Ver.07/27/01*END*
This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
CONSCIENCE
By HECTOR MALOT
With a Preface by EDOUARD PAILLERON, of the French Academy
BOOK 1.
HECTOR MALOT
HECTOR-HENRI MALOT, the son of a notary public, was born at La Brouille
(Seine-Inferieure), March 20, 1830. He studied law, intending to devote
himself also to the Notariat, but toward 1853 or 1854 commenced writing
for various small journals. Somewhat later he assisted in compiling the
'Biographie Generale' of Firmin Didot, and was also a contributor to some
reviews. Under the generic title of 'Les Victimes d'Amour,' he made his
debut with the following three family-romances: 'Les Amants (1859), Les
Epoux (1865), and Les Enfants (1866).' About the same period he
published a book, 'La Vie Moderne en Angleterre.' Malot has written
quite a number of novels, of which the greatest is 'Conscience,' crowned
by the French Academy in 1878.
His works have met with great success in all countries. They possess
that lasting interest which attends all work based on keen observation
and masterly analysis of the secret motives of human actions.
The titles of his writings run as follows: 'Les Amours de Jacques (1868);
Un Beau Frere (1869); Romain Kalbris (1864), being a romance for
children; Une Bonne Afaire, and Madame Obernin (1870); Un Cure de
Province (1872); Un Mariage sons le Second Empire (1873); Une Belle Mere
(1874); L'Auberge du Monde (1875-1876, 4 vols.); Les Batailles du Mariage
(1877, 3 vols.); Cara (1877); Le Docteur Claude (1879); Le Boheme
Tapageuse (1880, 3 vols.); Pompon, and Une Femme d'Argent (1881); La
Petite Soeur, and Les Millions Honteux (1882); Les Besogneux, and
Paulette (1883); Marichette, and Micheline (1884.); Le Lieutenant Bonnet,
and Sang Bleu (1885); Baccara, and Zyte (1886); Viceo Francis, Seduction,
and Ghislaine (1887); Mondaine (1888); Mariage Riche, and Justice (1889);
Mere (1890), Anie (1891); Complices (1892); Conscience (1893); and Amours
de Jeunes et Amours de Vieux (1894).'
About this time Hector Malot resolved not to write fiction any more.
He announced this determination in a card published in the journal,
'Le Temps,' May 25, 1895--It was then maliciously stated that "M. Malot
his retired from business after having accumulated a fortune." However,
he took up his pen again and published a history of his literary life:
Le Roman de mes Romans (1896); besides two volumes of fiction, L'Amour
dominateur (1896), and Pages choisies (1898), works which showed that,
in the language of Holy Writ, "his eye was not dimmed nor his natural
force abated," and afforded him a triumph over his slanderers.
EDOUARD PAILLERON
de l'Academie Francaise.
CONSCIENCE
CHAPTER I
THE REUNION
When Crozat, the Bohemian, escaped from poverty, by a good marriage that
made him a citizen of the Rue de Vaugirard, he did not break with his old
comrades; instead of shunning them, or keeping them at a distance, he
took pleasure in gathering them about him, glad to open his house to
them, the comforts of which were very different from the attic of the Rue
Ganneron, that he had occupied for so long a time.
Every Wednesday, from four to seven o'clock, he had a reunion at his
house, the Hotel des Medicis, and it was a holiday for which his friends
prepared themselves. When a new idea occurred to one of the habitues it
was caressed, matured, studied in solitude, in order to be presented in
full bloom at the assembly.
Crozat's reception of his friends was pleasing, simple, like the man,
cordial on the part of the husband, as well as on the part of the wife,
who, having been an actress, held to the religion of comradeship: On a
table were small pitchers of beer and glasses; within reach was an old
stone jar from Beauvais, full of tobacco. The beer was good, the tobacco
dry, and the glasses were never empty.
And it was not silly subjects that were discussed here, worldly
babblings, or gossiping about absent friends, but the great questions
that ruled humanity: philosophy, politics, society, and religion.
Formed at first of friends, or, at least, of comrades who had worked and
suffered together, these reunions had enlarged gradually, until one day
the rooms at the Hotel des Medicis became a 'parlotte' where preachers of
ideas and of new religions, thinkers, reformers, apostles, politicians,
aesthetes, and even babblers in search of ears more or less complaisant
that would listen to them, met together. Any one might come who wished,
and if one did not enter there exactly as one would enter an ordinary
hotel, it was sufficient to be brought by an habitue in order to have the
right to a pipe, some beer, and to speak.
One of the habitues, Brigard, was a species of apostle, who had acquired
celebrity by practising in his daily life the ideas that he professed and
preached. Comte de Brigard by birth, he began by renouncing his title,
which made him a vassal of the respect of men and of social conventions;
an instructor of law, he could easily have made a thousand or twelve
hundred francs a month, but he arranged the number and the price of his
lessons so that each day brought him only ten francs in order that he
might not be a slave to money; living with a woman whom he loved, he had
always insisted, although he had two daughters, on living with her 'en
union libre', and in not acknowledging his children legally, because the
law debased the ties which attached him to them and lessened his duties;
it was conscience that sanctioned these duties; and nature, like
conscience, made him the most faithful of lovers, the best, the most
affectionate, the most tender of fathers. Tall, proud, carrying in his
person and manners the native elegance of his race, he dressed like the
porter at the corner, only replacing the blue velvet by chestnut velvet,
a less frivolous color. Living in Clamart for twenty years, he always
came to Paris on foot, and the only concessions that he made to
conventionality or to his comfort were to wear sabots in winter, and to
carry his vest on his arm in summer.
Thus organized, he must have disciples, and he sought them everywhere--
in the streets, where he buttonholed those he was able to snatch under
the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens, and on Wednesday at the house of his
old comrade Crozat. How many he had had! But, unfortunately, the
greater number turned out badly. Several became ministers; others
accepted high government positions for life; some handled millions of
francs; two were at Noumea; one preached in the pulpit of Notre Dame.
One afternoon in October the little parlor was full; the end of the
summer vacation had brought back the habitues, and for the first time the
number was nearly large enough to open a profitable discussion. Crozat,
near the door, smiled at the arrivals on shaking hands, and Brigard, his
soft felt hat on his head, presided, assisted by his two favorite
disciples of the moment, the advocate Nougarede and the poet Glady,
neither of whom would turn out badly, he was certain.
To tell the truth, for those who knew how to look and to see, the pale
face of Nougarede, his thin lips, restless eyes, and an austerity of
dress and manners which clashed with his twenty-six years, gave him more
the appearance of a man of ambition than of an apostle. And when one
knew that Glady was the owner of a beautiful house in Paris, and of real
estate in the country that brought him a hundred thousand francs a year,
it was difficult to imagine that he would long follow Father Brigard.
But to see was not the dominant faculty of Brigard; it was to reason,
and reason told him that ambition would soon make Nougarede a deputy,
as fortune would one day make Glady an academician; and in that case,
although he detested assemblies as much as academies, they would then
have two tribunes whence the good word would fall on the multitude with
more weight. They might be counted on. When Nougarede began to come to
the Wednesday reunions he was as empty as a drum, and if he spoke
brilliantly on no matter what subject with an imperturbable eloquence,
it was to say nothing. In Glady's first volume were words learnedly
arranged to please the ears and the eyes. Now, ideas sustained the
discourse of the advocate, as the verses of the poet said something--and
these ideas were Brigard's; this something was the perfume of his
teaching.
For half an hour the pipes burned fiercely, the smoke slowly rose to the
ceiling, and as in a cloud Brigard might be seen like a bearded god,
proclaiming his law, his hat on his head; for, if he had made a rule
never to take it off, he manipulated it continually while he spoke,
frequently pushing it forward, sometimes to the back of his head, to the
right, to the left, raising it, and flattening it, according to the needs
of his argument.
"It is incontestable," he said, "that we scatter our great force when we
ought to concentrate it."
He pressed down his hat.
"In effect," he raised it, "the hour has arrived for us to assert
ourselves as a group, and it is a duty for us, since it is a need of
humanity--"
At this moment a new arrival glided into the room quietly, with the
manifest intention of disturbing no one; but Crozat, who was seated near
the door, stopped him and shook hands.
"'Tiens', Saniel! Good-day, doctor."
"Good-evening, my dear sir."
"Come to the table; the beer is good to-day."
"Thank you; I am very well here."
Without taking the chair that Crozat designated, he leaned against the
wall. He was a tall, solid man about thirty, with tawny hair falling on
the collar of his coat, a long, curled beard, a face energetic, but
troubled and wan, to which the pale blue eyes gave an expression of
hardness that was accentuated by a prominent jaw and a decided air. A
Gaul, a true Gaul of ancient times, strong, bold, and resolute.
Brigard continued:
"It is incontestable"--this was his formula, because everything he said
was incontestable to him, simply because he said it--"it is incontestable
that in the struggle for existence the dogma of conscience must be
established, its only sanction being the performance of duty and inward
satisfaction--"
"Duty accomplished toward whom?" interrupted Saniel.
"Toward one's self."
"Then begin by stating what are our duties, and codify what is good and
what is bad."
"That is easy," some one replied.
"Easy if you admit a certain innate regard for human life, for property,
and for the family. But you must acknowledge that not all men have this
regard. How many believe that it is not a fault to run away with the
wife of a friend, not a crime to appropriate something that they want, or
to kill an enemy! Where are the duties of those who reason and feel in
this way? What is their inward satisfaction worth? This is why I will
not admit that conscience is the proper guide of our actions."
There were several exclamations at this, which Brigard checked.
"What guide, then, shall men obey?" he demanded.
"Force, which is the last word of the philosophy of life "
"That which leads to a wise and progressive extermination. Is this what
you desire?"
"Why not? I do not shrink from an extermination that relieves humanity
of idlers that it drags about without power to advance or to free itself,
finally sinking under the load. Is it not better for the world to be rid
of such people, who obstruct the advancement of others?"
"At least the idea is bizarre coming from a doctor," interrupted Crozat,
"since it would put an end to hospitals."
"Not at all; I would preserve them for the study of monsters."
"In placing society on this antagonistic footing," said Brigard, "you
destroy society itself, which is founded on reciprocity, on good
fellowship; and in doing so you can create for the strong a state of
suspicion that paralyzes them. Carthage and Venice practised the
selection by force, and destroyed themselves."
"You speak of force, my dear Saniel," interrupted a voice; "where do you
get that--the force of things, the tatum? There is no beginning, no
will; events decide for us climate, temperament, environment."
"Then," replied Saniel, "there is no responsibility, and this instrument
conscience, that should decide everything, is good for nothing. You need
not consider consequences. Success or defeat may yet be immaterial, for
the accomplishment of an act that you have believed condemnable may serve
the race, while another that you have believed beneficent may prove
injurious; from which it follows that intentions only should be judged,
and that no one but God can sound human hearts to their depths."
He began to laugh.
"Do you believe that? Is that the conclusion at which you have arrived?"
A waiter entered, carrying pitchers of beer on a tray, and the discussion
was necessarily interrupted, every one drawing up to the table where
Crozat filled the glasses, and the conversation took a more private turn.
Saniel shook hands with Brigard, who received him somewhat coldly; then
he approached Glady with the manifest intention of detaining him, but
Glady had said that he was obliged to leave, so Saniel said that he could
remain no longer, and had only dropped in on passing.
When they were both gone Brigard turned to Crozat and Nougarede, who were
near him, and declared that Saniel made him uneasy.
"He believes himself stronger than life," he said, "because he is sound
and intelligent. He must take care that he does not go too far!"