Books: The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Vol. 2

E >> Emile Zola >> The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Vol. 2

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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.

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