Complete Works of Emile Zola (1605 page)

“You may be very sure that I shall take her back if it pleases me to take her back.... After all, she is worth more than the others. They might kill her before she would say an evil word.”

And turning to Bonnaire, who was silent, he said:

“She is stupid, Josine is, to be so much afraid.... Where has she hidden herself?”

“She is waiting on the stairs with Nanet,” said the master-puddler.

Then Ragu opened the door wide, in order to call violently:

“
Josine! Josine!”

No one answered; no sound came from the thick gloom of the staircase. And in the faint light which the kerosene lamp threw on the passage-way only Nanet was to be seen, standing upright, apparently watchful and expectant.

“Ah, there you are, good-for-nothing brat!” cried Ragu. “What are you up to?”

The child seemed in no way disconcerted; he did not even make a backward movement. Drawing up his little figure, which was about as tall as a boot, he answered bravely:

“I was listening, in order to find out.”

“And your sister, where is she? Why does she not answer when she is called?”

“She was above with me, sitting on one of the steps. But when she heard you come in here she was afraid that you would come up and beat her, and she preferred to go down, so that she could slip off easily if you were in a bad temper.”

This made Ragu laugh. The child’s fearlessness amused him.

“You are not afraid, then?”

“I? If you touch me I am going to cry out so loud that my sister will be warned and will slip away.”

Completely pacified, the man went and leaned over the rope, in order to call out again:

“Josine! Josine! Come up; do not be so foolish. You know very well that I am not going to kill you.”

The same deathlike silence continued; nothing stirred; nothing rose out of the gloom. Luc, whose presence was no longer necessary, took leave, saluting La Toupe, who, with her lips compressed, bent her head dryly. The children had at last gone to sleep. Père Linot, his extinguished pipe in his mouth, went to seek the little room where he slept, supporting himself by the wall as he did so. And Bonnaire, who in his turn had fallen in a chair, sat silent in the midst of the desolate room, his eyes fixed on vacancy, thinking of the threatening future, and waiting to go to bed by the side of his terrible wife.

“
Courage, we shall meet again,” Luc said to him, pressing his hand warmly.

In the passage Ragu continued to call, with a voice which he now made supplicating:

“Josine! Come up, Josine! when I tell you that I am not angry any longer.”

Then, as the gloom remained unbroken, he turned to Nanet, who did not interfere, leaving his sister free to act in her own way.

“Perhaps she has run away.” —

“Oh no. Where do you suppose she could go?...  She must be sitting down again upon a step.”

Luc descended, guiding himself by the rope, feeling I with his feet for the steep, high steps, with considerable fear of falling down them head foremost, so dense was the obscurity. He seemed to himself to be plunging into the blackness of an abyss, down a narrow ladder, between two damp walls. As he descended, he thought he heard deep, stifled sobs coming from the depths of the dolorous gloom below.

Above, the voice of Ragu repeated resolutely:

“Josine! Josine!... If you do not come up, you must wish me to come and fetch you.”

Then Luc stopped, feeling the approach of a faint sound. It was a very gentle movement that approached, a light, animated, hardly perceptible quiver of a trembling approach. He effaced himself against the wall, for he understood very well that a living creature was passing by, although it was invisible, and recognizable only by the careful movement of its body.

“It is I, Josine,” he said, in a low voice, in order that she should not be alarmed.

The little rustle continued to ascend, and there was no answer. But, with a hardly perceptible motion, the creature of distress and mystery passed by. And as she did so, a little feverish hand seized his, a burning mouth pressed to his hand kissed it ardently in an outburst of gratitude, in the devotion of a whole nature. She thanked him, and in so doing, unperceived and veiled from sight, she abandoned herself to a delicious childlikeness. Not a word was exchanged; there was only that silent kiss in the darkness, moistened with warm tears.

The little flutter was already gone; the gentle spirit continued to ascend. Luc remained much overcome, touched to the depths of his being by this shadowy meeting; for the kiss of those lips that he had not seen had gone to his heart.

A tender and irresistible emotion had taken possession of him; he tried to convince himself that he was interested only in finding a lodging where Josine could sleep that night. But, he continued to ask himself, why should she weep, seated on that lowest step at the entrance to the street? Why had she delayed so long to answer the appeals of the man above, who offered her a shelter? Was it because she experienced a mortal regret, because she sighed for some impossible dream; and was she yielding, in her final ascent, to necessity alone in resuming the life that she was condemned to lead?

The voice of Ragu made itself heard above for the last time.

“Ah, there you are; that is not so bad. Come, let us go to bed. We shall have nothing to eat this evening.”

Luc hastened away, in great distress of mind; seeking a cause for the terrible bitterness of soul into which he fell. While he retraced his way with difficulty in the obscure labyrinth of unclean streets in old Beauclair, he thought over the matter, and mourned at it. Poor girl! she was the victim of her environment; she would never have yielded to Ragu had it not been for the crushing weight and the desperation of poverty; what exhaustive labor it would be to restore humanity so that labor should once more be an honor and a pleasure, so that love should again flourish, healthy and strong, in the great harvest of truth and justice! In the mean time it was evident that the best thing for the poor girl was that she should remain with Ragu, if he could be prevailed on not to treat her too cruelly. The tempestuous wind had ceased, the stars appeared in the heavens among heavy and motionless clouds. But what a black night, what an immense melancholy overwhelmed his own heart.

All at once Luc emerged on the steep bank of the Mionne, near the wooden bridge. Opposite to him the Pit, always at work, was resounding with the light dance of the flatting-hammers, alternating with the more pronounced blows of the shingling-hammers. The fires illumined the shade intermittently; great lurid clouds of smoke made a storm horizon of the workshops as they passed across its electric lights. This nocturnal life of the monster, whose furnaces were never extinguished, recalled to his mind the destroyer, labor, imposing itself on its victims as though it were the galleys, and everywhere rewarded with suspicion and contempt. The fine face of Bonnaire passed through his thoughts, and he saw him as he had left him in that gloomy room, struck down like one vanquished before the unknown future. Then, without any transition, another remembrance of the evening crossed his mind; he saw the disfigured profile of Lange, the potter, hurling his malediction with the vehemence of a prophet announcing the destruction of Beauclair, under the weight of its crimes. Now, at this hour, Beauclair, terrorized, was asleep, and lay before him at the entrance to the plain, nothing but a confused mass, sunk in gloom, and not displaying even a single light. There was nothing visible but the Pit, always the Pit, with its infernal, unchanging life, from which rolled forth continual thunders, and whose unceasing flames devoured the lives of men.

Midnight sounded in the darkness from a neighboring clock. Luc then passed over the bridge and descended the road to Brias in order to return to La Crêcherie, where his bed awaited him. As he arrived there a great light suddenly illuminated the entire country, the peaks of the Monts Bleuses, the roofs of the sleeping town, and even the extended plains of Roumagne. It was caused by a tapping of the blast-furnace, whose black profile appeared, half-way up the hill, like an incendiary. And Luc, raising his eyes, had again the perception of a rosy dawn, and saw, as he imagined, the rising of the star promised to his dream of a new humanity.

CHAPTER III

THE next day was Sunday, and no sooner had Luc risen than he received a friendly note from Madame Boisgelin inviting him to breakfast at Guerdache. She had known him at Beaulieu, and, being aware that the Jordans would not return until Monday, she told him how pleased she would be to see him, and to have a little! conversation with him in regard to their intimacy at Paris, where they had both been concerned in charitable affairs of some importance, and of a confidential nature, in the poorest quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Luc entertained for her a kind of affectionate veneration, and he accepted the invitation at once, saying in his reply that he would be at Guerdache at eleven o’clock.

The week of pouring rain by which Beauclair had been inundated was now succeeded by superb weather. A radiant sun shone in a heaven of blue as dazzling as though it had just been washed by the recent showers — a brilliant sun, imparting so much warmth that the roads were already dry. It was therefore an enjoyment to Luc to walk the mile and a half between Guerdache and the town. He crossed the new part of the city, which extends from the Place de la Mairie to the edge of Roumagne, about a quarter past ten; and as he did so he was struck with the light-hearted gayety of this showy quarter of the town, which contrasted forcibly with the oppressive gloom of that other part of the city seen by him the evening before. Both the
sous-préfecture
and the court-house were situated in the new quarter of the town, the latter being a beautiful building, the plaster ornaments of which were not yet dry. The Church of Saint-Vincent, a graceful structure of the sixteenth century, stood exactly between
the old town and the new; it had just been repaired, the bell-tower having threatened to overwhelm the worshippers. The closed shops of the tradesmen were gilded by the sun, as well as the Place de la Mairie itself, which was at the end of the Rue de Brias, and contained a vast and ancient building that served at once for a town-hall and for a school.

Luc proceeded by the Rue de Formerie, a thoroughfare leading directly from the public square to the Rue de Brias, and soon reached the open country. Guerdache was situated on the road to Formerie, and almost at the gates of Beauclair. He was not pressed for time, and he loitered like a man absorbed in dreams. On the other side of the town the houses were built on a gentle slope, and as he glanced backward towards the north he saw the immense range of the Monts Bleuses, shutting in the narrow gorge from which descends the torrent of the Mionne. There, in a sort of estuary opening on the plain, the crowded buildings and lofty chimneys of the Pit could be plainly seen, as well as the blast-furnaces of La Crêcherie, an industrial town which is visible along the entire boundary of Roumagne from a distance of leagues. Luc gazed at it a long time. Then, as he resumed his slow progress towards Guerdache, whose magnificent trees he could now discern in the distance, he recalled and analyzed the characteristic history of the Qurignons, as told him by Jordan.

Blaise Qurignon, the founder of the Pit, was a workman who came there and established himself on the bank of the Mionne, in 1823, with two tilt-hammers actuated by water-power. He never employed more than twenty workmen, amassed only a moderate fortune, and was content with a small house, a brick cottage, which he built near the factory, and which was now occupied by Delaveau, the present director. Jérôme Qurignon, the second of the name, was born the same year that his father founded the business, and it was he who became an industrial king. All the productive strength, all the incipient power of the people, which continuous superiority in trade had developed, were concentrated in him. The latent energy suppressed during hundreds of years in a long line of progenitors obstinately fighting their way towards happiness, struggling furiously in the dark, and dying hard, had finally culminated by giving birth to this man who was to succeed triumphantly. He was himself able to do eighteen hours of work a day, and was endowed with intelligence, judgment, and force of will to an extent which enabled him to overcome all obstacles. In less than twenty years he had created a town that seemed to come forth from the earth full grown at his bidding, in which he employed about twelve hundred workmen, acquiring millions; then, finding the humble house built by his father too small for him, he bought Guerdache, a magnificent estate, with a house large enough to accommodate ten families, and large landed property surrounding it, a fine park, and a farm, for eight hundred thousand francs. His intention was that Guerdache should be the patriarchal homestead where his descendants, children of those numerous loving and happy couples who should spring from his riches as from a blessed land, would reign luxuriously. His own indomitable efforts would make certain that the future ascendency which occupied his dreams was enjoyed by a younger generation; for was not that accumulated force which he felt now issuing from himself infinite as well as definite? Would it not reproduce itself in even greater measure in his children, continuing without exhaustion or diminution for long years to come? But he himself, while still young, still strong as an oak, in full enjoyment of his powers, and only fifty-two years old, was stricken by the first misfortune of his life. A sudden attack of paralysis deprived him of the use of his lower limbs, and he was constrained to give up the management of the Pit to his eldest son, Michel.

Michel Qurignon, the third of the name, was just thirty years old. He had a younger brother, Philippe, who lived in Paris, having married against his father’s will a woman of extraordinary beauty but of doubtful character; besides the two sons, there was a daughter, Laure, about twenty-five years old, who caused her parents much distress by the extreme religious devotion that she displayed. Michel himself had married, when very young, a woman of a sweet disposition but delicate health; at the time that he was suddenly called upon to assume the management of the Pit they had had two children, Gustave and Suzanne, the one five and the other three years old. It was understood that Michel would carry on the works in the name and for the benefit of the whole family, each member receiving his share of the profits according to the division fixed upon by common agreement. Although he did not possess to the same heroic extent the admirable qualities of his father, either as regards capacity for work, intelligence, or method, he had an excellent head; during ten years he not only succeeded in preventing the business from declining, but even enlarged it, in one respect, by replacing the old machinery. But he was beset
by
annoyances and sorrows, which seemed to foreshadow approaching disaster. His mother was dead, his father, being paralyzed, never came out of the house except for exercise in a wheeled chair, and was, moreover, practically dumb, for he could only pronounce, with the utmost difficulty, a few words. Then his sister, Laure, carried away by mystical exaltation, entered a convent, the earthly joys of Guerdache having no power to restrain her. While melancholy accounts reached him from Paris of his brother Philippe’s establishment, for his wife, having figured in some scandalous affairs, had dragged her husband into a life wasted on pleasure, folly, and madness. Lastly, Michel lost his own frail and gentle wife, and this overpowering loss threw him into an unbalanced condition, which resulted in completely disordering his life. He had before yielded to fancies for pretty girls, but he had done so discreetly, because he was afraid of paining his beloved and invalid wife. When she was gone, there was no longer anything to restrain him, and he took his pleasure freely wherever he happened to find it. He became involved in chance love-affairs upon which he expended the greater part of his time and strength. Thus another decade rolled by, during which the Pit declined, having no longer such a leader as it had in its days of conquest. The master who now directed it was lazy and self-indulgent, eating up all the profits. A feverish love of luxury took possession of him; he cared for nothing but fêtes, pleasures, and expenditure for the mere enjoyments of living. To make matters worse, other causes of ruin, such as bad management, and enfeebled effort, which became every day more relaxed, were combined with industrial catastrophes, by reason of which all industries in metal throughout that part of the country were in danger of extinction. It became impossible to continue the manufacture of steel, rails, and iron framing at low prices, owing to the successful competition of the steel-factories in the north and east, which, owing to the discovery of a certain chemical process, would be able henceforward to economize by the employment of ores of poor quality. In the space of two years Michel found the Pit giving way under him. A day came when he needed three hundred thousand francs for the payment of notes, and he would he obliged to borrow the money. At the same time occurred a revolting tragedy in his own life, which ended by driving him mad. He was nearly fifty-four; his heart was absorbed in a pretty girl who had taken possession of his senses; he had brought her from Paris, secreted her at Beauclair, and he indulged at times in an intoxicating dream of escaping with her and going to the Lands of the Sun to live for love, far from all annoyances. His son, Gustave, now twenty-seven, whose life had been passed in idleness except for a few superficial studies, knew about all his father’s love-affairs, joked with him in regard to them, and lived with him on the footing of a boon companion. He treated the Pit as a joke, refused to set foot in that dirty and disgusting place, among a mass of old iron, rode on horseback, hunted, and altogether lived the life of an amiable, high-bred, lazy dog, as if he had boasted centuries of illustrious ancestors. At last, one fine day, after taking out of his father’s desk the only hundred thousand francs that the latter had succeeded in collecting to meet the next day’s payments, he disappeared with the pretty girl, the
maîtresse à papa
, who had thrown herself into his arms. The next day, Michel, stricken both in heart and purse by the double ruin of his passion and his fortune, was seized by a tremendous vertigo, and killed himself with a shot from his revolver.