THE THREE CITIES

 PARIS

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 BOOK V

I

THE GUILLOTINE

FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing theexecution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; andfinding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordinglyresolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother andwatch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose incharitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that theguillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy, resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself asa guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legallybe daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did notgo to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, andexchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they startedoff. 

The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like asilver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm, dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like somespell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arosefrom it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over itsroofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled torepose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark workwas even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order thata man might be killed. 

Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at thevaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned theyperceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but alreadylooking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuatedits outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass ofshadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossalmonster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never beforehad Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominateParis, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn andoverwhelming might. 

This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he foundhimself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good sitefor it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing morenonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! Howimpudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so manycenturies of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being rearedover Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have beensoiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; butnot in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeplyploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war, an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"

Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a /savant/, for whomreligions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted thegrandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque'sfamous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart, filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. Hesuffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and thegigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in thedepths of the wound--the huge heart in which Jesus placed the woman'slittle heart to restore it to her inflated and glowing with love. Whatbase and loathsome materialism there was in all this! What a display ofviscera, muscles and blood suggestive of a butcher's shop! And Guillaumewas particularly disgusted with the engraving which depicted this horror, and which he found everywhere, crudely coloured with red and yellow andblue, like some badly executed anatomical plate. 

Pierre on his side was also looking at the basilica as, white withmoonlight, it rose out of the darkness like a gigantic fortress raised tocrush and conquer the city slumbering beneath it. It had already broughthim suffering during the last days when he had said mass in it and wasstruggling with his torments. "They call it the national votiveoffering, " he now exclaimed. "But the nation's longing is for health andstrength and restoration to its old position by work. That is a thing theChurch does not understand. It argues that if France was stricken withdefeat, it was because she deserved punishment. She was guilty, and soto-day she ought to repent. Repent of what? Of the Revolution, of acentury of free examination and science, of the emancipation of her mind, of her initiatory and liberative labour in all parts of the world? Thatindeed is her real transgression; and it is as a punishment for all ourlabour, search for truth, increase of knowledge and march towards justicethat they have reared that huge pile which Paris will see from all herstreets, and will never be able to see without feeling derided andinsulted in her labour and glory. "

With a wave of his hand he pointed to the city, slumbering in themoonlight as beneath a sheet of silver, and then set off again with hisbrother, down the slopes, towards the black and deserted streets. 

They did not meet a living soul until they reached the outer boulevard. Here, however, no matter what the hour may be, life continues withscarcely a pause. No sooner are the wine shops, music and dancing hallsclosed, than vice and want, cast into the street, there resume theirnocturnal existence. Thus the brothers came upon all the homeless ones:low prostitutes seeking a pallet, vagabonds stretched on the benchesunder the trees, rogues who prowled hither and thither on the lookout fora good stroke. Encouraged by their accomplice--night, all the mire andwoe of Paris had returned to the surface. The empty roadway now belongedto the breadless, homeless starvelings, those for whom there was no placein the sunlight, the vague, swarming, despairing herd which is onlyespied at night-time. Ah! what spectres of destitution, what apparitionsof grief and fright there were! What a sob of agony passed by in Paristhat morning, when as soon as the dawn should rise, a man--a pauper, asufferer like the others--was to be guillotined!

As Guillaume and Pierre were about to descend the Rue des Martyrs, theformer perceived an old man lying on a bench with his bare feetprotruding from his gaping, filthy shoes. Guillaume pointed to him insilence. Then, a few steps farther on, Pierre in his turn pointed to aragged girl, crouching, asleep with open month, in the corner of adoorway. There was no need for the brothers to express in words all thecompassion and anger which stirred their hearts. At long intervalspolicemen, walking slowly two by two, shook the poor wretches andcompelled them to rise and walk on and on. Occasionally, if they foundthem suspicious or refractory, they marched them off to thepolice-station. And then rancour and the contagion of imprisonment oftentransformed a mere vagabond into a thief or a murderer. 

In the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, the brothersfound night-birds of another kind, women who slunk past them, close tothe house-fronts, and men and hussies who belaboured one another withblows. Then, upon the grand boulevards, on the thresholds of lofty blackhouses, only one row of whose windows flared in the night, pale-facedindividuals, who had just come down from their clubs, stood lightingcigars before going home. A lady with a ball wrap over her evening gownwent by accompanied by a servant. A few cabs, moreover, still jogged upand down the roadway, while others, which had been waiting for hours, stood on their ranks in rows, with drivers and horses alike asleep. Andas one boulevard after another was reached, the Boulevard Poissonniere, the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, the Boulevard St. Denis, and so forth, asfar as the Place de la Republique, there came fresh want and misery, moreforsaken and hungry ones, more and more of the human "waste" that is castinto the streets and the darkness. And on the other hand, an army ofstreet-sweepers was now appearing to remove all the filth of the pastfour and twenty hours, in order that Paris, spruce already at sunrise, might not blush for having thrown up such a mass of dirt andloathsomeness in the course of a single day. 

It was, however, more particularly after following the BoulevardVoltaire, and drawing near to the districts of La Roquette and Charonne, that the brothers felt they were returning to a sphere of labour wherethere was often lack of food, and where life was but so much pain. Pierrefound himself at home here. In former days, accompanied by good AbbeRose, visiting despairing ones, distributing alms, picking up childrenwho had sunk to the gutter, he had a hundred times perambulated every oneof those long, densely populated streets. And thus a frightful visionarose before his mind's eye; he recalled all the tragedies he hadwitnessed, all the shrieks he had heard, all the tears and bloodshed hehad seen, all the fathers, mothers and children huddled together anddying of want, dirt and abandonment: that social hell in which he hadended by losing his last hopes, fleeing from it with a sob in theconviction that charity was a mere amusement for the rich, and absolutelyfutile as a remedy. It was this conviction which now returned to him ashe again cast eyes upon that want and grief stricken district whichseemed fated to everlasting destitution. That poor old man whom Abbe Rosehad revived one night in yonder hovel, had he not since died ofstarvation? That little girl whom he had one morning brought in his armsto the refuge after her parents' death, was it not she whom he had justmet, grown but fallen to the streets, and shrieking beneath the fist of abully? Ah! how great was the number of the wretched! Their name waslegion! There were those whom one could not save, those who were hourlyborn to a life of woe and want, even as one may be born infirm, andthose, too, who from every side sank in the sea of human injustice, thatocean which has ever been the same for centuries past, and which thoughone may strive to drain it, still and for ever spreads. How heavy was thesilence, how dense the darkness in those working-class streets wheresleep seems to be the comrade of death! Yet hunger prowls, and misfortunesobs; vague spectral forms slink by, and then are lost to view in thedepths of the night. 

As Pierre and Guillaume went along they became mixed with dark groups ofpeople, a whole flock of inquisitive folk, a promiscuous, passionatetramp, tramp towards the guillotine. It came from all Paris, urged on bybrutish fever, a hankering for death and blood. In spite, however, of thedull noise which came from this dim crowd, the mean streets that werepassed remained quite dark, not a light appeared at any of their windows;nor could one hear the breathing of the weary toilers stretched on theirwretched pallets from which they would not rise before the morningtwilight. 

On seeing the jostling crowd which was already assembled on the PlaceVoltaire, Pierre understood that it would be impossible for him and hisbrother to ascend the Rue de la Roquette. Barriers, moreover, mustcertainly have been thrown across that street. In order therefore toreach the corner of the Rue Merlin, it occurred to him to take the Rue dela Folie Regnault, which winds round in the rear of the prison, fartheron. 

Here indeed they found solitude and darkness again. 

The huge, massive prison with its great bare walls on which a moonrayfell, looked like some pile of cold stones, dead for centuries past. Atthe end of the street they once more fell in with the crowd, a dimrestless mass of beings, whose pale faces alone could be distinguished. The brothers had great difficulty in reaching the house in which Megeresided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. All the shutters of thefourth-floor flat occupied by the Socialist deputy were closed, thoughevery other window was wide open and crowded with surging sightseers. Moreover, the wine shop down below and the first-floor room connectedwith it flared with gas, and were already crowded with noisy customers, waiting for the performance to begin. 

"I hardly like to go and knock at Mege's door, " said Pierre. 

"No, no, you must not do so!" replied Guillaume. 

"Let us go into the wine shop. We may perhaps be able to see somethingfrom the balcony. "

The first-floor room was provided with a very large balcony, which womenand gentlemen were already filling. The brothers nevertheless managed toreach it, and for a few minutes remained there, peering into the darknessbefore them. The sloping street grew broader between the two prisons, the"great" and the "little" Roquette, in such wise as to form a sort ofsquare, which was shaded by four clumps of plane-trees, rising from thefootways. The low buildings and scrubby trees, all poor and ugly ofaspect, seemed almost to lie on a level with the ground, under a vast skyin which stars were appearing, as the moon gradually declined. And thesquare was quite empty save that on one spot yonder there seemed to besome little stir. Two rows of guards prevented the crowd from advancing, and even threw it back into the neighbouring streets. On the one hand, the only lofty houses were far away, at the point where the Rue St. Maurintersects the Rue de la Roquette; while, on the other, they stood at thecorners of the Rue Merlin and the Rue de la Folie Regnault, so that itwas almost impossible to distinguish anything of the execution even fromthe best placed windows. As for the inquisitive folk on the pavement theyonly saw the backs of the guards. Still this did not prevent a crush. Thehuman tide flowed on from all sides with increasing clamour. 

Guided by the remarks of some women who, leaning forward on the balcony, had been watching the square for a long time already, the brothers wereat last able to perceive something. It was now half-past three, and theguillotine was nearly ready. The little stir which one vaguely espiedyonder under the trees, was that of the headsman's assistants fixing theknife in position. A lantern slowly came and went, and five or sixshadows danced over the ground. But nothing else could be distinguished, the square was like a large black pit, around which ever broke the wavesof the noisy crowd which one could not see. And beyond the square onecould only identify the flaring wine shops, which showed forth likelighthouses in the night. All the surrounding district of poverty andtoil was still asleep, not a gleam as yet came from workrooms or yards, not a puff of smoke from the lofty factory chimneys. 

"We shall see nothing, " Guillaume remarked. 

But Pierre silenced him, for he has just discovered that an elegantlyattired gentleman leaning over the balcony near him was none other thanthe amiable deputy Duthil. He had at first fancied that a woman muffledin wraps who stood close beside the deputy was the little Princess deHarn, whom he had very likely brought to see the execution since he hadtaken her to see the trial. On closer inspection, however, he had foundthat this woman was Silviane, the perverse creature with the virginalface. Truth to tell, she made no concealment of her presence, but talkedon in an extremely loud voice, as if intoxicated; and the brothers soonlearnt how it was that she happened to be there. Duvillard, Duthil, andother friends had been supping with her at one o'clock in the morning, when on learning that Salvat was about to be guillotined, the fancy ofseeing the execution had suddenly come upon her. Duvillard, after vainlyentreating her to do nothing of the kind, had gone off in a fury, for hefelt that it would be most unseemly on his part to attend the executionof a man who had endeavoured to blow up his house. And thereupon Silvianehad turned to Duthil, whom her caprice greatly worried, for he held allsuch loathsome spectacles in horror, and had already refused to act asescort to the Princess. However, he was so infatuated with Silviane'sbeauty, and she made him so many promises, that he had at last consentedto take her. 

"He can't understand people caring for amusement, " she said, speaking ofthe Baron. "And yet this is really a thing to see. . . . But no matter, you'll find him at my feet again to-morrow. "

Duthil smiled and responded: "I suppose that peace has been signed andratified now that you have secured your engagement at the Comedie. "

"Peace? No!" she protested. "No, no. There will be no peace between usuntil I have made my /debut/. After that, we'll see. "

They both laughed; and then Duthil, by way of paying his court, told herhow good-naturedly Dauvergne, the new Minister of Public Instruction andFine Arts, had adjusted the difficulties which had hitherto kept thedoors of the Comedie closed upon her. A really charming man wasDauvergne, the embodiment of graciousness, the very flower of theMonferrand ministry. His was the velvet hand in that administration whoseleader had a hand of iron. 

"He told me, my beauty, " said Duthil, "that a pretty girl was in placeeverywhere. " And then as Silviane, as if flattered, pressed closelybeside him, the deputy added: "So that wonderful revival of 'Polyeucte, 'in which you are going to have such a triumph, is to take place on theday after to-morrow. We shall all go to applaud you, remember. "

"Yes, on the evening of the day after to-morrow, " said Silviane, "thevery same day when the wedding of the Baron's daughter will take place. There'll be plenty of emotion that day!"

"Ah! yes, of course!" retorted Duthil, "there'll be the wedding of ourfriend Gerard with Mademoiselle Camille to begin with. We shall have acrush at the Madeleine in the morning and another at the Comedie in theevening. You are quite right, too; there will be several hearts throbbingin the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. "

Thereupon they again became merry, and jested about the Duvillardfamily--father, mother, lover and daughter--with the greatest possibleferocity and crudity of language. Then, all at once Silviane exclaimed:"Do you know, I'm feeling awfully bored here, my little Duthil. I can'tdistinguish anything, and I should like to be quite near so as to see itall plainly. You must take me over yonder, close to that machine oftheirs. "

This request threw Duthil into consternation, particularly as at thatsame moment Silviane perceived Massot outside the wine shop, and begancalling and beckoning to him imperiously. A brief conversation thenensued between the young woman and the journalist: "I say, Massot!" shecalled, "hasn't a deputy the right to pass the guards and take a ladywherever he likes?"

"Not at all!" exclaimed Duthil. "Massot knows very well that a deputyought to be the very first to bow to the laws. "

This exclamation warned Massot that Duthil did not wish to leave thebalcony. "You ought to have secured a card of invitation, madame, " saidhe, in reply to Silviane. "They would then have found you room at one ofthe windows of La Petite Roquette. Women are not allowed elsewhere. . . . But you mustn't complain, you have a very good place up there. "

"But I can see nothing at all, my dear Massot. "

"Well, you will in any case see more than Princess de Harn will. Just nowI came upon her carriage in the Rue du Chemin Vert. The police would notallow it to come any nearer. "

This news made Silviane merry again, whilst Duthil shuddered at the ideaof the danger he incurred, for Rosemonde would assuredly treat him to aterrible scene should she see him with another woman. Then, an ideaoccurring to him, he ordered a bottle of champagne and some little cakesfor his "beautiful friend, " as he called Silviane. She had beencomplaining of thirst, and was delighted with the opportunity ofperfecting her intoxication. When a waiter had managed to place a littletable near her, on the balcony itself, she found things very pleasant, and indeed considered it quite brave to tipple and sup afresh, whilewaiting for that man to be guillotined close by. 

It was impossible for Pierre and Guillaume to remain up there any longer. All that they heard, all that they beheld filled them with disgust. Theboredom of waiting had turned all the inquisitive folks of the balconyand the adjoining room into customers. The waiter could hardly manage toserve the many glasses of beer, bottles of expensive wine, biscuits, andplates of cold meat which were ordered of him. And yet the spectatorshere were all /bourgeois/, rich gentlemen, people of society! On theother hand, time has to be killed somehow when it hangs heavily on one'shands; and thus there were bursts of laughter and paltry and horriblejests, quite a feverish uproar arising amidst the clouds of smoke fromthe men's cigars. When Pierre and Guillaume passed through the wine shopon the ground-floor they there found a similar crush and similar tumult, aggravated by the disorderly behaviour of the big fellows in blouses whowere drinking draught wine at the pewter bar which shone like silver. There were people, too, at all the little tables, besides an incessantcoming and going of folks who entered the place for a "wet, " by way ofcalming their impatience. And what folks they were! All the scum, all thevagabonds who had been dragging themselves about since daybreak on thelookout for whatever chance might offer them, provided it were not work!

On the pavement outside, Pierre and Guillaume felt yet a greaterheart-pang. In the throng which the guards kept back, one simply found somuch mire stirred up from the very depths of Paris life: prostitutes andcriminals, the murderers of to-morrow, who came to see how a man ought todie. Loathsome, bareheaded harlots mingled with bands of prowlers or ranthrough the crowd, howling obscene refrains. Bandits stood in groupschatting and quarrelling about the more or less glorious manner in whichcertain famous /guillotines/ had died. Among these was one with respectto whom they all agreed, and of whom they spoke as of a great captain, ahero whose marvellous courage was deserving of immortality. Then, as onepassed along, one caught snatches of horrible phrases, particulars aboutthe instrument of death, ignoble boasts, and filthy jests reeking withblood. And over and above all else there was bestial fever, a lust fordeath which made this multitude delirious, an eagerness to see life flowforth fresh and ruddy beneath the knife, so that as it coursed over thesoil they might dip their feet in it. As this execution was not anordinary one, however, there were yet spectators of another kind; silentmen with glowing eyes who came and went all alone, and who were plainlythrilled by their faith, intoxicated with the contagious madness whichincites one to vengeance or martyrdom. 

Guillaume was just thinking of Victor Mathis, when he fancied that he sawhim standing in the front row of sightseers whom the guards held incheck. It was indeed he, with his thin, beardless, pale, drawn face. Short as he was, he had to raise himself on tiptoes in order to seeanything. Near him was a big, red-haired girl who gesticulated; but forhis part he never stirred or spoke. He was waiting motionless, gazingyonder with the round, ardent, fixed eyes of a night-bird, seeking topenetrate the darkness. At last a guard pushed him back in a somewhatbrutal way; but he soon returned to his previous position, ever patientthough full of hatred against the executioners, wishing indeed to see allhe could in order to increase his hate. 

Then Massot approached the brothers. This time, on seeing Pierre withouthis cassock, he did not even make a sign of astonishment, but gailyremarked: "So you felt curious to see this affair, Monsieur Froment?"

"Yes, I came with my brother, " Pierre replied. "But I very much fear thatwe shan't see much. "

"You certainly won't if you stay here, " rejoined Massot. And thereupon inhis usual good-natured way--glad, moreover, to show what power awell-known journalist could wield--he inquired: "Would you like me topass you through? The inspector here happens to be a friend of mine. "

Then, without waiting for an answer, he stopped the inspector and hastilywhispered to him that he had brought a couple of colleagues, who wantedto report the proceedings. At first the inspector hesitated, and seemedinclined to refuse Massot's request; but after a moment, influenced bythe covert fear which the police always has of the press, he made a wearygesture of consent. 

"Come, quick, then, " said Massot, turning to the brothers, and takingthem along with him. 

A moment later, to the intense surprise of Pierre and Guillaume, theguards opened their ranks to let them pass. They then found themselves inthe large open space which was kept clear. And on thus emerging from thetumultuous throng they were quite impressed by the death-like silence andsolitude which reigned under the little plane-trees. The night was nowpaling. A faint gleam of dawn was already falling from the sky. 

After leading his companions slantwise across the square, Massot stoppedthem near the prison and resumed: "I'm going inside; I want to see theprisoner roused and got ready. In the meantime, walk about here; nobodywill say anything to you. Besides, I'll come back to you in a moment. "

A hundred people or so, journalists and other privileged spectators, werescattered about the dark square. Movable wooden barriers--such as are setup at the doors of theatres when there is a press of people waiting foradmission--had been placed on either side of the pavement running fromthe prison gate to the guillotine; and some sightseers were alreadyleaning over these barriers, in order to secure a close view of thecondemned man as he passed by. Others were walking slowly to and fro, andconversing in undertones. The brothers, for their part, approached theguillotine. 

It stood there under the branches of the trees, amidst the delicategreenery of the fresh leaves of spring. A neighbouring gas-lamp, whoselight was turning yellow in the rising dawn, cast vague gleams upon it. The work of fixing it in position--work performed as quietly as could be, so that the only sound was the occasional thud of a mallet--had just beenfinished; and the headsman's "valets" or assistants, in frock-coats andtall silk hats, were waiting and strolling about in a patient way. Butthe instrument itself, how base and shameful it looked, squatting on theground like some filthy beast, disgusted with the work it had toaccomplish! What! those few beams lying on the ground, and those othersbarely nine feet high which rose from it, keeping the knife in position, constituted the machine which avenged Society, the instrument which gavea warning to evil-doers! Where was the big scaffold painted a bright redand reached by a stairway of ten steps, the scaffold which raised highbloody arms over the eager multitude, so that everybody might behold thepunishment of the law in all its horror! The beast had now been felled tothe ground, where it simply looked ignoble, crafty and cowardly. If onthe one hand there was no majesty in the manner in which human justicecondemned a man to death at its assizes: on the other, there was merelyhorrid butchery with the help of the most barbarous and repulsive ofmechanical contrivances, on the terrible day when that man was executed. 

As Pierre and Guillaume gazed at the guillotine, a feeling of nausea cameover them. Daylight was now slowly breaking, and the surroundings wereappearing to view: first the square itself with its two low, greyprisons, facing one another; then the distant houses, the taverns, themarble workers' establishments, and the shops selling flowers andwreaths, which are numerous hereabouts, as the cemetery of Pere-Lachaiseis so near. Before long one could plainly distinguish the black lines ofthe spectators standing around in a circle, the heads leaning forwardfrom windows and balconies, and the people who had climbed to the veryhouse roofs. The prison of La Petite Roquette over the way had beenturned into a kind of tribune for guests; and mounted Gardes de Pariswent slowly to and fro across the intervening expanse. Then, as the skybrightened, labour awoke throughout the district beyond the crowd, adistrict of broad, endless streets lined with factories, work-shops andwork-yards. Engines began to snort, machinery and appliances were gotready to start once more on their usual tasks, and smoke already curledaway from the forest of lofty brick chimneys which, on all sides, sprangout of the gloom. 

It then seemed to Guillaume that the guillotine was really in its rightplace in that district of want and toil. It stood in its own realm, likea /terminus/ and a threat. Did not ignorance, poverty and woe lead to it?And each time that it was set up amidst those toilsome streets, was itnot charged to overawe the disinherited ones, the starvelings, who, exasperated by everlasting injustice, were always ready for revolt? Itwas not seen in the districts where wealth and enjoyment reigned. Itwould there have seemed purposeless, degrading and truly monstrous. Andit was a tragical and terrible coincidence that the bomb-thrower, drivenmad by want, should be guillotined there, in the very centre of want'sdominion. 

But daylight had come at last, for it was nearly half-past four. Thedistant noisy crowd could feel that the expected moment was drawing nigh. A shudder suddenly sped through the atmosphere. 

"He's coming, " exclaimed little Massot, as he came back to Pierre andGuillaume. "Ah! that Salvat is a brave fellow after all. "

Then he related how the prisoner had been awakened; how the governor ofthe prison, magistrate Amadieu, the chaplain, and a few other persons hadentered the cell where Salvat lay fast asleep; and then how the condemnedman had understood the truth immediately upon opening his eyes. He hadrisen, looking pale but quite composed. And he had dressed himselfwithout assistance, and had declined the nip of brandy and the cigaretteproffered by the good-hearted chaplain, in the same way as with a gentlebut stubborn gesture he had brushed the crucifix aside. Then had come the"toilette" for death. With all rapidity and without a word beingexchanged, Salvat's hands had been tied behind his back, his legs hadbeen loosely secured with a cord, and the neckband of his shirt had beencut away. He had smiled when the others exhorted him to be brave. He onlyfeared some nervous weakness, and had but one desire, to die like a hero, to remain the martyr of the ardent faith in truth and justice for whichhe was about to perish. 

"They are now drawing up the death certificate in the register, "continued Massot in his chattering way. "Come along, come along to thebarriers if you wish a good view. . . . I turned paler, you know, andtrembled far more than he did. I don't care a rap for anything as a rule;but, all the same, an execution isn't a pleasant business. . . . Youcan't imagine how many attempts were made to save Salvat's life. Evensome of the papers asked that he might be reprieved. But nothingsucceeded, the execution was regarded as inevitable, it seems, even bythose who consider it a blunder. Still, they had such a touchingopportunity to reprieve him, when his daughter, little Celine, wrote thatfine letter to the President of the Republic, which I was the first topublish in the 'Globe. ' Ah! that letter, it cost me a lot of runningabout!"

Pierre, who was already quite upset by this long wait for the horriblescene, felt moved to tears by Massot's reference to Celine. He couldagain see the child standing beside Madame Theodore in that bare, coldroom whither her father would never more return. It was thence that hehad set out on a day of desperation with his stomach empty and his brainon fire, and it was here that he would end, between yonder beams, beneathyonder knife. 

Massot, however, was still giving particulars. The doctors, said he, werefurious because they feared that the body would not be delivered to themimmediately after the execution. To this Guillaume did not listen. Hestood there with his elbows resting on the wooden barrier and his eyesfixed on the prison gate, which still remained shut. His hands werequivering, and there was an expression of anguish on his face as if itwere he himself who was about to be executed. The headsman had again justleft the prison. He was a little, insignificant-looking man, and seemedannoyed, anxious to have done with it all. Then, among a group offrock-coated gentlemen, some of the spectators pointed out Gascogne, theChief of the Detective Police, who wore a cold, official air, andAmadieu, the investigating magistrate, who smiled and looked very spruce, early though the hour was. He had come partly because it was his duty, and partly because he wished to show himself now that the curtain wasabout to fall on a wonderful tragedy of which he considered himself theauthor. Guillaume glanced at him, and then as a growing uproar rose fromthe distant crowd, he looked up for an instant, and again beheld the twogrey prisons, the plane-trees with their fresh young leaves, and thehouses swarming with people beneath the pale blue sky, in which thetriumphant sun was about to appear. 

"Look out, here he comes!"

Who had spoken? A slight noise, that of the opening gate, made everyheart throb. Necks were outstretched, eyes gazed fixedly, there waslaboured breathing on all sides. Salvat stood on the threshold of theprison. The chaplain, stepping backwards, had come out in advance of him, in order to conceal the guillotine from his sight, but he had stoppedshort, for he wished to see that instrument of death, make acquaintancewith it, as it were, before he walked towards it. And as he stood there, his long, aged sunken face, on which life's hardships had left theirmark, seemed transformed by the wondrous brilliancy of his flaring, dreamy eyes. Enthusiasm bore him up--he was going to his death in all thesplendour of his dream. When the executioner's assistants drew near tosupport him he once more refused their help, and again set himself inmotion, advancing with short steps, but as quickly and as straightly asthe rope hampering his legs permitted. 

All at once Guillaume felt that Salvat's eyes were fixed upon him. Drawing nearer and nearer the condemned man had perceived and recognisedhis friend; and as he passed by, at a distance of no more than six orseven feet, he smiled faintly and darted such a deep penetrating glanceat Guillaume, that ever afterwards the latter felt its smart. But whatlast thought, what supreme legacy had Salvat left him to meditate upon, perhaps to put into execution? It was all so poignant that Pierre fearedsome involuntary call on his brother's part; and so he laid his hand uponhis arm to quiet him. 

"Long live Anarchy!"

It was Salvat who had raised this cry. But in the deep silence his husky, altered voice seemed to break. The few who were near at hand had turnedvery pale; the distant crowd seemed bereft of life. The horse of one ofthe Gardes de Paris was alone heard snorting in the centre of the spacewhich had been kept clear. 

Then came a loathsome scramble, a scene of nameless brutality andignominy. The headsman's helps rushed upon Salvat as he came up slowlywith brow erect. Two of them seized him by the head, but finding littlehair there, could only lower it by tugging at his neck. Next two othersgrasped him by the legs and flung him violently upon a plank which tiltedover and rolled forward. Then, by dint of pushing and tugging, the headwas got into the "lunette, " the upper part of which fell in such wisethat the neck was fixed as in a ship's port-hole--and all this wasaccomplished amidst such confusion and with such savagery that one mighthave thought that head some cumbrous thing which it was necessary to getrid of with the greatest speed. But the knife fell with a dull, heavy, forcible thud, and two long jets of blood spurted from the severedarteries, while the dead man's feet moved convulsively. Nothing elsecould be seen. The executioner rubbed his hands in a mechanical way, andan assistant took the severed blood-streaming head from the little basketinto which it had fallen and placed it in the large basket into which thebody had already been turned. 

Ah! that dull, that heavy thud of the knife! It seemed to Guillaume thathe had heard it echoing far away all over that district of want and toil, even in the squalid rooms where thousands of workmen were at that momentrising to perform their day's hard task! And there the echo of that thudacquired formidable significance; it spoke of man's exasperation withinjustice, of zeal for martyrdom, and of the dolorous hope that the bloodthen spilt might hasten the victory of the disinherited. 

Pierre, for his part, at the sight of that loathsome butchery, the abjectcutthroat work of that killing machine, had suddenly felt his chillingshudder become more violent; for before him arose a vision of anothercorpse, that of the fair, pretty child ripped open by a bomb andstretched yonder, at the entrance of the Duvillard mansion. Bloodstreamed from her delicate flesh, just as it had streamed from thatdecapitated neck. It was blood paying for blood; it was like payment formankind's debt of wretchedness, for which payment is everlastingly beingmade, without man ever being able to free himself from suffering. 

Above the square and the crowd all was still silent in the clear sky. Howlong had the abomination lasted? An eternity, perhaps, compressed intotwo or three minutes. And now came an awakening: the spectators emergedfrom their nightmare with quivering hands, livid faces, and eyesexpressive of compassion, disgust and fear. 

"That makes another one. I've now seen four executions, " said Massot, whofelt ill at ease. "After all, I prefer to report weddings. Let us go off, I have all I want for my article. "

Guillaume and Pierre followed him mechanically across the square, andagain reached the corner of the Rue Merlin. And here they saw littleVictor Mathis, with flaming eyes and white face, still standing insilence on the spot where they had left him. He could have seen nothingdistinctly; but the thud of the knife was still echoing in his brain. Apoliceman at last gave him a push, and told him to move on. At this helooked the policeman in the face, stirred by sudden rage and ready tostrangle him. Then, however, he quietly walked away, ascending the Rue dela Roquette, atop of which the lofty foliage of Pere-Lachaise could beseen, beneath the rising sun. 

The brothers meantime fell upon a scene of explanations, which they heardwithout wishing to do so. Now that the sight was over, the Princess deHarn arrived, and she was the more furious as at the door of the wineshop she could see her new friend Duthil accompanying a woman. 

"I say!" she exclaimed, "you are nice, you are, to have left me in thelurch like this! It was impossible for my carriage to get near, so I'vehad to come on foot through all those horrid people who have beenjostling and insulting me. "

Thereupon Duthil, with all promptitude, introduced Silviane to her, adding, in an aside, that he had taken a friend's place as the actress'sescort. And then Rosemonde, who greatly wished to know Silviane, calmeddown as if by enchantment, and put on her most engaging ways. "It wouldhave delighted me, madame, " said she, "to have seen this sight in thecompany of an /artiste/ of your merit, one whom I admire so much, thoughI have never before had an opportunity of telling her so. "

"Well, dear me, madame, " replied Silviane, "you haven't lost much byarriving late. We were on that balcony there, and all that I could seewere a few men pushing another one about. . . . It really isn't worth thetrouble of coming. "

"Well, now that we have become acquainted, madame, " said the Princess, "Ireally hope that you will allow me to be your friend. "

"Certainly, madame, my friend; and I shall be flattered and delighted tobe yours. "

Standing there, hand in hand, they smiled at one another. Silviane wasvery drunk, but her virginal expression had returned to her face; whilstRosemonde seemed feverish with vicious curiosity. Duthil, whom the sceneamused, now had but one thought, that of seeing Silviane home; so callingto Massot, who was approaching, he asked him where he should find acab-rank. Rosemonde, however, at once offered her carriage, which waswaiting in an adjacent street. 

She would set the actress down at her door, said she, and the deputy athis; and such was her persistence in the matter that Duthil, greatlyvexed, was obliged to accept her offer. 

"Well, then, till to-morrow at the Madeleine, " said Massot, again quitesprightly, as he shook hands with the Princess. 

"Yes, till to-morrow, at the Madeleine and the Comedie. "

"Ah! yes, of course!" he repeated, taking Silviane's hand, which hekissed. "The Madeleine in the morning and the Comedie in the evening. . . . We shall all be there to applaud you. "

"Yes, I expect you to do so, " said Silviane. "Till to-morrow, then!"

"Till to-morrow!"

The crowd was now wearily dispersing, to all appearance disappointed andill at ease. A few enthusiasts alone lingered in order to witness thedeparture of the van in which Salvat's corpse would soon be removed;while bands of prowlers and harlots, looking very wan in the daylight, whistled or called to one another with some last filthy expression beforereturning to their dens. The headsman's assistants were hastily takingdown the guillotine, and the square would soon be quite clear. 

Pierre for his part wished to lead his brother away. Since the fall ofthe knife, Guillaume had remained as if stunned, without once opening hislips. In vain had Pierre tried to rouse him by pointing to the shuttersof Mege's flat, which still remained closed, whereas every other windowof the lofty house was wide open. Although the Socialist deputy hated theAnarchists, those shutters were doubtless closed as a protest againstcapital punishment. Whilst the multitude had been rushing to thatfrightful spectacle, Mege, still in bed, with his face turned to thewall, had probably been dreaming of how he would some day compel mankindto be happy beneath the rigid laws of Collectivism. Affectionate fatheras he was, the recent death of one of his children had quite upset hisprivate life. His cough, too, had become a very bad one; but he ardentlywished to live, for as soon as that new Monferrand ministry should havefallen beneath the interpellation which he already contemplated, his ownturn would surely come: he would take the reins of power in hand, abolishthe guillotine and decree justice and perfect felicity. 

"Do you see, Guillaume?" Pierre gently repeated. "Mege hasn't opened hiswindows. He's a good fellow, after all; although our friends Bache andMorin dislike him. " Then, as his brother still refrained from answering, Pierre added, "Come, let us go, we must get back home. "

They both turned into the Rue de la Folie Regnault, and reached the outerBoulevards by way of the Rue du Chemin Vert. All the toilers of thedistrict were now at work. In the long streets edged with low buildings, work-shops and factories, one heard engines snorting and machineryrumbling, while up above, the smoke from the lofty chimneys was assuminga rosy hue in the sunrise. Afterwards, when the brothers reached theBoulevard de Menilmontant and the Boulevard de Belleville, which theyfollowed in turn at a leisurely pace, they witnessed the great rush ofthe working classes into central Paris. The stream poured forth fromevery side; from all the wretched streets of the faubourgs there was anendless exodus of toilers, who, having risen at dawn, were now hurrying, in the sharp morning air, to their daily labour. Some wore short jacketsand others blouses; some were in velveteen trousers, others in linenoveralls. Their thick shoes made their tramp a heavy one; their hanginghands were often deformed by work. And they seemed half asleep, not asmile was to be seen on any of those wan, weary faces turned yondertowards the everlasting task--the task which was begun afresh each day, and which--'twas their only chance--they hoped to be able to take up forever and ever. There was no end to that drove of toilers, that army ofvarious callings, that human flesh fated to manual labour, upon whichParis preys in order that she may live in luxury and enjoyment. 

Then the procession continued across the Boulevard de la Villette, theBoulevard de la Chapelle, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart, where onereached the height of Montmartre. More and more workmen were ever comingdown from their bare cold rooms and plunging into the huge city, whence, tired out, they would that evening merely bring back the bread ofrancour. And now, too, came a stream of work-girls, some of them inbright skirts, some glancing at the passers-by; girls whose wages were sopaltry, so insufficient, that now and again pretty ones among them nevermore turned their faces homewards, whilst the ugly ones wasted away, condemned to mere bread and water. A little later, moreover, came the/employes/, the clerks, the counter-jumpers, the whole world offrock-coated penury--"gentlemen" who devoured a roll as they hastenedonward, worried the while by the dread of being unable to pay their rent, or by the problem of providing food for wife and children until the endof the month should come. * And now the sun was fast ascending on thehorizon, the whole army of ants was out and about, and the toilsome dayhad begun with its ceaseless display of courage, energy and suffering. 

 * In Paris nearly all clerks and shop-assistants receive monthly salaries, while most workmen are paid once a fortnight. --Trans. 

Never before had it been so plainly manifest to Pierre that work was anecessity, that it healed and saved. On the occasion of his visit to theGrandidier works, and later still, when he himself had felt the need ofoccupation, there had cone to him the thought that work was really theworld's law. And after that hateful night, after that spilling of blood, after the slaughter of that toiler maddened by his dreams, there wasconsolation and hope in seeing the sun rise once more, and everlastinglabour take up its wonted task. However hard it might prove, howeverunjustly it might be lotted out, was it not work which would some daybring both justice and happiness to the world?

All at once, as the brothers were climbing the steep hillside towardsGuillaume's house, they perceived before and above them the basilica ofthe Sacred Heart rising majestically and triumphantly to the sky. Thiswas no sublunar apparition, no dreamy vision of Domination standing faceto face with nocturnal Paris. The sun now clothed the edifice withsplendour, it looked golden and proud and victorious, flaring withimmortal glory. 

Then Guillaume, still silent, still feeling Salvat's last glance uponhim, seemed to come to some sudden and final decision. He looked at thebasilica with glowing eyes, and pronounced sentence upon it. 

II

IN VANITY FAIR

THE wedding was to take place at noon, and for half an hour alreadyguests had been pouring into the magnificently decorated church, whichwas leafy with evergreens and balmy with the scent of flowers. The highaltar in the rear glowed with countless candles, and through the greatdoorway, which was wide open, one could see the peristyle decked withshrubs, the steps covered with a broad carpet, and the inquisitive crowdassembled on the square and even along the Rue Royale, under the brightsun. 

After finding three more chairs for some ladies who had arrived ratherlate, Duthil remarked to Massot, who was jotting down names in hisnote-book: "Well, if any more come, they will have to remain standing. "

"Who were those three?" the journalist inquired. 

"The Duchess de Boisemont and her two daughters. "

"Indeed! All the titled people of France, as well as all the financiersand politicians, are here! It's something more even than a swell Parisianwedding. "

As a matter of fact all the spheres of "society" were gathered togetherthere, and some at first seemed rather embarrassed at finding themselvesbeside others. Whilst Duvillard's name attracted all the princes offinance and politicians in power, Madame de Quinsac and her son weresupported by the highest of the French aristocracy. The mere names of thewitnesses sufficed to indicate what an extraordinary medley there was. OnGerard's side these witnesses were his uncle, General de Bozonnet, andthe Marquis de Morigny; whilst on Camille's they were the great bankerLouvard, and Monferrand, the President of the Council and Minister ofFinances. The quiet bravado which the latter displayed in thus supportingthe bride after being compromised in her father's financial intriguesimparted a piquant touch of impudence to his triumph. And publiccuriosity was further stimulated by the circumstance that the nuptialblessing was to be given by Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis, thePope's political agent in France, and the apostle of the endeavours towin the Republic over to the Church by pretending to "rally" to it. 

"But, I was mistaken, " now resumed Massot with a sneer. "I said a reallyParisian wedding, did I not? But in point of fact this wedding is asymbol. It's the apotheosis of the /bourgeoisie/, my dear fellow--the oldnobility sacrificing one of its sons on the altar of the golden calf inorder that the Divinity and the gendarmes, being the masters of Franceonce more, may rid us of those scoundrelly Socialists!"

Then, again correcting himself, he added: "But I was forgetting. Thereare no more Socialists. Their head was cut off the other morning. "

Duthil found this very funny. Then in a confidential way he remarked:"You know that the marriage wasn't settled without a good deal ofdifficulty. . . . Have you read Sagnier's ignoble article this morning?"

"Yes, yes; but I knew it all before, everybody knew it. "

Then in an undertone, understanding one another's slightest allusion, they went on chatting. It was only amidst a flood of tears and after adespairing struggle that Baroness Duvillard had consented to let herlover marry her daughter. And in doing so she had yielded to the soledesire of seeing Gerard rich and happy. She still regarded Camille withall the hatred of a defeated rival. Then, an equally painful contest hadtaken place at Madame de Quinsac's. The Countess had only overcome herrevolt and consented to the marriage in order to save her son from thedangers which had threatened him since childhood; and the Marquis deMorigny had been so affected by her maternal abnegation, that in spite ofall his anger he had resignedly agreed to be a witness, thus making asupreme sacrifice, that of his conscience, to the woman whom he had everloved. And it was this frightful story that Sagnier--using transparentnicknames--had related in the "Voix du Peuple" that morning. He had evencontrived to make it more horrid than it really was; for, as usual, hewas badly informed, and he was naturally inclined to falsehood andinvention, as by sending an ever thicker and more poisonous torrent fromhis sewer, he might, day by day, increase his paper's sales. SinceMonferrand's victory had compelled him to leave the African Railwaysscandal on one side, he had fallen back on scandals in private life, stripping whole families bare and pelting them with mud. 

All at once Duthil and Massot were approached by Chaigneux, who, with hisshabby frock coat badly buttoned, wore both a melancholy and busy air. "Well, Monsieur Massot, " said he, "what about your article on Silviane?Is it settled? Will it go in?"

As Chaigneux was always for sale, always ready to serve as a valet, ithad occurred to Duvillard to make use of him to ensure Silviane's successat the Comedie. He had handed this sorry deputy over to the young woman, who entrusted him with all manner of dirty work, and sent him scouringParis in search of applauders and advertisements. His eldest daughter wasnot yet married, and never had his four women folk weighed more heavilyon his hands. His life had become a perfect hell; they had ended bybeating him, if he did not bring a thousand-franc note home on the firstday of every month. 

"My article!" Massot replied; "no, it surely won't go in, my dear deputy. Fonsegue says that it's written in too laudatory a style for the 'Globe. 'He asked me if I were having a joke with the paper. "

Chaigneux became livid. The article in question was one written inadvance, from the society point of view, on the success which Silvianewould achieve in "Polyeucte, " that evening, at the Comedie. Thejournalist, in the hope of pleasing her, had even shown her his "copy";and she, quite delighted, now relied upon finding the article in print inthe most sober and solemn organ of the Parisian press. 

"Good heavens! what will become of us?" murmured the wretched Chaigneux. "It's absolutely necessary that the article should go in. "

"Well, I'm quite agreeable. But speak to the governor yourself. He'sstanding yonder between Vignon and Dauvergne, the Minister of PublicInstruction. "

"Yes, I certainly will speak to him--but not here. By-and-by in thesacristy, during the procession. And I must also try to speak toDauvergne, for our Silviane particularly wants him to be in theministerial box this evening. Monferrand will be there; he promisedDuvillard so. "

Massot began to laugh, repeating the expression which had circulatedthrough Paris directly after the actress's engagement: "The Silvianeministry. . . . Well, Dauvergne certainly owes that much to hisgodmother!" said he. 

Just then the little Princess de Harn, coming up like a gust of wind, broke in upon the three men. "I've no seat, you know!" she cried. 

Duthil fancied that it was a question of finding her a well-placed chairin the church. "You mustn't count on me, " he answered. "I've just had noend of trouble in stowing the Duchess de Boisemont away with her twodaughters. "

"Oh, but I'm talking of this evening's performance. Come, my dear Duthil, you really must find me a little corner in somebody's box. I shall die, Iknow I shall, if I can't applaud our delicious, our incomparable friend!"

Ever since setting Silviane down at her door on the previous day, Rosemonde had been overflowing with admiration for her. 

"Oh! you won't find a single remaining seat, madame, " declared Chaigneux, putting on an air of importance. "We have distributed everything. I havejust been offered three hundred francs for a stall. "

"That's true, there has been a fight even for the bracket seats, howeverbadly they might be placed, " Duthil resumed. "I am very sorry, but youmust not count on me. . . . Duvillard is the only person who might takeyou in his box. He told me that he would reserve me a seat there. And sofar, I think, there are only three of us, including his son. . . . AskHyacinthe by-and-by to procure you an invitation. "

Rosemonde, whom Hyacinthe had so greatly bored that she had given him hisdismissal, felt the irony of Duthil's suggestion. Nevertheless, sheexclaimed with an air of delight: "Ah, yes! Hyacinthe can't refuse methat. Thanks for your information, my dear Duthil. You are very nice, youare; for you settle things gaily even when they are rather sad. . . . Anddon't forget, mind, that you have promised to teach me politics. Ah!politics, my dear fellow, I feel that nothing will ever impassion me aspolitics do!"

Then she left them, hustled several people, and in spite of the crushended by installing herself in the front row. 

"Ah! what a crank she is!" muttered Massot with an air of amusement. 

Then, as Chaigneux darted towards magistrate Amadieu to ask him in themost obsequious way if he had received his ticket, the journalist said toDuthil in a whisper: "By the way, my dear friend, is it true thatDuvillard is going to launch his famous scheme for a Trans-Saharanrailway? It would be a gigantic enterprise, a question of hundreds andhundreds of millions this time. . . . At the 'Globe' office yesterdayevening, Fonsegue shrugged his shoulders and said it was madness, andwould never come off!"

Duthil winked, and in a jesting way replied: "It's as good as done, mydear boy. Fonsegue will be kissing the governor's feet before anotherforty-eight hours are over. "

Then he gaily gave the other to understand that golden manna wouldpresently be raining down on the press and all faithful friends andwilling helpers. Birds shake their feathers when the storm is over, andhe, Duthil, was as spruce and lively, as joyous at the prospect of thepresents he now expected, as if there had never been any African Railwaysscandal to upset him and make him turn pale with fright. 

"The deuce!" muttered Massot, who had become serious. "So this affairhere is more than a triumph: it's the promise of yet another harvest. Well, I'm no longer surprised at the crush of people. "

At this moment the organs suddenly burst into a glorious hymn ofgreeting. The marriage procession was entering the church. A loud clamourhad gone up from the crowd, which spread over the roadway of the RueRoyale and impeded the traffic there, while the /cortege/ pompouslyascended the steps in the bright sunshine. And it was now entering theedifice and advancing beneath the lofty, re-echoing vaults towards thehigh altar which flared with candles, whilst on either hand crowded thecongregation, the men on the right and the women on the left. They hadall risen and stood there smiling, with necks outstretched and eyesglowing with curiosity. 

First, in the rear of the magnificent beadle, came Camille, leaning onthe arm of her father, Baron Duvillard, who wore a proud expressionbefitting a day of victory. Veiled with superb /point d'Alencon/ fallingfrom her diadem of orange blossom, gowned in pleated silk muslin over anunderskirt of white satin, the bride looked so extremely happy, soradiant at having conquered, that she seemed almost pretty. Moreover, sheheld herself so upright that one could scarcely detect that her leftshoulder was higher than her right. 

Next came Gerard, giving his arm to his mother, the Countess deQuinsac, --he looking very handsome and courtly, as was proper, and shedisplaying impassive dignity in her gown of peacock-blue silk embroideredwith gold and steel beads. But it was particularly Eve whom people wishedto see, and every neck was craned forward when she appeared on the arm ofGeneral Bozonnet, the bridegroom's first witness and nearest malerelative. She was gowned in "old rose" taffetas trimmed with Valenciennesof priceless value, and never had she looked younger, more deliciouslyfair. Yet her eyes betrayed her emotion, though she strove to smile; andher languid grace bespoke her widowhood, her compassionate surrender ofthe man she loved. Monferrand, the Marquis de Morigny, and bankerLouvard, the three other witnesses, followed the Baroness and GeneralBozonnet, each giving his arm to some lady of the family. A considerablesensation was caused by the appearance of Monferrand, who seemed onfirst-rate terms with himself, and jested familiarly with the lady heaccompanied, a little brunette with a giddy air. Another who was noticedin the solemn, interminable procession was the bride's eccentric brotherHyacinthe, whose dress coat was of a cut never previously seen, with itstails broadly and symmetrically pleated. 

When the affianced pair had taken their places before the prayer-stoolsawaiting them, and the members of both families and the witnesses hadinstalled themselves in the rear in large armchairs, all gilding and redvelvet, the ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp. The cure ofthe Madeleine officiated in person; and vocalists from the Grand Operareinforced the choir, which chanted the high mass to the accompaniment ofthe organs, whence came a continuous hymn of glory. All possible luxuryand magnificence were displayed, as if to turn this wedding into somepublic festivity, a great victory, an event marking the apogee of aclass. Even the impudent bravado attaching to the loathsome private dramawhich lay behind it all, and which was known to everybody, added a touchof abominable grandeur to the ceremony. But the truculent spirit ofsuperiority and domination which characterised the proceedings becamemost manifest when Monseigneur Martha appeared in surplice and stole topronounce the blessing. Tall of stature, fresh of face, and faintlysmiling, he had his wonted air of amiable sovereignty, and it was withaugust unction that he pronounced the sacramental words, like somepontiff well pleased at reconciling the two great empires whose heirs heunited. His address to the newly married couple was awaited withcuriosity. It proved really marvellous, he himself triumphed in it. Wasit not in that same church that he had baptised the bride's mother, thatblond Eve, who was still so beautiful, that Jewess whom he himself hadconverted to the Catholic faith amidst the tears of emotion shed by allParis society? Was it not there also that he had delivered his threefamous addresses on the New Spirit, whence dated, to his thinking, therout of science, the awakening of Christian spirituality, and that policyof rallying to the Republic which was to lead to its conquest?

So it was assuredly allowable for him to indulge in some delicateallusions, by way of congratulating himself on his work, now that he wasmarrying a poor scion of the old aristocracy to the five millions of that/bourgeoise/ heiress, in whose person triumphed the class which had wonthe victory in 1789, and was now master of the land. The fourth estate, the duped, robbed people, alone had no place in those festivities. But byuniting the affianced pair before him in the bonds of wedlock, Monseigneur Martha sealed the new alliance, gave effect to the Pope's ownpolicy, that stealthy effort of Jesuitical Opportunism which would takedemocracy, power and wealth to wife, in order to subdue and control them. When the prelate reached his peroration he turned towards Monferrand, whosat there smiling; and it was he, the Minister, whom he seemed to beaddressing while he expressed the hope that the newly married pair wouldever lead a truly Christian life of humility and obedience in all fear ofGod, of whose iron hand he spoke as if it were that of some gendarmecharged with maintaining the peace of the world. Everybody was aware thatthere was some diplomatic understanding between the Bishop and theMinister, some secret pact or other whereby both satisfied their passionfor authority, their craving to insinuate themselves into everything andreign supreme; and thus when the spectators saw Monferrand smiling in hissomewhat sly, jovial way, they also exchanged smiles. 

"Ah!" muttered Massot, who had remained near Duthil, "how amused oldJustus Steinberger would be, if he were here to see his granddaughtermarrying the last of the Quinsacs!"

"But these marriages are quite the thing, quite the fashion, my dearfellow, " the deputy replied. "The Jews and the Christians, the/bourgeois/ and the nobles, do quite right to come to an understanding, so as to found a new aristocracy. An aristocracy is needed, you know, forotherwise we should be swept away by the masses. "

None the less Massot continued sneering at the idea of what a grimaceJustus Steinberger would have made if he had heard Monseigneur Martha. Itwas rumoured in Paris that although the old Jew banker had ceased allintercourse with his daughter Eve since her conversion, he took a keeninterest in everything she was reported to do or say, as if he were morethan ever convinced that she would prove an avenging and dissolving agentamong those Christians, whose destruction was asserted to be the dream ofhis race. If he had failed in his hope of overcoming Duvillard by givingher to him as a wife, he doubtless now consoled himself with thinking ofthe extraordinary fortune to which his blood had attained, by minglingwith that of the harsh, old-time masters of his race, to whose corruptionit gave a finishing touch. Therein perhaps lay that final Jewish conquestof the world of which people sometimes talked. 

A last triumphal strain from the organ brought the ceremony to an end;whereupon the two families and the witnesses passed into the sacristy, where the acts were signed. And forthwith the great congratulatoryprocession commenced. 

The bride and bridegroom at last stood side by side in the lofty butrather dim room, panelled with oak. How radiant with delight was Camilleat the thought that it was all over, that she had triumphed and marriedthat handsome man of high lineage, after wresting him with so muchdifficulty from one and all, her mother especially! She seemed to havegrown taller. Deformed, swarthy, and ugly though she was, she drewherself up exultingly, whilst scores and scores of women, friends oracquaintances, scrambled and rushed upon her, pressing her hands orkissing her, and addressing her in words of ecstasy. Gerard, who roseboth head and shoulders above his bride, and looked all the nobler andstronger beside one of such puny figure, shook hands and smiled like somePrince Charming, who good-naturedly allowed himself to be loved. Meanwhile, the relatives of the newly wedded pair, though they were drawnup in one line, formed two distinct groups past which the crowd pushedand surged with arms outstretched. Duvillard received the congratulationsoffered him as if he were some king well pleased with his people; whilstEve, with a supreme effort, put on an enchanting mien, and answered oneand all with scarcely a sign of the sobs which she was forcing back. Then, on the other side of the bridal pair, Madame de Quinsac stoodbetween General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny. Very dignified, in fact almost haughty, she acknowledged most of the salutationsaddressed to her with a mere nod, giving her little withered hand only tothose people with whom she was well acquainted. A sea of strangecountenances encompassed her, and now and again when some particularlymurky wave rolled by, a wave of men whose faces bespoke all the crimes ofmoney-mongering, she and the Marquis exchanged glances of deep sadness. This tide continued sweeping by for nearly half an hour; and such was thenumber of those who wanted to shake hands with the bridal pair and theirrelatives, that the latter soon felt their arms ache. 

Meantime, some folks lingered in the sacristy; little groups collected, and gay chatter rang out. Monferrand was immediately surrounded. Massotpointed out to Duthil how eagerly Public Prosecutor Lehmann rushed uponthe Minister to pay him court. They were immediately joined byinvestigating magistrate Amadieu. And even M. De Larombiere, the judge, approached Monferrand, although he hated the Republic, and was anintimate friend of the Quinsacs. But then obedience and obsequiousnesswere necessary on the part of the magistracy, for it was dependent onthose in power, who alone could give advancement, and appoint even asthey dismissed. As for Lehmann, it was alleged that he had renderedassistance to Monferrand by spiriting away certain documents connectedwith the African Railways affair, whilst with regard to the smiling andextremely Parisian Amadieu, was it not to him that the government wasindebted for Salvat's head?

"You know, " muttered Massot, "they've all come to be thanked forguillotining that man yesterday. Monferrand owes that wretched fellow afine taper; for in the first place his bomb prolonged the life of theBarroux ministry, and later on it made Monferrand prime minister, as astrong-handed man was particularly needed to strangle Anarchism. What acontest, eh? Monferrand on one side and Salvat on the other. It was allbound to end in a head being cut off; one was wanted. . . . Ah! justlisten, they are talking of it. "

This was true. As the three functionaries of the law drew near to paytheir respects to the all-powerful Minister, they were questioned by ladyfriends whose curiosity had been roused by what they had read in thenewspapers. Thereupon Amadieu, whom duty had taken to the execution, andwho was proud of his own importance, and determined to destroy what hecalled "the legend of Salvat's heroic death, " declared that the scoundrelhad shown no true courage at all. His pride alone had kept him on hisfeet. Fright had so shaken and choked him that he had virtually been deadbefore the fall of the knife. 

"Ah! that's true!" cried Duthil. "I was there myself. "

Massot, however, pulled him by the arm, quite indignant at such anassertion, although as a rule he cared a rap for nothing. "You couldn'tsee anything, my dear fellow, " said he; "Salvat died very bravely. It'sreally stupid to continue throwing mud at that poor devil even when he'sdead. "

However, the idea that Salvat had died like a coward was too pleasing aone to be rejected. It was, so to say, a last sacrifice deposited atMonferrand's feet with the object of propitiating him. He still smiled inhis peaceful way, like a good-natured man who is stern only whennecessity requires it. And he showed great amiability towards the threejudicial functionaries, and thanked them for the bravery with which theyhad accomplished their painful duty to the very end. On the previous day, after the execution, he had obtained a formidable majority in the Chamberon a somewhat delicate matter of policy. Order reigned, said he, and allwas for the very best in France. Then, on seeing Vignon--who like a coolgamester had made a point of attending the wedding in order to showpeople that he was superior to fortune--the Minister detained him, andmade much of him, partly as a matter of tactics, for in spite ofeverything he could not help fearing that the future might belong to thatyoung fellow, who showed himself so intelligent and cautious. When amutual friend informed them that Barroux' health was now so bad that thedoctors had given him up as lost, they both began to express theircompassion. Poor Barroux! He had never recovered from that vote of theChamber which had overthrown him. He had been sinking from day to day, stricken to the heart by his country's ingratitude, dying of thatabominable charge of money-mongering and thieving; he who was so uprightand so loyal, who had devoted his whole life to the Republic! But then, as Monferrand repeated, one should never confess. The public can'tunderstand such a thing. 

At this moment Duvillard, in some degree relinquishing his paternalduties, came to join the others, and the Minister then had to share thehonours of triumph with him. For was not this banker the master? Was henot money personified--money, which is the only stable, everlastingforce, far above all ephemeral tenure of power, such as attaches to thoseministerial portfolios which pass so rapidly from hand to hand?Monferrand reigned, but he would pass away, and a like fate would someday fall on Vignon, who had already had a warning that one could notgovern unless the millions of the financial world were on one's side. Sowas not the only real triumpher himself, the Baron--he who laid out fivemillions of francs on buying a scion of the aristocracy for his daughter, he who was the personification of the sovereign /bourgeoisie/, whocontrolled public fortune, and was determined to part with nothing, evenwere he attacked with bombs? All these festivities really centred inhimself, he alone sat down to the banquet, leaving merely the crumbs fromhis table to the lowly, those wretched toilers who had been so cleverlyduped at the time of the Revolution. 

That African Railways affair was already but so much ancient history, buried, spirited away by a parliamentary commission. All who had beencompromised in it, the Duthils, the Chaigneux, the Fonsegues and others, could now laugh merrily. They had been delivered from their nightmare byMonferrand's strong fist, and raised by Duvillard's triumph. EvenSagnier's ignoble article and miry revelations in the "Voix du Peuple"were of no real account, and could be treated with a shrug of theshoulders, for the public had been so saturated with denunciation andslander that it was now utterly weary of all noisy scandal. The onlything which aroused interest was the rumour that Duvillard's big affairof the Trans-Saharan Railway was soon to be launched, that millions ofmoney would be handled, and that some of them would rain down uponfaithful friends. 

Whilst Duvillard was conversing in a friendly way with Monferrand andDauvergne, the Minister of Public Instruction, who had joined them, Massot encountered Fonsegue, his editor, and said to him in an undertone:"Duthil has just assured me that the Trans-Saharan business is ready, andthat they mean to chance it with the Chamber. They declare that they arecertain of success. "

Fonsegue, however, was sceptical on the point. "It's impossible, " saidhe; "they won't dare to begin again so soon. "

Although he spoke in this fashion, the news had made him grave. He hadlately had such a terrible fright through his imprudence in the AfricanRailways affair, that he had vowed he would take every precaution infuture. Still, this did not mean that he would refuse to participate inmatters of business. The best course was to wait and study them, and thensecure a share in all that seemed profitable. In the present instance hefelt somewhat worried. However, whilst he stood there watching the grouparound Duvillard and the two ministers, he suddenly perceived Chaigneux, who, flitting hither and thither, was still beating up applauders forthat evening's performance. He sang Silviane's praises in every key, predicted a most tremendous success, and did his very best to stimulatecuriosity. At last he approached Dauvergne, and with his long figure bentdouble exclaimed: "My dear Minister, I have a particular request to maketo you on the part of a very charming person, whose victory will not becomplete this evening if you do not condescend to favour her with yourvote. "

Dauvergne, a tall, fair, good-looking man, whose blue eyes smiled behindhis glasses, listened to Chaigneux with an affable air. He was proving agreat success at the Ministry of Public Instruction, although he knewnothing of University matters. However, like a real Parisian of Dijon, aspeople called him, he was possessed of some tact and skill, gaveentertainments at which his young and charming wife outshone all others, and passed as being quite an enlightened friend of writers and artists. Silviane's engagement at the Comedie, which so far was his most notableachievement, and which would have shaken the position of any otherminister, had by a curious chance rendered him popular. It was regardedas something original and amusing. 

On understanding that Chaigneux simply wished to make sure of hispresence at the Comedie that evening, he became yet more affable. "Why, certainly, I shall be there, my dear deputy, " he replied. "When one hassuch a charming god-daughter one mustn't forsake her in a moment ofdanger. "

At this Monferrand, who had been lending ear, turned round. "And tellher, " said he, "that I shall be there, too. She may therefore rely onhaving two more friends in the house. "

Thereupon Duvillard, quite enraptured, his eyes glistening with emotionand gratitude, bowed to the two ministers as if they had granted him somenever-to-be-forgotten favour. 

When Chaigneux, on his side also, had returned thanks with a low bow, hehappened to perceive Fonsegue, and forthwith he darted towards him andled him aside. "Ah! my dear colleague, " he declared, "it is absolutelynecessary that this matter should be settled. I regard it as of supremeimportance. "

"What are you speaking of?" inquired Fonsegue, much surprised. 

"Why, of Massot's article, which you won't insert. "

Thereupon, the director of the "Globe" plumply declared that he could notinsert the article. He talked of his paper's dignity and gravity; anddeclared that the lavishing of such fulsome praise upon a hussy--yes, amere hussy, in a journal whose exemplary morality and austerity had costhim so much labour, would seem monstrous and degrading. Personally, hedid not care a fig about it if Silviane chose to make an exhibition ofherself, well, he would be there to see; but the "Globe" was sacred. 

Disconcerted and almost tearful, Chaigneux nevertheless renewed hisattempt. "Come, my dear colleague, " said he, "pray make a little effortfor my sake. If the article isn't inserted, Duvillard will think that itis my fault. And you know that I really need his help. My eldestdaughter's marriage has again been postponed, and I hardly know where toturn. " Then perceiving that his own misfortunes in no wise touchedFonsegue, he added: "And do it for your own sake, my dear colleague, yourown sake. For when all is said Duvillard knows what is in the article, and it is precisely because it is so favourable a one that he wishes tosee it in the 'Globe. ' Think it over; if the article isn't published, hewill certainly turn his back on you. "

For a moment Fonsegue remained silent. Was he thinking of the colossalTrans-Saharan enterprise? Was he reflecting that it would be hard toquarrel at such a moment and miss his own share in the comingdistribution of millions among faithful friends? Perhaps so; however, theidea that it would be more prudent to await developments gained the daywith him. "No, no, " he said, "I can't, it's a matter of conscience. "

In the mean time congratulations were still being tendered to the newlywedded couple. It seemed as if all Paris were passing through thesacristy; there were ever the same smiles and the same hand shakes. Gerard, Camille and their relatives, however weary they might feel, wereforced to retain an air of delight while they stood there against thewall, pent up by the crowd. The heat was now becoming unbearable, and acloud of dust arose as when some big flock goes by. 

All at once little Princess de Harn, who had hitherto lingered nobodyknew where, sprang out of the throng, flung her arms around Camille, kissed even Eve, and then kept Gerard's hand in her own while paying himextraordinary compliments. Then, on perceiving Hyacinthe, she tookpossession of him and carried him off into a corner. "I say, " sheexclaimed, "I have a favour to ask you. "

The young man was wonderfully silent that day. His sister's weddingseemed to him a contemptible ceremony, the most vulgar that one couldimagine. So here, thought he, was another pair accepting the horridsexual law by which the absurdity of the world was perpetuated! For hispart, he had decided that he would witness the proceedings in rigidsilence, with a haughty air of disapproval. When Rosemonde spoke to him, he looked at her rather nervously, for he was glad that she had forsakenhim for Duthil, and feared some fresh caprice on her part. At last, opening his mouth for the first time that day, he replied: "Oh, as afriend, you know, I will grant you whatever favour you like. "

Forthwith the Princess explained that she would surely die if she did notwitness the /debut/ of her dear friend Silviane, of whom she had becomesuch a passionate admirer. So she begged the young man to prevail on hisfather to give her a seat in his box, as she knew that one was leftthere. 

Hyacinthe smiled. "Oh, willingly, my dear, " said he; "I'll warn papa, there will be a seat for you. "

Then, as the procession of guests at last drew to an end and the vestrybegan to empty, the bridal pair and their relatives were able to go offthrough the chattering throng, which still lingered about to bow to themand scrutinise them once more. 

Gerard and Camille were to leave for an estate which Duvillard possessedin Normandy, directly after lunch. This repast, served at the princelymansion of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, provided an opportunity for freshdisplay. The dining-room on the first floor had been transformed into abuffet, where reigned the greatest abundance and the most wonderfulsumptuousness. Quite a reception too was held in the drawing-rooms, thelarge red /salon/, the little blue and silver /salon/ and all the others, whose doors stood wide open. Although it had been arranged that onlyfamily friends should be invited, there were quite three hundred peoplepresent. The ministers had excused themselves, alleging that the weightycares of public business required their presence elsewhere. But themagistrates, the deputies and the leading journalists who had attendedthe wedding were again assembled together. And in that throng of hungryfolks, longing for some of the spoils of Duvillard's new venture, thepeople who felt most out of their element were Madame de Quinsac's fewguests, whom General de Bozonnet and the Marquis de Morigny had seated ona sofa in the large red /salon/, which they did not quit. 

Eve, who for her part felt quite overcome, both her moral and physicalstrength being exhausted, had seated herself in the little blue andsilver drawing-room, which, with her passion for flowers, she hadtransformed into an arbour of roses. She would have fallen had sheremained standing, the very floor had seemed to sink beneath her feet. Nevertheless, whenever a guest approached her she managed to force asmile, and appear beautiful and charming. Unlooked-for help at last cameto her in the person of Monseigneur Martha, who had graciously honouredthe lunch with his presence. He took an armchair near her, and began totalk to her in his amiable, caressing way. He was doubtless well aware ofthe frightful anguish which wrung the poor woman's heart, for he showedhimself quite fatherly, eager to comfort her. She, however, talked onlike some inconsolable widow bent on renouncing the world for God, whoalone could bring her peace. Then, as the conversation turned on theAsylum for the Invalids of Labour, she declared that she was resolved totake her presidency very seriously, and, in fact, would exclusivelydevote herself to it, in the future. 

"And as we are speaking of this, Monseigneur, " said she, "I would evenask you to give me some advice. . . . I shall need somebody to help me, and I thought of securing the services of a priest whom I much admire, Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment. "

At this the Bishop became grave and embarrassed; but Princess Rosemonde, who was passing by with Duthil, had overheard the Baroness, and drawingnear with her wonted impetuosity, she exclaimed: "Abbe Pierre Froment!Oh! I forgot to tell you, my dear, that I met him going about in jacketand trousers! And I've been told too that he cycles in the Bois with somecreature or other. Isn't it true, Duthil, that we met him?"

The deputy bowed and smiled, whilst Eve clasped her hands in amazement. "Is it possible! A priest who was all charitable fervour, who had thefaith and passion of an apostle!"

Thereupon Monseigneur intervened: "Yes, yes, great sorrows occasionallyfall upon the Church. I heard of the madness of the unhappy man you speakof. I even thought it my duty to write to him, but he left my letterunanswered. I should so much have liked to stifle such a scandal! Butthere are abominable forces which we cannot always overcome; and so a dayor two ago the archbishop was obliged to put him under interdict. . . . You must choose somebody else, madame. "

It was quite a disaster. Eve gazed at Rosemonde and Duthil, withoutdaring to ask them for particulars, but wondering what creature couldhave been so audacious as to turn a priest from the path of duty. Shemust assuredly be some shameless demented woman! And it seemed to Eve asif this crime gave a finishing touch to her own misfortune. With a waveof the arm, which took in all the luxury around her, the roses steepingher in perfume, and the crush of guests around the buffet, she murmured:"Ah! decidedly there's nothing but corruption left; one can no longerrely on anybody!"

Whilst this was going on, Camille happened to be alone in her own roomgetting ready to leave the house with Gerard. And all at once her brotherHyacinthe joined her there. "Ah! it's you, youngster!" she exclaimed. "Well, make haste if you want to kiss me, for I'm off now, thankgoodness!"

He kissed her as she suggested, and then in a doctoral way replied: "Ithought you had more self-command. The delight you have been showing allthis morning quite disgusts me. "

A quiet glance of contempt was her only answer. However, he continued:"You know very well that she'll take your Gerard from you again, directlyyou come back to Paris. "

At this Camille's cheeks turned white and her eyes flared. She steppedtowards her brother with clenched fists: "She! you say that she will takehim from me!"

The "she" they referred to was their own mother. 

"Listen, my boy! I'll kill her first!" continued Camille. "Ah, no! sheneedn't hope for that. I shall know how to keep the man that belongs tome. . . . And as for you, keep your spite to yourself, for I know you, remember; you are a mere child and a fool!"

He recoiled as if a viper were rearing its sharp, slender black headbefore him; and having always feared her, he thought it best to beat aretreat. 

While the last guests were rushing upon the buffet and finishing thepillage there, the bridal pair took their leave, before driving off tothe railway station. General de Bozonnet had joined a group in order tovent his usual complaints about compulsory military service, and theMarquis de Morigny was obliged to fetch him at the moment when theCountess de Quinsac was kissing her son and daughter-in-law. The old ladytrembled with so much emotion that the Marquis respectfully ventured tosustain her. Meantime, Hyacinthe had started in search of his father, andat last found him near a window with the tottering Chaigneux, whom he wasviolently upbraiding, for Fonsegue's conscientious scruples had put himin a fury. Indeed, if Massot's article should not be inserted in the"Globe, " Silviane might lay all the blame upon him, the Baron, and wreakfurther punishment upon him. However, upon being summoned by his son hehad to don his triumphal air once more, kiss his daughter on theforehead, shake hands with his son-in-law, jest and wish them both apleasant journey. Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained, smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touchingbravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until thevery end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay andmotherly. 

She took hold of the slightly quivering hand which Gerard proffered withsome embarrassment, and ventured to retain it for a moment in her own, ina good-hearted, affectionate way, instinct with all the heroism ofrenunciation. "Good by, Gerard, " she said, "keep in good health, behappy. " Then turning to Camille she kissed her on both cheeks, whileMonseigneur Martha sat looking at them with an air of indulgent sympathy. They wished each other "Au revoir, " but their voices trembled, and theireyes in meeting gleamed like swords; in the same way as beneath thekisses they had exchanged they had felt each other's teeth. Ah! how itenraged Camille to see her mother still so beautiful and fascinating inspite of age and grief! And for Eve how great the torture of beholdingher daughter's youth, that youth which had overcome her, and was for everwresting love from within her reach! No forgiveness was possible betweenthem; they would still hate one another even in the family tomb, wheresome day they would sleep side by side. 

All the same, that evening Baroness Duvillard excused herself fromattending the performance of "Polyeucte" at the Comedie Francaise. Shefelt very tired and wished to go to bed early, said she. As a matter offact she wept on her pillow all night long. Thus the Baron's stage-box onthe first balcony tier contained only himself, Hyacinthe, Duthil, andlittle Princess de Harn. 

At nine o'clock there was a full house, one of the brilliant chatteringhouses peculiar to great dramatic solemnities. All the society people whohad marched through the sacristy of the Madeleine that morning were nowassembled at the theatre, again feverish with curiosity, and on thelookout for the unexpected. One recognised the same faces and the sanesmiles; the women acknowledged one another's presence with little signsof intelligence, the men understood each other at a word, a gesture. Oneand all had kept the appointment, the ladies with bared shoulders, thegentlemen with flowers in their button-holes. Fonsegue occupied the"Globe's" box, with two friendly families. Little Massot had hiscustomary seat in the stalls. Amadieu, who was a faithful patron of theComedie, was also to be seen there, as well as General de Bozonnet andPublic Prosecutor Lehmann. The man who was most looked at, however, onaccount of his scandalous article that morning, was Sagnier, the terribleSagnier, looking bloated and apoplectical. Then there was Chaigneux, whohad kept merely a modest bracket-seat for himself, and who scoured thepassages, and climbed to every tier, for the last time preachingenthusiasm. Finally, the two ministers Monferrand and Dauvergne appearedin the box facing Duvillard's; whereupon many knowing smiles wereexchanged, for everybody was aware that these personages had come to helpon the success of the /debutante/. 

On the latter point there had still been unfavourable rumours only theprevious day. Sagnier had declared that the /debut/ of such a notoriousharlot as Silviane at the Comedie Francaise, in such a part too as thatof "Pauline, " which was one of so much moral loftiness, could only beregarded as an impudent insult to public decency. The whole press, moreover, had long been up in arms against the young woman'sextraordinary caprice. But then the affair had been talked of for sixmonths past, so that Paris had grown used to the idea of seeing Silvianeat the Comedie. And now it flocked thither with the one idea of beingentertained. Before the curtain rose one could tell by the veryatmosphere of the house that the audience was a jovial, good-humouredone, bent on enjoying itself, and ready to applaud should it find itselfat all pleased. 

The performance really proved extraordinary. When Silviane, chastelyrobed, made her appearance in the first act, the house was quiteastonished by her virginal face, her innocent-looking mouth, and her eyesbeaming with immaculate candour. Then, although the manner in which shehad understood her part at first amazed people, it ended by charmingthem. From the moment of confiding in "Stratonice, " from the moment ofrelating her dream, she turned "Pauline" into a soaring mysticalcreature, some saint, as it were, such as one sees in stained-glasswindows, carried along by a Wagnerian Brunhilda riding the clouds. It wasa thoroughly ridiculous conception of the part, contrary to reason andtruth alike. Still, it only seemed to interest people the more, partly onaccount of mysticism being the fashion, and partly on account of thecontrast between Silviane's assumed candour and real depravity. Hersuccess increased from act to act, and some slight hissing which wasattributed to Sagnier only helped to make the victory more complete. Monferrand and Dauvergne, as the newspapers afterwards related, gave thesignal for applause; and the whole house joined in it, partly fromamusement and partly perhaps in a spirit of irony. 

During the interval between the fourth and fifth acts there was quite aprocession of visitors to Duvillard's box, where the greatest excitementprevailed. Duthil, however, after absenting himself for a moment, cameback to say: "You remember our influential critic, the one whom I broughtto dinner at the Cafe Anglais? Well, he's repeating to everybody that'Pauline' is merely a little /bourgeoise/, and is not transformed by theheavenly grace until the very finish of the piece. To turn her into aholy virgin from the outset simply kills the part, says he. "

"Pooh!" repeated Duvillard, "let him argue if he likes, it will be allthe more advertisement. . . . The important point is to get Massot'sarticle inserted in the 'Globe' to-morrow morning. "

On this point, unfortunately, the news was by no means good. Chaigneux, who had gone in search of Fonsegue, declared that the latter stillhesitated in the matter in spite of Silviane's success, which he declaredto be ridiculous. Thereupon, the Baron became quite angry. "Go and tellFonsegue, " he exclaimed, "that I insist on it, and that I shall rememberwhat he does. "

Meantime Princess Rosemonde was becoming quite delirious with enthusiasm. "My dear Hyacinthe, " she pleaded, "please take me to Silviane'sdressing-room; I can't wait, I really must go and kiss her. "

"But we'll all go!" cried Duvillard, who heard her entreaty. 

The passages were crowded, and there were people even on the stage. Moreover, when the party reached the door of Silviane's dressing-room, they found it shut. When the Baron knocked at it, a dresser replied thatmadame begged the gentlemen to wait a moment. 

"Oh! a woman may surely go in, " replied Rosemonde, hastily slippingthrough the doorway. "And you may come, Hyacinthe, " she added; "there canbe no objection to you. "

Silviane was very hot, and a dresser was wiping her perspiring shoulderswhen Rosemonde darted forward and kissed her. Then they chatted togetheramidst the heat and glare from the gas and the intoxicating perfumes ofall the flowers which were heaped up in the little room. Finally, Hyacinthe heard them promise to see one another after the performance, Silviane even inviting Rosemonde to drink a cup of tea with her at herhouse. At this the young man smiled complacently, and said to theactress: "Your carriage is waiting for you at the corner of the RueMontpensier, is it not? Well, I'll take the Princess to it. That will bethe simpler plan, you can both go off together!"

"Oh! how good of you, " cried Rosemonde; "it's agreed. "

Just then the door was opened, and the men, being admitted, began to pourforth their congratulations. However, they had to regain their seats inall haste so as to witness the fifth act. This proved quite a triumph, the whole house bursting into applause when Silviane spoke the famousline, "I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived, " with the rapturousenthusiasm of a holy martyr ascending to heaven. Nothing could have beenmore soul-like, it was said. And so when the performers were calledbefore the curtain, Paris bestowed an ovation on that virgin of thestage, who, as Sagnier put it, knew so well how to act depravity at home. 

Accompanied by Duthil, Duvillard at once went behind the scenes in orderto fetch Silviane, while Hyacinthe escorted Rosemonde to the broughamwaiting at the corner of the Rue Montpensier. Having helped her into it, the young man stood by, waiting. And he seemed to grow quite merry whenhis father came up with Silviane, and was stopped by her, just as, in histurn, he wished to get into the carriage. 

"There's no room for you, my dear fellow, " said she. "I've a friend withme. "

Rosemonde's little smiling face then peered forth from the depths of thebrougham. And the Baron remained there open-mouthed while the vehicleswiftly carried the two women away!

"Well, what would you have, my dear fellow?" said Hyacinthe, by way ofexplanation to Duthil, who also seemed somewhat amazed by what hadhappened. "Rosemonde was worrying my life out, and so I got rid of her bypacking her off with Silviane. "

Duvillard was still standing on the pavement and still looking dazed whenChaigneux, who was going home quite tired out, recognised him, and cameup to say that Fonsegue had thought the matter over, and that Massot'sarticle would be duly inserted. In the passages, too, there had been adeal of talk about the famous Trans-Saharan project. 

Then Hyacinthe led his father away, trying to comfort him like a sensiblefriend, who regarded woman as a base and impure creature. "Let's go hometo bed, " said he. "As that article is to appear, you can take it to herto-morrow. She will see you, sure enough. "

Thereupon they lighted cigars, and now and again exchanging a few words, took their way up the Avenue de l'Opera, which at that hour was desertedand dismal. Meantime, above the slumbering houses of Paris the breezewafted a prolonged sigh, the plaint, as it were, of an expiring world. 

III

THE GOAL OF LABOUR

EVER since the execution of Salvat, Guillaume had become extremelytaciturn. He seemed worried and absent-minded. He would work for hours atthe manufacture of that dangerous powder of which he alone knew theformula, and the preparation of which was such a delicate matter that hewould allow none to assist him. Then, at other times he would go off, andreturn tired out by some long solitary ramble. He remained very gentle athome, and strove to smile there. But whenever anybody spoke to him hestarted as if suddenly called back from dreamland. 

Pierre imagined his brother had relied too much upon his powers ofrenunciation, and found the loss of Marie unbearable. Was it not somethought of her that haunted him now that the date fixed for the marriagedrew nearer and nearer? One evening, therefore, Pierre ventured to speakout, again offering to leave the house and disappear. 

But at the first words he uttered Guillaume stopped him, andaffectionately replied: "Marie? Oh! I love her, I love her too well toregret what I have done. No, no! you only bring me happiness, I deriveall my strength and courage from you now that I know you are both happy. . . . And I assure you that you are mistaken, there is nothing at all thematter with me; my work absorbs me, perhaps, but that is all. "

That same evening he managed to cast his gloom aside, and displayeddelightful gaiety. During dinner he inquired if the upholsterer wouldsoon call to arrange the two little rooms which Marie was to occupy withher husband over the workroom. The young woman, who since her marriagewith Pierre had been decided had remained waiting with smiling patience, thereupon told Guillaume what it was she desired--first some hangings ofred cotton stuff, then some polished pine furniture which would enableher to imagine she was in the country, and finally a carpet on the floor, because a carpet seemed to her the height of luxury. She laughed as shespoke, and Guillaume laughed with her in a gay and fatherly way. His goodspirits brought much relief to Pierre, who concluded that he must havebeen mistaken in his surmises. 

On the very morrow, however, Guillaume relapsed into a dreamy state. Andso disquietude again came upon Pierre, particularly when he noticed thatMere-Grand also seemed to be unusually grave and silent. Not daring toaddress her, he tried to extract some information from his nephews, butneither Thomas nor Francois nor Antoine knew anything. Each of themquietly devoted his time to his work, respecting and worshipping hisfather, but never questioning him about his plans or enterprises. Whatever he might choose to do could only be right and good; and they, his sons, were ready to do the same and help him at the very first call, without pausing to inquire into his purpose. It was plain, however, thathe kept them apart from anything at all perilous, that he retained allresponsibility for himself, and that Mere-Grand alone was his/confidante/, the one whom he consulted and to whom he perhaps listened. Pierre therefore renounced his hope of learning anything from the sons, and directed his attention to the old lady, whose rigid gravity worriedhim the more as she and Guillaume frequently had private chats in theroom she occupied upstairs. They shut themselves up there all alone, andremained together for hours without the faintest sound coming from theseemingly lifeless chamber. 

One day, however, Pierre caught sight of Guillaume as he came out of it, carrying a little valise which appeared to be very heavy. And Pierrethereupon remembered both his brother's powder, one pound weight of whichwould have sufficed to destroy a cathedral, and the destructive enginewhich he had purposed bestowing upon France in order that she might bevictorious over all other nations, and become the one great initiatoryand liberative power. Pierre remembered too that the only person besideshimself who knew his brother's secret was Mere-Grand, who, at the timewhen Guillaume was fearing some perquisition on the part of the police, had long slept upon the cartridges of the terrible explosive. But now whywas Guillaume removing all the powder which he had been preparing forsome time past? As this question occurred to Pierre, a sudden suspicion, a vague dread, came upon him, and gave him strength to ask his brother:"Have you reason to fear anything, since you won't keep things here? Ifthey embarrass you, they can all be deposited at my house, nobody willmake a search there. "

Guillaume, whom these words astonished, gazed at Pierre fixedly, and thenreplied: "Yes, I have learnt that the arrests and perquisitions havebegun afresh since that poor devil was guillotined; for they are interror at the thought that some despairing fellow may avenge him. Moreover, it is hardly prudent to keep destructive agents of such greatpower here. I prefer to deposit them in a safe place. But not atNeuilly--oh! no indeed! they are not a present for you, brother. "Guillaume spoke with outward calmness; and if he had started withsurprise at the first moment, it had been scarcely perceptible. 

"So everything is ready?" Pierre resumed. "You will soon be handing yourengine of destruction over to the Minister of War, I presume?"

A gleam of hesitation appeared in the depths of Guillaume's eyes, and hewas for a moment about to tell a falsehood. However, he ended by replying"No, I have renounced that intention. I have another idea. "

He spoke these last words with so much energy and decision that Pierredid not dare to question him further, to ask him, for instance, what thatother idea might be. From that moment, however, he quivered with anxiousexpectancy. From hour to hour Mere-Grand's lofty silence and Guillaume'srapt, energetic face seemed to tell him that some huge and terrifyingscheme had come into being, and was growing and threatening the whole ofParis. 

One afternoon, just as Thomas was about to repair to the Grandidierworks, some one came to Guillaume's with the news that old Toussaint, theworkman, had been stricken with a fresh attack of paralysis. Thomasthereupon decided that he would call upon the poor fellow on his way, forhe held him in esteem and wished to ascertain if he could render him anyhelp. Pierre expressed a desire to accompany his nephew, and they startedoff together about four o'clock. 

On entering the one room which the Toussaints occupied, the room wherethey ate and slept, the visitors found the mechanician seated on a lowchair near the table. He looked half dead, as if struck by lightning. Itwas a case of hemiplegia, which had paralysed the whole of his rightside, his right leg and right arm, and had also spread to his face insuch wise that he could no longer speak. The only sound he could raisewas an incomprehensible guttural grunt. His mouth was drawn to the right, and his once round, good-natured-looking face, with tanned skin andbright eyes, had been twisted into a frightful mask of anguish. At fiftyyears of age, the unhappy man was utterly done for. His unkempt beard wasas white as that of an octogenarian, and his knotty limbs, preyed upon bytoil, were henceforth dead. Only his eyes remained alive, and theytravelled around the room, going from one to another. By his side, eagerto do what she could for him, was his wife, who remained stout even whenshe had little to eat, and still showed herself active and clear-headed, however great her misfortunes. 

"It's a friendly visit, Toussaint, " said she. "It's Monsieur Thomas whohas come to see you with Monsieur l'Abbe. " Then quietly correctingherself she added: "With Monsieur Pierre, his uncle. You see that you arenot yet forsaken. "

Toussaint wished to speak, but his fruitless efforts only brought two bigtears to his eyes. Then he gazed at his visitors with an expression ofindescribable woe, his jaws trembling convulsively. 

"Don't put yourself out, " repeated his wife. "The doctor told you that itwould do you no good. "

At the moment of entering the room, Pierre had already noticed twopersons who had risen from their chairs and drawn somewhat on one side. And now to his great surprise he recognised that they were MadameTheodore and Celine, who were both decently clad, and looked as if theyled a life of comfort. On hearing of Toussaint's misfortune they had cometo see him, like good-hearted creatures, who, on their own side, hadexperienced the most cruel suffering. Pierre, on noticing that they nowseemed to be beyond dire want, remembered what he had heard of thewonderful sympathy lavished on the child after her father's execution, the many presents and donations offered her, and the generous proposalsthat had been made to adopt her. These last had ended in her beingadopted by a former friend of Salvat, who had sent her to school again, pending the time when she might be apprenticed to some trade, while, onthe other hand, Madame Theodore had been placed as a nurse in aconvalescent home. In such wise both had been saved. 

When Pierre drew near to little Celine in order to kiss her, MadameTheodore told her to thank Monsieur l'Abbe--for so she still respectfullycalled him--for all that he had previously done for her. "It was you whobrought us happiness, Monsieur l'Abbe, " said she. "And that's a thing onecan never forget. I'm always telling Celine to remember you in herprayers. "

"And so, my child, you are now going to school again, " said Pierre. 

"Oh yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I'm well pleased at it. Besides, we nolonger lack anything. " Then, however, sudden emotion came over the girl, and she stammered with a sob: "Ah! if poor papa could only see us!"

Madame Theodore, meanwhile, had begun to take leave of Madame Toussaint. "Well, good by, we must go, " said she. "What has happened to you is verysad, and we wanted to tell you how much it grieved us. The worry is thatwhen misfortune falls on one, courage isn't enough to set things right. . . . Celine, come and kiss your uncle. . . . My poor brother, I hopeyou'll get back the use of your legs as soon as possible. "

They kissed the paralysed man on the cheeks, and then went off. Toussainthad looked at them with his keen and still intelligent eyes, as if helonged to participate in the life and activity into which they werereturning. And a jealous thought came to his wife, who usually was soplacid and good-natured. "Ah! my poor old man!" said she, after proppinghim up with a pillow, "those two are luckier than we are. Everythingsucceeds with them since that madman, Salvat, had his head cut off. They're provided for. They've plenty of bread on the shelf. "

Then, turning towards Pierre and Thomas, she continued: "We others aredone for, you know, we're down in the mud, with no hope of getting out ofit. But what would you have? My poor husband hasn't been guillotined, he's done nothing but work his whole life long; and now, you see, that'sthe end of him, he's like some old animal, no longer good for anything. "

Having made her visitors sit down she next answered their compassionatequestions. The doctor had called twice already, and had promised torestore the unhappy man's power of speech, and perhaps enable him tocrawl round the room with the help of a stick. But as for ever being ableto resume real work that must not be expected. And so what was the use ofliving on? Toussaint's eyes plainly declared that he would much ratherdie at once. When a workman can no longer work and no longer provide forhis wife he is ripe for the grave. 

"Savings indeed!" Madame Toussaint resumed. "There are folks who ask ifwe have any savings. . . . Well, we had nearly a thousand francs in theSavings Bank when Toussaint had his first attack. And some people don'tknow what a lot of prudence one needs to put by such a sum; for, afterall, we're not savages, we have to allow ourselves a little enjoyment nowand then, a good dish and a good bottle of wine. . . . Well, what withfive months of enforced idleness, and the medicines, and the underdonemeat that was ordered, we got to the end of our thousand francs; and nowthat it's all begun again we're not likely to taste any more bottled wineor roast mutton. "

Fond of good cheer as she had always been, this cry, far more than thetears she was forcing back, revealed how much the future terrified her. She was there erect and brave in spite of everything; but what a downfallif she were no longer able to keep her room tidy, stew a piece of veal onSundays, and gossip with the neighbours while awaiting her husband'sreturn from work! Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutterand carried off in the scavenger's cart. 

However, Thomas intervened: "Isn't there an Asylum for the Invalids ofLabour, and couldn't your husband get admitted to it?" he asked. "Itseems to me that is just the place for him. "

"Oh dear, no, " the woman answered. "People spoke to me of that placebefore, and I got particulars of it. They don't take sick people there. When you call they tell you that there are hospitals for those who areill. "

With a wave of his hand Pierre confirmed her statement: it was useless toapply in that direction. He could again see himself scouring Paris, hurrying from the Lady President, Baroness Duvillard, to Fonsegue, theGeneral Manager, and only securing a bed for Laveuve when the unhappy manwas dead. 

However, at that moment an infant was heard wailing, and to the amazementof both visitors Madame Toussaint entered the little closet where her sonCharles had so long slept, and came out of it carrying a child, wholooked scarcely twenty months old. "Well, yes, " she explained, "this isCharles's boy. He was sleeping there in his father's old bed, and now youhear him, he's woke up. . . . You see, only last Wednesday, the daybefore Toussaint had his stroke, I went to fetch the little one at thenurse's at St. Denis, because she had threatened to cast him adrift sinceCharles had got into bad habits, and no longer paid her. I said to myselfat the time that work was looking up, and that my husband and I wouldalways be able to provide for a little mouth like that. . . . But justafterwards everything collapsed! At the same time, as the child's herenow I can't go and leave him in the street. "

While speaking in this fashion she walked to and fro, rocking the baby inher arms. And naturally enough she reverted to Charles's folly with thegirl, who had run away, leaving that infant behind her. Things might nothave been so very bad if Charles had still worked as steadily as he haddone before he went soldiering. In those days he had never lost an hour, and had always brought all his pay home! But he had come back from thearmy with much less taste for work. He argued, and had ideas of his own. He certainly hadn't yet come to bomb-throwing like that madman Salvat, but he spent half his time with Socialists and Anarchists, who put hisbrain in a muddle. It was a real pity to see such a strong, good-heartedyoung fellow turning out badly like that. But it was said in theneighbourhood that many another was inclined the same way; that the bestand most intelligent of the younger men felt tired of want andunremunerative labour, and would end by knocking everything to piecesrather than go on toiling with no certainty of food in their old age. 

"Ah! yes, " continued Madame Toussaint, "the sons are not like the fatherswere. These fine fellows won't be as patient as my poor husband has been, letting hard work wear him away till he's become the sorry thing you seethere. . . . Do you know what Charles said the other evening when hefound his father on that chair, crippled like that, and unable to speak?Why, he shouted to him that he'd been a stupid jackass all his life, working himself to death for those /bourgeois/, who now wouldn't bringhim so much as a glass of water. Then, as he none the less has a goodheart, he began to cry his eyes out. "

The baby was no longer wailing, still the good woman continued walking toand fro, rocking it in her arms and pressing it to her affectionateheart. Her son Charles could do no more for them, she said; perhaps hemight be able to give them a five-franc piece now and again, but eventhat wasn't certain. It was of no use for her to go back to her oldcalling as a seamstress, she had lost all practice of it. And it wouldeven be difficult for her to earn anything as charwoman, for she had thatinfant on her hands as well as her infirm husband--a big child, whom shewould have to wash and feed. And so what would become of the three ofthem? She couldn't tell; but it made her shudder, however brave andmotherly she tried to be. 

For their part, Pierre and Thomas quivered with compassion, particularlywhen they saw big tears coursing down the cheeks of the wretched, stricken Toussaint, as he sat quite motionless in that little and stillcleanly home of toil and want. The poor man had listened to his wife, andhe looked at her and at the infant now sleeping in her arms. Voiceless, unable to cry his woe aloud, he experienced the most awful anguish. Whatdupery his long life of labour had been! how frightfully unjust it wasthat all his efforts should end in such sufferings! how exasperating itwas to feel himself powerless, and to see those whom he loved and whowere as innocent as himself suffer and die by reason of his own sufferingand death! Ah! poor old man, cripple that he was, ending like some beastof burden that has foundered by the roadside--that goal of labour! And itwas all so revolting and so monstrous that he tried to put it into words, and his desperate grief ended in a frightful, raucous grunt. 

"Be quiet, don't do yourself harm!" concluded Madame Toussaint. "Thingsare like that, and there's no mending them. "

Then she went to put the child to bed again, and on her return, just asThomas and Pierre were about to speak to her of Toussaint's employer, M. Grandidier, a fresh visitor arrived. Thereupon the others decided towait. 

The new comer was Madame Chretiennot, Toussaint's other sister, eighteenyears younger than himself. Her husband, the little clerk, had compelledher to break off almost all intercourse with her relatives, as he feltashamed of them; nevertheless, having heard of her brother's misfortune, she had very properly come to condole with him. She wore a gown of cheapflimsy silk, and a hat trimmed with red poppies, which she had freshenedup three times already; but in spite of this display her appearancebespoke penury, and she did her best to hide her feet on account of theshabbiness of her boots. Moreover, she was no longer the beautifulHortense. Since a recent miscarriage, all trace of her good looks haddisappeared. 

The lamentable appearance of her brother and the bareness of that home ofsuffering chilled her directly she crossed the threshold. And as soon asshe had kissed Toussaint, and said how sorry she was to find him in sucha condition, she began to lament her own fate, and recount her troubles, for fear lest she should be asked for any help. 

"Ah! my dear, " she said to her sister-in-law, "you are certainly much tobe pitied! But if you only knew! We all have our troubles. Thus in mycase, obliged as I am to dress fairly well on account of my husband'sposition, I have more trouble than you can imagine in making both endsmeet. One can't go far on a salary of three thousand francs a year, whenone has to pay seven hundred francs' rent out of it. You will perhaps saythat we might lodge ourselves in a more modest way; but we can't, mydear, I must have a /salon/ on account of the visits I receive. So justcount! . . . Then there are my two girls. I've had to send them toschool; Lucienne has begun to learn the piano and Marcelle has some tastefor drawing. . . . By the way, I would have brought them with me, but Ifeared it would upset them too much. You will excuse me, won't you?"

Then she spoke of all the worries which she had had with her husband onaccount of Salvat's ignominious death. Chretiennot, vain, quarrelsomelittle fellow that he was, felt exasperated at now having a /guillotine/in his wife's family. And he had lately begun to treat the unfortunatewoman most harshly, charging her with having brought about all theirtroubles, and even rendering her responsible for his own mediocrity, embittered as he was more and more each day by a confined life of officework. On some evenings they had downright quarrels; she stood up forherself, and related that when she was at the confectionery shop in theRue des Martyrs she could have married a doctor had she only chosen, forthe doctor found her quite pretty enough. Now, however, she was becomingplainer and plainer, and her husband felt that he was condemned toeverlasting penury; so that their life was becoming more and more dismaland quarrelsome, and as unbearable--despite the pride of being"gentleman" and "lady"--as was the destitution of the working classes. 

"All the same, my dear, " at last said Madame Toussaint, weary of hersister-in-law's endless narrative of worries, "you have had one piece ofluck. You won't have the trouble of bringing up a third child, now. "

"That's true, " replied Hortense, with a sigh of relief. "How we shouldhave managed, I don't know. . . . Still, I was very ill, and I'm far frombeing in good health now. The doctor says that I don't eat enough, andthat I ought to have good food. "

Then she rose for the purpose of giving her brother another kiss andtaking her departure; for she feared a scene on her husband's part shouldhe happen to come home and find her absent. Once on her feet, however, she lingered there a moment longer, saying that she also had just seenher sister, Madame Theodore, and little Celine, both of them comfortablyclad and looking happy. And with a touch of jealousy she added: "Well, myhusband contents himself with slaving away at his office every day. He'llnever do anything to get his head cut off; and it's quite certain thatnobody will think of leaving an income to Marcelle and Lucienne. . . . Well, good by, my dear, you must be brave, one must always hope thatthings will turn out for the best. "

When she had gone off, Pierre and Thomas inquired if M. Grandidier hadheard of Toussaint's misfortune and agreed to do anything for him. MadameToussaint answered that he had so far made only a vague promise; and onlearning this they resolved to speak to him as warmly as they could onbehalf of the old mechanician, who had spent as many as five and twentyyears at the works. The misfortune was that a scheme for establishing afriendly society, and even a pension fund, which had been launched beforethe crisis from which the works were now recovering, had collapsedthrough a number of obstacles and complications. Had things turned outotherwise, Thomas might have had a pittance assured him, even though hewas unable to work. But under the circumstances the only hope for thepoor stricken fellow lay in his employer's compassion, if not his senseof justice. 

As the baby again began to cry, Madame Toussaint went to fetch it, andshe was once more carrying it to and fro, when Thomas pressed herhusband's sound hand between both his own. "We will come back, " said theyoung man; "we won't forsake you, Toussaint. You know very well thatpeople like you, for you've always been a good and steady workman. Sorely on us, we will do all we can. "

Then they left him tearful and overpowered, in that dismal room, while, up and down beside him, his wife rocked the squealing infant--that otherluckless creature, who was now so heavy on the old folks' hands, and likethem was fated to die of want and unjust toil. 

Toil, manual toil, panting at every effort, this was what Pierre andThomas once more found at the works. From the slender pipes above theroofs spurted rhythmical puffs of steam, which seemed like the verybreath of all that labour. And in the work-shops one found a continuousrumbling, a whole army of men in motion, forging, filing, and piercing, amidst the spinning of leather gearing and the trembling of machinery. The day was ending with a final feverish effort to complete some task orother before the bell should ring for departure. 

On inquiring for the master Thomas learnt that he had not been seen since/dejeuner/, which was such an unusual occurrence that the young man atonce feared some terrible scene in the silent pavilion, whose shutterswere ever closed upon Grandidier's unhappy wife--that mad but beautifulcreature, whom he loved so passionately that he had never been willing topart from her. The pavilion could be seen from the little glazedwork-shop which Thomas usually occupied, and as he and Pierre stoodwaiting there, it looked very peaceful and pleasant amidst the biglilac-bushes planted round about it. Surely, they thought, it ought tohave been brightened by the gay gown of a young woman and the laughter ofplayful children. But all at once a loud, piercing shriek reached theirears, followed by howls and moans, like those of an animal that is beingbeaten or possibly slaughtered. Ah! those howls ringing out amidst allthe stir of the toiling works, punctuated it seemed by the rhythmicalpuffing of the steam, accompanied too by the dull rumbling of themachinery! The receipts of the business had been doubling and doublingsince the last stock-taking; there was increase of prosperity everymonth, the bad times were over, far behind. Grandidier was realising alarge fortune with his famous bicycle for the million, the "Lisette"; andthe approaching vogue of motor-cars also promised huge gains, should heagain start making little motor-engines, as he meant to do, as soon asThomas's long-projected motor should be perfected. But what was wealthwhen in that dismal pavilion, whose shutters were ever closed, thosefrightful shrieks continued, proclaiming some terrible drama, which allthe stir and bustle of the prosperous works were unable to stifle?

Pierre and Thomas looked at one another, pale and quivering. And all atonce, as the cries ceased and the pavilion sank into death-like silenceonce more, the latter said in an undertone: "She is usually very gentle, she will sometimes spend whole days sitting on a carpet like a littlechild. He is fond of her when she is like that; he lays her down andpicks her up, caresses her and makes her laugh as if she were a baby. Ah!how dreadfully sad it is! When an attack comes upon her she gets frantic, tries to bite herself, and kill herself by throwing herself against thewalls. And then he has to struggle with her, for no one else is allowedto touch her. He tries to restrain her, and holds her in his arms to calmher. . . . But how terrible it was just now! Did you hear? I do not thinkshe has ever had such a frightful attack before. "

For a quarter of an hour longer profound silence prevailed. ThenGrandidier came out of the pavilion, bareheaded and still ghastly pale. Passing the little glazed work-shop on his way, he perceived Thomas andPierre there, and at once came in. But he was obliged to lean against abench like a man who is dazed, haunted by a nightmare. His good-natured, energetic face retained an expression of acute anguish; and his left earwas scratched and bleeding. However, he at once wished to talk, overcomehis feelings, and return to his life of activity. "I am very pleased tosee you, my dear Thomas, " said he, "I have been thinking over what youtold me about our little motor. We must go into the matter again. "

Seeing how distracted he was, it occurred to the young man that somesudden diversion, such as the story of another's misfortunes, mightperhaps draw him from his haunting thoughts. "Of course I am at yourdisposal, " he replied; "but before talking of that matter I should liketo tell you that we have just seen Toussaint, that poor old fellow whohas been stricken with paralysis. His awful fate has quite distressed us. He is in the greatest destitution, forsaken as it were by the roadside, after all his years of labour. "

Thomas dwelt upon the quarter of a century which the old workman hadspent at the factory, and suggested that it would be only just to takesome account of his long efforts, the years of his life which he haddevoted to the establishment. And he asked that he might be assisted inthe name both of equity and compassion. 

"Ah! monsieur, " Pierre in his turn ventured to say. "I should like totake you for an instant into that bare room, and show you that poor, aged, worn-out, stricken man, who no longer has even the power of speechleft him to tell people his sufferings. There can be no greaterwretchedness than to die in this fashion, despairing of all kindlinessand justice. "

Grandidier had listened to them in silence. But big tears hadirresistibly filled his eyes, and when he spoke it was in a very low andtremulous voice: "The greatest wretchedness, who can tell what it is? Whocan speak of it if he has not known the wretchedness of others? Yes, yes, it's sad undoubtedly that poor Toussaint should be reduced to that stateat his age, not knowing even if he will have food to eat on the morrow. But I know sorrows that are just as crushing, abominations which poisonone's life in a still greater degree. . . . Ah! yes, food indeed! Tothink that happiness will reign in the world when everybody has food toeat! What an idiotic hope!"

The whole grievous tragedy of his life was in the shudder which had comeover him. To be the employer, the master, the man who is making money, who disposes of capital and is envied by his workmen, to own anestablishment to which prosperity has returned, whose machinery coinsgold, apparently leaving one no other trouble than that of pocketingone's profits; and yet at the same time to be the most wretched of men, to know no day exempt from anguish, to find each evening at one's hearthno other reward or prop than the most atrocious torture of the heart!Everything, even success, has to be paid for. And thus that triumpher, that money-maker, whose pile was growing larger at each successiveinventory, was sobbing with bitter grief. 

However, he showed himself kindly disposed towards Toussaint, andpromised to assist him. As for a pension that was an idea which he couldnot entertain, as it was the negation of the wage-system such as itexisted. He energetically defended his rights as an employer, repeatingthat the strain of competition would compel him to avail himself of themso long as the present system should endure. His part in it was to dogood business in an honest way. However, he regretted that his men hadnever carried out the scheme of establishing a relief fund, and he saidthat he would do his best to induce them to take it in hand again. 

Some colour had now come back to his checks; for on returning to theinterests of his life of battle he felt his energy restored. He againreverted to the question of the little motor, and spoke of it for sometime with Thomas, while Pierre waited, feeling quite upset. Ah! hethought, how universal was the thirst for happiness! Then, in spite ofthe many technical terms that were used he caught a little of what theothers were saying. Small steam motors had been made at the works informer times; but they had not proved successes. In point of fact a newpropelling force was needed. Electricity, though everyone foresaw itsfuture triumph, was so far out of the question on account of the weightof the apparatus which its employment necessitated. So only petroleumremained, and the inconvenience attaching to its use was so great thatvictory and fortune would certainly rest with the manufacturer who shouldbe able to replace it by some other hitherto unknown agent. In thediscovery and adaptation of the latter lay the whole problem. 

"Yes, I am eager about it now, " at last exclaimed Grandidier in ananimated way. "I allowed you to prosecute your experiments withouttroubling you with any inquisitive questions. But a solution is becomingimperative. "

Thomas smiled: "Well, you must remain patient just a little longer, " saidhe; "I believe that I am on the right road. "

Then Grandidier shook hands with him and Pierre, and went off to make hisusual round through his busy, bustling works, whilst near at hand, awaiting his return, stood the closed pavilion, where every evening hewas fated to relapse into endless, incurable anguish. 

The daylight was already waning when Pierre and Thomas, afterre-ascending the height of Montmartre, walked towards the large work-shopwhich Jahan, the sculptor, had set up among the many sheds whose erectionhad been necessitated by the building of the Sacred Heart. There was herea stretch of ground littered with materials, an extraordinary chaos ofbuilding stone, beams and machinery; and pending the time when an army ofnavvies would come to set the whole place in order, one could see gapingtrenches, rough flights of descending steps and fences, imperfectlyclosing doorways which conducted to the substructures of the basilica. 

Halting in front of Jahan's work-shop, Thomas pointed to one of thesedoorways by which one could reach the foundation works. "Have you neverhad an idea of visiting the foundations?" he inquired of Pierre. "There'squite a city down there on which millions of money have been spent. Theycould only find firm soil at the very base of the height, and they had toexcavate more than eighty shafts, fill them with concrete, and then reartheir church on all those subterranean columns. . . . Yes, that is so. Ofcourse the columns cannot be seen, but it is they who hold that insultingedifice aloft, right over Paris!"

Having drawn near to the fence, Pierre was looking at an open doorwaybeyond it, a sort of dark landing whence steps descended as if into thebowels of the earth. And he thought of those invisible columns ofconcrete, and of all the stubborn energy and desire for domination whichhad set and kept the edifice erect. 

Thomas was at last obliged to call him. "Let us make haste, " said he, "the twilight will soon be here. We shan't be able to see much. "

They had arranged to meet Antoine at Jahan's, as the sculptor wished toshow them a new model he had prepared. When they entered the work-shopthey found the two assistants still working at the colossal angel whichhad been ordered for the basilica. Standing on a scaffolding they wererough-hewing its symmetrical wings, whilst Jahan, seated on a low chair, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hands soiled with clay, was contemplating a figure some three feet high on which he had just beenworking. 

"Ah! it's you, " he exclaimed. "Antoine has been waiting more than half anhour for you. He's gone outside with Lise to see the sun set over Paris, I think. But they will soon be back. "

Then he relapsed into silence, with his eyes fixed on his work. 

This was a bare, erect, lofty female figure, of such august majesty, sosimple were its lines, that it suggested something gigantic. The figure'sabundant, outspread hair suggested rays around its face, which beamedwith sovereign beauty like the sun. And its only gesture was one of offerand of greeting; its arms were thrown slightly forward, and its handswere open for the grasp of all mankind. 

Still lingering in his dream Jahan began to speak slowly: "You rememberthat I wanted a pendant for my figure of Fecundity. I had modelled aCharity, but it pleased me so little and seemed so commonplace that I letthe clay dry and spoil. . . . And then the idea of a figure of Justicecame to me. But not a gowned figure with the sword and the scales! Thatwasn't the Justice that inspired me. What haunted my mind was the otherJustice, the one that the lowly and the sufferers await, the one whoalone can some day set a little order and happiness among us. And Ipictured her like that, quite bare, quite simple, and very lofty. She isthe sun as it were, a sun all beauty, harmony and strength; for justiceis only to be found in the sun which shines in the heavens for one andall, and bestows on poor and rich alike its magnificence and light andwarmth, which are the source of all life. And so my figure, you see, hasher hands outstretched as if she were offering herself to all mankind, greeting it and granting it the gift of eternal life in eternal beauty. Ah! to be beautiful and strong and just, one's whole dream lies in that. "

Jahan relighted his pipe and burst into a merry laugh. "Well, I think thegood woman carries herself upright. . . . What do you fellows say?"

His visitors highly praised his work. Pierre for his part was muchaffected at finding in this artistic conception the very idea that he hadso long been revolving in his mind--the idea of an era of Justice risingfrom the ruins of the world, which Charity after centuries of trial hadfailed to save. 

Then the sculptor gaily explained that he had prepared his model thereinstead of at home, in order to console himself a little for his bigdummy of an angel, the prescribed triteness of which disgusted him. Somefresh objections had been raised with respect to the folds of the robe, which gave some prominence to the thighs, and in the end he had beencompelled to modify all of the drapery. 

"Oh! it's just as they like!" he cried; "it's no work of mine, you know;it's simply an order which I'm executing just as a mason builds a wall. There's no religious art left, it has been killed by stupidity anddisbelief. Ah! if social or human art could only revive, how glorious tobe one of the first to bear the tidings!"

Then he paused. Where could the youngsters, Antoine and Lise, have gotto, he wondered. He threw the door wide open, and, a little distanceaway, among the materials littering the waste ground, one could seeAntoine's tall figure and Lise's short slender form standing out againstthe immensity of Paris, which was all golden amidst the sun's farewell. The young man's strong arm supported Lise, who with this help walkedbeside him without feeling any fatigue. Slender and graceful, like a girlblossoming into womanhood, she raised her eyes to his with a smile ofinfinite gratitude, which proclaimed that she belonged to him forevermore. 

"Ah! they are coming back, " said Jahan. "The miracle is now complete, youknow. I'm delighted at it. I did not know what to do with her; I had evenrenounced all attempts to teach her to read; I left her for days togetherin a corner, infirm and tongue-tied like a lack-wit. . . . But yourbrother came and took her in hand somehow or other. She listened to himand understood him, and began to read and write with him, and growintelligent and gay. Then, as her limbs still gained no suppleness, andshe remained infirm, ailing and puny, he began by carrying her here, andthen helped her to walk in such wise that she can now do so by herself. In a few weeks' time she has positively grown and become quite charming. Yes, I assure you, it is second birth, real creation. Just look at them!"

Antoine and Lise were still slowly approaching. The evening breeze whichrose from the great city, where all was yet heat and sunshine, broughtthem a bath of life. If the young man had chosen that spot, with itssplendid horizon, open to the full air which wafted all the germs oflife, it was doubtless because he felt that nowhere else could he instilmore vitality, more soul, more strength into her. And love had beencreated by love. He had found her asleep, benumbed, without power ofmotion or intellect, and he had awakened her, kindled life in her, lovedher, that he might be loved by her in return. She was his work, she waspart of himself. 

"So you no longer feel tired, little one?" said Jahan. 

She smiled divinely. "Oh! no, it's so pleasant, so beautiful, to walkstraight on like this. . . . All I desire is to go on for ever and everwith Antoine. "

The others laughed, and Jahan exclaimed in his good-natured way: "Let ushope that he won't take you so far. You've reached your destination now, and I shan't be the one to prevent you from being happy. "

Antoine was already standing before the figure of Justice, to which thefalling twilight seemed to impart a quiver of life. "Oh! how divinelysimple, how divinely beautiful!" said he. 

For his own part he had lately finished a new wood engraving, whichdepicted Lise holding a book in her hand, an engraving instinct withtruth and emotion, showing her awakened to intelligence and love. Andthis time he had achieved his desire, making no preliminary drawing, buttackling the block with his graver, straight away, in presence of hismodel. And infinite hopefulness had come upon him, he was dreaming ofgreat original works in which the whole period that he belonged to wouldlive anew and for ever. 

Thomas now wished to return home. So they shook hands with Jahan, who, ashis day's work was over, put on his coat to take his sister back to theRue du Calvaire. 

"Till to-morrow, Lise, " said Antoine, inclining his head to kiss her. 

She raised herself on tip-toes, and offered him her eyes, which he hadopened to life. "Till to-morrow, Antoine, " said she. 

Outside, the twilight was falling. Pierre was the first to cross thethreshold, and as he did so, he saw so extraordinary a sight that for aninstant he felt stupefied. But it was certain enough: he could plainlydistinguish his brother Guillaume emerging from the gaping doorway whichconducted to the foundations of the basilica. And he saw him hastilyclimb over the palings, and then pretend to be there by pure chance, asthough he had come up from the Rue Lamarck. When he accosted his twosons, as if he were delighted to meet them, and began to say that he hadjust come from Paris, Pierre asked himself if he had been dreaming. However, an anxious glance which his brother cast at him convinced himthat he had been right. And then he not only felt ill at ease in presenceof that man whom he had never previously known to lie, but it seemed tohim that he was at last on the track of all he had feared, the formidablemystery that he had for some time past felt brewing around him in thelittle peaceful house. 

When Guillaume, his sons and his brother reached home and entered thelarge workroom overlooking Paris, it was so dark that they fancied nobodywas there. 

"What! nobody in?" said Guillaume. 

But in a somewhat low, quiet voice Francois answered out of the gloom:"Why, yes, I'm here. "

He had remained at his table, where he had worked the whole afternoon, and as he could no longer read, he now sat in a dreamy mood with his headresting on his hands, his eyes wandering over Paris, where night wasgradually falling. As his examination was now near at hand, he was livingin a state of severe mental strain. 

"What, you are still working there!" said his father. "Why didn't you askfor a lamp?"

"No, I wasn't working, I was looking at Paris, " Francois slowly answered. "It's singular how the night falls over it by degrees. The last districtthat remained visible was the Montague Ste. Genevieve, the plateau of thePantheon, where all our knowledge and science have grown up. A sun-raystill gilds the schools and libraries and laboratories, when thelow-lying districts of trade are already steeped in darkness. I won't saythat the planet has a particular partiality for us at the Ecole Normale, but it's certain that its beams still linger on our roofs, when they areto be seen nowhere else. "

He began to laugh at his jest. Still one could see how ardent was hisfaith in mental effort, how entirely he gave himself to mental labour, which, in his opinion, could alone bring truth, establish justice andcreate happiness. 

Then came a short spell of silence. Paris sank more and more deeply intothe night, growing black and mysterious, till all at once sparks of lightbegan to appear. 

"The lamps are being lighted, " resumed Francois; "work is being resumed onall sides. "

Then Guillaume, who likewise had been dreaming, immersed in his fixedidea, exclaimed: "Work, yes, no doubt! But for work to give a fullharvest it must be fertilised by will. There is something which issuperior to work. "

Thomas and Antoine had drawn near. And Francois, as much for them as forhimself, inquired: "What is that, father?"

"Action. "

For a moment the three young men remained silent, impressed by thesolemnity of the hour, quivering too beneath the great waves of darknesswhich rose from the vague ocean of the city. Then a young voice remarked, though whose it was one could not tell: "Action is but work. "

And Pierre, who lacked the respectful quietude, the silent faith, of hisnephews, now felt his nervousness increasing. That huge and terrifyingmystery of which he was dimly conscious rose before him, while a greatquiver sped by in the darkness, over that black city where the lamps werenow being lighted for a whole passionate night of work. 

IV

THE CRISIS

A GREAT ceremony was to take place that day at the basilica of the SacredHeart. Ten thousand pilgrims were to be present there, at a solemnconsecration of the Holy Sacrament; and pending the arrival of fouro'clock, the hour fixed for the service, Montmartre would be invaded bypeople. Its slopes would be black with swarming devotees, the shops wherereligious emblems and pictures were sold would be besieged, the cafes andtaverns would be crowded to overflowing. It would all be like some hugefair, and meantime the big bell of the basilica, "La Savoyarde, " would beringing peal on peal over the holiday-making multitude. 

When Pierre entered the workroom in the morning he perceived Guillaumeand Mere-Grand alone there; and a remark which he heard the former makecaused him to stop short and listen from behind a tall-revolvingbookstand. Mere-Grand sat sewing in her usual place near the big window, while Guillaume stood before her, speaking in a low voice. 

"Mother, " said he, "everything is ready, it is for to-day. "

She let her work fall, and raised her eyes, looking very pale. "Ah!" shesaid, "so you have made up your mind. "

"Yes, irrevocably. At four o'clock I shall be yonder, and it will all beover. "

"'Tis well--you are the master. "

Silence fell, terrible silence. Guillaume's voice seemed to come from faraway, from somewhere beyond the world. It was evident that his resolutionwas unshakable, that his tragic dream, his fixed idea of martyrdom, wholly absorbed him. Mere-Grand looked at him with her pale eyes, like anheroic woman who had grown old in relieving the sufferings of others, andhad ever shown all the abnegation and devotion of an intrepid heart, which nothing but the idea of duty could influence. She knew Guillaume'sterrible scheme, and had helped him to regulate the pettiest details ofit; but if on the one hand, after all the iniquity she had seen andendured, she admitted that fierce and exemplary punishment might seemnecessary, and that even the idea of purifying the world by the fire of avolcano might be entertained, on the other hand, she believed toostrongly in the necessity of living one's life bravely to the very end, to be able, under any circumstances, to regard death as either good orprofitable. 

"My son, " she gently resumed, "I witnessed the growth of your scheme, andit neither surprised nor angered me. I accepted it as one acceptslightning, the very fire of the skies, something of sovereign purity andpower. And I have helped you through it all, and have taken upon myselfto act as the mouthpiece of your conscience. . . . But let me tell youonce more, one ought never to desert the cause of life. "

"It is useless to speak, mother, " Guillaume replied: "I have resolved togive my life and cannot take it back. . . . Are you now unwilling tocarry out my desires, remain here, and act as we have decided, when allis over?"

She did not answer this inquiry, but in her turn, speaking slowly andgravely, put a question to him: "So it is useless for me to speak to youof the children, myself and the house?" said she. "You have thought itall over, you are quite determined?" And as he simply answered "Yes, " sheadded: "'Tis well, you are the master. . . . I will be the one who is toremain behind and act. And you may be without fear, your bequest is ingood hands. All that we have decided together shall be done. "

Once more they became silent. Then she again inquired: "At four o'clock, you say, at the moment of that consecration?"

"Yes, at four o'clock. "

She was still looking at him with her pale eyes, and there seemed to besomething superhuman in her simplicity and grandeur as she sat there inher thin black gown. Her glance, in which the greatest bravery and thedeepest sadness mingled, filled Guillaume with acute emotion. His handsbegan to tremble, and he asked: "Will you let me kiss you, mother?"

"Oh! right willingly, my son, " she responded. "Your path of duty may notbe mine, but you see I respect your views and love you. "

They kissed one another, and when Pierre, whom the scene had chilled tohis heart, presented himself as if he were just arriving, Mere-Grand hadquietly taken up her needlework once more, while Guillaume was going toand fro, setting one of his laboratory shelves in order with all hiswonted activity. 

At noon when lunch was ready, they found it necessary to wait for Thomas, who had not yet come home. His brothers Francois and Antoine complainedin a jesting way, saying that they were dying of hunger, while for herpart Marie, who had made a /creme/, and was very proud of it, declaredthat they would eat it all, and that those who came late would have to gowithout tasting it. When Thomas eventually put in an appearance he wasgreeted with jeers. 

"But it wasn't my fault, " said he; "I stupidly came up the hill by way ofthe Rue de la Barre, and you can have no notion what a crowd I fell upon. Quite ten thousand pilgrims must have camped there last night. I am toldthat as many as possible were huddled together in the St. Joseph Refuge. The others no doubt had to sleep in the open air. And now they are busyeating, here, there and everywhere, all over the patches of waste groundand even on the pavements. One can scarcely set one foot before the otherwithout risk of treading on somebody. "

The meal proved a very gay one, though Pierre found the gaiety forced andexcessive. Yet the young people could surely know nothing of thefrightful, invisible thing which to Pierre ever seemed to be hoveringaround in the bright sunlight of that splendid June day. Was it that thedim presentiment which comes to loving hearts when mourning threatensthem, swept by during the short intervals of silence that followed thejoyous outbursts? Although Guillaume looked somewhat pale, and spoke withunusual caressing softness, he retained his customary bright smile. But, on the other hand, never had Mere-Grand been more silent or more grave. 

Marie's /creme/ proved a great success, and the others congratulated heron it so fulsomely that they made her blush. Then, all at once, heavysilence fell once more, a deathly chill seemed to sweep by, making everyface turn pale--even while they were still cleaning their plates withtheir little spoons. 

"Ah! that bell, " exclaimed Francois; "it is really intolerable. I canfeel my head splitting. "

He referred to "La Savoyarde, " the big bell of the basilica, which hadnow begun to toll, sending forth deep sonorous volumes of sound, whichever and ever winged their flight over the immensity of Paris. In theworkroom they were all listening to the clang. 

"Will it keep on like that till four o'clock?" asked Marie. 

"Oh! at four o'clock, " replied Thomas, "at the moment of the consecrationyou will hear something much louder than that. The great peals of joy, the song of triumph will then ring out. "

Guillaume was still smiling. "Yes, yes, " said he, "those who don't wantto be deafened for life had better keep their windows closed. The worstis, that Paris has to hear it whether it will or no, and even as far awayas the Pantheon, so I'm told. "

Meantime Mere-Grand remained silent and impassive. Antoine for his partexpressed his disgust with the horrible religious pictures for which thepilgrims fought--pictures which in some respects suggested those on thelids of sweetmeat boxes, although they depicted the Christ with Hisbreast ripped open and displaying His bleeding heart. There could be nomore repulsive materialism, no grosser or baser art, said Antoine. Thenthey rose from table, talking at the top of their voices so as to makethemselves heard above the incessant din which came from the big bell. 

Immediately afterwards they all set to work again. Mere-Grand took hereverlasting needlework in hand once more, while Marie, sitting near her, continued some embroidery. The young men also attended to theirrespective tasks, and now and again raised their heads and exchanged afew words. Guillaume, for his part, likewise seemed very busy; Pierrealone coming and going in a state of anguish, beholding them all as in anightmare, and attributing some terrible meaning to the most innocentremarks. During /dejeuner/, in order to explain the frightful discomfortinto which he was thrown by the gaiety of the meal, he had been obligedto say that he felt poorly. And now he was looking and listening andwaiting with ever-growing anxiety. 

Shortly before three o'clock, Guillaume glanced at his watch and thenquietly took up his hat. "Well, " said he, "I'm going out. "

His sons, Mere-Grand and Marie raised their heads. 

"I'm going out, " he repeated, "/au revoir/. "

Still he did not go off. Pierre could divine that he was struggling, stiffening himself against the frightful tempest which was raging withinhim, striving to prevent either shudder or pallor from betraying hisawful secret. Ah! he must have suffered keenly; he dared not give hissons a last kiss, for fear lest he might rouse some suspicion in theirminds, which would impel them to oppose him and prevent his death! Atlast with supreme heroism he managed to overcome himself. 

"/Au revoir/, boys. "

"/Au revoir/, father. Will you be home early?"

"Yes, yes. . . . Don't worry about me, do plenty of work. "

Mere-Grand, still majestically silent, kept her eyes fixed upon him. Herhe had ventured to kiss, and their glances met and mingled, instinct withall that he had decided and that she had promised: their common dream oftruth and justice. 

"I say, Guillaume, " exclaimed Marie gaily, "will you undertake acommission for me if you are going down by way of the Rue des Martyrs?"

"Why, certainly, " he replied. 

"Well, then, please look in at my dressmaker's, and tell her that Ishan't go to try my gown on till to-morrow morning. "

It was a question of her wedding dress, a gown of light grey silk, thestylishness of which she considered very amusing. Whenever she spoke ofit, both she and the others began to laugh. 

"It's understood, my dear, " said Guillaume, likewise making merry overit. "We know it's Cinderella's court robe, eh? The fairy brocade and lacethat are to make you very beautiful and for ever happy. "

However, the laughter ceased, and in the sudden silence which fell, itagain seemed as if death were passing by with a great flapping of wingsand an icy gust which chilled the hearts of everyone remaining there. 

"It's understood; so now I'm really off, " resumed Guillaume. "/Aurevoir/, children. "

Then he sallied forth, without even turning round, and for a moment theycould hear the firm tread of his feet over the garden gravel. 

Pierre having invented a pretext was able to follow him a couple ofminutes afterwards. As a matter of fact there was no need for him to dogGuillaume's heels, for he knew where his brother was going. He wasthoroughly convinced that he would find him at that doorway, conductingto the foundations of the basilica, whence he had seen him emerge twodays before. And so he wasted no time in looking for him among the crowdof pilgrims going to the church. His only thought was to hurry on andreach Jahan's workshop. And in accordance with his expectation, just ashe arrived there, he perceived Guillaume slipping between the brokenpalings. The crush and the confusion prevailing among the concourse ofbelievers favored Pierre as it had his brother, in such wise that he wasable to follow the latter and enter the doorway without being noticed. Once there he had to pause and draw breath for a moment, so greatly didthe beating of his heart oppress him. 

A precipitous flight of steps, where all was steeped in darkness, descended from the narrow entry. It was with infinite precaution thatPierre ventured into the gloom, which ever grew denser and denser. Helowered his feet gently so as to make no noise, and feeling the wallswith his hands, turned round and round as he went lower and lower into akind of well. However, the descent was not a very long one. As soon as hefound beaten ground beneath his feet he paused, no longer daring to stirfor fear of betraying his presence. The darkness was like ink, and therewas not a sound, a breath; the silence was complete. 

How should he find his way? he wondered. Which direction ought he totake? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly sawa bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle. Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply hadto follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterraneangallery. It seemed to be interminable and to run in a northerlydirection, towards the nave of the basilica. 

All at once the little light at last stopped, while Pierre, anxious tosee what would happen, continued to advance, treading as softly as hecould and remaining in the gloom. He found that Guillaume had stood hiscandle upon the ground in the middle of a kind of low rotunda under thecrypt, and that he had knelt down and moved aside a long flagstone whichseemed to cover a cavity. They were here among the foundations of thebasilica; and one of the columns or piles of concrete poured into shaftsin order to support the building could be seen. The gap, which the stoneslab removed by Guillaume had covered, was by the very side of thepillar; it was either some natural surface flaw, or a deep fissure causedby some subsidence or settling of the soil. The heads of other pillarscould be descried around, and these the cleft seemed to be reaching, forlittle slits branched out in all directions. Then, on seeing his brotherleaning forward, like one who is for the last time examining a mine hehas laid before applying a match to the fuse, Pierre suddenly understoodthe whole terrifying business. Considerable quantities of the newexplosive had been brought to that spot. Guillaume had made the journey ascore of times at carefully selected hours, and all his powder had beenpoured into the gap beside the pillar, spreading to the slightest riftsbelow, saturating the soil at a great depth, and in this wise forming anatural mine of incalculable force. And now the powder was flush with theflagstone which Guillaume has just moved aside. It was only necessary tothrow a match there, and everything would be blown into the air!

For a moment an acute chill of horror rooted Pierre to the spot. He couldneither have taken a step nor raised a cry. He pictured the swarmingthrong above him, the ten thousand pilgrims crowding the lofty naves ofthe basilica to witness the solemn consecration of the Host. Peal uponpeal flew from "La Savoyarde, " incense smoked, and ten thousand voicesraised a hymn of magnificence and praise. And all at once came thunderand earthquake, and a volcano opening and belching forth fire and smoke, and swallowing up the whole church and its multitude of worshippers. Breaking the concrete piles and rending the unsound soil, the explosion, which was certain to be one of extraordinary violence, would doubtlesssplit the edifice atwain, and hurl one-half down the slopes descendingtowards Paris, whilst the other on the side of the apse would crumble andcollapse upon the spot where it stood. And how fearful would be theavalanche; a broken forest of scaffoldings, a hail of stonework, rushingand bounding through the dust and smoke on to the roofs below; whilst theviolence of the shock would threaten the whole of Montmartre, which, itseemed likely, must stagger and sink in one huge mass of ruins!

However, Guillaume had again risen. The candle standing on the ground, its flame shooting up, erect and slender, threw his huge shadow all overthe subterranean vault. Amidst the dense blackness the light looked likesome dismal stationary star. Guillaume drew near to it in order to seewhat time it was by his watch. It proved to be five minutes past three. So he had nearly another hour to wait. He was in no hurry, he wished tocarry out his design punctually, at the precise moment he had selected;and he therefore sat down on a block of stone, and remained there withoutmoving, quiet and patient. The candle now cast its light upon his paleface, upon his towering brow crowned with white hair, upon the whole ofhis energetic countenance, which still looked handsome and young, thanksto his bright eyes and dark moustaches. And not a muscle of his facestirred; he simply gazed into the void. What thoughts could be passingthrough his mind at that supreme moment? Who could tell? There was not aquiver; heavy night, the deep eternal silence of the earth reigned allaround. 

Then Pierre, having quieted his palpitating heart, drew near. At thesound of his footsteps Guillaume rose menacingly, but he immediatelyrecognised his brother, and did not seem astonished to see him. 

"Ah! it's you, " he said, "you followed me. . . . I felt that youpossessed my secret. And it grieves me that you should have abused yourknowledge to join me here. You might have spared me this last sorrow. "

Pierre clasped his trembling hands, and at once tried to entreat him. "Brother, brother, " he began. 

"No, don't speak yet, " said Guillaume, "if you absolutely wish it I willlisten to you by-and-by. We have nearly an hour before us, so we canchat. But I want you to understand the futility of all you may thinkneedful to tell me. My resolution is unshakable; I was a long time comingto it, and in carrying it out I shall simply be acting in accordance withmy reason and my conscience. "

Then he quietly related that having decided upon a great deed he had longhesitated as to which edifice he should destroy. The opera-house hadmomentarily tempted him, but he had reflected that there would be nogreat significance in the whirlwind of anger and justice destroying alittle set of enjoyers. In fact, such a deed might savour of jealousy andcovetousness. Next he had thought of the Bourse, where he might strike ablow at money, the great agent of corruption, and the capitalist societyin whose clutches the wage-earners groaned. Only, here again the blowwould fall upon a restricted circle. Then an idea of destroying thePalace of Justice, particularly the assize court, had occurred to him. Itwas a very tempting thought--to wreak justice upon human justice, tosweep away the witnesses, the culprit, the public prosecutor who chargesthe latter, the counsel who defends him, the judges who sentence him, andthe lounging public which comes to the spot as to the unfolding of somesensational serial. And then too what fierce irony there would be in thesummary superior justice of the volcano swallowing up everythingindiscriminately without pausing to enter into details. However, the planover which he had most lingered was that of blowing up the Arc deTriomphe. This he regarded as an odious monument which perpetuatedwarfare, hatred among nations, and the false, dearly purchased, sanguineous glory of conquerors. That colossus raised to the memory of somuch frightful slaughter which had uselessly put an end to so many humanlives, ought, he considered, to be slaughtered in its turn. Could he sohave arranged things that the earth should swallow it up, he might haveachieved the glory of causing no other death than his own, of dyingalone, struck down, crushed to pieces beneath that giant of stone. What atomb, and what a memory might he thus have left to the world!

"But there was no means of approaching it, " he continued, "no basement, no cellar, so I had to give up the idea. . . . And then, although I'mperfectly willing to die alone, I thought what a loftier and moreterrible lesson there would be in the unjust death of an innocentmultitude, of thousands of unknown people, of all those that might happento be passing. In the same way as human society by dint of injustice, want and harsh regulations causes so many innocent victims, so mustpunishment fall as the lightning falls, indiscriminately killing anddestroying whatever it may encounter in its course. When a man sets hisfoot on an ant-hill, he gives no heed to all the lives which he stampsout. "

Pierre, whom this theory rendered quite indignant, raised a cry ofprotest: "Oh! brother, brother, is it you who are saying such things?"

Yet, Guillaume did not pause: "If I have ended by choosing this basilicaof the Sacred Heart, " he continued, "it is because I found it near athand and easy to destroy. But it is also because it haunts andexasperates me, because I have long since condemned it. . . . As I haveoften said to you, one cannot imagine anything more preposterous thanParis, our great Paris, crowned and dominated by this temple raised tothe glorification of the absurd. Is it not outrageous that common senseshould receive such a smack after so many centuries of science, that Romeshould claim the right of triumphing in this insolent fashion, on ourloftiest height in the full sunlight? The priests want Paris to repentand do penitence for its liberative work of truth and justice. But itsonly right course is to sweep away all that hampers and insults it in itsmarch towards deliverance. And so may the temple fall with its deity offalsehood and servitude! And may its ruins crush its worshippers, so thatlike one of the old geological revolutions of the world, the catastrophemay resound through the very entrails of mankind, and renew and changeit!"

"Brother, brother!" again cried Pierre, quite beside himself, "is it youwho are talking? What! you, a great scientist, a man of great heart, youhave come to this! What madness is stirring you that you should think andsay such abominable things? On the evening when we confessed our secretsone to the other, you told me of your proud and lofty dream of idealAnarchy. There would be free harmony in life, which left to its naturalforces would of itself create happiness. But you still rebelled againstthe idea of theft and murder. You would not accept them as right ornecessary; you merely explained and excused them. What has happened thenthat you, all brain and thought, should now have become the hateful handthat acts?"

"Salvat has been guillotined, " said Guillaume simply, "and I read hiswill and testament in his last glance. I am merely an executor. . . . Andwhat has happened, you ask? Why, all that has made me suffer for fourmonths past, the whole social evil which surrounds us, and which must bebrought to an end. "

Silence fell. The brothers looked at one another in the darkness. AndPierre now understood things. He saw that Guillaume was changed, that theterrible gust of revolutionary contagion sweeping over Paris hadtransformed him. It had all come from the duality of his nature, thepresence of contradictory elements within him. On one side one found ascientist whose whole creed lay in observation and experiment, who, indealing with nature, evinced the most cautious logic; while on the otherside was a social dreamer, haunted by ideas of fraternity, equality andjustice, and eager for universal happiness. Thence had first come thetheoretical anarchist that he had been, one in whom science and chimeraswere mingled, who dreamt of human society returning to the harmonious lawof the spheres, each man free, in a free association, regulated by lovealone. Neither Theophile Morin with the doctrines of Proudhon and Comte, nor Bache with those of St. Simon and Fourier, had been able to satisfyhis desire for the absolute. All those systems had seemed to himimperfect and chaotic, destructive of one another, and tending to thesame wretchedness of life. Janzen alone had occasionally satisfied himwith some of his curt phrases which shot over the horizon, like arrowsconquering the whole earth for the human family. And then in Guillaume'sbig heart, which the idea of want, the unjust sufferings of the lowly andthe poor exasperated, Salvat's tragic adventure had suddenly found place, fomenting supreme rebellion. For long weeks he had lived on withtrembling hands, with growing anguish clutching at his throat. First hadcome that bomb and the explosion which still made him quiver, then thevile cupidity of the newspapers howling for the poor wretch's head, thenthe search for him and the hunt through the Bois de Boulogne, till hefell into the hands of the police, covered with mud and dying ofstarvation. And afterwards there had been the assize court, the judges, the gendarmes, the witnesses, the whole of France arrayed against one manand bent on making him pay for the universal crime. And finally, therehad come the guillotine, the monstrous, the filthy beast consummatingirreparable injustice in human justice's name. One sole idea now remainedto Guillaume, that idea of justice which maddened him, leaving naught inhis mind save the thought of the just, avenging flare by which he wouldrepair the evil and ensure that which was right for all time forward. Salvat had looked at him, and contagion had done its work; he glowed witha desire for death, a desire to give his own blood and set the blood ofothers flowing, in order that mankind, amidst its fright and horror, should decree the return of the golden age. 

Pierre understood the stubborn blindness of such insanity; and he feltutterly upset by the fear that he should be unable to overcome it. "Youare mad, brother!" he exclaimed, "they have driven you mad! It is a gustof violence passing; they were treated in a wrong way and toorelentlessly at the outset, and now that they are avenging one another, it may be that blood will never cease to flow. . . . But, listen, brother, throw off that nightmare. You can't be a Salvat who murders or aBergaz who steals! Remember the pillage of the Princess's house andremember the fair-haired, pretty child whom we saw lying yonder, rippedopen. . . . You do not, you cannot belong to that set, brother--"

With a wave of his hand, Guillaume brushed these vain reasons aside. Ofwhat consequence were a few lives, his own included? No change had evertaken place in the world without millions and millions of existencesbeing stamped out. 

"But you had a great scheme in hand, " cried Pierre, hoping to save him byreviving his sense of duty. "It isn't allowable for you to go off likethis. "

Then he fervently strove to awaken his brother's scientific pride. Hespoke to him of his secret, of that great engine of warfare, which coulddestroy armies and reduce cities to dust, and which he had intended tooffer to France, so that on emerging victorious from the approaching war, she might afterwards become the deliverer of the world. And it was thisgrand scheme that he had abandoned, preferring to employ his explosive inkilling innocent people and overthrowing a church, which would be builtafresh, whatever the cost, and become a sanctuary of martyrs!

Guillaume smiled. "I have not relinquished my scheme, " said he, "I havesimply modified it. Did I not tell you of my doubts, my anxiousperplexity? Ah! to believe that one holds the destiny of the world inone's grasp, and to tremble and hesitate and wonder if the intelligenceand wisdom, that are needful for things to take the one wise course, willbe forthcoming! At sight of all the stains upon our great Paris, all theerrors and transgressions which we lately witnessed, I shuddered. I askedmyself if Paris were sufficiently calm and pure for one to entrust herwith omnipotence. How terrible would be the disaster if such an inventionas mine should fall into the hands of a demented nation, possibly adictator, some man of conquest, who would simply employ it to terrorizeother nations and reduce them to slavery. . . . Ah! no, I do not wish toperpetuate warfare, I wish to kill it. "

Then in a clear firm voice he explained his new plan, in which Pierre wassurprised to find some of the ideas which General de Bozonnet had one daylaid before him in a very different spirit. Warfare was on the road toextinction, threatened by its very excesses. In the old days ofmercenaries, and afterwards with conscripts, the percentage of soldiersdesignated by chance, war had been a profession and a passion. Butnowadays, when everybody is called upon to fight, none care to do so. Bythe logical force of things, the system of the whole nation in arms meansthe coming end of armies. How much longer will the nations remain on afooting of deadly peace, bowed down by ever increasing "estimates, "spending millions and millions on holding one another in respect? Ah! howgreat the deliverance, what a cry of relief would go up on the day whensome formidable engine, capable of destroying armies and sweeping citiesaway, should render war an impossibility and constrain every people todisarm! Warfare would be dead, killed in her own turn, she who has killedso many. This was Guillaume's dream, and he grew quite enthusiastic, sostrong was his conviction that he would presently bring it to pass. 

"Everything is settled, " said he; "if I am about to die and disappear, itis in order that my idea may triumph. . . . You have lately seen me spendwhole afternoons alone with Mere-Grand. Well, we were completing theclassification of the documents and making our final arrangements. Shehas my orders, and will execute them even at the risk of her life, fornone has a braver, loftier soul. . . . As soon as I am dead, buriedbeneath these stones, as soon as she has heard the explosion shake Parisand proclaim the advent of the new era, she will forward a set of all thedocuments I have confided to her--the formula of my explosive, thedrawings of the bomb and gun--to each of the great powers of the world. In this wise I shall bestow on all the nations the terrible gift ofdestruction and omnipotence which, at first, I wished to bestow on Francealone; and I do this in order that the nations, being one and all armedwith the thunderbolt, may at once disarm, for fear of being annihilated, when seeking to annihilate others. "

Pierre listened to him, gaping, amazed at this extraordinary idea, inwhich childishness was blended with genius. "Well, " said he, "if you giveyour secret to all the nations, why should you blow up this church, anddie yourself?"

"Why! In order that I may be believed!" cried Guillaume withextraordinary force of utterance. Then he added, "The edifice must lie onthe ground, and I must be under it. If the experiment is not made, ifuniversal horror does not attest and proclaim the amazing destructivepower of my explosive, people will consider me a mere schemer, avisionary! . . . A lot of dead, a lot of blood, that is what is needed inorder that blood may for ever cease to flow!" Then, with a broad sweep ofhis arm, he again declared that his action was necessary. "Besides, " hesaid, "Salvat left me the legacy of carrying out this deed of justice. IfI have given it greater scope and significance, utilising it as a meansof hastening the end of war, this is because I happen to be a man ofintellect. It would have been better possibly if my mind had been asimple one, and if I had merely acted like some volcano which changes thesoil, leaving life the task of renewing humanity. "

Much of the candle had now burnt away, and Guillaume at last rose fromthe block of stone. He had again consulted his watch, and found that hehad ten minutes left him. The little current of air created by hisgestures made the light flicker, while all around him the darkness seemedto grow denser. And near at hand ever lay the threatening open mine whicha spark might at any moment fire. 

"It is nearly time, " said Guillaume. "Come, brother, kiss me and go away. You know how much I love you, what ardent affection for you has beenawakened in my old heart. So love me in like fashion, and find loveenough to let me die as I want to die, in carrying out my duty. Kiss me, kiss me, and go away without turning your head. "

His deep affection for Pierre made his voice tremble, but he struggledon, forced back his tears, and ended by conquering himself. It was as ifhe were no longer of the world, no longer one of mankind. 

"No, brother, you have not convinced me, " said Pierre, who on his sidedid not seek to hide his tears, "and it is precisely because I love youas you love me, with my whole being, my whole soul, that I cannot goaway. It is impossible! You cannot be the madman, the murderer you wouldtry to be. "

"Why not? Am I not free. I have rid my life of all responsibilities, allties. . . . I have brought up my sons, they have no further need of me. But one heart-link remained--Marie, and I have given her to you. "

At this a disturbing argument occurred to Pierre, and he passionatelyavailed himself of it. "So you want to die because you have given meMarie, " said he. "You still love her, confess it!"

"No!" cried Guillaume, "I no longer love her, I swear it. I gave her toyou. I love her no more. "

"So you fancied; but you can see now that you still love her, for hereyou are, quite upset; whereas none of the terrifying things of which wespoke just now could even move you. . . . Yes, if you wish to die it isbecause you have lost Marie!"

Guillaume quivered, shaken by what his brother said, and in low, brokenwords he tried to question himself. "No, no, that any love pain shouldhave urged me to this terrible deed would be unworthy--unworthy of mygreat design. No, no, I decided on it in the free exercise of my reason, and I am accomplishing it from no personal motive, but in the name ofjustice and for the benefit of humanity, in order that war and want maycease. "

Then, in sudden anguish, he went on: "Ah! it is cruel of you, brother, cruel of you to poison my delight at dying. I have created all thehappiness I could, I was going off well pleased at leaving you all happy, and now you poison my death. No, no! question it how I may, my heart doesnot ache; if I love Marie, it is simply in the same way as I love you. "

Nevertheless, he remained perturbed, as if fearing lest he might be lyingto himself; and by degrees gloomy anger came over him: "Listen, that isenough, Pierre, " he exclaimed, "time is flying. . . . For the last time, go away! I order you to do so; I will have it!"

"I will not obey you, Guillaume. . . . I will stay, and as all myreasoning cannot save you from your insanity, fire your mine, and I willdie with you. "

"You? Die? But you have no right to do so, you are not free!"

"Free, or not, I swear that I will die with you. And if it merely be aquestion of flinging this candle into that hole, tell me so, and I willtake it and fling it there myself. "

He made a gesture at which his brother thought that he was about to carryout his threat. So he caught him by the arm, crying: "Why should you die?It would be absurd. That others should die may be necessary, but you, no!Of what use could be this additional monstrosity? You are endeavouring tosoften me, you are torturing my heart!" Then all at once, imagining thatPierre's offer had concealed another design, Guillaume thundered in afury: "You don't want to take the candle in order to throw it there. Whatyou want to do is to blow it out! And you think I shan't be ablethen--ah! you bad brother!"

In his turn Pierre exclaimed: "Oh! certainly, I'll use every means toprevent you from accomplishing such a frightful and foolish deed!"

"You'll prevent me!"

"Yes, I'll cling to you, I'll fasten my arms to your shoulders, I'll holdyour hands if necessary. "

"Ah! you'll prevent me, you bad brother! You think you'll prevent me!"

Choking and trembling with rage, Guillaume had already caught hold ofPierre, pressing his ribs with his powerful muscular arms. They wereclosely linked together, their eyes fixed upon one another, and theirbreath mingling in that kind of subterranean dungeon, where their bigdancing shadows looked like ghosts. They seemed to be vanishing into thenight, the candle now showed merely like a little yellow tear in themidst of the darkness; and at that moment, in those far depths, a quiversped through the silence of the earth which weighed so heavily upon them. Distant but sonorous peals rang out, as if death itself were somewhereringing its invisible bell. 

"You hear, " stammered Guillaume, "it's their bell up there. The time hascome. I have vowed to act, and you want to prevent me!"

"Yes, I'll prevent you as long as I'm here alive. "

"As long as you are alive, you'll prevent me!"

Guillaume could hear "La Savoyarde" pealing joyfully up yonder; he couldsee the triumphant basilica, overflowing with its ten thousand pilgrims, and blazing with the splendour of the Host amidst the smoke of incense;and blind frenzy came over him at finding himself unable to act, atfinding an obstacle suddenly barring the road to his fixed idea. 

"As long as you are alive, as long as you are alive!" he repeated, besidehimself. "Well, then, die, you wretched brother!"

A fratricidal gleam had darted from his blurred eyes. He hastily stooped, picked up a large brick forgotten there, and raised it with both hands asif it were a club. 

"Ah! I'm willing, " cried Pierre. "Kill me, then; kill your own brotherbefore you kill the others!"

The brick was already descending, but Guillaume's arms must havedeviated, for the weapon only grazed one of Pierre's shoulders. Nevertheless, he sank upon his knees in the gloom. When Guillaume saw himthere he fancied he had dealt him a mortal blow. What was it that hadhappened between them, what had he done? For a moment he remainedstanding, haggard, his mouth open, his eyes dilating with terror. Helooked at his hands, fancying that blood was streaming from them. Then hepressed them to his brow, which seemed to be bursting with pain, as ifhis fixed idea had been torn from him, leaving his skull open. And hehimself suddenly sank upon the ground with a great sob. 

"Oh! brother, little brother, what have I done?" he called. "I am amonster!"

But Pierre had passionately caught him in his arms again. "It is nothing, nothing, brother, I assure you, " he replied. "Ah! you are weeping now. How pleased I am! You are saved, I can feel it, since you are weeping. And what a good thing it is that you flew into such a passion, for youranger with me has dispelled your evil dream of violence. "

"I am horrified with myself, " gasped Guillaume, "to think that I wantedto kill you! Yes, I'm a brute beast that would kill his brother! And theothers, too, all the others up yonder. . . . Oh! I'm cold, I feel socold. "

His teeth were chattering, and he shivered. It was as if he had awakened, half stupefied, from some evil dream. And in the new light which hisfratricidal deed cast upon things, the scheme which had haunted him andgoaded him to madness appeared like some act of criminal folly, projectedby another. 

"To kill you!" he repeated almost in a whisper. "I shall never forgivemyself. My life is ended, I shall never find courage enough to live. "

But Pierre clasped him yet more tightly. "What do you say?" he answered. "Will there not rather be a fresh and stronger tie of affection betweenus? Ah! yes, brother, let me save you as you saved me, and we shall beyet more closely united! Don't you remember that evening at Neuilly, whenyou consoled me and held me to your heart as I am holding you to mine? Ihad confessed my torments to you, and you told me that I must live andlove! . . . And you did far more afterwards: you plucked your own lovefrom your breast and gave it to me. You wished to ensure my happiness atthe price of your own! And how delightful it is that, in my turn, I nowhave an opportunity to console you, save you, and bring you back tolife!"

"No, no, the bloodstain is there and it is ineffaceable. I can hope nomore!"

"Yes, yes, you can. Hope in life as you bade me do! Hope in love and hopein labour!"

Still weeping and clasping one another, the brothers continued speakingin low voices. The expiring candle suddenly went out unknown to them, andin the inky night and deep silence their tears of redeeming affectionflowed freely. On the one hand, there was joy at being able to repay adebt of brotherliness, and on the other, acute emotion at having been ledby a fanatical love of justice and mankind to the very verge of crime. And there were yet other things in the depths of those tears whichcleansed and purified them; there were protests against suffering inevery form, and ardent wishes that the world might some day be relievedof all its dreadful woe. 

At last, after pushing the flagstone over the cavity near the pillar, Pierre groped his way out of the vault, leading Guillaume like a child. 

Meantime Mere-Grand, still seated near the window of the workroom, hadimpassively continued sewing. Now and again, pending the arrival of fouro'clock, she had looked up at the timepiece hanging on the wall on herleft hand, or else had glanced out of the window towards the unfinishedpile of the basilica, which a gigantic framework of scaffoldingsencompassed. Slowly and steadily plying her needle, the old lady remainedvery pale and silent, but full of heroic serenity. On the other hand, Marie, who sat near her, embroidering, shifted her position a score oftimes, broke her thread, and grew impatient, feeling strangely nervous, aprey to unaccountable anxiety, which oppressed her heart. For their part, the three young men could not keep in place at all; it was as if somecontagious fever disturbed them. Each had gone to his work: Thomas wasfiling something at his bench; Francois and Antoine were on either sideof their table, the first trying to solve a mathematical problem, and theother copying a bunch of poppies in a vase before him. It was in vain, however, that they strove to be attentive. They quivered at the slightestsound, raised their heads, and darted questioning glances at one another. What could be the matter? What could possess them? What did they fear?Now and again one or the other would rise, stretch himself, and then, resume his place. However, they did not speak; it was as if they darednot say anything, and thus the heavy silence grew more and more terrible. 

When it was a few minutes to four o'clock Mere-Grand felt weary, or elsedesired to collect her thoughts. After another glance at the timepiece, she let her needlework fall on her lap and turned towards the basilica. It seemed to her that she had only enough strength left to wait; and sheremained with her eyes fixed on the huge walls and the forest ofscaffolding which rose over yonder with such triumphant pride under theblue sky. Then all at once, however brave and firm she might be, shecould not restrain a start, for "La Savoyarde" had raised a joyful clang. The consecration of the Host was now at hand, the ten thousand pilgrimsfilled the church, four o'clock was about to strike. And thereupon anirresistible impulse forced the old lady to her feet; she drew herselfup, quivering, her hands clasped, her eyes ever turned yonder, waiting inmute dread. 

"What is the matter?" cried Thomas, who noticed her. "Why are youtrembling, Mere-Grand?"

Francois and Antoine raised their heads, and in turn sprang forward. 

"Are you ill? Why are you turning so pale, you who are so courageous?"

But she did not answer. Ah! might the force of the explosion rend theearth asunder, reach the house and sweep it into the flaming crater ofthe volcano! Might she and the three young men, might they all die withthe father, this was her one ardent wish in order that grief might bespared them. And she remained waiting and waiting, quivering despiteherself, but with her brave, clear eyes ever gazing yonder. 

"Mere-Grand, Mere-Grand!" cried Marie in dismay; "you frighten us byrefusing to answer us, by looking over there as if some misfortune werecoming up at a gallop!"

Then, prompted by the same anguish, the same cry suddenly came fromThomas, Francois and Antoine: "Father is in peril--father is going todie!"

What did they know? Nothing precise, certainly. Thomas no doubt had beenastonished to see what a large quantity of the explosive his father hadrecently prepared, and both Francois and Antoine were aware of the ideasof revolt which he harboured in his mind. But, full of filial deference, they never sought to know anything beyond what he might choose to confideto them. They never questioned him; they bowed to whatever he might do. And yet now a foreboding came to them, a conviction that their father wasgoing to die, that some most frightful catastrophe was impending. It musthave been that which had already sent such a quiver through theatmosphere ever since the morning, making them shiver with fever, feelill at ease, and unable to work. 

"Father is going to die, father is going to die!"

The three big fellows had drawn close together, distracted by one and thesame anguish, and furiously longing to know what the danger was, in orderthat they might rush upon it and die with their father if they could notsave him. And amidst Mere-Grand's stubborn silence death once moreflitted through the room: there came a cold gust such as they had alreadyfelt brushing past them during /dejeuner/. 

At last four o'clock began to strike, and Mere-Grand raised her whitehands with a gesture of supreme entreaty. It was then that she at lastspoke: "Father is going to die. Nothing but the duty of living can savehim. "

At this the three young men again wished to rush yonder, whither theyknew not; but they felt that they must throw down all obstacles andconquer. Their powerlessness rent their hearts, they were both so franticand so woeful that their grandmother strove to calm them. "Father's ownwish was to die, " said she, "and he is resolved to die alone. "

They shuddered as they heard her, and then, on their side, strove to beheroic. But the minutes crept by, and it seemed as if the cold gust hadslowly passed away. Sometimes, at the twilight hour, a night-bird willcome in by the window like some messenger of misfortune, flit round thedarkened room, and then fly off again, carrying its sadness with it. Andit was much like that; the gust passed, the basilica remained standing, the earth did not open to swallow it. Little by little the atrociousanguish which wrung their hearts gave place to hope. And when at lastGuillaume appeared, followed by Pierre, a great cry of resurrection camefrom one and all: "Father!"

Their kisses, their tears, deprived him of his little remaining strength. He was obliged to sit down. He had glanced round him as if he werereturning to life perforce. Mere-Grand, who understood what bitterfeelings must have followed the subjugation of his will, approached himsmiling, and took hold of both his hands as if to tell him that she waswell pleased at seeing him again, and at finding that he accepted histask and was unwilling to desert the cause of life. For his part hesuffered dreadfully, the shock had been so great. The others spared himany narrative of their feelings; and he, himself, related nothing. With agesture, a loving word, he simply indicated that it was Pierre who hadsaved him. 

Thereupon, in a corner of the room, Marie flung her arms round the youngman's neck. "Ah! my good Pierre, I have never yet kissed you, " said she;"I want it to be for something serious the first time. . . . I love you, my good Pierre, I love you with all my heart. "

Later that same evening, after night had fallen, Guillaume and Pierreremained for a moment alone in the big workroom. The young men had goneout, and Mere-Grand and Marie were upstairs sorting some house linen, while Madame Mathis, who had brought some work back, sat patiently in adim corner waiting for another bundle of things which might requiremending. The brothers, steeped in the soft melancholy of the twilighthour, and chatting in low tones, had quite forgotten her. 

But all at once the arrival of a visitor upset them. It was Janzen withthe fair, Christ-like face. He called very seldom nowadays; and one neverknew from what gloomy spot he had come or into what darkness he wouldreturn when he took his departure. He disappeared, indeed, for monthstogether, and was then suddenly to be seen like some momentary passer-bywhose past and present life were alike unknown. 

"I am leaving to-night, " he said in a voice sharp like a knife. 

"Are you going back to your home in Russia?" asked Guillaume. 

A faint, disdainful smile appeared on the Anarchist's lips. "Home!" saidhe, "I am at home everywhere. To begin with, I am not a Russian, and thenI recognise no other country than the world. "

With a sweeping gesture he gave them to understand what manner of man hewas, one who had no fatherland of his own, but carried his gory dream offraternity hither and thither regardless of frontiers. From some words hespoke the brothers fancied he was returning to Spain, where somefellow-Anarchists awaited him. There was a deal of work to be done there, it appeared. He had quietly seated himself, chatting on in his cold way, when all at once he serenely added: "By the by, a bomb had just beenthrown into the Cafe de l'Univers on the Boulevard. Three /bourgeois/were killed. "

Pierre and Guillaume shuddered, and asked for particulars. ThereuponJanzen related that he had happened to be there, had heard the explosion, and seen the windows of the cafe shivered to atoms. Three customers werelying on the floor blown to pieces. Two of them were gentlemen, who hadentered the place by chance and whose names were not known, while thethird was a regular customer, a petty cit of the neighbourhood, who cameevery day to play a game at dominoes. And the whole place was wrecked;the marble tables were broken, the chandeliers twisted out of shape, themirrors studded with projectiles. And how great the terror and theindignation, and how frantic the rush of the crowd! The perpetrator ofthe deed had been arrested immediately--in fact, just as he was turningthe corner of the Rue Caumartin. 

"I thought I would come and tell you of it, " concluded Janzen; "it iswell you should know it. "

Then as Pierre, shuddering and already suspecting the truth, asked him ifhe knew who the man was that had been arrested, he slowly replied: "Theworry is that you happen to know him--it was little Victor Mathis. "

Pierre tried to silence Janzen too late. He had suddenly remembered thatVictor's mother had been sitting in a dark corner behind them a shorttime previously. Was she still there? Then he again pictured Victor, slight and almost beardless, with a straight, stubborn brow, grey eyesglittering with intelligence, a pointed nose and thin lips expressive ofstern will and unforgiving hatred. He was no simple and lowly one fromthe ranks of the disinherited. He was an educated scion of the/bourgeoisie/, and but for circumstances would have entered the EcoleNormale. There was no excuse for his abominable deed, there was nopolitical passion, no humanitarian insanity, in it. He was the destroyerpure and simple, the theoretician of destruction, the cold energetic manof intellect who gave his cultivated mind to arguing the cause of murder, in his desire to make murder an instrument of the social evolution. True, he was also a poet, a visionary, but the most frightful of allvisionaries: a monster whose nature could only be explained by mad pride, and who craved for the most awful immortality, dreaming that the comingdawn would rise from the arms of the guillotine. Only one thing couldsurpass him: the scythe of death which blindly mows the world. 

For a few seconds, amidst the growing darkness, cold horror reigned inthe workroom. "Ah!" muttered Guillaume, "he had the daring to do it, hehad. "

Pierre, however, lovingly pressed his arm. And he felt that he was asdistracted, as upset, as himself. Perhaps this last abomination had beenneeded to ravage and cure him. 

Janzen no doubt had been an accomplice in the deed. He was relating thatVictor's purpose had been to avenge Salvat, when all at once a great sighof pain was heard in the darkness, followed by a heavy thud upon thefloor. It was Madame Mathis falling like a bundle, overwhelmed by thenews which chance had brought her. At that moment it so happened thatMere-Grand came down with a lamp, which lighted up the room, andthereupon they hurried to the help of the wretched woman, who lay thereas pale as a corpse in her flimsy black gown. 

And this again brought Pierre an indescribable heart-pang. Ah! the poor, sad, suffering creature! He remembered her at Abbe Rose's, so discreet, so shamefaced, in her poverty, scarce able to live upon the slenderresources which persistent misfortunes had left her. Hers had indeed beena cruel lot: first, a home with wealthy parents in the provinces, a lovestory and elopement with the man of her choice; next, ill-luck steadilypursuing her, all sorts of home troubles, and at last her husband'sdeath. Then, in the retirement of her widowhood, after losing the bestpart of the little income which had enabled her to bring up her son, naught but this son had been left to her. He had been her Victor, hersole affection, the only one in whom she had faith. She had ever strivento believe that he was very busy, absorbed in work, and on the eve ofattaining to some superb position worthy of his merits. And now, all atonce, she had learnt that this fondly loved son was simply the mostodious of assassins, that he had flung a bomb into a cafe, and had therekilled three men. 

When Madame Mathis had recovered her senses, thanks to the carefultending of Mere-Grand, she sobbed on without cessation, raising such acontinuous doleful wail, that Pierre's hand again sought Guillaume's, andgrasped it, whilst their hearts, distracted but healed, mingled lovinglyone with the other. 

V

LIFE'S WORK AND PROMISE

FIFTEEN months later, one fine golden day in September, Bache andTheophile Morin were taking /dejeuner/ at Guillaume's, in the bigworkroom overlooking the immensity of Paris. 

Near the table was a cradle with its little curtains drawn. Behind themslept Jean, a fine boy four months old, the son of Pierre and Marie. Thelatter, simply in order to protect the child's social rights, had beenmarried civilly at the town-hall of Montmartre. Then, by way of pleasingGuillaume, who wished to keep them with him, and thus enlarge the familycircle, they had continued living in the little lodging over thework-shop, leaving the sleepy house at Neuilly in the charge of Sophie, Pierre's old servant. And life had been flowing on happily for thefourteen months or so that they had now belonged to one another. 

There was simply peace, affection and work around the young couple. Francois, who had left the Ecole Normale provided with every degree, every diploma, was now about to start for a college in the west ofFrance, so as to serve his term of probation as a professor, intending toresign his post afterwards and devote himself, if he pleased, to sciencepure and simple. Then Antoine had lately achieved great success with aseries of engravings he had executed--some views and scenes of Parislife; and it was settled that he was to marry Lise Jahan in the ensuingspring, when she would have completed her seventeenth year. Of the threesons, however, Thomas was the most triumphant, for he had at last devisedand constructed his little motor, thanks to a happy idea of his father's. One morning, after the downfall of all his huge chimerical schemes, Guillaume, remembering the terrible explosive which he had discovered andhitherto failed to utilise, had suddenly thought of employing it as amotive force, in the place of petroleum, in the motor which his eldestson had so long been trying to construct for the Grandidier works. So hehad set to work with Thomas, devising a new mechanism, encounteringendless difficulties, and labouring for a whole year before reachingsuccess. But now the father and son had accomplished their task; themarvel was created, and stood there riveted to an oak stand, and ready towork as soon as its final toilet should have been performed. 

Amidst all the changes which had occurred, Mere-Grand, in spite of hergreat age, continued exercising her active, silent sway over thehousehold, which was now again so gay and peaceful. Though she seldomseemed to leave her chair in front of her work-table, she was reallyhere, there and everywhere. Since the birth of Jean, she had talked ofrearing the child in the same way as she had formerly reared Thomas, Francois and Antoine. She was indeed full of the bravery of devotion, andseemed to think that she was not at all likely to die so long as shemight have others to guide, love and save. Marie marvelled at it all. Sheherself, though she was always gay and in good health, felt tired attimes now that she was suckling her infant. Little Jean indeed had twovigilant mothers near his cradle; whilst his father, Pierre, who hadbecome Thomas's assistant, pulled the bellows, roughened out pieces ofmetal, and generally completed his apprenticeship as a workingmechanician. 

On the particular day when Bache and Theophile Morin came to Montmartre, the /dejeuner/ proved even gayer than usual, thanks perhaps to theirpresence. The meal was over, the table had been cleared, and the coffeewas being served, when a little boy, the son of a doorkeeper in the RueCortot, came to ask for Monsieur Pierre Froment. When they inquired hisbusiness, he answered in a hesitating way that Monsieur l'Abbe Rose wasvery ill, indeed dying, and that he had sent him to fetch Monsieur PierreFroment at once. 

Pierre followed the lad, feeling much affected; and on reaching the RueCortot he there found Abbe Rose in a little damp ground-floor roomoverlooking a strip of garden. The old priest was in bed, dying as theboy had said, but he still retained the use of his faculties, and couldspeak in his wonted slow and gentle voice. A Sister of Charity waswatching beside him, and she seemed so surprised and anxious at thearrival of a visitor whom she did not know, that Pierre understood shewas there to guard the dying man and prevent him from having intercoursewith others. The old priest must have employed some stratagem in order tosend the doorkeeper's boy to fetch him. However, when Abbe Rose in hisgrave and kindly way begged the Sister to leave them alone for a moment, she dared not refuse this supreme request, but immediately left the room. 

"Ah! my dear child, " said the old man, "how much I wanted to speak toyou! Sit down there, close to the bed, so that you may be able to hearme, for this is the end; I shall no longer be here to-night. And I havesuch a great service to ask of you. "

Quite upset at finding his friend so wasted, with his face white like asheet, and scarce a sign of life save the sparkle of his innocent, lovingeyes, Pierre responded: "But I would have come sooner if I had known youwere in need of me! Why did you not send for me before? Are people beingkept away from you?"

A faint smile of shame and confession appeared on the old priest'sembarrassed face. "Well, my dear child, " said he, "you must know that Ihave again done some foolish things. Yes, I gave money to some peoplewho, it seems, were not deserving of it. In fact, there was quite ascandal; they scolded me at the Archbishop's palace, and accused me ofcompromising the interests of religion. And when they heard that I wasill, they put that good Sister beside me, because they said that I shoulddie on the floor, and give the very sheets off my bed if I were notprevented. "

He paused to draw breath, and then continued: "So you understand, thatgood Sister--oh! she is a very saintly woman--is here to nurse me andprevent me from still doing foolish things. To overcome her vigilance Ihad to use a little deceit, for which God, I trust, will forgive me. Asit happens, it's precisely my poor who are in question; it was to speakto you about them that I so particularly wished to see you. "

Tears had come to Pierre's eyes. "Tell me what you want me to do, " heanswered; "I am yours, both heart and soul. "

"Yes, yes, I know it, my dear child. It was for that reason that Ithought of you--you alone. In spite of all that has happened, you are theonly one in whom I have any confidence, who can understand me, and giveme a promise which will enable me to die in peace. "

This was the only allusion he would venture to make to the cruel rupturewhich had occurred after the young man had thrown off his cassock andrebelled against the Church. He had since heard of Pierre's marriage, andwas aware that he had for ever severed all religious ties. But at thatsupreme moment nothing of this seemed of any account to the old priest. His knowledge of Pierre's loving heart sufficed him, for all that he nowdesired was simply the help of that heart which he had seen glowing withsuch passionate charity. 

"Well, " he resumed, again finding sufficient strength to smile, "it is avery simple matter. I want to make you my heir. Oh! it isn't a finelegacy I am leaving you; it is the legacy of my poor, for I have nothingelse to bestow on you; I shall leave nothing behind me but my poor. "

Of these unhappy creatures, three in particular quite upset his heart. Herecoiled from the prospect of leaving them without chance of succour, without even the crumbs which he had hitherto distributed among them, andwhich had enabled them to live. One was the big Old'un, the agedcarpenter whom he and Pierre had vainly sought one night with the objectof sending him to the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour. He had been sentthere a little later, but he had fled three days afterwards, unwilling ashe was to submit to the regulations. Wild and violent, he had the mostdetestable disposition. Nevertheless, he could not be left to starve. Hecame to Abbe Rose's every Saturday, it seemed, and received a franc, which sufficed him for the whole week. Then, too, there was a bedriddenold woman in a hovel in the Rue du Mont-Cenis. The baker, who everymorning took her the bread she needed, must be paid. And in particularthere was a poor young woman residing on the Place du Tertre, one who wasunmarried but a mother. She was dying of consumption, unable to work, andtortured by the idea that when she should have gone, her daughter mustsink to the pavement like herself. And in this instance the legacy wastwofold: there was the mother to relieve until her death, which was nearat hand, and then the daughter to provide for until she could be placedin some good household. 

"You must forgive me, my dear child, for leaving you all these worries, "added Abbe Rose. "I tried to get the good Sister, who is nursing me, totake an interest in these poor people, but when I spoke to her of the bigOld'un, she was so alarmed that she made the sign of the cross. And it'sthe same with my worthy friend Abbe Tavernier. I know nobody of moreupright mind. Still I shouldn't be at ease with him, he has ideas of hisown. . . . And so, my dear child, there is only you whom I can rely upon, and you must accept my legacy if you wish me to depart in peace. "

Pierre was weeping. "Ah! certainly, with my whole soul, " he answered. "Ishall regard your desires as sacred. "

"Good! I knew you would accept. . . . So it is agreed: a franc for thebig Old'un every Saturday, the bread for the bedridden woman, some helpfor the poor young mother, and then a home for her little girl. Ah! ifyou only knew what a weight it is off my heart! The end may come now, itwill be welcome to me. "

His kind white face had brightened as if with supreme joy. HoldingPierre's hand within his own he detained him beside the bed, exchanging afarewell full of serene affection. And his voice weakening, he expressedhis whole mind in faint, impressive accents: "Yes, I shall be pleased togo off. I could do no more, I could do no more! Though I gave and gave, Ifelt that it was ever necessary to give more and more. And how sad tofind charity powerless, to give without hope of ever being able to stampout want and suffering! I rebelled against that idea of yours, as youwill remember. I told you that we should always love one another in ourpoor, and that was true, since you are here, so good and affectionate tome and those whom I am leaving behind. But, all the same, I can do nomore, I can do no more; and I would rather go off, since the woes ofothers rise higher and higher around me, and I have ended by doing themost foolish things, scandalising the faithful and making my superiorsindignant with me, without even saving one single poor person from theever-growing torrent of want. Farewell, my dear child. My poor old heartgoes off aching, my old hands are weary and conquered. "

Pierre embraced him with his whole soul, and then departed. His eyes werefull of tears and indescribable emotion wrung his heart. Never had heheard a more woeful cry than that confession of the impotence of charity, on the part of that old candid child, whose heart was all simplicity andsublime benevolence. Ah! what a disaster, that human kindness should befutile, that the world should always display so much distress andsuffering in spite of all the compassionate tears that had been shed, inspite of all the alms that had fallen from millions and millions of handsfor centuries and centuries! No wonder that it should bring desire fordeath, no wonder that a Christian should feel pleased at escaping fromthe abominations of this earth!

When Pierre again reached the workroom he found that the table had longsince been cleared, and that Bache and Morin were chatting withGuillaume, whilst the latter's sons had returned to their customaryoccupations. Marie, also, had resumed her usual place at the work-tablein front of Mere-Grand; but from time to time she rose and went to lookat Jean, so as to make sure that he was sleeping peacefully, with hislittle clenched fists pressed to his heart. And when Pierre, who kept hisemotion to himself, had likewise leant over the cradle beside the youngwoman, whose hair he discreetly kissed, he went to put on an apron inorder that he might assist Thomas, who was now, for the last time, regulating his motor. 

Then, as Pierre stood there awaiting an opportunity to help, the roomvanished from before his eyes; he ceased to see or hear the persons whowere there. The scent of Marie's hair alone lingered on his lips amidstthe acute emotion into which he had been thrown by his visit to AbbeRose. A recollection had come to him, that of the bitterly cold morningwhen the old priest had stopped him outside the basilica of the SacredHeart, and had timidly asked him to take some alms to that old manLaveuve, who soon afterwards had died of want, like a dog by the wayside. How sad a morning it had been; what battle and torture had Pierre notfelt within him, and what a resurrection had come afterwards! He had thatday said one of his last masses, and he recalled with a shudder hisabominable anguish, his despairing doubts at the thought of nothingness. Two experiments which he had previously made had failed most miserably. First had come one at Lourdes, where the glorification of the absurd hadsimply filled him with pity for any such attempt to revert to theprimitive faith of young nations, who bend beneath the terror born ofignorance; and, secondly, there had been an experiment at Rome, which hehad found incapable of any renewal, and which he had seen staggering toits death amidst its ruins, a mere great shadow, which would soon be ofno account, fast sinking, as it was, to the dust of dead religions. And, in his own mind, Charity itself had become bankrupt; he no longerbelieved that alms could cure the sufferings of mankind, he awaitednaught but a frightful catastrophe, fire and massacre, which would sweepaway the guilty, condemned world. His cassock, too, stifled him, a liealone kept it on his shoulders, the idea, unbelieving priest though hewas, that he could honestly and chastely watch over the belief of others. The problem of a new religion, a new hope, such as was needful to ensurethe peace of the coming democracies tortured him, but between thecertainties of science and the need of the Divine, which seemed toconsume humanity, he could find no solution. If Christianity crumbledwith the principle of Charity, there could remain nothing else butJustice, that cry which came from every breast, that battle of Justiceagainst Charity in which his heart must contend in that great city ofParis. It was there that began his third and decisive experiment, theexperiment which was to make truth as plain to him as the sun itself, andgive him back health and strength and delight in life. 

At this point of his reverie Pierre was roused by Thomas, who asked himto fetch a tool. As he did so he heard Bache remarking: "The ministryresigned this morning. Vignon has had enough of it, he wants to reservehis remaining strength. "

"Well, he has lasted more than a twelvemonth, " replied Morin. "That'salready an achievement. "

After the crime of Victor Mathis, who had been tried and executed withinthree weeks, Monferrand had suddenly fallen from power. What was the useof having a strong-handed man at the head of the Government if bombsstill continued to terrify the country? Moreover, he had displeased theChamber by his voracious appetite, which had prevented him from allowingothers more than an infinitesimal share of all the good things. And thistime he had been succeeded by Vignon, although the latter's programme ofreforms had long made people tremble. He, Vignon, was honest certainly, but of all these reforms he had only been able to carry out a fewinsignificant ones, for he had found himself hampered by a thousandobstacles. And thus he had resigned himself to ruling the country asothers had done; and people had discovered that after all there were butfaint shades of difference between him and Monferrand. 

"You know that Monferrand is being spoken of again?" said Guillaume. 

"Yes, and he has some chance of success. His creatures are bestirringthemselves tremendously, " replied Bache, adding, in a bitter, jestingway, that Mege, the Collectivist leader, played the part of a dupe inoverthrowing ministry after ministry. He simply gratified the ambition ofeach coterie in turn, without any possible chance of attaining to powerhimself. 

Thereupon Guillaume pronounced judgment. "Oh! well, let them devour oneanother, " said he. "Eager as they all are to reign and dispose of powerand wealth, they only fight over questions of persons. And nothing theydo can prevent the evolution from continuing. Ideas expand, and eventsoccur, and, over and above everything else, mankind is marching on. "

Pierre was greatly struck by these words, and he again recalled the past. His dolorous Parisian experiment had begun, and he was once more roamingthrough the city. Paris seemed to him to be a huge vat, in which a worldfermented, something of the best and something of the worst, a frightfulmixture such as sorceresses might have used; precious powders mingledwith filth, from all of which was to come the philter of love and eternalyouth. And in that vat Pierre first marked the scum of the politicalworld: Monferrand who strangled Barroux, who purchased the support ofhungry ones such as Fonsegue, Duthil and Chaigneux, who made use of thosewho attained to mediocrity, such as Taboureau and Dauvergne; and whoemployed even the sectarian passions of Mege and the intelligent ambitionof Vignon as his weapons. Next came money the poisoner, with that affairof the African Railways, which had rotted the Parliament and turnedDuvillard, the triumphant /bourgeois/, into a public perverter, the verycancer as it were of the financial world. Then as a just consequence ofall this there was Duvillard's own home infected by himself, thatfrightful drama of Eve contending with her daughter Camille for thepossession of Gerard, then Camille stealing him from her mother, andHyacinthe, the son, passing his crazy mistress Rosemonde on to thatnotorious harlot Silviane, with whom his father publicly exhibitedhimself. Then there was the old expiring aristocracy, with the pale, sadfaces of Madame de Quinsac and the Marquis de Morigny; the old militaryspirit whose funeral was conducted by General de Bozonnet; the magistracywhich slavishly served the powers of the day, Amadieu thrusting himselfinto notoriety by means of sensational cases, Lehmann, the publicprosecutor, preparing his speeches in the private room of the Ministerwhose policy he defended; and, finally, the mendacious and cupid Presswhich lived upon scandal, the everlasting flood of denunciation and filthwhich poured from Sagnier, and the gay impudence shown by theunscrupulous and conscienceless Massot, who attacked all and defendedall, by profession and to order! And in the same way as insects, ondiscovering one of their own kind dying, will often finish it off andfatten upon it, so the whole swarm of appetites, interests and passionshad fallen upon a wretched madman, that unhappy Salvat, whose idioticcrime had brought them all scrambling together, gluttonously eager toderive some benefit from that starveling's emaciated carcass. And allboiled in the huge vat of Paris; the desires, the deeds of violence, thestrivings of one and another man's will, the whole nameless medley of thebitterest ferments, whence, in all purity, the wine of the future wouldat last flow. 

Then Pierre became conscious of the prodigious work which went on in thedepths of the vat, beneath all the impurity and waste. As his brother hadjust said, what mattered the stains, the egotism and greed ofpoliticians, if humanity were still on the march, ever slowly andstubbornly stepping forward! What mattered, too, that corrupt andemasculate /bourgeoisie/, nowadays as moribund as the aristocracy, whoseplace it took, if behind it there ever came the inexhaustible reserve ofmen who surged up from the masses of the country-sides and the towns!What mattered the debauchery, the perversion arising from excess ofwealth and power, the luxuriousness and dissoluteness of life, since itseemed a proven fact that the capitals that had been queens of the worldhad never reigned without extreme civilisation, a cult of beauty and ofpleasure! And what mattered even the venality, the transgressions and thefolly of the press, if at the same time it remained an admirableinstrument for the diffusion of knowledge, the open conscience, so tosay, of the nation, a river which, though there might be horrors on itssurface, none the less flowed on, carrying all nations to the brotherlyocean of the future centuries! The human lees ended by sinking to thebottom of the vat, and it was not possible to expect that what was rightwould triumph visibly every day; for it was often necessary that yearsshould elapse before the realisation of some hope could emerge from thefermentation. Eternal matter is ever being cast afresh into the crucibleand ever coming from it improved. And if in the depths of pestilentialworkshops and factories the slavery of ancient times subsists in thewage-earning system, if such men as Toussaint still die of want on theirpallets like broken-down beasts of burden, it is nevertheless a fact thatonce already, on a memorable day of tempest, Liberty sprang forth fromthe vat to wing her flight throughout the world. And why in her turnshould not Justice spring from it, proceeding from those troubledelements, freeing herself from all dross, flowing forth with dazzlinglimpidity and regenerating the nations?

However, the voices of Bache and Morin, rising in the course of theirchat with Guillaume, once more drew Pierre from his reverie. They werenow speaking of Janzen, who after being compromised in a fresh outrage atBarcelona had fled from Spain. Bache fancied that he had recognised himin the street only the previous day. To think that a man with so clear amind and such keen energy should waste his natural gifts in such ahateful cause!

"When I remember, " said Morin slowly, "that Barthes lives in exile in ashabby little room at Brussels, ever quivering with the hope that thereign of liberty is at hand--he who has never had a drop of blood on hishands and who has spent two-thirds of his life in prison in order thatthe nations may be freed!"

Bache gently shrugged his shoulders: "Liberty, liberty, of course, " saidhe; "only it is worth nothing if it is not organised. "

Thereupon their everlasting discussion began afresh, with Saint-Simon andFourier on one side and Proudhon and Auguste Comte on the other. Bachegave a long account of the last commemoration which had taken place inhonour of Fourier's memory, how faithful disciples had brought wreathsand made speeches, forming quite a meeting of apostles, who allstubbornly clung to their faith, as confident in the future as if theywere the messengers of some new gospel. Afterwards Morin emptied hispockets, which were always full of Positivist tracts and pamphlets, manifestos, answers and so forth, in which Comte's doctrines wereextolled as furnishing the only possible basis for the new, awaitedreligion. Pierre, who listened, thereupon remembered the disputes in hislittle house at Neuilly when he himself, searching for certainty, hadendeavoured to draw up the century's balance-sheet. He had lost hisdepth, in the end, amidst the contradictions and incoherency of thevarious precursors. Although Fourier had sprung from Saint-Simon, hedenied him in part, and if Saint-Simon's doctrine ended in a kind ofmystical sensuality, the other's conducted to an inacceptable regimentingof society. Proudhon, for his part, demolished without rebuildinganything. Comte, who created method and declared science to be the oneand only sovereign, had not even suspected the advent of the socialcrisis which now threatened to sweep all away, and had finishedpersonally as a mere worshipper of love, overpowered by woman. Nevertheless, these two, Comte and Proudhon, entered the lists and foughtagainst the others, Fourier and Saint-Simon; the combat between them ortheir disciples becoming so bitter and so blind that the truths common tothem all at first seemed obscured and disfigured beyond recognition. Now, however, that evolution had slowly transformed Pierre, those commontruths seemed to him as irrefutable, as clear as the sunlight itself. Amidst the chaos of conflicting assertions which was to be found in thegospels of those social messiahs, there were certain similar phrases andprinciples which recurred again and again, the defence of the poor, theidea of a new and just division of the riches of the world in accordancewith individual labour and merit, and particularly the search for a newlaw of labour which would enable this fresh distribution to be madeequitably. Since all the precursory men of genius agreed so closely uponthose points, must they not be the very foundations of to-morrow's newreligion, the necessary faith which this century must bequeath to thecoming century, in order that the latter may make of it a human religionof peace, solidarity and love?

Then, all at once, there came a leap in Pierre's thoughts. He fanciedhimself at the Madeleine once more, listening to the address on the NewSpirit delivered by Monseigneur Martha, who had predicted that Paris, nowreconverted to Christianity, would, thanks to the Sacred Heart, becomethe ruler of the world. But no, but no! If Paris reigned, it was becauseit was able to exercise its intelligence freely. To set the cross and themystic and repulsive symbolism of a bleeding heart above it was simply somuch falsehood. Although they might rear edifices of pride and dominationas if to crush Paris with their very weight, although they might try tostop science in the name of a dead ideal and in the hope of setting theirclutches upon the coming century, these attempts would be of no avail. Science will end by sweeping away all remnants of their ancientsovereignty, their basilica will crumble beneath the breeze of Truthwithout any necessity of raising a finger against it. The trial has beenmade, the Gospel as a social code has fallen to pieces, and human wisdomcan only retain account of its moral maxims. Ancient Catholicism is onall sides crumbling into dust, Catholic Rome is a mere field of ruinsfrom which the nations turn aside, anxious as they are for a religionthat shall not be a religion of death. In olden times the overburdenedslave, glowing with a new hope and seeking to escape from his gaol, dreamt of a heaven where in return for his earthly misery he would berewarded with eternal enjoyment. But now that science has destroyed thatfalse idea of a heaven, and shown what dupery lies in reliance on themorrow of death, the slave, the workman, weary of dying for happiness'sake, demands that justice and happiness shall find place upon thisearth. Therein lies the new hope--Justice, after eighteen hundred yearsof impotent Charity. Ah! in a thousand years from now, when Catholicismwill be naught but a very ancient superstition of the past, how amazedmen will be to think that their ancestors were able to endure thatreligion of torture and nihility! How astonished they will feel onfinding that God was regarded as an executioner, that manhood wasthreatened, maimed and chastised, that nature was accounted an enemy, that life was looked upon as something accursed, and that death alone waspronounced sweet and liberating! For well-nigh two thousand years theonward march of mankind has been hampered by the odious idea of tearingall that is human away from man: his desires, his passions, his freeintelligence, his will and right of action, his whole strength. And howglorious will be the awakening when such virginity as is now honoured bythe Church is held in derision, when fruitfulness is again recognised asa virtue, amidst the hosanna of all the freed forces of nature--man'sdesires which will be honoured, his passions which will be utilised, hislabour which will be exalted, whilst life is loved and ever and evercreates love afresh!

A new religion! a new religion! Pierre remembered the cry which hadescaped him at Lourdes, and which he had repeated at Rome in presence ofthe collapse of old Catholicism. But he no longer displayed the samefeverish eagerness as then--a puerile, sickly desire that a new Divinityshould at once reveal himself, an ideal come into being, complete in allrespects, with dogmas and form of worship. The Divine certainly seemed tobe as necessary to man as were bread and water; he had ever fallen backupon it, hungering for the mysterious, seemingly having no other means ofconsolation than that of annihilating himself in the unknown. But who cansay that science will not some day quench the thirst for what lies beyondus? If the domain of science embraces the acquired truths, it alsoembraces, and will ever do so, the truths that remain to be acquired. Andin front of it will there not ever remain a margin for the thirst ofknowledge, for the hypotheses which are but so much ideality? Besides, isnot the yearning for the divine simply a desire to behold the Divinity?And if science should more and more content the yearning to know all andbe able to do all, will not that yearning be quieted and end by minglingwith the love of acquired truth? A religion grafted on science is theindicated, certain, inevitable finish of man's long march towardsknowledge. He will come to it at last as to a natural haven, as to peacein the midst of certainty, after passing every form of ignorance andterror on his road. And is there not already some indication of such areligion? Has not the idea of the duality of God and the Universe beenbrushed aside, and is not the principle of unity, /monisme/, becomingmore and more evident--unity leading to solidarity, and the sole law oflife proceeding by evolution from the first point of the ether thatcondensed to create the world? But if precursors, scientists andphilosophers--Darwin, Fourier and all the others--have sown the seed ofto-morrow's religion by casting the good word to the passing breeze, howmany centuries will doubtless be required to raise the crop! Peoplealways forget that before Catholicism grew up and reigned in thesunlight, it spent four centuries in germinating and sprouting from thesoil. Well, then, grant some centuries to this religion of science ofwhose sprouting there are signs upon all sides, and by-and-by theadmirable ideas of some Fourier will be seen expanding and forming a newgospel, with desire serving as the lever to raise the world, workaccepted by one and all, honoured and regulated as the very mechanism ofnatural and social life, and the passions of man excited, contented andutilised for human happiness! The universal cry of Justice, which riseslouder and louder, in a growing clamour from the once silent multitude, the people that have so long been duped and preyed upon, is but a cry forthis happiness towards which human beings are tending, the happiness thatembodies the complete satisfaction of man's needs, and the principle oflife loved for its own sake, in the midst of peace and the expansion ofevery force and every joy. The time will come when this Kingdom of Godwill be set upon the earth; so why not close that other deceptiveparadise, even if the weak-minded must momentarily suffer from thedestruction of their illusions; for it is necessary to operate even withcruelty on the blind if they are to be extricated from their misery, fromtheir long and frightful night of ignorance!

All at once a feeling of deep joy came over Pierre. A child's faint cry, the wakening cry of his son Jean had drawn him from his reverie. And hehad suddenly remembered that he himself was now saved, freed fromfalsehood and fright, restored to good and healthy nature. How hequivered as he recalled that he had once fancied himself lost, blottedout of life, and that a prodigy of love had extricated him from hisnothingness, still strong and sound, since that dear child of his wasthere, sturdy and smiling. Life had brought forth life; and truth hadburst forth, as dazzling as the sun. He had made his third experimentwith Paris, and this had been conclusive; it had been no wretchedmiscarriage with increase of darkness and grief, like his otherexperiments at Lourdes and Rome. In the first place, the law of labourhad been revealed to him, and he had imposed upon himself a task, ashumble a one as it was, that manual calling which he was learning so latein life, but which was, nevertheless, a form of labour, and one in whichhe would never fail, one too that would lend him the serenity which comesfrom the accomplishment of duty, for life itself was but labour: it wasonly by effort that the world existed. And then, moreover, he had loved;and salvation had come to him from woman and from his child. Ah! what along and circuitous journey he had made to reach this finish at once sonatural and so simple! How he had suffered, how much error and anger hehad known before doing what all men ought to do! That eager, glowing lovewhich had contended against his reason, which had bled at sight of thearrant absurdities of the miraculous grotto of Lourdes, which had bledagain too in presence of the haughty decline of the Vatican, had at lastfound contentment now that he was husband and father, now that he hadconfidence in work and believed in the just laws of life. And thence hadcome the indisputable truth, the one solution--happiness in certainty. 

Whilst Pierre was thus plunged in thought, Bache and Morin had alreadygone off with their customary handshakes and promises to come and chatagain some evening. And as Jean was now crying more loudly, Marie tookhim in her arms and unhooked her dress-body to give him her breast. 

"Oh! the darling, it's his time, you know, and he doesn't forget it!" shesaid. "Just look, Pierre, I believe he has got bigger since yesterday. "

She laughed; and Pierre, likewise laughing, drew near to kiss the child. And afterwards he kissed his wife, mastered as he was by emotion at thesight of that pink, gluttonous little creature imbibing life from thatlovely breast so full of milk. 

"Why! he'll eat you, " he gaily said to Marie. "How he's pulling!"

"Oh! he does bite me a little, " she replied; "but I like that the better, it shows that he profits by it. "

Then Mere-Grand, she who as a rule was so serious and silent, began totalk with a smile lighting up her face: "I weighed him this morning, "said she, "he weighs nearly a quarter of a pound more than he did thelast time. And if you had only seen how good he was, the darling! He willbe a very intelligent and well-behaved little gentleman, such as I like. When he's five years old, I shall teach him his alphabet, and when he'sfifteen, if he likes, I'll tell him how to be a man. . . . Don't youagree with me, Thomas? And you, Antoine, and you, too, Francois?"

Raising their heads, the three sons gaily nodded their approval, gratefulas they felt for the lessons in heroism which she had given them, andapparently finding no reason why she might not live another twenty yearsin order to give similar lessons to Jean. 

Pierre still remained in front of Marie, basking in all the rapture oflove, when he felt Guillaume lay his hands upon his shoulders frombehind. And on turning round he saw that his brother was also radiant, like one who felt well pleased at seeing them so happy. "Ah! brother, "said Guillaume softly, "do you remember my telling you that you sufferedsolely from the battle between your mind and your heart, and that youwould find quietude again when you loved what you could understand? Itwas necessary that our father and mother, whose painful quarrel hadcontinued beyond the grave, should be reconciled in you. And now it'sdone, they sleep in peace within you, since you yourself are pacified. "

These words filled Pierre with emotion. Joy beamed upon his face, whichwas now so open and energetic. He still had the towering brow, thatimpregnable fortress of reason, which he had derived from his father, andhe still had the gentle chin and affectionate eyes and mouth which hismother had given him, but all was now blended together, instinct withhappy harmony and serene strength. Those two experiments of his which hadmiscarried, were like crises of his maternal heredity, the tearfultenderness which had come to him from his mother, and which for lack ofsatisfaction had made him desperate; and his third experiment had onlyended in happiness because he had contented his ardent thirst for love inaccordance with sovereign reason, that paternal heredity which pleaded soloudly within him. Reason remained the queen. And if his sufferings hadthus always come from the warfare which his reason had waged against hisheart, it was because he was man personified, ever struggling between hisintelligence and his passions. And how peaceful all seemed, now that hehad reconciled and satisfied them both, now that he felt healthy, perfectand strong, like some lofty oak, which grows in all freedom, and whosebranches spread far away over the forest. 

"You have done good work in that respect, " Guillaume affectionatelycontinued, "for yourself and for all of us, and even for our dear parentswhose shades, pacified and reconciled, now abide so peacefully in thelittle home of our childhood. I often think of our dear house at Neuilly, which old Sophie is taking care of for us; and although, out of egotism, a desire to set happiness around me, I wished to keep you here, your Jeanmust some day go and live there, so as to bring it fresh youth. "

Pierre had taken hold of his brother's hands, and looking into his eyeshe asked: "And you--are you happy?"

"Yes, very happy, happier than I have ever been; happy at loving you as Ido, and happy at being loved by you as no one else will ever love me. "

Their hearts mingled in ardent brotherly affection, the most perfect andheroic affection that can blend men together. And they embraced oneanother whilst, with her babe on her breast, Marie, so gay, healthful andloyal, looked at them and smiled, with big tears gathering in her eyes. 

Thomas, however, having finished his motor's last toilet, had just set itin motion. It was a prodigy of lightness and strength, of no weightwhatever in comparison with the power it displayed. And it worked withperfect smoothness, without noise or smell. The whole family was gatheredround it in delight, when there came a timely visit, one from the learnedand friendly Bertheroy, whom indeed Guillaume had asked to call, in orderthat he might see the motor working. 

The great chemist at once expressed his admiration; and when he hadexamined the mechanism and understood how the explosive was employed asmotive power--an idea which he had long recommended, --he tenderedenthusiastic congratulations to Guillaume and Thomas. "You have created alittle marvel, " said he, "one which may have far-reaching effects bothsocially and humanly. Yes, yes, pending the invention of the electricalmotor which we have not yet arrived at, here is an ideal one, a system ofmechanical traction for all sorts of vehicles. Even aerial navigation maynow become a possibility, and the problem of force at home is finallysolved. And what a grand step! What sudden progress! Distance againdiminished, all roads thrown open, and men able to fraternise! This is agreat boon, a splendid gift, my good friends, that you are bestowing onthe world. "

Then he began to jest about the new explosive, whose prodigious power hehad divined, and which he now found put to such a beneficent purpose. "And to think, Guillaume, " he said, "that I fancied you acted with somuch mysteriousness and hid the formula of your powder from me becauseyou had an idea of blowing up Paris!"

At this Guillaume became grave and somewhat pale. And he confessed thetruth. "Well, I did for a moment think of it. "

However, Bertheroy went on laughing, as if he regarded this answer asmere repartee, though truth to tell he had felt a slight chill sweepthrough his hair. "Well, my friend, " he said, "you have done far betterin offering the world this marvel, which by the way must have been both adifficult and dangerous matter. So here is a powder which was intended toexterminate people, and which in lieu thereof will now increase theircomfort and welfare. In the long run things always end well, as I'm quitetired of saying. "

On beholding such lofty and tolerant good nature, Guillaume felt moved. Bertheroy's words were true. What had been intended for purposes ofdestruction served the cause of progress; the subjugated, domesticatedvolcano became labour, peace and civilisation. Guillaume had evenrelinquished all idea of his engine of battle and victory; he had foundsufficient satisfaction in this last invention of his, which wouldrelieve men of some measure of weariness, and help to reduce their labourto just so much effort as there must always be. In this he detected somelittle advance towards Justice; at all events it was all that he himselfcould contribute to the cause. And when on turning towards the window hecaught sight of the basilica of the Sacred Heart, he could not explainwhat insanity had at one moment cone over him, and set him dreaming ofidiotic and useless destruction. Some miasmal gust must have swept by, something born of want that scattered germs of anger and vengeance. Buthow blind it was to think that destruction and murder could ever beargood fruit, ever sow the soil with plenty and happiness! Violence cannotlast, and all it does is to rouse man's feeling of solidarity even amongthose on whose behalf one kills. The people, the great multitude, rebelagainst the isolated individual who seeks to wreak justice. No one mancan take upon himself the part of the volcano; this is the wholeterrestrial crust, the whole multitude which internal fire impels to riseand throw up either an Alpine chain or a better and freer society. Andwhatever heroism there may be in their madness, however great andcontagious may be their thirst for martyrdom, murderers are neveranything but murderers, whose deeds simply sow the seeds of horror. Andif on the one hand Victor Mathis had avenged Salvat, he had also slainhim, so universal had been the cry of reprobation roused by the secondcrime, which was yet more monstrous and more useless than the first. 

Guillaume, laughing in his turn, replied to Bertheroy in words whichshowed how completely he was cured: "You are right, " he said, "all endswell since all contributes to truth and justice. Unfortunately, thousandsof years are sometimes needed for any progress to be accomplished. . . . However, for my part, I am simply going to put my new explosive on themarket, so that those who secure the necessary authorisation maymanufacture it and grow rich. Henceforth it belongs to one and all. . . . And I've renounced all idea of revolutionising the world. "

But Bertheroy protested. This great official scientist, this member ofthe Institute laden with offices and honours, pointed to the littlemotor, and replied with all the vigour of his seventy years: "But that isrevolution, the true, the only revolution. It is with things like thatand not with stupid bombs that one revolutionises the world! It is not bydestroying, but by creating, that you have just done the work of arevolutionist. And how many times already have I not told you thatscience alone is the world's revolutionary force, the only force which, far above all paltry political incidents, the vain agitation of despots, priests, sectarians and ambitious people of all kinds, works for thebenefit of those who will come after us, and prepares the triumph oftruth, justice and peace. . . . Ah, my dear child, if you wish tooverturn the world by striving to set a little more happiness in it, youhave only to remain in your laboratory here, for human happiness canspring only from the furnace of the scientist. "

He spoke perhaps in a somewhat jesting way, but one could feel that hewas convinced of it all, that he held everything excepting science inutter contempt. He had not even shown any surprise when Pierre had casthis cassock aside; and on finding him there with his wife and child hehad not scrupled to show him as much affection as in the past. 

Meantime, however, the motor was travelling hither and thither, making nomore noise than a bluebottle buzzing in the sunshine. The whole happyfamily was gathered about it, still laughing with delight at such avictorious achievement. And all at once little Jean, Monsieur Jean, having finished sucking, turned round, displaying his milk-smeared lips, and perceived the machine, the pretty plaything which walked about byitself. At sight of it, his eyes sparkled, dimples appeared on his plumpcheeks, and, stretching out his quivering chubby hands, he raised a crowof delight. 

Marie, who was quietly fastening her dress, smiled at his glee andbrought him nearer, in order that he might have a better view of the toy. "Ah! my darling, it's pretty, isn't it? It moves and it turns, and it'sstrong; it's quite alive, you see. "

The others, standing around, were much amused by the amazed, enrapturedexpression of the child, who would have liked to touch the machine, perhaps in the hope of understanding it. 

"Yes, " resumed Bertheroy, "it's alive and it's powerful like the sun, like that great sun shining yonder over Paris, and ripening men andthings. And Paris too is a motor, a boiler in which the future isboiling, while we scientists keep the eternal flame burning underneath. Guillaume, my good fellow, you are one of the stokers, one of theartisans of the future, with that little marvel of yours, which willstill further extend the influence of our great Paris over the wholeworld. "

These words impressed Pierre, and he again thought of a gigantic vatstretching yonder from one horizon to the other, a vat in which thecoming century would emerge from an extraordinary mixture of theexcellent and the vile. But now, over and above all passions, ambitions, stains and waste, he was conscious of the colossal expenditure of labourwhich marked the life of Paris, of the heroic manual efforts inwork-shops and factories, and the splendid striving of the young men ofintellect whom he knew to be hard at work, studying in silence, relinquishing none of the conquests of their elders, but glowing withdesire to enlarge their domain. And in all this Paris was exalted, together with the future that was being prepared within it, and whichwould wing its flight over the world bright like the dawn of day. IfRome, now so near its death, had ruled the ancient world, it was Paristhat reigned with sovereign sway over the modern era, and had for thetime become the great centre of the nations as they were carried on fromcivilisation to civilisation, in a sunward course from east to west. Paris was the world's brain. Its past so full of grandeur had prepared itfor the part of initiator, civiliser and liberator. Only yesterday it hadcast the cry of Liberty among the nations, and to-morrow it would bringthem the religion of Science, the new faith awaited by the democracies. And Paris was also gaiety, kindness and gentleness, passion for knowledgeand generosity without limit. Among the workmen of its faubourgs and thepeasants of its country-sides there were endless reserves of men on whomthe future might freely draw. And the century ended with Paris, and thenew century would begin and spread with it. All the clamour of itsprodigious labour, all the light that came from it as from a beaconoverlooking the earth, all the thunder and tempest and triumphantbrightness that sprang from its entrails, were pregnant with that finalsplendour, of which human happiness would be compounded. 

Marie raised a light cry of admiration as she pointed towards the city. "Look! just look!" she exclaimed; "Paris is all golden, covered with aharvest of gold!"

They all re-echoed her admiration, for the effect was really one ofextraordinary magnificence. The declining sun was once more veiling theimmensity of Paris with golden dust. But this was no longer the city ofthe sower, a chaos of roofs and edifices suggesting brown land turned upby some huge plough, whilst the sun-rays streamed over it like goldenseed, falling upon every side. Nor was it the city whose divisions hadone day seemed so plain to Pierre: eastward, the districts of toil, mistywith the grey smoke of factories; southward, the districts of study, serene and quiet; westward, the districts of wealth, bright and open; andin the centre the districts of trade, with dark and busy streets. It nowseemed as if one and the same crop had sprung up on every side, impartingharmony to everything, and making the entire expanse one sole, boundlessfield, rich with the same fruitfulness. There was corn, corn everywhere, an infinity of corn, whose golden wave rolled from one end of the horizonto the other. Yes, the declining sun steeped all Paris in equalsplendour, and it was truly the crop, the harvest, after the sowing!

"Look! just look, " repeated Marie, "there is not a nook without itssheaf; the humblest roofs are fruitful, and every blade is full-earedwherever one may look. It is as if there were now but one and the samesoil, reconciled and fraternal. Ah! Jean, my little Jean, look! see howbeautiful it is!"

Pierre, who was quivering, had drawn close beside her. And Mere-Grand andBertheroy smiled upon that promise of a future which they would not see, whilst beside Guillaume, whom the sight filled with emotion, were histhree big sons, the three young giants, looking quite grave, they whoever laboured and were ever hopeful. Then Marie, with a fine gesture ofenthusiasm, stretched out her arms and raised her child aloft, as ifoffering it in gift to the huge city. 

"See, Jean! see, little one, " she cried, "it's you who'll reap it all, who'll store the whole crop in the barn!"

And Paris flared--Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, andwhere in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice. 

THE END