THE THREE CITIES

 PARIS

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 BOOK II

I

REVOLUTIONISTS

IN that out-of-the-way street at Neuilly, along which nobody passed afterdusk, Pierre's little house was now steeped in deep slumber under theblack sky; each of its shutters closed, and not a ray of light stealingforth from within. And one could divine, too, the profound quietude ofthe little garden in the rear, a garden empty and lifeless, benumbed bythe winter cold. 

Pierre had several times feared that his brother would faint away in thecab in which they were journeying. Leaning back, and often sinking down, Guillaume spoke not a word. And terrible was the silence between them--asilence fraught with all the questions and answers which they felt itwould be useless and painful to exchange at such a time. However, thepriest was anxious about the wound, and wondered to what surgeon he mightapply, desirous as he was of admitting only a sure, staunch man into thesecret, for he had noticed with how keen a desire to disappear hisbrother had sought to hide himself. 

Until they reached the Arc de Triomphe the silence remained unbroken. Itwas only there that Guillaume seemed to emerge from the prostration ofhis reverie. "Mind, Pierre, " said he, "no doctor. We will attend to thistogether. "

Pierre was on the point of protesting, but he realised that it would beuseless to discuss the subject at such a moment, and so he merely wavedhis hand to signify that he should act in spite of the prohibition wereit necessary. In point of fact, his anxiety had increased, and, when thecab at last drew up before the house, it was with real relief that he sawhis brother alight without evincing any marked feebleness. He himselfquickly paid the driver, well-pleased, too, at finding that nobody, noteven a neighbour, was about. And having opened the door with his latchkey, he helped the injured man to ascend the steps. 

A little night lamp glimmered faintly in the vestibule. On hearing thedoor open, Pierre's servant, Sophie, had at once emerged from thekitchen. A short, thin, dark woman of sixty, she had formed part of thehousehold for more than thirty years, having served the mother beforeserving the son. She knew Guillaume, having seen him when he was a youngman, and doubtless she now recognised him, although well-nigh ten yearshad gone by since he had last crossed that threshold. Instead of evincingany surprise, she seemed to consider his extraordinary return quitenatural, and remained as silent and discreet as usual. She led, indeed, the life of a recluse, never speaking unless her work absolutely requiredit. And thus she now contented herself with saying: "Monsieur l'Abbe, Monsieur Bertheroy is in the study, and has been waiting there for aquarter of an hour. "

At this Guillaume intervened, as if the news revived him: "Does Bertheroystill come here, then? I'll see him willingly. His is one of the best, the broadest, minds of these days. He has still remained my master. "

A former friend of their father, --the illustrious chemist, MichelFroment, --Bertheroy had now, in his turn, become one of the loftiestglories of France, one to whom chemistry owed much of the extraordinaryprogress that has made it the mother-science, by which the very face ofthe earth is being changed. A member of the Institute, laden with officesand honours, he had retained much affection for Pierre, and occasionallyvisited him in this wise before dinner, by way of relaxation, he wouldsay. 

"You showed him into the study? All right, then, we will go there, " saidthe Abbe to the servant. "Light a lamp and take it into my room, and getmy bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once. "

While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying theseinstructions, the brothers went into their father's former laboratory, ofwhich the priest had now made a spacious study. And it was with a cry ofjoyous astonishment that the /savant/ greeted them on seeing them enterthe room side by side, the one supporting the other. "What, together!" heexclaimed. "Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greaterpleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding. "

Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features. Hisyellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeksand jaw. Moreover, there was nothing imposing about him; he looked likesome old shop-keeping herbalist. At the same time he had a fine, broad, smooth brow, and his eyes still glittered brightly beneath his tangledhair. 

"What, have you injured yourself, Guillaume?" he continued, as soon as hesaw the bandaged hand. 

Pierre remained silent, so as to let his brother tell the story as hechose. Guillaume had realised that he must confess the truth, but insimple fashion, without detailing the circumstances. "Yes, in anexplosion, " he answered, "and I really think that I have my wristbroken. "

At this, Bertheroy, whose glance was fixed upon him, noticed that hismoustaches were burnt, and that there was an expression of bewilderedstupor, such as follows a catastrophe, in his eyes. Forthwith the/savant/ became grave and circumspect; and, without seeking to compelconfidence by any questions, he simply said: "Indeed! an explosion! Willyou let me see the injury? You know that before letting chemistry ensnareme I studied medicine, and am still somewhat of a surgeon. "

On hearing these words Pierre could not restrain a heart-cry: "Yes, yes, master! Look at the injury--I was very anxious, and to find you here isunhoped-for good fortune!"

The /savant/ glanced at him, and divined that the hidden circumstances ofthe accident must be serious. And then, as Guillaume, smiling, thoughpaling with weakness, consented to the suggestion, Bertheroy retortedthat before anything else he must be put to bed. The servant just thenreturned to say the bed was ready, and so they all went into theadjoining room, where the injured man was soon undressed and helpedbetween the sheets. 

"Light me, Pierre, " said Bertheroy, "take the lamp; and let Sophie giveme a basin full of water and some cloths. " Then, having gently washed thewound, he resumed: "The devil! The wrist isn't broken, but it's a nastyinjury. I am afraid there must be a lesion of the bone. Some nails passedthrough the flesh, did they not?"

Receiving no reply, he relapsed into silence. But his surprise wasincreasing, and he closely examined the hand, which the flame of theexplosion had scorched, and even sniffed the shirt cuff as if seeking tounderstand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of oneof those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. Inthe present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there werecharacteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him. 

"And so, " he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away byprofessional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which putyou in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concoctingthen?"

Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury, had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance andagitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep layprecisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the firstexperiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air ofrestrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me, master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility ofnature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession. "

"Oh! certainly, my friend, " exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret. Yourdiscovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you arecapable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must beaware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions ofothers, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance andmotive. "

So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant andfree from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his, which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all theacademical titles that he bore as an official /savant/, made him a man ofthe boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth, as he himself said. 

He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, aftermaking sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh. Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on themorrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke somecomforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would bewell. 

On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting upand seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise hisloved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had totake up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately retained full useof his right hand, and was thus able to pen a few lines to say that hewould not be home that night. He addressed the note to Madame Leroi, themother of his deceased mistress, who, since the latter's death, hadremained with him and had reared his three sons. Pierre was aware alsothat the household at Montmartre included a young woman of five or sixand twenty, the daughter of an old friend, to whom Guillaume had givenshelter on her father's death, and whom he was soon to marry, in spite ofthe great difference in their ages. For the priest, however, all thesewere vague, disturbing things, condemnable features of disorderly life, and he had invariably pretended to be ignorant of them. 

"So you wish this note to be taken to Montmartre at once?" he said to hisbrother. 

"Yes, at once. It is scarcely more than seven o'clock now, and it will bethere by eight. And you will choose a reliable man, won't you?"

"The best course will be for Sophie to take a cab. We need have no fearwith her. She won't chatter. Wait a moment, and I will settleeverything. "

Sophie, on being summoned, at once understood what was wanted of her, andpromised to say, in reply to any questions, that M. Guillaume had come tospend the night at his brother's, for reasons which she did not know. Andwithout indulging in any reflections herself, she left the house, sayingsimply: "Monsieur l'Abbe's dinner is ready; he will only have to take thebroth and the stew off the stove. "

However, when Pierre this time returned to the bedside to sit down there, he found that Guillaume had fallen back with his head resting on bothpillows. And he looked very weary and pale, and showed signs of fever. The lamp, standing on a corner of a side table, cast a soft light around, and so deep was the quietude that the big clock in the adjoiningdining-room could be heard ticking. For a moment the silence continuedaround the two brothers, who, after so many years of separation, were atlast re-united and alone together. Then the injured man brought his righthand to the edge of the sheet, and the priest grasped it, pressed ittenderly in his own. And the clasp was a long one, those two brotherlyhands remaining locked, one in the other. 

"My poor little Pierre, " Guillaume faintly murmured, "you must forgive mefor falling on you in this fashion. I've invaded the house and taken yourbed, and I'm preventing you from dining. "

"Don't talk, don't tire yourself any more, " interrupted Pierre. "Is notthis the right place for you when you are in trouble?"

A warmer pressure came from Guillaume's feverish hand, and tears gatheredin his eyes. "Thanks, my little Pierre. I've found you again, and you areas gentle and loving as you always were. Ah! you cannot know howdelightful it seems to me. "

Then the priest's eyes also were dimmed by tears. Amidst the deepquietude, the great sense of comfort which had followed their violentemotion, the brothers found an infinite charm in being together once morein the home of their childhood. * It was there that both their father andmother had died--the father tragically, struck down by an explosion inhis laboratory; the mother piously, like a very saint. It was there, too, in that same bed, that Guillaume had nursed Pierre, when, after theirmother's death, the latter had nearly died; and it was there now thatPierre in his turn was nursing Guillaume. All helped to bow them down andfill them with emotion: the strange circumstances of their meeting, thefrightful catastrophe which had caused them such a shock, themysteriousness of the things which remained unexplained between them. Andnow that after so long a separation they were tragically brought togetheragain, they both felt their memory awaking. The old house spoke to themof their childhood, of their parents dead and gone, of the far-away dayswhen they had loved and suffered there. Beneath the window lay thegarden, now icy cold, which once, under the sunbeams, had re-echoed withtheir play. On the left was the laboratory, the spacious room where theirfather had taught them to read. On the right, in the dining-room, theycould picture their mother cutting bread and butter for them, and lookingso gentle with her big, despairing eyes--those of a believer mated to aninfidel. And the feeling that they were now alone in that home, and thepale, sleepy gleam of the lamp, and the deep silence of the garden andthe house, and the very past itself, all filled them with the softest ofemotion blended with the keenest bitterness. 

 * See M. Zola's "Lourdes, " Day I. , Chapter II. 

They would have liked to talk and unbosom themselves. But what could theysay to one another? Although their hands remained so tightly clasped, didnot the most impassable of chasms separate them? In any case, theythought so. Guillaume was convinced that Pierre was a saint, a priest ofthe most robust faith, without a doubt, without aught in common withhimself, whether in the sphere of ideas or in that of practical life. Ahatchet-stroke had parted them, and each lived in a different world. Andin the same way Pierre pictured Guillaume as one who had lost caste, whose conduct was most suspicious, who had never even married the motherof his three children, but was on the point of marrying that girl who wasfar too young for him, and who had come nobody knew whence. In him, moreover, were blended the passionate ideas of a /savant/ and arevolutionist, ideas in which one found negation of everything, acceptance and possibly provocation of the worst forms of violence, witha glimpse of the vague monster of Anarchism underlying all. And so, onwhat basis could there be any understanding between them, since eachretained his prejudices against the other, and saw him on the oppositeside of the chasm, without possibility of any plank being thrown acrossit to enable them to unite? Thus, all alone in that room, their poorhearts bled with distracted brotherly love. 

Pierre knew that, on a previous occasion, Guillaume had narrowly escapedbeing compromised in an Anarchist affair. He asked him no questions, buthe could not help reflecting that he would not have hidden himself inthis fashion had he not feared arrest for complicity. Complicity withSalvat? Was he really an accomplice? Pierre shuddered, for the onlymaterials on which he could found a contrary opinion were, on one hand, the words that had escaped his brother after the crime, the cry he hadraised accusing Salvat of having stolen a cartridge from him; and, on theother hand, his heroic rush into the doorway of the Duvillard mansion inorder to extinguish the match. A great deal still remained obscure; butif a cartridge of that frightful explosive had been stolen from Guillaumethe fact must be that he manufactured such cartridges and had others athome. Of course, even if he were not an accomplice, the injury to hiswrist had made it needful for him to disappear. Given his bleeding hand, and the previous suspicions levelled against him, he would never haveconvinced anybody of his innocence. And yet, even allowing for thesesurmises, the affair remained wrapt in darkness: a crime on Guillaume'spart seemed a possibility, and to Pierre it was all dreadful to think of. 

Guillaume, by the trembling of his brother's moist, yielding hand, mustin some degree have realised the prostration of his poor mind, alreadyshattered by doubt and finished off by this calamity. Indeed, thesepulchre was empty now, the very ashes had been swept out of it. 

"My poor little Pierre, " the elder brother slowly said. "Forgive me if Ido not tell you anything. I cannot do so. And besides, what would be theuse of it? We should certainly not understand one another. . . . So letus keep from saying anything, and let us simply enjoy the delight ofbeing together and loving one another in spite of all. "

Pierre raised his eyes, and for a long time their glances lingered, onefixed on the other. "Ah!" stammered the priest, "how frightful it allis!"

Guillaume, however, had well understood the mute inquiry of Pierre'seyes. His own did not waver but replied boldly, beaming with purity andloftiness: "I can tell you nothing. Yet, all the same, let us love eachother, my little Pierre. "

And then Pierre for a moment felt that his brother was above all baseanxiety, above the guilty fear of the man who trembles for himself. Inlieu thereof he seemed to be carried away by the passion of some greatdesign, the noble thought of concealing some sovereign idea, some secretwhich it was imperative for him to save. But, alas! this was only thefleeting vision of a vague hope; for all vanished, and again came thedoubt, the suspicion, of a mind dealing with one that it knew nothing of. 

And all at once a souvenir, a frightful spectacle, arose before Pierre'seyes and distracted him: "Did you see, brother, " he stammered, "did yousee that fair-haired girl lying under the archway, ripped open, with asmile of astonishment on her face?"

Guillaume in his turn quivered, and in a low and dolorous voice replied:"Yes, I saw her! Ah, poor little thing! Ah! the atrocious necessities, the atrocious errors, of justice!"

Then, amidst the frightful shudder that seemed to sweep by, Pierre, withhis horror of all violence, succumbed, and let his face sink upon thecounterpane at the edge of the bed. And he sobbed distractedly: a suddenattack of weakness, overflowing in tears, cast him there exhausted, withno more strength than a child. It was as if all his sufferings since themorning, the deep grief with which universal injustice and woe inspiredhim, were bursting forth in that flood of tears which nothing now couldstay. And Guillaume, who, to calm his little brother, had set his handupon his head, in the same way as he had often caressingly stroked hishair in childhood's days, likewise felt upset and remained silent, unableto find a word of consolation, resigned, as he was, to the eruption whichin life is always possible, the cataclysm by which the slow evolution ofnature is always liable to be precipitated. But how hard a fate for thewretched ones whom the lava sweeps away in millions! And then his tearsalso began to flow amidst the profound silence. 

"Pierre, " he gently exclaimed at last, "you must have some dinner. Go, goand have some. And screen the lamp; leave me by myself, and let me closemy eyes. It will do me good. "

Pierre had to content him. Still, he left the dining-room door open; and, weak for want of food, though he had not hitherto noticed it, he atestanding, with his ears on the alert, listening lest his brother shouldcomplain or call him. And the silence seemed to have become yet morecomplete, the little house sank, as it were, into annihilation, instinctwith all the melancholy charm of the past. 

At about half-past eight, when Sophie returned from her errand toMontmartre, Guillaume heard her step, light though it was. And he at oncebecame restless and wanted to know what news she brought. It was Pierre, however, who enlightened him. "Don't be anxious. Sophie was received byan old lady who, after reading your note, merely answered, 'Very well. 'She did not even ask Sophie a question, but remained quite composedwithout sign of curiosity. "

Guillaume, realising that this fine serenity perplexed his brother, thereupon replied with similar calmness: "Oh! it was only necessary thatgrandmother should be warned. She knows well enough that if I don'treturn home it is because I can't. "

However, from that moment it was impossible for the injured man to rest. Although the lamp was hidden away in a corner, he constantly opened hiseyes, glanced round him, and seemed to listen, as if for sounds from thedirection of Paris. And it at last became necessary for the priest tosummon the servant and ask her if she had noticed anything strange on herway to or from Montmartre. She seemed surprised by the question, andanswered that she had noticed nothing. Besides, the cab had followed theouter boulevards, which were almost deserted. A slight fog had againbegun to fall, and the streets were steeped in icy dampness. 

By the time it was nine o'clock Pierre realised that his brother wouldnever be able to sleep if he were thus left without news. Amidst hisgrowing feverishness the injured man experienced keen anxiety, a hauntingdesire to know if Salvat were arrested and had spoken out. He did notconfess this; indeed he sought to convey the impression that he had nopersonal disquietude, which was doubtless true. But his great secret wasstifling him; he shuddered at the thought that his lofty scheme, all hislabour and all his hope, should be at the mercy of that unhappy man whomwant had filled with delusions and who had sought to set justice uponearth by the aid of a bomb. And in vain did the priest try to makeGuillaume understand that nothing certain could yet be known. Heperceived that his impatience increased every minute, and at lastresolved to make some effort to satisfy him. 

But where could he go, of whom could he inquire? Guillaume, while talkingand trying to guess with whom Salvat might have sought refuge, hadmentioned Janzen, the Princess de Harn's mysterious lover; and for amoment he had even thought of sending to this man for information. But hereflected that if Janzen had heard of the explosion he was not at all theindividual to wait for the police at home. 

Meantime Pierre repeated: "I will willingly go to buy the evening papersfor you--but there will certainly be nothing in them. Although I knowalmost everyone in Neuilly I can think of nobody who is likely to haveany information, unless perhaps it were Bache--"

"You know Bache, the municipal councillor?" interrupted Guillaume. 

"Yes, we have both had to busy ourselves with charitable work in theneighbourhood. "

"Well, Bache is an old friend of mine, and I know no safer man. Pray goto him and bring him back with you. "

A quarter of an hour later Pierre returned with Bache, who resided in aneighbouring street. And it was not only Bache whom he brought with him, for, much to his surprise, he had found Janzen at Bache's house. AsGuillaume had suspected, Janzen, while dining at the Princess de Harn's, had heard of the crime, and had consequently refrained from returning tohis little lodging in the Rue des Martyrs, where the police might wellhave set a trap for him. His connections were known, and he was awarethat he was watched and was liable at any moment to arrest or expulsionas a foreign Anarchist. And so he had thought it prudent to solicit a fewdays' hospitality of Bache, a very upright and obliging man, to whom heentrusted himself without fear. He would never have remained withRosemonde, that adorable lunatic who for a month past had been exhibitinghim as her lover, and whose useless and dangerous extravagance of conducthe fully realised. 

Guillaume was so delighted on seeing Bache and Janzen that he wished tosit up in bed again. But Pierre bade him remain quiet, rest his head onthe pillows, and speak as little as possible. Then, while Janzen stoodnear, erect and silent, Bache took a chair and sat down by the bedsidewith many expressions of friendly interest. He was a stout man of sixty, with a broad, full face, a large white beard and long white hair. Hislittle, gentle eyes had a dim, dreamy expression, while a pleasant, hopeful smile played round his thick lips. His father, a fervent St. Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. Whileretaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towardsorderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, insuch wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so tosay, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busiedhimself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, hisonly adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell. Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates, he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly hadelected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less byway of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for hisworthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district. 

Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his twovisitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat's flight, and how hehimself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen, with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters oftenattribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at lastsaid slowly in a gentle voice: "Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it mightbe little Mathis--I'm surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn'tmade up his mind. " Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thoughtthat Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: "Oh! no; oh! no. "

However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsheyes: "After all, there's no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment. "

Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried tothink how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might beextricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. AndGuillaume, at sight of Janzen's contemptuous coldness, must have sufferedkeenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured bythe one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could hereveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish without betrayingthe secret which he had hidden even from his brother?

However, at this moment Sophie came to tell her master that M. TheophileMorin had called with another gentleman. Much astonished by this visit atso late an hour, Pierre hastened into the next room to receive the newcomers. He had become acquainted with Morin since his return from Rome, and had helped him to introduce a translation of an excellent scientificmanual, prepared according to the official programmes, into the Italianschools. * A Franc-Comtois by birth, a compatriot of Proudhon, with whosepoor family he had been intimate at Besancon, Morin, himself the son of ajourneyman clockmaker, had grown up with Proudhonian ideas, full ofaffection for the poor and an instinctive hatred of property and wealth. Later on, having come to Paris as a school teacher, impassioned by study, he had given his whole mind to Auguste Comte. Beneath the ferventPositivist, however, one might yet find the old Proudhonian, the pauperwho rebelled and detested want. Moreover, it was scientific Positivismthat he clung to; in his hatred of all mysticism he would have naught todo with the fantastic religious leanings of Comte in his last years. Andin Morin's brave, consistent, somewhat mournful life, there had been butone page of romance: the sudden feverish impulse which had carried himoff to fight in Sicily by Garibaldi's side. Afterwards he had againbecome a petty professor in Paris, obscurely earning a dismal livelihood. 

 * See M. Zola's "Rome, " Chapters IV. And XVI. 

When Pierre returned to the bedroom he said to his brother in a tone ofemotion: "Morin has brought me Barthes, who fancies himself in danger andasks my hospitality. "

At this Guillaume forgot himself and became excited: "Nicholas Barthes, ahero with a soul worthy of antiquity. Oh! I know him; I admire and lovehim. You must set your door open wide for him. "

Bache and Janzen, however, had glanced at one another smiling. And thelatter, with his cold ironical air, slowly remarked: "Why does MonsieurBarthes hide himself? A great many people think he is dead; he is simplya ghost who no longer frightens anybody. "

Four and seventy years of age as he now was, Barthes had spent nearlyhalf a century in prison. He was the eternal prisoner, the hero ofliberty whom each successive Government had carried from citadel tofortress. Since his youth he had been marching on amidst his dream offraternity, fighting for an ideal Republic based on truth and justice, and each and every endeavour had led him to a dungeon; he had invariablyfinished his humanitarian reverie under bolts and bars. Carbonaro, Republican, evangelical sectarian, he had conspired at all times and inall places, incessantly struggling against the Power of the day, whateverit might be. And when the Republic at last had come, that Republic whichhad cost him so many years of gaol, it had, in its own turn, imprisonedhim, adding fresh years of gloom to those which already had lackedsunlight. And thus he remained the martyr of freedom: freedom which hestill desired in spite of everything; freedom, which, strive as he might, never came, never existed. 

"But you are mistaken, " replied Guillaume, wounded by Janzen's raillery. "There is again a thought of getting rid of Barthes, whose uncompromisingrectitude disturbs our politicians; and he does well to take hisprecautions!"

Nicholas Barthes came in, a tall, slim, withered old man, with a noselike an eagle's beak, and eyes that still burned in their deep sockets, under white and bushy brows. His mouth, toothless but still refined, waslost to sight between his moustaches and snowy beard; and his hair, crowning him whitely like an aureola, fell in curls over his shoulders. Behind him with all modesty came Theophile Morin, with grey whiskers, grey, brush-like hair, spectacles, and yellow, weary mien--that of an oldprofessor exhausted by years of teaching. Neither of them seemedastonished or awaited an explanation on finding that man in bed with aninjured wrist. And there were no introductions: those who were acquaintedmerely smiled at one another. 

Barthes, for his part, stooped and kissed Guillaume on both cheeks. "Ah!"said the latter, almost gaily, "it gives me courage to see you. "

However, the new comers had brought a little information. The boulevardswere in an agitated state, the news of the crime had spread from cafe tocafe, and everybody was anxious to see the late edition which one paperhad published giving a very incorrect account of the affair, full of themost extraordinary details. Briefly, nothing positive was as yet known. 

On seeing Guillaume turn pale Pierre compelled him to lie down again, andeven talked of taking the visitors into the next room. But the injuredman gently replied: "No, no, I promise you that I won't stir again, thatI won't open my mouth. But stay there and chat together. I assure youthat it will do me good to have you near me and hear you. "

Then, under the sleepy gleams of the lamp, the others began to talk inundertones. Old Barthes, who considered that bomb to be both idiotic andabominable, spoke of it with the stupefaction of one who, after fightinglike a hero through all the legendary struggles for liberty, foundhimself belated, out of his element, in a new era, which he could notunderstand. Did not the conquest of freedom suffice for everything? headded. Was there any other problem beyond that of founding the realRepublic? Then, referring to Mege and his speech in the Chamber thatafternoon, he bitterly arraigned Collectivism, which he declared to beone of the democratic forms of tyranny. Theophile Morin, for his part, also spoke against the Collectivist enrolling of the social forces, buthe professed yet greater hatred of the odious violence of the Anarchists;for it was only by evolution that he expected progress, and he feltsomewhat indifferent as to what political means might bring about thescientific society of to-morrow. And in like way Bache did not seemparticularly fond of the Anarchists, though he was touched by the idyllicdream, the humanitarian hope, whose germs lay beneath their passion fordestruction. And, like Barthes, he also flew into a passion with Mege, who since entering the Chamber had become, said he, a mere rhetoricianand theorist, dreaming of dictatorship. Meantime Janzen, still erect, hisface frigid and his lips curling ironically, listened to all three ofthem, and vented a few trenchant words to express his own Anarchistfaith; the uselessness of drawing distinctions, and the necessity ofdestroying everything in order that everything might be rebuilt on freshlines. 

Pierre, who had remained near the bed, also listened with passionateattention. Amidst the downfall of his own beliefs, the utter void whichhe felt within him, here were these four men, who represented thecardinal points of this century's ideas, debating the very same terribleproblem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief whichthe democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days ofthe immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot andRousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled oneanother, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking andbounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult todistinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was theship of salvation going, for what port ought one to embark? Pierre hadalready thought that the balance-sheet of the century ought to be drawnup, and that, after accepting the legacies of Rousseau and the otherprecursors, he ought to study the ideas of St. Simon, Fourier and evenCabet; of Auguste Comte, Proudhon and Karl Marx as well, in order, at anyrate, to form some idea of the distance that had been travelled, and ofthe cross-ways which one had now reached. And was not this anopportunity, since chance had gathered those men together in his house, living exponents of the conflicting doctrines which he wished to examine?

On turning round, however, he perceived that Guillaume was now very paleand had closed his eyes. Had even he, with his faith in science, felt thedoubt which is born of contradictory theories, and the despair whichcomes when one sees the fight for truth resulting in growth of error?

"Are you in pain?" the priest anxiously inquired. 

"Yes, a little. But I will try to sleep. "

At this they all went off with silent handshakes. Nicholas Barthes aloneremained in the house and slept in a room on the first floor which Sophiehad got ready for him. Pierre, unwilling to quit his brother, dozed offupon a sofa. And the little house relapsed into its deep quietude, thesilence of solitude and winter, through which passed the melancholyquiver of the souvenirs of childhood. 

In the morning, as soon as it was seven o'clock, Pierre had to go for thenewspapers. Guillaume had passed a bad night and intense fever had setin. Nevertheless, his brother was obliged to read him the articles on theexplosion. There was an amazing medley of truths and inventions, ofprecise information lost amidst the most unexpected extravagance. Sagnier's paper, the "Voix du Peuple, " distinguished itself by itssub-titles in huge print and a whole page of particulars jumbled togetherchance-wise. It had at once decided to postpone the famous list of thethirty-two deputies and senators compromised in the African Railwaysaffair; and there was no end to the details it gave of the aspect of theentrance to the Duvillard mansion after the explosion the pavement brokenup, the upper floor rent open, the huge doors torn away from theirhinges. Then came the story of the Baron's son and daughter preserved asby a miracle, the landau escaping the slightest injury, while the bankerand his wife, it was alleged, owed their preservation to the circumstancethat they had lingered at the Madeleine after Monseigneur Martha'sremarkable address there. An entire column was given to the one victim, the poor, pretty, fair-haired errand girl, whose identity did not seem tobe clearly established, although a flock of reporters had rushed first tothe modiste employing her, in the Avenue de l'Opera, and next to theupper part of the Faubourg St. Denis, where it was thought hergrandmother resided. Then, in a gravely worded article in "Le Globe, "evidently inspired by Fonsegue, an appeal was made to the Chamber'spatriotism to avoid giving cause for any ministerial crisis in thepainful circumstances through which the country was passing. Thus theministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weekslonger. 

Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was notknown; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor evensuspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a falsescent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbourswore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion. Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him fromanother paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction thathad been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of itshowed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed intoanxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violentravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some newexplosive of incalculable power was already suspected. 

At eight o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he wassixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any youngsawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He hadbrought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, hebecame angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot withfever. 

"Ah! I see that you haven't been reasonable, my dear child, " said he. "You must have talked too much, and have bestirred and excited yourself. "Then, having carefully probed the wound, he added, while dressing it:"The bone is injured, you know, and I won't answer for anything unlessyou behave better. Any complications would make amputation necessary. "

Pierre shuddered, but Guillaume shrugged his shoulders, as if to say thathe might just as well be amputated since all was crumbling around him. Bertheroy, who had sat down, lingering there for another moment, scrutinised both brothers with his keen eyes. He now knew of theexplosion, and must have thought it over. "My dear child, " he resumed inhis brusque way, "I certainly don't think that you committed thatabominable act of folly in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. But I fancy that youwere in the neighbourhood--no, no, don't answer me, don't defendyourself. I know nothing and desire to know nothing, not even the formulaof that devilish powder of which your shirt cuff bore traces, and whichhas wrought such terrible havoc. "

And then as the brothers remained surprised, turning cold with anxiety, in spite of his assurances, he added with a sweeping gesture: "Ah! myfriends, I regard such an action as even more useless than criminal! Ionly feel contempt for the vain agitation of politics, whether they berevolutionary or conservative. Does not science suffice? Why hasten thetimes when one single step of science brings humanity nearer to the goalof truth and justice than do a hundred years of politics and socialrevolt? Why, it is science alone which sweeps away dogmas, casts downgods, and creates light and happiness. And I, Member of the Institute asI am, decorated and possessed of means, I am the only trueRevolutionist. "

Then he began to laugh and Guillaume realised all the good-natured ironyof his laugh. While admiring him as a great /savant/, he had hithertosuffered at seeing him lead such a /bourgeois/ life, accepting whateverappointments and honours were offered him, a Republican under theRepublic, but quite ready to serve science under no matter what master. But now, from beneath this opportunist, this hieratical /savant/, thistoiler who accepted wealth and glory from all hands, there appeared aquiet yet terrible evolutionist, who certainly expected that his own workwould help to ravage and renew the world!

However, Bertheroy rose and took his leave: "I'll come back; behavesensibly, and love one another as well as you can. "

When the brothers again found themselves alone, Pierre seated atGuillaume's bedside, their hands once more sought each other and met in aburning clasp instinct with all their anguish. How much threateningmystery and distress there was both around and within them! The greywintry daylight came into the room, and they could see the black trees inthe garden, while the house remained full of quivering silence, save thatoverhead a faint sound of footsteps was audible. They were the steps ofNicholas Barthes, the heroic lover of freedom, who, rising at daybreak, had, like a caged lion, resumed his wonted promenade, the incessantcoming and going of one who had ever been a prisoner. And as the brothersceased listening to him their eyes fell on a newspaper which had remainedopen on the bed, a newspaper soiled by a sketch in outline whichpretended to portray the poor dead errand girl, lying, ripped open, beside the bandbox and the bonnet it had contained. It was so frightful, so atrociously hideous a scene, that two big tears again fell uponPierre's cheeks, whilst Guillaume's blurred, despairing eyes gazedwistfully far away, seeking for the Future. 

II

A HOME OF INDUSTRY

THE little house in which Guillaume had dwelt for so many years, a homeof quietude and hard work, stood in the pale light of winter up yonder atMontmartre, peacefully awaiting his return. He reflected, however, after/dejeuner/ that it might not be prudent for him to go back thither forsome three weeks, and so he thought of sending Pierre to explain theposition of affairs. "Listen, brother, " he said. "You must render me thisservice. Go and tell them the truth--that I am here, slightly injured, and do not wish them to come to see me, for fear lest somebody shouldfollow them and discover my retreat. After the note I wrote them lastevening they would end by getting anxious if I did not send them somenews. " Then, yielding to the one worry which, since the previous night, had disturbed his clear, frank glance, he added: "Just feel in theright-hand pocket of my waistcoat; you will find a little key there. Good! that's it. Now you must give it to Madame Leroi, my mother-in-law, and tell her that if any misfortune should happen to me, she is to dowhat is understood between us. That will suffice, she will understandyou. "

At the first moment Pierre had hesitated; but he saw how even the slighteffort of speaking exhausted his brother, so he silenced him, saying:"Don't talk, but put your mind at ease. I will go and reassure yourpeople, since you wish that this commission should be undertaken by me. "

Truth to tell, the errand was so distasteful to Pierre that he had atfirst thought of sending Sophie in his place. All his old prejudices werereviving; it was as if he were going to some ogre's den. How many timeshad he not heard his mother say "that creature!" in referring to thewoman with whom her elder son cohabited. Never had she been willing tokiss Guillaume's boys; the whole connection had shocked her, and she wasparticularly indignant that Madame Leroi, the woman's mother, should havejoined the household for the purpose of bringing up the little ones. Pierre retained so strong a recollection of all this that even nowadays, when he went to the basilica of the Sacred Heart and passed the littlehouse on his way, he glanced at it distrustfully, and kept as far from itas he could, as if it were some abode of vice and error. Undoubtedly, forten years now, the boys' mother had been dead, but did not anotherscandal-inspiring creature dwell there, that young orphan girl to whomhis brother had given shelter, and whom he was going to marry, although adifference of twenty years lay between them? To Pierre all this wascontrary to propriety, abnormal and revolting, and he pictured a homegiven over to social rebellion, where lack of principle led to every kindof disorder. 

However, he was leaving the room to start upon his journey, whenGuillaume called him back. "Tell Madame Leroi, " said he, "that if Ishould die you will let her know of it, so that she may immediately dowhat is necessary. "

"Yes, yes, " answered Pierre. "But calm yourself, and don't move about. I'll say everything. And in my absence Sophie will stop here with you incase you should need her. "

Having given full instructions to the servant, Pierre set out to take atramcar, intending to alight from it on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, and then climb the height on foot. And on the road, lulled by the glidingmotion of the heavy vehicle, he began to think of his brother's past lifeand connections, with which he was but vaguely, imperfectly, acquainted. It was only at a later date that details of everything came to hisknowledge. In 1850 a young professor named Leroi, who had come from Paristo the college of Montauban with the most ardent republican ideas, hadthere married Agathe Dagnan, the youngest of the five girls of an oldProtestant family from the Cevennes. Young Madame Leroi was /enceinte/when her husband, threatened with arrest for contributing some violentarticles to a local newspaper, immediately after the "Coup d'Etat, " foundhimself obliged to seek refuge at Geneva. It was there that the youngcouple's daughter, Marguerite, a very delicate child, was born in 1852. For seven years, that is until the Amnesty of 1859, the householdstruggled with poverty, the husband giving but a few ill-paid lessons, and the wife absorbed in the constant care which the child required. Then, after their return to Paris, their ill-luck became even greater. For a long time the ex-professor vainly sought regular employment; it wasdenied him on account of his opinions, and he had to run about givinglessons in private houses. When he was at last on the point of beingreceived back into the University a supreme blow, an attack of paralysis, fell upon him. He lost the use of both legs. And then came utter misery, every kind of sordid drudgery, the writing of articles for dictionaries, the copying of manuscripts, and even the addressing of newspaperwrappers, on the fruits of which the household barely contrived to live, in a little lodging in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. 

It was there that Marguerite grew up. Leroi, embittered by injustice andsuffering, predicted the advent of a Republic which would avenge thefollies of the Empire, and a reign of science which would sweep away thedeceptive and cruel divinity of religious dogmas. On the other hand, Agathe's religious faith had collapsed at Geneva, at sight of the narrowand imbecile practices of Calvinism, and all that she retained of it wasthe old Protestant leaven of rebellion. She had become at once the headand the arm of the house; she went for her husband's work, took it backwhen completed, and even did much of it herself, whilst, at the sametime, performing her house duties, and rearing and educating herdaughter. The latter, who attended no school, was indebted for all shelearnt to her father and mother, on whose part there was never anyquestion of religious instruction. Through contact with her husband, Madame Leroi had lost all belief, and her Protestant heredity incliningher to free inquiry and examination, she had arranged for herself a kindof peaceful atheism, based on paramount principles of human duty andjustice, which she applied courageously, irrespective of all socialconventionalities. The long iniquity of her husband's fate, theundeserved misfortunes which struck her through him and her daughter, ended by endowing her with wonderful fortitude and devotion, which madeher, whether as a judge, a manager, or a consoler, a woman ofincomparable energy and nobleness of character. 

It was in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince that Guillaume became acquaintedwith the Leroi family, after the war of 1870. On the same floor as theirlittle lodging he occupied a large room, where he devoted himselfpassionately to his studies. At the outset there was only an occasionalbow, for Guillaume's neighbours were very proud and very grave, leadingtheir life of poverty in fierce silence and retirement. Then intercoursebegan with the rendering of little services, such as when the young manprocured the ex-professor a commission to write a few articles for a newencyclopaedia. But all at once came the catastrophe: Leroi died in hisarmchair one evening while his daughter was wheeling him from his tableto his bed. The two distracted women had not even the money to bury him. The whole secret of their bitter want flowed forth with their tears, andthey were obliged to accept the help of Guillaume, who, from that moment, became the necessary confidant and friend. And the thing which was boundto happen did happen, in the most simple and loving manner, permitted bythe mother herself, who, full of contempt for a social system whichallowed those of good hearts to die of hunger, refused to admit thenecessity of any social tie. Thus there was no question of a regularmarriage. One day Guillaume, who was twenty-three years old, foundhimself mated to Marguerite, who was twenty; both of them handsome, healthy, and strong, adoring one another, loving work, and full of hopein the future. 

From that moment a new life began. Since his father's death, Guillaume, who had broken off all intercourse with his mother, had been receiving anallowance of two hundred francs a month. This just represented dailybread; however, he was already doubling the amount by his work as achemist, --his analyses and researches, which tended to the employment ofcertain chemical products in industry. So he and Marguerite installedthemselves on the very summit of Montmartre, in a little house, at arental of eight hundred francs a year, the great convenience of the placebeing a strip of garden, where one might, later on, erect a woodenworkshop. In all tranquillity Madame Leroi took up her abode with theyoung people, helping them, and sparing them the necessity of keeping asecond servant. And at successive intervals of two years, her threegrandchildren were born, three sturdy boys: first Thomas, then Francois, and then Antoine. And in the same way as she had devoted herself to herhusband and daughter, and then to Guillaume, so did she now devoteherself to the three children. She became "Mere-Grand"--an emphatic andaffectionate way of expressing the term "grandmother"--for all who livedin the house, the older as well as the younger ones. She therepersonified sense, and wisdom, and courage; it was she who was ever onthe watch, who directed everything, who was consulted about everything, and whose opinion was always followed. Indeed, she reigned there like anall-powerful queen-mother. 

For fifteen years this life went on, a life of hard work and peacefulaffection, while the strictest economy was observed in contenting everyneed of the modest little household. Then Guillaume lost his mother, tookhis share of the family inheritance, and was able to satisfy his olddesire, which was to buy the house he lived in, and build a spaciousworkshop in the garden. He was even able to build it of bricks, and addan upper story to it. But the work was scarcely finished, and life seemedto be on the point of expanding and smiling on them all, when misfortunereturned, and typhoid fever, with brutal force, carried off Marguerite, after a week's illness. She was then five and thirty, and her eldest boy, Thomas, was fourteen. Thus Guillaume, distracted by his loss, foundhimself a widower at thirty-eight. The thought of introducing any unknownwoman into that retired home, where all hearts beat in tender unison, wasso unbearable to him that he determined to take no other mate. His workabsorbed him, and he would know how to quiet both his heart and hisflesh. Mere-Grand, fortunately, was still there, erect and courageous;the household retained its queen, and in her the children found amanageress and teacher, schooled in adversity and heroism. 

Two years passed; and then came an addition to the family. A young woman, Marie Couturier, the daughter of one of Guillaume's friends, suddenlyentered it. Couturier had been an inventor, a madman with some measure ofgenius, and had spent a fairly large fortune in attempting all sorts offantastic schemes. His wife, a very pious woman, had died of grief at itall; and although on the rare occasions when he saw his daughter, heshowed great fondness for her and loaded her with presents, he had firstplaced her in a boarding college, and afterwards left her in the chargeof a poor female relative. Remembering her only on his death-bed, he hadbegged Guillaume to give her an asylum, and find her a husband. The poorrelation, who dealt in ladies' and babies' linen, had just become abankrupt. So, at nineteen, the girl, Marie, found herself a pennilessoutcast, possessed of nothing save a good education, health and courage. Guillaume would never allow her to run about giving lessons. He took her, in quite a natural way, to help Mere-Grand, who was no longer so activeas formerly. And the latter approved the arrangement, well pleased at theadvent of youth and gaiety, which would somewhat brighten the household, whose life had been one of much gravity ever since Marguerite's death. Marie would simply be an elder sister; she was too old for the boys, whowere still at college, to be disturbed by her presence. And she wouldwork in that house where everybody worked. She would help the littlecommunity pending the time when she might meet and love some worthyfellow who would marry her. 

Five more years elapsed without Marie consenting to quit that happy home. The sterling education she had received was lodged in a vigorous brain, which contented itself with the acquirement of knowledge. Yet she hadremained very pure and healthy, even very /naive/, maidenly by reason ofher natural rectitude. And she was also very much a woman, beautifyingand amusing herself with a mere nothing, and ever showing gaiety andcontentment. Moreover, she was in no wise of a dreamy nature, but verypractical, always intent on some work or other, and only asking of lifesuch things as life could give, without anxiety as to what might liebeyond it. She lovingly remembered her pious mother, who had prepared herfor her first Communion in tears, imagining that she was opening heaven'sportals to her. But since she had been an orphan she had of her ownaccord ceased all practice of religion, her good sense revolting andscorning the need of any moral police regulations to make her do herduty. Indeed, she considered such regulations dangerous and destructiveof true health. Thus, like Mere-Grand, she had come to a sort of quietand almost unconscious atheism, not after the fashion of one who reasons, but simply like the brave, healthy girl she was, one who had long enduredpoverty without suffering from it, and believed in nothing save thenecessity of effort. She had been kept erect, indeed, by her convictionthat happiness was to be found in the normal joys of life, livedcourageously. And her happy equilibrium of mind had ever guided and savedher, in such wise that she willingly listened to her natural instinct, saying, with her pleasant laugh, that this was, after all, her bestadviser. She rejected two offers of marriage, and on the second occasion, as Guillaume pressed her to accept, she grew astonished, and inquired ifhe had had enough of her in the house. She found herself verycomfortable, and she rendered service there. So why should she leave andrun the risk of being less happy elsewhere, particularly as she was notin love with anybody?

Then, by degrees, the idea of a marriage between Marie and Guillaumepresented itself; and indeed what could have been more reasonable andadvantageous for all? If Guillaume had not mated again it was for hissons' sake, because he feared that by introducing a stranger to the househe might impair its quietude and gaiety. But now there was a woman amongthem who already showed herself maternal towards the boys, and whosebright youth had ended by disturbing his own heart. He was still in hisprime, and had always held that it was not good for man to live alone, although, personally, thanks to his ardour for work, he had hithertoescaped excessive suffering in his bereavement. However, there was thegreat difference of ages to be considered; and he would have bravelyremained in the background and have sought a younger husband for Marie, if his three big sons and Mere-Grand herself had not conspired to effecthis happiness by doing all they could to bring about a marriage whichwould strengthen every home tie and impart, as it were, a freshspringtide to the house. As for Marie, touched and grateful to Guillaumefor the manner in which he had treated her for five years past, sheimmediately consented with an impulse of sincere affection, in which, shefancied, she could detect love. And at all events, could she act in amore sensible, reasonable way, base her life on more certain prospects ofhappiness? So the marriage had been resolved upon; and about a monthpreviously it had been decided that it should take place during theensuing spring, towards the end of April. 

When Pierre, after alighting from the tramcar, began to climb theinterminable flights of steps leading to the Rue St. Eleuthere, a feelingof uneasiness again came over him at the thought that he was about toenter that suspicious ogre's den where everything would certainly woundand irritate him. Given the letter which Sophie had carried thither onthe previous night, announcing that the master would not return, howanxious and upset must all its inmates be! However, as Pierre ascendedthe final flight and nervously raised his head, the little house appearedto him right atop of the hill, looking very serene and quiet under thebright wintry sun, which had peered forth as if to bestow upon the modestdwelling an affectionate caress. 

There was a door in the old garden wall alongside the Rue St. Eleuthere, almost in front of the broad thoroughfare conducting to the basilica ofthe Sacred Heart; but to reach the house itself one had to skirt the walland climb to the Place du Tertre, where one found the facade and theentrance. Some children were playing on the Place, which, planted as itwas with a few scrubby trees, and edged with humble shops, --afruiterer's, a grocer's and a baker's, --looked like some square in asmall provincial town. In a corner, on the left, Guillaume's dwelling, which had been whitewashed during the previous spring, showed its brightfrontage and five lifeless windows, for all its life was on the other, the garden, side, which overlooked Paris and the far horizon. 

Pierre mustered his courage and, pulling a brass knob which glitteredlike gold, rang the bell. There came a gay, distant jingle; but for amoment nobody appeared, and he was about to ring again, when the door wasthrown wide open, revealing a passage which ran right through the house, beyond which appeared the ocean of Paris, the endless sea of house roofsbathed in sunlight. And against this spacious, airy background, stood ayoung woman of twenty-six, clad in a simple gown of black woolen stuff, half covered by a large blue apron. She had her sleeves rolled up aboveher elbows, and her arms and hands were still moist with water which shehad but imperfectly wiped away. 

A moment's surprise and embarrassment ensued. The young woman, who hadhastened to the door with laughing mien, became grave and covertlyhostile at sight of the visitor's cassock. The priest thereupon realisedthat he must give his name: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment. "

At this the young woman's smile of welcome came back to her. "Oh! I begyour pardon, monsieur--I ought to have recognised you, for I saw you wishGuillaume good day one morning as you passed. "

She said Guillaume; she, therefore, must be Marie. And Pierre looked ather in astonishment, finding her very different from what he hadimagined. She was only of average height, but she was vigorously, admirably built, broad of hip and broad of shoulder, with the small firmbosom of an amazon. By her erect and easy step, instinct with all theadorable grace of woman in her prime, one could divine that she wasstrong, muscular and healthy. A brunette, but very white of skin, she hada heavy helm of superb black hair, which she fastened in a negligent way, without any show of coquetry. And under her dark locks, her pure, intelligent brow, her delicate nose and gay eyes appeared full of intenselife; whilst the somewhat heavier character of her lower features, herfleshy lips and full chin, bespoke her quiet kindliness. She had surelycome on earth as a promise of every form of tenderness, every form ofdevotion. In a word, she was a true mate for man. 

However, with her heavy, straying hair and superb arms, so ingenuous intheir nudity, she only gave Pierre an impression of superfluous healthand extreme self-assurance. She displeased him and even made him feelsomewhat anxious, as if she were a creature different from all others. 

"It is my brother Guillaume who has sent me, " he said. 

At this her face again changed; she became grave and hastened to admithim to the passage. And when the door was closed she answered: "You havebrought us news of him, then! I must apologise for receiving you in thisfashion. The servants have just finished some washing, and I was makingsure if the work had been well done. Pray excuse me, and come in here fora moment; it is perhaps best that I should be the first to know thenews. "

So saying, she led him past the kitchen to a little room which served asscullery and wash-house. A tub full of soapy water stood there, and somedripping linen hung over some wooden bars. "And so, Guillaume?" sheasked. 

Pierre then told the truth in simple fashion: that his brother's wristhad been injured; that he himself had witnessed the accident, and thathis brother had then sought an asylum with him at Neuilly, where hewished to remain and get cured of his injury in peace and quietness, without even receiving a visit from his sons. While speaking in thisfashion, the priest watched the effect of his words on Marie's face:first fright and pity, and then an effort to calm herself and judgethings reasonably. 

"His letter quite froze me last night, " she ended by replying. "I feltsure that some misfortune had happened. But one must be brave and hideone's fear from others. His wrist injured, you say; it is not a seriousinjury, is it?"

"No; but it is necessary that every precaution should be taken with it. "

She looked him well in the face with her big frank eyes, which dived intohis own as if to reach the very depths of his being, though at the sametime she plainly sought to restrain the score of questions which rose toher lips. "And that is all: he was injured in an accident, " she resumed;"he didn't ask you to tell us anything further about it?"

"No, he simply desires that you will not be anxious. "

Thereupon she insisted no further, but showed herself obedient andrespectful of the decision which Guillaume had arrived at. It sufficedthat he should have sent a messenger to reassure the household--she didnot seek to learn any more. And even as she had returned to her work inspite of the secret anxiety in which the letter of the previous eveninghad left her, so now, with her air of quiet strength, she recovered anappearance of serenity, a quiet smile and clear brave glance. 

"Guillaume only gave me one other commission, " resumed Pierre, "that ofhanding a little key to Madame Leroi. "

"Very good, " Marie answered, "Mere-Grand is here; and, besides, thechildren must see you. I will take you to them. "

Once more quite tranquil, she examined Pierre without managing to concealher curiosity, which seemed of rather a kindly nature blended with anelement of vague pity. Her fresh white arms had remained bare. In allcandour she slowly drew down her sleeves; then took off the large blueapron, and showed herself with her rounded figure, at once robust andelegant, in her modest black gown. He meanwhile looked at her, and mostcertainly he did not find her to his liking. On seeing her so natural, healthy, and courageous, quite a feeling of revolt arose within him, though he knew not why. 

"Will you please follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?" she said. "We must crossthe garden. "

On the ground-floor of the house, across the passage, and facing thekitchen and the scullery, there were two other rooms, a libraryoverlooking the Place du Tertre, and a dining-room whose windows openedinto the garden. The four rooms on the first floor served as bedchambersfor the father and the sons. As for the garden, originally but a smallone, it had now been reduced to a kind of gravelled yard by the erectionof the large workshop at one end of it. Of the former greenery, however, there still remained two huge plum-trees with old knotted trunks, as wellas a big clump of lilac-bushes, which every spring were covered withbloom. And in front of the latter Marie had arranged a broad flower-bed, in which she amused herself with growing a few roses, some wallflowersand some mignonette. 

With a wave of her hand as she went past, she called Pierre's attentionto the black plum-trees and the lilacs and roses, which showed but a fewgreenish spots, for winter still held the little nook in sleep. "TellGuillaume, " she said, "that he must make haste to get well and be backfor the first shoots. "

Then, as Pierre glanced at her, she all at once flushed purple. Much toher distress, sudden and involuntary blushes would in this wiseoccasionally come upon her, even at the most innocent remarks. She foundit ridiculous to feel such childish emotion when she had so brave aheart. But her pure maidenly blood had retained exquisite delicacy, suchnatural and instinctive modesty that she yielded to it perforce. Anddoubtless she had merely blushed because she feared that the priest mightthink she had referred to her marriage in speaking of the spring. 

"Please go in, Monsieur l'Abbe. The children are there, all three. " Andforthwith she ushered him into the workshop. 

It was a very spacious place, over sixteen feet high, with a brickflooring and bare walls painted an iron grey. A sheet of light, a streamof sunshine, spread to every corner through a huge window facing thesouth, where lay the immensity of Paris. The Venetian shutters often hadto be lowered in the summer to attenuate the great heat. From morn tillnight the whole family lived here, closely and affectionately united inwork. Each was installed as fancy listed, having a particular chosenplace. One half of the building was occupied by the father's chemicallaboratory, with its stove, experiment tables, shelves for apparatus, glass cases and cupboards for phials and jars. Near all this Thomas, theeldest son, had installed a little forge, an anvil, a vice bench, in facteverything necessary to a working mechanician, such as he had becomesince taking his bachelor's degree, from his desire to remain with hisfather and help him with certain researches and inventions. Then, at theother end, the younger brothers, Francois and Antoine, got on very welltogether on either side of a broad table which stood amidst a medley ofportfolios, nests of drawers and revolving book-stands. Francois, ladenwith academical laurels, first on the pass list for the Ecole Normale, had entered that college where young men are trained for universityprofessorships, and was there preparing for his Licentiate degree, whileAntoine, who on reaching the third class at the Lycee Condorcet had takena dislike to classical studies, now devoted himself to his calling as awood-engraver. And, in the full light under the window, Mere-Grand andMarie likewise had their particular table, where needlework, embroidery, all sorts of /chiffons/ and delicate things lay about near the somewhatrough jumble of retorts, tools and big books. 

Marie, however, on the very threshold called out in her calm voice, towhich she strove to impart a gay and cheering accent: "Children!children! here is Monsieur l'Abbe with news of father!"

Children, indeed! Yet what motherliness she already set in the word asshe applied it to those big fellows whose elder sister she had longconsidered herself to be! At three and twenty Thomas was quite acolossus, already bearded and extremely like his father. But although hehad a lofty brow and energetic features, he was somewhat slow both inmind and body. And he was also taciturn, almost unsociable, absorbed infilial devotion, delighted with the manual toil which made him a mereworkman at his master's orders. Francois, two years younger than Thomas, and nearly as tall, showed a more refined face, though he had the samelarge brow and firm mouth, a perfect blending of health and strength, inwhich the man of intellect, the scientific Normalian, could only bedetected by the brighter and more subtle sparkle of the eyes. Theyoungest of the brothers, Antoine, who for his eighteen years was almostas strong as his elders, and promised to become as tall, differed fromthem by his lighter hair and soft, blue, dreamy eyes, which he hadinherited from his mother. It had been difficult, however, to distinguishone from the other when all three were schoolboys at the Lycee Condorcet;and even nowadays people made mistakes unless they saw them side by side, so as to detect the points of difference which were becoming more markedas age progressed. 

On Pierre's arrival the brothers were so absorbed in their work that theydid not even hear the door open. And again, as in the case of Marie, thepriest was surprised by the discipline and firmness of mind, which amidstthe keenest anxiety gave the young fellows strength to take up theirdaily task. Thomas, who stood at his vice-bench in a blouse, wascarefully filing a little piece of copper with rough but skilful hands. Francois, leaning forward, was writing in a bold, firm fashion, whilst onthe other side of the table, Antoine, with a slender graver between hisfingers, finished a block for an illustrated newspaper. 

However, Marie's clear voice made them raise their heads: "Children, father has sent you some news!"

Then all three with the same impulse hurriedly quitted their work andcame forward. One could divine that directly there was any question oftheir father they were drawn together, blended one with the other, sothat but one and the same heart beat in their three broad chests. However, a door at the far end of the workroom opened at that moment, andMere-Grand, coming from the upper floor where she and Marie had theirbedrooms, made her appearance. She had just absented herself to fetch askein of wool; and she gazed fixedly at the priest, unable to understandthe reason of his presence. 

Marie had to explain matters. "Mere-Grand, " said she, "this is Monsieurl'Abbe Froment, Guillaume's brother; he has come from him. "

Pierre on his side was examining the old lady, astonished to find her soerect and full of life at seventy. Her former beauty had left a statelycharm on her rather long face; youthful fire still lingered in her browneyes; and very firm was the contour of her pale lips, which in partingshowed that she had retained all her teeth. A few white hairs alonesilvered her black tresses, which were arranged in old-time fashion. Hercheeks had but slightly withered, and her deep, symmetrical wrinkles gaveher countenance an expression of much nobility, a sovereign air as of aqueen-mother, which, tall and slight of stature as she was, andinvariably gowned in black woollen stuff, she always retained, no matterhow humble her occupation. 

"So Guillaume sent you, monsieur, " she said; "he is injured, is he not?"

Surprised by this proof of intuition, Pierre repeated his story. "Yes, his wrist is injured--but oh! it's not a case of immediate gravity. "

On the part of the three sons, he had divined a sudden quiver, an impulseof their whole beings to rush to the help and defence of their father. And for their sakes he sought words of comfort: "He is with me atNeuilly. And with due care it is certain that no serious complicationswill arise. He sent me to tell you to be in no wise uneasy about him. "

Mere-Grand for her part evinced no fears, but preserved great calmness, as if the priest's tidings contained nothing beyond what she had knownalready. If anything, she seemed rather relieved, freed from anxietywhich she had confided to none. "If he is with you, monsieur, " sheanswered, "he is evidently as comfortable as he can be, and shelteredfrom all risks. We were surprised, however, by his letter last night, asit did not explain why he was detained, and we should have ended byfeeling frightened. But now everything is satisfactory. "

Mere-Grand and the three sons, following Marie's example, asked noexplanations. On a table near at hand Pierre noticed several morningnewspapers lying open and displaying column after column of particularsabout the crime. The sons had certainly read these papers, and had fearedlest their father should be compromised in that frightful affair. How fardid their knowledge of the latter go? They must be ignorant of the partplayed by Salvat. It was surely impossible for them to piece together allthe unforeseen circumstances which had brought about their father'smeeting with the workman, and then the crime. Mere-Grand, no doubt, wasin certain respects better informed than the others. But they, the sonsand Marie, neither knew nor sought to know anything. And thus what awealth of respect and affection there was in their unshakable confidencein the father, in the tranquillity they displayed directly he sent themword that they were not to be anxious about him!

"Madame, " Pierre resumed, "Guillaume told me to give you this little key, and to remind you to do what he charged you to do, if any misfortuneshould befall him. "

She started, but so slightly that it was scarcely perceptible; and takingthe key she answered as if some ordinary wish on the part of a sickperson were alone in question. "Very well. Tell him that his wishes shallbe carried out. " Then she added, "But pray take a seat, monsieur. "

Pierre, indeed, had remained standing. However, he now felt it necessaryto accept a chair, desirous as he was of hiding the embarrassment whichhe still felt in this house, although he was /en famille/ there. Marie, who could not live without occupation for her fingers, had just returnedto some embroidery, some of the fine needlework which she stubbornlyexecuted for a large establishment dealing in baby-linen and bridal/trousseaux/; for she wished at any rate to earn her own pocket-money, she often said with a laugh. Mere-Grand, too, from habit, which shefollowed even when visitors were present, had once more started on herperpetual stocking-mending; while Francois and Antoine had again seatedthemselves at their table; and Thomas alone remained on his legs, leaningagainst his bench. All the charm of industrious intimacy pervaded thespacious, sun-lit room. 

"But we'll all go to see father to-morrow, " Thomas suddenly exclaimed. 

Before Pierre could answer Marie raised her head. "No, no, " said she, "hedoes not wish any of us to go to him; for if we should be watched andfollowed we should betray the secret of his retreat. Isn't that so, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

"It would indeed be prudent of you to deprive yourselves of the pleasureof embracing him until he himself can come back here. It will be a matterof some two or three weeks, " answered Pierre. 

Mere-Grand at once expressed approval of this. "No doubt, " said she. "Nothing could be more sensible. "

So the three sons did not insist, but bravely accepted the secret anxietyin which they must for a time live, renouncing the visit which would havecaused them so much delight, because their father bade them do so andbecause his safety depended perhaps on their obedience. 

However, Thomas resumed: "Then, Monsieur l'Abbe, will you please tell himthat as work will be interrupted here, I shall return to the factoryduring his absence. I shall be more at ease there for the researches onwhich we are engaged. "

"And please tell him from me, " put in Francois, "that he mustn't worryabout my examination. Things are going very well. I feel almost certainof success. "

Pierre promised that he would forget nothing. However, Marie raised herhead, smiling and glancing at Antoine, who had remained silent with afaraway look in his eyes. "And you, little one, " said she, "don't yousend him any message?"

Emerging from a dream, the young fellow also began to smile. "Yes, yes, amessage that you love him dearly, and that he's to make haste back foryou to make him happy. "

At this they all became merry, even Marie, who in lieu of embarrassmentshowed a tranquil gaiety born of confidence in the future. Between herand the young men there was naught but happy affection. And a grave smileappeared even on the pale lips of Mere-Grand, who likewise approved ofthe happiness which life seemed to be promising. 

Pierre wished to stay a few minutes longer. They all began to chat, andhis astonishment increased. He had gone from surprise to surprise in thishouse where he had expected to find that equivocal, disorderly life, thatrebellion against social laws, which destroy morality. But instead ofthis he had found loving serenity, and such strong discipline that lifethere partook of the gravity, almost the austerity, of convent life, tempered by youth and gaiety. The vast room was redolent of industry andquietude, warm with bright sunshine. However, what most particularlystruck him was the Spartan training, the bravery of mind and heart amongthose sons who allowed nothing to be seen of their personal feelings, anddid not presume to judge their father, but remained content with hismessage, ready to await events, stoical and silent, while carrying ontheir daily tasks. Nothing could be more simple, more dignified, morelofty. And there was also the smiling heroism of Mere-Grand and Marie, those two women who slept over that laboratory where terriblepreparations were manipulated, and where an explosion was alwayspossible. 

However, such courage, orderliness and dignity merely surprised Pierre, without touching him. He had no cause for complaint, he had received apolite greeting if not an affectionate one; but then he was as yet only astranger there, a priest. In spite of everything, however, he remainedhostile, feeling that he was in a sphere where none of his own tormentscould be shared or even divined. How did these folks manage to be so calmand happy amidst their religious unbelief, their sole faith in science, and in presence of that terrifying Paris which spread before them theboundless sea, the growling abomination of its injustice and its want? Asthis thought came to him he turned his head and gazed at the city throughthe huge window, whence it stretched away, ever present, ever living itsgiant life. And at that hour, under the oblique sun-rays of the winterafternoon, all Paris was speckled with luminous dust, as if someinvisible sower, hidden amidst the glory of the planet, were fastscattering seed which fell upon every side in a stream of gold. The wholefield was covered with it; for the endless chaos of house roofs andedifices seemed to be land in tilth, furrowed by some gigantic plough. And Pierre in his uneasiness, stirred, despite everything, by aninvincible need of hope, asked himself if this was not a good sowing, thefurrows of Paris strewn with light by the divine sun for the great futureharvest, that harvest of truth and justice of whose advent he haddespaired. 

At last he rose and took his leave, promising to return at once, if thereshould be any bad news. It was Marie who showed him to the front door. And there another of those childish blushes which worried her so muchsuddenly rose to her face, just as she, in her turn, also wished to sendher loving message to the injured man. However, with her gay, candid eyesfixed on those of the priest, she bravely spoke the words: "/Au revoir, Monsieur l'Abbe/. Tell Guillaume that I love him and await him. "

III

PENURY AND TOIL

THREE days went by, and every morning Guillaume, confined to his bed andconsumed by fever and impatience, experienced fresh anxiety directly thenewspapers arrived. Pierre had tried to keep them from him, but Guillaumethen worried himself the more, and so the priest had to read him columnby column all the extraordinary articles that were published respectingthe crime. 

Never before had so many rumours inundated the press. Even the "Globe, "usually so grave and circumspect, yielded to the general /furore/, andprinted whatever statements reached it. But the more unscrupulous paperswere the ones to read. The "Voix du Peuple" in particular made use of thepublic feverishness to increase its sales. Each morning it employed somefresh device, and printed some frightful story of a nature to drivepeople mad with terror. It related that not a day passed without BaronDuvillard receiving threatening letters of the coarsest description, announcing that his wife, his son and his daughter would all be killed, that he himself would be butchered in turn, and that do what he might hishouse would none the less be blown up. And as a measure of precaution thehouse was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothesofficers. Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention. Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near theMadeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning aperfect volcano there, into which one half of Paris would sink. And atanother time it was alleged that the police were on the track of aterrible plot which embraced all Europe, from the depths of Russia to theshores of Spain. The signal for putting it into execution was to be givenin France, and there would be a three days' massacre, with grape shotsweeping everyone off the Boulevards, and the Seine running red, swollenby a torrent of blood. Thanks to these able and intelligent devices ofthe Press, terror now reigned in the city; frightened foreigners fledfrom the hotels /en masse/; and Paris had become a mere mad-house, wherethe most idiotic delusions at once found credit. 

It was not all this, however, that worried Guillaume. He was only anxiousabout Salvat and the various new "scents" which the newspaper reportersattempted to follow up. The engineer was not yet arrested, and, so farindeed, there had been no statement in print to indicate that the policewere on his track. At last, however, Pierre one morning read a paragraphwhich made the injured man turn pale. 

"Dear me! It seems that a tool has been found among the rubbish at theentrance of the Duvillard mansion. It is a bradawl, and its handle bearsthe name of Grandidier, which is that of a man who keeps some well-knownmetal works. He is to appear before the investigating magistrate to-day. "

Guillaume made a gesture of despair. "Ah!" said he, "they are on theright track at last. That tool must certainly have been dropped bySalvat. He worked at Grandidier's before he came to me for a few days. And from Grandidier they will learn all that they need to know in orderto follow the scent. "

Pierre then remembered that he had heard the Grandidier factory mentionedat Montmartre. Guillaume's eldest son, Thomas, had served hisapprenticeship there, and even worked there occasionally nowadays. 

"You told me, " resumed Guillaume, "that during my absence Thomas intendedto go back to the factory. It's in connection with a new motor which he'splanning, and has almost hit upon. If there should be a perquisitionthere, he may be questioned, and may refuse to answer, in order to guardhis secret. So he ought to be warned of this, warned at once!"

Without trying to extract any more precise statement from his brother, Pierre obligingly offered his services. "If you like, " said he, "I willgo to see Thomas this afternoon. Perhaps I may come across MonsieurGrandidier himself and learn how far the affair has gone, and what wassaid at the investigating magistrate's. "

With a moist glance and an affectionate grasp of the hand, Guillaume atonce thanked Pierre: "Yes, yes, brother, go there, it will be good andbrave of you. "

"Besides, " continued the priest, "I really wanted to go to Montmartreto-day. I haven't told you so, but something has been worrying me. IfSalvat has fled, he must have left the woman and the child all alone upyonder. On the morning of the day when the explosion took place I saw thepoor creatures in such a state of destitution, such misery, that I can'tthink of them without a heart-pang. Women and children so often die ofhunger when the man is no longer there. "

At this, Guillaume, who had kept Pierre's hand in his own, pressed itmore tightly, and in a trembling voice exclaimed: "Yes, yes, and thatwill be good and brave too. Go there, brother, go there. "

That house of the Rue des Saules, that horrible home of want and agony, had lingered in Pierre's memory. To him it was like an embodiment of thewhole filthy /cloaca/, in which the poor of Paris suffer unto death. Andon returning thither that afternoon, he found the same slimy mud aroundit; its yard littered with the same filth, its dark, damp stairwaysredolent of the same stench of neglect and poverty, as before. In wintertime, while the fine central districts of Paris are dried and cleansed, the far-away districts of the poor remain gloomy and miry, beneath theeverlasting tramp of the wretched ones who dwell in them. 

Remembering the staircase which conducted to Salvat's lodging, Pierrebegan to climb it amidst a loud screaming of little children, whosuddenly became quiet, letting the house sink into death-like silenceonce more. Then the thought of Laveuve, who had perished up there like astray dog, came back to Pierre. And he shuddered when, on the toplanding, he knocked at Salvat's door, and profound silence alone answeredhim. Not a breath was to be heard. 

However, he knocked again, and as nothing stirred he began to think thatnobody could be there. Perhaps Salvat had returned to fetch the woman andthe child, and perhaps they had followed him to some humble nook abroad. Still this would have astonished him; for the poor seldom quit theirhomes, but die where they have suffered. So he gave another gentle knock. 

And at last a faint sound, the light tread of little feet, was heardamidst the silence. Then a weak, childish voice ventured to inquire: "Whois there?"

"Monsieur l'Abbe. "

The silence fell again, nothing more stirred. There was evidentlyhesitation on the other side. 

"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day, " said Pierre again. 

This evidently put an end to all uncertainty, for the door was set ajarand little Celine admitted the priest. "I beg your pardon, Monsieurl'Abbe, " said she, "but Mamma Theodore has gone out, and she told me notto open the door to anyone. "

Pierre had, for a moment, imagined that Salvat himself was hiding there. But with a glance he took in the whole of the small bare room, where man, woman and child dwelt together. At the same time, Madame Theodoredoubtless feared a visit from the police. Had she seen Salvat since thecrime? Did she know where he was hiding? Had he come back there toembrace and tranquillise them both?

"And your papa, my dear, " said Pierre to Celine, "isn't he here either?"

"Oh! no, monsieur, he has gone away. "

"What, gone away?"

"Yes, he hasn't been home to sleep, and we don't know where he is. "

"Perhaps he's working. "

"Oh, no! he'd send us some money if he was. "

"Then he's gone on a journey, perhaps?"

"I don't know. "

"He wrote to Mamma Theodore, no doubt?"

"I don't know. "

Pierre asked no further questions. In fact, he felt somewhat ashamed ofhis attempt to extract information from this child of eleven, whom hethus found alone. It was quite possible that she knew nothing, thatSalvat, in a spirit of prudence, had even refrained from sending anytidings of himself. Indeed, there was an expression of truthfulness onthe child's fair, gentle and intelligent face, which was grave with thegravity that extreme misery imparts to the young. 

"I am sorry that Mamma Theodore isn't here, " said Pierre, "I wanted tospeak to her. "

"But perhaps you would like to wait for her, Monsieur l'Abbe. She hasgone to my Uncle Toussaint's in the Rue Marcadet; and she can't stop muchlonger, for she's been away more than an hour. "

Thereupon Celine cleared one of the chairs on which lay a handful ofscraps of wood, picked up on some waste ground. 

The bare and fireless room was assuredly also a breadless one. Pierrecould divine the absence of the bread-winner, the disappearance of theman who represents will and strength in the home, and on whom one stillrelies even when weeks have gone by without work. He goes out and scoursthe city, and often ends by bringing back the indispensable crust whichkeeps death at bay. But with his disappearance comes completeabandonment, the wife and child in danger, destitute of all prop andhelp. 

Pierre, who had sat down and was looking at that poor, little, blue-eyedgirl, to whose lips a smile returned in spite of everything, could notkeep from questioning her on another point. "So you don't go to school, my child?" said he. 

She faintly blushed and answered: "I've no shoes to go in. "

He glanced at her feet, and saw that she was wearing a pair of ragged oldlist-slippers, from which her little toes protruded, red with cold. 

"Besides, " she continued, "Mamma Theodore says that one doesn't go toschool when one's got nothing to eat. Mamma Theodore wanted to work butshe couldn't, because her eyes got burning hot and full of water. And sowe don't know what to do, for we've had nothing left since yesterday, andif Uncle Toussaint can't lend us twenty sous it'll be all over. "

She was still smiling in her unconscious way, but two big tears hadgathered in her eyes. And the sight of the child shut up in that bareroom, apart from all the happy ones of earth, so upset the priest that heagain felt his anger with want and misery awakening. Then, another tenminutes having elapsed, he became impatient, for he had to go to theGrandidier works before returning home. 

"I don't know why Mamma Theodore doesn't come back, " repeated Celine. "Perhaps she's chatting. " Then, an idea occurring to her she continued:"I'll take you to my Uncle Toussaint's, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you like. It's close by, just round the corner. "

"But you have no shoes, my child. "

"Oh! that don't matter, I walk all the same. "

Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: "Well, yes, that willbe better, take me there. And I'll buy you some shoes. "

Celine turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him aftercarefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife, though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place. 

In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Theodore that before calling onher brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might firstessay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married littleChretiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on theBoulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and thepoor woman only made the venture because Celine had been fasting sincethe previous day. 

Eugene Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother, by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whomthe latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters, Pauline, Leonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugene, whoalready had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a shorttime with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother, fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get outof difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughterPauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Leonie there; sothat Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier andmore delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, lateron, --after Pauline had married Labitte the stonemason, and Leonie, Salvatthe journeyman-engineer, --Hortense, while serving as assistant at aconfectioner's in the Rue des Martyrs, there became acquainted withChretiennot, a clerk, who married her. Leonie had died young, only a fewweeks after her mother; Pauline, forsaken by her husband, lived with herbrother-in-law Salvat, and Hortense alone wore a light silk gown onSundays, resided in a new house, and ranked as a /bourgeoise/, at theprice, however, of interminable worries and great privation. 

Madame Theodore knew that her sister was generally short of money towardsthe month's end, and therefore felt rather ill at ease in thus venturingto apply for a loan. Chretiennot, moreover, embittered by his ownmediocrity, had of late years accused his wife of being the cause oftheir spoilt life, and had ceased all intercourse with her relatives. Toussaint, no doubt, was a decent workman; but that Madame Theodore wholived in misery with her brother-in-law, and that Salvat who wanderedfrom workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employerwould keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had endedby incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler forthe proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered inhis own life. And thus he had forbidden Hortense to receive her sister. 

All the same, as Madame Theodore climbed the carpeted staircase of thehouse on the Boulevard Rochechouart, she experienced a certain feeling ofpride at the thought that she had a relation living in such luxury. TheChretiennot's rooms were on the third floor, and overlooked thecourtyard. Their /femme-de-menage/--a woman who goes out by the day orhour charring, cleaning and cooking--came back every afternoon about fouro'clock to see to the dinner, and that day she was already there. Sheadmitted the visitor, though she could not conceal her anxious surpriseat her boldness in calling in such slatternly garb. However, on the verythreshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short inwonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching onone of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was soproud. 

"What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore. 

Her sister, though scarcely two and thirty, was no longer "the beautifulHortense" of former days. She retained a doll-like appearance, with atall slim figure, pretty eyes and fine, fair hair. But she who had oncetaken so much care of herself, had now come down to dressing-gowns ofdoubtful cleanliness. Her eyelids, too, were reddening, and blotches wereappearing on her skin. She had begun to fade after giving birth to twodaughters, one of whom was now nine and the other seven years of age. Very proud and egotistical, she herself had begun to regret her marriage, for she had formerly considered herself a real beauty, worthy of thepalaces and equipages of some Prince Charming. And at this moment she wasplunged in such despair, that her sister's sudden appearance on the scenedid not even astonish her: "Ah! it's you, " she gasped. "Ah! if you onlyknew what a blow's fallen on me in the middle of all our worries!"

Madame Theodore at once thought of the children, Lucienne and Marcelle. "Are your daughters ill?" she asked. 

"No, no, our neighbour has taken them for a walk on the Boulevard. Butthe fact is, my dear, I'm /enceinte/, and when I told Chretiennot of itafter /dejeuner/, he flew into a most fearful passion, saying the mostdreadful, the most cruel things!"

Then she again sobbed. Gentle and indolent by nature, desirous of peaceand quietness before anything else, she was incapable of deceiving herhusband, as he well knew. But the trouble was that an addition to thefamily would upset the whole economy of the household. 

"/Mon Dieu/!" said Madame Theodore at last, "you brought up the others, and you'll bring up this one too. "

At this an explosion of anger dried the other's eyes; and she rose, exclaiming: "You are good, you are! One can see that our purse isn'tyours. How are we to bring up another child when we can scarcely makeboth ends meet as it is?"

And thereupon, forgetting the /bourgeois/ pride which usually promptedher to silence or falsehood, she freely explained their embarrassment, the horrid pecuniary worries which made their life a perpetual misery. Their rent amounted to 700 francs, * so that out of the 3000 francs**which the husband earned at his office, barely a couple of hundred wereleft them every month. And how were they to manage with that little sum, provide food and clothes, keep up their rank and so forth? There was theindispensable black coat for monsieur, the new dress which madame musthave at regular intervals, under penalty of losing caste, the new bootswhich the children required almost every month, in fact, all sorts ofthings that could not possibly be dispensed with. One might strike a dishor two out of the daily menu, and even go without wine; but evenings camewhen it was absolutely necessary to take a cab. And, apart from all this, one had to reckon with the wastefulness of the children, the disorder inwhich the discouraged wife left the house, and the despair of thehusband, who was convinced that he would never extricate himself from hisdifficulties, even should his salary some day be raised to as high afigure as 4000 francs. Briefly, one here found the unbearable penury ofthe petty clerk, with consequences as disastrous as the black want of theartisan: the mock facade and lying luxury; all the disorder and sufferingwhich lie behind intellectual pride at not earning one's living at abench or on a scaffolding. 

 * $140. 

 ** $600. 

"Well, well, " repeated Madame Theodore, "you can't kill the child. "

"No, of course not; but it's the end of everything, " answered Hortense, sinking into the armchair again. "What will become of us, /mon Dieu/!What will become of us!" Then she collapsed in her unbuttoned dressinggown, tears once more gushing from her red and swollen eyes. 

Much vexed that circumstances should be so unpropitious, Madame Theodorenevertheless ventured to ask for the loan of twenty sons; and thisbrought her sister's despair and confusion to a climax. "I really haven'ta centime in the house, " said she, "just now I borrowed ten sous for thechildren from the servant. I had to get ten francs from the Mont de Pieteon a little ring the other day. And it's always the same at the end ofthe month. However, Chretiennot will be paid to-day, and he's coming backearly with the money for dinner. So if I can I will send you somethingto-morrow. "

At this same moment the servant hastened in with a distracted air, beingwell aware that monsieur was in no wise partial to madame's relatives. "Oh madame, madame!" said she; "here's monsieur coming up the stairs. "

"Quick then, quick, go away!" cried Hortense, "I should only have anotherscene if he met you here. To-morrow, if I can, I promise you. "

To avoid Chretiennot who was coming in, Madame Theodore had to hideherself in the kitchen. As he passed, she just caught sight of him, welldressed as usual in a tight-fitting frock-coat. Short and lean, with athin face and long and carefully tended beard, he had the bearing of onewho is both vain and quarrelsome. Fourteen years of office life hadwithered him, and now the long evening hours which he spent at aneighbouring cafe were finishing him off. 

When Madame Theodore had quitted the house she turned with dragging stepstowards the Rue Marcadet where the Toussaints resided. Here, again, shehad no great expectations, for she well knew what ill-luck and worry hadfallen upon her brother's home. During the previous autumn Toussaint, though he was but fifty, had experienced an attack of paralysis which hadlaid him up for nearly five months. Prior to this mishap he had bornehimself bravely, working steadily, abstaining from drink, and bringing uphis three children in true fatherly fashion. One of them, a girl, was nowmarried to a carpenter, with whom she had gone to Le Havre, while of theothers, both boys--one a soldier, had been killed in Tonquin, and theother Charles, after serving his time in the army, had become a workingmechanician. Still, Toussaint's long illness had exhausted the littlemoney which he had in the Savings Bank, and now that he had been set onhis legs again, he had to begin life once more without a copper beforehim. 

Madame Theodore found her sister-in-law alone in the cleanly kept roomwhich she and her husband occupied. Madame Toussaint was a portly woman, whose corpulence increased in spite of everything, whether it were worryor fasting. She had a round puffy face with bright little eyes; and was avery worthy woman, whose only faults were an inclination for gossipingand a fondness for good cheer. Before Madame Theodore even opened hermouth she understood the object of her visit. "You've come on us at a badmoment, my dear, " she said, "we're stumped. Toussaint wasn't able to goback to the works till the day before yesterday, and he'll have to askfor an advance this evening. "

As she spoke, she looked at the other with no great sympathy, hurt as shefelt by her slovenly appearance. "And Salvat, " she added, "is he stilldoing nothing?"

Madame Theodore doubtless foresaw the question, for she quietly lied: "Heisn't in Paris, a friend has taken him off for some work over Belgiumway, and I'm waiting for him to send us something. "

Madame Toussaint still remained distrustful, however: "Ah!" she said, "it's just as well that he shouldn't be in Paris; for with all these bombaffairs we couldn't help thinking of him, and saying that he was quitemad enough to mix himself up in them. "

The other did not even blink. If she knew anything she kept it toherself. 

"But you, my dear, can't you find any work?" continued Madame Toussaint. 

"Well, what would you have me do with my poor eyes? It's no longerpossible for me to sew. "

"That's true. A seamstress gets done for. When Toussaint was laid up hereI myself wanted to go back to my old calling as a needlewoman. But there!I spoilt everything and did no good. Charring's about the only thing thatone can always do. Why don't you get some jobs of that kind?"

"I'm trying, but I can't find any. "

Little by little Madame Toussaint was softening at sight of the other'smiserable appearance. She made her sit down, and told her that she wouldgive her something if Toussaint should come home with money. Then, yielding to her partiality for gossiping, since there was somebody tolisten to her, she started telling stories. The one affair, however, onwhich she invariably harped was the sorry business of her son Charles andthe servant girl at a wine shop over the way. Before going into the armyCharles had been a most hard-working and affectionate son, invariablybringing his pay home to his mother. And certainly he still worked andshowed himself good-natured; but military service, while sharpening hiswits, had taken away some of his liking for ordinary manual toil. Itwasn't that he regretted army life, for he spoke of his barracks as aprison. Only his tools had seemed to him rather heavy when, on quittingthe service, he had been obliged to take them in hand once more. 

"And so, my dear, " continued Madame Toussaint, "it's all very well forCharles to be kind-hearted, he can do no more for us. I knew that hewasn't in a hurry to get married, as it costs money to keep a wife. Andhe was always very prudent, too, with girls. But what would you have?There was that moment of folly with that Eugenie over the road, a regularbaggage who's already gone off with another man, and left her babybehind. Charles has put it out to nurse, and pays for it every month. Anda lot of expense it is too, perfect ruination. Yes, indeed, everypossible misfortune has fallen on us. "

In this wise Madame Toussaint rattled on for a full half hour. Thenseeing that waiting and anxiety had made her sister-in-law turn quitepale, she suddenly stopped short. "You're losing patience, eh?" sheexclaimed. "The fact is, that Toussaint won't be back for some time. Shall we go to the works together? I'll easily find out if he's likely tobring any money home. "

They then decided to go down, but at the bottom of the stairs theylingered for another quarter of an hour chatting with a neighbour who hadlately lost a child. And just as they were at last leaving the house theyheard a call: "Mamma! mamma!"

It came from little Celine, whose face was beaming with delight. She waswearing a pair of new shoes and devouring a cake. "Mamma, " she resumed, "Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day wants to see you. Just look! hebought me all this!"

On seeing the shoes and the cake, Madame Theodore understood matters. Andwhen Pierre, who was behind the child, accosted her she began to trembleand stammer thanks. Madame Toussaint on her side had quickly drawn near, not indeed to ask for anything herself, but because she was well pleasedat such a God-send for her sister-in-law, whose circumstances were worsethan her own. And when she saw the priest slip ten francs into MadameTheodore's hand she explained to him that she herself would willinglyhave lent something had she been able. Then she promptly started on thestories of Toussaint's attack and her son Charles's ill-luck. 

But Celine broke in: "I say, mamma, the factory where papa used to workis here in this street, isn't it? Monsieur l'Abbe has some businessthere. "*

 * Although the children of the French peasantry almost invariably address their parents as "father" and "mother, " those of the working classes of Paris, and some other large cities, usually employ the terms "papa" and "mamma. "--Trans. 

"The Grandidier factory, " resumed Madame Toussaint; "well, we were justgoing there, and we can show Monsieur l'Abbe the way. "

It was only a hundred steps off. Escorted by the two women and the child, Pierre slackened his steps and tried to extract some information aboutSalvat from Madame Theodore. But she at once became very prudent. She hadnot seen him again, she declared; he must have gone with a mate toBelgium, where there was a prospect of some work. From what she said, itappeared to the priest that Salvat had not dared to return to the Rue desSaules since his crime, in which all had collapsed, both his past life oftoil and hope, and his recent existence with its duties towards the womanand the child. 

"There's the factory, Monsieur l'Abbe, " suddenly said Madame Toussaint, "my sister-in-law won't have to wait now, since you've been kind enoughto help her. Thank you for her and for us. "

Madame Theodore and Celine likewise poured forth their thanks, standingbeside Madame Toussaint in the everlasting mud of that populous district, amidst the jostling of the passers-by. And lingering there as if to seePierre enter, they again chatted together and repeated that, after all, some priests were very kind. 

The Grandidier works covered an extensive plot of ground. Facing thestreet there was only a brick building with narrow windows and a greatarchway, through which one espied a long courtyard. But, in the rear, came a suite of habitations, workshops, and sheds, above whose neverending roofs arose the two lofty chimneys of the generators. From thevery threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, allthe noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and upabove white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular stridentpuff, as if it were the very breath of that huge, toiling hive. 

Bicycles were now the principal output of the works. When Grandidier hadtaken them on leaving the Dijon Arts and Trades School, they weredeclining under bad management, slowly building some little motiveengines by the aid of antiquated machinery. Foreseeing the future, however, he had induced his elder brother, one of the managers of the BonMarche, to finance him, on the promise that he would supply that greatemporium with excellent bicycles at 150 francs apiece. And now quite abig venture was in progress, for the Bon Marche was already bringing outthe new popular machine "La Lisette, " the "Bicycle for the Multitude, " asthe advertisements asserted. Nevertheless, Grandidier was still in allthe throes of a great struggle, for his new machinery had cast a heavyburden of debt on him. At the same time each month brought its effort, the perfecting or simplifying of some part of the manufacture, whichmeant a saving in the future. He was ever on the watch; and even now wasthinking of reverting to the construction of little motors, for hethought he could divine in the near future the triumph of the motor-car. 

On asking if M. Thomas Froment were there, Pierre was led by an oldworkman to a little shed, where he found the young fellow in the linenjacket of a mechanician, his hands black with filings. He was adjustingsome piece of mechanism, and nobody would have suspected him to be aformer pupil of the Lycee Condorcet, one of the three clever Froments whohad there rendered the name famous. But his only desire had been to actas his father's faithful servant, the arm that forges, the embodiment ofthe manual toil by which conceptions are realised. And, a giant of threeand twenty, ever attentive and courageous, he was likewise a man ofpatient, silent and sober nature. 

On catching sight of Pierre he quivered with anxiety and sprang forward. "Father is no worse?" he asked. 

"No, no. But he read in the papers that story of a bradawl found in theRue Godot-de-Mauroy, and it made him anxious, because the police may makea perquisition here. "

Thomas, his own anxiety allayed, began to smile. "Tell him he may sleepquietly, " he responded. "To begin with, I've unfortunately not yet hit onour little motor such as I want it to be. In fact, I haven't yet put ittogether. I'm keeping the pieces at our house, and nobody here knowsexactly what I come to do at the factory. So the police may search, itwill find nothing. Our secret runs no risk. "

Pierre promised to repeat these words to Guillaume, so as to dissipatehis fears. However, when he tried to sound Thomas, and ascertain theposition of affairs, what the factory people thought of the discovery ofthe bradawl, and whether there was as yet any suspicion of Salvat, heonce more found the young man taciturn, and elicited merely a "yes" or a"no" in answer to his inquiries. The police had not been there as yet?No. But the men must surely have mentioned Salvat? Yes, of course, onaccount of his Anarchist opinions. But what had Grandidier, the master, said, on returning from the investigating magistrate's? As for thatThomas knew nothing. He had not seen Grandidier that day. 

"But here he comes!" the young man added. "Ah! poor fellow, his wife, Ifancy, had another attack this morning. "

He alluded to a frightful story which Guillaume had already recounted toPierre. Grandidier, falling in love with a very beautiful girl, hadmarried her; but for five years now she had been insane: the result ofpuerperal fever and the death of an infant son. Her husband, with hisardent affection for her, had been unwilling to place her in an asylum, and had accordingly kept her with him in a little pavilion, whosewindows, overlooking the courtyard of the factory, always remainedclosed. She was never seen; and never did he speak of her to anybody. Itwas said that she was usually like a child, very gentle and very sad, andstill beautiful, with regal golden hair. At times, however, attacks offrantic madness came upon her, and he then had to struggle with her, andoften hold her for hours in his arms to prevent her from splitting herhead against the walls. Fearful shrieks would ring out for a time, andthen deathlike silence would fall once more. 

Grandidier came into the shed where Thomas was working. A handsome man offorty, with an energetic face, he had a dark and heavy moustache, brush-like hair and clear eyes. He was very partial to Thomas, and duringthe young fellow's apprenticeship there, had treated him like a son. Andhe now let him return thither whenever it pleased him, and placed hisappliances at his disposal. He knew that he was trying to devise a newmotor, a question in which he himself was extremely interested; still heevinced the greatest discretion, never questioning Thomas, but awaitingthe result of his endeavours. 

"This is my uncle, Abbe Froment, who looked in to wish me good day, " saidthe young man, introducing Pierre. 

An exchange of polite remarks ensued. Then Grandidier sought to cast offthe sadness which made people think him stern and harsh, and in abantering tone exclaimed: "I didn't tell you, Thomas, of my business withthe investigating magistrate. If I hadn't enjoyed a good reputation weshould have had all the spies of the Prefecture here. The magistratewanted me to explain the presence of that bradawl in the RueGodot-de-Mauroy, and I at once realised that, in his opinion, the culpritmust have worked here. For my part I immediately thought of Salvat. But Idon't denounce people. The magistrate has my hiring-book, and as forSalvat I simply answered that he worked here for nearly three months lastautumn, and then disappeared. They can look for him themselves! Ah! thatmagistrate! you can picture him a little fellow with fair hair andcat-like eyes, very careful of his appearance, a society man evidently, but quite frisky at being mixed up in this affair. "

"Isn't he Monsieur Amadieu?" asked Pierre. 

"Yes, that's his name. Ah! he's certainly delighted with the presentwhich those Anarchists have made him, with that crime of theirs. "

The priest listened in deep anxiety. As his brother had feared, the truescent, the first conducting wire, had now been found. And he looked atThomas to see if he also were disturbed. But the young man was eitherignorant of the ties which linked Salvat to his father, or else hepossessed great power of self-control, for he merely smiled atGrandidier's sketch of the magistrate. 

Then, as Grandidier went to look at the piece of mechanism which Thomaswas finishing, and they began to speak about it, Pierre drew near to anopen doorway which communicated with a long workshop where engine latheswere rumbling, and the beams of press-drills falling quickly andrhythmically. Leather gearing spun along with a continuous gliding, andthere was ceaseless bustle and activity amidst the odoriferous dampnessof all the steam. Scores of perspiring workmen, grimy with dust andfilings, were still toiling. Still this was the final effort of the day. And as three men approached a water-tap near Pierre to wash their hands, he listened to their talk, and became particularly interested in it whenhe heard one of them, a tall, ginger-haired fellow, call anotherToussaint, and the third Charles. 

Toussaint, a big, square-shouldered man with knotty arms, only showed hisfifty years on his round, scorched face, which besides being roughenedand wrinkled by labour, bristled with grey hairs, which nowadays he wascontent to shave off once a week. It was only his right arm that wasaffected by paralysis, and moved rather sluggishly. As for Charles, aliving portrait of his father, he was now in all the strength of his sixand twentieth year, with splendid muscles distending his white skin, anda full face barred by a heavy black moustache. The three men, like theiremployer, were speaking of the explosion at the Duvillard mansion, of thebradawl found there, and of Salvat, whom they all now suspected. 

"Why, only a brigand would do such a thing!" said Toussaint. "ThatAnarchism disgusts me. I'll have none of it. But all the same it's forthe /bourgeois/ to settle matters. If the others want to blow them up, it's their concern. It's they who brought it about. "

This indifference was undoubtedly the outcome of a life of want andsocial injustice; it was the indifference of an old toiler, who, weary ofstruggling and hoping for improvements, was now quite ready to toleratethe crumbling of a social system, which threatened him with hunger in hisimpotent old age. 

"Well, you know, " rejoined Charles, "I've heard the Anarchists talking, and they really say some very true and sensible things. And just takeyourself, father; you've been working for thirty years, and isn't itabominable that you should have had to pass through all that you did passthrough recently, liable to go off like some old horse that's slaughteredat the first sign of illness? And, of course, it makes me think ofmyself, and I can't help feeling that it won't be at all amusing to endlike that. And may the thunder of God kill me if I'm wrong, but one feelshalf inclined to join in their great flare-up if it's really to makeeverybody happy!"

He certainly lacked the flame of enthusiasm, and if he had come to theseviews it was solely from impatience to lead a less toilsome life, forobligatory military service had given him ideas of equality among allmen--a desire to struggle, raise himself and obtain his legitimate shareof life's enjoyments. It was, in fact, the inevitable step which carrieseach generation a little more forward. There was the father, who, deceived in his hope of a fraternal republic, had grown sceptical andcontemptuous; and there was the son advancing towards a new faith, andgradually yielding to ideas of violence, since political liberty hadfailed to keep its promises. 

Nevertheless, as the big, ginger-haired fellow grew angry, and shoutedthat if Salvat were guilty, he ought to be caught and guillotined atonce, without waiting for judges, Toussaint ended by endorsing hisopinion. "Yes, yes, he may have married one of my sisters, but I renouncehim. . . . And yet, you know, it would astonish me to find him guilty, for he isn't wicked at heart. I'm sure he wouldn't kill a fly. "

"But what would you have?" put in Charles. "When a man's driven toextremities he goes mad. "

They had now washed themselves; but Toussaint, on perceiving hisemployer, lingered there in order to ask him for an advance. As ithappened, Grandidier, after cordially shaking hands with Pierre, approached the old workman of his own accord, for he held him in esteem. And, after listening to him, he gave him a line for the cashier on acard. As a rule, he was altogether against the practice of advancingmoney, and his men disliked him, and said he was over rigid, though inpoint of fact he had a good heart. But he had his position as an employerto defend, and to him concessions meant ruin. With such keen competitionon all sides, with the capitalist system entailing a terrible andincessant struggle, how could one grant the demands of the workers, evenwhen they were legitimate?

Sudden compassion came upon Pierre when, after quitting Thomas, he sawGrandidier, who had finished his round, crossing the courtyard in thedirection of the closed pavilion, where all the grief of hisheart-tragedy awaited him. Here was that man waging the battle of life, defending his fortune with the risk that his business might melt awayamidst the furious warfare between capital and labour; and at the sametime, in lieu of evening repose, finding naught but anguish it hishearth: a mad wife, an adored wife, who had sunk back into infancy, andwas for ever dead to love! How incurable was his secret despair! Even onthe days when he triumphed in his workshops, disaster awaited him athome. And could any more unhappy man, any man more deserving of pity, befound 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 seeMadame Toussaint and Madame Theodore still there with little Celine. Withtheir feet in the mud, like bits of wreckage against which beat theceaseless flow of wayfarers, they had lingered there, still and everchatting, loquacious and doleful, lulling their wretchedness to restbeneath a deluge of tittle-tattle. And when Toussaint, followed by hisson, came out, delighted with the advance he had secured, he also foundthem on the same spot. Then he told Madame Theodore the story of thebradawl, and the idea which had occurred to him and all his mates thatSalvat might well be the culprit. She, however, though turning very pale, began to protest, concealing both what she knew and what she reallythought. 

"I tell you I haven't seen him for several days, " said she. "He mustcertainly be in Belgium. And as for a bomb, that's humbug. You sayyourself that he's very gentle and wouldn't harm a fly!"

A little later as Pierre journeyed back to Neuilly in a tramcar he fellinto a deep reverie. All the stir and bustle of that working-classdistrict, the buzzing of the factory, the overflowing activity of thathive of labour, seemed to have lingered within him. And for the firsttime, amidst his worries, he realised the necessity of work. Yes, it wasfatal, but it also gave health and strength. In effort which sustains andsaves, he at last found a solid basis on which all might be reared. Wasthis, then, the first gleam of a new faith? But ah! what mockery! Work anuncertainty, work hopeless, work always ending in injustice! And thenwant ever on the watch for the toiler, strangling him as soon as slacktimes came round, and casting him into the streets like a dead dogimmediately old age set in. 

On reaching Neuilly, Pierre found Bertheroy at Guillaume's bedside. Theold /savant/ had just dressed the injured wrist, and was not yet certainthat 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 emotionwhich is the worst possible thing for you. You must calm yourself, mydear fellow, and not allow anything to worry you. "

A few minutes later, though, just as he was going away, he said with hispleasant smile: "Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview meabout that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men knoweverything! 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 willbe just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as togive 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 theafternoon, how Salvat was suspected, and how the investigating magistratehad been put on the right scent. And at this news, intense fever againcame over Guillaume, who, with his head buried in the pillow, and hiseyes closed, stammered as if in a kind of nightmare: "Ah! then, this isthe end! Salvat arrested, Salvat interrogated! Ah! that so much toil andso 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 hadplaced at his disposal, in order that he might install in it a laboratoryfor study and research. Thus the whole first floor had been transformedinto one spacious apartment, where, from time to time, the illustriouschemist was fond of receiving a limited number of pupils and admirers, before whom he made experiments, and explained his new discoveries andtheories. 

For these occasions a few chairs were set out before the long and massivetable, which was covered with jars and appliances. In the rear one sawthe furnace, while all around were glass cases, full of vials andspecimens. The persons present were, for the most part, fellow /savants/, with a few young men, and even a lady or two, and, of course, anoccasional journalist. The whole made up a kind of family gathering, thevisitors chatting with the master in all freedom. 

Directly Bertheroy perceived Pierre he came forward, pressed his hand andseated him on a chair beside Guillaume's son Francois, who had been oneof the first arrivals. The young man was completing his third year at theEcole Normale, close by, so he only had a few steps to take to call uponhis master Bertheroy, whom he regarded as one of the firmest minds of theage. Pierre was delighted to meet his nephew, for he had been greatlyimpressed in his favour on the occasion of his visit to Montmartre. Francois, on his side, greeted his uncle with all the cordialexpansiveness of youth. He was, moreover, well pleased to obtain somenews of his father. 

However, Bertheroy began. He spoke in a familiar and sober fashion, butfrequently employed some very happy expressions. At first he gave anaccount of his own extensive labours and investigations with regard toexplosive substances, and related with a laugh that he sometimesmanipulated powders which would have blown up the entire district. But, said he, in order to reassure his listeners, he was always extremelyprudent. At last he turned to the subject of that explosion in the RueGodot-de-Mauroy, which, for some days, had filled Paris with dismay. Theremnants of the bomb had been carefully examined by experts, and onefragment had been brought to him, in order that he might give his opinionon it. The bomb appeared to have been prepared in a very rudimentaryfashion; it had been charged with small pieces of iron, and fired bymeans of a match, such as a child might have devised. The extraordinarypart of the affair was the formidable power of the central cartridge, which, although it must have been a small one, had wrought as much havocas any thunderbolt. And the question was this: What incalculable power ofdestruction might one not arrive at if the charge were increased ten, twenty or a hundredfold. Embarrassment began, and divergencies of opinionclouded the issue directly one tried to specify what explosive had beenemployed. Of the three experts who had been consulted, one pronouncedhimself in favour of dynamite pure and simple; but the two others, although they did not agree together, believed in some combination ofexplosive 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 anypositive pronouncement. But his opinion was that one found oneself inpresence of some unknown powder, some new explosive, whose power exceededanything that had hitherto been dreamt of. He could picture some unknown/savant/, or some ignorant but lucky inventor, discovering the formula ofthis explosive under mysterious conditions. And this brought him to thepoint he wished to reach, the question of all the explosives which are sofar unknown, and of the coming discoveries which he could foresee. In thecourse of his investigations he himself had found cause to suspect theexistence of several such explosives, though he had lacked time andopportunity to prosecute his studies in that direction. However, heindicated the field which should be explored, and the best way ofproceeding. In his opinion it was there that lay the future. And in abroad and eloquent peroration, he declared that explosives had hithertobeen degraded by being employed in idiotic schemes of vengeance anddestruction; whereas it was in them possibly that lay the liberatingforce which science was seeking, the lever which would change the face ofthe world, when they should have been so domesticated and subdued as tobe only the obedient servants of man. 

Throughout this familiar discourse Pierre could feel that Francois wasgrowing impassioned, quivering at thought of the vast horizon which themaster opened up. He himself had become extremely interested, for hecould not do otherwise than notice certain allusions, and connect what heheard with what he had guessed of Guillaume's anxiety regarding thatsecret which he feared to see at the mercy of an investigatingmagistrate. 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 thoseadmirable ideas. "

The old /savant/ smiled. "Pooh!" said he; "just give him a summary ofwhat I said. He will understand. He knows more about the matter than Ido. "

In presence of the illustrious chemist, Francois preserved the silentgravity of a respectful pupil, but when he and Pierre had taken a fewsteps down the street in silence, he remarked: "What a pity it is that aman of such broad intelligence, free from all superstition, and anxiousfor the sole triumph of truth, should have allowed himself to beclassified, ticketed, bound round with titles and academical functions!How greatly our affection for him would increase if he took less Statepay, and freed himself from all the grand cordons which tie his hands. "

"What would you have!" rejoined Pierre, in a conciliatory spirit. "A manmust live! At the same time I believe that he does not regard himself astied by anything. "

Then, as they had reached the entrance of the Ecole Normale, the prieststopped, thinking that his companion was going back to the college. ButFrancois, 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 itoften 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 theEcole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale, * and he had chosen the latter, entering its scientific section with No. L against his name. His fatherhad wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even ifcircumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his ownbent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was nowpreparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took wasin walking to and from Montmartre, or in strolling through the Luxembourggardens. 

 * 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 byPierre and chatting with him. One found the mildness of springtime therethat February afternoon; for pale sunshine streamed between the trees, which were still leafless. It was indeed one of those first fine dayswhich draw little green gems from the branches of the lilac bushes. 

The Ecole Normale was still the subject of conversation and Pierreremarked: "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 isto teach men the trade by cramming them with the necessary knowledge. Butthe worst is that although all the students are trained for the teachingprofession, 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 partunbearable. After swearing by Voltaire they have gone back tospirituality and mysticism, the last drawing-room craze. Now that a firmfaith in science is regarded as brutish and inelegant, they fancy thatthey rid themselves of their caste by feigning amiable doubt, andignorance, and innocence. What they most fear is that they may carry ascent of the schools about with them, so they put on extremely Parisianairs, venture on somersaults and slang, and assume all the grace ofdancing bears in their eager desire to please. From that desire springthe sarcastic shafts which they aim at science, they who pretend thatthey know everything, but who go back to the belief of the humble, the/naive/ idealism of Biblical legends, just because they think the latterto 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 growinganimated. "And among them all I have noticed that a fear of being dupedleads them to reaction against the entire effort, the whole work of thecentury. Disgust with liberty, distrust of science, denial of the future, that is what they now profess. And they have such a horror of thecommonplace that they would rather believe in nothing or the incredible. It may of course be commonplace to say that two and two make four, yetit's true enough; and it is far less foolish for a man to say and repeatit than to believe, for instance, in the miracles of Lourdes. "

Francois glanced at the priest in astonishment. The other noticed it andstrove to restrain himself. Nevertheless, grief and anger carried himaway 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 pitiedthe toilers dying of hunger in the districts of misery and want, so herehe overflowed with contempt for the young minds that lacked bravery inthe presence of knowledge, and harked back to the consolation ofdeceptive spirituality, the promise of an eternity of happiness in death, which last was longed for and exalted as the very sum of life. Was notthe cowardly thought of refusing to live for the sake of living so as todischarge one's simple duty in being and making one's effort, equivalentto absolute assassination of life? However, the /Ego/ was always themainspring; each one sought personal happiness. And Pierre was grieved tothink that those young people, instead of discarding the past andmarching on to the truths of the future, were relapsing into shadowymetaphysics through sheer weariness and idleness, due in part perhaps tothe excessive exertion of the century, which had been overladen withhuman toil. 

However, Francois had begun to smile again. "But you are mistaken, " saidhe; "we are not all like that at the Ecole Normale. You only seem to knowthe Normalians of the Section of Letters, and your opinions would surelychange if you knew those of the Section of Sciences. It is quite truethat the reaction against Positivism is making itself felt among ourliterary fellow-students, and that they, like others, are haunted by theidea of that famous bankruptcy of science. This is perhaps due to theirmasters, the neo-spiritualists and dogmatical rhetoricians into whosehands they have fallen. And it is still more due to fashion, the whim ofthe times which, as you have very well put it, regards scientific truthas bad taste, something graceless and altogether too brutal for light anddistinguished minds. Consequently, a young fellow of any shrewdness whodesires 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 aterrible one, an offensive return of the powers of darkness against thoseof light, of servitude against free thought, truth and justice. "

Then, as the young man again looked at him with growing astonishment, herelapsed into silence. The figure of Monseigneur Martha had risen beforehis eyes, and he fancied he could again hear the prelate at theMadeleine, striving to win Paris over to the policy of Rome, to thatspurious neo-Catholicism which, with the object of destroying democracyand science, accepted such portions of them as it could adapt to its ownviews. This was indeed the supreme struggle. Thence came all the poisonpoured forth to the young. Pierre knew what efforts were being made inreligious circles to help on this revival of mysticism, in the mad hopeof hastening the rout of science. Monseigneur Martha, who wasall-powerful at the Catholic University, said to his intimates, however, that three generations of devout and docile pupils would be needed beforethe Church would again be absolute sovereign of France. 

"Well, as for the Ecole Normale, " continued Francois, "I assure you thatyou are mistaken. There are a few narrow bigots there, no doubt. But evenin the Section of Letters the majority of the students are sceptics atbottom--sceptics of discreet and good-natured average views. Of coursethey are professors before everything else, though they are a trifleashamed of it; and, as professors, they judge things with no littlepedantic irony, devoured by a spirit of criticism, and quite incapable ofcreating anything themselves. I should certainly be astonished to see theman of genius whom we await come out of their ranks. To my thinking, indeed, it would be preferable that some barbarian genius, neither wellread nor endowed with critical faculty, or power of weighing and shadingthings, should come and open the next century with a hatchet stroke, sending up a fine flare of truth and reality. . . . But, as for mycomrades of the Scientific Section, I assure you that neo-Catholicism andMysticism and Occultism, and every other branch of the fashionablephantasmagoria trouble them very little indeed. They are not making areligion of science, they remain open to doubt on many points; but theyare mostly men of very clear and firm minds, whose passion is theacquirement of certainty, and who are ever absorbed in the investigationswhich continue throughout the whole vast field of human knowledge. Theyhaven't flinched, they have remained Positivists, or Evolutionists, orDeterminists, and have set their faith in observation and experiment tohelp on the final conquest of the world. "

Francois himself was growing excited, as he thus confessed his faithwhile strolling along the quiet sunlit garden paths. "The young indeed!"he resumed. "Do people know them? It makes us laugh when we see all sortsof apostles fighting for us, trying to attract us, and saying that we arewhite or black or grey, according to the hue which they require for thetriumph of their particular ideas! The young, the real ones, why, they'rein the schools, the laboratories and the libraries. It's they who workand who'll bring to-morrow to the world. It's not the young fellows ofdinner and supper clubs, manifestoes and all sorts of extravagances. Thelatter make a great deal of noise, no doubt; in fact, they alone areheard. But if you knew of the ceaseless efforts and passionate strivingof the others, those who remain silent, absorbed in their tasks. And Iknow many of them: they are with their century, they have rejected noneof its hopes, but are marching on to the coming century, resolved topursue the work of their forerunners, ever going towards more light andmore equity. And just speak to them of the bankruptcy of science. They'llshrug their shoulders at the mere idea, for they know well enough thatscience has never before inflamed so many hearts or achieved greaterconquests! It is only if the schools, laboratories and libraries wereclosed, and the social soil radically changed, that one would have causeto fear a fresh growth of error such as weak hearts and narrow minds holdso dear!"

At this point Francois's fine flow of eloquence was interrupted. A tallyoung fellow stopped to shake hands with him; and Pierre was surprised torecognise Baron Duvillard's son Hyacinthe, who bowed to him in verycorrect style. "What! you here in our old quarter, " exclaimed Francois. 

"My dear fellow, I'm going to Jonas's, over yonder, behind theObservatory. Don't you know Jonas? Ah! my dear fellow, he's a delightfulsculptor, who has succeeded in doing away with matter almost entirely. Hehas carved a figure of Woman, no bigger than the finger, and entirelysoul, free from all baseness of form, and yet complete. All Woman, indeed, in her essential symbolism! Ah! it's grand, it's overpowering. Aperfect scheme of aesthetics, a real religion!"

Francois smiled as he looked at Hyacinthe, buttoned up in his longpleated frock-coat, with his made-up face, and carefully cropped hair andbeard. "And yourself?" said he, "I thought you were working, and weregoing to publish a little poem, shortly?"

"Oh! the task of creating is so distasteful to me, my dear fellow! Asingle line often takes me weeks. . . . Still, yes, I have a little poemon hand, 'The End of Woman. ' And you see, I'm not so exclusive as somepeople pretend, since I admire Jonas, who still believes in Woman. Hisexcuse is sculpture, which, after all, is at best such a grossmaterialistic art. But in poetry, good heavens, how we've beenoverwhelmed with Woman, always Woman! It's surely time to drive her outof the temple, and cleanse it a little. Ah! if we were all pure and loftyenough to do without Woman, and renounce all those horrid sexualquestions, so that the last of the species might die childless, eh? Theworld would then at least finish in a clean and proper manner!"

Thereupon, Hyacinthe walked off with his languid air, well pleased withthe 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 classestogether. Such a funny fellow he was! A perfect dunce! And he was alwaysmaking a parade of Father Duvillard's millions, while pretending todisdain them, and act the revolutionist, for ever saying that he'd usehis cigarette to fire the cartridge which was to blow up the world! Hewas 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 diseasedmind!"

"It's a terrible symptom, " muttered Pierre, "when through /ennui/ orlassitude, or the contagion of destructive fury, the sons of the happyand privileged ones start doing the work of the demolishers. "

Francois had resumed his walk, going down towards the ornamental water, where some children were sailing their boats. "That fellow is simplygrotesque, " he replied; "but how would you have sane people give any heedto that mysticism, that awakening of spirituality which is alleged by thesame /doctrinaires/ who started the bankruptcy of science cry, when afterso brief an evolution it produces such insanity, both in art andliterature? A few years of influence have sufficed; and now Satanism, Occultism and other absurdities are flourishing; not to mention that, according to some accounts, the Cities of the Plains are reconciled withnew Rome. Isn't the tree judged by its fruits? And isn't it evident that, instead of a renascence, a far-spreading social movement bringing backthe past, we are simply witnessing a transitory reaction, which manythings explain? The old world would rather not die, and is struggling ina final convulsion, reviving for a last hour before it is swept away bythe overflowing river of human knowledge, whose waters ever increase. Andyonder, in the future, is the new world, which the real young ones willbring into existence, those who work, those who are not known, who arenot heard. And yet, just listen! Perhaps you will hear them, for we areamong them, in their 'quarter. ' This deep silence is that of the labourof all the young fellows who are leaning over their work-tables, and dayby day carrying forward the conquest of truth. "

So saying Francois waved his hand towards all the day-schools andcolleges and high schools beyond the Luxembourg garden, towards theFaculties of Law and Medicine, the Institute and its five Academies, theinnumerable libraries and museums which made up the broad domain ofintellectual labour. And Pierre, moved by it all, shaken in his theoriesof negation, thought that he could indeed hear a low but far-spreadingmurmur of the work of thousands of active minds, rising fromlaboratories, studies and class, reading and lecture rooms. It was notlike the jerky, breathless trepidation, the loud clamour of factorieswhere manual labour toils and chafes. But here, too, there were sighs ofweariness, efforts as killing, exertion as fruitful in its results. Wasit indeed true that the cultured young were still and ever in theirsilent forge, renouncing no hope, relinquishing no conquest, but in fullfreedom of mind forging the truth and justice of to-morrow with theinvincible hammers of observation and experiment?

Francois, however, had raised his eyes to the palace clock to ascertainthe time. "I'm going to Montmartre, " he said; "will you come part of theway with me?"

Pierre assented, particularly as the young man added that on his way hemeant to call for his brother Antoine at the Museum of the Louvre. Thatbright afternoon the Louvre picture galleries were steeped in warm anddignified quietude, which one particularly noticed on coming from thetumult and scramble of the streets. The majority of the few people onefound there were copyists working in deep silence, which only thewandering footsteps of an occasional tourist disturbed. Pierre andFrancois found Antoine at the end of the gallery assigned to thePrimitive masters. With scrupulous, almost devout care he was making adrawing of a figure by Mantegna. The Primitives did not impassion him byreason of any particular mysticism and ideality, such as fashion pretendsto find in them, but on the contrary, and justifiably enough, by reasonof the sincerity of their ingenuous realism, their respect and modesty inpresence of nature, and the minute fidelity with which they sought totranscribe it. He spent days of hard work in copying and studying them, in order to learn strictness and probity of drawing from them--all thatlofty distinction of style which they owe to their candour as honestartists. 

Pierre was struck by the pure glow which a sitting of good hard work hadset in Antoine's light blue eyes. It imparted warmth and evenfeverishness to his fair face, which was usually all dreaminess andgentleness. His lofty forehead now truly looked like a citadel armed forthe conquest of truth and beauty. He was only eighteen, and his story wassimply this: as he had grown disgusted with classical studies and beenmastered by a passion for drawing, his father had let him leave the LyceeCondorcet when he was in the third class there. Some little time had thenelapsed while he felt his way and the deep originality within him wasbeing evolved. He had tried etching on copper, but had soon come to woodengraving, and had attached himself to it in spite of the discredit intowhich it had fallen, lowered as it had been to the level of a mere trade. Was there not here an entire art to restore and enlarge? For his own parthe dreamt of engraving his own drawings, of being at once the brain whichconceives and the hand which executes, in such wise as to obtain neweffects of great intensity both as regards perception and touch. Tocomply with the wishes of his father, who desired each of his sons tohave a trade, he earned his bread like other engravers by working for theillustrated newspapers. But, in addition to this current work, he hadalready engraved several blocks instinct with wonderful power and life. They were simply copies of real things, scenes of everyday existence, butthey were accentuated, elevated so to say, by the essential line, with amaestria which on the part of so young a lad fairly astonished one. 

"Do you want to engrave that?" Francois asked him, as he placed his copyof Mantegna's figure in his portfolio. 

"Oh! no, that's merely a dip into innocence, a good lesson to teach oneto be modest and sincere. Life is very different nowadays. "

Then, while walking along the streets--for Pierre, who felt growingsympathy for the two young fellows, went with them in the direction ofMontmartre, forgetful of all else, --Antoine, who was beside him, spokeexpansively of his artistic dreams. 

"Colour is certainly a power, a sovereign source of charm, and one may, indeed, say that without colour nothing can be completely represented. Yet, singularly enough, it isn't indispensable to me. It seems to me thatI can picture life as intensely and definitely with mere black and white, and I even fancy that I shall be able to do so in a more essentialmanner, without any of the dupery which lies in colour. But what a taskit is! I should like to depict the Paris of to-day in a few scenes, a fewtypical figures, which would serve as testimony for all time. And Ishould like to do it with great fidelity and candour, for an artist onlylives by reason of his candour, his humility and steadfast belief inNature, which is ever beautiful. I've already done a few figures, I willshow them to you. But ah! if I only dared to tackle my blocks with thegraver, at the outset, without drawing my subject beforehand. For thatgenerally takes away one's fire. However, what I do with the pencil is amere sketch; for with the graver I may come upon a find, some unexpectedstrength or delicacy of effect. And so I'm draughtsman and engraver allin one, in such a way that my blocks can only be turned out by myself. Ifthe drawings on them were engraved by another, they would be quitelifeless. . . . Yes, life can spring from the fingers just as well asfrom the brain, when one really possesses creative power. "

They walked on, and when they found themselves just below Montmartre, andPierre spoke of taking a tramcar to return to Neuilly, Antoine, quitefeverish with artistic passion, asked him if he knew Jahan, the sculptor, who was working for the Sacred Heart. And on receiving a negative reply, he added: "Well, come and see him for a moment. He has a great futurebefore him. You'll see an angel of his which has been declined. "

Then, as Francois began to praise the angel in question, Pierre agreed toaccompany them. On the summit of the height, among all the sheds whichthe building of the basilica necessitated, Jahan had been able to set upa glazed workshop large enough for the huge angel ordered of him. Histhree visitors found him there in a blouse, watching a couple ofassistants, who were rough-hewing the block of stone whence the angel wasto emerge. Jahan was a sturdy man of thirty-six, with dark hair andbeard, a large, ruddy mouth and fine bright eyes. Born in Paris, he hadstudied at the Fine Art School, but his impetuous temperament hadconstantly landed him in trouble there. 

"Ah! yes, " said he, "you've come to see my angel, the one which theArchbishop wouldn't take. Well, there it is. "

The clay model of the figure, some three feet high, and already drying, looked superb in its soaring posture, with its large, outspread wingsexpanding as if with passionate desire for the infinite. The body, barelydraped, was that of a slim yet robust youth, whose face beamed with therapture of his heavenly flight. 

"They found him too human, " said Jahan. "And after all they were right. There's nothing so difficult to conceive as an angel. One even hesitatesas to the sex; and when faith is lacking one has to take the first modelone finds and copy it and spoil it. For my part, while I was modellingthat one, I tried to imagine a beautiful youth suddenly endowed withwings, and carried by the intoxication of his flight into all the joy ofthe sunshine. But it upset them, they wanted something more religious, they said; and so then I concocted that wretched thing over there. Afterall, one has to earn one's living, you know. "

So saying, he waved his hand towards another model, the one for which hisassistants were preparing the stone. And this model represented an angelof the correct type, with symmetrical wings like those of a goose, afigure of neither sex, and commonplace features, expressing the sillyecstasy that tradition requires. 

"What would you have?" continued Jahan. "Religious art has sunk to themost disgusting triteness. People no longer believe; churches are builtlike barracks, and decorated with saints and virgins fit to make oneweep. The fact is that genius is only the fruit of the social soil; and agreat artist can only send up a blaze of the faith of the time he livesin. For my part, I'm the grandson of a Beauceron peasant. My father cameto Paris to set himself up in business as a marble worker for tombstonesand so forth, just at the top of the Rue de la Roquette. It was there Igrew up. I began as a workman, and all my childhood was spent among themasses, in the streets, without ever a thought coming to me of settingfoot in a church. So few Parisians think of doing so nowadays. And sowhat's to become of art since there's no belief in the Divinity or evenin beauty? We're forced to go forward to the new faith, which is thefaith in life and work and fruitfulness, in all that labours andproduces. "

Then suddenly breaking off he exclaimed: "By the way, I've been doingsome more work to my figure of Fecundity, and I'm fairly well pleasedwith it. Just come with me and I'll show it you. "

Thereupon he insisted on taking them to his private studio, which wasnear by, just below Guillaume's little house. It was entered by way ofthe Rue du Calvaire, a street which is simply a succession of ladder-likeflights of steps. The door opened on to one of the little landings, andone found oneself in a spacious, well-lighted apartment littered withmodels and casts, fragments and figures, quite an overflow of sturdy, powerful talent. On a stool was the unfinished model of Fecundity swathedin wet cloths. These Jahan removed, and then she stood forth with herrounded figure, her broad hips and her wifely, maternal bosom, full ofthe milk which nourishes and redeems. 

"Well, what do you think of her?" asked Jahan. "Built as she is, I fancythat her children ought to be less puny than the pale, languid, aestheticfellows of nowadays!"

While Antoine and Francois were admiring the figure, Pierre, for hispart, took most interest in a young girl who had opened the door to them, and who had now wearily reseated herself at a little table to continue abook she was reading. This was Jahan's sister, Lise. A score of yearsyounger than himself, she was but sixteen, and had been living alone withhim since their father's death. Very slight and delicate looking, she hada most gentle face, with fine light hair which suggested pale gold-dust. She was almost a cripple, with legs so weak that she only walked withdifficulty, and her mind also was belated, still full of childish/naivete/. At first this had much saddened her brother, but with time hehad grown accustomed to her innocence and languor. Busy as he always was, ever in a transport, overflowing with new plans, he somewhat neglectedher by force of circumstances, letting her live beside him much as shelisted. 

Pierre had noticed, however, the sisterly impulsiveness with which shehad greeted Antoine. And the latter, after congratulating Jahan on hisstatue, came and sat down beside her, questioned her and wished to seethe book which she was reading. During the last six months the most pureand affectionate intercourse had sprung up between them. He, from hisfather's garden, up yonder on the Place du Tertre, could see her throughthe huge window of that studio where she led so innocent a life. Andnoticing that she was always alone, as if forsaken, he had begun to takean interest in her. Then had come acquaintance; and, delighted to findher so simple and so charming, he had conceived the design of rousing herto intelligence and life, by loving her, by becoming at once the mind andthe heart whose power fructifies. Weak plant that she was, in need ofdelicate care, sunshine and affection, he became for her all that herbrother had, through circumstances, failed to be. He had already taughther to read, a task in which every mistress had previously failed. Buthim she listened to and understood. And by slow degrees a glow ofhappiness came to the beautiful clear eyes set in her irregular face. Itwas love's miracle, the creation of woman beneath the breath of a younglover who gave himself entirely. No doubt she still remained verydelicate, with such poor health that one ever feared that she mightexpire in a faint sigh; and her legs, moreover, were still too weak toadmit of her walking any distance. But all the same, she was no longerthe little wilding, the little ailing flower of the previous spring. 

Jahan, who marvelled at the incipient miracle, drew near to the youngpeople. "Ah!" said he, "your pupil does you honour. She reads quitefluently, you know, and understands the fine books you send her. You readto me of an evening now, don't you, Lise?"

She raised her candid eyes, and gazed at Antoine with a smile of infinitegratitude. "Oh! whatever he'll teach me, " she said, "I'll learn it, anddo it. "

The others laughed gently. Then, as the visitors were going off, Francoispaused before a model which had cracked while drying. "Oh! that's aspoilt thing, " said the sculptor. "I wanted to model a figure of Charity. It was ordered of me by a philanthropic institution. But try as I might, I could only devise something so commonplace that I let the clay spoil. Still, I must think it over and endeavour to take the matter in handagain. "

When they were outside, it occurred to Pierre to go as far as thebasilica of the Sacred Heart in the hope of finding Abbe Rose there. Sothe three of them went round by way of the Rue Gabrielle and climbed thesteps of the Rue Chape. And just as they were reaching the summit wherethe basilica reared its forest of scaffoldings beneath the clear sky, they encountered Thomas, who, on leaving the factory, had gone to give anorder to a founder in the Rue Lamarck. 

He, who as a rule was so silent and discreet, now happened to be in anexpansive mood, which made him look quite radiant. "Ah! I'm so pleased, "he said, addressing Pierre; "I fancy that I've found what I want for ourlittle motor. Tell father that things are going on all right, and that hemust make haste to get well. "

At these words his brothers, Francois and Antoine, drew close to him witha common impulse. And they stood there all three, a valiant little group, their hearts uniting and beating with one and the same delight at theidea that their father would be gladdened, that the good news they weresending him would help him towards recovery. As for Pierre, who, now thathe knew them, was beginning to love them and judge them at their worth, he marvelled at the sight of these three young giants, each so strikinglylike the other, and drawn together so closely and so promptly, directlytheir filial affection took fire. 

"Tell him that we are waiting for him, and will come to him at the firstsign if we are wanted. "

Then each in turn shook the priest's hand vigorously. And while heremained watching them as they went off towards the little house, whosegarden he perceived over the wall of the Rue Saint Eleuthere, he fanciedhe could there detect a delicate silhouette, a white, sunlit face under ahelp of dark hair. It was doubtless the face of Marie, examining the budson her lilac bushes. At that evening hour, however, the diffuse light wasso golden that the vision seemed to fade in it as in a halo. And Pierre, feeling dazzled, turned his head, and on the other side saw naught butthe overwhelming, chalky mass of the basilica, whose hugeness shut outall view of the horizon. 

For a moment he remained motionless on that spot, so agitated byconflicting thoughts and feelings that he could read neither heart normind clearly. Then, as he turned towards the city, all Paris spreaditself out at his feet, a limpid, lightsome Paris, beneath the pink glowof that spring-like evening. The endless billows of house-roofs showedforth with wonderful distinctness, and one could have counted the chimneystacks and the little black streaks of the windows by the million. Theedifices rising into the calm atmosphere seemed like the anchored vesselsof some fleet arrested in its course, with lofty masting which glitteredat the sun's farewell. And never before had Pierre so distinctly observedthe divisions of that human ocean. Eastward and northward was the city ofmanual toil, with the rumbling and the smoke of its factories. Southward, beyond the river, was the city of study, of intellectual labour, so calm, so perfectly serene. And on all sides the passion of trade ascended fromthe central districts, where the crowds rolled and scrambled amidst aneverlasting uproar of wheels; while westward, the city of the happy andpowerful ones, those who fought for sovereignty and wealth, spread outits piles of palaces amidst the slowly reddening flare of the decliningplanet. 

And then, from the depths of his negation, the chaos into which his lossof faith had plunged him, Pierre felt a delicious freshness pass like thevague advent of a new faith. So vague it was that he could not haveexpressed even his hope of it in words. But already among the roughfactory workers, manual toil had appeared to him necessary andredemptive, in spite of all the misery and abominable injustice to whichit led. And now the young men of intellect of whom he had despaired, thatgeneration of the morrow which he had thought spoilt, relapsing intoancient error and rottenness, had appeared to him full of virile promise, resolved to prosecute the work of those who had gone before, and effect, by the aid of Science only, the conquest of absolute truth and absolutejustice. 

V

PROBLEMS

A FULL month had already gone by since Guillaume had taken refuge at hisbrother's little house at Neuilly. His wrist was now nearly healed. Hehad long ceased to keep his bed, and often strolled through the garden. In spite of his impatience to go back to Montmartre, join his loved onesand resume his work there, he was each morning prompted to defer hisreturn by the news he found in the newspapers. The situation was ever thesame. Salvat, whom the police now suspected, had been perceived oneevening near the central markets, and then again lost sight of. Everyday, however, his arrest was said to be imminent. And in that case whatwould happen? Would he speak out, and would fresh perquisitions be made?

For a whole week the press had been busy with the bradawl found under theentrance of the Duvillard mansion. Nearly every reporter in Paris hadcalled at the Grandidier factory and interviewed both workmen and master. Some had even started on personal investigations, in the hope ofcapturing the culprit themselves. There was no end of jesting about theincompetence of the police, and the hunt for Salvat was followed all themore passionately by the general public, as the papers overflowed withthe most ridiculous concoctions, predicting further explosions, anddeclaring even that all Paris would some morning be blown into the air. The "Voix du Peuple" set a fresh shudder circulating every day by itsannouncements of threatening letters, incendiary placards and mysterious, far-reaching plots. And never before had so base and foolish a spirit ofcontagion wafted insanity through a civilised city. 

Guillaume, for his part, no sooner awoke of a morning than he was allimpatience to see the newspapers, quivering at the idea that he would atlast read of Salvat's arrest. In his state of nervous expectancy, thewild campaign which the press had started, the idiotic and the ferociousthings which he found in one or another journal, almost drove him crazy. A number of "suspects" had already been arrested in a kind of chancerazzia, which had swept up the usual Anarchist herd, together with sundryhonest workmen and bandits, /illumines/ and lazy devils, in fact, a mostsingular, motley crew, which investigating magistrate Amadieu wasendeavouring to turn into a gigantic association of evil-doers. Onemorning, moreover, Guillaume found his own name mentioned in connectionwith a perquisition at the residence of a revolutionary journalist, whowas a friend of his. At this his heart bounded with revolt, but he wasforced to the conclusion that it would be prudent for him to remainpatient a little longer, in his peaceful retreat at Neuilly, since thepolice might at any moment break into his home at Montmartre, to arresthim should it find him there. 

Amidst all this anxiety the brothers led a most solitary and gentle life. Pierre himself now spent most of his time at home. The first days ofMarch had come, and precocious springtide imparted delightful charm andwarmth to the little garden. Guillaume, however, since quitting his bed, had more particularly installed himself in his father's old laboratory, now transformed into a spacious study. All the books and papers left bythe illustrious chemist were still there, and among the latter Guillaumefound a number of unfinished essays, the perusal of which greatly excitedhis interest, and often absorbed him from morning till night. It was thiswhich largely enabled him to bear his voluntary seclusion patiently. Seated on the other side of the big table, Pierre also mostly occupiedhimself with reading; but at times his eyes would quit his book andwander away into gloomy reverie, into all the chaos into which he stilland ever sank. For long hours the brothers would in this wise remain sideby side, without speaking a word. Yet they knew they were together; andoccasionally, when their eyes met, they would exchange a smile. Thestrong affection of former days was again springing up within them; theirchildhood, their home, their parents, all seemed to live once more in thequiet atmosphere they breathed. However, the bay window overlooked thegarden in the direction of Paris, and often, when they emerged from theirreading or their reverie, it was with a sudden feeling of anxiety, and inorder to lend ear to the distant rumbling, the increased clamour of thegreat city. 

On other occasions they paused as if in astonishment at hearing acontinuous footfall overhead. It was that of Nicholas Barthes, who stilllingered in the room above. He seldom came downstairs, and scarcely everventured into the garden, for fear, said he, that he might be perceivedand recognised from a distant house whose windows were concealed by aclump of trees. One might laugh at the old conspirator's haunting thoughtof the police. Nevertheless, the caged-lion restlessness, the ceaselesspromenade of that perpetual prisoner who had spent two thirds of his lifein the dungeons of France in his desire to secure the liberty of others, imparted to the silence of the little house a touching melancholy, thevery rhythm as it were of all the great good things which one hoped for, but which would never perhaps come. 

Very few visits drew the brothers from their solitude. Bertheroy cameless frequently now that Guillaume's wrist was healing. The mostassiduous caller was certainly Theophile Morin, whose discreet ring washeard every other day at the same hour. Though he did not share the ideasof Barthes he worshipped him as a martyr; and would always go upstairs tospend an hour with him. However, they must have exchanged few words, fornot a sound came from the room. Whenever Morin sat down for a moment inthe laboratory with the brothers, Pierre was struck by his seemingweariness, his ashen grey hair and beard and dismal countenance, all thelife of which appeared to have been effaced by long years spent in theteaching profession. Indeed, it was only when the priest mentioned Italythat he saw his companion's resigned eyes blaze up like live coals. Oneday when he spoke of the great patriot Orlando Prada, Morin's companionof victory in Garibaldi's days, he was amazed by the sudden flare ofenthusiasm which lighted up the other's lifeless features. However, thesewere but transient flashes: the old professor soon reappeared, and allthat one found in Morin was the friend of Proudhon and the subsequentdisciple of Auguste Comte. Of his Proudhonian principles he had retainedall a pauper's hatred of wealth, and a desire for a more equitablepartition of fortune. But the new times dismayed him, and neitherprinciple nor temperament allowed him to follow Revolutionism to itsutmost limits. Comte had imparted unshakable convictions to him in thesphere of intellectual questions, and he contented himself with the clearand decisive logic of Positivism, rejecting all metaphysical hypothesesas useless, persuaded as he was that the whole human question, whethersocial or religious, would be solved by science alone. This faith, firmas it had remained, was, however, coupled with secret bitterness, fornothing seemed to advance in a sensible manner towards its goal. Comtehimself had ended in the most cloudy mysticism; great /savants/ recoiledfrom truth in terror; and now barbarians were threatening the world withfresh night; all of which made Morin almost a reactionist in politics, already resigned to the advent of a dictator, who would set thingssomewhat in order, so that humanity might be able to complete itseducation. 

Other visitors who occasionally called to see Guillaume were Bache andJanzen, who invariably came together and at night-time. Every now andthen they would linger chatting with Guillaume in the spacious studyuntil two o'clock in the morning. Bache, who was fat and had a fatherlyair, with his little eyes gently beaming amidst all the snowy whitenessof his hair and beard, would talk on slowly, unctuously and interminably, as soon as he had begun to explain his views. He would address merely apolite bow to Saint-Simon, the initiator, the first to lay down the lawthat work was a necessity for one and all according to their capacities;but on coming to Fourier his voice softened and he confessed his wholereligion. To his thinking, Fourier had been the real messiah of moderntimes, the saviour of genius, who had sown the good seed of the futureworld, by regulating society such as it would certainly be organisedto-morrow. The law of harmony had been promulgated; human passions, liberated and utilised in healthy fashion, would become the requisitemachinery; and work, rendered pleasant and attractive, would prove thevery function of life. Nothing could discourage Bache; if merely oneparish began by transforming itself into a /phalansterium/, the wholedepartment would soon follow, then the adjacent departments, and finallyall France. Moreover, Bache even favoured the schemes of Cabet, whoseIcaria, said he, had in no wise been such a foolish idea. Further, herecalled a motion he had made, when member of the Commune in 1871, toapply Fourier's ideas to the French Republic; and he was apparentlyconvinced that the troops of Versailles had delayed the triumph ofCommunism for half a century. Whenever people nowadays talked oftable-turning he pretended to laugh, but at bottom he had remained animpenitent "spiritist. " Since he had been a municipal councillor he hadbeen travelling from one socialist sect to another, according as theirideas offered points of resemblance to his old faith. And he was fairlyconsumed by his need of faith, his perplexity as to the Divine, which hewas now occasionally inclined to find in the legs of some piece offurniture, after denying its presence in the churches. 

Janzen, for his part, was as taciturn as his friend Bache was garrulous. Such remarks as he made were brief, but they were as galling as lashes, as cutting as sabre-strokes. At the same time his ideas and theoriesremained somewhat obscure, partly by reason of this brevity of his, andpartly on account of the difficulty he experienced in expressing himselfin French. He was from over yonder, from some far-away land--Russia, Poland, Austria or Germany, nobody exactly knew; and it mattered little, for he certainly acknowledged no country, but wandered far and wide withhis dream of blood-shedding fraternity. Whenever, with his wontedfrigidity, he gave utterance to one of those terrible remarks of hiswhich, like a scythe in a meadow, cut away all before him, little lessthan the necessity of thus mowing down nations, in order to sow the earthafresh with a young and better community, became apparent. At eachproposition unfolded by Bache, such as labour rendered agreeable bypolice regulations, /phalansteria/ organised like barracks, religiontransformed into pantheist or spiritist deism, he gently shrugged hisshoulders. What could be the use of such childishness, such hypocriticalrepairing, when the house was falling and the only honest course was tothrow it to the ground, and build up the substantial edifice of to-morrowwith entirely new materials? On the subject of propaganda by deeds, bomb-throwing and so forth, he remained silent, though his gestures wereexpressive of infinite hope. He evidently approved that course. Thelegend which made him one of the perpetrators of the crime of Barcelonaset a gleam of horrible glory in his mysterious past. One day when Bache, while speaking to him of his friend Bergaz, the shadowy Bourse jobber whohad already been compromised in some piece of thieving, plainly declaredthat the aforesaid Bergaz was a bandit, Janzen contented himself withsmiling, and replying quietly that theft was merely forced restitution. Briefly, in this man of culture and refinement, in whose own mysteriouslife one might perhaps have found various crimes but not a single act ofbase improbity, one could divine an implacable, obstinate theoretician, who was resolved to set the world ablaze for the triumph of his ideas. 

On certain evenings when a visit from Theophile Morin coincided with onefrom Bache and Janzen, and they and Guillaume lingered chatting until farinto the night, Pierre would listen to them in despair from the shadowycorner where he remained motionless, never once joining in thediscussions. Distracted, by his own unbelief and thirst for truth, he hadat the outset taken a passionate interest in these debates, desirous ashe was of drawing up a balance-sheet of the century's ideas, so as toform some notion of the distance that had been travelled, and the profitsthat had accrued. But he recoiled from all this in fresh despair, onhearing the others argue, each from his own standpoint and withoutpossibility of concession and agreement. After the repulses he hadencountered at Lourdes and Rome, he well realised that in this freshexperiment which he was making with Paris, the whole brain of the centurywas in question, the new truths, the expected gospel which was to changethe face of the world. And, burning with inconsiderate zeal, he went fromone belief to another, which other he soon rejected in order to adopt athird. If he had first felt himself to be a Positivist with Morin, anEvolutionist and Determinist with Guillaume, he had afterwards beentouched by the fraternal dream of a new golden age which he had found inBache's humanitarian Communism. And indeed even Janzen had momentarilyshaken him by his fierce confidence in the theory of liberativeIndividualism. But afterwards he had found himself out of his depth; andeach and every theory had seemed to him but part of the chaoticcontradictions and incoherences of humanity on its march. It was all acontinuous piling up of dross, amidst which he lost himself. AlthoughFourier had sprung from Saint-Simon he denied him in part; and ifSaint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind of mystical sensuality, theother's conducted to an unacceptable regimenting of society. Proudhon, for his part, demolished without rebuilding anything. Comte, who createdmethod and declared science to be the one and only sovereign, had noteven suspected the advent of the social crisis which now threatened tosweep all away, and had finished personally as a mere worshipper of love, overpowered by woman. Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon, entered the lists and fought against the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon;the combat between them or their disciples becoming so bitter and soblind that the truths common to them all were obscured and disfiguredbeyond recognition. Thence came the extraordinary muddle of the presenthour; Bache with Saint-Simon and Fourier, and Morin with Proudhon andComte, utterly failing to understand Mege, the Collectivist deputy, whomthey held up to execration, him and his State Collectivism, in the sameway, moreover, as they thundered against all the other present-timeSocialist sects, without realising that these also, whatever theirnature, had more or less sprung from the same masters as themselves. Andall this seemingly indicated that Janzen was right when he declared thatthe house was past repair, fast crumbling amidst rottenness and insanity, and that it ought to be levelled to the ground. 

One night, after the three visitors had gone, Pierre, who had remainedwith Guillaume, saw him grow very gloomy as he slowly walked to and fro. He, in his turn, had doubtless felt that all was crumbling. And thoughhis brother alone was there to hear him, he went on speaking. Heexpressed all his horror of the Collectivist State as imagined by Mege, aDictator-State re-establishing ancient servitude on yet closer lines. Theerror of all the Socialist sects was their arbitrary organisation ofLabour, which enslaved the individual for the profit of the community. And, forced to conciliate the two great currents, the rights of societyand the rights of the individual, Guillaume had ended by placing hiswhole faith in free Communism, an anarchical state in which he dreamt ofseeing the individual freed, moving and developing without restraint, forthe benefit both of himself and of all others. Was not this, said he, theone truly scientific theory, unities creating worlds, atoms producinglife by force of attraction, free and ardent love? All oppressiveminorities would disappear; and the faculties and energies of one and allwould by free play arrive at harmony amidst the equilibrium--whichchanged according to needs--of the active forces of advancing humanity. In this wise he pictured a nation, saved from State tutelage, without amaster, almost without laws, a happy nation, each citizen of which, completely developed by the exercise of liberty, would, of his free will, come to an understanding with his neighbours with regard to the thousandnecessities of life. And thence would spring society, free association, hundreds of associations which would regulate social life; though at thesame time they would remain variable, in fact often opposed and hostileto one another. For progress is but the fruit of conflict and struggle;the world has only been created by the battle of opposing forces. Andthat was all; there would be no more oppressors, no more rich, no morepoor; the domain of the earth with its natural treasures and itsimplements of labour would be restored to the people, its legitimateowners, who would know how to enjoy it with justice and logic, whennothing abnormal would impede their expansion. And then only would thelaw of love make its action felt; then would human solidarity, which, among mankind, is the living form of universal attraction, acquire allits power, bringing men closer and closer together, and uniting them inone sole family. A splendid dream it was--the noble and pure dream ofabsolute freedom--free man in free society. And thither a /savant's/superior mind was fated to come after passing on the road the manySocialist sects which one and all bore the stigma of tyranny. And, assuredly, as thus indulged, the Anarchist idea is the loftiest, theproudest, of all ideas. And how delightful to yield to the hope ofharmony in life--life which restored to the full exercise of its naturalpowers would of itself create happiness!

When Guillaume ceased speaking, he seemed to be emerging from a dream;and he glanced at Pierre with some dismay, for he feared that he mighthave said too much and have hurt his feelings. Pierre--moved though hewas, for a moment in fact almost won over--had just seen the terriblepractical objection, which destroyed all hope, arise before his mind'seye. Why had not harmony asserted itself in the first days of the world'sexistence, at the time when societies were formed? How was it thattyranny had triumphed, delivering nations over to oppressors? Andsupposing that the apparently insolvable problem of destroyingeverything, and beginning everything afresh, should ever be solved, whocould promise that mankind, obedient to the same laws, would not againfollow the same paths as formerly? After all, mankind, nowadays, issimply what life has made it; and nothing proves that life would againmake it other than it is. To begin afresh, ah, yes! but to attain anotherresult! But could that other result really come from man? Was it notrather man himself who should be changed? To start afresh from where onewas, to continue the evolution that had begun, undoubtedly meant slowtravel and dismal waiting. But how great would be the danger and even thedelay, if one went back without knowing by what road across the wholechaos of ruins one might regain all the lost time!

"Let us go to bed, " at last said Guillaume, smiling. "It's silly of me toweary you with all these things which don't concern you. "

Pierre, in his excitement, was about to reveal his own heart and mind, and the whole torturing battle within him. But a feeling of shame againrestrained him. His brother only knew him as a believing priest, faithfulto his faith. And so, without answering, he betook himself to his room. 

On the following evening, about ten o'clock, while Guillaume and Pierresat reading in the study, the old servant entered to announce M. Janzenand a friend. The friend was Salvat. 

"He wished to see you, " Janzen explained to Guillaume. "I met him, andwhen he heard of your injury and anxiety he implored me to bring himhere. And I've done so, though it was perhaps hardly prudent of me. "

Guillaume had risen, full of surprise and emotion at such a visit;Pierre, however, though equally upset by Salvat's appearance; did notstir from his chair, but kept his eyes upon the workman. 

"Monsieur Froment, " Salvat ended by saying, standing there in a timid, embarrassed way, "I was very sorry indeed when I heard of the worry I'dput you in; for I shall never forget that you were very kind to me wheneverybody else turned me away. "

As he spoke he balanced himself alternately on either leg, andtransferred his old felt hat from hand to hand. 

"And so I wanted to come and tell you myself that if I took a cartridgeof your powder one evening when you had your back turned, it's the onlything that I feel any remorse about in the whole business, since it maycompromise you. And I also want to take my oath before you that you'venothing to fear from me, that I'll let my head be cut off twenty times ifneed be, rather than utter your name. That's all that I had in my heart. "

He relapsed into silence and embarrassment, but his soft, dreamy eyes, the eyes of a faithful dog, remained fixed upon Guillaume with anexpression of respectful worship. And Pierre was still gazing at himathwart the hateful vision which his arrival had conjured up, that of thepoor, dead, errand girl, the fair pretty child lying ripped open underthe entrance of the Duvillard mansion! Was it possible that he was there, he, that madman, that murderer, and that his eyes were actually moist!

Guillaume, touched by Salvat's words, had drawn near and pressed hishand. "I am well aware, Salvat, " said he, "that you are not wicked atheart. But what a foolish and abominable thing you did!"

Salvat showed no sign of anger, but gently smiled. "Oh! if it had to bedone again, Monsieur Froment, I'd do it. It's my idea, you know. And, apart from you, all is well; I am content. "

He would not sit down, but for another moment continued talking withGuillaume, while Janzen, as if he washed his hands of the business, deeming this visit both useless and dangerous, sat down and turned overthe leaves of a picture book. And Guillaume made Salvat tell him what hehad done on the day of the crime; how like a stray dog he had wandered indistraction through Paris, carrying his bomb with him, originally in histool-bag and then under his jacket; how he had gone a first time to theDuvillard mansion and found its carriage entrance closed; then how he hadbetaken himself first to the Chamber of Deputies which the ushers hadprevented him from entering, and afterwards to the Circus, where thethought of making a great sacrifice of /bourgeois/ had occurred to himtoo late. And finally, how he had at last come back to the Duvillardmansion, as if drawn thither by the very power of destiny. His tool-bagwas lying in the depths of the Seine, he said; he had thrown it into thewater with sudden hatred of work, since it had even failed to give himbread. And he next told the story of his flight; the explosion shakingthe whole district behind him, while, with delight and astonishment, hefound himself some distance off, in quiet streets where nothing was asyet known. And for a month past he had been living in chance fashion, howor where he could hardly tell, but he had often slept in the open, andgone for a day without food. One evening little Victor Mathis had givenhim five francs. And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for anight and sent him off at the first sign of peril. A far-spreading, tacitcomplicity had hitherto saved him from the police. As for going abroad, well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description ofhis person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting forhim at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding, rather hasten his arrest? Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there thathe incurred the least risk of capture. Moreover, he no longer hadsufficient energy to flee. A fatalist as he was after his own fashion, hecould not find strength to quit the pavements of Paris, but there awaitedarrest, like a social waif carried chancewise through the multitude as ina dream. 

"And your daughter, little Celine?" Guillaume inquired. "Have youventured to go back to see her?"

Salvat waved his hand in a vague way. "No, but what would you have? She'swith Mamma Theodore. Women always find some help. And then I'm done for, I can do nothing for anybody. It's as if I were already dead. " However, in spite of these words, tears were rising to his eyes. "Ah! the poorlittle thing!" he added, "I kissed her with all my heart before I wentaway. If she and the woman hadn't been starving so long the idea of thatbusiness would perhaps never have come to me. "

Then, in all simplicity, he declared that he was ready to die. If he hadended by depositing his bomb at the entrance of Duvillard's house, it wasbecause he knew the banker well, and was aware that he was the wealthiestof those /bourgeois/ whose fathers at the time of the Revolution hadduped the people, by taking all power and wealth for themselves, --thepower and wealth which the sons were nowadays so obstinately bent inretaining that they would not even bestow the veriest crumbs on others. As for the Revolution, he understood it in his own fashion, like anilliterate fellow who had learnt the little he knew from newspapers andspeeches at public meetings. And he struck his chest with his fist as hespoke of his honesty, and was particularly desirous that none shoulddoubt his courage because he had fled. 

"I've never robbed anybody, " said he, "and if I don't go and hand myselfup to the police, it's because they may surely take the trouble to findand arrest me. I'm very well aware that my affair's clear enough asthey've found that bradawl and know me. All the same, it would be sillyof me to help them in their work. Still, they'd better make haste, forI've almost had enough of being tracked like a wild beast and no longerknowing how I live. "

Janzen, yielding to curiosity, had ceased turning over the leaves of thepicture book and was looking at Salvat. There was a smile of disdain inthe Anarchist leader's cold eyes; and in his usual broken French heremarked: "A man fights and defends himself, kills others and tries toavoid being killed himself. That's warfare. "

These words fell from his lips amidst deep silence. Salvat, however, didnot seem to have heard them, but stammered forth his faith in a longsentence laden with fulsome expressions, such as the sacrifice of hislife in order that want might cease, and the example of a great action, in the certainty that it would inspire other heroes to continue thestruggle. And with this certainly sincere faith and illuminism of histhere was blended a martyr's pride, delight at being one of the radiant, worshipped saints of the dawning Revolutionary Church. 

As he had come so he went off. When Janzen had led him away, it seemed asif the night which had brought him had carried him back into itsimpenetrable depths. And then only did Pierre rise from his chair. He wasstifling, and threw the large window of the room wide open. It was a verymild but moonless night, whose silence was only disturbed by thesubsiding clamour of Paris, which stretched away, invisible, on thehorizon. 

Guillaume, according to his habit, had begun to walk up and down. And atlast he spoke, again forgetting that his brother was a priest. "Ah! thepoor fellow! How well one can understand that deed of violence and hope!His whole past life of fruitless labour and ever-growing want explainsit. Then, too, there has been all the contagion of ideas; thefrequentation of public meetings where men intoxicate themselves withwords, and of secret meetings among comrades where faith acquiresfirmness and the mind soars wildly. Ah! I think I know that man wellindeed! He's a good workman, sober and courageous. Injustice has alwaysexasperated him. And little by little the desire for universal happinesshas cast him out of the realities of life which he has ended by holdingin horror. So how can he do otherwise than live in a dream--a dream ofredemption, which, from circumstances, has turned to fire and murder asits fitting instruments. As I looked at him standing there, I fancied Icould picture one of the first Christian slaves of ancient Rome. All theiniquity of olden pagan society, agonising beneath the rottenness born ofdebauchery and covetousness, was weighing on his shoulders, bearing himdown. He had come from the dark Catacombs where he had whispered words ofdeliverance and redemption with his wretched brethren. And a thirst formartyrdom consumed him, he spat in the face of Caesar, he insulted thegods, he fired the pagan temples, in order that the reign of Jesus mightcome and abolish servitude. And he was ready to die, to be torn to piecesby the wild beasts!"

Pierre did not immediately reply. He had already been struck, however, bythe fact that there were undoubted points of resemblance between thesecret propaganda and militant faith of the Anarchists, and certainpractices of the first Christians. Both sects abandon themselves to a newfaith in the hope that the humble may thereby at last reap justice. Paganism disappears through weariness of the flesh and the need of a morelofty and pure faith. That dream of a Christian paradise opening up afuture life with a system of compensations for the ills endured on earth, was the outcome of young hope dawning at its historic hour. But to-day, when eighteen centuries have exhausted that hope, when the longexperiment is over and the toiler finds himself duped and still and evera slave, he once more dreams of getting happiness upon this earth, particularly as each day Science tends more and more to show him that thehappiness of the spheres beyond is a lie. And in all this there is butthe eternal struggle of the poor and the rich, the eternal question ofbringing more justice and less suffering to the world. 

"But surely, " Pierre at last replied, "you can't be on the side of thosebandits, those murderers whose savage violence horrifies me. I let youtalk on yesterday, when you dreamt of a great and happy people, of idealanarchy in which each would be free amidst the freedom of all. But whatabomination, what disgust both for mind and heart, when one passes fromtheory to propaganda and practice! If yours is the brain that thinks, whose is the hateful hand that acts, that kills children, throws downdoors and empties drawers? Do you accept that responsibility? With youreducation, your culture, the whole social heredity behind you, does notyour entire being revolt at the idea of stealing and murdering?"

Guillaume halted before his brother, quivering. "Steal and murder! no!no! I will not. But one must say everything and fully understand thehistory of the evil hour through which we are passing. It is madnesssweeping by; and, to tell the truth, everything necessary to provoke ithas been done. At the very dawn of the Anarchist theory, at the veryfirst innocent actions of its partisans, there was such stern repression, the police so grossly ill-treating the poor devils that fell into itshands, that little by little came anger and rage leading to the mosthorrible reprisals. It is the Terror initiated by the /bourgeois/ thathas produced Anarchist savagery. And would you know whence Salvat and hiscrime have come? Why, from all our centuries of impudence and iniquity, from all that the nations have suffered, from all the sores which are nowdevouring us, the impatience for enjoyment, the contempt of the strongfor the weak, the whole monstrous spectacle which is presented by ourrotting society!"

Guillaume was again slowly walking to and fro; and as if he werereflecting aloud he continued: "Ah! to reach the point I have attained, through how much thought, through how many battles, have I not passed! Iwas merely a Positivist, a /savant/ devoted to observation andexperiment, accepting nothing apart from proven facts. Scientifically andsocially, I admitted that simple evolution had slowly brought humanityinto being. But both in the history of the globe and that of humansociety, I found it necessary to make allowance for the volcano, thesudden cataclysm, the sudden eruption, by which each geological phase, each historical period, has been marked. In this wise one ends byascertaining that no forward step has ever been taken, no progress everaccomplished in the world's history, without the help of horriblecatastrophes. Each advance has meant the sacrifice of millions andmillions of human lives. This of course revolts us, given our narrowideas of justice, and we regard nature as a most barbarous mother; but, if we cannot excuse the volcano, we ought to deal with it when it burstsforth, like /savants/ forewarned of its possibility. . . . And then, ah, then! well, perhaps I'm a dreamer like others, but I have my ownnotions. "

With a sweeping gesture he confessed what a social dreamer there waswithin him beside the methodical and scrupulous /savant/. His constantendeavour was to bring all back to science, and he was deeply grieved atfinding in nature no scientific sign of equality or even justice, such ashe craved for in the social sphere. His despair indeed came from thisinability to reconcile scientific logic with apostolic love, the dream ofuniversal happiness and brotherhood and the end of all iniquity. 

Pierre, however, who had remained near the open window, gazing into thenight towards Paris, whence ascended the last sounds of the evening ofpassionate pleasure, felt the whole flood of his own doubt and despairstifling him. It was all too much: that brother of his who had fallenupon him with his scientific and apostolic beliefs, those men who came todiscuss contemporary thought from every standpoint, and finally thatSalvat who had brought thither the exasperation of his mad deed. AndPierre, who had hitherto listened to them all without a word, without agesture, who had hidden his secrets from his brother, seeking refuge inhis supposed priestly views, suddenly felt such bitterness stirring hisheart that he could lie no longer. 

"Ah! brother, if you have your dream, I have my sore which has eaten intome and left me void! Your Anarchy, your dream of just happiness, forwhich Salvat works with bombs, why, it is the final burst of insanitywhich will sweep everything away! How is it that you can't realise it?The century is ending in ruins. I've been listening to you all for amonth past. Fourier destroyed Saint-Simon, Proudhon and Comte demolishedFourier, each in turn piling up incoherences and contradictions, leavingmere chaos behind them, which nobody dares to sort out. And since then, Socialist sects have been swarming and multiplying, the more sensible ofthem leading simply to dictatorship, while the others indulge in mostdangerous reveries. And after such a tempest of ideas there could indeedcome nothing but your Anarchy, which undertakes to bring the old world toa finish by reducing it to dust. . . . Ah! I expected it, I was waitingfor it--that final catastrophe, that fratricidal madness, the inevitableclass warfare in which our civilisation was destined to collapse!Everything announced it: the want and misery below, the egotism up above, all the cracking of the old human habitation, borne down by too great aweight of crime and grief. When I went to Lourdes it was to see if thedivinity of simple minds would work the awaited miracle, and restore thebelief of the early ages to the people, which rebelled through excess ofsuffering. And when I went to Rome it was in the /naive/ hope of therefinding the new religion required by our democracies, the only one thatcould pacify the world by bringing back the fraternity of the golden age. But how foolish of me all that was! Both here and there, I simply lightedon nothingness. There where I so ardently dreamt of finding the salvationof others, I only sank myself, going down apeak like a ship not a timberof which is ever found again. One tie still linked me to my fellow-men, that of charity, the dressing, relieving, and perhaps, in the long run, healing, of wounds and sores; but that last cable has now been severed. Charity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice, to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessityand can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, anempty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything, anything whatever!"

Pierre had risen to his full height, with arms outstretched as if to letall the nothingness within his heart and mind fall from them. AndGuillaume, distracted by the sight of such a fierce denier, such adespairing Nihilist as was now revealed to him, drew near, quivering:"What are you saying, brother! I thought you so firm, so calm in yourbelief! A priest to be admired, a saint worshipped by the whole of thisparish! I was unwilling even to discuss your faith, and now it is you whodeny all, and believe in nothing whatever!"

Pierre again slowly stretched out his arms. "There is nothing, I tried tolearn all, and only found the atrocious grief born of the nothingnessthat overwhelms me. "

"Ah! how you must suffer, Pierre, my little brother! Can religion, then, be even more withering than science, since it has ravaged you like that, while I have yet remained an old madman, still full of fancies?"

Guillaume caught hold of Pierre's hands and pressed them, full ofterrified compassion in presence of all the grandeur and horror embodiedin that unbelieving priest who watched over the belief of others, andchastely, honestly discharged his duty amidst the haughty sadness born ofhis falsehood. And how heavily must that falsehood have weighed upon hisconscience for him to confess himself in that fashion, amidst an uttercollapse of his whole being! A month previously, in the unexpansivenessof his proud solitude, he would never have taken such a course. To speakout it was necessary that he should have been stirred by many things, hisreconciliation with his brother, the conversations he had heard of anevening, the terrible drama in which he was mingled, as well as hisreflections on labour struggling against want, and the vague hope withwhich the sight of intellectual youth had inspired him. And, indeed, amidthe very excess of his negation was there not already the faint dawn of anew faith?

This Guillaume must have understood, on seeing how he quivered withunsatisfied tenderness as he emerged from the fierce silence which he hadpreserved so long. He made him sit down near the window, and placedhimself beside him without releasing his hands. "But I won't have yousuffer, my little brother!" he said; "I won't leave you, I'll nurse you. For I know you much better than you know yourself. You would never havesuffered were it not for the battle between your heart and your mind, andyou will cease to suffer on the day when they make peace, and you lovewhat you understand. " And in a lower voice, with infinite affection, hewent on: "You see, it's our poor mother and our poor father continuingtheir painful struggle in you. You were too young at the time, youcouldn't know what went on. But I knew them both very wretched: he, wretched through her, who treated him as if he were one of the damned;and she, suffering through him, tortured by his irreligion. When he died, struck down by an explosion in this very room, she took it to be thepunishment of God. Yet, what an honest man he was, with a good, greatheart, what a worker, seeking for truth alone, and desirous of the loveand happiness of all! Since we have spent our evenings here, I have felthim coming back, reviving as it were both around and within us; and she, too, poor, saintly woman, is ever here, enveloping us with love, weeping, and yet stubbornly refusing to understand. It is they, perhaps, who havekept me here so long, and who at this very moment are present to placeyour hands in mine. "

And, indeed, it seemed to Pierre as if he could feel the breath ofvigilant affection which Guillaume evoked passing over them both. Therewas again a revival of all the past, all their youth, and nothing couldhave been more delightful. 

"You hear me, brother, " Guillaume resumed. "You must reconcile them, forit is only in you that they can be reconciled. You have his firm, loftybrow, and her mouth and eyes of unrealisable tenderness. So, try to bringthem to agreement, by some day contenting, as your reason shall allow, the everlasting thirst for love, and self-bestowal, and life, which forlack of satisfaction is killing you. Your frightful wretchedness has noother cause. Come back to life, love, bestow yourself, be a man!"

Pierre raised a dolorous cry: "No, no, the death born of doubt has sweptthrough me, withering and shattering everything, and nothing more canlive in that cold dust!"

"But, come, " resumed Guillaume, "you cannot have reached such absolutenegation. No man reaches it. Even in the most disabused of minds thereremains a nook of fancy and hope. To deny charity, devotion, theprodigies which love may work, ah! for my part I do not go so far asthat. And now that you have shown me your sore, why should I not tell youmy dream, the wild hope which keeps me alive! It is strange; but, are/savants/ to be the last childish dreamers, and is faith only to springup nowadays in chemical laboratories?"

Intense emotion was stirring Guillaume; there was battle waging in bothhis brain and his heart. And at last, yielding to the deep compassionwhich filled him, vanquished by his ardent affection for his unhappybrother, he spoke out. But he had drawn yet closer to Pierre, even passedone arm around him; and it was thus embracing him that he, in his turn, made his confession, lowering his voice as if he feared that someonemight overhear his secret. "Why should you not know it?" he said. "My ownsons are ignorant of it. But you are a man and my brother, and sincethere is nothing of the priest left in you, it is to the brother I willconfide it. This will make me love you the more, and perhaps it may doyou good. "

Then he told him of his invention, a new explosive, a powder of suchextraordinary force that its effects were incalculable. And he had foundemployment for this powder in an engine of warfare, a special cannon, hurling bombs which would assure the most overwhelming victory to thearmy using them. The enemy's forces would be destroyed in a few hours, and besieged cities would fall into dust at the slightest bombardment. Hehad long searched and doubted, calculated, recalculated and experimented;but everything was now ready: the precise formula of the powder, thedrawings for the cannon and the bombs, a whole packet of precious papersstored in a safe spot. And after months of anxious reflection he hadresolved to give his invention to France, so as to ensure her a certaintyof victory in her coming, inevitable war with Germany!

At the same time, he was not a man of narrow patriotism; on the contraryhe had a very broad, international conception of the future liberativecivilisation. Only he believed in the initiatory mission of France, andparticularly in that of Paris, which, even as it is to-day, was destinedto be the world's brain to-morrow, whence all science and justice wouldproceed. The great idea of liberty and equality had already soared fromit at the prodigious blast of the Revolution; and from its genius andvalour the final emancipation of man would also take its flight. Thus itwas necessary that Paris should be victorious in the struggle in orderthat the world might be saved. 

Pierre understood his brother, thanks to the lecture on explosives whichhe had heard at Bertheroy's. And the grandeur of this scheme, this dream, particularly struck him when he thought of the extraordinary future whichwould open for Paris amidst the effulgent blaze of the bombs. Moreover, he was struck by all the nobility of soul which had lain behind hisbrother's anxiety for a month past. If Guillaume had trembled it wassimply with fear that his invention might be divulged in consequence ofSalvat's crime. The slightest indiscretion might compromise everything;and that little stolen cartridge, whose effects had so astonished/savants/, might reveal his secret. He felt it necessary to act inmystery, choosing his own time, awaiting the proper hour, until when thesecret would slumber in its hiding-place, confided to the sole care ofMere-Grand, who had her orders and knew what she was to do should he, inany sudden accident, disappear. 

"And, now, " said Guillaume in conclusion, "you know my hopes and myanguish, and you can help me and even take my place if I am unable toreach the end of my task. Ah! to reach the end! Since I have been shut uphere, reflecting, consumed by anxiety and impatience, there have beenhours when I have ceased to see my way clearly! There is that Salvat, that wretched fellow for whose crime we are all of us responsible, andwho is now being hunted down like a wild beast! There is also thatinsensate and insatiable /bourgeoisie/, which will let itself be crushedby the fall of the shaky old house, rather than allow the least repair toit! And there is further that avaricious, that abominable Parisian press, so harsh towards the weak and little, so fond of insulting those who havenone to defend them, so eager to coin money out of public misfortune, andready to spread insanity on all sides, simply to increase its sales!Where, therefore, shall one find truth and justice, the hand endowed withlogic and health that ought to be armed with the thunderbolt? Would Paristhe conqueror, Paris the master of the nations, prove the justiciar, thesaviour that men await! Ah! the anguish of believing oneself to be themaster of the world's destinies, and to have to choose and decide. "

He had risen again quivering, full of anger and fear that humanwretchedness and baseness might prevent the realisation of his dream. Andamidst the heavy silence which fell in the room, the little housesuddenly resounded with a regular, continuous footfall. 

"Ah, yes! to save men and love them, and wish them all to be equal andfree, " murmured Pierre, bitterly. "But just listen! Barthes's footstepsare answering you, as if from the everlasting dungeon into which his loveof liberty has thrown him!"

However, Guillaume had already regained possession of himself, and comingback in a transport of his faith, he once more took Pierre in his loving, saving arms, like an elder brother who gives himself without restraint. "No, no, I'm wrong, I'm blaspheming, " he exclaimed; "I wish you to bewith me, full of hope and full of certainty. You must work, you mustlove, you must revive to life. Life alone can give you back peace andhealth. "

Tears returned to the eyes of Pierre, who was penetrated to the heart bythis ardent affection. "Ah! how I should like to believe you, " hefaltered, "and try to cure myself. True, I have already felt, as it were, a vague revival within me. And yet to live again, no, I cannot; thepriest that I am is dead--a lifeless, an empty tomb. "

He was shaken by so frightful a sob, that Guillaume could not restrainhis own tears. And clasped in one another's arms the brothers wept on, their hearts full of the softest emotion in that home of their youth, whither the dear shadows of their parents ever returned, hovering arounduntil they should be reconciled and restored to the peace of the earth. And all the darkness and mildness of the garden streamed in through theopen window, while yonder, on the horizon, Paris had fallen asleep in themysterious gloom, beneath a very peaceful sky which was studded withstars.