STILL more years passed, and Mathieu was already sixty-eight and Marianne
sixty-five, when amid the increasing good fortune which they owed to
their faith in life, and their long courageous hopefulness, a last
battle, the most dolorous of their existence, almost struck them down and
sent them to the grave, despairing and inconsolable.
One evening Marianne went to bed, quivering, utterly distracted. Quite a
rending was taking place in the family. A disastrous and hateful quarrel
had set the mill, where Grégoire reigned supreme, against the farm which
was managed by Gervais and Claire. And Ambroise, on being selected as
arbiter, had fanned the flames by judging the affair in a purely business
way from his Paris counting-house, without taking into account the
various passions which were kindled.
It was on returning from a secret application to Ambroise, prompted by a
maternal longing for peace, that Marianne had taken to her bed, wounded
to the heart, and terrified by the thought of the future. Ambroise had
received her roughly, almost brutally, and she had gone back home in a
state of intense anguish, feeling as if her own flesh were lacerated by
the quarrelling of her ungrateful sons. And she had kept her bed, begging
Mathieu to say nothing, and explaining that a doctor's services would be
useless, since she did not suffer from any malady. She was fading away,
however, as he could well detect; she was day by day taking leave of him,
carried off by her bitter grief. Was it possible that all those loving
and well-loved children, who had grown up under their care and their
caresses, who had become the joy and pride of their victory, all those
children born of their love, united in their fidelity, a sacred
brotherly, sisterly battalion gathered close around them, was it possible
that they should now disband and desperately seek to destroy one another?
If so, it was true, then, that the more a family increases, the greater
is the harvest of ingratitude. And still more accurate became the saying,
that to judge of any human being's happiness or unhappiness in life, one
must wait until he be dead.
"Ah!" said Mathieu, as he sat near Marianne's bed, holding her feverish
hand, "to think of it! To have struggled so much, and to have triumphed
so much, and then to encounter this supreme grief, which will bring us
more pain than all the others. Decidedly it is true that one must
continue battling until one's last breath, and that happiness is only to
be won by suffering and tears. We must still hope, still triumph, and
conquer and live."
Marianne, however, had lost all courage, and seemed to be overwhelmed.
"No," said she, "I have no energy left me, I am vanquished. I was always
able to heal the wounds which came from without, but this wound comes
from my own blood; my blood pours forth within me and stifles me. All our
work is destroyed. Our joy, our health, our strength, have at the last
day become mere lies."
Then Mathieu, whom her grievous fears of a disaster gained, went off to
weep in the adjoining room, already picturing his wife dead and himself
in utter solitude.
It was with reference to Lepailleur's moorland, the plots intersecting
the Chantebled estate, that the wretched quarrel had broken out between
the mill and the farm. For many years already, the romantic, ivy-covered
old mill, with its ancient mossy wheel, had ceased to exist. Grégoire, at
last putting his father's ideas into execution, had thrown it down to
replace it by a large steam mill, with spacious meal-stores which a light
railway-line connected with Janville station. And he himself, since he
had been making a big fortune--for all the wheat of the district was now
sent to him--had greatly changed, with nothing of his youthful turbulence
left save a quick temper, which his wife Thérèse with her brave, loving
heart alone could somewhat calm. On a score of occasions he had almost
broken off all relations with his father-in-law, Lepailleur, who
certainly abused his seventy years. Though the old miller, in spite of
all his prophecies of ruin, had been unable to prevent the building of
the new establishment, he none the less sneered and jeered at it,
exasperated as he was at having been in the wrong. He had, in fact, been
beaten for the second time. Not only did the prodigious crops of
Chantebled disprove his theory of the bankruptcy of the earth, that
villainous earth in which, like an obstinate peasant weary of toil and
eager for speedy fortune, he asserted nothing more would grow; but now
that mill of his, which he had so disdained, was born as it were afresh,
growing to a gigantic size, and becoming in his son-in-law's hands an
instrument of great wealth.
The worst was that Lepailleur so stubbornly lived on, experiencing
continual defeats, but never willing to acknowledge that he was beaten.
One sole delight remained to him, the promise given and kept by Grégoire
that he would not sell the moorland enclosure to the farm. The old man
had even prevailed on him to leave it uncultivated, and the sight of that
sterile tract intersecting the wavy greenery of the beautiful estate of
Chantebled, like a spot of desolation, well pleased his spiteful nature.
He was often to be seen strolling there, like an old king of the stones
and the brambles, drawing up his tall, scraggy figure as if he were quite
proud of the poverty of that soil. In going thither one of his objects
doubtless was to find a pretext for a quarrel; for it was he who in the
course of one of these promenades, when he displayed such provoking
insolence, discovered an encroachment on the part of the farm--an
encroachment which his comments magnified to such a degree that
disastrous consequences seemed probable. As it was, all the happiness of
the Froments was for a time destroyed.
In business matters Grégoire invariably showed the rough impulsiveness of
a man of sanguine temperament, obstinately determined to part with no
fraction of his rights. When his father-in-law told him that the farm had
impudently cleared some seven acres of his moorland, with the intention
no doubt of carrying this fine robbery even further, if it were not
promptly stopped, Grégoire at once decided to inquire into the matter,
declaring that he would not tolerate any invasion of that sort. The
misfortune then was that no boundary stones could be found. Thus, the
people of the farm might assert that they had made a mistake in all good
faith, or even that they had remained within their limits. But Lepailleur
ragefully maintained the contrary, entered into particulars, and traced
what he declared to be the proper frontier line with his stick, swearing
that within a few inches it was absolutely correct. However, matters went
altogether from bad to worse after an interview between the brothers,
Gervais and Grégoire, in the course of which the latter lost his temper
and indulged in unpardonable language. On the morrow, too, he began an
action-at-law, to which Gervais replied by threatening that he would not
send another grain of corn to be ground at the mill. And this rupture of
business relations meant serious consequences for the mill, which really
owed its prosperity to the custom of Chantebled.
From that moment matters grew worse each day, and conciliation soon
seemed to be out of the question; for Ambroise, on being solicited to
find a basis of agreement, became in his turn impassioned, and even ended
by enraging both parties. Thus the hateful ravages of that fratricidal
war were increased: there were now three brothers up in arms against one
another. And did not this forebode the end of everything; might not this
destructive fury gain the whole family, overwhelming it as with a blast
of folly and hatred after so many years of sterling good sense and strong
and healthy affection?
Mathieu naturally tried to intervene. But at the very outset he felt that
if he should fail, if his paternal authority should be disregarded, the
disaster would become irreparable. Without renouncing the struggle, he
therefore waited for some opportunity which he might turn to good
account. At the same time, each successive day of discord increased his
anxiety. It was really all his own life-work, the little people which had
sprung from him, the little kingdom which he had founded under the
benevolent sun, that was threatened with sudden ruin. A work such as this
can only live by force of love. The love which created it can alone
perpetuate it; it crumbles as soon as the bond of fraternal solidarity is
broken. Thus it seemed to Mathieu that instead of leaving his work behind
him in full florescence of kindliness, joy, and vigor, he would see it
cast to the ground in fragments, soiled, and dead even before he were
dead himself. Yet what a fruitful and prosperous work had hitherto been
that estate of Chantebled, whose overflowing fertility increased at each
successive harvest; and that mill too, so enlarged and so flourishing,
which was the outcome of his own inspiring suggestions, to say nothing of
the prodigious fortunes which his conquering sons had acquired in Paris!
Yet it was all this admirable work, which faith in life had created, that
a fratricidal onslaught upon life was about to destroy!
One evening, in the mournful gloaming of one of the last days of
September, the couch on which Marianne lay dying of silent grief was, by
her desire, rolled to the window. Charlotte alone nursed her, and of all
her sons she had but the last one, Benjamin, beside her in the now
over-spacious house which had replaced the old shooting-box. Since the
family had been at war she had kept the doors closed, intent on opening
them only to her children when they became reconciled, if they should
then seek to make her happy by coming to embrace one another beneath her
roof. But she virtually despaired of that sole cure for her grief, the
only joy that would make her live again.
That evening, as Mathieu came to sit beside her, and they lingered there
hand in hand according to their wont, they did not at first speak, but
gazed straight before them at the spreading plain; at the estate, whose
interminable fields blended with the mist far away; at the mill yonder on
the banks of the Yeuse, with its tall, smoking chimney; and at Paris
itself on the horizon, where a tawny cloud was rising as from the huge
furnace of some forge.
The minutes slowly passed away. During the afternoon Mathieu had taken a
long walk in the direction of the farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne, in the
hope of quieting his torment by physical fatigue. And in a low voice, as
if speaking to himself, he at last said:
"The ploughing could not take place under better conditions. Yonder on
the plateau the quality of the soil has been much improved by the recent
methods of cultivation; and here, too, on the slopes, the sandy soil has
been greatly enriched by the new distribution of the springs which
Gervais devised. The estate has almost doubled in value since it has been
in his hands and Claire's. There is no break in the prosperity; labor
yields unlimited victory."
"What is the good of it if there is no more love?" murmured Marianne.
"Then, too," continued Mathieu, after a pause, "I went down to the Yeuse,
and from a distance I saw that Grégoire had received the new machine
which Denis has just built for him. It was being unloaded in the yard. It
seems that it imparts a certain movement to the mill-stones, which saves
a good third of the power needed. With such appliances the earth may
produce seas of corn for innumerable nations, they will all have bread.
And that mill-engine, with its regular breath and motion, will produce
fresh wealth also."
"What use is it if people hate one another?" Marianne exclaimed.
At this Mathieu dropped the subject. But, in accordance with a resolution
which he had formed during his walk, he told his wife that he meant to go
to Paris on the morrow. And on noticing her surprise, he pretended that
he wished to see to a certain business matter, the settlement of an old
account. But the truth was, that he could no longer endure the spectacle
of his wife's lingering agony, which brought him so much suffering. He
wished to act, to make a supreme effort at reconciliation.
At ten o'clock on the following morning, when Mathieu alighted from the
train at the Paris terminus, he drove direct to the factory at Grenelle.
Before everything else he wished to see Denis, who had hitherto taken no
part in the quarrel. For a long time now, indeed ever since Constance's
death, Denis had been installed in the house on the quay with his wife
Marthe and their three children. This occupation of the luxurious
dwelling set apart for the master had been like a final entry into
possession, with respect to the whole works. True, Beauchêne had lived
several years longer, but his name no longer figured in that of the firm.
He had surrendered his last shred of interest in the business for an
annuity; and at last one evening it was learnt that he had died that day,
struck down by an attack of apoplexy after an over-copious lunch, at the
residence of his lady-friends, the aunt and the niece. He had previously
been sinking into a state of second childhood, the outcome of his life of
fast and furious pleasure. And this, then, was the end of the egotistical
debauchee, ever going from bad to worse, and finally swept into the
gutter.
"Why! what good wind has blown you here?" cried Denis gayly, when he
perceived his father. "Have you come to lunch? I'm still a bachelor, you
know; for it is only next Monday that I shall go to fetch Marthe and the
children from Dieppe, where they have spent a delightful September."
Then, on hearing that his mother was ailing, even in danger, he become
serious and anxious.
"Mamma ill, and in danger! You amaze me. I thought she was simply
troubled with some little indisposition. But come, father, what is really
the matter? Are you hiding something? Is something worrying you?"
Thereupon he listened to the plain and detailed statement which Mathieu
felt obliged to make to him. And he was deeply moved by it, as if the
dread of the catastrophe which it foreshadowed would henceforth upset his
life. "What!" he angrily exclaimed, "my brothers are up to these fine
pranks with their idiotic quarrel! I knew that they did not get on well
together. I had heard of things which saddened me, but I never imagined
that matters had gone so far, and that you and mamma were so affected
that you had shut yourselves up and were dying of it all! But things must
be set to rights! One must see Ambroise at once. Let us go and lunch with
him, and finish the whole business."
Before starting he had a few orders to give, so Mathieu went down to wait
for him in the factory yard. And there, during the ten minutes which he
spent walking about dreamily, all the distant past arose before his eyes.
He could see himself a mere clerk, crossing that courtyard every morning
on his arrival from Janville, with thirty sous for his lunch in his
pocket. The spot had remained much the same; there was the central
building, with its big clock, the workshops and the sheds, quite a little
town of gray structures, surmounted by two lofty chimneys, which were
ever smoking. True, his son had enlarged this city of toil; the stretch
of ground bordered by the Rue de la Fédération and the Boulevard de
Grenelle had been utilized for the erection of other buildings. And
facing the quay there still stood the large brick house with dressings of
white stone, of which Constance had been so proud, and where, with the
mien of some queen of industry, she had received her friends in her
little _salon_ hung with yellow silk. Eight hundred men now worked in the
place; the ground quivered with the ceaseless trepidation of machinery;
the establishment had grown to be the most important of its kind in
Paris, the one whence came the finest agricultural appliances, the most
powerful mechanical workers of the soil. And it was his, Mathieu's, son
whom fortune had made prince of that branch of industry, and it was his
daughter-in-law who, with her three strong, healthy children near her,
received her friends in the little _salon_ hung with yellow silk.
As Mathieu, moved by his recollections, glanced towards the right,
towards the pavilion where he had dwelt with Marianne, and where Gervais
had been born, an old workman who passed, lifted his cap to him, saying,
"Good day, Monsieur Froment."
Mathieu thereupon recognized Victor Moineaud, now five-and-fifty years
old, and aged, and wrecked by labor to even a greater degree than his
father had been at the time when mother Moineaud had come to offer the
Monster her children's immature flesh. Entering the works at sixteen
years of age, Victor, like his father, had spent forty years between the
forge and the anvil. It was iniquitous destiny beginning afresh: the most
crushing toil falling upon a beast of burden, the son hebetated after the
father, ground to death under the millstones of wretchedness and
injustice.
"Good day, Victor," said Mathieu, "are you well?"
"Oh, I'm no longer young, Monsieur Froment," the other replied. "I shall
soon have to look somewhere for a hole to lie in. Still, I hope it won't
be under an omnibus."
He alluded to the death of his father, who had finally been picked up
under an omnibus in the Rue de Grenelle, with his skull split and both
legs broken.
"But after all," resumed Victor, "one may as well die that way as any
other! It's even quicker. The old man was lucky in having Norine and
Cécile to look after him. If it hadn't been for them, it's starvation
that would have killed him, not an omnibus."
Mathieu interrupted. "Are Norine and Cécile well?" he asked.
"Yes, Monsieur Froment. Leastways, as far as I know, for, as you can
understand, we don't often see one another. Them and me, that's about all
that's left out of our lot; for Irma won't have anything more to do with
us since she's become one of the toffs. Euphrasie was lucky enough to
die, and that brigand Alfred disappeared, which was real relief, I assure
you; for I feared that I should be seeing him at the galleys. And I was
really pleased when I had some news of Norine and Cécile lately. Norine
is older than I am, you know; she will soon be sixty. But she was always
strong, and her boy, it seems, looks after her. Both she and Cécile still
work; yes, Cécile still lives on, though one used to think that a fillip
would have killed her. It's a pretty home, that one of theirs; two
mothers for a big lad of whom they've made a decent fellow."
Mathieu nodded approvingly, and then remarked: "But you yourself, Victor,
had boys and girls who must now in their turn be fathers and mothers."
The old workman waved his hand vaguely.
"Yes," said he, "I had eight, one more than my father. They've all gone
off, and they are fathers and mothers in their turn, as you say, Monsieur
Froment. It's all chance, you know; one has to live. There are some of
them who certainly don't eat white bread, ah! that they don't. And the
question is whether, when my arms fail me, I shall find one to take me
in, as Norine and Cécile took my father. But when everything's said, what
can you expect? It's all seed of poverty, it can't grow well, or yield
anything good."
For a moment he remained silent; then resuming his walk towards the
works, with bent, weary back and hanging hands, dented by toil, he said:
"_Au revoir_, Monsieur Froment."
"_Au revoir_, Victor," Mathieu answered in a kindly tone.
Having given his orders, Denis now came to join his father, and proposed
to him that they should go on foot to the Avenue d'Antin. On the way he
warned him that they would certainly find Ambroise alone, for his wife
and four children were still at Dieppe, where, indeed, the two
sisters-in-law, Andrée and Marthe, had spent the season together.
In a period of ten years, Ambroise's fortune had increased tenfold.
Though he was barely five-and-forty, he reigned over the Paris market.
With his spirit of enterprise, he had greatly enlarged the business left
him by old Du Hordel, transforming it into a really universal _comptoir_,
through which passed merchandise from all parts of the world. Frontiers
did not exist for Ambroise, he enriched himself with the spoils of the
earth, particularly striving to extract from the colonies all the wealth
they were able to yield, and carrying on his operations with such
triumphant audacity, such keen perception, that the most hazardous of his
campaigns ended victoriously.
A man of this stamp, whose fruitful activity was ever winning battles,
was certain to devour the idle, impotent Séguins. In the downfall of
their fortune, the dispersal of the home and family, he had carved a
share for himself by securing possession of the house in the Avenue
d'Antin. Séguin himself had not resided there for years, he had thought
it original to live at his club, where he secured accommodation after he
and his wife had separated by consent. Two of the children had also gone
off; Gaston, now a major in the army, was on duty in a distant garrison
town, and Lucie was cloistered in an Ursuline convent. Thus, Valentine,
left to herself and feeling very dreary, no longer able, moreover, to
keep up the establishment on a proper footing, in her turn quitted the
mansion for a cheerful and elegant little flat on the Boulevard
Malesherbes, where she finished her life as a very devout old lady,
presiding over a society for providing poor mothers with baby-linen, and
thus devoting herself to the children of others--she who had not known
how to bring up her own. And, in this wise, Ambroise had simply had to
take possession of the empty mansion, which was heavily mortgaged, to
such an extent, indeed, that when the Séguins died their heirs would
certainly be owing him money.
Many were the recollections which awoke when Mathieu, accompanied by
Denis, entered that princely mansion of the Avenue d'Antin! There, as at
the factory, he could see himself arriving in poverty, as a needy tenant
begging his landlord to repair a roof, in order that the rain might no
longer pour down on the four children, whom, with culpable improvidence,
he already had to provide for. There, facing the avenue, was the
sumptuous Renaissance façade with eight lofty windows on each of its
upper floors; there, inside, was the hall, all bronze and marble,
conducting to the spacious ground-floor reception-rooms which a winter
garden prolonged; and there, up above, occupying all the central part of
the first floor, was Séguin's former "cabinet," the vast apartment with
lofty windows of old stained glass. Mathieu could well remember that room
with its profuse and amusing display of "antiquities," old brocades, old
goldsmith's ware and old pottery, and its richly bound books, and its
famous modern pewters. And he remembered it also at a later date, in the
abandonment to which it had fallen, the aspect of ruin which it had
assumed, covered, as it was, with gray dust which bespoke the slow
crumbling of the home. And now he found it once more superb and cheerful,
renovated with healthier and more substantial luxury by Ambroise, who had
put masons and joiners and upholsterers into it for a period of three
months. The whole mansion now lived afresh, more luxurious than ever,
filled at winter-time with sounds of festivity, enlivened by the laughter
of four happy children, and the blaze of a living fortune which effort
and conquest ever renewed. And it was no longer Séguin, the idler, the
artisan of nothingness, whom Mathieu came to see there, it was his own
son Ambroise, a man of creative energy, whose victory had been sought by
the very forces of life, which had made him triumph there, installed him
as the master in the home of the vanquished.
When Mathieu and Denis arrived Ambroise was absent, but was expected home
for lunch. They waited for him, and as the former again crossed the
ante-room the better to judge of some new arrangements that had been
made, he was surprised at being stopped by a lady who was sitting there
patiently, and whom he had not previously noticed.
"I see that Monsieur Froment does not recognize me," she said.
Mathieu made a vague gesture. The woman had a tall, plump figure, and was
certainly more than sixty years of age; but she evidently took care of
her person, and had a smiling mien, with a long, full face and almost
venerable white hair. One might have taken her for some worthy,
well-to-do provincial _bourgeoise_ in full dress.
"Céleste," said she. "Céleste, Madame Séguin's former maid."
Thereupon he fully recognized her, but hid his stupefaction at finding
her so fortunately circumstanced at the close of her career. He had
imagined that she was buried in some sewer.
In a gay, placid way she proceeded to recount her happiness: "Oh! I am
very pleased," she said; "I had retired to Rougemont, my birth-place, and
I ended by there marrying a retired naval officer, who has a very
comfortable pension, not to speak of a little fortune which his first
wife left him. As he has two big sons, I ventured to recommend the
younger one to Monsieur Ambroise, who was kind enough to take him into
his counting-house. And so I have profited by my first journey to Paris
since then, to come and give Monsieur Ambroise my best thanks."
She did not say how she had managed to marry the retired naval officer;
how she had originally been a servant in his household, and how she had
hastened his first wife's death in order to marry him. All things
considered, however, she rendered him very happy, and even rid him of his
sons, who were in his way, thanks to the relations she had kept up in
Paris.
She continued smiling like a worthy woman, whose feelings softened at the
recollection of the past. "You can have no idea how pleased I felt when I
saw you pass just now, Monsieur Froment," she resumed. "Ah! it was a long
time ago that I first had the honor of seeing you here! You remember La
Couteau, don't you? She was always complaining, was she not? But she is
very well pleased now; she and her husband have retired to a pretty
little house of their own, with some little savings which they live on
very quietly. She is no longer young, but she has buried a good many in
her time, and she'll bury more before she has finished! For instance,
Madame Menoux--you must surely remember Madame Menoux, the little
haberdasher close by--well, there was a woman now who never had any luck!
She lost her second child, and she lost that big fellow, her husband,
whom she was so fond of, and she herself died of grief six months
afterwards. I did at one time think of taking her to Rougemont, where the
air is so good for one's health. There are old folks of ninety living
there. Take La Couteau, for instance, she will live as long as she likes!
Oh! yes, it is a very pleasant part indeed, a perfect paradise."
At these words the abominable Rougemont, the bloody Rougemont, arose
before Mathieu's eyes, rearing its peaceful steeple above the low plain,
with its cemetery paved with little Parisians, where wild flowers bloomed
and hid the victims of so many murders.
But Céleste was rattling on again, saying: "You remember Madame Bourdieu
whom you used to know in the Rue de Miromesnil; she died very near our
village on some property where she went to live when she gave up
business, a good many years ago. She was luckier than her colleague La
Rouche, who was far too good-natured with people. You must have read
about her case in the newspapers, she was sent to prison with a medical
man named Sarraille."
"La Rouche! Sarraille!" Yes, Mathieu had certainly read the trial of
those two social pests, who were fated to meet at last in their work of
iniquity. And what an echo did those names awaken in the past: Valérie
Morange! Reine Morange! Already in the factory yard Mathieu had fancied
that he could see the shadow of Morange gliding past him--the punctual,
timid, soft-hearted accountant, whom misfortune and insanity had carried
off into the darkness. And suddenly the unhappy man here again appeared
to Mathieu, like a wandering phantom, the restless victim of all the
imbecile ambition, all the desperate craving for pleasure which animated
the period; a poor, weak, mediocre being, so cruelly punished for the
crimes of others, that he was doubtless unable to sleep in the tomb into
which he had flung himself, bleeding, with broken limbs. And before
Mathieu's eyes there likewise passed the spectre of Séraphine, with the
fierce and pain-fraught face of one who is racked and killed by insatiate
desire.
"Well, excuse me for having ventured to stop you, Monsieur Froment,"
Céleste concluded; "but I am very, very pleased at having met you again."
He was still looking at her; and as he quitted her he said, with the
indulgence born of his optimism: "May you keep happy since you are happy.
Happiness must know what it does."
Nevertheless, Mathieu remained disturbed, as he thought of the apparent
injustice of impassive nature. The memory of his Marianne, struck down by
such deep grief, pining away through the impious quarrels of her sons,
returned to him. And as Ambroise at last came in and gayly embraced him,
after receiving Céleste's thanks, he felt a thrill of anguish, for the
decisive moment which would save or wreck the family was now at hand.
Indeed, Denis, after inviting himself and Mathieu to lunch, promptly
plunged into the subject.
"We are not here for the mere pleasure of lunching with you," said he;
"mamma is ill, did you know it?"
"Ill?" said Ambroise. "Not seriously ill?"
"Yes, very ill, in danger. And are you aware that she has been ill like
this ever since she came to speak to you about the quarrel between
Grégoire and Gervais, when it seems that you treated her very roughly."
"I treated her roughly? We simply talked business, and perhaps I spoke to
her like a business man, a little bluntly."
Then Ambroise turned towards Mathieu, who was waiting, pale and silent:
"Is it true, father, that mamma is ill and causes you anxiety?"
And as his father replied with a long affirmative nod, he gave vent to
his emotion, even as Denis had done at the works immediately on learning
the truth.
"But dash it all," he said; "this affair is becoming quite idiotic! In my
opinion Grégoire is right and Gervais wrong. Only I don't care a fig
about that; they must make it up at once, so that poor mamma may not have
another moment's suffering. But then, why did you shut yourselves up? Why
did you not let us know how grieved you were? Every one would have
reflected and understood things."
Then, all at once, Ambroise embraced his father with that promptness of
decision which he displayed to such happy effect in business as soon as
ever a ray of light illumined his mind.
"After all, father," said he; "you are the cleverest; you understand
things and foresee them. Even if Grégoire were within his rights in
bringing an action against Gervais, it would be idiotic for him to do so,
because far above any petty private interest, there is the interest of
all of us, the interest of the family, which is to remain, united,
compact, and unattackable, if it desires to continue invincible. Our
sovereign strength lies in our union--And so it's simple enough. We will
lunch as quickly as possible and take the first train. We shall go, Denis
and I, to Chantebled with you. Peace must be concluded this evening. I
will see to it."
Laughing, and well pleased to find his own feelings shared by his two
sons, Mathieu returned Ambroise's embrace. And while waiting for lunch to
be served, they went down to see the winter garden, which was being
enlarged for some _fêtes_ which Ambroise wished to give. He took pleasure
in adding to the magnificence of the mansion, and in reigning there with
princely pomp. At lunch he apologized for only offering his father and
brother a bachelor's pot-luck, though, truth to tell, the fare was
excellent. Indeed, whenever Andrée and the children absented themselves,
Ambroise still kept a good cook to minister to his needs, for he held the
cuisine of restaurants in horror.
"Well, for my part," said Denis, "I go to a restaurant for my meals; for
since Marthe and all the others have been at Dieppe, I have virtually
shut up the house."
"You are a wise man, you see," Ambroise answered, with quiet frankness.
"For my part, as you are aware, I am an enjoyer. Now, make haste and
drink your coffee, and we will start."
They reached Janville by the two o'clock train. Their plan was to repair
to Chantebled in the first instance, in order that Ambroise and Denis
might begin by talking to Gervais, who was of a gentler nature than
Grégoire, and with whom they thought they might devise some means of
conciliation. Then they intended to betake themselves to the mill,
lecture Grégoire, and impose on him such peace conditions as they might
have agreed upon. As they drew nearer and nearer to the farm, however,
the difficulties of their undertaking appeared to them, and seemed to
increase in magnitude. An arrangement would not be arrived at so easily
as they had at first imagined. So they girded their loins in readiness
for a hard battle.
"Suppose we begin by going to see mamma," Denis suggested. "We should see
and embrace her, and that would give us some courage."
Ambroise deemed the idea an excellent one. "Yes, let us go by all means,
particularly as mamma has always been a good counsellor. She must have
some idea."
They climbed to the first floor of the house, to the spacious room where
Marianne spent her days on a couch beside the window. And to their
stupefaction they found her seated on that couch with Grégoire standing
by her and holding both her hands, while on the other side were Gervais
and Claire, laughing softly.
"Why! what is this?" exclaimed Ambroise in amazement. "The work is done!"
"And we who despaired of being able to accomplish it!" declared Denis,
with a gesture of bewilderment.
Mathieu was equally stupefied and delighted, and on noticing the surprise
occasioned by the arrival of the two big brothers from Paris, he
proceeded to explain the position.
"I went to Paris this morning to fetch them," he said, "and I've brought
them here to reconcile us all!"
A joyous peal of laughter resounded. The big brothers were too late!
Neither their wisdom nor their diplomacy had been needed. They themselves
made merry over it, feeling the while greatly relieved that the victory
should have been won without any battle.
Marianne, whose eyes were moist, and who felt divinely happy, so happy
that she seemed already well again, simply replied to Mathieu: "You see,
my friend, it's done. But as yet I know nothing further. Grégoire came
here and kissed me, and wished me to send for Gervais and Claire at once.
Then, of his own accord, he told them that they were all three mad in
causing me such grief, and that they ought to come to an understanding
together. Thereupon they kissed one another. And now it's done; it's all
over."
But Grégoire gayly intervened. "Wait a moment; just listen; I cut too
fine a figure in the story as mamma relates it, and I must tell you the
truth. I wasn't the first to desire the reconciliation; the first was my
wife, Thérèse. She has a good sterling heart and the very brains of a
mule, in such wise that whenever she is determined on anything I always
have to do it in the end. Well, yesterday evening we had a bit of a
quarrel, for she had heard, I don't know how, that mamma was ill with
grief. And this pained her, and she tried to prove to me how stupid the
quarrel was, for we should all of us lose by it. This morning she began
again, and of course she convinced me, more particularly as, with the
thought of poor mamma lying ill through our fault, I had hardly slept all
night. But father Lepailleur still had to be convinced, and Thérèse
undertook to do that also. She even hit upon something extraordinary, so
that the old man might imagine that he was the conqueror of conquerors.
She persuaded him at last to sell you that terrible enclosure at such an
insane price that he will be able to shout 'victory!' over all the
house-tops."
Then turning to his brother and sister, Grégoire added, in a jocular
tone; "My dear Gervais, my dear Claire, let yourselves be robbed, I beg
of you. The peace of my home is at stake. Give my father-in-law the last
joy of believing that he alone has always been in the right, and that we
have never been anything but fools."
"Oh! as much money as he likes," replied Gervais, laughing. "Besides,
that enclosure has always been a dishonor for the estate, streaking it
with stones and brambles, like a nasty sore. We have long dreamt of
seeing the property spotless, with its crops waving without a break under
the sun. And Chantebled is rich enough to pay for its glory."
Thus the affair was settled. The wheat of the farm would return to the
mill to be ground, and the mother would get well again. It was the force
of life, the need of love, the union necessary for the whole family if it
were to continue victorious, that had imposed true brotherliness on the
sons, who for a moment had been foolish enough to destroy their power by
assailing one another.
The delight of finding themselves once more together there, Denis,
Ambroise, Gervais, Grégoire, the four big brothers, and Claire, the big
sister, all reconciled and again invincible, increased when Charlotte
arrived, bringing with her the other three daughters, Louise, Madeleine,
and Marthe, who had married and settled in the district. Louise, having
heard that her mother was ill, had gone to fetch her sisters, in order
that they might repair to Chantebled together. And what a hearty laugh
there was when the procession entered!
"Let them all come!" cried Ambroise, in a jocular way. "Let's have the
family complete, a real meeting of the great privy council. You see,
mamma, you must get well at once; the whole of your court is at your
knees, and unanimously decides that it can no longer allow you to have
even a headache."
Then, as Benjamin put in an appearance the very last, behind the three
sisters, the laughter broke out afresh.
"And to think that we were forgetting Benjamin!" Mathieu exclaimed.
"Come, little one, come and kiss me in your turn," said Marianne
affectionately, in a low voice. "The others jest because you are the last
of the brood. But if I spoil you that only concerns ourselves, does it
not? Tell them that you spent the morning with me, and that if you went
out for a walk it was because I wished you to do so."
Benjamin smiled with a gentle and rather sad expression. "But I was
downstairs, mamma; I saw them go up one after the other. I waited for
them all to kiss, before coming up in my turn."
He was already one-and-twenty and extremely handsome, with a bright face,
large brown eyes, long curly hair, and a frizzy, downy beard. Though he
had never been ill, his mother would have it that he was weak, and
insisted on coddling him. All of them, moreover, were very fond of him,
both for his grace of person and the gentle charm of his disposition. He
had grown up in a kind of dream, full of a desire which he could not put
into words, ever seeking the unknown, something which he knew not, did
not possess. And when his parents saw that he had no taste for any
profession, and that even the idea of marrying did not appeal to him,
they evinced no anger, but, on the contrary, they secretly plotted to
keep this son, their last-born, life's final gift, to themselves. Had
they not surrendered all the others? Would they not be forgiven for
yielding to the egotism of love by reserving one for themselves, one who
would be theirs entirely, who would never marry, or toil and moil, but
would merely live beside them and love them, and be loved in return? This
was the dream of their old age, the share which, in return for long
fruitfulness, they would have liked to snatch from devouring life, which,
though it gives one everything, yet takes everything away.
"Oh! just listen, Benjamin," Ambroise suddenly resumed, "you are
interested in our brave Nicolas, I know. Would you like to have some news
of him? I heard from him only the day before yesterday. And it's right
that I should speak of him, since he's the only one of the brood, as
mamma puts it, who cannot be here."
Benjamin at once became quite excited, asking, "Is it true? Has he
written to you? What does he say? What is he doing?"
He could never think without emotion of Nicolas's departure for Senegal.
He was twelve years old at that time, and nearly nine years had gone by
since then, yet the scene, with that eternal farewell, that flight, as it
were, into the infinite of time and hope, was ever present in his mind.
"You know that I have business relations with Nicolas," resumed Ambroise.
"Oh! if we had but a few fellows as intelligent and courageous as he is
in our colonies, we should soon rake in all the scattered wealth of those
virgin lands. Well, Nicolas, as you are aware, went to Senegal with
Lisbeth, who was the very companion and helpmate he needed. Thanks to the
few thousand francs which they possessed between them, they soon
established a prosperous business; but I divined that the field was still
too small for them, and that they dreamt of clearing and conquering a
larger expanse. And now, all at once, Nicolas writes to me that he is
starting for the Soudan, the valley of the Niger, which has only lately
been opened. He is taking his wife and his four children with him, and
they are all going off to conquer as fortune may will it, like valiant
pioneers beset by the idea of founding a new world. I confess that it
amazes me, for it is a very hazardous enterprise. But all the same one
must admit that our Nicolas is a very plucky fellow, and one can't help
admiring his great energy and faith in thus setting out for an almost
unknown region, fully convinced that he will subject and populate it."
Silence fell. A great gust seemed to have swept by, the gust of the
infinite coming from the far away mysterious virgin plains. And the
family could picture that young fellow, one of themselves, going off
through the deserts, carrying the good seed of humanity under the
spreading sky into unknown climes.
"Ah!" said Benjamin softly, his eyes dilating and gazing far, far away as
if to the world's end; "ah! he's happy, for he sees other rivers, and
other forests, and other suns than ours!"
But Marianne shuddered. "No, no, my boy," said she; "there are no other
rivers than the Yeuse, no other forests but our woods of Lillebonne, no
other sun but that of Chantebled. Come and kiss me again--let us all kiss
once more, and I shall get well, and we shall never be parted again."
The laughter began afresh with the embraces. It was a great day, a day of
victory, the most decisive victory which the family had ever won by
refusing to let discord destroy it. Henceforth it would be invincible.
At twilight, on the evening of that day, Mathieu and Marianne again found
themselves, as on the previous evening, hand in hand near the window
whence they could see the estate stretching to the horizon; that horizon
behind which arose the breath of Paris, the tawny cloud of its gigantic
forge. But how little did that serene evening resemble the other, and how
great was their present felicity, their trust in the goodness of their
work.
"Do you feel better?" Mathieu asked his wife; "do you feel your strength
returning; does your heart beat more freely?"
"Oh! my friend, I feel cured; I was only pining with grief. To-morrow I
shall be strong."
Then Mathieu sank into a deep reverie, as he sat there face to face with
his conquest--that estate which spread out under the setting sun. And
again, as in the morning, did recollections crowd upon him; he remembered
a morning more than forty years previously when he had left Marianne,
with thirty sous in her purse, in the little tumbledown shooting-box on
the verge of the woods. They lived there on next to nothing; they owed
money, they typified gay improvidence with the four little mouths which
they already had to feed, those children who had sprung from their love,
their faith in life.
Then he recalled his return home at night time, the three hundred francs,
a month's salary, which he had carried in his pocket, the calculations
which he had made, the cowardly anxiety which he had felt, disturbed as
he was by the poisonous egotism which he had encountered in Paris. There
were the Beauchênes, with their factory, and their only son, Maurice,
whom they were bringing up to be a future prince, the Beauchênes, who had
prophesied to him that he and his wife and their troop of children could
only expect a life of black misery, and death in a garret. There were
also the Séguins, then his landlords, who had shown him their millions,
and their magnificent mansion, full of treasures, crushing him the while,
treating him with derisive pity because he did not behave sensibly like
themselves, who were content with having but two children, a boy and a
girl. And even those poor Moranges had talked to him of giving a royal
dowry to their one daughter Reine, dreaming at that time of an
appointment that would bring in twelve thousand francs a year, and full
of contempt for the misery which a numerous family entails. And then the
very Lepailleurs, the people of the mill, had evinced distrust because
there were twelve francs owing to them for milk and eggs; for it had
seemed to them doubtful whether a _bourgeois_, insane enough to have so
many children, could possibly pay his debts. Ah! the views of the others
had then appeared to be correct; he had repeated to himself that he would
never have a factory, nor a mansion, nor even a mill, and that in all
probability he would never earn twelve thousand francs a year. The others
had everything and he nothing. The others, the rich, behaved sensibly,
and did not burden themselves with offspring; whereas, he, the poor man,
already had more children than he could provide for. What madness it had
seemed to be!
But forty years had rolled away, and behold his madness was wisdom! He
had conquered by his divine improvidence; the poor man had vanquished the
wealthy. He had placed his trust in the future, and now the whole harvest
was garnered. The Beauchêne factory was his through his son Denis; the
Séguins' mansion was his through his son Ambroise; the Lepailleurs' mill
was his through his son Grégoire. Tragical, even excessive punishment,
had blown those sorry Moranges away in a tempest of blood and insanity.
And other social wastage had swept by and rolled into the gutter;
Séraphine, the useless creature, had succumbed to her passions; the
Moineauds had been dispersed, annihilated by their poisonous environment.
And he, Mathieu, and Marianne alone remained erect, face to face with
that estate of Chantebled, which they had conquered from the Séguins, and
where their children, Gervais and Claire, at present reigned, prolonging
the dynasty of their race. This was their kingdom; as far as the eye
could see the fields spread out with wondrous fertility under the sun's
farewell, proclaiming the battles, the heroic creative labor of their
lives. There was their work, there was what they had produced, whether in
the realm of animate or inanimate nature, thanks to the power of love
within them, and their energy of will. By love, and resolution, and
action, they had created a world.
"Look, look!" murmured Mathieu, waving his arm, "all that has sprung from
us, and we must continue to love, we must continue to be happy, in order
that it may all live."
"Ah!" Marianne gayly replied, "it will live forever now, since we have
all become reconciled and united amid our victory."
Victory! yes, it was the natural, necessary victory that is reaped by the
numerous family! Thanks to numbers they had ended by invading every
sphere and possessing everything. Fruitfulness was the invincible,
sovereign conqueress. Yet their conquest had not been meditated and
planned; ever serenely loyal in their dealings with others, they owed it
simply to the fulfilment of duty throughout their long years of toil. And
they now stood before it hand in hand, like heroic figures, glorious
because they had ever been good and strong, because they had created
abundantly, because they had given abundance of joy, and health, and hope
to the world amid all the everlasting struggles and the everlasting
tears.