Complete Works of Emile Zola (1653 page)

But when Suzanne accompanied Luc, on his leaving Monsieur Jerome’s room, they found themselves again alone for a few minutes in the little salon. They were so moved and so overcome by emotion that their hearts rose to their lips.

“Rely upon me,” said he; “I promise you to watch over the execution of those last wishes, of which you are the depositary. I am now going to set about it,”

She took his hands.

“Oh! my friend, I put my faith in you. I know what miracles of kindness you have already realized, and I have no doubt as to the wonders that you will accomplish in reconciling us all. There is nothing but love. Ah! if I had only been loved as I love!”

He saw her trembling, he saw her thus betray the secret of which she herself had been so long in ignorance, but which was escaping her in this solemn moment.

“My friend, my friend!” cried she, “what strength I should have had for good, what aid I should have been capable of giving, protected by the arm of a good man, of a hero, who would have been my god! But, even though this is irrevocably too late, will you still accept me as a friend, a sister, who may, at least, be of assistance to you?”

He understood; it was the case, at once so sad and so sweet, of Sœurette over again. She had loved him without telling him so, without even owning it to him, as a good woman, longing for tenderness, and putting into him her dream of happy love, her consolation for the sufferings in her own home. Had not he himself loved her in the far-off days of their early meetings among the poor people whom they had known? This was a dream of love, by which he would have feared to offend her, and which remained in his heart like the perfume of some flowers of remembrance found again between two pages. And now that it was Josine whom he had chosen, now that these things were dead without possibility of resurrection, she bestowed herself, like Sœurette, in the fraternal companionship of a simple, devoted soul, desirous of being with him in his mission and his work.

“Will I accept you!” cried he, moved to tears. “Ah! yes, there is never enough of affection, or of tender and active good-will. The need of it is so great that you can expend your heart without counting the cost. Come with me, my friend, and you shall never leave me any more. You shall be part of my duty and my love.”

She threw herself into his arms, overjoyed, and they embraced each other. The bond thus formed was indissoluble; it was a union of sentiment and of exquisite purity, where nothing had any existence but a common passion for the poor and the suffering, the inextinguishable desire to exterminate the misery of the world. He had a wife whom he adored, who gave him children of his own, and he would in future have two friends, two comrades with the delicate hands of women, who would aid him in the labors of his spirit.

Months passed by, for the settlement of the involved affairs of the Pit was very laborious. There was the debt of six hundred thousand francs, of which it was necessary to be free before anything could be done. Arrangements were made; the creditors agreed to accept reimbursement by annual payments on the profits to be realized by the working of the Pit after it was received into the association of La Crêcherie. It was necessary to estimate the value of the material and machinery saved from the fire. This, together with the extensive property along the Mionne, as far as old Beauclair, belonged to the Boisgelins; a modest income was assured to them, to be deducted from the profits before they were divided among the creditors. Old Qurignon’s intention was thus only partially to be fulfilled in this period of transition when capital was still operating on the same footing as labor and intelligence, until it should disappear before the victory of labor, alone and supreme. But Guerdache and the farm, at least, could be returned absolutely to the community; and so they were given back in their entirety to the heirs of the laborers who had formerly paid for them with the sweat of their brows. As soon as the land of the farm was received into the association of Combettes, thus realizing Feuillat’s secret idea so long concealed, it began to prosper, and became a source of considerable gain, all the proceeds being employed to convert Guerdache into a convalescent home for feeble children and mothers who had recently been confined. Beds were established, gratuitous houses for rest were opened, and the park, which was always flourishing, belonged now to the lesser people of the world. It was an immense garden, the paradise of a dream, where children played, where mothers regained their health, and where all the people came to enjoy themselves as in a palace of nature which was now a palace for all.

Years passed by. Luc had given Boisgelin one of the little houses at La Crêcherie, built at some distance from the cottage which he himself still occupied. The early period of this commonplace existence was very hard to Boisgelin, who did not resign himself to it without violent struggles. At one time he even wished to depart for Paris, and to live there, on chance, in his own fashion. But his innate idleness and the impossibility of earning his own living made him as feeble as a child, and placed him completely in the power of any one who was willing to take charge of him. Ever since his misfortunes, Suzanne, who was so reasonable and so gentle, but so firm, had complete authority over him, and he always ended by doing what she wished, like a poor, disabled being, swept about at the mercy of existence. Amid this active world of workers, idleness soon came to weigh upon him, so that he began to desire some occupation. He was tired of wandering about the entire day; he suffered from a secret shame and a need of action, having no longer the useless fatigue of a large fortune to manage and to spend. During the winter he could still hunt, but as soon as spring came a deadly dulness took possession of him during his rides on horseback. Thus he was ready to accept when Suzanne induced Luc to confide to him an inspectorship, a sort of supervision of the Communal House, which would require about three hours’ time daily. His health, which had suffered, became somewhat re-established, but he never ceased to appear uneasy and to have the bewildered, unhappy manner of a man who might have fallen from another planet.

The years still rolled by. Suzanne had become the friend, the sister of Josine and of Sœurette, helping them and aiding them in their ‘labors. They all three surrounded Luc, supporting and sustaining him, and filling their part in his goodness, his tenderness, and his kindness. He smilingly called them the three virtues, and he expressed through them, under different forms, the same expansion of love, they being messengers of all that was deliciously tender to him in the world. They were occupied with the
crèches,
with schools, with infirmaries and convalescent houses; they went everywhere that there was weakness to protect, pain to relieve, or joy to create. Sœurette and Suzanne, above all, accepted and vied in doing the most ungrateful labors, of the kind that required personal abnegation and entire renunciation; while Josine, occupied with her children and the cares of her own increasing household, paid naturally less attention to these than the others. Moreover, it was she with whom Luc was in love, who represented the fulness of beauty and affection, while Sœurette and Suzanne were merely friends, comforters, and counsellors. Luc had sometimes still great trials, and it was these two friends who listened to him, and, by relieving his wounded spirit, devoted themselves entirely to their common labor of salvation. It was by woman and for woman that the new city was founded.

Eight years had passed by when Paul Boisgelin, then in his twenty-seventh year, married the eldest daughter of the workman Bonnaire, who was then in her twenty-fourth year. From the time that the land belonging to Guerdache had been received into the association at Combettes, Paul had attached himself to it passionately, together with the former farmer, Feuillat, not so much for the profit that the land could bring, as for the increasing extension of fertility in the wide fields that the property helped to enlarge. He became a farmer; he managed one of the sections of the common domain, which it had been found necessary to divide on account of its size into different groups of one united and affectionate family. It was in the little house at La Crêcherie, belonging to his mother, where he returned every evening to sleep, that he had known Antoinette, who occupied the adjoining house with her parents. A connection was thus formed between the members of this family of simple working-people and the heirs of the Qurignons, who were now reduced to such modest circumstances, and whose kindness was so overflowing; and although Madame Bonnaire, the terrible La Toupe, remained a disadvantage, the simple nobility of Bonnaire, that hero of labor and founder of the new city, was sufficient to make the tie an intimate one. It was a delight to both parties to see the children love each other and draw closer the bond thus established between the two classes formerly so antagonistic. Antoinette, who strongly resembled her father, was a tall and beautiful brunette, with a good deal of grace; she had passed through Sœurette’s schools, and was now assisting in the great dairy, which was established at the end of the park beside the slopes of the Monts Bleuses. As she said, laughing, she was only a cow-herd, an expert in milk, cheese, and butter. When this son of the
bourgeois,
who returned to the land, and this daughter of the people who worked with her hands were married, there was a great
fete,
for every one wished to celebrate gloriously this symbolic marriage, which spoke of reconciliation manifested in the union of repentant capital with triumphant labor.

It was in the following year, just after Antoinette’s first child was born, that the Boisgelms, accompanied by Luc, met together at Guerdache on a warm day in June. It was nearly ten years since Monsieur Jerome had died, and since, according to his wish, the property had been restored to the people. Antoinette, whose confinement had been difficult, had been for two months an inmate of the convalescent house, which was established in the château where the Qurignons had once reigned. She was now able to walk in the magnificent shade of the park, leaning on her husband’s arm, while Suzanne, in the character of a good grandmother, carried the newly arrived baby. What remembrances were thus called up of this royal mansion, now transformed into a fraternity house, of those woods, those lawns, and those avenues, which no longer resounded with the sound of costly
fetes,
the gallop of horses, and the barking of dogs, but where the lesser people of the world enjoyed the healthfulness of the open air and the restful joy of the great trees! All the luxury of the magnificent domain was henceforward for them; the convalescent home opened to them its sunny rooms, its charming salons, its abundant kitchens; the park reserved for them its shady alleys, its crystal springs, and its turf, where the gardeners kept up for their enjoyment beds of sweet-scented flowers. They now enjoyed their share of beauty and of grace, so long refused them. It was delicious to see this infancy, this youth, this maternity, which for so many years had suffered shut up in sunless hovels, dying of foul poverty, now suddenly recalled to the joy of existence, to their share of all human creation, to this luxury of happy sensation which innumerable generations of wretched beings have regarded from afar off without the power to obtain.

Then, as the young couple, followed by their parents, reached the end of a row of willows where there lay a pool clear as a mirror, smiling under the azure heaven, Luc began to laugh gently.

“Ah, my friends,” he said, “what a happy, gay remembrance comes back to me! Do you guess it? It was on the border of this tranquil water that Paul and Antoinette became betrothed twenty years ago.”

He recalled the delicious scene of childhood that he had formerly witnessed on his first visit to Guerdache — the invasion of the populace in the person of three poor little street urchins, the little Nanet bringing his little comrades, Lucien and Antoinette Bonnaire, across the hedge to play near the pool; and Lucien’s ingenious invention, the boat that went by itself on the water; the arrival of the three little
bourgeois
— Paul Boisgelin, Nise Delaveau, Louise Mazelle — enraptured with the boat, and fraternizing immediately with the others. Then the couples who had spontaneously formed themselves, with the resulting betrothal of Paul and Antoinette, Nise and Nanet, Louise and Lucien, with the smiling complicity of kindly nature, the eternal mother.

“You do not remember?” asked Luc, gayly.

The youthful couple, who laughed with him, owned that the remembrance was a little far-fetched.

“If I was four years old,” said Antoinette, much amused, “my memory cannot be very good.”

But Paul made an effort, and looked fixedly into the past “I must have been seven. Wait, then! It seems to me that I have some vague recollections: the little boat that was brought back with a pole when the wheels would no longer turn; and then one of the little girls stumbled and fell into the pool; and then the boys, the little marauders who — ran away when they saw people coming.”

“That is it exactly! That is it exactly!” cried Luc.

“Ah, you remember! And I — I remember having on that day the first thrill of hope for the future, for it was a little sign of the future reconciliation. Divine childhood was working here, in its simple friendliness, with a new motion towards justice and peace. See, this little gentleman is commissioned to enlarge yet more the new happiness that you are going to realize.”

He pointed to the infant, the little Ludovic, lying on the arm of Suzanne, who was so happy to be a grandmother. She in her turn said, laughingly:

“For the time being he is good, because he is asleep.

Later in life, my dear Luc, we will marry him to one of your granddaughters, and in this manner there will be a complete reconciliation, and all the combatants of yesterday will be united and at peace in their descendants.

Shall we make their betrothal to-day?”

“Certainly; I wish it! Our great-great-grandchildren will complete our work now in hand.”

Paul and Antoinette, much touched, embraced each other, while Boisgelin, who was not listening, looked at this park, his own ancient domain, with a gloomy air, in which there was, however, no longer any bitterness, so greatly had his new surroundings bewildered and stupefied him. Thus they continued their walk through the shady alleys, Luc and Suzanne keeping silence and exchanging nothing more than smiles of delicious joy.