Grandidier, who had finished his round, crossing the courtyard in the
direction of the closed pavilion, where all the grief of his
heart-tragedy awaited him. Here was that man waging the battle of life,
defending his fortune with the risk that his business might melt away
amidst the furious warfare between capital and labour; and at the same
time, in lieu of evening repose, finding naught but anguish it his
hearth: a mad wife, an adored wife, who had sunk back into infancy, and
was for ever dead to love! How incurable was his secret despair! Even on
the days when he triumphed in his workshops, disaster awaited him at
home. And could any more unhappy man, any man more deserving of pity, be
found even among the poor who died of hunger, among those gloomy workers,
those vanquished sons of labour who hated and who envied him?
When Pierre found himself in the street again he was astonished to see
Madame Toussaint and Madame Theodore still there with little Celine. With
their feet in the mud, like bits of wreckage against which beat the
ceaseless flow of wayfarers, they had lingered there, still and ever
chatting, loquacious and doleful, lulling their wretchedness to rest
beneath a deluge of tittle-tattle. And when Toussaint, followed by his
son, came out, delighted with the advance he had secured, he also found
them on the same spot. Then he told Madame Theodore the story of the
bradawl, and the idea which had occurred to him and all his mates that
Salvat might well be the culprit. She, however, though turning very pale,
began to protest, concealing both what she knew and what she really
thought.
"I tell you I haven't seen him for several days," said she. "He must
certainly be in Belgium. And as for a bomb, that's humbug. You say
yourself that he's very gentle and wouldn't harm a fly!"
A little later as Pierre journeyed back to Neuilly in a tramcar he fell
into a deep reverie. All the stir and bustle of that working-class
district, the buzzing of the factory, the overflowing activity of that
hive of labour, seemed to have lingered within him. And for the first
time, amidst his worries, he realised the necessity of work. Yes, it was
fatal, but it also gave health and strength. In effort which sustains and
saves, he at last found a solid basis on which all might be reared. Was
this, then, the first gleam of a new faith? But ah! what mockery! Work an
uncertainty, work hopeless, work always ending in injustice! And then
want ever on the watch for the toiler, strangling him as soon as slack
times came round, and casting him into the streets like a dead dog
immediately old age set in.
On reaching Neuilly, Pierre found Bertheroy at Guillaume's bedside. The
old _savant_ had just dressed the injured wrist, and was not yet certain
that no complications would arise. "The fact is," he said to Guillaume,
"you don't keep quiet. I always find you in a state of feverish emotion
which is the worst possible thing for you. You must calm yourself, my
dear fellow, and not allow anything to worry you."
A few minutes later, though, just as he was going away, he said with his
pleasant smile: "Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview me
about that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men know
everything! I told the one who called on me that it would be very kind of
_him_ to enlighten _me_ as to what powder was employed. And, by the way,
I am giving a lesson on explosives at my laboratory to-morrow. There will
be just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as to
give an account of it to Guillaume; it would interest him."
At a glance from his brother, Pierre accepted the invitation. Then,
Bertheroy having gone, he recounted all he had learnt during the
afternoon, how Salvat was suspected, and how the investigating magistrate
had been put on the right scent. And at this news, intense fever again
came over Guillaume, who, with his head buried in the pillow, and his
eyes closed, stammered as if in a kind of nightmare: "Ah! then, this is
the end! Salvat arrested, Salvat interrogated! Ah! that so much toil and
so much hope should crumble!"
IV
CULTURE AND HOPE
ON the morrow, punctually at one o'clock, Pierre reached the Rue d'Ulm,
where Bertheroy resided in a fairly large house, which the State had
placed at his disposal, in order that he might install in it a laboratory
for study and research. Thus the whole first floor had been transformed
into one spacious apartment, where, from time to time, the illustrious
chemist was fond of receiving a limited number of pupils and admirers,
before whom he made experiments, and explained his new discoveries and
theories.
For these occasions a few chairs were set out before the long and massive
table, which was covered with jars and appliances. In the rear one saw
the furnace, while all around were glass cases, full of vials and
specimens. The persons present were, for the most part, fellow _savants_,
with a few young men, and even a lady or two, and, of course, an
occasional journalist. The whole made up a kind of family gathering, the
visitors chatting with the master in all freedom.
Directly Bertheroy perceived Pierre he came forward, pressed his hand and
seated him on a chair beside Guillaume's son Francois, who had been one
of the first arrivals. The young man was completing his third year at the
Ecole Normale, close by, so he only had a few steps to take to call upon
his master Bertheroy, whom he regarded as one of the firmest minds of the
age. Pierre was delighted to meet his nephew, for he had been greatly
impressed in his favour on the occasion of his visit to Montmartre.
Francois, on his side, greeted his uncle with all the cordial
expansiveness of youth. He was, moreover, well pleased to obtain some
news of his father.
However, Bertheroy began. He spoke in a familiar and sober fashion, but
frequently employed some very happy expressions. At first he gave an
account of his own extensive labours and investigations with regard to
explosive substances, and related with a laugh that he sometimes
manipulated powders which would have blown up the entire district. But,
said he, in order to reassure his listeners, he was always extremely
prudent. At last he turned to the subject of that explosion in the Rue
Godot-de-Mauroy, which, for some days, had filled Paris with dismay. The
remnants of the bomb had been carefully examined by experts, and one
fragment had been brought to him, in order that he might give his opinion
on it. The bomb appeared to have been prepared in a very rudimentary
fashion; it had been charged with small pieces of iron, and fired by
means of a match, such as a child might have devised. The extraordinary
part of the affair was the formidable power of the central cartridge,
which, although it must have been a small one, had wrought as much havoc
as any thunderbolt. And the question was this: What incalculable power of
destruction might one not arrive at if the charge were increased ten,
twenty or a hundredfold. Embarrassment began, and divergencies of opinion
clouded the issue directly one tried to specify what explosive had been
employed. Of the three experts who had been consulted, one pronounced
himself in favour of dynamite pure and simple; but the two others,
although they did not agree together, believed in some combination of
explosive matters. He, Bertheroy, had modestly declined to adjudicate,
for the fragment submitted to him bore traces of so slight a character,
that analysis became impossible. Thus he was unwilling to make any
positive pronouncement. But his opinion was that one found oneself in
presence of some unknown powder, some new explosive, whose power exceeded
anything that had hitherto been dreamt of. He could picture some unknown
_savant_, or some ignorant but lucky inventor, discovering the formula of
this explosive under mysterious conditions. And this brought him to the
point he wished to reach, the question of all the explosives which are so
far unknown, and of the coming discoveries which he could foresee. In the
course of his investigations he himself had found cause to suspect the
existence of several such explosives, though he had lacked time and
opportunity to prosecute his studies in that direction. However, he
indicated the field which should be explored, and the best way of
proceeding. In his opinion it was there that lay the future. And in a
broad and eloquent peroration, he declared that explosives had hitherto
been degraded by being employed in idiotic schemes of vengeance and
destruction; whereas it was in them possibly that lay the liberating
force which science was seeking, the lever which would change the face of
the world, when they should have been so domesticated and subdued as to
be only the obedient servants of man.
Throughout this familiar discourse Pierre could feel that Francois was
growing impassioned, quivering at thought of the vast horizon which the
master opened up. He himself had become extremely interested, for he
could not do otherwise than notice certain allusions, and connect what he
heard with what he had guessed of Guillaume's anxiety regarding that
secret which he feared to see at the mercy of an investigating
magistrate. And so as he, Pierre, before going off with Francois,
approached Bertheroy to wish him good day, he pointedly remarked:
"Guillaume will be very sorry that he was unable to hear you unfold those
admirable ideas."
The old _savant_ smiled. "Pooh!" said he; "just give him a summary of
what I said. He will understand. He knows more about the matter than I
do."
In presence of the illustrious chemist, Francois preserved the silent
gravity of a respectful pupil, but when he and Pierre had taken a few
steps down the street in silence, he remarked: "What a pity it is that a
man of such broad intelligence, free from all superstition, and anxious
for the sole triumph of truth, should have allowed himself to be
classified, ticketed, bound round with titles and academical functions!
How greatly our affection for him would increase if he took less State
pay, and freed himself from all the grand cordons which tie his hands."
"What would you have!" rejoined Pierre, in a conciliatory spirit. "A man
must live! At the same time I believe that he does not regard himself as
tied by anything."
Then, as they had reached the entrance of the Ecole Normale, the priest
stopped, thinking that his companion was going back to the college. But
Francois, raising his eyes and glancing at the old place, remarked: "No,
no, to-day's Thursday, and I'm at liberty! Oh! we have a deal of liberty,
perhaps too much. But for my own part I'm well pleased at it, for it
often enables me to go to Montmartre and work at my old little table.
It's only there that I feel any real strength and clearness of mind."
His preliminary examinations had entitled him to admission at either the
Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter,
entering its scientific section with No. l against his name. His father
had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if
circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own
bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now
preparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took was
in walking to and from Montmartre, or in strolling through the Luxembourg
gardens.
* The purposes of the Ecole Normale have been referred to on
p. 197. At the Ecole Polytechnique young men receive much
of the preliminary training which they require to become
either artillery officers, or military, naval or civil
engineers.--Trans.
From force of habit he now turned towards the latter, accompanied by
Pierre and chatting with him. One found the mildness of springtime there
that February afternoon; for pale sunshine streamed between the trees,
which were still leafless. It was indeed one of those first fine days
which draw little green gems from the branches of the lilac bushes.
The Ecole Normale was still the subject of conversation and Pierre
remarked: "I must own that I hardly like the spirit that prevails there.
Excellent work is done, no doubt, and the only way to form professors is
to teach men the trade by cramming them with the necessary knowledge. But
the worst is that although all the students are trained for the teaching
profession, many of them don't remain in it, but go out into the world,
take to journalism, or make it their business to control the arts,
literature and society. And those who do this are for the most part
unbearable. After swearing by Voltaire they have gone back to
spirituality and mysticism, the last drawing-room craze. Now that a firm
faith in science is regarded as brutish and inelegant, they fancy that
they rid themselves of their caste by feigning amiable doubt, and
ignorance, and innocence. What they most fear is that they may carry a
scent of the schools about with them, so they put on extremely Parisian
airs, venture on somersaults and slang, and assume all the grace of
dancing bears in their eager desire to please. From that desire spring
the sarcastic shafts which they aim at science, they who pretend that
they know everything, but who go back to the belief of the humble, the
_naive_ idealism of Biblical legends, just because they think the latter
to be more distinguished."
Francois began to laugh: "The portrait is perhaps a little overdrawn,"
said he, "still there's truth in it, a great deal of truth."
"I have known several of them," continued Pierre, who was growing
animated. "And among them all I have noticed that a fear of being duped
leads them to reaction against the entire effort, the whole work of the
century. Disgust with liberty, distrust of science, denial of the future,
that is what they now profess. And they have such a horror of the
commonplace that they would rather believe in nothing or the incredible.
It may of course be commonplace to say that two and two make four, yet
it's true enough; and it is far less foolish for a man to say and repeat
it than to believe, for instance, in the miracles of Lourdes."
Francois glanced at the priest in astonishment. The other noticed it and
strove to restrain himself. Nevertheless, grief and anger carried him
away whenever he spoke of the educated young people of the time, such as,
in his despair, he imagined them to be. In the same way as he had pitied
the toilers dying of hunger in the districts of misery and want, so here
he overflowed with contempt for the young minds that lacked bravery in
the presence of knowledge, and harked back to the consolation of
deceptive spirituality, the promise of an eternity of happiness in death,
which last was longed for and exalted as the very sum of life. Was not
the cowardly thought of refusing to live for the sake of living so as to
discharge one's simple duty in being and making one's effort, equivalent
to absolute assassination of life? However, the _Ego_ was always the
mainspring; each one sought personal happiness. And Pierre was grieved to
think that those young people, instead of discarding the past and
marching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowy
metaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps to
the excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen with
human toil.
However, Francois had begun to smile again. "But you are mistaken," said
he; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale. You only seem to know
the Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surely
change if you knew those of the Section of Sciences. It is quite true
that the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among our
literary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by the
idea of that famous bankruptcy of science. This is perhaps due to their
masters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whose
hands they have fallen. And it is still more due to fashion, the whim of
the times which, as you have very well put it, regards scientific truth
as bad taste, something graceless and altogether too brutal for light and
distinguished minds. Consequently, a young fellow of any shrewdness who
desires to please is perforce won over to the new spirit."
"The new spirit!" interrupted Pierre, unable to restrain himself. "Oh!
that is no mere innocent, passing fashion, it is a tactical device and a
terrible one, an offensive return of the powers of darkness against those
of light, of servitude against free thought, truth and justice."
Then, as the young man again looked at him with growing astonishment, he
relapsed into silence. The figure of Monseigneur Martha had risen before
his eyes, and he fancied he could again hear the prelate at the
Madeleine, striving to win Paris over to the policy of Rome, to that
spurious neo-Catholicism which, with the object of destroying democracy
and science, accepted such portions of them as it could adapt to its own
views. This was indeed the supreme struggle. Thence came all the poison
poured forth to the young. Pierre knew what efforts were being made in
religious circles to help on this revival of mysticism, in the mad hope
of hastening the rout of science. Monseigneur Martha, who was
all-powerful at the Catholic University, said to his intimates, however,
that three generations of devout and docile pupils would be needed before
the Church would again be absolute sovereign of France.
"Well, as for the Ecole Normale," continued Francois, "I assure you that
you are mistaken. There are a few narrow bigots there, no doubt. But even
in the Section of Letters the majority of the students are sceptics at
bottom--sceptics of discreet and good-natured average views. Of course
they are professors before everything else, though they are a trifle
ashamed of it; and, as professors, they judge things with no little
pedantic irony, devoured by a spirit of criticism, and quite incapable of
creating anything themselves. I should certainly be astonished to see the
man of genius whom we await come out of their ranks. To my thinking,
indeed, it would be preferable that some barbarian genius, neither well
read nor endowed with critical faculty, or power of weighing and shading
things, should come and open the next century with a hatchet stroke,
sending up a fine flare of truth and reality. . . . But, as for my
comrades of the Scientific Section, I assure you that neo-Catholicism and
Mysticism and Occultism, and every other branch of the fashionable
phantasmagoria trouble them very little indeed. They are not making a
religion of science, they remain open to doubt on many points; but they
are mostly men of very clear and firm minds, whose passion is the
acquirement of certainty, and who are ever absorbed in the investigations
which continue throughout the whole vast field of human knowledge. They
haven't flinched, they have remained Positivists, or Evolutionists, or
Determinists, and have set their faith in observation and experiment to
help on the final conquest of the world."
Francois himself was growing excited, as he thus confessed his faith
while strolling along the quiet sunlit garden paths. "The young indeed!"
he resumed. "Do people know them? It makes us laugh when we see all sorts
of apostles fighting for us, trying to attract us, and saying that we are
white or black or grey, according to the hue which they require for the
triumph of their particular ideas! The young, the real ones, why, they're
in the schools, the laboratories and the libraries. It's they who work
and who'll bring to-morrow to the world. It's not the young fellows of
dinner and supper clubs, manifestoes and all sorts of extravagances. The
latter make a great deal of noise, no doubt; in fact, they alone are
heard. But if you knew of the ceaseless efforts and passionate striving
of the others, those who remain silent, absorbed in their tasks. And I
know many of them: they are with their century, they have rejected none
of its hopes, but are marching on to the coming century, resolved to
pursue the work of their forerunners, ever going towards more light and
more equity. And just speak to them of the bankruptcy of science. They'll
shrug their shoulders at the mere idea, for they know well enough that
science has never before inflamed so many hearts or achieved greater
conquests! It is only if the schools, laboratories and libraries were
closed, and the social soil radically changed, that one would have cause
to fear a fresh growth of error such as weak hearts and narrow minds hold
so dear!"
At this point Francois's fine flow of eloquence was interrupted. A tall
young fellow stopped to shake hands with him; and Pierre was surprised to
recognise Baron Duvillard's son Hyacinthe, who bowed to him in very
correct style. "What! you here in our old quarter," exclaimed Francois.
"My dear fellow, I'm going to Jonas's, over yonder, behind the
Observatory. Don't you know Jonas? Ah! my dear fellow, he's a delightful
sculptor, who has succeeded in doing away with matter almost entirely. He
has carved a figure of Woman, no bigger than the finger, and entirely
soul, free from all baseness of form, and yet complete. All Woman,
indeed, in her essential symbolism! Ah! it's grand, it's overpowering. A
perfect scheme of aesthetics, a real religion!"
Francois smiled as he looked at Hyacinthe, buttoned up in his long
pleated frock-coat, with his made-up face, and carefully cropped hair and
beard. "And yourself?" said he, "I thought you were working, and were
going to publish a little poem, shortly?"
"Oh! the task of creating is so distasteful to me, my dear fellow! A
single line often takes me weeks. . . . Still, yes, I have a little poem
on hand, 'The End of Woman.' And you see, I'm not so exclusive as some
people pretend, since I admire Jonas, who still believes in Woman. His
excuse is sculpture, which, after all, is at best such a gross
materialistic art. But in poetry, good heavens, how we've been
overwhelmed with Woman, always Woman! It's surely time to drive her out
of the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and lofty
enough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexual
questions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? The
world would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"
Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased with
the effect which he had produced on the others.
"So you know him?" said Pierre to Francois.
"He was my school-fellow at Condorcet, we were in the same classes
together. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was always
making a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending to
disdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd use
his cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! He
was Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, rolled into one!
And you can see what he has become with it all: a humbug with a diseased
mind!"
"It's a terrible symptom," muttered Pierre, "when through _ennui_ or
lassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happy
and privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers."