Complete Works of Emile Zola (1629 page)

“Yes, mamma,” said Nise, still smiling, with her air of childish serenity.

As soon as she had gone away with her nurse, after having kissed every one, her mother concluded:

“
The matter is perfectly simple; I shall have the gate walled up, and then I shall be sure that the children can no longer communicate. Nothing is so harmful as these urchins’ games; they convey every kind of infection.” Neither Delaveau nor Boisgelin had interfered, seeing nothing more in the matter than a childish fancy, somewhat severely treated for the child’s own good. But Nise, who was very persistent, carried away in her little heart the image of that Nanet who was so droll, and who played so nicely, and in the future this thought brought forth its results.

The guests now began to arrive, first the Gouriers, with Châtelard, and after them Judge Gaume, with the more youthful Jollivets. Abbé Marie made his appearance last, after having made the company wait for him, according to his custom. The party numbered ten, exclusive of the Mazelles, who had been detained by some obstacle, and had promised to come to coffee. Fernande placed the sub-prefect at her right, and the judge on her left, while Delaveau seated himself between the remaining ladies, Leonore and Lucille. The two ends of the table were occupied by Gourier and Boisgelin, the Abbé Marie and Captain Jollivet. The occasion was intended to be very informal, in order that conversation should be easy and general. Moreover, the dining-room, of which Fernande was secretly ashamed, was so narrow that when there were more than twelve at table the service was inconvenienced by the old mahogany sideboard.

From the time that the fish, delicious trout from the Mionne, were served, the conversation turned on nothing but La Crêcherie and Luc. And the remarks of these
bourgeois
, who considered themselves well - informed on such subjects, and in a position to understand what they considered a socialistic Utopia, were very little wiser or more intelligent than the extraordinary comments of Dacheux and the Laroques. The only person really capable of grasping the situation was Châtelard, but he treated it as a joke.

“You are aware, of course,” said he, “that in this new order of things young men and young girls are brought up in common; they attend the same classes, and occupy the same workrooms. All this must certainly result in a rapid increase in the population.”

“Oh, how horrid!” said Fernande, with an air of profound disgust, for she affected extreme prudery.

Leonore, whose religion displayed itself in an increasingly severe morality, leaned towards her neighbor, the Abbé Marie, murmuring:

“A shameful thing! And God will surely punish it.” But the abbé contented himself with raising his eyes towards heaven, for, as he had no wish to break off his friendship with Sœurette, and still continued to breakfast at regular intervals at La Crêcherie, his position was becoming difficult. He did his duty by all his flock; above all, by those who had strayed from the fold, and whom he tried to believe would eventually return to it. This constant struggle against the evil influence of the spirit of the times was what he called standing in the breach. His efforts to purify the old social order in its very death struggle had proved vain, and he was now the victim of a deep depression, as he saw the number of the faithful in his church steadily decreasing.

A flutelike little laugh from Lucille sounded so gayly that every one at table looked at her. But she remained completely at her ease, and gazed about her with an innocent air, glancing furtively at her husband, the captain, to see how the subject struck him.

Delaveau made a gesture as if he were bored. This aspect of the subject did not interest him. What he considered of importance was the undermining of authority involved in this unprincipled theory of living without a master.

“How their future city will be governed,” said he, “is beyond me. For it is not a question of the works alone; they announce that under the co-operative system they will eventually reach a point where the wages will be suppressed altogether, and that a just division of wealth will not be accomplished until every one in the community contributes his share of labor.... I do not know any more dangerous idea than this, for it is one that it is impossible should ever be realized. Is not that so, Monsieur Gourier?”

The mayor, who was eating his breakfast with his face almost in his plate, wiped his mouth deliberately before answering, for he saw the sub-prefect looking at him.

“No doubt it cannot be realized.... Still, the system of co-operation should not be lightly condemned. It contains a great force which we can make use of ourselves.”

This prudence enraged the captain, who lost his self-command.

“What!” he cried, “you have actually reached the point of not condemning wholesale the execrable attempts which this man, this Monsieur Luc, is meditating against all that we love, and against our ancient France, as the swords of our fathers made her and bequeathed to us!”

At this moment lamb cutlets with asparagus tips were served, and with these there was a general attack upon Luc. His execrated name was sufficient to make them all of one mind, and to unite them closely in a common terror as regarded their threatened interests, as well as in an imperative need of protection and of vengeance. They were cruel enough to ask Gourier for news of his renegade son Achille, and the mayor thus appealed to felt it his duty to curse his son. Châtelard, alone, still attempted to keep up his joking air. The captain continued to prophesy the worst possible disasters if the factions were not immediately reduced to order at the point of the bayonet. And he raised such a panic that Boisgelin took the alarm, and sought some reassuring declaration from Delaveau.

“The man is already in difficulties,” said the director of the Pit. “The prosperity of La Crêcherie is on the surface only, and the most trivial accident will be sufficient to crush it.... My wife told me an incident....”

“Yes,” continued Fernande, with an expression that displayed irritation and delight at the opportunity of relieving herself, “I have it as a fact from my laundress.... She knows Ragu, one of our old workmen, who left us to go to the new works. Well, it seems that Ragu says everywhere that he has had enough of it, enough of their dirty hole, that he is bored to death, that he is not the only person who thinks so, and that one of these fine mornings they will all return to us.... Oh, who will start the thing, who will take the first step towards attacking and demolishing this Luc?”

“There is the Laboque lawsuit,” said Boisgelin, coming to her assistance. “I am very much in hopes that it will do the business.”

A fresh pause ensued while a duck
au sang
made its appearance. The Laboque lawsuit was the real occasion of this friendly reunion, but no one had yet ventured to allude to it, owing to the fact that Judge Gaume maintained silence on the subject. The judge ate very little, his secret griefs having given him a digestive trouble.

He occupied himself with listening to the other guests, regarding them as he did so with his cold, gray eyes, from which all expression seemed to be voluntarily withdrawn. He had rarely shown himself so little communicative, and his silence at length became oppressive, for every one was anxious to know on what ground he stood, and to have, at least, some certainty in regard to the adverse decision which it was expected that he would give. It did not enter any one’s head that he could favor an acquittal, but they were all greatly in hopes that he would be obliging enough to put himself under some engagement to the contrary by expressing a decided opinion.

It was the captain who finally made the attack.

“The law is explicit, is it not, Judge Gaume? All injuries must be repaired by the person who has caused them?”

“Most certainly,” answered Gaume.

Every one waited expectantly, but he relapsed into silence. The affair of the Clouque was then discussed exhaustively, in order that he might be forced to commit himself. The infected stream was now spoken of as one of the ornaments of Beauclair; yet it was claimed that the water had been stolen from the town, in order to give it to the peasants, whose heads had been turned to such an extent that their village had become a nest of furious anarchists, contagion from which was a menace to the whole country. The characteristic
bourgeois
terror appeared for the ancient and sacred rights of property, which they held must be in peril if the descendants of the close-fisted peasants of former times had reached the point of making common property of their parcels of land. It was high time that the law should interfere and compel the cessation of such a scandal.

“We may make ourselves easy,” Boisgelin remarked, finally; “our social interests will be in the best hands. Nothing can stand against a righteous judgment made without bias by an upright conscience.”

“Most certainly,” repeated Gaume, quietly.

This time it was plain that nothing more satisfactory than these non-committal words was to be obtained from him, although those present had hoped for a positive condemnation of Luc. The meal was over; there was nothing more, after a Russian salad, but strawberry ice and the dessert. But appetites had been satisfied, and there was laughter and certainty of victory. After the guests had withdrawn to the
salon
for coffee, the Mazelles arrived, and were welcomed, as usual, with a half-mocking affection, so greatly did these possessors of a private fortune, who enjoyed the delights of idleness, appeal to the hearts of all. ‘Madame Mazelle’s malady was no better, but she was delighted at having obtained from Dr. Novarre some new tablets, by the use of which she was enabled to eat everything with impunity. Nothing was talked of but the abominable stories told of La Crêcherie, the threats of suppressing incomes, and of abolishing inheritance, all of which were enough to curdle the blood. To discuss such disagreeable things could do no good, and Mazelle, who watched over his wife with the utmost care, entreated those present by significant winks not to broach such atrocious subjects, as they might prove injurious to her uncertain health. The breakfast had been delightful, and the guests hastened home to live lives full of joys and riches, in which they alone were to gather its fruits and flowers.

The day of the famous lawsuit arrived, in the midst of ever-increasing anger and hatred. Never before had Beauclair been the scene of such furious passions. Luc was, at first, astonished, and merely laughed. Laboque’s subpoena simply amused him, the more so because the demand for twenty - five thousand francs damages for injury received could not, it seemed to him, be sustained. It would be very difficult to prove that the drying-up of the Clouque was due to the fact of the springs being impounded and utilized at La Crêcherie; and, moreover, such springs belonged to the property; they were Jordan’s, free and clear and without restriction, so that the land-owner had the right to dispose of the water as he saw fit. Laboque, on the other hand, would be obliged to rely on his ability to show evidence that the injury he claimed to have been done to him really existed; and this was what he attempted to do, but so unskilfully that no law-court in the world could sustain him. As Luc good-humoredly said, it was he himself who ought to have claimed a public assessment as a recompense for having relieved the dwellers on the river-bank from the poisonous nuisance of which they had so long complained. The town had only to fill up the trench, and sell the land for building purposes. This would prove a windfall that would put a few hundred thousand francs into its treasury. Luc laughed, therefore, because he did not imagine that such a proposition could be serious; and it was not until afterwards, in the presence of the fierceness of the rancor and hostility that was displayed against him on every side, that he took in the gravity of the situation and of the mortal peril to which his work was going to be exposed.

This, to Luc, was a very distressing shock. The optimistic simplicity belonging to him as an apostle was not so complete as to make him ignorant of the wickedness of men. In the struggle that he had undertaken against the old order of things, he knew that others would not give way without anger and opposition. He had braced himself to meet the martyrdom which he foresaw and to endure the stones and mud with which ungrateful crowds are wont to overwhelm those who are in advance of their age. Nevertheless, his heart wavered for a moment, as he felt the on-coming of the forces of stupidity, cruelty, and treason. It was fully apparent to him that behind the interested attack made by Laboque and the retail trade was the entire
bourgeoisie,
including all those who held property, and were unwilling to loosen their hold upon it. His efforts towards amalgamation and co-operation put capitalist society, which is based upon the wages system, in such peril that he became, in its eyes, a public enemy, whom it was desirous to get rid of at any price. And it was the Pit, Guerdache, the town, and authority under all its forms — paternal, communal, or governmental — which had taken up the matter and had entered into the struggle with the determination to exterminate him. All these menaced egoisms advanced out of the shade, approached each other, united with one another, and resulted in such a complication of snarls, open traps, and prepared pitfalls, that he knew himself to be lost if he made the first false step. If he once stumbled, the whole pack would fall upon him, and he would be devoured. He well knew them all, and could have named them all — the public functionaries, the merchants, the simple bondholders, with their tranquil faces, who would have devoured him alive had they seen him fall down at a street corner. But he repressed his sickness of heart, and girded himself for battle, in the conviction that nothing is ever established without a struggle, and that the great achievements of humanity are all watered with its blood.

It was on a Tuesday, which was market-day, that the lawsuit came before the civil court, presided over by Gaume. Beauclair was in an uproar, and the tumult on the Place de la Mairie and in the Rue de Brias was increased by the presence of outsiders from the neighboring villages. Sœurette, filled with uneasiness, had implored Luc to allow some reliable friends to accompany him to the court-room. He refused obstinately, however, for he was determined to appear alone, just as he was resolved to speak in his own defence, accepting counsel only as a matter of form. Upon his entrance into the audience-hall, which was very small, and already filled with an excited crowd, a sudden silence occurred, caused by that brutal curiosity which greets a solitary and defenceless victim, who offers himself as a sacrifice. His quiet courage still further enraged his enemies, for they interpreted it as insolence. He stood upright at the bar, and as he looked calmly at the crowd which desired his disgrace he recognized Laboque, Dacheux, Caffiaux, and other shop-keepers, mingled with the unknown crowd of raging, furious enemies, whose faces he had never seen before. He was a little relieved to perceive that his acquaintances at Guerdache and at the Pit had at least the good taste not to come and witness his abandonment to the wild beasts.