from the ground to see what was taking place in the valley. He concealed
himself as well as he could in the foliage, to avoid being seen from the
house, and imposed silence on Sylvain, who wished to call for help; for
he was afraid that his parents, especially his mother, would be terribly
frightened if they should discover his presence and his perilous
situation. He could see his father, who was watching the effects of the
_dribe_ and retreating slowly as the water rose in his garden and
invaded the whole factory. He seemed to give ground regretfully before
that scourge of the valley, which he had contemned, and which he
pretended to contemn still. At last, he saw him distinctly, standing at
one of the windows of his house with Madame Cardonnet, while the workmen
scattered and fled to the high land, leaving their jackets and
implements in the mud. Some, taken by surprise by the deluge in the
lower floors of the factory, had gone up hastily to the roof; and,
although the more far-sighted may have rejoiced secretly because that
disaster promised a prolongation of their lucrative employment, the
majority yielded to a natural feeling of consternation when they found
the result of their labors lost or endangered.
The stones, the newly rough-cast walls, the freshly-hewn timbers,
everything that did not offer much resistance, was floating about at
random amid eddying masses of foam. The bridges, barely finished, were
swept away, being torn from the newly-built piers, which were unequal to
the task of supporting them. The garden was half under water, and the
sashes of the greenhouse, the boxes of flowers and the gardener's
wheelbarrows could be seen sailing swiftly away among the trees.
Suddenly, loud cries were heard in the factory. A huge piece of timber
had been driven violently against the underpinning of the principal
machine, and the building seemed on the point of falling in under the
violent shock. There were at least twelve persons, men, women and
children, on the roof. They all shrieked and wept. Emile felt a cold
perspiration start out all over him. Heedless of the perils to which he
himself was exposed, if the oak should be uprooted, he was horrified at
the impending fate of those families whom he saw running wildly about in
their distress. He was on the point of jumping into the water to fly to
their assistance. But he heard his father's powerful voice shouting to
them from the stoop, with the aid of a speaking-trumpet.
"Don't stir; the raft is nearly finished; there is no danger where you
are."
Such was the master's ascendancy that they became calm, and Emile
himself instinctively yielded to it.
On the other side of the island there was a far more desolating
spectacle. The villagers were running after their cattle, the women
after their children. Piercing shrieks directed Emile's attention more
particularly toward a point which the vegetation concealed from his
eyes; but he soon saw a powerful man near the opposite bank, swimming
and carrying a child. The current was less strong on that side than it
was at the factory, and yet the swimmer seemed to be making his way
through the water with extraordinary difficulty, and several times the
water covered him completely.
"I will go and help him!" cried Emile, moved even to tears, and
preparing once more to jump from the tree.
"No, monsieur, no!" cried Charasson, holding him back. "See, he's out of
the current now, he's safe; he isn't swimming now, he's walking in the
mud. Poor man! what a hard time he had. But the child isn't dead, he's
crying and yelling like a little devil. Poor little fellow! don't cry
any more, you're safe! But look, will you! may the devil fly away with
me if it wasn't old Jean who pulled him out of the water! Yes, monsieur,
yes, it's Jean. He's a brave fellow, I tell you! Ah! see how the father
thanks him, how the mother hugs his legs, and yet they're not very
clean, those poor legs of his! Ah! monsieur, Jean has a big heart, and
there's not his like in the world. If he knew we were here, he'd come
and help us out of the scrape. I have a mind to call him."
"Do nothing of the kind. We are safe and he would risk his life again.
Yes, I see that he's a fine fellow. Is he any relative to the child and
to those people."
"No, monsieur, no. They are the Michauds, and they're nothing to him or
to me either; but when anything goes wrong anywhere, Jean is sure to
turn up, and where no one else would dare to take the risk, he'll go
ahead, even when there's nothing at all, not even a glass of wine to be
made by it. But the good Lord knows that this country isn't healthy for
Jean, and that this is hardly the place for him."
"Why, is he exposed to any other danger at Gargilesse than that of being
drowned like everybody else?"
Sylvain did not reply, and seemed to blame himself for having said too
much.
"The water is falling a little," he said, to divert Emile's attention;
"in a couple of hours, perhaps we can go back the way we came; but it
will be six hours at least before we can cross over to Monsieur
Cardonnet's."
This prospect was not very attractive; however Emile, who was determined
not to alarm his parents at any price, resigned himself to it as best he
could. But a fresh incident caused him to change his mind before half an
hour had passed. The water receded rapidly from the highest points it
had flooded; and on the other side of the lake it had formed between him
and his father's abode, he saw some workmen leading two horses toward
the house, one entirely bare, the other saddled and bridled.
"Our beasts, monsieur," said Sylvain Charasson; "God bless me! both our
beasts have come out safe! I supposed my poor mare was in the Creuse
before this! Ah! Monsieur Antoine will be glad enough when I bring back
his _Lanterne_! She'll have earned her oats, and perhaps Janille won't
refuse to give her a peck. And your black, monsieur--you're not sorry to
see him on his feet, are you? He must know how to swim a little!"
Emile rapidly considered what would happen. Monsieur Cardonnet did not
know his horse, to be sure, for he had bought him _en route_; but they
would open the valise, they would soon discover that it belonged to him,
and their first thought would be that he was dead. He speedily decided
to show himself, and after many attempts to make his voice heard above
that of the torrent, whose fury was only slightly abated, he succeeded
in making the people on the roof of the factory understand that he was
there and that Monsieur and Madame Cardonnet must be so informed at
once. The news passed from mouth to mouth, through the various places of
refuge, as quickly as he could wish, and he soon espied his mother at
the window, waving her handkerchief, and his father in person on a raft
propelled by two strong men, who were pushing out into the current with
dogged determination. Emile succeeded in turning them back, by shouting
to them, not without many words lost and repeated again and again, that
he was safe, that they must wait a while longer before coming to him,
and that the most important thing was to set free the persons who were
imprisoned in the factory. Everything was done as he desired, and when
there was no longer any danger for any one, he climbed down from the
tree, stepped in the water up to his middle, and walked to meet the
raft, holding little Charasson under the arms and helping him to keep
his footing. Three hours after the passage of the _dribe_, Emile and his
guide were in front of a good fire, Madame Cardonnet was covering her
child with kisses and tears; and the page of Châteaubrun, no less
petted than he, was describing eloquently the perils they had overcome.
Emile adored his mother. His love for her was still the most fervent
passion of his life. He had not seen her since the vacation, which they
had passed together in Paris, free from the constant and frequent
reproofs of their common master, Monsieur Cardonnet. They both suffered
from the yoke they were compelled to wear, and they understood each
other on that point, although they had never mentioned it. Madame
Cardonnet, a gentle, affectionate, weak creature, felt that her son had
a good share of her husband's mental energy and firmness, combined with
a generous and sensitive heart which would expose him to great sorrow
when those two masterful characters should come in collision on those
points as to which their ideas differed. So she had swallowed all the
disappointments of her life, taking care not to reveal them to her son,
who was her only joy and her most dearly cherished consolation. Although
she was not fully convinced of her husband's right to wound her and
oppress her without remission, she had always seemed to accept her
position as if in obedience to a law of nature and a religious precept.
Passive obedience, thus taught by example, had become an instinctive
habit in young Emile; but had it been otherwise, sound reasoning would
long since have led him to adopt a different course. But when he saw
that everybody bowed at the slightest indication of the paternal will,
his mother first of all, it had not occurred to him that things might
and should be different. Meanwhile the weight of the despotic atmosphere
in which he lived had induced in him, from childhood, a sort of
melancholy, of nameless unhappiness, of which he rarely sought the
cause. It is a law of nature that children shall reverse the lessons
that they do not like; and so Emile, early in life, had received from
external facts an impulsion directly contrary to that which his father
would fain have given him.
The consequences of this natural and inevitable antagonism will be
sufficiently developed by the progress of this narrative, so that it is
unnecessary to describe them here.
After giving his mother time to recover in some measure from the emotion
she had experienced, Emile followed his father, who called him to come
and investigate the effects of the disaster. Monsieur Cardonnet
displayed a tranquillity superior to all reverses of fortune, and
whatever annoyance he may have felt he showed nothing of it. He walked
silently through a double line of peasants who had flocked together to
gratify their curiosity and to witness the spectacle of his misfortune,
some with indifference, a few with sincere interest, the majority with
that unavowed but irresistible satisfaction which the poor man prudently
keeps out of sight but which he infallibly feels when he sees the wrath
of the elements visited on the rich man and himself alike. All these
villagers had lost something by the inundation, one a small crop of hay,
another a bit of kitchen garden, a third a lamb, a hen or two, or a pile
of fire-wood; very trivial losses in reality, but comparatively as
severe as the wealthy manufacturer's. But when they saw the wreck of
that fine property, but yesterday so prosperous, they could not forbear
a thrill of consternation, as if wealth had something worthy of respect
in itself, despite the jealousy it arouses.
Monsieur Cardonnet did not wait until the water had entirely receded
before resuming work. He sent men to scour the surrounding fields for
the materials carried away by the current. He armed the others with
spades and pickaxes to clear away the mud and débris which obstructed
the approaches to the factory, and when it was possible to enter, he
entered first of all, in order to avoid any waste of emotion because of
the exaggerations that the first feeling of amazement might extort from
others.
VI
JEAN THE CARPENTER
"Take a pencil, Emile," said the manufacturer to his son, who followed
him, fearing that he might meet with some accident; "make no mistake in
the figures I am going to call off to you.--One, two, three wheels
broken here.--The staircase carried away.--The large engine
damaged--three thousand, five, seven or eight--Let us take the highest
figure; that's the safest way in business.--Put down eight thousand
francs.--What! the dam broken? that's strange! Put down fifteen
thousand. We must rebuild it all in Roman cement. There's a corner that
has given way.--Write, Emile.--Emile, have you written that?"
For an hour Monsieur Cardonnet continued thus to estimate his losses and
the necessary outlay; and when he called upon his son to foot up the
figures, he shrugged his shoulders impatiently because the young man,
whether from distraction or because he was out of practice, did not
perform that task as rapidly as he wished.
"Have you done it?" he asked, after two or three moments of restrained
impatience.
"Yes, father; it amounts to about eighty thousand francs."
"About?" repeated Monsieur Cardonnet with a frown. "What sort of a word
is that? Well, well," he added, glancing at him with a penetrating,
mocking expression, "I see that you are a little confused from being
perched up in a tree. I have made the calculation in my head, and I
regret that I am obliged to tell you that it was done before you had
sharpened your pencil. There'll be eighty-one thousand five hundred
francs to be laid out all over again."
"That's a good deal," said Emile, striving to conceal his impatience
beneath a serious air.
"I wouldn't have believed that this little water-course could have so
much force," observed Monsieur Cardonnet, as calmly as if he were making
an expert estimate of a loss in which he was not interested; "but it
won't take long to repair. Holà! you fellows.--There's a beam caught
between two of the large wheels, and there's just enough water left to
keep it banging. Take it out of there at once or my wheels will be
broken."
They made haste to obey, but the task was more difficult than it seemed.
All the weight of the machinery seemed to rest on that obstacle, which
bade fair not to be the first to give way. Several men rubbed the skin
off their hands to no purpose.
"Look out and not hurt yourselves!" cried Emile instinctively, taking a
hand himself to lessen their difficulty.
But Monsieur Cardonnet shouted in his turn:
"Pull there! push!--Bah! your arms are made of flax!"
The perspiration was rolling down their faces, but they made no headway.
"Get away from there, all of you," suddenly exclaimed a voice that Emile
instantly recognized, "and let me try it--I prefer to do it alone."
And Jean, armed with a crow-bar, quickly pried out a large stone which
no one had noticed. Then, with wonderful dexterity, he gave the beam a
powerful push.
"Gently, deuce take it!" cried Monsieur Cardonnet, "you'll smash
everything."
"If I smash anything, I'll pay for it," retorted the peasant, with
playful bluntness. "Now, two of you boys come here. All together now!
Courage, little Pierre, that's good!--Another bit, my old
Guillaume!--Oh! the clever fellows!--Softly! softly! let me take my foot
away, or you'll crush it for me, son of the devil!--Now she
goes!--push--don't be afraid--I have it!"
And in less than two minutes Jean, whose presence and voice seemed to
electrify the other workmen, relieved the machinery of the extraneous
object which endangered it.
"Come with me, Jean," said Monsieur Cardonnet, thereupon.
"What for?" rejoined the peasant. "I have done enough of that sort of
work for to-day, monsieur."
"That is why I want you to come and drink a glass of my best wine. Come,
I say, I have something to say to you. My son, go and tell your mother
to put some Malaga on my table."
"Your son?" said Jean, looking at Emile with some signs of emotion. "If
he is your son, I will go with you, for he seems to me like a good
fellow."
"Yes, my son is a good fellow, Jean," said Monsieur Cardonnet to the
peasant, when the latter accepted a full glass from Emile's hand. "And
you are a good fellow, too, and it's high time that you should show it a
little better than you have been doing for two months past."
"I beg your pardon, monsieur," replied Jean, looking about him with a
suspicious air, "but I am too old to go to school, and I didn't come
here all in a sweat to listen to moral preaching as cold as hoar-frost.
Here's your health, Monsieur Cardonnet; and I thank you, young man,
whose feelings I must have hurt last night. You bear me no grudge, do
you?"
"Wait a moment," said Monsieur Cardonnet; "before you go back to your
fox's hole, take this _pour-boire_."
And he handed him a piece of gold.
"Keep it, keep it," said Jean testily, pushing away the proffered
gratuity with a movement of his elbow. "I am not self-seeking, as you
must know, and it wasn't to please you that I helped your carpenters. It
was simply to keep them from breaking their backs for nothing. And then
when a man knows his trade it irritates him to see people go about it
wrong end to. My blood's a little quick, and in spite of myself I
meddled in something that didn't concern me."
"Just as you happened to be where you had no business to be," rejoined
Monsieur Cardonnet sternly, and with an evident purpose to awe the
audacious peasant. "Jean, this is the last opportunity for us to come to
an understanding and make each other's acquaintance; make the most of it
or you'll be sorry. When I came here last year, I observed your
activity, your intelligence, and the affection with which all the
workmen and all the people of this village regarded you. I received most
satisfactory accounts of your probity, and I resolved to put you in
charge of my carpentering work; I offered to pay you double wages, by
the day or by the job as you chose. You made me nonsensical answers as
if you did not consider me a serious-minded man."
"That was not the trouble, monsieur, begging your pardon. I told you
that I didn't need your work because I had more work in the village than
I could do."
"A mere pretext and a lie! Your affairs were in bad shape then and now
they're in worse shape than ever! Being prosecuted for debt, you have
been obliged to leave your house, to abandon your workshop, and to hide
in the mountains, like game pursued by hunters."
"When you undertake to argue," rejoined Jean, haughtily, "you should
tell the truth. I am not prosecuted for debt, as you say, monsieur. I
have always been an honest, well-behaved man, and if I owe a sou in the
village or the neighborhood, let some one come forward and say so and
raise his hand against me. Search and you will find no one!"
"None the less, there are three warrants out against you, and the
gendarmes have been chasing you for two months and can't succeed in
apprehending you."
"And so it will be as long as I choose! The great difficulty is that the
worthy gendarmes ride their horses along one bank of the Creuse, while I
ply my legs along the other! They are very sick, poor fellows! being
paid to take the air and make reports as to what they don't do. Don't
pity them so deeply, Monsieur Cardonnet, the government pays them, and
the government is rich enough for me to dodge the payment of a thousand
francs--for it's the truth that I am sentenced to pay a thousand francs
or go to prison! It surprises you, doesn't it, young man, that a poor
devil who has always obliged his neighbor instead of injuring him should
be hunted like an escaped convict? You haven't a bad heart yet, although
you are rich, because you are young. Let me tell you what my crime was.
For sending three bottles of wine from my vineyard to a friend who was
sick, I was arrested by the excisemen for selling wine without paying
the taxes on it; and as I could not lie and humiliate myself for the
sake of compromising, as I told the truth, which is that I did not sell
a drop of wine, and consequently could not be punished, I was sentenced
to pay what they call the minimum fine, five hundred francs. The
minimum, if you please! five hundred francs, my year's wages, for a gift
of three bottles of wine! To say nothing of the fact that my poor
comrade was sentenced too, and that was what made me angriest. And as I
could not pay such an amount, they seized everything, ransacked
everything, sold everything I had, even my carpentering tools. After
that, where was the use of paying for a license to carry on a trade that
wouldn't support me? I stopped doing it; and one day, when I was working
as a journeyman away from home, there was another prosecution and a
quarrel with the deputy, when I almost forgot myself and struck him.
What was to become of me? There was no bread in my chest, so I took my
gun and went out into the furze and killed a hare. Formerly, in this
country, poaching had become a custom and a privilege. The nobles in the
old days didn't keep such close watch, just after the Revolution; they
even poached with us when they had a fancy to do so."
"Witness Monsieur de Châteaubrun, who does it still," said Monsieur de
Cardonnet, ironically.
"As long as he doesn't trespass on your estates, what harm does that do
you?" retorted the peasant in an irritated tone. "However, for shooting
a hare and catching two rabbits in a trap I was taken again and
sentenced to pay a fine, and to imprisonment. But I escaped from the
claws of the gendarmes as they were taking me to the government _inn_,
and since then I have lived as I choose, and haven't chosen to hold out
my arm for the chain to be put on."
"Everyone knows very well how you live, Jean," said Monsieur Cardonnet.
"You wander about night and day, poaching everywhere and at all seasons,
never sleeping two nights in succession in the same place, but generally
in the open air; sometimes accepting hospitality at Châteaubrun, whose
châtelain was nursed by your mother. I do not blame him for assisting
you, but he would act more wisely, from the point of view of your own
interests, to preach work and a regular life to you. But come, we have
had enough of these useless words, and now you must listen to me. I am
sorry for your lot, and I am going to restore your liberty by becoming
surety for you. You will get off with a few days' imprisonment, just for
form's sake. I will pay all your fines, and then you can hold up your
head once more. Isn't that clear?"
"Oh! you are right, father," cried Emile; "you are kind and just. Well,
Jean, did I deceive you?"
"It seems that you have met before," said Monsieur Cardonnet.
"Yes, father," replied Emile warmly. "Jean rendered me a great service
last night; and what draws me to him even more strongly is that I saw
him this morning risk his life seriously to pull a child out of the
water, and he saved him. Jean, accept my father's offer and let his
generosity triumph over misplaced pride."
"That is very well, Monsieur Emile," replied the carpenter. "You love
your father; that is as it should be. I respected mine. But let us see,
Monsieur Cardonnet, on what conditions will you do all this for me?"
"That you work on my buildings," replied the manufacturer. "You shall
have the superintendence of the carpentering."
"Work on your factory, which will be the ruin of so many people!"
"No, but which will make the fortune of all my workmen, and yours, too."
"Well," said Jean, somewhat shaken, "if I don't do your work others will
and I shan't be able to prevent them. I will work for you then, until I
have earned a thousand francs. But who will keep me while I am paying my
debt to you day by day?"
"I will, for I will add a third to your day's wages."
"A third is very little, for I must dress myself. I am stripped bare."
"Well! I will double it. Your day's wages would be thirty sous at the
current rate hereabout; I will pay you three francs and you shall
receive half of it every day, the other half going toward your
indebtedness to me."
"Very well; it will take a long while--at least four years."
"You are wrong; it will be just two years. I think that two years hence
I shall have nothing more to build."
"What, monsieur, I am to work for you every day--every day in the year
without a break?"
"Except Sunday."
"Oh! Sunday--I should think so! But shan't I have one or two days a week
to pass as I choose?"
"Jean, you are growing lazy, I see. There's one result of a vagabond
life already."
"Hush!" exclaimed the carpenter, proudly, "lazy yourself! Jean was never
lazy, and he won't begin at sixty. But I'll tell you, I have an idea
that induces me to take your work. I have an idea of building myself a
little house. As they've sold mine, I prefer to have a new one, built by
myself alone, to suit my taste, my fancy. That's why I want at least one
day a week."
"That is something I will not allow," replied the manufacturer stiffly.
"You will have no house, you will have no tools of your own, you will
sleep under my roof, you will eat under my roof, you will use no tools
but mine, you----"