of nervous expectancy, the
+wild campaign which the press had started, the idiotic and the ferocious
+things which he found in one or another journal, almost drove him crazy.
+A number of "suspects" had already been arrested in a kind of chance
+razzia, which had swept up the usual Anarchist herd, together with sundry
+honest workmen and bandits, _illumines_ and lazy devils, in fact, a most
+singular, motley crew, which investigating magistrate Amadieu was
+endeavouring to turn into a gigantic association of evil-doers. One
+morning, moreover, Guillaume found his own name mentioned in connection
+with a perquisition at the residence of a revolutionary journalist, who
+was a friend of his. At this his heart bounded with revolt, but he was
+forced to the conclusion that it would be prudent for him to remain
+patient a little longer, in his peaceful retreat at Neuilly, since the
+police might at any moment break into his home at Montmartre, to arrest
+him should it find him there.
+
+Amidst all this anxiety the brothers led a most solitary and gentle life.
+Pierre himself now spent most of his time at home. The first days of
+March had come, and precocious springtide imparted delightful charm and
+warmth to the little garden. Guillaume, however, since quitting his bed,
+had more particularly installed himself in his father's old laboratory,
+now transformed into a spacious study. All the books and papers left by
+the illustrious chemist were still there, and among the latter Guillaume
+found a number of unfinished essays, the perusal of which greatly excited
+his interest, and often absorbed him from morning till night. It was this
+which largely enabled him to bear his voluntary seclusion patiently.
+Seated on the other side of the big table, Pierre also mostly occupied
+himself with reading; but at times his eyes would quit his book and
+wander away into gloomy reverie, into all the chaos into which he still
+and ever sank. For long hours the brothers would in this wise remain side
+by side, without speaking a word. Yet they knew they were together; and
+occasionally, when their eyes met, they would exchange a smile. The
+strong affection of former days was again springing up within them; their
+childhood, their home, their parents, all seemed to live once more in the
+quiet atmosphere they breathed. However, the bay window overlooked the
+garden in the direction of Paris, and often, when they emerged from their
+reading or their reverie, it was with a sudden feeling of anxiety, and in
+order to lend ear to the distant rumbling, the increased clamour of the
+great city.
+
+On other occasions they paused as if in astonishment at hearing a
+continuous footfall overhead. It was that of Nicholas Barthes, who still
+lingered in the room above. He seldom came downstairs, and scarcely ever
+ventured into the garden, for fear, said he, that he might be perceived
+and recognised from a distant house whose windows were concealed by a
+clump of trees. One might laugh at the old conspirator's haunting thought
+of the police. Nevertheless, the caged-lion restlessness, the ceaseless
+promenade of that perpetual prisoner who had spent two thirds of his life
+in the dungeons of France in his desire to secure the liberty of others,
+imparted to the silence of the little house a touching melancholy, the
+very rhythm as it were of all the great good things which one hoped for,
+but which would never perhaps come.
+
+Very few visits drew the brothers from their solitude. Bertheroy came
+less frequently now that Guillaume's wrist was healing. The most
+assiduous caller was certainly Theophile Morin, whose discreet ring was
+heard every other day at the same hour. Though he did not share the ideas
+of Barthes he worshipped him as a martyr; and would always go upstairs to
+spend an hour with him. However, they must have exchanged few words, for
+not a sound came from the room. Whenever Morin sat down for a moment in
+the laboratory with the brothers, Pierre was struck by his seeming
+weariness, his ashen grey hair and beard and dismal countenance, all the
+life of which appeared to have been effaced by long years spent in the
+teaching profession. Indeed, it was only when the priest mentioned Italy
+that he saw his companion's resigned eyes blaze up like live coals. One
+day when he spoke of the great patriot Orlando Prada, Morin's companion
+of victory in Garibaldi's days, he was amazed by the sudden flare of
+enthusiasm which lighted up the other's lifeless features. However, these
+were but transient flashes: the old professor soon reappeared, and all
+that one found in Morin was the friend of Proudhon and the subsequent
+disciple of Auguste Comte. Of his Proudhonian principles he had retained
+all a pauper's hatred of wealth, and a desire for a more equitable
+partition of fortune. But the new times dismayed him, and neither
+principle nor temperament allowed him to follow Revolutionism to its
+utmost limits. Comte had imparted unshakable convictions to him in the
+sphere of intellectual questions, and he contented himself with the clear
+and decisive logic of Positivism, rejecting all metaphysical hypotheses
+as useless, persuaded as he was that the whole human question, whether
+social or religious, would be solved by science alone. This faith, firm
+as it had remained, was, however, coupled with secret bitterness, for
+nothing seemed to advance in a sensible manner towards its goal. Comte
+himself had ended in the most cloudy mysticism; great _savants_ recoiled
+from truth in terror; and now barbarians were threatening the world with
+fresh night; all of which made Morin almost a reactionist in politics,
+already resigned to the advent of a dictator, who would set things
+somewhat in order, so that humanity might be able to complete its
+education.
+
+Other visitors who occasionally called to see Guillaume were Bache and
+Janzen, who invariably came together and at night-time. Every now and
+then they would linger chatting with Guillaume in the spacious study
+until two o'clock in the morning. Bache, who was fat and had a fatherly
+air, with his little eyes gently beaming amidst all the snowy whiteness
+of his hair and beard, would talk on slowly, unctuously and interminably,
+as soon as he had begun to explain his views. He would address merely a
+polite bow to Saint-Simon, the initiator, the first to lay down the law
+that work was a necessity for one and all according to their capacities;
+but on coming to Fourier his voice softened and he confessed his whole
+religion. To his thinking, Fourier had been the real messiah of modern
+times, the saviour of genius, who had sown the good seed of the future
+world, by regulating society such as it would certainly be organised
+to-morrow. The law of harmony had been promulgated; human passions,
+liberated and utilised in healthy fashion, would become the requisite
+machinery; and work, rendered pleasant and attractive, would prove the
+very function of life. Nothing could discourage Bache; if merely one
+parish began by transforming itself into a _phalansterium_, the whole
+department would soon follow, then the adjacent departments, and finally
+all France. Moreover, Bache even favoured the schemes of Cabet, whose
+Icaria, said he, had in no wise been such a foolish idea. Further, he
+recalled a motion he had made, when member of the Commune in 1871, to
+apply Fourier's ideas to the French Republic; and he was apparently
+convinced that the troops of Versailles had delayed the triumph of
+Communism for half a century. Whenever people nowadays talked of
+table-turning he pretended to laugh, but at bottom he had remained an
+impenitent "spiritist." Since he had been a municipal councillor he had
+been travelling from one socialist sect to another, according as their
+ideas offered points of resemblance to his old faith. And he was fairly
+consumed by his need of faith, his perplexity as to the Divine, which he
+was now occasionally inclined to find in the legs of some piece of
+furniture, after denying its presence in the churches.
+
+Janzen, for his part, was as taciturn as his friend Bache was garrulous.
+Such remarks as he made were brief, but they were as galling as lashes,
+as cutting as sabre-strokes. At the same time his ideas and theories
+remained somewhat obscure, partly by reason of this brevity of his, and
+partly on account of the difficulty he experienced in expressing himself
+in French. He was from over yonder, from some far-away land--Russia,
+Poland, Austria or Germany, nobody exactly knew; and it mattered little,
+for he certainly acknowledged no country, but wandered far and wide with
+his dream of blood-shedding fraternity. Whenever, with his wonted
+frigidity, he gave utterance to one of those terrible remarks of his
+which, like a scythe in a meadow, cut away all before him, little less
+than the necessity of thus mowing down nations, in order to sow the earth
+afresh with a young and better community, became apparent. At each
+proposition unfolded by Bache, such as labour rendered agreeable by
+police regulations, _phalansteria_ organised like barracks, religion
+transformed into pantheist or spiritist deism, he gently shrugged his
+shoulders. What could be the use of such childishness, such hypocritical
+repairing, when the house was falling and the only honest course was to
+throw it to the ground, and build up the substantial edifice of to-morrow
+with entirely new materials? On the subject of propaganda by deeds,
+bomb-throwing and so forth, he remained silent, though his gestures were
+expressive of infinite hope. He evidently approved that course. The
+legend which made him one of the perpetrators of the crime of Barcelona
+set a gleam of horrible glory in his mysterious past. One day when Bache,
+while speaking to him of his friend Bergaz, the shadowy Bourse jobber who
+had already been compromised in some piece of thieving, plainly declared
+that the aforesaid Bergaz was a bandit, Janzen contented himself with
+smiling, and replying quietly that theft was merely forced restitution.
+Briefly, in this man of culture and refinement, in whose own mysterious
+life one might perhaps have found various crimes but not a single act of
+base improbity, one could divine an implacable, obstinate theoretician,
+who was resolved to set the world ablaze for the triumph of his ideas.
+
+On certain evenings when a visit from Theophile Morin coincided with one
+from Bache and Janzen, and they and Guillaume lingered chatting until far
+into the night, Pierre would listen to them in despair from the shadowy
+corner where he remained motionless, never once joining in the
+discussions. Distracted, by his own unbelief and thirst for truth, he had
+at the outset taken a passionate interest in these debates, desirous as
+he was of drawing up a balance-sheet of the century's ideas, so as to
+form some notion of the distance that had been travelled, and the profits
+that had accrued. But he recoiled from all this in fresh despair, on
+hearing the others argue, each from his own standpoint and without
+possibility of concession and agreement. After the repulses he had
+encountered at Lourdes and Rome, he well realised that in this fresh
+experiment which he was making with Paris, the whole brain of the century
+was in question, the new truths, the expected gospel which was to change
+the face of the world. And, burning with inconsiderate zeal, he went from
+one belief to another, which other he soon rejected in order to adopt a
+third. If he had first felt himself to be a Positivist with Morin, an
+Evolutionist and Determinist with Guillaume, he had afterwards been
+touched by the fraternal dream of a new golden age which he had found in
+Bache's humanitarian Communism. And indeed even Janzen had momentarily
+shaken him by his fierce confidence in the theory of liberative
+Individualism. But afterwards he had found himself out of his depth; and
+each and every theory had seemed to him but part of the chaotic
+contradictions and incoherences of humanity on its march. It was all a
+continuous piling up of dross, amidst which he lost himself. Although
+Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon he denied him in part; and if
+Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of mystical sensuality, the
+other's conducted to an unacceptable regimenting of society. Proudhon,
+for his part, demolished without rebuilding anything. Comte, who created
+method and declared science to be the one and only sovereign, had not
+even suspected the advent of the social crisis which now threatened to
+sweep all away, and had finished personally as a mere worshipper of love,
+overpowered by woman. Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon,
+entered the lists and fought against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon;
+the combat between them or their disciples becoming so bitter and so
+blind that the truths common to them all were obscured and disfigured
+beyond recognition. Thence came the extraordinary muddle of the present
+hour; Bache with Saint-Simon and Fourier, and Morin with Proudhon and
+Comte, utterly failing to understand Mege, the Collectivist deputy, whom
+they held up to execration, him and his State Collectivism, in the same
+way, moreover, as they thundered against all the other present-time
+Socialist sects, without realising that these also, whatever their
+nature, had more or less sprung from the same masters as themselves. And
+all this seemingly indicated that Janzen was right when he declared that
+the house was past repair, fast crumbling amidst rottenness and insanity,
+and that it ought to be levelled to the ground.
+
+One night, after the three visitors had gone, Pierre, who had remained
+with Guillaume, saw him grow very gloomy as he slowly walked to and fro.
+He, in his turn, had doubtless felt that all was crumbling. And though
+his brother alone was there to hear him, he went on speaking. He
+expressed all his horror of the Collectivist State as imagined by Mege, a
+Dictator-State re-establishing ancient servitude on yet closer lines. The
+error of all the Socialist sects was their arbitrary organisation of
+Labour, which enslaved the individual for the profit of the community.
+And, forced to conciliate the two great currents, the rights of society
+and the rights of the individual, Guillaume had ended by placing his
+whole faith in free Communism, an anarchical state in which he dreamt of
+seeing the individual freed, moving and developing without restraint, for
+the benefit both of himself and of all others. Was not this, said he, the
+one truly scientific theory, unities creating worlds, atoms producing
+life by force of attraction, free and ardent love? All oppressive
+minorities would disappear; and the faculties and energies of one and all
+would by free play arrive at harmony amidst the equilibrium--which
+changed according to needs--of the active forces of advancing humanity.
+In this wise he pictured a nation, saved from State tutelage, without a
+master, almost without laws, a happy nation, each citizen of which,
+completely developed by the exercise of liberty, would, of his free will,
+come to an understanding with his neighbours with regard to the thousand
+necessities of life. And thence would spring society, free association,
+hundreds of associations which would regulate social life; though at the
+same time they would remain variable, in fact often opposed and hostile
+to one another. For progress is but the fruit of conflict and struggle;
+the world has only been created by the battle of opposing forces. And
+that was all; there would be no more oppressors, no more rich, no more
+poor; the domain of the earth with its natural treasures and its
+implements of labour would be restored to the people, its legitimate
+owners, who would know how to enjoy it with justice and logic, when
+nothing abnormal would impede their expansion. And then only would the
+law of love make its action felt; then would human solidarity, which,
+among mankind, is the living form of universal attraction, acquire all
+its power, bringing men closer and closer together, and uniting them in
+one sole family. A splendid dream it was--the noble and pure dream of
+absolute freedom--free man in free society. And thither a _savant's_
+superior mind was fated to come after passing on the road the many
+Socialist sects which one and all bore the stigma of tyranny. And,
+assuredly, as thus indulged, the Anarchist idea is the loftiest, the
+proudest, of all ideas. And how delightful to yield to the hope of
+harmony in life--life which restored to the full exercise of its natural
+powers would of itself create happiness!
+
+When Guillaume ceased speaking, he seemed to be emerging from a dream;
+and he glanced at Pierre with some dismay, for he feared that he might
+have said too much and have hurt his feelings. Pierre--moved though he
+was, for a moment in fact almost won over--had just seen the terrible
+practical objection, which destroyed all hope, arise before his mind's
+eye. Why had not harmony asserted itself in the first days of the world's
+existence, at the time when societies were formed? How was it that
+tyranny had triumphed, delivering nations over to oppressors? And
+supposing that the apparently insolvable problem of destroying
+everything, and beginning everything afresh, should ever be solved, who
+could promise that mankind, obedient to the same laws, would not again
+follow the same paths as formerly? After all, mankind, nowadays, is
+simply what life has made it; and nothing proves that life would again
+make it other than it is. To begin afresh, ah, yes! but to attain another
+result! But could that other result really come from man? Was it not
+rather man himself who should be changed? To start afresh from where one
+was, to continue the evolution that had begun, undoubtedly meant slow
+travel and dismal waiting. But how great would be the danger and even the
+delay, if one went back without knowing by what road across the whole
+chaos of ruins one might regain all the lost time!
+
+"Let us go to bed," at last said Guillaume, smiling. "It's silly of me to
+weary you with all these things which don't concern you."
+
+Pierre, in his excitement, was about to reveal his own heart and mind,
+and the whole torturing battle within him. But a feeling of shame again
+restrained him. His brother only knew him as a believing priest, faithful
+to his faith. And so, without answering, he betook himself to his room.
+
+On the following evening, about ten o'clock, while Guillaume and Pierre
+sat reading in the study, the old servant entered to announce M. Janzen
+and a friend. The friend was Salvat.
+
+"He wished to see you," Janzen explained to Guillaume. "I met him, and
+when he heard of your injury and anxiety he implored me to bring him
+here. And I've done so, though it was perhaps hardly prudent of me."
+
+Guillaume had risen, full of surprise and emotion at such a visit;
+Pierre, however, though equally upset by Salvat's appearance; did not
+stir from his chair, but kept his eyes upon the workman.
+
+"Monsieur Froment," Salvat ended by saying, standing there in a timid,
+embarrassed way, "I was very sorry indeed when I heard of the worry I'd
+put you in; for I shall never forget that you were very kind to me when
+everybody else turned me away."
+
+As he spoke he balanced himself alternately on either leg, and
+transferred his old felt hat from hand to hand.
+
+"And so I wanted to come and tell you myself that if I took a cartridge
+of your powder one evening when you had your back turned, it's the only
+thing that I feel any remorse about in the whole business, since it may
+compromise you. And I also want to take my oath before you that you've
+nothing to fear from me, that I'll let my head be cut off twenty times if
+need be, rather than utter your name. That's all that I had in my heart."
+
+He relapsed into silence and embarrassment, but his soft, dreamy eyes,
+the eyes of a faithful dog, remained fixed upon Guillaume with an
+expression of respectful worship. And Pierre was still gazing at him
+athwart the hateful vision which his arrival had conjured up, that of the
+poor, dead, errand girl, the fair pretty child lying ripped open under
+the entrance of the Duvillard mansion! Was it possible that he was there,
+he, that madman, that murderer, and that his eyes were actually moist!
+
+Guillaume, touched by Salvat's words, had drawn near and pressed his
+hand. "I am well aware, Salvat," said he, "that you are not wicked at
+heart. But what a foolish and abominable thing you did!"
+
+Salvat showed no sign of anger, but gently smiled. "Oh! if it had to be
+done again, Monsieur Froment, I'd do it. It's my idea, you know. And,
+apart from you, all is well; I am content."
+
+He would not sit down, but for another moment continued talking with
+Guillaume, while Janzen, as if he washed his hands of the business,
+deeming this visit both useless and dangerous, sat down and turned over
+the leaves of a picture book. And Guillaume made Salvat tell him what he
+had done on the day of the crime; how like a stray dog he had wandered in
+distraction through Paris, carrying his bomb with him, originally in his
+tool-bag and then under his jacket; how he had gone a first time to the
+Duvillard mansion and found its carriage entrance closed; then how he had
+betaken himself first to the Chamber of Deputies which the ushers had
+prevented him from entering, and afterwards to the Circus, where the
+thought of making a great sacrifice of _bourgeois_ had occurred to him
+too late. And finally, how he had at last come back to the Duvillard
+mansion, as if drawn thither by the very power of destiny. His tool-bag
+was lying in the depths of the Seine, he said; he had thrown it into the
+water with sudden hatred of work, since it had even failed to give him
+bread. And he next told the story of his flight; the explosion shaking
+the whole district behind him, while, with delight and astonishment, he
+found himself some distance off, in quiet streets where nothing was as
+yet known. And for a month past he had been living in chance fashion, how
+or where he could hardly tell, but he had often slept in the open, and
+gone for a day without food. One evening little Victor Mathis had given
+him five francs. And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for a
+night and sent him off at the first sign of peril. A far-spreading, tacit
+complicity had hitherto saved him from the police. As for going abroad,
+well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description of
+his person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting for
+him at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding,
+rather hasten his arrest? Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there that
+he incurred the least risk of capture. Moreover, he no longer had
+sufficient energy to flee. A fatalist as he was after his own fashion, he
+could not find strength to quit the pavements of Paris, but there awaited
+arrest, like a social waif carried chancewise through the multitude as in
+a dream.
+
+"And your daughter, little Celine?" Guillaume inquired. "Have you
+ventured to go back to see her?"
+
+Salvat waved his hand in a vague way. "No, but what would you have? She's
+with Mamma Theodore. Women always find some help. And then I'm done for,
+I can do nothing for anybody. It's as if I were already dead." However,
+in spite of these words, tears were rising to his eyes. "Ah! the poor
+little thing!" he added, "I kissed her with all my heart before I went
+away. If she and the woman hadn't been starving so long the idea of that
+business would perhaps never have come to me."
+
+Then, in all simplicity, he declared that he was ready to die. If he had
+ended by depositing his bomb at the entrance of Duvillard's house, it was
+because he knew the banker well, and was aware that he was the wealthiest
+of those _bourgeois_ whose fathers at the time of the Revolution had
+duped the people, by taking all power and wealth for themselves,--the
+power and wealth which the sons were nowadays so obstinately bent in
+retaining that they would not even bestow the veriest crumbs on others.
+As for the Revolution, he understood it in his own fashion, like an
+illiterate fellow who had learnt the little he knew from newspapers and
+speeches at public meetings. And he struck his chest with his fist as he
+spoke of his honesty, and was particularly desirous that none should
+doubt his courage because he had fled.
+
+"I've never robbed anybody," said he, "and if I don't go and hand myself
+up to the police, it's because they may surely take the trouble to find
+and arrest me. I'm very well aware that my affair's clear enough as
+they've found that bradawl and know me. All the same, it would be silly
+of me to help them in their work. Still, they'd better make haste, for
+I've almost had enough of being tracked like a wild beast and no longer
+knowing how I live."
+
+Janzen, yielding to curiosity, had ceased turning over the leaves of the
+picture book and was looking at Salvat. There was a smile of disdain in
+the Anarchist leader's cold eyes; and in his usual broken French he
+remarked: "A man fights and defends himself, kills others and tries to
+avoid being killed himself. That's warfare."
+
+These words fell from his lips amidst deep silence. Salvat, however, did
+not seem to have heard them, but stammered forth his faith in a long
+sentence laden with fulsome expressions, such as the sacrifice of his
+life in order that want might cease, and the example of a great action,
+in the certainty that it would inspire other heroes to continue the
+struggle. And with this certainly sincere faith and illuminism of his
+there was blended a martyr's pride, delight at being one of the radiant,
+worshipped saints of the dawning Revolutionary Church.
+
+As he had come so he went off. When Janzen had led him away, it seemed as
+if the night which had brought him had carried him back into its
+impenetrable depths. And then only did Pierre rise from his chair. He was
+stifling, and threw the large window of the room wide open. It was a very
+mild but moonless night, whose silence was only disturbed by the
+subsiding clamour of Paris, which stretched away, invisible, on the
+horizon.
+
+Guillaume, according to his habit, had begun to walk up and down. And at
+last he spoke, again forgetting that his brother was a priest. "Ah! the
+poor fellow! How well one can understand that deed of violence and hope!
+His whole past life of fruitless labour and ever-growing want explains
+it. Then, too, there has been all the contagion of ideas; the
+frequentation of public meetings where men intoxicate themselves with
+words, and of secret meetings among comrades where faith acquires
+firmness and the mind soars wildly. Ah! I think I know that man well
+indeed! He's a good workman, sober and courageous. Injustice has always
+exasperated him. And little by little the desire for universal happiness
+has cast him out of the realities of life which he has ended by holding
+in horror. So how can he do otherwise than live in a dream--a dream of
+redemption, which, from circumstances, has turned to fire and murder as
+its fitting instruments. As I looked at him standing there, I fancied I
+could picture one of the first Christian slaves of ancient Rome. All the
+iniquity of olden pagan society, agonising beneath the rottenness born of
+debauchery and covetousness, was weighing on his shoulders, bearing him
+down. He had come from the dark Catacombs where he had whispered words of
+deliverance and redemption with his wretched brethren. And a thirst for
+martyrdom consumed him, he spat in the face of Caesar, he insulted the
+gods, he fired the pagan temples, in order that the reign of Jesus might
+come and abolish servitude. And he was ready to die, to be torn to pieces
+by the wild beasts!"
+
+Pierre did not immediately reply. He had already been struck, however, by
+the fact that there were undoubted points of resemblance between the
+secret propaganda and militant faith of the Anarchists, and certain
+practices of the first Christians. Both sects abandon themselves to a new
+faith in the hope that the humble may thereby at last reap justice.
+Paganism disappears through weariness of the flesh and the need of a more
+lofty and pure faith. That dream of a Christian paradise opening up a
+future life with a system of compensations for the ills endured on earth,
+was the outcome of young hope dawning at its historic hour. But to-day,
+when eighteen centuries have exhausted that hope, when the long
+experiment is over and the toiler finds himself duped and still and ever
+a slave, he once more dreams of getting happiness upon this earth,
+particularly as each day Science tends more and more to show him that the
+happiness of the spheres beyond is a lie. And in all this there is but
+the eternal struggle of the poor and the rich, the eternal question of
+bringing more justice and less suffering to the world.
+
+"But surely," Pierre at last replied, "you can't be on the side of those
+bandits, those murderers whose savage violence horrifies me. I let you
+talk on yesterday, when you dreamt of a great and happy people, of ideal
+anarchy in which each would be free amidst the freedom of all. But what
+abomination, what disgust both for mind and heart, when one passes from
+theory to propaganda and practice! If yours is the brain that thinks,
+whose is the hateful hand that acts, that kills children, throws down
+doors and empties drawers? Do you accept that responsibility? With your
+education, your culture, the whole social heredity behind you, does not
+your entire being revolt at the idea of stealing and murdering?"
+
+Guillaume halted before his brother, quivering. "Steal and murder! no!
+no! I will not. But one must say everything and fully understand the
+history of the evil hour through which we are passing. It is madness
+sweeping by; and, to tell the truth, everything necessary to provoke it
+has been done. At the very dawn of the Anarchist theory, at the very
+first innocent actions of its partisans, there was such stern repression,
+the police so grossly ill-treating the poor devils that fell into its
+hands, that little by little came anger and rage leading to the most
+horrible reprisals. It is the Terror initiated by the _bourgeois_ that
+has produced Anarchist savagery. And would you know whence Salvat and his
+crime have come? Why, from all our centuries of impudence and iniquity,
+from all that the nations have suffered, from all the sores which are now
+devouring us, the impatience for enjoyment, the contempt of the strong
+for the weak, the whole monstrous spectacle which is presented by our
+rotting society!"
+
+Guillaume was again slowly walking to and fro; and as if he were
+reflecting aloud he continued: "Ah! to reach the point I have attained,
+through how much thought, through how many battles, have I not passed! I
+was merely a Positivist, a _savant_ devoted to observation and
+experiment, accepting nothing apart from proven facts. Scientifically and
+socially, I admitted that simple evolution had slowly brought humanity
+into being. But both in the history of the globe and that of human
+society, I found it necessary to make allowance for the volcano, the
+sudden cataclysm, the sudden eruption, by which each geological phase,
+each historical period, has been marked. In this wise one ends by
+ascertaining that no forward step has ever been taken, no progress ever
+accomplished in the world's history, without the help of horrible
+catastrophes. Each advance has meant the sacrifice of millions and
+millions of human lives. This of course revolts us, given our narrow
+ideas of justice, and we regard nature as a most barbarous mother; but,
+if we cannot excuse the volcano, we ought to deal with it when it bursts
+forth, like _savants_ forewarned of its possibility.... And then, ah,
+then! well, perhaps I'm a dreamer like others, but I have my own
+notions."
+
+With a sweeping gesture he confessed what a social dreamer there was
+within him beside the methodical and scrupulous _savant_. His constant
+endeavour was to bring all back to science, and he was deeply grieved at
+finding in nature no scientific sign of equality or even justice, such as
+he craved for in the social sphere. His despair indeed came from this
+inability to reconcile scientific logic with apostolic love, the dream of
+universal happiness and brotherhood and the end of all iniquity.
+
+Pierre, however, who had remained near the open window, gazing into the
+night towards Paris, whence ascended the last sounds of the evening of
+passionate pleasure, felt the whole flood of his own doubt and despair
+stifling him. It was all too much: that brother of his who had fallen
+upon him with his scientific and apostolic beliefs, those men who came to
+discuss contemporary thought from every standpoint, and finally that
+Salvat who had brought thither the exasperation of his mad deed. And
+Pierre, who had hitherto listened to them all without a word, without a
+gesture, who had hidden his secrets from his brother, seeking refuge in
+his supposed priestly views, suddenly felt such bitterness stirring his
+heart that he could lie no longer.
+
+"Ah! brother, if you have your dream, I have my sore which has eaten into
+me and left me void! Your Anarchy, your dream of just happiness, for
+which Salvat works with bombs, why, it is the final burst of insanity
+which will sweep everything away! How is it that you can't realise it?
+The century is ending in ruins. I've been listening to you all for a
+month past. Fourier destroyed Saint-Simon, Proudhon and Comte demolished
+Fourier, each in turn piling up incoherences and contradictions, leaving
+mere chaos behind them, which nobody dares to sort out. And since then,
+Socialist sects have been swarming and multiplying, the more sensible of
+them leading simply to dictatorship, while the others indulge in most
+dangerous reveries. And after such a tempest of ideas there could indeed
+come nothing but your Anarchy, which undertakes to bring the old world to
+a finish by reducing it to dust.... Ah! I expected it, I was waiting
+for it--that final catastrophe, that fratricidal madness, the inevitable
+class warfare in which our civilisation was destined to collapse!
+Everything announced it: the want and misery below, the egotism up above,
+all the cracking of the old human habitation, borne down by too great a
+weight of crime and grief. When I went to Lourdes it was to see if the
+divinity of simple minds would work the awaited miracle, and restore the
+belief of the early ages to the people, which rebelled through excess of
+suffering. And when I went to Rome it was in the _naive_ hope of there
+finding the new religion required by our democracies, the only one that
+could pacify the world by bringing back the fraternity of the golden age.
+But how foolish of me all that was! Both here and there, I simply lighted
+on nothingness. There where I so ardently dreamt of finding the salvation
+of others, I only sank myself, going down apeak like a ship not a timber
+of which is ever found again. One tie still linked me to my fellow-men,
+that of charity, the dressing, relieving, and perhaps, in the long run,
+healing, of wounds and sores; but that last cable has now been severed.
+Charity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice,
+to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessity
+and can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, an
+empty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything,
+anything whatever!"
+
+Pierre had risen to his full height, with arms outstretched as if to let
+all the nothingness within his heart and mind fall from them. And
+Guillaume, distracted by the sight of such a fierce denier, such a
+despairing Nihilist as was now revealed to him, drew near, quivering:
+"What are you saying, brother! I thought you so firm, so calm in your
+belief! A priest to be admired, a saint worshipped by the whole of this
+parish! I was unwilling even to discuss your faith, and now it is you who
+deny all, and believe in nothing whatever!"
+
+Pierre again slowly stretched out his arms. "There is nothing, I tried to
+learn all, and only found the atrocious grief born of the nothingness
+that overwhelms me."
+
+"Ah! how you must suffer, Pierre, my little brother! Can religion, then,
+be even more withering than science, since it has ravaged you like that,
+while I have yet remained an old madman, still full of fancies?"
+
+Guillaume caught hold of Pierre's hands and pressed them, full of
+terrified compassion in presence of all the grandeur and horror embodied
+in that unbelieving priest who watched over the belief of others, and
+chastely, honestly discharged his duty amidst the haughty sadness born of
+his falsehood. And how heavily must that falsehood have weighed upon his
+conscience for him to confess himself in that fashion, amidst an utter
+collapse of his whole being! A month previously, in the unexpansiveness
+of his proud solitude, he would never have taken such a course. To speak
+out it was necessary that he should have been stirred by many things, his
+reconciliation with his brother, the conversations he had heard of an
+evening, the terrible drama in which he was mingled, as well as his
+reflections on labour struggling against want, and the vague hope with
+which the sight of intellectual youth had inspired him. And, indeed, amid
+the very excess of his negation was there not already the faint dawn of a
+new faith?
+
+This Guillaume must have understood, on seeing how he quivered with
+unsatisfied tenderness as he emerged from the fierce silence which he had
+preserved so long. He made him sit down near the window, and placed
+himself beside him without releasing his hands. "But I won't have you
+suffer, my little brother!" he said; "I won't leave you, I'll nurse you.
+For I know you much better than you know yourself. You would never have
+suffered were it not for the battle between your heart and your mind, and
+you will cease to suffer on the day when they make peace, and you love
+what you understand." And in a lower voice, with infinite affection, he
+went on: "You see, it's our poor mother and our poor father continuing
+their painful struggle in you. You were too young at the time, you
+couldn't know what went on. But I knew them both very wretched: he,
+wretched through her, who treated him as if he were one of the damned;
+and she, suffering through him, tortured by his irreligion. When he died,
+struck down by an explosion in this very room, she took it to be the
+punishment of God. Yet, what an honest man he was, with a good, great
+heart, what a worker, seeking for truth alone, and desirous of the love
+and happiness of all! Since we have spent our evenings here, I have felt
+him coming back, reviving as it were both around and within us; and she,
+too, poor, saintly woman, is ever here, enveloping us with love, weeping,
+and yet stubbornly refusing to understand. It is they, perhaps, who have
+kept me here so long, and who at this very moment are present to place
+your hands in mine."
+
+And, indeed, it seemed to Pierre as if he could feel the breath of
+vigilant affection which Guillaume evoked passing over them both. There
+was again a revival of all the past, all their youth, and nothing could
+have been more delightful.
+
+"You hear me, brother," Guillaume resumed. "You must reconcile them, for
+it is only in you that they can be reconciled. You have his firm, lofty
+brow, and her mouth and eyes of unrealisable tenderness. So, try to bring
+them to agreement, by some day contenting, as your reason shall allow,
+the everlasting thirst for love, and self-bestowal, and life, which for
+lack of satisfaction is killing you. Your frightful wretchedness has no
+other cause. Come back to life, love, bestow yourself, be a man!"
+
+Pierre raised a dolorous cry: "No, no, the death born of doubt has swept
+through me, withering and shattering everything, and nothing more can
+live in that cold dust!"
+
+"But, come," resumed Guillaume, "you cannot have reached such absolute
+negation. No man reaches it. Even in the most disabused of minds there
+remains a nook of fancy and hope. To deny charity, devotion, the
+prodigies which love may work, ah! for my part I do not go so far as
+that. And now that you have shown me your sore, why should I not tell you
+my dream, the wild hope which keeps me alive! It is strange; but, are
+_savants_ to be the last childish dreamers, and is faith only to spring
+up nowadays in chemical laboratories?"
+
+Intense emotion was stirring Guillaume; there was battle waging in both
+his brain and his heart. And at last, yielding to the deep compassion
+which filled him, vanquished by his ardent affection for his unhappy
+brother, he spoke out. But he had drawn yet closer to Pierre, even passed
+one arm around him; and it was thus embracing him that he, in his turn,
+made his confession, lowering his voice as if he feared that someone
+might overhear his secret. "Why should you not know it?" he said. "My own
+sons are ignorant of it. But you are a man and my brother, and since
+there is nothing of the priest left in you, it is to the brother I will
+confide it. This will make me love you the more, and perhaps it may do
+you good."
+
+Then he told him of his invention, a new explosive, a powder of such
+extraordinary force that its effects were incalculable. And he had found
+employment for this powder in an engine of warfare, a special cannon,
+hurling bombs which would assure the most overwhelming victory to the
+army using them. The enemy's forces would be destroyed in a few hours,
+and besieged cities would fall into dust at the slightest bombardment. He
+had long searched and doubted, calculated, recalculated and experimented;
+but everything was now ready: the precise formula of the powder, the
+drawings for the cannon and the bombs, a whole packet of precious papers
+stored in a safe spot. And after months of anxious reflection he had
+resolved to give his invention to France, so as to ensure her a certainty
+of victory in her coming, inevitable war with Germany!
+
+At the same time, he was not a man of narrow patriotism; on the contrary
+he had a very broad, international conception of the future liberative
+civilisation. Only he believed in the initiatory mission of France, and
+particularly in that of Paris, which, even as it is to-day, was destined
+to be the world's brain to-morrow, whence all science and justice would
+proceed. The great idea of liberty and equality had already soared from
+it at the prodigious blast of the Revolution; and from its genius and
+valour the final emancipation of man would also take its flight. Thus it
+was necessary that Paris should be victorious in the struggle in order
+that the world might be saved.
+
+Pierre understood his brother, thanks to the lecture on explosives which
+he had heard at Bertheroy's. And the grandeur of this scheme, this dream,
+particularly struck him when he thought of the extraordinary future which
+would open for Paris amidst the effulgent blaze of the bombs. Moreover,
+he was struck by all the nobility of soul which had lain behind his
+brother's anxiety for a month past. If Guillaume had trembled it was
+simply with fear that his invention might be divulged in consequence of
+Salvat's crime. The slightest indiscretion might compromise everything;
+and that little stolen cartridge, whose effects had so astonished
+_savants_, might reveal his secret. He felt it necessary to act in
+mystery, choosing his own time, awaiting the proper hour, until when the
+secret would slumber in its hiding-place, confided to the sole care of
+Mere-Grand, who had her orders and knew what she was to do should he, in
+any sudden accident, disappear.
+
+"And, now," said Guillaume in conclusion, "you know my hopes and my
+anguish, and you can help me and even take my place if I am unable to
+reach the end of my task. Ah! to reach the end! Since I have been shut up
+here, reflecting, consumed by anxiety and impatience, there have been
+hours when I have ceased to see my way clearly! There is that Salvat,
+that wretched fellow for whose crime we are all of us responsible, and
+who is now being hunted down like a wild beast! There is also that
+insensate and insatiable _bourgeoisie_, which will let itself be crushed
+by the fall of the shaky old house, rather than allow the least repair to
+it! And there is further that avaricious, that abominable Parisian press,
+so harsh towards the weak and little, so fond of insulting those who have
+none to defend them, so eager to coin money out of public misfortune, and
+ready to spread insanity on all sides, simply to increase its sales!
+Where, therefore, shall one find truth and justice, the hand endowed with
+logic and health that ought to be armed with the thunderbolt? Would Paris
+the conqueror, Paris the master of the nations, prove the justiciar, the
+saviour that men await! Ah! the anguish of believing oneself to be the
+master of the world's destinies, and to have to choose and decide."
+
+He had risen again quivering, full of anger and fear that human
+wretchedness and baseness might prevent the realisation of his dream. And
+amidst the heavy silence which fell in the room, the little house
+suddenly resounded with a regular, continuous footfall.
+
+"Ah, yes! to save men and love them, and wish them all to be equal and
+free," murmured Pierre, bitterly. "But just listen! Barthes's footsteps
+are answering you, as if from the everlasting dungeon into which his love
+of liberty has thrown him!"
+
+However, Guillaume had already regained possession of himself, and coming
+back in a transport of his faith, he once more took Pierre in his loving,
+saving arms, like an elder brother who gives himself without restraint.
+"No, no, I'm wrong, I'm blaspheming," he exclaimed; "I wish you to be
+with me, full of hope and full of certainty. You must work, you must
+love, you must revive to life. Life alone can give you back peace and
+health."
+
+Tears returned to the eyes of Pierre, who was penetrated to the heart by
+this ardent affection. "Ah! how I should like to believe you," he
+faltered, "and try to cure myself. True, I have already felt, as it were,
+a vague revival within me. And yet to live again, no, I cannot; the
+priest that I am is dead--a lifeless, an empty tomb."
+
+He was shaken by so frightful a sob, that Guillaume could not restrain
+his own tears. And clasped in one another's arms the brothers wept on,
+their hearts full of the softest emotion in that home of their youth,
+whither the dear shadows of their parents ever returned, hovering around
+until they should be reconciled and restored to the peace of the earth.
+And all the darkness and mildness of the garden streamed in through the
+open window, while yonder, on the horizon, Paris had fallen asleep in the
+mysterious gloom, beneath a very peaceful sky which was studded with
+stars.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE RIVALS
+
+
+ON the Wednesday preceding the mid-Lent Thursday, a great charity bazaar
+was held at the Duvillard mansion, for the benefit of the Asylum of the
+Invalids of Labour. The ground-floor reception rooms, three spacious
+Louis Seize _salons_, whose windows overlooked the bare and solemn
+courtyard, were given up to the swarm of purchasers, five thousand
+admission cards having been distributed among all sections of Parisian
+society. And the opening of the bombarded mansion in this wise to
+thousands of visitors was regarded as quite an event, a real
+manifestation, although some people whispered that the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy and the adjacent streets were guarded by quite an army of
+police agents.
+
+The idea of the bazaar had come from Duvillard himself, and at his
+bidding his wife had resigned herself to all this worry for the benefit
+of the enterprise over which she presided with such distinguished
+nonchalance. On the previous day the "Globe" newspaper, inspired by its
+director Fonsegue, who was also the general manager of the asylum, had
+published a very fine article, announcing the bazaar, and pointing out
+how noble, and touching, and generous was the initiative of the Baroness,
+who still gave her time, her money, and even her home to charity, in
+spite of the abominable crime which had almost reduced that home to
+ashes. Was not this the magnanimous answer of the spheres above to the
+hateful passions of the spheres below? And was it not also a peremptory
+answer to those who accused the capitalists of doing nothing for the
+wage-earners, the disabled and broken-down sons of toil?
+
+The drawing-room doors were to be opened at two o'clock, and would only
+close at seven, so that there would be five full hours for the sales. And
+at noon, when nothing was as yet ready downstairs, when workmen and women
+were still decorating the stalls, and sorting the goods amidst a final
+scramble, there was, as usual, a little friendly _dejeuner_, to which a
+few guests had been invited, in the private rooms on the first floor.
+However, a scarcely expected incident had given a finishing touch to the
+general excitement of the house: that very morning Sagnier had resumed
+his campaign of denunciation in the matter of the African Railway Lines.
+In a virulent article in the "Voix du Peuple," he had inquired if it were
+the intention of the authorities to beguile the public much longer with
+the story of that bomb and that Anarchist whom the police did not arrest.
+And this time, while undertaking to publish the names of the thirty-two
+corrupt senators and deputies in a very early issue, he had boldly named
+Minister Barroux as one who had pocketed a sum of 200,000 francs. Mege
+would therefore certainly revive his interpellation, which might become
+dangerous, now that Paris had been thrown into such a distracted state by
+terror of the Anarchists. At the same time it was said that Vignon and
+his party had resolved to turn circumstances to account, with the object
+of overthrowing the ministry. Thus a redoubtable crisis was inevitably at
+hand. Fortunately, the Chamber did not meet that Wednesday; in fact, it
+had adjourned until the Friday, with the view of making mid-Lent a
+holiday. And so forty-eight hours were left one to prepare for the
+onslaught.
+
+Eve, that morning, seemed more gentle and languid than ever, rather pale
+too, with an expression of sorrowful anxiety in the depths of her
+beautiful eyes. She set it all down to the very great fatigue which the
+preparations for the bazaar had entailed on her. But the truth was that
+Gerard de Quinsac, after shunning any further assignation, had for five
+days past avoided her in an embarrassed way. Still she was convinced that
+she would see him that morning, and so she had again ventured to wear the
+white silk gown which made her look so much younger than she really was.
+At the same time, beautiful as she had remained, with her delicate skin,
+superb figure and noble and charming countenance, her six and forty years
+were asserting themselves in her blotchy complexion and the little
+creases which were appearing about her lips, eyelids and temples.
+
+Camille, for her part, though her position as daughter of the house made
+it certain that she would attract much custom as a saleswoman, had
+obstinately persisted in wearing one of her usual dresses, a dark
+"carmelite" gown, an old woman's frock, as she herself called it with a
+cutting laugh. However, her long and wicked-looking face beamed with some
+secret delight; such an expression of wit and intelligence wreathing her
+thin lips and shining in her big eyes that one lost sight of her
+deformity and thought her almost pretty.
+
+Eve experienced a first deception in the little blue and silver
+sitting-room, where, accompanied by her daughter, she awaited the arrival
+of her guests. General de Bozonnet, whom Gerard was to have brought with
+him, came in alone, explaining that Madame de Quinsac had felt rather
+poorly that morning, and that Gerard, like a good and dutiful son, had
+wished to remain with her. Still he would come to the bazaar directly
+after _dejeuner_. While the Baroness listened to the General, striving to
+hide her disappointment and her fear that she would now be unable to
+obtain any explanation from Gerard that day, Camille looked at her with
+eager, devouring eyes. And a certain covert instinct of the misfortune
+threatening her must at that moment have come to Eve, for in her turn she
+glanced at her daughter and turned pale as if with anxiety.
+
+Then Princess Rosemonde de Harn swept in like a whirlwind. She also was
+to be one of the saleswomen at the stall chosen by the Baroness, who
+liked her for her very turbulence, the sudden gaiety which she generally
+brought with her. Gowned in fire-hued satin (red shot with yellow),
+looking very eccentric with her curly hair and thin boyish figure, she
+laughed and talked of an accident by which her carriage had almost been
+cut in halves. Then, as Baron Duvillard and Hyacinthe came in from their
+rooms, late as usual, she took possession of the young man and scolded
+him, for on the previous evening she had vainly waited for him till ten
+o'clock in the expectation that he would keep his promise to escort her
+to a tavern at Montmartre, where some horrible things were said to occur.
+Hyacinthe, looking very bored, quietly replied that he had been detained
+at a seance given by some adepts in the New Magic, in the course of which
+the soul of St. Theresa had descended from heaven to recite a love
+sonnet.
+
+However, Fonsegue was now coming in with his wife, a tall, thin, silent
+and generally insignificant woman, whom he seldom took about with him. On
+this occasion he had been obliged to bring her, as she was one of the
+lady-patronesses of the asylum, and he himself was coming to lunch with
+the Duvillards in his capacity as general manager. To the superficial
+observer he looked quite as gay as usual; but he blinked nervously, and
+his first glance was a questioning one in the direction of Duvillard, as
+if he wished to know how the latter bore the fresh thrust directed at him
+by Sagnier. And when he saw the banker looking perfectly composed, as
+superb, as rubicund as usual, and chatting in a bantering way with
+Rosemonde, he also put on an easy air, like a gamester who had never lost
+but had always known how to compel good luck, even in hours of treachery.
+And by way of showing his unconstraint of mind he at once addressed the
+Baroness on managerial matters: "Have you now succeeded in seeing M.
+l'Abbe Froment for the affair of that old man Laveuve, whom he so warmly
+recommended to us? All the formalities have been gone through, you know,
+and he can be brought to us at once, as we have had a bed vacant for
+three days past."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Eve; "but I can't imagine what has become of Abbe
+Froment, for he hasn't given us a sign of life for a month past. However,
+I made up my mind to write to him yesterday, and beg him to come to the
+bazaar to-day. In this manner I shall be able to acquaint him with the
+good news myself."
+
+"It was to leave you the pleasure of doing so," said Fonsegue, "that I
+refrained from sending him any official communication. He's a charming
+priest, is he not?"
+
+"Oh! charming, we are very fond of him."
+
+However, Duvillard now intervened to say that they need not wait for
+Duthil, as he had received a telegram from him stating that he was
+detained by sudden business. At this Fonsegue's anxiety returned, and he
+once more questioned the Baron with his eyes. Duvillard smiled, however,
+and reassured him in an undertone: "It's nothing serious. Merely a
+commission for me, about which he'll only be able to bring me an answer
+by-and-by." Then, taking Fonsegue on one side, he added: "By the way,
+don't forget to insert the paragraph I told you of."
+
+"What paragraph? Oh! yes, the one about that _soiree_ at which Silviane
+recited a piece of verse. Well, I wanted to speak to you about it. It
+worries me a little, on account of the excessive praise it contains."
+
+Duvillard, but a moment before so full of serenity, with his lofty,
+conquering, disdainful mien, now suddenly became pale and agitated. "But
+I absolutely want it to be inserted, my dear fellow! You would place me
+in the greatest embarrassment if it were not to appear, for I promised
+Silviane that it should."
+
+As he spoke his lips trembled, and a scared look came into his eyes,
+plainly revealing his dismay.
+
+"All right, all right," said Fonsegue, secretly amused, and well pleased
+at this complicity. "As it's so serious the paragraph shall go in, I
+promise you."
+
+The whole company was now present, since neither Gerard nor Duthil was to
+be expected. So they went into the dining-room amidst a final noise of
+hammering in the sale-rooms below. The meal proved somewhat of a
+scramble, and was on three occasions disturbed by female attendants, who
+came to explain difficulties and ask for orders. Doors were constantly
+slamming, and the very walls seemed to shake with the unusual bustle
+which filled the house. And feverish as they all were in the dining-room,
+they talked in desultory, haphazard fashion on all sorts of subjects,
+passing from a ball given at the Ministry of the Interior on the previous
+night, to the popular mid-Lent festival which would take place on the
+morrow, and ever reverting to the bazaar, the prices that had been given
+for the goods which would be on sale, the prices at which they might be
+sold, and the probable figure of the full receipts, all this being
+interspersed with strange anecdotes, witticisms and bursts of laughter.
+On the General mentioning magistrate Amadieu, Eve declared that she no
+longer dared to invite him to _dejeuner_, knowing how busy he was at the
+Palace of Justice. Still, she certainly hoped that he would come to the
+bazaar and contribute something. Then Fonsegue amused himself with
+teasing Princess Rosemonde about her fire-hued gown, in which, said he,
+she must already feel roasted by the flames of hell; a suggestion which
+secretly delighted her, as Satanism had now become her momentary passion.
+Meantime, Duvillard lavished the most gallant politeness on that silent
+creature, Madame Fonsegue, while Hyacinthe, in order to astonish even the
+Princess, explained in a few words how the New Magic could transform a
+chaste young man into a real angel. And Camille, who seemed very happy
+and very excited, from time to time darted a hot glance at her mother,
+whose anxiety and sadness increased as she found the other more and more
+aggressive, and apparently resolved upon open and merciless warfare.
+
+At last, just as the dessert was coming to an end, the Baroness heard her
+daughter exclaim in a piercing, defiant voice: "Oh! don't talk to me of
+the old ladies who still seem to be playing with dolls, and paint
+themselves, and dress as if they were about to be confirmed! All such
+ogresses ought to retire from the scene! I hold them in horror!"
+
+At this, Eve nervously rose from her seat, and exclaimed apologetically:
+"You must forgive me for hurrying you like this. But I'm afraid that we
+shan't have time to drink our coffee in peace."
+
+The coffee was served in the little blue and silver sitting-room, where
+bloomed some lovely yellow roses, testifying to the Baroness's keen
+passion for flowers, which made the house an abode of perpetual spring.
+Duvillard and Fonsegue, however, carrying their cups of steaming coffee
+with them, at once went into the former's private room to smoke a cigar
+there and chat in freedom. As the door remained wide open, one could
+hear their gruff voices more or less distinctly. Meantime, General de
+Bozonnet, delighted to find in Madame Fonsegue a serious, submissive
+person, who listened without interrupting, began to tell her a very long
+story of an officer's wife who had followed her husband through
+every battle of the war of 1870. Then Hyacinthe, who took no
+coffee--contemptuously declaring it to be a beverage only fit for
+door-keepers--managed to rid himself of Rosemonde, who was sipping some
+kummel, in order to come and whisper to his sister: "I say, it was very
+stupid of you to taunt mamma in the way you did just now. I don't care a
+rap about it myself. But it ends by being noticed, and, I warn you
+candidly, it shows ill breeding."
+
+Camille gazed at him fixedly with her black eyes. "Pray don't _you_
+meddle with my affairs," said she.
+
+At this he felt frightened, scented a storm, and decided to take
+Rosemonde into the adjoining red drawing-room in order to show her a
+picture which his father had just purchased. And the General, on being
+called by him, likewise conducted Madame Fonsegue thither.
+
+The mother and daughter then suddenly found themselves alone and face to
+face. Eve was leaning on a pier-table, as if overcome; and indeed, the
+least sorrow bore her down, so weak at heart she was, ever ready to weep
+in her naive and perfect egotism. Why was it that her daughter thus hated
+her, and did her utmost to disturb that last happy spell of love in which
+her heart lingered? She looked at Camille, grieved rather than irritated;
+and the unfortunate idea came to her of making a remark about her dress
+at the very moment when the girl was on the point of following the others
+into the larger drawing-room.
+
+"It's quite wrong of you, my dear," said she, "to persist in dressing
+like an old woman. It doesn't improve you a bit."
+
+As Eve spoke, her soft eyes, those of a courted and worshipped handsome
+woman, clearly expressed the compassion she felt for that ugly, deformed
+girl, whom she had never been able to regard as a daughter. Was it
+possible that she, with her sovereign beauty, that beauty which she
+herself had ever adored and nursed, making it her one care, her one
+religion--was it possible that she had given birth to such a graceless
+creature, with a dark, goatish profile, one shoulder higher than the
+other, and a pair of endless arms such as hunchbacks often have? All her
+grief and all her shame at having had such a child became apparent in the
+quivering of her voice.
+
+Camille, however, had stopped short, as if struck in the face with a
+whip. Then she came back to her mother and the horrible explanation began
+with these simple words spoken in an undertone: "You consider that I
+dress badly? Well, you ought to have paid some attention to me, have seen
+that my gowns suited your taste, and have taught me your secret of
+looking beautiful!"
+
+Eve, with her dislike of all painful feeling, all quarrelling and bitter
+words, was already regretting her attack. So she sought to make a
+retreat, particularly as time was flying and they would soon be expected
+downstairs: "Come, be quiet, and don't show your bad temper when all
+those people can hear us. I have loved you--"
+
+But with a quiet yet terrible laugh Camille interrupted her. "You've
+loved me! Oh! my poor mamma, what a comical thing to say! Have you ever
+loved _anybody_? You want others to love _you_, but that's another
+matter. As for your child, any child, do you even know how it ought to be
+loved? You have always neglected me, thrust me on one side, deeming me so
+ugly, so unworthy of you! And besides, you have not had days and nights
+enough to love yourself! Oh! don't deny it, my poor mamma; but even now
+you're looking at me as if I were some loathsome monster that's in your
+way."
+
+From that moment the abominable scene was bound to continue to the end.
+With their teeth set, their faces close together, the two women went on
+speaking in feverish whispers.
+
+"Be quiet, Camille, I tell you! I will not allow such language!"
+
+"But I won't be quiet when you do all you can to wound me. If it's wrong
+of me to dress like an old woman, perhaps another is rather ridiculous in
+dressing like a girl, like a bride."
+
+"Like a bride? I don't understand you."
+
+"Oh! yes, you do. However, I would have you know that everybody doesn't
+find me so ugly as you try to make them believe."
+
+"If you look amiss, it is because you don't dress properly; that is all I
+said."
+
+"I dress as I please, and no doubt I do so well enough, since I'm loved
+as I am."
+
+"What, really! Does someone love you? Well, let him inform us of it and
+marry you."
+
+"Yes--certainly, certainly! It will be a good riddance, won't it? And
+you'll have the pleasure of seeing me as a bride!"
+
+Their voices were rising in spite of their efforts to restrain them.
+However, Camille paused and drew breath before hissing out the words:
+"Gerard is coming here to ask for my hand in a day or two."
+
+Eve, livid, with wildly staring eyes, did not seem to understand.
+"Gerard? why do you tell me that?"
+
+"Why, because it's Gerard who loves me and who is going to marry me! You
+drive me to extremities; you're for ever repeating that I'm ugly; you
+treat me like a monster whom nobody will ever care for. So I'm forced to
+defend myself and tell you the truth in order to prove to you that
+everybody is not of your opinion."
+
+Silence fell; the frightful thing which had risen between them seemed to
+have arrested the quarrel. But there was neither mother nor daughter left
+there. They were simply two suffering, defiant rivals. Eve in her turn
+drew a long breath and glanced anxiously towards the adjoining room to
+ascertain if anyone were coming in or listening to them. And then in a
+tone of resolution she made answer:
+
+"You cannot marry Gerard."
+
+"Pray, why not?"
+
+"Because I won't have it; because it's impossible."
+
+"That isn't a reason; give me a reason."
+
+"The reason is that the marriage is impossible that is all."
+
+"No, no, I'll tell you the reason since you force me to it. The reason is
+that Gerard is your lover! But what does that matter, since I know it and
+am willing to take him all the same?"
+
+And to this retort Camille's flaming eyes added the words: "And it is
+particularly on that account that I want him." All the long torture born
+of her infirmities, all her rage at having always seen her mother
+beautiful, courted and adored, was now stirring her and seeking vengeance
+in cruel triumph. At last then she was snatching from her rival the lover
+of whom she had so long been jealous!
+
+"You wretched girl!" stammered Eve, wounded in the heart and almost
+sinking to the floor. "You don't know what you say or what you make me
+suffer."
+
+However, she again had to pause, draw herself erect and smile; for
+Rosemonde hastened in from the adjoining room with the news that she was
+wanted downstairs. The doors were about to be opened, and it was
+necessary she should be at her stall. Yes, Eve answered, she would be
+down in another moment. Still, even as she spoke she leant more heavily
+on the pier-table behind her in order that she might not fall.
+
+Hyacinthe had drawn near to his sister: "You know," said he, "it's simply
+idiotic to quarrel like that. You would do much better to come
+downstairs."
+
+But Camille harshly dismissed him: "Just _you_ go off, and take the
+others with you. It's quite as well that they shouldn't be about our
+ears."
+
+Hyacinthe glanced at his mother, like one who knew the truth and
+considered the whole affair ridiculous. And then, vexed at seeing her so
+deficient in energy in dealing with that little pest, his sister, he
+shrugged his shoulders, and leaving them to their folly, conducted the
+others away. One could hear Rosemonde laughing as she went off below,
+while the General began to tell Madame Fonsegue another story as they
+descended the stairs together. However, at the moment when the mother and
+daughter at last fancied themselves alone once more, other voices reached
+their ears, those of Duvillard and Fonsegue, who were still near at hand.
+The Baron from his room might well overhear the dispute.
+
+Eve felt that she ought to have gone off. But she had lacked the strength
+to do so; it had been a sheer impossibility for her after those words
+which had smote her like a buffet amidst her distress at the thought of
+losing her lover.
+
+"Gerard cannot marry you," she said; "he does not love you."
+
+"He does."
+
+"You fancy it because he has good-naturedly shown some kindness to you,
+on seeing others pay you such little attention. But he does not love
+you."
+
+"He does. He loves me first because I'm not such a fool as many others
+are, and particularly because I'm young."
+
+This was a fresh wound for the Baroness; one inflicted with mocking
+cruelty in which rang out all the daughter's triumphant delight at seeing
+her mother's beauty at last ripening and waning. "Ah! my poor mamma, you
+no longer know what it is to be young. If I'm not beautiful, at all
+events I'm young; my eyes are clear and my lips are fresh. And my hair's
+so long too, and I've so much of it that it would suffice to gown me if I
+chose. You see, one's never ugly when one's young. Whereas, my poor
+mamma, everything is ended when one gets old. It's all very well for a
+woman to have been beautiful, and to strive to keep so, but in reality
+there's only ruin left, and shame and disgust."
+
+She spoke these words in such a sharp, ferocious voice that each of them
+entered her mother's heart like a knife. Tears rose to the eyes of the
+wretched woman, again stricken in her bleeding wound. Ah! it was true,
+she remained without weapons against youth. And all her anguish came from
+the consciousness that she was growing old, from the feeling that love
+was departing from her now, that like a fruit she had ripened and fallen
+from the tree.
+
+"But Gerard's mother will never let him marry you," she said.
+
+"He will prevail on her; that's his concern. I've a dowry of two
+millions, and two millions can settle many things."
+
+"Do you now want to libel him, and say that he's marrying you for your
+money?"
+
+"No, indeed! Gerard's a very nice and honest fellow. He loves me and he's
+marrying me for myself. But, after all, he isn't rich; he still has no
+assured position, although he's thirty-six; and there may well be some
+advantage in a wife who brings you wealth as well as happiness. For, you
+hear, mamma, it's happiness I'm bringing him, real happiness, love that's
+shared and is certain of the future."
+
+Once again their faces drew close together. The hateful scene,
+interrupted by sounds around them, postponed, and then resumed, was
+dragging on, becoming a perfect drama full of murderous violence,
+although they never shouted, but still spoke on in low and gasping
+voices. Neither gave way to the other, though at every moment they were
+liable to some surprise; for not only were all the doors open, so that
+the servants might come in, but the Baron's voice still rang out gaily,
+close at hand.
+
+"He loves you, he loves you"--continued Eve. "That's what you say. But
+_he_ never told you so."
+
+"He has told me so twenty times; he repeats it every time that we are
+alone together!"
+
+"Yes, just as one says it to a little girl by way of amusing her. But he
+has never told you that he meant to marry you."
+
+"He told it me the last time he came. And it's settled. I'm simply
+waiting for him to get his mother's consent and make his formal offer."
+
+"You lie, you lie, you wretched girl! You simply want to make me suffer,
+and you lie, you lie!"
+
+Eve's grief at last burst forth in that cry of protest. She no longer
+knew that she was a mother, and was speaking to her daughter. The woman,
+the _amorosa_, alone remained in her, outraged and exasperated by a
+rival. And with a sob she confessed the truth: "It is I he loves! Only
+the last time I spoke to him, he swore to me--you hear me?--he swore upon
+his honour that he did not love you, and that he would never marry you!"
+
+A faint, sharp laugh came from Camille. Then, with an air of derisive
+compassion, she replied: "Ah! my poor mamma, you really make me sorry for
+you! What a child you are! Yes, really, you are the child, not I. What!
+you who ought to have so much experience, you still allow yourself to be
+duped by a man's protests! That one really has no malice; and, indeed,
+that's why he swears whatever you want him to swear, just to please and
+quiet you, for at heart he's a bit of a coward."
+
+"You lie, you lie!"
+
+"But just think matters over. If he no longer comes here, if he didn't
+come to _dejeuner_ this morning, it is simply because he's had enough of
+you. He has left you for good; just have the courage to realise it. Of
+course he's still polite and amiable, because he's a well-bred man, and
+doesn't know how to break off. The fact is that he takes pity on you."
+
+"You lie, you lie!"
+
+"Well, question him then. Have a frank explanation with him. Ask him his
+intentions in a friendly way. And then show some good nature yourself,
+and realise that if you care for him you ought to give him me at once in
+his own interest. Give him back his liberty, and you will soon see that
+I'm the one he loves."
+
+"You lie, you lie! You wretched child, you only want to torture and kill
+me!"
+
+Then, in her fury and distress, Eve remembered that she was the mother,
+and that it was for her to chastise that unworthy daughter. There was no
+stick near her, but from a basket of the yellow roses, whose powerful
+scent intoxicated both of them, she plucked a handful of blooms, with
+long and spiny stalks, and smote Camille across the face. A drop of blood
+appeared on the girl's left temple, near her eyelid.
+
+But she sprang forward, flushed and maddened by this correction, with her
+hand raised and ready to strike back. "Take care, mother! I swear I'd
+beat you like a gipsy! And now just put this into your head: I mean to
+marry Gerard, and I will; and I'll take him from you, even if I have to
+raise a scandal, should you refuse to give him to me with good grace."
+
+Eve, after her one act of angry vigour, had sunk into an armchair,
+overcome, distracted. And all the horror of quarrels, which sprang from
+her egotistical desire to be happy, caressed, flattered and adored, was
+returning to her. But Camille, still threatening, still unsatiated,
+showed her heart as it really was, her stern, black, unforgiving heart,
+intoxicated with cruelty. There came a moment of supreme silence, while
+Duvillard's gay voice again rang out in the adjoining room.
+
+The mother was gently weeping, when Hyacinthe, coming upstairs at a run,
+swept into the little _salon_. He looked at the two women, and made a
+gesture of indulgent contempt. "Ah! you're no doubt satisfied now! But
+what did I tell you? It would have been much better for you to have come
+downstairs at once! Everybody is asking for you. It's all idiotic. I've
+come to fetch you."
+
+Eve and Camille would not yet have followed him, perhaps, if Duvillard
+and Fonsegue had not at that moment come out of the former's room. Having
+finished their cigars they also spoke of going downstairs. And Eve had to
+rise and smile and show dry eyes, while Camille, standing before a
+looking-glass, arranged her hair, and stanched the little drop of blood
+that had gathered on her temple.
+
+There was already quite a number of people below, in the three huge
+saloons adorned with tapestry and plants. The stalls had been draped with
+red silk, which set a gay, bright glow around the goods. And no ordinary
+bazaar could have put forth such a show, for there was something of
+everything among the articles of a thousand different kinds, from
+sketches by recognised masters, and the autographs of famous writers,
+down to socks and slippers and combs. The haphazard way in which things
+were laid out was in itself an attraction; and, in addition, there was a
+buffet, where the whitest of beautiful hands poured out champagne, and
+two lotteries, one for an organ and another for a pony-drawn village
+cart, the tickets for which were sold by a bevy of charming girls, who
+had scattered through the throng. As Duvillard had expected, however, the
+great success of the bazaar lay in the delightful little shiver which the
+beautiful ladies experienced as they passed through the entrance where
+the bomb had exploded. The rougher repairing work was finished, the walls
+and ceilings had been doctored, in part re-constructed. However, the
+painters had not yet come, and here and there the whiter stone and
+plaster work showed like fresh scars left by all the terrible gashes. It
+was with mingled anxiety and rapture that pretty heads emerged from the
+carriages which, arriving in a continuous stream, made the flagstones of
+the court re-echo. And in the three saloons, beside the stalls, there was
+no end to the lively chatter: "Ah! my dear, did you see all those marks?
+How frightful, how frightful! The whole house was almost blown up. And to
+think it might begin again while we are here! One really needs some
+courage to come, but then, that asylum is such a deserving institution,
+and money is badly wanted to build a new wing. And besides, those
+monsters will see that we are not frightened, whatever they do."
+
+When the Baroness at last came down to her stall with Camille she found
+the saleswomen feverishly at work already under the direction of Princess
+Rosemonde, who on occasions of this kind evinced the greatest cunning and
+rapacity, robbing the customers in the most impudent fashion. "Ah! here
+you are," she exclaimed. "Beware of a number of higglers who have come to
+secure bargains. I know them! They watch for their opportunities, turn
+everything topsy-turvy and wait for us to lose our heads and forget
+prices, so as to pay even less than they would in a real shop. But I'll
+get good prices from them, you shall see!"
+
+At this, Eve, who for her own part was a most incapable saleswoman, had
+to laugh with the others. And in a gentle voice she made a pretence of
+addressing certain recommendations to Camille, who listened with a
+smiling and most submissive air. In point of fact the wretched mother was
+sinking with emotion, particularly at the thought that she would have to
+remain there till seven o'clock, and suffer in secret before all those
+people, without possibility of relief. And thus it was almost like a
+respite when she suddenly perceived Abbe Froment sitting and waiting for
+her on a settee, covered with red velvet, near her stall. Her legs were
+failing her, so she took a place beside him.
+
+"You received my letter then, Monsieur l'Abbe. I am glad that you have
+come, for I have some good news to give you, and wished to leave you the
+pleasure of imparting it to your _protege_, that man Laveuve, whom you so
+warmly recommended to me. Every formality has now been fulfilled, and you
+can bring him to the asylum to-morrow."
+
+Pierre gazed at her in stupefaction. "Laveuve? Why, he is dead!"
+
+In her turn she became astonished. "What, dead! But you never informed me
+of it! If I told you of all the trouble that has been taken, of all that
+had to be undone and done again, and the discussions and the papers and
+the writing! Are you quite sure that he is dead?"
+
+"Oh! yes, he is dead. He has been dead a month."
+
+"Dead a month! Well, we could not know; you yourself gave us no sign of
+life. Ah! _mon Dieu_! what a worry that he should be dead. We shall now
+be obliged to undo everything again!"
+
+"He is dead, madame. It is true that I ought to have informed you of it.
+But that doesn't alter the fact--he is dead."
+
+Dead! that word which kept on returning, the thought too, that for a
+month past she had been busying herself for a corpse, quite froze her,
+brought her to the very depths of despair, like an omen of the cold death
+into which she herself must soon descend, in the shroud of her last
+passion. And, meantime, Pierre, despite himself, smiled bitterly at the
+atrocious irony of it all. Ah! that lame and halting Charity, which
+proffers help when men are dead!
+
+The priest still lingered on the settee when the Baroness rose. She had
+seen magistrate Amadieu hurriedly enter like one who just wished to show
+himself, purchase some trifle, and then return to the Palace of Justice.
+However, he was also perceived by little Massot, the "Globe" reporter,
+who was prowling round the stalls, and who at once bore down upon him,
+eager for information. And he hemmed him in and forthwith interviewed him
+respecting the affair of that mechanician Salvat, who was accused of
+having deposited the bomb at the entrance of the house. Was this simply
+an invention of the police, as some newspapers pretended? Or was it
+really correct? And if so, would Salvat soon be arrested? In self-defence
+Amadieu answered correctly enough that the affair did not as yet concern
+him, and would only come within his attributions, if Salvat should be
+arrested and the investigation placed in his hands. At the same time,
+however, the magistrate's pompous and affectedly shrewd manner suggested
+that he already knew everything to the smallest details, and that, had he
+chosen, he could have promised some great events for the morrow. A circle
+of ladies had gathered round him as he spoke, quite a number of pretty
+women feverish with curiosity, who jostled one another in their eagerness
+to hear that brigand tale which sent a little shiver coursing under their
+skins. However, Amadieu managed to slip off after paying Rosemonde twenty
+francs for a cigarette case, which was perhaps worth thirty sous.
+
+Massot, on recognising Pierre, came up to shake hands with him. "Don't
+you agree with me, Monsieur l'Abbe, that Salvat must be a long way off by
+now if he's got good legs? Ah! the police will always make me laugh!"
+
+However, Rosemonde brought Hyacinthe up to the journalist. "Monsieur
+Massot," said she, "you who go everywhere, I want you to be judge. That
+Chamber of Horrors at Montmartre, that tavern where Legras sings the
+'Flowers of the Streets'--"
+
+"Oh! a delightful spot, madame," interrupted Massot, "I wouldn't take
+even a gendarme there."
+
+"No, don't jest, Monsieur Massot, I'm talking seriously. Isn't it quite
+allowable for a respectable woman to go there when she's accompanied by a
+gentleman?" And, without allowing the journalist time to answer her, she
+turned towards Hyacinthe: "There! you see that Monsieur Massot doesn't
+say no! You've got to take me there this evening, it's sworn, it's
+sworn."
+
+Then she darted away to sell a packet of pins to an old lady, while the
+young man contented himself with remarking, in the voice of one who has
+no illusions left: "She's quite idiotic with her Chamber of Horrors!"
+
+Massot philosophically shrugged his shoulders. It was only natural that a
+woman should want to amuse herself. And when Hyacinthe had gone off,
+passing with perverse contempt beside the lovely girls who were selling
+lottery tickets, the journalist ventured to murmur: "All the same, it
+would do that youngster good if a woman were to take him in hand."
+
+Then, again addressing Pierre, he resumed: "Why, here comes Duthil! What
+did Sagnier mean this morning by saying that Duthil would sleep at Mazas
+to-night?"
+
+In a great hurry apparently, and all smiles, Duthil was cutting his way
+through the crowd in order to join Duvillard and Fonsegue, who still
+stood talking near the Baroness's stall. And he waved his hand to them in
+a victorious way, to imply that he had succeeded in the delicate mission
+entrusted to him. This was nothing less than a bold manoeuvre to hasten
+Silviane's admission to the Comedie Francaise. The idea had occurred to
+her of making the Baron give a dinner at the Cafe Anglais in order that
+she might meet at it an influential critic, who, according to her
+statements, would compel the authorities to throw the doors wide open for
+her as soon as he should know her. However, it did not seem easy to
+secure the critic's presence, as he was noted for his sternness and
+grumbling disposition. And, indeed, after a first repulse, Duthil had for
+three days past been obliged to exert all his powers of diplomacy, and
+bring even the remotest influence into play. But he was radiant now, for
+he had conquered.
+
+"It's for this evening, my dear Baron, at half-past seven," he exclaimed.
+"Ah! dash it all, I've had more trouble than I should have had to secure
+a concession vote!" Then he laughed with the pretty impudence of a man of
+pleasure, whom political conscientiousness did not trouble. And, indeed,
+his allusion to the fresh denunciations of the "Voix du Peuple" hugely
+amused him.
+
+"Don't jest," muttered Fonsegue, who for his part wished to amuse himself
+by frightening the young deputy. "Things are going very badly!"
+
+Duthil turned pale, and a vision of the police and Mazas rose before his
+eyes. In this wise sheer funk came over him from time to time. However,
+with his lack of all moral sense, he soon felt reassured and began to
+laugh. "Bah!" he retorted gaily, winking towards Duvillard, "the
+governor's there to pilot the barque!"
+
+The Baron, who was extremely pleased, had pressed his hands, thanked him,
+and called him an obliging fellow. And now turning towards Fonsegue, he
+exclaimed: "I say, you must make one of us this evening. Oh! it's
+necessary. I want something imposing round Silviane. Duthil will
+represent the Chamber, you journalism, and I finance--" But he suddenly
+paused on seeing Gerard, who, with a somewhat grave expression, was
+leisurely picking his way through the sea of skirts. "Gerard, my friend,"
+said the Baron, after beckoning to him, "I want you to do me a service."
+And forthwith he told him what was in question; how the influential
+critic had been prevailed upon to attend a dinner which would decide
+Silviane's future; and how it was the duty of all her friends to rally
+round her.
+
+"But I can't," the young man answered in embarrassment. "I have to dine
+at home with my mother, who was rather poorly this morning."
+
+"Oh! a sensible woman like your mother will readily understand that there
+are matters of exceptional importance. Go home and excuse yourself. Tell
+her some story, tell her that a friend's happiness is in question." And
+as Gerard began to weaken, Duvillard added: "The fact is, that I really
+want you, my dear fellow; I must have a society man. Society, you know,
+is a great force in theatrical matters; and if Silviane has society with
+her, her triumph is certain."
+
+Gerard promised, and then chatted for a moment with his uncle, General de
+Bozonnet, who was quite enlivened by that throng of women, among whom he
+had been carried hither and thither like an old rudderless ship. After
+acknowledging the amiability with which Madame Fonsegue had listened to
+his stories, by purchasing an autograph of Monseigneur Martha from her
+for a hundred francs, he had quite lost himself amid the bevy of girls
+who had passed him on, one to another. And now, on his return from them,
+he had his hands full of lottery tickets: "Ah! my fine fellow," said he,
+"I don't advise you to venture among all those young persons. You would
+have to part with your last copper. But, just look! there's Mademoiselle
+Camille beckoning to you!"
+
+Camille, indeed, from the moment she had perceived Gerard, had been
+smiling at him and awaiting his approach. And when their glances met he
+was obliged to go to her, although, at the same moment, he felt that
+Eve's despairing and entreating eyes were fixed upon him. The girl, who
+fully realised that her mother was watching her, at once made a marked
+display of amiability, profiting by the license which charitable fervour
+authorised, to slip a variety of little articles into the young man's
+pockets, and then place others in his hands, which she pressed within her
+own, showing the while all the sparkle of youth, indulging in fresh,
+merry laughter, which fairly tortured her rival.
+
+So extreme was Eve's suffering, that she wished to intervene and part
+them. But it so chanced that Pierre barred her way, for he wished to
+submit an idea to her before leaving the bazaar. "Madame," said he,
+"since that man Laveuve is dead, and you have taken so much trouble with
+regard to the bed which you now have vacant, will you be so good as to
+keep it vacant until I have seen our venerable friend, Abbe Rose? I am to
+see him this evening, and he knows so many cases of want, and would be so
+glad to relieve one of them, and bring you some poor _protege_ of his."
+
+"Yes, certainly," stammered the Baroness, "I shall be very happy,--I will
+wait a little, as you desire,--of course, of course, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+She was trembling all over; she no longer knew what she was saying; and,
+unable to conquer her passion, she turned aside from the priest, unaware
+even that he was still there, when Gerard, yielding to the dolorous
+entreaty of her eyes, at last managed to escape from Camille and join
+her.
+
+"What a stranger you are becoming, my friend!" she said aloud, with a
+forced smile. "One never sees you now."
+
+"Why, I have been poorly," he replied, in his amiable way. "Yes, I assure
+you I have been ailing a little."
+
+He, ailing! She looked at him with maternal anxiety, quite upset. And,
+indeed, however proud and lofty his figure, his handsome regular face did
+seem to her paler than usual. It was as if the nobility of the facade
+had, in some degree, ceased to hide the irreparable dilapidation within.
+And given his real good nature, it must be true that he
+suffered--suffered by reason of his useless, wasted life, by reason of
+all the money he cost his impoverished mother, and of the needs that were
+at last driving him to marry that wealthy deformed girl, whom at first he
+had simply pitied. And so weak did he seem to Eve, so like a piece of
+wreckage tossed hither and thither by a tempest, that, at the risk of
+being overheard by the throng, she let her heart flow forth in a low but
+ardent, entreating murmur: "If you suffer, ah! what sufferings are
+mine!--Gerard, we must see one another, I will have it so."
+
+"No, I beg you, let us wait," he stammered in embarrassment.
+
+"It must be, Gerard; Camille has told me your plans. You cannot refuse to
+see me. I insist on it."
+
+He made yet another attempt to escape the cruel explanation. "But it's
+impossible at the usual place," he answered, quivering. "The address is
+known."
+
+"Then to-morrow, at four o'clock, at that little restaurant in the Bois
+where we have met before."
+
+He had to promise, and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and
+was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the
+stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe
+and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and
+Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of their dinner that
+evening.
+
+Pierre had heard a part of the conversation between Gerard and the
+Baroness. He knew what skeletons the house concealed, what physiological
+and moral torture and wretchedness lay beneath all the dazzling wealth
+and power. There was here an envenomed, bleeding sore, ever spreading, a
+cancer eating into father, mother, daughter and son, who one and all had
+thrown social bonds aside. However, the priest made his way out of the
+_salons_, half stifling amidst the throng of lady-purchasers who were
+making quite a triumph of the bazaar. And yonder, in the depths of the
+gloom, he could picture Salvat still running and running on; while the
+corpse of Laveuve seemed to him like a buffet of atrocious irony dealt to
+noisy and delusive charity.
+
+
+
+
+II. SPIRIT AND FLESH
+
+How delightful was the quietude of the little ground-floor overlooking a
+strip of garden in the Rue Cortot, where good Abbe Rose resided!
+Hereabouts there was not even a rumble of wheels, or an echo of the
+panting breath of Paris, which one heard on the other side of the height
+of Montmartre. The deep silence and sleepy peacefulness were suggestive
+of some distant provincial town.
+
+Seven o'clock had struck, the dusk had gathered slowly, and Pierre was in
+the humble dining-room, waiting for the _femme-de-menage_ to place the
+soup upon the table. Abbe Rose, anxious at having seen so little of him
+for a month past, had written, asking him to come to dinner, in order
+that they might have a quiet chat concerning their affairs. From time to
+time Pierre still gave his friend money for charitable purposes; in fact,
+ever since the days of the asylum in the Rue de Charonne, they had had
+accounts together, which they periodically liquidated. So that evening
+after dinner they were to talk of it all, and see if they could not do
+even more than they had hitherto done. The good old priest was quite
+radiant at the thought of the peaceful evening which he was about to
+spend in attending to the affairs of his beloved poor; for therein lay
+his only amusement, the sole pleasure to which he persistently and
+passionately returned, in spite of all the worries that his inconsiderate
+charity had already so often brought him.
+
+Glad to be able to procure his friend this pleasure, Pierre, on his side,
+grew calmer, and found relief and momentary repose in sharing the other's
+simple repast and yielding to all the kindliness around him, far from his
+usual worries. He remembered the vacant bed at the Asylum, which Baroness
+Duvillard had promised to keep in reserve until he should have asked Abbe
+Rose if he knew of any case of destitution particularly worthy of
+interest; and so before sitting down to table he spoke of the matter.
+
+"Destitution worthy of interest!" replied Abbe Rose, "ah! my dear child,
+every case is worthy of interest. And when it's a question of old toilers
+without work the only trouble is that of selection, the anguish of
+choosing one and leaving so many others in distress." Nevertheless,
+painful though his scruples were, he strove to think and come to some
+decision. "I know the case which will suit you," he said at last. "It's
+certainly one of the greatest suffering and wretchedness; and, so humble
+a one, too--an old carpenter of seventy-five, who has been living on
+public charity during the eight or ten years that he has been unable to
+find work. I don't know his name, everybody calls him 'the big Old'un.'
+There are times when he does not come to my Saturday distributions for
+weeks together. We shall have to look for him at once. I think that he
+sleeps at the Night Refuge in the Rue d'Orsel when lack of room there
+doesn't force him to spend the night crouching behind some palings. Shall
+we go down the Rue d'Orsel this evening?"
+
+Abbe Rose's eyes beamed brightly as he spoke, for this proposal of his
+signified a great debauch, the tasting of forbidden fruit. He had been
+reproached so often and so roughly with his visits to those who had
+fallen to the deepest want and misery, that in spite of his overflowing,
+apostolic compassion, he now scarcely dared to go near them. However, he
+continued: "Is it agreed, my child? Only this once? Besides, it is our
+only means of finding the big Old'un. You won't have to stop with me
+later than eleven. And I should so like to show you all that! You will
+see what terrible sufferings there are! And perhaps we may be fortunate
+enough to relieve some poor creature or other."
+
+Pierre smiled at the juvenile ardour displayed by this old man with snowy
+hair. "It's agreed, my dear Abbe," he responded, "I shall be very pleased
+to spend my whole evening with you, for I feel it will do me good to
+follow you once more on one of those rambles which used to fill our
+hearts with grief and joy."
+
+At this moment the servant brought in the soup; however, just as the two
+priests were taking their seats a discreet ring was heard, and when Abbe
+Rose learnt that the visitor was a neighbour, Madame Mathis, who had come
+for an answer, he gave orders that she should be shown in.
+
+"This poor woman," he explained to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten
+francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me
+at the time. But I've since procured it. She lives in the house, you
+know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps her
+in bread."
+
+"But hasn't she a big son of twenty?" asked Pierre, suddenly remembering
+the young man he had seen at Salvat's.
+
+"Yes, yes. Her parents, I believe, were rich people in the provinces.
+I've been told that she married a music master, who gave her lessons, at
+Nantes; and who ran away with her and brought her to Paris, where he
+died. It was quite a doleful love-story. By selling the furniture and
+realising every little thing she possessed, she scraped together an
+income of about two thousand francs a year, with which she was able to
+send her son to college and live decently herself. But a fresh blow fell
+on her: she lost the greater part of her little fortune, which was
+invested in doubtful securities. So now her income amounts at the utmost
+to eight hundred francs; two hundred of which she has to expend in rent.
+For all her other wants she has to be content with fifty francs a month.
+About eighteen months ago her son left her so as not to be a burden on
+her, and he is trying to earn his living somewhere, but without success,
+I believe."
+
+Madame Mathis, a short, dark woman, with a sad, gentle, retiring face,
+came in. Invariably clad in the same black gown, she showed all the
+anxious timidity of a poor creature whom the storms of life perpetually
+assailed. When Abbe Rose had handed her the ten francs discreetly wrapped
+in paper, she blushed and thanked him, promising to pay him back as soon
+as she received her month's money, for she was not a beggar and did not
+wish to encroach on the share of those who starved.
+
+"And your son, Victor, has he found any employment?" asked the old
+priest.
+
+She hesitated, ignorant as she was of what her son might be doing, for
+now she did not see him for weeks together. And finally, she contented
+herself with answering: "He has a good heart, he is very fond of me. It
+is a great misfortune that we should have been ruined before he could
+enter the Ecole Normale. It was impossible for him to prepare for the
+examination. But at the Lycee he was such a diligent and intelligent
+pupil!"
+
+"You lost your husband when your son was ten years old, did you not?"
+said Abbe Rose.
+
+At this she blushed again, thinking that her husband's story was known to
+the two priests. "Yes, my poor husband never had any luck," she said.
+"His difficulties embittered and excited his mind, and he died in prison.
+He was sent there through a disturbance at a public meeting, when he had
+the misfortune to wound a police officer. He had also fought at the time
+of the Commune. And yet he was a very gentle man and extremely fond of
+me."
+
+Tears had risen to her eyes; and Abbe Rose, much touched, dismissed her:
+"Well, let us hope that your son will give you satisfaction, and be able
+to repay you for all you have done for him."
+
+With a gesture of infinite sorrow, Madame Mathis discreetly withdrew. She
+was quite ignorant of her son's doings, but fate had pursued her so
+relentlessly that she ever trembled.
+
+"I don't think that the poor woman has much to expect from her son," said
+Pierre, when she had gone. "I only saw him once, but the gleam in his
+eyes was as harsh and trenchant as that of a knife."
+
+"Do you think so?" the old priest exclaimed, with his kindly _naivete_.
+"Well, he seemed to me very polite, perhaps a trifle eager to enjoy life;
+but then, all the young folks are impatient nowadays. Come, let us sit
+down to table, for the soup will be cold."
+
+Almost at the same hour, on the other side of Paris, night had in like
+fashion slowly fallen in the drawing-room of the Countess de Quinsac, on
+the dismal, silent ground-floor of an old mansion in the Rue St.
+Dominique. The Countess was there, alone with her faithful friend, the
+Marquis de Morigny, she on one side, and he on the other side of the
+chimney-piece, where the last embers of the wood fire were dying out. The
+servant had not yet brought the lamp, and the Countess refrained from
+ringing, finding some relief from her anxiety in the falling darkness,
+which hid from view all the unconfessed thoughts that she was afraid of
+showing on her weary face. And it was only now, before that dim hearth,
+and in that black room, where never a sound of wheels disturbed the
+silence of the slumberous past, that she dared to speak.
+
+"Yes, my friend," she said, "I am not satisfied with Gerard's health. You
+will see him yourself, for he promised to come home early and dine with
+me. Oh! I'm well aware that he looks big and strong; but to know him
+properly one must have nursed and watched him as I have done! What
+trouble I had to rear him! In reality he is at the mercy of any petty
+ailment. His slightest complaint becomes serious illness. And the life he
+leads does not conduce to good health."
+
+She paused and sighed, hesitating to carry her confession further.
+
+"He leads the life he can," slowly responded the Marquis de Morigny, of
+whose delicate profile, and lofty yet loving bearing, little could be
+seen in the gloom. "As he was unable to endure military life, and as even
+the fatigues of diplomacy frighten you, what would you have him do? He
+can only live apart pending the final collapse, while this abominable
+Republic is dragging France to the grave."
+
+"No doubt, my friend. And yet it is just that idle life which frightens
+me. He is losing in it all that was good and healthy in him. I don't
+refer merely to the _liaisons_ which we have had to tolerate. The last
+one, which I found so much difficulty in countenancing at the outset, so
+contrary did it seem to all my ideas and beliefs, has since seemed to me
+to exercise almost a good influence. Only he is now entering his
+thirty-sixth year, and can he continue living in this fashion without
+object or duties? If he is ailing it is perhaps precisely because he does
+nothing, holds no position, and serves no purpose." Her voice again
+quavered. "And then, my friend, since you force me to tell you
+everything, I must own that I am not in good health myself. I have had
+several fainting fits of late, and have consulted a doctor. The truth is,
+that I may go off at any moment."
+
+With a quiver, Morigny leant forward in the still deepening gloom, and
+wished to take hold of her hands. "You! what, am I to lose you, my last
+affection!" he faltered, "I who have seen the old world I belong to
+crumble away, I who only live in the hope that you at all events will
+still be here to close my eyes!"
+
+But she begged him not to increase her grief: "No, no, don't take my
+hands, don't kiss them! Remain there in the shade, where I can scarcely
+see you.... We have loved one another so long without aught to cause
+shame or regret; and that will prove our strength--our divine
+strength--till we reach the grave.... And if you were to touch me, if
+I were to feel you too near me I could not finish, for I have not done so
+yet."
+
+As soon as he had relapsed into silence and immobility, she continued:
+"If I were to die to-morrow, Gerard would not even find here the little
+fortune which he still fancies is in my hands. The dear child has often
+cost me large sums of money without apparently being conscious of it. I
+ought to have been more severe, more prudent. But what would you have?
+Ruin is at hand. I have always been too weak a mother. And do you now
+understand in what anguish I live? I ever have the thought that if I die
+Gerard will not even possess enough to live on, for he is incapable of
+effecting the miracle which I renew each day, in order to keep the house
+up on a decent footing.... Ah! I know him, so supine, so sickly, in
+spite of his proud bearing, unable to do anything, even conduct himself.
+And so what will become of him; will he not fall into the most dire
+distress?"
+
+Then her tears flowed freely, her heart opened and bled, for she foresaw
+what must happen after her death: the collapse of her race and of a whole
+world in the person of that big child. And the Marquis, still motionless
+but distracted, feeling that he had no title to offer his own fortune,
+suddenly understood her, foresaw in what disgrace this fresh disaster
+would culminate.
+
+"Ah! my poor friend!" he said at last in a voice trembling with revolt
+and grief. "So you have agreed to that marriage--yes, that abominable
+marriage with that woman's daughter! Yet you swore it should never be!
+You would rather witness the collapse of everything, you said. And now
+you are consenting, I can feel it!"
+
+She still wept on in that black, silent drawing-room before the
+chimney-piece where the fire had died out. Did not Gerard's marriage to
+Camille mean a happy ending for herself, a certainty of leaving her son
+wealthy, loved, and seated at the banquet of life? However, a last
+feeling of rebellion arose within her.
+
+"No, no," she exclaimed, "I don't consent, I swear to you that I don't
+consent as yet. I am fighting with my whole strength, waging an incessant
+battle, the torture of which you cannot imagine."
+
+Then, in all sincerity, she foresaw the likelihood of defeat. "If I
+should some day give way, my friend, at all events believe that I feel,
+as fully as you do, how abominable such a marriage must be. It will be
+the end of our race and our honour!"
+
+This cry profoundly stirred the Marquis, and he was unable to add a word.
+Haughty and uncompromising Catholic and Royalist that he was, he, on his
+side also, expected nothing but the supreme collapse. Yet how
+heartrending was the thought that this noble woman, so dearly and so
+purely loved, would prove one of the most mournful victims of the
+catastrophe! And in the shrouding gloom he found courage to kneel before
+her, take her hand, and kiss it.
+
+Just as the servant was at last bringing a lighted lamp Gerard made his
+appearance. The past-century charm of the old Louis XVI. drawing-room,
+with its pale woodwork, again became apparent in the soft light. In order
+that his mother might not be over-saddened by his failure to dine with
+her that evening the young man had put on an air of brisk gaiety; and
+when he had explained that some friends were waiting for him, she at once
+released him from his promise, happy as she felt at seeing him so merry.
+
+"Go, go, my dear boy," said she, "but mind you do not tire yourself too
+much.... I am going to keep Morigny; and the General and Larombiere
+are coming at nine o'clock. So be easy, I shall have someone with me to
+keep me from fretting and feeling lonely."
+
+In this wise Gerard after sitting down for a moment and chatting with the
+Marquis was able to slip away, dress, and betake himself to the Cafe
+Anglais.
+
+When he reached it women in fur cloaks were already climbing the stairs,
+fashionable and merry parties were filling the private rooms, the
+electric lights shone brilliantly, and the walls were already vibrating
+with the stir of pleasure and debauchery. In the room which Baron
+Duvillard had engaged the young man found an extraordinary display, the
+most superb flowers, and a profusion of plate and crystal as for a royal
+gala. The pomp with which the six covers were laid called forth a smile;
+while the bill of fare and the wine list promised marvels, all the rarest
+and most expensive things that could be selected.
+
+"It's stylish, isn't it?" exclaimed Silviane, who was already there with
+Duvillard, Fonsegue and Duthil. "I just wanted to make your influential
+critic open his eyes a little! When one treats a journalist to such a
+dinner as this, he has got to be amiable, hasn't he?"
+
+In her desire to conquer, it had occurred to the young woman to array
+herself in the most amazing fashion. Her gown of yellow satin, covered
+with old Alencon lace, was cut low at the neck; and she had put on all
+her diamonds, a necklace, a diadem, shoulder-knots, bracelets and rings.
+With her candid, girlish face, she looked like some Virgin in a missal, a
+Queen-Virgin, laden with the offerings of all Christendom.
+
+"Well, well, you look so pretty," said Gerard, who sometimes jested with
+her, "that I think it will do all the same."
+
+"Ah!" she replied with equanimity. "You consider me a _bourgeoise_, I
+see. Your opinion is that a simple little dinner and a modest gown would
+have shown better taste. But ah! my dear fellow, you don't know the way
+to get round men!"
+
+Duvillard signified his approval, for he was delighted to be able to show
+her in all her glory, adorned like an idol. Fonsegue, for his part,
+talked of diamonds, saying that they were now doubtful investments, as
+the day when they would become articles of current manufacture was fast
+approaching, thanks to the electrical furnace and other inventions.
+Meantime Duthil, with an air of ecstasy and the dainty gestures of a
+lady's maid, hovered around the young woman, either smoothing a
+rebellious bow or arranging some fold of her lace.
+
+"But I say," resumed Silviane, "your critic seems to be an ill-bred man,
+for he's keeping us waiting."
+
+Indeed, the critic arrived a quarter of an hour late, and while
+apologising, he expressed his regret that he should be obliged to leave
+at half-past nine, for he was absolutely compelled to put in an
+appearance at a little theatre in the Rue Pigalle. He was a big fellow of
+fifty with broad shoulders and a full, bearded face. His most
+disagreeable characteristic was the narrow dogmatic pedantry which he had
+acquired at the Ecole Normale, and had never since been able to shake
+off. All his herculean efforts to be sceptical and frivolous, and the
+twenty years he had spent in Paris mingling with every section of
+society, had failed to rid him of it. _Magister_ he was, and _magister_
+he remained, even in his most strenuous flights of imagination and
+audacity. From the moment of his arrival he tried to show himself
+enraptured with Silviane. Naturally enough, he already knew her by sight,
+and had even criticised her on one occasion in five or six contemptuous
+lines. However, the sight of her there, in full beauty, clad like a
+queen, and presented by four influential protectors, filled him with
+emotion; and he was struck with the idea that nothing would be more
+Parisian and less pedantic than to assert she had some talent and give
+her his support.
+
+They had seated themselves at table, and the repast proved a magnificent
+one, the service ever prompt and assiduous, an attendant being allotted
+to each diner. While the flowers scattered their perfumes through the
+room, and the plate and crystal glittered on the snowy cloth, an
+abundance of delicious and unexpected dishes were handed round--a
+sturgeon from Russia, prohibited game, truffles as big as eggs, and
+hothouse vegetables and fruit as full of flavour as if they had been
+naturally matured. It was money flung out of window, simply for the
+pleasure of wasting more than other people, and eating what they could
+not procure. The influential critic, though he displayed the ease of a
+man accustomed to every sort of festivity, really felt astonished at it
+all, and became servile, promising his support, and pledging himself far
+more than he really wished to. Moreover, he showed himself very gay,
+found some witty remarks to repeat, and even some rather ribald jests.
+But when the champagne appeared after the roast and the grand burgundies,
+his over-excitement brought him back perforce to his real nature. The
+conversation had now turned on Corneille's "Polyeucte" and the part of
+"Pauline," in which Silviane wished to make her _debut_ at the Comedie
+Francaise. This extraordinary caprice, which had quite revolted the
+influential critic a week previously, now seemed to him simply a bold
+enterprise in which the young woman might even prove victorious if she
+consented to listen to his advice. And, once started, he delivered quite
+a lecture on the past, asserting that no actress had ever yet understood
+it properly, for at the outset Pauline was simply a well-meaning little
+creature of the middle classes, and the beauty of her conversion at the
+finish arose from the working of a miracle, a stroke of heavenly grace
+which endowed her with something divine. This was not the opinion of
+Silviane, who from the first lines regarded Pauline as the ideal heroine
+of some symbolical legend. However, as the critic talked on and on, she
+had to feign approval; and he was delighted at finding her so beautiful
+and docile beneath his ferule. At last, as ten o'clock was striking, he
+rose and tore out of the hot and reeking room in order to do his work.
+
+"Ah! my dears," cried Silviane, "he's a nice bore is that critic of
+yours! What a fool he is with his idea of Pauline being a little
+_bourgeoise_! I would have given him a fine dressing if it weren't for
+the fact that I have some need of him. Ah! no, it's too idiotic! Pour me
+out a glass of champagne. I want something to set me right after all
+that!"
+
+The _fete_ then took quite an intimate turn between the four men who
+remained and that bare-armed, bare-breasted girl, covered with diamonds;
+while from the neighbouring passages and rooms came bursts of laughter
+and sounds of kissing, all the stir and mirth of the debauchery now
+filling the house. And beneath the windows torrents of vehicles and
+pedestrians streamed along the Boulevards where reigned the wild fever of
+pleasure and harlotry.
+
+"No, don't open it, or I shall catch cold!" resumed Silviane, addressing
+Fonsegue as he stepped towards the window. "Are you so very warm, then?
+I'm just comfortable.... But, Duvillard, my good fellow, please order
+some more champagne. It's wonderful what a thirst your critic has given
+me!"
+
+Amidst the blinding glare of the lamps and the perfume of the flowers and
+wines, one almost stifled in the room. And Silviane was seized with an
+irresistible desire for a spree, a desire to tipple and amuse herself in
+some vulgar fashion, as in her bygone days. A few glasses of champagne
+brought her to full pitch, and she showed the boldest and giddiest
+gaiety. The others, who had never before seen her so lively, began on
+their own side to feel amused. As Fonsegue was obliged to go to his
+office she embraced him "like a daughter," as she expressed it. However,
+on remaining alone with the others she indulged in great freedom of
+speech, which became more and more marked as her intoxication increased.
+And to the class of men with whom she consorted her great attraction, as
+she was well aware, lay in the circumstance that with her virginal
+countenance and her air of ideal purity was coupled the most monstrous
+perversity ever displayed by any shameless woman. Despite her innocent
+blue eyes and lily-like candour, she would give rein, particularly when
+she was drunk, to the most diabolical of fancies.
+
+Duvillard let her drink on, but she guessed his thoughts, like she
+guessed those of the others, and simply smiled while concocting
+impossible stories and descanting fantastically in the language of the
+gutter. And seeing her there in her dazzling gown fit for a queenly
+virgin, and hearing her pour forth the vilest words, they thought her
+most wonderfully droll. However, when she had drunk as much champagne as
+she cared for and was half crazy, a novel idea suddenly occurred to her.
+
+"I say, my children," she exclaimed, "we are surely not going to stop
+here. It's so precious slow! You shall take me to the Chamber of
+Horrors--eh? just to finish the evening. I want to hear Legras sing 'La
+Chemise,' that song which all Paris is running to hear him sing."
+
+But Duvillard indignantly rebelled: "Oh! no," said he; "most certainly
+not. It's a vile song and I'll never take you to such an abominable
+place."
+
+But she did not appear to hear him. She had already staggered to her feet
+and was arranging her hair before a looking-glass. "I used to live at
+Montmartre," she said, "and it'll amuse me to go back there. And,
+besides, I want to know if this Legras is a Legras that I knew, oh! ever
+so long ago! Come, up you get, and let us be off!"
+
+"But, my dear girl," pleaded Duvillard, "we can't take you into that den
+dressed as you are! Just fancy your entering that place in a low-necked
+gown and covered with diamonds! Why everyone would jeer at us! Come,
+Gerard, just tell her to be a little reasonable."
+
+Gerard, equally offended by the idea of such a freak, was quite willing
+to intervene. But she closed his mouth with her gloved hand and repeated
+with the gay obstinacy of intoxication: "Pooh, it will be all the more
+amusing if they do jeer at us! Come, let us be off, let us be off,
+quick!"
+
+Thereupon Duthil, who had been listening with a smile and the air of a
+man of pleasure whom nothing astonishes or displeases, gallantly took her
+part. "But, my dear Baron, everybody goes to the Chamber of Horrors,"
+said he. "Why, I myself have taken the noblest ladies there, and
+precisely to hear that song of Legras, which is no worse than anything
+else."
+
+"Ah! you hear what Duthil says!" cried Silviane. "He's a deputy, he is,
+and he wouldn't go there if he thought it would compromise his
+honorability!"
+
+Then, as Duvillard still struggled on in despair at the idea of
+exhibiting himself with her in such a scandalous place, she became all
+the merrier: "Well, my dear fellow, please yourself. I don't need you.
+You and Gerard can go home if you like. But I'm going to Montmartre with
+Duthil. You'll take charge of me, won't you, Duthil, eh?"
+
+Still, the Baron was in no wise disposed to let the evening finish in
+that fashion. The mere idea of it gave him a shock, and he had to resign
+himself to the girl's stubborn caprice. The only consolation he could
+think of was to secure Gerard's presence, for the young man, with some
+lingering sense of decorum, still obstinately refused to make one of the
+party. So the Baron took his hands and detained him, repeating in urgent
+tones that he begged him to come as an essential mark of friendship. And
+at last the wife's lover and daughter's suitor had to give way to the man
+who was the former's husband and the latter's father.
+
+Silviane was immensely amused by it all, and, indiscreetly thee-ing and
+thou-ing Gerard, suggested that he at least owed the Baron some little
+compliance with his wishes.
+
+Duvillard pretended not to hear her. He was listening to Duthil, who told
+him that there was a sort of box in a corner of the Chamber of Horrors,
+in which one could in some measure conceal oneself. And then, as
+Silviane's carriage--a large closed landau, whose coachman, a sturdy,
+handsome fellow, sat waiting impassively on his box--was down below, they
+started off.
+
+The Chamber of Horrors was installed in premises on the Boulevard de
+Rochechouart, formerly occupied by a cafe whose proprietor had become
+bankrupt.* It was a suffocating place, narrow, irregular, with all sorts
+of twists, turns, and secluded nooks, and a low and smoky ceiling. And
+nothing could have been more rudimentary than its decorations. The walls
+had simply been placarded with posters of violent hues, some of the
+crudest character, showing the barest of female figures. Behind a piano
+at one end there was a little platform reached by a curtained doorway.
+For the rest, one simply found a number of bare wooden forms set
+alongside the veriest pot-house tables, on which the glasses containing
+various beverages left round and sticky marks. There was no luxury, no
+artistic feature, no cleanliness even. Globeless gas burners flared
+freely, heating a dense mist compounded of tobacco smoke and human
+breath. Perspiring, apoplectical faces could be perceived through this
+veil, and an acrid odour increased the intoxication of the assembly,
+which excited itself with louder and louder shouts at each fresh song. It
+had been sufficient for an enterprising fellow to set up these boards,
+bring out Legras, accompanied by two or three girls, make him sing his
+frantic and abominable songs, and in two or three evenings overwhelming
+success had come, all Paris being enticed and flocking to the place,
+which for ten years or so had failed to pay as a mere cafe, where by way
+of amusement petty cits had been simply allowed their daily games at
+dominoes.
+
+  * Those who know Paris will identify the site selected by M. Zola
+    as that where 'Colonel' Lisbonne of the Commune installed his
+    den the 'Bagne' some years ago. Nevertheless, such places as the
+    'Chamber of Horrors' now abound in the neighbourhood of
+    Montmartre, and it must be admitted that whilst they are
+    frequented by certain classes of Frenchmen they owe much of
+    their success in a pecuniary sense to the patronage of
+    foreigners. Among the latter, Englishmen are particularly
+    conspicuous.--Trans.
+
+And the change had been caused by the passion for filth, the irresistible
+attraction exercised by all that brought opprobrium and disgust. The
+Paris of enjoyment, the _bourgeoisie_ which held all wealth and power,
+which would relinquish naught of either, though it was surfeited and
+gradually wearying of both, simply hastened to the place in order that
+obscenity and insult might be flung in its face. Hypnotised, as it were,
+while staggering to its fall, it felt a need of being spat upon. And what
+a frightful symptom there lay in it all: those condemned ones rushing
+upon dirt of their own accord, voluntarily hastening their own
+decomposition by that unquenchable thirst for the vile, which attracted
+men, reputed to be grave and upright, and lovely women of the most
+perfect grace and luxury, to all the beastliness of that low den!
+
+At one of the tables nearest the stage sat little Princess Rosemonde de
+Harn, with wild eyes and quivering nostrils, delighted as she felt at now
+being able to satisfy her curiosity regarding the depths of Paris life.
+Young Hyacinthe had resigned himself to the task of bringing her, and,
+correctly buttoned up in his long frock-coat, he was indulgent enough to
+refrain from any marked expression of boredom. At a neighbouring table
+they had found a shadowy Spaniard of their acquaintance, a so-called
+Bourse jobber, Bergaz, who had been introduced to the Princess by Janzen,
+and usually attended her entertainments. They virtually knew nothing
+about him, not even if he really earned at the Bourse all the money which
+he sometimes spent so lavishly, and which enabled him to dress with
+affected elegance. His slim, lofty figure was not without a certain air
+of distinction, but his red lips spoke of strong passions and his bright
+eyes were those of a beast of prey. That evening he had two young fellows
+with him, one Rossi, a short, swarthy Italian, who had come to Paris as a
+painter's model, and had soon glided into the lazy life of certain
+disreputable callings, and the other, Sanfaute, a born Parisian
+blackguard, a pale, beardless, vicious and impudent stripling of La
+Chapelle, whose long curly hair fell down upon either side of his bony
+cheeks.
+
+"Oh! pray now!" feverishly said Rosemonde to Bergaz; "as you seem to know
+all these horrid people, just show me some of the celebrities. Aren't
+there some thieves and murderers among them?"
+
+He laughed shrilly, and in a bantering way replied: "But you know these
+people well enough, madame. That pretty, pink, delicate-looking woman
+over yonder is an American lady, the wife of a consul, whom, I believe,
+you receive at your house. That other on the right, that tall brunette
+who shows such queenly dignity, is a Countess, whose carriage passes
+yours every day in the Bois. And the thin one yonder, whose eyes glitter
+like those of a she-wolf, is the particular friend of a high official,
+who is well known for his reputation of austerity."
+
+But she stopped him, in vexation: "I know, I know. But the others, those
+of the lower classes, those whom one comes to see."
+
+Then she went on asking questions, and seeking for terrifying and
+mysterious countenances. At last, two men seated in a corner ended by
+attracting her attention; one of them a very young fellow with a pale,
+pinched face, and the other an ageless individual who, besides being
+buttoned up to his neck in an old coat, had pulled his cap so low over
+his eyes, that one saw little of his face beyond the beard which fringed
+it. Before these two stood a couple of mugs of beer, which they drank
+slowly and in silence.
+
+"You are making a great mistake, my dear," said Hyacinthe with a frank
+laugh, "if you are looking for brigands in disguise. That poor fellow
+with the pale face, who surely doesn't have food to eat every day, was my
+schoolfellow at Condorcet!"
+
+Bergaz expressed his amazement. "What! you knew Mathis at Condorcet!
+After all, though, you're right, he received a college education. Ah! and
+so you knew him. A very remarkable young man he is, though want is
+throttling him. But, I say, the other one, his companion, you don't know
+him?"
+
+Hyacinthe, after looking at the man with the cap-hidden face, was already
+shaking his head, when Bergaz suddenly gave him a nudge as a signal to
+keep quiet, and by way of explanation he muttered: "Hush! Here's
+Raphanel. I've been distrusting him for some time past. Whenever he
+appears anywhere, the police is not far off."
+
+Raphanel was another of the vague, mysterious Anarchists whom Janzen had
+presented to the Princess by way of satisfying her momentary passion for
+revolutionism. This one, though he was a fat, gay, little man, with a
+doll-like face and childish nose, which almost disappeared between his
+puffy cheeks, had the reputation of being a thorough desperado; and at
+public meetings he certainly shouted for fire and murder with all his
+lungs. Still, although he had already been compromised in various
+affairs, he had invariably managed to save his own bacon, whilst his
+companions were kept under lock and key; and this they were now beginning
+to think somewhat singular.
+
+He at once shook hands with the Princess in a jovial way, took a seat
+near her without being invited, and forthwith denounced the dirty
+_bourgeoisie_ which came to wallow in places of ill fame. Rosemonde was
+delighted, and encouraged him, but others near by began to get angry, and
+Bergaz examined him with his piercing eyes, like a man of energy who
+acts, and lets others talk. Now and then, too, he exchanged quick glances
+of intelligence with his silent lieutenants, Sanfaute and Rossi, who
+plainly belonged to him, both body and soul. They were the ones who found
+their profit in Anarchy, practising it to its logical conclusions,
+whether in crime or in vice.
+
+Meantime, pending the arrival of Legras with his "Flowers of the
+Pavement," two female vocalists had followed one another on the stage,
+the first fat and the second thin, one chirruping some silly love songs
+with an under-current of dirt, and the other shouting the coarsest of
+refrains, in a most violent, fighting voice. She had just finished amidst
+a storm of bravos, when the assembly, stirred to merriment and eager for
+a laugh, suddenly exploded once more. Silviane was entering the little
+box at one end of the hall. When she appeared erect in the full light,
+with bare arms and shoulders, looking like a planet in her gown of yellow
+satin and her blazing diamonds, there arose a formidable uproar, shouts,
+jeers, hisses, laughing and growling, mingled with ferocious applause.
+And the scandal increased, and the vilest expressions flew about as soon
+as Duvillard, Gerard and Duthil also showed themselves, looking very
+serious and dignified with their white ties and spreading shirt fronts.
+
+"We told you so!" muttered Duvillard, who was much annoyed with the
+affair, while Gerard tried to conceal himself in a dim corner.
+
+She, however, smiling and enchanted, faced the public, accepting the
+storm with the candid bearing of a foolish virgin, much as one inhales
+the vivifying air of the open when it bears down upon one in a squall.
+And, indeed, she herself had sprung from the sphere before her, its
+atmosphere was her native air.
+
+"Well, what of it?" she said replying to the Baron who wanted her to sit
+down. "They are merry. It's very nice. Oh! I'm really amusing myself!"
+
+"Why, yes, it's very nice," declared Duthil, who in like fashion set
+himself at his ease. "Silviane is right, people naturally like a laugh
+now and then!"
+
+Amidst the uproar, which did not cease, little Princess Rosemonde rose
+enthusiastically to get a better view. "Why, it's your father who's with
+that woman Silviane," she said to Hyacinthe. "Just look at them! Well, he
+certainly has plenty of bounce to show himself here with her!"
+
+Hyacinthe, however, refused to look. It didn't interest him, his father
+was an idiot, only a child would lose his head over a girl in that
+fashion. And with his contempt for woman the young man became positively
+insulting.
+
+"You try my nerves, my dear fellow," said Rosemonde as she sat down. "You
+are the child with your silly ideas about us. And as for your father, he
+does quite right to love that girl. I find her very pretty indeed, quite
+adorable!"
+
+Then all at once the uproar ceased, those who had risen resumed their
+seats, and the only sound was that of the feverish throb which coursed
+through the assembly. Legras had just appeared on the platform. He was a
+pale sturdy fellow with a round and carefully shaven face, stern eyes,
+and the powerful jaws of a man who compels the adoration of women by
+terrorising them. He was not deficient in talent, he sang true, and his
+ringing voice was one of extraordinary penetration and pathetic power.
+And his _repertoire_, his "Flowers of the Pavement," completed the
+explanation of his success; for all the foulness and suffering of the
+lower spheres, the whole abominable sore of the social hell created by
+the rich, shrieked aloud in these songs in words of filth and fire and
+blood.
+
+A prelude was played on the piano, and Legras standing there in his
+velvet jacket sang "La Chemise," the horrible song which brought all
+Paris to hear him. All the lust and vice that crowd the streets of the
+great city appeared with their filth and their poison; and amid the
+picture of Woman stripped, degraded, ill-treated, dragged through the
+mire and cast into a cesspool, there rang out the crime of the
+_bourgeoisie_. But the scorching insult of it all was less in the words
+themselves than in the manner in which Legras cast them in the faces of
+the rich, the happy, the beautiful ladies who came to listen to him.
+Under the low ceiling, amidst the smoke from the pipes, in the blinding
+glare of the gas, he sent his lines flying through the assembly like
+expectorations, projected by a whirlwind of furious contempt. And when he
+had finished there came delirium; the beautiful ladies did not even think
+of wiping away the many affronts they had received, but applauded
+frantically. The whole assembly stamped and shouted, and wallowed,
+distracted, in its ignominy.
+
+"Bravo! bravo!" the little Princess repeated in her shrill voice. "It's
+astonishing, astonishing, prodigious!"
+
+And Silviane, whose intoxication seemed to have increased since she had
+been there, in the depths of that fiery furnace, made herself
+particularly conspicuous by the manner in which she clapped her hands and
+shouted: "It's he, it's my Legras! I really must kiss him, he's pleased
+me so much!"
+
+Duvillard, now fairly exasperated, wished to take her off by force. But
+she clung to the hand-rest of the box, and shouted yet more loudly,
+though without any show of temper. It became necessary to parley with
+her. Yes, she was willing to go off and let them drive her home; but,
+first of all, she must embrace Legras, who was an old friend of hers. "Go
+and wait for me in the carriage!" she said, "I will be with you in a
+moment."
+
+Just as the assembly was at last becoming calmer, Rosemonde perceived
+that the box was emptying; and her own curiosity being satisfied, she
+thought of prevailing on Hyacinthe to see her home. He, who had listened
+to Legras in a languid way without even applauding, was now talking of
+Norway with Bergaz, who pretended that he had travelled in the North. Oh!
+the fiords! oh! the ice-bound lakes! oh! the pure lily-white, chaste
+coldness of the eternal winter! It was only amid such surroundings, said
+Hyacinthe, that he could understand woman and love, like a kiss of the
+very snow itself.
+
+"Shall we go off there to-morrow?" exclaimed the Princess with her
+vivacious effrontery. "I'll shut up my house and slip the key under the
+door."
+
+Then she added that she was jesting, of course. But Bergaz knew her to be
+quite capable of such a freak; and at the idea that she might shut up her
+little mansion and perhaps leave it unprotected he exchanged a quick
+glance with Sanfaute and Rossi, who still smiled in silence. Ah! what an
+opportunity for a fine stroke! What an opportunity to get back some of
+the wealth of the community appropriated by the blackguard _bourgeoisie_!
+
+Meantime Raphanel, after applauding Legras, was looking all round the
+place with his little grey, sharp eyes. And at last young Mathis and his
+companion, the ill-clad individual, of whose face only a scrap of beard
+could be seen, attracted his attention. They had neither laughed nor
+applauded; they seemed to be simply a couple of tired fellows who were
+resting, and in whose opinion one is best hidden in the midst of a crowd.
+
+All at once, though, Raphanel turned towards Bergaz: "That's surely
+little Mathis over yonder. But who's that with him?"
+
+Bergaz made an evasive gesture; he did not know. Still, he no longer took
+his eyes from Raphanel. And he saw the other feign indifference at what
+followed, and finish his beer and take his leave, with the jesting remark
+that he had an appointment with a lady at a neighbouring omnibus office.
+No sooner had he gone than Bergaz rose, sprang over some of the forms and
+jostled people in order to reach little Mathis, into whose ear he
+whispered a few words. And the young man at once left his table, taking
+his companion and pushing him outside through an occasional exit. It was
+all so rapidly accomplished that none of the general public paid
+attention to the flight.
+
+"What is it?" said the Princess to Bergaz, when he had quietly resumed
+his seat between Rossi and Sanfaute.
+
+"Oh! nothing, I merely wished to shake hands with Mathis as he was going
+off."
+
+Thereupon Rosemonde announced that she meant to do the same.
+Nevertheless, she lingered a moment longer and again spoke of Norway on
+perceiving that nothing could impassion Hyacinthe except the idea of the
+eternal snow, the intense, purifying cold of the polar regions. In his
+poem on the "End of Woman," a composition of some thirty lines, which he
+hoped he should never finish, he thought of introducing a forest of
+frozen pines by way of final scene. Now the Princess had risen and was
+gaily reverting to her jest, declaring that she meant to take him home to
+drink a cup of tea and arrange their trip to the Pole, when an
+involuntary exclamation fell from Bergaz, who, while listening, had kept
+his eyes on the doorway.
+
+"Mondesir! I was sure of it!"
+
+There had appeared at the entrance a short, sinewy, broad-backed little
+man, about whose round face, bumpy forehead, and snub nose there was
+considerable military roughness. One might have thought him a
+non-commissioned officer in civilian attire. He gazed over the whole
+room, and seemed at once dismayed and disappointed.
+
+Bergaz, however, wishing to account for his exclamation, resumed in an
+easy way: "Ah! I said there was a smell of the police about the place!
+You see that fellow--he's a detective, a very clever one, named Mondesir,
+who had some trouble when he was in the army. Just look at him, sniffing
+like a dog that has lost scent! Well, well, my brave fellow, if you've
+been told of any game you may look and look for it, the bird's flown
+already!"
+
+Once outside, when Rosemonde had prevailed on Hyacinthe to see her home,
+they hastened to get into the brougham, which was waiting for them, for
+near at hand they perceived Silviane's landau, with the majestic coachman
+motionless on his box, while Duvillard, Gerard, and Duthil still stood
+waiting on the curbstone. They had been there for nearly twenty minutes
+already, in the semi-darkness of that outer boulevard, where all the
+vices of the poor districts of Paris were on the prowl. They had been
+jostled by drunkards; and shadowy women brushed against them as they went
+by whispering beneath the oaths and blows of bullies. And there were
+couples seeking the darkness under the trees, and lingering on the
+benches there; while all around were low taverns and dirty lodging-houses
+and places of ill-fame. All the human degradation which till break of day
+swarms in the black mud of this part of Paris, enveloped the three men,
+giving them the horrors, and yet neither the Baron nor Gerard nor Duthil
+was willing to go off. Each hoped that he would tire out the others, and
+take Silviane home when she should at last appear.
+
+But after a time the Baron grew impatient, and said to the coachman:
+"Jules, go and see why madame doesn't come."
+
+"But the horses, Monsieur le Baron?"
+
+"Oh! they will be all right, we are here."
+
+A fine drizzle had begun to fall; and the wait went on again as if it
+would never finish. But an unexpected meeting gave them momentary
+occupation. A shadowy form, something which seemed to be a thin,
+black-skirted woman, brushed against them. And all of a sudden they were
+surprised to find it was a priest.
+
+"What, is it you, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment?" exclaimed Gerard. "At this
+time of night? And in this part of Paris?"
+
+Thereupon Pierre, without venturing either to express his own
+astonishment at finding them there themselves, or to ask them what they
+were doing, explained that he had been belated through accompanying Abbe
+Rose on a visit to a night refuge. Ah! to think of all the frightful want
+which at last drifted to those pestilential dormitories where the stench
+had almost made him faint! To think of all the weariness and despair
+which there sank into the slumber of utter prostration, like that of
+beasts falling to the ground to sleep off the abominations of life! No
+name could be given to the promiscuity; poverty and suffering were there
+in heaps, children and men, young and old, beggars in sordid rags, beside
+the shameful poor in threadbare frock-coats, all the waifs and strays of
+the daily shipwrecks of Paris life, all the laziness and vice, and
+ill-luck and injustice which the torrent rolls on, and throws off like
+scum. Some slept on, quite annihilated, with the faces of corpses.
+Others, lying on their backs with mouths agape, snored loudly as if still
+venting the plaint of their sorry life. And others tossed restlessly,
+still struggling in their slumber against fatigue and cold and hunger,
+which pursued them like nightmares of monstrous shape. And from all those
+human beings, stretched there like wounded after a battle, from all that
+ambulance of life reeking with a stench of rottenness and death, there
+ascended a nausea born of revolt, the vengeance-prompting thought of all
+the happy chambers where, at that same hour, the wealthy loved or rested
+in fine linen and costly lace.*
+
+  * Even the oldest Paris night refuges, which are the outcome
+    of private philanthropy--L'Oeuvre de l'Hospitalite de Nuit--
+    have only been in existence some fourteen or fifteen years.
+    Before that time, and from the period of the great Revolution
+    forward, there was absolutely no place, either refuge, asylum,
+    or workhouse, in the whole of that great city of wealth and
+    pleasure, where the houseless poor could crave a night's
+    shelter. The various royalist, imperialist and republican
+    governments and municipalities of modern France have often
+    been described as 'paternal,' but no governments and
+    municipalities in the whole civilised world have done less for
+    the very poor. The official Poor Relief Board--L'Assistance
+    Publique--has for fifty years been a by-word, a mockery and a
+    sham, in spite of its large revenue. And this neglect of the
+    very poor has been an important factor in every French
+    revolution. Each of these--even that of 1870--had its purely
+    economic side, though many superficial historians are content
+    to ascribe economic causes to the one Revolution of 1789, and
+    to pass them by in all other instances.--Trans.
+
+In vain had Pierre and Abbe Rose passed all the poor wretches in review
+while seeking the big Old'un, the former carpenter, so as to rescue him
+from the cesspool of misery, and send him to the Asylum on the very
+morrow. He had presented himself at the refuge that evening, but there
+was no room left, for, horrible to say, even the shelter of that hell
+could only be granted to early comers. And so he must now be leaning
+against a wall, or lying behind some palings. This had greatly distressed
+poor Abbe Rose and Pierre, but it was impossible for them to search every
+dark, suspicious corner; and so the former had returned to the Rue
+Cortot, while the latter was seeking a cab to convey him back to Neuilly.
+
+The fine drizzling rain was still falling and becoming almost icy, when
+Silviane's coachman, Jules, at last reappeared and interrupted the
+priest, who was telling the Baron and the others how his visit to the
+refuge still made him shudder.
+
+"Well, Jules--and madame?" asked Duvillard, quite anxious at seeing the
+coachman return alone.
+
+Impassive and respectful, with no other sign of irony than a slight
+involuntary twist of the lips, Jules answered: "Madame sends word that
+she is not going home; and she places her carriage at the gentlemen's
+disposal if they will allow me to drive them home."
+
+This was the last straw, and the Baron flew into a passion. To have
+allowed her to drag him to that vile den, to have waited there hopefully
+so long, and to be treated in this fashion for the sake of a Legras! No,
+no, he, the Baron, had had enough of it, and she should pay dearly for
+her abominable conduct! Then he stopped a passing cab and pushed Gerard
+inside it saying, "You can set me down at my door."
+
+"But she's left us the carriage!" shouted Duthil, who was already
+consoled, and inwardly laughed at the termination of it all. "Come here,
+there's plenty of room for three. No? you prefer the cab? Well, just as
+you like, you know."
+
+For his part he gaily climbed into the landau and drove off lounging on
+the cushions, while the Baron, in the jolting old cab, vented his rage
+without a word of interruption from Gerard, whose face was hidden by the
+darkness. To think of it! that she, whom he had overwhelmed with gifts,
+who had already cost him two millions of francs, should in this fashion
+insult him, the master who could dispose both of fortunes and of men!
+Well, she had chosen to do it, and he was delivered! Then Duvillard drew
+a long breath like a man released from the galleys.
+
+For a moment Pierre watched the two vehicles go off; and then took his
+own way under the trees, so as to shelter himself from the rain until a
+vacant cab should pass. Full of distress and battling thoughts he had
+begun to feel icy cold. The whole monstrous night of Paris, all the
+debauchery and woe that sobbed around him made him shiver. Phantom-like
+women who, when young, had led lives of infamy in wealth, and who now,
+old and faded, led lives of infamy in poverty, were still and ever
+wandering past him in search of bread, when suddenly a shadowy form
+grazed him, and a voice murmured in his ear: "Warn your brother, the
+police are on Salvat's track, he may be arrested at any moment."
+
+The shadowy figure was already going its way, and as a gas ray fell upon
+it, Pierre thought that he recognised the pale, pinched face of Victor
+Mathis. And at the same time, yonder in Abbe Rose's peaceful dining-room,
+he fancied he could again see the gentle face of Madame Mathis, so sad
+and so resigned, living on solely by the force of the last trembling hope
+which she had unhappily set in her son.
+
+
+
+
+III. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
+
+ALREADY at eight o'clock on that holiday-making mid-Lent Thursday, when
+all the offices of the Home Department were empty, Monferrand, the
+Minister, sat alone in his private room. A single usher guarded his door,
+and in the first ante-chamber there were only a couple of messengers.
+
+The Minister had experienced, on awaking, the most unpleasant of
+emotions. The "Voix du Peuple," which on the previous day had revived the
+African Railway scandal, by accusing Barroux of having pocketed 20,000
+francs, had that morning published its long-promised list of the
+bribe-taking senators and deputies. And at the head of this list
+Monferrand had found his own name set down against a sum of 80,000
+francs, while Fonsegue was credited with 50,000. Then a fifth of the
+latter amount was said to have been Duthil's share, and Chaigneux had
+contented himself with the beggarly sum of 3,000 francs--the lowest price
+paid for any one vote, the cost of each of the others ranging from 5 to
+20,000.
+
+It must be said that there was no anger in Monferrand's emotion. Only he
+had never thought that Sagnier would carry his passion for uproar and
+scandal so far as to publish this list--a page which was said to have
+been torn from a memorandum book belonging to Duvillard's agent, Hunter,
+and which was covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphics that ought to
+have been discussed and explained, if, indeed, the real truth was to be
+arrived at. Personally, Monferrand felt quite at ease, for he had written
+nothing, signed nothing, and knew that one could always extricate oneself
+from a mess by showing some audacity, and never confessing. Nevertheless,
+what a commotion it would all cause in the parliamentary duck-pond. He at
+once realised the inevitable consequences, the ministry overthrown and
+swept away by this fresh whirlwind of denunciation and tittle-tattle.
+Mege would renew his interpellation on the morrow, and Vignon and his
+friends would at once lay siege to the posts they coveted. And he,
+Monferrand, could picture himself driven out of that ministerial sanctum
+where, for eight months past, he had been taking his ease, not with any
+foolish vainglory, but with the pleasure of feeling that he was in his
+proper place as a born ruler, who believed he could tame and lead the
+multitude.
+
+Having thrown the newspapers aside with a disdainful gesture, he rose and
+stretched himself, growling the while like a plagued lion. And then he
+began to walk up and down the spacious room, which showed all the faded
+official luxury of mahogany furniture and green damask hangings. Stepping
+to and fro, with his hands behind his back, he no longer wore his usual
+fatherly, good-natured air. He appeared as he really was, a born
+wrestler, short, but broad shouldered, with sensual mouth, fleshy nose
+and stern eyes, that all proclaimed him to be unscrupulous, of iron will
+and fit for the greatest tasks. Still, in this case, in what direction
+lay his best course? Must he let himself be dragged down with Barroux?
+Perhaps his personal position was not absolutely compromised? And yet how
+could he part company from the others, swim ashore, and save himself
+while they were being drowned? It was a grave problem, and with his
+frantic desire to retain power, he made desperate endeavours to devise
+some suitable manoeuvre.
+
+But he could think of nothing, and began to swear at the virtuous fits of
+that silly Republic, which, in his opinion, rendered all government
+impossible. To think of such foolish fiddle-faddle stopping a man of his
+acumen and strength! How on earth can one govern men if one is denied the
+use of money, that sovereign means of sway? And he laughed bitterly; for
+the idea of an idyllic country where all great enterprises would be
+carried out in an absolutely honest manner seemed to him the height of
+absurdity.
+
+At last, however, unable as he was to come to a determination, it
+occurred to him to confer with Baron Duvillard, whom he had long known,
+and whom he regretted not having seen sooner so as to urge him to
+purchase Sagnier's silence. At first he thought of sending the Baron a
+brief note by a messenger; but he disliked committing anything to paper,
+for the veriest scrap of writing may prove dangerous; so he preferred to
+employ the telephone which had been installed for his private use near
+his writing-table.
+
+"It is Baron Duvillard who is speaking to me?... Quite so. It's I, the
+Minister, Monsieur Monferrand. I shall be much obliged if you will come
+to see me at once.... Quite so, quite so, I will wait for you."
+
+Then again he walked to and fro and meditated. That fellow Duvillard was
+as clever a man as himself, and might be able to give him an idea. And he
+was still laboriously trying to devise some scheme, when the usher
+entered saying that Monsieur Gascogne, the Chief of the Detective Police,
+particularly wished to speak to him. Monferrand's first thought was that
+the Prefecture of Police desired to know his views respecting the steps
+which ought to be taken to ensure public order that day; for two mid-Lent
+processions--one of the Washerwomen and the other of the Students--were
+to march through Paris, whose streets would certainly be crowded.
+
+"Show Monsieur Gascogne in," he said.
+
+A tall, slim, dark man, looking like an artisan in his Sunday best, then
+stepped into the ministerial sanctum. Fully acquainted with the
+under-currents of Paris life, this Chief of the Detective Force had a
+cold dispassionate nature and a clear and methodical mind.
+Professionalism slightly spoilt him, however: he would have possessed
+more intelligence if he had not credited himself with so much.
+
+He began by apologising for his superior the Prefect, who would certainly
+have called in person had he not been suffering from indisposition.
+However, it was perhaps best that he, Gascogne, should acquaint Monsieur
+le Ministre with the grave affair which brought him, for he knew every
+detail of it. Then he revealed what the grave affair was.
+
+"I believe, Monsieur le Ministre, that we at last hold the perpetrator of
+the crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."
+
+At this, Monferrand, who had been listening impatiently, became quite
+impassioned. The fruitless searches of the police, the attacks and the
+jeers of the newspapers, were a source of daily worry to him. "Ah!--Well,
+so much the better for you Monsieur Gascogne," he replied with brutal
+frankness. "You would have ended by losing your post. The man is
+arrested?"
+
+"Not yet, Monsieur le Ministre; but he cannot escape, and it is merely an
+affair of a few hours."
+
+Then the Chief of the Detective Force told the whole story: how Detective
+Mondesir, on being warned by a secret agent that the Anarchist Salvat was
+in a tavern at Montmartre, had reached it just as the bird had flown;
+then how chance had again set him in presence of Salvat at a hundred
+paces or so from the tavern, the rascal having foolishly loitered there
+to watch the establishment; and afterwards how Salvat had been stealthily
+shadowed in the hope that they might catch him in his hiding-place with
+his accomplices. And, in this wise, he had been tracked to the
+Porte-Maillot, where, realising, no doubt, that he was pursued, he had
+suddenly bolted into the Bois de Boulogne. It was there that he had been
+hiding since two o'clock in the morning in the drizzle which had not
+ceased to fall. They had waited for daylight in order to organise a
+_battue_ and hunt him down like some animal, whose weariness must
+necessarily ensure capture. And so, from one moment to another, he would
+be caught.
+
+"I know the great interest you take in the arrest, Monsieur le Ministre,"
+added Gascogne, "and it occurred to me to ask your orders. Detective
+Mondesir is over there, directing the hunt. He regrets that he did not
+apprehend the man on the Boulevard de Rochechouart; but, all the same,
+the idea of following him was a capital one, and one can only reproach
+Mondesir with having forgotten the Bois de Boulogne in his calculations."
+
+Salvat arrested! That fellow Salvat whose name had filled the newspapers
+for three weeks past. This was a most fortunate stroke which would be
+talked of far and wide! In the depths of Monferrand's fixed eyes one
+could divine a world of thoughts and a sudden determination to turn this
+incident which chance had brought him to his own personal advantage. In
+his own mind a link was already forming between this arrest and that
+African Railways interpellation which was likely to overthrow the
+ministry on the morrow. The first outlines of a scheme already rose
+before him. Was it not his good star that had sent him what he had been
+seeking--a means of fishing himself out of the troubled waters of the
+approaching crisis?
+
+"But tell me, Monsieur Gascogne," said he, "are you quite sure that this
+man Salvat committed the crime?"
+
+"Oh! perfectly sure, Monsieur le Ministre. He'll confess everything in
+the cab before he reaches the Prefecture."
+
+Monferrand again walked to and fro with a pensive air, and ideas came to
+him as he spoke on in a slow, meditative fashion. "My orders! well, my
+orders, they are, first, that you must act with the very greatest
+prudence. Yes, don't gather a mob of promenaders together. Try to arrange
+things so that the arrest may pass unperceived--and if you secure a
+confession keep it to yourself, don't communicate it to the newspapers.
+Yes, I particularly recommend that point to you, don't take the
+newspapers into your confidence at all--and finally, come and tell me
+everything, and observe secrecy, absolute secrecy, with everybody else."
+
+Gascogne bowed and would have withdrawn, but Monferrand detained him to
+say that not a day passed without his friend Monsieur Lehmann, the Public
+Prosecutor, receiving letters from Anarchists who threatened to blow him
+up with his family; in such wise that, although he was by no means a
+coward, he wished his house to be guarded by plain-clothes officers. A
+similar watch was already kept upon the house where investigating
+magistrate Amadieu resided. And if the latter's life was precious, that
+of Public Prosecutor Lehmann was equally so, for he was one of those
+political magistrates, one of those shrewd talented Israelites, who make
+their way in very honest fashion by invariably taking the part of the
+Government in office.
+
+Then Gascogne in his turn remarked: "There is also the Barthes affair,
+Monsieur le Ministre--we are still waiting. Are we to arrest Barthes at
+that little house at Neuilly?"
+
+One of those chances which sometimes come to the help of detectives and
+make people think the latter to be men of genius had revealed to him the
+circumstance that Barthes had found a refuge with Abbe Pierre Froment.
+Ever since the Anarchist terror had thrown Paris into dismay a warrant
+had been out against the old man, not for any precise offence, but simply
+because he was a suspicious character and might, therefore, have had some
+intercourse with the Revolutionists. However, it had been repugnant to
+Gascogne to arrest him at the house of a priest whom the whole district
+venerated as a saint; and the Minister, whom he had consulted on the
+point, had warmly approved of his reserve, since a member of the clergy
+was in question, and had undertaken to settle the affair himself.
+
+"No, Monsieur Gascogne," he now replied, "don't move in the matter. You
+know what my feelings are, that we ought to have the priests with us and
+not against us--I have had a letter written to Abbe Froment in order that
+he may call here this morning, as I shall have no other visitors. I will
+speak to him myself, and you may take it that the affair no longer
+concerns you."
+
+Then he was about to dismiss him when the usher came back saying that the
+President of the Council was in the ante-room.*
+
+  * The title of President of the Council is given to the French
+    prime minister.--Trans.
+
+"Barroux!--Ah! dash it, then, Monsieur Gascogne, you had better go out
+this way. It is as well that nobody should meet you, as I wish you to
+keep silent respecting Salvat's arrest. It's fully understood, is it not?
+I alone am to know everything; and you will communicate with me here
+direct, by the telephone, if any serious incident should arise."
+
+The Chief of the Detective Police had scarcely gone off, by way of an
+adjoining _salon_, when the usher reopened the door communicating with
+the ante-room: "Monsieur le President du Conseil."
+
+With a nicely adjusted show of deference and cordiality, Monferrand
+stepped forward, his hands outstretched: "Ah! my dear President, why did
+you put yourself out to come here? I would have called on you if I had
+known that you wished to see me."
+
+But with an impatient gesture Barroux brushed aside all question of
+etiquette. "No, no! I was taking my usual stroll in the Champs Elysees,
+and the worries of the situation impressed me so keenly that I preferred
+to come here at once. You yourself must realise that we can't put up with
+what is taking place. And pending to-morrow morning's council, when we
+shall have to arrange a plan of defence, I felt that there was good
+reason for us to talk things over."
+
+He took an armchair, and Monferrand on his side rolled another forward so
+as to seat himself with his back to the light. Whilst Barroux, the elder
+of the pair by ten years, blanched and solemn, with a handsome face,
+snowy whiskers, clean-shaven chin and upper-lip, retained all the dignity
+of power, the bearing of a Conventionnel of romantic views, who sought to
+magnify the simple loyalty of a rather foolish but good-hearted
+_bourgeois_ nature into something great; the other, beneath his heavy
+common countenance and feigned frankness and simplicity, concealed
+unknown depths, the unfathomable soul of a shrewd enjoyer and despot who
+was alike pitiless and unscrupulous in attaining his ends.
+
+For a moment Barroux drew breath, for in reality he was greatly moved,
+his blood rising to his head, and his heart beating with indignation and
+anger at the thought of all the vulgar insults which the "Voix du Peuple"
+had poured upon him again that morning. "Come, my dear colleague," said
+he, "one must stop that scandalous campaign. Moreover, you can realise
+what awaits us at the Chamber to-morrow. Now that the famous list has
+been published we shall have every malcontent up in arms. Vignon is
+bestirring himself already--"
+
+"Ah! you have news of Vignon?" exclaimed Monferrand, becoming very
+attentive.
+
+"Well, as I passed his door just now, I saw a string of cabs waiting
+there. All his creatures have been on the move since yesterday, and at
+least twenty persons have told me that the band is already dividing the
+spoils. For, as you must know, the fierce and ingenuous Mege is again
+going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for others. Briefly, we are
+dead, and the others claim that they are going to bury us in mud before
+they fight over our leavings." With his arm outstretched Barroux made a
+theatrical gesture, and his voice resounded as if he were in the tribune.
+Nevertheless, his emotion was real, tears even were coming to his eyes.
+"To think that I who have given my whole life to the Republic, I who
+founded it, who saved it, should be covered with insults in this fashion,
+and obliged to defend myself against abominable charges! To say that I
+abused my trust! That I sold myself and took 200,000 francs from that man
+Hunter, simply to slip them into my pocket! Well, certainly there _was_ a
+question of 200,000 francs between us. But how and under what
+circumstances? They were doubtless the same as in your case, with regard
+to the 80,000 francs that he is said to have handed you--"
+
+But Monferrand interrupted his colleague in a clear trenchant voice: "He
+never handed me a centime."
+
+The other looked at him in astonishment, but could only see his big,
+rough head, whose features were steeped in shadow: "Ah! But I thought you
+had business relations with him, and knew him particularly well."
+
+"No, I simply knew Hunter as everyone knew him. I was not even aware that
+he was Baron Duvillard's agent in the African Railways matter; and there
+was never any question of that affair between us."
+
+This was so improbable, so contrary to everything Barroux knew of the
+business, that for a moment he felt quite scared. Then he waved his hand
+as if to say that others might as well look after their own affairs, and
+reverted to himself. "Oh! as for me," he said, "Hunter called on me more
+than ten times, and made me quite sick with his talk of the African
+Railways. It was at the time when the Chamber was asked to authorise the
+issue of lottery stock.* And, by the way, my dear fellow, I was then here
+at the Home Department, while you had just taken that of Public Works. I
+can remember sitting at that very writing-table, while Hunter was in the
+same armchair that I now occupy. That day he wanted to consult me about
+the employment of the large sum which Duvillard's house proposed to spend
+in advertising; and on seeing what big amounts were set down against the
+Royalist journals, I became quite angry, for I realised with perfect
+accuracy that this money would simply be used to wage war against the
+Republic. And so, yielding to Hunter's entreaties, I also drew up a list
+allotting 200,000 francs among the friendly Republican newspapers, which
+were paid through me, I admit it. And that's the whole story."**
+
+  * This kind of stock is common enough in France. A part of it is
+    extinguished annually at a public "drawing," when all such
+    shares or bonds that are drawn become entitled to redemption
+    at "par," a percentage of them also securing prizes of various
+    amounts. City of Paris Bonds issued on this system are very
+    popular among French people with small savings; but, on the
+    other hand, many ventures, whose lottery stock has been
+    authorised by the Legislature, have come to grief and ruined
+    investors.--Trans.
+
+  ** All who are acquainted with recent French history will be
+    aware that Barroux' narrative is simply a passage from the
+    life of the late M. Floquet, slightly modified to suit the
+    requirements of M. Zola's story.--Trans.
+
+Then he sprang to his feet and struck his chest, whilst his voice again
+rose: "Well, I've had more than enough of all that calumny and falsehood!
+And I shall simply tell the Chamber my story to-morrow. It will be my
+only defence. An honest man does not fear the truth!"
+
+But Monferrand, in his turn, had sprung up with a cry which was a
+complete confession of his principles: "It's ridiculous, one never
+confesses; you surely won't do such a thing!"
+
+"I shall," retorted Barroux with superb obstinacy. "And we shall see if
+the Chamber won't absolve me by acclamation."
+
+"No, you will fall beneath an explosion of hisses, and drag all of us
+down with you."
+
+"What does it matter? We shall fall with dignity, like honest men!"
+
+Monferrand made a gesture of furious anger, and then suddenly became
+calm. Amidst all the anxious confusion in which he had been struggling
+since daybreak, a gleam now dawned upon him. The vague ideas suggested by
+Salvat's approaching arrest took shape, and expanded into an audacious
+scheme. Why should he prevent the fall of that big ninny Barroux? The
+only thing of importance was that he, Monferrand, should not fall with
+him, or at any rate that he should rise again. So he protested no
+further, but merely mumbled a few words, in which his rebellious feeling
+seemingly died out. And at last, putting on his good-natured air once
+more, he said: "Well, after all you are perhaps right. One must be brave.
+Besides, you are our head, my dear President, and we will follow you."
+
+They had now again sat down face to face, and their conversation
+continued till they came to a cordial agreement respecting the course
+which the Government should adopt in view of the inevitable
+interpellation on the morrow.
+
+Meantime, Baron Duvillard was on his way to the ministry. He had scarcely
+slept that night. When on the return from Montmartre Gerard had set him
+down at his door in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, he had at once gone to bed,
+like a man who is determined to compel sleep, so that he may forget his
+worries and recover self-control. But slumber would not come; for hours
+and hours he vainly sought it. The manner in which he had been insulted
+by that creature Silviane was so monstrous! To think that she, whom he
+had enriched, whose every desire he had contented, should have cast such
+mud at him, the master, who flattered himself that he held Paris and the
+Republic in his hands, since he bought up and controlled consciences just
+as others might make corners in wool or leather for the purposes of
+Bourse speculation. And the dim consciousness that Silviane was the
+avenging sore, the cancer preying on him who preyed on others, completed
+his exasperation. In vain did he try to drive away his haunting thoughts,
+remember his business affairs, his appointments for the morrow, his
+millions which were working in every quarter of the world, the financial
+omnipotence which placed the fate of nations in his grasp. Ever, and in
+spite of all, Silviane rose up before him, splashing him with mud. In
+despair he tried to fix his mind on a great enterprise which he had been
+planning for months past, a Trans-Saharan railway, a colossal venture
+which would set millions of money at work, and revolutionise the trade of
+the world. And yet Silviane appeared once more, and smacked him on both
+cheeks with her dainty little hand, which she had dipped in the gutter.
+It was only towards daybreak that he at last dozed off, while vowing in a
+fury that he would never see her again, that he would spurn her, and
+order her away, even should she come and drag herself at his feet.
+
+However, when he awoke at seven, still tired and aching, his first
+thought was for her, and he almost yielded to a fit of weakness. The idea
+came to him to ascertain if she had returned home, and if so make his
+peace. But he jumped out of bed, and after his ablutions he recovered all
+his bravery. She was a wretch, and he this time thought himself for ever
+cured of his passion. To tell the truth, he forgot it as soon as he
+opened the morning newspapers. The publication of the list of
+bribe-takers in the "Voix du Peuple" quite upset him, for he had hitherto
+thought it unlikely that Sagnier held any such list. However, he judged
+the document at a glance, at once separating the few truths it contained
+from a mass of foolishness and falsehood. And this time also he did not
+consider himself personally in danger. There was only one thing that he
+really feared: the arrest of his intermediary, Hunter, whose trial might
+have drawn him into the affair. As matters stood, and as he did not cease
+to repeat with a calm and smiling air, he had merely done what every
+banking-house does when it issues stock, that is, pay the press for
+advertisements and puffery, employ brokers, and reward services
+discreetly rendered to the enterprise. It was all a business matter, and
+for him that expression summed up everything. Moreover, he played the
+game of life bravely, and spoke with indignant contempt of a banker who,
+distracted and driven to extremities by blackmailing, had imagined that
+he would bring a recent scandal to an end by killing himself: a pitiful
+tragedy, from all the mire and blood of which the scandal had sprouted
+afresh with the most luxuriant and indestructible vegetation. No, no!
+suicide was not the course to follow: a man ought to remain erect, and
+struggle on to his very last copper, and the very end of his energy.
+
+At about nine o'clock a ringing brought Duvillard to the telephone
+installed in his private room. And then his folly took possession of him
+once more: it must be Silviane who wished to speak to him. She often
+amused herself by thus disturbing him amidst his greatest cares. No doubt
+she had just returned home, realising that she had carried things too far
+on the previous evening and desiring to be forgiven. However, when he
+found that the call was from Monferrand, who wished him to go to the
+ministry, he shivered slightly, like a man saved from the abyss beside
+which he is travelling. And forthwith he called for his hat and stick,
+desirous as he was of walking and reflecting in the open air. And again
+he became absorbed in the intricacies of the scandalous business which
+was about to stir all Paris and the legislature. Kill himself! ah, no,
+that would be foolish and cowardly. A gust of terror might be sweeping
+past; nevertheless, for his part he felt quite firm, superior to events,
+and resolved to defend himself without relinquishing aught of his power.
+
+As soon as he entered the ante-rooms of the ministry he realised that the
+gust of terror was becoming a tempest. The publication of the terrible
+list in the "Voix du Peuple" had chilled the guilty ones to the heart;
+and, pale and distracted, feeling the ground give way beneath them, they
+had come to take counsel of Monferrand, who, they hoped, might save them.
+The first whom Duvillard perceived was Duthil, looking extremely
+feverish, biting his moustaches, and constantly making grimaces in his
+efforts to force a smile. The banker scolded him for coming, saying that
+it was a great mistake to have done so, particularly with such a scared
+face. The deputy, however, his spirits already cheered by these rough
+words, began to defend himself, declaring that he had not even read
+Sagnier's article, and had simply come to recommend a lady friend to the
+Minister. Thereupon the Baron undertook this business for him and sent
+him away with the wish that he might spend a merry mid-Lent. However, the
+one who most roused Duvillard's pity was Chaigneux, whose figure swayed
+about as if bent by the weight of his long equine head, and who looked so
+shabby and untidy that one might have taken him for an old pauper. On
+recognising the banker he darted forward, and bowed to him with
+obsequious eagerness.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur le Baron," said he, "how wicked some men must be! They are
+killing me, I shall die of it all; and what will become of my wife, what
+will become of my three daughters, who have none but me to help them?"
+
+The whole of his woeful story lay in that lament. A victim of politics,
+he had been foolish enough to quit Arras and his business there as a
+solicitor, in order to seek triumph in Paris with his wife and daughters,
+whose menial he had then become--a menial dismayed by the constant
+rebuffs and failures which his mediocrity brought upon him. An honest
+deputy! ah, good heavens! yes, he would have liked to be one; but was he
+not perpetually "hard-up," ever in search of a hundred-franc note, and
+thus, perforce, a deputy for sale? And withal he led such a pitiable
+life, so badgered by the women folk about him, that to satisfy their
+demands he would have picked up money no matter where or how.
+
+"Just fancy, Monsieur le Baron, I have at last found a husband for my
+eldest girl. It is the first bit of luck that I have ever had; there will
+only be three women left on my hands if it comes off. But you can imagine
+what a disastrous impression such an article as that of this morning must
+create in the young man's family. So I have come to see the Minister to
+beg him to give my future son-in-law a prefectoral secretaryship. I have
+already promised him the post, and if I can secure it things may yet be
+arranged."
+
+He looked so terribly shabby and spoke in such a doleful voice that it
+occurred to Duvillard to do one of those good actions on which he
+ventured at times when they were likely to prove remunerative
+investments. It is, indeed, an excellent plan to give a crust of bread to
+some poor devil whom one can turn, if necessary, into a valet or an
+accomplice. So the banker dismissed Chaigneux, undertaking to do his
+business for him in the same way as he had undertaken to do Duthil's. And
+he added that he would be pleased to see him on the morrow, and have a
+chat with him, as he might be able to help him in the matter of his
+daughter's marriage.
+
+At this Chaigneux, scenting a loan, collapsed into the most lavish
+thanks. "Ah! Monsieur le Baron, my life will not be long enough to enable
+me to repay such a debt of gratitude."
+
+As Duvillard turned round he was surprised to see Abbe Froment waiting in
+a corner of the ante-room. Surely that one could not belong to the batch
+of _suspects_, although by the manner in which he was pretending to read
+a newspaper it seemed as if he were trying to hide some keen anxiety. At
+last the Baron stepped forward, shook hands, and spoke to him cordially.
+And Pierre thereupon related that he had received a letter requesting him
+to call on the Minister that day. Why, he could not tell; in fact, he was
+greatly surprised, he said, putting on a smile in order to conceal his
+disquietude. He had been waiting a long time already, and hoped that he
+would not be forgotten on that bench.
+
+Just then the usher appeared, and hastened up to the banker. "The
+Minister," said he, "was at that moment engaged with the President of the
+Council; but he had orders to admit the Baron as soon as the President
+withdrew." Almost immediately afterwards Barroux came out, and as
+Duvillard was about to enter he recognised and detained him. And he spoke
+of the denunciations very bitterly, like one indignant with all the
+slander. Would not he, Duvillard, should occasion require it, testify
+that he, Barroux, had never taken a centime for himself? Then, forgetting
+that he was speaking to a banker, and that he was Minister of Finances,
+he proceeded to express all his disgust of money. Ah! what poisonous,
+murky, and defiling waters were those in which money-making went on!
+However, he repeated that he would chastise his insulters, and that a
+statement of the truth would suffice for the purpose.
+
+Duvillard listened and looked at him. And all at once the thought of
+Silviane came back, and took possession of the Baron, without any attempt
+on his part to drive it away. He reflected that if Barroux had chosen to
+give him a helping hand when he had asked for it, Silviane would now have
+been at the Comedie Francaise, in which case the deplorable affair of the
+previous night would not have occurred; for he was beginning to regard
+himself as guilty in the matter; if he had only contented Silviane's whim
+she would never have dismissed him in so vile a fashion.
+
+"You know, I owe you a grudge," he said, interrupting Barroux.
+
+The other looked at him in astonishment. "And why, pray?" he asked.
+
+"Why, because you never helped me in the matter of that friend of mine
+who wishes to make her _debut_ in 'Polyeucte.'"
+
+Barroux smiled, and with amiable condescension replied: "Ah! yes,
+Silviane d'Aulnay! But, my dear sir, it was Taboureau who put spokes in
+the wheel. The Fine Arts are his department, and the question was
+entirely one for him. And I could do nothing; for that very worthy and
+honest gentleman, who came to us from a provincial faculty, was full of
+scruples. For my own part I'm an old Parisian, I can understand anything,
+and I should have been delighted to please you."
+
+At this fresh resistance offered to his passion Duvillard once more
+became excited, eager to obtain that which was denied him. "Taboureau,
+Taboureau!" said he, "he's a nice deadweight for you to load yourself
+with! Honest! isn't everybody honest? Come, my dear Minister, there's
+still time, get Silviane admitted, it will bring you good luck for
+to-morrow."
+
+This time Barroux burst into a frank laugh: "No, no, I can't cast
+Taboureau adrift at this moment--people would make too much sport of
+it--a ministry wrecked or saved by a Silviane question!"
+
+Then he offered his hand before going off. The Baron pressed it, and for
+a moment retained it in his own, whilst saying very gravely and with a
+somewhat pale face: "You do wrong to laugh, my dear Minister. Governments
+have fallen or set themselves erect again through smaller matters than
+that. And should you fall to-morrow I trust that you will never have
+occasion to regret it."
+
+Wounded to the heart by the other's jesting air, exasperated by the idea
+that there was something he could not achieve, Duvillard watched Barroux
+as he withdrew. Most certainly the Baron did not desire a reconciliation
+with Silviane, but he vowed that he would overturn everything if
+necessary in order to send her a signed engagement for the Comedie, and
+this simply by way of vengeance, as a slap, so to say,--yes, a slap which
+would make her tingle! That moment spent with Barroux had been a decisive
+one.
+
+However, whilst still following Barroux with his eyes, Duvillard was
+surprised to see Fonsegue arrive and manoeuvre in such a way as to escape
+the Prime Minister's notice. He succeeded in doing so, and then entered
+the ante-room with an appearance of dismay about the whole of his little
+figure, which was, as a rule, so sprightly. It was the gust of terror,
+still blowing, that had brought him thither.
+
+"Didn't you see your friend Barroux?" the Baron asked him, somewhat
+puzzled.
+
+"Barroux? No!"
+
+This quiet lie was equivalent to a confession of everything. Fonsegue was
+so intimate with Barroux that he thee'd and thou'd him, and for ten years
+had been supporting him in his newspaper, having precisely the same
+views, the same political religion. But with a smash-up threatening, he
+doubtless realised, thanks to his wonderfully keen scent, that he must
+change his friendships if he did not wish to remain under the ruins
+himself. If he had, for long years, shown so much prudence and diplomatic
+virtue in order to firmly establish the most dignified and respected of
+Parisian newspapers, it was not for the purpose of letting that newspaper
+be compromised by some foolish blunder on the part of an honest man.
+
+"I thought you were on bad terms with Monferrand," resumed Duvillard.
+"What have you come here for?"
+
+"Oh! my dear Baron, the director of a leading newspaper is never on bad
+terms with anybody. He's at the country's service."
+
+In spite of his emotion, Duvillard could not help smiling. "You are
+right," he responded. "Besides, Monferrand is really an able man, whom
+one can support without fear."
+
+At this Fonsegue began to wonder whether his anguish of mind was visible.
+He, who usually played the game of life so well, with his own hand under
+thorough control, had been terrified by the article in the "Voix du
+Peuple." For the first time in his career he had perpetrated a blunder,
+and felt that he was at the mercy of some denunciation, for with
+unpardonable imprudence he had written a very brief but compromising
+note. He was not anxious concerning the 50,000 francs which Barroux had
+handed him out of the 200,000 destined for the Republican press. But he
+trembled lest another affair should be discovered, that of a sum of money
+which he had received as a present. It was only on feeling the Baron's
+keen glance upon him that he was able to recover some self-possession.
+How silly it was to lose the knack of lying and to confess things simply
+by one's demeanour!
+
+But the usher drew near and repeated that the Minister was now waiting
+for the Baron; and Fonsegue went to sit down beside Abbe Froment, whom he
+also was astonished to find there. Pierre repeated that he had received a
+letter, but had no notion what the Minister might wish to say to him. And
+the quiver of his hands again revealed how feverishly impatient he was to
+know what it might be. However, he could only wait, since Monferrand was
+still busy discussing such grave affairs.
+
+On seeing Duvillard enter, the Minister had stepped forward, offering his
+hand. However much the blast of terror might shake others, he had
+retained his calmness and good-natured smile. "What an affair, eh, my
+dear Baron!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It's idiotic!" plainly declared the other, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. Then he sat down in the armchair vacated by Barroux, while the
+Minister installed himself in front of him. These two were made to
+understand one another, and they indulged in the same despairing gestures
+and furious complaints, declaring that government, like business, would
+no longer be possible if men were required to show such virtue as they
+did not possess. At all times, and under every _regime_, when a decision
+of the Chambers had been required in connection with some great
+enterprise, had not the natural and legitimate tactics been for one to do
+what might be needful to secure that decision? It was absolutely
+necessary that one should obtain influential and sympathetic support, in
+a word, make sure of votes. Well, everything had to be paid for, men like
+other things, some with fine words, others with favours or money,
+presents made in a more or less disguised manner. And even admitting
+that, in the present cases, one had gone rather far in the purchasing,
+that some of the bartering had been conducted in an imprudent way, was it
+wise to make such an uproar over it? Would not a strong government have
+begun by stifling the scandal, from motives of patriotism, a mere sense
+of cleanliness even?
+
+"Why, of course! You are right, a thousand times right!" exclaimed
+Monferrand. "Ah! if I were the master you would see what a fine
+first-class funeral I would give it all!" Then, as Duvillard looked at
+him fixedly, struck by these last words, he added with his expressive
+smile: "Unfortunately I'm not the master, and it was to talk to you of
+the situation that I ventured to disturb you. Barroux, who was here just
+now, seemed to me in a regrettable frame of mind."
+
+"Yes, I saw him, he has such singular ideas at times--" Then, breaking
+off, the Baron added: "Do you know that Fonsegue is in the ante-room? As
+he wishes to make his peace with you, why not send for him? He won't be
+in the way, in fact, he's a man of good counsel, and the support of his
+newspaper often suffices to give one the victory."
+
+"What, is Fonsegue there!" cried Monferrand. "Why, I don't ask better
+than to shake hands with him. There were some old affairs between us that
+don't concern anybody! But, good heavens! if you only knew what little
+spite I harbour!"
+
+When the usher had admitted Fonsegue the reconciliation took place in the
+simplest fashion. They had been great friends at college in their native
+Correze, but had not spoken together for ten years past in consequence of
+some abominable affair the particulars of which were not exactly known.
+However, it becomes necessary to clear away all corpses when one wishes
+to have the arena free for a fresh battle.
+
+"It's very good of you to come back the first," said Monferrand. "So it's
+all over, you no longer bear me any grudge?"
+
+"No, indeed!" replied Fonsegue. "Why should people devour one another
+when it would be to their interest to come to an understanding?"
+
+Then, without further explanations, they passed to the great affair, and
+the conference began. And when Monferrand had announced Barroux'
+determination to confess and explain his conduct, the others loudly
+protested. That meant certain downfall, they would prevent him, he surely
+would not be guilty of such folly. Forthwith they discussed every
+imaginable plan by which the Ministry might be saved, for that must
+certainly be Monferrand's sole desire. He himself with all eagerness
+pretended to seek some means of extricating his colleagues and himself
+from the mess in which they were. However, a faint smile, still played
+around his lips, and at last as if vanquished he sought no further.
+"There's no help for it," said he, "the ministry's down."
+
+The others exchanged glances, full of anxiety at the thought of another
+Cabinet dealing with the African Railways affair. A Vignon Cabinet would
+doubtless plume itself on behaving honestly.
+
+"Well, then, what shall we do?"
+
+But just then the telephone rang, and Monferrand rose to respond to the
+summons: "Allow me."
+
+He listened for a moment and then spoke into the tube, nothing that he
+said giving the others any inkling of the information which had reached
+him. This had come from the Chief of the Detective Police, and was to the
+effect that Salvat's whereabouts in the Bois de Boulogne had been
+discovered, and that he would be hunted down with all speed. "Very good!
+And don't forget my orders," replied Monferrand.
+
+Now that Salvat's arrest was certain, the Minister determined to follow
+the plan which had gradually taken shape in his mind; and returning to
+the middle of the room he slowly walked to and fro, while saying with his
+wonted familiarity: "But what would you have, my friends? It would be
+necessary for me to be the master. Ah! if I were the master! A Commission
+of Inquiry, yes! that's the proper form for a first-class funeral to take
+in a big affair like this, so full of nasty things. For my part, I should
+confess nothing, and I should have a Commission appointed. And then you
+would see the storm subside."
+
+Duvillard and Fonsegue began to laugh. The latter, however, thanks to his
+intimate knowledge of Monferrand, almost guessed the truth. "Just
+listen!" said he; "even if the ministry falls it doesn't necessarily
+follow that you must be on the ground with it. Besides, a ministry can be
+mended when there are good pieces of it left."
+
+Somewhat anxious at finding his thoughts guessed, Monferrand protested:
+"No, no, my dear fellow, I don't play that game. We are jointly
+responsible, we've got to keep together, dash it all!"
+
+"Keep together! Pooh! Not when simpletons purposely drown themselves!
+And, besides, if we others have need of you, we have a right to save you
+in spite of yourself! Isn't that so, my dear Baron?"
+
+Then, as Monferrand sat down, no longer protesting but waiting,
+Duvillard, who was again thinking of his passion, full of anger at the
+recollection of Barroux' refusal, rose in his turn, and exclaimed: "Why,
+certainly! If the ministry's condemned let it fall! What good can you get
+out of a ministry which includes such a man as Taboureau! There you have
+an old, worn-out professor without any prestige, who comes to Paris from
+Grenoble, and has never set foot in a theatre in his life! Yet the
+control of the theatres is handed over to him, and naturally he's ever
+doing the most stupid things!"
+
+Monferrand, who was well informed on the Silviane question, remained
+grave, and for a moment amused himself by trying to excite the Baron.
+"Taboureau," said he, "is a somewhat dull and old-fashioned University
+man, but at the department of Public Instruction he's in his proper
+element."
+
+"Oh! don't talk like that, my dear fellow! You are more intelligent than
+that, you are not going to defend Taboureau as Barroux did. It's quite
+true that I should very much like to see Silviane at the Comedie. She's a
+very good girl at heart, and she has an amazing lot of talent. Would you
+stand in her way if you were in Taboureau's place?"
+
+"I? Good heavens, no! A pretty girl on the stage, why, it would please
+everybody, I'm sure. Only it would be necessary to have a man of the same
+views as were at the department of Instruction and Fine Arts."
+
+His sly smile had returned to his face. The securing of that girl's
+_debut_ was certainly not a high price to pay for all the influence of
+Duvillard's millions. Monferrand therefore turned towards Fonsegue as if
+to consult him. The other, who fully understood the importance of the
+affair, was meditating in all seriousness: "A senator is the proper man
+for Public Instruction," said he. "But I can think of none, none at all,
+such as would be wanted. A man of broad mind, a real Parisian, and yet
+one whose presence at the head of the University wouldn't cause too much
+astonishment--there's perhaps Dauvergne--"
+
+"Dauvergne! Who's he?" exclaimed Monferrand in surprise. "Ah! yes,
+Dauvergne the senator for Dijon--but he's altogether ignorant of
+University matters, he hasn't the slightest qualification."
+
+"Well, as for that," resumed Fonsegue, "I'm trying to think. Dauvergne is
+certainly a good-looking fellow, tall and fair and decorative. Besides,
+he's immensely rich, has a most charming young wife--which does no harm,
+on the contrary--and he gives real _fetes_ at his place on the Boulevard
+St. Germain."
+
+It was only with hesitation that Fonsegue himself had ventured to suggest
+Dauvergne. But by degrees his selection appeared to him a real "find."
+"Wait a bit! I recollect now that in his young days Dauvergne wrote a
+comedy, a one act comedy in verse, and had it performed at Dijon. And
+Dijon's a literary town, you know, so that piece of his sets a little
+perfume of 'Belles-Lettres' around him. And then, too, he left Dijon
+twenty years ago, and is a most determined Parisian, frequenting every
+sphere of society. Dauvergne will do whatever one desires. He's the man
+for us, I tell you."
+
+Duvillard thereupon declared that he knew him, and considered him a very
+decent fellow. Besides, he or another, it mattered nothing!
+
+"Dauvergne, Dauvergne," repeated Monferrand. "_Mon Dieu_, yes! After all,
+why not? He'll perhaps make a very good minister. Let us say Dauvergne."
+Then suddenly bursting into a hearty laugh: "And so we are reconstructing
+the Cabinet in order that that charming young woman may join the Comedie!
+The Silviane cabinet--well, and what about the other departments?"
+
+He jested, well knowing that gaiety often hastens difficult solutions.
+And, indeed, they merrily continued settling what should be done if the
+ministry were defeated on the morrow. Although they had not plainly said
+so the plan was to let Barroux sink, even help him to do so, and then
+fish Monferrand out of the troubled waters. The latter engaged himself
+with the two others, because he had need of them, the Baron on account of
+his financial sovereignty, and the director of "Le Globe" on account of
+the press campaign which he could carry on in his favour. And in the same
+way the others, quite apart from the Silviane business, had need of
+Monferrand, the strong-handed man of government, who undertook to bury
+the African Railways scandal by bringing about a Commission of Inquiry,
+all the strings of which would be pulled by himself. There was soon a
+perfect understanding between the three men, for nothing draws people
+more closely together than common interest, fear and need. Accordingly,
+when Duvillard spoke of Duthil's business, the young lady whom he wished
+to recommend, the Minister declared that it was settled. A very nice
+fellow was Duthil, they needed a good many like him. And it was also
+agreed that Chaigneux' future son-in-law should have his secretaryship.
+Poor Chaigneux! He was so devoted, always ready to undertake any
+commission, and his four women folk led him such a hard life!
+
+"Well, then, it's understood." And Monferrand, Duvillard and Fonsegue
+vigorously shook hands.
+
+However, when the first accompanied the others to the door, he noticed a
+prelate, in a cassock of fine material, edged with violet, speaking to a
+priest in the ante-room. Thereupon he, the Minister, hastened forward,
+looking much distressed. "Ah! you were waiting, Monseigneur Martha! Come
+in, come in quick!"
+
+But with perfect urbanity the Bishop refused. "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe
+Froment was here before me. Pray receive him first."
+
+Monferrand had to give way; he admitted the priest, and speedily dealt
+with him. He who usually employed the most diplomatic reserve when he was
+in presence of a member of the clergy plumply unfolded the Barthes
+business. Pierre had experienced the keenest anguish during the two hours
+that he had been waiting there, for he could only explain the letter he
+had received by a surmise that the police had discovered his brother's
+presence in his house. And so when he heard the Minister simply speak of
+Barthes, and declare that the government would rather see him go into
+exile than be obliged to imprison him once more, he remained for a moment
+quite disconcerted. As the police had been able to discover the old
+conspirator in the little house at Neuilly, how was it that they seemed
+altogether ignorant of Guillaume's presence there? It was, however, the
+usual gap in the genius of great detectives.
+
+"Pray what do you desire of me, Monsieur le Ministre?" said Pierre at
+last; "I don't quite understand."
+
+"Why, Monsieur l'Abbe, I leave all this to your sense of prudence. If
+that man were still at your house in forty-eight hours from now, we
+should be obliged to arrest him there, which would be a source of grief
+to us, for we are aware that your residence is the abode of every virtue.
+So advise him to leave France. If he does that we shall not trouble him."
+
+Then Monferrand hastily brought Pierre back to the ante-room; and,
+smiling and bending low, he said: "Monseigneur, I am entirely at your
+disposal. Come in, come in, I beg you."
+
+The prelate, who was gaily chatting with Duvillard and Fonsegue, shook
+hands with them, and then with Pierre. In his desire to win all hearts,
+he that morning displayed the most perfect graciousness. His bright,
+black eyes were all smiles, the whole of his handsome face wore a
+caressing expression, and he entered the ministerial sanctum leisurely
+and gracefully, with an easy air of conquest.
+
+And now only Monferrand and Monseigneur Martha were left, talking on and
+on in the deserted building. Some people had thought that the prelate
+wished to become a deputy. But he played a far more useful and lofty part
+in governing behind the scenes, in acting as the directing mind of the
+Vatican's policy in France. Was not France still the Eldest Daughter of
+the Church, the only great nation which might some day restore
+omnipotence to the Papacy? For that reason he had accepted the Republic,
+preached the duty of "rallying" to it, and inspired the new Catholic
+group in the Chamber. And Monferrand, on his side, struck by the progress
+of the New Spirit, that reaction of mysticism which flattered itself that
+it would bury science, showed the prelate much amiability, like a
+strong-handed man who, to ensure his own victory, utilised every force
+that was offered him.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE MAN HUNT
+
+ON the afternoon of that same day such a keen desire for space and the
+open air came upon Guillaume, that Pierre consented to accompany him on a
+long walk in the Bois de Boulogne. The priest, upon returning from his
+interview with Monferrand, had informed his brother that the government
+once more wished to get rid of Nicholas Barthes. However, they were so
+perplexed as to how they should impart these tidings to the old man, that
+they resolved to postpone the matter until the evening. During their walk
+they might devise some means of breaking the news in a gentle way. As for
+the walk, this seemed to offer no danger; to all appearance Guillaume was
+in no wise threatened, so why should he continue hiding? Thus the
+brothers sallied forth and entered the Bois by the Sablons gate, which
+was the nearest to them.
+
+The last days of March had now come, and the trees were beginning to show
+some greenery, so soft and light, however, that one might have thought it
+was pale moss or delicate lace hanging between the stems and boughs.
+Although the sky remained of an ashen grey, the rain, after falling
+throughout the night and morning, had ceased; and exquisite freshness
+pervaded that wood now awakening to life once more, with its foliage
+dripping in the mild and peaceful atmosphere. The mid-Lent rejoicings had
+apparently attracted the populace to the centre of Paris, for in the
+avenues one found only the fashionable folks of select days, the people
+of society who come thither when the multitude stops away. There were
+carriages and gentlemen on horseback; beautiful aristocratic ladies who
+had alighted from their broughams or landaus; and wet-nurses with
+streaming ribbons, who carried infants wearing the most costly lace. Of
+the middle-classes, however, one found only a few matrons living in the
+neighbourhood, who sat here and there on the benches busy with embroidery
+or watching their children play.
+
+Pierre and Guillaume followed the Allee de Longchamp as far as the road
+going from Madrid to the lakes. Then they took their way under the trees,
+alongside the little Longchamp rivulet. They wished to reach the lakes,
+pass round them, and return home by way of the Maillot gate. But so
+charming and peaceful was the deserted plantation through which they
+passed, that they yielded to a desire to sit down and taste the delight
+of resting amidst all the budding springtide around them. A fallen tree
+served them as a bench, and it was possible for them to fancy themselves
+far away from Paris, in the depths of some real forest. It was, too, of a
+real forest that Guillaume began to think on thus emerging from his long,
+voluntary imprisonment. Ah! for the space; and for the health-bringing
+air which courses between that forest's branches, that forest of the
+world which by right should be man's inalienable domain! However, the
+name of Barthes, the perpetual prisoner, came back to Guillaume's lips,
+and he sighed mournfully. The thought that there should be even a single
+man whose liberty was thus ever assailed, sufficed to poison the pure
+atmosphere he breathed.
+
+"What will you say to Barthes?" he asked his brother. "The poor fellow
+must necessarily be warned. Exile is at any rate preferable to
+imprisonment."
+
+Pierre sadly waved his hand. "Yes, of course, I must warn him. But what a
+painful task it is!"
+
+Guillaume made no rejoinder, for at that very moment, in that remote,
+deserted nook, where they could fancy themselves at the world's end, a
+most extraordinary spectacle was presented to their view. Something or
+rather someone leapt out of a thicket and bounded past them. It was
+assuredly a man, but one who was so unrecognisable, so miry, so woeful
+and so frightful, that he might have been taken for an animal, a boar
+that hounds had tracked and forced from his retreat. On seeing the
+rivulet, he hesitated for a moment, and then followed its course. But,
+all at once, as a sound of footsteps and panting breath drew nearer, he
+sprang into the water, which reached his thighs, bounded on to the
+further bank, and vanished from sight behind a clump of pines. A moment
+afterwards some keepers and policemen rushed by, skirting the rivulet,
+and in their turn disappearing. It was a man hunt that had gone past, a
+fierce, secret hunt with no display of scarlet or blast of horns athwart
+the soft, sprouting foliage.
+
+"Some rascal or other," muttered Pierre. "Ah! the wretched fellow!"
+
+Guillaume made a gesture of discouragement. "Gendarmes and prison!" said
+he. "They still constitute society's only schooling system!"
+
+Meantime the man was still running on, farther and farther away.
+
+When, on the previous night, Salvat had suddenly escaped from the
+detectives by bounding into the Bois de Boulogne, it had occurred to him
+to slip round to the Dauphine gate and there descend into the deep ditch*
+of the city ramparts. He remembered days of enforced idleness which he
+had spent there, in nooks where, for his own part, he had never met a
+living soul. Nowhere, indeed, could one find more secret places of
+retreat, hedged round by thicker bushes, or concealed from view by
+loftier herbage. Some corners of the ditch, at certain angles of the
+massive bastions, are favourite dens or nests for thieves and lovers.
+Salvat, as he made his way through the thickest of the brambles, nettles
+and ivy, was lucky enough to find a cavity full of dry leaves, in which
+he buried himself to the chin. The rain had already drenched him, and
+after slipping down the muddy slope, he had frequently been obliged to
+grope his way upon all fours. So those dry leaves proved a boon such as
+he had not dared to hope for. They dried him somewhat, serving as a
+blanket in which he coiled himself after his wild race through the dank
+darkness. The rain still fell, but he now only felt it on his head, and,
+weary as he was, he gradually sank into deep slumber beneath the
+continuous drizzle. When he opened his eyes again, the dawn was breaking,
+and it was probably about six o'clock. During his sleep the rain had
+ended by soaking the leaves, so that he was now immersed in a kind of
+chilly bath. Still he remained in it, feeling that he was there sheltered
+from the police, who must now surely be searching for him. None of those
+bloodhounds would guess his presence in that hole, for his body was quite
+buried, and briers almost completely hid his head. So he did not stir,
+but watched the rise of the dawn.
+
+  * This ditch or dry moat is about 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide.
+    The counterscarp by which one may descend into it has an angle
+    of 45 degrees.--Trans.
+
+When at eight o'clock some policemen and keepers came by, searching the
+ditch, they did not perceive him. As he had anticipated, the hunt had
+begun at the first glimmer of light. For a time his heart beat violently;
+however, nobody else passed, nothing whatever stirred the grass. The only
+sounds that reached him were faint ones from the Bois de Boulogne, the
+ring of a bicyclist's bell, the thud of a horse's hoofs, the rumble of
+carriage wheels. And time went by, nine o'clock came, and then ten
+o'clock. Since the rain had ceased falling, Salvat had not suffered so
+much from the cold, for he was wearing a thick overcoat which little
+Mathis had given him. But, on the other hand, hunger was coming back;
+there was a burning sensation in his stomach, and leaden hoops seemed to
+be pressing against his ribs. He had eaten nothing for two days; he had
+been starving already on the previous evening, when he had accepted a
+glass of beer at that tavern at Montmartre. Nevertheless, his plan was to
+remain in the ditch until nightfall, and then slip away in the direction
+of the village of Boulogne, where he knew of a means of egress from the
+wood. He was not caught yet, he repeated, he might still manage to
+escape. Then he tried to get to sleep again, but failed, so painful had
+his sufferings become. By the time it was eleven, everything swam before
+his eyes. He once nearly fainted, and thought that he was going to die.
+Then rage gradually mastered him, and, all at once, he sprang out of his
+leafy hiding-place, desperately hungering for food, unable to remain
+there any longer, and determined to find something to eat, even should it
+cost him his liberty and life. It was then noon.
+
+On leaving the ditch he found the spreading lawns of the chateau of La
+Muette before him. He crossed them at a run, like a madman, instinctively
+going towards Boulogne, with the one idea that his only means of escape
+lay in that direction. It seemed miraculous that nobody paid attention to
+his helter-skelter flight. However, when he had reached the cover of some
+trees he became conscious of his imprudence, and almost regretted the
+sudden madness which had borne him along, eager for escape. Trembling
+nervously, he bent low among some furze bushes, and waited for a few
+minutes to ascertain if the police were behind him. Then with watchful
+eye and ready ear, wonderful instinct and scent of danger, he slowly went
+his way again. He hoped to pass between the upper lake and the Auteuil
+race-course; but there were few trees in that part, and they formed a
+broad avenue. He therefore had to exert all his skill in order to avoid
+observation, availing himself of the slenderest stems, the smallest
+bushes, as screens, and only venturing onward after a lengthy inspection
+of his surroundings. Before long the sight of a guard in the distance
+revived his fears and detained him, stretched on the ground behind some
+brambles, for a full quarter of an hour. Then the approach first of a
+cab, whose driver had lost his way, and afterwards of a strolling
+pedestrian, in turn sufficed to stop him. He breathed once more, however,
+when, after passing the Mortemart hillock, he was able to enter the
+thickets lying between the two roads which lead to Boulogne and St.
+Cloud. The coppices thereabouts were dense, and he merely had to follow
+them, screened from view, in order to reach the outlet he knew of, which
+was now near at hand. So he was surely saved.
+
+But all at once, at a distance of some five and thirty yards, he saw a
+keeper, erect and motionless, barring his way. He turned slightly to the
+left and there perceived another keeper, who also seemed to be awaiting
+him. And there were more and more of them; at every fifty paces or so
+stood a fresh one, the whole forming a _cordon_, the meshes as it were of
+a huge net. The worst was that he must have been perceived, for a light
+cry, like the clear call of an owl, rang out, and was repeated farther
+and farther off. The hunters were at last on the right scent, prudence
+had become superfluous, and it was only by flight that the quarry might
+now hope to escape. Salvat understood this so well that he suddenly began
+to run, leaping over all obstacles and darting between the trees,
+careless whether he were seen or heard. A few bounds carried him across
+the Avenue de St. Cloud into the plantations stretching to the Allee de
+la Reine Marguerite. There the undergrowth was very dense; in the whole
+Bois there are no more closely set thickets. In summer they become one
+vast entanglement of verdure, amidst which, had it been the leafy season,
+Salvat might well have managed to secrete himself. For a moment he did
+find himself alone, and thereupon he halted to listen. He could neither
+see nor hear the keepers now. Had they lost his track, then? Profound
+quietude reigned under the fresh young foliage. But the light, owlish cry
+arose once more, branches cracked, and he resumed his wild flight,
+hurrying straight before him. Unluckily he found the Allee de la Reine
+Marguerite guarded by policemen, so that he could not cross over, but had
+to skirt it without quitting the thickets. And now his back was turned
+towards Boulogne; he was retracing his steps towards Paris. However, a
+last idea came to his bewildered mind: it was to run on in this wise as
+far as the shady spots around Madrid, and then, by stealing from copse to
+copse, attempt to reach the Seine. To proceed thither across the bare
+expanse of the race-course and training ground was not for a moment to be
+thought of.
+
+So Salvat still ran on and on. But on reaching the Allee de Longchamp he
+found it guarded like the other roads, and therefore had to relinquish
+his plan of escaping by way of Madrid and the river-bank. While he was
+perforce making a bend alongside the Pre Catelan, he became aware that
+the keepers, led by detectives, were drawing yet nearer to him, confining
+his movements to a smaller and smaller area. And his race soon acquired
+all the frenzy of despair. Haggard and breathless he leapt mounds, rushed
+past multitudinous obstacles. He forced a passage through brambles, broke
+down palings, thrice caught his feet in wire work which he had not seen,
+and fell among nettles, yet picked himself up went on again, spurred by
+the stinging of his hands and face. It was then Guillaume and Pierre saw
+him pass, unrecognisable and frightful, taking to the muddy water of the
+rivulet like a stag which seeks to set a last obstacle between itself and
+the hounds. There came to him a wild idea of getting to the lake, and
+swimming, unperceived, to the island in the centre of it. That, he madly
+thought, would be a safe retreat, where he might burrow and hide himself
+without possibility of discovery. And so he still ran on. But once again
+the sight of some guards made him retrace his steps, and he was compelled
+to go back and back in the direction of Paris, chased, forced towards the
+very fortifications whence he had started that morning. It was now nearly
+three in the afternoon. For more than two hours and a half he had been
+running.
+
+At last he saw a soft, sandy ride for horsemen before him. He crossed it,
+splashing through the mire left by the rain, and reached a little
+pathway, a delightful lovers' lane, as shady in summer as any arbour. For
+some time he was able to follow it, concealed from observation, and with
+his hopes reviving. But it led him to one of those broad, straight
+avenues where carriages and bicycles, the whole afternoon pageant of
+society, swept past under the mild and cloudy sky. So he returned to the
+thickets, fell once more upon the keepers, lost all notion of the
+direction he took, and even all power of thought, becoming a mere thing
+carried along and thrown hither and thither by the chances of the pursuit
+which pressed more and more closely upon him. Star-like crossways
+followed one upon other, and at last he came to a broad lawn, where the
+full light dazzled him. And there he suddenly felt the hot, panting
+breath of his pursuers close in the rear. Eager, hungry breath it was,
+like that of hounds seeking to devour him. Shouts rang out, one hand
+almost caught hold of him, there was a rush of heavy feet, a scramble to
+seize him. But with a supreme effort he leapt upon a bank, crawled to its
+summit, rose again, and once more found himself alone, still running on
+amid the fresh and quiet greenery.
+
+Nevertheless, this was the end. He almost fell flat upon the ground. His
+aching feet could no longer carry him; blood was oozing from his ears,
+and froth had come to his mouth. His heart beat with such violence that
+it seemed likely to break his ribs. Water and perspiration streamed from
+him, he was miry and haggard and tortured by hunger, conquered, in fact,
+more by hunger than by fatigue. And through the mist which seemed to have
+gathered before his wild eyes, he suddenly saw an open doorway, the
+doorway of a coach-house in the rear of a kind of chalet, sequestered
+among trees. Excepting a big white cat, which took to flight, there was
+not a living creature in the place. Salvat plunged into it and rolled
+over on a heap of straw, among some empty casks. He was scarcely hidden
+there when he heard the chase sweep by, the detectives and the keepers
+losing scent, passing the chalet and rushing in the direction of the
+Paris ramparts. The noise of their heavy boots died away, and deep
+silence fell, while the hunted man, who had carried both hands to his
+heart to stay its beating, sank into the most complete prostration, with
+big tears trickling from his closed eyes.
+
+Whilst all this was going on, Pierre and Guillaume, after a brief rest,
+had resumed their walk, reaching the lake and proceeding towards the
+crossway of the Cascades, in order to return to Neuilly by the road
+beyond the water. However, a shower fell, compelling them to take shelter
+under the big leafless branches of a chestnut-tree. Then, as the rain
+came down more heavily and they could perceive a kind of chalet, a little
+cafe-restaurant amid a clump of trees, they hastened thither for better
+protection. In a side road, which they passed on their way, they saw a
+cab standing, its driver waiting there in philosophical fashion under the
+falling shower. Pierre, moreover, noticed a young man stepping out
+briskly in front of them, a young man resembling Gerard de Quinsac, who,
+whilst walking in the Bois, had no doubt been overtaken by the rain, and
+like themselves was seeking shelter in the chalet. However, on entering
+the latter's public room, the priest saw no sign of the gentleman, and
+concluded that he must have been mistaken. This public room, which had a
+kind of glazed verandah overlooking the Bois, contained a few chairs and
+tables, the latter with marble tops. On the first floor there were four
+or five private rooms reached by a narrow passage. Though the doors were
+open the place had as yet scarcely emerged from its winter's rest. There
+was nobody about, and on all sides one found the dampness common to
+establishments which, from lack of custom, are compelled to close from
+November until March. In the rear were some stables, a coach-house, and
+various mossy, picturesque outbuildings, which painters and gardeners
+would now soon embellish for the gay pleasure parties which the fine
+weather would bring.
+
+"I really think that they haven't opened for the season yet," said
+Guillaume as he entered the silent house.
+
+"At all events they will let us stay here till the rain stops," answered
+Pierre, seating himself at one of the little tables.
+
+However, a waiter suddenly made his appearance seemingly in a great
+hurry. He had come down from the first floor, and eagerly rummaged a
+cupboard for a few dry biscuits, which he laid upon a plate. At last he
+condescended to serve the brothers two glasses of Chartreuse.
+
+In one of the private rooms upstairs Baroness Duvillard, who had driven
+to the chalet in a cab, had been awaiting her lover Gerard for nearly
+half an hour. It was there that, during the charity bazaar, they had
+given each other an appointment. For them the chalet had precious
+memories: two years previously, on discovering that secluded nest, which
+was so deserted in the early, hesitating days of chilly spring, they had
+met there under circumstances which they could not forget. And the
+Baroness, in choosing the house for the supreme assignation of their
+dying passion, had certainly not been influenced merely by a fear that
+she might be spied upon elsewhere. She had, indeed, thought of the first
+kisses that had been showered on her there, and would fain have revived
+them even if they should now prove the last that Gerard would bestow on
+her.
+
+But she would also have liked to see some sunlight playing over the
+youthful foliage. The ashen sky and threatening rain saddened her. And
+when she entered the private room she did not recognise it, so cold and
+dim it seemed with its faded furniture. Winter had tarried there, with
+all the dampness and mouldy smell peculiar to rooms which have long
+remained closed. Then, too, some of the wall paper which had come away
+from the plaster hung down in shreds, dead flies were scattered over the
+parquetry flooring; and in order to open the shutters the waiter had to
+engage in a perfect fight with their fastenings. However, when he had
+lighted a little gas-stove, which at once flamed up and diffused some
+warmth, the room became more cosy.
+
+Eve had seated herself on a chair, without raising the thick veil which
+hid her face. Gowned, gloved, and bonneted in black, as if she were
+already in mourning for her last passion, she showed naught of her own
+person save her superb fair hair, which glittered like a helm of tawny
+gold. She had ordered tea for two, and when the waiter brought it with a
+little plateful of dry biscuits, left, no doubt, from the previous
+season, he found her in the same place, still veiled and motionless,
+absorbed, it seemed, in a gloomy reverie. If she had reached the cafe
+half an hour before the appointed time it was because she desired some
+leisure and opportunity to overcome her despair and compose herself. She
+resolved that of all things she would not weep, that she would remain
+dignified and speak calmly, like one who, whatever rights she might
+possess, preferred to appeal to reason only. And she was well pleased
+with the courage that she found within her. Whilst thinking of what she
+should say to dissuade Gerard from a marriage which to her mind would
+prove both a calamity and a blunder, she fancied herself very calm,
+indeed almost resigned to whatsoever might happen.
+
+But all at once she started and began to tremble. Gerard was entering the
+room.
+
+"What! are you here the first, my dear?" he exclaimed. "I thought that I
+myself was ten minutes before the time! And you've ordered some tea and
+are waiting for me!"
+
+He forced a smile as he spoke, striving to display the same delight at
+seeing her as he had shown in the early golden days of their passion. But
+at heart he was much embarrassed, and he shuddered at the thought of the
+awful scene which he could foresee.
+
+She had at last risen and raised her veil. And looking at him she
+stammered: "Yes, I found myself at liberty earlier than I expected....
+I feared some impediment might arise... and so I came."
+
+Then, seeing how handsome and how affectionate he still looked, she could
+not restrain her passion. All her skilful arguments, all her fine
+resolutions, were swept away. Her flesh irresistibly impelled her towards
+him; she loved him, she would keep him, she would never surrender him to
+another. And she wildly flung her arms around his neck.
+
+"Oh! Gerard, Gerard! I suffer too cruelly; I cannot, I cannot bear it!
+Tell me at once that you will not marry her, that you will never marry
+her!"
+
+Her voice died away in a sob, tears started from her eyes. Ah! those
+tears which she had sworn she would never shed! They gushed forth without
+cessation, they streamed from her lovely eyes like a flood of the
+bitterest grief.
+
+"My daughter, O God! What! you would marry my daughter! She, here, on
+your neck where I am now! No, no, such torture is past endurance, it must
+not be, I will not have it!"
+
+He shivered as he heard that cry of frantic jealousy raised by a mother
+who now was but a woman, maddened by the thought of her rival's youth,
+those five and twenty summers which she herself had left far behind. For
+his part, on his way to the assignation, he had come to what he thought
+the most sensible decision, resolving to break off the intercourse after
+the fashion of a well-bred man, with all sorts of fine consolatory
+speeches. But sternness was not in his nature. He was weak and
+soft-hearted, and had never been able to withstand a woman's tears.
+Nevertheless, he endeavoured to calm her, and in order to rid himself of
+her embrace, he made her sit down upon the sofa. And there, beside her,
+he replied: "Come, be reasonable, my dear. We came here to have a
+friendly chat, did we not? I assure you that you are greatly exaggerating
+matters."
+
+But she was determined to obtain a more positive answer from him. "No,
+no!" she retorted, "I am suffering too dreadfully, I must know the truth
+at once. Swear to me that you will never, never marry her!"
+
+He again endeavoured to avoid replying as she wished him to do. "Come,
+come," he said, "you will do yourself harm by giving way to such grief as
+this; you know that I love you dearly."
+
+"Then swear to me that you will never, never marry her."
+
+"But I tell you that I love you, that you are the only one I love."
+
+Then she again threw her arms around him, and kissed him passionately
+upon the eyes. "Is it true?" she asked in a transport. "You love me, you
+love no one else? Oh! tell me so again, and kiss me, and promise me that
+you will never belong to her."
+
+Weak as he was he could not resist her ardent caresses and pressing
+entreaties. There came a moment of supreme cowardice and passion; her
+arms were around him and he forgot all but her, again and again repeating
+that he loved none other, and would never, never marry her daughter. At
+last he even sank so low as to pretend that he simply regarded that poor,
+infirm creature with pity. His words of compassionate disdain for her
+rival were like nectar to Eve, for they filled her with the blissful idea
+that it was she herself who would ever remain beautiful in his eyes and
+whom he would ever love....
+
+At last silence fell between them, like an inevitable reaction after such
+a tempest of despair and passion. It disturbed Gerard. "Won't you drink
+some tea?" he asked. "It is almost cold already."
+
+She was not listening, however. To her the reaction had come in a
+different form; and as though the inevitable explanation were only now
+commencing, she began to speak in a sad and weary voice. "My dear Gerard,
+you really cannot marry my daughter. In the first place it would be so
+wrong, and then there is the question of your name, your position.
+Forgive my frankness, but the fact is that everybody would say that you
+had sold yourself--such a marriage would be a scandal for both your
+family and mine."
+
+As she spoke she took hold of his hands, like a mother seeking to prevent
+her big son from committing some terrible blunder. And he listened to
+her, with bowed head and averted eyes. She now evinced no anger, no
+jealous rage; all such feelings seemed to have departed with the rapture
+of her passion.
+
+"Just think of what people would say," she continued. "I don't deceive
+myself, I am fully aware that there is an abyss between your circle of
+society and ours. It is all very well for us to be rich, but money simply
+enlarges the gap. And it was all very fine for me to be converted, my
+daughter is none the less 'the daughter of the Jewess,' as folks so often
+say. Ah! my Gerard, I am so proud of you, that it would rend my heart to
+see you lowered, degraded almost, by a marriage for money with a girl who
+is deformed, who is unworthy of you and whom you could never love."
+
+He raised his eyes and looked at her entreatingly, anxious as he was to
+be spared such painful talk. "But haven't I sworn to you, that you are
+the only one I love?" he said. "Haven't I sworn that I would never marry
+her! It's all over. Don't let us torture ourselves any longer."
+
+Their glances met and lingered on one another, instinct with all the
+misery which they dared not express in words. Eve's face had suddenly
+aged; her eyelids were red and swollen, and blotches marbled her
+quivering cheeks, down which her tears again began to trickle. "My poor,
+poor Gerard," said she, "how heavily I weigh on you. Oh! do not deny it!
+I feel that I am an intolerable burden on your shoulders, an impediment
+in your life, and that I shall bring irreparable disaster on you by my
+obstinacy in wishing you to be mine alone."
+
+He tried to speak, but she silenced him. "No, no, all is over between us.
+I am growing ugly, all is ended. And besides, I shut off the future from
+you. I can be of no help to you, whereas you bestow all on me. And yet
+the time has come for you to assure yourself a position. At your age you
+can't continue living without any certainty of the morrow, without a home
+and hearth of your own; and it would be cowardly and cruel of me to set
+myself up as an obstacle, and prevent you from ending your life happily,
+as I should do if I clung to you and dragged you down with me."
+
+Gazing at him through her tears she continued speaking in this fashion.
+Like his mother she was well aware that he was weak and even sickly; and
+she therefore dreamt of arranging a quiet life for him, a life of
+tranquil happiness free from all fear of want. She loved him so fondly;
+and possessed so much genuine kindness of heart that perhaps it might be
+possible for her to rise even to renunciation and sacrifice. Moreover,
+the very egotism born of her beauty suggested that it might be well for
+her to think of retirement and not allow the autumn of her life to be
+spoilt by torturing dramas. All this she said to him, treating him like a
+child whose happiness she wished to ensure even at the price of her own;
+and he, his eyes again lowered, listened without further protest, pleased
+indeed to let her arrange a happy life for him.
+
+Examining the situation from every aspect, she at last began to
+recapitulate the points in favour of that abominable marriage, the
+thought of which had so intensely distressed her. "It is certain," she
+said, "that Camille would bring you all that I should like you to have.
+With her, I need hardly say it, would come plenty, affluence. And as for
+the rest, well, I do not wish to excuse myself or you, but I could name
+twenty households in which there have been worse things. Besides, I was
+wrong when I said that money opened a gap between people. On the
+contrary, it draws them nearer together, it secures forgiveness for every
+fault; so nobody would dare to blame you, there would only be jealous
+ones around you, dazzled by your good fortune."
+
+Gerard rose, apparently rebelling once more. "Surely," said he, "_you_
+don't insist on my marrying your daughter?"
+
+"Ah! no indeed! But I am sensible, and I tell you what I ought to tell
+you. You must think it all over."
+
+"I have done so already. It is you that I have loved, and that I love
+still. What you say is impossible."
+
+She smiled divinely, rose, and again embraced him. "How good and kind you
+are, my Gerard. Ah! if you only knew how I love you, how I shall always
+love you, whatever happens."
+
+Then she again began to weep, and even he shed tears. Their good faith
+was absolute; tender of heart as they were, they sought to delay the
+painful wrenching and tried to hope for further happiness. But they were
+conscious that the marriage was virtually an accomplished fact. Only
+tears and words were left them, while life and destiny were marching on.
+And if their emotion was so acute it was probably because they felt that
+this was the last time they would meet as lovers. Still they strove to
+retain the illusion that they were not exchanging their last farewell,
+that their lips would some day meet again in a kiss of rapture.
+
+Eve removed her arms from the young man's neck, and they both gazed round
+the room, at the sofa, the table, the four chairs, and the little hissing
+gas-stove. The moist, hot atmosphere was becoming quite oppressive.
+
+"And so," said Gerard, "you won't drink a cup of tea?"
+
+"No, it's so horrid here," she answered, while arranging her hair in
+front of the looking-glass.
+
+At that parting moment the mournfulness of this place, where she had
+hoped to find such delightful memories, filled her with distress, which
+was turning to positive anguish, when she suddenly heard an uproar of
+gruff voices and heavy feet. People were hastening along the passage and
+knocking at the doors. And, on darting to the window, she perceived a
+number of policemen surrounding the chalet. At this the wildest ideas
+assailed her. Had her daughter employed somebody to follow her? Did her
+husband wish to divorce her so as to marry Silviane? The scandal would be
+awful, and all her plans must crumble! She waited in dismay, white like a
+ghost; while Gerard, also paling and quivering, begged her to be calm. At
+last, when loud blows were dealt upon the door and a Commissary of Police
+enjoined them to open it, they were obliged to do so. Ah! what a moment,
+and what dismay and shame!
+
+Meantime, for more than an hour, Pierre and Guillaume had been waiting
+for the rain to cease. Seated in a corner of the glazed verandah they
+talked in undertones of Barthes' painful affair, and ultimately decided
+to ask Theophile Morin to dine with them on the following evening, and
+inform his old friend that he must again go into exile.
+
+"That is the best course," repeated Guillaume. "Morin is very fond of him
+and will know how to break the news. I have no doubt too that he will go
+with him as far as the frontier."
+
+Pierre sadly looked at the falling rain. "Ah! what a choice," said he,
+"to be ever driven to a foreign land under penalty of being thrust into
+prison. Poor fellow! how awful it is to have never known a moment of
+happiness and gaiety in one's life, to have devoted one's whole existence
+to the idea of liberty, and to see it scoffed at and expire with
+oneself!"
+
+Then the priest paused, for he saw several policemen and keepers approach
+the cafe and prowl round it. Having lost scent of the man they were
+hunting, they had retraced their steps with the conviction no doubt that
+he had sought refuge in the chalet. And in order that he might not again
+escape them, they now took every precaution, exerted all their skill in
+surrounding the place before venturing on a minute search. Covert fear
+came upon Pierre and Guillaume when they noticed these proceedings. It
+seemed to them that it must all be connected with the chase which they
+had caught a glimpse of some time previously. Still, as they happened to
+be in the chalet they might be called upon to give their names and
+addresses. At this thought they glanced at one another, and almost made
+up their minds to go off under the rain. But they realised that anything
+like flight might only compromise them the more. So they waited; and all
+at once there came a diversion, for two fresh customers entered the
+establishment.
+
+A victoria with its hood and apron raised had just drawn up outside the
+door. The first to alight from it was a young, well-dressed man with a
+bored expression of face. He was followed by a young woman who was
+laughing merrily, as if much amused by the persistence of the downpour.
+By way of jesting, indeed, she expressed her regret that she had not come
+to the Bois on her bicycle, whereupon her companion retorted that to
+drive about in a deluge appeared to him the height of idiocy.
+
+"But we were bound to go somewhere, my dear fellow," she gaily answered.
+"Why didn't you take me to see the maskers?"
+
+"The maskers, indeed! No, no, my dear. I prefer the Bois, and even the
+bottom of the lake, to them."
+
+Then, as the couple entered the chalet, Pierre saw that the young woman
+who made merry over the rain was little Princess Rosemonde, while her
+companion, who regarded the mid-Lent festivities as horrible, and
+bicycling as an utterly unaesthetic amusement, was handsome Hyacinthe
+Duvillard. On the previous evening, while they were taking a cup of tea
+together on their return from the Chamber of Horrors, the young man had
+responded to the Princess's blandishments by declaring that the only form
+of attachment he believed in was a mystic union of intellects and souls.
+And as such a union could only be fittingly arrived at amidst the cold,
+chaste snow, they had decided that they would start for Christiania on
+the following Monday. Their chief regret was that by the time they
+reached the fiords the worst part of the northern winter would be over.
+
+They sat down in the cafe and ordered some kummel, but there was none,
+said the waiter, so they had to content themselves with common anisette.
+Then Hyacinthe, who had been a schoolfellow of Guillaume's sons,
+recognised both him and Pierre; and leaning towards Rosemonde told her in
+a whisper who the elder brother was.
+
+Thereupon, with sudden enthusiasm, she sprang to her feet: "Guillaume
+Froment, indeed! the great chemist!" And stepping forward with arm
+outstretched, she continued: "Ah! monsieur, you must excuse me, but I
+really must shake hands with you. I have so much admiration for you! You
+have done such wonderful work in connection with explosives!" Then,
+noticing the chemist's astonishment, she again burst into a laugh: "I am
+the Princess de Harn, your brother Abbe Froment knows me, and I ought to
+have asked him to introduce me. However, we have mutual friends, you and
+I; for instance, Monsieur Janzen, a very distinguished man, as you are
+aware. He was to have taken me to see you, for I am a modest disciple of
+yours. Yes, I have given some attention to chemistry, oh! from pure zeal
+for truth and in the hope of helping good causes, not otherwise. So you
+will let me call on you--won't you?--directly I come back from
+Christiania, where I am going with my young friend here, just to acquire
+some experience of unknown emotions."
+
+In this way she rattled on, never allowing the others an opportunity to
+say a word. And she mingled one thing with another; her cosmopolitan
+tastes, which had thrown her into Anarchism and the society of shady
+adventurers; her new passion for mysticism and symbolism; her belief that
+the ideal must triumph over base materialism; her taste for aesthetic
+verse; and her dream of some unimagined rapture when Hyacinthe should
+kiss her with his frigid lips in a realm of eternal snow.
+
+All at once, however, she stopped short and again began to laugh. "Dear
+me!" she exclaimed. "What are those policemen looking for here? Have they
+come to arrest us? How amusing it would be!"
+
+Police Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir had just made up their
+minds to search the cafe, as their men had hitherto failed to find Salvat
+in any of the outbuildings. They were convinced that he was here. Dupot,
+a thin, bald, short-sighted, spectacled little man, wore his usual
+expression of boredom and weariness; but in reality he was very wide
+awake and extremely courageous. He himself carried no weapons; but, as he
+anticipated a most violent resistance, such as might be expected from a
+trapped wolf, he advised Mondesir to have his revolver ready. From
+considerations of hierarchical respect, however, the detective, who with
+his snub nose and massive figure had much the appearance of a bull-dog,
+was obliged to let his superior enter first.
+
+From behind his spectacles the Commissary of Police quickly scrutinized
+the four customers whom he found in the cafe: the lady, the priest, and
+the two other men. And passing them in a disdainful way, he at once made
+for the stairs, intending to inspect the upper floor. Thereupon the
+waiter, frightened by the sudden intrusion of the police, lost his head
+and stammered: "But there's a lady and gentleman upstairs in one of the
+private rooms."
+
+Dupot quietly pushed him aside. "A lady and gentleman, that's not what we
+are looking for.... Come, make haste, open all the doors, you mustn't
+leave a cupboard closed."
+
+Then climbing to the upper floor, he and Mondesir explored in turn every
+apartment and corner till they at last reached the room where Eve and
+Gerard were together. Here the waiter was unable to admit them, as the
+door was bolted inside. "Open the door!" he called through the keyhole,
+"it isn't you that they want!"
+
+At last the bolt was drawn back, and Dupot, without even venturing to
+smile, allowed the trembling lady and gentleman to go downstairs, while
+Mondesir, entering the room, looked under every article of furniture, and
+even peeped into a little cupboard in order that no neglect might be
+imputed to him.
+
+Meantime, in the public room which they had to cross after descending the
+stairs, Eve and Gerard experienced fresh emotion; for people whom they
+knew were there, brought together by an extraordinary freak of chance.
+Although Eve's face was hidden by a thick veil, her eyes met her son's
+glance and she felt sure that he recognised her. What a fatality! He had
+so long a tongue and told his sister everything! Then, as the Count, in
+despair at such a scandal, hurried off with the Baroness to conduct her
+through the pouring rain to her cab, they both distinctly heard little
+Princess Rosemonde exclaim: "Why, that was Count de Quinsac! Who was the
+lady, do you know?" And as Hyacinthe, greatly put out, returned no
+answer, she insisted, saying: "Come, you must surely know her. Who was
+she, eh?"
+
+"Oh! nobody. Some woman or other," he ended by replying.
+
+Pierre, who had understood the truth, turned his eyes away to hide his
+embarrassment. But all at once the scene changed. At the very moment when
+Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir came downstairs again, after
+vainly exploring the upper floor, a loud shout was raised outside,
+followed by a noise of running and scrambling. Then Gascogne, the Chief
+of the Detective Force, who had remained in the rear of the chalet,
+continuing the search through the outbuildings, made his appearance,
+pushing before him a bundle of rags and mud, which two policemen held on
+either side. And this bundle was the man, the hunted man, who had just
+been discovered in the coach-house, inside a staved cask, covered with
+hay.
+
+Ah! what a whoop of victory there was after that run of two hours'
+duration, that frantic chase which had left them all breathless and
+footsore! It had been the most exciting, the most savage of all sports--a
+man hunt! They had caught the man at last, and they pushed him, they
+dragged him, they belaboured him with blows. And he, the man, what a
+sorry prey he looked! A wreck, wan and dirty from having spent the night
+in a hole full of leaves, still soaked to his waist from having rushed
+through a stream, drenched too by the rain, bespattered with mire, his
+coat and trousers in tatters, his cap a mere shred, his legs and hands
+bleeding from his terrible rush through thickets bristling with brambles
+and nettles. There no longer seemed anything human about his face; his
+hair stuck to his moist temples, his bloodshot eyes protruded from their
+sockets; fright, rage, and suffering were all blended on his wasted,
+contracted face. Still it was he, the man, the quarry, and they gave him
+another push, and he sank on one of the tables of the little cafe, still
+held and shaken, however, by the rough hands of the policemen.
+
+Then Guillaume shuddered as if thunderstruck, and caught hold of Pierre's
+hand. At this the priest, who was looking on, suddenly understood the
+truth and also quivered. Salvat! the man was Salvat! It was Salvat whom
+they had seen rushing through the wood like a wild boar forced by the
+hounds. And it was Salvat who was there, now conquered and simply a
+filthy bundle. Then once more there came to Pierre, amidst his anguish, a
+vision of the errand girl lying yonder at the entrance of the Duvillard
+mansion, the pretty fair-haired girl whom the bomb had ripped and killed!
+
+Dupot and Mondesir made haste to participate in Gascogne's triumph. To
+tell the truth, however, the man had offered no resistance; it was like a
+lamb that he had let the police lay hold of him. And since he had been in
+the cafe, still roughly handled, he had simply cast a weary and mournful
+glance around him.
+
+At last he spoke, and the first words uttered by his hoarse, gasping
+voice were these: "I am hungry."
+
+He was sinking with hunger and weariness. This was the third day that he
+had eaten nothing.
+
+"Give him some bread," said Commissary Dupot to the waiter. "He can eat
+it while a cab is being fetched."
+
+A policeman went off to find a vehicle. The rain had suddenly ceased
+falling, the clear ring of a bicyclist's bell was heard in the distance,
+some carriages drove by, and under the pale sunrays life again came back
+to the Bois.
+
+Meantime, Salvat had fallen gluttonously upon the hunk of bread which had
+been given him, and whilst he was devouring it with rapturous animal
+satisfaction, he perceived the four customers seated around. He seemed
+irritated by the sight of Hyacinthe and Rosemonde, whose faces expressed
+the mingled anxiety and delight they felt at thus witnessing the arrest
+of some bandit or other. But all at once his mournful, bloodshot eyes
+wavered, for to his intense surprise he had recognised Pierre and
+Guillaume. When he again looked at the latter it was with the submissive
+affection of a grateful dog, and as if he were once more promising that
+he would divulge nothing, whatever might happen.
+
+At last he again spoke, as if addressing himself like a man of courage,
+both to Guillaume, from whom he had averted his eyes, and to others also,
+his comrades who were not there: "It was silly of me to run," said he. "I
+don't know why I did so. It's best that it should be all ended. I'm
+ready."
+
+
+
+
+V. THE GAME OF POLITICS
+
+ON reading the newspapers on the following morning Pierre and Guillaume
+were greatly surprised at not finding in them the sensational accounts of
+Salvat's arrest which they had expected. All they could discover was a
+brief paragraph in a column of general news, setting forth that some
+policemen on duty in the Bois de Boulogne had there arrested an
+Anarchist, who was believed to have played a part in certain recent
+occurrences. On the other hand, the papers gave a deal of space to the
+questions raised by Sagnier's fresh denunciations. There were innumerable
+articles on the African Railways scandal, and the great debate which
+might be expected at the Chamber of Deputies, should Mege, the Socialist
+member, really renew his interpellation, as he had announced his
+intention of doing.
+
+As Guillaume's wrist was now fast healing, and nothing seemed to threaten
+him, he had already, on the previous evening, decided that he would
+return to Montmartre. The police had passed him by without apparently
+suspecting any responsibility on his part; and he was convinced that
+Salvat would keep silent. Pierre, however, begged him to wait a little
+longer, at any rate until the prisoner should have been interrogated by
+the investigating magistrate, by which time they would be able to judge
+the situation more clearly. Pierre, moreover, during his long stay at the
+Home Department on the previous morning, had caught a glimpse of certain
+things and overheard certain words which made him suspect some dim
+connection between Salvat's crime and the parliamentary crisis; and he
+therefore desired a settlement of the latter before Guillaume returned to
+his wonted life.
+
+"Just listen," he said to his brother. "I am going to Morin's to ask him
+to come and dine here this evening, for it is absolutely necessary that
+Barthes should be warned of the fresh blow which is falling on him. And
+then I think I shall go to the Chamber, as I want to know what takes
+place there. After that, since you desire it, I will let you go back to
+your own home."
+
+It was not more than half-past one when Pierre reached the
+Palais-Bourbon. It had occurred to him that Fonsegue would be able to
+secure him admittance to the meeting-hall, but in the vestibule he met
+General de Bozonnet, who happened to possess a couple of tickets. A
+friend of his, who was to have accompanied him, had, at the last moment,
+been unable to come. So widespread was the curiosity concerning the
+debate now near at hand, and so general were the predictions that it
+would prove a most exciting one, that the demand for tickets had been
+extremely keen during the last twenty-four hours. In fact Pierre would
+never have been able to obtain admittance if the General had not
+good-naturedly offered to take him in. As a matter of fact the old
+warrior was well pleased to have somebody to chat with. He explained that
+he had simply come there to kill time, just as he might have killed it at
+a concert or a charity bazaar. However, like the ex-Legitimist and
+Bonapartist that he was, he had really come for the pleasure of feasting
+his eyes on the shameful spectacle of parliamentary ignominy.
+
+When the General and Pierre had climbed the stairs, they were able to
+secure two front seats in one of the public galleries. Little Massot, who
+was already there, and who knew them both, placed one of them on his
+right and the other on his left. "I couldn't find a decent seat left in
+the press gallery," said he, "but I managed to get this place, from which
+I shall be able to see things properly. It will certainly be a big
+sitting. Just look at the number of people there are on every side!"
+
+The narrow and badly arranged galleries were packed to overflowing. There
+were men of every age and a great many women too in the confused, serried
+mass of spectators, amidst which one only distinguished a multiplicity of
+pale white faces. The real scene, however, was down below in the
+meeting-hall, which was as yet empty, and with its rows of seats disposed
+in semi-circular fashion looked like the auditorium of a theatre. Under
+the cold light which fell from the glazed roofing appeared the solemn,
+shiny tribune, whence members address the Chamber, whilst behind it, on a
+higher level, and running right along the rear wall, was what is called
+the Bureau, with its various tables and seats, including the presidential
+armchair. The Bureau, like the tribune, was still unoccupied. The only
+persons one saw there were a couple of attendants who were laying out new
+pens and filling inkstands.
+
+"The women," said Massot with a laugh, after another glance at the
+galleries, "come here just as they might come to a menagerie, that is, in
+the secret hope of seeing wild beasts devour one another. But, by the
+way, did you read the article in the 'Voix du Peuple' this morning? What
+a wonderful fellow that Sagnier is. When nobody else can find any filth
+left, he manages to discover some. He apparently thinks it necessary to
+add something new every day, in order to send his sales up. And of course
+it all disturbs the public, and it's thanks to him that so many people
+have come here in the hope of witnessing some horrid scene."
+
+Then he laughed again, as he asked Pierre if he had read an unsigned
+article in the "Globe," which in very dignified but perfidious language
+had called upon Barroux to give the full and frank explanations which the
+country had a right to demand in that matter of the African Railways.
+This paper had hitherto vigorously supported the President of the
+Council, but in the article in question the coldness which precedes a
+rupture was very apparent. Pierre replied that the article had much
+surprised him, for he had imagined that Fonsegue and Barroux were linked
+together by identity of views and long-standing personal friendship.
+
+Massot was still laughing. "Quite so," said he. "And you may be sure that
+the governor's heart bled when he wrote that article. It has been much
+noticed, and it will do the government a deal of harm. But the governor,
+you see, knows better than anybody else what line he ought to follow to
+save both his own position and the paper's."
+
+Then he related what extraordinary confusion and emotion reigned among
+the deputies in the lobbies through which he had strolled before coming
+upstairs to secure a seat. After an adjournment of a couple of days the
+Chamber found itself confronted by this terrible scandal, which was like
+one of those conflagrations which, at the moment when they are supposed
+to be dying out, suddenly flare up again and devour everything. The
+various figures given in Sagnier's list, the two hundred thousand francs
+paid to Barroux, the eighty thousand handed to Monferrand, the fifty
+thousand allotted to Fonsegue, the ten thousand pocketed by Duthil, and
+the three thousand secured by Chaigneux, with all the other amounts
+distributed among So-and-so and So-and-so, formed the general subject of
+conversation. And at the same time some most extraordinary stories were
+current; there was no end of tittle-tattle in which fact and falsehood
+were so inextricably mingled that everybody was at sea as to the real
+truth. Whilst many deputies turned pale and trembled as beneath a blast
+of terror, others passed by purple with excitement, bursting with
+delight, laughing with exultation at the thought of coming victory. For,
+in point of fact, beneath all the assumed indignation, all the calls for
+parliamentary cleanliness and morality, there simply lay a question of
+persons--the question of ascertaining whether the government would be
+overthrown, and in that event of whom the new administration would
+consist. Barroux no doubt appeared to be in a bad way; but with things in
+such a muddle one was bound to allow a margin for the unexpected. From
+what was generally said it seemed certain that Mege would be extremely
+violent. Barroux would answer him, and the Minister's friends declared
+that he was determined to speak out in the most decisive manner. As for
+Monferrand he would probably address the Chamber after his colleague, but
+Vignon's intentions were somewhat doubtful, as, in spite of his delight,
+he made a pretence of remaining in the back, ground. He had been seen
+going from one to another of his partisans, advising them to keep calm,
+in order that they might retain the cold, keen _coup d'oeil_ which in
+warfare generally decides the victory. Briefly, such was the plotting and
+intriguing that never had any witch's cauldron brimful of drugs and
+nameless abominations been set to boil on a more hellish fire than that
+of this parliamentary cook-shop.
+
+"Heaven only knows what they will end by serving us," said little Massot
+by way of conclusion.
+
+General de Bozonnet for his part anticipated nothing but disaster. If
+France had only possessed an army, said he, one might have swept away
+that handful of bribe-taking parliamentarians who preyed upon the country
+and rotted it. But there was no army left, there was merely an armed
+nation, a very different thing. And thereupon, like a man of a past age
+whom the present times distracted, he started on what had been his
+favourite subject of complaint ever since he had been retired from the
+service.
+
+"Here's an idea for an article if you want one," he said to Massot.
+"Although France may have a million soldiers she hasn't got an army. I'll
+give you some notes of mine, and you will be able to tell people the
+truth."
+
+Warfare, he continued, ought to be purely and simply a caste occupation,
+with commanders designated by divine right, leading mercenaries or
+volunteers into action. By democratising warfare people had simply killed
+it; a circumstance which he deeply regretted, like a born soldier who
+regarded fighting as the only really noble occupation that life offered.
+For, as soon as it became every man's duty to fight, none was willing to
+do so; and thus compulsory military service--what was called "the nation
+in arms"--would, at a more or less distant date, certainly bring about
+the end of warfare. If France had not engaged in a European war since
+1870 this was precisely due to the fact that everybody in France was
+ready to fight. But rulers hesitated to throw a whole nation against
+another nation, for the loss both in life and treasure would be
+tremendous. And so the thought that all Europe was transformed into a
+vast camp filled the General with anger and disgust. He sighed for the
+old times when men fought for the pleasure of the thing, just as they
+hunted; whereas nowadays people were convinced that they would
+exterminate one another at the very first engagement.
+
+"But surely it wouldn't be an evil if war should disappear," Pierre
+gently remarked.
+
+This somewhat angered the General. "Well, you'll have pretty nations if
+people no longer fight," he answered, and then trying to show a practical
+spirit, he added: "Never has the art of war cost more money than since
+war itself has become an impossibility. The present-day defensive peace
+is purely and simply ruining every country in Europe. One may be spared
+defeat, but utter bankruptcy is certainly at the end of it all. And in
+any case the profession of arms is done for. All faith in it is dying
+out, and it will soon be forsaken, just as men have begun to forsake the
+priesthood."
+
+Thereupon he made a gesture of mingled grief and anger, almost cursing
+that parliament, that Republican legislature before him, as if he
+considered it responsible for the future extinction of warfare. But
+little Massot was wagging his head dubiously, for he regarded the subject
+as rather too serious a one for him to write upon. And, all at once, in
+order to turn the conversation into another channel, he exclaimed: "Ah!
+there's Monseigneur Martha in the diplomatic gallery beside the Spanish
+Ambassador. It's denied, you know, that he intends to come forward as a
+candidate in Morbihan. He's far too shrewd to wish to be a deputy. He
+already pulls the strings which set most of the Catholic deputies who
+have 'rallied' to the Republican Government in motion."
+
+Pierre himself had just noticed Monseigneur Martha's smiling face. And,
+somehow or other, however modest might be the prelate's demeanour, it
+seemed to him that he really played an important part in what was going
+on. He could hardly take his eyes from him. It was as if he expected that
+he would suddenly order men hither and thither, and direct the whole
+march of events.
+
+"Ah!" said Massot again. "Here comes Mege. It won't be long now before
+the sitting begins."
+
+The hall, down below, was gradually filling. Deputies entered and
+descended the narrow passages between the benches. Most of them remained
+standing and chatting in a more or less excited way; but some seated
+themselves and raised their grey, weary faces to the glazed roof. It was
+a cloudy afternoon, and rain was doubtless threatening, for the light
+became quite livid. If the hall was pompous it was also dismal with its
+heavy columns, its cold allegorical statues, and its stretches of bare
+marble and woodwork. The only brightness was that of the red velvet of
+the benches and the gallery hand-rests.
+
+Every deputy of any consequence who entered was named by Massot to his
+companions. Mege, on being stopped by another member of the little
+Socialist group, began to fume and gesticulate. Then Vignon, detaching
+himself from a group of friends and putting on an air of smiling
+composure, descended the steps towards his seat. The occupants of the
+galleries, however, gave most attention to the accused members, those
+whose names figured in Sagnier's list. And these were interesting
+studies. Some showed themselves quite sprightly, as if they were entirely
+at their ease; but others had assumed a most grave and indignant
+demeanour. Chaigneux staggered and hesitated as if beneath the weight of
+some frightful act of injustice; whereas Duthil looked perfectly serene
+save for an occasional twitch of his lips. The most admired, however, was
+Fonsegue, who showed so candid a face, so open a glance, that his
+colleagues as well as the spectators might well have declared him
+innocent. Nobody indeed could have looked more like an honest man.
+
+"Ah! there's none like the governor," muttered Massot with enthusiasm.
+"But be attentive, for here come the ministers. One mustn't miss Barroux'
+meeting with Fonsegue, after this morning's article."
+
+Chance willed it that as Barroux came along with his head erect, his face
+pale, and his whole demeanour aggressive, he was obliged to pass Fonsegue
+in order to reach the ministerial bench. In doing so he did not speak to
+him, but he gazed at him fixedly like one who is conscious of defection,
+of a cowardly stab in the back on the part of a traitor. Fonsegue seemed
+quite at ease, and went on shaking hands with one and another of his
+colleagues as if he were altogether unconscious of Barroux' glance. Nor
+did he even appear to see Monferrand, who walked by in the rear of the
+Prime Minister, wearing a placid good-natured air, as if he knew nothing
+of what was impending, but was simply coming to some ordinary humdrum
+sitting. However, when he reached his seat, he raised his eyes and smiled
+at Monseigneur Martha, who gently nodded to him. Then well pleased to
+think that things were going as he wished them to go, he began to rub his
+hands, as he often did by way of expressing his satisfaction.
+
+"Who is that grey-haired, mournful-looking gentleman on the ministerial
+bench?" Pierre inquired of Massot.
+
+"Why, that's Taboureau, the Minister of Public Instruction, the excellent
+gentleman who is said to have no prestige. One's always hearing of him,
+and one never recognises him; he looks like an old, badly worn coin. Just
+like Barroux he can't feel very well pleased with the governor this
+afternoon, for to-day's 'Globe' contained an article pointing out his
+thorough incapacity in everything concerning the fine arts. It was an
+article in measured language, but all the more effective for that very
+reason. It would surprise me if Taboureau should recover from it."
+
+Just then a low roll of drums announced the arrival of the President and
+other officials of the Chamber. A door opened, and a little procession
+passed by amidst an uproar of exclamations and hasty footsteps. Then,
+standing at his table, the President rang his bell and declared the
+sitting open. But few members remained silent, however, whilst one of the
+secretaries, a dark, lanky young man with a harsh voice, read the minutes
+of the previous sitting. When they had been adopted, various letters of
+apology for non-attendance were read, and a short, unimportant bill was
+passed without discussion. And then came the big affair, Mege's
+interpellation, and at once the whole Chamber was in a flutter, while the
+most passionate curiosity reigned in the galleries above. On the
+Government consenting to the interpellation, the Chamber decided that the
+debate should take place at once. And thereupon complete silence fell,
+save that now and again a brief quiver sped by, in which one could detect
+the various feelings, passions and appetites swaying the assembly.
+
+Mege began to speak with assumed moderation, carefully setting forth the
+various points at issue. Tall and thin, gnarled and twisted like a
+vine-stock, he rested his hands on the tribune as if to support his bent
+figure, and his speech was often interrupted by the little dry cough
+which came from the tuberculosis that was burning him. But his eyes
+sparkled with passion behind his glasses, and little by little his voice
+rose in piercing accents and he drew his lank figure erect and began to
+gesticulate vehemently. He reminded the Chamber that some two months
+previously, at the time of the first denunciations published by the "Voix
+du Peuple," he had asked leave to interpellate the Government respecting
+that deplorable affair of the African Railways; and he remarked, truly
+enough, that if the Chamber had not yielded to certain considerations
+which he did not wish to discuss, and had not adjourned his proposed
+inquiries, full light would long since have been thrown on the whole
+affair, in such wise that there would have been no revival, no increase
+of the scandal, and no possible pretext for that abominable campaign of
+denunciation which tortured and disgusted the country. However, it had at
+last been understood that silence could be maintained no longer. It was
+necessary that the two ministers who were so loudly accused of having
+abused their trusts, should prove their innocence, throw full light upon
+all they had done; apart from which the Chamber itself could not possibly
+remain beneath the charge of wholesale venality.
+
+Then he recounted the whole history of the affair, beginning with the
+grant of a concession for the African Lines to Baron Duvillard; and next
+passing to the proposals for the issue of lottery stock, which proposals,
+it was now said, had only been sanctioned by the Chamber after the most
+shameful bargaining and buying of votes. At this point Mege became
+extremely violent. Speaking of that mysterious individual Hunter, Baron
+Duvillard's recruiter and go-between, he declared that the police had
+allowed him to flee from France, much preferring to spend its time in
+shadowing Socialist deputies. Then, hammering the tribune with his fist,
+he summoned Barroux to give a categorical denial to the charges brought
+against him, and to make it absolutely clear that he had never received a
+single copper of the two hundred thousand francs specified in Hunter's
+list. Forthwith certain members shouted to Mege that he ought to read the
+whole list; but when he wished to do so others vociferated that it was
+abominable, that such a mendacious and slanderous document ought not to
+be accorded a place in the proceedings of the French legislature. Mege
+went on still in frantic fashion, figuratively casting Sagnier into the
+gutter, and protesting that there was nothing in common between himself
+and such a base insulter. But at the same time he demanded that justice
+and punishment should be meted out equally to one and all, and that if
+indeed there were any bribe-takers among his colleagues, they should be
+sent that very night to the prison of Mazas.
+
+Meantime the President, erect at his table, rang and rang his bell
+without managing to quell the uproar. He was like a pilot who finds the
+tempest too strong for him. Among all the men with purple faces and
+barking mouths who were gathered in front of him, the ushers alone
+maintained imperturbable gravity. At intervals between the bursts of
+shouting, Mege's voice could still be heard. By some sudden transition he
+had come to the question of a Collectivist organisation of society such
+as he dreamt of, and he contrasted it with the criminal capitalist
+society of the present day, which alone, said he, could produce such
+scandals. And yielding more and more to his apostolic fervour, declaring
+that there could be no salvation apart from Collectivism, he shouted that
+the day of triumph would soon dawn. He awaited it with a smile of
+confidence. In his opinion, indeed, he merely had to overthrow that
+ministry and perhaps another one, and then he himself would at last take
+the reins of power in hand, like a reformer who would know how to pacify
+the nation. As outside Socialists often declared, it was evident that the
+blood of a dictator flowed in that sectarian's veins. His feverish,
+stubborn rhetoric ended by exhausting his interrupters, who were
+compelled to listen to him. When he at last decided to leave the tribune,
+loud applause arose from a few benches on the left.
+
+"Do you know," said Massot to the General, "I met Mege taking a walk with
+his three little children in the Jardin des Plantes the other day. He
+looked after them as carefully as an old nurse. I believe he's a very
+worthy fellow at heart, and lives in a very modest way."
+
+But a quiver had now sped through the assembly. Barroux had quitted his
+seat to ascend the tribune. He there drew himself erect, throwing his
+head back after his usual fashion. There was a haughty, majestic,
+slightly sorrowful expression on his handsome face, which would have been
+perfect had his nose only been a little larger. He began to express his
+sorrow and indignation in fine flowery language, which he punctuated with
+theatrical gestures. His eloquence was that of a tribune of the romantic
+school, and as one listened to him one could divine that in spite of all
+his pomposity he was really a worthy, tender-hearted and somewhat foolish
+man. That afternoon he was stirred by genuine emotion; his heart bled at
+the thought of his disastrous destiny, he felt that a whole world was
+crumbling with himself. Ah! what a cry of despair he stifled, the cry of
+the man who is buffeted and thrown aside by the course of events on the
+very day when he thinks that his civic devotion entitles him to triumph!
+To have given himself and all he possessed to the cause of the Republic,
+even in the dark days of the Second Empire; to have fought and struggled
+and suffered persecution for that Republic's sake; to have established
+that Republic amidst the battle of parties, after all the horrors of
+national and civil war; and then, when the Republic at last triumphed and
+became a living fact, secure from all attacks and intrigues, to suddenly
+feel like a survival of some other age, to hear new comers speak a new
+language, preach a new ideal, and behold the collapse of all he had
+loved, all he had reverenced, all that had given him strength to fight
+and conquer! The mighty artisans of the early hours were no more; it had
+been meet that Gambetta should die. How bitter it all was for the last
+lingering old ones to find themselves among the men of the new,
+intelligent and shrewd generation, who gently smiled at them, deeming
+their romanticism quite out of fashion! All crumbled since the ideal of
+liberty collapsed, since liberty was no longer the one desideratum, the
+very basis of the Republic whose existence had been so dearly purchased
+after so long an effort!
+
+Erect and dignified Barroux made his confession. The Republic to him was
+like the sacred ark of life; the very worst deeds became saintly if they
+were employed to save her from peril. And in all simplicity he, told his
+story, how he had found the great bulk of Baron Duvillard's money going
+to the opposition newspapers as pretended payment for puffery and
+advertising, whilst on the other hand the Republican organs received but
+beggarly, trumpery amounts. He had been Minister of the Interior at the
+time, and had therefore had charge of the press; so what would have been
+said of him if he had not endeavoured to reestablish some equilibrium in
+this distribution of funds in order that the adversaries of the
+institutions of the country might not acquire a great increase of
+strength by appropriating all the sinews of war? Hands had been stretched
+out towards him on all sides, a score of newspapers, the most faithful,
+the most meritorious, had claimed their legitimate share. And he had
+ensured them that share by distributing among them the two hundred
+thousand francs set down in the list against his name. Not a centime of
+the money had gone into his own pocket, he would allow nobody to impugn
+his personal honesty, on that point his word must suffice. At that moment
+Barroux was really grand. All his emphatic pomposity disappeared; he
+showed himself, as he really was--an honest man, quivering, his heart
+bared, his conscience bleeding, in his bitter distress at having been
+among those who had laboured and at now being denied reward.
+
+For, truth to tell, his words fell amidst icy silence. In his childish
+simplicity he had anticipated an outburst of enthusiasm; a Republican
+Chamber could but acclaim him for having saved the Republic; and now the
+frigidity of one and all quite froze him. He suddenly felt that he was
+all alone, done for, touched by the hand of death. Nevertheless, he
+continued speaking amidst that terrible silence with the courage of one
+who is committing suicide, and who, from his love of noble and eloquent
+attitudes, is determined to die standing. He ended with a final
+impressive gesture. However, as he came down from the tribune, the
+general coldness seemed to increase, not a single member applauded. With
+supreme clumsiness he had alluded to the secret scheming of Rome and the
+clergy, whose one object, in his opinion, was to recover the predominant
+position they had lost and restore monarchy in France at a more or less
+distant date.
+
+"How silly of him! Ought a man ever to confess?" muttered Massot. "He's
+done for, and the ministry too!"
+
+Then, amidst the general frigidity, Monferrand boldly ascended the
+tribune stairs. The prevailing uneasiness was compounded of all the
+secret fear which sincerity always causes, of all the distress of the
+bribe-taking deputies who felt that they were rolling into an abyss, and
+also of the embarrassment which the others felt at thought of the more or
+less justifiable compromises of politics. Something like relief,
+therefore, came when Monferrand started with the most emphatic denials,
+protesting in the name of his outraged honour, and dealing blow after
+blow on the tribune with one hand, while with the other he smote his
+chest. Short and thick-set, with his face thrust forward, hiding his
+shrewdness beneath an expression of indignant frankness, he was for a
+moment really superb. He denied everything. He was not only ignorant of
+what was meant by that sum of eighty thousand francs set down against his
+name, but he defied the whole world to prove that he had even touched a
+single copper of that money. He boiled over with indignation to such a
+point that he did not simply deny bribe-taking on his own part, he denied
+it on behalf of the whole assembly, of all present and past French
+legislatures, as if, indeed, bribe-taking on the part of a representative
+of the people was altogether too monstrous an idea, a crime that
+surpassed possibility to such an extent that the mere notion of it was
+absurd. And thereupon applause rang out; the Chamber, delivered from its
+fears, thrilled by his words, acclaimed him.
+
+From the little Socialist group, however, some jeers arose, and voices
+summoned Monferrand to explain himself on the subject of the African
+Railways, reminding him that he had been at the head of the Public Works
+Department at the time of the vote, and requiring of him that he should
+state what he now meant to do, as Minister of the Interior, in order to
+reassure the country. He juggled with this question, declaring that if
+there were any guilty parties they would be punished, for he did not
+require anybody to remind him of his duty. And then, all at once, with
+incomparable maestria, he had recourse to the diversion which he had been
+preparing since the previous day. His duty, said he, was a thing which he
+never forgot; he discharged it like a faithful soldier of the nation hour
+by hour, and with as much vigilance as prudence. He had been accused of
+employing the police on he knew not what base spying work in such wise as
+to allow the man Hunter to escape. Well, as for that much-slandered
+police force, he would tell the Chamber on what work he had really
+employed it the day before, and how zealously it had laboured for the
+cause of law and order. In the Bois de Boulogne, on the previous
+afternoon, it had arrested that terrible scoundrel, the perpetrator of
+the crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, that Anarchist mechanician Salvat,
+who for six weeks past had so cunningly contrived to elude capture. The
+scoundrel had made a full confession during the evening, and the law
+would now take its course with all despatch. Public morality was at last
+avenged, Paris might now emerge in safety from its long spell of terror,
+Anarchism would be struck down, annihilated. And that was what he,
+Monferrand, had done as a Minister for the honour and safety of his
+country, whilst villains were vainly seeking to dishonour him by
+inscribing his name on a list of infamy, the outcome of the very basest
+political intrigues.
+
+The Chamber listened agape and quivering. This story of Salvat's arrest,
+which none of the morning papers had reported; the present which
+Monferrand seemed to be making them of that terrible Anarchist whom many
+had already begun to regard as a myth; the whole _mise-en-scene_ of the
+Minister's speech transported the deputies as if they were suddenly
+witnessing the finish of a long-interrupted drama. Stirred and flattered,
+they prolonged their applause, while Monferrand went on celebrating his
+act of energy, how he had saved society, how crime should be punished,
+and how he himself would ever prove that he had a strong arm and could
+answer for public order. He even won favour with the Conservatives and
+Clericals on the Right by separating himself from Barroux, addressing a
+few words of sympathy to those Catholics who had "rallied" to the
+Republic, and appealing for concord among men of different beliefs in
+order that they might fight the common enemy, that fierce, wild socialism
+which talked of overthrowing everything!
+
+By the time Monferrand came down from the tribune, the trick was played,
+he had virtually saved himself. Both the Right and Left of the Chamber*
+applauded, drowning the protests of the few Socialists whose
+vociferations only added to the triumphal tumult. Members eagerly
+stretched out their hands to the Minister, who for a moment remained
+standing there and smiling. But there was some anxiety in that smile of
+his; his success was beginning to frighten him. Had he spoken too well,
+and saved the entire Cabinet instead of merely saving himself? That would
+mean the ruin of his plan. The Chamber ought not to vote under the effect
+of that speech which had thrilled it so powerfully. Thus Monferrand,
+though he still continued to smile, spent a few anxious moments in
+waiting to see if anybody would rise to answer him.
+
+  * Ever since the days of the Bourbon Restoration it has been
+    the practice in the French Chambers for the more conservative
+    members to seat themselves on the President's right, and for
+    the Radical ones to place themselves on his left. The central
+    seats of the semicircle in which the members' seats are
+    arranged in tiers are usually occupied by men of moderate views.
+    Generally speaking, such terms as Right Centre and Left Centre
+    are applied to groups of Moderates inclining in the first place
+    to Conservatism and in the latter to Radicalism. All this is of
+    course known to readers acquainted with French institutions, but
+    I give the explanation because others, after perusing French
+    news in some daily paper, have often asked me what was meant by
+    "a deputy of the Right," and so forth.--Trans.
+
+His success had been as great among the occupants of the galleries as
+among the deputies themselves. Several ladies had been seen applauding,
+and Monseigneur Martha had given unmistakable signs of the liveliest
+satisfaction. "Ah, General!" said Massot to Bozonnet in a sneering way.
+"Those are our fighting men of the present time. And he's a bold and
+strong one, is Monferrand. Of course it is all what people style 'saving
+one's bacon,' but none the less it's very clever work."
+
+Just then, however, Monferrand to his great satisfaction had seen Vignon
+rise from his seat in response to the urging of his friends. And
+thereupon all anxiety vanished from the Minister's smile, which became
+one of malicious placidity.
+
+The very atmosphere of the Chamber seemed to change with Vignon in the
+tribune. He was slim, with a fair and carefully tended beard, blue eyes
+and all the suppleness of youth. He spoke, moreover, like a practical
+man, in simple, straightforward language, which made the emptiness of the
+other's declamatory style painfully conspicuous. His term of official
+service as a prefect in the provinces had endowed him with keen insight;
+and it was in an easy way that he propounded and unravelled the most
+intricate questions. Active and courageous, confident in his own star,
+too young and too shrewd to have compromised himself in anything so far,
+he was steadily marching towards the future. He had already drawn up a
+rather more advanced political programme than that of Barroux and
+Monferrand, so that when opportunity offered there might be good reasons
+for him to take their place. Moreover, he was quite capable of carrying
+out his programme by attempting some of the long-promised reforms for
+which the country was waiting. He had guessed that honesty, when it had
+prudence and shrewdness as its allies, must some day secure an innings.
+In a clear voice, and in a very quiet, deliberate way, he now said what
+it was right to say on the subject under discussion, the things that
+common sense dictated and that the Chamber itself secretly desired should
+be said. He was certainly the first to rejoice over an arrest which would
+reassure the country; but he failed to understand what connection there
+could be between that arrest and the sad business that had been brought
+before the Chamber. The two affairs were quite distinct and different,
+and he begged his colleagues not to vote in the state of excitement in
+which he saw them. Full light must be thrown on the African Railways
+question, and this, one could not expect from the two incriminated
+ministers. However, he was opposed to any suggestion of a committee of
+inquiry. In his opinion the guilty parties, if such there were, ought to
+be brought immediately before a court of law. And, like Barroux, he wound
+up with a discreet allusion to the growing influence of the clergy,
+declaring that he was against all unworthy compromises, and was equally
+opposed to any state dictatorship and any revival of the ancient
+theocratic spirit.
+
+Although there was but little applause when Vignon returned to his seat,
+it was evident that the Chamber was again master of its emotions. And the
+situation seemed so clear, and the overthrow of the ministry so certain,
+that Mege, who had meant to reply to the others, wisely abstained from
+doing so. Meantime people noticed the placid demeanour of Monferrand, who
+had listened to Vignon with the utmost complacency, as if he were
+rendering homage to an adversary's talent; whereas Barroux, ever since
+the cold silence which had greeted his speech, had remained motionless in
+his seat, bowed down and pale as a corpse.
+
+"Well, it's all over," resumed Massot, amidst the hubbub which arose as
+the deputies prepared to vote; "the ministry's done for. Little Vignon
+will go a long way, you know. People say that he dreams of the Elysee. At
+all events everything points to him as our next prime minister."
+
+Then, as the journalist rose, intending to go off, the General detained
+him: "Wait a moment, Monsieur Massot," said he. "How disgusting all that
+parliamentary cooking is! You ought to point it out in an article, and
+show people how the country is gradually being weakened and rotted to the
+marrow by all such useless and degrading discussions. Why, a great battle
+resulting in the loss of 50,000 men would exhaust us less than ten years
+of this abominable parliamentary system. You must call on me some
+morning. I will show you a scheme of military reform, in which I point
+out the necessity of returning to the limited professional armies which
+we used to have, for this present-day national army, as folks call it,
+which is a semi-civilian affair and at best a mere herd of men, is like a
+dead weight on us, and is bound to pull us down!"
+
+Pierre, for his part, had not spoken a word since the beginning of the
+debate. He had listened to everything, at first influenced by the thought
+of his brother's interests, and afterwards mastered by the feverishness
+which gradually took possession of everybody present. He had become
+convinced that there was nothing more for Guillaume to fear; but how
+curiously did one event fit into another, and how loudly had Salvat's
+arrest re-echoed in the Chamber! Looking down into the seething hall
+below him, he had detected all the clash of rival passions and interests.
+After watching the great struggle between Barroux, Monferrand and Vignon,
+he had gazed upon the childish delight of that terrible Socialist Mege,
+who was so pleased at having been able to stir up the depths of those
+troubled waters, in which he always unwittingly angled for the benefit of
+others. Then, too, Pierre had become interested in Fonsegue, who, knowing
+what had been arranged between Monferrand, Duvillard and himself, evinced
+perfect calmness and strove to reassure Duthil and Chaigneux, who, on
+their side, were quite dismayed by the ministry's impending fall. Yet,
+Pierre's eyes always came back to Monseigneur Martha. He had watched his
+serene smiling face throughout the sitting, striving to detect his
+impressions of the various incidents that had occurred, as if in his
+opinion that dramatic parliamentary comedy had only been played as a step
+towards the more or less distant triumph for which the prelate laboured.
+And now, while awaiting the result of the vote, as Pierre turned towards
+Massot and the General, he found that they were talking of nothing but
+recruiting and tactics and the necessity of a bath of blood for the whole
+of Europe. Ah! poor mankind, ever fighting and ever devouring one another
+in parliaments as well as on battle-fields, when, thought Pierre, would
+it decide to disarm once and for all, and live at peace according to the
+laws of justice and reason!
+
+Then he again looked down into the hall, where the greatest confusion was
+prevailing among the deputies with regard to the coming vote. There was
+quite a rainfall of suggested "resolutions," from a very violent one
+proposed by Mege, to another, which was merely severe, emanating from
+Vignon. The ministry, however, would only accept the "Order of the day
+pure and simple," a mere decision, that is, to pass to the next business,
+as if Mege's interpellation had been unworthy of attention. And presently
+the Government was defeated, Vignon's resolution being adopted by a
+majority of twenty-five. Some portion of the Left had evidently joined
+hands with the Right and the Socialist group. A prolonged hubbub followed
+this result.
+
+"Well, so we are to have a Vignon Cabinet," said Massot, as he went off
+with Pierre and the General. "All the same, though, Monferrand has saved
+himself, and if I were in Vignon's place I should distrust him."
+
+That evening there was a very touching farewell scene at the little house
+at Neuilly. When Pierre returned thither from the Chamber, saddened but
+reassured with regard to the future, Guillaume at once made up his mind
+to go home on the morrow. And as Nicholas Barthes was compelled to leave,
+the little dwelling seemed on the point of relapsing into dreary quietude
+once more.
+
+Theophile Morin, whom Pierre had informed of the painful alternative in
+which Barthes was placed, duly came to dinner; but he did not have time
+to speak to the old man before they all sat down to table at seven
+o'clock. As usual Barthes had spent his day in marching, like a caged
+lion, up and down the room in which he had accepted shelter after the
+fashion of a big fearless child, who never worried with regard either to
+his present circumstances or the troubles which the future might have in
+store for him. His life had ever been one of unlimited hope, which
+reality had ever shattered. Although all that he had loved, all that he
+had hoped to secure by fifty years of imprisonment or exile,--liberty,
+equality and a real brotherly republic,--had hitherto failed to come,
+such as he had dreamt of them, he nevertheless retained the candid faith
+of his youth, and was ever confident in the near future. He would smile
+indulgently when new comers, men of violent ideas, derided him and called
+him a poor old fellow. For his part, he could make neither head nor tail
+of the many new sects. He simply felt indignant with their lack of human
+feeling, and stubbornly adhered to his own idea of basing the world's
+regeneration on the simple proposition that men were naturally good and
+ought to be free and brotherly.
+
+That evening at dinner, feeling that he was with friends who cared for
+him, Barthes proved extremely gay, and showed all his ingenuousness in
+talking of his ideal, which would soon be realised, said he, in spite of
+everything. He could tell a story well whenever he cared to chat, and on
+that occasion he related some delightful anecdotes about the prisons
+through which he had passed. He knew all the dungeons, Ste. Pelagie and
+Mont St. Michel, Belle-Ile-en-Mer and Clairvaux, to say nothing of
+temporary gaols and the evil-smelling hulks on board which political
+prisoners are often confined. And he still laughed at certain
+recollections, and related how in the direst circumstances he had always
+been able to seek refuge in his conscience. The others listened to him
+quite charmed by his conversation, but full of anguish at the thought
+that this perpetual prisoner or exile must again rise and take his staff
+to sally forth, driven from his native land once more.
+
+Pierre did not speak out until they were partaking of dessert. Then he
+related how the Minister had written to him, and how in a brief interview
+he had stated that Barthes must cross the frontier within forty-eight
+hours if he did not wish to be arrested. Thereupon the old man gravely
+rose, with his white fleece, his eagle beak and his bright eyes still
+sparkling with the fire of youth. And he wished to go off at once.
+"What!" said he, "you have known all this since yesterday, and have still
+kept me here at the risk of my compromising you even more than I had done
+already! You must forgive me, I did not think of the worry I might cause
+you, I thought that everything would be satisfactorily arranged. I must
+thank you both--yourself and Guillaume--for the few days of quietude that
+you have procured to an old vagabond and madman like myself."
+
+Then, as they tried to prevail on him to remain until the following
+morning, he would not listen to them. There would be a train for Brussels
+about midnight, and he had ample time to take it. He refused to let Morin
+accompany him. No, no, said he, Morin was not a rich man, and moreover he
+had work to attend to. Why should he take him away from his duties, when
+it was so easy, so simple, for him to go off alone? He was going back
+into exile as into misery and grief which he had long known, like some
+Wandering Jew of Liberty, ever driven onward through the world.
+
+When he took leave of the others at ten o'clock, in the little sleepy
+street just outside the house, tears suddenly dimmed his eyes. "Ah! I'm
+no longer a young man," he said; "it's all over this time. I shall never
+come back again. My bones will rest in some corner over yonder." And yet,
+after he had affectionately embraced Pierre and Guillaume, he drew
+himself up like one who remained unconquered, and he raised a supreme cry
+of hope. "But after all, who knows? Triumph may perhaps come to-morrow.
+The future belongs to those who prepare it and wait for it!"
+
+Then he walked away, and long after he had disappeared his firm, sonorous
+footsteps could be heard re-echoing in the quiet night.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+
+
+I. PIERRE AND MARIE
+
+
+ON the mild March morning when Pierre left his little house at Neuilly to
+accompany Guillaume to Montmartre, he was oppressed by the thought that
+on returning home he would once more find himself alone with nothing to
+prevent him from relapsing into negation and despair. The idea of this
+had kept him from sleeping, and he still found it difficult to hide his
+distress and force a smile.
+
+The sky was so clear and the atmosphere so mild that the brothers had
+resolved to go to Montmartre on foot by way of the outer boulevards. Nine
+o'clock was striking when they set out. Guillaume for his part was very
+gay at the thought of the surprise he would give his family. It was as if
+he were suddenly coming back from a long journey. He had not warned them
+of his intentions; he had merely written to them now and again to tell
+them that he was recovering, and they certainly had no idea that his
+return was so near at hand.
+
+When Guillaume and Pierre had climbed the sunlit slopes of Montmartre,
+and crossed the quiet countrified Place du Tertre, the former, by means
+of a latch-key, quietly opened the door of his house, which seemed to be
+asleep, so profound was the stillness both around and within it. Pierre
+found it the same as on the occasion of his previous and only visit.
+First came the narrow passage which ran through the ground-floor,
+affording a view of all Paris at the further end. Next there was the
+garden, reduced to a couple of plum-trees and a clump of lilac-bushes,
+the leaves of which had now sprouted. And this time the priest perceived
+three bicycles leaning against the trees. Beyond them stood the large
+work-shop, so gay, and yet so peaceful, with its huge window overlooking
+a sea of roofs.
+
+Guillaume had reached the work-shop without meeting anybody. With an
+expression of much amusement he raised a finger to his lips. "Attention,
+Pierre," he whispered; "you'll just see!"
+
+Then having noiselessly opened the door, they remained for a moment on
+the threshold.
+
+The three sons alone were there. Near his forge stood Thomas working a
+boring machine, with which he was making some holes in a small brass
+plate. Then Francois and Antoine were seated on either side of their
+large table, the former reading, and the latter finishing a block. The
+bright sunshine streamed in, playing over all the seeming disorder of the
+room, where so many callings and so many implements found place. A large
+bunch of wallflowers bloomed on the women's work-table near the window;
+and absorbed as the young men were in their respective tasks the only
+sound was the slight hissing of the boring machine each time that the
+eldest of them drilled another hole.
+
+However, although Guillaume did not stir, there suddenly came a quiver,
+an awakening. His sons seemed to guess his presence, for they raised
+their heads, each at the same moment. From each, too, came the same cry,
+and a common impulse brought them first to their feet and then to his
+arms.
+
+"Father!"
+
+Guillaume embraced them, feeling very happy. And that was all; there was
+no long spell of emotion, no useless talk. It was as if he had merely
+gone out the day before and, delayed by business, had now come back.
+Still, he looked at them with his kindly smile, and they likewise smiled
+with their eyes fixed on his. Those glances proclaimed everything, the
+closest affection and complete self-bestowal for ever.
+
+"Come in, Pierre," called Guillaume; "shake hands with these young men."
+
+The priest had remained near the door, overcome by a singular feeling of
+discomfort. When his nephews had vigorously shaken hands with him, he sat
+down near the window apart from them, as if he felt out of his element
+there.
+
+"Well, youngsters," said Guillaume, "where's Mere-Grand, and where's
+Marie?"
+
+Their grandmother was upstairs in her room, they said; and Marie had
+taken it into her head to go marketing. This, by the way, was one of her
+delights. She asserted that she was the only one who knew how to buy
+new-laid eggs and butter of a nutty odour. Moreover, she sometimes
+brought some dainty or some flowers home, in her delight at proving
+herself to be so good a housewife.
+
+"And so things are going on well?" resumed Guillaume. "You are all
+satisfied, your work is progressing, eh?"
+
+He addressed brief questions to each of them, like one who, on his return
+home, at once reverts to his usual habits. Thomas, with his rough face
+beaming, explained in a couple of sentences that he was now sure of
+perfecting his little motor; Francois, who was still preparing for his
+examination, jestingly declared that he yet had to lodge a heap of
+learning in his brain; and then Antoine produced the block which he was
+finishing, and which depicted his little friend Lise, Jahan's sister,
+reading in her garden amidst the sunshine. It was like a florescence of
+that dear belated creature whose mind had been awakened by his affection.
+
+However, the three brothers speedily went back to their places, reverting
+to their work with a natural impulse, for discipline had made them regard
+work as life itself. Then Guillaume, who had glanced at what each was
+doing, exclaimed: "Ah! youngsters, I schemed and prepared a lot of things
+myself while I was laid up. I even made a good many notes. We walked here
+from Neuilly, but my papers and the clothes which Mere-Grand sent me will
+come in a cab by-and-by.... Ah! how pleased I am to find everything in
+order here, and to be able to take up my task with you again! Ah! I shall
+polish off some work now, and no mistake!"
+
+He had already gone to his own corner, the space reserved for him between
+the window and the forge. He there had a chemical furnace, several glass
+cases and shelves crowded with appliances, and a long table, one end of
+which he used for writing purposes. And he once more took possession of
+that little world. After glancing around with delight at seeing
+everything in its place, he began to handle one object and another, eager
+to be at work like his sons.
+
+All at once, however, Mere-Grand appeared, calm, grave and erect in her
+black gown, at the top of the little staircase which conducted to the
+bedrooms. "So it's you, Guillaume?" said she. "Will you come up for a
+moment?"
+
+He immediately did so, understanding that she wished to speak to him
+alone and tranquillise him. It was a question of the great secret between
+them, that one thing of which his sons knew nothing, and which, after
+Salvat's crime, had brought him much anguish, through his fear that it
+might be divulged. When he reached Mere-Grand's room she at once took him
+to the hiding-place near her bed, and showed him the cartridges of the
+new explosive, and the plans of the terrible engine of warfare which he
+had invented. He found them all as he had left them. Before anyone could
+have reached them, she would have blown up the whole place at the risk of
+perishing herself in the explosion. With her wonted air of quiet heroism,
+she handed Guillaume the key which he had sent her by Pierre.
+
+"You were not anxious, I hope?" she said.
+
+He pressed her hands with a commingling of affection and respect. "My
+only anxiety," he replied, "was that the police might come here and treat
+you roughly.... You are the guardian of our secret, and it would be
+for you to finish my work should I disappear."
+
+While Guillaume and Madame Leroi were thus engaged upstairs, Pierre,
+still seated near the window below, felt his discomfort increasing. The
+inmates of the house certainly regarded him with no other feeling than
+one of affectionate sympathy; and so how came it that he considered them
+hostile? The truth was that he asked himself what would become of him
+among those workers, who were upheld by a faith of their own, whereas he
+believed in nothing, and did not work. The sight of those young men, so
+gaily and zealously toiling, ended by quite irritating him; and the
+arrival of Marie brought his distress to a climax.
+
+Joyous and full of life, she came in without seeing him, a basket on her
+arm. And she seemed to bring all the sunlight of the spring morning with
+her, so bright was the sparkle of her youth. The whole of her pink face,
+her delicate nose, her broad intelligent brow, her thick, kindly lips,
+beamed beneath the heavy coils of her black hair. And her brown eyes ever
+laughed with the joyousness which comes from health and strength.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I have brought such a lot of things, youngsters.
+Just come and see them; I wouldn't unpack the basket in the kitchen."
+
+It became absolutely necessary for the brothers to draw round the basket
+which she had laid upon the table. "First there's the butter!" said she;
+"just smell if it hasn't a nice scent of nuts! It's churned especially
+for me, you know. Then here are the eggs. They were laid only yesterday,
+I'll answer for it. And, in fact, that one there is this morning's. And
+look at the cutlets! They're wonderful, aren't they? The butcher cuts
+them carefully when he sees me. And then here's a cream cheese, real
+cream, you know, it will be delicious! Ah! and here's the surprise,
+something dainty, some radishes, some pretty little pink radishes. Just
+fancy! radishes in March, what a luxury!"
+
+She triumphed like the good little housewife she was, one who had
+followed a whole course of cookery and home duties at the Lycee Fenelon.
+The brothers, as merry as she herself, were obliged to compliment her.
+
+All at once, however, she caught sight of Pierre. "What! you are there,
+Monsieur l'Abbe?" she exclaimed; "I beg your pardon, but I didn't see
+you. How is Guillaume? Have you brought us some news of him?"
+
+"But father's come home," said Thomas; "he's upstairs with Mere-Grand."
+
+Quite thunderstruck, she hastily placed her purchases in the basket.
+"Guillaume's come back, Guillaume's come back!" said she, "and you don't
+tell me of it, you let me unpack everything! Well, it's nice of me, I
+must say, to go on praising my butter and eggs when Guillaume's come
+back."
+
+Guillaume, as it happened, was just coming down with Madame Leroi. Marie
+gaily hastened to him and offered him her cheeks, on which he planted two
+resounding kisses. Then she, resting her hands on his shoulders, gave him
+a long look, while saying in a somewhat tremulous voice: "I am pleased,
+very pleased to see you, Guillaume. I may confess it now, I thought I had
+lost you, I was very anxious and very unhappy."
+
+Although she was still smiling, tears had gathered in her eyes, and he,
+likewise moved, again kissed her, murmuring: "Dear Marie! How happy it
+makes me to find you as beautiful and as affectionate as ever."
+
+Pierre, who was looking at them, deemed them cold. He had doubtless
+expected more tears, and a more passionate embrace on the part of an
+affianced pair, whom so grievous an accident had separated almost on the
+eve of their wedding. Moreover, his feelings were hurt by the
+disproportion of their respective ages. No doubt his brother still seemed
+to him very sturdy and young, and his feeling of repulsion must have come
+from that young woman whom, most decidedly, he did not like. Ever since
+her arrival he had experienced increasing discomfort, a keener and keener
+desire to go off and never return.
+
+So acute became his suffering at feeling like a stranger in his brother's
+home, that he at last rose and sought to take his leave, under the
+pretext that he had some urgent matters to attend to in town.
+
+"What! you won't stay to _dejeuner_ with us!" exclaimed Guillaume in
+perfect stupefaction. "Why, it was agreed! You surely won't distress me
+like that! This house is your own, remember!"
+
+Then, as with genuine affection they all protested and pressed him to
+stay, he was obliged to do so. However, he soon relapsed into silence and
+embarrassment, seated on the same chair as before, and listening moodily
+to those people who, although they were his relatives, seemed to be far
+removed from him.
+
+As it was barely eleven o'clock they resumed work, but every now and
+again there was some merry talk. On one of the servants coming for the
+provisions, Marie told the girl to call her as soon as it should be time
+to boil the eggs, for she prided herself on boiling them to a nicety, in
+such wise as to leave the whites like creamy milk. This gave an
+opportunity for a few jests from Francois, who occasionally teased her
+about all the fine things she had learnt at the Lycee Fenelon, where her
+father had placed her when she was twelve years old. However, she was not
+afraid of him, but gave him tit for tat by chaffing him about all the
+hours which he lost at the Ecole Normale over a mass of pedagogic trash.
+
+"Ah! you big children!" she exclaimed, while still working at her
+embroidery. "You are all very intelligent, and you all claim to have
+broad minds, and yet--confess it now--it worries you a little that a girl
+like me should have studied at college in the same way as yourselves.
+It's a sexual quarrel, a question of rivalry and competition, isn't it?"
+
+They protested the contrary, declaring that they were in favour of girls
+receiving as complete an education as possible. She was well aware of
+this; however, she liked to tease them in return for the manner in which
+they themselves plagued her.
+
+"But do you know," said she, "you are a great deal behind the times? I am
+well aware of the reproaches which are levelled at girls' colleges by
+so-called right-minded people. To begin, there is no religious element
+whatever in the education one receives there, and this alarms many
+families which consider religious education to be absolutely necessary
+for girls, if only as a moral weapon of defence. Then, too, the education
+at our Lycees is being democratised--girls of all positions come to them.
+Thanks to the scholarships which are so liberally offered, the daughter
+of the lady who rents a first floor flat often finds the daughter of her
+door-keeper among her school-fellows, and some think this objectionable.
+It is said also that the pupils free themselves too much from home
+influence, and that too much opportunity is left for personal initiative.
+As a matter of fact the extensiveness of the many courses of study, all
+the learning that is required of pupils at the examinations, certainly
+does tend to their emancipation, to the coming of the future woman and
+future society, which you young men are all longing for, are you not?"
+
+"Of course we are!" exclaimed Francois; "we all agree on that point."
+
+She waved her hand in a pretty way, and then quietly continued: "I'm
+jesting. My views are simple enough, as you well know, and I don't ask
+for nearly as much as you do. As for woman's claims and rights, well, the
+question is clear enough; woman is man's equal so far as nature allows
+it. And the only point is to agree and love one another. At the same time
+I'm well pleased to know what I do--oh! not from any spirit of pedantry
+but simply because I think it has all done me good, and given me some
+moral as well as physical health."
+
+It delighted her to recall the days she had spent at the Lycee Fenelon,
+which of the five State colleges for girls opened in Paris was the only
+one counting a large number of pupils. Most of these were the daughters
+of officials or professors, who purposed entering the teaching
+profession. In this case, they had to win their last diploma at the Ecole
+Normale of Sevres, after leaving the Lycee. Marie, for her part, though
+her studies had been brilliant, had felt no taste whatever for the
+calling of teacher. Moreover, when Guillaume had taken charge of her
+after her father's death, he had refused to let her run about giving
+lessons. To provide herself with a little money, for she would accept
+none as a gift, she worked at embroidery, an art in which she was most
+accomplished.
+
+While she was talking to the young men Guillaume had listened to her
+without interfering. If he had fallen in love with her it was largely on
+account of her frankness and uprightness, the even balance of her nature,
+which gave her so forcible a charm. She knew all; but if she lacked the
+poetry of the shrinking, lamb-like girl who has been brought up in
+ignorance, she had gained absolute rectitude of heart and mind, exempt
+from all hypocrisy, all secret perversity such as is stimulated by what
+may seem mysterious in life. And whatever she might know, she had
+retained such child-like purity that in spite of her six-and-twenty
+summers all the blood in her veins would occasionally rush to her cheeks
+in fiery blushes, which drove her to despair.
+
+"My dear Marie," Guillaume now exclaimed, "you know very well that the
+youngsters were simply joking. You are in the right, of course.... And
+your boiled eggs cannot be matched in the whole world."
+
+He said this in so soft and affectionate a tone that the young woman
+flushed purple. Then, becoming conscious of it, she coloured yet more
+deeply, and as the three young men glanced at her maliciously she grew
+angry with herself. "Isn't it ridiculous, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said,
+turning towards Pierre, "for an old maid like myself to blush in that
+fashion? People might think that I had committed a crime. It's simply to
+make me blush, you know, that those children tease me. I do all I can to
+prevent it, but it's stronger than my will."
+
+At this Mere-Grand raised her eyes from the shirt she was mending, and
+remarked: "Oh! it's natural enough, my dear. It is your heart rising to
+your cheeks in order that we may see it."
+
+The _dejeuner_ hour was now at hand; and they decided to lay the table in
+the work-shop, as was occasionally done when they had a guest. The
+simple, cordial meal proved very enjoyable in the bright sunlight.
+Marie's boiled eggs, which she herself brought from the kitchen covered
+with a napkin, were found delicious. Due honour was also done to the
+butter and the radishes. The only dessert that followed the cutlets was
+the cream cheese, but it was a cheese such as nobody else had ever
+partaken of. And, meantime, while they ate and chatted all Paris lay
+below them, stretching away to the horizon with its mighty rumbling.
+
+Pierre had made an effort to become cheerful, but he soon relapsed into
+silence. Guillaume, however, was very talkative. Having noticed the three
+bicycles in the garden, he inquired of Marie how far she had gone that
+morning. She answered that Francois and Antoine had accompanied her in
+the direction of Orgemont. The worry of their excursions was that each
+time they returned to Montmartre they had to push their machines up the
+height. From the general point of view, however, the young woman was
+delighted with bicycling, which had many virtues, said she. Then, seeing
+Pierre glance at her in amazement, she promised that she would some day
+explain her opinions on the subject to him. After this bicycling became
+the one topic of conversation until the end of the meal. Thomas gave an
+account of the latest improvements introduced into Grandidier's machines;
+and the others talked of the excursions they had made or meant to make,
+with all the exuberant delight of school children eager for the open air.
+
+In the midst of the chatter, Mere-Grand, who presided at table with the
+serene dignity of a queen-mother, leant towards Guillaume, who sat next
+to her, and spoke to him in an undertone. Pierre understood that she was
+referring to his marriage, which was to have taken place in April, but
+must now necessarily be deferred. This sensible marriage, which seemed
+likely to ensure the happiness of the entire household, was largely the
+work of Mere-Grand and the three young men, for Guillaume would never
+have yielded to his heart if she whom he proposed to make his wife had
+not already been a well-loved member of the family. At the present time
+the last week in June seemed, for all sorts of reasons, to be a
+favourable date for the wedding.
+
+Marie, who heard the suggestion, turned gaily towards Mere-Grand.
+
+"The end of June will suit very well, will it not, my dear?" said the
+latter.
+
+Pierre expected to see a deep flush rise to the young woman's cheeks, but
+she remained very calm. She felt deep affection, blended with the most
+tender gratitude, for Guillaume, and was convinced that in marrying him
+she would be acting wisely and well both for herself and the others.
+
+"Certainly, the end of June," she repeated, "that will suit very well
+indeed."
+
+Then the sons, who likewise had heard the proposal, nodded their heads by
+way of assenting also.
+
+When they rose from table Pierre was absolutely determined to go off. The
+cordial and simple meal, the sight of that family, which had been
+rendered so happy by Guillaume's return, and of that young woman who
+smiled so placidly at life, had brought him keen suffering, though why he
+could not tell. However, it all irritated him beyond endurance; and he
+therefore again pretended that he had a number of things to see to in
+Paris. He shook hands in turn with the young men, Mere-Grand and Marie;
+both of the women evincing great friendliness but also some surprise at
+his haste to leave the house. Guillaume, who seemed saddened and anxious,
+sought to detain him, and failing in this endeavour followed him into the
+little garden, where he stopped him in order to have an explanation.
+
+"Come," said he, "what is the matter with you, Pierre? Why are you
+running off like this?"
+
+"Oh! there's nothing the matter I assure you; but I have to attend to a
+few urgent affairs."
+
+"Oh, Pierre, pray put all pretence aside. Nobody here has displeased you
+or hurt your feelings, I hope. They also will soon love you as I do."
+
+"I have no doubt of it, and I complain of nobody excepting perhaps
+myself."
+
+Guillaume's sorrow was increasing. "Ah! brother, little brother," he
+resumed, "you distress me, for I can detect that you are hiding something
+from me. Remember that new ties have linked us together and that we love
+one another as in the old days when you were in your cradle and I used to
+come to play with you. I know you well, remember. I know all your
+tortures, since you have confessed them to me; and I won't have you
+suffer, I want to cure you, I do!"
+
+Pierre's heart was full, and as he heard those words he could not
+restrain his tears. "Oh! you must leave me to my sufferings," he
+responded. "They are incurable. You can do nothing for me, I am beyond
+the pale of nature, I am a monster."
+
+"What do you say! Can you not return within nature's pale even if you
+_have_ gone beyond it? One thing that I will not allow is that you should
+go and shut yourself up in that solitary little house of yours, where you
+madden yourself by brooding over the fall of your faith. Come and spend
+your time with us, so that we may again give you some taste for life."
+
+Ah! the empty little house which awaited him! Pierre shivered at the
+thought of it, at the idea that he would now find himself all alone
+there, bereft of the brother with whom he had lately spent so many happy
+days. Into what solitude and torment must he not now relapse after that
+companionship to which he had become accustomed? However, the very
+thought of the latter increased his grief, and confession suddenly gushed
+from his lips: "To spend my time here, live with you, oh! no, that is an
+impossibility. Why do you compel me to speak out, and tell you things
+that I am ashamed of and do not even understand. Ever since this morning
+you must have seen that I have been suffering here. No doubt it is
+because you and your people work, whereas I do nothing, because you love
+one another and believe in your efforts, whereas I no longer know how to
+love or believe. I feel out of my element. I'm embarrassed here, and I
+embarrass you. In fact you all irritate me, and I might end by hating
+you. There remains nothing healthy in me, all natural feelings have been
+spoilt and destroyed, and only envy and hatred could sprout up from such
+ruins. So let me go back to my accursed hole, where death will some day
+come for me. Farewell, brother!"
+
+But Guillaume, full of affection and compassion, caught hold of his arms
+and detained him. "You shall not go, I will not allow you to go, without
+a positive promise that you will come back. I don't wish to lose you
+again, especially now that I know all you are worth and how dreadfully
+you suffer. I will save you, if need be, in spite of yourself. I will
+cure you of your torturing doubts, oh! without catechising you, without
+imposing any particular faith on you, but simply by allowing life to do
+its work, for life alone can give you back health and hope. So I beg you,
+brother, in the name of our affection, come back here, come as often as
+you can to spend a day with us. You will then see that when folks have
+allotted themselves a task and work together in unison, they escape
+excessive unhappiness. A task of any kind--yes, that is what is wanted,
+together with some great passion and frank acceptance of life, so that it
+may be lived as it should be and loved."
+
+"But what would be the use of my living here?" Pierre muttered bitterly.
+"I've no task left me, and I no longer know how to love."
+
+"Well, I will give you a task, and as for love, that will soon be
+awakened by the breath of life. Come, brother, consent, consent!"
+
+Then, seeing that Pierre still remained gloomy and sorrowful, and
+persisted in his determination to go away and bury himself, Guillaume
+added, "Ah! I don't say that the things of this world are such as one
+might wish them to be. I don't say that only joy and truth and justice
+exist. For instance, the affair of that unhappy fellow Salvat fills me
+with anger and revolt. Guilty he is, of course, and yet how many excuses
+he had, and how I shall pity him if the crimes of all of us are laid at
+his door, if the various political gangs bandy him from one to another,
+and use him as a weapon in their sordid fight for power. The thought of
+it all so exasperates me that at times I am as unreasonable as yourself.
+But now, brother, just to please me, promise that you will come and spend
+the day after to-morrow with us."
+
+Then, as Pierre still kept silent, Guillaume went on: "I will have it so.
+It would grieve me too much to think that you were suffering from
+martyrdom in your solitary nook. I want to cure and save you."
+
+Tears again rose to Pierre's eyes, and in a tone of infinite distress he
+answered: "Don't compel me to promise.... All I can say is that I will
+try to conquer myself."
+
+The week he then spent in his little, dark, empty home proved a terrible
+one. Shutting himself up he brooded over his despair at having lost the
+companionship of that elder brother whom he once more loved with his
+whole soul. He had never before been so keenly conscious of his solitude;
+and he was a score of times on the point of hastening to Montmartre, for
+he vaguely felt that affection, truth and life were there. But on each
+occasion he was held back by a return of the discomfort which he had
+already experienced, discomfort compounded of shame and fear. Priest that
+he was, cut off from love and the avocations of other men, he would
+surely find nothing but hurt and suffering among creatures who were all
+nature, freedom and health. While he pondered thus, however, there rose
+before him the shades of his father and mother, those sad spirits that
+seemed to wander through the deserted rooms lamenting and entreating him
+to reconcile them in himself, as soon as he should find peace. What was
+he to do,--deny their prayer, and remain weeping with them, or go yonder
+in search of the cure which might at last lull them to sleep and bring
+them happiness in death by the force of his own happiness in life? At
+last a morning came when it seemed to him that his father enjoined him
+with a smile to betake himself yonder, while his mother consented with a
+glance of her big soft eyes, in which her sorrow at having made so bad a
+priest of him yielded to her desire to restore him to the life of our
+common humanity.
+
+Pierre did not argue with himself that day: he took a cab and gave
+Guillaume's address to the driver for fear lest he should be overcome on
+the way and wish to turn back. And when he again found himself, as in a
+dream, in the large work-shop, where Guillaume and the young men welcomed
+him in a delicately affectionate way, he witnessed an unexpected scene
+which both impressed and relieved him.
+
+Marie, who had scarcely nodded to him as he entered, sat there with a
+pale and frowning face. And Mere-Grand, who was also grave, said, after
+glancing at her: "You must excuse her, Monsieur l'Abbe; but she isn't
+reasonable. She is in a temper with all five of us."
+
+Guillaume began to laugh. "Ah! she's so stubborn!" he exclaimed. "You can
+have no idea, Pierre, of what goes on in that little head of hers when
+anybody says or does anything contrary to her ideas of justice. Such
+absolute and lofty ideas they are, that they can descend to no
+compromise. For instance, we were talking of that recent affair of a
+father who was found guilty on his son's evidence; and she maintained
+that the son had only done what was right in giving evidence against his
+father, and that one ought invariably to tell the truth, no matter what
+might happen. What a terrible public prosecutor she would make, eh?"
+
+Thereupon Marie, exasperated by Pierre's smile, which seemingly indicated
+that he also thought her in the wrong, flew into quite a passion: "You
+are cruel, Guillaume!" she cried; "I won't be laughed at like this."
+
+"But you are losing your senses, my dear," exclaimed Francois, while
+Thomas and Antoine again grew merry. "We were only urging a question of
+humanity, father and I, for we respect and love justice as much as you
+do."
+
+"There's no question of humanity, but simply one of justice. What is just
+and right is just and right, and you cannot alter it."
+
+Then, as Guillaume made a further attempt to state his views and win her
+over to them, she rose trembling, in such a passion that she could
+scarcely stammer: "No, no, you are all too cruel, you only want to grieve
+me. I prefer to go up into my own room."
+
+At this Mere-Grand vainly sought to restrain her. "My child, my child!"
+said she, "reflect a moment; this is very wrong, you will deeply regret
+it."
+
+"No, no; you are not just, and I suffer too much."
+
+Then she wildly rushed upstairs to her room overhead.
+
+Consternation followed. Scenes of a similar character had occasionally
+occurred before, but there had never been so serious a one. Guillaume
+immediately admitted that he had done wrong in laughing at her, for she
+could not bear irony. Then he told Pierre that in her childhood and youth
+she had been subject to terrible attacks of passion whenever she
+witnessed or heard of any act of injustice. As she herself explained,
+these attacks would come upon her with irresistible force, transporting
+her to such a point that she would sometimes fall upon the floor and
+rave. Even nowadays she proved quarrelsome and obstinate whenever certain
+subjects were touched upon. And she afterwards blushed for it all, fully
+conscious that others must think her unbearable.
+
+Indeed, a quarter of an hour later, she came downstairs again of her own
+accord, and bravely acknowledged her fault. "Wasn't it ridiculous of me?"
+she said. "To think I accuse others of being unkind when I behave like
+that! Monsieur l'Abbe must have a very bad opinion of me." Then, after
+kissing Mere-Grand, she added: "You'll forgive me, won't you? Oh!
+Francois may laugh now, and so may Thomas and Antoine. They are quite
+right, our differences are merely laughing matters."
+
+"My poor Marie," replied Guillaume, in a tone of deep affection. "You see
+what it is to surrender oneself to the absolute. If you are so healthy
+and reasonable it's because you regard almost everything from the
+relative point of view, and only ask life for such gifts as it can
+bestow. But when your absolute ideas of justice come upon you, you lose
+both equilibrium and reason. At the same time, I must say that we are all
+liable to err in much the same manner."
+
+Marie, who was still very flushed, thereupon answered in a jesting way:
+"Well, it at least proves that I'm not perfect."
+
+"Oh, certainly! And so much the better," said Guillaume, "for it makes me
+love you the more."
+
+This was a sentiment which Pierre himself would willingly have re-echoed.
+The scene had deeply stirred him. Had not his own frightful torments
+originated with his desire for the absolute both in things and beings? He
+had sought faith in its entirety, and despair had thrown him into
+complete negation. Again, was there not some evil desire for the absolute
+and some affectation of pride and voluntary blindness in the haughty
+bearing which he had retained amidst the downfall of his belief, the
+saintly reputation which he had accepted when he possessed no faith at
+all? On hearing his brother praise Marie, because she only asked life for
+such things as it could give, it had seemed to him that this was advice
+for himself. It was as if a refreshing breath of nature had passed before
+his face. At the same time his feelings in this respect were still vague,
+and the only well-defined pleasure that he experienced came from the
+young woman's fit of anger, that error of hers which brought her nearer
+to him, by lowering her in some degree from her pedestal of serene
+perfection. It was, perhaps, that seeming perfection which had made him
+suffer; however, he was as yet unable to analyse his feelings. That day,
+for the first time, he chatted with her for a little while, and when he
+went off he thought her very good-hearted and very human.
+
+Two days later he again came to spend the afternoon in the large sunlit
+work-shop overlooking Paris. Ever since he had become conscious of the
+idle life he was leading, he had felt very bored when he was alone, and
+only found relief among that gay, hardworking family. His brother scolded
+him for not having come to _dejeuner_, and he promised to do so on the
+morrow. By the time a week had elapsed, none of the discomfort and covert
+hostility which had prevailed between him and Marie remained: they met
+and chatted on a footing of good fellowship. Although he was a priest,
+she was in no wise embarrassed by his presence. With her quiet atheism,
+indeed, she had never imagined that a priest could be different from
+other men. Thus her sisterly cordiality both astonished and delighted
+Pierre. It was as if he wore the same garments and held the same ideas as
+his big nephews, as if there were nothing whatever to distinguish him
+from other men. He was still more surprised, however, by Marie's silence
+on all religious questions. She seemed to live on quietly and happily,
+without a thought of what might be beyond life, that terrifying realm of
+mystery, which to him had brought such agony of mind.
+
+Now that he came every two or three days to Montmartre she noticed that
+he was suffering. What could be the matter with him, she wondered. When
+she questioned him in a friendly manner and only elicited evasive
+replies, she guessed that he was ashamed of his sufferings, and that they
+were aggravated, rendered well-nigh incurable, by the very secrecy in
+which he buried them. Thereupon womanly compassion awoke within her, and
+she felt increasing affection for that tall, pale fellow with feverish
+eyes, who was consumed by grievous torments which he would confess to
+none. No doubt she questioned Guillaume respecting her brother's sadness,
+and he must have confided some of the truth to her in order that she
+might help him to extricate Pierre from his sufferings, and give him back
+some taste for life. The poor fellow always seemed so happy when she
+treated him like a friend, a brother!
+
+At last, one evening, on seeing his eyes full of tears as he gazed upon
+the dismal twilight falling over Paris, she herself pressed him to
+confide his trouble to her. And thereupon he suddenly spoke out,
+confessing all his torture and the horrible void which the loss of faith
+had left within him. Ah! to be unable to believe, to be unable to love,
+to be nothing but ashes, to know of nothing certain by which he might
+replace the faith that had fled from him! She listened in stupefaction.
+Why, he must be mad! And she plainly told him so, such was her
+astonishment and revolt at hearing such a desperate cry of wretchedness.
+To despair, indeed, and believe in nothing and love nothing, simply
+because a religious hypothesis had crumbled! And this, too, when the
+whole, vast world was spread before one, life with the duty of living it,
+creatures and things to be loved and succoured, without counting the
+universal labour, the task which one and all came to accomplish!
+Assuredly he must be mad, mad with the gloomiest madness; still she vowed
+she would cure him.
+
+From that time forward she felt the most compassionate affection for this
+extraordinary young man, who had first embarrassed and afterwards
+astonished her. She showed herself very gentle and gay with him; she
+looked after him with the greatest skill and delicacy of heart and mind.
+There had been certain similar features in their childhood; each had been
+reared in the strictest religious views by a pious mother. But afterwards
+how different had been their fates! Whilst he was struggling with his
+doubts, bound by his priestly vows, she had grown up at the Lycee
+Fenelon, where her father had placed her as soon as her mother died; and
+there, far removed from all practice of religion, she had gradually
+reached total forgetfulness of her early religious views. It was a
+constant source of surprise for him to find that she had thus escaped all
+distress of mind at the thought of what might come after death, whereas
+that same thought had so deeply tortured him. When they chatted together
+and he expressed his astonishment at it, she frankly laughed, saying that
+she had never felt any fear of hell, for she was certain that no hell
+existed. And she added that she lived in all quietude, without hope of
+going to any heaven, her one thought being to comply in a reasonable way
+with the requirements and necessities of earthly life. It was, perhaps,
+in some measure a matter of temperament with her; but it was also a
+matter of education. Yet, whatever that education had been, whatever
+knowledge she had acquired, she had remained very womanly and very
+loving. There was nothing stern or masculine about her.
+
+"Ah, my friend," she said one day to Pierre, "if you only knew how easy
+it is for me to remain happy so long as I see those I love free from any
+excessive suffering. For my own part I can always adapt myself to life. I
+work and content myself no matter what may happen. Sorrow has only come
+to me from others, for I can't help wishing that everybody should be
+fairly happy, and there are some who won't.... I was for a long time
+very poor, but I remained gay. I wish for nothing, except for things that
+can't be purchased. Still, want is the great abomination which distresses
+me. I can understand that you should have felt everything crumbling when
+charity appeared to you so insufficient a remedy as to be contemptible.
+Yet it does bring relief; and, moreover, it is so sweet to be able to
+give. Some day, too, by dint of reason and toil, by the good and
+efficient working of life itself, the reign of justice will surely come.
+But now it's I that am preaching! Oh! I have little taste for it! It
+would be ridiculous for me to try to heal you with big phrases. All the
+same, I should like to cure you of your gloomy sufferings. To do so, all
+that I ask of you is to spend as much time as you can with us. You know
+that this is Guillaume's greatest desire. We will all love you so well,
+you will see us all so affectionately united, and so gay over our common
+work, that you will come back to truth by joining us in the school of our
+good mother nature. You must live and work, and love and hope."
+
+Pierre smiled as he listened. He now came to Montmartre nearly every day.
+She was so nice and affectionate when she preached to him in that way
+with a pretty assumption of wisdom. As she had said too, life was so
+delightful in that big workroom; it was so pleasant to be all together,
+and to labour in common at the same work of health and truth. Ashamed as
+Pierre was of doing nothing, anxious as he was to occupy his mind and
+fingers, he had first taken an interest in Antoine's engraving, asking
+why he should not try something of the kind himself. However, he felt
+that he lacked the necessary gift for art. Then, too, he recoiled from
+Francois' purely intellectual labour, for he himself had scarcely emerged
+from the harrowing study of conflicting texts. Thus he was more inclined
+for manual toil like that of Thomas. In mechanics he found precision and
+clearness such as might help to quench his thirst for certainty. So he
+placed himself at the young man's orders, pulled his bellows and held
+pieces of mechanism for him. He also sometimes served as assistant to
+Guillaume, tying a large blue apron over his cassock in order to help in
+the experiments. From that time he formed part of the work-shop, which
+simply counted a worker the more.
+
+One afternoon early in April, when they were all busily engaged there,
+Marie, who sat embroidering at the table in front of Mere-Grand, raised
+her eyes to the window and suddenly burst into a cry of admiration: "Oh!
+look at Paris under that rain of sunlight!"
+
+Pierre drew near; the play of light was much the same as that which he
+had witnessed at his first visit. The sun, sinking behind some slight
+purple clouds, was throwing down a hail of rays and sparks which on all
+sides rebounded and leapt over the endless stretch of roofs. It might
+have been thought that some great sower, hidden amidst the glory of the
+planet, was scattering handfuls of golden grain from one horizon to the
+other.
+
+Pierre, at sight of it, put his fancy into words: "It is the sun sowing
+Paris with grain for a future harvest," said he. "See how the expanse
+looks like ploughed land; the brownish houses are like soil turned up,
+and the streets are deep and straight like furrows."
+
+"Yes, yes, that's true," exclaimed Marie gaily. "The sun is sowing Paris
+with grain. See how it casts the seed of light and health right away to
+the distant suburbs! And yet, how singular! The rich districts on the
+west seem steeped in a ruddy mist, whilst the good seed falls in golden
+dust over the left bank and the populous districts eastward. It is there,
+is it not, that the crop will spring up?"
+
+They had all drawn near, and were smiling at the symbol. As Marie had
+said, it seemed indeed that while the sun slowly sank behind the lacework
+of clouds, the sower of eternal life scattered his flaming seed with a
+rhythmical swing of the arm, ever selecting the districts of toil and
+effort. One dazzling handful of grain fell over yonder on the district of
+the schools; and then yet another rained down to fertilise the district
+of the factories and work-shops.
+
+"Ah! well," said Guillaume gaily. "May the crop soon sprout from the good
+ground of our great Paris, which has been turned up by so many
+revolutions, and enriched by the blood of so many workers! It is the only
+ground in the world where Ideas can germinate and bloom. Yes, yes, Pierre
+is quite right, it is the sun sowing Paris with the seed of the future
+world, which can sprout only up here!"
+
+Then Thomas, Francois and Antoine, who stood behind their father in a
+row, nodded as if to say that this was also their own conviction; whilst
+Mere-Grand gazed afar with dreamy eyes as though she could already behold
+the splendid future.
+
+"Ah! but it is only a dream; centuries must elapse. We shall never see
+it!" murmured Pierre with a quiver.
+
+"But others will!" cried Marie. "And does not that suffice?"
+
+Those lofty words stirred Pierre to the depths of his being. And all at
+once there came to him the memory of another Marie*--the adorable Marie
+of his youth, that Marie de Guersaint who had been cured at Lourdes, and
+the loss of whom had left such a void in his heart. Was that new Marie
+who stood there smiling at him, so tranquil and so charming in her
+strength, destined to heal that old-time wound? He felt that he was
+beginning to live again since she had become his friend.
+
+  * The heroine of M. Zola's "Lourdes."
+
+Meantime, there before them, the glorious sun, with the sweep of its
+rays, was scattering living golden dust over Paris, still and ever sowing
+the great future harvest of justice and of truth.
+
+
+
+
+II. TOWARDS LIFE
+
+ONE evening, at the close of a good day's work, Pierre, who was helping
+Thomas, suddenly caught his foot in the skirt of his cassock and narrowly
+escaped falling. At this, Marie, after raising a faint cry of anxiety,
+exclaimed: "Why don't you take it off?"
+
+There was no malice in her inquiry. She simply looked upon the priestly
+robe as something too heavy and cumbersome, particularly when one had
+certain work to perform. Nevertheless, her words deeply impressed Pierre,
+and he could not forget them. When he was at home in the evening and
+repeated them to himself they gradually threw him into feverish
+agitation. Why, indeed, had he not divested himself of that cassock,
+which weighed so heavily and painfully on his shoulders? Then a frightful
+struggle began within him, and he spent a terrible, sleepless night,
+again a prey to all his former torments.
+
+At first sight it seemed a very simple matter that he should cast his
+priestly gown aside, for had he not ceased to discharge any priestly
+office? He had not said mass for some time past, and this surely meant
+renunciation of the priesthood. Nevertheless, so long as he retained his
+gown it was possible that he might some day say mass again, whereas if he
+cast it aside he would, as it were, strip himself, quit the priesthood
+entirely, without possibility of return. It was a terrible step to take,
+one that would prove irrevocable; and thus he paced his room for hours,
+in great anguish of mind.
+
+He had formerly indulged in a superb dream. Whilst believing nothing
+himself he had resolved to watch, in all loyalty, over the belief of
+others. He would not so lower himself as to forswear his vows, he would
+be no base renegade, but however great the torments of the void he felt
+within him he would remain the minister of man's illusions respecting the
+Divinity. And it was by reason of his conduct in this respect that he had
+ended by being venerated as a saint--he who denied everything, who had
+become a mere empty sepulchre. For a long time his falsehood had never
+disturbed him, but it now brought him acute suffering. It seemed to him
+that he would be acting in the vilest manner if he delayed placing his
+life in accord with his opinions. The thought of it all quite rent his
+heart.
+
+The question was a very clear one. By what right did he remain the
+minister of a religion in which he no longer believed? Did not elementary
+honesty require that he should quit a Church in which he denied the
+presence of the Divinity? He regarded the dogmas of that Church as
+puerile errors, and yet he persisted in teaching them as if they were
+eternal truths. Base work it was, that alarmed his conscience. He vainly
+sought the feverish glow of charity and martyrdom which had led him to
+offer himself as a sacrifice, willing to suffer all the torture of doubt
+and to find his own life lost and ravaged, provided that he might yet
+afford the relief of hope to the lowly. Truth and nature, no doubt, had
+already regained too much ascendancy over him for those feelings to
+return. The thought of such a lying apostolate now wounded him; he no
+longer had the hypocritical courage to call the Divinity down upon the
+believers kneeling before him, when he was convinced that the Divinity
+would not descend. Thus all the past was swept away; there remained
+nothing of the sublime pastoral part he would once have liked to play,
+that supreme gift of himself which lay in stubborn adherence to the rules
+of the Church, and such devotion to faith as to endure in silence the
+torture of having lost it.
+
+What must Marie think of his prolonged falsehood, he wondered, and
+thereupon he seemed to hear her words again: "Why not take your cassock
+off?" His conscience bled as if those words were a stab. What contempt
+must she not feel for him, she who was so upright, so high-minded? Every
+scattered blame, every covert criticism directed against his conduct,
+seemed to find embodiment in her. It now sufficed that she should condemn
+him, and he at once felt guilty. At the same time she had never voiced
+her disapproval to him, in all probability because she did not think she
+had any right to intervene in a struggle of conscience. The superb
+calmness and healthiness which she displayed still astonished him. He
+himself was ever haunted and tortured by thoughts of the unknown, of what
+the morrow of death might have in store for one; but although he had
+studied and watched her for days together, he had never seen her give a
+sign of doubt or distress. This exemption from such sufferings as his own
+was due, said she, to the fact that she gave all her gaiety, all her
+energy, all her sense of duty, to the task of living, in such wise that
+life itself proved a sufficiency, and no time was left for mere fancies
+to terrify and stultify her. Well, then, since she with her air of quiet
+strength had asked him why he did not take off his cassock, he would take
+it off--yes, he would divest himself of that robe which seemed to burn
+and weigh him down.
+
+He fancied himself calmed by this decision, and towards morning threw
+himself upon his bed; but all at once a stifling sensation, a renewal of
+his abominable anguish, brought him to his feet again. No, no, he could
+not divest himself of that gown which clung so tightly to his flesh. His
+skin would come away with his cloth, his whole being would be lacerated!
+Is not the mark of priesthood an indelible one, does it not brand the
+priest for ever, and differentiate him from the flock? Even should he
+tear off his gown with his skin, he would remain a priest, an object of
+scandal and shame, awkward and impotent, shut off from the life of other
+men. And so why tear it off, since he would still and ever remain in
+prison, and a fruitful life of work in the broad sunlight was no longer
+within his reach? He, indeed, fancied himself irremediably stricken with
+impotence. Thus he was unable to come to any decision, and when he
+returned to Montmartre two days later he had again relapsed into a state
+of torment.
+
+Feverishness, moreover, had come upon the happy home. Guillaume was
+becoming more and more annoyed about Salvat's affair, not a day elapsing
+without the newspapers fanning his irritation. He had at first been
+deeply touched by the dignified and reticent bearing of Salvat, who had
+declared that he had no accomplices whatever. Of course the inquiry into
+the crime was what is called a secret one; but magistrate Amadieu, to
+whom it had been entrusted, conducted it in a very noisy way. The
+newspapers, which he in some degree took into his confidence, were full
+of articles and paragraphs about him and his interviews with the
+prisoner. Thanks to Salvat's quiet admissions, Amadieu had been able to
+retrace the history of the crime hour by hour, his only remaining doubts
+having reference to the nature of the powder which had been employed, and
+the making of the bomb itself. It might after all be true that Salvat had
+loaded the bomb at a friend's, as he indeed asserted was the case; but he
+must be lying when he added that the only explosive used was dynamite,
+derived from some stolen cartridges, for all the experts now declared
+that dynamite would never have produced such effects as those which had
+been witnessed. This, then, was the mysterious point which protracted the
+investigations. And day by day the newspapers profited by it to circulate
+the wildest stories under sensational headings, which were specially
+devised for the purpose of sending up their sales.
+
+It was all the nonsense contained in these stories that fanned
+Guillaume's irritation. In spite of his contempt for Sagnier he could not
+keep from buying the "Voix du Peuple." Quivering with indignation,
+growing more and more exasperated, he was somehow attracted by the mire
+which he found in that scurrilous journal. Moreover, the other
+newspapers, including even the "Globe," which was usually so dignified,
+published all sorts of statements for which no proof could be supplied,
+and drew from them remarks and conclusions which, though couched in
+milder language than Sagnier's, were none the less abominably unjust. It
+seemed indeed as if the whole press had set itself the task of covering
+Salvat with mud, so as to be able to vilify Anarchism generally.
+According to the journalists the prisoner's life had simply been one long
+abomination. He had already earned his living by thievery in his
+childhood at the time when he had roamed the streets, an unhappy,
+forsaken vagrant; and later on he had proved a bad soldier and a bad
+worker. He had been punished for insubordination whilst he was in the
+army, and he had been dismissed from a dozen work-shops because he
+incessantly disturbed them by his Anarchical propaganda. Later still, he
+had fled his country and led a suspicious life of adventure in America,
+where, it was alleged, he must have committed all sorts of unknown
+crimes. Moreover there was his horrible immorality, his connection with
+his sister-in-law, that Madame Theodore who had taken charge of his
+forsaken child in his absence, and with whom he had cohabited since his
+return to France. In this wise Salvat's failings and transgressions were
+pitilessly denounced and magnified without any mention of the causes
+which had induced them, or of the excuses which lay in the unhappy man's
+degrading environment. And so Guillaume's feelings of humanity and
+justice revolted, for he knew the real Salvat,--a man of tender heart and
+dreamy mind, so liable to be impassioned by fancies,--a man cast into
+life when a child without weapon of defence, ever trodden down or thrust
+aside, then gradually exasperated by the perpetual onslaughts of want,
+and at last dreaming of reviving the golden age by destroying the old,
+corrupt world.
+
+Unfortunately for Salvat, everything had gone against him since he had
+been shut up in strict confinement, at the mercy of the ambitious and
+worldly Amadieu. Guillaume had learnt from his son, Thomas, that the
+prisoner could count on no support whatever among his former mates at the
+Grandidier works. These works were becoming prosperous once more, thanks
+to their steady output of bicycles; and it was said that Grandidier was
+only waiting for Thomas to perfect his little motor, in order to start
+the manufacture of motor-cars on a large scale. However, the success
+which he was now for the first time achieving, and which scarcely repaid
+him for all his years of toil and battle, had in certain respects
+rendered him prudent and even severe. He did not wish any suspicion to be
+cast upon his business through the unpleasant affair of his former
+workman Salvat, and so he had dismissed such of his workmen as held
+Anarchist views. If he had kept the two Toussaints, one of whom was the
+prisoner's brother-in-law, while the other was suspected of sympathy with
+him, this was because they had belonged to the works for a score of
+years, and he did not like to cast them adrift. Moreover, Toussaint, the
+father, had declared that if he were called as a witness for the defence,
+he should simply give such particulars of Salvat's career as related to
+the prisoner's marriage with his sister.
+
+One evening when Thomas came home from the works, to which he returned
+every now and then in order to try his little motor, he related that he
+had that day seen Madame Grandidier, the poor young woman who had become
+insane through an attack of puerperal fever following upon the death of a
+child. Although most frightful attacks of madness occasionally came over
+her, and although life beside her was extremely painful, even during the
+intervals when she remained downcast and gentle as a child, her husband
+had never been willing to send her to an asylum. He kept her with him in
+a pavilion near the works, and as a rule the shutters of the windows
+overlooking the yard remained closed. Thus Thomas had been greatly
+surprised to see one of these windows open, and the young woman appear at
+it amidst the bright sunshine of that early spring. True, she only
+remained there for a moment, vision-like, fair and pretty, with smiling
+face; for a servant who suddenly drew near closed the window, and the
+pavilion then again sank into lifeless silence. At the same time it was
+reported among the men employed at the works that the poor creature had
+not experienced an attack for well-nigh a month past, and that this was
+the reason why the "governor" looked so strong and pleased, and worked so
+vigorously to help on the increasing prosperity of his business.
+
+"He isn't a bad fellow," added Thomas, "but with the terrible competition
+that he has to encounter, he is bent on keeping his men under control.
+Nowadays, says he, when so many capitalists and wage earners seem bent on
+exterminating one another, the latter--if they don't want to
+starve--ought to be well pleased when capital falls into the hands of an
+active, fair-minded man.... If he shows no pity for Salvat, it is
+because he really believes in the necessity of an example."
+
+That same day Thomas, after leaving the works and while threading his way
+through the toilsome hive-like Marcadet district, had overtaken Madame
+Theodore and little Celine, who were wandering on in great distress. It
+appeared that they had just called upon Toussaint, who had been unable to
+lend them even such a trifle as ten sous. Since Salvat's arrest, the
+woman and the child had been forsaken and suspected by one and all.
+Driven forth from their wretched lodging, they were without food and
+wandered hither and thither dependent on chance alms. Never had greater
+want and misery fallen on defenceless creatures.
+
+"I told them to come up here, father," said Thomas, "for I thought that
+one might pay their landlord a month's rent, so that they might go home
+again.... Ah! there's somebody coming now--it's they, no doubt."
+
+Guillaume had felt angry with himself whilst listening to his son, for he
+had not thought of the poor creatures. It was the old story: the man
+disappears, and the woman and the child find themselves in the streets,
+starving. Whenever Justice strikes a man her blow travels beyond him,
+fells innocent beings and kills them.
+
+Madame Theodore came in, humble and timid, scared like a luckless
+creature whom life never wearies of persecuting. She was becoming almost
+blind, and little Celine had to lead her. The girl's fair, thin face wore
+its wonted expression of shrewd intelligence, and even now, however
+woeful her rags, it was occasionally brightened by a childish smile.
+
+Pierre and Marie, who were both there, felt extremely touched. Near them
+was Madame Mathis, young Victor's mother, who had come to help Mere-Grand
+with the mending of some house-linen. She went out by the day in this
+fashion among a few families, and was thus enabled to give her son an
+occasional franc or two. Guillaume alone questioned Madame Theodore.
+
+"Ah! monsieur," she stammered, "who could ever have thought Salvat
+capable of such a thing, he who's so good and so humane? Still it's true,
+since he himself has admitted it to the magistrate.... For my part I
+told everybody that he was in Belgium. I wasn't quite sure of it, still
+I'm glad that he didn't come back to see us; for if he had been arrested
+at our place I should have lost my senses.... Well, now that they have
+him, they'll sentence him to death, that's certain."
+
+At this Celine, who had been looking around her with an air of interest,
+piteously exclaimed: "Oh! no, oh! no, mamma, they won't hurt him!"
+
+Big tears appeared in the child's eyes as she raised this cry. Guillaume
+kissed her, and then went on questioning Madame Theodore.
+
+"Well, monsieur," she answered, "the child's not old or big enough to
+work as yet, and my eyes are done for, people won't even take me as a
+charwoman. And so it's simple enough, we starve.... Oh! of course I'm
+not without relations; I have a sister who married very well. Her husband
+is a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, perhaps you know him. Unfortunately
+he's rather proud, and as I don't want any scenes between him and my
+sister, I no longer go to see her. Besides, she's in despair just now,
+for she's expecting another baby, which is a terrible blow for a small
+household, when one already has two girls.... That's why the only
+person I can apply to is my brother Toussaint. His wife isn't a bad sort
+by any means, but she's no longer the same since she's been living in
+fear of her husband having another attack. The first one carried off all
+her savings, and what would become of her if Toussaint should remain on
+her hands, paralysed? Besides, she's threatened with another burden, for,
+as you may know, her son Charles got keeping company with a servant at a
+wine shop, who of course ran away after she had a baby, which she left
+him to see to. So one can understand that the Toussaints themselves are
+hard put. I don't complain of them. They've already lent me a little
+money, and of course they can't go on lending for ever."
+
+She continued talking in this spiritless, resigned way, complaining only
+on account of Celine; for, said she, it was enough to make one's heart
+break to see such an intelligent child obliged to tramp the streets after
+getting on so well at the Communal School. She could feel too that
+everybody now kept aloof from them on account of Salvat. The Toussaints
+didn't want to be compromised in any such business. There was only
+Charles, who had said that he could well understand a man losing his head
+and trying to blow up the _bourgeois_, because they really treated the
+workers in a blackguard way.
+
+"For my part, monsieur," added Madame Theodore, "I say nothing, for I'm
+only a woman. All the same, though, if you'd like to know what I think,
+well, I think that it would have been better if Salvat hadn't done what
+he did, for we two, the girl and I, are the real ones to suffer from it.
+Ah! I can't get the idea into my head, that the little one should be the
+daughter of a man condemned to death."
+
+Once more Celine interrupted her, flinging her arms around her neck: "Oh!
+mamma, oh! mamma, don't say that, I beg you! It can't be true, it grieves
+me too much!"
+
+At this Pierre and Marie exchanged compassionate glances, while
+Mere-Grand rose from her chair, in order to go upstairs and search her
+wardrobes for some articles of clothing which might be of use to the two
+poor creatures. Guillaume, who, for his part, had been moved to tears,
+and felt full of revolt against the social system which rendered such
+distress possible, slipped some alms into the child's little hand, and
+promised Madame Theodore that he would see her landlord so as to get her
+back her room.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Froment!" replied the unfortunate woman. "Salvat was quite
+right when he said you were a real good man! And as you employed him here
+for a few days you know too that he isn't a wicked one.... Now that
+he's been put in prison everybody calls him a brigand, and it breaks my
+heart to hear them." Then, turning towards Madame Mathis, who had
+continued sewing in discreet silence, like a respectable woman whom none
+of these things could concern, she went on: "I know you, madame, but I'm
+better acquainted with your son, Monsieur Victor, who has often come to
+chat at our place. Oh! you needn't be afraid, I shan't say it, I shall
+never compromise anybody; but if Monsieur Victor were free to speak, he'd
+be the man to explain Salvat's ideas properly."
+
+Madame Mathis looked at her in stupefaction. Ignorant as she was of her
+son's real life and views, she experienced a vague dread at the idea of
+any connection between him and Salvat's family. Moreover, she refused to
+believe it possible. "Oh! you must be mistaken," she said. "Victor told
+me that he now seldom came to Montmartre, as he was always going about in
+search of work."
+
+By the anxious quiver of the widow's voice, Madame Theodore understood
+that she ought not to have mixed her up in her troubles; and so in all
+humility she at once beat a retreat: "I beg your pardon, madame, I didn't
+think I should hurt your feelings. Perhaps, too, I'm mistaken, as you
+say."
+
+Madame Mathis had again turned to her sewing as to the solitude in which
+she lived, that nook of decent misery where she dwelt without
+companionship and almost unknown, with scarcely sufficient bread to eat.
+Ah! that dear son of hers, whom she loved so well; however much he might
+neglect her, she had placed her only remaining hope in him: he was her
+last dream, and would some day lavish all kinds of happiness upon her!
+
+At that moment Mere-Grand came downstairs again, laden with a bundle of
+linen and woollen clothing, and Madame Theodore and little Celine
+withdrew while pouring forth their thanks. For a long time after they had
+gone Guillaume, unable to resume work, continued walking to and fro in
+silence, with a frown upon his face.
+
+When Pierre, still hesitating and still tortured by conflicting feelings,
+returned to Montmartre on the following day he witnessed with much
+surprise a visit of a very different kind. There was a sudden gust of
+wind, a whirl of skirts and a ring of laughter as little Princess
+Rosemonde swept in, followed by young Hyacinthe Duvillard, who, on his
+side, retained a very frigid bearing.
+
+"It's I, my dear master," exclaimed the Princess. "I promised you a
+visit, you remember, for I am such a great admirer of your genius. And
+our young friend here has been kind enough to bring me. We have only just
+returned from Norway, and my very first visit is for you."
+
+She turned as she spoke, and bowed in an easy and gracious way to Pierre
+and Marie, Francois and Antoine, who were also there. Then she resumed:
+"Oh! my dear master, you have no idea how beautifully virginal Norway is!
+We all ought to go and drink at that new source of the Ideal, and we
+should return purified, rejuvenated and capable of great renunciations!"
+
+As a matter of fact she had been well-nigh bored to death there. To make
+one's honeymoon journey to the land of the ice and snow, instead of to
+Italy, the hot land of the sun, was doubtless a very refined idea, which
+showed that no base materialism formed part of one's affections. It was
+the soul alone that travelled, and naturally it was fit that only kisses
+of the soul should be exchanged on the journey. Unfortunately, however,
+Hyacinthe had carried his symbolism so far as to exasperate Rosemonde,
+and on one occasion they had come to blows over it, and then to tears
+when this lover's quarrel had ended as many such quarrels do. Briefly,
+they had no longer deemed themselves pure enough for the companionship of
+the swans and the lakes of dreamland, and had therefore taken the first
+steamer that was sailing for France.
+
+As it was altogether unnecessary to confess to everybody what a failure
+their journey had proved, the Princess abruptly brought her rapturous
+references to Norway to an end, and then explained: "By the way, do you
+know what I found awaiting me on my return? Why, I found my house
+pillaged, oh! completely pillaged! And in such a filthy condition, too!
+We at once recognised the mark of the beast, and thought of Bergaz's
+young friends."
+
+Already on the previous day Guillaume had read in the newspapers that a
+band of young Anarchists had entered the Princess's little house by
+breaking a basement window. She had left it quite deserted, unprotected
+even by a caretaker; and the robbers had not merely removed everything
+from the premises--including even the larger articles of furniture, but
+had lived there for a couple of days, bringing provisions in from
+outside, drinking all the wine in the cellars, and leaving every room in
+a most filthy and disgusting condition. On discovering all this,
+Rosemonde had immediately remembered the evening she had spent at the
+Chamber of Horrors in the company of Bergaz and his acolytes, Rossi and
+Sanfaute, who had heard her speak of her intended trip to Norway. The two
+young men had therefore been arrested, but Bergaz had so far escaped. The
+Princess was not greatly astonished by it all, for she had already been
+warned of the presence of dangerous characters among the mixed
+cosmopolitan set with which she associated. Janzen had told her in
+confidence of a number of villanous affairs which were attributed to
+Bergaz and his band. And now the Anarchist leader openly declared that
+Bergaz had sold himself to the police like Raphanel; and that the
+burglary at the Princess's residence had been planned by the police
+officials, who thereby hoped to cover the Anarchist cause with mire. If
+proof was wanted of this, added Janzen, it could be found in the fact
+that the police had allowed Bergaz to escape.
+
+"I fancied that the newspapers might have exaggerated matters," said
+Guillaume, when the Princess had finished her story. "They are inventing
+such abominable things just now, in order to blacken the case of that
+poor devil Salvat."
+
+"Oh! they've exaggerated nothing!" Rosemonde gaily rejoined. "As a matter
+of fact they have omitted a number of particulars which were too filthy
+for publication.... For my part, I've merely had to go to an hotel.
+I'm very comfortable there; I was beginning to feel bored in that house
+of mine.... All the same, however, Anarchism is hardly a clean
+business, and I no longer like to say that I have any connection with
+it."
+
+She again laughed, and then passed to another subject, asking Guillaume
+to tell her of his most recent researches, in order, no doubt, that she
+might show she knew enough chemistry to understand him. He had been
+rendered thoughtful, however, by the story of Bergaz and the burglary,
+and would only answer her in a general way.
+
+Meantime, Hyacinthe was renewing his acquaintance with his
+school-fellows, Francois and Antoine. He had accompanied the Princess to
+Montmartre against his own inclinations; but since she had taken to
+whipping him he had become afraid of her. The chemist's little home
+filled him with disdain, particularly as the chemist was a man of
+questionable reputation. Moreover, he thought it a duty to insist on his
+own superiority in the presence of those old school-fellows of his, whom
+he found toiling away in the common rut, like other people.
+
+"Ah! yes," said he to Francois, who was taking notes from a book spread
+open before him, "you are at the Ecole Normale, I believe, and are
+preparing for your licentiate. Well, for my part, you know, the idea of
+being tied to anything horrifies me. I become quite stupid when there's
+any question of examination or competition. The only possible road for
+one to follow is that of the Infinite. And between ourselves what dupery
+there is in science, how it narrows our horizon! It's just as well to
+remain a child with eyes gazing into the invisible. A child knows more
+than all your learned men."
+
+Francois, who occasionally indulged in irony, pretended to share his
+opinion. "No doubt, no doubt," said he, "but one must have a natural
+disposition to remain a child. For my part, unhappily, I'm consumed by a
+desire to learn and know. It's deplorable, as I'm well aware, but I pass
+my days racking my brain over books.... I shall never know very much,
+that's certain; and perhaps that's the reason why I'm ever striving to
+learn a little more. You must at all events grant that work, like
+idleness, is a means of passing life, though of course it is a less
+elegant and aesthetic one."
+
+"Less aesthetic, precisely," rejoined Hyacinthe. "Beauty lies solely in
+the unexpressed, and life is simply degraded when one introduces anything
+material into it."
+
+Simpleton though he was in spite of the enormity of his pretensions, he
+doubtless detected that Francois had been speaking ironically. So he
+turned to Antoine, who had remained seated in front of a block he was
+engraving. It was the one which represented Lise reading in her garden,
+for he was ever taking it in hand again and touching it up in his desire
+to emphasise his indication of the girl's awakening to intelligence and
+life.
+
+"So you engrave, I see," said Hyacinthe. "Well, since I renounced
+versification--a little poem I had begun on the End of Woman--because
+words seemed to me so gross and cumbersome, mere paving-stones as it
+were, fit for labourers, I myself have had some idea of trying drawing,
+and perhaps engraving too. But what drawing can portray the mystery which
+lies beyond life, the only sphere that has any real existence and
+importance for us? With what pencil and on what kind of plate could one
+depict it? We should need something impalpable, something unheard of,
+which would merely suggest the essence of things and beings."
+
+"But it's only by material means," Antoine somewhat roughly replied,
+"that art can render the essence of things and beings, that is, their
+full significance as we understand it. To transcribe life is my great
+passion; and briefly life is the only mystery that there is in things and
+beings. When it seems to me that an engraving of mine lives, I'm well
+pleased, for I feel that I have created."
+
+Hyacinthe pouted by way of expressing his contempt of all fruitfulness.
+Any fool might beget offspring. It was the sexless idea, existing by
+itself, that was rare and exquisite. He tried to explain this, but became
+confused, and fell back on the conviction which he had brought back from
+Norway, that literature and art were done for in France, killed by
+baseness and excess of production.
+
+"It's evident!" said Francois gaily by way of conclusion. "To do nothing
+already shows that one has some talent!"
+
+Meantime, Pierre and Marie listened and gazed around them, somewhat
+embarrassed by this strange visit which had set the usually grave and
+peaceful workroom topsy-turvy. The little Princess, though, evinced much
+amiability, and on drawing near to Marie admired the wonderful delicacy
+of some embroidery she was finishing. Before leaving, moreover, Rosemonde
+insisted upon Guillaume inscribing his autograph in an album which
+Hyacinthe had to fetch from her carriage. The young man obeyed her with
+evident boredom. It could be seen that they were already weary of one
+another. Pending a fresh caprice, however, it amused Rosemonde to
+terrorize her sorry victim. When she at length led him away, after
+declaring to Guillaume that she should always regard that visit as a
+memorable incident in her life, she made the whole household smile by
+saying: "Oh! so your sons knew Hyacinthe at college. He's a good-natured
+little fellow, isn't he? and he would really be quite nice if he would
+only behave like other people."
+
+That same day Janzen and Bache came to spend the evening with Guillaume.
+Once a week they now met at Montmartre, as they had formerly done at
+Neuilly. Pierre, on these occasions, went home very late, for as soon as
+Mere-Grand, Marie, and Guillaume's sons had retired for the night, there
+were endless chats in the workroom, whence Paris could be seen spangled
+with thousands of gas lights. Another visitor at these times was
+Theophile Morin, but he did not arrive before ten o'clock, as he was
+detained by the work of correcting his pupils' exercises or some other
+wearisome labour pertaining to his profession.
+
+As soon as Guillaume had told the others of the Princess's visit that
+afternoon, Janzen hastily exclaimed: "But she's mad, you know. When I
+first met her I thought for a moment that I might perhaps utilise her for
+the cause. She seemed so thoroughly convinced and bold! But I soon found
+that she was the craziest of women, and simply hungered for new
+emotions!"
+
+Janzen was at last emerging from his wonted frigidity and mysteriousness.
+His cheeks were quite flushed. In all probability he had suffered from
+his rupture with the woman whom he had once called 'the Queen of the
+Anarchists,' and whose fortune and extensive circle of acquaintance had
+seemed to him such powerful weapons of propaganda.
+
+"You know," said he, when he had calmed down, "it was the police who had
+her house pillaged and turned into a pigstye. Yes, in view of Salvat's
+trial, which is now near at hand, the idea was to damn Anarchism beyond
+possibility of even the faintest sympathy on the part of the
+_bourgeois_."
+
+"Yes, she told me so," replied Guillaume, who had become attentive. "But
+I scarcely credit the story. If Bergaz had merely acted under such
+influence as you suggest, he would have been arrested with the others,
+just as Raphanel was taken with those whom he betrayed. Besides, I know
+something of Bergaz; he's a freebooter." Guillaume made a sorrowful
+gesture, and then in a saddened voice continued: "Oh, I can understand
+all claims and all legitimate reprisals. But theft, cynical theft for the
+purpose of profit and enjoyment, is beyond me! It lowers my hope of a
+better and more equitable form of society. Yes, that burglary at the
+Princess's house has greatly distressed me."
+
+An enigmatical smile, sharp like a knife, again played over Janzen's
+lips. "Oh! it's a matter of heredity with you!" said he. "The centuries
+of education and belief that lie behind you compel you to protest. All
+the same, however, when people won't make restoration, things must be
+taken from them. What worries me is that Bergaz should have sold himself
+just now. The public prosecutor will use that farcical burglary as a
+crushing argument when he asks the jury for Salvat's head."
+
+Such was Janzen's hatred of the police that he stubbornly clung to his
+version of the affair. Perhaps, too, he had quarrelled with Bergaz, with
+whom he had at one time freely associated.
+
+Guillaume, who understood that all discussion would be useless, contented
+himself with replying: "Ah! yes, Salvat! Everything is against that
+unhappy fellow, he is certain to be condemned. But you can't know, my
+friends, what a passion that affair of his puts me into. All my ideas of
+truth and justice revolt at the thought of it. He's a madman certainly;
+but there are so many excuses to be urged for him. At bottom he is simply
+a martyr who has followed the wrong track. And yet he has become the
+scapegoat, laden with the crimes of the whole nation, condemned to pay
+for one and all!"
+
+Bache and Morin nodded without replying. They both professed horror of
+Anarchism; while Morin, forgetting that the word if not the thing dated
+from his first master Proudhon, clung to his Comtist doctrines, in the
+conviction that science alone would ensure the happiness and pacification
+of the nations. Bache, for his part, old mystical humanitarian that he
+was, claimed that the only solution would come from Fourier, who by
+decreeing an alliance of talent, labour and capital, had mapped out the
+future in a decisive manner. Nevertheless, both Bache and Morin were so
+discontented with the slow-paced _bourgeoise_ Republic of the present
+day, and so hurt by the thought that everything was going from bad to
+worse through the flouting of their own particular ideas, that they were
+quite willing to wax indignant at the manner in which the conflicting
+parties of the time were striving to make use of Salvat in order to
+retain or acquire power.
+
+"When one thinks," said Bache, "that this ministerial crisis of theirs
+has now been lasting for nearly three weeks! Every appetite is openly
+displayed, it's a most disgusting sight! Did you see in the papers this
+morning that the President has again been obliged to summon Vignon to the
+Elysee?"
+
+"Oh! the papers," muttered Morin in his weary way, "I no longer read
+them! What's the use of doing so? They are so badly written, and they all
+lie!"
+
+As Bache had said, the ministerial crisis was still dragging on. The
+President of the Republic, taking as his guide the debate in the Chamber
+of Deputies, by which the Barroux administration had been overthrown, had
+very properly sent for Vignon, the victor on that occasion, and entrusted
+him with the formation of a new ministry. It had seemed that this would
+be an easy task, susceptible of accomplishment in two or three days at
+the utmost, for the names of the friends whom the young leader of the
+Radical party would bring to power with him had been freely mentioned for
+months past. But all sorts of difficulties had suddenly arisen. For ten
+days or so Vignon had struggled on amidst inextricable obstacles. Then,
+disheartened and disgusted, fearing, too, that he might use himself up
+and shut off the future if he persisted in his endeavours, he had been
+obliged to tell the President that he renounced the task. Forthwith the
+President had summoned other deputies, and questioned them until he had
+found one brave enough to make an attempt on his own account; whereupon
+incidents similar to those which had marked Vignon's endeavours had once
+more occurred. At the outset a list was drawn up with every prospect of
+being ratified within a few hours, but all at once hesitation arose, some
+pulled one way, some another; every effort was slowly paralysed till
+absolute failure resulted. It seemed as though the mysterious manoeuvres
+which had hampered Vignon had begun again; it was as if some band of
+invisible plotters was, for some unknown purpose, doing its utmost to
+wreck every combination. A thousand hindrances arose with increasing
+force from every side--jealousy, dislike, and even betrayal were secretly
+prompted by expert agents, who employed every form of pressure, whether
+threats or promises, besides fanning and casting rival passions and
+interests into collision. Thus the President, greatly embarrassed by this
+posture of affairs, had again found it necessary to summon Vignon, who,
+after reflection and negotiation, now had an almost complete list in his
+pocket, and seemed likely to perfect a new administration within the next
+forty-eight hours.
+
+"Still it isn't settled," resumed Bache. "Well-informed people assert
+that Vignon will fail again as he did the first time. For my part I can't
+get rid of the idea that Duvillard's gang is pulling the strings, though
+for whose benefit is a mystery. You may be quite sure, however, that its
+chief purpose is to stifle the African Railways affair. If Monferrand
+were not so badly compromised I should almost suspect some trick on his
+part. Have you noticed that the 'Globe,' after throwing Barroux overboard
+in all haste, now refers to Monferrand every day with the most respectful
+sympathy? That's a grave sign; for it isn't Fonsegue's habit to show any
+solicitude for the vanquished. But what can one expect from that wretched
+Chamber! The only point certain is that something dirty is being plotted
+there."
+
+"And that big dunderhead Mege who works for every party except his own!"
+exclaimed Morin; "what a dupe he is with that idea that he need merely
+overthrow first one cabinet and then another, in order to become the
+leader of one himself!"
+
+The mention of Mege brought them all to agreement, for they unanimously
+hated him. Bache, although his views coincided on many points with those
+of the apostle of State Collectivism, judged each of his speeches, each
+of his actions, with pitiless severity. Janzen, for his part, treated the
+Collectivist leader as a mere reactionary _bourgeois_, who ought to be
+swept away one of the first. This hatred of Mege was indeed the common
+passion of Guillaume's friends. They could occasionally show some justice
+for men who in no wise shared their ideas; but in their estimation it was
+an unpardonable crime for anybody to hold much the same views as
+themselves, without being absolutely in agreement with them on every
+possible point.
+
+Their discussion continued, their various theories mingling or clashing
+till they passed from politics to the press, and grew excited over the
+denunciations which poured each morning from Sagnier's newspaper, like
+filth from the mouth of a sewer. Thereupon Guillaume, who had become
+absorbed in reverie while pacing to and fro according to his habit,
+suddenly exclaimed: "Ah! what dirty work it is that Sagnier does! Before
+long there won't be a single person, a single thing left on which he
+hasn't vomited! You think he's on your side, and suddenly he splashes you
+with mire!... By the way, he related yesterday that skeleton keys and
+stolen purses were found on Salvat when he was arrested in the Bois de
+Boulogne! It's always Salvat! He's the inexhaustible subject for
+articles. The mere mention of him suffices to send up a paper's sales!
+The bribe-takers of the African Railways shout 'Salvat!' to create a
+diversion. And the battles which wreck ministers are waged round his
+name. One and all set upon him and make use of him and beat him down!"
+
+With that cry of revolt and compassion, the friends separated for the
+night. Pierre, who sat near the open window, overlooking the sparkling
+immensity of Paris, had listened to the others without speaking a word.
+He had once more been mastered by his doubts, the terrible struggle of
+his heart and mind; and no solution, no appeasement had come to him from
+all the contradictory views he had heard--the views of men who only
+united in predicting the disappearance of the old world, and could make
+no joint brotherly effort to rear the future world of truth and justice.
+In that vast city of Paris stretching below him, spangled with stars,
+glittering like the sky of a summer's night, Pierre also found a great
+enigma. It was like chaos, like a dim expanse of ashes dotted with sparks
+whence the coming aurora would arise. What future was being forged there,
+he wondered, what decisive word of salvation and happiness would come
+with the dawn, and wing its flight to every point of the horizon?
+
+When Pierre, in his turn, was about to retire, Guillaume laid his hands
+upon his shoulders, and with much emotion gave him a long look. "Ah! my
+poor fellow," said he, "you've been suffering too for some days past, I
+have noticed it. But you are the master of your sufferings, for the
+struggle you have to overcome is simply in yourself, and you can subdue
+it; whereas one cannot subdue the world, when it is the world, its
+cruelty and injustice that make one suffer! Good night, be brave, act as
+your reason tells you, even if it makes you weep, and you will find peace
+surely enough."
+
+Later on, when Pierre again found himself alone in his little house at
+Neuilly, where none now visited him save the shades of his father and
+mother, he was long kept awake by a supreme internal combat. He had never
+before felt so disgusted with the falsehood of his life, that cassock
+which he had persisted in wearing, though he was a priest in name only.
+Perhaps it was all that he had beheld and heard at his brother's, the
+want and wretchedness of some, the wild, futile agitation of others, the
+need of improvement among mankind which remained paramount amidst every
+contradiction and form of weakness, that had made him more deeply
+conscious of the necessity of living in loyal and normal fashion in the
+broad daylight. He could no longer think of his former dream of leading
+the solitary life of a saintly priest when he was nothing of the kind,
+without a shiver of shame at having lied so long. And now it was quite
+decided, he would lie no longer, not even from feelings of compassion in
+order that others might retain their religious illusions. And yet how
+painful it was to have to divest himself of that gown which seemed to
+cling to his skin, and how heartrending the thought that if he did remove
+it he would be skinless, lacerated, infirm, unable, do what he might, to
+become like other men!
+
+It was this recurring thought which again tortured him throughout that
+terrible night. Would life yet allow him to enter its fold? Had he not
+been branded with a mark which for ever condemned him to dwell apart? He
+thought he could feel his priestly vows burning his very flesh like
+red-hot iron. What use would it be for him to dress as men dress, if in
+reality he was never to be a man? He had hitherto lived in such a
+quivering state, in a sphere of renunciation and dreams! To know manhood
+never, to be too late for it, that thought filled him with terror. And
+when at last he made up his mind to fling aside his cassock, he did so
+from a simple sense of rectitude, for all his anguish remained.
+
+When he returned to Montmartre on the following day, he wore a jacket and
+trousers of a dark colour. Neither an exclamation nor a glance that might
+have embarrassed him came from Mere-Grand or the three young men. Was not
+the change a natural one? They greeted him therefore in the quiet way
+that was usual with them; perhaps, with some increase of affection, as if
+to set him the more at his ease. Guillaume, however, ventured to smile
+good-naturedly. In that change he detected his own work. Cure was coming,
+as he had hoped it would come, by him and in his own home, amid the full
+sunlight, the life which ever streamed in through yonder window.
+
+Marie, who on her side raised her eyes and looked at Pierre, knew nothing
+of the sufferings which he had endured through her simple and logical
+inquiry: "Why not take your cassock off?" She merely felt that by
+removing it he would be more at ease for his work.
+
+"Oh, Pierre, just come and look!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I have been
+amusing myself with watching all the smoke which the wind is laying
+yonder over Paris. One might take it to be a huge fleet of ships shining
+in the sunlight. Yes, yes, golden ships, thousands of golden ships,
+setting forth from the ocean of Paris to enlighten and pacify the world!"
+
+
+
+
+III. THE DAWN OF LOVE
+
+A COUPLE of days afterwards, when Pierre was already growing accustomed
+to his new attire, and no longer gave it a thought, it so happened that
+on reaching Montmartre he encountered Abbe Rose outside the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart. The old priest, who at first was quite thunderstruck
+and scarcely able to recognise him, ended by taking hold of his hands and
+giving him a long look. Then with his eyes full of tears he exclaimed:
+"Oh! my son, so you have fallen into the awful state I feared! I never
+mentioned it, but I felt that God had withdrawn from you. Ah! nothing
+could wound my heart so cruelly as this."
+
+Then, still trembling, he began to lead Pierre away as if to hide such a
+scandal from the few people who passed by; and at last, his strength
+failing him, he sank upon a heap of bricks lying on the grass of one of
+the adjoining work-yards.
+
+The sincere grief which his old and affectionate friend displayed upset
+Pierre far more than any angry reproaches or curses would have done.
+Tears had come to his own eyes, so acute was the suffering he experienced
+at this meeting, which he ought, however, to have foreseen. There was yet
+another wrenching, and one which made the best of their blood flow, in
+that rupture between Pierre and the saintly man whose charitable dreams
+and hopes of salvation he had so long shared. There had been so many
+divine illusions, so many struggles for the relief of the masses, so much
+renunciation and forgiveness practised in common between them in their
+desire to hasten the harvest of the future! And now they were parting;
+he, Pierre, still young in years, was returning to life, leaving his aged
+companion to his vain waiting and his dreams.
+
+In his turn, taking hold of Abbe Rose's hands, he gave expression to his
+sorrow. "Ah, my friend, my father," said he, "it is you alone that I
+regret losing, now that I am leaving my frightful torments behind. I
+thought that I was cured of them, but it has been sufficient for me to
+meet you, and my heart is rent again.... Don't weep for me, I pray
+you, don't reproach me for what I have done. It was necessary that I
+should do it. If I had consulted you, you would yourself have told me
+that it was better to renounce the priesthood than to remain a priest
+without faith or honour."
+
+"Yes, yes," Abbe Rose gently responded, "you no longer had any faith
+left. I suspected it. And your rigidity and saintliness of life, in which
+I detected such great despair, made me anxious for you. How many hours
+did I not spend at times in striving to calm you! And you must listen to
+me again, you must still let me save you. I am not a sufficiently learned
+theologian to lead you back by discussing texts and dogmas; but in the
+name of Charity, my child, yes, in the name of Charity alone, reflect and
+take up your task of consolation and hope once more."
+
+Pierre had sat down beside Abbe Rose, in that deserted nook, at the very
+foot of the basilica. "Charity! charity!" he replied in passionate
+accents; "why, it is its nothingness and bankruptcy that have killed the
+priest there was in me. How can you believe that benevolence is
+sufficient, when you have spent your whole life in practising it without
+any other result than that of seeing want perpetuated and even increased,
+and without any possibility of naming the day when such abomination shall
+cease?... You think of the reward after death, do you not? The justice
+that is to reign in heaven? But that is not justice, it is dupery--dupery
+that has brought the world nothing but suffering for centuries past."
+
+Then he reminded the old priest of their life in the Charonne district,
+when they had gone about together succouring children in the streets and
+parents in their hovels; the whole of those admirable efforts which, so
+far as Abbe Rose was concerned, had simply ended in blame from his
+superiors, and removal from proximity to his poor, under penalty of more
+severe punishment should he persist in compromising religion by the
+practice of blind benevolence without reason or object. And now, was he
+not, so to say, submerged beneath the ever-rising tide of want, aware
+that he would never, never be able to give enough even should he dispose
+of millions, and that he could only prolong the agony of the poor, who,
+even should they eat today, would starve again on the morrow? Thus he was
+powerless. The wound which he tried to dress and heal, immediately
+reopened and spread, in such wise that all society would at last be
+stricken and carried off by it.
+
+Quivering as he listened, and slowly shaking his white head, the old
+priest ended by replying: "that does that matter, my child? what does
+that matter? One must give, always give, give in spite of everything!
+There is no other joy on earth.... If dogmas worry you, content
+yourself with the Gospel, and even of that retain merely the promise of
+salvation through charity."
+
+But at this Pierre's feelings revolted. He forgot that he was speaking to
+one of simple mind, who was all love and nothing else, and could
+therefore not follow him. "The trial has been made," he answered, "human
+salvation cannot be effected by charity, nothing but justice can
+accomplish it. That is the gathering cry which is going up from every
+nation. For nearly two thousand years now the Gospel has proved a
+failure. There has been no redemption; the sufferings of mankind are
+every whit as great and unjust as they were when Jesus came. And thus the
+Gospel is now but an abolished code, from which society can only draw
+things that are troublous and hurtful. Men must free themselves from it."
+
+This was his final conviction. How strange the idea, thought he, of
+choosing as the world's social legislator one who lived, as Jesus lived,
+amidst a social system absolutely different from that of nowadays. The
+age was different, the very world was different. And if it were merely a
+question of retaining only such of the moral teaching of Jesus as seemed
+human and eternal, was there not again a danger in applying immutable
+principles to the society of every age? No society could live under the
+strict law of the Gospel. Was not all order, all labour, all life
+destroyed by the teaching of Jesus? Did He not deny woman, the earth,
+eternal nature and the eternal fruitfulness of things and beings?
+Moreover, Catholicism had reared upon His primitive teaching such a
+frightful edifice of terror and oppression. The theory of original sin,
+that terrible heredity reviving with each creature born into the world,
+made no allowance as Science does for the corrective influences of
+education, circumstances and environment. There could be no more
+pessimist conception of man than this one which devotes him to the Devil
+from the instant of his birth, and pictures him as struggling against
+himself until the instant of his death. An impossible and absurd
+struggle, for it is a question of changing man in his entirety, killing
+the flesh, killing reason, destroying some guilty energy in each and
+every passion, and of pursuing the Devil to the very depths of the
+waters, mountains and forests, there to annihilate him with the very sap
+of the world. If this theory is accepted the world is but sin, a mere
+Hell of temptation and suffering, through which one must pass in order to
+merit Heaven. Ah! what an admirable instrument for absolute despotism is
+that religion of death, which the principle of charity alone has enabled
+men to tolerate, but which the need of justice will perforce sweep away.
+The poor man, who is the wretched dupe of it all, no longer believes in
+Paradise, but requires that each and all should be rewarded according to
+their deserts upon this earth; and thus eternal life becomes the good
+goddess, and desire and labour the very laws of the world, while the
+fruitfulness of woman is again honoured, and the idiotic nightmare of
+Hell is replaced by glorious Nature whose travail knows no end. Leaning
+upon modern Science, clear Latin reason sweeps away the ancient Semitic
+conception of the Gospel.
+
+"For eighteen hundred years," concluded Pierre, "Christianity has been
+hampering the march of mankind towards truth and justice. And mankind
+will only resume its evolution on the day when it abolishes Christianity,
+and places the Gospel among the works of the wise, without taking it any
+longer as its absolute and final law."
+
+But Abbe Rose raised his trembling hands: "Be quiet, be quiet, my child!"
+he cried; "you are blaspheming! I knew that doubt distracted you; but I
+thought you so patient, so able to bear suffering, that I relied on your
+spirit of renunciation and resignation. What can have happened to make
+you leave the Church in this abrupt and violent fashion? I no longer
+recognise you. Sudden passion has sprung up in you, an invincible force
+seems to carry you away. What is it? Who has changed you, tell me?"
+
+Pierre listened in astonishment. "No," said he, "I assure you, I am such
+as you have known me, and in all this there is but an inevitable result
+and finish. Who could have influenced me, since nobody has entered my
+life? What new feeling could transform me, since I find none in me? I am
+the same as before, the same assuredly."
+
+Still there was a touch of hesitation in his voice. Was it really true
+that there had been no change within him? He again questioned himself,
+and there came no clear answer; decidedly, he would find nothing. It was
+all but a delightful awakening, an overpowering desire for life, a
+longing to open his arms widely enough to embrace everyone and
+everything indeed, a breeze of joy seemed to raise him from the ground
+and carry him along.
+
+Although Abbe Rose was too innocent of heart to understand things
+clearly, he again shook his head and thought of the snares which the
+Devil is ever setting for men. He was quite overwhelmed by Pierre's
+defection. Continuing his efforts to win him back, he made the mistake of
+advising him to consult Monseigneur Martha, for he hoped that a prelate
+of such high authority would find the words necessary to restore him to
+his faith. Pierre, however, boldly replied that if he was leaving the
+Church it was partly because it comprised such a man as Martha, such an
+artisan of deception and despotism, one who turned religion into corrupt
+diplomacy, and dreamt of winning men back to God by dint of ruses.
+Thereupon Abbe Rose, rising to his feet, could find no other argument in
+his despair than that of pointing to the basilica which stood beside
+them, square, huge and massive, and still waiting for its dome.
+
+"That is God's abode, my child," said he, "the edifice of expiation and
+triumph, of penitence and forgiveness. You have said mass in it, and now
+you are leaving it sacrilegiously and forswearing yourself!"
+
+But Pierre also had risen; and buoyed up by a sudden rush of health and
+strength he answered: "No, no! I am leaving it willingly, as one leaves a
+dark vault, to return into the open air and the broad sunlight. God does
+not dwell there; the only purpose of that huge edifice is to defy reason,
+truth and justice; it has been erected on the highest spot that could be
+found, like a citadel of error that dominates, insults and threatens
+Paris!"
+
+Then seeing that the old priest's eyes were again filling with tears, and
+feeling on his own side so pained by their rupture that he began to sob,
+Pierre wished to go away. "Farewell! farewell!" he stammered.
+
+But Abbe Rose caught him in his arms and kissed him, as if he were a
+rebellious son who yet had remained the dearest. "No, not farewell, not
+farewell, my child," he answered; "say rather till we meet again. Promise
+me that we shall see each other again, at least among those who starve
+and weep. It is all very well for you to think that charity has become
+bankrupt, but shall we not always love one another in loving our poor?"
+
+Then they parted.
+
+On becoming the companion of his three big nephews, Pierre had in a few
+lessons learnt from them how to ride a bicycle, in order that he might
+occasionally accompany them on their morning excursions. He went twice
+with them and Marie along the somewhat roughly paved roads in the
+direction of the Lake of Enghien. Then one morning when the young woman
+had promised to take him and Antoine as far as the forest of
+Saint-Germain, it was found at the last moment that Antoine could not
+come. Marie was already dressed in a chemisette of fawn-coloured silk,
+and a little jacket and "rationals" of black serge, and it was such a
+warm, bright April day that she was not inclined to renounce her trip.
+
+"Well, so much the worse!" she gaily said to Pierre, "I shall take you
+with me, there will only be the pair of us. I really want you to see how
+delightful it is to bowl over a good road between the beautiful trees."
+
+However, as Pierre was not yet a very expert rider, they decided that
+they would take the train as far as Maisons-Laffitte, whence they would
+proceed on their bicycles to the forest, cross it in the direction of
+Saint-Germain, and afterwards return to Paris by train.
+
+"You will be here for _dejeuner_, won't you?" asked Guillaume, whom this
+freak amused, and who looked with a smile at his brother. The latter,
+like Marie, was in black: jacket, breeches and stockings all of the same
+hue.
+
+"Oh, certainly!" replied Marie. "It's now barely eight o'clock, so we
+have plenty of time. Still you need not wait for us, you know, we shall
+always find our way back."
+
+It was a delightful morning. When they started, Pierre could fancy
+himself with a friend of his own sex, so that this trip together through
+the warm sunlight seemed quite natural. Doubtless their costumes, which
+were so much alike, conduced to the gay brotherly feeling he experienced.
+But beyond all this there was the healthfulness of the open air, the
+delight which exercise brings, the pleasure of roaming in all freedom
+through the midst of nature.
+
+On taking the train they found themselves alone in a compartment, and
+Marie once more began to talk of her college days. "Ah! you've no idea,"
+said she, "what fine games at baseball we used to have at Fenelon! We
+used to tie up our skirts with string so as to run the better, for we
+were not allowed to wear rationals like I'm wearing now. And there were
+shrieks, and rushes, and pushes, till our hair waved about and we were
+quite red with exercise and excitement. Still that didn't prevent us from
+working in the class-rooms. On the contrary! Directly we were at study we
+fought again, each striving to learn the most and reach the top of the
+class!"
+
+She laughed gaily as she thus recalled her school life, and Pierre
+glanced at her with candid admiration, so pink and healthy did she look
+under her little hat of black felt, which a long silver pin kept in
+position. Her fine dark hair was caught up behind, showing her neck,
+which looked as fresh and delicate as a child's. And never before had she
+seemed to him so supple and so strong.
+
+"Ah," she continued in a jesting way, "there is nothing like rationals,
+you know! To think that some women are foolish and obstinate enough to
+wear skirts when they go out cycling!"
+
+Then, as he declared--just by way of speaking the truth, and without the
+faintest idea of gallantry--that she looked very nice indeed in her
+costume, she responded: "Oh! I don't count. I'm not a beauty. I simply
+enjoy good health.... But can you understand it? To think that women
+have an unique opportunity of putting themselves at their ease, and
+releasing their limbs from prison, and yet they won't do so! If they
+think that they look the prettier in short skirts like schoolgirls they
+are vastly mistaken! And as for any question of modesty, well, it seems
+to me that it is infinitely less objectionable for women to wear
+rationals than to bare their bosoms at balls and theatres and dinners as
+society ladies do." Then, with a gesture of girlish impulsiveness, she
+added: "Besides, does one think of such things when one's rolling along?
+... Yes, rationals are the only things, skirts are rank heresy!"
+
+In her turn, she was now looking at him, and was struck by the
+extraordinary change which had come over him since the day when he had
+first appeared to her, so sombre in his long cassock, with his face
+emaciated, livid, almost distorted by anguish. It was like a
+resurrection, for now his countenance was bright, his lofty brow had all
+the serenity of hope, while his eyes and lips once more showed some of
+the confident tenderness which sprang from his everlasting thirst for
+love, self-bestowal and life. All mark of the priesthood had already left
+him, save that where he had been tonsured his hair still remained rather
+short.
+
+"Why are you looking at me?" he asked.
+
+"I was noticing how much good has been done you by work and the open
+air," she frankly answered; "I much prefer you as you are. You used to
+look so poorly. I thought you really ill."
+
+"So I was," said he.
+
+The train, however, was now stopping at Maisons-Laffitte. They alighted
+from it, and at once took the road to the forest. This road rises gently
+till it reaches the Maisons gate, and on market days it is often crowded
+with carts.
+
+"I shall go first, eh?" said Marie gaily, "for vehicles still alarm you."
+
+Thereupon she started ahead, but every now and again she turned with a
+smile to see if he were following her. And every time they overtook and
+passed a cart she spoke to him of the merits of their machines, which
+both came from the Grandidier works. They were "Lisettes," examples of
+those popular bicycles which Thomas had helped to perfect, and which the
+Bon Marche now sold in large numbers for 250 francs apiece. Perhaps they
+were rather heavy in appearance, but on the other hand their strength was
+beyond question. They were just the machines for a long journey, so Marie
+declared.
+
+"Ah! here's the forest," she at last exclaimed. "We have now reached the
+end of the rise; and you will see what splendid avenues there are. One
+can bowl along them as on a velvet carpet."
+
+Pierre had already joined her, and they rode on side by side along the
+broad straight avenue fringed with magnificent trees.
+
+"I am all right now," said Pierre; "your pupil will end by doing you
+honour, I hope."
+
+"Oh! I've no doubt of it. You already have a very good seat, and before
+long you'll leave me behind, for a woman is never a man's equal in a
+matter like this. At the same time, however, what a capital education
+cycling is for women!"
+
+In what way?"
+
+"Oh! I've certain ideas of my own on the subject; and if ever I have a
+daughter I shall put her on a bicycle as soon as she's ten years old,
+just to teach her how to conduct herself in life."
+
+"Education by experience, eh?"
+
+"Yes, why not? Look at the big girls who are brought up hanging to their
+mothers' apron strings. Their parents frighten them with everything, they
+are allowed no initiative, no exercise of judgment or decision, so that
+at times they hardly know how to cross a street, to such a degree does
+the traffic alarm them. Well, I say that a girl ought to be set on a
+bicycle in her childhood, and allowed to follow the roads. She will then
+learn to open her eyes, to look out for stones and avoid them, and to
+turn in the right direction at every bend or crossway. If a vehicle comes
+up at a gallop or any other danger presents itself, she'll have to make
+up her mind on the instant, and steer her course firmly and properly if
+she does not wish to lose a limb. Briefly, doesn't all this supply proper
+apprenticeship for one's will, and teach one how to conduct and defend
+oneself?"
+
+Pierre had begun to laugh. "You will all be too healthy," he remarked.
+
+"Oh, one must be healthy if one wants to be happy. But what I wish to
+convey is that those who learn to avoid stones and to turn properly along
+the highways will know how to overcome difficulties, and take the best
+decisions in after life. The whole of education lies in knowledge and
+energy."
+
+"So women are to be emancipated by cycling?"
+
+"Well, why not? It may seem a droll idea; but see what progress has been
+made already. By wearing rationals women free their limbs from prison;
+then the facilities which cycling affords people for going out together
+tend to greater intercourse and equality between the sexes; the wife and
+the children can follow the husband everywhere, and friends like
+ourselves are at liberty to roam hither and thither without astonishing
+anybody. In this lies the greatest advantage of all: one takes a bath of
+air and sunshine, one goes back to nature, to the earth, our common
+mother, from whom one derives fresh strength and gaiety of heart! Just
+look how delightful this forest is. And how healthful the breeze that
+inflates our lungs! Yes, it all purifies, calms and encourages one."
+
+The forest, which was quite deserted on week days, stretched out in
+quietude on either hand, with sunlight filtering between its deep bands
+of trees. At that hour the rays only illumined one side of the avenue,
+there gilding the lofty drapery of verdure; on the other, the shady side,
+the greenery seemed almost black. It was truly delightful to skim,
+swallow-like, over that royal avenue in the fresh atmosphere, amidst the
+waving of grass and foliage, whose powerful scent swept against one's
+face. Pierre and Marie scarcely touched the soil: it was as if wings had
+come to them, and were carrying them on with a regular flight, through
+alternate patches of shade and sunshine, and all the scattered vitality
+of the far-reaching, quivering forest, with its mosses, its sources, its
+animal and its insect life.
+
+Marie would not stop when they reached the crossway of the Croix de
+Noailles, a spot where people congregate on Sundays, for she was
+acquainted with secluded nooks which were far more charming
+resting-places. When they reached the slope going down towards Poissy,
+she roused Pierre, and they let their machines rush on. Then came all the
+joyous intoxication of speed, the rapturous feeling of darting along
+breathlessly while the grey road flees beneath one, and the trees on
+either hand turn like the opening folds of a fan. The breeze blows
+tempestuously, and one fancies that one is journeying yonder towards the
+horizon, the infinite, which ever and ever recedes. It is like boundless
+hope, delivery from every shackle, absolute freedom of motion through
+space. And nothing can inspirit one more gloriously--one's heart leaps as
+if one were in the very heavens.
+
+"We are not going to Poissy, you know!" Marie suddenly cried; "we have to
+turn to the left."
+
+They took the road from Acheres to the Loges, which ascends and
+contracts, thus bringing one closer together in the shade. Gradually
+slowing down, they began to exert themselves in order to make their way
+up the incline. This road was not so good as the others, it had been
+gullied by the recent heavy rains, and sand and gravel lay about. But
+then is there not even a pleasure in effort?
+
+"You will get used to it," said Marie to Pierre; "it's amusing to
+overcome obstacles. For my part I don't like roads which are invariably
+smooth. A little ascent which does not try one's limbs too much rouses
+and inspirits one. And it is so agreeable to find oneself strong, and
+able to go on and on in spite of rain, or wind, or hills."
+
+Her bright humour and courage quite charmed Pierre. "And so," said he,
+"we are off for a journey round France?"
+
+"No, no, we've arrived. You won't dislike a little rest, eh? And now,
+tell me, wasn't it worth our while to come on here and rest in such a
+nice fresh, quiet spot."
+
+She nimbly sprang off her machine and, bidding him follow her, turned
+into a path, along which she went some fifty paces. They placed their
+bicycles against some trees, and then found themselves in a little
+clearing, the most exquisite, leafy nest that one could dream of. The
+forest here assumed an aspect of secluded sovereign beauty. The
+springtide had endowed it with youth, the foliage was light and virginal,
+like delicate green lace flecked with gold by the sun-rays. And from the
+herbage and the surrounding thickets arose a breath of life, laden with
+all the powerful aroma of the earth.
+
+"It's not too warm as yet, fortunately," exclaimed Marie, as she seated
+herself at the foot of a young oak-tree, against which she leant. "In
+July ladies get rather red by the time they reach this spot, and all the
+powder comes off their faces. However, one can't always be beautiful."
+
+"Well, I'm not cold by any means," replied Pierre, as he sat at her feet
+wiping his forehead.
+
+She laughed, and answered that she had never before seen him with such a
+colour. Then they began to talk like children, like two young friends,
+finding a source of gaiety in the most puerile things. She was somewhat
+anxious about his health, however, and would not allow him to remain in
+the cool shade, as he felt so very warm. In order to tranquillise her, he
+had to change his place and seat himself with his back to the sun. Then a
+little later he saved her from a large black spider, which had caught
+itself in the wavy hair on the nape of her neck. At this all her womanly
+nature reappeared, and she shrieked with terror. "How stupid it was to be
+afraid of a spider!" she exclaimed a moment afterwards; yet, in spite of
+her efforts to master herself, she remained pale and trembling.
+
+Silence at last fell between them, and they looked at one another with a
+smile. In the midst of that delicate greenery they felt drawn together by
+frank affection--the affection of brother and sister, so it seemed to
+them. It made Marie very happy to think that she had taken an interest in
+Pierre, and that his return to health was largely her own work. However,
+their eyes never fell, their hands never met, even as they sat there
+toying with the grass, for they were as pure, as unconscious of all evil,
+as were the lofty oaks around them.
+
+At last Marie noticed that time was flying. "You know that they expect us
+back to lunch," she exclaimed. "We ought to be off."
+
+Thereupon they rose, wheeled their bicycles back to the highway, and
+starting off again at a good pace passed the Loges and reached
+Saint-Germain by the fine avenue which conducts to the chateau. It
+charmed them to take their course again side by side, like birds of equal
+flight. Their little bells jingled, their chains rustled lightly, and a
+fresh breeze swept past them as they resumed their talk, quite at ease,
+and so linked together by friendship that they seemed far removed from
+all the rest of the world.
+
+They took the train from Saint-Germain to Paris, and on the journey
+Pierre suddenly noticed that Marie's cheeks were purpling. There were two
+ladies with them in the compartment.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "so you feel warm in your turn now?"
+
+But she protested the contrary, her face glowing more and more brightly
+as she spoke, as if some sudden feeling of shame quite upset her. "No,
+I'm not warm," said she; "just feel my hands.... But how ridiculous it
+is to blush like this without any reason for it!"
+
+He understood her. This was one of those involuntary blushing fits which
+so distressed her, and which, as Mere-Grand had remarked, brought her
+heart to her very cheeks. There was no cause for it, as she herself said.
+After slumbering in all innocence in the solitude of the forest her heart
+had begun to beat, despite herself.
+
+Meantime, over yonder at Montmartre, Guillaume had spent his morning in
+preparing some of that mysterious powder, the cartridges of which he
+concealed upstairs in Mere-Grand's bedroom. Great danger attended this
+manufacture. The slightest forgetfulness while he was manipulating the
+ingredients, any delay, too, in turning off a tap, might lead to a
+terrible explosion, which would annihilate the building and all who might
+be in it. For this reason he preferred to work when he was alone, so that
+on the one hand there might be no danger for others, and on the other
+less likelihood of his own attention being diverted from his task. That
+morning, as it happened, his three sons were working in the room, and
+Mere-Grand sat sewing near the furnace. Truth to tell, she did not count,
+for she scarcely ever left her place, feeling quite at ease there,
+however great might be the peril. Indeed, she had become so well
+acquainted with the various phases of Guillaume's delicate operations,
+and their terrible possibilities, that she would occasionally give him a
+helping hand.
+
+That morning, as she sat there mending some house linen,--her eyesight
+still being so keen that in spite of her seventy years she wore no
+spectacles,--she now and again glanced at Guillaume as if to make sure
+that he forgot nothing. Then feeling satisfied, she would once more bend
+over her work. She remained very strong and active. Her hair was only
+just turning white, and she had kept all her teeth, while her face still
+looked refined, though it was slowly withering with age and had acquired
+an expression of some severity. As a rule she was a woman of few words;
+her life was one of activity and good management. When she opened her
+lips it was usually to give advice, to counsel reason, energy and
+courage. For some time past she had been growing more taciturn than ever,
+as if all her attention were claimed by the household matters which were
+in her sole charge; still, her fine eyes would rest thoughtfully on those
+about her, on the three young men, and on Guillaume, Marie and Pierre,
+who all obeyed her as if she were their acknowledged queen. If she looked
+at them in that pensive way, was it that she foresaw certain changes, and
+noticed certain incidents of which the others remained unconscious?
+Perhaps so. At all events she became even graver, and more attentive than
+in the past. It was as if she were waiting for some hour to strike when
+all her wisdom and authority would be required.
+
+"Be careful, Guillaume," she at last remarked, as she once more looked up
+from her sewing. "You seem absent-minded this morning. Is anything
+worrying you?"
+
+He glanced at her with a smile. "No, nothing, I assure you," he replied.
+"But I was thinking of our dear Marie, who was so glad to go off to the
+forest in this bright sunshine."
+
+Antoine, who heard the remark, raised his head, while his brothers
+remained absorbed in their work. "What a pity it is that I had this block
+to finish," said he; "I would willingly have gone with her."
+
+"Oh, no matter," his father quietly rejoined. "Pierre is with her, and he
+is very cautious."
+
+For another moment Mere-Grand continued scrutinising Guillaume; then she
+once more reverted to her sewing.
+
+If she exercised such sway over the home and all its inmates, it was by
+reason of her long devotion, her intelligence, and the kindliness with
+which she ruled. Uninfluenced by any religious faith, and disregarding
+all social conventionalities, her guiding principle in everything was the
+theory of human justice which she had arrived at after suffering so
+grievously from the injustice that had killed her husband. She put her
+views into practice with wonderful courage, knowing nothing of any
+prejudices, but accomplishing her duty, such as she understood it, to the
+very end. And in the same way as she had first devoted herself to her
+husband, and next to her daughter Marguerite, so at present she devoted
+herself to Guillaume and his sons. Pierre, whom she had first studied
+with some anxiety, had now, too, become a member of her family, a dweller
+in the little realm of happiness which she ruled. She had doubtless found
+him worthy of admission into it, though she did not reveal the reason
+why. After days and days of silence she had simply said, one evening, to
+Guillaume, that he had done well in bringing his brother to live among
+them.
+
+Time flew by as she sat sewing and thinking. Towards noon Guillaume, who
+was still at work, suddenly remarked to her: "As Marie and Pierre haven't
+come back, we had better let the lunch wait a little while. Besides, I
+should like to finish what I'm about."
+
+Another quarter of an hour then elapsed. Finally, the three young men
+rose from their work, and went to wash their hands at a tap in the
+garden.
+
+"Marie is very late," now remarked Mere-Grand. "We must hope that nothing
+has happened to her."
+
+"Oh! she rides so well," replied Guillaume. "I'm more anxious on account
+of Pierre."
+
+At this the old lady again fixed her eyes on him, and said: "But Marie
+will have guided Pierre; they already ride very well together."
+
+"No doubt; still I should be better pleased if they were back home."
+
+Then all at once, fancying that he heard the ring of a bicycle bell, he
+called out: "There they are!" And forgetting everything else in his
+satisfaction, he quitted his furnace and hastened into the garden in
+order to meet them.
+
+Mere-Grand, left to herself, quietly continued sewing, without a thought
+that the manufacture of Guillaume's powder was drawing to an end in an
+apparatus near her. A couple of minutes later, however, when Guillaume
+came back, saying that he had made a mistake, his eyes suddenly rested on
+his furnace, and he turned quite livid. Brief as had been his absence the
+exact moment when it was necessary to turn off a tap in order that no
+danger might attend the preparation of his powder had already gone by;
+and now, unless someone should dare to approach that terrible tap, and
+boldly turn it, a fearful explosion might take place. Doubtless it was
+too late already, and whoever might have the bravery to attempt the feat
+would be blown to pieces.
+
+Guillaume himself had often run a similar risk of death with perfect
+composure. But on this occasion he remained as if rooted to the floor,
+unable to take a step, paralysed by the dread of annihilation. He
+shuddered and stammered in momentary expectation of a catastrophe which
+would hurl the work-shop to the heavens.
+
+"Mere-Grand, Mere-Grand," he stammered. "The apparatus, the tap... it
+is all over, all over!"
+
+The old woman had raised her head without as yet understanding him. "Eh,
+what?" said she; "what is the matter with you?" Then, on seeing how
+distorted were his features, how he recoiled as if mad with terror, she
+glanced at the furnace and realised the danger. "Well, but it's simple
+enough," said she; "it's only necessary to turn off the tap, eh?"
+
+Thereupon, without any semblance of haste, in the most easy and natural
+manner possible, she deposited her needlework on a little table, rose
+from her chair, and turned off the tap with a light but firm hand.
+"There! it's done," said she. "But why didn't you do it yourself, my
+friend?"
+
+He had watched her in bewilderment, chilled to the bones, as if touched
+by the hand of death. And when some colour at last returned to his
+cheeks, and he found himself still alive in front of the apparatus whence
+no harm could now come, he heaved a deep sigh and again shuddered. "Why
+did I not turn it off?" he repeated. "It was because I felt afraid."
+
+At that very moment Marie and Pierre came into the work-shop all chatter
+and laughter, delighted with their excursion, and bringing with them the
+bright joyousness of the sunlight. The three brothers, Thomas, Francis
+and Antoine, were jesting with them, and trying to make them confess that
+Pierre had at least fought a battle with a cow on the high road, and
+ridden into a cornfield. All at once, however, they became quite anxious,
+for they noticed that their father looked terribly upset.
+
+"My lads," said he, "I've just been a coward. Ah! it's a curious feeling,
+I had never experienced it before."
+
+Thereupon he recounted his fears of an accident, and how quietly
+Mere-Grand had saved them all from certain death. She waved her hand,
+however, as if to say that there was nothing particularly heroic in
+turning off a tap. The young men's eyes nevertheless filled with tears,
+and one after the other they went to kiss her with a fervour instinct
+with all the gratitude and worship they felt for her. She had been
+devoting herself to them ever since their infancy, she had now just given
+them a new lease of life. Marie also threw herself into her arms, kissing
+her with gratitude and emotion. Mere-Grand herself was the only one who
+did not shed tears. She strove to calm them, begging them to exaggerate
+nothing and to remain sensible.
+
+"Well, you must at all events let me kiss you as the others have done,"
+Guillaume said to her, as he recovered his self-possession. "I at least
+owe you that. And Pierre, too, shall kiss you, for you are now as good
+for him as you have always been for us."
+
+At table, when it was at last possible for them to lunch, he reverted to
+that attack of fear which had left him both surprised and ashamed. He who
+for years had never once thought of death had for some time past found
+ideas of caution in his mind. On two occasions recently he had shuddered
+at the possibility of a catastrophe. How was it that a longing for life
+had come to him in his decline? Why was it that he now wished to live? At
+last with a touch of tender affection in his gaiety, he remarked: "Do you
+know, Marie, I think it is my thoughts of you that make me a coward. If
+I've lost my bravery it's because I risk something precious when any
+danger arises. Happiness has been entrusted to my charge. Just now when I
+fancied that we were all going to die, I thought I could see you, and my
+fear of losing you froze and paralysed me."
+
+Marie indulged in a pretty laugh. Allusions to her coming marriage were
+seldom made; however, she invariably greeted them with an air of happy
+affection.
+
+"Another six weeks!" she simply said.
+
+Thereupon Mere-Grand, who had been looking at them, turned her eyes
+towards Pierre. He, however, like the others was listening with a smile.
+
+"That's true," said the old lady, "you are to be married in six weeks'
+time. So I did right to prevent the house from being blown up."
+
+At this the young men made merry; and the repast came to an end in very
+joyous fashion.
+
+During the afternoon, however, Pierre's heart gradually grew heavy.
+Marie's words constantly returned to him: "Another six weeks!" Yes, it
+was indeed true, she would then be married. But it seemed to him that he
+had never previously known it, never for a moment thought of it. And
+later on, in the evening, when he was alone in his room at Neuilly, his
+heart-pain became intolerable. Those words tortured him. Why was it that
+they had not caused him any suffering when they were spoken, why had he
+greeted them with a smile? And why had such cruel anguish slowly
+followed? All at once an idea sprang up in his mind, and became an
+overwhelming certainty. He loved Marie, he loved her as a lover, with a
+love so intense that he might die from it.
+
+With this sudden consciousness of his passion everything became clear and
+plain. He had been going perforce towards that love ever since he had
+first met Marie. The emotion into which the young woman had originally
+thrown him had seemed to him a feeling of repulsion, but afterwards he
+had been slowly conquered, all his torments and struggles ending in this
+love for her. It was indeed through her that he had at last found
+quietude. And the delightful morning which he had spent with her that
+day, appeared to him like a betrothal morning, in the depths of the happy
+forest. Nature had resumed her sway over him, delivered him from his
+sufferings, made him strong and healthy once more, and given him to the
+woman he adored. The quiver he had experienced, the happiness he had
+felt, his communion with the trees, the heavens, and every living
+creature--all those things which he had been unable to explain, now
+acquired a clear meaning which transported him. In Marie alone lay his
+cure, his hope, his conviction that he would be born anew and at last
+find happiness. In her company he had already forgotten all those
+distressing problems which had formerly haunted him and bowed him down.
+For a week past he had not once thought of death, which had so long been
+the companion of his every hour. All the conflict of faith and doubt, the
+distress roused by the idea of nihility, the anger he had felt at the
+unjust sufferings of mankind, had been swept away by her fresh cool
+hands. She was so healthy herself, so glad to live, that she had imparted
+a taste for life even to him. Yes, it was simply that: she was making him
+a man, a worker, a lover once more.
+
+Then he suddenly remembered Abbe Rose and his painful conversation with
+that saintly man. The old priest, whose heart was so ingenuous, and who
+knew nothing of love and passion, was nevertheless the only one who had
+understood the truth. He had told Pierre that he was changed, that there
+was another man in him. And he, Pierre, had foolishly and stubbornly
+declared that he was the same as he had always been; whereas Marie had
+already transformed him, bringing all nature back to his breast--all
+nature, with its sunlit countrysides, its fructifying breezes, and its
+vast heavens, whose glow ripens its crops. That indeed was why he had
+felt so exasperated with Catholicism, that religion of death; that was
+why he had shouted that the Gospel was useless, and that the world
+awaited another law--a law of terrestrial happiness, human justice and
+living love and fruitfulness!
+
+Ah, but Guillaume? Then a vision of his brother rose before Pierre, that
+brother who loved him so fondly, and who had carried him to his home of
+toil, quietude and affection, in order to cure him of his sufferings. If
+he knew Marie it was simply because Guillaume had chosen that he should
+know her. And again Marie's words recurred to him: "Another six weeks!"
+Yes, in six weeks his brother would marry the young woman. This thought
+was like a stab in Pierre's heart. Still, he did not for one moment
+hesitate: if he must die of his love, he would die of it, but none should
+ever know it, he would conquer himself, he would flee to the ends of the
+earth should he ever feel the faintest cowardice. Rather than bring a
+moment's pain to that brother who had striven to resuscitate him, who was
+the artisan of the passion now consuming him, who had given him his whole
+heart and all he had--he would condemn himself to perpetual torture. And
+indeed, torture was coming back; for in losing Marie he could but sink
+into the distress born of the consciousness of his nothingness. As he lay
+in bed, unable to sleep, he already experienced a return of his
+abominable torments--the negation of everything, the feeling that
+everything was useless, that the world had no significance, and that life
+was only worthy of being cursed and denied. And then the shudder born of
+the thought of death returned to him. Ah! to die, to die without even
+having lived!
+
+The struggle was a frightful one. Until daybreak he sobbed in martyrdom.
+Why had he taken off his cassock? He had done so at a word from Marie;
+and now another word from her gave him the despairing idea of donning it
+once more. One could not escape from so fast a prison. That black gown
+still clung to his skin. He fancied that he had divested himself of it,
+and yet it was still weighing on his shoulders, and his wisest course
+would be to bury himself in it for ever. By donning it again he would at
+least wear mourning for his manhood.
+
+All at once, however, a fresh thought upset him. Why should he struggle
+in that fashion? Marie did not love him. There had been nothing between
+them to indicate that she cared for him otherwise than as a charming,
+tender-hearted sister. It was Guillaume that she loved, no doubt. Then he
+pressed his face to his pillow to stifle his sobs, and once more swore
+that he would conquer himself and turn a smiling face upon their
+happiness.
+
+
+
+
+IV. TRIAL AND SENTENCE
+
+HAVING returned to Montmartre on the morrow Pierre suffered so grievously
+that he did not show himself there on the two following days. He
+preferred to remain at home where there was nobody to notice his
+feverishness. On the third morning, however, whilst he was still in bed,
+strengthless and full of despair, he was both surprised and embarrassed
+by a visit from Guillaume.
+
+"I must needs come to you," said the latter, "since you forsake us. I've
+come to fetch you to attend Salvat's trial, which takes place to-day. I
+had no end of trouble to secure two places. Come, get up, we'll have
+_dejeuner_ in town, so as to reach the court early."
+
+Then, while Pierre was hastily dressing, Guillaume, who on his side
+seemed thoughtful and worried that morning, began to question him: "Have
+you anything to reproach us with?" he asked.
+
+"No, nothing. What an idea!" was Pierre's reply.
+
+"Then why have you been staying away? We had got into the habit of seeing
+you every day, but all at once you disappear."
+
+Pierre vainly sought a falsehood, and all his composure fled. "I had some
+work to do here," said he, "and then, too, my gloomy ideas cane back to
+me, and I didn't want to go and sadden you all."
+
+At this Guillaume hastily waved his hand. "If you fancy that your absence
+enlivens us you're mistaken," he replied. "Marie, who is usually so well
+and happy, had such a bad headache on the day before yesterday that she
+was obliged to keep her room. And she was ill at ease and nervous and
+silent again yesterday. We spent a very unpleasant day."
+
+As he spoke Guillaume looked Pierre well in the face, his frank loyal
+eyes clearly revealing the suspicions which had come to him, but which he
+would not express in words.
+
+Pierre, quite dismayed by the news of Marie's indisposition, and
+frightened by the idea of betraying his secret, thereupon managed to tell
+a lie. "Yes, she wasn't very well on the day when we went cycling," he
+quietly responded. "But I assure you that I have had a lot to do here.
+When you came in just now I was about to get up and go to your house as
+usual."
+
+Guillaume kept his eyes on him for a moment longer. Then, either
+believing him or deciding to postpone his search for the truth to some
+future time, he began speaking affectionately on other subjects. With his
+keen brotherly love, however, there was blended such a quiver of
+impending distress, of unconfessed sorrow, which possibly he did not yet
+realise, that Pierre in his turn began to question him. "And you," said
+he, "are you ill? You seem to me to have lost your usual serenity."
+
+"I? Oh! I'm not ill. Only I can't very well retain my composure; Salvat's
+affair distresses me exceedingly, as you must know. They will all end by
+driving me mad with the monstrous injustice they show towards that
+unhappy fellow."
+
+Thenceforward Guillaume went on talking of Salvat in a stubborn
+passionate way, as if he wished to find an explanation of all his pain
+and unrest in that affair. While he and Pierre were partaking of
+_dejeuner_ at a little restaurant on the Boulevard du Palais he related
+how deeply touched he was by the silence which Salvat had preserved with
+regard both to the nature of the explosive employed in the bomb and the
+few days' work which he had once done at his house. It was, thanks to
+this silence, that he, Guillaume, had not been worried or even summoned
+as a witness. Then, in his emotion, he reverted to his invention, that
+formidable engine which would ensure omnipotence to France, as the great
+initiatory and liberative power of the world. The results of the
+researches which had occupied him for ten years past were now out of
+danger and in all readiness, so that if occasion required they might at
+once be delivered to the French government. And, apart from certain
+scruples which came to him at the thought of the unworthiness of French
+financial and political society; he was simply delaying any further steps
+in the matter until his marriage with Marie, in order that he might
+associate her with the gift of universal peace which he imagined he was
+about to bestow upon the world.
+
+It was through Bertheroy and with great difficulty that Guillaume had
+managed to secure two seats in court for Salvat's trial. When he and
+Pierre presented themselves for admission at eleven o'clock, they fancied
+that they would never be able to enter. The large gates of the Palace of
+Justice were kept closed, several passages were fenced off, and terror
+seemed to reign in the deserted building, as if indeed the judges feared
+some sudden invasion of bomb-laden Anarchists. Each door and barrier,
+too, was guarded by soldiers, with whom the brothers had to parley. When
+they at last entered the Assize Court they found it already crowded with
+people, who were apparently quite willing to suffocate there for an hour
+before the arrival of the judges, and to remain motionless for some seven
+or eight hours afterwards, since it was reported that the authorities
+wished to get the case over in a single sitting. In the small space
+allotted to the standing public there was a serried mass of sightseers
+who had come up from the streets, a few companions and friends of Salvat
+having managed to slip in among them. In the other compartment, where
+witnesses are generally huddled together on oak benches, were those
+spectators who had been allowed admittance by favour, and these were so
+numerous and so closely packed that here and there they almost sat upon
+one another's knees. Then, in the well of the court and behind the bench,
+were rows of chairs set out as for some theatrical performance, and
+occupied by privileged members of society, politicians, leading
+journalists, and ladies. And meantime a number of gowned advocates sought
+refuge wherever chance offered, crowding into every vacant spot, every
+available corner.
+
+Pierre had never before visited the Assize Court, and its appearance
+surprised him. He had expected much pomp and majesty, whereas this temple
+of human justice seemed to him small and dismal and of doubtful
+cleanliness. The bench was so low that he could scarcely see the
+armchairs of the presiding judge and his two assessors. Then he was
+struck by the profusion of old oak panels, balustrades and benches, which
+helped to darken the apartment, whose wall hangings were of olive green,
+while a further display of oak panelling appeared on the ceiling above.
+From the seven narrow and high-set windows with scanty little white
+curtains there fell a pale light which sharply divided the court. On one
+hand one saw the dock and the defending counsel's seat steeped in frigid
+light, while, on the other, was the little, isolated jury box in the
+shade. This contrast seemed symbolical of justice, impersonal and
+uncertain, face to face with the accused, whom the light stripped bare,
+probed as it were to his very soul. Then, through a kind of grey mist
+above the bench, in the depths of the stern and gloomy scene, one could
+vaguely distinguish the heavy painting of "Christ Crucified." A white
+bust of the Republic alone showed forth clearly against the dark wall
+above the dock where Salvat would presently appear. The only remaining
+seats that Guillaume and Pierre could find were on the last bench of the
+witnesses' compartment, against the partition which separated the latter
+from the space allotted to the standing public. Just as Guillaume was
+seating himself, he saw among the latter little Victor Mathis, who stood
+there with his elbows leaning on the partition, while his chin rested on
+his crossed hands. The young man's eyes were glowing in his pale face
+with thin, compressed lips. Although they recognised one another, Victor
+did not move, and Guillaume on his side understood that it was not safe
+to exchange greetings in such a place. From that moment, however, he
+remained conscious that Victor was there, just above him, never stirring,
+but waiting silently, fiercely and with flaming eyes, for what was going
+to happen.
+
+Pierre, meantime, had recognised that most amiable deputy Duthil, and
+little Princess Rosemonde, seated just in front of him. Amidst the hubbub
+of the throng which chatted and laughed to while away the time, their
+voices were the gayest to be heard, and plainly showed how delighted they
+were to find themselves at a spectacle to which so many desired
+admittance. Duthil was explaining all the arrangements to Rosemonde,
+telling her to whom or to what purpose each bench and wooden box was
+allotted: there was the jury-box, the prisoner's dock, the seats assigned
+to counsel for the defence, the public prosecutor, and the clerk of the
+court, without forgetting the table on which material evidence was
+deposited and the bar to which witnesses were summoned. There was nobody
+as yet in any of these places; one merely saw an attendant giving a last
+look round, and advocates passing rapidly. One might indeed have thought
+oneself in a theatre, the stage of which remained deserted, while the
+spectators crowded the auditorium waiting for the play to begin. To fill
+up the interval the little Princess ended by looking about her for
+persons of her acquaintance among the close-pressed crowd of sight-seers
+whose eager faces were already reddening.
+
+"Oh! isn't that Monsieur Fonsegue over there behind the bench, near that
+stout lady in yellow?" she exclaimed. "Our friend General de Bozonnet is
+on the other side, I see. But isn't Baron Duvillard here?"
+
+"Oh! no," replied Duthil; "he could hardly come; it would look as if he
+were here to ask for vengeance." Then, in his turn questioning Rosemonde,
+the deputy went on: "Do you happen to have quarrelled with your handsome
+friend Hyacinthe? Is that the reason why you've given me the pleasure of
+acting as your escort to-day?"
+
+With a slight shrug of her shoulders, the Princess replied that poets
+were beginning to bore her. A fresh caprice, indeed, was drawing her into
+politics. For a week past she had found amusement in the surroundings of
+the ministerial crisis, into which the young deputy for Angouleme had
+initiated her. "They are all a little bit crazy at the Duvillards', my
+dear fellow," said she. "It's decided, you know, that Gerard is to marry
+Camille. The Baroness has resigned herself to it, and I've heard from a
+most reliable quarter that Madame de Quinsac, the young man's mother, has
+given her consent."
+
+At this Duthil became quite merry. He also seemed to be well informed on
+the subject. "Yes, yes, I know," said he. "The wedding is to take place
+shortly, at the Madeleine. It will be a magnificent affair, no doubt. And
+after all, what would you have? There couldn't be a better finish to the
+affair. The Baroness is really kindness personified, and I said all along
+that she would sacrifice herself in order to ensure the happiness of her
+daughter and Gerard. In point of fact that marriage will settle
+everything, put everything in proper order again."
+
+"And what does the Baron say?" asked Rosemonde.
+
+"The Baron? Why, he's delighted," replied Duthil in a bantering way. "You
+read no doubt this morning that Dauvergne is given the department of
+Public Instruction in the new Ministry. This means that Silviane's
+engagement at the Comedic is a certainty. Dauvergne was chosen simply on
+that account."
+
+At this moment the conversation was interrupted by little Massot, who,
+after a dispute with one of the ushers some distance away, had perceived
+a vacant place by the side of the Princess. He thereupon made her a
+questioning sign, and she beckoned to him to approach.
+
+"Ah!" said he, as he installed himself beside her, "I have not got here
+without trouble. One's crushed to death on the press bench, and I've an
+article to write. You are the kindest of women, Princess, to make a
+little room for your faithful admirer, myself." Then, after shaking hands
+with Duthil, he continued without any transition: "And so there's a new
+ministry at last, Monsieur le Depute. You have all taken your time about
+it, but it's really a very fine ministry, which everybody regards with
+surprise and admiration."
+
+The decrees appointing the new ministers had appeared in the "Journal
+Officiel" that very morning. After a long deadlock, after Vignon had for
+the second time seen his plans fail through ever-recurring obstacles,
+Monferrand, as a last resource, had suddenly been summoned to the Elysee,
+and in four-and-twenty hours he had found the colleagues he wanted and
+secured the acceptance of his list, in such wise that he now triumphantly
+re-ascended to power after falling from it with Barroux in such wretched
+fashion. He had also chosen a new post for himself, relinquishing the
+department of the Interior for that of Finances, with the Presidency of
+the Council, which had long been his secret ambition. His stealthy
+labour, the masterly fashion in which he had saved himself while others
+sank, now appeared in its full beauty. First had come Salvat's arrest,
+and the use he had made of it, then the wonderful subterranean campaign
+which he had carried on against Vignon, the thousand obstacles which he
+had twice set across his path, and finally the sudden _denouement_ with
+that list he held in readiness, that formation of a ministry in a single
+day as soon as his services were solicited.
+
+"It is fine work, I must compliment you on it," added little Massot by
+way of a jest.
+
+"But I've had nothing to do with it," Duthil modestly replied.
+
+"Nothing to do with it! Oh! yes you have, my dear sir, everybody says
+so."
+
+The deputy felt flattered and smiled, while the other rattled on with his
+insinuations, which were put in such a humorous way that nothing he said
+could be resented. He talked of Monferrand's followers who had so
+powerfully helped him on to victory. How heartily had Fonsegue finished
+off his old friend Barroux in the "Globe"! Every morning for a month past
+the paper had published an article belabouring Barroux, annihilating
+Vignon, and preparing the public for the return of a saviour of society
+who was not named. Then, too, Duvillard's millions had waged a secret
+warfare, all the Baron's numerous creatures had fought like an army for
+the good cause. Duthil himself had played the pipe and beaten the drum,
+while Chaigneux resigned himself to the baser duties which others would
+not undertake. And so the triumphant Monferrand would certainly begin by
+stifling that scandalous and embarrassing affair of the African Railways,
+and appointing a Committee of Inquiry to bury it.
+
+By this time Duthil had assumed an important air. "Well, my dear fellow,"
+said he, "at serious moments when society is in peril, certain
+strong-handed men, real men of government, become absolutely necessary.
+Monferrand had no need of our friendship, his presence in office was
+imperiously required by the situation. His hand is the only one that can
+save us!"
+
+"I know," replied Massot scoffingly. "I've even been told that if
+everything was settled straight off so that the decrees might be
+published this morning, it was in order to instil confidence into the
+judges and jurymen here, in such wise that knowing Monferrand's fist to
+be behind them they would have the courage to pronounce sentence of death
+this evening."
+
+"Well, public safety requires a sentence of death, and those who have to
+ensure that safety must not be left ignorant of the fact that the
+government is with them, and will know how to protect them, if need be."
+
+At this moment a merry laugh from the Princess broke in upon the
+conversation. "Oh! just look over there!" said she; "isn't that Silviane
+who has just sat down beside Monsieur Fonsegue?"
+
+"The Silviane ministry!" muttered Massot in a jesting way. "Well, there
+will be no boredom at Dauvergne's if he ingratiates himself with
+actresses."
+
+Guillaume and Pierre heard this chatter, however little they cared to
+listen to it. Such a deluge of society tittle-tattle and political
+indiscretion brought the former a keen heart-pang. So Salvat was
+sentenced to death even before he had appeared in court. He was to pay
+for the transgressions of one and all, his crime was simply a favourable
+opportunity for the triumph of a band of ambitious people bent on power
+and enjoyment! Ah! what terrible social rottenness there was in it all;
+money corrupting one and another, families sinking to filth, politics
+turned into a mere treacherous struggle between individuals, and power
+becoming the prey of the crafty and the impudent! Must not everything
+surely crumble? Was not this solemn assize of human justice a derisive
+parody, since all that one found there was an assembly of happy and
+privileged people defending the shaky edifice which sheltered them, and
+making use of all the forces they yet retained, to crush a fly--that
+unhappy devil of uncertain sanity who had been led to that court by his
+violent and cloudy dream of another, superior and avenging justice?
+
+Such were Guillaume's thoughts, when all at once everybody around him
+started. Noon was now striking, and the jurymen trooped into court in
+straggling fashion and took their seats in their box. Among them one saw
+fat fellows clad in their Sunday best and with the faces of simpletons,
+and thin fellows who had bright eyes and sly expressions. Some of them
+were bearded and some were bald. However, they all remained rather
+indistinct, as their side of the court was steeped in shade. After them
+came the judges, headed by M. de Larombiere, one of the Vice-Presidents
+of the Appeal Court, who in assuming the perilous honour of conducting
+the trial had sought to increase the majesty of his long, slender, white
+face, which looked the more austere as both his assessors, one dark and
+the other fair, had highly coloured countenances. The public prosecutor's
+seat was already occupied by one of the most skilful of the
+advocates-general, M. Lehmann, a broad-shouldered Alsatian Israelite,
+with cunning eyes, whose presence showed that the case was deemed
+exceptionally important. At last, amidst the heavy tread of gendarmes,
+Salvat was brought in, at once rousing such ardent curiosity that all the
+spectators rose to look at him. He still wore the cap and loose overcoat
+procured for him by Victor Mathis, and everybody was surprised to see his
+emaciated, sorrowful, gentle face, crowned by scanty reddish hair, which
+was turning grey. His soft, glowing, dreamy blue eyes glanced around, and
+he smiled at someone whom he recognised, probably Victor, but perhaps
+Guillaume. After that he remained quite motionless.
+
+The presiding judge waited for silence to fall, and then came the
+formalities which attend the opening of a court of law, followed by the
+perusal of the lengthy indictment, which a subordinate official read in a
+shrill voice. The scene had now changed, and the spectators listened
+wearily and somewhat impatiently, as, for weeks past, the newspapers had
+related all that the indictment set forth. At present not a corner of the
+court remained unoccupied, there was scarcely space enough for the
+witnesses to stand in front of the bench. The closely packed throng was
+one of divers hues, the light gowns of ladies alternating with the black
+gowns of advocates, while the red robes of the judges disappeared from
+view, the bench being so low that the presiding judge's long face
+scarcely rose above the sea of heads. Many of those present became
+interested in the jurors, and strove to scrutinise their shadowy
+countenances. Others, who did not take their eyes off the prisoner,
+marvelled at his apparent weariness and indifference, which were so great
+that he scarcely answered the whispered questions of his counsel, a young
+advocate with a wide-awake look, who was nervously awaiting the
+opportunity to achieve fame. Most curiosity, however, centred in the
+table set apart for the material evidence. Here were to be seen all sorts
+of fragments, some of the woodwork torn away from the carriage-door of
+the Duvillard mansion, some plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, a
+paving-stone which the violence of the explosion had split in halves, and
+other blackened remnants. The more moving sights, however, were the
+milliner's bonnet-box, which had remained uninjured, and a glass jar in
+which something white and vague was preserved in spirits of wine. This
+was one of the poor errand girl's little hands, which had been severed at
+the wrist. The authorities had been unable to place her poor ripped body
+on the table, and so they had brought that hand!
+
+At last Salvat rose, and the presiding judge began to interrogate him.
+The contrast in the aspect of the court then acquired tragic force: in
+the shrouding shade upon one hand were the jurors, their minds already
+made up beneath the pressure of public terror, while in the full, vivid
+light on the other side was the prisoner, alone and woeful, charged with
+all the crimes of his race. Four gendarmes watched over him. He was
+addressed by M. de Larombiere in a tone of contempt and disgust. The
+judge was not deficient in rectitude; he was indeed one of the last
+representatives of the old, scrupulous, upright French magistracy; but he
+understood nothing of the new times, and he treated prisoners with the
+severity of a Biblical Jehovah. Moreover, the infirmity which was the
+worry of his life, the childish lisp which, in his opinion, had alone
+prevented him from shining as a public prosecutor, made him ferociously
+ill-tempered, incapable of any intelligent indulgence. There were smiles,
+which he divined, as soon as he raised his sharp, shrill little voice, to
+ask his first questions. That droll voice of his took away whatever
+majesty might have remained attached to these proceedings, in which a
+man's life was being fought for in a hall full of inquisitive, stifling
+and perspiring folks, who fanned themselves and jested. Salvat answered
+the judge's earlier questions with his wonted weariness and politeness.
+While the judge did everything to vilify him, harshly reproaching him
+with his wretched childhood and youth, magnifying every stain and every
+transgression in his career, referring to the promiscuity of his life
+between Madame Theodore and little Celine as something bestial, he, the
+prisoner, quietly said yes or no, like a man who has nothing to hide and
+accepts the full responsibility of his actions. He had already made a
+complete confession of his crime, and he calmly repeated it without
+changing a word. He explained that if he had deposited his bomb at the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion it was to give his deed its true
+significance, that of summoning the wealthy, the money-mongers who had so
+scandalously enriched themselves by dint of theft and falsehood, to
+restore that part of the common wealth which they had appropriated, to
+the poor, the working classes, their children and their wives, who
+perished of starvation. It was only at this moment that he grew excited;
+all the misery that he had endured or witnessed rose to his clouded,
+semi-educated brain, in which claims and theories and exasperated ideas
+of absolute justice and universal happiness had gathered confusedly. And
+from that moment he appeared such as he really was, a sentimentalist, a
+dreamer transported by suffering, proud and stubborn, and bent on
+changing the world in accordance with his sectarian logic.
+
+"But you fled!" cried the judge in a voice such as would have befitted a
+grasshopper. "You must not say that you gave your life to your cause and
+were ready for martyrdom!"
+
+Salvat's most poignant regret was that he had yielded in the Bois de
+Boulogne to the dismay and rage which come upon a tracked and hunted man
+and impel him to do all he can to escape capture. And on being thus
+taunted by the judge he became quite angry. "I don't fear death, you'll
+see that," he replied. "If all had the same courage as I have, your
+rotten society would be swept away to-morrow, and happiness would at last
+dawn."
+
+Then the interrogatory dealt at great length with the composition and
+manufacture of the bomb. The judge, rightly enough, pointed out that this
+was the only obscure point of the affair. "And so," he remarked, "you
+persist in saying that dynamite was the explosive you employed? Well, you
+will presently hear the experts, who, it is true, differ on certain
+points, but are all of opinion that you employed some other explosive,
+though they cannot say precisely what it was. Why not speak out on the
+point, as you glory in saying everything?"
+
+Salvat, however, had suddenly calmed down, giving only cautious
+monosyllabic replies. "Well, seek for whatever you like if you don't
+believe me," he now answered. "I made my bomb by myself, and under
+circumstances which I've already related a score of times. You surely
+don't expect me to reveal names and compromise comrades?"
+
+From this declaration he would not depart. It was only towards the end of
+the interrogatory that irresistible emotion overcame him on the judge
+again referring to the unhappy victim of his crime, the little errand
+girl, so pretty and fair and gentle, whom ferocious destiny had brought
+to the spot to meet such an awful death. "It was one of your own class
+whom you struck," said M. de Larombiere; "your victim was a work girl, a
+poor child who, with the few pence she earned, helped to support her aged
+grandmother."
+
+Salvat's voice became very husky as he answered: "That's really the only
+thing I regret.... My bomb certainly wasn't meant for her; and may all
+the workers, all the starvelings, remember that she gave her blood as I'm
+going to give mine!"
+
+In this wise the interrogatory ended amidst profound agitation. Pierre
+had felt Guillaume shuddering beside him, whilst the prisoner quietly and
+obstinately refused to say a word respecting the explosive that had been
+employed, preferring as he did to assume full responsibility for the deed
+which was about to cost him his life. Moreover, Guillaume, on turning
+round, in compliance with an irresistible impulse, had perceived Victor
+Mathis still motionless behind him: his elbows ever leaning on the rail
+of the partition, and his chin still resting on his hands, whilst he
+listened with silent, concentrated passion. His face had become yet paler
+than before, and his eyes glowed as with an avenging fire, whose flames
+would never more be extinguished.
+
+The interrogatory of the prisoner was followed by a brief commotion in
+court.
+
+"That Salvat looks quite nice, he has such soft eyes," declared the
+Princess, whom the proceedings greatly amused. "Oh! don't speak ill of
+him, my dear deputy. You know that I have Anarchist ideas myself."
+
+"I speak no ill of him," gaily replied Duthil. "Nor has our friend
+Amadieu any right to speak ill of him. For you know that this affair has
+set Amadieu on a pinnacle. He was never before talked about to such an
+extent as he is now; and he delights in being talked about, you know! He
+has become quite a social celebrity, the most illustrious of our
+investigating magistrates, and will soon be able to do or become whatever
+he pleases."
+
+Then Massot, with his sarcastic impudence, summed up the situation. "When
+Anarchism flourishes, everything flourishes, eh? That bomb has helped on
+the affairs of a good many fine fellows that I know. Do you think that my
+governor Fonsegue, who's so attentive to Silviane yonder, complains of
+it? And doesn't Sagnier, who's spreading himself out behind the presiding
+judge, and whose proper place would be between the four
+gendarmes--doesn't he owe a debt to Salvat for all the abominable
+advertisements he has been able to give his paper by using the wretched
+fellow's back as a big drum? And I need not mention the politicians or
+the financiers or all those who fish in troubled waters."
+
+"But I say," interrupted Duthil, "it seems to me that you yourself made
+good use of the affair. Your interview with the little girl Celine
+brought you in a pot of money."
+
+Massot, as it happened, had been struck with the idea of ferreting out
+Madame Theodore and the child, and of relating his visit to them in the
+"Globe," with an abundance of curious and touching particulars. The
+article had met with prodigious success, Celine's pretty answers
+respecting her imprisoned father having such an effect on ladies with
+sensitive hearts that they had driven to Montmartre in their carriages in
+order to see the two poor creatures. Thus alms had come to them from all
+sides; and strangely enough the very people who demanded the father's
+head were the most eager to sympathise with the child.
+
+"Well, I don't complain of my little profits," said the journalist in
+answer to Duthil. "We all earn what we can, you know."
+
+At this moment Rosemonde, while glancing round her, recognised Guillaume
+and Pierre, but she was so amazed to see the latter in ordinary civilian
+garb that she did not dare to speak to him. Leaning forward she
+acquainted Duthil and Massot with her surprise, and they both turned
+round to look. From motives of discretion, however, they pretended that
+they did not recognise the Froments.
+
+The heat in court was now becoming quite unbearable, and one lady had
+already fainted. At last the presiding judge again raised his lisping
+voice, and managed to restore silence. Salvat, who had remained standing,
+now held a few sheets of paper, and with some difficulty he made the
+judge understand that he desired to complete his interrogatory by reading
+a declaration, which he had drawn up in prison, and in which he explained
+his reasons for his crime. For a moment M. de Larombiere hesitated, all
+surprise and indignation at such a request; but he was aware that he
+could not legally impose silence on the prisoner, and so he signified his
+consent with a gesture of mingled irritation and disdain. Thereupon
+Salvat began his perusal much after the fashion of a schoolboy, hemming
+and hawing here and there, occasionally becoming confused, and then
+bringing out certain words with wonderful emphasis, which evidently
+pleased him. This declaration of his was the usual cry of suffering and
+revolt already raised by so many disinherited ones. It referred to all
+the frightful want of the lower spheres; the toiler unable to find a
+livelihood in his toil; a whole class, the most numerous and worthy of
+the classes, dying of starvation; whilst, on the other hand, were the
+privileged ones, gorged with wealth, and wallowing in satiety, yet
+refusing to part with even the crumbs from their tables, determined as
+they were to restore nothing whatever of the wealth which they had
+stolen. And so it became necessary to take everything away from them, to
+rouse them from their egotism by terrible warnings, and to proclaim to
+them even with the crash of bombs that the day of justice had come. The
+unhappy man spoke that word "justice" in a ringing voice which seemed to
+fill the whole court. But the emotion of those who heard him reached its
+highest pitch when, after declaring that he laid down his life for the
+cause, and expected nothing but a verdict of death from the jury, he
+added, as if prophetically, that his blood would assuredly give birth to
+other martyrs. They might send him to the scaffold, said he, but he knew
+that his example would bear fruit. After him would come another avenger,
+and yet another, and others still, until the old and rotten social system
+should have crumbled away so as to make room for the society of justice
+and happiness of which he was one of the apostles.
+
+The presiding judge, in his impatience and agitation, twice endeavoured
+to interrupt Salvat. But the other read on and on with the imperturbable
+conscientiousness of one who fears that he may not give proper utterance
+to his most important words. He must have been thinking of that perusal
+ever since he had been in prison. It was the decisive act of his suicide,
+the act by which he proclaimed that he gave his life for the glory of
+dying in the cause of mankind. And when he had finished he sat down
+between the gendarmes with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks, as if he
+inwardly experienced some deep joy.
+
+To destroy the effect which the declaration had produced--a commingling
+of fear and compassion--the judge at once wished to proceed with the
+hearing of the witnesses. Of these there was an interminable procession;
+though little interest attached to their evidence, for none of them had
+any revelations to make. Most attention perhaps was paid to the measured
+statements of Grandidier, who had been obliged to dismiss Salvat from his
+employ on account of the Anarchist propaganda he had carried on. Then the
+prisoner's brother-in-law, Toussaint, the mechanician, also seemed a very
+worthy fellow if one might judge him by the manner in which he strove to
+put things favourably for Salvat, without in any way departing from the
+truth. After Toussaint's evidence considerable time was taken up by the
+discussions between the experts, who disagreed in public as much as they
+had disagreed in their reports. Although they were all of opinion that
+dynamite could not have been the explosive employed in the bomb, they
+indulged in the most extraordinary and contradictory suppositions as to
+this explosive's real nature. Eventually a written opinion given by the
+illustrious _savant_ Bertheroy was read; and this, after clearly setting
+forth the known facts, concluded that one found oneself in presence of a
+new explosive of prodigious power, the formula of which he himself was
+unable to specify.
+
+Then detective Mondesir and commissary Dupot came in turn to relate the
+various phases of the man hunt in the Bois de Boulogne. In Mondesir
+centred all the gaiety of the proceedings, thanks to the guardroom
+sallies with which he enlivened his narrative. And in like way the
+greatest grief, a perfect shudder of revolt and compassion, was roused by
+the errand girl's grandmother, a poor, bent, withered old woman, whom the
+prosecution had cruelly constrained to attend the court, and who wept and
+looked quite dismayed, unable as she was to understand what was wanted of
+her. When she had withdrawn, the only remaining witnesses were those for
+the defence, a procession of foremen and comrades, who all declared that
+they had known Salvat as a very worthy fellow, an intelligent and zealous
+workman, who did not drink, but was extremely fond of his daughter, and
+incapable of an act of dishonesty or cruelty.
+
+It was already four o'clock when the evidence of the witnesses came to an
+end. The atmosphere in court was now quite stifling, feverish fatigue
+flushed every face, and a kind of ruddy dust obscured the waning light
+which fell from the windows. Women were fanning themselves and men were
+mopping their foreheads. However, the passion roused by the scene still
+brought a glow of cruel delight to every eye. And no one stirred.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Rosemonde all at once, "to think that I hoped to drink a cup
+of tea at a friend's at five o'clock. I shall die of thirst and
+starvation here."
+
+"We shall certainly be kept till seven," replied Massot. "I can't offer
+to go and fetch you a roll, for I shouldn't be readmitted."
+
+Then Duthil, who had not ceased shrugging his shoulders while Salvat read
+his declaration, exclaimed: "What childish things he said, didn't he? And
+to think that the fool is going to die for all that! Rich and poor,
+indeed! Why, there will always be rich and poor. And it's equally certain
+that when a man is poor his one great desire is to become rich. If that
+fellow is in the dock to-day it's simply because he failed to make
+money."
+
+While the others were thus conversing, Pierre for his part was feeling
+extremely anxious about his brother, who sat beside him in silence, pale
+and utterly upset. Pierre sought his hand and covertly pressed it. Then
+in a low voice he inquired: "Do you feel ill? Shall we go away?"
+
+Guillaume answered him by discreetly and affectionately returning his
+handshake. He was all right, he would remain till the end, however much
+he might be stirred by exasperation.
+
+It was now Monsieur Lehmann, the public prosecutor, who rose to address
+the court. He had a large, stern mouth, and was squarely built, with a
+stubborn Jewish face. Nevertheless he was known to be a man of dexterous,
+supple nature, one who had a foot in every political camp, and invariably
+contrived to be on good terms with the powers that were. This explained
+his rapid rise in life, and the constant favour he enjoyed. In the very
+first words he spoke he alluded to the new ministry gazetted that
+morning, referring pointedly to the strong-handed man who had undertaken
+the task of reassuring peaceable citizens and making evil-doers tremble.
+Then he fell upon the wretched Salvat with extraordinary vehemence,
+recounting the whole of his life, and exhibiting him as a bandit
+expressly born for the perpetration of crime, a monster who was bound to
+end by committing some abominable and cowardly outrage. Next he
+flagellated Anarchism and its partisans. The Anarchists were a mere herd
+of vagabonds and thieves, said he. That had been shown by the recent
+robbery at the Princess de Harn's house. The ignoble gang that had been
+arrested for that affair had given the apostles of the Anarchist doctrine
+as their references! And that was what the application of Anarchist
+theories resulted in--burglary and filth, pending a favourable hour for
+wholesale pillage and murder! For nearly a couple of hours the public
+prosecutor continued in this fashion, throwing truth and logic to the
+winds, and exclusively striving to alarm his hearers. He made all
+possible use of the terror which had reigned in Paris, and figuratively
+brandished the corpse of the poor little victim, the pretty errand girl,
+as if it were a blood-red flag, before pointing to the pale hand,
+preserved in spirits of wine, with a gesture of compassionate horror
+which sent a shudder through his audience. And he ended, as he had begun,
+by inspiriting the jurors, and telling them that they might fearlessly do
+their duty now that those at the head of the State were firmly resolved
+to give no heed to threats.
+
+Then the young advocate entrusted with the defence in his turn spoke. And
+he really said what there was to say with great clearness and precision.
+He was of a different school from that of the public prosecutor: his
+eloquence was very simple and smooth, his only passion seemed to be zeal
+for truth. Moreover, it was sufficient for him to show Salvat's career in
+its proper light, to depict him pursued by social fatalities since his
+childhood, and to explain the final action of his career by all that he
+had suffered and all that had sprung up in his dreamy brain. Was not his
+crime the crime of one and all? Who was there that did not feel, if only
+in a small degree, responsible for that bomb which a penniless, starving
+workman had deposited on the threshold of a wealthy man's abode--a
+wealthy man whose name bespoke the injustice of the social system: so
+much enjoyment on the one hand and so much privation on the other! If one
+of us happened to lose his head, and felt impelled to hasten the advent
+of happiness by violence in such troublous times, when so many burning
+problems claimed solution, ought he to be deprived of his life in the
+name of justice, when none could swear that they had not in some measure
+contributed to his madness? Following up this question, Salvat's counsel
+dwelt at length on the period that witnessed the crime, a period of so
+many scandals and collapses, when the old world was giving birth to a new
+one amidst the most terrible struggles and pangs. And he concluded by
+begging the jury to show themselves humane, to resist all passion and
+terror, and to pacify the rival classes by a wise verdict, instead of
+prolonging social warfare by giving the starvelings yet another martyr to
+avenge.
+
+It was past six o'clock when M. de Larombiere began to sum up in a
+partial and flowery fashion, in which one detected how grieved and angry
+he was at having such a shrill little voice. Then the judges and the
+jurors withdrew, and the prisoner was led away, leaving the spectators
+waiting amidst an uproar of feverish impatience. Some more ladies had
+fainted, and it had even been necessary to carry out a gentleman who had
+been overcome by the cruel heat. However, the others stubbornly remained
+there, not one of them quitting his place.
+
+"Ah! it won't take long now," said Massot. "The jurors brought their
+verdict all ready in their pockets. I was looking at them while that
+little advocate was telling them such sensible things. They all looked as
+if they were comfortably asleep in the gloom."
+
+Then Duthil turned to the Princess and asked her, "Are you still hungry?"
+
+"Oh! I'm starving," she replied. "I shall never be able to wait till I
+get home. You will have to take me to eat a biscuit somewhere.... All
+the same, however, it's very exciting to see a man's life staked on a yes
+or a no."
+
+Meantime Pierre, finding Guillaume still more feverish and grieved, had
+once again taken hold of his hand. Neither of them spoke, so great was
+the distress that they experienced for many reasons which they themselves
+could not have precisely defined. It seemed to them, however, that all
+human misery--inclusive of their own, the affections, the hopes, the
+griefs which brought them suffering--was sobbing and quivering in that
+buzzing hall. Twilight had gradually fallen there, but as the end was now
+so near it had doubtless been thought unnecessary to light the
+chandeliers. And thus large vague shadows, dimming and shrouding the
+serried throng, now hovered about in the last gleams of the day. The
+ladies in light gowns yonder, behind the bench, looked like pale phantoms
+with all-devouring eyes, whilst the numerous groups of black-robed
+advocates formed large sombre patches which gradually spread everywhere.
+The greyish painting of the Christ had already vanished, and on the walls
+one only saw the glaring white bust of the Republic, which resembled some
+frigid death's head starting forth from the darkness.
+
+"Ah!" Massot once more exclaimed, "I knew that it wouldn't take long!"
+
+Indeed, the jurors were returning after less than a quarter of an hour's
+absence. Then the judges likewise came back and took their seats.
+Increased emotion stirred the throng, a great gust seemed to sweep
+through the court, a gust of anxiety, which made every head sway. Some
+people had risen to their feet, and others gave vent to involuntary
+exclamations. The foreman of the jury, a gentleman with a broad red face,
+had to wait a moment before speaking. At last in a sharp but somewhat
+sputtering voice he declared: "On my honour and my conscience, before God
+and before man, the verdict of the jury is: on the question of Murder,
+yes, by a majority of votes."*
+
+  * English readers may be reminded that in France the verdict of
+    a majority of the jury suffices for conviction or acquittal.
+    If the jury is evenly divided the prisoner is acquitted.--Trans.
+
+The night had almost completely fallen when Salvat was once more brought
+in. In front of the jurors, who faded away in the gloom, he stood forth,
+erect, with a last ray from the windows lighting up his face. The judges
+themselves almost disappeared from view, their red robes seemed to have
+turned black. And how phantom-like looked the prisoner's emaciated face
+as he stood there listening, with dreamy eyes, while the clerk of the
+court read the verdict to him.
+
+When silence fell and no mention was made of extenuating circumstances,
+he understood everything. His face, which had retained a childish
+expression, suddenly brightened. "That means death. Thank you,
+gentlemen," he said.
+
+Then he turned towards the public, and amidst the growing darkness
+searched for the friendly faces which he knew were there; and this time
+Guillaume became fully conscious that he had recognised him, and was
+again expressing affectionate and grateful thanks for the crust he had
+received from him on a day of want. He must have also bidden farewell to
+Victor Mathis, for as Guillaume glanced at the young man, who had not
+moved, he saw that his eyes were staring wildly, and that a terrible
+expression rested on his lips.
+
+As for the rest of the proceedings, the last questions addressed to the
+jury and the counsel, the deliberations of the judges and the delivery of
+sentence--these were all lost amidst the buzzing and surging of the
+crowd. A little compassion was unconsciously manifested; and some stupor
+was mingled with the satisfaction that greeted the sentence of death.
+
+No sooner had Salvat been condemned, however, than he drew himself up to
+his full height, and as the guards led him away he shouted in a
+stentorian voice: "Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Nobody seemed angered by the cry. The crowd went off quietly, as if
+weariness had lulled all its passions. The proceedings had really lasted
+too long and fatigued one too much. It was quite pleasant to inhale the
+fresh air on emerging from such a nightmare.
+
+In the large waiting hall, Pierre and Guillaume passed Duthil and the
+Princess, whom General de Bozonnet had stopped while chatting with
+Fonsegue. All four of them were talking in very loud voices, complaining
+of the heat and their hunger, and agreeing that the affair had not been a
+particularly interesting one. Yet, all was well that ended well. As
+Fonsegue remarked, the condemnation of Salvat to death was a political
+and social necessity.
+
+When Pierre and Guillaume reached the Pont Neuf, the latter for a moment
+rested his elbows on the parapet of the bridge. His brother, standing
+beside him, also gazed at the grey waters of the Seine, which here and
+there were fired by the reflections of the gas lamps. A fresh breeze
+ascended from the river; it was the delightful hour when night steals
+gently over resting Paris. Then, as the brothers stood there breathing
+that atmosphere which usually brings relief and comfort, Pierre on his
+side again became conscious of his heart-wound, and remembered his
+promise to return to Montmartre, a promise that he must keep in spite of
+the torture there awaiting him; whilst Guillaume on the other hand
+experienced a revival of the suspicion and disquietude that had come to
+him on seeing Marie so feverish, changed as it were by some new feeling,
+of which she herself was ignorant. Were further sufferings, struggles,
+and obstacles to happiness yet in store for those brothers who loved one
+another so dearly? At all events their hearts bled once more with all the
+sorrow into which they had been cast by the scene they had just
+witnessed: that assize of justice at which a wretched man had been
+condemned to pay with his head for the crimes of one and all.
+
+Then, as they turned along the quay, Guillaume recognised young Victor
+going off alone in the gloom, just in front of them. The chemist stopped
+him and spoke to him of his mother. But the young man did not hear; his
+thin lips parted, and in a voice as trenchant as a knife-thrust he
+exclaimed: "Ah! so it's blood they want. Well, they may cut off his head,
+but he will be avenged!"
+
+
+
+
+V. SACRIFICE
+
+THE days which followed Salvat's trial seemed gloomy ones up yonder in
+Guillaume's workroom, which was usually so bright and gay. Sadness and
+silence filled the place. The three young men were no longer there.
+Thomas betook himself to the Grandidier works early every morning in
+order to perfect his little motor; Francois was so busy preparing for his
+examination that he scarcely left the Ecole Normale; while Antoine was
+doing some work at Jahan's, where he delighted to linger and watch his
+little friend Lise awakening to life. Thus Guillaume's sole companion was
+Mere-Grand, who sat near the window busy with her needlework; for Marie
+was ever going about the house, and only stayed in the workroom for any
+length of time when Pierre happened to be there.
+
+Guillaume's gloom was generally attributed to the feelings of anger and
+revolt into which the condemnation of Salvat had thrown him. He had flown
+into a passion on his return from the Palace of Justice, declaring that
+the execution of the unhappy man would simply be social murder,
+deliberate provocation of class warfare. And the others had bowed on
+hearing that pain-fraught violent cry, without attempting to discuss the
+point. Guillaume's sons respectfully left him to the thoughts which kept
+him silent for hours, with his face pale and a dreamy expression in his
+eyes. His chemical furnace remained unlighted, and his only occupation
+from morn till night was to examine the plans and documents connected
+with his invention, that new explosive and that terrible engine of war,
+which he had so long dreamt of presenting to France in order that she
+might impose the reign of truth and justice upon all the nations.
+However, during the long hours which he spent before the papers scattered
+over his table, often without seeing them, for his eyes wandered far
+away, a multitude of vague thoughts came to him--doubts respecting the
+wisdom of his project, and fears lest his desire to pacify the nations
+should simply throw them into an endless war of extermination. Although
+he really believed that great city of Paris to be the world's brain,
+entrusted with the task of preparing the future, he could not disguise
+from himself that with all its folly and shame and injustice it still
+presented a shocking spectacle. Was it really ripe enough for the work of
+human salvation which he thought of entrusting to it? Then, on trying to
+re-peruse his notes and verify his formulas, he only recovered his former
+energetic determination on thinking of his marriage, whereupon the idea
+came to him that it was now too late for him to upset his life by
+changing such long-settled plans.
+
+His marriage! Was it not the thought of this which haunted Guillaume and
+disturbed him far more powerfully than his scientific work or his
+humanitarian passion? Beneath all the worries that he acknowledged, there
+was another which he did not confess even to himself, and which filled
+him with anguish. He repeated day by day that he would reveal his
+invention to the Minister of War as soon as he should be married to
+Marie, whom he wished to associate with his glory. Married to Marie! Each
+time he thought of it, burning fever and secret disquietude came over
+him. If he now remained so silent and had lost his quiet cheerfulness, it
+was because he had felt new life, as it were, emanating from her. She was
+certainly no longer the same woman as formerly; she was becoming more and
+more changed and distant. He had watched her and Pierre when the latter
+happened to be there, which was now but seldom. He, too, appeared
+embarrassed, and different from what he had been. On the days when he
+came, however, Marie seemed transformed; it was as if new life animated
+the house. Certainly the intercourse between her and Pierre was quite
+innocent, sisterly on the one hand, brotherly on the other. They simply
+seemed to be a pair of good friends. And yet a radiance, a vibration,
+emanated from them, something more subtle even than a sun-ray or a
+perfume. After the lapse of a few days Guillaume found himself unable to
+doubt the truth any longer. And his heart bled, he was utterly upset by
+it. He had not found them in fault in any way, but he was convinced that
+these two children, as he so paternally called them, really adored one
+another.
+
+One lovely morning when he happened to be alone with Mere-Grand, face to
+face with sunlit Paris, he fell into a yet more dolorous reverie than
+usual. He seemed to be gazing fixedly at the old lady, as, seated in her
+usual place, she continued sewing with an air of queenly serenity.
+Perhaps, however, he did not see her. For her part she occasionally
+raised her eyes and glanced at him, as if expecting a confession which
+did not come. At last, finding such silence unbearable, she made up her
+mind to address him: "What has been the matter with you, Guillaume, for
+some time past? Why don't you tell me what you have to tell me?"
+
+He descended from the clouds, as it were, and answered in astonishment:
+"What I have to tell you?"
+
+"Yes, I know it as well as you do, and I thought you would speak to me of
+it, since it pleases you to do nothing here without consulting me."
+
+At this he turned very pale and shuddered. So he had not been mistaken in
+the matter, even Mere-Grand knew all about it. To talk of it, however,
+was to give shape to his suspicions, to transform what, hitherto, might
+merely have been a fancy on his part into something real and definite.
+
+"It was inevitable, my dear son," said Mere-Grand. "I foresaw it from the
+outset. And if I did not warn you of it, it was because I believed in
+some deep design on your part. Since I have seen you suffering, however,
+I have realised that I was mistaken." Then, as he still looked at her
+quivering and distracted, she continued: "Yes, I fancied that you might
+have wished it, that in bringing your brother here you wished to know if
+Marie loved you otherwise than as a father. There was good reason for
+testing her--for instance, the great difference between your ages, for
+your life is drawing to a close, whilst hers is only beginning. And I
+need not mention the question of your work, the mission which I have
+always dreamt of for you."
+
+Thereupon, with his hands raised in prayerful fashion, Guillaume drew
+near to the old lady and exclaimed: "Oh! speak out clearly, tell me what
+you think. I don't understand, my poor heart is so lacerated; and yet I
+should so much like to know everything, so as to be able to act and take
+a decision. To think that you whom I love, you whom I venerate as much as
+if you were my real mother, you whose profound good sense I know so well
+that I have always followed your advice--to think that you should have
+foreseen this frightful thing and have allowed it to happen at the risk
+of its killing me!... Why have you done so, tell me, why?"
+
+Mere-Grand was not fond of talking. Absolute mistress of the house as she
+was, managing everything, accountable to nobody for her actions, she
+never gave expression to all that she thought or all that she desired.
+Indeed, there was no occasion for it, as Guillaume, like the children,
+relied upon her completely, with full confidence in her wisdom. And her
+somewhat enigmatical ways even helped to raise her in their estimation.
+
+"What is the use of words, when things themselves speak?" she now gently
+answered, while still plying her needle. "It is quite true that I
+approved of the plan of a marriage between you and Marie, for I saw that
+it was necessary that she should be married if she was to stay here. And
+then, too, there were many other reasons which I needn't speak of.
+However, Pierre's arrival here has changed everything, and placed things
+in their natural order. Is not that preferable?"
+
+He still lacked the courage to understand her. "Preferable! When I'm in
+agony? When my life is wrecked?"
+
+Thereupon she rose and came to him, tall and rigid in her thin black
+gown, and with an expression of austerity and energy on her pale face.
+"My son," she said, "you know that I love you, and that I wish you to be
+very noble and lofty. Only the other morning, you had an attack of
+fright, the house narrowly escaped being blown up. Then, for some days
+now you have been sitting over those documents and plans in an
+absent-minded, distracted state, like a man who feels weak, and doubts,
+and no longer knows his way. Believe me, you are following a dangerous
+path; it is better that Pierre should marry Marie, both for their sakes
+and for your own."
+
+"For my sake? No, no! What will become of me!"
+
+"You will calm yourself and reflect, my son. You have such serious duties
+before you. You are on the eve of making your invention known. It seems
+to me that something has bedimmed your sight, and that you will perhaps
+act wrongly in this respect, through failing to take due account of the
+problem before you. Perhaps there is something better to be done....
+At all events, suffer if it be necessary, but remain faithful to your
+ideal."
+
+Then, quitting him with a maternal smile, she sought to soften her
+somewhat stern words by adding: "You have compelled me to speak
+unnecessarily, for I am quite at ease; with your superior mind, whatever
+be in question, you can but do the one right thing that none other would
+do."
+
+On finding himself alone Guillaume fell into feverish uncertainty. What
+was the meaning of Mere-Grand's enigmatical words? He knew that she was
+on the side of whatever might be good, natural, and necessary. But she
+seemed to be urging him to some lofty heroism; and indeed what she had
+said threw a ray of light upon the unrest which had come to him in
+connection with his old plan of going to confide his secret to some
+Minister of War or other, whatever one might happen to be in office at
+the time. Growing hesitation and repugnance stirred him as he fancied he
+could again hear her saying that perhaps there might be some better
+course, that would require search and reflection. But all at once a
+vision of Marie rose before him, and his heart was rent by the thought
+that he was asked to renounce her. To lose her, to give her to another!
+No, no, that was beyond his strength. He would never have the frightful
+courage that was needed to pass by the last promised raptures of love
+with disdain!
+
+For a couple of days Guillaume struggled on. He seemed to be again living
+the six years which the young woman had already spent beside him in that
+happy little house. She had been at first like an adopted daughter there;
+and later on, when the idea of their marriage had sprung up, he had
+viewed it with quiet delight in the hope that it would ensure the
+happiness of all around him. If he had previously abstained from marrying
+again it was from the fear of placing a strange mother over his children;
+and if he yielded to the charm of loving yet once more, and no longer
+leading a solitary life, it was because he had found at his very hearth
+one of such sensible views, who, in the flower of youth, was willing to
+become his wife despite the difference in their ages. Then months had
+gone by, and serious occurrences had compelled them to postpone the
+wedding, though without undue suffering on his part. Indeed, the
+certainty that she was waiting for him had sufficed him, for his life of
+hard work had rendered him patient. Now, however, all at once, at the
+threat of losing her, his hitherto tranquil heart ached and bled. He
+would never have thought the tie so close a one. But he was now almost
+fifty, and it was as if love and woman were being wrenched away from him,
+the last woman that he could love and desire, one too who was the more
+desirable, as she was the incarnation of youth from which he must ever be
+severed, should he indeed lose her. Passionate desire, mingled with rage,
+flared up within him at the thought that someone should have come to take
+her from him.
+
+One night, alone in his room, he suffered perfect martyrdom. In order
+that he might not rouse the house he buried his face in his pillow so as
+to stifle his sobs. After all, it was a simple matter; Marie had given
+him her promise, and he would compel her to keep it. She would be his,
+and his alone, and none would be able to steal her from him. Then,
+however, there rose before him a vision of his brother, the
+long-forgotten one, whom, from feelings of affection, he had compelled to
+join his family. But his sufferings were now so acute that he would have
+driven that brother away had he been before him. He was enraged,
+maddened, by the thought of him. His brother--his little brother! So all
+their love was over; hatred and violence were about to poison their
+lives. For hours Guillaume continued complaining deliriously, and seeking
+how he might so rid himself of Pierre that what had happened should be
+blotted out. Now and again, when he recovered self-control, he marvelled
+at the tempest within him; for was he not a _savant_ guided by lofty
+reason, a toiler to whom long experience had brought serenity? But the
+truth was that this tempest had not sprung up in his mind, it was raging
+in the child-like soul that he had retained, the nook of affection and
+dreaminess which remained within him side by side with his principles of
+pitiless logic and his belief in proven phenomena only. His very genius
+came from the duality of his nature: behind the chemist was a social
+dreamer, hungering for justice and capable of the greatest love. And now
+passion was transporting him, and he was weeping for the loss of Marie as
+he would have wept over the downfall of that dream of his, the
+destruction of war _by_ war, that scheme for the salvation of mankind at
+which he had been working for ten years past.
+
+At last, amidst his weariness, a sudden resolution calmed him. He began
+to feel ashamed of despairing in this wise when he had no certain grounds
+to go upon. He must know everything, he would question the young woman;
+she was loyal enough to answer him frankly. Was not this a solution
+worthy of them both? An explanation in all sincerity, after which they
+would be able to take a decision. Then he fell asleep; and, tired though
+he felt when he rose in the morning, he was calmer. It was as if some
+secret work had gone on in his heart during his few hours of repose after
+that terrible storm.
+
+As it happened Marie was very gay that morning. On the previous day she
+had gone with Pierre and Antoine on a cycling excursion over frightful
+roads in the direction of Montmorency, whence they had returned in a
+state of mingled anger and delight. When Guillaume stopped her in the
+little garden, he found her humming a song while returning bare-armed
+from the scullery, where some washing was going on.
+
+"Do you want to speak to me?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, my dear child, it's necessary for us to talk of some serious
+matters."
+
+She at once understood that their marriage was in question, and became
+grave. She had formerly consented to that marriage because she regarded
+it as the only sensible course she could take, and this with full
+knowledge of the duties which she would assume. No doubt her husband
+would be some twenty years older than herself, but this circumstance was
+one of somewhat frequent occurrence, and as a rule such marriages turned
+out well, rather than otherwise. Moreover, she was in love with nobody,
+and was free to consent. And she had consented with an impulse of
+gratitude and affection which seemed so sweet that she thought it the
+sweetness of love itself. Everybody around her, too, appeared so pleased
+at the prospect of this marriage, which would draw the family yet more
+closely together. And, on her side, she had been as it were intoxicated
+by the idea of making others happy.
+
+"What is the matter?" she now asked Guillaume in a somewhat anxious
+voice. "No bad news, I hope?"
+
+"No, no," he answered. "I've simply something to say to you."
+
+Then he led her under the plum-trees to the only green nook left in the
+garden. An old worm-eaten bench still stood there against the
+lilac-bushes. And in front of them Paris spread out its sea of roofs,
+looking light and fresh in the morning sunlight.
+
+They both sat down. But at the moment of speaking and questioning Marie,
+Guillaume experienced sudden embarrassment, while his heart beat
+violently at seeing her beside him, so young and adorable with her bare
+arms.
+
+"Our wedding-day is drawing near," he ended by saying. And then as she
+turned somewhat pale, perhaps unconsciously, he himself suddenly felt
+cold. Had not her lips twitched as if with pain? Had not a shadow passed
+over her fresh, clear eyes?
+
+"Oh! we still have some time before us," she replied.
+
+Then, slowly and very affectionately, he resumed: "No doubt; still it is
+necessary to attend to the formalities. And it is as well, perhaps, that
+I should speak of those worries to-day, so that I may not have to bother
+you about them again."
+
+Then he gently went on telling her all that would have to be done,
+keeping his eyes on her whilst he spoke, watching for such signs of
+emotion as the thought of her promise's early fulfilment might bring to
+her face. She sat there in silence, with her hands on her lap, and her
+features quite still, thus giving no certain sign of any regret or
+trouble. Still she seemed rather dejected, compliant, as it were, but in
+no wise joyous.
+
+"You say nothing, my dear Marie," Guillaume at last exclaimed. "Does
+anything of all this displease you?"
+
+"Displease me? Oh, no!"
+
+"You must speak out frankly, if it does, you know. We will wait a little
+longer if you have any personal reasons for wishing to postpone the date
+again."
+
+"But I've no reasons, my friend. What reasons could I have? I leave you
+quite free to settle everything as you yourself may desire."
+
+Silence fell. While answering, she had looked him frankly in the face;
+but a little quiver stirred her lips, and gloom, for which she could not
+account, seemed to rise and darken her face, usually as bright and gay as
+spring water. In former times would she not have laughed and sung at the
+mere announcement of that coming wedding?
+
+Then Guillaume, with an effort which made his voice tremble, dared to
+speak out: "You must forgive me for asking you a question, my dear Marie.
+There is still time for you to cancel your promise. Are you quite certain
+that you love me?"
+
+At this she looked at him in genuine stupefaction, utterly failing to
+understand what he could be aiming at. And--as she seemed to be deferring
+her reply, he added: "Consult your heart. Is it really your old friend or
+is it another that you love?"
+
+"I? I, Guillaume? Why do you say that to me? What can I have done to give
+you occasion to say such a thing!"
+
+All her frank nature revolted as she spoke, and her beautiful eyes,
+glowing with sincerity, gazed fixedly on his.
+
+"I love Pierre! I do, I?... Well, yes, I love him, as I love you all;
+I love him because he has become one of us, because he shares our life
+and our joys! I'm happy when he's here, certainly; and I should like him
+to be always here. I'm always pleased to see him and hear him and go out
+with him. I was very much grieved recently when he seemed to be relapsing
+into his gloomy ideas. But all that is natural, is it not? And I think
+that I have only done what you desired I should do, and I cannot
+understand how my affection for Pierre can in any way exercise an
+influence respecting our marriage."
+
+These words, in her estimation, ought to have convinced Guillaume that
+she was not in love with his brother; but in lieu thereof they brought
+him painful enlightenment by the very ardour with which she denied the
+love imputed to her.
+
+"But you unfortunate girl!" he cried. "You are betraying yourself without
+knowing it.... It is quite certain you do not love me, you love my
+brother!"
+
+He had caught hold of her wrists and was pressing them with despairing
+affection as if to compel her to read her heart. And she continued
+struggling. A most loving and tragic contest went on between them, he
+seeking to convince her by the evidence of facts, and she resisting him,
+stubbornly refusing to open her eyes. In vain did he recount what had
+happened since the first day, explaining the feelings which had followed
+one upon another in her heart and mind: first covert hostility, next
+curiosity regarding that extraordinary young priest, and then sympathy
+and affection when she had found him so wretched and had gradually cured
+him of his sufferings. They were both young and mother Nature had done
+the rest. However, at each fresh proof and certainty which he put before
+her, Marie only experienced growing emotion, trembling at last from head
+to foot, but still unwilling to question herself.
+
+"No, no," said she, "I do not love him. If I loved him I should know it
+and would acknowledge it to you; for you are well aware that I cannot
+tell an untruth."
+
+Guillaume, however, had the cruelty to insist on the point, like some
+heroic surgeon cutting into his own flesh even more than into that of
+others, in order that the truth might appear and everyone be saved.
+"Marie," said he, "it is not I whom you love. All that you feel for me is
+respect and gratitude and daughterly affection. Remember what your
+feelings were at the time when our marriage was decided upon. You were
+then in love with nobody, and you accepted the offer like a sensible
+girl, feeling certain that I should render you happy, and that the union
+was a right and satisfactory one.... But since then my brother has
+come here; love has sprung up in your heart in quite a natural way; and
+it is Pierre, Pierre alone, whom you love as a lover and a husband should
+be loved."
+
+Exhausted though she was, utterly distracted, too, by the light which,
+despite herself, was dawning within her, Marie still stubbornly and
+desperately protested.
+
+"But why do you struggle like this against the truth, my child?" said
+Guillaume; "I do not reproach you. It was I who chose that this should
+happen, like the old madman I am. What was bound to come has come, and
+doubtless it is for the best. I only wanted to learn the truth from you
+in order that I might take a decision and act uprightly."
+
+These words vanquished her, and her tears gushed forth. It seemed as
+though something had been rent asunder within her; and she felt quite
+overcome, as if by the weight of a new truth of which she had hitherto
+been ignorant. "Ah! it was cruel of you," she said, "to do me such
+violence so as to make me read my heart. I swear to you again that I did
+not know I loved Pierre in the way you say. But you have opened my heart,
+and roused what was quietly slumbering in it.... And it is true, I do
+love Pierre, I love him now as you have said. And so here we are, all
+three of us supremely wretched through your doing!"
+
+She sobbed, and with a sudden feeling of modesty freed her wrists from
+his grasp. He noticed, however, that no blush rose to her face. Truth to
+tell, her virginal loyalty was not in question; she had no cause to
+reproach herself with any betrayal; it was he alone, perforce, who had
+awakened her to love. For a moment they looked at one another through
+their tears: she so strong and healthy, her bosom heaving at each
+heart-beat, and her white arms--arms that could both charm and
+sustain--bare almost to her shoulders; and he still vigorous, with his
+thick fleece of white hair and his black moustaches, which gave his
+countenance such an expression of energetic youth. But it was all over,
+the irreparable had swept by, and utterly changed their lives.
+
+"Marie," he nobly said, "you do not love me, I give you back your
+promise."
+
+But with equal nobility she refused to take it back. "Never will I do
+so," she replied. "I gave it to you frankly, freely and joyfully, and my
+affection and admiration for you have never changed."
+
+Nevertheless, with more firmness in his hitherto broken voice, Guillaume
+retorted: "You love Pierre, and it is Pierre whom you ought to marry."
+
+"No," she again insisted, "I belong to you. A tie which years have
+tightened cannot be undone in an hour. Once again, if I love Pierre I
+swear to you that I was ignorant of it this morning. And let us leave the
+matter as it is; do not torture me any more, it would be too cruel of
+you."
+
+Then, quivering like a woman who suddenly perceives that she is bare, in
+a stranger's presence, she hastily pulled down her sleeves, and even drew
+them over her hands as if to leave naught of her person visible. And
+afterwards she rose and walked away without adding a single word.
+
+Guillaume remained alone on the bench in that leafy corner, in front of
+Paris, to which the light morning sunshine lent the aspect of some
+quivering, soaring city of dreamland. A great weight oppressed him, and
+it seemed to him as if he would never be able to rise from the seat. That
+which brought him most suffering was Marie's assurance that she had till
+that morning been ignorant of the fact that she was in love with Pierre.
+She had been ignorant of it, and it was he, Guillaume, who had brought it
+to her knowledge, compelled her to confess it! He had now firmly planted
+it in her heart, and perhaps increased it by revealing it to her. Ah! how
+cruel the thought--to be the artisan of one's own torment! Of one thing
+he was now quite certain: there would be no more love in his life. At the
+idea of this, his poor, loving heart sank and bled. And yet amidst the
+disaster, amidst his grief at realising that he was an old man, and that
+renunciation was imperative, he experienced a bitter joy at having
+brought the truth to light. This was very harsh consolation, fit only for
+one of heroic soul, yet he found lofty satisfaction in it, and from that
+moment the thought of sacrifice imposed itself upon him with
+extraordinary force. He must marry his children; there lay the path of
+duty, the only wise and just course, the only certain means of ensuring
+the happiness of the household. And when his revolting heart yet leapt
+and shrieked with anguish, he carried his vigorous hands to his chest in
+order to still it.
+
+On the morrow came the supreme explanation between Guillaume and Pierre,
+not in the little garden, however, but in the spacious workroom. And here
+again one beheld the vast panorama of Paris, a nation as it were at work,
+a huge vat in which the wine of the future was fermenting. Guillaume had
+arranged things so that he might be alone with his brother; and no sooner
+had the latter entered than he attacked him, going straight to the point
+without any of the precautions which he had previously taken with Marie.
+
+"Haven't you something to say to me, Pierre?" he inquired. "Why won't you
+confide in me?"
+
+The other immediately understood him, and began to tremble, unable to
+find a word, but confessing everything by the distracted, entreating
+expression of his face.
+
+"You love Marie," continued Guillaume, "why did you not loyally come and
+tell me of your love?"
+
+At this Pierre recovered self-possession and defended himself vehemently:
+"I love Marie, it's true, and I felt that I could not conceal it, that
+you yourself would notice it at last. But there was no occasion for me to
+tell you of it, for I was sure of myself, and would have fled rather than
+have allowed a single word to cross my lips. I suffered in silence and
+alone, and you cannot know how great my torture was! It is even cruel on
+your part to speak to me of it; for now I am absolutely compelled to
+leave you.... I have already, on several occasions, thought of doing
+so. If I have come back here, it was doubtless through weakness, but also
+on account of my affection for you all. And what mattered my presence
+here? Marie ran no risk. She does not love me."
+
+"She does love you!" Guillaume answered. "I questioned her yesterday, and
+she had to confess that she loved you."
+
+At this Pierre, utterly distracted, caught Guillaume by the shoulders and
+gazed into his eyes. "Oh! brother, brother! what is this you say? Why say
+a thing which would mean terrible misfortune for us all? Even if it were
+true, my grief would far exceed my joy, for I will not have you suffer.
+Marie belongs to you. To me she is as sacred as a sister. And if there be
+only my madness to part you, it will pass by, I shall know how to conquer
+it."
+
+"Marie loves you," repeated Guillaume in his gentle, obstinate way. "I
+don't reproach you with anything. I well know that you have struggled,
+and have never betrayed yourself to her either by word or glance.
+Yesterday she herself was still ignorant that she loved you, and I had to
+open her eyes.... What would you have? I simply state a fact: she
+loves you."
+
+This time Pierre, still quivering, made a gesture of mingled rapture and
+terror, as if some divine and long-desired blessing were falling upon him
+from heaven and crushing him beneath its weight.
+
+"Well, then," he said, after a brief pause, "it is all over.... Let us
+kiss one another for the last time, and then I'll go."
+
+"Go? Why? You must stay with us. Nothing could be more simple: you love
+Marie and she loves you. I give her to you."
+
+A loud cry came from Pierre, who wildly raised his hands again with a
+gesture of fright and rapture. "You give me Marie?" he replied. "You, who
+adore her, who have been waiting for her for months? No, no, it would
+overcome me, it would terrify me, as if you gave me your very heart after
+tearing it from your breast. No, no! I will not accept your sacrifice!"
+
+"But as it is only gratitude and affection that Marie feels for me," said
+Guillaume, "as it is you whom she really loves, am I to take a mean
+advantage of the engagements which she entered into unconsciously, and
+force her to a marriage when I know that she would never be wholly mine?
+Besides, I have made a mistake, it isn't I who give her to you, she has
+already given herself, and I do not consider that I have any right to
+prevent her from doing so."
+
+"No, no! I will never accept, I will never bring such grief upon you...
+Kiss me, brother, and let me go."
+
+Thereupon Guillaume caught hold of Pierre and compelled him to sit down
+by his side on an old sofa near the window. And he began to scold him
+almost angrily while still retaining a smile, in which suffering and
+kindliness were blended. "Come," said he, "we are surely not going to
+fight over it. You won't force me to tie you up so as to keep you here? I
+know what I'm about. I thought it all over before I spoke to you. No
+doubt, I can't tell you that it gladdens me. I thought at first that I
+was going to die; I should have liked to hide myself in the very depths
+of the earth. And then, well, it was necessary to be reasonable, and I
+understood that things had arranged themselves for the best, in their
+natural order."
+
+Pierre, unable to resist any further, had begun to weep with both hands
+raised to his face.
+
+"Don't grieve, brother, either for yourself or for me," said Guillaume.
+"Do you remember the happy days we lately spent together at Neuilly after
+we had found one another again? All our old affection revived within us,
+and we remained for hours, hand in hand, recalling the past and loving
+one another. And what a terrible confession you made to me one night, the
+confession of your loss of faith, your torture, the void in which you
+were rolling! When I heard of it my one great wish was to cure you. I
+advised you to work, love, and believe in life, convinced as I was that
+life alone could restore you to peace and health.... And for that
+reason I afterwards brought you here. You fought against it, and it was I
+who forced you to come. I was so happy when I found that you again took
+an interest in life, and had once more become a man and a worker! I would
+have given some of my blood if necessary to complete your cure....
+Well, it's done now, I have given you all I had, since Marie herself has
+become necessary to you, and she alone can save you."
+
+Then as Pierre again attempted to protest, he resumed: "Don't deny it. It
+is so true indeed, that if she does not complete the work I have begun,
+all my efforts will have been vain, you will fall back into your misery
+and negation, into all the torments of a spoilt life. She is necessary to
+you, I say. And do you think that I no longer know how to love you? Would
+you have me refuse you the very breath of life that will truly make you a
+man, after all my fervent wishes for your return to life? I have enough
+affection for you both to consent to your loving one another....
+Besides, I repeat it, nature knows what she does. Instinct is a sure
+guide, it always tends to what is useful and trite. I should have been a
+sorry husband, and it is best that I should keep to my work as an old
+_savant_; whereas you are young and represent the future, all fruitful
+and happy life."
+
+Pierre shuddered as he heard this, for his old fears returned to him. Had
+not the priesthood for ever cut him off from life, had not his long years
+of chaste celibacy robbed him of his manhood? "Fruitful and happy life!"
+he muttered, "ah! if you only knew how distressed I feel at the idea that
+I do not perhaps deserve the gift you so lovingly offer me! You are worth
+more than I am; you would have given her a larger heart, a firmer brain,
+and perhaps, too, you are really a younger man than myself.... There
+is still time, brother, keep her, if with you she is likely to be happier
+and more truly and completely loved. For my part I am full of doubts. Her
+happiness is the only thing of consequence. Let her belong to the one who
+will love her best!"
+
+Indescribable emotion had now come over both men. As Guillaume heard his
+brother's broken words, the cry of a love that trembled at the thought of
+possible weakness, he did for a moment waver. With a dreadful heart-pang
+he stammered despairingly: "Ah! Marie, whom I love so much! Marie, whom I
+would have rendered so happy!"
+
+At this Pierre could not restrain himself; he rose and cried: "Ah! you
+see that you love her still and cannot renounce her.... So let me go!
+let me go!"
+
+But Guillaume had already caught him around the body, clasping him with
+an intensity of brotherly love which was increased by the renunciation he
+was resolved upon: "Stay!" said he. "It wasn't I that spoke, it was the
+other man that was in me, he who is about to die, who is already dead! By
+the memory of our mother and our father I swear to you that the sacrifice
+is consummated, and that if you two refuse to accept happiness from me
+you will but make me suffer."
+
+For a moment the weeping men remained in one another's arms. They had
+often embraced before, but never had their hearts met and mingled as they
+did now. It was a delightful moment, which seemed an eternity. All the
+grief and misery of the world had disappeared from before them; there
+remained naught save their glowing love, whence sprang an eternity of
+love even as light comes from the sun. And that moment was compensation
+for all their past and future tears, whilst yonder, on the horizon before
+them, Paris still spread and rumbled, ever preparing the unknown future.
+
+Just then Marie herself came in. And the rest proved very simple.
+Guillaume freed himself from his brother's clasp, led him forward and
+compelled him and Marie to take each other by the hand. At first she made
+yet another gesture of refusal in her stubborn resolve that she would not
+take her promise back. But what could she say face to face with those two
+tearful men, whom she had found in one another's arms, mingling together
+in such close brotherliness? Did not those tears and that embrace sweep
+away all ordinary reasons, all such arguments as she held in reserve?
+Even the embarrassment of the situation disappeared, it seemed as if she
+had already had a long explanation with Pierre, and that he and she were
+of one mind to accept that gift of love which Guillaume offered them with
+so much heroism. A gust of the sublime passed through the room, and
+nothing could have appeared more natural to them than this extraordinary
+scene. Nevertheless, Marie remained silent, she dared not give her
+answer, but looked at them both with her big soft eyes, which, like their
+own, were full of tears.
+
+And it was Guillaume who, with sudden inspiration, ran to the little
+staircase conducting to the rooms overhead, and called: "Mere-Grand!
+Mere-Grand! Come down at once, you are wanted."
+
+Then, as soon as she was there, looking slim and pale in her black gown,
+and showing the wise air of a queen-mother whom all obeyed, he said:
+"Tell these two children that they can do nothing better than marry one
+another. Tell them that we have talked it over, you and I, and that it is
+your desire, your will that they should do so."
+
+She quietly nodded her assent, and then said: "That is true, it will be
+by far the most sensible course."
+
+Thereupon Marie flung herself into her arms, consenting, yielding to the
+superior forces, the powers of life, that had thus changed the course of
+her existence. Guillaume immediately desired that the date of the wedding
+should be fixed, and accommodation provided for the young couple in the
+rooms overhead. And as Pierre glanced at him with some remaining anxiety
+and spoke of travelling, for he feared that his wound was not yet healed,
+and that their presence might bring him suffering, Guillaume responded:
+"No, no, I mean to keep you. If I'm marrying you, it is to have you both
+here. Don't worry about me. I have so much work to do, I shall work."
+
+In the evening when Thomas and Francois came home and learnt the news,
+they did not seem particularly surprised by it. They had doubtless felt
+that things would end like this. And they bowed to the _denouement_, not
+venturing to say a word, since it was their father himself who announced
+the decision which had been taken, with his usual air of composure. As
+for Antoine, who on his own side quivered with love for Lise, he gazed
+with doubting, anxious eyes at his father, who had thus had the courage
+to pluck out his heart. Could he really survive such a sacrifice, must it
+not kill him? Then Antoine kissed his father passionately, and the elder
+brothers in their turn embraced him with all their hearts. Guillaume
+smiled and his eyes became moist. After his victory over his horrible
+torments nothing could have been sweeter to him than the embraces of his
+three big sons.
+
+There was, however, further emotion in store for him that evening. Just
+as the daylight was departing, and he was sitting at his large table near
+the window, again checking and classifying the documents and plans
+connected with his invention, he was surprised to see his old master and
+friend Bertheroy enter the workroom. The illustrious chemist called on
+him in this fashion at long intervals, and Guillaume felt the honour thus
+conferred on him by this old man to whom eminence and fame had brought so
+many titles, offices and decorations. Moreover, Bertheroy, with his
+position as an official _savant_ and member of the Institute, showed some
+courage in thus venturing to call on one whom so-called respectable folks
+regarded with contumely. And on this occasion, Guillaume at once
+understood that it was some feeling of curiosity that had brought him.
+And so he was greatly embarrassed, for he hardly dared to remove the
+papers and plans which were lying on the table.
+
+"Oh, don't be frightened," gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his
+careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry
+into your secrets.... Leave your papers there, I promise you that I
+won't read anything."
+
+Then, in all frankness, he turned the conversation on the subject of
+explosives, which he was still studying, he said, with passionate
+interest. He had made some new discoveries which he did not conceal.
+Incidentally, too, he spoke of the opinion he had given in Salvat's
+affair. His dream was to discover some explosive of great power, which
+one might attempt to domesticate and reduce to complete obedience. And
+with a smile he pointedly concluded: "I don't know where that madman
+found the formula of his powder. But if you should ever discover it,
+remember that the future perhaps lies in the employment of explosives as
+motive power."
+
+Then, all at once, he added: "By the way, that fellow Salvat will be
+executed on the day after to-morrow. A friend of mine at the Ministry of
+Justice has just told me so."
+
+Guillaume had hitherto listened to him with an air of mingled distrust
+and amusement. But this announcement of Salvat's execution stirred him to
+anger and revolt, though for some days past he had known it to be
+inevitable, in spite of the sympathy which the condemned man was now
+rousing in many quarters.
+
+"It will be a murder!" he cried vehemently.
+
+Bertheroy waved his hand: "What would you have?" he answered: "there's a
+social system and it defends itself when it is attacked. Besides, those
+Anarchists are really too foolish in imagining that they will transform
+the world with their squibs and crackers! In my opinion, you know,
+science is the only revolutionist. Science will not only bring us truth
+but justice also, if indeed justice ever be possible on this earth. And
+that is why I lead so calm a life and am so tolerant."
+
+Once again Bertheroy appeared to Guillaume as a revolutionist, one who
+was convinced that he helped on the ruin of the ancient abominable
+society of today, with its dogmas and laws, even whilst he was working in
+the depths of his laboratory. He was, however, too desirous of repose,
+and had too great a contempt for futilities to mingle with the events of
+the day, and he preferred to live in quietude, liberally paid and
+rewarded, and at peace with the government whatever it might be, whilst
+at the same time foreseeing and preparing for the formidable parturition
+of the future.
+
+He waved his hand towards Paris, over which a sun of victory was setting,
+and then again spoke: "Do you hear the rumble? It is we who are the
+stokers, we who are ever flinging fresh fuel under the boiler. Science
+does not pause in her work for a single hour, and she is the artisan of
+Paris, which--let us hope it--will be the artisan of the future. All the
+rest is of no account."
+
+But Guillaume was no longer listening to him. He was thinking of Salvat
+and the terrible engine of war he had invented, that engine which before
+long would shatter cities. And a new idea was dawning and growing in his
+mind. He had just freed himself of his last tie, he had created all the
+happiness he could create around him. Ah! to recover his courage, to be
+master of himself once more, and, at any rate, derive from the sacrifice
+of his heart the lofty delight of being free, of being able to lay down
+even his life, should he some day deem it necessary!
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE GUILLOTINE
+
+
+FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing the
+execution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; and
+finding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordingly
+resolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother and
+watch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose in
+charitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that the
+guillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy,
+resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself as
+a guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legally
+be daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did not
+go to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, and
+exchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they started
+off.
+
+The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like a
+silver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm,
+dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like some
+spell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arose
+from it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over its
+roofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled to
+repose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark work
+was even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order that
+a man might be killed.
+
+Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at the
+vaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned they
+perceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but already
+looking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuated
+its outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass of
+shadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossal
+monster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never before
+had Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominate
+Paris, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn and
+overwhelming might.
+
+This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he found
+himself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good site
+for it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing more
+nonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! How
+impudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so many
+centuries of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being reared
+over Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have been
+soiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; but
+not in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeply
+ploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war,
+an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"
+
+Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a _savant_, for whom
+religions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted the
+grandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque's
+famous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart,
+filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. He
+suffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and the
+gigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in the
+depths of the wound--the huge heart in which Jesus placed the woman's
+little heart to restore it to her inflated and glowing with love. What
+base and loathsome materialism there was in all this! What a display of
+viscera, muscles and blood suggestive of a butcher's shop! And Guillaume
+was particularly disgusted with the engraving which depicted this horror,
+and which he found everywhere, crudely coloured with red and yellow and
+blue, like some badly executed anatomical plate.
+
+Pierre on his side was also looking at the basilica as, white with
+moonlight, it rose out of the darkness like a gigantic fortress raised to
+crush and conquer the city slumbering beneath it. It had already brought
+him suffering during the last days when he had said mass in it and was
+struggling with his torments. "They call it the national votive
+offering," he now exclaimed. "But the nation's longing is for health and
+strength and restoration to its old position by work. That is a thing the
+Church does not understand. It argues that if France was stricken with
+defeat, it was because she deserved punishment. She was guilty, and so
+to-day she ought to repent. Repent of what? Of the Revolution, of a
+century of free examination and science, of the emancipation of her mind,
+of her initiatory and liberative labour in all parts of the world? That
+indeed is her real transgression; and it is as a punishment for all our
+labour, search for truth, increase of knowledge and march towards justice
+that they have reared that huge pile which Paris will see from all her
+streets, and will never be able to see without feeling derided and
+insulted in her labour and glory."
+
+With a wave of his hand he pointed to the city, slumbering in the
+moonlight as beneath a sheet of silver, and then set off again with his
+brother, down the slopes, towards the black and deserted streets.
+
+They did not meet a living soul until they reached the outer boulevard.
+Here, however, no matter what the hour may be, life continues with
+scarcely a pause. No sooner are the wine shops, music and dancing halls
+closed, than vice and want, cast into the street, there resume their
+nocturnal existence. Thus the brothers came upon all the homeless ones:
+low prostitutes seeking a pallet, vagabonds stretched on the benches
+under the trees, rogues who prowled hither and thither on the lookout for
+a good stroke. Encouraged by their accomplice--night, all the mire and
+woe of Paris had returned to the surface. The empty roadway now belonged
+to the breadless, homeless starvelings, those for whom there was no place
+in the sunlight, the vague, swarming, despairing herd which is only
+espied at night-time. Ah! what spectres of destitution, what apparitions
+of grief and fright there were! What a sob of agony passed by in Paris
+that morning, when as soon as the dawn should rise, a man--a pauper, a
+sufferer like the others--was to be guillotined!
+
+As Guillaume and Pierre were about to descend the Rue des Martyrs, the
+former perceived an old man lying on a bench with his bare feet
+protruding from his gaping, filthy shoes. Guillaume pointed to him in
+silence. Then, a few steps farther on, Pierre in his turn pointed to a
+ragged girl, crouching, asleep with open month, in the corner of a
+doorway. There was no need for the brothers to express in words all the
+compassion and anger which stirred their hearts. At long intervals
+policemen, walking slowly two by two, shook the poor wretches and
+compelled them to rise and walk on and on. Occasionally, if they found
+them suspicious or refractory, they marched them off to the
+police-station. And then rancour and the contagion of imprisonment often
+transformed a mere vagabond into a thief or a murderer.
+
+In the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, the brothers
+found night-birds of another kind, women who slunk past them, close to
+the house-fronts, and men and hussies who belaboured one another with
+blows. Then, upon the grand boulevards, on the thresholds of lofty black
+houses, only one row of whose windows flared in the night, pale-faced
+individuals, who had just come down from their clubs, stood lighting
+cigars before going home. A lady with a ball wrap over her evening gown
+went by accompanied by a servant. A few cabs, moreover, still jogged up
+and down the roadway, while others, which had been waiting for hours,
+stood on their ranks in rows, with drivers and horses alike asleep. And
+as one boulevard after another was reached, the Boulevard Poissonniere,
+the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, the Boulevard St. Denis, and so forth, as
+far as the Place de la Republique, there came fresh want and misery, more
+forsaken and hungry ones, more and more of the human "waste" that is cast
+into the streets and the darkness. And on the other hand, an army of
+street-sweepers was now appearing to remove all the filth of the past
+four and twenty hours, in order that Paris, spruce already at sunrise,
+might not blush for having thrown up such a mass of dirt and
+loathsomeness in the course of a single day.
+
+It was, however, more particularly after following the Boulevard
+Voltaire, and drawing near to the districts of La Roquette and Charonne,
+that the brothers felt they were returning to a sphere of labour where
+there was often lack of food, and where life was but so much pain. Pierre
+found himself at home here. In former days, accompanied by good Abbe
+Rose, visiting despairing ones, distributing alms, picking up children
+who had sunk to the gutter, he had a hundred times perambulated every one
+of those long, densely populated streets. And thus a frightful vision
+arose before his mind's eye; he recalled all the tragedies he had
+witnessed, all the shrieks he had heard, all the tears and bloodshed he
+had seen, all the fathers, mothers and children huddled together and
+dying of want, dirt and abandonment: that social hell in which he had
+ended by losing his last hopes, fleeing from it with a sob in the
+conviction that charity was a mere amusement for the rich, and absolutely
+futile as a remedy. It was this conviction which now returned to him as
+he again cast eyes upon that want and grief stricken district which
+seemed fated to everlasting destitution. That poor old man whom Abbe Rose
+had revived one night in yonder hovel, had he not since died of
+starvation? That little girl whom he had one morning brought in his arms
+to the refuge after her parents' death, was it not she whom he had just
+met, grown but fallen to the streets, and shrieking beneath the fist of a
+bully? Ah! how great was the number of the wretched! Their name was
+legion! There were those whom one could not save, those who were hourly
+born to a life of woe and want, even as one may be born infirm, and
+those, too, who from every side sank in the sea of human injustice, that
+ocean which has ever been the same for centuries past, and which though
+one may strive to drain it, still and for ever spreads. How heavy was the
+silence, how dense the darkness in those working-class streets where
+sleep seems to be the comrade of death! Yet hunger prowls, and misfortune
+sobs; vague spectral forms slink by, and then are lost to view in the
+depths of the night.
+
+As Pierre and Guillaume went along they became mixed with dark groups of
+people, a whole flock of inquisitive folk, a promiscuous, passionate
+tramp, tramp towards the guillotine. It came from all Paris, urged on by
+brutish fever, a hankering for death and blood. In spite, however, of the
+dull noise which came from this dim crowd, the mean streets that were
+passed remained quite dark, not a light appeared at any of their windows;
+nor could one hear the breathing of the weary toilers stretched on their
+wretched pallets from which they would not rise before the morning
+twilight.
+
+On seeing the jostling crowd which was already assembled on the Place
+Voltaire, Pierre understood that it would be impossible for him and his
+brother to ascend the Rue de la Roquette. Barriers, moreover, must
+certainly have been thrown across that street. In order therefore to
+reach the corner of the Rue Merlin, it occurred to him to take the Rue de
+la Folie Regnault, which winds round in the rear of the prison, farther
+on.
+
+Here indeed they found solitude and darkness again.
+
+The huge, massive prison with its great bare walls on which a moonray
+fell, looked like some pile of cold stones, dead for centuries past. At
+the end of the street they once more fell in with the crowd, a dim
+restless mass of beings, whose pale faces alone could be distinguished.
+The brothers had great difficulty in reaching the house in which Mege
+resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. All the shutters of the
+fourth-floor flat occupied by the Socialist deputy were closed, though
+every other window was wide open and crowded with surging sightseers.
+Moreover, the wine shop down below and the first-floor room connected
+with it flared with gas, and were already crowded with noisy customers,
+waiting for the performance to begin.
+
+"I hardly like to go and knock at Mege's door," said Pierre.
+
+"No, no, you must not do so!" replied Guillaume.
+
+"Let us go into the wine shop. We may perhaps be able to see something
+from the balcony."
+
+The first-floor room was provided with a very large balcony, which women
+and gentlemen were already filling. The brothers nevertheless managed to
+reach it, and for a few minutes remained there, peering into the darkness
+before them. The sloping street grew broader between the two prisons, the
+"great" and the "little" Roquette, in such wise as to form a sort of
+square, which was shaded by four clumps of plane-trees, rising from the
+footways. The low buildings and scrubby trees, all poor and ugly of
+aspect, seemed almost to lie on a level with the ground, under a vast sky
+in which stars were appearing, as the moon gradually declined. And the
+square was quite empty save that on one spot yonder there seemed to be
+some little stir. Two rows of guards prevented the crowd from advancing,
+and even threw it back into the neighbouring streets. On the one hand,
+the only lofty houses were far away, at the point where the Rue St. Maur
+intersects the Rue de la Roquette; while, on the other, they stood at the
+corners of the Rue Merlin and the Rue de la Folie Regnault, so that it
+was almost impossible to distinguish anything of the execution even from
+the best placed windows. As for the inquisitive folk on the pavement they
+only saw the backs of the guards. Still this did not prevent a crush. The
+human tide flowed on from all sides with increasing clamour.
+
+Guided by the remarks of some women who, leaning forward on the balcony,
+had been watching the square for a long time already, the brothers were
+at last able to perceive something. It was now half-past three, and the
+guillotine was nearly ready. The little stir which one vaguely espied
+yonder under the trees, was that of the headsman's assistants fixing the
+knife in position. A lantern slowly came and went, and five or six
+shadows danced over the ground. But nothing else could be distinguished,
+the square was like a large black pit, around which ever broke the waves
+of the noisy crowd which one could not see. And beyond the square one
+could only identify the flaring wine shops, which showed forth like
+lighthouses in the night. All the surrounding district of poverty and
+toil was still asleep, not a gleam as yet came from workrooms or yards,
+not a puff of smoke from the lofty factory chimneys.
+
+"We shall see nothing," Guillaume remarked.
+
+But Pierre silenced him, for he has just discovered that an elegantly
+attired gentleman leaning over the balcony near him was none other than
+the amiable deputy Duthil. He had at first fancied that a woman muffled
+in wraps who stood close beside the deputy was the little Princess de
+Harn, whom he had very likely brought to see the execution since he had
+taken her to see the trial. On closer inspection, however, he had found
+that this woman was Silviane, the perverse creature with the virginal
+face. Truth to tell, she made no concealment of her presence, but talked
+on in an extremely loud voice, as if intoxicated; and the brothers soon
+learnt how it was that she happened to be there. Duvillard, Duthil, and
+other friends had been supping with her at one o'clock in the morning,
+when on learning that Salvat was about to be guillotined, the fancy of
+seeing the execution had suddenly come upon her. Duvillard, after vainly
+entreating her to do nothing of the kind, had gone off in a fury, for he
+felt that it would be most unseemly on his part to attend the execution
+of a man who had endeavoured to blow up his house. And thereupon Silviane
+had turned to Duthil, whom her caprice greatly worried, for he held all
+such loathsome spectacles in horror, and had already refused to act as
+escort to the Princess. However, he was so infatuated with Silviane's
+beauty, and she made him so many promises, that he had at last consented
+to take her.
+
+"He can't understand people caring for amusement," she said, speaking of
+the Baron. "And yet this is really a thing to see.... But no matter,
+you'll find him at my feet again to-morrow."
+
+Duthil smiled and responded: "I suppose that peace has been signed and
+ratified now that you have secured your engagement at the Comedie."
+
+"Peace? No!" she protested. "No, no. There will be no peace between us
+until I have made my _debut_. After that, we'll see."
+
+They both laughed; and then Duthil, by way of paying his court, told her
+how good-naturedly Dauvergne, the new Minister of Public Instruction and
+Fine Arts, had adjusted the difficulties which had hitherto kept the
+doors of the Comedie closed upon her. A really charming man was
+Dauvergne, the embodiment of graciousness, the very flower of the
+Monferrand ministry. His was the velvet hand in that administration whose
+leader had a hand of iron.
+
+"He told me, my beauty," said Duthil, "that a pretty girl was in place
+everywhere." And then as Silviane, as if flattered, pressed closely
+beside him, the deputy added: "So that wonderful revival of 'Polyeucte,'
+in which you are going to have such a triumph, is to take place on the
+day after to-morrow. We shall all go to applaud you, remember."
+
+"Yes, on the evening of the day after to-morrow," said Silviane, "the
+very same day when the wedding of the Baron's daughter will take place.
+There'll be plenty of emotion that day!"
+
+"Ah! yes, of course!" retorted Duthil, "there'll be the wedding of our
+friend Gerard with Mademoiselle Camille to begin with. We shall have a
+crush at the Madeleine in the morning and another at the Comedie in the
+evening. You are quite right, too; there will be several hearts throbbing
+in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."
+
+Thereupon they again became merry, and jested about the Duvillard
+family--father, mother, lover and daughter--with the greatest possible
+ferocity and crudity of language. Then, all at once Silviane exclaimed:
+"Do you know, I'm feeling awfully bored here, my little Duthil. I can't
+distinguish anything, and I should like to be quite near so as to see it
+all plainly. You must take me over yonder, close to that machine of
+theirs."
+
+This request threw Duthil into consternation, particularly as at that
+same moment Silviane perceived Massot outside the wine shop, and began
+calling and beckoning to him imperiously. A brief conversation then
+ensued between the young woman and the journalist: "I say, Massot!" she
+called, "hasn't a deputy the right to pass the guards and take a lady
+wherever he likes?"
+
+"Not at all!" exclaimed Duthil. "Massot knows very well that a deputy
+ought to be the very first to bow to the laws."
+
+This exclamation warned Massot that Duthil did not wish to leave the
+balcony. "You ought to have secured a card of invitation, madame," said
+he, in reply to Silviane. "They would then have found you room at one of
+the windows of La Petite Roquette. Women are not allowed elsewhere....
+But you mustn't complain, you have a very good place up there."
+
+"But I can see nothing at all, my dear Massot."
+
+"Well, you will in any case see more than Princess de Harn will. Just now
+I came upon her carriage in the Rue du Chemin Vert. The police would not
+allow it to come any nearer."
+
+This news made Silviane merry again, whilst Duthil shuddered at the idea
+of the danger he incurred, for Rosemonde would assuredly treat him to a
+terrible scene should she see him with another woman. Then, an idea
+occurring to him, he ordered a bottle of champagne and some little cakes
+for his "beautiful friend," as he called Silviane. She had been
+complaining of thirst, and was delighted with the opportunity of
+perfecting her intoxication. When a waiter had managed to place a little
+table near her, on the balcony itself, she found things very pleasant,
+and indeed considered it quite brave to tipple and sup afresh, while
+waiting for that man to be guillotined close by.
+
+It was impossible for Pierre and Guillaume to remain up there any longer.
+All that they heard, all that they beheld filled them with disgust. The
+boredom of waiting had turned all the inquisitive folks of the balcony
+and the adjoining room into customers. The waiter could hardly manage to
+serve the many glasses of beer, bottles of expensive wine, biscuits, and
+plates of cold meat which were ordered of him. And yet the spectators
+here were all _bourgeois_, rich gentlemen, people of society! On the
+other hand, time has to be killed somehow when it hangs heavily on one's
+hands; and thus there were bursts of laughter and paltry and horrible
+jests, quite a feverish uproar arising amidst the clouds of smoke from
+the men's cigars. When Pierre and Guillaume passed through the wine shop
+on the ground-floor they there found a similar crush and similar tumult,
+aggravated by the disorderly behaviour of the big fellows in blouses who
+were drinking draught wine at the pewter bar which shone like silver.
+There were people, too, at all the little tables, besides an incessant
+coming and going of folks who entered the place for a "wet," by way of
+calming their impatience. And what folks they were! All the scum, all the
+vagabonds who had been dragging themselves about since daybreak on the
+lookout for whatever chance might offer them, provided it were not work!
+
+On the pavement outside, Pierre and Guillaume felt yet a greater
+heart-pang. In the throng which the guards kept back, one simply found so
+much mire stirred up from the very depths of Paris life: prostitutes and
+criminals, the murderers of to-morrow, who came to see how a man ought to
+die. Loathsome, bareheaded harlots mingled with bands of prowlers or ran
+through the crowd, howling obscene refrains. Bandits stood in groups
+chatting and quarrelling about the more or less glorious manner in which
+certain famous _guillotines_ had died. Among these was one with respect
+to whom they all agreed, and of whom they spoke as of a great captain, a
+hero whose marvellous courage was deserving of immortality. Then, as one
+passed along, one caught snatches of horrible phrases, particulars about
+the instrument of death, ignoble boasts, and filthy jests reeking with
+blood. And over and above all else there was bestial fever, a lust for
+death which made this multitude delirious, an eagerness to see life flow
+forth fresh and ruddy beneath the knife, so that as it coursed over the
+soil they might dip their feet in it. As this execution was not an
+ordinary one, however, there were yet spectators of another kind; silent
+men with glowing eyes who came and went all alone, and who were plainly
+thrilled by their faith, intoxicated with the contagious madness which
+incites one to vengeance or martyrdom.
+
+Guillaume was just thinking of Victor Mathis, when he fancied that he saw
+him standing in the front row of sightseers whom the guards held in
+check. It was indeed he, with his thin, beardless, pale, drawn face.
+Short as he was, he had to raise himself on tiptoes in order to see
+anything. Near him was a big, red-haired girl who gesticulated; but for
+his part he never stirred or spoke. He was waiting motionless, gazing
+yonder with the round, ardent, fixed eyes of a night-bird, seeking to
+penetrate the darkness. At last a guard pushed him back in a somewhat
+brutal way; but he soon returned to his previous position, ever patient
+though full of hatred against the executioners, wishing indeed to see all
+he could in order to increase his hate.
+
+Then Massot approached the brothers. This time, on seeing Pierre without
+his cassock, he did not even make a sign of astonishment, but gaily
+remarked: "So you felt curious to see this affair, Monsieur Froment?"
+
+"Yes, I came with my brother," Pierre replied. "But I very much fear that
+we shan't see much."
+
+"You certainly won't if you stay here," rejoined Massot. And thereupon in
+his usual good-natured way--glad, moreover, to show what power a
+well-known journalist could wield--he inquired: "Would you like me to
+pass you through? The inspector here happens to be a friend of mine."
+
+Then, without waiting for an answer, he stopped the inspector and hastily
+whispered to him that he had brought a couple of colleagues, who wanted
+to report the proceedings. At first the inspector hesitated, and seemed
+inclined to refuse Massot's request; but after a moment, influenced by
+the covert fear which the police always has of the press, he made a weary
+gesture of consent.
+
+"Come, quick, then," said Massot, turning to the brothers, and taking
+them along with him.
+
+A moment later, to the intense surprise of Pierre and Guillaume, the
+guards opened their ranks to let them pass. They then found themselves in
+the large open space which was kept clear. And on thus emerging from the
+tumultuous throng they were quite impressed by the death-like silence and
+solitude which reigned under the little plane-trees. The night was now
+paling. A faint gleam of dawn was already falling from the sky.
+
+After leading his companions slantwise across the square, Massot stopped
+them near the prison and resumed: "I'm going inside; I want to see the
+prisoner roused and got ready. In the meantime, walk about here; nobody
+will say anything to you. Besides, I'll come back to you in a moment."
+
+A hundred people or so, journalists and other privileged spectators, were
+scattered about the dark square. Movable wooden barriers--such as are set
+up at the doors of theatres when there is a press of people waiting for
+admission--had been placed on either side of the pavement running from
+the prison gate to the guillotine; and some sightseers were already
+leaning over these barriers, in order to secure a close view of the
+condemned man as he passed by. Others were walking slowly to and fro, and
+conversing in undertones. The brothers, for their part, approached the
+guillotine.
+
+It stood there under the branches of the trees, amidst the delicate
+greenery of the fresh leaves of spring. A neighbouring gas-lamp, whose
+light was turning yellow in the rising dawn, cast vague gleams upon it.
+The work of fixing it in position--work performed as quietly as could be,
+so that the only sound was the occasional thud of a mallet--had just been
+finished; and the headsman's "valets" or assistants, in frock-coats and
+tall silk hats, were waiting and strolling about in a patient way. But
+the instrument itself, how base and shameful it looked, squatting on the
+ground like some filthy beast, disgusted with the work it had to
+accomplish! What! those few beams lying on the ground, and those others
+barely nine feet high which rose from it, keeping the knife in position,
+constituted the machine which avenged Society, the instrument which gave
+a warning to evil-doers! Where was the big scaffold painted a bright red
+and reached by a stairway of ten steps, the scaffold which raised high
+bloody arms over the eager multitude, so that everybody might behold the
+punishment of the law in all its horror! The beast had now been felled to
+the ground, where it simply looked ignoble, crafty and cowardly. If on
+the one hand there was no majesty in the manner in which human justice
+condemned a man to death at its assizes: on the other, there was merely
+horrid butchery with the help of the most barbarous and repulsive of
+mechanical contrivances, on the terrible day when that man was executed.
+
+As Pierre and Guillaume gazed at the guillotine, a feeling of nausea came
+over them. Daylight was now slowly breaking, and the surroundings were
+appearing to view: first the square itself with its two low, grey
+prisons, facing one another; then the distant houses, the taverns, the
+marble workers' establishments, and the shops selling flowers and
+wreaths, which are numerous hereabouts, as the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise
+is so near. Before long one could plainly distinguish the black lines of
+the spectators standing around in a circle, the heads leaning forward
+from windows and balconies, and the people who had climbed to the very
+house roofs. The prison of La Petite Roquette over the way had been
+turned into a kind of tribune for guests; and mounted Gardes de Paris
+went slowly to and fro across the intervening expanse. Then, as the sky
+brightened, labour awoke throughout the district beyond the crowd, a
+district of broad, endless streets lined with factories, work-shops and
+work-yards. Engines began to snort, machinery and appliances were got
+ready to start once more on their usual tasks, and smoke already curled
+away from the forest of lofty brick chimneys which, on all sides, sprang
+out of the gloom.
+
+It then seemed to Guillaume that the guillotine was really in its right
+place in that district of want and toil. It stood in its own realm, like
+a _terminus_ and a threat. Did not ignorance, poverty and woe lead to it?
+And each time that it was set up amidst those toilsome streets, was it
+not charged to overawe the disinherited ones, the starvelings, who,
+exasperated by everlasting injustice, were always ready for revolt? It
+was not seen in the districts where wealth and enjoyment reigned. It
+would there have seemed purposeless, degrading and truly monstrous. And
+it was a tragical and terrible coincidence that the bomb-thrower, driven
+mad by want, should be guillotined there, in the very centre of want's
+dominion.
+
+But daylight had come at last, for it was nearly half-past four. The
+distant noisy crowd could feel that the expected moment was drawing nigh.
+A shudder suddenly sped through the atmosphere.
+
+"He's coming," exclaimed little Massot, as he came back to Pierre and
+Guillaume. "Ah! that Salvat is a brave fellow after all."
+
+Then he related how the prisoner had been awakened; how the governor of
+the prison, magistrate Amadieu, the chaplain, and a few other persons had
+entered the cell where Salvat lay fast asleep; and then how the condemned
+man had understood the truth immediately upon opening his eyes. He had
+risen, looking pale but quite composed. And he had dressed himself
+without assistance, and had declined the nip of brandy and the cigarette
+proffered by the good-hearted chaplain, in the same way as with a gentle
+but stubborn gesture he had brushed the crucifix aside. Then had come the
+"toilette" for death. With all rapidity and without a word being
+exchanged, Salvat's hands had been tied behind his back, his legs had
+been loosely secured with a cord, and the neckband of his shirt had been
+cut away. He had smiled when the others exhorted him to be brave. He only
+feared some nervous weakness, and had but one desire, to die like a hero,
+to remain the martyr of the ardent faith in truth and justice for which
+he was about to perish.
+
+"They are now drawing up the death certificate in the register,"
+continued Massot in his chattering way. "Come along, come along to the
+barriers if you wish a good view.... I turned paler, you know, and
+trembled far more than he did. I don't care a rap for anything as a rule;
+but, all the same, an execution isn't a pleasant business.... You
+can't imagine how many attempts were made to save Salvat's life. Even
+some of the papers asked that he might be reprieved. But nothing
+succeeded, the execution was regarded as inevitable, it seems, even by
+those who consider it a blunder. Still, they had such a touching
+opportunity to reprieve him, when his daughter, little Celine, wrote that
+fine letter to the President of the Republic, which I was the first to
+publish in the 'Globe.' Ah! that letter, it cost me a lot of running
+about!"
+
+Pierre, who was already quite upset by this long wait for the horrible
+scene, felt moved to tears by Massot's reference to Celine. He could
+again see the child standing beside Madame Theodore in that bare, cold
+room whither her father would never more return. It was thence that he
+had set out on a day of desperation with his stomach empty and his brain
+on fire, and it was here that he would end, between yonder beams, beneath
+yonder knife.
+
+Massot, however, was still giving particulars. The doctors, said he, were
+furious because they feared that the body would not be delivered to them
+immediately after the execution. To this Guillaume did not listen. He
+stood there with his elbows resting on the wooden barrier and his eyes
+fixed on the prison gate, which still remained shut. His hands were
+quivering, and there was an expression of anguish on his face as if it
+were he himself who was about to be executed. The headsman had again just
+left the prison. He was a little, insignificant-looking man, and seemed
+annoyed, anxious to have done with it all. Then, among a group of
+frock-coated gentlemen, some of the spectators pointed out Gascogne, the
+Chief of the Detective Police, who wore a cold, official air, and
+Amadieu, the investigating magistrate, who smiled and looked very spruce,
+early though the hour was. He had come partly because it was his duty,
+and partly because he wished to show himself now that the curtain was
+about to fall on a wonderful tragedy of which he considered himself the
+author. Guillaume glanced at him, and then as a growing uproar rose from
+the distant crowd, he looked up for an instant, and again beheld the two
+grey prisons, the plane-trees with their fresh young leaves, and the
+houses swarming with people beneath the pale blue sky, in which the
+triumphant sun was about to appear.
+
+"Look out, here he comes!"
+
+Who had spoken? A slight noise, that of the opening gate, made every
+heart throb. Necks were outstretched, eyes gazed fixedly, there was
+laboured breathing on all sides. Salvat stood on the threshold of the
+prison. The chaplain, stepping backwards, had come out in advance of him,
+in order to conceal the guillotine from his sight, but he had stopped
+short, for he wished to see that instrument of death, make acquaintance
+with it, as it were, before he walked towards it. And as he stood there,
+his long, aged sunken face, on which life's hardships had left their
+mark, seemed transformed by the wondrous brilliancy of his flaring,
+dreamy eyes. Enthusiasm bore him up--he was going to his death in all the
+splendour of his dream. When the executioner's assistants drew near to
+support him he once more refused their help, and again set himself in
+motion, advancing with short steps, but as quickly and as straightly as
+the rope hampering his legs permitted.
+
+All at once Guillaume felt that Salvat's eyes were fixed upon him.
+Drawing nearer and nearer the condemned man had perceived and recognised
+his friend; and as he passed by, at a distance of no more than six or
+seven feet, he smiled faintly and darted such a deep penetrating glance
+at Guillaume, that ever afterwards the latter felt its smart. But what
+last thought, what supreme legacy had Salvat left him to meditate upon,
+perhaps to put into execution? It was all so poignant that Pierre feared
+some involuntary call on his brother's part; and so he laid his hand upon
+his arm to quiet him.
+
+"Long live Anarchy!"
+
+It was Salvat who had raised this cry. But in the deep silence his husky,
+altered voice seemed to break. The few who were near at hand had turned
+very pale; the distant crowd seemed bereft of life. The horse of one of
+the Gardes de Paris was alone heard snorting in the centre of the space
+which had been kept clear.
+
+Then came a loathsome scramble, a scene of nameless brutality and
+ignominy. The headsman's helps rushed upon Salvat as he came up slowly
+with brow erect. Two of them seized him by the head, but finding little
+hair there, could only lower it by tugging at his neck. Next two others
+grasped him by the legs and flung him violently upon a plank which tilted
+over and rolled forward. Then, by dint of pushing and tugging, the head
+was got into the "lunette," the upper part of which fell in such wise
+that the neck was fixed as in a ship's port-hole--and all this was
+accomplished amidst such confusion and with such savagery that one might
+have thought that head some cumbrous thing which it was necessary to get
+rid of with the greatest speed. But the knife fell with a dull, heavy,
+forcible thud, and two long jets of blood spurted from the severed
+arteries, while the dead man's feet moved convulsively. Nothing else
+could be seen. The executioner rubbed his hands in a mechanical way, and
+an assistant took the severed blood-streaming head from the little basket
+into which it had fallen and placed it in the large basket into which the
+body had already been turned.
+
+Ah! that dull, that heavy thud of the knife! It seemed to Guillaume that
+he had heard it echoing far away all over that district of want and toil,
+even in the squalid rooms where thousands of workmen were at that moment
+rising to perform their day's hard task! And there the echo of that thud
+acquired formidable significance; it spoke of man's exasperation with
+injustice, of zeal for martyrdom, and of the dolorous hope that the blood
+then spilt might hasten the victory of the disinherited.
+
+Pierre, for his part, at the sight of that loathsome butchery, the abject
+cutthroat work of that killing machine, had suddenly felt his chilling
+shudder become more violent; for before him arose a vision of another
+corpse, that of the fair, pretty child ripped open by a bomb and
+stretched yonder, at the entrance of the Duvillard mansion. Blood
+streamed from her delicate flesh, just as it had streamed from that
+decapitated neck. It was blood paying for blood; it was like payment for
+mankind's debt of wretchedness, for which payment is everlastingly being
+made, without man ever being able to free himself from suffering.
+
+Above the square and the crowd all was still silent in the clear sky. How
+long had the abomination lasted? An eternity, perhaps, compressed into
+two or three minutes. And now came an awakening: the spectators emerged
+from their nightmare with quivering hands, livid faces, and eyes
+expressive of compassion, disgust and fear.
+
+"That makes another one. I've now seen four executions," said Massot, who
+felt ill at ease. "After all, I prefer to report weddings. Let us go off,
+I have all I want for my article."
+
+Guillaume and Pierre followed him mechanically across the square, and
+again reached the corner of the Rue Merlin. And here they saw little
+Victor Mathis, with flaming eyes and white face, still standing in
+silence on the spot where they had left him. He could have seen nothing
+distinctly; but the thud of the knife was still echoing in his brain. A
+policeman at last gave him a push, and told him to move on. At this he
+looked the policeman in the face, stirred by sudden rage and ready to
+strangle him. Then, however, he quietly walked away, ascending the Rue de
+la Roquette, atop of which the lofty foliage of Pere-Lachaise could be
+seen, beneath the rising sun.
+
+The brothers meantime fell upon a scene of explanations, which they heard
+without wishing to do so. Now that the sight was over, the Princess de
+Harn arrived, and she was the more furious as at the door of the wine
+shop she could see her new friend Duthil accompanying a woman.
+
+"I say!" she exclaimed, "you are nice, you are, to have left me in the
+lurch like this! It was impossible for my carriage to get near, so I've
+had to come on foot through all those horrid people who have been
+jostling and insulting me."
+
+Thereupon Duthil, with all promptitude, introduced Silviane to her,
+adding, in an aside, that he had taken a friend's place as the actress's
+escort. And then Rosemonde, who greatly wished to know Silviane, calmed
+down as if by enchantment, and put on her most engaging ways. "It would
+have delighted me, madame," said she, "to have seen this sight in the
+company of an _artiste_ of your merit, one whom I admire so much, though
+I have never before had an opportunity of telling her so."
+
+"Well, dear me, madame," replied Silviane, "you haven't lost much by
+arriving late. We were on that balcony there, and all that I could see
+were a few men pushing another one about.... It really isn't worth the
+trouble of coming."
+
+"Well, now that we have become acquainted, madame," said the Princess, "I
+really hope that you will allow me to be your friend."
+
+"Certainly, madame, my friend; and I shall be flattered and delighted to
+be yours."
+
+Standing there, hand in hand, they smiled at one another. Silviane was
+very drunk, but her virginal expression had returned to her face; whilst
+Rosemonde seemed feverish with vicious curiosity. Duthil, whom the scene
+amused, now had but one thought, that of seeing Silviane home; so calling
+to Massot, who was approaching, he asked him where he should find a
+cab-rank. Rosemonde, however, at once offered her carriage, which was
+waiting in an adjacent street.
+
+She would set the actress down at her door, said she, and the deputy at
+his; and such was her persistence in the matter that Duthil, greatly
+vexed, was obliged to accept her offer.
+
+"Well, then, till to-morrow at the Madeleine," said Massot, again quite
+sprightly, as he shook hands with the Princess.
+
+"Yes, till to-morrow, at the Madeleine and the Comedie."
+
+"Ah! yes, of course!" he repeated, taking Silviane's hand, which he
+kissed. "The Madeleine in the morning and the Comedie in the evening...
+. We shall all be there to applaud you."
+
+"Yes, I expect you to do so," said Silviane. "Till to-morrow, then!"
+
+"Till to-morrow!"
+
+The crowd was now wearily dispersing, to all appearance disappointed and
+ill at ease. A few enthusiasts alone lingered in order to witness the
+departure of the van in which Salvat's corpse would soon be removed;
+while bands of prowlers and harlots, looking very wan in the daylight,
+whistled or called to one another with some last filthy expression before
+returning to their dens. The headsman's assistants were hastily taking
+down the guillotine, and the square would soon be quite clear.
+
+Pierre for his part wished to lead his brother away. Since the fall of
+the knife, Guillaume had remained as if stunned, without once opening his
+lips. In vain had Pierre tried to rouse him by pointing to the shutters
+of Mege's flat, which still remained closed, whereas every other window
+of the lofty house was wide open. Although the Socialist deputy hated the
+Anarchists, those shutters were doubtless closed as a protest against
+capital punishment. Whilst the multitude had been rushing to that
+frightful spectacle, Mege, still in bed, with his face turned to the
+wall, had probably been dreaming of how he would some day compel mankind
+to be happy beneath the rigid laws of Collectivism. Affectionate father
+as he was, the recent death of one of his children had quite upset his
+private life. His cough, too, had become a very bad one; but he ardently
+wished to live, for as soon as that new Monferrand ministry should have
+fallen beneath the interpellation which he already contemplated, his own
+turn would surely come: he would take the reins of power in hand, abolish
+the guillotine and decree justice and perfect felicity.
+
+"Do you see, Guillaume?" Pierre gently repeated. "Mege hasn't opened his
+windows. He's a good fellow, after all; although our friends Bache and
+Morin dislike him." Then, as his brother still refrained from answering,
+Pierre added, "Come, let us go, we must get back home."
+
+They both turned into the Rue de la Folie Regnault, and reached the outer
+Boulevards by way of the Rue du Chemin Vert. All the toilers of the
+district were now at work. In the long streets edged with low buildings,
+work-shops and factories, one heard engines snorting and machinery
+rumbling, while up above, the smoke from the lofty chimneys was assuming
+a rosy hue in the sunrise. Afterwards, when the brothers reached the
+Boulevard de Menilmontant and the Boulevard de Belleville, which they
+followed in turn at a leisurely pace, they witnessed the great rush of
+the working classes into central Paris. The stream poured forth from
+every side; from all the wretched streets of the faubourgs there was an
+endless exodus of toilers, who, having risen at dawn, were now hurrying,
+in the sharp morning air, to their daily labour. Some wore short jackets
+and others blouses; some were in velveteen trousers, others in linen
+overalls. Their thick shoes made their tramp a heavy one; their hanging
+hands were often deformed by work. And they seemed half asleep, not a
+smile was to be seen on any of those wan, weary faces turned yonder
+towards the everlasting task--the task which was begun afresh each day,
+and which--'twas their only chance--they hoped to be able to take up for
+ever and ever. There was no end to that drove of toilers, that army of
+various callings, that human flesh fated to manual labour, upon which
+Paris preys in order that she may live in luxury and enjoyment.
+
+Then the procession continued across the Boulevard de la Villette, the
+Boulevard de la Chapelle, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart, where one
+reached the height of Montmartre. More and more workmen were ever coming
+down from their bare cold rooms and plunging into the huge city, whence,
+tired out, they would that evening merely bring back the bread of
+rancour. And now, too, came a stream of work-girls, some of them in
+bright skirts, some glancing at the passers-by; girls whose wages were so
+paltry, so insufficient, that now and again pretty ones among them never
+more turned their faces homewards, whilst the ugly ones wasted away,
+condemned to mere bread and water. A little later, moreover, came the
+_employes_, the clerks, the counter-jumpers, the whole world of
+frock-coated penury--"gentlemen" who devoured a roll as they hastened
+onward, worried the while by the dread of being unable to pay their rent,
+or by the problem of providing food for wife and children until the end
+of the month should come.* And now the sun was fast ascending on the
+horizon, the whole army of ants was out and about, and the toilsome day
+had begun with its ceaseless display of courage, energy and suffering.
+
+  * In Paris nearly all clerks and shop-assistants receive
+    monthly salaries, while most workmen are paid once a
+    fortnight.--Trans.
+
+Never before had it been so plainly manifest to Pierre that work was a
+necessity, that it healed and saved. On the occasion of his visit to the
+Grandidier works, and later still, when he himself had felt the need of
+occupation, there had cone to him the thought that work was really the
+world's law. And after that hateful night, after that spilling of blood,
+after the slaughter of that toiler maddened by his dreams, there was
+consolation and hope in seeing the sun rise once more, and everlasting
+labour take up its wonted task. However hard it might prove, however
+unjustly it might be lotted out, was it not work which would some day
+bring both justice and happiness to the world?
+
+All at once, as the brothers were climbing the steep hillside towards
+Guillaume's house, they perceived before and above them the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart rising majestically and triumphantly to the sky. This
+was no sublunar apparition, no dreamy vision of Domination standing face
+to face with nocturnal Paris. The sun now clothed the edifice with
+splendour, it looked golden and proud and victorious, flaring with
+immortal glory.
+
+Then Guillaume, still silent, still feeling Salvat's last glance upon
+him, seemed to come to some sudden and final decision. He looked at the
+basilica with glowing eyes, and pronounced sentence upon it.
+
+
+
+
+II. IN VANITY FAIR
+
+THE wedding was to take place at noon, and for half an hour already
+guests had been pouring into the magnificently decorated church, which
+was leafy with evergreens and balmy with the scent of flowers. The high
+altar in the rear glowed with countless candles, and through the great
+doorway, which was wide open, one could see the peristyle decked with
+shrubs, the steps covered with a broad carpet, and the inquisitive crowd
+assembled on the square and even along the Rue Royale, under the bright
+sun.
+
+After finding three more chairs for some ladies who had arrived rather
+late, Duthil remarked to Massot, who was jotting down names in his
+note-book: "Well, if any more come, they will have to remain standing."
+
+"Who were those three?" the journalist inquired.
+
+"The Duchess de Boisemont and her two daughters."
+
+"Indeed! All the titled people of France, as well as all the financiers
+and politicians, are here! It's something more even than a swell Parisian
+wedding."
+
+As a matter of fact all the spheres of "society" were gathered together
+there, and some at first seemed rather embarrassed at finding themselves
+beside others. Whilst Duvillard's name attracted all the princes of
+finance and politicians in power, Madame de Quinsac and her son were
+supported by the highest of the French aristocracy. The mere names of the
+witnesses sufficed to indicate what an extraordinary medley there was. On
+Gerard's side these witnesses were his uncle, General de Bozonnet, and
+the Marquis de Morigny; whilst on Camille's they were the great banker
+Louvard, and Monferrand, the President of the Council and Minister of
+Finances. The quiet bravado which the latter displayed in thus supporting
+the bride after being compromised in her father's financial intrigues
+imparted a piquant touch of impudence to his triumph. And public
+curiosity was further stimulated by the circumstance that the nuptial
+blessing was to be given by Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis, the
+Pope's political agent in France, and the apostle of the endeavours to
+win the Republic over to the Church by pretending to "rally" to it.
+
+"But, I was mistaken," now resumed Massot with a sneer. "I said a really
+Parisian wedding, did I not? But in point of fact this wedding is a
+symbol. It's the apotheosis of the _bourgeoisie_, my dear fellow--the old
+nobility sacrificing one of its sons on the altar of the golden calf in
+order that the Divinity and the gendarmes, being the masters of France
+once more, may rid us of those scoundrelly Socialists!"
+
+Then, again correcting himself, he added: "But I was forgetting. There
+are no more Socialists. Their head was cut off the other morning."
+
+Duthil found this very funny. Then in a confidential way he remarked:
+"You know that the marriage wasn't settled without a good deal of
+difficulty.... Have you read Sagnier's ignoble article this morning?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but I knew it all before, everybody knew it."
+
+Then in an undertone, understanding one another's slightest allusion,
+they went on chatting. It was only amidst a flood of tears and after a
+despairing struggle that Baroness Duvillard had consented to let her
+lover marry her daughter. And in doing so she had yielded to the sole
+desire of seeing Gerard rich and happy. She still regarded Camille with
+all the hatred of a defeated rival. Then, an equally painful contest had
+taken place at Madame de Quinsac's. The Countess had only overcome her
+revolt and consented to the marriage in order to save her son from the
+dangers which had threatened him since childhood; and the Marquis de
+Morigny had been so affected by her maternal abnegation, that in spite of
+all his anger he had resignedly agreed to be a witness, thus making a
+supreme sacrifice, that of his conscience, to the woman whom he had ever
+loved. And it was this frightful story that Sagnier--using transparent
+nicknames--had related in the "Voix du Peuple" that morning. He had even
+contrived to make it more horrid than it really was; for, as usual, he
+was badly informed, and he was naturally inclined to falsehood and
+invention, as by sending an ever thicker and more poisonous torrent from
+his sewer, he might, day by day, increase his paper's sales. Since
+Monferrand's victory had compelled him to leave the African Railways
+scandal on one side, he had fallen back on scandals in private life,
+stripping whole families bare and pelting them with mud.
+
+All at once Duthil and Massot were approached by Chaigneux, who, with his
+shabby frock coat badly buttoned, wore both a melancholy and busy air.
+"Well, Monsieur Massot," said he, "what about your article on Silviane?
+Is it settled? Will it go in?"
+
+As Chaigneux was always for sale, always ready to serve as a valet, it
+had occurred to Duvillard to make use of him to ensure Silviane's success
+at the Comedie. He had handed this sorry deputy over to the young woman,
+who entrusted him with all manner of dirty work, and sent him scouring
+Paris in search of applauders and advertisements. His eldest daughter was
+not yet married, and never had his four women folk weighed more heavily
+on his hands. His life had become a perfect hell; they had ended by
+beating him, if he did not bring a thousand-franc note home on the first
+day of every month.
+
+"My article!" Massot replied; "no, it surely won't go in, my dear deputy.
+Fonsegue says that it's written in too laudatory a style for the 'Globe.'
+He asked me if I were having a joke with the paper."
+
+Chaigneux became livid. The article in question was one written in
+advance, from the society point of view, on the success which Silviane
+would achieve in "Polyeucte," that evening, at the Comedie. The
+journalist, in the hope of pleasing her, had even shown her his "copy";
+and she, quite delighted, now relied upon finding the article in print in
+the most sober and solemn organ of the Parisian press.
+
+"Good heavens! what will become of us?" murmured the wretched Chaigneux.
+"It's absolutely necessary that the article should go in."
+
+"Well, I'm quite agreeable. But speak to the governor yourself. He's
+standing yonder between Vignon and Dauvergne, the Minister of Public
+Instruction."
+
+"Yes, I certainly will speak to him--but not here. By-and-by in the
+sacristy, during the procession. And I must also try to speak to
+Dauvergne, for our Silviane particularly wants him to be in the
+ministerial box this evening. Monferrand will be there; he promised
+Duvillard so."
+
+Massot began to laugh, repeating the expression which had circulated
+through Paris directly after the actress's engagement: "The Silviane
+ministry.... Well, Dauvergne certainly owes that much to his
+godmother!" said he.
+
+Just then the little Princess de Harn, coming up like a gust of wind,
+broke in upon the three men. "I've no seat, you know!" she cried.
+
+Duthil fancied that it was a question of finding her a well-placed chair
+in the church. "You mustn't count on me," he answered. "I've just had no
+end of trouble in stowing the Duchess de Boisemont away with her two
+daughters."
+
+"Oh, but I'm talking of this evening's performance. Come, my dear Duthil,
+you really must find me a little corner in somebody's box. I shall die, I
+know I shall, if I can't applaud our delicious, our incomparable friend!"
+
+Ever since setting Silviane down at her door on the previous day,
+Rosemonde had been overflowing with admiration for her.
+
+"Oh! you won't find a single remaining seat, madame," declared Chaigneux,
+putting on an air of importance. "We have distributed everything. I have
+just been offered three hundred francs for a stall."
+
+"That's true, there has been a fight even for the bracket seats, however
+badly they might be placed," Duthil resumed. "I am very sorry, but you
+must not count on me.... Duvillard is the only person who might take
+you in his box. He told me that he would reserve me a seat there. And so
+far, I think, there are only three of us, including his son.... Ask
+Hyacinthe by-and-by to procure you an invitation."
+
+Rosemonde, whom Hyacinthe had so greatly bored that she had given him his
+dismissal, felt the irony of Duthil's suggestion. Nevertheless, she
+exclaimed with an air of delight: "Ah, yes! Hyacinthe can't refuse me
+that. Thanks for your information, my dear Duthil. You are very nice, you
+are; for you settle things gaily even when they are rather sad.... And
+don't forget, mind, that you have promised to teach me politics. Ah!
+politics, my dear fellow, I feel that nothing will ever impassion me as
+politics do!"
+
+Then she left them, hustled several people, and in spite of the crush
+ended by installing herself in the front row.
+
+"Ah! what a crank she is!" muttered Massot with an air of amusement.
+
+Then, as Chaigneux darted towards magistrate Amadieu to ask him in the
+most obsequious way if he had received his ticket, the journalist said to
+Duthil in a whisper: "By the way, my dear friend, is it true that
+Duvillard is going to launch his famous scheme for a Trans-Saharan
+railway? It would be a gigantic enterprise, a question of hundreds and
+hundreds of millions this time.... At the 'Globe' office yesterday
+evening, Fonsegue shrugged his shoulders and said it was madness, and
+would never come off!"
+
+Duthil winked, and in a jesting way replied: "It's as good as done, my
+dear boy. Fonsegue will be kissing the governor's feet before another
+forty-eight hours are over."
+
+Then he gaily gave the other to understand that golden manna would
+presently be raining down on the press and all faithful friends and
+willing helpers. Birds shake their feathers when the storm is over, and
+he, Duthil, was as spruce and lively, as joyous at the prospect of the
+presents he now expected, as if there had never been any African Railways
+scandal to upset him and make him turn pale with fright.
+
+"The deuce!" muttered Massot, who had become serious. "So this affair
+here is more than a triumph: it's the promise of yet another harvest.
+Well, I'm no longer surprised at the crush of people."
+
+At this moment the organs suddenly burst into a glorious hymn of
+greeting. The marriage procession was entering the church. A loud clamour
+had gone up from the crowd, which spread over the roadway of the Rue
+Royale and impeded the traffic there, while the _cortege_ pompously
+ascended the steps in the bright sunshine. And it was now entering the
+edifice and advancing beneath the lofty, re-echoing vaults towards the
+high altar which flared with candles, whilst on either hand crowded the
+congregation, the men on the right and the women on the left. They had
+all risen and stood there smiling, with necks outstretched and eyes
+glowing with curiosity.
+
+First, in the rear of the magnificent beadle, came Camille, leaning on
+the arm of her father, Baron Duvillard, who wore a proud expression
+befitting a day of victory. Veiled with superb _point d'Alencon_ falling
+from her diadem of orange blossom, gowned in pleated silk muslin over an
+underskirt of white satin, the bride looked so extremely happy, so
+radiant at having conquered, that she seemed almost pretty. Moreover, she
+held herself so upright that one could scarcely detect that her left
+shoulder was higher than her right.
+
+Next came Gerard, giving his arm to his mother, the Countess de
+Quinsac,--he looking very handsome and courtly, as was proper, and she
+displaying impassive dignity in her gown of peacock-blue silk embroidered
+with gold and steel beads. But it was particularly Eve whom people wished
+to see, and every neck was craned forward when she appeared on the arm of
+General Bozonnet, the bridegroom's first witness and nearest male
+relative. She was gowned in "old rose" taffetas trimmed with Valenciennes
+of priceless value, and never had she looked younger, more deliciously
+fair. Yet her eyes betrayed her emotion, though she strove to smile; and
+her languid grace bespoke her widowhood, her compassionate surrender of
+the man she loved. Monferrand, the Marquis de Morigny, and banker
+Louvard, the three other witnesses, followed the Baroness and General
+Bozonnet, each giving his arm to some lady of the family. A considerable
+sensation was caused by the appearance of Monferrand, who seemed on
+first-rate terms with himself, and jested familiarly with the lady he
+accompanied, a little brunette with a giddy air. Another who was noticed
+in the solemn, interminable procession was the bride's eccentric brother
+Hyacinthe, whose dress coat was of a cut never previously seen, with its
+tails broadly and symmetrically pleated.
+
+When the affianced pair had taken their places before the prayer-stools
+awaiting them, and the members of both families and the witnesses had
+installed themselves in the rear in large armchairs, all gilding and red
+velvet, the ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp. The cure of
+the Madeleine officiated in person; and vocalists from the Grand Opera
+reinforced the choir, which chanted the high mass to the accompaniment of
+the organs, whence came a continuous hymn of glory. All possible luxury
+and magnificence were displayed, as if to turn this wedding into some
+public festivity, a great victory, an event marking the apogee of a
+class. Even the impudent bravado attaching to the loathsome private drama
+which lay behind it all, and which was known to everybody, added a touch
+of abominable grandeur to the ceremony. But the truculent spirit of
+superiority and domination which characterised the proceedings became
+most manifest when Monseigneur Martha appeared in surplice and stole to
+pronounce the blessing. Tall of stature, fresh of face, and faintly
+smiling, he had his wonted air of amiable sovereignty, and it was with
+august unction that he pronounced the sacramental words, like some
+pontiff well pleased at reconciling the two great empires whose heirs he
+united. His address to the newly married couple was awaited with
+curiosity. It proved really marvellous, he himself triumphed in it. Was
+it not in that same church that he had baptised the bride's mother, that
+blond Eve, who was still so beautiful, that Jewess whom he himself had
+converted to the Catholic faith amidst the tears of emotion shed by all
+Paris society? Was it not there also that he had delivered his three
+famous addresses on the New Spirit, whence dated, to his thinking, the
+rout of science, the awakening of Christian spirituality, and that policy
+of rallying to the Republic which was to lead to its conquest?
+
+So it was assuredly allowable for him to indulge in some delicate
+allusions, by way of congratulating himself on his work, now that he was
+marrying a poor scion of the old aristocracy to the five millions of that
+_bourgeoise_ heiress, in whose person triumphed the class which had won
+the victory in 1789, and was now master of the land. The fourth estate,
+the duped, robbed people, alone had no place in those festivities. But by
+uniting the affianced pair before him in the bonds of wedlock,
+Monseigneur Martha sealed the new alliance, gave effect to the Pope's own
+policy, that stealthy effort of Jesuitical Opportunism which would take
+democracy, power and wealth to wife, in order to subdue and control them.
+When the prelate reached his peroration he turned towards Monferrand, who
+sat there smiling; and it was he, the Minister, whom he seemed to be
+addressing while he expressed the hope that the newly married pair would
+ever lead a truly Christian life of humility and obedience in all fear of
+God, of whose iron hand he spoke as if it were that of some gendarme
+charged with maintaining the peace of the world. Everybody was aware that
+there was some diplomatic understanding between the Bishop and the
+Minister, some secret pact or other whereby both satisfied their passion
+for authority, their craving to insinuate themselves into everything and
+reign supreme; and thus when the spectators saw Monferrand smiling in his
+somewhat sly, jovial way, they also exchanged smiles.
+
+"Ah!" muttered Massot, who had remained near Duthil, "how amused old
+Justus Steinberger would be, if he were here to see his granddaughter
+marrying the last of the Quinsacs!"
+
+"But these marriages are quite the thing, quite the fashion, my dear
+fellow," the deputy replied. "The Jews and the Christians, the
+_bourgeois_ and the nobles, do quite right to come to an understanding,
+so as to found a new aristocracy. An aristocracy is needed, you know, for
+otherwise we should be swept away by the masses."
+
+None the less Massot continued sneering at the idea of what a grimace
+Justus Steinberger would have made if he had heard Monseigneur Martha. It
+was rumoured in Paris that although the old Jew banker had ceased all
+intercourse with his daughter Eve since her conversion, he took a keen
+interest in everything she was reported to do or say, as if he were more
+than ever convinced that she would prove an avenging and dissolving agent
+among those Christians, whose destruction was asserted to be the dream of
+his race. If he had failed in his hope of overcoming Duvillard by giving
+her to him as a wife, he doubtless now consoled himself with thinking of
+the extraordinary fortune to which his blood had attained, by mingling
+with that of the harsh, old-time masters of his race, to whose corruption
+it gave a finishing touch. Therein perhaps lay that final Jewish conquest
+of the world of which people sometimes talked.
+
+A last triumphal strain from the organ brought the ceremony to an end;
+whereupon the two families and the witnesses passed into the sacristy,
+where the acts were signed. And forthwith the great congratulatory
+procession commenced.
+
+The bride and bridegroom at last stood side by side in the lofty but
+rather dim room, panelled with oak. How radiant with delight was Camille
+at the thought that it was all over, that she had triumphed and married
+that handsome man of high lineage, after wresting him with so much
+difficulty from one and all, her mother especially! She seemed to have
+grown taller. Deformed, swarthy, and ugly though she was, she drew
+herself up exultingly, whilst scores and scores of women, friends or
+acquaintances, scrambled and rushed upon her, pressing her hands or
+kissing her, and addressing her in words of ecstasy. Gerard, who rose
+both head and shoulders above his bride, and looked all the nobler and
+stronger beside one of such puny figure, shook hands and smiled like some
+Prince Charming, who good-naturedly allowed himself to be loved.
+Meanwhile, the relatives of the newly wedded pair, though they were drawn
+up in one line, formed two distinct groups past which the crowd pushed
+and surged with arms outstretched. Duvillard received the congratulations
+offered him as if he were some king well pleased with his people; whilst
+Eve, with a supreme effort, put on an enchanting mien, and answered one
+and all with scarcely a sign of the sobs which she was forcing back.
+Then, on the other side of the bridal pair, Madame de Quinsac stood
+between General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny. Very dignified,
+in fact almost haughty, she acknowledged most of the salutations
+addressed to her with a mere nod, giving her little withered hand only to
+those people with whom she was well acquainted. A sea of strange
+countenances encompassed her, and now and again when some particularly
+murky wave rolled by, a wave of men whose faces bespoke all the crimes of
+money-mongering, she and the Marquis exchanged glances of deep sadness.
+This tide continued sweeping by for nearly half an hour; and such was the
+number of those who wanted to shake hands with the bridal pair and their
+relatives, that the latter soon felt their arms ache.
+
+Meantime, some folks lingered in the sacristy; little groups collected,
+and gay chatter rang out. Monferrand was immediately surrounded. Massot
+pointed out to Duthil how eagerly Public Prosecutor Lehmann rushed upon
+the Minister to pay him court. They were immediately joined by
+investigating magistrate Amadieu. And even M. de Larombiere, the judge,
+approached Monferrand, although he hated the Republic, and was an
+intimate friend of the Quinsacs. But then obedience and obsequiousness
+were necessary on the part of the magistracy, for it was dependent on
+those in power, who alone could give advancement, and appoint even as
+they dismissed. As for Lehmann, it was alleged that he had rendered
+assistance to Monferrand by spiriting away certain documents connected
+with the African Railways affair, whilst with regard to the smiling and
+extremely Parisian Amadieu, was it not to him that the government was
+indebted for Salvat's head?
+
+"You know," muttered Massot, "they've all come to be thanked for
+guillotining that man yesterday. Monferrand owes that wretched fellow a
+fine taper; for in the first place his bomb prolonged the life of the
+Barroux ministry, and later on it made Monferrand prime minister, as a
+strong-handed man was particularly needed to strangle Anarchism. What a
+contest, eh? Monferrand on one side and Salvat on the other. It was all
+bound to end in a head being cut off; one was wanted.... Ah! just
+listen, they are talking of it."
+
+This was true. As the three functionaries of the law drew near to pay
+their respects to the all-powerful Minister, they were questioned by lady
+friends whose curiosity had been roused by what they had read in the
+newspapers. Thereupon Amadieu, whom duty had taken to the execution, and
+who was proud of his own importance, and determined to destroy what he
+called "the legend of Salvat's heroic death," declared that the scoundrel
+had shown no true courage at all. His pride alone had kept him on his
+feet. Fright had so shaken and choked him that he had virtually been dead
+before the fall of the knife.
+
+"Ah! that's true!" cried Duthil. "I was there myself."
+
+Massot, however, pulled him by the arm, quite indignant at such an
+assertion, although as a rule he cared a rap for nothing. "You couldn't
+see anything, my dear fellow," said he; "Salvat died very bravely. It's
+really stupid to continue throwing mud at that poor devil even when he's
+dead."
+
+However, the idea that Salvat had died like a coward was too pleasing a
+one to be rejected. It was, so to say, a last sacrifice deposited at
+Monferrand's feet with the object of propitiating him. He still smiled in
+his peaceful way, like a good-natured man who is stern only when
+necessity requires it. And he showed great amiability towards the three
+judicial functionaries, and thanked them for the bravery with which they
+had accomplished their painful duty to the very end. On the previous day,
+after the execution, he had obtained a formidable majority in the Chamber
+on a somewhat delicate matter of policy. Order reigned, said he, and all
+was for the very best in France. Then, on seeing Vignon--who like a cool
+gamester had made a point of attending the wedding in order to show
+people that he was superior to fortune--the Minister detained him, and
+made much of him, partly as a matter of tactics, for in spite of
+everything he could not help fearing that the future might belong to that
+young fellow, who showed himself so intelligent and cautious. When a
+mutual friend informed them that Barroux' health was now so bad that the
+doctors had given him up as lost, they both began to express their
+compassion. Poor Barroux! He had never recovered from that vote of the
+Chamber which had overthrown him. He had been sinking from day to day,
+stricken to the heart by his country's ingratitude, dying of that
+abominable charge of money-mongering and thieving; he who was so upright
+and so loyal, who had devoted his whole life to the Republic! But then,
+as Monferrand repeated, one should never confess. The public can't
+understand such a thing.
+
+At this moment Duvillard, in some degree relinquishing his paternal
+duties, came to join the others, and the Minister then had to share the
+honours of triumph with him. For was not this banker the master? Was he
+not money personified--money, which is the only stable, everlasting
+force, far above all ephemeral tenure of power, such as attaches to those
+ministerial portfolios which pass so rapidly from hand to hand?
+Monferrand reigned, but he would pass away, and a like fate would some
+day fall on Vignon, who had already had a warning that one could not
+govern unless the millions of the financial world were on one's side. So
+was not the only real triumpher himself, the Baron--he who laid out five
+millions of francs on buying a scion of the aristocracy for his daughter,
+he who was the personification of the sovereign _bourgeoisie_, who
+controlled public fortune, and was determined to part with nothing, even
+were he attacked with bombs? All these festivities really centred in
+himself, he alone sat down to the banquet, leaving merely the crumbs from
+his table to the lowly, those wretched toilers who had been so cleverly
+duped at the time of the Revolution.
+
+That African Railways affair was already but so much ancient history,
+buried, spirited away by a parliamentary commission. All who had been
+compromised in it, the Duthils, the Chaigneux, the Fonsegues and others,
+could now laugh merrily. They had been delivered from their nightmare by
+Monferrand's strong fist, and raised by Duvillard's triumph. Even
+Sagnier's ignoble article and miry revelations in the "Voix du Peuple"
+were of no real account, and could be treated with a shrug of the
+shoulders, for the public had been so saturated with denunciation and
+slander that it was now utterly weary of all noisy scandal. The only
+thing which aroused interest was the rumour that Duvillard's big affair
+of the Trans-Saharan Railway was soon to be launched, that millions of
+money would be handled, and that some of them would rain down upon
+faithful friends.
+
+Whilst Duvillard was conversing in a friendly way with Monferrand and
+Dauvergne, the Minister of Public Instruction, who had joined them,
+Massot encountered Fonsegue, his editor, and said to him in an undertone:
+"Duthil has just assured me that the Trans-Saharan business is ready, and
+that they mean to chance it with the Chamber. They declare that they are
+certain of success."
+
+Fonsegue, however, was sceptical on the point. "It's impossible," said
+he; "they won't dare to begin again so soon."
+
+Although he spoke in this fashion, the news had made him grave. He had
+lately had such a terrible fright through his imprudence in the African
+Railways affair, that he had vowed he would take every precaution in
+future. Still, this did not mean that he would refuse to participate in
+matters of business. The best course was to wait and study them, and then
+secure a share in all that seemed profitable. In the present instance he
+felt somewhat worried. However, whilst he stood there watching the group
+around Duvillard and the two ministers, he suddenly perceived Chaigneux,
+who, flitting hither and thither, was still beating up applauders for
+that evening's performance. He sang Silviane's praises in every key,
+predicted a most tremendous success, and did his very best to stimulate
+curiosity. At last he approached Dauvergne, and with his long figure bent
+double exclaimed: "My dear Minister, I have a particular request to make
+to you on the part of a very charming person, whose victory will not be
+complete this evening if you do not condescend to favour her with your
+vote."
+
+Dauvergne, a tall, fair, good-looking man, whose blue eyes smiled behind
+his glasses, listened to Chaigneux with an affable air. He was proving a
+great success at the Ministry of Public Instruction, although he knew
+nothing of University matters. However, like a real Parisian of Dijon, as
+people called him, he was possessed of some tact and skill, gave
+entertainments at which his young and charming wife outshone all others,
+and passed as being quite an enlightened friend of writers and artists.
+Silviane's engagement at the Comedie, which so far was his most notable
+achievement, and which would have shaken the position of any other
+minister, had by a curious chance rendered him popular. It was regarded
+as something original and amusing.
+
+On understanding that Chaigneux simply wished to make sure of his
+presence at the Comedie that evening, he became yet more affable. "Why,
+certainly, I shall be there, my dear deputy," he replied. "When one has
+such a charming god-daughter one mustn't forsake her in a moment of
+danger."
+
+At this Monferrand, who had been lending ear, turned round. "And tell
+her," said he, "that I shall be there, too. She may therefore rely on
+having two more friends in the house."
+
+Thereupon Duvillard, quite enraptured, his eyes glistening with emotion
+and gratitude, bowed to the two ministers as if they had granted him some
+never-to-be-forgotten favour.
+
+When Chaigneux, on his side also, had returned thanks with a low bow, he
+happened to perceive Fonsegue, and forthwith he darted towards him and
+led him aside. "Ah! my dear colleague," he declared, "it is absolutely
+necessary that this matter should be settled. I regard it as of supreme
+importance."
+
+"What are you speaking of?" inquired Fonsegue, much surprised.
+
+"Why, of Massot's article, which you won't insert."
+
+Thereupon, the director of the "Globe" plumply declared that he could not
+insert the article. He talked of his paper's dignity and gravity; and
+declared that the lavishing of such fulsome praise upon a hussy--yes, a
+mere hussy, in a journal whose exemplary morality and austerity had cost
+him so much labour, would seem monstrous and degrading. Personally, he
+did not care a fig about it if Silviane chose to make an exhibition of
+herself, well, he would be there to see; but the "Globe" was sacred.
+
+Disconcerted and almost tearful, Chaigneux nevertheless renewed his
+attempt. "Come, my dear colleague," said he, "pray make a little effort
+for my sake. If the article isn't inserted, Duvillard will think that it
+is my fault. And you know that I really need his help. My eldest
+daughter's marriage has again been postponed, and I hardly know where to
+turn." Then perceiving that his own misfortunes in no wise touched
+Fonsegue, he added: "And do it for your own sake, my dear colleague, your
+own sake. For when all is said Duvillard knows what is in the article,
+and it is precisely because it is so favourable a one that he wishes to
+see it in the 'Globe.' Think it over; if the article isn't published, he
+will certainly turn his back on you."
+
+For a moment Fonsegue remained silent. Was he thinking of the colossal
+Trans-Saharan enterprise? Was he reflecting that it would be hard to
+quarrel at such a moment and miss his own share in the coming
+distribution of millions among faithful friends? Perhaps so; however, the
+idea that it would be more prudent to await developments gained the day
+with him. "No, no," he said, "I can't, it's a matter of conscience."
+
+In the mean time congratulations were still being tendered to the newly
+wedded couple. It seemed as if all Paris were passing through the
+sacristy; there were ever the same smiles and the same hand shakes.
+Gerard, Camille and their relatives, however weary they might feel, were
+forced to retain an air of delight while they stood there against the
+wall, pent up by the crowd. The heat was now becoming unbearable, and a
+cloud of dust arose as when some big flock goes by.
+
+All at once little Princess de Harn, who had hitherto lingered nobody
+knew where, sprang out of the throng, flung her arms around Camille,
+kissed even Eve, and then kept Gerard's hand in her own while paying him
+extraordinary compliments. Then, on perceiving Hyacinthe, she took
+possession of him and carried him off into a corner. "I say," she
+exclaimed, "I have a favour to ask you."
+
+The young man was wonderfully silent that day. His sister's wedding
+seemed to him a contemptible ceremony, the most vulgar that one could
+imagine. So here, thought he, was another pair accepting the horrid
+sexual law by which the absurdity of the world was perpetuated! For his
+part, he had decided that he would witness the proceedings in rigid
+silence, with a haughty air of disapproval. When Rosemonde spoke to him,
+he looked at her rather nervously, for he was glad that she had forsaken
+him for Duthil, and feared some fresh caprice on her part. At last,
+opening his mouth for the first time that day, he replied: "Oh, as a
+friend, you know, I will grant you whatever favour you like."
+
+Forthwith the Princess explained that she would surely die if she did not
+witness the _debut_ of her dear friend Silviane, of whom she had become
+such a passionate admirer. So she begged the young man to prevail on his
+father to give her a seat in his box, as she knew that one was left
+there.
+
+Hyacinthe smiled. "Oh, willingly, my dear," said he; "I'll warn papa,
+there will be a seat for you."
+
+Then, as the procession of guests at last drew to an end and the vestry
+began to empty, the bridal pair and their relatives were able to go off
+through the chattering throng, which still lingered about to bow to them
+and scrutinise them once more.
+
+Gerard and Camille were to leave for an estate which Duvillard possessed
+in Normandy, directly after lunch. This repast, served at the princely
+mansion of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, provided an opportunity for fresh
+display. The dining-room on the first floor had been transformed into a
+buffet, where reigned the greatest abundance and the most wonderful
+sumptuousness. Quite a reception too was held in the drawing-rooms, the
+large red _salon_, the little blue and silver _salon_ and all the others,
+whose doors stood wide open. Although it had been arranged that only
+family friends should be invited, there were quite three hundred people
+present. The ministers had excused themselves, alleging that the weighty
+cares of public business required their presence elsewhere. But the
+magistrates, the deputies and the leading journalists who had attended
+the wedding were again assembled together. And in that throng of hungry
+folks, longing for some of the spoils of Duvillard's new venture, the
+people who felt most out of their element were Madame de Quinsac's few
+guests, whom General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny had seated on
+a sofa in the large red _salon_, which they did not quit.
+
+Eve, who for her part felt quite overcome, both her moral and physical
+strength being exhausted, had seated herself in the little blue and
+silver drawing-room, which, with her passion for flowers, she had
+transformed into an arbour of roses. She would have fallen had she
+remained standing, the very floor had seemed to sink beneath her feet.
+Nevertheless, whenever a guest approached her she managed to force a
+smile, and appear beautiful and charming. Unlooked-for help at last came
+to her in the person of Monseigneur Martha, who had graciously honoured
+the lunch with his presence. He took an armchair near her, and began to
+talk to her in his amiable, caressing way. He was doubtless well aware of
+the frightful anguish which wrung the poor woman's heart, for he showed
+himself quite fatherly, eager to comfort her. She, however, talked on
+like some inconsolable widow bent on renouncing the world for God, who
+alone could bring her peace. Then, as the conversation turned on the
+Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, she declared that she was resolved to
+take her presidency very seriously, and, in fact, would exclusively
+devote herself to it, in the future.
+
+"And as we are speaking of this, Monseigneur," said she, "I would even
+ask you to give me some advice.... I shall need somebody to help me,
+and I thought of securing the services of a priest whom I much admire,
+Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment."
+
+At this the Bishop became grave and embarrassed; but Princess Rosemonde,
+who was passing by with Duthil, had overheard the Baroness, and drawing
+near with her wonted impetuosity, she exclaimed: "Abbe Pierre Froment!
+Oh! I forgot to tell you, my dear, that I met him going about in jacket
+and trousers! And I've been told too that he cycles in the Bois with some
+creature or other. Isn't it true, Duthil, that we met him?"
+
+The deputy bowed and smiled, whilst Eve clasped her hands in amazement.
+"Is it possible! A priest who was all charitable fervour, who had the
+faith and passion of an apostle!"
+
+Thereupon Monseigneur intervened: "Yes, yes, great sorrows occasionally
+fall upon the Church. I heard of the madness of the unhappy man you speak
+of. I even thought it my duty to write to him, but he left my letter
+unanswered. I should so much have liked to stifle such a scandal! But
+there are abominable forces which we cannot always overcome; and so a day
+or two ago the archbishop was obliged to put him under interdict....
+You must choose somebody else, madame."
+
+It was quite a disaster. Eve gazed at Rosemonde and Duthil, without
+daring to ask them for particulars, but wondering what creature could
+have been so audacious as to turn a priest from the path of duty. She
+must assuredly be some shameless demented woman! And it seemed to Eve as
+if this crime gave a finishing touch to her own misfortune. With a wave
+of the arm, which took in all the luxury around her, the roses steeping
+her in perfume, and the crush of guests around the buffet, she murmured:
+"Ah! decidedly there's nothing but corruption left; one can no longer
+rely on anybody!"
+
+Whilst this was going on, Camille happened to be alone in her own room
+getting ready to leave the house with Gerard. And all at once her brother
+Hyacinthe joined her there. "Ah! it's you, youngster!" she exclaimed.
+"Well, make haste if you want to kiss me, for I'm off now, thank
+goodness!"
+
+He kissed her as she suggested, and then in a doctoral way replied: "I
+thought you had more self-command. The delight you have been showing all
+this morning quite disgusts me."
+
+A quiet glance of contempt was her only answer. However, he continued:
+"You know very well that she'll take your Gerard from you again, directly
+you come back to Paris."
+
+At this Camille's cheeks turned white and her eyes flared. She stepped
+towards her brother with clenched fists: "She! you say that she will take
+him from me!"
+
+The "she" they referred to was their own mother.
+
+"Listen, my boy! I'll kill her first!" continued Camille. "Ah, no! she
+needn't hope for that. I shall know how to keep the man that belongs to
+me.... And as for you, keep your spite to yourself, for I know you,
+remember; you are a mere child and a fool!"
+
+He recoiled as if a viper were rearing its sharp, slender black head
+before him; and having always feared her, he thought it best to beat a
+retreat.
+
+While the last guests were rushing upon the buffet and finishing the
+pillage there, the bridal pair took their leave, before driving off to
+the railway station. General de Bozonnet had joined a group in order to
+vent his usual complaints about compulsory military service, and the
+Marquis de Morigny was obliged to fetch him at the moment when the
+Countess de Quinsac was kissing her son and daughter-in-law. The old lady
+trembled with so much emotion that the Marquis respectfully ventured to
+sustain her. Meantime, Hyacinthe had started in search of his father, and
+at last found him near a window with the tottering Chaigneux, whom he was
+violently upbraiding, for Fonsegue's conscientious scruples had put him
+in a fury. Indeed, if Massot's article should not be inserted in the
+"Globe," Silviane might lay all the blame upon him, the Baron, and wreak
+further punishment upon him. However, upon being summoned by his son he
+had to don his triumphal air once more, kiss his daughter on the
+forehead, shake hands with his son-in-law, jest and wish them both a
+pleasant journey. Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained,
+smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touching
+bravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until the
+very end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay and
+motherly.
+
+She took hold of the slightly quivering hand which Gerard proffered with
+some embarrassment, and ventured to retain it for a moment in her own, in
+a good-hearted, affectionate way, instinct with all the heroism of
+renunciation. "Good by, Gerard," she said, "keep in good health, be
+happy." Then turning to Camille she kissed her on both cheeks, while
+Monseigneur Martha sat looking at them with an air of indulgent sympathy.
+They wished each other "Au revoir," but their voices trembled, and their
+eyes in meeting gleamed like swords; in the same way as beneath the
+kisses they had exchanged they had felt each other's teeth. Ah! how it
+enraged Camille to see her mother still so beautiful and fascinating in
+spite of age and grief! And for Eve how great the torture of beholding
+her daughter's youth, that youth which had overcome her, and was for ever
+wresting love from within her reach! No forgiveness was possible between
+them; they would still hate one another even in the family tomb, where
+some day they would sleep side by side.
+
+All the same, that evening Baroness Duvillard excused herself from
+attending the performance of "Polyeucte" at the Comedie Francaise. She
+felt very tired and wished to go to bed early, said she. As a matter of
+fact she wept on her pillow all night long. Thus the Baron's stage-box on
+the first balcony tier contained only himself, Hyacinthe, Duthil, and
+little Princess de Harn.
+
+At nine o'clock there was a full house, one of the brilliant chattering
+houses peculiar to great dramatic solemnities. All the society people who
+had marched through the sacristy of the Madeleine that morning were now
+assembled at the theatre, again feverish with curiosity, and on the
+lookout for the unexpected. One recognised the same faces and the sane
+smiles; the women acknowledged one another's presence with little signs
+of intelligence, the men understood each other at a word, a gesture. One
+and all had kept the appointment, the ladies with bared shoulders, the
+gentlemen with flowers in their button-holes. Fonsegue occupied the
+"Globe's" box, with two friendly families. Little Massot had his
+customary seat in the stalls. Amadieu, who was a faithful patron of the
+Comedie, was also to be seen there, as well as General de Bozonnet and
+Public Prosecutor Lehmann. The man who was most looked at, however, on
+account of his scandalous article that morning, was Sagnier, the terrible
+Sagnier, looking bloated and apoplectical. Then there was Chaigneux, who
+had kept merely a modest bracket-seat for himself, and who scoured the
+passages, and climbed to every tier, for the last time preaching
+enthusiasm. Finally, the two ministers Monferrand and Dauvergne appeared
+in the box facing Duvillard's; whereupon many knowing smiles were
+exchanged, for everybody was aware that these personages had come to help
+on the success of the _debutante_.
+
+On the latter point there had still been unfavourable rumours only the
+previous day. Sagnier had declared that the _debut_ of such a notorious
+harlot as Silviane at the Comedie Francaise, in such a part too as that
+of "Pauline," which was one of so much moral loftiness, could only be
+regarded as an impudent insult to public decency. The whole press,
+moreover, had long been up in arms against the young woman's
+extraordinary caprice. But then the affair had been talked of for six
+months past, so that Paris had grown used to the idea of seeing Silviane
+at the Comedie. And now it flocked thither with the one idea of being
+entertained. Before the curtain rose one could tell by the very
+atmosphere of the house that the audience was a jovial, good-humoured
+one, bent on enjoying itself, and ready to applaud should it find itself
+at all pleased.
+
+The performance really proved extraordinary. When Silviane, chastely
+robed, made her appearance in the first act, the house was quite
+astonished by her virginal face, her innocent-looking mouth, and her eyes
+beaming with immaculate candour. Then, although the manner in which she
+had understood her part at first amazed people, it ended by charming
+them. From the moment of confiding in "Stratonice," from the moment of
+relating her dream, she turned "Pauline" into a soaring mystical
+creature, some saint, as it were, such as one sees in stained-glass
+windows, carried along by a Wagnerian Brunhilda riding the clouds. It was
+a thoroughly ridiculous conception of the part, contrary to reason and
+truth alike. Still, it only seemed to interest people the more, partly on
+account of mysticism being the fashion, and partly on account of the
+contrast between Silviane's assumed candour and real depravity. Her
+success increased from act to act, and some slight hissing which was
+attributed to Sagnier only helped to make the victory more complete.
+Monferrand and Dauvergne, as the newspapers afterwards related, gave the
+signal for applause; and the whole house joined in it, partly from
+amusement and partly perhaps in a spirit of irony.
+
+During the interval between the fourth and fifth acts there was quite a
+procession of visitors to Duvillard's box, where the greatest excitement
+prevailed. Duthil, however, after absenting himself for a moment, came
+back to say: "You remember our influential critic, the one whom I brought
+to dinner at the Cafe Anglais? Well, he's repeating to everybody that
+'Pauline' is merely a little _bourgeoise_, and is not transformed by the
+heavenly grace until the very finish of the piece. To turn her into a
+holy virgin from the outset simply kills the part, says he."
+
+"Pooh!" repeated Duvillard, "let him argue if he likes, it will be all
+the more advertisement.... The important point is to get Massot's
+article inserted in the 'Globe' to-morrow morning."
+
+On this point, unfortunately, the news was by no means good. Chaigneux,
+who had gone in search of Fonsegue, declared that the latter still
+hesitated in the matter in spite of Silviane's success, which he declared
+to be ridiculous. Thereupon, the Baron became quite angry. "Go and tell
+Fonsegue," he exclaimed, "that I insist on it, and that I shall remember
+what he does."
+
+Meantime Princess Rosemonde was becoming quite delirious with enthusiasm.
+"My dear Hyacinthe," she pleaded, "please take me to Silviane's
+dressing-room; I can't wait, I really must go and kiss her."
+
+"But we'll all go!" cried Duvillard, who heard her entreaty.
+
+The passages were crowded, and there were people even on the stage.
+Moreover, when the party reached the door of Silviane's dressing-room,
+they found it shut. When the Baron knocked at it, a dresser replied that
+madame begged the gentlemen to wait a moment.
+
+"Oh! a woman may surely go in," replied Rosemonde, hastily slipping
+through the doorway. "And you may come, Hyacinthe," she added; "there can
+be no objection to you."
+
+Silviane was very hot, and a dresser was wiping her perspiring shoulders
+when Rosemonde darted forward and kissed her. Then they chatted together
+amidst the heat and glare from the gas and the intoxicating perfumes of
+all the flowers which were heaped up in the little room. Finally,
+Hyacinthe heard them promise to see one another after the performance,
+Silviane even inviting Rosemonde to drink a cup of tea with her at her
+house. At this the young man smiled complacently, and said to the
+actress: "Your carriage is waiting for you at the corner of the Rue
+Montpensier, is it not? Well, I'll take the Princess to it. That will be
+the simpler plan, you can both go off together!"
+
+"Oh! how good of you," cried Rosemonde; "it's agreed."
+
+Just then the door was opened, and the men, being admitted, began to pour
+forth their congratulations. However, they had to regain their seats in
+all haste so as to witness the fifth act. This proved quite a triumph,
+the whole house bursting into applause when Silviane spoke the famous
+line, "I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived," with the rapturous
+enthusiasm of a holy martyr ascending to heaven. Nothing could have been
+more soul-like, it was said. And so when the performers were called
+before the curtain, Paris bestowed an ovation on that virgin of the
+stage, who, as Sagnier put it, knew so well how to act depravity at home.
+
+Accompanied by Duthil, Duvillard at once went behind the scenes in order
+to fetch Silviane, while Hyacinthe escorted Rosemonde to the brougham
+waiting at the corner of the Rue Montpensier. Having helped her into it,
+the young man stood by, waiting. And he seemed to grow quite merry when
+his father came up with Silviane, and was stopped by her, just as, in his
+turn, he wished to get into the carriage.
+
+"There's no room for you, my dear fellow," said she. "I've a friend with
+me."
+
+Rosemonde's little smiling face then peered forth from the depths of the
+brougham. And the Baron remained there open-mouthed while the vehicle
+swiftly carried the two women away!
+
+"Well, what would you have, my dear fellow?" said Hyacinthe, by way of
+explanation to Duthil, who also seemed somewhat amazed by what had
+happened. "Rosemonde was worrying my life out, and so I got rid of her by
+packing her off with Silviane."
+
+Duvillard was still standing on the pavement and still looking dazed when
+Chaigneux, who was going home quite tired out, recognised him, and came
+up to say that Fonsegue had thought the matter over, and that Massot's
+article would be duly inserted. In the passages, too, there had been a
+deal of talk about the famous Trans-Saharan project.
+
+Then Hyacinthe led his father away, trying to comfort him like a sensible
+friend, who regarded woman as a base and impure creature. "Let's go home
+to bed," said he. "As that article is to appear, you can take it to her
+to-morrow. She will see you, sure enough."
+
+Thereupon they lighted cigars, and now and again exchanging a few words,
+took their way up the Avenue de l'Opera, which at that hour was deserted
+and dismal. Meantime, above the slumbering houses of Paris the breeze
+wafted a prolonged sigh, the plaint, as it were, of an expiring world.
+
+
+
+
+III. THE GOAL OF LABOUR
+
+EVER since the execution of Salvat, Guillaume had become extremely
+taciturn. He seemed worried and absent-minded. He would work for hours at
+the manufacture of that dangerous powder of which he alone knew the
+formula, and the preparation of which was such a delicate matter that he
+would allow none to assist him. Then, at other times he would go off, and
+return tired out by some long solitary ramble. He remained very gentle at
+home, and strove to smile there. But whenever anybody spoke to him he
+started as if suddenly called back from dreamland.
+
+Pierre imagined his brother had relied too much upon his powers of
+renunciation, and found the loss of Marie unbearable. Was it not some
+thought of her that haunted him now that the date fixed for the marriage
+drew nearer and nearer? One evening, therefore, Pierre ventured to speak
+out, again offering to leave the house and disappear.
+
+But at the first words he uttered Guillaume stopped him, and
+affectionately replied: "Marie? Oh! I love her, I love her too well to
+regret what I have done. No, no! you only bring me happiness, I derive
+all my strength and courage from you now that I know you are both happy.
+... And I assure you that you are mistaken, there is nothing at all the
+matter with me; my work absorbs me, perhaps, but that is all."
+
+That same evening he managed to cast his gloom aside, and displayed
+delightful gaiety. During dinner he inquired if the upholsterer would
+soon call to arrange the two little rooms which Marie was to occupy with
+her husband over the workroom. The young woman, who since her marriage
+with Pierre had been decided had remained waiting with smiling patience,
+thereupon told Guillaume what it was she desired--first some hangings of
+red cotton stuff, then some polished pine furniture which would enable
+her to imagine she was in the country, and finally a carpet on the floor,
+because a carpet seemed to her the height of luxury. She laughed as she
+spoke, and Guillaume laughed with her in a gay and fatherly way. His good
+spirits brought much relief to Pierre, who concluded that he must have
+been mistaken in his surmises.
+
+On the very morrow, however, Guillaume relapsed into a dreamy state. And
+so disquietude again came upon Pierre, particularly when he noticed that
+Mere-Grand also seemed to be unusually grave and silent. Not daring to
+address her, he tried to extract some information from his nephews, but
+neither Thomas nor Francois nor Antoine knew anything. Each of them
+quietly devoted his time to his work, respecting and worshipping his
+father, but never questioning him about his plans or enterprises.
+Whatever he might choose to do could only be right and good; and they,
+his sons, were ready to do the same and help him at the very first call,
+without pausing to inquire into his purpose. It was plain, however, that
+he kept them apart from anything at all perilous, that he retained all
+responsibility for himself, and that Mere-Grand alone was his
+_confidante_, the one whom he consulted and to whom he perhaps listened.
+Pierre therefore renounced his hope of learning anything from the sons,
+and directed his attention to the old lady, whose rigid gravity worried
+him the more as she and Guillaume frequently had private chats in the
+room she occupied upstairs. They shut themselves up there all alone, and
+remained together for hours without the faintest sound coming from the
+seemingly lifeless chamber.
+
+One day, however, Pierre caught sight of Guillaume as he came out of it,
+carrying a little valise which appeared to be very heavy. And Pierre
+thereupon remembered both his brother's powder, one pound weight of which
+would have sufficed to destroy a cathedral, and the destructive engine
+which he had purposed bestowing upon France in order that she might be
+victorious over all other nations, and become the one great initiatory
+and liberative power. Pierre remembered too that the only person besides
+himself who knew his brother's secret was Mere-Grand, who, at the time
+when Guillaume was fearing some perquisition on the part of the police,
+had long slept upon the cartridges of the terrible explosive. But now why
+was Guillaume removing all the powder which he had been preparing for
+some time past? As this question occurred to Pierre, a sudden suspicion,
+a vague dread, came upon him, and gave him strength to ask his brother:
+"Have you reason to fear anything, since you won't keep things here? If
+they embarrass you, they can all be deposited at my house, nobody will
+make a search there."
+
+Guillaume, whom these words astonished, gazed at Pierre fixedly, and then
+replied: "Yes, I have learnt that the arrests and perquisitions have
+begun afresh since that poor devil was guillotined; for they are in
+terror at the thought that some despairing fellow may avenge him.
+Moreover, it is hardly prudent to keep destructive agents of such great
+power here. I prefer to deposit them in a safe place. But not at
+Neuilly--oh! no indeed! they are not a present for you, brother."
+Guillaume spoke with outward calmness; and if he had started with
+surprise at the first moment, it had been scarcely perceptible.
+
+"So everything is ready?" Pierre resumed. "You will soon be handing your
+engine of destruction over to the Minister of War, I presume?"
+
+A gleam of hesitation appeared in the depths of Guillaume's eyes, and he
+was for a moment about to tell a falsehood. However, he ended by replying
+"No, I have renounced that intention. I have another idea."
+
+He spoke these last words with so much energy and decision that Pierre
+did not dare to question him further, to ask him, for instance, what that
+other idea might be. From that moment, however, he quivered with anxious
+expectancy. From hour to hour Mere-Grand's lofty silence and Guillaume's
+rapt, energetic face seemed to tell him that some huge and terrifying
+scheme had come into being, and was growing and threatening the whole of
+Paris.
+
+One afternoon, just as Thomas was about to repair to the Grandidier
+works, some one came to Guillaume's with the news that old Toussaint, the
+workman, had been stricken with a fresh attack of paralysis. Thomas
+thereupon decided that he would call upon the poor fellow on his way, for
+he held him in esteem and wished to ascertain if he could render him any
+help. Pierre expressed a desire to accompany his nephew, and they started
+off together about four o'clock.
+
+On entering the one room which the Toussaints occupied, the room where
+they ate and slept, the visitors found the mechanician seated on a low
+chair near the table. He looked half dead, as if struck by lightning. It
+was a case of hemiplegia, which had paralysed the whole of his right
+side, his right leg and right arm, and had also spread to his face in
+such wise that he could no longer speak. The only sound he could raise
+was an incomprehensible guttural grunt. His mouth was drawn to the right,
+and his once round, good-natured-looking face, with tanned skin and
+bright eyes, had been twisted into a frightful mask of anguish. At fifty
+years of age, the unhappy man was utterly done for. His unkempt beard was
+as white as that of an octogenarian, and his knotty limbs, preyed upon by
+toil, were henceforth dead. Only his eyes remained alive, and they
+travelled around the room, going from one to another. By his side, eager
+to do what she could for him, was his wife, who remained stout even when
+she had little to eat, and still showed herself active and clear-headed,
+however great her misfortunes.
+
+"It's a friendly visit, Toussaint," said she. "It's Monsieur Thomas who
+has come to see you with Monsieur l'Abbe." Then quietly correcting
+herself she added: "With Monsieur Pierre, his uncle. You see that you are
+not yet forsaken."
+
+Toussaint wished to speak, but his fruitless efforts only brought two big
+tears to his eyes. Then he gazed at his visitors with an expression of
+indescribable woe, his jaws trembling convulsively.
+
+"Don't put yourself out," repeated his wife. "The doctor told you that it
+would do you no good."
+
+At the moment of entering the room, Pierre had already noticed two
+persons who had risen from their chairs and drawn somewhat on one side.
+And now to his great surprise he recognised that they were Madame
+Theodore and Celine, who were both decently clad, and looked as if they
+led a life of comfort. On hearing of Toussaint's misfortune they had come
+to see him, like good-hearted creatures, who, on their own side, had
+experienced the most cruel suffering. Pierre, on noticing that they now
+seemed to be beyond dire want, remembered what he had heard of the
+wonderful sympathy lavished on the child after her father's execution,
+the many presents and donations offered her, and the generous proposals
+that had been made to adopt her. These last had ended in her being
+adopted by a former friend of Salvat, who had sent her to school again,
+pending the time when she might be apprenticed to some trade, while, on
+the other hand, Madame Theodore had been placed as a nurse in a
+convalescent home. In such wise both had been saved.
+
+When Pierre drew near to little Celine in order to kiss her, Madame
+Theodore told her to thank Monsieur l'Abbe--for so she still respectfully
+called him--for all that he had previously done for her. "It was you who
+brought us happiness, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she. "And that's a thing one
+can never forget. I'm always telling Celine to remember you in her
+prayers."
+
+"And so, my child, you are now going to school again," said Pierre.
+
+"Oh yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I'm well pleased at it. Besides, we no
+longer lack anything." Then, however, sudden emotion came over the girl,
+and she stammered with a sob: "Ah! if poor papa could only see us!"
+
+Madame Theodore, meanwhile, had begun to take leave of Madame Toussaint.
+"Well, good by, we must go," said she. "What has happened to you is very
+sad, and we wanted to tell you how much it grieved us. The worry is that
+when misfortune falls on one, courage isn't enough to set things right..
+.. Celine, come and kiss your uncle.... My poor brother, I hope
+you'll get back the use of your legs as soon as possible."
+
+They kissed the paralysed man on the cheeks, and then went off. Toussaint
+had looked at them with his keen and still intelligent eyes, as if he
+longed to participate in the life and activity into which they were
+returning. And a jealous thought came to his wife, who usually was so
+placid and good-natured. "Ah! my poor old man!" said she, after propping
+him up with a pillow, "those two are luckier than we are. Everything
+succeeds with them since that madman, Salvat, had his head cut off.
+They're provided for. They've plenty of bread on the shelf."
+
+Then, turning towards Pierre and Thomas, she continued: "We others are
+done for, you know, we're down in the mud, with no hope of getting out of
+it. But what would you have? My poor husband hasn't been guillotined,
+he's done nothing but work his whole life long; and now, you see, that's
+the end of him, he's like some old animal, no longer good for anything."
+
+Having made her visitors sit down she next answered their compassionate
+questions. The doctor had called twice already, and had promised to
+restore the unhappy man's power of speech, and perhaps enable him to
+crawl round the room with the help of a stick. But as for ever being able
+to resume real work that must not be expected. And so what was the use of
+living on? Toussaint's eyes plainly declared that he would much rather
+die at once. When a workman can no longer work and no longer provide for
+his wife he is ripe for the grave.
+
+"Savings indeed!" Madame Toussaint resumed. "There are folks who ask if
+we have any savings.... Well, we had nearly a thousand francs in the
+Savings Bank when Toussaint had his first attack. And some people don't
+know what a lot of prudence one needs to put by such a sum; for, after
+all, we're not savages, we have to allow ourselves a little enjoyment now
+and then, a good dish and a good bottle of wine.... Well, what with
+five months of enforced idleness, and the medicines, and the underdone
+meat that was ordered, we got to the end of our thousand francs; and now
+that it's all begun again we're not likely to taste any more bottled wine
+or roast mutton."
+
+Fond of good cheer as she had always been, this cry, far more than the
+tears she was forcing back, revealed how much the future terrified her.
+She was there erect and brave in spite of everything; but what a downfall
+if she were no longer able to keep her room tidy, stew a piece of veal on
+Sundays, and gossip with the neighbours while awaiting her husband's
+return from work! Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutter
+and carried off in the scavenger's cart.
+
+However, Thomas intervened: "Isn't there an Asylum for the Invalids of
+Labour, and couldn't your husband get admitted to it?" he asked. "It
+seems to me that is just the place for him."
+
+"Oh dear, no," the woman answered. "People spoke to me of that place
+before, and I got particulars of it. They don't take sick people there.
+When you call they tell you that there are hospitals for those who are
+ill."
+
+With a wave of his hand Pierre confirmed her statement: it was useless to
+apply in that direction. He could again see himself scouring Paris,
+hurrying from the Lady President, Baroness Duvillard, to Fonsegue, the
+General Manager, and only securing a bed for Laveuve when the unhappy man
+was dead.
+
+However, at that moment an infant was heard wailing, and to the amazement
+of both visitors Madame Toussaint entered the little closet where her son
+Charles had so long slept, and came out of it carrying a child, who
+looked scarcely twenty months old. "Well, yes," she explained, "this is
+Charles's boy. He was sleeping there in his father's old bed, and now you
+hear him, he's woke up.... You see, only last Wednesday, the day
+before Toussaint had his stroke, I went to fetch the little one at the
+nurse's at St. Denis, because she had threatened to cast him adrift since
+Charles had got into bad habits, and no longer paid her. I said to myself
+at the time that work was looking up, and that my husband and I would
+always be able to provide for a little mouth like that.... But just
+afterwards everything collapsed! At the same time, as the child's here
+now I can't go and leave him in the street."
+
+While speaking in this fashion she walked to and fro, rocking the baby in
+her arms. And naturally enough she reverted to Charles's folly with the
+girl, who had run away, leaving that infant behind her. Things might not
+have been so very bad if Charles had still worked as steadily as he had
+done before he went soldiering. In those days he had never lost an hour,
+and had always brought all his pay home! But he had come back from the
+army with much less taste for work. He argued, and had ideas of his own.
+He certainly hadn't yet come to bomb-throwing like that madman Salvat,
+but he spent half his time with Socialists and Anarchists, who put his
+brain in a muddle. It was a real pity to see such a strong, good-hearted
+young fellow turning out badly like that. But it was said in the
+neighbourhood that many another was inclined the same way; that the best
+and most intelligent of the younger men felt tired of want and
+unremunerative labour, and would end by knocking everything to pieces
+rather than go on toiling with no certainty of food in their old age.
+
+"Ah! yes," continued Madame Toussaint, "the sons are not like the fathers
+were. These fine fellows won't be as patient as my poor husband has been,
+letting hard work wear him away till he's become the sorry thing you see
+there.... Do you know what Charles said the other evening when he
+found his father on that chair, crippled like that, and unable to speak?
+Why, he shouted to him that he'd been a stupid jackass all his life,
+working himself to death for those _bourgeois_, who now wouldn't bring
+him so much as a glass of water. Then, as he none the less has a good
+heart, he began to cry his eyes out."
+
+The baby was no longer wailing, still the good woman continued walking to
+and fro, rocking it in her arms and pressing it to her affectionate
+heart. Her son Charles could do no more for them, she said; perhaps he
+might be able to give them a five-franc piece now and again, but even
+that wasn't certain. It was of no use for her to go back to her old
+calling as a seamstress, she had lost all practice of it. And it would
+even be difficult for her to earn anything as charwoman, for she had that
+infant on her hands as well as her infirm husband--a big child, whom she
+would have to wash and feed. And so what would become of the three of
+them? She couldn't tell; but it made her shudder, however brave and
+motherly she tried to be.
+
+For their part, Pierre and Thomas quivered with compassion, particularly
+when they saw big tears coursing down the cheeks of the wretched,
+stricken Toussaint, as he sat quite motionless in that little and still
+cleanly home of toil and want. The poor man had listened to his wife, and
+he looked at her and at the infant now sleeping in her arms. Voiceless,
+unable to cry his woe aloud, he experienced the most awful anguish. What
+dupery his long life of labour had been! how frightfully unjust it was
+that all his efforts should end in such sufferings! how exasperating it
+was to feel himself powerless, and to see those whom he loved and who
+were as innocent as himself suffer and die by reason of his own suffering
+and death! Ah! poor old man, cripple that he was, ending like some beast
+of burden that has foundered by the roadside--that goal of labour! And it
+was all so revolting and so monstrous that he tried to put it into words,
+and his desperate grief ended in a frightful, raucous grunt.
+
+"Be quiet, don't do yourself harm!" concluded Madame Toussaint. "Things
+are like that, and there's no mending them."
+
+Then she went to put the child to bed again, and on her return, just as
+Thomas and Pierre were about to speak to her of Toussaint's employer, M.
+Grandidier, a fresh visitor arrived. Thereupon the others decided to
+wait.
+
+The new comer was Madame Chretiennot, Toussaint's other sister, eighteen
+years younger than himself. Her husband, the little clerk, had compelled
+her to break off almost all intercourse with her relatives, as he felt
+ashamed of them; nevertheless, having heard of her brother's misfortune,
+she had very properly come to condole with him. She wore a gown of cheap
+flimsy silk, and a hat trimmed with red poppies, which she had freshened
+up three times already; but in spite of this display her appearance
+bespoke penury, and she did her best to hide her feet on account of the
+shabbiness of her boots. Moreover, she was no longer the beautiful
+Hortense. Since a recent miscarriage, all trace of her good looks had
+disappeared.
+
+The lamentable appearance of her brother and the bareness of that home of
+suffering chilled her directly she crossed the threshold. And as soon as
+she had kissed Toussaint, and said how sorry she was to find him in such
+a condition, she began to lament her own fate, and recount her troubles,
+for fear lest she should be asked for any help.
+
+"Ah! my dear," she said to her sister-in-law, "you are certainly much to
+be pitied! But if you only knew! We all have our troubles. Thus in my
+case, obliged as I am to dress fairly well on account of my husband's
+position, I have more trouble than you can imagine in making both ends
+meet. One can't go far on a salary of three thousand francs a year, when
+one has to pay seven hundred francs' rent out of it. You will perhaps say
+that we might lodge ourselves in a more modest way; but we can't, my
+dear, I must have a _salon_ on account of the visits I receive. So just
+count!... Then there are my two girls. I've had to send them to
+school; Lucienne has begun to learn the piano and Marcelle has some taste
+for drawing.... By the way, I would have brought them with me, but I
+feared it would upset them too much. You will excuse me, won't you?"
+
+Then she spoke of all the worries which she had had with her husband on
+account of Salvat's ignominious death. Chretiennot, vain, quarrelsome
+little fellow that he was, felt exasperated at now having a _guillotine_
+in his wife's family. And he had lately begun to treat the unfortunate
+woman most harshly, charging her with having brought about all their
+troubles, and even rendering her responsible for his own mediocrity,
+embittered as he was more and more each day by a confined life of office
+work. On some evenings they had downright quarrels; she stood up for
+herself, and related that when she was at the confectionery shop in the
+Rue des Martyrs she could have married a doctor had she only chosen, for
+the doctor found her quite pretty enough. Now, however, she was becoming
+plainer and plainer, and her husband felt that he was condemned to
+everlasting penury; so that their life was becoming more and more dismal
+and quarrelsome, and as unbearable--despite the pride of being
+"gentleman" and "lady"--as was the destitution of the working classes.
+
+"All the same, my dear," at last said Madame Toussaint, weary of her
+sister-in-law's endless narrative of worries, "you have had one piece of
+luck. You won't have the trouble of bringing up a third child, now."
+
+"That's true," replied Hortense, with a sigh of relief. "How we should
+have managed, I don't know.... Still, I was very ill, and I'm far from
+being in good health now. The doctor says that I don't eat enough, and
+that I ought to have good food."
+
+Then she rose for the purpose of giving her brother another kiss and
+taking her departure; for she feared a scene on her husband's part should
+he happen to come home and find her absent. Once on her feet, however,
+she lingered there a moment longer, saying that she also had just seen
+her sister, Madame Theodore, and little Celine, both of them comfortably
+clad and looking happy. And with a touch of jealousy she added: "Well, my
+husband contents himself with slaving away at his office every day. He'll
+never do anything to get his head cut off; and it's quite certain that
+nobody will think of leaving an income to Marcelle and Lucienne....
+Well, good by, my dear, you must be brave, one must always hope that
+things will turn out for the best."
+
+When she had gone off, Pierre and Thomas inquired if M. Grandidier had
+heard of Toussaint's misfortune and agreed to do anything for him. Madame
+Toussaint answered that he had so far made only a vague promise; and on
+learning this they resolved to speak to him as warmly as they could on
+behalf of the old mechanician, who had spent as many as five and twenty
+years at the works. The misfortune was that a scheme for establishing a
+friendly society, and even a pension fund, which had been launched before
+the crisis from which the works were now recovering, had collapsed
+through a number of obstacles and complications. Had things turned out
+otherwise, Thomas might have had a pittance assured him, even though he
+was unable to work. But under the circumstances the only hope for the
+poor stricken fellow lay in his employer's compassion, if not his sense
+of justice.
+
+As the baby again began to cry, Madame Toussaint went to fetch it, and
+she was once more carrying it to and fro, when Thomas pressed her
+husband's sound hand between both his own. "We will come back," said the
+young man; "we won't forsake you, Toussaint. You know very well that
+people like you, for you've always been a good and steady workman. So
+rely on us, we will do all we can."
+
+Then they left him tearful and overpowered, in that dismal room, while,
+up and down beside him, his wife rocked the squealing infant--that other
+luckless creature, who was now so heavy on the old folks' hands, and like
+them was fated to die of want and unjust toil.
+
+Toil, manual toil, panting at every effort, this was what Pierre and
+Thomas once more found at the works. From the slender pipes above the
+roofs spurted rhythmical puffs of steam, which seemed like the very
+breath of all that labour. And in the work-shops one found a continuous
+rumbling, a whole army of men in motion, forging, filing, and piercing,
+amidst the spinning of leather gearing and the trembling of machinery.
+The day was ending with a final feverish effort to complete some task or
+other before the bell should ring for departure.
+
+On inquiring for the master Thomas learnt that he had not been seen since
+_dejeuner_, which was such an unusual occurrence that the young man at
+once feared some terrible scene in the silent pavilion, whose shutters
+were ever closed upon Grandidier's unhappy wife--that mad but beautiful
+creature, whom he loved so passionately that he had never been willing to
+part from her. The pavilion could be seen from the little glazed
+work-shop which Thomas usually occupied, and as he and Pierre stood
+waiting there, it looked very peaceful and pleasant amidst the big
+lilac-bushes planted round about it. Surely, they thought, it ought to
+have been brightened by the gay gown of a young woman and the laughter of
+playful children. But all at once a loud, piercing shriek reached their
+ears, followed by howls and moans, like those of an animal that is being
+beaten or possibly slaughtered. Ah! those howls ringing out amidst all
+the stir of the toiling works, punctuated it seemed by the rhythmical
+puffing of the steam, accompanied too by the dull rumbling of the
+machinery! The receipts of the business had been doubling and doubling
+since the last stock-taking; there was increase of prosperity every
+month, the bad times were over, far behind. Grandidier was realising a
+large fortune with his famous bicycle for the million, the "Lisette"; and
+the approaching vogue of motor-cars also promised huge gains, should he
+again start making little motor-engines, as he meant to do, as soon as
+Thomas's long-projected motor should be perfected. But what was wealth
+when in that dismal pavilion, whose shutters were ever closed, those
+frightful shrieks continued, proclaiming some terrible drama, which all
+the stir and bustle of the prosperous works were unable to stifle?
+
+Pierre and Thomas looked at one another, pale and quivering. And all at
+once, as the cries ceased and the pavilion sank into death-like silence
+once more, the latter said in an undertone: "She is usually very gentle,
+she will sometimes spend whole days sitting on a carpet like a little
+child. He is fond of her when she is like that; he lays her down and
+picks her up, caresses her and makes her laugh as if she were a baby. Ah!
+how dreadfully sad it is! When an attack comes upon her she gets frantic,
+tries to bite herself, and kill herself by throwing herself against the
+walls. And then he has to struggle with her, for no one else is allowed
+to touch her. He tries to restrain her, and holds her in his arms to calm
+her.... But how terrible it was just now! Did you hear? I do not think
+she has ever had such a frightful attack before."
+
+For a quarter of an hour longer profound silence prevailed. Then
+Grandidier came out of the pavilion, bareheaded and still ghastly pale.
+Passing the little glazed work-shop on his way, he perceived Thomas and
+Pierre there, and at once came in. But he was obliged to lean against a
+bench like a man who is dazed, haunted by a nightmare. His good-natured,
+energetic face retained an expression of acute anguish; and his left ear
+was scratched and bleeding. However, he at once wished to talk, overcome
+his feelings, and return to his life of activity. "I am very pleased to
+see you, my dear Thomas," said he, "I have been thinking over what you
+told me about our little motor. We must go into the matter again."
+
+Seeing how distracted he was, it occurred to the young man that some
+sudden diversion, such as the story of another's misfortunes, might
+perhaps draw him from his haunting thoughts. "Of course I am at your
+disposal," he replied; "but before talking of that matter I should like
+to tell you that we have just seen Toussaint, that poor old fellow who
+has been stricken with paralysis. His awful fate has quite distressed us.
+He is in the greatest destitution, forsaken as it were by the roadside,
+after all his years of labour."
+
+Thomas dwelt upon the quarter of a century which the old workman had
+spent at the factory, and suggested that it would be only just to take
+some account of his long efforts, the years of his life which he had
+devoted to the establishment. And he asked that he might be assisted in
+the name both of equity and compassion.
+
+"Ah! monsieur," Pierre in his turn ventured to say. "I should like to
+take you for an instant into that bare room, and show you that poor,
+aged, worn-out, stricken man, who no longer has even the power of speech
+left him to tell people his sufferings. There can be no greater
+wretchedness than to die in this fashion, despairing of all kindliness
+and justice."
+
+Grandidier had listened to them in silence. But big tears had
+irresistibly filled his eyes, and when he spoke it was in a very low and
+tremulous voice: "The greatest wretchedness, who can tell what it is? Who
+can speak of it if he has not known the wretchedness of others? Yes, yes,
+it's sad undoubtedly that poor Toussaint should be reduced to that state
+at his age, not knowing even if he will have food to eat on the morrow.
+But I know sorrows that are just as crushing, abominations which poison
+one's life in a still greater degree.... Ah! yes, food indeed! To
+think that happiness will reign in the world when everybody has food to
+eat! What an idiotic hope!"
+
+The whole grievous tragedy of his life was in the shudder which had come
+over him. To be the employer, the master, the man who is making money,
+who disposes of capital and is envied by his workmen, to own an
+establishment to which prosperity has returned, whose machinery coins
+gold, apparently leaving one no other trouble than that of pocketing
+one's profits; and yet at the same time to be the most wretched of men,
+to know no day exempt from anguish, to find each evening at one's hearth
+no other reward or prop than the most atrocious torture of the heart!
+Everything, even success, has to be paid for. And thus that triumpher,
+that money-maker, whose pile was growing larger at each successive
+inventory, was sobbing with bitter grief.
+
+However, he showed himself kindly disposed towards Toussaint, and
+promised to assist him. As for a pension that was an idea which he could
+not entertain, as it was the negation of the wage-system such as it
+existed. He energetically defended his rights as an employer, repeating
+that the strain of competition would compel him to avail himself of them
+so long as the present system should endure. His part in it was to do
+good business in an honest way. However, he regretted that his men had
+never carried out the scheme of establishing a relief fund, and he said
+that he would do his best to induce them to take it in hand again.
+
+Some colour had now come back to his checks; for on returning to the
+interests of his life of battle he felt his energy restored. He again
+reverted to the question of the little motor, and spoke of it for some
+time with Thomas, while Pierre waited, feeling quite upset. Ah! he
+thought, how universal was the thirst for happiness! Then, in spite of
+the many technical terms that were used he caught a little of what the
+others were saying. Small steam motors had been made at the works in
+former times; but they had not proved successes. In point of fact a new
+propelling force was needed. Electricity, though everyone foresaw its
+future triumph, was so far out of the question on account of the weight
+of the apparatus which its employment necessitated. So only petroleum
+remained, and the inconvenience attaching to its use was so great that
+victory and fortune would certainly rest with the manufacturer who should
+be able to replace it by some other hitherto unknown agent. In the
+discovery and adaptation of the latter lay the whole problem.
+
+"Yes, I am eager about it now," at last exclaimed Grandidier in an
+animated way. "I allowed you to prosecute your experiments without
+troubling you with any inquisitive questions. But a solution is becoming
+imperative."
+
+Thomas smiled: "Well, you must remain patient just a little longer," said
+he; "I believe that I am on the right road."
+
+Then Grandidier shook hands with him and Pierre, and went off to make his
+usual round through his busy, bustling works, whilst near at hand,
+awaiting his return, stood the closed pavilion, where every evening he
+was fated to relapse into endless, incurable anguish.
+
+The daylight was already waning when Pierre and Thomas, after
+re-ascending the height of Montmartre, walked towards the large work-shop
+which Jahan, the sculptor, had set up among the many sheds whose erection
+had been necessitated by the building of the Sacred Heart. There was here
+a stretch of ground littered with materials, an extraordinary chaos of
+building stone, beams and machinery; and pending the time when an army of
+navvies would come to set the whole place in order, one could see gaping
+trenches, rough flights of descending steps and fences, imperfectly
+closing doorways which conducted to the substructures of the basilica.
+
+Halting in front of Jahan's work-shop, Thomas pointed to one of these
+doorways by which one could reach the foundation works. "Have you never
+had an idea of visiting the foundations?" he inquired of Pierre. "There's
+quite a city down there on which millions of money have been spent. They
+could only find firm soil at the very base of the height, and they had to
+excavate more than eighty shafts, fill them with concrete, and then rear
+their church on all those subterranean columns.... Yes, that is so. Of
+course the columns cannot be seen, but it is they who hold that insulting
+edifice aloft, right over Paris!"
+
+Having drawn near to the fence, Pierre was looking at an open doorway
+beyond it, a sort of dark landing whence steps descended as if into the
+bowels of the earth. And he thought of those invisible columns of
+concrete, and of all the stubborn energy and desire for domination which
+had set and kept the edifice erect.
+
+Thomas was at last obliged to call him. "Let us make haste," said he,
+"the twilight will soon be here. We shan't be able to see much."
+
+They had arranged to meet Antoine at Jahan's, as the sculptor wished to
+show them a new model he had prepared. When they entered the work-shop
+they found the two assistants still working at the colossal angel which
+had been ordered for the basilica. Standing on a scaffolding they were
+rough-hewing its symmetrical wings, whilst Jahan, seated on a low chair,
+with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hands soiled with clay,
+was contemplating a figure some three feet high on which he had just been
+working.
+
+"Ah! it's you," he exclaimed. "Antoine has been waiting more than half an
+hour for you. He's gone outside with Lise to see the sun set over Paris,
+I think. But they will soon be back."
+
+Then he relapsed into silence, with his eyes fixed on his work.
+
+This was a bare, erect, lofty female figure, of such august majesty, so
+simple were its lines, that it suggested something gigantic. The figure's
+abundant, outspread hair suggested rays around its face, which beamed
+with sovereign beauty like the sun. And its only gesture was one of offer
+and of greeting; its arms were thrown slightly forward, and its hands
+were open for the grasp of all mankind.
+
+Still lingering in his dream Jahan began to speak slowly: "You remember
+that I wanted a pendant for my figure of Fecundity. I had modelled a
+Charity, but it pleased me so little and seemed so commonplace that I let
+the clay dry and spoil.... And then the idea of a figure of Justice
+came to me. But not a gowned figure with the sword and the scales! That
+wasn't the Justice that inspired me. What haunted my mind was the other
+Justice, the one that the lowly and the sufferers await, the one who
+alone can some day set a little order and happiness among us. And I
+pictured her like that, quite bare, quite simple, and very lofty. She is
+the sun as it were, a sun all beauty, harmony and strength; for justice
+is only to be found in the sun which shines in the heavens for one and
+all, and bestows on poor and rich alike its magnificence and light and
+warmth, which are the source of all life. And so my figure, you see, has
+her hands outstretched as if she were offering herself to all mankind,
+greeting it and granting it the gift of eternal life in eternal beauty.
+Ah! to be beautiful and strong and just, one's whole dream lies in that."
+
+Jahan relighted his pipe and burst into a merry laugh. "Well, I think the
+good woman carries herself upright.... What do you fellows say?"
+
+His visitors highly praised his work. Pierre for his part was much
+affected at finding in this artistic conception the very idea that he had
+so long been revolving in his mind--the idea of an era of Justice rising
+from the ruins of the world, which Charity after centuries of trial had
+failed to save.
+
+Then the sculptor gaily explained that he had prepared his model there
+instead of at home, in order to console himself a little for his big
+dummy of an angel, the prescribed triteness of which disgusted him. Some
+fresh objections had been raised with respect to the folds of the robe,
+which gave some prominence to the thighs, and in the end he had been
+compelled to modify all of the drapery.
+
+"Oh! it's just as they like!" he cried; "it's no work of mine, you know;
+it's simply an order which I'm executing just as a mason builds a wall.
+There's no religious art left, it has been killed by stupidity and
+disbelief. Ah! if social or human art could only revive, how glorious to
+be one of the first to bear the tidings!"
+
+Then he paused. Where could the youngsters, Antoine and Lise, have got
+to, he wondered. He threw the door wide open, and, a little distance
+away, among the materials littering the waste ground, one could see
+Antoine's tall figure and Lise's short slender form standing out against
+the immensity of Paris, which was all golden amidst the sun's farewell.
+The young man's strong arm supported Lise, who with this help walked
+beside him without feeling any fatigue. Slender and graceful, like a girl
+blossoming into womanhood, she raised her eyes to his with a smile of
+infinite gratitude, which proclaimed that she belonged to him for
+evermore.
+
+"Ah! they are coming back," said Jahan. "The miracle is now complete, you
+know. I'm delighted at it. I did not know what to do with her; I had even
+renounced all attempts to teach her to read; I left her for days together
+in a corner, infirm and tongue-tied like a lack-wit.... But your
+brother came and took her in hand somehow or other. She listened to him
+and understood him, and began to read and write with him, and grow
+intelligent and gay. Then, as her limbs still gained no suppleness, and
+she remained infirm, ailing and puny, he began by carrying her here, and
+then helped her to walk in such wise that she can now do so by herself.
+In a few weeks' time she has positively grown and become quite charming.
+Yes, I assure you, it is second birth, real creation. Just look at them!"
+
+Antoine and Lise were still slowly approaching. The evening breeze which
+rose from the great city, where all was yet heat and sunshine, brought
+them a bath of life. If the young man had chosen that spot, with its
+splendid horizon, open to the full air which wafted all the germs of
+life, it was doubtless because he felt that nowhere else could he instil
+more vitality, more soul, more strength into her. And love had been
+created by love. He had found her asleep, benumbed, without power of
+motion or intellect, and he had awakened her, kindled life in her, loved
+her, that he might be loved by her in return. She was his work, she was
+part of himself.
+
+"So you no longer feel tired, little one?" said Jahan.
+
+She smiled divinely. "Oh! no, it's so pleasant, so beautiful, to walk
+straight on like this.... All I desire is to go on for ever and ever
+with Antoine."
+
+The others laughed, and Jahan exclaimed in his good-natured way: "Let us
+hope that he won't take you so far. You've reached your destination now,
+and I shan't be the one to prevent you from being happy."
+
+Antoine was already standing before the figure of Justice, to which the
+falling twilight seemed to impart a quiver of life. "Oh! how divinely
+simple, how divinely beautiful!" said he.
+
+For his own part he had lately finished a new wood engraving, which
+depicted Lise holding a book in her hand, an engraving instinct with
+truth and emotion, showing her awakened to intelligence and love. And
+this time he had achieved his desire, making no preliminary drawing, but
+tackling the block with his graver, straight away, in presence of his
+model. And infinite hopefulness had come upon him, he was dreaming of
+great original works in which the whole period that he belonged to would
+live anew and for ever.
+
+Thomas now wished to return home. So they shook hands with Jahan, who, as
+his day's work was over, put on his coat to take his sister back to the
+Rue du Calvaire.
+
+"Till to-morrow, Lise," said Antoine, inclining his head to kiss her.
+
+She raised herself on tip-toes, and offered him her eyes, which he had
+opened to life. "Till to-morrow, Antoine," said she.
+
+Outside, the twilight was falling. Pierre was the first to cross the
+threshold, and as he did so, he saw so extraordinary a sight that for an
+instant he felt stupefied. But it was certain enough: he could plainly
+distinguish his brother Guillaume emerging from the gaping doorway which
+conducted to the foundations of the basilica. And he saw him hastily
+climb over the palings, and then pretend to be there by pure chance, as
+though he had come up from the Rue Lamarck. When he accosted his two
+sons, as if he were delighted to meet them, and began to say that he had
+just come from Paris, Pierre asked himself if he had been dreaming.
+However, an anxious glance which his brother cast at him convinced him
+that he had been right. And then he not only felt ill at ease in presence
+of that man whom he had never previously known to lie, but it seemed to
+him that he was at last on the track of all he had feared, the formidable
+mystery that he had for some time past felt brewing around him in the
+little peaceful house.
+
+When Guillaume, his sons and his brother reached home and entered the
+large workroom overlooking Paris, it was so dark that they fancied nobody
+was there.
+
+"What! nobody in?" said Guillaume.
+
+But in a somewhat low, quiet voice Francois answered out of the gloom:
+"Why, yes, I'm here."
+
+He had remained at his table, where he had worked the whole afternoon,
+and as he could no longer read, he now sat in a dreamy mood with his head
+resting on his hands, his eyes wandering over Paris, where night was
+gradually falling. As his examination was now near at hand, he was living
+in a state of severe mental strain.
+
+"What, you are still working there!" said his father. "Why didn't you ask
+for a lamp?"
+
+"No, I wasn't working, I was looking at Paris," Francois slowly answered.
+"It's singular how the night falls over it by degrees. The last district
+that remained visible was the Montague Ste. Genevieve, the plateau of the
+Pantheon, where all our knowledge and science have grown up. A sun-ray
+still gilds the schools and libraries and laboratories, when the
+low-lying districts of trade are already steeped in darkness. I won't say
+that the planet has a particular partiality for us at the Ecole Normale,
+but it's certain that its beams still linger on our roofs, when they are
+to be seen nowhere else."
+
+He began to laugh at his jest. Still one could see how ardent was his
+faith in mental effort, how entirely he gave himself to mental labour,
+which, in his opinion, could alone bring truth, establish justice and
+create happiness.
+
+Then came a short spell of silence. Paris sank more and more deeply into
+the night, growing black and mysterious, till all at once sparks of light
+began to appear.
+
+"The lamps are being lighted," resumed Francois; "work is being resumed on
+all sides."
+
+Then Guillaume, who likewise had been dreaming, immersed in his fixed
+idea, exclaimed: "Work, yes, no doubt! But for work to give a full
+harvest it must be fertilised by will. There is something which is
+superior to work."
+
+Thomas and Antoine had drawn near. And Francois, as much for them as for
+himself, inquired: "What is that, father?"
+
+"Action."
+
+For a moment the three young men remained silent, impressed by the
+solemnity of the hour, quivering too beneath the great waves of darkness
+which rose from the vague ocean of the city. Then a young voice remarked,
+though whose it was one could not tell: "Action is but work."
+
+And Pierre, who lacked the respectful quietude, the silent faith, of his
+nephews, now felt his nervousness increasing. That huge and terrifying
+mystery of which he was dimly conscious rose before him, while a great
+quiver sped by in the darkness, over that black city where the lamps were
+now being lighted for a whole passionate night of work.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE CRISIS
+
+A GREAT ceremony was to take place that day at the basilica of the Sacred
+Heart. Ten thousand pilgrims were to be present there, at a solemn
+consecration of the Holy Sacrament; and pending the arrival of four
+o'clock, the hour fixed for the service, Montmartre would be invaded by
+people. Its slopes would be black with swarming devotees, the shops where
+religious emblems and pictures were sold would be besieged, the cafes and
+taverns would be crowded to overflowing. It would all be like some huge
+fair, and meantime the big bell of the basilica, "La Savoyarde," would be
+ringing peal on peal over the holiday-making multitude.
+
+When Pierre entered the workroom in the morning he perceived Guillaume
+and Mere-Grand alone there; and a remark which he heard the former make
+caused him to stop short and listen from behind a tall-revolving
+bookstand. Mere-Grand sat sewing in her usual place near the big window,
+while Guillaume stood before her, speaking in a low voice.
+
+"Mother," said he, "everything is ready, it is for to-day."
+
+She let her work fall, and raised her eyes, looking very pale. "Ah!" she
+said, "so you have made up your mind."
+
+"Yes, irrevocably. At four o'clock I shall be yonder, and it will all be
+over."
+
+"'Tis well--you are the master."
+
+Silence fell, terrible silence. Guillaume's voice seemed to come from far
+away, from somewhere beyond the world. It was evident that his resolution
+was unshakable, that his tragic dream, his fixed idea of martyrdom,
+wholly absorbed him. Mere-Grand looked at him with her pale eyes, like an
+heroic woman who had grown old in relieving the sufferings of others, and
+had ever shown all the abnegation and devotion of an intrepid heart,
+which nothing but the idea of duty could influence. She knew Guillaume's
+terrible scheme, and had helped him to regulate the pettiest details of
+it; but if on the one hand, after all the iniquity she had seen and
+endured, she admitted that fierce and exemplary punishment might seem
+necessary, and that even the idea of purifying the world by the fire of a
+volcano might be entertained, on the other hand, she believed too
+strongly in the necessity of living one's life bravely to the very end,
+to be able, under any circumstances, to regard death as either good or
+profitable.
+
+"My son," she gently resumed, "I witnessed the growth of your scheme, and
+it neither surprised nor angered me. I accepted it as one accepts
+lightning, the very fire of the skies, something of sovereign purity and
+power. And I have helped you through it all, and have taken upon myself
+to act as the mouthpiece of your conscience.... But let me tell you
+once more, one ought never to desert the cause of life."
+
+"It is useless to speak, mother," Guillaume replied: "I have resolved to
+give my life and cannot take it back.... Are you now unwilling to
+carry out my desires, remain here, and act as we have decided, when all
+is over?"
+
+She did not answer this inquiry, but in her turn, speaking slowly and
+gravely, put a question to him: "So it is useless for me to speak to you
+of the children, myself and the house?" said she. "You have thought it
+all over, you are quite determined?" And as he simply answered "Yes," she
+added: "'Tis well, you are the master.... I will be the one who is to
+remain behind and act. And you may be without fear, your bequest is in
+good hands. All that we have decided together shall be done."
+
+Once more they became silent. Then she again inquired: "At four o'clock,
+you say, at the moment of that consecration?"
+
+"Yes, at four o'clock."
+
+She was still looking at him with her pale eyes, and there seemed to be
+something superhuman in her simplicity and grandeur as she sat there in
+her thin black gown. Her glance, in which the greatest bravery and the
+deepest sadness mingled, filled Guillaume with acute emotion. His hands
+began to tremble, and he asked: "Will you let me kiss you, mother?"
+
+"Oh! right willingly, my son," she responded. "Your path of duty may not
+be mine, but you see I respect your views and love you."
+
+They kissed one another, and when Pierre, whom the scene had chilled to
+his heart, presented himself as if he were just arriving, Mere-Grand had
+quietly taken up her needlework once more, while Guillaume was going to
+and fro, setting one of his laboratory shelves in order with all his
+wonted activity.
+
+At noon when lunch was ready, they found it necessary to wait for Thomas,
+who had not yet come home. His brothers Francois and Antoine complained
+in a jesting way, saying that they were dying of hunger, while for her
+part Marie, who had made a _creme_, and was very proud of it, declared
+that they would eat it all, and that those who came late would have to go
+without tasting it. When Thomas eventually put in an appearance he was
+greeted with jeers.
+
+"But it wasn't my fault," said he; "I stupidly came up the hill by way of
+the Rue de la Barre, and you can have no notion what a crowd I fell upon.
+Quite ten thousand pilgrims must have camped there last night. I am told
+that as many as possible were huddled together in the St. Joseph Refuge.
+The others no doubt had to sleep in the open air. And now they are busy
+eating, here, there and everywhere, all over the patches of waste ground
+and even on the pavements. One can scarcely set one foot before the other
+without risk of treading on somebody."
+
+The meal proved a very gay one, though Pierre found the gaiety forced and
+excessive. Yet the young people could surely know nothing of the
+frightful, invisible thing which to Pierre ever seemed to be hovering
+around in the bright sunlight of that splendid June day. Was it that the
+dim presentiment which comes to loving hearts when mourning threatens
+them, swept by during the short intervals of silence that followed the
+joyous outbursts? Although Guillaume looked somewhat pale, and spoke with
+unusual caressing softness, he retained his customary bright smile. But,
+on the other hand, never had Mere-Grand been more silent or more grave.
+
+Marie's _creme_ proved a great success, and the others congratulated her
+on it so fulsomely that they made her blush. Then, all at once, heavy
+silence fell once more, a deathly chill seemed to sweep by, making every
+face turn pale--even while they were still cleaning their plates with
+their little spoons.
+
+"Ah! that bell," exclaimed Francois; "it is really intolerable. I can
+feel my head splitting."
+
+He referred to "La Savoyarde," the big bell of the basilica, which had
+now begun to toll, sending forth deep sonorous volumes of sound, which
+ever and ever winged their flight over the immensity of Paris. In the
+workroom they were all listening to the clang.
+
+"Will it keep on like that till four o'clock?" asked Marie.
+
+"Oh! at four o'clock," replied Thomas, "at the moment of the consecration
+you will hear something much louder than that. The great peals of joy,
+the song of triumph will then ring out."
+
+Guillaume was still smiling. "Yes, yes," said he, "those who don't want
+to be deafened for life had better keep their windows closed. The worst
+is, that Paris has to hear it whether it will or no, and even as far away
+as the Pantheon, so I'm told."
+
+Meantime Mere-Grand remained silent and impassive. Antoine for his part
+expressed his disgust with the horrible religious pictures for which the
+pilgrims fought--pictures which in some respects suggested those on the
+lids of sweetmeat boxes, although they depicted the Christ with His
+breast ripped open and displaying His bleeding heart. There could be no
+more repulsive materialism, no grosser or baser art, said Antoine. Then
+they rose from table, talking at the top of their voices so as to make
+themselves heard above the incessant din which came from the big bell.
+
+Immediately afterwards they all set to work again. Mere-Grand took her
+everlasting needlework in hand once more, while Marie, sitting near her,
+continued some embroidery. The young men also attended to their
+respective tasks, and now and again raised their heads and exchanged a
+few words. Guillaume, for his part, likewise seemed very busy; Pierre
+alone coming and going in a state of anguish, beholding them all as in a
+nightmare, and attributing some terrible meaning to the most innocent
+remarks. During _dejeuner_, in order to explain the frightful discomfort
+into which he was thrown by the gaiety of the meal, he had been obliged
+to say that he felt poorly. And now he was looking and listening and
+waiting with ever-growing anxiety.
+
+Shortly before three o'clock, Guillaume glanced at his watch and then
+quietly took up his hat. "Well," said he, "I'm going out."
+
+His sons, Mere-Grand and Marie raised their heads.
+
+"I'm going out," he repeated, "_au revoir_."
+
+Still he did not go off. Pierre could divine that he was struggling,
+stiffening himself against the frightful tempest which was raging within
+him, striving to prevent either shudder or pallor from betraying his
+awful secret. Ah! he must have suffered keenly; he dared not give his
+sons a last kiss, for fear lest he might rouse some suspicion in their
+minds, which would impel them to oppose him and prevent his death! At
+last with supreme heroism he managed to overcome himself.
+
+"_Au revoir_, boys."
+
+"_Au revoir_, father. Will you be home early?"
+
+"Yes, yes.... Don't worry about me, do plenty of work."
+
+Mere-Grand, still majestically silent, kept her eyes fixed upon him. Her
+he had ventured to kiss, and their glances met and mingled, instinct with
+all that he had decided and that she had promised: their common dream of
+truth and justice.
+
+"I say, Guillaume," exclaimed Marie gaily, "will you undertake a
+commission for me if you are going down by way of the Rue des Martyrs?"
+
+"Why, certainly," he replied.
+
+"Well, then, please look in at my dressmaker's, and tell her that I
+shan't go to try my gown on till to-morrow morning."
+
+It was a question of her wedding dress, a gown of light grey silk, the
+stylishness of which she considered very amusing. Whenever she spoke of
+it, both she and the others began to laugh.
+
+"It's understood, my dear," said Guillaume, likewise making merry over
+it. "We know it's Cinderella's court robe, eh? The fairy brocade and lace
+that are to make you very beautiful and for ever happy."
+
+However, the laughter ceased, and in the sudden silence which fell, it
+again seemed as if death were passing by with a great flapping of wings
+and an icy gust which chilled the hearts of everyone remaining there.
+
+"It's understood; so now I'm really off," resumed Guillaume. "_Au
+revoir_, children."
+
+Then he sallied forth, without even turning round, and for a moment they
+could hear the firm tread of his feet over the garden gravel.
+
+Pierre having invented a pretext was able to follow him a couple of
+minutes afterwards. As a matter of fact there was no need for him to dog
+Guillaume's heels, for he knew where his brother was going. He was
+thoroughly convinced that he would find him at that doorway, conducting
+to the foundations of the basilica, whence he had seen him emerge two
+days before. And so he wasted no time in looking for him among the crowd
+of pilgrims going to the church. His only thought was to hurry on and
+reach Jahan's workshop. And in accordance with his expectation, just as
+he arrived there, he perceived Guillaume slipping between the broken
+palings. The crush and the confusion prevailing among the concourse of
+believers favored Pierre as it had his brother, in such wise that he was
+able to follow the latter and enter the doorway without being noticed.
+Once there he had to pause and draw breath for a moment, so greatly did
+the beating of his heart oppress him.
+
+A precipitous flight of steps, where all was steeped in darkness,
+descended from the narrow entry. It was with infinite precaution that
+Pierre ventured into the gloom, which ever grew denser and denser. He
+lowered his feet gently so as to make no noise, and feeling the walls
+with his hands, turned round and round as he went lower and lower into a
+kind of well. However, the descent was not a very long one. As soon as he
+found beaten ground beneath his feet he paused, no longer daring to stir
+for fear of betraying his presence. The darkness was like ink, and there
+was not a sound, a breath; the silence was complete.
+
+How should he find his way? he wondered. Which direction ought he to
+take? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly saw
+a bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle.
+Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply had
+to follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterranean
+gallery. It seemed to be interminable and to run in a northerly
+direction, towards the nave of the basilica.
+
+All at once the little light at last stopped, while Pierre, anxious to
+see what would happen, continued to advance, treading as softly as he
+could and remaining in the gloom. He found that Guillaume had stood his
+candle upon the ground in the middle of a kind of low rotunda under the
+crypt, and that he had knelt down and moved aside a long flagstone which
+seemed to cover a cavity. They were here among the foundations of the
+basilica; and one of the columns or piles of concrete poured into shafts
+in order to support the building could be seen. The gap, which the stone
+slab removed by Guillaume had covered, was by the very side of the
+pillar; it was either some natural surface flaw, or a deep fissure caused
+by some subsidence or settling of the soil. The heads of other pillars
+could be descried around, and these the cleft seemed to be reaching, for
+little slits branched out in all directions. Then, on seeing his brother
+leaning forward, like one who is for the last time examining a mine he
+has laid before applying a match to the fuse, Pierre suddenly understood
+the whole terrifying business. Considerable quantities of the new
+explosive had been brought to that spot. Guillaume had made the journey a
+score of times at carefully selected hours, and all his powder had been
+poured into the gap beside the pillar, spreading to the slightest rifts
+below, saturating the soil at a great depth, and in this wise forming a
+natural mine of incalculable force. And now the powder was flush with the
+flagstone which Guillaume has just moved aside. It was only necessary to
+throw a match there, and everything would be blown into the air!
+
+For a moment an acute chill of horror rooted Pierre to the spot. He could
+neither have taken a step nor raised a cry. He pictured the swarming
+throng above him, the ten thousand pilgrims crowding the lofty naves of
+the basilica to witness the solemn consecration of the Host. Peal upon
+peal flew from "La Savoyarde," incense smoked, and ten thousand voices
+raised a hymn of magnificence and praise. And all at once came thunder
+and earthquake, and a volcano opening and belching forth fire and smoke,
+and swallowing up the whole church and its multitude of worshippers.
+Breaking the concrete piles and rending the unsound soil, the explosion,
+which was certain to be one of extraordinary violence, would doubtless
+split the edifice atwain, and hurl one-half down the slopes descending
+towards Paris, whilst the other on the side of the apse would crumble and
+collapse upon the spot where it stood. And how fearful would be the
+avalanche; a broken forest of scaffoldings, a hail of stonework, rushing
+and bounding through the dust and smoke on to the roofs below; whilst the
+violence of the shock would threaten the whole of Montmartre, which, it
+seemed likely, must stagger and sink in one huge mass of ruins!
+
+However, Guillaume had again risen. The candle standing on the ground,
+its flame shooting up, erect and slender, threw his huge shadow all over
+the subterranean vault. Amidst the dense blackness the light looked like
+some dismal stationary star. Guillaume drew near to it in order to see
+what time it was by his watch. It proved to be five minutes past three.
+So he had nearly another hour to wait. He was in no hurry, he wished to
+carry out his design punctually, at the precise moment he had selected;
+and he therefore sat down on a block of stone, and remained there without
+moving, quiet and patient. The candle now cast its light upon his pale
+face, upon his towering brow crowned with white hair, upon the whole of
+his energetic countenance, which still looked handsome and young, thanks
+to his bright eyes and dark moustaches. And not a muscle of his face
+stirred; he simply gazed into the void. What thoughts could be passing
+through his mind at that supreme moment? Who could tell? There was not a
+quiver; heavy night, the deep eternal silence of the earth reigned all
+around.
+
+Then Pierre, having quieted his palpitating heart, drew near. At the
+sound of his footsteps Guillaume rose menacingly, but he immediately
+recognised his brother, and did not seem astonished to see him.
+
+"Ah! it's you," he said, "you followed me.... I felt that you
+possessed my secret. And it grieves me that you should have abused your
+knowledge to join me here. You might have spared me this last sorrow."
+
+Pierre clasped his trembling hands, and at once tried to entreat him.
+"Brother, brother," he began.
+
+"No, don't speak yet," said Guillaume, "if you absolutely wish it I will
+listen to you by-and-by. We have nearly an hour before us, so we can
+chat. But I want you to understand the futility of all you may think
+needful to tell me. My resolution is unshakable; I was a long time coming
+to it, and in carrying it out I shall simply be acting in accordance with
+my reason and my conscience."
+
+Then he quietly related that having decided upon a great deed he had long
+hesitated as to which edifice he should destroy. The opera-house had
+momentarily tempted him, but he had reflected that there would be no
+great significance in the whirlwind of anger and justice destroying a
+little set of enjoyers. In fact, such a deed might savour of jealousy and
+covetousness. Next he had thought of the Bourse, where he might strike a
+blow at money, the great agent of corruption, and the capitalist society
+in whose clutches the wage-earners groaned. Only, here again the blow
+would fall upon a restricted circle. Then an idea of destroying the
+Palace of Justice, particularly the assize court, had occurred to him. It
+was a very tempting thought--to wreak justice upon human justice, to
+sweep away the witnesses, the culprit, the public prosecutor who charges
+the latter, the counsel who defends him, the judges who sentence him, and
+the lounging public which comes to the spot as to the unfolding of some
+sensational serial. And then too what fierce irony there would be in the
+summary superior justice of the volcano swallowing up everything
+indiscriminately without pausing to enter into details. However, the plan
+over which he had most lingered was that of blowing up the Arc de
+Triomphe. This he regarded as an odious monument which perpetuated
+warfare, hatred among nations, and the false, dearly purchased,
+sanguineous glory of conquerors. That colossus raised to the memory of so
+much frightful slaughter which had uselessly put an end to so many human
+lives, ought, he considered, to be slaughtered in its turn. Could he so
+have arranged things that the earth should swallow it up, he might have
+achieved the glory of causing no other death than his own, of dying
+alone, struck down, crushed to pieces beneath that giant of stone. What a
+tomb, and what a memory might he thus have left to the world!
+
+"But there was no means of approaching it," he continued, "no basement,
+no cellar, so I had to give up the idea.... And then, although I'm
+perfectly willing to die alone, I thought what a loftier and more
+terrible lesson there would be in the unjust death of an innocent
+multitude, of thousands of unknown people, of all those that might happen
+to be passing. In the same way as human society by dint of injustice,
+want and harsh regulations causes so many innocent victims, so must
+punishment fall as the lightning falls, indiscriminately killing and
+destroying whatever it may encounter in its course. When a man sets his
+foot on an ant-hill, he gives no heed to all the lives which he stamps
+out."
+
+Pierre, whom this theory rendered quite indignant, raised a cry of
+protest: "Oh! brother, brother, is it you who are saying such things?"
+
+Yet, Guillaume did not pause: "If I have ended by choosing this basilica
+of the Sacred Heart," he continued, "it is because I found it near at
+hand and easy to destroy. But it is also because it haunts and
+exasperates me, because I have long since condemned it.... As I have
+often said to you, one cannot imagine anything more preposterous than
+Paris, our great Paris, crowned and dominated by this temple raised to
+the glorification of the absurd. Is it not outrageous that common sense
+should receive such a smack after so many centuries of science, that Rome
+should claim the right of triumphing in this insolent fashion, on our
+loftiest height in the full sunlight? The priests want Paris to repent
+and do penitence for its liberative work of truth and justice. But its
+only right course is to sweep away all that hampers and insults it in its
+march towards deliverance. And so may the temple fall with its deity of
+falsehood and servitude! And may its ruins crush its worshippers, so that
+like one of the old geological revolutions of the world, the catastrophe
+may resound through the very entrails of mankind, and renew and change
+it!"
+
+"Brother, brother!" again cried Pierre, quite beside himself, "is it you
+who are talking? What! you, a great scientist, a man of great heart, you
+have come to this! What madness is stirring you that you should think and
+say such abominable things? On the evening when we confessed our secrets
+one to the other, you told me of your proud and lofty dream of ideal
+Anarchy. There would be free harmony in life, which left to its natural
+forces would of itself create happiness. But you still rebelled against
+the idea of theft and murder. You would not accept them as right or
+necessary; you merely explained and excused them. What has happened then
+that you, all brain and thought, should now have become the hateful hand
+that acts?"
+
+"Salvat has been guillotined," said Guillaume simply, "and I read his
+will and testament in his last glance. I am merely an executor.... And
+what has happened, you ask? Why, all that has made me suffer for four
+months past, the whole social evil which surrounds us, and which must be
+brought to an end."
+
+Silence fell. The brothers looked at one another in the darkness. And
+Pierre now understood things. He saw that Guillaume was changed, that the
+terrible gust of revolutionary contagion sweeping over Paris had
+transformed him. It had all come from the duality of his nature, the
+presence of contradictory elements within him. On one side one found a
+scientist whose whole creed lay in observation and experiment, who, in
+dealing with nature, evinced the most cautious logic; while on the other
+side was a social dreamer, haunted by ideas of fraternity, equality and
+justice, and eager for universal happiness. Thence had first come the
+theoretical anarchist that he had been, one in whom science and chimeras
+were mingled, who dreamt of human society returning to the harmonious law
+of the spheres, each man free, in a free association, regulated by love
+alone. Neither Theophile Morin with the doctrines of Proudhon and Comte,
+nor Bache with those of St. Simon and Fourier, had been able to satisfy
+his desire for the absolute. All those systems had seemed to him
+imperfect and chaotic, destructive of one another, and tending to the
+same wretchedness of life. Janzen alone had occasionally satisfied him
+with some of his curt phrases which shot over the horizon, like arrows
+conquering the whole earth for the human family. And then in Guillaume's
+big heart, which the idea of want, the unjust sufferings of the lowly and
+the poor exasperated, Salvat's tragic adventure had suddenly found place,
+fomenting supreme rebellion. For long weeks he had lived on with
+trembling hands, with growing anguish clutching at his throat. First had
+come that bomb and the explosion which still made him quiver, then the
+vile cupidity of the newspapers howling for the poor wretch's head, then
+the search for him and the hunt through the Bois de Boulogne, till he
+fell into the hands of the police, covered with mud and dying of
+starvation. And afterwards there had been the assize court, the judges,
+the gendarmes, the witnesses, the whole of France arrayed against one man
+and bent on making him pay for the universal crime. And finally, there
+had come the guillotine, the monstrous, the filthy beast consummating
+irreparable injustice in human justice's name. One sole idea now remained
+to Guillaume, that idea of justice which maddened him, leaving naught in
+his mind save the thought of the just, avenging flare by which he would
+repair the evil and ensure that which was right for all time forward.
+Salvat had looked at him, and contagion had done its work; he glowed with
+a desire for death, a desire to give his own blood and set the blood of
+others flowing, in order that mankind, amidst its fright and horror,
+should decree the return of the golden age.
+
+Pierre understood the stubborn blindness of such insanity; and he felt
+utterly upset by the fear that he should be unable to overcome it. "You
+are mad, brother!" he exclaimed, "they have driven you mad! It is a gust
+of violence passing; they were treated in a wrong way and too
+relentlessly at the outset, and now that they are avenging one another,
+it may be that blood will never cease to flow.... But, listen,
+brother, throw off that nightmare. You can't be a Salvat who murders or a
+Bergaz who steals! Remember the pillage of the Princess's house and
+remember the fair-haired, pretty child whom we saw lying yonder, ripped
+open.... You do not, you cannot belong to that set, brother--"
+
+With a wave of his hand, Guillaume brushed these vain reasons aside. Of
+what consequence were a few lives, his own included? No change had ever
+taken place in the world without millions and millions of existences
+being stamped out.
+
+"But you had a great scheme in hand," cried Pierre, hoping to save him by
+reviving his sense of duty. "It isn't allowable for you to go off like
+this."
+
+Then he fervently strove to awaken his brother's scientific pride. He
+spoke to him of his secret, of that great engine of warfare, which could
+destroy armies and reduce cities to dust, and which he had intended to
+offer to France, so that on emerging victorious from the approaching war,
+she might afterwards become the deliverer of the world. And it was this
+grand scheme that he had abandoned, preferring to employ his explosive in
+killing innocent people and overthrowing a church, which would be built
+afresh, whatever the cost, and become a sanctuary of martyrs!
+
+Guillaume smiled. "I have not relinquished my scheme," said he, "I have
+simply modified it. Did I not tell you of my doubts, my anxious
+perplexity? Ah! to believe that one holds the destiny of the world in
+one's grasp, and to tremble and hesitate and wonder if the intelligence
+and wisdom, that are needful for things to take the one wise course, will
+be forthcoming! At sight of all the stains upon our great Paris, all the
+errors and transgressions which we lately witnessed, I shuddered. I asked
+myself if Paris were sufficiently calm and pure for one to entrust her
+with omnipotence. How terrible would be the disaster if such an invention
+as mine should fall into the hands of a demented nation, possibly a
+dictator, some man of conquest, who would simply employ it to terrorize
+other nations and reduce them to slavery.... Ah! no, I do not wish to
+perpetuate warfare, I wish to kill it."
+
+Then in a clear firm voice he explained his new plan, in which Pierre was
+surprised to find some of the ideas which General de Bozonnet had one day
+laid before him in a very different spirit. Warfare was on the road to
+extinction, threatened by its very excesses. In the old days of
+mercenaries, and afterwards with conscripts, the percentage of soldiers
+designated by chance, war had been a profession and a passion. But
+nowadays, when everybody is called upon to fight, none care to do so. By
+the logical force of things, the system of the whole nation in arms means
+the coming end of armies. How much longer will the nations remain on a
+footing of deadly peace, bowed down by ever increasing "estimates,"
+spending millions and millions on holding one another in respect? Ah! how
+great the deliverance, what a cry of relief would go up on the day when
+some formidable engine, capable of destroying armies and sweeping cities
+away, should render war an impossibility and constrain every people to
+disarm! Warfare would be dead, killed in her own turn, she who has killed
+so many. This was Guillaume's dream, and he grew quite enthusiastic, so
+strong was his conviction that he would presently bring it to pass.
+
+"Everything is settled," said he; "if I am about to die and disappear, it
+is in order that my idea may triumph.... You have lately seen me spend
+whole afternoons alone with Mere-Grand. Well, we were completing the
+classification of the documents and making our final arrangements. She
+has my orders, and will execute them even at the risk of her life, for
+none has a braver, loftier soul.... As soon as I am dead, buried
+beneath these stones, as soon as she has heard the explosion shake Paris
+and proclaim the advent of the new era, she will forward a set of all the
+documents I have confided to her--the formula of my explosive, the
+drawings of the bomb and gun--to each of the great powers of the world.
+In this wise I shall bestow on all the nations the terrible gift of
+destruction and omnipotence which, at first, I wished to bestow on France
+alone; and I do this in order that the nations, being one and all armed
+with the thunderbolt, may at once disarm, for fear of being annihilated,
+when seeking to annihilate others."
+
+Pierre listened to him, gaping, amazed at this extraordinary idea, in
+which childishness was blended with genius. "Well," said he, "if you give
+your secret to all the nations, why should you blow up this church, and
+die yourself?"
+
+"Why! In order that I may be believed!" cried Guillaume with
+extraordinary force of utterance. Then he added, "The edifice must lie on
+the ground, and I must be under it. If the experiment is not made, if
+universal horror does not attest and proclaim the amazing destructive
+power of my explosive, people will consider me a mere schemer, a
+visionary!... A lot of dead, a lot of blood, that is what is needed in
+order that blood may for ever cease to flow!" Then, with a broad sweep of
+his arm, he again declared that his action was necessary. "Besides," he
+said, "Salvat left me the legacy of carrying out this deed of justice. If
+I have given it greater scope and significance, utilising it as a means
+of hastening the end of war, this is because I happen to be a man of
+intellect. It would have been better possibly if my mind had been a
+simple one, and if I had merely acted like some volcano which changes the
+soil, leaving life the task of renewing humanity."
+
+Much of the candle had now burnt away, and Guillaume at last rose from
+the block of stone. He had again consulted his watch, and found that he
+had ten minutes left him. The little current of air created by his
+gestures made the light flicker, while all around him the darkness seemed
+to grow denser. And near at hand ever lay the threatening open mine which
+a spark might at any moment fire.
+
+"It is nearly time," said Guillaume. "Come, brother, kiss me and go away.
+You know how much I love you, what ardent affection for you has been
+awakened in my old heart. So love me in like fashion, and find love
+enough to let me die as I want to die, in carrying out my duty. Kiss me,
+kiss me, and go away without turning your head."
+
+His deep affection for Pierre made his voice tremble, but he struggled
+on, forced back his tears, and ended by conquering himself. It was as if
+he were no longer of the world, no longer one of mankind.
+
+"No, brother, you have not convinced me," said Pierre, who on his side
+did not seek to hide his tears, "and it is precisely because I love you
+as you love me, with my whole being, my whole soul, that I cannot go
+away. It is impossible! You cannot be the madman, the murderer you would
+try to be."
+
+"Why not? Am I not free. I have rid my life of all responsibilities, all
+ties.... I have brought up my sons, they have no further need of me.
+But one heart-link remained--Marie, and I have given her to you."
+
+At this a disturbing argument occurred to Pierre, and he passionately
+availed himself of it. "So you want to die because you have given me
+Marie," said he. "You still love her, confess it!"
+
+"No!" cried Guillaume, "I no longer love her, I swear it. I gave her to
+you. I love her no more."
+
+"So you fancied; but you can see now that you still love her, for here
+you are, quite upset; whereas none of the terrifying things of which we
+spoke just now could even move you.... Yes, if you wish to die it is
+because you have lost Marie!"
+
+Guillaume quivered, shaken by what his brother said, and in low, broken
+words he tried to question himself. "No, no, that any love pain should
+have urged me to this terrible deed would be unworthy--unworthy of my
+great design. No, no, I decided on it in the free exercise of my reason,
+and I am accomplishing it from no personal motive, but in the name of
+justice and for the benefit of humanity, in order that war and want may
+cease."
+
+Then, in sudden anguish, he went on: "Ah! it is cruel of you, brother,
+cruel of you to poison my delight at dying. I have created all the
+happiness I could, I was going off well pleased at leaving you all happy,
+and now you poison my death. No, no! question it how I may, my heart does
+not ache; if I love Marie, it is simply in the same way as I love you."
+
+Nevertheless, he remained perturbed, as if fearing lest he might be lying
+to himself; and by degrees gloomy anger came over him: "Listen, that is
+enough, Pierre," he exclaimed, "time is flying.... For the last time,
+go away! I order you to do so; I will have it!"
+
+"I will not obey you, Guillaume.... I will stay, and as all my
+reasoning cannot save you from your insanity, fire your mine, and I will
+die with you."
+
+"You? Die? But you have no right to do so, you are not free!"
+
+"Free, or not, I swear that I will die with you. And if it merely be a
+question of flinging this candle into that hole, tell me so, and I will
+take it and fling it there myself."
+
+He made a gesture at which his brother thought that he was about to carry
+out his threat. So he caught him by the arm, crying: "Why should you die?
+It would be absurd. That others should die may be necessary, but you, no!
+Of what use could be this additional monstrosity? You are endeavouring to
+soften me, you are torturing my heart!" Then all at once, imagining that
+Pierre's offer had concealed another design, Guillaume thundered in a
+fury: "You don't want to take the candle in order to throw it there. What
+you want to do is to blow it out! And you think I shan't be able
+then--ah! you bad brother!"
+
+In his turn Pierre exclaimed: "Oh! certainly, I'll use every means to
+prevent you from accomplishing such a frightful and foolish deed!"
+
+"You'll prevent me!"
+
+"Yes, I'll cling to you, I'll fasten my arms to your shoulders, I'll hold
+your hands if necessary."
+
+"Ah! you'll prevent me, you bad brother! You think you'll prevent me!"
+
+Choking and trembling with rage, Guillaume had already caught hold of
+Pierre, pressing his ribs with his powerful muscular arms. They were
+closely linked together, their eyes fixed upon one another, and their
+breath mingling in that kind of subterranean dungeon, where their big
+dancing shadows looked like ghosts. They seemed to be vanishing into the
+night, the candle now showed merely like a little yellow tear in the
+midst of the darkness; and at that moment, in those far depths, a quiver
+sped through the silence of the earth which weighed so heavily upon them.
+Distant but sonorous peals rang out, as if death itself were somewhere
+ringing its invisible bell.
+
+"You hear," stammered Guillaume, "it's their bell up there. The time has
+come. I have vowed to act, and you want to prevent me!"
+
+"Yes, I'll prevent you as long as I'm here alive."
+
+"As long as you are alive, you'll prevent me!"
+
+Guillaume could hear "La Savoyarde" pealing joyfully up yonder; he could
+see the triumphant basilica, overflowing with its ten thousand pilgrims,
+and blazing with the splendour of the Host amidst the smoke of incense;
+and blind frenzy came over him at finding himself unable to act, at
+finding an obstacle suddenly barring the road to his fixed idea.
+
+"As long as you are alive, as long as you are alive!" he repeated, beside
+himself. "Well, then, die, you wretched brother!"
+
+A fratricidal gleam had darted from his blurred eyes. He hastily stooped,
+picked up a large brick forgotten there, and raised it with both hands as
+if it were a club.
+
+"Ah! I'm willing," cried Pierre. "Kill me, then; kill your own brother
+before you kill the others!"
+
+The brick was already descending, but Guillaume's arms must have
+deviated, for the weapon only grazed one of Pierre's shoulders.
+Nevertheless, he sank upon his knees in the gloom. When Guillaume saw him
+there he fancied he had dealt him a mortal blow. What was it that had
+happened between them, what had he done? For a moment he remained
+standing, haggard, his mouth open, his eyes dilating with terror. He
+looked at his hands, fancying that blood was streaming from them. Then he
+pressed them to his brow, which seemed to be bursting with pain, as if
+his fixed idea had been torn from him, leaving his skull open. And he
+himself suddenly sank upon the ground with a great sob.
+
+"Oh! brother, little brother, what have I done?" he called. "I am a
+monster!"
+
+But Pierre had passionately caught him in his arms again. "It is nothing,
+nothing, brother, I assure you," he replied. "Ah! you are weeping now.
+How pleased I am! You are saved, I can feel it, since you are weeping.
+And what a good thing it is that you flew into such a passion, for your
+anger with me has dispelled your evil dream of violence."
+
+"I am horrified with myself," gasped Guillaume, "to think that I wanted
+to kill you! Yes, I'm a brute beast that would kill his brother! And the
+others, too, all the others up yonder.... Oh! I'm cold, I feel so
+cold."
+
+His teeth were chattering, and he shivered. It was as if he had awakened,
+half stupefied, from some evil dream. And in the new light which his
+fratricidal deed cast upon things, the scheme which had haunted him and
+goaded him to madness appeared like some act of criminal folly, projected
+by another.
+
+"To kill you!" he repeated almost in a whisper. "I shall never forgive
+myself. My life is ended, I shall never find courage enough to live."
+
+But Pierre clasped him yet more tightly. "What do you say?" he answered.
+"Will there not rather be a fresh and stronger tie of affection between
+us? Ah! yes, brother, let me save you as you saved me, and we shall be
+yet more closely united! Don't you remember that evening at Neuilly, when
+you consoled me and held me to your heart as I am holding you to mine? I
+had confessed my torments to you, and you told me that I must live and
+love!... And you did far more afterwards: you plucked your own love
+from your breast and gave it to me. You wished to ensure my happiness at
+the price of your own! And how delightful it is that, in my turn, I now
+have an opportunity to console you, save you, and bring you back to
+life!"
+
+"No, no, the bloodstain is there and it is ineffaceable. I can hope no
+more!"
+
+"Yes, yes, you can. Hope in life as you bade me do! Hope in love and hope
+in labour!"
+
+Still weeping and clasping one another, the brothers continued speaking
+in low voices. The expiring candle suddenly went out unknown to them, and
+in the inky night and deep silence their tears of redeeming affection
+flowed freely. On the one hand, there was joy at being able to repay a
+debt of brotherliness, and on the other, acute emotion at having been led
+by a fanatical love of justice and mankind to the very verge of crime.
+And there were yet other things in the depths of those tears which
+cleansed and purified them; there were protests against suffering in
+every form, and ardent wishes that the world might some day be relieved
+of all its dreadful woe.
+
+At last, after pushing the flagstone over the cavity near the pillar,
+Pierre groped his way out of the vault, leading Guillaume like a child.
+
+Meantime Mere-Grand, still seated near the window of the workroom, had
+impassively continued sewing. Now and again, pending the arrival of four
+o'clock, she had looked up at the timepiece hanging on the wall on her
+left hand, or else had glanced out of the window towards the unfinished
+pile of the basilica, which a gigantic framework of scaffoldings
+encompassed. Slowly and steadily plying her needle, the old lady remained
+very pale and silent, but full of heroic serenity. On the other hand,
+Marie, who sat near her, embroidering, shifted her position a score of
+times, broke her thread, and grew impatient, feeling strangely nervous, a
+prey to unaccountable anxiety, which oppressed her heart. For their part,
+the three young men could not keep in place at all; it was as if some
+contagious fever disturbed them. Each had gone to his work: Thomas was
+filing something at his bench; Francois and Antoine were on either side
+of their table, the first trying to solve a mathematical problem, and the
+other copying a bunch of poppies in a vase before him. It was in vain,
+however, that they strove to be attentive. They quivered at the slightest
+sound, raised their heads, and darted questioning glances at one another.
+What could be the matter? What could possess them? What did they fear?
+Now and again one or the other would rise, stretch himself, and then,
+resume his place. However, they did not speak; it was as if they dared
+not say anything, and thus the heavy silence grew more and more terrible.
+
+When it was a few minutes to four o'clock Mere-Grand felt weary, or else
+desired to collect her thoughts. After another glance at the timepiece,
+she let her needlework fall on her lap and turned towards the basilica.
+It seemed to her that she had only enough strength left to wait; and she
+remained with her eyes fixed on the huge walls and the forest of
+scaffolding which rose over yonder with such triumphant pride under the
+blue sky. Then all at once, however brave and firm she might be, she
+could not restrain a start, for "La Savoyarde" had raised a joyful clang.
+The consecration of the Host was now at hand, the ten thousand pilgrims
+filled the church, four o'clock was about to strike. And thereupon an
+irresistible impulse forced the old lady to her feet; she drew herself
+up, quivering, her hands clasped, her eyes ever turned yonder, waiting in
+mute dread.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Thomas, who noticed her. "Why are you
+trembling, Mere-Grand?"
+
+Francois and Antoine raised their heads, and in turn sprang forward.
+
+"Are you ill? Why are you turning so pale, you who are so courageous?"
+
+But she did not answer. Ah! might the force of the explosion rend the
+earth asunder, reach the house and sweep it into the flaming crater of
+the volcano! Might she and the three young men, might they all die with
+the father, this was her one ardent wish in order that grief might be
+spared them. And she remained waiting and waiting, quivering despite
+herself, but with her brave, clear eyes ever gazing yonder.
+
+"Mere-Grand, Mere-Grand!" cried Marie in dismay; "you frighten us by
+refusing to answer us, by looking over there as if some misfortune were
+coming up at a gallop!"
+
+Then, prompted by the same anguish, the same cry suddenly came from
+Thomas, Francois and Antoine: "Father is in peril--father is going to
+die!"
+
+What did they know? Nothing precise, certainly. Thomas no doubt had been
+astonished to see what a large quantity of the explosive his father had
+recently prepared, and both Francois and Antoine were aware of the ideas
+of revolt which he harboured in his mind. But, full of filial deference,
+they never sought to know anything beyond what he might choose to confide
+to them. They never questioned him; they bowed to whatever he might do.
+And yet now a foreboding came to them, a conviction that their father was
+going to die, that some most frightful catastrophe was impending. It must
+have been that which had already sent such a quiver through the
+atmosphere ever since the morning, making them shiver with fever, feel
+ill at ease, and unable to work.
+
+"Father is going to die, father is going to die!"
+
+The three big fellows had drawn close together, distracted by one and the
+same anguish, and furiously longing to know what the danger was, in order
+that they might rush upon it and die with their father if they could not
+save him. And amidst Mere-Grand's stubborn silence death once more
+flitted through the room: there came a cold gust such as they had already
+felt brushing past them during _dejeuner_.
+
+At last four o'clock began to strike, and Mere-Grand raised her white
+hands with a gesture of supreme entreaty. It was then that she at last
+spoke: "Father is going to die. Nothing but the duty of living can save
+him."
+
+At this the three young men again wished to rush yonder, whither they
+knew not; but they felt that they must throw down all obstacles and
+conquer. Their powerlessness rent their hearts, they were both so frantic
+and so woeful that their grandmother strove to calm them. "Father's own
+wish was to die," said she, "and he is resolved to die alone."
+
+They shuddered as they heard her, and then, on their side, strove to be
+heroic. But the minutes crept by, and it seemed as if the cold gust had
+slowly passed away. Sometimes, at the twilight hour, a night-bird will
+come in by the window like some messenger of misfortune, flit round the
+darkened room, and then fly off again, carrying its sadness with it. And
+it was much like that; the gust passed, the basilica remained standing,
+the earth did not open to swallow it. Little by little the atrocious
+anguish which wrung their hearts gave place to hope. And when at last
+Guillaume appeared, followed by Pierre, a great cry of resurrection came
+from one and all: "Father!"
+
+Their kisses, their tears, deprived him of his little remaining strength.
+He was obliged to sit down. He had glanced round him as if he were
+returning to life perforce. Mere-Grand, who understood what bitter
+feelings must have followed the subjugation of his will, approached him
+smiling, and took hold of both his hands as if to tell him that she was
+well pleased at seeing him again, and at finding that he accepted his
+task and was unwilling to desert the cause of life. For his part he
+suffered dreadfully, the shock had been so great. The others spared him
+any narrative of their feelings; and he, himself, related nothing. With a
+gesture, a loving word, he simply indicated that it was Pierre who had
+saved him.
+
+Thereupon, in a corner of the room, Marie flung her arms round the young
+man's neck. "Ah! my good Pierre, I have never yet kissed you," said she;
+"I want it to be for something serious the first time.... I love you,
+my good Pierre, I love you with all my heart."
+
+Later that same evening, after night had fallen, Guillaume and Pierre
+remained for a moment alone in the big workroom. The young men had gone
+out, and Mere-Grand and Marie were upstairs sorting some house linen,
+while Madame Mathis, who had brought some work back, sat patiently in a
+dim corner waiting for another bundle of things which might require
+mending. The brothers, steeped in the soft melancholy of the twilight
+hour, and chatting in low tones, had quite forgotten her.
+
+But all at once the arrival of a visitor upset them. It was Janzen with
+the fair, Christ-like face. He called very seldom nowadays; and one never
+knew from what gloomy spot he had come or into what darkness he would
+return when he took his departure. He disappeared, indeed, for months
+together, and was then suddenly to be seen like some momentary passer-by
+whose past and present life were alike unknown.
+
+"I am leaving to-night," he said in a voice sharp like a knife.
+
+"Are you going back to your home in Russia?" asked Guillaume.
+
+A faint, disdainful smile appeared on the Anarchist's lips. "Home!" said
+he, "I am at home everywhere. To begin with, I am not a Russian, and then
+I recognise no other country than the world."
+
+With a sweeping gesture he gave them to understand what manner of man he
+was, one who had no fatherland of his own, but carried his gory dream of
+fraternity hither and thither regardless of frontiers. From some words he
+spoke the brothers fancied he was returning to Spain, where some
+fellow-Anarchists awaited him. There was a deal of work to be done there,
+it appeared. He had quietly seated himself, chatting on in his cold way,
+when all at once he serenely added: "By the by, a bomb had just been
+thrown into the Cafe de l'Univers on the Boulevard. Three _bourgeois_
+were killed."
+
+Pierre and Guillaume shuddered, and asked for particulars. Thereupon
+Janzen related that he had happened to be there, had heard the explosion,
+and seen the windows of the cafe shivered to atoms. Three customers were
+lying on the floor blown to pieces. Two of them were gentlemen, who had
+entered the place by chance and whose names were not known, while the
+third was a regular customer, a petty cit of the neighbourhood, who came
+every day to play a game at dominoes. And the whole place was wrecked;
+the marble tables were broken, the chandeliers twisted out of shape, the
+mirrors studded with projectiles. And how great the terror and the
+indignation, and how frantic the rush of the crowd! The perpetrator of
+the deed had been arrested immediately--in fact, just as he was turning
+the corner of the Rue Caumartin.
+
+"I thought I would come and tell you of it," concluded Janzen; "it is
+well you should know it."
+
+Then as Pierre, shuddering and already suspecting the truth, asked him if
+he knew who the man was that had been arrested, he slowly replied: "The
+worry is that you happen to know him--it was little Victor Mathis."
+
+Pierre tried to silence Janzen too late. He had suddenly remembered that
+Victor's mother had been sitting in a dark corner behind them a short
+time previously. Was she still there? Then he again pictured Victor,
+slight and almost beardless, with a straight, stubborn brow, grey eyes
+glittering with intelligence, a pointed nose and thin lips expressive of
+stern will and unforgiving hatred. He was no simple and lowly one from
+the ranks of the disinherited. He was an educated scion of the
+_bourgeoisie_, and but for circumstances would have entered the Ecole
+Normale. There was no excuse for his abominable deed, there was no
+political passion, no humanitarian insanity, in it. He was the destroyer
+pure and simple, the theoretician of destruction, the cold energetic man
+of intellect who gave his cultivated mind to arguing the cause of murder,
+in his desire to make murder an instrument of the social evolution. True,
+he was also a poet, a visionary, but the most frightful of all
+visionaries: a monster whose nature could only be explained by mad pride,
+and who craved for the most awful immortality, dreaming that the coming
+dawn would rise from the arms of the guillotine. Only one thing could
+surpass him: the scythe of death which blindly mows the world.
+
+For a few seconds, amidst the growing darkness, cold horror reigned in
+the workroom. "Ah!" muttered Guillaume, "he had the daring to do it, he
+had."
+
+Pierre, however, lovingly pressed his arm. And he felt that he was as
+distracted, as upset, as himself. Perhaps this last abomination had been
+needed to ravage and cure him.
+
+Janzen no doubt had been an accomplice in the deed. He was relating that
+Victor's purpose had been to avenge Salvat, when all at once a great sigh
+of pain was heard in the darkness, followed by a heavy thud upon the
+floor. It was Madame Mathis falling like a bundle, overwhelmed by the
+news which chance had brought her. At that moment it so happened that
+Mere-Grand came down with a lamp, which lighted up the room, and
+thereupon they hurried to the help of the wretched woman, who lay there
+as pale as a corpse in her flimsy black gown.
+
+And this again brought Pierre an indescribable heart-pang. Ah! the poor,
+sad, suffering creature! He remembered her at Abbe Rose's, so discreet,
+so shamefaced, in her poverty, scarce able to live upon the slender
+resources which persistent misfortunes had left her. Hers had indeed been
+a cruel lot: first, a home with wealthy parents in the provinces, a love
+story and elopement with the man of her choice; next, ill-luck steadily
+pursuing her, all sorts of home troubles, and at last her husband's
+death. Then, in the retirement of her widowhood, after losing the best
+part of the little income which had enabled her to bring up her son,
+naught but this son had been left to her. He had been her Victor, her
+sole affection, the only one in whom she had faith. She had ever striven
+to believe that he was very busy, absorbed in work, and on the eve of
+attaining to some superb position worthy of his merits. And now, all at
+once, she had learnt that this fondly loved son was simply the most
+odious of assassins, that he had flung a bomb into a cafe, and had there
+killed three men.
+
+When Madame Mathis had recovered her senses, thanks to the careful
+tending of Mere-Grand, she sobbed on without cessation, raising such a
+continuous doleful wail, that Pierre's hand again sought Guillaume's, and
+grasped it, whilst their hearts, distracted but healed, mingled lovingly
+one with the other.
+
+
+
+
+V. LIFE'S WORK AND PROMISE
+
+FIFTEEN months later, one fine golden day in September, Bache and
+Theophile Morin were taking _dejeuner_ at Guillaume's, in the big
+workroom overlooking the immensity of Paris.
+
+Near the table was a cradle with its little curtains drawn. Behind them
+slept Jean, a fine boy four months old, the son of Pierre and Marie. The
+latter, simply in order to protect the child's social rights, had been
+married civilly at the town-hall of Montmartre. Then, by way of pleasing
+Guillaume, who wished to keep them with him, and thus enlarge the family
+circle, they had continued living in the little lodging over the
+work-shop, leaving the sleepy house at Neuilly in the charge of Sophie,
+Pierre's old servant. And life had been flowing on happily for the
+fourteen months or so that they had now belonged to one another.
+
+There was simply peace, affection and work around the young couple.
+Francois, who had left the Ecole Normale provided with every degree,
+every diploma, was now about to start for a college in the west of
+France, so as to serve his term of probation as a professor, intending to
+resign his post afterwards and devote himself, if he pleased, to science
+pure and simple. Then Antoine had lately achieved great success with a
+series of engravings he had executed--some views and scenes of Paris
+life; and it was settled that he was to marry Lise Jahan in the ensuing
+spring, when she would have completed her seventeenth year. Of the three
+sons, however, Thomas was the most triumphant, for he had at last devised
+and constructed his little motor, thanks to a happy idea of his father's.
+One morning, after the downfall of all his huge chimerical schemes,
+Guillaume, remembering the terrible explosive which he had discovered and
+hitherto failed to utilise, had suddenly thought of employing it as a
+motive force, in the place of petroleum, in the motor which his eldest
+son had so long been trying to construct for the Grandidier works. So he
+had set to work with Thomas, devising a new mechanism, encountering
+endless difficulties, and labouring for a whole year before reaching
+success. But now the father and son had accomplished their task; the
+marvel was created, and stood there riveted to an oak stand, and ready to
+work as soon as its final toilet should have been performed.
+
+Amidst all the changes which had occurred, Mere-Grand, in spite of her
+great age, continued exercising her active, silent sway over the
+household, which was now again so gay and peaceful. Though she seldom
+seemed to leave her chair in front of her work-table, she was really
+here, there and everywhere. Since the birth of Jean, she had talked of
+rearing the child in the same way as she had formerly reared Thomas,
+Francois and Antoine. She was indeed full of the bravery of devotion, and
+seemed to think that she was not at all likely to die so long as she
+might have others to guide, love and save. Marie marvelled at it all. She
+herself, though she was always gay and in good health, felt tired at
+times now that she was suckling her infant. Little Jean indeed had two
+vigilant mothers near his cradle; whilst his father, Pierre, who had
+become Thomas's assistant, pulled the bellows, roughened out pieces of
+metal, and generally completed his apprenticeship as a working
+mechanician.
+
+On the particular day when Bache and Theophile Morin came to Montmartre,
+the _dejeuner_ proved even gayer than usual, thanks perhaps to their
+presence. The meal was over, the table had been cleared, and the coffee
+was being served, when a little boy, the son of a doorkeeper in the Rue
+Cortot, came to ask for Monsieur Pierre Froment. When they inquired his
+business, he answered in a hesitating way that Monsieur l'Abbe Rose was
+very ill, indeed dying, and that he had sent him to fetch Monsieur Pierre
+Froment at once.
+
+Pierre followed the lad, feeling much affected; and on reaching the Rue
+Cortot he there found Abbe Rose in a little damp ground-floor room
+overlooking a strip of garden. The old priest was in bed, dying as the
+boy had said, but he still retained the use of his faculties, and could
+speak in his wonted slow and gentle voice. A Sister of Charity was
+watching beside him, and she seemed so surprised and anxious at the
+arrival of a visitor whom she did not know, that Pierre understood she
+was there to guard the dying man and prevent him from having intercourse
+with others. The old priest must have employed some stratagem in order to
+send the doorkeeper's boy to fetch him. However, when Abbe Rose in his
+grave and kindly way begged the Sister to leave them alone for a moment,
+she dared not refuse this supreme request, but immediately left the room.
+
+"Ah! my dear child," said the old man, "how much I wanted to speak to
+you! Sit down there, close to the bed, so that you may be able to hear
+me, for this is the end; I shall no longer be here to-night. And I have
+such a great service to ask of you."
+
+Quite upset at finding his friend so wasted, with his face white like a
+sheet, and scarce a sign of life save the sparkle of his innocent, loving
+eyes, Pierre responded: "But I would have come sooner if I had known you
+were in need of me! Why did you not send for me before? Are people being
+kept away from you?"
+
+A faint smile of shame and confession appeared on the old priest's
+embarrassed face. "Well, my dear child," said he, "you must know that I
+have again done some foolish things. Yes, I gave money to some people
+who, it seems, were not deserving of it. In fact, there was quite a
+scandal; they scolded me at the Archbishop's palace, and accused me of
+compromising the interests of religion. And when they heard that I was
+ill, they put that good Sister beside me, because they said that I should
+die on the floor, and give the very sheets off my bed if I were not
+prevented."
+
+He paused to draw breath, and then continued: "So you understand, that
+good Sister--oh! she is a very saintly woman--is here to nurse me and
+prevent me from still doing foolish things. To overcome her vigilance I
+had to use a little deceit, for which God, I trust, will forgive me. As
+it happens, it's precisely my poor who are in question; it was to speak
+to you about them that I so particularly wished to see you."
+
+Tears had come to Pierre's eyes. "Tell me what you want me to do," he
+answered; "I am yours, both heart and soul."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know it, my dear child. It was for that reason that I
+thought of you--you alone. In spite of all that has happened, you are the
+only one in whom I have any confidence, who can understand me, and give
+me a promise which will enable me to die in peace."
+
+This was the only allusion he would venture to make to the cruel rupture
+which had occurred after the young man had thrown off his cassock and
+rebelled against the Church. He had since heard of Pierre's marriage, and
+was aware that he had for ever severed all religious ties. But at that
+supreme moment nothing of this seemed of any account to the old priest.
+His knowledge of Pierre's loving heart sufficed him, for all that he now
+desired was simply the help of that heart which he had seen glowing with
+such passionate charity.
+
+"Well," he resumed, again finding sufficient strength to smile, "it is a
+very simple matter. I want to make you my heir. Oh! it isn't a fine
+legacy I am leaving you; it is the legacy of my poor, for I have nothing
+else to bestow on you; I shall leave nothing behind me but my poor."
+
+Of these unhappy creatures, three in particular quite upset his heart. He
+recoiled from the prospect of leaving them without chance of succour,
+without even the crumbs which he had hitherto distributed among them, and
+which had enabled them to live. One was the big Old'un, the aged
+carpenter whom he and Pierre had vainly sought one night with the object
+of sending him to the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour. He had been sent
+there a little later, but he had fled three days afterwards, unwilling as
+he was to submit to the regulations. Wild and violent, he had the most
+detestable disposition. Nevertheless, he could not be left to starve. He
+came to Abbe Rose's every Saturday, it seemed, and received a franc,
+which sufficed him for the whole week. Then, too, there was a bedridden
+old woman in a hovel in the Rue du Mont-Cenis. The baker, who every
+morning took her the bread she needed, must be paid. And in particular
+there was a poor young woman residing on the Place du Tertre, one who was
+unmarried but a mother. She was dying of consumption, unable to work, and
+tortured by the idea that when she should have gone, her daughter must
+sink to the pavement like herself. And in this instance the legacy was
+twofold: there was the mother to relieve until her death, which was near
+at hand, and then the daughter to provide for until she could be placed
+in some good household.
+
+"You must forgive me, my dear child, for leaving you all these worries,"
+added Abbe Rose. "I tried to get the good Sister, who is nursing me, to
+take an interest in these poor people, but when I spoke to her of the big
+Old'un, she was so alarmed that she made the sign of the cross. And it's
+the same with my worthy friend Abbe Tavernier. I know nobody of more
+upright mind. Still I shouldn't be at ease with him, he has ideas of his
+own.... And so, my dear child, there is only you whom I can rely upon,
+and you must accept my legacy if you wish me to depart in peace."
+
+Pierre was weeping. "Ah! certainly, with my whole soul," he answered. "I
+shall regard your desires as sacred."
+
+"Good! I knew you would accept.... So it is agreed: a franc for the
+big Old'un every Saturday, the bread for the bedridden woman, some help
+for the poor young mother, and then a home for her little girl. Ah! if
+you only knew what a weight it is off my heart! The end may come now, it
+will be welcome to me."
+
+His kind white face had brightened as if with supreme joy. Holding
+Pierre's hand within his own he detained him beside the bed, exchanging a
+farewell full of serene affection. And his voice weakening, he expressed
+his whole mind in faint, impressive accents: "Yes, I shall be pleased to
+go off. I could do no more, I could do no more! Though I gave and gave, I
+felt that it was ever necessary to give more and more. And how sad to
+find charity powerless, to give without hope of ever being able to stamp
+out want and suffering! I rebelled against that idea of yours, as you
+will remember. I told you that we should always love one another in our
+poor, and that was true, since you are here, so good and affectionate to
+me and those whom I am leaving behind. But, all the same, I can do no
+more, I can do no more; and I would rather go off, since the woes of
+others rise higher and higher around me, and I have ended by doing the
+most foolish things, scandalising the faithful and making my superiors
+indignant with me, without even saving one single poor person from the
+ever-growing torrent of want. Farewell, my dear child. My poor old heart
+goes off aching, my old hands are weary and conquered."
+
+Pierre embraced him with his whole soul, and then departed. His eyes were
+full of tears and indescribable emotion wrung his heart. Never had he
+heard a more woeful cry than that confession of the impotence of charity,
+on the part of that old candid child, whose heart was all simplicity and
+sublime benevolence. Ah! what a disaster, that human kindness should be
+futile, that the world should always display so much distress and
+suffering in spite of all the compassionate tears that had been shed, in
+spite of all the alms that had fallen from millions and millions of hands
+for centuries and centuries! No wonder that it should bring desire for
+death, no wonder that a Christian should feel pleased at escaping from
+the abominations of this earth!
+
+When Pierre again reached the workroom he found that the table had long
+since been cleared, and that Bache and Morin were chatting with
+Guillaume, whilst the latter's sons had returned to their customary
+occupations. Marie, also, had resumed her usual place at the work-table
+in front of Mere-Grand; but from time to time she rose and went to look
+at Jean, so as to make sure that he was sleeping peacefully, with his
+little clenched fists pressed to his heart. And when Pierre, who kept his
+emotion to himself, had likewise leant over the cradle beside the young
+woman, whose hair he discreetly kissed, he went to put on an apron in
+order that he might assist Thomas, who was now, for the last time,
+regulating his motor.
+
+Then, as Pierre stood there awaiting an opportunity to help, the room
+vanished from before his eyes; he ceased to see or hear the persons who
+were there. The scent of Marie's hair alone lingered on his lips amidst
+the acute emotion into which he had been thrown by his visit to Abbe
+Rose. A recollection had come to him, that of the bitterly cold morning
+when the old priest had stopped him outside the basilica of the Sacred
+Heart, and had timidly asked him to take some alms to that old man
+Laveuve, who soon afterwards had died of want, like a dog by the wayside.
+How sad a morning it had been; what battle and torture had Pierre not
+felt within him, and what a resurrection had come afterwards! He had that
+day said one of his last masses, and he recalled with a shudder his
+abominable anguish, his despairing doubts at the thought of nothingness.
+Two experiments which he had previously made had failed most miserably.
+First had come one at Lourdes, where the glorification of the absurd had
+simply filled him with pity for any such attempt to revert to the
+primitive faith of young nations, who bend beneath the terror born of
+ignorance; and, secondly, there had been an experiment at Rome, which he
+had found incapable of any renewal, and which he had seen staggering to
+its death amidst its ruins, a mere great shadow, which would soon be of
+no account, fast sinking, as it was, to the dust of dead religions. And,
+in his own mind, Charity itself had become bankrupt; he no longer
+believed that alms could cure the sufferings of mankind, he awaited
+naught but a frightful catastrophe, fire and massacre, which would sweep
+away the guilty, condemned world. His cassock, too, stifled him, a lie
+alone kept it on his shoulders, the idea, unbelieving priest though he
+was, that he could honestly and chastely watch over the belief of others.
+The problem of a new religion, a new hope, such as was needful to ensure
+the peace of the coming democracies tortured him, but between the
+certainties of science and the need of the Divine, which seemed to
+consume humanity, he could find no solution. If Christianity crumbled
+with the principle of Charity, there could remain nothing else but
+Justice, that cry which came from every breast, that battle of Justice
+against Charity in which his heart must contend in that great city of
+Paris. It was there that began his third and decisive experiment, the
+experiment which was to make truth as plain to him as the sun itself, and
+give him back health and strength and delight in life.
+
+At this point of his reverie Pierre was roused by Thomas, who asked him
+to fetch a tool. As he did so he heard Bache remarking: "The ministry
+resigned this morning. Vignon has had enough of it, he wants to reserve
+his remaining strength."
+
+"Well, he has lasted more than a twelvemonth," replied Morin. "That's
+already an achievement."
+
+After the crime of Victor Mathis, who had been tried and executed within
+three weeks, Monferrand had suddenly fallen from power. What was the use
+of having a strong-handed man at the head of the Government if bombs
+still continued to terrify the country? Moreover, he had displeased the
+Chamber by his voracious appetite, which had prevented him from allowing
+others more than an infinitesimal share of all the good things. And this
+time he had been succeeded by Vignon, although the latter's programme of
+reforms had long made people tremble. He, Vignon, was honest certainly,
+but of all these reforms he had only been able to carry out a few
+insignificant ones, for he had found himself hampered by a thousand
+obstacles. And thus he had resigned himself to ruling the country as
+others had done; and people had discovered that after all there were but
+faint shades of difference between him and Monferrand.
+
+"You know that Monferrand is being spoken of again?" said Guillaume.
+
+"Yes, and he has some chance of success. His creatures are bestirring
+themselves tremendously," replied Bache, adding, in a bitter, jesting
+way, that Mege, the Collectivist leader, played the part of a dupe in
+overthrowing ministry after ministry. He simply gratified the ambition of
+each coterie in turn, without any possible chance of attaining to power
+himself.
+
+Thereupon Guillaume pronounced judgment. "Oh! well, let them devour one
+another," said he. "Eager as they all are to reign and dispose of power
+and wealth, they only fight over questions of persons. And nothing they
+do can prevent the evolution from continuing. Ideas expand, and events
+occur, and, over and above everything else, mankind is marching on."
+
+Pierre was greatly struck by these words, and he again recalled the past.
+His dolorous Parisian experiment had begun, and he was once more roaming
+through the city. Paris seemed to him to be a huge vat, in which a world
+fermented, something of the best and something of the worst, a frightful
+mixture such as sorceresses might have used; precious powders mingled
+with filth, from all of which was to come the philter of love and eternal
+youth. And in that vat Pierre first marked the scum of the political
+world: Monferrand who strangled Barroux, who purchased the support of
+hungry ones such as Fonsegue, Duthil and Chaigneux, who made use of those
+who attained to mediocrity, such as Taboureau and Dauvergne; and who
+employed even the sectarian passions of Mege and the intelligent ambition
+of Vignon as his weapons. Next came money the poisoner, with that affair
+of the African Railways, which had rotted the Parliament and turned
+Duvillard, the triumphant _bourgeois_, into a public perverter, the very
+cancer as it were of the financial world. Then as a just consequence of
+all this there was Duvillard's own home infected by himself, that
+frightful drama of Eve contending with her daughter Camille for the
+possession of Gerard, then Camille stealing him from her mother, and
+Hyacinthe, the son, passing his crazy mistress Rosemonde on to that
+notorious harlot Silviane, with whom his father publicly exhibited
+himself. Then there was the old expiring aristocracy, with the pale, sad
+faces of Madame de Quinsac and the Marquis de Morigny; the old military
+spirit whose funeral was conducted by General de Bozonnet; the magistracy
+which slavishly served the powers of the day, Amadieu thrusting himself
+into notoriety by means of sensational cases, Lehmann, the public
+prosecutor, preparing his speeches in the private room of the Minister
+whose policy he defended; and, finally, the mendacious and cupid Press
+which lived upon scandal, the everlasting flood of denunciation and filth
+which poured from Sagnier, and the gay impudence shown by the
+unscrupulous and conscienceless Massot, who attacked all and defended
+all, by profession and to order! And in the same way as insects, on
+discovering one of their own kind dying, will often finish it off and
+fatten upon it, so the whole swarm of appetites, interests and passions
+had fallen upon a wretched madman, that unhappy Salvat, whose idiotic
+crime had brought them all scrambling together, gluttonously eager to
+derive some benefit from that starveling's emaciated carcass. And all
+boiled in the huge vat of Paris; the desires, the deeds of violence, the
+strivings of one and another man's will, the whole nameless medley of the
+bitterest ferments, whence, in all purity, the wine of the future would
+at last flow.
+
+Then Pierre became conscious of the prodigious work which went on in the
+depths of the vat, beneath all the impurity and waste. As his brother had
+just said, what mattered the stains, the egotism and greed of
+politicians, if humanity were still on the march, ever slowly and
+stubbornly stepping forward! What mattered, too, that corrupt and
+emasculate _bourgeoisie_, nowadays as moribund as the aristocracy, whose
+place it took, if behind it there ever came the inexhaustible reserve of
+men who surged up from the masses of the country-sides and the towns!
+What mattered the debauchery, the perversion arising from excess of
+wealth and power, the luxuriousness and dissoluteness of life, since it
+seemed a proven fact that the capitals that had been queens of the world
+had never reigned without extreme civilisation, a cult of beauty and of
+pleasure! And what mattered even the venality, the transgressions and the
+folly of the press, if at the same time it remained an admirable
+instrument for the diffusion of knowledge, the open conscience, so to
+say, of the nation, a river which, though there might be horrors on its
+surface, none the less flowed on, carrying all nations to the brotherly
+ocean of the future centuries! The human lees ended by sinking to the
+bottom of the vat, and it was not possible to expect that what was right
+would triumph visibly every day; for it was often necessary that years
+should elapse before the realisation of some hope could emerge from the
+fermentation. Eternal matter is ever being cast afresh into the crucible
+and ever coming from it improved. And if in the depths of pestilential
+workshops and factories the slavery of ancient times subsists in the
+wage-earning system, if such men as Toussaint still die of want on their
+pallets like broken-down beasts of burden, it is nevertheless a fact that
+once already, on a memorable day of tempest, Liberty sprang forth from
+the vat to wing her flight throughout the world. And why in her turn
+should not Justice spring from it, proceeding from those troubled
+elements, freeing herself from all dross, flowing forth with dazzling
+limpidity and regenerating the nations?
+
+However, the voices of Bache and Morin, rising in the course of their
+chat with Guillaume, once more drew Pierre from his reverie. They were
+now speaking of Janzen, who after being compromised in a fresh outrage at
+Barcelona had fled from Spain. Bache fancied that he had recognised him
+in the street only the previous day. To think that a man with so clear a
+mind and such keen energy should waste his natural gifts in such a
+hateful cause!
+
+"When I remember," said Morin slowly, "that Barthes lives in exile in a
+shabby little room at Brussels, ever quivering with the hope that the
+reign of liberty is at hand--he who has never had a drop of blood on his
+hands and who has spent two-thirds of his life in prison in order that
+the nations may be freed!"
+
+Bache gently shrugged his shoulders: "Liberty, liberty, of course," said
+he; "only it is worth nothing if it is not organised."
+
+Thereupon their everlasting discussion began afresh, with Saint-Simon and
+Fourier on one side and Proudhon and Auguste Comte on the other. Bache
+gave a long account of the last commemoration which had taken place in
+honour of Fourier's memory, how faithful disciples had brought wreaths
+and made speeches, forming quite a meeting of apostles, who all
+stubbornly clung to their faith, as confident in the future as if they
+were the messengers of some new gospel. Afterwards Morin emptied his
+pockets, which were always full of Positivist tracts and pamphlets,
+manifestos, answers and so forth, in which Comte's doctrines were
+extolled as furnishing the only possible basis for the new, awaited
+religion. Pierre, who listened, thereupon remembered the disputes in his
+little house at Neuilly when he himself, searching for certainty, had
+endeavoured to draw up the century's balance-sheet. He had lost his
+depth, in the end, amidst the contradictions and incoherency of the
+various precursors. Although Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon, he
+denied him in part, and if Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of
+mystical sensuality, the other's conducted to an inacceptable regimenting
+of society. Proudhon, for his part, demolished without rebuilding
+anything. Comte, who created method and declared science to be the one
+and only sovereign, had not even suspected the advent of the social
+crisis which now threatened to sweep all away, and had finished
+personally as a mere worshipper of love, overpowered by woman.
+Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon, entered the lists and fought
+against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon; the combat between them or
+their disciples becoming so bitter and so blind that the truths common to
+them all at first seemed obscured and disfigured beyond recognition. Now,
+however, that evolution had slowly transformed Pierre, those common
+truths seemed to him as irrefutable, as clear as the sunlight itself.
+Amidst the chaos of conflicting assertions which was to be found in the
+gospels of those social messiahs, there were certain similar phrases and
+principles which recurred again and again, the defence of the poor, the
+idea of a new and just division of the riches of the world in accordance
+with individual labour and merit, and particularly the search for a new
+law of labour which would enable this fresh distribution to be made
+equitably. Since all the precursory men of genius agreed so closely upon
+those points, must they not be the very foundations of to-morrow's new
+religion, the necessary faith which this century must bequeath to the
+coming century, in order that the latter may make of it a human religion
+of peace, solidarity and love?
+
+Then, all at once, there came a leap in Pierre's thoughts. He fancied
+himself at the Madeleine once more, listening to the address on the New
+Spirit delivered by Monseigneur Martha, who had predicted that Paris, now
+reconverted to Christianity, would, thanks to the Sacred Heart, become
+the ruler of the world. But no, but no! If Paris reigned, it was because
+it was able to exercise its intelligence freely. To set the cross and the
+mystic and repulsive symbolism of a bleeding heart above it was simply so
+much falsehood. Although they might rear edifices of pride and domination
+as if to crush Paris with their very weight, although they might try to
+stop science in the name of a dead ideal and in the hope of setting their
+clutches upon the coming century, these attempts would be of no avail.
+Science will end by sweeping away all remnants of their ancient
+sovereignty, their basilica will crumble beneath the breeze of Truth
+without any necessity of raising a finger against it. The trial has been
+made, the Gospel as a social code has fallen to pieces, and human wisdom
+can only retain account of its moral maxims. Ancient Catholicism is on
+all sides crumbling into dust, Catholic Rome is a mere field of ruins
+from which the nations turn aside, anxious as they are for a religion
+that shall not be a religion of death. In olden times the overburdened
+slave, glowing with a new hope and seeking to escape from his gaol,
+dreamt of a heaven where in return for his earthly misery he would be
+rewarded with eternal enjoyment. But now that science has destroyed that
+false idea of a heaven, and shown what dupery lies in reliance on the
+morrow of death, the slave, the workman, weary of dying for happiness'
+sake, demands that justice and happiness shall find place upon this
+earth. Therein lies the new hope--Justice, after eighteen hundred years
+of impotent Charity. Ah! in a thousand years from now, when Catholicism
+will be naught but a very ancient superstition of the past, how amazed
+men will be to think that their ancestors were able to endure that
+religion of torture and nihility! How astonished they will feel on
+finding that God was regarded as an executioner, that manhood was
+threatened, maimed and chastised, that nature was accounted an enemy,
+that life was looked upon as something accursed, and that death alone was
+pronounced sweet and liberating! For well-nigh two thousand years the
+onward march of mankind has been hampered by the odious idea of tearing
+all that is human away from man: his desires, his passions, his free
+intelligence, his will and right of action, his whole strength. And how
+glorious will be the awakening when such virginity as is now honoured by
+the Church is held in derision, when fruitfulness is again recognised as
+a virtue, amidst the hosanna of all the freed forces of nature--man's
+desires which will be honoured, his passions which will be utilised, his
+labour which will be exalted, whilst life is loved and ever and ever
+creates love afresh!
+
+A new religion! a new religion! Pierre remembered the cry which had
+escaped him at Lourdes, and which he had repeated at Rome in presence of
+the collapse of old Catholicism. But he no longer displayed the same
+feverish eagerness as then--a puerile, sickly desire that a new Divinity
+should at once reveal himself, an ideal come into being, complete in all
+respects, with dogmas and form of worship. The Divine certainly seemed to
+be as necessary to man as were bread and water; he had ever fallen back
+upon it, hungering for the mysterious, seemingly having no other means of
+consolation than that of annihilating himself in the unknown. But who can
+say that science will not some day quench the thirst for what lies beyond
+us? If the domain of science embraces the acquired truths, it also
+embraces, and will ever do so, the truths that remain to be acquired. And
+in front of it will there not ever remain a margin for the thirst of
+knowledge, for the hypotheses which are but so much ideality? Besides, is
+not the yearning for the divine simply a desire to behold the Divinity?
+And if science should more and more content the yearning to know all and
+be able to do all, will not that yearning be quieted and end by mingling
+with the love of acquired truth? A religion grafted on science is the
+indicated, certain, inevitable finish of man's long march towards
+knowledge. He will come to it at last as to a natural haven, as to peace
+in the midst of certainty, after passing every form of ignorance and
+terror on his road. And is there not already some indication of such a
+religion? Has not the idea of the duality of God and the Universe been
+brushed aside, and is not the principle of unity, _monisme_, becoming
+more and more evident--unity leading to solidarity, and the sole law of
+life proceeding by evolution from the first point of the ether that
+condensed to create the world? But if precursors, scientists and
+philosophers--Darwin, Fourier and all the others--have sown the seed of
+to-morrow's religion by casting the good word to the passing breeze, how
+many centuries will doubtless be required to raise the crop! People
+always forget that before Catholicism grew up and reigned in the
+sunlight, it spent four centuries in germinating and sprouting from the
+soil. Well, then, grant some centuries to this religion of science of
+whose sprouting there are signs upon all sides, and by-and-by the
+admirable ideas of some Fourier will be seen expanding and forming a new
+gospel, with desire serving as the lever to raise the world, work
+accepted by one and all, honoured and regulated as the very mechanism of
+natural and social life, and the passions of man excited, contented and
+utilised for human happiness! The universal cry of Justice, which rises
+louder and louder, in a growing clamour from the once silent multitude,
+the people that have so long been duped and preyed upon, is but a cry for
+this happiness towards which human beings are tending, the happiness that
+embodies the complete satisfaction of man's needs, and the principle of
+life loved for its own sake, in the midst of peace and the expansion of
+every force and every joy. The time will come when this Kingdom of God
+will be set upon the earth; so why not close that other deceptive
+paradise, even if the weak-minded must momentarily suffer from the
+destruction of their illusions; for it is necessary to operate even with
+cruelty on the blind if they are to be extricated from their misery, from
+their long and frightful night of ignorance!
+
+All at once a feeling of deep joy came over Pierre. A child's faint cry,
+the wakening cry of his son Jean had drawn him from his reverie. And he
+had suddenly remembered that he himself was now saved, freed from
+falsehood and fright, restored to good and healthy nature. How he
+quivered as he recalled that he had once fancied himself lost, blotted
+out of life, and that a prodigy of love had extricated him from his
+nothingness, still strong and sound, since that dear child of his was
+there, sturdy and smiling. Life had brought forth life; and truth had
+burst forth, as dazzling as the sun. He had made his third experiment
+with Paris, and this had been conclusive; it had been no wretched
+miscarriage with increase of darkness and grief, like his other
+experiments at Lourdes and Rome. In the first place, the law of labour
+had been revealed to him, and he had imposed upon himself a task, as
+humble a one as it was, that manual calling which he was learning so late
+in life, but which was, nevertheless, a form of labour, and one in which
+he would never fail, one too that would lend him the serenity which comes
+from the accomplishment of duty, for life itself was but labour: it was
+only by effort that the world existed. And then, moreover, he had loved;
+and salvation had come to him from woman and from his child. Ah! what a
+long and circuitous journey he had made to reach this finish at once so
+natural and so simple! How he had suffered, how much error and anger he
+had known before doing what all men ought to do! That eager, glowing love
+which had contended against his reason, which had bled at sight of the
+arrant absurdities of the miraculous grotto of Lourdes, which had bled
+again too in presence of the haughty decline of the Vatican, had at last
+found contentment now that he was husband and father, now that he had
+confidence in work and believed in the just laws of life. And thence had
+come the indisputable truth, the one solution--happiness in certainty.
+
+Whilst Pierre was thus plunged in thought, Bache and Morin had already
+gone off with their customary handshakes and promises to come and chat
+again some evening. And as Jean was now crying more loudly, Marie took
+him in her arms and unhooked her dress-body to give him her breast.
+
+"Oh! the darling, it's his time, you know, and he doesn't forget it!" she
+said. "Just look, Pierre, I believe he has got bigger since yesterday."
+
+She laughed; and Pierre, likewise laughing, drew near to kiss the child.
+And afterwards he kissed his wife, mastered as he was by emotion at the
+sight of that pink, gluttonous little creature imbibing life from that
+lovely breast so full of milk.
+
+"Why! he'll eat you," he gaily said to Marie. "How he's pulling!"
+
+"Oh! he does bite me a little," she replied; "but I like that the better,
+it shows that he profits by it."
+
+Then Mere-Grand, she who as a rule was so serious and silent, began to
+talk with a smile lighting up her face: "I weighed him this morning,"
+said she, "he weighs nearly a quarter of a pound more than he did the
+last time. And if you had only seen how good he was, the darling! He will
+be a very intelligent and well-behaved little gentleman, such as I like.
+When he's five years old, I shall teach him his alphabet, and when he's
+fifteen, if he likes, I'll tell him how to be a man.... Don't you
+agree with me, Thomas? And you, Antoine, and you, too, Francois?"
+
+Raising their heads, the three sons gaily nodded their approval, grateful
+as they felt for the lessons in heroism which she had given them, and
+apparently finding no reason why she might not live another twenty years
+in order to give similar lessons to Jean.
+
+Pierre still remained in front of Marie, basking in all the rapture of
+love, when he felt Guillaume lay his hands upon his shoulders from
+behind. And on turning round he saw that his brother was also radiant,
+like one who felt well pleased at seeing them so happy. "Ah! brother,"
+said Guillaume softly, "do you remember my telling you that you suffered
+solely from the battle between your mind and your heart, and that you
+would find quietude again when you loved what you could understand? It
+was necessary that our father and mother, whose painful quarrel had
+continued beyond the grave, should be reconciled in you. And now it's
+done, they sleep in peace within you, since you yourself are pacified."
+
+These words filled Pierre with emotion. Joy beamed upon his face, which
+was now so open and energetic. He still had the towering brow, that
+impregnable fortress of reason, which he had derived from his father, and
+he still had the gentle chin and affectionate eyes and mouth which his
+mother had given him, but all was now blended together, instinct with
+happy harmony and serene strength. Those two experiments of his which had
+miscarried, were like crises of his maternal heredity, the tearful
+tenderness which had come to him from his mother, and which for lack of
+satisfaction had made him desperate; and his third experiment had only
+ended in happiness because he had contented his ardent thirst for love in
+accordance with sovereign reason, that paternal heredity which pleaded so
+loudly within him. Reason remained the queen. And if his sufferings had
+thus always come from the warfare which his reason had waged against his
+heart, it was because he was man personified, ever struggling between his
+intelligence and his passions. And how peaceful all seemed, now that he
+had reconciled and satisfied them both, now that he felt healthy, perfect
+and strong, like some lofty oak, which grows in all freedom, and whose
+branches spread far away over the forest.
+
+"You have done good work in that respect," Guillaume affectionately
+continued, "for yourself and for all of us, and even for our dear parents
+whose shades, pacified and reconciled, now abide so peacefully in the
+little home of our childhood. I often think of our dear house at Neuilly,
+which old Sophie is taking care of for us; and although, out of egotism,
+a desire to set happiness around me, I wished to keep you here, your Jean
+must some day go and live there, so as to bring it fresh youth."
+
+Pierre had taken hold of his brother's hands, and looking into his eyes
+he asked: "And you--are you happy?"
+
+"Yes, very happy, happier than I have ever been; happy at loving you as I
+do, and happy at being loved by you as no one else will ever love me."
+
+Their hearts mingled in ardent brotherly affection, the most perfect and
+heroic affection that can blend men together. And they embraced one
+another whilst, with her babe on her breast, Marie, so gay, healthful and
+loyal, looked at them and smiled, with big tears gathering in her eyes.
+
+Thomas, however, having finished his motor's last toilet, had just set it
+in motion. It was a prodigy of lightness and strength, of no weight
+whatever in comparison with the power it displayed. And it worked with
+perfect smoothness, without noise or smell. The whole family was gathered
+round it in delight, when there came a timely visit, one from the learned
+and friendly Bertheroy, whom indeed Guillaume had asked to call, in order
+that he might see the motor working.
+
+The great chemist at once expressed his admiration; and when he had
+examined the mechanism and understood how the explosive was employed as
+motive power--an idea which he had long recommended,--he tendered
+enthusiastic congratulations to Guillaume and Thomas. "You have created a
+little marvel," said he, "one which may have far-reaching effects both
+socially and humanly. Yes, yes, pending the invention of the electrical
+motor which we have not yet arrived at, here is an ideal one, a system of
+mechanical traction for all sorts of vehicles. Even aerial navigation may
+now become a possibility, and the problem of force at home is finally
+solved. And what a grand step! What sudden progress! Distance again
+diminished, all roads thrown open, and men able to fraternise! This is a
+great boon, a splendid gift, my good friends, that you are bestowing on
+the world."
+
+Then he began to jest about the new explosive, whose prodigious power he
+had divined, and which he now found put to such a beneficent purpose.
+"And to think, Guillaume," he said, "that I fancied you acted with so
+much mysteriousness and hid the formula of your powder from me because
+you had an idea of blowing up Paris!"
+
+At this Guillaume became grave and somewhat pale. And he confessed the
+truth. "Well, I did for a moment think of it."
+
+However, Bertheroy went on laughing, as if he regarded this answer as
+mere repartee, though truth to tell he had felt a slight chill sweep
+through his hair. "Well, my friend," he said, "you have done far better
+in offering the world this marvel, which by the way must have been both a
+difficult and dangerous matter. So here is a powder which was intended to
+exterminate people, and which in lieu thereof will now increase their
+comfort and welfare. In the long run things always end well, as I'm quite
+tired of saying."
+
+On beholding such lofty and tolerant good nature, Guillaume felt moved.
+Bertheroy's words were true. What had been intended for purposes of
+destruction served the cause of progress; the subjugated, domesticated
+volcano became labour, peace and civilisation. Guillaume had even
+relinquished all idea of his engine of battle and victory; he had found
+sufficient satisfaction in this last invention of his, which would
+relieve men of some measure of weariness, and help to reduce their labour
+to just so much effort as there must always be. In this he detected some
+little advance towards Justice; at all events it was all that he himself
+could contribute to the cause. And when on turning towards the window he
+caught sight of the basilica of the Sacred Heart, he could not explain
+what insanity had at one moment cone over him, and set him dreaming of
+idiotic and useless destruction. Some miasmal gust must have swept by,
+something born of want that scattered germs of anger and vengeance. But
+how blind it was to think that destruction and murder could ever bear
+good fruit, ever sow the soil with plenty and happiness! Violence cannot
+last, and all it does is to rouse man's feeling of solidarity even among
+those on whose behalf one kills. The people, the great multitude, rebel
+against the isolated individual who seeks to wreak justice. No one man
+can take upon himself the part of the volcano; this is the whole
+terrestrial crust, the whole multitude which internal fire impels to rise
+and throw up either an Alpine chain or a better and freer society. And
+whatever heroism there may be in their madness, however great and
+contagious may be their thirst for martyrdom, murderers are never
+anything but murderers, whose deeds simply sow the seeds of horror. And
+if on the one hand Victor Mathis had avenged Salvat, he had also slain
+him, so universal had been the cry of reprobation roused by the second
+crime, which was yet more monstrous and more useless than the first.
+
+Guillaume, laughing in his turn, replied to Bertheroy in words which
+showed how completely he was cured: "You are right," he said, "all ends
+well since all contributes to truth and justice. Unfortunately, thousands
+of years are sometimes needed for any progress to be accomplished....
+However, for my part, I am simply going to put my new explosive on the
+market, so that those who secure the necessary authorisation may
+manufacture it and grow rich. Henceforth it belongs to one and all....
+And I've renounced all idea of revolutionising the world."
+
+But Bertheroy protested. This great official scientist, this member of
+the Institute laden with offices and honours, pointed to the little
+motor, and replied with all the vigour of his seventy years: "But that is
+revolution, the true, the only revolution. It is with things like that
+and not with stupid bombs that one revolutionises the world! It is not by
+destroying, but by creating, that you have just done the work of a
+revolutionist. And how many times already have I not told you that
+science alone is the world's revolutionary force, the only force which,
+far above all paltry political incidents, the vain agitation of despots,
+priests, sectarians and ambitious people of all kinds, works for the
+benefit of those who will come after us, and prepares the triumph of
+truth, justice and peace.... Ah, my dear child, if you wish to
+overturn the world by striving to set a little more happiness in it, you
+have only to remain in your laboratory here, for human happiness can
+spring only from the furnace of the scientist."
+
+He spoke perhaps in a somewhat jesting way, but one could feel that he
+was convinced of it all, that he held everything excepting science in
+utter contempt. He had not even shown any surprise when Pierre had cast
+his cassock aside; and on finding him there with his wife and child he
+had not scrupled to show him as much affection as in the past.
+
+Meantime, however, the motor was travelling hither and thither, making no
+more noise than a bluebottle buzzing in the sunshine. The whole happy
+family was gathered about it, still laughing with delight at such a
+victorious achievement. And all at once little Jean, Monsieur Jean,
+having finished sucking, turned round, displaying his milk-smeared lips,
+and perceived the machine, the pretty plaything which walked about by
+itself. At sight of it, his eyes sparkled, dimples appeared on his plump
+cheeks, and, stretching out his quivering chubby hands, he raised a crow
+of delight.
+
+Marie, who was quietly fastening her dress, smiled at his glee and
+brought him nearer, in order that he might have a better view of the toy.
+"Ah! my darling, it's pretty, isn't it? It moves and it turns, and it's
+strong; it's quite alive, you see."
+
+The others, standing around, were much amused by the amazed, enraptured
+expression of the child, who would have liked to touch the machine,
+perhaps in the hope of understanding it.
+
+"Yes," resumed Bertheroy, "it's alive and it's powerful like the sun,
+like that great sun shining yonder over Paris, and ripening men and
+things. And Paris too is a motor, a boiler in which the future is
+boiling, while we scientists keep the eternal flame burning underneath.
+Guillaume, my good fellow, you are one of the stokers, one of the
+artisans of the future, with that little marvel of yours, which will
+still further extend the influence of our great Paris over the whole
+world."
+
+These words impressed Pierre, and he again thought of a gigantic vat
+stretching yonder from one horizon to the other, a vat in which the
+coming century would emerge from an extraordinary mixture of the
+excellent and the vile. But now, over and above all passions, ambitions,
+stains and waste, he was conscious of the colossal expenditure of labour
+which marked the life of Paris, of the heroic manual efforts in
+work-shops and factories, and the splendid striving of the young men of
+intellect whom he knew to be hard at work, studying in silence,
+relinquishing none of the conquests of their elders, but glowing with
+desire to enlarge their domain. And in all this Paris was exalted,
+together with the future that was being prepared within it, and which
+would wing its flight over the world bright like the dawn of day. If
+Rome, now so near its death, had ruled the ancient world, it was Paris
+that reigned with sovereign sway over the modern era, and had for the
+time become the great centre of the nations as they were carried on from
+civilisation to civilisation, in a sunward course from east to west.
+Paris was the world's brain. Its past so full of grandeur had prepared it
+for the part of initiator, civiliser and liberator. Only yesterday it had
+cast the cry of Liberty among the nations, and to-morrow it would bring
+them the religion of Science, the new faith awaited by the democracies.
+And Paris was also gaiety, kindness and gentleness, passion for knowledge
+and generosity without limit. Among the workmen of its faubourgs and the
+peasants of its country-sides there were endless reserves of men on whom
+the future might freely draw. And the century ended with Paris, and the
+new century would begin and spread with it. All the clamour of its
+prodigious labour, all the light that came from it as from a beacon
+overlooking the earth, all the thunder and tempest and triumphant
+brightness that sprang from its entrails, were pregnant with that final
+splendour, of which human happiness would be compounded.
+
+Marie raised a light cry of admiration as she pointed towards the city.
+"Look! just look!" she exclaimed; "Paris is all golden, covered with a
+harvest of gold!"
+
+They all re-echoed her admiration, for the effect was really one of
+extraordinary magnificence. The declining sun was once more veiling the
+immensity of Paris with golden dust. But this was no longer the city of
+the sower, a chaos of roofs and edifices suggesting brown land turned up
+by some huge plough, whilst the sun-rays streamed over it like golden
+seed, falling upon every side. Nor was it the city whose divisions had
+one day seemed so plain to Pierre: eastward, the districts of toil, misty
+with the grey smoke of factories; southward, the districts of study,
+serene and quiet; westward, the districts of wealth, bright and open; and
+in the centre the districts of trade, with dark and busy streets. It now
+seemed as if one and the same crop had sprung up on every side, imparting
+harmony to everything, and making the entire expanse one sole, boundless
+field, rich with the same fruitfulness. There was corn, corn everywhere,
+an infinity of corn, whose golden wave rolled from one end of the horizon
+to the other. Yes, the declining sun steeped all Paris in equal
+splendour, and it was truly the crop, the harvest, after the sowing!
+
+"Look! just look," repeated Marie, "there is not a nook without its
+sheaf; the humblest roofs are fruitful, and every blade is full-eared
+wherever one may look. It is as if there were now but one and the same
+soil, reconciled and fraternal. Ah! Jean, my little Jean, look! see how
+beautiful it is!"
+
+Pierre, who was quivering, had drawn close beside her. And Mere-Grand and
+Bertheroy smiled upon that promise of a future which they would not see,
+whilst beside Guillaume, whom the sight filled with emotion, were his
+three big sons, the three young giants, looking quite grave, they who
+ever laboured and were ever hopeful. Then Marie, with a fine gesture of
+enthusiasm, stretched out her arms and raised her child aloft, as if
+offering it in gift to the huge city.
+
+"See, Jean! see, little one," she cried, "it's you who'll reap it all,
+who'll store the whole crop in the barn!"
+
+And Paris flared--Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and
+where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paris, by Emile Zola
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS ***
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+Project Gutenberg's The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete, by Zola
+#35 in our series by Emile Zola
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!****
+
+
+Title: The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9169]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 10, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE CITIES: PARIS, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny [dagnypg@yahoo.com]
+and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net]
+
+
+
+
+                          THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+                             Complete
+
+
+                                BY
+
+                            EMILE ZOLA
+
+
+
+                TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                               BOOK I
+
+
+
+                        TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+
+WITH the present work M. Zola completes the "Trilogy of the Three
+Cities," which he began with "Lourdes" and continued with "Rome"; and
+thus the adventures and experiences of Abbe Pierre Froment, the doubting
+Catholic priest who failed to find faith at the miraculous grotto by the
+Cave, and hope amidst the crumbling theocracy of the Vatican, are here
+brought to what, from M. Zola's point of view, is their logical
+conclusion. From the first pages of "Lourdes," many readers will have
+divined that Abbe Froment was bound to finish as he does, for, frankly,
+no other finish was possible from a writer of M. Zola's opinions.
+
+Taking the Trilogy as a whole, one will find that it is essentially
+symbolical. Abbe Froment is Man, and his struggles are the struggles
+between Religion, as personified by the Roman Catholic Church, on the one
+hand, and Reason and Life on the other. In the Abbe's case the victory
+ultimately rests with the latter; and we may take it as being M. Zola's
+opinion that the same will eventually be the case with the great bulk of
+mankind. English writers are often accused of treating subjects from an
+insular point of view, and certainly there may be good ground for such a
+charge. But they are not the only writers guilty of the practice. The
+purview of French authors is often quite as limited: they regard French
+opinion as the only good opinion, and judge the rest of the world by
+their own standard. In the present case, if we leave the world and
+mankind generally on one side, and apply M. Zola's facts and theories to
+France alone, it will be found, I think, that he has made out a
+remarkably good case for himself. For it is certain that Catholicism, I
+may say Christianity, is fast crumbling in France. There may be revivals
+in certain limited circles, efforts of the greatest energy to prop up the
+tottering edifice by a "rallying" of believers to the democratic cause,
+and by a kindling of the most bitter anti-Semitic warfare; but all these
+revivals and efforts, although they are extremely well-advertised and
+create no little stir, produce very little impression on the bulk of the
+population. So far as France is concerned, the policy of Leo XIII. seems
+to have come too late. The French masses regard Catholicism or
+Christianity, whichever one pleases, as a religion of death,--a religion
+which, taking its stand on the text "There shall always be poor among
+you," condemns them to toil and moil in poverty and distress their whole
+life long, with no other consolation than the promise of happiness in
+heaven. And, on the other hand, they see the ministers of the Deity,
+"whose kingdom is not of this world," supporting the wealthy and
+powerful, and striving to secure wealth and power for themselves. Charity
+exists, of course, but the masses declare that it is no remedy; they do
+not ask for doles, they ask for Justice. It is largely by reason of all
+this that Socialism and Anarchism have made such great strides in France
+of recent years. Robespierre, as will be remembered, once tried to
+suppress Christianity altogether, and for a time certainly there was a
+virtually general cessation of religious observances in France. But no
+such Reign of Terror prevails there to-day. Men are perfectly free to
+believe if they are inclined to do so; and yet never were there fewer
+religious marriages, fewer baptisms or smaller congregations in the
+French churches. I refer not merely to Paris and other large cities, but
+to the smaller towns, and even the little hamlets of many parts. Old
+village priests, men practising what they teach and possessed of the most
+loving, benevolent hearts, have told me with tears in their eyes of the
+growing infidelity of their parishioners.
+
+I have been studying this matter for some years, and write without
+prejudice, merely setting down what I believe to be the truth. Of course
+we are all aware that the most stupendous efforts are being made by the
+Catholic clergy and zealous believers to bring about a revival of the
+faith, and certainly in some circles there has been a measure of success.
+But the reconversion of a nation is the most formidable of tasks; and, in
+my own opinion, as in M. Zola's, France as a whole is lost to the
+Christian religion. On this proposition, combined with a second one,
+namely, that even as France as a nation will be the first to discard
+Christianity, so she will be the first to promulgate a new faith based on
+reason, science and the teachings of life, is founded the whole argument
+of M. Zola's Trilogy.
+
+Having thus dealt with the Trilogy's religious aspects, I would now speak
+of "Paris," its concluding volume. This is very different from "Lourdes"
+and "Rome." Whilst recounting the struggles and fate of Abbe Froment and
+his brother Guillaume, and entering largely into the problem of Capital
+and Labour, which problem has done so much to turn the masses away from
+Christianity, it contains many an interesting and valuable picture of the
+Parisian world at the close of the nineteenth century. It is no
+guide-book to Paris; but it paints the city's social life, its rich and
+poor, its scandals and crimes, its work and its pleasures. Among the
+households to which the reader is introduced are those of a banker, an
+aged Countess of the old /noblesse/, a cosmopolitan Princess, of a kind
+that Paris knows only too well, a scientist, a manufacturer, a working
+mechanician, a priest, an Anarchist, a petty clerk and an actress of a
+class that so often dishonours the French stage. Science and art and
+learning and religion, all have their representatives. Then, too, the
+political world is well to the front. There are honest and unscrupulous
+Ministers of State, upright and venal deputies, enthusiastic and cautious
+candidates for power, together with social theoreticians of various
+schools. And the /blase/, weak-minded man of fashion is here, as well as
+the young "symbolist" of perverted, degraded mind. The women are of all
+types, from the most loathsome to the most lovable. Then, too, the
+journalists are portrayed in such life-like fashion that I might give
+each of them his real name. And journalism, Parisian journalism, is
+flagellated, shown as it really is,--if just a few well-conducted organs
+be excepted,--that is, venal and impudent, mendacious and even petty.
+
+The actual scenes depicted are quite as kaleidoscopic as are the
+characters in their variety. We enter the banker's gilded saloon and the
+hovel of the pauper, the busy factory, the priest's retired home and the
+laboratory of the scientist. We wait in the lobbies of the Chamber of
+Deputies, and afterwards witness "a great debate"; we penetrate into the
+private sanctum of a Minister of the Interior; we attend a fashionable
+wedding at the Madeleine and a first performance at the Comedie
+Francaise; we dine at the Cafe Anglais and listen to a notorious vocalist
+in a low music hall at Montmartre; we pursue an Anarchist through the
+Bois de Boulogne; we slip into the Assize Court and see that Anarchist
+tried there; we afterwards gaze upon his execution by the guillotine; we
+are also on the boulevards when the lamps are lighted for a long night of
+revelry, and we stroll along the quiet streets in the small hours of the
+morning, when crime and homeless want are prowling round.
+
+And ever the scene changes; the whole world of Paris passes before one.
+Yet the book, to my thinking, is far less descriptive than analytical.
+The souls of the principal characters are probed to their lowest depths.
+Many of the scenes, too, are intensely dramatic, admirably adapted for
+the stage; as, for instance, Baroness Duvillard's interview with her
+daughter in the chapter which I have called "The Rivals." And side by
+side with baseness there is heroism, while beauty of the flesh finds its
+counterpart in beauty of the mind. M. Zola has often been reproached for
+showing us the vileness of human nature; and no doubt such vileness may
+be found in "Paris," but there are contrasting pictures. If some of M.
+Zola's characters horrify the reader, there are others that the latter
+can but admire. Life is compounded of good and evil, and unfortunately it
+is usually the evil that makes the most noise and attracts the most
+attention. Moreover, in M. Zola's case, it has always been his purpose to
+expose the evils from which society suffers in the hope of directing
+attention to them and thereby hastening a remedy, and thus, in the course
+of his works, he could not do otherwise than drag the whole frightful
+mass of human villany and degradation into the full light of day. But if
+there are, again, black pages in "Paris," others, bright and comforting,
+will be found near them. And the book ends in no pessimist strain.
+Whatever may be thought of the writer's views on religion, most readers
+will, I imagine, agree with his opinion that, despite much social
+injustice, much crime, vice, cupidity and baseness, we are ever marching
+on to better things.
+
+In the making of the coming, though still far-away, era of truth and
+justice, Paris, he thinks, will play the leading part, for whatever the
+stains upon her, they are but surface-deep; her heart remains good and
+sound; she has genius and courage and energy and wit and fancy. She can
+be generous, too, when she chooses, and more than once her ideas have
+irradiated the world. Thus M. Zola hopes much from her, and who will
+gainsay him? Not I, who can apply to her the words which Byron addressed
+to the home of my own and M. Zola's forefathers:--
+
+     "I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
+      Was as a fairy city of the heart."
+
+Thus I can but hope that Paris, where I learnt the little I know, where I
+struggled and found love and happiness, whose every woe and disaster and
+triumph I have shared for over thirty years, may, however dark the clouds
+that still pass over her, some day fully justify M. Zola's confidence,
+and bring to pass his splendid dream of perfect truth and perfect
+justice.
+
+E. A. V.
+
+MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND,
+
+Feb. 5, 1898.
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+
+                               BOOK I
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE PRIEST AND THE POOR
+
+THAT morning, one towards the end of January, Abbe Pierre Froment, who
+had a mass to say at the Sacred Heart at Montmartre, was on the height,
+in front of the basilica, already at eight o'clock. And before going in
+he gazed for a moment upon the immensity of Paris spread out below him.
+
+After two months of bitter cold, ice and snow, the city was steeped in a
+mournful, quivering thaw. From the far-spreading, leaden-hued heavens a
+thick mist fell like a mourning shroud. All the eastern portion of the
+city, the abodes of misery and toil, seemed submerged beneath ruddy
+steam, amid which the panting of workshops and factories could be
+divined; while westwards, towards the districts of wealth and enjoyment,
+the fog broke and lightened, becoming but a fine and motionless veil of
+vapour. The curved line of the horizon could scarcely be divined, the
+expanse of houses, which nothing bounded, appeared like a chaos of stone,
+studded with stagnant pools, which filled the hollows with pale steam;
+whilst against them the summits of the edifices, the housetops of the
+loftier streets, showed black like soot. It was a Paris of mystery,
+shrouded by clouds, buried as it were beneath the ashes of some disaster,
+already half-sunken in the suffering and the shame of that which its
+immensity concealed.
+
+Thin and sombre in his flimsy cassock, Pierre was looking on when Abbe
+Rose, who seemed to have sheltered himself behind a pillar of the porch
+on purpose to watch for him, came forward: "Ah! it's you at last, my dear
+child," said he, "I have something to ask you."
+
+He seemed embarrassed and anxious, and glanced round distrustfully to
+make sure that nobody was near. Then, as if the solitude thereabouts did
+not suffice to reassure him, he led Pierre some distance away, through
+the icy, biting wind, which he himself did not seem to feel. "This is the
+matter," he resumed, "I have been told that a poor fellow, a former
+house-painter, an old man of seventy, who naturally can work no more, is
+dying of hunger in a hovel in the Rue des Saules. So, my dear child, I
+thought of you. I thought you would consent to take him these three
+francs from me, so that he may at least have some bread to eat for a few
+days."
+
+"But why don't you take him your alms yourself?"
+
+At this Abbe Rose again grew anxious, and cast vague, frightened glances
+about him. "Oh, no, oh, no!" he said, "I can no longer do that after all
+the worries that have befallen me. You know that I am watched, and should
+get another scolding if I were caught giving alms like this, scarcely
+knowing to whom I give them. It is true that I had to sell something to
+get these three francs. But, my dear child, render me this service, I
+pray you."
+
+Pierre, with heart oppressed, stood contemplating the old priest, whose
+locks were quite white, whose full lips spoke of infinite kindliness, and
+whose eyes shone clear and childlike in his round and smiling face. And
+he bitterly recalled the story of that lover of the poor, the
+semi-disgrace into which he had fallen through the sublime candour of his
+charitable goodness. His little ground-floor of the Rue de Charonne,
+which he had turned into a refuge where he offered shelter to all the
+wretchedness of the streets, had ended by giving cause for scandal. His
+/naivete/ and innocence had been abused; and abominable things had gone
+on under his roof without his knowledge. Vice had turned the asylum into
+a meeting-place; and at last, one night, the police had descended upon it
+to arrest a young girl accused of infanticide. Greatly concerned by this
+scandal, the diocesan authorities had forced Abbe Rose to close his
+shelter, and had removed him from the church of Ste. Marguerite to that
+of St. Pierre of Montmartre, where he now again acted as curate. Truth to
+tell, it was not a disgrace but a removal to another spot. However, he
+had been scolded and was watched, as he said; and he was much ashamed of
+it, and very unhappy at being only able to give alms by stealth, much
+like some harebrained prodigal who blushes for his faults.
+
+Pierre took the three francs. "I promise to execute your commission, my
+friend, oh! with all my heart," he said.
+
+"You will go after your mass, won't you? His name is Laveuve, he lives in
+the Rue des Saules in a house with a courtyard, just before reaching the
+Rue Marcadet. You are sure to find it. And if you want to be very kind
+you will tell me of your visit this evening at five o'clock, at the
+Madeleine, where I am going to hear Monseigneur Martha's address. He has
+been so good to me! Won't you also come to hear him?"
+
+Pierre made an evasive gesture. Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis
+and all powerful at the archiepiscopal palace, since, like the genial
+propagandist he was, he had been devoting himself to increasing the
+subscriptions for the basilica of the Sacred Heart, had indeed supported
+Abbe Rose; in fact, it was by his influence that the abbe had been kept
+in Paris, and placed once more at St. Pierre de Montmartre.
+
+"I don't know if I shall be able to hear the address," said Pierre, "but
+in any case I will go there to meet you."
+
+The north wind was blowing, and the gloomy cold penetrated both of them
+on that deserted summit amidst the fog which changed the vast city into a
+misty ocean. However, some footsteps were heard, and Abbe Rose, again
+mistrustful, saw a man go by, a tall and sturdy man, who wore clogs and
+was bareheaded, showing his thick and closely-cut white hair. "Is not
+that your brother?" asked the old priest.
+
+Pierre had not stirred. "Yes, it is my brother Guillaume," he quietly
+responded. "I have found him again since I have been coming occasionally
+to the Sacred Heart. He owns a house close by, where he has been living
+for more than twenty years, I think. When we meet we shake hands, but I
+have never even been to his house. Oh! all is quite dead between us, we
+have nothing more in common, we are parted by worlds."
+
+Abbe Rose's tender smile again appeared, and he waved his hand as if to
+say that one must never despair of love. Guillaume Froment, a savant of
+lofty intelligence, a chemist who lived apart from others, like one who
+rebelled against the social system, was now a parishioner of the abbe's,
+and when the latter passed the house where Guillaume lived with his three
+sons--a house all alive with work--he must often have dreamt of leading
+him back to God.
+
+"But, my dear child," he resumed, "I am keeping you here in this dark
+cold, and you are not warm. Go and say your mass. Till this evening, at
+the Madeleine." Then, in entreating fashion, after again making sure that
+none could hear them, he added, still with the air of a child at fault:
+"And not a word to anybody about my little commission--it would again be
+said that I don't know how to conduct myself."
+
+Pierre watched the old priest as he went off towards the Rue Cartot,
+where he lived on a damp ground-floor, enlivened by a strip of garden.
+The veil of disaster, which was submerging Paris, now seemed to grow
+thicker under the gusts of the icy north wind. And at last Pierre entered
+the basilica, his heart upset, overflowing with the bitterness stirred up
+by the recollection of Abbe Rose's story--that bankruptcy of charity, the
+frightful irony of a holy man punished for bestowing alms, and hiding
+himself that he might still continue to bestow them. Nothing could calm
+the smart of the wound reopened in Pierre's heart--neither the warm
+peacefulness into which he entered, nor the silent solemnity of the
+broad, deep fabric, whose new stonework was quite bare, without a single
+painting or any kind of decoration; the nave being still half-barred by
+the scaffoldings which blocked up the unfinished dome. At that early hour
+the masses of entreaty had already been said at several altars, under the
+grey light falling from the high and narrow windows, and the tapers of
+entreaty were burning in the depths of the apse. So Pierre made haste to
+go to the sacristy, there to assume his vestments in order that he might
+say his mass in the chapel of St. Vincent de Paul.
+
+But the floodgates of memory had been opened, and he had no thought but
+for his distress whilst, in mechanical fashion, he performed the rites
+and made the customary gestures. Since his return from Rome three years
+previously, he had been living in the very worst anguish that can fall on
+man. At the outset, in order to recover his lost faith, he had essayed a
+first experiment: he had gone to Lourdes, there to seek the innocent
+belief of the child who kneels and prays, the primitive faith of young
+nations bending beneath the terror born of ignorance; but he had rebelled
+yet more than ever in presence of what he had witnessed at Lourdes: that
+glorification of the absurd, that collapse of common sense; and was
+convinced that salvation, the peace of men and nations nowadays, could
+not lie in that puerile relinquishment of reason. And afterwards, again
+yielding to the need of loving whilst yet allowing reason, so hard to
+satisfy, her share in his intellect, he had staked his final peace on a
+second experiment, and had gone to Rome to see if Catholicism could there
+be renewed, could revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity and
+become the religion of the democracy, the faith which the modern world,
+upheaving and in danger of death, was awaiting in order to calm down and
+live. And he had found there naught but ruins, the rotted trunk of a tree
+that could never put forth another springtide; and he had heard there
+naught but the supreme rending of the old social edifice, near to its
+fall. Then it was, that, relapsing into boundless doubt, total negation,
+he had been recalled to Paris by Abbe Rose, in the name of their poor,
+and had returned thither that he might forget and immolate himself and
+believe in them--the poor--since they and their frightful sufferings
+alone remained certain. And then it was too, that for three years he came
+into contact with that collapse, that very bankruptcy of goodness itself:
+charity a derision, charity useless and flouted.
+
+Those three years had been lived by Pierre amidst ever-growing torments,
+in which his whole being had ended by sinking. His faith was forever
+dead; dead, too, even his hope of utilising the faith of the multitudes
+for the general salvation. He denied everything, he anticipated nothing
+but the final, inevitable catastrophe: revolt, massacre and
+conflagration, which would sweep away a guilty and condemned world.
+Unbelieving priest that he was, yet watching over the faith of others,
+honestly, chastely discharging his duties, full of haughty sadness at the
+thought that he had been unable to renounce his mind as he had renounced
+his flesh and his dream of being a saviour of the nations, he withal
+remained erect, full of fierce yet solitary grandeur. And this
+despairing, denying priest, who had dived to the bottom of nothingness,
+retained such a lofty and grave demeanour, perfumed by such pure
+kindness, that in his parish of Neuilly he had acquired the reputation of
+being a young saint, one beloved by Providence, whose prayers wrought
+miracles. He was but a personification of the rules of the Church; of the
+priest he retained only the gestures; he was like an empty sepulchre in
+which not even the ashes of hope remained; yet grief-stricken weeping
+women worshipped him and kissed his cassock; and it was a tortured mother
+whose infant was in danger of death, who had implored him to come and ask
+that infant's cure of Jesus, certain as she felt that Jesus would grant
+her the boon in that sanctuary of Montmartre where blazed the prodigy of
+His heart, all burning with love.
+
+Clad in his vestments, Pierre had reached the chapel of St. Vincent de
+Paul. He there ascended the altar-step and began the mass; and when he
+turned round with hands spread out to bless the worshippers he showed his
+hollow cheeks, his gentle mouth contracted by bitterness, his loving eyes
+darkened by suffering. He was no longer the young priest whose
+countenance had glowed with tender fever on the road to Lourdes, whose
+face had been illumined by apostolic fervour when he started for Rome.
+The two hereditary influences which were ever at strife within him--that
+of his father to whom he owed his impregnable, towering brow, that of his
+mother who had given him his love-thirsting lips, were still waging war,
+the whole human battle of sentiment and reason, in that now ravaged face
+of his, whither in moments of forgetfulness ascended all the chaos of
+internal suffering. The lips still confessed that unquenched thirst for
+love, self-bestowal and life, which he well thought he could nevermore
+content, whilst the solid brow, the citadel which made him suffer,
+obstinately refused to capitulate, whatever might be the assaults of
+error. But he stiffened himself, hid the horror of the void in which he
+struggled, and showed himself superb, making each gesture, repeating each
+word in sovereign fashion. And gazing at him through her tears, the
+mother who was there among the few kneeling women, the mother who awaited
+a supreme intercession from him, who thought him in communion with Jesus
+for the salvation of her child, beheld him radiant with angelic beauty
+like some messenger of the divine grace.
+
+When, after the offertory, Pierre uncovered the chalice he felt contempt
+for himself. The shock had been too great, and he thought of those things
+in spite of all. What puerility there had been in his two experiments at
+Lourdes and Rome, the /naivete/ of a poor distracted being, consumed by
+desire to love and believe. To have imagined that present-day science
+would in his person accommodate itself to the faith of the year One
+Thousand, and in particular to have foolishly believed that he, petty
+priest that he was, would be able to indoctrinate the Pope and prevail on
+him to become a saint and change the face of the world! It all filled him
+with shame; how people must have laughed at him! Then, too, his idea of a
+schism made him blush. He again beheld himself at Rome, dreaming of
+writing a book by which he would violently sever himself from Catholicism
+to preach the new religion of the democracies, the purified, human and
+living Gospel. But what ridiculous folly! A schism? He had known in Paris
+an abbe of great heart and mind who had attempted to bring about that
+famous, predicted, awaited schism. Ah! the poor man, the sad, the
+ludicrous labour in the midst of universal incredulity, the icy
+indifference of some, the mockery and the reviling of others! If Luther
+were to come to France in our days he would end, forgotten and dying of
+hunger, on a Batignolles fifth-floor. A schism cannot succeed among a
+people that no longer believes, that has ceased to take all interest in
+the Church, and sets its hope elsewhere. And it was all Catholicism, in
+fact all Christianity, that would be swept away, for, apart from certain
+moral maxims, the Gospel no longer supplied a possible code for society.
+And this conviction increased Pierre's torment on the days when his
+cassock weighed more heavily on his shoulders, when he ended by feeling
+contempt for himself at thus celebrating the divine mystery of the mass,
+which for him had become but the formula of a dead religion.
+
+Having half filled the chalice with wine from the vase, Pierre washed his
+hands and again perceived the mother with her face of ardent entreaty.
+Then he thought it was for her that, with the charitable leanings of a
+vow-bound man, he had remained a priest, a priest without belief, feeding
+the belief of others with the bread of illusion. But this heroic conduct,
+the haughty spirit of duty in which he imprisoned himself, was not
+practised by him without growing anguish. Did not elementary probity
+require that he should cast aside the cassock and return into the midst
+of men? At certain times the falsity of his position filled him with
+disgust for his useless heroism; and he asked himself if it were not
+cowardly and dangerous to leave the masses in superstition. Certainly the
+theory of a just and vigilant Providence, of a future paradise where all
+these sufferings of the world would receive compensation, had long seemed
+necessary to the wretchedness of mankind; but what a trap lay in it, what
+a pretext for the tyrannical grinding down of nations; and how far more
+virile it would be to undeceive the nations, however brutally, and give
+them courage to live the real life, even if it were in tears. If they
+were already turning aside from Christianity was not this because they
+needed a more human ideal, a religion of health and joy which should not
+be a religion of death? On the day when the idea of charity should
+crumble, Christianity would crumble also, for it was built upon the idea
+of divine charity correcting the injustice of fate, and offering future
+rewards to those who might suffer in this life. And it was crumbling; for
+the poor no longer believed in it, but grew angry at the thought of that
+deceptive paradise, with the promise of which their patience had been
+beguiled so long, and demanded that their share of happiness should not
+always be put off until the morrow of death. A cry for justice arose from
+every lip, for justice upon this earth, justice for those who hunger and
+thirst, whom alms are weary of relieving after eighteen hundred years of
+Gospel teaching, and who still and ever lack bread to eat.
+
+When Pierre, with his elbows on the altar, had emptied the chalice after
+breaking the sacred wafer, he felt himself sinking into yet greater
+distress. And so a third experiment was beginning for him, the supreme
+battle of justice against charity, in which his heart and his mind would
+struggle together in that great Paris, so full of terrible, unknown
+things. The need for the divine still battled within him against
+domineering intelligence. How among the masses would one ever be able to
+content the thirst for the mysterious? Leaving the /elite/ on one side,
+would science suffice to pacify desire, lull suffering, and satisfy the
+dream? And what would become of himself in the bankruptcy of that same
+charity, which for three years had alone kept him erect by occupying his
+every hour, and giving him the illusion of self-devotion, of being useful
+to others? It seemed, all at once, as if the ground sank beneath him, and
+he heard nothing save the cry of the masses, silent so long, but now
+demanding justice, growling and threatening to take their share, which
+was withheld from them by force and ruse. Nothing more, it seemed, could
+delay the inevitable catastrophe, the fratricidal class warfare that
+would sweep away the olden world, which was condemned to disappear
+beneath the mountain of its crimes. Every hour with frightful sadness he
+expected the collapse, Paris steeped in blood, Paris in flames. And his
+horror of all violence froze him; he knew not where to seek the new
+belief which might dissipate the peril. Fully conscious, though he was,
+that the social and religious problems are but one, and are alone in
+question in the dreadful daily labour of Paris, he was too deeply
+troubled himself, too far removed from ordinary things by his position as
+a priest, and too sorely rent by doubt and powerlessness to tell as yet
+where might be truth, and health, and life. Ah! to be healthy and to
+live, to content at last both heart and reason in the peace, the certain,
+simply honest labour, which man has come to accomplish upon this earth!
+
+The mass was finished, and Pierre descended from the altar, when the
+weeping mother, near whom he passed, caught hold of a corner of the
+chasuble with her trembling hands, and kissed it with wild fervour, as
+one may kiss some relic of a saint from whom one expects salvation. She
+thanked him for the miracle which he must have accomplished, certain as
+she felt that she would find her child cured. And he was deeply stirred
+by that love, that ardent faith of hers, in spite of the sudden and yet
+keener distress which he felt at being in no wise the sovereign minister
+that she thought him, the minister able to obtain a respite from Death.
+But he dismissed her consoled and strengthened, and it was with an ardent
+prayer that he entreated the unknown but conscious Power to succour the
+poor creature. Then, when he had divested himself in the sacristy, and
+found himself again out of doors before the basilica, lashed by the keen
+wintry wind, a mortal shiver came upon him, and froze him, while through
+the mist he looked to see if a whirlwind of anger and justice had not
+swept Paris away: that catastrophe which must some day destroy it,
+leaving under the leaden heavens only the pestilential quagmire of its
+ruins.
+
+Pierre wished to fulfil Abbe Rose's commission immediately. He followed
+the Rue des Norvins, on the crest of Montmartre; and, reaching the Rue
+des Saules, descended by its steep slope, between mossy walls, to the
+other side of Paris. The three francs which he was holding in his
+cassock's pocket, filled him at once with gentle emotion and covert anger
+against the futility of charity. But as he gradually descended by the
+sharp declivities and interminable storeys of steps, the mournful nooks
+of misery which he espied took possession of him, and infinite pity wrung
+his heart. A whole new district was here being built alongside the broad
+thoroughfares opened since the great works of the Sacred Heart had begun.
+Lofty middle-class houses were already rising among ripped-up gardens and
+plots of vacant land, still edged with palings. And these houses with
+their substantial frontages, all new and white, lent a yet more sombre
+and leprous aspect to such of the old shaky buildings as remained, the
+low pot-houses with blood-coloured walls, the /cites/ of workmen's
+dwellings, those abodes of suffering with black, soiled buildings in
+which human cattle were piled. Under the low-hanging sky that day, the
+pavement, dented by heavily-laden carts, was covered with mud; the thaw
+soaked the walls with an icy dampness, whilst all the filth and
+destitution brought terrible sadness to the heart.
+
+After going as far as the Rue Marcadet, Pierre retraced his steps; and in
+the Rue des Saules, certain that he was not mistaken, he entered the
+courtyard of a kind of barracks or hospital, encompassed by three
+irregular buildings. This court was a quagmire, where filth must have
+accumulated during the two months of terrible frost; and now all was
+melting, and an abominable stench arose. The buildings were half falling,
+the gaping vestibules looked like cellar holes, strips of paper streaked
+the cracked and filthy window-panes, and vile rags hung about like flags
+of death. Inside a shanty which served as the door-keeper's abode Pierre
+only saw an infirm man rolled up in a tattered strip of what had once
+been a horse-cloth.
+
+"You have an old workman named Laveuve here," said the priest. "Which
+staircase is it, which floor?"
+
+The man did not answer, but opened his anxious eyes, like a scared idiot.
+The door-keeper, no doubt, was in the neighbourhood. For a moment the
+priest waited; then seeing a little girl on the other side of the
+courtyard, he risked himself, crossed the quagmire on tip-toe, and asked:
+"Do you know an old workman named Laveuve in the house, my child?"
+
+The little girl, who only had a ragged gown of pink cotton stuff about
+her meagre figure, stood there shivering, her hands covered with
+chilblains. She raised her delicate face, which looked pretty though
+nipped by the cold: "Laveuve," said she, "no, don't know, don't know."
+And with the unconscious gesture of a beggar child she put out one of her
+poor, numbed and disfigured hands. Then, when the priest had given her a
+little bit of silver, she began to prance through the mud like a joyful
+goat, singing the while in a shrill voice: "Don't know, don't know."
+
+Pierre decided to follow her. She vanished into one of the gaping
+vestibules, and, in her rear, he climbed a dark and fetid staircase,
+whose steps were half-broken and so slippery, on account of the vegetable
+parings strewn over them, that he had to avail himself of the greasy rope
+by which the inmates hoisted themselves upwards. But every door was
+closed; he vainly knocked at several of them, and only elicited, at the
+last, a stifled growl, as though some despairing animal were confined
+within. Returning to the yard, he hesitated, then made his way to another
+staircase, where he was deafened by piercing cries, as of a child who is
+being butchered. He climbed on hearing this noise and at last found
+himself in front of an open room where an infant, who had been left
+alone, tied in his little chair, in order that he might not fall, was
+howling and howling without drawing breath. Then Pierre went down again,
+upset, frozen by the sight of so much destitution and abandonment.
+
+But a woman was coming in, carrying three potatoes in her apron, and on
+being questioned by him she gazed distrustfully at his cassock. "Laveuve,
+Laveuve? I can't say," she replied. "If the door-keeper were there, she
+might be able to tell you. There are five staircases, you see, and we
+don't all know each other. Besides, there are so many changes. Still try
+over there; at the far end."
+
+The staircase at the back of the yard was yet more abominable than the
+others, its steps warped, its walls slimy, as if soaked with the sweat of
+anguish. At each successive floor the drain-sinks exhaled a pestilential
+stench, whilst from every lodging came moans, or a noise of quarrelling,
+or some frightful sign of misery. A door swung open, and a man appeared
+dragging a woman by the hair whilst three youngsters sobbed aloud. On the
+next floor, Pierre caught a glimpse of a room where a young girl in her
+teens, racked by coughing, was hastily carrying an infant to and fro to
+quiet it, in despair that all the milk of her breast should be exhausted.
+Then, in an adjoining lodging, came the poignant spectacle of three
+beings, half clad in shreds, apparently sexless and ageless, who, amidst
+the dire bareness of their room, were gluttonously eating from the same
+earthen pan some pottage which even dogs would have refused. They barely
+raised their heads to growl, and did not answer Pierre's questions.
+
+He was about to go down again, when right atop of the stairs, at the
+entry of a passage, it occurred to him to make a last try by knocking at
+the door. It was opened by a woman whose uncombed hair was already
+getting grey, though she could not be more than forty; while her pale
+lips, and dim eyes set in a yellow countenance, expressed utter
+lassitude, the shrinking, the constant dread of one whom wretchedness has
+pitilessly assailed. The sight of Pierre's cassock disturbed her, and she
+stammered anxiously: "Come in, come in, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+However, a man whom Pierre had not at first seen--a workman also of some
+forty years, tall, thin and bald, with scanty moustache and beard of a
+washed-out reddish hue--made an angry gesture--a threat as it were--to
+turn the priest out of doors. But he calmed himself, sat down near a
+rickety table and pretended to turn his back. And as there was also a
+child present--a fair-haired girl, eleven or twelve years old, with a
+long and gentle face and that intelligent and somewhat aged expression
+which great misery imparts to children--he called her to him, and held
+her between his knees, doubtless to keep her away from the man in the
+cassock.
+
+Pierre--whose heart was oppressed by his reception, and who realised the
+utter destitution of this family by the sight of the bare, fireless room,
+and the distressed mournfulness of its three inmates--decided all the
+same to repeat his question: "Madame, do you know an old workman named
+Laveuve in the house?"
+
+The woman--who now trembled at having admitted him, since it seemed to
+displease her man--timidly tried to arrange matters. "Laveuve, Laveuve?
+no, I don't. But Salvat, you hear? Do you know a Laveuve here?"
+
+Salvat merely shrugged his shoulders; but the little girl could not keep
+her tongue still: "I say, mamma Theodore, it's p'raps the Philosopher."
+
+"A former house-painter," continued Pierre, "an old man who is ill and
+past work."
+
+Madame Theodore was at once enlightened. "In that case it's him, it's
+him. We call him the Philosopher, a nickname folks have given him in the
+neighbourhood. But there's nothing to prevent his real name from being
+Laveuve."
+
+With one of his fists raised towards the ceiling, Salvat seemed to be
+protesting against the abomination of a world and a Providence that
+allowed old toilers to die of hunger just like broken-down beasts.
+However, he did not speak, but relapsed into the savage, heavy silence,
+the bitter meditation in which he had been plunged when the priest
+arrived. He was a journeyman engineer, and gazed obstinately at the table
+where lay his little leather tool-bag, bulging with something it
+contained--something, perhaps, which he had to take back to a work-shop.
+He might have been thinking of a long, enforced spell of idleness, of a
+vain search for any kind of work during the two previous months of that
+terrible winter. Or perhaps it was the coming bloody reprisals of the
+starvelings that occupied the fiery reverie which set his large, strange,
+vague blue eyes aglow. All at once he noticed that his daughter had taken
+up the tool-bag and was trying to open it to see what it might contain.
+At this he quivered and at last spoke, his voice kindly, yet bitter with
+sudden emotion, which made him turn pale. "Celine, you must leave that
+alone. I forbade you to touch my tools," said he; then taking the bag, he
+deposited it with great precaution against the wall behind him.
+
+"And so, madame," asked Pierre, "this man Laveuve lives on this floor?"
+
+Madame Theodore directed a timid, questioning glance at Salvat. She was
+not in favour of hustling priests when they took the trouble to call, for
+at times there was a little money to be got from them. And when she
+realised that Salvat, who had once more relapsed into his black reverie,
+left her free to act as she pleased, she at once tendered her services.
+"If Monsieur l'Abbe is agreeable, I will conduct him. It's just at the
+end of the passage. But one must know the way, for there are still some
+steps to climb."
+
+Celine, finding a pastime in this visit, escaped from her father's knees
+and likewise accompanied the priest. And Salvat remained alone in that
+den of poverty and suffering, injustice and anger, without a fire,
+without bread, haunted by his burning dream, his eyes again fixed upon
+his bag, as if there, among his tools, he possessed the wherewithal to
+heal the ailing world.
+
+It indeed proved necessary to climb a few more steps; and then, following
+Madame Theodore and Celine, Pierre found himself in a kind of narrow
+garret under the roof, a loft a few yards square, where one could not
+stand erect. There was no window, only a skylight, and as the snow still
+covered it one had to leave the door wide open in order that one might
+see. And the thaw was entering the place, the melting snow was falling
+drop by drop, and coming over the tiled floor. After long weeks of
+intense cold, dark dampness rained quivering over all. And there, lacking
+even a chair, even a plank, Laveuve lay in a corner on a little pile of
+filthy rags spread upon the bare tiles; he looked like some animal dying
+on a dung-heap.
+
+"There!" said Celine in her sing-song voice, "there he is, that's the
+Philosopher!"
+
+Madame Theodore had bent down to ascertain if he still lived. "Yes, he
+breathes; he's sleeping I think. Oh! if he only had something to eat
+every day, he would be well enough. But what would you have? He has
+nobody left him, and when one gets to seventy the best is to throw
+oneself into the river. In the house-painting line it often happens that
+a man has to give up working on ladders and scaffoldings at fifty. He at
+first found some work to do on the ground level. Then he was lucky enough
+to get a job as night watchman. But that's over, he's been turned away
+from everywhere, and, for two months now, he's been lying in this nook
+waiting to die. The landlord hasn't dared to fling him into the street as
+yet, though not for want of any inclination that way. We others sometimes
+bring him a little wine and a crust, of course; but when one has nothing
+oneself, how can one give to others?"
+
+Pierre, terrified, gazed at that frightful remnant of humanity, that
+remnant into which fifty years of toil, misery and social injustice had
+turned a man. And he ended by distinguishing Laveuve's white, worn,
+sunken, deformed head. Here, on a human face, appeared all the ruin
+following upon hopeless labour. Laveuve's unkempt beard straggled over
+his features, suggesting an old horse that is no longer cropped; his
+toothless jaws were quite askew, his eyes were vitreous, and his nose
+seemed to plunge into his mouth. But above all else one noticed his
+resemblance to some beast of burden, deformed by hard toil, lamed, worn
+to death, and now only good for the knackers.
+
+"Ah! the poor fellow," muttered the shuddering priest. "And he is left to
+die of hunger, all alone, without any succour? And not a hospital, not an
+asylum has given him shelter?"
+
+"Well," resumed Madame Theodore in her sad yet resigned voice, "the
+hospitals are built for the sick, and he isn't sick, he's simply
+finishing off, with his strength at an end. Besides he isn't always easy
+to deal with. People came again only lately to put him in an asylum, but
+he won't be shut up. And he speaks coarsely to those who question him,
+not to mention that he has the reputation of liking drink and talking
+badly about the gentle-folks. But, thank Heaven, he will now soon be
+delivered."
+
+Pierre had leant forward on seeing Laveuve's eyes open, and he spoke to
+him tenderly, telling him that he had come from a friend with a little
+money to enable him to buy what he might most pressingly require. At
+first, on seeing Pierre's cassock, the old man had growled some coarse
+words; but, despite his extreme feebleness, he still retained the pert
+chaffing spirit of the Parisian artisan: "Well, then, I'll willingly
+drink a drop," he said distinctly, "and have a bit of bread with it, if
+there's the needful; for I've lost taste of both for a couple of days
+past."
+
+Celine offered her services, and Madame Theodore sent her to fetch a loaf
+and a quart of wine with Abbe Rose's money. And in the interval she told
+Pierre how Laveuve was at one moment to have entered the Asylum of the
+Invalids of Labour, a charitable enterprise whose lady patronesses were
+presided over by Baroness Duvillard. However, the usual regulation
+inquiries had doubtless led to such an unfavourable report that matters
+had gone no further.
+
+"Baroness Duvillard! but I know her, and will go to see her to-day!"
+exclaimed Pierre, whose heart was bleeding. "It is impossible for a man
+to be left in such circumstances any longer."
+
+Then, as Celine came back with the loaf and the wine, the three of them
+tried to make Laveuve more comfortable, raised him on his heap of rags,
+gave him to eat and to drink, and then left the remainder of the wine and
+the loaf--a large four-pound loaf--near him, recommending him to wait
+awhile before he finished the bread, as otherwise he might stifle.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe ought to give me his address in case I should have any
+news to send him," said Madame Theodore when she again found herself at
+her door.
+
+Pierre had no card with him, and so all three went into the room. But
+Salvat was no longer alone there. He stood talking in a low voice very
+quickly, and almost mouth to mouth, with a young fellow of twenty. The
+latter, who was slim and dark, with a sprouting beard and hair cut in
+brush fashion, had bright eyes, a straight nose and thin lips set in a
+pale and slightly freckled face, betokening great intelligence. With
+stern and stubborn brow, he stood shivering in his well-worn jacket.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe wants to leave me his address for the Philosopher's
+affair," gently explained Madame Theodore, annoyed to find another there
+with Salvat.
+
+The two men had glanced at the priest and then looked at one another,
+each with terrible mien. And they suddenly ceased speaking in the bitter
+cold which fell from the ceiling. Then, again with infinite precaution,
+Salvat went to take his tool-bag from alongside the wall.
+
+"So you are going down, you are again going to look for work?" asked
+Madame Theodore.
+
+He did not answer, but merely made an angry gesture, as if to say that he
+would no longer have anything to do with work since work for so long a
+time had not cared to have anything to do with him.
+
+"All the same," resumed the woman, "try to bring something back with you,
+for you know there's nothing. At what time will you be back?"
+
+With another gesture he seemed to answer that he would come back when he
+could, perhaps never. And tears rising, despite all his efforts, to his
+vague, blue, glowing eyes he caught hold of his daughter Celine, kissed
+her violently, distractedly, and then went off, with his bag under his
+arm, followed by his young companion.
+
+"Celine," resumed Madame Theodore, "give Monsieur l'Abbe your pencil,
+and, see, monsieur, seat yourself here, it will be better for writing."
+
+Then, when Pierre had installed himself at the table, on the chair
+previously occupied by Salvat, she went on talking, seeking to excuse her
+man for his scanty politeness: "He hasn't a bad heart, but he's had so
+many worries in life that he has become a bit cracked. It's like that
+young man whom you just saw here, Monsieur Victor Mathis. There's another
+for you, who isn't happy, a young man who was well brought up, who has a
+lot of learning, and whose mother, a widow, has only just got the
+wherewithal to buy bread. So one can understand it, can't one? It all
+upsets their heads, and they talk of blowing up everybody. For my part
+those are not my notions, but I forgive them, oh! willingly enough."
+
+Perturbed, yet interested by all the mystery and vague horror which he
+could divine around him, Pierre made no haste to write his address, but
+lingered listening, as if inviting confidence.
+
+"If you only knew, Monsieur l'Abbe, that poor Salvat was a forsaken
+child, without father or mother, and had to scour the roads and try every
+trade at first to get a living. Then afterwards he became a mechanician,
+and a very good workman, I assure you, very skilful and very painstaking.
+But he already had those ideas of his, and quarrelled with people, and
+tried to bring his mates over to his views; and so he was unable to stay
+anywhere. At last, when he was thirty, he was stupid enough to go to
+America with an inventor, who traded on him to such a point that after
+six years of it he came back ill and penniless. I must tell you that he
+had married my younger sister Leonie, and that she died before he went to
+America, leaving him little Celine, who was then only a year old. I was
+then living with my husband, Theodore Labitte, a mason; and it's not to
+brag that I say it, but however much I wore out my eyes with needlework
+he used to beat me till he left me half-dead on the floor. But he ended
+by deserting me and going off with a young woman of twenty, which, after
+all, caused me more pleasure than grief. And naturally when Salvat came
+back he sought me out and found me alone with his little Celine, whom he
+had left in my charge when he went away, and who called me mamma. And
+we've all three been living together since then--"
+
+She became somewhat embarrassed, and then, as if to show that she did not
+altogether lack some respectable family connections, she went on to say:
+"For my part I've had no luck; but I've another sister, Hortense, who's
+married to a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, and lives in a pretty lodging
+on the Boulevard Rochechouart. There were three of us born of my father's
+second marriage,--Hortense, who's the youngest, Leonie, who's dead, and
+myself, Pauline, the eldest. And of my father's first marriage I've still
+a brother Eugene Toussaint, who is ten years older than me and is an
+engineer like Salvat, and has been working ever since the war in the same
+establishment, the Grandidier factory, only a hundred steps away in the
+Rue Marcadet. The misfortune is that he had a stroke lately. As for me,
+my eyes are done for; I ruined them by working ten hours a day at fine
+needlework. And now I can no longer even try to mend anything without my
+eyes filling with water till I can't see at all. I've tried to find
+charwoman's work, but I can't get any; bad luck always follows us. And so
+we are in need of everything; we've nothing but black misery, two or
+three days sometimes going by without a bite, so that it's like the
+chance life of a dog that feeds on what it can find. And with these last
+two months of bitter cold to freeze us, it's sometimes made us think that
+one morning we should never wake up again. But what would you have? I've
+never been happy, I was beaten to begin with, and now I'm done for, left
+in a corner, living on, I really don't know why."
+
+Her voice had begun to tremble, her red eyes moistened, and Pierre could
+realise that she thus wept through life, a good enough woman but one who
+had no will, and was already blotted out, so to say, from existence.
+
+"Oh! I don't complain of Salvat," she went on. "He's a good fellow; he
+only dreams of everybody's happiness, and he doesn't drink, and he works
+when he can. Only it's certain that he'd work more if he didn't busy
+himself with politics. One can't discuss things with comrades, and go to
+public meetings and be at the workshop at the same time. In that he's at
+fault, that's evident. But all the same he has good reason to complain,
+for one can't imagine such misfortunes as have pursued him. Everything
+has fallen on him, everything has beaten him down. Why, a saint even
+would have gone mad, so that one can understand that a poor beggar who
+has never had any luck should get quite wild. For the last two months he
+has only met one good heart, a learned gentleman who lives up yonder on
+the height, Monsieur Guillaume Froment, who has given him a little work,
+just something to enable us to have some soup now and then."
+
+Much surprised by this mention of his brother, Pierre wished to ask
+certain questions; but a singular feeling of uneasiness, in which fear
+and discretion mingled, checked his tongue. He looked at Celine, who
+stood before him, listening in silence with her grave, delicate air; and
+Madame Theodore, seeing him smile at the child, indulged in a final
+remark: "It's just the idea of that child," said she, "that throws Salvat
+out of his wits. He adores her, and he'd kill everybody if he could, when
+he sees her go supperless to bed. She's such a good girl, she was
+learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a
+shift to go there in."
+
+Pierre, who had at last written his address, slipped a five-franc piece
+into the little girl's hand, and, desirous as he was of curtailing any
+thanks, he hastily said: "You will know now where to find me if you need
+me for Laveuve. But I'm going to busy myself about him this very
+afternoon, and I really hope that he will be fetched away this evening."
+
+Madame Theodore did not listen, but poured forth all possible blessings;
+whilst Celine, thunderstruck at seeing five francs in her hand, murmured:
+"Oh! that poor papa, who has gone to hunt for money! Shall I run after
+him to tell him that we've got enough for to-day?"
+
+Then the priest, who was already in the passage, heard the woman answer:
+"Oh! he's far away if he's still walking. He'll p'raps come back right
+enough."
+
+However, as Pierre, with buzzing head and grief-stricken heart, hastily
+escaped out of that frightful house of suffering, he perceived to his
+astonishment Salvat and Victor Mathis standing erect in a corner of the
+filthy courtyard, where the stench was so pestilential. They had come
+downstairs, there to continue their interrupted colloquy. And again, they
+were talking in very low tones, and very quickly, mouth to mouth,
+absorbed in the violent thoughts which made their eyes flare. But they
+heard the priest's footsteps, recognised him, and suddenly becoming cold
+and calm, exchanged an energetic hand-shake without uttering another
+word. Victor went up towards Montmartre, whilst Salvat hesitated like a
+man who is consulting destiny. Then, as if trusting himself to stern
+chance, drawing up his thin figure, the figure of a weary, hungry toiler,
+he turned into the Rue Marcadet, and walked towards Paris, his tool-bag
+still under his arm.
+
+For an instant Pierre felt a desire to run and call to him that his
+little girl wished him to go back again. But the same feeling of
+uneasiness as before came over the priest--a commingling of discretion
+and fear, a covert conviction that nothing could stay destiny. And he
+himself was no longer calm, no longer experienced the icy, despairing
+distress of the early morning. On finding himself again in the street,
+amidst the quivering fog, he felt the fever, the glow of charity which
+the sight of such frightful wretchedness had ignited, once more within
+him. No, no! such suffering was too much; he wished to struggle still, to
+save Laveuve and restore a little joy to all those poor folk. The new
+experiment presented itself with that city of Paris which he had seen
+shrouded as with ashes, so mysterious and so perturbing beneath the
+threat of inevitable justice. And he dreamed of a huge sun bringing
+health and fruitfulness, which would make of the huge city the fertile
+field where would sprout the better world of to-morrow.
+
+
+
+II
+
+WEALTH AND WORLDLINESS
+
+THAT same morning, as was the case nearly every day, some intimates were
+expected to /dejeuner/ at the Duvillards', a few friends who more or less
+invited themselves. And on that chilly day, all thaw and fog, the regal
+mansion in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy near the Boulevard de la Madeleine
+bloomed with the rarest flowers, for flowers were the greatest passion of
+the Baroness, who transformed the lofty, sumptuous rooms, littered with
+marvels, into warm and odoriferous conservatories, whither the gloomy,
+livid light of Paris penetrated caressingly with infinite softness.
+
+The great reception rooms were on the ground-floor looking on to the
+spacious courtyard, and preceded by a little winter garden, which served
+as a vestibule where two footmen in liveries of dark green and gold were
+invariably on duty. A famous gallery of paintings, valued at millions of
+francs, occupied the whole of the northern side of the house. And the
+grand staircase, of a sumptuousness which also was famous, conducted to
+the apartments usually occupied by the family, a large red drawing-room,
+a small blue and silver drawing-room, a study whose walls were hung with
+old stamped leather, and a dining-room in pale green with English
+furniture, not to mention the various bedchambers and dressing-rooms.
+Built in the time of Louis XIV. the mansion retained an aspect of noble
+grandeur, subordinated to the epicurean tastes of the triumphant
+/bourgeoisie/, which for a century now had reigned by virtue of the
+omnipotence of money.
+
+Noon had not yet struck, and Baron Duvillard, contrary to custom, found
+himself the first in the little blue and silver /salon/. He was a man of
+sixty, tall and sturdy, with a large nose, full cheeks, broad, fleshy
+lips, and wolfish teeth, which had remained very fine. He had, however,
+become bald at an early age, and dyed the little hair that was left him.
+Moreover, since his beard had turned white, he had kept his face
+clean-shaven. His grey eyes bespoke his audacity, and in his laugh there
+was a ring of conquest, while the whole of his face expressed the fact
+that this conquest was his own, that he wielded the sovereignty of an
+unscrupulous master, who used and abused the power stolen and retained by
+his caste.
+
+He took a few steps, and then halted in front of a basket of wonderful
+orchids near the window. On the mantel-piece and table tufts of violets
+sent forth their perfume, and in the warm, deep silence which seemed to
+fall from the hangings, the Baron sat down and stretched himself in one
+of the large armchairs, upholstered in blue satin striped with silver. He
+had taken a newspaper from his pocket, and began to re-peruse an article
+it contained, whilst all around him the entire mansion proclaimed his
+immense fortune, his sovereign power, the whole history of the century
+which had made him the master. His grandfather, Jerome Duvillard, son of
+a petty advocate of Poitou, had come to Paris as a notary's clerk in
+1788, when he was eighteen; and very keen, intelligent and hungry as he
+was, he had gained the family's first three millions--at first in
+trafficking with the /emigres'/ estates when they were confiscated and
+sold as national property, and later, in contracting for supplies to the
+imperial army. His father, Gregoire Duvillard, born in 1805, and the real
+great man of the family--he who had first reigned in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, after King Louis Philippe had granted him the title of
+Baron--remained one of the recognized heroes of modern finance by reason
+of the scandalous profits which he had made in every famous thieving
+speculation of the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, such as mines,
+railroads, and the Suez Canal. And he, the present Baron, Henri by name,
+and born in 1836, had only seriously gone into business on Baron
+Gregoire's death soon after the Franco-German War. However, he had done
+so with such a rageful appetite, that in a quarter of a century he had
+again doubled the family fortune. He rotted and devoured, corrupted,
+swallowed everything that he touched; and he was also the tempter
+personified--the man who bought all consciences that were for
+sale--having fully understood the new times and its tendencies in
+presence of the democracy, which in its turn had become hungry and
+impatient. Inferior though he was both to his father and his grandfather,
+being a man of enjoyment, caring less for the work of conquest than the
+division of the spoil, he nevertheless remained a terrible fellow, a
+sleek triumpher, whose operations were all certainties, who amassed
+millions at each stroke, and treated with governments on a footing of
+equality, able as he was to place, if not France, at least a ministry in
+his pocket. In one century and three generations, royalty had become
+embodied in him: a royalty already threatened, already shaken by the
+tempest close ahead. And at times his figure grew and expanded till it
+became, as it were, an incarnation of the whole /bourgeoisie/--that
+/bourgeoisie/ which at the division of the spoils in 1789 appropriated
+everything, and has since fattened on everything at the expense of the
+masses, and refuses to restore anything whatever.
+
+The article which the Baron was re-perusing in a halfpenny newspaper
+interested him. "La Voix du Peuple" was a noisy sheet which, under the
+pretence of defending outraged justice and morality, set a fresh scandal
+circulating every morning in the hope of thereby increasing its sales.
+And that morning, in big type on its front page, this sub-title was
+displayed: "The Affair of the African Railways. Five Millions spent in
+Bribes: Two Ministers Bought, Thirty Deputies and Senators Compromised."
+Then in an article of odious violence the paper's editor, the famous
+Sagnier, announced that he possessed and intended to publish the list of
+the thirty-two members of Parliament, whose support Baron Duvillard had
+purchased at the time when the Chambers had voted the bill for the
+African Railway Lines. Quite a romantic story was mingled with all this,
+the adventures of a certain Hunter, whom the Baron had employed as his
+go-between and who had now fled. The Baron, however, re-perused each
+sentence and weighed each word of the article very calmly; and although
+he was alone he shrugged his shoulders and spoke aloud with the tranquil
+assurance of a man whose responsibility is covered and who is, moreover,
+too powerful to be molested.
+
+"The idiot," he said, "he knows even less than he pretends."
+
+Just then, however, a first guest arrived, a man of barely four and
+thirty, elegantly dressed, dark and good looking, with a delicately
+shaped nose, and curly hair and beard. As a rule, too, he had laughing
+eyes, and something giddy, flighty, bird-like in his demeanour; but that
+morning he seemed nervous, anxious even, and smiled in a scared way.
+
+"Ah! it's you, Duthil," said the Baron, rising. "Have you read this?" And
+he showed the new comer the "Voix du Peuple," which he was folding up to
+replace it in his pocket.
+
+"Why yes, I've read it. It's amazing. How can Sagnier have got hold of
+the list of names? Has there been some traitor?"
+
+The Baron looked at his companion quietly, amused by his secret anguish.
+Duthil, the son of a notary of Angouleme, almost poor and very honest,
+had been sent to Paris as deputy for that town whilst yet very young,
+thanks to the high reputation of his father; and he there led a life of
+pleasure and idleness, even as he had formerly done when a student.
+However, his pleasant bachelor's quarters in the Rue de Suresnes, and his
+success as a handsome man in the whirl of women among whom he lived, cost
+him no little money; and gaily enough, devoid as he was of any moral
+sense, he had already glided into all sorts of compromising and lowering
+actions, like a light-headed, superior man, a charming, thoughtless
+fellow, who attached no importance whatever to such trifles.
+
+"Bah!" said the Baron at last. "Has Sagnier even got a list? I doubt it,
+for there was none; Hunter wasn't so foolish as to draw one up. And then,
+too, it was merely an ordinary affair; nothing more was done than is
+always done in such matters of business."
+
+Duthil, who for the first time in his life had felt anxious, listened
+like one that needs to be reassured. "Quite so, eh?" he exclaimed.
+"That's what I thought. There isn't a cat to be whipped in the whole
+affair."
+
+He tried to laugh as usual, and no longer exactly knew how it was that he
+had received some ten thousand francs in connection with the matter,
+whether it were in the shape of a vague loan, or else under some pretext
+of publicity, puffery, or advertising, for Hunter had acted with extreme
+adroitness so as to give no offence to the susceptibilities of even the
+least virginal consciences.
+
+"No, there's not a cat to be whipped," repeated Duvillard, who decidedly
+seemed amused by the face which Duthil was pulling. "And besides, my dear
+fellow, it's well known that cats always fall on their feet. But have you
+seen Silviane?"
+
+"I just left her. I found her in a great rage with you. She learnt this
+morning that her affair of the Comedie is off."
+
+A rush of anger suddenly reddened the Baron's face. He, who could scoff
+so calmly at the threat of the African Railways scandal, lost his balance
+and felt his blood boiling directly there was any question of Silviane,
+the last, imperious passion of his sixtieth year. "What! off?" said he.
+"But at the Ministry of Fine Arts they gave me almost a positive promise
+only the day before yesterday."
+
+He referred to a stubborn caprice of Silviane d'Aulnay, who, although she
+had hitherto only reaped a success of beauty on the stage, obstinately
+sought to enter the Comedie Francaise and make her /debut/ there in the
+part of "Pauline" in Corneille's "Polyeucte," which part she had been
+studying desperately for several months past. Her idea seemed an insane
+one, and all Paris laughed at it; but the young woman, with superb
+assurance, kept herself well to the front, and imperiously demanded the
+/role/, feeling sure that she would conquer.
+
+"It was the minister who wouldn't have it," explained Duthil.
+
+The Baron was choking. "The minister, the minister! Ah! well, I will soon
+have that minister sent to the rightabout."
+
+However, he had to cease speaking, for at that moment Baroness Duvillard
+came into the little drawing-room. At forty-six years of age she was
+still very beautiful. Very fair and tall, having hitherto put on but
+little superfluous fat, and retaining perfect arms and shoulders, with
+speckless silky skin, it was only her face that was spoiling, colouring
+slightly with reddish blotches. And these blemishes were her torment, her
+hourly thought and worry. Her Jewish origin was revealed by her somewhat
+long and strangely charming face, with blue and softly voluptuous eyes.
+As indolent as an Oriental slave, disliking to have to move, walk, or
+even speak, she seemed intended for a harem life, especially as she was
+for ever tending her person. That day she was all in white, gowned in a
+white silk toilette of delicious and lustrous simplicity.
+
+Duthil complimented her, and kissed her hand with an enraptured air. "Ah!
+madame, you set a little springtide in my heart. Paris is so black and
+muddy this morning."
+
+However, a second guest entered the room, a tall and handsome man of five
+or six and thirty; and the Baron, still disturbed by his passion,
+profited by this opportunity to make his escape. He carried Duthil away
+into his study, saying, "Come here an instant, my dear fellow. I have a
+few more words to say to you about the affair in question. Monsieur de
+Quinsac will keep my wife company for a moment."
+
+The Baroness, as soon as she was alone with the new comer, who, like
+Duthil, had most respectfully kissed her hand, gave him a long, silent
+look, while her soft eyes filled with tears. Deep silence, tinged with
+some slight embarrassment, had fallen, but she ended by saying in a very
+low voice: "How happy I am, Gerard, to find myself alone with you for a
+moment. For a month past I have not had that happiness."
+
+The circumstances in which Henri Duvillard had married the younger
+daughter of Justus Steinberger, the great Jew banker, formed quite a
+story which was often recalled. The Steinbergers--after the fashion of
+the Rothschilds--were originally four brothers--Justus, residing in
+Paris, and the three others at Berlin, Vienna, and London, a circumstance
+which gave their secret association most formidable power in the
+financial markets of Europe. Justus, however, was the least wealthy of
+the four, and in Baron Gregoire Duvillard he had a redoubtable adversary
+against whom he was compelled to struggle each time that any large prey
+was in question. And it was after a terrible encounter between the pair,
+after the eager sharing of the spoils, that the crafty idea had come to
+Justus of giving his younger daughter Eve in marriage, by way of
+/douceur/, to the Baron's son, Henri. So far the latter had only been
+known as an amiable fellow, fond of horses and club life; and no doubt
+Justus's idea was that, at the death of the redoubtable Baron, who was
+already condemned by his physicians, he would be able to lay his hands on
+the rival banking-house, particularly if he only had in front of him a
+son-in-law whom it was easy to conquer. As it happened, Henri had been
+mastered by a violent passion for Eve's blond beauty, which was then
+dazzling. He wished to marry her, and his father, who knew him,
+consented, in reality greatly amused to think that Justus was making an
+execrably bad stroke of business. The enterprise became indeed disastrous
+for Justus when Henri succeeded his father and the man of prey appeared
+from beneath the man of pleasure and carved himself his own huge share in
+exploiting the unbridled appetites of the middle-class democracy, which
+had at last secured possession of power. Not only did Eve fail to devour
+Henri, who in his turn had become Baron Duvillard, the all-powerful
+banker, more and more master of the market; but it was the Baron who
+devoured Eve, and this in less than four years' time. After she had borne
+him a daughter and a son in turn, he suddenly drew away from her,
+neglected her, as if she were a mere toy that he no longer cared for. She
+was at first both surprised and distressed by the change, especially on
+learning that he was resuming his bachelor's habits, and had set his
+fickle if ardent affections elsewhere. Then, however, without any kind of
+recrimination, any display of anger, or even any particular effort to
+regain her ascendency over him, she, on her side, imitated his example.
+She could not live without love, and assuredly she had only been born to
+be beautiful, to fascinate and reap adoration. To the lover whom she
+chose when she was five and twenty she remained faithful for more than
+fifteen years, as faithful as she might have been to a husband; and when
+he died her grief was intense, it was like real widowhood. Six months
+later, however, having met Count Gerard de Quinsac she had again been
+unable to resist her imperative need of adoration, and an intrigue had
+followed.
+
+"Have you been ill, my dear Gerard?" she inquired, noticing the young
+man's embarrassment. "Are you hiding some worry from me?"
+
+She was ten years older than he was; and she clung desperately to this
+last passion of hers, revolting at the thought of growing old, and
+resolved upon every effort to keep the young man beside her.
+
+"No, I am hiding nothing, I assure you," replied the Count. "But my
+mother has had much need of me recently."
+
+She continued looking at him, however, with anxious passion, finding him
+so tall and aristocratic of mien, with his regular features and dark hair
+and moustaches which were always most carefully tended. He belonged to
+one of the oldest families of France, and resided on a ground-floor in
+the Rue St. Dominique with his widowed mother, who had been ruined by her
+adventurously inclined husband, and had at most an income of some fifteen
+thousand francs* to live upon. Gerard for his part had never done
+anything; contenting himself with his one year of obligatory military
+service, he had renounced the profession of arms in the same way as he
+had renounced that of diplomacy, the only one that offered him an opening
+of any dignity. He spent his days in that busy idleness common to all
+young men who lead "Paris life." And his mother, haughtily severe though
+she was, seemed to excuse this, as if in her opinion a man of his birth
+was bound by way of protest to keep apart from official life under a
+Republic. However, she no doubt had more intimate, more disturbing
+reasons for indulgence. She had nearly lost him when he was only seven,
+through an attack of brain fever. At eighteen he had complained of his
+heart, and the doctors had recommended that he should be treated gently
+in all respects. She knew, therefore, what a lie lurked behind his proud
+demeanour, within his lofty figure, that haughty /facade/ of his race. He
+was but dust, ever threatened with illness and collapse. In the depths of
+his seeming virility there was merely girlish /abandon/; and he was
+simply a weak, good-natured fellow, liable to every stumble. It was on
+the occasion of a visit which he had paid with his mother to the Asylum
+of the Invalids of Labour that he had first seen Eve, whom he continued
+to meet; his mother, closing her eyes to this culpable connection in a
+sphere of society which she treated with contempt, in the same way as she
+had closed them to so many other acts of folly which she had forgiven
+because she regarded them as the mere lapses of an ailing child.
+Moreover, Eve had made a conquest of Madame de Quinsac, who was very
+pious, by an action which had recently amazed society. It had been
+suddenly learnt that she had allowed Monseigneur Martha to convert her to
+the Roman Catholic faith. This thing, which she had refused to do when
+solicited by her lawful husband, she had now done in the hope of ensuring
+herself a lover's eternal affection. And all Paris was still stirred by
+the magnificence exhibited at the Madeleine, on the occasion of the
+baptism of this Jewess of five and forty, whose beauty and whose tears
+had upset every heart.
+
+  * About 3000 dollars.
+
+Gerard, on his side, was still flattered by the deep and touching
+tenderness shown to him; but weariness was coming, and he had already
+sought to break off the connection by avoiding any further assignations.
+He well understood Eve's glances and her tears, and though he was moved
+at sight of them he tried to excuse himself. "I assure you," said he, "my
+mother has kept me so busy that I could not get away." But she, without a
+word, still turned her tearful glance on him, and weak, like herself, in
+despair that he should have been left alone with her in this fashion, he
+yielded, unable to continue refusing. "Well, then," said he, "this
+afternoon at four o'clock if you are free."
+
+He had lowered his voice in speaking, but a slight rustle made him turn
+his head and start like one in fault. It was the Baroness's daughter
+Camille entering the room. She had heard nothing; but by the smile which
+the others had exchanged, by the very quiver of the air, she understood
+everything; an assignation for that very day and at the very spot which
+she suspected. Some slight embarrassment followed, an exchange of anxious
+and evil glances.
+
+Camille, at three and twenty, was a very dark young woman, short of
+stature and somewhat deformed, with her left shoulder higher than the
+right. There seemed to be nothing of her father or mother in her. Her
+case was one of those unforeseen accidents in family heredity which make
+people wonder whence they can arise. Her only pride lay in her beautiful
+black eyes and superb black hair, which, short as she was, would, said
+she, have sufficed to clothe her. But her nose was long, her face
+deviated to the left, and her chin was pointed. Her thin, witty, and
+malicious lips bespoke all the rancour and perverse anger stored in the
+heart of this uncomely creature, whom the thought of her uncomeliness
+enraged. However, the one whom she most hated in the whole world was her
+own mother, that /amorosa/ who was so little fitted to be a mother, who
+had never loved her, never paid attention to her, but had abandoned her
+to the care of servants from her very infancy. In this wise real hatred
+had grown up between the two women, mute and frigid on the one side, and
+active and passionate on the other. The daughter hated her mother because
+she found her beautiful, because she had not been created in the same
+image: beautiful with the beauty with which her mother crushed her. Day
+by day she suffered at being sought by none, at realising that the
+adoration of one and all still went to her mother. As she was amusing in
+her maliciousness, people listened to her and laughed; however, the
+glances of all the men--even and indeed especially the younger ones--soon
+reverted to her triumphant mother, who seemingly defied old age. In part
+for this reason Camille, with ferocious determination, had decided that
+she would dispossess her mother of her last lover Gerard, and marry him
+herself, conscious that such a loss would doubtless kill the Baroness.
+Thanks to her promised dowry of five millions of francs, the young woman
+did not lack suitors; but, little flattered by their advances, she was
+accustomed to say, with her malicious laugh: "Oh! of course; why for five
+millions they would take a wife from a mad-house." However, she, herself,
+had really begun to love Gerard, who, good-natured as he was, evinced
+much kindness towards this suffering young woman whom nature had treated
+so harshly. It worried him to see her forsaken by everyone, and little by
+little he yielded to the grateful tenderness which she displayed towards
+him, happy, handsome man that he was, at being regarded as a demi-god and
+having such a slave. Indeed, in his attempt to quit the mother there was
+certainly a thought of allowing the daughter to marry him, which would be
+an agreeable ending to it all, though he did not as yet acknowledge this,
+ashamed as he felt and embarrassed by his illustrious name and all the
+complications and tears which he foresaw.
+
+The silence continued. Camille with her piercing glance, as sharp as any
+knife, had told her mother that she knew the truth; and then with another
+and pain-fraught glance she had complained to Gerard. He, in order to
+re-establish equilibrium, could only think of a compliment: "Good
+morning, Camille. Ah! that havana-brown gown of yours looks nice! It's
+astonishing how well rather sombre colours suit you."
+
+Camille glanced at her mother's white robe, and then at her own dark
+gown, which scarcely allowed her neck and wrists to be seen. "Yes," she
+replied laughing, "I only look passable when I don't dress as a young
+girl."
+
+Eve, ill at ease, worried by the growth of a rivalry in which she did not
+as yet wish to believe, changed the conversation. "Isn't your brother
+there?" she asked.
+
+"Why yes, we came down together."
+
+Hyacinthe, who came in at that moment, shook hands with Gerard in a weary
+way. He was twenty, and had inherited his mother's pale blond hair, and
+her long face full of Oriental languor; while from his father he had
+derived his grey eyes and thick lips, expressive of unscrupulous
+appetites. A wretched scholar, regarding every profession with the same
+contempt, he had decided to do nothing. Spoilt by his father, he took
+some little interest in poetry and music, and lived in an extraordinary
+circle of artists, low women, madmen and bandits; boasting himself of all
+sorts of crimes and vices, professing the very worst philosophical and
+social ideas, invariably going to extremes, becoming in turn a
+Collectivist, an Individualist, an Anarchist, a Pessimist, a Symbolist,
+and what not besides; without, however, ceasing to be a Catholic, as this
+conjunction of Catholicity with something else seemed to him the supreme
+/bon ton/. In reality he was simply empty and rather a fool. In four
+generations the vigorous hungry blood of the Duvillards, after producing
+three magnificent beasts of prey, had, as if exhausted by the contentment
+of every passion, ended in this sorry emasculated creature, who was
+incapable alike of great knavery or great debauchery.
+
+Camille, who was too intelligent not to realise her brother's
+nothingness, was fond of teasing him; and looking at him as he stood
+there, tightly buttoned in his long frock coat with pleated skirt--a
+resurrection of the romantic period, which he carried to exaggeration,
+she resumed: "Mamma has been asking for you, Hyacinthe. Come and show her
+your gown. You are the one who would look nice dressed as a young girl."
+
+However, he eluded her without replying. He was covertly afraid of her,
+though they lived together in great intimacy, frankly exchanging
+confidences respecting their perverse views of life. And he directed a
+glance of disdain at the wonderful basket of orchids which seemed to him
+past the fashion, far too common nowadays. For his part he had left the
+lilies of life behind him, and reached the ranunculus, the flower of
+blood.
+
+The two last guests who were expected now arrived almost together. The
+first was the investigating magistrate Amadieu, a little man of five and
+forty, who was an intimate of the household and had been brought into
+notoriety by a recent anarchist affair. Between a pair of fair, bushy
+whiskers he displayed a flat, regular judicial face, to which he tried to
+impart an expression of keenness by wearing a single eyeglass behind
+which his glance sparkled. Very worldly, moreover, he belonged to the new
+judicial school, being a distinguished psychologist and having written a
+book in reply to the abuses of criminalist physiology. And he was also a
+man of great, tenacious ambition, fond of notoriety and ever on the
+lookout for those resounding legal affairs which bring glory. Behind him,
+at last appeared General de Bozonnet, Gerard's uncle on the maternal
+side, a tall, lean old man with a nose like an eagle's beak. Chronic
+rheumatism had recently compelled him to retire from the service. Raised
+to a colonelcy after the Franco-German War in reward for his gallant
+conduct at St. Privat, he had, in spite of his extremely monarchical
+connections, kept his sworn faith to Napoleon III. And he was excused in
+his own sphere of society for this species of military Bonapartism, on
+account of the bitterness with which he accused the Republic of having
+ruined the army. Worthy fellow that he was, extremely fond of his sister,
+Madame de Quinsac, it seemed as though he acted in accordance with some
+secret desire of hers in accepting the invitations of Baroness Duvillard
+by way of rendering Gerard's constant presence in her house more natural
+and excusable.
+
+However, the Baron and Duthil now returned from the study, laughing
+loudly in an exaggerated way, doubtless to make the others believe that
+they were quite easy in mind. And one and all passed into the large
+dining-room where a big wood fire was burning, its gay flames shining
+like a ray of springtide amid the fine mahogany furniture of English make
+laden with silver and crystal. The room, of a soft mossy green, had an
+unassuming charm in the pale light, and the table which in the centre
+displayed the richness of its covers and the immaculate whiteness of its
+linen adorned with Venetian point, seemed to have flowered miraculously
+with a wealth of large tea roses, most admirable blooms for the season,
+and of delicious perfume.
+
+The Baroness seated the General on her right, and Amadieu on her left.
+The Baron on his right placed Duthil, and on his left Gerard. Then the
+young people installed themselves at either end, Camille between Gerard
+and the General, and Hyacinthe between Duthil and Amadieu. And forthwith,
+from the moment of starting on the scrambled eggs and truffles,
+conversation began, the usual conversation of Parisian /dejeuners/, when
+every event, great or little, of the morning or the day before is passed
+in review: the truths and the falsehoods current in every social sphere,
+the financial scandal, and the political adventure of the hour, the novel
+that has just appeared, the play that has just been produced, the stories
+which should only be retailed in whispers, but which are repeated aloud.
+And beneath all the light wit which circulates, beneath all the laughter,
+which often has a false ring, each retains his or her particular worry,
+or distress of mind, at times so acute that it becomes perfect agony.
+
+With his quiet and wonted impudence, the Baron, bravely enough, was the
+first to speak of the article in the "Voix du Peuple." "I say, have you
+read Sagnier's article this morning? It's a good one; he has /verve/ you
+know, but what a dangerous lunatic he is!"
+
+This set everybody at ease, for the article would certainly have weighed
+upon the /dejeuner/ had no one mentioned it.
+
+"It's the 'Panama' dodge over again!" cried Duthil. "But no, no, we've
+had quite enough of it!"
+
+"Why," resumed the Baron, "the affair of the African Railway Lines is as
+clear as spring water! All those whom Sagnier threatens may sleep in
+peace. The truth is that it's a scheme to upset Barroux's ministry. Leave
+to interpellate will certainly be asked for this afternoon. You'll see
+what a fine uproar there'll be in the Chamber."
+
+"That libellous, scandal-seeking press," said Amadieu gravely, "is a
+dissolving agent which will bring France to ruin. We ought to have laws
+against it."
+
+The General made an angry gesture: "Laws, what's the use of them, since
+nobody has the courage to enforce them."
+
+Silence fell. With a light, discreet step the house-steward presented
+some grilled mullet. So noiseless was the service amid the cheerful
+perfumed warmth that not even the faintest clatter of crockery was heard.
+Without anyone knowing how it had come about, however, the conversation
+had suddenly changed; and somebody inquired: "So the revival of the piece
+is postponed?"
+
+"Yes," said Gerard, "I heard this morning that 'Polyeucte' wouldn't get
+its turn till April at the earliest."
+
+At this Camille, who had hitherto remained silent, watching the young
+Count and seeking to win him back, turned her glittering eyes upon her
+father and mother. It was a question of that revival in which Silviane
+was so stubbornly determined to make her /debut/. However, the Baron and
+the Baroness evinced perfect serenity, having long been acquainted with
+all that concerned each other. Moreover Eve was too much occupied with
+her own passion to think of anything else; and the Baron too busy with
+the fresh application which he intended to make in tempestuous fashion at
+the Ministry of Fine Arts, so as to wrest Silviane's engagement from
+those in office. He contented himself with saying: "How would you have
+them revive pieces at the Comedie! They have no actresses left there."
+
+"Oh, by the way," the Baroness on her side simply remarked, "yesterday,
+in that play at the Vaudeville, Delphine Vignot wore such an exquisite
+gown. She's the only one too who knows how to arrange her hair."
+
+Thereupon Duthil, in somewhat veiled language, began to relate a story
+about Delphine and a well-known senator. And then came another scandal,
+the sudden and almost suspicious death of a lady friend of the
+Duvillards'; whereupon the General, without any transition, broke in to
+relieve his bitter feelings by denouncing the idiotic manner in which the
+army was nowadays organised. Meantime the old Bordeaux glittered like
+ruby blood in the delicate crystal glasses. A truffled fillet of venison
+had just cast its somewhat sharp scent amidst the dying perfume of the
+roses, when some asparagus made its appearance, a /primeur/ which once
+had been so rare but which no longer caused any astonishment.
+
+"Nowadays we get it all through the winter," said the Baron with a
+gesture of disenchantment.
+
+"And so," asked Gerard at the same moment, "the Princess de Harn's
+/matinee/ is for this afternoon?"
+
+Camille quickly intervened. "Yes, this afternoon. Shall you go?"
+
+"No, I don't think so, I shan't be able," replied the young man in
+embarrassment.
+
+"Ah! that little Princess, she's really deranged you know," exclaimed
+Duthil. "You are aware that she calls herself a widow? But the truth, it
+seems, is that her husband, a real Prince, connected with a royal house
+and very handsome, is travelling about the world in the company of a
+singer. She with her vicious urchin-like face preferred to come and reign
+in Paris, in that mansion of the Avenue Hoche, which is certainly the
+most extraordinary Noah's ark imaginable, with its swarming of
+cosmopolitan society indulging in every extravagance!"
+
+"Be quiet, you malicious fellow," the Baroness gently interrupted. "We,
+here, are very fond of Rosemonde, who is a charming woman."
+
+"Oh! certainly," Camille again resumed. "She invited us; and we are going
+to her place by-and-by, are we not, mamma?"
+
+To avoid replying, the Baroness pretended that she did not hear, whilst
+Duthil, who seemed to be well-informed concerning the Princess, continued
+to make merry over her intended /matinee/, at which she meant to produce
+some Spanish dancing girls, whose performance was so very indecorous that
+all Paris, forewarned of the circumstance, would certainly swarm to her
+house. And he added: "You've heard that she has given up painting. Yes,
+she busies herself with chemistry. Her /salon/ is full of Anarchists
+now--and, by the way, it seemed to me that she had cast her eyes on you,
+my dear Hyacinthe."
+
+Hyacinthe had hitherto held his tongue, as if he took no interest in
+anything. "Oh! she bores me to death," he now condescended to reply. "If
+I'm going to her /matinee/ it's simply in the hope of meeting my friend
+young Lord George Eldrett, who wrote to me from London to give me an
+appointment at the Princess's. And I admit that hers is the only /salon/
+where I find somebody to talk to."
+
+"And so," asked Amadieu in an ironical way, "you have now gone over to
+Anarchism?"
+
+With his air of lofty elegance Hyacinthe imperturbably confessed his
+creed: "But it seems to me, monsieur, that in these times of universal
+baseness and ignominy, no man of any distinction can be other than an
+Anarchist."
+
+A laugh ran round the table. Hyacinthe was very much spoilt, and
+considered very entertaining. His father in particular was immensely
+amused by the notion that he of all men should have an Anarchist for a
+son. However, the General, in his rancorous moments, talked anarchically
+enough of blowing up a society which was so stupid as to let itself be
+led by half a dozen disreputable characters. And, indeed, the
+investigating magistrate, who was gradually making a specialty of
+Anarchist affairs, proved the only one who opposed the young man,
+defending threatened civilisation and giving terrifying particulars
+concerning what he called the army of devastation and massacre. The
+others, while partaking of some delicious duck's-liver /pate/, which the
+house-steward handed around, continued smiling. There was so much misery,
+said they; one must take everything into account: things would surely end
+by righting themselves. And the Baron himself declared, in a conciliatory
+manner: "It's certain that one might do something, though nobody knows
+exactly what. As for all sensible and moderate claims, oh! I agree to
+them in advance. For instance, the lot of the working classes may be
+ameliorated, charitable enterprises may be undertaken, such, for
+instance, as our Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, which we have reason
+to be proud of. But we must not be asked for impossibilities."
+
+With the dessert came a sudden spell of silence; it was as if, amidst the
+restless fluttering of the conversation, and the dizziness born of the
+copious meal, each one's worry or distress was again wringing the heart
+and setting an expression of perturbation on the countenance. The nervous
+unconscientiousness of Duthil, threatened with denunciation, was seen to
+revive; so, too, the anxious anger of the Baron, who was meditating how
+he might possibly manage to content Silviane. That woman was this sturdy,
+powerful man's taint, the secret sore which would perhaps end by eating
+him away and destroying him. But it was the frightful drama in which the
+Baroness, Camille and Gerard were concerned that flitted by most visibly
+across the faces of all three of them: that hateful rivalry of mother and
+daughter, contending for the man they loved. And, meantime, the
+silver-gilt blades of the dessert-knives were delicately peeling choice
+fruit. And there were bunches of golden grapes looking beautifully fresh,
+and a procession of sweetmeats, little cakes, an infinity of dainties,
+over which the most satiated appetites lingered complacently.
+
+Then, just as the finger-glasses were being served, a footman came and
+bent over the Baroness, who answered in an undertone, "Well, show him
+into the /salon/, I will join him there." And aloud to the others she
+added: "It's Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, who has called and asks most
+particularly to see me. He won't be in our way; I think that almost all
+of you know him. Oh! he's a genuine saint, and I have much sympathy for
+him."
+
+For a few minutes longer they loitered round the table, and then at last
+quitted the dining-room, which was full of the odours of viands, wines,
+fruits and roses; quite warm, too, with the heat thrown out by the big
+logs of firewood, which were falling into embers amidst the somewhat
+jumbled brightness of all the crystal and silver, and the pale, delicate
+light which fell upon the disorderly table.
+
+Pierre had remained standing in the centre of the little blue and silver
+/salon/. Seeing a tray on which the coffee and the liqueurs were in
+readiness, he regretted that he had insisted upon being received. And his
+embarrassment increased when the company came in rather noisily, with
+bright eyes and rosy cheeks. However, his charitable fervour had revived
+so ardently within him that he overcame this embarrassment, and all that
+remained to him of it was a slight feeling of discomfort at bringing the
+whole frightful morning which he had just spent amid such scenes of
+wretchedness, so much darkness and cold, so much filth and hunger, into
+this bright, warm, perfumed affluence, where the useless and the
+superfluous overflowed around those folks who seemed so gay at having
+made a delightful meal.
+
+However, the Baroness at once came forward with Gerard, for it was
+through the latter, whose mother he knew, that the priest had been
+presented to the Duvillards at the time of the famous conversion. And as
+he apologised for having called at such an inconvenient hour, the
+Baroness responded: "But you are always welcome, Monsieur l'Abbe. You
+will allow me just to attend to my guests, won't you? I will be with you
+in an instant."
+
+She thereupon returned to the table on which the tray had been placed, in
+order to serve the coffee and the liqueurs, with her daughter's
+assistance. Gerard, however, remained with Pierre; and, it so chanced,
+began to speak to him of the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, where
+they had met one another at the recent laying of the foundation-stone of
+a new pavilion which was being erected, thanks to a handsome donation of
+100,000 francs made by Baron Duvillard. So far, the enterprise only
+comprised four pavilions out of the fourteen which it was proposed to
+erect on the vast site given by the City of Paris on the peninsula of
+Gennevilliers*; and so the subscription fund remained open, and, indeed,
+no little noise was made over this charitable enterprise, which was
+regarded as a complete and peremptory reply to the accusations of those
+evilly disposed persons who charged the satiated /bourgeoisie/ with doing
+nothing for the workers. But the truth was that a magnificent chapel,
+erected in the centre of the site, had absorbed two-thirds of the funds
+hitherto collected. Numerous lady patronesses, chosen from all the
+"worlds" of Paris--the Baroness Duvillard, the Countess de Quinsac, the
+Princess Rosemonde de Harn, and a score of others--were entrusted with
+the task of keeping the enterprise alive by dint of collections and fancy
+bazaars. But success had been chiefly obtained, thanks to the happy idea
+of ridding the ladies of all the weighty cares of organisation, by
+choosing as managing director a certain Fonsegue, who, besides being a
+deputy and editor of the "Globe" newspaper, was a prodigious promoter of
+all sorts of enterprises. And the "Globe" never paused in its propaganda,
+but answered the attacks of the revolutionaries by extolling the
+inexhaustible charity of the governing classes in such wise that, at the
+last elections, the enterprise had served as a victorious electoral
+weapon.
+
+  * This so-called peninsula lies to the northwest of Paris, and
+    is formed by the windings of the Seine.--Trans.
+
+However, Camille was walking about with a steaming cup of coffee in her
+hand: "Will you take some coffee, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she inquired.
+
+"No, thank you, mademoiselle."
+
+"A glass of Chartreuse then?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+Then everybody being served, the Baroness came back and said amiably:
+"Come, Monsieur l'Abbe, what do you desire of me?"
+
+Pierre began to speak almost in an undertone, his throat contracting and
+his heart beating with emotion. "I have come, madame, to appeal to your
+great kindness of heart. This morning, in a frightful house, in the Rue
+des Saules, behind Montmartre, I beheld a sight which utterly upset me.
+You can have no idea what an abode of misery and suffering it was; its
+inmates without fire or bread, the men reduced to idleness because there
+is no work, the mothers having no more milk for their babes, the children
+barely clad, coughing and shivering. And among all these horrors I saw
+the worst, the most abominable of all, an old workman, laid on his back
+by age, dying of hunger, huddled on a heap of rags, in a nook which a dog
+would not even accept as kennel."
+
+He tried to recount things as discreetly as possible, frightened by the
+very words he spoke, the horrors he had to relate in that sphere of
+superlative luxury and enjoyment, before those happy ones who possessed
+all the gifts of this world; for--to use a slang expression--he fully
+realised that he sang out of tune, and in most uncourteous fashion. What
+a strange idea of his to have called at the hour when one has just
+finished /dejeuner/, when the aroma of hot coffee flatters happy
+digestion. Nevertheless he went on, and even ended by raising his voice,
+yielding to the feeling of revolt which gradually stirred him, going to
+the end of his terrible narrative, naming Laveuve, insisting on the
+unjust abandonment in which the old man was left, and asking for succour
+in the name of human compassion. And the whole company approached to
+listen to him; he could see the Baron and the General, and Duthil and
+Amadieu, in front of him, sipping their coffee, in silence, without a
+gesture.
+
+"Well, madame," he concluded, "it seemed to me that one could not leave
+that old man an hour longer in such a frightful position, and that this
+very evening you would have the extreme goodness to have him admitted
+into the Asylum of the Invalids of Labour, which is, I think, the proper
+and only place for him."
+
+Tears had moistened Eve's beautiful eyes. She was in consternation at so
+sad a story coming to her to spoil her afternoon when she was looking
+forward to her assignation with Gerard. Weak and indolent as she was,
+lacking all initiative, too much occupied moreover with her own person,
+she had only accepted the presidency of the Committee on the condition
+that all administrative worries were to fall on Fonsegue. "Ah! Monsieur
+l'Abbe," she murmured, "you rend my heart. But I can do nothing, nothing
+at all, I assure you. Moreover, I believe that we have already inquired
+into the affair of that man Laveuve. With us, you know, there must be the
+most serious guarantees with regard to every admission. A reporter is
+chosen who has to give us full information. Wasn't it you, Monsieur
+Duthil, who was charged with this man Laveuve's affair?"
+
+The deputy was finishing a glass of Chartreuse. "Yes, it was I. That fine
+fellow played you a comedy, Monsieur l'Abbe. He isn't at all ill, and if
+you left him any money you may be sure he went down to drink it as soon
+as you were gone. For he is always drunk; and, besides that, he has the
+most hateful disposition imaginable, crying out from morning till evening
+against the /bourgeois/, and saying that if he had any strength left in
+his arms he would undertake to blow up the whole show. And, moreover, he
+won't go into the asylum; he says that it's a real prison where one's
+guarded by Beguins who force one to hear mass, a dirty convent where the
+gates are shut at nine in the evening! And there are so many of them like
+that, who rather than be succoured prefer their liberty, with cold and
+hunger and death. Well then, let the Laveuves die in the street, since
+they refuse to be with us, and be warm and eat in our asylums!"
+
+The General and Amadieu nodded their heads approvingly. But Duvillard
+showed himself more generous. "No, no, indeed! A man's a man after all,
+and should be succoured in spite of himself."
+
+Eve, however, in despair at the idea that she would be robbed of her
+afternoon, struggled and sought for reasons. "I assure you that my hands
+are altogether tied. Monsieur l'Abbe does not doubt my heart or my zeal.
+But how call I possibly assemble the Committee without a few days' delay?
+And I have particular reasons for coming to no decision, especially in an
+affair which has already been inquired into and pronounced upon, without
+the Committee's sanction." Then, all at once she found a solution: "What
+I advise you to do, Monsieur l'Abbe, is to go at once to see Monsieur
+Fonsegue, our managing director. He alone can act in an urgent case, for
+he knows that the ladies have unlimited confidence in him and approve
+everything he does."
+
+"You will find Fonsegue at the Chamber," added Duthil smiling, "only the
+sitting will be a warm one, and I doubt whether you will be able to have
+a comfortable chat with him."
+
+Pierre, whose heart had contracted yet more painfully, insisted on the
+subject no further; but at once made up his mind to see Fonsegue, and in
+any event obtain from him a promise that the wretched Laveuve should be
+admitted to the Asylum that very evening. Then he lingered in the saloon
+for a few minutes listening to Gerard, who obligingly pointed out to him
+how he might best convince the deputy, which was by alleging how bad an
+effect such a story could have, should it be brought to light by the
+revolutionary newspapers. However, the guests were beginning to take
+their leave. The General, as he went off, came to ask his nephew if he
+should see him that afternoon at his mother's, Madame de Quinsac, whose
+"day" it was: a question which the young man answered with an evasive
+gesture when he noticed that both Eve and Camille were looking at him.
+Then came the turn of Amadieu, who hurried off saying that a serious
+affair required his presence at the Palace of Justice. And Duthil soon
+followed him in order to repair to the Chamber.
+
+"I'll see you between four and five at Silviane's, eh?" said the Baron as
+he conducted him to the door. "Come and tell me what occurs at the
+Chamber in consequence of that odious article of Sagnier's. I must at all
+events know. For my part I shall go to the Ministry of Fine Arts, to
+settle that affair of the Comedie; and besides I've some calls to make,
+some contractors to see, and a big launching and advertisement affair to
+settle."
+
+"It's understood then, between four and five, at Silviane's," said the
+deputy, who went off again mastered by his vague uneasiness, his anxiety
+as to what turn that nasty affair of the African Railway Lines might
+take.
+
+And all of them had forgotten Laveuve, the miserable wretch who lay at
+death's door; and all of them were hastening away to their business or
+their passions, caught in the toils, sinking under the grindstone and
+whisked away by that rush of all Paris, whose fever bore them along,
+throwing one against another in an ardent scramble, in which the sole
+question was who should pass over the others and crush them.
+
+"And so, mamma," said Camille, who continued to scrutinise her mother and
+Gerard, "you are going to take us to the Princess's /matinee/?"
+
+"By-and-by, yes. Only I shan't be able to stay there with you. I received
+a telegram from Salmon about my corsage this morning, and I must
+absolutely go to try it on at four o'clock."
+
+By the slight trembling of her mother's voice, the girl felt certain that
+she was telling a falsehood. "Oh!" said she, "I thought you were only
+going to try it on to-morrow? In that case I suppose we are to go and
+call for you at Salmon's with the carriage on leaving the /matinee/?"
+
+"Oh! no my dear! One never knows when one will be free; and besides, if I
+have a moment, I shall call at the /modiste's/."
+
+Camille's secret rage brought almost a murderous glare to her dark eyes.
+The truth was evident. But however passionately she might desire to set
+some obstacle across her mother's path, she could not, dared not, carry
+matters any further. In vain had she attempted to implore Gerard with her
+eyes. He was standing to take his leave, and turned away his eyes.
+Pierre, who had become acquainted with many things since he had
+frequented the house, noticed how all three of them quivered, and divined
+thereby the mute and terrible drama.
+
+At this moment, however, Hyacinthe, stretched in an armchair, and
+munching an ether capsule, the only liqueur in which he indulged, raised
+his voice: "For my part, you know, I'm going to the Exposition du Lis.
+All Paris is swarming there. There's one painting in particular, 'The
+Rape of a Soul,' which it's absolutely necessary for one to have seen."
+
+"Well, but I don't refuse to drive you there," resumed the Baroness.
+"Before going to the Princess's we can look in at that exhibition."
+
+"That's it, that's it," hastily exclaimed Camille, who, though she
+harshly derided the symbolist painters as a rule, now doubtless desired
+to delay her mother. Then, forcing herself to smile, she asked: "Won't
+you risk a look-in at the Exposition du Lis with us, Monsieur Gerard?"
+
+"Well, no," replied the Count, "I want to walk. I shall go with Monsieur
+l'Abbe Froment to the Chamber."
+
+Thereupon he took leave of mother and daughter, kissing the hand of each
+in turn. It had just occurred to him that to while away his time he also
+might call for a moment at Silviane's, where, like the others, he had his
+/entrees/. On reaching the cold and solemn courtyard he said to the
+priest, "Ah! it does one good to breathe a little cool air. They keep
+their rooms too hot, and all those flowers, too, give one the headache."
+
+Pierre for his part was going off with his brain in a whirl, his hands
+feverish, his senses oppressed by all the luxury which he left behind
+him, like the dream of some glowing, perfumed paradise where only the
+elect had their abode. At the same time his reviving thirst for charity
+had become keener than ever, and without listening to the Count, who was
+speaking very affectionately of his mother, he reflected as to how he
+might obtain Laveuve's admission to the Asylum from Fonsegue. However,
+when the door of the mansion had closed behind them and they had taken a
+few steps along the street, it occurred to Pierre that a moment
+previously a sudden vision had met his gaze. Had he not seen a workman
+carrying a tool-bag, standing and waiting on the foot pavement across the
+road, gazing at that monumental door, closed upon so much fabulous
+wealth--a workman in whom he fancied he had recognised Salvat, that
+hungry fellow who had gone off that morning in search of work? At this
+thought Pierre hastily turned round. Such wretchedness in face of so much
+affluence and enjoyment made him feel anxious. But the workman, disturbed
+in his contemplation, and possibly fearing that he had been recognised,
+was going off with dragging step. And now, getting only a back view of
+him, Pierre hesitated, and ended by thinking that he must have been
+mistaken.
+
+
+
+III
+
+RANTERS AND RULERS
+
+WHEN Abbe Froment was about to enter the Palais-Bourbon he remembered
+that he had no card, and he was making up his mind that he would simply
+ask for Fonsegue, though he was not known to him, when, on reaching the
+vestibule, he perceived Mege, the Collectivist deputy, with whom he had
+become acquainted in his days of militant charity in the poverty-stricken
+Charonne district.
+
+"What, you here? You surely have not come to evangelise us?" said Mege.
+
+"No, I've come to see Monsieur Fonsegue on an urgent matter, about a poor
+fellow who cannot wait."
+
+"Fonsegue? I don't know if he has arrived. Wait a moment." And stopping a
+short, dark young fellow with a ferreting, mouse-like air, Mege said to
+him: "Massot, here's Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, who wants to speak to your
+governor at once."
+
+"The governor? But he isn't here. I left him at the office of the paper,
+where he'll be detained for another quarter of an hour. However, if
+Monsieur l'Abbe likes to wait he will surely see him here."
+
+Thereupon Mege ushered Pierre into the large waiting-hall, the Salle des
+Pas Perdus, which in other moments looked so vast and cold with its
+bronze Minerva and Laocoon, and its bare walls on which the pale mournful
+winter light fell from the glass doors communicating with the garden.
+Just then, however, it was crowded, and warmed, as it were, by the
+feverish agitation of the many groups of men that had gathered here and
+there, and the constant coming and going of those who hastened through
+the throng. Most of these were deputies, but there were also numerous
+journalists and inquisitive visitors. And a growing uproar prevailed:
+colloquies now in undertones, now in loud voices, exclamations and bursts
+of laughter, amidst a deal of passionate gesticulation, Mege's return
+into the tumult seemed to fan it. He was tall, apostolically thin, and
+somewhat neglectful of his person, looking already old and worn for his
+age, which was but five and forty, though his eyes still glowed with
+youth behind the glasses which never left his beak-like nose. And he had
+a warm but grating voice, and had always been known to cough, living on
+solely because he was bitterly intent on doing so in order to realise the
+dream of social re-organisation which haunted him. The son of an
+impoverished medical man of a northern town, he had come to Paris when
+very young, living there during the Empire on petty newspaper and other
+unknown work, and first making a reputation as an orator at the public
+meetings of the time. Then, after the war, having become the chief of the
+Collectivist party, thanks to his ardent faith and the extraordinary
+activity of his fighting nature, he had at last managed to enter the
+Chamber, where, brimful of information, he fought for his ideas with
+fierce determination and obstinacy, like a /doctrinaire/ who has decided
+in his own mind what the world ought to be, and who regulates in advance,
+and bit by bit, the whole dogma of Collectivism. However, since he had
+taken pay as a deputy, the outside Socialists had looked upon him as a
+mere rhetorician, an aspiring dictator who only tried to cast society in
+a new mould for the purpose of subordinating it to his personal views and
+ruling it.
+
+"You know what is going on?" he said to Pierre. "This is another nice
+affair, is it not? But what would you have? We are in mud to our very
+ears."
+
+He had formerly conceived genuine sympathy for the priest, whom he had
+found so gentle with all who suffered, and so desirous of social
+regeneration. And the priest himself had ended by taking an interest in
+this authoritarian dreamer, who was resolved to make men happy in spite
+even of themselves. He knew that he was poor, and led a retired life with
+his wife and four children, to whom he was devoted.
+
+"You can well understand that I am no ally of Sagnier's," Mege resumed.
+"But as he chose to speak out this morning and threaten to publish the
+names of all those who have taken bribes, we can't allow ourselves to
+pass as accomplices any further. It has long been said that there was
+some nasty jobbery in that suspicious affair of the African railways. And
+the worst is that two members of the present Cabinet are in question, for
+three years ago, when the Chambers dealt with Duvillard's emission,
+Barroux was at the Home Department, and Monferrand at that of Public
+Works. Now that they have come back again, Monferrand at the Home
+Department, and Barroux at that of Finance, with the Presidency of the
+Council, it isn't possible, is it, for us to do otherwise than compel
+them to enlighten us, in their own interest even, about their former
+goings-on? No, no, they can no longer keep silence, and I've announced
+that I intend to interpellate them this very day."
+
+It was the announcement of Mege's interpellation, following the terrible
+article of the "Voix du Peuple," which thus set the lobbies in an uproar.
+And Pierre remained rather scared at this big political affair falling
+into the midst of his scheme to save a wretched pauper from hunger and
+death. Thus he listened without fully understanding the explanations
+which the Socialist deputy was passionately giving him, while all around
+them the uproar increased, and bursts of laughter rang out, testifying to
+the astonishment which the others felt at seeing Mege in conversation
+with a priest.
+
+"How stupid they are!" said Mege disdainfully. "Do they think then that I
+eat a cassock for /dejeuner/ every morning? But I beg your pardon, my
+dear Monsieur Froment. Come, take a place on that seat and wait for
+Fonsegue."
+
+Then he himself plunged into all the turmoil, and Pierre realised that
+his best course was to sit down and wait quietly. His surroundings began
+to influence and interest him, and he gradually forgot Laveuve for the
+passion of the Parliamentary crisis amidst which he found himself cast.
+The frightful Panama adventure was scarcely over; he had followed the
+progress of that tragedy with the anguish of a man who every night
+expects to hear the tocsin sound the last hour of olden, agonising
+society. And now a little Panama was beginning, a fresh cracking of the
+social edifice, an affair such as had been frequent in all parliaments in
+connection with big financial questions, but one which acquired mortal
+gravity from the circumstances in which it came to the front. That story
+of the African Railway Lines, that little patch of mud, stirred up and
+exhaling a perturbing odour, and suddenly fomenting all that emotion,
+fear, and anger in the Chamber, was after all but an opportunity for
+political strife, a field on which the voracious appetites of the various
+"groups" would take exercise and sharpen; and, at bottom, the sole
+question was that of overthrowing the ministry and replacing it by
+another. Only, behind all that lust of power, that continuous onslaught
+of ambition, what a distressful prey was stirring--the whole people with
+all its poverty and its sufferings!
+
+Pierre noticed that Massot, "little Massot," as he was generally called,
+had just seated himself on the bench beside him. With his lively eye and
+ready ear listening to everything and noting it, gliding everywhere with
+his ferret-like air, Massot was not there in the capacity of a gallery
+man, but had simply scented a stormy debate, and come to see if he could
+not pick up material for some occasional "copy." And this priest lost in
+the midst of the throng doubtless interested him.
+
+"Have a little patience, Monsieur l'Abbe," said he, with the amiable
+gaiety of a young gentleman who makes fun of everything. "The governor
+will certainly come, for he knows well enough that they are going to heat
+the oven here. You are not one of his constituents from La Correze, are
+you?"
+
+"No, no! I belong to Paris; I've come on account of a poor fellow whom I
+wish to get admitted into the Asylum of the Invalids of Labour."
+
+"Oh! all right. Well, I'm a child of Paris, too."
+
+Then Massot laughed. And indeed he was a child of Paris, son of a chemist
+of the St. Denis district, and an ex-dunce of the Lycee Charlemagne,
+where he had not even finished his studies. He had failed entirely, and
+at eighteen years of age had found himself cast into journalism with
+barely sufficient knowledge of orthography for that calling. And for
+twelve years now, as he often said, he had been a rolling stone wandering
+through all spheres of society, confessing some and guessing at others.
+He had seen everything, and become disgusted with everything, no longer
+believing in the existence of great men, or of truth, but living
+peacefully enough on universal malice and folly. He naturally had no
+literary ambition, in fact he professed a deliberate contempt for
+literature. Withal, he was not a fool, but wrote in accordance with no
+matter what views in no matter what newspaper, having neither conviction
+nor belief, but quietly claiming the right to say whatever he pleased to
+the public on condition that he either amused or impassioned it.
+
+"And so," said he, "you know Mege, Monsieur l'Abbe? What a study in
+character, eh? A big child, a dreamer of dreams in the skin of a terrible
+sectarian! Oh! I have had a deal of intercourse with him, I know him
+thoroughly. You are no doubt aware that he lives on with the everlasting
+conviction that he will attain to power in six months' time, and that
+between evening and morning he will have established that famous
+Collectivist community which is to succeed capitalist society, just as
+day follows night. And, by the way, as regards his interpellation to-day,
+he is convinced that in overthrowing the Barroux ministry he'll be
+hastening his own turn. His system is to use up his adversaries. How many
+times haven't I heard him making his calculations: there's such a one to
+be used up, then such a one, and then such a one, so that he himself may
+at last reign. And it's always to come off in six months at the latest.
+The misfortune is, however, that others are always springing up, and so
+his turn never comes at all."
+
+Little Massot openly made merry over it. Then, slightly lowering his
+voice, he asked: "And Sagnier, do you know him? No? Do you see that
+red-haired man with the bull's neck--the one who looks like a butcher?
+That one yonder who is talking in a little group of frayed frock-coats."
+
+Pierre at last perceived the man in question. He had broad red ears, a
+hanging under-lip, a large nose, and big, projecting dull eyes.
+
+"I know that one thoroughly, as well," continued Massot; "I was on the
+'Voix du Peuple' under him before I went on the 'Globe.' The one thing
+that nobody is exactly aware of is whence Sagnier first came. He long
+dragged out his life in the lower depths of journalism, doing nothing at
+all brilliant, but wild with ambition and appetite. Perhaps you remember
+the first hubbub he made, that rather dirty affair of a new Louis XVII.
+which he tried to launch, and which made him the extraordinary Royalist
+that he still is. Then it occurred to him to espouse the cause of the
+masses, and he made a display of vengeful Catholic socialism, attacking
+the Republic and all the abominations of the times in the name of justice
+and morality, under the pretext of curing them. He began with a series of
+sketches of financiers, a mass of dirty, uncontrolled, unproved
+tittle-tattle, which ought to have led him to the dock, but which met, as
+you know, with such wonderful success when gathered together in a volume.
+And he goes on in the same style in the 'Voix du Peuple,' which he
+himself made a success at the time of the Panama affair by dint of
+denunciation and scandal, and which to-day is like a sewer-pipe pouring
+forth all the filth of the times. And whenever the stream slackens, why,
+he invents things just to satisfy his craving for that hubbub on which
+both his pride and his pocket subsist."
+
+Little Massot spoke without bitterness; indeed, he had even begun to
+laugh again. Beneath his thoughtless ferocity he really felt some respect
+for Sagnier. "Oh! he's a bandit," he continued, "but a clever fellow all
+the same. You can't imagine how full of vanity he is. Lately it occurred
+to him to get himself acclaimed by the populace, for he pretends to be a
+kind of King of the Markets, you know. Perhaps he has ended by taking his
+fine judge-like airs in earnest, and really believes that he is saving
+the people and helping the cause of virtue. What astonishes me is his
+fertility in the arts of denunciation and scandalmongering. Never a
+morning comes but he discovers some fresh horror, and delivers fresh
+culprits over to the hatred of the masses. No! the stream of mud never
+ceases; there is an incessant, unexpected spurt of infamy, an increase of
+monstrous fancies each time that the disgusted public shows any sign of
+weariness. And, do you know, there's genius in that, Monsieur l'Abbe; for
+he is well aware that his circulation goes up as soon as he threatens to
+speak out and publish a list of traitors and bribe-takers. His sales are
+certain now for some days to come."
+
+Listening to Massot's gay, bantering voice, Pierre began to understand
+certain things, the exact meaning of which had hitherto escaped him. He
+ended by questioning the young journalist, surprised as he was that so
+many deputies should be in the lobbies when the sitting was in progress.
+Oh! the sitting indeed. The gravest matters, some bill of national
+interest, might be under discussion, yet every member fled from it at the
+sudden threat of an interpellation which might overturn the ministry. And
+the passion stirring there was the restrained anger, the growing anxiety
+of the present ministry's clients, who feared that they might have to
+give place to others; and it was also the sudden hope, the eager hunger
+of all who were waiting--the clients of the various possible ministries
+of the morrow.
+
+Massot pointed to Barroux, the head of the Cabinet, who, though he was
+out of his element in the Department of Finances, had taken it simply
+because his generally recognised integrity was calculated to reassure
+public opinion after the Panama crisis. Barroux was chatting in a corner
+with the Minister of Public Instruction, Senator Taboureau, an old
+university man with a shrinking, mournful air, who was extremely honest,
+but totally ignorant of Paris, coming as he did from some far-away
+provincial faculty. Barroux for his part was of decorative aspect, tall,
+and with a handsome, clean-shaven face, which would have looked quite
+noble had not his nose been rather too small. Although he was sixty, he
+still had a profusion of curly snow-white hair completing the somewhat
+theatrical majesty of his appearance, which he was wont to turn to
+account when in the tribune. Coming of an old Parisian family,
+well-to-do, an advocate by profession, then a Republican journalist under
+the Empire, he had reached office with Gambetta, showing himself at once
+honest and romantic, loud of speech, and somewhat stupid, but at the same
+time very brave and very upright, and still clinging with ardent faith to
+the principles of the great Revolution. However, his Jacobinism was
+getting out of fashion, he was becoming an "ancestor," as it were, one of
+the last props of the middle-class Republic, and the new comers, the
+young politicians with long teeth, were beginning to smile at him.
+Moreover, beneath the ostentation of his demeanour, and the pomp of his
+eloquence, there was a man of hesitating, sentimental nature, a good
+fellow who shed tears when re-perusing the verses of Lamartine.
+
+However, Monferrand, the minister for the Home Department, passed by and
+drew Barroux aside to whisper a few words in his ear. He, Monferrand, was
+fifty, short and fat, with a smiling, fatherly air; nevertheless a look
+of keen intelligence appeared at times on his round and somewhat common
+face fringed by a beard which was still dark. In him one divined a man of
+government, with hands which were fitted for difficult tasks, and which
+never released a prey. Formerly mayor of the town of Tulle, he came from
+La Correze, where he owned a large estate. He was certainly a force in
+motion, one whose constant rise was anxiously watched by keen observers.
+He spoke in a simple quiet way, but with extraordinary power of
+conviction. Having apparently no ambition, affecting indeed the greatest
+disinterestedness, he nevertheless harboured the most ferocious
+appetites. Sagnier had written that he was a thief and a murderer, having
+strangled two of his aunts in order to inherit their property. But even
+if he were a murderer, he was certainly not a vulgar one.
+
+Then, too, came another personage of the drama which was about to be
+performed--deputy Vignon, whose arrival agitated the various groups. The
+two ministers looked at him, whilst he, at once surrounded by his
+friends, smiled at them from a distance. He was not yet thirty-six. Slim,
+and of average height, very fair, with a fine blond beard of which he
+took great care, a Parisian by birth, having rapidly made his way in the
+government service, at one time Prefect at Bordeaux, he now represented
+youth and the future in the Chamber. He had realised that new men were
+needed in the direction of affairs in order to accomplish the more
+urgent, indispensable reforms; and very ambitious and intelligent as he
+was, knowing many things, he already had a programme, the application of
+which he was quite capable of attempting, in part at any rate. However,
+he evinced no haste, but was full of prudence and shrewdness, convinced
+that his day would dawn, strong in the fact that he was as yet
+compromised in nothing, but had all space before him. At bottom he was
+merely a first-class administrator, clear and precise in speech, and his
+programme only differed from Barroux's by the rejuvenation of its
+formulas, although the advent of a Vignon ministry in place of a Barroux
+ministry appeared an event of importance. And it was of Vignon that
+Sagnier had written that he aimed at the Presidency of the Republic, even
+should he have to march through blood to reach the Elysee Palace.
+
+"/Mon Dieu/!" Massot was explaining, "it's quite possible that Sagnier
+isn't lying this time, and that he has really found a list of names in
+some pocket-book of Hunter's that has fallen into his hands. I myself
+have long known that Hunter was Duvillard's vote-recruiter in the affair
+of the African Railways. But to understand matters one must first realise
+what his mode of proceeding was, the skill and the kind of amiable
+delicacy which he showed, which were far from the brutal corruption and
+dirty trafficking that people imagine. One must be such a man as Sagnier
+to picture a parliament as an open market, where every conscience is for
+sale and is impudently knocked down to the highest bidder. Oh! things
+happened in a very different way indeed; and they are explainable, and at
+times even excusable. Thus the article is levelled in particular against
+Barroux and Monferrand, who are designated in the clearest possible
+manner although they are not named. You are no doubt aware that at the
+time of the vote Barroux was at the Home Department and Monferrand at
+that of Public Works, and so now they are accused of having betrayed
+their trusts, the blackest of all social crimes. I don't know into what
+political combinations Barroux may have entered, but I am ready to swear
+that he put nothing in his pocket, for he is the most honest of men. As
+for Monferrand, that's another matter; he's a man to carve himself his
+share, only I should be much surprised if he had put himself in a bad
+position. He's incapable of a blunder, particularly of a stupid blunder,
+like that of taking money and leaving a receipt for it lying about."
+
+Massot paused, and with a jerk of his head called Pierre's attention to
+Duthil, who, feverish, but nevertheless smiling, stood in a group which
+had just collected around the two ministers. "There! do you see that
+young man yonder, that dark handsome fellow whose beard looks so
+triumphant?"
+
+"I know him," said Pierre.
+
+"Oh! you know Duthil. Well, he's one who most certainly took money. But
+he's a mere bird. He came to us from Angouleme to lead the pleasantest of
+lives here, and he has no more conscience, no more scruples, than the
+pretty finches of his native part, who are ever love-making. Ah! for
+Duthil, Hunter's money was like manna due to him, and he never even
+paused to think that he was dirtying his fingers. You may be quite sure
+he feels astonished that people should attach the slightest importance to
+the matter."
+
+Then Massot designated another deputy in the same group, a man of fifty
+or thereabouts, of slovenly aspect and lachrymose mien, lanky, too, like
+a maypole, and somewhat bent by the weight of his head, which was long
+and suggestive of a horse's. His scanty, straight, yellowish hair, his
+drooping moustaches, in fact the whole of his distracted countenance,
+expressed everlasting distress.
+
+"And Chaigneux, do you know him?" continued Massot, referring to the
+deputy in question. "No? Well, look at him and ask yourself if it isn't
+quite as natural that he, too, should have taken money. He came from
+Arras. He was a solicitor there. When his division elected him he let
+politics intoxicate him, and sold his practice to make his fortune in
+Paris, where he installed himself with his wife and his three daughters.
+And you can picture his bewilderment amidst those four women, terrible
+women ever busy with finery, receiving and paying visits, and running
+after marriageable men who flee away. It's ill-luck with a vengeance, the
+daily defeat of a poor devil of mediocre attainments, who imagined that
+his position as a deputy would facilitate money-making, and who is
+drowning himself in it all. And so how can Chaigneux have done otherwise
+than take money, he who is always hard up for a five-hundred-franc note!
+I admit that originally he wasn't a dishonest man. But he's become one,
+that's all."
+
+Massot was now fairly launched, and went on with his portraits, the
+series which he had, at one moment, dreamt of writing under the title of
+"Deputies for Sale." There were the simpletons who fell into the furnace,
+the men whom ambition goaded to exasperation, the low minds that yielded
+to the temptation of an open drawer, the company-promoters who grew
+intoxicated and lost ground by dint of dealing with big figures. At the
+same time, however, Massot admitted that these men were relatively few in
+number, and that black sheep were to be found in every parliament of the
+world. Then Sagnier's name cropped up again, and Massot remarked that
+only Sagnier could regard the French Chambers as mere dens of thieves.
+
+Pierre, meantime, felt most interested in the tempest which the threat of
+a ministerial crisis was stirring up before him. Not only the men like
+Duthil and Chaigneux, pale at feeling the ground tremble beneath them,
+and wondering whether they would not sleep at the Mazas prison that
+night, were gathered round Barroux and Monferrand; all the latters'
+clients were there, all who enjoyed influence or office through them, and
+who would collapse and disappear should they happen to fall. And it was
+something to see the anxious glances and the pale dread amidst all the
+whispered chatter, the bits of information and tittle-tattle which were
+carried hither and thither. Then, in a neighbouring group formed round
+Vignon, who looked very calm and smiled, were the other clients, those
+who awaited the moment to climb to the assault of power, in order that
+they, in their turn, might at last possess influence or office. Eyes
+glittered with covetousness, hopeful delight could be read in them,
+pleasant surprise at the sudden opportunity now offered. Vignon avoided
+replying to the over-direct questions of his friends, and simply
+announced that he did not intend to intervene. Evidently enough his plan
+was to let Mege interpellate and overthrow the ministry, for he did not
+fear him, and in his own estimation would afterwards simply have to stoop
+to pick up the fallen portfolios.
+
+"Ah! Monferrand now," little Massot was saying, "there's a rascal who
+trims his sails! I knew him as an anti-clerical, a devourer of priests,
+Monsieur l'Abbe, if you will allow me so to express myself; however, I
+don't say this to be agreeable to you, but I think I may tell you for
+certain that he has become reconciled to religion. At least, I have been
+told that Monseigneur Martha, who is a great converter, now seldom leaves
+him. This is calculated to please one in these new times, when science
+has become bankrupt, and religion blooms afresh with delicious mysticism
+on all sides, whether in art, literature, or society itself."
+
+Massot was jesting, according to his wont; but he spoke so amiably that
+the priest could not do otherwise than bow. However, a great stir had set
+in before them; it was announced that Mege was about to ascend the
+tribune, and thereupon all the deputies hastened into the assembly hall,
+leaving only the inquisitive visitors and a few journalists in the Salle
+des Pas Perdus.
+
+"It's astonishing that Fonsegue hasn't yet arrived," resumed Massot;
+"he's interested in what's going on. However, he's so cunning, that when
+he doesn't behave as others do, one may be sure that he has his reasons
+for it. Do you know him?" And as Pierre gave a negative answer, Massot
+went on: "Oh! he's a man of brains and real power--I speak with all
+freedom, you know, for I don't possess the bump of veneration; and, as
+for my editors, well, they're the very puppets that I know the best and
+pick to pieces with the most enjoyment. Fonsegue, also, is clearly
+designated in Sagnier's article. Moreover, he's one of Duvillard's usual
+clients. There can be no doubt that he took money, for he takes money in
+everything. Only he always protects himself, and takes it for reasons
+which may be acknowledged--as payment or commission on account of
+advertising, and so forth. And if I left him just now, looking, as it
+seemed to me, rather disturbed, and if he delays his arrival here to
+establish, as it were, a moral alibi, the truth must be that he has
+committed the first imprudent action in his life."
+
+Then Massot rattled on, telling all there was to tell about Fonsegue. He,
+too, came from the department of La Correze, and had quarrelled for life
+with Monferrand after some unknown underhand affairs. Formerly an
+advocate at Tulle, his ambition had been to conquer Paris; and he had
+really conquered it, thanks to his big morning newspaper, "Le Globe," of
+which he was both founder and director. He now resided in a luxurious
+mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and no enterprise was launched
+but he carved himself a princely share in it. He had a genius for
+"business," and employed his newspaper as a weapon to enable him to reign
+over the market. But how very carefully he had behaved, what long and
+skilful patience he had shown, before attaining to the reputation of a
+really serious man, who guided authoritatively the most virtuous and
+respected of the organs of the press! Though in reality he believed
+neither in God nor in Devil, he had made this newspaper the supporter of
+order, property, and family ties; and though he had become a Conservative
+Republican, since it was to his interest to be such, he had remained
+outwardly religious, affecting a Spiritualism which reassured the
+/bourgeoisie/. And amidst all his accepted power, to which others bowed,
+he nevertheless had one hand deep in every available money-bag.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," said Massot, "see to what journalism may lead a
+man. There you have Sagnier and Fonsegue: just compare them a bit. In
+reality they are birds of the same feather: each has a quill and uses it.
+But how different the systems and the results. Sagnier's print is really
+a sewer which rolls him along and carries him to the cesspool; while the
+other's paper is certainly an example of the best journalism one can
+have, most carefully written, with a real literary flavour, a treat for
+readers of delicate minds, and an honour to the man who directs it. But
+at the bottom, good heavens! in both cases the farce is precisely the
+same!"
+
+Massot burst out laughing, well pleased with this final thrust. Then all
+at once: "Ah! here's Fonsegue at last!" said he.
+
+Quite at his ease, and still laughing, he forthwith introduced the
+priest. "This is Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, my dear /patron/, who has been
+waiting more than twenty minutes for you--I'm just going to see what is
+happening inside. You know that Mege is interpellating the government."
+
+The new comer started slightly: "An interpellation!" said he. "All right,
+all right, I'll go to it."
+
+Pierre was looking at him. He was about fifty years of age, short of
+stature, thin and active, still looking young without a grey hair in his
+black beard. He had sparkling eyes, too, but his mouth, said to be a
+terrible one, was hidden by his moustaches. And withal he looked a
+pleasant companion, full of wit to the tip of his little pointed nose,
+the nose of a sporting dog that is ever scenting game. "What can I do for
+you, Monsieur l'Abbe?" he inquired.
+
+Then Pierre briefly presented his request, recounting his visit to
+Laveuve that morning, giving every heart-rending particular, and asking
+for the poor wretch's immediate admittance to the Asylum.
+
+"Laveuve!" said the other, "but hasn't his affair been examined? Why,
+Duthil drew up a report on it, and things appeared to us of such a nature
+that we could not vote for the man's admittance."
+
+But the priest insisted: "I assure you, monsieur, that your heart would
+have burst with compassion had you been with me this morning. It is
+revolting that an old man should be left in such frightful abandonment
+even for another hour. He must sleep at the Asylum to-night."
+
+Fonsegue began to protest. "To-night! But it's impossible, altogether
+impossible! There are all sorts of indispensable formalities to be
+observed. And besides I alone cannot take such responsibility. I haven't
+the power. I am only the manager; all that I do is to execute the orders
+of the committee of lady patronesses."
+
+"But it was precisely Baroness Duvillard who sent me to you, monsieur,
+telling me that you alone had the necessary authority to grant immediate
+admittance in an exceptional case."
+
+"Oh! it was the Baroness who sent you? Ah! that is just like her,
+incapable of coming to any decision herself, and far too desirous of her
+own quietude to accept any responsibility. Why is it that she wants me to
+have the worries? No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, I certainly won't go against
+all our regulations; I won't give an order which would perhaps embroil me
+with all those ladies. You don't know them, but they become positively
+terrible directly they attend our meetings."
+
+He was growing lively, defending himself with a jocular air, whilst in
+secret he was fully determined to do nothing. However, just then Duthil
+abruptly reappeared, darting along bareheaded, hastening from lobby to
+lobby to recruit absent members, particularly those who were interested
+in the grave debate at that moment beginning. "What, Fonsegue!" he cried,
+"are you still here? Go, go to your seat at once, it's serious!" And
+thereupon he disappeared.
+
+His colleague evinced no haste, however. It was as if the suspicious
+affair which was impassioning the Chamber had no concern for him. And he
+still smiled, although a slight feverish quiver made him blink. "Excuse
+me, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said at last. "You see that my friends have need
+of me. I repeat to you that I can do absolutely nothing for your
+/protege/."
+
+But Pierre would not accept this reply as a final one. "No, no,
+monsieur," he rejoined, "go to your affairs, I will wait for you here.
+Don't come to a decision without full reflection. You are wanted, and I
+feel that your mind is not sufficiently at liberty for you to listen to
+me properly. By-and-by, when you come back and give me your full
+attention, I am sure that you will grant me what I ask."
+
+And, although Fonsegue, as he went off, repeated that he could not alter
+his decision, the priest stubbornly resolved to make him do so, and sat
+down on the bench again, prepared, if needful, to stay there till the
+evening. The Salle des Pas Perdus was now almost quite empty, and looked
+yet more frigid and mournful with its Laocoon and its Minerva, its bare
+commonplace walls like those of a railway-station waiting-room, between
+which all the scramble of the century passed, though apparently without
+even warming the lofty ceiling. Never had paler and more callous light
+entered by the large glazed doors, behind which one espied the little
+slumberous garden with its meagre, wintry lawns. And not an echo of the
+tempest of the sitting near at hand reached the spot; from the whole
+heavy pile there fell but death-like silence, and a covert quiver of
+distress that had come from far away, perhaps from the entire country.
+
+It was that which now haunted Pierre's reverie. The whole ancient,
+envenomed sore spread out before his mind's eye, with its poison and
+virulence. Parliamentary rottenness had slowly increased till it had
+begun to attack society itself. Above all the low intrigues and the rush
+of personal ambition there certainly remained the loftier struggle of the
+contending principles, with history on the march, clearing the past away
+and seeking to bring more truth, justice, and happiness in the future.
+But in practice, if one only considered the horrid daily cuisine of the
+sphere, what an unbridling of egotistical appetite one beheld, what an
+absorbing passion to strangle one's neighbour and triumph oneself alone!
+Among the various groups one found but an incessant battle for power and
+the satisfactions that it gives. "Left," "Right," "Catholics,"
+"Republicans," "Socialists," the names given to the parties of twenty
+different shades, were simply labels classifying forms of the one burning
+thirst to rule and dominate. All questions could be reduced to a single
+one, that of knowing whether this man, that man, or that other man should
+hold France in his grasp, to enjoy it, and distribute its favours among
+his creatures. And the worst was that the outcome of the great
+parliamentary battles, the days and the weeks lost in setting this man in
+the place of that man, and that other man in the place of this man, was
+simply stagnation, for not one of the three men was better than his
+fellows, and there were but vague points of difference between them; in
+such wise that the new master bungled the very same work as the previous
+one had bungled, forgetful, perforce, of programmes and promises as soon
+as ever he began to reign.
+
+However, Pierre's thoughts invincibly reverted to Laveuve, whom he had
+momentarily forgotten, but who now seized hold of him again with a quiver
+as of anger and death. Ah! what could it matter to that poor old wretch,
+dying of hunger on his bed of rags, whether Mege should overthrow
+Barroux's ministry, and whether a Vignon ministry should ascend to power
+or not! At that rate, a century, two centuries, would be needed before
+there would be bread in the garrets where groan the lamed sons of labour,
+the old, broken-down beasts of burden. And behind Laveuve there appeared
+the whole army of misery, the whole multitude of the disinherited and the
+poor, who agonised and asked for justice whilst the Chamber, sitting in
+all pomp, grew furiously impassioned over the question as to whom the
+nation should belong to, as to who should devour it. Mire was flowing on
+in a broad stream, the hideous, bleeding, devouring sore displayed itself
+in all impudence, like some cancer which preys upon an organ and spreads
+to the heart. And what disgust, what nausea must such a spectacle
+inspire; and what a longing for the vengeful knife that would bring
+health and joy!
+
+Pierre could not have told for how long he had been plunged in this
+reverie, when uproar again filled the hall. People were coming back,
+gesticulating and gathering in groups. And suddenly he heard little
+Massot exclaim near him: "Well, if it isn't down it's not much better
+off. I wouldn't give four sous for its chance of surviving."
+
+He referred to the ministry, and began to recount the sitting to a fellow
+journalist who had just arrived. Mege had spoken very eloquently, with
+extraordinary fury of indignation against the rotten /bourgeoisie/, which
+rotted everything it touched; but, as usual, he had gone much too far,
+alarming the Chamber by his very violence. And so, when Barroux had
+ascended the tribune to ask for a month's adjournment of the
+interpellation, he had merely had occasion to wax indignant, in all
+sincerity be it said, full of lofty anger that such infamous campaigns
+should be carried on by a certain portion of the press. Were the shameful
+Panama scandals about to be renewed? Were the national representatives
+going to let themselves be intimidated by fresh threats of denunciation?
+It was the Republic itself which its adversaries were seeking to submerge
+beneath a flood of abominations. No, no, the hour had come for one to
+collect one's thoughts, and work in quietude without allowing those who
+hungered for scandal to disturb the public peace. And the Chamber,
+impressed by these words, fearing, too, lest the electorate should at
+last grow utterly weary of the continuous overflow of filth, had
+adjourned the interpellation to that day month. However, although Vignon
+had not personally intervened in the debate, the whole of his group had
+voted against the ministry, with the result that the latter had merely
+secured a majority of two votes--a mockery.
+
+"But in that case they will resign," said somebody to Massot.
+
+"Yes, so it's rumoured. But Barroux is very tenacious. At all events if
+they show any obstinacy they will be down before a week is over,
+particularly as Sagnier, who is quite furious, declares that he will
+publish the list of names to-morrow."
+
+Just then, indeed, Barroux and Monferrand were seen to pass, hastening
+along with thoughtful, busy mien, and followed by their anxious clients.
+It was said that the whole Cabinet was about to assemble to consider the
+position and come to a decision. And then Vignon, in his turn, reappeared
+amidst a stream of friends. He, for his part, was radiant, with a joy
+which he sought to conceal, calming his friends in his desire not to cry
+victory too soon. However, the eyes of the band glittered, like those of
+a pack of hounds when the moment draws near for the offal of the quarry
+to be distributed. And even Mege also looked triumphant. He had all but
+overthrown the ministry. That made another one that was worn out, and
+by-and-by he would wear out Vignon's, and at last govern in his turn.
+
+"The devil!" muttered little Massot, "Chaigneux and Duthil look like
+whipped dogs. And see, there's nobody who is worth the governor. Just
+look at him, how superb he is, that Fonsegue! But good-by, I must now be
+off!"
+
+Then he shook hands with his brother journalist unwilling as he was to
+remain any longer, although the sitting still continued, some bill of
+public importance again being debated before the rows of empty seats.
+
+Chaigneux, with his desolate mien, had gone to lean against the pedestal
+of the high figure of Minerva; and never before had he been more bowed
+down by his needy distress, the everlasting anguish of his ill-luck. On
+the other hand, Duthil, in spite of everything, was perorating in the
+centre of a group with an affectation of scoffing unconcern; nevertheless
+nervous twitches made his nose pucker and distorted his mouth, while the
+whole of his handsome face was becoming moist with fear. And even as
+Massot had said, there really was only Fonsegue who showed composure and
+bravery, ever the same with his restless little figure, and his eyes
+beaming with wit, though at times they were just faintly clouded by a
+shadow of uneasiness.
+
+Pierre had risen to renew his request; but Fonsegue forestalled him,
+vivaciously exclaiming: "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, I repeat that I cannot
+take on myself such an infraction of our rules. There was an inquiry, and
+a decision was arrived at. How would you have me over-rule it?"
+
+"Monsieur," said the priest, in a tone of deep grief, "it is a question
+of an old man who is hungry and cold, and in danger of death if he be not
+succoured."
+
+With a despairing gesture, the director of "Le Globe" seemed to take the
+very walls as witnesses of his powerlessness. No doubt he feared some
+nasty affair for his newspaper, in which he had abused the Invalids of
+Labour enterprise as an electoral weapon. Perhaps, too, the secret terror
+into which the sitting of the Chamber had just thrown him was hardening
+his heart. "I can do nothing," he repeated. "But naturally I don't ask
+better than to have my hands forced by the ladies of the Committee. You
+already have the support of the Baroness Duvillard, secure that of some
+others."
+
+Pierre, who was determined to fight on to the very end, saw in this
+suggestion a supreme chance. "I know the Countess de Quinsac," he said,
+"I can go to see her at once."
+
+"Quite so! an excellent idea, the Countess de Quinsac! Take a cab and go
+to see the Princess de Harn as well. She bestirs herself a great deal,
+and is becoming very influential. Secure the approval of these ladies, go
+back to the Baroness's at seven, get a letter from her to cover me, and
+then call on me at the office of my paper. That done, your man shall
+sleep at the Asylum at nine o'clock!"
+
+He evinced in speaking a kind of joyous good nature, as though he no
+longer doubted of success now that he ran no risk of compromising
+himself. And great hope again came back to the priest: "Ah! thank you,
+monsieur," he said; "it is a work of salvation that you will accomplish."
+
+"But you surely know that I ask nothing better. Ah! if we could only cure
+misery, prevent hunger and thirst by a mere word. However, make haste,
+you have not a minute to lose."
+
+They shook hands, and Pierre at once tried to get out of the throng.
+This, however, was no easy task, for the various groups had grown larger
+as all the anger and anguish, roused by the recent debate, ebbed back
+there amid a confused tumult. It was as when a stone, cast into a pool,
+stirs the ooze below, and causes hidden, rotting things to rise once more
+to the surface. And Pierre had to bring his elbows into play and force a
+passage athwart the throng, betwixt the shivering cowardice of some, the
+insolent audacity of others, and the smirchings which sullied the greater
+number, given the contagion which inevitably prevailed. However, he
+carried away a fresh hope, and it seemed to him that if he should save a
+life, make but one man happy that day, it would be like a first
+instalment of redemption, a sign that a little forgiveness would be
+extended to the many follies and errors of that egotistical and
+all-devouring political world.
+
+On reaching the vestibule a final incident detained him for a moment
+longer. Some commotion prevailed there following upon a quarrel between a
+man and an usher, the latter of whom had prevented the former from
+entering on finding that the admission ticket which he tendered was an
+old one, with its original date scratched out. The man, very rough at the
+outset, had then refrained from insisting, as if indeed sudden timidity
+had come upon him. And in this ill-dressed fellow Pierre was astonished
+to recognise Salvat, the journeyman engineer, whom he had seen going off
+in search of work that same morning. This time it was certainly he, tall,
+thin and ravaged, with dreamy yet flaming eyes, which set his pale
+starveling's face aglow. He no longer carried his tool-bag; his ragged
+jacket was buttoned up and distended on the left side by something that
+he carried in a pocket, doubtless some hunk of bread. And on being
+repulsed by the ushers, he walked away, taking the Concorde bridge,
+slowly, as if chancewise, like a man who knows not whither he is going.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SOCIAL SIDELIGHTS
+
+IN her old faded drawing-room--a Louis Seize /salon/ with grey
+woodwork--the Countess de Quinsac sat near the chimney-piece in her
+accustomed place. She was singularly like her son, with a long and noble
+face, her chin somewhat stern, but her eyes still beautiful beneath her
+fine snowy hair, which was arranged in the antiquated style of her youth.
+And whatever her haughty coldness, she knew how to be amiable, with
+perfect, kindly graciousness.
+
+Slightly waving her hand after a long silence, she resumed, addressing
+herself to the Marquis de Morigny, who sat on the other side of the
+chimney, where for long years he had always taken the same armchair. "Ah!
+you are right, my friend, Providence has left us here forgotten, in a
+most abominable epoch."
+
+"Yes, we passed by the side of happiness and missed it," the Marquis
+slowly replied, "and it was your fault, and doubtless mine as well."
+
+Smiling sadly, she stopped him with another wave of her hand. And the
+silence fell once more; not a sound from the streets reached that gloomy
+ground floor at the rear of the courtyard of an old mansion in the Rue
+St. Dominique, almost at the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne.
+
+The Marquis was an old man of seventy-five, nine years older than the
+Countess. Short and thin though he was, he none the less had a
+distinguished air, with his clean-shaven face, furrowed by deep,
+aristocratic wrinkles. He belonged to one of the most ancient families of
+France, and remained one of the last hopeless Legitimists, of very pure
+and lofty views, zealously keeping his faith to the dead monarchy amidst
+the downfall of everything. His fortune, still estimated at several
+millions of francs, remained, as it were, in a state of stagnation,
+through his refusal to invest it in any of the enterprises of the
+century. It was known that in all discretion he had loved the Countess,
+even when M. de Quinsac was alive, and had, moreover, offered marriage
+after the latter's death, at the time when the widow had sought a refuge
+on that damp ground floor with merely an income of some 15,000 francs,
+saved with great difficulty from the wreck of the family fortune. But
+she, who adored her son Gerard, then in his tenth year, and of delicate
+health, had sacrificed everything to the boy from a kind of maternal
+chasteness and a superstitious fear that she might lose him should she
+set another affection and another duty in her life. And the Marquis,
+while bowing to her decision, had continued to worship her with his whole
+soul, ever paying his court as on the first evening when he had seen her,
+still gallant and faithful after a quarter of a century had passed. There
+had never been anything between them, not even the exchange of a kiss.
+
+Seeing how sad she looked, he feared that he might have displeased her,
+and so he asked: "I should have liked to render you happy, but I didn't
+know how, and the fault can certainly only rest with me. Is Gerard giving
+you any cause for anxiety?"
+
+She shook her head, and then replied: "As long as things remain as they
+are we cannot complain of them, my friend, since we accepted them."
+
+She referred to her son's culpable connection with Baroness Duvillard.
+She had ever shown much weakness with regard to that son whom she had had
+so much trouble to rear, for she alone knew what exhaustion, what racial
+collapse was hidden behind his proud bearing. She tolerated his idleness,
+the apathetic disgust which, man of pleasure that he was, had turned him
+from the profession of diplomacy as from that of arms. How many times had
+she not repaired his acts of folly and paid his petty debts, keeping
+silent concerning them, and refusing all pecuniary help from the Marquis,
+who no longer dared offer his millions, so stubbornly intent she was on
+living upon the remnants of her own fortune. And thus she had ended by
+closing her eyes to her son's scandalous love intrigue, divining in some
+measure how things had happened, through self-abandonment and lack of
+conscience--the man weak, unable to resume possession of himself, and the
+woman holding and retaining him. The Marquis, however, strangely enough,
+had only forgiven the intrigue on the day when Eve had allowed herself to
+be converted.
+
+"You know, my friend, how good-natured Gerard is," the Countess resumed.
+"In that lie both his strength and weakness. How would you have me scold
+him when he weeps over it all with me? He will tire of that woman."
+
+M. de Morigny wagged his head. "She is still very beautiful," said he.
+"And then there's the daughter. It would be graver still if he were to
+marry her--"
+
+"But the daughter's infirm?"
+
+"Yes, and you know what would be said: A Quinsac marrying a monster for
+the sake of her millions."
+
+This was their mutual terror. They knew everything that went on at the
+Duvillards, the affectionate friendship of the uncomely Camille and the
+handsome Gerard, the seeming idyll beneath which lurked the most awful of
+dramas. And they protested with all their indignation. "Oh! that, no, no,
+never!" the Countess declared. "My son in that family, no, I will never
+consent to it."
+
+Just at that moment General de Bozonnet entered. He was much attached to
+his sister and came to keep her company on the days when she received,
+for the old circle had gradually dwindled down till now only a few
+faithful ones ventured into that grey gloomy /salon/, where one might
+have fancied oneself at thousands of leagues from present-day Paris. And
+forthwith, in order to enliven the room, he related that he had been to
+/dejeuner/ at the Duvillards, and named the guests, Gerard among them. He
+knew that he pleased his sister by going to the banker's house whence he
+brought her news, a house, too, which he cleansed in some degree by
+conferring on it the great honour of his presence. And he himself in no
+wise felt bored there, for he had long been gained over to the century
+and showed himself of a very accommodating disposition in everything that
+did not pertain to military art.
+
+"That poor little Camille worships Gerard," said he; "she was devouring
+him with her eyes at table."
+
+But M. de Morigny gravely intervened: "There lies the danger, a marriage
+would be absolutely monstrous from every point of view."
+
+The General seemed astonished: "Why, pray? She isn't beautiful, but it's
+not only the beauties who marry! And there are her millions. However, our
+dear child would only have to put them to a good use. True, there is also
+the mother; but, /mon Dieu/! such things are so common nowadays in Paris
+society."
+
+This revolted the Marquis, who made a gesture of utter disgust. What was
+the use of discussion when all collapsed? How could one answer a
+Bozonnet, the last surviving representative of such an illustrious
+family, when he reached such a point as to excuse the infamous morals
+that prevailed under the Republic; after denying his king, too, and
+serving the Empire, faithfully and passionately attaching himself to the
+fortunes and memory of Caesar? However, the Countess also became
+indignant: "Oh! what are you saying, brother? I will never authorize such
+a scandal, I swore so only just now."
+
+"Don't swear, sister," exclaimed the General; "for my part I should like
+to see our Gerard happy. That's all. And one must admit that he's not
+good for much. I can understand that he didn't go into the Army, for that
+profession is done for. But I do not so well understand why he did not
+enter the diplomatic profession, or accept some other occupation. It is
+very fine, no doubt, to run down the present times and declare that a man
+of our sphere cannot possibly do any clean work in them. But, as a matter
+of fact, it is only idle fellows who still say that. And Gerard has but
+one excuse, his lack of aptitude, will and strength."
+
+Tears had risen to the mother's eyes. She even trembled, well knowing how
+deceitful were appearances: a mere chill might carry her son off, however
+tall and strong he might look. And was he not indeed a symbol of that
+old-time aristocracy, still so lofty and proud in appearance, though at
+bottom it is but dust?
+
+"Well," continued the General, "he's thirty-six now; he's constantly
+hanging on your hands, and he must make an end of it all."
+
+However, the Countess silenced him and turned to the Marquis: "Let us put
+our confidence in God, my friend," said she. "He cannot but come to my
+help, for I have never willingly offended Him."
+
+"Never!" replied the Marquis, who in that one word set an expression of
+all his grief, all his affection and worship for that woman whom he had
+adored for so many years.
+
+But another faithful friend came in and the conversation changed. M. de
+Larombiere, Vice-President of the Appeal Court, was an old man of
+seventy-five, thin, bald and clean shaven but for a pair of little white
+whiskers. And his grey eyes, compressed mouth and square and obstinate
+chin lent an expression of great austerity to his long face. The grief of
+his life was that, being afflicted with a somewhat childish lisp, he had
+never been able to make his full merits known when a public prosecutor,
+for he esteemed himself to be a great orator. And this secret worry
+rendered him morose. In him appeared an incarnation of that old royalist
+France which sulked and only served the Republic against its heart, that
+old stern magistracy which closed itself to all evolution, to all new
+views of things and beings. Of petty "gown" nobility, originally a
+Legitimist but now supporting Orleanism, he believed himself to be the
+one man of wisdom and logic in that /salon/, where he was very proud to
+meet the Marquis.
+
+They talked of the last events; but with them political conversation was
+soon exhausted, amounting as it did to a mere bitter condemnation of men
+and occurrences, for all three were of one mind as to the abominations of
+the Republican /regime/. They themselves, however, were only ruins, the
+remnants of the old parties now all but utterly powerless. The Marquis
+for his part soared on high, yielding in nothing, ever faithful to the
+dead past; he was one of the last representatives of that lofty obstinate
+/noblesse/ which dies when it finds itself without an effort to escape
+its fate. The judge, who at least had a pretender living, relied on a
+miracle, and demonstrated the necessity for one if France were not to
+sink into the depths of misfortune and completely disappear. And as for
+the General, all that he regretted of the two Empires was their great
+wars; he left the faint hope of a Bonapartist restoration on one side to
+declare that by not contenting itself with the Imperial military system,
+and by substituting thereto obligatory service, the nation in arms, the
+Republic had killed both warfare and the country.
+
+When the Countess's one man-servant came to ask her if she would consent
+to receive Abbe Froment she seemed somewhat surprised. "What can he want
+of me? Show him in," she said.
+
+She was very pious, and having met Pierre in connection with various
+charitable enterprises, she had been touched by his zeal as well as by
+the saintly reputation which he owed to his Neuilly parishioners.
+
+He, absorbed by his fever, felt intimidated directly he crossed the
+threshold. He could at first distinguish nothing, but fancied he was
+entering some place of mourning, a shadowy spot where human forms seemed
+to melt away, and voices were never raised above a whisper. Then, on
+perceiving the persons present, he felt yet more out of his element, for
+they seemed so sad, so far removed from the world whence he had just
+come, and whither he was about to return. And when the Countess had made
+him sit down beside her in front of the chimney-piece, it was in a low
+voice that he told her the lamentable story of Laveuve, and asked her
+support to secure the man's admittance to the Asylum for the Invalids of
+Labour.
+
+"Ah! yes," said she, "that enterprise which my son wished me to belong
+to. But, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have never once attended the Committee
+meetings. So how could I intervene, having assuredly no influence
+whatever?"
+
+Again had the figures of Eve and Gerard arisen before her, for it was at
+this asylum that the pair had first met. And influenced by her sorrowful
+maternal love she was already weakening, although it was regretfully that
+she had lent her name to one of those noisy charitable enterprises, which
+people abused to further their selfish interests in a manner she
+condemned.
+
+"But, madame," Pierre insisted, "it is a question of a poor starving old
+man. I implore you to be compassionate."
+
+Although the priest had spoken in a low voice the General drew near.
+"It's for your old revolutionary that you are running about, is it not,"
+said he. "Didn't you succeed with the manager, then? The fact is that
+it's difficult to feel any pity for fellows who, if they were the
+masters, would, as they themselves say, sweep us all away."
+
+M. de Larombiere jerked his chin approvingly. For some time past he had
+been haunted by the Anarchist peril. But Pierre, distressed and
+quivering, again began to plead his cause. He spoke of all the frightful
+misery, the homes where there was no food, the women and children
+shivering with cold, and the fathers scouring muddy, wintry Paris in
+search of a bit of bread. All that he asked for was a line on a visiting
+card, a kindly word from the Countess, which he would at once carry to
+Baroness Duvillard to prevail on her to set the regulations aside. And
+his words fell one by one, tremulous with stifled tears, in that mournful
+/salon/, like sounds from afar, dying away in a dead world where there
+was no echo left.
+
+Madame de Quinsac turned towards M. de Morigny, but he seemed to take no
+interest in it all. He was gazing fixedly at the fire, with the haughty
+air of a stranger who was indifferent to the things and beings in whose
+midst an error of time compelled him to live. But feeling that the glance
+of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him he raised his head; and
+then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite
+gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.
+
+"/Mon Dieu/!" said she, "I know your merits, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I won't
+refuse my help to one of your good works."
+
+Then she went off for a moment, and returned with a card on which she had
+written that she supported with all her heart Monsieur l'Abbe Froment in
+the steps he was taking. And he thanked her and went off delighted, as if
+he carried yet a fresh hope of salvation from that drawing-room where, as
+he retired, gloom and silence once more seemed to fall on that old lady
+and her last faithful friends gathered around the fire, last relics of a
+world that was soon to disappear.
+
+Once outside, Pierre joyfully climbed into his cab again, after giving
+the Princess de Harn's address in the Avenue Kleber. If he could also
+obtain her approval he would no longer doubt of success. However, there
+was such a crush on the Concorde bridge, that the driver had to walk his
+horse. And, on the foot-pavement, Pierre again saw Duthil, who, with a
+cigar between his lips, was smiling at the crowd, with his amiable
+bird-like heedlessness, happy as he felt at finding the pavement dry and
+the sky blue on leaving that worrying sitting of the Chamber. Seeing how
+gay and triumphant he looked, a sudden inspiration came to the priest,
+who said to himself that he ought to win over this young man, whose
+report had had such a disastrous effect. As it happened, the cab having
+been compelled to stop altogether, the deputy had just recognized him and
+was smiling at him.
+
+"Where are you going, Monsieur Duthil?" Pierre asked.
+
+"Close by, in the Champs Elysees."
+
+"I'm going that way, and, as I should much like to speak to you for a
+moment, it would be very kind of you to take a seat beside me. I will set
+you down wherever you like."
+
+"Willingly, Monsieur l'Abbe. It won't inconvenience you if I finish my
+cigar?"
+
+"Oh! not at all."
+
+The cab found its way out of the crush, crossed the Place de la Concorde
+and began to ascend the Champs Elysees. And Pierre, reflecting that he
+had very few minutes before him, at once attacked Duthil, quite ready for
+any effort to convince him. He remembered what a sortie the young deputy
+had made against Laveuve at the Baron's; and thus he was astonished to
+hear him interrupt and say quite pleasantly, enlivened as he seemed by
+the bright sun which was again beginning to shine: "Ah, yes! your old
+drunkard! So you didn't settle his business with Fonsegue? And what is it
+you want? To have him admitted to-day? Well, you know I don't oppose it?"
+
+"But there's your report."
+
+"My report, oh, my report! But questions change according to the way one
+looks at them. And if you are so anxious about your Laveuve I won't
+refuse to help you."
+
+Pierre looked at him in astonishment, at bottom extremely well pleased.
+And there was no further necessity even for him to speak.
+
+"You didn't take the matter in hand properly," continued Duthil, leaning
+forward with a confidential air. "It's the Baron who's the master at
+home, for reasons which you may divine, which you may very likely know.
+The Baroness does all that he asks without even discussing the point; and
+this morning,--instead of starting on a lot of useless visits, you only
+had to gain his support, particularly as he seemed to be very well
+disposed. And she would then have given way immediately." Duthil began to
+laugh. "And so," he continued, "do you know what I'll do? Well, I'll gain
+the Baron over to your cause. Yes, I am this moment going to a house
+where he is, where one is certain to find him every day at this time."
+Then he laughed more loudly. "And perhaps you are not ignorant of it,
+Monsieur l'Abbe. When he is there you may be certain he never gives a
+refusal. I promise you I'll make him swear that he will compel his wife
+to grant your man admission this very evening. Only it will, perhaps, be
+rather late."
+
+Then all at once, as if struck by a fresh idea, Duthil went on: "But why
+shouldn't you come with me? You secure a line from the Baron, and
+thereupon, without losing a minute, you go in search of the Baroness. Ah!
+yes, the house embarrasses you a little, I understand it. Would you like
+to see only the Baron there? You can wait for him in a little /salon/
+downstairs; I will bring him to you."
+
+This proposal made Duthil altogether merry, but Pierre, quite scared,
+hesitated at the idea of thus going to Silviane d'Aulnay's. It was hardly
+a place for him. However, to achieve his purpose, he would have descended
+into the very dwelling of the fiend, and had already done so sometimes
+with Abbe Rose, when there was hope of assuaging wretchedness. So he
+turned to Duthil and consented to accompany him.
+
+Silviane d'Aulnay's little mansion, a very luxurious one, displaying,
+too, so to say, the luxury of a temple, refined but suggestive of
+gallantry, stood in the Avenue d'Antin, near the Champs Elysees. The
+inmate of this sanctuary, where the orfrays of old dalmaticas glittered
+in the mauve reflections from the windows of stained-glass, had just
+completed her twenty-fifth year. Short and slim she was, of an adorable,
+dark beauty, and all Paris was acquainted with her delicious, virginal
+countenance of a gentle oval, her delicate nose, her little mouth, her
+candid cheeks and artless chin, above all which she wore her black hair
+in thick, heavy bands, which hid her low brow. Her notoriety was due
+precisely to her pretty air of astonishment, the infinite purity of her
+blue eyes, the whole expression of chaste innocence which she assumed
+when it so pleased her, an expression which contrasted powerfully with
+her true nature, shameless creature that she really was, of the most
+monstrous, confessed, and openly-displayed perversity; such as, in fact,
+often spring up from the rotting soil of great cities. Extraordinary
+things were related about Silviane's tastes and fancies. Some said that
+she was a door-keeper's, others a doctor's, daughter. In any case she had
+managed to acquire instruction and manners, for when occasion required
+she lacked neither wit, nor style, nor deportment. She had been rolling
+through the theatres for ten years or so, applauded for her beauty's
+sake, and she had even ended by obtaining some pretty little successes in
+such parts as those of very pure young girls or loving and persecuted
+young women. Since there had been a question, though, of her entering the
+Comedie Francaise to play the /role/ of Pauline in "Polyeucte," some
+people had waxed indignant and others had roared with laughter, so
+ridiculous did the idea appear, so outrageous for the majesty of classic
+tragedy. She, however, quiet and stubborn, wished this thing to be, was
+resolved that it should be, certain as she was that she would secure it,
+insolent like a creature to whom men had never yet been able to refuse
+anything.
+
+That day, at three o'clock, Gerard de Quinsac, not knowing how to kill
+the time pending the appointment he had given Eve in the Rue Matignon,
+had thought of calling at Silviane's, which was in the neighbourhood. She
+was an old caprice of his, and even nowadays he would sometimes linger at
+the little mansion if its pretty mistress felt bored. But he had this
+time found her in a fury; and, reclining in one of the deep armchairs of
+the /salon/ where "old gold" formed the predominant colour, he was
+listening to her complaints. She, standing in a white gown, white indeed
+from head to foot like Eve herself at the /dejeuner/, was speaking
+passionately, and fast convincing the young man, who, won over by so much
+youth and beauty, unconsciously compared her to his other flame, weary
+already of his coming assignation, and so mastered by supineness, both
+moral and physical, that he would have preferred to remain all day in the
+depths of that armchair.
+
+"You hear me, Gerard!" she at last exclaimed, "I'll have nothing whatever
+to do with him, unless he brings me my nomination."
+
+Just then Baron Duvillard came in, and forthwith she changed to ice and
+received him like some sorely offended young queen who awaits an
+explanation; whilst he, who foresaw the storm and brought moreover
+disastrous tidings, forced a smile, though very ill at ease. She was the
+stain, the blemish attaching to that man who was yet so sturdy and so
+powerful amidst the general decline of his race. And she was also the
+beginning of justice and punishment, taking all his piled-up gold from
+him by the handful, and by her cruelty avenging those who shivered and
+who starved. And it was pitiful to see that feared and flattered man,
+beneath whom states and governments trembled, here turn pale with
+anxiety, bend low in all humility, and relapse into the senile, lisping
+infancy of acute passion.
+
+"Ah! my dear friend," said he, "if you only knew how I have been rushing
+about. I had a lot of worrying business, some contractors to see, a big
+advertisement affair to settle, and I feared that I should never be able
+to come and kiss your hand."
+
+He kissed it, but she let her arm fall, coldly, indifferently, contenting
+herself with looking at him, waiting for what he might have to say to
+her, and embarrassing him to such a point that he began to perspire and
+stammer, unable to express himself. "Of course," he began, "I also
+thought of you, and went to the Fine Arts Office, where I had received a
+positive promise. Oh! they are still very much in your favour at the Fine
+Arts Office! Only, just fancy, it's that idiot of a minister, that
+Taboureau,* an old professor from the provinces who knows nothing about
+our Paris, that has expressly opposed your nomination, saying that as
+long as he is in office you shall not appear at the Comedie."
+
+  * Taboureau is previously described as Minister of Public
+    Instruction. It should be pointed out, however, that
+    although under the present Republic the Ministries of
+    Public Instruction and Fine Arts have occasionally been
+    distinct departments, at other times they have been
+    united, one minister, as in Taboureau's case, having
+    charge of both.--Trans.
+
+Erect and rigid, she spoke but two words: "And then?"
+
+"And then--well, my dear, what would you have me do? One can't after all
+overthrow a ministry to enable you to play the part of Pauline."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+He pretended to laugh, but his blood rushed to his face, and the whole of
+his sturdy figure quivered with anguish. "Come, my little Silviane," said
+he, "don't be obstinate. You can be so nice when you choose. Give up the
+idea of that /debut/. You, yourself, would risk a great deal in it, for
+what would be your worries if you were to fail? You would weep all the
+tears in your body. And besides, you can ask me for so many other things
+which I should be so happy to give you. Come now, at once, make a wish
+and I will gratify it immediately."
+
+In a frolicsome way he sought to take her hand again. But she drew back
+with an air of much dignity. "No, you hear me, my dear fellow, I will
+have nothing whatever to do with you--nothing, so long as I don't play
+Pauline."
+
+He understood her fully, and he knew her well enough to realise how
+rigorously she would treat him. Only a kind of grunt came from his
+contracted throat, though he still tried to treat the matter in a jesting
+way. "Isn't she bad-tempered to-day!" he resumed at last, turning towards
+Gerard. "What have you done to her that I find her in such a state?"
+
+But the young man, who kept very quiet for fear lest he himself might be
+bespattered in the course of the dispute, continued to stretch himself
+out in a languid way and gave no answer.
+
+But Silviane's anger burst forth. "What has he done to me? He has pitied
+me for being at the mercy of such a man as you--so egotistical, so
+insensible to the insults heaped upon me. Ought you not to be the first
+to bound with indignation? Ought you not to have exacted my admittance to
+the Comedie as a reparation for the insult? For, after all, it is a
+defeat for you; if I'm considered unworthy, you are struck at the same
+time as I am. And so I'm a drab, eh? Say at once that I'm a creature to
+be driven away from all respectable houses."
+
+She went on in this style, coming at last to vile words, the abominable
+words which, in moments of anger, always ended by returning to her
+innocent-looking lips. The Baron, who well knew that a syllable from him
+would only increase the foulness of the overflow, vainly turned an
+imploring glance on the Count to solicit his intervention. Gerard, with
+his keen desire for peace and quietness, often brought about a
+reconciliation, but this time he did not stir, feeling too lazy and
+sleepy to interfere. And Silviane all at once came to a finish, repeating
+her trenchant, severing words: "Well, manage as you can, secure my
+/debut/, or I'll have nothing more to do with you, nothing!"
+
+"All right! all right!" Duvillard at last murmured, sneering, but in
+despair, "we'll arrange it all."
+
+However, at that moment a servant came in to say that M. Duthil was
+downstairs and wished to speak to the Baron in the smoking-room.
+Duvillard was astonished at this, for Duthil usually came up as though
+the house were his own. Then he reflected that the deputy had doubtless
+brought him some serious news from the Chamber which he wished to impart
+to him confidentially at once. So he followed the servant, leaving Gerard
+and Silviane together.
+
+In the smoking-room, an apartment communicating with the hall by a wide
+bay, the curtain of which was drawn up, Pierre stood with his companion,
+waiting and glancing curiously around him. What particularly struck him
+was the almost religious solemnness of the entrance, the heavy hangings,
+the mystic gleams of the stained-glass, the old furniture steeped in
+chapel-like gloom amidst scattered perfumes of myrrh and incense. Duthil,
+who was still very gay, tapped a low divan with his cane and said: "She
+has a nicely-furnished house, eh? Oh! she knows how to look after her
+interests."
+
+Then the Baron came in, still quite upset and anxious. And without even
+perceiving the priest, desirous as he was of tidings, he began: "Well,
+what did they do? Is there some very bad news, then?"
+
+"Mege interpellated and applied for a declaration of urgency so as to
+overthrow Barroux. You can imagine what his speech was."
+
+"Yes, yes, against the /bourgeois/, against me, against you. It's always
+the same thing--And then?"
+
+"Then--well, urgency wasn't voted, but, in spite of a very fine defence,
+Barroux only secured a majority of two votes."
+
+"Two votes, the devil! Then he's down, and we shall have a Vignon
+ministry next week."
+
+"That's what everybody said in the lobbies."
+
+The Baron frowned, as if he were estimating what good or evil might
+result to the world from such a change. Then, with a gesture of
+displeasure, he said: "A Vignon ministry! The devil! that would hardly be
+any better. Those young democrats pretend to be virtuous, and a Vignon
+ministry wouldn't admit Silviane to the Comedie."
+
+This, at first, was his only thought in presence of the crisis which made
+the political world tremble. And so the deputy could not refrain from
+referring to his own anxiety. "Well, and we others, what is our position
+in it all?"
+
+This brought Duvillard back to the situation. With a fresh gesture, this
+time a superbly proud one, he expressed his full and impudent confidence.
+"We others, why we remain as we are; we've never been in peril, I
+imagine. Oh! I am quite at ease. Sagnier can publish his famous list if
+it amuses him to do so. If we haven't long since bought Sagnier and his
+list, it's because Barroux is a thoroughly honest man, and for my part I
+don't care to throw money out of the window--I repeat to you that we fear
+nothing."
+
+Then, as he at last recognised Abbe Froment, who had remained in the
+shade, Duthil explained what service the priest desired of him. And
+Duvillard, in his state of emotion, his heart still rent by Silviane's
+sternness, must have felt a covert hope that a good action might bring
+him luck; so he at once consented to intervene in favour of Laveuve's
+admission. Taking a card and a pencil from his pocket-book he drew near
+to the window. "Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l'Abbe," he said, "I
+shall be very happy to participate in this good work. Here, this is what
+I have written: 'My dear, please do what M. l'Abbe Froment solicits in
+favour of this unfortunate man, since our friend Fonsegue only awaits a
+word from you to take proper steps.'"
+
+At this moment through the open bay Pierre caught sight of Gerard, whom
+Silviane, calm once more, and inquisitive no doubt to know why Duthil had
+called, was escorting into the hall. And the sight of the young woman
+filled him with astonishment, so simple and gentle did she seem to him,
+full of the immaculate candour of a virgin. Never had he dreamt of a lily
+of more unobtrusive yet delicious bloom in the whole garden of innocence.
+
+"Now," continued Duvillard, "if you wish to hand this card to my wife at
+once, you must go to the Princess de Harn's, where there is a
+/matinee/--"
+
+"I was going there, Monsieur le Baron."
+
+"Very good. You will certainly find my wife there; she is to take the
+children there." Then he paused, for he too had just seen Gerard; and he
+called him: "I say, Gerard, my wife said that she was going to that
+/matinee/, didn't she? You feel sure--don't you?--that Monsieur l'Abbe
+will find her there?"
+
+Although the young man was then going to the Rue Matignon, there to wait
+for Eve, it was in the most natural manner possible that he replied: "If
+Monsieur l'Abbe makes haste, I think he will find her there, for she was
+certainly going there before trying on a corsage at Salmon's."
+
+Then he kissed Silviane's hand, and went off with the air of a handsome,
+indolent man, who knows no malice, and is even weary of pleasure.
+
+Pierre, feeling rather embarrassed, was obliged to let Duvillard
+introduce him to the mistress of the house. He bowed in silence, whilst
+she, likewise silent, returned his bow with modest reserve, the tact
+appropriate to the occasion, such as no /ingenue/, even at the Comedie,
+was then capable of. And while the Baron accompanied the priest to the
+door, she returned to the /salon/ with Duthil, who was scarcely screened
+by the door-curtain before he passed his arm round her waist.
+
+When Pierre, who at last felt confident of success, found himself, still
+in his cab, in front of the Princess de Harn's mansion in the Avenue
+Kleber, he suddenly relapsed into great embarrassment. The avenue was
+crowded with carriages brought thither by the musical /matinee/, and such
+a throng of arriving guests pressed round the entrance, decorated with a
+kind of tent with scallopings of red velvet, that he deemed the house
+unapproachable. How could he manage to get in? And how in his cassock
+could he reach the Princess, and ask for a minute's conversation with
+Baroness Duvillard? Amidst all his feverishness he had not thought of
+these difficulties. However, he was approaching the door on foot, asking
+himself how he might glide unperceived through the throng, when the sound
+of a merry voice made him turn: "What, Monsieur l'Abbe! Is it possible!
+So now I find you here!"
+
+It was little Massot who spoke. He went everywhere, witnessed ten sights
+a day,--a parliamentary sitting, a funeral, a wedding, any festive or
+mourning scene,--when he wanted a good subject for an article. "What!
+Monsieur l'Abbe," he resumed, "and so you have come to our amiable
+Princess's to see the Mauritanians dance!"
+
+He was jesting, for the so-called Mauritanians were simply six Spanish
+dancing-girls, who by the sensuality of their performance were then
+making all Paris rush to the Folies-Bergere. For drawing-room
+entertainments these girls reserved yet more indecorous dances--dances of
+such a character indeed that they would certainly not have been allowed
+in a theatre. And the /beau monde/ rushed to see them at the houses of
+the bolder lady-entertainers, the eccentric and foreign ones like the
+Princess, who in order to draw society recoiled from no "attraction."
+
+But when Pierre had explained to little Massot that he was still running
+about on the same business, the journalist obligingly offered to pilot
+him. He knew the house, obtained admittance by a back door, and brought
+Pierre along a passage into a corner of the hall, near the very entrance
+of the grand drawing-room. Lofty green plants decorated this hall, and in
+the spot selected Pierre was virtually hidden. "Don't stir, my dear
+Abbe," said Massot, "I will try to ferret out the Princess for you. And
+you shall know if Baroness Duvillard has already arrived."
+
+What surprised Pierre was that every window-shutter of the mansion was
+closed, every chink stopped up so that daylight might not enter, and that
+every room flared with electric lamps, an illumination of supernatural
+intensity. The heat was already very great, the atmosphere heavy with a
+violent perfume of flowers and /odore di femina/. And to Pierre, who felt
+both blinded and stifled, it seemed as if he were entering one of those
+luxurious, unearthly Dens of the Flesh such as the pleasure-world of
+Paris conjures from dreamland. By rising on tiptoes, as the drawing-room
+entrance was wide open, he could distinguish the backs of the women who
+were already seated, rows of necks crowned with fair or dark hair. The
+Mauritanians were doubtless executing their first dance. He did not see
+them, but he could divine the lascivious passion of the dance from the
+quiver of all those women's necks, which swayed as beneath a great gust
+of wind. Then laughter arose and a tempest of bravos, quite a tumult of
+enjoyment.
+
+"I can't put my hand on the Princess; you must wait a little," Massot
+returned to say. "I met Janzen and he promised to bring her to me. Don't
+you know Janzen?"
+
+Then, in part because his profession willed it, and in part for
+pleasure's sake, he began to gossip. The Princess was a good friend of
+his. He had described her first /soiree/ during the previous year, when
+she had made her /debut/ at that mansion on her arrival in Paris. He knew
+the real truth about her so far as it could be known. Rich? yes, perhaps
+she was, for she spent enormous sums. Married she must have been, and to
+a real prince, too; no doubt she was still married to him, in spite of
+her story of widowhood. Indeed, it seemed certain that her husband, who
+was as handsome as an archangel, was travelling about with a vocalist. As
+for having a bee in her bonnet that was beyond discussion, as clear as
+noonday. Whilst showing much intelligence, she constantly and suddenly
+shifted. Incapable of any prolonged effort, she went from one thing that
+had awakened her curiosity to another, never attaching herself anywhere.
+After ardently busying herself with painting, she had lately become
+impassioned for chemistry, and was now letting poetry master her.
+
+"And so you don't know Janzen," continued Massot. "It was he who threw
+her into chemistry, into the study of explosives especially, for, as you
+may imagine, the only interest in chemistry for her is its connection
+with Anarchism. She, I think, is really an Austrian, though one must
+always doubt anything she herself says. As for Janzen, he calls himself a
+Russian, but he's probably German. Oh! he's the most unobtrusive,
+enigmatical man in the world, without a home, perhaps without a name--a
+terrible fellow with an unknown past. I myself hold proofs which make me
+think that he took part in that frightful crime at Barcelona. At all
+events, for nearly a year now I've been meeting him in Paris, where the
+police no doubt are watching him. And nothing can rid me of the idea that
+he merely consented to become our lunatic Princess's lover in order to
+throw the detectives off the scent. He affects to live in the midst of
+/fetes/, and he has introduced to the house some extraordinary people,
+Anarchists of all nationalities and all colours--for instance, one
+Raphanel, that fat, jovial little man yonder, a Frenchman he is, and his
+companions would do well to mistrust him. Then there's a Bergaz, a
+Spaniard, I think, an obscure jobber at the Bourse, whose sensual,
+blobber-lipped mouth is so disquieting. And there are others and others,
+adventurers and bandits from the four corners of the earth! . . . Ah! the
+foreign colonies of our Parisian pleasure-world! There are a few spotless
+fine names, a few real great fortunes among them, but as for the rest,
+ah! what a herd!"
+
+Rosemonde's own drawing-room was summed up in those words: resounding
+titles, real millionaires, then, down below, the most extravagant medley
+of international imposture and turpitude. And Pierre thought of that
+internationalism, that cosmopolitanism, that flight of foreigners which,
+ever denser and denser, swooped down upon Paris. Most certainly it came
+thither to enjoy it, as to a city of adventure and delight, and it helped
+to rot it a little more. Was it then a necessary thing, that
+decomposition of the great cities which have governed the world, that
+affluxion of every passion, every desire, every gratification, that
+accumulation of reeking soil from all parts of the world, there where, in
+beauty and intelligence, blooms the flower of civilisation?
+
+However, Janzen appeared, a tall, thin fellow of about thirty, very fair
+with grey, pale, harsh eyes, and a pointed beard and flowing curly hair
+which elongated his livid, cloudy face. He spoke indifferent French in a
+low voice and without a gesture. And he declared that the Princess could
+not be found; he had looked for her everywhere. Possibly, if somebody had
+displeased her, she had shut herself up in her room and gone to bed,
+leaving her guests to amuse themselves in all freedom in whatever way
+they might choose.
+
+"Why, but here she is!" suddenly said Massot.
+
+Rosemonde was indeed there, in the vestibule, watching the door as if she
+expected somebody. Short, slight, and strange rather than pretty, with
+her delicate face, her sea-green eyes, her small quivering nose, her
+rather large and over-ruddy mouth, which was parted so that one could see
+her superb teeth, she that day wore a sky-blue gown spangled with silver;
+and she had silver bracelets on her arms and a silver circlet in her pale
+brown hair, which rained down in curls and frizzy, straggling locks as
+though waving in a perpetual breeze.
+
+"Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said to Pierre as soon as
+she knew his business. "If they don't take your old man in at our asylum,
+send him to me, I'll take him, I will; I will sleep him somewhere here."
+
+Still, she remained disturbed, and continually glanced towards the door.
+And on the priest asking if Baroness Duvillard had yet arrived, "Why no!"
+she cried, "and I am much surprised at it. She is to bring her son and
+daughter. Yesterday, Hyacinthe positively promised me that he would
+come."
+
+There lay her new caprice. If her passion for chemistry was giving way to
+a budding taste for decadent, symbolical verse, it was because one
+evening, whilst discussing Occultism with Hyacinthe, she had discovered
+an extraordinary beauty in him: the astral beauty of Nero's wandering
+soul! At least, said she, the signs of it were certain.
+
+And all at once she quitted Pierre: "Ah, at last!" she cried, feeling
+relieved and happy. Then she darted forward: Hyacinthe was coming in with
+his sister Camille.
+
+On the very threshold, however, he had just met the friend on whose
+account he was there, young Lord George Eldrett, a pale and languid
+stripling with the hair of a girl; and he scarcely condescended to notice
+the tender greeting of Rosemonde, for he professed to regard woman as an
+impure and degrading creature. Distressed by such coldness, she followed
+the two young men, returning in their rear into the reeking, blinding
+furnace of the drawing-room.
+
+Massot, however, had been obliging enough to stop Camille and bring her
+to Pierre, who at the first words they exchanged relapsed into despair.
+"What, mademoiselle, has not madame your mother accompanied you here?"
+
+The girl, clad according to her wont in a dark gown, this time of
+peacock-blue, was nervous, with wicked eyes and sibilant voice. And as
+she ragefully drew up her little figure, her deformity, her left shoulder
+higher than the right one, became more apparent than ever. "No," she
+rejoined, "she was unable. She had something to try on at her
+dressmaker's. We stopped too long at the Exposition du Lis, and she
+requested us to set her down at Salmon's door on our way here."
+
+It was Camille herself who had skilfully prolonged the visit to the art
+show, still hoping to prevent her mother from meeting Gerard. And her
+rage arose from the ease with which her mother had got rid of her, thanks
+to that falsehood of having something to try on.
+
+"But," ingenuously said Pierre, "if I went at once to this person Salmon,
+I might perhaps be able to send up my card."
+
+Camille gave a shrill laugh, so funny did the idea appear to her. Then
+she retorted: "Oh! who knows if you would still find her there? She had
+another pressing appointment, and is no doubt already keeping it!"
+
+"Well, then, I will wait for her here. She will surely come to fetch you,
+will she not?"
+
+"Fetch us? Oh no! since I tell you that she has other important affairs
+to attend to. The carriage will take us home alone, my brother and I."
+
+Increasing bitterness was infecting the girl's pain-fraught irony. Did he
+not understand her then, that priest who asked such naive questions which
+were like dagger-thrusts in her heart? Yet he must know, since everybody
+knew the truth.
+
+"Ah! how worried I am," Pierre resumed, so grieved indeed that tears
+almost came to his eyes. "It's still on account of that poor man about
+whom I have been busying myself since this morning. I have a line from
+your father, and Monsieur Gerard told me--" But at this point he paused
+in confusion, and amidst all his thoughtlessness of the world, absorbed
+as he was in the one passion of charity, he suddenly divined the truth.
+"Yes," he added mechanically, "I just now saw your father again with
+Monsieur de Quinsac."
+
+"I know, I know," replied Camille, with the suffering yet scoffing air of
+a girl who is ignorant of nothing. "Well, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you have a
+line from papa for mamma, you must wait till mamma has finished her
+business. You might come to the house about six o'clock, but I doubt if
+you'll find her there, as she may well be detained."
+
+While Camille thus spoke, her murderous eyes glistened, and each word she
+uttered, simple as it seemed, became instinct with ferocity, as if it
+were a knife, which she would have liked to plunge into her mother's
+breast. In all certainty she had never before hated her mother to such a
+point as this in her envy of her beauty and her happiness in being loved.
+And the irony which poured from the girl's virgin lips, before that
+simple priest, was like a flood of mire with which she sought to submerge
+her rival.
+
+Just then, however, Rosemonde came back again, feverish and flurried as
+usual. And she led Camille away: "Ah, my dear, make haste. They are
+extraordinary, delightful, intoxicating!"
+
+Janzen and little Massot also followed the Princess. All the men hastened
+from the adjoining rooms, scrambled and plunged into the /salon/ at the
+news that the Mauritanians had again begun to dance. That time it must
+have been the frantic, lascivious gallop that Paris whispered about, for
+Pierre saw the rows of necks and heads, now fair, now dark, wave and
+quiver as beneath a violent wind. With every window-shutter closed, the
+conflagration of the electric lamps turned the place into a perfect
+brazier, reeking with human effluvia. And there came a spell of rapture,
+fresh laughter and bravos, all the delight of an overflowing orgy.
+
+When Pierre again found himself on the footwalk, he remained for a moment
+bewildered, blinking, astonished to be in broad daylight once more.
+Half-past four would soon strike, but he had nearly two hours to wait
+before calling at the house in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What should he
+do? He paid his driver; preferring to descend the Champs Elysees on foot,
+since he had some time to lose. A walk, moreover, might calm the fever
+which was burning his hands, in the passion of charity which ever since
+the morning had been mastering him more and more, in proportion as he
+encountered fresh and fresh obstacles. He now had but one pressing
+desire, to complete his good work, since success henceforth seemed
+certain. And he tried to restrain his steps and walk leisurely down the
+magnificent avenue, which had now been dried by the bright sun, and was
+enlivened by a concourse of people, while overhead the sky was again
+blue, lightly blue, as in springtime.
+
+Nearly two hours to lose while, yonder, the wretched Laveuve lay with
+life ebbing from him on his bed of rags, in his icy den. Sudden feelings
+of revolt, of well-nigh irresistible impatience ascended from Pierre's
+heart, making him quiver with desire to run off and at once find Baroness
+Duvillard so as to obtain from her the all-saving order. He felt sure
+that she was somewhere near, in one of those quiet neighbouring streets,
+and great was his perturbation, his grief-fraught anger at having to wait
+in this wise to save a human life until she should have attended to those
+affairs of hers, of which her daughter spoke with such murderous glances!
+He seemed to hear a formidable cracking, the family life of the
+/bourgeoisie/ was collapsing: the father was at a hussy's house, the
+mother with a lover, the son and daughter knew everything; the former
+gliding to idiotic perversity, the latter enraged and dreaming of
+stealing her mother's lover to make a husband of him. And meantime the
+splendid equipages descended the triumphal avenue, and the crowd with its
+luxury flowed along the sidewalks, one and all joyous and superb,
+seemingly with no idea that somewhere at the far end there was a gaping
+abyss wherein everyone of them would fall and be annihilated!
+
+When Pierre got as far as the Summer Circus he was much surprised at
+again seeing Salvat, the journeyman engineer, on one of the avenue seats.
+He must have sunk down there, overcome by weariness and hunger, after
+many a vain search. However, his jacket was still distended by something
+he carried in or under it, some bit of bread, no doubt, which he meant to
+take home with him. And leaning back, with his arms hanging listlessly,
+he was watching with dreamy eyes the play of some very little children,
+who, with the help of their wooden spades, were laboriously raising
+mounds of sand, and then destroying them by dint of kicks. As he looked
+at them his red eyelids moistened, and a very gentle smile appeared on
+his poor discoloured lips. This time Pierre, penetrated by disquietude,
+wished to approach and question him. But Salvat distrustfully rose and
+went off towards the Circus, where a concert was drawing to a close; and
+he prowled around the entrance of that festive edifice in which two
+thousand happy people were heaped up together listening to music.
+
+
+
+V
+
+FROM RELIGION TO ANARCHY
+
+AS Pierre was reaching the Place de la Concorde he suddenly remembered
+the appointment which Abbe Rose had given him for five o'clock at the
+Madeleine, and which he was forgetting in the feverishness born of his
+repeated steps to save Laveuve. And at thought of it he hastened on, well
+pleased at having this appointment to occupy and keep him patient.
+
+When he entered the church he was surprised to find it so dark. There
+were only a few candles burning, huge shadows were flooding the nave, and
+amidst the semi-obscurity a very loud, clear voice spoke on with a
+ceaseless streaming of words. All that one could at first distinguish of
+the numerous congregation was a pale, vague mass of heads, motionless
+with extreme attention. In the pulpit stood Monseigneur Martha, finishing
+his third address on the New Spirit. The two former ones had re-echoed
+far and wide, and so what is called "all Paris" was there--women of
+society, politicians, and writers, who were captivated by the speaker's
+artistic oratory, his warm, skilful language, and his broad, easy
+gestures, worthy of a great actor.
+
+Pierre did not wish to disturb the solemn attention, the quivering
+silence above which the prelate's voice alone rang out. Accordingly he
+resolved to wait before seeking Abbe Rose, and remained standing near a
+pillar. A parting gleam of daylight fell obliquely on Monseigneur Martha,
+who looked tall and sturdy in his white surplice, and scarcely showed a
+grey hair, although he was more than fifty. He had handsome features:
+black, keen eyes, a commanding nose, a mouth and chin of the greatest
+firmness of contour. What more particularly struck one, however, what
+gained the heart of every listener, was the expression of extreme
+amiability and anxious sympathy which ever softened the imperious
+haughtiness of the prelate's face.
+
+Pierre had formerly known him as Cure, or parish priest, of Ste.
+Clotilde. He was doubtless of Italian origin, but he had been born in
+Paris, and had quitted the seminary of St. Sulpice with the best possible
+record. Very intelligent and very ambitious, he had evinced an activity
+which even made his superiors anxious. Then, on being appointed Bishop of
+Persepolis, he had disappeared, gone to Rome, where he had spent five
+years engaged in work of which very little was known. However, since his
+return he had been astonishing Paris by his brilliant propaganda, busying
+himself with the most varied affairs, and becoming much appreciated and
+very powerful at the archiepiscopal residence. He devoted himself in
+particular, and with wonderful results, to the task of increasing the
+subscriptions for the completion of the basilica of the Sacred Heart. He
+recoiled from nothing, neither from journeys, nor lectures, nor
+collections, nor applications to Government, nor even endeavours among
+Israelites and Freemasons. And at last, again enlarging his sphere of
+action, he had undertaken to reconcile Science with Catholicism, and to
+bring all Christian France to the Republic, on all sides expounding the
+policy of Pope Leo XIII., in order that the Church might finally triumph.
+
+However, in spite of the advances of this influential and amiable man,
+Pierre scarcely liked him. He only felt grateful to him for one thing,
+the appointment of good Abbe Rose as curate at St. Pierre de Montmartre,
+which appointment he had secured for him no doubt in order to prevent
+such a scandal as the punishment of an old priest for showing himself too
+charitable. On thus finding and hearing the prelate speak in that
+renowned pulpit of the Madeleine, still and ever pursuing his work of
+conquest, Pierre remembered how he had seen him at the Duvillards' during
+the previous spring, when, with his usual /maestria/, he had achieved his
+greatest triumph--the conversion of Eve to Catholicism. That church, too,
+had witnessed her baptism, a wonderfully pompous ceremony, a perfect gala
+offered to the public which figures in all the great events of Parisian
+life. Gerard had knelt down, moved to tears, whilst the Baron triumphed
+like a good-natured husband who was happy to find religion establishing
+perfect harmony in his household. It was related among the spectators
+that Eve's family, and particularly old Justus Steinberger, her father,
+was not in reality much displeased by the affair. The old man sneeringly
+remarked, indeed, that he knew his daughter well enough to wish her to
+belong to his worst enemy. In the banking business there is a class of
+security which one is pleased to see discounted by one's rivals. With the
+stubborn hope of triumph peculiar to his race, Justus, consoling himself
+for the failure of his first scheme, doubtless considered that Eve would
+prove a powerful dissolving agent in the Christian family which she had
+entered, and thus help to make all wealth and power fall into the hands
+of the Jews.
+
+However, Pierre's vision faded. Monseigneur Martha's voice was rising
+with increase of volume, celebrating, amidst the quivering of the
+congregation, the benefits that would accrue from the New Spirit, which
+was at last about to pacify France and restore her to her due rank and
+power. Were there not certain signs of this resurrection on every hand?
+The New Spirit was the revival of the Ideal, the protest of the soul
+against degrading materialism, the triumph of spirituality over filthy
+literature; and it was also Science accepted, but set in its proper
+place, reconciled with Faith, since it no longer pretended to encroach on
+the latter's sacred domain; and it was further the Democracy welcomed in
+fatherly fashion, the Republic legitimated, recognised in her turn as
+Eldest Daughter of the Church. A breath of poetry passed by. The Church
+opened her heart to all her children, there would henceforth be but
+concord and delight if the masses, obedient to the New Spirit, would give
+themselves to the Master of love as they had given themselves to their
+kings, recognising that the Divinity was the one unique power, absolute
+sovereign of both body and soul.
+
+Pierre was now listening attentively, wondering where it was that he had
+previously heard almost identical words. And suddenly he remembered; and
+could fancy that he was again at Rome, listening to the last words of
+Monsignor Nani, the Assessor of the Holy Office. Here, again, he found
+the dream of a democratic Pope, ceasing to support the compromised
+monarchies, and seeking to subdue the masses. Since Caesar was down, or
+nearly so, might not the Pope realise the ancient ambition of his
+forerunners and become both emperor and pontiff, the sovereign, universal
+divinity on earth? This, too, was the dream in which Pierre himself, with
+apostolic naivete, had indulged when writing his book, "New Rome": a
+dream from which the sight of the real Rome had so roughly roused him. At
+bottom it was merely a policy of hypocritical falsehood, the priestly
+policy which relies on time, and is ever tenacious, carrying on the work
+of conquest with extraordinary suppleness, resolved to profit by
+everything. And what an evolution it was, the Church of Rome making
+advances to Science, to the Democracy, to the Republican /regimes/,
+convinced that it would be able to devour them if only it were allowed
+the time! Ah! yes, the New Spirit was simply the Old Spirit of
+Domination, incessantly reviving and hungering to conquer and possess the
+world.
+
+Pierre thought that he recognised among the congregation certain deputies
+whom he had seen at the Chamber. Wasn't that tall gentleman with the fair
+beard, who listened so devoutly, one of Monferrand's creatures? It was
+said that Monferrand, once a devourer of priests, was now smilingly
+coquetting with the clergy. Quite an underhand evolution was beginning in
+the sacristies, orders from Rome flitted hither and thither; it was a
+question of accepting the new form of government, and absorbing it by
+dint of invasion. France was still the Eldest Daughter of the Church, the
+only great nation which had sufficient health and strength to place the
+Pope in possession of his temporal power once more. So France must be
+won; it was well worth one's while to espouse her, even if she were
+Republican. In the eager struggle of ambition the bishop made use of the
+minister, who thought it to his interest to lean upon the bishop. But
+which of the two would end by devouring the other? And to what a /role/
+had religion sunk: an electoral weapon, an element in a parliamentary
+majority, a decisive, secret reason for obtaining or retaining a
+ministerial portfolio! Of divine charity, the basis of religion, there
+was no thought, and Pierre's heart filled with bitterness as he
+remembered the recent death of Cardinal Bergerot, the last of the great
+saints and pure minds of the French episcopacy, among which there now
+seemed to be merely a set of intriguers and fools.
+
+However, the address was drawing to a close. In a glowing peroration,
+which evoked the basilica of the Sacred Heart dominating Paris with the
+saving symbol of the Cross from the sacred Mount of the Martyrs,*
+Monseigneur Martha showed that great city of Paris Christian once more
+and master of the world, thanks to the moral omnipotence conferred upon
+it by the divine breath of the New Spirit. Unable to applaud, the
+congregation gave utterance to a murmur of approving rapture, delighted
+as it was with this miraculous finish which reassured both pocket and
+conscience. Then Monseigneur Martha quitted the pulpit with a noble step,
+whilst a loud noise of chairs broke upon the dark peacefulness of the
+church, where the few lighted candles glittered like the first stars in
+the evening sky. A long stream of men, vague, whispering shadows, glided
+away. The women alone remained, praying on their knees.
+
+  * Montmartre.
+
+Pierre, still in the same spot, was rising on tip-toes, looking for Abbe
+Rose, when a hand touched him. It was that of the old priest, who had
+seen him from a distance. "I was yonder near the pulpit," said he, "and I
+saw you plainly, my dear child. Only I preferred to wait so as to disturb
+nobody. What a beautiful address dear Monseigneur delivered!"
+
+He seemed, indeed, much moved. But there was deep sadness about his
+kindly mouth and clear childlike eyes, whose smile as a rule illumined
+his good, round white face. "I was afraid you might go off without seeing
+me," he resumed, "for I have something to tell you. You know that poor
+old man to whom I sent you this morning and in whom I asked you to
+interest yourself? Well, on getting home I found a lady there, who
+sometimes brings me a little money for my poor. Then I thought to myself
+that the three francs I gave you were really too small a sum, and as the
+thought worried me like a kind of remorse, I couldn't resist the impulse,
+but went this afternoon to the Rue des Saules myself."
+
+He lowered his voice from a feeling of respect, in order not to disturb
+the deep, sepulchral silence of the church. Covert shame, moreover,
+impeded his utterance, shame at having again relapsed into the sin of
+blind, imprudent charity, as his superiors reproachfully said. And,
+quivering, he concluded in a very low voice indeed: "And so, my child,
+picture my grief. I had five francs more to give the poor old man, and I
+found him dead."
+
+Pierre suddenly shuddered. But he was unwilling to understand: "What,
+dead!" he cried. "That old man dead! Laveuve dead?"
+
+"Yes, I found him dead--ah! amidst what frightful wretchedness, like an
+old animal that has laid itself down for the finish on a heap of rags in
+the depths of a hole. No neighbours had assisted him in his last moments;
+he had simply turned himself towards the wall. And ah! how bare and cold
+and deserted it was! And what a pang for a poor creature to go off like
+that without a word, a caress. Ah! my heart bounded within me and it is
+still bleeding!"
+
+Pierre in his utter amazement at first made but a gesture of revolt
+against imbecile social cruelty. Had the bread left near the unfortunate
+wretch, and devoured too eagerly, perhaps, after long days of abstinence,
+been the cause of his death? Or was not this rather the fatal
+/denouement/ of an ended life, worn away by labour and privation?
+However, what did the cause signify? Death had come and delivered the
+poor man. "It isn't he that I pity," Pierre muttered at last; "it is
+we--we who witness all that, we who are guilty of these abominations."
+
+But good Abbe Rose was already becoming resigned, and would only think of
+forgiveness and hope. "No, no, my child, rebellion is evil. If we are all
+guilty we can only implore Providence to forget our faults. I had given
+you an appointment here hoping for good news; and it's I who come to tell
+you of that frightful thing. Let us be penitent and pray."
+
+Then he knelt upon the flagstones near the pillar, in the rear of the
+praying women, who looked black and vague in the gloom. And he inclined
+his white head, and for a long time remained in a posture of humility.
+
+But Pierre was unable to pray, so powerfully did revolt stir him. He did
+not even bend his knees, but remained erect and quivering. His heart
+seemed to have been crushed; not a tear came to his ardent eyes. So
+Laveuve had died yonder, stretched on his litter of rags, his hands
+clenched in his obstinate desire to cling to his life of torture, whilst
+he, Pierre, again glowing with the flame of charity, consumed by
+apostolic zeal, was scouring Paris to find him for the evening a clean
+bed on which he might be saved. Ah! the atrocious irony of it all! He
+must have been at the Duvillards' in the warm /salon/, all blue and
+silver, whilst the old man was expiring; and it was for a wretched corpse
+that he had then hastened to the Chamber of Deputies, to the Countess de
+Quinsac's, to that creature Silviane's, and to that creature Rosemonde's.
+And it was for that corpse, freed from life, escaped from misery as from
+prison, that he had worried people, broken in upon their egotism,
+disturbed the peace of some, threatened the pleasures of others! What was
+the use of hastening from the parliamentary den to the cold /salon/ where
+the dust of the past was congealing; of going from the sphere of
+middle-class debauchery to that of cosmopolitan extravagance, since one
+always arrived too late, and saved people when they were already dead?
+How ridiculous to have allowed himself to be fired once more by that
+blaze of charity, that final conflagration, only the ashes of which he
+now felt within him? This time he thought he was dead himself; he was
+naught but an empty sepulchre.
+
+And all the frightful void and chaos which he had felt that morning at
+the basilica of the Sacred Heart after his mass became yet deeper,
+henceforth unfathomable. If charity were illusory and useless the Gospel
+crumbled, the end of the Book was nigh. After centuries of stubborn
+efforts, Redemption through Christianity failed, and another means of
+salvation was needed by the world in presence of the exasperated thirst
+for justice which came from the duped and wretched nations. They would
+have no more of that deceptive paradise, the promise of which had so long
+served to prop up social iniquity; they demanded that the question of
+happiness should be decided upon this earth. But how? By means of what
+new religion, what combination between the sentiment of the Divine and
+the necessity for honouring life in its sovereignty and its fruitfulness?
+Therein lay the grievous, torturing problem, into the midst of which
+Pierre was sinking; he, a priest, severed by vows of chastity and
+superstition from the rest of mankind.
+
+He had ceased to believe in the efficacy of alms; it was not sufficient
+that one should be charitable, henceforth one must be just. Given
+justice, indeed, horrid misery would disappear, and no such thing as
+charity would be needed. Most certainly there was no lack of
+compassionate hearts in that grievous city of Paris; charitable
+foundations sprouted forth there like green leaves at the first warmth of
+springtide. There were some for every age, every peril, every misfortune.
+Through the concern shown for mothers, children were succoured even
+before they were born; then came the infant and orphan asylums lavishly
+provided for all sorts of classes; and, afterwards, man was followed
+through his life, help was tendered on all sides, particularly as he grew
+old, by a multiplicity of asylums, almshouses, and refuges. And there
+were all the hands stretched out to the forsaken ones, the disinherited
+ones, even the criminals, all sorts of associations to protect the weak,
+societies for the prevention of crime, homes that offered hospitality to
+those who repented. Whether as regards the propagation of good deeds, the
+support of the young, the saving of life, the bestowal of pecuniary help,
+or the promotion of guilds, pages and pages would have been needed merely
+to particularise the extraordinary vegetation of charity that sprouted
+between the paving-stones of Paris with so fine a vigour, in which
+goodness of soul was mingled with social vanity. Still that could not
+matter, since charity redeemed and purified all. But how terrible the
+proposition that this charity was a useless mockery! What! after so many
+centuries of Christian charity not a sore had healed. Misery had only
+grown and spread, irritated even to rage. Incessantly aggravated, the
+evil was reaching the point when it would be impossible to tolerate it
+for another day, since social injustice was neither arrested nor even
+diminished thereby. And besides, if only one single old man died of cold
+and hunger, did not the social edifice, raised on the theory of charity,
+collapse? But one victim, and society was condemned, thought Pierre.
+
+He now felt such bitterness of heart that he could remain no longer in
+that church where the shadows ever slowly fell, blurring the sanctuaries
+and the large pale images of Christ nailed upon the Cross. All was about
+to sink into darkness, and he could hear nothing beyond an expiring
+murmur of prayers, a plaint from the women who were praying on their
+knees, in the depths of the shrouding gloom.
+
+At the same time he hardly liked to go off without saying a word to Abbe
+Rose, who in his entreaties born of simple faith left the happiness and
+peace of mankind to the good pleasure of the Invisible. However, fearing
+that he might disturb him, Pierre was making up his mind to retire, when
+the old priest of his own accord raised his head. "Ah, my child," said
+he, "how difficult it is to be good in a reasonable manner. Monseigneur
+Martha has scolded me again, and but for the forgiveness of God I should
+fear for my salvation."
+
+For a moment Pierre paused under the porticus of the Madeleine, on the
+summit of the great flight of steps which, rising above the railings,
+dominates the Place. Before him was the Rue Royale dipping down to the
+expanse of the Place de la Concorde, where rose the obelisk and the pair
+of plashing fountains. And, farther yet, the paling colonnade of the
+Chamber of Deputies bounded the horizon. It was a vista of sovereign
+grandeur under that pale sky over which twilight was slowly stealing, and
+which seemed to broaden the thoroughfares, throw back the edifices, and
+lend them the quivering, soaring aspect of the palaces of dreamland. No
+other capital in the world could boast a scene of such aerial pomp, such
+grandiose magnificence, at that hour of vagueness, when falling night
+imparts to cities a dreamy semblance, the infinite of human immensity.
+
+Motionless and hesitating in presence of the opening expanse, Pierre
+distressfully pondered as to whither he should go now that all which he
+had so passionately sought to achieve since the morning had suddenly
+crumbled away. Was he still bound for the Duvillard mansion in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy? He no longer knew. Then the exasperating remembrance,
+with its cruel irony, returned to him. Since Laveuve was dead, of what
+use was it for him to kill time and perambulate the pavements pending the
+arrival of six o'clock? The idea that he had a home, and that the most
+simple course would be to return to it, did not even occur to him. He
+felt as if there were something of importance left for him to do, though
+he could not possibly tell what it might be. It seemed to him to be
+everywhere and yet very far away, to be so vague and so difficult of
+accomplishment that he would certainly never be in time or have
+sufficient power to do it. However, with heavy feet and tumultuous brain
+he descended the steps and, yielding to some obstinate impulse, began to
+walk through the flower-market, a late winter market where the first
+azaleas were opening with a little shiver. Some women were purchasing
+Nice roses and violets; and Pierre looked at them as if he were
+interested in all that soft, delicate, perfumed luxury. But suddenly he
+felt a horror of it and went off, starting along the Boulevards.
+
+He walked straight before him without knowing why or whither. The falling
+darkness surprised him as if it were an unexpected phenomenon. Raising
+his eyes to the sky he felt astonished at seeing its azure gently pale
+between the slender black streaks of the chimney funnels. And the huge
+golden letters by which names or trades were advertised on every balcony
+also seemed to him singular in the last gleams of the daylight. Never
+before had he paid attention to the motley tints seen on the
+house-fronts, the painted mirrors, the blinds, the coats of arms, the
+posters of violent hues, the magnificent shops, like drawing-rooms and
+boudoirs open to the full light. And then, both in the roadway and along
+the foot-pavements, between the blue, red or yellow columns and kiosks,
+what mighty traffic there was, what an extraordinary crowd! The vehicles
+rolled along in a thundering stream: on all sides billows of cabs were
+parted by the ponderous tacking of huge omnibuses, which suggested lofty,
+bright-hued battle-ships. And on either hand, and farther and farther,
+and even among the wheels, the flood of passengers rushed on incessantly,
+with the conquering haste of ants in a state of revolution. Whence came
+all those people, and whither were all those vehicles going? How
+stupefying and torturing it all was.
+
+Pierre was still walking straight ahead, mechanically, carried on by his
+gloomy reverie. Night was coming, the first gas-burners were being
+lighted; it was the dusk of Paris, the hour when real darkness has not
+yet come, when the electric lights flame in the dying day. Lamps shone
+forth on all sides, the shop-fronts were being illumined. Soon, moreover,
+right along the Boulevards the vehicles would carry their vivid starry
+lights, like a milky way on the march betwixt the foot-pavements all
+glowing with lanterns and cordons and girandoles, a dazzling profusion of
+radiance akin to sunlight. And the shouts of the drivers and the jostling
+of the foot passengers re-echoed the parting haste of the Paris which is
+all business or passion, which is absorbed in the merciless struggle for
+love and for money. The hard day was over, and now the Paris of Pleasure
+was lighting up for its night of /fete/. The cafes, the wine shops, the
+restaurants, flared and displayed their bright metal bars, and their
+little white tables behind their clear and lofty windows, whilst near
+their doors, by way of temptation, were oysters and choice fruits. And
+the Paris which was thus awaking with the first flashes of the gas was
+already full of the gaiety of enjoyment, already yielding to an unbridled
+appetite for whatsoever may be purchased.
+
+However, Pierre had a narrow escape from being knocked down. A flock of
+newspaper hawkers came out of a side street, and darted through the crowd
+shouting the titles of the evening journals. A fresh edition of the "Voix
+du Peuple" gave rise, in particular, to a deafening clamour, which rose
+above all the rumbling of wheels. At regular intervals hoarse voices
+raised and repeated the cry: "Ask for the 'Voix du Peuple'--the new
+scandal of the African Railway Lines, the repulse of the ministry, the
+thirty-two bribe-takers of the Chamber and the Senate!" And these
+announcements, set in huge type, could be read on the copies of the
+paper, which the hawkers flourished like banners. Accustomed as it was to
+such filth, saturated with infamy, the crowd continued on its way without
+paying much attention. Still a few men paused and bought the paper, while
+painted women, who had come down to the Boulevards in search of a dinner,
+trailed their skirts and waited for some chance lover, glancing
+interrogatively at the outside customers of the cafes. And meantime the
+dishonouring shout of the newspaper hawkers, that cry in which there was
+both smirch and buffet, seemed like the last knell of the day, ringing
+the nation's funeral at the outset of the night of pleasure which was
+beginning.
+
+Then Pierre once more remembered his morning and that frightful house in
+the Rue des Saules, where so much want and suffering were heaped up. He
+again saw the yard filthy like a quagmire, the evil-smelling staircases,
+the sordid, bare, icy rooms, the families fighting for messes which even
+stray dogs would not have eaten; the mothers, with exhausted breasts,
+carrying screaming children to and fro; the old men who fell in corners
+like brute beasts, and died of hunger amidst filth. And then came his
+other hours with the magnificence or the quietude or the gaiety of the
+/salons/ through which he had passed, the whole insolent display of
+financial Paris, and political Paris, and society Paris. And at last he
+came to the dusk, and to that Paris-Sodom and Paris-Gomorrah before him,
+which was lighting itself up for the night, for the abominations of that
+accomplice night which, like fine dust, was little by little submerging
+the expanse of roofs. And the hateful monstrosity of it all howled aloud
+under the pale sky where the first pure, twinkling stars were gleaming.
+
+A great shudder came upon Pierre as he thought of all that mass of
+iniquity and suffering, of all that went on below amid want and crime,
+and all that went on above amid wealth and vice. The /bourgeoisie/,
+wielding power, would relinquish naught of the sovereignty which it had
+conquered, wholly stolen, while the people, the eternal dupe, silent so
+long, clenched its fists and growled, claiming its legitimate share. And
+it was that frightful injustice which filled the growing gloom with
+anger. From what dark-breasted cloud would the thunderbolt fall? For
+years he had been waiting for that thunderbolt which low rumbles
+announced on all points of the horizon. And if he had written a book full
+of candour and hope, if he had gone in all innocence to Rome, it was to
+avert that thunderbolt and its frightful consequences. But all hope of
+the kind was dead within him; he felt that the thunderbolt was
+inevitable, that nothing henceforth could stay the catastrophe. And never
+before had he felt it to be so near, amidst the happy impudence of some,
+and the exasperated distress of others. And it was gathering, and it
+would surely fall over that Paris, all lust and bravado, which, when
+evening came, thus stirred up its furnace.
+
+Tired out and distracted, Pierre raised his eyes as he reached the Place
+de l'Opera. Where was he then? The heart of the great city seemed to beat
+on this spot, in that vast expanse where met so many thoroughfares, as if
+from every point the blood of distant districts flowed thither along
+triumphal avenues. Right away to the horizon stretched the great gaps of
+the Avenue de l'Opera, the Rue du Quatre-Septembre, and the Rue de la
+Paix, still showing clearly in a final glimpse of daylight, but already
+starred with swarming sparks. The torrent of the Boulevard traffic poured
+across the Place, where clashed, too, all that from the neighbouring
+streets, with a constant turning and eddying which made the spot the most
+dangerous of whirlpools. In vain did the police seek to impose some
+little prudence, the stream of pedestrians still overflowed, wheels
+became entangled and horses reared amidst all the uproar of the human
+tide, which was as loud, as incessant, as the tempest voice of an ocean.
+Then there was the detached mass of the opera-house, slowly steeped in
+gloom, and rising huge and mysterious like a symbol, its lyre-bearing
+figure of Apollo, right aloft, showing a last reflection of daylight
+amidst the livid sky. And all the windows of the house-fronts began to
+shine, gaiety sprang from those thousands of lamps which coruscated one
+by one, a universal longing for ease and free gratification of each
+desire spread with the increasing darkness; whilst, at long intervals,
+the large globes of the electric lights shone as brightly as the moons of
+the city's cloudless nights.
+
+But why was he, Pierre, there, he asked himself, irritated and wondering.
+Since Laveuve was dead he had but to go home, bury himself in his nook,
+and close up door and windows, like one who was henceforth useless, who
+had neither belief nor hope, and awaited naught save annihilation. It was
+a long journey from the Place de l'Opera to his little house at Neuilly.
+Still, however great his weariness, he would not take a cab, but retraced
+his steps, turning towards the Madeleine again, and plunging into the
+scramble of the pavements, amidst the deafening uproar from the roadway,
+with a bitter desire to aggravate his wound and saturate himself with
+revolt and anger. Was it not yonder at the corner of that street, at the
+end of that Boulevard, that he would find the expected abyss into which
+that rotten world, whose old society he could hear rending at each step,
+must soon assuredly topple?
+
+However, when Pierre wished to cross the Rue Scribe a block in the
+traffic made him halt. In front of a luxurious cafe two tall,
+shabbily-clad and very dirty fellows were alternately offering the "Voix
+du Peuple" with its account of the scandals and the bribe-takers of the
+Chamber and the Senate, in voices so suggestive of cracked brass that
+passers-by clustered around them. And here, in a hesitating, wandering
+man, who after listening drew near to the large cafe and peered through
+its windows, Pierre was once again amazed to recognise Salvat. This time
+the meeting struck him forcibly, filled him with suspicion to such a
+point that he also stopped and resolved to watch the journeyman engineer.
+He did not expect that one of such wretched aspect, with what seemed to
+be a hunk of bread distending his old ragged jacket, would enter and seat
+himself at one of the cafe's little tables amidst the warm gaiety of the
+lamps. However, he waited for a moment, and then saw him wander away with
+slow and broken steps as if the cafe, which was nearly empty, did not
+suit him. What could he have been seeking, whither had he been going,
+since the morning, ever on a wild, solitary chase through the Paris of
+wealth and enjoyment while hunger dogged his steps? It was only with
+difficulty that he now dragged himself along, his will and energy seemed
+to be exhausted. As if quite overcome, he drew near to a kiosk, and for a
+moment leant against it. Then, however, he drew himself up again, and
+walked on further, still as it were in search of something.
+
+And now came an incident which brought Pierre's emotion to a climax. A
+tall sturdy man on turning out of the Rue Caumartin caught sight of
+Salvat, and approached him. And just as the new comer without false pride
+was shaking the workman's hand, Pierre recognised him as his brother
+Guillaume. Yes, it was indeed he, with his thick bushy hair already white
+like snow, though he was but seven and forty. However, his heavy
+moustaches had remained quite dark without one silver thread, thus
+lending an expression of vigorous life to his full face with its lofty
+towering brow. It was from his father that he had inherited that brow of
+impregnable logic and reason, similar to that which Pierre himself
+possessed. But the lower part of the elder brother's countenance was
+fuller than that of his junior; his nose was larger, his chin was square,
+and his mouth broad and firm of contour. A pale scar, the mark of an old
+wound, streaked his left temple. And his physiognomy, though it might at
+first seem very grave, rough, and unexpansive, beamed with masculine
+kindliness whenever a smile revealed his teeth, which had remained
+extremely white.
+
+While looking at his brother, Pierre remembered what Madame Theodore had
+told him that morning. Guillaume, touched by Salvat's dire want, had
+arranged to give him a few days' employment. And this explained the air
+of interest with which he now seemed to be questioning him, while the
+engineer, whom the meeting disturbed, stamped about as if eager to resume
+his mournful ramble. For a moment Guillaume appeared to notice the
+other's perturbation, by the embarrassed answers which he obtained from
+him. Still, they at last parted as if each were going his way. Then,
+however, almost immediately, Guillaume turned round again and watched the
+other, as with harassed stubborn mien he went off through the crowd. And
+the thoughts which had come to Guillaume must have been very serious and
+very pressing, for he all at once began to retrace his steps and follow
+the workman from a distance, as if to ascertain for certain what
+direction he would take.
+
+Pierre had watched the scene with growing disquietude. His nervous
+apprehension of some great unknown calamity, the suspicions born of his
+frequent and inexplicable meetings with Salvat, his surprise at now
+seeing his brother mingled with the affair, all helped to fill him with a
+pressing desire to know, witness, and perhaps prevent. So he did not
+hesitate, but began to follow the others in a prudent way.
+
+Fresh perturbation came upon him when first Salvat and then Guillaume
+suddenly turned into the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What destiny was thus
+bringing him back to that street whither a little time previously he had
+wished to return in feverish haste, and whence only the death of Laveuve
+had kept him? And his consternation increased yet further when, after
+losing sight of Salvat for a moment, he saw him standing in front of the
+Duvillard mansion, on the same spot where he had fancied he recognised
+him that morning. As it happened the carriage entrance of the mansion was
+wide open. Some repairs had been made to the paving of the porch, and
+although the workmen had now gone off, the doorway remained gaping, full
+of the falling night. The narrow street, running from the glittering
+Boulevard, was steeped in bluish gloom, starred at long intervals by a
+few gas-lamps. Some women went by, compelling Salvat to step off the
+foot-pavement. But he returned to it again, lighted the stump of a cigar,
+some remnant which he had found under a table outside a cafe, and then
+resumed his watch, patient and motionless, in front of the mansion.
+
+Disturbed by his dim conjectures, Pierre gradually grew frightened, and
+asked himself if he ought not to approach that man. The chief thing that
+detained him was the presence of his brother, whom he had seen disappear
+into a neighbouring doorway, whence he also was observing the engineer,
+ready to intervene. And so Pierre contented himself with not losing sight
+of Salvat, who was still waiting and watching, merely taking his eyes
+from the mansion in order to glance towards the Boulevard as though he
+expected someone or something which would come from that direction. And
+at last, indeed, the Duvillards' landau appeared, with coachman and
+footman in livery of green and gold--a closed landau to which a pair of
+tall horses of superb build were harnessed in stylish fashion.
+
+Contrary to custom, however, the carriage, which at that hour usually
+brought the father and mother home, was only occupied that evening by the
+son and daughter, Hyacinthe and Camille. Returning from the Princess de
+Harn's /matinee/, they were chatting freely, with that calm immodesty by
+which they sought to astonish one another. Hyacinthe, influenced by his
+perverted ideas, was attacking women, whilst Camille openly counselled
+him to respond to the Princess's advances. However, she was visibly
+irritated and feverish that evening, and, suddenly changing the subject,
+she began to speak of their mother and Gerard de Quinsac.
+
+"But what can it matter to you?" quietly retorted Hyacinthe; and, seeing
+that she almost bounded from the seat at this remark, he continued: "Are
+you still in love with him, then? Do you still want to marry him?"
+
+"Yes, I do, and I will!" she cried with all the jealous rage of an
+uncomely girl, who suffered so acutely at seeing herself spurned whilst
+her yet beautiful mother stole from her the man she wanted.
+
+"You will, you will!" resumed Hyacinthe, well pleased to have an
+opportunity of teasing his sister, whom he somewhat feared. "But you
+won't unless /he/ is willing--And he doesn't care for you."
+
+"He does!" retorted Camille in a fury. "He's kind and pleasant with me,
+and that's enough."
+
+Her brother felt afraid as he noticed the blackness of her glance, and
+the clenching of her weak little hands, whose fingers bent like claws.
+And after a pause he asked: "And papa, what does he say about it?"
+
+"Oh, papa! All that he cares about is the other one."
+
+Then Hyacinthe began to laugh.
+
+But the landau, with its tall horses trotting on sonorously, had turned
+into the street and was approaching the house, when a slim fair-haired
+girl of sixteen or seventeen, a modiste's errand girl with a large
+bandbox on her arm, hastily crossed the road in order to enter the arched
+doorway before the carriage. She was bringing a bonnet for the Baroness,
+and had come all along the Boulevard musing, with her soft blue eyes, her
+pinky nose, and her mouth which ever laughed in the most adorable little
+face that one could see. And it was at this same moment that Salvat,
+after another glance at the landau, sprang forward and entered the
+doorway. An instant afterwards he reappeared, flung his lighted cigar
+stump into the gutter; and without undue haste went off, slinking into
+the depths of the vague gloom of the street.
+
+And then what happened? Pierre, later on, remembered that a dray of the
+Western Railway Company in coming up stopped and delayed the landau for a
+moment, whilst the young errand girl entered the doorway. And with a
+heart-pang beyond description he saw his brother Guillaume in his turn
+spring forward and rush into the mansion as though impelled to do so by
+some revelation, some sudden certainty. He, Pierre, though he understood
+nothing clearly, could divine the approach of some frightful horror. But
+when he would have run, when he would have shouted, he found himself as
+if nailed to the pavement, and felt his throat clutched as by a hand of
+lead. Then suddenly came a thunderous roar, a formidable explosion, as if
+the earth was opening, and the lightning-struck mansion was being
+annihilated. Every window-pane of the neighbouring houses was shivered,
+the glass raining down with the loud clatter of hail. For a moment a
+hellish flame fired the street, and the dust and the smoke were such that
+the few passers-by were blinded and howled with affright, aghast at
+toppling, as they thought, into that fiery furnace.
+
+And that dazzling flare brought Pierre enlightenment. He once more saw
+the bomb distending the tool-bag, which lack of work had emptied and
+rendered useless. He once more saw it under the ragged jacket, a
+protuberance caused, he had fancied, by some hunk of bread, picked up in
+a corner and treasured that it might be carried home to wife and child.
+After wandering and threatening all happy Paris, it was there that it had
+flared, there that it had burst with a thunder-clap, there on the
+threshold of the sovereign /bourgeoisie/ to whom all wealth belonged. He,
+however, at that moment thought only of his brother Guillaume, and flung
+himself into that porch where a volcanic crater seemed to have opened.
+And at first he distinguished nothing, the acrid smoke streamed over all.
+Then he perceived the walls split, the upper floor rent open, the paving
+broken up, strewn with fragments. Outside, the landau which had been on
+the point of entering, had escaped all injury; neither of the horses had
+been touched, nor was there even a scratch on any panel of the vehicle.
+But the young girl, the pretty, slim, fair-haired errand girl, lay there
+on her back, her stomach ripped open, whilst her delicate face remained
+intact, her eyes clear, her smile full of astonishment, so swiftly and
+lightning-like had come the catastrophe. And near her, from the fallen
+bandbox, whose lid had merely come unfastened, had rolled the bonnet, a
+very fragile pink bonnet, which still looked charming in its flowery
+freshness.
+
+By a prodigy Guillaume was alive and already on his legs again. His left
+hand alone streamed with blood, a projectile seemed to have broken his
+wrist. His moustaches moreover had been burnt, and the explosion by
+throwing him to the ground had so shaken and bruised him that he shivered
+from head to feet as with intense cold. Nevertheless, he recognised his
+brother without even feeling astonished to see him there, as indeed often
+happens after great disasters, when the unexplained becomes providential.
+That brother, of whom he had so long lost sight, was there, naturally
+enough, because it was necessary that he should be there. And Guillaume,
+amidst the wild quivers by which he was shaken, at once cried to him
+"Take me away! take me away! To your house at Neuilly, oh! take me away!"
+
+Then, for sole explanation, and referring to Salvat, he stammered: "I
+suspected that he had stolen a cartridge from me; only one, most
+fortunately, for otherwise the whole district would have been blown to
+pieces. Ah! the wretched fellow! I wasn't in time to set my foot upon the
+match."
+
+With perfect lucidity of mind, such as danger sometimes imparts, Pierre,
+neither speaking nor losing a moment, remembered that the mansion had a
+back entrance fronting the Rue Vignon. He had just realised in what
+serious peril his brother would be if he were found mixed up in that
+affair. And with all speed, when he had led him into the gloom of the Rue
+Vignon, he tied his handkerchief round his wrist, which he bade him press
+to his chest, under his coat, as that would conceal it.
+
+But Guillaume, still shivering and haunted by the horror he had
+witnessed, repeated: "Take me away--to your place at Neuilly--not to my
+home."
+
+"Of course, of course, be easy. Come, wait here a second, I will stop a
+cab."
+
+In his eagerness to procure a conveyance, Pierre had brought his brother
+down to the Boulevard again. But the terrible thunderclap of the
+explosion had upset the whole neighbourhood, horses were still rearing,
+and people were running demented, hither and thither. And numerous
+policemen had hastened up, and a rushing crowd was already blocking the
+lower part of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, which was now as black as a pit,
+every light in it having been extinguished; whilst on the Boulevard a
+hawker of the "Voix du Peuple" still stubbornly vociferated: "The new
+scandal of the African Railway Lines! The thirty-two bribe-takers of the
+Chamber and the Senate! The approaching fall of the ministry!"
+
+Pierre was at last managing to stop a cab when he heard a person who ran
+by say to another, "The ministry? Ah, well! that bomb will mend it right
+enough!"
+
+Then the brothers seated themselves in the cab, which carried them away.
+And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an
+unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime
+and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice
+swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and
+Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them from all the black clouds of
+the horizon.
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+
+                                BY
+
+                            EMILE ZOLA
+
+
+
+                TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                              BOOK II
+
+
+
+I
+
+REVOLUTIONISTS
+
+IN that out-of-the-way street at Neuilly, along which nobody passed after
+dusk, Pierre's little house was now steeped in deep slumber under the
+black sky; each of its shutters closed, and not a ray of light stealing
+forth from within. And one could divine, too, the profound quietude of
+the little garden in the rear, a garden empty and lifeless, benumbed by
+the winter cold.
+
+Pierre had several times feared that his brother would faint away in the
+cab in which they were journeying. Leaning back, and often sinking down,
+Guillaume spoke not a word. And terrible was the silence between them--a
+silence fraught with all the questions and answers which they felt it
+would be useless and painful to exchange at such a time. However, the
+priest was anxious about the wound, and wondered to what surgeon he might
+apply, desirous as he was of admitting only a sure, staunch man into the
+secret, for he had noticed with how keen a desire to disappear his
+brother had sought to hide himself.
+
+Until they reached the Arc de Triomphe the silence remained unbroken. It
+was only there that Guillaume seemed to emerge from the prostration of
+his reverie. "Mind, Pierre," said he, "no doctor. We will attend to this
+together."
+
+Pierre was on the point of protesting, but he realised that it would be
+useless to discuss the subject at such a moment, and so he merely waved
+his hand to signify that he should act in spite of the prohibition were
+it necessary. In point of fact, his anxiety had increased, and, when the
+cab at last drew up before the house, it was with real relief that he saw
+his brother alight without evincing any marked feebleness. He himself
+quickly paid the driver, well-pleased, too, at finding that nobody, not
+even a neighbour, was about. And having opened the door with his latch
+key, he helped the injured man to ascend the steps.
+
+A little night lamp glimmered faintly in the vestibule. On hearing the
+door open, Pierre's servant, Sophie, had at once emerged from the
+kitchen. A short, thin, dark woman of sixty, she had formed part of the
+household for more than thirty years, having served the mother before
+serving the son. She knew Guillaume, having seen him when he was a young
+man, and doubtless she now recognised him, although well-nigh ten years
+had gone by since he had last crossed that threshold. Instead of evincing
+any surprise, she seemed to consider his extraordinary return quite
+natural, and remained as silent and discreet as usual. She led, indeed,
+the life of a recluse, never speaking unless her work absolutely required
+it. And thus she now contented herself with saying: "Monsieur l'Abbe,
+Monsieur Bertheroy is in the study, and has been waiting there for a
+quarter of an hour."
+
+At this Guillaume intervened, as if the news revived him: "Does Bertheroy
+still come here, then? I'll see him willingly. His is one of the best,
+the broadest, minds of these days. He has still remained my master."
+
+A former friend of their father,--the illustrious chemist, Michel
+Froment,--Bertheroy had now, in his turn, become one of the loftiest
+glories of France, one to whom chemistry owed much of the extraordinary
+progress that has made it the mother-science, by which the very face of
+the earth is being changed. A member of the Institute, laden with offices
+and honours, he had retained much affection for Pierre, and occasionally
+visited him in this wise before dinner, by way of relaxation, he would
+say.
+
+"You showed him into the study? All right, then, we will go there," said
+the Abbe to the servant. "Light a lamp and take it into my room, and get
+my bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once."
+
+While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying these
+instructions, the brothers went into their father's former laboratory, of
+which the priest had now made a spacious study. And it was with a cry of
+joyous astonishment that the /savant/ greeted them on seeing them enter
+the room side by side, the one supporting the other. "What, together!" he
+exclaimed. "Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greater
+pleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding."
+
+Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features. His
+yellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeks
+and jaw. Moreover, there was nothing imposing about him; he looked like
+some old shop-keeping herbalist. At the same time he had a fine, broad,
+smooth brow, and his eyes still glittered brightly beneath his tangled
+hair.
+
+"What, have you injured yourself, Guillaume?" he continued, as soon as he
+saw the bandaged hand.
+
+Pierre remained silent, so as to let his brother tell the story as he
+chose. Guillaume had realised that he must confess the truth, but in
+simple fashion, without detailing the circumstances. "Yes, in an
+explosion," he answered, "and I really think that I have my wrist
+broken."
+
+At this, Bertheroy, whose glance was fixed upon him, noticed that his
+moustaches were burnt, and that there was an expression of bewildered
+stupor, such as follows a catastrophe, in his eyes. Forthwith the
+/savant/ became grave and circumspect; and, without seeking to compel
+confidence by any questions, he simply said: "Indeed! an explosion! Will
+you let me see the injury? You know that before letting chemistry ensnare
+me I studied medicine, and am still somewhat of a surgeon."
+
+On hearing these words Pierre could not restrain a heart-cry: "Yes, yes,
+master! Look at the injury--I was very anxious, and to find you here is
+unhoped-for good fortune!"
+
+The /savant/ glanced at him, and divined that the hidden circumstances of
+the accident must be serious. And then, as Guillaume, smiling, though
+paling with weakness, consented to the suggestion, Bertheroy retorted
+that before anything else he must be put to bed. The servant just then
+returned to say the bed was ready, and so they all went into the
+adjoining room, where the injured man was soon undressed and helped
+between the sheets.
+
+"Light me, Pierre," said Bertheroy, "take the lamp; and let Sophie give
+me a basin full of water and some cloths." Then, having gently washed the
+wound, he resumed: "The devil! The wrist isn't broken, but it's a nasty
+injury. I am afraid there must be a lesion of the bone. Some nails passed
+through the flesh, did they not?"
+
+Receiving no reply, he relapsed into silence. But his surprise was
+increasing, and he closely examined the hand, which the flame of the
+explosion had scorched, and even sniffed the shirt cuff as if seeking to
+understand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of one
+of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. In
+the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were
+characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.
+
+"And so," he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by
+professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put
+you in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concocting
+then?"
+
+Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury,
+had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and
+agitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay
+precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first
+experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of
+restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me,
+master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility of
+nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession."
+
+"Oh! certainly, my friend," exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret. Your
+discovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you are
+capable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must be
+aware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions of
+others, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance and
+motive."
+
+So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant and
+free from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his,
+which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all the
+academical titles that he bore as an official /savant/, made him a man of
+the boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth,
+as he himself said.
+
+He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after
+making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh.
+Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the
+morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some
+comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be
+well.
+
+On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting up
+and seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise his
+loved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had to
+take up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately retained full use
+of his right hand, and was thus able to pen a few lines to say that he
+would not be home that night. He addressed the note to Madame Leroi, the
+mother of his deceased mistress, who, since the latter's death, had
+remained with him and had reared his three sons. Pierre was aware also
+that the household at Montmartre included a young woman of five or six
+and twenty, the daughter of an old friend, to whom Guillaume had given
+shelter on her father's death, and whom he was soon to marry, in spite of
+the great difference in their ages. For the priest, however, all these
+were vague, disturbing things, condemnable features of disorderly life,
+and he had invariably pretended to be ignorant of them.
+
+"So you wish this note to be taken to Montmartre at once?" he said to his
+brother.
+
+"Yes, at once. It is scarcely more than seven o'clock now, and it will be
+there by eight. And you will choose a reliable man, won't you?"
+
+"The best course will be for Sophie to take a cab. We need have no fear
+with her. She won't chatter. Wait a moment, and I will settle
+everything."
+
+Sophie, on being summoned, at once understood what was wanted of her, and
+promised to say, in reply to any questions, that M. Guillaume had come to
+spend the night at his brother's, for reasons which she did not know. And
+without indulging in any reflections herself, she left the house, saying
+simply: "Monsieur l'Abbe's dinner is ready; he will only have to take the
+broth and the stew off the stove."
+
+However, when Pierre this time returned to the bedside to sit down there,
+he found that Guillaume had fallen back with his head resting on both
+pillows. And he looked very weary and pale, and showed signs of fever.
+The lamp, standing on a corner of a side table, cast a soft light around,
+and so deep was the quietude that the big clock in the adjoining
+dining-room could be heard ticking. For a moment the silence continued
+around the two brothers, who, after so many years of separation, were at
+last re-united and alone together. Then the injured man brought his right
+hand to the edge of the sheet, and the priest grasped it, pressed it
+tenderly in his own. And the clasp was a long one, those two brotherly
+hands remaining locked, one in the other.
+
+"My poor little Pierre," Guillaume faintly murmured, "you must forgive me
+for falling on you in this fashion. I've invaded the house and taken your
+bed, and I'm preventing you from dining."
+
+"Don't talk, don't tire yourself any more," interrupted Pierre. "Is not
+this the right place for you when you are in trouble?"
+
+A warmer pressure came from Guillaume's feverish hand, and tears gathered
+in his eyes. "Thanks, my little Pierre. I've found you again, and you are
+as gentle and loving as you always were. Ah! you cannot know how
+delightful it seems to me."
+
+Then the priest's eyes also were dimmed by tears. Amidst the deep
+quietude, the great sense of comfort which had followed their violent
+emotion, the brothers found an infinite charm in being together once more
+in the home of their childhood.* It was there that both their father and
+mother had died--the father tragically, struck down by an explosion in
+his laboratory; the mother piously, like a very saint. It was there, too,
+in that same bed, that Guillaume had nursed Pierre, when, after their
+mother's death, the latter had nearly died; and it was there now that
+Pierre in his turn was nursing Guillaume. All helped to bow them down and
+fill them with emotion: the strange circumstances of their meeting, the
+frightful catastrophe which had caused them such a shock, the
+mysteriousness of the things which remained unexplained between them. And
+now that after so long a separation they were tragically brought together
+again, they both felt their memory awaking. The old house spoke to them
+of their childhood, of their parents dead and gone, of the far-away days
+when they had loved and suffered there. Beneath the window lay the
+garden, now icy cold, which once, under the sunbeams, had re-echoed with
+their play. On the left was the laboratory, the spacious room where their
+father had taught them to read. On the right, in the dining-room, they
+could picture their mother cutting bread and butter for them, and looking
+so gentle with her big, despairing eyes--those of a believer mated to an
+infidel. And the feeling that they were now alone in that home, and the
+pale, sleepy gleam of the lamp, and the deep silence of the garden and
+the house, and the very past itself, all filled them with the softest of
+emotion blended with the keenest bitterness.
+
+  * See M. Zola's "Lourdes," Day I., Chapter II.
+
+They would have liked to talk and unbosom themselves. But what could they
+say to one another? Although their hands remained so tightly clasped, did
+not the most impassable of chasms separate them? In any case, they
+thought so. Guillaume was convinced that Pierre was a saint, a priest of
+the most robust faith, without a doubt, without aught in common with
+himself, whether in the sphere of ideas or in that of practical life. A
+hatchet-stroke had parted them, and each lived in a different world. And
+in the same way Pierre pictured Guillaume as one who had lost caste,
+whose conduct was most suspicious, who had never even married the mother
+of his three children, but was on the point of marrying that girl who was
+far too young for him, and who had come nobody knew whence. In him,
+moreover, were blended the passionate ideas of a /savant/ and a
+revolutionist, ideas in which one found negation of everything,
+acceptance and possibly provocation of the worst forms of violence, with
+a glimpse of the vague monster of Anarchism underlying all. And so, on
+what basis could there be any understanding between them, since each
+retained his prejudices against the other, and saw him on the opposite
+side of the chasm, without possibility of any plank being thrown across
+it to enable them to unite? Thus, all alone in that room, their poor
+hearts bled with distracted brotherly love.
+
+Pierre knew that, on a previous occasion, Guillaume had narrowly escaped
+being compromised in an Anarchist affair. He asked him no questions, but
+he could not help reflecting that he would not have hidden himself in
+this fashion had he not feared arrest for complicity. Complicity with
+Salvat? Was he really an accomplice? Pierre shuddered, for the only
+materials on which he could found a contrary opinion were, on one hand,
+the words that had escaped his brother after the crime, the cry he had
+raised accusing Salvat of having stolen a cartridge from him; and, on the
+other hand, his heroic rush into the doorway of the Duvillard mansion in
+order to extinguish the match. A great deal still remained obscure; but
+if a cartridge of that frightful explosive had been stolen from Guillaume
+the fact must be that he manufactured such cartridges and had others at
+home. Of course, even if he were not an accomplice, the injury to his
+wrist had made it needful for him to disappear. Given his bleeding hand,
+and the previous suspicions levelled against him, he would never have
+convinced anybody of his innocence. And yet, even allowing for these
+surmises, the affair remained wrapt in darkness: a crime on Guillaume's
+part seemed a possibility, and to Pierre it was all dreadful to think of.
+
+Guillaume, by the trembling of his brother's moist, yielding hand, must
+in some degree have realised the prostration of his poor mind, already
+shattered by doubt and finished off by this calamity. Indeed, the
+sepulchre was empty now, the very ashes had been swept out of it.
+
+"My poor little Pierre," the elder brother slowly said. "Forgive me if I
+do not tell you anything. I cannot do so. And besides, what would be the
+use of it? We should certainly not understand one another. . . . So let
+us keep from saying anything, and let us simply enjoy the delight of
+being together and loving one another in spite of all."
+
+Pierre raised his eyes, and for a long time their glances lingered, one
+fixed on the other. "Ah!" stammered the priest, "how frightful it all
+is!"
+
+Guillaume, however, had well understood the mute inquiry of Pierre's
+eyes. His own did not waver but replied boldly, beaming with purity and
+loftiness: "I can tell you nothing. Yet, all the same, let us love each
+other, my little Pierre."
+
+And then Pierre for a moment felt that his brother was above all base
+anxiety, above the guilty fear of the man who trembles for himself. In
+lieu thereof he seemed to be carried away by the passion of some great
+design, the noble thought of concealing some sovereign idea, some secret
+which it was imperative for him to save. But, alas! this was only the
+fleeting vision of a vague hope; for all vanished, and again came the
+doubt, the suspicion, of a mind dealing with one that it knew nothing of.
+
+And all at once a souvenir, a frightful spectacle, arose before Pierre's
+eyes and distracted him: "Did you see, brother," he stammered, "did you
+see that fair-haired girl lying under the archway, ripped open, with a
+smile of astonishment on her face?"
+
+Guillaume in his turn quivered, and in a low and dolorous voice replied:
+"Yes, I saw her! Ah, poor little thing! Ah! the atrocious necessities,
+the atrocious errors, of justice!"
+
+Then, amidst the frightful shudder that seemed to sweep by, Pierre, with
+his horror of all violence, succumbed, and let his face sink upon the
+counterpane at the edge of the bed. And he sobbed distractedly: a sudden
+attack of weakness, overflowing in tears, cast him there exhausted, with
+no more strength than a child. It was as if all his sufferings since the
+morning, the deep grief with which universal injustice and woe inspired
+him, were bursting forth in that flood of tears which nothing now could
+stay. And Guillaume, who, to calm his little brother, had set his hand
+upon his head, in the same way as he had often caressingly stroked his
+hair in childhood's days, likewise felt upset and remained silent, unable
+to find a word of consolation, resigned, as he was, to the eruption which
+in life is always possible, the cataclysm by which the slow evolution of
+nature is always liable to be precipitated. But how hard a fate for the
+wretched ones whom the lava sweeps away in millions! And then his tears
+also began to flow amidst the profound silence.
+
+"Pierre," he gently exclaimed at last, "you must have some dinner. Go, go
+and have some. And screen the lamp; leave me by myself, and let me close
+my eyes. It will do me good."
+
+Pierre had to content him. Still, he left the dining-room door open; and,
+weak for want of food, though he had not hitherto noticed it, he ate
+standing, with his ears on the alert, listening lest his brother should
+complain or call him. And the silence seemed to have become yet more
+complete, the little house sank, as it were, into annihilation, instinct
+with all the melancholy charm of the past.
+
+At about half-past eight, when Sophie returned from her errand to
+Montmartre, Guillaume heard her step, light though it was. And he at once
+became restless and wanted to know what news she brought. It was Pierre,
+however, who enlightened him. "Don't be anxious. Sophie was received by
+an old lady who, after reading your note, merely answered, 'Very well.'
+She did not even ask Sophie a question, but remained quite composed
+without sign of curiosity."
+
+Guillaume, realising that this fine serenity perplexed his brother,
+thereupon replied with similar calmness: "Oh! it was only necessary that
+grandmother should be warned. She knows well enough that if I don't
+return home it is because I can't."
+
+However, from that moment it was impossible for the injured man to rest.
+Although the lamp was hidden away in a corner, he constantly opened his
+eyes, glanced round him, and seemed to listen, as if for sounds from the
+direction of Paris. And it at last became necessary for the priest to
+summon the servant and ask her if she had noticed anything strange on her
+way to or from Montmartre. She seemed surprised by the question, and
+answered that she had noticed nothing. Besides, the cab had followed the
+outer boulevards, which were almost deserted. A slight fog had again
+begun to fall, and the streets were steeped in icy dampness.
+
+By the time it was nine o'clock Pierre realised that his brother would
+never be able to sleep if he were thus left without news. Amidst his
+growing feverishness the injured man experienced keen anxiety, a haunting
+desire to know if Salvat were arrested and had spoken out. He did not
+confess this; indeed he sought to convey the impression that he had no
+personal disquietude, which was doubtless true. But his great secret was
+stifling him; he shuddered at the thought that his lofty scheme, all his
+labour and all his hope, should be at the mercy of that unhappy man whom
+want had filled with delusions and who had sought to set justice upon
+earth by the aid of a bomb. And in vain did the priest try to make
+Guillaume understand that nothing certain could yet be known. He
+perceived that his impatience increased every minute, and at last
+resolved to make some effort to satisfy him.
+
+But where could he go, of whom could he inquire? Guillaume, while talking
+and trying to guess with whom Salvat might have sought refuge, had
+mentioned Janzen, the Princess de Harn's mysterious lover; and for a
+moment he had even thought of sending to this man for information. But he
+reflected that if Janzen had heard of the explosion he was not at all the
+individual to wait for the police at home.
+
+Meantime Pierre repeated: "I will willingly go to buy the evening papers
+for you--but there will certainly be nothing in them. Although I know
+almost everyone in Neuilly I can think of nobody who is likely to have
+any information, unless perhaps it were Bache--"
+
+"You know Bache, the municipal councillor?" interrupted Guillaume.
+
+"Yes, we have both had to busy ourselves with charitable work in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+"Well, Bache is an old friend of mine, and I know no safer man. Pray go
+to him and bring him back with you."
+
+A quarter of an hour later Pierre returned with Bache, who resided in a
+neighbouring street. And it was not only Bache whom he brought with him,
+for, much to his surprise, he had found Janzen at Bache's house. As
+Guillaume had suspected, Janzen, while dining at the Princess de Harn's,
+had heard of the crime, and had consequently refrained from returning to
+his little lodging in the Rue des Martyrs, where the police might well
+have set a trap for him. His connections were known, and he was aware
+that he was watched and was liable at any moment to arrest or expulsion
+as a foreign Anarchist. And so he had thought it prudent to solicit a few
+days' hospitality of Bache, a very upright and obliging man, to whom he
+entrusted himself without fear. He would never have remained with
+Rosemonde, that adorable lunatic who for a month past had been exhibiting
+him as her lover, and whose useless and dangerous extravagance of conduct
+he fully realised.
+
+Guillaume was so delighted on seeing Bache and Janzen that he wished to
+sit up in bed again. But Pierre bade him remain quiet, rest his head on
+the pillows, and speak as little as possible. Then, while Janzen stood
+near, erect and silent, Bache took a chair and sat down by the bedside
+with many expressions of friendly interest. He was a stout man of sixty,
+with a broad, full face, a large white beard and long white hair. His
+little, gentle eyes had a dim, dreamy expression, while a pleasant,
+hopeful smile played round his thick lips. His father, a fervent St.
+Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. While
+retaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towards
+orderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, in
+such wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so to
+say, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied
+himself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, his
+only adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of
+1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell.
+Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates,
+he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly had
+elected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less by
+way of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for his
+worthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district.
+
+Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his two
+visitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat's flight, and how he
+himself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen,
+with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters often
+attribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at last
+said slowly in a gentle voice: "Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it might
+be little Mathis--I'm surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn't
+made up his mind." Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thought
+that Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: "Oh! no; oh! no."
+
+However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsh
+eyes: "After all, there's no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment."
+
+Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to
+think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be
+extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And
+Guillaume, at sight of Janzen's contemptuous coldness, must have suffered
+keenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured by
+the one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could he
+reveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish without betraying
+the secret which he had hidden even from his brother?
+
+However, at this moment Sophie came to tell her master that M. Theophile
+Morin had called with another gentleman. Much astonished by this visit at
+so late an hour, Pierre hastened into the next room to receive the new
+comers. He had become acquainted with Morin since his return from Rome,
+and had helped him to introduce a translation of an excellent scientific
+manual, prepared according to the official programmes, into the Italian
+schools.* A Franc-Comtois by birth, a compatriot of Proudhon, with whose
+poor family he had been intimate at Besancon, Morin, himself the son of a
+journeyman clockmaker, had grown up with Proudhonian ideas, full of
+affection for the poor and an instinctive hatred of property and wealth.
+Later on, having come to Paris as a school teacher, impassioned by study,
+he had given his whole mind to Auguste Comte. Beneath the fervent
+Positivist, however, one might yet find the old Proudhonian, the pauper
+who rebelled and detested want. Moreover, it was scientific Positivism
+that he clung to; in his hatred of all mysticism he would have naught to
+do with the fantastic religious leanings of Comte in his last years. And
+in Morin's brave, consistent, somewhat mournful life, there had been but
+one page of romance: the sudden feverish impulse which had carried him
+off to fight in Sicily by Garibaldi's side. Afterwards he had again
+become a petty professor in Paris, obscurely earning a dismal livelihood.
+
+  * See M. Zola's "Rome," Chapters IV. and XVI.
+
+When Pierre returned to the bedroom he said to his brother in a tone of
+emotion: "Morin has brought me Barthes, who fancies himself in danger and
+asks my hospitality."
+
+At this Guillaume forgot himself and became excited: "Nicholas Barthes, a
+hero with a soul worthy of antiquity. Oh! I know him; I admire and love
+him. You must set your door open wide for him."
+
+Bache and Janzen, however, had glanced at one another smiling. And the
+latter, with his cold ironical air, slowly remarked: "Why does Monsieur
+Barthes hide himself? A great many people think he is dead; he is simply
+a ghost who no longer frightens anybody."
+
+Four and seventy years of age as he now was, Barthes had spent nearly
+half a century in prison. He was the eternal prisoner, the hero of
+liberty whom each successive Government had carried from citadel to
+fortress. Since his youth he had been marching on amidst his dream of
+fraternity, fighting for an ideal Republic based on truth and justice,
+and each and every endeavour had led him to a dungeon; he had invariably
+finished his humanitarian reverie under bolts and bars. Carbonaro,
+Republican, evangelical sectarian, he had conspired at all times and in
+all places, incessantly struggling against the Power of the day, whatever
+it might be. And when the Republic at last had come, that Republic which
+had cost him so many years of gaol, it had, in its own turn, imprisoned
+him, adding fresh years of gloom to those which already had lacked
+sunlight. And thus he remained the martyr of freedom: freedom which he
+still desired in spite of everything; freedom, which, strive as he might,
+never came, never existed.
+
+"But you are mistaken," replied Guillaume, wounded by Janzen's raillery.
+"There is again a thought of getting rid of Barthes, whose uncompromising
+rectitude disturbs our politicians; and he does well to take his
+precautions!"
+
+Nicholas Barthes came in, a tall, slim, withered old man, with a nose
+like an eagle's beak, and eyes that still burned in their deep sockets,
+under white and bushy brows. His mouth, toothless but still refined, was
+lost to sight between his moustaches and snowy beard; and his hair,
+crowning him whitely like an aureola, fell in curls over his shoulders.
+Behind him with all modesty came Theophile Morin, with grey whiskers,
+grey, brush-like hair, spectacles, and yellow, weary mien--that of an old
+professor exhausted by years of teaching. Neither of them seemed
+astonished or awaited an explanation on finding that man in bed with an
+injured wrist. And there were no introductions: those who were acquainted
+merely smiled at one another.
+
+Barthes, for his part, stooped and kissed Guillaume on both cheeks. "Ah!"
+said the latter, almost gaily, "it gives me courage to see you."
+
+However, the new comers had brought a little information. The boulevards
+were in an agitated state, the news of the crime had spread from cafe to
+cafe, and everybody was anxious to see the late edition which one paper
+had published giving a very incorrect account of the affair, full of the
+most extraordinary details. Briefly, nothing positive was as yet known.
+
+On seeing Guillaume turn pale Pierre compelled him to lie down again, and
+even talked of taking the visitors into the next room. But the injured
+man gently replied: "No, no, I promise you that I won't stir again, that
+I won't open my mouth. But stay there and chat together. I assure you
+that it will do me good to have you near me and hear you."
+
+Then, under the sleepy gleams of the lamp, the others began to talk in
+undertones. Old Barthes, who considered that bomb to be both idiotic and
+abominable, spoke of it with the stupefaction of one who, after fighting
+like a hero through all the legendary struggles for liberty, found
+himself belated, out of his element, in a new era, which he could not
+understand. Did not the conquest of freedom suffice for everything? he
+added. Was there any other problem beyond that of founding the real
+Republic? Then, referring to Mege and his speech in the Chamber that
+afternoon, he bitterly arraigned Collectivism, which he declared to be
+one of the democratic forms of tyranny. Theophile Morin, for his part,
+also spoke against the Collectivist enrolling of the social forces, but
+he professed yet greater hatred of the odious violence of the Anarchists;
+for it was only by evolution that he expected progress, and he felt
+somewhat indifferent as to what political means might bring about the
+scientific society of to-morrow. And in like way Bache did not seem
+particularly fond of the Anarchists, though he was touched by the idyllic
+dream, the humanitarian hope, whose germs lay beneath their passion for
+destruction. And, like Barthes, he also flew into a passion with Mege,
+who since entering the Chamber had become, said he, a mere rhetorician
+and theorist, dreaming of dictatorship. Meantime Janzen, still erect, his
+face frigid and his lips curling ironically, listened to all three of
+them, and vented a few trenchant words to express his own Anarchist
+faith; the uselessness of drawing distinctions, and the necessity of
+destroying everything in order that everything might be rebuilt on fresh
+lines.
+
+Pierre, who had remained near the bed, also listened with passionate
+attention. Amidst the downfall of his own beliefs, the utter void which
+he felt within him, here were these four men, who represented the
+cardinal points of this century's ideas, debating the very same terrible
+problem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief which
+the democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days of
+the immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot and
+Rousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled one
+another, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking and
+bounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult to
+distinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was the
+ship of salvation going, for what port ought one to embark? Pierre had
+already thought that the balance-sheet of the century ought to be drawn
+up, and that, after accepting the legacies of Rousseau and the other
+precursors, he ought to study the ideas of St. Simon, Fourier and even
+Cabet; of Auguste Comte, Proudhon and Karl Marx as well, in order, at any
+rate, to form some idea of the distance that had been travelled, and of
+the cross-ways which one had now reached. And was not this an
+opportunity, since chance had gathered those men together in his house,
+living exponents of the conflicting doctrines which he wished to examine?
+
+On turning round, however, he perceived that Guillaume was now very pale
+and had closed his eyes. Had even he, with his faith in science, felt the
+doubt which is born of contradictory theories, and the despair which
+comes when one sees the fight for truth resulting in growth of error?
+
+"Are you in pain?" the priest anxiously inquired.
+
+"Yes, a little. But I will try to sleep."
+
+At this they all went off with silent handshakes. Nicholas Barthes alone
+remained in the house and slept in a room on the first floor which Sophie
+had got ready for him. Pierre, unwilling to quit his brother, dozed off
+upon a sofa. And the little house relapsed into its deep quietude, the
+silence of solitude and winter, through which passed the melancholy
+quiver of the souvenirs of childhood.
+
+In the morning, as soon as it was seven o'clock, Pierre had to go for the
+newspapers. Guillaume had passed a bad night and intense fever had set
+in. Nevertheless, his brother was obliged to read him the articles on the
+explosion. There was an amazing medley of truths and inventions, of
+precise information lost amidst the most unexpected extravagance.
+Sagnier's paper, the "Voix du Peuple," distinguished itself by its
+sub-titles in huge print and a whole page of particulars jumbled together
+chance-wise. It had at once decided to postpone the famous list of the
+thirty-two deputies and senators compromised in the African Railways
+affair; and there was no end to the details it gave of the aspect of the
+entrance to the Duvillard mansion after the explosion the pavement broken
+up, the upper floor rent open, the huge doors torn away from their
+hinges. Then came the story of the Baron's son and daughter preserved as
+by a miracle, the landau escaping the slightest injury, while the banker
+and his wife, it was alleged, owed their preservation to the circumstance
+that they had lingered at the Madeleine after Monseigneur Martha's
+remarkable address there. An entire column was given to the one victim,
+the poor, pretty, fair-haired errand girl, whose identity did not seem to
+be clearly established, although a flock of reporters had rushed first to
+the modiste employing her, in the Avenue de l'Opera, and next to the
+upper part of the Faubourg St. Denis, where it was thought her
+grandmother resided. Then, in a gravely worded article in "Le Globe,"
+evidently inspired by Fonsegue, an appeal was made to the Chamber's
+patriotism to avoid giving cause for any ministerial crisis in the
+painful circumstances through which the country was passing. Thus the
+ministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weeks
+longer.
+
+Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was not
+known; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor even
+suspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a false
+scent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbour
+swore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion.
+Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him from
+another paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction that
+had been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of it
+showed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed into
+anxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violent
+ravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some new
+explosive of incalculable power was already suspected.
+
+At eight o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was
+sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young
+sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had
+brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he
+became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot with
+fever.
+
+"Ah! I see that you haven't been reasonable, my dear child," said he.
+"You must have talked too much, and have bestirred and excited yourself."
+Then, having carefully probed the wound, he added, while dressing it:
+"The bone is injured, you know, and I won't answer for anything unless
+you behave better. Any complications would make amputation necessary."
+
+Pierre shuddered, but Guillaume shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that
+he might just as well be amputated since all was crumbling around him.
+Bertheroy, who had sat down, lingering there for another moment,
+scrutinised both brothers with his keen eyes. He now knew of the
+explosion, and must have thought it over. "My dear child," he resumed in
+his brusque way, "I certainly don't think that you committed that
+abominable act of folly in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. But I fancy that you
+were in the neighbourhood--no, no, don't answer me, don't defend
+yourself. I know nothing and desire to know nothing, not even the formula
+of that devilish powder of which your shirt cuff bore traces, and which
+has wrought such terrible havoc."
+
+And then as the brothers remained surprised, turning cold with anxiety,
+in spite of his assurances, he added with a sweeping gesture: "Ah! my
+friends, I regard such an action as even more useless than criminal! I
+only feel contempt for the vain agitation of politics, whether they be
+revolutionary or conservative. Does not science suffice? Why hasten the
+times when one single step of science brings humanity nearer to the goal
+of truth and justice than do a hundred years of politics and social
+revolt? Why, it is science alone which sweeps away dogmas, casts down
+gods, and creates light and happiness. And I, Member of the Institute as
+I am, decorated and possessed of means, I am the only true
+Revolutionist."
+
+Then he began to laugh and Guillaume realised all the good-natured irony
+of his laugh. While admiring him as a great /savant/, he had hitherto
+suffered at seeing him lead such a /bourgeois/ life, accepting whatever
+appointments and honours were offered him, a Republican under the
+Republic, but quite ready to serve science under no matter what master.
+But now, from beneath this opportunist, this hieratical /savant/, this
+toiler who accepted wealth and glory from all hands, there appeared a
+quiet yet terrible evolutionist, who certainly expected that his own work
+would help to ravage and renew the world!
+
+However, Bertheroy rose and took his leave: "I'll come back; behave
+sensibly, and love one another as well as you can."
+
+When the brothers again found themselves alone, Pierre seated at
+Guillaume's bedside, their hands once more sought each other and met in a
+burning clasp instinct with all their anguish. How much threatening
+mystery and distress there was both around and within them! The grey
+wintry daylight came into the room, and they could see the black trees in
+the garden, while the house remained full of quivering silence, save that
+overhead a faint sound of footsteps was audible. They were the steps of
+Nicholas Barthes, the heroic lover of freedom, who, rising at daybreak,
+had, like a caged lion, resumed his wonted promenade, the incessant
+coming and going of one who had ever been a prisoner. And as the brothers
+ceased listening to him their eyes fell on a newspaper which had remained
+open on the bed, a newspaper soiled by a sketch in outline which
+pretended to portray the poor dead errand girl, lying, ripped open,
+beside the bandbox and the bonnet it had contained. It was so frightful,
+so atrociously hideous a scene, that two big tears again fell upon
+Pierre's cheeks, whilst Guillaume's blurred, despairing eyes gazed
+wistfully far away, seeking for the Future.
+
+
+
+II
+
+A HOME OF INDUSTRY
+
+THE little house in which Guillaume had dwelt for so many years, a home
+of quietude and hard work, stood in the pale light of winter up yonder at
+Montmartre, peacefully awaiting his return. He reflected, however, after
+/dejeuner/ that it might not be prudent for him to go back thither for
+some three weeks, and so he thought of sending Pierre to explain the
+position of affairs. "Listen, brother," he said. "You must render me this
+service. Go and tell them the truth--that I am here, slightly injured,
+and do not wish them to come to see me, for fear lest somebody should
+follow them and discover my retreat. After the note I wrote them last
+evening they would end by getting anxious if I did not send them some
+news." Then, yielding to the one worry which, since the previous night,
+had disturbed his clear, frank glance, he added: "Just feel in the
+right-hand pocket of my waistcoat; you will find a little key there.
+Good! that's it. Now you must give it to Madame Leroi, my mother-in-law,
+and tell her that if any misfortune should happen to me, she is to do
+what is understood between us. That will suffice, she will understand
+you."
+
+At the first moment Pierre had hesitated; but he saw how even the slight
+effort of speaking exhausted his brother, so he silenced him, saying:
+"Don't talk, but put your mind at ease. I will go and reassure your
+people, since you wish that this commission should be undertaken by me."
+
+Truth to tell, the errand was so distasteful to Pierre that he had at
+first thought of sending Sophie in his place. All his old prejudices were
+reviving; it was as if he were going to some ogre's den. How many times
+had he not heard his mother say "that creature!" in referring to the
+woman with whom her elder son cohabited. Never had she been willing to
+kiss Guillaume's boys; the whole connection had shocked her, and she was
+particularly indignant that Madame Leroi, the woman's mother, should have
+joined the household for the purpose of bringing up the little ones.
+Pierre retained so strong a recollection of all this that even nowadays,
+when he went to the basilica of the Sacred Heart and passed the little
+house on his way, he glanced at it distrustfully, and kept as far from it
+as he could, as if it were some abode of vice and error. Undoubtedly, for
+ten years now, the boys' mother had been dead, but did not another
+scandal-inspiring creature dwell there, that young orphan girl to whom
+his brother had given shelter, and whom he was going to marry, although a
+difference of twenty years lay between them? To Pierre all this was
+contrary to propriety, abnormal and revolting, and he pictured a home
+given over to social rebellion, where lack of principle led to every kind
+of disorder.
+
+However, he was leaving the room to start upon his journey, when
+Guillaume called him back. "Tell Madame Leroi," said he, "that if I
+should die you will let her know of it, so that she may immediately do
+what is necessary."
+
+"Yes, yes," answered Pierre. "But calm yourself, and don't move about.
+I'll say everything. And in my absence Sophie will stop here with you in
+case you should need her."
+
+Having given full instructions to the servant, Pierre set out to take a
+tramcar, intending to alight from it on the Boulevard de Rochechouart,
+and then climb the height on foot. And on the road, lulled by the gliding
+motion of the heavy vehicle, he began to think of his brother's past life
+and connections, with which he was but vaguely, imperfectly, acquainted.
+It was only at a later date that details of everything came to his
+knowledge. In 1850 a young professor named Leroi, who had come from Paris
+to the college of Montauban with the most ardent republican ideas, had
+there married Agathe Dagnan, the youngest of the five girls of an old
+Protestant family from the Cevennes. Young Madame Leroi was /enceinte/
+when her husband, threatened with arrest for contributing some violent
+articles to a local newspaper, immediately after the "Coup d'Etat," found
+himself obliged to seek refuge at Geneva. It was there that the young
+couple's daughter, Marguerite, a very delicate child, was born in 1852.
+For seven years, that is until the Amnesty of 1859, the household
+struggled with poverty, the husband giving but a few ill-paid lessons,
+and the wife absorbed in the constant care which the child required.
+Then, after their return to Paris, their ill-luck became even greater.
+For a long time the ex-professor vainly sought regular employment; it was
+denied him on account of his opinions, and he had to run about giving
+lessons in private houses. When he was at last on the point of being
+received back into the University a supreme blow, an attack of paralysis,
+fell upon him. He lost the use of both legs. And then came utter misery,
+every kind of sordid drudgery, the writing of articles for dictionaries,
+the copying of manuscripts, and even the addressing of newspaper
+wrappers, on the fruits of which the household barely contrived to live,
+in a little lodging in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.
+
+It was there that Marguerite grew up. Leroi, embittered by injustice and
+suffering, predicted the advent of a Republic which would avenge the
+follies of the Empire, and a reign of science which would sweep away the
+deceptive and cruel divinity of religious dogmas. On the other hand,
+Agathe's religious faith had collapsed at Geneva, at sight of the narrow
+and imbecile practices of Calvinism, and all that she retained of it was
+the old Protestant leaven of rebellion. She had become at once the head
+and the arm of the house; she went for her husband's work, took it back
+when completed, and even did much of it herself, whilst, at the same
+time, performing her house duties, and rearing and educating her
+daughter. The latter, who attended no school, was indebted for all she
+learnt to her father and mother, on whose part there was never any
+question of religious instruction. Through contact with her husband,
+Madame Leroi had lost all belief, and her Protestant heredity inclining
+her to free inquiry and examination, she had arranged for herself a kind
+of peaceful atheism, based on paramount principles of human duty and
+justice, which she applied courageously, irrespective of all social
+conventionalities. The long iniquity of her husband's fate, the
+undeserved misfortunes which struck her through him and her daughter,
+ended by endowing her with wonderful fortitude and devotion, which made
+her, whether as a judge, a manager, or a consoler, a woman of
+incomparable energy and nobleness of character.
+
+It was in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince that Guillaume became acquainted
+with the Leroi family, after the war of 1870. On the same floor as their
+little lodging he occupied a large room, where he devoted himself
+passionately to his studies. At the outset there was only an occasional
+bow, for Guillaume's neighbours were very proud and very grave, leading
+their life of poverty in fierce silence and retirement. Then intercourse
+began with the rendering of little services, such as when the young man
+procured the ex-professor a commission to write a few articles for a new
+encyclopaedia. But all at once came the catastrophe: Leroi died in his
+armchair one evening while his daughter was wheeling him from his table
+to his bed. The two distracted women had not even the money to bury him.
+The whole secret of their bitter want flowed forth with their tears, and
+they were obliged to accept the help of Guillaume, who, from that moment,
+became the necessary confidant and friend. And the thing which was bound
+to happen did happen, in the most simple and loving manner, permitted by
+the mother herself, who, full of contempt for a social system which
+allowed those of good hearts to die of hunger, refused to admit the
+necessity of any social tie. Thus there was no question of a regular
+marriage. One day Guillaume, who was twenty-three years old, found
+himself mated to Marguerite, who was twenty; both of them handsome,
+healthy, and strong, adoring one another, loving work, and full of hope
+in the future.
+
+From that moment a new life began. Since his father's death, Guillaume,
+who had broken off all intercourse with his mother, had been receiving an
+allowance of two hundred francs a month. This just represented daily
+bread; however, he was already doubling the amount by his work as a
+chemist,--his analyses and researches, which tended to the employment of
+certain chemical products in industry. So he and Marguerite installed
+themselves on the very summit of Montmartre, in a little house, at a
+rental of eight hundred francs a year, the great convenience of the place
+being a strip of garden, where one might, later on, erect a wooden
+workshop. In all tranquillity Madame Leroi took up her abode with the
+young people, helping them, and sparing them the necessity of keeping a
+second servant. And at successive intervals of two years, her three
+grandchildren were born, three sturdy boys: first Thomas, then Francois,
+and then Antoine. And in the same way as she had devoted herself to her
+husband and daughter, and then to Guillaume, so did she now devote
+herself to the three children. She became "Mere-Grand"--an emphatic and
+affectionate way of expressing the term "grandmother"--for all who lived
+in the house, the older as well as the younger ones. She there
+personified sense, and wisdom, and courage; it was she who was ever on
+the watch, who directed everything, who was consulted about everything,
+and whose opinion was always followed. Indeed, she reigned there like an
+all-powerful queen-mother.
+
+For fifteen years this life went on, a life of hard work and peaceful
+affection, while the strictest economy was observed in contenting every
+need of the modest little household. Then Guillaume lost his mother, took
+his share of the family inheritance, and was able to satisfy his old
+desire, which was to buy the house he lived in, and build a spacious
+workshop in the garden. He was even able to build it of bricks, and add
+an upper story to it. But the work was scarcely finished, and life seemed
+to be on the point of expanding and smiling on them all, when misfortune
+returned, and typhoid fever, with brutal force, carried off Marguerite,
+after a week's illness. She was then five and thirty, and her eldest boy,
+Thomas, was fourteen. Thus Guillaume, distracted by his loss, found
+himself a widower at thirty-eight. The thought of introducing any unknown
+woman into that retired home, where all hearts beat in tender unison, was
+so unbearable to him that he determined to take no other mate. His work
+absorbed him, and he would know how to quiet both his heart and his
+flesh. Mere-Grand, fortunately, was still there, erect and courageous;
+the household retained its queen, and in her the children found a
+manageress and teacher, schooled in adversity and heroism.
+
+Two years passed; and then came an addition to the family. A young woman,
+Marie Couturier, the daughter of one of Guillaume's friends, suddenly
+entered it. Couturier had been an inventor, a madman with some measure of
+genius, and had spent a fairly large fortune in attempting all sorts of
+fantastic schemes. His wife, a very pious woman, had died of grief at it
+all; and although on the rare occasions when he saw his daughter, he
+showed great fondness for her and loaded her with presents, he had first
+placed her in a boarding college, and afterwards left her in the charge
+of a poor female relative. Remembering her only on his death-bed, he had
+begged Guillaume to give her an asylum, and find her a husband. The poor
+relation, who dealt in ladies' and babies' linen, had just become a
+bankrupt. So, at nineteen, the girl, Marie, found herself a penniless
+outcast, possessed of nothing save a good education, health and courage.
+Guillaume would never allow her to run about giving lessons. He took her,
+in quite a natural way, to help Mere-Grand, who was no longer so active
+as formerly. And the latter approved the arrangement, well pleased at the
+advent of youth and gaiety, which would somewhat brighten the household,
+whose life had been one of much gravity ever since Marguerite's death.
+Marie would simply be an elder sister; she was too old for the boys, who
+were still at college, to be disturbed by her presence. And she would
+work in that house where everybody worked. She would help the little
+community pending the time when she might meet and love some worthy
+fellow who would marry her.
+
+Five more years elapsed without Marie consenting to quit that happy home.
+The sterling education she had received was lodged in a vigorous brain,
+which contented itself with the acquirement of knowledge. Yet she had
+remained very pure and healthy, even very /naive/, maidenly by reason of
+her natural rectitude. And she was also very much a woman, beautifying
+and amusing herself with a mere nothing, and ever showing gaiety and
+contentment. Moreover, she was in no wise of a dreamy nature, but very
+practical, always intent on some work or other, and only asking of life
+such things as life could give, without anxiety as to what might lie
+beyond it. She lovingly remembered her pious mother, who had prepared her
+for her first Communion in tears, imagining that she was opening heaven's
+portals to her. But since she had been an orphan she had of her own
+accord ceased all practice of religion, her good sense revolting and
+scorning the need of any moral police regulations to make her do her
+duty. Indeed, she considered such regulations dangerous and destructive
+of true health. Thus, like Mere-Grand, she had come to a sort of quiet
+and almost unconscious atheism, not after the fashion of one who reasons,
+but simply like the brave, healthy girl she was, one who had long endured
+poverty without suffering from it, and believed in nothing save the
+necessity of effort. She had been kept erect, indeed, by her conviction
+that happiness was to be found in the normal joys of life, lived
+courageously. And her happy equilibrium of mind had ever guided and saved
+her, in such wise that she willingly listened to her natural instinct,
+saying, with her pleasant laugh, that this was, after all, her best
+adviser. She rejected two offers of marriage, and on the second occasion,
+as Guillaume pressed her to accept, she grew astonished, and inquired if
+he had had enough of her in the house. She found herself very
+comfortable, and she rendered service there. So why should she leave and
+run the risk of being less happy elsewhere, particularly as she was not
+in love with anybody?
+
+Then, by degrees, the idea of a marriage between Marie and Guillaume
+presented itself; and indeed what could have been more reasonable and
+advantageous for all? If Guillaume had not mated again it was for his
+sons' sake, because he feared that by introducing a stranger to the house
+he might impair its quietude and gaiety. But now there was a woman among
+them who already showed herself maternal towards the boys, and whose
+bright youth had ended by disturbing his own heart. He was still in his
+prime, and had always held that it was not good for man to live alone,
+although, personally, thanks to his ardour for work, he had hitherto
+escaped excessive suffering in his bereavement. However, there was the
+great difference of ages to be considered; and he would have bravely
+remained in the background and have sought a younger husband for Marie,
+if his three big sons and Mere-Grand herself had not conspired to effect
+his happiness by doing all they could to bring about a marriage which
+would strengthen every home tie and impart, as it were, a fresh
+springtide to the house. As for Marie, touched and grateful to Guillaume
+for the manner in which he had treated her for five years past, she
+immediately consented with an impulse of sincere affection, in which, she
+fancied, she could detect love. And at all events, could she act in a
+more sensible, reasonable way, base her life on more certain prospects of
+happiness? So the marriage had been resolved upon; and about a month
+previously it had been decided that it should take place during the
+ensuing spring, towards the end of April.
+
+When Pierre, after alighting from the tramcar, began to climb the
+interminable flights of steps leading to the Rue St. Eleuthere, a feeling
+of uneasiness again came over him at the thought that he was about to
+enter that suspicious ogre's den where everything would certainly wound
+and irritate him. Given the letter which Sophie had carried thither on
+the previous night, announcing that the master would not return, how
+anxious and upset must all its inmates be! However, as Pierre ascended
+the final flight and nervously raised his head, the little house appeared
+to him right atop of the hill, looking very serene and quiet under the
+bright wintry sun, which had peered forth as if to bestow upon the modest
+dwelling an affectionate caress.
+
+There was a door in the old garden wall alongside the Rue St. Eleuthere,
+almost in front of the broad thoroughfare conducting to the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart; but to reach the house itself one had to skirt the wall
+and climb to the Place du Tertre, where one found the facade and the
+entrance. Some children were playing on the Place, which, planted as it
+was with a few scrubby trees, and edged with humble shops,--a
+fruiterer's, a grocer's and a baker's,--looked like some square in a
+small provincial town. In a corner, on the left, Guillaume's dwelling,
+which had been whitewashed during the previous spring, showed its bright
+frontage and five lifeless windows, for all its life was on the other,
+the garden, side, which overlooked Paris and the far horizon.
+
+Pierre mustered his courage and, pulling a brass knob which glittered
+like gold, rang the bell. There came a gay, distant jingle; but for a
+moment nobody appeared, and he was about to ring again, when the door was
+thrown wide open, revealing a passage which ran right through the house,
+beyond which appeared the ocean of Paris, the endless sea of house roofs
+bathed in sunlight. And against this spacious, airy background, stood a
+young woman of twenty-six, clad in a simple gown of black woolen stuff,
+half covered by a large blue apron. She had her sleeves rolled up above
+her elbows, and her arms and hands were still moist with water which she
+had but imperfectly wiped away.
+
+A moment's surprise and embarrassment ensued. The young woman, who had
+hastened to the door with laughing mien, became grave and covertly
+hostile at sight of the visitor's cassock. The priest thereupon realised
+that he must give his name: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment."
+
+At this the young woman's smile of welcome came back to her. "Oh! I beg
+your pardon, monsieur--I ought to have recognised you, for I saw you wish
+Guillaume good day one morning as you passed."
+
+She said Guillaume; she, therefore, must be Marie. And Pierre looked at
+her in astonishment, finding her very different from what he had
+imagined. She was only of average height, but she was vigorously,
+admirably built, broad of hip and broad of shoulder, with the small firm
+bosom of an amazon. By her erect and easy step, instinct with all the
+adorable grace of woman in her prime, one could divine that she was
+strong, muscular and healthy. A brunette, but very white of skin, she had
+a heavy helm of superb black hair, which she fastened in a negligent way,
+without any show of coquetry. And under her dark locks, her pure,
+intelligent brow, her delicate nose and gay eyes appeared full of intense
+life; whilst the somewhat heavier character of her lower features, her
+fleshy lips and full chin, bespoke her quiet kindliness. She had surely
+come on earth as a promise of every form of tenderness, every form of
+devotion. In a word, she was a true mate for man.
+
+However, with her heavy, straying hair and superb arms, so ingenuous in
+their nudity, she only gave Pierre an impression of superfluous health
+and extreme self-assurance. She displeased him and even made him feel
+somewhat anxious, as if she were a creature different from all others.
+
+"It is my brother Guillaume who has sent me," he said.
+
+At this her face again changed; she became grave and hastened to admit
+him to the passage. And when the door was closed she answered: "You have
+brought us news of him, then! I must apologise for receiving you in this
+fashion. The servants have just finished some washing, and I was making
+sure if the work had been well done. Pray excuse me, and come in here for
+a moment; it is perhaps best that I should be the first to know the
+news."
+
+So saying, she led him past the kitchen to a little room which served as
+scullery and wash-house. A tub full of soapy water stood there, and some
+dripping linen hung over some wooden bars. "And so, Guillaume?" she
+asked.
+
+Pierre then told the truth in simple fashion: that his brother's wrist
+had been injured; that he himself had witnessed the accident, and that
+his brother had then sought an asylum with him at Neuilly, where he
+wished to remain and get cured of his injury in peace and quietness,
+without even receiving a visit from his sons. While speaking in this
+fashion, the priest watched the effect of his words on Marie's face:
+first fright and pity, and then an effort to calm herself and judge
+things reasonably.
+
+"His letter quite froze me last night," she ended by replying. "I felt
+sure that some misfortune had happened. But one must be brave and hide
+one's fear from others. His wrist injured, you say; it is not a serious
+injury, is it?"
+
+"No; but it is necessary that every precaution should be taken with it."
+
+She looked him well in the face with her big frank eyes, which dived into
+his own as if to reach the very depths of his being, though at the same
+time she plainly sought to restrain the score of questions which rose to
+her lips. "And that is all: he was injured in an accident," she resumed;
+"he didn't ask you to tell us anything further about it?"
+
+"No, he simply desires that you will not be anxious."
+
+Thereupon she insisted no further, but showed herself obedient and
+respectful of the decision which Guillaume had arrived at. It sufficed
+that he should have sent a messenger to reassure the household--she did
+not seek to learn any more. And even as she had returned to her work in
+spite of the secret anxiety in which the letter of the previous evening
+had left her, so now, with her air of quiet strength, she recovered an
+appearance of serenity, a quiet smile and clear brave glance.
+
+"Guillaume only gave me one other commission," resumed Pierre, "that of
+handing a little key to Madame Leroi."
+
+"Very good," Marie answered, "Mere-Grand is here; and, besides, the
+children must see you. I will take you to them."
+
+Once more quite tranquil, she examined Pierre without managing to conceal
+her curiosity, which seemed of rather a kindly nature blended with an
+element of vague pity. Her fresh white arms had remained bare. In all
+candour she slowly drew down her sleeves; then took off the large blue
+apron, and showed herself with her rounded figure, at once robust and
+elegant, in her modest black gown. He meanwhile looked at her, and most
+certainly he did not find her to his liking. On seeing her so natural,
+healthy, and courageous, quite a feeling of revolt arose within him,
+though he knew not why.
+
+"Will you please follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she said. "We must cross
+the garden."
+
+On the ground-floor of the house, across the passage, and facing the
+kitchen and the scullery, there were two other rooms, a library
+overlooking the Place du Tertre, and a dining-room whose windows opened
+into the garden. The four rooms on the first floor served as bedchambers
+for the father and the sons. As for the garden, originally but a small
+one, it had now been reduced to a kind of gravelled yard by the erection
+of the large workshop at one end of it. Of the former greenery, however,
+there still remained two huge plum-trees with old knotted trunks, as well
+as a big clump of lilac-bushes, which every spring were covered with
+bloom. And in front of the latter Marie had arranged a broad flower-bed,
+in which she amused herself with growing a few roses, some wallflowers
+and some mignonette.
+
+With a wave of her hand as she went past, she called Pierre's attention
+to the black plum-trees and the lilacs and roses, which showed but a few
+greenish spots, for winter still held the little nook in sleep. "Tell
+Guillaume," she said, "that he must make haste to get well and be back
+for the first shoots."
+
+Then, as Pierre glanced at her, she all at once flushed purple. Much to
+her distress, sudden and involuntary blushes would in this wise
+occasionally come upon her, even at the most innocent remarks. She found
+it ridiculous to feel such childish emotion when she had so brave a
+heart. But her pure maidenly blood had retained exquisite delicacy, such
+natural and instinctive modesty that she yielded to it perforce. And
+doubtless she had merely blushed because she feared that the priest might
+think she had referred to her marriage in speaking of the spring.
+
+"Please go in, Monsieur l'Abbe. The children are there, all three." And
+forthwith she ushered him into the workshop.
+
+It was a very spacious place, over sixteen feet high, with a brick
+flooring and bare walls painted an iron grey. A sheet of light, a stream
+of sunshine, spread to every corner through a huge window facing the
+south, where lay the immensity of Paris. The Venetian shutters often had
+to be lowered in the summer to attenuate the great heat. From morn till
+night the whole family lived here, closely and affectionately united in
+work. Each was installed as fancy listed, having a particular chosen
+place. One half of the building was occupied by the father's chemical
+laboratory, with its stove, experiment tables, shelves for apparatus,
+glass cases and cupboards for phials and jars. Near all this Thomas, the
+eldest son, had installed a little forge, an anvil, a vice bench, in fact
+everything necessary to a working mechanician, such as he had become
+since taking his bachelor's degree, from his desire to remain with his
+father and help him with certain researches and inventions. Then, at the
+other end, the younger brothers, Francois and Antoine, got on very well
+together on either side of a broad table which stood amidst a medley of
+portfolios, nests of drawers and revolving book-stands. Francois, laden
+with academical laurels, first on the pass list for the Ecole Normale,
+had entered that college where young men are trained for university
+professorships, and was there preparing for his Licentiate degree, while
+Antoine, who on reaching the third class at the Lycee Condorcet had taken
+a dislike to classical studies, now devoted himself to his calling as a
+wood-engraver. And, in the full light under the window, Mere-Grand and
+Marie likewise had their particular table, where needlework, embroidery,
+all sorts of /chiffons/ and delicate things lay about near the somewhat
+rough jumble of retorts, tools and big books.
+
+Marie, however, on the very threshold called out in her calm voice, to
+which she strove to impart a gay and cheering accent: "Children!
+children! here is Monsieur l'Abbe with news of father!"
+
+Children, indeed! Yet what motherliness she already set in the word as
+she applied it to those big fellows whose elder sister she had long
+considered herself to be! At three and twenty Thomas was quite a
+colossus, already bearded and extremely like his father. But although he
+had a lofty brow and energetic features, he was somewhat slow both in
+mind and body. And he was also taciturn, almost unsociable, absorbed in
+filial devotion, delighted with the manual toil which made him a mere
+workman at his master's orders. Francois, two years younger than Thomas,
+and nearly as tall, showed a more refined face, though he had the same
+large brow and firm mouth, a perfect blending of health and strength, in
+which the man of intellect, the scientific Normalian, could only be
+detected by the brighter and more subtle sparkle of the eyes. The
+youngest of the brothers, Antoine, who for his eighteen years was almost
+as strong as his elders, and promised to become as tall, differed from
+them by his lighter hair and soft, blue, dreamy eyes, which he had
+inherited from his mother. It had been difficult, however, to distinguish
+one from the other when all three were schoolboys at the Lycee Condorcet;
+and even nowadays people made mistakes unless they saw them side by side,
+so as to detect the points of difference which were becoming more marked
+as age progressed.
+
+On Pierre's arrival the brothers were so absorbed in their work that they
+did not even hear the door open. And again, as in the case of Marie, the
+priest was surprised by the discipline and firmness of mind, which amidst
+the keenest anxiety gave the young fellows strength to take up their
+daily task. Thomas, who stood at his vice-bench in a blouse, was
+carefully filing a little piece of copper with rough but skilful hands.
+Francois, leaning forward, was writing in a bold, firm fashion, whilst on
+the other side of the table, Antoine, with a slender graver between his
+fingers, finished a block for an illustrated newspaper.
+
+However, Marie's clear voice made them raise their heads: "Children,
+father has sent you some news!"
+
+Then all three with the same impulse hurriedly quitted their work and
+came forward. One could divine that directly there was any question of
+their father they were drawn together, blended one with the other, so
+that but one and the same heart beat in their three broad chests.
+However, a door at the far end of the workroom opened at that moment, and
+Mere-Grand, coming from the upper floor where she and Marie had their
+bedrooms, made her appearance. She had just absented herself to fetch a
+skein of wool; and she gazed fixedly at the priest, unable to understand
+the reason of his presence.
+
+Marie had to explain matters. "Mere-Grand," said she, "this is Monsieur
+l'Abbe Froment, Guillaume's brother; he has come from him."
+
+Pierre on his side was examining the old lady, astonished to find her so
+erect and full of life at seventy. Her former beauty had left a stately
+charm on her rather long face; youthful fire still lingered in her brown
+eyes; and very firm was the contour of her pale lips, which in parting
+showed that she had retained all her teeth. A few white hairs alone
+silvered her black tresses, which were arranged in old-time fashion. Her
+cheeks had but slightly withered, and her deep, symmetrical wrinkles gave
+her countenance an expression of much nobility, a sovereign air as of a
+queen-mother, which, tall and slight of stature as she was, and
+invariably gowned in black woollen stuff, she always retained, no matter
+how humble her occupation.
+
+"So Guillaume sent you, monsieur," she said; "he is injured, is he not?"
+
+Surprised by this proof of intuition, Pierre repeated his story. "Yes,
+his wrist is injured--but oh! it's not a case of immediate gravity."
+
+On the part of the three sons, he had divined a sudden quiver, an impulse
+of their whole beings to rush to the help and defence of their father.
+And for their sakes he sought words of comfort: "He is with me at
+Neuilly. And with due care it is certain that no serious complications
+will arise. He sent me to tell you to be in no wise uneasy about him."
+
+Mere-Grand for her part evinced no fears, but preserved great calmness,
+as if the priest's tidings contained nothing beyond what she had known
+already. If anything, she seemed rather relieved, freed from anxiety
+which she had confided to none. "If he is with you, monsieur," she
+answered, "he is evidently as comfortable as he can be, and sheltered
+from all risks. We were surprised, however, by his letter last night, as
+it did not explain why he was detained, and we should have ended by
+feeling frightened. But now everything is satisfactory."
+
+Mere-Grand and the three sons, following Marie's example, asked no
+explanations. On a table near at hand Pierre noticed several morning
+newspapers lying open and displaying column after column of particulars
+about the crime. The sons had certainly read these papers, and had feared
+lest their father should be compromised in that frightful affair. How far
+did their knowledge of the latter go? They must be ignorant of the part
+played by Salvat. It was surely impossible for them to piece together all
+the unforeseen circumstances which had brought about their father's
+meeting with the workman, and then the crime. Mere-Grand, no doubt, was
+in certain respects better informed than the others. But they, the sons
+and Marie, neither knew nor sought to know anything. And thus what a
+wealth of respect and affection there was in their unshakable confidence
+in the father, in the tranquillity they displayed directly he sent them
+word that they were not to be anxious about him!
+
+"Madame," Pierre resumed, "Guillaume told me to give you this little key,
+and to remind you to do what he charged you to do, if any misfortune
+should befall him."
+
+She started, but so slightly that it was scarcely perceptible; and taking
+the key she answered as if some ordinary wish on the part of a sick
+person were alone in question. "Very well. Tell him that his wishes shall
+be carried out." Then she added, "But pray take a seat, monsieur."
+
+Pierre, indeed, had remained standing. However, he now felt it necessary
+to accept a chair, desirous as he was of hiding the embarrassment which
+he still felt in this house, although he was /en famille/ there. Marie,
+who could not live without occupation for her fingers, had just returned
+to some embroidery, some of the fine needlework which she stubbornly
+executed for a large establishment dealing in baby-linen and bridal
+/trousseaux/; for she wished at any rate to earn her own pocket-money,
+she often said with a laugh. Mere-Grand, too, from habit, which she
+followed even when visitors were present, had once more started on her
+perpetual stocking-mending; while Francois and Antoine had again seated
+themselves at their table; and Thomas alone remained on his legs, leaning
+against his bench. All the charm of industrious intimacy pervaded the
+spacious, sun-lit room.
+
+"But we'll all go to see father to-morrow," Thomas suddenly exclaimed.
+
+Before Pierre could answer Marie raised her head. "No, no," said she, "he
+does not wish any of us to go to him; for if we should be watched and
+followed we should betray the secret of his retreat. Isn't that so,
+Monsieur l'Abbe?"
+
+"It would indeed be prudent of you to deprive yourselves of the pleasure
+of embracing him until he himself can come back here. It will be a matter
+of some two or three weeks," answered Pierre.
+
+Mere-Grand at once expressed approval of this. "No doubt," said she.
+"Nothing could be more sensible."
+
+So the three sons did not insist, but bravely accepted the secret anxiety
+in which they must for a time live, renouncing the visit which would have
+caused them so much delight, because their father bade them do so and
+because his safety depended perhaps on their obedience.
+
+However, Thomas resumed: "Then, Monsieur l'Abbe, will you please tell him
+that as work will be interrupted here, I shall return to the factory
+during his absence. I shall be more at ease there for the researches on
+which we are engaged."
+
+"And please tell him from me," put in Francois, "that he mustn't worry
+about my examination. Things are going very well. I feel almost certain
+of success."
+
+Pierre promised that he would forget nothing. However, Marie raised her
+head, smiling and glancing at Antoine, who had remained silent with a
+faraway look in his eyes. "And you, little one," said she, "don't you
+send him any message?"
+
+Emerging from a dream, the young fellow also began to smile. "Yes, yes, a
+message that you love him dearly, and that he's to make haste back for
+you to make him happy."
+
+At this they all became merry, even Marie, who in lieu of embarrassment
+showed a tranquil gaiety born of confidence in the future. Between her
+and the young men there was naught but happy affection. And a grave smile
+appeared even on the pale lips of Mere-Grand, who likewise approved of
+the happiness which life seemed to be promising.
+
+Pierre wished to stay a few minutes longer. They all began to chat, and
+his astonishment increased. He had gone from surprise to surprise in this
+house where he had expected to find that equivocal, disorderly life, that
+rebellion against social laws, which destroy morality. But instead of
+this he had found loving serenity, and such strong discipline that life
+there partook of the gravity, almost the austerity, of convent life,
+tempered by youth and gaiety. The vast room was redolent of industry and
+quietude, warm with bright sunshine. However, what most particularly
+struck him was the Spartan training, the bravery of mind and heart among
+those sons who allowed nothing to be seen of their personal feelings, and
+did not presume to judge their father, but remained content with his
+message, ready to await events, stoical and silent, while carrying on
+their daily tasks. Nothing could be more simple, more dignified, more
+lofty. And there was also the smiling heroism of Mere-Grand and Marie,
+those two women who slept over that laboratory where terrible
+preparations were manipulated, and where an explosion was always
+possible.
+
+However, such courage, orderliness and dignity merely surprised Pierre,
+without touching him. He had no cause for complaint, he had received a
+polite greeting if not an affectionate one; but then he was as yet only a
+stranger there, a priest. In spite of everything, however, he remained
+hostile, feeling that he was in a sphere where none of his own torments
+could be shared or even divined. How did these folks manage to be so calm
+and happy amidst their religious unbelief, their sole faith in science,
+and in presence of that terrifying Paris which spread before them the
+boundless sea, the growling abomination of its injustice and its want? As
+this thought came to him he turned his head and gazed at the city through
+the huge window, whence it stretched away, ever present, ever living its
+giant life. And at that hour, under the oblique sun-rays of the winter
+afternoon, all Paris was speckled with luminous dust, as if some
+invisible sower, hidden amidst the glory of the planet, were fast
+scattering seed which fell upon every side in a stream of gold. The whole
+field was covered with it; for the endless chaos of house roofs and
+edifices seemed to be land in tilth, furrowed by some gigantic plough.
+And Pierre in his uneasiness, stirred, despite everything, by an
+invincible need of hope, asked himself if this was not a good sowing, the
+furrows of Paris strewn with light by the divine sun for the great future
+harvest, that harvest of truth and justice of whose advent he had
+despaired.
+
+At last he rose and took his leave, promising to return at once, if there
+should be any bad news. It was Marie who showed him to the front door.
+And there another of those childish blushes which worried her so much
+suddenly rose to her face, just as she, in her turn, also wished to send
+her loving message to the injured man. However, with her gay, candid eyes
+fixed on those of the priest, she bravely spoke the words: "/Au revoir,
+Monsieur l'Abbe/. Tell Guillaume that I love him and await him."
+
+
+
+III
+
+PENURY AND TOIL
+
+THREE days went by, and every morning Guillaume, confined to his bed and
+consumed by fever and impatience, experienced fresh anxiety directly the
+newspapers arrived. Pierre had tried to keep them from him, but Guillaume
+then worried himself the more, and so the priest had to read him column
+by column all the extraordinary articles that were published respecting
+the crime.
+
+Never before had so many rumours inundated the press. Even the "Globe,"
+usually so grave and circumspect, yielded to the general /furore/, and
+printed whatever statements reached it. But the more unscrupulous papers
+were the ones to read. The "Voix du Peuple" in particular made use of the
+public feverishness to increase its sales. Each morning it employed some
+fresh device, and printed some frightful story of a nature to drive
+people mad with terror. It related that not a day passed without Baron
+Duvillard receiving threatening letters of the coarsest description,
+announcing that his wife, his son and his daughter would all be killed,
+that he himself would be butchered in turn, and that do what he might his
+house would none the less be blown up. And as a measure of precaution the
+house was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothes
+officers. Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention.
+Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near the
+Madeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning a
+perfect volcano there, into which one half of Paris would sink. And at
+another time it was alleged that the police were on the track of a
+terrible plot which embraced all Europe, from the depths of Russia to the
+shores of Spain. The signal for putting it into execution was to be given
+in France, and there would be a three days' massacre, with grape shot
+sweeping everyone off the Boulevards, and the Seine running red, swollen
+by a torrent of blood. Thanks to these able and intelligent devices of
+the Press, terror now reigned in the city; frightened foreigners fled
+from the hotels /en masse/; and Paris had become a mere mad-house, where
+the most idiotic delusions at once found credit.
+
+It was not all this, however, that worried Guillaume. He was only anxious
+about Salvat and the various new "scents" which the newspaper reporters
+attempted to follow up. The engineer was not yet arrested, and, so far
+indeed, there had been no statement in print to indicate that the police
+were on his track. At last, however, Pierre one morning read a paragraph
+which made the injured man turn pale.
+
+"Dear me! It seems that a tool has been found among the rubbish at the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion. It is a bradawl, and its handle bears
+the name of Grandidier, which is that of a man who keeps some well-known
+metal works. He is to appear before the investigating magistrate to-day."
+
+Guillaume made a gesture of despair. "Ah!" said he, "they are on the
+right track at last. That tool must certainly have been dropped by
+Salvat. He worked at Grandidier's before he came to me for a few days.
+And from Grandidier they will learn all that they need to know in order
+to follow the scent."
+
+Pierre then remembered that he had heard the Grandidier factory mentioned
+at Montmartre. Guillaume's eldest son, Thomas, had served his
+apprenticeship there, and even worked there occasionally nowadays.
+
+"You told me," resumed Guillaume, "that during my absence Thomas intended
+to go back to the factory. It's in connection with a new motor which he's
+planning, and has almost hit upon. If there should be a perquisition
+there, he may be questioned, and may refuse to answer, in order to guard
+his secret. So he ought to be warned of this, warned at once!"
+
+Without trying to extract any more precise statement from his brother,
+Pierre obligingly offered his services. "If you like," said he, "I will
+go to see Thomas this afternoon. Perhaps I may come across Monsieur
+Grandidier himself and learn how far the affair has gone, and what was
+said at the investigating magistrate's."
+
+With a moist glance and an affectionate grasp of the hand, Guillaume at
+once thanked Pierre: "Yes, yes, brother, go there, it will be good and
+brave of you."
+
+"Besides," continued the priest, "I really wanted to go to Montmartre
+to-day. I haven't told you so, but something has been worrying me. If
+Salvat has fled, he must have left the woman and the child all alone up
+yonder. On the morning of the day when the explosion took place I saw the
+poor creatures in such a state of destitution, such misery, that I can't
+think of them without a heart-pang. Women and children so often die of
+hunger when the man is no longer there."
+
+At this, Guillaume, who had kept Pierre's hand in his own, pressed it
+more tightly, and in a trembling voice exclaimed: "Yes, yes, and that
+will be good and brave too. Go there, brother, go there."
+
+That house of the Rue des Saules, that horrible home of want and agony,
+had lingered in Pierre's memory. To him it was like an embodiment of the
+whole filthy /cloaca/, in which the poor of Paris suffer unto death. And
+on returning thither that afternoon, he found the same slimy mud around
+it; its yard littered with the same filth, its dark, damp stairways
+redolent of the same stench of neglect and poverty, as before. In winter
+time, while the fine central districts of Paris are dried and cleansed,
+the far-away districts of the poor remain gloomy and miry, beneath the
+everlasting tramp of the wretched ones who dwell in them.
+
+Remembering the staircase which conducted to Salvat's lodging, Pierre
+began to climb it amidst a loud screaming of little children, who
+suddenly became quiet, letting the house sink into death-like silence
+once more. Then the thought of Laveuve, who had perished up there like a
+stray dog, came back to Pierre. And he shuddered when, on the top
+landing, he knocked at Salvat's door, and profound silence alone answered
+him. Not a breath was to be heard.
+
+However, he knocked again, and as nothing stirred he began to think that
+nobody could be there. Perhaps Salvat had returned to fetch the woman and
+the child, and perhaps they had followed him to some humble nook abroad.
+Still this would have astonished him; for the poor seldom quit their
+homes, but die where they have suffered. So he gave another gentle knock.
+
+And at last a faint sound, the light tread of little feet, was heard
+amidst the silence. Then a weak, childish voice ventured to inquire: "Who
+is there?"
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+The silence fell again, nothing more stirred. There was evidently
+hesitation on the other side.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day," said Pierre again.
+
+This evidently put an end to all uncertainty, for the door was set ajar
+and little Celine admitted the priest. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur
+l'Abbe," said she, "but Mamma Theodore has gone out, and she told me not
+to open the door to anyone."
+
+Pierre had, for a moment, imagined that Salvat himself was hiding there.
+But with a glance he took in the whole of the small bare room, where man,
+woman and child dwelt together. At the same time, Madame Theodore
+doubtless feared a visit from the police. Had she seen Salvat since the
+crime? Did she know where he was hiding? Had he come back there to
+embrace and tranquillise them both?
+
+"And your papa, my dear," said Pierre to Celine, "isn't he here either?"
+
+"Oh! no, monsieur, he has gone away."
+
+"What, gone away?"
+
+"Yes, he hasn't been home to sleep, and we don't know where he is."
+
+"Perhaps he's working."
+
+"Oh, no! he'd send us some money if he was."
+
+"Then he's gone on a journey, perhaps?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He wrote to Mamma Theodore, no doubt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Pierre asked no further questions. In fact, he felt somewhat ashamed of
+his attempt to extract information from this child of eleven, whom he
+thus found alone. It was quite possible that she knew nothing, that
+Salvat, in a spirit of prudence, had even refrained from sending any
+tidings of himself. Indeed, there was an expression of truthfulness on
+the child's fair, gentle and intelligent face, which was grave with the
+gravity that extreme misery imparts to the young.
+
+"I am sorry that Mamma Theodore isn't here," said Pierre, "I wanted to
+speak to her."
+
+"But perhaps you would like to wait for her, Monsieur l'Abbe. She has
+gone to my Uncle Toussaint's in the Rue Marcadet; and she can't stop much
+longer, for she's been away more than an hour."
+
+Thereupon Celine cleared one of the chairs on which lay a handful of
+scraps of wood, picked up on some waste ground.
+
+The bare and fireless room was assuredly also a breadless one. Pierre
+could divine the absence of the bread-winner, the disappearance of the
+man who represents will and strength in the home, and on whom one still
+relies even when weeks have gone by without work. He goes out and scours
+the city, and often ends by bringing back the indispensable crust which
+keeps death at bay. But with his disappearance comes complete
+abandonment, the wife and child in danger, destitute of all prop and
+help.
+
+Pierre, who had sat down and was looking at that poor, little, blue-eyed
+girl, to whose lips a smile returned in spite of everything, could not
+keep from questioning her on another point. "So you don't go to school,
+my child?" said he.
+
+She faintly blushed and answered: "I've no shoes to go in."
+
+He glanced at her feet, and saw that she was wearing a pair of ragged old
+list-slippers, from which her little toes protruded, red with cold.
+
+"Besides," she continued, "Mamma Theodore says that one doesn't go to
+school when one's got nothing to eat. Mamma Theodore wanted to work but
+she couldn't, because her eyes got burning hot and full of water. And so
+we don't know what to do, for we've had nothing left since yesterday, and
+if Uncle Toussaint can't lend us twenty sous it'll be all over."
+
+She was still smiling in her unconscious way, but two big tears had
+gathered in her eyes. And the sight of the child shut up in that bare
+room, apart from all the happy ones of earth, so upset the priest that he
+again felt his anger with want and misery awakening. Then, another ten
+minutes having elapsed, he became impatient, for he had to go to the
+Grandidier works before returning home.
+
+"I don't know why Mamma Theodore doesn't come back," repeated Celine.
+"Perhaps she's chatting." Then, an idea occurring to her she continued:
+"I'll take you to my Uncle Toussaint's, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you like.
+It's close by, just round the corner."
+
+"But you have no shoes, my child."
+
+"Oh! that don't matter, I walk all the same."
+
+Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: "Well, yes, that will
+be better, take me there. And I'll buy you some shoes."
+
+Celine turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him after
+carefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife,
+though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place.
+
+In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Theodore that before calling on
+her brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might first
+essay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married little
+Chretiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on the
+Boulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and the
+poor woman only made the venture because Celine had been fasting since
+the previous day.
+
+Eugene Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother,
+by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whom
+the latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters,
+Pauline, Leonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugene, who
+already had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a short
+time with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother,
+fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get out
+of difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughter
+Pauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Leonie there; so
+that Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier and
+more delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, later
+on,--after Pauline had married Labitte the stonemason, and Leonie, Salvat
+the journeyman-engineer,--Hortense, while serving as assistant at a
+confectioner's in the Rue des Martyrs, there became acquainted with
+Chretiennot, a clerk, who married her. Leonie had died young, only a few
+weeks after her mother; Pauline, forsaken by her husband, lived with her
+brother-in-law Salvat, and Hortense alone wore a light silk gown on
+Sundays, resided in a new house, and ranked as a /bourgeoise/, at the
+price, however, of interminable worries and great privation.
+
+Madame Theodore knew that her sister was generally short of money towards
+the month's end, and therefore felt rather ill at ease in thus venturing
+to apply for a loan. Chretiennot, moreover, embittered by his own
+mediocrity, had of late years accused his wife of being the cause of
+their spoilt life, and had ceased all intercourse with her relatives.
+Toussaint, no doubt, was a decent workman; but that Madame Theodore who
+lived in misery with her brother-in-law, and that Salvat who wandered
+from workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employer
+would keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had ended
+by incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler for
+the proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered in
+his own life. And thus he had forbidden Hortense to receive her sister.
+
+All the same, as Madame Theodore climbed the carpeted staircase of the
+house on the Boulevard Rochechouart, she experienced a certain feeling of
+pride at the thought that she had a relation living in such luxury. The
+Chretiennot's rooms were on the third floor, and overlooked the
+courtyard. Their /femme-de-menage/--a woman who goes out by the day or
+hour charring, cleaning and cooking--came back every afternoon about four
+o'clock to see to the dinner, and that day she was already there. She
+admitted the visitor, though she could not conceal her anxious surprise
+at her boldness in calling in such slatternly garb. However, on the very
+threshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short in
+wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on
+one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so
+proud.
+
+"What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore.
+
+Her sister, though scarcely two and thirty, was no longer "the beautiful
+Hortense" of former days. She retained a doll-like appearance, with a
+tall slim figure, pretty eyes and fine, fair hair. But she who had once
+taken so much care of herself, had now come down to dressing-gowns of
+doubtful cleanliness. Her eyelids, too, were reddening, and blotches were
+appearing on her skin. She had begun to fade after giving birth to two
+daughters, one of whom was now nine and the other seven years of age.
+Very proud and egotistical, she herself had begun to regret her marriage,
+for she had formerly considered herself a real beauty, worthy of the
+palaces and equipages of some Prince Charming. And at this moment she was
+plunged in such despair, that her sister's sudden appearance on the scene
+did not even astonish her: "Ah! it's you," she gasped. "Ah! if you only
+knew what a blow's fallen on me in the middle of all our worries!"
+
+Madame Theodore at once thought of the children, Lucienne and Marcelle.
+"Are your daughters ill?" she asked.
+
+"No, no, our neighbour has taken them for a walk on the Boulevard. But
+the fact is, my dear, I'm /enceinte/, and when I told Chretiennot of it
+after /dejeuner/, he flew into a most fearful passion, saying the most
+dreadful, the most cruel things!"
+
+Then she again sobbed. Gentle and indolent by nature, desirous of peace
+and quietness before anything else, she was incapable of deceiving her
+husband, as he well knew. But the trouble was that an addition to the
+family would upset the whole economy of the household.
+
+"/Mon Dieu/!" said Madame Theodore at last, "you brought up the others,
+and you'll bring up this one too."
+
+At this an explosion of anger dried the other's eyes; and she rose,
+exclaiming: "You are good, you are! One can see that our purse isn't
+yours. How are we to bring up another child when we can scarcely make
+both ends meet as it is?"
+
+And thereupon, forgetting the /bourgeois/ pride which usually prompted
+her to silence or falsehood, she freely explained their embarrassment,
+the horrid pecuniary worries which made their life a perpetual misery.
+Their rent amounted to 700 francs,* so that out of the 3000 francs**
+which the husband earned at his office, barely a couple of hundred were
+left them every month. And how were they to manage with that little sum,
+provide food and clothes, keep up their rank and so forth? There was the
+indispensable black coat for monsieur, the new dress which madame must
+have at regular intervals, under penalty of losing caste, the new boots
+which the children required almost every month, in fact, all sorts of
+things that could not possibly be dispensed with. One might strike a dish
+or two out of the daily menu, and even go without wine; but evenings came
+when it was absolutely necessary to take a cab. And, apart from all this,
+one had to reckon with the wastefulness of the children, the disorder in
+which the discouraged wife left the house, and the despair of the
+husband, who was convinced that he would never extricate himself from his
+difficulties, even should his salary some day be raised to as high a
+figure as 4000 francs. Briefly, one here found the unbearable penury of
+the petty clerk, with consequences as disastrous as the black want of the
+artisan: the mock facade and lying luxury; all the disorder and suffering
+which lie behind intellectual pride at not earning one's living at a
+bench or on a scaffolding.
+
+  * $140.
+
+  ** $600.
+
+"Well, well," repeated Madame Theodore, "you can't kill the child."
+
+"No, of course not; but it's the end of everything," answered Hortense,
+sinking into the armchair again. "What will become of us, /mon Dieu/!
+What will become of us!" Then she collapsed in her unbuttoned dressing
+gown, tears once more gushing from her red and swollen eyes.
+
+Much vexed that circumstances should be so unpropitious, Madame Theodore
+nevertheless ventured to ask for the loan of twenty sons; and this
+brought her sister's despair and confusion to a climax. "I really haven't
+a centime in the house," said she, "just now I borrowed ten sous for the
+children from the servant. I had to get ten francs from the Mont de Piete
+on a little ring the other day. And it's always the same at the end of
+the month. However, Chretiennot will be paid to-day, and he's coming back
+early with the money for dinner. So if I can I will send you something
+to-morrow."
+
+At this same moment the servant hastened in with a distracted air, being
+well aware that monsieur was in no wise partial to madame's relatives.
+"Oh madame, madame!" said she; "here's monsieur coming up the stairs."
+
+"Quick then, quick, go away!" cried Hortense, "I should only have another
+scene if he met you here. To-morrow, if I can, I promise you."
+
+To avoid Chretiennot who was coming in, Madame Theodore had to hide
+herself in the kitchen. As he passed, she just caught sight of him, well
+dressed as usual in a tight-fitting frock-coat. Short and lean, with a
+thin face and long and carefully tended beard, he had the bearing of one
+who is both vain and quarrelsome. Fourteen years of office life had
+withered him, and now the long evening hours which he spent at a
+neighbouring cafe were finishing him off.
+
+When Madame Theodore had quitted the house she turned with dragging steps
+towards the Rue Marcadet where the Toussaints resided. Here, again, she
+had no great expectations, for she well knew what ill-luck and worry had
+fallen upon her brother's home. During the previous autumn Toussaint,
+though he was but fifty, had experienced an attack of paralysis which had
+laid him up for nearly five months. Prior to this mishap he had borne
+himself bravely, working steadily, abstaining from drink, and bringing up
+his three children in true fatherly fashion. One of them, a girl, was now
+married to a carpenter, with whom she had gone to Le Havre, while of the
+others, both boys--one a soldier, had been killed in Tonquin, and the
+other Charles, after serving his time in the army, had become a working
+mechanician. Still, Toussaint's long illness had exhausted the little
+money which he had in the Savings Bank, and now that he had been set on
+his legs again, he had to begin life once more without a copper before
+him.
+
+Madame Theodore found her sister-in-law alone in the cleanly kept room
+which she and her husband occupied. Madame Toussaint was a portly woman,
+whose corpulence increased in spite of everything, whether it were worry
+or fasting. She had a round puffy face with bright little eyes; and was a
+very worthy woman, whose only faults were an inclination for gossiping
+and a fondness for good cheer. Before Madame Theodore even opened her
+mouth she understood the object of her visit. "You've come on us at a bad
+moment, my dear," she said, "we're stumped. Toussaint wasn't able to go
+back to the works till the day before yesterday, and he'll have to ask
+for an advance this evening."
+
+As she spoke, she looked at the other with no great sympathy, hurt as she
+felt by her slovenly appearance. "And Salvat," she added, "is he still
+doing nothing?"
+
+Madame Theodore doubtless foresaw the question, for she quietly lied: "He
+isn't in Paris, a friend has taken him off for some work over Belgium
+way, and I'm waiting for him to send us something."
+
+Madame Toussaint still remained distrustful, however: "Ah!" she said,
+"it's just as well that he shouldn't be in Paris; for with all these bomb
+affairs we couldn't help thinking of him, and saying that he was quite
+mad enough to mix himself up in them."
+
+The other did not even blink. If she knew anything she kept it to
+herself.
+
+"But you, my dear, can't you find any work?" continued Madame Toussaint.
+
+"Well, what would you have me do with my poor eyes? It's no longer
+possible for me to sew."
+
+"That's true. A seamstress gets done for. When Toussaint was laid up here
+I myself wanted to go back to my old calling as a needlewoman. But there!
+I spoilt everything and did no good. Charring's about the only thing that
+one can always do. Why don't you get some jobs of that kind?"
+
+"I'm trying, but I can't find any."
+
+Little by little Madame Toussaint was softening at sight of the other's
+miserable appearance. She made her sit down, and told her that she would
+give her something if Toussaint should come home with money. Then,
+yielding to her partiality for gossiping, since there was somebody to
+listen to her, she started telling stories. The one affair, however, on
+which she invariably harped was the sorry business of her son Charles and
+the servant girl at a wine shop over the way. Before going into the army
+Charles had been a most hard-working and affectionate son, invariably
+bringing his pay home to his mother. And certainly he still worked and
+showed himself good-natured; but military service, while sharpening his
+wits, had taken away some of his liking for ordinary manual toil. It
+wasn't that he regretted army life, for he spoke of his barracks as a
+prison. Only his tools had seemed to him rather heavy when, on quitting
+the service, he had been obliged to take them in hand once more.
+
+"And so, my dear," continued Madame Toussaint, "it's all very well for
+Charles to be kind-hearted, he can do no more for us. I knew that he
+wasn't in a hurry to get married, as it costs money to keep a wife. And
+he was always very prudent, too, with girls. But what would you have?
+There was that moment of folly with that Eugenie over the road, a regular
+baggage who's already gone off with another man, and left her baby
+behind. Charles has put it out to nurse, and pays for it every month. And
+a lot of expense it is too, perfect ruination. Yes, indeed, every
+possible misfortune has fallen on us."
+
+In this wise Madame Toussaint rattled on for a full half hour. Then
+seeing that waiting and anxiety had made her sister-in-law turn quite
+pale, she suddenly stopped short. "You're losing patience, eh?" she
+exclaimed. "The fact is, that Toussaint won't be back for some time.
+Shall we go to the works together? I'll easily find out if he's likely to
+bring any money home."
+
+They then decided to go down, but at the bottom of the stairs they
+lingered for another quarter of an hour chatting with a neighbour who had
+lately lost a child. And just as they were at last leaving the house they
+heard a call: "Mamma! mamma!"
+
+It came from little Celine, whose face was beaming with delight. She was
+wearing a pair of new shoes and devouring a cake. "Mamma," she resumed,
+"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day wants to see you. Just look! he
+bought me all this!"
+
+On seeing the shoes and the cake, Madame Theodore understood matters. And
+when Pierre, who was behind the child, accosted her she began to tremble
+and stammer thanks. Madame Toussaint on her side had quickly drawn near,
+not indeed to ask for anything herself, but because she was well pleased
+at such a God-send for her sister-in-law, whose circumstances were worse
+than her own. And when she saw the priest slip ten francs into Madame
+Theodore's hand she explained to him that she herself would willingly
+have lent something had she been able. Then she promptly started on the
+stories of Toussaint's attack and her son Charles's ill-luck.
+
+But Celine broke in: "I say, mamma, the factory where papa used to work
+is here in this street, isn't it? Monsieur l'Abbe has some business
+there."*
+
+  * Although the children of the French peasantry almost
+    invariably address their parents as "father" and "mother,"
+    those of the working classes of Paris, and some other large
+    cities, usually employ the terms "papa" and "mamma."--Trans.
+
+"The Grandidier factory," resumed Madame Toussaint; "well, we were just
+going there, and we can show Monsieur l'Abbe the way."
+
+It was only a hundred steps off. Escorted by the two women and the child,
+Pierre slackened his steps and tried to extract some information about
+Salvat from Madame Theodore. But she at once became very prudent. She had
+not seen him again, she declared; he must have gone with a mate to
+Belgium, where there was a prospect of some work. From what she said, it
+appeared to the priest that Salvat had not dared to return to the Rue des
+Saules since his crime, in which all had collapsed, both his past life of
+toil and hope, and his recent existence with its duties towards the woman
+and the child.
+
+"There's the factory, Monsieur l'Abbe," suddenly said Madame Toussaint,
+"my sister-in-law won't have to wait now, since you've been kind enough
+to help her. Thank you for her and for us."
+
+Madame Theodore and Celine likewise poured forth their thanks, standing
+beside Madame Toussaint in the everlasting mud of that populous district,
+amidst the jostling of the passers-by. And lingering there as if to see
+Pierre enter, they again chatted together and repeated that, after all,
+some priests were very kind.
+
+The Grandidier works covered an extensive plot of ground. Facing the
+street there was only a brick building with narrow windows and a great
+archway, through which one espied a long courtyard. But, in the rear,
+came a suite of habitations, workshops, and sheds, above whose never
+ending roofs arose the two lofty chimneys of the generators. From the
+very threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all
+the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up
+above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident
+puff, as if it were the very breath of that huge, toiling hive.
+
+Bicycles were now the principal output of the works. When Grandidier had
+taken them on leaving the Dijon Arts and Trades School, they were
+declining under bad management, slowly building some little motive
+engines by the aid of antiquated machinery. Foreseeing the future,
+however, he had induced his elder brother, one of the managers of the Bon
+Marche, to finance him, on the promise that he would supply that great
+emporium with excellent bicycles at 150 francs apiece. And now quite a
+big venture was in progress, for the Bon Marche was already bringing out
+the new popular machine "La Lisette," the "Bicycle for the Multitude," as
+the advertisements asserted. Nevertheless, Grandidier was still in all
+the throes of a great struggle, for his new machinery had cast a heavy
+burden of debt on him. At the same time each month brought its effort,
+the perfecting or simplifying of some part of the manufacture, which
+meant a saving in the future. He was ever on the watch; and even now was
+thinking of reverting to the construction of little motors, for he
+thought he could divine in the near future the triumph of the motor-car.
+
+On asking if M. Thomas Froment were there, Pierre was led by an old
+workman to a little shed, where he found the young fellow in the linen
+jacket of a mechanician, his hands black with filings. He was adjusting
+some piece of mechanism, and nobody would have suspected him to be a
+former pupil of the Lycee Condorcet, one of the three clever Froments who
+had there rendered the name famous. But his only desire had been to act
+as his father's faithful servant, the arm that forges, the embodiment of
+the manual toil by which conceptions are realised. And, a giant of three
+and twenty, ever attentive and courageous, he was likewise a man of
+patient, silent and sober nature.
+
+On catching sight of Pierre he quivered with anxiety and sprang forward.
+"Father is no worse?" he asked.
+
+"No, no. But he read in the papers that story of a bradawl found in the
+Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, and it made him anxious, because the police may make
+a perquisition here."
+
+Thomas, his own anxiety allayed, began to smile. "Tell him he may sleep
+quietly," he responded. "To begin with, I've unfortunately not yet hit on
+our little motor such as I want it to be. In fact, I haven't yet put it
+together. I'm keeping the pieces at our house, and nobody here knows
+exactly what I come to do at the factory. So the police may search, it
+will find nothing. Our secret runs no risk."
+
+Pierre promised to repeat these words to Guillaume, so as to dissipate
+his fears. However, when he tried to sound Thomas, and ascertain the
+position of affairs, what the factory people thought of the discovery of
+the bradawl, and whether there was as yet any suspicion of Salvat, he
+once more found the young man taciturn, and elicited merely a "yes" or a
+"no" in answer to his inquiries. The police had not been there as yet?
+No. But the men must surely have mentioned Salvat? Yes, of course, on
+account of his Anarchist opinions. But what had Grandidier, the master,
+said, on returning from the investigating magistrate's? As for that
+Thomas knew nothing. He had not seen Grandidier that day.
+
+"But here he comes!" the young man added. "Ah! poor fellow, his wife, I
+fancy, had another attack this morning."
+
+He alluded to a frightful story which Guillaume had already recounted to
+Pierre. Grandidier, falling in love with a very beautiful girl, had
+married her; but for five years now she had been insane: the result of
+puerperal fever and the death of an infant son. Her husband, with his
+ardent affection for her, had been unwilling to place her in an asylum,
+and had accordingly kept her with him in a little pavilion, whose
+windows, overlooking the courtyard of the factory, always remained
+closed. She was never seen; and never did he speak of her to anybody. It
+was said that she was usually like a child, very gentle and very sad, and
+still beautiful, with regal golden hair. At times, however, attacks of
+frantic madness came upon her, and he then had to struggle with her, and
+often hold her for hours in his arms to prevent her from splitting her
+head against the walls. Fearful shrieks would ring out for a time, and
+then deathlike silence would fall once more.
+
+Grandidier came into the shed where Thomas was working. A handsome man of
+forty, with an energetic face, he had a dark and heavy moustache,
+brush-like hair and clear eyes. He was very partial to Thomas, and during
+the young fellow's apprenticeship there, had treated him like a son. And
+he now let him return thither whenever it pleased him, and placed his
+appliances at his disposal. He knew that he was trying to devise a new
+motor, a question in which he himself was extremely interested; still he
+evinced the greatest discretion, never questioning Thomas, but awaiting
+the result of his endeavours.
+
+"This is my uncle, Abbe Froment, who looked in to wish me good day," said
+the young man, introducing Pierre.
+
+An exchange of polite remarks ensued. Then Grandidier sought to cast off
+the sadness which made people think him stern and harsh, and in a
+bantering tone exclaimed: "I didn't tell you, Thomas, of my business with
+the investigating magistrate. If I hadn't enjoyed a good reputation we
+should have had all the spies of the Prefecture here. The magistrate
+wanted me to explain the presence of that bradawl in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, and I at once realised that, in his opinion, the culprit
+must have worked here. For my part I immediately thought of Salvat. But I
+don't denounce people. The magistrate has my hiring-book, and as for
+Salvat I simply answered that he worked here for nearly three months last
+autumn, and then disappeared. They can look for him themselves! Ah! that
+magistrate! you can picture him a little fellow with fair hair and
+cat-like eyes, very careful of his appearance, a society man evidently,
+but quite frisky at being mixed up in this affair."
+
+"Isn't he Monsieur Amadieu?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Yes, that's his name. Ah! he's certainly delighted with the present
+which those Anarchists have made him, with that crime of theirs."
+
+The priest listened in deep anxiety. As his brother had feared, the true
+scent, the first conducting wire, had now been found. And he looked at
+Thomas to see if he also were disturbed. But the young man was either
+ignorant of the ties which linked Salvat to his father, or else he
+possessed great power of self-control, for he merely smiled at
+Grandidier's sketch of the magistrate.
+
+Then, as Grandidier went to look at the piece of mechanism which Thomas
+was finishing, and they began to speak about it, Pierre drew near to an
+open doorway which communicated with a long workshop where engine lathes
+were rumbling, and the beams of press-drills falling quickly and
+rhythmically. Leather gearing spun along with a continuous gliding, and
+there was ceaseless bustle and activity amidst the odoriferous dampness
+of all the steam. Scores of perspiring workmen, grimy with dust and
+filings, were still toiling. Still this was the final effort of the day.
+And as three men approached a water-tap near Pierre to wash their hands,
+he listened to their talk, and became particularly interested in it when
+he heard one of them, a tall, ginger-haired fellow, call another
+Toussaint, and the third Charles.
+
+Toussaint, a big, square-shouldered man with knotty arms, only showed his
+fifty years on his round, scorched face, which besides being roughened
+and wrinkled by labour, bristled with grey hairs, which nowadays he was
+content to shave off once a week. It was only his right arm that was
+affected by paralysis, and moved rather sluggishly. As for Charles, a
+living portrait of his father, he was now in all the strength of his six
+and twentieth year, with splendid muscles distending his white skin, and
+a full face barred by a heavy black moustache. The three men, like their
+employer, were speaking of the explosion at the Duvillard mansion, of the
+bradawl found there, and of Salvat, whom they all now suspected.
+
+"Why, only a brigand would do such a thing!" said Toussaint. "That
+Anarchism disgusts me. I'll have none of it. But all the same it's for
+the /bourgeois/ to settle matters. If the others want to blow them up,
+it's their concern. It's they who brought it about."
+
+This indifference was undoubtedly the outcome of a life of want and
+social injustice; it was the indifference of an old toiler, who, weary of
+struggling and hoping for improvements, was now quite ready to tolerate
+the crumbling of a social system, which threatened him with hunger in his
+impotent old age.
+
+"Well, you know," rejoined Charles, "I've heard the Anarchists talking,
+and they really say some very true and sensible things. And just take
+yourself, father; you've been working for thirty years, and isn't it
+abominable that you should have had to pass through all that you did pass
+through recently, liable to go off like some old horse that's slaughtered
+at the first sign of illness? And, of course, it makes me think of
+myself, and I can't help feeling that it won't be at all amusing to end
+like that. And may the thunder of God kill me if I'm wrong, but one feels
+half inclined to join in their great flare-up if it's really to make
+everybody happy!"
+
+He certainly lacked the flame of enthusiasm, and if he had come to these
+views it was solely from impatience to lead a less toilsome life, for
+obligatory military service had given him ideas of equality among all
+men--a desire to struggle, raise himself and obtain his legitimate share
+of life's enjoyments. It was, in fact, the inevitable step which carries
+each generation a little more forward. There was the father, who,
+deceived in his hope of a fraternal republic, had grown sceptical and
+contemptuous; and there was the son advancing towards a new faith, and
+gradually yielding to ideas of violence, since political liberty had
+failed to keep its promises.
+
+Nevertheless, as the big, ginger-haired fellow grew angry, and shouted
+that if Salvat were guilty, he ought to be caught and guillotined at
+once, without waiting for judges, Toussaint ended by endorsing his
+opinion. "Yes, yes, he may have married one of my sisters, but I renounce
+him. . . . And yet, you know, it would astonish me to find him guilty,
+for he isn't wicked at heart. I'm sure he wouldn't kill a fly."
+
+"But what would you have?" put in Charles. "When a man's driven to
+extremities he goes mad."
+
+They had now washed themselves; but Toussaint, on perceiving his
+employer, lingered there in order to ask him for an advance. As it
+happened, Grandidier, after cordially shaking hands with Pierre,
+approached the old workman of his own accord, for he held him in esteem.
+And, after listening to him, he gave him a line for the cashier on a
+card. As a rule, he was altogether against the practice of advancing
+money, and his men disliked him, and said he was over rigid, though in
+point of fact he had a good heart. But he had his position as an employer
+to defend, and to him concessions meant ruin. With such keen competition
+on all sides, with the capitalist system entailing a terrible and
+incessant struggle, how could one grant the demands of the workers, even
+when they were legitimate?
+
+Sudden compassion came upon Pierre when, after quitting Thomas, he saw
+Grandidier, who had finished his round, crossing the courtyard in the
+direction of the closed pavilion, where all the grief of his
+heart-tragedy awaited him. Here was that man waging the battle of life,
+defending his fortune with the risk that his business might melt away
+amidst the furious warfare between capital and labour; and at the same
+time, in lieu of evening repose, finding naught but anguish it his
+hearth: a mad wife, an adored wife, who had sunk back into infancy, and
+was for ever dead to love! How incurable was his secret despair! Even on
+the days when he triumphed in his workshops, disaster awaited him at
+home. And could any more unhappy man, any man more deserving of pity, be
+found even among the poor who died of hunger, among those gloomy workers,
+those vanquished sons of labour who hated and who envied him?
+
+When Pierre found himself in the street again he was astonished to see
+Madame Toussaint and Madame Theodore still there with little Celine. With
+their feet in the mud, like bits of wreckage against which beat the
+ceaseless flow of wayfarers, they had lingered there, still and ever
+chatting, loquacious and doleful, lulling their wretchedness to rest
+beneath a deluge of tittle-tattle. And when Toussaint, followed by his
+son, came out, delighted with the advance he had secured, he also found
+them on the same spot. Then he told Madame Theodore the story of the
+bradawl, and the idea which had occurred to him and all his mates that
+Salvat might well be the culprit. She, however, though turning very pale,
+began to protest, concealing both what she knew and what she really
+thought.
+
+"I tell you I haven't seen him for several days," said she. "He must
+certainly be in Belgium. And as for a bomb, that's humbug. You say
+yourself that he's very gentle and wouldn't harm a fly!"
+
+A little later as Pierre journeyed back to Neuilly in a tramcar he fell
+into a deep reverie. All the stir and bustle of that working-class
+district, the buzzing of the factory, the overflowing activity of that
+hive of labour, seemed to have lingered within him. And for the first
+time, amidst his worries, he realised the necessity of work. Yes, it was
+fatal, but it also gave health and strength. In effort which sustains and
+saves, he at last found a solid basis on which all might be reared. Was
+this, then, the first gleam of a new faith? But ah! what mockery! Work an
+uncertainty, work hopeless, work always ending in injustice! And then
+want ever on the watch for the toiler, strangling him as soon as slack
+times came round, and casting him into the streets like a dead dog
+immediately old age set in.
+
+On reaching Neuilly, Pierre found Bertheroy at Guillaume's bedside. The
+old /savant/ had just dressed the injured wrist, and was not yet certain
+that no complications would arise. "The fact is," he said to Guillaume,
+"you don't keep quiet. I always find you in a state of feverish emotion
+which is the worst possible thing for you. You must calm yourself, my
+dear fellow, and not allow anything to worry you."
+
+A few minutes later, though, just as he was going away, he said with his
+pleasant smile: "Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview me
+about that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men know
+everything! I told the one who called on me that it would be very kind of
+/him/ to enlighten /me/ as to what powder was employed. And, by the way,
+I am giving a lesson on explosives at my laboratory to-morrow. There will
+be just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as to
+give an account of it to Guillaume; it would interest him."
+
+At a glance from his brother, Pierre accepted the invitation. Then,
+Bertheroy having gone, he recounted all he had learnt during the
+afternoon, how Salvat was suspected, and how the investigating magistrate
+had been put on the right scent. And at this news, intense fever again
+came over Guillaume, who, with his head buried in the pillow, and his
+eyes closed, stammered as if in a kind of nightmare: "Ah! then, this is
+the end! Salvat arrested, Salvat interrogated! Ah! that so much toil and
+so much hope should crumble!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+CULTURE AND HOPE
+
+ON the morrow, punctually at one o'clock, Pierre reached the Rue d'Ulm,
+where Bertheroy resided in a fairly large house, which the State had
+placed at his disposal, in order that he might install in it a laboratory
+for study and research. Thus the whole first floor had been transformed
+into one spacious apartment, where, from time to time, the illustrious
+chemist was fond of receiving a limited number of pupils and admirers,
+before whom he made experiments, and explained his new discoveries and
+theories.
+
+For these occasions a few chairs were set out before the long and massive
+table, which was covered with jars and appliances. In the rear one saw
+the furnace, while all around were glass cases, full of vials and
+specimens. The persons present were, for the most part, fellow /savants/,
+with a few young men, and even a lady or two, and, of course, an
+occasional journalist. The whole made up a kind of family gathering, the
+visitors chatting with the master in all freedom.
+
+Directly Bertheroy perceived Pierre he came forward, pressed his hand and
+seated him on a chair beside Guillaume's son Francois, who had been one
+of the first arrivals. The young man was completing his third year at the
+Ecole Normale, close by, so he only had a few steps to take to call upon
+his master Bertheroy, whom he regarded as one of the firmest minds of the
+age. Pierre was delighted to meet his nephew, for he had been greatly
+impressed in his favour on the occasion of his visit to Montmartre.
+Francois, on his side, greeted his uncle with all the cordial
+expansiveness of youth. He was, moreover, well pleased to obtain some
+news of his father.
+
+However, Bertheroy began. He spoke in a familiar and sober fashion, but
+frequently employed some very happy expressions. At first he gave an
+account of his own extensive labours and investigations with regard to
+explosive substances, and related with a laugh that he sometimes
+manipulated powders which would have blown up the entire district. But,
+said he, in order to reassure his listeners, he was always extremely
+prudent. At last he turned to the subject of that explosion in the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy, which, for some days, had filled Paris with dismay. The
+remnants of the bomb had been carefully examined by experts, and one
+fragment had been brought to him, in order that he might give his opinion
+on it. The bomb appeared to have been prepared in a very rudimentary
+fashion; it had been charged with small pieces of iron, and fired by
+means of a match, such as a child might have devised. The extraordinary
+part of the affair was the formidable power of the central cartridge,
+which, although it must have been a small one, had wrought as much havoc
+as any thunderbolt. And the question was this: What incalculable power of
+destruction might one not arrive at if the charge were increased ten,
+twenty or a hundredfold. Embarrassment began, and divergencies of opinion
+clouded the issue directly one tried to specify what explosive had been
+employed. Of the three experts who had been consulted, one pronounced
+himself in favour of dynamite pure and simple; but the two others,
+although they did not agree together, believed in some combination of
+explosive matters. He, Bertheroy, had modestly declined to adjudicate,
+for the fragment submitted to him bore traces of so slight a character,
+that analysis became impossible. Thus he was unwilling to make any
+positive pronouncement. But his opinion was that one found oneself in
+presence of some unknown powder, some new explosive, whose power exceeded
+anything that had hitherto been dreamt of. He could picture some unknown
+/savant/, or some ignorant but lucky inventor, discovering the formula of
+this explosive under mysterious conditions. And this brought him to the
+point he wished to reach, the question of all the explosives which are so
+far unknown, and of the coming discoveries which he could foresee. In the
+course of his investigations he himself had found cause to suspect the
+existence of several such explosives, though he had lacked time and
+opportunity to prosecute his studies in that direction. However, he
+indicated the field which should be explored, and the best way of
+proceeding. In his opinion it was there that lay the future. And in a
+broad and eloquent peroration, he declared that explosives had hitherto
+been degraded by being employed in idiotic schemes of vengeance and
+destruction; whereas it was in them possibly that lay the liberating
+force which science was seeking, the lever which would change the face of
+the world, when they should have been so domesticated and subdued as to
+be only the obedient servants of man.
+
+Throughout this familiar discourse Pierre could feel that Francois was
+growing impassioned, quivering at thought of the vast horizon which the
+master opened up. He himself had become extremely interested, for he
+could not do otherwise than notice certain allusions, and connect what he
+heard with what he had guessed of Guillaume's anxiety regarding that
+secret which he feared to see at the mercy of an investigating
+magistrate. And so as he, Pierre, before going off with Francois,
+approached Bertheroy to wish him good day, he pointedly remarked:
+"Guillaume will be very sorry that he was unable to hear you unfold those
+admirable ideas."
+
+The old /savant/ smiled. "Pooh!" said he; "just give him a summary of
+what I said. He will understand. He knows more about the matter than I
+do."
+
+In presence of the illustrious chemist, Francois preserved the silent
+gravity of a respectful pupil, but when he and Pierre had taken a few
+steps down the street in silence, he remarked: "What a pity it is that a
+man of such broad intelligence, free from all superstition, and anxious
+for the sole triumph of truth, should have allowed himself to be
+classified, ticketed, bound round with titles and academical functions!
+How greatly our affection for him would increase if he took less State
+pay, and freed himself from all the grand cordons which tie his hands."
+
+"What would you have!" rejoined Pierre, in a conciliatory spirit. "A man
+must live! At the same time I believe that he does not regard himself as
+tied by anything."
+
+Then, as they had reached the entrance of the Ecole Normale, the priest
+stopped, thinking that his companion was going back to the college. But
+Francois, raising his eyes and glancing at the old place, remarked: "No,
+no, to-day's Thursday, and I'm at liberty! Oh! we have a deal of liberty,
+perhaps too much. But for my own part I'm well pleased at it, for it
+often enables me to go to Montmartre and work at my old little table.
+It's only there that I feel any real strength and clearness of mind."
+
+His preliminary examinations had entitled him to admission at either the
+Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter,
+entering its scientific section with No. l against his name. His father
+had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if
+circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own
+bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now
+preparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took was
+in walking to and from Montmartre, or in strolling through the Luxembourg
+gardens.
+
+  * The purposes of the Ecole Normale have been referred to on
+    p. 197. At the Ecole Polytechnique young men receive much
+    of the preliminary training which they require to become
+    either artillery officers, or military, naval or civil
+    engineers.--Trans.
+
+From force of habit he now turned towards the latter, accompanied by
+Pierre and chatting with him. One found the mildness of springtime there
+that February afternoon; for pale sunshine streamed between the trees,
+which were still leafless. It was indeed one of those first fine days
+which draw little green gems from the branches of the lilac bushes.
+
+The Ecole Normale was still the subject of conversation and Pierre
+remarked: "I must own that I hardly like the spirit that prevails there.
+Excellent work is done, no doubt, and the only way to form professors is
+to teach men the trade by cramming them with the necessary knowledge. But
+the worst is that although all the students are trained for the teaching
+profession, many of them don't remain in it, but go out into the world,
+take to journalism, or make it their business to control the arts,
+literature and society. And those who do this are for the most part
+unbearable. After swearing by Voltaire they have gone back to
+spirituality and mysticism, the last drawing-room craze. Now that a firm
+faith in science is regarded as brutish and inelegant, they fancy that
+they rid themselves of their caste by feigning amiable doubt, and
+ignorance, and innocence. What they most fear is that they may carry a
+scent of the schools about with them, so they put on extremely Parisian
+airs, venture on somersaults and slang, and assume all the grace of
+dancing bears in their eager desire to please. From that desire spring
+the sarcastic shafts which they aim at science, they who pretend that
+they know everything, but who go back to the belief of the humble, the
+/naive/ idealism of Biblical legends, just because they think the latter
+to be more distinguished."
+
+Francois began to laugh: "The portrait is perhaps a little overdrawn,"
+said he, "still there's truth in it, a great deal of truth."
+
+"I have known several of them," continued Pierre, who was growing
+animated. "And among them all I have noticed that a fear of being duped
+leads them to reaction against the entire effort, the whole work of the
+century. Disgust with liberty, distrust of science, denial of the future,
+that is what they now profess. And they have such a horror of the
+commonplace that they would rather believe in nothing or the incredible.
+It may of course be commonplace to say that two and two make four, yet
+it's true enough; and it is far less foolish for a man to say and repeat
+it than to believe, for instance, in the miracles of Lourdes."
+
+Francois glanced at the priest in astonishment. The other noticed it and
+strove to restrain himself. Nevertheless, grief and anger carried him
+away whenever he spoke of the educated young people of the time, such as,
+in his despair, he imagined them to be. In the same way as he had pitied
+the toilers dying of hunger in the districts of misery and want, so here
+he overflowed with contempt for the young minds that lacked bravery in
+the presence of knowledge, and harked back to the consolation of
+deceptive spirituality, the promise of an eternity of happiness in death,
+which last was longed for and exalted as the very sum of life. Was not
+the cowardly thought of refusing to live for the sake of living so as to
+discharge one's simple duty in being and making one's effort, equivalent
+to absolute assassination of life? However, the /Ego/ was always the
+mainspring; each one sought personal happiness. And Pierre was grieved to
+think that those young people, instead of discarding the past and
+marching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowy
+metaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps to
+the excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen with
+human toil.
+
+However, Francois had begun to smile again. "But you are mistaken," said
+he; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale. You only seem to know
+the Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surely
+change if you knew those of the Section of Sciences. It is quite true
+that the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among our
+literary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by the
+idea of that famous bankruptcy of science. This is perhaps due to their
+masters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whose
+hands they have fallen. And it is still more due to fashion, the whim of
+the times which, as you have very well put it, regards scientific truth
+as bad taste, something graceless and altogether too brutal for light and
+distinguished minds. Consequently, a young fellow of any shrewdness who
+desires to please is perforce won over to the new spirit."
+
+"The new spirit!" interrupted Pierre, unable to restrain himself. "Oh!
+that is no mere innocent, passing fashion, it is a tactical device and a
+terrible one, an offensive return of the powers of darkness against those
+of light, of servitude against free thought, truth and justice."
+
+Then, as the young man again looked at him with growing astonishment, he
+relapsed into silence. The figure of Monseigneur Martha had risen before
+his eyes, and he fancied he could again hear the prelate at the
+Madeleine, striving to win Paris over to the policy of Rome, to that
+spurious neo-Catholicism which, with the object of destroying democracy
+and science, accepted such portions of them as it could adapt to its own
+views. This was indeed the supreme struggle. Thence came all the poison
+poured forth to the young. Pierre knew what efforts were being made in
+religious circles to help on this revival of mysticism, in the mad hope
+of hastening the rout of science. Monseigneur Martha, who was
+all-powerful at the Catholic University, said to his intimates, however,
+that three generations of devout and docile pupils would be needed before
+the Church would again be absolute sovereign of France.
+
+"Well, as for the Ecole Normale," continued Francois, "I assure you that
+you are mistaken. There are a few narrow bigots there, no doubt. But even
+in the Section of Letters the majority of the students are sceptics at
+bottom--sceptics of discreet and good-natured average views. Of course
+they are professors before everything else, though they are a trifle
+ashamed of it; and, as professors, they judge things with no little
+pedantic irony, devoured by a spirit of criticism, and quite incapable of
+creating anything themselves. I should certainly be astonished to see the
+man of genius whom we await come out of their ranks. To my thinking,
+indeed, it would be preferable that some barbarian genius, neither well
+read nor endowed with critical faculty, or power of weighing and shading
+things, should come and open the next century with a hatchet stroke,
+sending up a fine flare of truth and reality. . . . But, as for my
+comrades of the Scientific Section, I assure you that neo-Catholicism and
+Mysticism and Occultism, and every other branch of the fashionable
+phantasmagoria trouble them very little indeed. They are not making a
+religion of science, they remain open to doubt on many points; but they
+are mostly men of very clear and firm minds, whose passion is the
+acquirement of certainty, and who are ever absorbed in the investigations
+which continue throughout the whole vast field of human knowledge. They
+haven't flinched, they have remained Positivists, or Evolutionists, or
+Determinists, and have set their faith in observation and experiment to
+help on the final conquest of the world."
+
+Francois himself was growing excited, as he thus confessed his faith
+while strolling along the quiet sunlit garden paths. "The young indeed!"
+he resumed. "Do people know them? It makes us laugh when we see all sorts
+of apostles fighting for us, trying to attract us, and saying that we are
+white or black or grey, according to the hue which they require for the
+triumph of their particular ideas! The young, the real ones, why, they're
+in the schools, the laboratories and the libraries. It's they who work
+and who'll bring to-morrow to the world. It's not the young fellows of
+dinner and supper clubs, manifestoes and all sorts of extravagances. The
+latter make a great deal of noise, no doubt; in fact, they alone are
+heard. But if you knew of the ceaseless efforts and passionate striving
+of the others, those who remain silent, absorbed in their tasks. And I
+know many of them: they are with their century, they have rejected none
+of its hopes, but are marching on to the coming century, resolved to
+pursue the work of their forerunners, ever going towards more light and
+more equity. And just speak to them of the bankruptcy of science. They'll
+shrug their shoulders at the mere idea, for they know well enough that
+science has never before inflamed so many hearts or achieved greater
+conquests! It is only if the schools, laboratories and libraries were
+closed, and the social soil radically changed, that one would have cause
+to fear a fresh growth of error such as weak hearts and narrow minds hold
+so dear!"
+
+At this point Francois's fine flow of eloquence was interrupted. A tall
+young fellow stopped to shake hands with him; and Pierre was surprised to
+recognise Baron Duvillard's son Hyacinthe, who bowed to him in very
+correct style. "What! you here in our old quarter," exclaimed Francois.
+
+"My dear fellow, I'm going to Jonas's, over yonder, behind the
+Observatory. Don't you know Jonas? Ah! my dear fellow, he's a delightful
+sculptor, who has succeeded in doing away with matter almost entirely. He
+has carved a figure of Woman, no bigger than the finger, and entirely
+soul, free from all baseness of form, and yet complete. All Woman,
+indeed, in her essential symbolism! Ah! it's grand, it's overpowering. A
+perfect scheme of aesthetics, a real religion!"
+
+Francois smiled as he looked at Hyacinthe, buttoned up in his long
+pleated frock-coat, with his made-up face, and carefully cropped hair and
+beard. "And yourself?" said he, "I thought you were working, and were
+going to publish a little poem, shortly?"
+
+"Oh! the task of creating is so distasteful to me, my dear fellow! A
+single line often takes me weeks. . . . Still, yes, I have a little poem
+on hand, 'The End of Woman.' And you see, I'm not so exclusive as some
+people pretend, since I admire Jonas, who still believes in Woman. His
+excuse is sculpture, which, after all, is at best such a gross
+materialistic art. But in poetry, good heavens, how we've been
+overwhelmed with Woman, always Woman! It's surely time to drive her out
+of the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and lofty
+enough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexual
+questions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? The
+world would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"
+
+Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with
+the effect which he had produced on the others.
+
+"So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois.
+
+"He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes
+together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was always
+making a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending to
+disdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd use
+his cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! He
+was Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, rolled into one!
+And you can see what he has become with it all: a humbug with a diseased
+mind!"
+
+"It's a terrible symptom," muttered Pierre, "when through /ennui/ or
+lassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happy
+and privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers."
+
+Francois had resumed his walk, going down towards the ornamental water,
+where some children were sailing their boats. "That fellow is simply
+grotesque," he replied; "but how would you have sane people give any heed
+to that mysticism, that awakening of spirituality which is alleged by the
+same /doctrinaires/ who started the bankruptcy of science cry, when after
+so brief an evolution it produces such insanity, both in art and
+literature? A few years of influence have sufficed; and now Satanism,
+Occultism and other absurdities are flourishing; not to mention that,
+according to some accounts, the Cities of the Plains are reconciled with
+new Rome. Isn't the tree judged by its fruits? And isn't it evident that,
+instead of a renascence, a far-spreading social movement bringing back
+the past, we are simply witnessing a transitory reaction, which many
+things explain? The old world would rather not die, and is struggling in
+a final convulsion, reviving for a last hour before it is swept away by
+the overflowing river of human knowledge, whose waters ever increase. And
+yonder, in the future, is the new world, which the real young ones will
+bring into existence, those who work, those who are not known, who are
+not heard. And yet, just listen! Perhaps you will hear them, for we are
+among them, in their 'quarter.' This deep silence is that of the labour
+of all the young fellows who are leaning over their work-tables, and day
+by day carrying forward the conquest of truth."
+
+So saying Francois waved his hand towards all the day-schools and
+colleges and high schools beyond the Luxembourg garden, towards the
+Faculties of Law and Medicine, the Institute and its five Academies, the
+innumerable libraries and museums which made up the broad domain of
+intellectual labour. And Pierre, moved by it all, shaken in his theories
+of negation, thought that he could indeed hear a low but far-spreading
+murmur of the work of thousands of active minds, rising from
+laboratories, studies and class, reading and lecture rooms. It was not
+like the jerky, breathless trepidation, the loud clamour of factories
+where manual labour toils and chafes. But here, too, there were sighs of
+weariness, efforts as killing, exertion as fruitful in its results. Was
+it indeed true that the cultured young were still and ever in their
+silent forge, renouncing no hope, relinquishing no conquest, but in full
+freedom of mind forging the truth and justice of to-morrow with the
+invincible hammers of observation and experiment?
+
+Francois, however, had raised his eyes to the palace clock to ascertain
+the time. "I'm going to Montmartre," he said; "will you come part of the
+way with me?"
+
+Pierre assented, particularly as the young man added that on his way he
+meant to call for his brother Antoine at the Museum of the Louvre. That
+bright afternoon the Louvre picture galleries were steeped in warm and
+dignified quietude, which one particularly noticed on coming from the
+tumult and scramble of the streets. The majority of the few people one
+found there were copyists working in deep silence, which only the
+wandering footsteps of an occasional tourist disturbed. Pierre and
+Francois found Antoine at the end of the gallery assigned to the
+Primitive masters. With scrupulous, almost devout care he was making a
+drawing of a figure by Mantegna. The Primitives did not impassion him by
+reason of any particular mysticism and ideality, such as fashion pretends
+to find in them, but on the contrary, and justifiably enough, by reason
+of the sincerity of their ingenuous realism, their respect and modesty in
+presence of nature, and the minute fidelity with which they sought to
+transcribe it. He spent days of hard work in copying and studying them,
+in order to learn strictness and probity of drawing from them--all that
+lofty distinction of style which they owe to their candour as honest
+artists.
+
+Pierre was struck by the pure glow which a sitting of good hard work had
+set in Antoine's light blue eyes. It imparted warmth and even
+feverishness to his fair face, which was usually all dreaminess and
+gentleness. His lofty forehead now truly looked like a citadel armed for
+the conquest of truth and beauty. He was only eighteen, and his story was
+simply this: as he had grown disgusted with classical studies and been
+mastered by a passion for drawing, his father had let him leave the Lycee
+Condorcet when he was in the third class there. Some little time had then
+elapsed while he felt his way and the deep originality within him was
+being evolved. He had tried etching on copper, but had soon come to wood
+engraving, and had attached himself to it in spite of the discredit into
+which it had fallen, lowered as it had been to the level of a mere trade.
+Was there not here an entire art to restore and enlarge? For his own part
+he dreamt of engraving his own drawings, of being at once the brain which
+conceives and the hand which executes, in such wise as to obtain new
+effects of great intensity both as regards perception and touch. To
+comply with the wishes of his father, who desired each of his sons to
+have a trade, he earned his bread like other engravers by working for the
+illustrated newspapers. But, in addition to this current work, he had
+already engraved several blocks instinct with wonderful power and life.
+They were simply copies of real things, scenes of everyday existence, but
+they were accentuated, elevated so to say, by the essential line, with a
+maestria which on the part of so young a lad fairly astonished one.
+
+"Do you want to engrave that?" Francois asked him, as he placed his copy
+of Mantegna's figure in his portfolio.
+
+"Oh! no, that's merely a dip into innocence, a good lesson to teach one
+to be modest and sincere. Life is very different nowadays."
+
+Then, while walking along the streets--for Pierre, who felt growing
+sympathy for the two young fellows, went with them in the direction of
+Montmartre, forgetful of all else,--Antoine, who was beside him, spoke
+expansively of his artistic dreams.
+
+"Colour is certainly a power, a sovereign source of charm, and one may,
+indeed, say that without colour nothing can be completely represented.
+Yet, singularly enough, it isn't indispensable to me. It seems to me that
+I can picture life as intensely and definitely with mere black and white,
+and I even fancy that I shall be able to do so in a more essential
+manner, without any of the dupery which lies in colour. But what a task
+it is! I should like to depict the Paris of to-day in a few scenes, a few
+typical figures, which would serve as testimony for all time. And I
+should like to do it with great fidelity and candour, for an artist only
+lives by reason of his candour, his humility and steadfast belief in
+Nature, which is ever beautiful. I've already done a few figures, I will
+show them to you. But ah! if I only dared to tackle my blocks with the
+graver, at the outset, without drawing my subject beforehand. For that
+generally takes away one's fire. However, what I do with the pencil is a
+mere sketch; for with the graver I may come upon a find, some unexpected
+strength or delicacy of effect. And so I'm draughtsman and engraver all
+in one, in such a way that my blocks can only be turned out by myself. If
+the drawings on them were engraved by another, they would be quite
+lifeless. . . . Yes, life can spring from the fingers just as well as
+from the brain, when one really possesses creative power."
+
+They walked on, and when they found themselves just below Montmartre, and
+Pierre spoke of taking a tramcar to return to Neuilly, Antoine, quite
+feverish with artistic passion, asked him if he knew Jahan, the sculptor,
+who was working for the Sacred Heart. And on receiving a negative reply,
+he added: "Well, come and see him for a moment. He has a great future
+before him. You'll see an angel of his which has been declined."
+
+Then, as Francois began to praise the angel in question, Pierre agreed to
+accompany them. On the summit of the height, among all the sheds which
+the building of the basilica necessitated, Jahan had been able to set up
+a glazed workshop large enough for the huge angel ordered of him. His
+three visitors found him there in a blouse, watching a couple of
+assistants, who were rough-hewing the block of stone whence the angel was
+to emerge. Jahan was a sturdy man of thirty-six, with dark hair and
+beard, a large, ruddy mouth and fine bright eyes. Born in Paris, he had
+studied at the Fine Art School, but his impetuous temperament had
+constantly landed him in trouble there.
+
+"Ah! yes," said he, "you've come to see my angel, the one which the
+Archbishop wouldn't take. Well, there it is."
+
+The clay model of the figure, some three feet high, and already drying,
+looked superb in its soaring posture, with its large, outspread wings
+expanding as if with passionate desire for the infinite. The body, barely
+draped, was that of a slim yet robust youth, whose face beamed with the
+rapture of his heavenly flight.
+
+"They found him too human," said Jahan. "And after all they were right.
+There's nothing so difficult to conceive as an angel. One even hesitates
+as to the sex; and when faith is lacking one has to take the first model
+one finds and copy it and spoil it. For my part, while I was modelling
+that one, I tried to imagine a beautiful youth suddenly endowed with
+wings, and carried by the intoxication of his flight into all the joy of
+the sunshine. But it upset them, they wanted something more religious,
+they said; and so then I concocted that wretched thing over there. After
+all, one has to earn one's living, you know."
+
+So saying, he waved his hand towards another model, the one for which his
+assistants were preparing the stone. And this model represented an angel
+of the correct type, with symmetrical wings like those of a goose, a
+figure of neither sex, and commonplace features, expressing the silly
+ecstasy that tradition requires.
+
+"What would you have?" continued Jahan. "Religious art has sunk to the
+most disgusting triteness. People no longer believe; churches are built
+like barracks, and decorated with saints and virgins fit to make one
+weep. The fact is that genius is only the fruit of the social soil; and a
+great artist can only send up a blaze of the faith of the time he lives
+in. For my part, I'm the grandson of a Beauceron peasant. My father came
+to Paris to set himself up in business as a marble worker for tombstones
+and so forth, just at the top of the Rue de la Roquette. It was there I
+grew up. I began as a workman, and all my childhood was spent among the
+masses, in the streets, without ever a thought coming to me of setting
+foot in a church. So few Parisians think of doing so nowadays. And so
+what's to become of art since there's no belief in the Divinity or even
+in beauty? We're forced to go forward to the new faith, which is the
+faith in life and work and fruitfulness, in all that labours and
+produces."
+
+Then suddenly breaking off he exclaimed: "By the way, I've been doing
+some more work to my figure of Fecundity, and I'm fairly well pleased
+with it. Just come with me and I'll show it you."
+
+Thereupon he insisted on taking them to his private studio, which was
+near by, just below Guillaume's little house. It was entered by way of
+the Rue du Calvaire, a street which is simply a succession of ladder-like
+flights of steps. The door opened on to one of the little landings, and
+one found oneself in a spacious, well-lighted apartment littered with
+models and casts, fragments and figures, quite an overflow of sturdy,
+powerful talent. On a stool was the unfinished model of Fecundity swathed
+in wet cloths. These Jahan removed, and then she stood forth with her
+rounded figure, her broad hips and her wifely, maternal bosom, full of
+the milk which nourishes and redeems.
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?" asked Jahan. "Built as she is, I fancy
+that her children ought to be less puny than the pale, languid, aesthetic
+fellows of nowadays!"
+
+While Antoine and Francois were admiring the figure, Pierre, for his
+part, took most interest in a young girl who had opened the door to them,
+and who had now wearily reseated herself at a little table to continue a
+book she was reading. This was Jahan's sister, Lise. A score of years
+younger than himself, she was but sixteen, and had been living alone with
+him since their father's death. Very slight and delicate looking, she had
+a most gentle face, with fine light hair which suggested pale gold-dust.
+She was almost a cripple, with legs so weak that she only walked with
+difficulty, and her mind also was belated, still full of childish
+/naivete/. At first this had much saddened her brother, but with time he
+had grown accustomed to her innocence and languor. Busy as he always was,
+ever in a transport, overflowing with new plans, he somewhat neglected
+her by force of circumstances, letting her live beside him much as she
+listed.
+
+Pierre had noticed, however, the sisterly impulsiveness with which she
+had greeted Antoine. And the latter, after congratulating Jahan on his
+statue, came and sat down beside her, questioned her and wished to see
+the book which she was reading. During the last six months the most pure
+and affectionate intercourse had sprung up between them. He, from his
+father's garden, up yonder on the Place du Tertre, could see her through
+the huge window of that studio where she led so innocent a life. And
+noticing that she was always alone, as if forsaken, he had begun to take
+an interest in her. Then had come acquaintance; and, delighted to find
+her so simple and so charming, he had conceived the design of rousing her
+to intelligence and life, by loving her, by becoming at once the mind and
+the heart whose power fructifies. Weak plant that she was, in need of
+delicate care, sunshine and affection, he became for her all that her
+brother had, through circumstances, failed to be. He had already taught
+her to read, a task in which every mistress had previously failed. But
+him she listened to and understood. And by slow degrees a glow of
+happiness came to the beautiful clear eyes set in her irregular face. It
+was love's miracle, the creation of woman beneath the breath of a young
+lover who gave himself entirely. No doubt she still remained very
+delicate, with such poor health that one ever feared that she might
+expire in a faint sigh; and her legs, moreover, were still too weak to
+admit of her walking any distance. But all the same, she was no longer
+the little wilding, the little ailing flower of the previous spring.
+
+Jahan, who marvelled at the incipient miracle, drew near to the young
+people. "Ah!" said he, "your pupil does you honour. She reads quite
+fluently, you know, and understands the fine books you send her. You read
+to me of an evening now, don't you, Lise?"
+
+She raised her candid eyes, and gazed at Antoine with a smile of infinite
+gratitude. "Oh! whatever he'll teach me," she said, "I'll learn it, and
+do it."
+
+The others laughed gently. Then, as the visitors were going off, Francois
+paused before a model which had cracked while drying. "Oh! that's a
+spoilt thing," said the sculptor. "I wanted to model a figure of Charity.
+It was ordered of me by a philanthropic institution. But try as I might,
+I could only devise something so commonplace that I let the clay spoil.
+Still, I must think it over and endeavour to take the matter in hand
+again."
+
+When they were outside, it occurred to Pierre to go as far as the
+basilica of the Sacred Heart in the hope of finding Abbe Rose there. So
+the three of them went round by way of the Rue Gabrielle and climbed the
+steps of the Rue Chape. And just as they were reaching the summit where
+the basilica reared its forest of scaffoldings beneath the clear sky,
+they encountered Thomas, who, on leaving the factory, had gone to give an
+order to a founder in the Rue Lamarck.
+
+He, who as a rule was so silent and discreet, now happened to be in an
+expansive mood, which made him look quite radiant. "Ah! I'm so pleased,"
+he said, addressing Pierre; "I fancy that I've found what I want for our
+little motor. Tell father that things are going on all right, and that he
+must make haste to get well."
+
+At these words his brothers, Francois and Antoine, drew close to him with
+a common impulse. And they stood there all three, a valiant little group,
+their hearts uniting and beating with one and the same delight at the
+idea that their father would be gladdened, that the good news they were
+sending him would help him towards recovery. As for Pierre, who, now that
+he knew them, was beginning to love them and judge them at their worth,
+he marvelled at the sight of these three young giants, each so strikingly
+like the other, and drawn together so closely and so promptly, directly
+their filial affection took fire.
+
+"Tell him that we are waiting for him, and will come to him at the first
+sign if we are wanted."
+
+Then each in turn shook the priest's hand vigorously. And while he
+remained watching them as they went off towards the little house, whose
+garden he perceived over the wall of the Rue Saint Eleuthere, he fancied
+he could there detect a delicate silhouette, a white, sunlit face under a
+help of dark hair. It was doubtless the face of Marie, examining the buds
+on her lilac bushes. At that evening hour, however, the diffuse light was
+so golden that the vision seemed to fade in it as in a halo. And Pierre,
+feeling dazzled, turned his head, and on the other side saw naught but
+the overwhelming, chalky mass of the basilica, whose hugeness shut out
+all view of the horizon.
+
+For a moment he remained motionless on that spot, so agitated by
+conflicting thoughts and feelings that he could read neither heart nor
+mind clearly. Then, as he turned towards the city, all Paris spread
+itself out at his feet, a limpid, lightsome Paris, beneath the pink glow
+of that spring-like evening. The endless billows of house-roofs showed
+forth with wonderful distinctness, and one could have counted the chimney
+stacks and the little black streaks of the windows by the million. The
+edifices rising into the calm atmosphere seemed like the anchored vessels
+of some fleet arrested in its course, with lofty masting which glittered
+at the sun's farewell. And never before had Pierre so distinctly observed
+the divisions of that human ocean. Eastward and northward was the city of
+manual toil, with the rumbling and the smoke of its factories. Southward,
+beyond the river, was the city of study, of intellectual labour, so calm,
+so perfectly serene. And on all sides the passion of trade ascended from
+the central districts, where the crowds rolled and scrambled amidst an
+everlasting uproar of wheels; while westward, the city of the happy and
+powerful ones, those who fought for sovereignty and wealth, spread out
+its piles of palaces amidst the slowly reddening flare of the declining
+planet.
+
+And then, from the depths of his negation, the chaos into which his loss
+of faith had plunged him, Pierre felt a delicious freshness pass like the
+vague advent of a new faith. So vague it was that he could not have
+expressed even his hope of it in words. But already among the rough
+factory workers, manual toil had appeared to him necessary and
+redemptive, in spite of all the misery and abominable injustice to which
+it led. And now the young men of intellect of whom he had despaired, that
+generation of the morrow which he had thought spoilt, relapsing into
+ancient error and rottenness, had appeared to him full of virile promise,
+resolved to prosecute the work of those who had gone before, and effect,
+by the aid of Science only, the conquest of absolute truth and absolute
+justice.
+
+
+
+V
+
+PROBLEMS
+
+A FULL month had already gone by since Guillaume had taken refuge at his
+brother's little house at Neuilly. His wrist was now nearly healed. He
+had long ceased to keep his bed, and often strolled through the garden.
+In spite of his impatience to go back to Montmartre, join his loved ones
+and resume his work there, he was each morning prompted to defer his
+return by the news he found in the newspapers. The situation was ever the
+same. Salvat, whom the police now suspected, had been perceived one
+evening near the central markets, and then again lost sight of. Every
+day, however, his arrest was said to be imminent. And in that case what
+would happen? Would he speak out, and would fresh perquisitions be made?
+
+For a whole week the press had been busy with the bradawl found under the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion. Nearly every reporter in Paris had
+called at the Grandidier factory and interviewed both workmen and master.
+Some had even started on personal investigations, in the hope of
+capturing the culprit themselves. There was no end of jesting about the
+incompetence of the police, and the hunt for Salvat was followed all the
+more passionately by the general public, as the papers overflowed with
+the most ridiculous concoctions, predicting further explosions, and
+declaring even that all Paris would some morning be blown into the air.
+The "Voix du Peuple" set a fresh shudder circulating every day by its
+announcements of threatening letters, incendiary placards and mysterious,
+far-reaching plots. And never before had so base and foolish a spirit of
+contagion wafted insanity through a civilised city.
+
+Guillaume, for his part, no sooner awoke of a morning than he was all
+impatience to see the newspapers, quivering at the idea that he would at
+last read of Salvat's arrest. In his state of nervous expectancy, the
+wild campaign which the press had started, the idiotic and the ferocious
+things which he found in one or another journal, almost drove him crazy.
+A number of "suspects" had already been arrested in a kind of chance
+razzia, which had swept up the usual Anarchist herd, together with sundry
+honest workmen and bandits, /illumines/ and lazy devils, in fact, a most
+singular, motley crew, which investigating magistrate Amadieu was
+endeavouring to turn into a gigantic association of evil-doers. One
+morning, moreover, Guillaume found his own name mentioned in connection
+with a perquisition at the residence of a revolutionary journalist, who
+was a friend of his. At this his heart bounded with revolt, but he was
+forced to the conclusion that it would be prudent for him to remain
+patient a little longer, in his peaceful retreat at Neuilly, since the
+police might at any moment break into his home at Montmartre, to arrest
+him should it find him there.
+
+Amidst all this anxiety the brothers led a most solitary and gentle life.
+Pierre himself now spent most of his time at home. The first days of
+March had come, and precocious springtide imparted delightful charm and
+warmth to the little garden. Guillaume, however, since quitting his bed,
+had more particularly installed himself in his father's old laboratory,
+now transformed into a spacious study. All the books and papers left by
+the illustrious chemist were still there, and among the latter Guillaume
+found a number of unfinished essays, the perusal of which greatly excited
+his interest, and often absorbed him from morning till night. It was this
+which largely enabled him to bear his voluntary seclusion patiently.
+Seated on the other side of the big table, Pierre also mostly occupied
+himself with reading; but at times his eyes would quit his book and
+wander away into gloomy reverie, into all the chaos into which he still
+and ever sank. For long hours the brothers would in this wise remain side
+by side, without speaking a word. Yet they knew they were together; and
+occasionally, when their eyes met, they would exchange a smile. The
+strong affection of former days was again springing up within them; their
+childhood, their home, their parents, all seemed to live once more in the
+quiet atmosphere they breathed. However, the bay window overlooked the
+garden in the direction of Paris, and often, when they emerged from their
+reading or their reverie, it was with a sudden feeling of anxiety, and in
+order to lend ear to the distant rumbling, the increased clamour of the
+great city.
+
+On other occasions they paused as if in astonishment at hearing a
+continuous footfall overhead. It was that of Nicholas Barthes, who still
+lingered in the room above. He seldom came downstairs, and scarcely ever
+ventured into the garden, for fear, said he, that he might be perceived
+and recognised from a distant house whose windows were concealed by a
+clump of trees. One might laugh at the old conspirator's haunting thought
+of the police. Nevertheless, the caged-lion restlessness, the ceaseless
+promenade of that perpetual prisoner who had spent two thirds of his life
+in the dungeons of France in his desire to secure the liberty of others,
+imparted to the silence of the little house a touching melancholy, the
+very rhythm as it were of all the great good things which one hoped for,
+but which would never perhaps come.
+
+Very few visits drew the brothers from their solitude. Bertheroy came
+less frequently now that Guillaume's wrist was healing. The most
+assiduous caller was certainly Theophile Morin, whose discreet ring was
+heard every other day at the same hour. Though he did not share the ideas
+of Barthes he worshipped him as a martyr; and would always go upstairs to
+spend an hour with him. However, they must have exchanged few words, for
+not a sound came from the room. Whenever Morin sat down for a moment in
+the laboratory with the brothers, Pierre was struck by his seeming
+weariness, his ashen grey hair and beard and dismal countenance, all the
+life of which appeared to have been effaced by long years spent in the
+teaching profession. Indeed, it was only when the priest mentioned Italy
+that he saw his companion's resigned eyes blaze up like live coals. One
+day when he spoke of the great patriot Orlando Prada, Morin's companion
+of victory in Garibaldi's days, he was amazed by the sudden flare of
+enthusiasm which lighted up the other's lifeless features. However, these
+were but transient flashes: the old professor soon reappeared, and all
+that one found in Morin was the friend of Proudhon and the subsequent
+disciple of Auguste Comte. Of his Proudhonian principles he had retained
+all a pauper's hatred of wealth, and a desire for a more equitable
+partition of fortune. But the new times dismayed him, and neither
+principle nor temperament allowed him to follow Revolutionism to its
+utmost limits. Comte had imparted unshakable convictions to him in the
+sphere of intellectual questions, and he contented himself with the clear
+and decisive logic of Positivism, rejecting all metaphysical hypotheses
+as useless, persuaded as he was that the whole human question, whether
+social or religious, would be solved by science alone. This faith, firm
+as it had remained, was, however, coupled with secret bitterness, for
+nothing seemed to advance in a sensible manner towards its goal. Comte
+himself had ended in the most cloudy mysticism; great /savants/ recoiled
+from truth in terror; and now barbarians were threatening the world with
+fresh night; all of which made Morin almost a reactionist in politics,
+already resigned to the advent of a dictator, who would set things
+somewhat in order, so that humanity might be able to complete its
+education.
+
+Other visitors who occasionally called to see Guillaume were Bache and
+Janzen, who invariably came together and at night-time. Every now and
+then they would linger chatting with Guillaume in the spacious study
+until two o'clock in the morning. Bache, who was fat and had a fatherly
+air, with his little eyes gently beaming amidst all the snowy whiteness
+of his hair and beard, would talk on slowly, unctuously and interminably,
+as soon as he had begun to explain his views. He would address merely a
+polite bow to Saint-Simon, the initiator, the first to lay down the law
+that work was a necessity for one and all according to their capacities;
+but on coming to Fourier his voice softened and he confessed his whole
+religion. To his thinking, Fourier had been the real messiah of modern
+times, the saviour of genius, who had sown the good seed of the future
+world, by regulating society such as it would certainly be organised
+to-morrow. The law of harmony had been promulgated; human passions,
+liberated and utilised in healthy fashion, would become the requisite
+machinery; and work, rendered pleasant and attractive, would prove the
+very function of life. Nothing could discourage Bache; if merely one
+parish began by transforming itself into a /phalansterium/, the whole
+department would soon follow, then the adjacent departments, and finally
+all France. Moreover, Bache even favoured the schemes of Cabet, whose
+Icaria, said he, had in no wise been such a foolish idea. Further, he
+recalled a motion he had made, when member of the Commune in 1871, to
+apply Fourier's ideas to the French Republic; and he was apparently
+convinced that the troops of Versailles had delayed the triumph of
+Communism for half a century. Whenever people nowadays talked of
+table-turning he pretended to laugh, but at bottom he had remained an
+impenitent "spiritist." Since he had been a municipal councillor he had
+been travelling from one socialist sect to another, according as their
+ideas offered points of resemblance to his old faith. And he was fairly
+consumed by his need of faith, his perplexity as to the Divine, which he
+was now occasionally inclined to find in the legs of some piece of
+furniture, after denying its presence in the churches.
+
+Janzen, for his part, was as taciturn as his friend Bache was garrulous.
+Such remarks as he made were brief, but they were as galling as lashes,
+as cutting as sabre-strokes. At the same time his ideas and theories
+remained somewhat obscure, partly by reason of this brevity of his, and
+partly on account of the difficulty he experienced in expressing himself
+in French. He was from over yonder, from some far-away land--Russia,
+Poland, Austria or Germany, nobody exactly knew; and it mattered little,
+for he certainly acknowledged no country, but wandered far and wide with
+his dream of blood-shedding fraternity. Whenever, with his wonted
+frigidity, he gave utterance to one of those terrible remarks of his
+which, like a scythe in a meadow, cut away all before him, little less
+than the necessity of thus mowing down nations, in order to sow the earth
+afresh with a young and better community, became apparent. At each
+proposition unfolded by Bache, such as labour rendered agreeable by
+police regulations, /phalansteria/ organised like barracks, religion
+transformed into pantheist or spiritist deism, he gently shrugged his
+shoulders. What could be the use of such childishness, such hypocritical
+repairing, when the house was falling and the only honest course was to
+throw it to the ground, and build up the substantial edifice of to-morrow
+with entirely new materials? On the subject of propaganda by deeds,
+bomb-throwing and so forth, he remained silent, though his gestures were
+expressive of infinite hope. He evidently approved that course. The
+legend which made him one of the perpetrators of the crime of Barcelona
+set a gleam of horrible glory in his mysterious past. One day when Bache,
+while speaking to him of his friend Bergaz, the shadowy Bourse jobber who
+had already been compromised in some piece of thieving, plainly declared
+that the aforesaid Bergaz was a bandit, Janzen contented himself with
+smiling, and replying quietly that theft was merely forced restitution.
+Briefly, in this man of culture and refinement, in whose own mysterious
+life one might perhaps have found various crimes but not a single act of
+base improbity, one could divine an implacable, obstinate theoretician,
+who was resolved to set the world ablaze for the triumph of his ideas.
+
+On certain evenings when a visit from Theophile Morin coincided with one
+from Bache and Janzen, and they and Guillaume lingered chatting until far
+into the night, Pierre would listen to them in despair from the shadowy
+corner where he remained motionless, never once joining in the
+discussions. Distracted, by his own unbelief and thirst for truth, he had
+at the outset taken a passionate interest in these debates, desirous as
+he was of drawing up a balance-sheet of the century's ideas, so as to
+form some notion of the distance that had been travelled, and the profits
+that had accrued. But he recoiled from all this in fresh despair, on
+hearing the others argue, each from his own standpoint and without
+possibility of concession and agreement. After the repulses he had
+encountered at Lourdes and Rome, he well realised that in this fresh
+experiment which he was making with Paris, the whole brain of the century
+was in question, the new truths, the expected gospel which was to change
+the face of the world. And, burning with inconsiderate zeal, he went from
+one belief to another, which other he soon rejected in order to adopt a
+third. If he had first felt himself to be a Positivist with Morin, an
+Evolutionist and Determinist with Guillaume, he had afterwards been
+touched by the fraternal dream of a new golden age which he had found in
+Bache's humanitarian Communism. And indeed even Janzen had momentarily
+shaken him by his fierce confidence in the theory of liberative
+Individualism. But afterwards he had found himself out of his depth; and
+each and every theory had seemed to him but part of the chaotic
+contradictions and incoherences of humanity on its march. It was all a
+continuous piling up of dross, amidst which he lost himself. Although
+Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon he denied him in part; and if
+Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of mystical sensuality, the
+other's conducted to an unacceptable regimenting of society. Proudhon,
+for his part, demolished without rebuilding anything. Comte, who created
+method and declared science to be the one and only sovereign, had not
+even suspected the advent of the social crisis which now threatened to
+sweep all away, and had finished personally as a mere worshipper of love,
+overpowered by woman. Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon,
+entered the lists and fought against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon;
+the combat between them or their disciples becoming so bitter and so
+blind that the truths common to them all were obscured and disfigured
+beyond recognition. Thence came the extraordinary muddle of the present
+hour; Bache with Saint-Simon and Fourier, and Morin with Proudhon and
+Comte, utterly failing to understand Mege, the Collectivist deputy, whom
+they held up to execration, him and his State Collectivism, in the same
+way, moreover, as they thundered against all the other present-time
+Socialist sects, without realising that these also, whatever their
+nature, had more or less sprung from the same masters as themselves. And
+all this seemingly indicated that Janzen was right when he declared that
+the house was past repair, fast crumbling amidst rottenness and insanity,
+and that it ought to be levelled to the ground.
+
+One night, after the three visitors had gone, Pierre, who had remained
+with Guillaume, saw him grow very gloomy as he slowly walked to and fro.
+He, in his turn, had doubtless felt that all was crumbling. And though
+his brother alone was there to hear him, he went on speaking. He
+expressed all his horror of the Collectivist State as imagined by Mege, a
+Dictator-State re-establishing ancient servitude on yet closer lines. The
+error of all the Socialist sects was their arbitrary organisation of
+Labour, which enslaved the individual for the profit of the community.
+And, forced to conciliate the two great currents, the rights of society
+and the rights of the individual, Guillaume had ended by placing his
+whole faith in free Communism, an anarchical state in which he dreamt of
+seeing the individual freed, moving and developing without restraint, for
+the benefit both of himself and of all others. Was not this, said he, the
+one truly scientific theory, unities creating worlds, atoms producing
+life by force of attraction, free and ardent love? All oppressive
+minorities would disappear; and the faculties and energies of one and all
+would by free play arrive at harmony amidst the equilibrium--which
+changed according to needs--of the active forces of advancing humanity.
+In this wise he pictured a nation, saved from State tutelage, without a
+master, almost without laws, a happy nation, each citizen of which,
+completely developed by the exercise of liberty, would, of his free will,
+come to an understanding with his neighbours with regard to the thousand
+necessities of life. And thence would spring society, free association,
+hundreds of associations which would regulate social life; though at the
+same time they would remain variable, in fact often opposed and hostile
+to one another. For progress is but the fruit of conflict and struggle;
+the world has only been created by the battle of opposing forces. And
+that was all; there would be no more oppressors, no more rich, no more
+poor; the domain of the earth with its natural treasures and its
+implements of labour would be restored to the people, its legitimate
+owners, who would know how to enjoy it with justice and logic, when
+nothing abnormal would impede their expansion. And then only would the
+law of love make its action felt; then would human solidarity, which,
+among mankind, is the living form of universal attraction, acquire all
+its power, bringing men closer and closer together, and uniting them in
+one sole family. A splendid dream it was--the noble and pure dream of
+absolute freedom--free man in free society. And thither a /savant's/
+superior mind was fated to come after passing on the road the many
+Socialist sects which one and all bore the stigma of tyranny. And,
+assuredly, as thus indulged, the Anarchist idea is the loftiest, the
+proudest, of all ideas. And how delightful to yield to the hope of
+harmony in life--life which restored to the full exercise of its natural
+powers would of itself create happiness!
+
+When Guillaume ceased speaking, he seemed to be emerging from a dream;
+and he glanced at Pierre with some dismay, for he feared that he might
+have said too much and have hurt his feelings. Pierre--moved though he
+was, for a moment in fact almost won over--had just seen the terrible
+practical objection, which destroyed all hope, arise before his mind's
+eye. Why had not harmony asserted itself in the first days of the world's
+existence, at the time when societies were formed? How was it that
+tyranny had triumphed, delivering nations over to oppressors? And
+supposing that the apparently insolvable problem of destroying
+everything, and beginning everything afresh, should ever be solved, who
+could promise that mankind, obedient to the same laws, would not again
+follow the same paths as formerly? After all, mankind, nowadays, is
+simply what life has made it; and nothing proves that life would again
+make it other than it is. To begin afresh, ah, yes! but to attain another
+result! But could that other result really come from man? Was it not
+rather man himself who should be changed? To start afresh from where one
+was, to continue the evolution that had begun, undoubtedly meant slow
+travel and dismal waiting. But how great would be the danger and even the
+delay, if one went back without knowing by what road across the whole
+chaos of ruins one might regain all the lost time!
+
+"Let us go to bed," at last said Guillaume, smiling. "It's silly of me to
+weary you with all these things which don't concern you."
+
+Pierre, in his excitement, was about to reveal his own heart and mind,
+and the whole torturing battle within him. But a feeling of shame again
+restrained him. His brother only knew him as a believing priest, faithful
+to his faith. And so, without answering, he betook himself to his room.
+
+On the following evening, about ten o'clock, while Guillaume and Pierre
+sat reading in the study, the old servant entered to announce M. Janzen
+and a friend. The friend was Salvat.
+
+"He wished to see you," Janzen explained to Guillaume. "I met him, and
+when he heard of your injury and anxiety he implored me to bring him
+here. And I've done so, though it was perhaps hardly prudent of me."
+
+Guillaume had risen, full of surprise and emotion at such a visit;
+Pierre, however, though equally upset by Salvat's appearance; did not
+stir from his chair, but kept his eyes upon the workman.
+
+"Monsieur Froment," Salvat ended by saying, standing there in a timid,
+embarrassed way, "I was very sorry indeed when I heard of the worry I'd
+put you in; for I shall never forget that you were very kind to me when
+everybody else turned me away."
+
+As he spoke he balanced himself alternately on either leg, and
+transferred his old felt hat from hand to hand.
+
+"And so I wanted to come and tell you myself that if I took a cartridge
+of your powder one evening when you had your back turned, it's the only
+thing that I feel any remorse about in the whole business, since it may
+compromise you. And I also want to take my oath before you that you've
+nothing to fear from me, that I'll let my head be cut off twenty times if
+need be, rather than utter your name. That's all that I had in my heart."
+
+He relapsed into silence and embarrassment, but his soft, dreamy eyes,
+the eyes of a faithful dog, remained fixed upon Guillaume with an
+expression of respectful worship. And Pierre was still gazing at him
+athwart the hateful vision which his arrival had conjured up, that of the
+poor, dead, errand girl, the fair pretty child lying ripped open under
+the entrance of the Duvillard mansion! Was it possible that he was there,
+he, that madman, that murderer, and that his eyes were actually moist!
+
+Guillaume, touched by Salvat's words, had drawn near and pressed his
+hand. "I am well aware, Salvat," said he, "that you are not wicked at
+heart. But what a foolish and abominable thing you did!"
+
+Salvat showed no sign of anger, but gently smiled. "Oh! if it had to be
+done again, Monsieur Froment, I'd do it. It's my idea, you know. And,
+apart from you, all is well; I am content."
+
+He would not sit down, but for another moment continued talking with
+Guillaume, while Janzen, as if he washed his hands of the business,
+deeming this visit both useless and dangerous, sat down and turned over
+the leaves of a picture book. And Guillaume made Salvat tell him what he
+had done on the day of the crime; how like a stray dog he had wandered in
+distraction through Paris, carrying his bomb with him, originally in his
+tool-bag and then under his jacket; how he had gone a first time to the
+Duvillard mansion and found its carriage entrance closed; then how he had
+betaken himself first to the Chamber of Deputies which the ushers had
+prevented him from entering, and afterwards to the Circus, where the
+thought of making a great sacrifice of /bourgeois/ had occurred to him
+too late. And finally, how he had at last come back to the Duvillard
+mansion, as if drawn thither by the very power of destiny. His tool-bag
+was lying in the depths of the Seine, he said; he had thrown it into the
+water with sudden hatred of work, since it had even failed to give him
+bread. And he next told the story of his flight; the explosion shaking
+the whole district behind him, while, with delight and astonishment, he
+found himself some distance off, in quiet streets where nothing was as
+yet known. And for a month past he had been living in chance fashion, how
+or where he could hardly tell, but he had often slept in the open, and
+gone for a day without food. One evening little Victor Mathis had given
+him five francs. And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for a
+night and sent him off at the first sign of peril. A far-spreading, tacit
+complicity had hitherto saved him from the police. As for going abroad,
+well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description of
+his person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting for
+him at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding,
+rather hasten his arrest? Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there that
+he incurred the least risk of capture. Moreover, he no longer had
+sufficient energy to flee. A fatalist as he was after his own fashion, he
+could not find strength to quit the pavements of Paris, but there awaited
+arrest, like a social waif carried chancewise through the multitude as in
+a dream.
+
+"And your daughter, little Celine?" Guillaume inquired. "Have you
+ventured to go back to see her?"
+
+Salvat waved his hand in a vague way. "No, but what would you have? She's
+with Mamma Theodore. Women always find some help. And then I'm done for,
+I can do nothing for anybody. It's as if I were already dead." However,
+in spite of these words, tears were rising to his eyes. "Ah! the poor
+little thing!" he added, "I kissed her with all my heart before I went
+away. If she and the woman hadn't been starving so long the idea of that
+business would perhaps never have come to me."
+
+Then, in all simplicity, he declared that he was ready to die. If he had
+ended by depositing his bomb at the entrance of Duvillard's house, it was
+because he knew the banker well, and was aware that he was the wealthiest
+of those /bourgeois/ whose fathers at the time of the Revolution had
+duped the people, by taking all power and wealth for themselves,--the
+power and wealth which the sons were nowadays so obstinately bent in
+retaining that they would not even bestow the veriest crumbs on others.
+As for the Revolution, he understood it in his own fashion, like an
+illiterate fellow who had learnt the little he knew from newspapers and
+speeches at public meetings. And he struck his chest with his fist as he
+spoke of his honesty, and was particularly desirous that none should
+doubt his courage because he had fled.
+
+"I've never robbed anybody," said he, "and if I don't go and hand myself
+up to the police, it's because they may surely take the trouble to find
+and arrest me. I'm very well aware that my affair's clear enough as
+they've found that bradawl and know me. All the same, it would be silly
+of me to help them in their work. Still, they'd better make haste, for
+I've almost had enough of being tracked like a wild beast and no longer
+knowing how I live."
+
+Janzen, yielding to curiosity, had ceased turning over the leaves of the
+picture book and was looking at Salvat. There was a smile of disdain in
+the Anarchist leader's cold eyes; and in his usual broken French he
+remarked: "A man fights and defends himself, kills others and tries to
+avoid being killed himself. That's warfare."
+
+These words fell from his lips amidst deep silence. Salvat, however, did
+not seem to have heard them, but stammered forth his faith in a long
+sentence laden with fulsome expressions, such as the sacrifice of his
+life in order that want might cease, and the example of a great action,
+in the certainty that it would inspire other heroes to continue the
+struggle. And with this certainly sincere faith and illuminism of his
+there was blended a martyr's pride, delight at being one of the radiant,
+worshipped saints of the dawning Revolutionary Church.
+
+As he had come so he went off. When Janzen had led him away, it seemed as
+if the night which had brought him had carried him back into its
+impenetrable depths. And then only did Pierre rise from his chair. He was
+stifling, and threw the large window of the room wide open. It was a very
+mild but moonless night, whose silence was only disturbed by the
+subsiding clamour of Paris, which stretched away, invisible, on the
+horizon.
+
+Guillaume, according to his habit, had begun to walk up and down. And at
+last he spoke, again forgetting that his brother was a priest. "Ah! the
+poor fellow! How well one can understand that deed of violence and hope!
+His whole past life of fruitless labour and ever-growing want explains
+it. Then, too, there has been all the contagion of ideas; the
+frequentation of public meetings where men intoxicate themselves with
+words, and of secret meetings among comrades where faith acquires
+firmness and the mind soars wildly. Ah! I think I know that man well
+indeed! He's a good workman, sober and courageous. Injustice has always
+exasperated him. And little by little the desire for universal happiness
+has cast him out of the realities of life which he has ended by holding
+in horror. So how can he do otherwise than live in a dream--a dream of
+redemption, which, from circumstances, has turned to fire and murder as
+its fitting instruments. As I looked at him standing there, I fancied I
+could picture one of the first Christian slaves of ancient Rome. All the
+iniquity of olden pagan society, agonising beneath the rottenness born of
+debauchery and covetousness, was weighing on his shoulders, bearing him
+down. He had come from the dark Catacombs where he had whispered words of
+deliverance and redemption with his wretched brethren. And a thirst for
+martyrdom consumed him, he spat in the face of Caesar, he insulted the
+gods, he fired the pagan temples, in order that the reign of Jesus might
+come and abolish servitude. And he was ready to die, to be torn to pieces
+by the wild beasts!"
+
+Pierre did not immediately reply. He had already been struck, however, by
+the fact that there were undoubted points of resemblance between the
+secret propaganda and militant faith of the Anarchists, and certain
+practices of the first Christians. Both sects abandon themselves to a new
+faith in the hope that the humble may thereby at last reap justice.
+Paganism disappears through weariness of the flesh and the need of a more
+lofty and pure faith. That dream of a Christian paradise opening up a
+future life with a system of compensations for the ills endured on earth,
+was the outcome of young hope dawning at its historic hour. But to-day,
+when eighteen centuries have exhausted that hope, when the long
+experiment is over and the toiler finds himself duped and still and ever
+a slave, he once more dreams of getting happiness upon this earth,
+particularly as each day Science tends more and more to show him that the
+happiness of the spheres beyond is a lie. And in all this there is but
+the eternal struggle of the poor and the rich, the eternal question of
+bringing more justice and less suffering to the world.
+
+"But surely," Pierre at last replied, "you can't be on the side of those
+bandits, those murderers whose savage violence horrifies me. I let you
+talk on yesterday, when you dreamt of a great and happy people, of ideal
+anarchy in which each would be free amidst the freedom of all. But what
+abomination, what disgust both for mind and heart, when one passes from
+theory to propaganda and practice! If yours is the brain that thinks,
+whose is the hateful hand that acts, that kills children, throws down
+doors and empties drawers? Do you accept that responsibility? With your
+education, your culture, the whole social heredity behind you, does not
+your entire being revolt at the idea of stealing and murdering?"
+
+Guillaume halted before his brother, quivering. "Steal and murder! no!
+no! I will not. But one must say everything and fully understand the
+history of the evil hour through which we are passing. It is madness
+sweeping by; and, to tell the truth, everything necessary to provoke it
+has been done. At the very dawn of the Anarchist theory, at the very
+first innocent actions of its partisans, there was such stern repression,
+the police so grossly ill-treating the poor devils that fell into its
+hands, that little by little came anger and rage leading to the most
+horrible reprisals. It is the Terror initiated by the /bourgeois/ that
+has produced Anarchist savagery. And would you know whence Salvat and his
+crime have come? Why, from all our centuries of impudence and iniquity,
+from all that the nations have suffered, from all the sores which are now
+devouring us, the impatience for enjoyment, the contempt of the strong
+for the weak, the whole monstrous spectacle which is presented by our
+rotting society!"
+
+Guillaume was again slowly walking to and fro; and as if he were
+reflecting aloud he continued: "Ah! to reach the point I have attained,
+through how much thought, through how many battles, have I not passed! I
+was merely a Positivist, a /savant/ devoted to observation and
+experiment, accepting nothing apart from proven facts. Scientifically and
+socially, I admitted that simple evolution had slowly brought humanity
+into being. But both in the history of the globe and that of human
+society, I found it necessary to make allowance for the volcano, the
+sudden cataclysm, the sudden eruption, by which each geological phase,
+each historical period, has been marked. In this wise one ends by
+ascertaining that no forward step has ever been taken, no progress ever
+accomplished in the world's history, without the help of horrible
+catastrophes. Each advance has meant the sacrifice of millions and
+millions of human lives. This of course revolts us, given our narrow
+ideas of justice, and we regard nature as a most barbarous mother; but,
+if we cannot excuse the volcano, we ought to deal with it when it bursts
+forth, like /savants/ forewarned of its possibility. . . . And then, ah,
+then! well, perhaps I'm a dreamer like others, but I have my own
+notions."
+
+With a sweeping gesture he confessed what a social dreamer there was
+within him beside the methodical and scrupulous /savant/. His constant
+endeavour was to bring all back to science, and he was deeply grieved at
+finding in nature no scientific sign of equality or even justice, such as
+he craved for in the social sphere. His despair indeed came from this
+inability to reconcile scientific logic with apostolic love, the dream of
+universal happiness and brotherhood and the end of all iniquity.
+
+Pierre, however, who had remained near the open window, gazing into the
+night towards Paris, whence ascended the last sounds of the evening of
+passionate pleasure, felt the whole flood of his own doubt and despair
+stifling him. It was all too much: that brother of his who had fallen
+upon him with his scientific and apostolic beliefs, those men who came to
+discuss contemporary thought from every standpoint, and finally that
+Salvat who had brought thither the exasperation of his mad deed. And
+Pierre, who had hitherto listened to them all without a word, without a
+gesture, who had hidden his secrets from his brother, seeking refuge in
+his supposed priestly views, suddenly felt such bitterness stirring his
+heart that he could lie no longer.
+
+"Ah! brother, if you have your dream, I have my sore which has eaten into
+me and left me void! Your Anarchy, your dream of just happiness, for
+which Salvat works with bombs, why, it is the final burst of insanity
+which will sweep everything away! How is it that you can't realise it?
+The century is ending in ruins. I've been listening to you all for a
+month past. Fourier destroyed Saint-Simon, Proudhon and Comte demolished
+Fourier, each in turn piling up incoherences and contradictions, leaving
+mere chaos behind them, which nobody dares to sort out. And since then,
+Socialist sects have been swarming and multiplying, the more sensible of
+them leading simply to dictatorship, while the others indulge in most
+dangerous reveries. And after such a tempest of ideas there could indeed
+come nothing but your Anarchy, which undertakes to bring the old world to
+a finish by reducing it to dust. . . . Ah! I expected it, I was waiting
+for it--that final catastrophe, that fratricidal madness, the inevitable
+class warfare in which our civilisation was destined to collapse!
+Everything announced it: the want and misery below, the egotism up above,
+all the cracking of the old human habitation, borne down by too great a
+weight of crime and grief. When I went to Lourdes it was to see if the
+divinity of simple minds would work the awaited miracle, and restore the
+belief of the early ages to the people, which rebelled through excess of
+suffering. And when I went to Rome it was in the /naive/ hope of there
+finding the new religion required by our democracies, the only one that
+could pacify the world by bringing back the fraternity of the golden age.
+But how foolish of me all that was! Both here and there, I simply lighted
+on nothingness. There where I so ardently dreamt of finding the salvation
+of others, I only sank myself, going down apeak like a ship not a timber
+of which is ever found again. One tie still linked me to my fellow-men,
+that of charity, the dressing, relieving, and perhaps, in the long run,
+healing, of wounds and sores; but that last cable has now been severed.
+Charity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice,
+to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessity
+and can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, an
+empty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything,
+anything whatever!"
+
+Pierre had risen to his full height, with arms outstretched as if to let
+all the nothingness within his heart and mind fall from them. And
+Guillaume, distracted by the sight of such a fierce denier, such a
+despairing Nihilist as was now revealed to him, drew near, quivering:
+"What are you saying, brother! I thought you so firm, so calm in your
+belief! A priest to be admired, a saint worshipped by the whole of this
+parish! I was unwilling even to discuss your faith, and now it is you who
+deny all, and believe in nothing whatever!"
+
+Pierre again slowly stretched out his arms. "There is nothing, I tried to
+learn all, and only found the atrocious grief born of the nothingness
+that overwhelms me."
+
+"Ah! how you must suffer, Pierre, my little brother! Can religion, then,
+be even more withering than science, since it has ravaged you like that,
+while I have yet remained an old madman, still full of fancies?"
+
+Guillaume caught hold of Pierre's hands and pressed them, full of
+terrified compassion in presence of all the grandeur and horror embodied
+in that unbelieving priest who watched over the belief of others, and
+chastely, honestly discharged his duty amidst the haughty sadness born of
+his falsehood. And how heavily must that falsehood have weighed upon his
+conscience for him to confess himself in that fashion, amidst an utter
+collapse of his whole being! A month previously, in the unexpansiveness
+of his proud solitude, he would never have taken such a course. To speak
+out it was necessary that he should have been stirred by many things, his
+reconciliation with his brother, the conversations he had heard of an
+evening, the terrible drama in which he was mingled, as well as his
+reflections on labour struggling against want, and the vague hope with
+which the sight of intellectual youth had inspired him. And, indeed, amid
+the very excess of his negation was there not already the faint dawn of a
+new faith?
+
+This Guillaume must have understood, on seeing how he quivered with
+unsatisfied tenderness as he emerged from the fierce silence which he had
+preserved so long. He made him sit down near the window, and placed
+himself beside him without releasing his hands. "But I won't have you
+suffer, my little brother!" he said; "I won't leave you, I'll nurse you.
+For I know you much better than you know yourself. You would never have
+suffered were it not for the battle between your heart and your mind, and
+you will cease to suffer on the day when they make peace, and you love
+what you understand." And in a lower voice, with infinite affection, he
+went on: "You see, it's our poor mother and our poor father continuing
+their painful struggle in you. You were too young at the time, you
+couldn't know what went on. But I knew them both very wretched: he,
+wretched through her, who treated him as if he were one of the damned;
+and she, suffering through him, tortured by his irreligion. When he died,
+struck down by an explosion in this very room, she took it to be the
+punishment of God. Yet, what an honest man he was, with a good, great
+heart, what a worker, seeking for truth alone, and desirous of the love
+and happiness of all! Since we have spent our evenings here, I have felt
+him coming back, reviving as it were both around and within us; and she,
+too, poor, saintly woman, is ever here, enveloping us with love, weeping,
+and yet stubbornly refusing to understand. It is they, perhaps, who have
+kept me here so long, and who at this very moment are present to place
+your hands in mine."
+
+And, indeed, it seemed to Pierre as if he could feel the breath of
+vigilant affection which Guillaume evoked passing over them both. There
+was again a revival of all the past, all their youth, and nothing could
+have been more delightful.
+
+"You hear me, brother," Guillaume resumed. "You must reconcile them, for
+it is only in you that they can be reconciled. You have his firm, lofty
+brow, and her mouth and eyes of unrealisable tenderness. So, try to bring
+them to agreement, by some day contenting, as your reason shall allow,
+the everlasting thirst for love, and self-bestowal, and life, which for
+lack of satisfaction is killing you. Your frightful wretchedness has no
+other cause. Come back to life, love, bestow yourself, be a man!"
+
+Pierre raised a dolorous cry: "No, no, the death born of doubt has swept
+through me, withering and shattering everything, and nothing more can
+live in that cold dust!"
+
+"But, come," resumed Guillaume, "you cannot have reached such absolute
+negation. No man reaches it. Even in the most disabused of minds there
+remains a nook of fancy and hope. To deny charity, devotion, the
+prodigies which love may work, ah! for my part I do not go so far as
+that. And now that you have shown me your sore, why should I not tell you
+my dream, the wild hope which keeps me alive! It is strange; but, are
+/savants/ to be the last childish dreamers, and is faith only to spring
+up nowadays in chemical laboratories?"
+
+Intense emotion was stirring Guillaume; there was battle waging in both
+his brain and his heart. And at last, yielding to the deep compassion
+which filled him, vanquished by his ardent affection for his unhappy
+brother, he spoke out. But he had drawn yet closer to Pierre, even passed
+one arm around him; and it was thus embracing him that he, in his turn,
+made his confession, lowering his voice as if he feared that someone
+might overhear his secret. "Why should you not know it?" he said. "My own
+sons are ignorant of it. But you are a man and my brother, and since
+there is nothing of the priest left in you, it is to the brother I will
+confide it. This will make me love you the more, and perhaps it may do
+you good."
+
+Then he told him of his invention, a new explosive, a powder of such
+extraordinary force that its effects were incalculable. And he had found
+employment for this powder in an engine of warfare, a special cannon,
+hurling bombs which would assure the most overwhelming victory to the
+army using them. The enemy's forces would be destroyed in a few hours,
+and besieged cities would fall into dust at the slightest bombardment. He
+had long searched and doubted, calculated, recalculated and experimented;
+but everything was now ready: the precise formula of the powder, the
+drawings for the cannon and the bombs, a whole packet of precious papers
+stored in a safe spot. And after months of anxious reflection he had
+resolved to give his invention to France, so as to ensure her a certainty
+of victory in her coming, inevitable war with Germany!
+
+At the same time, he was not a man of narrow patriotism; on the contrary
+he had a very broad, international conception of the future liberative
+civilisation. Only he believed in the initiatory mission of France, and
+particularly in that of Paris, which, even as it is to-day, was destined
+to be the world's brain to-morrow, whence all science and justice would
+proceed. The great idea of liberty and equality had already soared from
+it at the prodigious blast of the Revolution; and from its genius and
+valour the final emancipation of man would also take its flight. Thus it
+was necessary that Paris should be victorious in the struggle in order
+that the world might be saved.
+
+Pierre understood his brother, thanks to the lecture on explosives which
+he had heard at Bertheroy's. And the grandeur of this scheme, this dream,
+particularly struck him when he thought of the extraordinary future which
+would open for Paris amidst the effulgent blaze of the bombs. Moreover,
+he was struck by all the nobility of soul which had lain behind his
+brother's anxiety for a month past. If Guillaume had trembled it was
+simply with fear that his invention might be divulged in consequence of
+Salvat's crime. The slightest indiscretion might compromise everything;
+and that little stolen cartridge, whose effects had so astonished
+/savants/, might reveal his secret. He felt it necessary to act in
+mystery, choosing his own time, awaiting the proper hour, until when the
+secret would slumber in its hiding-place, confided to the sole care of
+Mere-Grand, who had her orders and knew what she was to do should he, in
+any sudden accident, disappear.
+
+"And, now," said Guillaume in conclusion, "you know my hopes and my
+anguish, and you can help me and even take my place if I am unable to
+reach the end of my task. Ah! to reach the end! Since I have been shut up
+here, reflecting, consumed by anxiety and impatience, there have been
+hours when I have ceased to see my way clearly! There is that Salvat,
+that wretched fellow for whose crime we are all of us responsible, and
+who is now being hunted down like a wild beast! There is also that
+insensate and insatiable /bourgeoisie/, which will let itself be crushed
+by the fall of the shaky old house, rather than allow the least repair to
+it! And there is further that avaricious, that abominable Parisian press,
+so harsh towards the weak and little, so fond of insulting those who have
+none to defend them, so eager to coin money out of public misfortune, and
+ready to spread insanity on all sides, simply to increase its sales!
+Where, therefore, shall one find truth and justice, the hand endowed with
+logic and health that ought to be armed with the thunderbolt? Would Paris
+the conqueror, Paris the master of the nations, prove the justiciar, the
+saviour that men await! Ah! the anguish of believing oneself to be the
+master of the world's destinies, and to have to choose and decide."
+
+He had risen again quivering, full of anger and fear that human
+wretchedness and baseness might prevent the realisation of his dream. And
+amidst the heavy silence which fell in the room, the little house
+suddenly resounded with a regular, continuous footfall.
+
+"Ah, yes! to save men and love them, and wish them all to be equal and
+free," murmured Pierre, bitterly. "But just listen! Barthes's footsteps
+are answering you, as if from the everlasting dungeon into which his love
+of liberty has thrown him!"
+
+However, Guillaume had already regained possession of himself, and coming
+back in a transport of his faith, he once more took Pierre in his loving,
+saving arms, like an elder brother who gives himself without restraint.
+"No, no, I'm wrong, I'm blaspheming," he exclaimed; "I wish you to be
+with me, full of hope and full of certainty. You must work, you must
+love, you must revive to life. Life alone can give you back peace and
+health."
+
+Tears returned to the eyes of Pierre, who was penetrated to the heart by
+this ardent affection. "Ah! how I should like to believe you," he
+faltered, "and try to cure myself. True, I have already felt, as it were,
+a vague revival within me. And yet to live again, no, I cannot; the
+priest that I am is dead--a lifeless, an empty tomb."
+
+He was shaken by so frightful a sob, that Guillaume could not restrain
+his own tears. And clasped in one another's arms the brothers wept on,
+their hearts full of the softest emotion in that home of their youth,
+whither the dear shadows of their parents ever returned, hovering around
+until they should be reconciled and restored to the peace of the earth.
+And all the darkness and mildness of the garden streamed in through the
+open window, while yonder, on the horizon, Paris had fallen asleep in the
+mysterious gloom, beneath a very peaceful sky which was studded with
+stars.
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+
+                                BY
+
+                            EMILE ZOLA
+
+
+
+                TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                              BOOK III
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE RIVALS
+
+ON the Wednesday preceding the mid-Lent Thursday, a great charity bazaar
+was held at the Duvillard mansion, for the benefit of the Asylum of the
+Invalids of Labour. The ground-floor reception rooms, three spacious
+Louis Seize /salons/, whose windows overlooked the bare and solemn
+courtyard, were given up to the swarm of purchasers, five thousand
+admission cards having been distributed among all sections of Parisian
+society. And the opening of the bombarded mansion in this wise to
+thousands of visitors was regarded as quite an event, a real
+manifestation, although some people whispered that the Rue
+Godot-de-Mauroy and the adjacent streets were guarded by quite an army of
+police agents.
+
+The idea of the bazaar had come from Duvillard himself, and at his
+bidding his wife had resigned herself to all this worry for the benefit
+of the enterprise over which she presided with such distinguished
+nonchalance. On the previous day the "Globe" newspaper, inspired by its
+director Fonsegue, who was also the general manager of the asylum, had
+published a very fine article, announcing the bazaar, and pointing out
+how noble, and touching, and generous was the initiative of the Baroness,
+who still gave her time, her money, and even her home to charity, in
+spite of the abominable crime which had almost reduced that home to
+ashes. Was not this the magnanimous answer of the spheres above to the
+hateful passions of the spheres below? And was it not also a peremptory
+answer to those who accused the capitalists of doing nothing for the
+wage-earners, the disabled and broken-down sons of toil?
+
+The drawing-room doors were to be opened at two o'clock, and would only
+close at seven, so that there would be five full hours for the sales. And
+at noon, when nothing was as yet ready downstairs, when workmen and women
+were still decorating the stalls, and sorting the goods amidst a final
+scramble, there was, as usual, a little friendly /dejeuner/, to which a
+few guests had been invited, in the private rooms on the first floor.
+However, a scarcely expected incident had given a finishing touch to the
+general excitement of the house: that very morning Sagnier had resumed
+his campaign of denunciation in the matter of the African Railway Lines.
+In a virulent article in the "Voix du Peuple," he had inquired if it were
+the intention of the authorities to beguile the public much longer with
+the story of that bomb and that Anarchist whom the police did not arrest.
+And this time, while undertaking to publish the names of the thirty-two
+corrupt senators and deputies in a very early issue, he had boldly named
+Minister Barroux as one who had pocketed a sum of 200,000 francs. Mege
+would therefore certainly revive his interpellation, which might become
+dangerous, now that Paris had been thrown into such a distracted state by
+terror of the Anarchists. At the same time it was said that Vignon and
+his party had resolved to turn circumstances to account, with the object
+of overthrowing the ministry. Thus a redoubtable crisis was inevitably at
+hand. Fortunately, the Chamber did not meet that Wednesday; in fact, it
+had adjourned until the Friday, with the view of making mid-Lent a
+holiday. And so forty-eight hours were left one to prepare for the
+onslaught.
+
+Eve, that morning, seemed more gentle and languid than ever, rather pale
+too, with an expression of sorrowful anxiety in the depths of her
+beautiful eyes. She set it all down to the very great fatigue which the
+preparations for the bazaar had entailed on her. But the truth was that
+Gerard de Quinsac, after shunning any further assignation, had for five
+days past avoided her in an embarrassed way. Still she was convinced that
+she would see him that morning, and so she had again ventured to wear the
+white silk gown which made her look so much younger than she really was.
+At the same time, beautiful as she had remained, with her delicate skin,
+superb figure and noble and charming countenance, her six and forty years
+were asserting themselves in her blotchy complexion and the little
+creases which were appearing about her lips, eyelids and temples.
+
+Camille, for her part, though her position as daughter of the house made
+it certain that she would attract much custom as a saleswoman, had
+obstinately persisted in wearing one of her usual dresses, a dark
+"carmelite" gown, an old woman's frock, as she herself called it with a
+cutting laugh. However, her long and wicked-looking face beamed with some
+secret delight; such an expression of wit and intelligence wreathing her
+thin lips and shining in her big eyes that one lost sight of her
+deformity and thought her almost pretty.
+
+Eve experienced a first deception in the little blue and silver
+sitting-room, where, accompanied by her daughter, she awaited the arrival
+of her guests. General de Bozonnet, whom Gerard was to have brought with
+him, came in alone, explaining that Madame de Quinsac had felt rather
+poorly that morning, and that Gerard, like a good and dutiful son, had
+wished to remain with her. Still he would come to the bazaar directly
+after /dejeuner/. While the Baroness listened to the General, striving to
+hide her disappointment and her fear that she would now be unable to
+obtain any explanation from Gerard that day, Camille looked at her with
+eager, devouring eyes. And a certain covert instinct of the misfortune
+threatening her must at that moment have come to Eve, for in her turn she
+glanced at her daughter and turned pale as if with anxiety.
+
+Then Princess Rosemonde de Harn swept in like a whirlwind. She also was
+to be one of the saleswomen at the stall chosen by the Baroness, who
+liked her for her very turbulence, the sudden gaiety which she generally
+brought with her. Gowned in fire-hued satin (red shot with yellow),
+looking very eccentric with her curly hair and thin boyish figure, she
+laughed and talked of an accident by which her carriage had almost been
+cut in halves. Then, as Baron Duvillard and Hyacinthe came in from their
+rooms, late as usual, she took possession of the young man and scolded
+him, for on the previous evening she had vainly waited for him till ten
+o'clock in the expectation that he would keep his promise to escort her
+to a tavern at Montmartre, where some horrible things were said to occur.
+Hyacinthe, looking very bored, quietly replied that he had been detained
+at a seance given by some adepts in the New Magic, in the course of which
+the soul of St. Theresa had descended from heaven to recite a love
+sonnet.
+
+However, Fonsegue was now coming in with his wife, a tall, thin, silent
+and generally insignificant woman, whom he seldom took about with him. On
+this occasion he had been obliged to bring her, as she was one of the
+lady-patronesses of the asylum, and he himself was coming to lunch with
+the Duvillards in his capacity as general manager. To the superficial
+observer he looked quite as gay as usual; but he blinked nervously, and
+his first glance was a questioning one in the direction of Duvillard, as
+if he wished to know how the latter bore the fresh thrust directed at him
+by Sagnier. And when he saw the banker looking perfectly composed, as
+superb, as rubicund as usual, and chatting in a bantering way with
+Rosemonde, he also put on an easy air, like a gamester who had never lost
+but had always known how to compel good luck, even in hours of treachery.
+And by way of showing his unconstraint of mind he at once addressed the
+Baroness on managerial matters: "Have you now succeeded in seeing M.
+l'Abbe Froment for the affair of that old man Laveuve, whom he so warmly
+recommended to us? All the formalities have been gone through, you know,
+and he can be brought to us at once, as we have had a bed vacant for
+three days past."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Eve; "but I can't imagine what has become of Abbe
+Froment, for he hasn't given us a sign of life for a month past. However,
+I made up my mind to write to him yesterday, and beg him to come to the
+bazaar to-day. In this manner I shall be able to acquaint him with the
+good news myself."
+
+"It was to leave you the pleasure of doing so," said Fonsegue, "that I
+refrained from sending him any official communication. He's a charming
+priest, is he not?"
+
+"Oh! charming, we are very fond of him."
+
+However, Duvillard now intervened to say that they need not wait for
+Duthil, as he had received a telegram from him stating that he was
+detained by sudden business. At this Fonsegue's anxiety returned, and he
+once more questioned the Baron with his eyes. Duvillard smiled, however,
+and reassured him in an undertone: "It's nothing serious. Merely a
+commission for me, about which he'll only be able to bring me an answer
+by-and-by." Then, taking Fonsegue on one side, he added: "By the way,
+don't forget to insert the paragraph I told you of."
+
+"What paragraph? Oh! yes, the one about that /soiree/ at which Silviane
+recited a piece of verse. Well, I wanted to speak to you about it. It
+worries me a little, on account of the excessive praise it contains."
+
+Duvillard, but a moment before so full of serenity, with his lofty,
+conquering, disdainful mien, now suddenly became pale and agitated. "But
+I absolutely want it to be inserted, my dear fellow! You would place me
+in the greatest embarrassment if it were not to appear, for I promised
+Silviane that it should."
+
+As he spoke his lips trembled, and a scared look came into his eyes,
+plainly revealing his dismay.
+
+"All right, all right," said Fonsegue, secretly amused, and well pleased
+at this complicity. "As it's so serious the paragraph shall go in, I
+promise you."
+
+The whole company was now present, since neither Gerard nor Duthil was to
+be expected. So they went into the dining-room amidst a final noise of
+hammering in the sale-rooms below. The meal proved somewhat of a
+scramble, and was on three occasions disturbed by female attendants, who
+came to explain difficulties and ask for orders. Doors were constantly
+slamming, and the very walls seemed to shake with the unusual bustle
+which filled the house. And feverish as they all were in the dining-room,
+they talked in desultory, haphazard fashion on all sorts of subjects,
+passing from a ball given at the Ministry of the Interior on the previous
+night, to the popular mid-Lent festival which would take place on the
+morrow, and ever reverting to the bazaar, the prices that had been given
+for the goods which would be on sale, the prices at which they might be
+sold, and the probable figure of the full receipts, all this being
+interspersed with strange anecdotes, witticisms and bursts of laughter.
+On the General mentioning magistrate Amadieu, Eve declared that she no
+longer dared to invite him to /dejeuner/, knowing how busy he was at the
+Palace of Justice. Still, she certainly hoped that he would come to the
+bazaar and contribute something. Then Fonsegue amused himself with
+teasing Princess Rosemonde about her fire-hued gown, in which, said he,
+she must already feel roasted by the flames of hell; a suggestion which
+secretly delighted her, as Satanism had now become her momentary passion.
+Meantime, Duvillard lavished the most gallant politeness on that silent
+creature, Madame Fonsegue, while Hyacinthe, in order to astonish even the
+Princess, explained in a few words how the New Magic could transform a
+chaste young man into a real angel. And Camille, who seemed very happy
+and very excited, from time to time darted a hot glance at her mother,
+whose anxiety and sadness increased as she found the other more and more
+aggressive, and apparently resolved upon open and merciless warfare.
+
+At last, just as the dessert was coming to an end, the Baroness heard her
+daughter exclaim in a piercing, defiant voice: "Oh! don't talk to me of
+the old ladies who still seem to be playing with dolls, and paint
+themselves, and dress as if they were about to be confirmed! All such
+ogresses ought to retire from the scene! I hold them in horror!"
+
+At this, Eve nervously rose from her seat, and exclaimed apologetically:
+"You must forgive me for hurrying you like this. But I'm afraid that we
+shan't have time to drink our coffee in peace."
+
+The coffee was served in the little blue and silver sitting-room, where
+bloomed some lovely yellow roses, testifying to the Baroness's keen
+passion for flowers, which made the house an abode of perpetual spring.
+Duvillard and Fonsegue, however, carrying their cups of steaming coffee
+with them, at once went into the former's private room to smoke a cigar
+there and chat in freedom. As the door remained wide open, one could
+hear their gruff voices more or less distinctly. Meantime, General de
+Bozonnet, delighted to find in Madame Fonsegue a serious, submissive
+person, who listened without interrupting, began to tell her a very long
+story of an officer's wife who had followed her husband through every
+battle of the war of 1870. Then Hyacinthe, who took no coffee--
+contemptuously declaring it to be a beverage only fit for door-keepers--
+managed to rid himself of Rosemonde, who was sipping some kummel, in
+order to come and whisper to his sister: "I say, it was very stupid of
+you to taunt mamma in the way you did just now. I don't care a rap about
+it myself. But it ends by being noticed, and, I warn you candidly, it
+shows ill breeding."
+
+Camille gazed at him fixedly with her black eyes. "Pray don't /you/
+meddle with my affairs," said she.
+
+At this he felt frightened, scented a storm, and decided to take
+Rosemonde into the adjoining red drawing-room in order to show her a
+picture which his father had just purchased. And the General, on being
+called by him, likewise conducted Madame Fonsegue thither.
+
+The mother and daughter then suddenly found themselves alone and face to
+face. Eve was leaning on a pier-table, as if overcome; and indeed, the
+least sorrow bore her down, so weak at heart she was, ever ready to weep
+in her naive and perfect egotism. Why was it that her daughter thus hated
+her, and did her utmost to disturb that last happy spell of love in which
+her heart lingered? She looked at Camille, grieved rather than irritated;
+and the unfortunate idea came to her of making a remark about her dress
+at the very moment when the girl was on the point of following the others
+into the larger drawing-room.
+
+"It's quite wrong of you, my dear," said she, "to persist in dressing
+like an old woman. It doesn't improve you a bit."
+
+As Eve spoke, her soft eyes, those of a courted and worshipped handsome
+woman, clearly expressed the compassion she felt for that ugly, deformed
+girl, whom she had never been able to regard as a daughter. Was it
+possible that she, with her sovereign beauty, that beauty which she
+herself had ever adored and nursed, making it her one care, her one
+religion--was it possible that she had given birth to such a graceless
+creature, with a dark, goatish profile, one shoulder higher than the
+other, and a pair of endless arms such as hunchbacks often have? All her
+grief and all her shame at having had such a child became apparent in the
+quivering of her voice.
+
+Camille, however, had stopped short, as if struck in the face with a
+whip. Then she came back to her mother and the horrible explanation began
+with these simple words spoken in an undertone: "You consider that I
+dress badly? Well, you ought to have paid some attention to me, have seen
+that my gowns suited your taste, and have taught me your secret of
+looking beautiful!"
+
+Eve, with her dislike of all painful feeling, all quarrelling and bitter
+words, was already regretting her attack. So she sought to make a
+retreat, particularly as time was flying and they would soon be expected
+downstairs: "Come, be quiet, and don't show your bad temper when all
+those people can hear us. I have loved you--"
+
+But with a quiet yet terrible laugh Camille interrupted her. "You've
+loved me! Oh! my poor mamma, what a comical thing to say! Have you ever
+loved /anybody/? You want others to love /you/, but that's another
+matter. As for your child, any child, do you even know how it ought to be
+loved? You have always neglected me, thrust me on one side, deeming me so
+ugly, so unworthy of you! And besides, you have not had days and nights
+enough to love yourself! Oh! don't deny it, my poor mamma; but even now
+you're looking at me as if I were some loathsome monster that's in your
+way."
+
+From that moment the abominable scene was bound to continue to the end.
+With their teeth set, their faces close together, the two women went on
+speaking in feverish whispers.
+
+"Be quiet, Camille, I tell you! I will not allow such language!"
+
+"But I won't be quiet when you do all you can to wound me. If it's wrong
+of me to dress like an old woman, perhaps another is rather ridiculous in
+dressing like a girl, like a bride."
+
+"Like a bride? I don't understand you."
+
+"Oh! yes, you do. However, I would have you know that everybody doesn't
+find me so ugly as you try to make them believe."
+
+"If you look amiss, it is because you don't dress properly; that is all I
+said."
+
+"I dress as I please, and no doubt I do so well enough, since I'm loved
+as I am."
+
+"What, really! Does someone love you? Well, let him inform us of it and
+marry you."
+
+"Yes--certainly, certainly! It will be a good riddance, won't it? And
+you'll have the pleasure of seeing me as a bride!"
+
+Their voices were rising in spite of their efforts to restrain them.
+However, Camille paused and drew breath before hissing out the words:
+"Gerard is coming here to ask for my hand in a day or two."
+
+Eve, livid, with wildly staring eyes, did not seem to understand.
+"Gerard? why do you tell me that?"
+
+"Why, because it's Gerard who loves me and who is going to marry me! You
+drive me to extremities; you're for ever repeating that I'm ugly; you
+treat me like a monster whom nobody will ever care for. So I'm forced to
+defend myself and tell you the truth in order to prove to you that
+everybody is not of your opinion."
+
+Silence fell; the frightful thing which had risen between them seemed to
+have arrested the quarrel. But there was neither mother nor daughter left
+there. They were simply two suffering, defiant rivals. Eve in her turn
+drew a long breath and glanced anxiously towards the adjoining room to
+ascertain if anyone were coming in or listening to them. And then in a
+tone of resolution she made answer:
+
+"You cannot marry Gerard."
+
+"Pray, why not?"
+
+"Because I won't have it; because it's impossible."
+
+"That isn't a reason; give me a reason."
+
+"The reason is that the marriage is impossible that is all."
+
+"No, no, I'll tell you the reason since you force me to it. The reason is
+that Gerard is your lover! But what does that matter, since I know it and
+am willing to take him all the same?"
+
+And to this retort Camille's flaming eyes added the words: "And it is
+particularly on that account that I want him." All the long torture born
+of her infirmities, all her rage at having always seen her mother
+beautiful, courted and adored, was now stirring her and seeking vengeance
+in cruel triumph. At last then she was snatching from her rival the lover
+of whom she had so long been jealous!
+
+"You wretched girl!" stammered Eve, wounded in the heart and almost
+sinking to the floor. "You don't know what you say or what you make me
+suffer."
+
+However, she again had to pause, draw herself erect and smile; for
+Rosemonde hastened in from the adjoining room with the news that she was
+wanted downstairs. The doors were about to be opened, and it was
+necessary she should be at her stall. Yes, Eve answered, she would be
+down in another moment. Still, even as she spoke she leant more heavily
+on the pier-table behind her in order that she might not fall.
+
+Hyacinthe had drawn near to his sister: "You know," said he, "it's simply
+idiotic to quarrel like that. You would do much better to come
+downstairs."
+
+But Camille harshly dismissed him: "Just /you/ go off, and take the
+others with you. It's quite as well that they shouldn't be about our
+ears."
+
+Hyacinthe glanced at his mother, like one who knew the truth and
+considered the whole affair ridiculous. And then, vexed at seeing her so
+deficient in energy in dealing with that little pest, his sister, he
+shrugged his shoulders, and leaving them to their folly, conducted the
+others away. One could hear Rosemonde laughing as she went off below,
+while the General began to tell Madame Fonsegue another story as they
+descended the stairs together. However, at the moment when the mother and
+daughter at last fancied themselves alone once more, other voices reached
+their ears, those of Duvillard and Fonsegue, who were still near at hand.
+The Baron from his room might well overhear the dispute.
+
+Eve felt that she ought to have gone off. But she had lacked the strength
+to do so; it had been a sheer impossibility for her after those words
+which had smote her like a buffet amidst her distress at the thought of
+losing her lover.
+
+"Gerard cannot marry you," she said; "he does not love you."
+
+"He does."
+
+"You fancy it because he has good-naturedly shown some kindness to you,
+on seeing others pay you such little attention. But he does not love
+you."
+
+"He does. He loves me first because I'm not such a fool as many others
+are, and particularly because I'm young."
+
+This was a fresh wound for the Baroness; one inflicted with mocking
+cruelty in which rang out all the daughter's triumphant delight at seeing
+her mother's beauty at last ripening and waning. "Ah! my poor mamma, you
+no longer know what it is to be young. If I'm not beautiful, at all
+events I'm young; my eyes are clear and my lips are fresh. And my hair's
+so long too, and I've so much of it that it would suffice to gown me if I
+chose. You see, one's never ugly when one's young. Whereas, my poor
+mamma, everything is ended when one gets old. It's all very well for a
+woman to have been beautiful, and to strive to keep so, but in reality
+there's only ruin left, and shame and disgust."
+
+She spoke these words in such a sharp, ferocious voice that each of them
+entered her mother's heart like a knife. Tears rose to the eyes of the
+wretched woman, again stricken in her bleeding wound. Ah! it was true,
+she remained without weapons against youth. And all her anguish came from
+the consciousness that she was growing old, from the feeling that love
+was departing from her now, that like a fruit she had ripened and fallen
+from the tree.
+
+"But Gerard's mother will never let him marry you," she said.
+
+"He will prevail on her; that's his concern. I've a dowry of two
+millions, and two millions can settle many things."
+
+"Do you now want to libel him, and say that he's marrying you for your
+money?"
+
+"No, indeed! Gerard's a very nice and honest fellow. He loves me and he's
+marrying me for myself. But, after all, he isn't rich; he still has no
+assured position, although he's thirty-six; and there may well be some
+advantage in a wife who brings you wealth as well as happiness. For, you
+hear, mamma, it's happiness I'm bringing him, real happiness, love that's
+shared and is certain of the future."
+
+Once again their faces drew close together. The hateful scene,
+interrupted by sounds around them, postponed, and then resumed, was
+dragging on, becoming a perfect drama full of murderous violence,
+although they never shouted, but still spoke on in low and gasping
+voices. Neither gave way to the other, though at every moment they were
+liable to some surprise; for not only were all the doors open, so that
+the servants might come in, but the Baron's voice still rang out gaily,
+close at hand.
+
+"He loves you, he loves you"--continued Eve. "That's what you say. But
+/he/ never told you so."
+
+"He has told me so twenty times; he repeats it every time that we are
+alone together!"
+
+"Yes, just as one says it to a little girl by way of amusing her. But he
+has never told you that he meant to marry you."
+
+"He told it me the last time he came. And it's settled. I'm simply
+waiting for him to get his mother's consent and make his formal offer."
+
+"You lie, you lie, you wretched girl! You simply want to make me suffer,
+and you lie, you lie!"
+
+Eve's grief at last burst forth in that cry of protest. She no longer
+knew that she was a mother, and was speaking to her daughter. The woman,
+the /amorosa/, alone remained in her, outraged and exasperated by a
+rival. And with a sob she confessed the truth: "It is I he loves! Only
+the last time I spoke to him, he swore to me--you hear me?--he swore upon
+his honour that he did not love you, and that he would never marry you!"
+
+A faint, sharp laugh came from Camille. Then, with an air of derisive
+compassion, she replied: "Ah! my poor mamma, you really make me sorry for
+you! What a child you are! Yes, really, you are the child, not I. What!
+you who ought to have so much experience, you still allow yourself to be
+duped by a man's protests! That one really has no malice; and, indeed,
+that's why he swears whatever you want him to swear, just to please and
+quiet you, for at heart he's a bit of a coward."
+
+"You lie, you lie!"
+
+"But just think matters over. If he no longer comes here, if he didn't
+come to /dejeuner/ this morning, it is simply because he's had enough of
+you. He has left you for good; just have the courage to realise it. Of
+course he's still polite and amiable, because he's a well-bred man, and
+doesn't know how to break off. The fact is that he takes pity on you."
+
+"You lie, you lie!"
+
+"Well, question him then. Have a frank explanation with him. Ask him his
+intentions in a friendly way. And then show some good nature yourself,
+and realise that if you care for him you ought to give him me at once in
+his own interest. Give him back his liberty, and you will soon see that
+I'm the one he loves."
+
+"You lie, you lie! You wretched child, you only want to torture and kill
+me!"
+
+Then, in her fury and distress, Eve remembered that she was the mother,
+and that it was for her to chastise that unworthy daughter. There was no
+stick near her, but from a basket of the yellow roses, whose powerful
+scent intoxicated both of them, she plucked a handful of blooms, with
+long and spiny stalks, and smote Camille across the face. A drop of blood
+appeared on the girl's left temple, near her eyelid.
+
+But she sprang forward, flushed and maddened by this correction, with her
+hand raised and ready to strike back. "Take care, mother! I swear I'd
+beat you like a gipsy! And now just put this into your head: I mean to
+marry Gerard, and I will; and I'll take him from you, even if I have to
+raise a scandal, should you refuse to give him to me with good grace."
+
+Eve, after her one act of angry vigour, had sunk into an armchair,
+overcome, distracted. And all the horror of quarrels, which sprang from
+her egotistical desire to be happy, caressed, flattered and adored, was
+returning to her. But Camille, still threatening, still unsatiated,
+showed her heart as it really was, her stern, black, unforgiving heart,
+intoxicated with cruelty. There came a moment of supreme silence, while
+Duvillard's gay voice again rang out in the adjoining room.
+
+The mother was gently weeping, when Hyacinthe, coming upstairs at a run,
+swept into the little /salon/. He looked at the two women, and made a
+gesture of indulgent contempt. "Ah! you're no doubt satisfied now! But
+what did I tell you? It would have been much better for you to have come
+downstairs at once! Everybody is asking for you. It's all idiotic. I've
+come to fetch you."
+
+Eve and Camille would not yet have followed him, perhaps, if Duvillard
+and Fonsegue had not at that moment come out of the former's room. Having
+finished their cigars they also spoke of going downstairs. And Eve had to
+rise and smile and show dry eyes, while Camille, standing before a
+looking-glass, arranged her hair, and stanched the little drop of blood
+that had gathered on her temple.
+
+There was already quite a number of people below, in the three huge
+saloons adorned with tapestry and plants. The stalls had been draped with
+red silk, which set a gay, bright glow around the goods. And no ordinary
+bazaar could have put forth such a show, for there was something of
+everything among the articles of a thousand different kinds, from
+sketches by recognised masters, and the autographs of famous writers,
+down to socks and slippers and combs. The haphazard way in which things
+were laid out was in itself an attraction; and, in addition, there was a
+buffet, where the whitest of beautiful hands poured out champagne, and
+two lotteries, one for an organ and another for a pony-drawn village
+cart, the tickets for which were sold by a bevy of charming girls, who
+had scattered through the throng. As Duvillard had expected, however, the
+great success of the bazaar lay in the delightful little shiver which the
+beautiful ladies experienced as they passed through the entrance where
+the bomb had exploded. The rougher repairing work was finished, the walls
+and ceilings had been doctored, in part re-constructed. However, the
+painters had not yet come, and here and there the whiter stone and
+plaster work showed like fresh scars left by all the terrible gashes. It
+was with mingled anxiety and rapture that pretty heads emerged from the
+carriages which, arriving in a continuous stream, made the flagstones of
+the court re-echo. And in the three saloons, beside the stalls, there was
+no end to the lively chatter: "Ah! my dear, did you see all those marks?
+How frightful, how frightful! The whole house was almost blown up. And to
+think it might begin again while we are here! One really needs some
+courage to come, but then, that asylum is such a deserving institution,
+and money is badly wanted to build a new wing. And besides, those
+monsters will see that we are not frightened, whatever they do."
+
+When the Baroness at last came down to her stall with Camille she found
+the saleswomen feverishly at work already under the direction of Princess
+Rosemonde, who on occasions of this kind evinced the greatest cunning and
+rapacity, robbing the customers in the most impudent fashion. "Ah! here
+you are," she exclaimed. "Beware of a number of higglers who have come to
+secure bargains. I know them! They watch for their opportunities, turn
+everything topsy-turvy and wait for us to lose our heads and forget
+prices, so as to pay even less than they would in a real shop. But I'll
+get good prices from them, you shall see!"
+
+At this, Eve, who for her own part was a most incapable saleswoman, had
+to laugh with the others. And in a gentle voice she made a pretence of
+addressing certain recommendations to Camille, who listened with a
+smiling and most submissive air. In point of fact the wretched mother was
+sinking with emotion, particularly at the thought that she would have to
+remain there till seven o'clock, and suffer in secret before all those
+people, without possibility of relief. And thus it was almost like a
+respite when she suddenly perceived Abbe Froment sitting and waiting for
+her on a settee, covered with red velvet, near her stall. Her legs were
+failing her, so she took a place beside him.
+
+"You received my letter then, Monsieur l'Abbe. I am glad that you have
+come, for I have some good news to give you, and wished to leave you the
+pleasure of imparting it to your /protege/, that man Laveuve, whom you so
+warmly recommended to me. Every formality has now been fulfilled, and you
+can bring him to the asylum to-morrow."
+
+Pierre gazed at her in stupefaction. "Laveuve? Why, he is dead!"
+
+In her turn she became astonished. "What, dead! But you never informed me
+of it! If I told you of all the trouble that has been taken, of all that
+had to be undone and done again, and the discussions and the papers and
+the writing! Are you quite sure that he is dead?"
+
+"Oh! yes, he is dead. He has been dead a month."
+
+"Dead a month! Well, we could not know; you yourself gave us no sign of
+life. Ah! /mon Dieu/! what a worry that he should be dead. We shall now
+be obliged to undo everything again!"
+
+"He is dead, madame. It is true that I ought to have informed you of it.
+But that doesn't alter the fact--he is dead."
+
+Dead! that word which kept on returning, the thought too, that for a
+month past she had been busying herself for a corpse, quite froze her,
+brought her to the very depths of despair, like an omen of the cold death
+into which she herself must soon descend, in the shroud of her last
+passion. And, meantime, Pierre, despite himself, smiled bitterly at the
+atrocious irony of it all. Ah! that lame and halting Charity, which
+proffers help when men are dead!
+
+The priest still lingered on the settee when the Baroness rose. She had
+seen magistrate Amadieu hurriedly enter like one who just wished to show
+himself, purchase some trifle, and then return to the Palace of Justice.
+However, he was also perceived by little Massot, the "Globe" reporter,
+who was prowling round the stalls, and who at once bore down upon him,
+eager for information. And he hemmed him in and forthwith interviewed him
+respecting the affair of that mechanician Salvat, who was accused of
+having deposited the bomb at the entrance of the house. Was this simply
+an invention of the police, as some newspapers pretended? Or was it
+really correct? And if so, would Salvat soon be arrested? In self-defence
+Amadieu answered correctly enough that the affair did not as yet concern
+him, and would only come within his attributions, if Salvat should be
+arrested and the investigation placed in his hands. At the same time,
+however, the magistrate's pompous and affectedly shrewd manner suggested
+that he already knew everything to the smallest details, and that, had he
+chosen, he could have promised some great events for the morrow. A circle
+of ladies had gathered round him as he spoke, quite a number of pretty
+women feverish with curiosity, who jostled one another in their eagerness
+to hear that brigand tale which sent a little shiver coursing under their
+skins. However, Amadieu managed to slip off after paying Rosemonde twenty
+francs for a cigarette case, which was perhaps worth thirty sous.
+
+Massot, on recognising Pierre, came up to shake hands with him. "Don't
+you agree with me, Monsieur l'Abbe, that Salvat must be a long way off by
+now if he's got good legs? Ah! the police will always make me laugh!"
+
+However, Rosemonde brought Hyacinthe up to the journalist. "Monsieur
+Massot," said she, "you who go everywhere, I want you to be judge. That
+Chamber of Horrors at Montmartre, that tavern where Legras sings the
+'Flowers of the Streets'--"
+
+"Oh! a delightful spot, madame," interrupted Massot, "I wouldn't take
+even a gendarme there."
+
+"No, don't jest, Monsieur Massot, I'm talking seriously. Isn't it quite
+allowable for a respectable woman to go there when she's accompanied by a
+gentleman?" And, without allowing the journalist time to answer her, she
+turned towards Hyacinthe: "There! you see that Monsieur Massot doesn't
+say no! You've got to take me there this evening, it's sworn, it's
+sworn."
+
+Then she darted away to sell a packet of pins to an old lady, while the
+young man contented himself with remarking, in the voice of one who has
+no illusions left: "She's quite idiotic with her Chamber of Horrors!"
+
+Massot philosophically shrugged his shoulders. It was only natural that a
+woman should want to amuse herself. And when Hyacinthe had gone off,
+passing with perverse contempt beside the lovely girls who were selling
+lottery tickets, the journalist ventured to murmur: "All the same, it
+would do that youngster good if a woman were to take him in hand."
+
+Then, again addressing Pierre, he resumed: "Why, here comes Duthil! What
+did Sagnier mean this morning by saying that Duthil would sleep at Mazas
+to-night?"
+
+In a great hurry apparently, and all smiles, Duthil was cutting his way
+through the crowd in order to join Duvillard and Fonsegue, who still
+stood talking near the Baroness's stall. And he waved his hand to them in
+a victorious way, to imply that he had succeeded in the delicate mission
+entrusted to him. This was nothing less than a bold manoeuvre to hasten
+Silviane's admission to the Comedie Francaise. The idea had occurred to
+her of making the Baron give a dinner at the Cafe Anglais in order that
+she might meet at it an influential critic, who, according to her
+statements, would compel the authorities to throw the doors wide open for
+her as soon as he should know her. However, it did not seem easy to
+secure the critic's presence, as he was noted for his sternness and
+grumbling disposition. And, indeed, after a first repulse, Duthil had for
+three days past been obliged to exert all his powers of diplomacy, and
+bring even the remotest influence into play. But he was radiant now, for
+he had conquered.
+
+"It's for this evening, my dear Baron, at half-past seven," he exclaimed.
+"Ah! dash it all, I've had more trouble than I should have had to secure
+a concession vote!" Then he laughed with the pretty impudence of a man of
+pleasure, whom political conscientiousness did not trouble. And, indeed,
+his allusion to the fresh denunciations of the "Voix du Peuple" hugely
+amused him.
+
+"Don't jest," muttered Fonsegue, who for his part wished to amuse himself
+by frightening the young deputy. "Things are going very badly!"
+
+Duthil turned pale, and a vision of the police and Mazas rose before his
+eyes. In this wise sheer funk came over him from time to time. However,
+with his lack of all moral sense, he soon felt reassured and began to
+laugh. "Bah!" he retorted gaily, winking towards Duvillard, "the
+governor's there to pilot the barque!"
+
+The Baron, who was extremely pleased, had pressed his hands, thanked him,
+and called him an obliging fellow. And now turning towards Fonsegue, he
+exclaimed: "I say, you must make one of us this evening. Oh! it's
+necessary. I want something imposing round Silviane. Duthil will
+represent the Chamber, you journalism, and I finance--" But he suddenly
+paused on seeing Gerard, who, with a somewhat grave expression, was
+leisurely picking his way through the sea of skirts. "Gerard, my friend,"
+said the Baron, after beckoning to him, "I want you to do me a service."
+And forthwith he told him what was in question; how the influential
+critic had been prevailed upon to attend a dinner which would decide
+Silviane's future; and how it was the duty of all her friends to rally
+round her.
+
+"But I can't," the young man answered in embarrassment. "I have to dine
+at home with my mother, who was rather poorly this morning."
+
+"Oh! a sensible woman like your mother will readily understand that there
+are matters of exceptional importance. Go home and excuse yourself. Tell
+her some story, tell her that a friend's happiness is in question." And
+as Gerard began to weaken, Duvillard added: "The fact is, that I really
+want you, my dear fellow; I must have a society man. Society, you know,
+is a great force in theatrical matters; and if Silviane has society with
+her, her triumph is certain."
+
+Gerard promised, and then chatted for a moment with his uncle, General de
+Bozonnet, who was quite enlivened by that throng of women, among whom he
+had been carried hither and thither like an old rudderless ship. After
+acknowledging the amiability with which Madame Fonsegue had listened to
+his stories, by purchasing an autograph of Monseigneur Martha from her
+for a hundred francs, he had quite lost himself amid the bevy of girls
+who had passed him on, one to another. And now, on his return from them,
+he had his hands full of lottery tickets: "Ah! my fine fellow," said he,
+"I don't advise you to venture among all those young persons. You would
+have to part with your last copper. But, just look! there's Mademoiselle
+Camille beckoning to you!"
+
+Camille, indeed, from the moment she had perceived Gerard, had been
+smiling at him and awaiting his approach. And when their glances met he
+was obliged to go to her, although, at the same moment, he felt that
+Eve's despairing and entreating eyes were fixed upon him. The girl, who
+fully realised that her mother was watching her, at once made a marked
+display of amiability, profiting by the license which charitable fervour
+authorised, to slip a variety of little articles into the young man's
+pockets, and then place others in his hands, which she pressed within her
+own, showing the while all the sparkle of youth, indulging in fresh,
+merry laughter, which fairly tortured her rival.
+
+So extreme was Eve's suffering, that she wished to intervene and part
+them. But it so chanced that Pierre barred her way, for he wished to
+submit an idea to her before leaving the bazaar. "Madame," said he,
+"since that man Laveuve is dead, and you have taken so much trouble with
+regard to the bed which you now have vacant, will you be so good as to
+keep it vacant until I have seen our venerable friend, Abbe Rose? I am to
+see him this evening, and he knows so many cases of want, and would be so
+glad to relieve one of them, and bring you some poor /protege/ of his."
+
+"Yes, certainly," stammered the Baroness, "I shall be very happy,--I will
+wait a little, as you desire,--of course, of course, Monsieur l'Abbe."
+
+She was trembling all over; she no longer knew what she was saying; and,
+unable to conquer her passion, she turned aside from the priest, unaware
+even that he was still there, when Gerard, yielding to the dolorous
+entreaty of her eyes, at last managed to escape from Camille and join
+her.
+
+"What a stranger you are becoming, my friend!" she said aloud, with a
+forced smile. "One never sees you now."
+
+"Why, I have been poorly," he replied, in his amiable way. "Yes, I assure
+you I have been ailing a little."
+
+He, ailing! She looked at him with maternal anxiety, quite upset. And,
+indeed, however proud and lofty his figure, his handsome regular face did
+seem to her paler than usual. It was as if the nobility of the facade
+had, in some degree, ceased to hide the irreparable dilapidation within.
+And given his real good nature, it must be true that he
+suffered--suffered by reason of his useless, wasted life, by reason of
+all the money he cost his impoverished mother, and of the needs that were
+at last driving him to marry that wealthy deformed girl, whom at first he
+had simply pitied. And so weak did he seem to Eve, so like a piece of
+wreckage tossed hither and thither by a tempest, that, at the risk of
+being overheard by the throng, she let her heart flow forth in a low but
+ardent, entreating murmur: "If you suffer, ah! what sufferings are
+mine!--Gerard, we must see one another, I will have it so."
+
+"No, I beg you, let us wait," he stammered in embarrassment.
+
+"It must be, Gerard; Camille has told me your plans. You cannot refuse to
+see me. I insist on it."
+
+He made yet another attempt to escape the cruel explanation. "But it's
+impossible at the usual place," he answered, quivering. "The address is
+known."
+
+"Then to-morrow, at four o'clock, at that little restaurant in the Bois
+where we have met before."
+
+He had to promise, and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and
+was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the
+stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe
+and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and
+Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of their dinner that
+evening.
+
+Pierre had heard a part of the conversation between Gerard and the
+Baroness. He knew what skeletons the house concealed, what physiological
+and moral torture and wretchedness lay beneath all the dazzling wealth
+and power. There was here an envenomed, bleeding sore, ever spreading, a
+cancer eating into father, mother, daughter and son, who one and all had
+thrown social bonds aside. However, the priest made his way out of the
+/salons/, half stifling amidst the throng of lady-purchasers who were
+making quite a triumph of the bazaar. And yonder, in the depths of the
+gloom, he could picture Salvat still running and running on; while the
+corpse of Laveuve seemed to him like a buffet of atrocious irony dealt to
+noisy and delusive charity.
+
+
+
+II
+
+SPIRIT AND FLESH
+
+How delightful was the quietude of the little ground-floor overlooking a
+strip of garden in the Rue Cortot, where good Abbe Rose resided!
+Hereabouts there was not even a rumble of wheels, or an echo of the
+panting breath of Paris, which one heard on the other side of the height
+of Montmartre. The deep silence and sleepy peacefulness were suggestive
+of some distant provincial town.
+
+Seven o'clock had struck, the dusk had gathered slowly, and Pierre was in
+the humble dining-room, waiting for the /femme-de-menage/ to place the
+soup upon the table. Abbe Rose, anxious at having seen so little of him
+for a month past, had written, asking him to come to dinner, in order
+that they might have a quiet chat concerning their affairs. From time to
+time Pierre still gave his friend money for charitable purposes; in fact,
+ever since the days of the asylum in the Rue de Charonne, they had had
+accounts together, which they periodically liquidated. So that evening
+after dinner they were to talk of it all, and see if they could not do
+even more than they had hitherto done. The good old priest was quite
+radiant at the thought of the peaceful evening which he was about to
+spend in attending to the affairs of his beloved poor; for therein lay
+his only amusement, the sole pleasure to which he persistently and
+passionately returned, in spite of all the worries that his inconsiderate
+charity had already so often brought him.
+
+Glad to be able to procure his friend this pleasure, Pierre, on his side,
+grew calmer, and found relief and momentary repose in sharing the other's
+simple repast and yielding to all the kindliness around him, far from his
+usual worries. He remembered the vacant bed at the Asylum, which Baroness
+Duvillard had promised to keep in reserve until he should have asked Abbe
+Rose if he knew of any case of destitution particularly worthy of
+interest; and so before sitting down to table he spoke of the matter.
+
+"Destitution worthy of interest!" replied Abbe Rose, "ah! my dear child,
+every case is worthy of interest. And when it's a question of old toilers
+without work the only trouble is that of selection, the anguish of
+choosing one and leaving so many others in distress." Nevertheless,
+painful though his scruples were, he strove to think and come to some
+decision. "I know the case which will suit you," he said at last. "It's
+certainly one of the greatest suffering and wretchedness; and, so humble
+a one, too--an old carpenter of seventy-five, who has been living on
+public charity during the eight or ten years that he has been unable to
+find work. I don't know his name, everybody calls him 'the big Old'un.'
+There are times when he does not come to my Saturday distributions for
+weeks together. We shall have to look for him at once. I think that he
+sleeps at the Night Refuge in the Rue d'Orsel when lack of room there
+doesn't force him to spend the night crouching behind some palings. Shall
+we go down the Rue d'Orsel this evening?"
+
+Abbe Rose's eyes beamed brightly as he spoke, for this proposal of his
+signified a great debauch, the tasting of forbidden fruit. He had been
+reproached so often and so roughly with his visits to those who had
+fallen to the deepest want and misery, that in spite of his overflowing,
+apostolic compassion, he now scarcely dared to go near them. However, he
+continued: "Is it agreed, my child? Only this once? Besides, it is our
+only means of finding the big Old'un. You won't have to stop with me
+later than eleven. And I should so like to show you all that! You will
+see what terrible sufferings there are! And perhaps we may be fortunate
+enough to relieve some poor creature or other."
+
+Pierre smiled at the juvenile ardour displayed by this old man with snowy
+hair. "It's agreed, my dear Abbe," he responded, "I shall be very pleased
+to spend my whole evening with you, for I feel it will do me good to
+follow you once more on one of those rambles which used to fill our
+hearts with grief and joy."
+
+At this moment the servant brought in the soup; however, just as the two
+priests were taking their seats a discreet ring was heard, and when Abbe
+Rose learnt that the visitor was a neighbour, Madame Mathis, who had come
+for an answer, he gave orders that she should be shown in.
+
+"This poor woman," he explained to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten
+francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me
+at the time. But I've since procured it. She lives in the house, you
+know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps her
+in bread."
+
+"But hasn't she a big son of twenty?" asked Pierre, suddenly remembering
+the young man he had seen at Salvat's.
+
+"Yes, yes. Her parents, I believe, were rich people in the provinces.
+I've been told that she married a music master, who gave her lessons, at
+Nantes; and who ran away with her and brought her to Paris, where he
+died. It was quite a doleful love-story. By selling the furniture and
+realising every little thing she possessed, she scraped together an
+income of about two thousand francs a year, with which she was able to
+send her son to college and live decently herself. But a fresh blow fell
+on her: she lost the greater part of her little fortune, which was
+invested in doubtful securities. So now her income amounts at the utmost
+to eight hundred francs; two hundred of which she has to expend in rent.
+For all her other wants she has to be content with fifty francs a month.
+About eighteen months ago her son left her so as not to be a burden on
+her, and he is trying to earn his living somewhere, but without success,
+I believe."
+
+Madame Mathis, a short, dark woman, with a sad, gentle, retiring face,
+came in. Invariably clad in the same black gown, she showed all the
+anxious timidity of a poor creature whom the storms of life perpetually
+assailed. When Abbe Rose had handed her the ten francs discreetly wrapped
+in paper, she blushed and thanked him, promising to pay him back as soon
+as she received her month's money, for she was not a beggar and did not
+wish to encroach on the share of those who starved.
+
+"And your son, Victor, has he found any employment?" asked the old
+priest.
+
+She hesitated, ignorant as she was of what her son might be doing, for
+now she did not see him for weeks together. And finally, she contented
+herself with answering: "He has a good heart, he is very fond of me. It
+is a great misfortune that we should have been ruined before he could
+enter the Ecole Normale. It was impossible for him to prepare for the
+examination. But at the Lycee he was such a diligent and intelligent
+pupil!"
+
+"You lost your husband when your son was ten years old, did you not?"
+said Abbe Rose.
+
+At this she blushed again, thinking that her husband's story was known to
+the two priests. "Yes, my poor husband never had any luck," she said.
+"His difficulties embittered and excited his mind, and he died in prison.
+He was sent there through a disturbance at a public meeting, when he had
+the misfortune to wound a police officer. He had also fought at the time
+of the Commune. And yet he was a very gentle man and extremely fond of
+me."
+
+Tears had risen to her eyes; and Abbe Rose, much touched, dismissed her:
+"Well, let us hope that your son will give you satisfaction, and be able
+to repay you for all you have done for him."
+
+With a gesture of infinite sorrow, Madame Mathis discreetly withdrew. She
+was quite ignorant of her son's doings, but fate had pursued her so
+relentlessly that she ever trembled.
+
+"I don't think that the poor woman has much to expect from her son," said
+Pierre, when she had gone. "I only saw him once, but the gleam in his
+eyes was as harsh and trenchant as that of a knife."
+
+"Do you think so?" the old priest exclaimed, with his kindly /naivete/.
+"Well, he seemed to me very polite, perhaps a trifle eager to enjoy life;
+but then, all the young folks are impatient nowadays. Come, let us sit
+down to table, for the soup will be cold."
+
+Almost at the same hour, on the other side of Paris, night had in like
+fashion slowly fallen in the drawing-room of the Countess de Quinsac, on
+the dismal, silent ground-floor of an old mansion in the Rue St.
+Dominique. The Countess was there, alone with her faithful friend, the
+Marquis de Morigny, she on one side, and he on the other side of the
+chimney-piece, where the last embers of the wood fire were dying out. The
+servant had not yet brought the lamp, and the Countess refrained from
+ringing, finding some relief from her anxiety in the falling darkness,
+which hid from view all the unconfessed thoughts that she was afraid of
+showing on her weary face. And it was only now, before that dim hearth,
+and in that black room, where never a sound of wheels disturbed the
+silence of the slumberous past, that she dared to speak.
+
+"Yes, my friend," she said, "I am not satisfied with Gerard's health. You
+will see him yourself, for he promised to come home early and dine with
+me. Oh! I'm well aware that he looks big and strong; but to know him
+properly one must have nursed and watched him as I have done! What
+trouble I had to rear him! In reality he is at the mercy of any petty
+ailment. His slightest complaint becomes serious illness. And the life he
+leads does not conduce to good health."
+
+She paused and sighed, hesitating to carry her confession further.
+
+"He leads the life he can," slowly responded the Marquis de Morigny, of
+whose delicate profile, and lofty yet loving bearing, little could be
+seen in the gloom. "As he was unable to endure military life, and as even
+the fatigues of diplomacy frighten you, what would you have him do? He
+can only live apart pending the final collapse, while this abominable
+Republic is dragging France to the grave."
+
+"No doubt, my friend. And yet it is just that idle life which frightens
+me. He is losing in it all that was good and healthy in him. I don't
+refer merely to the /liaisons/ which we have had to tolerate. The last
+one, which I found so much difficulty in countenancing at the outset, so
+contrary did it seem to all my ideas and beliefs, has since seemed to me
+to exercise almost a good influence. Only he is now entering his
+thirty-sixth year, and can he continue living in this fashion without
+object or duties? If he is ailing it is perhaps precisely because he does
+nothing, holds no position, and serves no purpose." Her voice again
+quavered. "And then, my friend, since you force me to tell you
+everything, I must own that I am not in good health myself. I have had
+several fainting fits of late, and have consulted a doctor. The truth is,
+that I may go off at any moment."
+
+With a quiver, Morigny leant forward in the still deepening gloom, and
+wished to take hold of her hands. "You! what, am I to lose you, my last
+affection!" he faltered, "I who have seen the old world I belong to
+crumble away, I who only live in the hope that you at all events will
+still be here to close my eyes!"
+
+But she begged him not to increase her grief: "No, no, don't take my
+hands, don't kiss them! Remain there in the shade, where I can scarcely
+see you. . . . We have loved one another so long without aught to cause
+shame or regret; and that will prove our strength--our divine
+strength--till we reach the grave. . . . And if you were to touch me, if
+I were to feel you too near me I could not finish, for I have not done so
+yet."
+
+As soon as he had relapsed into silence and immobility, she continued:
+"If I were to die to-morrow, Gerard would not even find here the little
+fortune which he still fancies is in my hands. The dear child has often
+cost me large sums of money without apparently being conscious of it. I
+ought to have been more severe, more prudent. But what would you have?
+Ruin is at hand. I have always been too weak a mother. And do you now
+understand in what anguish I live? I ever have the thought that if I die
+Gerard will not even possess enough to live on, for he is incapable of
+effecting the miracle which I renew each day, in order to keep the house
+up on a decent footing. . . . Ah! I know him, so supine, so sickly, in
+spite of his proud bearing, unable to do anything, even conduct himself.
+And so what will become of him; will he not fall into the most dire
+distress?"
+
+Then her tears flowed freely, her heart opened and bled, for she foresaw
+what must happen after her death: the collapse of her race and of a whole
+world in the person of that big child. And the Marquis, still motionless
+but distracted, feeling that he had no title to offer his own fortune,
+suddenly understood her, foresaw in what disgrace this fresh disaster
+would culminate.
+
+"Ah! my poor friend!" he said at last in a voice trembling with revolt
+and grief. "So you have agreed to that marriage--yes, that abominable
+marriage with that woman's daughter! Yet you swore it should never be!
+You would rather witness the collapse of everything, you said. And now
+you are consenting, I can feel it!"
+
+She still wept on in that black, silent drawing-room before the
+chimney-piece where the fire had died out. Did not Gerard's marriage to
+Camille mean a happy ending for herself, a certainty of leaving her son
+wealthy, loved, and seated at the banquet of life? However, a last
+feeling of rebellion arose within her.
+
+"No, no," she exclaimed, "I don't consent, I swear to you that I don't
+consent as yet. I am fighting with my whole strength, waging an incessant
+battle, the torture of which you cannot imagine."
+
+Then, in all sincerity, she foresaw the likelihood of defeat. "If I
+should some day give way, my friend, at all events believe that I feel,
+as fully as you do, how abominable such a marriage must be. It will be
+the end of our race and our honour!"
+
+This cry profoundly stirred the Marquis, and he was unable to add a word.
+Haughty and uncompromising Catholic and Royalist that he was, he, on his
+side also, expected nothing but the supreme collapse. Yet how
+heartrending was the thought that this noble woman, so dearly and so
+purely loved, would prove one of the most mournful victims of the
+catastrophe! And in the shrouding gloom he found courage to kneel before
+her, take her hand, and kiss it.
+
+Just as the servant was at last bringing a lighted lamp Gerard made his
+appearance. The past-century charm of the old Louis XVI. drawing-room,
+with its pale woodwork, again became apparent in the soft light. In order
+that his mother might not be over-saddened by his failure to dine with
+her that evening the young man had put on an air of brisk gaiety; and
+when he had explained that some friends were waiting for him, she at once
+released him from his promise, happy as she felt at seeing him so merry.
+
+"Go, go, my dear boy," said she, "but mind you do not tire yourself too
+much. . . . I am going to keep Morigny; and the General and Larombiere
+are coming at nine o'clock. So be easy, I shall have someone with me to
+keep me from fretting and feeling lonely."
+
+In this wise Gerard after sitting down for a moment and chatting with the
+Marquis was able to slip away, dress, and betake himself to the Cafe
+Anglais.
+
+When he reached it women in fur cloaks were already climbing the stairs,
+fashionable and merry parties were filling the private rooms, the
+electric lights shone brilliantly, and the walls were already vibrating
+with the stir of pleasure and debauchery. In the room which Baron
+Duvillard had engaged the young man found an extraordinary display, the
+most superb flowers, and a profusion of plate and crystal as for a royal
+gala. The pomp with which the six covers were laid called forth a smile;
+while the bill of fare and the wine list promised marvels, all the rarest
+and most expensive things that could be selected.
+
+"It's stylish, isn't it?" exclaimed Silviane, who was already there with
+Duvillard, Fonsegue and Duthil. "I just wanted to make your influential
+critic open his eyes a little! When one treats a journalist to such a
+dinner as this, he has got to be amiable, hasn't he?"
+
+In her desire to conquer, it had occurred to the young woman to array
+herself in the most amazing fashion. Her gown of yellow satin, covered
+with old Alencon lace, was cut low at the neck; and she had put on all
+her diamonds, a necklace, a diadem, shoulder-knots, bracelets and rings.
+With her candid, girlish face, she looked like some Virgin in a missal, a
+Queen-Virgin, laden with the offerings of all Christendom.
+
+"Well, well, you look so pretty," said Gerard, who sometimes jested with
+her, "that I think it will do all the same."
+
+"Ah!" she replied with equanimity. "You consider me a /bourgeoise/, I
+see. Your opinion is that a simple little dinner and a modest gown would
+have shown better taste. But ah! my dear fellow, you don't know the way
+to get round men!"
+
+Duvillard signified his approval, for he was delighted to be able to show
+her in all her glory, adorned like an idol. Fonsegue, for his part,
+talked of diamonds, saying that they were now doubtful investments, as
+the day when they would become articles of current manufacture was fast
+approaching, thanks to the electrical furnace and other inventions.
+Meantime Duthil, with an air of ecstasy and the dainty gestures of a
+lady's maid, hovered around the young woman, either smoothing a
+rebellious bow or arranging some fold of her lace.
+
+"But I say," resumed Silviane, "your critic seems to be an ill-bred man,
+for he's keeping us waiting."
+
+Indeed, the critic arrived a quarter of an hour late, and while
+apologising, he expressed his regret that he should be obliged to leave
+at half-past nine, for he was absolutely compelled to put in an
+appearance at a little theatre in the Rue Pigalle. He was a big fellow of
+fifty with broad shoulders and a full, bearded face. His most
+disagreeable characteristic was the narrow dogmatic pedantry which he had
+acquired at the Ecole Normale, and had never since been able to shake
+off. All his herculean efforts to be sceptical and frivolous, and the
+twenty years he had spent in Paris mingling with every section of
+society, had failed to rid him of it. /Magister/ he was, and /magister/
+he remained, even in his most strenuous flights of imagination and
+audacity. From the moment of his arrival he tried to show himself
+enraptured with Silviane. Naturally enough, he already knew her by sight,
+and had even criticised her on one occasion in five or six contemptuous
+lines. However, the sight of her there, in full beauty, clad like a
+queen, and presented by four influential protectors, filled him with
+emotion; and he was struck with the idea that nothing would be more
+Parisian and less pedantic than to assert she had some talent and give
+her his support.
+
+They had seated themselves at table, and the repast proved a magnificent
+one, the service ever prompt and assiduous, an attendant being allotted
+to each diner. While the flowers scattered their perfumes through the
+room, and the plate and crystal glittered on the snowy cloth, an
+abundance of delicious and unexpected dishes were handed round--a
+sturgeon from Russia, prohibited game, truffles as big as eggs, and
+hothouse vegetables and fruit as full of flavour as if they had been
+naturally matured. It was money flung out of window, simply for the
+pleasure of wasting more than other people, and eating what they could
+not procure. The influential critic, though he displayed the ease of a
+man accustomed to every sort of festivity, really felt astonished at it
+all, and became servile, promising his support, and pledging himself far
+more than he really wished to. Moreover, he showed himself very gay,
+found some witty remarks to repeat, and even some rather ribald jests.
+But when the champagne appeared after the roast and the grand burgundies,
+his over-excitement brought him back perforce to his real nature. The
+conversation had now turned on Corneille's "Polyeucte" and the part of
+"Pauline," in which Silviane wished to make her /debut/ at the Comedie
+Francaise. This extraordinary caprice, which had quite revolted the
+influential critic a week previously, now seemed to him simply a bold
+enterprise in which the young woman might even prove victorious if she
+consented to listen to his advice. And, once started, he delivered quite
+a lecture on the past, asserting that no actress had ever yet understood
+it properly, for at the outset Pauline was simply a well-meaning little
+creature of the middle classes, and the beauty of her conversion at the
+finish arose from the working of a miracle, a stroke of heavenly grace
+which endowed her with something divine. This was not the opinion of
+Silviane, who from the first lines regarded Pauline as the ideal heroine
+of some symbolical legend. However, as the critic talked on and on, she
+had to feign approval; and he was delighted at finding her so beautiful
+and docile beneath his ferule. At last, as ten o'clock was striking, he
+rose and tore out of the hot and reeking room in order to do his work.
+
+"Ah! my dears," cried Silviane, "he's a nice bore is that critic of
+yours! What a fool he is with his idea of Pauline being a little
+/bourgeoise/! I would have given him a fine dressing if it weren't for
+the fact that I have some need of him. Ah! no, it's too idiotic! Pour me
+out a glass of champagne. I want something to set me right after all
+that!"
+
+The /fete/ then took quite an intimate turn between the four men who
+remained and that bare-armed, bare-breasted girl, covered with diamonds;
+while from the neighbouring passages and rooms came bursts of laughter
+and sounds of kissing, all the stir and mirth of the debauchery now
+filling the house. And beneath the windows torrents of vehicles and
+pedestrians streamed along the Boulevards where reigned the wild fever of
+pleasure and harlotry.
+
+"No, don't open it, or I shall catch cold!" resumed Silviane, addressing
+Fonsegue as he stepped towards the window. "Are you so very warm, then?
+I'm just comfortable. . . . But, Duvillard, my good fellow, please order
+some more champagne. It's wonderful what a thirst your critic has given
+me!"
+
+Amidst the blinding glare of the lamps and the perfume of the flowers and
+wines, one almost stifled in the room. And Silviane was seized with an
+irresistible desire for a spree, a desire to tipple and amuse herself in
+some vulgar fashion, as in her bygone days. A few glasses of champagne
+brought her to full pitch, and she showed the boldest and giddiest
+gaiety. The others, who had never before seen her so lively, began on
+their own side to feel amused. As Fonsegue was obliged to go to his
+office she embraced him "like a daughter," as she expressed it. However,
+on remaining alone with the others she indulged in great freedom of
+speech, which became more and more marked as her intoxication increased.
+And to the class of men with whom she consorted her great attraction, as
+she was well aware, lay in the circumstance that with her virginal
+countenance and her air of ideal purity was coupled the most monstrous
+perversity ever displayed by any shameless woman. Despite her innocent
+blue eyes and lily-like candour, she would give rein, particularly when
+she was drunk, to the most diabolical of fancies.
+
+Duvillard let her drink on, but she guessed his thoughts, like she
+guessed those of the others, and simply smiled while concocting
+impossible stories and descanting fantastically in the language of the
+gutter. And seeing her there in her dazzling gown fit for a queenly
+virgin, and hearing her pour forth the vilest words, they thought her
+most wonderfully droll. However, when she had drunk as much champagne as
+she cared for and was half crazy, a novel idea suddenly occurred to her.
+
+"I say, my children," she exclaimed, "we are surely not going to stop
+here. It's so precious slow! You shall take me to the Chamber of
+Horrors--eh? just to finish the evening. I want to hear Legras sing 'La
+Chemise,' that song which all Paris is running to hear him sing."
+
+But Duvillard indignantly rebelled: "Oh! no," said he; "most certainly
+not. It's a vile song and I'll never take you to such an abominable
+place."
+
+But she did not appear to hear him. She had already staggered to her feet
+and was arranging her hair before a looking-glass. "I used to live at
+Montmartre," she said, "and it'll amuse me to go back there. And,
+besides, I want to know if this Legras is a Legras that I knew, oh! ever
+so long ago! Come, up you get, and let us be off!"
+
+"But, my dear girl," pleaded Duvillard, "we can't take you into that den
+dressed as you are! Just fancy your entering that place in a low-necked
+gown and covered with diamonds! Why everyone would jeer at us! Come,
+Gerard, just tell her to be a little reasonable."
+
+Gerard, equally offended by the idea of such a freak, was quite willing
+to intervene. But she closed his mouth with her gloved hand and repeated
+with the gay obstinacy of intoxication: "Pooh, it will be all the more
+amusing if they do jeer at us! Come, let us be off, let us be off,
+quick!"
+
+Thereupon Duthil, who had been listening with a smile and the air of a
+man of pleasure whom nothing astonishes or displeases, gallantly took her
+part. "But, my dear Baron, everybody goes to the Chamber of Horrors,"
+said he. "Why, I myself have taken the noblest ladies there, and
+precisely to hear that song of Legras, which is no worse than anything
+else."
+
+"Ah! you hear what Duthil says!" cried Silviane. "He's a deputy, he is,
+and he wouldn't go there if he thought it would compromise his
+honorability!"
+
+Then, as Duvillard still struggled on in despair at the idea of
+exhibiting himself with her in such a scandalous place, she became all
+the merrier: "Well, my dear fellow, please yourself. I don't need you.
+You and Gerard can go home if you like. But I'm going to Montmartre with
+Duthil. You'll take charge of me, won't you, Duthil, eh?"
+
+Still, the Baron was in no wise disposed to let the evening finish in
+that fashion. The mere idea of it gave him a shock, and he had to resign
+himself to the girl's stubborn caprice. The only consolation he could
+think of was to secure Gerard's presence, for the young man, with some
+lingering sense of decorum, still obstinately refused to make one of the
+party. So the Baron took his hands and detained him, repeating in urgent
+tones that he begged him to come as an essential mark of friendship. And
+at last the wife's lover and daughter's suitor had to give way to the man
+who was the former's husband and the latter's father.
+
+Silviane was immensely amused by it all, and, indiscreetly thee-ing and
+thou-ing Gerard, suggested that he at least owed the Baron some little
+compliance with his wishes.
+
+Duvillard pretended not to hear her. He was listening to Duthil, who told
+him that there was a sort of box in a corner of the Chamber of Horrors,
+in which one could in some measure conceal oneself. And then, as
+Silviane's carriage--a large closed landau, whose coachman, a sturdy,
+handsome fellow, sat waiting impassively on his box--was down below, they
+started off.
+
+The Chamber of Horrors was installed in premises on the Boulevard de
+Rochechouart, formerly occupied by a cafe whose proprietor had become
+bankrupt.* It was a suffocating place, narrow, irregular, with all sorts
+of twists, turns, and secluded nooks, and a low and smoky ceiling. And
+nothing could have been more rudimentary than its decorations. The walls
+had simply been placarded with posters of violent hues, some of the
+crudest character, showing the barest of female figures. Behind a piano
+at one end there was a little platform reached by a curtained doorway.
+For the rest, one simply found a number of bare wooden forms set
+alongside the veriest pot-house tables, on which the glasses containing
+various beverages left round and sticky marks. There was no luxury, no
+artistic feature, no cleanliness even. Globeless gas burners flared
+freely, heating a dense mist compounded of tobacco smoke and human
+breath. Perspiring, apoplectical faces could be perceived through this
+veil, and an acrid odour increased the intoxication of the assembly,
+which excited itself with louder and louder shouts at each fresh song. It
+had been sufficient for an enterprising fellow to set up these boards,
+bring out Legras, accompanied by two or three girls, make him sing his
+frantic and abominable songs, and in two or three evenings overwhelming
+success had come, all Paris being enticed and flocking to the place,
+which for ten years or so had failed to pay as a mere cafe, where by way
+of amusement petty cits had been simply allowed their daily games at
+dominoes.
+
+  * Those who know Paris will identify the site selected by M. Zola
+    as that where 'Colonel' Lisbonne of the Commune installed his
+    den the 'Bagne' some years ago. Nevertheless, such places as the
+    'Chamber of Horrors' now abound in the neighbourhood of
+    Montmartre, and it must be admitted that whilst they are
+    frequented by certain classes of Frenchmen they owe much of
+    their success in a pecuniary sense to the patronage of
+    foreigners. Among the latter, Englishmen are particularly
+    conspicuous.--Trans.
+
+And the change had been caused by the passion for filth, the irresistible
+attraction exercised by all that brought opprobrium and disgust. The
+Paris of enjoyment, the /bourgeoisie/ which held all wealth and power,
+which would relinquish naught of either, though it was surfeited and
+gradually wearying of both, simply hastened to the place in order that
+obscenity and insult might be flung in its face. Hypnotised, as it were,
+while staggering to its fall, it felt a need of being spat upon. And what
+a frightful symptom there lay in it all: those condemned ones rushing
+upon dirt of their own accord, voluntarily hastening their own
+decomposition by that unquenchable thirst for the vile, which attracted
+men, reputed to be grave and upright, and lovely women of the most
+perfect grace and luxury, to all the beastliness of that low den!
+
+At one of the tables nearest the stage sat little Princess Rosemonde de
+Harn, with wild eyes and quivering nostrils, delighted as she felt at now
+being able to satisfy her curiosity regarding the depths of Paris life.
+Young Hyacinthe had resigned himself to the task of bringing her, and,
+correctly buttoned up in his long frock-coat, he was indulgent enough to
+refrain from any marked expression of boredom. At a neighbouring table
+they had found a shadowy Spaniard of their acquaintance, a so-called
+Bourse jobber, Bergaz, who had been introduced to the Princess by Janzen,
+and usually attended her entertainments. They virtually knew nothing
+about him, not even if he really earned at the Bourse all the money which
+he sometimes spent so lavishly, and which enabled him to dress with
+affected elegance. His slim, lofty figure was not without a certain air
+of distinction, but his red lips spoke of strong passions and his bright
+eyes were those of a beast of prey. That evening he had two young fellows
+with him, one Rossi, a short, swarthy Italian, who had come to Paris as a
+painter's model, and had soon glided into the lazy life of certain
+disreputable callings, and the other, Sanfaute, a born Parisian
+blackguard, a pale, beardless, vicious and impudent stripling of La
+Chapelle, whose long curly hair fell down upon either side of his bony
+cheeks.
+
+"Oh! pray now!" feverishly said Rosemonde to Bergaz; "as you seem to know
+all these horrid people, just show me some of the celebrities. Aren't
+there some thieves and murderers among them?"
+
+He laughed shrilly, and in a bantering way replied: "But you know these
+people well enough, madame. That pretty, pink, delicate-looking woman
+over yonder is an American lady, the wife of a consul, whom, I believe,
+you receive at your house. That other on the right, that tall brunette
+who shows such queenly dignity, is a Countess, whose carriage passes
+yours every day in the Bois. And the thin one yonder, whose eyes glitter
+like those of a she-wolf, is the particular friend of a high official,
+who is well known for his reputation of austerity."
+
+But she stopped him, in vexation: "I know, I know. But the others, those
+of the lower classes, those whom one comes to see."
+
+Then she went on asking questions, and seeking for terrifying and
+mysterious countenances. At last, two men seated in a corner ended by
+attracting her attention; one of them a very young fellow with a pale,
+pinched face, and the other an ageless individual who, besides being
+buttoned up to his neck in an old coat, had pulled his cap so low over
+his eyes, that one saw little of his face beyond the beard which fringed
+it. Before these two stood a couple of mugs of beer, which they drank
+slowly and in silence.
+
+"You are making a great mistake, my dear," said Hyacinthe with a frank
+laugh, "if you are looking for brigands in disguise. That poor fellow
+with the pale face, who surely doesn't have food to eat every day, was my
+schoolfellow at Condorcet!"
+
+Bergaz expressed his amazement. "What! you knew Mathis at Condorcet!
+After all, though, you're right, he received a college education. Ah! and
+so you knew him. A very remarkable young man he is, though want is
+throttling him. But, I say, the other one, his companion, you don't know
+him?"
+
+Hyacinthe, after looking at the man with the cap-hidden face, was already
+shaking his head, when Bergaz suddenly gave him a nudge as a signal to
+keep quiet, and by way of explanation he muttered: "Hush! Here's
+Raphanel. I've been distrusting him for some time past. Whenever he
+appears anywhere, the police is not far off."
+
+Raphanel was another of the vague, mysterious Anarchists whom Janzen had
+presented to the Princess by way of satisfying her momentary passion for
+revolutionism. This one, though he was a fat, gay, little man, with a
+doll-like face and childish nose, which almost disappeared between his
+puffy cheeks, had the reputation of being a thorough desperado; and at
+public meetings he certainly shouted for fire and murder with all his
+lungs. Still, although he had already been compromised in various
+affairs, he had invariably managed to save his own bacon, whilst his
+companions were kept under lock and key; and this they were now beginning
+to think somewhat singular.
+
+He at once shook hands with the Princess in a jovial way, took a seat
+near her without being invited, and forthwith denounced the dirty
+/bourgeoisie/ which came to wallow in places of ill fame. Rosemonde was
+delighted, and encouraged him, but others near by began to get angry, and
+Bergaz examined him with his piercing eyes, like a man of energy who
+acts, and lets others talk. Now and then, too, he exchanged quick glances
+of intelligence with his silent lieutenants, Sanfaute and Rossi, who
+plainly belonged to him, both body and soul. They were the ones who found
+their profit in Anarchy, practising it to its logical conclusions,
+whether in crime or in vice.
+
+Meantime, pending the arrival of Legras with his "Flowers of the
+Pavement," two female vocalists had followed one another on the stage,
+the first fat and the second thin, one chirruping some silly love songs
+with an under-current of dirt, and the other shouting the coarsest of
+refrains, in a most violent, fighting voice. She had just finished amidst
+a storm of bravos, when the assembly, stirred to merriment and eager for
+a laugh, suddenly exploded once more. Silviane was entering the little
+box at one end of the hall. When she appeared erect in the full light,
+with bare arms and shoulders, looking like a planet in her gown of yellow
+satin and her blazing diamonds, there arose a formidable uproar, shouts,
+jeers, hisses, laughing and growling, mingled with ferocious applause.
+And the scandal increased, and the vilest expressions flew about as soon
+as Duvillard, Gerard and Duthil also showed themselves, looking very
+serious and dignified with their white ties and spreading shirt fronts.
+
+"We told you so!" muttered Duvillard, who was much annoyed with the
+affair, while Gerard tried to conceal himself in a dim corner.
+
+She, however, smiling and enchanted, faced the public, accepting the
+storm with the candid bearing of a foolish virgin, much as one inhales
+the vivifying air of the open when it bears down upon one in a squall.
+And, indeed, she herself had sprung from the sphere before her, its
+atmosphere was her native air.
+
+"Well, what of it?" she said replying to the Baron who wanted her to sit
+down. "They are merry. It's very nice. Oh! I'm really amusing myself!"
+
+"Why, yes, it's very nice," declared Duthil, who in like fashion set
+himself at his ease. "Silviane is right, people naturally like a laugh
+now and then!"
+
+Amidst the uproar, which did not cease, little Princess Rosemonde rose
+enthusiastically to get a better view. "Why, it's your father who's with
+that woman Silviane," she said to Hyacinthe. "Just look at them! Well, he
+certainly has plenty of bounce to show himself here with her!"
+
+Hyacinthe, however, refused to look. It didn't interest him, his father
+was an idiot, only a child would lose his head over a girl in that
+fashion. And with his contempt for woman the young man became positively
+insulting.
+
+"You try my nerves, my dear fellow," said Rosemonde as she sat down. "You
+are the child with your silly ideas about us. And as for your father, he
+does quite right to love that girl. I find her very pretty indeed, quite
+adorable!"
+
+Then all at once the uproar ceased, those who had risen resumed their
+seats, and the only sound was that of the feverish throb which coursed
+through the assembly. Legras had just appeared on the platform. He was a
+pale sturdy fellow with a round and carefully shaven face, stern eyes,
+and the powerful jaws of a man who compels the adoration of women by
+terrorising them. He was not deficient in talent, he sang true, and his
+ringing voice was one of extraordinary penetration and pathetic power.
+And his /repertoire/, his "Flowers of the Pavement," completed the
+explanation of his success; for all the foulness and suffering of the
+lower spheres, the whole abominable sore of the social hell created by
+the rich, shrieked aloud in these songs in words of filth and fire and
+blood.
+
+A prelude was played on the piano, and Legras standing there in his
+velvet jacket sang "La Chemise," the horrible song which brought all
+Paris to hear him. All the lust and vice that crowd the streets of the
+great city appeared with their filth and their poison; and amid the
+picture of Woman stripped, degraded, ill-treated, dragged through the
+mire and cast into a cesspool, there rang out the crime of the
+/bourgeoisie/. But the scorching insult of it all was less in the words
+themselves than in the manner in which Legras cast them in the faces of
+the rich, the happy, the beautiful ladies who came to listen to him.
+Under the low ceiling, amidst the smoke from the pipes, in the blinding
+glare of the gas, he sent his lines flying through the assembly like
+expectorations, projected by a whirlwind of furious contempt. And when he
+had finished there came delirium; the beautiful ladies did not even think
+of wiping away the many affronts they had received, but applauded
+frantically. The whole assembly stamped and shouted, and wallowed,
+distracted, in its ignominy.
+
+"Bravo! bravo!" the little Princess repeated in her shrill voice. "It's
+astonishing, astonishing, prodigious!"
+
+And Silviane, whose intoxication seemed to have increased since she had
+been there, in the depths of that fiery furnace, made herself
+particularly conspicuous by the manner in which she clapped her hands and
+shouted: "It's he, it's my Legras! I really must kiss him, he's pleased
+me so much!"
+
+Duvillard, now fairly exasperated, wished to take her off by force. But
+she clung to the hand-rest of the box, and shouted yet more loudly,
+though without any show of temper. It became necessary to parley with
+her. Yes, she was willing to go off and let them drive her home; but,
+first of all, she must embrace Legras, who was an old friend of hers. "Go
+and wait for me in the carriage!" she said, "I will be with you in a
+moment."
+
+Just as the assembly was at last becoming calmer, Rosemonde perceived
+that the box was emptying; and her own curiosity being satisfied, she
+thought of prevailing on Hyacinthe to see her home. He, who had listened
+to Legras in a languid way without even applauding, was now talking of
+Norway with Bergaz, who pretended that he had travelled in the North. Oh!
+the fiords! oh! the ice-bound lakes! oh! the pure lily-white, chaste
+coldness of the eternal winter! It was only amid such surroundings, said
+Hyacinthe, that he could understand woman and love, like a kiss of the
+very snow itself.
+
+"Shall we go off there to-morrow?" exclaimed the Princess with her
+vivacious effrontery. "I'll shut up my house and slip the key under the
+door."
+
+Then she added that she was jesting, of course. But Bergaz knew her to be
+quite capable of such a freak; and at the idea that she might shut up her
+little mansion and perhaps leave it unprotected he exchanged a quick
+glance with Sanfaute and Rossi, who still smiled in silence. Ah! what an
+opportunity for a fine stroke! What an opportunity to get back some of
+the wealth of the community appropriated by the blackguard /bourgeoisie/!
+
+Meantime Raphanel, after applauding Legras, was looking all round the
+place with his little grey, sharp eyes. And at last young Mathis and his
+companion, the ill-clad individual, of whose face only a scrap of beard
+could be seen, attracted his attention. They had neither laughed nor
+applauded; they seemed to be simply a couple of tired fellows who were
+resting, and in whose opinion one is best hidden in the midst of a crowd.
+
+All at once, though, Raphanel turned towards Bergaz: "That's surely
+little Mathis over yonder. But who's that with him?"
+
+Bergaz made an evasive gesture; he did not know. Still, he no longer took
+his eyes from Raphanel. And he saw the other feign indifference at what
+followed, and finish his beer and take his leave, with the jesting remark
+that he had an appointment with a lady at a neighbouring omnibus office.
+No sooner had he gone than Bergaz rose, sprang over some of the forms and
+jostled people in order to reach little Mathis, into whose ear he
+whispered a few words. And the young man at once left his table, taking
+his companion and pushing him outside through an occasional exit. It was
+all so rapidly accomplished that none of the general public paid
+attention to the flight.
+
+"What is it?" said the Princess to Bergaz, when he had quietly resumed
+his seat between Rossi and Sanfaute.
+
+"Oh! nothing, I merely wished to shake hands with Mathis as he was going
+off."
+
+Thereupon Rosemonde announced that she meant to do the same.
+Nevertheless, she lingered a moment longer and again spoke of Norway on
+perceiving that nothing could impassion Hyacinthe except the idea of the
+eternal snow, the intense, purifying cold of the polar regions. In his
+poem on the "End of Woman," a composition of some thirty lines, which he
+hoped he should never finish, he thought of introducing a forest of
+frozen pines by way of final scene. Now the Princess had risen and was
+gaily reverting to her jest, declaring that she meant to take him home to
+drink a cup of tea and arrange their trip to the Pole, when an
+involuntary exclamation fell from Bergaz, who, while listening, had kept
+his eyes on the doorway.
+
+"Mondesir! I was sure of it!"
+
+There had appeared at the entrance a short, sinewy, broad-backed little
+man, about whose round face, bumpy forehead, and snub nose there was
+considerable military roughness. One might have thought him a
+non-commissioned officer in civilian attire. He gazed over the whole
+room, and seemed at once dismayed and disappointed.
+
+Bergaz, however, wishing to account for his exclamation, resumed in an
+easy way: "Ah! I said there was a smell of the police about the place!
+You see that fellow--he's a detective, a very clever one, named Mondesir,
+who had some trouble when he was in the army. Just look at him, sniffing
+like a dog that has lost scent! Well, well, my brave fellow, if you've
+been told of any game you may look and look for it, the bird's flown
+already!"
+
+Once outside, when Rosemonde had prevailed on Hyacinthe to see her home,
+they hastened to get into the brougham, which was waiting for them, for
+near at hand they perceived Silviane's landau, with the majestic coachman
+motionless on his box, while Duvillard, Gerard, and Duthil still stood
+waiting on the curbstone. They had been there for nearly twenty minutes
+already, in the semi-darkness of that outer boulevard, where all the
+vices of the poor districts of Paris were on the prowl. They had been
+jostled by drunkards; and shadowy women brushed against them as they went
+by whispering beneath the oaths and blows of bullies. And there were
+couples seeking the darkness under the trees, and lingering on the
+benches there; while all around were low taverns and dirty lodging-houses
+and places of ill-fame. All the human degradation which till break of day
+swarms in the black mud of this part of Paris, enveloped the three men,
+giving them the horrors, and yet neither the Baron nor Gerard nor Duthil
+was willing to go off. Each hoped that he would tire out the others, and
+take Silviane home when she should at last appear.
+
+But after a time the Baron grew impatient, and said to the coachman:
+"Jules, go and see why madame doesn't come."
+
+"But the horses, Monsieur le Baron?"
+
+"Oh! they will be all right, we are here."
+
+A fine drizzle had begun to fall; and the wait went on again as if it
+would never finish. But an unexpected meeting gave them momentary
+occupation. A shadowy form, something which seemed to be a thin,
+black-skirted woman, brushed against them. And all of a sudden they were
+surprised to find it was a priest.
+
+"What, is it you, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment?" exclaimed Gerard. "At this
+time of night? And in this part of Paris?"
+
+Thereupon Pierre, without venturing either to express his own
+astonishment at finding them there themselves, or to ask them what they
+were doing, explained that he had been belated through accompanying Abbe
+Rose on a visit to a night refuge. Ah! to think of all the frightful want
+which at last drifted to those pestilential dormitories where the stench
+had almost made him faint! To think of all the weariness and despair
+which there sank into the slumber of utter prostration, like that of
+beasts falling to the ground to sleep off the abominations of life! No
+name could be given to the promiscuity; poverty and suffering were there
+in heaps, children and men, young and old, beggars in sordid rags, beside
+the shameful poor in threadbare frock-coats, all the waifs and strays of
+the daily shipwrecks of Paris life, all the laziness and vice, and
+ill-luck and injustice which the torrent rolls on, and throws off like
+scum. Some slept on, quite annihilated, with the faces of corpses.
+Others, lying on their backs with mouths agape, snored loudly as if still
+venting the plaint of their sorry life. And others tossed restlessly,
+still struggling in their slumber against fatigue and cold and hunger,
+which pursued them like nightmares of monstrous shape. And from all those
+human beings, stretched there like wounded after a battle, from all that
+ambulance of life reeking with a stench of rottenness and death, there
+ascended a nausea born of revolt, the vengeance-prompting thought of all
+the happy chambers where, at that same hour, the wealthy loved or rested
+in fine linen and costly lace.*
+
+  * Even the oldest Paris night refuges, which are the outcome
+    of private philanthropy--L'Oeuvre de l'Hospitalite de Nuit--
+    have only been in existence some fourteen or fifteen years.
+    Before that time, and from the period of the great Revolution
+    forward, there was absolutely no place, either refuge, asylum,
+    or workhouse, in the whole of that great city of wealth and
+    pleasure, where the houseless poor could crave a night's
+    shelter. The various royalist, imperialist and republican
+    governments and municipalities of modern France have often
+    been described as 'paternal,' but no governments and
+    municipalities in the whole civilised world have done less for
+    the very poor. The official Poor Relief Board--L'Assistance
+    Publique--has for fifty years been a by-word, a mockery and a
+    sham, in spite of its large revenue. And this neglect of the
+    very poor has been an important factor in every French
+    revolution. Each of these--even that of 1870--had its purely
+    economic side, though many superficial historians are content
+    to ascribe economic causes to the one Revolution of 1789, and
+    to pass them by in all other instances.--Trans.
+
+In vain had Pierre and Abbe Rose passed all the poor wretches in review
+while seeking the big Old'un, the former carpenter, so as to rescue him
+from the cesspool of misery, and send him to the Asylum on the very
+morrow. He had presented himself at the refuge that evening, but there
+was no room left, for, horrible to say, even the shelter of that hell
+could only be granted to early comers. And so he must now be leaning
+against a wall, or lying behind some palings. This had greatly distressed
+poor Abbe Rose and Pierre, but it was impossible for them to search every
+dark, suspicious corner; and so the former had returned to the Rue
+Cortot, while the latter was seeking a cab to convey him back to Neuilly.
+
+The fine drizzling rain was still falling and becoming almost icy, when
+Silviane's coachman, Jules, at last reappeared and interrupted the
+priest, who was telling the Baron and the others how his visit to the
+refuge still made him shudder.
+
+"Well, Jules--and madame?" asked Duvillard, quite anxious at seeing the
+coachman return alone.
+
+Impassive and respectful, with no other sign of irony than a slight
+involuntary twist of the lips, Jules answered: "Madame sends word that
+she is not going home; and she places her carriage at the gentlemen's
+disposal if they will allow me to drive them home."
+
+This was the last straw, and the Baron flew into a passion. To have
+allowed her to drag him to that vile den, to have waited there hopefully
+so long, and to be treated in this fashion for the sake of a Legras! No,
+no, he, the Baron, had had enough of it, and she should pay dearly for
+her abominable conduct! Then he stopped a passing cab and pushed Gerard
+inside it saying, "You can set me down at my door."
+
+"But she's left us the carriage!" shouted Duthil, who was already
+consoled, and inwardly laughed at the termination of it all. "Come here,
+there's plenty of room for three. No? you prefer the cab? Well, just as
+you like, you know."
+
+For his part he gaily climbed into the landau and drove off lounging on
+the cushions, while the Baron, in the jolting old cab, vented his rage
+without a word of interruption from Gerard, whose face was hidden by the
+darkness. To think of it! that she, whom he had overwhelmed with gifts,
+who had already cost him two millions of francs, should in this fashion
+insult him, the master who could dispose both of fortunes and of men!
+Well, she had chosen to do it, and he was delivered! Then Duvillard drew
+a long breath like a man released from the galleys.
+
+For a moment Pierre watched the two vehicles go off; and then took his
+own way under the trees, so as to shelter himself from the rain until a
+vacant cab should pass. Full of distress and battling thoughts he had
+begun to feel icy cold. The whole monstrous night of Paris, all the
+debauchery and woe that sobbed around him made him shiver. Phantom-like
+women who, when young, had led lives of infamy in wealth, and who now,
+old and faded, led lives of infamy in poverty, were still and ever
+wandering past him in search of bread, when suddenly a shadowy form
+grazed him, and a voice murmured in his ear: "Warn your brother, the
+police are on Salvat's track, he may be arrested at any moment."
+
+The shadowy figure was already going its way, and as a gas ray fell upon
+it, Pierre thought that he recognised the pale, pinched face of Victor
+Mathis. And at the same time, yonder in Abbe Rose's peaceful dining-room,
+he fancied he could again see the gentle face of Madame Mathis, so sad
+and so resigned, living on solely by the force of the last trembling hope
+which she had unhappily set in her son.
+
+
+
+III
+
+PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
+
+ALREADY at eight o'clock on that holiday-making mid-Lent Thursday, when
+all the offices of the Home Department were empty, Monferrand, the
+Minister, sat alone in his private room. A single usher guarded his door,
+and in the first ante-chamber there were only a couple of messengers.
+
+The Minister had experienced, on awaking, the most unpleasant of
+emotions. The "Voix du Peuple," which on the previous day had revived the
+African Railway scandal, by accusing Barroux of having pocketed 20,000
+francs, had that morning published its long-promised list of the
+bribe-taking senators and deputies. And at the head of this list
+Monferrand had found his own name set down against a sum of 80,000
+francs, while Fonsegue was credited with 50,000. Then a fifth of the
+latter amount was said to have been Duthil's share, and Chaigneux had
+contented himself with the beggarly sum of 3,000 francs--the lowest price
+paid for any one vote, the cost of each of the others ranging from 5 to
+20,000.
+
+It must be said that there was no anger in Monferrand's emotion. Only he
+had never thought that Sagnier would carry his passion for uproar and
+scandal so far as to publish this list--a page which was said to have
+been torn from a memorandum book belonging to Duvillard's agent, Hunter,
+and which was covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphics that ought to
+have been discussed and explained, if, indeed, the real truth was to be
+arrived at. Personally, Monferrand felt quite at ease, for he had written
+nothing, signed nothing, and knew that one could always extricate oneself
+from a mess by showing some audacity, and never confessing. Nevertheless,
+what a commotion it would all cause in the parliamentary duck-pond. He at
+once realised the inevitable consequences, the ministry overthrown and
+swept away by this fresh whirlwind of denunciation and tittle-tattle.
+Mege would renew his interpellation on the morrow, and Vignon and his
+friends would at once lay siege to the posts they coveted. And he,
+Monferrand, could picture himself driven out of that ministerial sanctum
+where, for eight months past, he had been taking his ease, not with any
+foolish vainglory, but with the pleasure of feeling that he was in his
+proper place as a born ruler, who believed he could tame and lead the
+multitude.
+
+Having thrown the newspapers aside with a disdainful gesture, he rose and
+stretched himself, growling the while like a plagued lion. And then he
+began to walk up and down the spacious room, which showed all the faded
+official luxury of mahogany furniture and green damask hangings. Stepping
+to and fro, with his hands behind his back, he no longer wore his usual
+fatherly, good-natured air. He appeared as he really was, a born
+wrestler, short, but broad shouldered, with sensual mouth, fleshy nose
+and stern eyes, that all proclaimed him to be unscrupulous, of iron will
+and fit for the greatest tasks. Still, in this case, in what direction
+lay his best course? Must he let himself be dragged down with Barroux?
+Perhaps his personal position was not absolutely compromised? And yet how
+could he part company from the others, swim ashore, and save himself
+while they were being drowned? It was a grave problem, and with his
+frantic desire to retain power, he made desperate endeavours to devise
+some suitable manoeuvre.
+
+But he could think of nothing, and began to swear at the virtuous fits of
+that silly Republic, which, in his opinion, rendered all government
+impossible. To think of such foolish fiddle-faddle stopping a man of his
+acumen and strength! How on earth can one govern men if one is denied the
+use of money, that sovereign means of sway? And he laughed bitterly; for
+the idea of an idyllic country where all great enterprises would be
+carried out in an absolutely honest manner seemed to him the height of
+absurdity.
+
+At last, however, unable as he was to come to a determination, it
+occurred to him to confer with Baron Duvillard, whom he had long known,
+and whom he regretted not having seen sooner so as to urge him to
+purchase Sagnier's silence. At first he thought of sending the Baron a
+brief note by a messenger; but he disliked committing anything to paper,
+for the veriest scrap of writing may prove dangerous; so he preferred to
+employ the telephone which had been installed for his private use near
+his writing-table.
+
+"It is Baron Duvillard who is speaking to me? . . . Quite so. It's I, the
+Minister, Monsieur Monferrand. I shall be much obliged if you will come
+to see me at once. . . . Quite so, quite so, I will wait for you."
+
+Then again he walked to and fro and meditated. That fellow Duvillard was
+as clever a man as himself, and might be able to give him an idea. And he
+was still laboriously trying to devise some scheme, when the usher
+entered saying that Monsieur Gascogne, the Chief of the Detective Police,
+particularly wished to speak to him. Monferrand's first thought was that
+the Prefecture of Police desired to know his views respecting the steps
+which ought to be taken to ensure public order that day; for two mid-Lent
+processions--one of the Washerwomen and the other of the Students--were
+to march through Paris, whose streets would certainly be crowded.
+
+"Show Monsieur Gascogne in," he said.
+
+A tall, slim, dark man, looking like an artisan in his Sunday best, then
+stepped into the ministerial sanctum. Fully acquainted with the
+under-currents of Paris life, this Chief of the Detective Force had a
+cold dispassionate nature and a clear and methodical mind.
+Professionalism slightly spoilt him, however: he would have possessed
+more intelligence if he had not credited himself with so much.
+
+He began by apologising for his superior the Prefect, who would certainly
+have called in person had he not been suffering from indisposition.
+However, it was perhaps best that he, Gascogne, should acquaint Monsieur
+le Ministre with the grave affair which brought him, for he knew every
+detail of it. Then he revealed what the grave affair was.
+
+"I believe, Monsieur le Ministre, that we at last hold the perpetrator of
+the crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."
+
+At this, Monferrand, who had been listening impatiently, became quite
+impassioned. The fruitless searches of the police, the attacks and the
+jeers of the newspapers, were a source of daily worry to him. "Ah!--Well,
+so much the better for you Monsieur Gascogne," he replied with brutal
+frankness. "You would have ended by losing your post. The man is
+arrested?"
+
+"Not yet, Monsieur le Ministre; but he cannot escape, and it is merely an
+affair of a few hours."
+
+Then the Chief of the Detective Force told the whole story: how Detective
+Mondesir, on being warned by a secret agent that the Anarchist Salvat was
+in a tavern at Montmartre, had reached it just as the bird had flown;
+then how chance had again set him in presence of Salvat at a hundred
+paces or so from the tavern, the rascal having foolishly loitered there
+to watch the establishment; and afterwards how Salvat had been stealthily
+shadowed in the hope that they might catch him in his hiding-place with
+his accomplices. And, in this wise, he had been tracked to the
+Porte-Maillot, where, realising, no doubt, that he was pursued, he had
+suddenly bolted into the Bois de Boulogne. It was there that he had been
+hiding since two o'clock in the morning in the drizzle which had not
+ceased to fall. They had waited for daylight in order to organise a
+/battue/ and hunt him down like some animal, whose weariness must
+necessarily ensure capture. And so, from one moment to another, he would
+be caught.
+
+"I know the great interest you take in the arrest, Monsieur le Ministre,"
+added Gascogne, "and it occurred to me to ask your orders. Detective
+Mondesir is over there, directing the hunt. He regrets that he did not
+apprehend the man on the Boulevard de Rochechouart; but, all the same,
+the idea of following him was a capital one, and one can only reproach
+Mondesir with having forgotten the Bois de Boulogne in his calculations."
+
+Salvat arrested! That fellow Salvat whose name had filled the newspapers
+for three weeks past. This was a most fortunate stroke which would be
+talked of far and wide! In the depths of Monferrand's fixed eyes one
+could divine a world of thoughts and a sudden determination to turn this
+incident which chance had brought him to his own personal advantage. In
+his own mind a link was already forming between this arrest and that
+African Railways interpellation which was likely to overthrow the
+ministry on the morrow. The first outlines of a scheme already rose
+before him. Was it not his good star that had sent him what he had been
+seeking--a means of fishing himself out of the troubled waters of the
+approaching crisis?
+
+"But tell me, Monsieur Gascogne," said he, "are you quite sure that this
+man Salvat committed the crime?"
+
+"Oh! perfectly sure, Monsieur le Ministre. He'll confess everything in
+the cab before he reaches the Prefecture."
+
+Monferrand again walked to and fro with a pensive air, and ideas came to
+him as he spoke on in a slow, meditative fashion. "My orders! well, my
+orders, they are, first, that you must act with the very greatest
+prudence. Yes, don't gather a mob of promenaders together. Try to arrange
+things so that the arrest may pass unperceived--and if you secure a
+confession keep it to yourself, don't communicate it to the newspapers.
+Yes, I particularly recommend that point to you, don't take the
+newspapers into your confidence at all--and finally, come and tell me
+everything, and observe secrecy, absolute secrecy, with everybody else."
+
+Gascogne bowed and would have withdrawn, but Monferrand detained him to
+say that not a day passed without his friend Monsieur Lehmann, the Public
+Prosecutor, receiving letters from Anarchists who threatened to blow him
+up with his family; in such wise that, although he was by no means a
+coward, he wished his house to be guarded by plain-clothes officers. A
+similar watch was already kept upon the house where investigating
+magistrate Amadieu resided. And if the latter's life was precious, that
+of Public Prosecutor Lehmann was equally so, for he was one of those
+political magistrates, one of those shrewd talented Israelites, who make
+their way in very honest fashion by invariably taking the part of the
+Government in office.
+
+Then Gascogne in his turn remarked: "There is also the Barthes affair,
+Monsieur le Ministre--we are still waiting. Are we to arrest Barthes at
+that little house at Neuilly?"
+
+One of those chances which sometimes come to the help of detectives and
+make people think the latter to be men of genius had revealed to him the
+circumstance that Barthes had found a refuge with Abbe Pierre Froment.
+Ever since the Anarchist terror had thrown Paris into dismay a warrant
+had been out against the old man, not for any precise offence, but simply
+because he was a suspicious character and might, therefore, have had some
+intercourse with the Revolutionists. However, it had been repugnant to
+Gascogne to arrest him at the house of a priest whom the whole district
+venerated as a saint; and the Minister, whom he had consulted on the
+point, had warmly approved of his reserve, since a member of the clergy
+was in question, and had undertaken to settle the affair himself.
+
+"No, Monsieur Gascogne," he now replied, "don't move in the matter. You
+know what my feelings are, that we ought to have the priests with us and
+not against us--I have had a letter written to Abbe Froment in order that
+he may call here this morning, as I shall have no other visitors. I will
+speak to him myself, and you may take it that the affair no longer
+concerns you."
+
+Then he was about to dismiss him when the usher came back saying that the
+President of the Council was in the ante-room.*
+
+  * The title of President of the Council is given to the French
+    prime minister.--Trans.
+
+"Barroux!--Ah! dash it, then, Monsieur Gascogne, you had better go out
+this way. It is as well that nobody should meet you, as I wish you to
+keep silent respecting Salvat's arrest. It's fully understood, is it not?
+I alone am to know everything; and you will communicate with me here
+direct, by the telephone, if any serious incident should arise."
+
+The Chief of the Detective Police had scarcely gone off, by way of an
+adjoining /salon/, when the usher reopened the door communicating with
+the ante-room: "Monsieur le President du Conseil."
+
+With a nicely adjusted show of deference and cordiality, Monferrand
+stepped forward, his hands outstretched: "Ah! my dear President, why did
+you put yourself out to come here? I would have called on you if I had
+known that you wished to see me."
+
+But with an impatient gesture Barroux brushed aside all question of
+etiquette. "No, no! I was taking my usual stroll in the Champs Elysees,
+and the worries of the situation impressed me so keenly that I preferred
+to come here at once. You yourself must realise that we can't put up with
+what is taking place. And pending to-morrow morning's council, when we
+shall have to arrange a plan of defence, I felt that there was good
+reason for us to talk things over."
+
+He took an armchair, and Monferrand on his side rolled another forward so
+as to seat himself with his back to the light. Whilst Barroux, the elder
+of the pair by ten years, blanched and solemn, with a handsome face,
+snowy whiskers, clean-shaven chin and upper-lip, retained all the dignity
+of power, the bearing of a Conventionnel of romantic views, who sought to
+magnify the simple loyalty of a rather foolish but good-hearted
+/bourgeois/ nature into something great; the other, beneath his heavy
+common countenance and feigned frankness and simplicity, concealed
+unknown depths, the unfathomable soul of a shrewd enjoyer and despot who
+was alike pitiless and unscrupulous in attaining his ends.
+
+For a moment Barroux drew breath, for in reality he was greatly moved,
+his blood rising to his head, and his heart beating with indignation and
+anger at the thought of all the vulgar insults which the "Voix du Peuple"
+had poured upon him again that morning. "Come, my dear colleague," said
+he, "one must stop that scandalous campaign. Moreover, you can realise
+what awaits us at the Chamber to-morrow. Now that the famous list has
+been published we shall have every malcontent up in arms. Vignon is
+bestirring himself already--"
+
+"Ah! you have news of Vignon?" exclaimed Monferrand, becoming very
+attentive.
+
+"Well, as I passed his door just now, I saw a string of cabs waiting
+there. All his creatures have been on the move since yesterday, and at
+least twenty persons have told me that the band is already dividing the
+spoils. For, as you must know, the fierce and ingenuous Mege is again
+going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for others. Briefly, we are
+dead, and the others claim that they are going to bury us in mud before
+they fight over our leavings." With his arm outstretched Barroux made a
+theatrical gesture, and his voice resounded as if he were in the tribune.
+Nevertheless, his emotion was real, tears even were coming to his eyes.
+"To think that I who have given my whole life to the Republic, I who
+founded it, who saved it, should be covered with insults in this fashion,
+and obliged to defend myself against abominable charges! To say that I
+abused my trust! That I sold myself and took 200,000 francs from that man
+Hunter, simply to slip them into my pocket! Well, certainly there /was/ a
+question of 200,000 francs between us. But how and under what
+circumstances? They were doubtless the same as in your case, with regard
+to the 80,000 francs that he is said to have handed you--"
+
+But Monferrand interrupted his colleague in a clear trenchant voice: "He
+never handed me a centime."
+
+The other looked at him in astonishment, but could only see his big,
+rough head, whose features were steeped in shadow: "Ah! But I thought you
+had business relations with him, and knew him particularly well."
+
+"No, I simply knew Hunter as everyone knew him. I was not even aware that
+he was Baron Duvillard's agent in the African Railways matter; and there
+was never any question of that affair between us."
+
+This was so improbable, so contrary to everything Barroux knew of the
+business, that for a moment he felt quite scared. Then he waved his hand
+as if to say that others might as well look after their own affairs, and
+reverted to himself. "Oh! as for me," he said, "Hunter called on me more
+than ten times, and made me quite sick with his talk of the African
+Railways. It was at the time when the Chamber was asked to authorise the
+issue of lottery stock.* And, by the way, my dear fellow, I was then here
+at the Home Department, while you had just taken that of Public Works. I
+can remember sitting at that very writing-table, while Hunter was in the
+same armchair that I now occupy. That day he wanted to consult me about
+the employment of the large sum which Duvillard's house proposed to spend
+in advertising; and on seeing what big amounts were set down against the
+Royalist journals, I became quite angry, for I realised with perfect
+accuracy that this money would simply be used to wage war against the
+Republic. And so, yielding to Hunter's entreaties, I also drew up a list
+allotting 200,000 francs among the friendly Republican newspapers, which
+were paid through me, I admit it. And that's the whole story."**
+
+  * This kind of stock is common enough in France. A part of it is
+    extinguished annually at a public "drawing," when all such
+    shares or bonds that are drawn become entitled to redemption
+    at "par," a percentage of them also securing prizes of various
+    amounts. City of Paris Bonds issued on this system are very
+    popular among French people with small savings; but, on the
+    other hand, many ventures, whose lottery stock has been
+    authorised by the Legislature, have come to grief and ruined
+    investors.--Trans.
+
+  ** All who are acquainted with recent French history will be
+    aware that Barroux' narrative is simply a passage from the
+    life of the late M. Floquet, slightly modified to suit the
+    requirements of M. Zola's story.--Trans.
+
+Then he sprang to his feet and struck his chest, whilst his voice again
+rose: "Well, I've had more than enough of all that calumny and falsehood!
+And I shall simply tell the Chamber my story to-morrow. It will be my
+only defence. An honest man does not fear the truth!"
+
+But Monferrand, in his turn, had sprung up with a cry which was a
+complete confession of his principles: "It's ridiculous, one never
+confesses; you surely won't do such a thing!"
+
+"I shall," retorted Barroux with superb obstinacy. "And we shall see if
+the Chamber won't absolve me by acclamation."
+
+"No, you will fall beneath an explosion of hisses, and drag all of us
+down with you."
+
+"What does it matter? We shall fall with dignity, like honest men!"
+
+Monferrand made a gesture of furious anger, and then suddenly became
+calm. Amidst all the anxious confusion in which he had been struggling
+since daybreak, a gleam now dawned upon him. The vague ideas suggested by
+Salvat's approaching arrest took shape, and expanded into an audacious
+scheme. Why should he prevent the fall of that big ninny Barroux? The
+only thing of importance was that he, Monferrand, should not fall with
+him, or at any rate that he should rise again. So he protested no
+further, but merely mumbled a few words, in which his rebellious feeling
+seemingly died out. And at last, putting on his good-natured air once
+more, he said: "Well, after all you are perhaps right. One must be brave.
+Besides, you are our head, my dear President, and we will follow you."
+
+They had now again sat down face to face, and their conversation
+continued till they came to a cordial agreement respecting the course
+which the Government should adopt in view of the inevitable
+interpellation on the morrow.
+
+Meantime, Baron Duvillard was on his way to the ministry. He had scarcely
+slept that night. When on the return from Montmartre Gerard had set him
+down at his door in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, he had at once gone to bed,
+like a man who is determined to compel sleep, so that he may forget his
+worries and recover self-control. But slumber would not come; for hours
+and hours he vainly sought it. The manner in which he had been insulted
+by that creature Silviane was so monstrous! To think that she, whom he
+had enriched, whose every desire he had contented, should have cast such
+mud at him, the master, who flattered himself that he held Paris and the
+Republic in his hands, since he bought up and controlled consciences just
+as others might make corners in wool or leather for the purposes of
+Bourse speculation. And the dim consciousness that Silviane was the
+avenging sore, the cancer preying on him who preyed on others, completed
+his exasperation. In vain did he try to drive away his haunting thoughts,
+remember his business affairs, his appointments for the morrow, his
+millions which were working in every quarter of the world, the financial
+omnipotence which placed the fate of nations in his grasp. Ever, and in
+spite of all, Silviane rose up before him, splashing him with mud. In
+despair he tried to fix his mind on a great enterprise which he had been
+planning for months past, a Trans-Saharan railway, a colossal venture
+which would set millions of money at work, and revolutionise the trade of
+the world. And yet Silviane appeared once more, and smacked him on both
+cheeks with her dainty little hand, which she had dipped in the gutter.
+It was only towards daybreak that he at last dozed off, while vowing in a
+fury that he would never see her again, that he would spurn her, and
+order her away, even should she come and drag herself at his feet.
+
+However, when he awoke at seven, still tired and aching, his first
+thought was for her, and he almost yielded to a fit of weakness. The idea
+came to him to ascertain if she had returned home, and if so make his
+peace. But he jumped out of bed, and after his ablutions he recovered all
+his bravery. She was a wretch, and he this time thought himself for ever
+cured of his passion. To tell the truth, he forgot it as soon as he
+opened the morning newspapers. The publication of the list of
+bribe-takers in the "Voix du Peuple" quite upset him, for he had hitherto
+thought it unlikely that Sagnier held any such list. However, he judged
+the document at a glance, at once separating the few truths it contained
+from a mass of foolishness and falsehood. And this time also he did not
+consider himself personally in danger. There was only one thing that he
+really feared: the arrest of his intermediary, Hunter, whose trial might
+have drawn him into the affair. As matters stood, and as he did not cease
+to repeat with a calm and smiling air, he had merely done what every
+banking-house does when it issues stock, that is, pay the press for
+advertisements and puffery, employ brokers, and reward services
+discreetly rendered to the enterprise. It was all a business matter, and
+for him that expression summed up everything. Moreover, he played the
+game of life bravely, and spoke with indignant contempt of a banker who,
+distracted and driven to extremities by blackmailing, had imagined that
+he would bring a recent scandal to an end by killing himself: a pitiful
+tragedy, from all the mire and blood of which the scandal had sprouted
+afresh with the most luxuriant and indestructible vegetation. No, no!
+suicide was not the course to follow: a man ought to remain erect, and
+struggle on to his very last copper, and the very end of his energy.
+
+At about nine o'clock a ringing brought Duvillard to the telephone
+installed in his private room. And then his folly took possession of him
+once more: it must be Silviane who wished to speak to him. She often
+amused herself by thus disturbing him amidst his greatest cares. No doubt
+she had just returned home, realising that she had carried things too far
+on the previous evening and desiring to be forgiven. However, when he
+found that the call was from Monferrand, who wished him to go to the
+ministry, he shivered slightly, like a man saved from the abyss beside
+which he is travelling. And forthwith he called for his hat and stick,
+desirous as he was of walking and reflecting in the open air. And again
+he became absorbed in the intricacies of the scandalous business which
+was about to stir all Paris and the legislature. Kill himself! ah, no,
+that would be foolish and cowardly. A gust of terror might be sweeping
+past; nevertheless, for his part he felt quite firm, superior to events,
+and resolved to defend himself without relinquishing aught of his power.
+
+As soon as he entered the ante-rooms of the ministry he realised that the
+gust of terror was becoming a tempest. The publication of the terrible
+list in the "Voix du Peuple" had chilled the guilty ones to the heart;
+and, pale and distracted, feeling the ground give way beneath them, they
+had come to take counsel of Monferrand, who, they hoped, might save them.
+The first whom Duvillard perceived was Duthil, looking extremely
+feverish, biting his moustaches, and constantly making grimaces in his
+efforts to force a smile. The banker scolded him for coming, saying that
+it was a great mistake to have done so, particularly with such a scared
+face. The deputy, however, his spirits already cheered by these rough
+words, began to defend himself, declaring that he had not even read
+Sagnier's article, and had simply come to recommend a lady friend to the
+Minister. Thereupon the Baron undertook this business for him and sent
+him away with the wish that he might spend a merry mid-Lent. However, the
+one who most roused Duvillard's pity was Chaigneux, whose figure swayed
+about as if bent by the weight of his long equine head, and who looked so
+shabby and untidy that one might have taken him for an old pauper. On
+recognising the banker he darted forward, and bowed to him with
+obsequious eagerness.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur le Baron," said he, "how wicked some men must be! They are
+killing me, I shall die of it all; and what will become of my wife, what
+will become of my three daughters, who have none but me to help them?"
+
+The whole of his woeful story lay in that lament. A victim of politics,
+he had been foolish enough to quit Arras and his business there as a
+solicitor, in order to seek triumph in Paris with his wife and daughters,
+whose menial he had then become--a menial dismayed by the constant
+rebuffs and failures which his mediocrity brought upon him. An honest
+deputy! ah, good heavens! yes, he would have liked to be one; but was he
+not perpetually "hard-up," ever in search of a hundred-franc note, and
+thus, perforce, a deputy for sale? And withal he led such a pitiable
+life, so badgered by the women folk about him, that to satisfy their
+demands he would have picked up money no matter where or how.
+
+"Just fancy, Monsieur le Baron, I have at last found a husband for my
+eldest girl. It is the first bit of luck that I have ever had; there will
+only be three women left on my hands if it comes off. But you can imagine
+what a disastrous impression such an article as that of this morning must
+create in the young man's family. So I have come to see the Minister to
+beg him to give my future son-in-law a prefectoral secretaryship. I have
+already promised him the post, and if I can secure it things may yet be
+arranged."
+
+He looked so terribly shabby and spoke in such a doleful voice that it
+occurred to Duvillard to do one of those good actions on which he
+ventured at times when they were likely to prove remunerative
+investments. It is, indeed, an excellent plan to give a crust of bread to
+some poor devil whom one can turn, if necessary, into a valet or an
+accomplice. So the banker dismissed Chaigneux, undertaking to do his
+business for him in the same way as he had undertaken to do Duthil's. And
+he added that he would be pleased to see him on the morrow, and have a
+chat with him, as he might be able to help him in the matter of his
+daughter's marriage.
+
+At this Chaigneux, scenting a loan, collapsed into the most lavish
+thanks. "Ah! Monsieur le Baron, my life will not be long enough to enable
+me to repay such a debt of gratitude."
+
+As Duvillard turned round he was surprised to see Abbe Froment waiting in
+a corner of the ante-room. Surely that one could not belong to the batch
+of /suspects/, although by the manner in which he was pretending to read
+a newspaper it seemed as if he were trying to hide some keen anxiety. At
+last the Baron stepped forward, shook hands, and spoke to him cordially.
+And Pierre thereupon related that he had received a letter requesting him
+to call on the Minister that day. Why, he could not tell; in fact, he was
+greatly surprised, he said, putting on a smile in order to conceal his
+disquietude. He had been waiting a long time already, and hoped that he
+would not be forgotten on that bench.
+
+Just then the usher appeared, and hastened up to the banker. "The
+Minister," said he, "was at that moment engaged with the President of the
+Council; but he had orders to admit the Baron as soon as the President
+withdrew." Almost immediately afterwards Barroux came out, and as
+Duvillard was about to enter he recognised and detained him. And he spoke
+of the denunciations very bitterly, like one indignant with all the
+slander. Would not he, Duvillard, should occasion require it, testify
+that he, Barroux, had never taken a centime for himself? Then, forgetting
+that he was speaking to a banker, and that he was Minister of Finances,
+he proceeded to express all his disgust of money. Ah! what poisonous,
+murky, and defiling waters were those in which money-making went on!
+However, he repeated that he would chastise his insulters, and that a
+statement of the truth would suffice for the purpose.
+
+Duvillard listened and looked at him. And all at once the thought of
+Silviane came back, and took possession of the Baron, without any attempt
+on his part to drive it away. He reflected that if Barroux had chosen to
+give him a helping hand when he had asked for it, Silviane would now have
+been at the Comedie Francaise, in which case the deplorable affair of the
+previous night would not have occurred; for he was beginning to regard
+himself as guilty in the matter; if he had only contented Silviane's whim
+she would never have dismissed him in so vile a fashion.
+
+"You know, I owe you a grudge," he said, interrupting Barroux.
+
+The other looked at him in astonishment. "And why, pray?" he asked.
+
+"Why, because you never helped me in the matter of that friend of mine
+who wishes to make her /debut/ in 'Polyeucte.'"
+
+Barroux smiled, and with amiable condescension replied: "Ah! yes,
+Silviane d'Aulnay! But, my dear sir, it was Taboureau who put spokes in
+the wheel. The Fine Arts are his department, and the question was
+entirely one for him. And I could do nothing; for that very worthy and
+honest gentleman, who came to us from a provincial faculty, was full of
+scruples. For my own part I'm an old Parisian, I can understand anything,
+and I should have been delighted to please you."
+
+At this fresh resistance offered to his passion Duvillard once more
+became excited, eager to obtain that which was denied him. "Taboureau,
+Taboureau!" said he, "he's a nice deadweight for you to load yourself
+with! Honest! isn't everybody honest? Come, my dear Minister, there's
+still time, get Silviane admitted, it will bring you good luck for
+to-morrow."
+
+This time Barroux burst into a frank laugh: "No, no, I can't cast
+Taboureau adrift at this moment--people would make too much sport of
+it--a ministry wrecked or saved by a Silviane question!"
+
+Then he offered his hand before going off. The Baron pressed it, and for
+a moment retained it in his own, whilst saying very gravely and with a
+somewhat pale face: "You do wrong to laugh, my dear Minister. Governments
+have fallen or set themselves erect again through smaller matters than
+that. And should you fall to-morrow I trust that you will never have
+occasion to regret it."
+
+Wounded to the heart by the other's jesting air, exasperated by the idea
+that there was something he could not achieve, Duvillard watched Barroux
+as he withdrew. Most certainly the Baron did not desire a reconciliation
+with Silviane, but he vowed that he would overturn everything if
+necessary in order to send her a signed engagement for the Comedie, and
+this simply by way of vengeance, as a slap, so to say,--yes, a slap which
+would make her tingle! That moment spent with Barroux had been a decisive
+one.
+
+However, whilst still following Barroux with his eyes, Duvillard was
+surprised to see Fonsegue arrive and manoeuvre in such a way as to escape
+the Prime Minister's notice. He succeeded in doing so, and then entered
+the ante-room with an appearance of dismay about the whole of his little
+figure, which was, as a rule, so sprightly. It was the gust of terror,
+still blowing, that had brought him thither.
+
+"Didn't you see your friend Barroux?" the Baron asked him, somewhat
+puzzled.
+
+"Barroux? No!"
+
+This quiet lie was equivalent to a confession of everything. Fonsegue was
+so intimate with Barroux that he thee'd and thou'd him, and for ten years
+had been supporting him in his newspaper, having precisely the same
+views, the same political religion. But with a smash-up threatening, he
+doubtless realised, thanks to his wonderfully keen scent, that he must
+change his friendships if he did not wish to remain under the ruins
+himself. If he had, for long years, shown so much prudence and diplomatic
+virtue in order to firmly establish the most dignified and respected of
+Parisian newspapers, it was not for the purpose of letting that newspaper
+be compromised by some foolish blunder on the part of an honest man.
+
+"I thought you were on bad terms with Monferrand," resumed Duvillard.
+"What have you come here for?"
+
+"Oh! my dear Baron, the director of a leading newspaper is never on bad
+terms with anybody. He's at the country's service."
+
+In spite of his emotion, Duvillard could not help smiling. "You are
+right," he responded. "Besides, Monferrand is really an able man, whom
+one can support without fear."
+
+At this Fonsegue began to wonder whether his anguish of mind was visible.
+He, who usually played the game of life so well, with his own hand under
+thorough control, had been terrified by the article in the "Voix du
+Peuple." For the first time in his career he had perpetrated a blunder,
+and felt that he was at the mercy of some denunciation, for with
+unpardonable imprudence he had written a very brief but compromising
+note. He was not anxious concerning the 50,000 francs which Barroux had
+handed him out of the 200,000 destined for the Republican press. But he
+trembled lest another affair should be discovered, that of a sum of money
+which he had received as a present. It was only on feeling the Baron's
+keen glance upon him that he was able to recover some self-possession.
+How silly it was to lose the knack of lying and to confess things simply
+by one's demeanour!
+
+But the usher drew near and repeated that the Minister was now waiting
+for the Baron; and Fonsegue went to sit down beside Abbe Froment, whom he
+also was astonished to find there. Pierre repeated that he had received a
+letter, but had no notion what the Minister might wish to say to him. And
+the quiver of his hands again revealed how feverishly impatient he was to
+know what it might be. However, he could only wait, since Monferrand was
+still busy discussing such grave affairs.
+
+On seeing Duvillard enter, the Minister had stepped forward, offering his
+hand. However much the blast of terror might shake others, he had
+retained his calmness and good-natured smile. "What an affair, eh, my
+dear Baron!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It's idiotic!" plainly declared the other, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. Then he sat down in the armchair vacated by Barroux, while the
+Minister installed himself in front of him. These two were made to
+understand one another, and they indulged in the same despairing gestures
+and furious complaints, declaring that government, like business, would
+no longer be possible if men were required to show such virtue as they
+did not possess. At all times, and under every /regime/, when a decision
+of the Chambers had been required in connection with some great
+enterprise, had not the natural and legitimate tactics been for one to do
+what might be needful to secure that decision? It was absolutely
+necessary that one should obtain influential and sympathetic support, in
+a word, make sure of votes. Well, everything had to be paid for, men like
+other things, some with fine words, others with favours or money,
+presents made in a more or less disguised manner. And even admitting
+that, in the present cases, one had gone rather far in the purchasing,
+that some of the bartering had been conducted in an imprudent way, was it
+wise to make such an uproar over it? Would not a strong government have
+begun by stifling the scandal, from motives of patriotism, a mere sense
+of cleanliness even?
+
+"Why, of course! You are right, a thousand times right!" exclaimed
+Monferrand. "Ah! if I were the master you would see what a fine
+first-class funeral I would give it all!" Then, as Duvillard looked at
+him fixedly, struck by these last words, he added with his expressive
+smile: "Unfortunately I'm not the master, and it was to talk to you of
+the situation that I ventured to disturb you. Barroux, who was here just
+now, seemed to me in a regrettable frame of mind."
+
+"Yes, I saw him, he has such singular ideas at times--" Then, breaking
+off, the Baron added: "Do you know that Fonsegue is in the ante-room? As
+he wishes to make his peace with you, why not send for him? He won't be
+in the way, in fact, he's a man of good counsel, and the support of his
+newspaper often suffices to give one the victory."
+
+"What, is Fonsegue there!" cried Monferrand. "Why, I don't ask better
+than to shake hands with him. There were some old affairs between us that
+don't concern anybody! But, good heavens! if you only knew what little
+spite I harbour!"
+
+When the usher had admitted Fonsegue the reconciliation took place in the
+simplest fashion. They had been great friends at college in their native
+Correze, but had not spoken together for ten years past in consequence of
+some abominable affair the particulars of which were not exactly known.
+However, it becomes necessary to clear away all corpses when one wishes
+to have the arena free for a fresh battle.
+
+"It's very good of you to come back the first," said Monferrand. "So it's
+all over, you no longer bear me any grudge?"
+
+"No, indeed!" replied Fonsegue. "Why should people devour one another
+when it would be to their interest to come to an understanding?"
+
+Then, without further explanations, they passed to the great affair, and
+the conference began. And when Monferrand had announced Barroux'
+determination to confess and explain his conduct, the others loudly
+protested. That meant certain downfall, they would prevent him, he surely
+would not be guilty of such folly. Forthwith they discussed every
+imaginable plan by which the Ministry might be saved, for that must
+certainly be Monferrand's sole desire. He himself with all eagerness
+pretended to seek some means of extricating his colleagues and himself
+from the mess in which they were. However, a faint smile, still played
+around his lips, and at last as if vanquished he sought no further.
+"There's no help for it," said he, "the ministry's down."
+
+The others exchanged glances, full of anxiety at the thought of another
+Cabinet dealing with the African Railways affair. A Vignon Cabinet would
+doubtless plume itself on behaving honestly.
+
+"Well, then, what shall we do?"
+
+But just then the telephone rang, and Monferrand rose to respond to the
+summons: "Allow me."
+
+He listened for a moment and then spoke into the tube, nothing that he
+said giving the others any inkling of the information which had reached
+him. This had come from the Chief of the Detective Police, and was to the
+effect that Salvat's whereabouts in the Bois de Boulogne had been
+discovered, and that he would be hunted down with all speed. "Very good!
+And don't forget my orders," replied Monferrand.
+
+Now that Salvat's arrest was certain, the Minister determined to follow
+the plan which had gradually taken shape in his mind; and returning to
+the middle of the room he slowly walked to and fro, while saying with his
+wonted familiarity: "But what would you have, my friends? It would be
+necessary for me to be the master. Ah! if I were the master! A Commission
+of Inquiry, yes! that's the proper form for a first-class funeral to take
+in a big affair like this, so full of nasty things. For my part, I should
+confess nothing, and I should have a Commission appointed. And then you
+would see the storm subside."
+
+Duvillard and Fonsegue began to laugh. The latter, however, thanks to his
+intimate knowledge of Monferrand, almost guessed the truth. "Just
+listen!" said he; "even if the ministry falls it doesn't necessarily
+follow that you must be on the ground with it. Besides, a ministry can be
+mended when there are good pieces of it left."
+
+Somewhat anxious at finding his thoughts guessed, Monferrand protested:
+"No, no, my dear fellow, I don't play that game. We are jointly
+responsible, we've got to keep together, dash it all!"
+
+"Keep together! Pooh! Not when simpletons purposely drown themselves!
+And, besides, if we others have need of you, we have a right to save you
+in spite of yourself! Isn't that so, my dear Baron?"
+
+Then, as Monferrand sat down, no longer protesting but waiting,
+Duvillard, who was again thinking of his passion, full of anger at the
+recollection of Barroux' refusal, rose in his turn, and exclaimed: "Why,
+certainly! If the ministry's condemned let it fall! What good can you get
+out of a ministry which includes such a man as Taboureau! There you have
+an old, worn-out professor without any prestige, who comes to Paris from
+Grenoble, and has never set foot in a theatre in his life! Yet the
+control of the theatres is handed over to him, and naturally he's ever
+doing the most stupid things!"
+
+Monferrand, who was well informed on the Silviane question, remained
+grave, and for a moment amused himself by trying to excite the Baron.
+"Taboureau," said he, "is a somewhat dull and old-fashioned University
+man, but at the department of Public Instruction he's in his proper
+element."
+
+"Oh! don't talk like that, my dear fellow! You are more intelligent than
+that, you are not going to defend Taboureau as Barroux did. It's quite
+true that I should very much like to see Silviane at the Comedie. She's a
+very good girl at heart, and she has an amazing lot of talent. Would you
+stand in her way if you were in Taboureau's place?"
+
+"I? Good heavens, no! A pretty girl on the stage, why, it would please
+everybody, I'm sure. Only it would be necessary to have a man of the same
+views as were at the department of Instruction and Fine Arts."
+
+His sly smile had returned to his face. The securing of that girl's
+/debut/ was certainly not a high price to pay for all the influence of
+Duvillard's millions. Monferrand therefore turned towards Fonsegue as if
+to consult him. The other, who fully understood the importance of the
+affair, was meditating in all seriousness: "A senator is the proper man
+for Public Instruction," said he. "But I can think of none, none at all,
+such as would be wanted. A man of broad mind, a real Parisian, and yet
+one whose presence at the head of the University wouldn't cause too much
+astonishment--there's perhaps Dauvergne--"
+
+"Dauvergne! Who's he?" exclaimed Monferrand in surprise. "Ah! yes,
+Dauvergne the senator for Dijon--but he's altogether ignorant of
+University matters, he hasn't the slightest qualification."
+
+"Well, as for that," resumed Fonsegue, "I'm trying to think. Dauvergne is
+certainly a good-looking fellow, tall and fair and decorative. Besides,
+he's immensely rich, has a most charming young wife--which does no harm,
+on the contrary--and he gives real /fetes/ at his place on the Boulevard
+St. Germain."
+
+It was only with hesitation that Fonsegue himself had ventured to suggest
+Dauvergne. But by degrees his selection appeared to him a real "find."
+"Wait a bit! I recollect now that in his young days Dauvergne wrote a
+comedy, a one act comedy in verse, and had it performed at Dijon. And
+Dijon's a literary town, you know, so that piece of his sets a little
+perfume of 'Belles-Lettres' around him. And then, too, he left Dijon
+twenty years ago, and is a most determined Parisian, frequenting every
+sphere of society. Dauvergne will do whatever one desires. He's the man
+for us, I tell you."
+
+Duvillard thereupon declared that he knew him, and considered him a very
+decent fellow. Besides, he or another, it mattered nothing!
+
+"Dauvergne, Dauvergne," repeated Monferrand. "/Mon Dieu/, yes! After all,
+why not? He'll perhaps make a very good minister. Let us say Dauvergne."
+Then suddenly bursting into a hearty laugh: "And so we are reconstructing
+the Cabinet in order that that charming young woman may join the Comedie!
+The Silviane cabinet--well, and what about the other departments?"
+
+He jested, well knowing that gaiety often hastens difficult solutions.
+And, indeed, they merrily continued settling what should be done if the
+ministry were defeated on the morrow. Although they had not plainly said
+so the plan was to let Barroux sink, even help him to do so, and then
+fish Monferrand out of the troubled waters. The latter engaged himself
+with the two others, because he had need of them, the Baron on account of
+his financial sovereignty, and the director of "Le Globe" on account of
+the press campaign which he could carry on in his favour. And in the same
+way the others, quite apart from the Silviane business, had need of
+Monferrand, the strong-handed man of government, who undertook to bury
+the African Railways scandal by bringing about a Commission of Inquiry,
+all the strings of which would be pulled by himself. There was soon a
+perfect understanding between the three men, for nothing draws people
+more closely together than common interest, fear and need. Accordingly,
+when Duvillard spoke of Duthil's business, the young lady whom he wished
+to recommend, the Minister declared that it was settled. A very nice
+fellow was Duthil, they needed a good many like him. And it was also
+agreed that Chaigneux' future son-in-law should have his secretaryship.
+Poor Chaigneux! He was so devoted, always ready to undertake any
+commission, and his four women folk led him such a hard life!
+
+"Well, then, it's understood." And Monferrand, Duvillard and Fonsegue
+vigorously shook hands.
+
+However, when the first accompanied the others to the door, he noticed a
+prelate, in a cassock of fine material, edged with violet, speaking to a
+priest in the ante-room. Thereupon he, the Minister, hastened forward,
+looking much distressed. "Ah! you were waiting, Monseigneur Martha! Come
+in, come in quick!"
+
+But with perfect urbanity the Bishop refused. "No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe
+Froment was here before me. Pray receive him first."
+
+Monferrand had to give way; he admitted the priest, and speedily dealt
+with him. He who usually employed the most diplomatic reserve when he was
+in presence of a member of the clergy plumply unfolded the Barthes
+business. Pierre had experienced the keenest anguish during the two hours
+that he had been waiting there, for he could only explain the letter he
+had received by a surmise that the police had discovered his brother's
+presence in his house. And so when he heard the Minister simply speak of
+Barthes, and declare that the government would rather see him go into
+exile than be obliged to imprison him once more, he remained for a moment
+quite disconcerted. As the police had been able to discover the old
+conspirator in the little house at Neuilly, how was it that they seemed
+altogether ignorant of Guillaume's presence there? It was, however, the
+usual gap in the genius of great detectives.
+
+"Pray what do you desire of me, Monsieur le Ministre?" said Pierre at
+last; "I don't quite understand."
+
+"Why, Monsieur l'Abbe, I leave all this to your sense of prudence. If
+that man were still at your house in forty-eight hours from now, we
+should be obliged to arrest him there, which would be a source of grief
+to us, for we are aware that your residence is the abode of every virtue.
+So advise him to leave France. If he does that we shall not trouble him."
+
+Then Monferrand hastily brought Pierre back to the ante-room; and,
+smiling and bending low, he said: "Monseigneur, I am entirely at your
+disposal. Come in, come in, I beg you."
+
+The prelate, who was gaily chatting with Duvillard and Fonsegue, shook
+hands with them, and then with Pierre. In his desire to win all hearts,
+he that morning displayed the most perfect graciousness. His bright,
+black eyes were all smiles, the whole of his handsome face wore a
+caressing expression, and he entered the ministerial sanctum leisurely
+and gracefully, with an easy air of conquest.
+
+And now only Monferrand and Monseigneur Martha were left, talking on and
+on in the deserted building. Some people had thought that the prelate
+wished to become a deputy. But he played a far more useful and lofty part
+in governing behind the scenes, in acting as the directing mind of the
+Vatican's policy in France. Was not France still the Eldest Daughter of
+the Church, the only great nation which might some day restore
+omnipotence to the Papacy? For that reason he had accepted the Republic,
+preached the duty of "rallying" to it, and inspired the new Catholic
+group in the Chamber. And Monferrand, on his side, struck by the progress
+of the New Spirit, that reaction of mysticism which flattered itself that
+it would bury science, showed the prelate much amiability, like a
+strong-handed man who, to ensure his own victory, utilised every force
+that was offered him.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MAN HUNT
+
+ON the afternoon of that same day such a keen desire for space and the
+open air came upon Guillaume, that Pierre consented to accompany him on a
+long walk in the Bois de Boulogne. The priest, upon returning from his
+interview with Monferrand, had informed his brother that the government
+once more wished to get rid of Nicholas Barthes. However, they were so
+perplexed as to how they should impart these tidings to the old man, that
+they resolved to postpone the matter until the evening. During their walk
+they might devise some means of breaking the news in a gentle way. As for
+the walk, this seemed to offer no danger; to all appearance Guillaume was
+in no wise threatened, so why should he continue hiding? Thus the
+brothers sallied forth and entered the Bois by the Sablons gate, which
+was the nearest to them.
+
+The last days of March had now come, and the trees were beginning to show
+some greenery, so soft and light, however, that one might have thought it
+was pale moss or delicate lace hanging between the stems and boughs.
+Although the sky remained of an ashen grey, the rain, after falling
+throughout the night and morning, had ceased; and exquisite freshness
+pervaded that wood now awakening to life once more, with its foliage
+dripping in the mild and peaceful atmosphere. The mid-Lent rejoicings had
+apparently attracted the populace to the centre of Paris, for in the
+avenues one found only the fashionable folks of select days, the people
+of society who come thither when the multitude stops away. There were
+carriages and gentlemen on horseback; beautiful aristocratic ladies who
+had alighted from their broughams or landaus; and wet-nurses with
+streaming ribbons, who carried infants wearing the most costly lace. Of
+the middle-classes, however, one found only a few matrons living in the
+neighbourhood, who sat here and there on the benches busy with embroidery
+or watching their children play.
+
+Pierre and Guillaume followed the Allee de Longchamp as far as the road
+going from Madrid to the lakes. Then they took their way under the trees,
+alongside the little Longchamp rivulet. They wished to reach the lakes,
+pass round them, and return home by way of the Maillot gate. But so
+charming and peaceful was the deserted plantation through which they
+passed, that they yielded to a desire to sit down and taste the delight
+of resting amidst all the budding springtide around them. A fallen tree
+served them as a bench, and it was possible for them to fancy themselves
+far away from Paris, in the depths of some real forest. It was, too, of a
+real forest that Guillaume began to think on thus emerging from his long,
+voluntary imprisonment. Ah! for the space; and for the health-bringing
+air which courses between that forest's branches, that forest of the
+world which by right should be man's inalienable domain! However, the
+name of Barthes, the perpetual prisoner, came back to Guillaume's lips,
+and he sighed mournfully. The thought that there should be even a single
+man whose liberty was thus ever assailed, sufficed to poison the pure
+atmosphere he breathed.
+
+"What will you say to Barthes?" he asked his brother. "The poor fellow
+must necessarily be warned. Exile is at any rate preferable to
+imprisonment."
+
+Pierre sadly waved his hand. "Yes, of course, I must warn him. But what a
+painful task it is!"
+
+Guillaume made no rejoinder, for at that very moment, in that remote,
+deserted nook, where they could fancy themselves at the world's end, a
+most extraordinary spectacle was presented to their view. Something or
+rather someone leapt out of a thicket and bounded past them. It was
+assuredly a man, but one who was so unrecognisable, so miry, so woeful
+and so frightful, that he might have been taken for an animal, a boar
+that hounds had tracked and forced from his retreat. On seeing the
+rivulet, he hesitated for a moment, and then followed its course. But,
+all at once, as a sound of footsteps and panting breath drew nearer, he
+sprang into the water, which reached his thighs, bounded on to the
+further bank, and vanished from sight behind a clump of pines. A moment
+afterwards some keepers and policemen rushed by, skirting the rivulet,
+and in their turn disappearing. It was a man hunt that had gone past, a
+fierce, secret hunt with no display of scarlet or blast of horns athwart
+the soft, sprouting foliage.
+
+"Some rascal or other," muttered Pierre. "Ah! the wretched fellow!"
+
+Guillaume made a gesture of discouragement. "Gendarmes and prison!" said
+he. "They still constitute society's only schooling system!"
+
+Meantime the man was still running on, farther and farther away.
+
+When, on the previous night, Salvat had suddenly escaped from the
+detectives by bounding into the Bois de Boulogne, it had occurred to him
+to slip round to the Dauphine gate and there descend into the deep ditch*
+of the city ramparts. He remembered days of enforced idleness which he
+had spent there, in nooks where, for his own part, he had never met a
+living soul. Nowhere, indeed, could one find more secret places of
+retreat, hedged round by thicker bushes, or concealed from view by
+loftier herbage. Some corners of the ditch, at certain angles of the
+massive bastions, are favourite dens or nests for thieves and lovers.
+Salvat, as he made his way through the thickest of the brambles, nettles
+and ivy, was lucky enough to find a cavity full of dry leaves, in which
+he buried himself to the chin. The rain had already drenched him, and
+after slipping down the muddy slope, he had frequently been obliged to
+grope his way upon all fours. So those dry leaves proved a boon such as
+he had not dared to hope for. They dried him somewhat, serving as a
+blanket in which he coiled himself after his wild race through the dank
+darkness. The rain still fell, but he now only felt it on his head, and,
+weary as he was, he gradually sank into deep slumber beneath the
+continuous drizzle. When he opened his eyes again, the dawn was breaking,
+and it was probably about six o'clock. During his sleep the rain had
+ended by soaking the leaves, so that he was now immersed in a kind of
+chilly bath. Still he remained in it, feeling that he was there sheltered
+from the police, who must now surely be searching for him. None of those
+bloodhounds would guess his presence in that hole, for his body was quite
+buried, and briers almost completely hid his head. So he did not stir,
+but watched the rise of the dawn.
+
+  * This ditch or dry moat is about 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide.
+    The counterscarp by which one may descend into it has an angle
+    of 45 degrees.--Trans.
+
+When at eight o'clock some policemen and keepers came by, searching the
+ditch, they did not perceive him. As he had anticipated, the hunt had
+begun at the first glimmer of light. For a time his heart beat violently;
+however, nobody else passed, nothing whatever stirred the grass. The only
+sounds that reached him were faint ones from the Bois de Boulogne, the
+ring of a bicyclist's bell, the thud of a horse's hoofs, the rumble of
+carriage wheels. And time went by, nine o'clock came, and then ten
+o'clock. Since the rain had ceased falling, Salvat had not suffered so
+much from the cold, for he was wearing a thick overcoat which little
+Mathis had given him. But, on the other hand, hunger was coming back;
+there was a burning sensation in his stomach, and leaden hoops seemed to
+be pressing against his ribs. He had eaten nothing for two days; he had
+been starving already on the previous evening, when he had accepted a
+glass of beer at that tavern at Montmartre. Nevertheless, his plan was to
+remain in the ditch until nightfall, and then slip away in the direction
+of the village of Boulogne, where he knew of a means of egress from the
+wood. He was not caught yet, he repeated, he might still manage to
+escape. Then he tried to get to sleep again, but failed, so painful had
+his sufferings become. By the time it was eleven, everything swam before
+his eyes. He once nearly fainted, and thought that he was going to die.
+Then rage gradually mastered him, and, all at once, he sprang out of his
+leafy hiding-place, desperately hungering for food, unable to remain
+there any longer, and determined to find something to eat, even should it
+cost him his liberty and life. It was then noon.
+
+On leaving the ditch he found the spreading lawns of the chateau of La
+Muette before him. He crossed them at a run, like a madman, instinctively
+going towards Boulogne, with the one idea that his only means of escape
+lay in that direction. It seemed miraculous that nobody paid attention to
+his helter-skelter flight. However, when he had reached the cover of some
+trees he became conscious of his imprudence, and almost regretted the
+sudden madness which had borne him along, eager for escape. Trembling
+nervously, he bent low among some furze bushes, and waited for a few
+minutes to ascertain if the police were behind him. Then with watchful
+eye and ready ear, wonderful instinct and scent of danger, he slowly went
+his way again. He hoped to pass between the upper lake and the Auteuil
+race-course; but there were few trees in that part, and they formed a
+broad avenue. He therefore had to exert all his skill in order to avoid
+observation, availing himself of the slenderest stems, the smallest
+bushes, as screens, and only venturing onward after a lengthy inspection
+of his surroundings. Before long the sight of a guard in the distance
+revived his fears and detained him, stretched on the ground behind some
+brambles, for a full quarter of an hour. Then the approach first of a
+cab, whose driver had lost his way, and afterwards of a strolling
+pedestrian, in turn sufficed to stop him. He breathed once more, however,
+when, after passing the Mortemart hillock, he was able to enter the
+thickets lying between the two roads which lead to Boulogne and St.
+Cloud. The coppices thereabouts were dense, and he merely had to follow
+them, screened from view, in order to reach the outlet he knew of, which
+was now near at hand. So he was surely saved.
+
+But all at once, at a distance of some five and thirty yards, he saw a
+keeper, erect and motionless, barring his way. He turned slightly to the
+left and there perceived another keeper, who also seemed to be awaiting
+him. And there were more and more of them; at every fifty paces or so
+stood a fresh one, the whole forming a /cordon/, the meshes as it were of
+a huge net. The worst was that he must have been perceived, for a light
+cry, like the clear call of an owl, rang out, and was repeated farther
+and farther off. The hunters were at last on the right scent, prudence
+had become superfluous, and it was only by flight that the quarry might
+now hope to escape. Salvat understood this so well that he suddenly began
+to run, leaping over all obstacles and darting between the trees,
+careless whether he were seen or heard. A few bounds carried him across
+the Avenue de St. Cloud into the plantations stretching to the Allee de
+la Reine Marguerite. There the undergrowth was very dense; in the whole
+Bois there are no more closely set thickets. In summer they become one
+vast entanglement of verdure, amidst which, had it been the leafy season,
+Salvat might well have managed to secrete himself. For a moment he did
+find himself alone, and thereupon he halted to listen. He could neither
+see nor hear the keepers now. Had they lost his track, then? Profound
+quietude reigned under the fresh young foliage. But the light, owlish cry
+arose once more, branches cracked, and he resumed his wild flight,
+hurrying straight before him. Unluckily he found the Allee de la Reine
+Marguerite guarded by policemen, so that he could not cross over, but had
+to skirt it without quitting the thickets. And now his back was turned
+towards Boulogne; he was retracing his steps towards Paris. However, a
+last idea came to his bewildered mind: it was to run on in this wise as
+far as the shady spots around Madrid, and then, by stealing from copse to
+copse, attempt to reach the Seine. To proceed thither across the bare
+expanse of the race-course and training ground was not for a moment to be
+thought of.
+
+So Salvat still ran on and on. But on reaching the Allee de Longchamp he
+found it guarded like the other roads, and therefore had to relinquish
+his plan of escaping by way of Madrid and the river-bank. While he was
+perforce making a bend alongside the Pre Catelan, he became aware that
+the keepers, led by detectives, were drawing yet nearer to him, confining
+his movements to a smaller and smaller area. And his race soon acquired
+all the frenzy of despair. Haggard and breathless he leapt mounds, rushed
+past multitudinous obstacles. He forced a passage through brambles, broke
+down palings, thrice caught his feet in wire work which he had not seen,
+and fell among nettles, yet picked himself up went on again, spurred by
+the stinging of his hands and face. It was then Guillaume and Pierre saw
+him pass, unrecognisable and frightful, taking to the muddy water of the
+rivulet like a stag which seeks to set a last obstacle between itself and
+the hounds. There came to him a wild idea of getting to the lake, and
+swimming, unperceived, to the island in the centre of it. That, he madly
+thought, would be a safe retreat, where he might burrow and hide himself
+without possibility of discovery. And so he still ran on. But once again
+the sight of some guards made him retrace his steps, and he was compelled
+to go back and back in the direction of Paris, chased, forced towards the
+very fortifications whence he had started that morning. It was now nearly
+three in the afternoon. For more than two hours and a half he had been
+running.
+
+At last he saw a soft, sandy ride for horsemen before him. He crossed it,
+splashing through the mire left by the rain, and reached a little
+pathway, a delightful lovers' lane, as shady in summer as any arbour. For
+some time he was able to follow it, concealed from observation, and with
+his hopes reviving. But it led him to one of those broad, straight
+avenues where carriages and bicycles, the whole afternoon pageant of
+society, swept past under the mild and cloudy sky. So he returned to the
+thickets, fell once more upon the keepers, lost all notion of the
+direction he took, and even all power of thought, becoming a mere thing
+carried along and thrown hither and thither by the chances of the pursuit
+which pressed more and more closely upon him. Star-like crossways
+followed one upon other, and at last he came to a broad lawn, where the
+full light dazzled him. And there he suddenly felt the hot, panting
+breath of his pursuers close in the rear. Eager, hungry breath it was,
+like that of hounds seeking to devour him. Shouts rang out, one hand
+almost caught hold of him, there was a rush of heavy feet, a scramble to
+seize him. But with a supreme effort he leapt upon a bank, crawled to its
+summit, rose again, and once more found himself alone, still running on
+amid the fresh and quiet greenery.
+
+Nevertheless, this was the end. He almost fell flat upon the ground. His
+aching feet could no longer carry him; blood was oozing from his ears,
+and froth had come to his mouth. His heart beat with such violence that
+it seemed likely to break his ribs. Water and perspiration streamed from
+him, he was miry and haggard and tortured by hunger, conquered, in fact,
+more by hunger than by fatigue. And through the mist which seemed to have
+gathered before his wild eyes, he suddenly saw an open doorway, the
+doorway of a coach-house in the rear of a kind of chalet, sequestered
+among trees. Excepting a big white cat, which took to flight, there was
+not a living creature in the place. Salvat plunged into it and rolled
+over on a heap of straw, among some empty casks. He was scarcely hidden
+there when he heard the chase sweep by, the detectives and the keepers
+losing scent, passing the chalet and rushing in the direction of the
+Paris ramparts. The noise of their heavy boots died away, and deep
+silence fell, while the hunted man, who had carried both hands to his
+heart to stay its beating, sank into the most complete prostration, with
+big tears trickling from his closed eyes.
+
+Whilst all this was going on, Pierre and Guillaume, after a brief rest,
+had resumed their walk, reaching the lake and proceeding towards the
+crossway of the Cascades, in order to return to Neuilly by the road
+beyond the water. However, a shower fell, compelling them to take shelter
+under the big leafless branches of a chestnut-tree. Then, as the rain
+came down more heavily and they could perceive a kind of chalet, a little
+cafe-restaurant amid a clump of trees, they hastened thither for better
+protection. In a side road, which they passed on their way, they saw a
+cab standing, its driver waiting there in philosophical fashion under the
+falling shower. Pierre, moreover, noticed a young man stepping out
+briskly in front of them, a young man resembling Gerard de Quinsac, who,
+whilst walking in the Bois, had no doubt been overtaken by the rain, and
+like themselves was seeking shelter in the chalet. However, on entering
+the latter's public room, the priest saw no sign of the gentleman, and
+concluded that he must have been mistaken. This public room, which had a
+kind of glazed verandah overlooking the Bois, contained a few chairs and
+tables, the latter with marble tops. On the first floor there were four
+or five private rooms reached by a narrow passage. Though the doors were
+open the place had as yet scarcely emerged from its winter's rest. There
+was nobody about, and on all sides one found the dampness common to
+establishments which, from lack of custom, are compelled to close from
+November until March. In the rear were some stables, a coach-house, and
+various mossy, picturesque outbuildings, which painters and gardeners
+would now soon embellish for the gay pleasure parties which the fine
+weather would bring.
+
+"I really think that they haven't opened for the season yet," said
+Guillaume as he entered the silent house.
+
+"At all events they will let us stay here till the rain stops," answered
+Pierre, seating himself at one of the little tables.
+
+However, a waiter suddenly made his appearance seemingly in a great
+hurry. He had come down from the first floor, and eagerly rummaged a
+cupboard for a few dry biscuits, which he laid upon a plate. At last he
+condescended to serve the brothers two glasses of Chartreuse.
+
+In one of the private rooms upstairs Baroness Duvillard, who had driven
+to the chalet in a cab, had been awaiting her lover Gerard for nearly
+half an hour. It was there that, during the charity bazaar, they had
+given each other an appointment. For them the chalet had precious
+memories: two years previously, on discovering that secluded nest, which
+was so deserted in the early, hesitating days of chilly spring, they had
+met there under circumstances which they could not forget. And the
+Baroness, in choosing the house for the supreme assignation of their
+dying passion, had certainly not been influenced merely by a fear that
+she might be spied upon elsewhere. She had, indeed, thought of the first
+kisses that had been showered on her there, and would fain have revived
+them even if they should now prove the last that Gerard would bestow on
+her.
+
+But she would also have liked to see some sunlight playing over the
+youthful foliage. The ashen sky and threatening rain saddened her. And
+when she entered the private room she did not recognise it, so cold and
+dim it seemed with its faded furniture. Winter had tarried there, with
+all the dampness and mouldy smell peculiar to rooms which have long
+remained closed. Then, too, some of the wall paper which had come away
+from the plaster hung down in shreds, dead flies were scattered over the
+parquetry flooring; and in order to open the shutters the waiter had to
+engage in a perfect fight with their fastenings. However, when he had
+lighted a little gas-stove, which at once flamed up and diffused some
+warmth, the room became more cosy.
+
+Eve had seated herself on a chair, without raising the thick veil which
+hid her face. Gowned, gloved, and bonneted in black, as if she were
+already in mourning for her last passion, she showed naught of her own
+person save her superb fair hair, which glittered like a helm of tawny
+gold. She had ordered tea for two, and when the waiter brought it with a
+little plateful of dry biscuits, left, no doubt, from the previous
+season, he found her in the same place, still veiled and motionless,
+absorbed, it seemed, in a gloomy reverie. If she had reached the cafe
+half an hour before the appointed time it was because she desired some
+leisure and opportunity to overcome her despair and compose herself. She
+resolved that of all things she would not weep, that she would remain
+dignified and speak calmly, like one who, whatever rights she might
+possess, preferred to appeal to reason only. And she was well pleased
+with the courage that she found within her. Whilst thinking of what she
+should say to dissuade Gerard from a marriage which to her mind would
+prove both a calamity and a blunder, she fancied herself very calm,
+indeed almost resigned to whatsoever might happen.
+
+But all at once she started and began to tremble. Gerard was entering the
+room.
+
+"What! are you here the first, my dear?" he exclaimed. "I thought that I
+myself was ten minutes before the time! And you've ordered some tea and
+are waiting for me!"
+
+He forced a smile as he spoke, striving to display the same delight at
+seeing her as he had shown in the early golden days of their passion. But
+at heart he was much embarrassed, and he shuddered at the thought of the
+awful scene which he could foresee.
+
+She had at last risen and raised her veil. And looking at him she
+stammered: "Yes, I found myself at liberty earlier than I expected. . . .
+I feared some impediment might arise . . . and so I came."
+
+Then, seeing how handsome and how affectionate he still looked, she could
+not restrain her passion. All her skilful arguments, all her fine
+resolutions, were swept away. Her flesh irresistibly impelled her towards
+him; she loved him, she would keep him, she would never surrender him to
+another. And she wildly flung her arms around his neck.
+
+"Oh! Gerard, Gerard! I suffer too cruelly; I cannot, I cannot bear it!
+Tell me at once that you will not marry her, that you will never marry
+her!"
+
+Her voice died away in a sob, tears started from her eyes. Ah! those
+tears which she had sworn she would never shed! They gushed forth without
+cessation, they streamed from her lovely eyes like a flood of the
+bitterest grief.
+
+"My daughter, O God! What! you would marry my daughter! She, here, on
+your neck where I am now! No, no, such torture is past endurance, it must
+not be, I will not have it!"
+
+He shivered as he heard that cry of frantic jealousy raised by a mother
+who now was but a woman, maddened by the thought of her rival's youth,
+those five and twenty summers which she herself had left far behind. For
+his part, on his way to the assignation, he had come to what he thought
+the most sensible decision, resolving to break off the intercourse after
+the fashion of a well-bred man, with all sorts of fine consolatory
+speeches. But sternness was not in his nature. He was weak and
+soft-hearted, and had never been able to withstand a woman's tears.
+Nevertheless, he endeavoured to calm her, and in order to rid himself of
+her embrace, he made her sit down upon the sofa. And there, beside her,
+he replied: "Come, be reasonable, my dear. We came here to have a
+friendly chat, did we not? I assure you that you are greatly exaggerating
+matters."
+
+But she was determined to obtain a more positive answer from him. "No,
+no!" she retorted, "I am suffering too dreadfully, I must know the truth
+at once. Swear to me that you will never, never marry her!"
+
+He again endeavoured to avoid replying as she wished him to do. "Come,
+come," he said, "you will do yourself harm by giving way to such grief as
+this; you know that I love you dearly."
+
+"Then swear to me that you will never, never marry her."
+
+"But I tell you that I love you, that you are the only one I love."
+
+Then she again threw her arms around him, and kissed him passionately
+upon the eyes. "Is it true?" she asked in a transport. "You love me, you
+love no one else? Oh! tell me so again, and kiss me, and promise me that
+you will never belong to her."
+
+Weak as he was he could not resist her ardent caresses and pressing
+entreaties. There came a moment of supreme cowardice and passion; her
+arms were around him and he forgot all but her, again and again repeating
+that he loved none other, and would never, never marry her daughter. At
+last he even sank so low as to pretend that he simply regarded that poor,
+infirm creature with pity. His words of compassionate disdain for her
+rival were like nectar to Eve, for they filled her with the blissful idea
+that it was she herself who would ever remain beautiful in his eyes and
+whom he would ever love. . . .
+
+At last silence fell between them, like an inevitable reaction after such
+a tempest of despair and passion. It disturbed Gerard. "Won't you drink
+some tea?" he asked. "It is almost cold already."
+
+She was not listening, however. To her the reaction had come in a
+different form; and as though the inevitable explanation were only now
+commencing, she began to speak in a sad and weary voice. "My dear Gerard,
+you really cannot marry my daughter. In the first place it would be so
+wrong, and then there is the question of your name, your position.
+Forgive my frankness, but the fact is that everybody would say that you
+had sold yourself--such a marriage would be a scandal for both your
+family and mine."
+
+As she spoke she took hold of his hands, like a mother seeking to prevent
+her big son from committing some terrible blunder. And he listened to
+her, with bowed head and averted eyes. She now evinced no anger, no
+jealous rage; all such feelings seemed to have departed with the rapture
+of her passion.
+
+"Just think of what people would say," she continued. "I don't deceive
+myself, I am fully aware that there is an abyss between your circle of
+society and ours. It is all very well for us to be rich, but money simply
+enlarges the gap. And it was all very fine for me to be converted, my
+daughter is none the less 'the daughter of the Jewess,' as folks so often
+say. Ah! my Gerard, I am so proud of you, that it would rend my heart to
+see you lowered, degraded almost, by a marriage for money with a girl who
+is deformed, who is unworthy of you and whom you could never love."
+
+He raised his eyes and looked at her entreatingly, anxious as he was to
+be spared such painful talk. "But haven't I sworn to you, that you are
+the only one I love?" he said. "Haven't I sworn that I would never marry
+her! It's all over. Don't let us torture ourselves any longer."
+
+Their glances met and lingered on one another, instinct with all the
+misery which they dared not express in words. Eve's face had suddenly
+aged; her eyelids were red and swollen, and blotches marbled her
+quivering cheeks, down which her tears again began to trickle. "My poor,
+poor Gerard," said she, "how heavily I weigh on you. Oh! do not deny it!
+I feel that I am an intolerable burden on your shoulders, an impediment
+in your life, and that I shall bring irreparable disaster on you by my
+obstinacy in wishing you to be mine alone."
+
+He tried to speak, but she silenced him. "No, no, all is over between us.
+I am growing ugly, all is ended. And besides, I shut off the future from
+you. I can be of no help to you, whereas you bestow all on me. And yet
+the time has come for you to assure yourself a position. At your age you
+can't continue living without any certainty of the morrow, without a home
+and hearth of your own; and it would be cowardly and cruel of me to set
+myself up as an obstacle, and prevent you from ending your life happily,
+as I should do if I clung to you and dragged you down with me."
+
+Gazing at him through her tears she continued speaking in this fashion.
+Like his mother she was well aware that he was weak and even sickly; and
+she therefore dreamt of arranging a quiet life for him, a life of
+tranquil happiness free from all fear of want. She loved him so fondly;
+and possessed so much genuine kindness of heart that perhaps it might be
+possible for her to rise even to renunciation and sacrifice. Moreover,
+the very egotism born of her beauty suggested that it might be well for
+her to think of retirement and not allow the autumn of her life to be
+spoilt by torturing dramas. All this she said to him, treating him like a
+child whose happiness she wished to ensure even at the price of her own;
+and he, his eyes again lowered, listened without further protest, pleased
+indeed to let her arrange a happy life for him.
+
+Examining the situation from every aspect, she at last began to
+recapitulate the points in favour of that abominable marriage, the
+thought of which had so intensely distressed her. "It is certain," she
+said, "that Camille would bring you all that I should like you to have.
+With her, I need hardly say it, would come plenty, affluence. And as for
+the rest, well, I do not wish to excuse myself or you, but I could name
+twenty households in which there have been worse things. Besides, I was
+wrong when I said that money opened a gap between people. On the
+contrary, it draws them nearer together, it secures forgiveness for every
+fault; so nobody would dare to blame you, there would only be jealous
+ones around you, dazzled by your good fortune."
+
+Gerard rose, apparently rebelling once more. "Surely," said he, "/you/
+don't insist on my marrying your daughter?"
+
+"Ah! no indeed! But I am sensible, and I tell you what I ought to tell
+you. You must think it all over."
+
+"I have done so already. It is you that I have loved, and that I love
+still. What you say is impossible."
+
+She smiled divinely, rose, and again embraced him. "How good and kind you
+are, my Gerard. Ah! if you only knew how I love you, how I shall always
+love you, whatever happens."
+
+Then she again began to weep, and even he shed tears. Their good faith
+was absolute; tender of heart as they were, they sought to delay the
+painful wrenching and tried to hope for further happiness. But they were
+conscious that the marriage was virtually an accomplished fact. Only
+tears and words were left them, while life and destiny were marching on.
+And if their emotion was so acute it was probably because they felt that
+this was the last time they would meet as lovers. Still they strove to
+retain the illusion that they were not exchanging their last farewell,
+that their lips would some day meet again in a kiss of rapture.
+
+Eve removed her arms from the young man's neck, and they both gazed round
+the room, at the sofa, the table, the four chairs, and the little hissing
+gas-stove. The moist, hot atmosphere was becoming quite oppressive.
+
+"And so," said Gerard, "you won't drink a cup of tea?"
+
+"No, it's so horrid here," she answered, while arranging her hair in
+front of the looking-glass.
+
+At that parting moment the mournfulness of this place, where she had
+hoped to find such delightful memories, filled her with distress, which
+was turning to positive anguish, when she suddenly heard an uproar of
+gruff voices and heavy feet. People were hastening along the passage and
+knocking at the doors. And, on darting to the window, she perceived a
+number of policemen surrounding the chalet. At this the wildest ideas
+assailed her. Had her daughter employed somebody to follow her? Did her
+husband wish to divorce her so as to marry Silviane? The scandal would be
+awful, and all her plans must crumble! She waited in dismay, white like a
+ghost; while Gerard, also paling and quivering, begged her to be calm. At
+last, when loud blows were dealt upon the door and a Commissary of Police
+enjoined them to open it, they were obliged to do so. Ah! what a moment,
+and what dismay and shame!
+
+Meantime, for more than an hour, Pierre and Guillaume had been waiting
+for the rain to cease. Seated in a corner of the glazed verandah they
+talked in undertones of Barthes' painful affair, and ultimately decided
+to ask Theophile Morin to dine with them on the following evening, and
+inform his old friend that he must again go into exile.
+
+"That is the best course," repeated Guillaume. "Morin is very fond of him
+and will know how to break the news. I have no doubt too that he will go
+with him as far as the frontier."
+
+Pierre sadly looked at the falling rain. "Ah! what a choice," said he,
+"to be ever driven to a foreign land under penalty of being thrust into
+prison. Poor fellow! how awful it is to have never known a moment of
+happiness and gaiety in one's life, to have devoted one's whole existence
+to the idea of liberty, and to see it scoffed at and expire with
+oneself!"
+
+Then the priest paused, for he saw several policemen and keepers approach
+the cafe and prowl round it. Having lost scent of the man they were
+hunting, they had retraced their steps with the conviction no doubt that
+he had sought refuge in the chalet. And in order that he might not again
+escape them, they now took every precaution, exerted all their skill in
+surrounding the place before venturing on a minute search. Covert fear
+came upon Pierre and Guillaume when they noticed these proceedings. It
+seemed to them that it must all be connected with the chase which they
+had caught a glimpse of some time previously. Still, as they happened to
+be in the chalet they might be called upon to give their names and
+addresses. At this thought they glanced at one another, and almost made
+up their minds to go off under the rain. But they realised that anything
+like flight might only compromise them the more. So they waited; and all
+at once there came a diversion, for two fresh customers entered the
+establishment.
+
+A victoria with its hood and apron raised had just drawn up outside the
+door. The first to alight from it was a young, well-dressed man with a
+bored expression of face. He was followed by a young woman who was
+laughing merrily, as if much amused by the persistence of the downpour.
+By way of jesting, indeed, she expressed her regret that she had not come
+to the Bois on her bicycle, whereupon her companion retorted that to
+drive about in a deluge appeared to him the height of idiocy.
+
+"But we were bound to go somewhere, my dear fellow," she gaily answered.
+"Why didn't you take me to see the maskers?"
+
+"The maskers, indeed! No, no, my dear. I prefer the Bois, and even the
+bottom of the lake, to them."
+
+Then, as the couple entered the chalet, Pierre saw that the young woman
+who made merry over the rain was little Princess Rosemonde, while her
+companion, who regarded the mid-Lent festivities as horrible, and
+bicycling as an utterly unaesthetic amusement, was handsome Hyacinthe
+Duvillard. On the previous evening, while they were taking a cup of tea
+together on their return from the Chamber of Horrors, the young man had
+responded to the Princess's blandishments by declaring that the only form
+of attachment he believed in was a mystic union of intellects and souls.
+And as such a union could only be fittingly arrived at amidst the cold,
+chaste snow, they had decided that they would start for Christiania on
+the following Monday. Their chief regret was that by the time they
+reached the fiords the worst part of the northern winter would be over.
+
+They sat down in the cafe and ordered some kummel, but there was none,
+said the waiter, so they had to content themselves with common anisette.
+Then Hyacinthe, who had been a schoolfellow of Guillaume's sons,
+recognised both him and Pierre; and leaning towards Rosemonde told her in
+a whisper who the elder brother was.
+
+Thereupon, with sudden enthusiasm, she sprang to her feet: "Guillaume
+Froment, indeed! the great chemist!" And stepping forward with arm
+outstretched, she continued: "Ah! monsieur, you must excuse me, but I
+really must shake hands with you. I have so much admiration for you! You
+have done such wonderful work in connection with explosives!" Then,
+noticing the chemist's astonishment, she again burst into a laugh: "I am
+the Princess de Harn, your brother Abbe Froment knows me, and I ought to
+have asked him to introduce me. However, we have mutual friends, you and
+I; for instance, Monsieur Janzen, a very distinguished man, as you are
+aware. He was to have taken me to see you, for I am a modest disciple of
+yours. Yes, I have given some attention to chemistry, oh! from pure zeal
+for truth and in the hope of helping good causes, not otherwise. So you
+will let me call on you--won't you?--directly I come back from
+Christiania, where I am going with my young friend here, just to acquire
+some experience of unknown emotions."
+
+In this way she rattled on, never allowing the others an opportunity to
+say a word. And she mingled one thing with another; her cosmopolitan
+tastes, which had thrown her into Anarchism and the society of shady
+adventurers; her new passion for mysticism and symbolism; her belief that
+the ideal must triumph over base materialism; her taste for aesthetic
+verse; and her dream of some unimagined rapture when Hyacinthe should
+kiss her with his frigid lips in a realm of eternal snow.
+
+All at once, however, she stopped short and again began to laugh. "Dear
+me!" she exclaimed. "What are those policemen looking for here? Have they
+come to arrest us? How amusing it would be!"
+
+Police Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir had just made up their
+minds to search the cafe, as their men had hitherto failed to find Salvat
+in any of the outbuildings. They were convinced that he was here. Dupot,
+a thin, bald, short-sighted, spectacled little man, wore his usual
+expression of boredom and weariness; but in reality he was very wide
+awake and extremely courageous. He himself carried no weapons; but, as he
+anticipated a most violent resistance, such as might be expected from a
+trapped wolf, he advised Mondesir to have his revolver ready. From
+considerations of hierarchical respect, however, the detective, who with
+his snub nose and massive figure had much the appearance of a bull-dog,
+was obliged to let his superior enter first.
+
+From behind his spectacles the Commissary of Police quickly scrutinized
+the four customers whom he found in the cafe: the lady, the priest, and
+the two other men. And passing them in a disdainful way, he at once made
+for the stairs, intending to inspect the upper floor. Thereupon the
+waiter, frightened by the sudden intrusion of the police, lost his head
+and stammered: "But there's a lady and gentleman upstairs in one of the
+private rooms."
+
+Dupot quietly pushed him aside. "A lady and gentleman, that's not what we
+are looking for. . . . Come, make haste, open all the doors, you mustn't
+leave a cupboard closed."
+
+Then climbing to the upper floor, he and Mondesir explored in turn every
+apartment and corner till they at last reached the room where Eve and
+Gerard were together. Here the waiter was unable to admit them, as the
+door was bolted inside. "Open the door!" he called through the keyhole,
+"it isn't you that they want!"
+
+At last the bolt was drawn back, and Dupot, without even venturing to
+smile, allowed the trembling lady and gentleman to go downstairs, while
+Mondesir, entering the room, looked under every article of furniture, and
+even peeped into a little cupboard in order that no neglect might be
+imputed to him.
+
+Meantime, in the public room which they had to cross after descending the
+stairs, Eve and Gerard experienced fresh emotion; for people whom they
+knew were there, brought together by an extraordinary freak of chance.
+Although Eve's face was hidden by a thick veil, her eyes met her son's
+glance and she felt sure that he recognised her. What a fatality! He had
+so long a tongue and told his sister everything! Then, as the Count, in
+despair at such a scandal, hurried off with the Baroness to conduct her
+through the pouring rain to her cab, they both distinctly heard little
+Princess Rosemonde exclaim: "Why, that was Count de Quinsac! Who was the
+lady, do you know?" And as Hyacinthe, greatly put out, returned no
+answer, she insisted, saying: "Come, you must surely know her. Who was
+she, eh?"
+
+"Oh! nobody. Some woman or other," he ended by replying.
+
+Pierre, who had understood the truth, turned his eyes away to hide his
+embarrassment. But all at once the scene changed. At the very moment when
+Commissary Dupot and detective Mondesir came downstairs again, after
+vainly exploring the upper floor, a loud shout was raised outside,
+followed by a noise of running and scrambling. Then Gascogne, the Chief
+of the Detective Force, who had remained in the rear of the chalet,
+continuing the search through the outbuildings, made his appearance,
+pushing before him a bundle of rags and mud, which two policemen held on
+either side. And this bundle was the man, the hunted man, who had just
+been discovered in the coach-house, inside a staved cask, covered with
+hay.
+
+Ah! what a whoop of victory there was after that run of two hours'
+duration, that frantic chase which had left them all breathless and
+footsore! It had been the most exciting, the most savage of all sports--a
+man hunt! They had caught the man at last, and they pushed him, they
+dragged him, they belaboured him with blows. And he, the man, what a
+sorry prey he looked! A wreck, wan and dirty from having spent the night
+in a hole full of leaves, still soaked to his waist from having rushed
+through a stream, drenched too by the rain, bespattered with mire, his
+coat and trousers in tatters, his cap a mere shred, his legs and hands
+bleeding from his terrible rush through thickets bristling with brambles
+and nettles. There no longer seemed anything human about his face; his
+hair stuck to his moist temples, his bloodshot eyes protruded from their
+sockets; fright, rage, and suffering were all blended on his wasted,
+contracted face. Still it was he, the man, the quarry, and they gave him
+another push, and he sank on one of the tables of the little cafe, still
+held and shaken, however, by the rough hands of the policemen.
+
+Then Guillaume shuddered as if thunderstruck, and caught hold of Pierre's
+hand. At this the priest, who was looking on, suddenly understood the
+truth and also quivered. Salvat! the man was Salvat! It was Salvat whom
+they had seen rushing through the wood like a wild boar forced by the
+hounds. And it was Salvat who was there, now conquered and simply a
+filthy bundle. Then once more there came to Pierre, amidst his anguish, a
+vision of the errand girl lying yonder at the entrance of the Duvillard
+mansion, the pretty fair-haired girl whom the bomb had ripped and killed!
+
+Dupot and Mondesir made haste to participate in Gascogne's triumph. To
+tell the truth, however, the man had offered no resistance; it was like a
+lamb that he had let the police lay hold of him. And since he had been in
+the cafe, still roughly handled, he had simply cast a weary and mournful
+glance around him.
+
+At last he spoke, and the first words uttered by his hoarse, gasping
+voice were these: "I am hungry."
+
+He was sinking with hunger and weariness. This was the third day that he
+had eaten nothing.
+
+"Give him some bread," said Commissary Dupot to the waiter. "He can eat
+it while a cab is being fetched."
+
+A policeman went off to find a vehicle. The rain had suddenly ceased
+falling, the clear ring of a bicyclist's bell was heard in the distance,
+some carriages drove by, and under the pale sunrays life again came back
+to the Bois.
+
+Meantime, Salvat had fallen gluttonously upon the hunk of bread which had
+been given him, and whilst he was devouring it with rapturous animal
+satisfaction, he perceived the four customers seated around. He seemed
+irritated by the sight of Hyacinthe and Rosemonde, whose faces expressed
+the mingled anxiety and delight they felt at thus witnessing the arrest
+of some bandit or other. But all at once his mournful, bloodshot eyes
+wavered, for to his intense surprise he had recognised Pierre and
+Guillaume. When he again looked at the latter it was with the submissive
+affection of a grateful dog, and as if he were once more promising that
+he would divulge nothing, whatever might happen.
+
+At last he again spoke, as if addressing himself like a man of courage,
+both to Guillaume, from whom he had averted his eyes, and to others also,
+his comrades who were not there: "It was silly of me to run," said he. "I
+don't know why I did so. It's best that it should be all ended. I'm
+ready."
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE GAME OF POLITICS
+
+ON reading the newspapers on the following morning Pierre and Guillaume
+were greatly surprised at not finding in them the sensational accounts of
+Salvat's arrest which they had expected. All they could discover was a
+brief paragraph in a column of general news, setting forth that some
+policemen on duty in the Bois de Boulogne had there arrested an
+Anarchist, who was believed to have played a part in certain recent
+occurrences. On the other hand, the papers gave a deal of space to the
+questions raised by Sagnier's fresh denunciations. There were innumerable
+articles on the African Railways scandal, and the great debate which
+might be expected at the Chamber of Deputies, should Mege, the Socialist
+member, really renew his interpellation, as he had announced his
+intention of doing.
+
+As Guillaume's wrist was now fast healing, and nothing seemed to threaten
+him, he had already, on the previous evening, decided that he would
+return to Montmartre. The police had passed him by without apparently
+suspecting any responsibility on his part; and he was convinced that
+Salvat would keep silent. Pierre, however, begged him to wait a little
+longer, at any rate until the prisoner should have been interrogated by
+the investigating magistrate, by which time they would be able to judge
+the situation more clearly. Pierre, moreover, during his long stay at the
+Home Department on the previous morning, had caught a glimpse of certain
+things and overheard certain words which made him suspect some dim
+connection between Salvat's crime and the parliamentary crisis; and he
+therefore desired a settlement of the latter before Guillaume returned to
+his wonted life.
+
+"Just listen," he said to his brother. "I am going to Morin's to ask him
+to come and dine here this evening, for it is absolutely necessary that
+Barthes should be warned of the fresh blow which is falling on him. And
+then I think I shall go to the Chamber, as I want to know what takes
+place there. After that, since you desire it, I will let you go back to
+your own home."
+
+It was not more than half-past one when Pierre reached the
+Palais-Bourbon. It had occurred to him that Fonsegue would be able to
+secure him admittance to the meeting-hall, but in the vestibule he met
+General de Bozonnet, who happened to possess a couple of tickets. A
+friend of his, who was to have accompanied him, had, at the last moment,
+been unable to come. So widespread was the curiosity concerning the
+debate now near at hand, and so general were the predictions that it
+would prove a most exciting one, that the demand for tickets had been
+extremely keen during the last twenty-four hours. In fact Pierre would
+never have been able to obtain admittance if the General had not
+good-naturedly offered to take him in. As a matter of fact the old
+warrior was well pleased to have somebody to chat with. He explained that
+he had simply come there to kill time, just as he might have killed it at
+a concert or a charity bazaar. However, like the ex-Legitimist and
+Bonapartist that he was, he had really come for the pleasure of feasting
+his eyes on the shameful spectacle of parliamentary ignominy.
+
+When the General and Pierre had climbed the stairs, they were able to
+secure two front seats in one of the public galleries. Little Massot, who
+was already there, and who knew them both, placed one of them on his
+right and the other on his left. "I couldn't find a decent seat left in
+the press gallery," said he, "but I managed to get this place, from which
+I shall be able to see things properly. It will certainly be a big
+sitting. Just look at the number of people there are on every side!"
+
+The narrow and badly arranged galleries were packed to overflowing. There
+were men of every age and a great many women too in the confused, serried
+mass of spectators, amidst which one only distinguished a multiplicity of
+pale white faces. The real scene, however, was down below in the
+meeting-hall, which was as yet empty, and with its rows of seats disposed
+in semi-circular fashion looked like the auditorium of a theatre. Under
+the cold light which fell from the glazed roofing appeared the solemn,
+shiny tribune, whence members address the Chamber, whilst behind it, on a
+higher level, and running right along the rear wall, was what is called
+the Bureau, with its various tables and seats, including the presidential
+armchair. The Bureau, like the tribune, was still unoccupied. The only
+persons one saw there were a couple of attendants who were laying out new
+pens and filling inkstands.
+
+"The women," said Massot with a laugh, after another glance at the
+galleries, "come here just as they might come to a menagerie, that is, in
+the secret hope of seeing wild beasts devour one another. But, by the
+way, did you read the article in the 'Voix du Peuple' this morning? What
+a wonderful fellow that Sagnier is. When nobody else can find any filth
+left, he manages to discover some. He apparently thinks it necessary to
+add something new every day, in order to send his sales up. And of course
+it all disturbs the public, and it's thanks to him that so many people
+have come here in the hope of witnessing some horrid scene."
+
+Then he laughed again, as he asked Pierre if he had read an unsigned
+article in the "Globe," which in very dignified but perfidious language
+had called upon Barroux to give the full and frank explanations which the
+country had a right to demand in that matter of the African Railways.
+This paper had hitherto vigorously supported the President of the
+Council, but in the article in question the coldness which precedes a
+rupture was very apparent. Pierre replied that the article had much
+surprised him, for he had imagined that Fonsegue and Barroux were linked
+together by identity of views and long-standing personal friendship.
+
+Massot was still laughing. "Quite so," said he. "And you may be sure that
+the governor's heart bled when he wrote that article. It has been much
+noticed, and it will do the government a deal of harm. But the governor,
+you see, knows better than anybody else what line he ought to follow to
+save both his own position and the paper's."
+
+Then he related what extraordinary confusion and emotion reigned among
+the deputies in the lobbies through which he had strolled before coming
+upstairs to secure a seat. After an adjournment of a couple of days the
+Chamber found itself confronted by this terrible scandal, which was like
+one of those conflagrations which, at the moment when they are supposed
+to be dying out, suddenly flare up again and devour everything. The
+various figures given in Sagnier's list, the two hundred thousand francs
+paid to Barroux, the eighty thousand handed to Monferrand, the fifty
+thousand allotted to Fonsegue, the ten thousand pocketed by Duthil, and
+the three thousand secured by Chaigneux, with all the other amounts
+distributed among So-and-so and So-and-so, formed the general subject of
+conversation. And at the same time some most extraordinary stories were
+current; there was no end of tittle-tattle in which fact and falsehood
+were so inextricably mingled that everybody was at sea as to the real
+truth. Whilst many deputies turned pale and trembled as beneath a blast
+of terror, others passed by purple with excitement, bursting with
+delight, laughing with exultation at the thought of coming victory. For,
+in point of fact, beneath all the assumed indignation, all the calls for
+parliamentary cleanliness and morality, there simply lay a question of
+persons--the question of ascertaining whether the government would be
+overthrown, and in that event of whom the new administration would
+consist. Barroux no doubt appeared to be in a bad way; but with things in
+such a muddle one was bound to allow a margin for the unexpected. From
+what was generally said it seemed certain that Mege would be extremely
+violent. Barroux would answer him, and the Minister's friends declared
+that he was determined to speak out in the most decisive manner. As for
+Monferrand he would probably address the Chamber after his colleague, but
+Vignon's intentions were somewhat doubtful, as, in spite of his delight,
+he made a pretence of remaining in the back, ground. He had been seen
+going from one to another of his partisans, advising them to keep calm,
+in order that they might retain the cold, keen /coup d'oeil/ which in
+warfare generally decides the victory. Briefly, such was the plotting and
+intriguing that never had any witch's cauldron brimful of drugs and
+nameless abominations been set to boil on a more hellish fire than that
+of this parliamentary cook-shop.
+
+"Heaven only knows what they will end by serving us," said little Massot
+by way of conclusion.
+
+General de Bozonnet for his part anticipated nothing but disaster. If
+France had only possessed an army, said he, one might have swept away
+that handful of bribe-taking parliamentarians who preyed upon the country
+and rotted it. But there was no army left, there was merely an armed
+nation, a very different thing. And thereupon, like a man of a past age
+whom the present times distracted, he started on what had been his
+favourite subject of complaint ever since he had been retired from the
+service.
+
+"Here's an idea for an article if you want one," he said to Massot.
+"Although France may have a million soldiers she hasn't got an army. I'll
+give you some notes of mine, and you will be able to tell people the
+truth."
+
+Warfare, he continued, ought to be purely and simply a caste occupation,
+with commanders designated by divine right, leading mercenaries or
+volunteers into action. By democratising warfare people had simply killed
+it; a circumstance which he deeply regretted, like a born soldier who
+regarded fighting as the only really noble occupation that life offered.
+For, as soon as it became every man's duty to fight, none was willing to
+do so; and thus compulsory military service--what was called "the nation
+in arms"--would, at a more or less distant date, certainly bring about
+the end of warfare. If France had not engaged in a European war since
+1870 this was precisely due to the fact that everybody in France was
+ready to fight. But rulers hesitated to throw a whole nation against
+another nation, for the loss both in life and treasure would be
+tremendous. And so the thought that all Europe was transformed into a
+vast camp filled the General with anger and disgust. He sighed for the
+old times when men fought for the pleasure of the thing, just as they
+hunted; whereas nowadays people were convinced that they would
+exterminate one another at the very first engagement.
+
+"But surely it wouldn't be an evil if war should disappear," Pierre
+gently remarked.
+
+This somewhat angered the General. "Well, you'll have pretty nations if
+people no longer fight," he answered, and then trying to show a practical
+spirit, he added: "Never has the art of war cost more money than since
+war itself has become an impossibility. The present-day defensive peace
+is purely and simply ruining every country in Europe. One may be spared
+defeat, but utter bankruptcy is certainly at the end of it all. And in
+any case the profession of arms is done for. All faith in it is dying
+out, and it will soon be forsaken, just as men have begun to forsake the
+priesthood."
+
+Thereupon he made a gesture of mingled grief and anger, almost cursing
+that parliament, that Republican legislature before him, as if he
+considered it responsible for the future extinction of warfare. But
+little Massot was wagging his head dubiously, for he regarded the subject
+as rather too serious a one for him to write upon. And, all at once, in
+order to turn the conversation into another channel, he exclaimed: "Ah!
+there's Monseigneur Martha in the diplomatic gallery beside the Spanish
+Ambassador. It's denied, you know, that he intends to come forward as a
+candidate in Morbihan. He's far too shrewd to wish to be a deputy. He
+already pulls the strings which set most of the Catholic deputies who
+have 'rallied' to the Republican Government in motion."
+
+Pierre himself had just noticed Monseigneur Martha's smiling face. And,
+somehow or other, however modest might be the prelate's demeanour, it
+seemed to him that he really played an important part in what was going
+on. He could hardly take his eyes from him. It was as if he expected that
+he would suddenly order men hither and thither, and direct the whole
+march of events.
+
+"Ah!" said Massot again. "Here comes Mege. It won't be long now before
+the sitting begins."
+
+The hall, down below, was gradually filling. Deputies entered and
+descended the narrow passages between the benches. Most of them remained
+standing and chatting in a more or less excited way; but some seated
+themselves and raised their grey, weary faces to the glazed roof. It was
+a cloudy afternoon, and rain was doubtless threatening, for the light
+became quite livid. If the hall was pompous it was also dismal with its
+heavy columns, its cold allegorical statues, and its stretches of bare
+marble and woodwork. The only brightness was that of the red velvet of
+the benches and the gallery hand-rests.
+
+Every deputy of any consequence who entered was named by Massot to his
+companions. Mege, on being stopped by another member of the little
+Socialist group, began to fume and gesticulate. Then Vignon, detaching
+himself from a group of friends and putting on an air of smiling
+composure, descended the steps towards his seat. The occupants of the
+galleries, however, gave most attention to the accused members, those
+whose names figured in Sagnier's list. And these were interesting
+studies. Some showed themselves quite sprightly, as if they were entirely
+at their ease; but others had assumed a most grave and indignant
+demeanour. Chaigneux staggered and hesitated as if beneath the weight of
+some frightful act of injustice; whereas Duthil looked perfectly serene
+save for an occasional twitch of his lips. The most admired, however, was
+Fonsegue, who showed so candid a face, so open a glance, that his
+colleagues as well as the spectators might well have declared him
+innocent. Nobody indeed could have looked more like an honest man.
+
+"Ah! there's none like the governor," muttered Massot with enthusiasm.
+"But be attentive, for here come the ministers. One mustn't miss Barroux'
+meeting with Fonsegue, after this morning's article."
+
+Chance willed it that as Barroux came along with his head erect, his face
+pale, and his whole demeanour aggressive, he was obliged to pass Fonsegue
+in order to reach the ministerial bench. In doing so he did not speak to
+him, but he gazed at him fixedly like one who is conscious of defection,
+of a cowardly stab in the back on the part of a traitor. Fonsegue seemed
+quite at ease, and went on shaking hands with one and another of his
+colleagues as if he were altogether unconscious of Barroux' glance. Nor
+did he even appear to see Monferrand, who walked by in the rear of the
+Prime Minister, wearing a placid good-natured air, as if he knew nothing
+of what was impending, but was simply coming to some ordinary humdrum
+sitting. However, when he reached his seat, he raised his eyes and smiled
+at Monseigneur Martha, who gently nodded to him. Then well pleased to
+think that things were going as he wished them to go, he began to rub his
+hands, as he often did by way of expressing his satisfaction.
+
+"Who is that grey-haired, mournful-looking gentleman on the ministerial
+bench?" Pierre inquired of Massot.
+
+"Why, that's Taboureau, the Minister of Public Instruction, the excellent
+gentleman who is said to have no prestige. One's always hearing of him,
+and one never recognises him; he looks like an old, badly worn coin. Just
+like Barroux he can't feel very well pleased with the governor this
+afternoon, for to-day's 'Globe' contained an article pointing out his
+thorough incapacity in everything concerning the fine arts. It was an
+article in measured language, but all the more effective for that very
+reason. It would surprise me if Taboureau should recover from it."
+
+Just then a low roll of drums announced the arrival of the President and
+other officials of the Chamber. A door opened, and a little procession
+passed by amidst an uproar of exclamations and hasty footsteps. Then,
+standing at his table, the President rang his bell and declared the
+sitting open. But few members remained silent, however, whilst one of the
+secretaries, a dark, lanky young man with a harsh voice, read the minutes
+of the previous sitting. When they had been adopted, various letters of
+apology for non-attendance were read, and a short, unimportant bill was
+passed without discussion. And then came the big affair, Mege's
+interpellation, and at once the whole Chamber was in a flutter, while the
+most passionate curiosity reigned in the galleries above. On the
+Government consenting to the interpellation, the Chamber decided that the
+debate should take place at once. And thereupon complete silence fell,
+save that now and again a brief quiver sped by, in which one could detect
+the various feelings, passions and appetites swaying the assembly.
+
+Mege began to speak with assumed moderation, carefully setting forth the
+various points at issue. Tall and thin, gnarled and twisted like a
+vine-stock, he rested his hands on the tribune as if to support his bent
+figure, and his speech was often interrupted by the little dry cough
+which came from the tuberculosis that was burning him. But his eyes
+sparkled with passion behind his glasses, and little by little his voice
+rose in piercing accents and he drew his lank figure erect and began to
+gesticulate vehemently. He reminded the Chamber that some two months
+previously, at the time of the first denunciations published by the "Voix
+du Peuple," he had asked leave to interpellate the Government respecting
+that deplorable affair of the African Railways; and he remarked, truly
+enough, that if the Chamber had not yielded to certain considerations
+which he did not wish to discuss, and had not adjourned his proposed
+inquiries, full light would long since have been thrown on the whole
+affair, in such wise that there would have been no revival, no increase
+of the scandal, and no possible pretext for that abominable campaign of
+denunciation which tortured and disgusted the country. However, it had at
+last been understood that silence could be maintained no longer. It was
+necessary that the two ministers who were so loudly accused of having
+abused their trusts, should prove their innocence, throw full light upon
+all they had done; apart from which the Chamber itself could not possibly
+remain beneath the charge of wholesale venality.
+
+Then he recounted the whole history of the affair, beginning with the
+grant of a concession for the African Lines to Baron Duvillard; and next
+passing to the proposals for the issue of lottery stock, which proposals,
+it was now said, had only been sanctioned by the Chamber after the most
+shameful bargaining and buying of votes. At this point Mege became
+extremely violent. Speaking of that mysterious individual Hunter, Baron
+Duvillard's recruiter and go-between, he declared that the police had
+allowed him to flee from France, much preferring to spend its time in
+shadowing Socialist deputies. Then, hammering the tribune with his fist,
+he summoned Barroux to give a categorical denial to the charges brought
+against him, and to make it absolutely clear that he had never received a
+single copper of the two hundred thousand francs specified in Hunter's
+list. Forthwith certain members shouted to Mege that he ought to read the
+whole list; but when he wished to do so others vociferated that it was
+abominable, that such a mendacious and slanderous document ought not to
+be accorded a place in the proceedings of the French legislature. Mege
+went on still in frantic fashion, figuratively casting Sagnier into the
+gutter, and protesting that there was nothing in common between himself
+and such a base insulter. But at the same time he demanded that justice
+and punishment should be meted out equally to one and all, and that if
+indeed there were any bribe-takers among his colleagues, they should be
+sent that very night to the prison of Mazas.
+
+Meantime the President, erect at his table, rang and rang his bell
+without managing to quell the uproar. He was like a pilot who finds the
+tempest too strong for him. Among all the men with purple faces and
+barking mouths who were gathered in front of him, the ushers alone
+maintained imperturbable gravity. At intervals between the bursts of
+shouting, Mege's voice could still be heard. By some sudden transition he
+had come to the question of a Collectivist organisation of society such
+as he dreamt of, and he contrasted it with the criminal capitalist
+society of the present day, which alone, said he, could produce such
+scandals. And yielding more and more to his apostolic fervour, declaring
+that there could be no salvation apart from Collectivism, he shouted that
+the day of triumph would soon dawn. He awaited it with a smile of
+confidence. In his opinion, indeed, he merely had to overthrow that
+ministry and perhaps another one, and then he himself would at last take
+the reins of power in hand, like a reformer who would know how to pacify
+the nation. As outside Socialists often declared, it was evident that the
+blood of a dictator flowed in that sectarian's veins. His feverish,
+stubborn rhetoric ended by exhausting his interrupters, who were
+compelled to listen to him. When he at last decided to leave the tribune,
+loud applause arose from a few benches on the left.
+
+"Do you know," said Massot to the General, "I met Mege taking a walk with
+his three little children in the Jardin des Plantes the other day. He
+looked after them as carefully as an old nurse. I believe he's a very
+worthy fellow at heart, and lives in a very modest way."
+
+But a quiver had now sped through the assembly. Barroux had quitted his
+seat to ascend the tribune. He there drew himself erect, throwing his
+head back after his usual fashion. There was a haughty, majestic,
+slightly sorrowful expression on his handsome face, which would have been
+perfect had his nose only been a little larger. He began to express his
+sorrow and indignation in fine flowery language, which he punctuated with
+theatrical gestures. His eloquence was that of a tribune of the romantic
+school, and as one listened to him one could divine that in spite of all
+his pomposity he was really a worthy, tender-hearted and somewhat foolish
+man. That afternoon he was stirred by genuine emotion; his heart bled at
+the thought of his disastrous destiny, he felt that a whole world was
+crumbling with himself. Ah! what a cry of despair he stifled, the cry of
+the man who is buffeted and thrown aside by the course of events on the
+very day when he thinks that his civic devotion entitles him to triumph!
+To have given himself and all he possessed to the cause of the Republic,
+even in the dark days of the Second Empire; to have fought and struggled
+and suffered persecution for that Republic's sake; to have established
+that Republic amidst the battle of parties, after all the horrors of
+national and civil war; and then, when the Republic at last triumphed and
+became a living fact, secure from all attacks and intrigues, to suddenly
+feel like a survival of some other age, to hear new comers speak a new
+language, preach a new ideal, and behold the collapse of all he had
+loved, all he had reverenced, all that had given him strength to fight
+and conquer! The mighty artisans of the early hours were no more; it had
+been meet that Gambetta should die. How bitter it all was for the last
+lingering old ones to find themselves among the men of the new,
+intelligent and shrewd generation, who gently smiled at them, deeming
+their romanticism quite out of fashion! All crumbled since the ideal of
+liberty collapsed, since liberty was no longer the one desideratum, the
+very basis of the Republic whose existence had been so dearly purchased
+after so long an effort!
+
+Erect and dignified Barroux made his confession. The Republic to him was
+like the sacred ark of life; the very worst deeds became saintly if they
+were employed to save her from peril. And in all simplicity he, told his
+story, how he had found the great bulk of Baron Duvillard's money going
+to the opposition newspapers as pretended payment for puffery and
+advertising, whilst on the other hand the Republican organs received but
+beggarly, trumpery amounts. He had been Minister of the Interior at the
+time, and had therefore had charge of the press; so what would have been
+said of him if he had not endeavoured to reestablish some equilibrium in
+this distribution of funds in order that the adversaries of the
+institutions of the country might not acquire a great increase of
+strength by appropriating all the sinews of war? Hands had been stretched
+out towards him on all sides, a score of newspapers, the most faithful,
+the most meritorious, had claimed their legitimate share. And he had
+ensured them that share by distributing among them the two hundred
+thousand francs set down in the list against his name. Not a centime of
+the money had gone into his own pocket, he would allow nobody to impugn
+his personal honesty, on that point his word must suffice. At that moment
+Barroux was really grand. All his emphatic pomposity disappeared; he
+showed himself, as he really was--an honest man, quivering, his heart
+bared, his conscience bleeding, in his bitter distress at having been
+among those who had laboured and at now being denied reward.
+
+For, truth to tell, his words fell amidst icy silence. In his childish
+simplicity he had anticipated an outburst of enthusiasm; a Republican
+Chamber could but acclaim him for having saved the Republic; and now the
+frigidity of one and all quite froze him. He suddenly felt that he was
+all alone, done for, touched by the hand of death. Nevertheless, he
+continued speaking amidst that terrible silence with the courage of one
+who is committing suicide, and who, from his love of noble and eloquent
+attitudes, is determined to die standing. He ended with a final
+impressive gesture. However, as he came down from the tribune, the
+general coldness seemed to increase, not a single member applauded. With
+supreme clumsiness he had alluded to the secret scheming of Rome and the
+clergy, whose one object, in his opinion, was to recover the predominant
+position they had lost and restore monarchy in France at a more or less
+distant date.
+
+"How silly of him! Ought a man ever to confess?" muttered Massot. "He's
+done for, and the ministry too!"
+
+Then, amidst the general frigidity, Monferrand boldly ascended the
+tribune stairs. The prevailing uneasiness was compounded of all the
+secret fear which sincerity always causes, of all the distress of the
+bribe-taking deputies who felt that they were rolling into an abyss, and
+also of the embarrassment which the others felt at thought of the more or
+less justifiable compromises of politics. Something like relief,
+therefore, came when Monferrand started with the most emphatic denials,
+protesting in the name of his outraged honour, and dealing blow after
+blow on the tribune with one hand, while with the other he smote his
+chest. Short and thick-set, with his face thrust forward, hiding his
+shrewdness beneath an expression of indignant frankness, he was for a
+moment really superb. He denied everything. He was not only ignorant of
+what was meant by that sum of eighty thousand francs set down against his
+name, but he defied the whole world to prove that he had even touched a
+single copper of that money. He boiled over with indignation to such a
+point that he did not simply deny bribe-taking on his own part, he denied
+it on behalf of the whole assembly, of all present and past French
+legislatures, as if, indeed, bribe-taking on the part of a representative
+of the people was altogether too monstrous an idea, a crime that
+surpassed possibility to such an extent that the mere notion of it was
+absurd. And thereupon applause rang out; the Chamber, delivered from its
+fears, thrilled by his words, acclaimed him.
+
+From the little Socialist group, however, some jeers arose, and voices
+summoned Monferrand to explain himself on the subject of the African
+Railways, reminding him that he had been at the head of the Public Works
+Department at the time of the vote, and requiring of him that he should
+state what he now meant to do, as Minister of the Interior, in order to
+reassure the country. He juggled with this question, declaring that if
+there were any guilty parties they would be punished, for he did not
+require anybody to remind him of his duty. And then, all at once, with
+incomparable maestria, he had recourse to the diversion which he had been
+preparing since the previous day. His duty, said he, was a thing which he
+never forgot; he discharged it like a faithful soldier of the nation hour
+by hour, and with as much vigilance as prudence. He had been accused of
+employing the police on he knew not what base spying work in such wise as
+to allow the man Hunter to escape. Well, as for that much-slandered
+police force, he would tell the Chamber on what work he had really
+employed it the day before, and how zealously it had laboured for the
+cause of law and order. In the Bois de Boulogne, on the previous
+afternoon, it had arrested that terrible scoundrel, the perpetrator of
+the crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, that Anarchist mechanician Salvat,
+who for six weeks past had so cunningly contrived to elude capture. The
+scoundrel had made a full confession during the evening, and the law
+would now take its course with all despatch. Public morality was at last
+avenged, Paris might now emerge in safety from its long spell of terror,
+Anarchism would be struck down, annihilated. And that was what he,
+Monferrand, had done as a Minister for the honour and safety of his
+country, whilst villains were vainly seeking to dishonour him by
+inscribing his name on a list of infamy, the outcome of the very basest
+political intrigues.
+
+The Chamber listened agape and quivering. This story of Salvat's arrest,
+which none of the morning papers had reported; the present which
+Monferrand seemed to be making them of that terrible Anarchist whom many
+had already begun to regard as a myth; the whole /mise-en-scene/ of the
+Minister's speech transported the deputies as if they were suddenly
+witnessing the finish of a long-interrupted drama. Stirred and flattered,
+they prolonged their applause, while Monferrand went on celebrating his
+act of energy, how he had saved society, how crime should be punished,
+and how he himself would ever prove that he had a strong arm and could
+answer for public order. He even won favour with the Conservatives and
+Clericals on the Right by separating himself from Barroux, addressing a
+few words of sympathy to those Catholics who had "rallied" to the
+Republic, and appealing for concord among men of different beliefs in
+order that they might fight the common enemy, that fierce, wild socialism
+which talked of overthrowing everything!
+
+By the time Monferrand came down from the tribune, the trick was played,
+he had virtually saved himself. Both the Right and Left of the Chamber*
+applauded, drowning the protests of the few Socialists whose
+vociferations only added to the triumphal tumult. Members eagerly
+stretched out their hands to the Minister, who for a moment remained
+standing there and smiling. But there was some anxiety in that smile of
+his; his success was beginning to frighten him. Had he spoken too well,
+and saved the entire Cabinet instead of merely saving himself? That would
+mean the ruin of his plan. The Chamber ought not to vote under the effect
+of that speech which had thrilled it so powerfully. Thus Monferrand,
+though he still continued to smile, spent a few anxious moments in
+waiting to see if anybody would rise to answer him.
+
+  * Ever since the days of the Bourbon Restoration it has been
+    the practice in the French Chambers for the more conservative
+    members to seat themselves on the President's right, and for
+    the Radical ones to place themselves on his left. The central
+    seats of the semicircle in which the members' seats are
+    arranged in tiers are usually occupied by men of moderate views.
+    Generally speaking, such terms as Right Centre and Left Centre
+    are applied to groups of Moderates inclining in the first place
+    to Conservatism and in the latter to Radicalism. All this is of
+    course known to readers acquainted with French institutions, but
+    I give the explanation because others, after perusing French
+    news in some daily paper, have often asked me what was meant by
+    "a deputy of the Right," and so forth.--Trans.
+
+His success had been as great among the occupants of the galleries as
+among the deputies themselves. Several ladies had been seen applauding,
+and Monseigneur Martha had given unmistakable signs of the liveliest
+satisfaction. "Ah, General!" said Massot to Bozonnet in a sneering way.
+"Those are our fighting men of the present time. And he's a bold and
+strong one, is Monferrand. Of course it is all what people style 'saving
+one's bacon,' but none the less it's very clever work."
+
+Just then, however, Monferrand to his great satisfaction had seen Vignon
+rise from his seat in response to the urging of his friends. And
+thereupon all anxiety vanished from the Minister's smile, which became
+one of malicious placidity.
+
+The very atmosphere of the Chamber seemed to change with Vignon in the
+tribune. He was slim, with a fair and carefully tended beard, blue eyes
+and all the suppleness of youth. He spoke, moreover, like a practical
+man, in simple, straightforward language, which made the emptiness of the
+other's declamatory style painfully conspicuous. His term of official
+service as a prefect in the provinces had endowed him with keen insight;
+and it was in an easy way that he propounded and unravelled the most
+intricate questions. Active and courageous, confident in his own star,
+too young and too shrewd to have compromised himself in anything so far,
+he was steadily marching towards the future. He had already drawn up a
+rather more advanced political programme than that of Barroux and
+Monferrand, so that when opportunity offered there might be good reasons
+for him to take their place. Moreover, he was quite capable of carrying
+out his programme by attempting some of the long-promised reforms for
+which the country was waiting. He had guessed that honesty, when it had
+prudence and shrewdness as its allies, must some day secure an innings.
+In a clear voice, and in a very quiet, deliberate way, he now said what
+it was right to say on the subject under discussion, the things that
+common sense dictated and that the Chamber itself secretly desired should
+be said. He was certainly the first to rejoice over an arrest which would
+reassure the country; but he failed to understand what connection there
+could be between that arrest and the sad business that had been brought
+before the Chamber. The two affairs were quite distinct and different,
+and he begged his colleagues not to vote in the state of excitement in
+which he saw them. Full light must be thrown on the African Railways
+question, and this, one could not expect from the two incriminated
+ministers. However, he was opposed to any suggestion of a committee of
+inquiry. In his opinion the guilty parties, if such there were, ought to
+be brought immediately before a court of law. And, like Barroux, he wound
+up with a discreet allusion to the growing influence of the clergy,
+declaring that he was against all unworthy compromises, and was equally
+opposed to any state dictatorship and any revival of the ancient
+theocratic spirit.
+
+Although there was but little applause when Vignon returned to his seat,
+it was evident that the Chamber was again master of its emotions. And the
+situation seemed so clear, and the overthrow of the ministry so certain,
+that Mege, who had meant to reply to the others, wisely abstained from
+doing so. Meantime people noticed the placid demeanour of Monferrand, who
+had listened to Vignon with the utmost complacency, as if he were
+rendering homage to an adversary's talent; whereas Barroux, ever since
+the cold silence which had greeted his speech, had remained motionless in
+his seat, bowed down and pale as a corpse.
+
+"Well, it's all over," resumed Massot, amidst the hubbub which arose as
+the deputies prepared to vote; "the ministry's done for. Little Vignon
+will go a long way, you know. People say that he dreams of the Elysee. At
+all events everything points to him as our next prime minister."
+
+Then, as the journalist rose, intending to go off, the General detained
+him: "Wait a moment, Monsieur Massot," said he. "How disgusting all that
+parliamentary cooking is! You ought to point it out in an article, and
+show people how the country is gradually being weakened and rotted to the
+marrow by all such useless and degrading discussions. Why, a great battle
+resulting in the loss of 50,000 men would exhaust us less than ten years
+of this abominable parliamentary system. You must call on me some
+morning. I will show you a scheme of military reform, in which I point
+out the necessity of returning to the limited professional armies which
+we used to have, for this present-day national army, as folks call it,
+which is a semi-civilian affair and at best a mere herd of men, is like a
+dead weight on us, and is bound to pull us down!"
+
+Pierre, for his part, had not spoken a word since the beginning of the
+debate. He had listened to everything, at first influenced by the thought
+of his brother's interests, and afterwards mastered by the feverishness
+which gradually took possession of everybody present. He had become
+convinced that there was nothing more for Guillaume to fear; but how
+curiously did one event fit into another, and how loudly had Salvat's
+arrest re-echoed in the Chamber! Looking down into the seething hall
+below him, he had detected all the clash of rival passions and interests.
+After watching the great struggle between Barroux, Monferrand and Vignon,
+he had gazed upon the childish delight of that terrible Socialist Mege,
+who was so pleased at having been able to stir up the depths of those
+troubled waters, in which he always unwittingly angled for the benefit of
+others. Then, too, Pierre had become interested in Fonsegue, who, knowing
+what had been arranged between Monferrand, Duvillard and himself, evinced
+perfect calmness and strove to reassure Duthil and Chaigneux, who, on
+their side, were quite dismayed by the ministry's impending fall. Yet,
+Pierre's eyes always came back to Monseigneur Martha. He had watched his
+serene smiling face throughout the sitting, striving to detect his
+impressions of the various incidents that had occurred, as if in his
+opinion that dramatic parliamentary comedy had only been played as a step
+towards the more or less distant triumph for which the prelate laboured.
+And now, while awaiting the result of the vote, as Pierre turned towards
+Massot and the General, he found that they were talking of nothing but
+recruiting and tactics and the necessity of a bath of blood for the whole
+of Europe. Ah! poor mankind, ever fighting and ever devouring one another
+in parliaments as well as on battle-fields, when, thought Pierre, would
+it decide to disarm once and for all, and live at peace according to the
+laws of justice and reason!
+
+Then he again looked down into the hall, where the greatest confusion was
+prevailing among the deputies with regard to the coming vote. There was
+quite a rainfall of suggested "resolutions," from a very violent one
+proposed by Mege, to another, which was merely severe, emanating from
+Vignon. The ministry, however, would only accept the "Order of the day
+pure and simple," a mere decision, that is, to pass to the next business,
+as if Mege's interpellation had been unworthy of attention. And presently
+the Government was defeated, Vignon's resolution being adopted by a
+majority of twenty-five. Some portion of the Left had evidently joined
+hands with the Right and the Socialist group. A prolonged hubbub followed
+this result.
+
+"Well, so we are to have a Vignon Cabinet," said Massot, as he went off
+with Pierre and the General. "All the same, though, Monferrand has saved
+himself, and if I were in Vignon's place I should distrust him."
+
+That evening there was a very touching farewell scene at the little house
+at Neuilly. When Pierre returned thither from the Chamber, saddened but
+reassured with regard to the future, Guillaume at once made up his mind
+to go home on the morrow. And as Nicholas Barthes was compelled to leave,
+the little dwelling seemed on the point of relapsing into dreary quietude
+once more.
+
+Theophile Morin, whom Pierre had informed of the painful alternative in
+which Barthes was placed, duly came to dinner; but he did not have time
+to speak to the old man before they all sat down to table at seven
+o'clock. As usual Barthes had spent his day in marching, like a caged
+lion, up and down the room in which he had accepted shelter after the
+fashion of a big fearless child, who never worried with regard either to
+his present circumstances or the troubles which the future might have in
+store for him. His life had ever been one of unlimited hope, which
+reality had ever shattered. Although all that he had loved, all that he
+had hoped to secure by fifty years of imprisonment or exile,--liberty,
+equality and a real brotherly republic,--had hitherto failed to come,
+such as he had dreamt of them, he nevertheless retained the candid faith
+of his youth, and was ever confident in the near future. He would smile
+indulgently when new comers, men of violent ideas, derided him and called
+him a poor old fellow. For his part, he could make neither head nor tail
+of the many new sects. He simply felt indignant with their lack of human
+feeling, and stubbornly adhered to his own idea of basing the world's
+regeneration on the simple proposition that men were naturally good and
+ought to be free and brotherly.
+
+That evening at dinner, feeling that he was with friends who cared for
+him, Barthes proved extremely gay, and showed all his ingenuousness in
+talking of his ideal, which would soon be realised, said he, in spite of
+everything. He could tell a story well whenever he cared to chat, and on
+that occasion he related some delightful anecdotes about the prisons
+through which he had passed. He knew all the dungeons, Ste. Pelagie and
+Mont St. Michel, Belle-Ile-en-Mer and Clairvaux, to say nothing of
+temporary gaols and the evil-smelling hulks on board which political
+prisoners are often confined. And he still laughed at certain
+recollections, and related how in the direst circumstances he had always
+been able to seek refuge in his conscience. The others listened to him
+quite charmed by his conversation, but full of anguish at the thought
+that this perpetual prisoner or exile must again rise and take his staff
+to sally forth, driven from his native land once more.
+
+Pierre did not speak out until they were partaking of dessert. Then he
+related how the Minister had written to him, and how in a brief interview
+he had stated that Barthes must cross the frontier within forty-eight
+hours if he did not wish to be arrested. Thereupon the old man gravely
+rose, with his white fleece, his eagle beak and his bright eyes still
+sparkling with the fire of youth. And he wished to go off at once.
+"What!" said he, "you have known all this since yesterday, and have still
+kept me here at the risk of my compromising you even more than I had done
+already! You must forgive me, I did not think of the worry I might cause
+you, I thought that everything would be satisfactorily arranged. I must
+thank you both--yourself and Guillaume--for the few days of quietude that
+you have procured to an old vagabond and madman like myself."
+
+Then, as they tried to prevail on him to remain until the following
+morning, he would not listen to them. There would be a train for Brussels
+about midnight, and he had ample time to take it. He refused to let Morin
+accompany him. No, no, said he, Morin was not a rich man, and moreover he
+had work to attend to. Why should he take him away from his duties, when
+it was so easy, so simple, for him to go off alone? He was going back
+into exile as into misery and grief which he had long known, like some
+Wandering Jew of Liberty, ever driven onward through the world.
+
+When he took leave of the others at ten o'clock, in the little sleepy
+street just outside the house, tears suddenly dimmed his eyes. "Ah! I'm
+no longer a young man," he said; "it's all over this time. I shall never
+come back again. My bones will rest in some corner over yonder." And yet,
+after he had affectionately embraced Pierre and Guillaume, he drew
+himself up like one who remained unconquered, and he raised a supreme cry
+of hope. "But after all, who knows? Triumph may perhaps come to-morrow.
+The future belongs to those who prepare it and wait for it!"
+
+Then he walked away, and long after he had disappeared his firm, sonorous
+footsteps could be heard re-echoing in the quiet night.
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+
+                                BY
+
+                            EMILE ZOLA
+
+
+
+                TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                              BOOK IV
+
+
+
+I
+
+PIERRE AND MARIE
+
+ON the mild March morning when Pierre left his little house at Neuilly to
+accompany Guillaume to Montmartre, he was oppressed by the thought that
+on returning home he would once more find himself alone with nothing to
+prevent him from relapsing into negation and despair. The idea of this
+had kept him from sleeping, and he still found it difficult to hide his
+distress and force a smile.
+
+The sky was so clear and the atmosphere so mild that the brothers had
+resolved to go to Montmartre on foot by way of the outer boulevards. Nine
+o'clock was striking when they set out. Guillaume for his part was very
+gay at the thought of the surprise he would give his family. It was as if
+he were suddenly coming back from a long journey. He had not warned them
+of his intentions; he had merely written to them now and again to tell
+them that he was recovering, and they certainly had no idea that his
+return was so near at hand.
+
+When Guillaume and Pierre had climbed the sunlit slopes of Montmartre,
+and crossed the quiet countrified Place du Tertre, the former, by means
+of a latch-key, quietly opened the door of his house, which seemed to be
+asleep, so profound was the stillness both around and within it. Pierre
+found it the same as on the occasion of his previous and only visit.
+First came the narrow passage which ran through the ground-floor,
+affording a view of all Paris at the further end. Next there was the
+garden, reduced to a couple of plum-trees and a clump of lilac-bushes,
+the leaves of which had now sprouted. And this time the priest perceived
+three bicycles leaning against the trees. Beyond them stood the large
+work-shop, so gay, and yet so peaceful, with its huge window overlooking
+a sea of roofs.
+
+Guillaume had reached the work-shop without meeting anybody. With an
+expression of much amusement he raised a finger to his lips. "Attention,
+Pierre," he whispered; "you'll just see!"
+
+Then having noiselessly opened the door, they remained for a moment on
+the threshold.
+
+The three sons alone were there. Near his forge stood Thomas working a
+boring machine, with which he was making some holes in a small brass
+plate. Then Francois and Antoine were seated on either side of their
+large table, the former reading, and the latter finishing a block. The
+bright sunshine streamed in, playing over all the seeming disorder of the
+room, where so many callings and so many implements found place. A large
+bunch of wallflowers bloomed on the women's work-table near the window;
+and absorbed as the young men were in their respective tasks the only
+sound was the slight hissing of the boring machine each time that the
+eldest of them drilled another hole.
+
+However, although Guillaume did not stir, there suddenly came a quiver,
+an awakening. His sons seemed to guess his presence, for they raised
+their heads, each at the same moment. From each, too, came the same cry,
+and a common impulse brought them first to their feet and then to his
+arms.
+
+"Father!"
+
+Guillaume embraced them, feeling very happy. And that was all; there was
+no long spell of emotion, no useless talk. It was as if he had merely
+gone out the day before and, delayed by business, had now come back.
+Still, he looked at them with his kindly smile, and they likewise smiled
+with their eyes fixed on his. Those glances proclaimed everything, the
+closest affection and complete self-bestowal for ever.
+
+"Come in, Pierre," called Guillaume; "shake hands with these young men."
+
+The priest had remained near the door, overcome by a singular feeling of
+discomfort. When his nephews had vigorously shaken hands with him, he sat
+down near the window apart from them, as if he felt out of his element
+there.
+
+"Well, youngsters," said Guillaume, "where's Mere-Grand, and where's
+Marie?"
+
+Their grandmother was upstairs in her room, they said; and Marie had
+taken it into her head to go marketing. This, by the way, was one of her
+delights. She asserted that she was the only one who knew how to buy
+new-laid eggs and butter of a nutty odour. Moreover, she sometimes
+brought some dainty or some flowers home, in her delight at proving
+herself to be so good a housewife.
+
+"And so things are going on well?" resumed Guillaume. "You are all
+satisfied, your work is progressing, eh?"
+
+He addressed brief questions to each of them, like one who, on his return
+home, at once reverts to his usual habits. Thomas, with his rough face
+beaming, explained in a couple of sentences that he was now sure of
+perfecting his little motor; Francois, who was still preparing for his
+examination, jestingly declared that he yet had to lodge a heap of
+learning in his brain; and then Antoine produced the block which he was
+finishing, and which depicted his little friend Lise, Jahan's sister,
+reading in her garden amidst the sunshine. It was like a florescence of
+that dear belated creature whose mind had been awakened by his affection.
+
+However, the three brothers speedily went back to their places, reverting
+to their work with a natural impulse, for discipline had made them regard
+work as life itself. Then Guillaume, who had glanced at what each was
+doing, exclaimed: "Ah! youngsters, I schemed and prepared a lot of things
+myself while I was laid up. I even made a good many notes. We walked here
+from Neuilly, but my papers and the clothes which Mere-Grand sent me will
+come in a cab by-and-by. . . . Ah! how pleased I am to find everything in
+order here, and to be able to take up my task with you again! Ah! I shall
+polish off some work now, and no mistake!"
+
+He had already gone to his own corner, the space reserved for him between
+the window and the forge. He there had a chemical furnace, several glass
+cases and shelves crowded with appliances, and a long table, one end of
+which he used for writing purposes. And he once more took possession of
+that little world. After glancing around with delight at seeing
+everything in its place, he began to handle one object and another, eager
+to be at work like his sons.
+
+All at once, however, Mere-Grand appeared, calm, grave and erect in her
+black gown, at the top of the little staircase which conducted to the
+bedrooms. "So it's you, Guillaume?" said she. "Will you come up for a
+moment?"
+
+He immediately did so, understanding that she wished to speak to him
+alone and tranquillise him. It was a question of the great secret between
+them, that one thing of which his sons knew nothing, and which, after
+Salvat's crime, had brought him much anguish, through his fear that it
+might be divulged. When he reached Mere-Grand's room she at once took him
+to the hiding-place near her bed, and showed him the cartridges of the
+new explosive, and the plans of the terrible engine of warfare which he
+had invented. He found them all as he had left them. Before anyone could
+have reached them, she would have blown up the whole place at the risk of
+perishing herself in the explosion. With her wonted air of quiet heroism,
+she handed Guillaume the key which he had sent her by Pierre.
+
+"You were not anxious, I hope?" she said.
+
+He pressed her hands with a commingling of affection and respect. "My
+only anxiety," he replied, "was that the police might come here and treat
+you roughly. . . . You are the guardian of our secret, and it would be
+for you to finish my work should I disappear."
+
+While Guillaume and Madame Leroi were thus engaged upstairs, Pierre,
+still seated near the window below, felt his discomfort increasing. The
+inmates of the house certainly regarded him with no other feeling than
+one of affectionate sympathy; and so how came it that he considered them
+hostile? The truth was that he asked himself what would become of him
+among those workers, who were upheld by a faith of their own, whereas he
+believed in nothing, and did not work. The sight of those young men, so
+gaily and zealously toiling, ended by quite irritating him; and the
+arrival of Marie brought his distress to a climax.
+
+Joyous and full of life, she came in without seeing him, a basket on her
+arm. And she seemed to bring all the sunlight of the spring morning with
+her, so bright was the sparkle of her youth. The whole of her pink face,
+her delicate nose, her broad intelligent brow, her thick, kindly lips,
+beamed beneath the heavy coils of her black hair. And her brown eyes ever
+laughed with the joyousness which comes from health and strength.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I have brought such a lot of things, youngsters.
+Just come and see them; I wouldn't unpack the basket in the kitchen."
+
+It became absolutely necessary for the brothers to draw round the basket
+which she had laid upon the table. "First there's the butter!" said she;
+"just smell if it hasn't a nice scent of nuts! It's churned especially
+for me, you know. Then here are the eggs. They were laid only yesterday,
+I'll answer for it. And, in fact, that one there is this morning's. And
+look at the cutlets! They're wonderful, aren't they? The butcher cuts
+them carefully when he sees me. And then here's a cream cheese, real
+cream, you know, it will be delicious! Ah! and here's the surprise,
+something dainty, some radishes, some pretty little pink radishes. Just
+fancy! radishes in March, what a luxury!"
+
+She triumphed like the good little housewife she was, one who had
+followed a whole course of cookery and home duties at the Lycee Fenelon.
+The brothers, as merry as she herself, were obliged to compliment her.
+
+All at once, however, she caught sight of Pierre. "What! you are there,
+Monsieur l'Abbe?" she exclaimed; "I beg your pardon, but I didn't see
+you. How is Guillaume? Have you brought us some news of him?"
+
+"But father's come home," said Thomas; "he's upstairs with Mere-Grand."
+
+Quite thunderstruck, she hastily placed her purchases in the basket.
+"Guillaume's come back, Guillaume's come back!" said she, "and you don't
+tell me of it, you let me unpack everything! Well, it's nice of me, I
+must say, to go on praising my butter and eggs when Guillaume's come
+back."
+
+Guillaume, as it happened, was just coming down with Madame Leroi. Marie
+gaily hastened to him and offered him her cheeks, on which he planted two
+resounding kisses. Then she, resting her hands on his shoulders, gave him
+a long look, while saying in a somewhat tremulous voice: "I am pleased,
+very pleased to see you, Guillaume. I may confess it now, I thought I had
+lost you, I was very anxious and very unhappy."
+
+Although she was still smiling, tears had gathered in her eyes, and he,
+likewise moved, again kissed her, murmuring: "Dear Marie! How happy it
+makes me to find you as beautiful and as affectionate as ever."
+
+Pierre, who was looking at them, deemed them cold. He had doubtless
+expected more tears, and a more passionate embrace on the part of an
+affianced pair, whom so grievous an accident had separated almost on the
+eve of their wedding. Moreover, his feelings were hurt by the
+disproportion of their respective ages. No doubt his brother still seemed
+to him very sturdy and young, and his feeling of repulsion must have come
+from that young woman whom, most decidedly, he did not like. Ever since
+her arrival he had experienced increasing discomfort, a keener and keener
+desire to go off and never return.
+
+So acute became his suffering at feeling like a stranger in his brother's
+home, that he at last rose and sought to take his leave, under the
+pretext that he had some urgent matters to attend to in town.
+
+"What! you won't stay to /dejeuner/ with us!" exclaimed Guillaume in
+perfect stupefaction. "Why, it was agreed! You surely won't distress me
+like that! This house is your own, remember!"
+
+Then, as with genuine affection they all protested and pressed him to
+stay, he was obliged to do so. However, he soon relapsed into silence and
+embarrassment, seated on the same chair as before, and listening moodily
+to those people who, although they were his relatives, seemed to be far
+removed from him.
+
+As it was barely eleven o'clock they resumed work, but every now and
+again there was some merry talk. On one of the servants coming for the
+provisions, Marie told the girl to call her as soon as it should be time
+to boil the eggs, for she prided herself on boiling them to a nicety, in
+such wise as to leave the whites like creamy milk. This gave an
+opportunity for a few jests from Francois, who occasionally teased her
+about all the fine things she had learnt at the Lycee Fenelon, where her
+father had placed her when she was twelve years old. However, she was not
+afraid of him, but gave him tit for tat by chaffing him about all the
+hours which he lost at the Ecole Normale over a mass of pedagogic trash.
+
+"Ah! you big children!" she exclaimed, while still working at her
+embroidery. "You are all very intelligent, and you all claim to have
+broad minds, and yet--confess it now--it worries you a little that a girl
+like me should have studied at college in the same way as yourselves.
+It's a sexual quarrel, a question of rivalry and competition, isn't it?"
+
+They protested the contrary, declaring that they were in favour of girls
+receiving as complete an education as possible. She was well aware of
+this; however, she liked to tease them in return for the manner in which
+they themselves plagued her.
+
+"But do you know," said she, "you are a great deal behind the times? I am
+well aware of the reproaches which are levelled at girls' colleges by
+so-called right-minded people. To begin, there is no religious element
+whatever in the education one receives there, and this alarms many
+families which consider religious education to be absolutely necessary
+for girls, if only as a moral weapon of defence. Then, too, the education
+at our Lycees is being democratised--girls of all positions come to them.
+Thanks to the scholarships which are so liberally offered, the daughter
+of the lady who rents a first floor flat often finds the daughter of her
+door-keeper among her school-fellows, and some think this objectionable.
+It is said also that the pupils free themselves too much from home
+influence, and that too much opportunity is left for personal initiative.
+As a matter of fact the extensiveness of the many courses of study, all
+the learning that is required of pupils at the examinations, certainly
+does tend to their emancipation, to the coming of the future woman and
+future society, which you young men are all longing for, are you not?"
+
+"Of course we are!" exclaimed Francois; "we all agree on that point."
+
+She waved her hand in a pretty way, and then quietly continued: "I'm
+jesting. My views are simple enough, as you well know, and I don't ask
+for nearly as much as you do. As for woman's claims and rights, well, the
+question is clear enough; woman is man's equal so far as nature allows
+it. And the only point is to agree and love one another. At the same time
+I'm well pleased to know what I do--oh! not from any spirit of pedantry
+but simply because I think it has all done me good, and given me some
+moral as well as physical health."
+
+It delighted her to recall the days she had spent at the Lycee Fenelon,
+which of the five State colleges for girls opened in Paris was the only
+one counting a large number of pupils. Most of these were the daughters
+of officials or professors, who purposed entering the teaching
+profession. In this case, they had to win their last diploma at the Ecole
+Normale of Sevres, after leaving the Lycee. Marie, for her part, though
+her studies had been brilliant, had felt no taste whatever for the
+calling of teacher. Moreover, when Guillaume had taken charge of her
+after her father's death, he had refused to let her run about giving
+lessons. To provide herself with a little money, for she would accept
+none as a gift, she worked at embroidery, an art in which she was most
+accomplished.
+
+While she was talking to the young men Guillaume had listened to her
+without interfering. If he had fallen in love with her it was largely on
+account of her frankness and uprightness, the even balance of her nature,
+which gave her so forcible a charm. She knew all; but if she lacked the
+poetry of the shrinking, lamb-like girl who has been brought up in
+ignorance, she had gained absolute rectitude of heart and mind, exempt
+from all hypocrisy, all secret perversity such as is stimulated by what
+may seem mysterious in life. And whatever she might know, she had
+retained such child-like purity that in spite of her six-and-twenty
+summers all the blood in her veins would occasionally rush to her cheeks
+in fiery blushes, which drove her to despair.
+
+"My dear Marie," Guillaume now exclaimed, "you know very well that the
+youngsters were simply joking. You are in the right, of course. . . . And
+your boiled eggs cannot be matched in the whole world."
+
+He said this in so soft and affectionate a tone that the young woman
+flushed purple. Then, becoming conscious of it, she coloured yet more
+deeply, and as the three young men glanced at her maliciously she grew
+angry with herself. "Isn't it ridiculous, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said,
+turning towards Pierre, "for an old maid like myself to blush in that
+fashion? People might think that I had committed a crime. It's simply to
+make me blush, you know, that those children tease me. I do all I can to
+prevent it, but it's stronger than my will."
+
+At this Mere-Grand raised her eyes from the shirt she was mending, and
+remarked: "Oh! it's natural enough, my dear. It is your heart rising to
+your cheeks in order that we may see it."
+
+The /dejeuner/ hour was now at hand; and they decided to lay the table in
+the work-shop, as was occasionally done when they had a guest. The
+simple, cordial meal proved very enjoyable in the bright sunlight.
+Marie's boiled eggs, which she herself brought from the kitchen covered
+with a napkin, were found delicious. Due honour was also done to the
+butter and the radishes. The only dessert that followed the cutlets was
+the cream cheese, but it was a cheese such as nobody else had ever
+partaken of. And, meantime, while they ate and chatted all Paris lay
+below them, stretching away to the horizon with its mighty rumbling.
+
+Pierre had made an effort to become cheerful, but he soon relapsed into
+silence. Guillaume, however, was very talkative. Having noticed the three
+bicycles in the garden, he inquired of Marie how far she had gone that
+morning. She answered that Francois and Antoine had accompanied her in
+the direction of Orgemont. The worry of their excursions was that each
+time they returned to Montmartre they had to push their machines up the
+height. From the general point of view, however, the young woman was
+delighted with bicycling, which had many virtues, said she. Then, seeing
+Pierre glance at her in amazement, she promised that she would some day
+explain her opinions on the subject to him. After this bicycling became
+the one topic of conversation until the end of the meal. Thomas gave an
+account of the latest improvements introduced into Grandidier's machines;
+and the others talked of the excursions they had made or meant to make,
+with all the exuberant delight of school children eager for the open air.
+
+In the midst of the chatter, Mere-Grand, who presided at table with the
+serene dignity of a queen-mother, leant towards Guillaume, who sat next
+to her, and spoke to him in an undertone. Pierre understood that she was
+referring to his marriage, which was to have taken place in April, but
+must now necessarily be deferred. This sensible marriage, which seemed
+likely to ensure the happiness of the entire household, was largely the
+work of Mere-Grand and the three young men, for Guillaume would never
+have yielded to his heart if she whom he proposed to make his wife had
+not already been a well-loved member of the family. At the present time
+the last week in June seemed, for all sorts of reasons, to be a
+favourable date for the wedding.
+
+Marie, who heard the suggestion, turned gaily towards Mere-Grand.
+
+"The end of June will suit very well, will it not, my dear?" said the
+latter.
+
+Pierre expected to see a deep flush rise to the young woman's cheeks, but
+she remained very calm. She felt deep affection, blended with the most
+tender gratitude, for Guillaume, and was convinced that in marrying him
+she would be acting wisely and well both for herself and the others.
+
+"Certainly, the end of June," she repeated, "that will suit very well
+indeed."
+
+Then the sons, who likewise had heard the proposal, nodded their heads by
+way of assenting also.
+
+When they rose from table Pierre was absolutely determined to go off. The
+cordial and simple meal, the sight of that family, which had been
+rendered so happy by Guillaume's return, and of that young woman who
+smiled so placidly at life, had brought him keen suffering, though why he
+could not tell. However, it all irritated him beyond endurance; and he
+therefore again pretended that he had a number of things to see to in
+Paris. He shook hands in turn with the young men, Mere-Grand and Marie;
+both of the women evincing great friendliness but also some surprise at
+his haste to leave the house. Guillaume, who seemed saddened and anxious,
+sought to detain him, and failing in this endeavour followed him into the
+little garden, where he stopped him in order to have an explanation.
+
+"Come," said he, "what is the matter with you, Pierre? Why are you
+running off like this?"
+
+"Oh! there's nothing the matter I assure you; but I have to attend to a
+few urgent affairs."
+
+"Oh, Pierre, pray put all pretence aside. Nobody here has displeased you
+or hurt your feelings, I hope. They also will soon love you as I do."
+
+"I have no doubt of it, and I complain of nobody excepting perhaps
+myself."
+
+Guillaume's sorrow was increasing. "Ah! brother, little brother," he
+resumed, "you distress me, for I can detect that you are hiding something
+from me. Remember that new ties have linked us together and that we love
+one another as in the old days when you were in your cradle and I used to
+come to play with you. I know you well, remember. I know all your
+tortures, since you have confessed them to me; and I won't have you
+suffer, I want to cure you, I do!"
+
+Pierre's heart was full, and as he heard those words he could not
+restrain his tears. "Oh! you must leave me to my sufferings," he
+responded. "They are incurable. You can do nothing for me, I am beyond
+the pale of nature, I am a monster."
+
+"What do you say! Can you not return within nature's pale even if you
+/have/ gone beyond it? One thing that I will not allow is that you should
+go and shut yourself up in that solitary little house of yours, where you
+madden yourself by brooding over the fall of your faith. Come and spend
+your time with us, so that we may again give you some taste for life."
+
+Ah! the empty little house which awaited him! Pierre shivered at the
+thought of it, at the idea that he would now find himself all alone
+there, bereft of the brother with whom he had lately spent so many happy
+days. Into what solitude and torment must he not now relapse after that
+companionship to which he had become accustomed? However, the very
+thought of the latter increased his grief, and confession suddenly gushed
+from his lips: "To spend my time here, live with you, oh! no, that is an
+impossibility. Why do you compel me to speak out, and tell you things
+that I am ashamed of and do not even understand. Ever since this morning
+you must have seen that I have been suffering here. No doubt it is
+because you and your people work, whereas I do nothing, because you love
+one another and believe in your efforts, whereas I no longer know how to
+love or believe. I feel out of my element. I'm embarrassed here, and I
+embarrass you. In fact you all irritate me, and I might end by hating
+you. There remains nothing healthy in me, all natural feelings have been
+spoilt and destroyed, and only envy and hatred could sprout up from such
+ruins. So let me go back to my accursed hole, where death will some day
+come for me. Farewell, brother!"
+
+But Guillaume, full of affection and compassion, caught hold of his arms
+and detained him. "You shall not go, I will not allow you to go, without
+a positive promise that you will come back. I don't wish to lose you
+again, especially now that I know all you are worth and how dreadfully
+you suffer. I will save you, if need be, in spite of yourself. I will
+cure you of your torturing doubts, oh! without catechising you, without
+imposing any particular faith on you, but simply by allowing life to do
+its work, for life alone can give you back health and hope. So I beg you,
+brother, in the name of our affection, come back here, come as often as
+you can to spend a day with us. You will then see that when folks have
+allotted themselves a task and work together in unison, they escape
+excessive unhappiness. A task of any kind--yes, that is what is wanted,
+together with some great passion and frank acceptance of life, so that it
+may be lived as it should be and loved."
+
+"But what would be the use of my living here?" Pierre muttered bitterly.
+"I've no task left me, and I no longer know how to love."
+
+"Well, I will give you a task, and as for love, that will soon be
+awakened by the breath of life. Come, brother, consent, consent!"
+
+Then, seeing that Pierre still remained gloomy and sorrowful, and
+persisted in his determination to go away and bury himself, Guillaume
+added, "Ah! I don't say that the things of this world are such as one
+might wish them to be. I don't say that only joy and truth and justice
+exist. For instance, the affair of that unhappy fellow Salvat fills me
+with anger and revolt. Guilty he is, of course, and yet how many excuses
+he had, and how I shall pity him if the crimes of all of us are laid at
+his door, if the various political gangs bandy him from one to another,
+and use him as a weapon in their sordid fight for power. The thought of
+it all so exasperates me that at times I am as unreasonable as yourself.
+But now, brother, just to please me, promise that you will come and spend
+the day after to-morrow with us."
+
+Then, as Pierre still kept silent, Guillaume went on: "I will have it so.
+It would grieve me too much to think that you were suffering from
+martyrdom in your solitary nook. I want to cure and save you."
+
+Tears again rose to Pierre's eyes, and in a tone of infinite distress he
+answered: "Don't compel me to promise. . . . All I can say is that I will
+try to conquer myself."
+
+The week he then spent in his little, dark, empty home proved a terrible
+one. Shutting himself up he brooded over his despair at having lost the
+companionship of that elder brother whom he once more loved with his
+whole soul. He had never before been so keenly conscious of his solitude;
+and he was a score of times on the point of hastening to Montmartre, for
+he vaguely felt that affection, truth and life were there. But on each
+occasion he was held back by a return of the discomfort which he had
+already experienced, discomfort compounded of shame and fear. Priest that
+he was, cut off from love and the avocations of other men, he would
+surely find nothing but hurt and suffering among creatures who were all
+nature, freedom and health. While he pondered thus, however, there rose
+before him the shades of his father and mother, those sad spirits that
+seemed to wander through the deserted rooms lamenting and entreating him
+to reconcile them in himself, as soon as he should find peace. What was
+he to do,--deny their prayer, and remain weeping with them, or go yonder
+in search of the cure which might at last lull them to sleep and bring
+them happiness in death by the force of his own happiness in life? At
+last a morning came when it seemed to him that his father enjoined him
+with a smile to betake himself yonder, while his mother consented with a
+glance of her big soft eyes, in which her sorrow at having made so bad a
+priest of him yielded to her desire to restore him to the life of our
+common humanity.
+
+Pierre did not argue with himself that day: he took a cab and gave
+Guillaume's address to the driver for fear lest he should be overcome on
+the way and wish to turn back. And when he again found himself, as in a
+dream, in the large work-shop, where Guillaume and the young men welcomed
+him in a delicately affectionate way, he witnessed an unexpected scene
+which both impressed and relieved him.
+
+Marie, who had scarcely nodded to him as he entered, sat there with a
+pale and frowning face. And Mere-Grand, who was also grave, said, after
+glancing at her: "You must excuse her, Monsieur l'Abbe; but she isn't
+reasonable. She is in a temper with all five of us."
+
+Guillaume began to laugh. "Ah! she's so stubborn!" he exclaimed. "You can
+have no idea, Pierre, of what goes on in that little head of hers when
+anybody says or does anything contrary to her ideas of justice. Such
+absolute and lofty ideas they are, that they can descend to no
+compromise. For instance, we were talking of that recent affair of a
+father who was found guilty on his son's evidence; and she maintained
+that the son had only done what was right in giving evidence against his
+father, and that one ought invariably to tell the truth, no matter what
+might happen. What a terrible public prosecutor she would make, eh?"
+
+Thereupon Marie, exasperated by Pierre's smile, which seemingly indicated
+that he also thought her in the wrong, flew into quite a passion: "You
+are cruel, Guillaume!" she cried; "I won't be laughed at like this."
+
+"But you are losing your senses, my dear," exclaimed Francois, while
+Thomas and Antoine again grew merry. "We were only urging a question of
+humanity, father and I, for we respect and love justice as much as you
+do."
+
+"There's no question of humanity, but simply one of justice. What is just
+and right is just and right, and you cannot alter it."
+
+Then, as Guillaume made a further attempt to state his views and win her
+over to them, she rose trembling, in such a passion that she could
+scarcely stammer: "No, no, you are all too cruel, you only want to grieve
+me. I prefer to go up into my own room."
+
+At this Mere-Grand vainly sought to restrain her. "My child, my child!"
+said she, "reflect a moment; this is very wrong, you will deeply regret
+it."
+
+"No, no; you are not just, and I suffer too much."
+
+Then she wildly rushed upstairs to her room overhead.
+
+Consternation followed. Scenes of a similar character had occasionally
+occurred before, but there had never been so serious a one. Guillaume
+immediately admitted that he had done wrong in laughing at her, for she
+could not bear irony. Then he told Pierre that in her childhood and youth
+she had been subject to terrible attacks of passion whenever she
+witnessed or heard of any act of injustice. As she herself explained,
+these attacks would come upon her with irresistible force, transporting
+her to such a point that she would sometimes fall upon the floor and
+rave. Even nowadays she proved quarrelsome and obstinate whenever certain
+subjects were touched upon. And she afterwards blushed for it all, fully
+conscious that others must think her unbearable.
+
+Indeed, a quarter of an hour later, she came downstairs again of her own
+accord, and bravely acknowledged her fault. "Wasn't it ridiculous of me?"
+she said. "To think I accuse others of being unkind when I behave like
+that! Monsieur l'Abbe must have a very bad opinion of me." Then, after
+kissing Mere-Grand, she added: "You'll forgive me, won't you? Oh!
+Francois may laugh now, and so may Thomas and Antoine. They are quite
+right, our differences are merely laughing matters."
+
+"My poor Marie," replied Guillaume, in a tone of deep affection. "You see
+what it is to surrender oneself to the absolute. If you are so healthy
+and reasonable it's because you regard almost everything from the
+relative point of view, and only ask life for such gifts as it can
+bestow. But when your absolute ideas of justice come upon you, you lose
+both equilibrium and reason. At the same time, I must say that we are all
+liable to err in much the same manner."
+
+Marie, who was still very flushed, thereupon answered in a jesting way:
+"Well, it at least proves that I'm not perfect."
+
+"Oh, certainly! And so much the better," said Guillaume, "for it makes me
+love you the more."
+
+This was a sentiment which Pierre himself would willingly have re-echoed.
+The scene had deeply stirred him. Had not his own frightful torments
+originated with his desire for the absolute both in things and beings? He
+had sought faith in its entirety, and despair had thrown him into
+complete negation. Again, was there not some evil desire for the absolute
+and some affectation of pride and voluntary blindness in the haughty
+bearing which he had retained amidst the downfall of his belief, the
+saintly reputation which he had accepted when he possessed no faith at
+all? On hearing his brother praise Marie, because she only asked life for
+such things as it could give, it had seemed to him that this was advice
+for himself. It was as if a refreshing breath of nature had passed before
+his face. At the same time his feelings in this respect were still vague,
+and the only well-defined pleasure that he experienced came from the
+young woman's fit of anger, that error of hers which brought her nearer
+to him, by lowering her in some degree from her pedestal of serene
+perfection. It was, perhaps, that seeming perfection which had made him
+suffer; however, he was as yet unable to analyse his feelings. That day,
+for the first time, he chatted with her for a little while, and when he
+went off he thought her very good-hearted and very human.
+
+Two days later he again came to spend the afternoon in the large sunlit
+work-shop overlooking Paris. Ever since he had become conscious of the
+idle life he was leading, he had felt very bored when he was alone, and
+only found relief among that gay, hardworking family. His brother scolded
+him for not having come to /dejeuner/, and he promised to do so on the
+morrow. By the time a week had elapsed, none of the discomfort and covert
+hostility which had prevailed between him and Marie remained: they met
+and chatted on a footing of good fellowship. Although he was a priest,
+she was in no wise embarrassed by his presence. With her quiet atheism,
+indeed, she had never imagined that a priest could be different from
+other men. Thus her sisterly cordiality both astonished and delighted
+Pierre. It was as if he wore the same garments and held the same ideas as
+his big nephews, as if there were nothing whatever to distinguish him
+from other men. He was still more surprised, however, by Marie's silence
+on all religious questions. She seemed to live on quietly and happily,
+without a thought of what might be beyond life, that terrifying realm of
+mystery, which to him had brought such agony of mind.
+
+Now that he came every two or three days to Montmartre she noticed that
+he was suffering. What could be the matter with him, she wondered. When
+she questioned him in a friendly manner and only elicited evasive
+replies, she guessed that he was ashamed of his sufferings, and that they
+were aggravated, rendered well-nigh incurable, by the very secrecy in
+which he buried them. Thereupon womanly compassion awoke within her, and
+she felt increasing affection for that tall, pale fellow with feverish
+eyes, who was consumed by grievous torments which he would confess to
+none. No doubt she questioned Guillaume respecting her brother's sadness,
+and he must have confided some of the truth to her in order that she
+might help him to extricate Pierre from his sufferings, and give him back
+some taste for life. The poor fellow always seemed so happy when she
+treated him like a friend, a brother!
+
+At last, one evening, on seeing his eyes full of tears as he gazed upon
+the dismal twilight falling over Paris, she herself pressed him to
+confide his trouble to her. And thereupon he suddenly spoke out,
+confessing all his torture and the horrible void which the loss of faith
+had left within him. Ah! to be unable to believe, to be unable to love,
+to be nothing but ashes, to know of nothing certain by which he might
+replace the faith that had fled from him! She listened in stupefaction.
+Why, he must be mad! And she plainly told him so, such was her
+astonishment and revolt at hearing such a desperate cry of wretchedness.
+To despair, indeed, and believe in nothing and love nothing, simply
+because a religious hypothesis had crumbled! And this, too, when the
+whole, vast world was spread before one, life with the duty of living it,
+creatures and things to be loved and succoured, without counting the
+universal labour, the task which one and all came to accomplish!
+Assuredly he must be mad, mad with the gloomiest madness; still she vowed
+she would cure him.
+
+From that time forward she felt the most compassionate affection for this
+extraordinary young man, who had first embarrassed and afterwards
+astonished her. She showed herself very gentle and gay with him; she
+looked after him with the greatest skill and delicacy of heart and mind.
+There had been certain similar features in their childhood; each had been
+reared in the strictest religious views by a pious mother. But afterwards
+how different had been their fates! Whilst he was struggling with his
+doubts, bound by his priestly vows, she had grown up at the Lycee
+Fenelon, where her father had placed her as soon as her mother died; and
+there, far removed from all practice of religion, she had gradually
+reached total forgetfulness of her early religious views. It was a
+constant source of surprise for him to find that she had thus escaped all
+distress of mind at the thought of what might come after death, whereas
+that same thought had so deeply tortured him. When they chatted together
+and he expressed his astonishment at it, she frankly laughed, saying that
+she had never felt any fear of hell, for she was certain that no hell
+existed. And she added that she lived in all quietude, without hope of
+going to any heaven, her one thought being to comply in a reasonable way
+with the requirements and necessities of earthly life. It was, perhaps,
+in some measure a matter of temperament with her; but it was also a
+matter of education. Yet, whatever that education had been, whatever
+knowledge she had acquired, she had remained very womanly and very
+loving. There was nothing stern or masculine about her.
+
+"Ah, my friend," she said one day to Pierre, "if you only knew how easy
+it is for me to remain happy so long as I see those I love free from any
+excessive suffering. For my own part I can always adapt myself to life. I
+work and content myself no matter what may happen. Sorrow has only come
+to me from others, for I can't help wishing that everybody should be
+fairly happy, and there are some who won't. . . . I was for a long time
+very poor, but I remained gay. I wish for nothing, except for things that
+can't be purchased. Still, want is the great abomination which distresses
+me. I can understand that you should have felt everything crumbling when
+charity appeared to you so insufficient a remedy as to be contemptible.
+Yet it does bring relief; and, moreover, it is so sweet to be able to
+give. Some day, too, by dint of reason and toil, by the good and
+efficient working of life itself, the reign of justice will surely come.
+But now it's I that am preaching! Oh! I have little taste for it! It
+would be ridiculous for me to try to heal you with big phrases. All the
+same, I should like to cure you of your gloomy sufferings. To do so, all
+that I ask of you is to spend as much time as you can with us. You know
+that this is Guillaume's greatest desire. We will all love you so well,
+you will see us all so affectionately united, and so gay over our common
+work, that you will come back to truth by joining us in the school of our
+good mother nature. You must live and work, and love and hope."
+
+Pierre smiled as he listened. He now came to Montmartre nearly every day.
+She was so nice and affectionate when she preached to him in that way
+with a pretty assumption of wisdom. As she had said too, life was so
+delightful in that big workroom; it was so pleasant to be all together,
+and to labour in common at the same work of health and truth. Ashamed as
+Pierre was of doing nothing, anxious as he was to occupy his mind and
+fingers, he had first taken an interest in Antoine's engraving, asking
+why he should not try something of the kind himself. However, he felt
+that he lacked the necessary gift for art. Then, too, he recoiled from
+Francois' purely intellectual labour, for he himself had scarcely emerged
+from the harrowing study of conflicting texts. Thus he was more inclined
+for manual toil like that of Thomas. In mechanics he found precision and
+clearness such as might help to quench his thirst for certainty. So he
+placed himself at the young man's orders, pulled his bellows and held
+pieces of mechanism for him. He also sometimes served as assistant to
+Guillaume, tying a large blue apron over his cassock in order to help in
+the experiments. From that time he formed part of the work-shop, which
+simply counted a worker the more.
+
+One afternoon early in April, when they were all busily engaged there,
+Marie, who sat embroidering at the table in front of Mere-Grand, raised
+her eyes to the window and suddenly burst into a cry of admiration: "Oh!
+look at Paris under that rain of sunlight!"
+
+Pierre drew near; the play of light was much the same as that which he
+had witnessed at his first visit. The sun, sinking behind some slight
+purple clouds, was throwing down a hail of rays and sparks which on all
+sides rebounded and leapt over the endless stretch of roofs. It might
+have been thought that some great sower, hidden amidst the glory of the
+planet, was scattering handfuls of golden grain from one horizon to the
+other.
+
+Pierre, at sight of it, put his fancy into words: "It is the sun sowing
+Paris with grain for a future harvest," said he. "See how the expanse
+looks like ploughed land; the brownish houses are like soil turned up,
+and the streets are deep and straight like furrows."
+
+"Yes, yes, that's true," exclaimed Marie gaily. "The sun is sowing Paris
+with grain. See how it casts the seed of light and health right away to
+the distant suburbs! And yet, how singular! The rich districts on the
+west seem steeped in a ruddy mist, whilst the good seed falls in golden
+dust over the left bank and the populous districts eastward. It is there,
+is it not, that the crop will spring up?"
+
+They had all drawn near, and were smiling at the symbol. As Marie had
+said, it seemed indeed that while the sun slowly sank behind the lacework
+of clouds, the sower of eternal life scattered his flaming seed with a
+rhythmical swing of the arm, ever selecting the districts of toil and
+effort. One dazzling handful of grain fell over yonder on the district of
+the schools; and then yet another rained down to fertilise the district
+of the factories and work-shops.
+
+"Ah! well," said Guillaume gaily. "May the crop soon sprout from the good
+ground of our great Paris, which has been turned up by so many
+revolutions, and enriched by the blood of so many workers! It is the only
+ground in the world where Ideas can germinate and bloom. Yes, yes, Pierre
+is quite right, it is the sun sowing Paris with the seed of the future
+world, which can sprout only up here!"
+
+Then Thomas, Francois and Antoine, who stood behind their father in a
+row, nodded as if to say that this was also their own conviction; whilst
+Mere-Grand gazed afar with dreamy eyes as though she could already behold
+the splendid future.
+
+"Ah! but it is only a dream; centuries must elapse. We shall never see
+it!" murmured Pierre with a quiver.
+
+"But others will!" cried Marie. "And does not that suffice?"
+
+Those lofty words stirred Pierre to the depths of his being. And all at
+once there came to him the memory of another Marie*--the adorable Marie
+of his youth, that Marie de Guersaint who had been cured at Lourdes, and
+the loss of whom had left such a void in his heart. Was that new Marie
+who stood there smiling at him, so tranquil and so charming in her
+strength, destined to heal that old-time wound? He felt that he was
+beginning to live again since she had become his friend.
+
+  * The heroine of M. Zola's "Lourdes."
+
+Meantime, there before them, the glorious sun, with the sweep of its
+rays, was scattering living golden dust over Paris, still and ever sowing
+the great future harvest of justice and of truth.
+
+
+
+II
+
+TOWARDS LIFE
+
+ONE evening, at the close of a good day's work, Pierre, who was helping
+Thomas, suddenly caught his foot in the skirt of his cassock and narrowly
+escaped falling. At this, Marie, after raising a faint cry of anxiety,
+exclaimed: "Why don't you take it off?"
+
+There was no malice in her inquiry. She simply looked upon the priestly
+robe as something too heavy and cumbersome, particularly when one had
+certain work to perform. Nevertheless, her words deeply impressed Pierre,
+and he could not forget them. When he was at home in the evening and
+repeated them to himself they gradually threw him into feverish
+agitation. Why, indeed, had he not divested himself of that cassock,
+which weighed so heavily and painfully on his shoulders? Then a frightful
+struggle began within him, and he spent a terrible, sleepless night,
+again a prey to all his former torments.
+
+At first sight it seemed a very simple matter that he should cast his
+priestly gown aside, for had he not ceased to discharge any priestly
+office? He had not said mass for some time past, and this surely meant
+renunciation of the priesthood. Nevertheless, so long as he retained his
+gown it was possible that he might some day say mass again, whereas if he
+cast it aside he would, as it were, strip himself, quit the priesthood
+entirely, without possibility of return. It was a terrible step to take,
+one that would prove irrevocable; and thus he paced his room for hours,
+in great anguish of mind.
+
+He had formerly indulged in a superb dream. Whilst believing nothing
+himself he had resolved to watch, in all loyalty, over the belief of
+others. He would not so lower himself as to forswear his vows, he would
+be no base renegade, but however great the torments of the void he felt
+within him he would remain the minister of man's illusions respecting the
+Divinity. And it was by reason of his conduct in this respect that he had
+ended by being venerated as a saint--he who denied everything, who had
+become a mere empty sepulchre. For a long time his falsehood had never
+disturbed him, but it now brought him acute suffering. It seemed to him
+that he would be acting in the vilest manner if he delayed placing his
+life in accord with his opinions. The thought of it all quite rent his
+heart.
+
+The question was a very clear one. By what right did he remain the
+minister of a religion in which he no longer believed? Did not elementary
+honesty require that he should quit a Church in which he denied the
+presence of the Divinity? He regarded the dogmas of that Church as
+puerile errors, and yet he persisted in teaching them as if they were
+eternal truths. Base work it was, that alarmed his conscience. He vainly
+sought the feverish glow of charity and martyrdom which had led him to
+offer himself as a sacrifice, willing to suffer all the torture of doubt
+and to find his own life lost and ravaged, provided that he might yet
+afford the relief of hope to the lowly. Truth and nature, no doubt, had
+already regained too much ascendancy over him for those feelings to
+return. The thought of such a lying apostolate now wounded him; he no
+longer had the hypocritical courage to call the Divinity down upon the
+believers kneeling before him, when he was convinced that the Divinity
+would not descend. Thus all the past was swept away; there remained
+nothing of the sublime pastoral part he would once have liked to play,
+that supreme gift of himself which lay in stubborn adherence to the rules
+of the Church, and such devotion to faith as to endure in silence the
+torture of having lost it.
+
+What must Marie think of his prolonged falsehood, he wondered, and
+thereupon he seemed to hear her words again: "Why not take your cassock
+off?" His conscience bled as if those words were a stab. What contempt
+must she not feel for him, she who was so upright, so high-minded? Every
+scattered blame, every covert criticism directed against his conduct,
+seemed to find embodiment in her. It now sufficed that she should condemn
+him, and he at once felt guilty. At the same time she had never voiced
+her disapproval to him, in all probability because she did not think she
+had any right to intervene in a struggle of conscience. The superb
+calmness and healthiness which she displayed still astonished him. He
+himself was ever haunted and tortured by thoughts of the unknown, of what
+the morrow of death might have in store for one; but although he had
+studied and watched her for days together, he had never seen her give a
+sign of doubt or distress. This exemption from such sufferings as his own
+was due, said she, to the fact that she gave all her gaiety, all her
+energy, all her sense of duty, to the task of living, in such wise that
+life itself proved a sufficiency, and no time was left for mere fancies
+to terrify and stultify her. Well, then, since she with her air of quiet
+strength had asked him why he did not take off his cassock, he would take
+it off--yes, he would divest himself of that robe which seemed to burn
+and weigh him down.
+
+He fancied himself calmed by this decision, and towards morning threw
+himself upon his bed; but all at once a stifling sensation, a renewal of
+his abominable anguish, brought him to his feet again. No, no, he could
+not divest himself of that gown which clung so tightly to his flesh. His
+skin would come away with his cloth, his whole being would be lacerated!
+Is not the mark of priesthood an indelible one, does it not brand the
+priest for ever, and differentiate him from the flock? Even should he
+tear off his gown with his skin, he would remain a priest, an object of
+scandal and shame, awkward and impotent, shut off from the life of other
+men. And so why tear it off, since he would still and ever remain in
+prison, and a fruitful life of work in the broad sunlight was no longer
+within his reach? He, indeed, fancied himself irremediably stricken with
+impotence. Thus he was unable to come to any decision, and when he
+returned to Montmartre two days later he had again relapsed into a state
+of torment.
+
+Feverishness, moreover, had come upon the happy home. Guillaume was
+becoming more and more annoyed about Salvat's affair, not a day elapsing
+without the newspapers fanning his irritation. He had at first been
+deeply touched by the dignified and reticent bearing of Salvat, who had
+declared that he had no accomplices whatever. Of course the inquiry into
+the crime was what is called a secret one; but magistrate Amadieu, to
+whom it had been entrusted, conducted it in a very noisy way. The
+newspapers, which he in some degree took into his confidence, were full
+of articles and paragraphs about him and his interviews with the
+prisoner. Thanks to Salvat's quiet admissions, Amadieu had been able to
+retrace the history of the crime hour by hour, his only remaining doubts
+having reference to the nature of the powder which had been employed, and
+the making of the bomb itself. It might after all be true that Salvat had
+loaded the bomb at a friend's, as he indeed asserted was the case; but he
+must be lying when he added that the only explosive used was dynamite,
+derived from some stolen cartridges, for all the experts now declared
+that dynamite would never have produced such effects as those which had
+been witnessed. This, then, was the mysterious point which protracted the
+investigations. And day by day the newspapers profited by it to circulate
+the wildest stories under sensational headings, which were specially
+devised for the purpose of sending up their sales.
+
+It was all the nonsense contained in these stories that fanned
+Guillaume's irritation. In spite of his contempt for Sagnier he could not
+keep from buying the "Voix du Peuple." Quivering with indignation,
+growing more and more exasperated, he was somehow attracted by the mire
+which he found in that scurrilous journal. Moreover, the other
+newspapers, including even the "Globe," which was usually so dignified,
+published all sorts of statements for which no proof could be supplied,
+and drew from them remarks and conclusions which, though couched in
+milder language than Sagnier's, were none the less abominably unjust. It
+seemed indeed as if the whole press had set itself the task of covering
+Salvat with mud, so as to be able to vilify Anarchism generally.
+According to the journalists the prisoner's life had simply been one long
+abomination. He had already earned his living by thievery in his
+childhood at the time when he had roamed the streets, an unhappy,
+forsaken vagrant; and later on he had proved a bad soldier and a bad
+worker. He had been punished for insubordination whilst he was in the
+army, and he had been dismissed from a dozen work-shops because he
+incessantly disturbed them by his Anarchical propaganda. Later still, he
+had fled his country and led a suspicious life of adventure in America,
+where, it was alleged, he must have committed all sorts of unknown
+crimes. Moreover there was his horrible immorality, his connection with
+his sister-in-law, that Madame Theodore who had taken charge of his
+forsaken child in his absence, and with whom he had cohabited since his
+return to France. In this wise Salvat's failings and transgressions were
+pitilessly denounced and magnified without any mention of the causes
+which had induced them, or of the excuses which lay in the unhappy man's
+degrading environment. And so Guillaume's feelings of humanity and
+justice revolted, for he knew the real Salvat,--a man of tender heart and
+dreamy mind, so liable to be impassioned by fancies,--a man cast into
+life when a child without weapon of defence, ever trodden down or thrust
+aside, then gradually exasperated by the perpetual onslaughts of want,
+and at last dreaming of reviving the golden age by destroying the old,
+corrupt world.
+
+Unfortunately for Salvat, everything had gone against him since he had
+been shut up in strict confinement, at the mercy of the ambitious and
+worldly Amadieu. Guillaume had learnt from his son, Thomas, that the
+prisoner could count on no support whatever among his former mates at the
+Grandidier works. These works were becoming prosperous once more, thanks
+to their steady output of bicycles; and it was said that Grandidier was
+only waiting for Thomas to perfect his little motor, in order to start
+the manufacture of motor-cars on a large scale. However, the success
+which he was now for the first time achieving, and which scarcely repaid
+him for all his years of toil and battle, had in certain respects
+rendered him prudent and even severe. He did not wish any suspicion to be
+cast upon his business through the unpleasant affair of his former
+workman Salvat, and so he had dismissed such of his workmen as held
+Anarchist views. If he had kept the two Toussaints, one of whom was the
+prisoner's brother-in-law, while the other was suspected of sympathy with
+him, this was because they had belonged to the works for a score of
+years, and he did not like to cast them adrift. Moreover, Toussaint, the
+father, had declared that if he were called as a witness for the defence,
+he should simply give such particulars of Salvat's career as related to
+the prisoner's marriage with his sister.
+
+One evening when Thomas came home from the works, to which he returned
+every now and then in order to try his little motor, he related that he
+had that day seen Madame Grandidier, the poor young woman who had become
+insane through an attack of puerperal fever following upon the death of a
+child. Although most frightful attacks of madness occasionally came over
+her, and although life beside her was extremely painful, even during the
+intervals when she remained downcast and gentle as a child, her husband
+had never been willing to send her to an asylum. He kept her with him in
+a pavilion near the works, and as a rule the shutters of the windows
+overlooking the yard remained closed. Thus Thomas had been greatly
+surprised to see one of these windows open, and the young woman appear at
+it amidst the bright sunshine of that early spring. True, she only
+remained there for a moment, vision-like, fair and pretty, with smiling
+face; for a servant who suddenly drew near closed the window, and the
+pavilion then again sank into lifeless silence. At the same time it was
+reported among the men employed at the works that the poor creature had
+not experienced an attack for well-nigh a month past, and that this was
+the reason why the "governor" looked so strong and pleased, and worked so
+vigorously to help on the increasing prosperity of his business.
+
+"He isn't a bad fellow," added Thomas, "but with the terrible competition
+that he has to encounter, he is bent on keeping his men under control.
+Nowadays, says he, when so many capitalists and wage earners seem bent on
+exterminating one another, the latter--if they don't want to
+starve--ought to be well pleased when capital falls into the hands of an
+active, fair-minded man. . . . If he shows no pity for Salvat, it is
+because he really believes in the necessity of an example."
+
+That same day Thomas, after leaving the works and while threading his way
+through the toilsome hive-like Marcadet district, had overtaken Madame
+Theodore and little Celine, who were wandering on in great distress. It
+appeared that they had just called upon Toussaint, who had been unable to
+lend them even such a trifle as ten sous. Since Salvat's arrest, the
+woman and the child had been forsaken and suspected by one and all.
+Driven forth from their wretched lodging, they were without food and
+wandered hither and thither dependent on chance alms. Never had greater
+want and misery fallen on defenceless creatures.
+
+"I told them to come up here, father," said Thomas, "for I thought that
+one might pay their landlord a month's rent, so that they might go home
+again. . . . Ah! there's somebody coming now--it's they, no doubt."
+
+Guillaume had felt angry with himself whilst listening to his son, for he
+had not thought of the poor creatures. It was the old story: the man
+disappears, and the woman and the child find themselves in the streets,
+starving. Whenever Justice strikes a man her blow travels beyond him,
+fells innocent beings and kills them.
+
+Madame Theodore came in, humble and timid, scared like a luckless
+creature whom life never wearies of persecuting. She was becoming almost
+blind, and little Celine had to lead her. The girl's fair, thin face wore
+its wonted expression of shrewd intelligence, and even now, however
+woeful her rags, it was occasionally brightened by a childish smile.
+
+Pierre and Marie, who were both there, felt extremely touched. Near them
+was Madame Mathis, young Victor's mother, who had come to help Mere-Grand
+with the mending of some house-linen. She went out by the day in this
+fashion among a few families, and was thus enabled to give her son an
+occasional franc or two. Guillaume alone questioned Madame Theodore.
+
+"Ah! monsieur," she stammered, "who could ever have thought Salvat
+capable of such a thing, he who's so good and so humane? Still it's true,
+since he himself has admitted it to the magistrate. . . . For my part I
+told everybody that he was in Belgium. I wasn't quite sure of it, still
+I'm glad that he didn't come back to see us; for if he had been arrested
+at our place I should have lost my senses. . . . Well, now that they have
+him, they'll sentence him to death, that's certain."
+
+At this Celine, who had been looking around her with an air of interest,
+piteously exclaimed: "Oh! no, oh! no, mamma, they won't hurt him!"
+
+Big tears appeared in the child's eyes as she raised this cry. Guillaume
+kissed her, and then went on questioning Madame Theodore.
+
+"Well, monsieur," she answered, "the child's not old or big enough to
+work as yet, and my eyes are done for, people won't even take me as a
+charwoman. And so it's simple enough, we starve. . . . Oh! of course I'm
+not without relations; I have a sister who married very well. Her husband
+is a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, perhaps you know him. Unfortunately
+he's rather proud, and as I don't want any scenes between him and my
+sister, I no longer go to see her. Besides, she's in despair just now,
+for she's expecting another baby, which is a terrible blow for a small
+household, when one already has two girls. . . . That's why the only
+person I can apply to is my brother Toussaint. His wife isn't a bad sort
+by any means, but she's no longer the same since she's been living in
+fear of her husband having another attack. The first one carried off all
+her savings, and what would become of her if Toussaint should remain on
+her hands, paralysed? Besides, she's threatened with another burden, for,
+as you may know, her son Charles got keeping company with a servant at a
+wine shop, who of course ran away after she had a baby, which she left
+him to see to. So one can understand that the Toussaints themselves are
+hard put. I don't complain of them. They've already lent me a little
+money, and of course they can't go on lending for ever."
+
+She continued talking in this spiritless, resigned way, complaining only
+on account of Celine; for, said she, it was enough to make one's heart
+break to see such an intelligent child obliged to tramp the streets after
+getting on so well at the Communal School. She could feel too that
+everybody now kept aloof from them on account of Salvat. The Toussaints
+didn't want to be compromised in any such business. There was only
+Charles, who had said that he could well understand a man losing his head
+and trying to blow up the /bourgeois/, because they really treated the
+workers in a blackguard way.
+
+"For my part, monsieur," added Madame Theodore, "I say nothing, for I'm
+only a woman. All the same, though, if you'd like to know what I think,
+well, I think that it would have been better if Salvat hadn't done what
+he did, for we two, the girl and I, are the real ones to suffer from it.
+Ah! I can't get the idea into my head, that the little one should be the
+daughter of a man condemned to death."
+
+Once more Celine interrupted her, flinging her arms around her neck: "Oh!
+mamma, oh! mamma, don't say that, I beg you! It can't be true, it grieves
+me too much!"
+
+At this Pierre and Marie exchanged compassionate glances, while
+Mere-Grand rose from her chair, in order to go upstairs and search her
+wardrobes for some articles of clothing which might be of use to the two
+poor creatures. Guillaume, who, for his part, had been moved to tears,
+and felt full of revolt against the social system which rendered such
+distress possible, slipped some alms into the child's little hand, and
+promised Madame Theodore that he would see her landlord so as to get her
+back her room.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Froment!" replied the unfortunate woman. "Salvat was quite
+right when he said you were a real good man! And as you employed him here
+for a few days you know too that he isn't a wicked one. . . . Now that
+he's been put in prison everybody calls him a brigand, and it breaks my
+heart to hear them." Then, turning towards Madame Mathis, who had
+continued sewing in discreet silence, like a respectable woman whom none
+of these things could concern, she went on: "I know you, madame, but I'm
+better acquainted with your son, Monsieur Victor, who has often come to
+chat at our place. Oh! you needn't be afraid, I shan't say it, I shall
+never compromise anybody; but if Monsieur Victor were free to speak, he'd
+be the man to explain Salvat's ideas properly."
+
+Madame Mathis looked at her in stupefaction. Ignorant as she was of her
+son's real life and views, she experienced a vague dread at the idea of
+any connection between him and Salvat's family. Moreover, she refused to
+believe it possible. "Oh! you must be mistaken," she said. "Victor told
+me that he now seldom came to Montmartre, as he was always going about in
+search of work."
+
+By the anxious quiver of the widow's voice, Madame Theodore understood
+that she ought not to have mixed her up in her troubles; and so in all
+humility she at once beat a retreat: "I beg your pardon, madame, I didn't
+think I should hurt your feelings. Perhaps, too, I'm mistaken, as you
+say."
+
+Madame Mathis had again turned to her sewing as to the solitude in which
+she lived, that nook of decent misery where she dwelt without
+companionship and almost unknown, with scarcely sufficient bread to eat.
+Ah! that dear son of hers, whom she loved so well; however much he might
+neglect her, she had placed her only remaining hope in him: he was her
+last dream, and would some day lavish all kinds of happiness upon her!
+
+At that moment Mere-Grand came downstairs again, laden with a bundle of
+linen and woollen clothing, and Madame Theodore and little Celine
+withdrew while pouring forth their thanks. For a long time after they had
+gone Guillaume, unable to resume work, continued walking to and fro in
+silence, with a frown upon his face.
+
+When Pierre, still hesitating and still tortured by conflicting feelings,
+returned to Montmartre on the following day he witnessed with much
+surprise a visit of a very different kind. There was a sudden gust of
+wind, a whirl of skirts and a ring of laughter as little Princess
+Rosemonde swept in, followed by young Hyacinthe Duvillard, who, on his
+side, retained a very frigid bearing.
+
+"It's I, my dear master," exclaimed the Princess. "I promised you a
+visit, you remember, for I am such a great admirer of your genius. And
+our young friend here has been kind enough to bring me. We have only just
+returned from Norway, and my very first visit is for you."
+
+She turned as she spoke, and bowed in an easy and gracious way to Pierre
+and Marie, Francois and Antoine, who were also there. Then she resumed:
+"Oh! my dear master, you have no idea how beautifully virginal Norway is!
+We all ought to go and drink at that new source of the Ideal, and we
+should return purified, rejuvenated and capable of great renunciations!"
+
+As a matter of fact she had been well-nigh bored to death there. To make
+one's honeymoon journey to the land of the ice and snow, instead of to
+Italy, the hot land of the sun, was doubtless a very refined idea, which
+showed that no base materialism formed part of one's affections. It was
+the soul alone that travelled, and naturally it was fit that only kisses
+of the soul should be exchanged on the journey. Unfortunately, however,
+Hyacinthe had carried his symbolism so far as to exasperate Rosemonde,
+and on one occasion they had come to blows over it, and then to tears
+when this lover's quarrel had ended as many such quarrels do. Briefly,
+they had no longer deemed themselves pure enough for the companionship of
+the swans and the lakes of dreamland, and had therefore taken the first
+steamer that was sailing for France.
+
+As it was altogether unnecessary to confess to everybody what a failure
+their journey had proved, the Princess abruptly brought her rapturous
+references to Norway to an end, and then explained: "By the way, do you
+know what I found awaiting me on my return? Why, I found my house
+pillaged, oh! completely pillaged! And in such a filthy condition, too!
+We at once recognised the mark of the beast, and thought of Bergaz's
+young friends."
+
+Already on the previous day Guillaume had read in the newspapers that a
+band of young Anarchists had entered the Princess's little house by
+breaking a basement window. She had left it quite deserted, unprotected
+even by a caretaker; and the robbers had not merely removed everything
+from the premises--including even the larger articles of furniture, but
+had lived there for a couple of days, bringing provisions in from
+outside, drinking all the wine in the cellars, and leaving every room in
+a most filthy and disgusting condition. On discovering all this,
+Rosemonde had immediately remembered the evening she had spent at the
+Chamber of Horrors in the company of Bergaz and his acolytes, Rossi and
+Sanfaute, who had heard her speak of her intended trip to Norway. The two
+young men had therefore been arrested, but Bergaz had so far escaped. The
+Princess was not greatly astonished by it all, for she had already been
+warned of the presence of dangerous characters among the mixed
+cosmopolitan set with which she associated. Janzen had told her in
+confidence of a number of villanous affairs which were attributed to
+Bergaz and his band. And now the Anarchist leader openly declared that
+Bergaz had sold himself to the police like Raphanel; and that the
+burglary at the Princess's residence had been planned by the police
+officials, who thereby hoped to cover the Anarchist cause with mire. If
+proof was wanted of this, added Janzen, it could be found in the fact
+that the police had allowed Bergaz to escape.
+
+"I fancied that the newspapers might have exaggerated matters," said
+Guillaume, when the Princess had finished her story. "They are inventing
+such abominable things just now, in order to blacken the case of that
+poor devil Salvat."
+
+"Oh! they've exaggerated nothing!" Rosemonde gaily rejoined. "As a matter
+of fact they have omitted a number of particulars which were too filthy
+for publication. . . . For my part, I've merely had to go to an hotel.
+I'm very comfortable there; I was beginning to feel bored in that house
+of mine. . . . All the same, however, Anarchism is hardly a clean
+business, and I no longer like to say that I have any connection with
+it."
+
+She again laughed, and then passed to another subject, asking Guillaume
+to tell her of his most recent researches, in order, no doubt, that she
+might show she knew enough chemistry to understand him. He had been
+rendered thoughtful, however, by the story of Bergaz and the burglary,
+and would only answer her in a general way.
+
+Meantime, Hyacinthe was renewing his acquaintance with his
+school-fellows, Francois and Antoine. He had accompanied the Princess to
+Montmartre against his own inclinations; but since she had taken to
+whipping him he had become afraid of her. The chemist's little home
+filled him with disdain, particularly as the chemist was a man of
+questionable reputation. Moreover, he thought it a duty to insist on his
+own superiority in the presence of those old school-fellows of his, whom
+he found toiling away in the common rut, like other people.
+
+"Ah! yes," said he to Francois, who was taking notes from a book spread
+open before him, "you are at the Ecole Normale, I believe, and are
+preparing for your licentiate. Well, for my part, you know, the idea of
+being tied to anything horrifies me. I become quite stupid when there's
+any question of examination or competition. The only possible road for
+one to follow is that of the Infinite. And between ourselves what dupery
+there is in science, how it narrows our horizon! It's just as well to
+remain a child with eyes gazing into the invisible. A child knows more
+than all your learned men."
+
+Francois, who occasionally indulged in irony, pretended to share his
+opinion. "No doubt, no doubt," said he, "but one must have a natural
+disposition to remain a child. For my part, unhappily, I'm consumed by a
+desire to learn and know. It's deplorable, as I'm well aware, but I pass
+my days racking my brain over books. . . . I shall never know very much,
+that's certain; and perhaps that's the reason why I'm ever striving to
+learn a little more. You must at all events grant that work, like
+idleness, is a means of passing life, though of course it is a less
+elegant and aesthetic one."
+
+"Less aesthetic, precisely," rejoined Hyacinthe. "Beauty lies solely in
+the unexpressed, and life is simply degraded when one introduces anything
+material into it."
+
+Simpleton though he was in spite of the enormity of his pretensions, he
+doubtless detected that Francois had been speaking ironically. So he
+turned to Antoine, who had remained seated in front of a block he was
+engraving. It was the one which represented Lise reading in her garden,
+for he was ever taking it in hand again and touching it up in his desire
+to emphasise his indication of the girl's awakening to intelligence and
+life.
+
+"So you engrave, I see," said Hyacinthe. "Well, since I renounced
+versification--a little poem I had begun on the End of Woman--because
+words seemed to me so gross and cumbersome, mere paving-stones as it
+were, fit for labourers, I myself have had some idea of trying drawing,
+and perhaps engraving too. But what drawing can portray the mystery which
+lies beyond life, the only sphere that has any real existence and
+importance for us? With what pencil and on what kind of plate could one
+depict it? We should need something impalpable, something unheard of,
+which would merely suggest the essence of things and beings."
+
+"But it's only by material means," Antoine somewhat roughly replied,
+"that art can render the essence of things and beings, that is, their
+full significance as we understand it. To transcribe life is my great
+passion; and briefly life is the only mystery that there is in things and
+beings. When it seems to me that an engraving of mine lives, I'm well
+pleased, for I feel that I have created."
+
+Hyacinthe pouted by way of expressing his contempt of all fruitfulness.
+Any fool might beget offspring. It was the sexless idea, existing by
+itself, that was rare and exquisite. He tried to explain this, but became
+confused, and fell back on the conviction which he had brought back from
+Norway, that literature and art were done for in France, killed by
+baseness and excess of production.
+
+"It's evident!" said Francois gaily by way of conclusion. "To do nothing
+already shows that one has some talent!"
+
+Meantime, Pierre and Marie listened and gazed around them, somewhat
+embarrassed by this strange visit which had set the usually grave and
+peaceful workroom topsy-turvy. The little Princess, though, evinced much
+amiability, and on drawing near to Marie admired the wonderful delicacy
+of some embroidery she was finishing. Before leaving, moreover, Rosemonde
+insisted upon Guillaume inscribing his autograph in an album which
+Hyacinthe had to fetch from her carriage. The young man obeyed her with
+evident boredom. It could be seen that they were already weary of one
+another. Pending a fresh caprice, however, it amused Rosemonde to
+terrorize her sorry victim. When she at length led him away, after
+declaring to Guillaume that she should always regard that visit as a
+memorable incident in her life, she made the whole household smile by
+saying: "Oh! so your sons knew Hyacinthe at college. He's a good-natured
+little fellow, isn't he? and he would really be quite nice if he would
+only behave like other people."
+
+That same day Janzen and Bache came to spend the evening with Guillaume.
+Once a week they now met at Montmartre, as they had formerly done at
+Neuilly. Pierre, on these occasions, went home very late, for as soon as
+Mere-Grand, Marie, and Guillaume's sons had retired for the night, there
+were endless chats in the workroom, whence Paris could be seen spangled
+with thousands of gas lights. Another visitor at these times was
+Theophile Morin, but he did not arrive before ten o'clock, as he was
+detained by the work of correcting his pupils' exercises or some other
+wearisome labour pertaining to his profession.
+
+As soon as Guillaume had told the others of the Princess's visit that
+afternoon, Janzen hastily exclaimed: "But she's mad, you know. When I
+first met her I thought for a moment that I might perhaps utilise her for
+the cause. She seemed so thoroughly convinced and bold! But I soon found
+that she was the craziest of women, and simply hungered for new
+emotions!"
+
+Janzen was at last emerging from his wonted frigidity and mysteriousness.
+His cheeks were quite flushed. In all probability he had suffered from
+his rupture with the woman whom he had once called 'the Queen of the
+Anarchists,' and whose fortune and extensive circle of acquaintance had
+seemed to him such powerful weapons of propaganda.
+
+"You know," said he, when he had calmed down, "it was the police who had
+her house pillaged and turned into a pigstye. Yes, in view of Salvat's
+trial, which is now near at hand, the idea was to damn Anarchism beyond
+possibility of even the faintest sympathy on the part of the
+/bourgeois/."
+
+"Yes, she told me so," replied Guillaume, who had become attentive. "But
+I scarcely credit the story. If Bergaz had merely acted under such
+influence as you suggest, he would have been arrested with the others,
+just as Raphanel was taken with those whom he betrayed. Besides, I know
+something of Bergaz; he's a freebooter." Guillaume made a sorrowful
+gesture, and then in a saddened voice continued: "Oh, I can understand
+all claims and all legitimate reprisals. But theft, cynical theft for the
+purpose of profit and enjoyment, is beyond me! It lowers my hope of a
+better and more equitable form of society. Yes, that burglary at the
+Princess's house has greatly distressed me."
+
+An enigmatical smile, sharp like a knife, again played over Janzen's
+lips. "Oh! it's a matter of heredity with you!" said he. "The centuries
+of education and belief that lie behind you compel you to protest. All
+the same, however, when people won't make restoration, things must be
+taken from them. What worries me is that Bergaz should have sold himself
+just now. The public prosecutor will use that farcical burglary as a
+crushing argument when he asks the jury for Salvat's head."
+
+Such was Janzen's hatred of the police that he stubbornly clung to his
+version of the affair. Perhaps, too, he had quarrelled with Bergaz, with
+whom he had at one time freely associated.
+
+Guillaume, who understood that all discussion would be useless, contented
+himself with replying: "Ah! yes, Salvat! Everything is against that
+unhappy fellow, he is certain to be condemned. But you can't know, my
+friends, what a passion that affair of his puts me into. All my ideas of
+truth and justice revolt at the thought of it. He's a madman certainly;
+but there are so many excuses to be urged for him. At bottom he is simply
+a martyr who has followed the wrong track. And yet he has become the
+scapegoat, laden with the crimes of the whole nation, condemned to pay
+for one and all!"
+
+Bache and Morin nodded without replying. They both professed horror of
+Anarchism; while Morin, forgetting that the word if not the thing dated
+from his first master Proudhon, clung to his Comtist doctrines, in the
+conviction that science alone would ensure the happiness and pacification
+of the nations. Bache, for his part, old mystical humanitarian that he
+was, claimed that the only solution would come from Fourier, who by
+decreeing an alliance of talent, labour and capital, had mapped out the
+future in a decisive manner. Nevertheless, both Bache and Morin were so
+discontented with the slow-paced /bourgeoise/ Republic of the present
+day, and so hurt by the thought that everything was going from bad to
+worse through the flouting of their own particular ideas, that they were
+quite willing to wax indignant at the manner in which the conflicting
+parties of the time were striving to make use of Salvat in order to
+retain or acquire power.
+
+"When one thinks," said Bache, "that this ministerial crisis of theirs
+has now been lasting for nearly three weeks! Every appetite is openly
+displayed, it's a most disgusting sight! Did you see in the papers this
+morning that the President has again been obliged to summon Vignon to the
+Elysee?"
+
+"Oh! the papers," muttered Morin in his weary way, "I no longer read
+them! What's the use of doing so? They are so badly written, and they all
+lie!"
+
+As Bache had said, the ministerial crisis was still dragging on. The
+President of the Republic, taking as his guide the debate in the Chamber
+of Deputies, by which the Barroux administration had been overthrown, had
+very properly sent for Vignon, the victor on that occasion, and entrusted
+him with the formation of a new ministry. It had seemed that this would
+be an easy task, susceptible of accomplishment in two or three days at
+the utmost, for the names of the friends whom the young leader of the
+Radical party would bring to power with him had been freely mentioned for
+months past. But all sorts of difficulties had suddenly arisen. For ten
+days or so Vignon had struggled on amidst inextricable obstacles. Then,
+disheartened and disgusted, fearing, too, that he might use himself up
+and shut off the future if he persisted in his endeavours, he had been
+obliged to tell the President that he renounced the task. Forthwith the
+President had summoned other deputies, and questioned them until he had
+found one brave enough to make an attempt on his own account; whereupon
+incidents similar to those which had marked Vignon's endeavours had once
+more occurred. At the outset a list was drawn up with every prospect of
+being ratified within a few hours, but all at once hesitation arose, some
+pulled one way, some another; every effort was slowly paralysed till
+absolute failure resulted. It seemed as though the mysterious manoeuvres
+which had hampered Vignon had begun again; it was as if some band of
+invisible plotters was, for some unknown purpose, doing its utmost to
+wreck every combination. A thousand hindrances arose with increasing
+force from every side--jealousy, dislike, and even betrayal were secretly
+prompted by expert agents, who employed every form of pressure, whether
+threats or promises, besides fanning and casting rival passions and
+interests into collision. Thus the President, greatly embarrassed by this
+posture of affairs, had again found it necessary to summon Vignon, who,
+after reflection and negotiation, now had an almost complete list in his
+pocket, and seemed likely to perfect a new administration within the next
+forty-eight hours.
+
+"Still it isn't settled," resumed Bache. "Well-informed people assert
+that Vignon will fail again as he did the first time. For my part I can't
+get rid of the idea that Duvillard's gang is pulling the strings, though
+for whose benefit is a mystery. You may be quite sure, however, that its
+chief purpose is to stifle the African Railways affair. If Monferrand
+were not so badly compromised I should almost suspect some trick on his
+part. Have you noticed that the 'Globe,' after throwing Barroux overboard
+in all haste, now refers to Monferrand every day with the most respectful
+sympathy? That's a grave sign; for it isn't Fonsegue's habit to show any
+solicitude for the vanquished. But what can one expect from that wretched
+Chamber! The only point certain is that something dirty is being plotted
+there."
+
+"And that big dunderhead Mege who works for every party except his own!"
+exclaimed Morin; "what a dupe he is with that idea that he need merely
+overthrow first one cabinet and then another, in order to become the
+leader of one himself!"
+
+The mention of Mege brought them all to agreement, for they unanimously
+hated him. Bache, although his views coincided on many points with those
+of the apostle of State Collectivism, judged each of his speeches, each
+of his actions, with pitiless severity. Janzen, for his part, treated the
+Collectivist leader as a mere reactionary /bourgeois/, who ought to be
+swept away one of the first. This hatred of Mege was indeed the common
+passion of Guillaume's friends. They could occasionally show some justice
+for men who in no wise shared their ideas; but in their estimation it was
+an unpardonable crime for anybody to hold much the same views as
+themselves, without being absolutely in agreement with them on every
+possible point.
+
+Their discussion continued, their various theories mingling or clashing
+till they passed from politics to the press, and grew excited over the
+denunciations which poured each morning from Sagnier's newspaper, like
+filth from the mouth of a sewer. Thereupon Guillaume, who had become
+absorbed in reverie while pacing to and fro according to his habit,
+suddenly exclaimed: "Ah! what dirty work it is that Sagnier does! Before
+long there won't be a single person, a single thing left on which he
+hasn't vomited! You think he's on your side, and suddenly he splashes you
+with mire! . . . By the way, he related yesterday that skeleton keys and
+stolen purses were found on Salvat when he was arrested in the Bois de
+Boulogne! It's always Salvat! He's the inexhaustible subject for
+articles. The mere mention of him suffices to send up a paper's sales!
+The bribe-takers of the African Railways shout 'Salvat!' to create a
+diversion. And the battles which wreck ministers are waged round his
+name. One and all set upon him and make use of him and beat him down!"
+
+With that cry of revolt and compassion, the friends separated for the
+night. Pierre, who sat near the open window, overlooking the sparkling
+immensity of Paris, had listened to the others without speaking a word.
+He had once more been mastered by his doubts, the terrible struggle of
+his heart and mind; and no solution, no appeasement had come to him from
+all the contradictory views he had heard--the views of men who only
+united in predicting the disappearance of the old world, and could make
+no joint brotherly effort to rear the future world of truth and justice.
+In that vast city of Paris stretching below him, spangled with stars,
+glittering like the sky of a summer's night, Pierre also found a great
+enigma. It was like chaos, like a dim expanse of ashes dotted with sparks
+whence the coming aurora would arise. What future was being forged there,
+he wondered, what decisive word of salvation and happiness would come
+with the dawn, and wing its flight to every point of the horizon?
+
+When Pierre, in his turn, was about to retire, Guillaume laid his hands
+upon his shoulders, and with much emotion gave him a long look. "Ah! my
+poor fellow," said he, "you've been suffering too for some days past, I
+have noticed it. But you are the master of your sufferings, for the
+struggle you have to overcome is simply in yourself, and you can subdue
+it; whereas one cannot subdue the world, when it is the world, its
+cruelty and injustice that make one suffer! Good night, be brave, act as
+your reason tells you, even if it makes you weep, and you will find peace
+surely enough."
+
+Later on, when Pierre again found himself alone in his little house at
+Neuilly, where none now visited him save the shades of his father and
+mother, he was long kept awake by a supreme internal combat. He had never
+before felt so disgusted with the falsehood of his life, that cassock
+which he had persisted in wearing, though he was a priest in name only.
+Perhaps it was all that he had beheld and heard at his brother's, the
+want and wretchedness of some, the wild, futile agitation of others, the
+need of improvement among mankind which remained paramount amidst every
+contradiction and form of weakness, that had made him more deeply
+conscious of the necessity of living in loyal and normal fashion in the
+broad daylight. He could no longer think of his former dream of leading
+the solitary life of a saintly priest when he was nothing of the kind,
+without a shiver of shame at having lied so long. And now it was quite
+decided, he would lie no longer, not even from feelings of compassion in
+order that others might retain their religious illusions. And yet how
+painful it was to have to divest himself of that gown which seemed to
+cling to his skin, and how heartrending the thought that if he did remove
+it he would be skinless, lacerated, infirm, unable, do what he might, to
+become like other men!
+
+It was this recurring thought which again tortured him throughout that
+terrible night. Would life yet allow him to enter its fold? Had he not
+been branded with a mark which for ever condemned him to dwell apart? He
+thought he could feel his priestly vows burning his very flesh like
+red-hot iron. What use would it be for him to dress as men dress, if in
+reality he was never to be a man? He had hitherto lived in such a
+quivering state, in a sphere of renunciation and dreams! To know manhood
+never, to be too late for it, that thought filled him with terror. And
+when at last he made up his mind to fling aside his cassock, he did so
+from a simple sense of rectitude, for all his anguish remained.
+
+When he returned to Montmartre on the following day, he wore a jacket and
+trousers of a dark colour. Neither an exclamation nor a glance that might
+have embarrassed him came from Mere-Grand or the three young men. Was not
+the change a natural one? They greeted him therefore in the quiet way
+that was usual with them; perhaps, with some increase of affection, as if
+to set him the more at his ease. Guillaume, however, ventured to smile
+good-naturedly. In that change he detected his own work. Cure was coming,
+as he had hoped it would come, by him and in his own home, amid the full
+sunlight, the life which ever streamed in through yonder window.
+
+Marie, who on her side raised her eyes and looked at Pierre, knew nothing
+of the sufferings which he had endured through her simple and logical
+inquiry: "Why not take your cassock off?" She merely felt that by
+removing it he would be more at ease for his work.
+
+"Oh, Pierre, just come and look!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I have been
+amusing myself with watching all the smoke which the wind is laying
+yonder over Paris. One might take it to be a huge fleet of ships shining
+in the sunlight. Yes, yes, golden ships, thousands of golden ships,
+setting forth from the ocean of Paris to enlighten and pacify the world!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE DAWN OF LOVE
+
+A COUPLE of days afterwards, when Pierre was already growing accustomed
+to his new attire, and no longer gave it a thought, it so happened that
+on reaching Montmartre he encountered Abbe Rose outside the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart. The old priest, who at first was quite thunderstruck
+and scarcely able to recognise him, ended by taking hold of his hands and
+giving him a long look. Then with his eyes full of tears he exclaimed:
+"Oh! my son, so you have fallen into the awful state I feared! I never
+mentioned it, but I felt that God had withdrawn from you. Ah! nothing
+could wound my heart so cruelly as this."
+
+Then, still trembling, he began to lead Pierre away as if to hide such a
+scandal from the few people who passed by; and at last, his strength
+failing him, he sank upon a heap of bricks lying on the grass of one of
+the adjoining work-yards.
+
+The sincere grief which his old and affectionate friend displayed upset
+Pierre far more than any angry reproaches or curses would have done.
+Tears had come to his own eyes, so acute was the suffering he experienced
+at this meeting, which he ought, however, to have foreseen. There was yet
+another wrenching, and one which made the best of their blood flow, in
+that rupture between Pierre and the saintly man whose charitable dreams
+and hopes of salvation he had so long shared. There had been so many
+divine illusions, so many struggles for the relief of the masses, so much
+renunciation and forgiveness practised in common between them in their
+desire to hasten the harvest of the future! And now they were parting;
+he, Pierre, still young in years, was returning to life, leaving his aged
+companion to his vain waiting and his dreams.
+
+In his turn, taking hold of Abbe Rose's hands, he gave expression to his
+sorrow. "Ah, my friend, my father," said he, "it is you alone that I
+regret losing, now that I am leaving my frightful torments behind. I
+thought that I was cured of them, but it has been sufficient for me to
+meet you, and my heart is rent again. . . . Don't weep for me, I pray
+you, don't reproach me for what I have done. It was necessary that I
+should do it. If I had consulted you, you would yourself have told me
+that it was better to renounce the priesthood than to remain a priest
+without faith or honour."
+
+"Yes, yes," Abbe Rose gently responded, "you no longer had any faith
+left. I suspected it. And your rigidity and saintliness of life, in which
+I detected such great despair, made me anxious for you. How many hours
+did I not spend at times in striving to calm you! And you must listen to
+me again, you must still let me save you. I am not a sufficiently learned
+theologian to lead you back by discussing texts and dogmas; but in the
+name of Charity, my child, yes, in the name of Charity alone, reflect and
+take up your task of consolation and hope once more."
+
+Pierre had sat down beside Abbe Rose, in that deserted nook, at the very
+foot of the basilica. "Charity! charity!" he replied in passionate
+accents; "why, it is its nothingness and bankruptcy that have killed the
+priest there was in me. How can you believe that benevolence is
+sufficient, when you have spent your whole life in practising it without
+any other result than that of seeing want perpetuated and even increased,
+and without any possibility of naming the day when such abomination shall
+cease? . . . You think of the reward after death, do you not? The justice
+that is to reign in heaven? But that is not justice, it is dupery--dupery
+that has brought the world nothing but suffering for centuries past."
+
+Then he reminded the old priest of their life in the Charonne district,
+when they had gone about together succouring children in the streets and
+parents in their hovels; the whole of those admirable efforts which, so
+far as Abbe Rose was concerned, had simply ended in blame from his
+superiors, and removal from proximity to his poor, under penalty of more
+severe punishment should he persist in compromising religion by the
+practice of blind benevolence without reason or object. And now, was he
+not, so to say, submerged beneath the ever-rising tide of want, aware
+that he would never, never be able to give enough even should he dispose
+of millions, and that he could only prolong the agony of the poor, who,
+even should they eat today, would starve again on the morrow? Thus he was
+powerless. The wound which he tried to dress and heal, immediately
+reopened and spread, in such wise that all society would at last be
+stricken and carried off by it.
+
+Quivering as he listened, and slowly shaking his white head, the old
+priest ended by replying: "that does that matter, my child? what does
+that matter? One must give, always give, give in spite of everything!
+There is no other joy on earth. . . . If dogmas worry you, content
+yourself with the Gospel, and even of that retain merely the promise of
+salvation through charity."
+
+But at this Pierre's feelings revolted. He forgot that he was speaking to
+one of simple mind, who was all love and nothing else, and could
+therefore not follow him. "The trial has been made," he answered, "human
+salvation cannot be effected by charity, nothing but justice can
+accomplish it. That is the gathering cry which is going up from every
+nation. For nearly two thousand years now the Gospel has proved a
+failure. There has been no redemption; the sufferings of mankind are
+every whit as great and unjust as they were when Jesus came. And thus the
+Gospel is now but an abolished code, from which society can only draw
+things that are troublous and hurtful. Men must free themselves from it."
+
+This was his final conviction. How strange the idea, thought he, of
+choosing as the world's social legislator one who lived, as Jesus lived,
+amidst a social system absolutely different from that of nowadays. The
+age was different, the very world was different. And if it were merely a
+question of retaining only such of the moral teaching of Jesus as seemed
+human and eternal, was there not again a danger in applying immutable
+principles to the society of every age? No society could live under the
+strict law of the Gospel. Was not all order, all labour, all life
+destroyed by the teaching of Jesus? Did He not deny woman, the earth,
+eternal nature and the eternal fruitfulness of things and beings?
+Moreover, Catholicism had reared upon His primitive teaching such a
+frightful edifice of terror and oppression. The theory of original sin,
+that terrible heredity reviving with each creature born into the world,
+made no allowance as Science does for the corrective influences of
+education, circumstances and environment. There could be no more
+pessimist conception of man than this one which devotes him to the Devil
+from the instant of his birth, and pictures him as struggling against
+himself until the instant of his death. An impossible and absurd
+struggle, for it is a question of changing man in his entirety, killing
+the flesh, killing reason, destroying some guilty energy in each and
+every passion, and of pursuing the Devil to the very depths of the
+waters, mountains and forests, there to annihilate him with the very sap
+of the world. If this theory is accepted the world is but sin, a mere
+Hell of temptation and suffering, through which one must pass in order to
+merit Heaven. Ah! what an admirable instrument for absolute despotism is
+that religion of death, which the principle of charity alone has enabled
+men to tolerate, but which the need of justice will perforce sweep away.
+The poor man, who is the wretched dupe of it all, no longer believes in
+Paradise, but requires that each and all should be rewarded according to
+their deserts upon this earth; and thus eternal life becomes the good
+goddess, and desire and labour the very laws of the world, while the
+fruitfulness of woman is again honoured, and the idiotic nightmare of
+Hell is replaced by glorious Nature whose travail knows no end. Leaning
+upon modern Science, clear Latin reason sweeps away the ancient Semitic
+conception of the Gospel.
+
+"For eighteen hundred years," concluded Pierre, "Christianity has been
+hampering the march of mankind towards truth and justice. And mankind
+will only resume its evolution on the day when it abolishes Christianity,
+and places the Gospel among the works of the wise, without taking it any
+longer as its absolute and final law."
+
+But Abbe Rose raised his trembling hands: "Be quiet, be quiet, my child!"
+he cried; "you are blaspheming! I knew that doubt distracted you; but I
+thought you so patient, so able to bear suffering, that I relied on your
+spirit of renunciation and resignation. What can have happened to make
+you leave the Church in this abrupt and violent fashion? I no longer
+recognise you. Sudden passion has sprung up in you, an invincible force
+seems to carry you away. What is it? Who has changed you, tell me?"
+
+Pierre listened in astonishment. "No," said he, "I assure you, I am such
+as you have known me, and in all this there is but an inevitable result
+and finish. Who could have influenced me, since nobody has entered my
+life? What new feeling could transform me, since I find none in me? I am
+the same as before, the same assuredly."
+
+Still there was a touch of hesitation in his voice. Was it really true
+that there had been no change within him? He again questioned himself,
+and there came no clear answer; decidedly, he would find nothing. It was
+all but a delightful awakening, an overpowering desire for life, a
+longing to open his arms widely enough to embrace everyone and
+everything indeed, a breeze of joy seemed to raise him from the ground
+and carry him along.
+
+Although Abbe Rose was too innocent of heart to understand things
+clearly, he again shook his head and thought of the snares which the
+Devil is ever setting for men. He was quite overwhelmed by Pierre's
+defection. Continuing his efforts to win him back, he made the mistake of
+advising him to consult Monseigneur Martha, for he hoped that a prelate
+of such high authority would find the words necessary to restore him to
+his faith. Pierre, however, boldly replied that if he was leaving the
+Church it was partly because it comprised such a man as Martha, such an
+artisan of deception and despotism, one who turned religion into corrupt
+diplomacy, and dreamt of winning men back to God by dint of ruses.
+Thereupon Abbe Rose, rising to his feet, could find no other argument in
+his despair than that of pointing to the basilica which stood beside
+them, square, huge and massive, and still waiting for its dome.
+
+"That is God's abode, my child," said he, "the edifice of expiation and
+triumph, of penitence and forgiveness. You have said mass in it, and now
+you are leaving it sacrilegiously and forswearing yourself!"
+
+But Pierre also had risen; and buoyed up by a sudden rush of health and
+strength he answered: "No, no! I am leaving it willingly, as one leaves a
+dark vault, to return into the open air and the broad sunlight. God does
+not dwell there; the only purpose of that huge edifice is to defy reason,
+truth and justice; it has been erected on the highest spot that could be
+found, like a citadel of error that dominates, insults and threatens
+Paris!"
+
+Then seeing that the old priest's eyes were again filling with tears, and
+feeling on his own side so pained by their rupture that he began to sob,
+Pierre wished to go away. "Farewell! farewell!" he stammered.
+
+But Abbe Rose caught him in his arms and kissed him, as if he were a
+rebellious son who yet had remained the dearest. "No, not farewell, not
+farewell, my child," he answered; "say rather till we meet again. Promise
+me that we shall see each other again, at least among those who starve
+and weep. It is all very well for you to think that charity has become
+bankrupt, but shall we not always love one another in loving our poor?"
+
+Then they parted.
+
+On becoming the companion of his three big nephews, Pierre had in a few
+lessons learnt from them how to ride a bicycle, in order that he might
+occasionally accompany them on their morning excursions. He went twice
+with them and Marie along the somewhat roughly paved roads in the
+direction of the Lake of Enghien. Then one morning when the young woman
+had promised to take him and Antoine as far as the forest of
+Saint-Germain, it was found at the last moment that Antoine could not
+come. Marie was already dressed in a chemisette of fawn-coloured silk,
+and a little jacket and "rationals" of black serge, and it was such a
+warm, bright April day that she was not inclined to renounce her trip.
+
+"Well, so much the worse!" she gaily said to Pierre, "I shall take you
+with me, there will only be the pair of us. I really want you to see how
+delightful it is to bowl over a good road between the beautiful trees."
+
+However, as Pierre was not yet a very expert rider, they decided that
+they would take the train as far as Maisons-Laffitte, whence they would
+proceed on their bicycles to the forest, cross it in the direction of
+Saint-Germain, and afterwards return to Paris by train.
+
+"You will be here for /dejeuner/, won't you?" asked Guillaume, whom this
+freak amused, and who looked with a smile at his brother. The latter,
+like Marie, was in black: jacket, breeches and stockings all of the same
+hue.
+
+"Oh, certainly!" replied Marie. "It's now barely eight o'clock, so we
+have plenty of time. Still you need not wait for us, you know, we shall
+always find our way back."
+
+It was a delightful morning. When they started, Pierre could fancy
+himself with a friend of his own sex, so that this trip together through
+the warm sunlight seemed quite natural. Doubtless their costumes, which
+were so much alike, conduced to the gay brotherly feeling he experienced.
+But beyond all this there was the healthfulness of the open air, the
+delight which exercise brings, the pleasure of roaming in all freedom
+through the midst of nature.
+
+On taking the train they found themselves alone in a compartment, and
+Marie once more began to talk of her college days. "Ah! you've no idea,"
+said she, "what fine games at baseball we used to have at Fenelon! We
+used to tie up our skirts with string so as to run the better, for we
+were not allowed to wear rationals like I'm wearing now. And there were
+shrieks, and rushes, and pushes, till our hair waved about and we were
+quite red with exercise and excitement. Still that didn't prevent us from
+working in the class-rooms. On the contrary! Directly we were at study we
+fought again, each striving to learn the most and reach the top of the
+class!"
+
+She laughed gaily as she thus recalled her school life, and Pierre
+glanced at her with candid admiration, so pink and healthy did she look
+under her little hat of black felt, which a long silver pin kept in
+position. Her fine dark hair was caught up behind, showing her neck,
+which looked as fresh and delicate as a child's. And never before had she
+seemed to him so supple and so strong.
+
+"Ah," she continued in a jesting way, "there is nothing like rationals,
+you know! To think that some women are foolish and obstinate enough to
+wear skirts when they go out cycling!"
+
+Then, as he declared--just by way of speaking the truth, and without the
+faintest idea of gallantry--that she looked very nice indeed in her
+costume, she responded: "Oh! I don't count. I'm not a beauty. I simply
+enjoy good health. . . . But can you understand it? To think that women
+have an unique opportunity of putting themselves at their ease, and
+releasing their limbs from prison, and yet they won't do so! If they
+think that they look the prettier in short skirts like schoolgirls they
+are vastly mistaken! And as for any question of modesty, well, it seems
+to me that it is infinitely less objectionable for women to wear
+rationals than to bare their bosoms at balls and theatres and dinners as
+society ladies do." Then, with a gesture of girlish impulsiveness, she
+added: "Besides, does one think of such things when one's rolling along?
+. . . Yes, rationals are the only things, skirts are rank heresy!"
+
+In her turn, she was now looking at him, and was struck by the
+extraordinary change which had come over him since the day when he had
+first appeared to her, so sombre in his long cassock, with his face
+emaciated, livid, almost distorted by anguish. It was like a
+resurrection, for now his countenance was bright, his lofty brow had all
+the serenity of hope, while his eyes and lips once more showed some of
+the confident tenderness which sprang from his everlasting thirst for
+love, self-bestowal and life. All mark of the priesthood had already left
+him, save that where he had been tonsured his hair still remained rather
+short.
+
+"Why are you looking at me?" he asked.
+
+"I was noticing how much good has been done you by work and the open
+air," she frankly answered; "I much prefer you as you are. You used to
+look so poorly. I thought you really ill."
+
+"So I was," said he.
+
+The train, however, was now stopping at Maisons-Laffitte. They alighted
+from it, and at once took the road to the forest. This road rises gently
+till it reaches the Maisons gate, and on market days it is often crowded
+with carts.
+
+"I shall go first, eh?" said Marie gaily, "for vehicles still alarm you."
+
+Thereupon she started ahead, but every now and again she turned with a
+smile to see if he were following her. And every time they overtook and
+passed a cart she spoke to him of the merits of their machines, which
+both came from the Grandidier works. They were "Lisettes," examples of
+those popular bicycles which Thomas had helped to perfect, and which the
+Bon Marche now sold in large numbers for 250 francs apiece. Perhaps they
+were rather heavy in appearance, but on the other hand their strength was
+beyond question. They were just the machines for a long journey, so Marie
+declared.
+
+"Ah! here's the forest," she at last exclaimed. "We have now reached the
+end of the rise; and you will see what splendid avenues there are. One
+can bowl along them as on a velvet carpet."
+
+Pierre had already joined her, and they rode on side by side along the
+broad straight avenue fringed with magnificent trees.
+
+"I am all right now," said Pierre; "your pupil will end by doing you
+honour, I hope."
+
+"Oh! I've no doubt of it. You already have a very good seat, and before
+long you'll leave me behind, for a woman is never a man's equal in a
+matter like this. At the same time, however, what a capital education
+cycling is for women!"
+
+In what way?"
+
+"Oh! I've certain ideas of my own on the subject; and if ever I have a
+daughter I shall put her on a bicycle as soon as she's ten years old,
+just to teach her how to conduct herself in life."
+
+"Education by experience, eh?"
+
+"Yes, why not? Look at the big girls who are brought up hanging to their
+mothers' apron strings. Their parents frighten them with everything, they
+are allowed no initiative, no exercise of judgment or decision, so that
+at times they hardly know how to cross a street, to such a degree does
+the traffic alarm them. Well, I say that a girl ought to be set on a
+bicycle in her childhood, and allowed to follow the roads. She will then
+learn to open her eyes, to look out for stones and avoid them, and to
+turn in the right direction at every bend or crossway. If a vehicle comes
+up at a gallop or any other danger presents itself, she'll have to make
+up her mind on the instant, and steer her course firmly and properly if
+she does not wish to lose a limb. Briefly, doesn't all this supply proper
+apprenticeship for one's will, and teach one how to conduct and defend
+oneself?"
+
+Pierre had begun to laugh. "You will all be too healthy," he remarked.
+
+"Oh, one must be healthy if one wants to be happy. But what I wish to
+convey is that those who learn to avoid stones and to turn properly along
+the highways will know how to overcome difficulties, and take the best
+decisions in after life. The whole of education lies in knowledge and
+energy."
+
+"So women are to be emancipated by cycling?"
+
+"Well, why not? It may seem a droll idea; but see what progress has been
+made already. By wearing rationals women free their limbs from prison;
+then the facilities which cycling affords people for going out together
+tend to greater intercourse and equality between the sexes; the wife and
+the children can follow the husband everywhere, and friends like
+ourselves are at liberty to roam hither and thither without astonishing
+anybody. In this lies the greatest advantage of all: one takes a bath of
+air and sunshine, one goes back to nature, to the earth, our common
+mother, from whom one derives fresh strength and gaiety of heart! Just
+look how delightful this forest is. And how healthful the breeze that
+inflates our lungs! Yes, it all purifies, calms and encourages one."
+
+The forest, which was quite deserted on week days, stretched out in
+quietude on either hand, with sunlight filtering between its deep bands
+of trees. At that hour the rays only illumined one side of the avenue,
+there gilding the lofty drapery of verdure; on the other, the shady side,
+the greenery seemed almost black. It was truly delightful to skim,
+swallow-like, over that royal avenue in the fresh atmosphere, amidst the
+waving of grass and foliage, whose powerful scent swept against one's
+face. Pierre and Marie scarcely touched the soil: it was as if wings had
+come to them, and were carrying them on with a regular flight, through
+alternate patches of shade and sunshine, and all the scattered vitality
+of the far-reaching, quivering forest, with its mosses, its sources, its
+animal and its insect life.
+
+Marie would not stop when they reached the crossway of the Croix de
+Noailles, a spot where people congregate on Sundays, for she was
+acquainted with secluded nooks which were far more charming
+resting-places. When they reached the slope going down towards Poissy,
+she roused Pierre, and they let their machines rush on. Then came all the
+joyous intoxication of speed, the rapturous feeling of darting along
+breathlessly while the grey road flees beneath one, and the trees on
+either hand turn like the opening folds of a fan. The breeze blows
+tempestuously, and one fancies that one is journeying yonder towards the
+horizon, the infinite, which ever and ever recedes. It is like boundless
+hope, delivery from every shackle, absolute freedom of motion through
+space. And nothing can inspirit one more gloriously--one's heart leaps as
+if one were in the very heavens.
+
+"We are not going to Poissy, you know!" Marie suddenly cried; "we have to
+turn to the left."
+
+They took the road from Acheres to the Loges, which ascends and
+contracts, thus bringing one closer together in the shade. Gradually
+slowing down, they began to exert themselves in order to make their way
+up the incline. This road was not so good as the others, it had been
+gullied by the recent heavy rains, and sand and gravel lay about. But
+then is there not even a pleasure in effort?
+
+"You will get used to it," said Marie to Pierre; "it's amusing to
+overcome obstacles. For my part I don't like roads which are invariably
+smooth. A little ascent which does not try one's limbs too much rouses
+and inspirits one. And it is so agreeable to find oneself strong, and
+able to go on and on in spite of rain, or wind, or hills."
+
+Her bright humour and courage quite charmed Pierre. "And so," said he,
+"we are off for a journey round France?"
+
+"No, no, we've arrived. You won't dislike a little rest, eh? And now,
+tell me, wasn't it worth our while to come on here and rest in such a
+nice fresh, quiet spot."
+
+She nimbly sprang off her machine and, bidding him follow her, turned
+into a path, along which she went some fifty paces. They placed their
+bicycles against some trees, and then found themselves in a little
+clearing, the most exquisite, leafy nest that one could dream of. The
+forest here assumed an aspect of secluded sovereign beauty. The
+springtide had endowed it with youth, the foliage was light and virginal,
+like delicate green lace flecked with gold by the sun-rays. And from the
+herbage and the surrounding thickets arose a breath of life, laden with
+all the powerful aroma of the earth.
+
+"It's not too warm as yet, fortunately," exclaimed Marie, as she seated
+herself at the foot of a young oak-tree, against which she leant. "In
+July ladies get rather red by the time they reach this spot, and all the
+powder comes off their faces. However, one can't always be beautiful."
+
+"Well, I'm not cold by any means," replied Pierre, as he sat at her feet
+wiping his forehead.
+
+She laughed, and answered that she had never before seen him with such a
+colour. Then they began to talk like children, like two young friends,
+finding a source of gaiety in the most puerile things. She was somewhat
+anxious about his health, however, and would not allow him to remain in
+the cool shade, as he felt so very warm. In order to tranquillise her, he
+had to change his place and seat himself with his back to the sun. Then a
+little later he saved her from a large black spider, which had caught
+itself in the wavy hair on the nape of her neck. At this all her womanly
+nature reappeared, and she shrieked with terror. "How stupid it was to be
+afraid of a spider!" she exclaimed a moment afterwards; yet, in spite of
+her efforts to master herself, she remained pale and trembling.
+
+Silence at last fell between them, and they looked at one another with a
+smile. In the midst of that delicate greenery they felt drawn together by
+frank affection--the affection of brother and sister, so it seemed to
+them. It made Marie very happy to think that she had taken an interest in
+Pierre, and that his return to health was largely her own work. However,
+their eyes never fell, their hands never met, even as they sat there
+toying with the grass, for they were as pure, as unconscious of all evil,
+as were the lofty oaks around them.
+
+At last Marie noticed that time was flying. "You know that they expect us
+back to lunch," she exclaimed. "We ought to be off."
+
+Thereupon they rose, wheeled their bicycles back to the highway, and
+starting off again at a good pace passed the Loges and reached
+Saint-Germain by the fine avenue which conducts to the chateau. It
+charmed them to take their course again side by side, like birds of equal
+flight. Their little bells jingled, their chains rustled lightly, and a
+fresh breeze swept past them as they resumed their talk, quite at ease,
+and so linked together by friendship that they seemed far removed from
+all the rest of the world.
+
+They took the train from Saint-Germain to Paris, and on the journey
+Pierre suddenly noticed that Marie's cheeks were purpling. There were two
+ladies with them in the compartment.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "so you feel warm in your turn now?"
+
+But she protested the contrary, her face glowing more and more brightly
+as she spoke, as if some sudden feeling of shame quite upset her. "No,
+I'm not warm," said she; "just feel my hands. . . . But how ridiculous it
+is to blush like this without any reason for it!"
+
+He understood her. This was one of those involuntary blushing fits which
+so distressed her, and which, as Mere-Grand had remarked, brought her
+heart to her very cheeks. There was no cause for it, as she herself said.
+After slumbering in all innocence in the solitude of the forest her heart
+had begun to beat, despite herself.
+
+Meantime, over yonder at Montmartre, Guillaume had spent his morning in
+preparing some of that mysterious powder, the cartridges of which he
+concealed upstairs in Mere-Grand's bedroom. Great danger attended this
+manufacture. The slightest forgetfulness while he was manipulating the
+ingredients, any delay, too, in turning off a tap, might lead to a
+terrible explosion, which would annihilate the building and all who might
+be in it. For this reason he preferred to work when he was alone, so that
+on the one hand there might be no danger for others, and on the other
+less likelihood of his own attention being diverted from his task. That
+morning, as it happened, his three sons were working in the room, and
+Mere-Grand sat sewing near the furnace. Truth to tell, she did not count,
+for she scarcely ever left her place, feeling quite at ease there,
+however great might be the peril. Indeed, she had become so well
+acquainted with the various phases of Guillaume's delicate operations,
+and their terrible possibilities, that she would occasionally give him a
+helping hand.
+
+That morning, as she sat there mending some house linen,--her eyesight
+still being so keen that in spite of her seventy years she wore no
+spectacles,--she now and again glanced at Guillaume as if to make sure
+that he forgot nothing. Then feeling satisfied, she would once more bend
+over her work. She remained very strong and active. Her hair was only
+just turning white, and she had kept all her teeth, while her face still
+looked refined, though it was slowly withering with age and had acquired
+an expression of some severity. As a rule she was a woman of few words;
+her life was one of activity and good management. When she opened her
+lips it was usually to give advice, to counsel reason, energy and
+courage. For some time past she had been growing more taciturn than ever,
+as if all her attention were claimed by the household matters which were
+in her sole charge; still, her fine eyes would rest thoughtfully on those
+about her, on the three young men, and on Guillaume, Marie and Pierre,
+who all obeyed her as if she were their acknowledged queen. If she looked
+at them in that pensive way, was it that she foresaw certain changes, and
+noticed certain incidents of which the others remained unconscious?
+Perhaps so. At all events she became even graver, and more attentive than
+in the past. It was as if she were waiting for some hour to strike when
+all her wisdom and authority would be required.
+
+"Be careful, Guillaume," she at last remarked, as she once more looked up
+from her sewing. "You seem absent-minded this morning. Is anything
+worrying you?"
+
+He glanced at her with a smile. "No, nothing, I assure you," he replied.
+"But I was thinking of our dear Marie, who was so glad to go off to the
+forest in this bright sunshine."
+
+Antoine, who heard the remark, raised his head, while his brothers
+remained absorbed in their work. "What a pity it is that I had this block
+to finish," said he; "I would willingly have gone with her."
+
+"Oh, no matter," his father quietly rejoined. "Pierre is with her, and he
+is very cautious."
+
+For another moment Mere-Grand continued scrutinising Guillaume; then she
+once more reverted to her sewing.
+
+If she exercised such sway over the home and all its inmates, it was by
+reason of her long devotion, her intelligence, and the kindliness with
+which she ruled. Uninfluenced by any religious faith, and disregarding
+all social conventionalities, her guiding principle in everything was the
+theory of human justice which she had arrived at after suffering so
+grievously from the injustice that had killed her husband. She put her
+views into practice with wonderful courage, knowing nothing of any
+prejudices, but accomplishing her duty, such as she understood it, to the
+very end. And in the same way as she had first devoted herself to her
+husband, and next to her daughter Marguerite, so at present she devoted
+herself to Guillaume and his sons. Pierre, whom she had first studied
+with some anxiety, had now, too, become a member of her family, a dweller
+in the little realm of happiness which she ruled. She had doubtless found
+him worthy of admission into it, though she did not reveal the reason
+why. After days and days of silence she had simply said, one evening, to
+Guillaume, that he had done well in bringing his brother to live among
+them.
+
+Time flew by as she sat sewing and thinking. Towards noon Guillaume, who
+was still at work, suddenly remarked to her: "As Marie and Pierre haven't
+come back, we had better let the lunch wait a little while. Besides, I
+should like to finish what I'm about."
+
+Another quarter of an hour then elapsed. Finally, the three young men
+rose from their work, and went to wash their hands at a tap in the
+garden.
+
+"Marie is very late," now remarked Mere-Grand. "We must hope that nothing
+has happened to her."
+
+"Oh! she rides so well," replied Guillaume. "I'm more anxious on account
+of Pierre."
+
+At this the old lady again fixed her eyes on him, and said: "But Marie
+will have guided Pierre; they already ride very well together."
+
+"No doubt; still I should be better pleased if they were back home."
+
+Then all at once, fancying that he heard the ring of a bicycle bell, he
+called out: "There they are!" And forgetting everything else in his
+satisfaction, he quitted his furnace and hastened into the garden in
+order to meet them.
+
+Mere-Grand, left to herself, quietly continued sewing, without a thought
+that the manufacture of Guillaume's powder was drawing to an end in an
+apparatus near her. A couple of minutes later, however, when Guillaume
+came back, saying that he had made a mistake, his eyes suddenly rested on
+his furnace, and he turned quite livid. Brief as had been his absence the
+exact moment when it was necessary to turn off a tap in order that no
+danger might attend the preparation of his powder had already gone by;
+and now, unless someone should dare to approach that terrible tap, and
+boldly turn it, a fearful explosion might take place. Doubtless it was
+too late already, and whoever might have the bravery to attempt the feat
+would be blown to pieces.
+
+Guillaume himself had often run a similar risk of death with perfect
+composure. But on this occasion he remained as if rooted to the floor,
+unable to take a step, paralysed by the dread of annihilation. He
+shuddered and stammered in momentary expectation of a catastrophe which
+would hurl the work-shop to the heavens.
+
+"Mere-Grand, Mere-Grand," he stammered. "The apparatus, the tap . . . it
+is all over, all over!"
+
+The old woman had raised her head without as yet understanding him. "Eh,
+what?" said she; "what is the matter with you?" Then, on seeing how
+distorted were his features, how he recoiled as if mad with terror, she
+glanced at the furnace and realised the danger. "Well, but it's simple
+enough," said she; "it's only necessary to turn off the tap, eh?"
+
+Thereupon, without any semblance of haste, in the most easy and natural
+manner possible, she deposited her needlework on a little table, rose
+from her chair, and turned off the tap with a light but firm hand.
+"There! it's done," said she. "But why didn't you do it yourself, my
+friend?"
+
+He had watched her in bewilderment, chilled to the bones, as if touched
+by the hand of death. And when some colour at last returned to his
+cheeks, and he found himself still alive in front of the apparatus whence
+no harm could now come, he heaved a deep sigh and again shuddered. "Why
+did I not turn it off?" he repeated. "It was because I felt afraid."
+
+At that very moment Marie and Pierre came into the work-shop all chatter
+and laughter, delighted with their excursion, and bringing with them the
+bright joyousness of the sunlight. The three brothers, Thomas, Francis
+and Antoine, were jesting with them, and trying to make them confess that
+Pierre had at least fought a battle with a cow on the high road, and
+ridden into a cornfield. All at once, however, they became quite anxious,
+for they noticed that their father looked terribly upset.
+
+"My lads," said he, "I've just been a coward. Ah! it's a curious feeling,
+I had never experienced it before."
+
+Thereupon he recounted his fears of an accident, and how quietly
+Mere-Grand had saved them all from certain death. She waved her hand,
+however, as if to say that there was nothing particularly heroic in
+turning off a tap. The young men's eyes nevertheless filled with tears,
+and one after the other they went to kiss her with a fervour instinct
+with all the gratitude and worship they felt for her. She had been
+devoting herself to them ever since their infancy, she had now just given
+them a new lease of life. Marie also threw herself into her arms, kissing
+her with gratitude and emotion. Mere-Grand herself was the only one who
+did not shed tears. She strove to calm them, begging them to exaggerate
+nothing and to remain sensible.
+
+"Well, you must at all events let me kiss you as the others have done,"
+Guillaume said to her, as he recovered his self-possession. "I at least
+owe you that. And Pierre, too, shall kiss you, for you are now as good
+for him as you have always been for us."
+
+At table, when it was at last possible for them to lunch, he reverted to
+that attack of fear which had left him both surprised and ashamed. He who
+for years had never once thought of death had for some time past found
+ideas of caution in his mind. On two occasions recently he had shuddered
+at the possibility of a catastrophe. How was it that a longing for life
+had come to him in his decline? Why was it that he now wished to live? At
+last with a touch of tender affection in his gaiety, he remarked: "Do you
+know, Marie, I think it is my thoughts of you that make me a coward. If
+I've lost my bravery it's because I risk something precious when any
+danger arises. Happiness has been entrusted to my charge. Just now when I
+fancied that we were all going to die, I thought I could see you, and my
+fear of losing you froze and paralysed me."
+
+Marie indulged in a pretty laugh. Allusions to her coming marriage were
+seldom made; however, she invariably greeted them with an air of happy
+affection.
+
+"Another six weeks!" she simply said.
+
+Thereupon Mere-Grand, who had been looking at them, turned her eyes
+towards Pierre. He, however, like the others was listening with a smile.
+
+"That's true," said the old lady, "you are to be married in six weeks'
+time. So I did right to prevent the house from being blown up."
+
+At this the young men made merry; and the repast came to an end in very
+joyous fashion.
+
+During the afternoon, however, Pierre's heart gradually grew heavy.
+Marie's words constantly returned to him: "Another six weeks!" Yes, it
+was indeed true, she would then be married. But it seemed to him that he
+had never previously known it, never for a moment thought of it. And
+later on, in the evening, when he was alone in his room at Neuilly, his
+heart-pain became intolerable. Those words tortured him. Why was it that
+they had not caused him any suffering when they were spoken, why had he
+greeted them with a smile? And why had such cruel anguish slowly
+followed? All at once an idea sprang up in his mind, and became an
+overwhelming certainty. He loved Marie, he loved her as a lover, with a
+love so intense that he might die from it.
+
+With this sudden consciousness of his passion everything became clear and
+plain. He had been going perforce towards that love ever since he had
+first met Marie. The emotion into which the young woman had originally
+thrown him had seemed to him a feeling of repulsion, but afterwards he
+had been slowly conquered, all his torments and struggles ending in this
+love for her. It was indeed through her that he had at last found
+quietude. And the delightful morning which he had spent with her that
+day, appeared to him like a betrothal morning, in the depths of the happy
+forest. Nature had resumed her sway over him, delivered him from his
+sufferings, made him strong and healthy once more, and given him to the
+woman he adored. The quiver he had experienced, the happiness he had
+felt, his communion with the trees, the heavens, and every living
+creature--all those things which he had been unable to explain, now
+acquired a clear meaning which transported him. In Marie alone lay his
+cure, his hope, his conviction that he would be born anew and at last
+find happiness. In her company he had already forgotten all those
+distressing problems which had formerly haunted him and bowed him down.
+For a week past he had not once thought of death, which had so long been
+the companion of his every hour. All the conflict of faith and doubt, the
+distress roused by the idea of nihility, the anger he had felt at the
+unjust sufferings of mankind, had been swept away by her fresh cool
+hands. She was so healthy herself, so glad to live, that she had imparted
+a taste for life even to him. Yes, it was simply that: she was making him
+a man, a worker, a lover once more.
+
+Then he suddenly remembered Abbe Rose and his painful conversation with
+that saintly man. The old priest, whose heart was so ingenuous, and who
+knew nothing of love and passion, was nevertheless the only one who had
+understood the truth. He had told Pierre that he was changed, that there
+was another man in him. And he, Pierre, had foolishly and stubbornly
+declared that he was the same as he had always been; whereas Marie had
+already transformed him, bringing all nature back to his breast--all
+nature, with its sunlit countrysides, its fructifying breezes, and its
+vast heavens, whose glow ripens its crops. That indeed was why he had
+felt so exasperated with Catholicism, that religion of death; that was
+why he had shouted that the Gospel was useless, and that the world
+awaited another law--a law of terrestrial happiness, human justice and
+living love and fruitfulness!
+
+Ah, but Guillaume? Then a vision of his brother rose before Pierre, that
+brother who loved him so fondly, and who had carried him to his home of
+toil, quietude and affection, in order to cure him of his sufferings. If
+he knew Marie it was simply because Guillaume had chosen that he should
+know her. And again Marie's words recurred to him: "Another six weeks!"
+Yes, in six weeks his brother would marry the young woman. This thought
+was like a stab in Pierre's heart. Still, he did not for one moment
+hesitate: if he must die of his love, he would die of it, but none should
+ever know it, he would conquer himself, he would flee to the ends of the
+earth should he ever feel the faintest cowardice. Rather than bring a
+moment's pain to that brother who had striven to resuscitate him, who was
+the artisan of the passion now consuming him, who had given him his whole
+heart and all he had--he would condemn himself to perpetual torture. And
+indeed, torture was coming back; for in losing Marie he could but sink
+into the distress born of the consciousness of his nothingness. As he lay
+in bed, unable to sleep, he already experienced a return of his
+abominable torments--the negation of everything, the feeling that
+everything was useless, that the world had no significance, and that life
+was only worthy of being cursed and denied. And then the shudder born of
+the thought of death returned to him. Ah! to die, to die without even
+having lived!
+
+The struggle was a frightful one. Until daybreak he sobbed in martyrdom.
+Why had he taken off his cassock? He had done so at a word from Marie;
+and now another word from her gave him the despairing idea of donning it
+once more. One could not escape from so fast a prison. That black gown
+still clung to his skin. He fancied that he had divested himself of it,
+and yet it was still weighing on his shoulders, and his wisest course
+would be to bury himself in it for ever. By donning it again he would at
+least wear mourning for his manhood.
+
+All at once, however, a fresh thought upset him. Why should he struggle
+in that fashion? Marie did not love him. There had been nothing between
+them to indicate that she cared for him otherwise than as a charming,
+tender-hearted sister. It was Guillaume that she loved, no doubt. Then he
+pressed his face to his pillow to stifle his sobs, and once more swore
+that he would conquer himself and turn a smiling face upon their
+happiness.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TRIAL AND SENTENCE
+
+HAVING returned to Montmartre on the morrow Pierre suffered so grievously
+that he did not show himself there on the two following days. He
+preferred to remain at home where there was nobody to notice his
+feverishness. On the third morning, however, whilst he was still in bed,
+strengthless and full of despair, he was both surprised and embarrassed
+by a visit from Guillaume.
+
+"I must needs come to you," said the latter, "since you forsake us. I've
+come to fetch you to attend Salvat's trial, which takes place to-day. I
+had no end of trouble to secure two places. Come, get up, we'll have
+/dejeuner/ in town, so as to reach the court early."
+
+Then, while Pierre was hastily dressing, Guillaume, who on his side
+seemed thoughtful and worried that morning, began to question him: "Have
+you anything to reproach us with?" he asked.
+
+"No, nothing. What an idea!" was Pierre's reply.
+
+"Then why have you been staying away? We had got into the habit of seeing
+you every day, but all at once you disappear."
+
+Pierre vainly sought a falsehood, and all his composure fled. "I had some
+work to do here," said he, "and then, too, my gloomy ideas cane back to
+me, and I didn't want to go and sadden you all."
+
+At this Guillaume hastily waved his hand. "If you fancy that your absence
+enlivens us you're mistaken," he replied. "Marie, who is usually so well
+and happy, had such a bad headache on the day before yesterday that she
+was obliged to keep her room. And she was ill at ease and nervous and
+silent again yesterday. We spent a very unpleasant day."
+
+As he spoke Guillaume looked Pierre well in the face, his frank loyal
+eyes clearly revealing the suspicions which had come to him, but which he
+would not express in words.
+
+Pierre, quite dismayed by the news of Marie's indisposition, and
+frightened by the idea of betraying his secret, thereupon managed to tell
+a lie. "Yes, she wasn't very well on the day when we went cycling," he
+quietly responded. "But I assure you that I have had a lot to do here.
+When you came in just now I was about to get up and go to your house as
+usual."
+
+Guillaume kept his eyes on him for a moment longer. Then, either
+believing him or deciding to postpone his search for the truth to some
+future time, he began speaking affectionately on other subjects. With his
+keen brotherly love, however, there was blended such a quiver of
+impending distress, of unconfessed sorrow, which possibly he did not yet
+realise, that Pierre in his turn began to question him. "And you," said
+he, "are you ill? You seem to me to have lost your usual serenity."
+
+"I? Oh! I'm not ill. Only I can't very well retain my composure; Salvat's
+affair distresses me exceedingly, as you must know. They will all end by
+driving me mad with the monstrous injustice they show towards that
+unhappy fellow."
+
+Thenceforward Guillaume went on talking of Salvat in a stubborn
+passionate way, as if he wished to find an explanation of all his pain
+and unrest in that affair. While he and Pierre were partaking of
+/dejeuner/ at a little restaurant on the Boulevard du Palais he related
+how deeply touched he was by the silence which Salvat had preserved with
+regard both to the nature of the explosive employed in the bomb and the
+few days' work which he had once done at his house. It was, thanks to
+this silence, that he, Guillaume, had not been worried or even summoned
+as a witness. Then, in his emotion, he reverted to his invention, that
+formidable engine which would ensure omnipotence to France, as the great
+initiatory and liberative power of the world. The results of the
+researches which had occupied him for ten years past were now out of
+danger and in all readiness, so that if occasion required they might at
+once be delivered to the French government. And, apart from certain
+scruples which came to him at the thought of the unworthiness of French
+financial and political society; he was simply delaying any further steps
+in the matter until his marriage with Marie, in order that he might
+associate her with the gift of universal peace which he imagined he was
+about to bestow upon the world.
+
+It was through Bertheroy and with great difficulty that Guillaume had
+managed to secure two seats in court for Salvat's trial. When he and
+Pierre presented themselves for admission at eleven o'clock, they fancied
+that they would never be able to enter. The large gates of the Palace of
+Justice were kept closed, several passages were fenced off, and terror
+seemed to reign in the deserted building, as if indeed the judges feared
+some sudden invasion of bomb-laden Anarchists. Each door and barrier,
+too, was guarded by soldiers, with whom the brothers had to parley. When
+they at last entered the Assize Court they found it already crowded with
+people, who were apparently quite willing to suffocate there for an hour
+before the arrival of the judges, and to remain motionless for some seven
+or eight hours afterwards, since it was reported that the authorities
+wished to get the case over in a single sitting. In the small space
+allotted to the standing public there was a serried mass of sightseers
+who had come up from the streets, a few companions and friends of Salvat
+having managed to slip in among them. In the other compartment, where
+witnesses are generally huddled together on oak benches, were those
+spectators who had been allowed admittance by favour, and these were so
+numerous and so closely packed that here and there they almost sat upon
+one another's knees. Then, in the well of the court and behind the bench,
+were rows of chairs set out as for some theatrical performance, and
+occupied by privileged members of society, politicians, leading
+journalists, and ladies. And meantime a number of gowned advocates sought
+refuge wherever chance offered, crowding into every vacant spot, every
+available corner.
+
+Pierre had never before visited the Assize Court, and its appearance
+surprised him. He had expected much pomp and majesty, whereas this temple
+of human justice seemed to him small and dismal and of doubtful
+cleanliness. The bench was so low that he could scarcely see the
+armchairs of the presiding judge and his two assessors. Then he was
+struck by the profusion of old oak panels, balustrades and benches, which
+helped to darken the apartment, whose wall hangings were of olive green,
+while a further display of oak panelling appeared on the ceiling above.
+From the seven narrow and high-set windows with scanty little white
+curtains there fell a pale light which sharply divided the court. On one
+hand one saw the dock and the defending counsel's seat steeped in frigid
+light, while, on the other, was the little, isolated jury box in the
+shade. This contrast seemed symbolical of justice, impersonal and
+uncertain, face to face with the accused, whom the light stripped bare,
+probed as it were to his very soul. Then, through a kind of grey mist
+above the bench, in the depths of the stern and gloomy scene, one could
+vaguely distinguish the heavy painting of "Christ Crucified." A white
+bust of the Republic alone showed forth clearly against the dark wall
+above the dock where Salvat would presently appear. The only remaining
+seats that Guillaume and Pierre could find were on the last bench of the
+witnesses' compartment, against the partition which separated the latter
+from the space allotted to the standing public. Just as Guillaume was
+seating himself, he saw among the latter little Victor Mathis, who stood
+there with his elbows leaning on the partition, while his chin rested on
+his crossed hands. The young man's eyes were glowing in his pale face
+with thin, compressed lips. Although they recognised one another, Victor
+did not move, and Guillaume on his side understood that it was not safe
+to exchange greetings in such a place. From that moment, however, he
+remained conscious that Victor was there, just above him, never stirring,
+but waiting silently, fiercely and with flaming eyes, for what was going
+to happen.
+
+Pierre, meantime, had recognised that most amiable deputy Duthil, and
+little Princess Rosemonde, seated just in front of him. Amidst the hubbub
+of the throng which chatted and laughed to while away the time, their
+voices were the gayest to be heard, and plainly showed how delighted they
+were to find themselves at a spectacle to which so many desired
+admittance. Duthil was explaining all the arrangements to Rosemonde,
+telling her to whom or to what purpose each bench and wooden box was
+allotted: there was the jury-box, the prisoner's dock, the seats assigned
+to counsel for the defence, the public prosecutor, and the clerk of the
+court, without forgetting the table on which material evidence was
+deposited and the bar to which witnesses were summoned. There was nobody
+as yet in any of these places; one merely saw an attendant giving a last
+look round, and advocates passing rapidly. One might indeed have thought
+oneself in a theatre, the stage of which remained deserted, while the
+spectators crowded the auditorium waiting for the play to begin. To fill
+up the interval the little Princess ended by looking about her for
+persons of her acquaintance among the close-pressed crowd of sight-seers
+whose eager faces were already reddening.
+
+"Oh! isn't that Monsieur Fonsegue over there behind the bench, near that
+stout lady in yellow?" she exclaimed. "Our friend General de Bozonnet is
+on the other side, I see. But isn't Baron Duvillard here?"
+
+"Oh! no," replied Duthil; "he could hardly come; it would look as if he
+were here to ask for vengeance." Then, in his turn questioning Rosemonde,
+the deputy went on: "Do you happen to have quarrelled with your handsome
+friend Hyacinthe? Is that the reason why you've given me the pleasure of
+acting as your escort to-day?"
+
+With a slight shrug of her shoulders, the Princess replied that poets
+were beginning to bore her. A fresh caprice, indeed, was drawing her into
+politics. For a week past she had found amusement in the surroundings of
+the ministerial crisis, into which the young deputy for Angouleme had
+initiated her. "They are all a little bit crazy at the Duvillards', my
+dear fellow," said she. "It's decided, you know, that Gerard is to marry
+Camille. The Baroness has resigned herself to it, and I've heard from a
+most reliable quarter that Madame de Quinsac, the young man's mother, has
+given her consent."
+
+At this Duthil became quite merry. He also seemed to be well informed on
+the subject. "Yes, yes, I know," said he. "The wedding is to take place
+shortly, at the Madeleine. It will be a magnificent affair, no doubt. And
+after all, what would you have? There couldn't be a better finish to the
+affair. The Baroness is really kindness personified, and I said all along
+that she would sacrifice herself in order to ensure the happiness of her
+daughter and Gerard. In point of fact that marriage will settle
+everything, put everything in proper order again."
+
+"And what does the Baron say?" asked Rosemonde.
+
+"The Baron? Why, he's delighted," replied Duthil in a bantering way. "You
+read no doubt this morning that Dauvergne is given the department of
+Public Instruction in the new Ministry. This means that Silviane's
+engagement at the Comedic is a certainty. Dauvergne was chosen simply on
+that account."
+
+At this moment the conversation was interrupted by little Massot, who,
+after a dispute with one of the ushers some distance away, had perceived
+a vacant place by the side of the Princess. He thereupon made her a
+questioning sign, and she beckoned to him to approach.
+
+"Ah!" said he, as he installed himself beside her, "I have not got here
+without trouble. One's crushed to death on the press bench, and I've an
+article to write. You are the kindest of women, Princess, to make a
+little room for your faithful admirer, myself." Then, after shaking hands
+with Duthil, he continued without any transition: "And so there's a new
+ministry at last, Monsieur le Depute. You have all taken your time about
+it, but it's really a very fine ministry, which everybody regards with
+surprise and admiration."
+
+The decrees appointing the new ministers had appeared in the "Journal
+Officiel" that very morning. After a long deadlock, after Vignon had for
+the second time seen his plans fail through ever-recurring obstacles,
+Monferrand, as a last resource, had suddenly been summoned to the Elysee,
+and in four-and-twenty hours he had found the colleagues he wanted and
+secured the acceptance of his list, in such wise that he now triumphantly
+re-ascended to power after falling from it with Barroux in such wretched
+fashion. He had also chosen a new post for himself, relinquishing the
+department of the Interior for that of Finances, with the Presidency of
+the Council, which had long been his secret ambition. His stealthy
+labour, the masterly fashion in which he had saved himself while others
+sank, now appeared in its full beauty. First had come Salvat's arrest,
+and the use he had made of it, then the wonderful subterranean campaign
+which he had carried on against Vignon, the thousand obstacles which he
+had twice set across his path, and finally the sudden /denouement/ with
+that list he held in readiness, that formation of a ministry in a single
+day as soon as his services were solicited.
+
+"It is fine work, I must compliment you on it," added little Massot by
+way of a jest.
+
+"But I've had nothing to do with it," Duthil modestly replied.
+
+"Nothing to do with it! Oh! yes you have, my dear sir, everybody says
+so."
+
+The deputy felt flattered and smiled, while the other rattled on with his
+insinuations, which were put in such a humorous way that nothing he said
+could be resented. He talked of Monferrand's followers who had so
+powerfully helped him on to victory. How heartily had Fonsegue finished
+off his old friend Barroux in the "Globe"! Every morning for a month past
+the paper had published an article belabouring Barroux, annihilating
+Vignon, and preparing the public for the return of a saviour of society
+who was not named. Then, too, Duvillard's millions had waged a secret
+warfare, all the Baron's numerous creatures had fought like an army for
+the good cause. Duthil himself had played the pipe and beaten the drum,
+while Chaigneux resigned himself to the baser duties which others would
+not undertake. And so the triumphant Monferrand would certainly begin by
+stifling that scandalous and embarrassing affair of the African Railways,
+and appointing a Committee of Inquiry to bury it.
+
+By this time Duthil had assumed an important air. "Well, my dear fellow,"
+said he, "at serious moments when society is in peril, certain
+strong-handed men, real men of government, become absolutely necessary.
+Monferrand had no need of our friendship, his presence in office was
+imperiously required by the situation. His hand is the only one that can
+save us!"
+
+"I know," replied Massot scoffingly. "I've even been told that if
+everything was settled straight off so that the decrees might be
+published this morning, it was in order to instil confidence into the
+judges and jurymen here, in such wise that knowing Monferrand's fist to
+be behind them they would have the courage to pronounce sentence of death
+this evening."
+
+"Well, public safety requires a sentence of death, and those who have to
+ensure that safety must not be left ignorant of the fact that the
+government is with them, and will know how to protect them, if need be."
+
+At this moment a merry laugh from the Princess broke in upon the
+conversation. "Oh! just look over there!" said she; "isn't that Silviane
+who has just sat down beside Monsieur Fonsegue?"
+
+"The Silviane ministry!" muttered Massot in a jesting way. "Well, there
+will be no boredom at Dauvergne's if he ingratiates himself with
+actresses."
+
+Guillaume and Pierre heard this chatter, however little they cared to
+listen to it. Such a deluge of society tittle-tattle and political
+indiscretion brought the former a keen heart-pang. So Salvat was
+sentenced to death even before he had appeared in court. He was to pay
+for the transgressions of one and all, his crime was simply a favourable
+opportunity for the triumph of a band of ambitious people bent on power
+and enjoyment! Ah! what terrible social rottenness there was in it all;
+money corrupting one and another, families sinking to filth, politics
+turned into a mere treacherous struggle between individuals, and power
+becoming the prey of the crafty and the impudent! Must not everything
+surely crumble? Was not this solemn assize of human justice a derisive
+parody, since all that one found there was an assembly of happy and
+privileged people defending the shaky edifice which sheltered them, and
+making use of all the forces they yet retained, to crush a fly--that
+unhappy devil of uncertain sanity who had been led to that court by his
+violent and cloudy dream of another, superior and avenging justice?
+
+Such were Guillaume's thoughts, when all at once everybody around him
+started. Noon was now striking, and the jurymen trooped into court in
+straggling fashion and took their seats in their box. Among them one saw
+fat fellows clad in their Sunday best and with the faces of simpletons,
+and thin fellows who had bright eyes and sly expressions. Some of them
+were bearded and some were bald. However, they all remained rather
+indistinct, as their side of the court was steeped in shade. After them
+came the judges, headed by M. de Larombiere, one of the Vice-Presidents
+of the Appeal Court, who in assuming the perilous honour of conducting
+the trial had sought to increase the majesty of his long, slender, white
+face, which looked the more austere as both his assessors, one dark and
+the other fair, had highly coloured countenances. The public prosecutor's
+seat was already occupied by one of the most skilful of the
+advocates-general, M. Lehmann, a broad-shouldered Alsatian Israelite,
+with cunning eyes, whose presence showed that the case was deemed
+exceptionally important. At last, amidst the heavy tread of gendarmes,
+Salvat was brought in, at once rousing such ardent curiosity that all the
+spectators rose to look at him. He still wore the cap and loose overcoat
+procured for him by Victor Mathis, and everybody was surprised to see his
+emaciated, sorrowful, gentle face, crowned by scanty reddish hair, which
+was turning grey. His soft, glowing, dreamy blue eyes glanced around, and
+he smiled at someone whom he recognised, probably Victor, but perhaps
+Guillaume. After that he remained quite motionless.
+
+The presiding judge waited for silence to fall, and then came the
+formalities which attend the opening of a court of law, followed by the
+perusal of the lengthy indictment, which a subordinate official read in a
+shrill voice. The scene had now changed, and the spectators listened
+wearily and somewhat impatiently, as, for weeks past, the newspapers had
+related all that the indictment set forth. At present not a corner of the
+court remained unoccupied, there was scarcely space enough for the
+witnesses to stand in front of the bench. The closely packed throng was
+one of divers hues, the light gowns of ladies alternating with the black
+gowns of advocates, while the red robes of the judges disappeared from
+view, the bench being so low that the presiding judge's long face
+scarcely rose above the sea of heads. Many of those present became
+interested in the jurors, and strove to scrutinise their shadowy
+countenances. Others, who did not take their eyes off the prisoner,
+marvelled at his apparent weariness and indifference, which were so great
+that he scarcely answered the whispered questions of his counsel, a young
+advocate with a wide-awake look, who was nervously awaiting the
+opportunity to achieve fame. Most curiosity, however, centred in the
+table set apart for the material evidence. Here were to be seen all sorts
+of fragments, some of the woodwork torn away from the carriage-door of
+the Duvillard mansion, some plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, a
+paving-stone which the violence of the explosion had split in halves, and
+other blackened remnants. The more moving sights, however, were the
+milliner's bonnet-box, which had remained uninjured, and a glass jar in
+which something white and vague was preserved in spirits of wine. This
+was one of the poor errand girl's little hands, which had been severed at
+the wrist. The authorities had been unable to place her poor ripped body
+on the table, and so they had brought that hand!
+
+At last Salvat rose, and the presiding judge began to interrogate him.
+The contrast in the aspect of the court then acquired tragic force: in
+the shrouding shade upon one hand were the jurors, their minds already
+made up beneath the pressure of public terror, while in the full, vivid
+light on the other side was the prisoner, alone and woeful, charged with
+all the crimes of his race. Four gendarmes watched over him. He was
+addressed by M. de Larombiere in a tone of contempt and disgust. The
+judge was not deficient in rectitude; he was indeed one of the last
+representatives of the old, scrupulous, upright French magistracy; but he
+understood nothing of the new times, and he treated prisoners with the
+severity of a Biblical Jehovah. Moreover, the infirmity which was the
+worry of his life, the childish lisp which, in his opinion, had alone
+prevented him from shining as a public prosecutor, made him ferociously
+ill-tempered, incapable of any intelligent indulgence. There were smiles,
+which he divined, as soon as he raised his sharp, shrill little voice, to
+ask his first questions. That droll voice of his took away whatever
+majesty might have remained attached to these proceedings, in which a
+man's life was being fought for in a hall full of inquisitive, stifling
+and perspiring folks, who fanned themselves and jested. Salvat answered
+the judge's earlier questions with his wonted weariness and politeness.
+While the judge did everything to vilify him, harshly reproaching him
+with his wretched childhood and youth, magnifying every stain and every
+transgression in his career, referring to the promiscuity of his life
+between Madame Theodore and little Celine as something bestial, he, the
+prisoner, quietly said yes or no, like a man who has nothing to hide and
+accepts the full responsibility of his actions. He had already made a
+complete confession of his crime, and he calmly repeated it without
+changing a word. He explained that if he had deposited his bomb at the
+entrance of the Duvillard mansion it was to give his deed its true
+significance, that of summoning the wealthy, the money-mongers who had so
+scandalously enriched themselves by dint of theft and falsehood, to
+restore that part of the common wealth which they had appropriated, to
+the poor, the working classes, their children and their wives, who
+perished of starvation. It was only at this moment that he grew excited;
+all the misery that he had endured or witnessed rose to his clouded,
+semi-educated brain, in which claims and theories and exasperated ideas
+of absolute justice and universal happiness had gathered confusedly. And
+from that moment he appeared such as he really was, a sentimentalist, a
+dreamer transported by suffering, proud and stubborn, and bent on
+changing the world in accordance with his sectarian logic.
+
+"But you fled!" cried the judge in a voice such as would have befitted a
+grasshopper. "You must not say that you gave your life to your cause and
+were ready for martyrdom!"
+
+Salvat's most poignant regret was that he had yielded in the Bois de
+Boulogne to the dismay and rage which come upon a tracked and hunted man
+and impel him to do all he can to escape capture. And on being thus
+taunted by the judge he became quite angry. "I don't fear death, you'll
+see that," he replied. "If all had the same courage as I have, your
+rotten society would be swept away to-morrow, and happiness would at last
+dawn."
+
+Then the interrogatory dealt at great length with the composition and
+manufacture of the bomb. The judge, rightly enough, pointed out that this
+was the only obscure point of the affair. "And so," he remarked, "you
+persist in saying that dynamite was the explosive you employed? Well, you
+will presently hear the experts, who, it is true, differ on certain
+points, but are all of opinion that you employed some other explosive,
+though they cannot say precisely what it was. Why not speak out on the
+point, as you glory in saying everything?"
+
+Salvat, however, had suddenly calmed down, giving only cautious
+monosyllabic replies. "Well, seek for whatever you like if you don't
+believe me," he now answered. "I made my bomb by myself, and under
+circumstances which I've already related a score of times. You surely
+don't expect me to reveal names and compromise comrades?"
+
+From this declaration he would not depart. It was only towards the end of
+the interrogatory that irresistible emotion overcame him on the judge
+again referring to the unhappy victim of his crime, the little errand
+girl, so pretty and fair and gentle, whom ferocious destiny had brought
+to the spot to meet such an awful death. "It was one of your own class
+whom you struck," said M. de Larombiere; "your victim was a work girl, a
+poor child who, with the few pence she earned, helped to support her aged
+grandmother."
+
+Salvat's voice became very husky as he answered: "That's really the only
+thing I regret. . . . My bomb certainly wasn't meant for her; and may all
+the workers, all the starvelings, remember that she gave her blood as I'm
+going to give mine!"
+
+In this wise the interrogatory ended amidst profound agitation. Pierre
+had felt Guillaume shuddering beside him, whilst the prisoner quietly and
+obstinately refused to say a word respecting the explosive that had been
+employed, preferring as he did to assume full responsibility for the deed
+which was about to cost him his life. Moreover, Guillaume, on turning
+round, in compliance with an irresistible impulse, had perceived Victor
+Mathis still motionless behind him: his elbows ever leaning on the rail
+of the partition, and his chin still resting on his hands, whilst he
+listened with silent, concentrated passion. His face had become yet paler
+than before, and his eyes glowed as with an avenging fire, whose flames
+would never more be extinguished.
+
+The interrogatory of the prisoner was followed by a brief commotion in
+court.
+
+"That Salvat looks quite nice, he has such soft eyes," declared the
+Princess, whom the proceedings greatly amused. "Oh! don't speak ill of
+him, my dear deputy. You know that I have Anarchist ideas myself."
+
+"I speak no ill of him," gaily replied Duthil. "Nor has our friend
+Amadieu any right to speak ill of him. For you know that this affair has
+set Amadieu on a pinnacle. He was never before talked about to such an
+extent as he is now; and he delights in being talked about, you know! He
+has become quite a social celebrity, the most illustrious of our
+investigating magistrates, and will soon be able to do or become whatever
+he pleases."
+
+Then Massot, with his sarcastic impudence, summed up the situation. "When
+Anarchism flourishes, everything flourishes, eh? That bomb has helped on
+the affairs of a good many fine fellows that I know. Do you think that my
+governor Fonsegue, who's so attentive to Silviane yonder, complains of
+it? And doesn't Sagnier, who's spreading himself out behind the presiding
+judge, and whose proper place would be between the four
+gendarmes--doesn't he owe a debt to Salvat for all the abominable
+advertisements he has been able to give his paper by using the wretched
+fellow's back as a big drum? And I need not mention the politicians or
+the financiers or all those who fish in troubled waters."
+
+"But I say," interrupted Duthil, "it seems to me that you yourself made
+good use of the affair. Your interview with the little girl Celine
+brought you in a pot of money."
+
+Massot, as it happened, had been struck with the idea of ferreting out
+Madame Theodore and the child, and of relating his visit to them in the
+"Globe," with an abundance of curious and touching particulars. The
+article had met with prodigious success, Celine's pretty answers
+respecting her imprisoned father having such an effect on ladies with
+sensitive hearts that they had driven to Montmartre in their carriages in
+order to see the two poor creatures. Thus alms had come to them from all
+sides; and strangely enough the very people who demanded the father's
+head were the most eager to sympathise with the child.
+
+"Well, I don't complain of my little profits," said the journalist in
+answer to Duthil. "We all earn what we can, you know."
+
+At this moment Rosemonde, while glancing round her, recognised Guillaume
+and Pierre, but she was so amazed to see the latter in ordinary civilian
+garb that she did not dare to speak to him. Leaning forward she
+acquainted Duthil and Massot with her surprise, and they both turned
+round to look. From motives of discretion, however, they pretended that
+they did not recognise the Froments.
+
+The heat in court was now becoming quite unbearable, and one lady had
+already fainted. At last the presiding judge again raised his lisping
+voice, and managed to restore silence. Salvat, who had remained standing,
+now held a few sheets of paper, and with some difficulty he made the
+judge understand that he desired to complete his interrogatory by reading
+a declaration, which he had drawn up in prison, and in which he explained
+his reasons for his crime. For a moment M. de Larombiere hesitated, all
+surprise and indignation at such a request; but he was aware that he
+could not legally impose silence on the prisoner, and so he signified his
+consent with a gesture of mingled irritation and disdain. Thereupon
+Salvat began his perusal much after the fashion of a schoolboy, hemming
+and hawing here and there, occasionally becoming confused, and then
+bringing out certain words with wonderful emphasis, which evidently
+pleased him. This declaration of his was the usual cry of suffering and
+revolt already raised by so many disinherited ones. It referred to all
+the frightful want of the lower spheres; the toiler unable to find a
+livelihood in his toil; a whole class, the most numerous and worthy of
+the classes, dying of starvation; whilst, on the other hand, were the
+privileged ones, gorged with wealth, and wallowing in satiety, yet
+refusing to part with even the crumbs from their tables, determined as
+they were to restore nothing whatever of the wealth which they had
+stolen. And so it became necessary to take everything away from them, to
+rouse them from their egotism by terrible warnings, and to proclaim to
+them even with the crash of bombs that the day of justice had come. The
+unhappy man spoke that word "justice" in a ringing voice which seemed to
+fill the whole court. But the emotion of those who heard him reached its
+highest pitch when, after declaring that he laid down his life for the
+cause, and expected nothing but a verdict of death from the jury, he
+added, as if prophetically, that his blood would assuredly give birth to
+other martyrs. They might send him to the scaffold, said he, but he knew
+that his example would bear fruit. After him would come another avenger,
+and yet another, and others still, until the old and rotten social system
+should have crumbled away so as to make room for the society of justice
+and happiness of which he was one of the apostles.
+
+The presiding judge, in his impatience and agitation, twice endeavoured
+to interrupt Salvat. But the other read on and on with the imperturbable
+conscientiousness of one who fears that he may not give proper utterance
+to his most important words. He must have been thinking of that perusal
+ever since he had been in prison. It was the decisive act of his suicide,
+the act by which he proclaimed that he gave his life for the glory of
+dying in the cause of mankind. And when he had finished he sat down
+between the gendarmes with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks, as if he
+inwardly experienced some deep joy.
+
+To destroy the effect which the declaration had produced--a commingling
+of fear and compassion--the judge at once wished to proceed with the
+hearing of the witnesses. Of these there was an interminable procession;
+though little interest attached to their evidence, for none of them had
+any revelations to make. Most attention perhaps was paid to the measured
+statements of Grandidier, who had been obliged to dismiss Salvat from his
+employ on account of the Anarchist propaganda he had carried on. Then the
+prisoner's brother-in-law, Toussaint, the mechanician, also seemed a very
+worthy fellow if one might judge him by the manner in which he strove to
+put things favourably for Salvat, without in any way departing from the
+truth. After Toussaint's evidence considerable time was taken up by the
+discussions between the experts, who disagreed in public as much as they
+had disagreed in their reports. Although they were all of opinion that
+dynamite could not have been the explosive employed in the bomb, they
+indulged in the most extraordinary and contradictory suppositions as to
+this explosive's real nature. Eventually a written opinion given by the
+illustrious /savant/ Bertheroy was read; and this, after clearly setting
+forth the known facts, concluded that one found oneself in presence of a
+new explosive of prodigious power, the formula of which he himself was
+unable to specify.
+
+Then detective Mondesir and commissary Dupot came in turn to relate the
+various phases of the man hunt in the Bois de Boulogne. In Mondesir
+centred all the gaiety of the proceedings, thanks to the guardroom
+sallies with which he enlivened his narrative. And in like way the
+greatest grief, a perfect shudder of revolt and compassion, was roused by
+the errand girl's grandmother, a poor, bent, withered old woman, whom the
+prosecution had cruelly constrained to attend the court, and who wept and
+looked quite dismayed, unable as she was to understand what was wanted of
+her. When she had withdrawn, the only remaining witnesses were those for
+the defence, a procession of foremen and comrades, who all declared that
+they had known Salvat as a very worthy fellow, an intelligent and zealous
+workman, who did not drink, but was extremely fond of his daughter, and
+incapable of an act of dishonesty or cruelty.
+
+It was already four o'clock when the evidence of the witnesses came to an
+end. The atmosphere in court was now quite stifling, feverish fatigue
+flushed every face, and a kind of ruddy dust obscured the waning light
+which fell from the windows. Women were fanning themselves and men were
+mopping their foreheads. However, the passion roused by the scene still
+brought a glow of cruel delight to every eye. And no one stirred.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Rosemonde all at once, "to think that I hoped to drink a cup
+of tea at a friend's at five o'clock. I shall die of thirst and
+starvation here."
+
+"We shall certainly be kept till seven," replied Massot. "I can't offer
+to go and fetch you a roll, for I shouldn't be readmitted."
+
+Then Duthil, who had not ceased shrugging his shoulders while Salvat read
+his declaration, exclaimed: "What childish things he said, didn't he? And
+to think that the fool is going to die for all that! Rich and poor,
+indeed! Why, there will always be rich and poor. And it's equally certain
+that when a man is poor his one great desire is to become rich. If that
+fellow is in the dock to-day it's simply because he failed to make
+money."
+
+While the others were thus conversing, Pierre for his part was feeling
+extremely anxious about his brother, who sat beside him in silence, pale
+and utterly upset. Pierre sought his hand and covertly pressed it. Then
+in a low voice he inquired: "Do you feel ill? Shall we go away?"
+
+Guillaume answered him by discreetly and affectionately returning his
+handshake. He was all right, he would remain till the end, however much
+he might be stirred by exasperation.
+
+It was now Monsieur Lehmann, the public prosecutor, who rose to address
+the court. He had a large, stern mouth, and was squarely built, with a
+stubborn Jewish face. Nevertheless he was known to be a man of dexterous,
+supple nature, one who had a foot in every political camp, and invariably
+contrived to be on good terms with the powers that were. This explained
+his rapid rise in life, and the constant favour he enjoyed. In the very
+first words he spoke he alluded to the new ministry gazetted that
+morning, referring pointedly to the strong-handed man who had undertaken
+the task of reassuring peaceable citizens and making evil-doers tremble.
+Then he fell upon the wretched Salvat with extraordinary vehemence,
+recounting the whole of his life, and exhibiting him as a bandit
+expressly born for the perpetration of crime, a monster who was bound to
+end by committing some abominable and cowardly outrage. Next he
+flagellated Anarchism and its partisans. The Anarchists were a mere herd
+of vagabonds and thieves, said he. That had been shown by the recent
+robbery at the Princess de Harn's house. The ignoble gang that had been
+arrested for that affair had given the apostles of the Anarchist doctrine
+as their references! And that was what the application of Anarchist
+theories resulted in--burglary and filth, pending a favourable hour for
+wholesale pillage and murder! For nearly a couple of hours the public
+prosecutor continued in this fashion, throwing truth and logic to the
+winds, and exclusively striving to alarm his hearers. He made all
+possible use of the terror which had reigned in Paris, and figuratively
+brandished the corpse of the poor little victim, the pretty errand girl,
+as if it were a blood-red flag, before pointing to the pale hand,
+preserved in spirits of wine, with a gesture of compassionate horror
+which sent a shudder through his audience. And he ended, as he had begun,
+by inspiriting the jurors, and telling them that they might fearlessly do
+their duty now that those at the head of the State were firmly resolved
+to give no heed to threats.
+
+Then the young advocate entrusted with the defence in his turn spoke. And
+he really said what there was to say with great clearness and precision.
+He was of a different school from that of the public prosecutor: his
+eloquence was very simple and smooth, his only passion seemed to be zeal
+for truth. Moreover, it was sufficient for him to show Salvat's career in
+its proper light, to depict him pursued by social fatalities since his
+childhood, and to explain the final action of his career by all that he
+had suffered and all that had sprung up in his dreamy brain. Was not his
+crime the crime of one and all? Who was there that did not feel, if only
+in a small degree, responsible for that bomb which a penniless, starving
+workman had deposited on the threshold of a wealthy man's abode--a
+wealthy man whose name bespoke the injustice of the social system: so
+much enjoyment on the one hand and so much privation on the other! If one
+of us happened to lose his head, and felt impelled to hasten the advent
+of happiness by violence in such troublous times, when so many burning
+problems claimed solution, ought he to be deprived of his life in the
+name of justice, when none could swear that they had not in some measure
+contributed to his madness? Following up this question, Salvat's counsel
+dwelt at length on the period that witnessed the crime, a period of so
+many scandals and collapses, when the old world was giving birth to a new
+one amidst the most terrible struggles and pangs. And he concluded by
+begging the jury to show themselves humane, to resist all passion and
+terror, and to pacify the rival classes by a wise verdict, instead of
+prolonging social warfare by giving the starvelings yet another martyr to
+avenge.
+
+It was past six o'clock when M. de Larombiere began to sum up in a
+partial and flowery fashion, in which one detected how grieved and angry
+he was at having such a shrill little voice. Then the judges and the
+jurors withdrew, and the prisoner was led away, leaving the spectators
+waiting amidst an uproar of feverish impatience. Some more ladies had
+fainted, and it had even been necessary to carry out a gentleman who had
+been overcome by the cruel heat. However, the others stubbornly remained
+there, not one of them quitting his place.
+
+"Ah! it won't take long now," said Massot. "The jurors brought their
+verdict all ready in their pockets. I was looking at them while that
+little advocate was telling them such sensible things. They all looked as
+if they were comfortably asleep in the gloom."
+
+Then Duthil turned to the Princess and asked her, "Are you still hungry?"
+
+"Oh! I'm starving," she replied. "I shall never be able to wait till I
+get home. You will have to take me to eat a biscuit somewhere. . . . All
+the same, however, it's very exciting to see a man's life staked on a yes
+or a no."
+
+Meantime Pierre, finding Guillaume still more feverish and grieved, had
+once again taken hold of his hand. Neither of them spoke, so great was
+the distress that they experienced for many reasons which they themselves
+could not have precisely defined. It seemed to them, however, that all
+human misery--inclusive of their own, the affections, the hopes, the
+griefs which brought them suffering--was sobbing and quivering in that
+buzzing hall. Twilight had gradually fallen there, but as the end was now
+so near it had doubtless been thought unnecessary to light the
+chandeliers. And thus large vague shadows, dimming and shrouding the
+serried throng, now hovered about in the last gleams of the day. The
+ladies in light gowns yonder, behind the bench, looked like pale phantoms
+with all-devouring eyes, whilst the numerous groups of black-robed
+advocates formed large sombre patches which gradually spread everywhere.
+The greyish painting of the Christ had already vanished, and on the walls
+one only saw the glaring white bust of the Republic, which resembled some
+frigid death's head starting forth from the darkness.
+
+"Ah!" Massot once more exclaimed, "I knew that it wouldn't take long!"
+
+Indeed, the jurors were returning after less than a quarter of an hour's
+absence. Then the judges likewise came back and took their seats.
+Increased emotion stirred the throng, a great gust seemed to sweep
+through the court, a gust of anxiety, which made every head sway. Some
+people had risen to their feet, and others gave vent to involuntary
+exclamations. The foreman of the jury, a gentleman with a broad red face,
+had to wait a moment before speaking. At last in a sharp but somewhat
+sputtering voice he declared: "On my honour and my conscience, before God
+and before man, the verdict of the jury is: on the question of Murder,
+yes, by a majority of votes."*
+
+  * English readers may be reminded that in France the verdict of
+    a majority of the jury suffices for conviction or acquittal.
+    If the jury is evenly divided the prisoner is acquitted.--Trans.
+
+The night had almost completely fallen when Salvat was once more brought
+in. In front of the jurors, who faded away in the gloom, he stood forth,
+erect, with a last ray from the windows lighting up his face. The judges
+themselves almost disappeared from view, their red robes seemed to have
+turned black. And how phantom-like looked the prisoner's emaciated face
+as he stood there listening, with dreamy eyes, while the clerk of the
+court read the verdict to him.
+
+When silence fell and no mention was made of extenuating circumstances,
+he understood everything. His face, which had retained a childish
+expression, suddenly brightened. "That means death. Thank you,
+gentlemen," he said.
+
+Then he turned towards the public, and amidst the growing darkness
+searched for the friendly faces which he knew were there; and this time
+Guillaume became fully conscious that he had recognised him, and was
+again expressing affectionate and grateful thanks for the crust he had
+received from him on a day of want. He must have also bidden farewell to
+Victor Mathis, for as Guillaume glanced at the young man, who had not
+moved, he saw that his eyes were staring wildly, and that a terrible
+expression rested on his lips.
+
+As for the rest of the proceedings, the last questions addressed to the
+jury and the counsel, the deliberations of the judges and the delivery of
+sentence--these were all lost amidst the buzzing and surging of the
+crowd. A little compassion was unconsciously manifested; and some stupor
+was mingled with the satisfaction that greeted the sentence of death.
+
+No sooner had Salvat been condemned, however, than he drew himself up to
+his full height, and as the guards led him away he shouted in a
+stentorian voice: "Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Nobody seemed angered by the cry. The crowd went off quietly, as if
+weariness had lulled all its passions. The proceedings had really lasted
+too long and fatigued one too much. It was quite pleasant to inhale the
+fresh air on emerging from such a nightmare.
+
+In the large waiting hall, Pierre and Guillaume passed Duthil and the
+Princess, whom General de Bozonnet had stopped while chatting with
+Fonsegue. All four of them were talking in very loud voices, complaining
+of the heat and their hunger, and agreeing that the affair had not been a
+particularly interesting one. Yet, all was well that ended well. As
+Fonsegue remarked, the condemnation of Salvat to death was a political
+and social necessity.
+
+When Pierre and Guillaume reached the Pont Neuf, the latter for a moment
+rested his elbows on the parapet of the bridge. His brother, standing
+beside him, also gazed at the grey waters of the Seine, which here and
+there were fired by the reflections of the gas lamps. A fresh breeze
+ascended from the river; it was the delightful hour when night steals
+gently over resting Paris. Then, as the brothers stood there breathing
+that atmosphere which usually brings relief and comfort, Pierre on his
+side again became conscious of his heart-wound, and remembered his
+promise to return to Montmartre, a promise that he must keep in spite of
+the torture there awaiting him; whilst Guillaume on the other hand
+experienced a revival of the suspicion and disquietude that had come to
+him on seeing Marie so feverish, changed as it were by some new feeling,
+of which she herself was ignorant. Were further sufferings, struggles,
+and obstacles to happiness yet in store for those brothers who loved one
+another so dearly? At all events their hearts bled once more with all the
+sorrow into which they had been cast by the scene they had just
+witnessed: that assize of justice at which a wretched man had been
+condemned to pay with his head for the crimes of one and all.
+
+Then, as they turned along the quay, Guillaume recognised young Victor
+going off alone in the gloom, just in front of them. The chemist stopped
+him and spoke to him of his mother. But the young man did not hear; his
+thin lips parted, and in a voice as trenchant as a knife-thrust he
+exclaimed: "Ah! so it's blood they want. Well, they may cut off his head,
+but he will be avenged!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+SACRIFICE
+
+THE days which followed Salvat's trial seemed gloomy ones up yonder in
+Guillaume's workroom, which was usually so bright and gay. Sadness and
+silence filled the place. The three young men were no longer there.
+Thomas betook himself to the Grandidier works early every morning in
+order to perfect his little motor; Francois was so busy preparing for his
+examination that he scarcely left the Ecole Normale; while Antoine was
+doing some work at Jahan's, where he delighted to linger and watch his
+little friend Lise awakening to life. Thus Guillaume's sole companion was
+Mere-Grand, who sat near the window busy with her needlework; for Marie
+was ever going about the house, and only stayed in the workroom for any
+length of time when Pierre happened to be there.
+
+Guillaume's gloom was generally attributed to the feelings of anger and
+revolt into which the condemnation of Salvat had thrown him. He had flown
+into a passion on his return from the Palace of Justice, declaring that
+the execution of the unhappy man would simply be social murder,
+deliberate provocation of class warfare. And the others had bowed on
+hearing that pain-fraught violent cry, without attempting to discuss the
+point. Guillaume's sons respectfully left him to the thoughts which kept
+him silent for hours, with his face pale and a dreamy expression in his
+eyes. His chemical furnace remained unlighted, and his only occupation
+from morn till night was to examine the plans and documents connected
+with his invention, that new explosive and that terrible engine of war,
+which he had so long dreamt of presenting to France in order that she
+might impose the reign of truth and justice upon all the nations.
+However, during the long hours which he spent before the papers scattered
+over his table, often without seeing them, for his eyes wandered far
+away, a multitude of vague thoughts came to him--doubts respecting the
+wisdom of his project, and fears lest his desire to pacify the nations
+should simply throw them into an endless war of extermination. Although
+he really believed that great city of Paris to be the world's brain,
+entrusted with the task of preparing the future, he could not disguise
+from himself that with all its folly and shame and injustice it still
+presented a shocking spectacle. Was it really ripe enough for the work of
+human salvation which he thought of entrusting to it? Then, on trying to
+re-peruse his notes and verify his formulas, he only recovered his former
+energetic determination on thinking of his marriage, whereupon the idea
+came to him that it was now too late for him to upset his life by
+changing such long-settled plans.
+
+His marriage! Was it not the thought of this which haunted Guillaume and
+disturbed him far more powerfully than his scientific work or his
+humanitarian passion? Beneath all the worries that he acknowledged, there
+was another which he did not confess even to himself, and which filled
+him with anguish. He repeated day by day that he would reveal his
+invention to the Minister of War as soon as he should be married to
+Marie, whom he wished to associate with his glory. Married to Marie! Each
+time he thought of it, burning fever and secret disquietude came over
+him. If he now remained so silent and had lost his quiet cheerfulness, it
+was because he had felt new life, as it were, emanating from her. She was
+certainly no longer the same woman as formerly; she was becoming more and
+more changed and distant. He had watched her and Pierre when the latter
+happened to be there, which was now but seldom. He, too, appeared
+embarrassed, and different from what he had been. On the days when he
+came, however, Marie seemed transformed; it was as if new life animated
+the house. Certainly the intercourse between her and Pierre was quite
+innocent, sisterly on the one hand, brotherly on the other. They simply
+seemed to be a pair of good friends. And yet a radiance, a vibration,
+emanated from them, something more subtle even than a sun-ray or a
+perfume. After the lapse of a few days Guillaume found himself unable to
+doubt the truth any longer. And his heart bled, he was utterly upset by
+it. He had not found them in fault in any way, but he was convinced that
+these two children, as he so paternally called them, really adored one
+another.
+
+One lovely morning when he happened to be alone with Mere-Grand, face to
+face with sunlit Paris, he fell into a yet more dolorous reverie than
+usual. He seemed to be gazing fixedly at the old lady, as, seated in her
+usual place, she continued sewing with an air of queenly serenity.
+Perhaps, however, he did not see her. For her part she occasionally
+raised her eyes and glanced at him, as if expecting a confession which
+did not come. At last, finding such silence unbearable, she made up her
+mind to address him: "What has been the matter with you, Guillaume, for
+some time past? Why don't you tell me what you have to tell me?"
+
+He descended from the clouds, as it were, and answered in astonishment:
+"What I have to tell you?"
+
+"Yes, I know it as well as you do, and I thought you would speak to me of
+it, since it pleases you to do nothing here without consulting me."
+
+At this he turned very pale and shuddered. So he had not been mistaken in
+the matter, even Mere-Grand knew all about it. To talk of it, however,
+was to give shape to his suspicions, to transform what, hitherto, might
+merely have been a fancy on his part into something real and definite.
+
+"It was inevitable, my dear son," said Mere-Grand. "I foresaw it from the
+outset. And if I did not warn you of it, it was because I believed in
+some deep design on your part. Since I have seen you suffering, however,
+I have realised that I was mistaken." Then, as he still looked at her
+quivering and distracted, she continued: "Yes, I fancied that you might
+have wished it, that in bringing your brother here you wished to know if
+Marie loved you otherwise than as a father. There was good reason for
+testing her--for instance, the great difference between your ages, for
+your life is drawing to a close, whilst hers is only beginning. And I
+need not mention the question of your work, the mission which I have
+always dreamt of for you."
+
+Thereupon, with his hands raised in prayerful fashion, Guillaume drew
+near to the old lady and exclaimed: "Oh! speak out clearly, tell me what
+you think. I don't understand, my poor heart is so lacerated; and yet I
+should so much like to know everything, so as to be able to act and take
+a decision. To think that you whom I love, you whom I venerate as much as
+if you were my real mother, you whose profound good sense I know so well
+that I have always followed your advice--to think that you should have
+foreseen this frightful thing and have allowed it to happen at the risk
+of its killing me! . . . Why have you done so, tell me, why?"
+
+Mere-Grand was not fond of talking. Absolute mistress of the house as she
+was, managing everything, accountable to nobody for her actions, she
+never gave expression to all that she thought or all that she desired.
+Indeed, there was no occasion for it, as Guillaume, like the children,
+relied upon her completely, with full confidence in her wisdom. And her
+somewhat enigmatical ways even helped to raise her in their estimation.
+
+"What is the use of words, when things themselves speak?" she now gently
+answered, while still plying her needle. "It is quite true that I
+approved of the plan of a marriage between you and Marie, for I saw that
+it was necessary that she should be married if she was to stay here. And
+then, too, there were many other reasons which I needn't speak of.
+However, Pierre's arrival here has changed everything, and placed things
+in their natural order. Is not that preferable?"
+
+He still lacked the courage to understand her. "Preferable! When I'm in
+agony? When my life is wrecked?"
+
+Thereupon she rose and came to him, tall and rigid in her thin black
+gown, and with an expression of austerity and energy on her pale face.
+"My son," she said, "you know that I love you, and that I wish you to be
+very noble and lofty. Only the other morning, you had an attack of
+fright, the house narrowly escaped being blown up. Then, for some days
+now you have been sitting over those documents and plans in an
+absent-minded, distracted state, like a man who feels weak, and doubts,
+and no longer knows his way. Believe me, you are following a dangerous
+path; it is better that Pierre should marry Marie, both for their sakes
+and for your own."
+
+"For my sake? No, no! What will become of me!"
+
+"You will calm yourself and reflect, my son. You have such serious duties
+before you. You are on the eve of making your invention known. It seems
+to me that something has bedimmed your sight, and that you will perhaps
+act wrongly in this respect, through failing to take due account of the
+problem before you. Perhaps there is something better to be done. . . .
+At all events, suffer if it be necessary, but remain faithful to your
+ideal." 
+
+Then, quitting him with a maternal smile, she sought to soften her
+somewhat stern words by adding: "You have compelled me to speak
+unnecessarily, for I am quite at ease; with your superior mind, whatever
+be in question, you can but do the one right thing that none other would
+do."
+
+On finding himself alone Guillaume fell into feverish uncertainty. What
+was the meaning of Mere-Grand's enigmatical words? He knew that she was
+on the side of whatever might be good, natural, and necessary. But she
+seemed to be urging him to some lofty heroism; and indeed what she had
+said threw a ray of light upon the unrest which had come to him in
+connection with his old plan of going to confide his secret to some
+Minister of War or other, whatever one might happen to be in office at
+the time. Growing hesitation and repugnance stirred him as he fancied he
+could again hear her saying that perhaps there might be some better
+course, that would require search and reflection. But all at once a
+vision of Marie rose before him, and his heart was rent by the thought
+that he was asked to renounce her. To lose her, to give her to another!
+No, no, that was beyond his strength. He would never have the frightful
+courage that was needed to pass by the last promised raptures of love
+with disdain!
+
+For a couple of days Guillaume struggled on. He seemed to be again living
+the six years which the young woman had already spent beside him in that
+happy little house. She had been at first like an adopted daughter there;
+and later on, when the idea of their marriage had sprung up, he had
+viewed it with quiet delight in the hope that it would ensure the
+happiness of all around him. If he had previously abstained from marrying
+again it was from the fear of placing a strange mother over his children;
+and if he yielded to the charm of loving yet once more, and no longer
+leading a solitary life, it was because he had found at his very hearth
+one of such sensible views, who, in the flower of youth, was willing to
+become his wife despite the difference in their ages. Then months had
+gone by, and serious occurrences had compelled them to postpone the
+wedding, though without undue suffering on his part. Indeed, the
+certainty that she was waiting for him had sufficed him, for his life of
+hard work had rendered him patient. Now, however, all at once, at the
+threat of losing her, his hitherto tranquil heart ached and bled. He
+would never have thought the tie so close a one. But he was now almost
+fifty, and it was as if love and woman were being wrenched away from him,
+the last woman that he could love and desire, one too who was the more
+desirable, as she was the incarnation of youth from which he must ever be
+severed, should he indeed lose her. Passionate desire, mingled with rage,
+flared up within him at the thought that someone should have come to take
+her from him.
+
+One night, alone in his room, he suffered perfect martyrdom. In order
+that he might not rouse the house he buried his face in his pillow so as
+to stifle his sobs. After all, it was a simple matter; Marie had given
+him her promise, and he would compel her to keep it. She would be his,
+and his alone, and none would be able to steal her from him. Then,
+however, there rose before him a vision of his brother, the
+long-forgotten one, whom, from feelings of affection, he had compelled to
+join his family. But his sufferings were now so acute that he would have
+driven that brother away had he been before him. He was enraged,
+maddened, by the thought of him. His brother--his little brother! So all
+their love was over; hatred and violence were about to poison their
+lives. For hours Guillaume continued complaining deliriously, and seeking
+how he might so rid himself of Pierre that what had happened should be
+blotted out. Now and again, when he recovered self-control, he marvelled
+at the tempest within him; for was he not a /savant/ guided by lofty
+reason, a toiler to whom long experience had brought serenity? But the
+truth was that this tempest had not sprung up in his mind, it was raging
+in the child-like soul that he had retained, the nook of affection and
+dreaminess which remained within him side by side with his principles of
+pitiless logic and his belief in proven phenomena only. His very genius
+came from the duality of his nature: behind the chemist was a social
+dreamer, hungering for justice and capable of the greatest love. And now
+passion was transporting him, and he was weeping for the loss of Marie as
+he would have wept over the downfall of that dream of his, the
+destruction of war /by/ war, that scheme for the salvation of mankind at
+which he had been working for ten years past.
+
+At last, amidst his weariness, a sudden resolution calmed him. He began
+to feel ashamed of despairing in this wise when he had no certain grounds
+to go upon. He must know everything, he would question the young woman;
+she was loyal enough to answer him frankly. Was not this a solution
+worthy of them both? An explanation in all sincerity, after which they
+would be able to take a decision. Then he fell asleep; and, tired though
+he felt when he rose in the morning, he was calmer. It was as if some
+secret work had gone on in his heart during his few hours of repose after
+that terrible storm.
+
+As it happened Marie was very gay that morning. On the previous day she
+had gone with Pierre and Antoine on a cycling excursion over frightful
+roads in the direction of Montmorency, whence they had returned in a
+state of mingled anger and delight. When Guillaume stopped her in the
+little garden, he found her humming a song while returning bare-armed
+from the scullery, where some washing was going on.
+
+"Do you want to speak to me?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, my dear child, it's necessary for us to talk of some serious
+matters."
+
+She at once understood that their marriage was in question, and became
+grave. She had formerly consented to that marriage because she regarded
+it as the only sensible course she could take, and this with full
+knowledge of the duties which she would assume. No doubt her husband
+would be some twenty years older than herself, but this circumstance was
+one of somewhat frequent occurrence, and as a rule such marriages turned
+out well, rather than otherwise. Moreover, she was in love with nobody,
+and was free to consent. And she had consented with an impulse of
+gratitude and affection which seemed so sweet that she thought it the
+sweetness of love itself. Everybody around her, too, appeared so pleased
+at the prospect of this marriage, which would draw the family yet more
+closely together. And, on her side, she had been as it were intoxicated
+by the idea of making others happy.
+
+"What is the matter?" she now asked Guillaume in a somewhat anxious
+voice. "No bad news, I hope?"
+
+"No, no," he answered. "I've simply something to say to you."
+
+Then he led her under the plum-trees to the only green nook left in the
+garden. An old worm-eaten bench still stood there against the
+lilac-bushes. And in front of them Paris spread out its sea of roofs,
+looking light and fresh in the morning sunlight.
+
+They both sat down. But at the moment of speaking and questioning Marie,
+Guillaume experienced sudden embarrassment, while his heart beat
+violently at seeing her beside him, so young and adorable with her bare
+arms.
+
+"Our wedding-day is drawing near," he ended by saying. And then as she
+turned somewhat pale, perhaps unconsciously, he himself suddenly felt
+cold. Had not her lips twitched as if with pain? Had not a shadow passed
+over her fresh, clear eyes?
+
+"Oh! we still have some time before us," she replied.
+
+Then, slowly and very affectionately, he resumed: "No doubt; still it is
+necessary to attend to the formalities. And it is as well, perhaps, that
+I should speak of those worries to-day, so that I may not have to bother
+you about them again."
+
+Then he gently went on telling her all that would have to be done,
+keeping his eyes on her whilst he spoke, watching for such signs of
+emotion as the thought of her promise's early fulfilment might bring to
+her face. She sat there in silence, with her hands on her lap, and her
+features quite still, thus giving no certain sign of any regret or
+trouble. Still she seemed rather dejected, compliant, as it were, but in
+no wise joyous.
+
+"You say nothing, my dear Marie," Guillaume at last exclaimed. "Does
+anything of all this displease you?"
+
+"Displease me? Oh, no!"
+
+"You must speak out frankly, if it does, you know. We will wait a little
+longer if you have any personal reasons for wishing to postpone the date
+again."
+
+"But I've no reasons, my friend. What reasons could I have? I leave you
+quite free to settle everything as you yourself may desire."
+
+Silence fell. While answering, she had looked him frankly in the face;
+but a little quiver stirred her lips, and gloom, for which she could not
+account, seemed to rise and darken her face, usually as bright and gay as
+spring water. In former times would she not have laughed and sung at the
+mere announcement of that coming wedding?
+
+Then Guillaume, with an effort which made his voice tremble, dared to
+speak out: "You must forgive me for asking you a question, my dear Marie.
+There is still time for you to cancel your promise. Are you quite certain
+that you love me?"
+
+At this she looked at him in genuine stupefaction, utterly failing to
+understand what he could be aiming at. And--as she seemed to be deferring
+her reply, he added: "Consult your heart. Is it really your old friend or
+is it another that you love?"
+
+"I? I, Guillaume? Why do you say that to me? What can I have done to give
+you occasion to say such a thing!"
+
+All her frank nature revolted as she spoke, and her beautiful eyes,
+glowing with sincerity, gazed fixedly on his.
+
+"I love Pierre! I do, I? . . . Well, yes, I love him, as I love you all;
+I love him because he has become one of us, because he shares our life
+and our joys! I'm happy when he's here, certainly; and I should like him
+to be always here. I'm always pleased to see him and hear him and go out
+with him. I was very much grieved recently when he seemed to be relapsing
+into his gloomy ideas. But all that is natural, is it not? And I think
+that I have only done what you desired I should do, and I cannot
+understand how my affection for Pierre can in any way exercise an
+influence respecting our marriage."
+
+These words, in her estimation, ought to have convinced Guillaume that
+she was not in love with his brother; but in lieu thereof they brought
+him painful enlightenment by the very ardour with which she denied the
+love imputed to her.
+
+"But you unfortunate girl!" he cried. "You are betraying yourself without
+knowing it. . . . It is quite certain you do not love me, you love my
+brother!"
+
+He had caught hold of her wrists and was pressing them with despairing
+affection as if to compel her to read her heart. And she continued
+struggling. A most loving and tragic contest went on between them, he
+seeking to convince her by the evidence of facts, and she resisting him,
+stubbornly refusing to open her eyes. In vain did he recount what had
+happened since the first day, explaining the feelings which had followed
+one upon another in her heart and mind: first covert hostility, next
+curiosity regarding that extraordinary young priest, and then sympathy
+and affection when she had found him so wretched and had gradually cured
+him of his sufferings. They were both young and mother Nature had done
+the rest. However, at each fresh proof and certainty which he put before
+her, Marie only experienced growing emotion, trembling at last from head
+to foot, but still unwilling to question herself.
+
+"No, no," said she, "I do not love him. If I loved him I should know it
+and would acknowledge it to you; for you are well aware that I cannot
+tell an untruth."
+
+Guillaume, however, had the cruelty to insist on the point, like some
+heroic surgeon cutting into his own flesh even more than into that of
+others, in order that the truth might appear and everyone be saved.
+"Marie," said he, "it is not I whom you love. All that you feel for me is
+respect and gratitude and daughterly affection. Remember what your
+feelings were at the time when our marriage was decided upon. You were
+then in love with nobody, and you accepted the offer like a sensible
+girl, feeling certain that I should render you happy, and that the union
+was a right and satisfactory one. . . . But since then my brother has
+come here; love has sprung up in your heart in quite a natural way; and
+it is Pierre, Pierre alone, whom you love as a lover and a husband should
+be loved."
+
+Exhausted though she was, utterly distracted, too, by the light which,
+despite herself, was dawning within her, Marie still stubbornly and
+desperately protested.
+
+"But why do you struggle like this against the truth, my child?" said
+Guillaume; "I do not reproach you. It was I who chose that this should
+happen, like the old madman I am. What was bound to come has come, and
+doubtless it is for the best. I only wanted to learn the truth from you
+in order that I might take a decision and act uprightly."
+
+These words vanquished her, and her tears gushed forth. It seemed as
+though something had been rent asunder within her; and she felt quite
+overcome, as if by the weight of a new truth of which she had hitherto
+been ignorant. "Ah! it was cruel of you," she said, "to do me such
+violence so as to make me read my heart. I swear to you again that I did
+not know I loved Pierre in the way you say. But you have opened my heart,
+and roused what was quietly slumbering in it. . . . And it is true, I do
+love Pierre, I love him now as you have said. And so here we are, all
+three of us supremely wretched through your doing!"
+
+She sobbed, and with a sudden feeling of modesty freed her wrists from
+his grasp. He noticed, however, that no blush rose to her face. Truth to
+tell, her virginal loyalty was not in question; she had no cause to
+reproach herself with any betrayal; it was he alone, perforce, who had
+awakened her to love. For a moment they looked at one another through
+their tears: she so strong and healthy, her bosom heaving at each
+heart-beat, and her white arms--arms that could both charm and
+sustain--bare almost to her shoulders; and he still vigorous, with his
+thick fleece of white hair and his black moustaches, which gave his
+countenance such an expression of energetic youth. But it was all over,
+the irreparable had swept by, and utterly changed their lives.
+
+"Marie," he nobly said, "you do not love me, I give you back your
+promise."
+
+But with equal nobility she refused to take it back. "Never will I do
+so," she replied. "I gave it to you frankly, freely and joyfully, and my
+affection and admiration for you have never changed."
+
+Nevertheless, with more firmness in his hitherto broken voice, Guillaume
+retorted: "You love Pierre, and it is Pierre whom you ought to marry."
+
+"No," she again insisted, "I belong to you. A tie which years have
+tightened cannot be undone in an hour. Once again, if I love Pierre I
+swear to you that I was ignorant of it this morning. And let us leave the
+matter as it is; do not torture me any more, it would be too cruel of
+you."
+
+Then, quivering like a woman who suddenly perceives that she is bare, in
+a stranger's presence, she hastily pulled down her sleeves, and even drew
+them over her hands as if to leave naught of her person visible. And
+afterwards she rose and walked away without adding a single word.
+
+Guillaume remained alone on the bench in that leafy corner, in front of
+Paris, to which the light morning sunshine lent the aspect of some
+quivering, soaring city of dreamland. A great weight oppressed him, and
+it seemed to him as if he would never be able to rise from the seat. That
+which brought him most suffering was Marie's assurance that she had till
+that morning been ignorant of the fact that she was in love with Pierre.
+She had been ignorant of it, and it was he, Guillaume, who had brought it
+to her knowledge, compelled her to confess it! He had now firmly planted
+it in her heart, and perhaps increased it by revealing it to her. Ah! how
+cruel the thought--to be the artisan of one's own torment! Of one thing
+he was now quite certain: there would be no more love in his life. At the
+idea of this, his poor, loving heart sank and bled. And yet amidst the
+disaster, amidst his grief at realising that he was an old man, and that
+renunciation was imperative, he experienced a bitter joy at having
+brought the truth to light. This was very harsh consolation, fit only for
+one of heroic soul, yet he found lofty satisfaction in it, and from that
+moment the thought of sacrifice imposed itself upon him with
+extraordinary force. He must marry his children; there lay the path of
+duty, the only wise and just course, the only certain means of ensuring
+the happiness of the household. And when his revolting heart yet leapt
+and shrieked with anguish, he carried his vigorous hands to his chest in
+order to still it.
+
+On the morrow came the supreme explanation between Guillaume and Pierre,
+not in the little garden, however, but in the spacious workroom. And here
+again one beheld the vast panorama of Paris, a nation as it were at work,
+a huge vat in which the wine of the future was fermenting. Guillaume had
+arranged things so that he might be alone with his brother; and no sooner
+had the latter entered than he attacked him, going straight to the point
+without any of the precautions which he had previously taken with Marie.
+
+"Haven't you something to say to me, Pierre?" he inquired. "Why won't you
+confide in me?"
+
+The other immediately understood him, and began to tremble, unable to
+find a word, but confessing everything by the distracted, entreating
+expression of his face.
+
+"You love Marie," continued Guillaume, "why did you not loyally come and
+tell me of your love?"
+
+At this Pierre recovered self-possession and defended himself vehemently:
+"I love Marie, it's true, and I felt that I could not conceal it, that
+you yourself would notice it at last. But there was no occasion for me to
+tell you of it, for I was sure of myself, and would have fled rather than
+have allowed a single word to cross my lips. I suffered in silence and
+alone, and you cannot know how great my torture was! It is even cruel on
+your part to speak to me of it; for now I am absolutely compelled to
+leave you. . . . I have already, on several occasions, thought of doing
+so. If I have come back here, it was doubtless through weakness, but also
+on account of my affection for you all. And what mattered my presence
+here? Marie ran no risk. She does not love me."
+
+"She does love you!" Guillaume answered. "I questioned her yesterday, and
+she had to confess that she loved you."
+
+At this Pierre, utterly distracted, caught Guillaume by the shoulders and
+gazed into his eyes. "Oh! brother, brother! what is this you say? Why say
+a thing which would mean terrible misfortune for us all? Even if it were
+true, my grief would far exceed my joy, for I will not have you suffer.
+Marie belongs to you. To me she is as sacred as a sister. And if there be
+only my madness to part you, it will pass by, I shall know how to conquer
+it."
+
+"Marie loves you," repeated Guillaume in his gentle, obstinate way. "I
+don't reproach you with anything. I well know that you have struggled,
+and have never betrayed yourself to her either by word or glance.
+Yesterday she herself was still ignorant that she loved you, and I had to
+open her eyes. . . . What would you have? I simply state a fact: she
+loves you."
+
+This time Pierre, still quivering, made a gesture of mingled rapture and
+terror, as if some divine and long-desired blessing were falling upon him
+from heaven and crushing him beneath its weight.
+
+"Well, then," he said, after a brief pause, "it is all over. . . . Let us
+kiss one another for the last time, and then I'll go."
+
+"Go? Why? You must stay with us. Nothing could be more simple: you love
+Marie and she loves you. I give her to you."
+
+A loud cry came from Pierre, who wildly raised his hands again with a
+gesture of fright and rapture. "You give me Marie?" he replied. "You, who
+adore her, who have been waiting for her for months? No, no, it would
+overcome me, it would terrify me, as if you gave me your very heart after
+tearing it from your breast. No, no! I will not accept your sacrifice!"
+
+"But as it is only gratitude and affection that Marie feels for me," said
+Guillaume, "as it is you whom she really loves, am I to take a mean
+advantage of the engagements which she entered into unconsciously, and
+force her to a marriage when I know that she would never be wholly mine?
+Besides, I have made a mistake, it isn't I who give her to you, she has
+already given herself, and I do not consider that I have any right to
+prevent her from doing so."
+
+"No, no! I will never accept, I will never bring such grief upon you. . .
+Kiss me, brother, and let me go."
+
+Thereupon Guillaume caught hold of Pierre and compelled him to sit down
+by his side on an old sofa near the window. And he began to scold him
+almost angrily while still retaining a smile, in which suffering and
+kindliness were blended. "Come," said he, "we are surely not going to
+fight over it. You won't force me to tie you up so as to keep you here? I
+know what I'm about. I thought it all over before I spoke to you. No
+doubt, I can't tell you that it gladdens me. I thought at first that I
+was going to die; I should have liked to hide myself in the very depths
+of the earth. And then, well, it was necessary to be reasonable, and I
+understood that things had arranged themselves for the best, in their
+natural order."
+
+Pierre, unable to resist any further, had begun to weep with both hands
+raised to his face.
+
+"Don't grieve, brother, either for yourself or for me," said Guillaume.
+"Do you remember the happy days we lately spent together at Neuilly after
+we had found one another again? All our old affection revived within us,
+and we remained for hours, hand in hand, recalling the past and loving
+one another. And what a terrible confession you made to me one night, the
+confession of your loss of faith, your torture, the void in which you
+were rolling! When I heard of it my one great wish was to cure you. I
+advised you to work, love, and believe in life, convinced as I was that
+life alone could restore you to peace and health. . . . And for that
+reason I afterwards brought you here. You fought against it, and it was I
+who forced you to come. I was so happy when I found that you again took
+an interest in life, and had once more become a man and a worker! I would
+have given some of my blood if necessary to complete your cure. . . .
+Well, it's done now, I have given you all I had, since Marie herself has
+become necessary to you, and she alone can save you."
+
+Then as Pierre again attempted to protest, he resumed: "Don't deny it. It
+is so true indeed, that if she does not complete the work I have begun,
+all my efforts will have been vain, you will fall back into your misery
+and negation, into all the torments of a spoilt life. She is necessary to
+you, I say. And do you think that I no longer know how to love you? Would
+you have me refuse you the very breath of life that will truly make you a
+man, after all my fervent wishes for your return to life? I have enough
+affection for you both to consent to your loving one another. . . .
+Besides, I repeat it, nature knows what she does. Instinct is a sure
+guide, it always tends to what is useful and trite. I should have been a
+sorry husband, and it is best that I should keep to my work as an old
+/savant/; whereas you are young and represent the future, all fruitful
+and happy life."
+
+Pierre shuddered as he heard this, for his old fears returned to him. Had
+not the priesthood for ever cut him off from life, had not his long years
+of chaste celibacy robbed him of his manhood? "Fruitful and happy life!"
+he muttered, "ah! if you only knew how distressed I feel at the idea that
+I do not perhaps deserve the gift you so lovingly offer me! You are worth
+more than I am; you would have given her a larger heart, a firmer brain,
+and perhaps, too, you are really a younger man than myself. . . . There
+is still time, brother, keep her, if with you she is likely to be happier
+and more truly and completely loved. For my part I am full of doubts. Her
+happiness is the only thing of consequence. Let her belong to the one who
+will love her best!"
+
+Indescribable emotion had now come over both men. As Guillaume heard his
+brother's broken words, the cry of a love that trembled at the thought of
+possible weakness, he did for a moment waver. With a dreadful heart-pang
+he stammered despairingly: "Ah! Marie, whom I love so much! Marie, whom I
+would have rendered so happy!"
+
+At this Pierre could not restrain himself; he rose and cried: "Ah! you
+see that you love her still and cannot renounce her. . . . So let me go!
+let me go!"
+
+But Guillaume had already caught him around the body, clasping him with
+an intensity of brotherly love which was increased by the renunciation he
+was resolved upon: "Stay!" said he. "It wasn't I that spoke, it was the
+other man that was in me, he who is about to die, who is already dead! By
+the memory of our mother and our father I swear to you that the sacrifice
+is consummated, and that if you two refuse to accept happiness from me
+you will but make me suffer."
+
+For a moment the weeping men remained in one another's arms. They had
+often embraced before, but never had their hearts met and mingled as they
+did now. It was a delightful moment, which seemed an eternity. All the
+grief and misery of the world had disappeared from before them; there
+remained naught save their glowing love, whence sprang an eternity of
+love even as light comes from the sun. And that moment was compensation
+for all their past and future tears, whilst yonder, on the horizon before
+them, Paris still spread and rumbled, ever preparing the unknown future.
+
+Just then Marie herself came in. And the rest proved very simple.
+Guillaume freed himself from his brother's clasp, led him forward and
+compelled him and Marie to take each other by the hand. At first she made
+yet another gesture of refusal in her stubborn resolve that she would not
+take her promise back. But what could she say face to face with those two
+tearful men, whom she had found in one another's arms, mingling together
+in such close brotherliness? Did not those tears and that embrace sweep
+away all ordinary reasons, all such arguments as she held in reserve?
+Even the embarrassment of the situation disappeared, it seemed as if she
+had already had a long explanation with Pierre, and that he and she were
+of one mind to accept that gift of love which Guillaume offered them with
+so much heroism. A gust of the sublime passed through the room, and
+nothing could have appeared more natural to them than this extraordinary
+scene. Nevertheless, Marie remained silent, she dared not give her
+answer, but looked at them both with her big soft eyes, which, like their
+own, were full of tears.
+
+And it was Guillaume who, with sudden inspiration, ran to the little
+staircase conducting to the rooms overhead, and called: "Mere-Grand!
+Mere-Grand! Come down at once, you are wanted."
+
+Then, as soon as she was there, looking slim and pale in her black gown,
+and showing the wise air of a queen-mother whom all obeyed, he said:
+"Tell these two children that they can do nothing better than marry one
+another. Tell them that we have talked it over, you and I, and that it is
+your desire, your will that they should do so."
+
+She quietly nodded her assent, and then said: "That is true, it will be
+by far the most sensible course."
+
+Thereupon Marie flung herself into her arms, consenting, yielding to the
+superior forces, the powers of life, that had thus changed the course of
+her existence. Guillaume immediately desired that the date of the wedding
+should be fixed, and accommodation provided for the young couple in the
+rooms overhead. And as Pierre glanced at him with some remaining anxiety
+and spoke of travelling, for he feared that his wound was not yet healed,
+and that their presence might bring him suffering, Guillaume responded:
+"No, no, I mean to keep you. If I'm marrying you, it is to have you both
+here. Don't worry about me. I have so much work to do, I shall work."
+
+In the evening when Thomas and Francois came home and learnt the news,
+they did not seem particularly surprised by it. They had doubtless felt
+that things would end like this. And they bowed to the /denouement/, not
+venturing to say a word, since it was their father himself who announced
+the decision which had been taken, with his usual air of composure. As
+for Antoine, who on his own side quivered with love for Lise, he gazed
+with doubting, anxious eyes at his father, who had thus had the courage
+to pluck out his heart. Could he really survive such a sacrifice, must it
+not kill him? Then Antoine kissed his father passionately, and the elder
+brothers in their turn embraced him with all their hearts. Guillaume
+smiled and his eyes became moist. After his victory over his horrible
+torments nothing could have been sweeter to him than the embraces of his
+three big sons.
+
+There was, however, further emotion in store for him that evening. Just
+as the daylight was departing, and he was sitting at his large table near
+the window, again checking and classifying the documents and plans
+connected with his invention, he was surprised to see his old master and
+friend Bertheroy enter the workroom. The illustrious chemist called on
+him in this fashion at long intervals, and Guillaume felt the honour thus
+conferred on him by this old man to whom eminence and fame had brought so
+many titles, offices and decorations. Moreover, Bertheroy, with his
+position as an official /savant/ and member of the Institute, showed some
+courage in thus venturing to call on one whom so-called respectable folks
+regarded with contumely. And on this occasion, Guillaume at once
+understood that it was some feeling of curiosity that had brought him.
+And so he was greatly embarrassed, for he hardly dared to remove the
+papers and plans which were lying on the table.
+
+"Oh, don't be frightened," gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his
+careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry
+into your secrets. . . . Leave your papers there, I promise you that I
+won't read anything."
+
+Then, in all frankness, he turned the conversation on the subject of
+explosives, which he was still studying, he said, with passionate
+interest. He had made some new discoveries which he did not conceal.
+Incidentally, too, he spoke of the opinion he had given in Salvat's
+affair. His dream was to discover some explosive of great power, which
+one might attempt to domesticate and reduce to complete obedience. And
+with a smile he pointedly concluded: "I don't know where that madman
+found the formula of his powder. But if you should ever discover it,
+remember that the future perhaps lies in the employment of explosives as
+motive power."
+
+Then, all at once, he added: "By the way, that fellow Salvat will be
+executed on the day after to-morrow. A friend of mine at the Ministry of
+Justice has just told me so."
+
+Guillaume had hitherto listened to him with an air of mingled distrust
+and amusement. But this announcement of Salvat's execution stirred him to
+anger and revolt, though for some days past he had known it to be
+inevitable, in spite of the sympathy which the condemned man was now
+rousing in many quarters.
+
+"It will be a murder!" he cried vehemently.
+
+Bertheroy waved his hand: "What would you have?" he answered: "there's a
+social system and it defends itself when it is attacked. Besides, those
+Anarchists are really too foolish in imagining that they will transform
+the world with their squibs and crackers! In my opinion, you know,
+science is the only revolutionist. Science will not only bring us truth
+but justice also, if indeed justice ever be possible on this earth. And
+that is why I lead so calm a life and am so tolerant."
+
+Once again Bertheroy appeared to Guillaume as a revolutionist, one who
+was convinced that he helped on the ruin of the ancient abominable
+society of today, with its dogmas and laws, even whilst he was working in
+the depths of his laboratory. He was, however, too desirous of repose,
+and had too great a contempt for futilities to mingle with the events of
+the day, and he preferred to live in quietude, liberally paid and
+rewarded, and at peace with the government whatever it might be, whilst
+at the same time foreseeing and preparing for the formidable parturition
+of the future.
+
+He waved his hand towards Paris, over which a sun of victory was setting,
+and then again spoke: "Do you hear the rumble? It is we who are the
+stokers, we who are ever flinging fresh fuel under the boiler. Science
+does not pause in her work for a single hour, and she is the artisan of
+Paris, which--let us hope it--will be the artisan of the future. All the
+rest is of no account."
+
+But Guillaume was no longer listening to him. He was thinking of Salvat
+and the terrible engine of war he had invented, that engine which before
+long would shatter cities. And a new idea was dawning and growing in his
+mind. He had just freed himself of his last tie, he had created all the
+happiness he could create around him. Ah! to recover his courage, to be
+master of himself once more, and, at any rate, derive from the sacrifice
+of his heart the lofty delight of being free, of being able to lay down
+even his life, should he some day deem it necessary!
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE THREE CITIES
+
+
+
+                               PARIS
+
+
+
+                                BY
+
+                            EMILE ZOLA
+
+
+
+                TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                               BOOK V
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE GUILLOTINE
+
+FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing the
+execution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; and
+finding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordingly
+resolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother and
+watch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose in
+charitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that the
+guillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy,
+resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself as
+a guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legally
+be daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did not
+go to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, and
+exchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they started
+off.
+
+The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like a
+silver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm,
+dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like some
+spell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arose
+from it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over its
+roofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled to
+repose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark work
+was even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order that
+a man might be killed.
+
+Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at the
+vaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned they
+perceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but already
+looking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuated
+its outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass of
+shadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossal
+monster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never before
+had Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominate
+Paris, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn and
+overwhelming might.
+
+This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he found
+himself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good site
+for it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing more
+nonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! How
+impudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so many
+centuries of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being reared
+over Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have been
+soiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; but
+not in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeply
+ploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war,
+an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"
+
+Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a /savant/, for whom
+religions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted the
+grandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque's
+famous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart,
+filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. He
+suffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and the
+gigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in the
+depths of the wound--the huge heart in which Jesus placed the woman's
+little heart to restore it to her inflated and glowing with love. What
+base and loathsome materialism there was in all this! What a display of
+viscera, muscles and blood suggestive of a butcher's shop! And Guillaume
+was particularly disgusted with the engraving which depicted this horror,
+and which he found everywhere, crudely coloured with red and yellow and
+blue, like some badly executed anatomical plate.
+
+Pierre on his side was also looking at the basilica as, white with
+moonlight, it rose out of the darkness like a gigantic fortress raised to
+crush and conquer the city slumbering beneath it. It had already brought
+him suffering during the last days when he had said mass in it and was
+struggling with his torments. "They call it the national votive
+offering," he now exclaimed. "But the nation's longing is for health and
+strength and restoration to its old position by work. That is a thing the
+Church does not understand. It argues that if France was stricken with
+defeat, it was because she deserved punishment. She was guilty, and so
+to-day she ought to repent. Repent of what? Of the Revolution, of a
+century of free examination and science, of the emancipation of her mind,
+of her initiatory and liberative labour in all parts of the world? That
+indeed is her real transgression; and it is as a punishment for all our
+labour, search for truth, increase of knowledge and march towards justice
+that they have reared that huge pile which Paris will see from all her
+streets, and will never be able to see without feeling derided and
+insulted in her labour and glory."
+
+With a wave of his hand he pointed to the city, slumbering in the
+moonlight as beneath a sheet of silver, and then set off again with his
+brother, down the slopes, towards the black and deserted streets.
+
+They did not meet a living soul until they reached the outer boulevard.
+Here, however, no matter what the hour may be, life continues with
+scarcely a pause. No sooner are the wine shops, music and dancing halls
+closed, than vice and want, cast into the street, there resume their
+nocturnal existence. Thus the brothers came upon all the homeless ones:
+low prostitutes seeking a pallet, vagabonds stretched on the benches
+under the trees, rogues who prowled hither and thither on the lookout for
+a good stroke. Encouraged by their accomplice--night, all the mire and
+woe of Paris had returned to the surface. The empty roadway now belonged
+to the breadless, homeless starvelings, those for whom there was no place
+in the sunlight, the vague, swarming, despairing herd which is only
+espied at night-time. Ah! what spectres of destitution, what apparitions
+of grief and fright there were! What a sob of agony passed by in Paris
+that morning, when as soon as the dawn should rise, a man--a pauper, a
+sufferer like the others--was to be guillotined!
+
+As Guillaume and Pierre were about to descend the Rue des Martyrs, the
+former perceived an old man lying on a bench with his bare feet
+protruding from his gaping, filthy shoes. Guillaume pointed to him in
+silence. Then, a few steps farther on, Pierre in his turn pointed to a
+ragged girl, crouching, asleep with open month, in the corner of a
+doorway. There was no need for the brothers to express in words all the
+compassion and anger which stirred their hearts. At long intervals
+policemen, walking slowly two by two, shook the poor wretches and
+compelled them to rise and walk on and on. Occasionally, if they found
+them suspicious or refractory, they marched them off to the
+police-station. And then rancour and the contagion of imprisonment often
+transformed a mere vagabond into a thief or a murderer.
+
+In the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, the brothers
+found night-birds of another kind, women who slunk past them, close to
+the house-fronts, and men and hussies who belaboured one another with
+blows. Then, upon the grand boulevards, on the thresholds of lofty black
+houses, only one row of whose windows flared in the night, pale-faced
+individuals, who had just come down from their clubs, stood lighting
+cigars before going home. A lady with a ball wrap over her evening gown
+went by accompanied by a servant. A few cabs, moreover, still jogged up
+and down the roadway, while others, which had been waiting for hours,
+stood on their ranks in rows, with drivers and horses alike asleep. And
+as one boulevard after another was reached, the Boulevard Poissonniere,
+the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, the Boulevard St. Denis, and so forth, as
+far as the Place de la Republique, there came fresh want and misery, more
+forsaken and hungry ones, more and more of the human "waste" that is cast
+into the streets and the darkness. And on the other hand, an army of
+street-sweepers was now appearing to remove all the filth of the past
+four and twenty hours, in order that Paris, spruce already at sunrise,
+might not blush for having thrown up such a mass of dirt and
+loathsomeness in the course of a single day.
+
+It was, however, more particularly after following the Boulevard
+Voltaire, and drawing near to the districts of La Roquette and Charonne,
+that the brothers felt they were returning to a sphere of labour where
+there was often lack of food, and where life was but so much pain. Pierre
+found himself at home here. In former days, accompanied by good Abbe
+Rose, visiting despairing ones, distributing alms, picking up children
+who had sunk to the gutter, he had a hundred times perambulated every one
+of those long, densely populated streets. And thus a frightful vision
+arose before his mind's eye; he recalled all the tragedies he had
+witnessed, all the shrieks he had heard, all the tears and bloodshed he
+had seen, all the fathers, mothers and children huddled together and
+dying of want, dirt and abandonment: that social hell in which he had
+ended by losing his last hopes, fleeing from it with a sob in the
+conviction that charity was a mere amusement for the rich, and absolutely
+futile as a remedy. It was this conviction which now returned to him as
+he again cast eyes upon that want and grief stricken district which
+seemed fated to everlasting destitution. That poor old man whom Abbe Rose
+had revived one night in yonder hovel, had he not since died of
+starvation? That little girl whom he had one morning brought in his arms
+to the refuge after her parents' death, was it not she whom he had just
+met, grown but fallen to the streets, and shrieking beneath the fist of a
+bully? Ah! how great was the number of the wretched! Their name was
+legion! There were those whom one could not save, those who were hourly
+born to a life of woe and want, even as one may be born infirm, and
+those, too, who from every side sank in the sea of human injustice, that
+ocean which has ever been the same for centuries past, and which though
+one may strive to drain it, still and for ever spreads. How heavy was the
+silence, how dense the darkness in those working-class streets where
+sleep seems to be the comrade of death! Yet hunger prowls, and misfortune
+sobs; vague spectral forms slink by, and then are lost to view in the
+depths of the night.
+
+As Pierre and Guillaume went along they became mixed with dark groups of
+people, a whole flock of inquisitive folk, a promiscuous, passionate
+tramp, tramp towards the guillotine. It came from all Paris, urged on by
+brutish fever, a hankering for death and blood. In spite, however, of the
+dull noise which came from this dim crowd, the mean streets that were
+passed remained quite dark, not a light appeared at any of their windows;
+nor could one hear the breathing of the weary toilers stretched on their
+wretched pallets from which they would not rise before the morning
+twilight.
+
+On seeing the jostling crowd which was already assembled on the Place
+Voltaire, Pierre understood that it would be impossible for him and his
+brother to ascend the Rue de la Roquette. Barriers, moreover, must
+certainly have been thrown across that street. In order therefore to
+reach the corner of the Rue Merlin, it occurred to him to take the Rue de
+la Folie Regnault, which winds round in the rear of the prison, farther
+on.
+
+Here indeed they found solitude and darkness again.
+
+The huge, massive prison with its great bare walls on which a moonray
+fell, looked like some pile of cold stones, dead for centuries past. At
+the end of the street they once more fell in with the crowd, a dim
+restless mass of beings, whose pale faces alone could be distinguished.
+The brothers had great difficulty in reaching the house in which Mege
+resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. All the shutters of the
+fourth-floor flat occupied by the Socialist deputy were closed, though
+every other window was wide open and crowded with surging sightseers.
+Moreover, the wine shop down below and the first-floor room connected
+with it flared with gas, and were already crowded with noisy customers,
+waiting for the performance to begin.
+
+"I hardly like to go and knock at Mege's door," said Pierre.
+
+"No, no, you must not do so!" replied Guillaume.
+
+"Let us go into the wine shop. We may perhaps be able to see something
+from the balcony."
+
+The first-floor room was provided with a very large balcony, which women
+and gentlemen were already filling. The brothers nevertheless managed to
+reach it, and for a few minutes remained there, peering into the darkness
+before them. The sloping street grew broader between the two prisons, the
+"great" and the "little" Roquette, in such wise as to form a sort of
+square, which was shaded by four clumps of plane-trees, rising from the
+footways. The low buildings and scrubby trees, all poor and ugly of
+aspect, seemed almost to lie on a level with the ground, under a vast sky
+in which stars were appearing, as the moon gradually declined. And the
+square was quite empty save that on one spot yonder there seemed to be
+some little stir. Two rows of guards prevented the crowd from advancing,
+and even threw it back into the neighbouring streets. On the one hand,
+the only lofty houses were far away, at the point where the Rue St. Maur
+intersects the Rue de la Roquette; while, on the other, they stood at the
+corners of the Rue Merlin and the Rue de la Folie Regnault, so that it
+was almost impossible to distinguish anything of the execution even from
+the best placed windows. As for the inquisitive folk on the pavement they
+only saw the backs of the guards. Still this did not prevent a crush. The
+human tide flowed on from all sides with increasing clamour.
+
+Guided by the remarks of some women who, leaning forward on the balcony,
+had been watching the square for a long time already, the brothers were
+at last able to perceive something. It was now half-past three, and the
+guillotine was nearly ready. The little stir which one vaguely espied
+yonder under the trees, was that of the headsman's assistants fixing the
+knife in position. A lantern slowly came and went, and five or six
+shadows danced over the ground. But nothing else could be distinguished,
+the square was like a large black pit, around which ever broke the waves
+of the noisy crowd which one could not see. And beyond the square one
+could only identify the flaring wine shops, which showed forth like
+lighthouses in the night. All the surrounding district of poverty and
+toil was still asleep, not a gleam as yet came from workrooms or yards,
+not a puff of smoke from the lofty factory chimneys.
+
+"We shall see nothing," Guillaume remarked.
+
+But Pierre silenced him, for he has just discovered that an elegantly
+attired gentleman leaning over the balcony near him was none other than
+the amiable deputy Duthil. He had at first fancied that a woman muffled
+in wraps who stood close beside the deputy was the little Princess de
+Harn, whom he had very likely brought to see the execution since he had
+taken her to see the trial. On closer inspection, however, he had found
+that this woman was Silviane, the perverse creature with the virginal
+face. Truth to tell, she made no concealment of her presence, but talked
+on in an extremely loud voice, as if intoxicated; and the brothers soon
+learnt how it was that she happened to be there. Duvillard, Duthil, and
+other friends had been supping with her at one o'clock in the morning,
+when on learning that Salvat was about to be guillotined, the fancy of
+seeing the execution had suddenly come upon her. Duvillard, after vainly
+entreating her to do nothing of the kind, had gone off in a fury, for he
+felt that it would be most unseemly on his part to attend the execution
+of a man who had endeavoured to blow up his house. And thereupon Silviane
+had turned to Duthil, whom her caprice greatly worried, for he held all
+such loathsome spectacles in horror, and had already refused to act as
+escort to the Princess. However, he was so infatuated with Silviane's
+beauty, and she made him so many promises, that he had at last consented
+to take her.
+
+"He can't understand people caring for amusement," she said, speaking of
+the Baron. "And yet this is really a thing to see. . . . But no matter,
+you'll find him at my feet again to-morrow."
+
+Duthil smiled and responded: "I suppose that peace has been signed and
+ratified now that you have secured your engagement at the Comedie."
+
+"Peace? No!" she protested. "No, no. There will be no peace between us
+until I have made my /debut/. After that, we'll see."
+
+They both laughed; and then Duthil, by way of paying his court, told her
+how good-naturedly Dauvergne, the new Minister of Public Instruction and
+Fine Arts, had adjusted the difficulties which had hitherto kept the
+doors of the Comedie closed upon her. A really charming man was
+Dauvergne, the embodiment of graciousness, the very flower of the
+Monferrand ministry. His was the velvet hand in that administration whose
+leader had a hand of iron.
+
+"He told me, my beauty," said Duthil, "that a pretty girl was in place
+everywhere." And then as Silviane, as if flattered, pressed closely
+beside him, the deputy added: "So that wonderful revival of 'Polyeucte,'
+in which you are going to have such a triumph, is to take place on the
+day after to-morrow. We shall all go to applaud you, remember."
+
+"Yes, on the evening of the day after to-morrow," said Silviane, "the
+very same day when the wedding of the Baron's daughter will take place.
+There'll be plenty of emotion that day!"
+
+"Ah! yes, of course!" retorted Duthil, "there'll be the wedding of our
+friend Gerard with Mademoiselle Camille to begin with. We shall have a
+crush at the Madeleine in the morning and another at the Comedie in the
+evening. You are quite right, too; there will be several hearts throbbing
+in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."
+
+Thereupon they again became merry, and jested about the Duvillard
+family--father, mother, lover and daughter--with the greatest possible
+ferocity and crudity of language. Then, all at once Silviane exclaimed:
+"Do you know, I'm feeling awfully bored here, my little Duthil. I can't
+distinguish anything, and I should like to be quite near so as to see it
+all plainly. You must take me over yonder, close to that machine of
+theirs."
+
+This request threw Duthil into consternation, particularly as at that
+same moment Silviane perceived Massot outside the wine shop, and began
+calling and beckoning to him imperiously. A brief conversation then
+ensued between the young woman and the journalist: "I say, Massot!" she
+called, "hasn't a deputy the right to pass the guards and take a lady
+wherever he likes?"
+
+"Not at all!" exclaimed Duthil. "Massot knows very well that a deputy
+ought to be the very first to bow to the laws."
+
+This exclamation warned Massot that Duthil did not wish to leave the
+balcony. "You ought to have secured a card of invitation, madame," said
+he, in reply to Silviane. "They would then have found you room at one of
+the windows of La Petite Roquette. Women are not allowed elsewhere. . . .
+But you mustn't complain, you have a very good place up there."
+
+"But I can see nothing at all, my dear Massot."
+
+"Well, you will in any case see more than Princess de Harn will. Just now
+I came upon her carriage in the Rue du Chemin Vert. The police would not
+allow it to come any nearer."
+
+This news made Silviane merry again, whilst Duthil shuddered at the idea
+of the danger he incurred, for Rosemonde would assuredly treat him to a
+terrible scene should she see him with another woman. Then, an idea
+occurring to him, he ordered a bottle of champagne and some little cakes
+for his "beautiful friend," as he called Silviane. She had been
+complaining of thirst, and was delighted with the opportunity of
+perfecting her intoxication. When a waiter had managed to place a little
+table near her, on the balcony itself, she found things very pleasant,
+and indeed considered it quite brave to tipple and sup afresh, while
+waiting for that man to be guillotined close by.
+
+It was impossible for Pierre and Guillaume to remain up there any longer.
+All that they heard, all that they beheld filled them with disgust. The
+boredom of waiting had turned all the inquisitive folks of the balcony
+and the adjoining room into customers. The waiter could hardly manage to
+serve the many glasses of beer, bottles of expensive wine, biscuits, and
+plates of cold meat which were ordered of him. And yet the spectators
+here were all /bourgeois/, rich gentlemen, people of society! On the
+other hand, time has to be killed somehow when it hangs heavily on one's
+hands; and thus there were bursts of laughter and paltry and horrible
+jests, quite a feverish uproar arising amidst the clouds of smoke from
+the men's cigars. When Pierre and Guillaume passed through the wine shop
+on the ground-floor they there found a similar crush and similar tumult,
+aggravated by the disorderly behaviour of the big fellows in blouses who
+were drinking draught wine at the pewter bar which shone like silver.
+There were people, too, at all the little tables, besides an incessant
+coming and going of folks who entered the place for a "wet," by way of
+calming their impatience. And what folks they were! All the scum, all the
+vagabonds who had been dragging themselves about since daybreak on the
+lookout for whatever chance might offer them, provided it were not work!
+
+On the pavement outside, Pierre and Guillaume felt yet a greater
+heart-pang. In the throng which the guards kept back, one simply found so
+much mire stirred up from the very depths of Paris life: prostitutes and
+criminals, the murderers of to-morrow, who came to see how a man ought to
+die. Loathsome, bareheaded harlots mingled with bands of prowlers or ran
+through the crowd, howling obscene refrains. Bandits stood in groups
+chatting and quarrelling about the more or less glorious manner in which
+certain famous /guillotines/ had died. Among these was one with respect
+to whom they all agreed, and of whom they spoke as of a great captain, a
+hero whose marvellous courage was deserving of immortality. Then, as one
+passed along, one caught snatches of horrible phrases, particulars about
+the instrument of death, ignoble boasts, and filthy jests reeking with
+blood. And over and above all else there was bestial fever, a lust for
+death which made this multitude delirious, an eagerness to see life flow
+forth fresh and ruddy beneath the knife, so that as it coursed over the
+soil they might dip their feet in it. As this execution was not an
+ordinary one, however, there were yet spectators of another kind; silent
+men with glowing eyes who came and went all alone, and who were plainly
+thrilled by their faith, intoxicated with the contagious madness which
+incites one to vengeance or martyrdom.
+
+Guillaume was just thinking of Victor Mathis, when he fancied that he saw
+him standing in the front row of sightseers whom the guards held in
+check. It was indeed he, with his thin, beardless, pale, drawn face.
+Short as he was, he had to raise himself on tiptoes in order to see
+anything. Near him was a big, red-haired girl who gesticulated; but for
+his part he never stirred or spoke. He was waiting motionless, gazing
+yonder with the round, ardent, fixed eyes of a night-bird, seeking to
+penetrate the darkness. At last a guard pushed him back in a somewhat
+brutal way; but he soon returned to his previous position, ever patient
+though full of hatred against the executioners, wishing indeed to see all
+he could in order to increase his hate.
+
+Then Massot approached the brothers. This time, on seeing Pierre without
+his cassock, he did not even make a sign of astonishment, but gaily
+remarked: "So you felt curious to see this affair, Monsieur Froment?"
+
+"Yes, I came with my brother," Pierre replied. "But I very much fear that
+we shan't see much."
+
+"You certainly won't if you stay here," rejoined Massot. And thereupon in
+his usual good-natured way--glad, moreover, to show what power a
+well-known journalist could wield--he inquired: "Would you like me to
+pass you through? The inspector here happens to be a friend of mine."
+
+Then, without waiting for an answer, he stopped the inspector and hastily
+whispered to him that he had brought a couple of colleagues, who wanted
+to report the proceedings. At first the inspector hesitated, and seemed
+inclined to refuse Massot's request; but after a moment, influenced by
+the covert fear which the police always has of the press, he made a weary
+gesture of consent.
+
+"Come, quick, then," said Massot, turning to the brothers, and taking
+them along with him.
+
+A moment later, to the intense surprise of Pierre and Guillaume, the
+guards opened their ranks to let them pass. They then found themselves in
+the large open space which was kept clear. And on thus emerging from the
+tumultuous throng they were quite impressed by the death-like silence and
+solitude which reigned under the little plane-trees. The night was now
+paling. A faint gleam of dawn was already falling from the sky.
+
+After leading his companions slantwise across the square, Massot stopped
+them near the prison and resumed: "I'm going inside; I want to see the
+prisoner roused and got ready. In the meantime, walk about here; nobody
+will say anything to you. Besides, I'll come back to you in a moment."
+
+A hundred people or so, journalists and other privileged spectators, were
+scattered about the dark square. Movable wooden barriers--such as are set
+up at the doors of theatres when there is a press of people waiting for
+admission--had been placed on either side of the pavement running from
+the prison gate to the guillotine; and some sightseers were already
+leaning over these barriers, in order to secure a close view of the
+condemned man as he passed by. Others were walking slowly to and fro, and
+conversing in undertones. The brothers, for their part, approached the
+guillotine.
+
+It stood there under the branches of the trees, amidst the delicate
+greenery of the fresh leaves of spring. A neighbouring gas-lamp, whose
+light was turning yellow in the rising dawn, cast vague gleams upon it.
+The work of fixing it in position--work performed as quietly as could be,
+so that the only sound was the occasional thud of a mallet--had just been
+finished; and the headsman's "valets" or assistants, in frock-coats and
+tall silk hats, were waiting and strolling about in a patient way. But
+the instrument itself, how base and shameful it looked, squatting on the
+ground like some filthy beast, disgusted with the work it had to
+accomplish! What! those few beams lying on the ground, and those others
+barely nine feet high which rose from it, keeping the knife in position,
+constituted the machine which avenged Society, the instrument which gave
+a warning to evil-doers! Where was the big scaffold painted a bright red
+and reached by a stairway of ten steps, the scaffold which raised high
+bloody arms over the eager multitude, so that everybody might behold the
+punishment of the law in all its horror! The beast had now been felled to
+the ground, where it simply looked ignoble, crafty and cowardly. If on
+the one hand there was no majesty in the manner in which human justice
+condemned a man to death at its assizes: on the other, there was merely
+horrid butchery with the help of the most barbarous and repulsive of
+mechanical contrivances, on the terrible day when that man was executed.
+
+As Pierre and Guillaume gazed at the guillotine, a feeling of nausea came
+over them. Daylight was now slowly breaking, and the surroundings were
+appearing to view: first the square itself with its two low, grey
+prisons, facing one another; then the distant houses, the taverns, the
+marble workers' establishments, and the shops selling flowers and
+wreaths, which are numerous hereabouts, as the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise
+is so near. Before long one could plainly distinguish the black lines of
+the spectators standing around in a circle, the heads leaning forward
+from windows and balconies, and the people who had climbed to the very
+house roofs. The prison of La Petite Roquette over the way had been
+turned into a kind of tribune for guests; and mounted Gardes de Paris
+went slowly to and fro across the intervening expanse. Then, as the sky
+brightened, labour awoke throughout the district beyond the crowd, a
+district of broad, endless streets lined with factories, work-shops and
+work-yards. Engines began to snort, machinery and appliances were got
+ready to start once more on their usual tasks, and smoke already curled
+away from the forest of lofty brick chimneys which, on all sides, sprang
+out of the gloom.
+
+It then seemed to Guillaume that the guillotine was really in its right
+place in that district of want and toil. It stood in its own realm, like
+a /terminus/ and a threat. Did not ignorance, poverty and woe lead to it?
+And each time that it was set up amidst those toilsome streets, was it
+not charged to overawe the disinherited ones, the starvelings, who,
+exasperated by everlasting injustice, were always ready for revolt? It
+was not seen in the districts where wealth and enjoyment reigned. It
+would there have seemed purposeless, degrading and truly monstrous. And
+it was a tragical and terrible coincidence that the bomb-thrower, driven
+mad by want, should be guillotined there, in the very centre of want's
+dominion.
+
+But daylight had come at last, for it was nearly half-past four. The
+distant noisy crowd could feel that the expected moment was drawing nigh.
+A shudder suddenly sped through the atmosphere.
+
+"He's coming," exclaimed little Massot, as he came back to Pierre and
+Guillaume. "Ah! that Salvat is a brave fellow after all."
+
+Then he related how the prisoner had been awakened; how the governor of
+the prison, magistrate Amadieu, the chaplain, and a few other persons had
+entered the cell where Salvat lay fast asleep; and then how the condemned
+man had understood the truth immediately upon opening his eyes. He had
+risen, looking pale but quite composed. And he had dressed himself
+without assistance, and had declined the nip of brandy and the cigarette
+proffered by the good-hearted chaplain, in the same way as with a gentle
+but stubborn gesture he had brushed the crucifix aside. Then had come the
+"toilette" for death. With all rapidity and without a word being
+exchanged, Salvat's hands had been tied behind his back, his legs had
+been loosely secured with a cord, and the neckband of his shirt had been
+cut away. He had smiled when the others exhorted him to be brave. He only
+feared some nervous weakness, and had but one desire, to die like a hero,
+to remain the martyr of the ardent faith in truth and justice for which
+he was about to perish.
+
+"They are now drawing up the death certificate in the register,"
+continued Massot in his chattering way. "Come along, come along to the
+barriers if you wish a good view. . . . I turned paler, you know, and
+trembled far more than he did. I don't care a rap for anything as a rule;
+but, all the same, an execution isn't a pleasant business. . . . You
+can't imagine how many attempts were made to save Salvat's life. Even
+some of the papers asked that he might be reprieved. But nothing
+succeeded, the execution was regarded as inevitable, it seems, even by
+those who consider it a blunder. Still, they had such a touching
+opportunity to reprieve him, when his daughter, little Celine, wrote that
+fine letter to the President of the Republic, which I was the first to
+publish in the 'Globe.' Ah! that letter, it cost me a lot of running
+about!"
+
+Pierre, who was already quite upset by this long wait for the horrible
+scene, felt moved to tears by Massot's reference to Celine. He could
+again see the child standing beside Madame Theodore in that bare, cold
+room whither her father would never more return. It was thence that he
+had set out on a day of desperation with his stomach empty and his brain
+on fire, and it was here that he would end, between yonder beams, beneath
+yonder knife.
+
+Massot, however, was still giving particulars. The doctors, said he, were
+furious because they feared that the body would not be delivered to them
+immediately after the execution. To this Guillaume did not listen. He
+stood there with his elbows resting on the wooden barrier and his eyes
+fixed on the prison gate, which still remained shut. His hands were
+quivering, and there was an expression of anguish on his face as if it
+were he himself who was about to be executed. The headsman had again just
+left the prison. He was a little, insignificant-looking man, and seemed
+annoyed, anxious to have done with it all. Then, among a group of
+frock-coated gentlemen, some of the spectators pointed out Gascogne, the
+Chief of the Detective Police, who wore a cold, official air, and
+Amadieu, the investigating magistrate, who smiled and looked very spruce,
+early though the hour was. He had come partly because it was his duty,
+and partly because he wished to show himself now that the curtain was
+about to fall on a wonderful tragedy of which he considered himself the
+author. Guillaume glanced at him, and then as a growing uproar rose from
+the distant crowd, he looked up for an instant, and again beheld the two
+grey prisons, the plane-trees with their fresh young leaves, and the
+houses swarming with people beneath the pale blue sky, in which the
+triumphant sun was about to appear.
+
+"Look out, here he comes!"
+
+Who had spoken? A slight noise, that of the opening gate, made every
+heart throb. Necks were outstretched, eyes gazed fixedly, there was
+laboured breathing on all sides. Salvat stood on the threshold of the
+prison. The chaplain, stepping backwards, had come out in advance of him,
+in order to conceal the guillotine from his sight, but he had stopped
+short, for he wished to see that instrument of death, make acquaintance
+with it, as it were, before he walked towards it. And as he stood there,
+his long, aged sunken face, on which life's hardships had left their
+mark, seemed transformed by the wondrous brilliancy of his flaring,
+dreamy eyes. Enthusiasm bore him up--he was going to his death in all the
+splendour of his dream. When the executioner's assistants drew near to
+support him he once more refused their help, and again set himself in
+motion, advancing with short steps, but as quickly and as straightly as
+the rope hampering his legs permitted.
+
+All at once Guillaume felt that Salvat's eyes were fixed upon him.
+Drawing nearer and nearer the condemned man had perceived and recognised
+his friend; and as he passed by, at a distance of no more than six or
+seven feet, he smiled faintly and darted such a deep penetrating glance
+at Guillaume, that ever afterwards the latter felt its smart. But what
+last thought, what supreme legacy had Salvat left him to meditate upon,
+perhaps to put into execution? It was all so poignant that Pierre feared
+some involuntary call on his brother's part; and so he laid his hand upon
+his arm to quiet him.
+
+"Long live Anarchy!"
+
+It was Salvat who had raised this cry. But in the deep silence his husky,
+altered voice seemed to break. The few who were near at hand had turned
+very pale; the distant crowd seemed bereft of life. The horse of one of
+the Gardes de Paris was alone heard snorting in the centre of the space
+which had been kept clear.
+
+Then came a loathsome scramble, a scene of nameless brutality and
+ignominy. The headsman's helps rushed upon Salvat as he came up slowly
+with brow erect. Two of them seized him by the head, but finding little
+hair there, could only lower it by tugging at his neck. Next two others
+grasped him by the legs and flung him violently upon a plank which tilted
+over and rolled forward. Then, by dint of pushing and tugging, the head
+was got into the "lunette," the upper part of which fell in such wise
+that the neck was fixed as in a ship's port-hole--and all this was
+accomplished amidst such confusion and with such savagery that one might
+have thought that head some cumbrous thing which it was necessary to get
+rid of with the greatest speed. But the knife fell with a dull, heavy,
+forcible thud, and two long jets of blood spurted from the severed
+arteries, while the dead man's feet moved convulsively. Nothing else
+could be seen. The executioner rubbed his hands in a mechanical way, and
+an assistant took the severed blood-streaming head from the little basket
+into which it had fallen and placed it in the large basket into which the
+body had already been turned.
+
+Ah! that dull, that heavy thud of the knife! It seemed to Guillaume that
+he had heard it echoing far away all over that district of want and toil,
+even in the squalid rooms where thousands of workmen were at that moment
+rising to perform their day's hard task! And there the echo of that thud
+acquired formidable significance; it spoke of man's exasperation with
+injustice, of zeal for martyrdom, and of the dolorous hope that the blood
+then spilt might hasten the victory of the disinherited.
+
+Pierre, for his part, at the sight of that loathsome butchery, the abject
+cutthroat work of that killing machine, had suddenly felt his chilling
+shudder become more violent; for before him arose a vision of another
+corpse, that of the fair, pretty child ripped open by a bomb and
+stretched yonder, at the entrance of the Duvillard mansion. Blood
+streamed from her delicate flesh, just as it had streamed from that
+decapitated neck. It was blood paying for blood; it was like payment for
+mankind's debt of wretchedness, for which payment is everlastingly being
+made, without man ever being able to free himself from suffering.
+
+Above the square and the crowd all was still silent in the clear sky. How
+long had the abomination lasted? An eternity, perhaps, compressed into
+two or three minutes. And now came an awakening: the spectators emerged
+from their nightmare with quivering hands, livid faces, and eyes
+expressive of compassion, disgust and fear.
+
+"That makes another one. I've now seen four executions," said Massot, who
+felt ill at ease. "After all, I prefer to report weddings. Let us go off,
+I have all I want for my article."
+
+Guillaume and Pierre followed him mechanically across the square, and
+again reached the corner of the Rue Merlin. And here they saw little
+Victor Mathis, with flaming eyes and white face, still standing in
+silence on the spot where they had left him. He could have seen nothing
+distinctly; but the thud of the knife was still echoing in his brain. A
+policeman at last gave him a push, and told him to move on. At this he
+looked the policeman in the face, stirred by sudden rage and ready to
+strangle him. Then, however, he quietly walked away, ascending the Rue de
+la Roquette, atop of which the lofty foliage of Pere-Lachaise could be
+seen, beneath the rising sun.
+
+The brothers meantime fell upon a scene of explanations, which they heard
+without wishing to do so. Now that the sight was over, the Princess de
+Harn arrived, and she was the more furious as at the door of the wine
+shop she could see her new friend Duthil accompanying a woman.
+
+"I say!" she exclaimed, "you are nice, you are, to have left me in the
+lurch like this! It was impossible for my carriage to get near, so I've
+had to come on foot through all those horrid people who have been
+jostling and insulting me."
+
+Thereupon Duthil, with all promptitude, introduced Silviane to her,
+adding, in an aside, that he had taken a friend's place as the actress's
+escort. And then Rosemonde, who greatly wished to know Silviane, calmed
+down as if by enchantment, and put on her most engaging ways. "It would
+have delighted me, madame," said she, "to have seen this sight in the
+company of an /artiste/ of your merit, one whom I admire so much, though
+I have never before had an opportunity of telling her so."
+
+"Well, dear me, madame," replied Silviane, "you haven't lost much by
+arriving late. We were on that balcony there, and all that I could see
+were a few men pushing another one about. . . . It really isn't worth the
+trouble of coming."
+
+"Well, now that we have become acquainted, madame," said the Princess, "I
+really hope that you will allow me to be your friend."
+
+"Certainly, madame, my friend; and I shall be flattered and delighted to
+be yours."
+
+Standing there, hand in hand, they smiled at one another. Silviane was
+very drunk, but her virginal expression had returned to her face; whilst
+Rosemonde seemed feverish with vicious curiosity. Duthil, whom the scene
+amused, now had but one thought, that of seeing Silviane home; so calling
+to Massot, who was approaching, he asked him where he should find a
+cab-rank. Rosemonde, however, at once offered her carriage, which was
+waiting in an adjacent street.
+
+She would set the actress down at her door, said she, and the deputy at
+his; and such was her persistence in the matter that Duthil, greatly
+vexed, was obliged to accept her offer.
+
+"Well, then, till to-morrow at the Madeleine," said Massot, again quite
+sprightly, as he shook hands with the Princess.
+
+"Yes, till to-morrow, at the Madeleine and the Comedie."
+
+"Ah! yes, of course!" he repeated, taking Silviane's hand, which he
+kissed. "The Madeleine in the morning and the Comedie in the evening. . .
+. We shall all be there to applaud you."
+
+"Yes, I expect you to do so," said Silviane. "Till to-morrow, then!"
+
+"Till to-morrow!"
+
+The crowd was now wearily dispersing, to all appearance disappointed and
+ill at ease. A few enthusiasts alone lingered in order to witness the
+departure of the van in which Salvat's corpse would soon be removed;
+while bands of prowlers and harlots, looking very wan in the daylight,
+whistled or called to one another with some last filthy expression before
+returning to their dens. The headsman's assistants were hastily taking
+down the guillotine, and the square would soon be quite clear.
+
+Pierre for his part wished to lead his brother away. Since the fall of
+the knife, Guillaume had remained as if stunned, without once opening his
+lips. In vain had Pierre tried to rouse him by pointing to the shutters
+of Mege's flat, which still remained closed, whereas every other window
+of the lofty house was wide open. Although the Socialist deputy hated the
+Anarchists, those shutters were doubtless closed as a protest against
+capital punishment. Whilst the multitude had been rushing to that
+frightful spectacle, Mege, still in bed, with his face turned to the
+wall, had probably been dreaming of how he would some day compel mankind
+to be happy beneath the rigid laws of Collectivism. Affectionate father
+as he was, the recent death of one of his children had quite upset his
+private life. His cough, too, had become a very bad one; but he ardently
+wished to live, for as soon as that new Monferrand ministry should have
+fallen beneath the interpellation which he already contemplated, his own
+turn would surely come: he would take the reins of power in hand, abolish
+the guillotine and decree justice and perfect felicity.
+
+"Do you see, Guillaume?" Pierre gently repeated. "Mege hasn't opened his
+windows. He's a good fellow, after all; although our friends Bache and
+Morin dislike him." Then, as his brother still refrained from answering,
+Pierre added, "Come, let us go, we must get back home."
+
+They both turned into the Rue de la Folie Regnault, and reached the outer
+Boulevards by way of the Rue du Chemin Vert. All the toilers of the
+district were now at work. In the long streets edged with low buildings,
+work-shops and factories, one heard engines snorting and machinery
+rumbling, while up above, the smoke from the lofty chimneys was assuming
+a rosy hue in the sunrise. Afterwards, when the brothers reached the
+Boulevard de Menilmontant and the Boulevard de Belleville, which they
+followed in turn at a leisurely pace, they witnessed the great rush of
+the working classes into central Paris. The stream poured forth from
+every side; from all the wretched streets of the faubourgs there was an
+endless exodus of toilers, who, having risen at dawn, were now hurrying,
+in the sharp morning air, to their daily labour. Some wore short jackets
+and others blouses; some were in velveteen trousers, others in linen
+overalls. Their thick shoes made their tramp a heavy one; their hanging
+hands were often deformed by work. And they seemed half asleep, not a
+smile was to be seen on any of those wan, weary faces turned yonder
+towards the everlasting task--the task which was begun afresh each day,
+and which--'twas their only chance--they hoped to be able to take up for
+ever and ever. There was no end to that drove of toilers, that army of
+various callings, that human flesh fated to manual labour, upon which
+Paris preys in order that she may live in luxury and enjoyment.
+
+Then the procession continued across the Boulevard de la Villette, the
+Boulevard de la Chapelle, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart, where one
+reached the height of Montmartre. More and more workmen were ever coming
+down from their bare cold rooms and plunging into the huge city, whence,
+tired out, they would that evening merely bring back the bread of
+rancour. And now, too, came a stream of work-girls, some of them in
+bright skirts, some glancing at the passers-by; girls whose wages were so
+paltry, so insufficient, that now and again pretty ones among them never
+more turned their faces homewards, whilst the ugly ones wasted away,
+condemned to mere bread and water. A little later, moreover, came the
+/employes/, the clerks, the counter-jumpers, the whole world of
+frock-coated penury--"gentlemen" who devoured a roll as they hastened
+onward, worried the while by the dread of being unable to pay their rent,
+or by the problem of providing food for wife and children until the end
+of the month should come.* And now the sun was fast ascending on the
+horizon, the whole army of ants was out and about, and the toilsome day
+had begun with its ceaseless display of courage, energy and suffering.
+
+  * In Paris nearly all clerks and shop-assistants receive
+    monthly salaries, while most workmen are paid once a
+    fortnight.--Trans.
+
+Never before had it been so plainly manifest to Pierre that work was a
+necessity, that it healed and saved. On the occasion of his visit to the
+Grandidier works, and later still, when he himself had felt the need of
+occupation, there had cone to him the thought that work was really the
+world's law. And after that hateful night, after that spilling of blood,
+after the slaughter of that toiler maddened by his dreams, there was
+consolation and hope in seeing the sun rise once more, and everlasting
+labour take up its wonted task. However hard it might prove, however
+unjustly it might be lotted out, was it not work which would some day
+bring both justice and happiness to the world?
+
+All at once, as the brothers were climbing the steep hillside towards
+Guillaume's house, they perceived before and above them the basilica of
+the Sacred Heart rising majestically and triumphantly to the sky. This
+was no sublunar apparition, no dreamy vision of Domination standing face
+to face with nocturnal Paris. The sun now clothed the edifice with
+splendour, it looked golden and proud and victorious, flaring with
+immortal glory.
+
+Then Guillaume, still silent, still feeling Salvat's last glance upon
+him, seemed to come to some sudden and final decision. He looked at the
+basilica with glowing eyes, and pronounced sentence upon it.
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN VANITY FAIR
+
+THE wedding was to take place at noon, and for half an hour already
+guests had been pouring into the magnificently decorated church, which
+was leafy with evergreens and balmy with the scent of flowers. The high
+altar in the rear glowed with countless candles, and through the great
+doorway, which was wide open, one could see the peristyle decked with
+shrubs, the steps covered with a broad carpet, and the inquisitive crowd
+assembled on the square and even along the Rue Royale, under the bright
+sun.
+
+After finding three more chairs for some ladies who had arrived rather
+late, Duthil remarked to Massot, who was jotting down names in his
+note-book: "Well, if any more come, they will have to remain standing."
+
+"Who were those three?" the journalist inquired.
+
+"The Duchess de Boisemont and her two daughters."
+
+"Indeed! All the titled people of France, as well as all the financiers
+and politicians, are here! It's something more even than a swell Parisian
+wedding."
+
+As a matter of fact all the spheres of "society" were gathered together
+there, and some at first seemed rather embarrassed at finding themselves
+beside others. Whilst Duvillard's name attracted all the princes of
+finance and politicians in power, Madame de Quinsac and her son were
+supported by the highest of the French aristocracy. The mere names of the
+witnesses sufficed to indicate what an extraordinary medley there was. On
+Gerard's side these witnesses were his uncle, General de Bozonnet, and
+the Marquis de Morigny; whilst on Camille's they were the great banker
+Louvard, and Monferrand, the President of the Council and Minister of
+Finances. The quiet bravado which the latter displayed in thus supporting
+the bride after being compromised in her father's financial intrigues
+imparted a piquant touch of impudence to his triumph. And public
+curiosity was further stimulated by the circumstance that the nuptial
+blessing was to be given by Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis, the
+Pope's political agent in France, and the apostle of the endeavours to
+win the Republic over to the Church by pretending to "rally" to it.
+
+"But, I was mistaken," now resumed Massot with a sneer. "I said a really
+Parisian wedding, did I not? But in point of fact this wedding is a
+symbol. It's the apotheosis of the /bourgeoisie/, my dear fellow--the old
+nobility sacrificing one of its sons on the altar of the golden calf in
+order that the Divinity and the gendarmes, being the masters of France
+once more, may rid us of those scoundrelly Socialists!"
+
+Then, again correcting himself, he added: "But I was forgetting. There
+are no more Socialists. Their head was cut off the other morning."
+
+Duthil found this very funny. Then in a confidential way he remarked:
+"You know that the marriage wasn't settled without a good deal of
+difficulty. . . . Have you read Sagnier's ignoble article this morning?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but I knew it all before, everybody knew it."
+
+Then in an undertone, understanding one another's slightest allusion,
+they went on chatting. It was only amidst a flood of tears and after a
+despairing struggle that Baroness Duvillard had consented to let her
+lover marry her daughter. And in doing so she had yielded to the sole
+desire of seeing Gerard rich and happy. She still regarded Camille with
+all the hatred of a defeated rival. Then, an equally painful contest had
+taken place at Madame de Quinsac's. The Countess had only overcome her
+revolt and consented to the marriage in order to save her son from the
+dangers which had threatened him since childhood; and the Marquis de
+Morigny had been so affected by her maternal abnegation, that in spite of
+all his anger he had resignedly agreed to be a witness, thus making a
+supreme sacrifice, that of his conscience, to the woman whom he had ever
+loved. And it was this frightful story that Sagnier--using transparent
+nicknames--had related in the "Voix du Peuple" that morning. He had even
+contrived to make it more horrid than it really was; for, as usual, he
+was badly informed, and he was naturally inclined to falsehood and
+invention, as by sending an ever thicker and more poisonous torrent from
+his sewer, he might, day by day, increase his paper's sales. Since
+Monferrand's victory had compelled him to leave the African Railways
+scandal on one side, he had fallen back on scandals in private life,
+stripping whole families bare and pelting them with mud.
+
+All at once Duthil and Massot were approached by Chaigneux, who, with his
+shabby frock coat badly buttoned, wore both a melancholy and busy air.
+"Well, Monsieur Massot," said he, "what about your article on Silviane?
+Is it settled? Will it go in?"
+
+As Chaigneux was always for sale, always ready to serve as a valet, it
+had occurred to Duvillard to make use of him to ensure Silviane's success
+at the Comedie. He had handed this sorry deputy over to the young woman,
+who entrusted him with all manner of dirty work, and sent him scouring
+Paris in search of applauders and advertisements. His eldest daughter was
+not yet married, and never had his four women folk weighed more heavily
+on his hands. His life had become a perfect hell; they had ended by
+beating him, if he did not bring a thousand-franc note home on the first
+day of every month.
+
+"My article!" Massot replied; "no, it surely won't go in, my dear deputy.
+Fonsegue says that it's written in too laudatory a style for the 'Globe.'
+He asked me if I were having a joke with the paper."
+
+Chaigneux became livid. The article in question was one written in
+advance, from the society point of view, on the success which Silviane
+would achieve in "Polyeucte," that evening, at the Comedie. The
+journalist, in the hope of pleasing her, had even shown her his "copy";
+and she, quite delighted, now relied upon finding the article in print in
+the most sober and solemn organ of the Parisian press.
+
+"Good heavens! what will become of us?" murmured the wretched Chaigneux.
+"It's absolutely necessary that the article should go in."
+
+"Well, I'm quite agreeable. But speak to the governor yourself. He's
+standing yonder between Vignon and Dauvergne, the Minister of Public
+Instruction."
+
+"Yes, I certainly will speak to him--but not here. By-and-by in the
+sacristy, during the procession. And I must also try to speak to
+Dauvergne, for our Silviane particularly wants him to be in the
+ministerial box this evening. Monferrand will be there; he promised
+Duvillard so."
+
+Massot began to laugh, repeating the expression which had circulated
+through Paris directly after the actress's engagement: "The Silviane
+ministry. . . . Well, Dauvergne certainly owes that much to his
+godmother!" said he.
+
+Just then the little Princess de Harn, coming up like a gust of wind,
+broke in upon the three men. "I've no seat, you know!" she cried.
+
+Duthil fancied that it was a question of finding her a well-placed chair
+in the church. "You mustn't count on me," he answered. "I've just had no
+end of trouble in stowing the Duchess de Boisemont away with her two
+daughters."
+
+"Oh, but I'm talking of this evening's performance. Come, my dear Duthil,
+you really must find me a little corner in somebody's box. I shall die, I
+know I shall, if I can't applaud our delicious, our incomparable friend!"
+
+Ever since setting Silviane down at her door on the previous day,
+Rosemonde had been overflowing with admiration for her.
+
+"Oh! you won't find a single remaining seat, madame," declared Chaigneux,
+putting on an air of importance. "We have distributed everything. I have
+just been offered three hundred francs for a stall."
+
+"That's true, there has been a fight even for the bracket seats, however
+badly they might be placed," Duthil resumed. "I am very sorry, but you
+must not count on me. . . . Duvillard is the only person who might take
+you in his box. He told me that he would reserve me a seat there. And so
+far, I think, there are only three of us, including his son. . . . Ask
+Hyacinthe by-and-by to procure you an invitation."
+
+Rosemonde, whom Hyacinthe had so greatly bored that she had given him his
+dismissal, felt the irony of Duthil's suggestion. Nevertheless, she
+exclaimed with an air of delight: "Ah, yes! Hyacinthe can't refuse me
+that. Thanks for your information, my dear Duthil. You are very nice, you
+are; for you settle things gaily even when they are rather sad. . . . And
+don't forget, mind, that you have promised to teach me politics. Ah!
+politics, my dear fellow, I feel that nothing will ever impassion me as
+politics do!"
+
+Then she left them, hustled several people, and in spite of the crush
+ended by installing herself in the front row.
+
+"Ah! what a crank she is!" muttered Massot with an air of amusement.
+
+Then, as Chaigneux darted towards magistrate Amadieu to ask him in the
+most obsequious way if he had received his ticket, the journalist said to
+Duthil in a whisper: "By the way, my dear friend, is it true that
+Duvillard is going to launch his famous scheme for a Trans-Saharan
+railway? It would be a gigantic enterprise, a question of hundreds and
+hundreds of millions this time. . . . At the 'Globe' office yesterday
+evening, Fonsegue shrugged his shoulders and said it was madness, and
+would never come off!"
+
+Duthil winked, and in a jesting way replied: "It's as good as done, my
+dear boy. Fonsegue will be kissing the governor's feet before another
+forty-eight hours are over."
+
+Then he gaily gave the other to understand that golden manna would
+presently be raining down on the press and all faithful friends and
+willing helpers. Birds shake their feathers when the storm is over, and
+he, Duthil, was as spruce and lively, as joyous at the prospect of the
+presents he now expected, as if there had never been any African Railways
+scandal to upset him and make him turn pale with fright.
+
+"The deuce!" muttered Massot, who had become serious. "So this affair
+here is more than a triumph: it's the promise of yet another harvest.
+Well, I'm no longer surprised at the crush of people."
+
+At this moment the organs suddenly burst into a glorious hymn of
+greeting. The marriage procession was entering the church. A loud clamour
+had gone up from the crowd, which spread over the roadway of the Rue
+Royale and impeded the traffic there, while the /cortege/ pompously
+ascended the steps in the bright sunshine. And it was now entering the
+edifice and advancing beneath the lofty, re-echoing vaults towards the
+high altar which flared with candles, whilst on either hand crowded the
+congregation, the men on the right and the women on the left. They had
+all risen and stood there smiling, with necks outstretched and eyes
+glowing with curiosity.
+
+First, in the rear of the magnificent beadle, came Camille, leaning on
+the arm of her father, Baron Duvillard, who wore a proud expression
+befitting a day of victory. Veiled with superb /point d'Alencon/ falling
+from her diadem of orange blossom, gowned in pleated silk muslin over an
+underskirt of white satin, the bride looked so extremely happy, so
+radiant at having conquered, that she seemed almost pretty. Moreover, she
+held herself so upright that one could scarcely detect that her left
+shoulder was higher than her right.
+
+Next came Gerard, giving his arm to his mother, the Countess de
+Quinsac,--he looking very handsome and courtly, as was proper, and she
+displaying impassive dignity in her gown of peacock-blue silk embroidered
+with gold and steel beads. But it was particularly Eve whom people wished
+to see, and every neck was craned forward when she appeared on the arm of
+General Bozonnet, the bridegroom's first witness and nearest male
+relative. She was gowned in "old rose" taffetas trimmed with Valenciennes
+of priceless value, and never had she looked younger, more deliciously
+fair. Yet her eyes betrayed her emotion, though she strove to smile; and
+her languid grace bespoke her widowhood, her compassionate surrender of
+the man she loved. Monferrand, the Marquis de Morigny, and banker
+Louvard, the three other witnesses, followed the Baroness and General
+Bozonnet, each giving his arm to some lady of the family. A considerable
+sensation was caused by the appearance of Monferrand, who seemed on
+first-rate terms with himself, and jested familiarly with the lady he
+accompanied, a little brunette with a giddy air. Another who was noticed
+in the solemn, interminable procession was the bride's eccentric brother
+Hyacinthe, whose dress coat was of a cut never previously seen, with its
+tails broadly and symmetrically pleated.
+
+When the affianced pair had taken their places before the prayer-stools
+awaiting them, and the members of both families and the witnesses had
+installed themselves in the rear in large armchairs, all gilding and red
+velvet, the ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp. The cure of
+the Madeleine officiated in person; and vocalists from the Grand Opera
+reinforced the choir, which chanted the high mass to the accompaniment of
+the organs, whence came a continuous hymn of glory. All possible luxury
+and magnificence were displayed, as if to turn this wedding into some
+public festivity, a great victory, an event marking the apogee of a
+class. Even the impudent bravado attaching to the loathsome private drama
+which lay behind it all, and which was known to everybody, added a touch
+of abominable grandeur to the ceremony. But the truculent spirit of
+superiority and domination which characterised the proceedings became
+most manifest when Monseigneur Martha appeared in surplice and stole to
+pronounce the blessing. Tall of stature, fresh of face, and faintly
+smiling, he had his wonted air of amiable sovereignty, and it was with
+august unction that he pronounced the sacramental words, like some
+pontiff well pleased at reconciling the two great empires whose heirs he
+united. His address to the newly married couple was awaited with
+curiosity. It proved really marvellous, he himself triumphed in it. Was
+it not in that same church that he had baptised the bride's mother, that
+blond Eve, who was still so beautiful, that Jewess whom he himself had
+converted to the Catholic faith amidst the tears of emotion shed by all
+Paris society? Was it not there also that he had delivered his three
+famous addresses on the New Spirit, whence dated, to his thinking, the
+rout of science, the awakening of Christian spirituality, and that policy
+of rallying to the Republic which was to lead to its conquest?
+
+So it was assuredly allowable for him to indulge in some delicate
+allusions, by way of congratulating himself on his work, now that he was
+marrying a poor scion of the old aristocracy to the five millions of that
+/bourgeoise/ heiress, in whose person triumphed the class which had won
+the victory in 1789, and was now master of the land. The fourth estate,
+the duped, robbed people, alone had no place in those festivities. But by
+uniting the affianced pair before him in the bonds of wedlock,
+Monseigneur Martha sealed the new alliance, gave effect to the Pope's own
+policy, that stealthy effort of Jesuitical Opportunism which would take
+democracy, power and wealth to wife, in order to subdue and control them.
+When the prelate reached his peroration he turned towards Monferrand, who
+sat there smiling; and it was he, the Minister, whom he seemed to be
+addressing while he expressed the hope that the newly married pair would
+ever lead a truly Christian life of humility and obedience in all fear of
+God, of whose iron hand he spoke as if it were that of some gendarme
+charged with maintaining the peace of the world. Everybody was aware that
+there was some diplomatic understanding between the Bishop and the
+Minister, some secret pact or other whereby both satisfied their passion
+for authority, their craving to insinuate themselves into everything and
+reign supreme; and thus when the spectators saw Monferrand smiling in his
+somewhat sly, jovial way, they also exchanged smiles.
+
+"Ah!" muttered Massot, who had remained near Duthil, "how amused old
+Justus Steinberger would be, if he were here to see his granddaughter
+marrying the last of the Quinsacs!"
+
+"But these marriages are quite the thing, quite the fashion, my dear
+fellow," the deputy replied. "The Jews and the Christians, the
+/bourgeois/ and the nobles, do quite right to come to an understanding,
+so as to found a new aristocracy. An aristocracy is needed, you know, for
+otherwise we should be swept away by the masses."
+
+None the less Massot continued sneering at the idea of what a grimace
+Justus Steinberger would have made if he had heard Monseigneur Martha. It
+was rumoured in Paris that although the old Jew banker had ceased all
+intercourse with his daughter Eve since her conversion, he took a keen
+interest in everything she was reported to do or say, as if he were more
+than ever convinced that she would prove an avenging and dissolving agent
+among those Christians, whose destruction was asserted to be the dream of
+his race. If he had failed in his hope of overcoming Duvillard by giving
+her to him as a wife, he doubtless now consoled himself with thinking of
+the extraordinary fortune to which his blood had attained, by mingling
+with that of the harsh, old-time masters of his race, to whose corruption
+it gave a finishing touch. Therein perhaps lay that final Jewish conquest
+of the world of which people sometimes talked.
+
+A last triumphal strain from the organ brought the ceremony to an end;
+whereupon the two families and the witnesses passed into the sacristy,
+where the acts were signed. And forthwith the great congratulatory
+procession commenced.
+
+The bride and bridegroom at last stood side by side in the lofty but
+rather dim room, panelled with oak. How radiant with delight was Camille
+at the thought that it was all over, that she had triumphed and married
+that handsome man of high lineage, after wresting him with so much
+difficulty from one and all, her mother especially! She seemed to have
+grown taller. Deformed, swarthy, and ugly though she was, she drew
+herself up exultingly, whilst scores and scores of women, friends or
+acquaintances, scrambled and rushed upon her, pressing her hands or
+kissing her, and addressing her in words of ecstasy. Gerard, who rose
+both head and shoulders above his bride, and looked all the nobler and
+stronger beside one of such puny figure, shook hands and smiled like some
+Prince Charming, who good-naturedly allowed himself to be loved.
+Meanwhile, the relatives of the newly wedded pair, though they were drawn
+up in one line, formed two distinct groups past which the crowd pushed
+and surged with arms outstretched. Duvillard received the congratulations
+offered him as if he were some king well pleased with his people; whilst
+Eve, with a supreme effort, put on an enchanting mien, and answered one
+and all with scarcely a sign of the sobs which she was forcing back.
+Then, on the other side of the bridal pair, Madame de Quinsac stood
+between General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny. Very dignified,
+in fact almost haughty, she acknowledged most of the salutations
+addressed to her with a mere nod, giving her little withered hand only to
+those people with whom she was well acquainted. A sea of strange
+countenances encompassed her, and now and again when some particularly
+murky wave rolled by, a wave of men whose faces bespoke all the crimes of
+money-mongering, she and the Marquis exchanged glances of deep sadness.
+This tide continued sweeping by for nearly half an hour; and such was the
+number of those who wanted to shake hands with the bridal pair and their
+relatives, that the latter soon felt their arms ache.
+
+Meantime, some folks lingered in the sacristy; little groups collected,
+and gay chatter rang out. Monferrand was immediately surrounded. Massot
+pointed out to Duthil how eagerly Public Prosecutor Lehmann rushed upon
+the Minister to pay him court. They were immediately joined by
+investigating magistrate Amadieu. And even M. de Larombiere, the judge,
+approached Monferrand, although he hated the Republic, and was an
+intimate friend of the Quinsacs. But then obedience and obsequiousness
+were necessary on the part of the magistracy, for it was dependent on
+those in power, who alone could give advancement, and appoint even as
+they dismissed. As for Lehmann, it was alleged that he had rendered
+assistance to Monferrand by spiriting away certain documents connected
+with the African Railways affair, whilst with regard to the smiling and
+extremely Parisian Amadieu, was it not to him that the government was
+indebted for Salvat's head?
+
+"You know," muttered Massot, "they've all come to be thanked for
+guillotining that man yesterday. Monferrand owes that wretched fellow a
+fine taper; for in the first place his bomb prolonged the life of the
+Barroux ministry, and later on it made Monferrand prime minister, as a
+strong-handed man was particularly needed to strangle Anarchism. What a
+contest, eh? Monferrand on one side and Salvat on the other. It was all
+bound to end in a head being cut off; one was wanted. . . . Ah! just
+listen, they are talking of it."
+
+This was true. As the three functionaries of the law drew near to pay
+their respects to the all-powerful Minister, they were questioned by lady
+friends whose curiosity had been roused by what they had read in the
+newspapers. Thereupon Amadieu, whom duty had taken to the execution, and
+who was proud of his own importance, and determined to destroy what he
+called "the legend of Salvat's heroic death," declared that the scoundrel
+had shown no true courage at all. His pride alone had kept him on his
+feet. Fright had so shaken and choked him that he had virtually been dead
+before the fall of the knife.
+
+"Ah! that's true!" cried Duthil. "I was there myself."
+
+Massot, however, pulled him by the arm, quite indignant at such an
+assertion, although as a rule he cared a rap for nothing. "You couldn't
+see anything, my dear fellow," said he; "Salvat died very bravely. It's
+really stupid to continue throwing mud at that poor devil even when he's
+dead."
+
+However, the idea that Salvat had died like a coward was too pleasing a
+one to be rejected. It was, so to say, a last sacrifice deposited at
+Monferrand's feet with the object of propitiating him. He still smiled in
+his peaceful way, like a good-natured man who is stern only when
+necessity requires it. And he showed great amiability towards the three
+judicial functionaries, and thanked them for the bravery with which they
+had accomplished their painful duty to the very end. On the previous day,
+after the execution, he had obtained a formidable majority in the Chamber
+on a somewhat delicate matter of policy. Order reigned, said he, and all
+was for the very best in France. Then, on seeing Vignon--who like a cool
+gamester had made a point of attending the wedding in order to show
+people that he was superior to fortune--the Minister detained him, and
+made much of him, partly as a matter of tactics, for in spite of
+everything he could not help fearing that the future might belong to that
+young fellow, who showed himself so intelligent and cautious. When a
+mutual friend informed them that Barroux' health was now so bad that the
+doctors had given him up as lost, they both began to express their
+compassion. Poor Barroux! He had never recovered from that vote of the
+Chamber which had overthrown him. He had been sinking from day to day,
+stricken to the heart by his country's ingratitude, dying of that
+abominable charge of money-mongering and thieving; he who was so upright
+and so loyal, who had devoted his whole life to the Republic! But then,
+as Monferrand repeated, one should never confess. The public can't
+understand such a thing.
+
+At this moment Duvillard, in some degree relinquishing his paternal
+duties, came to join the others, and the Minister then had to share the
+honours of triumph with him. For was not this banker the master? Was he
+not money personified--money, which is the only stable, everlasting
+force, far above all ephemeral tenure of power, such as attaches to those
+ministerial portfolios which pass so rapidly from hand to hand?
+Monferrand reigned, but he would pass away, and a like fate would some
+day fall on Vignon, who had already had a warning that one could not
+govern unless the millions of the financial world were on one's side. So
+was not the only real triumpher himself, the Baron--he who laid out five
+millions of francs on buying a scion of the aristocracy for his daughter,
+he who was the personification of the sovereign /bourgeoisie/, who
+controlled public fortune, and was determined to part with nothing, even
+were he attacked with bombs? All these festivities really centred in
+himself, he alone sat down to the banquet, leaving merely the crumbs from
+his table to the lowly, those wretched toilers who had been so cleverly
+duped at the time of the Revolution.
+
+That African Railways affair was already but so much ancient history,
+buried, spirited away by a parliamentary commission. All who had been
+compromised in it, the Duthils, the Chaigneux, the Fonsegues and others,
+could now laugh merrily. They had been delivered from their nightmare by
+Monferrand's strong fist, and raised by Duvillard's triumph. Even
+Sagnier's ignoble article and miry revelations in the "Voix du Peuple"
+were of no real account, and could be treated with a shrug of the
+shoulders, for the public had been so saturated with denunciation and
+slander that it was now utterly weary of all noisy scandal. The only
+thing which aroused interest was the rumour that Duvillard's big affair
+of the Trans-Saharan Railway was soon to be launched, that millions of
+money would be handled, and that some of them would rain down upon
+faithful friends.
+
+Whilst Duvillard was conversing in a friendly way with Monferrand and
+Dauvergne, the Minister of Public Instruction, who had joined them,
+Massot encountered Fonsegue, his editor, and said to him in an undertone:
+"Duthil has just assured me that the Trans-Saharan business is ready, and
+that they mean to chance it with the Chamber. They declare that they are
+certain of success."
+
+Fonsegue, however, was sceptical on the point. "It's impossible," said
+he; "they won't dare to begin again so soon."
+
+Although he spoke in this fashion, the news had made him grave. He had
+lately had such a terrible fright through his imprudence in the African
+Railways affair, that he had vowed he would take every precaution in
+future. Still, this did not mean that he would refuse to participate in
+matters of business. The best course was to wait and study them, and then
+secure a share in all that seemed profitable. In the present instance he
+felt somewhat worried. However, whilst he stood there watching the group
+around Duvillard and the two ministers, he suddenly perceived Chaigneux,
+who, flitting hither and thither, was still beating up applauders for
+that evening's performance. He sang Silviane's praises in every key,
+predicted a most tremendous success, and did his very best to stimulate
+curiosity. At last he approached Dauvergne, and with his long figure bent
+double exclaimed: "My dear Minister, I have a particular request to make
+to you on the part of a very charming person, whose victory will not be
+complete this evening if you do not condescend to favour her with your
+vote."
+
+Dauvergne, a tall, fair, good-looking man, whose blue eyes smiled behind
+his glasses, listened to Chaigneux with an affable air. He was proving a
+great success at the Ministry of Public Instruction, although he knew
+nothing of University matters. However, like a real Parisian of Dijon, as
+people called him, he was possessed of some tact and skill, gave
+entertainments at which his young and charming wife outshone all others,
+and passed as being quite an enlightened friend of writers and artists.
+Silviane's engagement at the Comedie, which so far was his most notable
+achievement, and which would have shaken the position of any other
+minister, had by a curious chance rendered him popular. It was regarded
+as something original and amusing.
+
+On understanding that Chaigneux simply wished to make sure of his
+presence at the Comedie that evening, he became yet more affable. "Why,
+certainly, I shall be there, my dear deputy," he replied. "When one has
+such a charming god-daughter one mustn't forsake her in a moment of
+danger."
+
+At this Monferrand, who had been lending ear, turned round. "And tell
+her," said he, "that I shall be there, too. She may therefore rely on
+having two more friends in the house."
+
+Thereupon Duvillard, quite enraptured, his eyes glistening with emotion
+and gratitude, bowed to the two ministers as if they had granted him some
+never-to-be-forgotten favour.
+
+When Chaigneux, on his side also, had returned thanks with a low bow, he
+happened to perceive Fonsegue, and forthwith he darted towards him and
+led him aside. "Ah! my dear colleague," he declared, "it is absolutely
+necessary that this matter should be settled. I regard it as of supreme
+importance."
+
+"What are you speaking of?" inquired Fonsegue, much surprised.
+
+"Why, of Massot's article, which you won't insert."
+
+Thereupon, the director of the "Globe" plumply declared that he could not
+insert the article. He talked of his paper's dignity and gravity; and
+declared that the lavishing of such fulsome praise upon a hussy--yes, a
+mere hussy, in a journal whose exemplary morality and austerity had cost
+him so much labour, would seem monstrous and degrading. Personally, he
+did not care a fig about it if Silviane chose to make an exhibition of
+herself, well, he would be there to see; but the "Globe" was sacred.
+
+Disconcerted and almost tearful, Chaigneux nevertheless renewed his
+attempt. "Come, my dear colleague," said he, "pray make a little effort
+for my sake. If the article isn't inserted, Duvillard will think that it
+is my fault. And you know that I really need his help. My eldest
+daughter's marriage has again been postponed, and I hardly know where to
+turn." Then perceiving that his own misfortunes in no wise touched
+Fonsegue, he added: "And do it for your own sake, my dear colleague, your
+own sake. For when all is said Duvillard knows what is in the article,
+and it is precisely because it is so favourable a one that he wishes to
+see it in the 'Globe.' Think it over; if the article isn't published, he
+will certainly turn his back on you."
+
+For a moment Fonsegue remained silent. Was he thinking of the colossal
+Trans-Saharan enterprise? Was he reflecting that it would be hard to
+quarrel at such a moment and miss his own share in the coming
+distribution of millions among faithful friends? Perhaps so; however, the
+idea that it would be more prudent to await developments gained the day
+with him. "No, no," he said, "I can't, it's a matter of conscience."
+
+In the mean time congratulations were still being tendered to the newly
+wedded couple. It seemed as if all Paris were passing through the
+sacristy; there were ever the same smiles and the same hand shakes.
+Gerard, Camille and their relatives, however weary they might feel, were
+forced to retain an air of delight while they stood there against the
+wall, pent up by the crowd. The heat was now becoming unbearable, and a
+cloud of dust arose as when some big flock goes by.
+
+All at once little Princess de Harn, who had hitherto lingered nobody
+knew where, sprang out of the throng, flung her arms around Camille,
+kissed even Eve, and then kept Gerard's hand in her own while paying him
+extraordinary compliments. Then, on perceiving Hyacinthe, she took
+possession of him and carried him off into a corner. "I say," she
+exclaimed, "I have a favour to ask you."
+
+The young man was wonderfully silent that day. His sister's wedding
+seemed to him a contemptible ceremony, the most vulgar that one could
+imagine. So here, thought he, was another pair accepting the horrid
+sexual law by which the absurdity of the world was perpetuated! For his
+part, he had decided that he would witness the proceedings in rigid
+silence, with a haughty air of disapproval. When Rosemonde spoke to him,
+he looked at her rather nervously, for he was glad that she had forsaken
+him for Duthil, and feared some fresh caprice on her part. At last,
+opening his mouth for the first time that day, he replied: "Oh, as a
+friend, you know, I will grant you whatever favour you like."
+
+Forthwith the Princess explained that she would surely die if she did not
+witness the /debut/ of her dear friend Silviane, of whom she had become
+such a passionate admirer. So she begged the young man to prevail on his
+father to give her a seat in his box, as she knew that one was left
+there.
+
+Hyacinthe smiled. "Oh, willingly, my dear," said he; "I'll warn papa,
+there will be a seat for you."
+
+Then, as the procession of guests at last drew to an end and the vestry
+began to empty, the bridal pair and their relatives were able to go off
+through the chattering throng, which still lingered about to bow to them
+and scrutinise them once more.
+
+Gerard and Camille were to leave for an estate which Duvillard possessed
+in Normandy, directly after lunch. This repast, served at the princely
+mansion of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, provided an opportunity for fresh
+display. The dining-room on the first floor had been transformed into a
+buffet, where reigned the greatest abundance and the most wonderful
+sumptuousness. Quite a reception too was held in the drawing-rooms, the
+large red /salon/, the little blue and silver /salon/ and all the others,
+whose doors stood wide open. Although it had been arranged that only
+family friends should be invited, there were quite three hundred people
+present. The ministers had excused themselves, alleging that the weighty
+cares of public business required their presence elsewhere. But the
+magistrates, the deputies and the leading journalists who had attended
+the wedding were again assembled together. And in that throng of hungry
+folks, longing for some of the spoils of Duvillard's new venture, the
+people who felt most out of their element were Madame de Quinsac's few
+guests, whom General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny had seated on
+a sofa in the large red /salon/, which they did not quit.
+
+Eve, who for her part felt quite overcome, both her moral and physical
+strength being exhausted, had seated herself in the little blue and
+silver drawing-room, which, with her passion for flowers, she had
+transformed into an arbour of roses. She would have fallen had she
+remained standing, the very floor had seemed to sink beneath her feet.
+Nevertheless, whenever a guest approached her she managed to force a
+smile, and appear beautiful and charming. Unlooked-for help at last came
+to her in the person of Monseigneur Martha, who had graciously honoured
+the lunch with his presence. He took an armchair near her, and began to
+talk to her in his amiable, caressing way. He was doubtless well aware of
+the frightful anguish which wrung the poor woman's heart, for he showed
+himself quite fatherly, eager to comfort her. She, however, talked on
+like some inconsolable widow bent on renouncing the world for God, who
+alone could bring her peace. Then, as the conversation turned on the
+Asylum for the Invalids of Labour, she declared that she was resolved to
+take her presidency very seriously, and, in fact, would exclusively
+devote herself to it, in the future.
+
+"And as we are speaking of this, Monseigneur," said she, "I would even
+ask you to give me some advice. . . . I shall need somebody to help me,
+and I thought of securing the services of a priest whom I much admire,
+Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment."
+
+At this the Bishop became grave and embarrassed; but Princess Rosemonde,
+who was passing by with Duthil, had overheard the Baroness, and drawing
+near with her wonted impetuosity, she exclaimed: "Abbe Pierre Froment!
+Oh! I forgot to tell you, my dear, that I met him going about in jacket
+and trousers! And I've been told too that he cycles in the Bois with some
+creature or other. Isn't it true, Duthil, that we met him?"
+
+The deputy bowed and smiled, whilst Eve clasped her hands in amazement.
+"Is it possible! A priest who was all charitable fervour, who had the
+faith and passion of an apostle!"
+
+Thereupon Monseigneur intervened: "Yes, yes, great sorrows occasionally
+fall upon the Church. I heard of the madness of the unhappy man you speak
+of. I even thought it my duty to write to him, but he left my letter
+unanswered. I should so much have liked to stifle such a scandal! But
+there are abominable forces which we cannot always overcome; and so a day
+or two ago the archbishop was obliged to put him under interdict. . . .
+You must choose somebody else, madame."
+
+It was quite a disaster. Eve gazed at Rosemonde and Duthil, without
+daring to ask them for particulars, but wondering what creature could
+have been so audacious as to turn a priest from the path of duty. She
+must assuredly be some shameless demented woman! And it seemed to Eve as
+if this crime gave a finishing touch to her own misfortune. With a wave
+of the arm, which took in all the luxury around her, the roses steeping
+her in perfume, and the crush of guests around the buffet, she murmured:
+"Ah! decidedly there's nothing but corruption left; one can no longer
+rely on anybody!"
+
+Whilst this was going on, Camille happened to be alone in her own room
+getting ready to leave the house with Gerard. And all at once her brother
+Hyacinthe joined her there. "Ah! it's you, youngster!" she exclaimed.
+"Well, make haste if you want to kiss me, for I'm off now, thank
+goodness!"
+
+He kissed her as she suggested, and then in a doctoral way replied: "I
+thought you had more self-command. The delight you have been showing all
+this morning quite disgusts me."
+
+A quiet glance of contempt was her only answer. However, he continued:
+"You know very well that she'll take your Gerard from you again, directly
+you come back to Paris."
+
+At this Camille's cheeks turned white and her eyes flared. She stepped
+towards her brother with clenched fists: "She! you say that she will take
+him from me!"
+
+The "she" they referred to was their own mother.
+
+"Listen, my boy! I'll kill her first!" continued Camille. "Ah, no! she
+needn't hope for that. I shall know how to keep the man that belongs to
+me. . . . And as for you, keep your spite to yourself, for I know you,
+remember; you are a mere child and a fool!"
+
+He recoiled as if a viper were rearing its sharp, slender black head
+before him; and having always feared her, he thought it best to beat a
+retreat.
+
+While the last guests were rushing upon the buffet and finishing the
+pillage there, the bridal pair took their leave, before driving off to
+the railway station. General de Bozonnet had joined a group in order to
+vent his usual complaints about compulsory military service, and the
+Marquis de Morigny was obliged to fetch him at the moment when the
+Countess de Quinsac was kissing her son and daughter-in-law. The old lady
+trembled with so much emotion that the Marquis respectfully ventured to
+sustain her. Meantime, Hyacinthe had started in search of his father, and
+at last found him near a window with the tottering Chaigneux, whom he was
+violently upbraiding, for Fonsegue's conscientious scruples had put him
+in a fury. Indeed, if Massot's article should not be inserted in the
+"Globe," Silviane might lay all the blame upon him, the Baron, and wreak
+further punishment upon him. However, upon being summoned by his son he
+had to don his triumphal air once more, kiss his daughter on the
+forehead, shake hands with his son-in-law, jest and wish them both a
+pleasant journey. Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained,
+smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touching
+bravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until the
+very end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay and
+motherly.
+
+She took hold of the slightly quivering hand which Gerard proffered with
+some embarrassment, and ventured to retain it for a moment in her own, in
+a good-hearted, affectionate way, instinct with all the heroism of
+renunciation. "Good by, Gerard," she said, "keep in good health, be
+happy." Then turning to Camille she kissed her on both cheeks, while
+Monseigneur Martha sat looking at them with an air of indulgent sympathy.
+They wished each other "Au revoir," but their voices trembled, and their
+eyes in meeting gleamed like swords; in the same way as beneath the
+kisses they had exchanged they had felt each other's teeth. Ah! how it
+enraged Camille to see her mother still so beautiful and fascinating in
+spite of age and grief! And for Eve how great the torture of beholding
+her daughter's youth, that youth which had overcome her, and was for ever
+wresting love from within her reach! No forgiveness was possible between
+them; they would still hate one another even in the family tomb, where
+some day they would sleep side by side.
+
+All the same, that evening Baroness Duvillard excused herself from
+attending the performance of "Polyeucte" at the Comedie Francaise. She
+felt very tired and wished to go to bed early, said she. As a matter of
+fact she wept on her pillow all night long. Thus the Baron's stage-box on
+the first balcony tier contained only himself, Hyacinthe, Duthil, and
+little Princess de Harn.
+
+At nine o'clock there was a full house, one of the brilliant chattering
+houses peculiar to great dramatic solemnities. All the society people who
+had marched through the sacristy of the Madeleine that morning were now
+assembled at the theatre, again feverish with curiosity, and on the
+lookout for the unexpected. One recognised the same faces and the sane
+smiles; the women acknowledged one another's presence with little signs
+of intelligence, the men understood each other at a word, a gesture. One
+and all had kept the appointment, the ladies with bared shoulders, the
+gentlemen with flowers in their button-holes. Fonsegue occupied the
+"Globe's" box, with two friendly families. Little Massot had his
+customary seat in the stalls. Amadieu, who was a faithful patron of the
+Comedie, was also to be seen there, as well as General de Bozonnet and
+Public Prosecutor Lehmann. The man who was most looked at, however, on
+account of his scandalous article that morning, was Sagnier, the terrible
+Sagnier, looking bloated and apoplectical. Then there was Chaigneux, who
+had kept merely a modest bracket-seat for himself, and who scoured the
+passages, and climbed to every tier, for the last time preaching
+enthusiasm. Finally, the two ministers Monferrand and Dauvergne appeared
+in the box facing Duvillard's; whereupon many knowing smiles were
+exchanged, for everybody was aware that these personages had come to help
+on the success of the /debutante/.
+
+On the latter point there had still been unfavourable rumours only the
+previous day. Sagnier had declared that the /debut/ of such a notorious
+harlot as Silviane at the Comedie Francaise, in such a part too as that
+of "Pauline," which was one of so much moral loftiness, could only be
+regarded as an impudent insult to public decency. The whole press,
+moreover, had long been up in arms against the young woman's
+extraordinary caprice. But then the affair had been talked of for six
+months past, so that Paris had grown used to the idea of seeing Silviane
+at the Comedie. And now it flocked thither with the one idea of being
+entertained. Before the curtain rose one could tell by the very
+atmosphere of the house that the audience was a jovial, good-humoured
+one, bent on enjoying itself, and ready to applaud should it find itself
+at all pleased.
+
+The performance really proved extraordinary. When Silviane, chastely
+robed, made her appearance in the first act, the house was quite
+astonished by her virginal face, her innocent-looking mouth, and her eyes
+beaming with immaculate candour. Then, although the manner in which she
+had understood her part at first amazed people, it ended by charming
+them. From the moment of confiding in "Stratonice," from the moment of
+relating her dream, she turned "Pauline" into a soaring mystical
+creature, some saint, as it were, such as one sees in stained-glass
+windows, carried along by a Wagnerian Brunhilda riding the clouds. It was
+a thoroughly ridiculous conception of the part, contrary to reason and
+truth alike. Still, it only seemed to interest people the more, partly on
+account of mysticism being the fashion, and partly on account of the
+contrast between Silviane's assumed candour and real depravity. Her
+success increased from act to act, and some slight hissing which was
+attributed to Sagnier only helped to make the victory more complete.
+Monferrand and Dauvergne, as the newspapers afterwards related, gave the
+signal for applause; and the whole house joined in it, partly from
+amusement and partly perhaps in a spirit of irony.
+
+During the interval between the fourth and fifth acts there was quite a
+procession of visitors to Duvillard's box, where the greatest excitement
+prevailed. Duthil, however, after absenting himself for a moment, came
+back to say: "You remember our influential critic, the one whom I brought
+to dinner at the Cafe Anglais? Well, he's repeating to everybody that
+'Pauline' is merely a little /bourgeoise/, and is not transformed by the
+heavenly grace until the very finish of the piece. To turn her into a
+holy virgin from the outset simply kills the part, says he."
+
+"Pooh!" repeated Duvillard, "let him argue if he likes, it will be all
+the more advertisement. . . . The important point is to get Massot's
+article inserted in the 'Globe' to-morrow morning."
+
+On this point, unfortunately, the news was by no means good. Chaigneux,
+who had gone in search of Fonsegue, declared that the latter still
+hesitated in the matter in spite of Silviane's success, which he declared
+to be ridiculous. Thereupon, the Baron became quite angry. "Go and tell
+Fonsegue," he exclaimed, "that I insist on it, and that I shall remember
+what he does."
+
+Meantime Princess Rosemonde was becoming quite delirious with enthusiasm.
+"My dear Hyacinthe," she pleaded, "please take me to Silviane's
+dressing-room; I can't wait, I really must go and kiss her."
+
+"But we'll all go!" cried Duvillard, who heard her entreaty.
+
+The passages were crowded, and there were people even on the stage.
+Moreover, when the party reached the door of Silviane's dressing-room,
+they found it shut. When the Baron knocked at it, a dresser replied that
+madame begged the gentlemen to wait a moment.
+
+"Oh! a woman may surely go in," replied Rosemonde, hastily slipping
+through the doorway. "And you may come, Hyacinthe," she added; "there can
+be no objection to you."
+
+Silviane was very hot, and a dresser was wiping her perspiring shoulders
+when Rosemonde darted forward and kissed her. Then they chatted together
+amidst the heat and glare from the gas and the intoxicating perfumes of
+all the flowers which were heaped up in the little room. Finally,
+Hyacinthe heard them promise to see one another after the performance,
+Silviane even inviting Rosemonde to drink a cup of tea with her at her
+house. At this the young man smiled complacently, and said to the
+actress: "Your carriage is waiting for you at the corner of the Rue
+Montpensier, is it not? Well, I'll take the Princess to it. That will be
+the simpler plan, you can both go off together!"
+
+"Oh! how good of you," cried Rosemonde; "it's agreed."
+
+Just then the door was opened, and the men, being admitted, began to pour
+forth their congratulations. However, they had to regain their seats in
+all haste so as to witness the fifth act. This proved quite a triumph,
+the whole house bursting into applause when Silviane spoke the famous
+line, "I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived," with the rapturous
+enthusiasm of a holy martyr ascending to heaven. Nothing could have been
+more soul-like, it was said. And so when the performers were called
+before the curtain, Paris bestowed an ovation on that virgin of the
+stage, who, as Sagnier put it, knew so well how to act depravity at home.
+
+Accompanied by Duthil, Duvillard at once went behind the scenes in order
+to fetch Silviane, while Hyacinthe escorted Rosemonde to the brougham
+waiting at the corner of the Rue Montpensier. Having helped her into it,
+the young man stood by, waiting. And he seemed to grow quite merry when
+his father came up with Silviane, and was stopped by her, just as, in his
+turn, he wished to get into the carriage.
+
+"There's no room for you, my dear fellow," said she. "I've a friend with
+me."
+
+Rosemonde's little smiling face then peered forth from the depths of the
+brougham. And the Baron remained there open-mouthed while the vehicle
+swiftly carried the two women away!
+
+"Well, what would you have, my dear fellow?" said Hyacinthe, by way of
+explanation to Duthil, who also seemed somewhat amazed by what had
+happened. "Rosemonde was worrying my life out, and so I got rid of her by
+packing her off with Silviane."
+
+Duvillard was still standing on the pavement and still looking dazed when
+Chaigneux, who was going home quite tired out, recognised him, and came
+up to say that Fonsegue had thought the matter over, and that Massot's
+article would be duly inserted. In the passages, too, there had been a
+deal of talk about the famous Trans-Saharan project.
+
+Then Hyacinthe led his father away, trying to comfort him like a sensible
+friend, who regarded woman as a base and impure creature. "Let's go home
+to bed," said he. "As that article is to appear, you can take it to her
+to-morrow. She will see you, sure enough."
+
+Thereupon they lighted cigars, and now and again exchanging a few words,
+took their way up the Avenue de l'Opera, which at that hour was deserted
+and dismal. Meantime, above the slumbering houses of Paris the breeze
+wafted a prolonged sigh, the plaint, as it were, of an expiring world.
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE GOAL OF LABOUR
+
+EVER since the execution of Salvat, Guillaume had become extremely
+taciturn. He seemed worried and absent-minded. He would work for hours at
+the manufacture of that dangerous powder of which he alone knew the
+formula, and the preparation of which was such a delicate matter that he
+would allow none to assist him. Then, at other times he would go off, and
+return tired out by some long solitary ramble. He remained very gentle at
+home, and strove to smile there. But whenever anybody spoke to him he
+started as if suddenly called back from dreamland.
+
+Pierre imagined his brother had relied too much upon his powers of
+renunciation, and found the loss of Marie unbearable. Was it not some
+thought of her that haunted him now that the date fixed for the marriage
+drew nearer and nearer? One evening, therefore, Pierre ventured to speak
+out, again offering to leave the house and disappear.
+
+But at the first words he uttered Guillaume stopped him, and
+affectionately replied: "Marie? Oh! I love her, I love her too well to
+regret what I have done. No, no! you only bring me happiness, I derive
+all my strength and courage from you now that I know you are both happy.
+. . . And I assure you that you are mistaken, there is nothing at all the
+matter with me; my work absorbs me, perhaps, but that is all."
+
+That same evening he managed to cast his gloom aside, and displayed
+delightful gaiety. During dinner he inquired if the upholsterer would
+soon call to arrange the two little rooms which Marie was to occupy with
+her husband over the workroom. The young woman, who since her marriage
+with Pierre had been decided had remained waiting with smiling patience,
+thereupon told Guillaume what it was she desired--first some hangings of
+red cotton stuff, then some polished pine furniture which would enable
+her to imagine she was in the country, and finally a carpet on the floor,
+because a carpet seemed to her the height of luxury. She laughed as she
+spoke, and Guillaume laughed with her in a gay and fatherly way. His good
+spirits brought much relief to Pierre, who concluded that he must have
+been mistaken in his surmises.
+
+On the very morrow, however, Guillaume relapsed into a dreamy state. And
+so disquietude again came upon Pierre, particularly when he noticed that
+Mere-Grand also seemed to be unusually grave and silent. Not daring to
+address her, he tried to extract some information from his nephews, but
+neither Thomas nor Francois nor Antoine knew anything. Each of them
+quietly devoted his time to his work, respecting and worshipping his
+father, but never questioning him about his plans or enterprises.
+Whatever he might choose to do could only be right and good; and they,
+his sons, were ready to do the same and help him at the very first call,
+without pausing to inquire into his purpose. It was plain, however, that
+he kept them apart from anything at all perilous, that he retained all
+responsibility for himself, and that Mere-Grand alone was his
+/confidante/, the one whom he consulted and to whom he perhaps listened.
+Pierre therefore renounced his hope of learning anything from the sons,
+and directed his attention to the old lady, whose rigid gravity worried
+him the more as she and Guillaume frequently had private chats in the
+room she occupied upstairs. They shut themselves up there all alone, and
+remained together for hours without the faintest sound coming from the
+seemingly lifeless chamber.
+
+One day, however, Pierre caught sight of Guillaume as he came out of it,
+carrying a little valise which appeared to be very heavy. And Pierre
+thereupon remembered both his brother's powder, one pound weight of which
+would have sufficed to destroy a cathedral, and the destructive engine
+which he had purposed bestowing upon France in order that she might be
+victorious over all other nations, and become the one great initiatory
+and liberative power. Pierre remembered too that the only person besides
+himself who knew his brother's secret was Mere-Grand, who, at the time
+when Guillaume was fearing some perquisition on the part of the police,
+had long slept upon the cartridges of the terrible explosive. But now why
+was Guillaume removing all the powder which he had been preparing for
+some time past? As this question occurred to Pierre, a sudden suspicion,
+a vague dread, came upon him, and gave him strength to ask his brother:
+"Have you reason to fear anything, since you won't keep things here? If
+they embarrass you, they can all be deposited at my house, nobody will
+make a search there."
+
+Guillaume, whom these words astonished, gazed at Pierre fixedly, and then
+replied: "Yes, I have learnt that the arrests and perquisitions have
+begun afresh since that poor devil was guillotined; for they are in
+terror at the thought that some despairing fellow may avenge him.
+Moreover, it is hardly prudent to keep destructive agents of such great
+power here. I prefer to deposit them in a safe place. But not at
+Neuilly--oh! no indeed! they are not a present for you, brother."
+Guillaume spoke with outward calmness; and if he had started with
+surprise at the first moment, it had been scarcely perceptible.
+
+"So everything is ready?" Pierre resumed. "You will soon be handing your
+engine of destruction over to the Minister of War, I presume?"
+
+A gleam of hesitation appeared in the depths of Guillaume's eyes, and he
+was for a moment about to tell a falsehood. However, he ended by replying
+"No, I have renounced that intention. I have another idea."
+
+He spoke these last words with so much energy and decision that Pierre
+did not dare to question him further, to ask him, for instance, what that
+other idea might be. From that moment, however, he quivered with anxious
+expectancy. From hour to hour Mere-Grand's lofty silence and Guillaume's
+rapt, energetic face seemed to tell him that some huge and terrifying
+scheme had come into being, and was growing and threatening the whole of
+Paris.
+
+One afternoon, just as Thomas was about to repair to the Grandidier
+works, some one came to Guillaume's with the news that old Toussaint, the
+workman, had been stricken with a fresh attack of paralysis. Thomas
+thereupon decided that he would call upon the poor fellow on his way, for
+he held him in esteem and wished to ascertain if he could render him any
+help. Pierre expressed a desire to accompany his nephew, and they started
+off together about four o'clock.
+
+On entering the one room which the Toussaints occupied, the room where
+they ate and slept, the visitors found the mechanician seated on a low
+chair near the table. He looked half dead, as if struck by lightning. It
+was a case of hemiplegia, which had paralysed the whole of his right
+side, his right leg and right arm, and had also spread to his face in
+such wise that he could no longer speak. The only sound he could raise
+was an incomprehensible guttural grunt. His mouth was drawn to the right,
+and his once round, good-natured-looking face, with tanned skin and
+bright eyes, had been twisted into a frightful mask of anguish. At fifty
+years of age, the unhappy man was utterly done for. His unkempt beard was
+as white as that of an octogenarian, and his knotty limbs, preyed upon by
+toil, were henceforth dead. Only his eyes remained alive, and they
+travelled around the room, going from one to another. By his side, eager
+to do what she could for him, was his wife, who remained stout even when
+she had little to eat, and still showed herself active and clear-headed,
+however great her misfortunes.
+
+"It's a friendly visit, Toussaint," said she. "It's Monsieur Thomas who
+has come to see you with Monsieur l'Abbe." Then quietly correcting
+herself she added: "With Monsieur Pierre, his uncle. You see that you are
+not yet forsaken."
+
+Toussaint wished to speak, but his fruitless efforts only brought two big
+tears to his eyes. Then he gazed at his visitors with an expression of
+indescribable woe, his jaws trembling convulsively.
+
+"Don't put yourself out," repeated his wife. "The doctor told you that it
+would do you no good."
+
+At the moment of entering the room, Pierre had already noticed two
+persons who had risen from their chairs and drawn somewhat on one side.
+And now to his great surprise he recognised that they were Madame
+Theodore and Celine, who were both decently clad, and looked as if they
+led a life of comfort. On hearing of Toussaint's misfortune they had come
+to see him, like good-hearted creatures, who, on their own side, had
+experienced the most cruel suffering. Pierre, on noticing that they now
+seemed to be beyond dire want, remembered what he had heard of the
+wonderful sympathy lavished on the child after her father's execution,
+the many presents and donations offered her, and the generous proposals
+that had been made to adopt her. These last had ended in her being
+adopted by a former friend of Salvat, who had sent her to school again,
+pending the time when she might be apprenticed to some trade, while, on
+the other hand, Madame Theodore had been placed as a nurse in a
+convalescent home. In such wise both had been saved.
+
+When Pierre drew near to little Celine in order to kiss her, Madame
+Theodore told her to thank Monsieur l'Abbe--for so she still respectfully
+called him--for all that he had previously done for her. "It was you who
+brought us happiness, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she. "And that's a thing one
+can never forget. I'm always telling Celine to remember you in her
+prayers."
+
+"And so, my child, you are now going to school again," said Pierre.
+
+"Oh yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I'm well pleased at it. Besides, we no
+longer lack anything." Then, however, sudden emotion came over the girl,
+and she stammered with a sob: "Ah! if poor papa could only see us!"
+
+Madame Theodore, meanwhile, had begun to take leave of Madame Toussaint.
+"Well, good by, we must go," said she. "What has happened to you is very
+sad, and we wanted to tell you how much it grieved us. The worry is that
+when misfortune falls on one, courage isn't enough to set things right. .
+. . Celine, come and kiss your uncle. . . . My poor brother, I hope
+you'll get back the use of your legs as soon as possible."
+
+They kissed the paralysed man on the cheeks, and then went off. Toussaint
+had looked at them with his keen and still intelligent eyes, as if he
+longed to participate in the life and activity into which they were
+returning. And a jealous thought came to his wife, who usually was so
+placid and good-natured. "Ah! my poor old man!" said she, after propping
+him up with a pillow, "those two are luckier than we are. Everything
+succeeds with them since that madman, Salvat, had his head cut off.
+They're provided for. They've plenty of bread on the shelf."
+
+Then, turning towards Pierre and Thomas, she continued: "We others are
+done for, you know, we're down in the mud, with no hope of getting out of
+it. But what would you have? My poor husband hasn't been guillotined,
+he's done nothing but work his whole life long; and now, you see, that's
+the end of him, he's like some old animal, no longer good for anything."
+
+Having made her visitors sit down she next answered their compassionate
+questions. The doctor had called twice already, and had promised to
+restore the unhappy man's power of speech, and perhaps enable him to
+crawl round the room with the help of a stick. But as for ever being able
+to resume real work that must not be expected. And so what was the use of
+living on? Toussaint's eyes plainly declared that he would much rather
+die at once. When a workman can no longer work and no longer provide for
+his wife he is ripe for the grave.
+
+"Savings indeed!" Madame Toussaint resumed. "There are folks who ask if
+we have any savings. . . . Well, we had nearly a thousand francs in the
+Savings Bank when Toussaint had his first attack. And some people don't
+know what a lot of prudence one needs to put by such a sum; for, after
+all, we're not savages, we have to allow ourselves a little enjoyment now
+and then, a good dish and a good bottle of wine. . . . Well, what with
+five months of enforced idleness, and the medicines, and the underdone
+meat that was ordered, we got to the end of our thousand francs; and now
+that it's all begun again we're not likely to taste any more bottled wine
+or roast mutton."
+
+Fond of good cheer as she had always been, this cry, far more than the
+tears she was forcing back, revealed how much the future terrified her.
+She was there erect and brave in spite of everything; but what a downfall
+if she were no longer able to keep her room tidy, stew a piece of veal on
+Sundays, and gossip with the neighbours while awaiting her husband's
+return from work! Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutter
+and carried off in the scavenger's cart.
+
+However, Thomas intervened: "Isn't there an Asylum for the Invalids of
+Labour, and couldn't your husband get admitted to it?" he asked. "It
+seems to me that is just the place for him."
+
+"Oh dear, no," the woman answered. "People spoke to me of that place
+before, and I got particulars of it. They don't take sick people there.
+When you call they tell you that there are hospitals for those who are
+ill."
+
+With a wave of his hand Pierre confirmed her statement: it was useless to
+apply in that direction. He could again see himself scouring Paris,
+hurrying from the Lady President, Baroness Duvillard, to Fonsegue, the
+General Manager, and only securing a bed for Laveuve when the unhappy man
+was dead.
+
+However, at that moment an infant was heard wailing, and to the amazement
+of both visitors Madame Toussaint entered the little closet where her son
+Charles had so long slept, and came out of it carrying a child, who
+looked scarcely twenty months old. "Well, yes," she explained, "this is
+Charles's boy. He was sleeping there in his father's old bed, and now you
+hear him, he's woke up. . . . You see, only last Wednesday, the day
+before Toussaint had his stroke, I went to fetch the little one at the
+nurse's at St. Denis, because she had threatened to cast him adrift since
+Charles had got into bad habits, and no longer paid her. I said to myself
+at the time that work was looking up, and that my husband and I would
+always be able to provide for a little mouth like that. . . . But just
+afterwards everything collapsed! At the same time, as the child's here
+now I can't go and leave him in the street."
+
+While speaking in this fashion she walked to and fro, rocking the baby in
+her arms. And naturally enough she reverted to Charles's folly with the
+girl, who had run away, leaving that infant behind her. Things might not
+have been so very bad if Charles had still worked as steadily as he had
+done before he went soldiering. In those days he had never lost an hour,
+and had always brought all his pay home! But he had come back from the
+army with much less taste for work. He argued, and had ideas of his own.
+He certainly hadn't yet come to bomb-throwing like that madman Salvat,
+but he spent half his time with Socialists and Anarchists, who put his
+brain in a muddle. It was a real pity to see such a strong, good-hearted
+young fellow turning out badly like that. But it was said in the
+neighbourhood that many another was inclined the same way; that the best
+and most intelligent of the younger men felt tired of want and
+unremunerative labour, and would end by knocking everything to pieces
+rather than go on toiling with no certainty of food in their old age.
+
+"Ah! yes," continued Madame Toussaint, "the sons are not like the fathers
+were. These fine fellows won't be as patient as my poor husband has been,
+letting hard work wear him away till he's become the sorry thing you see
+there. . . . Do you know what Charles said the other evening when he
+found his father on that chair, crippled like that, and unable to speak?
+Why, he shouted to him that he'd been a stupid jackass all his life,
+working himself to death for those /bourgeois/, who now wouldn't bring
+him so much as a glass of water. Then, as he none the less has a good
+heart, he began to cry his eyes out."
+
+The baby was no longer wailing, still the good woman continued walking to
+and fro, rocking it in her arms and pressing it to her affectionate
+heart. Her son Charles could do no more for them, she said; perhaps he
+might be able to give them a five-franc piece now and again, but even
+that wasn't certain. It was of no use for her to go back to her old
+calling as a seamstress, she had lost all practice of it. And it would
+even be difficult for her to earn anything as charwoman, for she had that
+infant on her hands as well as her infirm husband--a big child, whom she
+would have to wash and feed. And so what would become of the three of
+them? She couldn't tell; but it made her shudder, however brave and
+motherly she tried to be.
+
+For their part, Pierre and Thomas quivered with compassion, particularly
+when they saw big tears coursing down the cheeks of the wretched,
+stricken Toussaint, as he sat quite motionless in that little and still
+cleanly home of toil and want. The poor man had listened to his wife, and
+he looked at her and at the infant now sleeping in her arms. Voiceless,
+unable to cry his woe aloud, he experienced the most awful anguish. What
+dupery his long life of labour had been! how frightfully unjust it was
+that all his efforts should end in such sufferings! how exasperating it
+was to feel himself powerless, and to see those whom he loved and who
+were as innocent as himself suffer and die by reason of his own suffering
+and death! Ah! poor old man, cripple that he was, ending like some beast
+of burden that has foundered by the roadside--that goal of labour! And it
+was all so revolting and so monstrous that he tried to put it into words,
+and his desperate grief ended in a frightful, raucous grunt.
+
+"Be quiet, don't do yourself harm!" concluded Madame Toussaint. "Things
+are like that, and there's no mending them."
+
+Then she went to put the child to bed again, and on her return, just as
+Thomas and Pierre were about to speak to her of Toussaint's employer, M.
+Grandidier, a fresh visitor arrived. Thereupon the others decided to
+wait.
+
+The new comer was Madame Chretiennot, Toussaint's other sister, eighteen
+years younger than himself. Her husband, the little clerk, had compelled
+her to break off almost all intercourse with her relatives, as he felt
+ashamed of them; nevertheless, having heard of her brother's misfortune,
+she had very properly come to condole with him. She wore a gown of cheap
+flimsy silk, and a hat trimmed with red poppies, which she had freshened
+up three times already; but in spite of this display her appearance
+bespoke penury, and she did her best to hide her feet on account of the
+shabbiness of her boots. Moreover, she was no longer the beautiful
+Hortense. Since a recent miscarriage, all trace of her good looks had
+disappeared.
+
+The lamentable appearance of her brother and the bareness of that home of
+suffering chilled her directly she crossed the threshold. And as soon as
+she had kissed Toussaint, and said how sorry she was to find him in such
+a condition, she began to lament her own fate, and recount her troubles,
+for fear lest she should be asked for any help.
+
+"Ah! my dear," she said to her sister-in-law, "you are certainly much to
+be pitied! But if you only knew! We all have our troubles. Thus in my
+case, obliged as I am to dress fairly well on account of my husband's
+position, I have more trouble than you can imagine in making both ends
+meet. One can't go far on a salary of three thousand francs a year, when
+one has to pay seven hundred francs' rent out of it. You will perhaps say
+that we might lodge ourselves in a more modest way; but we can't, my
+dear, I must have a /salon/ on account of the visits I receive. So just
+count! . . . Then there are my two girls. I've had to send them to
+school; Lucienne has begun to learn the piano and Marcelle has some taste
+for drawing. . . . By the way, I would have brought them with me, but I
+feared it would upset them too much. You will excuse me, won't you?"
+
+Then she spoke of all the worries which she had had with her husband on
+account of Salvat's ignominious death. Chretiennot, vain, quarrelsome
+little fellow that he was, felt exasperated at now having a /guillotine/
+in his wife's family. And he had lately begun to treat the unfortunate
+woman most harshly, charging her with having brought about all their
+troubles, and even rendering her responsible for his own mediocrity,
+embittered as he was more and more each day by a confined life of office
+work. On some evenings they had downright quarrels; she stood up for
+herself, and related that when she was at the confectionery shop in the
+Rue des Martyrs she could have married a doctor had she only chosen, for
+the doctor found her quite pretty enough. Now, however, she was becoming
+plainer and plainer, and her husband felt that he was condemned to
+everlasting penury; so that their life was becoming more and more dismal
+and quarrelsome, and as unbearable--despite the pride of being
+"gentleman" and "lady"--as was the destitution of the working classes.
+
+"All the same, my dear," at last said Madame Toussaint, weary of her
+sister-in-law's endless narrative of worries, "you have had one piece of
+luck. You won't have the trouble of bringing up a third child, now."
+
+"That's true," replied Hortense, with a sigh of relief. "How we should
+have managed, I don't know. . . . Still, I was very ill, and I'm far from
+being in good health now. The doctor says that I don't eat enough, and
+that I ought to have good food."
+
+Then she rose for the purpose of giving her brother another kiss and
+taking her departure; for she feared a scene on her husband's part should
+he happen to come home and find her absent. Once on her feet, however,
+she lingered there a moment longer, saying that she also had just seen
+her sister, Madame Theodore, and little Celine, both of them comfortably
+clad and looking happy. And with a touch of jealousy she added: "Well, my
+husband contents himself with slaving away at his office every day. He'll
+never do anything to get his head cut off; and it's quite certain that
+nobody will think of leaving an income to Marcelle and Lucienne. . . .
+Well, good by, my dear, you must be brave, one must always hope that
+things will turn out for the best."
+
+When she had gone off, Pierre and Thomas inquired if M. Grandidier had
+heard of Toussaint's misfortune and agreed to do anything for him. Madame
+Toussaint answered that he had so far made only a vague promise; and on
+learning this they resolved to speak to him as warmly as they could on
+behalf of the old mechanician, who had spent as many as five and twenty
+years at the works. The misfortune was that a scheme for establishing a
+friendly society, and even a pension fund, which had been launched before
+the crisis from which the works were now recovering, had collapsed
+through a number of obstacles and complications. Had things turned out
+otherwise, Thomas might have had a pittance assured him, even though he
+was unable to work. But under the circumstances the only hope for the
+poor stricken fellow lay in his employer's compassion, if not his sense
+of justice.
+
+As the baby again began to cry, Madame Toussaint went to fetch it, and
+she was once more carrying it to and fro, when Thomas pressed her
+husband's sound hand between both his own. "We will come back," said the
+young man; "we won't forsake you, Toussaint. You know very well that
+people like you, for you've always been a good and steady workman. So
+rely on us, we will do all we can."
+
+Then they left him tearful and overpowered, in that dismal room, while,
+up and down beside him, his wife rocked the squealing infant--that other
+luckless creature, who was now so heavy on the old folks' hands, and like
+them was fated to die of want and unjust toil.
+
+Toil, manual toil, panting at every effort, this was what Pierre and
+Thomas once more found at the works. From the slender pipes above the
+roofs spurted rhythmical puffs of steam, which seemed like the very
+breath of all that labour. And in the work-shops one found a continuous
+rumbling, a whole army of men in motion, forging, filing, and piercing,
+amidst the spinning of leather gearing and the trembling of machinery.
+The day was ending with a final feverish effort to complete some task or
+other before the bell should ring for departure.
+
+On inquiring for the master Thomas learnt that he had not been seen since
+/dejeuner/, which was such an unusual occurrence that the young man at
+once feared some terrible scene in the silent pavilion, whose shutters
+were ever closed upon Grandidier's unhappy wife--that mad but beautiful
+creature, whom he loved so passionately that he had never been willing to
+part from her. The pavilion could be seen from the little glazed
+work-shop which Thomas usually occupied, and as he and Pierre stood
+waiting there, it looked very peaceful and pleasant amidst the big
+lilac-bushes planted round about it. Surely, they thought, it ought to
+have been brightened by the gay gown of a young woman and the laughter of
+playful children. But all at once a loud, piercing shriek reached their
+ears, followed by howls and moans, like those of an animal that is being
+beaten or possibly slaughtered. Ah! those howls ringing out amidst all
+the stir of the toiling works, punctuated it seemed by the rhythmical
+puffing of the steam, accompanied too by the dull rumbling of the
+machinery! The receipts of the business had been doubling and doubling
+since the last stock-taking; there was increase of prosperity every
+month, the bad times were over, far behind. Grandidier was realising a
+large fortune with his famous bicycle for the million, the "Lisette"; and
+the approaching vogue of motor-cars also promised huge gains, should he
+again start making little motor-engines, as he meant to do, as soon as
+Thomas's long-projected motor should be perfected. But what was wealth
+when in that dismal pavilion, whose shutters were ever closed, those
+frightful shrieks continued, proclaiming some terrible drama, which all
+the stir and bustle of the prosperous works were unable to stifle?
+
+Pierre and Thomas looked at one another, pale and quivering. And all at
+once, as the cries ceased and the pavilion sank into death-like silence
+once more, the latter said in an undertone: "She is usually very gentle,
+she will sometimes spend whole days sitting on a carpet like a little
+child. He is fond of her when she is like that; he lays her down and
+picks her up, caresses her and makes her laugh as if she were a baby. Ah!
+how dreadfully sad it is! When an attack comes upon her she gets frantic,
+tries to bite herself, and kill herself by throwing herself against the
+walls. And then he has to struggle with her, for no one else is allowed
+to touch her. He tries to restrain her, and holds her in his arms to calm
+her. . . . But how terrible it was just now! Did you hear? I do not think
+she has ever had such a frightful attack before."
+
+For a quarter of an hour longer profound silence prevailed. Then
+Grandidier came out of the pavilion, bareheaded and still ghastly pale.
+Passing the little glazed work-shop on his way, he perceived Thomas and
+Pierre there, and at once came in. But he was obliged to lean against a
+bench like a man who is dazed, haunted by a nightmare. His good-natured,
+energetic face retained an expression of acute anguish; and his left ear
+was scratched and bleeding. However, he at once wished to talk, overcome
+his feelings, and return to his life of activity. "I am very pleased to
+see you, my dear Thomas," said he, "I have been thinking over what you
+told me about our little motor. We must go into the matter again."
+
+Seeing how distracted he was, it occurred to the young man that some
+sudden diversion, such as the story of another's misfortunes, might
+perhaps draw him from his haunting thoughts. "Of course I am at your
+disposal," he replied; "but before talking of that matter I should like
+to tell you that we have just seen Toussaint, that poor old fellow who
+has been stricken with paralysis. His awful fate has quite distressed us.
+He is in the greatest destitution, forsaken as it were by the roadside,
+after all his years of labour."
+
+Thomas dwelt upon the quarter of a century which the old workman had
+spent at the factory, and suggested that it would be only just to take
+some account of his long efforts, the years of his life which he had
+devoted to the establishment. And he asked that he might be assisted in
+the name both of equity and compassion.
+
+"Ah! monsieur," Pierre in his turn ventured to say. "I should like to
+take you for an instant into that bare room, and show you that poor,
+aged, worn-out, stricken man, who no longer has even the power of speech
+left him to tell people his sufferings. There can be no greater
+wretchedness than to die in this fashion, despairing of all kindliness
+and justice."
+
+Grandidier had listened to them in silence. But big tears had
+irresistibly filled his eyes, and when he spoke it was in a very low and
+tremulous voice: "The greatest wretchedness, who can tell what it is? Who
+can speak of it if he has not known the wretchedness of others? Yes, yes,
+it's sad undoubtedly that poor Toussaint should be reduced to that state
+at his age, not knowing even if he will have food to eat on the morrow.
+But I know sorrows that are just as crushing, abominations which poison
+one's life in a still greater degree. . . . Ah! yes, food indeed! To
+think that happiness will reign in the world when everybody has food to
+eat! What an idiotic hope!"
+
+The whole grievous tragedy of his life was in the shudder which had come
+over him. To be the employer, the master, the man who is making money,
+who disposes of capital and is envied by his workmen, to own an
+establishment to which prosperity has returned, whose machinery coins
+gold, apparently leaving one no other trouble than that of pocketing
+one's profits; and yet at the same time to be the most wretched of men,
+to know no day exempt from anguish, to find each evening at one's hearth
+no other reward or prop than the most atrocious torture of the heart!
+Everything, even success, has to be paid for. And thus that triumpher,
+that money-maker, whose pile was growing larger at each successive
+inventory, was sobbing with bitter grief.
+
+However, he showed himself kindly disposed towards Toussaint, and
+promised to assist him. As for a pension that was an idea which he could
+not entertain, as it was the negation of the wage-system such as it
+existed. He energetically defended his rights as an employer, repeating
+that the strain of competition would compel him to avail himself of them
+so long as the present system should endure. His part in it was to do
+good business in an honest way. However, he regretted that his men had
+never carried out the scheme of establishing a relief fund, and he said
+that he would do his best to induce them to take it in hand again.
+
+Some colour had now come back to his checks; for on returning to the
+interests of his life of battle he felt his energy restored. He again
+reverted to the question of the little motor, and spoke of it for some
+time with Thomas, while Pierre waited, feeling quite upset. Ah! he
+thought, how universal was the thirst for happiness! Then, in spite of
+the many technical terms that were used he caught a little of what the
+others were saying. Small steam motors had been made at the works in
+former times; but they had not proved successes. In point of fact a new
+propelling force was needed. Electricity, though everyone foresaw its
+future triumph, was so far out of the question on account of the weight
+of the apparatus which its employment necessitated. So only petroleum
+remained, and the inconvenience attaching to its use was so great that
+victory and fortune would certainly rest with the manufacturer who should
+be able to replace it by some other hitherto unknown agent. In the
+discovery and adaptation of the latter lay the whole problem.
+
+"Yes, I am eager about it now," at last exclaimed Grandidier in an
+animated way. "I allowed you to prosecute your experiments without
+troubling you with any inquisitive questions. But a solution is becoming
+imperative."
+
+Thomas smiled: "Well, you must remain patient just a little longer," said
+he; "I believe that I am on the right road."
+
+Then Grandidier shook hands with him and Pierre, and went off to make his
+usual round through his busy, bustling works, whilst near at hand,
+awaiting his return, stood the closed pavilion, where every evening he
+was fated to relapse into endless, incurable anguish.
+
+The daylight was already waning when Pierre and Thomas, after
+re-ascending the height of Montmartre, walked towards the large work-shop
+which Jahan, the sculptor, had set up among the many sheds whose erection
+had been necessitated by the building of the Sacred Heart. There was here
+a stretch of ground littered with materials, an extraordinary chaos of
+building stone, beams and machinery; and pending the time when an army of
+navvies would come to set the whole place in order, one could see gaping
+trenches, rough flights of descending steps and fences, imperfectly
+closing doorways which conducted to the substructures of the basilica.
+
+Halting in front of Jahan's work-shop, Thomas pointed to one of these
+doorways by which one could reach the foundation works. "Have you never
+had an idea of visiting the foundations?" he inquired of Pierre. "There's
+quite a city down there on which millions of money have been spent. They
+could only find firm soil at the very base of the height, and they had to
+excavate more than eighty shafts, fill them with concrete, and then rear
+their church on all those subterranean columns. . . . Yes, that is so. Of
+course the columns cannot be seen, but it is they who hold that insulting
+edifice aloft, right over Paris!"
+
+Having drawn near to the fence, Pierre was looking at an open doorway
+beyond it, a sort of dark landing whence steps descended as if into the
+bowels of the earth. And he thought of those invisible columns of
+concrete, and of all the stubborn energy and desire for domination which
+had set and kept the edifice erect.
+
+Thomas was at last obliged to call him. "Let us make haste," said he,
+"the twilight will soon be here. We shan't be able to see much."
+
+They had arranged to meet Antoine at Jahan's, as the sculptor wished to
+show them a new model he had prepared. When they entered the work-shop
+they found the two assistants still working at the colossal angel which
+had been ordered for the basilica. Standing on a scaffolding they were
+rough-hewing its symmetrical wings, whilst Jahan, seated on a low chair,
+with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hands soiled with clay,
+was contemplating a figure some three feet high on which he had just been
+working.
+
+"Ah! it's you," he exclaimed. "Antoine has been waiting more than half an
+hour for you. He's gone outside with Lise to see the sun set over Paris,
+I think. But they will soon be back."
+
+Then he relapsed into silence, with his eyes fixed on his work.
+
+This was a bare, erect, lofty female figure, of such august majesty, so
+simple were its lines, that it suggested something gigantic. The figure's
+abundant, outspread hair suggested rays around its face, which beamed
+with sovereign beauty like the sun. And its only gesture was one of offer
+and of greeting; its arms were thrown slightly forward, and its hands
+were open for the grasp of all mankind.
+
+Still lingering in his dream Jahan began to speak slowly: "You remember
+that I wanted a pendant for my figure of Fecundity. I had modelled a
+Charity, but it pleased me so little and seemed so commonplace that I let
+the clay dry and spoil. . . . And then the idea of a figure of Justice
+came to me. But not a gowned figure with the sword and the scales! That
+wasn't the Justice that inspired me. What haunted my mind was the other
+Justice, the one that the lowly and the sufferers await, the one who
+alone can some day set a little order and happiness among us. And I
+pictured her like that, quite bare, quite simple, and very lofty. She is
+the sun as it were, a sun all beauty, harmony and strength; for justice
+is only to be found in the sun which shines in the heavens for one and
+all, and bestows on poor and rich alike its magnificence and light and
+warmth, which are the source of all life. And so my figure, you see, has
+her hands outstretched as if she were offering herself to all mankind,
+greeting it and granting it the gift of eternal life in eternal beauty.
+Ah! to be beautiful and strong and just, one's whole dream lies in that."
+
+Jahan relighted his pipe and burst into a merry laugh. "Well, I think the
+good woman carries herself upright. . . . What do you fellows say?"
+
+His visitors highly praised his work. Pierre for his part was much
+affected at finding in this artistic conception the very idea that he had
+so long been revolving in his mind--the idea of an era of Justice rising
+from the ruins of the world, which Charity after centuries of trial had
+failed to save.
+
+Then the sculptor gaily explained that he had prepared his model there
+instead of at home, in order to console himself a little for his big
+dummy of an angel, the prescribed triteness of which disgusted him. Some
+fresh objections had been raised with respect to the folds of the robe,
+which gave some prominence to the thighs, and in the end he had been
+compelled to modify all of the drapery.
+
+"Oh! it's just as they like!" he cried; "it's no work of mine, you know;
+it's simply an order which I'm executing just as a mason builds a wall.
+There's no religious art left, it has been killed by stupidity and
+disbelief. Ah! if social or human art could only revive, how glorious to
+be one of the first to bear the tidings!"
+
+Then he paused. Where could the youngsters, Antoine and Lise, have got
+to, he wondered. He threw the door wide open, and, a little distance
+away, among the materials littering the waste ground, one could see
+Antoine's tall figure and Lise's short slender form standing out against
+the immensity of Paris, which was all golden amidst the sun's farewell.
+The young man's strong arm supported Lise, who with this help walked
+beside him without feeling any fatigue. Slender and graceful, like a girl
+blossoming into womanhood, she raised her eyes to his with a smile of
+infinite gratitude, which proclaimed that she belonged to him for
+evermore.
+
+"Ah! they are coming back," said Jahan. "The miracle is now complete, you
+know. I'm delighted at it. I did not know what to do with her; I had even
+renounced all attempts to teach her to read; I left her for days together
+in a corner, infirm and tongue-tied like a lack-wit. . . . But your
+brother came and took her in hand somehow or other. She listened to him
+and understood him, and began to read and write with him, and grow
+intelligent and gay. Then, as her limbs still gained no suppleness, and
+she remained infirm, ailing and puny, he began by carrying her here, and
+then helped her to walk in such wise that she can now do so by herself.
+In a few weeks' time she has positively grown and become quite charming.
+Yes, I assure you, it is second birth, real creation. Just look at them!"
+
+Antoine and Lise were still slowly approaching. The evening breeze which
+rose from the great city, where all was yet heat and sunshine, brought
+them a bath of life. If the young man had chosen that spot, with its
+splendid horizon, open to the full air which wafted all the germs of
+life, it was doubtless because he felt that nowhere else could he instil
+more vitality, more soul, more strength into her. And love had been
+created by love. He had found her asleep, benumbed, without power of
+motion or intellect, and he had awakened her, kindled life in her, loved
+her, that he might be loved by her in return. She was his work, she was
+part of himself.
+
+"So you no longer feel tired, little one?" said Jahan.
+
+She smiled divinely. "Oh! no, it's so pleasant, so beautiful, to walk
+straight on like this. . . . All I desire is to go on for ever and ever
+with Antoine."
+
+The others laughed, and Jahan exclaimed in his good-natured way: "Let us
+hope that he won't take you so far. You've reached your destination now,
+and I shan't be the one to prevent you from being happy."
+
+Antoine was already standing before the figure of Justice, to which the
+falling twilight seemed to impart a quiver of life. "Oh! how divinely
+simple, how divinely beautiful!" said he.
+
+For his own part he had lately finished a new wood engraving, which
+depicted Lise holding a book in her hand, an engraving instinct with
+truth and emotion, showing her awakened to intelligence and love. And
+this time he had achieved his desire, making no preliminary drawing, but
+tackling the block with his graver, straight away, in presence of his
+model. And infinite hopefulness had come upon him, he was dreaming of
+great original works in which the whole period that he belonged to would
+live anew and for ever.
+
+Thomas now wished to return home. So they shook hands with Jahan, who, as
+his day's work was over, put on his coat to take his sister back to the
+Rue du Calvaire.
+
+"Till to-morrow, Lise," said Antoine, inclining his head to kiss her.
+
+She raised herself on tip-toes, and offered him her eyes, which he had
+opened to life. "Till to-morrow, Antoine," said she.
+
+Outside, the twilight was falling. Pierre was the first to cross the
+threshold, and as he did so, he saw so extraordinary a sight that for an
+instant he felt stupefied. But it was certain enough: he could plainly
+distinguish his brother Guillaume emerging from the gaping doorway which
+conducted to the foundations of the basilica. And he saw him hastily
+climb over the palings, and then pretend to be there by pure chance, as
+though he had come up from the Rue Lamarck. When he accosted his two
+sons, as if he were delighted to meet them, and began to say that he had
+just come from Paris, Pierre asked himself if he had been dreaming.
+However, an anxious glance which his brother cast at him convinced him
+that he had been right. And then he not only felt ill at ease in presence
+of that man whom he had never previously known to lie, but it seemed to
+him that he was at last on the track of all he had feared, the formidable
+mystery that he had for some time past felt brewing around him in the
+little peaceful house.
+
+When Guillaume, his sons and his brother reached home and entered the
+large workroom overlooking Paris, it was so dark that they fancied nobody
+was there.
+
+"What! nobody in?" said Guillaume.
+
+But in a somewhat low, quiet voice Francois answered out of the gloom:
+"Why, yes, I'm here."
+
+He had remained at his table, where he had worked the whole afternoon,
+and as he could no longer read, he now sat in a dreamy mood with his head
+resting on his hands, his eyes wandering over Paris, where night was
+gradually falling. As his examination was now near at hand, he was living
+in a state of severe mental strain.
+
+"What, you are still working there!" said his father. "Why didn't you ask
+for a lamp?"
+
+"No, I wasn't working, I was looking at Paris," Francois slowly answered.
+"It's singular how the night falls over it by degrees. The last district
+that remained visible was the Montague Ste. Genevieve, the plateau of the
+Pantheon, where all our knowledge and science have grown up. A sun-ray
+still gilds the schools and libraries and laboratories, when the
+low-lying districts of trade are already steeped in darkness. I won't say
+that the planet has a particular partiality for us at the Ecole Normale,
+but it's certain that its beams still linger on our roofs, when they are
+to be seen nowhere else."
+
+He began to laugh at his jest. Still one could see how ardent was his
+faith in mental effort, how entirely he gave himself to mental labour,
+which, in his opinion, could alone bring truth, establish justice and
+create happiness.
+
+Then came a short spell of silence. Paris sank more and more deeply into
+the night, growing black and mysterious, till all at once sparks of light
+began to appear.
+
+"The lamps are being lighted," resumed Francois; "work is being resumed on
+all sides."
+
+Then Guillaume, who likewise had been dreaming, immersed in his fixed
+idea, exclaimed: "Work, yes, no doubt! But for work to give a full
+harvest it must be fertilised by will. There is something which is
+superior to work."
+
+Thomas and Antoine had drawn near. And Francois, as much for them as for
+himself, inquired: "What is that, father?"
+
+"Action."
+
+For a moment the three young men remained silent, impressed by the
+solemnity of the hour, quivering too beneath the great waves of darkness
+which rose from the vague ocean of the city. Then a young voice remarked,
+though whose it was one could not tell: "Action is but work."
+
+And Pierre, who lacked the respectful quietude, the silent faith, of his
+nephews, now felt his nervousness increasing. That huge and terrifying
+mystery of which he was dimly conscious rose before him, while a great
+quiver sped by in the darkness, over that black city where the lamps were
+now being lighted for a whole passionate night of work.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+A GREAT ceremony was to take place that day at the basilica of the Sacred
+Heart. Ten thousand pilgrims were to be present there, at a solemn
+consecration of the Holy Sacrament; and pending the arrival of four
+o'clock, the hour fixed for the service, Montmartre would be invaded by
+people. Its slopes would be black with swarming devotees, the shops where
+religious emblems and pictures were sold would be besieged, the cafes and
+taverns would be crowded to overflowing. It would all be like some huge
+fair, and meantime the big bell of the basilica, "La Savoyarde," would be
+ringing peal on peal over the holiday-making multitude.
+
+When Pierre entered the workroom in the morning he perceived Guillaume
+and Mere-Grand alone there; and a remark which he heard the former make
+caused him to stop short and listen from behind a tall-revolving
+bookstand. Mere-Grand sat sewing in her usual place near the big window,
+while Guillaume stood before her, speaking in a low voice.
+
+"Mother," said he, "everything is ready, it is for to-day."
+
+She let her work fall, and raised her eyes, looking very pale. "Ah!" she
+said, "so you have made up your mind."
+
+"Yes, irrevocably. At four o'clock I shall be yonder, and it will all be
+over."
+
+"'Tis well--you are the master."
+
+Silence fell, terrible silence. Guillaume's voice seemed to come from far
+away, from somewhere beyond the world. It was evident that his resolution
+was unshakable, that his tragic dream, his fixed idea of martyrdom,
+wholly absorbed him. Mere-Grand looked at him with her pale eyes, like an
+heroic woman who had grown old in relieving the sufferings of others, and
+had ever shown all the abnegation and devotion of an intrepid heart,
+which nothing but the idea of duty could influence. She knew Guillaume's
+terrible scheme, and had helped him to regulate the pettiest details of
+it; but if on the one hand, after all the iniquity she had seen and
+endured, she admitted that fierce and exemplary punishment might seem
+necessary, and that even the idea of purifying the world by the fire of a
+volcano might be entertained, on the other hand, she believed too
+strongly in the necessity of living one's life bravely to the very end,
+to be able, under any circumstances, to regard death as either good or
+profitable.
+
+"My son," she gently resumed, "I witnessed the growth of your scheme, and
+it neither surprised nor angered me. I accepted it as one accepts
+lightning, the very fire of the skies, something of sovereign purity and
+power. And I have helped you through it all, and have taken upon myself
+to act as the mouthpiece of your conscience. . . . But let me tell you
+once more, one ought never to desert the cause of life."
+
+"It is useless to speak, mother," Guillaume replied: "I have resolved to
+give my life and cannot take it back. . . . Are you now unwilling to
+carry out my desires, remain here, and act as we have decided, when all
+is over?"
+
+She did not answer this inquiry, but in her turn, speaking slowly and
+gravely, put a question to him: "So it is useless for me to speak to you
+of the children, myself and the house?" said she. "You have thought it
+all over, you are quite determined?" And as he simply answered "Yes," she
+added: "'Tis well, you are the master. . . . I will be the one who is to
+remain behind and act. And you may be without fear, your bequest is in
+good hands. All that we have decided together shall be done."
+
+Once more they became silent. Then she again inquired: "At four o'clock,
+you say, at the moment of that consecration?"
+
+"Yes, at four o'clock."
+
+She was still looking at him with her pale eyes, and there seemed to be
+something superhuman in her simplicity and grandeur as she sat there in
+her thin black gown. Her glance, in which the greatest bravery and the
+deepest sadness mingled, filled Guillaume with acute emotion. His hands
+began to tremble, and he asked: "Will you let me kiss you, mother?"
+
+"Oh! right willingly, my son," she responded. "Your path of duty may not
+be mine, but you see I respect your views and love you."
+
+They kissed one another, and when Pierre, whom the scene had chilled to
+his heart, presented himself as if he were just arriving, Mere-Grand had
+quietly taken up her needlework once more, while Guillaume was going to
+and fro, setting one of his laboratory shelves in order with all his
+wonted activity.
+
+At noon when lunch was ready, they found it necessary to wait for Thomas,
+who had not yet come home. His brothers Francois and Antoine complained
+in a jesting way, saying that they were dying of hunger, while for her
+part Marie, who had made a /creme/, and was very proud of it, declared
+that they would eat it all, and that those who came late would have to go
+without tasting it. When Thomas eventually put in an appearance he was
+greeted with jeers.
+
+"But it wasn't my fault," said he; "I stupidly came up the hill by way of
+the Rue de la Barre, and you can have no notion what a crowd I fell upon.
+Quite ten thousand pilgrims must have camped there last night. I am told
+that as many as possible were huddled together in the St. Joseph Refuge.
+The others no doubt had to sleep in the open air. And now they are busy
+eating, here, there and everywhere, all over the patches of waste ground
+and even on the pavements. One can scarcely set one foot before the other
+without risk of treading on somebody."
+
+The meal proved a very gay one, though Pierre found the gaiety forced and
+excessive. Yet the young people could surely know nothing of the
+frightful, invisible thing which to Pierre ever seemed to be hovering
+around in the bright sunlight of that splendid June day. Was it that the
+dim presentiment which comes to loving hearts when mourning threatens
+them, swept by during the short intervals of silence that followed the
+joyous outbursts? Although Guillaume looked somewhat pale, and spoke with
+unusual caressing softness, he retained his customary bright smile. But,
+on the other hand, never had Mere-Grand been more silent or more grave.
+
+Marie's /creme/ proved a great success, and the others congratulated her
+on it so fulsomely that they made her blush. Then, all at once, heavy
+silence fell once more, a deathly chill seemed to sweep by, making every
+face turn pale--even while they were still cleaning their plates with
+their little spoons.
+
+"Ah! that bell," exclaimed Francois; "it is really intolerable. I can
+feel my head splitting."
+
+He referred to "La Savoyarde," the big bell of the basilica, which had
+now begun to toll, sending forth deep sonorous volumes of sound, which
+ever and ever winged their flight over the immensity of Paris. In the
+workroom they were all listening to the clang.
+
+"Will it keep on like that till four o'clock?" asked Marie.
+
+"Oh! at four o'clock," replied Thomas, "at the moment of the consecration
+you will hear something much louder than that. The great peals of joy,
+the song of triumph will then ring out."
+
+Guillaume was still smiling. "Yes, yes," said he, "those who don't want
+to be deafened for life had better keep their windows closed. The worst
+is, that Paris has to hear it whether it will or no, and even as far away
+as the Pantheon, so I'm told."
+
+Meantime Mere-Grand remained silent and impassive. Antoine for his part
+expressed his disgust with the horrible religious pictures for which the
+pilgrims fought--pictures which in some respects suggested those on the
+lids of sweetmeat boxes, although they depicted the Christ with His
+breast ripped open and displaying His bleeding heart. There could be no
+more repulsive materialism, no grosser or baser art, said Antoine. Then
+they rose from table, talking at the top of their voices so as to make
+themselves heard above the incessant din which came from the big bell.
+
+Immediately afterwards they all set to work again. Mere-Grand took her
+everlasting needlework in hand once more, while Marie, sitting near her,
+continued some embroidery. The young men also attended to their
+respective tasks, and now and again raised their heads and exchanged a
+few words. Guillaume, for his part, likewise seemed very busy; Pierre
+alone coming and going in a state of anguish, beholding them all as in a
+nightmare, and attributing some terrible meaning to the most innocent
+remarks. During /dejeuner/, in order to explain the frightful discomfort
+into which he was thrown by the gaiety of the meal, he had been obliged
+to say that he felt poorly. And now he was looking and listening and
+waiting with ever-growing anxiety.
+
+Shortly before three o'clock, Guillaume glanced at his watch and then
+quietly took up his hat. "Well," said he, "I'm going out."
+
+His sons, Mere-Grand and Marie raised their heads.
+
+"I'm going out," he repeated, "/au revoir/."
+
+Still he did not go off. Pierre could divine that he was struggling,
+stiffening himself against the frightful tempest which was raging within
+him, striving to prevent either shudder or pallor from betraying his
+awful secret. Ah! he must have suffered keenly; he dared not give his
+sons a last kiss, for fear lest he might rouse some suspicion in their
+minds, which would impel them to oppose him and prevent his death! At
+last with supreme heroism he managed to overcome himself.
+
+"/Au revoir/, boys."
+
+"/Au revoir/, father. Will you be home early?"
+
+"Yes, yes. . . . Don't worry about me, do plenty of work."
+
+Mere-Grand, still majestically silent, kept her eyes fixed upon him. Her
+he had ventured to kiss, and their glances met and mingled, instinct with
+all that he had decided and that she had promised: their common dream of
+truth and justice.
+
+"I say, Guillaume," exclaimed Marie gaily, "will you undertake a
+commission for me if you are going down by way of the Rue des Martyrs?"
+
+"Why, certainly," he replied.
+
+"Well, then, please look in at my dressmaker's, and tell her that I
+shan't go to try my gown on till to-morrow morning."
+
+It was a question of her wedding dress, a gown of light grey silk, the
+stylishness of which she considered very amusing. Whenever she spoke of
+it, both she and the others began to laugh.
+
+"It's understood, my dear," said Guillaume, likewise making merry over
+it. "We know it's Cinderella's court robe, eh? The fairy brocade and lace
+that are to make you very beautiful and for ever happy."
+
+However, the laughter ceased, and in the sudden silence which fell, it
+again seemed as if death were passing by with a great flapping of wings
+and an icy gust which chilled the hearts of everyone remaining there.
+
+"It's understood; so now I'm really off," resumed Guillaume. "/Au
+revoir/, children."
+
+Then he sallied forth, without even turning round, and for a moment they
+could hear the firm tread of his feet over the garden gravel.
+
+Pierre having invented a pretext was able to follow him a couple of
+minutes afterwards. As a matter of fact there was no need for him to dog
+Guillaume's heels, for he knew where his brother was going. He was
+thoroughly convinced that he would find him at that doorway, conducting
+to the foundations of the basilica, whence he had seen him emerge two
+days before. And so he wasted no time in looking for him among the crowd
+of pilgrims going to the church. His only thought was to hurry on and
+reach Jahan's workshop. And in accordance with his expectation, just as
+he arrived there, he perceived Guillaume slipping between the broken
+palings. The crush and the confusion prevailing among the concourse of
+believers favored Pierre as it had his brother, in such wise that he was
+able to follow the latter and enter the doorway without being noticed.
+Once there he had to pause and draw breath for a moment, so greatly did
+the beating of his heart oppress him.
+
+A precipitous flight of steps, where all was steeped in darkness,
+descended from the narrow entry. It was with infinite precaution that
+Pierre ventured into the gloom, which ever grew denser and denser. He
+lowered his feet gently so as to make no noise, and feeling the walls
+with his hands, turned round and round as he went lower and lower into a
+kind of well. However, the descent was not a very long one. As soon as he
+found beaten ground beneath his feet he paused, no longer daring to stir
+for fear of betraying his presence. The darkness was like ink, and there
+was not a sound, a breath; the silence was complete.
+
+How should he find his way? he wondered. Which direction ought he to
+take? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly saw
+a bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle.
+Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply had
+to follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterranean
+gallery. It seemed to be interminable and to run in a northerly
+direction, towards the nave of the basilica.
+
+All at once the little light at last stopped, while Pierre, anxious to
+see what would happen, continued to advance, treading as softly as he
+could and remaining in the gloom. He found that Guillaume had stood his
+candle upon the ground in the middle of a kind of low rotunda under the
+crypt, and that he had knelt down and moved aside a long flagstone which
+seemed to cover a cavity. They were here among the foundations of the
+basilica; and one of the columns or piles of concrete poured into shafts
+in order to support the building could be seen. The gap, which the stone
+slab removed by Guillaume had covered, was by the very side of the
+pillar; it was either some natural surface flaw, or a deep fissure caused
+by some subsidence or settling of the soil. The heads of other pillars
+could be descried around, and these the cleft seemed to be reaching, for
+little slits branched out in all directions. Then, on seeing his brother
+leaning forward, like one who is for the last time examining a mine he
+has laid before applying a match to the fuse, Pierre suddenly understood
+the whole terrifying business. Considerable quantities of the new
+explosive had been brought to that spot. Guillaume had made the journey a
+score of times at carefully selected hours, and all his powder had been
+poured into the gap beside the pillar, spreading to the slightest rifts
+below, saturating the soil at a great depth, and in this wise forming a
+natural mine of incalculable force. And now the powder was flush with the
+flagstone which Guillaume has just moved aside. It was only necessary to
+throw a match there, and everything would be blown into the air!
+
+For a moment an acute chill of horror rooted Pierre to the spot. He could
+neither have taken a step nor raised a cry. He pictured the swarming
+throng above him, the ten thousand pilgrims crowding the lofty naves of
+the basilica to witness the solemn consecration of the Host. Peal upon
+peal flew from "La Savoyarde," incense smoked, and ten thousand voices
+raised a hymn of magnificence and praise. And all at once came thunder
+and earthquake, and a volcano opening and belching forth fire and smoke,
+and swallowing up the whole church and its multitude of worshippers.
+Breaking the concrete piles and rending the unsound soil, the explosion,
+which was certain to be one of extraordinary violence, would doubtless
+split the edifice atwain, and hurl one-half down the slopes descending
+towards Paris, whilst the other on the side of the apse would crumble and
+collapse upon the spot where it stood. And how fearful would be the
+avalanche; a broken forest of scaffoldings, a hail of stonework, rushing
+and bounding through the dust and smoke on to the roofs below; whilst the
+violence of the shock would threaten the whole of Montmartre, which, it
+seemed likely, must stagger and sink in one huge mass of ruins!
+
+However, Guillaume had again risen. The candle standing on the ground,
+its flame shooting up, erect and slender, threw his huge shadow all over
+the subterranean vault. Amidst the dense blackness the light looked like
+some dismal stationary star. Guillaume drew near to it in order to see
+what time it was by his watch. It proved to be five minutes past three.
+So he had nearly another hour to wait. He was in no hurry, he wished to
+carry out his design punctually, at the precise moment he had selected;
+and he therefore sat down on a block of stone, and remained there without
+moving, quiet and patient. The candle now cast its light upon his pale
+face, upon his towering brow crowned with white hair, upon the whole of
+his energetic countenance, which still looked handsome and young, thanks
+to his bright eyes and dark moustaches. And not a muscle of his face
+stirred; he simply gazed into the void. What thoughts could be passing
+through his mind at that supreme moment? Who could tell? There was not a
+quiver; heavy night, the deep eternal silence of the earth reigned all
+around.
+
+Then Pierre, having quieted his palpitating heart, drew near. At the
+sound of his footsteps Guillaume rose menacingly, but he immediately
+recognised his brother, and did not seem astonished to see him.
+
+"Ah! it's you," he said, "you followed me. . . . I felt that you
+possessed my secret. And it grieves me that you should have abused your
+knowledge to join me here. You might have spared me this last sorrow."
+
+Pierre clasped his trembling hands, and at once tried to entreat him.
+"Brother, brother," he began.
+
+"No, don't speak yet," said Guillaume, "if you absolutely wish it I will
+listen to you by-and-by. We have nearly an hour before us, so we can
+chat. But I want you to understand the futility of all you may think
+needful to tell me. My resolution is unshakable; I was a long time coming
+to it, and in carrying it out I shall simply be acting in accordance with
+my reason and my conscience."
+
+Then he quietly related that having decided upon a great deed he had long
+hesitated as to which edifice he should destroy. The opera-house had
+momentarily tempted him, but he had reflected that there would be no
+great significance in the whirlwind of anger and justice destroying a
+little set of enjoyers. In fact, such a deed might savour of jealousy and
+covetousness. Next he had thought of the Bourse, where he might strike a
+blow at money, the great agent of corruption, and the capitalist society
+in whose clutches the wage-earners groaned. Only, here again the blow
+would fall upon a restricted circle. Then an idea of destroying the
+Palace of Justice, particularly the assize court, had occurred to him. It
+was a very tempting thought--to wreak justice upon human justice, to
+sweep away the witnesses, the culprit, the public prosecutor who charges
+the latter, the counsel who defends him, the judges who sentence him, and
+the lounging public which comes to the spot as to the unfolding of some
+sensational serial. And then too what fierce irony there would be in the
+summary superior justice of the volcano swallowing up everything
+indiscriminately without pausing to enter into details. However, the plan
+over which he had most lingered was that of blowing up the Arc de
+Triomphe. This he regarded as an odious monument which perpetuated
+warfare, hatred among nations, and the false, dearly purchased,
+sanguineous glory of conquerors. That colossus raised to the memory of so
+much frightful slaughter which had uselessly put an end to so many human
+lives, ought, he considered, to be slaughtered in its turn. Could he so
+have arranged things that the earth should swallow it up, he might have
+achieved the glory of causing no other death than his own, of dying
+alone, struck down, crushed to pieces beneath that giant of stone. What a
+tomb, and what a memory might he thus have left to the world!
+
+"But there was no means of approaching it," he continued, "no basement,
+no cellar, so I had to give up the idea. . . . And then, although I'm
+perfectly willing to die alone, I thought what a loftier and more
+terrible lesson there would be in the unjust death of an innocent
+multitude, of thousands of unknown people, of all those that might happen
+to be passing. In the same way as human society by dint of injustice,
+want and harsh regulations causes so many innocent victims, so must
+punishment fall as the lightning falls, indiscriminately killing and
+destroying whatever it may encounter in its course. When a man sets his
+foot on an ant-hill, he gives no heed to all the lives which he stamps
+out."
+
+Pierre, whom this theory rendered quite indignant, raised a cry of
+protest: "Oh! brother, brother, is it you who are saying such things?"
+
+Yet, Guillaume did not pause: "If I have ended by choosing this basilica
+of the Sacred Heart," he continued, "it is because I found it near at
+hand and easy to destroy. But it is also because it haunts and
+exasperates me, because I have long since condemned it. . . . As I have
+often said to you, one cannot imagine anything more preposterous than
+Paris, our great Paris, crowned and dominated by this temple raised to
+the glorification of the absurd. Is it not outrageous that common sense
+should receive such a smack after so many centuries of science, that Rome
+should claim the right of triumphing in this insolent fashion, on our
+loftiest height in the full sunlight? The priests want Paris to repent
+and do penitence for its liberative work of truth and justice. But its
+only right course is to sweep away all that hampers and insults it in its
+march towards deliverance. And so may the temple fall with its deity of
+falsehood and servitude! And may its ruins crush its worshippers, so that
+like one of the old geological revolutions of the world, the catastrophe
+may resound through the very entrails of mankind, and renew and change
+it!"
+
+"Brother, brother!" again cried Pierre, quite beside himself, "is it you
+who are talking? What! you, a great scientist, a man of great heart, you
+have come to this! What madness is stirring you that you should think and
+say such abominable things? On the evening when we confessed our secrets
+one to the other, you told me of your proud and lofty dream of ideal
+Anarchy. There would be free harmony in life, which left to its natural
+forces would of itself create happiness. But you still rebelled against
+the idea of theft and murder. You would not accept them as right or
+necessary; you merely explained and excused them. What has happened then
+that you, all brain and thought, should now have become the hateful hand
+that acts?"
+
+"Salvat has been guillotined," said Guillaume simply, "and I read his
+will and testament in his last glance. I am merely an executor. . . . And
+what has happened, you ask? Why, all that has made me suffer for four
+months past, the whole social evil which surrounds us, and which must be
+brought to an end."
+
+Silence fell. The brothers looked at one another in the darkness. And
+Pierre now understood things. He saw that Guillaume was changed, that the
+terrible gust of revolutionary contagion sweeping over Paris had
+transformed him. It had all come from the duality of his nature, the
+presence of contradictory elements within him. On one side one found a
+scientist whose whole creed lay in observation and experiment, who, in
+dealing with nature, evinced the most cautious logic; while on the other
+side was a social dreamer, haunted by ideas of fraternity, equality and
+justice, and eager for universal happiness. Thence had first come the
+theoretical anarchist that he had been, one in whom science and chimeras
+were mingled, who dreamt of human society returning to the harmonious law
+of the spheres, each man free, in a free association, regulated by love
+alone. Neither Theophile Morin with the doctrines of Proudhon and Comte,
+nor Bache with those of St. Simon and Fourier, had been able to satisfy
+his desire for the absolute. All those systems had seemed to him
+imperfect and chaotic, destructive of one another, and tending to the
+same wretchedness of life. Janzen alone had occasionally satisfied him
+with some of his curt phrases which shot over the horizon, like arrows
+conquering the whole earth for the human family. And then in Guillaume's
+big heart, which the idea of want, the unjust sufferings of the lowly and
+the poor exasperated, Salvat's tragic adventure had suddenly found place,
+fomenting supreme rebellion. For long weeks he had lived on with
+trembling hands, with growing anguish clutching at his throat. First had
+come that bomb and the explosion which still made him quiver, then the
+vile cupidity of the newspapers howling for the poor wretch's head, then
+the search for him and the hunt through the Bois de Boulogne, till he
+fell into the hands of the police, covered with mud and dying of
+starvation. And afterwards there had been the assize court, the judges,
+the gendarmes, the witnesses, the whole of France arrayed against one man
+and bent on making him pay for the universal crime. And finally, there
+had come the guillotine, the monstrous, the filthy beast consummating
+irreparable injustice in human justice's name. One sole idea now remained
+to Guillaume, that idea of justice which maddened him, leaving naught in
+his mind save the thought of the just, avenging flare by which he would
+repair the evil and ensure that which was right for all time forward.
+Salvat had looked at him, and contagion had done its work; he glowed with
+a desire for death, a desire to give his own blood and set the blood of
+others flowing, in order that mankind, amidst its fright and horror,
+should decree the return of the golden age.
+
+Pierre understood the stubborn blindness of such insanity; and he felt
+utterly upset by the fear that he should be unable to overcome it. "You
+are mad, brother!" he exclaimed, "they have driven you mad! It is a gust
+of violence passing; they were treated in a wrong way and too
+relentlessly at the outset, and now that they are avenging one another,
+it may be that blood will never cease to flow. . . . But, listen,
+brother, throw off that nightmare. You can't be a Salvat who murders or a
+Bergaz who steals! Remember the pillage of the Princess's house and
+remember the fair-haired, pretty child whom we saw lying yonder, ripped
+open. . . . You do not, you cannot belong to that set, brother--"
+
+With a wave of his hand, Guillaume brushed these vain reasons aside. Of
+what consequence were a few lives, his own included? No change had ever
+taken place in the world without millions and millions of existences
+being stamped out.
+
+"But you had a great scheme in hand," cried Pierre, hoping to save him by
+reviving his sense of duty. "It isn't allowable for you to go off like
+this."
+
+Then he fervently strove to awaken his brother's scientific pride. He
+spoke to him of his secret, of that great engine of warfare, which could
+destroy armies and reduce cities to dust, and which he had intended to
+offer to France, so that on emerging victorious from the approaching war,
+she might afterwards become the deliverer of the world. And it was this
+grand scheme that he had abandoned, preferring to employ his explosive in
+killing innocent people and overthrowing a church, which would be built
+afresh, whatever the cost, and become a sanctuary of martyrs!
+
+Guillaume smiled. "I have not relinquished my scheme," said he, "I have
+simply modified it. Did I not tell you of my doubts, my anxious
+perplexity? Ah! to believe that one holds the destiny of the world in
+one's grasp, and to tremble and hesitate and wonder if the intelligence
+and wisdom, that are needful for things to take the one wise course, will
+be forthcoming! At sight of all the stains upon our great Paris, all the
+errors and transgressions which we lately witnessed, I shuddered. I asked
+myself if Paris were sufficiently calm and pure for one to entrust her
+with omnipotence. How terrible would be the disaster if such an invention
+as mine should fall into the hands of a demented nation, possibly a
+dictator, some man of conquest, who would simply employ it to terrorize
+other nations and reduce them to slavery. . . . Ah! no, I do not wish to
+perpetuate warfare, I wish to kill it."
+
+Then in a clear firm voice he explained his new plan, in which Pierre was
+surprised to find some of the ideas which General de Bozonnet had one day
+laid before him in a very different spirit. Warfare was on the road to
+extinction, threatened by its very excesses. In the old days of
+mercenaries, and afterwards with conscripts, the percentage of soldiers
+designated by chance, war had been a profession and a passion. But
+nowadays, when everybody is called upon to fight, none care to do so. By
+the logical force of things, the system of the whole nation in arms means
+the coming end of armies. How much longer will the nations remain on a
+footing of deadly peace, bowed down by ever increasing "estimates,"
+spending millions and millions on holding one another in respect? Ah! how
+great the deliverance, what a cry of relief would go up on the day when
+some formidable engine, capable of destroying armies and sweeping cities
+away, should render war an impossibility and constrain every people to
+disarm! Warfare would be dead, killed in her own turn, she who has killed
+so many. This was Guillaume's dream, and he grew quite enthusiastic, so
+strong was his conviction that he would presently bring it to pass.
+
+"Everything is settled," said he; "if I am about to die and disappear, it
+is in order that my idea may triumph. . . . You have lately seen me spend
+whole afternoons alone with Mere-Grand. Well, we were completing the
+classification of the documents and making our final arrangements. She
+has my orders, and will execute them even at the risk of her life, for
+none has a braver, loftier soul. . . . As soon as I am dead, buried
+beneath these stones, as soon as she has heard the explosion shake Paris
+and proclaim the advent of the new era, she will forward a set of all the
+documents I have confided to her--the formula of my explosive, the
+drawings of the bomb and gun--to each of the great powers of the world.
+In this wise I shall bestow on all the nations the terrible gift of
+destruction and omnipotence which, at first, I wished to bestow on France
+alone; and I do this in order that the nations, being one and all armed
+with the thunderbolt, may at once disarm, for fear of being annihilated,
+when seeking to annihilate others."
+
+Pierre listened to him, gaping, amazed at this extraordinary idea, in
+which childishness was blended with genius. "Well," said he, "if you give
+your secret to all the nations, why should you blow up this church, and
+die yourself?"
+
+"Why! In order that I may be believed!" cried Guillaume with
+extraordinary force of utterance. Then he added, "The edifice must lie on
+the ground, and I must be under it. If the experiment is not made, if
+universal horror does not attest and proclaim the amazing destructive
+power of my explosive, people will consider me a mere schemer, a
+visionary! . . . A lot of dead, a lot of blood, that is what is needed in
+order that blood may for ever cease to flow!" Then, with a broad sweep of
+his arm, he again declared that his action was necessary. "Besides," he
+said, "Salvat left me the legacy of carrying out this deed of justice. If
+I have given it greater scope and significance, utilising it as a means
+of hastening the end of war, this is because I happen to be a man of
+intellect. It would have been better possibly if my mind had been a
+simple one, and if I had merely acted like some volcano which changes the
+soil, leaving life the task of renewing humanity."
+
+Much of the candle had now burnt away, and Guillaume at last rose from
+the block of stone. He had again consulted his watch, and found that he
+had ten minutes left him. The little current of air created by his
+gestures made the light flicker, while all around him the darkness seemed
+to grow denser. And near at hand ever lay the threatening open mine which
+a spark might at any moment fire.
+
+"It is nearly time," said Guillaume. "Come, brother, kiss me and go away.
+You know how much I love you, what ardent affection for you has been
+awakened in my old heart. So love me in like fashion, and find love
+enough to let me die as I want to die, in carrying out my duty. Kiss me,
+kiss me, and go away without turning your head."
+
+His deep affection for Pierre made his voice tremble, but he struggled
+on, forced back his tears, and ended by conquering himself. It was as if
+he were no longer of the world, no longer one of mankind.
+
+"No, brother, you have not convinced me," said Pierre, who on his side
+did not seek to hide his tears, "and it is precisely because I love you
+as you love me, with my whole being, my whole soul, that I cannot go
+away. It is impossible! You cannot be the madman, the murderer you would
+try to be."
+
+"Why not? Am I not free. I have rid my life of all responsibilities, all
+ties. . . . I have brought up my sons, they have no further need of me.
+But one heart-link remained--Marie, and I have given her to you."
+
+At this a disturbing argument occurred to Pierre, and he passionately
+availed himself of it. "So you want to die because you have given me
+Marie," said he. "You still love her, confess it!"
+
+"No!" cried Guillaume, "I no longer love her, I swear it. I gave her to
+you. I love her no more."
+
+"So you fancied; but you can see now that you still love her, for here
+you are, quite upset; whereas none of the terrifying things of which we
+spoke just now could even move you. . . . Yes, if you wish to die it is
+because you have lost Marie!"
+
+Guillaume quivered, shaken by what his brother said, and in low, broken
+words he tried to question himself. "No, no, that any love pain should
+have urged me to this terrible deed would be unworthy--unworthy of my
+great design. No, no, I decided on it in the free exercise of my reason,
+and I am accomplishing it from no personal motive, but in the name of
+justice and for the benefit of humanity, in order that war and want may
+cease."
+
+Then, in sudden anguish, he went on: "Ah! it is cruel of you, brother,
+cruel of you to poison my delight at dying. I have created all the
+happiness I could, I was going off well pleased at leaving you all happy,
+and now you poison my death. No, no! question it how I may, my heart does
+not ache; if I love Marie, it is simply in the same way as I love you."
+
+Nevertheless, he remained perturbed, as if fearing lest he might be lying
+to himself; and by degrees gloomy anger came over him: "Listen, that is
+enough, Pierre," he exclaimed, "time is flying. . . . For the last time,
+go away! I order you to do so; I will have it!"
+
+"I will not obey you, Guillaume. . . . I will stay, and as all my
+reasoning cannot save you from your insanity, fire your mine, and I will
+die with you."
+
+"You? Die? But you have no right to do so, you are not free!"
+
+"Free, or not, I swear that I will die with you. And if it merely be a
+question of flinging this candle into that hole, tell me so, and I will
+take it and fling it there myself."
+
+He made a gesture at which his brother thought that he was about to carry
+out his threat. So he caught him by the arm, crying: "Why should you die?
+It would be absurd. That others should die may be necessary, but you, no!
+Of what use could be this additional monstrosity? You are endeavouring to
+soften me, you are torturing my heart!" Then all at once, imagining that
+Pierre's offer had concealed another design, Guillaume thundered in a
+fury: "You don't want to take the candle in order to throw it there. What
+you want to do is to blow it out! And you think I shan't be able
+then--ah! you bad brother!"
+
+In his turn Pierre exclaimed: "Oh! certainly, I'll use every means to
+prevent you from accomplishing such a frightful and foolish deed!"
+
+"You'll prevent me!"
+
+"Yes, I'll cling to you, I'll fasten my arms to your shoulders, I'll hold
+your hands if necessary."
+
+"Ah! you'll prevent me, you bad brother! You think you'll prevent me!"
+
+Choking and trembling with rage, Guillaume had already caught hold of
+Pierre, pressing his ribs with his powerful muscular arms. They were
+closely linked together, their eyes fixed upon one another, and their
+breath mingling in that kind of subterranean dungeon, where their big
+dancing shadows looked like ghosts. They seemed to be vanishing into the
+night, the candle now showed merely like a little yellow tear in the
+midst of the darkness; and at that moment, in those far depths, a quiver
+sped through the silence of the earth which weighed so heavily upon them.
+Distant but sonorous peals rang out, as if death itself were somewhere
+ringing its invisible bell.
+
+"You hear," stammered Guillaume, "it's their bell up there. The time has
+come. I have vowed to act, and you want to prevent me!"
+
+"Yes, I'll prevent you as long as I'm here alive."
+
+"As long as you are alive, you'll prevent me!"
+
+Guillaume could hear "La Savoyarde" pealing joyfully up yonder; he could
+see the triumphant basilica, overflowing with its ten thousand pilgrims,
+and blazing with the splendour of the Host amidst the smoke of incense;
+and blind frenzy came over him at finding himself unable to act, at
+finding an obstacle suddenly barring the road to his fixed idea.
+
+"As long as you are alive, as long as you are alive!" he repeated, beside
+himself. "Well, then, die, you wretched brother!"
+
+A fratricidal gleam had darted from his blurred eyes. He hastily stooped,
+picked up a large brick forgotten there, and raised it with both hands as
+if it were a club.
+
+"Ah! I'm willing," cried Pierre. "Kill me, then; kill your own brother
+before you kill the others!"
+
+The brick was already descending, but Guillaume's arms must have
+deviated, for the weapon only grazed one of Pierre's shoulders.
+Nevertheless, he sank upon his knees in the gloom. When Guillaume saw him
+there he fancied he had dealt him a mortal blow. What was it that had
+happened between them, what had he done? For a moment he remained
+standing, haggard, his mouth open, his eyes dilating with terror. He
+looked at his hands, fancying that blood was streaming from them. Then he
+pressed them to his brow, which seemed to be bursting with pain, as if
+his fixed idea had been torn from him, leaving his skull open. And he
+himself suddenly sank upon the ground with a great sob.
+
+"Oh! brother, little brother, what have I done?" he called. "I am a
+monster!"
+
+But Pierre had passionately caught him in his arms again. "It is nothing,
+nothing, brother, I assure you," he replied. "Ah! you are weeping now.
+How pleased I am! You are saved, I can feel it, since you are weeping.
+And what a good thing it is that you flew into such a passion, for your
+anger with me has dispelled your evil dream of violence."
+
+"I am horrified with myself," gasped Guillaume, "to think that I wanted
+to kill you! Yes, I'm a brute beast that would kill his brother! And the
+others, too, all the others up yonder. . . . Oh! I'm cold, I feel so
+cold."
+
+His teeth were chattering, and he shivered. It was as if he had awakened,
+half stupefied, from some evil dream. And in the new light which his
+fratricidal deed cast upon things, the scheme which had haunted him and
+goaded him to madness appeared like some act of criminal folly, projected
+by another.
+
+"To kill you!" he repeated almost in a whisper. "I shall never forgive
+myself. My life is ended, I shall never find courage enough to live."
+
+But Pierre clasped him yet more tightly. "What do you say?" he answered.
+"Will there not rather be a fresh and stronger tie of affection between
+us? Ah! yes, brother, let me save you as you saved me, and we shall be
+yet more closely united! Don't you remember that evening at Neuilly, when
+you consoled me and held me to your heart as I am holding you to mine? I
+had confessed my torments to you, and you told me that I must live and
+love! . . . And you did far more afterwards: you plucked your own love
+from your breast and gave it to me. You wished to ensure my happiness at
+the price of your own! And how delightful it is that, in my turn, I now
+have an opportunity to console you, save you, and bring you back to
+life!"
+
+"No, no, the bloodstain is there and it is ineffaceable. I can hope no
+more!"
+
+"Yes, yes, you can. Hope in life as you bade me do! Hope in love and hope
+in labour!"
+
+Still weeping and clasping one another, the brothers continued speaking
+in low voices. The expiring candle suddenly went out unknown to them, and
+in the inky night and deep silence their tears of redeeming affection
+flowed freely. On the one hand, there was joy at being able to repay a
+debt of brotherliness, and on the other, acute emotion at having been led
+by a fanatical love of justice and mankind to the very verge of crime.
+And there were yet other things in the depths of those tears which
+cleansed and purified them; there were protests against suffering in
+every form, and ardent wishes that the world might some day be relieved
+of all its dreadful woe.
+
+At last, after pushing the flagstone over the cavity near the pillar,
+Pierre groped his way out of the vault, leading Guillaume like a child.
+
+Meantime Mere-Grand, still seated near the window of the workroom, had
+impassively continued sewing. Now and again, pending the arrival of four
+o'clock, she had looked up at the timepiece hanging on the wall on her
+left hand, or else had glanced out of the window towards the unfinished
+pile of the basilica, which a gigantic framework of scaffoldings
+encompassed. Slowly and steadily plying her needle, the old lady remained
+very pale and silent, but full of heroic serenity. On the other hand,
+Marie, who sat near her, embroidering, shifted her position a score of
+times, broke her thread, and grew impatient, feeling strangely nervous, a
+prey to unaccountable anxiety, which oppressed her heart. For their part,
+the three young men could not keep in place at all; it was as if some
+contagious fever disturbed them. Each had gone to his work: Thomas was
+filing something at his bench; Francois and Antoine were on either side
+of their table, the first trying to solve a mathematical problem, and the
+other copying a bunch of poppies in a vase before him. It was in vain,
+however, that they strove to be attentive. They quivered at the slightest
+sound, raised their heads, and darted questioning glances at one another.
+What could be the matter? What could possess them? What did they fear?
+Now and again one or the other would rise, stretch himself, and then,
+resume his place. However, they did not speak; it was as if they dared
+not say anything, and thus the heavy silence grew more and more terrible.
+
+When it was a few minutes to four o'clock Mere-Grand felt weary, or else
+desired to collect her thoughts. After another glance at the timepiece,
+she let her needlework fall on her lap and turned towards the basilica.
+It seemed to her that she had only enough strength left to wait; and she
+remained with her eyes fixed on the huge walls and the forest of
+scaffolding which rose over yonder with such triumphant pride under the
+blue sky. Then all at once, however brave and firm she might be, she
+could not restrain a start, for "La Savoyarde" had raised a joyful clang.
+The consecration of the Host was now at hand, the ten thousand pilgrims
+filled the church, four o'clock was about to strike. And thereupon an
+irresistible impulse forced the old lady to her feet; she drew herself
+up, quivering, her hands clasped, her eyes ever turned yonder, waiting in
+mute dread.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Thomas, who noticed her. "Why are you
+trembling, Mere-Grand?"
+
+Francois and Antoine raised their heads, and in turn sprang forward.
+
+"Are you ill? Why are you turning so pale, you who are so courageous?"
+
+But she did not answer. Ah! might the force of the explosion rend the
+earth asunder, reach the house and sweep it into the flaming crater of
+the volcano! Might she and the three young men, might they all die with
+the father, this was her one ardent wish in order that grief might be
+spared them. And she remained waiting and waiting, quivering despite
+herself, but with her brave, clear eyes ever gazing yonder.
+
+"Mere-Grand, Mere-Grand!" cried Marie in dismay; "you frighten us by
+refusing to answer us, by looking over there as if some misfortune were
+coming up at a gallop!"
+
+Then, prompted by the same anguish, the same cry suddenly came from
+Thomas, Francois and Antoine: "Father is in peril--father is going to
+die!"
+
+What did they know? Nothing precise, certainly. Thomas no doubt had been
+astonished to see what a large quantity of the explosive his father had
+recently prepared, and both Francois and Antoine were aware of the ideas
+of revolt which he harboured in his mind. But, full of filial deference,
+they never sought to know anything beyond what he might choose to confide
+to them. They never questioned him; they bowed to whatever he might do.
+And yet now a foreboding came to them, a conviction that their father was
+going to die, that some most frightful catastrophe was impending. It must
+have been that which had already sent such a quiver through the
+atmosphere ever since the morning, making them shiver with fever, feel
+ill at ease, and unable to work.
+
+"Father is going to die, father is going to die!"
+
+The three big fellows had drawn close together, distracted by one and the
+same anguish, and furiously longing to know what the danger was, in order
+that they might rush upon it and die with their father if they could not
+save him. And amidst Mere-Grand's stubborn silence death once more
+flitted through the room: there came a cold gust such as they had already
+felt brushing past them during /dejeuner/.
+
+At last four o'clock began to strike, and Mere-Grand raised her white
+hands with a gesture of supreme entreaty. It was then that she at last
+spoke: "Father is going to die. Nothing but the duty of living can save
+him."
+
+At this the three young men again wished to rush yonder, whither they
+knew not; but they felt that they must throw down all obstacles and
+conquer. Their powerlessness rent their hearts, they were both so frantic
+and so woeful that their grandmother strove to calm them. "Father's own
+wish was to die," said she, "and he is resolved to die alone."
+
+They shuddered as they heard her, and then, on their side, strove to be
+heroic. But the minutes crept by, and it seemed as if the cold gust had
+slowly passed away. Sometimes, at the twilight hour, a night-bird will
+come in by the window like some messenger of misfortune, flit round the
+darkened room, and then fly off again, carrying its sadness with it. And
+it was much like that; the gust passed, the basilica remained standing,
+the earth did not open to swallow it. Little by little the atrocious
+anguish which wrung their hearts gave place to hope. And when at last
+Guillaume appeared, followed by Pierre, a great cry of resurrection came
+from one and all: "Father!"
+
+Their kisses, their tears, deprived him of his little remaining strength.
+He was obliged to sit down. He had glanced round him as if he were
+returning to life perforce. Mere-Grand, who understood what bitter
+feelings must have followed the subjugation of his will, approached him
+smiling, and took hold of both his hands as if to tell him that she was
+well pleased at seeing him again, and at finding that he accepted his
+task and was unwilling to desert the cause of life. For his part he
+suffered dreadfully, the shock had been so great. The others spared him
+any narrative of their feelings; and he, himself, related nothing. With a
+gesture, a loving word, he simply indicated that it was Pierre who had
+saved him.
+
+Thereupon, in a corner of the room, Marie flung her arms round the young
+man's neck. "Ah! my good Pierre, I have never yet kissed you," said she;
+"I want it to be for something serious the first time. . . . I love you,
+my good Pierre, I love you with all my heart."
+
+Later that same evening, after night had fallen, Guillaume and Pierre
+remained for a moment alone in the big workroom. The young men had gone
+out, and Mere-Grand and Marie were upstairs sorting some house linen,
+while Madame Mathis, who had brought some work back, sat patiently in a
+dim corner waiting for another bundle of things which might require
+mending. The brothers, steeped in the soft melancholy of the twilight
+hour, and chatting in low tones, had quite forgotten her.
+
+But all at once the arrival of a visitor upset them. It was Janzen with
+the fair, Christ-like face. He called very seldom nowadays; and one never
+knew from what gloomy spot he had come or into what darkness he would
+return when he took his departure. He disappeared, indeed, for months
+together, and was then suddenly to be seen like some momentary passer-by
+whose past and present life were alike unknown.
+
+"I am leaving to-night," he said in a voice sharp like a knife.
+
+"Are you going back to your home in Russia?" asked Guillaume.
+
+A faint, disdainful smile appeared on the Anarchist's lips. "Home!" said
+he, "I am at home everywhere. To begin with, I am not a Russian, and then
+I recognise no other country than the world."
+
+With a sweeping gesture he gave them to understand what manner of man he
+was, one who had no fatherland of his own, but carried his gory dream of
+fraternity hither and thither regardless of frontiers. From some words he
+spoke the brothers fancied he was returning to Spain, where some
+fellow-Anarchists awaited him. There was a deal of work to be done there,
+it appeared. He had quietly seated himself, chatting on in his cold way,
+when all at once he serenely added: "By the by, a bomb had just been
+thrown into the Cafe de l'Univers on the Boulevard. Three /bourgeois/
+were killed."
+
+Pierre and Guillaume shuddered, and asked for particulars. Thereupon
+Janzen related that he had happened to be there, had heard the explosion,
+and seen the windows of the cafe shivered to atoms. Three customers were
+lying on the floor blown to pieces. Two of them were gentlemen, who had
+entered the place by chance and whose names were not known, while the
+third was a regular customer, a petty cit of the neighbourhood, who came
+every day to play a game at dominoes. And the whole place was wrecked;
+the marble tables were broken, the chandeliers twisted out of shape, the
+mirrors studded with projectiles. And how great the terror and the
+indignation, and how frantic the rush of the crowd! The perpetrator of
+the deed had been arrested immediately--in fact, just as he was turning
+the corner of the Rue Caumartin.
+
+"I thought I would come and tell you of it," concluded Janzen; "it is
+well you should know it."
+
+Then as Pierre, shuddering and already suspecting the truth, asked him if
+he knew who the man was that had been arrested, he slowly replied: "The
+worry is that you happen to know him--it was little Victor Mathis."
+
+Pierre tried to silence Janzen too late. He had suddenly remembered that
+Victor's mother had been sitting in a dark corner behind them a short
+time previously. Was she still there? Then he again pictured Victor,
+slight and almost beardless, with a straight, stubborn brow, grey eyes
+glittering with intelligence, a pointed nose and thin lips expressive of
+stern will and unforgiving hatred. He was no simple and lowly one from
+the ranks of the disinherited. He was an educated scion of the
+/bourgeoisie/, and but for circumstances would have entered the Ecole
+Normale. There was no excuse for his abominable deed, there was no
+political passion, no humanitarian insanity, in it. He was the destroyer
+pure and simple, the theoretician of destruction, the cold energetic man
+of intellect who gave his cultivated mind to arguing the cause of murder,
+in his desire to make murder an instrument of the social evolution. True,
+he was also a poet, a visionary, but the most frightful of all
+visionaries: a monster whose nature could only be explained by mad pride,
+and who craved for the most awful immortality, dreaming that the coming
+dawn would rise from the arms of the guillotine. Only one thing could
+surpass him: the scythe of death which blindly mows the world.
+
+For a few seconds, amidst the growing darkness, cold horror reigned in
+the workroom. "Ah!" muttered Guillaume, "he had the daring to do it, he
+had."
+
+Pierre, however, lovingly pressed his arm. And he felt that he was as
+distracted, as upset, as himself. Perhaps this last abomination had been
+needed to ravage and cure him.
+
+Janzen no doubt had been an accomplice in the deed. He was relating that
+Victor's purpose had been to avenge Salvat, when all at once a great sigh
+of pain was heard in the darkness, followed by a heavy thud upon the
+floor. It was Madame Mathis falling like a bundle, overwhelmed by the
+news which chance had brought her. At that moment it so happened that
+Mere-Grand came down with a lamp, which lighted up the room, and
+thereupon they hurried to the help of the wretched woman, who lay there
+as pale as a corpse in her flimsy black gown.
+
+And this again brought Pierre an indescribable heart-pang. Ah! the poor,
+sad, suffering creature! He remembered her at Abbe Rose's, so discreet,
+so shamefaced, in her poverty, scarce able to live upon the slender
+resources which persistent misfortunes had left her. Hers had indeed been
+a cruel lot: first, a home with wealthy parents in the provinces, a love
+story and elopement with the man of her choice; next, ill-luck steadily
+pursuing her, all sorts of home troubles, and at last her husband's
+death. Then, in the retirement of her widowhood, after losing the best
+part of the little income which had enabled her to bring up her son,
+naught but this son had been left to her. He had been her Victor, her
+sole affection, the only one in whom she had faith. She had ever striven
+to believe that he was very busy, absorbed in work, and on the eve of
+attaining to some superb position worthy of his merits. And now, all at
+once, she had learnt that this fondly loved son was simply the most
+odious of assassins, that he had flung a bomb into a cafe, and had there
+killed three men.
+
+When Madame Mathis had recovered her senses, thanks to the careful
+tending of Mere-Grand, she sobbed on without cessation, raising such a
+continuous doleful wail, that Pierre's hand again sought Guillaume's, and
+grasped it, whilst their hearts, distracted but healed, mingled lovingly
+one with the other.
+
+
+
+V
+
+LIFE'S WORK AND PROMISE
+
+FIFTEEN months later, one fine golden day in September, Bache and
+Theophile Morin were taking /dejeuner/ at Guillaume's, in the big
+workroom overlooking the immensity of Paris.
+
+Near the table was a cradle with its little curtains drawn. Behind them
+slept Jean, a fine boy four months old, the son of Pierre and Marie. The
+latter, simply in order to protect the child's social rights, had been
+married civilly at the town-hall of Montmartre. Then, by way of pleasing
+Guillaume, who wished to keep them with him, and thus enlarge the family
+circle, they had continued living in the little lodging over the
+work-shop, leaving the sleepy house at Neuilly in the charge of Sophie,
+Pierre's old servant. And life had been flowing on happily for the
+fourteen months or so that they had now belonged to one another.
+
+There was simply peace, affection and work around the young couple.
+Francois, who had left the Ecole Normale provided with every degree,
+every diploma, was now about to start for a college in the west of
+France, so as to serve his term of probation as a professor, intending to
+resign his post afterwards and devote himself, if he pleased, to science
+pure and simple. Then Antoine had lately achieved great success with a
+series of engravings he had executed--some views and scenes of Paris
+life; and it was settled that he was to marry Lise Jahan in the ensuing
+spring, when she would have completed her seventeenth year. Of the three
+sons, however, Thomas was the most triumphant, for he had at last devised
+and constructed his little motor, thanks to a happy idea of his father's.
+One morning, after the downfall of all his huge chimerical schemes,
+Guillaume, remembering the terrible explosive which he had discovered and
+hitherto failed to utilise, had suddenly thought of employing it as a
+motive force, in the place of petroleum, in the motor which his eldest
+son had so long been trying to construct for the Grandidier works. So he
+had set to work with Thomas, devising a new mechanism, encountering
+endless difficulties, and labouring for a whole year before reaching
+success. But now the father and son had accomplished their task; the
+marvel was created, and stood there riveted to an oak stand, and ready to
+work as soon as its final toilet should have been performed.
+
+Amidst all the changes which had occurred, Mere-Grand, in spite of her
+great age, continued exercising her active, silent sway over the
+household, which was now again so gay and peaceful. Though she seldom
+seemed to leave her chair in front of her work-table, she was really
+here, there and everywhere. Since the birth of Jean, she had talked of
+rearing the child in the same way as she had formerly reared Thomas,
+Francois and Antoine. She was indeed full of the bravery of devotion, and
+seemed to think that she was not at all likely to die so long as she
+might have others to guide, love and save. Marie marvelled at it all. She
+herself, though she was always gay and in good health, felt tired at
+times now that she was suckling her infant. Little Jean indeed had two
+vigilant mothers near his cradle; whilst his father, Pierre, who had
+become Thomas's assistant, pulled the bellows, roughened out pieces of
+metal, and generally completed his apprenticeship as a working
+mechanician.
+
+On the particular day when Bache and Theophile Morin came to Montmartre,
+the /dejeuner/ proved even gayer than usual, thanks perhaps to their
+presence. The meal was over, the table had been cleared, and the coffee
+was being served, when a little boy, the son of a doorkeeper in the Rue
+Cortot, came to ask for Monsieur Pierre Froment. When they inquired his
+business, he answered in a hesitating way that Monsieur l'Abbe Rose was
+very ill, indeed dying, and that he had sent him to fetch Monsieur Pierre
+Froment at once.
+
+Pierre followed the lad, feeling much affected; and on reaching the Rue
+Cortot he there found Abbe Rose in a little damp ground-floor room
+overlooking a strip of garden. The old priest was in bed, dying as the
+boy had said, but he still retained the use of his faculties, and could
+speak in his wonted slow and gentle voice. A Sister of Charity was
+watching beside him, and she seemed so surprised and anxious at the
+arrival of a visitor whom she did not know, that Pierre understood she
+was there to guard the dying man and prevent him from having intercourse
+with others. The old priest must have employed some stratagem in order to
+send the doorkeeper's boy to fetch him. However, when Abbe Rose in his
+grave and kindly way begged the Sister to leave them alone for a moment,
+she dared not refuse this supreme request, but immediately left the room.
+
+"Ah! my dear child," said the old man, "how much I wanted to speak to
+you! Sit down there, close to the bed, so that you may be able to hear
+me, for this is the end; I shall no longer be here to-night. And I have
+such a great service to ask of you."
+
+Quite upset at finding his friend so wasted, with his face white like a
+sheet, and scarce a sign of life save the sparkle of his innocent, loving
+eyes, Pierre responded: "But I would have come sooner if I had known you
+were in need of me! Why did you not send for me before? Are people being
+kept away from you?"
+
+A faint smile of shame and confession appeared on the old priest's
+embarrassed face. "Well, my dear child," said he, "you must know that I
+have again done some foolish things. Yes, I gave money to some people
+who, it seems, were not deserving of it. In fact, there was quite a
+scandal; they scolded me at the Archbishop's palace, and accused me of
+compromising the interests of religion. And when they heard that I was
+ill, they put that good Sister beside me, because they said that I should
+die on the floor, and give the very sheets off my bed if I were not
+prevented."
+
+He paused to draw breath, and then continued: "So you understand, that
+good Sister--oh! she is a very saintly woman--is here to nurse me and
+prevent me from still doing foolish things. To overcome her vigilance I
+had to use a little deceit, for which God, I trust, will forgive me. As
+it happens, it's precisely my poor who are in question; it was to speak
+to you about them that I so particularly wished to see you."
+
+Tears had come to Pierre's eyes. "Tell me what you want me to do," he
+answered; "I am yours, both heart and soul."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know it, my dear child. It was for that reason that I
+thought of you--you alone. In spite of all that has happened, you are the
+only one in whom I have any confidence, who can understand me, and give
+me a promise which will enable me to die in peace."
+
+This was the only allusion he would venture to make to the cruel rupture
+which had occurred after the young man had thrown off his cassock and
+rebelled against the Church. He had since heard of Pierre's marriage, and
+was aware that he had for ever severed all religious ties. But at that
+supreme moment nothing of this seemed of any account to the old priest.
+His knowledge of Pierre's loving heart sufficed him, for all that he now
+desired was simply the help of that heart which he had seen glowing with
+such passionate charity.
+
+"Well," he resumed, again finding sufficient strength to smile, "it is a
+very simple matter. I want to make you my heir. Oh! it isn't a fine
+legacy I am leaving you; it is the legacy of my poor, for I have nothing
+else to bestow on you; I shall leave nothing behind me but my poor."
+
+Of these unhappy creatures, three in particular quite upset his heart. He
+recoiled from the prospect of leaving them without chance of succour,
+without even the crumbs which he had hitherto distributed among them, and
+which had enabled them to live. One was the big Old'un, the aged
+carpenter whom he and Pierre had vainly sought one night with the object
+of sending him to the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour. He had been sent
+there a little later, but he had fled three days afterwards, unwilling as
+he was to submit to the regulations. Wild and violent, he had the most
+detestable disposition. Nevertheless, he could not be left to starve. He
+came to Abbe Rose's every Saturday, it seemed, and received a franc,
+which sufficed him for the whole week. Then, too, there was a bedridden
+old woman in a hovel in the Rue du Mont-Cenis. The baker, who every
+morning took her the bread she needed, must be paid. And in particular
+there was a poor young woman residing on the Place du Tertre, one who was
+unmarried but a mother. She was dying of consumption, unable to work, and
+tortured by the idea that when she should have gone, her daughter must
+sink to the pavement like herself. And in this instance the legacy was
+twofold: there was the mother to relieve until her death, which was near
+at hand, and then the daughter to provide for until she could be placed
+in some good household.
+
+"You must forgive me, my dear child, for leaving you all these worries,"
+added Abbe Rose. "I tried to get the good Sister, who is nursing me, to
+take an interest in these poor people, but when I spoke to her of the big
+Old'un, she was so alarmed that she made the sign of the cross. And it's
+the same with my worthy friend Abbe Tavernier. I know nobody of more
+upright mind. Still I shouldn't be at ease with him, he has ideas of his
+own. . . . And so, my dear child, there is only you whom I can rely upon,
+and you must accept my legacy if you wish me to depart in peace."
+
+Pierre was weeping. "Ah! certainly, with my whole soul," he answered. "I
+shall regard your desires as sacred."
+
+"Good! I knew you would accept. . . . So it is agreed: a franc for the
+big Old'un every Saturday, the bread for the bedridden woman, some help
+for the poor young mother, and then a home for her little girl. Ah! if
+you only knew what a weight it is off my heart! The end may come now, it
+will be welcome to me."
+
+His kind white face had brightened as if with supreme joy. Holding
+Pierre's hand within his own he detained him beside the bed, exchanging a
+farewell full of serene affection. And his voice weakening, he expressed
+his whole mind in faint, impressive accents: "Yes, I shall be pleased to
+go off. I could do no more, I could do no more! Though I gave and gave, I
+felt that it was ever necessary to give more and more. And how sad to
+find charity powerless, to give without hope of ever being able to stamp
+out want and suffering! I rebelled against that idea of yours, as you
+will remember. I told you that we should always love one another in our
+poor, and that was true, since you are here, so good and affectionate to
+me and those whom I am leaving behind. But, all the same, I can do no
+more, I can do no more; and I would rather go off, since the woes of
+others rise higher and higher around me, and I have ended by doing the
+most foolish things, scandalising the faithful and making my superiors
+indignant with me, without even saving one single poor person from the
+ever-growing torrent of want. Farewell, my dear child. My poor old heart
+goes off aching, my old hands are weary and conquered."
+
+Pierre embraced him with his whole soul, and then departed. His eyes were
+full of tears and indescribable emotion wrung his heart. Never had he
+heard a more woeful cry than that confession of the impotence of charity,
+on the part of that old candid child, whose heart was all simplicity and
+sublime benevolence. Ah! what a disaster, that human kindness should be
+futile, that the world should always display so much distress and
+suffering in spite of all the compassionate tears that had been shed, in
+spite of all the alms that had fallen from millions and millions of hands
+for centuries and centuries! No wonder that it should bring desire for
+death, no wonder that a Christian should feel pleased at escaping from
+the abominations of this earth!
+
+When Pierre again reached the workroom he found that the table had long
+since been cleared, and that Bache and Morin were chatting with
+Guillaume, whilst the latter's sons had returned to their customary
+occupations. Marie, also, had resumed her usual place at the work-table
+in front of Mere-Grand; but from time to time she rose and went to look
+at Jean, so as to make sure that he was sleeping peacefully, with his
+little clenched fists pressed to his heart. And when Pierre, who kept his
+emotion to himself, had likewise leant over the cradle beside the young
+woman, whose hair he discreetly kissed, he went to put on an apron in
+order that he might assist Thomas, who was now, for the last time,
+regulating his motor.
+
+Then, as Pierre stood there awaiting an opportunity to help, the room
+vanished from before his eyes; he ceased to see or hear the persons who
+were there. The scent of Marie's hair alone lingered on his lips amidst
+the acute emotion into which he had been thrown by his visit to Abbe
+Rose. A recollection had come to him, that of the bitterly cold morning
+when the old priest had stopped him outside the basilica of the Sacred
+Heart, and had timidly asked him to take some alms to that old man
+Laveuve, who soon afterwards had died of want, like a dog by the wayside.
+How sad a morning it had been; what battle and torture had Pierre not
+felt within him, and what a resurrection had come afterwards! He had that
+day said one of his last masses, and he recalled with a shudder his
+abominable anguish, his despairing doubts at the thought of nothingness.
+Two experiments which he had previously made had failed most miserably.
+First had come one at Lourdes, where the glorification of the absurd had
+simply filled him with pity for any such attempt to revert to the
+primitive faith of young nations, who bend beneath the terror born of
+ignorance; and, secondly, there had been an experiment at Rome, which he
+had found incapable of any renewal, and which he had seen staggering to
+its death amidst its ruins, a mere great shadow, which would soon be of
+no account, fast sinking, as it was, to the dust of dead religions. And,
+in his own mind, Charity itself had become bankrupt; he no longer
+believed that alms could cure the sufferings of mankind, he awaited
+naught but a frightful catastrophe, fire and massacre, which would sweep
+away the guilty, condemned world. His cassock, too, stifled him, a lie
+alone kept it on his shoulders, the idea, unbelieving priest though he
+was, that he could honestly and chastely watch over the belief of others.
+The problem of a new religion, a new hope, such as was needful to ensure
+the peace of the coming democracies tortured him, but between the
+certainties of science and the need of the Divine, which seemed to
+consume humanity, he could find no solution. If Christianity crumbled
+with the principle of Charity, there could remain nothing else but
+Justice, that cry which came from every breast, that battle of Justice
+against Charity in which his heart must contend in that great city of
+Paris. It was there that began his third and decisive experiment, the
+experiment which was to make truth as plain to him as the sun itself, and
+give him back health and strength and delight in life.
+
+At this point of his reverie Pierre was roused by Thomas, who asked him
+to fetch a tool. As he did so he heard Bache remarking: "The ministry
+resigned this morning. Vignon has had enough of it, he wants to reserve
+his remaining strength."
+
+"Well, he has lasted more than a twelvemonth," replied Morin. "That's
+already an achievement."
+
+After the crime of Victor Mathis, who had been tried and executed within
+three weeks, Monferrand had suddenly fallen from power. What was the use
+of having a strong-handed man at the head of the Government if bombs
+still continued to terrify the country? Moreover, he had displeased the
+Chamber by his voracious appetite, which had prevented him from allowing
+others more than an infinitesimal share of all the good things. And this
+time he had been succeeded by Vignon, although the latter's programme of
+reforms had long made people tremble. He, Vignon, was honest certainly,
+but of all these reforms he had only been able to carry out a few
+insignificant ones, for he had found himself hampered by a thousand
+obstacles. And thus he had resigned himself to ruling the country as
+others had done; and people had discovered that after all there were but
+faint shades of difference between him and Monferrand.
+
+"You know that Monferrand is being spoken of again?" said Guillaume.
+
+"Yes, and he has some chance of success. His creatures are bestirring
+themselves tremendously," replied Bache, adding, in a bitter, jesting
+way, that Mege, the Collectivist leader, played the part of a dupe in
+overthrowing ministry after ministry. He simply gratified the ambition of
+each coterie in turn, without any possible chance of attaining to power
+himself.
+
+Thereupon Guillaume pronounced judgment. "Oh! well, let them devour one
+another," said he. "Eager as they all are to reign and dispose of power
+and wealth, they only fight over questions of persons. And nothing they
+do can prevent the evolution from continuing. Ideas expand, and events
+occur, and, over and above everything else, mankind is marching on."
+
+Pierre was greatly struck by these words, and he again recalled the past.
+His dolorous Parisian experiment had begun, and he was once more roaming
+through the city. Paris seemed to him to be a huge vat, in which a world
+fermented, something of the best and something of the worst, a frightful
+mixture such as sorceresses might have used; precious powders mingled
+with filth, from all of which was to come the philter of love and eternal
+youth. And in that vat Pierre first marked the scum of the political
+world: Monferrand who strangled Barroux, who purchased the support of
+hungry ones such as Fonsegue, Duthil and Chaigneux, who made use of those
+who attained to mediocrity, such as Taboureau and Dauvergne; and who
+employed even the sectarian passions of Mege and the intelligent ambition
+of Vignon as his weapons. Next came money the poisoner, with that affair
+of the African Railways, which had rotted the Parliament and turned
+Duvillard, the triumphant /bourgeois/, into a public perverter, the very
+cancer as it were of the financial world. Then as a just consequence of
+all this there was Duvillard's own home infected by himself, that
+frightful drama of Eve contending with her daughter Camille for the
+possession of Gerard, then Camille stealing him from her mother, and
+Hyacinthe, the son, passing his crazy mistress Rosemonde on to that
+notorious harlot Silviane, with whom his father publicly exhibited
+himself. Then there was the old expiring aristocracy, with the pale, sad
+faces of Madame de Quinsac and the Marquis de Morigny; the old military
+spirit whose funeral was conducted by General de Bozonnet; the magistracy
+which slavishly served the powers of the day, Amadieu thrusting himself
+into notoriety by means of sensational cases, Lehmann, the public
+prosecutor, preparing his speeches in the private room of the Minister
+whose policy he defended; and, finally, the mendacious and cupid Press
+which lived upon scandal, the everlasting flood of denunciation and filth
+which poured from Sagnier, and the gay impudence shown by the
+unscrupulous and conscienceless Massot, who attacked all and defended
+all, by profession and to order! And in the same way as insects, on
+discovering one of their own kind dying, will often finish it off and
+fatten upon it, so the whole swarm of appetites, interests and passions
+had fallen upon a wretched madman, that unhappy Salvat, whose idiotic
+crime had brought them all scrambling together, gluttonously eager to
+derive some benefit from that starveling's emaciated carcass. And all
+boiled in the huge vat of Paris; the desires, the deeds of violence, the
+strivings of one and another man's will, the whole nameless medley of the
+bitterest ferments, whence, in all purity, the wine of the future would
+at last flow.
+
+Then Pierre became conscious of the prodigious work which went on in the
+depths of the vat, beneath all the impurity and waste. As his brother had
+just said, what mattered the stains, the egotism and greed of
+politicians, if humanity were still on the march, ever slowly and
+stubbornly stepping forward! What mattered, too, that corrupt and
+emasculate /bourgeoisie/, nowadays as moribund as the aristocracy, whose
+place it took, if behind it there ever came the inexhaustible reserve of
+men who surged up from the masses of the country-sides and the towns!
+What mattered the debauchery, the perversion arising from excess of
+wealth and power, the luxuriousness and dissoluteness of life, since it
+seemed a proven fact that the capitals that had been queens of the world
+had never reigned without extreme civilisation, a cult of beauty and of
+pleasure! And what mattered even the venality, the transgressions and the
+folly of the press, if at the same time it remained an admirable
+instrument for the diffusion of knowledge, the open conscience, so to
+say, of the nation, a river which, though there might be horrors on its
+surface, none the less flowed on, carrying all nations to the brotherly
+ocean of the future centuries! The human lees ended by sinking to the
+bottom of the vat, and it was not possible to expect that what was right
+would triumph visibly every day; for it was often necessary that years
+should elapse before the realisation of some hope could emerge from the
+fermentation. Eternal matter is ever being cast afresh into the crucible
+and ever coming from it improved. And if in the depths of pestilential
+workshops and factories the slavery of ancient times subsists in the
+wage-earning system, if such men as Toussaint still die of want on their
+pallets like broken-down beasts of burden, it is nevertheless a fact that
+once already, on a memorable day of tempest, Liberty sprang forth from
+the vat to wing her flight throughout the world. And why in her turn
+should not Justice spring from it, proceeding from those troubled
+elements, freeing herself from all dross, flowing forth with dazzling
+limpidity and regenerating the nations?
+
+However, the voices of Bache and Morin, rising in the course of their
+chat with Guillaume, once more drew Pierre from his reverie. They were
+now speaking of Janzen, who after being compromised in a fresh outrage at
+Barcelona had fled from Spain. Bache fancied that he had recognised him
+in the street only the previous day. To think that a man with so clear a
+mind and such keen energy should waste his natural gifts in such a
+hateful cause!
+
+"When I remember," said Morin slowly, "that Barthes lives in exile in a
+shabby little room at Brussels, ever quivering with the hope that the
+reign of liberty is at hand--he who has never had a drop of blood on his
+hands and who has spent two-thirds of his life in prison in order that
+the nations may be freed!"
+
+Bache gently shrugged his shoulders: "Liberty, liberty, of course," said
+he; "only it is worth nothing if it is not organised."
+
+Thereupon their everlasting discussion began afresh, with Saint-Simon and
+Fourier on one side and Proudhon and Auguste Comte on the other. Bache
+gave a long account of the last commemoration which had taken place in
+honour of Fourier's memory, how faithful disciples had brought wreaths
+and made speeches, forming quite a meeting of apostles, who all
+stubbornly clung to their faith, as confident in the future as if they
+were the messengers of some new gospel. Afterwards Morin emptied his
+pockets, which were always full of Positivist tracts and pamphlets,
+manifestos, answers and so forth, in which Comte's doctrines were
+extolled as furnishing the only possible basis for the new, awaited
+religion. Pierre, who listened, thereupon remembered the disputes in his
+little house at Neuilly when he himself, searching for certainty, had
+endeavoured to draw up the century's balance-sheet. He had lost his
+depth, in the end, amidst the contradictions and incoherency of the
+various precursors. Although Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon, he
+denied him in part, and if Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of
+mystical sensuality, the other's conducted to an inacceptable regimenting
+of society. Proudhon, for his part, demolished without rebuilding
+anything. Comte, who created method and declared science to be the one
+and only sovereign, had not even suspected the advent of the social
+crisis which now threatened to sweep all away, and had finished
+personally as a mere worshipper of love, overpowered by woman.
+Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon, entered the lists and fought
+against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon; the combat between them or
+their disciples becoming so bitter and so blind that the truths common to
+them all at first seemed obscured and disfigured beyond recognition. Now,
+however, that evolution had slowly transformed Pierre, those common
+truths seemed to him as irrefutable, as clear as the sunlight itself.
+Amidst the chaos of conflicting assertions which was to be found in the
+gospels of those social messiahs, there were certain similar phrases and
+principles which recurred again and again, the defence of the poor, the
+idea of a new and just division of the riches of the world in accordance
+with individual labour and merit, and particularly the search for a new
+law of labour which would enable this fresh distribution to be made
+equitably. Since all the precursory men of genius agreed so closely upon
+those points, must they not be the very foundations of to-morrow's new
+religion, the necessary faith which this century must bequeath to the
+coming century, in order that the latter may make of it a human religion
+of peace, solidarity and love?
+
+Then, all at once, there came a leap in Pierre's thoughts. He fancied
+himself at the Madeleine once more, listening to the address on the New
+Spirit delivered by Monseigneur Martha, who had predicted that Paris, now
+reconverted to Christianity, would, thanks to the Sacred Heart, become
+the ruler of the world. But no, but no! If Paris reigned, it was because
+it was able to exercise its intelligence freely. To set the cross and the
+mystic and repulsive symbolism of a bleeding heart above it was simply so
+much falsehood. Although they might rear edifices of pride and domination
+as if to crush Paris with their very weight, although they might try to
+stop science in the name of a dead ideal and in the hope of setting their
+clutches upon the coming century, these attempts would be of no avail.
+Science will end by sweeping away all remnants of their ancient
+sovereignty, their basilica will crumble beneath the breeze of Truth
+without any necessity of raising a finger against it. The trial has been
+made, the Gospel as a social code has fallen to pieces, and human wisdom
+can only retain account of its moral maxims. Ancient Catholicism is on
+all sides crumbling into dust, Catholic Rome is a mere field of ruins
+from which the nations turn aside, anxious as they are for a religion
+that shall not be a religion of death. In olden times the overburdened
+slave, glowing with a new hope and seeking to escape from his gaol,
+dreamt of a heaven where in return for his earthly misery he would be
+rewarded with eternal enjoyment. But now that science has destroyed that
+false idea of a heaven, and shown what dupery lies in reliance on the
+morrow of death, the slave, the workman, weary of dying for happiness'
+sake, demands that justice and happiness shall find place upon this
+earth. Therein lies the new hope--Justice, after eighteen hundred years
+of impotent Charity. Ah! in a thousand years from now, when Catholicism
+will be naught but a very ancient superstition of the past, how amazed
+men will be to think that their ancestors were able to endure that
+religion of torture and nihility! How astonished they will feel on
+finding that God was regarded as an executioner, that manhood was
+threatened, maimed and chastised, that nature was accounted an enemy,
+that life was looked upon as something accursed, and that death alone was
+pronounced sweet and liberating! For well-nigh two thousand years the
+onward march of mankind has been hampered by the odious idea of tearing
+all that is human away from man: his desires, his passions, his free
+intelligence, his will and right of action, his whole strength. And how
+glorious will be the awakening when such virginity as is now honoured by
+the Church is held in derision, when fruitfulness is again recognised as
+a virtue, amidst the hosanna of all the freed forces of nature--man's
+desires which will be honoured, his passions which will be utilised, his
+labour which will be exalted, whilst life is loved and ever and ever
+creates love afresh!
+
+A new religion! a new religion! Pierre remembered the cry which had
+escaped him at Lourdes, and which he had repeated at Rome in presence of
+the collapse of old Catholicism. But he no longer displayed the same
+feverish eagerness as then--a puerile, sickly desire that a new Divinity
+should at once reveal himself, an ideal come into being, complete in all
+respects, with dogmas and form of worship. The Divine certainly seemed to
+be as necessary to man as were bread and water; he had ever fallen back
+upon it, hungering for the mysterious, seemingly having no other means of
+consolation than that of annihilating himself in the unknown. But who can
+say that science will not some day quench the thirst for what lies beyond
+us? If the domain of science embraces the acquired truths, it also
+embraces, and will ever do so, the truths that remain to be acquired. And
+in front of it will there not ever remain a margin for the thirst of
+knowledge, for the hypotheses which are but so much ideality? Besides, is
+not the yearning for the divine simply a desire to behold the Divinity?
+And if science should more and more content the yearning to know all and
+be able to do all, will not that yearning be quieted and end by mingling
+with the love of acquired truth? A religion grafted on science is the
+indicated, certain, inevitable finish of man's long march towards
+knowledge. He will come to it at last as to a natural haven, as to peace
+in the midst of certainty, after passing every form of ignorance and
+terror on his road. And is there not already some indication of such a
+religion? Has not the idea of the duality of God and the Universe been
+brushed aside, and is not the principle of unity, /monisme/, becoming
+more and more evident--unity leading to solidarity, and the sole law of
+life proceeding by evolution from the first point of the ether that
+condensed to create the world? But if precursors, scientists and
+philosophers--Darwin, Fourier and all the others--have sown the seed of
+to-morrow's religion by casting the good word to the passing breeze, how
+many centuries will doubtless be required to raise the crop! People
+always forget that before Catholicism grew up and reigned in the
+sunlight, it spent four centuries in germinating and sprouting from the
+soil. Well, then, grant some centuries to this religion of science of
+whose sprouting there are signs upon all sides, and by-and-by the
+admirable ideas of some Fourier will be seen expanding and forming a new
+gospel, with desire serving as the lever to raise the world, work
+accepted by one and all, honoured and regulated as the very mechanism of
+natural and social life, and the passions of man excited, contented and
+utilised for human happiness! The universal cry of Justice, which rises
+louder and louder, in a growing clamour from the once silent multitude,
+the people that have so long been duped and preyed upon, is but a cry for
+this happiness towards which human beings are tending, the happiness that
+embodies the complete satisfaction of man's needs, and the principle of
+life loved for its own sake, in the midst of peace and the expansion of
+every force and every joy. The time will come when this Kingdom of God
+will be set upon the earth; so why not close that other deceptive
+paradise, even if the weak-minded must momentarily suffer from the
+destruction of their illusions; for it is necessary to operate even with
+cruelty on the blind if they are to be extricated from their misery, from
+their long and frightful night of ignorance!
+
+All at once a feeling of deep joy came over Pierre. A child's faint cry,
+the wakening cry of his son Jean had drawn him from his reverie. And he
+had suddenly remembered that he himself was now saved, freed from
+falsehood and fright, restored to good and healthy nature. How he
+quivered as he recalled that he had once fancied himself lost, blotted
+out of life, and that a prodigy of love had extricated him from his
+nothingness, still strong and sound, since that dear child of his was
+there, sturdy and smiling. Life had brought forth life; and truth had
+burst forth, as dazzling as the sun. He had made his third experiment
+with Paris, and this had been conclusive; it had been no wretched
+miscarriage with increase of darkness and grief, like his other
+experiments at Lourdes and Rome. In the first place, the law of labour
+had been revealed to him, and he had imposed upon himself a task, as
+humble a one as it was, that manual calling which he was learning so late
+in life, but which was, nevertheless, a form of labour, and one in which
+he would never fail, one too that would lend him the serenity which comes
+from the accomplishment of duty, for life itself was but labour: it was
+only by effort that the world existed. And then, moreover, he had loved;
+and salvation had come to him from woman and from his child. Ah! what a
+long and circuitous journey he had made to reach this finish at once so
+natural and so simple! How he had suffered, how much error and anger he
+had known before doing what all men ought to do! That eager, glowing love
+which had contended against his reason, which had bled at sight of the
+arrant absurdities of the miraculous grotto of Lourdes, which had bled
+again too in presence of the haughty decline of the Vatican, had at last
+found contentment now that he was husband and father, now that he had
+confidence in work and believed in the just laws of life. And thence had
+come the indisputable truth, the one solution--happiness in certainty.
+
+Whilst Pierre was thus plunged in thought, Bache and Morin had already
+gone off with their customary handshakes and promises to come and chat
+again some evening. And as Jean was now crying more loudly, Marie took
+him in her arms and unhooked her dress-body to give him her breast.
+
+"Oh! the darling, it's his time, you know, and he doesn't forget it!" she
+said. "Just look, Pierre, I believe he has got bigger since yesterday."
+
+She laughed; and Pierre, likewise laughing, drew near to kiss the child.
+And afterwards he kissed his wife, mastered as he was by emotion at the
+sight of that pink, gluttonous little creature imbibing life from that
+lovely breast so full of milk.
+
+"Why! he'll eat you," he gaily said to Marie. "How he's pulling!"
+
+"Oh! he does bite me a little," she replied; "but I like that the better,
+it shows that he profits by it."
+
+Then Mere-Grand, she who as a rule was so serious and silent, began to
+talk with a smile lighting up her face: "I weighed him this morning,"
+said she, "he weighs nearly a quarter of a pound more than he did the
+last time. And if you had only seen how good he was, the darling! He will
+be a very intelligent and well-behaved little gentleman, such as I like.
+When he's five years old, I shall teach him his alphabet, and when he's
+fifteen, if he likes, I'll tell him how to be a man. . . . Don't you
+agree with me, Thomas? And you, Antoine, and you, too, Francois?"
+
+Raising their heads, the three sons gaily nodded their approval, grateful
+as they felt for the lessons in heroism which she had given them, and
+apparently finding no reason why she might not live another twenty years
+in order to give similar lessons to Jean.
+
+Pierre still remained in front of Marie, basking in all the rapture of
+love, when he felt Guillaume lay his hands upon his shoulders from
+behind. And on turning round he saw that his brother was also radiant,
+like one who felt well pleased at seeing them so happy. "Ah! brother,"
+said Guillaume softly, "do you remember my telling you that you suffered
+solely from the battle between your mind and your heart, and that you
+would find quietude again when you loved what you could understand? It
+was necessary that our father and mother, whose painful quarrel had
+continued beyond the grave, should be reconciled in you. And now it's
+done, they sleep in peace within you, since you yourself are pacified."
+
+These words filled Pierre with emotion. Joy beamed upon his face, which
+was now so open and energetic. He still had the towering brow, that
+impregnable fortress of reason, which he had derived from his father, and
+he still had the gentle chin and affectionate eyes and mouth which his
+mother had given him, but all was now blended together, instinct with
+happy harmony and serene strength. Those two experiments of his which had
+miscarried, were like crises of his maternal heredity, the tearful
+tenderness which had come to him from his mother, and which for lack of
+satisfaction had made him desperate; and his third experiment had only
+ended in happiness because he had contented his ardent thirst for love in
+accordance with sovereign reason, that paternal heredity which pleaded so
+loudly within him. Reason remained the queen. And if his sufferings had
+thus always come from the warfare which his reason had waged against his
+heart, it was because he was man personified, ever struggling between his
+intelligence and his passions. And how peaceful all seemed, now that he
+had reconciled and satisfied them both, now that he felt healthy, perfect
+and strong, like some lofty oak, which grows in all freedom, and whose
+branches spread far away over the forest.
+
+"You have done good work in that respect," Guillaume affectionately
+continued, "for yourself and for all of us, and even for our dear parents
+whose shades, pacified and reconciled, now abide so peacefully in the
+little home of our childhood. I often think of our dear house at Neuilly,
+which old Sophie is taking care of for us; and although, out of egotism,
+a desire to set happiness around me, I wished to keep you here, your Jean
+must some day go and live there, so as to bring it fresh youth."
+
+Pierre had taken hold of his brother's hands, and looking into his eyes
+he asked: "And you--are you happy?"
+
+"Yes, very happy, happier than I have ever been; happy at loving you as I
+do, and happy at being loved by you as no one else will ever love me."
+
+Their hearts mingled in ardent brotherly affection, the most perfect and
+heroic affection that can blend men together. And they embraced one
+another whilst, with her babe on her breast, Marie, so gay, healthful and
+loyal, looked at them and smiled, with big tears gathering in her eyes.
+
+Thomas, however, having finished his motor's last toilet, had just set it
+in motion. It was a prodigy of lightness and strength, of no weight
+whatever in comparison with the power it displayed. And it worked with
+perfect smoothness, without noise or smell. The whole family was gathered
+round it in delight, when there came a timely visit, one from the learned
+and friendly Bertheroy, whom indeed Guillaume had asked to call, in order
+that he might see the motor working.
+
+The great chemist at once expressed his admiration; and when he had
+examined the mechanism and understood how the explosive was employed as
+motive power--an idea which he had long recommended,--he tendered
+enthusiastic congratulations to Guillaume and Thomas. "You have created a
+little marvel," said he, "one which may have far-reaching effects both
+socially and humanly. Yes, yes, pending the invention of the electrical
+motor which we have not yet arrived at, here is an ideal one, a system of
+mechanical traction for all sorts of vehicles. Even aerial navigation may
+now become a possibility, and the problem of force at home is finally
+solved. And what a grand step! What sudden progress! Distance again
+diminished, all roads thrown open, and men able to fraternise! This is a
+great boon, a splendid gift, my good friends, that you are bestowing on
+the world."
+
+Then he began to jest about the new explosive, whose prodigious power he
+had divined, and which he now found put to such a beneficent purpose.
+"And to think, Guillaume," he said, "that I fancied you acted with so
+much mysteriousness and hid the formula of your powder from me because
+you had an idea of blowing up Paris!"
+
+At this Guillaume became grave and somewhat pale. And he confessed the
+truth. "Well, I did for a moment think of it."
+
+However, Bertheroy went on laughing, as if he regarded this answer as
+mere repartee, though truth to tell he had felt a slight chill sweep
+through his hair. "Well, my friend," he said, "you have done far better
+in offering the world this marvel, which by the way must have been both a
+difficult and dangerous matter. So here is a powder which was intended to
+exterminate people, and which in lieu thereof will now increase their
+comfort and welfare. In the long run things always end well, as I'm quite
+tired of saying."
+
+On beholding such lofty and tolerant good nature, Guillaume felt moved.
+Bertheroy's words were true. What had been intended for purposes of
+destruction served the cause of progress; the subjugated, domesticated
+volcano became labour, peace and civilisation. Guillaume had even
+relinquished all idea of his engine of battle and victory; he had found
+sufficient satisfaction in this last invention of his, which would
+relieve men of some measure of weariness, and help to reduce their labour
+to just so much effort as there must always be. In this he detected some
+little advance towards Justice; at all events it was all that he himself
+could contribute to the cause. And when on turning towards the window he
+caught sight of the basilica of the Sacred Heart, he could not explain
+what insanity had at one moment cone over him, and set him dreaming of
+idiotic and useless destruction. Some miasmal gust must have swept by,
+something born of want that scattered germs of anger and vengeance. But
+how blind it was to think that destruction and murder could ever bear
+good fruit, ever sow the soil with plenty and happiness! Violence cannot
+last, and all it does is to rouse man's feeling of solidarity even among
+those on whose behalf one kills. The people, the great multitude, rebel
+against the isolated individual who seeks to wreak justice. No one man
+can take upon himself the part of the volcano; this is the whole
+terrestrial crust, the whole multitude which internal fire impels to rise
+and throw up either an Alpine chain or a better and freer society. And
+whatever heroism there may be in their madness, however great and
+contagious may be their thirst for martyrdom, murderers are never
+anything but murderers, whose deeds simply sow the seeds of horror. And
+if on the one hand Victor Mathis had avenged Salvat, he had also slain
+him, so universal had been the cry of reprobation roused by the second
+crime, which was yet more monstrous and more useless than the first.
+
+Guillaume, laughing in his turn, replied to Bertheroy in words which
+showed how completely he was cured: "You are right," he said, "all ends
+well since all contributes to truth and justice. Unfortunately, thousands
+of years are sometimes needed for any progress to be accomplished. . . .
+However, for my part, I am simply going to put my new explosive on the
+market, so that those who secure the necessary authorisation may
+manufacture it and grow rich. Henceforth it belongs to one and all. . . .
+And I've renounced all idea of revolutionising the world."
+
+But Bertheroy protested. This great official scientist, this member of
+the Institute laden with offices and honours, pointed to the little
+motor, and replied with all the vigour of his seventy years: "But that is
+revolution, the true, the only revolution. It is with things like that
+and not with stupid bombs that one revolutionises the world! It is not by
+destroying, but by creating, that you have just done the work of a
+revolutionist. And how many times already have I not told you that
+science alone is the world's revolutionary force, the only force which,
+far above all paltry political incidents, the vain agitation of despots,
+priests, sectarians and ambitious people of all kinds, works for the
+benefit of those who will come after us, and prepares the triumph of
+truth, justice and peace. . . . Ah, my dear child, if you wish to
+overturn the world by striving to set a little more happiness in it, you
+have only to remain in your laboratory here, for human happiness can
+spring only from the furnace of the scientist."
+
+He spoke perhaps in a somewhat jesting way, but one could feel that he
+was convinced of it all, that he held everything excepting science in
+utter contempt. He had not even shown any surprise when Pierre had cast
+his cassock aside; and on finding him there with his wife and child he
+had not scrupled to show him as much affection as in the past.
+
+Meantime, however, the motor was travelling hither and thither, making no
+more noise than a bluebottle buzzing in the sunshine. The whole happy
+family was gathered about it, still laughing with delight at such a
+victorious achievement. And all at once little Jean, Monsieur Jean,
+having finished sucking, turned round, displaying his milk-smeared lips,
+and perceived the machine, the pretty plaything which walked about by
+itself. At sight of it, his eyes sparkled, dimples appeared on his plump
+cheeks, and, stretching out his quivering chubby hands, he raised a crow
+of delight.
+
+Marie, who was quietly fastening her dress, smiled at his glee and
+brought him nearer, in order that he might have a better view of the toy.
+"Ah! my darling, it's pretty, isn't it? It moves and it turns, and it's
+strong; it's quite alive, you see."
+
+The others, standing around, were much amused by the amazed, enraptured
+expression of the child, who would have liked to touch the machine,
+perhaps in the hope of understanding it.
+
+"Yes," resumed Bertheroy, "it's alive and it's powerful like the sun,
+like that great sun shining yonder over Paris, and ripening men and
+things. And Paris too is a motor, a boiler in which the future is
+boiling, while we scientists keep the eternal flame burning underneath.
+Guillaume, my good fellow, you are one of the stokers, one of the
+artisans of the future, with that little marvel of yours, which will
+still further extend the influence of our great Paris over the whole
+world."
+
+These words impressed Pierre, and he again thought of a gigantic vat
+stretching yonder from one horizon to the other, a vat in which the
+coming century would emerge from an extraordinary mixture of the
+excellent and the vile. But now, over and above all passions, ambitions,
+stains and waste, he was conscious of the colossal expenditure of labour
+which marked the life of Paris, of the heroic manual efforts in
+work-shops and factories, and the splendid striving of the young men of
+intellect whom he knew to be hard at work, studying in silence,
+relinquishing none of the conquests of their elders, but glowing with
+desire to enlarge their domain. And in all this Paris was exalted,
+together with the future that was being prepared within it, and which
+would wing its flight over the world bright like the dawn of day. If
+Rome, now so near its death, had ruled the ancient world, it was Paris
+that reigned with sovereign sway over the modern era, and had for the
+time become the great centre of the nations as they were carried on from
+civilisation to civilisation, in a sunward course from east to west.
+Paris was the world's brain. Its past so full of grandeur had prepared it
+for the part of initiator, civiliser and liberator. Only yesterday it had
+cast the cry of Liberty among the nations, and to-morrow it would bring
+them the religion of Science, the new faith awaited by the democracies.
+And Paris was also gaiety, kindness and gentleness, passion for knowledge
+and generosity without limit. Among the workmen of its faubourgs and the
+peasants of its country-sides there were endless reserves of men on whom
+the future might freely draw. And the century ended with Paris, and the
+new century would begin and spread with it. All the clamour of its
+prodigious labour, all the light that came from it as from a beacon
+overlooking the earth, all the thunder and tempest and triumphant
+brightness that sprang from its entrails, were pregnant with that final
+splendour, of which human happiness would be compounded.
+
+Marie raised a light cry of admiration as she pointed towards the city.
+"Look! just look!" she exclaimed; "Paris is all golden, covered with a
+harvest of gold!"
+
+They all re-echoed her admiration, for the effect was really one of
+extraordinary magnificence. The declining sun was once more veiling the
+immensity of Paris with golden dust. But this was no longer the city of
+the sower, a chaos of roofs and edifices suggesting brown land turned up
+by some huge plough, whilst the sun-rays streamed over it like golden
+seed, falling upon every side. Nor was it the city whose divisions had
+one day seemed so plain to Pierre: eastward, the districts of toil, misty
+with the grey smoke of factories; southward, the districts of study,
+serene and quiet; westward, the districts of wealth, bright and open; and
+in the centre the districts of trade, with dark and busy streets. It now
+seemed as if one and the same crop had sprung up on every side, imparting
+harmony to everything, and making the entire expanse one sole, boundless
+field, rich with the same fruitfulness. There was corn, corn everywhere,
+an infinity of corn, whose golden wave rolled from one end of the horizon
+to the other. Yes, the declining sun steeped all Paris in equal
+splendour, and it was truly the crop, the harvest, after the sowing!
+
+"Look! just look," repeated Marie, "there is not a nook without its
+sheaf; the humblest roofs are fruitful, and every blade is full-eared
+wherever one may look. It is as if there were now but one and the same
+soil, reconciled and fraternal. Ah! Jean, my little Jean, look! see how
+beautiful it is!"
+
+Pierre, who was quivering, had drawn close beside her. And Mere-Grand and
+Bertheroy smiled upon that promise of a future which they would not see,
+whilst beside Guillaume, whom the sight filled with emotion, were his
+three big sons, the three young giants, looking quite grave, they who
+ever laboured and were ever hopeful. Then Marie, with a fine gesture of
+enthusiasm, stretched out her arms and raised her child aloft, as if
+offering it in gift to the huge city.
+
+"See, Jean! see, little one," she cried, "it's you who'll reap it all,
+who'll store the whole crop in the barn!"
+
+And Paris flared--Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and
+where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris,
+Complete, by Emile Zola
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE CITIES: PARIS, COMPLETE ***
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