Books: The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete

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

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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.