Books: The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete

E >> Emile Zola >> The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete

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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.