Complete Works of Emile Zola (1651 page)

“Very well, grandfather, I am going to write to him, and I hope he will come.”

But when Suzanne wrote that letter to Luc her hand trembled. She could trace only two lines: “My friend, I am in need of you. Come at once.” After two attempts she was obliged to stop; strength failed her to reach the end of even these few words, so strongly did they arouse in her memories of her own wasted life, and of the happiness which had passed her by, and which she would never know. It was scarcely ten o’clock in the morning when a servant set out with the letter, in order to carry it to La Crêcherie.

Luc was standing before the Communal House, having just finished his morning inspection, when the letter was brought to him, and he followed the servant without delay. But what emotion, what heartfelt distress did he not also feel at these simple and touching words: “My friend, I am in need of you. Come at once.” It was now twelve years since events had separated them, and she wrote to him as if they had parted the evening before, so certain was she of seeing him respond to her appeal. She had not doubted her friend for an instant, and he was touched to tears at feeling her to be always the same as in their good-fellowship of former times. The most dreadful tragedies had been enacted around them, all the passions had been unchained, sweeping away men and things, and yet they found themselves again hand in hand, after so many years’ separation. Then, as with a quick step he was approaching Guerdache, he asked himself why she had called him? He was not in ignorance of Boisgelin’s desire to sell him the Pit as dearly as possible, in order to speculate upon the situation. Moreover, his resolution was taken; he would not buy the Pit, for the only acceptable solution was that the Pit should enter into the association of La Crêcherie, as other works of less importance had already done. The idea came to him for a moment that Boisgelin had obliged his wife to make overtures to him. But he knew her; she was incapable of lending herself to such a role. He imagined her, then, distracted with uneasiness and having need of him under some tragic circumstances. He sought no further; she would tell him herself the service that she claimed from his affection.

Suzanne was awaiting Luc in a little salon, and, when he entered, she felt as though she should faint, so profound was her distress. He himself was very much overcome, and his heart was overflowing. At first he could not utter a word, and they looked at each other in silence.

“Oh, my friend, my friend,” murmured she, at last.

She put into these simple words the emotion of all that had passed during the twelve years of their separation, which had only been broken by rare and silent meetings: the cruel life that she had led at her insulted and desecrated fireside, and, above all, the work that he had accomplished during this time, and which she had followed from afar with an enthusiastic soul. He had become a hero, and she worshipped him; she would have liked to kneel to him, to pour balm into his wounds, to be the companion who should console and aid him. But another had come; she had suffered so much on account of Josine that her heart was henceforth dead, buried in that love unknown to all, of whose existence she herself no longer wished to be aware. The sight of her divinity, now before her, revived all these things from the secret depths of her being, and produced a tender distraction that moistened her eyes and agitated her hands in a faint trembling.

“Oh, my friend, my friend! You are here, then! It was necessary only for me to call you!”

With Luc, who was moved by a like sympathy, remembrance evoked the entire past as well. He had known her to be so unhappy, under the insult of seeing Fernande, the temptress, almost installed in her house. He had known her to be so dignified, so heroic, unwilling to yield her proper place, and defending the honor of her name by remaining in her own home, and holding up her head for her son’s sake and her own. Moreover, in spite of the separation, she had never lost her head nor her self-control; he had respected and pitied her more at each new grief by which he knew her to be smitten. He had very often asked himself how he could go to her assistance and in what manner he could aid her. He would have experienced so lively a joy at giving her some proof that he had forgotten nothing, that he had remained the friend of former times, the discreet accomplice of her good actions! This was why he responded so quickly to her first appeal, full of that uneasy affection that now, when he was before her, swelled his heart and rendered him incapable of speech, until at last he was able to reply:

“Yes, your friend, your friend, who has never ceased to be so, who only awaited such a summons in order to hasten to you.”

They had remained on terms of brother and sister, and they felt that intimacy of feeling so profoundly that they fell into each other’s arms. They kissed each other upon the cheek, like comrades and friends, no longer afraid of human follies, secure of never suffering through each other, each sure of finding nothing but peace and courage in the other. All the strength and tenderness that can exist in the friendship of a man and a woman blossomed forth in the smile that they exchanged.

“My friend,” said Luc, “if you only knew my anxiety when I perceived that the Pit would finally crumble to pieces under my attacks! Is it not you whom I have ruined? What faith in my mission have I not been obliged to obey, in order not to be hindered by this thought! Sometimes I have been overcome with great depression at the thought that you would curse me, and that you would never pardon me for being the cause of all the anxiety that must have been oppressing you at that hour.”

“I curse you, my friend! But I was with you; I said prayers for you; your victories have been my only joy! And then it was so delightful to me to have a secret affection for you in the midst of my world, which was execrating you, and to understand you and to love you, in an inner sanctuary, unknown to others.”

“I have none the less ruined you, my friend. What is going to become of you, accustomed as you are from infancy to a life of luxury?”

“
Oh, as to ruin, my friend, that would have occurred without you. It is others who have ruined me. And you will see how brave I shall be, weak as you consider me.”

“But Paul — but your son?”

“Paul? — no greater good-fortune could have befallen him. He will work. Look at what money has done for my people.”

Then Suzanne at length told Luc why she had addressed to him so urgent a summons. Monsieur Jérôme, whose painful awakening to consciousness she related to him, desired to see him. Dr. Novarre believed the end to be near, and it was the wish of a dying man. Luc, astonished like herself, and like herself inspired with an undefined dread at the thought of this resurrection, which he was so strangely summoned to witness, answered that he was entirely at her service and ready to do whatever she asked of him.

“Have you informed your husband of this desire, and of my visit?” asked he.

She looked at him, with a slight elevation of her shoulders.

“No,” answered she, “I have not thought of doing so; it is useless. For a long time my grandfather has not even seemed to be aware that my husband existed. He does not speak to him, and does not see him. Moreover, my husband went out hunting this morning, and has not yet returned.”

Then she added:

“If you will be kind enough to follow me, I will take you at once.”

When they entered Monsieur Jerome’s room, the latter was sitting up in the wide mahogany bed, supported by pillows; he still had his head turned towards the window, the curtains of which had remained wide open. He must never have withdrawn his eyes from the magnificent park and the extent of the horizon, with the Pit and La Crêcherie down below on the side of the Monts Bleuses and above the crowded roofs of Beauclair. It was a view that seemed to haunt him, a continual evocation of the past, the present, and the future, belonging to the long years during which, in his silence, he had had this outlook unceasingly before him.

“Grandfather,” said Suzanne, “I bring you Monsieur Luc Froment. Here he is; he has done us the kindness to come immediately.”

The aged man turned his head slowly, and fastened upon Luc his large eyes, which seemed larger than ever, and of a profound and infinite clearness. He said nothing, not even a word of welcome and acknowledgment. The deep silence continued several minutes without his gaze being diverted from this unknown figure, this founder of La Crêcherie, as if he had the wish to understand him well and to penetrate with his dying eyes into the depths of his soul.

Suzanne, a little embarrassed, resumed:

“Grandfather, you do not know Monsieur Froment; or have you, perhaps, remarked him in your outings?” He did not appear to understand his granddaughter, and made no further answer to her. But at the end of a moment he turned his head once more and searched the room with his eyes. Not finding what he wanted, he ended by pronouncing a single word, a name —

“Boisgelin.”

This, to Suzanne, was a fresh surprise, mixed with anxiety and embarrassment.

“You are asking for my husband, grandfather; do you wish him to be here?”

“Yes, yes — Boisgelin.”

“He has not come back, I think. In the mean time, you ought to tell Monsieur Froment why you have wished to see him.”

“No, no.  Boisgelin, Boisgelin.”

It was plain that he could speak only before Boisgelin. Suzanne, after having excused herself to Luc, left the room to seek her husband. Luc remained face to face with Monsieur Jérôme, and felt that gaze of infinite penetration always on his person. He himself began to examine in his turn, and found Monsieur Jérôme of extraordinary beauty, in his extreme old age, with his white face and his regular features, to which the approach of death, ennobled by a great act, imparted a sovereign majesty. The period of waiting was long, and not a word was exchanged between the two men, who searched each other with their eyes. The room about them, with its heavy hangings and massive furniture, seemed to sleep under the oppression of its weighty luxury. Not a sound, not a breath, nothing but the rustle that came across the walls from the emptiness of the great closed salons and of entire floors abandoned to dust. Nothing could be more tragic or more solemn than this delay.

At last Suzanne reappeared, bringing Boisgelin, who had just returned. He was still in his hunting dress, gaitered and gloved, for she had not given him time to put on a house costume. He entered with an air of anxiety, confused at stumbling on such an adventure. What his wife had just told him, of Luc summoned by Monsieur Jerome, Luc in his house, in the room of the old man, who was restored to consciousness, and who was waiting to speak to him, all these unforeseen events upset him, and threw him into extreme distress, without his having even a few minutes for reflection.

“Grandfather,” said Suzanne, “here is my husband. Speak, if you have something to say to us. We are listening to you.”

But the old man once more looked around the room, and, not finding what he wanted, asked again:

“Paul; where is Paul?” —

“You wish that Paul also should be here?”

“Yes, yes; I wish it.”

“Paul must be at the farm. To send for him will require a good quarter of an hour.”

“It is necessary; I wish it, I wish it.”

They yielded and sent a servant in haste. This time the delay was yet more solemn and tragic. Luc and Boisgelin had simply bowed, without finding a word to say to each other, after so many years, in that room which was already filled by an august presence. No one spoke, nothing was heard stirring in the air but the slightly heavy breathing of Monsieur Jerome. His wide-open eyes, full of light, were once more turned towards the window — towards that horizon of human effort in labor where the past had been revolutionized and where the future was about to be born. The minutes passed by, slow and regular, in that anxious expectation of what was about to come, of that act of supreme importance, the approach of which was felt.

There was the sound of a light step. Paul entered, with a healthy, rosy face reddened by the open air.

“My child,” said Suzanne, “it is your grandfather who has called us together, and who desires to speak only before you.”

On the lips of Monsieur Jerome, so long rigid, a smile of infinite tenderness appeared. He summoned Paul by a gesture, and made him sit down as near him as possible, on the side of the bed. It was for him, above all, that he wished to speak — for this last of the Qurignons, by whom the race might be rejuvenated and still bear good fruits. When he saw that Paul was very much moved and that his heart was torn by this last farewell, he delayed a moment to reassure him, with his tender, grand-fatherly eyes, which seemed to say that death was sweet, since he was going to bequeath to his great-grandson the inheritance of his long existence, an act of goodness, justice, and peace.

Then, at last, he spoke, in the silence religiously preserved by all. He had turned his head towards Boisgelin, and repeated, at first, the isolated words which the servant had heard him stammer, in a low voice, two days before, in the midst of other confused utterances.

“It is necessary to give back; it is necessary to give back.”

And seeing that they did not fully understand what he wished to say, he turned again to Paul, and repeated, with much strength:

“It is necessary to give back; it is necessary to give back.”

Suzanne, moved by a sudden chill that passed over her, had exchanged glances with Luc, who also was shuddering; and while Boisgelin, struck with uneasiness and dread, was affecting to await some senile rambling utterance, she inquired:

“What do you mean to say to us, grandfather, and what is it necessary that we should give back?”

Monsieur Jérôme’s voice made itself more and more distinct and free.

“Everything, my daughter. Down yonder it is necessary to give back the Pit. Here it is necessary to give back Guerdache. At the farm, it is necessary to give back the land. It is necessary to give back everything, because nothing ought to belong to us, because everything ought to belong to all.”

“But, grandfather, explain yourself; to whom, then, must it be restored?”