BOOK I

WORK

[TRAVAIL]

BY

ÉMILE ZOLA

TRANSLATED BY

ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY

LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1901

PREFACE

'Work' is the second book of the new series which M. Zola began with

'Fruitfulness,' and which he hopes to complete with 'Truth' and

'Justice.' I should much have liked to discuss here in some detail

several of the matters which M. Zola brings forward in this instalment

of his literary testament, but unfortunately the latter part of the

present translation has been made by me in the midst of great bodily

suffering, and I have not now the strength to do as I desired. I will

only say, therefore, that 'Work' embraces many features. It is, first,

an exposition of M. Zola's gospel of work, as the duty of every man

born into the world and the sovereign cure for many ills--a gospel

which he has set forth more than once in the course of his numerous

writings, and which will be found synthetised, so to say, in a paper

called 'Life and Labour' translated by me for the 'New Review' some

years ago.[1] Secondly, 'Work' deals with the present-day conditions

of society so far as those conditions are affected by Capital and

Labour. And, thirdly and particularly, it embraces a scheme of social

reorganisation and regeneration in which the ideas of Charles Fourier,

the eminent philosopher, are taken as a basis and broadened and adapted

to the needs of a new century. Some may regard this scheme as being

merely the splendid dream of a poet (the book certainly abounds

in symbolism), but all must admit that it is a scheme of _pacific_

evolution, and therefore one to be preferred to the violent remedies

proposed by most Socialist schools.

In this respect the book has a peculiar significance. Though the

English press pays very little attention to the matter, things are

moving apace in France. The quiet of that country is only surface-deep.

The Socialist schools are each day making more and more progress.

The very peasants are fast becoming Socialists, and, as I wrote

comparatively recently in my preface to the new English version of M.

Zola's 'Germinal,' the most serious troubles may almost at any moment

convulse the Republic. Thus it is well that M. Zola, who has always

been a fervent partisan of peace and human brotherliness, should be

found at such a juncture pointing out pacific courses to those who

believe that a bath of blood must necessarily precede all social

regeneration.

Incidentally, in the course of his statements and arguments, M. Zola

brings forward some very interesting points. I would particularly refer

the reader to what he writes on the subject of education. Again, his

sketch of the unhappy French peasant of nowadays may be scanned with

advantage by those who foolishly believe that peasant to be one of the

most contented beings in the world. The contrary is unhappily the case,

the subdivision of the soil having reached such a point that the land

cannot be properly or profitably cultivated. After lasting a hundred

years, the order of things established in the French provinces by the

Great Revolution has utterly broken down. The economic conditions of

the world have changed, and the only hope for French agriculture rests

in farming on a huge scale. This the peasant, amidst his hard struggle

with pauperism, is now realising, and this it is which is fast making

him a Socialist.

All that M. Zola writes in 'Work' on the subject of iron and steel

factories, and the progressive changes in processes and so forth,

will doubtless be read with interest at the present time, when

so much is being said and written about a certain large American

'trust.' The reliance which he places in Science--the great pacific

revolutionary--to effect the most advantageous changes in present-day

conditions of labour, is assuredly justified by facts. Personally, I

rely far more on science than on any innate spirit of brotherliness

between men, to bring about comparative happiness for the human race.

In conclusion, I may point out that the tendency of M. Zola's book in

one respect is shown by the title chosen for the present translation.

The original is called 'Travail,' which might have been rendered in

English as either 'Labour' or 'Work.' We read every day about the

'labour world,' the 'conditions of labour,' the 'labour party,' and so

forth, and as these matters are largely dealt with by M. Zola, some may

think that 'Labour' would have been the better title for the English

version of his book. But then it is M. Zola's desire that man should

_labour_ no more; he does not wish him to groan beneath excessive

toil--he simply desires that he should _work_, in health and in gaiety,

with the help of science to lighten his task, and a just apportionment

of wealth and happiness to gild his days until he takes his rest.

E. A. V.

MERTON, SURREY:

_April_ 1901.

[1] _New Review_, No. 50, July, 1893.

WORK

BOOK I

I

As Luc Froment walked on at random after emerging from Beauclair, he

went up the Brias road, following the gorge in which the Mionne torrent

flows between the two promontories of the Bleuse Mountains. And when he

found himself before the Abyss, as the Qurignon steel-works are called

in the region, he perceived two dark and puny creatures shrinking

timidly against the parapet at the corner of the wooden bridge. His

heart contracted. One was a woman looking very young, poorly clad, her

head half hidden by some ragged woollen stuff; and the other, nestling

amidst her skirts, was a white-faced child, about six years old, and

scarcely clothed at all. Both had their eyes fixed on the door of the

works, and were waiting, motionless, with the mournful patience of

despairing beings.

Luc paused and also looked. It would soon be six o'clock, and the light

of that wretched, muggy, mid-September evening was already waning.

It was a Saturday, and since Thursday the rain had scarcely ceased

to fall. It was no longer coming down at present, but across the sky

an impetuous wind was still driving a number of clouds, sooty ragged

clouds, athwart which filtered a dirty, yellowish twilight, full of

mortal sadness. Along the road over which stretched lines of rails,

and where big paving-stones were disjointed by continuous traffic,

there flowed a river of black mud, all the gathered moistened dust of

the neighbouring coal-works of Brias, whose tumbrels were for ever

going by. And that coal-dust had cast a blackness as of mourning over

the entire gorge; it fell in patches over the leprous pile of factory

buildings, and seemed even to besmirch those dark clouds which passed

on interminably like smoke. An ominous melancholy swept by with the

wind; one might have thought that the murky quivering twilight was

bringing the end of the world in its train.

Luc had stopped short at a few paces from the young woman and the boy,

and he heard the latter saying with a shrewd decisive air, like one who

was already a little man: 'I say, _ma grande_,[1] would you like me to

speak to him? P'r'aps he wouldn't get so angry with me.'

But the young woman replied: 'No, no, _frérot_, those are not matters

for little boys.'

Then again they continued waiting in silence, with an air of anxious

resignation.

Luc was now looking at the Abyss. From professional curiosity he

had visited it when first passing through Beauclair the previous

spring. And during the few hours that he had again found himself in

the district, suddenly summoned thither by his friend Jordan, he had

heard through what a frightful crisis the region had just passed.

There had been a terrible strike of two months' duration, and ruin was

piled up on either side. The establishment had greatly suffered from

the stoppage of work, and the workmen, their rage increased by their

powerlessness, had almost starved. It was only two days previously, on

the Thursday, that work had been resumed after reciprocal concessions,

wrung from either party with the greatest difficulty after the most

furious wrangling. And the men had gone back like joyless, vanquished

beings enraged by defeat, retaining in their hearts only a recollection

of their sufferings and a keen desire for revenge.

Under the wild flight of the mourning clouds the Abyss spread its

sombre piles of buildings and sheds. It was like a monster which had

sprung up there, extending by degrees the roofs of its little town.

One could guess the ages of the various structures by the colour

of those roofs which arose and spread out in every direction. The

establishment now occupied a surface of many acres and employed a

thousand hands. The lofty, bluish, slated roofs of the great halls with

coupled windows, overtopped the old blackened tiles of the earlier

buildings, which were far more humble. Up above one perceived from the

road the gigantic hives of the cementing-furnaces, ranged in a row,

as well as the tempering tower, seventy-eight feet high, where big

cannon were plunged on end into baths of petroleum. And higher still

ascended smoking chimneys, chimneys of all sizes, a very forest, whose

sooty breath mingled with the flying soot of the clouds, whilst at

regular intervals narrow blast-pipes, with strident respiration, threw

out white plumes of steam. All this seemed like the breathing of the

monster. The dust, the vapour that it incessantly exhaled, enveloped

it as in an everlasting cloud of the perspiration of toil. And there

was also the beating of its organs, the impact, the noise of its every

effort: the vibration of machinery, the clear cadence of helve-hammers,

the great rhythmical blows of steam-hammers resounding like huge bells

and making the soil shake. And at the edge of the road, in the depths

of a little building, where the first Qurignon had first forged iron,

one could hear the violent, desperate dance of two tilt-hammers which

were beating there like the very pulse of the colossus, every one of

whose life-devouring furnaces flamed afresh.

In the ruddy and dismal crepuscular mist which was gradually submerging

the Abyss, not a single electric lamp as yet lighted up the yards. Nor

was there any light gleaming through the dusty windows. Alone, through

the gaping doorway of one of the large halls, there burst a vivid flame

which transpierced the gloom with a long jet of light, like that of

some fusing star. A master puddler had doubtless opened the door of

his furnace. And nothing else, not even a stray spark, proclaimed the

presence of the empire of fire, the fire roaring within that darkened

city of toil, the internal fire which heated the whole of it, the

trained, subjected fire which bent and fashioned iron like soft wax,

and which had given man royalty over the earth ever since the first

Vulcans had conquered it.

At last the clock in the little belfry surmounting the offices struck

six o'clock. And Luc then again heard the poor child saying: 'Listen,

_ma grande_, they will be coming out now.'

'Yes, yes, I know well enough,' the young woman answered. 'Just you

keep quiet.'

As she moved forward to restrain the child, her ragged wrapper fell

back slightly from before her face, and Luc remarked the delicacy of

her features with surprise. She was surely less than twenty. She had

fair hair all in disorder, a poor, thin little face which to him seemed

ugly, blue eyes blurred by tears, and a pale mouth that twitched

bitterly with suffering. And what a light, girlish frame there was

within her old threadbare dress! And with what a weak and trembling

arm did she press to her skirts the child, her little brother, who was

fair like herself and equally ill-combed, but stronger-looking and

more resolute! Luc felt his compassion increasing, whilst the two poor

creatures on their side grew distrustfully anxious about that gentleman

who had stopped so near, and was examining them so persistently. She,

in particular, seemed embarrassed by the scrutiny of that young fellow

of five-and-twenty, so tall and handsome, with square-set shoulders,

broad hands and a face all health and joy, whose firmly-marked features

were o'ertopped by a straight and towering brow, the towering brow of

the Froment family. She had averted her gaze as it met the young man's

brown eyes, which looked her frankly in the face. Then she once more

stole a furtive glance, and seeing that he was smiling at her in a

kindly way, she drew back a little more, in the disquietude born of her

great distress.

The clang of a bell was heard, there was a stir in the Abyss, and then

began the departure of the day-shifts which the night-shifts were about

to replace; for never is there a pause in the monster's devouring life;

it flames and forges both by day and night. Nevertheless there was some

delay in the departure of the day-hands. Although work had only been

resumed on the Thursday, most of them had applied for an advance, for

after that terrible strike of two months' duration great was the hunger

in every home. At last they began to appear, coming along one by one

or in little parties, all gloomy and in a hurry, with their heads bent

whilst in the depths of their pockets they stowed away their few dearly

earned silver coins which would procure a little bread for wife and

children. And in turn they disappeared along the black highway.

'There he is, _ma grande_,' the little boy muttered. 'Can't you see

him? He's with Bourron.'

'Yes, yes; keep quiet.'

Two men, two puddlers, had just left the works. The first, who was

accompanied by Bourron, had a cloth jacket thrown over his shoulders.

He was barely six-and-twenty; his hair and beard were ruddy, and he was

rather short, though his muscles were strong. Under a prominent brow he

showed a hook nose, massive jaws, and projecting cheek-bones, yet he

could laugh in a very agreeable way, which largely accounted for his

success with women. Bourron, five years the elder, and closely buttoned

in an old jacket of greenish velveteen, was a tall, dry, scraggy

fellow, whose equine face, with long cheeks, short chin, and eyes set

almost sideways, expressed the quiet nature of a man who takes life

easily, and is always under the influence of one or another mate.

Bourron had caught sight of the mournful woman and child standing

across the road at the corner of the wooden bridge, and, nudging his

companion with his elbow, he exclaimed: 'I say, Ragu, Josine and Nanet

are yonder. Be careful if you don't want them to pester you.'

Ragu ragefully clenched his fists. 'The ---- girl! I've had enough of

her, I've turned her out! Just let her try to come dangling after me

again and you'll see!'

He seemed to be slightly intoxicated, as always happened indeed on

those days when he exceeded the three quarts of wine which he declared

he needed to prevent the heat of the furnace from drying up his skin.

And in his semi-intoxication he yielded the more especially to a cruel

boastful impulse to show his mate how he treated girls when he no

longer cared for them.

'I shall send her packing,' said he, 'I've had enough of her.'

With Nanet still among her skirts Josine was now gently, timidly,

stepping forward. But she paused on seeing two other workmen approach

Ragu and Bourron. They belonged to a night-shift, and had just arrived

from Beauclair. Fauchard, the eldest, a man of thirty, looking quite

ten years older, was a drawer, and seemed already 'done for' by his

terrible work. His face had the appearance of boiled flesh, his eyes

were scorched, the whole of his big frame burnt and warped by the

ardent glow of the furnaces when he drew out the fusing metal. The

other, his brother-in-law Fortuné, was a lad of sixteen, though he

would hardly have been thought twelve, so puny was his frame. He had a

thin face and discoloured hair, and looked as if he had ceased growing,

as if, indeed, he were eaten into by the mechanical toil which he ever

performed, perched beside the lever of a helve-hammer amidst all the

bewilderment born of blinding steam and deafening noise.

On his arm Fauchard carried an old black osier basket, and he had

stopped to ask the others in a husky voice: 'Did you go?'

He wished to ascertain if they had gone to the cashier's office and

obtained an advance there. And when Ragu, without a word, slapped

his pocket in which some five-franc pieces jingled, the other made a

despairing gesture and exclaimed: 'Thunder! To think that I've got to

tighten my belt until to-morrow morning, and that I shall be dying of

thirst all night unless my wife by some miracle or other contrives to

bring me my ration by-and-by.'

His ration was four quarts of wine for each day or night-shift, and

he was wont to say that this quantity only just sufficed to moisten

his body, to such a degree did the furnaces drain all the blood and

water from his flesh. He cast a mournful glance at his basket, in which

nothing save a hunk of bread was jolting. The failure to secure his

usual four quarts of wine meant the end of everything, black agony

amidst overpowering unbearable toil.

'Bah!' said Bourron complacently, 'your wife won't leave you in the

lurch; she hasn't her equal for getting credit somewhere.'

Then, all at once, the four men standing in the sticky mud became

silent and touched their caps. Luc had seen a kind of bath-chair

approaching, propelled by a servant; and ensconced within it sat an

old gentleman with a broad face and regular features around which

fell an abundance of long white hair. In this old gentleman the young

fellow recognised Jérôme Qurignon, 'Monsieur Jérôme' as he was called

throughout the region, the son of Blaise Qurignon, the drawer, by whom

the Abyss had been founded. Very aged and paralysed, never speaking,

Monsieur Jérôme caused himself to be carted about in this fashion, no

matter what might be the weather.

That evening, as he passed the works on his way back to his daughter's

residence, La Guerdache, a neighbouring estate, he had signed to his

servant to go more slowly, and with his still bright, living eyes he

had then taken a long look at the ever-busy monster, at the day hands

departing homeward, and at the night hands arriving, whilst the vague

twilight fell from the livid sky besmirched by rushing clouds. And

his glance had afterwards rested on the manager's house, a square

building standing in a garden, which his father had erected forty years

previously, and where he himself had long reigned like a conquering

king, gaining million after million.

'Monsieur Jérôme isn't bothered as to how he will get any wine

to-night,' resumed Bourron in a sneering whisper.

Ragu shrugged his shoulders: 'My great-grandfather and Monsieur

Jérôme's father,' said he, 'were comrades. Yes, they were both workmen

and drew iron here together. The fortune might have come to a Ragu

just as well as to a Qurignon. It's all luck, you know, when it isn't

robbery.'

'Be quiet,' Bourron muttered, 'you'll be getting into trouble.'

Ragu's bounce deserted him, and when Monsieur Jérôme, passing the

group, looked at the four men with his large, fixed, limpid eyes, he

again touched his cap with all the timorous respect of a toiler who

is ready enough to cry out against employers behind their backs, but

has long years of slavery in his blood and trembles in the presence of

the sovereign god from whom he awaits the bread of life. The servant

meanwhile slowly pushed the bath-chair onward, and Monsieur Jérôme

disappeared at last down the black road descending towards Beauclair.

'Bah!' said Fauchard philosophically by way of conclusion, 'he's not

so happy after all, in that wheelbarrow of his. And besides, if he can

still understand things, that strike can't have been very pleasant to

him. We each have our troubles. But thunder! I only hope that Natalie

will bring me my wine.'

Then he went off into the works, taking with him little Fortuné, who

had not spoken a word, and looked as bewildered as ever. Already

feeling weary, they disappeared amidst the increasing darkness which

was enveloping the buildings; whilst Ragu and Bourron set out again,

the former bent on leading the latter astray, to some tavern in the

town. But then, dash it all, a man surely had a right to drink a glass

and laugh a bit after undergoing so much misery!

However, Luc, who, from compassionate curiosity had remained leaning

against the parapet of the bridge, saw Josine again advance with

short unsteady steps to bar the way to Ragu. For a moment she had

hoped that he would cross the bridge homeward bound, for that was the

direct road to Old Beauclair, a sordid mass of hovels in which most

of the workpeople of the Abyss lived. But when she understood that he

was going down to the new town, she foresaw what would happen: the

money he had obtained would be spent in some wine-shop, and she and

her little brother would have to spend another whole evening waiting,

dying of starvation, amidst the bitter wind in the streets. And her

sufferings and a fit of sudden anger lent her so much courage that,

puny and woeful though she was, she went and took her stand before the

man.

'Be reasonable, Auguste,' said she; 'you can't leave me out-of-doors.'

He did not answer, but stepped on in order to pass her.

'If you are not going home at once, give me the key, at any rate,' she

continued. 'We've been in the street ever since this morning, without

even a morsel of bread to eat.'

At this he burst forth: 'Just let me be! Haven't you done sticking to

me like a leech?'

'Why did you carry off the key this morning?' she answered. 'I only ask

you to give me the key, you can come in when you like. It is almost

night now, and you surely don't want us to sleep on the pavement.'

'The key! the key! I haven't got it, and even if I had I wouldn't give

it you. Just understand, once for all, that I've had enough of it, that

I don't want to have anything more to do with you, that it's quite

enough that we starved together for two months, and that now you can go

somewhere else, and see if I'm there!'

He shouted those words in her face, violently and savagely; and she,

poor little creature, quivered beneath his insults, whilst gently

persevering in her efforts with all the woeful desperation of a wretch

who feels the very ground giving way beneath her.

'Oh! you are cruel! you are cruel!' she gasped. 'We'll have a talk when

you come home to-night. I'll go away to-morrow if it's necessary. But

to-day, give me the key just for to-day.'

Then the man, infuriated, pushed her, thrust her aside with a brutal

gesture. 'Curse it all!' he cried, 'doesn't the road belong to me as

much as you? Go and croak wherever you like! I tell you that it's all

over.' And as little Nanet, seeing his sister sob, stepped forward

with his air of decision, his pink face and tangle of fair hair, Ragu

added: 'What! the brat as well! Am I to have the whole family on my

shoulders now? Wait a minute, you young rascal; I'll let you feel my

boot somewhere.'

Josine quickly drew Nanet towards her. And they both remained there,

standing in the black mud, shivering with woe, whilst the two workmen

went their way, disappearing amidst the gloom in the direction of

Beauclair, whose lights, one by one, were now beginning to shine.

Bourron, who at bottom was a good-natured fellow, had made a movement

as if to intervene; then, however, in a spirit of imitation, yielding

to the influence of his rakish companion, he had let things take

their course. And Josine, after momentarily hesitating, asking what

use it would be to follow, made up her mind to do so with despairing

stubbornness as soon as the others had disappeared. With slow steps she

descended the road in their wake, dragging her little brother by the

hand, and keeping very close to the walls, taking indeed all sorts of

precautions, as if she feared that on seeing her they might beat her to

prevent her from dogging their steps.

Luc, in his indignation, had almost rushed on Ragu to administer a

correction to him. Ah! the misery of labour!--man turned to a wolf

by overpowering and unjust toil, by the difficulty of earning the

bread for which hunger so wildly contends! During those two months of

the strike, crumbs had been fought for amidst all the voracity and

exasperation of daily quarrels. Then, on the very first pay-day, the

man rushed to Drink for forgetfulness, leaving his companion of woe,

whether she were his wife or a girl he had seduced, in the streets!

And Luc remembered the four years which he had lately spent in a

faubourg of Paris, in one of those huge, poison-reeking buildings where

the misery of the working classes sobs and fights upon every floor!

How many tragedies had he not witnessed, how many sorrows had he not

attempted to assuage! The frightful problem born of all the shame and

torture attending the wage system had often arisen before his mind;

he had fully sounded that system's atrocious iniquity, the horrible

sore which is eating away present-day society, and he had spent hours

of generous enthusiasm in dreaming of a remedy, ever encountering,

however, the iron wall of existing reality. And now, on the very

evening of his return to Beauclair, he came upon that savage scene,

that pale and mournful creature cast starving into the streets through

the fault of the all-devouring monster, whose internal fire he could

ever hear growling, whilst overhead it escaped in murky smoke rolling

away under the tragic sky.

A gust of wind passed, and a few rain-drops flew by in the moaning

wind. Luc had remained on the bridge, looking towards Beauclair

and trying to take his bearings by the last gleams of light that

fell athwart the sooty clouds. On his right was the Abyss, with its

buildings bordering the Brias road; beneath him rolled the Mionne,

whilst higher up, along an embankment on the left, passed the railway

line from Brias to Magnolles. These filled the depths of the gorge,

between the last spurs of the Bleuse Mountains, at the spot where

they parted to disclose the great plain of La Roumagne. And in a kind

of estuary, at the spot where the ravine debouched into the plain,

Beauclair reared its houses: a wretched collection of working-class

dwellings, prolonged over the flat by a little middle-class town, in

which were the sub-prefecture, the town-hall, the law-courts, and the

prison, whilst the ancient church, whose walls threatened to fall,

stood part in new and part in old Beauclair. This town, the chief one

of an arrondissement,[2] numbered barely six thousand souls, five

thousand of them being poor humble souls in suffering bodies, warped,

ground to death by iniquitous hard toil. And Luc took in everything

fully when, above the Abyss, half-way up the promontory of the Bleuse

Mountains, he distinguished the dark silhouette of the blast furnace of

La Crêcherie. Labour! labour! ah! who would redeem and reorganise it

according to the natural law of truth and equity so as to restore to it

its position as the most noble, all-regulating, all-powerful force of

the world, and so as to ensure a just division of the world's riches,

thereby at last bringing the happiness which is rightly due to every

man!

Although the rain had again ceased Luc also ended by going down towards

Beauclair. Workmen were still leaving the Abyss, and he walked among

them as they tramped on, thinking of that rageful resumption of work

after all the disasters of the strike. Such infinite sadness born

of rebellion and powerlessness pervaded the young man that he would

have gone away that evening, indeed that moment, had he not feared

to inconvenience his friend Jordan. The latter--the master of La

Crêcherie--had been placed in a position of great embarrassment by the

sudden death of the old engineer who had managed his smeltery, and he

had written to Luc, asking him to come, inquire into things, and give

him some good advice. Then, the young man, on hastening to Beauclair

in an affectionate spirit, had found another letter awaiting him, a

letter in which Jordan announced a family catastrophe, the sudden,

tragical death of a cousin at Cannes, which obliged him to leave at

once and remain absent with his sister for three days. He begged Luc

to wait for them until Monday evening, and to instal himself meanwhile

in a pavilion which he placed at his disposal, and where he might make

himself fully at home. Thus Luc still had another two days to waste,

and for lack of other occupation, cast as he was in that little town

which he scarcely knew, he had gone that evening for a ramble, telling

the servant who waited on him that he should not even return to dinner.

Passionately interested as he was in popular manners and customs, fond

of observing and learning, he felt that he could get something to eat

in any tavern of the town.

New thoughts came upon him, whilst under the wild tempestuous sky

he walked on through the black mud amidst the heavy tramping of the

harassed, silent workmen. He felt ashamed of his previous sentimental

weakness. Why should he go off, when here again he once more found, so

poignant and so keen, the problem by which he was ever haunted? He must

not flee the fight, he must gather facts together, and, perhaps, amidst

the dim confusion in which he was still seeking a solution, he might

at last discover the safe, sure path that led to it. A son of Pierre

and Marie Froment, he had learnt, like his brothers Mathieu, Marc and

Jean, a manual calling apart from the special study which he had made

of engineering. He was a stone-cutter, a house-builder, and having a

taste for that avocation, fond of working at times in the great Paris

building-yards, he was familiar with the tragedies of the present-day

labour-world, and dreamt, in a fraternal spirit, of helping on the

peaceful triumph of the labour-world of to-morrow. But what could he

do, in which direction should he make an effort, by what reform should

he begin, how was he to bring forth the solution which he felt to be

vaguely palpitating within him? Taller and stronger than his brother

Mathieu, with the open face of a man of action, a towering brow, a

lofty mind ever in travail, he had hitherto embraced but the void with

those big arms of his which were so impatient to create and build. But

again a sudden gust of wind sped by, a hurricane blast, which made

him quiver as with awe. Was it in some Messiah-like capacity that

an unknown force had cast him into that woeful region to fulfil the

long-dreamt-of mission of deliverance and happiness?

When Luc, raising his head, freed himself of those vague reflections,

he perceived that he had come back to Beauclair again. Four large

streets, meeting at a central square, the Place de la Mairie, divide

the town into four more or less equal portions; and each of these

streets bears the name of some neighbouring town towards which it

leads. On the north is the Rue de Brias, on the west the Rue de

Saint-Cron, on the east the Rue de Magnolles, and on the south the

Rue de Formerie. The most popular, the most bustling of all--with its

many shops stocked to overflowing--is the Rue de Brias, in which Luc

at present found himself. For in that direction lie all the factories,

from which a dark stream of toilers pours whenever leaving-off time

comes round. Just as Luc arrived, the great door of the Gourier

boot-works, belonging to the Mayor of Beauclair, opened, and away

rushed its five hundred hands, amongst whom were numbered more than two

hundred women and children. Then, in some of the neighbouring streets,

were Chodorge's works, where only nails were made; Hausser's works,

which turned out more than a hundred thousand scythes and sickles

every year, and Mirande's works, which more particularly supplied

agricultural machinery.

They had all suffered from the strike at the Abyss, where they supplied

themselves with raw material, iron and steel. Distress and hunger had

passed over every one of them, the wan, thin workers who poured from

them on to the muddy paving-stones had rancour in their eyes and mute

revolt upon their lips, although they showed the seeming resignation of

a hurrying, tramping flock. Under the few lamps, whose yellow flames

flickered in the wind, the street was black with toilers homeward

bound. And the block in the circulation was increased by a number of

housewives who, having at last secured a few coppers to spend, were

hastening to one or another shop to treat themselves to a big loaf or a

little meat.

It seemed to Luc as if he were in some town, the siege of which had

been raised that very evening. Hither and thither among the crowd

walked gendarmes, quite a number of armed men, who kept a close watch

on the inhabitants, as if from fear of a resumption of hostilities,

some sudden fury arising from galling sufferings, whence might come

the sack of the town in a supreme impulse of destructive exasperation.

No doubt the masters, the _bourgeois_ authorities, had overcome the

wage-earners, but the overpowered slaves still remained so threatening

in their passive silence that the atmosphere reeked of bitterness,

and one felt a dread of vengeance, of the possibility of some great

massacre, sweeping by. A vague growl came from that beaten, powerless

flock, filing along the street; and the glitter of a weapon, the silver

braid of a uniform shining here and there among the groups, testified

to the unacknowledged fear of the employers, who, despite their

victory, were bursting into perspiration behind the thick, carefully

drawn curtains of their pleasure houses; whilst the black crowd of

starveling toilers still and ever went by with lowered heads, hustling

one another in silence.

Whilst continuing his ramble Luc mingled with the groups, paused,

listened, and studied things. In this wise he halted before a large

butcher's shop open on the street, where several gas-jets were flaring

amidst ruddy meat. Dacheux, the master butcher, a fat apoplectical man,

with big goggle eyes set in a short red face, stood on the threshold

keeping watch over his viands, evincing the while much politeness

towards the servants of well-to-do customers, and becoming extremely

suspicious directly any poor housewife came in. For the last few

minutes he had kept his eyes upon a tall slim blonde, pale, sickly,

and wretched, whose youthful good looks had already faded, and who,

whilst dragging with her a fine child between four and five years old,

carried upon one arm a heavy basket, whence protruded the necks of

four quart-bottles of wine. In this woman Dacheux had recognised La

Fauchard, whose constant appeals for little credits he was tired of

discouraging. And as she made up her mind to go in, he all but barred

the way.

'What do you want again, you?' he asked.

'Monsieur Dacheux,' stammered Natalie, 'if you would only be so

kind--my husband has gone back to the works you know, and will receive

something on account to-morrow. And so Monsieur Caffiaux was good

enough to advance me the four quarts I have here, and would you be so

kind, Monsieur Dacheux, as to advance me a little meat, just a little

bit of meat?'

At this the butcher became furious, his blood rushed to his face, and

he bellowed: 'No, I've told you no before! That strike of yours nearly

ruined me! How can you think me fool enough to be on your side? There

will always be enough lazy workmen to prevent honest folk from doing

business. When people don't work enough to eat meat, they go without

it!'

He busied himself with politics, and like a narrow-minded hot-tempered

man, one who was greatly feared, he was on the side of the rich and

powerful. On his lips the word 'meat' assumed aristocratic importance:

meat was sacred, it was a luxury reserved to the happy ones of the

earth, when it ought to have belonged to all.

'You owe me four francs from last summer,' he resumed; 'I have to pay

people, I have!'

At this Natalie almost collapsed, then she again strove to touch him,

pleading in a low prayerful voice. But an incident which occurred

just then completed her discomfiture. Madame Dacheux, an ugly, dark,

insignificant-looking little woman, who none the less contrived to

make her husband the talk of the town, stepped forward with her little

daughter Julienne, a child of four, plump, healthy, fair, and full of

gaiety. And the two children having caught sight of one another, little

Louis Fauchard, despite all his wretchedness, began to laugh, whilst

the buxom Julienne, feeling amused, and doubtless as yet unconscious of

social inequalities, drew near and took hold of his hands. In such wise

that there was sudden play, fraught with childish delight, as at the

prospect of some future reconciliation of the classes.

'The little nuisance!' cried Dacheux, who had quite lost his temper.

'She's always getting between my legs. Go and sit down at once!'

Then, turning his wrath upon his wife, he roughly sent her back to the

cash desk, saying that the best thing she could do was to keep an eye

on the till, so that she might not be robbed again, as she had been

robbed only two days previously. And, haunted as he was by that theft,

of which he had never ceased to complain with the greatest indignation

during the last forty-eight hours, he went on, addressing himself to

all the people in the shop: 'Yes, indeed, some kind of beggar woman

crept in and took five francs out of the till whilst Madame Dacheux

was looking to see if the flies laughed. She wasn't able to deny it,

she still had the money in her hand. Oh! I had her taken into custody

at once. She's at the gaol. It is frightful, frightful; we shall be

utterly robbed and plundered soon if we don't keep our eyes open.'

Then with suspicious glances he again watched his meat to make sure

that no starving wretches, no workwomen out of work, should carry

any pieces away from the show outside, even as they might carry away

precious gold, divine gold, from the bowls in the windows of the

money-changers' shops.

Luc saw La Fauchard grow alarmed and retire; she feared, no doubt, that

the butcher might summon a gendarme. For a moment she and her little

Louis remained motionless in the middle of the street, amidst all the

jostling, their faces turned the while towards a fine baker's shop,

decorated with mirrors and gaily lighted up, which faced the butcher's

establishment. In one of its windows, which was open, numerous cakes

and large loaves with a crust of a golden hue were freely displayed

under the noses of the passers-by. Before those loaves and cakes

lingered the mother and the child, deep in contemplation. And Luc,

forgetting them, became interested in what was taking place inside the

shop.

A cart had just stopped at the door, and a peasant had alighted from

it with a little boy about eight years old and a girl of six. At

the counter stood the baker's wife, the beautiful Madame Mitaine, a

strongly-built blonde who at five-and-thirty had remained superb. The

whole district had been in love with her, but she had never ceased to

be faithful to her husband, a thin, silent, cadaverous-looking man who

was seldom seen, for he was almost always busy at his kneading trough

or his oven. On the bench near his wife sat their son, Évariste, a

lad of ten, who was already tall, fair, too, like his mother, with an

amiable face and soft eyes.

'What, is it you, Monsieur Lenfant!' said Madame Mitaine. 'How do you

do? And there's your Arsène, and your Olympe. I need not ask you if

they are in good health.'

The peasant was a man in the thirties, with a broad sedate face. He did

not hurry, but ended by answering in his thoughtful way, 'Yes, yes,

their health is good; one doesn't get along so badly at Les Combettes.

The soil's the most poorly. I shan't be able to let you have the bran I

promised you, Madame Mitaine. It all miscarried. And as I had to come

to Beauclair this evening with the cart, I thought I'd let you know.'

He went on giving expression to all his rancour against the ungrateful

earth, which no longer fed the toiler, nor even paid for sowing and

manuring. And the beautiful Madame Mitaine gently nodded her head.

It was quite true. One had to work a great deal nowadays to reap but

little satisfaction. Few were able to satisfy their hunger. She did not

busy herself with politics, but, _mon Dieu_, things were really taking

a very bad turn. During that strike, for instance, her heart had almost

burst at the thought that a great many poor people went to bed without

even a crust to eat when her shop was full of loaves. But trade was

trade, was it not? One could not give one's goods away for nothing,

particularly as in doing so one might seem to be encouraging rebellion.

And Lenfant approved her. 'Yes, yes,' said he, 'everyone his own. It's

only fair that one should get profit from things when one has taken

trouble with them. But all the same there are some who want to make too

much profit.'

Évariste, interested by the sight of Arsène and Olympe, had made up his

mind to quit the counter and do them the honours of the shop. And like

a big boy of ten he smiled complaisantly at the little girl of six,

whose big round head and gay expression probably amused him.

'Give them each a little cake,' said beautiful Madame Mitaine, who

greatly spoilt her son, and was bringing him up to kindly ways.

And then, as Évariste began by giving a cake to Arsène, she protested

jestingly: 'But you must be gallant, my dear. One ought to begin with

the ladies!'

At this Évariste and Olympe, all confusion, began to laugh, and

promptly became friends. Ah! the dear little ones, they constitute the

best part of life. If some day they were minded to be wise they would

not devour one another as do the folk of to-day. And Lenfant went off,

saying that he hoped to be able to bring some bran after all, but, of

course, later on.

Madame Mitaine, who had accompanied him to her door, watched him climb

into his cart and drive down the Rue de Brias. And at this moment

Luc noticed Madame Fauchard dragging her little Louis with her, and

suddenly making up her mind to approach the baker's wife. She spoke

some words which Luc did not catch, a request no doubt for further

credit, for beautiful Madame Mitaine, with a gesture of consent,

immediately went into her shop again, and gave her a large loaf, which

the poor creature hastened to carry away, close-pressed to her scraggy

bosom.

Dacheux, amidst his suspicious exasperation, had watched the scene from

the opposite foot pavement. 'You'll get yourself robbed!' he cried.

'Some boxes of sardines have just been stolen at Caffiaux's. They are

stealing everywhere!'

'Bah!' gaily answered Madame Mitaine, who had returned to the threshold

of her shop. 'They only steal from the rich!'

Luc slowly went down the Rue de Brias amidst the flocklike tramping

which ever and ever increased. It now seemed to him as if a Terror were

sweeping by, as if some gust of violence were about to transport that

gloomy, silent throng. Then, as he reached the Place de la Mairie, he

again saw Lenfant's cart, this time standing at the street corner, in

front of some large ironmongery stores, kept by the Laboques, husband

and wife. The doors of the establishment were wide open, and he heard

some violent bartering going on between the peasant and the ironmonger.

'Good heavens! why, you charge as much for your spades as if they were

made of gold! Why, for this one you ask two francs more than usual.'

'But, Monsieur Lenfant, there has been that cursed strike. It isn't our

fault if the factories haven't worked and if everything has gone up in

price. I pay more for all metal goods, and, of course, I have to make a

profit.'

'Make a profit, yes, but not double prices. Ah! you do drive a trade!

It will soon be impossible to buy a single tool.'

Laboque was a short, thin, wizened man, extremely active, with a

ferret's snout and eyes; and he had a wife of his own size, a quick,

dusky creature, whose keenness in money-earning was prodigious. They

had both begun life at the fairs, dragging with them a hand-cart full

of picks, rakes, and saws, which they hawked around. And having opened

a little shop at Beauclair ten years back, they had managed to enlarge

it each succeeding twelvemonth, and were now at the head of a very

important business as middle-men between the factories of the region

and the consuming classes. They retailed at great profit the iron of

the Abyss, the Chodorges' nails, the Haussers' scythes and sickles, the

Mirandes' agricultural appliances. They battened on a waste of wealth

and strength with the relative honesty of tradespeople who practised

robbery according to established usage, glowing with satisfaction

every evening when they emptied their till and counted up the money

that they had amassed, levied as tribute on the needs of others. They

were like useless cogwheels in that social machine, which was now fast

getting out of order; they made it grate, and they consumed much of its

remaining energy.

Whilst the peasant and the ironmonger were disputing furiously over

a reduction of a franc which the former demanded, Luc again began to

examine the children. There were two in the shop--Auguste, a big,

thoughtful-looking boy of twelve, who was learning a lesson, and

Eulalie, a little girl, who seemed to be scarcely five years old, and

who, grave and gentle, sat quietly on a little chair as if judging

all the folk who entered. She had shown an interest in Arsène Lenfant

from the moment he crossed the threshold. Finding him to her taste,

no doubt, she greeted him like the good-hearted little body she was.

And the meeting became complete when a woman entered, bringing a

fifth child with her. This woman was Babette, the wife of Bourron the

puddler, a plump, round, fresh-looking creature, whose gaiety nothing

would ever dim, and who held by the hand her daughter Marthe, a little

thing but four years old, who seemed as plump and as gay as herself.

The child, it should be said, at once quitted her mother and ran to

Auguste Laboque, whom she doubtless knew.

Babette meantime promptly put an end to the bartering between the

ironmonger and the peasant, who agreed to halve the franc over which

they had been disputing. Then the woman, who had brought back a

saucepan purchased the previous day, exclaimed: 'It leaks, Monsieur

Laboque. I noticed it directly I put it on the fire. I can't possibly

keep a saucepan that leaks, you know.'

Whilst Laboque, fuming, examined the utensil and decided to give

another in exchange, Madame Laboque began to speak of her children.

They were perfect pests, said she, they never stirred, one from her

chair, the other from his books. It was quite necessary to earn money

for them, for they were not a bit like their parents, nobody would

ever find them up and doing to earn a pile. Meantime Auguste Laboque,

listening to nothing, stood smiling at Marthe Bourron, and Eulalie

Laboque offered her little hand to Arsène Lenfant, whilst the other

Lenfant, Olympe, thoughtfully finished eating the cake which little

Mitaine had given her. And it was altogether a very pleasant and moving

scene, instinct with good fresh hope for to-morrow amidst the burning

atmosphere of battle and hatred which heated the streets.

'If you think one can gain money with such affairs as this, you are

mistaken,' resumed Laboque, handing another saucepan to Babette. 'There

are no good workmen left, they all scamp their work nowadays. And what

a lot of waste and loss there is in a place like ours! Whoever chooses

comes in, and what with having to set some of our goods outside, in the

street, it's just like the Fair of Take-what-you-like. We were robbed

again this afternoon.'

Lenfant, who was slowly paying for his spade, expressed his

astonishment at this. 'So all those robberies one hears about really

take place then?' said he.

'Really take place! Of course they do. It isn't we who rob, it's others

who rob us. They remained out on strike for two months, you know, and

as they haven't the money to buy anything they steal whatever they can.

Only a couple of hours ago some clasp-knives and paring-knives were

stolen out of that case yonder. It isn't tranquillising by any means.'

And he made a gesture of sudden disquietude, turning pale and quivering

as he pointed to the threatening street, crowded with the gloomy

throng, as if he feared some hasty onrush, some invasion which might

sweep him, the owner and tradesman, away and despoil him of everything.

'Clasp-knives and paring-knives!' repeated Babette with her sempiternal

laugh. 'They're not good to eat. What could people do with them? It's

just like Caffiaux over the way--he complains that a box of sardines

has been stolen from him. Some urchin just wanted to taste them, no

doubt.'

She was ever content, ever convinced that things would turn out well.

As for that Caffiaux, he was surely a man whom all the housewives ought

to have cursed. She had just seen her man Bourron go into his place

with Ragu, and Bourron would certainly break up a five-franc piece

there. But when all was said it was only natural that a man should

amuse himself a bit after toiling so hard. And having given expression

to this philosophical view she took her little girl Marthe by the hand

again and went off, well pleased with her beautiful new saucepan.

'We ought to have some troops here, you know,' resumed Laboque,

explaining his views to the peasant. 'I'm in favour of giving a good

lesson to all those revolutionaries. We need a strong government with a

heavy fist to ensure respect for respectable things.'

Lenfant jogged his head. With his distrustful common sense he hesitated

to express his opinions. At last he too went off, leading Arsène and

Olympe away and saying: 'Well, I hope that all these affairs between

the _bourgeois_ and the workmen won't end badly!'

For the last minute or two Luc had been examining Caffiaux's

establishment over the road, at the other corner of the Rue de Brias

and the Place de la Mairie. At first the Caffiaux, man and wife, had

simply kept a grocery, which now had a very flourishing appearance

with its display of open sacks, its piles of tinned provisions and all

sorts of comestible goods protected by netting from the nimble fingers

of marauders. Then the idea had come to them of going into the wine

business, and they had rented an adjoining shop and had fitted it up

as a wine-shop and eating-house, where nowadays they literally coined

gold. The hands employed at all the neighbouring works, notably the

Abyss, consumed a terrible amount of alcohol. There was an endless

procession of them going in and coming out of Caffiaux's establishment,

particularly on the Saturdays when they were paid. Many lingered and

ate there, and many came away dead drunk. The place was a den of

poison, where the strongest lost the use of both their heads and their

arms. Thus the idea at once occurred to Luc to enter it to see what

might be going on inside. It was a very simple matter; as he was to

dine out, he might as well dine there. How many times in Paris had not

his passion to learn everything about the 'people,' to dive to the

depths of their misery and suffering, impelled him to enter the very

worst dens and spend hours in them?

He quietly installed himself at one of the little tables near the

huge zinc bar. The room was large, a dozen workmen stood up drinking,

whilst others, seated at table, drank, shouted, and played cards,

amidst the thick smoke from their pipes, a smoke in which the gas-jets

merely looked like red spots. And at the very first glance around him

Luc recognised Ragu and Bourron seated face to face at a neighbouring

table, and shouting violently at one another. They had doubtless begun

by drinking a quart of wine, then they had ordered an omelet, some

sausages and some cheese; and the quart bottles having followed one

after another, they were now very drunk. What particularly interested

Luc, however, was the presence of Caffiaux, who stood near their table

talking. For his part the young man had ordered a slice of roast beef,

and whilst eating it he listened.

Caffiaux was a fat, podgy, smiling man with a paternal face. 'But I

tell you,' said he, 'that if you had held out only three days longer

you would have had the masters bound hand and foot at your mercy! Curse

it all! you're surely not unaware that I'm on the side of you fellows!

Yes, indeed, you won't upset all those blackguardly exploiters a bit

too soon.'

Ragu and Bourron, who were both greatly excited, clapped him on the

arm. Yes, yes, they knew him, they were well aware that he was a good,

a true friend. But all the same a strike was too hard to bear, and it

always had to come somehow to an end.

'The masters will always be the masters,' stammered Ragu. 'So you see

we have got to put up with them, whilst giving them the least we can

for their money. Another quart, Caffiaux--you'll help us to drink it,

eh?'

Caffiaux did not decline. He sat down. He favoured violent views

because he had noticed that his establishment expanded after each

successive strike. Nothing made one so thirsty as quarrelling, the

worker who was exasperated rushed upon Drink, rageful idleness

accustomed toilers to tavern life. Besides, in times of crisis, he,

Caffiaux, knew how to be amiable. Feeling certain that he would be

repaid, he opened little credit accounts for needy housewives, and

did not refuse the men a glass of wine on 'tick,' thus winning the

reputation of being good-hearted, and at the same time helping on the

consumption of all the poison he retailed. Some folks said, however,

that this Caffiaux, with his jesuitical ways, was a traitor, a spy of

the masters of the Abyss, who had helped him financially to set up

in business, in order that he might make the men chatter whilst he

was poisoning them. And it all meant fatal perdition; the wretched,

pleasureless, joyless, wage-earning life necessitated the existence

of taverns, and taverns finished by rotting the wage-earning class.

Briefly, here was a bad man and a bad place, a misery-breeding shop

which ought to have been razed to the ground and swept clear away.

Luc's attention was for a moment drawn from the conversation near him

by the opening of an inner door communicating with the grocery shop,

and the appearance on the threshold of a pretty girl about fifteen

years of age. This was Honorine, the Caffiaux's daughter, a short,

slim brunette, with fine black eyes. She never stayed any time in the

tavern, but confined herself to serving grocery. And on now entering

she merely called her mother, a stout, smiling woman, as unctuous as

her husband, who stood behind the large zinc bar. All those tradesfolk,

so eager for gain, all those hard egotistical shopkeepers seemed to

have very fine children, thought Luc. And would those children for

ever and ever remain as grasping, as hard, and as egotistical as their

forerunners?

But all at once a charming and mournful vision appeared before

the young man. Amidst the pestilential odours, the thickening

tobacco-smoke, the noise of a scuffle which had just broken out before

the bar, he saw Josine standing, so vague and blurred, however, that

at the first moment he did not recognise her. She must have slipped in

furtively, leaving Nanet at the door. Trembling, and still hesitating,

she stood behind Ragu, who did not see her; and for a moment Luc was

able to scrutinise her, so slim in her wretched gown, and with so

gentle and shadowy a face under her ragged _fichu_. But he was struck

by something which he had not observed over yonder near the Abyss: her

right hand was no longer pressed against her skirt, and he could see

that it was strongly bandaged, wrapped round to the wrist with linen,

doubtless a bandage for some injury which she had received.

At last Josine mustered up all her courage. She must have followed

as far as Caffiaux's shop, have glanced through the windows and have

seen Ragu at table. She drew near with her little, faltering step, and

laid her girlish hand upon his shoulder. But he, in the glow of his

intoxication, did not even feel her touch, and she ended by shaking him

until he at last turned round.

'Thunder!' he cried. 'What! is it you again? What to the--do you want

here?'

As he spoke he dealt the table such a thump with his fist that the

glasses and the quart-bottles fairly danced.

'I have to come, since you don't come home,' she answered, looking very

pale and half closing her large frightened eyes in anticipation of some

act of brutality.

But Ragu was not listening to her, he was working himself into a

frantic passion, shouting by way of showing off before all the mates

who were present.

'I do what I choose!' he cried, 'and I won't have a woman spying on

me! I'm my own master, do you hear? And I shall stop here as long as I

please!'

'Then give me the key,' she said despairingly, 'so that at any rate I

may not have to spend the night in the street.'

'The key! the key!' shrieked the man, 'you ask me for the key!' And

with furious savagery he rose up, caught hold of her by her injured

hand and dragged her down the room to throw her into the street.

'Haven't I told you that it's all over, that I don't mean to have

anything more to do with you?' he shouted. 'The key, indeed! just go

and see if it isn't in the street!'

Josine, bewildered and stumbling, raised a piercing cry of pain. 'Oh!

you have hurt me!'

Ragu's violence had torn the bandage from her right hand, and the linen

was at once reddened by a large bloodstain. But none the less the man,

blinded, maddened by drink, threw the door wide open and pushed the

woman into the street. Then returning and falling heavily upon his

chair before his glass, he stammered with a husky laugh: 'A fine time

of it we should have, and no mistake, if we listened to them!'

Beside himself this time, quite enraged, Luc clenched his fists with

the intention of falling upon Ragu. But he foresaw an affray, a useless

battle with all those brutes. And feeling suffocated in that vile

den he hastened to pay his score, whilst Caffiaux, who had taken his

wife's place at the bar, tried to arrange matters by saying in his

paternal way that some women were very clumsy. How could one hope to

get anything out of a man who had been tippling? Luc, however, without

answering, hurried out and inhaled with relief the fresh air of the

street, whilst searching among the crowd on all sides, for in leaving

the tavern so hastily his one idea had been to rejoin Josine and offer

her some help, so that she might not remain perishing of hunger,

breadless and homeless, on that black and stormy night. But in vain

did he run up the Rue de Brias, return to the Place de la Mairie, dart

hither and thither among the groups: Josine and Nanet had disappeared.

Terrified perchance by the thought of some pursuit, they had gone to

earth somewhere; and the rainy, windy darkness wrapped them round once

more.

How frightful was the misery, how hateful were the sufferings to be

found in spoilt, corrupted labour, which had become the vile ferment

whence every degradation sprang! With his heart bleeding, his mind

clouded by the blackest apprehensions, Luc again wandered through the

threatening crowd whose numbers still increased in the Rue de Brias.

He once more found there that vague atmosphere of terror which had

come from the recent struggle between the classes, a struggle which

never finished, whose near return one could scent in the very air. That

resumption of work was but a deceptive peace, there was low growling

amidst all the resignation of the toilers, a silent craving for

revenge; their eyes still retained a gleam of ferocity, and were ready

to flash once more. On both sides of the way were taverns full of men;

drink was consuming their pay, poisonous exhalations were pouring into

the very street, whilst the shops never emptied, but still and ever

levied on the meagre resources of the housewives that iniquitous and

monstrous tribute called 'commercial gain.' Everywhere, upon every side

the toilers, the starvelings, were exploited, preyed upon, caught and

crushed in the works of the ever-grating social machine, whose teeth

proved all the harder now that it was falling to pieces. And in the

mud, under the wildly flickering gaslights, as on the eve of some great

catastrophe, all Beauclair came and went, tramping about like a lost

flock, going blindly towards the pit of destruction.

Among the crowd Luc recognised several persons whom he had seen on the

occasion of his first visit to Beauclair during the previous spring.

The authorities were there, for fear no doubt of something being amiss.

He saw Mayor Gourier and Sub-Prefect Châtelard pass on together. The

first, a nervous man of large property, would have liked to have troops

in the town; but the second, an amiable waif of Parisian life whose

intellect was sharper, had wisely contented himself with the services

of the gendarmes. Gaume, the presiding judge of the local court, also

went by, accompanied by Captain Jollivet, an officer on the retired

list, who was about to marry his daughter. And as they passed Laboque's

shop they paused to exchange greetings with the Mazelles, some former

tradespeople who, thanks to a rapidly acquired income, had finally

been received into the high society of the town. All these folks spoke

in low voices, with scarcely confident expressions on their faces,

as they glanced sideways at the heavily tramping toilers who were

still keeping up Saturday evening. As Luc passed near the Mazelles

he heard them also speaking of the robberies, as if questioning the

Judge and the Captain on the subject. Tittle-tattle was indeed flying

from mouth to mouth. A five-franc piece had been taken from Dacheux's

till; a box of sardines had been abstracted from Caffiaux's shop; but

the gravest commentaries were those to which the theft of Laboque's

paring-knives gave rise. The terror which was in the air gained upon

sensible people. Was it true then that the revolutionaries were

arming themselves, and purposed carrying out some massacre that very

night, that stormy night which hung so heavily over Beauclair? That

disastrous strike had put everything out of gear, hunger was impelling

wretches hither and thither, the poisonous alcohol of the taverns was

breeding destructive and murderous madness. Truly enough, right along

the filthy, muddy roadway, along the sticky foot-pavements one found

all the poisonousness and degradation that come from iniquitous toil,

the toil of the greater number for the enjoyment of the few--labour,

dishonoured, hated, and cursed, the frightful misery that results

therefrom, together with theft and prostitution which are its monstrous

parasitic growths. Pale girls passed by, factory girls whom some

unprincipled men had led astray and who had afterwards sunk to the

gutter; and drunken men went off with them through all the puddles and

the darkness.

Increasing compassion, rebellion compounded of grief and anger, took

possession of Luc. Where could Josine be? In what horrid dark nook had

she sought refuge with little Nanet? But all at once a clamour arose,

a hurricane seemed to sweep over the crowd first, making it whirl and

then carrying it away. One might have thought that an attack was being

made upon the shops, that the provisions exposed for sale on either

side of the street were being pillaged.

Gendarmes rushed forward, there was scampering hither and thither, a

loud clatter of boots and of sabres. What was the matter? What was the

matter? Questions pressed one upon the other, flew about in stammering

accents amidst the growing terror, whilst answers came back wildly from

every side.

At last Luc heard the Mazelles saying, as they retraced their steps,

'It's a child who has stolen a loaf of bread.'

The snarling, excited crowd was now rushing up the street. The affair

must have taken place at Mitaine's shop. Women shrieked, an old man

fell down and had to be picked up. One fat gendarme ran so impetuously

through the groups that he upset two persons.

Luc himself began to run, carried away by the general panic. And as he

passed near Judge Gaume he heard him saying slowly to Captain Jollivet:

'It's a child who has stolen a loaf of bread.'

That answer came back again, punctuated as it were by the rush of the

crowd. But there was a great deal of scrambling and nothing could yet

be seen. The tradespeople standing on the thresholds of their shops

turned pale, and thought of putting up their shutters. A jeweller was

already removing the watches from his window. Meantime, a general

eddying took place around the fat gendarme, who was busy exerting his

elbows.

Then Luc, beside whom Mayor Gourier and Sub-Prefect Châtelard were also

running, again detected the words, the pitiful murmur rising amidst a

little shudder: 'It's a child who has stolen a loaf of bread.'

At last, as the young man was just reaching Mitaine's shop in the wake

of the fat gendarme, he saw him rush forward to assist a comrade, a

long, lanky gendarme, who was roughly holding a boy, between five and

six years old, by the wrist. And in this boy Luc at once recognised

Nanet, with his fair tumbled head, which he still carried erect with

the resolute air of a little man. He had just stolen a loaf of bread

from beautiful Madame Mitaine's open window. The theft could not be

denied, for the lad was still holding the big loaf, which was nearly

as tall as himself. And so it was really this childish act of larceny

which had upset and excited the whole Rue de Brias. Some passers-by

having noticed it had denounced it to the gendarme, who had set off at

a run. But the lad on his side had slipped away very fast, disappearing

among the groups, and the gendarme, raising a perfect hullabaloo in

his desperation, had nearly turned all Beauclair topsy-turvy. He was

triumphant now, for he had captured the culprit, and had brought him

back to the scene of the theft to confound him.

'It's a child who has stolen a loaf of bread,' the people repeated.

Madame Mitaine, astonished at such an uproar, had come once more to the

door of her shop. And she was quite thunder-struck when the gendarme,

addressing her, exclaimed: 'This is the young vagabond who just stole a

loaf of yours, madame.'

Then he gave Nanet a shake in order to frighten him. 'You'll go to

gaol, you know,' he said. 'Why did you steal that loaf, eh?'

But the little fellow was not put out. He answered clearly, in his

flute-like voice: 'I've had nothing to eat since yesterday, nor my

sister either.'

Meantime Madame Mitaine had recovered her self-possession. She was

looking at the little lad with her beautiful eyes so full of indulgent

kindness. Poor little devil! And his sister, where had he left her? For

a moment the baker's wife hesitated, whilst a slight flush rose to her

cheeks. Then, with the amiable laugh of a handsome woman accustomed to

be courted by all her customers, she said in her gay quiet way: 'You

are mistaken, gendarme--that child didn't steal the loaf, I gave it

him.'

Without relaxing his hold on Nanet, the gendarme stood before her,

gaping. Ten people had seen the boy take the loaf and run off with

it. And all at once butcher Dacheux, who had crossed the street,

intervened, in a furious passion. 'But I saw him myself. I was looking

this way at the very moment. He threw himself on the biggest of the

loaves, and then took to his heels. That's how it happened. As true

as I was robbed of five francs the day before yesterday, as true as

Laboque and Caffiaux have been robbed to-day, that little vermin has

just robbed you, Madame Mitaine, and you can't deny it.'

Quite pink from having told a fib, the baker's wife none the less

repeated gently: 'You are mistaken, neighbour, it was I who gave the

child that loaf. He did not steal it.'

Then, as Dacheux flew into a temper with her, predicting that by her

foolish indulgence she would end by having them all pillaged and

massacred, Sub-Prefect Châtelard, who had judged the scene at a glance

like a shrewd man, approached the gendarme and made him release Nanet,

to whom, in a loud, ogre-like whisper, he said: 'Off with you quick,'

youngster.'

The crowd was already growling. Why, the baker's wife herself declared

that she had given the boy the loaf! A poor little beggar, no higher

than a jack-boot, who had been fasting since the previous day!

Exclamations and hisses arose, and suddenly a thunderous voice made

itself heard above every other.

'Ah! curse it! so little urchins six years old have to set us the

example now? The child did right. When one's hungry one may take

whatever one wants! Yes, everything in the shops is ours, and if you

are all starving it's simply because you are cowards!'

The throng swayed about and eddied back, as when a paving-stone is

flung into a pond. 'Who is it?' people asked. And at once came back

replies, 'It's Lange, the potter.' Amidst the groups which drew aside,

Luc then saw the man who had spoken, a short, thick-set man, barely

five-and-twenty, with a square-shaped head, bushy with black hair and

beard. Of a rustic appearance but with a glow of intelligence in his

eyes, he went on speaking, proclaiming the dream of his life aloud, in

soaring but unpolished language, like a poet yet in the rough. And he

made no gestures, but quietly kept his hands in his pockets.

'Provisions and money and houses and clothes,' said he; 'they have

all been stolen from us, and we have a right to take them all back!

And not to-morrow, but this very evening, if we were men, we ought to

resume possession of the soil, the mines, the factories, all Beauclair

indeed! There are no two ways of doing it, there is only one--to throw

the whole edifice on the ground at one blow, to poleaxe and destroy

authority everywhere, so that the people, to whom everything belongs,

may at last build up the world anew!'

Women took fright on hearing this. Even the men, in presence of the

aggressive vehemence of Lange's words, became silent and retreated,

anxious as to the consequences. Few of them really understood, the

greater number, beneath the century-old grinding bondage of the

wage-earning system, had not as yet reached such a degree of embittered

rebellion. What was the good of it? They would none the less die of

starvation and go to prison, they thought.

'Oh! you don't dare, I know it!' continued Lange, with terrible

sarcasm. 'But there are others who will dare some day. Your Beauclair

will be blown up unless it falls to pieces from sheer rottenness. Your

noses can't be worth much if you are unable to smell this evening that

everything's rotten, and stinks of putrefaction! There is only so much

dung left; and one doesn't need to be a great prophet to predict that

the wind which blows will some day sweep away the town and all the

thieves and all the murderers, our masters! Ah! may everything tumble

down and break to pieces! To death, to death with all of it!'

The scandal was becoming so great that Sub-Prefect Châtelard, though

he would have preferred to treat the matter with indifference, found

himself obliged to exercise his authority. Somebody had to be arrested,

so three gendarmes sprang upon Lange, and led him off down a gloomy,

deserted side street, where their heavy footfalls died away. The crowd

itself had shown but vague, contradictory impulses, which were promptly

quieted. And the gathering was broken up and the tramping began afresh,

slow and silent through the black mud from one to the other end of the

street.

But Luc had shuddered. That prophetic threat had burst forth like

the frightful fated outcome of all that he had seen, all that he had

heard, since the fall of daylight. Such an abundance of iniquity

and wretchedness called for a final catastrophe, which he himself

felt approaching from the depths beyond the horizon, in the form

perchance of some avenging cloud of fire which would consume and

raze Beauclair to the ground. And with his horror of all violence

Luc suffered at the thought of it. What! could the potter be right?

Would force, would theft and murder, be necessary for mankind to find

itself once more within the pale of justice? In his distracted state

it had seemed to Luc that, amidst all the harsh, sombre faces of the

toilers, he had seen the pale countenances of Mayor Gourier, Judge

Gaume, and Captain Jollivet flit past him. Then, too, the faces of the

Mazelles, perspiring with terror, darted by in the flickering light

of a gas-lamp. The street horrified him, and only one compassionate

consolatory thought remained, that of overtaking Nanet, following him,

and ascertaining into what dark nook the unhappy Josine had fallen.

The lad was walking on and on with all the courage of his little legs.

Luc, who had seen him go off up the Rue de Brias in the direction of

the Abyss, overtook him fairly rapidly, for the dear little fellow

had great difficulty in carrying his big loaf. He pressed it to his

chest with both his hands, from fear of dropping it, and from fear too

lest some evil-hearted man or some big dog might tear it from him. On

hearing Luc's hasty footsteps in the rear, he no doubt felt extremely

frightened, for he attempted to run. But on glancing round he

recognised by the light of one of the last gas-lamps the gentleman who

had smiled at him and his big sister, and thereupon he felt reassured,

and allowed himself to be overtaken.

'Shall I carry your loaf for you?' the young man asked.

'Oh, no! I want to keep it. It pleases me,' said the boy.

They were now on the high road beyond Beauclair, in the darkness

falling from the low and stormy sky. The lights of the Abyss alone

gleamed forth some distance off. And one could hear the child splashing

through the mud, whilst he raised his loaf as high as possible, so that

it might not get dirty.

'You know where you are going?' asked Luc.

'Of course.'

'Is it very far?'

'No--it's somewhere.'

A vague fear must have been stealing over Nanet again, for his steps

slackened. Why did the gentleman want to know? Feeling that he was his

big sister's only protector, the little man sought to devise some ruse.

But Luc, who guessed his feelings, and wished to show him that he was a

friend, began to play with him, catching him in his arms at the moment

when he narrowly missed stumbling in a puddle.

'Look out, my boy! You mustn't get any mud-jam on your bread.'

Conquered, having felt the affectionate warmth of those big brotherly

arms, Nanet burst into the careless laugh of childhood and said to his

new friend: 'Oh! you are strong and kind, you are!'

Then he went trotting on, without showing further disquietude. But

where could Josine have hidden herself? The road stretched out, and in

the motionless shadow of each successive tree Luc fancied he could see

her waiting. He was drawing near the Abyss, the ground already shook

with the heavy blows of the steam-hammer, whilst the surroundings were

illumined by a fiery cloud of vapour traversed by the broad rays of the

electric lights. Nanet, without going past the Abyss, turned towards

the bridge and crossed the Mionne. Thus Luc found himself brought back

to the very spot where he had first met the boy and his sister earlier

in the evening. But all at once the lad rushed off, and the young

man lost sight of him and heard him call, whilst once more laughing

playfully:

'Here, big sister, here big sister! look at this, see how fine it is.'

Beyond the bridge the river bank became lower, and a bench stood there

in the shadow cast by some palings facing the Abyss, which smoked and

panted on the other side of the water. Luc had just knocked against the

palings when he heard the urchin's laughter turn into cries and tears.

He took his bearings, and understood everything when he perceived

Josine lying exhausted, in a swoon, upon the bench. She had fallen

there overcome by hunger and suffering, letting her little brother go

off, and scarcely understanding what he, with the boldness of a lad of

the streets, had intended to do. And now the child, finding her cold,

as if lifeless, sobbed loudly and despairingly.

'Oh! big sister, wake up, wake up! You must eat, do eat, there's bread

now.'

Tears had come to Luc's eyes also. To think that so much misery, such

a frightful destiny of privation and suffering, should fall upon such

weak yet courageous creatures! He quickly descended to the Mionne,

dipped his handkerchief in the water, and came back and applied it to

Josine's temples. Fortunately that tragic night was not a very cold

one. At last he took hold of the young woman's hands, rubbed them,

and warmed them with his own; and finally she sighed and seemed to

awaken from some black dream. But in her prostrate condition, due to

lack of food, nothing astonished her; it appeared to her quite natural

that her brother should be there with that loaf, accompanied too by

that tall and handsome gentleman, whom she recognised. Perhaps she

imagined that it was the gentleman who had brought the bread. Her poor

weak fingers could not break the crust. He had to help her break the

bread into little pieces, which he passed her slowly, one by one, so

that she might not choke herself in her haste to quiet the atrocious

hunger which griped her. And then the whole of her poor, thin, spare

figure began to tremble, and she wept, wept on unceasingly whilst

still eating, thus moistening each mouthful with her tears ere she

devoured it voraciously, evincing the while the shivering clumsiness

of some eager beaten animal which no longer knows how to swallow. Luc,

distracted, with a pang at his heart, gently restrained her hands

whilst still giving her the little pieces which he broke off the

loaf. Never could he afterwards forget that communion of suffering

and kindliness, that bread of life thus given to the most woeful and

sweetest of human creatures.

Nanet, meantime, broke off his own share, and ate like a little

glutton, proud of his exploit. His sister's tears astonished him--why

did she still weep when they were feasting? Then, having finished,

quite oppressed by his ravenous feast, he nestled close beside her and

was overpowered by sudden somnolence, the happy sleep of childhood,

which beholds the angels in its dreams. And Josine pressed him to

her with her right arm, leaning back against the bench and feeling a

trifle stronger, whilst Luc remained seated by her side, unable to

leave her like that alone in the night with that sleeping child. He had

understood at last that some of the clumsiness that she had shown in

eating had been due to her injured hand, around which, as well as she

could manage, she had again wound her bloodstained bandage.

'You have injured yourself?' he said.

'Yes, monsieur, a boot-stitching machine broke one of my fingers and

I had to have it cut off. But it was my fault, so the foreman said,

though Monsieur Gourier gave me fifty francs.'

She spoke in a somewhat low and very gentle voice, which trembled at

moments as with a kind of shame.

'So you worked at the boot-factory belonging to Monsieur Gourier, the

Mayor?'

'Yes, monsieur, I first went there when I was fifteen--I'm eighteen

now. My mother worked there more than twenty years, but she is dead.

I'm all alone, I've only my little brother, Nanet, who is just six. My

name's Josine.'

And she went on telling her story, in such wise that Luc only had to

ask a few more questions to learn everything. It was the commonplace,

distressful story of so many poor girls; a father who goes off with

another woman, a mother who remains stranded with four children, for

whom she is unable to earn sufficient food. Although she luckily

loses two of them, she dies at last from the effect of over-work, and

then the daughter, just sixteen years of age, has to become a mother

to her little brother, in her turn killing herself with hard work,

though at times she is unable to earn bread enough for herself and the

boy. Then comes the inevitable tragedy which dogs the footsteps of a

good-looking workgirl--a seducer passes, the rakish Ragu, on whose

arm she imprudently strolls each Sunday after the dance. He makes her

such fine promises, she already pictures herself married, with a pretty

home, in which she brings up her brother together with the children

that may come to her. Her only fault is that one evening in springtime

she stumbles; how it was she hardly remembers. And six months later

she is guilty of a second fault, that of going to live with Ragu, who

speaks no more to her of marriage. Then her accident befalls her at the

boot-works, and she finds herself unable to continue working at the

very moment when the strike has rendered Ragu so rageful and spiteful

that he has begun to beat her, accusing her of being the cause of his

own misery. And from that moment things go from bad to worse, and now

he has turned her into the street, and will not even give her the key

so that she may go home to bed with Nanet.

Whilst the girl went on talking it seemed to Luc that if she should

have a child by Ragu he might become attached to her and make up his

mind to marry her. However, when the young man hinted this to Josine

she speedily undeceived him. No, nothing of that was at all likely.

Then silence fell, they no longer spoke. The certainty that Josine was

not a mother, that she would never bear children to that man Ragu,

brought Luc, amidst his dolorous compassion, a singular feeling of

relief, for which he was unable to account. Vague ideas arose in his

mind, whilst his eyes wandered far away over the dim scene before him,

and he again discerned that gorge of Brias which he had viewed in the

twilight before it was steeped in shadows. On either side where the

Bleuse Mountains reared their flights of rocks the darkness became more

dense. Midway up the height behind him the young man now and again

heard the passing rumble of a train which whistled and slowed down as

it approached the station. At his feet he distinguished the glaucous

Mionne, rippling against the stockade whose beams upheld the bridge.

And then, on his left, came the sudden widening of the gorge, the two

promontories of the Bleuse Mountains drawing aside on the verge of the

vast Roumagne plain, where the tempestuous night rolled on like a black

and endless sea beyond the vague eyot of Beauclair, where constellated

hundreds of little lights, suggesting sparks.

But Luc's eyes ever came back to the Abyss in front of him. It showed

forth like some weird apparition under clouds of white smoke, fired,

so it seemed, by the electric lamps in the yards. Through open doorways

and other apertures one at times perceived the blazing mouths of

the furnaces, with now a blinding flow of fusing metal, now a huge

ruddy glare; all the internal, hellish flames indeed of the monster's

devouring, tumultuous work. The ground quaked all around, whilst

the ringing dance of the tilt-hammers never ceased to sound above

the dull rumbling of the machinery, and the deep blows of the great

steam-hammers, which suggested a far-away cannonade.

And Luc, with his eyes full of that vision, his heart lacerated by

the thought of the fate that had befallen that hapless Josine, now

reclining in utter abandonment and wretchedness on that bench beside

him, said to himself that in this poor creature resounded the whole

collapse of labour, evilly organised, dishonoured, and accursed.

In that supreme suffering, in that human sacrifice ended all his

experiences of the evening, the disasters of the strike, the hatred

poisoning men's hearts and minds, the egotistical harshness of

trade, the triumph of drink which had become necessary to stimulate

forgetfulness, the legitimation of theft by hunger, the cracking

and rending of old-time society beneath the very weight of its own

iniquities. And he fancied that he could again hear Lange predicting

the final catastrophe which would sweep away that Beauclair, which

was rotten itself and which rotted everything that came in contact

with it. And he saw once more also the pale girls wandering over the

pavement, those sorry offspring of manufacturing towns, where the vile

wage-system invariably brings about the ruin of the better-looking

factory hands. Was it not to a similar fate that Josine herself was

drifting? He could divine that she was a submissive, a loving creature,

one of those tender natures that give courage to the strong and prove

their reward. And the thought of abandoning her on that bench, of doing

nothing to save her from accursed fate, filled him with such revolt,

that he would have for ever reproached himself had he not offered her a

helping and a brotherly hand.

'Come, you cannot sleep here with that child,' he said. 'That man must

take you back. For the rest we'll see afterwards. Where do you live?'

'Near by, in the Rue des Trois Lunes, in Old Beauclair,' she replied.

Then she explained things to him. Ragu occupied a little lodging of

three rooms in the same house as one of his sisters, Adèle, nicknamed

La Toupe. And she suspected that if Ragu really had not got the key

with him, he must have handed it to La Toupe, who was a terrible

creature. When the young man spoke of quietly going to her and asking

her for the key, Josine shuddered.

'Oh, no! you must not ask her. She hates me. If one could only come

upon her husband, who's a good-natured man, but I know that he works at

the Abyss to-night. He's a master puddler, named Bonnaire.'

'Bonnaire!' Luc repeated, a recollection awakening within him; 'why I

saw him when I visited the Abyss last spring. I even had a long talk

with him--he explained the work to me. He's an intelligent fellow,

and, as you say, he seemed to me to be good-natured. Well, it's quite

simple, I will go and speak to him about you.'

Josine raised a cry of heartfelt gratitude; she was trembling from head

to foot, and she clasped her hands as her whole being went out towards

the young man. 'Oh! monsieur, how good you are!--how can I ever thank

you!'

A sombre glow was now rising from the Abyss, and Luc, as he glanced at

her, saw her, this time bare-headed, for her ragged wrapper had fallen

over her shoulders. She was no longer weeping, her blue eyes gleamed

with tenderness, and her little mouth had found once more its youthful

smile. With her supple graceful slimness she had retained quite a

childish air, she looked like one who was still playful, simple, and

gay. Her long fair hair, of the hue of ripe oats, had fallen, half

unbound, over the nape of her neck, and lent her quite a girlish and

candid appearance in her abandonment. He, infinitely charmed, by

degrees quite captivated, felt moved and astonished at the sight of the

winning creature that seemed to emerge from the poor beggarly being

whom he had met badly clad, frightened, and weeping. And, besides,

she looked at him with so much adoration, she surrendered to him so

candidly her soul, like one who at last felt herself succoured and

loved. Handsome and kind as he was, he seemed to her a very god after

all the brutality of Ragu. She would have kissed his very footprints;

and she stood before him with her hands still clasped, the left

pressing the right, the mutilated hand round which was wrapped the

bloodstained bandage. And something very sweet and very strong seemed

to bind her and him together, a link of infinite tenderness, infinite

affection.

'Nanet will take you to the works, monsieur,' she said; 'he knows every

corner of them.'

'No, no, I know my way. Don't awake him, he will keep you warm. Wait

here for me quietly, both of you.'

He left her on the bench, in the black night, with the sleeping child.

And as he stepped away a great glow illumined the promontory of the

Bleuse Mountains on the right above the park of La Crêcherie, where

stood Jordan's house. The sombre silhouette of the blast furnace could

be seen on the mountain side. A 'run' of metal flowed forth, and all

the neighbouring rocks, even all the roofs of Beauclair, were illumined

by it as by some bright red dawn.

[1] Literally 'my big one,' _i.e._ 'big sister.' We have no exact

equivalent for this expression as a form of endearment, nor for the

ensuing one, _frérot_, little brother.--_Trans._

[2] Each French 'department' or county is for administrative

purposes divided into two, three, or four 'arrondissements'; and the

arrondissements in their turn are subdivided into 'cantons.'--_Trans._

II

Bonnaire, the master puddler, one of the best hands of the works, had

played an important part in the recent strike. A man of just mind,

indignant with the iniquity of the wage-earning system, he read the

Paris newspapers and derived from them a revolutionary education in

which there were many gaps, but which had made him a fairly frank

partisan of Collectivist doctrines. As he himself, with the fine

equilibrium of a hard-working healthy man, very reasonably said,

Collectivism was the dream whose realisation they would some day seek;

and meantime it was necessary to secure as much justice as might be

immediately obtained in order to reduce the sufferings of the workers

to a minimum.

The strike had been for some time inevitable. Three years previously,

the Abyss having nearly come to grief in the hands of Monsieur Jérôme's

son, Michel Qurignon, the latter's son-in-law, Boisgelin, an idler,

a fine Paris gentleman, had purchased the works, investing in them

all that remained of his jeopardised fortune on the advice of a poor

cousin, a certain Delaveau, who had positively undertaken to make

the capital invested yield a profit of thirty per cent, per annum.

And for three years Delaveau, a skilful engineer and a determined

hard worker, had kept his promise, thanks to energetic management and

organisation, strict attention to the minutest details, and absolute

discipline on all sides. Michel Qurignon's ill success in business had

been partly due to the difficulties which had beset the metal market

of the region ever since the manufacture of iron rails and girders had

there ceased to be remunerative, owing to the discovery of certain

chemical processes which in Northern and Eastern France had enabled

ironmasters to make use very cheaply of large quantities of ore which

previously had been regarded as too defective. The Beauclair works

could not possibly turn out the same class of goods so cheaply as

their competitors; ruin therefore seemed inevitable, and Delaveau's

stroke of talent consisted in changing the character of the output,

in giving up the manufacture of rails and girders which Northern and

Eastern France could supply at twenty centimes the kilogramme,[1] and

confining himself to the manufacture of high-class things, such indeed

as projectiles and ordnance, shells and cannon, which brought in from

two to three francs per kilogramme. Prosperity had then returned, and

Boisgelin's investment brought him in a considerable income. Only it

had been necessary to obtain a quantity of new plant, and to secure

the services of more careful and attentive workmen, who necessarily

required to be better paid than others.

In principle the strike had been brought about by that very question

of better pay. The men were paid by the hundred kilogrammes,[2] and

Delaveau himself admitted the necessity of a new wage tariff. But he

wished to remain absolute master of the situation, desiring above

all things to avoid anything which might seem like surrender on his

part to the pressure of his workpeople. With a specialist mind, very

authoritative in disposition, and stubborn with respect to his rights,

whilst striving to be just and loyal, he regarded Collectivism as a

destructive dream, and declared that any such utopian doctrine would

lead one direct to the most awful catastrophes. The quarrel on this

point between him and the little world of workers over whom he reigned

became a fierce one directly Bonnaire succeeded in setting a defensive

syndicate on foot. For if Delaveau admitted the desirability of relief

and pension funds, and even of co-operative societies supplying cheap

provisions and other necessaries, thus recognising that the workman was

not forbidden to improve his position, he at the same time violently

condemned all syndicates and class grouping designed for collective

action.

From that moment then the struggle began; Delaveau showed great

unwillingness to complete the revision of the tariffs, and thought

it necessary in his turn to arm himself, in some measure, decreeing

a 'state of siege' at the Abyss. Soon after he had begun to act thus

rigorously the men complained that no individual liberty was left to

them. A close watch was kept on them, on their thoughts and opinions

as well as on their actions, even outside the works. Those who put

on a humble flattering manner and perchance became spies, gained

the management's good graces, whilst the proud and independent were

treated as dangerous men. And as the manager was by instinct a staunch

conservative, a defender of the existing order of things, and openly

evinced the resolve to have none but men of his own views in the place,

all the underlings, the engineers, foremen, and inspectors strove to

surpass one another in energy, displaying implacable severity with

regard to obedience, and what they chose to call 'a proper spirit.'

Bonnaire, hurt in his opinions, his craving for liberty and justice,

naturally found himself at the head of the malcontents. It was he

who with a few mates waited on Delaveau to acquaint him with their

complaints. He spoke out very plainly, and, indeed, exasperated the

manager without obtaining the rise in wages that he asked for. Delaveau

did not believe in the possibility of a general strike among his hands,

for the metal workers do not readily lose their tempers, and for many

years there had been no strike at all at the Abyss, whereas among the

pitmen of the coal mines of Brias strikes broke out continually. When,

therefore, contrary to Delaveau's anticipations, a general strike did

occur among his own men, when one morning only two hundred out of a

thousand presented themselves at the works, which he had to close, his

resentment was so great that he stubbornly held to the course he had

chosen and refused to make the slightest concession. When Bonnaire and

a deputation of the syndicate ventured to go to him he began by turning

them out of doors. He was the master, the quarrel was between his

workmen and himself, and he intended to settle it with his workmen and

with nobody else. Bonnaire therefore returned to see him accompanied

only by three mates. But all that they could obtain from him were

arguments and calculations, tending to show that the prosperity of the

Abyss would be compromised if he should increase the men's wages. Funds

had been confided to him, a factory had been given him to manage,

and it was his duty to see that the factory paid its way and that the

funds yielded the promised rate of interest. He was certainly disposed

to be humane, but he considered that it was the duty of an honest man

to keep his engagements, and extract from the enterprise he directed

the largest amount of gain possible. All the rest, in his opinion, was

visionary, wild hope, dangerous utopia. And thus, each side becoming

more and more stubborn after several similar interviews, the strike

lasted for two long months, full of disasters for the wage-earners

as well as for the owner, increasing as it did the misery of the men

whilst the plant was damaged by neglect and idleness. At last the

contending parties consented to make certain mutual concessions, and

came to an agreement respecting a new tariff. But throughout another

week Delaveau refused to take back certain workmen, whom he called

the 'leaders,' and among whom, of course, was Bonnaire. The manager

harboured very rancorous feelings towards the latter, although he

recognised that he was one of the most skilful and most sober of his

hands. When he ultimately gave way, and took Bonnaire back with the

others, he declared that he was being compelled to act in this manner

against his inclinations, solely from a desire to restore peace.

From that moment Bonnaire felt that he was condemned. Under such

circumstances he was at first absolutely unwilling to go back to the

works at all. But he was a great favourite with his mates, and when

they declared that they would not return unless he resumed work at the

same time as themselves, he appeared to resign himself to their wishes,

in order that he might not prove the cause of some fresh rupture. In

his estimation, however, his mates had suffered quite enough; he had

fully made up his mind and intended to sacrifice himself in order that

none other might have to pay the penalty of the semi-victory which

had been gained. And thus, although he had ended by returning to work

on the Thursday, it had been with the intention of taking himself off

on the ensuing Sunday, for he was convinced that his presence at the

Abyss was no longer possible. He took none of his friends into his

confidence, but simply warned the management on Saturday morning of his

intention to leave. If he were still working at the Abyss that night

it was solely because he wished to finish a job which he had begun. He

desired to disappear in a quiet, honest way.

Luc having given his name to the door porter, inquired if he could

speak to master-puddler Bonnaire; and the porter in reply contented

himself with pointing out the hall where the puddling-furnaces and

rolling-machines were installed at the further end of the second yard

on the left. The yards, soaked by the recent rain, formed a perfect

cloaca, what with their uneven paving-stones and their tangle of

rails, amongst which passed a branch line connecting the works with

Beauclair railway station. Under the lunar-like brightness of a few

electric lamps, amongst the shadows cast by the sheds and the plunging

tower, and the vaguely outlined cementing furnaces, which suggested

the conical temples of some barbarous religion, a little engine was

slowly moving about and sending forth shrill whistles of warning

in order that nobody might be run over. But what more particularly

deafened the visitor from the moment he crossed the threshold was the

beating of a couple of tilt-hammers installed in a kind of cellar.

Their big heads--the heads, it seemed, of voracious beasts--could

be seen striking the iron with a furious rhythm; they bit it, as it

were, and stretched it into bars with all the force of their desperate

metal teeth. The workmen beside them led calm and silent lives,

communicating with one another by gestures only amidst the everlasting

uproar and trepidation. Luc, after skirting a low building where some

other tilt-hammers were also working ragefully, turned to the left and

crossed the second yard whose ravaged soil was littered with pieces

of scrap metal, slumbering in the mud until collected for re-casting.

A railway truck was being laden with a large piece of wrought work,

a shaft for a torpedo boat, which had been finished that very day,

and which the little engine was about to remove. As this engine came

up whistling, Luc, in order to avoid it, took a pathway between some

symmetrically disposed piles of pig-iron, and in this wise reached the

hall of the puddling-furnaces and the rolling-machines.

This hall or gallery, one of the largest of the works, resounded in

the daytime with the terrible rumbling of the rollers. But the latter

were now at rest, and more than half of the huge place was steeped in

darkness. Of the ten puddling-furnaces only four were at work, served

by two forge-hammers. Here and there a meagre gas-light flickered

in the draught; huge shadows filled the place; one could scarcely

distinguish the great smoked beams upholding the roof above. A sound

of dripping water emerged from the darkness; the beaten ground which

served as a flooring--all bumps and hollows--was in one part so much

fœtid mud, in another so much coal-dust, in another, again, a mass of

waste stuff. On every side one noticed the filth of joyless labour, a

labour hated and accursed, performed in a black, ruinous, ignoble den,

pestilential with smoke and grimy with the dirt of every kind that flew

through the air. From the nails driven into some little huts of rough

boards hung the workmen's town-clothes, mixed with linen vests and

leather aprons. And all that dense misery was only brightened when some

master puddler happened to open the door of his furnace, whence emerged

a blinding flow of light which, like the beaming of some planet,

transpierced the darkness of the entire gallery.

When Luc presented himself Bonnaire was for the last time stirring

some fusing metal--some four hundred and forty pounds' weight of cast

iron, which the furnace and human labour between them were to turn into

steel. The whole operation of steel puddling required four hours, and

this stirring at the expiration of the first hours of waiting was the

hardest part of the work. Grasping an iron rod of fifty pounds' weight

and standing in the broiling glare, the master puddler stirred the

incandescent metal on the sole of the furnace. With the help of the

hook at the end of his bar he raked the depths and kneaded the huge

sun-like ball or 'bloom,' at which he alone was able to gaze, with his

eyes hardened to the intense glow. And he had to gaze at it, since it

was by its colour that he ascertained what stage the work had reached.

When he withdrew his bar the latter was a bright red, and threw out

sparks on all sides.

With a motion of his hand Bonnaire now signed to his stoker to quicken

the fire, whilst another workman, the companion puddler, took up a bar

in order to do a stir in his turn.

'You are Monsieur Bonnaire, are you not?' asked Luc, drawing near.

The master puddler seemed surprised at being thus accosted, but nodded

affirmatively. He looked superb with his white neck and pink face full

of victorious strength amidst the glare of his work.

Scarcely five-and-thirty years of age, he was a giant of fair

complexion, with close-cropped hair and a broad, massive, placid face.

His large firm mouth and big peaceful eyes expressed great rectitude

and kindliness.

'I don't know if you recognise me,' Luc continued, 'but I saw you here

last summer and had a talk with you.'

'Quite so,' the master puddler at last replied; 'you are a friend of

Monsieur Jordan.'

When, however, the young man with some embarrassment explained the

motive of his visit, how he had seen the unhappy Josine cast into the

street, and how it seemed that he, Bonnaire, could alone do something

for her, the workman relapsed into silence, looking embarrassed on

his side also. Neither spoke for a time; there came an interval of

waiting, prolonged by the noise of the forge-hammer near them. And when

the master puddler was at last able to make himself heard he simply

said: 'All right, I'll do what I can--I'll go with you as soon as I've

finished, in about three-quarters of an hour.'

Although it was nearly eleven o'clock already, Luc resolved to wait;

and at first he began to take some interest in a cutting-machine, which

in a dark corner near at hand was cutting bar-steel with as much quiet

ease as if steel were butter. At each motion of the machine's jaws, a

little piece of metal fell, and a heap was soon formed, ready to be

carried in a barrow into the charging-chamber, where each charge of

sixty-six pounds' weight was made up in order to be removed to the

adjacent hall, where the crucible furnaces were installed. And with the

view of occupying his time, attracted as he was by the great pink glow

which filled that hall, Luc entered it.