Books: The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Complete

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46

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."