Complete Works of Emile Zola (1634 page)

This time his fist did not descend upon the table; he stretched it out through the open door into the darkness of night, in the direction of La Crêcherie, the lights of which were twinkling like stars at the bottom of the rocky slope.

Petit-Da respectfully refrained from answering, but his conscience was a little, troubled, for he knew that his father had been annoyed with him ever since he had met Honorine, the daughter of Caffiaux, the keeper of the
cabaret
. Honorine, who was small, slender, and dark, with a gay, sprightly face, was passionately in love with this gentle giant, who in his turn found her charming. It was Honorine who was at the bottom of this evening’s difference between father and son, and the direct attack which the latter expected was finally made.

“And you,” asked Morfain, abruptly, “when are you going to leave me?”

This suggestion of separation appeared to throw Petit-Da into confusion.

“Why, then, father, do you wish that I should leave you?”

“Oh! when there is a girl in the case there is nothing to be looked for but quarrels and destruction of peace.

Who is it, then, that you have chosen? Are such marriages reasonable, when they confuse classes, turn the world inside out, and end everything?... I have lived too long.”

The son, gently and tenderly, strove to appease his father. He did not deny his love for Honorine, but he spoke of it like a reasonable person who is determined to be patient as long as is necessary. Future events would decide. What harm was there in the young girl and himself exchanging a friendly good-day when they met? Their not being in the same social world did not prevent their being mutually attracted. And even though these different worlds should become slightly mixed, would they not derive advantage from this by knowing each other better and loving each other more?

But Morfain, beside himself with anger and bitterness, suddenly arose, and, standing under the rock which formed the ceiling, and which he almost touched with his forehead, said, with a splendidly tragic gesture:

“Clear out! clear out! as soon as you please. Do as your sister did, spit upon everything that is respectable, plunge into profligacy and folly. You are no longer my children; I no longer recognize you; some one must have changed you. Leave me to my solitude in this cave, where I earnestly hope that the rocks themselves will bring about an end by falling and crushing me.”

Luc, who was about entering, had paused upon the threshold and heard these last words. He was very much moved by them, for he had a great esteem for Morfain. He reasoned with him for some time. But the latter, as soon as the master made his appearance, concealed his vexation, so as to be no longer anything but the workman, the submissive subordinate, devoted to his task. He did not even permit himself to judge Luc, who was, nevertheless, the first cause of all these abominations, which were upsetting the whole country, and from which he was suffering.

“Do not make yourself uneasy, Monsieur Luc, because I have my own ideas, and because I get angry if they are opposed. It happens very seldom, for you know that I talk very little. You may be very sure that it does not result in any harm to the work. My eyes are always on the alert, and not a tapping takes place at which I am not present. When one’s heart is sad, one works all the harder for it.”

But when Luc endeavored once more to bring peace into this family, where it had been destroyed by the evolution of which he was himself the apostle, the master-founder again flew into a passion.

“No, no! That’s enough; to hell with peace! If you came up here to speak to me of Ma Bleue, Monsieur Luc, you have done wrong, because it is the sure means of making things worse. Let her stay where she is, and I will stay where I am!”

Then apparently wishing to break off the conversation, he spoke hastily of something else, and imparted a piece of bad news, which was, perhaps, a strong element in his own bad humor.

“I was intending to go down at once, in order to tell you that I went to the mine this morning, and that all hope of finding that rich lode of ore again has to be given up, although I would have sworn that it would certainly have been met with again at the bottom of the gallery which I pointed out. But what would you have? It seems as though an evil fate had been cast over everything that we have undertaken for some time past. Nothing succeeds.”

These words fell upon Luc’s ear like the knell of his great expectations. Morfain’s speech disheartened him completely. The founder, with his enormous head, his broad face furrowed and reddened by the fire, his flaming eyes, distorted mouth, and yellowish red skin seemed like the last inhabitant of an extinct world. Then Luc took leave, and, as he descended the hill-side, oppressed with the deepest sadness, he asked himself how great would be the mass of continually increasing ruins upon which he would be obliged to build his city.

Even at La Crecherie itself, in his calm and tender intercourse with Sœurette, Luc found cause for discouragement. She continued to receive the Abbé Marie, the schoolmaster Hermeline, and Dr. Novarre, and showed so much delight at having her friend also to breakfast on these occasions that he had not the heart to refuse her invitations, in spite of the discomfort caused him by the continual disputes of the school-master and the priest. Sœurette, whose conscience was void of offence, suffered no annoyance, believing him to be interested, while Jordan, always enveloped in his wraps and dreaming of some experiment begun, listened with a vague smile.

All this was especially marked one Tuesday, when they had left the table and were sitting in the little salon. Hermeline had attacked Luc in regard to the instruction that Sœurette was giving to the children at La Crêcherie, which she did in five classes, each containing both sexes, and in time taken from prolonged recreations and from the numerous hours passed in the apprentices’ work-rooms. This new school, where a method diametrically opposed to his own was followed, had drawn off some of the schoolmaster’s pupils, and this he could not pardon. His angular face, with its bony forehead and thin lips, paled with restrained anger at the idea that any one could believe in any theory but his own.

“I am willing to accept the instruction of boys and girls together, although it seems to me most unsuitable. Even when the pupils of different sexes are separated, they have many bad instincts and evil imaginations, and it is most extraordinary that any one should conceive the idea of placing them together, by which means all that is undesirable is excited and stimulated. All this should be kept out of sight and attention diverted from it. But what I find it impossible to tolerate is that the authority of the master should be destroyed, and discipline wholly dispensed with, by the practice of appealing to the personality of these children and allowing them to direct their own actions according to their good pleasure. Did you not yourself tell me that each child follows his own inclination, devotes himself to whatever study he pleases, and is at liberty to choose his lesson? You call this stimulating energy; but what do you call studies in which they play all the time, where books are held in contempt, where the word of the master is not infallible, and where the time that is not spent in the garden is spent in the workshops, in planing wood and polishing iron? No doubt a manual trade is a good thing to teach, but there is a time for everything, and in my opinion the foundation should be laid by forcing as much grammar and as much mathematics as possible into the thick skulls of these idle little creatures with strokes of the hammer.”

Luc had ceased to discuss such questions, for, having espoused the dogma of progress, and being in no wise inclined to relinquish it, he was weary of running counter to this intolerance of sectarianism and obstinate Catholicism. He contented himself, therefore, with replying quietly:

“Yes, we believe in the necessity of making work attractive, by changing the classical studies for continual object-lessons, and our aim is, before everything, to influence the wills of men.”

Hermeline then burst out laughing.

“Well, and do you know what you are doing? You are preparing revolts by doing away with class distinctions. There is only one means of giving citizens to the State, and that is to manufacture them expressly for her, such as she needs them, so that they may be strong and glorious. Hence arises the necessity of instruction, systematized, disciplined, and calculated to serve the country, carried on according to the best recognized methods, in order to furnish the working-men, the professional men, and the public functionaries of whom she has need. In the absence of authority, there is no security for all this. I have proved it; I am a republican of the old school, a freethinker, and an atheist. No one, I hope, could imagine that he detected in me a retrograde mind, but, nevertheless, what I have heard of your instruction, your elective system of education, drives me beside myself, because, under its action, before half a century is gone, there will be no more citizens, no more soldiers, no more national defenders. Yes, I defy you to produce any soldiers under your system of free choice; and, in case of war, how will the country be defended?”

“No doubt, in case of war, defence would be necessary,” said Luc, without any emotion. “But what will be the use of soldiers on the day when there is no more war? You speak like Captain Jollivet, in the
Journal de Beauclair,
when he accuses us of being unpatriotic and traitors to the cause.”

This mischievous touch of irony completed Hermeline’s exasperation.

“Captain Jollivet,” he exclaimed, “is a fool whom I despise! It is none the less true that you are making ready an ill-regulated generation, one in rebellion against the State, which will eventually lead the republic into the worst catastrophes.”

“Liberty, truth, and justice are catastrophes, then?” said Luc, smiling.

Hermeline continued, however, painting a terrible picture of the social conditions of the future if the schools ceased to educate all citizens alike, and all for the service of the authoritative and centralized republic: without political discipline, without any possible administration, without State sovereignty, and with inordinate license, ending in the worst physical and moral debauchery. The Abbé Marie, who was listening, nodded his head approvingly, and could not resist the desire of immediately exclaiming:

“Ah! how right you are, and how well all that is expressed!”

His broad, full face, with regular features and an aquiline nose, beamed with delight at this furious attack against the social conditions now coming into existence, in which he felt that his God was condemned to be nothing more than the historic idol of a dead religion. He himself made the same accusations and prophesied the same disasters from the pulpit every Sunday. But he was less and less listened to, his church became emptier day by day, and lie experienced a deep, unavowed grief, which caused him to shut himself up more and more in his narrow doctrine for consolation. Never had he shown himself more strictly adherent to the letter, and never had he treated his penitents more severely, as if he were desirous that this
bourgeois
world, over whose rottenness he spread the mantle of religion, should at least be engulfed in an attitude of righteousness. On the day that his church crumbled into dust he would be found at its altar, and his last mass should be finished under its ruins.

“It is very true,” he said, “that the reign of Satan is nigh, from this bringing up of boys and girls together, this unchaining of all the evil passions, this destruction of authority, this driving of the kingdom of God from the face of the earth, as was done in pagan times. The picture which you have just drawn is so just that I do not know anything to add that would make it stronger.”

Annoyed at being praised in this manner by the priest, with whom he had nothing in common, the school-master suddenly became silent, with his eyes fixed on the distance, and looking at the grass plot in the park as if he heard nothing.

“But,” proceeded the Abbé Marie, “there is one thing which it is more impossible for me to pardon than the demoralizing instruction given in your schools, and that is that you have closed your doors to God, you have deliberately omitted to build a church in the midst of your new town, among so many beautiful and useful constructions. Is that because you expect to live without God? No State, up to this time, has been able to do so. A religion has always been found necessary for the government of men.”

“I expect nothing of the sort,” answered Luc. “Every man is free to believe as he pleases, and if a church has not been erected, it is because none of us has as yet felt the need of it. But if the faithful could be found to fill one, it could easily be built. It will always be optional with any group of citizens to join together for any purpose agreeable to themselves. As to the necessity of religion in the government of men, that is, indeed, very real; but we do not wish to govern them; we wish, on the contrary, that they may live in ‘perfect freedom in a free city. You see, Monsieur Abbé, it is not we who are destroying Catholicism; it is destroying itself; it is slowly dying a natural, death, as religions necessarily die at the appointed period of human evolution, after having fulfilled their part in the world’s history. Science is destroying all dogmas one by one; the religion of humanity is now born, and is going to conquer the world. What use would a Catholic church be at La Crêcherie when yours is already too large for Beauclair, when it is becoming more and more deserted, and when it will one of these days fall entirely to pieces?”

The priest, who was very pale, did not understand, and did not wish to understand. He confined himself to reiterating, with the obstinacy of the believer whose strength lies in simple affirmation, without reason or proof:

“If God is not with you, your defeat is certain. Believe what I tell you, and build a church.”

Hermeline could now contain himself no longer. The priest’s praises choked him, above all when they were accompanied with an inference as to the necessity of a religion. Therefore he exclaimed: