He became grave and thoughtful. 'Though we have reduced the cost of

electricity by one half, it still remains too high,' he said; 'and,

besides, all the intricate and expensive installations at the mouths

of the pits, the steam engines and the boilers, without mentioning

the miles of cables which have to be kept in repair, are barbarous,

and consume time and money. Something else is needed, something more

practical, simple, and direct. I know very well in what direction I

ought to look, but such a search seems madness, and I don't dare to

tell people what work I have undertaken, for I myself can't describe

it clearly. Yet yes, one ought to suppress the engine and the boiler,

which are cumbersome intermediaries between the coal extracted and

the electricity which is produced. In a word, one ought to be able to

transform the calorical energy contained in the coal into electrical

energy, without having to bring mechanical energy into play. I don't

yet know how that is to be done, but I have set to work, and I hope

to succeed. And if I do, you'll then see that electricity will cost

scarcely anything. We shall be able to give it to everybody, spread it

broadcast, and make it the victorious agent of universal comfort.'

He grew more and more enthusiastic, drawing himself up with passionate

gestures as he spoke, he who as a rule remained so silent and

thoughtful.

'The day must come,' he resumed, 'when electricity will belong to

everybody, like the water of the rivers and the breezes of the heavens.

It will be necessary to give it abundantly to one and all, and to allow

men to dispose of it as they choose. It must circulate in our towns

like the very blood of social life. In each house one must merely have

to turn on a switch or a tap to obtain a profusion of power, heat, and

light. At night-time, in the black sky, electricity will set another

sun, which will extinguish the stars. And it will suppress winter,

it will bring eternal summer into being, warming the old earth, and

ascending to melt the snow even among the clouds. This is why I am not

particularly proud of what I have done as yet, for it is very little by

the side of all that has to be accomplished.'

And with an air of quiet disdain he concluded: 'I can't even get a

practical result from my electrical furnaces. They are still mere

experimental furnaces. Electricity is still too costly--one must wait

till its employment proves remunerative, and for that to be it should

not cost us more than the waters of the rivers and the atmosphere of

the heavens. When I am able to give it in a flood without counting, my

furnaces will revolutionise metallurgy. Oh! I well know the only path

to follow, and I have already set to work!'

The night festival was a marvellous one. The dancing and singing

had begun afresh in the dazzling halls, where the throng continued

celebrating the marriage until the time came to escort Nanet and Nise

to their nuptial home, amidst acclamations in honour of the love which

had united them.

About this time love likewise revolutionised the _bourgeoisie_ of

Beauclair, and it was in the home of the Mazelles, those idlers living

on their income, that the tempest first burst forth. Their daughter

Louise had always surprised and upset them, so different was her nature

from their own. An extremely active and enterprising girl, she was

ever at work in the house, declaring that idleness would kill her. Her

parents, who placed their great delight in doing nothing, could not

understand how it was that she spoilt her days by useless agitation.

She was an only child, said they, and would have a very fine fortune

invested in State Rentes, and so was she not unreasonable in refusing

to shut herself up in her cosy nook, well sheltered from the worries of

life? They, her parents, were content with their egotistical happiness,

and why therefore did she trouble about the passing beggar, the ideas

which were changing the world, the incidents which disturbed the

streets? But whatever might be said, she remained all of a quiver, full

of life, taking a passionate interest in everything; and thus, amidst

her parents' deep love for her, there was a great deal of stupefaction

at having a daughter so utterly unlike themselves. At last she utterly

upset them by a _coup de passion_, at which they had at first simply

shrugged their shoulders, thinking it some mere fancy or whim. But

things soon came to such a climax that they almost believed the end of

the world to be at hand.

Louise Mazelle had remained a great friend of Nise Delaveau, whom she

had frequently met at the home of the Boisgelins, since the latter

had been installed at La Crêcherie. There also she had again met

Lucien Bonnaire, her former playmate, now a tall and handsome fellow

of twenty-three, whilst she herself was twenty. Lucien no longer

made little boats which travelled by themselves over the water, but

under Luc's guidance he had become a very intelligent and inventive

mechanician, destined to render great services to La Crêcherie, where

he already fitted up the machinery. He was not a 'monsieur,' he took

a sort of courageous pride in remaining a simple workman, like his

father, whom he revered. And no doubt, in the ardent love with which

Louise was inspired for him, there was some little of the natural

rebellion which urged her on to flout _bourgeois_ notions, and to

behave differently from the folk of her sphere. At all events her

old friendship for Lucien became a passionate love that chafed at

obstacles. He, touched by the keen attachment of that pretty, active,

smiling girl, ended by loving her quite as deeply; but he was certainly

the more reasonable of the two, and desired to hurt nobody's feelings.

He suffered at the idea that she was too refined and too rich for him,

and simply spoke of remaining a bachelor if he could not have her;

whereas she, at the mere thought of opposition to their marriage,

became wildly rebellious, and talked of throwing up position and

fortune to go and live with him.

During nearly six months the battle went on. Lucien's parents looked on

the proposed marriage with covert distrust. Bonnaire, with his common

sense, would much have preferred to see his son marry some mate's

daughter. Time had already done its work, and there was no reason to

be proud of seeing one's son rise to another class, on the arm of a

daughter of the expiring _bourgeoisie_. All the profit of such an

alliance would soon be on the side of the _bourgeoisie_ itself, which

would intermarry with the people in order to regain blood and health

and strength. Quarrels on the subject of the match at last broke out

in Bonnaire's household. His wife, the proud and terrible Toupe, would

doubtless have consented to it, on condition that she also became a

lady, with fine gowns and jewels to wear. Nought of the evolution now

in progress around her had lessened her craving for domination and

display. She retained her hateful disposition even in her present easy

circumstances, often reproaching her husband for not having made a big

fortune like Monsieur Mazelle, an artful fellow, who had done no work

for years past. However, when she heard Lucien declare that even if he

should marry Louise, not a copper of the Mazelles' money should ever

enter his home, she quite lost her head, and in her turn opposed the

match, since it would not bring her any profit.

One evening there was a stormy explanation between La Toupe, Bonnaire,

and Lucien, in the presence of Daddy Lunot, who was still alive,

and more than seventy years old. They had just finished dining in

the bright, clean dining-room, whose window opened on to the garden

greenery. There were even flowers on the table, where nowadays food

was always plentiful. Daddy Lunot, who at present had as much tobacco

as he cared for, had just lighted his pipe, when La Toupe, for the mere

pleasure of getting into a temper, according to her old habit, turned

to Lucien and said to him sourly: 'So it's decided, eh--you still mean

to marry that _demoiselle_? I saw you with her again this morning at

Boisgelin's door. It seems to me that if you cared anything for us you

might have ceased meeting her, since you know that both your father and

myself are by no means over-pleased with the idea of that marriage.'

Lucien, like a good son, avoided argument, particularly as he knew it

to be useless. Turning towards Bonnaire, he simply said: 'But I think

that my father is ready to consent.'

To La Toupe this was like a whip-stroke, which urged her upon her

husband: 'What!' she exclaimed. 'You give your consent without warning

me of it? You told me less than a fortnight ago that such a marriage

wasn't reasonable to your thinking, and that you would have fears for

our lad's happiness if he were so foolish as to make it! So you turn

about like a weather-cock, eh?'

Bonnaire quietly began to explain things: 'I should have preferred to

see the lad make another choice, but he's nearly four-and-twenty, and

I'm not going to force my will on him in a matter which concerns his

own heart. He knows what I think, and he'll do what he thinks best.'

'Ah!' shouted back La Toupe, 'you're easily got over; you fancy

yourself a free man, but you always end by saying the same as the

others. During the twenty years that you've been here with Monsieur

Luc you've repeated that his ideas and yours are not the same, and

that he ought to have begun by seizing the instruments of work without

accepting money from the _bourgeois_. But all the same, you give way

to Monsieur Luc's wishes, and to-day, perhaps, you begin to like what

you've done together.'

She rattled on, striving to hurt her husband's feelings and pride. She

had often exasperated him by trying to prove that his actions were

in contradiction with his principles. This time, however, he simply

shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no doubt that what we've done together

is very good,' said he. 'I may still regret that Monsieur Luc did not

follow my ideas; only you ought to be the last to complain of what

exists here, for we know nothing more of want, we are happy, happier

than any one of those _bourgeois_ whom you dream about.'

This reply irritated her the more. 'As for what exists here, it would

be kind of you to explain it to me, for I've never understood anything

of it, you know,' she said. 'If you are happy, so much the better for

you; but I'm not happy, no, I'm not. Happiness is when one has plenty

of money and can retire and do nothing afterwards. All your rigmarole,

your division of profits, your stores where one gets things cheaply,

your coupons and your cash-desks, will never put a hundred thousand

francs into my pocket so that I may spend them as I please, on things

which I like--I am an unhappy woman, a very unhappy woman!'

She was exaggerating things with the desire to make herself

disagreeable, yet there was truth in what she said. She had never grown

accustomed to La Crêcherie, she suffered there like a coquettish,

extravagant woman, whose instincts were wounded by Communistic

solidarity. A clean and active housewife, but of a quarrelsome,

stubborn, dull-witted nature, she continued making her home a hell,

when it should have been full of comfort.

Bonnaire at last lost his patience so far as to say to her: 'You are

mad; it is you who make yourself unhappy and us too!'

Thereupon she began to sob. Lucien, who felt very embarrassed whenever

such disputes arose between his parents, had to emerge from his silence

and kiss her and tell her that he loved and respected her. Nevertheless

she clung to her views, and shouted to her husband, 'Ah! just ask

my father what he thinks of your factory in which everybody has a

share, and that wonderful justice and happiness of yours, which are to

regenerate the world. He's an old workman, he is! You won't accuse him

of saying foolish things like a woman. And he's seventy years old, so

you can believe in his experience and sense!'

Turning to Daddy Lunot, who was sucking the stem of his pipe, with the

blissful expression of a child, she went on: 'Isn't that so, father?

Aren't they idiots with all their inventions to do without masters, and

won't they end by making their own fingers smart?'

The old man looked at her in his bewildered way before answering in a

husky voice: 'Of course--the Ragus and the Qurignons, ah! they were

comrades once upon a time. There was Monsieur Michel, who was five

years my senior. As for me, it was under Monsieur Jérôme that I entered

the works. But before the others there was Monsieur Blaise, with whom

my father, Jean Ragu, and my grandfather, Pierre Ragu worked. Pierre

Ragu and Blaise Qurignon were mates together, two wire-drawers, who

used the same anvil. And now you see the Qurignons are masters and

great millionaires, and the Ragus have remained poor devils as they

were before. Things can't change, and so one must believe that they are

well as they are.'

He rambled slightly in the somnolence that had come over him, as over

some very old, maimed, and forgotten beast of burden, who by a miracle

had escaped the universal slaughterhouse. There were often days when he

failed to remember what had happened on the previous one.

'But Daddy Lunot,' said Bonnaire, 'it so happens that things have

changed a good deal for some time past. Monsieur Jérôme, whom you speak

of, has long since been dead, and he gave back all that remained of his

fortune.'

'Gave back--how's that?'

'Yes, he gave back to his old comrades the wealth which he owed to

their toil and suffering. Don't you remember? it occurred a long time

ago already.'

The old man searched in his dim memory. 'Ah! Yes, yes, I recollect--a

funny business it was! Well, if he gave his money back he was a fool.'

The words were spoken sharply and contemptuously, for Daddy Lunot had

never dreamt of anything but making a big fortune like the Qurignons,

in order to enjoy life like a master, an idle gentleman, who amused

himself from morning till night. That had remained his ideal, even as

it was that of the whole generation of broken-down, exploited slaves,

whoso sole regret was that they had not been born among the exploiters.

La Toupe burst into an insulting laugh. 'You see!' she cried, 'Father

isn't such a fool as you others are; he's not the man to start on a

wild-goose chase! Money's money; and when a man's rich he's the master!'

Bonnaire shrugged his broad shoulders, whilst Lucien gazed in silence

through the window at the roses in the garden. What was the use of

arguing? She represented the stubborn past, she would pass away in the

Communist paradise, in the midst of fraternal happiness, denying its

very existence and regretting the days of wretchedness when she had

been obliged to save up ten sous one by one in order to buy herself a

strip of ribbon.

Just then, however, Babette Bourron came in. Unlike La Toupe, she was

ever gay, ever delighted with her new position. By her smiling and

comforting optimism she had helped to save her simpleton of a husband

from the pit into which Ragu had fallen. She had invariably shown

confidence in the future, feeling certain that things would eventually

turn out all right. And she often jestingly remarked that La Crêcherie,

where work had become light, cleanly, and pleasant, where one and all

lived amidst comforts formerly reserved to the _bourgeois_ alone,

was like a fulfilment of her dreams of Paradise. Her doll-like face

remained fresh-looking under her carelessly twisted hair, and radiant

with the delight she felt at finding her husband cured of his passion

for drink, and at living in a gay house of her own with two handsome

children whom she would soon be marrying off.

'Well, so it's decided, eh?' she exclaimed. 'Lucien is going to marry

Louise Mazelle, that charming little _bourgeoise_ who isn't ashamed of

us?'

'Who told you that?' roughly asked La Toupe.

'Why, Madame Luc, Josine, whom I met this morning.'

La Toupe turned white with restrained wrath. Amidst her ceaseless

irritation with La Crêcherie there was a great deal of hatred against

Josine, whom she had never forgiven for having become the wife and

helpmate of Luc, that hero whom all admired, and for having, moreover,

a number of handsome children, who were now growing up for lives of

happiness. Could she not remember the days when that wretched creature

had been turned starving into the streets by her brother? Yet now she

met her wearing a bonnet like a lady. That was a crushing blow. She

would never be able to stomach the idea of that creature being happy.

'Josine,' she roughly exclaimed, 'would do better to make people forget

what she calls her own marriage before meddling with marriages which

don't concern her. And as for me, you do nothing but aggravate me, so

just let me be!'

Then she rushed out of the room, banging the door behind her, and

leaving the others in silent embarrassment. Babette was the first to

laugh, accustomed as she was to the manners of her friend, whom she

indulgently pronounced to be a good woman, though a wrong-headed one.

Tears, however, had risen to the eyes of Lucien, for it was his future

life that was at stake amidst all that quarrelling. His father pressed

his hand in a friendly way, as if to promise that he would arrange

matters. None the less Bonnaire himself remained very sad, quite upset

at finding happiness at the mercy of family jars. Would a spiteful

temper always suffice then to spoil the fruits of brotherliness? he

wondered. Daddy Lunot alone retained his blissful unconsciousness,

sitting there half asleep, with his pipe in his mouth.

If Lucien entertained no doubt of the eventual consent of his parents,

Louise felt the resistance of hers increasing, and thus the battle

became fiercer every day. The Mazelles adored their daughter, and it

was in the name of this adoration that they refused to give way to her.

There were no violent explanations between them, but they persevered in

a kind of good-natured inertia, by which they fancied that the girl's

patience would be tired out. In vain did she fill the house with the

incessant rustling of her skirts, play feverishly on the piano, fling

flowers out of the window, though they were by no means faded, and give

many other signs of perturbation. They still peacefully smiled at her,

made a pretence of understanding nothing, and strove to glut her with

dainties and presents. She was enraged at being thus overwhelmed with

douceurs when she was denied the one thing which would have pleased

her; and at last she made up her mind to fall ill. She took to her bed,

turned her face to the wall, and refused to answer her parents when

they questioned her. Novarre, on being summoned, declared that such

ailments did not come within the scope of his profession. The only way

to cure girls who fell love-sick was to allow them to love as they

desired. Thereupon the Mazelles, quite distracted, realising that the

matter was becoming a serious one, held counsel together as to whether

they ought to give way. They spent a whole night talking it over, and

it seemed such a serious business, the consequences of which might be

so great, that they lacked the courage to come to a decision between

themselves. They resolved to bring their friends together in order to

submit the matter to them. In the revolutionary state of affairs with

which Beauclair was struggling, would it not be desertion on their part

to give their daughter to a workman? They felt that such a union would

be decisive, a final abdication on the part of the _bourgeoisie_,

the mercantile and propertied folk. And it was therefore natural that

the authorities, the leaders of the wealthy governing classes, should

be consulted. Thus, one fine afternoon, they invited Sub-Prefect

Châtelard, Mayor Gourier, Judge Gaume, and Abbé Marle to take tea with

them in their flowery garden, where they had spent so many idle days,

stretched face to face in large rocking chairs, and gazing at their

roses, without even tiring themselves by talking.

'You see,' said Mazelle to his wife, 'we will do what those gentlemen

advise. They know more about such matters than we do, and nobody will

be able to blame us for following their counsel. For my part I am quite

losing my head, for all this business tortures my brain from morning

till night.

'It's like me,' said Madame Mazelle. 'It isn't living to be obliged to

keep on thinking and thinking. Nothing could be worse for my complaint,

I'm sure of it.'

The tea was served in an arbour of greenery in the garden one

beautiful, sunshiny afternoon. Sub-Prefect Châtelard and Mayor Gourier

were the first to arrive. They had remained inseparable, linked it

seemed even more closely together since the death of Madame Gourier,

the beautiful Léonore, who, during her last five years had remained an

invalid in an arm-chair, afflicted with paralysis of the legs, but most

devotedly nursed, her lover taking her husband's place to watch over

her and read to her whenever the other was obliged to absent himself.

It was, indeed, in Châtelard's arms that Léonore had suddenly expired

one evening while he was helping her to drink a cupful of lime-water,

whilst Gourier was outside smoking a cigar. When he came in again, the

two men wept together for the dear departed. And nowadays they were

inseparable, their duties leaving them plenty of leisure, for it was

only in a theoretical kind of way that they now governed the town,

the sub-prefect having prevailed on the mayor to follow his example,

and let things take their own course, rather than spoil his life by

trying to oppose the evolution, the progress of which nobody in the

world could have prevented. Nevertheless, Gourier, who often felt

afraid of the future, had some difficulty in taking this philosophical

course. He had become reconciled to his son Achille, whom Ma-Bleue had

presented with a very charming daughter, Léonie, who had the eyes of

her beautiful mother, big blue eyes suggesting some large blue lake,

some vast stretch of blue sky. Nearly twenty years of age at present,

fit to be married, Léonie had captivated her grandfather. And he had

resigned himself to opening his door to her parents, that son who had

formerly rebelled against his authority, and that Ma-Bleue, of whom he

still occasionally spoke as a savage. As he himself expressed it, it

was hard for him, a mayor, the celebrant of lawful marriage, to receive

at his fireside a couple of revolutionaries, who had simply espoused

one another under the stars one warm summer's night. But the times

were so strange, such extraordinary things happened, that a charming

granddaughter become a very acceptable present, even although she were

the offspring of impenitent free love. Châtelard had gaily insisted

on reconciliation; and Gourier, since his son had been bringing

Léonie to see him, had been more and more won over to the cause of La

Crêcherie, though, to his thinking, it had hitherto remained a source

of catastrophes.

Judge Gaume and Abbé Marle were late in arriving that day at the

Mazelles', but the latter could not refrain from explaining their

position to the sub-prefect and the mayor. Ought they to resign

themselves to their daughter's unreasonable whim?

'As you will certainly understand, Monsieur le Sous-Préfet,' said

Mazelle in an anxious but pompous manner, 'apart from the grief which

such a marriage would cause us, we have to consider the deplorable

effect which it would have socially, and our heavy responsibility

towards distinguished persons of our class. We really seem to be going

towards some abyss.'

They were seated in the warm shade, perfumed by the climbing roses,

at a table with gay-coloured napery, on which stood several dishes

of little cakes; and Châtelard, still a well-groomed, fine-looking

man in spite of his years, smiled in a discreetly ironical manner.

'We are already in the abyss, dear Monsieur Mazelle,' he replied. 'It

would be very wrong of you to put yourself out about the Government,

the authorities, or even fine society, for only a semblance of these

things now exists. I am still sub-prefect and my friend Gourier is

still mayor, no doubt. Only we are scarcely more than shadows, and

there is no longer any real, substantial State behind us. And it is the

same with the powerful and the wealthy, a little of whose power and

wealth is carried off each succeeding day by the new organisation of

work. So don't take the trouble to defend them, particularly as they

themselves, yielding to vertigo, are now becoming active artisans of

the revolution. Don't resist then, yield to the current!'

He was fond of that style of jesting, which terrified the last

_bourgeois_ of Beauclair. Moreover, it was an amiable and jocular way

of telling the truth, for he indeed felt convinced that the old world

was done for, and that a new one was springing from the ruins. Most

serious events were taking place in Paris, the ancient edifice was

falling stone by stone, giving place to a provisional structure, in

which one could already plainly detect the outlines of the future city

of justice and peace.

But the Mazelles had turned pale. Whilst the wife sank back in

her armchair with her eyes fixed on the little cakes, the husband

exclaimed: 'Really! do you think us threatened to such a point as that?

I know very well that people think of reducing the interest on Rentes.'

'Rentes,' said Châtelard quietly, 'they will be suppressed before

another twenty years have gone by; or, rather, some plan will be found

for dispossessing the _rentiers_ by degrees. A scheme to that effect is

already being studied.'

Madame Mazelle heaved such a desperate sigh that one might have

imagined she was giving up the ghost. 'Oh, I hope we shall be dead by

then!' said she; 'I hope that we shan't have the grief of witnessing

such infamy! But our poor daughter will suffer by it, and that is an

additional reason for compelling her to make a good marriage.'

But Châtelard pitilessly went on: 'Why, good marriages are no longer

possible, since the right of inheritance is about to disappear. That

is virtually resolved upon. In future each married couple will have to

work out its own happiness. And whether your daughter Louise marries a

_bourgeois'_ son or a workman's son, the capital of the newly-wedded

pair will soon be identical--so much love, if they are lucky enough to

love one another, and so much activity if they are intelligent enough

not to be idlers.'

Deep silence fell, and one could hear the faint whirr of a warbler's

wings, as it flew about among the roses.

'And so,' Mazelle, who was overwhelmed, ended by asking, 'that is the

advice you give us, Monsieur le Sous-Préfet? According to you, we can

accept that Lucien Bonnaire as our son-in-law, eh?'

'Oh, _mon Dieu_, yes! The world will none the less continue peacefully

revolving. And as the two children are so fond of one another, it is

at least certain that you will make them happy.'

Gourier had hitherto said nothing. He felt ill at ease at being called

upon to decide such a question--he, whose son had gone off to live

with Ma-Bleue, that wild girl of the rocks, whom he now received in

his highly respectable middle-class home. At last an avowal of his

embarrassment escaped him: 'That's true; the best thing after all is to

marry them. When their parents don't marry them the young people take

themselves off and get married as they fancy. Ah! in what times are we

living!'

He raised his arms towards heaven, and Châtelard had to exercise all

his influence to prevent him from falling into black melancholy.

Gourier's old age--following on a somewhat dissolute life--was full

of stupor; he constantly fell asleep, at table, in the midst of

conversation, even whilst walking out of doors. With the resigned air

of a once terrible employer of labour, whom facts had vanquished, he

ended by saying: 'Well, what else can be expected? After us the deluge,

as many of our class now say. We are done for.'

It was at this moment that Judge Gaume arrived, much behind his time.

Nowadays his legs swelled, and it was only with difficulty that he

could walk, helping himself along with a stick. He was nearly seventy,

and was awaiting his pension, full of secret disgust for that human

justice which he had administered during so many years, contenting

himself the while with strictly applying the written law, like a priest

who no longer believes, but is sustained solely by dogma. In his home,

however, the drama of love and betrayal which had wrecked his life had

pursued its course, stubbornly and pitilessly. The disaster, which had

begun with the suicide of his wife, had been completed by his daughter

Lucile, who had caused her husband, Captain Jollivet, to be killed in

a murderous duel by one of her lovers, with whom she had afterwards

eloped. The police were seeking her, and Gaume now lived alone with her

one child, André, a delicate, affectionate youth of sixteen, over whom

he watched with anxious affection. Sufficient misfortune had fallen, he

felt; avenging destiny, punishing some old unknown crime, must go no

further. Yet he still wondered to what good power, what future of true

justice and faithful love he might guide that youth in order that his

race might be renewed and at last win happiness.

On being questioned by Mazelle respecting the advisability of a

marriage between Louise and Lucien Bonnaire, Judge Gaume immediately

exclaimed: 'Marry them, marry them--particularly if they feel for one

another such great love as to enter into contest with their parents and

to pass over all obstacles. Love alone decides happiness.'

Then he regretted, like an avowal, that cry which the bitterness of

his whole life had wrung from him, for he was intent on preserving

during his last days his wonted mendacious rigidity of demeanour, his

austerity and coldness of countenance. 'Do not wait for Abbé Marle,'

he resumed. 'I met him just now, and he begged me to apologise to you.

He was hastening to the church for the holy vessels, in order to take

extreme unction to old Madame Jollivet, an aunt of my son-in-law's, who

is in the last pangs. Poor Abbé, in her he is losing one of his last

penitents; he had his eyes full of tears.'

'Oh! the fact that the clergy is being swept away is the one good

feature of what is happening!' exclaimed Gourier, who had remained a

devourer of priests. 'The republic would still be ours if the clergy

had not tried to take it from us. It was they who urged the people on

to upset everything and become the masters.'

But Châtelard remarked compassionately: 'Poor Abbé Marle! it grieves me

to see him in his empty church. You do quite right, Madame Mazelle, in

still sending him some bouquets for the Virgin.'

Silence fell again, and the tragic shadow of the priest seemed to flit

by in the bright sunlight amidst the perfume of the roses. In Léonore

he had lost his dearest and most faithful parishioner. Madame Mazelle

doubtless remained to him, but she was not really a believer; all that

she sought in religion was something ornamental--a kind of certificate

that she was a right-minded _bourgeois_. And the Abbé was not ignorant

of his destiny--he would some day be found dead at his altar under the

remnants of his church, which threatened ruin, but which, for lack of

money, he could not repair. Neither at the sub-prefecture nor at the

town-hall was there any fund left for such work. He had appealed to the

faithful, and in response had with difficulty obtained a ridiculously

small sum of money. And now he was resigned to his fate; he awaited

the fall, still celebrating the offices as if he were unaware of the

threat of annihilation hanging above his head. His church was becoming

emptier and emptier, dying a little more each day, and he would die

also when the old structure cracked around him and fell crushing him

beneath the weight of the great crucifix, which still hung from the

wall. And they would have one and the same grave: the earth whither all

returns.

As it happened Madame Mazelle was far too much upset by her personal

worries to take any interest at that moment in the dolorous fate of

Abbé Marle. If there should not be a prompt solution with respect to

the marriage, she feared that she might fall seriously ill--she who had

derived so many hours of nursing and petting from the malady without

a name with which she had embellished her existence. All her guests

having now arrived, she quitted her armchair to serve the tea, which

steamed in the cups of bright porcelain, whilst a sunray gilded the

little cakes lying in the crystal dishes. And she went on shaking her

big, placid head, for she was not yet convinced: 'You may say what you

like, my friends, but that marriage would really be the last blow, and

I cannot make up my mind to it.'

'We will wait,' declared Mazelle; 'we will exhaust Louise's patience.'

But all at once both husband and wife were thunderstruck, for Louise

herself stood before them among the sunlit roses at the entrance of

the arbour. They had fancied her in her room, on her couch, suffering

from that love-sickness which, according to Doctor Novarre, contentment

alone could cure. No doubt she had guessed that the others were

deciding her fate, and with her beautiful black hair just caught up in

a knot, wearing a dressing-gown with a pattern of little red flowers,

she had come down in all haste. Quivering with the passion that

animated her, she looked charming with her somewhat obliquely-set eyes

gleaming in her slender face. Not even grief could entirely extinguish

their gay sparkle. She had heard the last words spoken by her parents.

'Ah, mamma! ah, papa! what was that you were saying?' she cried. 'Do

you imagine that some merely childish caprice is in question? I've told

you already, and I tell you again, I wish Lucien to be my husband, and

so he shall!'

Although half-conquered by the sudden apparition of his daughter,

Mazelle still tried to struggle against the inevitable. 'But just

think of it, you unhappy child! Our fortune, which you were to have

inherited, is already in jeopardy, so it is quite possible that one of

these days you will find yourself without a penny,' he said.

'Just understand the situation,' remarked Madame Mazelle in her turn.

'With our money, even though it is in danger, you might still make a

sensible marriage.'

Then Louise exploded with superb, joyous vehemence, 'Your money! I do

not care a pin for it! You can keep it! If you were to give it me

Lucien would no longer take me as his wife. Money, indeed! what should

I do with it? Money! of what use is it? It does not help one to love

and be happy. Lucien will earn my bread for me, and I'll earn it too if

necessary. It will be delightful.'

She cried these things aloud with such strength of youth and hope that

the Mazelles, fearing for her reason, were anxious to quiet her by at

last yielding to her desires. Besides, they were not people to continue

battling; they wished to end their days in peace. As for Sub-Prefect

Châtelard, Mayor Gourier, and Judge Gaume, whilst drinking their tea

they smiled with some embarrassment, for they felt the girl's free love

sweeping them away like bits of straw. One must needs consent to what

one cannot prevent.

It was Châtelard who summed up everything in his amiable, bantering

way, the irony of which was scarcely perceptible. 'Our friend Gourier

is right--we are done for, since it is our children who make the laws

now.'

The marriage of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle took place a month

later. Châtelard for his personal amusement prevailed on his friend

Gourier to give a grand ball at the town-hall on the wedding night, as

if by way of honouring their friends the Mazelles. At heart he thought

it a good joke to make the _bourgeoisie_ of Beauclair dance at this

wedding, which became a symbol of the multitude's accession to power.

They would dance on the ruins of authority in that town-hall which

was gradually becoming the real common-house, where the mayor was no

longer anything but a link between the various social groups. The hall

was most luxuriously decorated, and there was music and singing as at

the wedding of Nanet and Nise. And acclamations once more arose at the

sight of the bridal pair, Lucien, so strong and sturdy, followed by all

his mates of La Crêcherie, and Louise, so slim and passionate, followed

by all the fine society of the town, whose presence had been desired

by her parents as a kind of supreme protest. Only it came to pass that

the fine folk were swamped by the multitude, won over to the rush of

delight, carried away and conquered to such a point that a great many

more marriages between the lads and girls of the different classes

ensued. Once more, then, love triumphed, all-powerful love which

inflames the living universe, and bears it onward to its happy destiny.

Youth flowered on all sides, other alliances were concluded, couples

which everything seemed to separate set out together for the future

city of happiness. The old trading class of Beauclair, now on the

point of disappearing, gave its daughters and sons to the artisans

of La Crêcherie and the peasants of Les Combettes. The Laboques set

the example by allowing their son Auguste to marry Marthe Bourron,

and their daughter Eulalie to marry Arsène Lenfant. They had ceased

struggling for some years already, for they realised that the trade

of old times, the useless cogwheel which had consumed so much energy

and wealth, was vanquished and dying. At the outset they had been

obliged to allow their shop of the Rue de Brias to be turned into a

mere _dépôt_ of the articles manufactured at La Crêcherie and the other

syndicated factories. Then, taking a further step, they had consented

to close the shop, which had been merged into the general stores,

where Luc's indulgence had procured them an inspectorship by way of

occupation. And now old age had come, and they lived in retirement,

full of bitterness, and scared by the sight of that new world which

evinced none of their own passion for lucre. The new generations had

grown up for other forms of activity and delight than moneymaking. And

thus their children, Auguste and Eulalie, yielding to love, the great

artisan of harmony and peace, married as they pleased, encountering

no obstacle on their parents' side save the covert disapproval of old

folk who regret the past. It was arranged that the two weddings should

be celebrated on the same day at Les Combettes, now a large township,

a very suburb of Beauclair, with large bright buildings redolent of

the inexhaustible wealth of the earth. And the weddings took place at

harvest-time--indeed, on the very last day of the harvesting, when huge

ricks already arose upon every side over the great golden plain.

Feuillat, the former farmer of La Guerdache, had already married his

son Léon to Eugénie, daughter of Yvonnot, the assessor, whom he had

formerly reconciled with Feuillat, the mayor--that reconciliation

whence had sprung the good agreement of all the inhabitants of

the place, and that impulse to combine together which had made the

wretched village, consumed by hatred, a fraternal and flourishing town.

Nowadays Feuillat, who was very aged, had become like the patriarch

of that agricultural society, for it was he who had dreamt of it,

secretly sought to establish it, in former days, when combating the

deadly tenant-farming system, and foreseeing what incalculable wealth

the tillers of the soil might draw from it when they should agree

together to love it like men of science and method. A true love for

that soil which for centuries had been exhausting his ancestors, seemed

to have sufficed to enlighten that simple farmer, who originally

had been a hard-headed and rapacious man like all of his class. He

had perceived in what direction lay salvation, peace among all the

peasants, a combination of efforts, the earth becoming once more

the sole mother, ploughed, sown, and cropped by one family. And he

had beheld the fulfilment of his dream, he had seen his neighbours'

fields joined together, the farm of La Guerdache merged into the

parish of Les Combettes, other smaller villages joined thereto, a vast

estate created, and set on the march for the conquest, by successive

annexation, of the whole of the vast plain of La Roumagne. Feuillat,

who had remained the soul of the association, formed with Lenfant

and Yvonnot, its founders, a kind of 'Conseil des Anciens,' who were

consulted on all things, and whose advice was always found profitable.

Thus, when the wedding of Lenfant's son Arsène with Eulalie Laboque was

decided upon, and the latter's brother Auguste determined to celebrate

his marriage with Marthe Bourron at the same time, it occurred to

Feuillat, whose idea was accepted and acclaimed by all, to organise

a great _fête_ which should be like the festival of the pacification

and triumph of Les Combettes. They would drink to fraternity between

the peasant and the industrial worker, formerly so bitterly opposed

to one another, but whose alliance alone could establish social

wealth and peace. They would drink also to the end of all antagonism,

to the disappearance of that barbarous thing called trade which had

perpetuated a hateful struggle between the dealer who sold a tool, the

peasant who made corn grow, and the baker who sold bread, at a price

increased by the thefts of a number of intermediaries. And what better

day could be chosen to celebrate the reconciliation than that when the

enemies of former days, the castes which had seemed bent on devouring

and destroying one another, ended by exchanging their lads and girls,

consenting to marriages which would hasten the advent of the future!

Thus it was decided that the _fête_ should take place in a large field

near the town, a field where lofty ricks, golden under the bright sun,

arose like the symmetrically disposed columns of some gigantic temple.

The colonnade stretched indeed to the very horizon; other ricks and

other ricks arose, proclaiming the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the

soil. And it was there that they sang, that they danced, amidst the

pleasant odour of the ripe corn, amidst the great fertile plain, whence

the work of man, now at last reconciled, drew bread enough for the

happiness of all.

The Laboques brought in their train all the former tradesmen of

Beauclair, whilst the Bourrons brought the whole of La Crêcherie. The

Lenfants were there, at home, and never yet had folk fraternised so

fully, the groups fast mingling and uniting in one sole family. The

Laboques, no doubt, remained grave and somewhat embarrassed, but the

Lenfants made merry with all their hearts, whilst the great sight of

all was Babette Bourron, whose everlasting good humour, her certainty,

even amidst the greatest worries, that things would turn out well at

last, now proved triumphant. She personified hope, marching radiant

behind the two bridal couples; and when these arrived--Marthe Bourron

on the arm of Auguste Laboque, Eulalie Laboque on the arm of Arsène

Lenfant--they brought with them such a blaze of youth and strength and

delight, that endless acclamations rolled from one to the other end of

the stubbles. The onlookers called to them affectionately, they were

loved, they were praised because they indeed personified sovereign

and victorious love, that love which had already drawn all those folk

together, by giving them those overflowing harvests amidst which they

would henceforth swarm like a free and united people, ignorant alike of

hatred and of want.

That same day other marriages were decided upon, as had already

happened at the wedding of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle. Madame

Mitaine, the former bakeress, who had remained for everybody the

'beautiful Madame Mitaine,' in spite of her sixty-five years, kissed

Olympe Lenfant, sister to one of the bridegrooms, and told her that

she would be happy to call her 'daughter,' for her son Évariste had

confessed that he adored her. The beautiful bakeress's husband had

been dead for ten years, and her establishment had been merged into

the general stores of La Crêcherie, as was the case with most of the

retail businesses of the town. She lived like a retired worker with

her son Évariste, both very proud of the fact that Luc had given

them the charge of the electrical kneading appliances, which yielded

an abundance of white light bread. Whilst Évariste in his turn was

bestowing a betrothal kiss on Olympe, who had turned pink with

pleasure, Madame Mitaine suddenly recognised in a thin, dark little

woman seated beside a rick, her old neighbour, Madame Dacheux, the

butcher's wife. She thereupon went and sat down beside her. 'Must it

not all finish in weddings,' she asked gaily, 'since all these young

folk were ever playing together?'

Madame Dacheux, however, remained silent and gloomy. She also had

lost her husband, who had died from the effects of a badly aimed blow

with his chopper, which had struck off his right hand. According to

some folk, clumsiness had nothing to do with it, the butcher having

voluntarily cut off his hand in a fit of furious anger, rather than

sign a transfer of his shop to La Crêcherie. Decent occurrences, and

the idea that holy meat, the meat of the wealthy, was now being placed

within the reach of all and appearing at the tables of the poorest,

must have maddened that violent, reactionary, and tyrannical man. He

had died from the effects of gangrene improperly treated, leaving his

wife in a state of terror from the oaths which he had heaped upon her

during his final agony.

'And your Julienne, how is she?' Madame Mitaine inquired in her amiable

way. 'I met her the other day. She looked superb.'

The butcher's widow was at last obliged to answer. Pointing to a couple

figuring in one of the quadrille sets, she said: 'She's dancing yonder.

I'm watching her.'

Julienne indeed was dancing on the arm of a tall, good-looking fellow,

Louis Fauchard, the son of the former drawer. Sturdy of build, white of

skin, her whole face beaming with health, Julienne evidently enjoyed

the embrace of that vigorous yet gentle-looking youth, who was one of

the best smiths of La Crêcherie.

'Oh! does that mean another marriage, then?' asked Madame Mitaine,

laughing.

But Madame Dacheux shuddered and protested: 'Oh! no, no! How can you

say such a thing? You know what my husband's ideas were. He would rise

from his tomb if I let our daughter marry that workman, the son of that

wretched Mélanie, who was always trying to get a bit of soup-beef on

credit, and whom he drove out of our shop so often because she never

paid!'

In a low and tremulous voice the butcher's widow went on to relate what

a torturing life she led. Her husband appeared to her at night-time.

Although he was dead he still made her bow beneath his despotic

authority, tormenting her, upbraiding her, frightening her with

devilish threats in her dreams. The poor, scared, insignificant woman

was so unlucky that even widowhood had not brought her peace.

'If I were to let Julienne marry contrary to his wishes,' she

concluded, 'he would certainly come back every night to beat me!'

She was shedding tears now, and Madame Mitaine strove to comfort her,

assuring her that she would soon get rid of her nightmares if she would

only set a little happiness around her. Just then, as it happened,

Mélanie, the ever-complaining Madame Fauchard, whom for years one had

seen perpetually running about to procure the four quarts of wine

which her husband required for his shift, drew near with a hesitating

step. She no longer suffered from want. She occupied one of the

bright little houses of La Crêcherie with Fauchard, who, infirm and

stupefied, had now ceased all work. Lodging with her, moreover, was her

brother Fortuné, now forty-five years of age, and already an old man,

half-blind, and deaf, owing to the brutish, mechanical, uniform toil

to which he had been condemned at the Abyss from his fifteenth year

onward. Thus, in spite of the comforts which La Fauchard owed to the

new pension and mutual relief system, she had remained a complaining

creature, a wretched waif of the past, with two old children on her

hands. Therein lay a lesson, an example of the shame and grief which

the wage-system had brought with it.

'Have you seen my men?' she asked Madame Mitaine, referring to her

husband and brother. 'I lost them in the crowd. Oh! there they are!'

With halting gait, arm-in-arm, by way of propping up each other, the

brothers-in-law passed by--Fauchard, wrecked and done for, suggesting

some ghost of the painful toil of the past; and Fortuné, looking less

aged but quite as downcast, stricken seemingly with imbecility.

Through all the sturdy crowd, overflowing with new life and hope

amidst the sweet-smelling ricks, in which was piled the corn of a

whole community, the two unfortunate men strolled hither and thither,

freely displaying their decrepitude, understanding nothing of what

went on around them, and not even acknowledging the salutations of

acquaintances.

'Leave them in the sunshine--it does them good,' resumed Madame

Mitaine, addressing La Fauchard. 'Your son is sturdy and gay enough!'

'That's true; Louis has the best of health,' the other replied. 'The

sons are not much like the fathers, now that the times have changed.

Just see how he dances! He will never know cold and hunger.'

Thereupon Madame Mitaine, in her good-natured way, resolved to promote

the happiness of the young couple who were smiling at each other so

lovingly whilst they danced before her. She brought the two mothers,

Madame Fauchard and Madame Dacheux, together, and made them sit down

side by side, and then she moved the butcher's widow and convinced her

that she ought to consent to her daughter's marriage. It was solitude

that made the poor old creature suffer; she needed grandchildren to

climb up on her knees and put all troublesome phantoms to flight.

'Ah, _mon Dieu_!' she ended by exclaiming, 'I'm agreeable all the

same, on condition that I'm not left alone. I myself never said no to

anybody. It was _he_ who wouldn't have it. But if you all wish it, and

promise to defend me, then do, do as you like.'

When Louis and Julienne learnt that their mothers consented to their

wedding, they hastened to them and fell in their arms with tears and

laughter. And thus amidst the general joy fresh joy was born.

'How could you think of parting these young people?' Madame Mitaine

repeated; 'they seem to have grown up one for the other. I've given my

Évariste to Olympe Lenfant, whom I remember as quite a little girl,

when she used to come to my shop and my boy gave her cakes. It's the

same with Louis Fauchard. How many times have I not seen him prowling

near your shop, Madame Dacheux, and playing with your Julienne! The

Laboques, the Bourrons, the Lenfants and the Yvonnots, whose marriages

are now being celebrated, why, they all grew up together, at the very

time when their parents were attacking one another, and now you see

their harvest time has come.'

She laughed yet more loudly as she recalled the past, while an

expression of infinite kindness spread over her face. And joy was

rising around her. People came to say that other betrothals had just

taken place--that of Sébastien Bourron with Agathe Fauchard, and

that of Nicolas Yvonnot with Zoé Bonnaire. Love, sovereign love,

was incessantly perfecting the reconciliation, blending all classes

together. And the _fête_ lasted until night-time, until the stars came

out, whilst love thus triumphed, bringing heart nearer to heart and

merging one into another, amidst the dances and songs of those joyous

people marching towards future unity and harmony.

Amidst the growing fraternity, however, there was one man, one of the

old ones, Master-smelter Morfain, who remained apart from all the rest,

mute and wild, unable and unwilling to understand. He still dwelt, like

one of the prehistoric Vulcans, in the rocky cavity near the smeltery

under his charge, and now he was quite alone there, like a _solitaire_

who had broken off all intercourse with the rising generations. When

his daughter Ma-Bleue had gone off to realise her dream of love with

Achille Gourier, the Prince Charming of her blue nights, Morfain had

already felt that the new times were robbing him of the best part of

himself. Then another love affair had carried away his son Petit-Da,

that tall young fellow who had become so passionately enamoured of

Honorine, a quick, alert little brunette, daughter of Caffiaux, the

grocer and taverner. Morfain had at first peremptorily refused to

consent to their marriage, full of contempt as he was for that shady

family of poisoners, the Caffiaux, who on their side returned his

disdain with interest, and in their vanity were by no means inclined

to allow their daughter to marry a worker. Nevertheless, Caffiaux was

the first to give way, for he was of a supple and crafty nature. After

closing his tavern he had secured a very comfortable post as chief

guardian at the general stores of La Crêcherie, and the nasty stories

once told of him were being forgotten; whilst for his part he feigned

too much devotion to the principles of solidarity to cling obstinately

to a decision which might have harmed him. Thus Petit-Da, carried away

by his passion, took no further notice of his father's opposition, and

the result was that a terrible quarrel, a frightful rupture, between

the two men ensued. From that time forward the master-smelter no longer

spoke, save to direct the furnace work, but shut himself up in his

cavern like some fierce and motionless spectre of the dead ages.

Though years and years went by Morfain did not appear to age. He was

always the same old-time conqueror of fire, a colossus with a huge

head, a nose like an eagle's beak, and flaming eyes set between cheeks

which a flow of lava seemed to have ravaged. His twisted lips, now

seldom parted, retained their tawny redness suggestive of burns. And

it seemed as if no human considerations would again weigh with him in

the depths of the implacable solitude in which he had shut himself

on perceiving that his daughter and his son had joined the party of

to-morrow. Ma-Bleue had presented Achille with a sweet little girl,

Léonie, who was growing up all grace and tenderness. And Petit-Da's

wife, Honorine, had given birth to a strong and charming boy, Raymond,

now an intelligent young man who would soon be old enough to marry. But

the children's grandfather did not soften--he repulsed them, shrank

even from seeing them.

On the other hand, however, amidst the collapse of his affection for

his kin, the species of paternal passion which he had always evinced

for his furnace seemed to increase. That growling monster ever afire,

whose flaming digestion he controlled both day and night, was seemingly

regarded by him as some child. The slightest disturbance in its work

threw him into anguish; he spent sleepless nights in watching over the

working of the twyers, displaying all the devotion of a young lover

amidst the embers whose heat his skin no longer feared. Luc, rendered

anxious by Morfain's great age, had spoken of pensioning him off,

but renounced the idea at the sight of the quivering rebellion, the

inconsolable grief which was displayed by that hero of toil, who was

so proud of having exhausted, consumed his muscles in pursuing the

conquest of fire. However, the hour for retirement would come forcibly

from the inevitable march of progress, and Luc indulgently decided to

wait awhile.

Morfain had already felt that he was threatened. He was aware of the

researches which Jordan was making with the view of replacing the

old, slow, barbarous smeltery by batteries of electrical furnaces.

The idea that one might extinguish and demolish the giant pile which

flamed during seven and eight years at a stretch, quite distracted the

master-smelter, and he became seriously alarmed when Jordan effected

a first improvement by burning coal at the mouth of the pit from

which it was extracted, and bringing electricity without loss to La

Crêcherie by cable. However, as the cost price still remained too high

for electricity to be employed for smelting ore, Morfain was able to

rejoice over the futility of Jordan's victory. During the ensuing ten

years each fresh defeat which fell on Jordan delighted him. He indulged

in covert irony, feeling convinced that fire would never suffer itself

to be conquered by that strange new power, that mysterious thunder,

whose flashes were not even visible. He longed for his master's

defeat, the annihilation of the new appliances which were ever being

constructed and improved. But all at once the position became very

threatening, a rumour spread that Jordan had at last completed his

great work, having discovered a means of transforming calorical energy

direct into electrical energy, without the help of mechanical energy

being required. That is, the steam engine, that cumbersome and costly

intermediary, was suppressed. And in thiswise the problem was solved,

the cost of electricity would be lowered by one-half, and it would

be possible to employ it for the smelting of ore. A first battery of

electrical furnaces was indeed already being fitted up, and Morfain,

full of despair, prowled fiercely around his blast-furnace, as if

anxious to defend it.

Luc did not immediately give orders for its demolition. He wished first

of all to make some conclusive experiments with the battery. Thus,

during a period of six months, the work went on in both forms, and the

old smelter spent some abominable days, for he now realised that the

well-loved monster in his charge was condemned. He saw it forsaken now,

nobody came up the hill to see it, whereas the inquisitive thronged

around those electrical furnaces below, which occupied such little

space, and did their work, it was said, so well and so speedily.

Morfain, for his part, full of rancour, never went down to see them,

but spoke of them disdainfully as of toys for children. Was it possible

that the ancient method of smelting which had given man the empire

of the world could be dethroned? No, no, one would have to revert

to those giant furnaces which had burnt for centuries without ever

being extinguished! And, alone with the few men under his orders, who

remained silent like himself, Morfain looked down contemptuously on the

shed in which the electrical furnaces were working, and still felt

happy at night-time, when he was able to set the horizon all aglow with

a 'run' of dazzling metal.

But the day at last came when Luc passed sentence on the blast-furnace,

whose work was now shown to be both slower and more costly than the

other. Thus it was decided that following upon a final run it should

be allowed to go out, after which it might be demolished. Morfain,

on being warned of this, did not answer, but remained impassive, his

bronze countenance revealing nothing of the tempest in his soul. His

calmness frightened people; Ma-Bleue came up to see him, accompanied

by her daughter Léonie, and Petit-Da, moved by the same affectionate

impulse, brought his son Raymond. For a moment the family found itself

assembled, as in former days, in the rocky hillside cavern, and the old

man allowed himself to be kissed and caressed, without repulsing his

grandchildren as he had usually done. Still he did not return their

caresses, but seemed far away, like one who belonged to a past period,

one in whom no human feeling was left. It was a cold and gloomy autumn

day, and the crapelike veil of the early twilight was falling from a

livid sky over the dark earth. At last Morfain arose and broke the

silence, saying, 'Well, they are waiting for me, there is yet another

run.'

It was the last. They all followed him to the blast-furnace. The men

under his orders were present, already shadowy in the increasing gloom,

and once again, for the last time, the usual work was accomplished. A

bar was thrust into the plug of refractory clay, the hole was enlarged,

and finally the tumultuous flood of fusing metal poured forth, a stream

of flames rolling along the channels in the sand and filling the moulds

with blazing pools. And once again, too, from those tracks and fields

of fire arose a harvest of sparks, blue sparks of delicate ethereality,

and golden fusees delightfully refined, a florescence of cornflowers,

as it were, amidst golden ears of wheat. And a blinding glow burst

on the mournful twilight, illumining the furnace, the neighbouring

buildings, the distant roofs of Beauclair, and the whole of the great

horizon. Then everything disappeared, deep night reigned all around;

the end had come, the furnace's life was over.

Morfain, who without a word had stood looking at it all, remained there

in the gloom motionless like one of the neighbouring rocks which the

shades of night again enveloped.

'Father,' said Ma-Bleue gently, 'now that there is no more work to be

done here, you must come down to us. Your room has long been ready for

you.'

And Petit-Da in his turn exclaimed: 'Father, you've certainly got to

rest now. There is a room for you in my place too. You must let each

of us have you in turn, you must live sometimes with one and sometimes

with the other.'

But the old master-smelter did not immediately answer. A great sigh

made his breast heave dolorously. At last he said: 'That's it, I'll go

down, I'll have a look. But you can go away now.'

For another fifteen days it was impossible to induce Morfain to quit

the furnace. He watched it cooling, as one watches beside a death-bed.

Every evening he felt it in order to make sure that it was not quite

dead. And as long as he found a little warmth remaining, he lingered

obstinately beside it as if it were a friend whose remains it would

be wrong to abandon. But at last the demolishers arrived, and then

one morning the grand old vanquished man was seen to descend from his

cavern to La Crêcherie, where he repaired with a still firm step to

the large glazed shed in which the battery of electrical furnaces was

working.

As it happened, both Jordan and Luc were there with Petit-Da, whom

they had appointed to direct the smelting in conjunction with his son

Raymond, the latter already being a good electrician. The work was

being brought to greater precision day by day; and Jordan scarcely

quitted the shed, eager as he was to perfect the new method which had

cost him so many years of study and experiment.

'Ah! Morfain, my old friend!' he exclaimed joyously. 'So you've become

sensible!'

The other's face, the colour of old iron, remained impassive, and he

contented himself with replying: 'Yes, Monsieur Jordan, I wanted to see

your machine.'

Luc, however, scrutinised him rather anxiously. He had given orders

to have him watched, for he had learnt that he had been found leaning

over the mouth of the blast furnace, when the latter was still full

of glowing embers, like a man preparing to fling himself into that

frightful hell. One of the smelters under his orders, however, had

saved him from that death which he had contemplated, perchance as a

last gift of his scorched frame to the monster, as though indeed he set

his pride in dying by fire, after loving and serving it so faithfully

for more than half a century.

'It is pleasant to find you still inquisitive at your age, my good

Morfain,' said Luc, without taking his eyes from him. 'Now, just

examine these toys.'

The battery stretched out before them, showing ten furnaces, ten cubes

of red brick-work over six feet high and nearly five feet long. And

above them one only saw the powerful electrodes, thick cylinders of

carbon, to which the electric cables were attached. The operations

were very simple. An endless screw, worked by a switch, served the

ten furnaces, bringing the ore and discharging it into them. A second

switch set up the current, the arc whose extraordinary temperature of

two thousand degrees sufficed to melt almost four hundredweight of

metal in five minutes. And it was only necessary to turn a third switch

for the platinum door of each oven to rise up and for a kind of rolling

way, lined with fine sand, to start off on the march and receive the

ten pigs, each of four hundredweight, and carry them into the cool air

outside.

'Well, my good Morfain,' asked Jordan with the gaiety of a happy child,

'what do you think of it?'

Then he told him of the output. Those toys, each yielding four

hundredweight of metal every five minutes, could turn out altogether

a total of two hundred and forty tons daily, if they were allowed

to work ten hours at a stretch. This was a prodigious output when

one considered that the old blast-furnace, burning day and night

alike, could not supply one-third of the quantity. As a matter of

fact the electrical furnaces were seldom kept working more than three

or four hours, and the advantage was that they could be lighted and

extinguished as one pleased, in accordance with one's needs, whatever

quantity of raw material that was required being immediately obtained.

And how easily they worked, and what cleanliness and simplicity there

was! As the electrodes themselves supplied the carbon necessary for

the carburisation of the ore, there was little dust. The gases alone

escaped, and the quantity of slag was so small that a daily cleaning

sufficed to get rid of it. There was no longer any need of a barbarous

colossus whose digestion caused disquietude, nor of any of the numerous

and cumbersome appendages, the purifiers, the heaters, the blast

machinery, and the constant current of water, with which it had been

necessary to surround it. There was no longer any fear of stoppages

or cooling down, nor any talk of demolishing or emptying the monster

whilst still ablaze, because a twyer simply went wrong. Loaders

watching at the mouth, and smelters piercing the plug and broiling in

the flames of the 'runs' were no longer required to be on the alert,

following one another incessantly with day and night shifts. The

battery of the ten electrical furnaces, extending over a surface under

fifty feet in length and some sixteen feet in width, was at its ease in

the large, bright, glazed shed which sheltered it. And three children

would have sufficed to set everything going, one at the switch of the

endless screw, a second at the switch of the electrodes, and a third at

that of the rolling way.

'What do you think of it? What do you think of it, my good Morfain?'

repeated Jordan triumphantly.

The old master-smelter still looked at the furnaces without moving or

speaking. Night was already at hand, shadows were filling the shed, and

the working of the battery, with its gentle mechanical regularity, was

quite impressive. Cold and dim, the ten furnaces seemed to slumber,

whilst the little cars of ore, moved by the endless screw, were emptied

one by one. Then every five minutes the platinum doors opened, the ten

white jets of the ten 'runs' blazed upon the gloom, and the ten pigs,

flowery with cornflowers amidst ears of wheat, slowly and continuously

journeyed off on the rolling way.

However, Petit-Da, who hitherto had remained silent, wished to give

some explanations, and pointing to the thick cable which, descending

from the rafters, brought the current to the furnaces, he said, 'You

see, father, the electricity comes along that cable, and such is its

force that if the wires were severed everything would be blown up!'

Luc, whom Morfain's calmness had reassured, began to laugh. 'Don't say

that,' he exclaimed, 'you would frighten our young people. Nothing

would be blown up. Only the imprudent man who touched the wires would

be in danger. Besides, the cable is a strong one.'

'Yes, that's true,' Petit-Da resumed; 'a strong wrist would be needed

to break it.'

Morfain, still impassive, drew near. To reach the cable he simply had

to raise his hands. However, for a moment longer he remained there

motionless, nothing on his scorched face revealing what his thoughts

might be. But all at once such a flame shot from his eyes that Luc

again felt anxious, as if with a vague presentiment of a catastrophe.

'A strong wrist, you say?' Morfain at last exclaimed, making up his

mind to speak. 'Just let us see, my lad.'

And before the others had time to intervene he caught hold of the cable

with his hands, hardened by fire and as strong as iron pincers. And he

bent the cable and broke it, even as an irritated giant might break

the string of some child's toy. And lightning came, the wires met, and

a mighty dazzling flash burst forth. Then the whole shed was plunged

into darkness, amidst which one heard nought but the fall of that tall,

lightning-stricken old man, who dropped, all of a piece, like an oak

felled in the forest.

Lanterns had to be fetched. Jordan and Luc, utterly distracted, could

only pronounce Morfain to be dead, whilst Petit-Da shrieked aloud

and wept. Stretched upon his back, the old smelter did not appear to

have suffered. He lay there like some colossal figure of old iron.

However, his garments were smouldering, and the fire had to be put out.

Doubtless he had been unwilling to survive the well-loved monster,

that blast-furnace of which he had been the last fervent worshipper.

With him had finished the first battle: man, the subduer of fire, the

conqueror of metals, bending beneath the slavery of dolorous toil, and

so proud of that long and overwhelming labour--the labour of humanity

marching towards future happiness--as to make it a title of nobility.

He had even shrunk from knowing that new times were born, bringing to

each by the victory of a just apportionment of work, a little rest, a

little gaiety, a little happy enjoyment, such as hitherto only a few

privileged beings had tasted, deriving it from the iniquitous suffering

of the greater number. And he had fallen like some fierce, obstinate

hero of the ancient and terrible _corvée_, like a Vulcan chained to

his forge, a blind enemy of all that would have freed him, setting

his glory in his servitude, and regarding the possible diminution of

suffering and effort as mere downfall. And the force of the new age,

the lightning which he had come to deny and insult, had annihilated

him. And now he slept.

Three years later three more marriages took place, still further

blending the classes together and tightening the bonds of that

fraternal and peaceful people which was ever and ever spreading.

Hilaire Froment, the eldest son of Luc and Josine, a strong young man

already twenty-six, espoused Colette, the daughter of Nanet and Nise, a

delightful little blonde in all the flowery springtide of her eighteen

summers. And the blood of the Delaveaus became calmer on mingling with

that of the Froments and Josine, the erstwhile wretched wanderer, who

had been picked up, half dead of starvation, almost on the threshold of

the Abyss. Then yet another Froment, Thérèse, the third-born, a tall,

gay, good-looking girl, became when seventeen the wife of Raymond,

son of Petit-Da and Honorine Caffiaux, her senior by two years. And

this time the blood of the Froments was allied with that of those epic

toilers the Morfains and that of the Caffiaux, the representatives of

the old trade system, which the advent of La Crêcherie had swept away.

Finally Léonie, the amiable daughter of Achille Gourier and Ma-Bleue,

married one of Bonnaire's sons, who was twenty, like herself. This was

Séverin, Lucien's younger brother; and in this marriage the expiring

_bourgeoisie_ became united to the people, the resigned and mighty

toilers of the dead ages, and the revolutionary workers who were

attaining to freedom.

Great _fêtes_ were given, for the happy descendants of Luc and Josine

were about to increase and multiply, helping to people the new city

which Luc had founded in order that Josine and all others might be

saved from iniquitous want. The torrent of Love was flowing forth, life

was incessantly spreading, doubling the harvests, ever creating more

and more men for increase of truth and increase of justice. Love the

victorious, young and gay, bore couples, and families, and the whole

town towards final harmony and happiness. Each marriage led to the

building of another little house among the greenery; and the march of

those houses never ceased. Old Beauclair had long since been invaded

and swept away. The ancient leprous district, the filthy hovels where

labour had agonised for centuries, had been razed to the ground, over

which now stretched broad roads planted with trees and edged with

smiling dwellings. Even the _bourgeois_ quarter of Beauclair was

threatened; the piercing of new streets enabled one to enlarge and

turn to other uses the old public edifices such as the sub-prefecture,

the law courts, and the prison. The ancient church alone remained,

cracking and crumbling in the centre of a small deserted square, which

suggested a field of nettles and brambles. On all sides the old-time

houses where people had lived cooped up in flats, had given place to

healthier dwellings scattered through the huge garden, which Beauclair

was becoming, each of them gay with light and with streaming water. And

the city was founded, a very great and very glorious city, whose sunlit

avenues ever stretched away, overflowing already into the neighbouring

fields of the fertile Roumagne.

III.

Ten more years went by, and love which had united so many couples,

victorious and fruitful love, brought each household a florescence

of children, a new growth going towards the future. At each fresh

generation a little more truth, justice, and peace would spread and

reign throughout the world.

Luc, who was already sixty-five years old, evinced, with increasing

age, a livelier, a keener affection for children. Now that he saw

his long-dreamt-of city in being, his mind went out to the rising

generations. To them he gave all his time with the thought that the

future rested with them. Ripe men, who have long lived amidst certain

beliefs and habits, and who perchance are chained to the past by

atavism, cannot be altered; whereas children may be influenced, freed

from false ideas, helped to grow and progress, in accordance with the

natural inclination towards evolution which is within them.

Thus, during the visits which on two mornings every week Luc continued

to pay to his work, he devoted most of his attention and time to the

schools and the _crèches_ where the very little ones were kept. He

began by inspecting them before proceeding to the workshops and the

stores, and as he changed his visiting days every week, he generally

took all the turbulent young people by surprise.

One Tuesday, a delightful morning in spring, he set out for the schools

at about eight o'clock. The sunrays were scattering golden rain amidst

the young greenery, and as Luc walked slowly down one of the avenues

past the house where the Boisgelins resided, he heard a well-loved

voice calling him. It was that of Suzanne, who, having seen him

passing, had come to the garden-gate. 'Oh! pray come in for a moment,

my friend,' said she. 'The poor man has another attack, and I feel very

anxious.'

She was speaking of Boisgelin, her husband. As his idleness made him

feel ill at ease in that busy hive, he had at one time tried to work,

and Luc, at Suzanne's request, had given him a kind of inspectorship

at the general stores. But the man who has never done anything, who

has been an idler from birth, lacks will-power, and can no longer bend

to rule or method. Thus Boisgelin soon found that he was incapable of

following any continuous occupation. His mind fled, his limbs ceased to

obey him, he became sleepy, overwhelmed. He suffered from his impotence

and gradually relapsed into the emptiness of his former life, a

succession of idle days, all spent in the most futile fashion. As there

was no longer any round of pleasure and luxury to daze him he sank into

increasing boredom, from which he could not be roused. He was spending

his last years in a state of stupor, like a man who had fallen from

another planet, amazed at the unexpected, extraordinary things which

took place around him.

'Does he have any violent fits?' Luc inquired of Suzanne.

'Oh, no!' she replied. 'He simply remains very sombre and suspicious;

but my anxiety comes from his insane fancies having taken hold of him

again.'

It seemed indeed that Boisgelin's mind had been weakened by the idle

life he led in that city of activity and work. From dawn till dusk

he was to be seen wandering, like a pale, scared phantom, about the

bustling streets, the buzzing schools, and the resounding workshops.

He alone did nothing, whereas all the others busied themselves,

overflowing with the delight and health which come from action. And, by

degrees, as he found that he himself was the only one who did not work

amidst that nation of workers, the insane idea seized upon him that he

was the king, the master, and that this nation was a nation of slaves,

working solely for his benefit, amassing incalculable wealth, which he

would dispose of as he pleased for his sole enjoyment. Although olden

society was crumbling to pieces, the capitalist idea had survived in

him, and he remained the mad capitalist, the god-capitalist, who,

possessing all the capital of the earth, had made all other men his

slaves, the wretched artisans of his own egotistical happiness.

Luc found Boisgelin on the threshold of the house, dressed with all the

care that he still evinced as regards his personal appearance. Even at

seventy years of age he remained a vain-looking coxcomb, always well

groomed, freshly shaved, and wearing that distinctive mark of conceit,

a single eyeglass. His wavering glance and weak mouth alone revealed

the collapse of his mind. At that moment he was about to go out, and a

light cane was in his hand, and a shiny hat was tilted over his ear.

'What, already up! Already out and about!' exclaimed Luc, affecting a

good-natured manner.

'Oh, it's necessary, my dear fellow,' replied Boisgelin, after giving

him a suspicious glance. 'Everybody deceives me. How can I sleep in

peace with all those millions which my money brings me in, and which

this nation of workmen earns for me every day? I am obliged to see to

things, for otherwise there would be a leakage of hundreds of thousands

of francs every hour.'

Suzanne made a sign of despair, then addressing Luc she said: 'I was

advising him not to go out to-day. What is the use of worrying like

that.'

But her husband silenced her: 'It isn't merely to-day's money that

worries me, there are all the sums piled up already--those milliards

which fresh millions increase every evening. I quite lose myself among

them; I no longer know how to live in the midst of such a colossal

fortune. It is necessary that I should invest it, manage it, watch

over it, in order to save myself from being robbed--is that not so?

And, oh! it's hard work, terribly hard work, and makes me absolutely

wretched--more wretched even than the poor who have neither fire nor

bread.'

His voice had begun to tremble dolorously, and big tears rolled down

his cheeks. He looked a pitiable object, and, although he generally

annoyed Luc, who regarded him as an anomaly in that industrious city,

the other was now stirred to the depths of his heart. 'Oh!' said he,

'you can at least take a day's rest. I'm of your wife's opinion. If

I were you I shouldn't go out to-day, I should stop in my garden and

watch my flowers bloom.'

But Boisgelin again scrutinised him and, as if yielding to a desire

to confide in him, as in a safe friend, resumed: 'No, no, it is

indispensable that I should go out. What bothers me even more than

exercising supervision over my men and my fortune, is that I don't even

know where to put my money. Just think of it! there are milliards and

milliards! They end by becoming an encumbrance--no rooms are built big

enough to hold them. And so it has occurred to me to have a look round

and try to find some pit which might be deep enough. Only, don't say a

word of it; nobody ought even to suspect it.'

Then as Luc, shuddering and terrified, turned towards Suzanne, who was

very pale, and scarce able to restrain her tears, Boisgelin profited

by the opportunity to slip out of the garden and go off. He could

still walk rapidly, and, turning down the sunlit avenue, he speedily

disappeared. Luc's first impulse was to run after him and bring him

back by force.

'I assure you, my friend,' he said to Suzanne, 'that you act wrongly

in letting him wander about; I can never meet him prowling around

the schools or through the workshops and stores without fearing some

disaster.'

However, Suzanne strove to reassure him. 'He is inoffensive, I am

sure of it,' she said. 'True, I sometimes tremble for him, for he

becomes so gloomy beneath the burden of all that imaginary money of

his that a sudden impulse to have done with it all is to be feared.

But how can I shut him up? He is only happy out of doors, and to place

him in confinement would be useless cruelty, especially as he never

even speaks to anybody, but remains as wild and as timid as a truant

schoolboy.'

Then the tears, which she had been restraining, flowed forth. 'Ah! the

unhappy man, he has caused me much suffering; but never before did I

feel so grieved.'

On learning that Luc was going to the schools Suzanne resolved to

accompany him. She also had aged; she was sixty-eight already. But she

had remained healthy and active, ever desirous of showing her interest

in others, and helping on good work. And since she had been living at

La Crêcherie, and had had nothing more to do for her son Paul, who

was now married and the father of several children, she had created

a larger family for herself by becoming a teacher of _solfeggio_ and

singing for some of the youngest pupils in the schools. This helped

her to live happily. It delighted her to arouse the musical instinct

in those little children. She herself was a good musician, but after

all her ambition was not so much to impart exceptional science to

them, as to render their singing natural, like that of the warblers

of the woods. And she had obtained marvellous results--there was all

the sonorous gaiety of an aviary in her class, and the young ones who

left her hands afterwards filled the other classes, the workshops, and

indeed the whole town, with perpetual mirthful melody.

'But you don't give your lesson to-day, do you?' Luc inquired.

'No, I only want to profit by the play-hour to make my little cherubs

rehearse a chorus. But there are also some matters for me to consider

with Sœurette and Josine.'

The three women had become great, and indeed inseparable, friends.

Sœurette had retained the management of the central _crèche_, where

she watched over the very little ones--the children still in their

cradles and those who could scarcely walk. As for Josine, she directed

the needlework and household lessons, turning all the girls who passed

through the schools into good wives and mothers, well able to manage

their homes. In addition, the three friends formed together a kind of

council which looked into all important questions concerning women in

the new city.

Luc and Suzanne, following the avenue, at last reached the large square

where the common-house arose, surrounded by green lawns decked with

shrubs and flower-beds. The building was not the modest pile of earlier

years; in its stead there had been erected a perfect palace, with a

long polychromatic façade, in which decorated stoneware and painted

faïence were blended with ironwork. In the large halls erected for

meetings, theatrical performances, spectacular displays, and games,

the people found themselves at their ease, at home as it were. They

frequently fraternised at the festivities which were interspersed among

the days of work. If the little houses, where each lived as he listed,

were modest ones, the common-house, on the contrary, displayed dazzling

luxury and beauty, such as was appropriate for the sovereign abode

of the people-king. The common-house even tended to become a town in

the town, so frequently was it enlarged in accordance with increasing

needs. Other buildings, too, arose behind it--libraries, laboratories,

and lecture-halls, which facilitated free study, research, experiment,

and the diffusion of the acquired truths. There were also courts and

covered buildings for athletic exercises, without mentioning some

admirable free baths, flooded with the fresh and pure water captured on

the slopes of the Bleuse Mountains, that water to whose inexhaustible

abundance the city owed its cleanliness, health, and gaiety. But the

schools especially had become a little world by themselves, occupying

a number of buildings near the common-house, for several thousand

children now studied in them. To avoid all unhealthy crowding numerous

divisions had been arranged, each occupying its own pavilions, whose

large bay windows overlooked spacious gardens. Thus the whole formed,

as it were, a city of childhood and youth, in which one found children

of all ages, from infants still in their cradles to big lads and

lassies who were completing their apprenticeships after passing through

the five classes in which education proper was imparted to them.

'Oh!' said Luc, with his kindly smile, 'I always begin at the

beginning; I always go first to see those little friends of mine who

are still being suckled.'

'Well, of course,' replied Suzanne, smiling also. 'I will go in with

you.'

In the first pavilion on the right-hand, amidst a garden planted

with roses, Sœurette reigned over a hundred cradles and as many

rolling-chairs. She also watched over some of the adjacent pavilions,

but she invariably returned to this one, which sheltered three of Luc's

granddaughters and one of his grandsons, of whom she was very fond.

Luc and Josine, knowing how the city benefited by the rearing of the

children together, had set an example in this respect, desiring that

their own grandchildren should be brought up with those of others.

As it happened, Josine was in the pavilion with Sœurette that morning.

The former was now fifty-eight, and the latter sixty-five years of

age. But Josine retained her supple gracefulness and fair delicacy

beneath her beautiful hair, whose golden hue had simply paled; whilst

Sœurette, as often happens with plain, thin, dark women, did not appear

to age, but seemed to acquire with advancing years a particular charm,

derived from her active kindliness and persistent youth. Suzanne, now

sixty-eight, was the elder of both of them; and all three surrounded

Luc like a trio of faithful hearts, one the loving wife and the others

devoted friends.

When Luc went in with Suzanne, Josine was holding on her knees a little

boy scarcely two years old, whose right hand Sœurette was examining.

'Why, what is the matter with my little Olivier?' asked Luc, already

feeling anxious. 'Has he hurt himself?'

The little fellow was his last-born grandson, Olivier Froment, the

child of his eldest son Hilaire, and of Colette, the daughter of Nanet

and Nise.

'Oh!' replied Sœurette, 'it is merely a splinter which must have come

from the table of his chair. There, it's out now!'

The boy had raised a slight cry of pain and then had begun to laugh

again; while a little girl, a four-year-old, who ran about in all

freedom, hastened up with open arms as if to take hold of him and carry

him off.

'Will you let him be, Mariette?' exclaimed Josine, full of alarm. 'One

must not turn one's little brother into a doll.'

Mariette protested, declaring that she would be very good. And Josine,

like a kind grandmother, already calmed, glanced at Luc, and the pair

of them smiled, well pleased to see all those young folk who had sprung

from their love around them. However, Suzanne was bringing them two

other fair-headed little granddaughters, Hélène and Berthe, who were

twins, in their fourth year. Their mother was Pauline, Luc's second

daughter, now the wife of André Jollivet, who had been brought up by

his grandfather Judge Gaume, after the captain's tragical death and

Lucile's disappearance. Of their five children, Luc and Josine had

already married three, Hilaire, Thérèse, and Pauline, whilst the two

others, Charles and Jules, were as yet merely 'engaged.'

'And these darlings--you were forgetting them,' said Suzanne gaily.

Hélène and Berthe, the twins, threw their arms around the neck of their

grandfather, of whom they were extremely fond; Mariette also tried to

climb upon his knees, whilst little Olivier thrust out his hands, which

no longer hurt him, and frantically implored grandpapa to take him on

his shoulders. Luc, half stifled by caresses, began to jest:

'That's it, my friend, you have now only to fetch Maurice, your

nightingale as you call him. Then there would be five of them to devour

me. Good heavens! what shall I do when there are dozens?'

Then, setting the twins and Mariette on the floor, he took hold of

Olivier and threw him up into the air, at which the child raised cries

of rapturous delight.

'Come, be reasonable, all of you,' Luc resumed when he had set the boy

on his chair again, 'one can't be always playing, you know; I must

attend to the others.'

Guided by Sœurette and followed by Josine and Suzanne, he next went

round the rooms. Those nurseries of the little folk were very charming

with their white walls, their white cradles, their babes in white,

a universal whiteness which seemed so gay in the sunshine which

streamed through the lofty windows. Here also there was an abundance

of water--one could feel its crystalline freshness, hear its murmur,

as if indeed clear streams were flowing through the place, ensuring

all the extreme cleanliness which was apparent on every side. Cries

occasionally came from the cradles, but for the most part one only

heard the pretty prattle, the silvery laughter of those who could

already walk. Amongst them there was yet another little community, a

silent community of toys, dolls, jumping-jacks, horses, and carts, all

leading a naïve and comical existence. And these were the property of

one and all, of both the boys and the girls who mingled like members of

one sole family, growing up together from their cradles, and destined

hereafter to live side by side, now as brothers and sisters, now as

husbands and wives.

This practice of bringing up the children of both sexes together had

already yielded good results. Among the young married couples Suzanne

noticed a happy peacefulness, a closer blending of intelligence and

sentiment, something resembling fraternity in love. And in the schools

she observed that the presence of the sexes side by side aroused a new

spirit of emulation, imparting gentleness to the boys, decision to the

girls, and preparing both for a more perfect intermingling of natures,

in such wise that they would become one joint spirit at the family

hearth. Nothing of that which some had feared had taken place; on the

contrary the moral level was higher than formerly, and it was wonderful

to see those lads and girls seek the studies which might prove most

useful to them, in accordance with the liberty which was granted to

each pupil to work out his or her future in conformity with individual

taste.

'They are virtually betrothed in their cradles,' said Suzanne

jestingly, 'and divorce is done away with, for they know one another

too well to select either wife or husband lightly. But come, my dear

Luc, playtime has begun and I want you to hear my pupils sing.'

Sœurette remained with her little folk, for it was also the time when

some of them took their baths, and Josine for her part had to go into

her needlework ward, where several of the little girls preferred to

spend their play-hour in learning to make dresses for their dolls. Thus

Luc alone followed Suzanne down the covered gallery into which opened

the five class-rooms.

It had long since been necessary to subdivide the classes, provide

more spacious buildings, and even enlarge the dependencies, the

gymnasiums, the apprenticeship workshops, and the gardens into which

the children were turned in all liberty every two hours. After a few

trials a definite system of education had been arrived at, and this

system, which rendered study attractive by leaving the pupil all his

personality, and only requiring of him attention to such lessons as he

preferred, as he freely chose, yielded admirable results, providing the

city each year with a new generation that tended more and more towards

truth and justice. This was, indeed, the only good way to hasten the

future, to create such men as might be entrusted with the realisation

of to-morrow, free from all lying dogmas, reared amidst the necessary

realities of life, and won over to proven scientific facts. And now

that the new system worked so well nothing seemed more logical or more

profitable than to abstain from bending a whole class beneath the rod

of some master who would have tried to impose his personal views upon

some fifty pupils of varying disposition and sensibility. It seemed

indeed quite natural that one should simply awaken a desire to learn

among those pupils, then direct them on their journey of discovery,

and favour the individual faculties which each might display. The

five classes had thus become experimental grounds, where the children

gradually explored the field of human knowledge, not to devour that

knowledge gluttonously without digesting any of it, but to awaken

individual intellect, assimilate knowledge in accordance with personal

comprehension, and in particular make sure of one's specialities.

Luc and Suzanne had to wait another moment for the school work to

cease. From the covered gallery they were able to glance into the large

class-rooms, where each pupil had his or her little table and chair.

Long tables and forms had been discarded, and the new system made the

pupil feel as if he were virtually his own master. But how gay was the

sight of all these lads and girls mingled together promiscuously! And

with what deep attention they listened to the professor who went from

one to another, teaching in a conversational manner, and at times even

provoking contradiction. As there were no longer any punishments or

prizes the children set their budding desire for glory in competing

together as to who could best show that he or she had understood some

knotty point. It often happened that the professor ceased speaking to

listen to those whom he guessed to be full of the subject, and the

lesson then acquired all the interest of a discussion. Indeed one of

the chief objects that the masters had in view was to put life into

the studies, to draw the pupils from inanimate books, to make them

cognisant of living things, and impart to them the passion of ideas.

And pleasure was born of it all, the pleasure of learning and knowing;

and through the five classes was spread the _ensemble_ of human

knowledge, the real stirring drama of the world, which each of us ought

to know, if he wishes to take part in it and find happiness in its

midst.

But a joyous clamour arose, playtime had come round. Every two hours

the gardens were invaded by a rush of boys and girls, fraternising

together. A sturdy, good-looking lad, some nine years old, ran up and

flung himself in Luc's arms, exclaiming: 'Good morning, grandfather.'

This was Maurice, the son of Thérèse Froment, who had married Raymond

Morfain.

'Ah!' said Suzanne gaily, 'here's my nightingale! Come, children, shall

we repeat our pretty chorus on that lawn between those big chestnut

trees?'

Quite a band already surrounded her. Among a score of others there were

two boys and a girl whom Luc kissed. Of the former one was Ludovic

Boisgelin, a lad eleven years old, the son of Paul Boisgelin and

Antoinette Bonnaire, whose marriage had first announced the fusion of

the classes. Then there was Félicien Bonnaire, now fourteen, the son

of Séverin Bonnaire and Léonie Gourier, the daughter of Achille and

Ma-Bleue, whose love had flowered among the wild perfumed rocks of the

Bleuse Mountains. And the girl was Germaine Yvonnot, a granddaughter

of Auguste Laboque and Marthe Bourron. A handsome, dark-haired

laughing girl she was, and in her one found blended the blood of

workman, peasant, and petty trader, who had so long warred one against

the other. It amused Luc to unravel the intricate skeins of those

alliances, those frequent crossings of the race; and he was skilful in

identifying the young faces, whose endless increase enraptured him.

But Suzanne spoke: 'You shall hear them,' she said; 'it is a hymn to

the rising sun, a salute on the part of childhood to the planet which

will ripen the crops.'

Some fifty children assembled together on the lawn amidst the chestnut

trees. And the chant arose, very fresh, pure, and gay. There was no

great musical science in it. It was merely a series of couplets, sung

by a girl and a boy alternately, and emphasised by choral repetition.

But it was so lively, so expressive of naïve faith in the planet of

light and kindliness, that it possessed a stirring charm as sung by

those young and somewhat shrill voices. For his part Maurice Morfain,

the little boy who replied to Germaine Yvonnot, the girl, possessed,

even as Suzanne had said, an angel voice of crystalline lightness,

rising to the most delightful, high-toned, flute-like notes. And the

chorus-singing suggested the warbling and chirruping of birds in

freedom on the branches. Nothing could have been more amusing.

Luc laughed, like a well-pleased grandpapa, and Maurice, full of pride,

again rushed into his arms.

'Why, it's true, my lad,' said Luc, 'you sing like a little

nightingale! And do you know that is very nice, because in life, you

see, you will be able to sing in your hours of worry, and your songs

will bring back your courage. One ought never to weep, one ought always

to sing.'

'That is what I tell them!' exclaimed Suzanne. Everybody ought to sing,

and I teach them in order that they may sing here, and in studying, and

in their workshops, and afterwards throughout their lives. The nation

that sings is a nation of health and gaiety.'

She displayed no severity nor vanity in the lessons which she gave in

this fashion amidst the garden greenery. Her only ambition was to open

those young souls to the mirth of fraternal song and the clear beauty

of harmony. As she expressed it, whenever the day of universal justice

and peace should dawn, the whole happy city would sing beneath the sun.

'Come, my little friends,' she exclaimed, 'once again, and carefully,

in time. There is no occasion to hurry.'

Once again the chant arose, but towards the finish of it the young

vocalists were disturbed. A man appeared amidst some shrubbery behind

the chestnut trees--a man who furtively turned round as if to hide

himself. Luc, however, perceived that it was Boisgelin, and was greatly

surprised by the maniac's strange behaviour; for he stooped and

explored the grass as if seeking some hiding-place, some secret cavity.

At last Luc understood the meaning of it. The poor fellow was looking

for some nook where he might store away his incalculable wealth in

order that it might not be stolen from him. He was often met behaving

in this wild way, trembling with fear, at a loss where he might bury

all that surplus fortune, the weight of which bowed him down. Luc

shuddered with pity at the sight, and became yet more concerned when he

perceived that the children were alarmed by the apparition, even like a

party of gay chaffinches put to flight by the wild fluttering of some

night-bird.

However, Suzanne, who had turned somewhat pale, repeated in a louder

voice: 'Keep time, keep time, my dears! Bring out the last bar with all

your fervour!'

Haggard and suspicious, Boisgelin had disappeared, like a black

shadow vanishing from amidst the flowering shrubs. And as soon as the

children, recovering their composure, had saluted the sovereign sun

with a last joyful cry, Luc and Suzanne complimented them on their

efforts and dismissed them to their play. Then they walked together

towards the apprenticeship workshops on the other side of the garden.

'Did you see him?' Suzanne asked in a low voice, after a moment's

silence. 'Ah! the unhappy man, how anxious he makes me!' But as Luc

thereupon expressed his regret that he had been unable to follow

Boisgelin and take him home again, she once more protested: 'Oh! he

would not have followed you; you would have had to struggle with him,

and there would have been quite a scandal. My only fear, I repeat it to

you, is that he may be found some day in a pit with his head broken.'

They relapsed into silence, for they were now reaching the workshops.

A good many pupils spent a part of their playtime there, planing wood,

filing iron, sewing or embroidering, whilst others who reigned over a

neighbouring strip of ground busied themselves with digging, sowing,

and weeding. And now Luc and Suzanne again met Josine, standing in a

large room where sewing, knitting, and weaving machines, placed side by

side, were worked sometimes by girls and sometimes by boys. Here again

several of the children were singing, and a joyous spirit of emulation

seemed to animate the workshop.

'Do you hear them?' exclaimed Suzanne, whose gaiety had returned.

'They will always sing, those warblers of mine.'

Josine was explaining to a big girl of sixteen, named Clémentine

Bourron, the manner in which she ought to manage a sewing-machine in

order to do certain embroidery, whilst another pupil, a girl of nine,

Aline Boisgelin by name, was waiting to be shown how she ought to turn

down a seam. Clémentine was the daughter of Sébastien Bourron and

Agathe Fauchard, her grandfather on her mother's side being Fauchard,

the old drawer of the Abyss, and on her father's Bourron the puddler.

Aline, who was a younger sister of Ludovic, the son of Paul Boisgelin

and Antoinette Bonnaire, laughed affectionately when she perceived her

grandmother, Suzanne, who was very fond of her.

'Oh, grandmamma!' said she, 'I can't turn my seams down very well as

yet, but I sew them very straight--don't I, friend Josine?'

Suzanne kissed her, then watched Josine, who turned down a seam to

serve as a pattern for the child. Luc himself took an interest in these

little matters, aware as he was that everything has its importance,

that happy life depends upon the happy employment of one's hours. Then,

as Sœurette came up, at the moment when he was about to quit Josine

and Suzanne in order to repair to the works, he found himself for a

moment in the flower garden with the three women, those three loving

and devoted hearts that helped him so powerfully to bring about the

fulfilment of his dream of goodness and happiness. They surrounded him

like symbols of the affectionate solidarity, the universal love which

he wished to disseminate among mankind. Taking each other by the hand

they stood there smiling at him, old no doubt, with their white hair,

but still beautiful, with the wondrous beauty of kindliness. And when,

after discussing some details of organisation with them, Luc departed,

going towards the works, their loving eyes long followed his footsteps.

The factory halls and workshops, which were now much more extensive

than formerly, were full of the healthy gaiety which comes from an

abundance of sunshine and air. On all sides fresh water washed the

cement pavement, carrying off the slightest particles of dust in such

wise that the abode of work, once so grimy, muddy, and pestilential,

now shone with cleanliness. Most of the work, too, was now performed

by machines which stood around in serried array, like an army of

docile, indefatigable artisans, ever ready for the effort required of

them. If their metal arms wore out they simply had to be replaced. They

themselves did not know what pain was, and they had in part suppressed

human pain. They, too, were friendly machines, not the machines of

the earlier days, the competitors which aggravated the workman's want

by producing a fall in wages, but liberating machines, universal

tools toiling for man whilst man rested. Around those sturdy workers,

propelled by electricity, there were only so many drivers and watchers,

whose sole duties consisted in moving levers or switches, and in making

sure that the mechanism acted properly. The working day did not exceed

four hours, and a workman never spent more than two upon one task,

being relieved at the expiration of his two hours by a mate, whilst he

himself passed to some other form of work, industrial art, agriculture,

or public function. Again, the general employment of electric power had

virtually done away with the uproar with which the workshops had once

resounded, and now they were enlivened by the songs of the workmen,

the vocal mirth which the latter had brought from their schools like

a florescence of harmony embellishing their whole lives. And the

singing of those men around that silent machinery, at once so powerful

and so easy to manage, proclaimed the delight of just, glorious, and

all-saving work.

As Luc passed through the hall containing the puddling furnaces, he

paused for a moment to exchange a few friendly words with a strong

young man of twenty or thereabouts, who managed one of those furnaces

without any need of assistance.

'Well, Adolphe, are things going on satisfactorily, are you satisfied?'

Luc inquired.

'Oh! certainly they are! I've just completed my two hours, and the

"bloom" is just fit for removal.'

Adolphe was a son of Auguste Laboque and Marthe Bourron. Unlike his

maternal grandfather, Bourron the puddler, who had now retired, he did

not have to perform the terrible task of stirring the ball of fusing

metal with a long bar amidst all the flaring of the fire. The stirring

was now performed by mechanical means, and, indeed, an ingenious

contrivance brought the dazzling ball out of the furnace and placed it

on the chariot which carried it to the helve hammer without the workman

having to intervene.

'You shall see,' Adolphe gaily resumed, 'it's of first-rate quality,

and the work's so easy.'